Kimchi & Calamari(18)

The freezer door slammed shut. From the computer desk in the family room, I watched my sisters battle by the kitchen counter. Their hair was wet and braided and they were already in their pajamas. Mom was working at the beauty shop later than usual, leading new product training for the hairdressers. Dad was in his recliner, reading another classic that you’d expect to find in the hands of a pipe-smoking professor, not a window washer who looks tough in a tank top.

“Give that to me!” Gina yelled. “Daddy, Sophie took the last Popsicle!”

Sophie sat on a kitchen stool gripping the Popsicle like a weapon. “I grabbed it first. Fair and square.”

The air was thick as oatmeal. No matter how many times I wiped my forehead, it felt greasy. My glass of fruit punch sat in a puddle next to the mouse pad.

“Bully!” Gina wailed.

“Both of you have cookies if there aren’t enough Popsicles,” Dad growled from behind The Brothers Karamazov.

“I don’t want cookies,” Gina whined.

“I’m eating this Popsicle. I got it first.” Sophie ripped the wrapper off just as Gina started crying.

“Maybe there are more in the back of the freezer.” Dad put his book down and walked into the kitchen.

I hit my mental button to mute the sibling static. I was on a roll, two-finger punching at the keyboard.

The title of my essay was “A Medal for Speed and a Life of Honor: My Grandpa Sohn.” I wrote how Sohn Kee Chung was my father’s father. Since I couldn’t find where he was born, I picked Yongsu’s birthplace, Taegu. Dad’s atlas listed Taegu as the third-largest city in South Korea, right along the Naktong River. It was a city that used to be famous for apples—” Best in Asia,” according to the atlas—so I gave Grandpa Sohn’s family their very own orchard.

A young man can only pick apples for so long. Out of sheer boredom, young Sohn began challenging his six sisters and brothers to footraces in the orchard.



Racing became a nightly ritual, I wrote, after the day’s picking was done. Sohn’s father always served as judge at the finish line, though none of his siblings could catch up with Sohn. Afterward the Chung family would sit down together to eat rice and kimchi, a spicy pickled cabbage. It sounded like Koreans eat kimchi the way Italians eat pasta. All the time.

When Sohn was older, people started noticing how fast he could run. His father realized that Sohn had talent and encouraged him to train, which was pretty decent considering that meant one less set of hands picking all those apples.



As I unwound this story, I felt like I’d gotten into the real Sohn’s head. Like I understood how outraged he must have felt about the Japanese taking over his country. How lousy it must have been to represent Japan, the invader, in track and field—his sport. The Japanese government looked down on the Koreans like the Nazis did the Jews, wanting to kill off everything Korean. Clothes. Tradition. Even their Korean names.

Sohn didn’t want to wear Japan’s colors on the Olympic team. But what choice did he have? He could either run representing Japan, or stay home, give up his dream, and pick apples forever.



I wrote that Grandpa Sohn stuffed his sneakers and a pair of chopsticks in his gym bag. Then, with the rally cry, “This one’s for Korea,” he headed to the 1936 Berlin games. It was the first time he’d ever left Taegu. But he never forgot he was Korean. Even during the Olympics, when the Japanese forced him to use the name Kitei Son, he protested in his own way—by sketching a tiny map of Korea next to his signature.

The library book described Sohn’s butt-kicking victory over the other marathoners in Berlin, including a heavily favored Argentinian named Juan Zabala. Adolf Hitler, who people called the führer, was rooting for Zabala—probably because Zabala looked more like him than Sohn did. But Hitler didn’t know he was dealing with one quick Korean.

Just past mile seventeen, Sohn whizzed by Zabala, who was so stunned by Sohn’s speed that he actually fell, which probably made the führer furious. For the last five miles, Sohn pulled away from the next closest competitor and won the gold medal. He became the first Olympic marathoner to run the race in less than two-and-a-half hours.



One of my favorite parts of my story—and I swear I didn’t make it up—was when a Korean newspaper got angry about their star being forced to represent Japan. Just to make a point, they airbrushed the sunburst, Japan’s national symbol, off Sohn’s jersey on the front-page photo. The staff was thrown in prison and the newspaper was shut down for ten months as punishment.

But I bet it was worth it.

Word count check: 1,496. Closing time.