When My Name Was Keoko Read Online Free Page A

calligraphy the very first time I tried it. It seemed that an unknown creature came to life in the brush as soon as I picked it up—a creature light as a dragonfly, smooth as a snake, quick as a rabbit.
    The combinations of kanji characters were like magic to me. For example, the character for "love." You wrote the character for "mother" and combined it with the one for "child." When stroked with the brush rather than sketched out with a pencil, the word truly did look more loving.
    Every week we learned new characters. Sometimes the connections were easy to understand. The character for "life" was formed by writing "water" plus "tongue"—for without water to drink there can be no life. The characters "rice" and "mouth" together made "happy" or "peaceful." It was true—how could you be happy or at peace if you were starving?
    Kanji was full of secrets like this. Tae-yul hated studying kanji; he thought it was boring. I couldn't understand that at all. Maybe I loved kanji because it was about knowing a little and figuring out the rest.
    Abuji noticed my interest in kanji and began to spend more time with me. Before, Omoni had always looked after us; Abuji was busy with his own work. Until he started to help me study kanji, I'd spent very little time with him.
    My lessons in school concentrated on learning and memorizing characters. This was so difficult and took so much time that the teachers didn't explain much about each individual character. Abuji took my learning a step further—or rather, a step backward.
    One night we sat together at the low table in his room, bent over a sheet of paper.
    "Mouth," he said as he wrote the character:"This is very simple. It began as a circle, like an open mouth, but the line was squared to make it easier to combine with other characters.
    "West. As the sun goes down, the birds fly back to their nests. So you see—" and he drew for me the progression of pictures that had evolved into the character for "west."

    I loved these sessions with Abuji. I watched with my eyes and listened with my ears and learned with my heart. My kanji got better without it ever feeling like work.

    At the end of my fourth year of school I was awarded a special prize for my language skills. All students wore two badges on their collars, one with the school's name and the other with their graduation year. I was given a third badge to wear. It meant I was the best in my grade at Japanese. It was the proudest moment of my life when the principal pinned the badge to my collar in front of the entire school. I didn't look at Abuji, but I could feel how proud he was.
    As I left the platform to rejoin my class, Tomo smiled at me with his eyes. I was so surprised and pleased that I almost stopped walking. Tomo and I never talked to each other at school. Even when I did see him—in the courtyard before school or during assemblies—I pretended I didn't know him, and he did the same with me. It was just the way things were: Japanese and Korean children didn't mix during school.
    Tomo must have noticed my surprise, for he quickly looked away. But that didn't bother me. Nothing could have
bothered me as I walked back to my seat. I felt as if I were floating on a bright rosy cloud.
    That afternoon on my way home from school I felt something whiz past my ear. I turned around quickly, ducking just in time as a second pebble flew past. I kept my head down but glanced around wildly. Who was throwing stones at me?
    At that moment a gang of boys from school dashed out from behind a wall. They threw a final volley of pebbles at me, then ran away, chanting: "
Chin-il-pa! Chin-il-pa!
"
    Chin-il-pa
meant "lover of Japan." It was almost like a curse.
Chin-il-pa
were people who got rich because they cooperated with the Japanese government. I hadn't done anything like that! Why were they cursing me, calling me that awful name? I ran home, blinking away tears.
    That evening I was distracted during my kanji session