Gifts From the First Generation

The hope was to have this post ready for Choo-Suk (the Korean Harvest Moon celebration, often described to immigrant children as the Korean Thanksgiving), and then I pushed my self-imposed deadline to Thanksgiving. I let several things get in the way.

Anyway, I grew up in the Korean immigrant church. The family story is that one of the first places we visited upon our arrival to Chicago was to Sunday service at First Korean United Methodist Church. Through the years our family would change church affiliations, but we would always be at a Korean church. They were not perfect churches. And those churches had their share of broken people and broken systems. But reading through Dr. Soong-Chan Rah‘s book, The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church From Western Cultural Captivity gave me reason to pause. Rah uses the Korean immigrant church as his example for Chapter 8 – Holistic Evangelism, and it made me think back to my childhood and youth.

As the commenting raged on on other blogs about how Asian Americans need to get over their race issues and put Jesus first, I found myself thanking God for the gifts of grace, the power of faith, and the complicated and amazing ways in which my faith have shaped the ways I view ethnicity, race and gender and vice versa. Weren’t we all “fearfully and wonderfully made”? Won’t “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language” be in God’s presence and glory?

So I go back to the memories of church – the sights, the sounds, the smells, and I am filled with gratitude for the gifts from the first generation.

I thank God for the experience of the first generation Korean church and:

  1.  the church’s additional role a cultural school for me. I learned about Jesus and I learned about being Korean. I learned to read and write (though only mastered both to a 2nd grade level) the only spoken language knew until I was in kindergarten. That basic foundation of the language connects me to a rich history and culture that I grew up experiencing through all of my senses. I learned Korean folk dancing that allowed my body to tell stories that I could not speak.
  2. the gift of liturgy and hymns. They were sung and spoken in Korean. It’s now my lost language, almost like a faint memory that still speaks to places in my soul and communicate nuances I can still only grasp in Korean.
  3. the community the immigrant church provided for my parents and their peers who displaced themselves for the promise of a better life.
  4. the community the immigrant church provided for me and my peers who had no choice in our displacement but needed a group of friends (and frienemies) who could relate to the bicultural experiences our parents could not help us navigate.
  5. the gift of faith because it was at church my parents’ faith was nurtured in their native tongue and where local Bible school students interned and shared the gospel with me in English. I still have the Bible given to me by my Sunday School teacher, John Bezel, and remember his willingess to learn about the Korean American experience as he shared about Jesus.

Saying Goodbye to the Green Card – Step 2 & of Course More Deadly Viper

There is another conference call set up for 9 a.m. CST Friday, November 6, with Zondervan execs. Eugene Cho, Soong-Chan Rah and I will represent.

What does Zondervan need to know/understand? What are the cultural and spiritual issues that need to be addressed in a profit-driven system?

Please discuss.

And previously scheduled was my trip to get fingerprinted. I got my study guide for the citizenship exam. I learned that I only have to study the questions with an “*” because I’ve been a legal alien resident for more than 20 years.

And I have to take an English test.

Stop laughing.

I Don’t Want to Hear “I’m sorry if you’re offended…” or “I’m sorry but…”

This is not what comes to mind when I think of Christian leadership, character and integrity. (click on the Deadly Viper at Catalyst 07 video to hear…wait for it…Kung-Fu Fighting)

UPDATE: Nikki T-S has posted a comment on the Deadly Viper blog:
Hello all–
This is a very necessary and key conversation…
I’ve been in contact with Mike Foster and am trying to reach Pastor Soong Chan (and other members of the Asian Pacific Islander community) to set up a conversation to engage on this issue.
What do you think needs to be raised in that conversation to bring redemption, healing, and movement forward?

 

 

 

My response is frustration, anger and sadness, which makes me vent and write. This is what I sent to Zondervan and the authors. What would you say to them?

To Mike, Jud and Zondervan:
I am writing in regards to your new leadership & character series, “Deadly Viper Character Assassins: A Kung Fu Survival Guide for Life and Leadership”. I’ve been looking at the promotional material on your website as well as checking out the Deadly Viper site, trying to understand how visual images of “Asian” culture and references to kung-fu enhance the actual content.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but the word on the street is that the simplified Chinese characters used on the cover don’t actually form a sentence but were used for graphic design purposes. Why does that matter? It matters because the Chinese language is an actual language and not simply visually appealing gibberish. Using it as a graphic design element because it “looks cool” marginalizes the language and the culture. Using random Chinese characters doesn’t make something more authentic, nor does it legitimize the connection between content and a marketing pitch.

As a Christian Asian American, I have grown weary of reading Christian leadership and character development books that are written solely through the eyes of Western/American majority culture. I can appreciate an attempt to weave in cultural values outside of our American experience to speak truth into God’s call to leadership and character. I applaud accurate depictions of my Asian American brothers as real men – not just caricatures of the emasculated Chinese food deliveryman or exaggerated martial arts warrior.

However, the marketing and packaging of this new material appears to have tried walking a fine line between appreciating another culture by giving context and fostering mutual learning and using it as a gimmick.

In response to your comment above, Mike, using Asian images, music and language is not the same as using cultural themes. I’ve been watching your DVD promo video clips. There is a lot of talk about self and community. Perhaps understanding and actually connecting those values through the lens of the Asian culture in comparison to the American culture might have helped your argument. It isn’t until the clip for Chapter 5 do you actually make a direct reference to a karate term.

Your private e-mail exchanges are not what set things off for many of us. Please do not dismiss our concerns as reactionary to a personal matter between you and one person. The use of these images on your website and then implying that a healthy dialogue is impossible because of the forum is unfair.

You have created a movement. I’ve heard that word coming out of your mouths in your promotional videos. Use this forum, your forum, to create space for what you write is a “critically important” discussion. I am not assigning motive or intent in your use of Asian images, but I am holding you accountable to what you say and do.

Are the authors, editors and publishers of this material open to a conversation about how dragons, vipers, ninjas and “cool” Chinese characters do not recognize Asians and Asian Americans as fellow-image bearers of God but simply use us as images?

Sincerely,
Kathy Khang

Update: This website takes a look at the Chinese (and Japanese) characters used.

Saying Goodbye to the Green Card – Biometrics

I’ve received notice that the government is ready for me to be fingerprinted. The FBI will cross-check my prints against its databases while my paper documents are verified.

Fingerprinting has nothing but negative connotations for me. If you’re being fingerprinted, you did something bad, someone thinks you did something bad, or your parents are afraid you’ll be abducted so they have your fingerprints, recent photograph and physical description on hand for the police.

Some of you may be wondering if I’m being a wee bit over the top with my thoughts in this process. I hope not. I hope that thinking through what citizenship means is appropriate, needed and welcomed by those born into the privilege…because the fact of the matter is that even after I’m (hopefully) naturalized I’ll still be asked, “Where are you from?” 😉

 

Saying Goodbye to the Green Card – Processing

My application is officially “in process”. 

Yesterday the sort of official-looking letter arrived. Honestly it looks a little bit like those sweepstakes notices that urge you to call now to confirm your personal information to see which of the amazing prizes you have won: $100,000 in cash, a new car or a clock radio.

But I am grateful for this letter because it is making me think about citizenship in the earthly sense and the implications of living that out knowing my heavenly citizenship calls me to think and live sometimes differently than what current culture would dictate as acceptable or understandable.

Now that I know the government has cashed the check, I know that I’ve been assigned an application number. Someone, I presume, will be making sure I am who the documents say I am, and then I will be scheduled to appear for an interview.

Peter asked me, “What do you want to do when you get your citizenship?”

I made some snarky comment about wearing an American flag on my lapel, but then I realized he was being serious. I’m not sure if I’ll want to do anything special, but that could change.

As letter stated: I’m in process.

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