Setting up my bank account in Korea, they had some trouble with my name. Apparently, Al-li-son Lo-er-ch-er is far too long for a Korean name, so it was shortened to Al-li-son, which sounds, in Korean, something like All Lee's sons, a slightly gender bent yet international nod to 'family’ that makes me smile. Growing up, I'd always wanted just one name, not so much as a dis to the patriarchy as an aspiration for my own eventual fame. It has always been difficult for people to pronounce, and I am constantly asked where the name comes from (America?). I've even had arguments about its origins. A telemarketer once insisted that it was French, though I have visited family in Germany. At elementary school graduation, I was asked to write it phonetically for the announcer. Being all of 11 at the time, I barely knew what phonetically meant, and so wrote "Law", as in civil and "chair" as in table and. This is not how I pronounce it, but I figured it was closer than anything else I would get. My name was butchered yet again, however ceremoniously it may have been. It may have been then that I decided that I eventually would only be known by my first name.
Being in Korea is how I would imagine being famous to be. I am invisible until it is convenient to see me. The barrage of “Hello! Teacher!” from middle schoolers on the street is proof that to many locals I am valuable only for my English language skills. Otherwise, it would be just as well if I had never set foot in Korea. Born in a state that is considered the melting pot of all melting pots, begging the shores to send America their tired poor and hungry, this is a strange feeling. This is not a commentary on America’s immigration policy of past or present, but on the dazzlingly diverse population found in New York in specific and in the US generally. Even in Portland, Oregon where the population is for the most part pearly white, there is a ‘Black neighborhood’, however gentrified. Many people can claim some sort of American Indian heritage, however harrowed with stories of ancestral rape. No one is purely one thing or another. Whereas here, you are either Korean or
not Korean.
This is the experience I came for. To be an outsider where I am living is forcing me to find my own cultural niche of foreigners as well as expand the boundaries of my usual repertoire. I will never look at cabbage, fish tanks or coffee machines the same way again. AllLeeson Theacher, my new identity is being created day by day. I am a teacher who insists that you can ride a bicycle to the USA as long as it is grammatically correct, who refuses to write “The man smelled the panties” on the board no matter how cute the preschooler is telling me to, and makes her students write comics for homework because it will make them think. Simultaneously I am becoming a traveler who will climb mountains at 15 degrees but complain all the way, stay out till 3am and not drink more than two cocktails and find quiet time between headphone-earmuffs walking in the midst of thousands of people. None of this is extraordinary except in the ways I see my predilections coming true, famous in my own eyes thru the eyes of small children who may or may not forget “strange hair teacher” when my year is up.
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