The Necklace

The Necklace

It had been eight years. After she was suddenly gone in the spring of 2004, I hadn’t seen her for eight years and five months. Thus, it should not be a surprise even if I suspected the phone call that I received last night as a voice fishing strategy. With exactly the same voice she used to have eight years ago, she asked me to meet at the local coffee shop.

More than an hour earlier than the promised time, I ran to the shop as fast as possible. My heart beat tremendously, and my necklace shook with the heart as well.

The necklace. My dear necklace had been on my heart for eight years. We had two identical necklaces: one on my neck and the other on her neck. It was the last present that she gave me before she moved away.

Holding the necklaces together, she murmured, “Sorry Brian. I have to go now. I will certainly come back someday. Please wait for me. When our necklaces touch each other again, we can be together forever.”

Since then, it had been the only thing that I could lean on whenever I felt weak about my life.

I sat at the table and waited. Perhaps, a little more than an hour passed. Ding-ding. The door opened, and a woman in her mid-thirties came in. Though her face was not familiar at all, I could instinctively feel that she was the one I had been waiting for my life.

My legs were frozen; I could not move any part of my body, except for my eyes. As she walked closer to me, my eyes turned desperately to find the thing. But when she approached right in front of me, I had to admit that her neck was empty. No necklace.

Trying hard to hide the pitiful disappointment, I almost shouted out the greetings, “Hey! How have you been, Rachel!” as if I were the coolest guy in the world.

After realizing the awkward silence, I noticed Rachel and I were not the only ones sharing the same air. There was a girl right next to her, staring at me with the most innocent eyes in the world. Without any extra information, I knew who she was.

The girl, probably about eight years old, looked exactly like the woman standing beside her, too similar for me to allow a possibility of her being a stranger walking by us.

“This is my daughter, Audrey. Audrey, say hello to mommy’s old friend,” was the first sentence she said.

“Hello!” Audrey seemed like an outgoing little girl; I could feel it just by hearing the hello she made.

As I was trying to introduce myself, Rachel murmured, “Sorry, Brian, excuse me, I need to answer this phone call from my husband,” and ran outside.

In less than five minutes of seeing her, since eight years ago, she walked away again, and I was now left with her daughter alone. Unlike my worries, the silence between Audrey and me broke in a few seconds.

“I had a blueberry cupcake for breakfast and it was delicious,” Audrey started talking to me in a casual way, “but I couldn’t eat more because mommy said it was too sugary for me to eat two.”

“Wow, I love blueberry cupcakes, too!” It was true that I did love them.

“Brian, how are you friends with my mommy? I have never met you before. And mommy never hangs out with boy friends. It is kind of weird.” What she said was enough to make me curious.

“Why? Your daddy doesn’t let her meet any other male friends?” I was being childish, trying to get some information about both Rachel and her husband.

Audrey laughed. “No, my dad doesn’t do that. He lives far away.” She was making me more and more curious.

“Where does he live? How far is it?” I tentatively asked this, considering every single possibility as an answer: Did they get divorced? Is he earning money in a different country? Why?

“He lives up there, which is very far away.” Following Audrey’s forefinger, I turned my face to the sky. Audrey continued, “I miss him.”

“When did you last meet your dad, then?” I tried to dig up information as if I were a detective.

“I’ve never met my dad. I hear of him every day, though. Mommy loves him very much.”

“You don’t know how he looks?”

“No. But mommy tells me I look exactly like my daddy! She has pictures, but she said she will show me when I become a third grader.”

Thinking that I could not get any more information from Audrey, I promised myself to be courageous enough to ask Rachel about everything when she came back.

“You must be very curious, girl.”

“It’s okay. I can love my dad without seeing his face. He is the best man I know!”

“Why?”

“Mommy says he is the only man she loves in her life.” When she said this, I felt something that I had never felt: a feeling that was a combination of disappointment and a new hope at the same time.

“I don’t know. She says he has left a lot of things for her.”

“What are they?”

“Well. I only know one thing.”

“Can I ask what?”

             “Ugh, wait. Yes. Sure.” Audrey hesitated for a while and searched her pocket, trying to find something.

After a few seconds, she cried out, “Here we go! Mommy tells me this is the most precious thing she has! I heard that my dad gave her this even before I was born``````.”

             Audrey continued talking, but I could not hear anything after seeing what she found in her pocket.

             I was literally frozen.

It was the necklace: the one that I could not find on Rachel’s neck was in Audrey’s pocket.

Waking up suddenly, I untied my necklace and put it into her tiny hand from my shaking hand. Unlike I expected her to be surprised of my sudden action, she smiled calmly.

In her smile, I could find a familiar face other than Rachel’s. Audrey was no longer my ex-girlfriend’s daughter; she was my daughter. She shared my blood, my necklace, and my soul. Finding my smile in her face, I smiled with her.

Like a miracle, Rachel appeared from the back.

“Rachel…. I just can’t….. Rachel….”

“I’ll tell you everything later. Brian, just remember that I’ve always missed you.”

I couldn’t believe anything: my eyes, my ears, and my fast beating heart. I just hugged her as strongly as possible.

Next to us, our necklaces were still shining together in a small angel’s hand.

The "Confirmation"

The “Confirmation”

             In 2008, I entered Shinchang Middle School, my heart throbbing with expectations for the new world. But as time passed, I started to notice the reality of the Korean education system. All they valued was the concept of “uniformity.” All students had to wear exactly the same uniform with the same hair style. No exception was allowed. In the same outlook, we had to memorize the same thing for each class. Our creativity was never accepted as an appropriate response to any matter.

             Everyone looked almost the same in the green school uniforms. The only things that could differentiate the students were their unique hair styles. However, that variety was soon forced to be the same. Boys could not have their hair touching the collars. For girls, it was even harsher; we could not have it longer than 3cm from our ears. The chief teacher of the student guidance literally measured our hair with a ruler. The rule for length being this cutting, hair color other than black was unimaginable.

Naturally born with brown hair, I was always suspected of having dyed my hair. Teachers would say, “Jane, why do you have brown hair? You are supposed to be a smart model student. The one who studies hard should always have black hair.” “Smart” students should have black hair; how racist. In the first place, I wondered why they did not want to accept the natural difference of my hair color even after having me explain it for over ten times. Secondly, even if I did dye my hair, what did it really have to do with me studying hard?

Not only the school rules, but the academic quality was also frustrating. I did not learn History, but memorized twenty different types of earthen vessels. The teacher automatically skipped teaching modern Korean history, following the unspoken rule of the society which wanted to avoid telling the dirty truth of the dictator’s era. I memorized the whole English textbook, and that was all I had to do for that class. All of the English teachers recited the book without any clues, but none of them could speak a single complete sentence in English properly. Math class was rather a self studying time for solving problems in the textbook, since most of us already learned it from prep schools and the teachers were impassionate to teach it again. Korean Language class was the most demanding one for memorizing. We never had any chance to “write”. The school did not want our diversity, but uniformity even in academics. Who memorized the detail better decided who were smarter than others.

One day, I realized I could no longer be part of the community, in which students were only taught to be uniformed. The system was not an education; in my point of view, it was no more than a tool to control students from putting their interest in other matters, and to raise them to be the loyal citizens of the country where rich people were the owners. Although I wanted to leave the school as soon as possible, there wasn’t any great solution. Most of the middle schools in Korea were not at all different from Shinchang. The only way to escape the situation was to have a completely different environment, such as moving to another country, but that seemed like an impossible alternative at the time. Also, I wasn’t sure whether I would perform better in a foreign country. After considering the solution for a while, I decided to use a method powerful enough to persuade both myself and the people around me. I promised myself to try my best in Shinchang for the first semester, and then to decide whether I still wanted to move out.

For that one semester, studying hard was always my priority. I wanted to figure out how I would view the school system after I became the only top student of the grade. That was when I studied harder than ever. I wrote down every single detail that came out of the teachers’ mouths and memorized it repeatedly until I would automatically murmur it unconsciously. For math, I almost mastered the whole 400-page textbook, knowing even the hardest problems that were not suggested by the teacher. I kept the routine of waking up, breakfast, studying, lunch, studying, dinner, and studying, until the final exams. Eventually, I took the first place in all of the subjects with no exceptions at all. My average score of the subjects was close to the perfect score of a hundred percent. Since I was the first one ever to receive so many perfect scores, the whole school was surprised. The principal called me to his office, saying tons of graceful wordings to praise my high academic achievement. The way everyone treated me changed in a few hours. No teacher could complain about my hair, or my anything. It was hilarious.

But I was not happy. Even after getting the first rank of the school and receiving numerous Model Students Awards, I felt hopeless. When I saw myself unconsciously reciting a novella and its fixed analysis, I was sure I wanted something different. Now that I tried my best in the given environment and earned great results, I was proud enough to “complain” about the current problems with the school. Through the process of setting a goal, accomplishing it, and doubting it again, I confirmed my decision with my effort.

I was ready to tell my parents. I just said six words exactly, “I want to study abroad.” Unlike my worries, they both agreed with my plan without any questions, for they already knew how much I disliked the reality of Korean public education. My mom suggested me going to a famous private boarding school in Boston. But I chose a small city called Champaign rather than Boston; a rather “boring” countryside city in Illinois seemed more attractive. I decided to go to a public school, expecting to share the ordinary, “free,” life of Americans.

Looking back to more than three years, I’m pretty sure I made a right decision through a self-confirming way. Though I’m not trying to promote any kind of cultural toadyism, I think leaving this country for a while and experiencing another was one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. I learned a lot. I liked how they respected me as an individual- I automatically learned to respect others as well. I liked how they taught me something that I would remember forever without constantly forcing myself to memorize.

I’m not sure if the experience helped me to understand something faster in time, but I can guarantee one thing. Although I don’t remember the names of the different tribes which I was almost dead to memorize, I can still draw the exact structure of a human cell which I learned through making a Styrofoam model. Although I don’t even want to imagine the teacher who forced me change my natural brown color to a superficial black one, I still appreciate this one stranger who smiled at me at a local food market in Champaign. Honestly, I’m still proud of myself for making a wise decision not only based on my taste, but also based on a 6-month of personal experiment. 

Season 5; Episode 11

Metafiction

Jane Park

Junior Writing/ 11b3

November 15, 2012 (Thu)

<Season 5; Episode 11>

             “Kyle, have you ever dreamt of life-long love?”

             “Did you write some sort of third-rate romance, again?”

             “You really won’t regret reading this. I can’t believe I wrote it… just read it first.”

             Jane aggressively took my laptop and clicked the file to open. It might sound funny, but I was never joking when I said I was satisfied with my piece of writing, a master piece, at least for this time.

             “Oh it opened! Fine, I’ll be generous enough to read your thing. But remember, it’s for the last time.”

             A woman in her mid-30s and a man looking a bit older than her are sitting in a bar. There are two cups of soda in the middle of the table. Silence passes for over an hour, with both of them just staring at each other. For the first time, the woman opens her mouth.

             “So, how have you been? You look like a complete Ah-jeo-ci! (middle-aged man)” with her wet eyes, she shouts in a cheerful voice, ironically.

             The man suddenly smiles rather awkwardly. “Yeah, people get old. You are still a beauty, though. I’ve been so-so, been quite busy living life. It’s good to see you again. It’s been almost 20 years since the last meeting, well, the private one. I wonder how you’ve been”

The woman raises her big eyes directly at the man’s eyes. “You’ve got talkative.” She gazes him for a minute and starts talking. “Well I don’t know where to start, but I want tell you about someone, someone very important, someone who has been my life.”

It all started in my freshman year of high school. I did not know that this one relationship could affect my life this much, well, at that time.

             “You might want to join the Kendo Club,” was how he first talked to me.

“Sorry, but we can still be friends,” was my answer.

Recalling the memory over 20 years later, I can’t even imagine how brave I was to ask him to be my friend, when he was two years older than I. There was this feeling that gave me I wanted to be close to him, or perhaps I had to.

Whatsoever, we became friends, close friends.

The man lowers his head automatically. “Girl, you, you’re just,” he cannot finish his sentence as the woman cuts his phrase. “Please just listen to me.”

             I used to tell him every single event happened each day. Though we hardly ever had chances of seeing each other, his husky voice through the cell phone was enough for me. He was never talkative; I was always the one to start up a conversation and continue talking until he eventually said something. But that little moment of hearing his voice was paying enough for me to call him every day. I treated him as if I was his daughter who could tell him anything I wanted to. He treated me as if he was my dad who could understand anything that came out of my mouth. When I laughed, he sounded soft; when I cried, he sounded angry.

             The man looks neither soft nor angry. He cannot stop his hands from covering his face. The woman seems to be more overwhelmed than before. His eyes can catch her hands slightly shivering together on her laps.

             “Oh my lord, this man should have put his hands over hers!” cried Jane. She looked very frustrated with the fact that the man was not caring enough. I knew it. I knew she’d be so into my romance fiction, hah! “Keep reading it, Jane.”

“Abercrombie and Fitch apparels are now on clearance. Please visit our store and take your chance to get our products in a 60% lower price!”

“On MTV, this Friday night, we have Selena Gomez! We’ve got an exclusive interview on how she feels now, after breaking up with Justin!”

“Now we get back to “Kyle’s Diary” and you’re watching Disney Channel!”

             “Sweetie, ugh” he cannot say anything this time either. He lowers his face again and goes silent. The woman opens her lips again.

             Friends. ”Friends” was the word that I used for describing our relationship.

For other friends and teachers suspecting our relationship, we always called ourselves “good friends.” He was probably serious to say so, considering me as one of his best friends.

So was I.

At first, I was happy to have a friend like him, really. But for the sake of human nature as an excuse, I felt myself in a changing mood. Talking to him was not as easy as before; looking into his eyes was even more difficult. I could not let him have a fun conversation with other girls. Whenever I sent him text messages, I was anxious waiting for his reply, literally forever. At that time, I did not know why, or perhaps, I probably did not want to know why.

             The bigger my feelings grew, the harsher I treated him. I did not want him to notice my obsession, anxiety, jealousy, and especially the change of my feelings towards him.

             “Why did you… ugh.. I really did not know… I really did not.” The man is almost crying now. The woman, on contrary, looks calmer now. With her relaxed voice, she continues.

I never expected my behavior, denial of one-sided love, could lead our “friendly” relationship to the last moment. I really didn’t know.

And it was the day.

             The day was nothing different than normal. We promised to study together in the afternoon; I was looking forward to it. It was after lunch when I received a text message from him, saying sorry that he could not keep our promise. I was okay. I thought he had a more important team project or something. I went to the conference room in Dasan and studied alone for an hour.

             “Sorry. I’m really sorry about that.”

             It was never on purpose that I was apparently studying there, at that time. I just got to be there. Guess whom I saw. Yes, I saw him. And I also saw another person next to him, holding hands. I did not want to believe my eyes; I did not want to admit she was my roommate, my best friend.

             “What? Why does this stop here?” I was satisfied to see Jane looking for the rest of the story. She angrily looked at me, but I kept smiling.

             “I’ll let you read more if you write a reading journal based on my story. It’s due tomorrow.” I wasn’t surprised to notice Sally nodding.

“You promised me, dude,” she asked me, still frustrated not knowing the ending.

             “Yes. I promise.” And of course this is a lie. I did not write it yet.

“!@##$$%#^@#@$#%$%” the ending music comes out. Sally turns off her television and goes to bed, already dreaming what would have happened to the woman.

The biggest frame: Sally watching TV

Second biggest frame: The TV program “Kyle’s Diary”

Third biggest frame: Kyle’s romance story

The smallest frame: The woman’s narrative