Miracle Creek

by Angie Kim

They didn’t seem to realize that the world valued America precisely because it was not old, but modern and new. Koreans were the opposite. In Seoul, there would be a Modernization Society dedicated to replacing this courthouse’s “antique” hardwood floors and pine tables with marble and sleek steel.

Who decided it was normal to be attracted to blondes and Jews and Republicans, but not to Asian women? Why was “fetish,” with its connotation of sexual deviance, reserved for Asian women and

feet? It was offensive, it was bullshit, and she wanted to scream out, I am not “Oriental,” and I am not a foot!

like silence. It made them uneasy. To Koreans, being sparing with words signaled gravitas, but to Americans, verbiage was an inherent good, akin to kindness or courage. They loved words—the more, the longer, and more quickly said, the smarter and more impressive.

(This was the quintessential skill of teenage daughters: making you think and say things you regretted even as you were thinking and saying them.)

All that was left was the submarine, lying on the dirt, waiting to be taken to a junkyard somewhere, the juxtaposition of its steel and wires against the grass and trees looking like a tableau out of some science-fiction film.