Passing Thoughts

Sometimes, when I'm walking along the street, I'm startled to recognize in passersby the features of Korean American friends or family back home. Miss D's nose. My sister-in-law's lips. My cousin's gait.

I like to think that I've just seen Miss D's fourth or fifth or seventh cousin thrice removed, or that my sister-in-law, way back when in this extraordinarily ethnically homogenous country, shares the same ancestor as the woman who just walked by.

Sometimes, when I'm sitting in a cafe daydreaming, I'm startled to see a Caucasian person pass by or enter the room. I always feel like I'm a spy when this happens, pretending to be Korean but secretly all-American inside. Sometimes I have this urge to go up to them and ask them the time, just to ... I don't know. Establish that I'm one of them?

"Hey, it's nice to see someone else like me," I want to say, but then I realize that this is a singularly bizarre thing to say to a stranger, and that I would probably run away from someone who approached me this way. Non-Asian foreigners in Korea are like movie stars -- they can recognize each other as part of a group apart, experiencing the same difficulties and enjoying the same privileges. If I say anything, I'm instantly recognizable as an American. I become part of that group, and then I become distinct from all the other Korean people in the room. But most of the time, I say nothing, and they never know.

Sometimes, when I see young people studying English on the subway or see awkward English phrases on signs or t-shirts or backpacks, I think of how powerful America is, economically, politically, culturally. I think of all the Americans who don't have passports, don't know where Korea is, and don't care. But I also think that the countries in which American culture is so prevalent have an advantage over us: they know us, but we don't know them. And knowledge is power too.

"They know us" = Koreans know more about Americans. Sometimes, though, I think, "I know you, but you don't know me," in terms of being a minority in the States, and also having been on the fringes of an Indian American crowd in high school and a Jewish American crowd immediately post-college.

Just some thoughts I often have in passing.