The Middle Eastern Korean

It has been a very busy 2 weeks. I was so busy that I did something that is extremely uncharacteristic of me : I forgot to inform somebody I respect that I will not be able to make it for a conference call. It may sound like something small but not for me. If you can’t make it for a meeting or a call; you HAVE to tell the other party/parties. I apologized and this person graciously accepted it and brushed it aside as a non-issue. It is to me.

I have been itching to write of course. And, I was actually planning to write something on how employees will be viewing the state of affairs in 2010 and what business leaders should do to manage, what I suspect will be, very high expectations. But that will have to wait because I heard something from somebody recently which I just had to put in writing. I am being vague here…with all these ‘something’ and ‘somebody’, I know. But, you know the reasons for that. And, this IS a true story albeit all the names and characters changed.

Imagine a Korean couple adopting a middle eastern child when he was only a few months old and this child growing up so oblivious of the fact that he is, by all accounts, not a Korean. He eats, sleeps and plays Korean. He thinks like a Korean and chooses Korea and all that it stands for just as passionately as a ‘genuine’ Korean child. He thinks Korean girls are the most beautiful and he loves Michael Jackson just as all his compatriot Koreans do. The only thing is, he is NOT a Korean. He is of a different stock. He comes from an entirely different civilization and in his veins an entire cultural genome is running freely as that of his ‘people’ in the Middle East. Yet, he is Korean. At least for him and for those who love him, he is.

Being a Buddhist Koraen, he shuns beef. He goes vegetarian on most days. Now that he is a teenager and can understand his unique situation, he goes about his life as if nothing has changed. He still behaves like a Korean. He still avoids beef products and he is still a Buddhist. It seems like the ancient blood of his ancestors just can’t fight a far more superior force in this world. You can be born of any race or religion. You can come from any proud clan or genetic pool. Yet, there is one powerful force in this world that you can’t fight. That is the force of Socialization.

Not too long ago, I posted a poem that I was inspired to write after listening to an extremely myopic, close minded and homophobic individual. It frightened me then that there are so many of us who by all accounts are kind and good hearted but deep within us we fail to see and appreciate that this world was never created to be of one colour. It was always intended to be a tapestry. The message that I wanted to get across in that poem was that “ don’t be so damn sure of your self and your beliefs”. The gods and prophets you worship may not even want you in their presence as your belief was one of self aggrandizement. Not one of Faith. And, what we think to be true and honorable are nothing but the results of mankind’s socialization over the millennia. I am going reproduce that poem here as it brings new meanings to me now after hearing this story that I have just illustrated above. In fact I feel vindicated as I have always believed that what we are is nothing but a chance happening determined by where we are born and brought up.

The following was what I wrote then:

There are as many colours as there are words to describe them
There are as many stars as the numbers can count them
There are as many truths as the hearts that believe them
There are as many Gods as Man can worship them
There as many rhythms as the sounds that make them.

This is a world
nay
a universe of differences
of every imaginable kind.
The colour of your skin.
The language of your ancestors.
The choice of your tastes.
The pleasure of your love.
The height of your intellect.
The 'truth' of your convenience.
The God of your birth.

But
when compressed
all of these is as big as a green pea.

Thats how big we are.
A green pea!

Don't kill for that
Don't hurt for that.

Atoms, protons and bosons maketh us
The God particle forms us
But its us....just us
maketh hate!

We are separate
but we are one

I will wait for you
my brothers and sisters
at the gates of heaven
and I will welcome you
into my home as if we were born of the same womb

But, indeed we are.



What we are right now is not WHO we are. It was nothing but a result of our socialization with the world around us. What we consider to be truth is nothing more than just a ‘truth of our convenience’.

Who are we then?

Nothing. Just dusts of the universe. A very Conscious dust though.


Krishnamoorthy…if you are reading this, remember that you are the Universe's way of reminding us that we are not whom we are so proud to say we are. You and those who have similar histories like you are living labarotaries that constantly reveal the REAL truth of this world.

God bless you.

Note : Krisnamoorthy was somebody I knew when I was doing my undergraduate studies. He will know what I mean though I doubt he will ever read this. But then the world is indeed small and stranger things have happened.
AND....I am loosing my patience with those who can't see further than the courtyards of their temples, churches, mosques and synagogues. I literally feel repulsed by their words and deeds. The only thing that helps me tolerate them is the fact that they are also part of this tapestry that makes up this world.