At Summer’s End
At Summer’s End By Ky Pontious, 1st Year ETA In Florida, the year passes in a humid haze. We eagerly look forward to and then reminisce about the handful of chilly days in an endless cycle. Everything is green. It is hot. We sweat. We blast the air in the car to cool our leather seats. We cover our eyes and squint against the sun as we lumber into the store. Then, hurrying back with our groceries, we try to outpace the beads of sweat perched on our temples. Our routines are as steadfast as the summer surrounding us. In one unendingly vibrant season, a year can blend into two or three, slipping away. Unrooted, I forget to observe, drifting past opportunities to make landmarks in time and memory. As I circle the sun again and again, I have found that the most dismissible and cliché refrain is true: each year passes faster than the last. This realization sits on my shoulders like a yoke. And with the start of a new year, I find myself blown across the planet. My arrival to Punggi is frigid; the silent landscape a mystery that feels tightly closed against me. But as I move through it, I notice that I have traded crows for magpies. I look down and there are no small lizards skittering across the sidewalk, no squirrels scrambling up every tree. The howling winter wind pierces my coat with a determination I have never felt before. Having been steeped in shades of green my entire life, the cold gray seems to linger. But as the ice eventually recedes, a new visitor arrives, bringing color. It is spattered here and there in the distance, then suddenly it is everywhere. Cherry blossoms line the roads and their petals collect in the gutters like snow. They turn familiar trees into strangers. Then, as abruptly as they appeared, they vanish. I wonder if I will remember the distinct sound of those bloom-laden boughs swaying in the wind. Their transience is a reminder that each experience has a first and last, with the timing of the latter almost always a mystery. Will I be here to greet them again next year? Surrounded by spring, that lingering cold suddenly seems like a memory from long ago. I feel a new responsibility to keep every observation close. If I am to be under this yoke, heaving my memories through the years, I want my burden to be a heavy one. This responsibility is bittersweet. In the open tranquility of the countryside, I find not an absence, but a bounty. I begin cataloging the plants, insects, and animals I encounter, each adding new meaning to the landscape. My walks become punctuated with pauses, and sometimes I even find myself running late. Had there always been so many kinds of flowers in the world? Just there — growing against the sidewalk’s edge — a violet blossom I then learn is named the “balloon flower.” While eating lunch one day, my co-teacher leans over and says,“This side dish is called ‘doraji.’’’ He shows me a picture. It is like seeing a friend I was not expecting. I lift it to my mouth and taste the root of that violet flower that had previously caught my eye, inspiring me to unearth its name. So this is Punggi? Neon spiders waiting in their webs and ripened persimmons breaking open on the pavement. Morning glories blooming in purple, blue, and red, then closing against the oppressive summer sun. Rows and rows of apple trees frame the fog-draped mountains. I greet them all as I walk by, despite never knowing when will be the last time. This trip around the sun feels different. I am in a new place, but through its many changes, Punggi slowly reveals itself to me. The spring cuckoo outside my window, once as dependable as the early-rising sun, has gone silent. Instead comes the shrill unified hum of cicadas, always just out of sight. As I walk through town, I step on a single fallen ginkgo nut and feel that summer is ending. [Featured photo by Wendy Owens]
Sunday BEEF
Sunday BEEF By Iris Hyun-A Kim In the Netflix original series BEEF (minor spoiler ahead), there is an iconic scene when Danny, played by Steven Yeun, goes to church. Danny, a Korean American handyman embroiled in a heated revenge stand-off with a stranger, unexpectedly decides to attend Sunday service. He walks in during the timely performance of “Come to the Altar” by the praise band. The camera flits between singing attendees with their uplifted hands and Danny’s slowly shifting facial expression from uncomfortable to emotional. At the musical climax, Danny bows his head and begins to sob. In 1965, Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act, which may have come as a surprise to many Americans that their new neighbors hailed not from China or Japan, but from the tiny peninsular nation that was split in half just 15 years prior. Towards the end of the 20th century, the Korean diaspora community comprised the largest part of new immigrants in the United States, according to the “Boston Korean Diaspora Project” by Boston University. With them came the increased consumption of cabbage (for kimchi), a boom in Korean-owned corner stores and laundromats and the occasional halmoni picking greens off the side of the road. But before any of those instances even materialized, there was the Korean-American church. Korean Christianity grew alongside the southern peninsula’s post-WWII ideals of democracy and freedom and was quickly brought over by immigrants in the following decades. By the time Danny reached the multigenerational English-speaking ministry in the Californian suburbs, a particular sense of community existed within the Korean-American Church — uncanny details of which were portrayed in the BEEF church mise-en-scène. The sight of folding chairs and Danny munching on a donut after service brought me back to the long Sundays I would spend running around my own hometown church. Whether religious or not, many recent immigrants found themselves in a Korean church on Sundays to meet the established immigrants, forming connections and ushering them into assimilation. There were plentiful opportunities to do so, as Sunday corporate worship was only one of the many events happening throughout the day, even more so the week: hiking trips for the elderly and interchurch sports tournaments for youth kids, summer camps and Saturday hangul classes, early morning prayers and after-hours small group gatherings. Babysitting was always free, and kids could always find something to do in the back storage rooms of a building that never went dark. No matter where you were in your beliefs or immigration status, there was a place for you. Like Danny, I found myself crying in the first church service I attended in Seoul for some inexplicable reason. I was fully surrounded by a cacophony of voices singing out, instruments reverberating the room. But despite the ongoing efforts to adjust to life in Korea, I could not help but feel the disconnect with that Sunday. While Danny cried and entered a strangely familiar and comforting community, I cried for the strangely unfamiliar, the discomfort of the land that my body left before it was formed. [Featured photo by Kierstin Conaway]
River Child
River Child By Leah Yan Doherty, 1st Year ETA [Image by Victoria Thiem] I They say I floated softlydown the Yangtze, a ripple-like shimmerinto their outstretched arms—“our little river child” Tears, freshly pluckedfrom the deepened creaseof patient smiles, crinkled around the edgestasting of hope and roasted coffee. At nightI would listen to talesof shape-shifting monkey kingsand Chinese cinderellas “… a bright child and lovely too,with skin as smooth as ivory anddark pools for eyes,” she only had one friend,a magical carp 魚 with golden scales. then, as always, came gentle sleep Stories of my birthplace started and endedwith long-winded lectures on ancient calligraphyand portraits of gray-bearded emperorssitting behind mighty walls of stone. To this faraway land, I was a stranger II We came from various orphanagesbut an invisible string tied our lives togetherlike a red ribbon of fate, trailing after usas dutifully as a kite “Am I pretty?” asked one of my sistersas she pursed her faintly cracked lips andlifted silver-studded brows—don’t tell my mom please—to a green mirror, covered in rust. She widened those almond eyeswhich reflected backa set of canoeslooking for land to accept it “beautiful,” I thought. Then she hushed me,took me suddenly by the handand we started runningbarely swallowing our grins up, up, up. Perhaps it is how memories paint the wallslike intricate murals of wildflowerand laughter stains the ceiling,or perhaps it’s something more? How effortless it is,my heart repliesto remember those days III I look just like them Inside emanated sweetness and gochujangas I made my way through a small doorstepping over strands of leftover hair, black like mine,strewn across the marble floor. There sat a group of people, multiple generationsa middle grandson whose jelly-filled cheeksduplicated in form down the wooden table“Ohhh 맵다,” he sighed Outside my ears picked upa gentle pattering of tiny feet on pavement,and the lingering exhale of lush green peakscalming a school of restless trout. If you listen carefullyto the 북한강 river, a midnight shade of blueyou might be able to hear its twinklingbetween the mountains’ heartbeat “From Korea?” my host aunt asked, mid-chewMy cheeks flushed a deep pinkas the few Korean words I knew took flightlike a couple of traitorous birds. Looking down at the golden dustwhich painted my piano-curved fingersthe way BHC chicken does, salty and sweetI managed to sputter “중국계 미국인.” IV Forever a river child To this day, my head still spinswhenever I catch glimpses of heran ‘olive skin’ girl with high cheekbones andmatted hair from one too many dye jobs Did she have other brothers and sisterswhose likeness was brought up,like clockwork, over a charcoal potof simmering broth? It hurtled me back, her rattling coughfrom years of trekking in fine dustto tend to the soil and pick ripe mountain berriesI looked at my host mom in wonder is this what it’s like? It started as severance,severance from my birth mother’s coos,the pleas of Mandarin speakers on the subway, “你会说中文吗?”and secret talks between the Yangtze and its rolling peaks. As painful as it wasI felt grateful for my imagination thenand in that fleeting moment, pictured myselfat a table several lives away… their lovely river child. From there, the smoky gray sky didwhat I had wanted to do but couldn’tit started to pour [Featured photo by Kierstin Conaway]