make her partake of acrid red liquid and dry crackers, saying, amazingly, that those foodstuffs were Christoâs
blood
and
bones
. At other times, they forced her to stare at pictures of Christo, this time bloodied and hanging from two joined pieces of wood. One particularly ugly image was of his face, blood streaming from some sharp brambles on his head, eyes rolling upward, his mouth in the middle of a ghastly scream.
Kyung-sookâs mother remained unmoved as the nuns yelled at her in more bad Korean about this sulfur-smelling place called Hell where everyone who didnât follow Christo burned up in eternal torment. Then they tried to beat the stubbornness from her, but she was used to blows at home and took her punishment without expression.
Once, she was supposed to be praying in front of a man-sized statue of Christo on the cross-pieces. She dutifully murmured the meaningless words, her hands pressed palm-to-palm, elbows out, the same way she prayed at the Buddhist temple.
If I hadnât seen it with my own eyes, I would not have believed it
, one of the nuns said.
The gilded, pierced body of Christo began to tremble and shake, even as Kyung-sookâs mother continued to mumble, âOw-er Hebben-ree Fad-dah â¦â
Then, the arms of the ï¬gure ï¬ew off and crashed to the ï¬oor.
The devil! the nun screamed. It could only be Satan who could manage such a thing. Kyung-sookâs mother was banished from the school.
But Imo was different.
She loved hearing the stories of Christo, how he healed the sick, how he hated the tax collectors and other bad men yet welcomed the prostitute who came to him with a pure heart. Those bloody portraits of him caused her to weep when she learned how Christo had suffered on the crossâfor her and all Christo-followers. During Communion, she would ï¬nd her heart singing, expanding as the magic wafer melted on her tongue, and she thought of how through this suffering Christo became an essence, a pure light.
The Huhr matriarch, of course, was furious when Imo declared she was renouncing Lord Buddha and her venerated ancestors, even going so far as to declare that other members of the family should do the same. The matriarch had wanted to stop the shaman cycle, not have Christo-follower children. She immediately hired the local shaman to perform an exorcism. The mu-dang danced to exhaustion, shaking rattles and hitting gongs in front of Imoâs faceâto no avail. The mother then called in the more powerful River Circle shaman, one who, upon entering the house, immediately detected the presence of Christo, and without any preparation at all, fell into a trance and began beating Imo with her ï¬sts, shrieking at the spirit of Christo to come out. She sacriï¬ced a pigâs head, she danced in bare feet over sharp scimitars. But each time she tossed the divining ï¬sh, waiting for its head to point out the door, signaling that the spirit of Christo had left the house, it did not. It always pointed back at Imo.
When Imo left Enduring Pine Village, her own mother did not say goodbye to her. Imo traveled to Seoul with few possessions other than the Bible the nuns had given to her, the one that had her Christian name, Mary Rose, inscribed on it in gold powder, as she had been their biggest success.
Destiny, woo-myung, turns and turns on a cosmic wheel.
âWe are prepared to send you to college,â Kyung-sookâs parents told her. âBecause our family has no sons. If you pass the entrance exam, you may go. Your imo in Seoul, though long estranged from the family, has agreed to lodge you.â
SARAH
Seoul
1993
Eureka! I had devised a system for conquering Korean, a system for memorizing words. French, at least, had cognates with English:
Liberté, fraternité, egalité
. And Spanish was cognate city.
Producto de México.
So I created my own for Korean.
Oo-yu
, the word for milk, became (m)
oo-yu
. And so
blood
and
bones
. At other times, they forced her to stare at pictures of Christo, this time bloodied and hanging from two joined pieces of wood. One particularly ugly image was of his face, blood streaming from some sharp brambles on his head, eyes rolling upward, his mouth in the middle of a ghastly scream.
Kyung-sookâs mother remained unmoved as the nuns yelled at her in more bad Korean about this sulfur-smelling place called Hell where everyone who didnât follow Christo burned up in eternal torment. Then they tried to beat the stubbornness from her, but she was used to blows at home and took her punishment without expression.
Once, she was supposed to be praying in front of a man-sized statue of Christo on the cross-pieces. She dutifully murmured the meaningless words, her hands pressed palm-to-palm, elbows out, the same way she prayed at the Buddhist temple.
If I hadnât seen it with my own eyes, I would not have believed it
, one of the nuns said.
The gilded, pierced body of Christo began to tremble and shake, even as Kyung-sookâs mother continued to mumble, âOw-er Hebben-ree Fad-dah â¦â
Then, the arms of the ï¬gure ï¬ew off and crashed to the ï¬oor.
The devil! the nun screamed. It could only be Satan who could manage such a thing. Kyung-sookâs mother was banished from the school.
But Imo was different.
She loved hearing the stories of Christo, how he healed the sick, how he hated the tax collectors and other bad men yet welcomed the prostitute who came to him with a pure heart. Those bloody portraits of him caused her to weep when she learned how Christo had suffered on the crossâfor her and all Christo-followers. During Communion, she would ï¬nd her heart singing, expanding as the magic wafer melted on her tongue, and she thought of how through this suffering Christo became an essence, a pure light.
The Huhr matriarch, of course, was furious when Imo declared she was renouncing Lord Buddha and her venerated ancestors, even going so far as to declare that other members of the family should do the same. The matriarch had wanted to stop the shaman cycle, not have Christo-follower children. She immediately hired the local shaman to perform an exorcism. The mu-dang danced to exhaustion, shaking rattles and hitting gongs in front of Imoâs faceâto no avail. The mother then called in the more powerful River Circle shaman, one who, upon entering the house, immediately detected the presence of Christo, and without any preparation at all, fell into a trance and began beating Imo with her ï¬sts, shrieking at the spirit of Christo to come out. She sacriï¬ced a pigâs head, she danced in bare feet over sharp scimitars. But each time she tossed the divining ï¬sh, waiting for its head to point out the door, signaling that the spirit of Christo had left the house, it did not. It always pointed back at Imo.
When Imo left Enduring Pine Village, her own mother did not say goodbye to her. Imo traveled to Seoul with few possessions other than the Bible the nuns had given to her, the one that had her Christian name, Mary Rose, inscribed on it in gold powder, as she had been their biggest success.
Destiny, woo-myung, turns and turns on a cosmic wheel.
âWe are prepared to send you to college,â Kyung-sookâs parents told her. âBecause our family has no sons. If you pass the entrance exam, you may go. Your imo in Seoul, though long estranged from the family, has agreed to lodge you.â
SARAH
Seoul
1993
Eureka! I had devised a system for conquering Korean, a system for memorizing words. French, at least, had cognates with English:
Liberté, fraternité, egalité
. And Spanish was cognate city.
Producto de México.
So I created my own for Korean.
Oo-yu
, the word for milk, became (m)
oo-yu
. And so
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