Korean Jesus Welcomes You, 할렐루야 - Part Two
Read “Korean Jesus Welcomes You, 할레루야 - Part One” here
It became routine.
Monday through Friday, I took the hour-long bus ride from Suwon to Gangnam at six in the morning to beat traffic. Where I was going was never really important. I just wanted to feel Seoul, to pretend I was living there among the high-rises and glittering shop fronts. I took little jobs here and there; translating for small video game companies, fit modeling for online shops, tutoring English in the evenings before I took the bus back… just enough to get me by while I thought about what I wanted to do next.
Living in Suwon was a good experience, now that I look back on it. My parents dated here, back in their twenties. My mom once told me that they used to walk along the Hwaseong Fortress. Sometimes I’d go there, looking over Suwon that stretched out below, and pretend that I was with someone special, too.
The Ex-Boyfriend was living with his parents, even farther away from Seoul, and preparing for entering the military. Perhaps you never knew this about me, but I was a 고무신 - a term for a girl who waits for her man during his time in the military. Even more than that, ‘고무신은 꽃신이 됐어요.’ 기다렸단 말이에요… I made it through his whole service. But that’s a story for another time.
Where do the lost go when they are searching for meaning?
It was less of a personal choice and more of ‘caught in the grip of a well-meaning unnie and dragged to church’ sort of situation for me. Religion had faded somewhat in my tired world, relegated to hastily muttered prayers over a meal and guilty feelings on Sunday mornings spent lounging in my room instead of in the pews. I grew up in a Christian family, attended a Christian high school for three years and then rounded it all out with a highly charismatic Christian university. That sort of formula usually develops either a rabid religious fanatic or the most ardent atheist. I’m gladly neither, thanks to wise and thoughtful people I’ve met over the years.
Joy, Sunny’s older sister, had rescued me when I was fired from the English Academy and rented me her extra bedroom. It mostly belonged to her ten year old daughter Yeri and her assortment of plushies. I slept on the frilly, teen-sized bed surrounded by stuffed Pokemon and Kakao Friends, wakened each morning by the sound of Joy’s anti-social husband banging around in the kitchen.
Everyday, he walked the line between unfriendly and outright abusive. Joy was a woman with a tremulous smile and eyes full of unfulfilled dreams, burdened by a silent, selfish husband whom I grew to dislike over the few months I stayed there.
“I want my sister to come to church,” Sunny told me directly. “She will feel more courage to come to church if you go.”
The unspoken information was that Joy’s husband frequently insulted Joy for wanting to go to church and had slowly made her afraid to go. I’m almost certain he hated Sunny - because Sunny was bright, funny and kind, where he was rude, scowling and mean. Eyeless creatures in the dark fear the light, and as dramatic as that sounds, sometimes Joy’s husband was just like that - recoiling and lashing out at Sunny’s brilliance.
Every time Joy and Sunny hung out together, Joy would return home smiling and alive, until her husband punctured her happiness again with a snide remark. I saw it many times. But he never completely cut Sunny out of Joy’s life. He was too cowardly for that. That might have been the one thing Joy would have finally divorced him over.
Sunny loved her sister and it killed her to see Joy’s diminishing confidence.
“Of course,” I promised Sunny, “I’ll go every Sunday.” In this way, I became a piece on Sunny’s family chessboard. Church and relationship politics go hand-in-hand in Korea.
I had joined the choir at Sunny’s insistence and showed up for practice the following Sunday. Hope Church’s choir consisted of older men with thinning hair and an enthusiasm for singing out of tune, married women who eyed each others’ clothes and bags, and now, me, thirty years younger than anyone else. Only 지휘자님 (conductor) was remotely near my age - something the sopranos of the choir were quick to point out. Funnily enough, every woman in the choir was a soprano, whether they could hit that high C or not.
Sunny saw me peek into the music room and squealed, “Becky!” She gestured energetically for me to come in and sit next to her.
지휘자님 waited patiently as the chorus members adjusted to the invisible tension that exists wherever Koreans gather together - the unspoken bonds of relationship that we must navigate and balance to figure out where we stand with each other. Does she speak Korean? Is she married? How old is she? Is she from America? The similar words get passed along again and again, ‘Her father’s American! Her Korean is good! She should be part of the youth group!’ until the whole group has figured out where I fit and the social equilibrium is found again.
This is something unique I’ve experienced at Korean churches. Korean church is a kingdom of it’s own, ruled by the all-powerful Pastor and a staff of rigidly arranged leadership. The implicit social rules don’t always work in the case of someone like me. Things like my Korean-ness, language abilities, cultural savvy, and ultimately, my acceptability, are measured in a thousand minor interactions, reinforced over time by the jovial, “Becky is more Korean than I am!” whenever I do something ‘appropriately Korean.’
I am not speaking only of churches in Korea, either. I’ve been to many Korean-American churches, as well, and no matter how well-meaning people are, I’ve seen mixed Koreans alienated time and time again from the rest of the members. The Kims and Lees and Parks watch as a many-eyed group, unconsciously superior in their belonging. Even the Korean-American children will stare and giggle when you speak Korean.
Had it not been for Hope Church’s choir director, 지휘자님, I doubt I would have stayed in the choir. Every practice was a mess of jumbled musical phrasing and painful harmonies, culminating in badly-arranged hymns we warbled out from the choral risers in front of the church. I found a lot of enjoyment peering over my music folder at the listeners’ expressions while we sang.
“Hallelujah,” everyone murmured, relieved, when we finished singing.
지휘자님 picked me out on the first day of my practice. I’m a good singer. It’s one of my few natural talents, and I’ve always secretly hoped to use it on a bigger stage one day. Hope Church choir wasn’t going to be my huge debut, but 지휘자님 leapt at the chance of having a proper vocalist and made practice much more interesting for me. He started giving me the solos each week, which I both secretly resented and loved. It helped me overcome some fears of singing in Korean, but I think what I liked the most was how careless he was about it all.
“Becky is our best singer,” he’d say matter-of-factly in his monotonous voice, addressing the whole choir. “If no one else wants the solo, she will sing it.” There were no questions asked.
He’d have me sing the harmonizing lines first to teach the other sopranos, and invited me to join his small acapella group he was training to compete at a local musical competition.
“We’re not great,” he said, the barest ghost of a smile on his usually stoic face, “but you will be a big help.”
지휘자님 always spoke to me formally. It was another thing I appreciated about him. Sometimes Koreans will use 반말, informal speech, with those they assume are non-Korean much more quickly than they would with a fellow Korean. It always felt disrespectful to me, like using baby talk with somebody who isn’t a native English speaker. It is a matter of intent.
On Sunday mornings, I would slowly get ready for church, cheerfully wishing Joy and Yeri good morning (her husband deliberately stayed in his room all Sunday) and asking them innocently if they were going to come with me. Sometimes Joy bit her lip, glanced nervously at her closed bedroom door, and apologetically said, “next time, I promise.” Other times, she brightened and said, “shall we? Let me get ready!” and all three of us would walk together, arm in arm, to Hope Church.
I do not know if Joy kept going to Hope Church after I moved away to Seoul. I was sad to leave her in the oppressive grip of her miserable husband, but I was never able to do more than be her confidant and quiet supporter. Like Sunny told me often, being a Christian is not about changing someone, but about just loving somebody fully as they are and trusting that God knows what is good. I hope I loved Joy well enough.
The acapella group went to the local competition a month or so before I left the church. Before going inside to perform, we practiced once in the parking lot. I remember fighting a terrific battle to conceal an insolent feeling of wild hilarity that threatened to overtake me, while the rest congratulated themselves for keeping it together this once.
We trudged onto the stage and sang our hearts out with a wonderful lack of self-awareness and pitch. 지휘자님 and I avoided each other’s eyes for the whole song as he expressionlessly conducted from the front. At the smattering of polite applause, he flicked a glance in my direction and we both barely hid our grins. Of everyone I met at Hope Church, I liked him the best.
Hope Church was an easygoing introduction to the wild world of Korean religious organizations. I’m quite familiar with Christian fanaticism and have cautiously cultivated my own theological understandings throughout many experiences with the Korean church that have been at times interesting, bizarre or alarming. The Korean diaspora is tightly connected to Christianity; sometimes to a genuine, theologically-sound Christianity, sometimes to a fragmented, dangerous type. It will be interesting to write out my own thoughts and perhaps hear from you about your own experiences.
Korean churches are microcosms of pressured Korean culture, religious expectations and militaristic-like hierarchy. I don’t think it’s simply coincidence that Korea has an outsized reputation when it comes to cults and cultish behaviors. Churches are rife with megalomanic personalities, clashing theologies, schisms and boastful presentations of self-righteousness. Things that have very real consequences in the lives of ordinary people looking for something bigger than just themselves.
I’ve had my run-ins with borderline cults, or at least churches accused of being a cult, and I have my own theories about certain influences in the Korean church and mixed-Koreans around the world. That is something which I will write next time - the church of the Ex-Boyfriend, and the Unification Church.
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