My Korean Family Divided . . .Over "Gangnam Style"

            It’s funny how differently my parents and I have responded to Psy, the Internet pop sensation. My first generation parents have been somewhat unhappy that someone like Psy would represent Korea.  Yet for me, Hollywood has been my lifetime neighbor; so if Hollywood can do shallow, glitzsy, and stupid, am I happy to prove that Korea do shallow, glitzsy, and stupid even better?  HECK YA! I'll jump on the bandwagon for anything Korean in America!

          My ability to feel proud about my connection to some dude who does a horse dance, because my parents were born in the same country of origin, proves to me that it doesn’t take much to make me proud.

          Previous to Psy, the only excitement as an Asian American I’ve had has been minimal:  Lea Salonga, Michelle Kwan, Jeremy Lin, and one half of Tiger Woods.

          My parents sat with my family in a Korean restaurant translating the words to “Gangnam Style” to English from his iPhone5.  My dad has this rich Mr. Miyogi way of speaking really slowly and employing excellent usage of the dramatic pause so that everything sounds more meaningful.  The eloping of Mr. Miyogi and Psy is what most grammarians would call irony; it was almost embarrassing to listen to.

          “I like a girl who is warm in the day. She likes coffee.  She gets warmer at night,” my dad translated in a tone that could have preached from the pulpit, “I am a guy who is warm in the day.  I like coffee.  I get warmer at night.  . .Op. Op. Op. Op. Op. Op. Oppa Gangnam Style.”

          Then he paused, looked up at us, and stated in his serious, bass voice, “This is absolute foolishness.  Absolute foolishness."

          My dad also employs excellent usage of reiteration.  By the time he’s done repeating a phrase, he obliterates any bubble of possibility he could be wrong.

          I sensed that that particular moment was not the time to tell my father that I inspired my mission team car to blast “Gangnum Style” while passing through the Mexican border, all dancing, with me hooting and hollering in shotgun, “Go Korea!”  Yup, I sensed that wasn’t the time.  I am good Korean daughter, so I bow head and suck tofu.

          I'm not sure why I feel a sudden urge of ethnic pride.  My Korean friends will tell you that I’m the most non-Korean Korean around.  The one phrase I’ve mastered in Korean is, “I don’t know any Korean.”   I can even say it in Spanish.

          Perhaps it’s the kinship I feel towards Korea when thinking of my grandmothers- one sneaking past the North Korean border in the middle of the night, leaving her relatives behind to find liberty in South Korea - and my other grandma immigrating to the United States as a widow with four children, not knowing a pinch of English.  

    Maybe it’s because I’m watching our Korean heritage slip and ebb away, as we move from my grandparents to my parents to me to my children.  Maybe it’s because I see how comfortable my children are around non-Asians, and that they don’t hang out with Asians like I did in high school and college.  

    Maybe it’s that I sense it’s a great possibility that my children might be our family’s last full blooded Korean generation and that two generations from them, there might not be any more memory or physical trait that will trace them back to their Korean roots- meaning, back to me.

          Or maybe, just maybe, when I look deep down in the inner most parts of my heart, I just like to horse dance.

Won Bin doing gangnam style