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The Magical Language of Others
The Magical Language of Others is a powerful and aching love story in letters, from mother to daughter. 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. Overnight, Eun Ji finds herself abandoned and adrift in a world made strange by her mother’s absence. Her mother writes letters, in Korean, over the years seeking forgiveness and love—letters Eun Ji cannot fully understand until she finds them years later hidden in a box.
As Eun Ji translates the letters, she looks to history—her grandmother Jun’s years as a lovesick wife in Daejeon, the horrors her grandmother Kumiko witnessed during the Jeju Island Massacre—and to poetry, as well as her own lived experience to answer questions inside all of us. Where do the stories of our mothers and grandmothers end and ours begin? How do we find words—in Korean, Japanese, English, or any language—to articulate the profound ways that distance can shape love? Eun Ji Koh fearlessly grapples with forgiveness, reconciliation, legacy, and intergenerational trauma, arriving at insights that are essential reading for anyone who has ever had to balance love, longing, heartbreak, and joy.
The Magical Language of Others weaves a profound tale of hard-won selfhood and our deep bonds to family, place, and language, introducing—in Eun Ji Koh—a singular, incandescent voice.
As Eun Ji translates the letters, she looks to history—her grandmother Jun’s years as a lovesick wife in Daejeon, the horrors her grandmother Kumiko witnessed during the Jeju Island Massacre—and to poetry, as well as her own lived experience to answer questions inside all of us. Where do the stories of our mothers and grandmothers end and ours begin? How do we find words—in Korean, Japanese, English, or any language—to articulate the profound ways that distance can shape love? Eun Ji Koh fearlessly grapples with forgiveness, reconciliation, legacy, and intergenerational trauma, arriving at insights that are essential reading for anyone who has ever had to balance love, longing, heartbreak, and joy.
The Magical Language of Others weaves a profound tale of hard-won selfhood and our deep bonds to family, place, and language, introducing—in Eun Ji Koh—a singular, incandescent voice.
209 pages, Hardcover
First published January 6, 2020
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About the author
E.J. Koh
5 books369 followersAuthor of poetry collection A LESSER LOVE, winner of the Pleiades Editors Prize (Louisiana State University Press, 2017), and memoir THE MAGICAL LANGUAGE OF OTHERS (Tin House, 2020). Koh's poems, translations, and stories have appeared in Academy of American Poets, Prairie Schooner, Boston Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Slate, and World Literature Today.
Koh accepted fellowships from the American Literary Translators Association, MacDowell Colony, Kundiman, Vermont Studio Center, and others.
Koh accepted fellowships from the American Literary Translators Association, MacDowell Colony, Kundiman, Vermont Studio Center, and others.
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April 13, 2020Wow this ended up being heavier than I expected to be when it comes to the content explored. (Triggers for eating disorders & suicide) I can't say that I loved the way in which this book was written as at times I found it to be a little disjointed. Despite that though the story still packed a punch as we see how Eun Ji overcame all the difficulties she was confronted with. I love the fact that she ended up finding a safety net through writing poetry. Eun Ji's story is built up on a very complicated relationship that she has with her mother. Her mother longs to have a strong relationship with her daughter, but that's difficult due to the distance between them and also her inability to reach a deeper connection further than surface level. While this book was incredibly sad at times, I found myself invested the whole way through.
February 10, 2022
Pogo-stick time!
Wow! What a secret little gem of a memoir I stumbled upon! Wait. I’m lying. It’s my daughter who stumbled upon it. Geez, I must give her credit! She gave this book to me for my birthday; she had scanned the shelves of a beloved huge bookstore here in Seattle, and had found this one, which had lots of accolades. I was polite but all I could hear was my TBR mountain moaning loudly. “I’ll read it down the road,” I thought—I’ve heard nothing about this book, and I don’t want to take my chances. But my daughter, who could tell I was lying when I said I’d “get to it soon,” was having none of it. She insisted I read it next—AND that I not go on Goodreads to check it out. Can you imagine that? Could I actually follow her instructions, Goodreads junkie that I am? I was jones’n to see what friends had to say about it, completely jones’n! Well, I’m proud to say I didn’t peek at all—ha, you know we always have to do what our adult children tell us to do (though I draw the line at murder).
So I was ecstatic when my whole being immediately sat up and listened as I started reading; the words plugged into my heart and my soul right away and carried me away to that spot I go to when a book has magic. The language is poetic, the insights are many. This is now one of my all-time favorite memoirs, right up there with The Chronology of Water and The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After (all three of them are completely different, I have to say).
This book is written by a young Korean woman, E. J. Koh, who was 15 and living in California when her mother and father decided to move to Korea when he got a job offer he couldn’t’ refuse. Koh goes and lives with her older brother. The facts of the story sound like what you’d hear in any memoir. All the normal stuff. She has mommy issues. She feels abandoned. She struggles to find her niche in the world. She talks about her grandmothers—these are fascinating stories, as one of them lived through a massacre.
Koh has some mental issues but she doesn’t go into them in depth. But we do know a bit about how she is reacting internally, and that makes her story more poignant and nuanced. She tells us how she feels mostly by leaving the slate blank, through the absence of conversation and descriptions of feelings. We get the gist, and it made me feel for her.
We get to watch Koh’s journey to poet-hood and it’s super interesting. She probably would say that poetry saved her life. You can tell she’s a poet by the way she wrote this book—completely luscious language.
What really makes this memoir stand out is its unusual structure. Interspersed throughout Koh’s story are letters from her mother. Koh has translated the letters and even includes copies of the original letters in Korean. Her mom would throw in a few words in English, scattered among the Korean characters. It was a little like Where’s Waldo in that at first glance, you can’t see the English words. In fact, my daughter, who had read the intro to the book, was the one who told me to look for them. Up to that point, I had thought the letters to Koh were in Korean only, and I wondered why they were included in the book. Now I realize they were placed there for the reader to see the mom’s connection to the English language. This would be especially fascinating to linguists (which is sort of what my daughter is). The letters her mother writes are strange, in that they seem simultaneously emotional and unemotional. How can this be? Well, she talks about superficial things and says everything is fine, and she often talks in third person (VERY weird)—yet she also talks about her guilt in leaving her daughter, and she has some weird nuggets of truth. I loved reading the letters.
Here's an excerpt from one:
“Mommy got a little angry, but not at you. Mommy didn’t take good care of things and had thoughts like, ‘I’ve put you guys up in a very dirty place.’ If you lived with Mommy, you wouldn’t raise a dog and Eun Ji wouldn’t be alone at the house in Davis every day, right?”
And here are some excerpts from Koh’s story:
“They say a person has so unique a set of meanings we ought to be incapable of understanding each other, yet we speak and teach as if by magic.”
“While my mother liked cleanliness, I was satisfied to have my presence linger.”
“When you age, wrinkles don’t make you older. They make you look more like yourself,” she warned me. “Everything comes to the surface eventually.”
“What we see changes according to what we look for.”
“I’m not there, so your brother will take his anger out on you. Mommy knows all too well. Try to remember that he is mad at me, not you.”
Koh lived in Japan a while, so she knows some Japanese, in addition to speaking both English and Korean fluently. There is an ongoing thread about language and cultural differences, and I slurped them up. Interesting stuff.
The last bit of the book is set in Seattle, as Koh is here at the University of Washington, working on her Ph.D. It was fun to hear her describe places in my hood. After I finished the book, and was swooning over it as I talked to my daughter, she figured out that if Koh is teaching (like many graduate students are), she would be working in the same building as her (the languages building). Anyway, who knows whether she is teaching, but it’s fun to think that my daughter might pass her in the hallways.
Koh has a cool project she is doing (I’m sure it’s part of her Ph.D. study). She writes love letters to strangers. Check out this article to read about it. She writes Seattle a wonderful poem:
https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020...
This book has won many awards, but most are local. It’s published by a small press—meaning the marketing efforts aren’t as big or far-reaching. I hope people check out this memoir because it is absolutely fabulous! Pogo-sticky worthy, I’m telling you!
Wow! What a secret little gem of a memoir I stumbled upon! Wait. I’m lying. It’s my daughter who stumbled upon it. Geez, I must give her credit! She gave this book to me for my birthday; she had scanned the shelves of a beloved huge bookstore here in Seattle, and had found this one, which had lots of accolades. I was polite but all I could hear was my TBR mountain moaning loudly. “I’ll read it down the road,” I thought—I’ve heard nothing about this book, and I don’t want to take my chances. But my daughter, who could tell I was lying when I said I’d “get to it soon,” was having none of it. She insisted I read it next—AND that I not go on Goodreads to check it out. Can you imagine that? Could I actually follow her instructions, Goodreads junkie that I am? I was jones’n to see what friends had to say about it, completely jones’n! Well, I’m proud to say I didn’t peek at all—ha, you know we always have to do what our adult children tell us to do (though I draw the line at murder).
So I was ecstatic when my whole being immediately sat up and listened as I started reading; the words plugged into my heart and my soul right away and carried me away to that spot I go to when a book has magic. The language is poetic, the insights are many. This is now one of my all-time favorite memoirs, right up there with The Chronology of Water and The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After (all three of them are completely different, I have to say).
This book is written by a young Korean woman, E. J. Koh, who was 15 and living in California when her mother and father decided to move to Korea when he got a job offer he couldn’t’ refuse. Koh goes and lives with her older brother. The facts of the story sound like what you’d hear in any memoir. All the normal stuff. She has mommy issues. She feels abandoned. She struggles to find her niche in the world. She talks about her grandmothers—these are fascinating stories, as one of them lived through a massacre.
Koh has some mental issues but she doesn’t go into them in depth. But we do know a bit about how she is reacting internally, and that makes her story more poignant and nuanced. She tells us how she feels mostly by leaving the slate blank, through the absence of conversation and descriptions of feelings. We get the gist, and it made me feel for her.
We get to watch Koh’s journey to poet-hood and it’s super interesting. She probably would say that poetry saved her life. You can tell she’s a poet by the way she wrote this book—completely luscious language.
What really makes this memoir stand out is its unusual structure. Interspersed throughout Koh’s story are letters from her mother. Koh has translated the letters and even includes copies of the original letters in Korean. Her mom would throw in a few words in English, scattered among the Korean characters. It was a little like Where’s Waldo in that at first glance, you can’t see the English words. In fact, my daughter, who had read the intro to the book, was the one who told me to look for them. Up to that point, I had thought the letters to Koh were in Korean only, and I wondered why they were included in the book. Now I realize they were placed there for the reader to see the mom’s connection to the English language. This would be especially fascinating to linguists (which is sort of what my daughter is). The letters her mother writes are strange, in that they seem simultaneously emotional and unemotional. How can this be? Well, she talks about superficial things and says everything is fine, and she often talks in third person (VERY weird)—yet she also talks about her guilt in leaving her daughter, and she has some weird nuggets of truth. I loved reading the letters.
Here's an excerpt from one:
“Mommy got a little angry, but not at you. Mommy didn’t take good care of things and had thoughts like, ‘I’ve put you guys up in a very dirty place.’ If you lived with Mommy, you wouldn’t raise a dog and Eun Ji wouldn’t be alone at the house in Davis every day, right?”
And here are some excerpts from Koh’s story:
“They say a person has so unique a set of meanings we ought to be incapable of understanding each other, yet we speak and teach as if by magic.”
“While my mother liked cleanliness, I was satisfied to have my presence linger.”
“When you age, wrinkles don’t make you older. They make you look more like yourself,” she warned me. “Everything comes to the surface eventually.”
“What we see changes according to what we look for.”
“I’m not there, so your brother will take his anger out on you. Mommy knows all too well. Try to remember that he is mad at me, not you.”
Koh lived in Japan a while, so she knows some Japanese, in addition to speaking both English and Korean fluently. There is an ongoing thread about language and cultural differences, and I slurped them up. Interesting stuff.
The last bit of the book is set in Seattle, as Koh is here at the University of Washington, working on her Ph.D. It was fun to hear her describe places in my hood. After I finished the book, and was swooning over it as I talked to my daughter, she figured out that if Koh is teaching (like many graduate students are), she would be working in the same building as her (the languages building). Anyway, who knows whether she is teaching, but it’s fun to think that my daughter might pass her in the hallways.
Koh has a cool project she is doing (I’m sure it’s part of her Ph.D. study). She writes love letters to strangers. Check out this article to read about it. She writes Seattle a wonderful poem:
https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020...
This book has won many awards, but most are local. It’s published by a small press—meaning the marketing efforts aren’t as big or far-reaching. I hope people check out this memoir because it is absolutely fabulous! Pogo-sticky worthy, I’m telling you!
January 12, 2020
The below review originally appeared on Open Letters Review.
Nearly every teen girl has probably had their own Home Alone fantasy at least once. As one’s age ticks upward, so does the restlessness for independence, particularly from one’s mother. She’s embarrassing. She’s restrictive. She seems out to make you unhappy. But like Kevin McCallister’s startling realization, it’s only when that figure is truly absent that a child begins to understand the power of a parent’s presence.
E.J. Koh didn’t have much say in the matter when her parents, residents of the United States for a decade, announced they were repatriating to South Korea for a too-good-to-pass-up job opportunity. Sure, our author could have gone with them, but with a life fairly well established in California by age 14, it wasn’t exactly a consideration that stayed too long in her mind. Nor did it seem to be a mandate from her parents, who arranged for her to live with her older brother until she was ready to go off to college.
In 2005, her parents had been gone nineteen months when she began receiving handwritten letters from her mother, all in Korean except for a few English words peppered in. These letters supplemented other communication Koh had with her mother, but seem to have added something different. Translated by the author and collected in her new memoir, The Magical Language of Others, they read like an extended, fussing hand, hoping to hold onto that mother-daughter bond across an ocean of distance. Though we find out immediately that the author never wrote her mother back, we know the letters held immense meaning:
Once a week, a letter came. I heard her voice, closer than it felt over the phone. I read them in my room, sitting at the desk, standing in the doorway, lying on the bed. I folded the letter and slipped it into its envelope. I placed it on my nightstand. I kept her close. I read a letter once or twice. Moving my lips, I read it again. Each time, I hoped to see something new, a word that I had missed. When I put it away, a panic returned. I took out the same letter and, with no thought to what I had read before, started over.
There is no dissection of the letters or of the author’s feelings about the absence of her mother in those critical years of development into womanhood. Indeed, the letters are presented mainly without comment and in between the author’s recollections of those years of physical estrangement. She is not forthright with her feelings, but the selected memories hint at her emotions: an intensive language course in Japan at age seventeen unveils a need for belonging as she bonds with her fellow students; a story of her family background leads to a questioning of identity; finally, her dive into the world of poetry hints at her lingering resentment and feelings of abandonment.
There is a whole shadow self lingering behind the words of this book; it only suggests the true pain and longing that the reader can feel in the pit of their stomach. There is no doubt that a second book’s pages could be filled with all that’s left unsaid here. The absence of such words gives this book a quiet, melancholic tone. Wounds kept hidden in this book do not interrupt its smooth, elegant prose, though it is the literary equivalent of sweeping matters under the rug.
The void left by the absence of such a discussion leads to the consideration of what the mother-daughter pair may have missed out on during those years. As a teenager, a girl may push her mother away, but relies upon her like an anchor, leaving a trail of guide rope as the girl pushes herself further and further outward into the world. The learning of herself comes in the distancing, while knowing she can always come home. For our author, home could not be her mother because her mother was not at home.
Meanwhile, Koh mentions in her introductory passage (which doubles as her translator’s note) that her mother, at times in her letters, dips into the third-person perspective, referring to herself as “Mommy.” As the author notices, “Mommy addresses a child, who remains one in her letters.” She suspects that these moments were her mother’s act of parenting. Perhaps the guilt of leaving behind her children and the loss of the maternal role compelled her mother to put to paper these thoughts and pieces of advice as an attempt to reclaim an identity lost with the move.
The harsh reality that the book exposes is that what is gone is truly gone; as is true in family connections and in sleep, there is no making up for what was lost. The mother-daughter clash that the majority of pairs experience, especially in the teenage years, may be brutal, but it hardens the bond between them and cements their love. As both the author and her mother recognize, she largely raised herself in those years and though she did so admirably, the feeling of floating adrift remains with her as an adult. The loss, like the letters, lingers.
The Magical Language of Others is a beautiful, sorrowful kind of wandering into the past. It is the kind of recollection that has spikes, the ones that, despite the passing years, still tear at us when we pull them out of the proverbial, or even literal, closet.
Nearly every teen girl has probably had their own Home Alone fantasy at least once. As one’s age ticks upward, so does the restlessness for independence, particularly from one’s mother. She’s embarrassing. She’s restrictive. She seems out to make you unhappy. But like Kevin McCallister’s startling realization, it’s only when that figure is truly absent that a child begins to understand the power of a parent’s presence.
E.J. Koh didn’t have much say in the matter when her parents, residents of the United States for a decade, announced they were repatriating to South Korea for a too-good-to-pass-up job opportunity. Sure, our author could have gone with them, but with a life fairly well established in California by age 14, it wasn’t exactly a consideration that stayed too long in her mind. Nor did it seem to be a mandate from her parents, who arranged for her to live with her older brother until she was ready to go off to college.
In 2005, her parents had been gone nineteen months when she began receiving handwritten letters from her mother, all in Korean except for a few English words peppered in. These letters supplemented other communication Koh had with her mother, but seem to have added something different. Translated by the author and collected in her new memoir, The Magical Language of Others, they read like an extended, fussing hand, hoping to hold onto that mother-daughter bond across an ocean of distance. Though we find out immediately that the author never wrote her mother back, we know the letters held immense meaning:
Once a week, a letter came. I heard her voice, closer than it felt over the phone. I read them in my room, sitting at the desk, standing in the doorway, lying on the bed. I folded the letter and slipped it into its envelope. I placed it on my nightstand. I kept her close. I read a letter once or twice. Moving my lips, I read it again. Each time, I hoped to see something new, a word that I had missed. When I put it away, a panic returned. I took out the same letter and, with no thought to what I had read before, started over.
There is no dissection of the letters or of the author’s feelings about the absence of her mother in those critical years of development into womanhood. Indeed, the letters are presented mainly without comment and in between the author’s recollections of those years of physical estrangement. She is not forthright with her feelings, but the selected memories hint at her emotions: an intensive language course in Japan at age seventeen unveils a need for belonging as she bonds with her fellow students; a story of her family background leads to a questioning of identity; finally, her dive into the world of poetry hints at her lingering resentment and feelings of abandonment.
There is a whole shadow self lingering behind the words of this book; it only suggests the true pain and longing that the reader can feel in the pit of their stomach. There is no doubt that a second book’s pages could be filled with all that’s left unsaid here. The absence of such words gives this book a quiet, melancholic tone. Wounds kept hidden in this book do not interrupt its smooth, elegant prose, though it is the literary equivalent of sweeping matters under the rug.
The void left by the absence of such a discussion leads to the consideration of what the mother-daughter pair may have missed out on during those years. As a teenager, a girl may push her mother away, but relies upon her like an anchor, leaving a trail of guide rope as the girl pushes herself further and further outward into the world. The learning of herself comes in the distancing, while knowing she can always come home. For our author, home could not be her mother because her mother was not at home.
Meanwhile, Koh mentions in her introductory passage (which doubles as her translator’s note) that her mother, at times in her letters, dips into the third-person perspective, referring to herself as “Mommy.” As the author notices, “Mommy addresses a child, who remains one in her letters.” She suspects that these moments were her mother’s act of parenting. Perhaps the guilt of leaving behind her children and the loss of the maternal role compelled her mother to put to paper these thoughts and pieces of advice as an attempt to reclaim an identity lost with the move.
The harsh reality that the book exposes is that what is gone is truly gone; as is true in family connections and in sleep, there is no making up for what was lost. The mother-daughter clash that the majority of pairs experience, especially in the teenage years, may be brutal, but it hardens the bond between them and cements their love. As both the author and her mother recognize, she largely raised herself in those years and though she did so admirably, the feeling of floating adrift remains with her as an adult. The loss, like the letters, lingers.
The Magical Language of Others is a beautiful, sorrowful kind of wandering into the past. It is the kind of recollection that has spikes, the ones that, despite the passing years, still tear at us when we pull them out of the proverbial, or even literal, closet.
April 8, 2023
When Eun Ji was fifteen years of age, her immigrant parents moved back to Seoul, South Korea and left her with her older brother, nineteen years old. Eun Ji’s father was offered a higher paying job back in their homeland, and justified that their kids would be better off in the United States. They would be able to pay for their education, etc..
They had only planned to be gone a couple of years, but as things happened….
the parents didn’t return to the states for seven years.
They were living in Northern California. (Eun was born in a San Jose hospital not far from me in San Jose).
I knew right away — there would be major consequences of her parents choice….but I also understood their thinking.
But …in my opinion, the parents valued the American dream and all the opportunities for a better education in the states for their kids ‘more’ than they saw ‘they’ - ‘themselves’ - their love and relationship together was ‘more’ valuable than any hopeful opportunity.
And …. oh boy….once I started reading this memoir, I read through the night…..
“My first day, at fifteen I woke inside my old blanket, fooled into think that I was home. The room had a wooden desk, my same bed pushed against the wall, under a window facing the yard. There was a stucco ceiling and a mirrored closet. I looked for her in every room. When I could not find her, I felt as if I would die. In the kitchen, on the refrigerator, there was a paper note with her number. Her handwriting was evenly spaced. In the way she my arrange herself standing in a crowd.”
“Some say, brothers, cannot replace mothers and fathers. My mother called after she left, and said, ‘I’m not there, so your brother will take his anger out on you’. Mommy knows all too well. Try to remember that he is mad at me, not you’”.
This memoir leaves much to think about. Much is centered around the translation of Korean letters sent to Eun from her mother.
In those letters we learn how Eun’s mother was feeling … (sadness, and guilt primarily)
We get stories about Eun’s aunts, uncles, cousins, and South Korea itself …
… but it was the influence from her maternal and paternal grandparents where (for me anyway) …. I saw the bigger picture: past cultural generational inheritance and how family history repeats itself.
Yet …. when Eun was a child she had no intellectual conceptual understanding of her parents choices (love and compassion) for ‘them’ as they were ‘trying’ to do what was best for her.
Eun simply had her pain…..
real momentary loss and suffering from the abandonment.
Her parents might “never have known I would start to force up my food or starve myself”.
The letters -forty-nine - of them that ‘adult’ Eun recovers years later — was the inspiration for this memoir…
We see how Eun was piecing together her own memories-along with her mother’s history with her mother.
There are multiple themes …
love, loss, regret, cultural differences and personal impact.
But most …. for me ….it was a tender- very passionate acknowledgment… of the love a daughter had for her mother ….
and
a mothers love for her daughter …
It’s through Eun’s poetry where healing, forgiveness and reconciliation begin to happen.
“Eun Ji, I told them about you: You like poetry because you had a lot of pain in your heart. When you wrote a poem, you were seven surprised you felt a little better”.
“Languages as they open you, can also allow you to close. When I felt myself running toward seclusion, I heard my grandmother, and my great grandfather urging me to try—and how much harder one must try when learning to love. She never asked me to speak but to understand, rather than endure to forgive, and never to sacrifice, only to let go”.
“Eun Ji! Eat your rice. Drink less. Sleep well. Be happy. Bye. Good luck!”
Love Mom
May 10, 2010”
Hugely compassionate …
….written with grace, wisdom, and beauty.
They had only planned to be gone a couple of years, but as things happened….
the parents didn’t return to the states for seven years.
They were living in Northern California. (Eun was born in a San Jose hospital not far from me in San Jose).
I knew right away — there would be major consequences of her parents choice….but I also understood their thinking.
But …in my opinion, the parents valued the American dream and all the opportunities for a better education in the states for their kids ‘more’ than they saw ‘they’ - ‘themselves’ - their love and relationship together was ‘more’ valuable than any hopeful opportunity.
And …. oh boy….once I started reading this memoir, I read through the night…..
“My first day, at fifteen I woke inside my old blanket, fooled into think that I was home. The room had a wooden desk, my same bed pushed against the wall, under a window facing the yard. There was a stucco ceiling and a mirrored closet. I looked for her in every room. When I could not find her, I felt as if I would die. In the kitchen, on the refrigerator, there was a paper note with her number. Her handwriting was evenly spaced. In the way she my arrange herself standing in a crowd.”
“Some say, brothers, cannot replace mothers and fathers. My mother called after she left, and said, ‘I’m not there, so your brother will take his anger out on you’. Mommy knows all too well. Try to remember that he is mad at me, not you’”.
This memoir leaves much to think about. Much is centered around the translation of Korean letters sent to Eun from her mother.
In those letters we learn how Eun’s mother was feeling … (sadness, and guilt primarily)
We get stories about Eun’s aunts, uncles, cousins, and South Korea itself …
… but it was the influence from her maternal and paternal grandparents where (for me anyway) …. I saw the bigger picture: past cultural generational inheritance and how family history repeats itself.
Yet …. when Eun was a child she had no intellectual conceptual understanding of her parents choices (love and compassion) for ‘them’ as they were ‘trying’ to do what was best for her.
Eun simply had her pain…..
real momentary loss and suffering from the abandonment.
Her parents might “never have known I would start to force up my food or starve myself”.
The letters -forty-nine - of them that ‘adult’ Eun recovers years later — was the inspiration for this memoir…
We see how Eun was piecing together her own memories-along with her mother’s history with her mother.
There are multiple themes …
love, loss, regret, cultural differences and personal impact.
But most …. for me ….it was a tender- very passionate acknowledgment… of the love a daughter had for her mother ….
and
a mothers love for her daughter …
It’s through Eun’s poetry where healing, forgiveness and reconciliation begin to happen.
“Eun Ji, I told them about you: You like poetry because you had a lot of pain in your heart. When you wrote a poem, you were seven surprised you felt a little better”.
“Languages as they open you, can also allow you to close. When I felt myself running toward seclusion, I heard my grandmother, and my great grandfather urging me to try—and how much harder one must try when learning to love. She never asked me to speak but to understand, rather than endure to forgive, and never to sacrifice, only to let go”.
“Eun Ji! Eat your rice. Drink less. Sleep well. Be happy. Bye. Good luck!”
Love Mom
May 10, 2010”
Hugely compassionate …
….written with grace, wisdom, and beauty.
March 31, 2020
At 15 EJ suddenly finds herself moving in with her older 19 year old brother in California. Her father has accepted a lucrative position back in South Korea and EJ's mother and father have planned a return without them. This return means they will be "well paid, confident with tall backs from splendored living." Meanwhile what was to be a brief contract and separation goes from 2 years to 9 years away. In that time, abandoned by her parents, EJ skips school, develops an eating disorder and considers suicide while her mother sends self-absorbed and oblivious missives from Korea talking about shopping with aunts and convincing EJ that she is doing well, being strong. The letters are captured and translated here between chapters, a weird tonal counterpoint to the hardships EJ is enduring and the history she is excavating.
This is the third Korean book I've read this month where the dead can infect the dreams of the living. Here, as in The Kinship of Secrets, they are nightmares that can be translated as water seeping into the graves of grandparents. And such Korean han. Intergenerational trauma and stories of her ethnically Korean grandmother Kumiko born in Tokyo. She would escape to Korea to flee the country's suspicions and prejudice only to find herself in the midst of the Jeju Island massacre.
And then EJ finds poetry. Maybe I'm just trained to read and revere this love for words. It's thrilling to see how poetry gives EJ a place to find forgiveness. I'm a sucker for reading about an all consuming passion and the artist's discovery. All of this together creates such a strange literary collage that manages to cohere into something that speaks to a fragmented life, a notion of a hyphenated person, a second-generation, Asian-American.
This is the third Korean book I've read this month where the dead can infect the dreams of the living. Here, as in The Kinship of Secrets, they are nightmares that can be translated as water seeping into the graves of grandparents. And such Korean han. Intergenerational trauma and stories of her ethnically Korean grandmother Kumiko born in Tokyo. She would escape to Korea to flee the country's suspicions and prejudice only to find herself in the midst of the Jeju Island massacre.
And then EJ finds poetry. Maybe I'm just trained to read and revere this love for words. It's thrilling to see how poetry gives EJ a place to find forgiveness. I'm a sucker for reading about an all consuming passion and the artist's discovery. All of this together creates such a strange literary collage that manages to cohere into something that speaks to a fragmented life, a notion of a hyphenated person, a second-generation, Asian-American.
December 17, 2019
The Magical Language of Others is a story of memories. Much of this memoir is translated letters that Eun Ji received from her mother after her parents moved off to South Korea. Eun Ji and her brother were left completely alone in California. The mother's letters are littered with guilt about the abandonment, yet she never comes back for her daughter who isn't even an adult yet. They promised two years and then her father continues to sign renewal contracts for many more years. Her mother is also always seeking love and forgiveness in her letters, and wishing Eun Ji to take care of herself. You see little snippets of her life in school, as a dancer, and a poet...but I was left feeling like I wanted more. The part I enjoyed the most was learning a little about her grandparents' history on both her mother and father's side. I don't really know how to rate this book. I didn't love it or hate it... I just feel indifferent about it. However, It was unique and nicely written.
**Book was won in a Goodreads Giveaway - All opinions are my own**
**Book was won in a Goodreads Giveaway - All opinions are my own**
November 5, 2020
4/5stars
A uniquely told and beautiful memoir
A uniquely told and beautiful memoir
September 14, 2020
"You don't have to forgive your mother. I'm not telling you to forgive her. But the poem must forgive her, or the poem must forgive you for not. Otherwise, it's not a poem."
Magnanimity, a willingness to forgive. Memoirs are supposed to be personal. But reading The Magical Language of Others was like looking through a window into another person's life, and seeing my own reflection smudged against the glass. I never thought I'd read a book where I felt so clearly seen. I cherished and will continue to cherish this memoir. Thank you, E.J. Koh.
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edit: ALSO i just found out e.j. koh will be a guest lecturer in my english class?? must read asap !!!
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goddamn that's a beautiful cover (artwork by illustrator mi kyung choi)
February 22, 2022
A painful story of trauma, an eating disorder, and much more that I lost track of due to an abundance of pain.
The narration made me place myself in a position of detached involvement. I was detached as if half asleep while reading but also feeling the emotions. I felt this book more than understood it.
The narration made me place myself in a position of detached involvement. I was detached as if half asleep while reading but also feeling the emotions. I felt this book more than understood it.
June 5, 2021
sad times, pretty words
3.5*
3.5*
January 26, 2020
I was drawn to this book by the premise but also by the beautiful cover art.
It was hard to engage with in the beginning and after realizing that the author has a background in poetry, it started to make sense.
The strengths of this book are any section where the author talks about the past -- particularly when she describes the history of her grandparents.
The weaknesses of the book are that the timeline was wonky and disorienting. Also, any section with dialog (especially dialog with the author's mother) were choppy and difficult to connect with.
At the end of the day, I'm not a huge poetry person, so I'm not sure I was the correct audience for the writing style. I also wanted the author to go further with her inner reflections. We got glimpses of how her situation affected her, but for a memoir, I wanted more self-reflection and less exposition. It felt like the poetic prose was her way of coping with the situation, but it was a personal journey that I felt excluded from.
It was hard to engage with in the beginning and after realizing that the author has a background in poetry, it started to make sense.
The strengths of this book are any section where the author talks about the past -- particularly when she describes the history of her grandparents.
The weaknesses of the book are that the timeline was wonky and disorienting. Also, any section with dialog (especially dialog with the author's mother) were choppy and difficult to connect with.
At the end of the day, I'm not a huge poetry person, so I'm not sure I was the correct audience for the writing style. I also wanted the author to go further with her inner reflections. We got glimpses of how her situation affected her, but for a memoir, I wanted more self-reflection and less exposition. It felt like the poetic prose was her way of coping with the situation, but it was a personal journey that I felt excluded from.
September 28, 2020
Something different from what I imagined. Raw and real. Trigger warning: anorexia, depression, death.
May 8, 2021
Review to come.
February 22, 2020
2’5
“The world is a fun place. We are not born to win or lose against others. I am here to be happy for myself.
– An elephant does not think its trunk is heavy. If that is one’s (destiny, fate) and (responsibility), there is no weight, but rather, importance.
– What we see changes according to what we look for.
– God (disciplines, trains) humans by using time, not by cracking (a switch).
– In any suffering, happiness is crouched inside. We just don’t know where good and bad reside.
– If you love yourself, everything rolls along as it should. If you want to accomplish something, truly love yourself.
– Because faces are like books, people will read me on my face. (Continuously keep a good heart, guarding a peaceful life, and your expressions will read well.)”
“The world is a fun place. We are not born to win or lose against others. I am here to be happy for myself.
– An elephant does not think its trunk is heavy. If that is one’s (destiny, fate) and (responsibility), there is no weight, but rather, importance.
– What we see changes according to what we look for.
– God (disciplines, trains) humans by using time, not by cracking (a switch).
– In any suffering, happiness is crouched inside. We just don’t know where good and bad reside.
– If you love yourself, everything rolls along as it should. If you want to accomplish something, truly love yourself.
– Because faces are like books, people will read me on my face. (Continuously keep a good heart, guarding a peaceful life, and your expressions will read well.)”
April 1, 2022
The author and narrator, Eun Ji, was born in the US to Korean parents. When she was 15 and her brother 18, her parents decided to move back to Korea for a temporary job which was only meant to last three years. They left Eun Ji behind in California with her brother. Instead of three years, her parents were gone for seven years and Eun Ji struggled with anger, isolation, and loneliness through her teenage years. This pain sent her searching for family stories: of her grandmother Kumiko who survived WWII and the Jeju Island Massacre; of her grandmother Jun who survived years of her husband's infidelities until she died seemingly of a broken heart. Of her own mother, orphaned early, and her decisions to be present for siblings rather than her children. Eun Ji moved through identities- a student, a traveler, a dancer, a poet- and through languages- Korean, English and Japanese- trying to find her place in the world and a way to forgive her parents for leaving her. There's a lot of pain in this story, but the ultimate message seems to be that the only way to move past it is to face it and name it.
February 23, 2020
3.5 ⭐️
I’m not sure how I feel about this book. In one way it read of a flattened affect—detached. In another, it was so close to pain, like the millisecond before the burn hurts. It was an interesting and somewhat poetic take on generational trauma, and I yearned for a feeling of investment, or any feeling really, to come alive.
I’m not sure how I feel about this book. In one way it read of a flattened affect—detached. In another, it was so close to pain, like the millisecond before the burn hurts. It was an interesting and somewhat poetic take on generational trauma, and I yearned for a feeling of investment, or any feeling really, to come alive.
November 6, 2021
I bought this as soon as it came out and had it sitting on Kindle library since. I'd try to pick it up, hate it, leave it there, and then do this on repeat every couple of months. The thing is that whenever I would attempt to start reading it, I'd be confronted with the translation of the first of E.J. Koh's mother's letters. The letter feels awkward - there is no context at the beginning, the translation feels uncomfortable to read, and the mother's love feels suffocating and just clingy (if that makes sense).
The book had a set structure. You read a letter translated, you have a few scans of the said letter in Korean, and then the author provides an actual chapter of her memoir that is somehow (or it is not) related to the letter. Overall, the whole thing was attempting to present the story of E.J. Koh, her mother, and her grandmother following the Korean saying about being reborn as the person whom you have hurt the most. This is obvious throughout the whole book and you're left waiting to see if the author will realize or if she will be told.
It's a beautiful and creative idea, but the whole thing is just uncomfortable to read. First of all, the translation is just awkward. I get there a few words are awkward to translate from Korean, such as 'playing,' but I feel part of the translation work is to interpret and re-adapt a meaning to a new language so it flows? Now, this may have been done on purpose (for reasons that I can't pinpoint other than making the mother more of an alien figure to the reader - and the author).
The memoir bits were just as weird. The narration was good - Koh is a poet and you can tell by the way she writes. But at the same time, I didn't necessarily find the episodes she spoke about as necessarily interesting to read. Some bits seemed to offer really interesting perspectives on Koreans in Japan, zainichi, the Korean American family as seen from SKorea, and the K-pop industry, but it all fell flat as it ended up focusing on how everybody liked the author or found her great in something. Rather than insight, it read like the author gloating.
My biggest issue was the dialogue. It just felt awkward - whether it was translated from Japanese or Korean, or it was in English to begin with it all sounded too literary, grammatically weird, contextless, and too ominous. I kept wondering "who talks like this?" 90% of the time, the other 10% I was wondering if this was real life (like, the author is doing X major at university that has a mandatory Maths course and she is given the offer to replace a requirement of MATHS with a poetry course? I mean??? what?).
In addition to this, while the whole circle of connecting grandmother-mother-daughter was complete, I don't get how she feels about anything. I personally felt her mother suffocating, yet at no point I saw any specific clear reaction from the author towards anything. At some point she says poetry is forgiving, letting go, and also to not read poetry if you want things to be clear. But it was all so vague that I didn't see any proper forgiveness - nor did I see the author acknowledging what had to be forgiven (she surely mentions others saying what the mother does wrong, but I don't recall her addressing it on her own voice).
I said I would give myself time to digest this book before I posted a review or decided on a rating, but I just don't want to think about this anymore. It was sadly a disappointment - maybe my expectations were too high. Anyhow, if someone has read it and loved it, I am happy to be given other perspectives because I'm just plain sad at how I ended up feeling about it.
The book had a set structure. You read a letter translated, you have a few scans of the said letter in Korean, and then the author provides an actual chapter of her memoir that is somehow (or it is not) related to the letter. Overall, the whole thing was attempting to present the story of E.J. Koh, her mother, and her grandmother following the Korean saying about being reborn as the person whom you have hurt the most. This is obvious throughout the whole book and you're left waiting to see if the author will realize or if she will be told.
It's a beautiful and creative idea, but the whole thing is just uncomfortable to read. First of all, the translation is just awkward. I get there a few words are awkward to translate from Korean, such as 'playing,' but I feel part of the translation work is to interpret and re-adapt a meaning to a new language so it flows? Now, this may have been done on purpose (for reasons that I can't pinpoint other than making the mother more of an alien figure to the reader - and the author).
The memoir bits were just as weird. The narration was good - Koh is a poet and you can tell by the way she writes. But at the same time, I didn't necessarily find the episodes she spoke about as necessarily interesting to read. Some bits seemed to offer really interesting perspectives on Koreans in Japan, zainichi, the Korean American family as seen from SKorea, and the K-pop industry, but it all fell flat as it ended up focusing on how everybody liked the author or found her great in something. Rather than insight, it read like the author gloating.
My biggest issue was the dialogue. It just felt awkward - whether it was translated from Japanese or Korean, or it was in English to begin with it all sounded too literary, grammatically weird, contextless, and too ominous. I kept wondering "who talks like this?" 90% of the time, the other 10% I was wondering if this was real life (like, the author is doing X major at university that has a mandatory Maths course and she is given the offer to replace a requirement of MATHS with a poetry course? I mean??? what?).
In addition to this, while the whole circle of connecting grandmother-mother-daughter was complete, I don't get how she feels about anything. I personally felt her mother suffocating, yet at no point I saw any specific clear reaction from the author towards anything. At some point she says poetry is forgiving, letting go, and also to not read poetry if you want things to be clear. But it was all so vague that I didn't see any proper forgiveness - nor did I see the author acknowledging what had to be forgiven (she surely mentions others saying what the mother does wrong, but I don't recall her addressing it on her own voice).
I said I would give myself time to digest this book before I posted a review or decided on a rating, but I just don't want to think about this anymore. It was sadly a disappointment - maybe my expectations were too high. Anyhow, if someone has read it and loved it, I am happy to be given other perspectives because I'm just plain sad at how I ended up feeling about it.
February 29, 2020
“My parents didn’t give me happiness,” I said. “But they set me free. They gave me freedom.”
Again, the pretty cover tricked me. I wanted to like this so much!
But sadly, I just couldn’t get used to this style. It wasn’t poorly written but still, something was amiss. The storyline itself, too, was all over the place and only the letters kept it all together; although they, too, were unrelevant at times.
Despite these, though, the story itself very much resonated with me. My father also wanted to try his luck working abroad by bringing my mom with him and letting me and my brother as kids stay at some relative of ours, but fortunately my mom wasn’t convinced so easily and instead she stayed with us, thankfully.
I won’t judge the mother of this story, because her decision to go or stay must have been incredibly difficult to make. But the way she tried to forget those years by being proud of how her daughter grew up when she wasn’t even there for her, you know…
So even if this novel wasn’t for my liking, I still don’t want to forget about it, and I know that I will find myself thinking about this story quite a lot.
“I must choose love over any other thing.”
November 11, 2025
✒︎3 stars
I've had this book on my TBR for years, and after finally deciding to pick it up, I feel that it did not live up to the long-wait.
The Magical Language of Others has an interesting concept for a memoir. E.J. Koh, the author, includes translations of her mother's letters from Korea. When Koh was 15, her father and mother left for Korea after Koh's father received a good job offer there. Her parents ended up staying in Korea for over 7 years, leaving Koh alone with her brother. The letters offer us insight into Koh's mother and her time in Korea, interspersed with stories from Koh's life. While the concept and prose is unique, it didn't feel well executed.
Koh's narration for the audiobook is very soft and soothing- maybe a bit too much. I understand that this is likely just how she speaks, but her tone made me feel disconnected while listening to her story.
Koh writes about her love for poetry and how it became an outlet for her, which I can relate to completely. You can then see how her poetic writing style shone throughout this book. I didn't dislike the prose, rather I think it was how the book was structured that left me feeling disengaged.
The author includes her mother's letters at random without much reflection on them. Koh leaves much to be desired in terms of her personal feelings and actual life. She includes multiple drawn-out stories from moments in her life that I feel didn't add much to my understanding of her as a person.
While there were a few beautiful moments of prose and life-reflections in the book, I was left feeling disconnected from Koh's life, wishing to hear more. I really wish I loved this book like many other reviewers did.
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I've had this book on my TBR for years, and after finally deciding to pick it up, I feel that it did not live up to the long-wait.
The Magical Language of Others has an interesting concept for a memoir. E.J. Koh, the author, includes translations of her mother's letters from Korea. When Koh was 15, her father and mother left for Korea after Koh's father received a good job offer there. Her parents ended up staying in Korea for over 7 years, leaving Koh alone with her brother. The letters offer us insight into Koh's mother and her time in Korea, interspersed with stories from Koh's life. While the concept and prose is unique, it didn't feel well executed.
Koh's narration for the audiobook is very soft and soothing- maybe a bit too much. I understand that this is likely just how she speaks, but her tone made me feel disconnected while listening to her story.
Koh writes about her love for poetry and how it became an outlet for her, which I can relate to completely. You can then see how her poetic writing style shone throughout this book. I didn't dislike the prose, rather I think it was how the book was structured that left me feeling disengaged.
The author includes her mother's letters at random without much reflection on them. Koh leaves much to be desired in terms of her personal feelings and actual life. She includes multiple drawn-out stories from moments in her life that I feel didn't add much to my understanding of her as a person.
While there were a few beautiful moments of prose and life-reflections in the book, I was left feeling disconnected from Koh's life, wishing to hear more. I really wish I loved this book like many other reviewers did.
✂︎----------
My other platforms!
✒︎Instagram
✒︎YouTube
✒︎Patreon
January 25, 2020
Beautifully written. Definitely will need a few years to process this book 😭
December 16, 2022
4.5⭐️
there is something enchanting i find in literature that discusses different languages and the beauty of translation, and The Magical Language of Others is such a lovely novel that falls into that category. beyond that, mother-daughter relationships seem to affect me emotionally in unspeakable ways 🤣. thinking about who we are because of our mothers, or the girls they might’ve been before they were ours is just a beautiful and painful thing, and coupled with Koh’s absolutely captivating writing, this memoir invokes those thoughts and feelings in an intricate and purposeful way.
there is something enchanting i find in literature that discusses different languages and the beauty of translation, and The Magical Language of Others is such a lovely novel that falls into that category. beyond that, mother-daughter relationships seem to affect me emotionally in unspeakable ways 🤣. thinking about who we are because of our mothers, or the girls they might’ve been before they were ours is just a beautiful and painful thing, and coupled with Koh’s absolutely captivating writing, this memoir invokes those thoughts and feelings in an intricate and purposeful way.
January 10, 2020
Magnanimity. It has been several years since a book compelled me to stay awake into the wee hours of the morning finishing it, and yet E.J. Koh’s extraordinary, magnanimous memoir, The Magical Language of Others, did just that. Eun Ji’s recounting of her relationship with her mother and family over the last 20 or so years exhibits power and grace in poetic (not surprising, given her experience and success as a poet) prose.
I particularly enjoyed the description of Eun Ji’s recounting of her experiences persevering, coming of age, and ultimately triumphing. Her journey to forgiveness is a paradigm of magnanimity. Even more riveting, the parallels raised by her description of the lives of her grandmothers brought to mind the incredible writing and stories of Min Jin Lee (Pachinko), Krys Lee (Drifting House) and Crystal Hana Kim (If You Leave Me). I could not offer higher praise.
One of Eun Ji’s mother’s letters offers the advice that “[w]hat we see changes according to what we look for.” 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 one family’s) history, experience, love and compassion.
Finally, a note on the audiobook (I so wanted to finish the book to see what became of the Koh family that I purchased it as well): E.J. Koh’s reading of her own memoir is heartbreaking at times, calming at others, and riveting throughout. Highly recommend, and I’m overjoyed that this was my first read of 2020.
I particularly enjoyed the description of Eun Ji’s recounting of her experiences persevering, coming of age, and ultimately triumphing. Her journey to forgiveness is a paradigm of magnanimity. Even more riveting, the parallels raised by her description of the lives of her grandmothers brought to mind the incredible writing and stories of Min Jin Lee (Pachinko), Krys Lee (Drifting House) and Crystal Hana Kim (If You Leave Me). I could not offer higher praise.
One of Eun Ji’s mother’s letters offers the advice that “[w]hat we see changes according to what we look for.” 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 one family’s) history, experience, love and compassion.
Finally, a note on the audiobook (I so wanted to finish the book to see what became of the Koh family that I purchased it as well): E.J. Koh’s reading of her own memoir is heartbreaking at times, calming at others, and riveting throughout. Highly recommend, and I’m overjoyed that this was my first read of 2020.
May 26, 2020
“Neither (happiness) nor sadness are ever done with us. They are always passing by.”
This was my first nonfiction read of the year and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I finished it. Koh’s story is heartbreaking, but it ultimately left me feeling hopeful. Although my experience growing up was vastly different from hers it deeply resonated with me, especially when she recounts her time in college. I loved so many things about this book, but I’m a sucker for any book that honestly explores the complexities of a mother daughter relationship. Also Koh is a poet so her prose is GORGEOUS! This is a beautifully written memoir that I cannot recommend enough.🤍
This was my first nonfiction read of the year and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I finished it. Koh’s story is heartbreaking, but it ultimately left me feeling hopeful. Although my experience growing up was vastly different from hers it deeply resonated with me, especially when she recounts her time in college. I loved so many things about this book, but I’m a sucker for any book that honestly explores the complexities of a mother daughter relationship. Also Koh is a poet so her prose is GORGEOUS! This is a beautifully written memoir that I cannot recommend enough.🤍
January 12, 2020
This remarkable little book stirred up such heavy emotion within me. You'd quickly realize Koh is a poet, even without reading so in her bio. The way she frames her story, the words she picks, that intimate connection she makes with you in less than 200 pages, the honest biting beauty in all of it, ahhh, I'm still gushing over this book. 5 brilliant stars. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
December 1, 2019
Many thanks to the publisher (Tin House) for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
This book is amazing, and walks a fine line between prose and poetry, telling the stories of women, abandonment, war, death, family relationships and all from the eyes of different generations in different countries. This author has a great future.
Cons: there were times in reading this book where I couldn't tell which person/generation we were hearing from, but another reading or two should clarify my misunderstanding.
This book is amazing, and walks a fine line between prose and poetry, telling the stories of women, abandonment, war, death, family relationships and all from the eyes of different generations in different countries. This author has a great future.
Cons: there were times in reading this book where I couldn't tell which person/generation we were hearing from, but another reading or two should clarify my misunderstanding.
July 30, 2022
“What replaces the language of God?”
I took a breath. “The language of man?”
“Poetry,” she said.
“Some words together made no sense but felt as if they ought to. They should know each other, see each other better”
“What’s your daughter’s work already?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” she said, and frowned. “My daughter teaches people how to let go.”
I took a breath. “The language of man?”
“Poetry,” she said.
“Some words together made no sense but felt as if they ought to. They should know each other, see each other better”
“What’s your daughter’s work already?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” she said, and frowned. “My daughter teaches people how to let go.”
December 21, 2022
| 𝑴𝒚 𝒅𝒂𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒔 𝒑𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒆𝒕 𝒈𝒐.
| 𝑰 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒎𝒚 𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒎𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒚 𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒇𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒖𝒓𝒈𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒓𝒚-- 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒎𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒓𝒚 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆. 𝑺𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒔𝒌𝒆𝒅 𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒌 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒅, 𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏 𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒊𝒗𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒂𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒆, 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒆𝒕 𝒈𝒐.
| "𝑵𝒐𝒘 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒍𝒅𝒆𝒓, 𝒊 𝒉𝒂𝒗e 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌 𝒕𝒐. 𝑰'𝒗𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒘𝒂𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓. 𝑰'𝒍𝒍 𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒎𝒚 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆. 𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒂 𝒅𝒂𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒆𝒓, 𝒚𝒐𝒖'𝒍𝒍 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒂𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕'𝒔 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒊𝒕 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒇𝒆𝒍𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒏. 𝑩𝒖𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒉𝒂���𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒎𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒎𝒚 𝒅𝒂𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒆𝒓. 𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒐 𝒂𝒏𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒎𝒆, 𝒐𝒌𝒆𝒚? 𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒃𝒐𝒓𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒐 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖."
| 𝑰𝒇 𝒖 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒏𝒐 𝒔𝒖𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒏𝒐 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒍.
~ It's a good autobiographical memoir despite the fact that there were bewildering and unclear parts that will make you unable to follow the events of the story.
i love the title-although i didn't see the relation between it and the story. She writes the different struggles- trauma, eating disorder, the damage of feeling abandoned- she faced since her parents left her behind. Reading her mother's letters made me kinda despise her mother for her selfishness and how she was expecting so much from a fifteen-year-old Eun jin.
The most interesting parts for me are when she tells the story of her mother and both of her grandmothers' tragedies, i was so fond of their strength and life stories.
| 𝑰 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒎𝒚 𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒎𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒚 𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒇𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒖𝒓𝒈𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒓𝒚-- 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒎𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒓𝒚 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆. 𝑺𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒔𝒌𝒆𝒅 𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒌 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒅, 𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏 𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒊𝒗𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒂𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒆, 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒆𝒕 𝒈𝒐.
| "𝑵𝒐𝒘 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒍𝒅𝒆𝒓, 𝒊 𝒉𝒂𝒗e 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌 𝒕𝒐. 𝑰'𝒗𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒘𝒂𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓. 𝑰'𝒍𝒍 𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒎𝒚 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆. 𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒂 𝒅𝒂𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒆𝒓, 𝒚𝒐𝒖'𝒍𝒍 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒂𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕'𝒔 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒊𝒕 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒇𝒆𝒍𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒏. 𝑩𝒖𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒉𝒂���𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒎𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒎𝒚 𝒅𝒂𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒆𝒓. 𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒐 𝒂𝒏𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒎𝒆, 𝒐𝒌𝒆𝒚? 𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒃𝒐𝒓𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒐 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖."
| 𝑰𝒇 𝒖 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒏𝒐 𝒔𝒖𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒏𝒐 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒍.
~ It's a good autobiographical memoir despite the fact that there were bewildering and unclear parts that will make you unable to follow the events of the story.
i love the title-although i didn't see the relation between it and the story. She writes the different struggles- trauma, eating disorder, the damage of feeling abandoned- she faced since her parents left her behind. Reading her mother's letters made me kinda despise her mother for her selfishness and how she was expecting so much from a fifteen-year-old Eun jin.
The most interesting parts for me are when she tells the story of her mother and both of her grandmothers' tragedies, i was so fond of their strength and life stories.
June 21, 2020
I spent some time trying to think of what to write in my review for this memoir. As it turns out, I don’t think there is a way to succinctly get those points across. There were many points that hit a little too close to home, particularly the relationship between mother and child, which is an especially distinct one in the Korean diaspora. Koh managed to strike the balance of explaining this bittersweet emptiness that she felt, yet also leaving it unexplained. The openness might frustrate some, but I thought it was a striking depiction of a distinct component in Korean communities. There is an untranslatable word for this called han, encompassing this collective sorrow that connect Koreans due to their history. And this is something that carries throughout The Magical Language of Others. Koh digs deep into the intergenerational trauma in Korean families that impacted the many components of her family.
Perhaps the most touching part of this memoir is Koh’s translations of her mother’s letters to her. Being able to read the letters in Korean made this book even more profound than it already was. And perhaps that’s where the disconnect may occur and the book could fall flat for some. The translations were endearing and emotional. It reflected so much of where Koh was coming from in her journey through life. Lyrical and poetic, I’m treasuring this book and will likely return to it in the near future.
Perhaps the most touching part of this memoir is Koh’s translations of her mother’s letters to her. Being able to read the letters in Korean made this book even more profound than it already was. And perhaps that’s where the disconnect may occur and the book could fall flat for some. The translations were endearing and emotional. It reflected so much of where Koh was coming from in her journey through life. Lyrical and poetic, I’m treasuring this book and will likely return to it in the near future.
August 26, 2021
A collection of letters written by Koh’s mother inspired this memoir, a book that gave me the greatest gift any book can give me: recognition. I see so much of myself in Koh, the act of grieving a mother who is still alive.
I’ve spent so much of my life wondering what makes a good mother. I think about Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, the first time I thought about what makes a good daughter. (these questions have too many and no answers at the same time)
Halfway through this book, I picked up my phone and asked my mother if she would write me a letter. She said, okay. She said, I haven’t had a reason to write anything in years. She said, will you write one back to me?
I’ve spent so much of my life wondering what makes a good mother. I think about Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, the first time I thought about what makes a good daughter. (these questions have too many and no answers at the same time)
Halfway through this book, I picked up my phone and asked my mother if she would write me a letter. She said, okay. She said, I haven’t had a reason to write anything in years. She said, will you write one back to me?
October 20, 2019
This autobiography is adjacent to a memory box-- mixed in with Eun Ji's tenderly translated letters from her mother, we see bits and pieces of her life, the mundane and the extraordinary, as she navigates high school and college life a continent away from her parents. E.J. becomes many things-- a driven student, a dancer, a poet. Koh also delves into the history of both her maternal and paternal grandmothers; they too have fascinating stories. Heartfelt and sweet, this beautiful memoir will immerse you in its pages.
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