S T A T E M E N T
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, February 2, 2022 — 7
K
L
I
P
P
A
N
f
o
r
o
n
e
:
Sitting solo at IKEA
Over a year ago, in early
November, I rode my bike to the
IKEA Furniture Showroom in
Canton, Michigan. I left around
mid-morning and arrived at my
destination around noon. After
biking through the two lane roads
and suburban grids that connected
me
with
the
blue-and-yellow
behemoth, I locked my bike onto the
pole of a road sign and walked inside.
I rode up the escalator and touched
my hand to the first ottoman in my
field of vision, sitting on it as if it was
in my own home.
I did have reason to act so
comfortably in this particular IKEA;
I have been to the Canton location
at least once a year since my family
moved to Michigan when I was five.
And before that, we were frequent
visitors at the showroom near the
airport in Newark, New Jersey. As
my mom helped me and my younger
brother dip toddler-sized bites of
the store cafe’s Swedish meatballs
into
warm
gravy, we
watched planes take off and land
on the adjacent runways. We
studied people lifting up their new
flat-packed KALLAX shelves and
placing them in the trunks of their
cars.
The multi-dimensional liveliness
of an IKEA store beckons hundreds
of families just like ours, making a
day trip out of buying a nightstand.
Multiply this by hundreds of
locations around the world —
millions of people, eating meatballs
dipped in gravy, carrying out flat
boxes of disassembled shelves,
putting them into the backs of their
automobiles.
I’ve found that the people who
go to IKEA do so in groups: clusters
of friends, nuclear families, a father
with his daughter, a mom with her
college student. Almost everyone
who ventures up the escalator into
the furniture-filled showroom is
connected to someone else. Their
networks’ invisible strings are made
apparent through distant hand
gestures and eye contact or the call
of a first name. They might watch a
close friend sit down on a couch and
then stand up from it, as if making
sure they are completing the action
correctly.
When I go to IKEA with my
family, we maintain a
similar
network.
My
parents, armed with the
all-caps European item
names
on tiny slips of paper, scribble notes
with the store’s complimentary tiny
pencils. Sometimes, my mother
carries a clipboard with a black
and white printout of the item we
are seeking. My brother and I take
on the role of furniture-hungry
explorers, hunting for geometric
shower curtains, drawing attention
to a couch that is better than the
one we have at home, opening the
sliding doors to a model wardrobe,
admiring extendable hangers and
shelf lighting that illuminate our
eyes to the possibilities of home
organizing. In a section modeled
after an urban condo, we pull
straps and levers on couches that
miraculously turn them into queen-
sized beds and fold and unfold the
miniature dining table that allowed
this fake apartment to squeeze three
rooms into one.
When our demonstrations of the
latest novelties in armchair design
became too obsessive, our parents
moved onto media storage and
office desks, their invisible strings
pulling us along with them. We were
the enthusiasts, my parents were the
practicalists.
As my brother and I got older, and
visits to IKEA became more routine,
our roles while wandering the
labyrinth of home goods morphed
into a new standard. Our parents
became more practical, zipping
through the showroom to identify a
specific item before speed walking
through Marketplace (the soft
goods section) and out to checkout.
My brother, Hector, became
more efficient as well, often trying
out only two or three sectional
couches versus the usual dozen or
more. When I broke formation and
inspected the various handles of a
glossy new kitchen cabinet line, my
parents hurried me along with the
justification of futile deadlines, like
going to an art museum or reuniting
with our cousins, as if anything
was more important than the latest
SEKTION kitchen system in a
modern grey-green. My family was
holding me back from becoming an
expert in all things Scandinavian
design — as if there is anything more
culturally relevant in Southeast
Michigan.
Imagine then, the freedom of
wind rustling through my hair,
the sun rising in the east, the tires
of my bike whirring along the
asphalt shoulder, passing by golf
courses and farms, gas stations and
subdivisions — a solo trek to interior
design’s Scandinavian star. Released
from the practicality of my parents
and the unjust shortchanging of a
time-honored family tradition, I
promised myself a day to thoroughly
indulge in all the trappings of IKEA
Canton.
After touching my hand to that
initial ottoman and searching the
rest of the model living room for
signs of intelligent design, I found
myself in the sofa area of the store,
hoping to start my solo showroom
ride on a comfortable note. I bent
my legs and let my back fall into the
basic neutrals of a KLIPPAN sofa,
mentally preparing notes on its
firmness level, armrest height and
vertical support.
After completing this analysis, I
looked around the room, realizing
I had no one to report back to. With
the critical discussion of reconciling
couch leisure differences absent
among a party of one, I moved on
to the next one, and the next one;
the motion of sitting on cushions
quickly becoming mechanical and
burdensome. I forced myself to try
out the elegant SÖDERHAMN, and
the homey HÄRLANDA, knowing
that I had spent an entire morning
biking in search of this very luxury.
When I became too scared of
embarrassment to test any more
loveseats, I kept my hands busy in
the kitchen section by opening and
closing drawers, then pretending
to wash a dish and use the drying
rack on my new quartz countertop.
I grazed my hands across the wood
grain YPPERLIG dining table and
again rated the comfortability of my
seat, this time made of molded grey
plastic.
I looked around the room trying
to take in all of the details that my
parents would normally rush me
past: the woven wood chandelier,
the moody blue walls, the shimmer
of a metallic centerpiece. What was
most eye-catching, though, were the
other chairs around me. They were
empty, and it was in this faux dining
room where the weight of being
alone in IKEA set in.
Along the slow snaking path that
guides through the display area,
I now moved with a new degree
of self-consciousness. I kept my
arms closer to myself, careful to
not get too close to other shoppers
to prevent infecting them with my
awkwardness. I stopped bouncing
in the POÄNG chair once an elderly
couple walked by and refrained
from laying down on the colorful
floral sheets atop the MALM bed
frame out of fear of being seen as
odd, or worse: lonely.
To be fair, I did see other people
unaccompanied on their respective
IKEA visits. A young person,
perhaps in their twenties, lingered
around the chaises as I searched
through the sofas. I glanced at
them, hoping to affirm I wasn’t
on my own in my loneliness. Our
paths occasionally intersected as
we practiced a similar showroom
pace, but soon they became lost in
the majority; the couples and trios
and conglomerates of six crowded
my vision.
Part of why I felt increasingly
uncomfortable wandering alone
through the Michigan branch of
this Swedish staple is obvious:
Everyone else was in groups, loosely
bound by the laws of eye contact
and soft shouts across EKBACKEN
countertops,
and
I
was
not.
Looking at one’s solo reflection in
a LASSBYN mirror is much easier
when there are others you know off
stage; an arm’s reach away.
I felt that I had no good reason
to be there. I wasn’t getting a
new bed for my college room or
designing a kitchen remodel. I was
just existing on top of the colorful
rugs, floating among the sectionals
and grazing handles on cabinets.
I had come here for a joyride,
to make family tradition better
through self-singularity. I felt I had
not succeeded; the intimidation
of social space squashing me solo.
I comforted myself with a pale
green smoothie and two bars of
chocolate from IKEA Food before
heading back to the gloomy world
that
characterizes
post-PÄRUP
melancholy.
Since this experience, I have
been back to IKEA a few times,
mostly with members of my family.
It is harder for us all to get together
now, so I go with my mom to get a
holiday gift for my brother, or maybe
when my father needs a cabinet
replacement
for
the
basement
bathroom. The tradition is kept alive
through fragments, as-is.
One year later, though, on another
warm weekend in November, I
retraced my tire tracks back to the
asphalt fields of Canton. I rode up
the escalator and touched my hand
to the first ottoman in my field of
vision, sitting on it to establish my
presence. I was still aware of my
outcast status, but the familiarity
of this feeling softened sharp social
pains into relatively dull, infrequent
thoughts.
The multi-seat KLIPPAN still
alienated me, but I found solace in
a yellow STRANDMON armchair;
its firmness level, armrest height
and vertical support creating a new,
comfortable niche for a party of one.
OSCAR NOLLETTE-PATUL-
SKI
Statement Columnist
Design by Sam Turner
Page Design by Sarah Chung
The Name
Game;
Reclaiming my Korean
heritage
LILY KWAK
Statement Contributor
I never considered myself to be so
attached to my Korean identity until
the moment I was filing my N-400
application for U.S. citizenship and
had to return to that remaining
question: Would you like to legally
change your name? My gut told me
‘no’ with a feverish conviction as if
I were cutting off an umbilical cord
to the past eighteen years of my life,
presuming the death of my Korean
heritage.
“Minjae” has been my name
always and forever. How could I
change it now?
***
Nothing made me more meek
as a child than when I stood beside
my mother in public. Walking with
assertion, her feet spring with each
step, her short curls toss in the
air, and her chin is held high — a
countermeasure against demeaning
microaggressions: I will not bow my
head to you. I am not afraid to be
here!
My mom’s American name is
Rena, but she will always tell you it’s
‘heebeh.’ And in response, the lady
sitting at the front desk or the store
clerk or whoever will confuse their
ears with their eyes and open them
wider. My mother will sigh with
impatience and hand me the reins,
and I will spell out her Korean name:
Hee Bae.
After ten years living in America,
my mom still finds no reason to
bother learning English, and she is
content. I think my constant teasing
over the years about her jumbled
sentences or her pompous walk
has bowed her head — she now
smiles timidly, laughs politely and
says “sorry” and “thank you” to an
indifferent barista. I have softened
her into the picture of a sweet and
harmless immigrant. I wish I hadn’t.
Maybe I hoped to bend my mother
into roles which I imagined could
seamlessly weave us into the rest of
the American fabric.
At twelve,
I walked out of
libraries holding books which
transformed me into a depressed,
wealthy private schoolboy by the
name of Holden Caulfield. Even now,
I imagine myself with a cigarette in
hand, classic brown loafers adorning
my feet and black liner smeared
across my eyes, just like Margot
Tenenbaum.
Lara Jean, a bright and clumsy
Korean-American girl proclaiming
her love for a white boy in “To All
The Boys I’ve Loved Before” does
not strike a chord in me, despite
the distant pride I feel in seeing
an Asian American actor play a
lead role in a romcom. Watching a
Korean immigrant family move into
Arkansas in search of their American
Dream story in “Minari” feels oddly
unfamiliar compared to watching
a Black classical pianist in the Jim
Crow South in “Green Book.” But
perhaps those half-baked media
representations are unsettling, like
someone has ripped pages out of my
diary and revealed it for the world to
see.
I molded my persona not just
from fictional characters, but real
life ones, too. In middle school, I
remember
imitating
Instagram
photos of prepubescent white girls in
bikinis and craning my neck to peer
at the logo imprints on shopping bags
they carried. I scrambled for a vacant
seat among pale skin, blue eyes and
yellow locks like it was a mad dash
for a musical chair.
When I moved from Arizona and
settled into a town in New Jersey with
a dense Asian American population,
I felt bitter toward the small posse of
girls who had relocated from Korea,
whispering secrets in class in their
mother language and not bothering
to mix with others. I did not listen
to K-pop or watch K-dramas even
as my white peers became obsessive
BLACKPINK stans. It was my
own insecurities which told me:
whiteness is superior.
I look back at my high school years
and feel as though a part of my heart
has to be rotten from hating my own
people and hating myself for hating
my own people.
I feel like a coward thinking about
how, at the age of eighteen, uttering
my own name, Minjae, makes my
stature shrink and the tails of my
sentences crawl back inside of me.
The syllables of my
name search for
shelter from the
vulnerability
of
being
spoken in
front of
my
white
peers
who might no longer care, or at least
are old enough to know not to bully
me anymore.
***
My brother changed his name
from Donghyun to David on his
U.S. citizenship application last
year. Though his reasons included
the
appealing
opportunity
to
step an extra foot into American
society, he was explicit about the
inconvenience and discomfort he felt
having to correct all of the various
mispronunciations of his name.
Minari actor Youn Yuh-Jung
dedicated a portion of her Oscar
speech to highlighting this shared
experience: “As you know I am from
Korea, and my name is Yuh-Jung
Youn, and most European people call
me Yuh-young, and some of them
call me Yoo-jung, but tonight you are
all forgiven.”
After shedding a name my
grandma selected, my brother tells
me that he regrets his decision. In
part, it’s because changing names
on multiple legal documents was
troublesome. But mostly, he feels as
though he has erased our grandma’s
careful choosing from 20 years ago,
and with that, erased his ethnic
heritage.
***
For
Asian
immigrants,
the
practice of anglicizing names began
as a measure against racism and
xenophobia when they first came
to the United States in a major wave
in the late 1800s. Marian Smith,
United States Citizenship and
Immigration
Services
historian,
writes,
“Any change that
might
smooth
their
way
to
the
American
dream was seen
as a step in the
right direction.”
So great was the
pressure to assimilate
and survive between 1900
and 1930 that, “about 86% of
all boys and 93% of all girls born to
immigrants had an American name.”
Now, a century later, it is uncommon
for third and fourth generation
immigrants to hold an Asian name
at all.
The
immigrant’s
assimilation
into America is regarded with such
high esteem that, my mom tells me,
wealthy parents in Korea send their
preschool children to “American”
schools where they are required
to adopt an American name and
converse only in English. It is with
pride that wealthy Koreans can
afford to become “white” and live
among white people.
Jay Caspian Kang, author of “The
Loneliest Americans,” writes: “We
know, at least subconsciously, that
the identity politic of the modern,
assimilated
Asian
American
is
focused on getting a seat at the
wealthy
white
liberal
table.”
Moreover, “We want our children …
to have the spoils of full whiteness.”
The advantages of using an
American name are ever-present:
A 2016 research study found that
“whitened” resumes are twice as
likely to produce job callbacks.
Some acts are more overt; an
Asiana Airlines plane crash in 2013
prompted what KTVU news station
considered to be a joke, reporting
incorrect names of four pilots: “Sum
Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk,
and Bang Ding Ow.” Michelle Go’s
death last month was a reminder of
the collective grief Asian Americans
have felt in the rise of anti-Asian
violence since COVID-19.
Yet, as multiculturalism becomes
more widespread, I am hopeful of
possibilities of creating an identity,
and choosing a name, with less
fear and more intention. Should we
continue to use American names
with ethnic names residing in the
background? Or have we second
generation immigrants walked too
far into the second half of “Korean-
American” to now reverse pedal
back to original intent? How much of
“Korean” is left in Korean-American?
And should I reclaim it before it is too
late?
What I’ve realized for now is that
I have spent far too long constructing
an identity built on shame, denial and
disgust.
Too much have I felt, internalized
and been molded by the white gaze. I
have checked off “Asian American”
on legal documents without so much
as a second thought, and my Asian
heritage has only played a role in
my identity through my visceral
reactions against it.
I am ready to embrace my Korean
heritage with an open mind and an
open heart — if not for myself, then
for my parents, who did not have
the freedom to consider their place
in America with seriousness. To
listen to my Korean friend’s K-pop
song suggestions with an open ear,
to catch a reflection of myself in
Korean-American stories and to
learn to love every part of myself and
my identity.
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
Design by Sam Turner
Page Design by Sarah Chung