“A Tale of Three Names” (2023-2024)

Korean Filmmaker Bong Joon-ho quoted the legendary Martin Scorsese in his acceptance speech for the Academy Awards, saying that “the most personal is the most creative.” Ironically, this was the most difficult thing for me to do when it came to writing. I always had trouble sharing my personal thoughts in an essay, primarily because of my tendency to write what I felt like I should write about rather than what I actually felt. I still remember the initial trouble I had when approaching the prompt. While Jamaica Kincaid’s essay was so private and close to the core of her cultural heritage, I never have been deeply connected to the historical burdens of my origin. But because my fear of an empty paper exceeded my fear of telling a personal story, I began the drafting process.

After a few pages, the essay became a jumbled rant about the historical pain South Korea suffered through over a couple of centuries. But as I went on writing the essay, I found myself getting more and more detached from the central theme, just as if I were writing about someone else. That was when I realized that though more than a decade of Korean education taught me what I should feel about the historical events of my country, I was never given an opportunity to scrutinize what they meant for me as an individual being. I was told that I should be angry at the fact that South Korea has always been kicked around between two superpowers, that I should blindly take in the narrative of my country without protest. Frustrated by my passive approach to the essay’s, I decided to give the writing a spin in its final pages.

The three names I have do not hold any more meaning than words to call myself. Yes, I should respect their cultural significance, but that does not mean that I should automatically rage against the defeat and subordination of the past. This essay taught me something important–that your personal identity does not end at the road you have walked but lies in the path that is before you. It is up to us to decipher what each historical and cultural narrative means for our individual selves. With a more active attitude toward my identity, I hope to grow as a filmmaker and portray my personal narrative under a creative light. 

Jaeyeong (Tony) Jeong is studying film/TV production at the Tisch School of the Arts. Born in Seoul, South Korea and having gone through six school years of hyper-competitive standardized testing and two years of mandatory military service, Jaeyeong wants to utilize his artistic endeavors to better his understanding of the world and his own identity. After experiencing both individualist and collectivist cultures, he wants to create narratives that can influence both worlds using the cinematic language. His essay explores the idea of finding one’s identity within different collectivist narratives and how to cope with historical burdens and limitations.