Those were the days.
And for a lot of parents, those animated shows provided a much-needed respite from the nonstop hustle of raising a little one or two. But for my mom, sitting with her son to watch a talking Great Dane solve mysteries was for more than amusement. It was a tool for assimilating.
She watched cartoons with my brother and I to improve her English.
My mom grew up one of six children in Korea. She was born two and half years into the Korean War; a conflict that has not technically ended.
As a little boy, being ogled as I ambled down side streets during summer visits to Seoul, it never occurred to me the country was not that far removed from the dictatorship of Park Chung-hee.
Today, Korea is celebrated for its innovation, dogged work ethic and of course KPOP, and those addictive TV dramas.
But the country with the 11th biggest economy in the world was once a far cry from such exports. It was a place with great potential but with a long way to go.
I often joke, “I was Korean before it was cool.”
Perhaps even more interesting than watching the transformation of an entire country, has been the evolution of one if its brightest stars — my mom.
In the spirit of Mother’s Day, it’s probably high time I tell her how much I’ve learned from her, and that even at their best, He-Man and G.I. Joe have nothing on her.
She is to me, the greatest of all superheroes.
But the country with the 11th biggest economy in the world was once a far cry from such exports. It was a place with great potential but with a long way to go.
I often joke, “I was Korean before it was cool.”
Perhaps even more interesting than watching the transformation of an entire country, has been the evolution of one if its brightest stars — my mom.
In the spirit of Mother’s Day, it’s probably high time I tell her how much I’ve learned from her, and that even at their best, He-Man and G.I. Joe have nothing on her.
She is to me, the greatest of all superheroes.
Lesson 1: Transitions are hard
The first time my mom met my father’s Italian American family in New York, she couldn’t figure out who, if anyone, was listening.
“Everyone was talking at the same time,” she told me.
But her crash course on America and its customs was just beginning. Just a year after I was born in Hong Kong, we moved to one of the most unique and misunderstood cities in America: Oakland, California.
The city once inhabited by the Huchiun tribe that would later give rise to the Black Panther Movement, would be her new home. Oakland would be quite a transition for anyone, let alone someone coming from one of the most homogeneous countries in the world.
But she learned quickly because she had to. My public school, nestled in the hills was a stone’s throw from our home. Carl B. Munck Elementary was a melting pot of kids who were African American, Mexican, El Salvadorian, American Indian, Cambodian, Hawaiian, Chinese, and Japanese to name a few.
After school, it wasn’t uncommon for half the class to pile into our car for soccer, or little league practice. She’d schlepp my friends and I to the ends of the earth so we could do something that has become tragically rare: be kids.
But the transition was not seamless. My father worked hard to provide for our family and his job often took him to far corners of the globe; sometimes for weeks at a time.
“You’re the man of the house,” my father used to say before a trip.
I took his words to heart, promising to protect my mother and brother at all costs. Watching my mom hold down the fort for a month at a time is a feat I now admire beyond explanation.
In addition to navigating bouts of loneliness in a land that was still strange, she also lost friends not keen on her marrying a non-Korean. Still, she marched through their inflexible thinking without looking back.
Her example has helped me handle my own transitions in life, though far less gracefully. What I’ve learned by watching my mom is you can’t half commit to anything worth doing. Your heart somehow knows when its being duped. Either you’re all in or your dedication wanes.
She also taught me sacrifice and risk are unavoidable parts of wanting a little more out of life. Deciding what you want is not enough. Theory must ultimately be supported by experimentation, which requires action.
2. Commonalities are not a Precondition for Loving Someone
I’ve lived away from California for nearly half my life. But no matter where I’d call from, my mom would pick up the phone and invariably say, “I was just thinking about you.”
What’s interesting is, as much as we missed one another, whenever I’d return home I often struggled to find things to say. Once my mom had played the “greatest hits” and asked how my closest friends were, conversation was often stilted, labored even.
For many years, I harbored guilt for not having the seemingly effortless relationship with my mom my friends seem to have with theirs. At times, I resented the cultural barrier between us wondering what it might have been like if she’d been raised in the States or I in Korea.
I thought about what I could do differently, often questioning how good a son I was.
But as I got older, it dawned on me the people who share our blood are often not the ones we who share our interests.
And that’s okay.
What does matter is a desire to support those ambitions, however foreign.
What I appreciate most about my mom (and dad) was their refusal to retreat within themselves, despite not always understanding my path, or even me. When I decided to pursue acting full-time, they were understandably leery. But it was ultimately my mom who encouraged me to go to grad school for drama; her logic being I could do anything I wanted as long as I worked my tail off.
She also gave me the space to become a three-dimensional human being and gradually cultivate my own take on the world. She’d tell me when I messed up and offer insight when I felt lost, but my mom never preached or made me subscribe to a philosophy that wasn’t my own.
As a result, she gave me the greatest gift a parent can to a child: the ability to think independently.
3. Be of Service
Like many parents, my mom carpooled, volunteered, and helped with fundraisers. She was, and is, a very active member in her Korean church. And when I was a kid, she somehow found the time to take night classes and get a masters degree.
Trying to keep up with her is still dizzying.
But it was my mother’s insistence to use whatever resources she had to impact the lives of others. She started a small charity in our family’s name and supported a student from a broken home back in Korea.
It was her example that inspired me to lend a hand in every community I’ve called home. Largely because of her, I’ve volunteered in shelters, schools and community centers in New York, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Perhaps most importantly, those experiences led me to do the same in places like Nepal, Haiti, and South Africa where the stakes felt even higher. I’m indebted to my mother for teaching me the best way to put your problems into perspective is to focus on the ones of others.
Through her evolution, I’ve chartered a path for my own; an imperfect exploration of self, the world, and the role I’m fortunate enough to play in it.
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