by Rebellious Daughters- True stories from Australia's finest female writers (retail) (epub)
As soon as I could, around the age of 17 or 18, I began to stay out late. I had finished school and was enjoying the unstructured timetable of university hours. I learnt how to drive, I learnt to drink alcohol, I met people I never would normally come across in my neighbourhood in Perth, and I learnt to go to nightclubs. I loved the way that those darkened spaces made you forget your problems, and even who you were. I never had the money to buy many drinks, but from my jobs in fast food outlets, I had enough to pay for entry and I would roam these spaces all night, high on just being there, instead of home.
I listened to music – punk, pop and rock – coming out of the UK at the time and tried to copy the fashion as well. I bleached my hair and teased it with copious amounts of hairspray and gel. I read Smash Hits, NME and The Face. I was drawn to art and films. I developed a fascination with David Lynch’s Eraserhead and Blue Velvet, and loved independent films like Sid and Nancy and Prick up your Ears, the biopic of Joe Orton, the English playwright from the ‘60s. It was an altogether different type of cultural sensibility, different not only from the Korean one, but even from the Australian suburban one. In many ways, I felt closer to London than Perth. But more important, inspired by the fashion and music, was a different attitude that I adopted about what it was to be a person, whether female or male. I was not afraid to say ‘Fuck you’. This attitude was not only anti-authoritarian, it was also about being unafraid to stand out from the crowd, unafraid to assert myself as an individual visually and vocally – things which were not only unfamiliar to my parents but which they were afraid of. As migrants, they wanted to fit in.
Once I had saved enough to buy a car, I could escape the house any time and I soon became intoxicated by this freedom and the sense of independence that came with my status as an adult. I also began to realise that I secretly relished the power that came with my ability to defy my parents. There were many nights when I didn’t come home until early morning. After hours of dancing in the nightclubs of Northbridge, clad in black, eyes rimmed with excessive quantities of kohl, I would drive my little Honda Civic over the Causeway bridge, with the wide and blue Swan River below me as the sun was coming up over the city, delighting in the quiet roads, satisfied with my nocturnal adventures.
Sometimes, I would fall into my bed at dawn, only to hear my mother get up in the next room for her early morning cleaning job. My father, although physically there, was mostly absent in every other way. He had no idea and little interest in what my life was about. It was my mother who did the parenting, and she was too tired to do anything other than to confront me with questions I refused to answer about where I’d been all night and who I’d been with. At first, her face would grow stone cold, then she’d look at me with a wilting helplessness, realising the pointlessness of her interrogation.
She, of course, couldn’t help but worry that things were getting out of control, that she had mistakenly given her daughter too much freedom. Back in Korea, daughters never would have been allowed to stay out late or frequent nightclubs. Although things were probably only a little different for girls in Korea in the late ‘80s, my mother held on to the traditional attitude she had brought with her to Australia. She was worried that she had come all this way to a foreign country only to have her children succumb to the ‘wild’ lifestyles that she associated with the ‘loose’ morals of the West.
It was in one of those nightclubs that I met a guy who was on a working holiday from Scotland and, without my parents’ knowledge, ended up going out with him for six months before he had to return home. To me, he appeared exotic in the way that I must have seemed to him. Of Irish-Scottish ancestry, he was dark haired and green eyed, with pale skin, and his thick accent was full of Celtic romantic yearning which for me was a major turn on. He was also seven years older than me.
When I announced to my parents that I was planning to go and see him in Scotland, it did not go down very well. They were, not surprisingly, horrified and worried. What kind of a person was he? What did he do? What did this departure mean? You are dropping out of university! What will you do in Scotland? Where will you live? Who will look after you?
I was 19.
In an Anglo-Australian household, a girl that age would be expected to have a boyfriend. But not in my family. My parents, having left Korea only a decade earlier, were struggling with the vast cultural gap that existed between their Korean values and those they confronted in their new homeland. In Korea, children typically lived with their parents until they were married to a so-called ‘suitable’ partner. Many would have romantic liaisons but marriage was another matter and in many cases, these potential partners would need to meet the approval of the parents. My parents’ own marriage had been arranged by a distant uncle of my mother’s.
So my intention to travel to Scotland to be with a man whom they had yet to meet caused an uproar in the household, with my parents surmising that this would be the ruination of me. By this stage, though, they were starting to resign themselves to the fact that I was beyond their control, that I had not only stopped listening to them, but that I had fully fallen under those Western influences they feared so much.
And that was the truth. I had learnt quickly about the personal freedom women in the West could have, and was excited to embrace it. My parents, of course, couldn’t sway me from changing my taste in music and film or from seeing the Australian friends I was making. They had wanted me to assimilate, but only to a certain degree. Still, they were beginning to understand that they could not impose Korean values on a daughter who was being transformed beyond their understanding.
At the airport, my departure for Scotland felt both liberating and excruciating. The anguish on my mother’s already weary face – aged through her years of working as a part time cleaner to make up the shortfall of my father’s erratic working life and the burden of raising three kids pretty much all by herself – was almost unbearable. But at no time did I want to stay and comfort her.
I looked at her for the briefest moment, in full awareness of what I had done to her – there were no kisses or hugs – and headed towards the departure gate without turning back. I felt heavy hearted but relieved and so exhilarated by the adventure ahead that my pulse raced. I didn’t know when I would come back and had very little money but since I was in possession of a working visa, I knew I wouldn’t end up sleeping rough.
After arriving in Scotland, the first thing I did was search for a job, which I found at the Italian fashion chain, Benneton, on the main street in Edinburgh. Now that I had income, I promptly moved in with the Scottish guy. To my family, I deliberately kept my living arrangements vague, telling my mother only that I was sharing an apartment, and that I was working and enjoying myself. I also told her that, as phone calls were expensive, I would not be phoning home often. I didn’t write letters that much either, simply because I didn’t want to know the family news in my absence, in particular my father’s latest moods and whims. Of course, this behaviour also allowed me to keep my parents in the dark about what I was up to.
Through this period, I was aware that I was not only defying my parents but the traditional notion of Korean femininity, a fairly sacrosanct and revered ideal of womanhood which I found abhorrent and had vowed early on to never succumb to.
Although South Korea had improved rapidly economically since the end of the Korean War in 1953 to become a first world country and one of the most industrially advanced in the East, its social values, particularly regarding the status of women in Korean society, are still very much defined by time old traditions (although I hear that divorce rates are climbing at an unprecedented rate).
The overwhelmingly dominant ideal of a woman, in Korean terms, centres on her role as wife and mother. A woman who chooses not to marry, or put career ahead of marriage and family, or remain childless, is regarded with suspicion and considered an oddity. I remember on a trip to Korea in my early thirties, my relatives and my mother’s friends would openly enquire about my marital status: �
��Why is she not married? Is she going to get married soon? She had better be careful, time is getting on for her.’ My mother reassured them that there was indeed ‘someone special’ (she did not mention that I was then living with my boyfriend who later became my second husband) and things were looking up for my prospects. By that point in my life, I found Korean attitudes merely amusing. They were, I felt, incongruous in the modern, industrialised society I saw around me. There is a huge dating scene in Korea. Introduction agencies and websites dedicated to group dates and fostering romantic liaisons boast huge number of members. In this environment, remaining cautious about entering into marriage or, worse, rejecting the idea, is inconceivable to many Koreans.
Once married, a woman is not only expected to put the needs of her husband and children first, but make this sacrifice willingly and happily, embracing her fated destiny as a devoted daughter, wife and mother. She must also be, in appearance and personality, demure, self-effacing, agreeable and immaculately groomed.
In Korean culture, women’s suffering could take on a magnificence and magnanimity. I grew up hearing hallowed stories of women who held it together against the odds, defying truly unimaginable physical and mental limitations to fight and endure for the sake of the family unit. My mother’s relative, for example, stayed with her alcoholic and gambling husband for the good of the children right until his death from liver failure, and when the two children from this particular marriage succeeded beyond all expectations, all the credit went to this supposedly saintly woman who had stoically sacrificed her personal happiness for the good of others. She is still spoken of by our extended family in hushed, revered tones. I vowed to myself that I’d never fall into this role.
I had been reminded of this ideal, which a Korean girl is taught to uphold unquestioningly from an early age, time and again by my own mother who, ironically, was also struggling to live up to it. In fact, I just could not take this model of womanhood seriously when I saw the way it trapped my mother so miserably in her own marriage. Even though she was immensely unhappy, she was unable to entertain the idea of ending it.
At times I suspected that my mother held onto her suffering too intimately, that it defined her as a woman of strength and virtue. She had hoped our move to Australia signalled a fresh start in her marriage, but quickly learnt that although everything about our lives had changed, my father had not. And so I grew up watching my mother carry all the burdens of family as my father made irrational financial decisions without telling her, as he lost job after job, disappeared and reappeared from time to time, took no interest in the children. In later years, he fell deeper and deeper into religious mysticism of various Christian sects, which also seemed a kind of betrayal to my practical mother who had little time for such abstract matters.
Not surprisingly, my mother’s suffering, which was mitigated by the belief that she was doing the right thing for the sake of family and children, made me angry instead of making me appreciate the great gesture of her sacrifice. I felt I was being forced, against my will, to be co-opted into her suffering, and I refused to take on this role. I resented the burden of being witness to my mother’s sacrifices. And I resented the unspoken assumption that I would stay by her side throughout her life and devote myself to easing her difficult existence. Particularly as the eldest child, I was expected to shoulder some of the responsibilities of keeping the family unit going, keeping it from falling apart under the pressures of not only my father’s moods, but the struggle of settling in a new country where my parents found it difficult to communicate with the outside world in an effective way.
As a girl growing up in Perth, in a Western education system, these ideas of female destiny and identity were so incongruous and almost absurd to me that I never considered them seriously, though I knew of Korean girls who, in a similar situation, managed to keep these dual worlds apart and intact and followed Korean customs without being tempted by the freedoms offered by the world beyond their families. Many stayed near their parents, helping them, even buying a house together, then married Korean men and continued to live near their families.
My parents were both children during the Korean War, which killed many members of their families. The loss of lives and homes had left them scarred and the way to forget these terrible memories was to create happy new ones by doing what everyone else was doing, and what was expected of them. To get married and have children. There was never a thought of another option.
As a woman who had lost all the male figureheads in her family, including her father. the war left my mother particularly vulnerable. And there could be no social or economic advancement without men in the family. The official channels simply did not recognise women as legitimate heirs to what had been theirs before the war. Hence the arranged marriage by a distant relative – who was, of course, a male. But my parents were not only totally unsuitable for each other, they were both burdened by married life. My father was just as trapped as my mother by his role as breadwinner and father in the family unit. He enjoyed neither of these responsibilities and my independent, feisty and adventurous mother was never comfortable being defined by her role as the secondary person in the marriage. So watching the two of them struggle to live up to the expectations imposed on them was painful, and I vowed to only marry, if I was to marry, for love.
Or to secure a residence visa for my boyfriend. I returned to Australia from Scotland alone a few months later and promptly announced that I was getting married. My parents, relieved to have me home, gave in, but they were embarrassed by the wedding. None of their Korean friends were invited and it was only much later that any of them found out about my marriage. At least I won’t be living in sin, I told them.
They had problems having a Western son-in-law. Even though we had been in Australia for over ten years, they had yet to make local friends, so having a family member who spoke only English was a challenge. Besides, they protested, I was too young to get married and had not finished university as I should have. They had expected me to complete my education to the highest level, and although I had been accepted into university, not having had any idea of what I wanted to do, I had mistakenly enrolled in a business course that a couple of my friends were doing. My parents had been, at first, pleased that I had chosen such a practical course but that was shortlived, since I dropped out after six months to go to Scotland.
After I was married, I initially moved a couple of suburbs away from my parents, then eventually to the other side of the city. I deliberately did not return their calls when I knew these were about some trivial matter with a bank or local council. I had for years been dragged reluctantly to act as my parents’ translator and now I decided to stop being that. I knew my mother thought ill of me, but I refused to continue in my role as their bureaucratic caretaker. As my mother saw that she could no longer depend on me, she began to improve her English, taking delight when she realised she could look after personal matters without my help. She would later boast to me about how she had been able to persuade some official to accept her request. And now, there is very little of the outside world that intimidates her.
When my marriage was in trouble, I did not hesitate to accept that it was over. The Scottish guy’s heart was always torn between Scotland and Australia, and when I went back to university and devoted myself to full-time study, the relationship began to fall apart and we separated.
I was in my mid-twenties, childless, and had just finished a degree, majoring in something I was passionate about – Art History. I felt my life was only starting. Although my husband had wanted a reconciliation a few months after we broke up, I had no trouble walking away for good, unwilling to be the devoted wife when I felt that we no longer had a future together. Upon the end of my marriage, my mother had expected me to move back home, but I chose instead to live alone – gasp – as a single woman. This was one of the most profound experiences of my life and to this day, as a married woman with a young child, I look back at that period with great relish.
It was an experience that changed me irrevocably. Spending time alone helped me to find the courage to leave Perth and my parents for good. Despite all my acts of rebellion, there’d been a part of me that was still worried about them.
As I grow older, I am aware more than ever that my parents could not have done things differently. Yet what I have never been able to do was pretend that there wasn’t a cost for me of their suffering, particularly my mother’s. I resisted their expectation that I should be grateful for the sacrifices, and was not afraid to point out the difficult behaviour of my father and the failures of our family as a unit. Although my mother is aware of my views, her response has always been, ‘Who doesn’t suffer in life?’ From her perspective, mine is simply not an acceptable attitude for a Korean child, no matter what age.
I’d like to think that had we stayed in Korea I could have been a trailblazer, but I am not sure, because the social pressures there should never be underestimated. I have doubts whether I could have so easily found an apartment in Korea as a single woman, and with no social welfare system for the elderly, my parents would have been their children’s responsibility.
The interesting thing that happened after all of us children eventually left home was that my mother then finally worked up the courage to divorce my father. She, too, began to embrace the personal freedom that Australia offered. Until then, the idea of making conscious choices or walking away from unacceptable situations had been an alien concept to her. Yet, seeing her children making decisions based on personal wants rather than obligations pushed her into her own uncharted waters and she began to open herself up to different ideas of how to live that had nothing to do with her family. She took up a couple of hobbies, mah-jong and cycling, and enthusiastically joined various clubs catering to her new interests. She gained a large group of Australian friends of varying ages. She began to travel, with her cycling group and on her own, overseas – things I had never imagined my mother capable of.