Among Koreans, I Feel More at Ease
Updated: Sep 18
Irina Park on growing up in Hwang Man Geum, preserving Koryo-Saram culture, and finding her own path
Park Irina was born in 2005 in Tashkent Region and has lived there her entire life. Her mother is half Kazakh and half Russian, while her father is Korean. But the community in which Irina grew up was predominantly shaped by her father’s side of the family. She lives in Hwan Mangym, a settlement she describes as a Korean village, named after the founder of its collective farm. Koryo-Saram still live throughout the area, and when Irina attended the local school, Korean students and teachers were a familiar presence.
Her education, however, took place almost entirely in Russian. Irina attended a Russian-language public school for all eleven years and describes Russian as her native language. Korean had once been a required subject at her school, she explained, but was removed from the curriculum around twenty years ago. Uzbek and English remained secondary subjects, and Irina never became particularly comfortable speaking either.
Outside of school, though, Irina chose to study Korean. Her family had always emphasized education: her older sister had performed well academically, and Irina remembers relatives and friends reinforcing the expectation that she should study hard and take advantage of educational opportunities. She eventually graduated with a gold medal. After studying Korean for three or four years, she also achieved TOPIK Level 4 and hopes to continue learning the language.
Taking Time to Find Her Own Path
Despite her academic success, Irina did not immediately go to university. At the time of our interview, two years had passed since she graduated from high school. Financial and health difficulties at home played a role, as did the fact that many universities teach in Uzbek, a language she does not speak well. But the biggest reason was simpler: she did not yet know what she wanted to study. Her family did not pressure her to decide quickly.
Those two years were not empty. Irina had actually begun working much earlier, after finishing ninth grade, when she and a friend decided to find summer jobs because they were bored. They ended up staying at the same job for four years while Irina finished school, learned Korean, exercised, and tried to understand what she wanted from her future. She also began traveling within Uzbekistan and watching the paths other young people were taking through social media. Travel, she told me, became “a kind of education”: a way of encountering something new and arriving at new thoughts about her own life.
When I asked whether she felt that she had found herself after those two years, Irina’s answer was still unfinished. She understands her personality, behavior, and desires better than before, she said. What she has not yet figured out is precisely what kind of career she wants. Sociology currently interests her, but she has not settled on a university or even a country in which to study.
“Among Koreans, I Feel More at Ease”
Irina is less uncertain when talking about where she feels culturally comfortable. Her mixed background means that both sides of her family carry different identities. Her mother’s relatives are Russian and Kazakh, but after her parents married, her mother lived among Irina’s father’s Korean relatives. Irina and her sister therefore grew up more immersed in that culture and mentality.
When she visits relatives on her mother’s side, Irina sometimes feels slightly out of place. Among Koreans, she told me, she can “breathe more freely.” That feeling has remained remarkably consistent from childhood into adulthood.
Her attachment to Koryo-Saram culture does not mean that she sees herself as separate from Uzbekistan. Irina says she feels part of Uzbekistan because she was born and raised there. At the same time, living in a multiethnic country means constantly encountering other traditions, mentalities, and ways of life. She sees that cultural interaction, and sometimes pressure, as unavoidable. The question, in her view, is how an individual responds to it. Her own preference is to hold on to Koryo-Saram traditions.
Learning What to Preserve
For Irina, preserving those traditions also requires learning more about them herself. When I asked what she would want to pass on to a younger generation, she mentioned Koryo-Saram traditions surrounding birthdays and weddings, traditional food, holidays, and community events. But she did not speak as though she already possessed all of that knowledge. She said she would like to remember— or perhaps learn more herself—about those traditions before passing them forward.
That distinction feels important to Irina’s story. She grew up in a place she describes as a Korean settlement. Her surname is Korean. Her official documents identify her as Korean. She feels most at ease among Koreans and has spent years learning the Korean language. Yet maintaining Koryo-Saram culture is not automatic simply because she grew up surrounded by it. It is something she is still choosing to learn, understand, and carry forward.
The same could be said about Irina’s life more broadly. At the time we spoke, she had not decided exactly where she would study, what career she would pursue, or where she might eventually live. She hopes to spend some time in Korea, where many of her relatives already live, but she is conscious of the financial, linguistic, and practical considerations involved in moving abroad.
At this stage of her life, Irina is still figuring out what comes next. But uncertainty about her future does not seem to translate into uncertainty about where she comes from. She grew up in Hwan Mangym, among generations of Koryo-Saram, and when she describes the community in which she feels most comfortable, her answer is simple:
“Among Koreans, I feel more at ease.”
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