1
Return
Gaepo-dong, Seoul, South Korea
The rules of engagement have changed already.
Within a month of their arrival from Australia, Mrs. Helen Koh found her family a suitable apartment in a good school district in Seoul.
The middle-class neighborhood of Gaepo was not as nice as the one where her sister, Sonya, lived, but it had to suffice.
After paying key money for the two-year lease, a painful sum that consumed the bulk of the family’s savings, and replacing the most urgent things before the shipping container from Sydney could be delivered, Helen accepted that there just wasn’t room in the budget for any place better.
Their rental house in Campsie, a suburb of Sydney, had four bedrooms, a den, and a generous backyard for cookouts.
Their Seoul apartment, on the third floor of a five-year-old building put up quickly by mediocre developers, had three small bedrooms, a decent-size living room, and two baths.
The largest bedroom went to the two boys, Bo and DH; Helen and her husband, John, occupied the medium-size bedroom; and the tiny one near the foyer was for Mido, the child Helen worried about the most.
From the outset of their marriage, John had put his sensible wife in charge of the household finances.
Helen’s thrift and good judgment allowed him to focus on his career.
For almost two decades, on Monday mornings, Helen had given John a weekly allowance for his carfare, meals, and pocket money; then it was her job to make do with the remainder of his salary for their tithes, living expenses, and retirement savings, if any, and in that order.
A former math major at Seoul National University, John preferred problems he could solve on paper, and family life had far too many unknown variables.
Raising three children was costly, and when they were still young, Helen began working as a retail sales associate to supplement John’s steady income, which was inadequate for their mounting needs.
John’s work had taken the Koh family to Paramus, Seoul, and Sydney.
In each city, Helen’s supervisors recognized her talent as a reliable salesperson.
For each of the three Koh children, Helen kept a spiral notebook, and on the back flap, she pasted a manila envelope where she tucked away cash for their school fees, clothing, and sundries.
This year’s envelopes were lighter than usual because the children had needed many new things upon their return to Korea.
In addition to school uniforms, Bo and DH required larger sneakers, thicker winter coats, and stacks of study guides.
Mido, the youngest, had not grown as much as her brothers, so her wardrobe would serve another year; however, in Sydney, she had needed to see learning specialists, which had wiped out her portion of the savings.
Mido was thirteen years old and in the first year of the local middle school.
She was short and slight for her age, and often mistaken for a much younger child.
Like her father, Mido had small, round eyes that formed an endearing expression when she smiled.
And like him, she had perfect vision and didn’t need to wear eyeglasses, which Bo had required since he was a toddler.
Mido wore her dark hair parted in the middle in two thick braids, which suited her pale, unremarkable demeanor.
Although Mido could speak well enough, she seemed almost incapable of doing so at school, church, or anywhere else outside the home.
With her family she spoke as needed, and around her father, Mido was especially at ease.
On Saturday evenings, after Mido finished her homework and household chores, the two of them watched music variety programs on television, smiling and laughing in a wordless cocoon.
All the children were born in Paramus, New Jersey, when John worked at a Japanese trading company in New York City and reported to Taehun Shin, who had been one year his senior at university.
Shin had been like a brother to John throughout school, military service in the elite KATUSA unit where their English-language skills only improved, and at both the Japanese and Korean trading companies, which had allowed the men’s families to live overseas as subsidized expatriates.
The Koh family had lived in New Jersey for seven years, Seoul for three, then Sydney for almost six, prior to their return to Seoul one month before the start of this school term.
Throughout her childhood, Mido’s teachers had asked Helen to come in to discuss her daughter’s excessively quiet manner.
At her preschool in Paramus, and in the first years of school in Seoul, Mido barely spoke with the other children and was left out of friendships.
At her primary school in Sydney, the teachers had hinted at learning issues, despite her high marks.
They’d encouraged her to talk more in class, advocate for herself, and work better in groups.
Helen saw herself as a modern, educated parent, and she wanted to help her youngest child.
She took time off from work and visited a learning specialist, a speech therapist, and an occupational therapist. The doctors in Sydney pronounced Mido normal, more or less.
A reputable pediatrician said there was nothing medically wrong with the girl’s hearing or vocal cords.
The child psychologist believed that Mido’s shyness was cultural, and all the moving around might have confused her.
Asian children, the school counselor had observed, were often less talkative.
Mido’s father, a high-functioning introvert who managed the natural resources department at a multinational trading company, dismissed such simplistic nonsense.
Not all Koreans were quiet. His own family had been filled with loud people.
At the slightest provocation or encouragement, his mother, father, and elder brother would shout and argue their well-articulated opinions.
To be left alone, John had retreated into his studies, excelling at math and foreign languages.
As an adult, he did not ask for much in life.
He enjoyed listening to music and being in the presence of his wife and three children.
John wanted to comfort his dear Helen, who was clearly troubled that their daughter did not have friends.
Throughout her own childhood, Helen, like her elder sister, was a natural leader—engaging, kind, and deliberate in her goals and methods, articulate in both Korean and English.
In college, she had served as vice president of an English poetry society and secretary of a music appreciation group.
Helen took her daughter’s difficulties personally.
John felt less anxious about his daughter’s prospects.
Mido was a seventh grader who read at a college level.
The other children did not appreciate her, he reasoned.
When ready, she would speak up, make friends, and find the work she was meant to do.
She would grow out of this social reticence.
Helen, a devout woman, prayed he was right.
Maybe Mido would be more outgoing if her self-assured brothers didn’t crowd her with their larger personalities, or if the Koh family hadn’t moved across the world every few years.
John Koh wanted things to be equal for his sons and daughter but recognized their innate personality differences.
Above all, he wanted to protect his daughter’s peace of mind.
All this poking around and extra attention couldn’t be good for her.
If you looked hard enough, you could always find something wrong.
The world was too noisy. It was fine for Mido to be her own way, to seek privacy and solitude.
As might be expected of a child who read a great deal and hardly talked, Mido received admirable grades; however, on her report cards, her teachers often commented, “Mido is a fine student and a good girl. What is concerning is her lack of social relationships.”
Helen was accustomed to her sons’ strong school performance and popularity.
Bo was a standout student, the teachers’ perennial favorite, and DH was an exceptional soccer player.
Helen was the sort who needed to fix things, and she wanted to know what she could do to bolster her daughter’s self-esteem.
Mido didn’t have to be school president, the prettiest, or the top student; Helen simply wanted her child to be included.
Although Helen had not wanted to return to Seoul, preferring to raise the children abroad to enlarge their opportunities, there was some consolation: Mido’s shyness seemed almost commonplace in Korea. A child could be quieter here.
The middle school was six blocks from the main shopping street and less than a ten-minute walk from the Kohs’ apartment.
The four-story cinder-block building with a slate roof, whitewashed and with a dark-blue trim, housed numerous classrooms, a spacious auditorium, two music rooms, and a new gymnasium.
There was a well-maintained field for the three grades of boys and girls.
Mido did not attend the coveted middle school in Gangnam, which sent the greatest number of students to the desirable specialized public high schools in the city, but her school was far from the worst.
In Mido’s homeroom class, there were forty-six students. Mr. Na, the homeroom teacher who also taught mathematics, assigned Mido to sit in the second row.
Seated directly behind her was an attractive child with dark, large eyes.
A formidable student, Yun Kim was also known for being a brilliant sprinter and a fine keyboard player.
Each year, her homeroom teacher selected her as the classroom president because her peers listened to her.
In the morning, Yun’s mother French-braided her only child’s shoulder-length raven hair, and although all the girls wore matching uniforms, Yun stood out by wearing American sneakers.