1
Letters
Los Angeles, California
My Mido,
Yaah, I miss you.
The photographs are wonderful but not the same. I sound ungrateful. Sorry.
Thank you for sending them in your last letter.
Seeing the pictures, I wished to be back in Sydney. I know I was there only briefly and gosh, over three years ago, but for me, it felt like a pretty dream during a terrible time. You reminded me again how much I loved my few weeks there.
The twins are enormous! And the baby. Wow. Is she starting preschool? That sweet white dress. I hope I can have a little girl one day, or four of them like in Little Women. You can be their aunt. And Henry. He’s as handsome as a drama star.
I hope Henry got the Disneyland postcard I sent from our senior trip.
I should’ve gotten him the Mickey Mouse hat with his name stitched on it, but I wasn’t sure how to send it without the mouse ears getting crushed.
Tell Henry that if he comes to Los Angeles, I promise to take him.
It was so much bigger than I imagined and more expensive, but worth it.
No one could believe that it was my first time.
I’m ashamed to admit this, but back home, I used to feel a little better about myself because our family had plenty of money.
No one could ever make me feel inferior because my mother would take me to all the fancy places and buy me things no one else had, but here, I don’t know any of the cool things and haven’t been anywhere interesting.
A White girl in my freshman writing seminar said she was a debutante in Atlanta, which she’d hated, and I had to look that up because I didn’t know what it meant.
There were some kids in my high school whose families belonged to country clubs, but I don’t think it’s the same thing.
A lot of the wealthier students at UCLA have traveled to Europe. I’m a country bumpkin here.
Maybe one day, you’ll come to America, and we’ll go to places like San Francisco, New York City, or Washington, DC. I’d love to go to a Broadway musical and walk through Times Square.
I should mention that you look pretty and happy with your boyfriend.
Tek seems more serious in the picture than I remember him.
Then again, that time he came over with Henry, after he ate almost all the Anzac cookies, he studied and got all his schoolwork done, which I admired.
I’m glad he likes uni and is taking Korean classes.
I wouldn’t want you to marry a Korean who can’t speak it at all.
I wish I didn’t have an accent, but I can speak both languages now.
I can even get by at work with my high school Spanish.
If I could, I’d like to learn more languages.
Oh, remember to be careful with Tek, if you know what I mean. Ha ha.
My mother has also been nagging me about being cautious because I have big news.
Are you ready?
Like you, now I have a boyfriend, and he’s not a boy. He is old, and he wants to marry me. Ever since I met Lion Han, I liked him but I never thought I had a chance. He is 23, so five years older than we are.
So, is that four years older than your Tek?
He reminds me of a 1,000-year-old turtle who’s been walking the earth forever.
If you meet him, you’ll understand what I mean.
He looks nothing like a turtle or a lion, but there’s something about the way he is so wise and purposeful.
Everyone at church calls him the Oracle of Orange County.
Naturally, since he’s older, my mother is worried that I’ll get pregnant.
Lion said he could wait for as long as I wanted, but I don’t know how long I want to wait.
Your friend Yun is still a virgin but I’m now in college, and between us, most of my friends from school and church have done all the things.
Yet I haven’t, so naturally, I’m curious. Ha ha.
He wanted to be a musician, and his father cut off his tuition, so he put himself through Princeton by tutoring. He owns a hagwon in Cypress with employees. I know you will like him.
Let me tell you about my classes at UCLA.
Here goes: Communications, Psychology, Spanish, and Writing. Writing and Spanish are requirements for me to graduate and the classes are small. Comms and Psych are huge, and I have section leaders, who are graduate students. The classes are not boring. I much prefer college to high school.
You know what, though? I think I’m still tired from high school.
College is great, and UCLA has a beautiful campus but I don’t live in the dorms, so I have a long drive home to Cypress five days a week.
Traffic is the only part about California I hate.
I’m getting to be a great driver, though.
I can’t graduate in three years like Lion did, but I’m going to try to pick a major early and focus, so I don’t waste time.
I need to pick something. I was thinking maybe Business Economics?
I’m not that interested in business, though, but the math won’t be too bad.
Where do I study?
I do my work at the school library here, or at Lion’s hagwon office, which is quiet and I get to see him when he’s free. Also, he can help me with schoolwork. He’s good at editing my papers.
Nothing has changed at home. My father is still having a hard time.
Same as usual. He’s still angry at his former partner, and he hates working at Shrimp Castle and wants us to go to S?o Paolo, where his younger cousin lives.
My mother doesn’t like his cousin. She said she’s not moving again unless it’s back to Korea.
I can’t imagine going to Brazil and starting over again at eighteen.
I guess I’d learn Portuguese. Both of them agree that UCLA is good for me, so even if they went, I would get to stay and finish my degree.
Here’s my jansori list. Nagging is love.
Take your vitamins.
Make sure you get enough sleep.
Buy yourself a treat once in a while, it’s okay to buy yourself a lip gloss or a nice sweater.
Enjoy your last few days of high school. I think you’re graduating soon, then you have those HSC exams, right? You’re going to get into a great uni. I know it.
If you can, after you finish your HSCs, please consider taking the SATs, 3 SAT IIs, and apply to UCLA and a few American colleges.
Your school will have sample study guides in the library.
I had some problems with the reading comprehension section, but the math was fine. You will do great on both sections.
College here is expensive and out-of-state students pay more, but Lion said for some schools, it’s worth taking out loans.
I live at home so I don’t have to pay for room and board.
The community colleges here are also excellent, and after two years, you can transfer to schools like UCLA and Berkeley.
A lot of my classmates went to Cal State schools, which are great, too.
Can you tell that I want you to move here?
As soon as I have enough saved, I’ll send you a ticket. Lion wants me to concentrate on school, so he doesn’t want me to work at Shrimp Castle as much, but business is getting better, and my parents need help. If I worked at Lion’s hagwon, I’d make more per hour, though.
My mother’s English has improved. Dad works in the kitchen so he doesn’t get much chance to talk with customers. They both say hello to your parents and brothers.
Send me a long, detailed letter soon.
Love,
Yun
She had filled up two blue aerograms with her tiny handwriting and marked the letters “Vol. 1” and “Vol. 2.” In them, she had done her best to sound cheery, focusing on the good news.
On Saturday night, Yun’s father, Joonho, smoked a cigarette in the alley behind Shrimp Castle.
After stubbing it out, he picked up the cigarette butt from the ground, closed the back door, and tossed the butt into the plastic-lined garbage can in the kitchen.
The new helper, Rafael, had needed to leave early, so Joonho had to clean up the kitchen by himself.
Joonho changed into his rubber boots and mixed disinfectant into the wash bucket.
Joonho’s wife, Nari, had already locked the front door and settled the cash receipts and was busy tidying up the bathrooms.
Joonho, dressed in a white short-sleeved cook’s shirt, navy drawstring polyester trousers, and rubber boots, scrubbed the tiled kitchen floor before hosing it down.
Yun had driven from Cypress to Garden Grove to pick up her parents.
In the parking lot, she waited for them in the car while she did her Spanish homework.
In some ways, Yun liked the sound of Spanish more than English.
She’d always had good high school Spanish teachers, and Profesora Martinez at UCLA was her favorite teacher.
When her father opened the front passenger door, Yun looked up from her language workbook. Joonho slid into his seat, reclined his head, and shut his eyes.
In the back, Nari buckled her seat belt.
“What did we make today?” Joonho asked his wife. Yun knew he’d be hoping for a big number. From the kitchen, he could estimate how many entrées and sandwiches they’d sold, but it was the front-of-store sodas and iced teas that could make a big difference in their profit margins.
Yun started the car, feeling sorry for her father, whose clothes reeked of fishy oil. His uniforms were harder to wash than her mother’s.
“A little over nine fifty,” Nari answered.
It was not a good take for a Saturday, and they still had to get over the middle-of-the-month hump and earn enough money for the rent, utilities, supplies, and insurance, and Lenny’s and Rafael’s salaries.
They could keep what was left after everyone else got paid.
The promissory note they’d signed was getting paid off at a regular clip but not fast enough for Nari, who worried about Yun’s tuition.
When they were already on the freeway, Joonho suddenly said, “We have to go back.”
“What?” Nari said.
“I forgot to lock the back door. I closed it but didn’t turn the knob. I had a cigarette—”
“This is the second time in two months. Do I have to do everything? Your head is still in Seoul. Or you’re fantasizing about Brazil like you’re a young man.
You’re almost forty,” Nari shouted. “Your daughter has to pick us up because we have only one car. She studies, works hard, and never hangs around with her friends. My little girl shouldn’t have to do this. I can’t believe that you forgot again—”
Nari’s complexion was gray from exhaustion, her eyes bloodshot. In Seoul, she had almost never yelled at Joonho, but here, as she worked beside him each day at the shop, she understood that he was no longer the same confident young man she had known as a teenager. He used to call her his princess.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Yun said calmly. “I don’t mind. Really.”
Joonho said nothing. He leaned against the headrest and stared at the dark-blue interior of the Volvo.
With traffic, it took another forty minutes to get back to the shop, and it was true. Joonho had forgotten to lock the back door, but nothing had happened to Shrimp Castle.
“No harm, no foul,” Yun muttered under her breath as she secured the dead bolt, repeating a thing that her boyfriend liked to say. She could not imagine telling Lion what had happened, though she felt certain that he would not judge them.
Back home, everyone was too tired to cook, so Yun reheated the leftover pizza from the night before while Nari and Joonho washed up and put on clean clothes.
Since Yun had the car most days, Nari hadn’t had time to pick up groceries.
Joonho didn’t like American takeout and refused to eat fried chicken or fish.
The only non-Asian delivery food that he could tolerate was pizza, so whenever they ordered any, they ordered a spare box for the following night.
Eating had become a chore. Joonho had grown thinner each year, unrecognizable as the brawny man who used to go to a boxing gym in his spare time. Here he was all loose skin, bones, and sighs held back.
Wearing his dark sweatpants and a clean T-shirt, Joonho sat down at the dining table, his head resting in his hands.
“Yun-ah, can you get your father a beer?”
She brought him a cold Heineken with a beer glass from the cupboard.
“Don’t have more than one,” Nari reminded him. “Last night you drank seven bottles and threw up before going to bed. I can’t live like this.”
Yun stared at her mother, willing her privately to stop nagging him. Of course, her mother was not wrong, but they both knew he would not listen.
She put a slice of pizza on her plate and reached for a paper napkin.
“I need to finish my homework,” she said. Yun wasn’t hungry, but she didn’t want her mother to remind her to eat and start another argument about nothing.
“I should never have married you,” Nari said to her husband.
Joonho got up from his seat, opened the apartment door, and walked out.
He didn’t return until Sunday night and didn’t offer an explanation of where he’d been.
On Monday morning, he went to work, and Nari said nothing.