Korean Churches

While rooting through some old CDs in my collection, I found a 3 1/2 floppy disk. I got really excited because hey, what could be on this disk? The last time I used a floppy was while I was at Wesleyan, so it's gotta be old and entertaining. I found the following document that I had written randomly when I was bored one day back in January 2004:

My family and I had grown up with the Christian church. Both of my parents grew up with some sort of Christian related background, and so they continued their beliefs when they set foot on foreign soil during those turbulent 70s. Living in Chicago, approximately fifteen minutes away from “Koreatown”, or “Koreastreet”, as I prefer to call it, (the whole of "Koreatown" in those days was on Lawrence Avenue; I think it has gotten larger) they had the support of fellow Koreans, from emotional, to food-related, to religion. When they moved into the suburbs, Naperville was still sparsely populated with Koreans, and Asians in general. So, unless they wanted to be cloistered from the rest of Korean society, they got involved with a Korean church. I think that’s why most Koreans became Christians in those days. It was either become friends with whites and “forget your heritage” or become Christian, attend church, and immerse yourself in the Korean culture.

I was okay with this. I mean, I loathed the “mandatory” Korean language class I had to take every Sunday morning and hated the fact that while all my white friends were done with church in about an hour, I could be stuck at church from about 9:00AM until 3:00PM. Along with the other Korean language school I was forced to attend every Saturday, I never got a chance to sleep in, or wake up to Saturday morning cartoons. I resented my culture throughout my entire childhood because of these two reasons. Most people hate being of a different race because of the fact that they look different, are treated differently/with dislike, but I hated the fact that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were on while I was learning about how pertinent it was to maintain proper spacing between Korean characters. Without it, a sentence can go from stating "My dad is in the room" to "My dad is in the bookbag".

One and a half generation meant that you were born in Korea, but you moved to America, and became an American citizen…eventually. Second generation meant that you were born in America. There are some who are so stuck on “KP” that you’ll have difficulty prying their green cards from their dead, cold, stiff hands. “KP” is the term scrawled across Korean American high schoolers’ backpacks, notebooks, purses, hands, you name it, and shouted at random in public places. It stands for “Korea Power” and also the sudden pride second generation Korea-Americans have in their culture. I admit I was sucked in during high school: wearing baggy pants, listening to Korean pop music, wanting to be called by my Korean name, and associating myself with Korean friends, not the band nerds I usually hung around. This behavior led to a widening chasm between me and my white friends, a confusion on who I was and whether my culture was what would make or break me, and constantly dirty pant hems. It may have been stylish, but you were never quite clean when one of your pant legs was wide enough to fit both your legs.

Korean churches are strange breeding grounds for one and a half and second generation Korean-Americans. Like typical youth groups, they seem cultish or cliquey, but also occasionally frightening. We always attracted some stares…of course, that could partially have been the result of my former youth pastor’s Mozart-like laugh.

But I’m veering off topic. I don’t think us Korean-Americans really understood what being a Christian was about despite the countless sermons, retreats, and

And that's where it stopped. I should continue it. I did a lot of reflecting on Korean churches after I spent four years as a member of InterVarsity. They really are strange, fascinating places that I didn't think were strange or fascinating until I started worshipping with non-Koreans. Things such as "homodo", ALWAYS eating lunch at church, and personal experiences (my former Korean school teacher is convicted of shooting a man in California; I also played at his wedding) didn't strike me as out of the ordinary until I told non-Koreans.

Yeah, I'm going to continue this when the holiday madness is over.


-Stinkier, thoughtful.

P.S. - I decided to Google "Korean" and put up the first image I could find. The first one was of a half-naked Korean man, and the second was a chart of the Korean alphabet (boring) so, this was the winner. :)