Regret
Written by Mathew Goldberg III. I sit squished against my student’s side in the single wooden chair stationed in front of the class computer. Our fingers bang against the keyboard in a dashing fury, pressing our respective keys: punch, kick, combination move. A crowd of students watch Tae Kwan and I play Tekken Street Fight. Exasperated cheers in broken English overwhelm the classroom. I smile, feeling reinvigorated and alive in these ten minutes between classes. All the while, I dread the bell as much as my students, reluctant to resume teaching. The hallway is in its usual disarray with innocuous fights and student horseplay, but I remain focused on the glowing monitor. Tae Kwan snickers, “Die, Mat. Die!” when we hear a jolting yell. My stomach sinks. The classroom window shatters under the force of flesh. I jump out of the seat and run into the hall to see He Young thrashing against the wall still screaming. Students are hovering, but I am the only teacher around. Blood drips from the fractured window. Queasy, unsure, and impulsive, I grab He Young and repeat, “It is okay. Calm down. Just listen to me.” His body is rattling with anger and he could easily throw me to the side, but he doesn’t. The math teacher steps in and begins talking to He Young in Korean. My hold weakens as He Young’s shoulders collapse, blood still oozing from his knuckles. Moments later, He Young, the teacher, and a fellow student are proceeding downstairs to find the nurse and go to the hospital. Two other students are grabbing the broom and dustpan and begin cleaning. The rest of the hall disperses, leaving me in an eerie silence. I. The bell rings. English class is over. Students lift their heads and rub the sleepiness from their eyes, readying to leap from their desks and run to the maejeom [1] or into the hallway. I maneuver through the mayhem that now feels familiar, looking for He Young. I notice he’s leaning against the window outside his homeroom class. He is short in stature, beaming with a charismatic smile; I look at him and see a person who is as clever and kind as he is misunderstood. I call to him. He swipes his hand through his auburn-brown hair, walking toward me through the maze of students with a tough façade. “Mathew, what?” he whines. “Why, did you drop out of the speaking contest today?” “English, boring.” “Lies, you are so good at English. You are one of my top students.” He Young laughs and says, “Thanks, Mat. Class time, sorry.” I am left, unsatisfied and confused. Later, I see He Young again out of class and run up to him. “We didn’t finish talking.” He Young looks at me in frustration. “I don’t know English words.” “That’s okay. Try.” “I am scared … Why do you want me?” It’s my turn to laugh at his words. “Why, because you have great English, you are a leader in school, and I believe you can win the competition.” “Mat, phone,” he commands. I pull up the translating app and hand it over. When he holds the phone to my face, the translation reads, Shame. “What, why?” “I get angry. I can’t … control myself. I can hurt what people think of school. I don’t trust myself with people.” Anger management problems. “How do you control your anger?” I ask, concerned. “I use to go to hospital. But, girlfriend helps me now.” “Ah, that’s good.” I say plainly, unable to communicate my feelings. I wrestle with my next words and whether to hug him. I want him to know he can trust me; that I believe in him. But instead all I say is, “Will you think about the speaking contest?” I settle on giving him a high five, and we head in opposite directions. Awkwardness and disappointment swell in me. Later that night, He Young texts me. My fingers open the message in nervous excitement. He writes “Thank you for the many opportunities ☺” This was my second chance. This was my opportunity to be the person I want to be for him. To be more than a teacher and to be a part of his life. I craft my words carefully and push send with renewed hope. We continue talking until we exchange our goodnights. He calls me Mat brother, and I fall asleep proudly, wishing Mat teacher and Mat brother could coexist. But I know that tomorrow if He Young sees me, he will call me Mat teacher, but silently I will hope to hear Mat brother. II. Two days later, He Young storms into the classroom where I am playing with Tae Kwan. Enraged, he slams his fist against the black board slurring curses in Korean. “He Young, what’s wrong?” I ask, while still engaged in the computer game. He Young doesn’t respond and I feel conflicted. I lean backwards in the chair preparing to jump up, but I hesitate, continuing to kick, punch, and battle. My fingers can’t compete against Tae Kwan as he delivers punch after punch. He Young walks out of the classroom. My attention is divided: Should I follow He Young outside to make sure he is okay? This is my first time invited to play with Tae Kwan and his friends. By leaving do I risk my friendship with Tae Kwan? I decide to stay, noticing He Young and his girlfriend talking. Everything is okay. Minutes later, a scream and the sound of glass shattering tell me I was wrong. Coda. He Young’s mother enters the gymuoshil [2] with her son behind her. Their resemblance is undeniable. I scan over his face, noticing he has his mother’s eyes and a similar dimple on his right side and wonder if he’s a momma’s boy at heart. A cast masks his bruised and cut hand. I sit stationary at my desk, finding it painful to look at him as it only
Homeostasis
Written by Diem-Tran (Bijou) Nguyen I received verbal consent from my NKD tutee to share this story. Her name was changed to protect her identity. “What did you think?” I prompted Ji Min as she pulled the article, printed on heavily creased computer paper, out of her bag. Ji Min adjusted her thin, wire-framed glasses, before meeting my eyes. “I,” she said, in her soft, understated voice, “I really like this article. It reminds me… much of my mother. She died from cancer.” I was suddenly gripped by a fear that I had crossed a line. In our training for working with North Korean Defectors, we had been instructed to never ask our students about their families or life in North Korea, or bring up any sensitive issues that might trigger a negative or emotional reaction. Therefore, I was at a bit at a loss at what to do as Ji Min started to share her story. Ji Min was my NKD student, whom I had met one-on-one during my first few months in Korea. Among her peers, Ji Min was by far the most advanced in English—I remember, upon our first meeting, she told me her goal was to be able to recite Steve Job’s commencement address at Stanford University by the end of our sessions. In spite of her evident skill and mastery with the English language, Ji Min was rather cautious and timid when speaking, and I often had to prompt her with questions to create a dialogue. One night, we discussed Brittany Maynard’s story and whether or not “death with dignity” should be legal. While topics we had discussed in the past had sometimes seemed too abstract for Ji Min, she seemed very excited and passionate to discuss euthanasia. She believed euthanasia should be allowed, because the role of a doctor is to listen to the patient and to ease pain. I wondered how she knew so much about the Hippocratic Oath. “I am very interested in this topic,” Ji Min continued, “because in North Korea I was a doctor.” I was shocked to hear this. As far as I knew at the time, Ji Min had grown up and lived in North Korea, until she finally escaped to South Korea with her two sons. How, I’ll probably never know. She had attended Chungnam University in Daejeon, and had a steady job that she enjoyed as an accountant. She worked full time to raise her two sons. Hardworking, soft-spoken, and diligent, she was dedicated to studying English, though she sometimes cancelled our appointments for business meetings or her sons’ open classes. But now, here she was, telling me about how she had worked as a physician in North Korea. Ji Min continued to share that when she finally escaped to South Korea, her medical license was invalid. “I had two babies to take care of and no job,” Ji Min said carefully, “and medicine in South Korea is very long. So I studied accounting instead so I would have a job more fast.” “Are you happy as an accountant?” I cocked my head and looked at her, trying to get a read on her face, which usually was so solemn and stoic. Ji Min paused and looked skywards for a moment. She normally seemed tired at our sessions—with a full day of work and a long commute on the Daejeon subway line, followed by a bus to get to Chungnam University—but right now, she looked especially exhausted. She sighed a little wistfully, and then continued. “I think,” she said finally, “if I could be a doctor, I would in South Korea. I miss medicine and helping people with my hands, but this job I have right now—I really like it and it is good for my family. I saw a lot of suffering in North Korea, but now I am lucky to have a new life. So this article—thank you.” Though there was nothing extreme or emotional about Ji Min’s reaction that day, I couldn’t stop thinking about her story as I boarded the train to head back to Jochiwon. I thought about Ji Min’s story, and how many pieces of her I will never know or understand—even if she chooses to share them with me. I am not a stranger to hearing about hardship. My parents came to America as teenage refugees during the Vietnam War. They had nothing. The obstacles they had to overcome and the prejudice they faced are forever foreign to me. My mother was valedictorian of her high school class, but she was forbidden from making her speech at graduation because she could not afford an outfit nice enough to wear. My father lived squashed with his five siblings and two parents in a tiny room, as he worked three jobs in high school to help support his family. Because of the suffering they had witnessed and faced, they were inspired to pursue careers in medicine. When I was three, my younger brother was diagnosed with leukemia. He spent two years in the hospital, but the cancer’s effects didn’t dissipate when he was in remission. Instead, his chemotherapy and radiation therapy drastically slowed his mental processes. As his older sister, I became his teacher and watched him work tirelessly to compensate. He is now a first year student in pharmacy school. I think about Ji Min, who has gone through so much. I imagine seeing starvation firsthand, being desperate enough to leave all my family and friends, and risking being caught and tortured, all in hope of making a better life for myself in a country I have never even seen. I think about not having a second chance at the job I love. I think about how my parents and my brother succeeded in spite of all the odds stacked against them, and I am struck by the unfairness of Ji Min’s situation. Why couldn’t Ji Min do again, what she so badly wanted to do? What if
Healing
Out of concern for the author’s identity, this piece has been published anonymously. June 2014 The ahjumma at the roadside cafe smiles kindly at me as I sit sipping my coffee. My friends, brandishing a DSLR, have just left to explore the streets of Ewha Maeul, a colorfully painted tourist attraction on the streets on Hyehwa. I feel tired and self-conscious. I haven’t been outside and active in a month. I impatiently wait for my coffee to cool. The faster it cools, the faster I can slip on my mask and leave. “It’s too bad,” the Korean woman chirps as she straightens a plant beside me. “If your face wasn’t like that you could go out and take pictures with them,” she says sympathetically. The sun is shining too brightly on my face. I wish very hard for her to go away before smiling and saying nothing. “But all for the price of beauty,” she chuckles. “Where are you from? China? We have a lot of tourists from China who come for that.” “No, I’m American,” I answer quickly before snapping my face mask back on. She looks surprised as I quickly bow and exit the shop. A few hours later, a Chinese shop assistant asks me the same thing. “What’d you get done?” she questions, peering curiously at my face mask. “Your nose?” I pause before telling her the truth. “I didn’t get plastic surgery; I was in an accident.” She looks at me skeptically. “So you were in an accident and you decided to come here and get your nose done?” “No,” I answer curtly, leaving the shop. July 2014 Sometimes it’s hard for me to talk. My once-clear pronunciation has deteriorated into a slight lisp. I suppose I should have expected it when I lost half of my teeth. “Where do you want to go again?” the taxi ahjusshi asks again. I try, for the tenth time, to enunciate clearly for him my destination, but between my mask-muffled words and garbled pronunciation, he looks very confused indeed. Finally, my non-Korean speaking brother impatiently imitates my words before the taxi driver finally understands. “No one can understand you like that,” he snaps irritably. September 2014 My first day of Korean class went off without a hitch, but ten minutes into my second my Korean teacher asks me to take off my mask. “Can you take it off? You were wearing it yesterday too, right? Do you have a cold? It’s just that it’s hard to hear you with it on. Your voice is all muffled.” I pause. “I don’t have a cold; I was in an accident.” “An accident?” “A biking accident,” I hesitate, “I rode down a hill and ended up falling off of a cliff. I split my face open… I’m wearing bandages.” She pauses and looks directly at me in the eyes. “I see.” Her voice is soft, strong, and slow as she speaks the next words, “You know, it’s okay. We won’t care about such things. If it’s okay with you, will you take off your mask?” I quietly take it off; from my left I hear the creak of my classmate’s desk as he leans forward to get a better look of my uncovered face. My teacher looks at me. “See, it’s okay? We’re okay with this, right?” One of my classmates nods silently in agreement. I smile. November 2014 A friend of mine is complaining about her day. “Ugh, I’m just so sick and stressed out,” she wheedles as we sit together. I listen, comforting her as she continues on, but after twenty minutes of complaining about her school, her health, and how her life is the worst, I’ve reached my limit. “My goodness, I just feel like I’m dying, like ser-” “Trust me, you’re not dying. I know the feeling of almost dying.” She stares at me before quickly backpedaling, “Well, I know I’m not actually going to die but still…” “You’ll get past this; trust me, it’ll be OK.” “Yeah, I guess.” January 2015 I’m running late to my first piano class. Rushing through the door, I quickly greet my teacher before stripping off coat, backpack, and mask in rapid succession. I turn to her and flash a smile before introducing myself. She returns my smile, and points to the music. “Turn to page four…” March 2015 “You haven’t seen your nose yet, right?” my doctor says excitedly as he begins peeling back the bandages from my latest surgery—the fourth I’ve had post-accident. He immediately calls for a mirror as I shake my head no. “Look, it’s much better! We’ve fixed the nasal deformity at your nostril—I mean, it’s not perfect, but much better! We cleaned up some of the scarring on your face too… well… not all of it… but next time we can do more!” He is obviously very proud of himself. I look at myself in the mirror for the first time with my “new” nose. The long scars across my face have faded to a slight pinkish color over time. A few are covered in stitches from my latest surgery. My nose, well, it certainly looks different. I’m not sure what I expected, but maybe it was this? My doctor hovers eagerly over me, his eyes shining. “It looks good, right, right? Not bad!” “Good job.” He laughs and pats me on the back. June 2015 — Now Since returning home to Dayton my mask lies buried somewhere in the pile of suitcases I have yet to unpack. Disembarking from my flight, one curious look from the customs agent was all it took to do away with it. The need to be covered doesn’t exist in me as strongly as it did before — or maybe I just don’t fear being judged as much. My relatives and friends all call me “strong” or “courageous” for going through this ordeal, but it feels strange to be labeled as such. I don’t think I should be rewarded or praised