Asian Reads | Issue 04
Stories of Identity, Faith, and Cultural Healing
Asian Writers’ Collective is a publication dedicated to fostering greater understanding and appreciation of Asian cultures and experiences among a global readership. Subscribe to the Asian Writer’s Collective to decolonize your reading and discover unique writing.
This issue of AWC features was curated by
of Becoming Dust, where he writes about walking with the Good Shepherd in the liminal space, meditations and musings for the person we are becoming. Popular articles include “Questioning Complementarianism,” “I Am Not Called to Write a Book,” and “How to Know You’re Joining a Cult.”What is happening here on the “Asian Writers’ Collective” Substack is truly special. My personal respect and kudos are fully extended to Tiffany Chu, for starting up this Substack community. As many of us may feel, I wish I had a creative community centered around “Asian-ness,” to fan more of my thoughts and ideas into flame with people who looked like me and had similar cultural experiences as me.
I was born in Seoul, South Korea, but moved to America when I was a year old. My family had already begun settling in Detroit, Michigan in the late 80’s by the time my mother and I arrived. Growing up in America, as many “hyphenated-Americans” have experienced, we ultimately hit some sort of wall - a force-field of sorts - that begins with our external qualities (our eyes, food we eat, clothing we wear), but is felt as an internal blockade. Many of us, with this duality of identity, struggle to accept who we are and the journey in discovering who we are becoming is often seemingly long and arduous.
The articles below are not all written from Asian-Americans. This lived-in experience of being a “hyphenated-Asian” goes beyond the borders of America. Personally, I believe much of our search for identity goes beyond ethnicity and/or nationality. Much of our dilemma as mere humans in this journey of becoming who we are - who we were designed, crafted, and molded to be - also involves all that is mental, emotional, and spiritual. The articles below give insight to some of the lived experiences of many of us who are on this journey of discovering more of ourselves, as we exist in this world as Asian people.
That being said, I hope we can all be kind and gentle to our souls that have been privileged to be wrapped in Asian cultures, traditions, and languages, as we discover who we are becoming.
INTERGENERATIONAL HEALING
This first feature is a story that resonates deeply with me. I’ve struggled in my young adult years to come to a place of sympathy for my father who is also an Immigrant-Generation (or 1st generation) Korean-American. Kat writes about “Person Care Cards”, a beautiful way to humanize and build a bridge of sorts between one generation and another—our parent’s and our own.
I’m grateful for people who are so bold and courageous to share such personal stories from their lives on a public platform such as Substack. Kat writes beautifully and you can easily visualize her reflections from her childhood and how she processes them in the present.
I Wish You Came With Instructions
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writes Quiet ConfettiMy dad and I speak English and Korean to each other, yet often don’t understand. I wish he came with instructions. But people don’t. Sometimes we have to write it for them. And then I realize he does have a Person Care Card. It floats around in the substrate of my heart and mind.
IDENTITY
Lionel Wong is a fourth-generation Chinese-Malaysian who lived in the “multicultural nation of Malaysia” but moved to the UK when he turned 18. While sharing experiences and thoughts that I have personally wrestled with (even as a Korean-American), he invites people to consider what I believe is going to be the future of the world—a society that is more blended than not.
Between Two Worlds
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writes The Pivoted PenThe longer I live, the more I identify less with a culture rooted in specific identities. As I surround myself with a diverse community, backgrounds and origins blur, creating a space where I feel most human. I feel most like myself because I no longer have to adhere to the constraints of cultural norms.
MOTHERLAND
“Second Home” is a short read. The shortest read in my list of features, but it’s a personal telling of something many of us may experience when we return to our “Motherland.” In this case, Frances’ Motherland is South Korea. I was fortunate to connect with her briefly on Threads as the algorithm randomly shared one of her posts onto my feed. Reading this post, as the others in this post have done for me (and perhaps will do for you), had me thinking about my own journey with going back to South Korea as an adult. Nervousness, anxiety, and yet a welcoming embrace from a foreign land that I call my “Motherland.” A paradoxical feeling.
Second Home
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writes fran frictionFor the last several years, my family and I would muse about when we’d visit and when we’d “go back”, as though we were returning to home base. I would call myself Korean-American, but the Korean part honestly started to feel flimsy. If you held up a light to it, you could poke holes right through my resolve that it still deserved to be a part of my identity. Before I realized and before I could even stop it, I began to feel more ties to the word “American,” even if America didn’t hold the same respect or love for me. I made my peace with feeling like the U.S. had inherited me, albeit reluctantly.
IDENTITY
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t looking for Suyin’s Substack, “A Tangerine Moon.” I stumbled upon it and it has now become a fan favorite place for me to read from. Suyin’s ability to write with such detail and poetic framing makes for her articles easy and delightful to read. Here, she writes about a similar theme that Lionel writes in a couple of posts above in this feature, regarding the conversations that begin with the question, “where are you from?” With amazing detail, Suyin reflects on a writing retreat to Morocco with Trust and Travel, where she was able to find answers to questions she had longed to find in processing what her response will be when people ask her “where are you from?” Perhaps like myself, you will find in this post, her answer to be a bit perplexing at first, but as you read it over-and-over again, you will find that it makes much sense.
In Becoming, Finding Belonging
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writes A Tangerine MoonLast year, in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, I discovered I had a voice for all the words I had been leaving unsaid, all my life.
I discovered the reason I had left them all unsaid, for all this time.
It was because I had been afraid.
I had been afraid that they were too particular — not just in the sense of being specific, but also in the sense of being strange.
And strange was not good, strange was scandalous.
How scandalous, to be so revealing and so exposed.
How scandalous, to think that my particulars matter.
And so, what I feared was the scandal of the particular.
Before jumping into the next half of this seven-Substack post feature, I wanted to briefly note that these three posts deal with Christianity because that is the faith I personally adhere to. I’m a pastor at a Protestant Church here in Michigan, with 100% of my congregants being Asian-American. I wanted to highlight three distinct stories and articles written by Asian-Christians because there is so much changing and evolving within the Asian-Christian “experience” in these recent years that I believe is important to shed a light on. Lastly, humbly I want to say that I don’t know enough about other religions that Asian people adhere to, where I feel they may be representing that religion in a fair light. Regarding the Christian faith, I believe I can pinpoint a “fair shake” at the intersection of historic-orthodox Christian faith and personal experiences rooted in this faith, which is where these three articles exist.
ASIAN-AMERICAN FAITH & CHRISTIANITY
This idea of “who we are becoming” (which is the theme of this feature post for Asian Writers Collective) has identity at the core of it all. Anna here gently shares some lies we may believe about our identity from time-to-time, that are actually ancient. But the truth of our identity comes from a source that comes from the “Ancient of Days,” God.
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writes Heart & HopeAm I Enough?
But this way of living is not on that will come to us naturally. You see there is a whisper (well it’s more like a shout) from the enemy’s camp. A rhetoric that is on repeat in our culture. Seeping through our songs, our movies and our literature, and into the church.
It is not a new whisper but an ancient one. Each generation it has been reframed, reworded, packaged and made pretty, but it is the same whisper, the same challenge.
And that whisper is “did God really say?”
CROSS-CULTURAL FAITH
Justin is a “Singapore-born, Japan-raised, UK-based” writer who writes about cross-cultural identity and faith, which is precisely what this post is about. Personally, I resonated with this article because I’ve worked in a predominantly white-American megachurch for nearly 10 years and the legitimate tension of Eastern upbringing being pulled in whichever direction by Western-Christianity is a tension that is difficult to navigate at times. Definitely a must read for those who are in a similar boat.
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writes Decolonising My FaithEast Asian Servanthood in Western Church Leadership
I’ve seen many Christians, particularly in the West, seeking self-promotion.5 Blatant hankering for positional status and institutional authority. Unsubtle ingratiation with prominent leaders to gain a foothold on the ladder. This ‘holy’ dogfight has always rubbed me the wrong way, left a bad taste in my mouth. I remember being super uncomfortable when church friends would joke about me being a ‘big name’; I refrain even from bantering about fame or acclaim, because vocal repetition has the power to transform notions into ‘truth’.
INTERGENERATIONAL RECONCILIATION
In this quite personal article, Heidi writes to her 25-year old self, about the challenges and spiritual insights that she had gained since then and through the experiences her and her husband Mikey went through. This article left me with tears in my eyes because of how personal it is and to see what us Christians call, “God’s providence” - provisions and sustenance - through difficult times.
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writes Letters from HeidiDear Younger Me
Youthful optimism has brought you this far, but this spiritual high you currently feel will wax and wane in the course of your life and ministry. I share this not to squash your enthusiasm, but to remind you that good vibes cannot be the fuel for your ministry. After all, when momentum slows and the work becomes difficult, what will be your motivation to persevere? When following Jesus and serving the church no longer feels good, to who or where will you turn to for joy and hope?
This issue of AWC features was curated by
of Becoming Dust. If you enjoyed these picks, be sure to subscribe to his Substack. | A guest post by
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Thank you so much for the feature – what an honour! Thank you for reading and sharing 🙏
Brother Young, hello! What an honor to be included with this lot. Thank you for the kind words 🙏🏼