I started writing...
As a kid, I started writing, when I was mad, sad and happy. Somehow writing had medicinal effect on my mood. Writing when I was mad gave me soothing peace. Writing when I was sad gave me hope. Writing when I was happy gave me a bubbling heart. Before I knew it, I was hooked on writing.
Every curve I turned, I realized there was new laughter, new tears and new joy found. Looking into my own heart, introspecting the dreams that I had as a kid, I wanted to live a life without shame, regret and remorse.
Writing and sharing my story gives me a humility for how little I have accomplished. Yet, it gives me a chill, seeing how far I have come from a little village in Korea with my soul still singing with joy and hope…
I never imagined it would take decades to have the courage to write again. Fear of my mediocre writing and anxiety over imperfection was my excuse. However, I also never imagined being where I am today, CEO of Kodee and Egghart Consulting.
Nonetheless, it’s time. These next ten stories are for me and you.
Story One: In the beginning, there were words…
No child grows up dreaming of becoming an accountant. Children dream of being firemen, ballerinas, presidents, or doctors; never an accountant. When I was a child, I dreamed of being a writer, I was fascinated by stories… all kinds of stories. However, I accidentally fell into the accounting profession and all those childhood dreams ended up being just dreams.
Some of my early childhood memories involve stories I heard from the maids my family had back home in Korea. I called them 'Sister,' a term used to refer to an older woman. These girls were sent by their poor parents from the countryside to cities, as live-in nannies and maids. Although I was only four years old, I adored them like real sisters. They were vivacious, outgoing young teens who treated me like their younger sister who they left at their homes. The best part was that they shared old folk lore and tales with me from their villages. After they finished their chores, assigned by my mother, they would share stories of deep mountain passes, tigers, vast oceans, and how a young girl was sold for her blind father. I would wait patiently all day to hear their stories and at night I dreamed richly of the stories I heard during the day.
One day, there were no more Sisters, and gone with them were their stories. My father had fallen ill, and we could no longer afford anything but the necessities. A couple of years later, a boy came to live with us - Brother. He was the son of my mother's friend who came to live with us when his parents were transferred to a different city. I quickly trained him to replace the Sisters whom I missed so much. Every evening, he faithfully told me a new story. He took his storytelling duties very seriously. He shared tales of sailors and pilots, and magical witches and again, I went to sleep with vivid dreams and endless imaginations. Before I knew it, my love for stories became even stronger and it was increasingly difficult for Brother to meet my demands. I began to realize he had finally run out of stories to make up and had started buying books to read to me. Once I found out his secret; the source of his wonderful, endless stories, there was no end in sight.
While I waited for Brother to return from school, I started reading comic books. I would go to a comic book store in the morning and started “reading.” Actually I didn’t know how to read; but was able to get stories from pictures. My emphatic reaction to books was often interpreted as strokes of genius. People thought I was a child prodigy whose reading ability was impressive. There were times where I got so swept away, I lost track of time. One day, I woke up from one of those reading sessions and found out the police were looking for me. My mother had filed a missing child’s report. I came home and had to face with my mother's fury and relief at the same time. That was the last day I got to go to the comic bookstore.
By then, Brother had become weary of reading and reciting stories to me. It was too time consuming in conjunction to his other duties. Before he stopped, he gave me the ultimate gift - he taught me how to read.
I was now able to get stories whenever I wanted. I read books for their stories and I didn’t know how to stop in the middle; I had to finish a book until I got the whole story. This type of reading was disruptive. I was grounded many times by reading overnight during school nights. I never found a dull story in a book, any story I read I found entertainment and meaning in it. Being scarce resources as a book was, I could not afford to get another book because it was “boring”. If it was necessary, I injected my own characters or events in a story in order to keep it interesting. Stories from books were more real to me than reality itself. My daily life got more colorful when I added spices from what I read in a book. Books were my source of entertainment and escape from real life. They taught me how to find value between the lines, and to look for the hidden wonder in things that seem uninteresting at first glance.
As I begun school, one of my book reports offered me an honor of National Awards, which gave me a first trip to Seoul to receive the prize money. Eventually I started entering writing contests and became the young celebrity in town known for my writing. As the time went by, it was my fundamental belief that I was destined to be a writer. That conviction carried me to college, and I studied Journalism in Korea in order to hone my skills and focus on my destined path.
Fast forward to a decade later. I decided to study accounting in Utah - thousands and thousands of miles away from my home, Korea. My dreams were squashed by the weight of reality - an immigrant, expectant mother with no English skills. Moreover, as I grew, I mourned the loss of my native tongue and the ease I had in conveying my thoughts and beliefs so fluidly. Moving to another country, with the hopes of creating a new life, I found myself in a place where I had no language. I realized I couldn't write either in English or in Korean. Writing - the thing that had come so easily to me - was a struggle that would take years and years to return to. I felt that loss and grief in my heart deeply. I accepted my new reality; trying to forge ahead in a new language. As much as I had lost, I was setting myself up to gain so much more.
I dedicate this story to many unnamed Sisters and the Brother who became a medical doctor later in Seoul.
Story Two –Failed Tiger Mom’s Story – coming soon.
Story Two: Lost and Found- Tale of Failed Tiger Mom
LOST & FOUND
Kids don’t arrive in your life with a user guide. Even if they do, that would be useless since every kid is different and they change all the time. As a quite studious mother, I read a lot of child rearing books. None of them prepared me for what to come.
This is a letter I wrote to my (socialist) kid while Mina’s World coffeeshop (my kid has been managing and I am supposed to be silent partner) was becoming a center of racial/gentrification conflict in west Philadelphia.
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Dear Kate,
I am writing this letter with heavy heart. I lost words to say; it seems less and less to get to you without causing your anxiety and stress. I know you have incredibly compassionate heart and soft spots for under privileged people. You want to please everyone and cause no harms to anyone. You believe you can solve this MW drama in a peaceful way by reasoning with employees. You asked me to wait until you do so. I have been complying with your wishes with patience and grace. Meanwhile, one of your employees trashing me and smearing campaign against my character with words (some I had to look up dictionaries) that I don’t even understand and wedging our relationship between you and me claiming that I disowned you.
About disowning you – it is laughable. There are many times in life, that thoughts crossed my mind though.
When you got a GPA 1.3 in high school, I called the school since I thought they made a mistake. We had an Asian Mom grading system (A for average, B for below average, C for crap, D for dead and F for former child). Obviously, you had your own system (A for abnormal, B for below mom’s fury, C for common etc)
When you wrote me a letter in your freshman in college informing that you changed your major from business to Art and asking my blessings, I wrote you back; “Congratulations for your finding your path. Of course, my blessings will always follow you but not my money will not follow you after college.” I don’t know what you felt from my reply, but my congratulation was sincere, since I always felt regrets for not pursuing my dreams as a writer. It seems an excuse not pursuing dreams for the convenience and I respected your courage. I always have a soft spot for aspiring artists since then.
Three years ago, when you told me that you are a transgender and now, I must call you a daughter not a son. That nearly killed me. There were nights literally finding myself waking up crying uncontrollably. The biggest pain I felt was not because you declared to be a woman, but the regrets of myself as your mother for not being there for you when you went through the anxiety and dysphoria alone. I have never told you this but I always wanted a daughter. I thought that I could understand a daughter better since we are the same gender. Who said “be careful what you wish for.” God always works in a mysterious way. This experience of losing you as son and finding myself embracing a new daughter caused extreme pain in me that my life as I used know is over. But soon I found myself as a better human being with capacity to understand the LGBTQ and their concerns. I still make some mistakes in pronouns, but I am an ESL mom, and I am trying.
You told me that you want to stay in the east coast after college not returning to California, it was another moment I felt extreme disappointment. You were not just my child, but my best friend and I have been waiting for your return home after college. But I accepted that as your desire to grow as your own person, and I did what I was supporting your cause by helping the Mina’s World which, by the way, I was very proud of you immersing yourself selflessly to work with socially disadvantageous group of people.
Nothing can tear us apart. No matter what happens, you are my daughter, and I am your mom. Maybe not quite perfect understanding this all-socialist lingo, but I am trying to be open minded even though I don’t agree with some of concepts.
We all make mistakes. Sometimes, that is the only way we learn life lessons. For this MW saga, I see my mistakes, and I see your mistakes. We learn from them and let’s move on.
Kate, I am sorry to ask you to bear this burden, but you are the only one who can stop this nonsensical war. You want to end all peacefully without hurt, but damage/hurt is done and is being done. As an adult, we must make tough decisions sometimes and stand up for whom you love; not whom you feel sorry for. You are trying to save 4 employees at the expense of your mother’s honor and dividing a lot of other people (the Philie community you so cherish).
I don’t hate your employees or the very person accusing us racist/gentrifier/capitalist/and more. I see very angry people at the society, and their hatred somehow seemed to be misplaced on me. They can call me all the names, but I am not the person inflicting pains in their life. In fact, I have empathy on their pains, and I was trying to be helpful because, As a young woman, I felt a lot of frustration and disappointment on life and society too. Coming from Totalitarian politics and homogeneous population in Korea, America’s willingness to accept the diversity seemed a slice of heaven to me. Now that diversity seems so widely and deeply compartmentalized, there are more disharmony than harmony that I felt decades ago. As a generation before you, I feel sorry that this generation inherited those problems. But remember the history tells us that it was always like that. And the next generation will be mad at your generation as well. We are all need to answer ourselves “what did I contribute to the society to be a better place?”
I know this world is broken and the system we have is not perfect. This is the reality we must operate in. We all choose how we achieve our goals. As imperfect as it is, I chose to be in America rather than in Korea (or North Korea) and chose to work in the system to make honest living for me and my family rather than becoming a social justice warrior, and I chose to contribute to the society by positively influencing one person at a time rather than working on massive disruptive movements, with resources I earned rather than donated by others. Once my friend said, “when you are young, and if are not a socialist, then you have no heart. When you are old, and you are not a capitalist, then you have no brain.” This joke is telling that we must adjust ourselves to reality sooner or later. I know your heart very well; I am certain there were no intended harms done by you.
Charlie Chaplin once said “Life is tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.” I look forward to those days we can see this as a comedy.
Love Madre
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Unless I lose myself, I can’t be found. The pain of death of the world that I used to know seems unbearable now, but I still dream the hope that I will find myself on a stronger ground bolstered by better understanding of who I am.