My Side Of The Story: Runaway

The counselor I had spoken to called me in her office the first thing in the morning.

"He admitted it." she told me when I sat down. "They got him on tape. He tried to say he was just checking for development, but then they asked him why he did it repeatedly, and he had no answer. Then he admitted on tape that he sexually assaulted her while she was sleeping"

"So what's gonna happen now?"

"That I can't tell you. All I can tell you is to go to class and do your best on your exams."

I didn't. I skipped school that day for the first time in my life. When the bell rang and we were transitioning in between classes and the hallway was a mess, I took advantage of the situation to sneak out unnoticed and go to the picnic table next to the football field, far away enough from school grounds and yet close enough for me to see if there was anyone coming my way.

During periods of distress, your mind does something funny.

My perception of time was different. Everything seemed to speed up; I sat down around ten a.m. and put my head on the table to rest. When I looked up it seemed like only five minutes had gone by, but my watch read two p.m. A little bit more rest and it was time to go home.

I came home to an empty house. My "mother" was nowhere in sight and my grandparents had flown back to Korea a week beforehand. The phone rang.

"Soojin, how're you doing? Let your grandfather speak to your father." Perfect timing.

"He's not here."

"Ah, okay. Tell him to call me when he gets home."

"...I don't know about that."

There was a kind of choking noise on the other line. Or was it coughing? "Where is your father?"

"I don't know, grandpa. I can't tell you that."

My grandfather knew bits and pieces of what had happened. My grandmother had told him, though I don't know how much she told, and I think he kind of caught on. "What does that mean? Wherever my son is, tell the Americans that they can take me instead! I'll take his place. Just let my son go!"

I hung up on him. I didn't want to, but I had to. I couldn't listen to him talk that way anymore.

Later that night, my "mother" came home by herself. She told me that although dad was no longer in police custody, he was court ordered to stay away from me and could not return home.

Then she sobbed.

She told me she didn't know if she could make it without her husband, and that she believed we would not be able to keep the house for too long, and to keep this a secret from my brother. She would take him to see his father as much as she could, but she didn't know what she was gonna tell him.

That night I slept in the basement. My room was too close to hers, and sounds of her weeping would creep in my room and bug me. Then the night after that, my brother's muttering in his sleep about wanting to "see daddy" once again drove me downstairs.

"This right here...is your doing." Grandma sighed over the phone one day. "You're being selfish, Soojin. How can you do this to your brother and your mother? Where are you guys gonna go without your father? I mean, what do you get out of this?"

I didn't answer her. I never said much during those days at all.

"If you care about anyone besides yourself, you will go to those people you contacted and take everything back. Look at your brother-he's only nine years old! And your mother is a hairstylist, what can she do? Do you want to be a beggar on the streets?"

"...And not only that, you are now the daughter of a criminal." My "mother" added from behind me, crossing her arms. "Is that what you want? Please, whatever happened-if it happened at all-he's not doing it anymore. So what's the big deal?"

To explain, their behavior is largely the because of Korean culture. Asian culture has a lot of emphasis on dignity and keeping your problems to yourself, so there's a lot of victim-blaming. It's scary, but in a lot of Asian societies it's so bad that women are taught that if you're sexually harrassed, you should just keep quiet and accept it, and that's the "dignified" response. If you're being bullied, guess who gets blamed? The victim. Thier views on sexual crimes are different from Western views on sexual crimes. To the point that a very common game that children play in Korea is when boys go up to girls, lift up their skirts and yell "Icekekki!". In the West this is sexual harrassment and can get you in serious trouble, but in Korea no one blinks an eye at it and they're all just "boys will be boys".

I remember when I was younger, my stepmother got me a book written by a Korean lawyer. In it, there was a story about a bunch of Korean kids who came to the US, and started taking advantage of the cultural differences here to make their parents look bad. Of course, the children were protrayed as the villains since what their parents were doing was normal in Korea. And the parents were te victims, being abused by the kids since kids were just taking advantage of the cultural differences here.

Strangely enough, I had become those children.

Korea and Japan are both shaming societies. Meaning if someone does something the others don't like, the others will punish them by outcasting them, and there's this threat of ostracization.

Everyone at church started avoiding me after that. People started casting mean glares at me and no one wanted to talk to me anymore. I guess my stepmother had told them about what happened, and of course, I was the villain to them, the evil child who was taking advantage of the cultural differences here to make her innocent parents look bad just for disciplining her.

All that didn't even drive me to action. What actually prompted me to make a move was what came afterwards.

I hate lawyers.

Not all of them, some of them have standards, but lawyers in general just take the highest paying client, no matter the situation.

They do not care what they have to do to make money. They do not care who they have to hurt, if they have to set a murderer free, if they have to set a rapist free, or how many people have to die for them to make their money. All they care about is that they win whatever case they have and get paid.

What drove me to action was when my "mother" drove me to a law office to meet and speak with my father's new attorney, claiming that this man was going to save our lives.

I don't remember his name, but he better watch out. If he ever gets a chance to read this-highly unlikely, I know, but possible-he needs to know that if we ever come in contact again, I will hurt him. Seriously, seriously hurt him. If you take advantage of someone that is weaker/has less power than you, they will come back when the power difference is no longer there and make you pay for what you did when you were stronger.

"Now, tell me the truth, and don't stutter." he said to me that one day in his office. "I'm here to help you and your family. Your best option is to do as I say. Question: when he was touching you, did you protest?"

Honestly, back then, I was scared to death of this man. I just shook my head no and stared at my feet.

"Well then, how was he supposed to know? Is he psychic?" He just kept bombarding me with questions and good Lord did this man talk fast! What kind of question is that? Why do you even have to be told that your eleven year old biological daughter doesn't want your advances? That's common sense-ridiculously common sense. "You don't seem very sincere, see-when Cheon was in here, he was very distressed, and he didn't seem like a bad person at all. I believe he is being taken advantage of by a corrupt daughter."

He paused.

"You heard what the rest of your family said, correct? And do you know that since your family are not United States citizens, with this kind of thing on your record, you can easily be deported and shipped back to Korea?" I nodded. "Now, what do you think would be for everyone's best interest-including yours, since he is no longer touching you-in this situation?"

"...For dad to come back home."

"That is correct. You are aware that the law and the right thing are not the same, correct?" I nodded. "That is why people like me exist-to help out those who cannot find justice because of faults in the flawed legal system. Anyway." He cleared his throat. "There is a court date coming up, where you can fix this. All you have to do is tell the judge that you lied to the social workers, and that you really want your father back home. Then everything will be okay. You will do that. Do I have your word?"

"Yes."

Please note that with the way things were, I had no choice but to do what I did next.

Everything they were saying was true. My brother would never be able to live without his father, and neither would the rest of my family. And it wasn't just them either-it was true we were not citizens, and non-citizens could very easily get shipped away for having a bad legal record. It had to be erased somehow. My dad had to come back home, and the only way to do that was to remove the court order, which could only happen if I told everyone that I had lied.

I didn't lie. But at the same time, the legal system is set up so that the victim automatically suffers more than the culprit. If the case went on like this, the person-people, in fact, who suffered most would not be the ones who were guilty.

But at the same time, you can understand why I did not want to live with my father after all of this. Would you? My "mother" kept on saying she didn't understand why I couldn't just pretend nothing happened since they "weren't touching me anymore".

So what can I do? What can I do to make it so that my dad would be back home living with the rest of my family-but I wouldn't have to live with him?

I formulated a plan, which I would carry out the morning of the court date. I stopped paying attention in class or doing any schoolwork. I didn't see the point since...well, I wouldn't be there for much longer. Some really annoying bitches-namely that one bitch Sabrina Kim who also went to the same church I did tried to put me down because of that, but I was more on edge then and she found out she couldn't treat me the same way she did before.

If she thought I was reactive then, she should've seen me a year after that-or even worse, I'd like to see that bitch try that shit now. Oh, Sabrina, Sabrina, Sabrina Kim. If only you were here. I'd make you get on your kness and beg for forgiveness for every single thing you ever did like the bitch you are. Some readers might be thrown off by that, but that's how I feel.

It was February 2004, I recall, I think around the tenth. I had made an arrangement with Diana, a girl I barely knew from school but was my only option at that time, for her to let me stay with her as long as I could.

So that morning, I taped a note to my door. A note addressed to the judge saying that I had lied about the sexual allegations because I held a grudge against my father for hitting me, and felt bad about it and really needed him back home. I taped that note good and tight to my bedroom door, making it easy for my "mother" to find.

I packed around four to five bags and dragged them around school with me that day, drawing stares from everyone around me. I didn't go to class. I sat outside on the picnic table I'd go to when I wanted to skip class, and this time I stayed there the end of they day.

Then I took my bags and hopped on Diana's bus instead of my own, and rode it over to her house. I had no intention of ever returning to my family, or even letting them know where I was.

My problem had been solved. Dad would be back home, my family would be fine, and at the same time, I would not have to live with them. Then I ran away from home and went to Diana's house instead of my own.