Connecting Flight

The summer I turned twenty three I decided to teach English in South Korea. My boyfriend had just broken up with me and it seemed like the only thing to do. We’d dated since high school in a small town that hosted nothing but tumbleweed and a Walmart. He was the first boy I’d ever thought about marrying. An all American guy; tall, tan, and blonde. 

I didn’t want to see his car down the street or his parents walking by or his new girlfriend. So I left. The country. He always said I was too impulsive, but as I stepped off the plane into Incheon International Airport I felt certain I’d made the right decision.

Text messages from my Mama made my phone twitch. They were finally delivering now that I was on solid ground. 

Text me when ya arrive! 

Are ya there yet?

I fired back a reassuring text and pocketed my phone. I’d never left America before and the crowds of people were making me dizzy. Like schools of fish they swam past in clumps and big swirls of traffic. I wondered if fish ever got lost in the ocean. 

The school I’d been hired at was called a hagwon, a private school, and they’d sent someone to fetch me and show me to my accommodations. My driver was an older man, maybe late fifties, whose name tag introduced him as Sung Won Park. He wore a long sleeved button up shirt and dress pants despite August’s lingering heat.  

Mr. Park spoke very little during the long drive, but every now and then I caught him looking at me in the rearview mirror. His brow was creased, mouth turned down. Perhaps he was like me and wanted to speak but didn’t know how. We were an arms reach from each other, but it felt farther. 

I knew the basic greetings and how to ask for the toilet, but beyond that I might as well have been a Charlie Brown character to him. My stomach growled, bursting the silence and we both smiled. The deep lines around his eyes crinkled like fries. 

“Neo baegopeu ni?” 

“What?”

He pointed out the car window as we stopped at a red light. There was a Korean BBQ restaurant teaming with people enjoying their lunch. He lowered the window and said something else I couldn’t understand, but I understood as the smoky smell of meat wafted in. He asked his question again and I nodded at his reflection with a smile.

Mama always said, Food is food, baby. Now eat.