Reading | Helen Park’s “In Defense of TATBILB’s Non-Asian Boys”
Reflection:
The journey I describe in that paragraph is already very raw and unfiltered, but speaking the journey, I think, creates a stronger intimate moment between me and the reader, which I love. The story that I summarize remains very visceral and present in my mind even after all these years. The opportunity to record that story helps further convey the visceral, present nature of the experiences to an audience outside of my own head.
Audio Transcript:
When Brave Orchid talks-story about warrior women like Fa Mu Lan, Maxine decides to journey into the mountains to be trained under the guidance of an old man and woman. After she is able to dilate her pupils at will, run alongside the swiftest deer and leap peak to peak, the old couple teaches her in dragon ways. Because of the sheer, immeasurable size of dragons, she had to learn to “make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes. Pearls are bone marrow; pearls come from oysters.... Sometimes the dragon is one, sometimes many.” My Korean girlfriends and I, born with skin like parchment, straight hair full of our mother’s jjigae, pan-flat faces and half-moon eyes, serrated intelligence and molar-strong will, underwent our own warrior journeys. We had white, brown and latinx friends; we played tennis, ran track, performed in band and choir, hung up photos and oil still lifes. We went underage clubbing and drank gin and rum, listened to Kpop, Britney and Nas, got tattoos on our backs and highlights in our hair. Brown and white boys kept their distance in school; brown and white men followed us in their cars. We went to Sunday School, loved God, fell from God, had sex and got raped. We attended Korean school in the evening and space camp down in Florida. Our parents kicked us out of the house. There were terrible, terrible fights with my mom, living in my car for weeks...but the sacrifices my parents made for me and my brother were seared into my flesh, and the eternal, lingering smell of burnt skin always led me back to them. When my mom told me a cop pulled her over, screaming and threatening her because she didn’t immediately understand a detour sign at a busy intersection, I stopped hearing her words and saw red: the viscous blood of that cop pouring like paint over my hands.