Happy Birthday or Whatever

by Annie Choi

  “Anne…”

  “If you had woken up earlier you could’ve eaten Korean food with me,” my uncle nodded apologetically. My mother looked up at me, smug. I rolled my eyes and ate my toast. It wasn’t buttered; it was margarined. My family, like the rest of Korea, loves margarine and always refers to it as butter, even though I’ve explained that it’s not.

  December in Korea is cold and windy and as we walked outside my aunt and uncle’s apartment building, the late night/early-morning gale whipped through my jeans and froze my underwear to my sore ass. I shivered.

  “Where you scarf?”

  “I left it inside.”

  My mother scoffed and tried to give me her scarf.

  “I don’t want your scarf.” I grit my teeth against the cold. “I’ll be OK.”

  “Don’t be stupy.” She dug in her bag and brought out another scarf.

  “What do you have in there?”

  “You want hat? I have hat.”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  She wrapped her scarf around my head and laughed. Her scarf was warm and smelled like her perfume, Eternity by Calvin Klein.

  “You look like Grandma.”

  “Thanks.”

  In Seoul, most people live in clusters of high-rise apartment buildings. The residents park their cars in tight rows between the buildings and leave their cars in neutral. An attendant pushes the cars around so that people can drive out or park. When I was young I thought that being a parking attendant was tough work, but then I figured out that everyone drove Hyundais, which have bodies made of soda cans and engines fueled by hamsters that run around in wheels. With a burning cigarette dangling from his mouth, the attendant pushed away the cars around my uncle’s champagne Hyundai. My mother took shotgun.

  “We go with Gi-sook and her husband. You remember Gi-sook?”

  “No.”

  My mother paused to think. “Hmm, maybe you too young. Mommy friend. Old, old friend, from before you born. She and her husband is farmer.”

  “Farmers? What do they grow? Rice?”

  “No, no, pharm-ah-, you know they give out medicine.”

  “Oh, you mean pharmacist.”

  My uncle nodded and repeated after me, “Fah-ma-seet-uh.”

  “Close enough.”

  “When was the last time you went to Soraksan?” my uncle asked me in Korean.

  I shrugged. My mother answered for me. “She must’ve been six or seven years old. So about fifteen years!”

  “I don’t remember much.”

  “You go see Buddha over summer, remember?”

  “All I remember is taking piano lessons.”

  I spent most of the summers in Seoul taking piano lessons. My mother hoped that I would become a classical pianist like my cousin even though I displayed no real talent or interest. She thought that if there was anyone who could squeeze Beethoven out of my tiny stiff fingers, it was a Korean piano teacher—my American teacher certainly wasn’t doing an adequate job. My Korean teacher swatted at my hands and gave me daunting sheet music with black dots splattered all over the page. She even sent me to an herbalist to get a special tea designed to strengthen my hands and fingers. I remember the tea smelled exactly like garbage so it was very counterintuitive to swallow. Still, I drank it everyday and my fingers remained limp and lifeless. Ever since then I’ve been wary of Eastern medicine.

  “Such waste, you piano.” My mother shook her head.

  “I wasn’t that bad. I just wasn’t good.”

  “Same thing, Anne.”

  We arrived at a pharmacy, at the bottom of an apartment high-rise. A big green plus sign hung in the storefront. A black Hyundai waiting outside honked twice. My mother and I dashed out into the cold and scrambled into the backseat. A man and a woman, both around my mother’s age, sat in front. My mother grabbed each of their shoulders and squealed happily. It was the first time I had ever heard my mother squeal. I’ve heard her grunt, scoff, growl, groan, moan, yelp, and even snarl, but I have never heard her squeal. I winced. It was much too early to squeal.

  “It’s been too long! How have you been?” My mother poked her head between the front seats so she could get a better look at her friends. “You’re so old! What happened?” The last time my mother saw her friends was when she visited Korea a year ago.

  The woman smacked my mother playfully on the arm. “Hello! Hello!Oh-you-must-be-so-cold-t’s-so-cold-outside I’m-pretty-sure-it-doesn’t-get-colder-than-this-the-numbers don’t-go-low-enough-how-could-this-little-country of-ours-get-so-cold-you-know-every-year-I-forget how-cold-it-gets-and-then-winter-comes-and-I’m-always so-surprised-really-it’s-so-silly….” She looked at me, smiled, and took a deep breath. “Wow-this-is-Annie? I-haven’t-seen-you-in-oh-I-don’t-know-how-long-too-long-you-don’t-remember-me-do-you? You-were-this-high-up-to-my-knee-or-maybe-even-smaller-though-you-look-pretty-small-now.”

  I noticed that the ajuma liked to repeat things twice, which improved my comprehension, but her words whirled around my head like a swarm of locusts that devour everything in its path. I put on my seatbelt and bowed awkwardly and desperately tried not to stare at her face. Something was a little off, a little unsettling.

  She had no eyebrows.

  Her eyes, nose, and lips all seemed very far apart from each other, each floating in a vast landscape of pale, flawless skin. The only things that separated her eyes from her wide forehead were two thin, curved lines she had drawn with a brown pencil. She looked perpetually surprised. I smiled uncomfortably.

  The woman’s husband turned his head and looked at me. “Annie doesn’t remember us, does she?” Koreans like to address children in the third person right to their faces.

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t, Ajeoshi.” Koreans address anyone older as auntie (ajuma) or uncle (ajeoshi), even if they aren’t related. It’s nice because you never have to remember names.

  “When you were little all you did was cry. It was the cutest thing. You were made of tears and snot.” The Korean word for snot translates literally to “nose water,” which sounds a lot nicer than snot. “You cried all day and all night, forever and ever, for all eternity.” The ajeoshi looked at my mother. “Does she still like pickles? I remember that was all she ate. Salty, spicy, pickled food.”

  “I still like pickled food, and I finally stopped crying last year,” I said in Korean. The adults laughed. My mother winked at me. She liked when I charmed her friends.

  While the car slowly made its way through morning rush hour traffic, the adults in the car chatted noisily in Korean and I struggled to keep up. Once I get tripped up on one word, I miss everything that comes after it and then I hopelessly try to piece bits and pieces of the conversation together again: Something about a pig or an actor, or maybe a pig-faced actor, who opened up a store or restaurant, maybe a bank or zoo, with bad service or maybe someone went on strike, and then something about oil or was that gasoline? They talked so fast that it was impossible to figure out when they moved on to a different topic. Occasionally I’d hear my name pop up: Korean, Korean, Korean, “Annie,” Korean, Korean.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Chuckle.

  “What’d you say about me?”

  “Nothing.” Laughter. Korean, Korean, “Annie,” Korean.

  “What? Tell me.”

  “No, we not say anything.”

  “Liar,” I said in Korean. Everyone laughed. “Don’t listen to her; she’s full of lies.”

  “That’s no way to talk to your mother,” my mother answered me in Korean.

  “Yes, listen to your mother,” echoed the ajeoshi, “Everyone should listen to your mother, even if she’s a liar.” The ladies giggled.

  “Oh-she’s-so-cute-and-how-funny-and-how-adorable-just-adorable-and-what-a-beautiful-coat.” She reached over to pet my coat.

  “You like it? It’s Stefanel. I picked it out,” My mother smiled proudly. On our first day in Seoul, my mother dragged me shopping to buy a proper coat, “the kin
d that real people wear.” It was long, grey, and had one button and a sash. It looked like a bathrobe. My mother explained that it wasn’t a bathrobe; it was Italian. “Annie doesn’t like it.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” I started to protest but decided to just leave it. We still had four and a half more hours to go.

  “It’s-beautiful-I-guess-this-is-what-the-young-kids-are-wearing-these-days-you-know-my-daughter-goes-shopping-allthe-time-I-think-she-lives-at-the-mall-and-she-has-tonsof-clothes-mountains-of-clothes-but-she-always-wears-the-same-thing-I-think-she-buys-the-same-thing-over-and-over.”

  My mother laughed. “My daughter wears the same thing as homeless people, except she pays for them, and she wears her pants until there are holes in the crotch and the rear. How do you get holes there? It’s a mystery.”

  “MOM!”

  Whenever I spend time with my mother and her friends, she always recounts every single thing I ever did wrong and discusses every embarrassing detail about me and then her friends describe all of their children’s shortcomings and the whole conversation degrades into a contest to see who has the world’s most lazy, disrespectful, loud, or defiant kid. Normally Korean mothers talk up their children, but when they don’t have to impress anyone, they swing the other way.

  “My-daughter-talks-on-the-phone-every-night-for-hours-and-hours-and-she-talks-to-friends-she-just-saw-all-day-what-couldshe-possibly-have-to-talk-about-nothing-has-happened-since-shesaw-them-last-the-phone-is-like-a-drug-she-can’t-stop.”

  “Well, you’re a pharmacist, so you should be able to find a cure. But at least your daughter is yamjonheh, my Annie could be more yamjonheh.”

  In Korean, the word yamjonheh describes someone who is obedient and modest—someone who is courteous and docile, and maybe a little bookish and shy. Girls who are yamjonheh cover their mouths when they laugh. Korean parents would like their kids to be yamjonheh. This doesn’t always work out. When I laugh, my mouth becomes a gaping hole in my face and rice comes flying out.

  “Kids are horrible.” The ajeoshi shook his head. “Too bad you can’t give birth to adults.” He laughed and slapped the steering wheel.

  “We were never this bad when we were young,” my mother declared. I rolled my eyes. I’ve heard her mother say the same thing.

  As we sped along the highway, the concrete and glass of Seoul melted away into a rural landscape. Small homes popped up in the middle of large muddy fields and I could see fog-topped mountains in the distance. Seoul is like Los Angeles; it’s easy to forget that there are mountains outside of the city. When my mother was in high school and college, she liked to camp, hike, and rock climb. It’s hard for me to imagine my mother rough it in the wilderness, sleeping next to the insects, snakes, tigers, and whatever else lives in the Korean bush. I guess she’s more rugged than she seems. I happen to hate camping; nature is best viewed from indoors in a safe, allergen-free, and climate-controlled environment with wireless Internet.

  Jet lag plus an early start to a morning is a troublesome combination. Though I tried to keep up with the conversation in the car, I eventually drifted off into my own thoughts and then drifted off to sleep.

  I woke up with my mother’s finger poking my ribs.

  “Wake up.”

  “Huh?” Déjà vu. I looked at my watch. Only one hour had passed.

  “Break time. Food.”

  We were at a roadside food court that struck me as very American. There were plastic tables and chairs in the middle of a large cafeteria that was lined with different fast-food vendors, who urged customers to their counters. I settled on watery noodles and sat down. My mother got small greasy pancakes, sticky rice cakes, a bag of kettle corn, roasted chestnuts, dried cuttlefish, and a baked yam. Normally she eats healthier, especially after she got cancer, and nearly everything that enters her belly is low in saturated fat and made from whole grains, but she was on vacation.

  “You’re eating that? You can’t eat that. Your food has no theme. It’s all over the place.”

  “No I eat.” She offered me a pancake. I took it gingerly with my thumb and index finger and kept it a foot away from me, careful not to stain my new Italian bathrobe with grease. I took a bite. It was filled with sugary red bean. I could actually taste the crystals of refined sugar melt my molars.

  “Oh man, this is too sweet. It tastes like a donut. I can’t eat this.”

  Every Saturday at Korean school, the students were served Winchell’s donuts and Sunny Delight, a healthy start to a day filled with grammar, vocabulary, and boredom. The mere thought of deep-fried rings of fat or neon-orange citrus punch makes me gag.

  She offered me a bite of her yam. “You know, when I was young, I eat this all the time. Mommy favorite. Everyday after school I walk home and I see ajeoshi who sell yam in little cart. I eat two, maybe three.” She took a gigantic bite of her yam.

  “They have yams in America, too.”

  “Mmmf mmmf mmmf.”

  “What?”

  My mother swallowed. “No, Korean yam is special. Better.” She looked at her tray eagerly, uncertain which to eat next. “Mommy so happy! I eat this all when I grow up in Seoul. I eat and eat and eat and never get fat. Not like now.” She patted the spare tire around her middle.

  “Oh-you-got-chestnuts-I-got-chestnuts-too-do-you-eat-chest-nuts-in-America-I-hear-Americans-don’t-like-red-bean-Annie-do-you-like-red-bean?” The ajuma and ajeoshi sat down at our table with their trays.

  “It’s OK. Too sweet for me.” I looked down at my noodles. They seemed so boring compared to what everyone else was eating. The ajeoshi was eating a very adorable lunch set with a tiny bowl of steaming rice and tiny dishes filled with tiny pickled vegetables. There was a tiny napkin and a tiny cup of tea too. My mother, in the middle of her snack attack, took little bites of everything in front of her.

  “Noodles?” I offered them to my mother. She shook her head, her mouth full of cuttlefish.

  My mother stuffed the rest of her snacks into her purse and we scampered back into the car and hit the road again. Then, to my horror, the adults started the singing portion of the roadtrip: Korean traditional music with yodeling vocalists, Korean pop stars, Korean oldies, and then more traditional vocalists. My mother sang along in her exaggerated church choir vibrato. Whenever my mother sings, she sings with gusto, even if she doesn’t know the words. Sometimes she makes up words or mumbles and then throws in a few extra oh’s and ah’s at the chorus. My mother doesn’t have a bad voice, but she sings with the confidence of someone who has a great one. My mother sang along and bobbed her head to a rousing boy-band number.

  “How do you know these songs?”

  “Korean radio. MTV Korea.”

  “You watch MTV? Dude, who are you?”

  The adults continued chatting and singing and occasionally asked me questions. What did I study in school? What did I do for a living? Did I want to live in Korea?

  “I couldn’t find a job here,” I answered in Korean.

  “You could teach English.” The ajeoshi fumbled with the CD player.

  “Yes, you should teach English,” my mother agreed.

  “A-lot-of-Americans-teach-English-here-I-think-they-make-good-money-you-can-live-here-and-teach-English-how-funwouldn’t-that-be-fun?”

  “I don’t want to teach English.”

  “Why-not? You-speak-English-you-speak-better-English-than-Koreans.”

  “But I don’t want to teach it.”

  “You so silly, Anne, why you not want teach?” my mother asked in English.

  “Then why don’t you teach Korean in America? You speak Korean,” I answered in Korean.

  “Oh, she got you there. Your daughter’s very smart. She must take after you.” The ajeoshi smiled at my mother.

  “She-can-teach-English-here-and-then-you-can-live-with-herfun-right?”

  My mother and I both winced at the thought.

  “Break time. Let’s get some snacks.” The ajeoshi pulled the car off to another
roadside food court.

  “Again? We just had a snack,” I answered in Korean. “I’m full. I can’t possibly eat anymore.”

  “We’ll-just-have-a-small-snack-maybe-some-ice-cream-do-you-want-some-ice-cream?”

  “It’s freezing!”

  My mother and her friends got soft-serve and coffee. Everyone in Korea seems to love soft-serve, which is pretty much the margarine of the ice cream world. When we were young, we used to drive through McDonald’s and my father would holler into the metal speakerbox and order three soft-serve cones and a milkshake for my brother. My mother lapped up her cone as she walked around another food court with me.

  “What you want to eat, Anne? Mommy can buy you ice cream.”

  “It’ll make me sick. It’ll make you sick, too.”

  “But Mommy don’t care. How about Polapo?”

  I perked up. Polapo was my favorite as a kid in Korea. It was more or less frozen grape juice in a long paper cone that you squeeze into your mouth. “Do they still make it?” It stains viciously and my mother used to hate buying it for me.

  We opened freezers and looked through the treats. She handed me something frozen. “I can’t find Polapo, but you like this remember?” I looked at the label; it was a red bean popsicle.

  “No, you liked this. You always got this and I always got Polapo.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, and Mike got the chocolate ice cream that comes in a big cup with the wooden spoon on the side, and he’d use that to flick stuff at me. And Dad would get coffee ice cream.”

  “Then what you get now?”

  “It’s too early for ice cream. It’s like eight o’clock.”

  “Why you no fun?”

  We drove onto the highway again and an hour later we took yet another break, this time for gas and more cuttlefish and soda.

  “We’re stopping every hour. We’re never going to get there! How much longer do we have to go?”

  “On roadtrips in Korea, people stop every hour,” the ajeoshi informed me.

  “Really? But then it takes a long time to get anywhere.”