14
The Lecture
Lion gave his talk on the legend of Hong Gildong twice—one version for the primary and middle school children at Exodus, and another for the high school students at Fortress. The primary message was “Hong Gildong is a character from a fable, and he cannot serve as our role model.”
He told them none of them needed to be like Hong Gildong—a boy with unnatural powers of intellect and skills who tries to save the larger community and earn an honorable station in life.
“Rather,” Lion said, “use and nurture the talents you have. Show up and do the best you can on whatever you put your hands to. Be honest and good to yourself and others. Avoid comparisons. Each of you is needed on the team. I like you right now. Just as you are.”
The children seemed a bit confused but relieved, too. Lion Teacher always knew their names, said hello to everyone, and looked them in the eye when he spoke to them. They already knew he wanted to lighten their burden.
At Fortress, Jonathan Park, a senior from Troy High School, raised his hand during Q and A.
“My mom said that you have the highest IQ in California, so maybe you don’t have to try as hard?” Jonathan said, smiling, and the other children laughed.
“Wise guy.” Lion smiled back at him. “To the best of my knowledge, not the highest IQ in California. You are wrong, sir, about something very important. I tried very hard when I was your age, to learn. I still try very hard now, to be the head of this organization, which is only one factor of your education.” He was constantly stressing the importance of their regular school teachers, who did nearly all the difficult work five days a week.
“Everything takes an enormous amount of effort for me, but I want to give it that effort. I don’t believe IQ measures intelligence. I know for certain that IQ does not measure success in life.”
Greg Kim, a senior from Oxford, raised his hand.
“No offense, Lion Teacher, and I ask this out of respect, but what are you not successful at?”
Yun, sitting near the front with Mido and Peter, looked up to observe her husband’s face.
Lion’s eyes shifted toward the white ceiling, and his jaw grew firm. He paused for a moment before speaking.
“Most people would not call me a successful musician by the world’s standards, but I am still a solid musician.
I don’t think I’ll ever win a Grammy, have a national tour, or have one of my songs played on the radio, but that doesn’t take away the fact that I still love to play my guitar, write my songs, and sing in a band.
I don’t want anything out of music other than to play music, so I think I win for me. ”
Greg frowned, trying to understand. What Lion Teacher had just said sounded like what his basketball coach had been talking about when he said Michael Jordan had a “Love of the Game” clause in his contract that allowed him to play ball anytime he wanted for the love of the game and not just to compete on his NBA team, even though Jordan could risk being injured playing in a pickup game at a park that didn’t count for the Chicago Bulls.
Greg wondered if that love of the game was what made Jordan the Hong Gildong of basketball, or if Jordan just had miraculous talent combined with the best work ethic in basketball history.
The senior boy wanted to know because he wasn’t the best ballplayer on his team or the smartest student in any of his AP classes, and the cute girl he’d asked out at the beginning of the school year had turned him down.
Was it possible to think you’d won when no one said you had? What was winning anyway?
Jonathan Park, ever the joker, raised his hand and hugged his study guide.
“So if we love learning, then we can master our SATs?”
Folding his arms, Lion paused meaningfully.
“Possess the right thinking. Only then can you master your art.”
Yun turned to Mido, who shrugged.
“Cicero?” Peter asked.
“Master Splinter,” Lion answered.
“Who?” Yun asked.
Peter made a face. “You’re quoting the rat from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?”
“Why not?” Lion said.
Peter groaned. Delighted, the children clapped, and Lion took a bow.
After Lion gave the talk, he sat in his office and reviewed his lecture notes and thought about what he’d said to Greg.
For his music, Lion had walked away from mathematics and physics—subjects he understood almost intuitively.
He had to do the work, but he could almost see the path to the solutions, faster and more easily than most of his peers.
Still, it was music that made him feel alive and excited.
He was a fine musician and a good vocalist. People told him he had an original sound.
That said, the Zekes were just an above-average local cover band that played in a steak house.
If that gig disappeared, he’d continue to perform until he couldn’t.
Lion would never sign with a label, or record an album, and his music wouldn’t hit the Billboard charts.
Of course, he had once wanted those things, but he saw that none of it would happen.
So far, his hagwons were his albums and his greatest hits, and now he knew he was lucky to have a home with Ginny and Yun, and soon, their child.
For days, Lion thought about Hong Gildong, how the archetype permeated the mindset of the striving Korean. After church on Sunday, when he spotted Bo on the patio having lunch, he broke down his theory, and Bo listened attentively.
“Of course,” Bo mused, “there are other important values in that legend—resistance to unfair authorities and rejecting hierarchy and primogeniture, personal effort, resilience in the face of inequity and abuse, perseverance, generosity toward the oppressed, and individual valor.” He shook his head.
“Gosh, so many things. I haven’t thought about the good parts of that story in a long time—”
“Yes, yes, of course, you’re right,” Lion said impatiently, “but it’s caused a lot of damage.”
“Well, yes. Hong Gildong cannot be a role model. Hong Gildong is a fantasy superhero. The need to be endlessly exceptional would destroy the lives of even Olympic gold medalists, because you can’t keep winning medals forever.”
When Lion met prospective students for either Exodus or Fortress, often the interviews surprised him.
About half the children were excessively quiet, nervous, and fearful.
The meetings troubled him. It was as if they believed that somehow they’d failed when they hadn’t even started at life.
How was it possible for an eleven- or thirteen-year-old to think he was dumb?
I’m not as smart as my brother, a kid would say, or My mom says I get bad grades because I’m lazy.
Eventually the child shared, I’m trying. I really am, or I’ll never be a natural like fill-in-the-blank name of the student with the highest grades in her class.
Lion didn’t blame the schoolteachers or parents.
He knew from experience that everyone wanted a child to flourish, but everyone had different ideas about how to make that happen.
He worried about the kids. Lion wanted them to learn better so they could feel stronger.
He wanted them to be able to solve super problems, not necessarily be super anything.
He finished his coffee and faced Bo.
“All these little kids are walking around feeling like they’ve disappointed their parents and themselves. I just want to scream. You know, I never had a record deal,” Lion said, feeling embarrassed about saying this out loud. He continued anyway. “I still have a meaningful life.”
“Exactly!” Bo said. Hearing this admission felt like a gift. He saw now that he was lucky that he hadn’t been able to get into Yonsei. He had failed three times. But back then, he could not imagine a life without his dream school.
“Do you know that I still have that blue Yonsei T-shirt in the plastic bag?”
“Where is it?”
“In the back of a drawer. I can’t get myself to throw it out, and I can’t get myself to wear it.”
“It’s just a shirt. Yonsei is just a school. It wasn’t meant to be,” Lion said.
“Still not wearing it,” Bo said.
Lion said, “I’ll wear it for you.”
Bo laughed. “It’s yours.”
“No, you should wear it, because you earned that shirt more than anyone who ever got into Yonsei on their first try.”
Bo grew quiet, remembering that tiny rented room, his friend Isul, Big Uncle, and the kind tutor who had given him a coin for luck.
For two years, almost, he had subsisted on ramyeon and cheap rice from a gosiwon kitchen; his Weyburn studio at UCLA seemed like a five-star hotel in comparison.
He could not imagine a better life than this one, even with its petty humiliations and the attendant discomforts, because here he had hope.
“What do you think of my Korean superhero theory?”
“I like your theory, man,” Bo said.
“I told my students. At Exodus and Fortress.”
“And?”
“They looked kind of relieved. But maybe it’s going to be forgotten once they go back to school or hear something different at home,” Lion said. He tapped his fingers against the patio table.
“I’m glad you told the kids. That’s good.”
“Thanks,” Lion said.
“Now go tell the parents.”
“What?”
“Yeah, tell the parents,” Bo said. “You should give that same talk to the parents,” he repeated. “Get to the root of it.”
“Why not? Why not?” Lion repeated.
The new Gospel Presbyterian Learning Center was not even close to being done, so the church let Lion use the big gymnasium on a Thursday night, and he invited parents from both Exodus and Fortress. Of course, members of the church were also allowed to attend.
Over five hundred parents came to hear the famed Oracle of Orange County speak about education. Some of the younger parents didn’t even have hagwon-age children, but they’d heard of Fortress’s college admissions results. They were preparing to jockey for a better spot on the waiting list.
Tutors from both hagwons stood in the back because they ran out of chairs. Near the church gym doors, Yun and Mido sat behind a folding conference table, checking off registered guests.
Before taking their seats, many parents asked to buy study guides. Not finding any, they walked away, mumbling under their breath at the hagwon owner’s business incompetence. They couldn’t believe this lecture wasn’t for marketing purposes and there was nothing to buy.
Lion had titled his talk “Our Children’s Heavy Burden: Education in America.” For thirty minutes, Lion spoke about the legend of Hong Gildong and what he perceived to be its impact on students of Korean ethnicity.
Danbi and Shin sat in the second row, one row ahead of George and his wife, Sobin. George never once looked at Danbi and concentrated on forgetting what they had done the day before at the Hilton in Anaheim.
After a bath and lovemaking, he’d told her about a new flip property in Garden Grove and given her the card of a new mortgage banker who had better loan products.
For the last property she’d bought to flip, she had been short $100,000, and he had borrowed $100,000 from the church building fund by creating a fake contractor invoice.
As soon as she sold it for a premium, he’d returned the $100,000 to the church fund without it being noticed.
During the week, he sent her text messages on her second mobile phone, which he’d bought for her. They played a game where he’d tease her about a valuable lead but wouldn’t tell her the details. When they met in the room, she’d cajole until he gave in.
Sex outside of marriage was a sin, but in his mind, what he was doing with Danbi was far worse.
He felt committed to Danbi, more than to the mother of his children.
He couldn’t imagine living with a woman like Danbi, but he didn’t want to live without her.
All week long, his primary thought was of his mistress and what he could do to please her, and after he saw her, he felt an urge to see her again.
After his talk ended, Lion suggested a fifteen-minute break followed by a Q and A session.
It was a polite exit opportunity in case anyone wanted to leave, but very few did.
Parents milled around the snack tables in the back of the auditorium, piled high with platters of mart gimbap and grocery store pastries and baskets filled with bags of chips and pretzels.
There were coffee, tea, water, and soda on another long table.
Everyone in the room had attended school meetings, but this one felt unusual because every parent was ethnically Korean.
They knew each other from their children’s schools, their neighborhoods, their businesses, and church.
The mood in the room felt more convivial than competitive.
Women from church surrounded the popular Sobin Ha, clamoring for her attention, and as Danbi and Shin passed by, they nodded in her direction, but she didn’t seem to notice them. Shin bowed to George, who stood by his wife, and George returned the bow, unwilling to even glance at his lover.