“But I’m here, one small piece of a great family that somehow survived, albeit in fragments. It is unlikely that my own American children—when they are born and grow into teenagers—wiil care about a country so far away, about ancestors whose names they cannot pronounce. Their connection to Korea will be even more tenuous than mine, and when I am an old halmoni myself, the story of my family will be lost among the stories of all the others whose lives could not be put back into place.” (p. 44)
Title- The Language of Blood: A Memoir
Author- Jane Jeong Trenka
Genre- Memoir, Biography
Length- 221 pages
Published- Borealis Books, 2003, St. Paul: Minnesota.
Website- www.languageofblood.com
The Language of Blood by Jane Jeong Trenka is memoir written in deeply personal, reflective language of prose and memory. Jane’s style of writing is a beautiful blend of the classical style of memoir, which tends to be poetic with descriptive yet short chapters, and the witty, sharp style of writing that has defined American literature. Many forms of violence are discussed in The Language of Blood, which is why I included this review on “Shadow Wings”.
In The Language of Blood, Jane recounts her experiences as a Korean adoptee living in a rugged, unchanging small town in the extreme north of Minnesota. Jane is candid in her undertaking of intense and personal examination of the place she belongs within her adoptive and birth families, within American and Korean culture, and ultimately within her self. I could relate to many of Jane’s experiences, and the mythical weaving and piecing together of fragmented history and memory not as an adoptee but as a multi-racial woman living in the Midwest. My own journey reconnecting to lost family and seeking answers within the stories and heritage of my family parallel many of Jane’s experiences, as did the ignorance and prejudice often faced in society, and by those seeking to form you within the limitations of their own cultural norms. The prejudice Jane encounters is often portrayed in a humorous manner—as a personal ad or a stand up comedy routine—but the anger and hurt within her voice is not diminished. Indeed, Jane is able to cause the reader to examine our society’s own interpretations of race, and prejudice towards Asian people by exposing cultural norms and perceptions with the plain, ugly language of bigotry so often shrugged off as normal. Even within her birth family, Jane encounters rifts and misunderstanding of her Korean identity and inability to be like everyone else. Jane begins to question why her family chose to adopt her, and seeks resolution within the context of the history and experiences of her adoptive family, and her tenuous relationship as an adopted daughter. The strength of The Language of Blood is its multifaceted perspective, and poetic way of drawing insight and emotion from life. Jane later writes to her birth mother (Umma) in Korea and as an adult, travels to Korea to reconnect with her birth family. Much of what Jane is searching for, and searching to connect to is within the intuitive, familial “language of blood”.
Violence is also a pervasive theme in The Language of Blood. Jane’s ancestry is marked with violence in the wars and genocide of Korean history, and the memory of destruction that is still present in the survivors and their descendants. Violence is present in the treatment of women as property, as objects, as less than—felt both within traditional Korean values and within American culture that often objectives Asian women as exotic, sexual temptresses. Jane is also stalked by a man, and recounts her horrifying experiences as this man threatens her, breaks into her house and tries to kill her. It was interesting reading about the stalker because I got the feeling that Jane’s adoptive parents tried to protect and were sympathetic but there was no sense of nurturing from her adoptive parents, no sense that they tried to reach out to Jane or help her with the suffering caused by being stalked. Rather, Jane seeks help on her own—and in many cases, feels she is being told to “just get over it” or somehow she is responsible for being stalked. Some of the messages are implied, like the stereotype that Asian women are submissive, exotic sexual temptresses that cause men to lust after them. As a result, Jane suffers from depression, nightmares and pervasive fear. Her relationships with men are troubled. Jane finds understanding and a sense of solace from another woman, a jail guard, who is harassed and terrorized by her stalker while he is in prison. After being stalked and almost killed, Jane goes through various forms of mental health treatment, hospitalizations and medications that all fail to help. Then Jane discovers a book called Trauma and Recovery by Judith Lewis Herman and begins to understand that she is not crazy, (p.81) “I came to understand that what I had gone through was the psychic equivalent of terrorism, that there was a name for all those anxiety attacks, all the nightmares, the depression: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I had been diagnosed with all kids of other things, from borderline personality disorder to schizotypic personality disorder, from major-axis depression to manic depressive. But here, in my hands, was a shiny blue book that named what was truly wrong with me. If you can give it a name, you can look it in the eye and master it. Oh, and it wasn’t my fault.” The message of “it wasn’t my fault” is a truth, and in turn, begins the steps to healing, making it possible for Jane to later marry and start a family of her own.
Domestic violence is also discussed in The Language of Blood; it is the reason why Umma gives Jane and an older sister up for adoption in America. Jane’s father is a violent man who threw Jane out of a window as a baby because he did not want her, and terrorizes his own family with abuse. On several occasions, Umma is almost killed. She eventually flees and spends many years in hiding, even becoming homeless and living on the streets with her children to escape her husband. In searching for the answers to her past, Jane questions why Umma gave her up for adoption. At first it seems that Umma does not respond or is not able to provide Jane with an answer. Then later, with the help of an interpreter (no easy feat, and for which she would have paid for) Umma reveals her story to Jane of surviving abuse, and while together, shows Jane the various scars that she will bear for life. Umma begs her daughter for forgiveness for having given her away, forgiveness has become the words she repeats, hoping Jane will understand, hoping to seek rest for her soul. Despite the language barrier, gestures and a deep connection brought through love, bind Jane and her mother together, through the intuitive “language of blood”. Blood becomes transformed from the spilling of violence to something metaphysical and essential in the forming of self, and the discovery of authentic power.
In candid language Jane describes her experiences with violence, whose resolution is not so easily defined. A “happy ending” is not definitive or given with a simple answer—but for the survivors, life prevails. I felt, though, that Jane’s relationship to Umma was revealing and relevant. My favorite aspect of The Language of Blood is described in Jane’s journey to seek her Korean family, and her love and devotion for Umma. Umma, Jane’s birth mother, used both determination and street smarts to find her lost daughter in America, against all odds she was able to procure Jane’s address in Minnesota. Even while living in desperate poverty, Umma sends gifts to the family who adopted Jane to thank them for caring for her daughter, and even assists the help of a translator so she can communicate to her daughter, who has forgotten her mother tongue. Jane later travels to Korea to meet her family, and lives among them rather than staying in a hotel—she describes herself as changing, and discovering both freedom, displacement and belonging while being among her own people. Jane comes to love Korea because of her family. Jane also cares for Umma while she is dying of cancer, I was deeply touched by her love and respect for her mother—that she would even give her own life to spare Umma from the ravages of cancer. Jane had a way of imparting her love and emotion to Umma in such a way that I felt as if I was reading a love letter, (p.150),”I wish I could join Umma in her mind, so I could give voice to that tiny baby, tell her how much I love her. I want to enter the sad story she remembered for so long and change its ending to something happy, change it into the fairy-tale life she dreamed of when she was only a girl herself, when she had a mother. Most of all, I want to tell her that with her two words—ipun eggi—she has changed the rest of my story: I have never felt so wanted or loved, and this will be my deep well of strength, beginning at this moment—here, now, with her.” The images and feelings I felt from Jane’s descriptions of Umma and her family in Korea have remained with me.
I highly recommend The Language of Blood.
– Lynn Mari, 2008
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