*****
The first sordid omen on Sunday morning shows on the new church sign. No Korean labeling underneath, only the English. Then, in the pastor’s opening announcements, the fallen hammer. I swallow hard, endure the rest of the service, and after the benediction, approach Pastor Michael.
“Eric! How’s the family?” As if he can’t ask them himself when they’re thirty feet away, chatting with other congregants.
“Fine… listen, about eliminating the Korean language service-“
He lays a hand on my shoulder, likely thinking it fatherly. I hate it. He’s only eight years older than me. “Wait, Eric. We’re still having that early service, though.”
“But in English. That hardly seems fair to people more recently moved in here.”
“Well, with such low turnout, we thought it better to be more inclusive.” We. A mysterious we who thought Korean non-inclusive. As if threatening. “And I’ve had members in citizen programs tell me how helpful the English services tutor them.” An absurd statement. Who halts the sermon to explain slowly what half of Michael’s words mean?
“I’m just,” and I slip my honoring smile on, “surprised at the culture change.”
“This wasn’t decided overnight. There were meetings.” His lowered tone. “I wish you could’ve come.”
As if I’m invested in this church beyond dutiful attendance. As if I believe in God. But Timothy, he needs the tradition. No, my family never attends the Korean service, but my son, he needs to tell his friends that his church has one, that he belongs to a greater whole, greater tradition, even if it lays on a peninsula an ocean away. Now? He remains only a Presbyterian. Anyone can be a Presbyterian.
I understand the unsaid, though. Congregations dwindle across the country. Our own crowds thin like an octogenarian’s escaping hairs. To exude Asiatic virtue risks stunting even minimal growth. Some, perhaps several, Korean churches won’t believe that, but if I take Timothy there, the rest of my family won’t follow. That will only sour Timothy on the entire exposure. And I know the rest of my extended family will never leave this congregation. After all, the church is only getting an eye tuck.
“I wish I could’ve too,” I say about the meetings. I don’t mean it.
*****
All my work colleagues understand the purpose of the teachers’ lounge resides only for frantic last minute grading, all of them except for Jonathan Garland, a phys ed teacher who should’ve retired years ago. For him, it’s a concert venue for his opinions. He likes me, likes rambling at me while I work sorcery with a red pen. Dislikes the Indian eatery replacing his favorite diner, though. “Have you been there yet, Eric?”
No. Nor have I visited in months my once favorite Korean barbecue place. Immigrant servers who barely knew words beyond the menu and five polite phrases had suddenly switched to white collegiates who refused opportunities at pronouncing the dishes’ names. And the chefs had snuck in interloping options like Pad Thai and sushi. I’d seen the story before, the conversion to that dreaded genre, Pan-Asian. My wife had still liked the restaurant, but of course, we never fought these days.
I don’t respond to Jon. He doesn’t want an answer anyway and continues, “I can’t stand the smell of that place. Burns my nostrils. Do you know how long Granny Jenny’s stayed there until those people got ahold of it? Thirty years. Thirty years and then,” a throat-slashing gesture, “dead.”
“Mmm.”
“Another one that died, Gilmore Street Custard. Five years ago. Replaced by a burger place? Don’t remember the name. Decent, not great. Lasts a year. Then? A pizza parlor. That one ran for only six whole months.” A harrumph. “Place is empty right now. Bet the Indians will pick that one up too.”
No they won’t. In my heart, I foresee a McDonald’s.
“Eric, we don’t even make our clothes anymore. The Thais, they make them. But these immigrants, they come in, big families? Start a restaurant, hire every single son, daughter, brother, sister, and cousin. Where are our kids supposed to go? Their parents’ basement, I suppose.”
Kids. He doesn’t just mean our students. Our children. And I speak English impeccably, so I’m honorary white, a worthy listener to these complaints. My son, in twenty years, still in my house? Ha, who knows? He has no restauranteur relative to hire him.
Sometimes, I wonder if Timothy will use Choi as his last name in college. “Coy?” will go his professors. “Tchoy?” Will Timothy interrogate my wife on his biological father, thresh an identity from that? Tim Case, Tim Conner, Tim Smith. How long until the separation started? His spout-off of, “You’re not my real dad,” only a matter of time.
Something Jon didn’t have to worry about with his now adult daughters. But alas, an Indian restaurant, robbing his Americana. A Burger King on every corner of Seoul in ten years, all its streets a copy of New York, just as Hong Kong would, Jakarta, Nairobi, a world of New Yorks, but yes, a curry vendor down the road will kill the United States. A curry vendor that will probably go out of business in three years, no less.
“Mmm,” I say again, a phrase that could just as easily be Korean as English. I’d leave it to Jon’s decision as to which.
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