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It's not often that I read a book that gets me choked up not once, but a few times.

The book was Phoenix in a Jade Bowl, a memoir written by CKA member Bonnie Oh, a Georgetown University professor, now retired. 

Reading this book was in some ways an emotional experience for me because I have reached a point in my life where I am appreciating my parents' generation in a much deeper way.

Phoenix in a Jade Bowl is about Prof. Oh's childhood in Korea. Born in 1934, she ends her story when she leaves for the US in 1956. My own parents emigrated in 1970, when their firstborn (me) was ten months old. 

In one memorable scene at the end of her book, Prof. Oh describes the tears she shed with her family and friends at Kimpo Airport as she prepared to leave for America. She was twenty one years old. Oh recalls feeling she was "on a journey into an unknown world."

By 1970, America was not quite as unknown -- but my parents, like many in their generation, nevertheless left everything behind for a completely foreign place, potentially for the rest of their lives.

Why? The answer became clearer for me once I traveled to Korea as an adult. Most recently I went with my parents, my wife, and my two children, ages 12 and 9. On this latest trip we took time to visit landmarks that were important during their early years.
Sam and his wife Christina, Nathaniel (12), Naomi (9), and his father, Won Khill and mother, Mann Kang Photo taken in front of Sam's father's elementary school in Kwangju, where he entered at nine years of age
Now that I understand Korea and its history better, I can see that leaving behind a familiar world to enter "an unknown world" in 1970 -- even more in 1956 -- was not a simple decision. 

Like young Bonnie Oh, my parents' emotions at Kimpo Airport were more than just the excitement of traveling to a new world. They were a swirling mixture of anticipation mixed with fear, doubt, longing, and even a sense of duty.
At Kimpo Airport, October, 1970. Sam as baby held by his maternal grandmother and grandfather, accompanied by his mother (3rd from right) and her younger siblings. Sam's father is at right.
Phoenix in a Jade Bowl was compelling for me because it was a story that is both heroic and familiar. It helped draw me closer to my own parents, allowing me to inhabit a world -- their childhood -- I knew very little about. 

It is part of a broader narrative of a generation of Koreans who, as young people, experienced turbulence, upheaval, and uncertainty under the Japanese occupation and the Korean War, but went on to lead distinguished lives outside of their home country.

It explained for me what this older generation of Korean immigrants holds so dear about living in the US. But it also reminded me of why they maintain such strong bonds with their motherland, which they left behind many years ago to begin a new life, as Americans.

Sam Yoon  
Sam Yoon, President
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Conversation with Professor Bonnie Oh
Where did you get the idea for writing this memoir?

Bonnie Bongwan Cho Oh
A few years ago, I was living in Chicago and taking care of my ill husband, around the clock, and I needed to get out of the house at least once a day. Northwestern University happened to be walking distance from my home. I enrolled in a creative writing class there that was designed for older learners. I was very tentative at first because I was the only non-native English speaker. 

I started writing a stories from my childhood, then stopped when my husband passed away. But since he died I started thinking about death a lot. In particular, I thought about my younger brother, who died when I was very young. I thought, if I don't tell his story, no one will ever know that he ever lived. 

So I wrote his story, and when I read it to the class, some people cried. It became the first chapter I wrote for my memoir.

You were the first child, a daughter, growing up in a patriarchal society. Yet you had a special relationship with your father. Did you know your relationship was special when you were growing up?
Bonnie Oh's father, Pyong-chae Oh
Photo taken 1939 -1943 when he served as Pyongyang District Court Judge

My father always told me that I could become anything I wanted to be. He wanted me to be educated and successful. But he never added, "Even though you are a daughter." On the other hand, my grandmother, and my mother, echoing my grandmother, would often say about me, "If only she was a son." Especially after the death of my brother. 

My father took for granted that I would follow in his footsteps. He was admitted to a very prestigious university that few Koreans attended, because it had been reserved for training the Japanese elites. 

Likewise, I was admitted to Seoul National University, ranking 10th out of the 200 who passed the admissions test. It was one of the happiest days of my father's life. My mother said, "You are making her head swell." But my father was enormously proud. 


When you left Korea in 1956, you did not know if you would ever return. Did you later intend on coming back?

John Kie-Chang Oh
(1931 - 2010)
I couldn't. In 1959 I married my husband, John Oh, who was attending Columbia University while I was at Barnard College. He wrote a doctoral dissertation about democracy and its adoption by other countries, which resulted in a book published in 1968 called, "Democracy on Trial." Because of the slant of his academic work, and the political environment in Korea, he and I could not return. 

My husband had actually been offered a teaching position at Sogang University (where President Park, Geun-Hye is an alumna). However, we were advised by an American colleague at that university that we could face a situation in which John would go to work one day and never be seen again. This was a period of time (the 1960's and 70's) when coups and assassinations were commonplace. 

My mother wrote us letters frequently during those days. My father rarely wrote. But in one of his letters, knowing the dangers we would face, he said, "Don't come back."
More Korean American Stories

In March of last year, this newsletter promoted a new website, KoreanAmericanStory.org, whose mission is "to capture and preserve the Korean American experience through personal stories."

Since then, the website has grown into a impressive trove of videos, written interviews, book reviews, blogs, and information about the Korean American experience. 

It has even compiled enough stories that they started categorizing them: there's literature/art/music, history & culture, multiracial, adopted, LGBTQ, politics, documentary.
Janice Paik
But the most compelling feature of KoreanAmericanStory.org is its videos, which are organized under the title "Legacy Project." While the name conveys their goal of preserving the oral history of older Korean Americans through video, this collection also includes stories that promote intergenerational dialogue. As such it includes video interviews like that of Janice Paik, a young woman who speaks candidly and courageously about relationships, her sexual orientation, struggles with addiction, as well as her Korean identity growing up in Koreatown in LA.
Also Recommended: Two New Books
About a month ago I attended a talk given by Ambassador Donald Gregg at the Brookings Institution, hosted by new Korea Chair Katharine Moon. The title was "People-to-People Outreach, Americans and North Koreans," and it explored the prospects for improved relations with North Korea at the people-to-people (as opposed to governmental or diplomatic) level. 

His credentials include serving as the South Korean station chief for the CIA from 1973 to 1975, Ambassador to Korea from 1989 to 1993, and chairman of the Korea Society until 2009. 

His new book, "Pot Shards: Fragments of a Life Lived in CIA, the White House, and the Two Koreas" is a memoir of his career detailing his engagement in Korean affairs from a variety of perspectives, including his role in saving the life of Korean President and Nobel Laureate Kim, Dae Jung when he was a political dissident. 

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Last week I had dinner with a group of academics and activists welcoming a Chinese scholar who was giving a talk at Johns Hopkins University. As director of Asian Studies at Vassar University, Professor Peipei Qiu has compiled the detailed testimonies of Chinese "comfort women," who, like many Koreans and other Asians, were forced to serve as sex slaves during the Japanese occupation. Scholars put the number of "comfort women" in the hundreds of thousands across all of Asia. 

The discussion at the dinner table explored the nuances of language. "Comfort women," as Prof. Qiu points out, is the English translation of the Japanese euphemism ianfu. But "comfort" stands in contrast to the experience of rape and torture endured by these women. We also noted that politically speaking, bringing out the stories of the comfort women outside of Korea would help the world see this as a universal human rights matter, and not merely a Korean-Japanese dispute.
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CKA is a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization of Korean American leaders. 
Our mission is to assert a strong, clear voice on issues of critical importance to Korean Americans and to support their full participation in all aspects of American life.