Do you rike foole yerrow or haf?

^ Lol my win at being asian.

So I had dinner yesterday with some church family friends. We ate at Yea's Wok in Coal Creek. The dad of the other family (than my own) had been there a lot so he ordered dishes for all eight of us. I think we got either Kung Pao or Sweet and Sour chicken, I don't remember, but it was the best chicken I've ever eaten in the U.S. KFC doesn't come even close. Eating it reminded me of the delicious, never-to-be-forgotten Korean food - the yangnyum chicken. I could go forever and a half about how delectable and heart-warmingly delicious this yangnyum(which is the romanticized word for "spiced" and "seasoned" in Korean) chicken is, but I'll stop myself for the sake of keeping to the original topic. =P

Well, my original topic isn't so clearly stated (if you actually understood and comprehended what I was trying to say in my title, good job!! I was trying to say "Do you like full yellow or half?" in very badly translated Asian-english). I was actually getting at something interesting that came up during tea-time after the nice dinner. We were having coffee(oops, not tea) and coco(for the anti-caffeine young'uns) and I think we were comparing my childhood to my family friends' child. Child H isn't exactly a child - he's almost nearing 30. Anyways, we were talking about how much has changed for Asians living in the U.S. over the last 20 years. Back then, Asians were still not a standing and large minority as it is now (for some schools in my school district like Tyee Middle School, it's nearly 50%!!!). They were no cool Asian internet celebrities like Ryan Higa and even though Jackie Chan and other asian movie actors were on the rise, they didn't inhibit a normal presence in the America. Today, there's an Asian girl and guy in the wildly popular show Glee who can speak English well and are considered "American". I guess 20 years ago, Asians were still in the process of becoming integrated into the American society.

So, I asked H what it was like for him to grow up in a different environment than I grew up in. Then, we realized that he was born in the U.S., not in Korea, and I was born in Korea and spent half my life there. Oops!

Then H's mom said something that I found really interesting. She said that Koreans born in America are different than Koreans born in Korea. Even if the latter only spent 2 years after birth in Korea, she said there's still a little bit of a difference. It's very subtle but it is definite.

I thought about it for a while and I agreed with her for the most part. After I moved to Bellevue from Portland I really started to see the difference between just-arrived Asians and American-born-and-raised Asians. In Portland, I wasn't really aware of my Asian heritage because nobody really cared, especially me. When I moved up here, I began to look at myself and saw that I was stuck right in between the immigrated and Americanized Asians. I had spent just enough time in the states to be half Korean, if that makes sense. The way I dress is fully American, partially because my family doesn't pay lots of attention to fashion. The way I think and behave is becoming more Americanized, which is more relaxed and "cool" than the way Koreans act and think. Koreans are really expressive and like having close friendships. Americans with their individualistic values tend to keep to themselves, even among close friends. It's changing now as the typical "American" grows to include more and more types of people, and the Korean culture is becoming westernized. But still, I can see myself switching to the cool, individualistic personality at times. It's a little bit weird when I become self-conscious about it because then, I can choose to be either Korean or American in different situations.

I'm sure I'm not the only one here. Plenty of people I know moved here after being born in another country. I've seen them become Americanized and now, I don't know who they were before the transformation took place. Will this Korean-born heritage stick with me during my entire life? It's a question I can only answer long, looong down the road =)