East Goes West

by Younghill Kang

  With the easy perspicacity of youth, I suddenly saw into Doctor Ko. His presence here seemed to me almost irony, an irony to which he was oblivious. Ko spoke an excellent English, and would give any American meeting him the impression of a man, if not Westernized at least thoroughly Christianized. Scratch him—and underneath was still that Old-World Confucian. Doctor Ko was a valued adviser on church administration, a leader in the service always, and he supported church and institute with his money, giving lavishly. He was not wealthy, but having been for many years a merchant for Korean ginseng roots in Cuba, he had enough to live a quiet life of retirement with frugality. And what is more, Ko really believed himself an earnest Christian. Odd illusion! Every inch of the man I saw—his mind, his spirit, all his values, were those of a Confucian scholar. He had simply changed the letter of his faith.

  I found out soon, he wrote Korean articles in support of Christianity, English articles, too, for Korean papers published in America. Ko was not a bad journalist in English or Korean. But what a lifeless, stilted one! How different from his work in classical poetry, which showed his fire and elegance and real distinction!

  Presently George came up and drew me aside, saying in a whisper:

  “Over there you see the Reverend J. P. Ok, A.B., B.D., A.M., S.T.M., sometime to be, if God helps, Ph.D. The people here in the institute call him Doctor, because he is hoping to get that title soon. And he is pleased to be so. Mr. Ok, or Jimmy Ok, to him, does not sound so good or so exciting as Reverend Doctor Ok, Ph.D.”

  George beckoned and Mr. Ok came toward us, bowing and smiling and holding out his hand.

  “Probably I can tell you something you are wishing to know about American universities,” said Ok, mincingly. “Come up to my room. I will have no time afterwards, as I am going to speak before a ladies’ missionary society at nine o’clock.”

  He handed us a card all printed out, announcing he was to speak. Reverend Doctor Ok, and just as George said, A.B., B.D., A.M., S.T.M. after his name.

  Mr. Ok had a very large, clean room upstairs in the Institute, where he had been living for over a month. We went there now. In one corner I noticed about one hundred Bibles, leather-bound, gilt-edged on India paper. I examined one. It was in English. He was glad to have me look at them, and explained that he was selling these to help out his scholarship. He made me a very good speech on the Bible, “The Book of Books,” “The Inspirational Book,” “The Greatest Literature ever written,” etc.

  “He has no money to buy Bibles. He wants to go to college like yourself,” George interrupted. After that Ok wanted to show me cheaper pocket editions.

  “Where would you advise me to go?” I asked hastily.

  “Oh, South,” said Mr. Ok. “South.”

  “Why South?” I said. “They told me in Korea I must go North.”

  “Oh, South by all means. The professors are really interested in the Orient down there. They will be kind to you. . . .”

  “Kinder than in the North?”

  “Oh, yes, I mean they would not flunk you. They always remember that English is not your own.”

  “I guess you got good grades,” George said.

  Mr. Ok smiled modestly.

  “My grades in the South were very good. I remember, I got an A in New Testament Greek. . . . Unfortunately I had to leave Georgia, because they don’t give the Ph.D. down there. Besides, my idea was to get the doctor’s degree in a bigger place for a change, and maybe I can be more service with that. . . .”

  “Whew! you discourage me! It takes too long,” said George bluntly.

  “Well, I don’t mind telling you, if I get my Ph.D. I am not going to study any more. No, not anywhere. It is not good for you to study all the time,” explained Ok ingenuously. “Hard on the nerves. But this Ph.D. is a very hard one. I have a language requirement in it, French or German. I am taking French. But I always fail. Still, I am going to try French in the fall again.”

  “If you take time, maybe to pass that French will not be necessary,” said George. “They may give Ph.D.’s in the Southern university in a few years.”

  “You think so?” Mr. Ok asked with interest.

  “Or maybe they will give you an LL.D. on your success in giving service.”

  “Hee hee!” laughed Mr. Ok.

  “But what are those?” I asked.

  “Those are my golf sticks.”

  “And that?”

  “His tennis racket,” said George, examining it. “Son of Gun, it’s a good one!”

  “You know how to play tennis, Mr. Ok?” I questioned.

  “Yes, tennis, too. A bit. What I like the best is football. Not to play. I am not heavy enough. But fun to watch, hee hee! That’s what you learn in college.”

  Our interview was almost ended. Mr. Ok was busy brushing up his suit and hat. He sprinkled perfume out of a small bottle on his handkerchief too. You saw he had shaved the second time that day, and there was powder on his cheek, just the kind you smell in a five-and-ten-cent store. He took out of a well-filled closet a light handsome overcoat, and he felt in his pocket and drew out the headlines of a speech, which he examined hastily with moving lips.

  “Perhaps you can come and hear my speech this evening,” he invited.

  “No,” said George. “Sorry. We have another engagement.”

  We left him conning the headlines of his speech, and George sniffed on the stairs:

  “You heard it anyhow.”

  “When?”

  “His only speech. It is about the Bible. He has a fine introduction from a missionary friend in Korea and another from the head Y.M.C.A. office in America. Every time he comes to New York on vacation, he hunts up a different church. There he speaks through these letters of introduction—in the church at least once, and maybe also in Sunday school. Meanwhile he will get a list of those same church members to visit during the next week for his sales. He has memorized that speech on ‘Book of Books’ and all the kind you heard. This speech is good—and really kills two birds by throwing one stone. The same speech he uses for selling Bibles as well as speaking in church.” Our glances met.

  “So that is Doctor Ok,” I said thoughtfully. “Certainly he is the best-dressed Korean of the Institute except you, George. And he’s very nice and good. And there’s nothing at all wrong with him that I can see. Of course, he has awful calligraphy, I see on those notes he made. And he doesn’t know the classics at all. But as Doctor Ko says, who reads the classics nowadays? He can’t speak English very correctly either.”

  “And yet he has been studying logic, systematic theology, homiletics, homogeny and ecstasy, not to mention hygiene and sanitation, for the past sixteen years,” said George.

  5

  While waiting for dinner, I met a number of people besides the Reverend Ok. Especially I took notice of Pyun and Hsun, as I hoped from one of them to get some job. Hsun had a tea business which employed many boys. Pyun was head of an Oriental employment agency for house servants.

  “Come around to the office tomorrow morning, both of you,” said Pyun.

  Hsun said he would give me a job in his tea business if I could find nothing to do at Pyun’s.

  “But with Hsun you will learn no American efficiency,” said George.

  Pyun seemed to think this very funny. He laughed and laughed.

  “That’s all right,” said Hsun good-naturedly. “We get along all right.”

  “I also have a hard time,” said Pyun bashfully, “to learn these business ways.”

  And now George and Hsun laughed at Pyun.

  These two men were very different. Pyun, so emaciated, tall and ever bending in, Hsun so short and stout and ever curving out. Pyun’s long, pale, hollow face was like a narrow cupped hand with the forehead more prominent than the nose, so that if he grew a pointed beard his face would be a crescent moon: his chin was bald, howe
ver. But Hsun’s face was like the full moon except that it had whiskers though every day he shaved. Pyun wore a well-fitting suit of navy-blue serge and a tight necktie. Hsun on the other hand was loose; he was dressed in the ill-fitting clothes of Third Avenue, had a shabby twisted necktie and dusty shoes, and long blowing hair without a part. But Hsun had a heartier look than Pyun and seemed a better friend to George; in swearing he was not so good as George, but he was pretty good.

  Nobody else swore here except these two. But then George always became a center of disapproving interest in the Korean Institute, it was so dignified and self-respecting. The Korean conservative—whether at home or abroad—is no more tolerant than the Puritan New Englander, and this made George the more mischievous. He never could stand respectability that covers up.

  So now he began, to Pyun and Hsun, but loud enough for all around to hear:

  “You know it is almost impossible to get close to a Korean girl. She is not like an American. You may sit right across, plenty of opportunity to kick beneath the table. You may even grab her while you are playing games. But she won’t respond. She will not talk or flirt with unmarried boys as is the custom in America.” George paused and looked around. “Isn’t that so, Pyun? . . . Only the married women. . . .”

  This displeased the married men there very much. But it fascinated them, too. All were afraid of George with their wives, knowing that he was an Americanized pagan.

  “Are there many Korean girls in New York?” I asked.

  “No, very few. Are they good-looking, I see you want to ask. Even an optimist could not expect it. Only the intelligentsia is here. None are good-looking of course except those married.”

  “But how about the girl you were telling me about the other night?”

  “American-born in Hawaii,” said George. “I will point her out to you at dinner. She is putting herself through the New York music school by waiting on tables in a Broadway restaurant. She has no other education of any kind, except she is a good piano player. She can play jazz too, but she prefers, ‘Onward.’ Isn’t that just like a Korean girl? Plays in a Korean church every Sunday.”

  “But, George, you said she was good-looking, too.”

  “Well, much better by back than by front,” said George. “If all the women in the world could be lined up and covered with a big pillow, all but hands and legs, she’d have a good chance. Even when you saw her face, it would not be so bad, as you would still have the legs. My! legs! Those are grand, stunning, swell!”

  “Man might get an old woman that way, George,” teased Hsun. “An old woman sometimes has the best legs.”

  “Not I, never!” said George. “I can tell by the expression in legs, whether old or young.”

  “So you don’t like Korean girls’ faces, you say, eh, Jum?” grinned Pyun. “Only legs?”

  “I don’t say that. Beautiful girls have faces as well as legs. Am I right, Mr. Pang?” and George turned to a tall ill-favored Korean with gray hair, tortoise-shell glasses and bad teeth who had been listening attentively. Long and lank like Pyun, he was dressed like Hsun in badly fitting clothes, yet not so cheap. Hung-Kwan Pang had a reputation for being rich. “But perhaps you’re no authority on ladies’ charms? Well, I am, I tell you. I have no degree from American universities like Reverend Ok. I have no intellect to write that dissertation on American business like Mr. Pang. But love—I study it. Confucius doesn’t teach it. Nor does St. Paul. Nor all those professors North or South, in literature, commerce, or theology. But in my field I may be said to have the Ph.D. Naturally I have formed my idea of a beautiful woman. Her beauty has to do somewhat with features—complexion—shape. Not necessarily blonde, as I used to think on first coming over. Brunettes, they may be stunning wonders! And I can tell you, too, I like a Korean girl. If she is beautiful. A flirting Korean woman can be the most beautiful in all the world—when she makes up her mind to study American methods outside as well as inside college. Unmarried ones, as well as married ladies.”

  I could not understand why Hung-Kwan turned violently red and moved away, with every sign of irritation. Of course, none approved what George was saying, for Koreans didn’t like those American methods George had been mentioning. But Hung-Kwan withdrew to the hall, to the head of the basement stairs, where with back turned he remained, thrusting his head downward, as if he would tell by smelling how nearly dinner was done.

  “But first of all she must have pretty legs that can be judged,” went on George. “And it is a good thing now that girls wear short skirts so you can see their legs. You know, legs ought to look like this.” George drew a perfect picture and passed it. Even the Reverend Ok tittered. He had joined us too, by this time, light overcoat hung up in the hall, and all ready to address that missionary meeting, immediately after dinner. “Not the kind that looks like a bundle of hay. Neither those too thin, like T.B. in them. But they should be just right. I can show you a good sample any time on Fifth Avenue. It’s a pity that the Koreans cover up ladies’ legs with a heap of clothes; the Japanese are superior in showing the female legs. Even they have much to learn from America. Look at the silk wrapped Western leg on Fifth Avenue—this is progress . . . still better, the bare legs on the Coney Island bathing beach.”

  But the waiting Hung-Kwan now gave the sign and everybody moved downstairs where the food and the ladies were. The Korean pastor and his missionary friend had just taken their seats side by side, and Mr. Ok there, too, when Pyun called softly from the top of the stairs, “Oh, Jum, come here. You forgot something.”

  George went to the foot of the stairs and peeped up. I took a step after him and peered up, too. Pyun was gesticulating with a flat sort of flask as concave as he.

  “Sh!” said Pyun, and pointed toward the washroom.

  “For the Lord’s sake!” ejaculated George. “Bring it down! What’s the secret here?”

  But Pyun came down awkwardly, with flask concealed. Nobody there was willing like George to flaunt proprieties. They called it being obscenely Westernized.

  BOOK THREE

  1

  GEORGE AND I were to leave New York about the same time. Pyun had found places for both, as he said he would. Since I could not cook, though George was charitable enough to recommend me, they said I must go as a houseboy, in company with another Korean, Mr. Pak.

  “I know Mr. Pak,” said George. “And you will have no trouble there.”

  I became optimistic then:

  “My first American step, George, in economic life. I will make money now like Hung-Kwan Pang. On that I will become educated like J. P. Ok, A.B., B.D., M.S.T., M.A., Ph.D.”

  “I’m sure of Pak,” George added, “but I am not sure of Pyun. Pyun has himself learned the American efficiency, though he would be ashamed to say that he is a good businessman . . . this shows he still has some Orientality about him. But all the same he may be sending us both out just to get a commission.”

  “But he is a good friend of yours!”

  “I do not like him much. In some ways he is an interesting type of Oriental successful in America. . . . Pyun’s Utopia is not unlike that good old Epicurus . . . he believes in eating good meals. He also believes in hard work. So he spends his days in hard work and his nights in good times—a typical New Yorker. He really knows gin. Those who come for the party enjoy themselves and have no headache the next morning. He has an apartment uptown where I often go to play poker (mostly losing). He keeps the entire floor for himself, so he can bring his friends privately. (His friends are mostly girls.) But he will never get anywhere. He has no poetry, no romance! Just skating!”

  “Remember,” said George to me, “it is not always the money man who is the best dancer, the best drinker, or the best dressed human being at all. He often leads the dullest existence. That is because he does not know how to create an enjoyable life. It may be that money does not come to the man who knows how to spend it for a good ti
me. But then you can’t afford to have a dull life. At any rate—make money; but don’t sacrifice mystery to make money. When you say, ‘Never mind—that will come when I accumulate wealth,’ then it may be too late. To scorn delights and live laborious days, that will not do.”

  I was packed long before George, and presently Pak came in a taxicab with his two suitcases. They were old and worn, not so good-looking as George’s. The handle of one was wrapped with strings. Pak was very big and tall, with a phlegmatic face. He had a stubborn hesitating accent; three times his tongue would flutter, sometimes even more, before he could utter a sentence.

  He was a most typical Korean, an exile only in body, not in soul. Western civilization had rolled over him as water over a rock. He was a very strong nationalist; so he always sat in at the Korean Christian services, because they had sometimes to do with nationalism. With his hard-earned money, he supported all societies for Korean revolution against Japan. Most of his relations had moved out of Korea since the Japanese occupation—into Manchuria and Russia—but Pak still lived believing that the time must come to go back, and even now, with a little money sent in care of a brother-in-law, he had bought a minute piece of land to the north of Seoul. For fifteen years his single ambition had been to get back there and settle down. On Korean land, he wanted to raise 100 per cent Korean children, who would be just as patriotic as himself, and maybe better educated in the classics. But still he did not have enough money to travel back, get married, settle comfortably down. This made him rather suffering and gloomy, always looking on the dark side of things.

  George went out and got some beer to cheer him up. Real beer it was, in a paper carton. Pak drank beer and light wines—never gin—and smoked Luckies, but very temperately.

  Pak, too, was worried, not about George’s job, but about his and mine.

  “Eighty dollars a month for two. That is not much!” he sighed. And George agreed.

  “What is the matter with Pyun? Is he trying all the worst places first?”