EGGSHELLS
What is home? My parents immigrated to the
States from South Korea, I was born and raised
in California, I go to university in Rhode Island,
and I am now studying abroad in Dublin, Ireland. I
think some of the “go-to” answers of what a home
might be are a physical address or a place to
call your own; wherever loved ones are; an inner
security or sense of belonging; or maybe home is
simply wherever you spend most of your days.
of belonging here. I get spoiled at Brown—the safest
of all spaces with friends who will love me despite my
ugly laughter and weird combo dishes at the Ratty.
However, outside of Brown and outside of multi-ethnic
Los Angeles, I am forever a foreigner in the eyes of
Americans and Irishmen alike. It’s weird because
I’m sort of stuck in a no man’s land. I’m neither fully
Western nor Eastern, attached to but not able to fully
identify with both. I don’t know if I’m ever really home.
Last spring break I went on a missions trip to Atlanta
with a team from my campus ministry group to
serve the city and connect with fellow Christians
there. One of the things that we did was visit a
homeless shelter and have a chat with some of
the people who were seeking refuge there. I had
never realized before that a problem accompanying
homelessness was not having a personal mailbox.
Even the most broken down houses and apartments
have mailboxes, so lacking property—and thus an
address—is somewhat dehumanizing. It’s hard for
people to reach you. There is a disconnection.
It feels like eggshells. Always walking on eggshells.
If I make a wrong move, the ground beneath me
cracks and resounds uncomfortably, and people’s
heads turn as they hear the echo of a foreigner’s
shame. The Sunday school teachers were right when
they said that Christians will never truly be at home
on earth. We can make ourselves comfortable in
the meantime with significant others, trophies and
achievements, or Netflix (my personal favorite). But
no matter how many Upworthy articles we read,
it’s not hard to see that the world is broken. And so
are we. Humans are capricious creatures, largely
insensitive to the pride that blinds us. Strict reliance
on knowledge and self-sufficiency is dangerous as
memories betray us, logic escapes us, and morality
comes to us in a culturally determined package. The
qualities we value as highly sensible and upright have
been passed down to us through cracked human
vessels—parents, mentors, schools, governments,
Disney films (yes, even Frozen), and so on.
Thankfully, I’m in one of the dorms here at Trinity
College Dublin and I do have an address. Mail is
scarce but I’m grateful for whatever letters come my
way (even if they are from the bank). I really like Dublin:
the people are magnanimously friendly, the numerous
food markets keep my belly full, and the architecture
exhales history. But I’m having trouble finding my sense
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