I am an American national married to a Korean national. I am also an employee of a university in Korea, the son of a Jewish American and a mother of Native American descent, hazel-eyed, and right-handed. I prefer green apples to red, The Godfather, Part 2 to The Godfather, Part 1, and I like analog clocks and kimchi with fish in it. I am also an expatriate, a person living outside of the country in which I was born. What does this word, expatriate, really mean, and does it apply to a person? What does it do to an expatriate partner and his/her spouse?

The rigors of expatriate life in Busan are exponentially intensified for international couples. For starters, there is no easy way to classify yourself, legally or existentially, and all attempts at communication sound like a legal seminar. This confusion can lead to a loss of cultural identity, heaped on the already momentous change from bachelor to spouse. Not only is it inconvenient to carry a sign marked, “Long-term resident with intelligence! Please refrain from welcoming me to Korea in loud, broken English!”, but even ruder to wave a wedding band in the air. Even more unsettling are the times in public when strange Korean men suddenly become your wife’s protector against that hairy guy next to her. The few morsels of nightlife available are geared towards bachelors (heavy emphasis on the masculine side here), so one is forced back upon quiet dinners, movies at home, occasional dinner parties, and mind-numbing employment, both contractual and extra-curricular.

Many citizens would call expatriates unpatriotic, or perhaps just untrustworthy. In a time when everyone is so cynical or hailing the death of the nation-state in a globalized era, patriotism is the only acceptable ideal. Nationality is a legally reinforced quality, present on every application form. Nationality has a way of doing and observing, called culture. It is, or so some tell me, located in one’s arteries, in the blue blood that turns red in the fresh air. And a person with a nationality is called a “citizen” or a “patriot“. When I was a daydreaming kid, I feared if I left the safety of the sidewalk zone and ventured into the street, would lasers and grenades annihilate me. I was never late to my destination, but I did sprint the gaps in the safety zones where the roads intersected. Now, I live in the gaps.

“Patria“, from whence the words “”patriot”” and “”expatriate”” are derived, is a Latin word, and for the Romans, “fatherland” was a sacred word. All the qualities most important in this world could be found in one’s fatherland, so that without it, one became a non-entity even more shadowy than a dead soul. At least dead souls with a fatherland could exist in golden fields without care, but traitors suffered in a subterranean torture chamber. Exile to an uninhabited isle was even more harrowing than death. For nobles, suicide was legally accepted and recommended as a punishment for capitol crimes, since the surviving family members retained the family property. Needless to say, there are no poems in Latin about expatriates, but quite a few about patriots.

The Hebrew Testament, too, is full of stories of men and women loyal to God. Men, like Noah, Samson, and David are remembered for their faith, and Deborah and Ruth for their devotion. On the other hand, Saul suffered insanity, and then witnessed the complete destruction of his kingdom, because of his vanity. Jonah even tried to flee and shirk the mission God had given him, only to be chastised by an awesome display of the Lord’s resources. David’s psalms are full of references to God as refuge and fortress. Where the Roman tales seem so stolid, sex, collapsing buildings, floods, earthquakes, monsters, and a range of human motivations broader than a science fiction novel, make even the first five books of the Bible more entertaining than a soap opera.

Muslim identity centers around the submission to God, or islam. Arrayed against the faithful, entrusted with a responsibility for the welfare of the community, are the forces of decadence, or jahili, the wanton ones whose only desire is personal aggrandizement. The mission, the ardent hope of the Muslim community, or ummah, is the redemption of a prehistory full of faithless people. To remember this, the Muslim calendar begins with the hijra, when Mohammmad fled Mecca, a city full of jahili, to found the first ummah in Medina. When Arab clans, united by their faith in God, established a trans-continental empire, it seemed God had truly blessed them.

And, for Confucius, there is no meaningful existence, even with a heaven full of gods, without proper moral relationships between people. Starting from the most basic and nearest, Confucius outlines the responsibilities required for all relationships, culminating in the roles of ruler and ruled. Most persons, for Confucius, could only rise to their fullest potential in the context of a family. Men strove to become perfect gentlemen, who performed the proper responsibilities at all times, and sought knowledge, to benefit the community. Lessons learned from previous generations, or traditions, were cherished as solutions to the everyday trials of living.

Marriage is a union of two people, and to share anything, one must first know what one is. I am not Roman, Muslim, Jewish, or Confucian, but I can choose which traditions to continue or abandon. Surprisingly, I am also not just a hybrid species of American and Korean. It’s almost impossible to say positively what I am without recourse to others, including my wife and two families, and a million fleeting glimpses. I cannot point to a single opinion I have held for longer than years. With age my appearance changes, as does my choice of clothes. I do in August what I would not in December, and my nights are different than my days. I have not lived in one place for very long. I am not an individual, it seems, even in a timeline, since I do not even recognize that face in old photographs, or in the mind of God. Since I cannot reasonably argue about a soul or other existence after death, how can I take benefit or solace for it now? Existentially, I am unfit to marry, if marriag! e is sharing, or, as Ephesians 6:31 speaks of , “…two will become one flesh.” So, where do I locate my ideal.

It starts with punishment, the pain inflicted by a stupid, cruel world of patriots. Unfortunately, even though every person on this planet is changeable like me, there are small numbers of blue-blooded citizens, armed with application forms, who don’t want to see my red blood. As a matter of fact, through language these patriots have created a rainbow of hues and a behavior for each stripe. Measuring skulls went out with the Nazis, so it’s called culture now. Culture is like a shadow, always on the other side of the light. People live in cities and nations, make laws and enforce customs, because they fear the shadows more than they love the light. Nations punish those who do other than what the blood demands. I can be a resident alien, but not a citizen. My children can be Korean and American, but only for a time. They can speak many languages, but they must be fluent in Korean. And, even in America, my wife and I would have to sacrifice the comfort of one family and many! traditions. People no longer think corporal punishment is good, so laws are made, about education and marriage, and property.

What is most foreign, in the sense of unnatural, is not the union of two people, but nationality and culture. This is not a Roman world, so how can I be “out (ex) of my fatherland”? I am still changing, and my blood is still blue. Still, I have to choose one quality that saturates my body like poison. And, my wife has to choose one, too. Not only are we both changing in many different ways, until communication is the only way we relate, but we are at war, like proxies in a covert operation. So many distractions, like taxes and visas, that obfuscate our talk, both lingual and sexual. We lose control of our own happiness.

To avoid annihilating each other, then, the war must be waged beyond our borders. Amidst all the patriots in Busan, there are islands of desperate expatriates, who sometimes are more narrow-minded than the blue-bloods around them. Within those intoxicated islands, there are some of the most creative geniuses on the planet. Working with two people’s customs and personalities, the conflicting demands of disparate families, imperatives, both financial and procreative, and a sea of waving Korean patriots, these married adventurers explore themselves and their cultures. Out of the confusion comes a new reality, a union wholly novel, yet instantly despised by some.

I am no longer an American expatriate, and she is not a Korean citizen. In this violent world, who are we and what is our fate? By the way, racing in the gaps thrilled me, and it still does!

Joseph Steinberg

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