(gentle piano music)
- I was born in the U.S.
and I was raised
and went to school there.
I graduated in 2011 and soon after,
I came to Korea and I've been living here since 2011.
I was born in Flushing, Queens in New York.
It used to be at the time, a very big, I think, Koreatown
and my grandparents moved to the U.S. as well.
And my parents were working seven days a week.
From my earliest memories,
it's more of my grandparents raising me at the time.
I did not speak English
until I got into elementary school.
My oldest sister was the same case as me,
but we grew up only speaking English at home
and for a while, when my grandparents moved out nearby,
but my parents were still busy, so we had a babysitter.
She was actually related to one of the doctors
who worked for my parents' clinic,
the Oriental medicine clinic.
She was born in Hong Kong
but immigrated to Venezuela, I think,
when she was in middle school or high school.
So she couldn't speak English very well
and obviously, she couldn't speak Korean.
So I ended up going to first grade, I think,
and I think on the first week,
we were just doing like numbers, like one, two, three.
I didn't realize that it was different languages.
I always thought it was different ways
that different people said things
and so the teacher was like, "Okay, he can't speak English."
So I laugh about it now,
but I ended up going into an ESL program, I think,
for about six months
just to adjust to speaking English in school.
I could still speak enough English
to talk to my classmates and stuff.
It was just the difficulty
was like when it came down to like writing
or recognizing, for example, that one, two, three
in five different languages were not the same thing.
I think in terms of having like a bigger Korean community,
it existed because my mother actually sent my sisters
to learn Korean traditional music in New York.
And I had tagged along and ended up learning
I think it was Korean traditional dance
and drums since I was like four or five.
So I think there was always some route
in terms of there always being Korean people around us.
In middle school, we ended up moving to New Jersey
and lived there for a couple of years.
And it was even more Korean kids that were in school,
Korean Americans like me
and kids who had moved very recently from Korea
and there were some half Korean.
So it was a very wide like community
and a lot of Korean people in general.
And then in middle school, for my parents' business,
we ended up moving to Virginia,
which I think was a little bit more of a shock for me.
Like I always thought of myself
as a New York, New Jersey, like East Coast kind of person.
And then just hearing the word, Virginia,
seemed very country at the time.
So yeah, I think that was a little bit different
in terms of, I guess, elementary and middle
and then middle school and high school.
I think I was a little bit different
at least through music or art,
I was very much
aware of my Koreanness.
If anything, I think that became stronger
around middle school in terms of making friends
or learning more
about Korean traditional music, for example.
I think it actually got stronger
as I was finding my identity where I was growing up.
I think I always wanted to come and live here
because, I mean, it was the same thing,
my interest for Korea just kind of never stopped, I guess.
I had a feeling that if I didn't kind of get myself up
and push myself to try something different,
I would kind of be stuck there,
which was great when I was in my early twenties.
But I thought that might not be something
that I want, like I see myself doing
and if I don't like push myself
to try something new now, I would never do it.
So I think I was at work
and then I called a family travel agent
that we use and then I was like,
"I need a one-way ticket to Korea."
It was like my parents' card,
but I was like, "Hey, this is my graduation present.
Think of it as like the last dime you're gonna spend on me."
Which was true to an extent.
My parents weren't necessarily that thrilled
that I was coming here.
So really, that one way ticket
was kind of like my last financial hand
that my parents had extended to me.
And from then on, I was kind of alone.
When I first got here, I think the freedom was like,
oh, I really just don't know anybody.
So to me, it was like, let's start a clean slate.
But I think in terms of what I've gone through
in the past couple of years
in terms of my health and stuff,
that kind of shifted in a very different way.
Because of alopecia, I have a hat on.
But I had started noticing
that I was working like 70, 80,
sometimes like 90 hours a week
and I guess just my body reacted physically.
Everyone processes stress in a different way.
I tried covering it up and shaving the sides of my head
and I did all of that.
I guess it's from 2017 to 2019 or 2020,
it was like those three years
when it started progressively getting worse.
You go to any culture or any part of the world
where it's important how you look physically.
I think, again, in Korea, it's very hyper-realized
and the people are very visually sensitive here,
sometimes in a very good way
and when you're talking about art or design or aesthetic.
And then in sometimes, a very negative way,
it's kind of like the first thing you notice,
or you don't get a chance because of how you look,
or if you're kind of going against the grain
in a certain sense.
I did make the executive decision just to shave my head
and try to accept it.
But I think just physically,
what I was seeing in the mirror,
how people reacting to me
was probably one of the most
psychologically difficult times that I had.
One of the stories that I think I always tell
is that I felt it the most when I first came to Korea.
Because having lived in Virginia since middle school,
high school and university,
it's one of those unconscious things
that when you walk in somewhere
that people, instead of coming in,
just looking at you because you came in to sit down and eat
they kind of do a double take.
And I think that always kind of registered.
And then when I first got to Korea
and I think that's when I was more conscious of it,
'cause in the past when I came to Korea,
it was just for vacation and with my sisters.
And then it really became like
oh, this is where I'm gonna be continuing,
I'm not knowing what I'm doing,
but I'm gonna be here for an unforeseeable amount of time,
like this is gonna be home for now.
And then I realized no matter where it went,
people weren't actually looking at me.
Just the acknowledgement.
I don't think that for the most part it was done,
those glances or those stares
were done with hate or malice,
but you were still conscious of it.
And even at times when I was just very unaware,
I think it was people around me that pointed it out.
Either my Korean friends or my non-Korean friends
would say like, "Those people are staring."
And then the first time I felt that people weren't,
was when I landed in Korea, Incheon Airport.
Whether it was like for my parents' business
or having lived in Korea,
I've never really lived in one place or one neighborhood
for longer than five years for the most part.
I think I've tried not to form attachment to places.
I don't know if that makes sense now
because I've been in Korea for 10 and a half years.
I don't know if I'm allowed to say that.
But I think I just ended up without any real purpose.
And I had mentioned before
but I think that kind of has continued.
Living in a Korean community,
people always ask like, "Oh, what are your plans?
What's the next step?"
And I think for me, the anxiety or the nervousness
always came from like I really didn't know.
So I was kind of like,
let's try to live in the moment.
If anything, to not make myself more nervous or anxious,
I think I don't plan on purpose, just in case.
I don't know where I'm gonna go or what I want to do.
My name is Albert Kim
and this is my Korean American Story.
(gentle piano music)