Cousins

Stepping off the plane the air was heavy with moisture, the viscosity assaulting my lungs, hitting my taste receptors on the way down with uncanny sweetness. I sighed. Relief and stress hit me at the same time. How was I going to find customs? Where was the baggage claim? Was my family going to be waiting for me? Relax, I told myself, it’s an airport, not a maze. Eventually I found my family waiting for me at gate whatever, and exchanged hugs with whoever wanted them. However enjoyable this reunion was, it was not the moment I realized how special this country would become to me. As we walked to meet my uncle who was pulling up the car from parking to pick us up, my 14 year old cousin walked beside me, her cell phone in hand. She apologized, “Sorry we are late, it’s because my brother. He stay to eat, umm, rice cake with his friends. He is…I don’t like him.” At that moment I looked behind us at the 12 year old little boy, immersed in his Nintendo DS, he almost ran into a wall, but narrowly avoided it, knowing that if we caused injury to himself while playing Nintendo, he wouldn’t be playing video games of any kind for the next week. He was lanky in structure but still adorable with the last of his baby fat remaining in his cheeks. He looked up at us, “huh?” Just then Yu-Gyung, his older sister, emitted an annoyed squeal. Despite her lack of proper usage of simple verbs and adjectives, I was quickly told Yu-Gyung was the best English-speaker in the family. Later I found this to be true, as she was the only one brave enough to practice her English skills with me. As I looked at how much taller and leaner she had grown in just a year, with pin straight shoulder length dark brown hair and glasses, she peered into her cell phone, her face inches from the screen. She suddenly handed the phone to me “Yeseul,” she said. “Hello?” I said. “Bianca! What’s up?!” she exalted from the other end. This sadly was the most English I heard her speak for the rest of my stay. I was taken aback. “Um, haha, nothing much. How are you?” I asked. I could hear her searching for words. “Here’s Yu-Gyung, okay?” I passed off the phone. When we were in the car, Yu-Gyung’s brow furrowed by thought. “Ah! Grandpa,” she realized. Suddenly her fingers flurried over the keys, and she again handed the phone to me. “Hi Grandpa,” I said in Korean. He then proceeded to interrogate me about my school, whether I learned anymore Korean, I told him I understood a minimal amount, my mother, if she still with to mass, and how my father was doing. Even then, it was a short conversation, grandpa wasn’t one to waste breath very often. My cousin then retrieved the phone from my hands and once more her fingers flurried over the keys. Before I knew it she was holding the open flip phone in front of my face. Two screens appeared, one small square with live video of the two of us, and in a larger square above appeared a petite young woman in her late twenties with large eyes and a big smile. It was like Skype but as a phone application. I took this moment to mourn the poor comparison of America’s technology to South Korea’s up-to-date, electronic, and automatic everything. My cousin Autumn greeted me with a big wave. “Bianca! Hi!” I waved back. She asked me in Korean, “How was your plane trip?” “Good,” I said. She then told me that I would see her soon, and to have a good trip back to grandpa’s hometown. A few minutes passed inside the limited edition white Kia Carnival minivan. My two cousins were lightly scorned by my uncle for not trying to speak English to me. This was then followed by a few weak attempts. Inquiries were short lived.