Her: “…네…더…랜드…”
Me: “Ne. Ne-duh-ran-deu.”
Her: *despair*
Thirty minutes later, she utters a triumphant “Bae dwaeyo!” (“Okay, it can go by surface mail.”) – sorry, my friend in the Netherlands, but air mail is no longer in my budget.
I wonder what she thinks about me whenever I send a package someplace that isn’t America.
Note: photo above has been altered to prevent your jealousy.
Some months previously:
Her: “…모…리…셔…스…”
Me: “Ne. Moh-ree-shuss-eu.”
Her: *despair*
Actually, the despair is all on the inside. Minjung (name changed) is a paragon of the Korean can-do, will-do attitude. Every letter, envelope, and parcel gets no more than half a second’s “FML” glance before she jumps right in to tackle the job. But that half-a-second says it all: the struggle is real. Woe be the Korean postal worker who lives in a neighborhood with a foreigner.
Side note: I have yet to receive confirmation that the letter ever made it to Mauritius. Well, we tried, Minjung. We tried. Sometimes it feels as though the entire world stands against us.
I’ll admit that what is now our close relationship was strained at first, thanks to the language barrier. But we pushed through it. Now she knows to ask if I want to send it “by boat” rather than “by surface mail.” She’s great that way. It’s the little things that let me know this relationship can last.
I knew at first sight that I wanted Minjung to be my postal worker for the whole year. Saying goodbye will be tremendously difficult.
When winter arrived, I was unaware that the post office would close at five, not six. Yet when I wandered in at 4:50, she still took my package.
I came back with a thank-you coffee for her the next week.
There was another man in the office. behind the counter. Her boss, perhaps. Oh well.
You tried to warn me, I know. But either the words were too difficult, or else I deliberately persuaded myself to pretend otherwise. You said, quite clearly, that it wouldn’t matter what I wrote on the line marked “In case of non-delivery, redirect to address below.” You said that no matter what I wrote, the US post office wouldn’t consider it valid without further payment.
I thought you were jealous to read a female name with that address. I thought you should have guessed: it was just my sister.
A surface-mail package arrived last week in America. You are always true, dear Minjung. I shouldn’t have judged you. I know now that you only had my best interest in heart.
The prospect of my imminent departure from the rough streets of Bongmyeong-dong leaves me weak with heartache. Who shall comfort me? Shakespeare: Parting is such sweet sorrow.
Surely no, for this is Korea. Manhae:
Parting creates beauty.
There is no beauty of parting
in the ephemeral gold of the morning;
nor in the seamless black silk of the night;
nor in the eternal life which admits no death;
nor in the gorgeous celestial flower that never fades.
O love, if there is no parting, I cannot come back
to life in laughter after tearful death.
O parting!
Parting creates beauty.
Sleepy in Cheongju 