Ban Chan

My mother came to the Washington, DC area from Seoul, Korea in the mid-1970's with the proverbial $50 in her pocket and a dream to be an American. She married my dad in 1974 and had my older sister Jamie in 1976 and I soon followed in 1979.  My mother, who goes by her American name Anne (she named herself after the character Anne Shirley) wanted us girls to be as American as possible.  She denied us the humiliating experience of new teachers and peers butchering our Korean names by giving us only American names, Jamie and Michelle, as well as all the American birthday parties, traditional Christmases and Thanksgiving dinners.

But we weren't the same as the other kids.  We had two refrigerators, one in the basement filled with jars of preserved pickled delicacies, a language gap between generations that widened as we got older, Korean school on Friday afternoons while our friends got to go home and play, and of course, a face that didn't match those of our classmates in Northern Virginia, where we grew up. 

Still, my mother did a great job and Jamie and I are definitely Americans.  Through and through with a love of Redskins football, ham and cheese sandwiches, and a humor based on the wit of four women on TV who lived together in Miami during their golden years.  But what have we sacrificed to get here? 

On my mother's first visit out to San Francisco, where my partner Rion (like Orion without the O) live, she said to me as I stared into a full-length mirror, "Yeah, I used to weigh that much--when I was pregnant with you."  It stung but I know what she meant.  One thing is for sure--my sister and I are a lot bigger than our parents.  Okay, not A LOT bigger but there is a difference in our sizes and statures.  In fact, there is a significant difference among most of the second generation Koreans I know and their parents.  We were all raised on milk, bread, cheese, eggs, and plenty of meat like most Americans I know.  This new diet, one that was completely unavailable to our previous generation, has changed us.  For better or worse, it has made us big, strong, and itchy.  Yeah, itchy.  I bet my eczema is related to the wheat and milk that I can't get enough of.  And I'm sure there are more people like me out there. 

So can I go back?  Can I eat the food I know I am genetically predisposed to eating?  Can I be Korean for a year?  Well, I am going to try.  For a year straight, I will attempt to eat nothing but a Korean diet.  I am allowing myself to stray into other Asian cuisines--Indian, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese--but mostly will do my best to adhere to the Korean diet.  At the very least, to stay away from dairy and see if I feel different, if my skin clears up, and learn more about the place my mother left 35 years ago.