Nicole Chung’s “All You Can Ever Know” Explores Growing Up Korean in a White World
Was it hard for you, too?
I first met a Korean adoptee on a trip to the countryside of South Korea. I had been living in Seoul and my mom was a tour guide for English-speaking ex-pats. The adoptee looked Korean but seemed as bewildered by the historic palaces and squid-based dishes as her Caucasian peers. She behaved like she was floating through a dream, unsure of whether she could connect to this culture from which she was birthed.
I wanted to ask: did she feel disconnected? Disoriented? I know and respect that some adoptees don’t feel a need to connect to their birth culture, that it would be condescending of me to presume they all want to “find their roots.” But she didn’t seem to be in that camp, as evidenced by her presence in Korea. Above all, I wanted to ask: How can I make it better? What can I do to help?
Where Do I Belong Between Two worlds?
I was projecting because, having grown up in the US and Seoul, I struggled with my own cultural identity. As a kid in the US, I was bratty, crinkling my nose and tuning out whenever my parents turned on Korean songs or dramas. We’re in America now, I thought, why do I have to listen to this foreign language?
Then I visited Korea for the summer, and I became obsessed. I wanted to consume everything: food, language, dramas, movies, pop music. I went through several VHS rentals a day and laughed my head off watching “gag shows” (SNL-type comedy skits). I was glued to any screen that showed K-pop stars dancing under pulsing lights, or celebrities completing ridiculous challenges on reality TV shows.
But I was always distinctly “other” — because of my American accent, my bad skin, my unflattering curves. When I came back to the States, my sense of identity became messier. Was I Korean? Was I American? To this day, I’m “so American” to Koreans and “Obviously Korean” (or “Chinese”) to others. I’ve grown to be comfortable with who I am, but even now, I sometimes long to fit neatly into one camp. How simple life would be, I think, to belong.
What Was It like Growing Up adopted?
All You Can Ever Know does not answer the question of how I, as a “real Korean” can help Korean adoptees — not directly. Instead, Chung’s debut memoir answers, “What was it like growing up adopted?”
I had the honour of watching Chung speak at Politics & Prose Bookstore in Washington, DC. I remember being amazed at how she had obviously been through a lot but spoke about it with such grace, clarity, and peace. She never downplayed the gravity of her experiences, but she had healed enough to be past any bitterness, anger, or resentment.
When I read the book, I wasn’t surprised to find that her writing sounds just like her speaking. I love fragmentary sentences and quick-paced writing, but Chung’s complete, wistful sentences stretch time, allowing us to grow with her on her decades-long journey.
Chung goes into painstaking detail about her childhood to paint a nuanced picture of how her parents tried their best, given glaring limitations. We see how their “race-blind” approach to raising their daughter at home left her utterly defenceless from horrendously racist bullying at school.
It’s unfair to expect unquestioning gratefulness for “saving” an adoptee. It’s also unfair to expect a sob story or to demonize loving parents.
We see her quiet triumphs when she realizes America can cheer for an Asian woman — Michelle Kwan — or when she silently greets the restaurant owners and dry cleaners — seemingly the only other Asians in town. We feel that thrill of belonging when she goes to Seattle and feels for the first time what it’s like to be surrounded by people who look like you. Through her silence, we see how her loving, doting parents were oblivious to all this.
We also feel Chung’s love for her parents in how she describes uncovering the truth of her adoption: Chung’s birth family lived less than a few hours away, in the same state, Washington. She had a sister. Her birth parents had tried to contact her several times. They regretted giving her up. One of them never wanted to.
Chung didn’t know any of this until she teased, then pried the truth from her parents.
Throughout this journey of discovery, Chung consistently reminds us, or perhaps herself, that her parents told as much as they thought she needed to know. They didn’t want to hurt her or confuse her. They, too, were flawed humans.
Chung’s parents, rest in peace, were two people who desperately wanted a child and whose deeply religious beliefs had left them hurt and confused when natural conception didn’t work for years. The same beliefs had made adoption unthinkable — until they heard of a baby close by who was being given up for adoption.
Chung opens the book with a story from her adulthood: friends of hers were considering adopting interracially, and they invited her over to chat. Ostensibly, they wanted to get the inside scoop, to prepare themselves for what’s coming.
Chung wondered: how much of what they wanted was a simple affirmation that what they were doing is okay?
A loving home is a loving home, she quickly says, to her friends in the story and to us, the readers. But there is more. It’s unfair to expect unquestioning gratefulness for “saving” an adoptee. It’s also unfair to expect a sob story or to demonize loving parents. Who among us isn’t flawed or deficient?
Chung wrote the book not to be prescriptive, but to share her story. She recognizes her perspective can be another input into a momentous decision, and she doesn’t try to hijack the process to influence it one way or another.
She just wants us to know more.
The Takeaway: Leaning Towards Greater Understanding
I can’t presume to know the complexity of the Korean adoptee experience from one book, even as Nicole Chung references other adoptees, but the rich, intimate details more than make up for that.
Chung’s memoir is a beautiful jewel in an Indra’s net of stories yet unheard. Reading between the lines, one incredibly obvious answer to my first question is to listen to and seek out the stories of other adoptees.
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