This is a work of fiction. All characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
And she lost her chance to ever go back to the American world by stepping into that room.
She immediately noticed some of those who had been at the First KSA Meeting of the Year. The party hadn’t yet started, but she could spot some upperclassmen—or those who she thought were upperclassmen, based on the measure of their confidence to laugh and chat—start filling their medium sized paper cups with whatever alcohol that wasn’t being preciously protected by the club officers. She recognized the club president, standing behind the counter in the kitchen, busily talking to the vice president and chairs…social? Cultural? She couldn’t remember which. At the insistence and annoyed voice of the more excited freshman behind her, she quickly took off her flip-flops and stepped into the living room, hoping that she’d be able to find them at the end of the party from the colorful mountain of flip-flops standing in the entrance. It seemed that there were only about half the people from the first meeting, but even that half made her feel like she was a chicken packed into a coop with a thousand other chickens. In a minute’s time, she was pushed back into the wall by the growing number of freshmen. They crowded around the circle of upperclassmen that was guarding the pile of vodka and soju bottles in the middle of the room from those a little too eager to start their fun. Self-consciously, she smoothed out her shirt in the front and tugged down the shirt in the back to make sure her lower back wasn’t exposed, even though she was sitting with her back to the wall. What an embarrassment it would be if she were to display the outline of the ridge between her butt cheeks in front of the Korean student community of the college.
‘Stop thinking about this, Jae-in,’ she thought.
Jae-in was Korean-American and not Korean in that she had lived in the United States of America all her life. Yet, she could speak Korean fluently, thanks to her parents who had forced her in her childhood to learn her native tongue.
‘Nobody here would have talked to me if I hadn’t been able to speak Korean,’ Jae-in guessed. However, the reality was that there was no way of knowing if her thoughts were correct, because never had a non-Korean speaking individual attended the Freshman Commencement Party of the KSA. It was assumed (correctly) by everyone that only Korean speakers had the rights (and obligation) to attend this party. One could only imagine in what simple, cunning, clever, and completely chilly ways every Korean speaker would ostracize a non-Korean speaker without appearing to do so at all, and without meaning to do so at all. And it was for this reason that Jae-in did not introduce herself to others by the name “Jane,” which she was more used to being called among her friends.
Converting conspicuously to the name “Jane,” even at home, had been her most significant crossover to the American world. Jae-in had been born and raised in the States, but still her parents had insisted in giving her a name that clearly showed her Korean roots. As if her strange last name weren’t enough to embarrass her for eternity! (Jae-in’s last name was Choi, which was misspelled according to the AutoCorrect function on her computer, which also suggested that she “correctly” spell her last name as Choy, Chou, or Chui, as if she was Chinese.) However, the part she hated the most about her name was the hyphen. A hyphen (the horror)! No normal American name had a hyphen. And when Jae-in entered middle school, it became clear to her that it and her flat, round, yellow face were the only two things that set her apart from all her friends. Since changing her physical appearance was near impossible, she made the decision to at least introduce herself as “Jane.”
She had been the only Asian in her grade throughout middle school and high school. It was, therefore, surprising even to herself how she kept up with her Korean. Nevertheless, this was not important. What was important was that she knew how to speak Korean. Jae-in, not Jane, began to nervously place some chips from a bag on the plate that was given to her. She handed the bag of chips to the person next to her, remembering not to smile obtrusively. Such an act was only reserved for friends. Even though she knew that the girl sitting next to her was also a freshman, she started off with the formal speech used with strangers.
“Yuh ki yo.” Here you go. The girl met Jae-in’s blank face with a similar expression, took the bag of chips, and turned her back on Jae-in to continue talking to another freshman. Jae-in looked around. She was somewhat overwhelmed by the constant flow of Korean to her ears, something she was not used to, even at her own home. She was only saved from getting a headache by the vice-president, who stepped into the middle of the room to finally start the Freshman Commencement Party. Everyone quieted down.
“Ahn nyeong ha sae yo, juh neun KSA eui pu hwae jang ip ni da,” said the vice-president, introducing himself and giving his title, before continuing on in Korean.
“My name is Lee Sang-hyuk. Thank you for coming to this event. Freshmen, I’ll guarantee that you will have a great time today, but first, let’s give a round of applause to the owners of this house, who graciously let us hold the Commencement Party in their home.”
All of the people in the room clapped, including the owners themselves, who stood up in the kitchen for a brief moment before seating themselves back into their chairs.
“Okay. Now, first, we’ll go around with the freshmen and hear their names and age. Oh, and please also say where you’re from.”
“My name’s Kim Jae-min. I was born in 1987, and I attended Koo-won,” said the freshman closest to the vice-president. He said his name in the Korean manner, last name first, as the vice-president had done. Koo-won High School was a famous foreign language high school in Korea, where only the top academic 5% of middle school students in the nation exhibiting an exceptional initiative for community service and leadership in extracurricular activities, proven by a stack of awards at least a half an inch tall, were given admission. The name ‘Koo-won’ literally meant salvation, which probably attested to the fact that this high school was built to save the intellectual geniuses of Korea from monolingualism, and therefore, from ignorance.
More introductions from freshmen flooded the room, a circular zigzag line connecting the dots of those sitting inside and outside the crowded room. Several more from Koo-won introduced themselves before it was the turn of the girl who had been sitting next to her. In the few seconds that Jae-in struggled to keep down the nervousness at realizing it would very soon be her turn, the girl next to her finished. Suddenly, all of the people in the room directed their eyes towards her, except for two upperclassmen who were talking in the corner from behind the kitchen counter. Time slowed down especially for her. It was a great disservice to her, though, because she would rather have been fast-forwarded as a scene in a video that everyone knew the lines for than be captured in slow motion.
“Hi, I’m Jan—I mean, Jae-in. I was born in ’88 and I’ve lived in this city since I was born,” said Jae-in, all in one breath.
“Really? You’re so good at Korean, though. How’d you manage to keep it up?” queried Sang-hyuk, the vice president. He had a friendly smile and a relaxed appearance, which allowed Jae-in to respond without any of the uneasiness she had had seconds before.
“I spoke Korean all the time at home, so it wasn’t hard to keep it up.”
“Geuh luh koo nah.” I see. Jae-in watched as Sang-hyuk smiled, and shifted his attention to the girl whose turn it was next, Hyae-mi. She turned her head to stare at the floor, but she could still hear Sang-hyuk prompt giggles from Hyae-mi. Hyae-mi was from another foreign language school in Korea that she hadn’t heard of.
To be continued…
