They say that salmon live in the ocean but return to their natal rivers—the very waters where they hatched and departed—to lay their eggs. It is said that after spawning, they tend to their newly hatched fry before they die. And of those fry, only about half manage to journey back to the sea. What drives them to undertake a voyage that demands such a risk of death? Where was that primal instinct nurtured, compelling them to brave the immense and treacherous ocean despite the peril?
Moreover, while Pacific salmon perish during this homeward journey, exhausted by rough currents or preyed upon by birds and beasts, research shows that Atlantic salmon do not die after spawning. Instead, they repeatedly journey back and forth to their natal rivers, spawning and living for over five years. This difference is said to be an outcome linked to the resistance and energy depletion caused by the brutal ocean waves that must be defied when swimming against the current. Contemplating their instinct for homeward return, I look back on my own destiny—a path that inevitably drew me back to Korea.
Unlike humans, these creatures likely do not plot such arduous pilgrimages in search of their existential nature, asking themselves who they truly are. After all, I was the one who resolved to stand before the mirror of Western culture and depart, solely to find an identity for which there seemed to be no answer. Standing in a strange and unfamiliar place, I was finally able to discern the differences and similarities of the self that I could not see here. Furthermore, when standing on a solitary shore, facing the wind and the darkness of night, I learned more acutely from the moon and the stars what life truly means.
Folding up my twenty-five years of life on Long Island and settling down here in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province—a place in Korea, yet an unfamiliar rural setting where I have no prior experience—carrying the seeds of creation, feels much like a single salmon following its instinct for natal homing to conceive the seeds of life.
I belong to the generation that learned and grew up under the post-war Western cultural paradigm. Living among white Americans, plagued by the identity confusion of who I am as an Asian, I had no choice but to return once I finally found that answer. Crossing the vast Pacific Ocean, enduring harsh storms to survive without compromising my self-esteem amidst a different race and culture—I compare my deep-seated desire for creation, conceived through a battered soul like a string of black pearls of suffering, to the eggs of a female salmon. And from the deepest recesses of my heart, tears of sorrow often well up.
Yet, it was not that I found no reason to affirm my life on Long Island, which I once considered lost time. Though it was a solitary and disparate human world, the embrace of Mother Nature is not a fraction different anywhere on Earth. Deeply grateful for the fortune of living cradled by the forest, I console myself with the thought that the orchestra of rustling leaves, clouds, wind, and waves in the great outdoors must have been the prenatal music for the conception of my creativity. Comforting myself with the realization that, like a salmon, I have made this natal return to give birth to the seeds of creation, I lay out the drawings of the many stories I have long wished to paint, greeting and thanking my homeland and the ginkgo trees outside my room every morning.
Though it is not the ocean, walking along the beautiful, quietly singing, and glistening path by the stream while listening to the songs of wild grass and flowers feels like a profound blessing. Reminiscing about the old days when I spoke and danced with the spirits of the trees, I greet the flowers, grass, and trees of the museum with a smile every day. And whenever I see the person tending a lawn more than twice the size of a typical American garden, I feel deep gratitude for their genuine love for nature—plucking weeds one by one by hand, without the noisy motor lawnmowers or the pesticides used by Mexican gardeners in America.
Gazing upon the forest and sea of the bird sanctuary for many long days, I have conceived the seeds of creation through isolation and solitude. My desire to sprout, cultivate, and blossom these seeds here, growing the roots of my life and contemplation deep and high with profound gratitude for nature, is surely mirroring the salmon’s return to its natal waters.