Chapter 2 Middle America
We are in Kansas Toto.
From Korea the Army reassigned me to Ft. Riley Kansas, a small base near Manhattan Kansas where Kansas University is located. They sent me over first and my wife, Hae-eu, followed in four months.
To say moving to America was a culture shock to my wife was a major understatement. It took her three months just to stop crying. She missed her family and everything Korean. Her home sickness was literally making her ill.
By the end of the first year she was beginning to acclimate.
Much like Robin Williams who played the Russian Immigrant in the movie "Moscow on the Hudson" the abundance and variety of options in the U. S. overwhelmed my wife and for a long time I had to do he shopping. That and the language barrier were devastating for her. She thought, as did I, that she would not have much trouble conversing in English because she had been able to communicate with the GI's in Korea.
The problem was that in Korea everyone, including the American soldiers spoke a simplified pigeon English/Korean mixture of words. In America English is spoken in that regions vernacular, as it is common in most languages everywhere in the world. In addition there were slang words that were confusing to Hea-eu. Even Hae's own name became a source of irritation.
Hae-eu is pronounced, 'Hay ew'. The 'ew' sounding like a valley girl smelling a fart in an elevator.
One day I came home and she confronted me as soon as I walked into our apartment.
"How man know my name?" she demanded.
"What are you talking about?" I asked thoroughly confused.
"Man at store I never met, call my name."
"I don't understand Hae, why was he speaking to you in the first place.
"I drop my tickie."
"Tickie?" I asked.
"You know paper they give when you pay." She patiently explained.
"Oh, you mean the receipt."
"Yes re-seat. I dropped re-seat and man say my name."
I started laughing and the more I laughed the madder she got. At one point I was laughing so hard I couldn't catch my breath and my sides were hurting, all the while she is beating on me with her tiny fists.
"Why you raffing at me?"
She has yet to master the letter "L"
It took a while, but I finally got through to her that her name, Hae-eu and "Hey you" sounded very similar. I don't know why I hadn't realized it before now but our life being what it was I guess it never came up until now. I always just called her Hea.
Life for us was a bit of a struggle, but it seemed that things were getting better. I had my friends and Hae had a couple of wives that lived nearby that she associate with, none were Korean. One, Soon Lee, was of Asian descent, (I think Taiwanese) and several were Vietnamese. The Vietnamese ladies kind of stuck together, but they and a few others had a kind of support / card playing group that met once a month. I don't absolutely know that all of the Asian women she associated with were former whores, but it was a safe bet that they were.
Life in the Military was pretty much the same day in and day out. The only thing that altered things was when I would go out on maneuvers with my unit, which was about every other month.
Coming home from the last training mission Hae seemed to be in better spirits and she acted happier than she has since leaving Korea. As soon as I was in the house she drug me to the bedroom and fucked me silly. Usually she had to bitch at me for an hour or so about why I had been gone so long and why I hadn't written her every day, but this night she was the old Hae that I used to know and fell in love with.
