HAN (한)

In Korean culture, han (한) is often used to describe a deep, complex, hard-to-translate into English emotion of grief, resentment and longing – born of collective suffering, oppression and loss. There is some debate, but it is said that han is born from decades (some say centuries) of colonization, war, and poverty.

I personally never really knew what han was, but as I reflect on the years of work and struggle my parents went through, the cycles of success and misfortune they went through (as sometimes their business did well, sometimes they were forced to close up shop), I can see the glimmers of han threading through their lives. Han became a survival mechanism – something that drove my father through all the years of hard work.

Jeong (정)

In Korean culture, jeong (정) is a deeply held value of collective affection; an emotional and psychocultural bond of love and loyalty. It’s roots can be found in Confucianism or possibly Buddhism, it is undeniably woven into the fabric of Korean culture, as eloquently stated by Anthony Bourdain.

Emotionalism in the Korean Church

Han and jeong play deeply significant roles in the Korean American church.

It has been well established and well known that churches became important cultural centers for new first-generation immigrants: a place to find and experience jeong, where they could come and connect with other Korean immigrants, and find a shared space with a common tongue, common food, common culture; a taste of home in a foreign land, experiencing jeong in a spiritual place.

Churches also became a place where han was released and transformed – pain, longing, and sorrow released through fervent prayers, worship and community.  Suffering turned into perseverance, tears into fervent prayers (morning prayer and tongsung kido (praying out loud in unison), and hardship into lessons of faithfulness.

This release or manifestation of han became a marker of spirituality: the more intense and the more dedicated one was, the more spiritually mature one was.  As a result, the first-generation style of prayer, worship and church influenced the second generation of Korean Americans.

The Training of Emotionalism

Many years ago, I was serving as a teacher in a small-medium sized youth group of a Korean immigrant church. The church had just hired a youth pastor who was half-Caucasian and half-Filipino.  At the first youth retreat he attend with us, the evening worship session was reaching its inevitable conclusions – the sermon had moved our hearts, the song of response had been sung, so the lights were dimmed to see the words on the screen.  After the song had been sung, we were directed into a time of prayer – that meant the lights were turned off (except for some stage lights), take your shoes off, bury your face into the floor, and pray out loud in one voice.

 Afterwards, as the leadership debriefed, the youth pastor asked us “Why did you all turn off the lights and take your shoes off when it was time to pray?”  I recall someone making a pitiful attempt to ground it in Scripture, but I was struck by his question – “isn’t this what everyone does? Is this not normal?”  We learned, “no, it was not the norm.” 

Without even realizing it, experiencing deep emotions had been ingrained into our faith, just as it was with our parents. It was to the point of emotionalism – an excessive display of emotions that equated feelings with spirituality.

The Erosion of Faith

For many second-generation Korean Americans, the type of spiritualization of han by our parents can be seen as performative because we see the faults and failings of our parents. 

The han the immigrant generation experienced and lived through is diminished and lost in the second generation. It’s not that we don’t feel han; rather, it is experienced in a different way.  While my parents experienced the hurdles of integration into a foreign land, I experienced a cultural in-betweenness.  My parents experienced the weight of hardships in providing for the family, I experienced the burden of expectations and the pressure to achieve. While my parents experienced homesickness for their motherland, I wanted to fit in where I was but couldn’t.

Without a new framework, a language of lament, sorrow, reflection and healing, the younger generations will still be in a liminal cultural space in the church. The form of faith that worked for the immigrant generation is not effective for the Americanized generation, i.e. the form of faith no longer speaks to their pain. 

The first generation’s han-shaped spirituality that was forged through sweat, tears, hard work and grit does not speak to our han of loneliness, wanting belonging and affirmation and rest. 

Moving Forward

Perhaps a way forward is not through the rejection of our parent’s spirituality, but learning about it, understanding it and showing grace for the spiritual framework that was shaped by their immigrant experiences.  As we do so, we can then reinterpret our own han and form a framework that is more relevant and seeks to minister to our generation. 

When we can decipher, identify and articulate the han that our generation feels, we are in a better position to reinterpret these feelings to point to Christ. Untangling the dynamics emotionalism and being deeply emotional will take us leaps into the healthy emotional spirituality that doesn’t deny our cultural heritage nor our past spiritual experiences.