To/gætherness
I started reading Crying in H-Mart again. The nostalgia in chapter one is cloying. But I’m resolved to get past chapter one this time. One of the points that stood out to me based on being here in South Korea with my family is the foreign concept of personal space. This has me thinking of boundaries as well. Boundaries are constructs. We put so much emphasis on them in Western culture, and the question of separateness here is similarly foreign. The conversation about communal versus individual is present in so many social sciences. I think of the commons and Ostrom, which shaped my understanding of collective governance. The realization through immersive exposure that “Homo economicus” is not how much of the world views being human is refreshing. It’s also startling and takes adjustment to get used to. To be clear, this is not just a philosophical difference—it’s embodied every moment here.
My aunt has been feeding me so much food. I have been told repeatedly by many Koreans and Korean/Americans that this is a cultural norm. I know my mother also brings me food at the bus stop from the airport when I visit. My partner cooks me fancy meals to celebrate milestones in my PhD program. It’s not foreign as a concept. However, my aunt eclipses everyone in the amount, variety, and insistence of food she’s providing. It’s all the years we never had a relationships growing up. It’s all the love she has for my mom. It’s performing her role of matriarch. It’s for the joy of cooking. It’s to stay connected to the lives of the younger generation. I noticed that her grandchildren gravitate away from the traditional Korean food that she (and others) prepare, and rather prefer cake, cup ramen, and fried chicken. I was not given those choices as a child. I view those “fast” foods as indulgences, which I was rarely allowed by my parents.
So, together can both be defined as:
in company or association with respect to place or time. and
in a body : as a group
I think the USAmerican version is often missing the second. We gather, but rarely do we feel together. I am trying to understand that nuance in the permeability of boundaries—you, me, us, people, species, kin…and the affective understanding (empathy) is nudging me to make meaning of difference, rather than rebounding from it to defend or shut off learning. It’s like Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ Three Tries, that elaborates a vignette from her grandfather in multiple stories, each leaning toward a slightly different learning. Now, in this familiar home across the world, I’m trying to allow in all the pluriversal thoughts I was writing about in Tempe, in comfortable, spacious, contained spaces. I hear the term “holding space” and I just see hands from which is emerging a spring—the water flows, overflows, nourishes, moves itself, and yet is held. Space is not a vacuum.
It is actually the way in—the way to be in a body, as a group, together.