Professor Park considered himself an everyman. There were ups and downs, but his average annual earnings before he left South Korea exceeded 90 million won. He thought that he was on the verge of falling out of the middle class though, believing that the monthly entries in his bank account were not big enough numbers to rely on after his retirement. All his life, Professor Park had been such a person, till his moment of death.
Professor Park’s last 10 years in South Korea partly proved that he indeed had to scrape out a living in a certain sense. His daughter and son, who had often visited America for language studies and other reasons, both left for the United States when they entered university, this time for good. It was Professor Park who had to pay the greater part of their tuition and living expenses.
Had it not been for them, he would have faced no need to take on numerous research projects from external partners or serve as the department head. The latter forced him to introduce unnecessary English-only lectures, which resulted in his complaint: “Internationalization my ass! It’s nothing but flooding the campus with Chinese kids.” Sometimes, to relieve stress, he shouted “Hey, Qiqihar!” at a teaching assistant from Heilongjiang who worked in his lab.
At the point of her departure for America, his daughter had not yet obtained the dollar-like green card, let alone citizenship. Naturally, it was through much hardship that she got her MD-PhD. As American medical schools usually declined applicants without permanent residency or citizenship, Professor Park and his wife had to do something to raise the probability of her acceptance. First, they made her drop out of a university where she had been attending a preparatory course; after all, the university’s fame was insufficient to satisfy Professor Park’s wife. Then they sent their daughter to A—, a city in the Middle East, where a prestigious American university had a campus. Anyhow, their daughter, who had been a mere undergraduate international student, eventually succeeded in entering an American medical school and becoming a MD-PhD ― an amazing outcome of the child’s hard work and her parents’ stacks of money. Professor Park presumed that at this point, all she lacked was citizenship.
Now he was feeling nervous. Before he could realize it, his daughter had managed to catch an American fiancé. She was not getting a mere green card; she would become an American citizen. That meant a bigger probability of success for her. While it was impressive that she had secured a position in a general hospital, she could one day become a professor at a medical school or open a hospital herself, turning it into a big one over the course of time.
Professor Park was anxiously waiting for his future son-in-law, watching scorching yet pleasant sunbeams flowing through the window. It was a uniquely American summer day in the Pacific Northwest. He imagined what his son-in-law would look like. He was more likely to have brown hair than to be blond. Would his eyes also be brown then? Or maybe he would be a ginger, with pale skin that easily turned pink if seated by the window. What would his name be? Americans these days didn’t have names like John, Jack, or Thomas, so it was kind of hard to guess in advance.
His daughter had announced her marriage as casually as saying she was going out to buy cigarettes. She had never shown Professor Park a picture of her fiancé. To be fair, Professor Park and his daughter had lived apart since she was a teenager, and they had not been so friendly with each other. He heard that the fiancé was also an MD-PhD and that they had met at the medical school. This meant that he was just starting out his adult life and would not have much money, but was a decent young man who could pay his way.
Professor Park’s wife, sitting next to him, seemed even more nervous than he was. Her eyes opened wide.
“Here they come, over there.”
Professor Park turned around, then halted.
His son-in-law’s name was not John, Jack, or Thomas. He was called Vanquoc Nguyen.
Three years had passed since his daughter had become an American. It was the fourth month that Professor Park and his wife were spending in the States. The last sunshine that had clung to the end of the summer was gone; nine months of drizzles and clouds had begun in the Northwest.
Though the States had not been unfamiliar to Professor Park, he had never imagined that he would spend his old age here. He was in his sixties and did not regard himself as an old man yet, but he would live his later years in America anyhow. These days, he was spending many hours alone at home. He had never stayed at home for such a long time after his boyhood.
His immigration was a result of two coincidences. First, he retired. His monthly pension was around 3.5 million won, which, to quote his wife, was “an amount that barely lets them breathe and live.” Of course, Professor Park and his wife had some savings, but they were not enough to buy a building in Seoul to collect rent. Using the savings would let them spend more than 3.5 million won per month, although it raised another problem to consider: they had no idea when they would die and, accordingly, could not tell how much they could spend from their savings.
Then their daughter, who was living in P—, a city in the American Northwest, gave them a call. Professor Park had not heard much from his daughter after her last name changed from Park to Nguyen. He resented her behavior a bit, yet she was still the better child compared to her brother, who had refused to go to a law school and instead chose to major in filmmaking. He eventually disowned his parents altogether. Professor Park’s daughter said there was a tenement for sale in the downtown of P— at a tremendously low price, and she was willing to sponsor her parents to become American citizens and start a rental business.
Professor Park and his wife figured out that the disposal of their apartment, combined with their savings, would let them buy the tenement without difficulty, and it could generate more rental income than an average building in Korea, even if they hired a manager. On top of that, with the money left over they could buy a two-story house in the suburbs, which had a lawn, a swimming pool, and a jacuzzi. The same amount of money was worth only a tiny shoebox apartment in Seoul.
“Just leave it to me. I’ll take care of it later,” said his daughter. After hanging up, he was reminded that the building, not yet his, would also be given to his Vietnamese son-in-law for the price of citizenship. He felt a sudden surge of anger.
Professor Park, nevertheless, had come to America because he had no other option. At this point, dead leaves were floating on the surface of his swimming pool. He had become weary of the swimming pool and even the jacuzzi in less than a year. Mowing the lawn was tiring enough. His wife was not home, and he was microwaving a Hetbahn meal bought at a Korean supermarket. Unlike him, his wife was so athletic that she registered at a fitness center the day after they had arrived. At the fitness center, about a 10-minute drive away from their home, she befriended five middle-aged Asian women and had been hanging out with them almost every day. They were practically the only middle-aged Asian women in the neighborhood.
His had been a shotgun marriage. Professor Park was a graduate student back then. His wife’s father worked in the same field. He was the dean of a university department and had gone to college with Professor Park’s academic adviser.
When Professor Park’s soon-to-be father-in-law found out his daughter was pregnant, he called in sick for three days and summoned Professor Park on the fourth. He told Professor Park to get married, go to America, and earn a doctorate there. Professor Park could not refuse. To his luck, his father-in-law later helped him in many ways, when he was trying to get appointed to a professorship after returning to Korea and even when he had to buy an apartment.
Professor Park’s wife, who had thought nothing of her future except becoming a teacher, ended up a stay-at-home mom after the unexpected pregnancy and face-saving marriage. In return, she pushed her children onto a predetermined track with an attitude resembling that of the national soccer team coach. It seemed her lost career was being reincarnated into apartments and her children, providing her with psychological rewards as reimbursement for her sacrifice, or mistake, however one might look at it. All Professor Park had to do was to pay for her.
Many times, the children would spend time in Canada and the U.S., from a few weeks up to two years. There was an incident where they were sent for a short English study in the Philippines, due to lack of money. They were assisted by a local woman who did the housekeeping and babysitting, staying with them 24 hours a day. The reason Professor Park did not have enough money then was that his wife had demanded they move to D—dong, a neighborhood situated in Gangnam, with great fervor that resulted in too big a loan. Fortunately, paying the Filipina was quite affordable.
Professor Park could not stop thinking. It was his wife who had insisted that they immigrate to America, not him. Since he had always been a reluctant man, he could not have bid farewell to their life in Seoul so fast and foolhardily had it not been for her. Now, in retrospect, it was unsurprising that she was getting used to life in the U.S. much faster than him.
Professor Park had almost disassembled the refrigerator but still could not find a dish to go with Hetbahn. At last, he opened a can of tuna, and then his wife came home.
“Where have you been?”
“At Trisha’s. We had a potluck lunch. Then we went to the new mall together. It was nice.”
Trisha was a middle-aged Filipina whom Professor Park had encountered once. She and his wife were good friends, but they often entered delicate battles of nerves against each other, each competing in humblebrags about how well their children were doing.
“That Filipina living in a two-story house with yellow lawns?”
“Her lawn is yellow?”
“You see, those people had better get used to living like Americans. Americans care so much about how their town looks. Her neighbors must be badmouthing her for being so careless about her lawn.”
“I think she has lived here, like, over 40 years. She is a one-point-five generation immigrant.”
“Anyhow, the yellow lawn still shows that she hasn’t got used to America.”
Professor Park’s speech was interrupted for a moment as he tried with his chopsticks to pick up a small piece of tuna that had fallen on the table.
“It’s the same for you. You understand that America is a multicultural society, right? Such a vast country, and you hang out only with Filipinas, Indians, and Chinese. That attitude won’t help you adjust to the community.”
“They hold American citizenship too.”
“What I am trying to get at is, you know that blonde woman living next to us. What was her name, Kate? Kite? Get friendly with non-Asians, too. That’s my point.”
“Then you should make friends too. Stop staying home all day, go meet people, white or black, multiculturally.”
“What are you getting at? You think I have no acquaintances just because I am in the U.S. now?”
However, even when early summer came again, Professor Park still had not made any American acquaintances.
And now, as he was sitting home alone just as always, a man knocked at his door.
His name was Jeff. His face and body showed physical features common among descendants of Scandinavian immigrants, frequently encountered in the Midwest. In other words, his appearance was very close to what Professor Park had imagined when he first heard that his daughter was to marry an American citizen.
Back in school, Jeff was the kind of student often called bright. He was born here but went to S—, a prestigious university down south along the Pacific coast. He got good grades, became the head editor of the student newspaper, went on to law school without much hardship, and worked for a few years as a junior lawyer at a law firm in San—, a southern seaside city.
The problem was that Jeff could no longer bear the laid-back atmosphere of San—, the city facing the Pacific Ocean. For instance, while age 30 in small Midwestern cities usually meant you were supposed to be married and have a mortgage, in this city where vegetarian cafés and bars with rainbow flags overlooked the sea, it was very probable for some people to live with their parents at age 30. This was something Jeff could not stand.
Jeff decided to return and open a law office in his hometown with the help of his parents, despite the bit of humiliation it entailed. At first, he could only practice law in areas governed by federal rather than state laws. While preparing for the bar exam in his home state, he took on immigration cases from Indians, Chinese, and Koreans who wanted to invite their families, still in their home countries, to the States so that they could become American citizens. He had fewer customers than expected, since his target clients often preferred lawyers from Indian, Chinese, and Korean backgrounds. Through these experiences, Jeff developed a bias that Asians did not fancy interacting with those outside their own ethnic circles, a tendency he believed was stronger in Asian men born in Asia.
Ten years from the day Jeff knocked at Professor Park’s door, Jeff would meet Professor Park’s son during his business trip to New York, thanks to “a predestined car crash,” in his own words. Professor Park’s son, the rising star of New York’s independent cinema scene, and Jeff, the invincible lawyer, would fall into an inferno of passionate love at first sight. Jeff would move to New York, and his departure in pursuit of love and self-realization would leave indelible scars on his blonde wife, Kaitlyn. Then Jeff and Professor Park’s son would rise to fame to become the first gay couple in New York State history to enter the House of Representatives together, on the back of a tide of this and that identity groups.
Professor Park’s son spoke to Jeff about his family only once, telling him that his parents were a typical Asian patriarch and a tiger mom, and that his relationship with them had been cut off since they could never accept a son who wanted to work in the film industry. This was the only thing that Jeff would know about his partner’s family. Not long after the moment when Jeff was knocking at Professor Park’s door, Professor Park would die. As a result, Professor Park’s son would never discover that the love of his life had once been a neighbor of his father, and neither would Jeff.
At any rate, Jeff’s story above has nothing much to do with the story of Professor Park, who would die soon. So let us return to the doorstep of Professor Park’s house. Professor Park had a smile so friendly that it even looked servile, but he had not let his guard down. Between him and Jeff, there had been nothing but “good morning” and “good afternoon” for the whole year, greetings they only shared because they happened to live next to each other.
Jeff politely told Professor Park that he would like him to attend his barbecue on Saturday. Jeff felt uncomfortable with this middle-aged Asian man, who seemed to intentionally avoid getting close to his neighbors. Yet, this very discomfort might have prompted him to invite Professor Park. Most of the neighbors were coming to the barbecue; no matter how cold Professor Park behaved, Jeff did not want to give the impression of excluding the Asian man from the party, especially when his lawn was visible from next door.
Professor Park stepped onto Jeff’s lawn with a six-pack of beer in hand. From the moment they stepped out of their house, it took less than 10 seconds for Professor Park and his wife to enter Jeff’s place. Jeff waved at them before putting pork ribs on the grill, still holding the tongs. It was a drowsy Saturday afternoon, but Jeff’s lawn was full of vivacity with people chirping, beer bottles in their hands.
“Oh, so you were a professor before coming here. How nice!” Their “nice” here could translate as: We do not know how to properly interact with you, but do not wish to leave an impression that we are rude. Still, no one at Jeff’s party was intentionally or openly disregarding Professor Park. Jeff got busy making introductions, and some people approached Professor Park to initiate conversations.
The summer of the American Northwest was dazzling, with its sapphire sky and emerald grass. Professor Park’s knees ached. He took a seat at a table and tried the steak Jeff had grilled. His face was flushed. Although he could not take in much alcohol, he had kept slurping beer whenever the conversations stopped, to avoid the awkwardness.
America has good meat; too bad it’s a bit cold now, but this is really good. He looked around. A moment ago, a few people had been sitting with him at the table, gulping down chili dogs. They had been so busy stuffing their mouths that Professor Park could not tell when to start a chat with them. This was how Professor Park ended up alone at the table. Now everyone else was standing on the lawn, talking to each other. His wife had joined with white women in a profound, integrated discussion about which beauty salon in town was the best at removing hard skin on feet. The discussion came to an abrupt stop, though, after a careless hypothesis was raised that the pedicure skills of Asian women and their English proficiency were inversely proportional, based on the case of a beauty salon employee called Qingling. The white women and Professor Park’s wife tried to read each other’s expressions.
Professor Park noticed that he and his wife were the only nonwhite couple at the barbecue besides an Indian engineer couple. He remembered that they were from Kashmir but could not recall their names, which felt too long and difficult. And Professor Park was drunk. Everyone else practically shared the same skins, high schools, academic backgrounds, jobs, annual incomes, houses, lawns, and ages. Professor Park was the oldest person here. Most of the couples’ ages ranged from 40s to the early 50s, and their children were in their early teens, if not younger.
At that moment, a kid poked Professor Park. She could be no more than five in Korean age. She seemed smart and plucky, having noticed that Professor Park was the only one with free hands, not standing on the lawn with a bottle of beer.
“What’s your name?”
“Zacky.”
The white American kid, who twisted her body and babbled, was a bit hard to understand, but she did not forget to say “please,” just as her parents had taught her. The “please” helped Professor Park figure out what she wanted. She wanted him to open a bag of marshmallows as big as her body, if some exaggeration is permitted.
Professor Park forced the bag open, and a few marshmallows popped into the air. The marshmallows were white and soft like clouds of the Northwestern summer. Zacky giggled, her eyes as blue as the region’s early summer sky. She asked him to put marshmallows on a stick. The idea of putting food on a stick that could have been lying around anywhere made him uncomfortable, but he still did it for Zacky, aware that this is what Americans do with marshmallows when camping. He gathered more sticks and walked toward the grill with Zacky and the bag of marshmallows. Jeff, who had been tilting the grill in an effort to lose no more A.1. sauce to the fire, and Kaitlyn, his wife, got wide-eyed. More people’s eyes widened. More white people, with cheerful looks, gathered around the grill for marshmallows.
Zacky was the daughter of Jeff and Kaitlyn. Jeff lifted her up in a breath, kissed her, and asked, “Now what do you say?” Zacky’s hands were all sticky from the baked marshmallows. Zacky thanked Professor Park and hid behind her mother. “I think she likes you, but she’s a shy girl, you see,” said Kaitlyn.
Zacky soon let go of her mother’s pants and asked Professor Park to toast more marshmallows. He gave her another stick with three marshmallows on it. Zacky put all of them into her mouth at once. Her cheeks looked like they could burst at any moment. Professor Park was anxious that a marshmallow might slip into her airway but hesitated to do something. He had been told before that he should never touch a kid in America, especially a girl. He held out his hand under her chin, in a gesture to make her spit out the marshmallows. Zacky giggled again and said:
“Chubby Bunny.”
Professor Park learned what Chubby Bunny meant thanks to Zacky’s explanation and Jeff’s demonstration. The rules were simple. You put a marshmallow in your mouth and say “Chubby Bunny.” Add another and say “Chubby Bunny” again. Keep going until you can no longer say it. The person who gets to say “Chubby Bunny” with the most marshmallows in his or her mouth wins.
Zacky was not the kind of kid satisfied with the delayed gratification of winning Chubby Bunny. As soon as she said “Chubby Bunny,” she chewed, swallowed, and expressed her instant happiness with giggles, while Professor Park kept five marshmallows in his mouth. His cheeks swelled like those of an ever-discontented rabbit. Once more, Zacky laughed at him.
In less than an hour of playing Chubby Bunny with Zacky, the neighbors’ opinions of Professor Park had changed: he was no longer an antisocial, reticent Asian man, but a child-loving person and much better than his first impression. A radical change had been made, all thanks to Zacky and the marshmallows. Toasting marshmallows for other kids too, Professor Park started to converse naturally with their parents.
“How come we haven’t got to know you until now!”
“The community college is looking for someone to teach math. Please tell me if you are interested.”
“The kids love you, Mr. Park!”
At sunset, Professor Park made a scene. It might have been due to the beer or his long-repressed desire for recognition. With a red-hot face, he declared that he would have a barbecue party next Saturday at his home and that everyone was invited. His wife, with whom Professor Park had not discussed anything, suddenly crumpled. The next moment though, she managed to compose her expression, since she had been talking with a white woman whose husband was the CEO of a unicorn company. However, it did not interest Professor Park’s wife whether the woman’s husband owned a unicorn or a cup of popcorn: she had been listening to the woman’s story of an ecstatic cruise to Cancún for the second time. Anyhow, everyone but his wife loved Professor Park’s idea and cheered.
Professor Park’s wife stayed angry with him for a few days. What finally helped her feel better was a pedicure. The beauty salon recommended at Jeff’s barbecue turned out to be nice, and Qingling’s pedicure skills were indeed as magnificent as her English skills were poor.
Professor Park was relentless and excited the whole week. He prepared burgers, hotdogs, pork ribs, and colorful vegetables that would visually accent the skewers. Beef slices as big as cushions were aging in the refrigerator. Late Friday evening, reproaching himself for being careless, he drove to the Korean supermarket in a hurry and came back with loads of samgyeopsal and ssamjang. He would never again show such vivacity. Most importantly, he had colossal bags of marshmallows ready.
It was Saturday at last. Professor Park grilled, sweating. A few guests who hadn’t been at Jeff’s barbecue showed. They were his wife’s Asian friends. Professor Park’s wife was showing them around, chatting. The lawn was kept so perfectly that Jeff might feel ashamed. Guests who brought food, drinks, or other presents thanked Professor Park for the invitation and began talking in groups.
As time passed, Professor Park felt lonely. He understood that the host grills at American barbecues, but others were socializing while he stood alone in front of the grill. With a sulky face, he stopped placing more meat on the grill. He decided to mingle and return to the grill later.
Just as Professor Park was timidly walking towards people with their backs to him, Zacky ran towards him with a broad smile. Now he felt as if the whole world was on his side. Even before Zacky finished talking, Professor Park brought out a mountain of marshmallows to the lawn.
No one could tell who had started it, but Chubby Bunny began. Men who wanted to outdo others, even in a child’s game, joined in one by one. Soon, it became clear who was taking it easy and who was taking it seriously. Then, only two remained. They went on stuffing their mouths with marshmallows, even though their eyes seemed to pop out. One of them was Professor Park.
The words from Professor Park and his opponent were now less “Chubby Bunny” than cries escaping the lips that closed and opened. Still, Professor Park felt happy. Everyone was paying attention to the match instead of staying in groups, and most of them were cheering for him.
Professor Park’s opponent could no longer take it. He gushed out a few marshmallows into the sky. People cheered. At this very moment, Professor Park concluded that he would put the last marshmallow into his mouth and then shout out “Chubby Bunny!”
That was it.
Professor Park’s death from suffocation was briefly reported in South Korea. The news was soon forgotten. His wife inherited the tenement that he had owned, with the help of their son-in-law, Vanquoc Nguyen, throughout the probate proceedings.
After the hectic funeral, Professor Park’s wife was relieved that she would never worry about money again. Even without the rental income from the tenement, she would stay rich until she died. A lawyer who had gone to university with Jeff and met her at his barbecue called her. He told her that many lawyers wished to meet her. Later, with the most famous among them, she sued the marshmallow company for not indicating the choking hazard on the marshmallow bag. The lawsuit ended in a settlement, the details of which stayed unknown to the public.
Nevertheless, Professor Park’s wife lived a modest, average American life until her death, never showing off her wealth. The only occasion that she let her money talk was when she invited all her Asian friends from the local fitness club to join her on a cruise to Cancún. On this ecstatic cruise, where a three-hundred-foot luxury yacht was chartered, something strange happened. Despite the fact that Qingling had never been personally close to Professor Park’s wife, she got invited too.
Hyun Woo Kim is a writer living in Seoul. Kim was a finalist for the 2024 River Styx Prize and the 2023 Los Angeles Review Short Fiction Award. His works have been published by Necessary Fiction, BarBar, and others. When not writing, Kim is busy telling people that his first name is Hyun Woo, not Hyun.
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I really liked the irony of the buttoned-down professor dying while playing a child's game. Despite the Korean pragmatism, the soul yearns to emerge and play...
Very nice story and writing. I like sweet and sour.