Like Wind Against Rock: A Novel by Nancy Kim

Author:Nancy Kim [Kim, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2021-05-31T22:00:00+00:00

February 24, 2010

My wife is triumphant. Alice called eleven of the job listings that my wife had given her. Most were filled, but a library in the Restin area had a need for a part-time bookkeeper. Alice had an interview with the librarian, a Korean man, my age. I can’t imagine any Korean man who would be a librarian.

My wife said that Alice thinks he looks like me but he doesn’t act anything like me. I am glad to hear that. My wife looked at me so expectantly. Finally I said, “You are a good mother.” She beamed. I knew I should say something more. “You have a lot of initiative,” I added. This is true. In some ways, my wife is more American than my daughter. She works hard, and she is quite shrewd. I think that if she had not been beautiful, she would have been happier. The beautiful ones end up married, entrusting their futures to unworthy husbands—husbands who don’t make enough money, husbands who don’t love them enough. The homely ones—if they are hardworking and smart—end up like my cousin, Min Joo, who was successful, rich, and emotionally undemanding. As she grew up, her parents lamented Min Joo’s big face, her tall, sturdy build, and her thick and shapeless daikon legs. My aunt blamed my uncle’s blockheaded father, and my uncle blamed my aunt’s athletic brothers. Neither wanted genetic credit for Min Joo. Nobody would marry such a girl! They feared they would be stuck with her forever. But Min Joo was smart, receiving higher marks in school than her two beautiful sisters and her handsome brother. Unlike her sisters, who dropped out of college after they received marriage proposals, Min Joo was forced to complete her education. She got a job in a seamstress shop, rising early and working late. She saved enough money so that within a couple of years, she could afford a ticket to the United States. Her parents were relieved. They didn’t have to worry about some good-looking hustler taking advantage of Min Joo. They didn’t even have to worry that she would get mugged, since she was as strong as any man, and she didn’t have much money anyway. Within a few years, Min Joo had started a business importing into the US clothing manufactured in Korea. Imagine—my large and homely cousin, a fashion tycoon! The last I heard, she was living in a mansion in Beverly Hills, still childless but no longer alone. No, Min Joo had found herself a boy toy, a good-looking Italian model half her age! No worries about him trying to swindle her out of her hard-earned fortune—I hear that she gets a new boyfriend twice a year, like getting her teeth cleaned. Her beautiful sisters, on the other hand, have been married to the same men for over forty years. They live in the same houses they lived in when they first got married, in the same small village outside Seoul. Their husbands turned out to be less savvy than Min Joo, and so their wives work like peasants to make a living.

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