(calm music)
- My introduction, hmm, where do I start?
Well, I'm a Korean American.
Half of my heritage is Swedish and my mom is Korean,
so obviously my dad's American.
I was born in Arlington, Virginia, and I lived there
maybe one or two years.
Then I moved to New York when I was three.
And then I lived there until about five,
and then I came to Korea.
And I came to Korea, went to Korean public school
for three years, and then before returning back to the US,
I went to a foreign school for a little bit,
and then I made my way back to Minnesota
because my grandparents were getting older.
So we spent some time with them there,
and I lived in Minnesota for about 20 some years,
and then I made my way back here.
So I've been in Korea for almost six years now.
Yeah, we had kind of a nice life when we were living here
when I was young.
And then as I said, my grandparents were getting older,
so my dad made the decision to move back.
So initially my dad and I moved back first,
then two months later, my sister came over,
then my mom and my youngest brother came over
to live in the States.
Unfortunately, my mom tried to quit her job
a couple of times, but they couldn't find
a good enough replacement,
so they kept on luring her back to Korea.
So after a while we lost her to Korea.
So my dad raised us until we were out of high school.
And then when my youngest brother graduated
from high school, he moved back to Korea for about 10 years.
So our family has done this little zigzag type of stuff.
And then now my mom and everybody lives back in the States,
And I'm the only, what was you call it, (speaks Korean),
a loner, in Korea.
It was actually pretty tough for me in middle school.
My parents were very like rigid,
so they didn't have me swear, they didn't have me,
so I was a very good kid.
And I was very small too at that time.
I wasn't this.
I was very skinny, even in high school,
second year of high school, I was only like 55 kilograms.
So I wasn't really that big, so I got picked on a lot,
when I told the kids not to swear,
hey made fun of me even more.
It was my heritage, it was my clothes, I had Korean clothes,
like people didn't understand that.
I had tighty whities on, when in gym class, they're looking
at that they're changing their clothes and they're looking
at me while they're all wearing boxer shorts.
I'm just a target with everything right.
When I went to the swimming pool, I had Speedos on,
because that's what Koreans wore, right.
So I just brought every clothes that I had from Korea
and I transferred them into American life.
So everything about me was very weird to these kids.
And the way I looked and everything was very different too.
So like even going to a swimming pool and stuff like that,
like I had to be self-conscious,
everybody made fun of me for that too.
So yeah, it was pretty rough.
Before that point when I lived in Korea,
like we barely dribbled a ball, we barely did anything,
like sport wasn't really encouraged,
it wasn't really that big.
Once a year we'll have this sports festival,
and then we'll have like the hundred meter dash
or some other stuff that we get together to do.
So I had no skills, even in gym class
when we're playing basketball or something like that,
I'd be the last kid picked.
I can't dribble the ball that well,
I can't make a basket if my life depended on it.
It was really rough.
So sport wise, America is very developed in that way.
They're encouraged from like grade one, even kindergarten.
So all of these kids had like eight to seven years
of experience that I didn't have.
Already I'm like an outcast, but in gym class,
I was even more of an outcast.
So finally, when this three week period came where
the running event came, and when we did the mile run,
I started passing everybody.
And everybody's like, what is this?
And then the gym class teacher, he was like, oh my gosh,
I've got to recruit this kid,
cause he was also the track coach.
So from then on, I was a seventh grader
and I was beating all the eighth grader.
I went to the sectional meet and there was this legendary
mile runner kid from a different high school.
And everybody's like you can't beat this guy,
he's like untouchable, right.
And my coach at that time, he just said, hey, you don't need
to like beat him, but don't lose him too far.
And I think the first couple laps,
he was already like a hundred meter ahead.
I mean a hundred meter head is a long way,
so it was like the whole straightaway.
And then slowly but surely I was just pegging off
other people that was in the middle.
And then the last lap, I think he was maybe 30 meters away,
which was still far away, and then my coach just says
go for it.
And I ended up beating him.
And then everybody's just like where did this kid come from?
Like nobody even heard of this Asian kid, (laughs)
and then all of a sudden he just breaks his legendary kid.
At that point, people started respecting me more.
I kinda made a hot issue of myself.
That way I was able to just get a lot of confidence
and also just kind of grow really, as I said,
out of my shell, and just have some value in me.
Before, I didn't know what I was good at.
The transition to Korea was just the life change.
Minnesota is a great place for outdoors, having a family,
having hobbies and stuff like that.
But it was a little bit, a little bit tough
for a person that wanted to enjoy meeting people,
having a nightlife, and that kind of stuff.
But I just wanted to meet more people,
I wanted to like get more out of my life.
I've done medical sales for 12 years
and I was actually kind of bored with it.
Initially the money was good.
I was making pretty good money.
And then the industry started to change.
The hospital wanted to pay you less,
the companies wanting to pay you less.
So I found myself working more for less money.
So that wasn't the answer anymore.
So I needed to find something else I could do.
And I just said, with my childhood memories,
let me try the furthest place first.
Let me see what Korea is like in the adult eyes.
So I came here like for three weeks over in Nowon,
I really love climbing the mountains.
And then I just met a lot of people, had a lot of fun.
And then when I went back for three months,
I just kinda got rid of all my stuff,
sold all those different things,
and then I made the big move here.
There's this story about a bat, and then he doesn't
even fit in the bird kingdom,
he doesn't really fit in the mammal kingdom.
I felt like that all the time.
Like I identified myself as an American more,
as opposed to a Korean.
But when I came to Korea, everybody was just like, oh,
Migook saram (American)
When I went to America, I was like,
oh, this Asian kid, right.
So I really felt like I didn't belong anywhere.
And it was always just trying to find ways
to identify who I was.
And I just had to kind of identify myself
as this unique person in this world.
But it wasn't easy to be there
because nobody accepted you for who you were.
My mom was pretty well-versed in English.
I didn't need to learn Korean anymore to communicate
with her.
So there was no, like she's down that tunnel.
But for me, if I was going to live in Korea
and this was like going to be my permanent place to live,
at least for a long time, I needed to learn Korean,
I needed to absorb their tradition,
their heritage and different things like that.
And so I just immersed myself.
It was okay for me to like get things wrong.
It was okay for me to act stupid.
I just gave permission to everybody around me
to correct me, to tell me things,
and I asked just a bunch of questions.
So I feel blessed and I feel really bad for gyopos,
because when I go to a Korean ajusshi or ajumma,
they don't see a Korean in me.
Like maybe if I meet 30 people,
one will ask me if I'm a halfie.
Most people think I'm just a foreigner.
So for me to speak Korean, they just love it.
Like, wow, this guy is so refreshing,
how do you speak so well?
You know, the ins and outs, you know the (speaks Korean),
like everything, right, it's amazing.
But the gyopos are really just sad because
if they don't know Korean and they come here
and they're speaking English,
like the middle aged men and women,
and the grandmas and grandpas, will be like
"(grumbles) Be quiet. You can't even speak Korean"
so like, they love me.
So sometimes I feel bad when I'm like next to
Gyopos, right?
Like they're just getting the blunt end of the stick
while I'm getting the sweetness from these middle age
and older grandma and grandpas right.
I think people just need to just kinda be sure
of themselves.
And if you don't know, just explore things.
Try different things out.
I think a lot of people are just in their shell
and some people just never come out of their shell.
When I say how good Korea is and a lot of people
like hate Korea, like a lot of Koreans just want to move out
of Korea.
It's like, wait a minute.
You have all of these opportunity here.
You have all these different things.
You have all these geological type of stuff you can go to.
And all this different things you can taste
and stuff like that, and you're going to complain?
I came here with almost nothing, you know?
Some people might say like, oh, because you have,
this and this and this.
Yeah, I have this and this and this,
but I don't have that and that and that.
But I made a conscious choice to see people,
I made a conscious choice to work hard,
I had made a conscious choice to try
to tackle different things.
Like yesterday, shooting on YouTube, I did tumbling.
Tumbling, okay, sounded fun, but I never really pursued
to go to a tumbling class.
But when I went there, I did a back flip that I haven't done
in like 20 years.
So I overcame something and then they wanted
to teach me something else, I was already tired.
I'm 44 years (laughs), I don't need to be doing
flying kicks and stuff like that.
But you know, I pushed myself and once I did it,
I was really happy.
But like a lot of people just kind of give up,
before they even got there.
So my message is don't give up, just keep on pushing,
keep on striving for what you want to be,
and make her so greater than what you were yesterday.
And I think that's my message to people.
My name is Kesung Anderson
and this is my Korean American story.
(upbeat music)