A couple of years ago I visited my mom in Flushing and suggested that we go grocery shopping. Grocery shopping in Flushing is a real treat for me; not only because I love supermarkets (and the only places close to my apartment in Bushwick are small and kind of ghetto), but also because the Korean markets in Flushing give me a chance to stock up on Korean cooking essentials for when I need a fix. Also, the quality of their produce is far superior to that in Bushwick, but without Manhattan prices.
In the fruit section we stumbled upon a strange-looking specimen. A cherimoya!
Neither my mom nor I recognized the scaly, almost stained glass-textured fruit. New things like this are endlessly fascinating for my botany-loving mom. At any rate, I impulsively bagged up two of them; one for each of us to try. My mom asked a nearby grocer how to eat one. He scratched his head and humbly replied that he wasn’t familiar with them. He expressed surprise at our blindly buying this fruit, and my mom gave a sort of “Whatever, anything goes!” shrug and laugh.
At checkout the cashier had trouble finding the produce code to ring up our cherimoyas. She asked us what they are and my mom jumped at the opportunity to say, “[We’re not sure. We haven’t eaten them before.]” (I had seen the fruits under a hand-written sign that said Cherimoya, but I wasn’t sure if the spelling or nomenclature was correct so I stayed quiet.) The cashier then asked why we were buying them. The words joyously sprang from my mom’s mouth. “[I don’t know!]”
That cherimoya purchase seemed to be the most spontaneous, wacky event of my mom’s life, which made the actual tasting of the fruit to be kind if anticlimactic. (After we’d eaten them a few days later we agreed over the phone that they’re not that great. Kind of custardy and tropical sweet. The flavor’s similar to a banana, and the texture inside is like that of a soft, white, seedless kiwi. )
When I was in second grade, some fresh-off-the-boat Korean girl was transferred into my class in the middle of the school year. My teacher, Mrs. Yablon, sat this new girl at my table next to me. I assume that Mrs. Yablon was thinking that I, as a fellow yellow, could help this girl transition into the class as well as provide some basic translation services.
This girl (I can’t remember her name! More on that below.) didn’t speak any English at all so her sitting in our class, I’d imagine, felt sort of like a waste of time. I don’t know why she wasn’t placed in some sort of ESL class instead. At any rate, this girl and I did get to chatting a little bit.
Though my grasp of the Korean language is embarrassingly, gut-wrenchingly poor, it was somewhat better back when I was in the second grade because (1) I spent more time around Korean speakers – family members and churchgoers and so forth – as a child than I do now, and (2) the little formal Korean language training that I had gotten as a young’un was somewhat fresher in my mind. So what I’m saying is that, though I might not have fully understood everything this new classmate said to me, I’m freaking seriously, positively sure of what sticks out in my mind.
This girl told me about her life back home; about how people dressed better and the kids got richer educations and just led completely superior lives to us in the States. I had only been to Korea very briefly as an infant and I certainly didn’t follow its culture and politics, so this was all news to me. I hung onto every word.
At some point my new classmate got to talking some serious smack about the other side – South Korea. She railed against how poor stupid and senselessly mean these South Koreans were. She assured me that it was a common occurence for a South Korean grown-up to just kill a child on the street for no reason other than, I suppose, bloodlust. It was somewhat far into this conversation that she asked me where my family was from. I had no idea that the peninsula was even divided at that point, so of course I answered, “North Korea, like you.”
At this point I want to explain the two-tiered reasoning behind this answer. First, I sure as hell never saw any of this crazy erratic typical South Korean behavior she spoke of in my family. Secondly, and I admit this part is thin, I knew enough geography at that point to know that I lived in North America, and in the North part of the United States (I felt pretty superior about that, too; we’re on top of the top!), so it naturally followed that my folks would be from North Korea, too. North and North stick together, right?
Clinton's current office is in New York, which is a northern state. Counts!
The new girl didn’t stay in my class for long. I’m not sure if it was because she was finally – mercifully – placed into an ESL program elsewhere in the school; or if her parents simply moved to another US city; or if (more sensational conclusion), while this little girl was a perfect model of Communist brainwashing, her parents were defectors who just made it to Queens, New York before Kim Il Sung’s minions tracked the family down and snatched them up; or if (most sensational conclusion) the whole family was a bunch of freedom-hatin’ spies infiltrating the States on behalf of the North Korean government and they got what they needed and moved. the fuck. on. Or were assassinated.
Longshot: If you or anyone you know worked at PS 22 in Queens in the early nineties, I would love to hear what the administration knew of this girl and her family. Or if you or someone you know IS this girl, get at me! I want to hear the rest of your life story, and find out if you still feel the same way about South Koreans and democracy.
Or if you or someone you know is Mrs. Yablon, did you know this girl was North Korean when you put her next to me? Were you trying to fuck with my second grade mind?
This is a tribute to my background; my Korean family, my American upbringing, my (technically)* Korean-American identity, the sights/sounds/tastes of this culture, and my mom. Because she rules. She may not have as much humor**, personal and home decorating style, and money as your mom (in fact, I’m certain that all of my friends’ moms have her beat in at least two of those categories) but I’d bet a million dollars that she’s logged more hours at work, lifted heavier loads, and complained less about it.
*I say technically because, while I hate the uppity political correct sound of the term Korean-American, that is what you call the product of two Koreans, born and raised in the United States. But I certainly don’t identify myself like that, not primarily anyway. Great, now I just made myself sound even more uppity and politically correct than the term itself.
**By this I mean intentional humor; my mom’s not the type to make puns or say something like, “That’s what she said.” I think.
We've both looked better. Whatever, fuck off.
For some reason, this woman likes me enough to want me to be closer to her and to our heritage, so this is mostly in honor of her.
Kiss the Gook 