Jimin Han was born in Seoul, South Korea, and grew up in Providence, Rhode Island; Dayton, Ohio; and Jamestown, New York. Her work has been supported by the New York State Council on the Arts. She is the author of “A Small Revolution” and has written for American Public Media’s Weekend America, Poets & Writers, and Catapult, and other media outlets. She teaches at The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, Pace University, and community writing centers. She lives outside New York City with her husband and children.
Ms. Han’s new novel, “The Apology”, will be released on August 1, 2023.
A 105-year-old woman receives a letter. Ten days later, she has been thrust into the afterlife, fighting to head off a curse that will otherwise devastate generations to come.
Hak Jeonga has always shouldered the burden of upholding the family name. When she sent her daughter-in-law to America to cover up an illegitimate birth, she was simply doing what was needed to preserve the reputations of her loved ones. How could she have known that decades later, this decision would return to haunt her—threatening to tear apart her bond with her beloved son, her relationship with her infuriatingly insolent sisters, and the future of the family she has worked so hard to protect?
[Excerpt from ‘The Apology’ Followed by Q&A with the Author]
We arrived without mishap in San Francisco, though I was peeved that Chohui had refused to sleep during that long fourteen-hour flight. Not only that, but she kept looking around, her eyes taking in everything, and kept fidgeting with the airplane tray table that flipped up and down as if she couldn’t believe it was possible. And then all the channels on the tiny screen mesmerized her. The person seated ahead of her kept turning around to glare at us. I glared right back. What did you expect but rudeness from people in economy class?
Through passport control and out into the larger hall of the airport, we completed the necessary documentation protocol in two hours. Everyone around me withered from the wait. I was tense with all I knew I had to do, which gave me a strange kind of energy. I considered ways to have time on my own.
My sisters were complaining as they waited on a bench in San Francisco International Airport for Chohui to collect our luggage from baggage claim. Already they’d discussed their next meal. Always talking about eating. Bogum had given Mina a list of restaurants with high ratings.
“So many, but how far?” Aera said, pointing to Mina’s list. That piece of paper was already looking worse for wear after having been handled a multitude of times. I’d read that the gustatory modality is the last of the five senses to diminish with age, and my sisters proved it. Cuisine was all that mattered to them; I cared less because eating meant I’d have other medical ailments to concern myself with. Digestion didn’t happen as efficiently as it once did, for example, and so I didn’t like to tax my system.
“Where’s that famous harbor with all the fancy stores you said everyone talks about?” Mina asked me.
Already bothering me about sightseeing. I admit I’d thrown that tidbit out there so she would stop complaining about our layover in San Francisco.
“Well, we’re not going there tonight. Focus on the hotel,” I said. “If your girl would hurry, we could surely be there in thirty minutes. San Francisco is rather quaint, wouldn’t you say?” Mina sniffed.
Poor Chohui. Already she’d been browbeaten more times than necessary; the plane had had flight attendants to be at my sisters’ beck and call, but instead they used Chohui as if she had no feelings. And now she was nowhere to be found.
I said I’d see what was keeping her and made my way around the corner, where my sisters couldn’t hear me. I’d just pulled out my cell phone and was about to make a call when I smelled Mina’s halitosis. She stood right over me and barked, “There you are!”
She’d followed me; it was clear. I was so startled I put my phone in my pocket, a guilty response I couldn’t help. But then I regained my voice. “I was calling Chohui.”
“She’s at the baggage carousel,” Mina said. “You passed right by her.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Why don’t you help her, since you know everything?” I said.
Mina rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “If you’re blind now as well as old, then admit it, why don’t you?” She pulled me by my sleeve around the corner and pointed at Chohui, who was wrangling Aera’s big red suitcase off the conveyor belt.
“My son arranged for a taxi, and I don’t want the driver to over-charge him. We must keep our wits about us. Money doesn’t flow like water,” Mina scolded. She looked rather stern, and I was glad she’d bought my lie. “Get some eyeglasses like the rest of us, and not just for reading.”
“You’re right,” I said and made a show of nodding with resignation.
“I don’t think we should spread out like this,” Mina continued. “It’s a waste of our energy. Follow the plan. Stay close. If you can’t find someone, come back, and we’ll all go together.”
My bossy oldest sister. How difficult this would be to get used to again. Though we planned to be in America for a month, it felt as though I’d be stuck in her presence every moment of every day for the rest of my life. How would I have any privacy? I felt panicked for a few minutes but then I remembered that I would share a hotel room with Chohui while my sisters roomed together, and there would be plenty of time for phone calls.
Feeling my painfully swollen feet in my shoes after so much sitting on the plane, I saw my own mortality. I reminded myself that, though it was not likely, the rest of my life could be just one more month. And for my sisters as well.
Chohui was standing in front of Aera when Mina and I reached them. She looked exhausted. Her bangs fell into her eyes, and she blew them off her face rather than sweeping them away, which required more effort; her shoulders slumped. Four large suitcases sur- rounded her. “They have wheels,” Mina announced as if we had failed to notice and waved us on down the large hall. Aera followed, her black Prada tote slung over her shoulder, headed straight for the ground-transportation signs, leaving me and Chohui with all the suitcases.
I gestured to the metal caterpillar of luggage carts in the corner. Cho- hui seemed perplexed. “We’ll do the same,” I said and pointed to a man pushing an assortment of suitcases on a metal wagon as he strolled past us. Chohui nodded and went to retrieve a cart. It was not obvious how to detach it from the others. I didn’t know how either, so I waited as patiently as I could as Chohui researched the mechanism on her cell phone. Finally, she was able to release one and pile all our luggage onto it.
For this too, I tried to be patient. She had never been outside of Korea before. I remembered how it had been for me, so I walked alongside her, remarking on how glad I was to stretch my legs. I told her she’d have a chance to have her own free time. This arrangement worked for me too, since I wanted to be alone with my own plans. We’d catch up to my sisters in no time. Honestly, I preferred Chohui’s quiet company to my sisters’ as they prattled on, but I would never tell her this. My father had told me that actions spoke louder than words. To be a hypocrite was the worst offense, in his view.
People slouched in the United States. I observed all sorts of bad posture around us as we walked through the airport. I’d expected it from teenagers, but adults of all ages too? I remembered my own son, how I used to berate him for not standing up straight. Gwangmu seemed to forget the company he was in.
When my sisters and I were children, if an adult came into the room, no matter servant or stranger or family, we stood up straight and were polite. It showed our station in life. It showed our education, the kind our parents bestowed. The hangdog look was for the beggars on the streets, those who had a reason to droop.
In time, I would later see that the slouch was a form of showing ease in the modern world, and when the actors in dramas took that stance, I could understand at last what my own son meant, but it was too late to apologize to him by then as he was well into his grown-man years. Chohui, however, slumped when she was dejected.
My sisters were standing outside when we reached them. A Korean man — who seemed hardly old enough to be called a man — in a brass-buttoned suit jacket was speaking to them in an animated fashion, holding an iPad in front of them and motioning to it. Must be the driver Bogum hired, I thought. He snapped to attention and I feared he’d salute us when Mina told him who we were.
The driver didn’t seem to understand that Chohui was our aide. He insisted on carrying her suitcase too and opened the van’s doors for all of us. I saw Chohui blush as he waved her in as if she were a dignitary. Mina shoved me with her elbow so I would make note of this. Aera was oddly quiet. I wondered if she was sick from the food on the plane. Chohui and I had eaten noodles, but she’d chosen chicken.
“Do you know where we should go?” Mina asked the man once we were all buckled in. The driver replied, “The Fair Hotel,” and I saw her relax. As we shot away from the curb, Aera folded over and clutched her stomach, and I wished she weren’t sitting next to me. Chohui looked back from the front seat, where she sat beside the driver, and I resolved to straighten up and not lurch so obviously away from my sister. If it was anything, it wasn’t contagious, surely, and if she vomited on me, we’d have to cope.
What kind of example was I setting for Chohui? Or this American chauffeur? Sure, he was Korean, but he acted like an American. His holding the door for Chohui, for one; the way he kept glancing at her, for another; and the way he let other cars pass him before merging into traffic. Korean drivers knew how to fight for their place among other cars because everyone believed you can’t always concede if you intend to get anywhere by a reasonable time. What did lanes mean anyway?
“After the hotel, which restaurant did we decide on?” Mina said over her shoulder.
“I’ll need to lie down for a bit,” Aera answered.
“Sure, but I want to give Mr. Yang a time frame for when he should return to the hotel to take us to dinner.” She peered closer at Aera, adjusting her posture in her bench seat. “What’s the matter with you, anyway? You were the one who said you were hungry.”
“I’d like to get some rest too,” I said, as if either had asked me.
“Me too,” Chohui said. Mina threw her a disapproving look. I saw Mr. Yang’s neck stiffen. I could practically see his ears at attention. Young love? The signs were obvious. I had to shake my head clear of that. What was the matter with me? Chohui had only met Mr. Yang minutes ago, and perhaps he was sympathetic. It was certainly not love. I was terribly suspicious of romance after what I’d seen in my many years of living.
Aera’s forehead was smattered with dots of perspiration even though it was a comfortable twenty-one degrees Celsius when we arrived in front of the hotel. “Everyone thinks everything in America is better than in Korea, but this is not so. Do they even know what air- conditioning is?” she said, fanning herself with her hand and looking peeved.
I didn’t tell my sisters I’d been to this hotel before. Mina chided Aera, going on and on about how it was the location of some American television show and how fortunate we were that Bogum was able to reserve us rooms. A testament to her son’s influence in the international sphere, her point.
Their voices whined on as we walked through the lobby. We eventually checked in and then I wandered away; I didn’t realize I was leading the group until Mina bumped into me from behind.
“You found the elevators,” she said in surprise.
The bellman walked up from his position in the rear of our entourage to press the call button. With a bow, which I suspected was facetious, he nodded and then returned to the luggage cart beside Chohui. He appraised her a bit longer than was required. It seemed Chohui was the focus of our little traveling group wherever we went. I noticed that Chohui was getting used to it and stood confidently now. What I hadn’t known about my power at that age. I had been oblivious to the value of breath. That’s what I thought it was about. You have more oxygen, proportionately, and it made you buoyant and light, and energy surged outward. Seemed limitless, but of course there was a limit. From there on after, you deflated and had to forge ahead.
Even in gray lounge pants and a sweatshirt, Chohui’s figure was apparent, and her skin shone like a nectarine. She walked differently, as if on air, even in plain white sneakers. Her hair in its ponytail had a sheen. She had no idea how she glowed. All of us had been as healthy once, my sisters and me. And we had no idea back then. Wasn’t that the way, though? If we’d known, what a force we would have been. Was it a good thing we didn’t have mirrors about? Or would we even have been able to see, blinded by our own untrusty vision of ourselves made by all we didn’t know? Bound by our uncertainties? Why did we have to be so certain before we could venture forward? Never mind — we go on. The hotel. I was speaking about the hotel.
What had struck me before and struck me now as the elevator stopped on the fifth floor and we walked out and down the hallway to our rooms was the plushness. Americans like to pad everything around them with cloth and furniture, fill every space. The proportions were different from Korea. Here they’d built a giant hotel and then they had proceeded to decorate it with gilt and marble. The hallway was dotted with paintings and mirrors every few meters.
Mina and Aera wanted to see both rooms before they decided which lodging they wanted to take as their own. Even though they’d be here just two days, they had to inspect each space as if they were going to occupy it for months.
The rooms were three doors apart and identical save for the location of the headboards. They were on the left in the first room and on the right in the second. In each one, on the dresser by the pair of coffee mugs, was a green ceramic bowl with a single ripe persimmon. The green was very Korean, of celadon fame. It should have made me feel comforted; instead, I was uneasy. For some reason I couldn’t fathom, Mina seemed disturbed too. She walked back and forth three times before choosing the second room. The bellman stood at attention because there was nothing for him to do. Once Mina decided, she instructed him on which bags were to be left in which room. Four suitcases on the brass bellman’s cart didn’t take long to distribute.
“I’m going to lie down,” I said to my sisters.
“Not too long,” Mina said from her doorway. “We’ll be going to eat soon.”
“Maybe a shower will make me feel better,” Aera said.
“That will delay our dinner,” Mina said, but I closed my door. That was for the two of them to work out. Just to have several solid walls between my sisters and myself was a victory. I told Chohui to lie down too. She did so but made so much noise tossing and turning in her queen-size bed beside mine that I sent her down to the lobby for some toothpaste. Korean brand was preferable, but Chohui would enjoy seeing the offerings in the hotel store. And then I walked to the window and pulled back the filmy curtain behind the first set of drapes. Layer after layer to pull aside before I touched the glass pane through which the evening light poured. Streaks of sun shone in long rays through the clouds. For the first time in twenty hours, I was completely alone.
Now that I was about to make the call I’d known I had to make ever since I’d read Joyce’s letter, I hesitated. “Jump, jump,” Seona used to call when it was my turn on the seesaw. And when I didn’t go right then, she’d call Aera to switch. I pretended like I didn’t care but it stung, how impatient she was. By the time I could react, I was too late. Aera had run over and taken my place.
Q&A with Jimin Han, by Minsoo Kang
Minsoo Kang: Please tell us something about your Korean heritage.
Jimin Han: Since I grew up in a town without many Asian Americans, being Korean was defined by my parents. Whatever they said was Korean was Korean to me, and years later I’d realize that their “Koreanness” was specific to their experiences of class and region and the era in which they grew up and so much else. I came as an immigrant to the United States when I was four years old but apparently I had an entire life where I was quite articulate for a child and my relatives used to comment on how mature I was for my age. My uncle told me all about the time I went to the movies with him and explained why the man was not going to get the woman to fall in love with him. He laughed a lot at that. I have no memory of that time. I used to think I didn’t remember because I learned a new language and moved here but as a mother I saw this happen with my own children– and they’ve lived in the same house for nearly all their lives. I had extensive conversations with my kids when they were four and five years old that they have no memory of. Memory – what we keep and lose– what makes us who we are, it’s all changing all the time. Frightening and yet exciting, I guess? Even though I have an accent, I’m told, I love speaking my limited Korean to others and feel really comfortable the three times I’ve returned to South Korea. I hope to return for longer periods of time and explore more. With my mother gone now, Koreanness is a connection to her. Writing about Korean and Korean American characters allows me to travel through time, memory, think about connections between people and what we tell ourselves and each other about what we care about. I’m curious about what gets preserved over time.
MK: How did you come up with this highly original idea of three Korean sisters, all of them over a hundred years old, who travel to the United States to fulfill a family obligation?
JH: My mother has really been on my mind every day since she died in 2016. As the second of four sisters, she told me so many stories about them. The third sister died in childhood of smallpox and her youngest sister moved to the States right after we did. This aunt was like a second mother to me. Especially after we all grew up, my mother and her sister were constantly together– golfing and joining line dance classes. My aunt teaches line dancing now, in fact, because she got so good at it. They were known in Annandale, Virginia as “the sisters.” I guess the book gave me a chance to lean into those memories of them even though Jeonga and her sisters are very different from my mom and her sister. They had such fun together and were really quite a pair. I also have two daughters so sisterhood is something that fascinates me.
MK: The novel takes place in South Korea of today as well as the past, the United States, and the supernatural realm as well. Tell us about the research you did to make those backgrounds come alive.
JH: I’d always wanted to bring my children to South Korea but the circumstances ended up being completely unexpected. For years, I’d talked to my mother about traveling to Asia together but then she had a stroke and my father insisted on taking her to Seoul for treatment. In 2016 we managed to visit her. For the children’s sake we also toured some historical sites and ate at some amazing restaurants, but the trip was shrouded in a lot of sadness. A few months later, I heard that my mother was near the end so I boarded a plane but she died while I was en route. I got to see a Korean funeral first hand –keep in mind it was of course not even a typical funeral, I don’t know what that is– which was a surreal experience on so many levels, because it was my mom and yet everyone around us and the rituals were unfamiliar. The character Jeonga in The Apology is 105 years old so I thought she’d have death on her mind too in her days in Seoul– at least looking back on her life or wanting to escape from the limitations of her age. I have to also say that my cousin, who grew up in Seoul and visits every year, and my good friend, Minsoo Kang, were able to fill in details for me in early drafts. There’s so much I learned from talking with them.
MK: The narrative style goes from straight realism to supernatural fantasy. How challenging was it to go from one mode to the other?
JH: I think for anything you write you have to immerse the reader in details about what the character is experiencing. I had to make sure that the rules in the afterlife were consistent and had a purpose that worked with the story overall. Things can’t seem random in anything we write because we’re selecting what to focus on, what to emphasize. Jeonga has to learn the rules in the afterlife which is also what she has to do with her family and the United States too so it seemed like it was all connected. At least I hope the reader finds this so! Hah.
MK: The themes of family obligation, guilt, memory are at the center of the story. What do they mean to you personally that led you to write about them?
JH: This is such a great question. I guess I was always acutely aware of what my parents gave up for themselves to move to the States. It was couched in terms of how they wanted our lives to be better than what they’d had when they were young. They left so many people they loved behind, my mother left her work and her identity as a physician. It was compounded of course by the Korean War and the losses they suffered during that time. It wasn’t so simple, because I lost out too and my brothers did also. I lost my main caregiver at the time, my grandmother who I was closer to than my own mother because she was away at work most of the day. But my parents made us feel like they put more of their own hopes and dreams on me and my brothers. I don’t think they realized how that would shape our lives. At the same time, they enjoyed their lives here too and were so hopeful about the expansiveness of the States. I always said to them that they chose to come here for themselves and they’d reply that they had no idea what they were really signing up for. The novel is a way for me to circle some of these thoughts and feelings– and see there’s so much we don’t know about the decisions we’re making. We all have choices and hopefully have a second chance no matter how old we are.