Thursday, Oct. 23, 2003.
Number of weeks pregnant Amy is:
24 weeks.
Weight gained this pregnancy:
15 pounds.
(About half as much as when she had Sun Su.)
MIXED VEGGIESJin Mi Café. A tiny Corean restaurant owned by one harmoni (granny) and her Native American husband.
“Back when we were dating, did anyone ever tell you that you shouldn't be with me … because I don't look Asian or Corean?” I asked over my spicy chicken.
“Hmm. The only people who could have said anything like that to me would be my family. And they never did. I was really surprised,” Amy answered.
Amy's answer didn't surprise me. I asked partly because I couldn't imagine anyone she didn't know telling her who she should date. Amy projects a very tangible KBOFF (KeepBackingOffFuckFace) presence around strangers. She even walks and stands like a man, probably from fighting with her very patriarchal older brother all the time.
“When I finished high school, it was understood that I would just date Corean guys.”
“Understood by who(m)?”
“Well, mostly my brother said it, but I knew my parents wanted that too,” Amy continued,
“But then in college, it changed to any Asian guys.”
Amy dated a few guys in college. There was Meng the Hmong. And this artsy Chinese guy who sent her postcards from his studies abroad. She also dated a Jewish teaching assistant and a much older white “friend” who always took her to see Asian films. The deathblow for each of them was when they had said “I love you” to a very nonreciprocally feeling Amy. “Why does every guy always have to say I LOVE YOU? How can you love someone you barely know?” she would say.
“Then it was Whatever guys.”
Enter: me.
“Your brother or parents didn't say anything about me, ever?”
“No, they couldn't. There was nothing wrong with you. You were too yamjaneh.”
“A what?”
“Yamjaneh. It means ‘good,'” Amy continued to explain,
“You treated me good. You were clean, nice and respectful. It probably helped that you were half-Corean. I really thought my dad would say something, but he never did.
“Maybe if you weren't very nice or respectful or they didn't like you, then they'd talk about you not being Corean, but they had nothing to complain about.
“Why are you bringing this up now? Has anyone said anything to you?”
“Not really. I mean, no one ever actually says things. You just sense it sometimes. There's always someone, the looks, the brush offs, even at church. Whatever.”
“It doesn't matter,” Amy said, “We're married. It's you and me. I don't see us that way.
“Yeah, I know.”
…
I briefly told Amy some of the things I've been feeling. Noticing. Sensing. Whenever and wherever we are with a bunch of Corean people. Things I don't really want to write here, even though I did last night, and even more today, but I put all those paragraphs away for now. Because no one is ready for this kind of fury.
We talked about more trivial things. Just the fact that you have someone to talk to about the trivial things makes those things not trivial at all.
A brightly dressed older Corean woman walked into the restaurant then, followed by a young Caucasian woman carrying a sandy haired baby.
“Hi Amy!” the older Corean woman alerted us from across the small diner.
The Caucasian girl was the wife of her half-Corean son. The young woman's baby was a ¼ Corean baby girl. Nothing about the baby girl looked Corean. Not even hair or eye color. You're pretty much the end of the Corean line, aren't you little one?
[It's the norm for many half-Coreans to marry non-Coreans. But not all half-Coreans. Either they don't identify with the heritage because they don't look it, or they get turned off by all the non-acceptance prevalent among many full Asians.]
The fair-haired young woman with the baby had that plain and practical beauty that young mothers radiate like sunshine. The kind of natural glow a woman gets when she has something far more important than makeup, deadlines, or relationship issues in her life. When she becomes the gentle god to a little one that depends on her for all the big things and all the trivial things.
“You should come to my house sometime, Amy,” the ajumma boasted, “We have pumpkins this big, apples this big, carrots this big. All kinds of different vegetables. Lots of fun. I invite people every year. Harmonis (grannies) love it!”
Harmonis like all different kinds of vegetables. The good ones, the bad ones, even the mixed ones. We're all part of the same garden to the harmonis.
Outside the restaurant, Amy and I said our goodbyes. She was going home. I was going back to work.
“I seriously need to brush my teeth to get rid of this spicy chicken breath,” I thought aloud.
“Alright, bye baby,” Amy said offering her cheek to kiss.
I kissed her on the lips.
“Was that a kiss spicy?” I joked.
“Not too spicy,” Amy smiled.
____________________________
ACTUAL FAN MAIL FROM THE NETHERLANDS
Dear Scott,
I am writing digital teaching materials on influenza to be downloaded for free by Dutch pupils. For this I am making a top ten of does and don'ts when you have the flu. One of the top ten items of don'ts is picking your nose with your finger and clean it on some object that is touched also by others. As an illustration I would like to use the picture on your website. Would you be so kind to give permission for this educational non-commercial use?
H.D.
Centre for Global education in the Netherlands
(Click it. Don't pick it.)
Of course I said he could use the picture.
David Hasselhoff, eat your heart out.
____________________________
EVEN ADMIRAL YI SHIN
WOULD BE PROUDME: "Hey, my camera isn't working."
AMY: "I think Sun Su broke it this morning."
ME: "How? It's practically indestructible."
AMY: "He poured water on it."
ME: "Wha? How much?"
AMY: "Enough that I didn't want to wake you up this morning after he did it. It hasn't worked all day."
Gotta admire the little tiger for finding the one elemental weakness in all that hi-tech armor. I'm so proud.
My brother says I should give it a few weeks to dry out. Until then I'll buy another one temporarily and save the receipt.
Possible excuses upon returning the surrogate digital camera will be:
1. "Uh, I didn't know I needed a computer for this camera."
2. "Does it come in fuschia?" (While wearing Amy's old Bebe shirt and hotpants.)
3. "I thought it was a mobile phone."
4. "I decided to get the SONY model instead." (Nah, that one would never work.)
5. "I found the resolution insufficient for examining pubic hairs."
6. "Dude, where are the games on this?"
7. "It's not water-proof."
