"Are you Korean or Japanese?" goes the question.
Kyoto-based artist Kim Myong-hee finds it both amusing and disconcerting. Why do people always ask that? And what difference does it make?
Korean by birth, and proud of it, Kim, 50, has lived half her life in Japan. Years of having to deal with persistent questions about who she is and where she's from haven't dented her tolerant nature or good humor, but have piqued her curiosity about human identity. In fact, she's just launched an ambitious art project designed to push the identity question to its limits, to the place where the "boundary of nationality disappears."