Cardi B is 'ajumma'

By Jason Lim

A Facebook friend posted, "I just realized Cardi B actually reminds me of a Korean ajumma. She has an ajumma spirit."

This post got me thinking about those words in one language that really have no equivalent in another. For Korean, the first example that pops into mind is the word, "Han." Many attempts at translation have been tried, but all are unsatisfactory. Han is less a word than a shared sense of Korean zeitgeist.

If I had to convey the meaning, it would be something like, "a collective melancholy shared by all past, present, and future Koreans over historical tragedies and victimization as a people but tinged with poignant pride over having endured and the will to inevitably endure." It's very optimistically pessimistic. Of course, this is my own personal take on the word. Everyone will have a different take on it yet understand when I use the word in a Korean-specific context.

And that's the nature of language. A single word can convey a shared understanding of a common experience. Further, a word reflects the evolving nature of the society that uses it, imbuing it with layers of symbolism and connotations that builds upon each other.

Ajumma is another such word, commonly understood to mean something in general yet very difficult to accurately convey its Korean context because it's so layered. I personally experienced the evolution of the word ajumma as I left Korea in late 1970s as a child and went back for the first time in mid-1990s. When I left, ajumma was a word used to refer to an older, married woman who wasn't kin. It was a catch-all term for any stranger woman. For example, a waitress would be called Ajumma.

But when I went back in the 1990s, waitresses were no longer ajumma but "Unnie," which is what a younger sister would call an older sister. I, as a young man, calling a waitress unnie was definitely awkward and strange. But that was the new norm. Also, in the two decades that I was gone, I noticed that ajumma had taken on a more pejorative connotation. An ajumma was a woman who was anachronistic, aggressive, parochial, emotional, self-centered, and rude, mostly likely to be uneducated and uncouth. Most of all, sexless. An ajumma was not someone to emulate. Granted, I was experiencing the word as a young man, not a child. Yet, the evolution of the word was difficult to ignore.

In fact, other words like "Missy" tribe was created to denote a class of married women who were still fashionable, educated, and sophisticated: an anti-ajumma. Previously, they would all have been ajumma's. Admittedly, Korea in the 1990s was all about different "tribes" from "orange" (well-to-do young people in Apgujeong), "yata" (Get-in-my-car) and "kingkang" (wanna-be-orange) tribes, etc.

But ajumma wasn't all negative. There was a subtle but a definite, grudging respect for a. It was a respect for the resiliency, forth-rightness, and don't-mess-with-me type of self-centeredness. As the 1990s gave way to the IMF crisis and a wholesale shift in the socioeconomic narrative that Koreans bought into during the miracle years, ajumma's survivability through thick and thin became a more attractive countercultural trend.

Especially, for women tired of keeping up with the Joneses (or should it be the Kim's here) in the hypercompetitive society driven by conspicuous consumption, always looking over the shoulder on who might be watching them and trying to cater to the latest fads, ajumma represented freedom ― albeit still crass and often conflicted freedom ― from that societal cage of expectations. Moreover, ajumma began to mean self-empowerment, the courage to live life as oneself without being beholden to others, and confidence to show the world the real you without the fear of losing face.

But what I find most interesting about ajumma is the unspoken concept of it as the pillar of strength and glue that binds society. In this context, ajumma is the mom that keeps the family together through a philandering and abusive husband, the immature and complaining children, the henpecking and entitled in-laws, and the sneering and dismissive male bosses, while being taken for granted for all the things that she does to keep her family cohesive and intact. She is the adult in her room, not out of choice but necessity. She has no choice but to become uncouth and aggressive because to be anything else would be a luxury that she can't afford. This is actually very reminiscent of the myth of the strong black women in America, the one that carries on through the travails of an unfair life, victimized doubly by racial and gender discrimination, yet standing strong for her family as the no-nonsense matriarch.

Maybe that's what my FB friend meant by Cardi B having the ajumma spirit. But, frankly, I don't really know who Cardi B is, and I am just guessing. So, I don't know what he means, but, strangely enough, I think I understand what he's trying to say. And that's the magic of language.

Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture.