“Tteokbokki,” I concluded. “And yukgaejang.”
“그래 우리 아가,” Omma laughed. Okay, my baby.
We were in New Malden. A seemingly lackluster suburb of cubed semidetached houses, but home to Europe’s largest diaspora of Koreans. London’s unlikely K-Town. Where it was easier to find kimchi than milk. Where the most common greeting to observe on the high street was a mutual bow, hinging from the hips, head tucked.
Kit had come back to my flat from Leo’s in the small hours. The drunken poking at the door pulled me from the light layer of sleep. I’d bolted myself in, so he thumped his shoulder against the door, boisterously calling my name from the hallway. I opened the door and he stumbled in, swaying like a Jenga tower about to topple. I processed that it was Kit. My partner of seven years, the man I love. And yet adrenaline was coursing through my body, searing acid through my arteries. As he plonked himself into bed and started snoring within a minute, I had to take deep, frustrated breaths until dawn to stop from screaming at him. Did it not occur to you that coming into my flat in the dead of night off your face was going to be scary for me? Do you think about me at all?
The winter sun streamed in. Kit was tangled around me, the only sound the distant bustle of the coffee shop downstairs. He was still in bed when I got up to meet Omma. But we always try to spend Sundays together, Kit said as he rubbed his eyes. I lied and said I needed to help Omma pick out a dress for a wedding. I needed a distraction from my hyper-analysis. It was the small things. When I had a rough day he cuddled me, kissed me, told me I’m in awe of you. You’re the strongest woman I know. You can get through anything. But he said nothing further. Soothed me with praise of my strength, when I needed him to accept my weakness. Hushed me with a standard I didn’t know how to meet anymore. But then I’m the one who wanted things to go back to normal! This was our normal: waking up on a slow Sunday morning together. What more do you want from him?
I wanted him to ask me how he could help. I wanted him to acknowledge that he put me in an uncomfortable situation at Leo’s. Recognize what happened to me. See me. But I also refused to tell him what I needed. I felt scared asking for help. Of being the needy type he’d broken up with before.
“Go and ask for a table,” Omma said as we arrived at the restaurant. “I’m going to go and get some newspapers.” The shop next door distributed three of the community newspapers that reported on all things Korean. The restaurant had wooden tables with a hole in the middle with a steel cover. If we ordered meat to grill, a bucket of white-ashed coal would be brought in and dropped in the cavity, for an on-table barbecue.
“안녕하세요!” I said brightly. Hello! “두명 이요.” Table for two.
The owner of the shop, who I saw often as a child, didn’t recognize me. She was a homely woman with a red apron and dark green rubber clogs on her feet. In her apron pocket were scissors and tongs so she could lean over tables and quickly flip sizzling pork belly on barbecues.
“You want to eat?” she exclaimed to me in English, motioning a spoon with her hand. Ignoring my Korean. This happened often. In coffee shops, convenience stores, hairdressers. I would enter, speaking Korean, and would repeatedly be responded to in English. Although all other customers were spoken to in their shared language. It stung me deeply every single time. My skin was too dark to seem Korean, my hips too wide, my hair too wavy, and my lips too curved.
The concept of “minjok” was taught in schools. It was the theory that the Korean people formed one unified ethnicity. That there was a single, pure Korean bloodline. So mixed-race Koreans inherently presented a conundrum. Who are you? You don’t seem like one of us. The “us” confused by the “you.” Korean was my first language, the conduit through which I communicated with my mother. Literally, my mother tongue. But without her next to me, I felt unable to lean into her world. Blend into her background. Be cushioned by her community. Feel the camaraderie that existed between people who lived in the same home away from home. I stood awkwardly in the entrance, wanting to walk out.
I rarely had this issue with Turks. All it would take was booking a table under the name Ceyda and the first thing the waitress would ask is Türk müsün? Are you Turkish? After that was settled, generous familiarity struck like lightning until hours later when we would leave the venue to calls of güle güle! A charming parting expression that translated to leaving while laughing. The root of this difference lay, as always, in history. Turkey was once the epicenter of an empire that sprawled continents, merged religions, intertwined languages. By contrast, Korea was once known as the hermit kingdom. Hanging off a continent, flanked on three sides by ocean. Today sharing its only border with a volatile despot. Japanese colonization in its recent memory, during which the idea of minjok flourished. A collective defense mechanism of banding together as one people.
Omma came through the door with a stack of newspapers.
“Unni! Unni!” Sister! Sister! The restaurant owner exclaimed, instantly recognizing Omma, ushering us in with both hands flapping. The ajumma pointed at me with big, round eyes, realizing. She clucked, saying how big I was now, how long it had been. There wasn’t a hint of malice in her kind face, and my irritation dissolved away. Omma switched into her playful boasting mode, talking about how I studied law, that of course I was a lawyer at a very large firm in the City now. I zoned out and poured two cups of bori cha, soothing barley tea.
The table was soon covered with banchan. Crunchy beansprouts. Fresh kimchi. Marinated anchovies. Spicy cucumber salad. As always, Omma tutted that I shouldn’t fill myself up before the main meal. My tteokbokki arrived. Squishy rice cakes cooked in a deep red, tangy, sweet gochujang sauce. Yukgaejang was next, and I slurped the noodles up, relishing the refreshing spice of its soup. Omma and I babbled in Korean about an explosive new K-drama we were both obsessed with.
“Ah, thank you for today,” I exhaled, wiping my mouth and leaning back into the chair. “It’s been good for me.”
“I know you want Omma time when something is wrong,” she said. “What is it?”
“I’m struggling a bit, it’s nothing.”
“Child, what do you have to be struggling with? Life’s good for you.”
“I don’t know.” I didn’t know how to explain in terms she would understand how morose I was. “I’m not happy with any part of my life right now. Kit and I are about to move in together, but I’m nervous about it.” Omma raised her eyebrows but said nothing. “I feel anxious all the time. My job is—”
“At least you have a good job,” Omma contributed. “My lawyer.”
I sighed. When I was younger, I finished reading The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and was a total mess. I sought Omma out for comfort. Climbed behind her and wrapped myself around her torso. She was holding up a compact mirror and gently pulling up her skin at the temples and along her jaw. She looked at me with mild surprise. She gently plucked me off her and said, aga, you know Koreans don’t like hugging. I went back to my room and squeezed Donkey instead.
I now knew that Omma loved me. But I don’t think she wanted to love me as much as she did. She didn’t want her entire life devoted to another dependent being. She didn’t want her heart to be wandering around outside her body. So she showed her love in muted ways. She couldn’t sleep when I had exams in the morning, but never said the words “good luck.” When we ate fish, she would give me the juicy, fleshy bits and silently eat the head herself. If she knew I was coming home for the weekend, she slapped my dad’s hand away from all the food, saving it for me. Things a child rarely noticed in their myopic vision. In adulthood, I realized how many years were wasted with my inability to read these quiet acts of service. I lost time, frustrated that she didn’t overcome all of her traumas, rather than marveling at her strength in overcoming some of them. Now, I appreciated her antiseptic approach; it gave our interactions an organic honesty I valued. Though I can’t say it always gave me the unconditional affection I wanted.
“I know. I mean, I feel like nothing is quite going to plan for me. I feel like I’m at a crossroads. With Kit. I don’t know. It doesn’t feel… all relationships go through bad patches, right?”
“Sure, sure. You’ll figure it out, aga. You’re a smart girl, I never doubt you will make the right choices in life. You never disappoint us.”
“Omma!”
Just then, the restaurant ajumma came back over with a plate of candied pumpkin for us.
“근데 언니,” the owner began, setting the plate down. She peered at my face with curiosity, her head tilted as she gestured to me.
“정말 외국인 같다.”
But sister, she doesn’t seem very Korean.