Happy Birthday or Whatever (6 page)

“Why you such bad student? Everyday I worry that you fail. Then you not get job and you get hungry. Then you get cold and sick. Anne, you not study, you die. Why you give me heart attack?”

“I go to
hagyuh
everyday! There's too much school. I can't keep up. It's the stress.” I was very proud that I knew the word
stress.
It made me sound like an adult.

“What? No, no, Anne, you not get stress. Mommy get stress! You fail spelling and God and
hangook
school, Mommy get so stress!”

“Why do I need to go to Korean school? I speak Korean!”

As an eight-year-old, I saw no need to go to Korean school and learn letters and words I didn't care about and had no need for. As a mother who saw her daughter lose the tongue of the mother country, she felt concerned. If I couldn't read, write, or speak Korean, then what kind of Korean would I be?

I finally managed to pass the Korean first grade, but shortly after I entered the Korean second grade, my teacher approached my mother—even after two years of Korean school, I still had difficulty reading and writing the alphabet. My mother brought home Korean workbooks, written for the grade level below me, and with the watchful eye of a prison guard, she supervised while I practiced writing Korean letters on large sheets of grid paper. As I painfully
copied a letter in each box, my mother showed me the stroke order in which to write each letter, something I had always ignored.

In English you can write an E however you like, and no one will stop you; it's truly a free country. You can write the vertical line first, and then draw the three horizontal lines, or vice versa. You can even draw the top line, the vertical line, the bottom line, and then add the middle line. In Korean, there is an emphasis on stroke order. One must draw from top to bottom, then left to right, even if it's not efficient. For example, this is how you are supposed to write
lee-ul,
the letter that looks like a backward s
.

To me, this was incredibly inefficient. My mother explained that this stroke order emerged because Koreans used to write with calligraphy brushes, and now it was just tradition.

“But I don't write with a brush. I write with a pencil. So can't I just write the letter however I want?”

“No, Anne. There is order. This only way!”

“But Miss Jensen said there was more than one way to do something!”

“Miss Jensen not Korean. In Korea there only one way!”

Only one way? Well, I thought, that is just wrong. Obviously you can write the letter in one swift motion, without having to pick up the pencil off the paper, and it will look exactly the same. So, whenever my mother wasn't looking, I wrote all the letters the way I wanted to write them—whatever was easiest and fastest.

As my parents got busier—my father with work and my mother with church—I began doing my Korean homework unsupervised. Immediately my handwriting got sloppier, and my lee-ul started losing its 90-degree angles. It mutated into a curvy backward s, which only added to my confusion when I read. As my Korean teacher pointed out, my handwriting was so illegible it was as if I had a hook for a hand. My ignorance of stroke order, she assessed, was my problem. But this is the way I still write
lee-ul
today, in those rare cases I write in Korean. I had to look up the stroke order on the Internet.

I attended Korean school for six years and eventually I learned how to read, but my penmanship never improved. The Korean alphabet is full of straight lines and geometric shapes and right angles, and my letters looked soft and squishy and bloated, just like a fat, lazy American. My vocabulary never really improved either and to this day I speak like a third grader, using short words in simple sentence constructions. I get quiet and shy when I speak Korean around my parents' friends and colleagues; I fear that they will judge me based on my Korean skills, which will reflect poorly on my parents. Even though my parents can drive me into a blinding postal rage, I still feel sorry for letting them down.

As I've gotten older, I've made more of an effort to speak Korean to my family. Whenever I see my cousins, I try to carry conversations in Korean and they always speak to me in English because they want to practice their skills and learn all the slang I usually throw around. Lately, I've been watching more Korean films; one of my favorite directors is Park Chan-wook, whose films are much more violent and disturbing and heartwrenching than any American movie I've ever seen. When I visit my mother, sometimes I'll watch Korean soap operas with her and she'll translate for me.

“What's going on?”

“Both sister love same man.”

“Who does he love?”

“Old sister, one with long hair. But her husband die so she not ready, but everybody know she love him. She tell him to marry sister.”

“That's stupid. He doesn't love the sister, why would he marry her?”

“Because he love old sister and he do what she say.”

“
Booorrring
. Korean soap operas are just as lame as American ones.”

“Anne, quiet, I watch!”

“But this is horrible. Change the channel.”

“No, I like.”

“Let's watch that game show.”

In one of my favorite Korean game shows, contestants must execute rather embarrassing and physically demanding tasks. In one episode, several groups of students had to wear 80s athletic gear—sweatbands, striped knee-high socks, tiny polyester shorts—and hold on to ropes hanging from the ceiling. Then, they had to answer random questions for points. (What year was our president born? Which weighs more, a monkey or man in a monkey suit?) The team that hung on to the rope the longest and had the most points won a prize that wasn't worth the effort, maybe a coupon or something.

“Anne that show stupy. Finish this one first. Then we watch different.”

“Fine, fine, but this is really bad. Oh look, now everyone's crying.”

Three years ago for my mother's birthday, I sent her a card with a black-and-white photograph of a large group of nuns. Their backs were facing the camera, with their dark habits draped generously over their heads and shoulders. One pale, wrinkled nun was turned around, sternly shushing a gleaming white crying toddler,
who was wearing nothing but white diapers. Normally I would have written birthday wishes in English, but instead I wrote a short message in Korean. I wanted to show my mother that now, after many, many years, her daughter was trying to reclaim the language she once knew and then forgot and then rejected. I suppose it's pretty ironic: I began life being “special” in the English language and now I'm “special” in the Korean language.

I overemphasized the angles and lines of each Korean letter, making sure each right angle was right and each line was perfectly straight, though I admit to ignoring the stroke order. I wrote, “Mother, you are very old! I am your only daughter. Annie.”

My mother called me in a fit of laughter, saying that my handwriting looked like a first-grader's, the way a kid pays so much attention to how the letter looks that it is devoid of any style or personality. My mother felt that this was especially amusing since style and personality were not things I lacked. Then she explained that I misspelled the word
mother
.

“Oh my gosh, you spell like baby!” She laughed loudly over the phone.

“You know, I can play this game, too. What do you study when you learn about Socrates and Plato? What do you call that?”

My mother started laughing even harder.

“Come on, tell me, what did Socrates study?”

“Anne…”

“Come on, say it. Say it for me.”

“Pflipspy?”

“What? No you're close…”

“Pflospsi? Oh too hard!”

I laughed so hard that I snorted. My mother's mouth has always struggled with the f and l sound, something that doesn't occur in Korean.

“OK, OK, good enough. What color is a plum? Or grapes?”

“Oh so easy, Mommy can do this one—puppel! My only daughter think she such genius—how you say ‘my room'?”

I laughed and then stopped—wait, how do you say “my room” in Korean? I always got “my room” and “moth” confused. One was
nahbang
and the other was
nehbang.
To my undistinguishing American ear, there was barely a difference. For years I always said, “I'm going to my moth!” or “I know my moth is messy!” or “Stay out of my moth!” My mother thought this was sort of cute—it was a mistake many young children made, even though I was saying it when I was seventeen. Even my relatives thought it was adorable, although a little pathetic. Everyone always corrected me. Annie, they explained, you do not sleep in a moth. But I always ignored them.

“No, no I know this one, I know this. It's…
nahbang?
”

“Wrong! You got wrong!”

“No, no I meant
nehbang.
”

“Sure, sure. Anne, you should have study in
hangook hagyuh.
”

“I know, I know, you're right. I should have study.”

T
o say that I was a “late bloomer” is like saying childbirth is mildly uncomfortable. Doctors claim there's no “right age” for a girl to start menstruating, but every girl knows the truth—getting the first period too early or too late can do more social damage than farting explosively during study hall. Even the term “late bloomer” itself insinuates that there's a scheduled time, a planned date and hour, like a manicure. Most girls get their first period when they're eleven or twelve years old. I was seventeen when I got mine.

I applied to college before I was a woman. I had my first job before I was a woman. I even learned to drive before I was a woman. Imagine, if you will, an enormous cruise ship helmed by a ten-year-old. That was me, driving my mother's white Cadillac at sixteen. I was four feet, ten inches and weighed ninety pounds soaking wet, and my main challenge was not parallel parking, but getting the seat high enough to look over the dashboard, but low enough to reach the pedals. Moving the chair somewhere in the middle meant watching the road through the spaces in the steering wheel. My driving instructor took one look and knew he was walking into a deathtrap.

“You're sixteen?”

“Yes. Yes I am.”

“Have you considered learning on a smaller car?”

I learned on the driving school's compact Japanese sedan, which suited me better than my mother's American yacht.

Blooming late is in my blood. My mother got her first period at sixteen. Throughout most of high school, she was a pale, pocket-sized schoolgirl who feared any animal bigger than a bowl of rice.

“Mommy was so small. I wear green clothes I look like…like…lepra…leper…. Ah, you know small, green…very small…from Irish?”

“You mean a leprechaun?”

“Yes, Mommy look like leperka just like you!”

“I do not look like a leprechaun.”

“When you baby you look like leperka, or little Santa Claus.”

“What? No, you're totally confused. Santa Claus is big.”

“No, no, like Santa Claus maid.”

“Mrs. Claus?”

“No, you know, little maid, they make toy.”

“You mean ELVES?”

“Yes! You look like elves!”

As a teenager, my mother cowered under Chang-hee, her taller, brawny sister whose voice sounded as if she chain-smoked Brillo pads, even when she was seven years old. Together they attended school in Seoul along with their younger sister, Jin-hee, who was mildly retarded from a birth complication, and their younger brother, Jae-sung, who walked with a limp caused by polio. Classmates teased the Hong children mercilessly and many walks to school were spent holding back tears and looking anxiously over their shoulders.

“They say Jin-hee and Jae-sung ugly and stupid. I so mad but what I can do? Mommy smaller than you! Chang-hee big, but she never fight. She such turkey.”

“Chicken. You mean chicken.”

“No she bigger than chicken. She turkey.”

Apparently, Chang-hee was overwhelmed with the embarrassment that only retarded, crippled, and midget siblings can bring.

“Then I grow tall and everyone so small! I say, ‘Why you yell at Jin-hee? She quiet and not bother you! You terrible!' Then I get taller and taller and they get scare.”

After she hit puberty at sixteen, my mother soared to five feet, six inches, which was extremely tall for a Korean woman in the 1960s. It's actually pretty tall for a Korean woman now. In high school, my mother was quite athletic; she dominated her high school's volleyball team. I had assumed that when I hit ninth grade I'd do the same; volleyball looked fun, especially when one was on the winning team. But I quickly realized my mother's sport wouldn't be an option for me unless officials lowered the net by three feet and Reebok made platform sneakers. Basketball was out, too, even though my mother was convinced I'd “look so cute in basket uniform with big short pants.”
I decided that athletics wouldn't be part of my high school scene, but my mother insisted that I play a sport—it'd look good for Harvard. I picked track and field because I figured that playing a team sport would've been unfair to my teammates, and with track I figured that if and when I lost a race, I'd only be hurting myself. Plus, the track coach never turned anyone away—anyone with two legs could run, he said. I had two legs and I could run. It just took me a long time.

Puberty is like any fad; it is always dangerous to be too early or too late. Take, for example, the 1980s trend of wearing gym shorts on top of sweatpants. I imagine that the first individual to make this bold fashion statement—that wearing underwear on the outside of your pants is cool—was brave and audacious, but probably suffered a ton of justifiable ridicule. But then the fad caught on and department stores started selling sweatpants with gym shorts sewn on top, and everyone enjoyed being trendy and comfortable and dumpy all at the same time. Anyone who caught on to the trend too late might as well have sported lederhosen.

Since my mother and I were late bloomers, we wore the lederhosen. My friend Christy Roland bloomed too early, so she was freakish and uncool, too. When we first started seventh grade, most of our classmates hadn't developed yet and they saw her as a grotesque anomaly, a husky girl with big plastic glasses and ample hips. Girls whispered behind her back and walked briskly past her, glancing curiously at the mounds in her sweaters. But then Christy became accepted, or perhaps tolerated, because everyone had finally caught up with her. If there's one lesson I learned from my high-school career counselor, it is this: Better to be early, than late. Miss Osborne was referring to job interviews, but I think the lesson applies to everything in life, with the exception of arriving at your own surprise birthday party.

Christy and I both played flute in the middle-school band, which my mother forced me to join even after I explained that band was socially “the worst idea ever.” Christy had started growing breasts and “special hair” and all that good stuff at ten years old; I was a foot shorter and her nipples were at my eye level. Christy ignored most of the girls and instead eyeballed the boys, who didn't really know what girls were, other than mysterious and elusive animals that cried a lot and traveled in packs. She caught the attention of older boys she met on the street, in the Tower Records parking lot, and at the mall food court. By the time she was twelve, she was dating sixteen-year-olds who sold weed and bootleg Mötley Crüe tapes out of their trucks. During band class, Christy would pull me aside and recount her adventures in romance.

“My boyfriend went up my shirt last night, and I totally felt his erection through his jeans!”

“Get out, really?”

“For reals! I was like ‘ew gross' and then like ‘oh my God.' And my mom caught me talking on the phone with him at midnight!”

“Oh no! Did she know it was him?”

“No, I said it was you—she's so stupid, she had, like, no idea.”

When our band teacher separated us, Christy passed me notes about how her boyfriend wanted to have sex, but all she wanted to do was make out. She liked to make out; it was one of her favorite things. As proof, Christy wore a necklace full of soda can tabs.

“Each tab is a promise that your boyfriend will give you eight hours of Frenching.
Hard
Frenching.”

Christy wore about five hundred of these tabs, given to her, I imagine, by either an incredibly thirsty boyfriend or a generous Coca-Cola distributor (also probably a boyfriend). Not only is that a whole lot of soda, 6,000 fluid ounces to be exact, but also a whole lot of Frenching–4,000 hours. Not bad for a twelve-year-old. I have
to admit that even at my age now, I've only accomplished a fraction of that. I mean at 4,000 hours, you'd have to make out for at least ten hours a day for a year. Now, I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's virtually impossible for anyone who has a job or goes to school or breathes.

In seventh grade, Christy ruled the dance floor—she could do the Roger Rabbit, the Kid 'N Play, and even the Robocop. She went into each dance move seamlessly, sometimes throwing in a little Cabbage Patch to dazzle onlookers. But her most famous move was a dance she invented in which she paraded around the room jutting out her massive chest, sticking out her ass, and wagging her round hips back and forth. At first it didn't drive the twelve-year-old boys crazy—they were still figuring out that they were supposed to be turned on—but eventually they started staring and asking her to do the Dance during lunch. Christy happily obliged; she thought of the Dance as her mating call. She was exploring her sexuality when many girls, including me, were arguing over which flavor of Jolly Rancher was best (cherry). Christy showcased what was to come: boobs and boys.

Quickly the girls in junior high caught up with Christy and by the end of seventh grade, most of the girls were wearing soda can tabs—not a single soda can within a four-mile radius had a tab. Soon Tanya was totally into Brian who was into Kara who was going with Jason who kissed Tanya (but it was by accident so he wasn't cheating). All the girls got boobs and asses, and they loved being women—except, of course, for me. Friends looked to Christy for advice on love, for she was an experienced woman.

One afternoon Christy broke down in tears. Her mom had forbid her to French Jim, a boyfriend she had just met at the Fallbrook Mall (one who had just turned seventeen). All of our friends offered our sympathies and advice, but since I had never
even talked to a boy, much less Frenched one real hard, all I could do was hairspray her bangs and make her a mix tape. One afternoon, in a solemn ceremony, Christy offered me a soda can tab, explaining that she had snuck out of the house and finally Frenched Jim for eight hours at a super-secret location (probably his truck), and it would mean a lot to her if I wore it as a sign of our sisterhood. I was touched. I wore it until my mother asked why I was wearing trash and made me take it off. But I kept it in my locker so I could wear it at school. I secretly hoped that everyone would assume I had a marathon make-out session with a sixteen-year-old.

All the seventh-grade girls seemed to get their first periods around the same time. Girls in the locker rooms and bathrooms would ask each other for a tampon or a pad, and then launch into a heated tampon-versus-pad discussion, which segued into conversations about boys—Do you really think he likes me, as in like-like me? When it came to feminine products, I'd smile and pretend I knew what I was talking about. I was a staunch pad supporter because I didn't know how to use a tampon, even though Christy explained it to me several times and even drew diagrams, which I squirreled away in my nightstand for when I'd need them. I figured I'd support the feminine product that mystified me less.

“Oh my God, I totally use Always Ultra with Wings, too. The Dri-Weave like totally works.”

Everything I knew about being a woman, I learned from Christy or commercials. Christy knew I hadn't gotten my first period, but she didn't care. I don't think anyone in school actually cared, except for me. Christy helped me create the illusion of womanhood by talking periods with me and I was grateful. I believed that menstruation was a requirement to fit in, just like MC Hammer pants and high-top sneakers.

The rungs of my junior high's social ladder were made of feminine products. Just by asking Laura Paris if you could have a tampon, you established three things:

1. You were a woman.
   
2. You knew that Laura was a tampon supporter.
   
3. You were personal enough with Laura to ask for a tampon.
   

If Laura presented you with a tampon, you established three things:

1. You were a woman.
   
2. You were like totally cool.
   
3. She would one day ask you for a tampon, thereby forging a relationship between two mature women in which you could do womanly things together, like drink coffee and talk about how annoying men are.
   

Sometimes I'd ask a fellow woman for a pad, just to gain some menstrual cred. Then I'd stow it in my locker, hoping that one day I'd use it. I was worried. What if they found out I wasn't a woman at all? What if I never became a woman? What if I had to pretend to feel bloated and get cramps for the rest of my life? How would I get out of gym class?

Because my ovaries were in a deep coma and possibly dead, I was short, skinny, and flat in eighth grade. If I turned to the side, I'd disappear almost completely. The boys began snapping bra straps, and girls would giggle in response, happy that they were getting attention from the opposite sex, even if it was childish and
perhaps a little painful. I was paralyzed with fear. I had no bra to snap. I began wearing white undershirts and folding them up so that they looked like sports bras. Perhaps I could fool them. The day Jon Thomas grasped for my back, he took a handful of tank top. He thought he had missed. I was relieved to tears.

When we reached ninth grade, Christy and I went to separate high schools. I would have to face womanhood without my woman. Every single girl in high school wore a bra and they all needed one—even the small, skinny girls (who were still significantly taller and heavier than me). In the locker room, women openly mentioned their unmentionables, oh did you get a new bra? Yeah totally I got it from Victoria's Secret. Oh my God it is so cute! Before and after track-and-field practice, I made sure that no one would discover that I didn't wear a bra and didn't even need one. I would change in the bathroom stalls or wait until women had left the locker room. I was late to practice most of the time and as a result, my coach made me run extra laps around the track. Still, jogging an extra mile didn't take nearly as much energy as pretending to be a woman.

But soon I became desperate. I was fourteen years old, with no hair, rack, or rear in sight. Anyone could confuse my back for my chest. I had the body of a nine-year-old boy. It was time for serious measures.

I had always pictured a moment where I would walk with my mother around a lake and tell her how I had become a woman. Everything would be beautiful and soft. There'd be a lot of ducks. We'd be wearing flowing white dresses and she'd give me a hug and a box of Tampax.