I’ve never heard an Asian woman—certainly not one in her eighties—cuss as exuberantly and continually as the late filmmaker Dai Sil Kim Gibson. I can picture her throwing her head back, glass raised, cackling at the sound of her own F-bombs, her wild hair shaking like kinetic iron spirals. She cooked with the same passion she lived and filmed, making the best bindaetok (Korean mung bean pancakes) with a secret ingredient: kimchi juice.
She was also renowned for her Iowa Fried Chicken, an improvement on a dish made by her beloved husband’s mother, thanks to a tangy hint of lemon. From this riotous cook, activist, author, and keeper of history—Dai Sil, as she preferred to be called by everyone—I learned two vital lessons about storytelling and life that changed my writing and me.
These lessons begin with the Korean word han, an existentially Korean phenomenon of grief or anguish that defies easy translation. In her book "Silence Broken," about Korean women systematically sexually enslaved by the Japanese during World War II, Dai Sil defines han as “long sorrow and suffering turned inward.” This sorrow can span more than a single lifetime, accumulating and knotting over generations.
Han permeates her work, whether in her film "Sa-I-Gu" about the Los Angeles riots, "A Forgotten People" about Koreans left behind on the Sakhalin Islands, or the film version of "Silence Broken." Yet, Dai Sil’s power as a storyteller comes from her ability to see the individuals behind the collective trauma.
My first vital lesson from Dai Sil came as a story. I assisted her and her frequent collaborator, Charles Burnett, on location in Korea for the film version of "Silence Broken." Although I was not present for the early interviews of the “Halmeonis” (grandmothers, as Dai Sil preferred to call the former “comfort women”), she shared how these women often recited their trauma from previous interviews. Dai Sil asked one particular Halmeoni to talk about her life before the camps. The Halmeoni was incredulous at first but then opened up, revealing a fuller story of who she was.
The Halmeonis, despite frequently speaking to the press, were particular about who they shared their stories with. When a young male production assistant entered, one Halmeoni, believing he was of Japanese ancestry, commanded him to leave. Another questioned why Charles Burnett was directing the project. Dai Sil explained, “His people have known han, Halmeoni.” This simple statement bridged a cultural gap, allowing these women to accept him.
I’ve returned to these stories as I’ve worked on my book "Master Slave Husband Wife," about Ellen and William Craft. Dai Sil’s approach reminded me to see who the Crafts were before and after their unforgettable escape from slavery—the fullness of their lives. Her phrase “His people have known han” gave me a framework for understanding their experiences and what they carried and passed on. (Incidentally, Charles Burnett introduced me to a descendant of the Crafts, Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely.)
Another significant Korean word is jung, which translates to love, affection, sympathy, or attachment. Like han, jung is complex and layered. You can hate someone and still feel jung for them. Jung, too, guided my understanding of the Crafts’ story: the saturated suffering of han and the binding force of jung that helped them carry on.
My original title for the book was "Master Slave Husband Wife: An American Love Story," but in my mind, it was an American jung story. Purists may argue that these expressions are uniquely Korean, or that as a Korean American writing in English, I’m not capturing them perfectly. I’m sure I know what Dai Sil Ajuma—from whom I learned about han and deeply felt jung—would say to that, and it’s not printable. But I can conjure the gesture as Dai Sil, with her husband Don chuckling beside her, hoots and raises her glass.
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