Mudang Sung Park (he/him) was born in Seoul, Korea, and immigrated to the Ridgewood/Bushwick area with his family when he was young. Sung always knew that he was born in the wrong body, but being “queer” was something he attributed to whiteness. And there was another complication to his gender: like many Korean Americans, Sung grew up in the church, and came from a family of ministers. After college, he went to seminary, where he obtained a divinity degree, and was under care at a church to be ordained when his father suddenly passed. He wanted to honor him, but because his family had stopped practicing traditional rites long ago, didn’t know how to, and left ministry, having grown resentful of the ways in which the church prohibited indigenous practices in Korea. Wanting to relearn the practices of his spiritual heritage, he sought out a mudang to mentor him in musok, and was surprised to learn that he came from a lineage of not only ministers, but mudangs as well. He doesn’t know of other trans men who are mudang, and isn’t sure if there’s a significance to his gender and his spirituality, but he feels that there must be one, as coming into the musok tradition has felt like a second homecoming into the queer Korean American community.
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CREDITS
Directed by Deborah Baik & Kimberly Young Sun
Interviewer: Deborah Baik
Editor: Kimberly Young Sun @kimberlyyoungsun
Camera: AJ Valente @ajyval, Janice Chung @janicekaramchung
Gaffer: Jason Chew @chewchomp
Sound: HJ Lee
Prop Stylist: Celine Son @clnsn
Production Coordinators: Yoon Perera Lee, Celine Son
On-site Therapist: Kim Konopka
Funding for this project made possible by Korean American Community Foundation @kacfny with support from the Reva and David Logan Foundation @revaanddavidloganfoundation
KoreanAmericanStory.org is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization whose mission is to create and preserve the stories of the Korean American experience.