tv

i was watching tv earlier this evening. a korean movie about a young adolescent girl was on. i watched for a little while and was soon sucked into the story line. this young girl was drifting away from her parents as she dealt with some typical teenage angst. her parents tried to reach out to her but seemed to keep bumping into walls. when picking her up, the mother notices her daughter's sullen face and says, "hey, why don't we go to a dukbokki shop for a snack?" in an effort to cheer her up (translation: hey, how about mcdonald's?) the girl shakes her mom off. when they are home the girl's mother encourages her husband to cheer her up. the dad goes into her room, knocks and asks if she'd like to go out for dinner. the daughter replies, "i have to study" and dad nods and leaves only to find mom in the hallway pushing him back into his daughter's room. then, he leans down and whispers something in her ear and she smiles and nods yes. the movie cuts to the next scene and father and daughter are standing looking at each other smiling. music is cued and they grab hands and begin ballroom dancing. they danced and danced, giggling as they looked at each other.

this whole scene really resonated within me because it made me think of my own dad and how i miss him. it made me think of how hard it must have been for him to try to relate to me as i was a growing girl becoming a young woman. not only did we have the gender barrier, but we had to cross this ocean of cultural difference. what if i had lived in korea my whole life? what if my parents never stepped foot on american soil? how would we be different? would i be loud and crazy, a soccer player with a thirst for learning chinese and japanese? instead of being an introverted, analytical person with a love of song, studying spanish and korean?

growing up i wished my mom baked chocolate chip cookies and cupcakes for dessert. i wished my dad didn't own a delivery truck, but a cool, sporty car. i wished my parents only spoke english because having this strange, foreign language around me all the time made me feel more alien than i wanted. now looking back on these wishes i feel sorry for my parents. they had a moody adolescent to deal with with hormones they didn't understand plus this feeling of distance from our lack of understanding of where we were both coming from.

well, while my friends' moms were baking cookies and cupcakes, my mom was making some rockin' bibimbop and chopchae noodles. my dad drove a van to deliver his dry cleaning...that dry cleaning helped pay for my car, wedding, and my college education, and gave me the opportunity to be what I am now. the korean language my parents taught me has not only become lovely to hear but essential to know and i wish i knew more!

i guess all this is to say, as i get older i recognize more and more how hard it must be to be a parent....to have been my parent. i had a lot of druthers growing up, but i can't be more proud and pleased with my heritage and my parents' sacrifices they made for me. our childhoods were vastly different, my parents grew up in a time of poverty and war. i grew up during the time of m.c. hammer, aqua net, and tight-rolled jeans. huge diff. but it's neat to see how God takes our very different stories and experiences and weaves them into one piece. He brought us all together to bring different colors, patterns, textures and design.

besides, i'd take chopchae over chocolate chip cookies any day now.