Recently, one of my classes is dealing with the problem of “invented history(especially lead by states).” Yes, I remember that people died, people suffered, and people lived decades ago when I didn’t exist. I do have memories of them who lived like the “wild roses” which is the title of a song by Saik Chang. Where does the concept of we come from? What is the origin of “Hanminjok”? Why is that a part of my identity?
I was able to witness us even in the far west, Tibet. The Japanese Colonial Era which I’ve never experienced is there in Tibet right now. The strong ignores and discriminates the weak. If you see beneath the mask of plunderers, however, there are a bunch of people who are very kind and warm. The Chinese lady whom my husband and I met on our way back to the Beijing from Tibet, on the Qinghai–Tibet railway, gave us loaves of bread from her hometown. She complained to us about Tibet; foods are wack, suffered from altitude sickness, cosmetics are lousy. She added that she would never go back to Tibet because it is suitable only for Xichuan people.
Having a conversation with her, I reminded me of other ones with Tibet people. One of them told us that he loves watching movies. Even he watched the Korean film, the man from nowhere. Tibetan cannot travel abroad because they don’t have passports, but he told us that if he gets one, he will go on a trip to Hollywood. The other Tibetan said to us that the Chinese government treats them as second-citizens.
There was another moment having a discussion about the status quo of Tibet and China with our tour group after Mt.Kailash. China has invaded the Tibet with its capitals. It is excavating Tibet like digging the mines, intruding stubbornly by paving thousands of roads on such high grounds. It conjured up the scenes from the Japanese movie, Princess Mononoke; It destructs divine nature and replaces the blanks with the obsessiveness and the greed of human. The proofs are incessant fields of construction work on that mysterious land.
After a visitation to the Mt.Kailash, my husband and I traveled the adjacent village with two German. In fact, we should not wander without a local guide. You need permission from the Chinese Defense ministry especially when you are going to the west place which is relevant to military zones. Our guide had kept showing passports of his passengers to Chinese police repetitively. Inspections had been subtle and punctual during the freeways. There was no such thing as like that in alleys. There was no one but just a downfall.
We ran into the one Tibetan family who doesn’t know how to speak Chinese. Usually, there had been no problems with communication because my husband knows Chinese. It didn’t work at that time. As far as I know, Tibetan should learn how to speak Chinese in schools. Probably, they hadn’t gotten any chances to get educations. They were laying down their Buddha statues. Only then they started bargaining the deal to sell sculptures to foreigners who could be generous to buy just one piece; it was what could never be achieved. They couldn’t follow the rule of capitalism which is even present in such a remote area. It is an unfair game. It would have happened in the Korean peninsula around the early 1900s; there would have been someone who couldn’t sell the product to the foreigner because he or she could not speak Japenese even though he or she was so desperate to sell anything.
I left Tibet and came to America, the representative of capitalism. People are same everywhere, however, and nationality is a fantasy. This life is Śūnyatā, voidness. Every identity is Śūnyatā, voidness. We are the only one. However, there should be differentiation in the phenomenal world. That is the mechanism that we are given just one opportunity, just one life. That is the reason why there are men and women; there are the young and the old, and there are Koreans and Americans. That conscious differentiation is so significant for human lives. I still eat bean sprout and rice soup eagerly, buying ingredients from Kookje-mart. Cooking jjigae, I reminisce about the past, when with a grandmother who passed away a long time ago. I eat kimchi whenever I eat rice. That is already a part of me. I am the mixture of the people I’ve met, educations I’ve gotten, places I’ve visited, foods I’ve eaten, nature I’ve seen and the artificially invented history.
What an interesting and mysterious thing happened here. I have always thought that I am not too Korean. I’ve usually watched European or American movies or listened to those kinds of music. Everyone has had a different point of view from me in ideology; I thought I was the loneliest person in Korea. Now, however, I think it is pretty axiomatic that everyone in the world would feel like that. Everything is made from the things outside of me; how can it fit me like clothes which were made only for me? We are born to live a life we would never get used to living. It will always be unfamiliar, and new.
Then, how should I live? For me, intelligence is not about smartness, nor having much knowledge in the brains, nor writing beautifully. I will dump away those greeds. There is no crucial thing on that list. The essential abilities are two things: sensibility and imaginability. The former one is about being able to weep with someone hurt. The latter one is about intuition being able to see the fact that every other people are another me. In other words, those abilities are empathy, sympathy, and mercy. Therefore, I would like to regard that sadness from other parts of the world as my own sadness by exerting empathy based on the departure that I am Korean. The suffered from Tibet are another us from Korean history, someone being hurt now from another part of the world is just like me who hurt now. I wish they would heal their wounds because I wish my scars will go away.
I, who is always deficient, pray every day that everyone in the world including myself, family, friends, even the enemies, and the ones I offended would escape from the darkness and emancipate from the sufferings; and it is the way I end my long journals of Tibet.