Sunday, November 29, 2009

Coconuts


My friend Holly and I are like coconuts... we are brown on the outside, but white on the inside. We both were adopted from Korea and moved to the US where we had white (or at least semi-white) families (Holly also has an adopted brother). Despite being Asian, we don't FEEL Asian and as funny as this may sound, we FORGET that we are Asian.


Since coming to Thailand we have felt more Asian than ever as we "blend in" and have people speak to us in Thai, as we get offered the Thai menus at restaurants, as we have people laugh at us when we say, "Poot pasaht Thai mai dai" (please forgive me spelling any of you Thai speakers), and as we have people look at us expectantly when we're surrounded by farong-looking people... but it's really those farong-looking like people that speak Thai better than us!


This weekend at the 2009 ICS International Day, we decided to embrace our Asian-ness. There were booths representing the many nationalities at our school. Each booth had information about the country, a game of some sort, clothing, and food. Essentially, it was like the Festival of Nations in MN, except on a much smaller scale. We went back to our Korean roots, had both of our Korean and American names written in Korean for us, dressed up in the traditional hanbok, and took some very typical Asian pictures. Holly even got a fake Asian mole. Too bad she didn't get any fake hairs to grow out of the thing. [hahaha]


In a sense, being Asian, or even pretending to be Asian has become more of a running joke for us than anything else, but it's fun none-the-less, and even more fun to have a friend that understands what it really is like to be a coconut.







7 comments:

  1. had NO idea you kept a blog!! : ) so fun to read, you've done such a great job!! yay! gonna add you to my faves, new bloggy-buddy!! : )

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  2. I love these pictures! You and Holly are having a blast and that is so fun to see.
    Love you!!

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  3. You two are hilarious!

    Cathy

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  4. I love it! And I love the peace signs. So funny. My friend Ruth is Chinese-Indonesian. She told me a story about how she was with some friends and they took pictures of their food. Her friend laughed "we're so Asian!" That's your next step for embracing your heritage! ;)

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  5. Hi, Karly and Mike! It is so fun to read your posts. We're glad you are enjoying Thailand and teaching. I loved this post, Karly. I'll have to have my sister check it out. She enjoyed being in the majority in Asia when she visited.

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  6. I often forget that Victor is Asian too!

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  7. It's so nice that I finally got on your blog! It is so great to see the Lord working in you both and working in others around you at this time! What freedom you have to bring the Gospel! Praise God!

    Nathan and I were so blessed to have the both of you in our small group, and I do hope that you won't get too homesick as the Holidays pass. We both have some good news to bring you though...

    We're expecting! I'm due in June! Yikes! We are excited and terrified, pretty wornderful.

    Much Grace to you this season! I'll be praying for you.

    Love,

    Sara

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