Somebody's Daughter by Marie Myung-Ok Lee Read Free Book Online

‘to-be-purchased’ and
ah
means ‘child.’ Or
sal
in Chinese characters can mean ‘assassin.’ Assassin child, you understand?”
    Choi
Sunsengnim
also pronounced my name as Sal-Ah instead of SAY-Rah, which I had attributed to the Korean propensity to tumble English r’s and l’s together. Now I wondered, was she also thinking of me as child-for-purchase?
    Jun-Ho started speaking in Korean again.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI said, do you want to meet here at this location next week?”
    Next week? I had planned to meet him only once to satisfy
Sungsengnim
. I should have known better. It seemed like every person in Seoul was trying to learn English. Every time I opened my mouth in public, a crowd of people would materialize around me, saying “hello?” “excuse?” and shoving business cards, which I couldn’t read, in my face.
    â€œI will pay,” Jun-Ho said, when the hour was up. From under his seat he pulled out a rectangular leather case with a wrist strap—a purse, in not so many words—and took out a wallet. Inside there were only some pink bills—dollar-bill equivalents. My kiwi juice had been at least six or seven dollars, American.
    â€œI can pay for mine.”
    â€œOh no. We are in Korea. We will do it Korean way.” He waggled his eyebrows at me, so I wasn’t sure he was totally innocent of the double entendre he’d just made. He returned from the cash register and, with a decorous bow, handed me a plastic-wrapped rectangle.
    â€œA gift,” he said.
    A packet of toilet paper that said Balzac Cafè (accent
grave
instead of accent
aigu
).
    â€œIn your opinion, next week at the congruent time is okay-dokay?” he said, sliding his empty wallet back into his pocket.
    What else do you say to someone who’s just bought you a seven-dollar glass of juice and given you a present?
    I said okay-dokay.
SARAH
    Seoul
    1993
    I gulped, pretended not to listen, and strained to hear every word.
    â€œâ€¦ and the guy, he died from eating too much RAMEN!!!” Bernie was saying.
    Ramen, my daily bread, so to speak. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. When I was lazy, I crushed the noodles in my hands and ate them raw.
    â€œThis guy made instant ramen for all his meals because he was busy studying for his law exams—did you know Koreans are the world’s largest consumers of ramen? No shit, I was surprised when I heard that, too—Koreans eat more ramen than all the people in China? Anyway, turns out the noodles had been fried in
industrial waste oil
. The company did it deliberately, too, to increase its profit margin. I guess they figured no one would eat only ramen for days on end.”
    â€œOh, I saw the headline in the
Korea Herald
,” Jeannie said, a hand sneaking onto Bernie’s knee. “People are calling on the CEO to perform ritual suicide.”
    â€œYeah, but it’ll turn out he’s some old high school chum of the President—he’ll get off. There’s no fucking accountability, look at that mall that collapsed in Pusan and killed all those people, not to mention the formaldehyde they put in the
soju
to give it an extra kick. I bought some at the 7-Eleven and it knocked me flat on my ass. I thought I was going to need to get my stomach pumped.”
    â€œBy the way, what brand of ramen was that?” I ventured.
    â€œHorangi,”
Bernie said with disdain. “It means ‘tiger,’ by the way.”
    Thank God. My brand was KONG BEANS, the only one that had any English on its label.
    Choi
Sunsengnim
glanced at the clock, began to rise from her seat. Behind her, the classroom door suddenly opened, and a guy carrying our
ill-gup
textbook walked in.
    We stared. It had been so long since I’d seen a white person—besides the nun—that the newcomer looked strange and out of place, like he’d just walked in from the moon.
    â€œWho are you?”