In the morning I received word that my sister had died. This was less than two months after she had been sent back to the States. In my befuddled state, I asked where the funeral home was. That was a ridiculous question and it made my niece-in-law laugh. That’s when I realized that my sister hadn’t died here, but in America. Still, to laugh like that. Perhaps because her voice came through the phone line, she sounded upbeat and not as if she were mourning.
“Would you go if you knew where it was being held?” she asked.
“There’s no reason not to. She’s my one and only sister.”
Saying this out loud brought forth suppressed tears. It was a daunting realization that I was the only one left out of five siblings.
“Auntie, America isn’t Busan or Daegu.”
“So where are you now?” I asked.
“Banpo, where else? Have you forgotten where we live?”
“So I guess America is too far away even for the eldest daughter-in-law.”
“My husband just left. Thank goodness it’s the off-season, otherwise he couldn’t have gotten a ticket on such short notice. What’s in America that so many people go there all the time?”
“Are you saying that you couldn’t go because you couldn’t get a ticket?”
“Auntie, our youngest is a high school senior. How can the mother of a senior go anywhere?”
Her voice was firm and righteous, almost incredulous that I could ask such a thing, and I was momentarily taken aback as if someone had yanked me from behind. Indeed, I am quite aware that in our society, you can get away with bending quite a few rules caring for a high school student, especially a senior. My niece-in-law wanted to hang up so she could contact other relatives.
“But what do I do now? Do I just sit here and do nothing? How can I do that? How?” I whined, but she had already hung up. Realizing that I was talking into a dead phone line, anger flared up instead of sorrow. How could they have shipped off my sister like that, on what proved to be her very last trip? I knew that I could have done more for her as well, but my niece-in-law’s treatment of my sister on her first real visit with them was inexcusable.
My sister immigrated to the United States in the 1960s, so more than thirty years have passed. During that time, she never once set foot in her home country. Even when her eldest son, who was educated and married there, found a job in Korea and returned permanently, she did not come. She could have come afterward to visit them, but she did not budge as if she was rooted to American soil. Understandably, she had no compelling reason to visit. Much to her credit, her other children had grown up to be successful adults there. And her eldest son went back to the States so frequently that he didn’t give her much chance to miss him. He was in high school when his family moved overseas. As a bilingual perfectly comfortable in both languages, he landed a cushy job in Korea that allowed him to spend three or four months out of the year abroad. My niece-in-law’s grumblings that air travel was ruining her husband’s health always sounded more like bragging to someone like me, whose children have no ties to the international community. In my family, I am the one who has traveled the most overseas, thanks to my sister. She was the oldest of the five siblings and I the youngest, and the three brothers in the middle all died just before or after their sixtieth birthdays. The remaining two of us naturally became closer despite the distance. We called each other often and the few times she mailed me an airline ticket, I went to stay with her for a month or two. Of course this kind of thing only happened within the past decade, after she became financially better off.
Her return visit after thirty years’ absence was fraught with trouble from the very beginning. My nephew’s eldest son—the brother of the aforementioned high school senior—was my sister’s first grandchild. He was born in the States and moved here during his childhood when his parents relocated. The purpose of my sister’s trip to Korea this spring was to attend his wedding. That was her very first and last visit. I had gone to the airport with the other family members, and when she stepped out, we were all stunned. Multicolored quilted coat, sunglasses pushed up above tightly curled permed hair, and sandaled feet with cherry nail polish poking through. This look was more than just outdated for a grandmother who was over seventy years old; it was tacky. Her luggage was just as inconsistent. An enormous duffle bag that was badly stained and held together at the seams by duck tape came out alongside an expensive new Louis Vuitton suitcase that still had the tags on it. That stylish suitcase embellished with understated gold trimmings did much to alleviate our disappointment over her appearance, and instilled hope in our hearts. After all, she was coming home after thirty years to attend her first grandson’s wedding, wasn’t she? I’m sure my sister didn’t have to nag her well-off children to send along gifts for their nephew. The new bag differed qualitatively from the immigration duffle, a sure sign that it was laden with gifts. It might as well have borne a label that said as much. My sister’s concerned expression when the luggage was being loaded into the car confirmed our assumptions.
At home, my sister unpacked the duffle bag, but she behaved so strangely with the new bag that no one dared to ask her about it. She got upset with the less-than-careful children, as if they had kicked around a sacred ancestral tablet. Then she shoved the bag into a dark corner, saying that it didn’t have much inside. In our eyes, something was not quite right about her. She was acting like an underground dealer handling stolen property. Furthermore, the hopelessly pathetic gifts that she proudly dug out of the duffle bag made us even more curious about the new suitcase. There were more than twenty bags of instant coffee and even more tubes of cheap, made-in-Taiwan lipsticks. The common Lancôme pressed powder compacts were among her more expensive gifts, but there were only a few. The rest of the duffle contained her clothes, which were so gaudy and cheap that I was embarrassed for her. Oblivious to what was going on, my sister was busy trying to allocate the bags of coffee to everyone she could remember, including her in-law’s second cousin. My eyes met my niece-in-law’s.
“My sister’s so out of it, eh?”
In a pitiful attempt to lighten the mood, I joked in my imperfect regional dialect. Thirty years ago, people couldn’t get enough of anything made in America and a bag of instant coffee was a welcome gift. I guess my sister was unaware that most people these days preferred ground coffee over instant coffee. The change in my niece-in-law’s face, from uninterested boredom to a blatant smirk, did not go unnoticed. Stay quiet and wait a little longer, I reassured her with my eyes. I was again banking on the new bag. After digging and digging through the bottomless duffle, my sister now resorted to counting off on her fingers to match up the number of gifts with the number of recipients. My niece-in-law excused herself to go to the kitchen to make preparations for a meal. I wondered if she was going to cook up a fifty-dollar corbina fish. Once or twice a year I had the occasion to visit my nephew’s family, and they treated me every time with warmth and respect, even when my sister wasn’t around. Once, they gave me one whole baked corbina, which they said was the real thing from the town of Younggwang.
As I suspected, the meal was a feast fit for a holiday. Laid on the table were stewed short ribs, stir-fried glass noodles, fried fish fillets, and several kinds of kimchi. I knew that my sister could eat all these things to her heart’s content in the States, so I pushed the plate of corbina in front of her.
“Elder Sister, have some of this. This is the real thing from Younggwang and costs more than fifty dollars each.”
“What? For a small fish like this? That’s sinful . . . In America . . .”
She pushed the plate away, hardly believing her own ears.
“Elder Sister, what they have in America must be a different species altogether. How can you even compare it to Younggwang corbina?”
But she was resolute in her opinion that the fish from America was the real thing and that the ones found in Korea were mass-imported from China. She spoke doggedly about the cheaper cost of living over there compared to here, citing, like a penny-pinching housewife, the exact prices of radish, cabbage, garlic, and other staples. Although this kind of talk was not wholly unusual for someone who had just returned from abroad, my niece-in-law responded with cold, exaggerated apathy. A silent but fierce feud was growing between the two, and I felt obligated to step in as the only person who could. At the risk of making a fool of myself, I tried to change the subject.
“Elder Sister, how come you haven’t opened your Louis Vuitton bag? You’re waiting for me to leave, aren’t you? Don’t be mean like that. You have wedding gifts for the new bride in it, am I right? Each of your children must have sent something. Things like that, you should boast about. It makes them look good. Well, you should know that I’m not going anywhere until you show me everything.”
“Auntie, were you planning to leave today? Jang-Woo’s wedding is only a few days away. Stay here until then. I’m sure you two have a lot of catching up to do. And we’ll soon be sending the wedding box to the bride’s family, so we need you to properly oversee that, as family elders should.” My niece-in-law’s face immediately softened into a smile. She was a simpleminded woman. Depending on how you dealt with her, she was easy to please and she rarely harbored hard feelings. She was about to become a mother-in-law herself, getting on in years like us, so she knew how to treat her elders. She and I both had a certain feeling beyond simple curiosity about the new bag. We wanted to get it out in the open. Suddenly, my sister stood up muttering, “Jeez.” We didn’t have a chance to tell her that she didn’t have to get up in the middle of her meal. She returned to the table in a flash, carrying a thick envelope.
“I was going to show this to everyone anyway. Your younger brother and sisters sent sizeable sums. They wanted to buy the newlyweds one gift each, but I suggested that they give cash instead. Money’s the best gift, right? They weren’t sure how much to give, so I decided on the amount: a thousand dollars each. I’m sure they thought it was daylight robbery. It wasn’t easy for them because they’re so Americanized now. Americans are so frugal, you know. Most wouldn’t shell out that much even for their own children. But they’re good kids, you see. They put up the money without a single complaint.”
My sister had three more children living in the States, so that would add up to three thousand dollars. From what I knew about her children, they wouldn’t have spent more than a thousand dollars each on actual gifts. I knew from my visits to the States that all of my sister’s children lived in big, fancy houses. They said, however, that their homes and even their college educations were financed by loans. I guess living beyond your means like a hollow rice cracker is the same, whether here or there. Jang-Woo was a nephew in name only, for they’d never had a chance to really get to know him. For my sister to get them to cough up that much money must have been nothing short of extortion. She had every right to be triumphant.
I think my niece-in-law agreed. Oh no, they over-extended themselves, she fretted, but she was obviously pleased. But then, what was in the bag? Curiosity, diverted by the envelope, resurfaced. The more my sister tried to banish the bag to a dark corner of the room, the more it seemed like we had a dubious guest in our midst. I hated feeling uneasy like that. I could tell my niece-in-law felt the same way, and I felt awful for her.
After the envelope made its grand entrance, everyone seemed to have lost their appetites. Only my sister ate slowly and obstinately to the bitter end, fiddling with the side dish plates as if unsatisfied with the food in front of her. I glanced nervously around the table, apologetic on behalf of my sister, who was still holding onto her spoon. I don’t know why I felt so apologetic but this irrational feeling compelled me to say more.
“Elder Sister, stop eating now. You’ve had enough, so let’s unpack your other luggage. I’m dying of curiosity.”
“I unpacked everything, didn’t you see? I even dragged out the envelope from the pouch all the way at the bottom of the bag and made the big announcement. What more do you want to see?” she asked accusingly, putting her utensil down slowly.
“You didn’t unpack your new suitcase.”
“There’s nothing in it, really.”
“But it can’t be empty.”
“No, no, I don’t mean that. I don’t have anything more from America, you see.” Her words trailed off, and she sounded coy again, like a dealer of stolen goods.
“Oh, c’mon. You think we’re still crazy for American goods here? Who cares if it’s from America or from China? We just want to know what you’re guarding with so much care.”
“If you really want to see, then all right.”
She got up from the table and headed straight to her room. I was beginning to get upset, as if I’d unwittingly conspired in a nasty scheme. This was not my intention. What was purely playful curiosity had somehow turned serious. Inwardly, I began blaming my nephew and niece for the unpleasant atmosphere, for holding back their love for a mother who had returned after three decades. I was only caught up in what they were doing. No one asked me to explain, but I felt the need to justify myself.
The spare room had been used to store odds and ends and was cleaned up hastily for my sister. The built-in storage cabinet was cluttered when she opened it. Shoved deep inside, leaning at an angle, was the Louis Vuitton suitcase. She took it out and laid it out in the middle of the room. Encircled by family members, she opened it slowly and painstakingly, fumbling with the clasps. When the bag finally opened, the contents sprang forth. Something resembling the cool breeze of a bamboo forest stirred up and hit our noses. We stepped back, stifling cries of surprise. Beige clothing made of hemp. Before we could mentally assess the surprising contents of the bag, my sister picked up each item, naming it by its traditional title: embroidered silk outerwear, top middle layer, a body blanket, a mattress, a face covering, hand wraps . . . these were traditional dress pieces for the dead.
“Mother, please stop. Please.”
My nephew was the first to protest. His wife ran out of the room, covering her face with her hands, and the other family members followed to comfort her. Before I could assess the situation and understand why my niece-in-law needed comforting, I got busy stuffing everything back into the suitcase. First hiding the offending objects from view seemed like a smart thing to do.
“I told them in no uncertain terms that I wanted the whole set,” she said shrewdly. She wore a determined expression that was quite out of character. The whole set implied that every piece of formal clothing according to tradition was included. But so what if it was a complete set? And why now, just before her first grandson’s wedding? Not worried by all the trouble she had caused, my sister yawned loudly and said that she wanted to go to bed early. After perking up my ears to what was going on outside, I rolled out the plush futon my niece-in-law had prepared for her. Whether or not she knew that she had just become the undisputed black sheep of the family, my sister closed her eyes and fell asleep. My thick-headed sister. I watched her for a moment and left the room. My niece-in-law was practically foaming at the mouth as she fought with someone on the phone. In contrast to her highly agitated voice, the rest of the family sat in ominous silence.
“No? What do you mean, no? If it’s not that, then what? Her precious daughters claim they know nothing about this, and now you’re telling me that I’ve got it all wrong? That I’ve misunderstood? A seventy-something-year-old shows up here with burial clothes, so of course I’m going to think that you sent her here to die. All three of you, you had her go from house to house to work like a maid, and now that your children are grown up and she’s getting weaker, you sent her here. What do you take me for, a fool? I know that I’m the eldest daughter-in-law, but if you think that I’ll go along with this just because I’m the eldest, you’ve got another thing coming. Both you and I married into a poor, immigrant family and worked hard to make something of our families. At least you used her, but we left long ago and I never benefited at all from the in-laws. So I have every right to say what I’m saying now. Why do you think we left the States when we had it so good there? My husband had plenty of career opportunities and life would have been easier for me there as a mother and a wife. But I wanted to return to Korea to start over. Freedom from the in-laws was more important to me, you see. It’s not that I don’t see where you’re coming from. Just when she was becoming a burden, an opportunity presented itself with this trip. I can understand that. If you had just given me a heads up, I wouldn’t be this upset. I know that you didn’t have the most proper upbringing, but I never thought you were this kind of a person. Even our worst enemy wouldn’t have sent along funeral clothes for our family’s first wedding. That’s what kills me. As for Mother, I can easily ship her back to all of you, but I can’t understand why you hate me so much to send these morbid things on the happiest occasion of our lives. Do you think that if you live in the States long enough you can ignore what’s right and wrong where the family is concerned? You keep denying everything, and I don’t know what you have up your sleeve. But just know that I won’t be a sitting duck.”
Embarrassed that I was listening, my nephew snatched the phone away from his wife and yelled. “Shut up, woman. Are you out of your mind? Do you know what you’re saying in front of the kids?”
“Your mother’s sleeping. She must be jetlagged. I planned on spending the night here, but I think I’d better get going.” I left their house in a hurry. No one held me back. I was a loved and respected person in my own right, with adorable grandchildren, a devoted son and daughter-in-law, as well as a daughter who was constantly nagging me to live with her. I wouldn’t have lost sleep if these fools didn’t ask me to stay, but not knowing what was in store for my sister made it difficult for me to leave.
As soon as I got home, I made an international call to the States. Nieces were easier for me to deal with over the phone, so I called my eldest niece who lives in Laguna Beach on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Apparently she had also received a call from my niece-in-law and was aware of what happened. However, she didn’t understand what the big deal was.
“My sister-in-law accuses me of sending funeral clothes with Mom, but how could I have known? She left directly from Elder Brother’s house in San Francisco. I just sent Mom the gift money and didn’t have a chance to see her off in person. Even if I had known, why should I have stopped her? She’s free to do what she wants. Maybe she wanted to have the clothes with her just in case something happens to her in Korea. She was probably trying to be helpful to the family in Korea, I bet. Isn’t that why people make funeral preparations in advance? She waited and waited for a leap year and almost begged us to get her the clothes. Do you know how expensive the set was? It’s a trend among the elderly here to buy their burial clothes during a leap year. Korean-Americans these days are much better off, you know, so they can afford things like this. At first, I didn’t want to burden others so I bought her a set myself because it wasn’t as expensive as I thought. I got her something similar to what everyone else gets, but Mother was not pleased because she believed that the fabric was imported from China. She insisted on Korean-made linen from Andong. Considering what she means to us, how could we have refused her one wish? So I gave away the set I bought, and we chipped in to buy her the most expensive Andong-made set. Now do you see why she’s so attached to it? So why is everyone overreacting? Auntie, you know how hot L.A. is. But sometimes you see older women with fur coats on at the first sign of a chill. At that age, they want to show off what they have. It’s cute. It’s the same with Mom’s burial clothes, so why can’t we just take it for what it is?”
After hearing her, I began to doubt that there was any conspiracy behind my sister’s bringing her burial clothes. Perhaps my niece-in-law’s reaction was based solely on the morbid nature of what it represented, especially in contrast to a celebratory occasion like a wedding. But how could I explain the age-old taboo hovering over us to my niece, who could equate fur coats with burial clothes? Before hanging up, I told my niece that I didn’t think her mother should stay here long.
The mayhem over my sister’s burial clothes did not end there. Within a few days, I was asked to come over to see the wedding gifts that arrived from the bride’s family. Because most of the groom’s extended family resided overseas, the wedding gifts were to be given to immediate family members. Still, the bride’s family was gracious enough to send gifts for my sister and me. We both received beautiful silk fabric. Mine was enough to make a traditional hanbok only and she was given extra fabric for a matching outer garment. I was pleased because the difference in the value of our gifts was an appropriate one. I also liked the fact that hers was an opulent pastel pink, and mine a more subdued gold. Gushing over our new in-laws’ good taste, I unfolded the silk fabric and draped it over my sister’s shoulder. My sister suddenly broke into a broad smile and got up in front of the full-length mirror. Then she rolled out the silk from her shoulder down to her toes. Elegant pleats stretched out before us, silky ripples that seemed to whisper sweetly and melt away the recent troubles that burdened our hearts. The mirror reflected my sister’s blissful expression, but what came out of her mouth was astonishing.
“This would make fine burial clothes, wouldn’t it?”
She smiled vaguely, baring her white teeth and quietly asking for our affirmation. Even I was shocked by what she’d said, so it’s no wonder that my niece-in-law exploded in anger. I had hoped to join in on the reconciliatory atmosphere made possible by the wedding gifts and finally spend the night there with my sister. But with the turn of events, I quickly abandoned the idea and left in a hurry, like someone being chased. My niece-in-law saw me off with my share of the fabric and an envelope containing money for custom tailoring. Patting her shoulder, I asked her to be patient with my sister, who may not have been completely of sound mind.
“I talked to my nieces and nephew in America, and they have absolutely no intention of dumping their mother on you. Not only are they completely devoted to her, she receives enough pension and medical benefits to live comfortably. I know something about that too—America is a good country for old people. One thing that’s certain is that she didn’t come here to die, so please don’t worry. Be good to her while she’s here, though. After the wedding, I’ll talk her into not staying here too long.”
I consoled her the best I could. Still, she must have been fed up with burial clothes because she never did make a dress for her with the fabric. My sister wore a jade-colored hanbok to the wedding. After the wedding, my sister spent another month at her son’s without any trouble. Considering what my sister did for me in the States, I should have returned the favor by inviting her to our house for an extended stay and taking her on short trips to the countryside with my daughter. But I was hesitant to do so. I was afraid that my sister, who had upset her own daughter-in-law, could easily do the same with my daughter. During her stay, my niece-in-law became a totally different person, sullen and ill-tempered. It was obvious to everyone that my sister did nothing to endear herself to her daughter-in-law.
Another incident occurred that proved to be the last straw and I had to take it upon myself to ship my sister off like an unwanted piece of luggage. Although it had nothing to do with burial clothes, it was far spookier. After receiving an urgent call from my niece-in-law one day, I rushed over there. I found my sister sitting amid scattered petals of fabric. She must have been snipping away all night to go through all of the pink silk fabric she’d received. The petal snippets were shockingly uniform in size and shape, making her act even more eerie. She looked at me with the same pallid smile she had when she was trying on the fabric the other day. “Elder Sister, what are you doing?” I called out frantically and rushed over to her. When I embraced her, I half expected her to resist me wildly in her madness. Instead, her body was as light as charcoal ash. I stepped back in surprise, as if I had just embraced a gust of wind.
“Am I still the only one to blame,” my niece-in-law demanded, glaring at me. I felt nothing but sheer hatred for her at that moment, however I had no choice but to take her side. That meant being the one to send my sister back. That task didn’t turn out to be so difficult. Again, I called the niece with whom I felt the most comfortable and said that her mother wanted to return. I told her that she’d be on a plane on such and such a date and time. “Sure, Auntie,” she said, and that was it. Because I took care of it, the arrangements were made quickly and without complications. If I had left it up to my niece-in-law, I’m sure more unpleasant words would have been exchanged.
Unlike the day she arrived, my sister showed up at the airport glowing with understated sophistication. She was wearing the jade hanbok from the wedding and even embroidered socks and rubber clogs to match. Her hair, which had grown out during her stay, was neatly tied up into a bun. The traditional outfit and the up-do perfectly suited her petite frame and flat shoulders. Her luggage, too, had changed. The battered duffle bag was gone and new, proper suitcases stood in its place next to the Louis Vuitton bag. Two new suitcases meant that there were enough gifts for the relatives back in America. I don’t know about sibling love, but my niece-in-law certainly had enough pride to fill those suitcases.
“They say life is good in America, but Korea mustn’t be too bad, especially for old folks. Look how in just a few months your mother is oozing with elegance and charm.” I beamed, directing intentional praise and flattery to my niece-in-law. It was true that I was grateful to her for putting up with such a difficult mother-in-law all this time and sending her off in style like this. In front of the departure gate, it was nice to see that people were hugging and rubbing cheeks like Westerners. Like them, I embraced my sister. She had plenty of family members seeing her off, but I was the only one among the whole entourage who could embrace her like this. I was the only one who was truly sad to see her go. A pang of sorrow brought tears to my eyes, but my sister did not react at all.
My niece-in-law thought that she had confiscated all of the petal snippets—a whole basketful to be exact—but the night before when she was helping to pack, she found more scattered among the layers of burial clothes in the Louis Vuitton bag. This was her final spiteful remark about her mother-in-law, whispered in my ear as we left the airport.
“So what did you do?” I asked breathlessly.
“What could I have done? I just ignored it.”
“Good thing you did,” I said, rubbing my chest in relief.
Although my nephew offered me a ride, I flatly rejected him and headed toward the bus station. I didn’t want to look at my niece-in-law any longer than I had to. Her revulsion and unforgiving attitude to my sister’s eccentric behavior were despicable to me.
How could I have known that my sister would die just two months after that? I guess two months could be considered a long time. Sending her off like that and not contacting her once during that whole time. It wasn’t that I was uninterested in how she was doing. It was just easier for me to wait for communication from her side. I was afraid of hearing bad news that I could do absolutely nothing about; I also wanted to take the easy way out by interpreting no news as good news.
My eldest niece picked up my sister from the airport, so I suppose she was the one who cared for her until the end. When I had visited the States, my eldest niece was so kind and generous to me, and she was very well off so I could stay at her home in comfort. I was told that she lived in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in America, probably comparable to one of those hilltop houses in Korea with impeccably landscaped gardens. The lower yard of her house was almost an acre in size and led straight to a beach. When you stand at the edge of that vast yard, you can see white waves smashing against the cliff like vicious predators attacking helpless prey. I had once asked my sister if she thought the fierce waves were scary, and she said there was nothing scary about the Pacific Ocean. Why wouldn’t it be scary just because it’s the Pacific Ocean? I never got to ask. Another day, we took a walk around the neighborhood. My, oh my. Vibrant flowers everywhere in full, luscious bloom—the place was as impressive as any botanical garden. Yellow wild flowers blooming in empty fields or peeking through cliff walls looked like oilseed rape flowers in season, but I was told that they were wild mustard flowers. My sister pointed out each of the houses and the people living in them—famous movie stars, rich lawyers, and retired government officials. Good Lord, how successful were Kyung-Ae and her husband? Amused by my bewilderment, my sister commented that not all of the Koreans in that neighborhood were so privileged. “That house over there with four dogs and two swimming pools belongs to so and so, who is hiding from creditors. That mansion with construction work going on over there belongs to the pachinko kingpin who you read about in the papers a few years ago.” She continued to show off her knowledge of the area and its people. In keeping with the posh neighborhood, the road we were on looped around leisurely like the smooth back of a slithery serpent. Cars rarely passed by. My sister seemed so full of vigor that day, but the pilgrimage proved to be a strenuous one for both of us as we moaned with aches and pains at home that night.
We walked around all day but how come we never came across a single neighbor or a passerby on foot? Did the people my sister talked about really live in those houses that she pointed out? I don’t know why I suddenly started having these doubts after hearing the news of her death. Just when I was thinking that my nephew must have returned from his mother’s funeral, he called me. It was unusual for him to call me directly without going through his wife. He said that this was his first day back at the office and that he naturally thought of me. He wanted to send a car over so that I could meet him for lunch. I didn’t say no, figuring that he needed a kind ear more than a lunch companion. From my years of living I know that sisters come to resemble one another more and more with age. I suppose that such a resemblance can alleviate the pain of loss at times like this.
Given the warm welcome I received, my nephew seemed to be a regular at the upscale Japanese restaurant. He was waiting for me in a private room. He greeted me warmly by grasping both of my hands—a show of affection he would never have allowed in front of his wife. Thin slices of high-grade beef infused with the flavors of various vegetables boiled away in a stew pot. Tender morsels melted in my mouth, but my appetite failed me. My nephew didn’t eat much either, favoring sips of his rice wine over the broth.
“She died at a home, you know. One of those homes for the elderly who are not all there mentally. I’ve heard that many of those folks live longer than their peers. I was so angry and frustrated about Mother passing away so suddenly at a place like that, that I gave Kyung-Ae a hard time. Then after the funeral, she told me something. Why is it that she knew this and I didn’t? What makes me sadder, Auntie, is that even if I had known everything about Mother, nothing would have changed.”
Unlike his usual reserved self, my nephew continued to chat away. Drifting with the rhythm of his voice, I imagined that I was sitting across from my sister instead of my nephew, listening to her story:
I went to America in the 1960s so it was a time when Korea was still very poor. My husband’s older brother was the first to immigrate to the States after failing in his business. His wife’s sister was married to an American so that’s how they ended up there. After only a few years, my husband’s brother was back on his feet and doing well. He used to send a hundred dollars for my mother-in-law’s birthday. At that time, a hundred dollars went a long way; it was more than enough to throw an extravagant party. My mother-in-law began boasting about her son’s success overseas, and my husband grew increasingly tired of his workaday life. What he felt was a sense of failure more than dissatisfaction. He was at an age where your fate was pretty much sealed in Korean society. One’s mid-forties was the time when those who would get ahead already had and those who wouldn’t had already been passed up. The fact that he graduated from one of the elite schools made him feel worse. His mediocre job paled in comparison to the successful careers of his classmates. He habitually threatened, “I’m going to quit this damn job!” but the sad truth was that no one was begging him to stay. The glory tales from his brother made my husband trivialize his life even more. He saw himself as a victim, pushed aside and marginalized by unseen forces. American society, where justice and principles prevailed, where sweat resulted in just rewards—that was the ocean he was meant to swim in. He wasn’t a particularly naïve person who believed everything he heard. But those were the times when frustration with social ills boiled over, and escaping to another country was a fantasy everyone entertained at least once in their lives. Hopping on a plane to leave their old life behind was an immediate step up in status far more enviable than any upward career move.
My husband persisted in nurturing this dream, and our family finally embarked on such a journey. My mother-in-law had recently passed away, freeing us even more from ties to our home country. There were six of us. A big family. My husband’s brother was running a restaurant in Los Angeles with his then divorced sister-in-law. As a traditional Korean restaurant catering to the immigrant Korean community, the place reeked of kimchi, fish sauce and other smells worse than any dingy food joint in rural Korea. Displaced Korean customers hungry for home cooking and nostalgic for those smells frequented the restaurant, but we, who longed for new experiences in a foreign land, felt nothing but disgust. My husband took it the worst. When his sister-in-law wished to run her own business, his brother offered him her position. Having diligently studied English in hopes of starting a new life in America, my husband would have turned his nose up at any job, no matter how lucrative, where only Korean was spoken all day long. While he was trying relentlessly to get his foot in the door of mainstream white society, he whittled away our moderate savings. Once the relationship between my husband and his brother turned sour, I could no longer work at the restaurant either. I was left jobless, worrying about my children’s futures. My brother-in-law’s pride and joy came not from his job but from his children attending prestigious schools. Work like a dog and spend like a king, he always used to say. We, on the other hand, may have ended up raising our children like dogs thanks to my husband’s inflated ego. One piece of advice I got from those around us was that even if my husband found a decent job, I would have to work also to make ends meet in this society. And those concerned friends referred me to various part-time jobs. But I never lasted long at any place. Unlike my husband, the extent of my English was only a few words I’d learned in high school. To make matters worse, my timid personality prevented me from ever opening my mouth. I dreaded walking into a home to cook and clean for a family I couldn’t communicate with. As an immigrant minority, dealing with white people was far more difficult for me than dealing with an overbearing boss. The one-on-one interaction with foreigners these jobs required proved to be too stressful for a shy person like me.
The first real full-time job I had was at a frozen food company. My job involved sorting out frozen shrimps according to size and packaging them. The weekly pay was proportionate to worker output, and among all my colleagues, I earned the least. Of course, that was because I was the slowest worker. But I liked my job. I liked the fact that I earned as much as I worked, and I also liked that I had colleagues. Most of my colleagues were heavyset Mexican women. They were a jovial, friendly bunch, and they were much less intimidating than the whites. Interestingly, I could better understand English spoken by Mexicans than by whites.
One day, I was given an office job. It was simple enough work, recording the incoming and outgoing inventory. But the pay was much better and I was spared from the hard labor that left my hands painfully frozen and chapped. How such an unexpected windfall fell into the lap of the newest and the slowest worker was a mystery to me. I soon found out the reason. A supermarket returned a large quantity of our shrimp they had ordered, claiming that different sized shrimps were mixed together in the packages. On each package, there is a special indicator that shows the worker responsible for putting it together, and a close inspection revealed that I was the only honest worker who had sorted the shrimps correctly. Thus, I had rightfully earned the promotion, but I still could not shake off my feeling of guilt for being promoted. “I’m sorry,” were my most frequently uttered words to the company president, the inspectors, my colleagues. I was humble to anyone and everyone, hoping to preempt jealousy and resentment. Albeit exaggerated, my humility was not feigned, as I truly felt bad about what happened. Gradually, people began jeering at me. I don’t know who ratted on me about what, but I was soon relegated to a room with a scary machine that ground up fish whole, including the bones. Cleaning that gigantic machine was extremely laborious work, and I heard that a worker had once lost an arm when he operated it incorrectly. Being of faint heart, I quit my job. One lesson I learned from this experience was that I shouldn’t automatically assume a subservient mindset. Another thing I gained from that job was a tip given to me by a Mexican colleague about a trustworthy job referral agency that was run by a Japanese person. I was quite fluent in Japanese; my heart swelled with hope that I could improve my situation since I spoke Japanese.
I was not wrong to hope. The director of the agency was a middle-aged Japanese woman. Her speaking to me in the sprightly tone characteristic of the Japanese language was in itself a welcome relief, and what’s more, she showed genuine interest in getting to know me. She encouraged me to talk, and talk I did, having yearned to speak freely for so long. She graciously smiled at my comments, agreed with me occasionally, and asked appropriate questions. She gently probed me about my job skills and expectations, making me wish that I had come better prepared with marketable skills. Because of our conversations, I began thinking for the first time about what I wanted to do and what I would be good at. For an unskilled, desperate job-seeker ready to jump at the first offer of a paid position, this privilege gave me a new kind of happiness. I didn’t have a college degree, and the high school I went to was known only for producing prospective housewives. I never worked prior to coming to the States. All this I confessed at length to the director. While talking about my past, I reminisced that sewing was my favorite class in school. During those years, most girls never dreamed of advancing beyond high school, and the curriculum reflected their practical need for cooking, sewing, proper etiquette, and other domestic skills. Dressmaking was one such class, and it was immensely popular among the students because the teacher was a modern, fashionable woman, rare for the times. We were also fortunate to have been provided with quality sewing machines. Under her tutelage, we not only practiced stitching but also learned all of the important basic skills such as measuring, cutting patterns, and producing unique outfits from those patterns. What I learned from the class proved to be so useful time after time that the sewing notes were one of the first things I took with me when I got married. Throughout the years, I rarely relied on store-bought dresses for my daughters.
My sharing the stories of my past had more to do with unleashing the suppressed need for conversation than consulting her about a job. We were similar in age and shared a language with which I could express the subtleties of my feelings. I felt a connection from the very beginning. I told her that job hunting aside, I would like to visit her occasionally. Before this, I had never been that bold with anyone. But I think she never lost sight of her professional objectives while conversing with me. She soon matched me up with a dressmaking job. Run by a French woman, the boutique sold custom tailored clothing to a few select clients. The pay was high, and what I earned at the frozen food company was incomparable. Worried that the director had overestimated my skills, I meant to politely decline the job offer. But when I went to see her, she happened to be very busy that day and handed me off to the person who came to take me to the shop. Thus, I was thrust into my new job without further ado.
The boutique was located in a clean, quiet street behind a residential area where many Japanese lived. Perhaps because I was referred to a French boutique by a Japanese woman, the place felt like the embodiment of an unexpected friendship between the two countries. There, everything appeared larger than life, and even the obsessive-compulsive cleanliness impressed me. Although there was no window display visible from the outside, a glass case presented itself upon entering through heavy doors like the ones seen in European cathedrals. Inside the display case, sad but dignified-looking mannequins were posing elegantly in stances of greeting, wearing abundantly pleated dresses made of satin, chiffon, and other costly fabrics. Past this small reception area was the French woman’s office, which was brightly lit and efficiently organized. Her face, gaunt and devoid of any wrinkles, did not give away her age. The most striking thing about her was her thickly painted lips that made her look like she was biting down on a mouthful of orange poppy petals. Adjacent to her office was a workroom full of sewing machines operated by Arab men. I never heard the French woman and the Arab tailors converse. She spoke to me in simple English and sometimes in Japanese. Whichever language she chose, she always spoke in a barely audible whisper, so it was easier to intuitively sense what she was saying instead of trying to grasp her every word. In fact, there was very little need for words. Unlike the silence imposed upon me since I’d come to America, I was at peace with this kind of silence; it was more of a dispersed stillness rather than a forced detachment. My job at the boutique was cutting the fabric according to the patterns given to me by the French woman. As I was taught by my high school teacher, I cut the front and back or left and right sides by facing the armholes the opposite way. Although this was a common practice for minimizing yardage for solid fabrics, the French woman thought it was very clever of me. I could tell that she was beginning to like and trust me more and more. Although my husband was still in the doldrums, I took comfort in the fact that I had found meaningful work all by myself, averting any immediate financial crisis and gaining a foothold as immigrants in this country.
We were never short of work at the shop, but I never came into contact with any of the clients. Occasionally, I saw people whom I thought were clients, but they always turned out to be intermediaries. It was unbelievable to me that even in America there was an exclusive upper echelon of society who purchased custom clothing by ordering over the phone or by sending hired help. I conjured up images of these high-class clients based on the foreign horror novels I’d read as a schoolgirl. In one such novel set in the Middle Ages, a powerful and rich lord sequesters a chosen group of aristocrats in a castle to cut themselves off from the world overrun by the bubonic plague. Although inside a tightly sealed environment that a needle, or even time itself, cannot penetrate, they continue to live in fear. To ease their fears, they hold festive galas night after night. On one such night, they are astonished to find a mysterious guest mingling among them. To their horror, the mystery guest was no other than the plague incarnate, and the attendees at the ball die off one by one. The dresses made at our boutique were exactly the kind suitable for pompous aristocrats in such stories.
More than the intricate, flowing dresses that the French woman patterned, I was fond of her other creations—silk slippers embroidered with fake pearls, veils that showed off the exquisite nature of French tulle, and voluptuous corsages cut from fabric scraps by long, shiny shears. I used to silently watch her work with an expression of intense concentration, almost intoxication. Dresses made from black, silver, or purple fabrics were adorned on one side of the chest with corsages. Although made in similar drab colors, a corsage could imbue an impractical, lifeless dress with surprising vitality. Its seductive charm came from the undeniable feeling that it was full of vigor, that it might suddenly detach itself and jump off the dress. Perhaps the French woman was playing jokes on the somber dresses that she completed. I used to watch her put the final touch of mischief on the dresses with an entranced expression on her face and could not help but think that she wore the same expression when painting her lips every morning. The image of her wan face without the orange lipstick horrified me.
Because I felt that I had the easiest job at the boutique, I tried to compensate by staying late and cleaning up the store after everyone else had left. Darn guilt. It always followed me wherever I went. Before long, I was entrusted with a key to open and close the shop. Alone in the French woman’s immaculate office and standing in front of a huge mirror holding my beating heart, I tried on the dresses that hadn’t been picked up yet by their rightful owners. I couldn’t resist the temptation of forbidden pleasure and the thrill of doing something wrong. Like a little girl trying on her mother’s clothes, the dresses tailored for Caucasian women hung like a tent on my small frame. But the luscious feel of the fabric and the budding corsage on my bosom teased out the hidden temptress from the depths of my soul. Oh, how I loved that time of the day when all my senses came alive! It was a time set aside for me to savor long forgotten emotions—gentle sweetness, the anxiety of imminent misfortune, and the impatience of restless passion.
The boutique was apparently far more reputable than I had first thought. One day, a TV station crew barged in with all their oversized equipment. I was the only one surprised, for everyone else seemed to be expecting them. Lights glared, cords were plugged in, and the staff moved microphones and cameras while talking in loud voices. They spoke in English, of course. I understood what they were saying, but the ruckus they were creating made me anxious because it threatened the silence I had relished there for so long. One of the crew members was Asian. He had a pleasant, familiar face that made me wonder if he was a Korean. When I initiated conversation in Korean, he shrugged his shoulders with his palms facing up, gesturing that he didn’t understand. He returned to work indifferently, but I continued to observe him. When one of the machines he was handling refused to comply, I heard him curse in Japanese. He may not have spoken Korean, but I could speak Japanese. I waited for him to finish what he was doing and approached him again in Japanese. This time, he responded enthusiastically. It was a mistake to ask him if the boutique was famous enough to be aired on television. I found out from him that the station was doing a feature on unusual jobs and that the French woman was renowned for making burial clothes for upscale clients. What I had tried on alone in the store were burial clothes. I quit my job that day. I knew that I couldn’t hope to land another cushy job like this one, but I could no longer be a part of that boutique. I never did find another job like that one and suffered through countless menial labor jobs until my husband secured a good job for himself. But I have never once regretted my decision to quit. And I never went back to the referral agency.
I’m reminded of the story of a young woman wasting away after discovering that the man she was sleeping with was a skeleton. I know that the past is irreversible. My job didn’t require me to come in direct contact with dead bodies, so arguably I did a dumb thing by quitting a perfectly good job. It was beyond my power, however, to shake off the stigma associated with corpses ingrained in me by years of culture and tradition.