by Angela Ahn
“Oh thanks,” I said, a little bit embarrassed. “It’s Tori’s old shirt.” As usual, I gave my sister the credit. I seemed to be doing that a lot lately.
“You’re so lucky to have a cool sister,” Madison said. “She made the dress you wore to my party, right?”
“Tori? Yes, she made the dress,” I answered slowly. She knew the answer to that question, so why was she asking it?
“I was wondering…” She looked down to gather her thoughts. “Do you think she’d be into making me something? I mean, I’d totally pay her. My cousin is getting married in a few weeks and I’d love a killer dress like yours, but using traditional Chinese fabric.”
I felt a little bit shocked. Didn’t that seem like a pretty big request? I had only been hanging around with them for a very short time. It seemed too much, especially because it wasn’t going to affect me, but it was going to affect my moody teenage sister. How could I say no?
“I can ask her, but she’s really busy, you know, doing high school stuff,” I replied, hoping to give myself an escape.
“Okay, thanks,” Madison said. “I’d really appreciate it if you’d ask her. Now, come on with me, sit at my table.”
She dragged me and all my stuff with her. I was so confused. I mean friends help each other, don’t they? But how much help is too much help? Would I have felt shocked if Jason had asked me for something similar? Probably not, but then, I don’t think Jason would have asked me in the first place. The whole thing just felt weird and uncomfortable.
I looked around and I saw that Jason was sitting with Marcus who was making farting noises with his perpetually clammy hands. Really, Jason? Why Marcus again? I tried to catch his eye, but he wasn’t looking at me. It felt like he was purposely not looking at me. I wasn’t in the mood to whisper to the girls while trying to pretend to be busy working on my project, so I decided to actually work on my project and tried my best to ignore everything.
CHAPTER 16
My grandmother came over the next day, as planned. My mother refuses to make my grandmother Korean food, so we had lasagna and Caesar salad for dinner. Grandma had a pinched faced throughout the meal.
I finally got enough nerve to ask her for her help near the end of dinner, when plates were starting to be put away.
“Grandma?” I started to ask.
She looked at me and said nothing.
“You know how you’ve been helping me learn to cook some Korean food?”
She still said nothing.
“Well, my project at school is almost due, and I was wondering if you could help me again?” Silence. But I marched on.
“Could you come to school with me next Tuesday and prepare some Korean dishes with my classmates? There’s no kitchen in the classroom, and I’m not really sure how to do it, but I want to get everybody involved somehow.”
My grandmother had not moved since I started talking, but suddenly she tilted her head to the right, ever so slightly.
“Grandma know what to do. Tuesday. I will prepare.” She stood up. “I go home now.”
Before she left, she turned to me and said, “You wear hanbok that Tori make and I wear traditional one, okay?”
“So what do you think you’re going to do for the presentation?” I asked her.
“Krista!” she said, annoyed. “Grandma know what to do. I take care of everything!”
“Okay Grandma, thank you.”
Maybe I was a teensy bit of a control freak, but the thought of not knowing what Grandma was going to do for my biggest project of the term was completely scary.
After dinner I sat at my desk with my computer on trying to think of the best way to describe why Korean food was so important to my life.
I remembered what my mom said about liking kimchi being in the blood. What if I put pictures of Korean food in a booklet and described the dish and what memories I had of it or what it meant to me? I thought that might work.
But what was Grandma going to serve my classmates? I thought we’d better keep it simple. I didn’t think my classmates were ready for kimchi. I knew some of my classmates ate the same thing every day. Evan ate a cheese sandwich on white bread every single day. Cassie ate pasta and an apple every single day. Arden ate rice and chicken every single day. Boring right? But this was my class. Not everybody was like Jason.
Luckily, my dad was one of those people who took pictures of food at restaurants. I was sure he had a whole bunch of pictures of Korean food for me to use.
I went downstairs to find him.
“Dad?” I asked. He was watching TV.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Can you help me with my homework?”
“Sure, what do you need?”
“I need your phone,” I said. He looked confused. “Let me explain.”
I looked through hundreds of pictures that night. “Back in the olden days, pictures were expensive,” my dad said as he helped me download all his pictures of food. “Now taking pictures is easy. When I was a kid, this idea of yours would have cost a small fortune.”
Why did adults always tell you how rough they had it? Was I supposed to feel sorry for him? Was I supposed to feel lucky that I wasn’t alive thirty years ago? Adults are funny. They have this nostalgia for the “old days” when they walked up a hill five miles to go to school, and think that today all young people are spoiled. Who do you think spoiled us? As if it’s easy for us today. It’s not! It’s not better or worse for kids today, it’s just different.
I rummaged around my desk for some photo paper to print everything. I was carefully deciding what to print and what to say when Tori came into my room.
“What are you doing? Isn’t it your bedtime?” she asked.
“I’m working on my project. It’s due soon.”
She looked at the document I had on my computer screen and read it quickly. “So are you printing off each photo and then gluing it onto paper?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said cautiously.
She sighed. “Really? Come on. There is a better way to do this.” She shoved me out of my desk chair and starting working on the computer. “Just embed the photo you want in the document you want. Why print it out and glue it? You are such a dinosaur. See?” She showed me how to do it.
Okay, she was right. My way was dumb and slow. Her way was faster and looked better. “Thanks, Tori. My project is going to look great.”
She grunted. “It’s not only how it looks, you know. It’s also got to say something meaningful. It’s like people, you know? There’s no point looking really good, if you are like empty inside.” She got up to leave. “School work is the same.”
“But you always want to look good,” I replied.
“I always do look good,” she said. “But that’s just looks. There is a whole lot more to me than just my clothes.” I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.
“You are a really talented designer,” I offered.
She stared at me for a few seconds, and then replied, “Thanks. Stop making so much noise, I want to go to sleep soon.”
“Tori,” I said. I held my breath. “Can I ask you one more thing?” It was a conversation I had been dreading.
She sighed. “What is it?”
“Do you think you’d be into making Madison a dress?” Since we had just established that my sister was a talented designer, it seemed like this might be the best time to ask.
She stood up straight. “What?!”
“She said she would pay you!” I added.
“Krista,” she said, “this is the girl you’ve been friends with for like, two minutes right?”
I nodded.
“Listen, I don’t know her that well, so I will give her the benefit of the doubt, because I am just a super big-hearted person, but that is a bold request. I don’t know her. You hardly know her. I ma
de you a dress because you’re my sister. For family, you do stuff, no questions asked. They do the same for you. To me, Madison is a random stranger,” Tori said. “Why would I do that for her?”
“Well, she said she loved the dress you made me so much, that she wanted something similar, but with Chinese fabric,” I said. I was wishing I hadn’t said anything. “It’s kind of a compliment, isn’t it?”
“No, no, no,” she said, looking exasperated. “That is not how I work. Your dress was like, inspired. If I do the same thing again, it will be like, copycat. I don’t work that way. Tell your little friend that I’m too busy.” Then she sat down on my bed.
“I’m going to tell you something else, Krista, because, I know I shouldn’t be, but I am totally shocked at how naïve you are. But did the thought ever occur to you that she might be using you?”
Tori had said what I didn’t want to acknowledge.
“Well, it did feel really uncomfortable when she asked,” I admitted.
“It was uncomfortable, because you know that you two are not true friends, not yet anyway. You haven’t known each other long enough. It takes time. I’m not saying you never will be, but clearly she has no respect for appropriate friend boundaries, or maybe she’s just totally spoiled and used to getting her way, so maybe she thinks it’s not a big deal to ask people for outrageous favors. Who knows?” Tori said. Even though I didn’t like what Tori was saying, I felt foolish for not realizing it myself.
Tori continued, “Real friends don’t ask you for huge, uncomfortable favors. Real friends don’t ask you to do things you don’t want to do. Real friends make you feel good about yourself and they just get you. If a person is a real friend, you want to help them with no hang-ups. There’s a difference between a real friend and somebody you just happen to know. You may want to reconsider your new friends.”
CHAPTER 17
I asked Mrs. June if I could change my clothes just before the presentation. Tuesday had come way too quickly. Most of the girls had already seen my dress, but the boys hadn’t. They were so immature. I tried to ignore their comments, but I’m sure my face was bright red. I hated people staring at me.
Marcus, of course, couldn’t help but be annoying. “Look at this! Krista wearing a dress. Mark this day on your calendar, everyone!” Arden laughed—a little too much, if you ask me.
Mrs. June walked up to him and scolded him.
After everybody got over the excitement of me wearing a dress, Grandma knocked on the classroom door. My grandmother showed up at school right at 10am, just like I had asked her to. I heard a couple of girls gasp as she entered the class wearing her traditional hanbok—it really looked quite different from mine. With the full skirt and bright colors, I felt like she dominated the room. Everybody was staring at her. How could you not? She was wheeling a large cooler behind her and had two large bags in her hands. I was so nervous. The night before I had asked her what she was planning on doing and she had been vague with her answer.
Mrs. June said, “Hello, Mrs. Kim! So nice of you to come and help us out.”
Grandma smiled and nodded. The whole class was silent.
“First,” my grandmother said, “everybody wash hands, clean desks.” She brought out a large roll of disinfecting wipes. “Pass to everyone.” She motioned to me.
She started unpacking at a table in the front of the room that Mrs. June had set up for her. She laid out dozens of plastic containers of prepared food, and from somewhere, she fished out a small rice cooker. My classmates were settling back into their desks, quietly watching her. My stomach was in knots.
Grandma stopped moving and suddenly looked like she was going to say something. The class remained deathly quiet. She motioned for me to come join her at the front of the class. I felt a little vomit rise up in my throat.
“Krista says you all work on project about families, about your heritage.” She paused. “Krista is Korean. I am Korean. I wear traditional hanbok. Krista wears modern one. I guess I am old-fashioned and Krista is like young modern Korean girl. I like her dress, but it is not traditional.” She paused again.
“I tell you something about old Korea. When I was young, Korean people suffered a lot. We had war. We had nothing. I was hungry a lot. Everybody was hungry. We never wasted one bit of food. After the war, many Koreans remembered being hungry, so we made our food with so much joy. We were happy to eat. Korea is now very rich country, and now only old people like me remember when we have nothing.
“But I think because of suffering, we still remember that we are so happy to live and to eat. Even if young people know nothing about the suffering, they can feel it, in the food. This food that all Koreans eat is in our hearts. Today, I show you some of my heart and some of Krista’s heart.”
As she stopped talking, I felt strange. People were still very quiet at their desks. She reached into her bag of supplies.
“Today, we all make kimbap. I teach Krista how to make it not long ago. This is NOT sushi!” she said emphatically. “But if you like sushi, maybe you like this too.”
I watched my grandmother distribute containers to my classmates. She had planned for us to work in groups. She had thought of everything. The way she packaged ingredients made it very easy for each group to lay out the rolls properly. She even made it fun. She walked everybody through the steps patiently and helped groups when she needed to.
When it finally came time to start eating, most people liked it. Grandma walked over to Jason, stopped at his desk and asked him, “Do you like it?” My heart stopped. I don’t think she knew that things were weird between us—unless Tori had told her, but I hoped she hadn’t. I think she talked to him because he was the only other familiar face.
“Oh yes, Mrs. Kim. I’ve had this before at Krista’s house. It’s not new to me. I’ve always liked it. But Krista’s mom always bought it from the Korean store. Yours tastes so much better,” Jason answered. Grandma smiled and nodded at him.
I felt myself relax. I felt humbled by Jason’s natural ability to talk to Korean ladies and say just what they wanted to hear. He looked over at me from the corner of his eye, and I looked at him. I felt proud that he was my friend, that is, if he was still my friend, but mostly I missed him. We hadn’t eaten Korean food together in a long time.
Jason looked away from me and from Grandma, but to my surprise, Grandma continued. I strained to hear her, and to my complete shock she said, “You come to dinner tomorrow. You usually come Wednesday, right? Krista’s house. Okay? I make soup. Not tteokguk. I know you not like that one. I make a noodle soup just for you.”
Jason looked completely stunned and if I had had a mirror and could have looked at myself, I’m sure I would have looked the same.
It took him a few seconds before he said, “Okay, Mrs. Kim. I will be there.” If you added up all the words Grandma had spoken to Jason in all the years she had known him, you’d find she had just doubled the number.
Of course, some people didn’t like the kimbap. I saw Madison pick out the spinach and the crunchy pickled radish. I was pretty sure I thought I heard Arden say it was “gross” but I ignored it.
Mrs. June gave us the “don’t be afraid to try new things” speech, but you can’t exactly force kimbap down somebody’s throat, can you? But it was okay. Not everybody likes the same things.
At the end of Grandma’s time with us, Mrs. June said, “Class, what a wonderful experience to learn from Krista’s grandmother! Thank you for sharing all your knowledge and teaching us how to make kimbap. Class?”
We chanted in unison, “Thank you, Mrs. Kim.”
“I get it!” Marcus shouted, standing up for emphasis. “Krista Kim-Bap!”
My grandmother stared at him without a hint of a smile on her face, but not me. I smiled. A few people in the class laughed quietly. That was the first time I found anything Marcus said to be even a little bit funny. I looked a
t my grandmother and I mouthed, “Thank you.” Then I had the strangest urge to hug her. She wasn’t a hugger, but I ran up and grabbed her anyway. The fabric of our dresses made a scratchy noise. She patted my back awkwardly and then as we pulled away, she gave me the slightest of head nods and began packing her things.
I handed Mrs. June my paper report, too. I had created a portfolio of pictures of my family from the last few years with us eating different types of Korean food. My summary was attached.
In My Blood
by Krista Kim
Here are the foods my family and I eat a lot. We eat lots of other things too, but when I think of my family, these are the foods that come to mind. I don’t know a lot about Korea. I wasn’t born there. My parents don’t speak the Korean language at home. I’ve never even been there. But when my family eats Korean food that is when I know I am Korean. There is something about the flavor, the way the dishes are served, the way you eat it, that is so comfortable.
My grandmother has been teaching me to make Korean food. It is bringing us closer together. I can’t really describe how I feel when I am helping my grandmother make dishes that probably her grandmother taught her to make. But I can say that I feel at home. I want to learn it because I think I am learning about myself. She tells me the words for dishes in Korean because there sometimes isn’t even an English word for it. The foods that we eat around our dinner table together as a Korean family teach me more about being a Korean girl living in Canada than reading any Korean history books would.
CHAPTER 18
The class recovered from the excitement of my grandmother’s presentation, and I managed to change out of my dress and put my jeans back on. Then we had PE. It was more of the Celebration of Dance preparations. Now that my presentation was over, the next biggest stressor in my life, other than not knowing if I still had a best friend, was still hanging over my head.