{"id":6947,"date":"2025-09-17T23:35:44","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T23:35:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skippingstones.org\/wp\/?p=6947"},"modified":"2025-09-19T19:22:52","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T19:22:52","slug":"between-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skippingstones.org\/wp\/2025\/09\/17\/between-names\/","title":{"rendered":"Between Names"},"content":{"rendered":"

Between Names<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

By Jane Helen Lee, age 17, South Korea.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I<\/strong> <\/span>was a collector of languages before I even knew the English word for \u201clanguage.\u201d I would gently pluck foreign words from overheard conversations and save them like colorful marbles in my pocket\u2014later turning them over, swirling their smooth coolness between my tongue, sounding out hola, n\u01d0 h\u01ceo, \uc548\ub155\ud558\uc138\uc694 (annyeonghaseyo)<\/em>. Through the sun-dappled filters of childhood that gently curtained my vision, there was something quietly magical about being able to say \u201chello\u201d or even just \u201cthank you\u201d to a stranger in their own language. It felt as if I were weaving a thread between myself and someone I might never meet again.<\/span><\/p>\n

The complicated kanji<\/em>, hanja<\/em>, and hangeul<\/em> forms a patchwork quilt of syllables and syntax, woven from the voices of street vendors, lullabies, movies, and late-night whispers between siblings. Even when I couldn\u2019t understand the meaning, I could feel the emotion behind a sentence\u2014the rise in pitch, then the tremble, then, finally, the laughter tucked like a baby in a swaddle between vowels. Language to me, is and will always be something so achingly human.<\/span><\/p>\n

But at age eight, I nearly lost my mother tongue.<\/span><\/p>\n

My first language was Korean, and I learned English at a pretentious little english-only, ridiculously expensive preschool where white teachers would give Korean children names like \u201cEmma\u201d and \u201cMadison.\u201d When I moved to the US at age 6, my mother (omma)<\/em> was shocked by how fast I forgot that my name was \uc7ac\uc778 (Jae-in)<\/em>, not Jane. Suddenly, \uc5c4\ub9c8 (omma)<\/em> was mommy and \uc219\uc138 (sook-jae) <\/em>was homework. This shook her and, so, she pulled me out of school for 2 weeks to teach me, to make me re-learn and make sure I never forgot. This is something I thank her for to this day.<\/span><\/p>\n

I once came across a piece of writing that claimed we are different people to each person we meet. I suppose that is true. To my mother, I am \u201c\uc7ac\uc778\uc544\u201d, to my dad, I am \u201cpeach\u201d, to my brother, I am \u201c\ub204\ub098\u201d (noona)<\/em>, to my classmates, I am \u201cJane.\u201d I am \u5bf6\u8c9d\u513f (B<\/em>\u01ce<\/em>ob\u00e8i er)<\/em>, \ud5e4\ub808\ub098 (hae-le-na)<\/em>, Janie, peanut\u2026, and I could go on forever. But that left me wondering: who am I to myself if all the names and identities I answer to have been lost or borrowed as changing masks to wear when interacting with others? See, when someone calls me \u201c\uc7ac\uc778\uc544\u201d (jaein-a)<\/em>, I reply \u201c\uc751?\u201d (eung?)<\/em> or \u201c\ub124?\u201d (nae?)<\/em> and I\u2019m what you\u2019d describe as mature, and if you discount my horrible posture, maybe even ladylike, but call me Janie and I will change to become ever so child-like. Say \u201c\ub204\ub098\u201d (noona)<\/em> and I will be strong. But despite being all these things, all these people, at once, I am just me. To me, I have no name, no title. The voice that tells me \u201cooh you shouldn\u2019t have said that” or \u201chey, you look kind of good today\u201d has no name for me. The thoughts I think that you will never hear except through the filtered microphone of my many masks do not belong to any one person, they belong to me, the many \u201cme\u201ds that together compose a jar of water made murky with the mixing-ins of paintbrushes tainted with colors from all parts of my life: every memory I have lived, every word I have spoken, and every song I have sung. And I can only hope that my jar, rinsed so many times of all the colors I have lived and palettes I have used, is not a dirty gray.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Jane Helen Lee is a Korean-American writer currently based in Seoul, South Korea. She has been recognized by YoungArts and the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards for her work across screenwriting, poetry, and fiction and is an alum of the Kenyon Young Writers\u2019 Workshop. Jane also serves as Editor-in-Chief of <\/em>Unseen, the academic journal of the Korean Youth Honor Society, and finds joy in writing, debating, and volunteering at her local rehabilitation center.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Jane adds: <\/em>\u201cI am a senior attending high school in South Korea, and pencil was to me, what a Barbie doll was to many others: my dream, and my lighthouse. While dolls came to life in the hands of others, my pencil became an extension of myself. I began writing before I could even speak, creating stories and songs with scribbles, translating the world around me into language. In its easily broken, soft body, I found power; in its worn tip, wisdom. The pencil was my voice when I had none, and my refuge when life felt too loud. Now, that voice continues to guide me as I explore the issues close to my heart through my writing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Between Names By Jane Helen Lee, age 17, South Korea. I was a collector of languages before I even knew the English word for \u201clanguage.\u201d I would gently pluck foreign words from overheard conversations and save them like colorful marbles in my pocket\u2014later turning them over, swirling their smooth coolness between my tongue, sounding out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,21,5,4,19,66],"tags":[977,1041,1040,352],"class_list":["post-6947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia","category-family-and-community","category-international","category-multicultural","category-multilingual","category-south-korea","tag-family-life","tag-multicultural-upbringing","tag-multicultural-youth","tag-south-korea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skippingstones.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skippingstones.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skippingstones.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skippingstones.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skippingstones.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6947"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.skippingstones.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6974,"href":"https:\/\/www.skippingstones.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6947\/revisions\/6974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skippingstones.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skippingstones.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skippingstones.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}