NORTH OF THE FORTRESS, SOUTH OF THE FOREST

Visual Poetry Journal
 
"Today I received the news you have been found. They send you three letters, but they remain unanswered.
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I don’t know how giving up a child lives on in you physically and mentally. Maybe in the beginning, you feel pain, numb, and try to feel nothing at all. At a certain point, emotions soften, become less sharp, and somewhat blurry. This moment in your life becomes just like a second in a minute, then an hour, a year, and eventually a decade. Something that can even be forgotten. It may pop up now and then, but it can also be tugged away more quickly and smoothly over time. Have you told your husband and perhaps other children? Has it become a secret that no one can ever unearth? This darkness, which must be overshadowed by light, so that everyone in your surroundings stays blinded. Is it something people should never speak about within the family?
 
Have these letters awakened past emotions? I think almost every painful experience eventually loses its original impact and becomes tolerable. Maybe for you, I have reached the status of tolerable and somewhat uneventful."
 
Aram Tanis was born in Seoul, but spent his formative years in the Netherlands, where he lived in a predominantly white neighborhood and attended schools that lacked diversity. As a person of Asian descent, he stood out among his parents, relatives, peers, and the media figures he saw on television. During his adolescence, he actively sought individuals who shared his identity, but was disappointed to find a dearth of role models. Consequently, he has always been acutely aware of his distinctiveness.
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When Aram Tanis visited South Korea twenty years ago, he did not speak the language and didn’t know his way around in South Korea. Now, 20 years later, South Korea, and in particular Seoul, has become a place of home and familiarity. It is a place where he feels more complete and connected with his Asian roots. The smells, sounds, lights, architecture, people, and food have become part of his conscious identity. When he walks the streets and can smell the Bulgogi or the Bibimbap, it triggers a sense of happiness. When he is on the subway and hears familiar sounds coming from the speaker, it feels so normal, like it has always been a part of his life. The locations where this new work has been created are familiar and are linked to memories created over the last two decades.
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For Aram Tanis, this notion of 'Feeling at Home’ has always been a complicated one. For him, home is connected with his identity. As a child, he always wanted to look Caucasian. No Asian eyes. No flat nose. Looking white was the answer to his uncertainties. Once Tanis was in Suwon, a city near Seoul. Streets filled with clinics. Plastic surgery is a booming business in Korea, and Suwon is one of the places to be to erase part of your Asian identity. Once, he visited such a clinic, and as he walked in, he entered a huge waiting room. It looked more like a dining hall. Everywhere were big, round wooden tables. On each table, a hand mirror was placed. At one of the tables sat a girl, around 20 years old, looking at herself in the hand mirror. Every little detail in her face she closely inspected. Finally, she put the mirror down to pick it up again a few seconds later. This ritual she repeated several times. Observing the whole thing made Tanis feel anxious enough. He changed his mind and walked out of the clinic.
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Over time, it has become clearer what it means to be Korean to Aram Tanis, and as he feels more at home in his own skin, he also feels more at home in South Korea. Now that he has become a father himself, his Korean identity plays an even bigger role in his personal and work life.