The Korean Word For Butterfly Read online

  Soo slowed a little more.

  “See, I told you he was cute.”

  Yun-ji shrugged. She couldn’t see his face. All she could see were his muscles. He was strong, she could tell that much. Not that strong was necessarily her type.

  They continued walking, Soo tugging on Yun-ji’s arm to get her moving again, and, just when Soo was about to launch into another story about her problematic fiancé, they heard a big splash.

  It was the megook.

  He had jumped into Youldong Lake!

  In all the years Yun-ji had been coming to the lake, she had only ever seen koi swimming in it. Even most of the ducks were fake, decoys to lure other birds there. But even the birds were smart enough to stick to dry land. Not that there was anything wrong, or unclean, about the water. It was just more for safety reasons. There were even signs posted saying NO SWIMMING. But the signs were all in Korean. They probably meant nothing to the megook.

  The bungee workers were frantic, yelling at the man to get out of the water, but the crowd was loving it. People yelled and hooted as the man swam out to the middle of the lake.

  Look at the crazy megook!

  Youldong has a new koi!

  No, it’s a giant white eel!

  The man obviously had no idea what they were saying since he was waving to the crowd and grinning from ear to ear. When he finally got out of the water, the bungee manager yelled at him and shooed him away like a misbehaving dog. The man, unaffected by the chastisement, bowed grandly to the crowd, and everybody erupted in laughter again.

  Who was this guy?

  Had he been Korean, Yun-ji knew the crowd would have reacted much differently. They would have been appalled by the behavior, and the man would have most likely been dragged away by the police. But this was a foreigner. And everybody knew that foreigners were all a little crazy.

  Especially megooks.

  “I bet you’re glad I asked you to go for a walk now,” Soo said as they watched the man put his shirt back. He must have seen them staring because he started heading their way.

  “Excuse me,” he said, still dripping wet. “Do you speak English?”

  Soo blushed and shook her head. When Yun-ji didn’t say anything, Soo nudged her with her elbow.

  “Yes,” Yun-ji said reluctantly. “I do. Some. I speak some English.”

  “Oh, thank Christ. Can you tell me the time?”

  Yun-ji understood him. It was a simple request. But she couldn’t stop looking at his eyes. They were big and blue. And sweet. Not at all like what she expected. But, then, she wasn’t sure what she expected. Maybe buttons. That’s what her grandfather always called American eyes whenever he spoke about the war.

  “The time?” the man repeated, his buttons still on Yun-ji.

  “I’m sorry. Yes. The time. It is seven forty-nine.”

  “Seven forty-nine,” he repeated and smiled at her. “Thank you. That means I’m late. Probably shouldn’t have gone for a dip.”

  Yun-ji smiled back even though she didn’t know what he meant by “dip.”

  “Do you two live around here?” the foreigner asked.

  Yun-ji nodded. “I live a few block from here.”

  “What’s he saying? He sure is cute,” Soo whispered in Korean, apparently tired of not being the center of attention for once.

  Time to leave, Yun-ji decided and turned to go.

  “Hey,” the foreigner said when they started to walk away. “Can I call you sometime? Or email? Here, wait. You don’t have to answer that.” He dug in his back pocket, pulled out his wallet. “Still dry. Had the smarts to take this out before I jumped in at least.”

  He handed a card to Yun-ji. It was a business card. Only it was camouflaged. Yun-ji didn’t know people in the military had business cards.

  “Just, you know, if maybe you would want to teach me some Korean. Or I could teach you some English if you wanted. Not that you need it or anything. I just mean...shoot, I’ve really got to run. Just call me, okay?”

  With that the American trotted off ahead of them, leaving a trail of footprints in his wake.

  Yun-ji read the card aloud:

  Bravo Company

  Shaun Howell

  Specialist

  Specialist in what? Yun-ji wondered.

  In making a spectacle of himself?

  Still, she kept the card. Not that she’d ever contact him. A nice memento was all it was. Just something to remember her walk with Soo by.

  That’s what she told herself anyway.

  Billie

  We pulled down a quiet cobblestoned street and parked. The outside looked nice. Ordinary. Like something you might see in downtown Portland. Before we came here, Joe kept telling me that the apartment was going to be small and not to get my hopes up. But all I wanted was something of our own.

  And fairly clean.

  Clean would be nice.

  When Moon tried to grab my duffle bag from the trunk, I stopped him. Have to put the kibosh on this little-lady crap before they get the wrong idea about me. Very sweet and all, but no thank you.

  I take care of myself. Always have. Always will.

  Inside there were four rooms. A bedroom with two twin mattresses on the floor. Which was plenty big. About the same size as what I rented back home. There was a kitchen. A bathroom. Another room which could be used as a second bedroom. The walls were all concrete and covered in this flowery white-and-blue wallpaper.

  There was a stove, but no oven. Which was perfect since I’m not much of a cook. Inside the fridge were two oranges, two yogurts, and a carton of orange juice. I smiled at Moon.

  “Thank you.”

  He bowed slightly. Blushed slightly.

  After some serious pantomiming on Moon’s part, we were led to understand that the floors heated up. It took awhile for us to understand this, with Moon hopping up and down like he was walking on burning coals. He then pointed at a box on the wall, at some knobs, but we still have no idea how to work it since everything has Korean characters on it. Well, that, and because while Moon was trying to explain, I was imagining myself walking around barefoot in the winter, taking naps on the floor, and whoo-hooing it up with Joe on our new floor.

  How to heat up your sex life!

  But all I really wanted to do right then was unpack and settle in, do some serious un-jetlagging. Unfortunately that wasn’t about to happen as Moon soon informed us that he’d be back in twenty minutes to take us out to dinner with our new boss.

  They sure didn’t waste any time here.

  Couldn’t really complain, though, since they were sort of renting us after all.

  Well, not sort of. That’s exactly what they were doing.

  Moon eventually bowed his way out the door, and Joe and I were finally left alone in our new digs.

  “So what do you think?” Joe asked, looking worried. Like I was going to complain or something. Poor boy. If I hadn’t been so exhausted, I would have taken him for a spin on our fancy new floor.

  “It’ll do,” I said, trying to hold back a smile. “Joe, honey, relax. I love it. It’s perfect. Really.”

  We took our shoes off, turned the knobs this way and that, but nothing happened. Undeterred, we investigated the rest of the apartment and found a small laundry room attached to the bedroom. There was a washing machine, but no dryer. Apparently we were supposed to air-dry our clothing. Fine. I could handle that.

  Next we explored the bathroom. At first it looked as if there wasn’t a shower, but then we realized there just wasn’t any curtain or tub. Instead they had a drain set smack dab in the middle of the floor. Which was absolute genius. Why didn’t we have heated floors and self-draining bathrooms back home?

  On the toilet was a yellow rubber ducky.

  Which was a little odd, seeing as there was no bathtub. Maybe we were supposed to plug up the drain and sit on the floor. Or maybe it was just something they put there for the American teachers.

  Before we could even make it to the spare b
edroom, Moon was back knocking at the door. And he didn’t wait for us to open it either. He simply used his key and walked in all nonchalantly. I wondered if this was something we should get used to.

  “Dinner. I take,” he said, looking a little flustered. Like we were already super-late or something.

  The restaurant wasn’t far, so we walked. On the way I noticed that our neighborhood seemed to be something of a restaurant hub. Or a restaurant city, more like. And they all seemed to specialize in the same thing: seafood. There were even small aquariums set up outside some of the restaurants filled with lobster, crab, and other exotic-looking fish.

  The restaurant Moon led us to was small but elegant. There was a sort of platform in the middle where the diners ate. The tables were all raised about a foot off the floor, and people were sitting cross-legged or on their knees with small pillows under their bottoms.

  When we entered the room, all eyes were immediately upon us. And upon us. And upon us. Just about everyone was staring. And I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say staring. I felt simultaneously famous and irritated. And when Moon had to tell us to remove our shoes, I could hear a few of the women snickering.

  We silly foreigners had no manners apparently.

  There was no mistaking who our boss was. She sat at the head of the table and was by far the most formally dressed of anyone there. Which wasn’t any small feat. She was also the only one who didn’t bow to some degree (literally) when we were introduced.

  Joe, however, went a little overboard in the bowing department. Even I could see that. He was nearly bending double at the waist to everybody, giving these deep-ass bows that were probably supposed to be reserved for heads of state or something.

  Still, it was pretty damn cute.

  The other women were getting a kick out of it, too.

  Well, everybody but Eunice. That’s the name of our new boss. She doesn’t seem to smile much. She’s a striking woman though. And by that I mean she looks like she might hit you if you sneezed at her the wrong way. I kid. She is handsome though. And I’ve never used the word handsome to describe another woman before. But it fits Eunice. She looks like she was clipped straight out of the pages of a Korean Housekeeping magazine circa 1921. Pearls. Poise. The works. And the way she looked at me and Joe when we were introduced, like she was weighing the price she paid for the meat versus the quality of the cut.

  At best, she looked undecided.

  If she only knew.

  Joe and I were, thankfully, sat a few bodies down from Eunice and handed pillows to sit on. (Which was wonderful, since there was no way I was going to manage that cross-legged stuff.) There were only two other teachers at the table. A guy and a girl. Well, I’m assuming they were teachers anyway because they were the only other westerners at the table. One of them, the guy, kept staring at me. Or maybe I was just imagining that. He was weird looking though. Had these thick, goofy glasses and a creepy smile.

  Anyway, because of the way we were seated, conversation with them was pretty limited. Instead, I was introduced to a Korean woman sitting across from me named Kim. She was the director of the school and our immediate boss, the one we’d be working with on a daily basis. I liked Kim right off the bat. Which was rare because, if I’m honest, I don’t really like most women. Especially beautiful women. Which Kim was. Even so, there was something about her that told me she was a good egg.

  Silver bowls filled with meat and noodles were soon brought out and set onto these little gas grills in the middle of the table. Sort of like an indoor barbeque.

  “What’s this called?” I asked, pointing to one of about twenty small dishes now on the table.

  “Gimchi,” Kim said.

  “Kim-she,” I repeated like a parrot.

  “Yes. It is our version of bread, you could say.”

  Her English was better than mine.

  “Kim-she,” I said again, but as soon as the word was out of my mouth, I forgot it. I’m so entirely screwed. I took six years of Spanish and still don’t know how to ask where a bathroom is in a Mexican restaurant.

  I asked Kim the name of the city we were in (Boon-dong-goo), and we started to play the parrot game again. I repeated it about four times until I got the pronunciation right. Then I repeated it another ten times in my head. Still, it was useless. There was too much information to take in. It was like the words had legs and as soon as I turned my back, they raced out of my head.

  I decided to give up. Something I was good at.

  Instead, I focused on the food.

  The idea seemed to be to take small portions from the various bowls set around the barbeque. I watched the others. Take a leaf of lettuce, place some cooked meat in the center, top it with some small white things which may or may not have been onions, then some small red things which may or may not have been I-have-no-clue.

  But it was tasty. Like super healthy and clean tasting if that makes any sense. I noticed one end of the table was sort of top-heavy with silence and looked over to see Joe fumbling with his chopsticks, trying to scoop something out of one of the bowls. Some of the women at other tables were watching him, their hands covering their mouths, tittering. Another word I don’t think I’ve ever used before, but that was exactly what they were doing.

  Tittering.

  Which was both somehow cute and annoying at the same time.

  It made me think of this kid from Japan I met once who was staying at a hostel in Portland. The hostel was having some sort of barbeque, and when somebody handed him a ball of hamburger meat, rather than flatten it out, the Japanese kid simply set the entire ball onto the grill. We all assumed that everybody knew how to make a hamburger patty, just as I’m sure all Koreans probably assume everyone knows how to use chopsticks, but what we were doing must have seemed like a bizarre ritual to him.

  I watched as Joe, out of frustration and not realizing he was being watched, stabbed a fat piece of gimchi and stuffed it into his mouth. More hands raised to more mouths. Another no-no, apparently. Seconds later, Joe was gulping down water and wiping sweat from his forehead.

  Gimchi can be hot. Like Habanero hot.

  As the table tittered away, I couldn’t help but notice that Eunice hadn’t spoken one word of English since dinner began. Well, other than the terse “hello” we got when introduced. I’m beginning to wonder if she can speak English at all. Wouldn’t that be funny? An owner of an English school that couldn’t speak a lick of English?

  After we ate, we sipped on some cold tea while learning that we had to start work the next morning. We wouldn’t be teaching (that started on our second day), but instead we’d be getting a tour of the school and shadowing some of the other teachers.

  I don’t know why, but I thought we’d at least get a day to acclimate. To adjust. To whatever. But no dice. The general attitude seemed to be that Joe and I had simply taken a bus across town and would be just fine. Either Koreans were a much hardier people than most Americans, or they’d never taken a 15-hour flight before.

  When Eunice finally paid the tab, everybody did a lot of smiling and bowing in her direction. And when she moved to get up from the table, the rest of the group followed suit like there was some invisible chain connecting them all. Joe and I did our best to scramble to our feet along with the others, but we were both seriously lagging behind.

  Afterwards, Moon led us back down the same street to our apartment where he reminded us to be at the school by seven in the morning. He then quietly said goodnight, bowed softly, and took his leave.

  Alone inside our apartment, Joe and I just stood and stared at each other.

  “This is going to be crazy,” I said.

  “Yeah. That Eunice scares me.”

  “Maybe she’s not so bad.”

  “Yeah. And maybe we’ll make good teachers.”

  We unpacked what we needed for the next day, and Joe pushed the two mattresses together, set a blanket on top for us to sleep on. When I lay down, my shoulder slipped between the ma
ttresses and hit the floor.

  It was hot. Like super hot.

  We fidgeted some more with the knobs, but it was no use so we stripped down to the bare essentials. When Joe wrapped his arms around me, I held onto him tight.

  He was the one familiar thing here.

  And the only thing I needed.

  Moon

  Moon will have to go to the bank later, get checking accounts set up for Billie and Joe. That shouldn’t take too long. After that, he’ll need to create a new flier to recruit more students. The roster is nearly full, but Eunice is never happy.

  It isn’t exactly challenging work, but Moon likes it. There’s a sort of peace and tranquility in the menial tasks. And freedom. He gets to run errands, go out on his own. And the level of stress is nearly non-existent. Sure, there’s Eunice, but after working with high-level record execs and fourteen-year-old divas, he can handle Eunice.

  But he’d be lying if he said he didn’t miss it at times. A strange thing to miss, though. How can a person miss feeling like they’re under water all the time? Maybe because it makes the air taste all that much sweeter? Moon doesn’t know the answer to this. And he doesn’t much care anymore. Leaving Samsung Family had been like going through a second divorce, but all that matters now is his real family.

  The rest of the office is busy running around, preparing materials for the new teachers, tidying up the office. It’s like a house guest is coming. And staying for a year. Well, maybe for a year. You never know around here.

  Moon picks up Joe and Billie’s file again, pulls out their applications. They looked younger in person than in the photos they sent with their applications. Maybe they graduated high school early. Anyway, young was usually a good thing in Korea. At least they’d have plenty of energy for the kids.

  Billie: B.A. in Art History from Reed College

  Joe: B.A. in Philosophy from Reed College

  There’s something odd about the transcripts, but Moon can’t quite put his finger on it. Not that it matters. It’s a little late to return them now. Still, something seems off.

  Then it hits him.

  The watermark.

  He remembers his own transcripts and how they had to have an official watermark, or they weren’t valid. Moon checks again, tilting the papers this way and that, but there definitely isn’t any visible watermark.