SYNOPSIS

JANICE meets KEUM LEE in a zoom meeting, after discovering through DNA and Ancestor.com that they are half-sisters, and that her father had a Korean family when he was in the Korean War in the 50’s.    They compare stories and find that they had very different fathers, though he was the same man.   Can they reconcile their bitterness and be grateful they have found each other?   Or has the past wounded them both too deeply?

 

 

 

CAST LIST                        INCLUSIVE

JANICE                             Woman,  70ish        American

KEUM JA LEE                   Woman  70ish         Korean American woman

TIME                                 Present

PLACE                              ZOOM, OR BLACK BOX

 

 

LIGHTS UP: KEUM JA LEE, and JANICE PETERSEN,
ONSCREEN, MEETING ON ZOOM

 

JANICE

Keum?

KEUM

Janice?

JANICE

Hi.   Yes!   Hi.

KEUM

Sorry I’m late.   That last zoom meeting went overtime.

JANICE

I know.  This is my third zoom today.    Well.  Here’s to us.  (raises a glass of white wine)  And zoom.

KEUM

What else is there, these days?   (raises her glass of white wine)

JANICE

It’s happy hour, here in Berkeley.  Sauv Blanc.

KEUM

Dessert.  Here in In Boston.  Riesling.   Cheers!  (they toast)

JANICE

(pause)  You look a little different —  than  your profile picture  –

KEUM

It was taken about five years ago – when I first sent my DNA sample in.

JANICE

Annnd — here’s to  DNA.   And Ancestry.com.    (raises her glass, drinks)

KEUM

And  the Human Genome Project!     (raises her glass, drinks)

JANICE

And this — conference?    Again?      What —

KEUM

Oh.  G.O.A.L.   Yes, I’m on the Board.

JANICE

G.O.A.L. —?

KEUM

Global Overseas Adoption Link.   An organization to acculturate  Korean people, who were adopted… and  brought up — well.  All over the world.

JANICE

Oh.  Right.

KEUM

(pause)  You  – look like him.

JANICE

People tell me that.

KEUM

The eyes.    The square chin.  (KEUM holds up  a worn black and white photograph, carefully laminated, to show JANICE).

JANICE

Oh.  (gasps)   He looks so young.

KEUM

He was about thirty-five then.

JANICE

What I mean to say is… he’s laughing.

KEUM

He was always laughing.  Big, loud, laugh.  Booming laugh.

JANICE

Yes.    Booming laugh.  Yes.   When he did laugh.      And this must be —

KEUM

My mother.   Yes.  Kim Sook Ja.   And me.

JANICE

Beautiful.  Woman.    (with some bitterness)   A  happy family.

KEUM

He left us.    Not long after that.    They signed the Armistice.     And he went  —

JANICE

Home.   He came home.   To us.    (pause)   Your mother…?  Is she still alive?

KEUM

I don’t know.   It’s not likely.    My mother and father never married, so –

JANICE

(snaps)  Because he was already married.  To my mother.

KEUM

What I meant to say is…   Unwed mothers… in Korea, in 1965…  and a half-breed daughter.   We were ghosts.    Evil spirits.   I  was “TuiGi”- dust of the street.  Child of the devil.    My mother was Yang Kal Bo,  foreigner’s whore.   No one would help us.

JANICE

(pause)  My god.   Keum.

KEUM

Why so many of us Korean/American babies were adopted, and grew up all over the world.   We were — dust of the street, at home.

JANICE

Did my father… ever  try to  – help you?

KEUM

He left us money.   Enough for a long time.   If we could have  stayed in our village.  But no one in my mother’s village would open their door to us.    Not even my grandmother.

JANICE

What happened… where did you —

KEUM

We stayed near the base,  until the money ran out.  We stayed  with an aunt,  but then she had to send us away.     I think — he –continued to send us money .. but by then we were nowhere….living on the streets.   I don’t know what happened to it.

JANICE

How did you live?  What  — what did you eat?

KEUM

Handouts.   garbage.    My mother  — worked–  for the soldiers.    She could not  take care of me,  so she gave me up for adoption.   I never saw her after that.

JANICE

Oh.   Keum.   Oh.

KEUM

There were thousands of us.   War Babies,  they called us.  The  churches finally set up  adoption agencies.  Thousands of Korean children grew up in America, Germany, Switzerland.
Everywhere but Korea.

JANICE

Where — did you —

KEUM

I was very lucky.  I was adopted by a wonderful couple in Denver.

JANICE

Denver.  Oh.

KEUM

Janice.     Why did you …contact me?

JANICE

The day after I got my DNA results, from Ancestry.com,    I — saw your name.  Top of the list.     My closest DNA  match.   82% match.

KEUM

A Korean name.    Yes.   I imagine you were — surprised.

JANICE

And your profile.  Your age.    Well, I knew…  right away.    (pause)  My father- our father—  anyway.   So.   I wanted to meet you.    I was hoping… we might  become — oh.   I don’t know.  Acquainted.  (pause)   Friends.

KEUM

Our father.   (takes a breath)    Is he… still… alive?

JANICE

Ah.  No.   I – he –  died four years ago.

KEUM

Oh.   (gasps)  Oh!

JANICE

Sorry.   I’m so sorry.   That was  –   abrupt.   I’m so sorry.   You didn’t know.

KEUM

(in disbelief)    Four years ago.

JANICE

Yes.   In a VA hospital.    In Martinez.    He had the best of care.

KEUM

Were you with him when – – -?

JANICE

My mother and I.   Were there.   Yes.   They divorced years ago,  but she and I   took care of him,   in the last months.     She’s gone, too.    Now.

KEUM

How… did he die?

JANICE

Lung cancer.   Liver disease.   He smoked two packs a day and drank  — a lot.     Bourbon.   Johnny Walker Black Label.

KEUM

No.   No.   He drank very little.  And he did not smoke.   He and my mother would share a beer, now and then.  Or a glass of soju.     He never drank whiskey.

JANICE

(pause)  My mother said he came home from Korea… a different man.    Silent.
Angry.  Haunted, she said.    Haunted.    Didn’t talk much.    Didn’t laugh,  much.   Drank. A lot.  And he was a mean drunk. (pause)

KEUM

That does not sound like  him — at all.

JANICE

(pause)   I was very fat, as a kid.   Piggy, he called me.  A pig.   Piglet.   At a restaurant once,  I ordered a triple scoop of vanilla ice cream,  for dessert.  Just to see what he would do.   I sat there and ate it all,  in front of him.  Slowly.    He was livid.    Finished his drink, got up and left us at the table.    Left my Mom and me at the table,  and walked away.    Wouldn’t talk to me for days.

KEUM

That is not the father I remember.

JANICE

Lucky you.

KEUM

But.  (coldly )   He chose… you.

JANICE

(pause)  What—do you remember  — of him?

KEUM

Oh.  We lived near the beach,  we would go there every day.   He would carry me under his arm and run into the ocean and dunk me,  screaming,  into the waves,  then pick me up and put me on his big shoulders..   Tallest girl in Korea!  he would yell.  Tallest  girl in the  world!

JANICE

We went to the beach at Carmel!   On the weekends, sometimes.   He would do that very same thing.  Put me up on his shoulders?  Say that very same thing to me!  Tallest girl in the world!   I thought I was the  tallest  girl in the world.

KEUM

Did he ever … talk about … me?

JANICE

No.  I’m sorry.    He kept you – and your mother.   A secret.   Locked inside.   LIke every other human emotion he had.

KEUM

No.   He was very — loving.  To us.  Open.  Tender.   I scraped my knee on a rock, once?  At the beach?  It was a really bad cut.   I was crying,  when he put iodine on it,  and  he was crying  too,  because he had to hurt me —

JANICE

To us.  He was distant.  Cruel.  Sometimes.   (pause)    Now …I can see  why.  (pause)  He had a family he loved.  A daughter he loved.  (pause)  Why did you agree to meet me, Keum?

KEUM

I hoped… I would  find  my father.   Alive.

JANICE

(pause)   How old were you when … ?

KEUM

We went  to Seoul with him  the day after I turned five years old.  My mother bought me a new American dress.   I thought we were going to another birthday party.    We went to a big American restaurant.   Very fancy.  We had a nice dinner.   My mother and father held hands.   After dinner,  I had my first bowl of ice cream.   Vanilla ice cream in a small glass bowl.  I loved it.   And then, suddenly,   my mother was crying,   and my father was  crying, and we were saying goodbye.  And.  He was.  Walking across the street to the airport,  to go —

JANICE

(bitterly)  Home.

KEUM

Do you have — any— happy memories?     Of him?

JANICE

Well.   After he was diagnosed, after he stopped drinking?    In the hospital?   He knew he was  dying.  It was like he’d been released from prison.   He was.   Happy. Well.  At peace.  We watched old westerns, together.  Every afternoon.  Drank peppermint tea.   He loved Clint Eastwood.  The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.  We must have watched that one ten times.   Sometimes he let me hold his hand.

KEUM

Do you have children?

JANICE

No.   I never married.

KEUM

I have a daughter.   Roberta.    (shows her a photo)

JANICE

My – niece.    I have a niece!

KEUM

Half.  Niece.

JANICE

She’s beautiful.    (pause)    He  so  wanted… a granddaughter.

KEUM

(coldly)  But.   He chose  you. (pause)   And he  left my mother and me.  To starve.

JANICE

(long pause )  Perhaps.   This was a bad idea, Keum.   I want to thank you so much for talking with me, sharing what you could, and the photo, really, I thank you …. but  — I see  —  I’ve already  taken too much of your  time —

KEUM

(long pause)  I have some photos.    Of him.    And you.   And your mother.

JANICE

Photos?   Of me?  And my mother?

KEUM

And –some letters.

JANICE

He wrote you letters?

KEUM

Well,  I wrote to him first.  I  found his address  through G.O.A.L.  I wrote to him every month.  Every month  or so  I’d get a letter back.   And then, about four years ago–

JANICE

He went into the  hospital.   And the letters  stopped.

KEUM

Would you like to see them?    And the photos?

JANICE

Yes.  Yes.

KEUM

Send me your address.     I’ll scan them and send them to you.

JANICE

Thank you.  Thank you so much.  That would be —

KEUM

And then maybe we can chat again?

JANICE

And meet in person someday, when this nightmare virus   is over—

KEUM

I’d like that.

JANICE

(pause)   We both loved him.

KEUM

Yes.

(KEUM raises her glass of wine to JANICE)

KEUM

Tallest girl in the world?

JANICE

(raises her glass of wine to KEUM)  Tallest girl in the world.

                                         They “touch” glasses on screen

KEUM

Stay well.

JANICE

You too.

BLACKOUT