The Magical Language Of Others
In The Magical Language of Others, I was looking for a moving story. The book beautifully offers that and then some. It will undoubtedly touch common elements in each reader’s experience, while at the same time providing a poignant context of one woman’s (and. The Magical Language of Othersis a powerful and aching memoir, a tale of deep bonds to family, place, and language. After living in America for over a decade, Eun Ji Koh’s parents return to South Korea for work, leaving fifteen-year-old Eun Ji and her brother behind in California.
The Magical Language of Others by EJ Koh | Memoir | Tin House Books | 209 pages | Review by Firqin Sumartono
The Magical Language of Others is a poetically written memoir by E.J. Koh, who chronicles her life as a daughter to Korean immigrant parents in America. Koh was motivated to write this book after discovering 49 letters from her mother in her possession after her mother has passed away. In the process, she learns that in the Buddhist tradition, 49 is the number of days a soul wanders on earth for answers before traversing into the afterlife. The book contains raw and powerful language that makes it impossible not to note that Koh was trained in creative writing and poetry. Her words are like her title, magical and touch the depths of human emotions.
“To be a translator is to speak in your mother’s voice.”
Translation of her mother’s letters form the skeleton and backbone of Koh’s stunning memoir. With another translator’s encouragement, she chooses to interpret her mother’s letters and read these letters with fresh eyes. Her mother’s letters were a “one-way correspondence” because “Korean was language far from (her).” The translations feel halting as opposed to the elegant prose of Koh’s writings. However, I believe it was not a reflection of Koh’s Korean but an apt interpretation of her mother’s simple writing. Koh’s mother often peppered her letter with English translation, aware that Koh may not understand difficult Korean words. The letters counterbalance Koh’s feelings of abandonment and help illustrate her mother’s painful decisions. It paints Koh’s mother, like all parents, as a fallible human who is just trying their best.
Koh’s memoir explores the damage and emotional abandonment that follows when her parents chose to leave America. They leave Koh under her older brother’s care for better financial prospects in Korea. Pragmatically, we may see this as a financially wise decision; however, at 14, Koh grows to resent her parent’s decision. Her memoir is ultimately an ode to complicated mother-daughter relationships. It is undeniable that Koh’s mother loves her. However, Koh’s silence and her often quiet demeanour is a testament to the frustration and resentment she harbours because of her parents’ sacrifice. Much like her mother’s writings, Koh’s prose hints at the depths of agony and the aching need for closeness that she experiences but never clearly states nor expresses to her mother.
Intergenerational Trauma
While the book is centred around Koh’s relationship with her mother, there are chapters dedicated to her grandmother’s harrowing life. These chapters are outstanding and provide a nuanced understanding of the type of trauma and pain passed unwittingly and unconsciously to the next generation. From Koh’s excavation of her family history, it becomes clear that we do not exist in a vacuum. Rather, the relationship we share between each generation and the women in our lives are heavily influenced by the politics and wars of the time. Koh’s life in America was undeniably the product of the sacrifices her ancestors made. Furthermore, Koh expertly depicts the similarities of the struggles the assault each generation.
Language and Expression
Despite the sadness of Koh’s prose and writing, the book has a happy ending. We read about how Koh learns to wield language as a tool to express the depths of her emotions. Throughout the early pages of the book, Koh’s voice is almost absent. She positions herself as an observer who lacks any opinion: a perfect example of a good Asian daughter. We only feel her longing for her parents through what she hints at, but we are never fully privy to her more profound emotions. This changes when she enters postgraduate school in New York. Her voice becomes louder and excited. Her insecurities about her writing and feelings become clear for readers to see. We see her eventually grow into herself, no longer her mother’s daughter, but her own woman.
Koh’s training as a poet is evident in the sadness that fills the book. She learns to use language as a medium to connect with others, and the product is this poignant memoir. The Magical Language of Others brings us along Koh’s journey in learning about her family history, the familiar struggle most mother-daughter relationships experience, and the role politics and war play on the individual and subsequent generations.
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Eun Ji Koh was a typical Californian teenager before her immigrant parents surprised Koh and her brother with some startling news. Her father had been offered a far more lucrative job back in Seoul than he could ever expect to be offered in the US. It isn’t uncommon for immigrants to return to their countries of birth for better employment opportunities, but in this case Koh and her brother would be staying behind.
In her new memoir, The Magical Language of Others, Koh shows the damage that ensues when leaving one’s children during their teenage years for no reason but selfishness.
At first, Koh’s brother felt that he could care for his sister. Koh, aged fourteen when her father received this job offer, was too young to know any better. And her parents viewed this opportunity not as missed years with their children, but as making up for lost time away from their country of birth. It was not something they could easily pass up.
Should my parents move to Seoul, they would be sensible parents, well paid, confident with tall backs from splendored living. My father, a top-tier executive. My mother, reunited with brothers and sister she had left behind seventeen years ago. Two luxury cars, a condo in a skyscraper, shopping sprees at the company-owned department store, new friends like themselves, could be theirs.
When her parents left for Seoul, Koh also left the family’s Bay Area family home for Davis, California, where her brother was attending university. From the age of 15, Koh became parentless and it gravely affected her teenage and early adult years. She skipped school and spent days in a park, only to return to school as the final bell rang and her brother picked her up. They return home and Koh slept for twelve hours. Eating disorders and thoughts of suicide followed.
Koh talked to her mother on the phone regularly. But after being back in Seoul for nineteen months, Koh’s mother started to write to her daughter on a weekly basis, mostly in Korean. Koh saved forty-nine of these letters, some of which are reproduced in the pages of The Magical Language of Others. Her mother’s letters show a narcissism that discounts their separation.
Today, your Auntie’s visiting from Daejeon. She’s buying a coat and wants Mommy to go with her. Her birthday passed, end of November, so she said her sons gave her money. She’s probably riding the bus to Seoul now. Mommy will go along with her to pick something out, then make her buy me delicious food. Must be nice, right? I know. Mommy has it so good. For the 1 year and 5 months I have left, I’ve got to have fun with my big sister.
But mother and daughter were not reunited in a little more than a year. Koh’s parents ended up staying away for a total of nine years as Koh’s father accepted one extended contract after another. Time away from their children was always framed as sacrifices for the family and the chance to spend more time with relatives in Korea. But Koh and her brother viewed it for what it was: abandonment.
Koh’s prose is elegant and beautiful. Forgiveness becomes a major theme of the memoir; it’s through Koh’s undergraduate and graduate studies in poetry, creative writing, and translation that she learned more about the realms of forgiveness. And it was poetry that in the end saved her life, allowing her to speak about her mother, memories and loss.
Despite, or perhaps because of, her parents’ apparent prioritizing Asian opportunities over their posterity, Koh has chosen a particularly public American way—writing a book—to come to terms with her parents’ choices during her teenage years. Her parents may never understand her dedication to poetry, but towards the end of The Magical Language of Others Koh’s mother showed that she just might get it even without taking responsibility for the pain she caused Koh by leaving during her formative years.
Ancient Magical Language
“You have no idea how long you’ll write poetry for—maybe one day you’ll say, ‘It’s not for me anymore!’ You don’t know what’s coming, but I know everything. You were supposed to be a poet. In a previous life, you died with the wish to come back and tell people the truth.”
The Magical Language Of Others
“Stop,” I said, exhausted. “Stop talking—”
“How long will you punish me?” she asked.
My mother refused to come back to the cabin until I apologized. But I could not say sorry because of how it might feel to see the pride in her face, as if the way I had grown taller and prouder was a result of her raising me.
Susan Blumberg-Kason is the author of Good Chinese Wife: A Love Affair with China Gone Wrong.