이승아
Was her full name and I always called her by it. Family name included [이] because she was proud.“이승아,” she said. “Means passed down plum .” “I like plums,” I said.
I met her one day coming home from an overly long work day. Random chance, had lead me to the door of her family's pub 대박푸드 and I was greeted to a bald man dressed in an apron with flamingo pink gloves waving at me with a generous smile. A short dark haired
beauty came up behind him and slapped him on the back and laughed in Korean. He pointed at me, still smiling. That was when we met each one another's eyes. Until I immediately looked at her headband – I couldn't help but notice that it was a turkey with flashing lights around it. She ushered me in and asked me about my day, then brought me to sit on a barrel at a circular table covered in advertisements for beer. I ate a meal of spicy chicken feet and drank a rich kind of alcohol. She asked me where I was from and told me that she has always wanted to go to Vancouver. I told her Vancouver was too warm for me.
“Korea will melt you then’” she said.
“At least I'll melt with a smile on my face.”
She truly listened – eyes sparkling with interest, despite my mangled intonations of Korean, which she helped me to correct (although my abilities are fading now).
And in being interested she showed me and everyone else that their stories, big, small, exciting, or mundane all had their place with her. So the regulars of her pub took to giving her the nickname ‘angel’s smile.’
I never saw an angel though. What I saw was a hardworking woman. One who cared about the people around her — by being interested in their stories. A woman who welcomed me, a stranger, and made me feel like home, in a place that was not my home, during a difficult time. She is a woman who knows herself and is proud of her family.
She is 이승아.