When I was young, I used to follow the North 🇰🇵 and South Korea 🇰🇷unification news quite diligently. In fact, I would cut out newspaper clippings 📰 reporting on their relationship and the ongoing hope of the Korean people that they would become one nation again.
One time, my dad asked me what interested me so much about the unification and I remember feeling that it was a weird question. Despite being a naturalized American 🇺🇸 citizen, my motherland is Korea. Therefore, in my mind, I am Korean and so naturally I would/should be interested in the potential reuniting of my birth country. Yet, looking back, I realize it can be considered a rather strange way of thinking given the fact that I have no recollection of being in Korea and my whole world, especially at that time, was white America.
Either in the same conversation or perhaps later, I remember telling my very proud-to-be, military-serving American father that if I had to choose between fighting in a war for America or for Korea, I would choose Korea. The silent response that ensued was more memorable than any verbal response or continuation of the conversation. Again, I wonder at my conviction and gall in making such a bold statement as this. Funnily enough, I think I would still say the same today and yet I cannot rationally explain why.
There has been a bit of conversation and backlash towards Eileen Gu, an American-born half-Chinese, half-American (assuming white) Olympic freestyle skier who chose to ski for China rather than the United States in the Beijing Olympics ⛷ 2022. Some criticisms of her choosing to represent China is that she was born in America and is only half-Chinese, so why would she choose to represent a country where she has never lived and knows very little about outside of her mother and grandmother. One rebuttal to this, in the Korean adoptee community, is that it would the same as any of us adoptees choosing to represent the US rather than Korea, even though we had been born there.
While that rebuttal doesn’t completely work given that we generally identify with being American and know the culture more than our Korean roots, it is an interesting discussion and one that I think somehow parallels my own statement of choosing to fight for Korea over the US.
Why is one’s birthplace used to define us one way or the other?
Is it being disloyal to my family and countrymen by citizenship if I say I would choose to fight against them for a country that I really know nothing about?
What elements contribute to our choices?
I can understand if one answers ‘yes’ to the second question as I struggle myself with that. Perhaps this is also why I do not nor ever really want to live in the US or Korea. I find it much safer and more comfortable to live in a third country where no requirement or question of loyalty must ever be faced as I – and the locals – acknowledge and accept that I am an outsider, foreigner, independent.
So, in the context of Eileen Gu, I have no judgement. I can see both sides of the argument. At the end of the day, I support any decision that is best for the individual. In terms of the Olympics, well, I support athletes doing their best in an international competition no matter where the medal 🏅count applies. 🤷🏽♀️
~T 😀
It’s really hard to not feel loyalty to America for me. It has been so ingrained in in my family since our childhood. I have also been raised to respect the right of others to think for themselves. I say to each their own.
Yeah, I hear you – Dad is very much like that. I have tried and appreciate being American, for sure. Still, I struggle… but yes, open-mindedness helps!
When I was your age, my thoughts and ideas, were different then they are now at almost eighty. We all change somewhat through life.