by Rose Kent
“I didn’t know he played hockey.”
“Yeah, well, there’s a lot more to Nash than his freckles.”
Yongsu nudged me. “C’mon, let’s start Dragons Forever before dinner.”
Dragons Forever? That’s my all-time favorite Jackie Chan movie. “Let’s do it. What could be better than Jackie’s jump in the last fight scene?”
An hour later we gathered for dinner around a card table that Mrs. Han had covered with a crocheted tablecloth. I sat next to Yongsu, across from Ok-hee.
Mr. Han was the last to join us. He’d come home from work later than Mrs. Han. I noticed that nobody touched a thing, not even a water glass, until he was ready.
Before we started eating, Mr. Han turned to me. “Joseph, your mother tells us you need to learn about Korea. You ask us any questions you want.”
I nodded, but I felt insulted. Was this supposed to be dinner, or an educate-the-confused-Korean mission? No way would I act like that. Korean blood flowed through my veins just like theirs.
Mrs. Han walked from seat to seat, scooping mounds of sticky white rice into small bowls near our plates. Then she placed a large bowl next to the meat platter. It was full of vegetables covered in an orangey sauce, and it smelled like rotten fish.
Yongsu must have seen me staring. “That’s kimchi,” he explained.
“I know,” I said, but I didn’t really, although I’d read about Sohn Kee Chung’s family eating kimchi.
There were no knives or forks, but chopsticks lay next to each folded napkin. Mine were wooden. The Hans’ were silver.
Everyone dug in after Mrs. Han sat down, but I hesitated. Whenever I use chopsticks in a restaurant, the floor beneath my chair collects more food debris than the Meadowlands Arena after a rock concert.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Yongsu eat. He quickly picked bits of food off his plate with his chopsticks as if they were pinchers extending from his fingers. But my chopsticks had a mind of their own. The harder I squeezed, the wider they swung apart. Halfway to my mouth, most of the food fell. So I tried pushing them together and using them like a shovel, but you don’t shovel much rice with chopsticks.
Without a word Mrs. Han came over, took one of my chopsticks, placed it against the crook of my thumb, and wrapped my middle and ring fingers around it like it was a pen. Then she tucked the other between the tip of my thumb and my pointer finger.
“Hold the bottom one still,” she explained, pivoting the top one like a lever.
I pressed too hard and the bottom stick wobbled.
“Relax your hands,” she added, adjusting my grip.
I tried again with lame results. And again, only this time I speared a piece of bulgogi.
Mrs. Han readjusted my fingers. “No poking with chopsticks. You can do it, Joseph.”
Eyeing a big clump of rice in my bowl, I tried her technique, holding the bottom chopstick steady. This time the rice made it all the way to my mouth. I grinned, savoring the hard-earned taste.
“Thanks, the chopsticks are different at my house,” I said, just as—plop!—a piece of bulgogi slipped between my chopsticks and into my water glass.
Everyone laughed, even me. It was funny.
“Try some kimchi,” Mrs. Han said after I fished the meat out. I tasted a small piece. Kimchi sure was a spicy veggie with a lot of “character.” Dad always says that about hot foods.
“So your family’s Italian?” Ok-hee asked.
“Seriously Italian. We eat pasta three times a week and we all talk with our hands.” I took a big gulp of water. Sesame seeds were floating on top from the stray bulgogi.
“My best friend Lisa in Flushing is Italian. Her mom makes this delicious bean soup with tomatoes and macaroni,” Ok-hee said.
“Pasta fagioli. My mom has a hundred-year-old family recipe, only she loads it up with sausage. I call it fagioli carnivory. Mmm, makes my mouth water.”
“Ok-hee’s a vegetarian,” Yongsu whispered.
Mr. Han quickly turned the conversation to school. “So, Joseph, do you get good grades?” he asked, scooping more rice into his bowl.
“Straight As, most of the time.”
Ok-hee rolled her eyes. “School matters more than happiness to Korean parents,” she said.
“Working hard helps you find happiness,” Mr. Han quickly answered. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he spoke.
All this good-student talk made me nervous. What if they asked about my essay?
Redirect the conversation. Like Mom does when customers suggest dyeing their hair ridiculous colors. “What do you miss most about Korea, Mr. Han?”
He paused. “In Korea, young people show respect for elders. They understand that age has earned such respect. Not so here.”
I nodded. Dad would agree with Mr. Han, though he’d say it in his own Jersey way.
“Would you like to visit Korea, Joseph?” he asked.
“Definitely. I want to check out Pusan.” I tried to chew without opening my mouth.
“My brother and I worked at the Pusan docks in the summer when we were your age,” he said.
I thought about the police station where they found me, wondering how far it was from those docks. Mr. Han could have passed that station every day when he was a kid.
“People from Pusan are different.” Mr. Han smiled at Mrs. Han. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
She nodded as she poured soy sauce over her rice. “They have a funny accent, like Americans down South. And they are…how can I explain? Straight talkers, they speak their mind. You understand?”
“Sure,” I said. Like me, I thought, suddenly getting excited. She’s describing me!
“Pusan has beautiful sandy beaches,” Mr. Han said. “And it’s very hilly. If you arrive there at night, you think, Look at all the tall buildings lit up! But in daylight, you see they are hills with one-story houses, not skyscrapers.”
I bit into another piece of bulgogi. My stomach was expanding like a water balloon. I wanted Mr. Han to describe Pusan’s hills, the docks, the kids playing whatever games kids play there. Finally I’d be able to fill in the details of my déjà-vu dream. To know what it was like where I was born.
“Joseph won a school essay contest about his Korean family,” Ok-hee announced.
“Didn’t you write about Sohn Kee Chung?” Yongsu asked.
Every Han stopped chewing.
“What was your essay about?” Mr. Han asked, his eyes wide.
Gulp.
“Nothing special. Basic Korean stuff.” My forehead was shooting sweat like a busted fire hydrant. Somehow Yongsu and Ok-hee mustn’t have heard about Essaygate. Time to redirect again. “So, what’s your favorite part of Korea, Ok-hee?” I asked.
“Right now Ok-hee’s favorite place is Europe,” Yongsu said as he mixed kimchi in with his bulgogi. “She wants to study abroad.”
“I’ve lived in Korea and America. I want to check out someplace else,” Ok-hee said, pouting. “Mrs. Peroutka says we should think about global careers. You want me to be successful, don’t you?”
“Remember, you are thirteen years old, not twenty,” Mrs. Han answered. “More kimchi, Joseph?”
“Yes, please.” I could feel bullets flying in this Han family cross fire. It was a familiar feeling, given my feisty twin sisters. “My parents can’t agree on a favorite Italian city. Mom says Naples, but Dad says Florence. They’re both loyal to where their parents were born.”
Ok-hee smiled. “I’d love to spend a semester in Italy. And tenth grade would be perfect, before all that college entrance prep begins.”
“What language do you study?” Mrs. Han asked me.
“Spanish.” Didn’t most kids take Spanish, except the ones whose parents force French on them?
“Ok-hee takes Italian,” Mrs. Han said. “We do not understand why.”
“Because it’s a beautiful language. And if I study there, I’ll use it,” she answered. She sounded satisfied, like when Sophie has a good comeback
for Mom.
Mr. and Mrs. Han just kept eating.
“Do you know anything about the Korean language?” Mr. Han asked.
I shook my head.
“Korean is considered a ‘polite language’ because the words spoken may be formal or informal, depending on the person you are addressing. It is based on Hangul, the Korean alphabet with twenty-four characters. Which is the—”
“Most perfect writing system in the world, “Yongsu and Ok-hee said in unison, imitating their father.
“This is true,” Mr. Han said, amused.
“We’ve been studying Hangul every Saturday since we left Korea, just in case we forget it.” Yongsu groaned.
I smiled at him sympathetically, like what a pain that would be. But the truth was, I wished I could speak Korean too.
After dinner we carried our dishes to the kitchen. I handed Mrs. Han the empty bulgogi platter.
“Gamsa hamnida,” I said, trying hard to make the right sounds.
She bowed and smiled back.
Yongsu and I stacked the dishes in the sink. Mrs. Han washed and Ok-hee dried. There was no dishwasher in sight.
“Uhmma, I need a haircut,” Ok-hee said to her mother.
“Joseph’s mother cuts hair very nice,” Mrs. Han said.
“And you could practice your Italian on her,” I added.
Ok-hee touched her barrette, the way girls always do when they’re talking about hair.
Dad was reading in his recliner when I got home. “There’s blueberry pie in the fridge,” he called from behind The Great Gatsby.
“I’m stuffed.” I walked past him toward the stairs.
He looked like he expected me to start a conversation. Why did it always have to be me? He could’ve asked how things went at the Hans.
I hadn’t even reached the top step when Mom’s questions began. “Tell me all about it,” she said, walking out of the bathroom with a mud mask on her face.
“Apparently I fit the profile of a Pusaner perfectly,” I said. I explained how the Hans described Pusaners as straight-talking, no-nonsense types.
Mom laughed. With the mud caked on her face, she looked like a sci-fi creature trapped in a bathrobe. “That sounds like you, all right. Did you enjoy the dinner?”
“Korean mothers make huge quantities of food, just like Italian moms,” I said, patting my stomach. “And the bulgogi was awesome.”
“I’m glad you liked it, honey. Next time I see Mrs. Han, I’ll ask for her recipe. We Calderaros need to lay off the cream sauce anyway. So they treated you well?”
“I guess…,” I said with hesitation.
“What is it, Joseph?”
“They don’t think I’m one of them. Real Korean. I can tell.”
Mom looked at me, long and hard. “You’ve got ‘real’ written all over your beautiful face,” she said, and she kissed my forehead before sending me off to bed.
A Message from St. Louis
Nash was standing at the bottom of my driveway when I headed for the bus stop the next morning. He hadn’t walked to my house before school since we carried dinosaur backpacks and feared the bully with a water gun. Something was up.
“We got an e-mail back on your search,” he said as the bus screeched in the distance. He looked like he was bursting to get this out, but serious, too.
My stomach fluttered. “What’s it say?”
He pulled a paper from his backpack. “Here, read it.”
Joseph,
My name is Jae Park Leonis and I might be able to help you. I’m 27 years old and I grew up in Pusan. I came here to St. Louis five years ago. The date you were found brings back family memories. I found myself scanning this website for that very reason.
Call me.
Jae
I stared at the telephone number printed on the bottom of the e-mail. Nash hovered next to me, anxious to hear what I’d say.
“You think this guy Jae is for real? Maybe he’s trying to rope me into a sucker scam, like ‘Buy this fail-proof adoption search kit for only $49.95.’”
Nash shrugged his shoulders. “He sounds like he’s telling the truth.”
The school bus pulled up and we got on.
“You gonna call him, Joseph?” Nash asked.
“I think so. I mean, what have I got to lose, right?”
“That’s the spirit. Tell me what he says, okay?”
“Definitely.”
“Joseph, what’s the haps, Drummer Boy!” Frankie called as I stepped on the bus.
“Hey dude,” I answered, but I kept walking.
I would phone St. Louis after school today. After all, Jae could be my brother. I just might find something out before writing my revised essay. Talk about a drummer’s lucky timing.
But then why did my palms feel so sweaty?
The world was suddenly spinning fast for a Friday morning. Very fast.
The rest of the day dragged like somebody stuffed an extra five hours in it. How could I concentrate on textbooks when I had a bombshell phone number in my pocket?
Finally I arrived home to a hushed house. Nobody but Frazer chewing away on a bone. Dad was working, Mom was at the shop with Gina, and Sophie had soccer. For the first time in ages, I skipped a snack. I even thought about skipping the phone call—too much pressure. But I silenced Chicken Calderaro. I needed to talk to Jae.
My hands were shaking as I pulled the paper from my pocket and dialed the phone number.
Right away someone answered, but it wasn’t a guy.
“Yes, this is Jae. I’m happy to talk with you, Joseph.” She had a soft voice and an Asian accent, though not as thick as Mrs. Han’s.
In the background I heard a little kid’s voice.
Jae asked how old I was, where I lived, what grade I was in, and even what my hobbies were. I felt like she was one of those mall walkers with a clipboard doing consumer research.
“So you think you might know about my, umm, my birth mother?” I finally blurted out.
She paused. “Maybe. You see, I grew up in—”
Suddenly I got an earful of long-distance crying.
“I’m sorry, Joseph. My son is upset. He needs something to eat. Can we talk another day?”
“Yeah, sure, I’ll call you back,” I said, speaking loud over the wails, but feeling low. After fourteen years of waiting, I got preempted by a kid with the munchies.
“Mine!”
“Uh-uh, mine!”
What a painful déjà vu. It was a bright warm day and I sat staring at the computer screen that was just as blank as my brain. Sophie and Gina were in the kitchen arguing about whose hiccups were louder. It sounded like they’d been inhaling helium.
“Finish your lunch,” Dad snapped as their pup-squeaks grew more annoying. I could see he was tired of the Mr. Mom Saturday Routine. Finally Sophie and Gina jumped up from the table, ignoring their half-eaten sandwiches and apple slices, and ran outside to play.
I had three more days to finish Version Two of my essay and I still hadn’t figured out what to write. I couldn’t include what I’d learned from Jae because I hadn’t learned a thing. I’d called her back twice and both times I got an answering message with her son singing “Puff the Magic Dragon.”
Forget writer’s block—I had writer’s blockhead. How could I write about anything when I knew something big was about to reveal itself via St. Louis?
Yesterday I’d scribbled a half-page tribute to Nonno Calderaro. I mean, he was a gutsy guy. Dad told me that when Nonno arrived in Manhattan, a French immigrant pulled a knife on him and stole his wallet. He chased the thief in the heat for an hour until he caught him. But I couldn’t fold it into a story that felt like mine. I kept getting hung up on the essay topic: “Your Heritage.”
Next I tried to summarize the history of Korea. But I hadn’t reached the thirteenth century before I got mixed up about who invaded who and what the Mongols had to do with Korea, anyway.
And in a last, lame attempt, I’d typed “A Tribu
te to a Gold Horn” on top of the page. But all I could think about was Dad’s Mad Meter racing on my birthday, Mom’s malocchio musings, and Sophie starting a Save the Goats campaign. It was stand-up comedy material, but a dark kind of funny that I didn’t want to share.
So far, the computer screen was still blank.
Dad was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking lemonade and eating leftovers. “Want some calamari, Joseph?” he called.
“Thanks, but I prefer my squid straight from the sea to the frying pan.” Mom travels to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, just to get catch-of-the-day squid from the boats off the Raritan Bay, and you can tell. Her fried calamari is the perfect combination of gummy squid and light, crispy batter. But to me, seafood leftovers taste soggy. Mom says she’s turned me into a spoiled calamari connoisseur at an early age.
“What are you working on, Joseph?” Dad called.
“My essay.”
“Which one?”
“For social studies, the ancestry story.” Was he that out of touch? This essay had only started World War III in our house.
“How’s it coming?” he asked as he sprinkled red pepper on his food.
“I might as well be writing instructions for constructing an artificial kneecap.”
He turned his chair to face me. “Why?”
“I don’t know what to write.”
“How about your visit with the Hans? Mom said they shared a lot with you.”
I wanted to give Dad the silent treatment, because he hadn’t been interested in my visit earlier. But then I glanced at him, and I saw this fragile look in his eye, like the beluga whales at Sea World.
So I told him that I used chopsticks at the Hans’ house, and that the food was awesome.
“Kimchi is even hotter than Mom’s jalapeño poppers,” I said. Dad and I are the only ones in the family who can stomach those. They go down your throat like mini-fireballs, but they’re delicious.
I even told Dad what Mr. Han said about people from Pusan.
“They’re straight shooters, huh? You sure fit that description,” he said, laughing. “So why aren’t you writing? Sounds like you’ve got some material to work with.”