Min Lee - Pachinko

“Yumi says that it might be good for him in America. Then again, she thinks everyone is better off in America. She said it’s not like it is here in Japan, where a person can’t be different.”

Mozasu thought his girlfriend was irrationally biased in favor of America and anything from America. Like his brother, Noa, Yumi thought English was the most important language and America was the best country.

“Yumi said there are better doctors in America.” Mozasu shrugged.

“That’s probably true.”

Haruki smiled, having often wished that he could live somewhere else, where he didn’t know anyone.

As Yumi walked toward the meeting spot, she recognized her employer’s older son. It would have been awkward to turn around so she stayed her course.

“You know Haruki-san,” Mozasu said to Yumi, smiling. “He was my only friend in high school. And now he will be fighting crime!”

Yumi nodded, smiling uncomfortably.

“Yumi-san. It’s good to see you again. I’m grateful to you that I got to see my friend again after so many, many years.”

“You are home from the academy, Haruki-san?” Yumi kept her posture both formal and demure.

Haruki nodded, then made excuses about Daisuke waiting for him at home. Before leaving them, however, Haruki promised to visit Mozasu at the pachinko parlor the following morning.

Their English class met in the large conference room in the offices of the new Korean church, built recently with large donations from some wealthy yakiniku families. Despite his European name, the teacher, John Maryman, was a Korean who had been adopted as an infant by American missionaries. English was his first language. As a result of his superior diet, rich in both protein and calcium, John was significantly taller than the Koreans and Japanese. At nearly six feet, he caused a commotion wherever he went, as if a giant had descended from heaven. Though he spoke Japanese and Korean proficiently, he spoke both languages with an American accent. In addition to his size, his mannerisms were distinctly foreign. John liked to tease people he didn’t know well, and if something was funny, he laughed louder than most. If it hadn’t been for his patient Korean wife, who possessed masterful noonchi and was able to explain to others tactfully that John just didn’t know any better, he would have gotten into trouble far more often for his many cultural missteps. For a Presbyterian pastor, John seemed far too jovial. He was a good man whose faith and intelligence were irreproachable. His mother, Cynthia Maryman, an automobile tire heiress, had sent him to Princeton and Yale Divinity School, and to his parents’ delight, he had returned to Asia to spread the gospel. His lovely coloring was more olive than golden and his fringed, ink-black eyes, constantly bemused, invited women to linger in his presence.

A girl normally hard to win over, Yumi admired her teacher, whom all the students called Pastor John. To her, John represented a Korean being from a better world where Koreans weren’t whores, drunks, or thieves. Yumi’s mother, a prostitute and alcoholic, had slept with men for money or drinks, and her father, a pimp and a violent drunk, had been imprisoned often for his criminality. Yumi felt that her three elder half sisters were as sexually indiscriminate and common as barn animals. Her younger brother had died as a child, and soon after, at fourteen years old, Yumi ran away from home with her younger sister and somehow supported them with small jobs in textile factories until the younger sister died. Over the years, Yumi had become an excellent seamstress. She refused to acknowledge her family, who lived in the worst sections of Osaka. If she spotted a woman who had even a passing resemblance to her mother on any street, Yumi would cross to the other side or turn around to walk away. From watching American movies, she had decided that one day she would live in California and planned on becoming a seamstress in Hollywood. She knew Koreans who had returned to North Korea and many more who had gone back to the South, yet she could not muster any affection for either nation. To her, being Korean was just another horrible encumbrance, much like being poor or having a shameful family you could not cast off. Why would she ever live there? But she could not imagine clinging to Japan, which was like a beloved stepmother who refused to love you, so Yumi dreamed of Los Angeles. Until Mozasu, with his swagger and enormous dreams, Yumi had never let a man into her bed, and now that she had attached herself to him, she wanted both of them to go to America to make another life where they wouldn’t be despised or ignored. She could not imagine raising a child here.

The English class had fifteen pupils who attended three nights a week. Until Mozasu showed up, Yumi had been Pastor John’s best student. Mozasu had an enormous advantage over her since he had been unintentionally studying with his brother, Noa, for years by being his at-home English quiz partner, but Yumi did not mind. She was relieved that he was better than she was at this, that he made more money than she did, and that he was relentlessly kind to her.

Each class began with Pastor John going around the room asking each person a series of questions.

“Moses,” Pastor John said in his teaching voice, “how is the pachinko parlor? Did you make a lot of money today?”

Mozasu laughed. “Yes, Pastor John. Today, I earned lot money. Tomorrow, I make more! Do you need money?”

“No, thank you, Moses. But please remember to help the poor, Moses. There are many among us.”

“The pachinko money isn’t mine, Pastor John. My boss is rich, but I am not a rich man yet. One day, I will rich.”

“You will be rich.”

“Yes, I will be rich man, Pastor John. A man must have money.”

John smiled at Moses kindly, wanting to disabuse him of such idolatrous notions, but he turned to Yumi.

“Yumi, how many uniforms did you make today?”

Yumi smiled and color rushed to her face.

“Today, I made two vests, Pastor John.”

John moved on to the others, encouraging the reserved students to talk to each other as well as to the class. He wanted the Koreans to speak well; he wanted no one ever to look down on them. He had left his beautifully comfortable life in Princeton, New Jersey, because he felt sorry for the impoverished Koreans in Japan. In his wonderful childhood, filled with the warmth of his loving parents, he had always felt bad for the Koreans who had lost their nation for good. People like Moses and Yumi had never been to Korea. There was always talk of Koreans going back home, but in a way, all of them had lost the home in their minds for good. His parents had adopted him alone, and he had no known siblings. Because John had always felt so happy with his parents, he’d felt guilty that many others hadn’t been chosen the way he was. Why was that? He wanted to know. There were unhappy adoptions, to be sure, but John knew his lot was better than almost anyone’s. “Chosen” was always the word his mother had used with him.

“We chose you, our darling John. You had the loveliest smile, even as a small baby. The ladies at the orphanage loved holding you, because you were such an affectionate child.”

Teaching English class wasn’t part of his job as a pastor. He didn’t proselytize his students, most of whom were not parishioners. John loved the sound of English words, the sounds of Americans talking. He wanted to give this to the poor Koreans in Osaka. He wanted them to have another language that wasn’t Japanese.

Like his students, John was born in Japan to Korean parents. His biological parents had left him with their landlord. John didn’t know how old he was exactly. His parents had given him the birthday of Martin Luther, November 10. The only fact he knew about his birth parents was that they had left their rented room in the early hours of the morning without paying the rent and had left him behind. His adoptive mother said this must have been because the landlord had money and shelter, and wherever his biological parents were going, they may not have been able to give these things to him. Their sacrifice of leaving him was an act of love, his mother had said every time John had asked about them. Nevertheless, whenever John saw an older Korean woman or man who could be the age of his parents, he wondered. He could not help it. He wished he could give them money now, for John was a very wealthy man, and he wished he could meet his biological parents and give them a house to keep them warm and food to eat when they were hungry.