Copyright Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 83–71242 ISBN 0–910043–01–9 Copyright 1983 by Ty Pak Published by Bamboo Ridge Press and the Hawaii Ethnic Resources Center: Talk Story, Inc. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. Printed in the United States. Guest editor: James Harstad Cover and book design: Phyllis Y. Miyamoto “A Fire” was first published in Bamboo Ridge, The Hawaii Writers’ Quarterly, No. 7 (June-August 1980): 28–36. It was reprinted in Asian and Pacific Literature, Vol. I (1982: Hawaii State Department of Education), 443–450. “Steady Hands” was first published in Bamboo Ridge, The Hawaii Writers’ Quarterly, No. 13 (December 1981-February 1982): 27–34. This project was supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in Washington, D.C., a federal agency. It was also supported, in part, by a grant from the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts (SFCA). The SFCA is funded by grants from the Hawaii State Legislature and by grants from the NEA. Bamboo Ridge Press P.O. Box 61781 Honolulu, Hawaii 96839–1781 (808) 599–4823 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 96 97 98 99 iv Contents Title Page iii Introduction vi Guilt Payment 1 Possession Sickness 13 The St. Peter of Seoul 23 Identity 48 The Boar 53 Steady Hands 62 Nostalgia 69 A Fire 78 A Second Chance 85 A Regeneration 108 Exile 125 The Water Tower 138 The Grateful Korean 152 Copyright iv v Introduction It is not the mission of that most civilized of American institutions, the National Geographic Society, to document conflict between peoples. Usually, as in the Oc- tober 1952 edition of its familiar journal, it seems to go far out of its way to avoid the suggestion that human beings are ever anything but charitable toward and harmonious with one another and with all things of peaceful disposition when- ever they are given a legitimate and informed choice. All its years of reassuring optimism have made that attitude and its extension, which is that with just a lit- tle more effort to understand one another we can indeed all get along amicably, seem plausible, even possible. This entirely admirable policy of promoting hu- mankind’s most virtuous impulses is reflected no more readily by the National Geographic Magazine’s articles than by its advertising. Thus, in that same October 1952 edition, a full-page Chevrolet ad depicts Mr. and Mrs. America and cherubic ten-year-old daughter Cindy returning home from church in their beautiful new Bel Air Chevy. Mr. America is of course driving, and Cindy is in the back seat, hair unruffled though the windows are down. They all wear hats and smiles and are being open-mouth and wide-eye admired by a young pair of clean-cut Jack Armstrong/Bob Steele boys who have successfully pleaded the fresh spring day as an excuse for innocent ecclesiastical truancy. The curiously half-mowed lawn across the redwood fence from them was perhaps left that way by a belatedly conscience-stricken Sunday morning worshipper, or per- haps by the boys themselves. A perfectly symmetrical row of poplars or junipers fades to softly rolling hills and gauzy skies. All seems right in this ideal American world, yet the notion that God is comfortably in His place is undercut by small, parenthetical italics of ominously veiled warning: (Continuation of standard equipment and trim illustrated is de- pendent on availability of material.) The warning does not specifically say what standard equipment or trim might be discontinued or what might cause it to be unavailable, but it happens to be true that buyers of 1952 Chevrolets (and 1952 Fords) were acquiring a product whose bumpers and grill were likely to be so thinly chromium-plated as to be unusually susceptible to oxidation. It does not vi Introduction say that should Mr. and Mrs. America equip their new Chevy with a radio (not standard equipment), they would gain the option to be personally addressed not only by the strident discourses of Walter Winchell: “Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea,” but also by those of Drew Pearson: “Captured Red prisoners carry leaflets that say … the Communists are sure to win the war because they have developed a bomb that kills only non-Communists.” Or that daughter Cindy might find her emotions vicariously twinged by the poignancy of a song apparently directed at her own tender heart: “Cindy, oh Cindy, Cindy don’t let me down. Write me a letter soon, and I’ll be homeward bound…” and by the plaintive response: “Dear John, oh how I hate to write. Dear John, I must let you know tonight….” The warning also does not say that should the Jack Armstrong/Bob Steele boys have an idolized father, uncle, cousin, or older brother currently performing his duty in the military service of his country, he might well return to them ahead of schedule as one of the pitifully patched-together and nerve-shattered Wash- ing Machine Charlies occasionally seen talking to themselves on park benches or staring into empty beer pitchers at local taverns—if he returns to them at all. It does not say, in short, that there is a war going on in Korea, nor that the United States is up to its skivvies in that war. Nor does it say that one of the results of that war might be future generations of Chevrolets carrying future generations of Mr. and Mrs. Americas, themselves perhaps Asian-featured, past admiring boys whose family names are as likely to be Kim or Pak as Armstrong or Steele. The 1952 Chevrolet ad may be extremely circumspect in its mention of the Korean War and its consequences, but the stories of Ty Pak, thirty years later, suffer from no such indirectness. Things happen head-on, fast, and chaotic in Pak’s stories, as things must happen in wartime. And in Pak’s stories it is al- ways wartime, whether he is flashing back to early 1950’s Seoul, or flashing ahead to contemporary Honolulu. Pak’s stories not only give the war a sense of personal immediacy missing from the writing of most of its journalistic corre- spondents—and from endless M*A*S*H reruns—but they also portray the war as a sort of ongoing social altercation still being fought in one form or another by its indigenous survivors in Korea, Hawaii, and across the U.S. mainland. And, in fact, around the world. Expatriation under almost any circumstances must be an unusually soul-bur- dening experience. The circumstance of civil war could well be expected to add to the expatriate’s burden so full a complement of guilt and trauma that an en- tire lifetime of amends and rationalizations would not give it dispatch. That is at least part of the message of Ty Pak’s vigorous prose, and it is the part from which the sons and daughters of expatriate Kims and Paks might find important clues to their American identity. Perhaps as relevant to them and probably more relevant to the sons and daughters of Cindy America, Jack Armstrong, and Bob Steele, however, are vii Introduction the decidedly unglamorous scenes of “limited” (meaning non-nuclear) armed conflict—of flame-reddened skies, of hills rolling with artillery—from which crippled trees and besieged cathedrals offer at best imperfect shelter during any day of the week or season of the year. And in which there are no lawns, half- mowed or otherwise, and no families of happy churchgoers in beautiful new 1952 Bel Air Chevrolets whose chrome will unexpectedly rust before its time. And of which not one of the witnesses is admiring. And beside which the prospect of nu- clear adventure must loom like the desert sun to a grain of sand or a speck of dust. In its March 1983 edition, the National Geographic Magazine continues to promote its optimistic world view. The world view of Ty Pak’s stories is certainly less obvious in its optimism. It is, however, a good deal more forthright in its fic- tional representation of a tragic reality that can most properly be felt only through the experiences of its individual victims, both those who survive and those who do not. That the survivors are willing to continue their struggle for a life already proven to be considerably less than ideal must be seen as optimistic. And that a writer of Ty Pak’s caliber should have chosen to record that struggle is itself re- assuring. James Harstad Honolulu April 3, 1983 viii Guilt Payment “If I’d had the right teacher, I wouldn’t have failed in the Western Regionals,” says Mira bitterly. “But you’ve won the Hawaii audition,” I point out. “Look how many com- petitors you had to put behind to get that far. John Singleton’s daughter, Mary, who everybody said had a heavenly voice, placed only third. You hold the crown here.” “I’m no tractable Polynesian lass to be content with an island title. I want to go all the way to the top. I want to sing at the Metropolitan. I want to show the whole world what a Korean-American girl can do.” “There is always next year, and besides you have to learn to be content…” “With a thousand-dollar cash prize? And end up salesgirling or teaching a bunch of tone-deaf kids, occasionally singing on the side at churches and cere- monies for a pittance? I don’t want any part of it.