Hwa Records: Connecting History with Family Narrative

Connecting History with Family Narrative: Korean Family Stories and Ancestral Meditation

Facilitators: Roger Kim & Saewon Oh

Date: Sunday, May 29th

Time: 6PM - 8PM EST

In this workshop, participants will get a brief review of Korean history, with a special focus on the political and societal forces that are the sources of trauma in many Korean families, as well as the shame that makes it difficult to share and process these traumas. Participants will be encouraged, but not required, to share their family stories, and will be led in an ancestral timeline healing meditation.

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Hwa Records is a team of Korean diasporic performance based artists and healers composed of Roger Kim, Saewon Oh, Kayla Tange, and Caroline Yoo. Hwa Records was conceived after Caroline Yoo was diagnosed with hwa-byung in 2020. Hwa-byung (fire sickness) is a Korean folk syndrome attributed to the suppression of anger where pent up emotions then manifest in the body. While the diagnosis in South Korea occurs primarily in middle-age to older women suffering under a prevalently patriarchal society, it can also be caused by the displacement stress of balancing two cultures - in this case Korean and American. Hwa Records uses intimate workshops and experimental performance to create community space for diasporic Koreans to discuss and alleviate some of these pressures, and to create places to collectively process the ever-present, but only recently acknowledged racism directed towards Asians.

Disclaimer language for workshops:

Hwa Records sessions are free workshops, whether facilitated online or in-person.

​Workshops are open only to those who have Korean heritage and are based in the United States. We will be prioritizing participants who are based in the midwest of the USA and then will open up the remaining spots to anyone of the larger Korea diaspora in the USA.

After you sign up for one of the sessions on eventbrite, a questionnaire will be sent out to make sure this workshop is the right fit for you. Signing up does not mean your spot has been confirmed. Your spot will be confirmed after we have received your filled out questionnaire.

Each workshop will have a maximum of 7 participants. We will keep each workshop intimate to facilitate connection and space for each of the members.

Hwa Records is NOT in any way a replacement for therapy, medical healing, counseling, and licensed medicinal practices. The facilitators of Hwa Records are artists who are interested in creating friendship and safe spaces within the Korean diaspora in the United States. This is a community based project that may be of assistance to one’s journey of healing but in no way is an alternative or replacement.

Our goals are to provide a space of no judgment, shame, or negativity to one’s lived experiences. We are here to listen (even if we communicate non-verbally) and to hold space for your own emotional process in dealing with HWA.