women’s magazines. The titles of the articles ranged from “Im Ga-yoon and Husband Snap Up Land on Jeju Island” to “Is Im Ga-yoon’s Gallery Inflating Prices to Celebrities?” and “KS Group Whistle-Blower’s Accusations: Will Im Ga-yoon’s Brother-in-Law Go to Jail?” Usually they were accompanied by paparazzi shots of Im Ga-yoon in snowy furs and sunglasses emerging from a car outside her gallery.
I’ve met her a few times now. The first time was in New York, at Hanbin’s graduation from Columbia. Since returning to Korea, Hanbin has ambushed her twice, once by taking me to the airport to greet her on the way back from a gallery sales trip to Hong Kong, the second, arranging for the three of us to have lunch for his birthday at his favorite restaurant at the Reign Hotel. The first time, the only things she said to me were “Oh, hello” and “Goodbye,” answering Hanbin’s questions in the car with monosyllables. The second time, at the lunch, she asked me gentle questions about my family, questions that showed she knew all about me already and I shouldn’t attempt to gentrify myself. “So, how old were you when you last saw your parents?” “And your uncle, he ran a…taxi restaurant?” (with a shudder). And the kicker, “It’s just so wonderful how there are so many opportunities these days for people like you, isn’t it? Our country has become such an encouraging place.”
I could have looked hurt or angry, I know, but I settled on chirpy as my default state a while ago, because I remembered something Ruby said to me once back in New York.
“Rich people are fascinated by happiness,” she said. “It’s something they find maddening.”
* * *
—
I STOP BY Joye department store to buy miniature orchids from the flower shop on the first floor. It costs ten times more than the flower market near my apartment, but the pot bears the Joye logo and name. When I meet Hanbin outside the subway station nearest to his house, he sees the shopping bag and says there was no need to buy a gift, but I can tell he approves.
Hanbin’s house is modern and astonishing—all gray slate and glass and slanted roofs—atop a hill in Sungbukdong behind a tall brick wall. When the gate opens for us, my heart drops in an incredulous lurch that takes my breath. He has only told me about the inconveniences, of how cold it can get in the winters, how tourists and journalists tramp about the neighborhood to catch a glimpse beyond the gate, how friends of the house’s famous Dutch architect show up for impromptu calls to examine his first commission in Asia. The architecture reminds me of Japanese museums that I studied in school, all stark lines and muted beauty.
But it’s not until I am standing on the lawn—and what house in Seoul, let alone one in the most coveted arts neighborhood, has a lawn of real grass?—that I realize I almost despise Hanbin right now. Certainly his mother.
The inside of the house seems to be bursting with even more white flowers than the gardens. Heaps of orchids and peonies in unusual arrangements are everywhere and I look at my little pot sadly.
“I will go tell your mother that you are here,” says the man who opened the front door for us. He bows, takes my coat, and hands me a pair of leather slippers from the marble shoe closet. Despite his formal speech to Hanbin, he is dressed casually—just a long-sleeved (striped!) T-shirt and wrinkled khakis, not the suit or uniform I realize I’d been expecting.
“That’s all right—I’ll go up and tell her myself,” says Hanbin. He asks me to wait in the living room to the left of the foyer, then bounds down the hallway to the right.
The living room is cavernous—about the height and size of a basketball court, with groupings of chairs and coffee tables in each corner. In the center is the Ishii fish, the size and color of a baby elephant—a beautiful thing that glistens as I draw near. The art on the walls is also modern Japanese, a mix of Tsunoda, Ohira, and Sakurai. I sit down in the far corner, next to another tiny Ishii the color of an