passing for American-born
passing for Chinese
my maiden name ever after marriage (23).

The remaining sections explore various oppressive aspects of a Korean woman’s experience, both past and present. One example that Shin critiques is the role of as “kisaeng,” or prostitute; apparently, “[the] education of women was as impractical during the Yi dynasty as sending the family cow to learn the Chinese classics.” Towards the end of the poem, Shin writes:

Light reflects off my computer
monitor not the glittering
rice paddy, not the sewing
machine’s glittering
needle dipping like a cormorant into tomorrow’s
Nike and this
the Culture at work. (26)

Shin writes against traditional female roles by highlighting her own position as a writer (not a typist, not an “entertainer”). She resists the idea that a woman’s role in “Culture” or “Eastern Society” is simply a “dancing-girl” or laborer.

The “this” in the last passage above echoes in a later poem titled “Kyop’o (Overseas Korean) on Location”:

Hanguk → Korean → English

Konglish → Kinglish → Queenglish

inglish → inklish → ink (this) (46)