By Kyosin Kang
I think I can count on one hand the number of times my parents said “I love you” or “I’m proud of you” to me. Growing up in America as an immigrant raised by Korean immigrants, I’ve always envied American families on TV shows. The parents and kids always seemed to have an equal relationship. Watching Full House, I’d see Danny Tanner raise his daughters with the help of his two friends Jesse and Joey, who’d notice any time any of the three Tanner girls was feeling hurt and would reach out to comfort them. They would visit the girls’ bedrooms: quietly knock on their bedroom door, respectfully sit next to them, and calmly ask them “What’s wrong?”
The Tanner girls – DJ or Stephanie, or Michelle -- would tell them what happened at school or with their friends, and their guardians – Danny, Jesse, or Joey – would empathize, understand, and have something wise to say in response, healing the girls’ wounds with their wise words and making it a teachable moment. At the end of the episode, they would hug each other and say “I love you” and “I’m proud of you.”
Full House (ABC, 1987)
To me, it seemed like American TV parents came down to their children’s level to help them emotionally and mentally deal with hardships and grow as human beings. In these American TV shows, emotions easily flowed in the parent-child relationships, and loving, caring, warm energy filled the screen. American parents on TV acted like their kids’ friends and mentors, and I always admired how much they seem to be able to empathize with their kids, sharing their own life stories and lessons with them. And in return, the kids felt close to their parents and respected them because their parents treated them with respect.
In the Korean culture, there is a huge gap between the parents and the kids. The older you get, the more respect you earn from society because longevity is considered a blessing and a gift. Therefore, it is part of our culture to respect and honor our elders no matter how ignorant or arrogant they are.
In Korean culture, the gap between parents and kids feels like a 1,500-foot New Mexico desert cliff, where the kids are standing at the bottom looking up at their proud parents on top. Sure, the kids might get a little closer to their parents as they become adults themselves by climbing towards them, but all they have with them is a 14-foot ladder.
“We don’t air out our dirty laundry; instead we silently carry the shame and guilt of our and others’ actions, deeply fearing bringing shame to our families and communities.”
Talking to my parents is also difficult because of the tone they use when they communicate: I feel like they talk at me, instead of with me. When we fight, there are rarely apologies coming from my parents because “parents are always right.” When Danny, Joey, or Jesse in Full House acted in a way that hurt one of the Tanner girls, the adult would realize his mistake and immediately apologize. If I try to talk back to my parents, I get scolded and my parents deflect the conversation to how ungrateful and selfish I am. Am I really ungrateful and selfish, or do they just not understand? I am conditioned to fear my parents and feel guilt and shame from an early age, even when I did nothing wrong.
As a first-born immigrant child, I alone had to raise myself emotionally and socially between two worlds: a collective Korean household and an individualistic American society. In Korean culture, like most Asian cultures, the mindset is collective and is always about the community; you put others before yourself and you think a lot about how your role affects the community as a whole. I feel like this is the main reason my family life was so different from Full House. Among the Korean people I’ve known, the focus is to work hard and not disturb the peace in our communities. Mum’s the word. We don’t air out our dirty laundry; instead we silently carry the shame and guilt of our and others’ actions, deeply fearing bringing shame to our families and communities. When we experience pain (like death, breakup, or slight), we don’t know what to do with those feelings; we bury them and act like everything is okay when we are around our family and friends. Only when it becomes too much to hold in do we then explode (usually at the people we love the most). There is so much unsaid in our everyday interactions, and we assume a lot about what the other person is going through. We don’t talk about our feelings, and therefore we do not know how to communicate our feelings.
Instead of through words, my parents communicated their love through service and action. They made sure I had enough to eat and was living comfortably and getting the best opportunities. My mom thinks of me and buys me things that she thinks I would enjoy or would bring convenience to my life, and these types of acts make me feel like she cares and has my best interest. I am eternally grateful for all of the sacrifices my parents had made to start a new life in a completely new country, and for working tirelessly to provide all of the comforts of a home and nourishing food on the table. And still, there’s a void when it comes to wanting to connect deeper with my parents.
I didn’t have the social and emotional support from my parents that I longed for. I grew up feeling confused about how to live my life and had to teach myself how to cope with my emotions and build relationships. When I was young, I watched a lot of PBS Kids shows like Arthur and read a lot of American children books like Baby-Sitters Club. As a teenager, I religiously watched Oprah wanting to better understand our society and human psychology. I used the resources that were available to me and that I was aware of at the time to seek answers.
“The Korean parent-child relationship is complicated; it’s also cultural and generational, clouded with trauma and pain from Korea’s history of war, colonization, and political instability that no one talks about. ”
As I became older, I relied heavily on my girlfriends to provide me social and emotional support. They validated me and helped me learn more about myself. But when I started dating someone seriously, all of my relationship issues with my parents began to rise up to the surface. The way I acted when I was angry, frustrated, or insecure was how my parents acted around conflict. I’ve learned their unhealthy behavior and brought it into my relationship with the person I was dating.
Eventually what I needed was a mental health professional who can help me dive into my past and heal some of the trauma and pain I’ve experienced growing up, help me better navigate my emotions and thought processes, and help me unlearn some unhealthy behavioral and communication patterns. The Korean parent-child relationship is complicated; it’s also cultural and generational, clouded with trauma and pain from Korea’s history of war, colonization, and political instability that no one talks about. There’s a huge stigma around mental health in Korean culture. But as a country with one of the highest suicide rates in the world, I think it is loud and clear that our people are hurting, and they need safe spaces to process their feelings.
I’ll be honest – I never thought in a million years that I would be someone who “needed therapy”. I don’t think anyone actually thinks they “need therapy”. But when the idea was presented to me, I thought I’d give it a try because the extra help couldn’t hurt. Through therapy, I’ve learned to heal my inner child and communicate my needs and feelings to my partner. I’ve also learned how to accept my parents for who they are and how to keep boundaries with them. Note, all of this progress was very gradual and took years.
Now as an adult, my parents still treat me like a child, and I am still told what to do. With them, I feel like I’m always fighting to be heard, seen, and accepted for who I am. It’s easy for me to blame my parents for our dysfunctional relationship, but I know they’ve only learned it from their parents who learned it from their parents. Over the years, I have grown to embrace both my Korean collective and American individualistic identities. I’ve come to understand that not all families operate the way we see them on American TV. Real families of all backgrounds have their own cultural ties, traditions, histories, and dysfunctions that have been passed down through generations, and it is up to each one of us to better understand, process, and communicate our feelings for the sake of ourselves, our relationships, and our future generations.
About the Author
Kyosin Kang (she/her/hers) is a stage and film actress in the DC/MD/VA region. She has a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Michigan. You can follow her on Instagram @kyosinkang or visit her website at kyosin.weebly.com.
