I really didn’t like the color of my shiny new car back in 2004.  I wanted green but that would take months, the salesman said, and I was impatient.   The lot only had silver, black, or red.  The world needed another black or red car like it needed another term with G.W. Bush, so I took the silver (and Bush still got reelected).

I got used to the color because I loved the car.  The distinctive shark fin side vents (Tiburon means “shark”).  The feel of the engine.  How low it felt.  The glove-like fit of the interior.  And most importantly, she was Corean, because back then I wasn’t happy with my color either.  Being half-Corean wasn’t good enough.

As soon as the car became mine, “it” became a “she” in my mind.  This female anthropomorphism is common with males, for a few reasons I suspect.  A car is like your perfect girlfriend.  She’s curvy and fast, reliable but fun.  Others might covet her, but she’ll never cheat.  Your insecurities are safe with her behind all that flash and armor.  Of course, sometimes she can be temperamental and require some maintenance, but other times she can take you away from everything, at least for a while.

Owning a Tiburon felt like being part of a small, private (but affordable) club.  When I’d see another shark car on the road, which was rare, I’d check out the other driver, barely resisting the thumbs-up.  I’d wonder if they got their Tib because it was Corean or because it looked cool.  Being accepted into the Corean club isn’t nearly as simple though.  I’ve made many dear Corean friends but I’ve had my share of haters and snide pricks.  The haters seemed to be in the minority, but all the dings and dents in the armor make you weary.

I remember being excited about this new Asian-American promoted movie, with an all Asian-American cast.  I forget the title, but the Asian girl was with this asshole half-Asian guy, he’d force her to have sex, he’d cheat on her, and just be a smug asshole.  Eventually she gets with the kinder Asian male friend who’s loved her all along.  I just remember being sent for a loop.  I was offended, hurt, embarrassed, by the subtext of having a half-Asian guy be the cheating, rapist boyfriend in an otherwise ALL-Asian movie.  I mean it was “GO ASIANS — but fuck you half-Asian guys, we don’t want you!”   Not the first time I got that message, but the first time it hit me quite so hard.  Something changed.  Gears grinded.  Ding.

A few blizzards ago, the Michigan black ice caught me less mindful than usual.  I spun out on an icy on-ramp, trying to regain control for a full 360 degrees before bumping into the freeway wall.  Everything got banged up, except for me.  I ended up facing the same direction, and continued driving to work after five seconds of disbelief.

After that, my Tiburon wasn’t the same.  She was irritable, ran too loud, sometimes started sluggishly.  I didn’t mind though, because even if she was a little marred, her heart, her engine, was just fine.  As far as I was concerned, the only thing she – or more like, we – lost was a little vanity, but that simply made her stronger, right?  Another scratch?  We love scars.  Someone bumped their door into mine?  What, was that supposed to hurt?

Eventually though, I suppose all of those things add up.  My Corean road warrioress showed signs of weariness just as my own Corean spirit waned.  Her engine rumbled louder.  Her wheels were malaligned despite trips to the service center.  A headlight burned out.  She was locking me out more often, culminating in an alarm-fest when I tried to touch her, like any embarrassing public argument in a parking lot.  A week later, a tire went flat, graciously after I dropped the kids off at Corean Bible School.  If that wasn’t a sign….

The new car buying experience at the Hyundai dealer was different this time.  Instead of a pushy little salesman, we got a pleasant saleswoman with pushed-out breasts.  Good female energy.  Cousin Kevin was there for negotiation support but in the end, the saleswoman’s boobs did more pushing than we did.

KEVIN:  “Every time I see her I want to give her a dollar.”

ME:  “I want to swipe a credit card between them.”

Seeing the new Genesis made me feel like the day I got my Tiburon.  Hopeful and excited all over again.  A little wiser this time, though, tougher but less invulnerable.  They even had the color I wanted six years ago.  Only this time, it was the color of renewal.

When I traded in my old Tib, the appraiser offered, “One thousand dollars.  It’s really not in sellable, workable, or repairable condition.  That’s the best we can do.”

That was a thousand more than my wife expected, but I was still mildly offended.  We’d been through a lot.  We just got banged up a little with the experience, maybe a little off track.

I signed the papers but kept something else.  “Congratulations, you are now an owner.”

I was excited about my new Corean comeback car.  Felt her engine purring with my heart.  We’re on a new journey.  We don’t need armor because we’ll have spirit.   You’re not a warrior anymore.  You’re a princess.   A fucking fast princess.

I’ll be more careful with the dents this time too.

A car is like a perfect girlfriend, after the break-up, you’re left with good memories and appreciation (despite what the appraiser says).

As I walked toward the door, the appraiser added, “That’s a pretty car.”

Yes, she is.

The kids volunteered to be in the church Christmas Eve play last week.  The next morning, they had changed their minds but like they said in Eden, “You can’t take it back.”

On the fateful eve, Sun Su narrated well.  Ooseung was supposed to play Jesus’ ring girl carrying a “NO VACANCY” sign across the stage, but she decided to hide in the pews instead.  Maybe the pressure of all those witnessing eyes in the house of judgement and forgiveness got to her.  It’s okay, baby, I love you more for it.  No damn-age done.

For Christmas, 2009 brought to me,

Twelve Corean relatives meeting,

Eleven Corean dishes for eating,

Ten kids off staircases leaping,

Nine games of Tekken with kids button-mashing,

Eight toys needing returning,

Seven hours of Tom & Jerry running,

Six bottles of expired beer for drinking (no thanks),

Five hours of a jealous (*cough*half-Corean*cough*) husband sulking,

Four Bionicles needing fixing,

Three glances at the lost little cousin who is now quite stunning,

Two Ugly Dolls that my baby doll was loving,

And a terrorist on Flight 253.  (Two of our relatives were there.)

Amy liked the necklace I bought for her, which I picked out with no less trepidation than Indiana Jones acquiring the Golden Idol.  The twelve year curse has been broken.  Or has it just begun….

My Christmas present was the top half of the sweatsuit ensemble below.  The bottom half was my birthday present a week ago.  They’re comfy – I wear them all the time now.

ME:  “Are you trying to make me look like one of those guidos on The Sopranos?”

AMY:  “NO.  This is cotton.  They wear polyester.”

ME:  “Oh, like what your brother was wearing last night.”

]]> http://www.medeasmemoirs.com/2009/12/26/help-me-make-the-most/feed/ 17 http://www.medeasmemoirs.com/2009/10/04/the-study/ http://www.medeasmemoirs.com/2009/10/04/the-study/#comments Sun, 04 Oct 2009 22:34:32 +0000 scott http://www.medeasmemoirs.com/?p=1507

Summer is officially over and the days are already getting cold here.

Just two weeks ago, I clearly remember sitting in the driveway, feeling the breeze flowing over my skin strangely and perfectly.  Watching Amy and the kids biking around the cul-de-sac isle like a carousel.  My son, with his slightly oversized helmet and bicycle, zig-zagging across the lawns with  determination and grace.

I wondered about the green trees and the baby blue skies.  Specifically about our species’ enjoyment of such colors in nature.   Told myself that I don’t like it because it is pretty, but rather it is pretty because this is what we land animals have adapted to liking.  Or something.

I finished reading my book (Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse) about the hyperbolic aftermath of the end of the world, and the strip club economy that would revive it.  The recurring themes that I like most about post-apocalyptia are how the broken gets used anew and the nostalgic rediscoveries.  Naked dancing girls aren’t bad either.  In print too, oddly enough.

For the past month, I’ve been rearranging one of the basement rooms into a study of sorts.  Lining the walls (more like one wall) with books I want to read and books I’ve read.  Putting keepsakes in semi-indestructible plastic containers from Target.  Old floppy disc games and role-playing rulebooks, faded painted figurines and newsprinty comic books (“Now only 35 cents!”), K-pop CDs and Corean DVDs.  Things I may never use  again, but can’t quite let go of either.  Just in case one of my mental batteries needs a jump start from the past.

While reorganizing my bomb shelter of the soul, I found little treasures like personal cards, writings, and letters, some from my brother two decades ago, a couple from patients (Silvia a.k.a. Terminal Girl, and her mom, another from a Chinese patient), but mostly from many of you years ago.  I never reciprocated a single card (sorry!!), but I did keep them all.  Now preserved in coffin-shaped bins.

“What’s this?” Sun Su asked picking out a box with an intriguing maze design.

“Oh wow.  This is my electronic Dungeons & Dragons game.  You had to map this invisible maze to find the treasure while avoiding the dragon,” my excitement reversed polarity as I replaced the rusty 9-volt battery.  “The battery compartment is fried, it doesn’t work anymore.”

Sun Su used the wall pieces to form numbers and letters instead.

“Why is this here?” my little girl asked of the large table in the middle of the room.

“This used to be our old dining table.  I dusted it off and now we can play games on it, or draw, or study, or –”

“Or  pray to God,” she said while readjusting the witch hat that she was inexplicably wearing.  (It didn’t come from my room.)

“… Sure, that too.  Or we can just read in peace down here,” I finished.

“What’s peace?”

“Peace is … when everything is calm, and quiet … and just right.”

“Hmm,” she just smiled and rested her head.

Also, Happy Chuseok (Corean Thanksgiving)!

AMY:  “Babe, listen to what happened at work today, you’ll like this.”

ME:  “Uh oh, what?”

AMY:  “So I was seeing this old lady in the clinic with the doc and she was going on about how she has trouble with certain foods.  Then she says, ‘But I like Chinese food in small amounts,’ and looks at me.”

ME:  “Uh huh.”

AMY:  “So after the doc leaves, she says to me, ‘I didn’t say that I like Chinese food just because you’re here but I really can’t eat much of it.’  I told her that’s okay.”

ME:   “Maybe she thought you’d tell on her.  I didn’t realize I was married to the Ambassador to China.”

AMY:  “Me neither.”

ME:  “You should be used to it by now, ambassador.”

AMY:  “I’m not.”

But I get it.  Innocent old lady from an older world where the first Asians in this country en masse all seemed to be the Chinese.  Asian wasn’t even a household word then.  Oriental was.  I can see how it’s still annoying to Amy though.  Not being seen as an individual, but rather as a part of a collective group that you have nothing in common with other than some superficial features.  And that’s not even including whatever stereotypes are there.  It’s just better not to guess and assume the person is as unique as you are.

Still, it’s weird.  Something about the culture.  Even our three-quarter Corean kids with a large exposure to things Corean have looked at unfamiliar Asian images and asked if it was Chinese first.  Maybe because we go to the Chinese store a lot.  Shrug.  I don’t think the USA is any more racist than other countries.  We’re just more aware of it and not afraid to criticize ourselves in the open as a country.  I didn’t mean for this to be all patriotic, especially five days after Independence Day has passed, but it is nice to have that kind of freedom.

As for me, I’ve gotten used to being mistaken as Jewish.  Shalom!

Some late Fourth of July pictures below.  And again, thanks for the fireworks, China.

“I know why they’re having the wedding at 7 o’clock,” Amy said as she drove.

I listened as I took a picture of the giant Uniroyal tire.

“So they don’t have to serve food,” Amy complained.

Corean church without food?  Heaven forbid.

Five years ago, before we moved, we went to Corean church … religiously, just not for religious reasons.  I went for the Corean community and language lessons.  Amy went for the food, but she made a lot of friends too.

Also around that time, I learned that I had two actual Corean cousins of my own on this side of the globe (edit: they actually introduced me to this church).  Technically, they would be Corean-Brazilian cousins since they had lived in Brazil.  Things didn’t work out well while they stayed at my mom’s house, mostly due to her bat-shit soap operatic paranoia.  By the end, my mom was trying to convince me that due to some “family secret,” they weren’t my real cousins after all.  Show’s been cancelled, mom.  Move along.

So five years later, or last month, the younger cousin had found me on Facebook and invited us to his wedding at the church we all used to go to.  I was ecstatic.

“We used to bring you to this church when you were two,” I told Sun Su after another church stranger tried pinching his cheeks.

“I don’t remember,” he said.

“They do.”

We found my long lost cousin Sang Yong, the groom, getting ready.  He was still his unassuming self with his gentle heart on his sleeve.  He actually looked a little taller and his face filled out more.  Our heads do seem to swell the older we get (as seen below – BOO! – thanks, Sun Su).

I was kind of emotional – seeing someone whom you had been through a lot with (thanks mom), liked a great deal, and thought you might never see again kind of emotional.  My usual no-hugs reflex was suppressed.  I wanted to hang out with him and his brother again, playing Tekken Tag while talking about how America, Corea, and Brazil differ in their refreshing opinions.  My young blood-cousin couldn’t help but hold my hand out of joy – which I slipped out of twice by reflex – and regretted almost instantly.  I was happy and sad at the same time, because I knew this was probably the other bookend to all that, his new life just an hour away, on one of the biggest nights of his life.  He got pulled away to the business of marriage, apologizing to me as he went.

That was really the last time I got to talk to my long lost cousin that night.

We saw a lot of familiar faces, but more unfamiliar faces.  Their expressions were the same as the first few times I walked into that church by myself many years ago, “What’s the Jewish-looking guy doing here?”

The pastor (moksahnim) we had known had left months before, but he  returned to perform the wedding service tonight.  He had taken a special duty to get us involved with the church so long ago – I suspect he knew my faith was never in things in heaven.  I do believe in angels … and devils … on earth.

Sun Su’s female counterpart (above) remembered him, “Oppa?”  Sun Su wasn’t so sure.  She had made me wish for a girl back then and then we had one.  Maybe this will be the foreshadowing of a marriage made in a Corean melodrama.

Familiar faces.  We saw the Corean from Uzbekistan, dating the half-Corean single mom.  Blue Jini had a kid at foot and another bun in the oven.  The ajumma (older married lady) I used to see at the gym gave me an uncomfortable amount of attention, even when Amy was there.  You just can’t teach an old cougar new tricks.

(Someone’s parents pictured below.)

The teacher with enunciation more proper than her spectacles recognized us.  In the years since, she had gotten vertigo and lost hearing in one ear.  But her unflinching honesty rang clear as a bell.

“Your kids look very Corean.  That is good,” she said.

It was more empathy than insult.  You’re only treated as Corean as you look.  It’s a plain simple fact I learned over many years of trying to fit a half-Corean peg into a full Corean hole (for once, this is not a double entendre).  People who know you may be an exception, but otherwise it’s as simple as that.

“Sang Yong (the groom/cousin) looks good.  He doesn’t look like a skinny little boy anymore,” Amy said.

“No, skinny much better.  Too fat,” the teacher corrected with a shake of her head that could have set off her vertigo.

I also remembered that the number of Coreans in a room is exponentially proportional to how fat you feel.

The wedding wasn’t too big.  The kids got pretty bored since it was all in Hanguk, but I missed that droning boredom – just looking around at these people from the back bench.  The bride was stunning.  My cousin was handsome.

The bride and groom had to stand up there for an inhumane amount of time though.  Songs were sung – songs that I could read from the pages but yet, not understand their meaning.

There was a lot of whooping and hollering near the end, Jerry Springer style.  The kiss was small and sweet and timed for the camera shot, Corean style.

Afterwards, there was a huge dinner.  Just like always.

Youths crooned K-pop R&B ballads to the bride’s and groom’s table like it was the last round of Corean Idol.  The tables were separated into the traditional men’s tables, women’s tables, and kid’s tables.  We ended up at the women’s table, as usual.  You just can’t teach an old half-Corean new tricks.

At one point, I lost my seat to a little boy.  I smiled to myself and sat on the bench in the back.  Sun Su insisted on sitting with me on the bench too despite an open seat next to umma.

“Is all of this Corean?  It looks Chinese,” he asked.

“It’s not Chinese.  This is all Corean.  All of these people are Corean, like you,” I answered.

“But we’re not Corean,” my boy said, “not completely.”

I leaned in close to him, “If you’re part Corean and you look Corean, then you are Corean.”

He nodded.

I repeated, “You are Corean….”

… Enough.

After a few more bites, another little boy came up to me on the bench,

“Sorry my brother took your chair.  He’s out now.  You can have your chair.”

“Oh, that’s okay.  I’m alright here now.”

I think I know why people cry at weddings now.

[Note: Most of these pics were taken by Sun Su. I sent him on a Secret Asian mission.]