Ever heard any of the following?

“You’re (insert ethnicity)? I would have NEVER guessed.”

“You’re so lucky to be half-(insert ethnicity, typically light-skinned)”

“Why can’t you speak Korean?”

“Wow, your Korean is so good!” (use a patronizing tone here)

“But you don’t look Korean.”

If you’ve heard one of the statements above, you are in good company.

You also might be familiar with what I will say next - because here are 5 Struggles that only Mixed-Koreans Will Understand.

Never Knowing What It Feels Like to Blend In

I’ve heard many times from friends who are fully Korean who grew up outside of the motherland; the first time they returned to Korea, they had the strange and freeing feeling of being surrounded by people who looked just like them.

In some ways, I imagine it must be extremely bizarre to melt into the crowd. People don’t give you a second glance, the basic assumption being that you are one of them.

What must that feel like?

Being amongst a multi-cultural population as one of the many ‘others’ is very different from being part of the ‘us’ that is everyone.

Though a lot of mixed Koreans share similar physical features (I often see it in the shape of our eyes, somehow), there’s so much diversity in our appearances. We’ll never be placed neatly into What A Mixed Korean Should Look Like.

Even if we all decided to emigrate to some mystical land for halfies only, I imagine we’d look around and see an odd collection of faces, both mirroring each other and simultaneously being stubbornly different. 우리는 ‘우리’란게 없구나.

2. Never Being Enough

It’s been said ad nauseam. Even you might be tired of hearing it.

I’m never enough. Never Korean enough to be Korean, never ‘whatever else I am’ enough to be part of that community, either.

The most difficult part is that acceptance is nothing we can control. We can learn our languages, grow up in Korea, wear the fashion, do our makeup the Korean way, study the culture, attend school there, go to Korean military, do everything in our power to become Korean ‘enough’, and still, the decision to accept us or not lies in the hands of the other person.

And they may take one look at your freckled face or curly hair and say, that’s not Korean enough for me.

3. Always Being Suspicious about “where are you from?”

Or even if you get asked for the billionth time and still are kind enough to respond with sincerity, you’ll get the infamous follow-up sooner or later; “no, I mean where are you really from?”

You have a few options to quickly zip through in your mind before responding.

Inwardly sigh and give them a more detailed response? Say politely ‘oh, I’m half-Korean’? Look at them directly and repeat what you just said?

Besides deciding what to say, you also have the additional pleasure of selecting your tone; resigned, annoyed, cautious, educational, offhand… It all depends on how much effort you feel like giving, and how much goodwill you perceive the other person actually has towards you and your answer.

4. Getting Asked About
Your Parents… A lot

And in the most thoughtless ways, too.

I was on set for a photoshoot one day, sitting at a table with two other models. We all were meeting for the first time and were getting to know each other over breakfast while waiting for hair and makeup.

One girl was from Sudan. The other girl was American. She took an immediate and misguided interest in the Sudanese model. “Wow, so you’re a refugee? I feel so bad for Sudan. I can’t believe you guys are always in the middle of a war. You’re so pretty. You’re so lucky you escaped.”

It’s unfortunate that many stereotypes about blonde, home-grown American girls were proven true that morning.

The first model gave polite but short answers, and after being tactfully deflected from asking further questions, the blonde model turned her eyes onto me.

“Are you Japanese?” She asked, bluntly.

“Korean,” I said.

“No, you’re not,” she said, scrutinizing me.

I sighed. “I’m half-Korean. My dad’s white.”

She practically screamed with the thrill of guessing.

“Oh my god, half-Asians are all so beautiful. Your mom knew what she was doing when she trapped your dad, ha ha ha.”

You would think that after having a similar conversation so many times I would have a snappy response locked and loaded, but I still remember how I tensed up.

“Right,” I said.

The Sudanese model and I exchanged glances as the American model said, with a smirk, “your mom knew she wanted mixed babies!”

I smiled tightly and said to the Sudanese model, “I’m going to get some coffee. Nice to meet you.” And left the table.

The most frustrating thing is how little this mattered to the American girl. I was nothing more than a curiosity to her. She spoke so boldly and indifferently about my parents. It was like a child grabbing a toy and then tossing it aside after getting bored with it.

This was one of the more shocking examples of carelessness when it comes to people’s inquisitiveness, but getting asked about your parents, how they met, did they speak the same language, how come your dad was in Korea, are you a military kid, are they still together, are you adopted, who do you look most like, and so on are asked with so much candor you’d think you were the bestest of friends.

But most of the time, they’re just feeding their curiosity and your parentage is nothing but a mindlessly devoured snack.

5. Feeling The Need to
Prove Something

This manifests in many ways.

If you grew up never learning Korean, the weight of that is felt keenly. When Koreans around you are overly-pleased when you speak Korean, but then reprimand you over any mistake. The immense and senseless guilt felt when making that mistake. The frustration when you hear “한국사람이 다 되었네!” when you already are Korean.

When your Korean parent says, “it’s because you’re (other half)” when you don’t meet their expectations.

In high school, I had a friend who was from a wealthy Gangnam family. Normal kids hung out at 노래방 or 오락실 or cafes. Her parents set her up with the sons and daughters of other rich families to eat 100,000 KRW dishes in fancy rooms. It was a world I was not familiar with by any stretch of the imagination, and when she invited me along one afternoon, I found myself staring down a long table with a group of uptight Korean teens, luxury handbags and expensive phones set primly on their laps.

My little sister was with me, and at that time I spoke Korean only a little better than her. Like in a lot of first time meetings, each person introduced themselves (자기 소개). When my little sister spoke, she apologized for speaking in English. I translated with an awkward
“그녀가 한국말을 잘 몰라.” She doesn’t speak Korean well.

My friend laughed and cut in, “너도 몰라.” You don’t know, either.

It was like being slapped in the face. I gave a brittle smile and said, “나도 몰라,” to the whole room, as if to let them know I wasn’t bothered. The group stared back at me uncomfortably.

But what was the point of that? I didn’t speak Korean fluently at the time. Yet I felt such a strong need to prove I could be part of their group, that I wasn’t an outsider. In the end, all it did was confirm my otherness.

Now I look back at it and recognize how that group was in the extreme already - the very upperclass of Gangnam. What did they know about normal life, anyway? Even if I had been just any ordinary Korean student from a middle class home, maybe I would have been an alien to them, anyway. That’s what I tell myself, regardless.

I was pushed away so often, here and there, in little ways all around me, that when I had the chance to push back, I shoved too hard, and just fell on my face. What was I trying to prove? That I’m Korean, that I am one of you. Did I try too hard?

Because ultimately we can never be that kind of Korean. It’s impossible, because the qualifications are so exact and narrow. But we must understand that it is not wrong to be a different kind of Korean.

The caricature drawing we did in 인사동 before our wedding.

“예쁘게 그려주세요!” I had requested.
Please draw us pretty!

Cedric transformed into a white man and I became fully Korean.
예쁘게 그려 주셨구나! Whatever that means!

5 Struggles Mixed-Koreans Understand

Never Knowing What It Feels Like to Blend In