(from the cover story)
"Life itself is a performance. What I mean by that is just speaking English for me is a performance because it's a different system. My gestures and my face expressions are a little bit different than when I speak Korean. When I speak Korean there's less layers, but when I speak English there's one filter I have to get through. That filter makes me think I'm doing a performance. Performance doesn't mean acting. It's just not naturally coming from my personality. English for me is an artificial process.
***
People think I'm Korean American. I'm not at all. I don' teven have a green card. I'm Korean Korean. Which to me means I have to have a Korean boyfriend, speak Korean fluently, eat Korean food a lot and I have to watch Korean dramas. I have a lot of friends in Korea."
they did a whole article on Nikki S. Lee and her work and i don't think they ever mentioned Cindy Sherman. ha.
people keep blogs for all sorts of different reasons, for different purposes. i've been moving around so much, well--okay. let's put it this way. i've been organizing some of my accumulated stuff for the past few days or so, and i've decided to try to avoid doing that--accumulating objects. well, basically, i have trouble throwing stuff away, i guess. but that's not a good idea when you do a lot of moving around.
but i still have that.. innate human desire to make records. to create some sort of records of my life, maybe in case i forget i existed. i do that a lot, i mean, i just have trouble remembering things sometimes, and i'm not aware that i don't remember.
when i used to journal a lot and stuff, there were times when i wrote stuff down because i was afraid i wouldn't remember later what i had done with my time.
and there have been quite a few times where i would go through some old stuff i'd written, letters, journal entries.. the proverbial letters that never got sent, etc etc. and then i would have these moments of, 'oh my gosh... that's right...' those moments of remembering. issues i had with other people and myself, how they were resolved.
anyway. so my latest great idea was to record everything online. then i could have access to it whenever i wanted (on the condition that internet access is also available : P ) and i wouldn't have to carry or keep a zillion things on paper.
i empathized. hrmm.. well. what i feel isn't that strong a sentiment.. but anyway, with regard to what Nikki Lee says, i do feel the same thing. except i'm not Korean Korean. i'm definitely Korean American. i'm still not wholly comfortable with Korean... of course in some situations, i am, but in others.. i guess it depends on the level of the language and the context. naturally.. but sometimes, when i hear korean, it really is like i'm hearing it through some kind of diaphanous layer. like.. i do understand it... but i feel like some of the meaning escapes me somehow. with korean, it's not quite like a totally foreign language where i'm translating in my head. i mean, korean actually was my first language. what an odd bit of a mix/match i am. what a curious situation... but i think i rather don't mind sometimes. anyway... it's not always true, but there are definitely a lot of times when korean for me is not a natural process... i guess especially when i'm really tense or nervous. then it's hard to articulate myself even in english, let alone korean.
sometimes speaking is really scary. because.. i feel this immense pressure to say the right thing at the right time, but so often i can't find the right words, or i miss the window or opportunity. and i'm painfully aware that saying the wrong thing at the wrong time can be.. well. not so great.
people tell me i shouldn't care what other people think.
which is fine, but i just want to avoid hurting other people.. when others are in pain, i suffer.
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