Chapter 1
Eunhee Woo felt there were many things in her life to be happy about. The days that passed recently were balmy with not a whole lot of rain. A new semester at Ichon Girl’s High School was starting after the weekend, while the Suneung (national university entrance exam) was still more than a year away. And best of all, Eunhee managed to spend the entire summer with her older sister Eunji.
Eunji had just finished medical school and was now doing her residency in America. Eunhee herself had never been to America or outside of Korea, for that matter. She imagined America as an immense place with mountains and deserts and busy highways that disappeared into the bright horizon. Her sister was leaving tomorrow for America, so she felt a little sad.
However, Eunhee was glad for the time she spent with Eunji. Among other activities, the two had visited Myeongdong many times. Eunji remarked on all the new stores that seemed to have popped up since her last visit as the two strolled down the streets of the famed Seoul shopping district.
Afterwards, Eunhee and Eunji often made their way to a neighborhood they knew as Galbi Alley. It was an area that was at once out of the way and yet not too far from Myeongdong, reachable after about fifteen minutes of walking through side alleys and winding walkways. Only locals seemed to know about the place and its inexpensive restaurants.
Today, Eunhee was with her sister at their favorite galbi tang place. The steaming bowls of beef rib broth soup had just come out when Eunji remarked on a matter that until recently Eunhee had not really thought about.
“Eunhee, even though you are the youngest you are the most caring,” said Eunji. “Do you remember when you sent me an entire box of my favorite instant ramen when I couldn’t find it in America? And appa, he told me he couldn’t imagine going through the week without your help.”
Ever since their mother passed away a little while ago, the two girls had taken up the responsibility of keeping their household running. It was true their father was a hard-working physician and well known in their neighborhood because he took good care of everyone, young and old. But in domestic matters, Dr. Woo could be forgetful or just plain clueless.
After her sister left for America, Eunhee assumed sole responsibility for all the things the two sisters used to carry out together. For instance, she made sure her father’s white lab coats were clean and pressed by the dry cleaners. If one of her father’s shoes needed a new sole, Eunhee would drop it off with Mr. Kim, the neighborhood shoe cobbler, before she went to school.
A housekeeper came by the three-bedroom apartment that was Eunhee’s home once a week to clean up the place and prepare some banchan that lasted until her next visit. But it was really up to Eunhee to make sure the little details were taken care of, such as making sure there was always a fresh supply of her father’s favorite snacks in the pantry.
Eunhee also dropped by her father’s clinic weekly to water the plants. The clinic was a small office. Only one nurse and a secretary worked there with Eunhee’s father. However, it was a busy place. Often there was a mother with her sick child. A couple of gray-haired seniors always came in and out of the office, thanking Eunhee’s father for his care. The ones going into the office often carried jars of homemade kimchi or other food. Apparently, the good doctor refused payment for his services from the neediest.
“Eunhee, our lives are made of what we give to others,” Eunhee’s father once told her.
It all sounded so noble minded but Eunhee wondered what exactly she had to offer to the world as a sixteen-year-old still in high school. In fact, the last time Eunhee was together with her sister and their father a couple days ago, she had reflected on those exact sentiments and found herself somewhat lacking.
Eunhee remembered the three were gathered in the living room after dinner. A popular new drama about doctors and nurses in a busy Seoul hospital was playing on the television.
Soon Eunji and her father started discussing their shared careers in medicine. Eunji wanted to apply for a fellowship studying infectious diseases in Southeast Asia after her residency. The conversation between Eunji and her father was a babble to Eunhee’s ears. So many important sounding words passed between the two, words that often ended in “ology.”
Eunhee excused herself and went to the kitchen. The kitchen was actually just steps away and open to the living room. A typical Korean apartment is a rather tidy and compact space, after all. Eunhee silently busied herself with peeling and slicing apples as her sister and father talked about healthcare issues in developing countries. The two were deeply absorbed in their conversation.
After she finished peeling, Eunhee quietly set the plate of apple slices before her father and Eunji. She then walked outside to the apartment patio. From her perch that was ten stories high, Eunhee saw a group of neighborhood children chasing each other around a courtyard. Their laughter and cries of joy echoed into the humid air of late summer.
The evening sun cast a warm glow on the concrete faces of the surrounding apartment buildings. Open windows revealed the flickering screens of televisions and rooms alive with activity, while others presented tightly-drawn curtains to the world. A fruit vendor’s mini truck crawled down a side street. The loudspeaker mounted on the truck blared, “Fresh melons! Farm fresh fruit! On sale!”
Eunhee idly toyed with her shoulder-length hair as she looked over the activity below. The children seemed so carefree, too young to worry about college entrance exams. Eunhee felt as though time had passed by in the blink of an eye from the days when she was one of the little children playing outside in the courtyard. At the same time she felt so childish and unaccomplished in things.
Eunhee glanced through the patio door at her sister and father talking together and walked back inside. The plate of apple slices lay untouched. Eunji was engaged with her father in a discussion about women’s healthcare issues in rural Africa. Eunhee went to her room and gently shut the door.
Eunhee’s bedroom was the smallest room in the house. It was furnished with a bed, bookshelf and desk. A poster of a K-pop boy band hung on the wall. The poster was three years old and the boy band had broken up about a year ago. Eunhee wondered why she even had the poster up on her wall.
In a corner of the room was a cello and music stand.
Eunhee pulled up a chair next to the music stand and cradled the cello in her arms. She took a deep breath and started playing, but softly because sound travels quite easily through the walls of an apartment and thus one must be mindful of the neighbors.
Eunhee paused her playing.
Eunhee’s music teacher told her she was “dedicated” and “tried hard” but Eunhee felt as though she could not really coax the sounds she wanted out of the instrument. Eunhee recalled an elementary school classmate who had been a prodigy on the piano. Her fingers danced across the keys of a concert grand effortlessly. By the age of eleven the girl could master the most demanding compositions. She was now studying at a special music and arts high school.
Now there’s a girl with obvious gifts, thought Eunhee.
Eunhee resumed playing her cello. She wondered if she was good enough to study music at a conservatory. Eunhee also wished she was smart like her older sister Eunji. Then, she could take the science and math subjects for the college entrance exam next year, get into medical college and help others . . .
Oh! Why am I so useless and not good at anything, thought Eunhee as she missed a note on the cello.
Eunhee’s senses turned back to the present. She sampled a spoonful of the soup. The galbi tang came out just right, with a rich broth that was not too clear and yet not too cloudy.
As Eunhee ate her soup, she thought about what her sister said. An idea was starting to form in her mind, a growing sense that perhaps she too could contribute a bit of goodness to the world and make it a better place. But how?
Chapter 2
On Sunday Eunhee and her father took Eunji to Incheon Airport. The flight to America took a long time, almost an entire day, Eunji told her sister. Eunji gave Eunhee a final goodbye hug before she disappeared behind the sliding doors of the airport security checkpoint.
The next morning Eunhee wondered if Eunji’s plane was finally landing in America at the very moment she was making her way through the gates of Ichon Girl’s High School.
The summer break had only been a month. Eunhee had seen most of the girls around the neighborhood, but everyone seemed to have a sense of adventure swirling around their four weeks of vacation. Groups of girls were huddled in the schoolyard exchanging stories of flying to Jeju Island with their family or taking the KTX high speed train to Busan. One girl claimed to have spotted a popular celebrity walking around Gangnam.
Eunhee greeted everyone as she walked across the schoolyard. Eunhee was not the most popular or prettiest girl at the school but she was generally well-liked by everyone. No one held a grudge against her, or at least Eunhee did not think anyone held a grudge against her.
Eunhee had a small circle of friends she had known since elementary school, just three other girls. Others often commented how the girls looked so alike when they were together. Eunhee wondered why people thought that. It was easy to tell Minju was the tallest one in the group, Jieun wore black-rimmed glasses and Soyoung was a dusky complexioned and wispy sort of girl.
As for Eunhee she was the maknae of her friends but only by about two months. The girls agreed Eunhee was the prettiest of them all but Eunhee refused to believe it.
Eunhee sometimes noticed among her classmates girls that seemed to be especially close, best friends that were always together, laughing at secrets and jokes only the two were in the know about. Eunhee was close to her childhood friends but she felt they all shared each other’s affections equally. She wondered what it would be like to have a best friend.
The first half of the school day passed by uneventfully. The classroom windows were open to let in any breeze a late August day might stir up. Electric fans in the classrooms buzzed and moved the thick air a little.
Finally the bell rang for lunch and Eunhee went to the cafeteria and sat down at a table with her friends. Eunhee had just set her tray of bibimbap and side dishes down when she saw her, a girl sitting by herself at the far end of the table.
The unknown girl was hunched over her food with her head bowed. Her hair fell over her face like a helmet and partially obscured it.
“Who is she?” asked Minju.
“I don’t know, she must be a new girl,” answered Soyoung.
The new girl was wearing a blue plaid skirt, white tennis shoes and a navy blue vest over a white blouse – the same uniform worn by the rest of the girls at Ichon Girl’s High School.
Eunhee’s friends soon turned their attention away from the new girl and resumed talking about other things. The girls were not being mean. Rather, they were just shy about meeting new people. It was just so much easier to cling to what was familiar.
Amongst the girls seated at the lunch table, Eunhee was sitting closest to the new girl. She also wanted to retreat into her circle of friends. Eunhee did not know if the new student was friendly and besides, what could they talk about?
Eunhee took a couple bites of her meal. She thought about the fact that she had lived in Ichon her whole life and never known the experience of going to an unfamiliar new school and being the new girl.
I suppose it must be a bit daunting to come to a new school and not know anyone, thought Eunhee. She took a deep breath, slid her lunch tray closer to the new girl and followed the lunch tray to a seat directly across from her.
“Hello,” said Eunhee.
The new girl looked up briefly and bowed her head again. Eunhee caught a glimpse of a pale face.
“Annyeong hashimnikka,” replied the new girl in polite Korean.
Eunhee was puzzled. Even among strangers, the new girl’s greeting was too formal. Eunhee felt as though she was one of the teachers at the school getting addressed by a student. And curiously, Eunhee thought she heard a slight accent in the new girl’s voice. She wondered if the girl was from a province outside Seoul.
“My name is Eunhee Woo,” said Eunhee. “What is your name?”
Moemi . . . Moemi Takehara,” replied the new girl.
The new girl was Japanese. Eunhee was not completely surprised by the fact. Ichon was known as the Little Tokyo of Seoul because of its many Japanese residents, usually diplomats or employees of Japanese corporations and their families.
“Oh, you can also call me Emma, if you want,” said Eunhee.
An English language teacher in junior high school had given Eunhee that name. She still remembered him, a recent university graduate from New Zealand. The young man was tall with dark hair and blue eyes and many of the girls in the eighth grade thought he was quite handsome.
The teacher’s command of Korean was rudimentary and what few words he knew, he pronounced with a thick foreign accent. The English teacher could never pronounce Eunhee’s name correctly, calling her Yoonhee one day and then Eunni another day. Finally one day he said to Eunhee, “Yooni, I think I’ll call you Emma. You seem to be an Emma and the name suits you.”
The teacher had already given English names to some of the other girls. Jieun for example was dubbed Jennifer. That made sense because both names had a hard “J” sound in the beginning.
Eunhee wondered how the name Emma suited her but eventually she grew into it and found it familiar and comfortable, like a dress or shirt passed down from her older sister. She was especially fond of using it with foreigners.
“You can call me Moemi,” said Moemi.
Yes! I like the sound of it. By the way, your Korean is pretty good,” said Eunhee.
“I used to live in Korea before when I was little. My father did business in Busan. I studied Korean even after we went back to Japan,” replied Moemi.
Eunhee felt happy because the new girl turned out to be friendly and nice, if a bit shy. Eunhee thought Moemi was quite pretty too, with delicate facial features and soft cheeks.
Moemi, why don’t you come sit with me and my friends,” said Eunhee as she gestured in the direction of the other side of the table.
Moemi’s face brightened.“Hai,” she replied excitedly before she caught herself. “Why yes, thank you,” Moemi continued as she got up from her seat at the far end of the table.
Eunhee and her friends then saw it.
Moemi had brought her own lunch from home, a Japanese-style bento meal. The container was unassuming, just an open rectangular box with several compartments. It was the contents of the box that made everyone gasp. Each compartment held a food item that was artfully prepared and decorated. The main serving of white rice was shaped like a cat’s face with strips of nori serving as whiskers. The side dishes looked almost too beautiful to eat: carrots that looked like miniature flowers, rice cakes shaped like antique coins.
Eunhee’s friends crowded around Moemi and her lunchbox and exclaimed how pretty and wonderful everything looked. Moemi blushed deeply and offered everyone a taste. In turn, the girls offered Moemi a taste of their own meals.
Soon all of the girls including Moemi were chatting and laughing together. Eunhee felt quite happy because she had been the one to reach out to the new girl.
Lunch break was followed by a couple more classes and then the school day was over. This hour bustled with its own energy as students emerged from stuffy classrooms into the afternoon sunshine. Many of them dropped by convenience stores or coffee shops while others went straight to their homes. Eunhee was waiting at the front school gate for her friends.
A school supplies vendor was waiting near the entrance gate with his mini truck, its cargo bed crammed with shelves of notebooks and sketchbooks. A group of schoolgirls was already gathered around, examining the wares and commenting on which size notebook was the most suitable.
Eunhee was flipping through a journal when a girl called out to her, “Emma!”
Moemi was so excited to see Eunhee she seemed to fly over the last couple meters that separated the two girls. Her face was flushed.
“Emma, I think I’m going to like it here so much! I’m so glad I met you and your friends,” said Moemi.
“Me too, Moemi! I think this school year is going to be something wonderful.”
Soon the rest of Eunhee’s friends showed up and the girls were on their way home.
Eunhee walked down the main commercial street of Ichon with her friends. The leafy trees lining the sidewalk stirred gently in the wind. The hot humid weather of summer was giving way to the perfect days of early autumn.
Like many neighborhoods in Seoul, Ichon had its own character. It was a quiet place compared to other districts, such as Myeongdong with its crowds of local shoppers and weekend foreign tourists taking advantage of budget airfares. The streets of Ichon were narrow compared to the wide boulevards of Jongno, where protest marches and political rallies erupted with regularity.
Just south of the Han River, Gangnam was known for its soaring skyscrapers and fancy new construction projects. In contrast, Ichon was a quiet community of older apartment buildings, a place where children ran along the side streets after school let out and neighborhood mothers gathered at the numerous shops and family-owned restaurants.
Two Seoul Metro lines passed through Ichon, although Ichon Station itself was rather small and had no underground stores or cafes like many subway stations in Seoul.
Eunhee was especially fond of a corner of Ichon that began with a narrow alleyway leading to a covered market hall. Inside the covered hall was a basement-level coffee shop, a home goods store that was crammed to the ceiling with pots, kitchenware and dry goods, a couple family-owned restaurants and a bicycle store.
Eunhee knew many of the families that had lived in Ichon for a while. The young mothers pushing baby strollers would sometimes stop and ask Eunhee how her father was doing and comment that Eunhee had grown so pretty. Eunhee always felt bashful and at a loss for words at hearing such compliments and responded with a polite bow.
Eunhee recalled when she was younger an American military family or two passed through Ichon every year. Until today, when she met Moemi, the foreigners living in Ichon were strangers to Eunhee because they usually sent their children to an international school. Eunhee wondered how Moemi ended up at Ichon Girl’s High School.
All in all, Eunhee thought that although Ichon was not the fanciest or trendiest district in Seoul, it was a cozy and neighborly place to call home.
One by one the girls said goodbye to each other every time the group passed an apartment complex where one of the girls lived. Soon Eunhee was walking by herself with Moemi.
Moemi told Eunhee her dream was to study at a Korean university and she had begged her parents to send her to Ichon Girl’s High School. She was enrolled in a private Japanese cram school too. Classes started next week after regular school hours.
Eunhee nodded in acknowledgment. Like every Korean high school student she was quite familiar with cram schools, or hagwons. Eunhee felt she spent more time in hagwons than at her regular high school. It was all for the purpose of passing the Suneung. Eunhee even went to two hagwons, a music hagwon once a week for cello lessons and a regular hagwon the rest of the week to study English and other subjects.
The two girls passed Ichon Station. A subway train had just left the station, followed by the rapidly fading screech and clamor of metal wheels. A stream of commuters emerged from the bowels of the station and walked down the shaded walkway leading from the station entrance. Parked bicycles lined the walkway. Next to the station entrance was Mr. Kim’s shoe shop, a cramped metal shed stuffed with tools and shoes.
Soon another cluster of high rise apartments came into view.
“Oh, it looks like we live in the same apartment complex. Which building are you in?” said Eunhee.
Moemi’s apartment building turned out to be right next to Eunhee’s.
“Do you want to go to school together tomorrow? We can meet up right here,” said Eunhee.
“Yes, that idea seems quite agreeable,” said Moemi. “Thanks for everything, Emma.”
“Sure! If you need anything just ask me,” said Eunhee. The two girls hugged each other and went their separate ways. Perhaps this school year would turn out to be something special, thought Eunhee as she walked back home.
Chapter 3
Eunhee was finally back at her apartment. Her father was supposed to be back home in a couple hours, just in time for dinner. After changing out of her school clothes, Eunhee decided to practice her cello. The weather was perfect so she opened up the patio doors and took a spot nearby with her instrument.
Eunhee’s music teacher had told her, “Of all the musical instruments, the stringed instruments are said to sound most like the human voice. And wouldn’t you say the cello resembles a human being in form? Truly, to play the cello well you must pour your soul into the instrument.”
Eunhee thought Mr. Chang the cello instructor was a bit dashing. He was a recent music conservatory graduate who always wore dark-colored clothing and played the double bass in an indie band at Hongdae venues during the weekends.
Eunhee practiced a couple scales and chords to warm up. The lacquered wood of the cello felt smooth in her hands. The taut strings tremored as Eunhee pulled the bow across them. She felt the true voice of the instrument was in there somewhere, waiting for the right musician to give it expression.
Oh! I wish I could make you sing, thought Eunhee.
After practicing a couple pieces for almost an hour, Eunhee decided she was done with the cello for the day. It was time to make dinner for herself and her father who was coming home soon. Eunhee already had in mind what she was going to prepare. She opened up the kitchen cabinets and searched until she found two lunch boxes similar to the one Moemi had. The lunch boxes had been used once for a camping trip to Gangwon and then forgotten.
Eunhee looked up on her phone images of bento meals and went to work. She scooped out rice and cut strips of dried seaweed. Mrs. Lee (the housekeeper who came by every week) had stocked the refrigerator with plenty of food. Eunhee selected an assortment of side dishes and kimchi which she placed into the compartments of the boxes.
Eunhee felt disappointed at the final result. It did not look anything like the pictures on the phone or what Moemi had brought for lunch. It was just some food resting in little compartments in boxed containers. Eunhee was thinking about adding some color to the meal with sliced carrots or a parsley sprig when the front door opened.
“Appa!” Eunhee greeted her father.
A balding man with a gentle face entered the apartment. Eunhee rushed to help her father take off his white doctor’s coat. She also took his black doctor’s bag from him. Eunhee’s father took off his shoes and loosened his tie. Especially after Eunji left the house, the arrival of her father in the evening after work sparked a feeling of happy exuberance in Eunhee’s heart.
“Appa, dinner is ready,” said Eunhee.
“So are we going camping?” Eunhee’s father asked as he sat down at the dinner table.
“No. I was trying to make a dosirak meal, appa.”
Eunhee’s father nodded and started to eat the food silently. Eunhee remembered everyone marveling at Moemi’s bento box. Every food item looked so artfully arranged and special. Eunhee wished she could make or do something special. She silently ate her meal.
Finally, Eunhee spoke up.
“Appa, why did you become a doctor?”
“Well, my older brother was already studying medicine when I was a senior in high school. Biology was my best subject so I thought why not? I scored well on the entrance exam and got admitted to my university’s pre-medical program.”
“But you also wanted to help people?” Eunhee thought about her father volunteering at a charity on weekends.
“Yes, that is what doctors are called to do, to help people and make their lives better. But I think I grew into that role as I matured in my school days. I was so focused on my books the first couple years of medical school,” said Eunhee’s father.
Eunhee’s thoughts turned to the college entrance exam that was coming up in a year. She knew she could never do as well as her older sister on the test. “So that means a person can eventually find what they’re good at and share it with the rest of the world?” she asked.
Eunhee’s father nodded. “Yes, I guess you can say that. My brother wanted to be a doctor since he could remember and everything he did was to achieve that goal. But when I was a young boy I was a bit of a troublemaker.”
“Appa, I never imagined you as being a troublemaker,” said Eunhee.
Eunhee’s father smiled.
“I didn’t get into schoolyard fights. But I think I was always involved in some clever scheme or another. Once, I took some pieces of hard rubber and made fake seals, so the students could stamp their report cards.”
“Appa, you never told me that,” said Eunhee.
Eunhee noticed the daylight outside had faded to the darkness of early evening. Time had passed so quickly. She remembered there was a fresh watermelon in the refrigerator. Her father continued to enjoy his beer as Eunhee hefted the watermelon onto a cutting board and went to work. Soon half-moon shaped slices of bright red fruit were piled on a plate.
Eunhee came back to the dinner table and bit into a slice of watermelon. The taste of the sweet juices in her mouth reminded her of hot summer evenings eating cold slices of watermelon with her sister and father.
Eunhee’s father seemed to be thinking thoughts of the past too. “Did I ever tell you about going to my grandfather’s house in the countryside as a little boy?” he asked.
Eunhee’s father settled comfortably into his chair and soon he was lost in a reverie of the past as he recalled carefree summers spent swimming in lakes and hiking the countryside. He reminisced how his grandfather once a week would take him and his brother to the nearest town, which was just a couple of single-story buildings on an unpaved street. Their grandfather bought the two boys watermelon slices and choco pies. Then they walked back home in the warm summer night.
Eunhee’s father remembered how the stars in the country sky seemed to shine so brilliantly, so different from the gray skies over Seoul. The summer seemed to go on forever but inevitably the day would come when it was time to go back to Seoul.
Their father, who was a businessman, showed up and soon the two boys were on a bus back to the nearest train station. The view of the town from the back window got smaller and smaller as the bus wheezed down the country road. Grandfather and grandmother were tiny figures in the distance, waving goodbye.
As Eunhee’s father got older, the summers became shorter and the demands of school loomed larger. Her father’s recollection reminded Eunhee school had already started and autumn was around the corner.
Chapter 4
The days grew shorter and darkness settled over the evening hours earlier as the weeks went by. Cold winds blew down from the mountains in the north, swirled around the endless apartment blocks of Seoul and finally ended up scattering the leaves of the neighborhood trees. In the evenings, daily commuters emerged from Ichon Station bundled in warm jackets and scarves and hurried back to their warm apartments.
Eunhee knew autumn had really arrived and winter was not too far behind when she encountered the sweet potato man as she walked home from school one day with Moemi. By now the girls had become quite close to each other. The two waited for each other in the mornings and walked together to school.
Moemi had endless questions for Eunhee about Korean culture and Korean vocabulary. Eunhee was happy to oblige Moemi and answer her inquiries. In some matters such as the latest television dramas and Korean pop songs, Moemi seemed even more knowledgeable than Eunhee.
On this particular day Eunhee and Moemi were taking the same route back home when the aroma of burning charcoal wafted past their noses. The girls rounded a street corner. Next to an alley was a man busily occupied with a portable stove. An opening in the black metal thing revealed red hot embers. A sooty pipe puffed a steady stream of smoke.
“Hot sweet potatoes, hot sweet potatoes,” the man called out when he spotted the two girls. Even though he had a warm stove for company, the man was bundled in a jacket, scarf and a wool hat with ear flaps.
“Yaki-imo!” exclaimed Moemi.
“Oh, do you eat sweet potatoes in Japan too?” said Eunhee.
“Yes, of course,” said Moemi as she explained to Eunhee that the sweet potato man was a common sight in Japanese towns during the winter season. Eunhee imagined at that very moment somewhere in Japan a man on the street hovering over a stove of hot charcoal.
“Now you can try your first Korean sweet potato,” said Eunhee to Moemi as she handed the man a couple bills. Soon each girl held in her hand a warm sweet potato wrapped in foil and paper.
The girls resumed their walk. Eunhee gingerly peeled away the foil. The skin of the potato looked like it had come out just right, a bit crispy with some black grill marks.
Eunhee looked over at Moemi, who had already torn off a piece of her potato, revealing the insides.
“Emma-chan, I was wondering . . .” said Moemi.
“Yes?”
“What does the word oppa mean? When I used to watch Korean dramas in Japan, all the Korean girls would call their boyfriends ‘oppa.’ So naturally I thought it meant ‘sweetheart.’ You know, something a girl would call her boyfriend,” said Moemi.
“It does,” answered Eunhee.
“But oppa means ‘older brother,’ doesn’t it?”
“Yes. It does mean that, literally.”
“So a Korean girl is calling her boyfriend ‘older brother?’ It seems a bit confusing to me.”
“Well, you know how English speakers use the word ‘brother’ or ‘bro’ with people who aren’t even related to them? It’s like that,” said Eunhee.
Eunhee felt not quite satisfied with that answer and continued, “And when a Korean girl calls her sweetheart oppa, it means she looks up to him as a good guy who will protect her and take care of her. And besides, Korean guys really like being called oppa by their girlfriends.”
Moemi nodded.
“But sometimes I see Korean girls calling every boy they know oppa. Even if the boy isn’t their sweetheart,” said Moemi.
“Yes, some girls are like that. Every boy is their oppa. It usually doesn’t mean anything except friendship to the girl but sometimes it doesn’t,” said Eunhee.
“I see,” said Moemi. She seemed deep in thought, as if she was trying to unravel the nuances of Korean culture.
“Oh, I wish I could call a Korean boy oppa,” said Moemi.
Eunhee had a thought. Although she did not know it at the time, it would end up shaping the course of events over the next couple months. It was an impulse that would inspire Eunhee and at the same time cause her more than a little grief.
