Eunhae Han’s Reviews > Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir > Status Update

No pressure, but if you need a break from that whole stoic-cowboy-alone-
against-the-silence-of-the-frontier thing, made monggo...

MY FRIENDS STEPPED IN.
SEEING THE YEARNING!
LACKED THE WORDS TO VOICE.
THEY SHOWED ME THE TRUTH OF PAUL AUSTER'S ASSERTION THAT LOVE "IS THE ONE THING THAT CAN STOP A MAN FROM FALLING, THE ONE THING POWERFUL ENOUGH TO NEGATE THE LAWS OF GRAVITY."

ONE VOICE WAS EASILY DISMISSED AS CRAZY. BUT TWO VOICES WERE THE BEGINNING OF DISSENT. SOME INSTINCT DEEP WITHIN US KNEW THAT THE "HELP" WE WERE BEING "GIVEN" WAS
FRACTURING THE VERY PART OF US THAT YEARNED TO BE WHOLE

They called their refugee years The Time When We Were Not, and they were forgiven, because they had carried the truth of themselves in a sheltered place inside the flesh, exactly the way a fruit that has gone soft still carried inside itself the clean, hard stone of its future.
-BARBARA KINGSOLVER, Homeland and Other Stories

DECADES LATER, WHEN I FOUND MYSELF AMONG COMMUNITIES OF OTHER CREATIVES, I WOULD HEAR THIS SENTIMENT ECHOED AGAIN AND AGAIN.
THOSE OF US WHO GREW UP DEPENDING ON WORDS TO SHAPE THE SAFEST, MOST REAL WORLDS OF OUR CHILDHOODS-
THOSE EXPERIENCES COMPRESSED US
INTO WRITERS.

READING WAS
EVERYTHING TO ME.
AND DURING THE LONG YEARS WHEN
THE WALLS OF MY FAMILY'S PSYCHOLOGICAL
ISOLATION WERE
TOO HIGH FOR A CHILD
• TO CLIMB, I MADE BOOKS MY WORLD. I GREW MY IMAGINATION INTO AN
INDOMITABLE STRENGTH THROUGH THE SHEER FORCE OF MY NEED.
I KNEW SOMEDAY I WOULD GROW TALL ENOUGH TO REACH UP AND SCALE THOSE
WALLS. BUT UNTIL THEN-

WHENEVER I ENCOUNTERED. AN INSTANCE I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND. ID SCAN THE ARCHIVES OF
EVERYTHING I'D EVER READ UNTIL I FOUND SOMETHING THAT COULD PROVIDE THE ANSWER. I TOOK REFUGE IN THE COMFORTING SOLIDITY OF WRITTEN STORIES, IN THEIR CONSISTENCY, AND THE FACT THAT THEY COULD BE TRUSTED TO NOT SUDDENLY CHANGE.
IN THIS WAY, READING_TAUGHT
ME THE SOCIAL CODES OF CONNECTION WHILE ALSO DECODING THE MYSTERY OF MY MOTHER AND

THE CULTURAL
REVOLUTION REVOLVED
. AROUND DESTROYING "THE FOUR OLDS": OLD IDEAS.
OLD CULTURE. OLD HABITS.
AND OLD CUSTOMS. ANY OBJECT COULD BE EVIDENCE OF BOURGEOIS ELITISM (haircut, flowers, furniture, street signs, cars)

WAS MY MOTHER A TRAGIC CHARITY CASE. PSYCHOLOGICALLY ORPHANED BY THE TRAUMAS SUFFERED BY HER REFUGEE MOTHER? COR A PRIVILEGED COLONIAL EURASIAN BEING GROOMED FOR THE SOCIAL ECHELONS OF THE ELITE?

THERE ARE THREADS OF TRUTH TO BOTH NARRATIVES AND CLEAN ANSWERS TO NEITHER. I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO ETHICALLY NAVIGATE FORMING AN IMAGE FROM THESE DOTS.

WAS SUN YI A CALCULATING GOLD DIGGER LEVERAGING THE COMMODITY OF HER BEAUTY TO SLEEP HER WAY TO THE POWER SIKUCIUKES OF WHITENESS? OR A SINGLE MOTHER TURNING TO SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE SEX WORK AS A KEPT WOMAN SO THAT SHE AND HER
CHILD COULD SURVIVE?