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.

“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.]

Lately, my ass has been getting kicked by a cold. It’s hard to shake when you’re running around all day at work, up all night on call, and staying up too late on your nights in between (watching the UFC and There Will Be Blood).

The part I hate the most is the runny nose. Enough pseudoephedrine will slow it down to a walky nose, but I’m pretty sure taking four at a time is not the recommended dosage. Trying to stay dehydrated so that there’s less mucus to run isn’t the kind of advice I would give to my patients either, but you do what you gotta do to get through the work day.

“So have you been exposed to anyone else who’s sick?” I ask Mrs. Smith, my pneumonia patient. Anyone else other than me, that is. Don’t worry, I washed my hands about 30 times today. I want to cure the infection, not cause it.

Despite this, I think I gave Sun Su my cold. Every night he sleepwalks into our bed and sleeps next to me, while Amy goes into Ooseung’s bed. This morning he was coughing.

“Don’t hug me, I’m sick,” I told the kids today.

“But I’m sick too,” Sun Su opened his arms and melted my heart despite my warning.

“You’ll get more sick if you touch me though,” I said as Amy whisked my little pajama partner upstairs.

“You’re sick, appah?” my four-year old girl asked eyeing me with a calculating smile as if I were a bug in a jar.

Later that night, I got a text message saying, “Lab called – your patient SMITH has TB.” What the fuck, I’m not even on call today.

I paged the Infectious Disease doctor (who was also at home) on the case. Infectious Disease is easily my favorite medical subject and the I.D. docs are always my favorite consultants. They are the last of the medical detectives and the arcane sorcerers. They ask the funkiest questions – Did you eat the custard? May I look at your fingernails? What countries have you been to? Did you put your hand in the aquarium? In all of medicine, they are the ones who are fighting living breathing (or not breathing, in the case of anaerobes) organisms in the battle of humanity versus microbes, the eternal arms race between resistant bugs and new antimicrobial drugs, while also being mindful of the delicate balance between them and us.

Anyways, Dr. Kiltdare, the I.D. doc called me back. He’s an older Scottish man who reminds me of Ian McKellen as Gandalf – the white hair, moustache, and wrinkles. I assumed he was Scottish because I saw him wearing a kilt once when I first came to this hospital – and it wasn’t on Halloween. I respect that kind of crazy. Not because I like old wrinkly knees, but because I admire that bold pride in his heritage. I used to feel that way about my Corean heritage not too long ago and sometimes I still do, but … as a half-Corean, sometimes you just get tired of skating up that motherfucking hill all the time.  You get tired of opening your arms and saying, “But I’m Corean too….”

“Hi Dr. Kiltdare, this is Scott,” I picked up.

“Are you really a Scot?” he asked over the phone.

“Um … what?” I questioned, feeling an odd sense of deja vu.

“Are you really a Scot or is that just your name? I’m asking because I’m a Scot, I wear the kilts sometimes. Many of the Scotts I know are Scots,” he clarified. I used to ask similar questions to people I suspected were Corean or half-Corean. Sometimes I made fast friends, sometimes I just embarrassed myself.

“Well, I have a grandma who was Scottish I think, so I’d be a quarter. So not rea–,” I answered.

“Well then you ARE a Scot. How can I help you, Scott?”

He told me what he thought of the positive TB result and what drugs to start (five!). Anyone not wearing a mask will have to be tested, to see if the patient infected the caregivers. Like me and twenty other people.

The infection expert was informative as usual, but as far as helping me, he already had before even asking to. A small part of my Corean spirit rallied again by his example and maybe a wee Scottish part too.

Inspiration is infectious. Pride is contagious.

I’ve always despised the concept of “family” growing up.

To me, families were inherently dysfunctional groups of loud, fat, old, annoying, and/or pushy people, with their self-indulgent in-jokes and get-togethers. Families were for the weak and the co-dependent. That’s not to say they weren’t intriguing sometimes. For example, I liked the movie The Family Stone in a curious “life on other planets” kind of way (plus Rachel MacAdams is really cute – as long as her bangs help cover up that five-head* of hers).

* (A five-head is a forehead that is just too damn big. Helen “Drive-in” Hunt would be Exhibit A.)

Amy’s extended Corean family is wonderful, but the fact that I can’t understand what they’re saying half the time plus my own antisocial dysfunction and not wanting to be “the white guy in the corner” limits the bonding significantly, which honestly, is probably how I prefer it. I’m just not used to being part of a big family.

I feel this way because my own family growing up was very small – me, my mom and my brother. And to me, that wasn’t a family. Families aren’t supposed to be that small, lonely, and desperate. We were “just us.”

Our family was so small because after my dad died (I was 13), his side of the family cut us out of their lives (and my mom’s side lives in Corea). Who knows why – maybe they didn’t like us, or our mom, or they were too fucked up over their own brother dying suddenly. We were all fucked up and I can tell you from experience, those were formative years. I developed a lot of hate and anger then, and it’s still a comfortable shroud sometimes.

Anyways, I’ve written about this before but last year one of our uncles and aunts found my phone number through the internet. We visited them. They greeted us with warm welcome and even better, had pictures of us and our dad that we’ve never seen before. They had vaguely expressed some regret in shunning us for the past 23 years. Which still baffles me – I mean, we’re practically all that’s left of their own brother. Maybe it’s a Big Family Thing – like when your family tree is that big, who cares about a few little branches breaking off.

Since that visit, we’ve missed their annual family reunion, partly due to scheduling but honestly more due to apathy and discomfort with the whole “let’s forget the past and be a big family again” thing. At this stage in our lives, we’re both married and have kids. I’m more interested in spending what little time I can visiting my brother’s little family than the big family that dumped us. Part of me misses a favorite uncle or aunt, but part of me would also like to see them take the regret of their mistake to the grave. To paraphrase Bill in Kill Bill 2, “There are consequences to breaking the heart of a thirteen year old child.”

Anyways, I’m getting used to the idea of family again with my own. Four isn’t too small for a family and neither is three. The numbers don’t matter as much as the sense of security, love, and fun. That’s like a dozen fun uncles and aunts right there.

But I have to admit, when they mail me pictures like the ones I just received (in this entry), I almost wish I wasn’t so cold inside. Almost.