British | Korean/Vietnamese
I am mixed British, Korean and Vietnamese and I was born in Blantyre, Malawi. Up until the age of 11 I lived primarily in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania and after that in Jersey in the United Kingdom. My Mum comes from Jersey in the United Kingdom and my Dad is mixed Vietnamese and Korean, who was born in Vietnam but grew up primarily in Malawi, Africa.
My Dad was living and working in Blantyre and my Mum went there to volunteer. When that finished she continued living and working in hostels around Blantyre. They met at one of these hostels that my Mum was working at called Doogles. From what I know the bar was a popular drinking spot for locals and tourists and that's where they met for the first time.
My Mum comes from a fairly conservative White family so my Dad did face some prejudice, especially with the older generations of her family as he was Asian. The same can also be said for my Dad's family which was a conservative Korean family (as my Grandfather was Korean, the household followed primarily Korean culture instead of Vietnamese) and they were unhappy with my Dad marrying a White woman. However, for both their respective families never prevented them from pursuing their relationship and by the time I was born both my Mum and Dad were respected in each other's family.
When I was younger I grew up primarily in western English speaking culture. I was always much closer to my British side and never considered myself Korean or Vietnamese. In recent years I've started seeking out the culture of my Korean heritage more by trying to learn the language and going to live there for the first time. Cooking is another really important way for both me, my sister and my dad to feel connected and balanced with our cultures. We all try to cook and eat the various dishes of our cultures on a regular basis and this helps retain a constant link with them.
I think like most mixed people, when I was younger I always felt like life would be so much easier if I could just identify as or look like just one of my races. This was amplified by the fact I never felt fully integrated with groups on either side. However as I grew up in Tanzania in an international school I was surrounded by quite a few mixed-race kids and they helped me feel like I wasn't the only one. Nowadays, while I haven't fully left behind that desire to identify with one race I have come to appreciate my mixed-race origin much more, especially in the ways it lets me understand and empathise with people. During secondary school in Jersey I lost my connection to other mixed-race kids as it is a largely White English community, but ever since coming to a large international University I feel being mixed-race is very common-place and I've felt a lot more at peace with my mixed identity.
Right at the start of my time at university I met and became friends with a group of Koreans for the first time. I really liked them and felt that it would be my opportunity to connect with my Korean side. They accepted me as Korean and even added me to a group chat with a few other Koreans. However, they all wanted to communicate in Korean and my lack of Korean language skills at the time prevented me from getting closer to them. This was one of the first times I really felt uncomfortable with my mixed identity and questioned who I was, as being the only Asian, I was seen as Korean in secondary school but then, that image seemed broken. This really put me on the path to learning Korean and going to live there for the first time which really helped me once again feel Korean.
I have personally always grappled with never feeling like I'm 100% ‘from’ somewhere, and therefore by saying I'm from a certain place it feels like I'm lying. I think this comes largely from being mixed-race and not having lived in one country for a long time. I feel like I can't say I'm Malawian or Tanzanian because I don't come from African descent, I feel like I can't say I'm British because I don't look White or have a British accent, and I don't feel Korean or Vietnamese because I don't speak their languages. When I say I'm from somewhere it is always tinged with a ‘I'm from here but ...;’, for example ‘I'm from the UK but I only lived there for 10 years’ and coming to terms with this has been a hard personal journey.
The advice I would give to anyone struggling with their identity is to really try to find people who can relate to your mixed identity either online or in-person and just talk to them and relate with them. There are much more of us in the world than you think and connecting with people who have shared experiences can help you come to terms with yourself and your identity.
I feel like I hide the Vietnamese and Malawian/Tanzanian sides of my identity. I've done this for multiple reasons and one big one being that I feel like it's often too complicated to explain my entire identity to people when I meet them. My go to answer to ‘where are you from?’ is often ‘I'm half-British and half-Korean’, because it's easy for people to understand. This is also to do with the fact that my Dad's side has always skewed towards the Korean side rather than the Vietnamese side as my Grandfather was Korean and my dad only speaks Korean. I feel like my connection to my Vietnamese and Malawian roots is the weakest.
I really look up to those of mixed cultural heritage who are able to be so connected to all sides of their heritage. There is this one content creator called Johnny Kyunghwo who I believe is British and Korean and lives and makes content in Korea about fairly unknown (at least in the west) Korean food and drinks. It really inspires me that while maintaining his connection to both cultures he can get so invested in very specific parts of each.
When I'm in Europe I am just considered Asian and when I'm in Asia I am just considered foreign. I feel like this Black and White thinking can often diminish someone's identity, especially when some people may be having a hard time dealing with how they identify. I generally admire any culture that can very quickly accept people when they learn you have a heritage in common. I can't say for sure exactly which ones but when there is someone who might say ‘I'm half this’ the culture will say ‘you are one of us and we accept you as this’, instead of considering them foreign due to their mixed identity.
The way my Vietnamese Grandmother combines Korean and Vietnamese cuisine is always delicious and unique. The fact that there is a little community of Koreans in Malawi from my Grandfather's construction company 40 years ago.
My university is very diverse and mixed with people of mixed heritage everywhere. There is a split however between the home student population and the international student population where people will just recognise you as ‘international’ instead of a specific heritage or origin.
I try to observe all the cultural holidays of my heritage and as mentioned before to cook and eat food from all my cultures. I feel like I also take some small parts of all of my cultures but I couldn't decipher what.
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