East Goes West

by Younghill Kang

  Then one of the athletic stars, on the floor below mine, raced up to my room and got my extra suit of Korean underwear from its drawer, the suit in fact which George had once cut down. Everybody knew about it and had much interest in it, for they often visited me while I was dressing, and then they would question me, if I found Canada warm. They all wore their underwear long for the winter, and even when bits showed below their wrists, they didn’t care. They were not Americanized like George.

  We examined my underwear and I thought it seemed as modest as their track suits. When they suggested it, that solved the problem. Track day came and I went out to run in my cut-off short Korean underwear. How my Canadian schoolmates cheered when I appeared on the track! Many women were there too. A great crowd of spectators, and everybody cheered. I ran and ran. Some of my buttons burst off. Still, I did not win, for a big grain of sand got between my toes and I fell down. Two boys were ahead of me in the final spurt. But yet applause seemed all for me. I could not understand why a long write-up about me came out in the college paper next day, with a clever cartoon of me running, drawn by Ian. The write-up was very handsome, and it said that I had won, which wasn’t true, owing to sand in my toe. Next night at the dinner table there were speeches and a prize, and Ralph was chairman. In the speeches I was called a good sport and a prize was made for me. (Allan alone was angry with them for allowing me to do this. He had come to watch the race with a girl, and he said it was embarrassing.) I thought it was embarrassing, myself. But I did not resent that. I knew I was considered queer and alien, but the theologues and young Clendenin were the more friendly toward me for such jokes.

  Leslie Robin I could not understand. His obvious dislike for me appeared almost irrational, and after this track meet particularly, he went out of his way to emphasize his hate. In mature retrospect I believe I must have been to Leslie an irritating symbol of some sort. His sister, Miss Jean Robin, was a very nice missionary in Korea, and I think he had other relatives in missionary fields. His father, too, was a well-known Presbyterian minister.

  But Leslie had elected to take dentistry. He and his gang were the wildest, most difficult students in Green Grove, always at outs with the proctors and the authorities. They lived in the Old Building, as it was called, where rooms were very large and slightly more luxurious. Some of the rooms held four roommates. The Old Building was not so staid and theological as the Main House, and it was especially noisy early in the morning owing to the boys on upper floors who fought each other for the right of way in sliding down the banisters. The struggle was to reach the dining room in the Main House just before closing time—and no earlier. All the Maritime boys slept in a one-piece garment called a nightshirt. In the morning a boy needed only to jump out of bed and stuff the ends into his trousers for the last-minute rush.

  Leslie and his friends defied Green Grove traditions whenever possible. As, for instance, by drinking. Green Grove as a whole was stern on the subject of intemperance. No post-war license yet had entered here. The students kept light homemade wines in their rooms, of course, even Ian (but not Ralph), yet hard drinking at Green Grove just wasn’t “done,” not even in secret except by Leslie and his gang. I heard that some of the boys at these wild parties drank from skulls, for being medical or dental students mostly, it was their pride to have skulls in their rooms. One boy had a complete skeleton, with its jaw fitted up on a string so that the owner from a secret hiding place could make it move when any visitor came. Dentists, like Leslie, on the other hand decorated their rooms with teeth.

  After the track meet, yellow autumn soon turned into snowy winter. Ralph left early for the holidays. By the middle of December, unexpectedly there was ice on the pond. Now the talk was not of swimming or of running but only of skating. I had no skates, but again many pairs were offered for my use. Then one day Leslie Robin burst into my room. He accused me of stealing his skates. I was very angry and said it was a lie. He snarled and struck me on the cheek. “Turn the other. You’re a good Christian!” Friends of his held my arms. Then they heard steps in the corridor. They ran away.

  Allan came in and found me almost in tears because I had been beaten. I wanted to get revenge, and I told Allan I must fight Robin and he must umpire. But Allan would not let me do this. He took me at once to Ian, and both talked to me, and told me that out of my love for Green Grove, I must be too proud to take any notice. I must ignore it. Fighting was against the rules of Green Grove. They made me promise not to fight with Robin. Something must have been done to Leslie, too, for after that I was unmolested. But bitterness remained in my heart. I hated Leslie Robin and didn’t see why I couldn’t have fought with him, with honest umpiring. In wrestling I knew I could beat and I often meditated on how I could throw him by various jujutsu tricks I knew. . . .

  I believe that my resentment against Robin—and my undignified position as the poor and humiliated protégé of the right honorable British Canadian theologues poisoned my year at Maritime University. And yet when I look back, it seems as if everybody in Green Grove, with the exception of my enemy and his followers, was very kind to me, almost too kind. I belonged to no clique, I had no chum. I was inexorably unfamiliar. And yet I was accepted by all, and hardly a boy there who did not show graciousness to me in some manner, who did not make an effort to be especially well-meaning, kind and considerate in a shy, British way. Whenever anybody received a cake from home, no matter what others might be there, Chungpa was always invited—then given two slices instead of one. I did not care much for cake, yet ate for politeness and gratitude. By and by I got sick. It was not only the cake. I was unaccustomed to the heavy substantial Canadian food—meat, bread, and potatoes. Besides, I had never had regularly so much to eat, and my stomach was too surprised. The college mother came in and took the most kindly care of me while I was sick. She was Mrs. Cummings, a tall woman, enormously large, with a red face and motherly ways. Even Doctor MacMillan came to see me, and patting me kindly on the shoulder advised me not to eat so much.

  Why then did I feel myself so lonely and sad, small, lowly, and unappreciated? Why, in short, did I long once more—like a veritable Roy Gardner—for escape? The magnificent journey to America, the avid desire for Western knowledge, had it come to this?

  BOOK TWO

  1

  IN GREEN GROVE, my relation to Ralph was closer than to the others. It was the relation of pupil to tutor or of disciple to teacher, rather than of friend to friend, though Ralph emphasized the friendship and our democracy and equality. He of all the theologues felt the greatest responsibility toward Chungpa Han, the poor boy from the Orient there on a charity scholarship. And I knew Ralph better than the rest. I spent all my vacations with him. Ralph was a missionary par excellence, although I do not know if he has ever gone to foreign fields. In fact, he felt his work to be laid out in Canada. Already when I knew him he had a small congregation among the backwoods French. I went there for the Christmas holidays, where Ralph had preceded me by several weeks.

  I received many other invitations. Among them, one from Horace Thompson, the most brilliant and scholarly of the theologues, who invited me to his own home with the offer of railway fare. My friends had a meeting about it, and decided my railway fare ought not to fall on Thompson alone, and they took up a collection. They had naturally put off the problem of my holiday until the last moment, and did not know that I had already made plans to join Ralph and profit by his tutoring over the vacation. In fact, I had already bought my ticket, as per agreement between Ralph and me. They said the collection was mine anyway. But somehow I left without it. I needed only to travel for twenty hours. And with room and meals secure when I should reach my destination, I was resigned to a state of pennilessness in between. (The ticket took all of my money.)

  My train left before daylight. Seated alone in an inconspicuous corner of the coach, book in hand, I had the feeling of adventure and escape again. Nobody paid any attention to me. There were other s
tudents from Maritime on the same train, some even from my own dormitory, but the responsibilities of the school year now were left behind, and one sensed the only tie that bound us was no more.

  All must change trains at Moncton. Here I saw the last of my fellow students. When I boarded my train for the interior of Canada, I found the coach filled up with French boys from St. Francis Xavier of Antigonish. I was surprised at their lively interest, for at once they gathered around me, vivacious, jolly, easily laughing, their curiosity keen in their faces. We had no language contact. My school French was not good. Neither was their school English. Yet one after another they drew me into their group, asking questions, exclaiming and nudging each other eagerly. As the night progressed, we gathered into one end of the cold car and sang French songs in unison. I lost my feeling of alienness experienced earlier in the day. I was caught back again into a common humanity. As I ate one of their apples and laughed with them, I thought, “In the morning, I rode with people from the same university—people I knew by name. Some were even from the same dormitory. I had eaten beside them many times. But we seemed to be strangers. Tonight I am having a good time with these boys I have never seen before, who have no reason to be kind to me because we go to the same school.”

  The French boys got off, a few at a time, calling back Christmas greetings, “Adieu,” “Au revoir.” And all that night, the train progressed into the interior of Canada, until only a few travelers were left. I wrapped up in my overcoat as closely as I could, and drew around my neck the white silk scarf newly sent me by George Jum. Outside it was snowing heavily and the wind was strong. So much snow out there, the night seemed whitish instead of dark. The long rolling empty fields, the snow-covered forests, all showed like shadowy chalk instead of black. At widely separated stations, the train hissed out white steam. Travelers were met by natives, their hats piled high with snow.

  At four o’clock in the morning I dismounted from the train, glad that the long journey was about over. Soon I would be eating breakfast with Ralph, I thought, my first meal in over twenty-four hours. I had left before breakfast on the previous day. The town I had come to was evidently very small. No automobiles were to be seen. Only one or two sleighs drawn by horses, with sleighbells that tinkled in a savage wind which whirled wildly around the little board station. The drivers were wearing hotel caps. No sleigh I saw held more than a single customer. At last even these were gone, jingle-jangling into the snowy waste. Still no Ralph. I had been there over half an hour, alone.

  I concluded that Ralph had not received my letter telling of the hour of my arrival. But I had his address. I consulted it under the solitary lamp on the station platform. The stationmaster appeared to be French. I was tired of practising my French. I did not attempt to speak to him, but showed him the address, and he pointed out the direction to me, explaining with a gesture about a long hill. Snow was still falling and massing in huge drifts. In the sharp and biting wind I was almost blinded by the snow, but I did not think of the weather. Food had become an acute necessity. Since I was carrying no money, I must reach Ralph. I came to the foot of the hill the stationmaster had pointed out. I could not make out any road, so I just ploughed up the hill through the deep snow, guided by the lonely house on top—Ralph’s house. I reached the porch. All around the house the snow was high, blown in by the winds. The house was dark inside . . . of course, who would not be asleep at such an hour? But the number was the same as that given on Ralph’s address. I rang the bell. I hammered on the door. At last I heard vague sounds. That must be Ralph getting up. I grinned to think of his face when he saw me, for I was sure he was not expecting me by now. But it was not Ralph who opened the door. It was a woman. The waiting snow rushed in at the opened door. Her hair was blown out by the incoming wind, and her long nightgown too. I was thinking it was a good thing I did not throw my arms around her there in the dark, thinking it was Ralph, as I asked weakly, “Does Mr. Ralph Glenwood live here?”

  I had to repeat the question many times. And when she answered, I had the same difficulty to understand her that she had to understand me. She was French. At last I got it straightened out. Mr. Glenwood was not here at all. He was in Quebec, five hundred miles away.

  I walked back to the station, where at least I could be sheltered from that fierce wind on the lonely hill. And something else in the station I remembered. A restaurant. Men on night duty, it seemed, came in there for coffee, for it was still open. I stopped at the door, and heard the waitress and one of the baggage hands speaking French together. So it would be useless to try to make them understand my English. I went in and pointed out to the girl, coffee and a ham sandwich. It seemed to me I had never tasted anything so delicious as that Canadian ham sandwich and that coffee. When I got through, again I thought I would not complicate things by speaking a language she did not understand. With my head, hand, stomach, pockets, I explained I had no money and had eaten because I was hungry. I turned my pockets inside out for her to see. Nothing came of that except a few pennies. I could not understand what she said in French. But I had some idea what she meant. She meant I could not leave the restaurant unless I paid for what I had eaten. Of course, that was fair enough. And I thought, it was a wise thing that I did not mention having no money with me before eating. I wrote down on a paper napkin in English, “I do not understand French. Only English.” She brought a boy from the kitchen who spoke English. Both were much amazed, and more so, because they decided at once that I was a mute. The apparition of a Chinaman, who was a mute—at four o’clock in the morning—a Chinaman and a mute—who had made use of the restaurant without money to pay . . . it was too much for French logic. They knew no precedent by which to act, and they argued with each other for a long time.

  Presently their indignation began to change to sympathy, even awe—especially when I offered my overcoat to pay for my bill. The girl shook her head, with a glance through the window at the elements outside. Then I offered my scarf, and wrote down on paper: “I expect a friend with money. Keep this till I come back with fifteen cents.” She assented. Then I wrote, and again the boy interpreted, “I want to go to a hotel. Can you direct me?”

  Again they conferred. The boy called up Queen’s Hotel. One of those sleighs was sent for me. I suppose they also reported that I was a mute, for when I arrived at the hotel, I found paper and pencil waiting for me to make my wants known, although at the hotel everybody spoke English as well as French. Already, too, they understood that I was expecting a friend to come and get me.

  After registering for an indefinite stay at Queen’s Hotel, I went into the lounge to get warm by the open fire. From the glances cast by the servants, it was evident I was an object of mystery. Growing drowsy, I went to my room, to sleep until the regular breakfast hour. I was still hungry. For three days I did not leave the hotel, but settled myself before the fire downstairs every morning with my books. Outside the heavy Canadian snowstorm did not abate. And I remained an object of mystery, not only to the hotel management, but to the handful of guests. On all sides I heard myself being discussed, both in English and in French. Guesses as to my business were of the wildest. One was that I belonged to a religious order which I had come to establish in Canada, and that silence such as mine was enforced on all the members. Another rumor ran that I was literally the silent partner of another Chinaman, soon to appear, who intended with my help to open a laundry. One man wondered if my partner had yet started from China.

  I promptly sent a note to Ralph at the only address I knew, that of the house on the hill. But it looked as if I would spend the holidays in Queen’s Hotel. The collection that my friends of Green Grove had taken for me would indeed be needed, I thought. . . .

  Ralph burst in at the end of the third day on Christmas Eve. Since I was before the fire in the hotel lounge as usual, our meeting was staged in public and was dramatic. We were the center of all interest. People crowded around. Not only was the mystery of the mute Chinaman
being cleared up, with silence broken, but Ralph himself was known to everyone and was by way of being a local hero in that town. He said the first news of me came at the station platform, where he was told of a mute Chinaman staying at Queen’s, news which at first he did not connect with me. Ralph paid my bill—he said the collection money had been forwarded to him for me, and we left the hotel arm in arm, shaking hands with everybody we met. At once we repaired to the station and redeemed my scarf. Here all warmly apologized, in English and in French, and received me like an old friend. That very boy who had directed me to Queen’s Hotel was in Ralph’s Sunday school class.

  My first Christmas in America was a colonial Christmas, a Christmas spent on the frontier, so to speak. Ralph’s house was heated only by wood fires and lighted dimly by kerosene lamps. The little town was very primitive. If one would regain again the environment of a generation ago in the States, it might be found in Canada to this day. For my experience is, Canada is some fifty years behind the United States in every way. The weather, too, had an earlier northern potency, suggesting that described by some old Yankee in speaking of his childhood.

  Christmas morning came. The sparsely settled land was folded deep in snow. Looking out, one could see nothing, neither man nor bird nor ghost. But then out there a man would soon become only a bundle of snow. Looking like streamers of cotton dropping perpetually from the sky, the snow came down without end. Ralph and I went out after breakfast. We had been invited to spend the day with one of the humble families in his congregation. The sound of church bells carolling followed us as if from a distance, snow-muffled, as we plodded through the thick white banks of snow.