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Expats show their poetic flair |
November 17, 2009 |
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Sukatin Choi, an Indonesian woman who recently became a naturalized Korean, receives the grand prize for her poem at a poetry contest for multiethnic families on Nov. 8 at a welfare center in Gyeonggi. Provided by Changjak 21 | Though the number of expats residing in Korea recently surpassed 1.1 million, according to government data, and there are various programs across the country to help expats ease into life here, ranging from making kimchi or Korean folding screens to Korean language classes, they don’t have many opportunities to demonstrate their talents in Korean literature.
But that changed on Nov. 8, when a poetry contest for multicultural families was held at a local welfare center in Gyeonggi. It attracted about 110 people including married immigrants from multicultural families as well as Korean poets. Twelve contestants from 11 countries participated in the contest, among them people from Cambodia, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Uzbekistan and Myanmar.
Sukatin Choi, a woman from Indonesia, read her long prose poem called “My Happiness.”
Choi, who came to Korea 11 years ago, wrote about how much she missed her family back in Indonesia and her struggle to adapt to her new life.
“Came all the way here to the new world after crossing the waters for my love/ Leaving my family and my motherland a hundred thousand miles behind/ Why did I decide to keep myself so far away from my home?/ My simmering love for one Korean man brought me where I am/ When I close my eyes and open my eyes I can’t get away from thinking of my family at home/ I feel everything is new because I’m in an unfamiliar place/ Tears rush to my eyes and my family grows even more distant from me/ I weep tears with a handkerchief filled with hope and a smile.?.?.”
Moon Chang-gil, a poet and the head of the Korean literature society Changak 21, which organized the event, said the panel of judges were so impressed with Choi’s work that they awarded her the grand prize.
“The three judges were all surprised, and they marveled at Choi’s poem because they had the impression that it had been written by a professional Korean poet, considering the format, order and poetic expression of ‘My Happiness,’” Moon said.
“Before coming Korea, I had very limited knowledge about Korea,” Choi, who recently became a naturalized Korean citizen, said in a phone interview. “I didn’t even know how to say hello in Korean.”
Choi met her husband through work in Indonesia over a decade ago and they got married and moved here. The couple now has four children.
“Korean food didn’t suit my taste and I studied Korean on my own by repeating actors’ lines from TV shows,” Choi said. “After 11 years in Korea I have overcome my difficulties and all I can say right now is I feel great. I’m happier than before. I don’t have any other wishes .??.. I just want this happiness to last forever.”
Alexandra Park, an ethnic Korean born and raised in Uzbekistan who came to Korea five years ago, also won an award in the contest.
Park has two children with her Korean husband.
“I read two short poems and one is about the postpartum depression I suffered in Korea,” Park said. “Because my Korean is not good enough to write poetry in Korean, I wrote the poems in my first language, Russian, and then translated them into Korean.”
Park said she was passionate about studying the language before coming to Korea because she wanted to learn about her ancestors’ country.
“I thought my Korean would be O.K. for living here because I studied hard,” Park said. “But things were different when I arrived .?.?. there are a bunch of Korean expressions I’ve never heard of.”
Park says that aside from the language, she faces other difficulties living here. The looks she gets from Koreans when they approach her to ask for directions, are something she can’t get away from, she says.
“I’m Korean and look Korean, but I don’t speak Korean well,” Park said. “So people mistake me for a fool. That actually pushed me to study Korean harder after my two daughters were born, because I never want my children to get bullied by their friends at nursery school because their mother doesn’t speak Korean well.”
When asked whether there are any similarities between Uzbek and Korean poems, Park said there aren’t, because many Uzbek poems rhyme at the end of every line.
“Someday in the near future, I’m hoping to write a poem in Korean,” Park said. “Writing poetry in a foreign language is difficult, and it would mean that my Korean is perfect.”
Moon, of Changjak 21, said he organized the contest because he wanted to encourage married immigrants to express their feelings in Korean.
Before the contest, “there were no occasions where members of multicultural families could share their experiences in Korean through poetry,” Moon said. “This event is the first of its kind in the country and I wanted give married immigrants the opportunity to express their feelings through poetry.”
By Kim Mi-ju [mijukim@joongang.co.kr]
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