Chelsea's Quest

Written by 홍기혜

As usual in the afternoon, I was on the bus waiting through the hour long ride to my house. We were around the tenth stop when one of the most outspoken people on the bus was hit by an urgent question: What was her name in another language? I mean, it makes sense, right? Apple is different in French and Latin and Spanish, so why not names? So she took upon herself a most vital mission: To find out her name in a different language.

There are several people of different ethnicities on our bus. Hispanic, Asian, Indian, so on. The girl, Chelsea, took it upon herself to interrogate these poor victims—I mean, fellow school bus riders.

“You! What are you?” She demanded rather rudely of a Hispanic boy.

“Um, Hispanic?” The boy muttered in a heavy accent, taken back by the out of the blue query.

“Okay, Mexican, what’s my name in Spanish?” She asked.

“Uhh…..” The unfortunate boy paused, muddled by the rapid-fire inquiries.

Chelsea moved on, unwilling to wait for an answer when there were so many more fish in the sea ready to be caught and grilled.

“You! What are you?” Chelsea turned to an Asian girl.

“I am Chinese.” The girl replied in a thick accent.

“What’s my name in Chinese?”

The girl was slightly more quick witted than the boy and hurriedly got in,

“What is your name?”

“Chelsea.” Chelsea impatiently said.

“Ahhh…..” The girl hesitated, unsure of how to reply.

This continued along the rest of the “foreigners” on the bus, and, as I am Korean American, I waited for my turn to be probed. I was looking forward to it; the way Chelsea had treated the people had irritated me to no end.

“You! What are you?” Chelsea demanded of me.

“A human being. Female.” I retorted.

As everyone on the bus had been amusedly observing Chelsea’s hunt for her name in a different language, my response was hailed by laughter.

“No, no, I mean, where are you from?” Chelsea valiantly tried to continue. Unluckily for her, I wasn’t in a very cooperative mood.

“Austin, Texas. You know, in the USA?” I sarcastically answered.

People were eagerly watching the match, especially the ones that were unable to respond under Chelsea’s rude questioning.

Now Chelsea was the one unable to come back with a rejoinder.

“Errr……”

A small stirring of pity prompted me to say,

“Ethnicity?” I suggested.

“Yeah! Uh, ethni, ethinith, ethnithy?” Chelsea tried to say.

Another roar of laughter came from the avidly watching audience. A few more scholarly students helped her.

“Ethnicity!” They said.

“Yeah, that thing.”

“I’m Asian.” I answered.

Chelsea groaned.

The audience hooted and assisted her.

“She means where did your parents come from!”

“You know, Chinese, Japanese?”

“My parents were born in Korea.” I replied.

“Finally.” Chelsea sighed in relief. “What’s my name in Korean?”

The spectators waited with bated breath as I responded.

“Chelsea.”

“What?” Chelsea asked confusedly.

“Chelsea. That’s your name in Korean. Your name doesn’t change in different languages.”

The questionees relievedly started backing me up.

“Yeah, Chelsea…”

“That’s it. That’s your name.”

“Chelsea.”

The Chinese girl had a thick accent, remember? So when she said Chelsea, it sounded more like “Chal-shee”.

Chelsea swooped down on the hapless girl like a hawk on some mouse.

“What did you say?” She shrieked excitedly.

“Chelsea?” The girl worriedly repeated.

“That’s my name in Chinese! Chal-shee!”

Chelsea went off into raptures of delight, while the rest of us exchanged looks. Then she started ranting about how ugly is sounded.

“God, why did my *beep* parents give me such a *beep* ugly *beep* name in Chinese?” Chelsea raved.

The rest of us just stared bemusedly at each other before letting Chelsea continue with her delusion for the rest of the ride.

The end.

Vince Lombardi story

Written by 홍송희

Not long ago, there was a legend who had left lasting footprints in the history of American football. His name is Vince Lombardi, born in 1913 to a father, who was Italian immigrant working as a butcher. His mother was a daughter of a barber who came to America from Italy when she was a high school student.

In 1959, at age 45, Vince Lombardi took the position of Head Coach of the Green Bay Packers. At that time, Green Bay Packers had only one win. In his second year, Lombardi led the Packers to the 1960 NFL championship game, but lost the game as the time expired. After the loss, Lombardi proclaimed that Green Bay Packers will never lose a game under his command. He won his next nine post-season games including three consecutive NFL championship games and first two super bowl games.

He died of cancer at age 57 in 1970. Super bowl commission commemorated him and made the decision to get his name inscribed in Super bowl Trophies. Nixson wanted him to be his running mate; however he was a democrat. Lombardi time" is the principle that one should arrive 10-15 minutes early, or else be considered late. To the contrary, Korean time means one should not be arriving on time. Unless 30 minutes late, one is considered not important.

Vince Lombardi was also a powerful motivational speaker. He made a numerous speeches. Here is a n excerpt f his famous speech , called what it takes to be no. 1.

"Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.

"Running a football team is no different than running any other kind of organization — an army, a political party or a business. The principles are the same. The object is to win — to beat the other guy. Maybe that sounds hard or cruel. I don't think it is.

"It is a reality of life that men are competitive and the most competitive games draw the most competitive men.

"And in truth, I've never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn't appreciate the grind, the discipline. There is something in good men that really yearns for discipline and the harsh reality of head to head combat.

"I don't say these things because I believe in the "brute" nature of man or that men must be brutalized to be combative. I believe in God, and I believe in human decency. But I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle — victorious.“

The winning record like Lombardi’s is rare but not unprecedented. We can find the seemingly impossible winning record in Bible and well as in Korean history. Joshua won every battles except for one when he led his people to Canaan after Mose died. Yi Sun Shin also won every battles against much larger Japanese’ navy. His principle is to fight that can be won and to avoid one that is to be lost. However he fought, he fought with all his heart and was not afraid of dying.

Once someone said, “if we are on God’s side, we always win. So let us pray that we are on God’s side rather than God is to be on our side.

In all this, I thought about the power of decision making by one person vs. that by many people. I think it is possible that one person can be on God’s side. So, the decision made by leaders, generals and executives can be really powerful. However, I believe it is never and every possible that many people at the same time are on God’s side. Thus, the ship controlled by many captains are doomed to be lost. So, the Jews wanted to have a King.

On a Starry Night

Written by 윤행아

I have two brothers and three sisters. I am the youngest of all the four daughters. The third oldest sister and I have been closest among all since we were very young. After she got married, her husband, my brother-in-law, became the closest to me. The winter of 2002, which was six years ago, was a time of great sorrow to all of our family, because my brother-in-law, whom we loved much, passed away in the fall. He was just sixty years old. We all sent him away with all our hearts. Right after the funeral in Korea, my husband and I returned home to Memphis. And about two months later, my bereft sister and her daughter, Mikyung, joined us in Memphis.

Soon we left for Florida by car. At the night we arrived at Orlando, Mikyung, my niece, begged my husband to go out to see a starry night of Florida. Since I told her a story that I saw uncountable stars falling down on my head on unnamed seashore, Mikyung had been asking me to go out to see the falling stars. She was a 28- years old girl, and a niece, whom my husband loved. Until that age she used to sleep between my husband and me in the same bed. Now she is a mother of two children.

We, the four, drove out towards a place where there is less light, so that we could see stars more clearly. At the moment we arrived at a dark field about 100 yard away from the road, the engine suddenly died. My husband tried to start the car again but in vain. An emergency occurred in darkness. We did not have any light at all. We came out there to enjoy stars, but could not enjoy the starry night. It was around 10:30 at night. A nearest telephone booth was 15 minutes walk away from us. Leaving our car in the dark field, we began to walk on unpaved road in darkness on the eve of Christmas. We wore a kind of home-wares. It was a totally unexpected scene until early evening when we got there in Orlando. It, wever, was a strange experience for us, because we began to feel peace. We rather seemed to be enjoying this situation. We walked singing songs we used to sing when we were kids. But, the situation was not that easy. First thing was to tow the car. In addition to that, if the car can’t be fixed quickly, we needed to rent a car. Anyway, we arrived at a gas station and my husband called a towing service company. While we were waiting for a towing car, we circled hand in hand and prayed that God give a good solution. Although my sister was not yet a Christian, the emergency pushed her to join us in prayer. She seemed to taste a different world.

Our God immediately sent his angels to us. A certain man, who came to fill gas, asked us what’s problem. After hearing what my husband explained, he suggested to go there to the car to see if he can fix it. He thought it’s a battery problem. He tried to jump the battery. But it did not work. We came back to the same gas station. Another angel approached us and said, “I know about cars. Let’s go there.” While we were talking with this angel, the towing car arrived at the gas station. We wanted to show the car to the second angel before the car was towed away. So my husband explained to the towing car driver what we wanted about the car first. Then the driver accepted his suggestion with smile. So we, four people, squeezed into the front seat of the truck of the second angel. The towing car followed us. As soon as we got to our car, the second angel opened the bonnet and tried a couple of things. A few minutes later, he told my husband to crank up the engine. Wow! The car began to make noise, and shed lights into darkness. That engine noise sounded like a chorus of angels. We were jumping and clapping, and yelling with joy. How wonderful our God is! My husband asked the two towing car drivers, “Thank you so much, how much do I owe you?” They said, “Nothing.” My husband insisted to pay some. They, however, were concerned about us that the engine of my car may die again. They suggested that they escorted us to the hotel. And they did. They are indeed another angel sent by God. We wanted to show thanks to the second angel by giving some money. In the mean time my niece already gave him a hug. My husband tried to give him some money as a token of thanks. But the second angel definitley and loudly said, “No!” All four cried out, “This is an expression of our thanks. Please accept this.” Then he slowly lifted up his index finger of his right hand into sky, and said, “Since God will reward me, I should not receive any reward from you.” We asked him, “Are you a Christian?” He said, “yes I am.” We said, “we are too. Nice to meet you.” We asked, “What is your name? What do you do for your living?” He answered, “My name is Quiency, I work for the Church.” We tried one more time to give him some money. Quiency responded, “No, I’d like to receive rewards from God.” He again lifted up his index finger, and pointed up to the sky. We looked up the sky which he was point up to. Multitudes of stars were falling down on us. It was a beautiful starry night. Quiency, we will not forget you. Quiency was a tall, big, and silent black man, who was in his early fifty’s. We came back to the hotel safely by our car. My sister said, “It was from God that we received the best Christmas gift in the world.” This word from my sister’s lips was the best Christmas gift for all of us.

Holly Story

Written by 윤행아

My husband and I came over here in America in 1986. It was about 8 years after we got married. Even though I could not speak English very well, I did not feel any trouble in American life until I met Holly. One day in the fall of 1990, something happened to me.

When I was pulling my car back in the Mall Parking lot, suddenly I felt a car hit my car. I knew it was not my fault, because, before I started to move my car back, I looked back and made sure of no car there. When I got out of my car, the driver, who hit my car, walked to me and apologized, “I am sorry. This is my fault.” She gave me her insurance number, her name and phone number. Her name is Holly. Then, she called police immediately. While we were waiting for the police, we pulled back our cars to their original places, because the situation was so sure, and our cars caused much inconvenience to other vehicles. However, it was a big mistake. I recognized it later.

Finally, the police arrived and asked me to show my insurance card. I could not find my card easily for some reason. While I was trying to find my card, the policeman talked with Holly and finished his “police statement.” He explained the situation and asked me to sign on the statement. According to the police, this accident was not only Holly’s fault but my fault, too. There was no evidence that Holly hit my car, because we moved our cars already. The police statement said, “Holly and I hit each other.” Holly changed her words to the police. She lied. I felt cheated by Holly at that moment.

Holly was a student of University of Georgia. My husband, hearing all these things, called her in the evening of the same day. According to her mother, she left for her vacation already, and was not home. It must be another lie.

This incident shocked me. I recognized that I am a foreigner in this land. I could not claim my rights due to my limited language skill. I perceived that the policeman improperly treated me, an Alien from Asia. At that moment, I was embarrassed and frustrated. And this feeling lasted very long since then. I could not keep my nice and good expectation towards Americans as before.

By the way, the car, which Holly hit, was our first new car that we just bought. That accident left a 2 inches-long dent on the left backside of the car. Every time I saw this dent, I got angry and frustrated. It forced me to pray before God so that I may forgive her, and be released from this recurring emotional trap. Before not many days passed, something good happened unexpectedly. My husband fixed the dent by accident, while he was washing the car. He simply pushed out the area of the dent from inside of the trunk. He used a piece of wood. It sounded “Ppyong~.” The area, which was bent inwardly, came out. Halleluiah!

After the car was fixed, I was free from anger or frustration, which was caused by the incident. However, the fact that Holly is a liar still remained in my memory. Two years had passed. One day we ran across Holly in Wendy’s. My husband and I were standing on the line for ordering lunches. She was two or three people ahead of us. I whispered to my husband, “That girl is Holly, do you remember that name?” My husband replied, “Of course, I do. Is she the one? What do you want me to do about her?” I said, “Go to her and ask her to say ‘sorry’ to my wife. That’s it.” After Holly and her friend took a seat and began to eat their food, my husband approached her with smile and asked her, “Do you remember the lady sitting over there?” She looked at me, and showed embarrassment. She said, “Yes, I remember her.” Then, my husband gently and nicely reminded her of the old incident, and told her that I suffered a lot because of the thing between her and me. He asked her, “Would you say ‘sorry’ to my wife?” Her answer was “No.” Then my husband really nicely added some more words for her: “That’s OK. My car was fixed without any cost. Do not worry about it. However, you need to consider how frustrated my wife, as a foreigner in America, felt at that time. Good bye.” He came back to me.

Then, I was completely set free from that incident. This is the story of Holly.