Oppa Came Back

Written Kim Young-ha

The following is an excerpt from the translation by Steven Capener

Oppa came back. And he brought an ugly girl with him. She was wearing make up but that couldn’t hide the fact that she was really young. Maybe seventeen or eighteen? If my guess is right, she’s no more than three or four years older than me.

“We’re going to be living here for the time being.”

ppa took off his worn, pointy black shoes and stepped up onto the veranda. Entering a strange house is never easy. The girl was hiding shyly behind oppa’s back. He pulled her by the arm, telling her to come up onto the veranda. My dad just stared at them in disbelief for a moment before rushing at oppa with a bat he had retrieved from his room, shouting,

“Why you son-of-a-bitch!”

His initial attack was a success, the first blow finding its mark on oppa’s thigh. Caught completely off-guard, he fell to his knees with a scream. The ugly girl covered her head in her hands and screamed, too. But oppa was not one to take this kind of thing lying down. As dad was raising the bat for another blow, oppa launched a takedown worthy of a Greco-Roman wrestler, dropping him to the ground. He then took the bat away and mercilessly rained blows down on father. While taking shots to the back, butt and thighs, my father just barely managed to crawl his way to safety in his room.

“You son-of-a-bitch! How dare you beat your father! Goddamn bastard!”

While pretending not to hear the curses pouring out of father’s room, oppa disappeared into the room opposite dragging the girl behind. Of course he took the bat with him.

There was nothing surprising about this outcome. My father is no match for my just-turned-twenty, full-of-piss-and-vinegar brother. But my father, being as clueless as he is, sometimes takes a run at my brother only to end up getting a beating. Even a dog knows to lower it hackles after taking a few kicks; it seems my father is not even as smart as a mongrel mutt. Anyway, from that day on, the ugly girl lived with us. Judging from her yellow, dyed hair and her long, painted fingernails she was no doubt a “waitress” from some shady countryside bar. At first, because she was so quiet, I thought she was a mute, but it seems she was just taking my measure because later she hesitatingly spoke to me.

“Just call me eonni,“[1] she said as she gave some shitty little cubic hairpin. I’d have to be crazy to call her eonni. Then as now her name is the same, ”Hey.“ If I say ”hey“ she knows I’m talking to her. ”Hey, make me some instant noodles.“ Or ”Hey, the key is on the shoe rack.“ That kind of thing.

Well, it seems that oppa likes the ugly girl because he always comes home early and noisily fools around with her in his room. Of course, I know what they are doing in there but there’s no need to make it public. One good thing about the girl coming to live with us is that my panties have stopped disappearing from the washing machine. My brother is truly pathetic. Does he really think I don't know what he does with my panties? The reason I tolerate this is because he is our family’s sole breadwinner, providing everything from money to food. I hate to say it, but dad is a good-for-nothing.

“You just study hard, I’ll take care of everything else.”

Oppa loves to sit me down and make such speeches. He looks so satisfied with himself having someone to lecture. On such occasions I always laugh to myself thinking, yea, this from the guy that is always stealing my panties. I don’t know if he has any idea what I’m thinking, he just prattles on with the most ridiculous look of importance on his face. At least he’s not as weird as my father, and, because in his own way he tries his best to take care of his only sister, I let the panty stealing slide. I’m embarrassed to even mention my father. I can understand my brother, he’s at that age when his hormones are raging. But, what the hell is wrong with my father? Why is my school uniform on his bed when it should be in my closet? Is this any way for a father to behave around his fourteen-year-old daughter? Well, I hope you’ll forgive my outburst. But I think I am reacting more calmly than most people would in the same situation.

Oppa is not as tolerant as I am and is always spoiling for a fight with dad. Of course, dad is usually the cause of the problem. Take, for example, the day after the girl came to live with us. Even if he had taken a few whacks with a bat from my brother, what he did is not exactly what you would expect from a grown-up. Of course, it’s my fault for even expecting grown-up behavior from my father. Wasn’t it him that swung the bat in the first place? Anyway, the incident happened the next day. Oppa, as usual, came home from work early and, after washing his feet, was busy playing around with the girl in his room. It was a rather peaceful evening. But that peace was suddenly broken by someone pounding on the door. It was very likely the police as they sometimes came to our house. Mostly they came because of dad, but sometimes my brother was involved in something as well. In fact, I was even familiar with a few officers from the local police station. So I was a bit surprised when I opened the door to see two unfamiliar faces. One was a uniformed cop and the other an older plainclothes detective.

“Is Yi Gyeongsik home?“ the plainclothes detective asked.

I nodded my head.

“Is he your oppa?“

I said he was, turned toward the room where my brother and the girl were and yelled “oppaaaaa!” He came out of the room hitching up his pants. The girl as well stuck her head out the door to see what was going on.

“Are you Yi Gyeongsik?” the detective asked, and my brother said he was. The detective told the girl to come out of the room.

“What’s going on?” my brother asked and the detective answered while giving the girl the once over as she came out of their room.

“We got a report of underage prostitution.”

My brother frowned.

“What, you mean paying for sex? Have you ever seen such a thing between a twenty-year-old and a seventeen-year-old? And wouldn’t money have to be involved for that to be the case? Why would I pay to sleep with her? Do I look crazy?”

The detective scratched his head with a ballpoint pen.

“Then maybe it’s enticing a minor. Maybe you were going to sell her to some brothel. Anyway, come with us.”

Shaking his head, oppa was ready to docilely follow along when, as if suddenly struck by a thought, he asked the detective,

“Who made the complaint?”

The detective made no reply but just looked on indifferently. But my brother, as if having sensed something, went and pounded on father’s door. It was locked from the inside. Of course, by doing so, my stupid father was admitting that he was the snitch.

“Take that bastard away. He’s a no good son-of-a-bitch,” my father yelled from the other side of the door, the latch of which he was holding tight. As a result, my brother and the girl were suddenly and unexpectedly dragged off to be interrogated at the police station. Since no money had changed hands, the prostitution charge did not stick, and the charge of enticing a minor or whatever was also dropped when it became clear that they were living together by mutual consent.

Oppa and the girl were only allowed to come home the next day after spending an unpleasant night at the police station. As soon as my brother entered the house he rushed toward father’s room with a hatchet. Since the door was locked, my brother chopped away at it with the hand axe. Eventually, so much of the door was hacked away that we could see inside the room.

Of course, father wasn’t going down without a fight. He was standing on his bed with the metal leg of a camping cot in hand waiting for my brother to come through the door. The second my brother entered the room, father sprang at him with a scream, but my brother was the victor in this engagement as well. He easily got the upper hand and then proceeded to smash the room to bits. When he was done it looked like a tornado had hit the place. Having spent his rage, oppa headed for the door, father pouring a stream of abuse at the back of his head.

“You goddamn Taliban bastard!”

Oppa left the room, a derisive grin on his face. If oppa is a member of the Taliban, how would my father classify himself? Maybe he thinks he’s a member of the Northern Alliance or something. Well, whatever. When oppa was away at work, father would sit me down and talk shit about him.

“That bastard should be sent to prison or the army, somewhere with a high wall. That would make a new man out of him.”

Oppa didn’t give a damn what father did or said. This was daily life at our house and father wasn’t going to change no matter what my brother did.

The girl would usually prepare dinner around the time my brother returned from work, and dad sometimes mooched a meal off them. She cooked for me once too, but it tasted like shit.

“Well, your family is really something,” said the girl to me as I was eating a bowl of rice and vegetables in the kitchen, she having just come from witnessing another battle between my dad and my brother.

“Moron. Scared by something like that?” I said with a sneer.

The girl bristled and raised her fist.

“Why, you little smart ass!”

I thought about taking her on, but instead just shot back with,

“I’ll let it go this time for my brother’s sake. You should save your breath for all that moaning and groaning you do in bed every night.”

While the girl stared, mouth open in surprise, I stuck out my tongue and then darted into my room. In a fight, it’s always a good idea to get in the first blow. Just because she had gotten a taste of sex early on and she was always panting after my brother doesn’t give her the right to stick her nose in our family’s business or try to act like my eonni. For what it’s worth, I guess because of the girl oppa is a lot calmer these days. The fact that he and my dad have something of a truce going is probably because the girl satisfies my brother’s sexual demands. When men don’t get these needs met they go crazy, either getting fall-down drunk or fighting like animals.

Until oppa turned sixteen, my father regularly beat him half to death. That’s why it’s a miracle that they can live together now. If beating the hell out of my brother wasn’t enough to ease my father’s rage, he would make him strip and kick him out of the house. Then, dad, completely shitfaced from drinking straight soju, would pass out, totally oblivious that my brother was still outside. When I would take oppa his clothes, he would be shivering with cold and cursing the blue blazes out of my father.

“Son of a bitch. Just wait you cock-sucking-motherfucker.”

When he turned sixteen, oppa made good on this threat. When father drunkenly charged at him, oppa knocked him down with one punch, tied him up hand and foot with a jump rope, and left the house for good.

Tied up with the jump rope, father threw out a few more curses before falling into a drunken slumber. Not hide nor hair was seen of my brother for the next four years until the beginning of this year, his twentieth, when he marched back into the house like a conquering general.

“Why, you son of a bitch!” shouted my father launching himself at my brother only to be felled with one kick.

From that day on oppa was the law.

Well, if someone had to be in charge, better my brother than my father. My dad had called my brother a Taliban but even the Taliban or Osama Bin Laden or whatever would be better than my father. My father doesn’t possess even a single quality required of a good father. In fact, he is like one of those mixed gift sets, except of bad dad traits. There are two things necessary to be a good parent, or even an average parent for that matter. One is money. A parent should give their children at least enough money to buy the stuff they need like school clothes, supplies, snacks and the like. But that bum rarely gave us a dime. To make matters worse, he even sometimes filches the money my brother brings home. The other thing is a decent job. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to belittle any one particular job. What I mean by a normal job is doing one’s best everyday with a sincere attitude to fulfill the requirements of the job (wow! would you listen to me!). So, if my dad were to shine shoes in front of a department store I wouldn’t be embarrassed, or if he collected cardboard boxes with a pull-cart I could still hold my head up. But what am I gonna do with snitch for a father? That’s right. My dad’s a professional snitch. You’ll understand just how professional if I tell you that every major holiday a mid-level official from the ward office pays a call to our house bringing gifts for my father. The official assigned to take care of my father, Mr. Park, knocks on our door, a servile expression on his face and a ten-kilogram bag of rice or a detergent gift set in his hands. It’s not that he has no pride, he kowtows to my loser father because every year my dad files hundreds of citizen complaints. He’s virtually a one-man citizen complaint factory. Whether it’s the lines in a parking lot, the dust from a construction site, the attitude of public officials toward civil complainants, no matter − he’ll report any of these things. He is a new breed of cat produced by the system of local government autonomy. That’s why I can understand Mr. Park coming around to grovel during holidays or at election time. Whenever he does, dad sits him down and launches into a lengthy lecture about the current state of the country’s politics or the future direction of the local autonomous government. But Mr. Park doesn’t seem to listen very carefully. The reason he sits quietly and pretends to listen is that if he doesn’t, my father is very likely to run to the civil complaint department of the Presidential Office or the Integrated Government Complex were he could camp out filing complaints for up to ten days straight. Park was afraid of my father.

“As for me, my philosophy is live and let live. But when everywhere I look I see injustice and impropriety, and when I see the people turning a blind eye to it, well, I feel I have to do something. So I fill out complaint forms, use my own money to make copies, and brave this miserable winter weather to get those complaints into the hands of the proper authorities. If we are to have sound politics, the water upsteam must be clean, don’t you think? The officials who deal directly with the public must be replaced. Am I wrong?”

Recently, there has appeared a new type of civil protest called the one-man demonstration and my dad is so excited he can hardly contain himself. On the smallest pretext, dad threatens to put on his sandwich board and head for the Integrated Government Complex. This is a major pain in the ass for the district and ward offices. Dad might think that he is the epitome of citizenship and the embodiment of social justice, but from my perspective, my alcoholic father wearing a sandwich board and snitching for a profession is humiliating. It would be better if he lived with the other homeless guys down at Seoul Station, then I could live here with oppa; but he will probably torment us from that room with the broken door until his dying breath. No doubt he’ll continue to report his son to the police until he goes senile and starts smearing his own shit on the walls.

Why did my dad even bother having us kids? Well, actually I should ask my mom this question.

“Let me get this straight, you had oppa and me and then you abandoned us?”

A couple of days ago I went to the construction site canteen that my mother runs to ask her this very question. Instead of an answer, she threw a soup ladle at my head.

“Shut up, brat. You’re bad luck, you’ll ruin business. Be thankful I even had you. My coochie almost fell out giving birth to you, and you ask me why I had you? Go ask your wonderful father. That loser son-of-a-bitch.”

Well, my mother is still a better parent than dad, at least after cursing me out she gave me a bowl of soup with rice in it.

“Eat you little shit. And why hasn’t your brother shown his mug around here lately?”

“He’s shacked up with a girl. He dragged some chick home and she’s living with us. He’s all smiles these days.”

“What did your dad do?”

“He tried to make a fuss but got wailed on by brother so now he’s quiet as a mouse. She feeds him sometimes, too. Won’t be long before she’s the daughter-in-law of the house.”

“We’ll see about that!!”

Mom seemed really pissed. She threw the ladle back into the soup pot, took off her apron and tossed it aside. Several customers had just come in and ordered, but mom left the canteen as if she hadn’t even heard them.

“What about business?‘

Yunjeong’s mom can take care of it.“

“Where are you going?“

You said some little chick is acting like my daughter-in-law. I’d better have a look at her hadn’t I?“

“Daughter-in-law my ass. She’s a slut.“

“A slut or a mutt. It doesn’t matter.“

The shit has hit the fan. The pecking order in our house goes like this: Brother owns dad. Dad owns mom. But mom owns brother. And me? I’m Thumbelina. I’m so small no one bothers me. The fighting always happens between those three. Anyway, the fact that my mom is on the move is bad news for my brother. It’s weird but oppa is no match for my mom. That means she’s gonna eat the ugly girl alive.

I grabbed my mom’s sleeve as she was steaming along.

“You’re the one who got a divorce and left. What makes you think you can just show up at the house whenever you want?”

“You think I left because I wanted to?”

Then let’s kick dad out and you come back home.”

Mom was stomping along, her mouth clenched shut, looking really angry.

“Okay? Please? Let’s kick him out and the three of us live together.”

“And what about your dad? Send him to live at Seoul Station?”

“Even if we send him there he’d live it up, making money by reporting the corruption of the railway cooperation. Wait a minute. Are you saying that you have been working and sleeping in this eatery out of concern for dad? Are you a saint or an idiot?”

“You’re dad has had a tough life.”

“Who hasn’t? What about us?”

“Why are you being such a brat today? Shut your mouth before it fills up with dust. Zip it up or get lost.”

Mom threw open the front gate that was practically falling off its hinges and barged into the house as if she had only been gone since that morning (it seems that while not good at anything else, the people in my family are good at storming back home). Mom kicked off her worn-down-at-the-heel slippers in the entrance and climbed up onto the veranda. The girl who had been peeling leeks when my mom burst in looked up in terror.

We were all sitting on a powder keg. A palpable tension ran between them. I didn’t like the look of the kitchen knife the girl was holding and so decided to intervene.

“This is my mother. Say hello, and put that knife down.”

At that point the girl put the knife down and gave my mother a deep bow. Her limp, dyed hair fell over her eyes as she did so.

“How old are you?”

The girl fidgeted, not answering right away.

“She says she’s seventeen,” I said.

“You shut up.”

My mom stared at the girl for a long moment.

“Come with me.”

“The girl stood still sizing up the situation, so mom snapped,

“Now!”

The girl threw on a cardigan and followed mom out. I whispered at the back of her head as she passed,

“You’re dead now.”

Mom grabbed the girl’s wrist, her hair still smelling of the perming chemicals, and dragged her out the front door. Suddenly I felt sorry for the girl being towed off by my mom like that. She really didn’t have anywhere else to go; my panties had stopped disappearing; she sometimes made me ramen; she knew how to make a good cup of coffee from working in a brothel disguised as a coffee house; and, more than anything, I owned her. I opened the window and looked out at the alley that wound narrowly between the houses but couldn’t see anything of mom or the girl. What the hell are they doing? Dad was off somewhere, probably filing a new complaint, so I had no choice but to while away the time trying to decide on a new design for the floor linoleum. Oppa came back around evening time. He looked around for the girl and when he found no sign of her he shot me a suspicious look.

“Mom came and took her somewhere.”

“When?”

“Earlier.”

Oppa threw his bag down and left the house. He met dad right outside the front gate but neither acknowledged the other, both continuing on their respective ways. My brother was probably on his way to mom’s eatery. With the idea of watching the fun, I hurriedly ran after him. When I pushed aside the plastic flap that covered the door, mom was throwing an onion into a soup pot.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from my children?”

“Where’s Soyeon?”

“Who’s Soyeon?”

“You came to the house and took her away.”

My brother was scowling at my mom as if she had tossed the girl into the soup pot too and was boiling her with the onions.

“What the hell is wrong with you? She’s got two legs, she can go where she wants. Why are you staring at me like an idiot? Where were your eyes when you picked up that ugly little mutt and brought her home? You’ve got some nerve busting in here like this you little bastard.”

My brother looked like he was going to cry. Just as he was about to say something, the girl pushed aside the flap and came in. Seeing my brother and me standing there she seemed momentarily bewildered.

“What the…?”

We were just as bewildered. The girl was dressed completely differently than before. A decent looking sweater had now replaced the ratty cardigan she was wearing when mom had dragged her out of the house. And under that she had on a nice looking checkered skirt instead of the cheap Dongdaemun Market jeans she had been wearing. She now looked like a high school girl from a decent family.

“Where’d you get those clothes?” I asked the girl while pulling on the sleeve of her sweater only to be rapped on the head by mom’s soup ladle.

“Hey shithead, she’s three years older than you and she’s your brother’s wife. Call her eonni.”

“Eonni my ass.”

The sulky look on my face brought the ladle flying at my head.

“If those clothes fit okay, then change back out of them and come in here.”

“I’ll be right there.”

The girl went into the bathroom. My brother couldn’t contain his curiosity any longer and turned to my mother.

“Mom, what the hell is going on?”

“What’s she going to do at the house? I told her to come work here. I’ll pay her if she does an decent job. You can come here for dinner.”

“Where will she sleep?’

This was apparently what my brother was most concerned about. He clearly didn’t want her sleeping in an eatery frequented by a bunch of filthy construction workers.

“You moron. What am I going to do with her here at night? I’ll send her home when she’s done. You just worry about earning a living.”

“Okay.”

His mind clearly put at ease, oppa left with a silly smile on his face.

Mom caught him by the scruff of the neck as he was on his way out.

“I’m coming home tonight, too.”

“What?”

“You little shits. You don’t seem the least bit happy to hear I’m moving back in. Good-for-nothing brats. Anyway, I’ll be there tonight.”

“Where will you sleep?” I asked.

“Where else would I sleep, stupid? With you.”

The good times were about to end. Mom was moving into my room. What would become of my private life? I couldn’t show what I was thinking for fear of getting beaned in the head with the ladle again, so I turned and left the eatery. I kicked a rock as hard as I could. Fuck. Things were going just fine, why has she suddenly decided to move back into that cramped house? If she does, she and dad will start back up with their endless fighting. Just the thought of it was horrible. At least with oppa in charge my dad won’t be able to go on any of his rampages.

True to her word, mom came home that night with a big bundle of her stuff. It was five years since she had left. My dad just about shit himself. Without even glancing at him, she spoke with the resoluteness of a captured guerilla leader.

“Let’s not speak to each other if we can avoid it.”

“How can we do that living under the same roof?’

“If you don’t like it you can always leave.”

Only when the two of them became aware that oppa was standing to one side staring at them, his eyes practically bulging out, did their war of nerves come to an end. After unpacking her stuff in my room, mom turned on the TV. Something in my dad’s demeanor made me think he was actually glad mom was back. Well, it made sense. He hadn’t even gotten close to a woman since mom left. On the other hand, mom being at a construction site canteen, she had probably found herself in several different men’s arms; but what self-respecting woman would have anything to do with a penniless snitch like him? And so it was that around eleven that night, dad called me to his room.

“Aren’t you going out tonight?”

“Where am I going to go at this time of night?”

“Then will you tell your mom to come to my room?”

“Won’t do any good.”

“Just do it.”

When I told her what dad had said, she just gave a snort and turned up the TV.

“Aren’t you going to go? Dad hasn’t had any for a long time.”

I immediately received a rap on the head.

“Where’d you learn to talk like that you little snot?”

“Well, it’s true.”

“Aren’t you going to bed?”

“I’m going.”

I pulled the covers all the way up over my eyes. The television was reporting the imminent collapse of the Taliban. While tossing and turning in my bed thinking what a bunch of crap it was that dad had called oppa a Taliban, I heard the door open and mom go out. Shortly after, I heard whispering then a dull but powerful thumping could be felt vibrating through the floor. I’m going to be getting this in stereo from now on, I thought. And sure enough, a soft meowing could be heard coming from oppa’s room. Apparently, it doesn’t take much to become an adult. After you become strong enough to dominate your parents, you find a mate and bring them home to live with you. That’s all there is too it. I couldn’t wait to become an adult myself. Little princess Thumbelina, who was kidnapped by the nasty frog mother and here son in Anderson’s fairly tale, finally found a prince just her size and settled down. She then took a new name.

“It’s not right that a princess as beautiful as you should be named Thumbelina. I’m going to call you Maya from now on. “

How wonderful. From now on my name shall also be Maya. And when my prince finally appears I’m going to tell him to call me Maya. Maya is a million times prettier than my name. Kyeongseon. It sounds like the name of someone who milks cows.

My mother had been back a week. When I got up, my mom and the girl were making rice rolls. I never thought I’d see such a sight. It looked like a scene from a soap opera. Was this really happening? I had to rub my eyes to be sure before I stepped out onto the veranda.

“What the hell is this? People would think you two were just the most lovey-dovey mother and daughter-in-law.”

“Shut up brat. What people? And you. Don’t just stand there looking stupid. Come over here and slice up these pickled radishes.”

“Why? They’re already all sliced.”

I surveyed the veranda while chomping on one end of a cucumber.

“Hey, mom. Where’d you sleep last night? When I woke up you weren’t there.”

The girl kept her head down looking at what she was doing, but the corners of her mouth were turned up in a smile.

“Shut up and go brush your teeth.”

I gave a snort and headed for the bathroom, but my dad was already in there.

“I’m all done crapping. You should wait a minute before you come in there.”

Of course it’s too much to expect anything like gentle speech in this dump. I was squatting in front of the bathroom when dad came out hitching up his pants. I darted inside, brushed my teeth and washed my face, and when I came out oppa was sitting on the veranda.

“It’s Sunday, what are you doing up so early?”

My brother’s unexpected response was,

“Why don’t you come, too?’

“Huh?”

The reason I responded with “huh?” and not something like “to where?” was because I was so taken by surprise by what he had just said. Such phrases as “Why don’t you come, too?” were just not used in my house. The phrase “ you too” along with the term “let’s” are never heard around here. That sort of speech is like a foreign language to these people.

“We’re going on an outing.”

My brother was slouching, brushing dandruff off his shoulder as if embarrassed with himself for saying such a thing.

“An outing? All of us?”

So the drunkard, snitch father, the deliveryman son that frequently smacked that father around, the underage live-in girlfriend of that son, the woman who ran a canteen at a construction site, and the first year middle school student and owner of the school uniform sometimes found on the bed of that woman’s former husband are all going on an outing together?

“No thanks.”

Chewing loudly on the cucumber, I went into my room. Mom followed me in.

“Hey brat. You’re not happy I’m back? You don’t care if your mother dies from breathing charcoal briquette fumes in that canteen? That what you want, you little bitch?’

“Did I say anything about you being back? I just said I’m not going on any outing. Why the hell would I go on picnic with dad? He’ll just drink himself stupid and start a fight.”

“Your brother’s all grown up now. You dad can’t act like he used to.”

“Anyway, I’m not going.”

In the end, we all ended up going. Mom acted like the sky would fall if, for some reason, we didn’t go on this outing. She insisted that we grill some meat, go to a Karaoke, and take some pictures. According to her, that’s what a family should do together. This woman, who didn’t show her face at the house for five years, just living at that canteen feeding hungry construction workers, suddenly barges back in and insists that we all go on an outing. Wow. If she’s so interested in this family maybe she can tell me why she lived the way she did for those five years. Maybe sneaking into dad’s room and spending a night in his bed has made her funny in the head. This is serious. And my brother seems intent on using this outing to insinuate his bedmate into our family (if you could call it that). For the time being, my dad is ready to do whatever mom tells him. And my brother’s horny little girlfriend is obviously in no position to disagree with anything oppa tells her to do.

So that was how the outing came about. We all gathered at the entrance to the house after getting ready to go. Mom was going in a musty-looking canary colored hanbok that looked like something you’d see at a cultural festival for ethnic Koreans residing in some Chinese province. Dad had on an old black suit that he wore to the government complex when filing complaints. My brother was dressed in something between a suit and a school uniform that he had worn when he worked as one of those guys that stand in front of nightclubs trying to lure customers to come in. The girl wore the skirt and sweater that mom had bought her. After a knock-down-drag out fight with mom who insisted I wear my school uniform, I was dressed in jeans and a jumper. We looked like a bunch of clowns who had escaped from the circus.

We all got in the minivan, which my brother drives for his delivery company job. There were no windows in the back section of the van, unfortunately.

“Let’s each take turns sitting in the front!”

Dad was the first to sit in the front passenger seat. The rest of us all got into the back. As it so happened, all the women were in the back. Nobody said anything at first, but then mom broke the awkward silence.

“As soon as it’s my turn to get paid in the money pool, I’ll arrange your wedding. Gyeongsik can be a little rough sometimes, but he’s a good boy.”

“Don’t worry about the wedding. If you could pay for some photos or something at some stage, that would be great.”

“You’re so ugly photos would be a waste of money.”

What I got for making this quip was that mom wrapped me on the head as if she were playing whack-a-mole.

“I told you to call her eonni!”

“Forget it!”

“It’s okay mom, she doesn’t have to,” replied the girl in a fawning tone.

She was all smiles in her new pretty sweater and skirt. How sickening! I aimed for where I thought her foot would be and swung my heel down. I think I got her right on the instep because she let out a groan. It was so sweet seeing her trying not to show any pain that I stomped hard on her foot again. This time the girl didn’t take it lying down. She pinched me on the side so hard that my eyes started to water. I started pinching whatever I could get ahold of. The girl wouldn’t give in, pinching me on the thigh and belly. It hurt so bad my eyes filled with tears. So you want to go a few rounds? I grabbed her head and pulled a big handful of hair out from behind her ear. She pulled off my hairpin with a rough tug, and a bunch of hair came out with it. My head ached like when you drink a milkshake too quickly. Only then did mom realize what was happening and jump between us.

“What the hell are you doing?”

But by then it was too late, we were tangle up like two snakes mating.

“Break it up!”

Mom tried to pull us apart, but it was no use. Just then the minivan took a sharp right and we tumbled over onto the floor. The girl kept squealing like a wild animal. After a moment though, I realized that she was actually crying.

“Why are you treating me like this? What have I done wrong? — huhnn, huhnn — I haven’t done anything wrong. Why are you doing this to me? I’m not very brave — huhnn, huhnn — and I’m always scared. You keep lording it over me saying it’s your house. You look down on me and treat me like garbage — huhnn, huhnn.”

What a loser! Why the hell is she crying? Who told her to come to our house anyway? I let go of the girl, got up and knocked on the partition behind the driver’s seat.

“Stop the car!”

The van didn’t stop, maybe because the driver couldn’t hear me. The girl kept sobbing and I looked back to see mom stroking her back. The stupid canteen owner and her waitress can get stuffed for all I care. I was so pissed I crawled into a corner in the back. What’s the point of going on an outing with such a screwed up family?

A little while later, I changed seats with dad at a rest stop. I moved to the front passenger seat and dad got into the back. The girl was a little worried that dad might start groping her in the dark. Well, I wouldn’t put it past him. Seemingly unaware of this possibility, oppa was grinning from ear to ear.

“Where are we going?”

“To Nami Island.”

“So we are headed for the ocean?”

“No, it’s an island in a river.”

“Is it nice?”

“Don’t know. I’ve never been there.”

“You know oppa, your girlfriend sucks.”

“I just pinched her a few times and she started bawling.”

Oppa’s expression turned serious.

“Why did you pinch her? She’s your eonnie.”

“Why do you keep telling me to call her eonnie?”

“So just do it.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Well then, I’m not going to pay for your school or buy you any clothes.”

What a cheap move! It all boils down to money in the end. I protested by just sitting there, not uttering a single word. The minivan travelled down the Gyeongchun Highway, no one saying a thing. The scenery was nice. The clear sky and gold tinted fields were a sign that autumn was almost over.

After reaching our destination, my brother stopped the van, got out and opened the back doors. The bright sunlight flooded the van’s cargo hold. The three in back got out, shielding their eyes from the blinding sun.

“Is this it?”

My dad squinted, taking in the riverside surroundings.

“We have to take a boat from here.”

“To hell with a boat. This is good enough right here. There must be a fish stew place around here. Ah, there’s one right there. Spicy carp stew. Nothing better than that with a little soju on a day like today.

My alcoholic father was dying for a drink. The thought of getting one was the reason he had kept quiet the whole drive up here and why he could sit in that dark cargo bed. But neither my mom nor I were crazy about the idea of taking a boat anywhere either so we trudged into the shabby, rundown fish stew restaurant. The proprietor was overjoyed to have customers this late in the season.

“I put in an extra fish,” the owner said as he brought out the stew.

“Can you add some more dumplings, too?” my brother asked.

“Yes. Of course. Dumplings are no problem.”

The owner had already figured out who would be paying the bill. But then, it only took all of five minutes for anyone observing our family to figure that out. The owner brought some potato dumplings and added them to the stew. The girl, eyes still swollen from crying, was stuffing her face with stew, nose running like a faucet. I’m telling you, there’s something not right about her. But my brother was looking at her tenderly. Meanwhile, mom was piling pieces of fish on my brother’s spoon, and my dad, oblivious to everything else, was pouring himself shots of soju from his second bottle of the stuff. There wasn’t much in the way of conversation, each of us making a few comments and then buying our faces in our own food.

“So, mom. Are you guys back together, then?”

Unfortunately, I was the only one in our family that could say something like this. I hate beating around the bush. My mom took the soju bottle out of dad’s hand and first filled her own glass then poured the rest into my brother’s glass. She then held up her glass and said,

“We are not back together. Why not, you ask? Because I’ll be damned if I’m going to turn over the little money I’ve earned running that canteen to your father. But…”

My mom continued after touching her glass to my brother’s.

I will be living with you from now on. Why, you ask…”

It was my mom’s habit to make these pauses in the middle of her pronouncements. But this pause lasted longer than usual. And she had an embarrassed grin on her face.

“It’s because of my poor kids. My babies.”

She was stroking my hair as she spoke. But I knew what she really wanted to say. It was obvious that she missed being in the arms of a man.

Dad, oblivious to what my mother was saying, continued to pour soju down his throat until he keeled over dead drunk. My brother moved him into a comfortable position and then took the girl out for a stroll along the river. My mom and I spent the time plucking out fish eyes and eating them.

“Having fun?” my mom asked while sucking on a fish bone.

“About as much fun as watching paint dry. I’m bored senseless.”

“Humph. What a rotten brat.”

Mom gave me another rap on the head, went out and called my brother who loaded dad into the cargo bed of the van. My brother made a great show of opening his wallet and pulling out four ten-thousand won notes with which he paid for lunch. The girl, clinging to his arm, looked up at him raptly. We all got in the van and the owner and his wife came all the way out to roadside to see us off with a wave. That was the only good part of the trip.

On the way back to Seoul, my brother pulled off in front of a girl’s high school and said we all had to get out and take some photos to remember the day with. “Where?” I asked, and he pointed to one of those sticker photo shops. Even though mom had the biggest face she stood in the very front and her face came out looking big as a tire. Oppa and the girl, who stood behind her, both came out looking stupid. I was the only one who looked good in the picture, but the girl said it was because of the lighting. Moron! Were they standing in the dark or something?

And dad? He was still in the van unconscious. My brother had to carry him all the way into the house where he dumped him in his room with the smashed door. Oppa and the girl went into their room, and my mom took off for the canteen where she said she had to start fixing breakfast. I was in my room wishing I hadn’t eaten those fish eyes. Crap! That’s the kind of thing you feed to a cat. Wait! The supermarket owner said her cat had just had five kittens and had promised to give me one. Tomorrow I’m going to blow everything off and go to get that kitty. Hey little kitty. Just wait one more day. Eonnie is coming for you.

[1] Eonni is the term of address used by a younger female toward her older sister. It is also used as a term of address between female acquaintances and implies both familiarity and the acceptance of a hierarchal relationship.

Steven Capener

Steven Capener teaches literary translation as a profession. He is a professor in the Department of English Language & Literature at Seoul Women’s University and lectures in the Institute’s Translation Academy at the Literature Translation Institute of Korea. He also pursues his post-graduate studies in Korean literature in the Department of Korean Language and Literature at Yonsei University. In addition to teaching translation studies, he has been deeply involved in writing about and translating colonial era writers such as Yi Hyo-seok and Yi Sang.

For this contest, he chose the contemporary story “Oppa Came Back” because it is a delicious deconstruction of the hierarchies that have traditionally governed Korean life. It is clever, insightful, and humorous without being didactic. He hopes that his translation will allow those reading in English to enjoy this work as much as he has.

“It was a great pleasure and surprise to be informed that I had won the Commendation Award in the fiction category of the Korea Times 47th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards. It is an honor to receive this recognition and, as a scholar and translator of Korean literature, I would like to express my gratitude to The Korea Times for their efforts to promote Korean literature and expand its readership through translation. This contest continues to serve not only as a means of introducing and promoting quality works of Korean poetry and prose to a readership that might otherwise not come in contact with it, but also as an opportunity for literary translators to receive recognition for their work-the opportunities for which are rare. Quality literary translation requires the convergence of a number of skills and talents that take many years of study, practice, cultural immersion, and emotional investment to coalesce. It is extremely gratifying to see contests such as this that not only recognize and reward these unique individuals, but also contribute to the expansion and enrichment of literary culture.”