A Distant and Beautiful Place

The Wonmi-dong Poet

69 The Wonmi-dong Poet People probably think I’m just an ordinary six-year-old girl, but I’m far from ordinary. While you might say I was conceited if I claimed to know the ways of the world, I can, with some certainty, say I know what’s going on at home and how our neighbors ’ minds work. You see, I’m really seven, maybe even eight. It seems my parents put off registering my birth because I was such a frail thing and they weren’t sure I would survive. I guess I’m lucky to be on the family register at all, even if they have me down as a six-year-old. I always knew Mama secretly hoped I wouldn’t make it. Father wasn’t quite so bad, but Mama used to snarl at the very sight of me. She’d never dreamed of having another child but went through with it, just in case, and out I came, another miserable girl. She still grumbles about it all the time—but just out of habit, so I don’t let it get me down. It’s not that I’m particularly mature for my age; that’s just the way our family is. The year I was born there were already four daughters. My eldest sister was over twenty, a full-grown woman, and the youngest was in her last year of middle school. At forty-two, Mama didn’t even know she was pregnant until she was four or five months along. She finally decided to have me after consulting several distinguished fortune-tellers. You see, the fortune-tellers “unanimously” agreed I’d be a boy. Under the circumstances, I must have been mighty embarrassed to enter the world with nothing between my legs. I guess that’s why I took so long coming out. I nearly killed Mama in the process, so I can hardly blame her. Still, she shouldn’t go around saying I’m seven one minute and eight the next. She may 70 Yang Kwija think I’m no good at adding and subtracting, but it’s obvious: Mama waited until I was two to register my birth, hoping I might die. I don’t want to go into a long explanation about how terrible my family treats me. What I really want to talk about is the Wonmidong Poet. Now, I may know a lot of things, but frankly I can’t tell you what poetry is. As far as I can tell, it’s a bunch of fancy words you spew out with your eyes half-closed on a moonlit night or on the beach with the waves crashing around. But judging from the Wonmi-dong Poet, I guess that’s not always the case. Here in Wonmi-dong, we’ve got our neighborhood crooner, our neighborhood beauty queen, our neighborhood know-it-all, and our neighborhood poet. Mr. Ôm, the owner of the Happiness Photo Studio, is the Wonmi-dong Crooner, but he didn’t even make it to the Puch’ôn preliminaries of the national singing contest, so he can’t be that great. Sora’s mom is the Wonmi-dong Beauty Queen. That’s for sure. She’s the only one in our neighborhood with violet nail polish and dyed hair. As for the Wonmi-dong Know-It-All, I’m ashamed to say it’s my own mother. I say “ashamed” because I know “knowit -all” is an insult that people use about someone who interferes in other folks’ business and fights all the time. The Wonmi-dong Poet has another nickname, thanks to Kyôngja, the beautician down at the Seoul Beauty Salon. She was the first one to call him the Bachelor Ghost. With his sunken eyes and bushy hair, and the army surplus jacket and faded blue jeans he’s always wearing, that’s exactly what he looks like when you run into him at night. Kyôngja isn’t the only one. Everyone in the neighborhood seems to look down on him, almost as if he were a child. I guess it’s because they all think he’s a little touched in the head. I’m not sure when or how he got that way, but one thing’s for sure: He’s not like ordinary people. He lives on the third floor of the Rose of Sharon Apartments. There are a whole lot of potted plants and...