In summer of 1970, I attended an orientation session that was held in a dormitory lounge N.E section of the campus of Wisconsin in Madison for a couple of days. My high school years came to an end and I decided to go to Madison to attend the university where my brother-in-law started attending the school two years earlier. The campus was virtually empty in the summer. The grass on the lawn seemed to have been getting weathered under the sweltering heat in a drought; areas of lawn by the campus pond were bare partially as though the students had over traded them. There were couple of ducks swimming lazily on the campus pond and a flock of ducks huddled together by the pond under a willow tree escaping from the heat. The tour guide led us to the tall concrete library. As I entered air-conditioned lobby, a whip of cool air was blown to my face. As I was walking up the stairway, I could see the campus virtually deserted. Looking through the windows, a scene of few people walking in leisurely pace in far distance in mostly green unfolded in my eyes in the vastness of the campus. In September, when I returned to the campus in the fall, an entirely different scenery was unfolded in my eyes; people was busily walking every corners on the campus as new school year was just started.
My brother-in-law, Han, and my sister lived off campus, renting one room apartment. Later in the afternoon after my chores were done, I visited his place and he told me that there would be a meeting for newly arrived graduate Korean students. The meeting was held in a lounge of a dormitory in South West of the campus with a small group of people. Han and I arrived there early finding wooden chairs with its sitting panel covered in different colors; some of them had worn out with tattered cloth bearing the sponges inside. The KSA (The Korean Students Association) hosted the meeting for the purpose of mainly welcoming new Korean graduate students on the campus. The meeting was started with everybody taking turn introducing them with mentioning their major field of studies. The major agenda of the meeting was to decide where the annual welcoming picnic would be held. Among the students, there was one female student whose name was Bae, a psychology major in the graduate school. After the meeting was over, Bae came by and said “Oh, Mr. Park’s brother-in-law, welcome to the campus.” She already knew I am related to Han. Bae, wearing in casual clothes, I could sense immediately that she is intelligent woman with outgoing personality.
Han had already finished 1st year attending the university as a graduate student at that time, majoring a new field of studies in Physics. Han had graduated from a top university in Korea as with many students at the meeting. With his charming personality and talents in leading interesting conversation with his peers, he had quickly become acquainted with many graduate students. If fact, he was well regarded as intelligent, sociable and amicable guy on the campus to whom anyone would like to spend time with in social gatherings. He had a cool demeanor and seldom flared up. Han had come to the UW with sophisticated social skills that had been accumulated back in Korea. Due to these characteristics, he was very popular among the graduate students. Han was instrumental in helping many newly arrived students getting adjusted to their new environment, and he had a way of making others do the things that he would like to do. For instance, when Bae was feeling homesick during her first semester, Han quickly rounded up his friends and visited her to cheer her up. For Bae was one of the few female students who was beautiful and intelligent, Han had such a favorable impression on her. Even my sister wouldn’t mind Han was being so nice to her since my sister, too, was fascinated by Bae’s charming personality and her fine demeanor. Han often invited her along with other graduate students over his apartment on weekends and talked until late at night, feeling a shared sense of accomplishments back in Korea.
The picnic for welcoming students was held one and a half months later on a sunny day in October in a park nearby the campus. As it was first gathering of the new school year, a lot of students showed up, including half dozen undergraduate students. The weather was cooperating nicely with gentle breeze blowing sporadically swaying the branches of trees making rustling sound. As crispy autumn sunlight shone on the trees, the reflection from the leaves was beaming with luscious golden lights of foliage in the morning. Bae was having a lunch sitting at a picnic table talking leisurely with wives of the graduate students. And I happened to sit diagonally across at the end of the table that was placed adjacent to the table she was sitting. Occasionally taking glimpses of her, I wished that I could capture her images on pictures; her charming display of expressions and hints of her intellect that ever so often spurred up in her smiles. The expressions in her smiles intertwined with the crispy autumn sun’s rays reflected on her shinny black hair was exuding an ecstasy of autumn scenery at the park. Unfortunately, there were no other students nearby her to appreciate her charming display of her beauty at that time. From the strands of wind blowing up on my face, I could feel the scents of her hair that had been washed earlier in the morning mixed with sweet smell of autumn leaves falling from the trees nearby. Bae was then about 22 years old, and she appeared at her best. She had a short hair, with two brads knotted low at the back of the head. A small ornament...was worn on the top of the head fastened by a narrow black band. Slightly pale and thin, with somewhat sharp features and brilliant piercing eyes, and yet she exuded gaiety.
My first half of freshman year flew by quickly with busy schedule, and I hadn’t seen Bae months after the picnic. The first encounter I had with Bae after the picnic was when Bae was invited over to Han’s apartment for a dinner; Han invited her and his friends on the campus occasionally, and he called me over for a dinner. When I went to his apartment, there were several graduate students. I was happy to saw Bae among the graduate students. The party had no guest with people in my age, which made me feeling a bit uncomfortable. As a person who grew up in a hierarchical society in which younger people are not usually encouraged to speak up in conversation with older people. With my presumption, I knew that Han would not like me to barge in his conversation with his friends, but rather to listen only. In large part, Han was obliged to invite me on that evening for he knew eating cafeteria food weeks several weeks can be fed up especially to the new students who are not accustomed to eating food from cafeteria. Despite Han’s charming personality, he too, like most of people in his peers, was brought up in times when hierarchical order in human relationship based on age has been norm of the Korean society where younger people were not particularly encouraged to participate in conversations when older people are present as a way to show them respects; even four or five years older age, unless they their social caliber exceeds their own which is socially not achievable for young people easily. For this reason, I knew that I shouldn’t barge in his conversations. However, during their conversation, despite my presumption on what Han’s liking would be, I barged in their conversation biting my teeth trying to make myself fit in the group as best as I can given the circumstance, and also as a sort of gesture implying them to relinquish his old-fashion attitude.
I was sitting along with them in a circle, and Han’s made eye contacts constantly to the invited guests excluding me, which made me feeling uncomfortable as though he was completely ignoring me, and all of a sudden, my mouth just splattered a sentence “I am part of your generation like you, in 20’s.” in front of all the people, which was a bit bizarre behavior on my part, but I felt that I had to say something. Bae might had been well aware of the fact I was mostly listening, not uttering a word, and she immediately started laughing without saying anything to diffuse the moment of awkward situation that I had induced, knowing that my statement had not even a strand of funniness to it. Bae laughed her heart out as if she understood the situation. Her laughing smoothed out the moment of awkwardness that I had induced abruptly; it was a subtle offense to Han, and I knew that there was not much thing for Han could do to smooth out the situation. Bae was quick and her laughing defused the situation as if nothing had happened. Her laughing totally obstructed my chance to see Han’s reaction on his face. Bae was socially apt like Han. Her laughing showed me that she was very responsive and not shy in expressing her thoughts and feelings, which I found rare among women of her age. My statement would have hurt his feelings, and I subconsciously wanted to see his expressions, but Han carried out his conversation as if nothing had happened without a response. I spent rest of time at the party occasionally taking glimpses of Bae without focusing anything what was being said in the conversation. Bae was beautiful especially when she smiled, showing the two protruded upper canine teethes that conspicuously visible, which seemed to be god's attempt to induce imperfection on human had failed, which would only augment her facial expressions look to be more characteristic. Her smiles that ever so often seen with the teeth made a deep impression of her on my mind. Anyone could read her force of her intellect exuded in her expressions as the teeth sporadically were seen as she spoke. Considering the fact that orthodontic care was neither readily available nor common around the time when she was growing up in Korea, it might had been somewhat a nusance for her; even if it had been, for anyone to have braces, having a canine teeth that was protruded conspicuously visible could have been somewhat embarrassing to her, and yet it is was one of her charms that she had possessed.
Several weeks after the party at Han’s party, I met Bae in the cafeteria at the Student Union while I was having a snack. She came over and sat next to me. I blushed a little recurring the embarrassing situation that I created at the dinner, but I felt that I needed to say something to her in order to keep her stay by me. I greeted her first, “안녕하세요?” She asked, “How are you doing?” I smiled and said that I am doing fine. I didn’t say anything about the comment I made to my brother-in-law, and nor she mentioned about it anything about it either, but I looked at her hoping that she would understand that I was being shoved down and swept away socially, or at least, I was hoping that she would understand stifles often felt by young Korean boys interacting with older people who are so blindly followed ills of Confucian culture, which-in my mind was rather undemocratic and unjust in human relationships, that demands subjugate role to older people. All these thoughts related to a bizarre comment I made at the gathering went across my mind as I was sitting face to face with her, and I felt that I needed to say something to her in order to keep her stay, but I could not think of anything else to say to her. Knowing that she was majoring in Psychology from my first encounter at the meeting, I asked her “Are you majoring in sociology?” She intrigued me for I always wanted to bring the issue of communication problems that exists in Korean society to someone like her, who is intelligent and had lived in that culture for a long time to aware of the issues that involved with older people can’t communicate with younger people. I wanted to say that I would like to meet her and become close friend of her, but I didn’t know whether it was appropriate to say that, and I was afraid that I might be founded impudent and she would not like me.
My second encounter with her was when I took a beginning level of psychology course that she was a TA. It was at the beginning of my 2nd year at the UW when I was taking the introductory course in a big classroom. The professor introduced her to some 300 students in a big auditorium giving perfect pronunciation of her name and even taking time to explain that Korean naming scheme is such that puts last name before first name, indicative of how much he was fond of Bae. I could read his joy in having Bae as his student, which was very visibly palpable on his face. As she came out at the front of the auditorium introducing her, I was stunned by her looks; having just returned from Korea taking months off from her summer vacation, she was wearing one-piece skirt with bright floral design, that seemed to flair of fashion with reflection of what girls would wear around the time, which was rather refreshing to me for I had been mostly around seeing girls wearing long pants on the campus.
After speaking eloquently in front of the class, introducing herself and her role as a TA for the course, she sat right next to me- it was first time I have ever sat in a class with a female Korean student in a classroom since when I was a 2nd grade! Her demeanor mesmerized me. In Korean society, for most of schools, boys and girls were separated starting 3rd grade. Her fresh look had totally robbed my attention- I could not pay attention to what the professor had to say. Naturally, Bae was the most exceptionally intelligent and beautiful Korean woman I had ever seen.
Bae speaks very good English and she has charisma; she had finished 2nd half of her elementary school education in the US. Considering the fact that she had spent only several years in the US, her spoken English was remarkable. She probably had practiced English hard for ten years after she had returned back to Korea not to forget it. However, attending Junior and High Schools in Korea, as she was going through her puberty, I would imagine that she might had accumulated some remnants of archaic thinking of older generation, which any young woman could easily have acquired: marrying as a means to sustain or upgrade one’s social stratification. The difference of her with other women might be that she has made the stride to come all the way to the U.S. after graduating from college and challenged herself to get her PhD, instead of settling down. In Korean standard, she was about to pass her normal age of her peers getting married, and every year she had spent studying in WM meant slipping away in time from finding a suitable man to be married, stepping into uncharted territories giving challenges to a conformist. In that respect, clearly, she had ambition and charisma to achieve her goal, and yet she balanced herself very well pursuing her dream of married life. In fact I was surprised to see that such woman could have been brought up in Korean society. The reason that she intrigues me to this day is that she had ability to reach out to people, and thus make herself to appear genuinely closer to people. Everybody loved her. Certainly, that quality of her had not been felt for the first time; my relationship with Bae was not as personal as with 재민누나 whom I associated with in Iowa City for two years preceding, but clearly, Bae had demeanor that made me feel I am part of her generation, which was very difficult to grasp from men of her generation, who were only five or six years older than I. Bae had probably realized that she could make impacts on people around her in early years. My longing to meet her had gradually developed over time ever since the picnic, and that longing had never ceased even after her marriage, which took place toward the end of my school years. In fact, I occasionally ran into her on the way to classrooms, but we would just exchange greetings and went about our ways. On one Sunday, I met her when she was on the way to campus swimming pool by a bus stop. She was wearing shorts and she stopped to greet me, but as usual, my conversation with her didn’t go beyond greeting her; she would have responded differently if I had been acting more mature and able to carry out conversation like Han. If it hadn’t been for my friends with me, I would have ask her whether I could accompany her all the way to the pool. Later on that evening, I regretted that I had not accompanied her, and I thought hard about myself as a Korean men who had been repressed in emotionally at the imposition by the society, and it looked to me that many Korean men including myself seemed to have passed their young adulthood missing opportunities to develop some of the crucial social skills associating with women due to constraints imposed by the society at least at that time. The Korean society rushed to separate boys and girls in their 2nd grade in elementary school, depriving them opportunities to develop their social skills.
In my earlier year at the UW, Bae often met Kim. I could see them chatting in the campus coffee shop. Kim and Bae smiled to me sitting by a table as I passed. They were butted head discussing something. As I made a big smile at Kim mischievously as if I were telling them that they are dating. He told me that he was teaching Bae about computer stuff, and I momentarily stopped and showed them a grin on my face at the thought of as if I had said, “Did I ask you the question?” smilingly. They seemed to make a good couple. Kim was a very nice man, who graduated from top school in Korea, equipped with gentleness and exuberance of confidence. He was an epitome of a Korean scholar, Sunbi, who was equipped with fine scholastic ability. At the moment, I thought they would get married each other . However, later, a rumor spread that Kim asked Bae to marry him but he was turned down because Kim's intent was to continue living in the US after his studying. Soon after that, Kim went to Korea over summer vacation and returned as a married man, marrying a woman through a matchmaker. When I went to see him to ask a question for my study, his newly wed wife- who just came from Korea-prepared a nice meal for me. Sitting at the dinning table, when his wife was in the kitchen, I asked him how come he didn’t marry Bae, and how come he missed the opportunities of marrying Bae, and he replied to my question with smiles on his face. Although I was glad to see that he married, I was amazed how his romantic life had been turned around so fast and so soon; Kim finished one of his important part of his life within a month; finding someone to marry, preparing for the wedding and getting married.
After Kim returned from Korea married, I saw Bae mingling with other men often the campus. One day, I saw she was sitting next to a Go-San who had graduated from the same school as Bae and he played good tennis. Seeing she was meeting other man casually, I was feeling sorry for Kim a bit having missed a chance to marry and baffled over her demeanor of nonchalance over the little affair I knew at that time with Kim. One day, I met Go-San on the way out from a dinning common by the a dormitory, and he bragged me that he had a date with Bae. I figured that he wasn’t a guy with sophisticated demeanor as Kim to be able to sustain a long term relationship with her. I was disappointed that Bae had gone out with him, and started having doubts of her ability for judging character. One day, when I was passing in the Campus Center, I saw Bae was talking with Go-San smilingly sitting on a couch in the campus.
A dance party was held at the time when I was taking a sociology course that Bae was a TA. The party was held at the basement of a dormitory. I took a deep breath and went over where she was sitting across the room, and asked her to danced with me. She was sitting next to a man who I had never seen before, watching other people dancing on the floor. To my glee, she smiled and accepted my request. I reached my hands and she grabbed my hands gladly at the tune of a slow dance. I asked her who the man she was sitting next to her, and she replied to me that his name is Hee-june Yune who joined the electrical engineering department for his phD. I was trying to figure out what else I should say to her other than dancing to the tune, but I felt as if I was in a dream holding her hands.
I saw the Yune who was sitting by Bae at the dance party several weeks later on a weekend when a tennis games were help in the courts at the corner of the campus. Yune seemed to have well adjusted himself to the new campus life at the UW, already having acquainted with many graduate students. After the game, he made an announcement that a dance party will be held at his place next Saturday and handed out flyers to the people that showed the direction to his apartment. He hosted a party get to acquaint with the people. When I went to the party on the following Saturday, there were group of people there including Bae and all other people who had graduated from the same collage that he went. He showed his place including a large waterbed in his bedroom. The waterbed was in dark color. For a moment, I thought that he had a peculiar taste to buy such bed, and then I thought that it might have been given by the precious occupants of the apartment for it is large to carry with.
There are number of my encounters with her. One day, after a practice of volleyball, a senior, Seunggy, invited all the people over to his apartment in Puffton. We went there and he served us cold drinks, and we listened to old songs. Bae was sitting in front of me, around the other female players. Bae took out a wallet and show the people around her sister's picture. Bae didn't initially held out the picture to me, the the point in time was brief when I was the only male among the people at that time, indirectly pointing at me. She Like Bae, the girl on the picture looked pretty to me. Then I jokingly responded by saying "Wow, that's what is called a real women" as if I had lived in an island for years without seeing a female of my age. Bae is oldest of her siblings, and I think that she is also take part of finding suitable mate for her sisters. I never thought her action very seriously at that time, but come to think of it, I regret that I had missed her intent. I could have chosen to find more information about her and weight the feasibility of going to Korea to find out more about Bae's sister.
Unlike most of Korean women, Bae was a very athletic woman who doesn't take lightly of doing exercises. I have seen athletic women in Korea, such as eldest daughter of the lady who ran 'bean sprout factory' in the neighborhood, who walked like an football player, and my distant cousin who played tennis majoring in sports, but they focused on the sports not doing anything else much. However, Bae was different, she could swim every week to keep her in shape, with each time spending considerable time swimming. Once a year, the UM KSA participated in a volleyball tournament held in in Iowa University. Her athletic ability developed from swimming made her become a major women's volleyball player. Unlike some other players in the team, she composed herself well receiving ball coming over the net fiercely without making any mistake. We practiced for the tournament every week for several months before the tournament was held in Cider Rapids. The UW team went to the semifinals defeating many teams. The UW KSA team was able to do that due to three players were instrumental; there were two players who were volleyball player in Japan. Yune followed her and we all went the Iowa University in Cider Rapids. When we lost, she cried.
Around the time when Bae passed her dissertation for her PhD, a meeting was held to elect a new president for KSA that represents both Korean undergraduate and graduate students bodies on the campus. People nominated her to lead the KSA since she has passed her PhD thesis and almost done with her studying. Bae easily won the election and she was expecting to have good supports from her fellow graduates as well as undergraduate bodies for her abilities, beauty and charms. Especially, she was expecting to get unyielding supports from the fellow graduate students who had graduated from the same school as her, especially from Yune. In fact, it may have been the idea of Yune to ask Bae to run for the position.
After Bae was elected, much to my surprise initially, her relationship with Yune had gotten closer. Despite he was not elected for any position, he became a right hand of Bae and she was often seen in handling the student affairs with him; Yune became an influential force. Once, she invited executive members of KSA over to her her apartment for a meeting. When I arrived at her door, Bae had not arrived home yet and I saw a note posted by Yune on her door. At the meeting, Bae announced that Kim had been diagnosed with a serious medial condition and hospitalized. Bae suggested that a bouquet needs to be sent over to him on behalf of KSA. Bae didn't seem to have been affected by the news.
A month later, I ran into her on the out from Campus barbershop after having a lousy haircut, she passed by me smiling warmly and said to me "시원해 보여요" in a very kind way as if nothing had happened at the church, as if not remembering what Yune had told me by the vending machine, not acknowleging the fact that she was taking in part trying to accomplish the Yune's scheme. I smiled back to her not to show of my feeling for the transgression that Lee made at the church. As she was passing by, I noticed that her smile was unusually natural and big with no hand blocking her mouth; her two canine teethes were gone--they were extracted. I sensed that that something great was forthcoming to her. She married to Lee on that year, she probably had those canine teethes for more than two decades, and she seemed quite pleased that they are finally gone.
On following weekend, I met Bae with several of her classmates from her school including Yune on a cafe, drinking and chatting at a table in a cafe. My friends and I found a separate table and as we were sitting waiting for our drink orders to come, they were leaving the place. As I said "bye,' Bae told me that she is buying drinks for us. Normally, I would expect a Yune to have treated me in Korean cultural context, but Bae who was far more mature and more socially apt than the rest of the gang boys knew how to treat others well, which would have melted away any resentments one might have toward her and made the men with her looked more pathetic than before. Her demeanor was rather unusual for ordinary women and came as a big surprise to me given the environment of Korean society that I knew of at that time, in which girls were not raised freely to express their opinions. I always looked up to her as a woman who kept a good balance, like a tightrope walker on a balancing beam, between following the norm of the Korean society and adapting to what is called “sophisticated cultured” in the Westerner's point of view, which made her stand out. I saw her associating Lee as part of her efforts in dealing with this: his presence with her always made me to wonder about her dealing with one of her aspects.
One day, Yune called Han and invited him over for a dinner in a Japanese restaurant in downtown Allston. He wanted to thank him for a transfer of money that he receives from his parents to him, which Han helped him out. My sister and I tagged along. At the restaurant, he announced that he will be marrying with Bae in coming winter vacation and they are planning to go back to Korea for the wedding. Both my sister and Jay congratulated them. I could not say a word hearing the news. In fact, I was disappointed and had no idea why Bae would marry with Yune. Her decision to marry him was baffling to me; I thought it was very simplistic in her thinking. I become somewhat ambivalent when I think of sophisticated Korean woman would marry a person like Yune. Bae clearly has shown me many unusual qualities of Korean women that I had never been exposed of; her social skills, athletic abilities, sophisticated demeanor and etc, but as far as her decision to marry Yune was very predictable and ordinary in light of her other aspects; It maybe that Bae had no other choice. Bae came from a good family, beautiful, and having a fine character that probably had been developed over the years with lots of studying and reading. When she smiled, her smiling was refreshing like a summer breeze, exuding intelligence and warmth. Marrying to Yune might had been her only choice, who inevitably end up marrying a person who grew up in one-dimensional society where academic achievement is overly emphasized overshadowing the quality of well roundness of a person, even looks, in this case. In any societies, marriages tend to take place within the socioeconomic groups and educational background. However, in the US, there are often cases where people marry one another out of the societal norm with simple reason that they love each other, even beyond crossing over racial differences. On the other hand, those exceptions are rarely seen in Korean societies. I remember seeing an article in a magazine, that a college woman liked a man running a stall selling “붕어빵” nearby her school ended up marrying the man. It became a sensational love story that the magazine company decided to cover their love story. Basically, Bae was marrying a man had lack of sensitivity with basic human quality deprived; no demeanor that reflect genuine appreciation and understanding for humanity was observed in him. He had lack of sensitivity for people’s needs, no showing any traits that have been developed as a results of thinking other people in non-egocentric view. It maybe impudent of me to judge a person’s character of a person who was still relatively young at that time, but not all Korean men turned out to be like him. Of course, there are people with varying degree of ills of Confucian thinking and behavior that one may inevitably have to be carried with since it may be hard to expunge all together in their college years. Or, it maybe had been too much to ask him to expunge those traits in four years in his college years. Nevertheless, I am sure that those who already knew him would have passed a character judgment on the person to whom Bae would be married. Yune is a man who had probably grew up in the society that endowed with Yi dynasty's aristocratic attitude with old-style thinking. By any measure, his short height would make wearing any old style aristocrat’s outfit clothing fit rather awkward. It’s hard to imagine his face with mustache and beard, walking in high boots and wearing a traditional hat with long outfit with a narrow black belt holding a long smoking pipe. Certainly, he was a modern man in comparison with my teachers when I went High School in Korea, and yet their ill traits can be palpable in his attitude; the subtlety of him looking downing upon people who don't fit to the norm of aristocratic background. He treated people unfairly based on this measure. He favored my friend over me due to the fact that my friend’s relative was holding a professorship in the college where he had graduated. When three of us talking, he would make eye contact only to my friend. He uses honorific form of addressing a person in conversation with younger people, not for his genuine politeness or respect, but rather to keep himself distant from them as a sly tactic to disassociate with people whom he regarded as "not desirable quality." After Yune had received his PhD, he went to Korea and landed a professorship, a ticket to be a member of aristocratic society in Korea. Many years after he had left out of the sight, I met him once in Korea accidentally in hallway coming out of a building after attending a seminar. He identified me immediately. I asked him how Bae was doing, still baffled over how Bae ended up marrying to the buy standing right in front of me now, trying to unearth the mystery still lurking back in my mind. I hadn’t seen him for ten years and I asked him how his wife was doing. He looked much older than last time seemingly appeared not too happy despite marrying with Bae, Perhaps, that his chauvinistic and Confucian mind had hard time providing lip services to his superiors at work. I think that the odd of chances of becoming like Yune weigh more in Korean society than Kim, unless a man came from a very good family background. It maybe that Kim had higher EQ than Yune, being able to camouflage himself not to show any vulgar demeanor that would often be seen as a result of side effects of the education system that would inevitably implant such characteristics in the students.
After Bae returned from Korea marrying Yune, she invited a bunch of girls, Han and my sister over to her house, and naturally I tagged along to congratulate her. There were bunch of young undergraduate girls were flipping trough pages of her wedding photo albums excitedly, deeply engrossed in seeing the photos making all sorts of complements, and I was watching it along with them. She was wearing a while wedding dress in the pictures with Yune standing by her wearing a suit, with every photos showing no smile on his face. I was wondering how a lucky man would have such stern faces at the time of marriage ceremony standing by such a fantastic woman. I remember that night that I visited Bae place clearly; snow was falling heaving in that part of the state and my car skidded coming down hill at her apartment complex. The snow was coming down heavy by the time we left her place. The snow on that night had potent effect on my mind to slowly fade away my memories on her even though there has been sporadic convulsion of her memories whipped through my mind. I had incidents of meeting her several times after she married: one day I saw her was holding up her newly born daughter at the cafeteria in the Student Union one day. I stopped by and smiled to her and to her newborn baby.
My brother-in-law, Han, and my sister lived off campus, renting one room apartment. Later in the afternoon after my chores were done, I visited his place and he told me that there would be a meeting for newly arrived graduate Korean students. The meeting was held in a lounge of a dormitory in South West of the campus with a small group of people. Han and I arrived there early finding wooden chairs with its sitting panel covered in different colors; some of them had worn out with tattered cloth bearing the sponges inside. The KSA (The Korean Students Association) hosted the meeting for the purpose of mainly welcoming new Korean graduate students on the campus. The meeting was started with everybody taking turn introducing them with mentioning their major field of studies. The major agenda of the meeting was to decide where the annual welcoming picnic would be held. Among the students, there was one female student whose name was Bae, a psychology major in the graduate school. After the meeting was over, Bae came by and said “Oh, Mr. Park’s brother-in-law, welcome to the campus.” She already knew I am related to Han. Bae, wearing in casual clothes, I could sense immediately that she is intelligent woman with outgoing personality.
Han had already finished 1st year attending the university as a graduate student at that time, majoring a new field of studies in Physics. Han had graduated from a top university in Korea as with many students at the meeting. With his charming personality and talents in leading interesting conversation with his peers, he had quickly become acquainted with many graduate students. If fact, he was well regarded as intelligent, sociable and amicable guy on the campus to whom anyone would like to spend time with in social gatherings. He had a cool demeanor and seldom flared up. Han had come to the UW with sophisticated social skills that had been accumulated back in Korea. Due to these characteristics, he was very popular among the graduate students. Han was instrumental in helping many newly arrived students getting adjusted to their new environment, and he had a way of making others do the things that he would like to do. For instance, when Bae was feeling homesick during her first semester, Han quickly rounded up his friends and visited her to cheer her up. For Bae was one of the few female students who was beautiful and intelligent, Han had such a favorable impression on her. Even my sister wouldn’t mind Han was being so nice to her since my sister, too, was fascinated by Bae’s charming personality and her fine demeanor. Han often invited her along with other graduate students over his apartment on weekends and talked until late at night, feeling a shared sense of accomplishments back in Korea.
The picnic for welcoming students was held one and a half months later on a sunny day in October in a park nearby the campus. As it was first gathering of the new school year, a lot of students showed up, including half dozen undergraduate students. The weather was cooperating nicely with gentle breeze blowing sporadically swaying the branches of trees making rustling sound. As crispy autumn sunlight shone on the trees, the reflection from the leaves was beaming with luscious golden lights of foliage in the morning. Bae was having a lunch sitting at a picnic table talking leisurely with wives of the graduate students. And I happened to sit diagonally across at the end of the table that was placed adjacent to the table she was sitting. Occasionally taking glimpses of her, I wished that I could capture her images on pictures; her charming display of expressions and hints of her intellect that ever so often spurred up in her smiles. The expressions in her smiles intertwined with the crispy autumn sun’s rays reflected on her shinny black hair was exuding an ecstasy of autumn scenery at the park. Unfortunately, there were no other students nearby her to appreciate her charming display of her beauty at that time. From the strands of wind blowing up on my face, I could feel the scents of her hair that had been washed earlier in the morning mixed with sweet smell of autumn leaves falling from the trees nearby. Bae was then about 22 years old, and she appeared at her best. She had a short hair, with two brads knotted low at the back of the head. A small ornament...was worn on the top of the head fastened by a narrow black band. Slightly pale and thin, with somewhat sharp features and brilliant piercing eyes, and yet she exuded gaiety.
My first half of freshman year flew by quickly with busy schedule, and I hadn’t seen Bae months after the picnic. The first encounter I had with Bae after the picnic was when Bae was invited over to Han’s apartment for a dinner; Han invited her and his friends on the campus occasionally, and he called me over for a dinner. When I went to his apartment, there were several graduate students. I was happy to saw Bae among the graduate students. The party had no guest with people in my age, which made me feeling a bit uncomfortable. As a person who grew up in a hierarchical society in which younger people are not usually encouraged to speak up in conversation with older people. With my presumption, I knew that Han would not like me to barge in his conversation with his friends, but rather to listen only. In large part, Han was obliged to invite me on that evening for he knew eating cafeteria food weeks several weeks can be fed up especially to the new students who are not accustomed to eating food from cafeteria. Despite Han’s charming personality, he too, like most of people in his peers, was brought up in times when hierarchical order in human relationship based on age has been norm of the Korean society where younger people were not particularly encouraged to participate in conversations when older people are present as a way to show them respects; even four or five years older age, unless they their social caliber exceeds their own which is socially not achievable for young people easily. For this reason, I knew that I shouldn’t barge in his conversations. However, during their conversation, despite my presumption on what Han’s liking would be, I barged in their conversation biting my teeth trying to make myself fit in the group as best as I can given the circumstance, and also as a sort of gesture implying them to relinquish his old-fashion attitude.
I was sitting along with them in a circle, and Han’s made eye contacts constantly to the invited guests excluding me, which made me feeling uncomfortable as though he was completely ignoring me, and all of a sudden, my mouth just splattered a sentence “I am part of your generation like you, in 20’s.” in front of all the people, which was a bit bizarre behavior on my part, but I felt that I had to say something. Bae might had been well aware of the fact I was mostly listening, not uttering a word, and she immediately started laughing without saying anything to diffuse the moment of awkward situation that I had induced, knowing that my statement had not even a strand of funniness to it. Bae laughed her heart out as if she understood the situation. Her laughing smoothed out the moment of awkwardness that I had induced abruptly; it was a subtle offense to Han, and I knew that there was not much thing for Han could do to smooth out the situation. Bae was quick and her laughing defused the situation as if nothing had happened. Her laughing totally obstructed my chance to see Han’s reaction on his face. Bae was socially apt like Han. Her laughing showed me that she was very responsive and not shy in expressing her thoughts and feelings, which I found rare among women of her age. My statement would have hurt his feelings, and I subconsciously wanted to see his expressions, but Han carried out his conversation as if nothing had happened without a response. I spent rest of time at the party occasionally taking glimpses of Bae without focusing anything what was being said in the conversation. Bae was beautiful especially when she smiled, showing the two protruded upper canine teethes that conspicuously visible, which seemed to be god's attempt to induce imperfection on human had failed, which would only augment her facial expressions look to be more characteristic. Her smiles that ever so often seen with the teeth made a deep impression of her on my mind. Anyone could read her force of her intellect exuded in her expressions as the teeth sporadically were seen as she spoke. Considering the fact that orthodontic care was neither readily available nor common around the time when she was growing up in Korea, it might had been somewhat a nusance for her; even if it had been, for anyone to have braces, having a canine teeth that was protruded conspicuously visible could have been somewhat embarrassing to her, and yet it is was one of her charms that she had possessed.
Several weeks after the party at Han’s party, I met Bae in the cafeteria at the Student Union while I was having a snack. She came over and sat next to me. I blushed a little recurring the embarrassing situation that I created at the dinner, but I felt that I needed to say something to her in order to keep her stay by me. I greeted her first, “안녕하세요?” She asked, “How are you doing?” I smiled and said that I am doing fine. I didn’t say anything about the comment I made to my brother-in-law, and nor she mentioned about it anything about it either, but I looked at her hoping that she would understand that I was being shoved down and swept away socially, or at least, I was hoping that she would understand stifles often felt by young Korean boys interacting with older people who are so blindly followed ills of Confucian culture, which-in my mind was rather undemocratic and unjust in human relationships, that demands subjugate role to older people. All these thoughts related to a bizarre comment I made at the gathering went across my mind as I was sitting face to face with her, and I felt that I needed to say something to her in order to keep her stay, but I could not think of anything else to say to her. Knowing that she was majoring in Psychology from my first encounter at the meeting, I asked her “Are you majoring in sociology?” She intrigued me for I always wanted to bring the issue of communication problems that exists in Korean society to someone like her, who is intelligent and had lived in that culture for a long time to aware of the issues that involved with older people can’t communicate with younger people. I wanted to say that I would like to meet her and become close friend of her, but I didn’t know whether it was appropriate to say that, and I was afraid that I might be founded impudent and she would not like me.
My second encounter with her was when I took a beginning level of psychology course that she was a TA. It was at the beginning of my 2nd year at the UW when I was taking the introductory course in a big classroom. The professor introduced her to some 300 students in a big auditorium giving perfect pronunciation of her name and even taking time to explain that Korean naming scheme is such that puts last name before first name, indicative of how much he was fond of Bae. I could read his joy in having Bae as his student, which was very visibly palpable on his face. As she came out at the front of the auditorium introducing her, I was stunned by her looks; having just returned from Korea taking months off from her summer vacation, she was wearing one-piece skirt with bright floral design, that seemed to flair of fashion with reflection of what girls would wear around the time, which was rather refreshing to me for I had been mostly around seeing girls wearing long pants on the campus.
After speaking eloquently in front of the class, introducing herself and her role as a TA for the course, she sat right next to me- it was first time I have ever sat in a class with a female Korean student in a classroom since when I was a 2nd grade! Her demeanor mesmerized me. In Korean society, for most of schools, boys and girls were separated starting 3rd grade. Her fresh look had totally robbed my attention- I could not pay attention to what the professor had to say. Naturally, Bae was the most exceptionally intelligent and beautiful Korean woman I had ever seen.
Bae speaks very good English and she has charisma; she had finished 2nd half of her elementary school education in the US. Considering the fact that she had spent only several years in the US, her spoken English was remarkable. She probably had practiced English hard for ten years after she had returned back to Korea not to forget it. However, attending Junior and High Schools in Korea, as she was going through her puberty, I would imagine that she might had accumulated some remnants of archaic thinking of older generation, which any young woman could easily have acquired: marrying as a means to sustain or upgrade one’s social stratification. The difference of her with other women might be that she has made the stride to come all the way to the U.S. after graduating from college and challenged herself to get her PhD, instead of settling down. In Korean standard, she was about to pass her normal age of her peers getting married, and every year she had spent studying in WM meant slipping away in time from finding a suitable man to be married, stepping into uncharted territories giving challenges to a conformist. In that respect, clearly, she had ambition and charisma to achieve her goal, and yet she balanced herself very well pursuing her dream of married life. In fact I was surprised to see that such woman could have been brought up in Korean society. The reason that she intrigues me to this day is that she had ability to reach out to people, and thus make herself to appear genuinely closer to people. Everybody loved her. Certainly, that quality of her had not been felt for the first time; my relationship with Bae was not as personal as with 재민누나 whom I associated with in Iowa City for two years preceding, but clearly, Bae had demeanor that made me feel I am part of her generation, which was very difficult to grasp from men of her generation, who were only five or six years older than I. Bae had probably realized that she could make impacts on people around her in early years. My longing to meet her had gradually developed over time ever since the picnic, and that longing had never ceased even after her marriage, which took place toward the end of my school years. In fact, I occasionally ran into her on the way to classrooms, but we would just exchange greetings and went about our ways. On one Sunday, I met her when she was on the way to campus swimming pool by a bus stop. She was wearing shorts and she stopped to greet me, but as usual, my conversation with her didn’t go beyond greeting her; she would have responded differently if I had been acting more mature and able to carry out conversation like Han. If it hadn’t been for my friends with me, I would have ask her whether I could accompany her all the way to the pool. Later on that evening, I regretted that I had not accompanied her, and I thought hard about myself as a Korean men who had been repressed in emotionally at the imposition by the society, and it looked to me that many Korean men including myself seemed to have passed their young adulthood missing opportunities to develop some of the crucial social skills associating with women due to constraints imposed by the society at least at that time. The Korean society rushed to separate boys and girls in their 2nd grade in elementary school, depriving them opportunities to develop their social skills.
In my earlier year at the UW, Bae often met Kim. I could see them chatting in the campus coffee shop. Kim and Bae smiled to me sitting by a table as I passed. They were butted head discussing something. As I made a big smile at Kim mischievously as if I were telling them that they are dating. He told me that he was teaching Bae about computer stuff, and I momentarily stopped and showed them a grin on my face at the thought of as if I had said, “Did I ask you the question?” smilingly. They seemed to make a good couple. Kim was a very nice man, who graduated from top school in Korea, equipped with gentleness and exuberance of confidence. He was an epitome of a Korean scholar, Sunbi, who was equipped with fine scholastic ability. At the moment, I thought they would get married each other . However, later, a rumor spread that Kim asked Bae to marry him but he was turned down because Kim's intent was to continue living in the US after his studying. Soon after that, Kim went to Korea over summer vacation and returned as a married man, marrying a woman through a matchmaker. When I went to see him to ask a question for my study, his newly wed wife- who just came from Korea-prepared a nice meal for me. Sitting at the dinning table, when his wife was in the kitchen, I asked him how come he didn’t marry Bae, and how come he missed the opportunities of marrying Bae, and he replied to my question with smiles on his face. Although I was glad to see that he married, I was amazed how his romantic life had been turned around so fast and so soon; Kim finished one of his important part of his life within a month; finding someone to marry, preparing for the wedding and getting married.
After Kim returned from Korea married, I saw Bae mingling with other men often the campus. One day, I saw she was sitting next to a Go-San who had graduated from the same school as Bae and he played good tennis. Seeing she was meeting other man casually, I was feeling sorry for Kim a bit having missed a chance to marry and baffled over her demeanor of nonchalance over the little affair I knew at that time with Kim. One day, I met Go-San on the way out from a dinning common by the a dormitory, and he bragged me that he had a date with Bae. I figured that he wasn’t a guy with sophisticated demeanor as Kim to be able to sustain a long term relationship with her. I was disappointed that Bae had gone out with him, and started having doubts of her ability for judging character. One day, when I was passing in the Campus Center, I saw Bae was talking with Go-San smilingly sitting on a couch in the campus.
A dance party was held at the time when I was taking a sociology course that Bae was a TA. The party was held at the basement of a dormitory. I took a deep breath and went over where she was sitting across the room, and asked her to danced with me. She was sitting next to a man who I had never seen before, watching other people dancing on the floor. To my glee, she smiled and accepted my request. I reached my hands and she grabbed my hands gladly at the tune of a slow dance. I asked her who the man she was sitting next to her, and she replied to me that his name is Hee-june Yune who joined the electrical engineering department for his phD. I was trying to figure out what else I should say to her other than dancing to the tune, but I felt as if I was in a dream holding her hands.
I saw the Yune who was sitting by Bae at the dance party several weeks later on a weekend when a tennis games were help in the courts at the corner of the campus. Yune seemed to have well adjusted himself to the new campus life at the UW, already having acquainted with many graduate students. After the game, he made an announcement that a dance party will be held at his place next Saturday and handed out flyers to the people that showed the direction to his apartment. He hosted a party get to acquaint with the people. When I went to the party on the following Saturday, there were group of people there including Bae and all other people who had graduated from the same collage that he went. He showed his place including a large waterbed in his bedroom. The waterbed was in dark color. For a moment, I thought that he had a peculiar taste to buy such bed, and then I thought that it might have been given by the precious occupants of the apartment for it is large to carry with.
There are number of my encounters with her. One day, after a practice of volleyball, a senior, Seunggy, invited all the people over to his apartment in Puffton. We went there and he served us cold drinks, and we listened to old songs. Bae was sitting in front of me, around the other female players. Bae took out a wallet and show the people around her sister's picture. Bae didn't initially held out the picture to me, the the point in time was brief when I was the only male among the people at that time, indirectly pointing at me. She Like Bae, the girl on the picture looked pretty to me. Then I jokingly responded by saying "Wow, that's what is called a real women" as if I had lived in an island for years without seeing a female of my age. Bae is oldest of her siblings, and I think that she is also take part of finding suitable mate for her sisters. I never thought her action very seriously at that time, but come to think of it, I regret that I had missed her intent. I could have chosen to find more information about her and weight the feasibility of going to Korea to find out more about Bae's sister.
Unlike most of Korean women, Bae was a very athletic woman who doesn't take lightly of doing exercises. I have seen athletic women in Korea, such as eldest daughter of the lady who ran 'bean sprout factory' in the neighborhood, who walked like an football player, and my distant cousin who played tennis majoring in sports, but they focused on the sports not doing anything else much. However, Bae was different, she could swim every week to keep her in shape, with each time spending considerable time swimming. Once a year, the UM KSA participated in a volleyball tournament held in in Iowa University. Her athletic ability developed from swimming made her become a major women's volleyball player. Unlike some other players in the team, she composed herself well receiving ball coming over the net fiercely without making any mistake. We practiced for the tournament every week for several months before the tournament was held in Cider Rapids. The UW team went to the semifinals defeating many teams. The UW KSA team was able to do that due to three players were instrumental; there were two players who were volleyball player in Japan. Yune followed her and we all went the Iowa University in Cider Rapids. When we lost, she cried.
Around the time when Bae passed her dissertation for her PhD, a meeting was held to elect a new president for KSA that represents both Korean undergraduate and graduate students bodies on the campus. People nominated her to lead the KSA since she has passed her PhD thesis and almost done with her studying. Bae easily won the election and she was expecting to have good supports from her fellow graduates as well as undergraduate bodies for her abilities, beauty and charms. Especially, she was expecting to get unyielding supports from the fellow graduate students who had graduated from the same school as her, especially from Yune. In fact, it may have been the idea of Yune to ask Bae to run for the position.
After Bae was elected, much to my surprise initially, her relationship with Yune had gotten closer. Despite he was not elected for any position, he became a right hand of Bae and she was often seen in handling the student affairs with him; Yune became an influential force. Once, she invited executive members of KSA over to her her apartment for a meeting. When I arrived at her door, Bae had not arrived home yet and I saw a note posted by Yune on her door. At the meeting, Bae announced that Kim had been diagnosed with a serious medial condition and hospitalized. Bae suggested that a bouquet needs to be sent over to him on behalf of KSA. Bae didn't seem to have been affected by the news.
After the incident, I met both Bae and Yune at a Korean church nearby in Allston. They were there to seek ties with the church introducing herself as a new president of KSA. Bae was a sociology major, and she was seeking every opportunity to enhance her experience in inter-generational, inter-cultural and inter-communities communication psychology. After the church service was over, one church goers told me that the church is going on a picnic, and asked me whether I would like to come along. I asked Bae whether she might like to go there with me. Yune's face turned red, and immediately he spitted out a word saying, "young man like you should never to say such thing." His very snobbish mind had just jumped out on me jabbing into my stomach hard, sending a chill down through my spine. I did not say a word in response with my mouth firmly shut. I left the scene without even saying a good-bye to Bae. After I returned to my dormitory, I thought about Yune’s remark in my room. For the answer that could have been easily said, “We are busy, we will go to the picnic if there is any opportunity next time.” It maybe that Lee did not know any other way to handle, the situation that has been created by me abruptly, then yielding himself to his typical disdainful attitude that he developed for decades. I didn’t make any comment because this is kind of attitude that any ordinary man of his generation might have displayed, even I might have reacted the same if I were in his shoe, but the thing is that there are people who would have reacted otherwise with gentleness and flexibility. If fact, I have see them. One thing so obvious to me was that he had do notion of respecting other human unless they are in the path of achieving his desires. Having grown up in Korea where show of respect to older people at the sacrifice of one’s individuality is considered a virtue, and such attitude is encouraged in large part governing human relationships, where obedience to teachers and parents is unquestioned, and rarely offered younger people chance to interact freely without constraints of such social mores that put the human relationship skewed in terms of mutual respect. Meeting older people was certainly uncharted territory at that time. I would think that, unless any boys in families with older sisters and brothers and had chances to be exposed with them, ordinary boys would have felt the same way. I was feeling uncomfortable seeing his unjust way of treating others. I was carrying a baggage that has been loaded by the societal norm, and yet inclined to somehow make them think that his treating me not in equal term because I am young is not very sophisticated. I want to imply to Yune that he has an old style thinking, that he is not a sophisticated person and discriminatory toward young folks.
Several weeks after the incident at the church, I met Yune and Bae in the Student Union by a vending machine as I was walking with several Korean undergraduate students. Yune asked us to step aside near the vending machine in low tone of voice initially saying a word of greeting. Yune did not smile at all looking rather in a gloomy mood, and Bae was not either. He looked to me in my eyes and said that the graduates would like to break off ties with the undergraduates. I was stunned by his statement and could not utter a word wondering why he would say such thing. Despite he was not representing the graduate student body, he appeared to be acting as the president with Bae standing by him. Bae was standing by him with no words in silence as Yune was delivering the statements. This came as a utter disappointment to me. The lady I thought has compassion, charisma and caring eyes for humanity was merely an accomplice executing a divisive act of Yune taking place. She had no charisma there. She was there taking part of punishing for my insolence at the church. She had no commeradery or sense of compassion, but she reveled herself most vile that I had ever seen. She came to me as a person who doesn't have firm principles on which she stood. She came to me as a person who is not very skillful at treating others, not very politically savvy person, somewhat very clumsy. My daughter recently graduated from the UM, and I asked whether Korean students get along between undergraduate and graduate students, and she she told me that they are not getting along despite same cultural heritage that they share. The legacy of Bae and Yune has been carried over three decades at UW.
For all along, I was seeing her in the releam of Queen Elizabeth who cared for unity of her people, but her dispositions was disappointing to me; she were very divisive:
"
I knew that in over hurl there would be less of shared feelings between the two bodies as times go, but his statement came to me as purely a retaliation of my remark at the church. I've know many graduate students of his age in the campus as being a brother-in-law of Han, but one of them appeared to me as sly and divisive as Yune. Yune didn't have straightforwardness of ordinary people of his age, he would be merciless to the people he didn't like. In one instance, he graded poorly to a project that was turned in by an older undergraduate Korean student when he was a TA, and the older student complained about his unfairness; apparently, he graded lower than he deserved so that he would not be penalized for any possibility of unfairness in grading students in the class. He associated only with graduate students of whom Bae had acquaintance with, not going further trying to get acquainted with his won efforts. He basically seized the incident at the church as a golden opportunity to reveal his long brewing intents of separating the student bodies in half. Coincidentally, it was a good time to make the move as everybody in his peers were in undergraduate had graduated and left the undergraduate school were left no longer in the school, and he seized that as an golden opportunity to break off the ties with the graduate students body for there will be no one from his peers who would come up to oppose his idea and that he personally doesn't feel obliged to nor have any desire to keep the relationship with, completely being disrespectful to sentiments as a Korean. It appeared to me that he had never mentioned that this issue had been raised and discussed within the graduate body. and he solely came up with the idea. As soon as he said that, my mind popped up with a statement once made, that the academic standing of UW is not as top notch as MIT, indirectly implying that the UM undergraduate school is not as top notch as the school he had graduated from in Korea although technically the undergraduate school he graduated from falls far below in many measures of academic ranking in the world standard surveys. I figured that basically that was the reason why he wanted to disassociate the graduate school students from the undergraduate school students. It sounded to me as though he wanted to rob away any opportunities for the undergraduate students to associate with the graduate students, not having any sense of the world of interdependent web of coexistence. He could have yanked out of himself on his own volition without dragging the whole graduate student body. His intent was utter evil; he basically wanted to cut off any relations with undergraduate students abusing power on behalf of the graduate students. It maybe that he had been jealous of undergraduate students who had been largely in favor of the graduate students graduated from a different school than he. He decided to lash out the undergraduate students as he was so pissed off by my remark at the church. After all, most of the Korean students on the campus graduated from fine schools, and it was the sentiments of the undergraduate students to keep the relation intact to make college life more wholesome. Yune brought the idea out of blue in very improper manner and brute way as he ran into us at the Student Union by a vending machine. Bae stood by him in total silence, as unusual as I had ever seen, without a word coming out from her mouth as Yune was unveiling his intent. On that afternoon, I thought that I had serious misgiving on her, who was standing by supporting Yune. Yune was man not so good looking in Korean standard; He was 5 feet 3" wearing wearing glasses in gold frame, that change its color. He gets close to people based on their social status and how they are related to upper class people in Korean society.
For all along, I was seeing her in the releam of Queen Elizabeth who cared for unity of her people, but her dispositions was disappointing to me; she were very divisive:
"
I knew that in over hurl there would be less of shared feelings between the two bodies as times go, but his statement came to me as purely a retaliation of my remark at the church. I've know many graduate students of his age in the campus as being a brother-in-law of Han, but one of them appeared to me as sly and divisive as Yune. Yune didn't have straightforwardness of ordinary people of his age, he would be merciless to the people he didn't like. In one instance, he graded poorly to a project that was turned in by an older undergraduate Korean student when he was a TA, and the older student complained about his unfairness; apparently, he graded lower than he deserved so that he would not be penalized for any possibility of unfairness in grading students in the class. He associated only with graduate students of whom Bae had acquaintance with, not going further trying to get acquainted with his won efforts. He basically seized the incident at the church as a golden opportunity to reveal his long brewing intents of separating the student bodies in half. Coincidentally, it was a good time to make the move as everybody in his peers were in undergraduate had graduated and left the undergraduate school were left no longer in the school, and he seized that as an golden opportunity to break off the ties with the graduate students body for there will be no one from his peers who would come up to oppose his idea and that he personally doesn't feel obliged to nor have any desire to keep the relationship with, completely being disrespectful to sentiments as a Korean. It appeared to me that he had never mentioned that this issue had been raised and discussed within the graduate body. and he solely came up with the idea. As soon as he said that, my mind popped up with a statement once made, that the academic standing of UW is not as top notch as MIT, indirectly implying that the UM undergraduate school is not as top notch as the school he had graduated from in Korea although technically the undergraduate school he graduated from falls far below in many measures of academic ranking in the world standard surveys. I figured that basically that was the reason why he wanted to disassociate the graduate school students from the undergraduate school students. It sounded to me as though he wanted to rob away any opportunities for the undergraduate students to associate with the graduate students, not having any sense of the world of interdependent web of coexistence. He could have yanked out of himself on his own volition without dragging the whole graduate student body. His intent was utter evil; he basically wanted to cut off any relations with undergraduate students abusing power on behalf of the graduate students. It maybe that he had been jealous of undergraduate students who had been largely in favor of the graduate students graduated from a different school than he. He decided to lash out the undergraduate students as he was so pissed off by my remark at the church. After all, most of the Korean students on the campus graduated from fine schools, and it was the sentiments of the undergraduate students to keep the relation intact to make college life more wholesome. Yune brought the idea out of blue in very improper manner and brute way as he ran into us at the Student Union by a vending machine. Bae stood by him in total silence, as unusual as I had ever seen, without a word coming out from her mouth as Yune was unveiling his intent. On that afternoon, I thought that I had serious misgiving on her, who was standing by supporting Yune. Yune was man not so good looking in Korean standard; He was 5 feet 3" wearing wearing glasses in gold frame, that change its color. He gets close to people based on their social status and how they are related to upper class people in Korean society.
A month later, I ran into her on the out from Campus barbershop after having a lousy haircut, she passed by me smiling warmly and said to me "시원해 보여요" in a very kind way as if nothing had happened at the church, as if not remembering what Yune had told me by the vending machine, not acknowleging the fact that she was taking in part trying to accomplish the Yune's scheme. I smiled back to her not to show of my feeling for the transgression that Lee made at the church. As she was passing by, I noticed that her smile was unusually natural and big with no hand blocking her mouth; her two canine teethes were gone--they were extracted. I sensed that that something great was forthcoming to her. She married to Lee on that year, she probably had those canine teethes for more than two decades, and she seemed quite pleased that they are finally gone.
On following weekend, I met Bae with several of her classmates from her school including Yune on a cafe, drinking and chatting at a table in a cafe. My friends and I found a separate table and as we were sitting waiting for our drink orders to come, they were leaving the place. As I said "bye,' Bae told me that she is buying drinks for us. Normally, I would expect a Yune to have treated me in Korean cultural context, but Bae who was far more mature and more socially apt than the rest of the gang boys knew how to treat others well, which would have melted away any resentments one might have toward her and made the men with her looked more pathetic than before. Her demeanor was rather unusual for ordinary women and came as a big surprise to me given the environment of Korean society that I knew of at that time, in which girls were not raised freely to express their opinions. I always looked up to her as a woman who kept a good balance, like a tightrope walker on a balancing beam, between following the norm of the Korean society and adapting to what is called “sophisticated cultured” in the Westerner's point of view, which made her stand out. I saw her associating Lee as part of her efforts in dealing with this: his presence with her always made me to wonder about her dealing with one of her aspects.
One day, Yune called Han and invited him over for a dinner in a Japanese restaurant in downtown Allston. He wanted to thank him for a transfer of money that he receives from his parents to him, which Han helped him out. My sister and I tagged along. At the restaurant, he announced that he will be marrying with Bae in coming winter vacation and they are planning to go back to Korea for the wedding. Both my sister and Jay congratulated them. I could not say a word hearing the news. In fact, I was disappointed and had no idea why Bae would marry with Yune. Her decision to marry him was baffling to me; I thought it was very simplistic in her thinking. I become somewhat ambivalent when I think of sophisticated Korean woman would marry a person like Yune. Bae clearly has shown me many unusual qualities of Korean women that I had never been exposed of; her social skills, athletic abilities, sophisticated demeanor and etc, but as far as her decision to marry Yune was very predictable and ordinary in light of her other aspects; It maybe that Bae had no other choice. Bae came from a good family, beautiful, and having a fine character that probably had been developed over the years with lots of studying and reading. When she smiled, her smiling was refreshing like a summer breeze, exuding intelligence and warmth. Marrying to Yune might had been her only choice, who inevitably end up marrying a person who grew up in one-dimensional society where academic achievement is overly emphasized overshadowing the quality of well roundness of a person, even looks, in this case. In any societies, marriages tend to take place within the socioeconomic groups and educational background. However, in the US, there are often cases where people marry one another out of the societal norm with simple reason that they love each other, even beyond crossing over racial differences. On the other hand, those exceptions are rarely seen in Korean societies. I remember seeing an article in a magazine, that a college woman liked a man running a stall selling “붕어빵” nearby her school ended up marrying the man. It became a sensational love story that the magazine company decided to cover their love story. Basically, Bae was marrying a man had lack of sensitivity with basic human quality deprived; no demeanor that reflect genuine appreciation and understanding for humanity was observed in him. He had lack of sensitivity for people’s needs, no showing any traits that have been developed as a results of thinking other people in non-egocentric view. It maybe impudent of me to judge a person’s character of a person who was still relatively young at that time, but not all Korean men turned out to be like him. Of course, there are people with varying degree of ills of Confucian thinking and behavior that one may inevitably have to be carried with since it may be hard to expunge all together in their college years. Or, it maybe had been too much to ask him to expunge those traits in four years in his college years. Nevertheless, I am sure that those who already knew him would have passed a character judgment on the person to whom Bae would be married. Yune is a man who had probably grew up in the society that endowed with Yi dynasty's aristocratic attitude with old-style thinking. By any measure, his short height would make wearing any old style aristocrat’s outfit clothing fit rather awkward. It’s hard to imagine his face with mustache and beard, walking in high boots and wearing a traditional hat with long outfit with a narrow black belt holding a long smoking pipe. Certainly, he was a modern man in comparison with my teachers when I went High School in Korea, and yet their ill traits can be palpable in his attitude; the subtlety of him looking downing upon people who don't fit to the norm of aristocratic background. He treated people unfairly based on this measure. He favored my friend over me due to the fact that my friend’s relative was holding a professorship in the college where he had graduated. When three of us talking, he would make eye contact only to my friend. He uses honorific form of addressing a person in conversation with younger people, not for his genuine politeness or respect, but rather to keep himself distant from them as a sly tactic to disassociate with people whom he regarded as "not desirable quality." After Yune had received his PhD, he went to Korea and landed a professorship, a ticket to be a member of aristocratic society in Korea. Many years after he had left out of the sight, I met him once in Korea accidentally in hallway coming out of a building after attending a seminar. He identified me immediately. I asked him how Bae was doing, still baffled over how Bae ended up marrying to the buy standing right in front of me now, trying to unearth the mystery still lurking back in my mind. I hadn’t seen him for ten years and I asked him how his wife was doing. He looked much older than last time seemingly appeared not too happy despite marrying with Bae, Perhaps, that his chauvinistic and Confucian mind had hard time providing lip services to his superiors at work. I think that the odd of chances of becoming like Yune weigh more in Korean society than Kim, unless a man came from a very good family background. It maybe that Kim had higher EQ than Yune, being able to camouflage himself not to show any vulgar demeanor that would often be seen as a result of side effects of the education system that would inevitably implant such characteristics in the students.
After Bae returned from Korea marrying Yune, she invited a bunch of girls, Han and my sister over to her house, and naturally I tagged along to congratulate her. There were bunch of young undergraduate girls were flipping trough pages of her wedding photo albums excitedly, deeply engrossed in seeing the photos making all sorts of complements, and I was watching it along with them. She was wearing a while wedding dress in the pictures with Yune standing by her wearing a suit, with every photos showing no smile on his face. I was wondering how a lucky man would have such stern faces at the time of marriage ceremony standing by such a fantastic woman. I remember that night that I visited Bae place clearly; snow was falling heaving in that part of the state and my car skidded coming down hill at her apartment complex. The snow was coming down heavy by the time we left her place. The snow on that night had potent effect on my mind to slowly fade away my memories on her even though there has been sporadic convulsion of her memories whipped through my mind. I had incidents of meeting her several times after she married: one day I saw her was holding up her newly born daughter at the cafeteria in the Student Union one day. I stopped by and smiled to her and to her newborn baby.
