Peanut Butter
By Rachel E. Brooks, ETA ’14-’16 On my first Saturday with my homestay family, my host mom, Heeyang, and I visited the grocery store. Too overwhelmed by the options and too timid to request anything from the woman kind enough to take in a foreigner with the Korean language ability equal to that of her toddler niece, I just tagged along for bonding time. Heeyang was careful to watch my reaction to each item put in the cart. I doled out dozens of toothy grins to confirm I was having as much fun as one can have at a grocery store. She spotted me reading a carton of grapefruit juice, which she then threw into our cart before swiftly adding a second one. Grapefruit juice became a staple of our meals together. Now satisfying 300 percent of my daily intake of vitamin C, I didn’t yet have the heart to confess I enjoy other beverages, too.To pair with the juice, my host mom prepared an impressive array of side dishes, rice, and fishy soup for my host sister, Hyunsol, and me. It all looked mouth-watering for dinner but less enticing for breakfast. For over two decades, my stomach had been trained to eat small breakfasts of an apple or a piece of toast before rushing out the door. After sipping my juice, I picked up my chopsticks and threw on a grin. Two options presented themselves: I had to ask my host mom for a smaller and more familiar morning meal or adapt. I chose to adapt, but Heeyang seemed to pick up on my discomfort as I hesitantly spooned seaweed soup into my smile. Starting to miss certain foods from home, I gathered the courage to ask Heeyang if she could pick up a small jar of peanut butter next time she visited the store. Elated by my request, she asked what kind I like best. Before coming to South Korea, I didn’t understand the fuss about peanut butter. When I moved to Jeju, however, peanut butter became a heartening reminder of home and my host mom’s unrelenting kindness. April, spring semester. Around 7:15 a.m., I entered the kitchen to get water out of the fridge and found a pack of individually wrapped cheese slices. Unlike peanut butter, I didn’t actually ask for cheese. Rather, two friends and I indulged at a pizza restaurant a few nights prior and split a giant, classic-style Chicago pizza. When I returned home, I raved about both the pizza and cheese in general to Heeyang. Based on my monologue, she must have picked up on my affection for the dairy product. In the car on the way to school, I removed the sandwich Heeyang made me from its plastic bag and took a bite to find the contents: peanut butter and cheese. Heeyang, knowing two food items I adore, combined them into one sandwich. I looked over to Hyunsol to share a laugh. Instead I saw her happily chewing her own combination of hazelnut spread and cheese between two buttery bread slices. I smiled to myself. The car pulled to the side of the road, and Hyunsol and I hopped out. We dreamed about what we’ll do when she visits the U.S. one day as we made our way up the hill past some newly planted daisies. We headed to the second grade classrooms where I would teach Hyunsol first period. In the classroom, I peeled off the slice of cheese from my sandwich and thought about how much I enjoyed cheese, peanut butter and these morning car rides. But not all together. I peeled off the slice of cheese from my sandwich and thought about how much I enjoyed cheese, peanut butter, and these morning car rides. But not all together. March, one year later. At 7:45 a.m., I scurried down the stairs and out of the house to plop into my usual spot behind the driver’s seat. The car was already racing forward as I clicked the seat belt into place. We were running late. A hand from the front seat passed back a peanut butter and hazelnut spread sandwich followed by a cup of homemade strawberry milk mixed with honey. This was a treat since Hyunsol had an exam soon. Next to me, Hyunsol nibbled on her sandwich filled with the same contents. The hectic race to the car contrasted the calm of the backseat. Third grade of high school in South Korea is chaos, and our morning routine mirrored Hyunsol’s school life. When I first moved in with my homestay family and met Hyunsol, she was a freshman in my English conversation class. Now she was a third grader in her final year of high school, preparing for the college entrance exam, the suneung. Sadly, I didn’t teach third grade. Hyunsol and I talked briefly about the upcoming sports festival, a treasured break from studying, and chewed away at our breakfasts. Despite the mayhem of mornings, I adored the sleepy car rides together. We hardly got to see each other outside of the backseat that year since she and all of her classmates were consumed with studies in preparation for the test to determine their futures. For them, success was directly proportional to the absence of free time. Hyunsol was rarely home. When she was, it was to get a few well deserved hours of rest or some quick nutrition between math and English academies. The day was just beginning, but Hyunsol already looked drowsy. She lifted her glasses and vigorously rubbed her eyes as if test answers hid under those heavy eyelids. Her eyes were glued to the worn chemistry notebook on her lap. These daily moments in the car were precious time to cram. Good grades rewarded hard work at the expense of happiness and health. Thankfully for happiness more so than health, Heeyang never let a jar of Hyunsol’s beloved hazelnut spread go empty without having another in the cabinet next to the peanut butter.
Returning
By Rachel K. Fauth, ETA ’16-’17 When I wake up from a three-hour nap after a ten-hour night of sleep on my first day back in Korea, my sister Dana sends me this from NY: ”Well, yeah. You’re isolated somewhere in the world.” She says it in response to my wish that she can feel this weird peace. This peace that seems particularly patient, having stayed put and waited for me in a distant country. I thought it’d stress me out beyond belief returning to New York—confronted not with the people or place I left behind, but with the fact of how easily I can meet with it again. That’s the strange part. To jump from one hemisphere, one long 14-hour jump, into the next and back. It makes me think that, all this time, there’ve been no rules. Plane rides and how easy they are make me hyper-aware that each place I’m in is a place that I choose, and I could be anywhere at any time if only I propelled my body in that direction. I could be there, at home, every night. I could be at the long dark-wood dinner table my dad built. Its glass top and 12 seats prepared well in advance for all five daughters and their eventual husbands. I could be driving a white Honda. I could be at the pediatrician, tetanus booster before Vietnam. I could be watching Dane do her best impression of her college roommate: she’s taking up the whole space of the den, her long brown mane hilariously flipping to either side of her head as she sets up the scene, and I could be laughing a real laugh and thinking, yeah Dane, tell that story with your whole body, that’s how you do it, proud. I could be in every place at once and I am. Oh the couch is new, look at Lori, she’s all limbs. I could be on the LIRR every day like I was. I could be in Manhattan like I usually hate but not nearly as much as Hongdae. I could be walking back to Penn on 38th with my girl from Canada, listening to her tell me about the long strings of attachment she feels to the people she met in Dubai. I could go round and round with the boy who lives down the street from my parents house, who still goes round and round with me after seven years, who’s not a boy at all anymore, who’s very much a man, across from me at Candlelight Diner in Smithtown, telling me how his HR job’s not so bad because it’s temporary. “Never worry about me,” he says. All these images are like opening one door at a time in a house of a million doors and taking a peek in each. What’s happening in here? What about in here? And each image is just as different as it is simultaneous. The door to the bus opens and I hobble my carry-on suitcase up three steps, look up to see twenty Koreans and take my seat among them. At the same time Chansong opens the passenger’s side door and I get into his mother’s car, tan interior, heated. He slides into the driver’s seat and throws a fleece blanket on my lap, puts a coffee in my hand. The door to my apartment opens as usual and the refrigerator hums in the corner, the fish tank filter trickles drops of water; there’s no one in the room but me and my bags, diaphanous curtains, an unmade bed. At seven I’ll open another, separate door to the Kim’s apartment and it will jingle with a brass chime. Mr. Kim will be in front of the TV wearing neon socks. In the same room his wife will be at the stove, my guess is kimchi stew because it snowed. We’ll pull out the little cherrywood table and take our places on the heated floor. Eunji will come out of her room and join us in the kitchen/den. Mr. Kim will feel inclined to ask about my real family while they’re asleep in another time zone. His wife won’t ask, but I truly don’t mind. When I leave I’ll shut the door behind me and go upstairs to another. I think about all these places opening and closing, none of them stopping just because I’ve left. Rachel K. Fauth was a 2016-2017 ETA at Changpyeong High School in Damyang, Jeollanam-do. She now lives in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Photos: Volume 11.1
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