A Love for the Immigrant Story

“Seung, I need you to work harder,” his manager told him. It wasn’t the first time he’d been reprimanded and wouldn’t be the last. On more than one occasion, crabby customers would hand back their fancy Italian coffees insisting any barista other than him give it another go.

At 23, Seung had seen a decent amount of the world. The summer after his senior year in high school his mother shipped him off to Yonsei University to brush up on his less than stellar Korean.

He ended up drinking himself silly for 5 weeks with cousins who introduced him to a Korean vodka called lemon soju. The drink went down so smooth Seung was half convinced it didn’t have any alcohol at all.

In any event, he never looked back.

By the time he returned he had nothing to show for the 5 years he spent in college. The already fragile patience of his parents was waning with each half-assed Americano he slid across the counter.

His father had come from Seoul a decade after the Korean War and gradually turned a not so brief stint as a busboy into an empire of high end grocery stores in and around Minneapolis.

So when his oldest son still couldn’t stick to anything he started, beginning with a plea to learn the alto sax in the 7th grade, it finally dawned on him he’d been coddling the boy for too long.

Those days were now over.

Now, here he was wiping down dirty table tops in a popular cafe off Hennepin Avenue. To make matters worse, Seung was broke. Any money he did have went straight to his liver, which explained why he’d stumble into work each morning with his world still very much spinning at 5:30 am.

It was the only time he could think of when a hangover might have been a sign of progress.

He worked double shifts whenever he could, and not because he wanted the money or needed the distraction. Another hour at the cafe meant another away from his folks; though his parents rarely left the store before 11:00 pm.

Living at home proved to be an inescapable purgatory; not good or quite bad enough to do anything about. Another month of practically free rent and reliable WiFi was enough to endure the barrage of lectures, which invariably grew into screaming matches between Seung and his father.

One night, Seung’s mother had to separate the two before they came to blows.

The next morning before heading off to work, Seung could hear his mother sobbing at the kitchen table.

He was breaking her heart and he knew it.

In the alleyway where Seung took his smoke breaks, he’d often see a woman about his age taking out the trash. The restaurant next door was a popular hangout among local politicians and businessmen. After a home game, one also had a half decent chance of spotting a Minnesota Twin or two. The place was rumored to have the best burger in town and arguably the biggest Oreo milkshake in the Midwest.

She smiled at him every time she tossed the bulky bag into a giant green dumpster. How she could make something so uninspired look so graceful only made him fall harder.

Seung began daydreaming about the two ambling down the Stone Arch Bridge before his fantasy was interrupted by the disapproval his parents wouldn’t bother to hide for bringing home a girl who wasn’t Korean, let alone Somali.

That would put them over the edge, he thought.

Still, he spent the next few weeks trying to time his breaks to catch glimpses of the girl and eventually muster up the courage to say something — anything. But trying to time how often the trash needed to be taken out was like picking which stock to ride.

It was anybody’s guess.

One evening he strolled into the restaurant after a double-shift and ordered aMaker’s Mark on the rocks. He feigned interest in a game playing behind the bar, while scanning the place in search of the girl.

After a few minutes he downed the drink and asked for the bill before seeing her tall frame in a corridor by the kitchen. She was carrying a pair of bus pans filled with thick water glasses and heavy dinner plates full of half eaten steaks and vegetables that’d been pushed aside.

It looked as though it weighed a ton.

He watched as the girl skillfully maneuvered in the tight space, taking on one task after another with no sign of fatigue or indifference. She did the work in a way that indicated she had no choice; a realization completely foreign to him.

When she ducked back into the kitchen, Seung took a long look at his empty glass before deciding to make his way home.

As the weeks went by, something strange started to happen. Seung felt compelled to keep his head down at both work and home. He now looked customers in the eye, showed up sober, and even learned how to make that damn Americano.

At home, life gradually got better as well. He and his father still argued from time to time but it now seemed less a matter of Seung’s future prospects than a sort of cultural temperament. Seung even asked to help out at the store; a place he’d once swore he’d never set foot in, let alone work.

In some perverse way, learning the nuances of what made a store run helped him understand the complexities of his own father; a man he later discovered survived by eating bark during the Korean War.

The irony of course was, it took a minute of watching the work ethic of another immigrant to appreciate the one of the man and woman who’d raised him.

Once he connected the dots he never talked back to his father again. 

A few years later Seung walked into his parents’ store sporting a tie and a weathered, but stylish book bag he’d picked up while traveling through Italy. He’d stopped by to drop off a few books and pick his folks up for dinner. Seung had promised to take them both out with the first check he’d earned as a professor.

He’d been out of state the three years it took to get his masters and admittedly felt a little out of place each time he returned. Now, he was teaching at a community college in St. Paul and gradually getting his footing again in the place he’d know his whole life.

So when it came to choosing a place to eat he went with what he remembered foregoing the new trendy restaurants that lined the streets downtown.

He was going to get his parents a burger and a giant milkshake.

The three made their way into the busy restaurant. They took a corner booth as Seung could see the cafe he once worked at through the window. He’d left on good terms before heading off to grad school but wasn’t even remotely nostalgic about his time there.

His parents sat together as Seung’s mother read the entrees to his father. His eyes had gotten even worse over the years, but Seung got the sense his dad enjoyed being doted on.

The two scanned the restaurant as if they’d landed on the moon. Seung’s parents went out to eat so rarely, the act of being served might as well have been something from another planet.

The three ordered a few appetizers before the main course when Seung spotted a familiar silhouette near the kitchen.

It was the same girl.

Only now she wasn’t sporting an apron or carrying a bus pan. Her hair was pulled back as she wore a sharp blue business suit with a binder in her hand. She looked to be explaining something to a waiter before making her way towards the bar.

Seung tried to piece together her new role and knew whatever it was, she wasn’t taking orders anymore, she was giving them.

He smiled as his mother caught his gaze.

“Friend of yours?” she asked in Korean.

“No,” he said. “Just someone I used to know.”

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Cigarettes and Polka Dot Walls

The man sauntered into the cafe at noon as instructed. The morning before the girl waiting on his table insisted on showing him around town. He agreed, however reluctantly, after breaking his promise to protect his solitude at all costs.

Besides, it’d been a long time since anyone, let alone a pretty girl, had paid him much mind.

The man stood out just about everywhere he went, even back home in the states. His burden, or fortune, depending on the day you asked him was he didn’t look like anyone. His mother was from Thailand, his father a short Greek American from the West Side of Chicago.

Perhaps the only thing more unique than his face was the union of two such people in the first place.

Meet me in the back by the zebra wall, the text read.

He looked at his phone wondering if her message was a ruse, a few words lost in translation, or perhaps both.

He walked past the entrance twice before it dawned on him the exterior that reminded him of a cable car was in fact the place.

“Cafe Thuillier,” the sign read.

He made his way to the back after deflecting a few strange glances. When people looked at the man it felt less out of curiosity than an examination of his soul. By the time he’d reached his late 30s, he stopped caring what all the fuss was about.

He nabbed a corner booth by a white wall covered in black polka dots. “Ah,” he said, as a wry smile broke the plain of his lips. His first in a while.

Now he understood the girl’s reference. He even found it endearing.

He took out his red pen and began scribbling some notes before sketching his staple sunset behind the mountains picture. The image hadn’t changed nearly as much as he had since he first started doodling around the 7th grade.

After about 15 minutes the young girl appeared. She was prettier than he remembered; a recognition that quelled the anger he felt at her tardiness, and worse yet, ambivalence about it.

“See, zebra wall,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “I see what you mean.”

The two ordered a pair of coffees before the girl glanced at her touchscreen. She was texting a person the man figured to be her boyfriend. Only it didn’t bother him. The girl must have been in her early 20s, which instinctively made him feel more like protecting than courting.

“Dammit! I forgot to bring my umbrella,” the girl shouted.

The man had no clue what the she meant. The day was as clear as any he’d ever known.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” she asked.

“I don’t mind,” he replied, not sure how much of a choice he had.

The girl spoke a mile a minute divulging facts about her family, her work, and hatred of all institutions.

“The worse thing about school is all the things you must unlearn after,” she said.

After about an hour the two decided to take a stroll along the Rance River. The change in scenery allowed the two more room to maneuver and somehow be themselves.

Any formality between the man and girl in that stuffy restaurant was now gone.

The two exchanged ideas with rare vulnerability as the girl listened with interest in what the man had to say. She hung on his every word, eager to find out why an American pushing 40 was traveling through St. Malo by himself.

“I just needed to get away,” he said.

A few months before the man’s father had lost a long battle with cancer. His father’s death shined a spotlight not only on his dad’s mortality but his own.

The man and his father had grown close over the years. Strangely, the man’s decision to move 3,000 miles across the country to pursue a policy degree had brought them closer.

During business trips to Boston, his father would occasionally find an excuse to meet his son in New York. They’d always have dinner in the same hole in the wall Italian restaurant on Theater Row. The no frills menu and irreverent wait staff somehow made the two feel right at home.

It took years of sitting huddled over a checkered table cloth for the man to appreciate he was getting to know his father for the first time.

Now he was gone.

Fortunately, the two had agreed on more than they didn’t by the time the old man passed. Still, the man harbored guilt over the things he’d planned on saying but thought he had more time to do so.

In the end, the only thing the two really had in common was that they loved each other.

The man looked at the girl as she took a long drag from her cigarette. He counted it to be her third of the afternoon.

“If I could leave tomorrow I would,” she said. “I’d never come back.”

She was a young woman with lofty goals. The way goals should be, he thought.

Her dream was to move to London and work as a make-up artist for television. The man told her it was possible as long as she had a plan but she deflected his speech, promptly naming all the reasons it couldn’t happen; a lack of money being the main culprit.

The two decided to have lunch at a nearby deli a few minutes before the girl needed to go to work. The woman behind the counter wanted to know if the man was half Thai and half Greek, the girl explained.

“There’s absolutely no way she guessed that!” the man shouted.

“Well,” she said. “She figured you’re not Japanese because you’re not short. And you have olive skin. And she can tell you are Greek by the way you dress,” referencing the man’s blazer and scarf.”

The man let it go. He was entertained but still not convinced.

The two sat eating together as if they’d known each other for a lifetime, or two. She emanated an understanding of the world well beyond her years. The man thought back on his early 20s, reminiscing about that sense of angst and longing he felt for the world to open its arms and offer a sign that everything would somehow be okay.

“I know how you feel,” he said. “It’s like you’re so young but you still feel like you’re running out of time.”

As the two finished their sandwiches, they noticed a gang of dark clouds begin to roll in.

“I told you,” she said. “It’s going to rain.”

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Nameless Lovers

The two met one winter evening in Cincinnati. The homeless shelter where the girl worked was hosting an art exhibit. The pieces showcased were works of some of the shelter’s residents.

It was a day the girl had been looking forward to for a long time. She was herself an artist, or at least aspiring to be. More importantly she was the one responsible for putting the event together in the first place.

“You’re crazy,” her supervisor told her. “People will never come.”

The line out the door that brisk night proved otherwise. The girl bared a smile, her first in a while, as she peered out the smudged window. Only she wasn’t gloating. It wasn’t her nature.

Instead, she was celebrating how the women she’d spent the past 5 years setting up beds for and serving watery soup had never seemed so happy. She watched from a table strewn with name tags as women the world had beaten down beamed as they shared their paintings.

They’ll always have tonight, she thought.

Across the room a boy she’d never seen before stood behind a rickety table serving refreshments. He had a wiry frame that was obvious even beneath the several layers he insisted on keeping on. He poured punch and handed out little pieces of biscotti wondering briefly why there wasn’t something warm to serve.

She’s on the Ball by Ray Charles played faintly in the background as the boy mouthed the words between “You’re welcomes,” and “Thank you for comings.” This caught the girl’s attention because she too knew the words.

As the evening wound down and the last stragglers made their way into the cold night, the boy finally mustered up the courage to walk towards the girl. He asked if she needed help stacking chairs or folding the bulky metal tables.

“Thank you,” she said.

The two slowly transformed the makeshift gallery back into a nondescript room where people came for a respite, however briefly, from hard living. The thought saddened the girl who hoped the women would cling fiercely to the memory, especially when the world felt a little too much to bear.

The boy and girl made their way outside. It turned out they were both catching buses, but different ones en route to different places.

They spoke easily for several minutes under a bus stop canopy as a light snow began to fall. They got on so well they nearly forgot how cold it was.

It would be the boy’s bus that arrived first. As it pulled up each felt a sense of dread; the night and the boy would be whisked away.

“I’ll just get the next one,” the boy said, as the bus driver snapped the doors shut.

“There won’t be another for at least 30 minutes,” she told him.

The boy just shrugged.

He listened as the girl told him about her inspiration for the exhibit; how art and helping others had helped her find her footing in the world. She told him how lending a hand to those in need, like creative expression, was the greatest contribution one could make in the world.

Moments later another bus appeared. It had more people than the one before. Now it was time for the girl to go.

The doors of the giant caravan swung open. The girl stepped aboard before either had learned the other’s name.

The bus rolled away as the boy watched the girl make her way to the back. Off in the distance he saw the bus round a corner and disappear.

He stood alone waiting for his bus.

Suddenly, it was cold again.

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What My Perfectly Imperfect First Date Would Look Like: Musings on Overpriced Coffee and Ironic T-Shirts

We grab a corner booth in a coffee shop after both showing up on time. I order us a pair of fancy coffees from the hipster barista sporting an ironic t-shirt and handle bar mustache.

After a few minutes, I discover I’m a few years older and that the t-shirt isn’t so ironic after all. At least not to me. I then joke about back pain as we laugh about what events I was alive for that you weren’t: The Summer Olympics in Korea, Kirk Gibson’s walk-off home run, for some reason I end on Chernobyl, surprised I’ve made it this far without making an obscure or weird reference.

This one turns out to be both.

“Chern what?” you ask.

“Never mind,” I say.

We speak easily for the next few hours like a pair of old friends as Pieces of Spain plays faintly in the background.

Nothing seems off limits as we talk about everything and anything, tiptoeing in and around matters of the heart, namely love, but mostly the kind you lose.

We take solace in one another’s bizarre sense of humor, dreams, hang-ups and places we’d like to have our passport stamped. I tell you about how I fell for the same scam in Shanghai and Turkey as you share your near mishap edge-walking 50 stories above Toronto.

“That supposed to be fun?” I ask.

Suddenly, one of us realizes our meter’s run out of time. It’s probably mine, so we decide to walk to my car. Our rapport emboldens me to reach for your hand, but I chicken out right before we cross the street.

That would have been the perfect time, I think to myself.

For the first time there’s a silence between us. We seem to notice it at the same time but thankfully don’t comment on it. There’s a comfort in the lull as we amble through a neighborhood lined with scarlet oak trees. I know this because you tell me this as a rare summer breeze pushes a strand of hair across your face.

It seems almost orchestrated.

The streets are paved with leaves, each hued with a slightly different color of auburn. Okay, so I guess it’s fall.

When we finally arrive at my car, I see a meter maid writing me a ticket. I start to bicker when you notice she’s the same woman whose life you saved that summer you worked as a lifeguard.

She embraces you before ripping up my ticket and tossing it among the leaves. The bright white paper sticks out among the rust colored petals.

For a moment, I’m upset by her total indifference to littering. Then I realize you’ve just saved me $45.

She tells me I can park in the same spot for free as long as it’s a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday afternoon.

“But you gotta treat this girl right,” she adds.

I smile.

After the two of you catch up for a few minutes, she hops in her ticket mobile and drives away. Just a few blocks off in the distance we see she’s made one of her frequent stops to issue another ticket.

That sucks, I think to myself.

There’s a moment, mostly awkward, as we stand by my car. I break the silence by telling you I’d like to see you again as you playfully feign disinterest.

“I’d like that very much,” you finally say.

Music to my ears.

A few days go by before we meet back up again. Not sure where but this time there’s no meter maid or ironic t-shirts.

Just the two of us trying to figure it out together.

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What Los Angeles Traffic Taught Me

Anyone who's lived in Los Angeles knows there's traffic. A LOT of traffic. I realized pretty quickly there was a unique opportunity to take advantage of those moments of idleness and turn them into a mobile classroom. Here are a few quick insights that may nudge you to turn daily gridlock into the "University of Traffic."

-- One way to set yourself apart from the herd is to optimize moments most people use for entertainment with education.

-- Divide your audiobook selection into different categories that interest you -- (e.g. Fiction, History, Personal Development, Finance)

--  The average US commuter spends roughly 42 hours in traffic per year. That’s nearly identical to a semester of college. You have a remarkable opportunity to turn your commute, workout, or daily chores into the equivalent of a college degree.

-- After listening to an audiobook make note of at least three things you’ve learned and can implement, track, and measure. Keep an audiobook notebook in your car so you can jot a few notes after your commute.