naming, again

In this way, I passed Korean National Liberation/National Division/Advent of US Colonialism & Militarism Day-- no one got drunk, and i fought with a belligerent bus driver, ran through the various superstores, contributed my part to school and housing bureaucracy. I kept having to write "August 15" on all these forms.

The day before, of course, was better. A semi-celebration in Queens, to talk about what August 15 means for Koreans in both parts of the peninsula and around the world-- a chance to talk about reunification, to envision korea again and differently. There is so far to go, the dialogue always having to begin at the DMZ.

So I heard a kind of allegorical telling by someone who titled it "Three Women." It was a personal and yet abstracted storyline of how she and all these other women who were sitting in the room with her, whom she'd known for as long as ten years, connected in this movement.

At night, in Flushing, I went to crash in the house of one of these allegorical women turned flesh and blood. And her son wanted a story read to him. It was in English, but since he is being raised in Korean, I attempted to maintain this by translating it over... 
And I realized that I have such a colloquial as well as uneven grasp of Korean that I couldn't translate the standard children's story book archetypes and tropes without drawing it out into a definition or -- cursing.

The book had:            My translation:
 hero                              protagonist
 stranger                        person-you're-not-friendly-with
 thief                              thieving bastard
 kidnapper                     bastard-who-steals-children
 adventure                     exciting-and-unique-experience
 cowboy                        male-who-moves-cows-for-a-living
 We must save him!      We must find him and make sure he's okay!

Well, her son was two. He will hopefully remember that I read him stories but forget that I swore and cursed my way through them.

The difficulty, for me, of translating 'stranger' (I guess I've never heard it before) -  reminds me of the way terms get outdated and strange when governments use single nouns to describe people's nationality status. Classification simplifies bureaucracy. I am a US citizen/New York state resident/female/Asian Pacific Islander/single/no dependents/student. A lot of little tick marks. Meanwhile, a lot of young Korean people I know and their parents have to spend years pursuing the Alien Registration Card, and have to check off the "Alien" box or "Foreign National" box. This dominates all the other categories, while they are here. And thanks to the popularity of blockbusters featuring extraterrestrials, and the non-usage of the word in the everyday, these young people are constantly asking me-- "Do I really have to check the box marked 'alien'? That's me?"

Another one: While doing research on Seoul, I also remember coming across the state classification of single women raising children as "unwed mothers," and the general equating of women who are not ensconced in heterosexual marriages with children, women who had run away from their parents' or spouse's house, women earning low incomes, as 'at-risk women." There is no equal term for men - at least not with as wide of a currency among government bureaucrats and the general population.  There are 'unwed-mothers shelters' and 'at-risk women's services' in Seoul, and as some korean feminists rightly challenge, the dragnet usage of 'at-risk' basically ghettoizes all women who are not actively contributing to the patriarchal family structure--

The shadow lurking behind the at-risk connotation for women and girls in korea (and so many parts of Asia) is the reality and possibility that they are at-risk for entering prostitution. But is this how the exploitative sex industry will be addressed, by cordoning off the bodies of women? I also remember reading that, at the Thai border, women migrants are subject to much more scrutiny and even denied passports-- because suddenly, after decades of sex tourism and trafficking, it's the government's job to stop trafficking-- and the women who are deemed trafficked are incarcerated in a kind of rehabilitation centre. To learn cooking, sewing 'skills.' Brilliant. And is this how I will narrate the lives of my aunts and cousins who have raised children independently, without partners? When I describe them, do I call them "unwed mothers"? And if not, to just call them mothers silences the praise that should be accorded to them in the way they raised children on their own? "Unwed mother" rings off pity bells in people, the way the word is set up. Bereft already and bereft always. Manless.  Motionless.

I also remember when </b></a>
</b></a></span>