Happy Birthday or Whatever (15 page)

My mother and the ajuma bickered over who would pay for the fish. They elbowed each other away from the fishmonger with their wallets in hand. My mother was victorious, but I saw the ajuma sneak in a few won into my mother's bag.

“Uh oh, Anne, nothing vegetarian for you.” My mother shook her head in disappointment, not because there was nothing vegetarian, but because I was vegetarian.

“It's OK, I'm not hungry.” I looked at a tub full of squirming black eels. They looked like hair.

“Oh-you're-vegetarian-but-you-can-eat-fish-though-right?”

I sighed. I knew where this conversation was headed. “No, no fish.”

“How can you be vegetarian?” The ajeoshi stared at me incredulously. “What can you even eat?”

I forced a patient smile. “There's plenty of things to eat, just not here, but that's OK. I'm really not hungry.” I remembered my grandmother's salty, rubbery fish from the day before and rubbed my stomach.

In the fish market, we sat down on milk crates around a small barbecue, which was more like a large metal soup pot with a grate on top than an actual barbecue. The ajeoshi lit the coals and wood on fire and our waitress threw shrimp on the barbie. Live. I watched as legs and antennae danced on top of the flame. The shrimp made faint hissing noises as steam escaped from their writhing, burning bodies.

“They're suffering.” I watched them, horrified.

“No, they not suffer, they dance, see?” My mother laughed and pointed to a shrimp that was twisting and shouting on top of the hot grate.

“They should've cut off their heads first.”

“Then it not taste as good.” My mother used her chopsticks to flip over a shrimp. Its grey shell had turned bright pink.

The waitress dumped squid, mussels, and clams onto the grate. Squid tentacles curled up like ribbons and their translucent bodies turned white as they cooked to death. Luckily the shellfish didn't suffer and die as cinematically.

“You sure you not want try?” My mother plucked a squid off the barbecue with her chopsticks and dangled it in front of me. “It taste so good!”

I waved my hands and cringed. “It looks chewy. I don't like chewy things.”

“You like gum. When you little you eat so much gum, you get cavity. We go dentist every week. I worry you teeth fall out.”

“Gum isn't made from an animal.”

“How come you not want to hurt animal but you hurt Mommy? You always make Mommy heart very sick!” She clutched her heart and pretended to cry, using her napkin to wipe away imaginary tears. Then, to make sure she had an audience, she translated her joke into Korean. Her friends laughed and I shook my head. She has been making that same joke ever since I turned vegetarian, and it was funny only once.

The waitress brought out the next course—a ceramic pot of bubbling fish stew. Fish heads and tails and shells bobbed around in a brown broth with mushrooms and onions. She put the pot right on top of the barbecue and started serving.

“No need to give one to my daughter. She's vegetarian. She loves animals too much. More than her own mother.”

“It's OK, there's no meat in here.” The waitress served me a bowl of fish stew.

After lunch we walked around the beach a little more. I shooed away the hopeful gulls that followed us, in search of a snack.

“How-many-times-do-you-think-we-came-here-together-when-we-were-young? You-know-Annie-your-mother-and-I-used-to-come-here-all-the-time-and-I-don't-remember-what-wedid-there's-not-much-to-do-here-but-eat-fish-but-we-alwayshad-such-a-good-time.”

“I think we came up at least ten times—came up here for the weekends and went to the beach. Remember how skinny we were?” She and the ajuma linked arms and smiled. Girls in Korea always link arms when they walk together and they lean their heads in together to whisper secrets and giggle, creating an intimate republic of two.

“Don't-you-miss-Korea? Korea-misses-you.”

“I miss it all the time. When I first moved to America, I cried all the time because I missed everyone, everything. I missed crackers. Did you know that my mother mailed me a box of food every week with directions on how to prepare each thing? There were no Korean markets there back then.”

“But-now-that-your-kids-are-old-they-can-take-care-of-them-selves-they-don't-need-you-so-you-can-move-back-how-fun-would-it-be-you-can-live near-us!”

“No, no, I couldn't. Seoul isn't mine anymore.”

We got back into the car and left Sokcho and all of its entrails behind. Less than an hour later, the ajeoshi parked the car again.

“We're stopping again? What is there even left to eat?”

“Anne, we here, silly.”

I got out of the car and stretched and yawned. Just as my mother had promised, there were trees. Pine trees. I immediately thought of three things: a Korean restaurant in the San Fernando Valley called Pine Tree;
shikhye,
a sweet Korean drink made with rice and pine nuts; and pesto. The thought of more food made me nauseous.

“First-we-should-take-Annie-to-see-Sinheungsa-she-has-to-see-that-it-would-be-a-crime-to-come-out-all-the-way-here-and-notsee-that-a-real-crime-we-might-get-arrested.”

“What is Sim-noon-gah?”

The adults laughed.

“No, Anne, Shhiinnn-hoong-saaa.”

“That's what I said.”

“
Ayoo,
don't lie to you mommy. Sinheungsa is temple.”

We followed signs along a dirt and pine needle–covered path to the temple and passed by a three-story-high bronze statue of the Buddha, sitting cross-legged. His eyes were closed and he had a
jewel in the center of his forehead. He also had really long earlobes and was wearing a one-shoulder toga.

“He must be cold.” I smirked.

“Anne, it Buddha, you show respect.” My mother rolled her eyes and tried not to laugh. “But I think maybe he cold.”

“It's the largest seated bronze Buddha in Korea,” The ajeoshi informed us, “I remember when it was built.”

I looked at the statue. I had assumed it was thousands of years old, only because I always assume anything large, bronze, and religious is thousands of years old. “When was it built?”

“I think construction started in 1987.”

“Really? That was practically last year.”

Korea, like other Asian countries, has a long history of Buddhism—so long that I think many Koreans, especially the younger generations, see Buddhism as a part of the culture and history of the country and less as an actual religion that they practice. Even though my family is Catholic, we still honor our dead grandfathers with a Buddhist ceremony. We cook a special feast that includes sticky rice cakes and fruit, and then someone looks up a Buddhist prayer in a book and writes it on a piece of a paper. We bow several times and then turn away from the table, so that our grandfather can “eat” in privacy. Later we burn the prayer and dump the ashes into the gutter. When our family became more active in the Catholic church, we added a bible reading and sang a hymn after the Buddhist ceremony. My grandmother actually practices Buddhism and is a leader at her temple, but she didn't seem to mind when our family became Catholic. “Religion is religion,” she explained, “Do whatever makes you happy.” It was actually very Buddhist of her.

We walked through a gate with four ten-foot-tall, brightly painted statues of men, though they looked more like monsters
than humans. One had a dark gray face with full cheeks, wide-set red eyes, and a spiky, white beard that framed his thin red lips. The other had a bright red face with a spiky black beard and large bushy eyebrows. He was wielding a long sword. Their flared nostrils and the deep creases in their faces made the men look as if they had smelled something unsavory and were angry for it. “Who are these guys?”

“I don't know.” My mother translated my question into Korean for the ajeoshi. He shrugged. “They're statues.”

“Why are they mad?” I asked in Korean.

“Maybe-they're-mad-because-they-don't-want-people-to-come-here-you-know-scare-away-people-though-I-guess-it's-a-temple-soyou'd-think-they-wouldn't-be-angry-but-more-like-hey-come-in-have-some-coffee-though-I-guess-monks-drink-tea.”

Despite the rather cold welcome, we walked through the gates and into Sinheungsa. I was surprised; it looked more like a compound than a Buddhist temple. There were several low buildings with tile roofs and brightly colored moldings of dragons and geometrical patterns. There were stone pagodas that stood between the buildings, and several stone staircases that lead to small shrines with golden statues of the Buddha and smoking pine incense in round brass cups filled with sand. There were also living quarters and meeting rooms for monks, and their white shoes were lined up outside the heavy wooden doors. When I turned vegetarian, my mother joked that she would send me to live with the monks and eat their food, which contains no animals or flavor.

A chilly breeze blew right through us and my mother rummaged in her purse and offered me a fuzzy black hat and matching gloves.

“What about you? Do you have some for yourself?”

“No, Mommy not cold.”

“Liar. Let's share—which one do you want?”

“No you take both. It set.”

“That's retarded.” I jammed the hat on her head and shoved my fingers in her gloves. They were too big. My mother has long, thin, elegant hands. My thumbs are freakishly small so I usually wear children's gloves.

“OK-are-you-ready-to-go-up-the-mountain-Annie? The-view-is-really-beautiful-it's-really-something.”

I forced a smile. “You know, if you're tired, we don't really have to go to the top. I'm not very good at hiking.” What I wanted to say was that hiking combined two elements that humans have had difficulty conquering, insects and gravity.

“Who said anything about hiking? Together we're over 150 years old. We're much too old to hike a whole mountain.” The ajeoshi laughed, but looked at the ladies' faces and stopped. “OK, OK together we're, uh, 120 years old.”

“We're-going-to-take-a-cable-car-up-to-the-top-hopefully-there-won't-be-a-line-I-swear-everytime-I've-been-here-all-of-Korea's-been-here-waiting-in-line-to-go-up-to-the-top.”

We waited in line for only a few minutes; I guess most of Korea decided to stay at home. Cable cars make me nervous. They seem so crude with exposed gears and moving cables. Whenever I go on one, all I do is think about how the cable might break and how the metal lunch box carrying infants, pregnant women, the elderly, and me might plummet toward the rocks below creating an unbelievable carnage that would take rescue workers and search dogs months to reach. Any survivors would have to gnaw off their own arms and legs that are caught in splintered cable and buckled panels of metal and glass. Then come the bears and the fire ants.

“Oh-look-at-the-view-it's-gorgeous-this-little-country-of-oursis-so-beautiful. What's-wrong-Annie? You-don't-like-the-view?”

I shook my head and looked around the cable car to figure out which area could be safest. If I sat near the windows I could make a quick escape right before impact, but then again, if I sat right in the middle my metal lunch box could protect me from other falling lunch boxes.

“Anne, come here, look at view!” My mother stuck her head as close to the glass as possible without messing up her make-up.

“Get away from the door, Mom. It could open.”

My mother rolled her eyes. “How it open?”

“We're in here right? So it can open.”

“Anne, come here!”

“I feel nauseous.”

“You don't like heights?” The ajeoshi patted my back.

“No I don't like cable cars.”

My mother reached in her purse and offered me a hard candy. “Eat, make you feel better.”

“What kind is it?”

“Ginseng.”

“Barf.”

“What does ‘barf ' mean?” the ajeoshi asked my mother.

When we finally reached the top of the mountain, I scrambled off the cable car and planted my feet on the ground. Beautiful, hard, stable ground. With insects.

“You OK, Anne? You scaredy-cat.”

“I'm fine. And cold.”

My mother tightened the scarf around my neck. “You such baby.”

“The pine tree belongs to Korea.” The ajeoshi took a deep breath. “Smells fresh, right?”

I took a deep breath, something I rarely do. Cities smell like piss and people and I usually try to refrain from breathing. The crisp air
smelled like damp pine and Earth with a hint of salt from the ocean. Pleasant. We walked up a well-tread path, along with several families, monks, and tourists, and looked out as Korea and the ocean stretched below us. When I was in elementary school, I learned that the sea on the east side of Korea was called the Sea of Japan. My parents were offended and informed me that it should be referred to as the East Sea. The sea belongs to no one, they explained.

After awhile, we all decided it was much too cold to be outdoors, much less on top of a mountain. It took us over seven hours and five meals to get to the mountain and we only stayed there for fifteen minutes. We made our way back down and I survived another cable car ride, but the question was could I survive the car ride back to Seoul?

Sticking to our schedule, we stopped an hour later for coffee and pastries, and an hour after that we stopped at a flea market, and an hour after that we had dinner. The ajuma poured everyone some tea and the adults chatted while I faded in and out of the conversation. I was tired. Traveling for over twelve hours with my mother was no easy task. I'm sure she felt the same way about me.

“You-know-what-we-should-do-now? Karaoke-doesn't-that-sound-like-fun-we-can-sing-or-maybe-we-can-go-dancing-or-maybe-we-can-do-both-I-hear-Americans-don't-like-karaoke-doyou-like-karaoke-Annie-you-know-your-mother-is-quite-a-singershe-should-be-famous. Let's go!” She tugged on my sleeve.

“No, I'm too tired.”

“Nonsense! You always go out all night with your friends; you should be able to go out with us,” my mother retorted in Korean. She wagged her finger at me.