| writings: dating a korean |
| I had a Korean girlfriend. She was a student in my class. The cardinal rule is : dont get involved with a student. I broke the rule. She wasn’t a kid. She was 42. It was an English class--Adult Ed.The furthest possible thing from a Korean is me--a guinea from the west side of Buffalo. But it was love. It just happened. The class was rolling along and she moved to a new apt and decided to host a lunch for the class. The lunch occurred and when it was over she walked me to my car and asked if I could do for her a favor (they tend to misplace the indirect object) I said: yes She wanted to buy a dictionary of slang for her son and we made a date. I took her to Borders and then to Ross Dress for Less and then to the Farmers Market for Coffee and in this way we killed a pleasant afternoon. It was so pleasant we decided to do a repeat. This time we went to the beach. I took the scenic route--out Sunset via the strip and Beverly hills and Pacific Palisades and pointed out some of the sights--the mansion of the Saudi prince who painted pubic hair on the statues, an OJ landmark, and Will Rogers park in honor of Senor Will who said: “I never met a man I didn’t like”. One day there would be a park in honor of Charles Bukowski--Los Angeles writer--who said: “I never met a man I liked”. We hit the beach and went for a walk and returned to the car and stood watching the sun--a huge red blister--burn itself into the water, filling the sky with a blazing wash of color. She looked across the water. There was Korea-- 7000 miles away. She missed her country and her family--parents, siblings, nieces and nephews. She started to cry. I put my arms around her and did what I could to comfort her--not much. She was alone in a strange country in a bizarre city with a none too steady grip on the language and she had a teenage son and a host of other problems large and small no one could help her with. She needed someone to hold her--and if it was an English teacher so much the better. That’s how it began. I leave it for you to fill in the details. A love affair is a love affair and they all pretty much operate according to the same scenario. This one involved a small detour: it was a Korean scenario. I had a friend who said: if this woman spoke English you would never be involved with her. She had a point. There were three points: 1) the English made it interesting. You will never be bored when you are involved with someone who doesn’t speak the language. There is no such thing as small talk. A sentence such as “Isn’t that an interesting flower arrangement” just doesn’t occur. You have bigger fish to fry. 2) It was exotic. I never had a Korean girlfriend. I liked it. 3) I could help her. She needed a friend--an American friend. Someone like me who taught English and had 30 years in Los Angeles under his belt and knew the ropes. And as I say--you will never be bored. For example: she was meeting me at my apt. She was coming from work. I had a broken doorbell I didn’t know about that revealed itself to me for the first time on this day. I was writing, waiting for her to arrive. When I am writing the passage of time is of no consequence and the universe shrinks to the size of an anti-particle. The phone rings. Its her. Speaking to her on the phone is impossible. The one thing that is clear is that she is in an agitated state. We go back and forth. I gather she is en route. Back to the computer. The phone rings. Its her. Her agitated state has been bumped to the next level--the homicidal level. We go back and forth. Gradually the story reveals itself. She isn’t en route, she has arrived, she arrived 20 minutes ago. She pulled in the drive and parked in back and went to the door and rang the bell and there was no response. She rang the bell again. She tried the door. Locked. She returned to the car and called me on the cell phone. That was the first call where we went back and forth and I gathered she was en route, etc. She gathered I was coming downstairs to let her in, etc. But I never appeared, etc. She decides the romance is finished and she must find a Korean boyfriend. She returns to her car and tries to leave. But she cant leave. She got in but she cant get out. Its a narrow drive and a narrow turnaround in back and getting in is easier than getting out--esp for a Korean who never learned to drive. The car is wedged crosswise in the drive at an ingenious angle with zero clearance between the door on the drivers side and the corner of the building. She is stuck. There she is inside--steaming in her Korean juices. I am tempted to laugh but this will be fatal. I said: roll down the window please She is wearing her green outfit. This was an outfit only a beautiful woman--a beautiful Korean woman--could get away with: pistachio green slacks with a yellow green blouse and lime green sweater and green scarf and shoes and socks. It was a brilliant day and the effect was blinding. I said: “You look very beautiful darling”. I met the family. She had a brother who lived in Diamond Bar and had a sourpuss for a wife who took a dismal view of interracial dating. The brother was a businessman. He owned a body shop and a piece of a hotel in Koreatown and was moving forward with an idea for business #3. Business #3 was brilliant. You had all these Koreans arriving in Los Angeles on a daily basis and they were getting in car accidents. Most of them had insurance. The were very good about that. But they didn’t know some of the subtle ins and outs of the business. That’s where the brother came in. He put this little operation together. It involved a lawyer and some insurance contacts. A Korean got into an accident and was steered by the insurance guy over to the brother for an estimate. The bro said: tell me about this accident. The Korean described. Alex said: you know--my friend--this is law suit material. You can make some money here. I know a lawyer. He specializes in this exact type case. I will call him. He will take your case and write a nasty letter to the insurance company threatening to sue and they will settle out of court. They will write a fat check--you give the lawyer his cut and keep the rest. It wont cost you a dime. What do you say? The Korean said yes. And this occurred--exactly. The lawyer wrote a letter to the insurance company and Alex’s contact prevailed upon the company to settle the suit. A check was written. The check went to Alex. He controlled the whole thing. The lawyer got his cut, the insurance guy got a taste and Alex kept the rest. Now he called the Korean. He said the case had been settled. He had some money for him. The Korean came over. Alex laid a few bills on him--$500 or so. The Korean was stunned. He was thrilled, delighted, amazed. It was a classic. Everybody was happy. The brother took me aside. His English was truly vile. The grammar wasn’t too bad. It was the accent. It was unspeakable. He said: Jack--I must thank you. I was very worry about my sister. She is lonely. she miss her family and her son is making her loco. She cries alla de time. But now you have made her happy. What do you do when you are involved with a woman who doesn’t speak the language? You run errands. There were a lot of errands. Koreans have a problem. They are forced to shop Korean because of the language problem and for this they pay a premium. But now she had a savvy American boyfriend with 3o years in Los Angeles under his belt who knew the ropes and she could make an end run aroundthe Korean business hustlers. I took her to Trader Joes and Pic N Save and TJ Maxx and Best Buy where I saved her $175 on a TV. I signed her son up for a video rental account at Blockbuster and taught him to drive. Then she decided to move to Beverly Hills to enroll him in Beverly Hills High and I found an apartment and moved her in and arranged for telephone and utilities service. I got the son registered at school and there was an open house to attend where I got cornered by an administrator who invited me to serve on the ESL committee and wouldnt take no for an answer. Sundays were for church. Koreans are religious and she was hard core. She got up every morning at 5 am to attend church for 2 hours. I was also religious. I believed in golf. She said: will you go to church with me. Of course They have a service in English I said: lets do the Korean She said: why don’t you believe. I said: I do believe. You are God to me. So there we were: the Korean who prayed to Jesus 4 hours a day and didnt speak English and the atheist greaseball from the west side of Buffalo. We had nothing in common--zero. She didn’t speak the language and had no interest in culture generally; books and music, art, etc. There was one book in her apt--take a guess. I introduced her to some of my friends. it was like pulling teeth. she was terrified. she said: “my English is too vile”. I said: “That is the point”. But it was love. When I looked deeply into her Korean eyes, my heart pumped a little faster and I would do anything for her. I leave you with an incident--one of the funnier things that has happened to me. Her mother and sister arrived for a visit. I went over to the apt. The brother was there with the sourpuss wife. Hi-Sook was on the couch with the brother and the three women are squatting Asian style on the floor eating. The mother put together a plate for me--the kim chee, the pickled radish, the potato omelet, the little spicy Japanese cucumbers for $8.95 lb--great. I threw it down while displaying my formidable chopstick technique. They oohed and ahhed and spritzed each other in Korean Next occurs the funny moment. I am in a chair with the sister sitting next to me on the floor and now she grips my knee and begins squeezing her way up and down my leg--like she is shopping for cutlets. She spritzes a little Korean. Now the mother--84 yrs old--scuttles over and feels me up a little. I am looking at Hi-Sook--ready to pee her pants. I said: what gives? She says: in Korea the leg is important. We look for the good leg. what’s the verdict? They like. That was the high point--the feeling up of the leg like they were shopping for cutlets. Later there was a low point. I wont go into Details—not here. We loved each other but it wasn’ t in the cards She was Korean. That was one thing You can never underestimate the cultural pressures. As someone has said--not Will Rogers: It is always better to stick with someone of your own class. But there was another thing. One day she said to me: I lead a sad life. To hear that broke my heart. Its like a parent raising an unhappy child. Here is this person you most love in the world and you are doing everything in your power to make them happy and nothing is working. It breaks your heart and that is why when one day the question of marriage was under discussion—not for the first but for the last time—to be resolved one way or the other--and a little voice in my head said: don’t do it—I didn’t do it. I never saw her again. |
