When My Name Was Keoko

when my name was keoko

ahhhh hello hello (not me coming back from the dead to talk about a novel of all things) but i just wanted to get this post out first before giving myself time to breath and enter the social media world again haha.

i think i spent the last few months researching about korea, its history, and just the folklore surrounding the culture. and there's just one book i stumbled on that i thought i had to talk about: when my name was keoko.

set in Korea during Japanese colonization and WWII, this book alternates the POV between a young boy and girl, both siblings, who have not only lost their names but identities as Koreans. it's the most heartwrenching and heartwarming book you'll ever read.

and it's hard, finding a book about Korea colonized. i'm just grateful that this book exists, and I had the opportunity to read it.

so if anyone wants to check it out [and read my long ass grateful/sappy review] go right ahead!

i'm just grateful for this book for existing.

if you don't know, Korea has been colonized by Japan for years, decades even. as a Korean American, there's barely any readings (much less teachings unless you search for them) on this topic; it's also even more difficult to find a novel based on the context of this era.

this era is so, so, important. it is the cause of the strained relationship between the two countries, a consequence that continues to this day. it is an era that all, and I truly mean all koreans remember. colonization has shaped us, but haunted us as well.

I come to Korea, and my grandmother remembers like it was yesterday. my mother lived through the park chung-hee era, under a dictatorship and through the march revolution. so many historical events and issues in Korea that I was never taught as an American, that I could never follow, that i was ashamed to learn.

it just shows the strength that we had. we lived through this. we found ways to fight back. we found ways to preserve our culture - our names, our language, our national symbols.

it's insightful, horrific, intriguing, heartwarming, and tear-jerking. but I'm just so grateful that somewhere out there, this book is piecing together another part of Korean history that is unheard and untold of.

i have spent two days thinking and rethinking and rewriting this SCENE and how it can entwine with the story and i am driving myself INSANE.

Art by Kuri Huang

For the wip challenge: I wish I could just ask for every wip in your post but I guess it will be too long 🙈 so I start with these two lovelies 😌

Korean Myths & Destination Seoul

HELLOOOO <3 thank you @orphicpoieses for the ask!

ahhh you can ask anything you want! just letting you know that 12:01 has already been answered in my previous posts hehe.

ooh, destination seoul. the project that has my heart and also the project that drives me insane. basically, it's: a fake dating ya romance set in Seoul, Korea where a teen tries to escape the blind dates her chaotic family sets her up on for her aunt's wedding. mostly it touches upon going back to your roots and really accepting it, as i've seen (and felt personally) more of a trend where as people are pulled between two cultures, they struggle to choose both, and think that they can only choose one. I just hope it represents the idea that it's not too late to accept your culture, and you don't need to live in a place to accept your family's origins!

anyways. onto the korean myths because this is still in the work and an interesting one. the premise is still in the works, but it's based on the tale of the abandoned princess in one of the folklore there, and possibly with a mix of beauty and the beast.

an abandoned princess sets out to find the cure of a disease plaguing the kingdom while it is on the brink of rebellion in order to prove her family's worth and save her father from treason. the cure: a dragon's pearl, except the owner of the pearl - the exiled prince - is cursed to turn into an imoogi, a beast of war and destruction. one desperate to save her family, and the other desperate to prove his worth, they set off to the depths of hell to truly find the plague's origins, and who caused it.

and that's kind of what i have for now? i'm still plotting act 1, but there's definitely all kinds of mythical creatures (gumiho, dragons, etc.) and betrayals and themes of worth and found family woven in!

Could Have Been Stardust

Above, the night sky flashed a brilliant burning white. As the forecasted meteor hurtled towards the earth, she barely felt the heat against her long-flushed and reddenned skin. Amidst the screams, wails and prayers rising from below, her drunken heart felt sorry that she could not at least see the stars, the moon, in these final moments.

Her numbness flickered, finally, in the face of the end of everything, and her fingers stumbled and reached for her phone, screen still lit with what had been her final, and only, prayer:

If the world was ending, you’d come over right? Sent 19 hours ago ✔

Everything turned white.

[ SYNOPSIS ]

Many years ago, a celestial meteor was forecasted to eliminate all life on earth. Instead, it shattered upon entering the atmosphere—leaving the planet mostly unharmed, but introducing a strange new frequency into the world. Now, humanity must face two new realities: the powerful secrets created by the meteor, and the very daunting consequences of what they did when they thought the world was ending.

[ PROJECT TAGS ]

NA/Adult. Fantasy Sci-Fi Genre Mashup / Techno-magic Dystopia / Urban Fantasy meets Post-Cyberpunk. Asian (or Asian-inspired) cast. Powers as metaphor for disability or neurodivergence. Estranged friends-to-lovers ft. amnesia.

[ project page • project tag • more under the cut • DM or send an ask to be added to the taglist! ]

Keep reading

plotting day 25 (or something along those lines, maybe longer)

We live in the same four walls, in the same courtyard, in the same pagoda. And yet, we couldn’t be more far away, like when there was a vast ocean between us. There is no glue to reunite my family together—only determination and desperation. 

everything and nothing makes sense.