Sun Yung Shin has one photo of herself in South Korea, and it comes with a notecard from the Holt International adoption agency. The card lists her name, her orphan case number K-6596, and her birthdate. The back of the photo is blank, like the back of a mirror.
Shin writes about that photo in her essay “Looking in the Mirror of My Past as a Korean Adoptee in the United States.” She connects the physical artifact to the larger question of identity: how a name, a number, and a date can be assigned, fixed, and made socially legible — even if they are not entirely real.
The Photo and Its Card
The photo was taken by someone at Holt, the adoption agency. The notecard leans against the front of Shin’s sweater. The name Shin, Sun Yung, the case number K-6596, and the birthdate are all written in English. All three were assigned by the agency.
Shin frames the case number as a fact and the name and birthdate as fictions. She asks how anyone could not become a writer after that kind of origin. The 26 letters of the Roman alphabet, she suggests, allow identities to be assigned and fixed — made socially legible and legally recognized.
The Mirror’s Ghost
Shin opens the essay with a practical observation about mirrors themselves. Humans have used polished obsidian as mirrors for 8,000 years. Mirrors made in China, dating as far back as the Han Dynasty (206 BC-24 AD), eventually reached Korea and Japan.
One of her favorite stories comes from “The Story Bag,” a book from or about Korea that she had as a child. The story is called “The Bridegroom’s Shopping.”
The Tale of the Moon-Shaped Comb
The story opens with a venerable old farming family whose only daughter has just married. Husbands lived with their wives’ families in ancient Korea before the Joseon Dynasty adopted Confucianism. The bridegroom has to go to town on business, and his wife asks him to buy her a comb.
He agrees eagerly. But his wife is forgetful. She looks at the sky and sees a new moon, three days old and shaped like the comb she wants. She tells him to look at the sky if he forgets his task.
In town, the bridegroom forgets. Several days later, as he prepares to leave, he looks out the window and sees a full, round moon. Ten days have passed. The shopkeeper sells him a mirror, saying a young bride would want it when she pretties herself.
The bridegroom has never seen a mirror. He buys it. When he hands it to his wife, she peers into the smooth glass and sees a pretty young woman. She complains to her mother that she asked for a comb and got a strange young woman. Her mother sees a wrinkled old woman and calls her an old relative from a neighboring village.
A small boy enters, eating a rice cake. He looks into the mirror and sees a stranger who has taken his cake. He throws up his arm to strike the boy, and the other boy does the same, and they both begin to cry in fear.
The grandfather comes in and sees a fierce-looking old man. He drops the mirror, and it crashes into hundreds of pieces of broken glass. Everyone stands staring.
What the Story Means
Shin enjoyed the story because she saw adults being taken in by something she already understood as a child. The situation mirrors the home she was raised in: her father went to an office every day, and her mother stayed home, driving all over town to take care of her older brother, the house, the garden, their pet dog, and their father.
The story’s secondary lesson is that women depend on forgetful men for purchasing what they desire. Almost all folktales are lessons about family, roles, and belonging. Who is known, and who is a stranger.
Comparing the Tale and the Home
| Element | Tale | Home |
|---|---|---|
| Departure | Bridegroom leaves for town | Father goes to an office |
| Caregiver | Wife stays behind | Mother stays home |
| Task | Buying a comb | Making three meals a day |
Why Mirrors Matter
Shin’s essay connects the physical mirror in the story to the mirror in her own life. The bridegroom’s mirror showed different people depending on who looked. Shin’s photo shows a single image, but the notecard on the back is blank — like the back of a mirror.
The essay quotes Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel “The Sympathizer,” where he writes about displaced people living in two time zones, the here and the there, the present and the past. A second surface mirror, also known as a standard or regular mirror, creates a ghosting effect, a double image.
The family stands staring at the broken pieces of glass. Shin’s essay ends with a single photo and a notecard. Both contain information, but neither fully explains the person who looks back at them.
Shin’s essay is a quiet, precise meditation on what it means to be seen. The photo is a record, the notecard is a label, and the mirror is a reminder that identity is always partial.
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