Sometimes fake is beautiful, too

By Lim Yeong-ae

My daughter lost a glove.

Just a few days ago she was delighted, like a little girl, wearing them.

The next day, she called the places she had dropped by, such as a café, restaurant, bookstore and even a taxi company, to ask if they had found her right-hand glove. Their answers, however, were all “No.”

As her last hope of finding it faded, she sighed, saying, “Why do the things I love leave me so quickly?”

I knew she was thinking about her ex-boyfriend who left for the United States to study last month. She had been so happy to meet such a nice young guy just a few months earlier.

I found out the place selling the gloves and the price of them. I wanted to buy her the same ones. However, there was no more stock in Korea and they had been imported. I was so resentful of the lost glove that might be wandering without playing its proper role, just like the boy who had left my daughter. Both she and her left-hand brown glove looked so lonely.

I decided to buy similar gloves. If the new left-hand one is disassembled, it would be possible to make two ribbons for the right-hand one.

It was not easy to find a pair similar enough to satisfy her picky taste. I dropped by almost every department store in the city and finally bought a similar pair.

The repair shops in my neighborhood refused to alter them. The ribbons were too exquisite for them to copy.

There was a brief moment when the thought of asking her to wear the new gloves instead, flashed through my mind. However, somehow I couldn't. Although one would not be exactly the same as the lost one, by making her a pair of gloves, I wanted to show her that not everything she loves will go away.

Finally I visited a shop in Myeongdong. The repairman was doubtful. I explained the whole story to him. I was practically begging him as a mother. I felt pathetic looking at those three brown gloves sitting on his sewing machine. It was as if my daughter's happiness depended on them.

Two week later I received the long-awaited phone call from the repair shop to pick up the gloves. I was presented with the work of a craftsman. When he realized it was impossible to make two ribbons from one glove, he decided to buy the same leather to make them. He said it took a long time to find the same color and texture of leather. In my eyes, they looked perfectly identical.

The repairman must have been a father who had raised his own children. Though it is high quality and handmade, the left glove was made for sale. On the other hand, he must have imparted “parental love” into the glove while making the ribbons. Otherwise, he would not have made such refined products that look even more beautiful than the genuine ones.

The next evening, even though the weather was quite warm, my daughter was wearing the gloves when she came home.

“Are you OK with it though it's a fake...” I asked.

“Mom, this left one is simply a piece of high-quality ‘goods’ that are available in Italy; this right one, however, is a one-and-only, priceless ‘work of art!’”

“I've never, ever seen such a beautiful fake as this in my life.”

I was happy to see her magnolia-like smile. It had been a long time since I had seen it last. I felt that she would meet a new boyfriend this spring. Somehow, the young man would be sincere and warm-hearted, just like a mother's intentions.

The writer is an essayist and a professor at JEI University. Her email address is annielim31@naver.com.