13 #2
“I didn’t mean to upset you.” Tek rapped his forehead with his right fist like he was trying to discipline himself.
“I just never went to a hagwon. My mother didn’t believe in them.
Neither did my father. They thought smart people didn’t have to go.
They bought me some test guides and said I’d be fine.
” He recalled just how clear his mother had been about his not needing a tutor or an exam prep course.
They’re for anxious mothers who never went to elite schools, she’d said, having gone to Korea University for her undergraduate degree, then earning an MSt at Oxford and a doctorate at Sydney.
“Mido, you’re too smart to waste your life teaching a bunch of kids how to game a test or an application. It was a fine gig when you needed something for a stopgap and were taking care of your family, but now you’re done.”
Mido got up from her seat.
“Sit, Mido. Don’t go. I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight you about this.”
She sat back down and exhaled.
“Tek, you went to private school in Sydney and had a mother and father who got advanced degrees abroad. You won a genetic lottery and live in a country where you were given every chance to succeed. I just don’t think you should sit in judgment over the people here who don’t have the same opportunities that you did.
How dare you make generalizations about people you barely know?
Just because you’re ethnically Korean doesn’t give you the right to speak about all Koreans. Your parents didn’t raise you here.”
Tek didn’t know how to back down. It enraged him to think of her spending her life doing something that made no sense to him. “Koreans care too much about this shit, and it’s wrong for you to participate in this culture of hypercompetition and status mania.”
“Wow. So that’s what you think of me.”
“Not you, but how you’re spending your life.”
“What makes us better Koreans? What makes you so superior? Tek, you have no right.”
“Are you still with that guy?”
“What?” Mido stared at him, wondering if he’d changed the subject to distract her.
“I broke up with that girl.” Tek picked up his chopsticks, then put them down again. “She wasn’t you.”
The broth bubbled in the pot, and the meat and vegetables lay untouched.
Mido turned to the door and said nothing.
“I’ve loved you ever since we were kids. You can’t possibly tell me that I have no right to tell you about what you were meant to do or who you were meant to be. I know how gifted you are.”
“You think that being an actor or a playwright is somehow better than being a tutor or an education consultant. You’re an elitist, Tek. I didn’t know this about you. I help kids, and I’m trying to help them the best way I know how.”
“You’re only helping kids who can afford this shit,” he said. “You’re supporting this endless culture of striving and cutthroat competition in a nation that has an inferiority complex,” he said, taking a deep breath to resume his argument, but Mido raised her hand.
“Tek. Most rich people here try to get their kid out of Korea by sending them abroad, but what about the poor or middle-class family who can’t possibly afford to send their kid to college in the United States?
You’re going to look down on a middle-class parent for spending her last cent trying to help her kid learn English, when every corporate job here asks for your TOEIC score?
You can’t be hired without a degree and top scores.
It’s not like America or Australia. Most parents don’t want their kids to be factory workers, replaced by cheaper labor or machines. You know this.”
Mido reached behind her chair for her bag and coat.
“It’s too easy to blame parents or feel superior to your simplistic ideas of Koreans.
I thought you were smarter than that. It’s not a compliment to me that you think I can be a playwright or an actor.
I don’t think that’s a better job. It just sounds cooler to you than being a hagwon teacher. ”
“If you want to help kids so much, why don’t you teach in a poor public school? We have them in Sydney, and I know you have them in America.”
Tek could not stop himself. He had to prove her wrong, and Mido realized that she didn’t want to fight him.
“Why do you get to question what I do?” she asked. “I never once told you to become a solicitor or barrister or anything.”
“There’s nothing wrong with becoming a lawyer.
Anyone would be lucky to have my job.” Tek stopped, seeing his own standards exposed.
For him, there was something wrong with working at a hagwon.
Yet he had protected insurance companies that chiseled their customers, denying payments for disputable claims. Why was that any better?
“I don’t have to defend my life to you,” she said.
“I just want the best for you.”
Mido stood up.
“I have work to do. Thank you for dinner. Please don’t call me anymore. I wish you well.”
“Mido. I didn’t mean for us to argue.”
Tek asked for the bill and paid it, and when he reached the sidewalk, she was gone.
When Mido returned to Fortress, most of the tutors were still at their desks in the main room. Peter sat in his office alone. A glass window divided their spaces, and he waved. Mido went to his office and put down her heavy tote bag on the armchair.
“You’re back sooner than I thought you’d be,” he said.
“Do you think we’re wasting our lives?”
Peter laughed.
“What? No. I don’t. But thank you for asking.” He looked at her quizzically, not understanding why she seemed so upset.
“I think I need to get my degree.”
“Here?”
“No. Back in California.”
“Now? We’ve only been here for a year. Things are going well.”
“I don’t mean right this second,” she said, not knowing exactly what she was trying to say.
“You should go back to college if you want. I know a great education consultant. She’s considered the best in Orange County and now Seoul.”
“Ha. I’ll be twenty-nine in October,” she said quietly.
“Hey, that’s not old for college. But I thought we were going to take over the Korean hagwon market.
” Peter rubbed his hands like he was plotting something.
“My family thinks we should get into the internet hagwon business. My uncle thinks that if we record the classes and go online, then we could scale up.”
Mido made a face.
“Do you think I should get my degree?”
Peter looked thoughtful. “What’s in your tote bag?”
She shrugged and picked up her bag.
“Two bottles of barley tea, lip gloss, hand lotion, sunglasses, and two books.”
“What kind of books?”
Mido read out the titles: “The Psychology of the Child by Jean Piaget and B?rbel Inhelder and Erik Erikson’s Identity: Youth and Crisis.”
“Oh, Lion.” Peter rolled his eyes. “My dude never quits.”
“He said they’re really good. He said there are solid critiques of their ideas, but—”
Peter raised his hand as if to stop her. “But they are foundational to understanding how children learn. Lion tried to get me to read them, too. Unlike you, I flat-out refused. You don’t have to, you know. It’s not required.”
“I know that. I just thought it might help me to become a better teacher. It’s actually fascinating. Piaget argues that children learn in stages when they’re developmentally ready, and I was thinking that matched my experiences at Exodus.”
“Well, there’s your answer.”
“What answer?” Mido appeared confused.
“You miss school, and now you have a real reason to go back.”
Mido held the old hardcover books in her hands and stared at them.
“Did you want to make an internet hagwon?” she asked him, not even understanding what that was exactly.
“Zero interest. No, negative interest. Someone smarter than me could do that. Probably should do that. Not me.”
“What do you think Lion wants to do about Fortress Seoul?” she asked.
“He said we can decide. He misses the band. Personality-wise, maybe we’re small-time hagwon operators.”
Mido laughed. “Yeah, I miss hearing you guys sing.” In the armchair, she pulled her knees to her chest and put her head down.
“Figures my uncle would come up with a way to monetize this even more.” He tried to peek underneath her curtain of hair. “Hey, Mido. You home?”
Mido raised her head.
“Do we have to make a lot more money? Do we have to scale up?” she asked.
“No. We don’t. It was just an idea from a rich family member.
Rich people get rich because they have these moneymaking ideas.
He said we could put out videos. Who knows how it would work when we focus so much on each student?
I just thought you might like the idea because it could help more students who can’t afford to live in Seoul. ”
Mido smiled at him.
“Peter, I want to have kids. Do you want to have any? I never asked you. I know you don’t want to get married, but are you against kids?”
“I want kids. How many do you want?”
“I don’t know. I liked being one of three.”
“Let’s have kids, then. You’d be good at being a mom.”
Mido didn’t know if that was true, but she was certain that she wanted to try being a mother.
Even if Peter changed his mind, or if they broke up, she still wanted kids.
School, relationships, and kids. There was supposed to be an order to things, and perhaps everything would be out of order for her, but the wishes remained, and the wishes were worth saving.