Chang - rae Lee : If Korean box were a person , he would be the nosy first mate on a plane . Lee can tick Korean box but knows his Korean - ness in it is like no one else 's . Lee : ` ` Our shared [ Korean ] heritage shows in our faces , '' but similarities are superficial . For despite a thorough pride in my Korean heritage and my wish to be no other , the complexities of what might seem a circumscribed identity ( surely not a tenth as vast as `` white '' or `` black '' ) still feel too numerous to be so neatly contained . Lee says if he designed boxes , boxes would multiply , blur , become uncountable .
Chang - rae Lee : If Korean box were a person , he would be the nosy first mate on a plane . Lee can tick Korean box but knows his Korean - ness in it is like no one else 's . Lee : ` ` Our shared [ Korean ] heritage shows in our faces , '' but similarities are superficial . Lee says if he designed boxes , boxes would multiply , blur , become uncountable .