THE FLOWERS OF KEIHWA
By S. Michael CHOI
Copyright 2011 by S. Michael Choi
Revised Edition, copyright 2013.
Revised Edition, copyright 2017
ISBN 9781465759894
The moral right of the author to be accredited this work is asserted.
To: गणेश
ॐ) You are (the Trinity) Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesa. You are Indra. You are fire and air. You are the sun and the moon. You are Brahman. You are Bhuloka, Antariksha-loka, and Swargaloka. You are ॐ).
WEEK 1
After years of working in the dusty westlands of factory country China, the former English-major TUSK spends a few weeks in Seoul:
As soon as TUSK walked into the basement lobby of the graduate dorm, he knew something was up. There were thirty highly attractive Japanese girls standing around with luggage. The game had begun.
KANYE was a Black-American from Philadelphia, a graduate of Notre Dame and Fulbright scholar assigned to research fisheries in Eastern South Korea. In truth KANYE had no interest in fisheries, salmon, tuna, herring, whatsoever, but somebody in the highest reaches of the U.S. government had decided that this was the one missing piece of Fulbright-led research in existence, and with no otherwise qualified candidates, they picked KANYE out of the year’s crop of three hundred successful applicants and told him to write as much about halibut as possible. With change in the air and managers rapidly floated through rotation, nobody bothered to check up much on KANYE. He spent most of his time listening to hip-hop and R&B on his iPod and looking forward to scholarship-paid for language studies at Keihwa in February.
JOHANN was a musician and economics-specialist from Hamburg , Germany. Orphaned early in life and brought up in a state home for children, JOHANN distinguished himself early in life with his academic talent and was assigned to the most prestigious Gymnasium in his Stadt/Lander. Perversely, the experience of growing up not fully German in Germany made JOHANN more German than German. Of all the Germans in the world, only JOHANN still thought every day about the Third Reich. Brilliant in analytical talent, trained to the highest possible degree at Germany ’s best universities to just shy of the doctoral level, JOHANN, 26, was the middle-in-age of the three boys in the 2/1 Class at Keihwa that Februrary (TUSK is 30, KANYE is 22). He was the fulcrum of the group: events revolved around him. But it was not necessarily the fulcrum where the real action takes place; that is a question involving subjective judgment and the definition of success itself.
2/1 became the centre of activity the first year, and then the off-centre of activities the second. Although slightly repetitious in tone, it must be reported that the question of success itself is the question of this material; which permits full understanding engagement with the reader’s conceptions and value judgments themselves.
"Um, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
"Yeah, we’re at a programme with the three hundred girls. There are no Japanese boys in sight. This is going to be awesome.”
"Right, but listen. Japanese culture is actually pretty complex. I actually lived there two years; I can speak intermediate-level spoken Japanese. If you work with me, actually I can really help you out.”
"Seriously?”
"Yeah, seriously KANYE. Believe me I have no ill will towards you whatsoever. We can just divide up these three hundred girls together and things are going to be pretty awesome.”
JOHANN jumps in. “Okay if you’re so good, TUSK, what has been said in class so far?”
"Thank you. When the girls of the 2/1 class walked into our classroom this morning, actually something pretty special happened. The Japanese language has three commonly-used suffixes to last names to indicate formality, respect, and degree of closeness: -san, -kun, -chan. When strangers meet in Japanese culture, they use the –san suffix with the last name and the polite but not formal level of language, a formality level that indicates basic respect and politeness and a crisp, business-like sense of efficiency and getting things done. Japanese learning Korean inevitably settle on an interesting compromise: they use the Korean –sshi suffix (a level which roughly translates to ‘lord’ or ‘lady’ in Japanese) but with the first name to moderate the formality impact of that unusual ending. Hence, two girls will call each other ‘Akiko-sshi’ and ‘Masako-sshi’ whilst learning Korean. In contrast to this compromise spoken solution, they write out their full names on their name cards. ‘Watanabe Misako,’ ‘ Takasaki Junko,’ ‘Nakata Akemi.’ That is the normal practice of Japanese students anywhere— Germany , USA , Japan itself. Whereas two Americans call each other ‘John’ and ‘Tod’ immediately, two Japanese call each other ‘Miss Tanaka’ and ‘Miss Furoda’ at first, and then slowly, indeed unconsciously start using first names or less formal language.
“When our girls (‘our’ of course being merely a term of expedience); when our girls walked in, something immediately changed. Perhaps because KANYE has that funny looking name-card, perhaps because our teacher looks really little-girlish, perhaps because we seem to have most of the foreigners in the program in our class, our girls decided to ‘let down their hair,’ so to speak. Instead of spelling out their full names on their namecards, everyone is just going by first name. This is really positive.”
"So,” asked JOHANN, “what difference does that make?”
"What is means is that our class is going to be really special. This is literally the sixth hour of the program, but we’re already in the catbird seat.”
"This isn’t really actionable information. What specifically has been said in class so far?”
So far nothing of real importance. Although the girls are loosening up to us, they are remaining on the –desu business efficiency level with each other, asking each other such things as ‘May I sit here please?’ or ‘Which prefecture in Japan might you come from?’ So far nobody has revealed anything about themselves; one might be the daughter of one of Japan’s greatest industrialists and another might be a farmer’s fifth child and dirt poor, but nobody can tell any of these things about anybody yet; everybody is just apparently upper-middle class so far as can be told. We have five girls: ERI, AKEMI, MIKI, SHINO, RITSUKO, but so far available information on them is limited to the fact that MIKI is really tall and AKEMI is especially small and cute.
KANYE looked at JOHANN. “It doesn’t really sound like much.”
JOHANN remained silent.
KANYE: “I think actually if you listen to me, things will go well for you.”
"Come on, dude, okay you’re black and you’re fashionable, that doesn’t mean you’re the coolest dude here.”
"But that’s where you’re wrong, ‘dude.’ Actually see that guy there?”
KANYE points at a tall, heavy-built blonde boy elsewhere in the study lounge.
"That’s my best friend. We’re on something called the Fulbright programme, meaning we’re on nice fat scholarships to jump around Korea all we want and do research and teach at city halls. Just about every other foreigner here—and look carefully, there’s eight or nine of us—is on Fulbright. So we all know each other, we all like each other, and you guys are actually the two odd balls out. Sorry you couldn’t figure that out, but maybe you can hang with us if you’re cool.”
And KANYE got up and left.
"Shit,” said TUSK.
JOHANN remained silent.
"He’s right, don’t you get it?” said TUSK.
JOHANN remained silent.
"We’re not going to be playing by U.S. or even Western rules for the next three weeks; there are three hundred Japanese girls and twelve foreigners, so the dominant culture of this program will b
e Japanese. And those guys already know each other, they’re all already pals, so we’re going to be completely cut out of the action.”
"I agree and I disagree with you. If you’re actually interested in controlling things, yes; but if you just want to learn Korean and meet some new people, they’re not going to dictate anything.”
"I propose we work together. I think you believe things will turn out happily in the end for us, but Japanese culture is rigid and tightly-governed by rules. This advantage the Fulbrighters have is insurmountable, and if we don’t cooperate, we’re going to be suborned for three weeks.”
"I respect your proposal. However, I will wait and see. In Germany, we look at a person for at least a month before we even consider becoming friends.”
"Great. This program is three weeks.”
"Patience, TUSK.”
"I’ll tell you one thing, though JOHANN. KANYE doesn’t have every card. He wrote on his namecard, ‘DOJO YOSHI’ because he realized he was surrounded by Japanese girls.”
"And the girls laughed.”
"Yes, they thought it was cute. But the translation is something like ‘House of Steven.’ A Japanese guy writing that down on his namecard at a Spanish-language program filled with Americans is thought kinda cute, but not really cool per se.”
ᴥ
The first meeting of the boys broke up with
The Flowers of Keiwha Page 1
