By Ellyn Pak
Umma is lost in her thoughts, every so often shifting her body in a stuffy airplane seat between her two grown children.
She’s only slept a few hours in the past day, afraid to close her eyes and miss a moment. At 53 years old, she’s finally making the trek back to Korea after 26 years, and she’s bringing my younger brother Mark and me along for the journey. Umma doesn’t know what to expect. The images from the Korean melodramas she religiously rents from Videotown in Maryland are her only modern-day reference points.
She knows Seoul isn’t the same city she visited in 1981 with my dad and me, then just a year old. But she still wants to look for some of her old haunts: the park where Appa took her for long strolls when they dated; the cafes where she spent hours gabbing with her best friend, Jung Hee; the neighborhood where she lived during her formative years before immigrating to the U.S. in the early ‘70s. She wants to visit the memories of a past life.
My umma — normally a feisty, control-freak — has no itinerary for our near two-week trip, leaving my brother and me surprised at her sudden free-spiritedness. She’s finally unencumbered by the endless bills, chores and responsibilities that prevented her from re-visiting her homeland for so long.
My brother and I are excited about the long-overdue trip. Mark, who loves to follow Korean pop culture through music and YouTube videos of popular television shows, has never been to the country. He looks forward to soaking in everything Korean: the smells, food, culture and people.
I consider this my first real visit to Korea because I was still in diapers the last time I was there. I expect Seoul to be a huge version of Los Angeles’ Koreatown and can’t wait to be immersed in it.
Umma is more than eager to show us her roots; our roots.
***
We land at Incheon International Airport after 12 grueling hours. My mom gazes into the crowd of people waiting to greet their loved ones, even though she knows there’s no one to welcome us. My mom’s siblings immigrated to the U.S. long ago, leaving Korea behind for more opportunities. Still, Umma had hoped her best friend Jung Hee would show. “She’s busy, Mom. She’s probably working and couldn’t drive down to meet us,” I say.
She doesn’t respond, her disappointment palpable. When we get to the transit hotel in Incheon, Umma expresses her frustration. But she calls Jung Hee anyway, to tell her that she’ll meet her in Seoul the next day after we get some shut-eye.
“You’re at the airport? I thought you couldn’t make it!” Umma cries out. Her friend had taken a bus from Seoul to the airport, but she couldn’t find us. She was on the brink of catching a bus back into the city and is relieved to hear we are staying nearby. She taxis it over to our hotel, and after half an hour, the elevator opens to a stranger. My mom and Jung Hee stare at each other for a few moments before they squeal. “I can barely recognize you! You’ve gotten older!” Umma says.
“Of course I’ve gotten older! We haven’t seen each other for so long. We’ve both gotten older,” Jung Hee says.
Mark and I don’t want to intrude. We shift awkwardly on the edges of our beds in the room, inserting ourselves into their conversation when appropriate. We are relieved when they ask us to pick up some food in the city. We escape to the streets, dodging the rain and ducking into shops before settling on fried chicken and sodas.
Back in the room, Umma and her friend are still engrossed in conversation. They talk for hours, until Jung Hee falls asleep next to Umma. Umma doesn’t sleep a wink. Maybe these moments will last longer if she doesn’t blink.
***
The four of us take a shuttle back to the airport, where we find buses to take us to Seoul. Umma and her friend — who insists that we call her Imo (“aunt” in Korean) — agree to meet later that day in Shillimdong, where they both grew up.
Umma, Mark and I head over to the heart of the city, Myeongdong, where my dad spent his childhood before his only immediate family member, his mother, died. We stay in the district for that reason — the connection to my dad’s past, which he only talks about when we probe. Work has prevented Appa from joining us on the trip.
The noisy streets and sky-high towers bewilder Umma, who is searching for recognizable sights. The buildings are taller than she last remembers them, the streets are clogged with hundreds of taxis, and the teahouses with live music are long gone. She doesn’t find anything familiar. She trails her children, who are eager to explore the city and stop at the street stands and shops.
She tells me that her marriage certificate and documents are located somewhere in Myeongdong in case I want to look for more information after she and Appa pass away. I’m stunned that she’s talking about her own mortality, and I dismiss the statement.
After we make rough plans for the next 10 days, we meet up with Imo and her two grown kids in Shillimdong. The “kids” eat kalbi and knock back countless bottles of soju at a nearby restaurant to ease the awkward moments. Umma and Imo are unfazed by their tipsy children; they are too busy reminiscing.
Umma wants to see the old house in which she, her two brothers and two sisters were raised. She’s not surprised to hear that the place is long gone, replaced by apartment buildings. Instead, she and Imo find an old café they visited as pig-tailed, high school students.
We go to a nearby noraebang, or karaoke house, and get to know our “cousins” Sera and Yoo Yong. We instantly forge bonds with them. They are the closest to family we have in a country to which we’ve never before felt a strong connection.
Though we grew up eating kalbi and kimchi, plastered H.O.T. posters in our rooms, and spoke Korean, Mark and I were equally American and felt somewhat disconnected from our parents’ roots.
It may not last, but each day we spend in our motherland, we feel entirely Korean.
***
Every morning, Umma buys dozens of pastries and coffee from the bakery next door to our hotel. She is amazed by the number of cafes and shops carrying red-bean-filled goodies and cream-filled bbang, or bread.
Cafés are enormously popular in the city and are filled with caffeine-addicted young people. It was no different in the ‘70s, Umma explains, except the food and drinks were less expensive.
Food is one of the highlights of the trip. The trendy clothes and shoes we find in the boutiques and shopping centers are pricey, but the food is fairly affordable. We prefer food from the street stands: kimbap, deokbokgi, sundae, fried everything. We gorge on patbingsu — shaved ice topped with red bean — and stop into frozen yogurt shops that sparked copycats in my stomping ground, Southern California.
Umma seeks certain foods that are tied to certain memories of her past. During pit stops to and from Gyeongju, she buys ears of grilled corn that remind her of the ones she bought with Jung Hee during their train rides to the countryside or beach. She buys bags and bags of dried cuttlefish and squid at the Lotte supermarket, though she knows we won’t eat much of it.
Like a typical Korean mom, Umma overspends and feeds us constantly during the trip, in part because she misses being a doting mom.
Now in our 20s, Mark and I have branched out with our own lives, and we have few opportunities to spend quality time with each other and our parents. Since I moved to the West Coast from Maryland nearly three years ago, I’ve seen less and less of my family. Mark’s move to law school an hour away from my parents’ house in Rockland, Md., means the house is even emptier than it used to be.
So Umma tries to make up for lost time by forcing food down our throats. Her efforts are endearing, but it’s enough to convince us to do crunches every night to flatten our bloated bellies.
***
Umma eventually realizes she won’t be able to find many of the places she frequented in a city that has changed so drastically. She decides to take us to the sights she’s never seen.
We take a day trip to the demilitarized zone dividing North and South Korea; we check out the N Seoul Tower which boasts a breathtaking view of the whole city; we watch a changing-of-the-guards ceremony at Deoksugung Palace. We spend four days in Gyeongju — the old capital of the Silla Dynasty hours away from Seoul — and check out the Buddhist temples, hillside tombs, pottery-making villages and museums.
Umma soaks in every minute of the trip, as if she’ll never come back to the country. She buys souvenirs at each sight we see, stocking up on trinkets and jewelry. She takes endless photos that she’ll sift through later, after the trip. She’s like an elementary school kid on her first field trip, dragging her chaperones around with her.
She also gives Mark and me our own free time, because she wants to visit the Namdaemun and Dongdaemun outdoor markets while we check out the more trendy shops in Myeongdong. I worry about Umma and get flustered when she doesn’t return to the hotel when she says she will. I have adopted the motherly role, worrying about her every move, wondering if she’s getting eaten alive on the busy side streets of the city.
I am also fascinated by Seoul, a place that reminds me of other Asian cities I have visited. Unlike in Japan and Singapore, I can easily communicate with people in Korea and can’t help but probe the young tour guide at the DMZ with random questions about North Korea, and ask the aggressive saleswomen at the Lotte department store if they actually like the clothes they are trying to sell.
I am self-assured here, comfortable engaging with strangers while creating new memories each day.
For Umma the connection is more about old memories, and I can sense that she wishes she had come back to her homeland earlier.
***
Toward the end of our trip, I am sated with everything Korean. I crave carne asada, fries and daydream about driving my car, though I know I’ll quickly get sick of navigating traffic-choked freeways. I long for my own bed and, surprisingly, miss the daily grind of work. I can tell Mark is ready to go home, too, to get ready for his first year of law school and spend time with his girlfriend.
Umma, on the other hand, wants to fit more into our crammed schedule.
We meet with Imo the night before we fly back to Los Angeles. I can sense the dread Umma feels about saying goodbye to her dear friend. They eke out as much time as they can before parting, talking for hours at a basement teahouse while their children shoot billiards on the floor above. The two women promise to see each other every few years and keep in touch through phone calls. “Let’s not wait another 26 years to see each other,” they both say.
Tears stream down our faces as we hop into a taxi back to our hotel. Already, Umma says she feels empty. The ride back to Myeongdong is solemn, our faces turned to the windows of the car to hide our tears. Our dreamy trip is about to end.
Our last day in Korea feels heavy. We check out of our hotel room, but decide to visit one last place before our plane ride home. We taxi over to Sajik Gongwon, a park near Appa’s childhood home. It’s the park where Mom and Dad hung out during their courtship, where they talked about their future together long before they got married and had children.
Umma is excited to see the place, though it has changed drastically. The windy stone steps that lead to a few trails remain, but it doesn’t feel the same, Umma says. She lingers at the statues in the middle of the park and looks for old water fountains.
I’m eager to get to the airport so we don’t miss our flight back to the U.S., but Umma wants to stay at the park as long as she can. I realize it may be many more years before she returns, and she needs a moment to herself. She doesn’t say much and retreats to her thoughts.
“I’m going to miss this place,” she finally says.
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One of the the biggest Asian cinema events to hit Southern California opens on May 10. The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, presented by Visual Communications, features the latest works by established and emerging filmmakers, along with seminars, panel discussions and symposiums on topics relevant to Asian Pacific cinema.
Opening Night features “Shanghai Calling,” directed by Daniel Hsia and starring Korean American Daniel Henney, who plays a Chinese American expat lawyer navigating his way through the mean streets of Shanghai (the picture above also indicates he is a raisin smuggler). But does he take off his shirt? Go watch the movie to find out! read more
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