A short morning, a long night’s rest, an ode to what do I confess my love today?
How about these words themselves?
I learned hangul at the age of 6, starting with my name. Six years later, I would have to master the alphabet, having to collect all 26 of them (I had known of ABCXYZ in Korea, so 20 more to go!). Strange sounds and combinations (like sh & ch), words not sounding like anything but murmur, as if I was under the sea. I became angry with cursives when having to learn what I thought was another language. Hadn’t I done enough? A completely different form, deranged collection of squiggly and bubbles. Small “s” that looks a triangle and capital “S” pregnant sea horse.
These words I write, as I recollect my thoughts.
그리고, 이렇게. 나의 모국어로 쓸 때도 있다.
I switch between the two languages, depending on how I feel. A privilege and superpower. Sometimes, known phrases in Spanish or German burst out. This crazy mind of mine. A mine full of what, I discover as I write.
I learned to type without looking in middle school. When the world changed to include non-English keys on laptops, I learned to type without looking at my hands in hangul too.
Sometimes, when my mind is clear, and creativity overtakes me, I close my eyes to let my fingers take over. To tap dance across the keys. I make spelling mistakes and mess up completely, but squiggly red lines appear to let me know what I need to correct.
In Seoul, there is a museum dedicated to King Sejong and Hangul. The history of my language. He designed it to improve the literacy of my Korean people. “A wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days.”
Of course, without practice, nothing can be done in 10 days, never mind, an eternity.
So, as a kid, I must have recited the 24 hangul letters. In fifth grade, I won a prize from a national creative writing competition, winning 9만원, equivalent to today’s $100.
The same with the Alphabet, in the US, at our aunt and uncle’s dining room table, and in English as a Second Language (ESL) at school. Confused for years the definition of ‘of’ ‘the vs a’ and other filler words that takes more context to understand.
I now have an opposite problem. I can hear myself sounding like a foreigner when I speak Korean. I sometimes record myself reading children’s books out loud or passages from blogs to correct my pronunciations, repeating the words as I drive to work. Everything is an exercise, and the more we work at it, the stronger we get.
For work, the majority of what I do is write, present and convince. I cannot do my job, never mind survive in this world, without these words of mine.
Which leads me to my first day in America, October 9, 1991. Coincidentally, Hangul Day in Korea.
We are at the JFK International airport. My sister and I are split up. A kind looking man. He is black. He and I enter a small office, with a black machine that looks like some sort of a lab equipment. His mouth is moving, yet I hear no sounds coming out. I cannot even fathom sounds escaping his mouth, moving in strange ways. Words that make no sense.
I don’t know how long it takes, but she and I get our green cards in mail. On the bottom of my sister’s typed name is her squiggly signature in Korean.
On the bottom of mine, there is no squiggly signature.
Not even an x:
On mine, typed in black letters: “Waived”
And so, without words, we have no voice, and we have no fighting chance to express not only our thoughts and emotions but also, freedom itself.
An ode to letters. An ode to words. An ode to languages.
[Four days. Two lines. Not quite equal and somewhat irregular. Not a parallelogram. Not a rhombus, so definitely not square. Polygon is too generic, so let’s call it a trapezoid. Contained, with two sets of bars, and something to play with, safe playground to build up confidence.]
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