review of Still Present Pasts exhibit in International Examiner

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If you still haven't been to Wing Luke to see Still Present Pasts, please go! It is so powerful.

http://www.iexaminer.org/archives/?p=1552
The Korean War Exhibit
Category/Issue: Arts & Entertainment, Volume 36 No. 07


BY NA YOUNG KWON
IE Contributor

Usually the subject of the Korean War doesn’t spark conversation, especially amongst family members who lived through this time. As a child I remember snatches of stories from my parents, who referred to the Communists as “bbalgangis,” literally, “Reds” in Korean. Their tone had a discernible urgency and in my mind the Reds were demonic figures with vermilion skin and piercing eyes. The stories gradually faded into memory so long ago I don’t recall when. Like many other Korean Americans, I am a child of parents who lived through the Korean War. Many lost family members who “disappeared” to North Korea, perhaps never to be found. The U.S. military presence has left its trace—for better or for worse. Korea is actually still in a state of civil war, glaringly apparent if one visits the DMZ (demilitarized zone) or 38th parallel that has divided the country since the United Nations armistice.

Showing at Wing Luke Asian Museum until May 17, is “Still Present Pasts: Korean Americans and the ‘Forgotten War’”, which attempts to bridge this gap in open dialogue and shed light on the U.S.-Korea relationship. The legacy of silence, while pervading many Asian cultures, proves a formidable obstacle in promoting healing and increased awareness for survivors of the war and their children.

Ramsay Liem, Project Director of this exhibit and Professor of Psychology at Boston College, recounts in his interviews with three generations of Korean Americans in Boston and the Bay Area, that many had “… never spoken to spouses, let alone children about experiences [relating to the Korean War] …but welcomed the opportunity.” During his travels in Korea where there were discussions about the war, Liem observed “less emotional connection” from older people; however, the younger generation, including students, addressed the older in an audience with questions of “’Why didn’t you tell us …’”

This cultural style seems antithetical to the Western one of disclosure and open communication. Rachel DeWoskin, an American who worked for a public relations company in China, cites this phenomenon in her memoir, “Foreign Babes in Beijing”. In reading the company’s protocol list on social etiquette, one rule states: “’The Chinese [or in this context, the Koreans or Korean Americans] are more comfortable with silence than Westerners. Things left unsaid are often as important as those spoken of directly. Silence can be a virtue, a courtesy, or a ploy to ferret out information.’”

In collaboration with Liem, contributing Korean American artists, historians and filmmakers provide vehicles in exploring this thorny subject matter through the first systematically recorded oral history—both written and spoken, installation art, documentary film footage and archival photographs. Such images in the form of photographs and film footage show the U.S. soldiers as benevolent forces feeding war-ravaged children Hershey bars and affectionately patting their heads. Other images show the young Korean bride of a GI with crimped hair and western clothes, joyfully embracing her new husband and in-laws.

Statistically about half of all Korean Americans have a relative or family member who married someone in the U.S. military. Other women who worked as prostitutes in the camptowns later lived as pariahs in Korean society, even though they were conscripted as “patriots” by the government. Grace M. Cho, one of the contributing artists in the exhibit and author of “Haunting the Korean Diaspora”, refers to such women as “yanggongjus” or Western princesses who provided for their families while at the same time being scorned by them. Children of mixed race born in Korea were commonly adopted by American families and isolated in “white” areas with little cultural diversity and access to connect with their cultural of origin. Even for those non-adopted Korean Americans, missing pieces of information about parents’ involvement in the war developed into what Cho describes as a haunting as a result of kept secrets and internalized pain.

The emotional distancing by Koreans and Korean Americans significantly hinders inner reconciliation of the past, just as a phobia is not ridden by avoidance of the stimulus. Liem surmises that “what is appropriate to talk about [amongst older and younger generations] creates obstacles to spontaneous conversation.” But while these cultural expectations come into play, he was “often surprised that parents and grandparents are very responsive” when dialogue does occur.

As a Korean American, I admittedly am unaccustomed to witnessing other Koreans in this forum of expressing difficult and painful memories. My experience to such exposure in the course of an afternoon at Wing Luke felt surreal. These images, words and my ensuing emotions were shelved for the time being, its full power registering a good two weeks after my visit, accompanied by copious (and long overdue) tears.

Quoting the ancient Chinese adage, “Kyol-Ja-Hae-Ji,” or “The person who ties should untie,” which inspired the ‘Bridge of Return’ at the exhibit (a bridge with white cloth railing reminiscent of “kut” or shamanistic practices), perhaps the release of shared pain precipitated by such documented oral histories may provide a means “by which spirits can safely pass into [the] peaceful afterworld,” and for the living, permission to forgo silence in favor of a mutual process of understanding—of oneself and of others.

“Still Present Pasts: Korean Americans and the ‘Forgotten War’”can be viewed in the George Tsutakawa Art Gallery at Wing Luke Asian Museum. Call (206)623-5124 or visit www.wingluke.org for more information.