A South Korean Love Story

Twelve-year-old Kyu Chul Lee was pushed inside the bus by his big brother Kyu Sang, followed by his two older sisters Myung Hee and Kyung Hee, his parents, and three other families. In one hour, he would be in Seoul. In one and a half more years, Lee would be in the U.S. Lee finally sat down and shot right back up when he saw her. Youn Mi Park was running towards the townhouses on the hill where he just left. She ran past the bus. Banging on the window, Lee tried to say goodbye, but the eight-year-old girl quickly disappeared. 

The hill that Lee used to live on was Dogok-ri village in Deoksu Town of Gyeonggi province. It is surrounded by mountain terrain, forests, and waterfalls. Below Deoksu town, poor residents lived in clay brick walls and thatched roofs. Lee lived in a nicer townhouse neighborhood with cemented walls because the place was ensured by his father’s company that made plastic consumables. 

Youn Mi Park was his neighbor. Her father also worked at the same company. In the summer of 1975, the two hung out. Lee catapulted himself into the waterfall, and Park sat on a rock to watch. She ate onion rings, shrimp crackers, and popsicles while staring at the trees and sky. The park was quiet.

Then the two forgot about each other. 

In the winter of 1980,  Kyu was now seventeen years old in America. He went by the name Chris as an Independent High School student in Santa Clara, California. But he could get away with a pack of Budweiser--weight-lifting made him look years older. 

One night, Lee got into a car with three other high school Korean boys. One was a heartthrob, the other a creep, and the driver Lee called “a chubby pimp.” (Lee could not recall their names afterward, only their appearances). All four ended up driving downtown in Oakland. Then suddenly, the chubby pimp stopped his car, got out, and started threatening a couple to give up their husky at gunpoint. Lee could not remember when the guy got a gun. The driver got back in the car and tossed the husky onto Lee’s lap. When Lee was dropped off at home, he went into his room with dog hair on his legs to contemplate his life decisions. 

Lee was slapped awake. If he kept living this way, getting high and fooling around with people who casually had guns in their glove compartments, he would end up homeless and alone. He was not smart, but a college degree might get him somewhere. Out of the blue, Youn Mi Park flashed across his mind and he grimaced. She was probably already with someone. 

Lee searched Mission College and registered for enrollment. After three years, he earned enough credits to apply for UCLA in mechanical engineering. He smoked to calm himself. Lee smoked more than a pack a day. He turned on classical music, sipped beer as he problem-solved, and always ate his breakfast, pronto--cigarettes and coffee. These were his essential studying habits. 

Lee received the congratulations email for UCLA admitted students. 

And only when he graduated in June 1990, did Lee have time to think about Youn Mi Park after two years of slaving away at university. She was always at the back of his mind, and he wanted more than anything to visit her in South Korea. 

He pulled out his phone and scrolled down the list of contacts. There was his roommate Thomas Stevenson, his fraternity members’ numbers, his siblings, parents, and there--Gudong Park. A name he had not thought of since he was twelve. Apart from Youn Mi Park, Gudong Park was his other childhood playmate. Gudong Park would play with Lee in the forests and rice fields when Youn Mi Park couldn’t watch him. 

Lee dialed the number, and after two rings, Gudong picked up. Lee got right to the point. Did Gudong have Youn Mi Park’s number? No, Gudong said. But his mom and Youn Mi’s mom were friends and still kept in touch. Gudong will see what he can do. 

Youn Mi Park was sitting at the dinner table when the home phone rang. She was confused. Nobody ever called, and international calls were ridiculously expensive--10 dollars per minute. She got up and picked up the phone.

“Hi, this is Lee Kyu Chul. Do you remember me?” It took a second, but Park remembered. It was such a long time ago, but she recalled the fuzzy image of a cute twelve-year-old boy. 

“Yeah, I remember you!” 

Lee laughed. “I'm going to Korea next week and I want to meet you.” When Lee asked her if she had a boyfriend and he found out she wasn’t seeing anyone, they made a promise to set a date.

It was December 1990. At 27 years old, Lee waited as he was shoved aside by hundreds of people in Lotte World’s underground shopping center. The subways screeched and opened up a horde of busy passengers. He wondered if Park was in one of them. Too many people kept shifting him around, but then he spotted her upstairs. Park wore a leather jacket, a black turtleneck, wool Bermuda knee-high pants, and stocking tights underneath. She was tall with long, thick black hair, and pale skin. She looked chic. But she still had baby fat. Lee thought “It resembled the child face I used to know.”

On a date, Park and Lee watched the 1990 Ghost film with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore at Lotte World Theater. Park liked the ending when Patrick Swayze finally gets to go to heaven. The next day they brunched at Myeongdong, and another day, they picnicked at Hangang River, but Lee suggested that their last place would be somewhere special. He wanted to visit Dogok-ri village. 

Dogok-ri was not the same. The company that owned the townhouses went bankrupt long ago, so most of the houses were demolished. They walked down the slope with the tilted STOP sign and walked at the end of the rice fields to a rundown store. They looked inside and the same store lady since they were children was there. Lee and Park said hi.

While they were walking on the side of the rice field, Lee stopped and turned to her. Lee walked in front of Park and kneeled. Lee extended his hand with no ring or job and asked her to marry him. Park immediately told him that America would be too difficult. He said he would give her time to think. He would leave in a month, so until then. She said thank you, but yes, she would need the time to think.

Park moved to Seoul in 1978 at ten years old. She studied well until Youngdong Women’s High School when she flunked her final and her GPA dropped. She was so scared out of her mind for the future, that she skipped dinner and slept early. She slept, ate, attended classes, and did it all over again. Her mother was sick out of fear for her, so Park took her college exams and enrolled in Hanyang’s two-year college for fashion design. She graduated without a job on the line and became convinced that she had no future.

And then Lee showed up.

“He had an honest and true mind,” said Youn Mi Park in the present day at 52 years old. When Park moved to the U.S., Park grew partly dependent on him, and as the years went by, her anxiety waned and her health improved. 

When 23-year-old Park went back home after the proposal, she pondered on his words: “You can learn English. I can make you happy.” Lee said that. The man spoke gently. She noticed on their dates that he did not eat so much. He looked deathly tired, but still, he was good to her. 

 She felt comfortable with him. Even though she felt no romantic attachment, she could trust him and might grow to love him one day. 

The day before Lee left for the airport, he received a call from her to meet again at Deoksu town. They met up and there, she accepted his proposal. Lee said well, okay. He still looked worried, but there was a little light in his downturned eyes. In the same place where they grew up, Lee and Park said goodbye once again to their childhood home. But this time, they were leaving together.