All my life, I thought I was Korean, not American and not even Korean-American. But everything changed after I visited Korea over the last summer. After living in America for 8 years, I planned to visit Korea after graduating high school thinking that I will be returning to home at last. But when I arrived everything was different. First, I did not have a physical house that I was able to call home. Secondly, all the “homes” (my relatives’ house, friends’ house, and rooms that I rented through airbnb) that I have been to did not give me the comfort that I was expecting for 8 years of my as an immigrant plus 13 hours that I spend on the air plane. I would be lying if I said that I did not have fun during my visit in Korea, but ironically I got homesick as I was dwelling in the place where I thought was my home for my entire life. As I got on the plane to return to America, the only thought that came into my head was going under my soft blanket and taking a nice nap. This trip proved to me that my home was now Oakland Gardens, NY. However, this trip was not enough to prove to me that I was American. I still struggle to figure out my own identity. I know that I am not fully Korean anymore. But this does not mean that I am American. My passport still proudly proclaims that I am proud and royal citizen of Republic of Korea, but I am confusedly and maybe even shamefully going through the process of becoming “proud and royal” citizen of United States.
I believe that everyone is wired to worship something in their life. In case of the Youth, he was worshipping art with the purpose of finding security, identity, and the Real self. In the midst of my identity crisis (Korean or American), I was, and still am, wired to worship the reputation and recognition that I can get from other people to find my security, identity, and the Real me. But from the advice from others and experience of my own I know that the reputation and recognition will only bring me temporary security, identity, and the sense of Real me. Knowing what I am wired to worship will only provide me delusional real self, I realized that I wanted to worship something that will provide me a permanent, if not eternal, security, identity, and sense of Real me. And for me, only one who was, and is, able to or even have power to fulfill my deepest dissatisfaction was, and is, God. I still have a long way to go because as I have mentioned earlier, I am wired to worship my reputation and recognition. But now, I have chosen to wire myself to God. And “Thus far the Lord has helped” me to find the Real self.
1 Samuel 7:12 (NIV)
“Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, ‘Thus far the Lord has helped us.’”
