by Annie Choi
“I’m tired of practicing. I want to eat!”
“Anne, you have practice more. You bow not look so good.”
“I’ll practice after dinner.”
“No, after dinner you have bow for Grandma.”
“Don’t worry. I can do it. If Mike can do it, I can do it.”
I heard my brother scoff. My mother was not convinced. “No keep practice.”
“But I’m hungry. Aren’t we gonna eat with everyone? Shouldn’t we be in there with Grandma?”
She sighed and led us back to our table. I sat with my parents and listened to my relatives give speeches. My father’s speech was filled with big words and complicated sentence structures. I could make out the words “luck” and “grandchildren” and “happiness.” During our week-long trip, my father had remained tense and silent. Though I never heard an argument between my parents, I could sense that their relationship was strained by my grandmother’s presence. Their playful sarcastic banter was subdued and my father smoked more cigarettes than usual. I think my father wanted to go back home. We all did.
While I ate my dinner, my mother kept arranging large napkins on my lap so I wouldn’t spill on my hanbok. Finally, an uncle announced that all the grandchildren would come up and bow to their grandmother. When my oldest cousin approached my grandmother’s table and bowed before her in front of nearly a hundred relatives and friends and waiters, I froze. It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d be bowing in front of everyone. My heart tried to jackhammer its way out of my chest. I felt nauseous and the knotted curls near my temples became matted from cold sweat. I turned to my mother with panic in my eyes.
“I have to bow in front of everybody?”
“Shh, yes.”
“I don’t want to do it. I can’t.”
“No, Anne, you have to. Watch how everybody bow. You told me not worry. You can do it, yes.”
Immediately I regretted not practicing my bow more. For the next fifteen minutes, I watched eleven cousins perform textbook-perfect bows. The grandchildren in each family came up and bowed at the same time, side by side. My grandmother returned their bows with a grave nod—not exactly a sign of approval, but not a sign of disapproval either. I watched as my cousins Yoon-chong, Yoonmi, and Woo-jay approached my grandmother. Yoon-chong was one of the oldest cousins, and her bow looked experienced. Yoonmi was an accomplished ballet dancer, and she bowed deeply and elegantly like a swan, with a perfect curve in her back. Woo-jay was majestic in his hanbok and his confidence came through in his bow. I glanced at my brother. His hanbok was a little tight around his doughy figure. But he seemed calm. He sat watching my cousins, lost in thought or boredom. His fingers pulled mindlessly at a string on his vest.
In my mind, I raced through the movements: raise arms, kneel, bow forward, count to three, stand up, don’t forget to go slowly, and watch out for the skirt! I looked down at my lap and realized I had twisted my skirt around my hands and wrinkled it. I tried to smooth it out and wondered if anyone would notice me and my bow and my wrinkled skirt. Surveying the banquet room, I discovered that every single pair of eyes was locked on my cousins. Yes, everyone would notice. I started sweating and scratching my arms, a nervous habit further intensified by the stiff sleeves of my hanbok.
Finally, my parents pushed Mike and me toward my grandmother. I took a deep breath and started the 200-mile journey toward the front of the room. My throat was parched and I felt a nest of curls stick to my damp neck. We walked slowly toward our grandmother, who watched our every move, taking a tally of what we were doing wrong. My skirt rustled around me and I picked it up so I wouldn’t trip. I looked over at Mike; he seemed comfortable and poised and maybe a little nonchalant, the way eleven-year-old boys often look. We approached my grandmother’s table and I looked fearfully into her sunken eyes. Liver spots were sprinkled all over her cheeks and I could see her flaky scalp through her thinning, gray hair. My heart was beating so loudly I was sure everyone in Seoul could hear it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my brother lower himself to the floor, and I began my bow too. I raised my arms and began to kneel slowly. My entire body shook nervously as I lowered my arms and knees. I tried to sneak my hand down to push my skirt out of the way, but suddenly, my sneaker got caught in the jungle of ruffles in my petticoat, and I pitched forward. My body twisted to the side and my shoulder came slamming down to the floor. My skirt was wrapped around my legs and in a panic, I tried to shake them loose. I felt like a fish out of water, squirming and flopping in the final throes of death. Gut-busting laughter shook the entire room and my face flooded with humiliation, making me feel even more conspicuous in my bright hanbok. From the floor, I glanced over at my brother and realized I only saw his feet. He had finished his bow and was already standing up and absorbing the mayhem I had caused in the banquet room. I scrambled to my feet, but stepped on my skirt again and stumbled forward.
My grandmother’s eyes stabbed me right through the heart. She did not nod. She remained silent while everyone else in the room slapped their knees and wiped their eyes. As my eyes filled with tears, I turned around and walked quickly toward my parents. I didn’t stop; I continued passed them, toward the bathroom. My mother got up and followed me.
“Anne, what happen?”
“I don’t know. I fell.”
With trembling hands, I started taking off my hanbok, grabbing the petticoat and the skirt and throwing them on the floor. I wiped my eyes and nose with the back of my hand.
“What you do now? Put on hanbok!”
She grabbed my clothes and tried to put them on me. I went limp in her arms. She gave me a hug and rubbed my back. She handed me a tissue, chuckled gently, and tried to untangle my curls.
“Everyone laughed, everyone hates me.”
“Who hate? Why they hate? It OK, Anne. It accident. The skirt too big on you. I should sew up shorter.”
“But everyone laughed at me.”
“Don’t embarrass, Anne. It OK. Everyone still love you.”
“Not Grandma. She’s mad. She doesn’t like me.”
“Oh Anne, remember? Grandma not like anything.”
She winked and led me out to the banquet room and my relatives grinned as I walked by them. They pinched me and told me how cute I was and that one day, I’d be able to bow like my cousins. I sat down between my father and my brother. I could tell Mike was holding back a barrage of witty comments; his pudgy face was ready to explode. But he showed remarkable restraint. My guess is that my father had told him to be nice. I searched for disappointment in my father’s face, but there was none. It was blank. He passed me a sticky rice cake.
“It OK, Annie. Eat dessert and then we go. I think everybody very tired.”
My grandmother never said anything about the incident, but I’m sure she blamed my parents for raising such an ungraceful American girl.
I looked across at my grandmother, who ate her lunch quietly. Our conversation, as upbeat as it was, came to an awkward silence. My mother, shifting uncomfortably on the floor, offered information about our family in the States: My aunt opened up another laundromat. A cousin got a job as a costume designer. My father’s lab work was going well. My grandmother didn’t seem interested. Then my mother talked about me: I graduated from Berkeley. I wrote and edited textbooks. I was interested in photography. My grandmother yawned, her warm breath practically melting my face. I tried to think of things to say that wouldn’t offend her.
“Your house is so…nice. Everyone in Korea lives in apartment buildings, so this is special.” I smiled weakly and looked around the house, trying not to stare at the puckered linoleum and a piece of long yellow tape that hang from the ceiling to trap flies and mosquitoes.
“Anne, wouldn’t it be nice to live in a house like this?” My mother reached over and put some more bean sprouts on my plate.
“Give her some fish.”
“Oh no, I’m very full. I can’t eat anymore. Please.” I shook my head and put down my chopsticks.
“You’re too skinny. I thought everyone in America was fat.”
My mother laughed lightly.
“I said, give her some fish.”
I looked at the fish in despair. It’s side had been split open to reveal white and gray flesh and part of its spine. One of its gills had been yanked open to get to the meat underneath. It looked greasy. My stomach churned.
“I’ve already had some, and I’m very full.” I rubbed my stomach and looked at my mother in a panic.
“Don’t lie to me, you didn’t eat any. I’ve been watching. Eat some fish.”
“Oh, but there’s only a little left. We’ve been eating it. It’s very good. The fish in Korea is so fresh.” My mother helped herself to more fish.
“Why isn’t she eating the fish? Does she think my cooking is bad? Does she think her mother’s is better? Is that why?”
“No, no…I’m so full…but I can eat more.” I reached over and tore off a piece of fish and popped it in my mouth.
My grandmother’s fish was saltier than salt. I chewed carefully, trying not to involve my tongue, whose taste buds were wilting and dying. The texture was squishy and slimy and I felt as though I was eating a leech. As a vegetarian, I was accustomed to fibrous plant matter, foods that only took a few chomps and a swallow. But the fish was like gum; no matter how long I chewed, the salty morsel in my mouth seemed to stay the same size. I wasn’t sure if and when I should swallow. My mother looked at me, trying not to look too surprised.
“Look how much Annie likes your fish.”
“It’s so delicious.” Chomp, chomp, chomp. I reached over for more, but my mother beat me. She tore off a gigantic piece and moved it to her rice bowl.
“You’re taking all the fish, Mom. Leave me some.” I picked at the carcass and found a small sliver of flesh.
“I can make more.” My grandmother looked satisfied, finally.
“Oh no, you don’t have to do that. We have plenty here.” My mother shook her head.
“Please, no you’ve done enough, Grandmother. I can’t possibly eat anymore. Now I’ll be fat like an American.” I couldn’t tell if she smiled or not. I wasn’t even sure she could smile.
When my mother and I finally left my grandmother’s house, we searched the block frantically for a store—we both needed to use the restroom. We found a convenience store and my mother bought me a grape Fanta to justify using the facilities. When I visited Seoul as a kid, grape Fanta was my favorite; it was a soda not widely available in America. But as I took a sip, I realized it was much too sweet for me. Still, I took big gulps to get rid of the fishy, sour taste of respect in my mouth.
FOOL WHO PLAY COOL
“Anne, wake up.”
I felt a poke in my side but refused to acknowledge it. There was no light coming through the window. Therefore, it was not an appropriate time to wake up.
“Anne, I say, wake up.”
I whimpered and turned onto my side, which was particularly painful because I was sleeping on the floor. I’ve heard that doctors recommend sleeping on the floor because it’s good for the back, but I have yet to hear about a doctor who actually does it. In the middle of the night, half my vertebrae had fallen out. My mother shook me vigorously.
“Go away!”
“Wake up! I pinch if you not wake up.” She tugged on my hair and stuck her finger in my ear, a tactic I used on her when I was little and wanted her to wake up and take me to Disneyland. I also used to pry her eyelids open, pinch her nose so she couldn’t breathe, and begin dressing her while she was still in bed. I swatted her hand away.
“Please, woman, go away. What time is it?”
“You uncle wait for you! Wake up!”
“What time is it?”
“Don’t worry about time. Time for wake up.” She threw the covers off of me and jerked away my pillow.
“MOM!”
“Shhh, you wake up you aunt.”
“Why does she get to sleep? What time is it?”
“Hurry up and get clothes.”
“Why?” Without my glasses, I squinted to see the clock. It was 4:15. In the morning. “What the hell? It’s four!”
“No, it five!”
“No, it’s not, it’s four. Four-fifteen.”
“See? Almost five, time to wake up!”
“No it’s closer to four and since when is five a time to wake up?” I grabbed the covers and put them over me again. I curled into a tight ball and wrapped my arms around my head, the position I learned to take during earthquake drills in elementary school. It was only my third day of a two-week trip to Korea with my mother and I was already plotting to push her into the Han River.
“Why you so grump?”
“Because it’s four o’clock in the morning.”
“We have to go!” My mother threw off the covers again and then yanked up a corner of the blanket I was sleeping on. I rolled off.
“Moooommmm!” I grumbled and stood up. “Where are we going?
“We go Soraksan. We leave now.”
I groaned. Soraksan is a mountain and a national park. I remember going there when I was five and crying because my legs were tired. Even then I knew that hiking is the devil’s work. “You didn’t tell me we were going there.”
“I tell you we go.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Yes I do. Remember yesterday I say, ‘Anne, tomorrow we wake up early go Soraksan.’”
I thought about it for a second. No, she most definitely didn’t tell me. I think she has a lot of conversations with me in her head, in a fantasy world where she talks and I listen and nod my head silently. I would never agree to wake up early to do anything except for sleep. “You never told me that. Where is it?”
“You don’t remember?” She threw a pair of pants at me. “Anne if you not get ready now Mommy get very annoy.”
“You’re already annoy.” I started to put on my pants but stopped to rub my ass; my left cheek was asleep, just like the rest of me should’ve been. My mother had told me that eventually I’d get used to sleeping on the floor and develop a Korean’s backside, with the ability to sleep on the hardest of floors, even on a slab of frozen granite. My ass ached; I guess it was still American. I yawned and felt a shirt hit my face. “Look, I’m getting ready. Where is Soraksan?”
“Near Sokcho.” She threw a pair of socks at me.
“These are dirty.” I threw them aside. “Where is Sokcho?”
“Why you not know Soraksan and Sokcho?” She threw another pair of socks.
“Because I’m not from here. Where is it? These are your socks.”
“North and east, near ocean. We go mountain and you see temple for Buddha. Wear my sock.”
“Why do I have to go see a temple? I don’t want to wear your socks, that’s gross.”
“You see tree too. Many, many tree. Why gross? They clean! We have to leave.”
“Because you might have fungus or something.”
“Anne!”
“OK, OK I’ll put them on. Why do we have to leave now?”
“Because it far away. Five hour.”
“Are you kidding me? Just to see a temple and some trees? There are closer temples—they’re all the same—and there are trees outside. I can see them from here.”
She pushed me into the bathroom and I stepped in a puddle. I groaned. My mother’s fungus-socks became completely soaked. Korean bathrooms tend to get very wet. There’s usually no curtain or glass door that separates the shower/bathtub from the toilet and sink—everything just sits together in a tiled room with a drain in the middle so one can make a watery mess or hose down the entire floor. I always find Korean bathrooms a little unnerving. I’m used to bathing in a smaller space and I worry that I’ll get my towel wet. I peeled off the wet socks and hung them on the towel bar, which was also wet.
My mother knocked on the bathroom door. “Anne! Everyone wait!”
I wrenched the toothbrush out of my mouth and met my mother in the kitchen.<
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“What happen to you sock?”
“I can’t wear them. They’re wet.”
“Anne I tell you, no fungus.” She scowled and handed me a piece of heavily buttered toast.
“This is breakfast? What about Korean food?” For the most part, people in Korea eat the same thing for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My stomach and I find this very pleasing. “I’m in Korea; I want Korean food.”
“It Korean toast.”
“Are you trying to be funny?”
“We get Korean food later. No time, everyone wait.”
“Who’s everyone?” I looked around the kitchen. “There’s no one here.”
On cue, my uncle walked in with a gigantic smile; he is a morning person, just like my mother. “Good morning, Annie.” My mother’s brother-in-law is a short, pear-shaped bald man with moles in awkward places and crooked, dingy teeth, but he has a boyish, cherub-like quality to his face. He makes a lot of silly jokes and always wards off relatives whenever they give me a hard time. I gave him the customary bow and morning greeting. I lightened up; going on a five-hour trip with my uncle could actually be fun.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked me in Korean.
“I’d like to sleep more,” I answered in Korean.
My uncle laughed. “Aren’t you excited for the trip?”
“Sure. Are you?”
“No, no, I’m not going.”
“You’re not? But you have to come!”
“Your aunt and I have to work, sorry, my little Annie. I’m dropping you off at your mother’s friends’ apartment. They’re taking you to Soraksan.”
“Which friends?” I like some, not all, of my mother’s friends. I looked at my mother suspiciously.
“Eat, Anne.” She pushed the toast toward me. “Hurry up and we go.” She dug around in her gigantic leather purse and pulled out a pair of socks.
“You carry socks with you? I have socks in my suitcase, I can get socks.” My mother ignored me and stooped down to jam the socks on my feet. “Are they clean at least?”
