Thursday, April 25, 1996
Korean author Lee brings culture to life in latest bookBy Jason
Packman
Daily Bruin Contributor
At 27, UCLA graduate Helie Lee traveled through East Asia with
only a backpack, trying to find herself.
At 27, her grandmother, Hongyong Baek, almost 50 years before,
traveling the same train routes as Lee, already had a husband and
three children.
Only after returning from her time in Asia did Lee actually
comprehend what kind of life her grandmother had led. This
realization led her to spend five years of her life researching and
writing Baek’s life story. She will be signing and reading from
that memoir, "Still Life with Rice," today at Kerckhoff Art Gallery
at 4 p.m.
Lee grew up hearing her grandmother’s stories, but not listening
to them.
"I was so busy going to fraternity and sorority parties and
having a great American experience that I never paid attention to
her," says Lee. "I always thought that she was back-country, with
her crude dress on and her no make-up face."
She lived part of that American experience at UCLA, where she
graduated with a degree in International Relations and Political
Science. The job she got after graduation didn’t exactly reflect
all the hard work she had done during her years as a Bruin.
"I was working at a cheesy music place in the middle of Santa
Monica Boulevard," she says. "All they did was book cheesy
Beatlemania shows and imitation performers who imitate dead
people."
Not thrilled with her line of work, she decided to leave what
had been home for most of her life and go back to Korea, where she
lived until she was four years old.
"I just decided to go back to Korea to work and to figure out
who I was and where I came from and study the language," she
says.
With a UCLA diploma in her pocket, getting work in Korea was
easy. Working variously for the Korean Broadcasting System, the New
York Times, and as an English teacher, she was able to start to
discover who she was.
"When I went out into the world was when I really started
discovering who I was and where my place was in the world and how
many opportunities where available to me," she says.
After traveling extensively throughout East Asia, she returned
to America more secure about her identity. She could also speak
Korean well enough to really understand who her grandmother really
was.
"I started talking to her in her own language, and because I was
more proficient in it, I really understood how educated she was,"
she says, "I really started admiring her."
It was then that she decided to actually put her grandmother’s
life on paper. She thought that it was important to record her
grandmother’s story for posterity.
"After listening, I felt that I really want to remember this and
I want to record this for my cousins and my brother, who really
don’t know my grandmother and save it for them," she says, "and
save it for my children, who won’t have the fortune of (knowing)
what a great legacy of woman we come from."
With the idea of just writing a small little book to give to the
family, she set out to interview her grandmother. She ended up with
about 100 hours of taped interviews and five full notebooks. Her
small 20-page book grew quickly.
"I ended up having 500 pages and being fired from my job," she
says.
Losing her job and writing full time led her to worry about
keeping her apartment, not to mention what her landlord might
think.
"I had a nosy landlord and I am so paranoid and I always kind of
worry what people are thinking of me, because I’m always trying to
be the nice Korean girl," she says. "If he saw me in my apartment
every single day writing he might discover that I am unemployed and
he might evict me because I have no income coming in. It’s just
like I’m so young and unmarried and he probably thinks I’m really
flaky."
So she shut all her windows and curtains and sat in the dark,
writing everyday. Finishing the actual writing in a little over
three months, the book was her life for that period of time.
"I write in my grandmother’s voice, first person, and because I
think I understand the essence of being a Korean woman and loving
my grandmother so much it just flowed from me. I didn’t even have
to think about what I was writing about."
She was so overwhelmed by the book, sitting in her dark
apartment that, once she was done, she wasn’t quite sure what time
of year it was.
"I was so surprised that it was summertime."
EVENT: Helie Lee will be reading and signing from her new book,
"Still Life With Rice" today at 4 p.m. in Kerckhoff Art
Gallery.
Author Helie Lee with her grandmother.