Krista Kim-Bap

by Angela Ahn

  “Let’s finish, then soup is ready,” she said as she popped a slice of the kimbap into her mouth. “Taste good. We did good job.”

  We rolled about ten more rolls together and she packaged most of it up for me to take home. It was very late when Grandma drove me home, but I had my rolls of kimbap in a plastic bag and I had actually had a good time with my grandmother.

  As I was getting out of the car, Grandma said to me, “Tori says you have party next week?”

  “Yes,” I replied carefully. How did my grandmother know these things? Did she and Tori text each other?

  “Okay, maybe I see you in a few days,” she said. “Make sure your dad eats kimbap tonight. Best fresh.”

  I nodded. “Thanks, Grandma. I learned a lot today.”

  She nodded slightly and drove away leaving me standing at the curb with a bag full of food. I went into the house and put the food in the kitchen.

  Then I barged into Tori’s room. “Why did you tell Grandma that I have a party next week?” I asked angrily. I had answered Madison’s email with my reply being “maybe,” so it was not a sure thing that I was even going to go.

  “Because,” she got up off her bed, “I started to make you…this!” She pulled a dress out of her closet.

  I was a little bit stunned. It was the Korean dress she had worn for Heritage Month, but it was totally mutilated.

  “A shredded dress?” I asked.

  “Ugh! I knew you wouldn’t be able to appreciate it yet, so I was waiting to show you until I was closer to being done. But I guess Grandma spilled the beans. I was planning to use the traditional material but turn it into something more modern.”

  I had no vision for this kind of thing. A traditional Korean hanbok is brightly colored, like a box of bold pastel crayons. The fabric is very silky and smooth. But mostly, I have to say, it doesn’t look that great. Something about the style and the colors just doesn’t appeal to me. Japanese kimonos look beautiful, Chinese cheongsam dresses look elegant. Pretty much any other Asian traditional dress looks better than the one I was stuck with. Wearing a hanbok, you get all hot and stuffy. After a while, you look and feel like a big piece of sticky candy.

  “You may as well do a preliminary fitting for me,” she said.

  “I’m confused,” I said as I slipped the mangled dress over my head. “Is this dress for the Red Carpet Party or is this for my Heritage Month project?”

  She shrugged. “Both. Why not?” she said, even though she had stuck a few pins in her mouth as she got to work. “I was just really inspired and I felt like making it. Hopefully you can use it for something,” she said half talking, half spitting because of the pins.

  “Did I mention that there’s kimbap downstairs?” I said as I held my arms out while she pinned the sides of the dress.

  “Oh, did Mom buy some at the store today?” she asked. She only had one pin left, so I could almost understand her now.

  “No, Grandma and I made it,” I said. “Where do you think I’ve been all afternoon and evening?”

  “I don’t follow your every move. Anyway, I was so busy making this dress, I lost track of time!”

  “Ow!” I yelled. A pin stuck me in the ribs.

  “Don’t move!” Tori yelled at me.

  “I love how I get hurt and it’s somehow all my fault,” I muttered.

  “Okay, stay here, I’m going to go eat some kimbap really fast. It’s best fresh.” She ran out of her room and left me standing motionless. I was afraid to move because I didn’t want to get stuck by a pin again.

  Tori came back holding a small plate of kimbap and chewing. “You made this?” She pointed to her mouth. It didn’t have any kimchi in it, so I guess it passed her fresh breath test.

  “Yes. Well, I helped Grandma.”

  “It’s good!” she said with her mouth still full of food. She may be the pretty one, but she didn’t have the best manners. “Okay, take it off. I need to sew it now.”

  Very carefully I took off the dress and passed it to Tori. She had a little sewing machine set up on a table in her room and she started digging around looking for the right color of thread. I left her to her work. I knew she wanted to work in peace and quiet. As I opened the door to leave, she yelled, “Hey!”

  I turned around.

  “Take this plate downstairs and get me another roll, would you?” she said through a mouthful of food. When did my “beautiful” sister develop such gross habits?

  “Say it, don’t spray it,” I said as I grabbed the plate out of her hands.

  “Don’t be a smart aleck.” She finally swallowed and threw a loose piece of fabric at me. “I’m doing you a favor remember?”

  Was she? I didn’t remember asking her for help. I heard her sewing until late in the evening. When she gets an idea in her head, she really goes for it. I had to admire her determination.

  CHAPTER 6

  Tori gave me the dress the next day. She said, “I have something for you!”

  I couldn’t believe it had only taken her an evening to finish the dress. “Try it on!” she encouraged me.

  Without any more needles and pins, it was easy to try on. I looked at myself in the mirror. Tori did a nice job on my Korean dress. I was pleasantly surprised by my sister. Lately she had actually been really nice to me and it was so much better than the moody teenager she had started to become. The dress, which traditionally is very wide and flowing, was tapered and more fitted. On the upper short jacket part, she had taken the sleeves in so that they didn’t flop around so much.

  “Mom!” Tori shouted downstairs. “Come see this!” I was standing in front of the mirror fussing when my mom came in.

  “Tori, you did this?” my mom asked.

  She looked pleased. “Yes, I did. Not bad, huh?”

  “Tori, it looks amazing! I was wondering what you were doing last night. What’s it for?”

  “Krista’s class project, or whatever.”

  “Krista, you look stunning in it!” my mom continued to gush.

  “Well let’s not get carried away, Mom. She still needs some work. You can’t wear this dress with your hair in that ponytail.” Tori flicked my hair. There she was. I had been wondering where the old Tori had gone.

  The doorbell rang.

  “I called Grandma to come see,” Tori told me.

  Grandma? Seriously? I hadn’t even had my breakfast yet! My mom went to get the door. I started to panic. I didn’t want her to see me. We had had a nice evening making kimbap, but I couldn’t quite help the feeling that she would judge me and the dress, and she was never one to hold back what she had to say.

  Tori saw the look in my eyes as I began to take off the dress. “No, keep it on. I already told her about it. Let her see, I think she might like it.”

  “She’s going to be mean, Tori. She’s mean to me. You wouldn’t understand,” I told her. “Also, she was pretty mad at me when I said kimbap was like sushi.”

  “Oh no, you didn’t!” Tori said. “You offended Korean people around the globe!”

  “Tori, I’m serious. Haven’t you noticed? She just doesn’t like me as much as she likes you.”

  “That’s not true,” she said.

  “It IS!” I insisted. “Mom knows.”

  “Well, maybe it’s because you don’t take care of yourself,” she said.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I said indignantly.

  “Well, you know, you don’t dress…”

  “Like a girl?” I finished her sentence.

  Tori paused awkwardly, because it was exactly what she was going to say, but she just couldn’t find a nice way to say it.

  “I am almost twelve years old!” I shouted. “I can wear whatever I want!”

  “Listen Krista, Grandma is just a bit old-fashioned. She’s an old Korean lady who hasn’t really come t
o terms with the fact that she’s not in Korea anymore. She likes things a bit more traditional, that’s all,” Tori said quietly.

  We heard my mom bring her upstairs. I held my breath.

  “You have to see this!” my mom said as she came down the hallway.

  She came into my room, and I was frozen. Grandma stood still for a moment. It was silent for what felt like hours, but was probably only five seconds. “Tori, this is hanbok I gave you before?” she finally asked.

  “Yes, Grandma,” she answered.

  She took a few steps toward me. “It was very expensive.” She clicked her tongue at us, which was usually not a good sign. “Krista, turn around,” she ordered.

  I dutifully obliged, feeling very nervous.

  Grandma lifted up her chin and looked at me through her glasses. “Krista, you got period yet? Your body change. Look not bad. But you need visit to salon. Hair is terrible. Grandma take you next weekend before party.”

  There were no words. Where was the giant hole that I could have curled up in? Could my grandmother make me feel any weirder? Was that supposed to be a compliment? I felt my entire body turn red with embarrassment. I didn’t know it could do that. At least she didn’t give me a chance to answer her.

  “Not traditional dress. But looks a little Korean.” She continued to stare at me in the dress. “You wear to your Chinese friend’s party, she not know any better, but I not allow you to wear to Korean church or family wedding,” she said.

  She turned to Tori. “I think Tori you have good eye for clothes. You make even Krista look nice.”

  “Thanks, Grandma.” Tori smiled and I saw her eyes dart sideways toward me. Did she believe me now?

  “Thanks, Grandma.” I fake smiled. Her compliments to me were always backhanded. I threw Tori an I-told-you-so stare.

  CHAPTER 7

  After we got back from school on Monday, my mom had made us pierogies. Tori took her plate and went to the living room to eat and talk on her phone with her friend, but I always liked to sit with my mom at the kitchen table. I loved it when she chopped up bacon and sprinkled it on top with sour cream and thinly sliced green onions.

  As I settled in, she said, “I just got an email from Madison’s mom about her birthday party on Saturday. She said Madison had already invited you, but this was more for me to know the time and date.”

  I stopped eating.

  “She says you haven’t confirmed yet. Why not?” my mom asked.

  “Yeah, I got the email a few days ago, but I replied ‘maybe,’” I said. “I guess I forgot about it.”

  “It sounds like fun. Getting all dressed up, right?” She looked at me hopefully. But even I could tell she was faking her enthusiasm. My mom was not one of those chipper, overly happy moms whose voices go an octave higher when talking to kids. Maybe she lost all her enthusiasm when she was a vice-principal.

  “No, actually, it sounds horrible,” I grumbled as I shoved a pierogi in my mouth.

  “You haven’t been to a party in a while, so I thought it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”

  “Mom, yes it would! You of all people know I don’t like wearing dresses. And you know that I don’t like people staring at me. I’m not Tori! Grandma and Tori think I can wear the hanbok, but I don't think it's appropriate. I can't go!" I sulked. The bacon didn’t even taste good anymore.

  "Why not?" she asked indignantly.

  “Because it’s not really something you’d wear on a Red Carpet—it’s too Korean-looking,” I tried to explain.

  “Just because it’s Korean-looking doesn’t mean it’s not appropriate for Madison’s party. Sounds like the whole point of the party is to dress up in something out of the ordinary. Believe me, the dress Tori made is out of the ordinary.”

  I stared at my plate of pierogies. I chewed slowly, thinking hard. The party was in a few days and I didn’t know what to do, so I pretended to forget about it.

  Jason and I hadn’t planned to meet up today after school, but I gave him a call at home to see what he was up to. I needed to think about other things.

  “You want to do something?” I asked him when I got him on the phone.

  “Sure. We’re not doing much here in the nut house,” he replied. I could hear dogs barking in the background. “But I am supposed to walk the dogs.”

  “Keep them on a short leash!” I said. I didn’t like his dogs very much. One of them was super hyper. He was like a dog version of a child on too much sugar.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. I could tell he was smiling. “Meet me at the park behind school?”

  “Okay, fifteen minutes,” I said.

  We hung up and I told my mom I was leaving. “Come back for dinner!” was all she said. I’m glad she finally started letting me out of the house by myself without fretting and worrying like she used to.

  As I walked, I wondered what to do about the party. My mom was right, I hadn’t been to too many parties lately. I wasn’t sure if it was because we were all getting older and some of us (namely me) thought parties were kind of babyish, or maybe I just wasn’t very popular. Jason was really the only person at school I spent a lot of time with. Once in a while we joined other kids in games, but not that often. Maybe nobody else liked me. Maybe I didn’t like anybody else? Maybe it was time to take a chance. I could wear the dress Tori had made for me. It was pretty cool looking…

  I was shaken out of my thoughts when I saw Jason being dragged behind the leashes of his dogs and I waved at him. He gestured to the field to tell me where he was going. He was carrying the drool-stick and the ball that his dogs loved chasing.

  “Hi!” he yelled from across the field.

  I jogged up to him. “Hi!” I said.

  He took his dogs off leash and hurled the ball into the field.

  I’m pretty sure some drool flung off the ball and hit me in the face.

  “Gross, Jason! My face is wet with dog drool!” I

  said as I wiped.

  “Oh, come on. That was my first throw. There’s no drool yet,” he said.

  “Oh great, it’s stale dog drool,” I said as I wiped my face harder.

  We both laughed and spent the rest of the time playing with the dogs.

  CHAPTER 8

  I had tried not to think about it or mention it, but somehow, Grandma remembered the day of the party. She kept her promise and she picked me and Tori up early Saturday morning and dragged me (Tori went quite willingly) to a Korean beauty salon downtown where they proceeded to roll my hair, spray it into a helmet, and do my makeup.

  It was my first time at a nice salon. For my usual haircuts, my mom still took me to the kids’ salon where I sat in a chair that looked like a throne. She said it was “cheap and reliable” and I would just have to go there until I didn’t fit the throne anymore.

  This placed smelled like ammonia, hairspray, and there was a whiff of kimchi in the air. Somebody had eaten it for breakfast. There were a lot of young Korean ladies, all speaking Korean, and it could have been a salon in Seoul, not Vancouver. Not that I’d ever been to Seoul, but I was just imagining. Grandma spoke to the receptionist and said a bunch of stuff I couldn’t understand. One of the ladies gestured for me to come with her, and another lady took Tori.

  “Grandma, what are they going to do?” I asked nervously.

  She tsked her tongue at me. “Krista, let them do work. Stop asking questions.”

  I sat in a chair and they put a small drape around the front of my shirt, so I guessed makeup was first. The lady pulled open a few drawers and started to get ready.

  “Could you not over-do the makeup?” I asked the makeup artist.

  She gave me a funny look. I don’t think she spoke English.

  “Grandma, could you ask them to NOT turn me into a K-pop star?”

  “K-Pop! Yes, good! Good!” The makeup artist
nodded.

  “What you mean K-Pop?” Grandma asked confused.

  “No, no,” I shook my head. “Not K-Pop! Only a little bit of makeup!” I said that super loud, as if shouting it was going to help the makeup artist understand. Just then, I wished I could speak some Korean. “Tori, I need your phone! It’s a translation emergency!”

  She was getting her hair cut so she tossed it to me. I typed in “Not too much makeup” into a translation app and the makeup artist read it and sighed. Grandma scolded me, “She is expert, Krista. You not expert in makeup. Let her do something nice. In Korea women very beautiful, not like here. Everybody so casual. Ugly boots and nobody take care to make their face.”

  I sighed. I had a feeling I wouldn’t ever win any kind of argument with my grandmother in my entire life. I relented a little, but not completely, I still managed to give the hairdresser a hard time. I said “No” to just about everything she was trying to do. My grandmother kept tsking me with her tongue.

  They had me turned around looking away from the mirror most of the time. After all my complaining, I think Grandma told them in Korean not to let me look at what they were doing because Tori’s chair was facing the mirror.

  After they were nearly done they finally turned my chair so I could see the mirror. I didn’t recognize myself. It took my brain a while to register what it was seeing. I guess I looked nice, but it was hard to process the stranger looking back at me. It wasn’t all together the worst thing that I had ever experienced, but I couldn’t imagine spending all that time every day trying to look like that.

  But for my sister, it was as if she had finally found herself. She looked like she was right out of one those calendars at the Korean market with those girls with perfect milky white skin and hair perfectly curled. She looked beautiful. They even put special tape on her eyelids to make her eyes look bigger. She could even have been on the cover of the Korean fashion magazine that we had flipped through while we were waiting.

  Tori and I had regular Korean eyes. While we were looking through all the magazines in the salon, it became obvious that none of the models had eyes like ours. They all had these impossibly big round eyes. The tape changed the way Tori looked—suddenly, she had those eyes too.