“KOREAN ME”
Stacey Park
Has never heard of rock, certainly not of roll, no chance of spiritualizing the mushaboom,
transatlantic, Chicago sounds of indie gods, never worn black polished nails that danced like
tappers along the frets of an electric guitar. She mesmerizes with buchaechum, spins like the
flicker of flame, here and gone. She doesn’t memorize facts about vikings, fur traders, or the
Quebecois, instead recalls the Gwangju uprising, Japanese occupation, the Korean war—Korean
me knows history like a commute, the fast turns of imperial/colonial/ism, black & white faces of
people who could be her family blur by like trees out the window. She has the clearest opinions
about the country’s forced fissure—she’s so good at explaining everything in Korean. Never
foreign. There are no accents. No English. She never goes to church; she prays to her ancestors.
Korean me, I think, still loves to sing—Korean songs with all the Korean feeling simmering
behind lyrics. Her family is tethered to a large stone on top of hallasan & they live in the clouds
like gods. If I was Korean me, I would be an island, whole & unfindable.