ROMANTIC COMEDY
One trivial day during the winter break, I was lying on my bed reading a book (I cannot actually remember what book I was reading. Was it Romeo and Juliet or Emma?). Everything was so peaceful that day; the weather was sunny, my bed was cozy, and the only thing that I could hear was me flipping through the pages. Everything was too quiet that I was about to fall asleep. That moment my little brother burst into my room yelling out my name.
“Hey Jiyeon, you know what? One of my friends asked a girl out.”
This was such a trivial subject to discuss on a trivial day.
“He also gave 18K golden ring and asked her to marry him.”
“Okay… What’s the big deal there?”
“Jiyeon! Never mind. It’s me who’s dumb.”
Maybe it was the weather that made me react so dull. I, however, was not fooling around joking with my brother. Romeo and Juliet, they were 14 years old, only two years older than my brother. I truly thought the proposal was bit funny, but the action it self was the boy’s pure, sincere love. I closed the book and searched through the box that I keep all the letters I've been receiving since I was a baby. It took me a while to find the letter that I was looking for; a Valentine’s Day card from a boy whom I had a crush on.
When I first went to America in the winter of 1999, I was only 5 years old. I knew nothing about English or the American culture. All the kids in my class were friendly enough to let me in to their own little society. But, the problem was that I could not talk with any of those kids. They started to look at me as if I were a weird person from outer space. I felt like being a monkey in the zoo cage. I was a weird stupid Asian girl who only knew how to say “hello” and “yes”. I hated going to school; I fought with mother almost every morning. The fight, however, soon ended as I met this boy Louis.
One morning, I got on the school bus as usual. I used to sit in the second row of the school bus, but that day, the bus was too crowded I had to go to the back row. There was a boy, shining because of the sunlight coming through the back window, sitting alone in the very back row of the bus. I do not know where the courage came from, but I went up to the last row and set next to him. It was too obvious that I could not say a word to him for the next 20 minute in the bus. I could not even figure out what his name was, but that boy mysteriously slid into the school with other bunch of other kids as soon as the bus arrived at school.
It was during the Spanish class that I figured out the boy was in class 2. (Our class and class 2 took the Spanish class in same period.) Unfortunately, I did not take the Spanish class; I had to take the ESL course with two more Asian people. I asked my ESL teacher if I could go to the Spanish class instead of taking the ESL course. She said if I finish the ESL course, which would take a whole full year, I could. I asked again if I could finish the course earlier. The teacher said it would still take about six to eight months. I could not think of anything else but taking same class with the boy I met in the school bus.
I studied hard. The last thing that I would do was studying, but I tried my best. After my hard work, I finished the one year course in only 4 months. I memorized 500 essential vocab in a week and solved all the practice question in our work book in a month. I also memorized all the lines in the Disney animation movies; such as, Lion King, Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Tarzan, and etc. In few months I was able to have a good command of English. I was as fluent as the other students. I was so eager to talk to the boy that I fell in love with.
The first day I attended the Spanish class, I got to sit next to the boy. That was when I got to know his name, Louis. We had some meaningless nonversations. Every Spanish class we sat together. Sorry for the Spanish teacher, but her words did not actually come into my mind. I was too busy talking with Louis. I was motivated by his existence; I wanted to show him that a stupid Asian girl, who did not even know about English, could do something. We were dating at last. What we did was just a child’s play, but at that time I was very serious. I was too excited to go to school every day and too happy to cry while watching a sad movie.
On Valentine’s Day I received a card from Louis, the card that I still keep it in my letter box. “Dear Jiyeon, I like your Corean? like things. You are prety. I love you. Happy Valentine’s Day! From Louis” These short sentences took up all the space of card; Louis’s handwriting was humongous. The alphabet “J” was written right-side-left. It might have been too difficult for 6 years old boy to use the word “atmosphere” instead of “things”. He did not know the spelling of “Korean” he spelled it “Corean”. There was only one "t" in the word "pretty".
I remember I just laughed crazly after receiving this card. I studied so hard to satisfy the standard of American kids to get the title “smart girl”. My boyfriend, however, was not that smart; he did not even pay attention to his or my grades and processes. He liked me because I was “Jiyeon Kim”, not because I was a super smart Asian kid who had overcome her difficulties. He did not care if I mastered the ESL course in just four months or could memorize the whole lines in Disney animation. I just laughed and laughed and laughed reading the card over and over.
Even nowadays, more than 10years passed, I sometimes read this card and laugh at myself how foolish I was. Children, especially younger ones, do have feelings of love and their love is more sincere than the adult's. They do not have any reason for liking someone. They just like others because it is the other him or herself. Adults care about social and political status about the person they are going out with, but children only cares if they truly like one another in their heart. I had to come back to Korea in the year 2001, and that was the end of our relationship. This relationship, however, between Louis and I would last forever as a good memory.
