My Korean surname has always stood out. 

Like any other word in any other language, 김, or Kim, has its translations. The English Kim is a clear denotation of a Korean surname, and 金 jīn, a Chinese character that serves the same purpose. I have always been unmistakably Korean on paper.

My Korean given name is Mina, 미나, but it is not used. Why would it be?

My Chinese name is 美儒 měi rú, generational — its second character, 儒 rú, inherited from my grandfather — but my English given name Ola has no linguistic connotation and is used only as filler, and to have an English name. You must wonder whether having a given name with meaning would have made any difference. Language is meaningful. Names gain meaning through use, but simple sounds gain meaning on their own.

A monolingual white man once told me that I was a “failure to my country” because I didn’t speak Korean. He had assumed me to be quadrilingual and found it an offence that I wasn’t. I was in middle school and had never held a connection to Korea besides a surname. Being born and raised in Hong Kong, I had never considered myself anything but Chinese.

Still, I wonder. If I were 김미나, Mina Kim, Korean in nothing but my name — without Ola, or Chinese, or Cantonese to buffer — would that man’s words have cut to the core instead? That man’s haughty and disdainful disposition of a culture to which I belong?

We spoke English in the household because my father is largely monolingual despite his Korean birth. Cantonese is the language of the average Hong Kong household, but my mother — Cantonese by birth — never spoke it with us in her attempt to lingually unify the family. She succeeded. She regrets it now when we stutter our way through Cantonese. I suppose we sound like our father.

Now, I am teaching myself Cantonese. A poor, late adaptation for what should have been instilled in me a long time ago, but growing up surrounded by the language is not without benefits. Cantonese phonetics are easy, the grammar intuitive. Never underestimate what latent learning can do for a child.

I am also learning Korean. I reap no benefits from this — not while my Korean father speaks to me solely in English. Still, there is comfort and ease in my distance from the language: the feeling of peering into South Korea through a window instead of a home. 

I lack Cantonese and it is a bruise. I lack Korean and feel nearly nothing. Why would I? I am Korean only in name and not in language: a product of growing up where I did. I am Cantonese in name as well as experience, and not speaking Cantonese like my mother haunts me more than I have the words for. It is an emotional language barrier.

My government name is Cantonese, courtesy of my Cantonese family. My brother’s government name is Korean instead, courtesy of our Korean family. And, maybe that is the largest blessing of all. I appear Cantonese. I have escaped the perception of being Korean and the idea of belonging to a country I do not know. I have escaped the enormity of it.

Still, I wonder. If I were Mina Kim, without the shield of Cantonese, or buffer of a name, could I bear to reach out and learn Korean at all?

Sometimes I envy my friends from home, most of whom are full-Chinese. I wish I was clear-cut like them. I have never learned how to live with a foot in each door. I have never learned how to be both Chinese and Korean, so I picked one — or one was picked for me by nature of growing up where I did — and I was none the wiser. So, I am like my friends from home. I am just as Chinese as them in every way besides the duty that I have that they do not: the responsibility to a language and culture that I don’t know any more than they do, because heritage is nothing without experience. Because I am Korean in name and name only. 

Still, something about Korea calls me. I could chalk it up to my linguistics degree. Or, I could chalk it up to everything hanging in the balance, finally falling into place.

Ultimately, my name is grounding. It is Cantonese, like I am. One day, I will earn it. Cantonese is a southeast variety of Chinese, smaller than the whole of Mandarin. Hong Kong is even smaller. Cantonese is not a language someone speaks without attachment, without a personal stake. I hear Mandarin and feel joy. I hear Cantonese and think ‘home.’

One day, I will have the words to express it all. One day, I will have all four languages — English, Korean, Cantonese, and Mandarin — at my disposal. I am over halfway there, so there is less than halfway to go.

None of my names in English, Chinese, or Cantonese really work in another language like Japanese — a fifth language I want to learn after all my stones have been turned — despite the language’s derivation from Chinese. The name that does work phonetically seamlessly is my Korean one. 

Maybe giving Mina a new life will be its saving grace. Maybe Korean on its own is too large a thing to battle but as a tool and as a means to progress, the name Mina is more than the sum of its parts. It is a Korean name, but a transmission of language too. That — I can work with. That is all I have ever been working with.

Romanizing my Chinese name has always looked odd to me. I have never thought of myself as Mei Ru. I have only ever been 美儒. There is a certain intimacy in seeing your name written out in a different script. I have never known my own surname, Kim, 金, in its original language. The sight of it, 김, unravels something that I didn’t know was tied into knots. 

One day, I will have earned it. I am not 미나, Mina. Not yet. When I can express this all in a language that is mine by birth, maybe I will feel like it. Maybe Mina will welcome me home.