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GUEST LITERATURE – KOREA had painted walls, wood floors and, on top of that, it was fully furnished. I’d packed my suitcase and moved out of my hotel room the next day. The former tenants had vacated the place, leaving everything intact – utensils, bed sheets, a thermometer on the wall and potted plants on the balcony.Two days later my daughter moved into the school dormitory. I hadn’t planned on letting my daughter stay in the dormitory but she is the sort of child who is charmed by the romantic notion of life in a boarding school, even the dreary life lived by the fictional Little Princess in her cramped attic room. Despite the ramshackle state of the very real dorm before her eyes, my daughter immediately latched onto the idea of living there. She insisted on staying even though the school wasn’t too far from our apartment building. Playing the part of the gentle but stern mother, I extracted a promise from her that she’d stay in the dorm for a month only. But I was secretly thrilled by this turn of events. Like a gift, I’d been given a month of freedom, a month to slip out of the role of wife and mother. I longed to sleep like the dead without being disturbed by thoughts of anything or anyone. That’s why I was in no hurry to take up my guide’s offer to help me find a housekeeper I could communicate with or a tutor to interpret for me.And having no reason to rush me, he just gave me his phone number, saying that I could call when I was ready. The day I did call that number, I found that he had left on a month-long trip to Korea. Sleeping like the dead, as I had imagined I would, proved to be similarly elusive. I would climb into bed all by myself in an apartment that I had all to myself, only to find that I couldn’t fall asleep night or day. At night the furniture seemed to be whispering, sharing their stories in low tones. They had belonged to many other people before they came into my possession. In this very bed, the bed where I lay awake, someone else might have made love, shed blood, or even died. Rather than chasing after sleep I would dart outside to while away the time. Day after day I made the hour-long walk to Korea Street where I would hang around for a few hours before walking back home. It was there, in a Korean grocery store, that I ran into Chaegeum. I had been browsing the shelves when I felt the light tap of her fingers on my shoulder. The anxious look I’d seen in her eyes at my hotel room was nowhere in sight. Instead, she’d greeted me with 168 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES
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KIM IN-SOOK a broad smile that brightened her timid face and set loose in me a flood of welcome emotions. Perhaps I was just glad that there was someone I knew in that part of the world. That afternoon Chae-geum stayed by my side while I did my shopping. She pointed out that I could buy this or that more cheaply in the open air Chinese markets.When my shopping basket grew heavy, she came up from behind unnoticed to carry it for me. Perhaps it was the absence of the tension I’d felt at the hotel, the tension created when money changes hands, that made Chae-geum’s Korean sound fine to me although it was undoubtedly as awkward as it had been that day. She pointed to the fish cake I had just picked up and asked me what it was called in Korea. When I replied, she said: “Isn’t it called eodaeng?” She probably meant odaeng, but I didn’t have the heart to correct her. On one hand, what matters is getting the meaning across to other people. On the other hand, I didn’t want to make an issue of an error in pronunciation when she would have to confront much more than simple language barriers in the future. Still, when all is said and done, doesn’t it all really come down to language? I didn’t have the words to express it. The sun was setting by the time we’d finished shopping and stepped out of the store. The familiar yellow sign of a McDonald’s caught my eye. Since I still felt wary of eating unfamiliar Chinese food, even with Chae-geum there to translate, and it was a bit early for dinner, I asked her if she’d care for a hamburger. She told me that the word for hamburger in China is hanbao, while McDonald’s is called maidanglao.There, where foreign words rarely make their way into the mother tongue, people understand cola only when it is pronounced as the tongue-twister, kele, while French fries are shutiao. Whether you call it McDonald’s or maidanglao makes no difference. Fast and simple, a packaged fantasy – and the ultimate in capitalism – McDonald’s have popped up on Chinese streets. The store was an exact replica of those in Korea, and was similarly packed with young people. Like an aunt with her young niece, I followed Chae-geum to an empty table. The familiar aroma of hamburgers and fries chased away the strange smell from the street, and calmed my upset stomach. Chae-geum ordered fries and a cola, refusing my offer of a hamburger as her father was expecting her for dinner. Having no appetite at all, I sipped at a cola and gazed out the window to the street where dusk was spreading and the neon lights BANIPAL 43 – SPRING 2012 169

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GUEST LITERATURE – KOREA

had painted walls, wood floors and, on top of that, it was fully furnished. I’d packed my suitcase and moved out of my hotel room the next day. The former tenants had vacated the place, leaving everything intact – utensils, bed sheets, a thermometer on the wall and potted plants on the balcony.Two days later my daughter moved into the school dormitory.

I hadn’t planned on letting my daughter stay in the dormitory but she is the sort of child who is charmed by the romantic notion of life in a boarding school, even the dreary life lived by the fictional Little Princess in her cramped attic room.

Despite the ramshackle state of the very real dorm before her eyes, my daughter immediately latched onto the idea of living there. She insisted on staying even though the school wasn’t too far from our apartment building. Playing the part of the gentle but stern mother, I extracted a promise from her that she’d stay in the dorm for a month only. But I was secretly thrilled by this turn of events. Like a gift, I’d been given a month of freedom, a month to slip out of the role of wife and mother. I longed to sleep like the dead without being disturbed by thoughts of anything or anyone.

That’s why I was in no hurry to take up my guide’s offer to help me find a housekeeper I could communicate with or a tutor to interpret for me.And having no reason to rush me, he just gave me his phone number, saying that I could call when I was ready. The day I did call that number, I found that he had left on a month-long trip to Korea. Sleeping like the dead, as I had imagined I would, proved to be similarly elusive. I would climb into bed all by myself in an apartment that I had all to myself, only to find that I couldn’t fall asleep night or day. At night the furniture seemed to be whispering, sharing their stories in low tones. They had belonged to many other people before they came into my possession. In this very bed, the bed where I lay awake, someone else might have made love, shed blood, or even died.

Rather than chasing after sleep I would dart outside to while away the time. Day after day I made the hour-long walk to Korea Street where I would hang around for a few hours before walking back home. It was there, in a Korean grocery store, that I ran into Chaegeum. I had been browsing the shelves when I felt the light tap of her fingers on my shoulder. The anxious look I’d seen in her eyes at my hotel room was nowhere in sight. Instead, she’d greeted me with

168 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES

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