Chapter 10 - Family
Yi Jeong rubbed the tip of his nose, nearly numb. The air was chilly inside the conference room, or mausoleum, as Yi Jeong liked to think of it. He was glad he kept his leather jacket on. He refused to change, even as his father gave him a lecture about proper presentation. For all the fault of the So men, their native sense for true tailored clothes was unparalleled. Everything fit snugly on their long bodies and wide shoulders. Yi Jeong remembered his tailor from childhood, a stooped old man that taught him the fit of shoulders, the sit of a double-breasted suit, then he would give Yi Jeong a sweet rice cake for being patient toddler.
He smoothed down the weathered leather sleeve and felt the pleasure of being encased in something barbaric and wholly unrefined. Hyun Sub still wore his Italian merino suits with panache, but he was vain enough to ask the tailor for a longer jacket to hide his paunch.
The long rectangular room had at its center a glassy marble table, the undisputed center of attention demarcated by an elephantine leather chair. The chair was Yi Jeong's grandfather's by will and by right. Vases and vessels from all dynasties, worth more than a wing of the Louvre, lined the walls in dense rows. Each piece trapped behind glass and sealed into certainty. Yi Jeong knew each piece by heart, it was his acquisitive nature to memorize beautiful things.
"Yi Jeong!"
He turned around to see Chae Yong Joon, an old Shinwha friend. Yong Joon had been ahead of Yi Jeong in school, a few years older, perhaps just as talented.
"Yong Joon?" He was a little surprised. "What are you doing here?"
"It's good to see you back from Sweden, So Yi Jeong." Yong Joon bowed slightly. "I've been working for your grandfather since you left to study abroad."
"Do you like it?" Yi Jeong crossed his arms.
"Of course, it's an honor." Yong Joon laughed. "But I would be lying if I didn't say that it's challenging work."
"Challenging is a pretty nice word for endless." Yi Jeong finally sat down as Yong Joon finished distributing the meeting notes around the conference table. "I remember interning here during Shinwha." He didn't remember those days too fondly, but he kept the nonchalantly smile on his face. Father hadn't cared either way, but Yi Jeong's mother was the one that pushed for the opportunity. Hae-Ryeon might have been a little unhinged about her cheating husband, but she was always clear-eyed when it came to her favorite son.
Yi Jeong had spent a long summer, meticulously cataloging every international transaction of the museum. It was duller than watching Ji Hoo at a tear-jerker movie. Even though he had everything he could want in Korea, just seeing the names of cities: Marrakesh, Ankara, Chengdu, Osaka, Bangkok, Düsseldorf, filled him with buoyant wanderlust. The names of those cities, ones with full voluptuous vowels, or ones that had barely aspirated consonants stirred the sleepy eye he turned towards the world.
Before he left for Sweden, he felt Korea to be too easy. Korea was routine. Korea was to be expected. He knew every groove of transaction, every gesture of polite company, every curve in Seoul's hilly landscape. He felt himself repeat the transactions of his life, recited as many times as a monk's prayer, without understanding his intentions. Everything always came too easily to him, thus he never exerted himself; he didn't appreciate the serendipity of opportunity, the rarity of a chance meeting, the luck involved in finding things like soul mates. He felt like a weed, growing in the black loamy soil of someone's carefully cultivated garden, stealing all the nutrients from other plants that needed to work so hard to survive.
Korea had not stayed the same for him. Seoul crawled out of its cocoon, spread its wings and slowly fanned out across Asia as it grew hungry for international fame, greedy for more admirers and money. He saw more and more of Korean influence abroad, and he found fascinating how a few successful dramas and pop songs could turn throngs of women into hellish romantics when it came to those strange sparkly figureheads of Korean entertainment. Was this change for the better? He didn't know.
"Yi Jeong!" A great voice boomed in the room. So Ok Gyun, Yi Jeong's grandfather, barged in the conference room like conquering tyrant. He was an ample man at seventy-five, who marched more than he walked. A thinning pate of silver-grey hair surrounding his stout head. He looked more like a grumpy lion, but Yi Jeong knew that Ok Gyun's friendly demeanor never betrayed the unbending steel shot through his spine. No one wanted to be on the old lion's bad side.
"Grandfather." Yi Jeong bowed.
"Your father said you'd be here today." Grandfather's voice filled every corner of the room. "We've been looking forward to your arrival."
"Thank you, Grandfather." Yi Jeong felt So Ok Gyun's gaze, but it wasn't all critical. Suddenly, he heard the old lion make a low sound in his belly. Ok Gyun was laughing. "I sent a young chaebol to Sweden and I get a ruffian in return?" The great man hugged his prodigal grandson.
"I find this makes me less conspicuous in Seoul." Yi Jeong warmed his voice at his grandfather's teasing. "This way, I understand our audience at Woo Song, what they want-"
"Do you think that the masses really know anything about beauty? About this?" Ok Gyun clapped his hands together and pitched one meaty fist towards the southern wall. "This, that, all of this, is incomprehensible to most people. Ordinary people have no eye for beauty. It has to be cultivated, educated, coaxed out of the mud like a flower." Ok Gyun turned to Yi Jeong and slowly enunciated. "And if ordinary people are lucky, they get to go to a museum like ours and learn about something exquisite for a beautiful hour. Something that stands out like a lotus blossom in their muddy life."
"Their taste is not all bad."
"Taste?" His grandfather snorted like Yi Jeong's words had stopped in his nose. "Taste is dictated by fashion. Who cares about fashion? This kind of beauty is timeless." His grandfather stopped pacing."What's this piece?"
Yi Jeong noted the elegant thin neck, the fat extended bottom, the feminine curves delicately shaded with a sea green glaze. The proportions were mythic, carved into man's ancient memory. "A Goryeo dynasty vase, made in the 13th century." Yi Jeong drew upon his internal catalogue.
"What type of ceramic is it?" Ok Gyun's barked out.
Yi Jeong didn't flinch at the sound of his grandfather's command. He was used to this endless round of testing. Like clay that molded for the kiln, Yi Jeong could stand the heat. He saw the tiny blossoms laid in precise margins along vase, the painstaking details emerging only after hundreds of hours of precise labors. "Inlaid celadon."
"Who as it created for?"
"Most likely royalty. Inlaid work takes hundreds of hours of additional labor," Yi Jeong could feel the work of the faceless worker; the man used the sanggam, the only way to produce a motif of depth and inlaid color on the vase. He would carve the surface of the clay, the flowers appearing only after each depression completed; each hole filled with black or white slip. He took care not to ruin the bottle's crane-like neck. The workman must have stared at the same piece, cross eyed with concentration and sweat threatening to ruin his work. After days, maybe it was ready for the first brush of green grey glaze. But here again would be challenges renewed. The craftsman would have to retain the calm symmetry of shape and burnish the surface of visible flaws. These were opposite intentions. One ill-timed workbench bump could tip the vase towards ruination. Instead, the Goryeo vase stood, proudly with the effort of its master, without a fault to the discernible eye. "It would have to be for someone exceptional."
"Exactly, Yi Jeong. This type of work was made for someone exceptional." Ok Gyun smiled, showing all his teeth. "It was made for someone like you. The public is just lucky we share this with them."
Yi Jeong nodded stiffly.
"Father!" Hyun Sub entered the room. Yi Jeong looked at his father, who held his arms stiffly, as Ok Gyun gave him a steady look. Behind Hyun Sub, a stream of patriarchs, stood ready to accept Yi Jeong. They smiled blandly at Ok Gyun's grandson, ready for whatever initiative the old lion might give his grandson. Yi Jeong bowed deeply towards the shuffling grey mass settling into familiar seats like chessmen aligning on a board.
Yi Jeong flipped through the thick financial forecast of the So foundation. It had been a long time since he thought about the So foundation. It was the largest albatross around his neck-hanging with the smaller birds of his mother and his guilt towards his brother-he ignored it because it was an inevitability.
Yi Jeong made a few highlights and dog-eared the page he wanted to return to; he didn't understand one odd chart and wanted to make sure to review its contents thoroughly. By the time he glanced up, Hyun Sub's speech had shifted into high gear. His father was a brilliant showman, whose impeccable patrician tone would kill the doubts of the listeners. The rest of the So board hung on every word as he leaned on the podium and threw great energy into the next five minutes.
"When my honorable father, So Ok Gyun, first opened the Woo Song Museum, he had intended it on being the ultimate authority in ceramics." Hyun Sub walked around the room and stopped at the same celadon vase. He looked on the piece with the same detached interest in beauty that ran deep in his family.
"Thirty years ago, we housed the largest collection of Korean ceramics in the country. Twenty years ago, we expanded our curatorial horizon to other countries. Masterpieces from China, Japan, Thailand, and even Africa fill the illustrious halls of Woo Sung." Hyun Sub saw the board members nod in recognition."And now, twenty years later we can say that we're not only one of the greatest ceramics museums in the world, but the greatest art museum in Korea."
Hyun Sub pressed his mouse and a picture of So Ok Gyun filled the illuminated screen. He stood, larger than life, fifty years earlier, in front of a small building, a low flat warehouse as unassuming as a car wash. Ok Gyun was twenty kilos lighter, his thick brush of hair sprung from his forehead, as vital as any young blood. Yi Jeong saw his grandfather's louche posture as a man on the verge of his destiny, in this case, a young man who would remake the art world in Korea.
Yi Jeong had never seen this picture before; he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, suddenly confronted by Ok Gyun's sheer fortitude and tenacity that built, brick by brick, beam by beam, the grandiose Woo Song of today. He suddenly longed to understand his grandfather. From his seat at the end of the marble top, Ok Gyun looked very far away. Yi Jeong glanced at his hands, rough with clay work, yet they looked untested and babyish next to the builder of Woo Song.
"Father's legacy is one that can be only matched by the longevity of his unerring guidance. Now, while I am spearheading the 80th anniversary celebration committee, I feel that my son, So Yi Jeong, should be tasked with one of the specialized exhibitions."
Yi Jeong bowed in his seat. He was a little surprised to be given public opportunity so soon. He had at least expected a few week of form introductions and ceremony.
"But, with the financial difficulties of the last few quarters, we will have to be more creative about acquiring these pieces." Hyun Sub's voice skipped over the last few words of his statement. Yi Jeong glanced around the table and he was surprised to see that none of the grey faced men looked shocked by his father's declaration of financial insolvency. Yi Jeong felt a strange feeling creep into his gut. The So foundation was losing money? Yi Jeong tried to think back to the days of his internship. In those days, the amount of international transaction seemed insurmountable-he had almost assumed that the So family had a bottomless coffer for acquisition.
"Chae Yong-Joon will present some of our contingency plans for the nearby future."
His head snap up in surprise. Yong Joon was in charge of financing while he was only in charge of a token exhibition? Yi Jeong began to feel the pressure of the room turn away from him, redirected towards Yoon Joon. The patriarchs shuffled their papers and slowly murmured consent.
"Esteemed So board members, please start at page 5, where I have outlined a very aggressive tax benefits plan, as well as some new austerity measure we can consider for this meeting." Yong Joon changed the illuminated screen from a picture of Ok Gyun to a maze of tables.
Yi Jeong heard the chill in Hae-Ryeon's warning rattling at the base of his skull. He looked at Hyun Sub, who was studiously avoiding eye contact, and his grandfather, thoroughly absorbed in Yong Joon's plan. Yi Jeong pondered the thick papers in front of him and felt a sharp pain in his index finger, the paper cut of the presentation drew first blood.
Ga Eul groaned. She was at Opening Ceremony, the New York store that recently launched a Seoul branch. Jian Di had dragged her there after reading an article in Elle Korea. The store was odd, instead of the usual bubblegum colors that Jian Di preferred, Opening Ceremony was rustic and unusual, like something fit for a quirky bride. She finally worked the complicated zipper over her hip and pushed aside the thick dressing curtain.
"Ah Ga Eul!" Jan Di shrieked. "This is the perfect color for you!"
"Aiishi, Jan Di!" Ga Eul covered her ears. "I want to have hearing in my old age, you know!"
"I can always prescribe you a hearing aid." Jan Di shrugged. "This must be the fiftieth dress we've tried on, but you actually left it on for more than a minute." She exhaled. "Ga Eul, you look amazing."
"If you like it, then I'll take it." Ga Eul shook off the dress and handed it to a shop girl who returned a few moments later, the Marc Jacobs frock already neatly boxed and packed into a shopping bag.
The shop girl bowed like a graceful willow and held out the bag. "Thank you for shopping at Opening Ceremony."
"Oh, I haven't paid for it yet." Ga Eul frowned at the bag hanging from her hand.
"Ugh, Jun Pyo! I swear he has secret shoppers watching me." Jian Di winced, a little embarrassed that her fiancée's over coddling had spilled over to Ga Eul.
"Cause that's not creepy at all." Ga Eul raised an eyebrow at her.
"Listen Ga Eul, when you find a weirdo to call your very own, you have accept some of their eccentricities. Or else, life is one endless fight."
A loud ring rattled both the girls and the shop girl suddenly threw a cell phone into Jian Di's hand like a hot potato.
"Yah! Who are you calling a weirdo?" Jun Pyo's voice crackled out of the receiver.
"You again." Jian Di grimaced. "For someone who has no time to see me, you sure have a lot of time to spy on me."
Ga Eul saw Jian Di grimace at Jun Pyo's response.
"Whatever." Jian Di started pacing around the shoe display, artfully constructed out of birch branches and silk draping. She almost tripped over one of the graceful extensions. "How about I see your face sometime? When it's time for the wedding, I'm going to walk towards the wrong guy because I don't even know what you look like anymore."
Jian Di rolled her eyes as her boyfriend's indignant squawk soon turned into a tirade of poorly aimed insults. Jian Di excused herself to sit at the store's coffee bar and Ga Eul sat back down at the couch to wait out their historically tiresome verbal battle. When she finally returned, Jian Di collapsed on the couch and stretched out in her scrubs. Her dark pink sneakers peeked out from her baggy drawstring pants.
"Ga Eul. I'm so tired."
"I bet." Ga Eul rubbed her friend's temples.
"Oh, that's good." Jian Di closed her eyes. "I just wish that weddings didn't take so much work. That's it. I'm going to call Jun Pyo and we're eloping in Vietnam."
"Nope, you can't. Your fiancée already bought my bridesmaid dress. I guess you could let Madam Kang do all the work." Ga Eul smirked.
"She hates me." Jian Di wiggled her feet. "And I'm sure if she organized it, no one I cared about would be able to come to the wedding."
"She'd probably have the wedding in the Congo."
"Exactly, so no one would know that Jun Pyo married a little miss nobody." Jian Di let a note of anger creep into her voice. "Ga Eul, I wish that I like that woman more, but I have to be honest, she takes every opportunity to make me feel like persona non grata." Jian Di finally righted herself on the couch and started picking the lint from her winter coat.
"Geum Jian Di, it should just be enough that you love her son. And if you can't find anything good about Madam Kang, then it's probably best just to keep your distance."
"Ugh, it's my mouth. I never say the right things." Jian Di blew air through her bangs.
"That famous Jian Di mouth is the one that broke up the F4, remember?"
Jian Di started laughing. "Do you remember how impressed we were when we first saw all four of them together?" Ga Eul saw her friend, convulsing and pink with laughter, tears squeezing out of the corners of her eyes. "The first time I saw Jun Pyo, that curly hair and the stupid jackets, I thought he looked ridiculous! And omgosh, the four of them would walk through Shinhwa, pretending it was Reservoir Dogs. I asked Jun Pyo about it later, and he told me that the four of them would practice that walk in the rec room!"
Ga Eul began imagining Ji Hoo, Woo Bin, Jun Pyo, and Yi Jeong, strutting their stuff in the rec room mirror. She couldn't hold back the giggle that bubbled forth. They were like a boy band without any talent.
"Jian Di, you forget, Yi Jeong was the one I met first. Then we all went on that trip to islands."
Jian Di finally wiped away the moisture on her face and stopped hiccupping. "I remember now." She frowned for a second. "How did Yi Jeong know you?"
"I have no clue. He practically ripped the apron from me at the porridge shop and told me you and Jun Pyo had gotten into an accident so that I would follow him." Ga Eul lifted her shoulders. "He does have this weird romantic streak you know? Yi Jeong worked harder than anyone to bring you guys together; even though he knew the cards were stacked against you."
"Yeah, it's too bad that Yi Jeong's a chaebol, or you guys might have had a real chance." Jian Di picked up a python stiletto and frowned at the price tag.
"What do you mean?" Ga Eul was suspicious.
Jian Di wagged the shoe at Ga Eul. "I know a thing or two about those old money families. And I know you. You don't like the all the pretension, you don't like being told what to do, and you definitely didn't like Yi Jeong's father."
Ga Eul protested. "There's also Anders!"
"I'm just saying, in a world where Yi Jeong wasn't a chaebol, you would have fallen in love with him, hearts in your eyes and the whole shebang." Jian Di put on a hair ornament and batted her eyelashes at Ga Eul. "I might be invited to a Yi Jeong Ga Eul wedding instead of having to half-ass my own."
Ga Eul felt herself sit up in alarm; Jian Di was still picking amongst the overpriced shoes like she hadn't dropped her revelation like an emotional bomb. She was oblivious to her friend's collateral damage. Ga Eul felt the freshly formed tightness in her chest, present ever since Yi Jeong kissed her.
"But, that's not the only reason!" She spluttered. "I don't want a relationship like my mother and my father. I know my dad loves my mom, but he's so stoic. It drives her insane! Even after twenty years of marriage, she's still so insecure about her husband, even though it's obvious to everyone else how much he loves her." Ga Eul swallowed hard. "Jian Di, I'm a lot like my mom. I need someone to love me, without reservations and without fear. I don't want to always be reaching for the other person." Ga Eul gripped the bag even tighter to her chest. "You can never win with Yi Jeong. I would take two steps forward, and he would run in the other direction. If you really want to see how fast a chaebol can sprint, just tell him that you like him and he'll run to the nearest Scandinavian country!"
Seeing Ga Eul's nerves clearly written on her body and face, Jian Di's eyes opened wide with worry. "Ga Eul, I was just teasing you. I know that Yi Jeong and you are, complicated."
"He kissed me when we went on that school auction date."
"He didn't!" Jian Di laid a palm on her forehead. "Ugh, that pabo."
"I feel so guilty." Ga Eul threw her face into her hands. "Yi Jeong and I kissed, then Anders tells me that it's ok if I have feelings for Yi Jeong."
"Anders said that?"
"What if it means that Anders doesn't really love me?"
"No no, it's the opposite." Jian Di smoothed back Ga Eul's hair. "He's telling you that if you have feelings for Yi Jeong, that you don't have to lie to protect him. I can't imagine Jun Pyo ever saying the same thing without exploding into a billion pieces."
"I know. I don't want Anders to be angry over something that happened five years ago, but then again, I'm so surprised when he's not angry. What's wrong with me?" Ga Eul gripped her cellphone close. "I know what's wrong with Yi Jeong, he's selfish and arrogant."
"I don't think Yi Jeong knows how serious things are with you and Anders." Suddenly, Jian Di was quiet. "I wish it were enough, Ga Eul. I wish Madam Kang would just see how much Jun Pyo loves me and I love him. I know we fight all the time, but we're really happy together. I know I make him happy."
"That should be enough right?"
"Sometimes, no, actually, all the time, I wish Jun Pyo weren't a chaebol. That he didn't have the weight of thousands of people's jobs on him. Or that he isn't the target of all this attention. And I know, that's me being selfish. Because I want him all to myself, and I have to share him with so many people."
Ga Eul looked at Jian Di's longing expression and she understood more clearly now than ever that a simple world didn't exist for Jun Pyo or Yi Jeong. They would always belong a little more to the world than the people who loved them. The macrocosm of the their world made her feel like a tiny actor on a stage, heedless of so many hidden moving parts behind the curtains, she felt lost even attempting to understand Jian Di's paradox. If she had to go through the same trial by fire, the same grievous scrutiny that Jian Di endured at Shinwha, Ga Eul was sure she would have quit her crush on Yi Jeong a long time ago. A quiet voice in her though, paused at this new assertion, and whispered that she wavered more on that point than she would like.
She felt a low vibration in her skirt pocket; her mother's face floated up to the caller ID screen.
"Yobseo?"
"Aiishi, Ga Eul, the old kimchi pot finally broke! I was planning on making kimchi tomorrow; all the cabbage is ready and soaking!"
"Oh no! All the cabbage will be ruined if we don't get another pot." Ga Eul grimaced, but Jian Di waved her hand nonchalantly. "Mom, that ceramics market on the edge of town, let's go there."
"Alright, where are you dear daughter? I'll come pick you up."
Ga Eul mouthed a "I'm sorry" to Jian Di; her friend shrugged and hugged her back. On the way out the store, she saw her friend Jian Di hesitantly look at a black Amex card in her palm. Jian Di's face still looked troubled, but she slide the card slowly over the counter to pay for the pair of sparkly shoes in her hands.
A/N: I must have the smartest readers. Thank you for all the reviews and insightful commentary, especially to the reader that pointed out the makjang elements (definitely a genre I'm working in). Please review chapter 10. Thank you from a deeply grateful author.
Chapter 11 - Onggi
Yi Jeong exhaled slowly and squeezed his eyes shut at the first tremor of a migraine, biding its time at the base of his skull. The migraine shared rent with Hae Ryeon's maternal haranguing, exchanging ways and means to make Yi Jeong more miserable. He reached into the far recesses to find something smooth and supple so that he could glide around the migraine monster, something to rebraid his frayed nerves. Behind the dull drumming of pain, he saw a hill of cool white snow, Ga Eul's face smirking, her eyelashes lifted towards the mountain and laughing. His arms were around her. He remember the sickening dread when it looked like she was about to be viciously pummelled by a careless snowboarder. He had caught her, scared of any possible of injury to Ga Eul, but she was laughing like she had won the lottery. Yi Jeong let the memory sooth him before the all the discoveries of the day begun to fling themselves, unwelcomed, in his conscience.