4
Sydney University Dramatic Society
Sydney
As a first-year university student, Mido had no problems with the written coursework.
Just as in high school, she found writing research papers and taking exams manageable and often engaging.
She had selected the education course, specifically at the primary level rather than secondary, because Mido felt comfortable with small children.
Tek was in his third year, studying commerce and law. After classes, meetings, and work, the two undergraduates met at his rental apartment, which he shared with old friends.
One Friday afternoon, they made love in the empty rental, fixed scrambled eggs with baked beans and toast in the common kitchen, then returned to Tek’s room to do their schoolwork.
Mido was seated upright on the bed to do her reading, using two pillows as her lap desk. Tek was at his desk, which was pushed up against the long wall. Before starting his assignment, he remembered.
“How did your presentation go?”
Mido inhaled. Everyone in her primary school survey course had to give a brief oral presentation about their research paper, and it had been abysmal. It was a quarter of her grade.
“That good?”
She looked at him, her expression full of worry, and sighed.
“When I talk to my tutoring students, even in a group of four or five, I feel fine. I explain the concepts, ask them questions, and teach what’s needed. I must be doing okay because the kids are doing well, and I get referrals since their marks improve a lot.”
Mido collapsed into her open book, burying her head in the comforter.
Tek tried his best to understand her situation.
He had debated since Year 9, but even before that, he had been able to handle anyone who interrupted, shouted down, or fought a point to death.
At his boys’ school, arguing had been a kind of sport, and he’d have qualified as a varsity athlete of talking.
Nothing thrilled him more than persuading a thoughtful opponent.
If the opponent was an ass, Tek enjoyed taking him down even more.
He loathed bullshitters—people who just liked arguing or talking to get attention.
The better he got at debate, the more he became aware of the power and responsibilities found in the gifts of logic, rhetoric, and argument.
As a skilled debater, he felt more strongly than most that speaking and listening should be meaningful.
If he had to expound on the matter, he would say that the highest aim of debate was to reveal truth and knowledge among well-intentioned minds.
The mark of a great debater was to be truthful in the structure of an argument.
An assertion based on verifiable evidence, clean logic, and fair execution of delivery should triumph over a weaker point.
One of the things Tek admired about Mido was how she spoke: Her words were essential.
There was nothing unnecessary in her thoughts.
Whatever she said felt true and valuable.
It upset Tek, who had been around so many loudmouths, to think that Mido’s ideas could be lost or diminished because she didn’t know how to deliver them well enough to others.
His parents, both professors at the University of New South Wales, had taught their only son that almost any subject could be learned competently by a student of average ability.
Tek’s parents had graduated from Korea University and received doctorates at the University of Sydney, where they had met and married.
Tek’s father was a political scientist who specialized in East Asia, and his mother was a well-regarded economist. Despite their own educations and professions, they believed fervently that a child should never be forced to study.
That said, they had provided a number of opportunities for Tek to explore diverse fields of interest in academics, sports, and extracurricular activities.
Both prided themselves on never pushing a child to excel.
Rather, they taught Tek about the need for intelligent schedules and delayed gratification and the value of consistent, high-quality work.
Tek’s father argued that Koreans back home had the wrong ideas about education.
“All that memorization, rule following, and class ranking. Foolish business,” Professor Do would mutter.
His wife, Professor Yoon, who went by her family name, would add, “Such willful disregard of the child’s personality and abilities. No wonder the country is in such a mess.”
It wasn’t that they idealized the Australian education system; however, they thought it was preferable to the one they had experienced and had remained in Sydney in the hopes that their Australian-born son would get a proper Western education.
They had not stressed learning Korean. Tek understood the language but did not speak it well.
Professors Do and Yoon liked Mido, but noticed how quiet she was.
“Is she like that with you, my chatty son?” Professor Yoon asked.
“She’s not like that around me when we’re alone,” Tek said. “She’s brilliant, actually.”
Even though most university students lived at home, his parents had encouraged Tek to live in an apartment with classmates so he could gradually experience being an adult.
As an added bonus, Professor Yoon was relieved not to have to think of her son’s meal preparation—labor she had never enjoyed as a mother.
Early on in her career, she had published a paper on the social utility of housework and the opportunity costs of women’s labor in South Korea, which was still cited widely.
Professor Yoon loathed grocery shopping and cooking, and thankfully, her husband would have eaten a fried egg and Marmite sandwich for dinner every night of his life without complaint.
It was Professor Yoon’s idea for Mido to join SUDS.
If Mido and her son were to marry and have children, Professor Yoon knew that the mother would need not only to speak to her own children but also to advocate for them in varying situations—in schools, at hospitals, and at social events.
And of course, Mido would need strong, effective oral communication skills at whatever work she chose to do.
“My students who know how to perform onstage are not always extroverts,” Professor Yoon advised her son.
“Introverts can learn skills like improvisation, telling jokes, and public speaking. I don’t like talking, but I can give lectures to hundreds,” she said without any false humility, and Tek realized this was true.
His mother and father were not loquacious people.
They seemed most happy reading and writing in their shared home office.
It irritated him a little that his mother was correct.
He had to admit, however, that being around performers would be good for Mido.
As a general rule, Tek was not impressed with the intellects of actors and singers, but many of his friends were performers.
Fun and attractive, they were invited to better parties.
Actors and singers tended to be more sympathetic than debaters.
He would rather have a beer with a mate who was an actor than a debater, who could be exhausting.
In bed, Mido was sitting up again, reading. Even when she was frowning, he thought she was pretty, not in a conventional way.
She wore almost no makeup ever and dressed plainly.
Mido had little interest in fashion or shopping and wore what her mother bought her.
She rotated her outfits, made up of simple skirts and dresses, wool sweaters in solid colors, and pressed white shirts bought from the boys’ section.
Recently her friend Yun had sent her a pair of Levi’s jeans, which she wore often.
Her skin was bright and clear, and she’d kept the same style haircut since they’d met as teenagers, a neat pageboy that grazed her small unpierced ears. Unlike Tek, she had no trouble sleeping, and she usually appeared well rested and imperturbable.
While his four roommates shared two large bedrooms, Tek had his own room and a queen-size mattress, where both he and Mido had lost their virginity at the start of her school year.
They liked studying in his room because it was the quietest part of the house and no one bothered them when the door was closed, thinking they were having sex.
“Mido.”
She looked up from her textbook and smiled at him.
“Professor Yoon had an idea.”
“Your mother?”
“She mentioned that some of her students learn how to present by taking a theater class or joining a dramatic society.”
“Acting?” Mido raised her eyebrows. “Me?”
“A couple of mates run the Dramatic Society. I’ll find out more about it if you want. I can go with you if you’re nervous—”
Mido scrunched her nose like a puppy and said nothing.
“They do improvisation exercises. I’ve seen them. Hilarious and liberating, I think,” he said.
“Improvisation?”
“You get a prompt—like ‘Two goldfish fighting for the same taxi’—and then make stuff up. Act the part. It’s usually brief.
Anyway, actors do loads of these exercises to loosen up.
I think it’s good to try these sorts of things.
Low stakes, and you get to practice performing.
If you think about it, a presentation is a performance,” Tek said.
Noticing that she did not protest, he turned back to his work.
“I’ll find out when the next general meeting is. ”