Never tell a Korean momma that you don’t feel good.
I walked into the Kim’s house last night with a sore throat
and stuffy nose. When Joy, the mother of the house, asked how I was, I told her
I was good but feeling a little sick.
Five seconds later she was pouring me a thick tan smoothie
from the fridge. “Homemade!” she said. “Whole grain, vitamins, seafood!”
The moment I finished it, she swapped my empty glass for a
full one, this one filled with a dark brown liquid. “Drink!” she commanded. As
I raised it to my lips, she added, “Tastes bad!”
I hesitated, but she urged me on, and I took a sip. It did
taste bad. I couldn’t nail down any of the flavors, and I didn’t have time to
try, because Joy Kim was not done with me yet. Not by a long shot. She pressed
her finger against the base of her throat and motioned for me to do the same. I
did, pushing my finger into the soft space beneath my Adam’s apple.
“Press hard,” she
said.
I shoved my finger deeper into my throat and tried not to
wince. This was made more difficult when she insisted I continue drinking. Finger
lodged deep, I tipped the cup back and downed the rest of my glass.
For a few minutes we made small talk. Much of our talk is
small, even when I’m not cutting off my respiration. Mrs. Kim is not as good at
English as Mrs. Choe last year. Talking with her is good practice for using
short sentences and inventing new sign language. Here’s a short conversation I recently
had with her:
Joy: “John Wesley?” [grins and nods vigorously]
Me: [nod]
Joy: “We see where he die.” [clutches throat and lolls head,
still smiling]
Me: [smile]
Joy: “In Fiji…” [makes outline of an island] “…people eat…
other people” [brings her arm to her mouth and gnaws, tilts head, smiles]
Me: “Yeah. Cannibals?”
Joy: “Yes, yes! Cannibals! John Wesley, they eat him.”
Me: [smile and nod]
When talking to Joy, I always feel a pressure to smile as
big as she does. I don’t want to seem unengaged. After many grand attempts,
however, I’ve decided that I simply cannot equal her smiling power.
Still standing in the kitchen, I tried removing my finger
from my throat.
“Joshua,” she said, her voice stern. “Keep press.”
I keep press another five minutes.
While we talked small, she mentioned that she did acupuncture.
I nodded and smiled, but then I realized she was offering to do it to me and I quickly said, “No, that’s
okay.”
Disappointed, she released me to go tutor the students.
When I came back up an hour later, she asked, “You feel
better?”
“A little,” I lied.
“Not better?” She seemed shocked. But then she smiled. “I do
acupuncture after dinner.”
“Okay,” I said. Why did I say that? I don’t know.
“I put needle in throat and ear.”
“Okay,” I said.
She studied my face. “Fear?” she said.
“No.” I lied again.
Throat and ear?
Before yesterday, I’d had no experience with acupuncture. The pictures I had
seen were all of people lying facedown on a clean white sheet, needles
protruding from their backs. On the list of places I wouldn’t want a needle,
throat is third (eyes and crotch claiming gold and silver, respectively).
Dinner was a short reprieve from the building tension. We
were having one of my favorite Korean meals—Bulgogi, a kind of Asian barbeque
lettuce wrap. (Note: Don’t verify this definition with a Korean.)
Joy finished eating last, which meant that I had a lot of
time to observe her deft use of chopsticks. I kept imagining her plunging one
into my neck.
She ate with careless delight, and I began to hope she had
forgotten. But after rinsing her plate, she washed her hands and said, “Ready?”
She motioned for me to wait on the couch, and a few minutes later
she returned with a tray, loaded with foreign instruments and needles.
“Fear?” she asked again.
“No,” I laughed.
She gave me a container of vitamins, and I ate one. She gave
me another container. I ate another vitamin. She gave me a small packet like
one Americans would use for sweetener. I tore off the top and choked down a
chalky substance. She gave me another packet, this one bigger. I tore off the
top and tipped it back, spilling tiny beads into my mouth. She told me to hold them
in my mouth for one minute, then chew and swallow. Then she added:
“In one half hour, you will… very sleepy time. Your nervous
system… down.”
It was at this point that I began laughing uncontrollably.
It was like a case of the laughing hiccups for the next fifteen minutes.
She prepared her instruments, removing tiny needles from a
package as she described how she had learned acupuncture. “In Korea, I am
healer,” she said. Later, she added, “I do five years ago.” I wasn’t sure if
this specified the last time she’d done acupuncture, or the year she graduated
from healing school in Korea.
“I learn healing from Dr. Wong,” she said.
Ah yes. Dr. Wong.
I know all about Dr. Wong.
Dr. Wong is to South Korea what Steve Jobs is to America.
His name has popped up in conversation throughout the year I’ve worked with the
Koreans, always spoken with a hushed sense of awe. Throughout the house, you
will not find a single picture of the Kim family—but you will find several of
Dr. Wong and his family. When you eat dinner, Dr. Wong looks over your shoulder
like the dining room’s own personal Chairman Mao.
Somehow, Dr. Wong was the one who had taught Mrs. Kim
acupuncture. I didn’t know what to feel about that.
“How does it work?” I asked.
She tilted her head, confused.
“The acupuncture. How does it work?”
“I don’t understand.”
“How do you do it?”
Nothing. I tried again. “What happens when you do the
acupuncture?”
“Huh?”
“Like… what does it do to make health come back?”
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “It make blood cells come together and
heal you.”
Thank you, Dr. Wong. I watched Joy compile the needles. Have
you ever taken apart and reassembled a pen? It was kind of like that. She
loaded each needle into a metal socket, and then affixed a spring over it,
followed by a metal, torpedo-like canister. Each was about the length of my
thumb.
Watching her, I felt myself getting light-headed, and I
remembered how many times I’d passed out because of needles. (Three times. Twice
while giving blood. Once in health class watching a video of a heroin addict
shooting up.)
Assembly complete, she brought the first torpedo toward my
neck. She whispered, “Very dangerous!”
I burst out laughing and pushed her hand away from my neck.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to calm down. She looked at me,
confused. “I’m sorry,” I said again.
“Be very still,” she commanded.
I felt the metal tip against my throat, which was still sore
from finger pressure. Four quick needle stabs burst through my skin, and then
it was over. I cautiously reached to feel the needles protruding from my neck,
but there was nothing there. Apparently, this kind of acupuncture only pierces
with the needle, but doesn’t implant it.
Next, she started applying tiny needle pads to my ears.
These are like miniscule Band-Aids, with a needle protruding from the center.
The pain was minimal, and after a few minutes my ears were covered in the
little things.
She looked at me straight on and grabbed an ear in each
hand. Then she squeezed so hard that I felt the pain in the back of my neck.
“Hurt?” she asked, smiling.
“Yes!”
She seemed pleased. Perhaps this is the Korean version of a
knee reflex test.
She brought the needle-torpedo to my left ear and punctured
the top. Then she fled from the room and returned with a paper towel.
“Bleeding,” she said.
She did the same to the right ear, but this time she looked
concerned. “Dark blood.” Her face dropped, and she gazed at my ear as if seeing
a bad omen. “Daaark blood.”
I nodded solemnly to show her I appreciated the gravity of
the situation.
She replaced her tools in the tray and grabbed my left hand.
She singled out my index finger and stared intently at it. After several beats,
she met my eyes and said, “Intestine, not very good.” This she said with a
motherly, scolding tone. I almost wanted to apologize. But then she looked at
my pinky and smiled. “Kidney good.”
“How can you tell?” I asked.
“Finger shape… color…” Trying to reassure me about the
intestines, she said, “Many Korean, their intestine very bad. Yours, a little
bad.”
“Oh good,” I said.
“Feel better?” she asked.
“Yes,” I lied. "I feel good."
