Friday Fiction: Reunion

The following passage is a rough-draft excerpt from my upcoming novel, Gyeosunim, the sequel to Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary. Be warned that there are spoilers and you may be missing some context. Passages are in no particular order and are subject to change.

Thursday, May 16, 2019

“You are fat, Lolan-duh.”

“And you are even more beautiful than I remember, Su-ah shi.” I added the familial shi to the end of her given name. It was how I had addressed her, all those years ago, as my Korean improved and I went from addressing her by Miss Kang to using her first name, as I used to hear Kwon call to her from his office. Only, he was addressing her as his inferior: I, on the other hand, was addressing her as a friend.

Indeed, Su-ah was beautiful, ageless. Now in her early forties, she did not develop into the stereotypical ajuma, or aunt, that we had seen in so many middle-aged women in the late 1990s. Her hair was long and straight, tied into a ponytail. The last time I had seen her, her hair was shoulder-length and permed into a fashionable wave. Her new hair style had kept her face in a time capsule, unchanged over the decades. She was slimmer, which made her look taller.

Indeed, the passage of time had been kind to Su-ah.

She smiled, her hand moving to delicately cover her mouth, as it was not considered lady-like for a Korean woman to show her teeth. “It is good to see you,” she said from behind her hand.

“It’s good to see you, too.” The last time that Su-ah and I had seen each other was in the spring of 1998. After the hagwon had closed, she had been able to secure a job with Hyo Lee’s engineering firm, acting as Mr. Lee’s personal assistant. Like the teachers, Su-ah hadn’t received her final payment from Kwon. When Mr. Lee had found out that I was out of a job, he used Su-ah to keep in touch with me, to arrange for me to be his private teacher. In return, he gave Su-ah a job and even paid the amount that Kwon owed her until Kwon was finally able to pay her.

When Mr. Lee became too busy to attend our lessons, I lost contact with him and with Su-ah.

“Do you keep in touch with Mr. Lee?” I now asked her.

“I work for him for about two year,” she explained. “I go to school, part time, to be teacher. When I get job at school, I not see Mr. Lee again.”

“Do you know if he still lives in Chŏnju?”

“I think so, yes,” she said. Her English was rough but I had no problem understanding her. “I see his wife maybe six month ago. She with daughter, who is now marriage.”

“Married,” I repeated, but out of surprise rather than to correct Su-ah’s grammar. The last time I had seen Mr. Lee’s kids—he had a son and a daughter—they were in their early teens. They now had to be in their early thirties, likely married and well into their careers. “Does she have children?”

“Two sons,” she answered.

“Mr. and Mrs. Lee must be very proud.”

“Yes.”

We were sitting in a Shin-po Woori Mandoo, a chain restaurant that was one of my favourites when I had lived in Chŏnju. One of the restaurants had been across the five-split intersection from our hagwon and we used to frequent the place. Just the other day, as I explored my old city, I passed the intersection and discovered that the old restaurant was now a shoe store, the kitchen long-gone. But Su-ah had given me directions to this one, in the narrow streets that ran near the old Core Department Store. I had to give myself some extra time to try to remember exactly where the department store had been and then find the street that had this restaurant. I had to circle a couple of blocks but I found it, nonetheless. I was desperate to have an authentic dolsot-bibimbap—a hot, stone-bowl dish of rice and mixed vegetables. I hadn’t enjoyed a bowl since I was in a Korean restaurant, on Preston Street in Ottawa, nearly ten years ago now, and even though that restaurant had been owned by a chef from Chŏnju, the ingredients weren’t quite the same. Plus, because of Ontario health regulations, the egg, which is traditionally served raw, on top of the vegetables, and is cooked by the heat of the stone bowl, was served fried, sunny-side-up, on the Ottawa restaurant dish. At the sight of the dolsot-bibimbap placed in front of me, in the city from which it was made famous, I was transported back in time.

Su-ah, who also wanted the same meal, allowed me to order it for the both of us. I suspected she wanted to see if I could still speak her language. “Dolsot-bibimbap, du-gae, chuseyo,” I said, much to her surprise and our server’s amazement.

“You sound Korean when you speak Hangul,” she said.

“I had ordered this dish enough times to never forget.” When our dishes arrived, I was all too eager to stir the raw egg into the rice and vegetables and allow it to cook, stirring in a vegetable broth, served on the side with fresh green onions. When both Su-ah and I deemed it done, we began eating. It tasted as fresh as I remembered it. After a few bites, our conversation turned to our main purpose.

“How is he?” I asked.

“Very sick.”

“Is he going to die?”

“Soon, I think.”

With those three words, all of the contempt that I held for Kwon dissolved. Even though twenty years had passed since I had left Korea, since I had felt that any chance of getting the money that was owed to me had vanished, since I had even stopped thinking of Kwon—after all, I didn’t need the money, not that that was the point—I couldn’t hear his name without conjuring negative thoughts of a man who had lied to his employees, had kept them on staff, even though he had no intention of paying them when the time came.

Several times, in late 1997, we had given him a chance to let us go, but he had insisted that he could pay us. Even when he declared that he had no money to pay us, he thought that we would continue to work, for the sake of the students.

And he had the gall to deny paying us because we complained to the labour board.

In the end, he just wanted us to go away, quietly. But I stayed. I had made many connections while I worked for Kwon. Many of his adult students had remained loyal to their teacher, had found me work at the university, had kept me as a private teacher. In time, I put the thought of fighting Kwon out of my head. And when he did enter my thoughts, he was nothing but a failed businessman and a cheat, who had lost face—something that is devastating to a Korean.

And now Kwon was dying, would be gone forever. I didn’t hold any contempt for him: I pitied him.

“Mr. Kwon get more sick now. He in hospital.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I was hoping that we would have a chance to meet.”

“Oh, Mr. Kwon want to see you. He tell me to take you to see him. Can you come tomorrow?”

I had no plans. I had returned to Chŏnju at Kwon’s request, through Brad and Wilma. The whole point in returning to Korea was to get some closure on this chapter of my past. Or was it that Kwon needed this closure? He seemed to need it more than I. “Yes, of course. Will you come with me?”

“Yes. I must teach in day but we can go after.”

“I want to ask one more favour of you, Su-ah shi. Can you please try to locate Mr. Lee? I’d very much like to see him, if he’s available. I don’t know if I’ll ever return to Korea after this trip.”

“Yes, I try.”

Kwon might want to lay his guilt to rest, might need this closure. But for me, I needed some closure with Hyo Lee. I never got to say farewell. He had paid me for two months worth of lessons but never attended a single one. He had helped Tanya and I move when the hagwon came to a sudden closure. He had acted as a friend, not just a student.

To see him would make this trip truly worthwhile.