Last time I wrote, I said that I would write next about “How I ignored my emotions and oppression long enough to learn some grammar.”
Fugitive Visions is a lot about my very real emotional struggle for the first years coming to Korea and how that has intersected with my engagement or lack thereof with the Korean language, and how painful and rotten that was for a long time. I’m not going to barf my guts out and write that all over again here, so I’m going to just talk about some things here that are working for me now or that worked well for me in the past. I don’t think that I have by any means gotten it all figured out, and there are adoptees I have met whose Korean is far, far better than mine. I am also in the lucky position of having a good relationship with my Korean family, and never having had to search for them because they found me first. I honestly cannot imagine how difficult it must be to embark on the Korean language learning process if you have not been reunited. Adoptees do it, and I salute them! I really don’t know how they can, but they do. Anyway, in my particular situation, I’ve figured out some things that work for me, and you can take what’s useful to you and leave the rest.
1. Ignore people who interrupt your learning
As an adoptee living in Korea, various situations have come up time and time again with
–white people who speak better Korean than me (nothing like that to make an adoptee clam up in a hurry);
–people who use adoption as a metaphor for their own experience but who have no concrete understanding of adoption as a reality (I had that one today: ”It’s like I was adopted.” Yeah right. Ha.);
–Korean people insisting on my foreignness or Koreanness and not just letting me be an internationally adopted Korean (“When are you going back to CHINA?” “You have Korean blood — you should be able to learn Korean fast!”);
–people telling me what I am or what my experience has been and then asking for confirmation later, (“Well you’re American … aren’t you?”) etc.
Hurtful conversations have hurt my language learning in the past because my learning would be interrupted by my anger at people’s ignorance and wrong assumptions, my jealousy at those white guys who speak great Korean because they are married to Korean women while people look at adoptees like “What the hell is wrong with you?” or just my overwhelming sadness about not being able to communicate with my own family in a meaningful way — to talk about our experiences, our feelings, our disappointments and our dreams together. When the use of the phone is a anxiety-provoking event (“Sis!! SLOW DOWN!” “Big brother, your accent is crazy!! I can’t understand a word you’re saying!”), then it means you generally don’t use the phone and even though your family is so close, you are still so far …. How screwed up is that?
Well, I still have the phone frustration (though it’s getting better), but one of the keys that I’ve figured out is just to IGNORE OTHER PEOPLE. Really. Could it be that simple? It is hard to ignore people when they get under your skin, but if you let them get to you, then you waste a lot of time. Wow, I have wasted a lot of time! There are always going to be annoying jerks in your class or your program, so since you can’t get rid of them and you definitely don’t want to be friends with them, you might as well just ignore them.
1a. Exception: You cannot ignore your Korean language teacher.
Korean language teachers can be just as ignorant about what an adoptee is as anyone else, and can proceed to say whack things about adoptees or adoption treat you in a way you don’t like in class without knowing that they just made you space out of class for the next 45 minutes while you try to hold back tears or anger. I have unsuccessfully tried to challenge teachers when this has happened to me before, but last semester I was so proud of myself and felt very empowered because I talked with a teacher THREE TIMES and then she finally got it. I guess when you are presented with any new, awkward situation, you have to have some practice at it.
Also, those textbooks are all written for foreigner-foreigners, not adoptees. Especially adoptees who are reunited need to learn certain things like family words and casual language first, not after all the formal language and chatting about the weather as the books teach. So this is a difficult point, and maybe if I master the language one day, I’ll write my own little slim book for adoptees with all that family stuff that we need to know right off the bat. I’m in Level 4 now and there is STILL a lot of language that I’ve just picked up by myself that has never appeared in the book because I am interacting within a Korean family.
2. Have an emotionless stock phrase that you can say in Korean to explain your existence to get people off your back if you want, or to open up conversation further.
I struggled for a long time with my limited Korean trying to figure out how to give Koreans I encountered in everyday life the information they want (to get them off my back) in a way that was also dignified to me. Now I can spit out my phrase quickly and like a robot and decide, depending on how they respond, whether I want to continue the conversation. I often do because I want to ask them questions about what they think about adoption, etc., and because they usually seem like good people who are just curious, and whose cultural idea of privacy … well, they don’t really have one. Usually I encounter people whose services I need in daily life: the beauty shop lady, the taxi driver, the shoeshine guy, etc. They are all free language tutors. And each time I decide that I want to engage, I have a chance to share ideas with another person.
3. Play mind games with yourself if you need to.
I don’t need to do this anymore, but I used to pretend I was white to get through the learning, since it seems so easy for white people to study Korean as a hobby. (A hobby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IMAGINE THAT!!!!!!!!!!!) I want it to be easy for me too. So you know, for an adoptee raised in rural Minnesota, pretending you’re white is not really a big stretch.
4. No drama, no drama, no drama
This one is hard, but I can really say that since I have taken some steps to decrease the drama in my life, the learning and productivity have increased significantly. There is still the occasional flare-up, but I think I’m getting better at handling things so I have the emotional freedom and space to learn.
5. Talk to supportive adoptees who are studying well
I met a cute little someone who had taken Korean classes for years growing up, and she tested in at Level 4 when she went to the Inje program six years ago. I was so impressed with her that I decided to make my goal Level 4, and happily, I’ve achieved that goal finally this semester! I remember what she said when I complimented her on her Korean, while I was feeling so inadequate. She said:
“Everyone’s Korean sucks. Some people’s Korean just sucks less.”
Another adoptee I met, who has been in Korea for years, speaks pretty great Korean — enough to translate for other adoptees. I asked him what his secret was, and he said:
“Don’t compare yourself to other people in your class. Even if you have to repeat a level, as long as you’ve improved, you’re doing OK.”
Another adoptee who does not live in Korea at all, but who confidently put on her attitude and went to Yongsan with no Korean language skills at all and helped an adoptee who actually lives here purchase a computer, put it like this:
“People who make their living by selling things want to sell things to you. So they make it easy for you.”
Another adoptee who studied her face off for years and who would not come out to play with me often, but in exchange is now very comfortable speaking Korean, told me:
“You just have to decide that you can do it.”
Off the subject of language learning, another adoptee told me a number of years ago to “Just decide to live in Korea, and your life will be a lot easier.” Unbelievably to me at the time, she was completely right. Once you decide to apply yourself to building a life in Korea and stop wasting your time on indecision that actually doesn’t get you anywhere, you can get a lot of stuff accomplished, including learning Korean. Of course, it is a big decision that you have to take carefully, but I also see that a lot of adoptees have been in Korea for years without actually deciding to live here — it’s just that they haven’t decided to leave. It’s a kind of limbo. Well, I’m not going to judge anyone because everyone’s gotta do what they need to do to stay alive, but for me in my personal experience, it was important to make a conscious and deliberate decision to live here. The minute I did that, life started to open up with opportunities. Specifically, I got a great job and at the end of 3.5 years I had saved about $100,000 by living frugally (which is also great for the environment), and then I got a full-tuition scholarship through NIIED that will give me a master’s degree in public policy and 1 year of Korean language instruction for FREE + 900,000 won (less than $900) a month as a living stipend. It won’t make you rich, but it is enough to live on in Korea if you are frugal and concentrate on your studies instead of partying. (Note: You cannot take advantage of this or other services for “foreigners” if you are a dual citizen.) I’m not saying this to brag, but to encourage other adoptees, because a determined person can do a lot!!! It’s like the method of picking a date in your day planner and writing something down, and then it magically comes true because then you have the vision and the goal. Living in Korea and learning here can be done, it is being done now by other adoptees, and you can too, thanks to the struggles of many adoptees and organizations such as GOAL who have been building infrastructure for us and advocating for us in Korea for years.
To conclude this part, I just want to give a big thanks to those who’ve commented. Yes, Mei Ling, in 1995 my language skills really were that non-existent! Papa2hapa, I totally know the feeling. Toni, props to you for maintaining your son’s family connection.
Happy New Year everybody! If you break your New Year’s resolutions, you have another chance in February for Lunar New Year. We will all get one year older on Lunar New Year. I will be 40 in Korean age. Holy crap.
Next up: Misconceptions Koreans have about how the adoptees learn Korean and some good book recommendations and study techniques.
BAM! I finished language school! I didn’t get the best score in the world, but I did go through the whole program without flunking a level. 
I think the important thing was just to keep going to class even though I had to sit my exhausted butt on the bus for three hours every day …
