“Are you planning to go?” said Miss Gordon. “How wonderful. This fall?”
“No. I don’t—it isn’t—the fee—” Since my tongue refused to speak normally, I stopped. With my head bent I could only see Miss Gordon’s freckled wrists and sturdy fat-heeled American shoes, but I sensed her smiling encouragement. I took a breath and made a huge, bold and very selfish leap. “First I must have a job.”
“Is that so?” Miss Gordon tapped my shoulder and sat in the last pew. “Let’s stop a moment and talk before going outside.” I indicated to Mother to go on without me, and sat beside the missionary. I smelled a pleasant, powdery sweetness as Miss Gordon fanned herself with her hand.
“Now then. What would you like to study at Ewha?”
Having never forgotten the intensity of Dongsaeng’s birth, I wanted to be an obstetrician but knew that the only medical training Ewha offered was nursing. That the practice of medicine was beneath my family’s class was a problem I’d face if my wish became a possibility. At Imo’s church, I’d met young men from Seoul National University who told me that its medical program was no longer taught in German, Japanese translations of medical textbooks having finally arrived. Change was coming, but not soon enough for me to become an obstetrician. I quickly calculated that the missionaries, who had started a great many schools, would be most interested in supporting anyone who pursued religion or teaching. Someone like Yee Sunsaeng-nim. “Childhood education,” I said, almost as a question.
“Wonderful! I believe the tuition is around two hundred fifty.”
“That much! I had no idea.” This news—just punishment for my manipulative thinking—dashed my hope of missionary sponsorship.
“For the full two years. I don’t know if you’ve heard—no, probably not since you’ve been away. My niece and nephew are coming to live with us next month.”
“Excuse me,” I said to explain my startled expression. “But I didn’t know Director Gordon had children.”
“Yes. You see, my sister-in-law died in childbirth years ago. Harlan guessed correctly that his work would be demanding, and knew he couldn’t properly raise his youngsters here. The children were living with our parents in New York.” She must have seen my face light up at the mention of the famous American city, for she added, “In Syracuse, New York State.” Miss Gordon fanned herself rapidly, her hand like a hummingbird hovering over perfumed water cupped in a flower. “They’re old enough now to join their father, and I’m afraid my parents are quite old enough for a break from child rearing.” She chortled and I smiled back, uncomprehending. What grandparents wouldn’t adore having their grandchildren around?
“Why, Harlan and I spoke about this very thing last night. God must have told me to greet you today!”
Thinking that I would have to learn to suppress my unseemly ambition, I listened politely, my hands folded, my eyes on my knees.
“We’ll need extra help around the house, and of course we must hire you!”
“This person?” I blurted in surprise, mouth agape.
“I’m afraid it’s not much. Housework, you know. Some babysitting, but it’s a start. We certainly need more Korean Christian teachers for our flocks. What do you think?”
I rudely grabbed Miss Gordon’s hand. “Yes, please, thank you!”
“Wonderful,” said the missionary, squeezing my hand in return. “Then it’s settled.”
“I—I’ll have to ask my father’s permission.”
“Of course, I should’ve thought of that. Here’s a better idea. I’ll have Harlan speak to your father, and you can start a week from Monday.”
I concentrated on not exposing my teeth in my grateful smile.
DESPITE THE HONOR of having the school director himself request my services, Father said it was undignified for his daughter to work as a servant, even if it was for good pay, and refused permission. Then, the evening after Director Gordon’s visit, I heard him say to Mother, “You ask me to contribute to such a frivolous pursuit as a ladies’ journal?” I opened my window to hear more. “There’s nothing left!” he said. Then, “What little there is from Manchuria goes to Shanghai. You dare question me on this?” Mother said something, and he quoted a proverb, “What kind of man would send out his women to work!” And a little later, “Then let her shame this family, but don’t speak of it again!”
By the end of August, I had two jobs. The Gordons already employed a cook and an industrious housekeeper, so my responsibilities were simple: tidying the children’s rooms and tending the garden. As a second job in the late afternoon, I tutored the children in Japanese language and grammar. If she happened to be around, Miss Gordon sometimes took part in those lessons as we sat around the dining room table, casually joining the children to recite “this is a yellow pencil,” which provoked me to extreme discomfort. However, Harlan Jr. and Christine behaved better when their
gomo-nim
, father’s-side aunt, was there. When we learned that all Ewha applicants were required to have some musical proficiency, Miss Gordon gave me lessons on the church’s pump organ. Over time I felt easy enough
in my patron’s company to correct her Japanese and laugh with the family at her domestic ineptness, such as the time she baked Christine’s birthday cake, which sank to the bottom of the pan, looked like a sponge and tasted like ash.
I rose hours before dawn to iron, shell peas, patch clothing—any housework I could do without waking my family. On clear summer nights, I weeded the kitchen garden by moonlight. On winter mornings, I swept snow off the porches. Then I’d walk across town to the Gordons’ tall house behind my old primary school, which reminded me always of Teacher Yee.
TWO SUMMERS INTO my job, my savings for college were nearly met. On a humid evening I decided it was time to alert my mother, upon whom I relied to gain final permission from Father. If he said yes, I could enroll for the fall.
Beetles creaked in the underbrush and mosquitoes buzzed beyond the circling smoke of smoldering goldenrod. At her writing desk Mother displayed a letter from Imo.
I sat nearby, my back erect, my braid hanging straight and almost touching the floor. “How is she? How is the new house and her family?” After the royal family had been taken to Tokyo, Imo had purchased a traditional house of wood and mortar far from the palace, in the well-to-do Bukchon neighborhood, and had invited a struggling cousin’s family from her husband’s side to live with her.
“Things seem to be working out well. She’s quite fond of her young nephew, and his parents are very helpful around the house. She asks if her favorite niece will register at Ewha this fall.”
I smiled at this serendipitous opening. “Umma-nim, I’ve saved enough money. Director Gordon says I’ll have a job teaching at the school when I’ve graduated. And when I’m in Seoul I think I can get tutoring jobs to help pay Dongsaeng’s high school expenses. Miss Gordon says she’ll give me the names of missionaries she knows there.”
Mother clasped her knees. “If your room and board is too expensive, maybe you can live with Imo.”
“Her new house is quite far from Ewha, Umma-nim. I’m told that
dormitory housing or even a room in the school valley is quite cheap. Plus, if I’m nearby, I can more easily watch over Dongsaeng while he’s at boarding school. He’s still such a baby.”
“I’ll wait to finish my letter to Imo.” I knew by the pleased smile delivered with this phrase that she would speak to Father, and that the consideration of Dongsaeng’s well-being added a positive angle to the plan.
The summer drew to a close. I was diligently working and full of anticipation as plans for Ewha solidified, although Father had not yet approved. Each day, after I tended the garden and then practiced an hour on the organ, I crossed the churchyard and entered the back gate to the director’s house. Both children had mirror-blue eyes and pudgy faces edged in white-blond curls. It was impossible not to think of them as the boiled potatoes they frequently ate. Harlan Jr., a slender and quiet twelve-year-old drawn to books, was a cooperative if sullen student. He disliked being cooped up for the two hours of tutoring, and I let him ride his bicycle prior to their lessons “to get the wiggles out,” as they’d say in English. Christine said repeatedly that I was the prettiest Oriental girl she’d ever met. Since she was only seven years old, the inappropriate compliment was considered charming. She invited me to practice English with them. They were bright and gangly, these foreign jewels, and as the months progressed and their conversational Japanese improved, the Gordons kept me on less as a tutor than a companion.
During our lessons, the children corrected my pronunciation of memorized sentences from the Chinese-English phrasebook. I learned how to drop the last syllable from English words that ended on hard consonants:
book
instead of
book-uh.
Our sessions were merry, and I was proud of my conversational English. They laughed at my never-ending confusion with
R
s and
L
s in
frock
,
flock
, and the subtlety of
B
s and
P
s in
crab, clap, bright, plight
.
At last their lessons came to an end. I’d been accepted at Ewha, although Father refused to consider it. Harlan Jr. would soon leave Korea for a boarding school in upstate New York, already on the path to become a Far East missionary. After a hundred thank-yous and sad goodbyes, the Gordons gave me Harlan’s bicycle, which they thought might be useful in Seoul. The children had taught me how to ride in the school lot, and though I’d seen no other woman on such an ignoble contraption, I
delighted in its trundling speed. As I walked the bicycle home, the temptation to ride it overcame my concern about the propriety of cycling. Sure enough, catcalls and jeers followed me as I pedaled through the market, but the breeze blew coolly down my neck and I pedaled on, reveling in downhill coasts, dignity restored when I pushed the heavy machine uphill.
Word soon reached Father that I’d been seen riding the bicycle. His displeasure was distinct. From across the courtyard I heard him yell, “Will she never cease to shame us? Going around like a man in a skirt!” My mother responded with something I couldn’t hear. “Good for nothing but shaming the family name,” I heard him say. Mother again, then, “Send her to Ewha then. Better to have her out of this house!” This permission born out of anger wasn’t ideal, but it would do.
The bicycle became Dongsaeng’s, to be sent ahead to Seoul for his use during school. I rode it one last time around the yard while Mother laughed at the sight of my skirts and braid flying as freely as the ancient spirits that roamed our ancestral compound.
I OBSESSED OVER SMALL THINGS—STROKES OF LETTERFORMS, CREASES in the sleeves of dark school dresses, the compact arrangement of my few possessions in my locker—my concern with minutiae analogous to my focus on learning. I shared a high-ceilinged room with twenty other girls in the Truth wing of the dormitory, which I thought was more ironically appropriate for me than the other two wings: Beauty and Goodness. I was glad to have had experience living away from home. In the beginning months, much sniffling was heard after lights out, and some simply couldn’t adjust to living among the many different classes and personalities of students and teachers, and went home. Academically I did well at Ewha. I majored in early childhood education, minored in nursing and
received special permission to take courses in English literature as a way to improve my language skills. Drawn to anatomy, I studied bones, muscles and organs as if by memorizing their function and interdependence, I would gain clarity to new feelings of ambiguity, along with an increasing sense of dissociation that filled the hours I wasn’t studying.
The stately Ewha campus had spacious lawns, a soaring church and impressive Western-style granite buildings bordered by trees and shrubs. Paulownia, magnolia, dogwood and cherry blossom trees filled the air with flowers and scent in the spring, maples and beeches brought color in autumn, and dozens of varieties of pines and junipers kept winters green. Inside the buildings were many stairs and large classrooms with hard wooden seats. I walked the grounds and knew it was wonderful, that I should be ecstatic—here I was, fulfilling a dream! It’s true that we all felt privileged, because we were Korean, and women, and thoroughly modern. Our skirts went up an inch a year, we wore baggy trousers cinched at the ankle, and many girls bobbed their hair. So much was exciting and new, like hot showers, and yet, though I tried to hide it even from myself, something was wrong with me and I couldn’t say what.
I searched the Bible, looking for the calm it gave my mother. I rediscovered the inspiring beauty of the Psalms, found fascinating stories and marvelous history in the Old Testament, and lessons about the liberation of faith in the New Testament. But, much as my father might have, I saw the Book as a chronicle of a foreign people’s faith and history rather than a map that would lead me to salvation. For a moment I considered that my growing alienation from the Bible meant I was becoming a political isolationist and conservative traditionalist, very much like my father. Then I attributed the religious estrangement to homesickness and academic overstimulation. But I loved learning and losing myself in studying, and while I naturally missed my family and the familiar spaces of home, I was proud and pleased to be an Ewha student. I embraced the lessons exemplified by my mother’s Christian living, and then put the Bible aside when it became clear that I lacked spiritual passion that could sustain belief once I closed its pages. Keeping these agnostic sentiments hidden, I further discounted my worth when it grew obvious that I possessed not a single spark of the religious fervor exhibited by my classmates at daily chapel. I often found myself wishing I were in the library instead.
Obligation mustered me to Sunday worship, and I was conscious of envying the few Buddhist and atheist girls’ freedom from church attendance, though those girls were shunned. I did love listening to the renowned Ewha choir. The women’s seamless harmony often brought me to tears, which I attributed to the fierce beauty of the swelling music. But over the months, then years, I doubted that beauty could feel so full of pain and inexplicable longing.