RENÉE AHDIEH

Chah-Muh

I STRUGGLED A LOT WITH how to write this.

It seems simple enough to talk about oneself—one’s likes, one’s dislikes. One’s dreams and aspirations. But whenever I’m faced with a situation in which I have to share a part of my past or a truth of my present, I find myself struggling for the right words. Perhaps this is why I tend to write fiction. It seems easier to share who I was and who I hope to be through the filter of characters, both large and small.

There are so many things I could talk about with respect to my identity and how it has shaped me. I’m not alone in this; everyone has memories from their pasts—epochs, if you will—that are bends in the road on their life’s journey.

Identity is just one facet of it.

For me, it has become a huge part of how I perceive myself as a woman, as a writer, as a child of mixed race, as a wife, as a sister . . . I could go on forever. It’s one of the first things I ask myself whenever I’m faced with difficult decisions.

Who are you? How does this choice shape who you are?

And who do you want to be?

When I was a child, I remember always wanting to be someone else. It carries over today. When I’m with my Korean family, I want to be more Korean. I want to know what they know, speak how they speak, and be comfortable as they are around each other.

It took years for me to realize that this will never happen.

I will never be Korean enough. I will never be American enough.

When I was twelve, I went to visit my mom’s family in Seoul for an entire summer. I went with several goals in mind, many of them silly, some of which continue to make me smile to this day. I wanted to lose weight, because I was never thin enough, especially in Korea. My thighs were too thick, my backside was too round, my stomach was too soft; everything about me was “too” something. I laughed too loudly, ate too much, argued with my elders too frequently. So many things I wanted to change when I was twelve but wouldn’t change now for all the world.

I also wanted to get new clothes. I know, I know. But I was twelve. Everything about being on the cusp of young adulthood is focused on the here and now. The immediacy of everything, especially emotions. I think that this is one of the reasons I so passionately love writing young-adult literature. Everything—a hand to hold, a look in the hallway, a pair of jeans with the tag still on them—everything has that delicious newness to it. A wonder I often think is all but impossible to achieve as an adult.

I wanted new eyeglasses too. Mine were horribly old and out of fashion. I’d chosen them when I was ten and thought purple was the be-all and end-all of colors. Tortoiseshell purple, at that.

My memories are also full of regrets.

Again, I know I’m not alone in this.

The next thing on my wish list was a new, Korean haircut. I’d sported long, unruly hair for most of sixth grade, and I wanted something fashion forward that would place me firmly among the ranks of stylish seventh graders at my new school.

Bear in mind, I was twelve. Sometimes I miss the time when those were the most important things to worry about.

Whenever we visited my mom’s family, we would all share a room and sleep on the floor. Every morning, we would fold up our bed pallets and put them away in these huge, scented chests that left everything smelling like cedar, with a faint touch of my aunt’s perfume. My brother, sister, and I would try to find American TV shows—often on the army network—to watch together. Or even simply try to find an American movie that wasn’t hilariously dubbed. Family friends of ours had the Anne of Green Gables miniseries on VHS. I think we must have watched that at least ten times that one summer.

I think about this fact often.

I think about how we all could understand Korean television but still chose to watch something in English. Just as I think about how, when we were at home in America, my sister and I craved watching Korean dramas. Almost as though we were reaching across a void, trying to fill some unseen part of ourselves and make sense of our now—who we were and who we wanted to be.

I still remember what I was wearing the day we flew back from Korea. It was an outfit I had specifically planned, which I find comical, because a twenty-four-hour plane ride pretty much negates any attempt to look cute. There wasn’t anyone I was specifically trying to impress. My dad was the one picking us up from the airport, and he would love me no matter what I looked like.

I picked that outfit for me. So I could come back home a new, better version of myself.

I’d also found a new pair of eyeglasses, which had been an amazing adventure all on its own. My second aunt had taken me to the underground market, a place that opens when the sun goes down and closes as its light peers over the horizon. Deep in this labyrinth of stalls and fluorescent lighting, she’d taken me to a small booth. In its center sat a wizened gentleman with stooping shoulders. She gave him my old purple tortoiseshell glasses—complete with a scratch through the right lens—and told him I needed a new pair. All he did was check the prescription. Then he told me to choose a set of frames.

I went with gold. Something that made me look older, wiser.

When he gave them to me, I felt like the sun’s first rays peeking over the horizon.

I had my new outfit. My snazzy new haircut. My gold glasses.

Of course I hadn’t lost weight. But we can’t have everything.

Our flight into LAX from Seoul was horribly delayed because of some technical malfunction. When we deplaned, we were told we needed to go through customs, grab our bags, and have them rescanned and rechecked through security before we could proceed on our flight home to North Carolina.

Even though the woman at the gate assured us that our connecting flight would wait for us, my mom knew we weren’t going to make it. She had the three of us throw our luggage onto two carts and haul ass through LAX. When we arrived at our gate, we were relieved to discover that our outbound plane was still on the tarmac.

It was clear our fellow passengers were not so relieved.

Their flight to North Carolina had been delayed, and they saw us as the reason why.

Our luggage had to be checked at the gate, which further delayed our flight. My mother’s chest was heaving. We were all sweaty and tired. My brother had tripped during our run through the hell mouth that is LAX.

I still remember when I heard the first person say it.

“Do they not know how to check bags?”

It was a man probably around my dad’s age.

As soon as he said it, a woman nearby said, “Of course they don’t. They don’t even know how to check their watch or show up on time.”

Snickers followed.

A racial slur was thrown our way, meant to be under that man’s breath, with the assumption that “they” wouldn’t understand anyway.

I remember watching my mom close her eyes, tightly. This woman, who’d left her family and everything she knew at the age of twenty-four to study in America. Who’d bucked tradition and married a man from the West. Who had then gone further still and chosen to raise her children in a foreign country.

There’s a word in Korean that I often have a hard time translating. Phonetically, it’s pronounced “chah-muh.” It’s almost like the Korean version of “grin and bear it” or perhaps even “deal with it.”

I stood and watched my mom “chah-muh” these people and their racist jokes.

In that moment, all the power and confidence I hoped my new hair, my new clothes, and my new glasses would grant me vanished like footprints along the shoreline.

Rage took hold of me. My fingers curled into fists.

I wanted to say something. I almost did. I wanted to let those hateful people know that this was not our fault. That we did indeed own watches. That we showed up on time. That we knew how to check our bags.

But mostly I wanted to tell them we weren’t “they” or “those people.”

I said nothing. It bothers me still that I said nothing. I wish this story had a better ending. The kind that inspires people to think outside themselves and their own identities and how they perceive other people in a moment.

The thing I took away most from this situation happened much later in my life. I’d always known that my mom left her family and everything she knew to come here. As a teenager, I often—cruelly—wished she had left more of herself behind. That way I could have my friends over and not have to ask her to speak in English around them, or worry that they might not like the “weird” food she served them for dinner. My desire to assimilate had long arms—arms that often reached outside myself and demanded that the rest of my family pretend to be people they were not.

All so I wouldn’t be perceived as “other” or “those people.” It was a selfish way to think and feel. Though I knew I wasn’t alone in this—my younger brother and younger sister shared my fears—I missed out on many opportunities to light the path for them.

There were so many times I failed them. And failed myself at the same time.

Living in 45’s America often makes me think of my story at the airport and the countless others I have from my lifetime. A lifetime of trying to be more American in North Carolina and trying to be more Korean in Seoul and failing horribly at both as I watch Anne of Green Gables on repeat.

There have been times when I’ve stood up and said something and times when I did as my mother did. “Chah-muh.”

But these experiences have taught me an important lesson.

I am “they.” I am “those people.”

Because we are all Americans. We all came here with awkward stories. We all bore the wrinkles and scars of someone else’s mistakes or situations over which we had no control. Maybe it didn’t happen in my lifetime or yours. But it happened. And every person in this world has felt like they are too much of one thing and not enough of another in any given situation. My story is not unique, especially for a twelve-year-old. I only hope that—one day—I can convey to my own children how wonderful it is to live a life and tell a story unlike any other because it is theirs and theirs alone.

That they are beautiful for their struggles.

I never wore that outfit again. When I saw it, it brought back feelings of fury and inadequacy. Which was sad, because it really was cute. My haircut followed me through the first part of seventh grade. My glasses took me until I was fifteen and allowed to wear contacts.

This past year, someone tried to make my mom feel small and other because of a situation that was entirely not her fault.

I did not “chah-muh” that time.

And I will not “chah-muh” the next time either.