The Daily Glance
Cathy Park Hong's Translating Mo'um examines many aspects of the cultural borderland she experiences as Korean and American. Many of the poems are about daily activities and the way in which her two languages blend or don't blend in her life. Still, the poems that interest me the most deal with changing attitudes about sex and public affection in the Korean community. For instance, in "On Splitting," the speaker intersperses images of her parents' controlled sex, such as never showing public affection, and her own more promiscuous ways. This poem and a few others around it seem less about Hong and more about a community with changing values.
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