The Jig Was Up

The piece de resistance was arriving at Mandy’s apartment with armloads of groceries early one Saturday evening. Mandy and I had planned to see a movie at the local Cineplex, but since there wasn’t anything playing that interested us, she suggested buying some groceries and heading back to her place to make Samuel’s favourite Korean dish, bulgogi (BBQ beef) with rice and pickled vegetables.

We entered the apartment quietly, as Samuel usually took his teenage nap just before dinner (“he is a growing boy, after all,” she commented). While I removed the groceries from their bags, Mandy headed to the washroom. As I was trying to figure out where they stored their rice, I heard a piercing shriek from the rear of the apartment.

Running towards the source of the shriek, which turned out to be Mandy, I saw her standing, frozen in shock, in the doorway to her bedroom. Upon closer inspection, I saw that she was staring at her bed, and that there were two people in it: Samuel and a large bump beneath the covers which was later revealed to be a woman with long, blonde hair and very little, if any, clothing on. I had never seen the woman before, but her identity was soon revealed.

Long story short? Said blonde lady was Mandy’s older sister, Mabel, who apparently was in town for a bartender’s convention. Much was said that night, from accusations by Mandy that Mabel was a “cougar” and that she was breaking at least one law, maybe two, to exhortations from Mabel that Mandy was “the queen of denial” who “couldn’t see her nose despite her face”, and so on. Samuel remained quiet during their prolonged argument, as he leaned rather calmly against the bed's headboard and twiddled his thumbs, preferring to listen respectfully and not appearing to take sides.

Faithful to my OSIJ training, I too remained quiet, preferring to take copious notes and the occasional surreptitious photograph while pretending to push numbers on my cell phone.

North Korean Origins

N. Korea occasionally likes to fire 'satellites' over Japan. When I brought this up to Samuel and asked what he thought about it he said, “Satellites are cool but the Leader shouldn’t be firing them over people’s heads.” I told him that many people thought they weren't really satellites but test missiles for nuclear weapons. “ No doubt,” was all he had to offer, before returning to his Xbox game.

You’ll note he refers to Kim Jong Il as “the Leader.” When I asked him why he uses this term he only shrugged and said, ”That’s what’s he’s called in the Korean newspapers,” which he apparently reads in order to stay in touch with his mother country. After doing a quick web check, however, nowhere in the Korean papers did I see KJL referred to as “The Leader.”

The Teddy Bear Story

After the tantrum had subsided, I went over to where Samuel was still sitting on the floor and asked him why he was so upset. At this point, Mandy rolled her eyes and pushed her shopping cart to the end of the aisle, disappearing into the socks and underwear department.

Samuel proceeded to give me, and a few of the Walmart staff members, a story about a teddy bear he’d owned while living in North Korea. The teddy bear was the only constant he’d had in his life since he was a baby, originally given to him by the kindly missionary who’d smuggled him across the DMZ, and Samuel freaked out whenever someone tried to take it from him.

“But your teddy bear’s at home,” I reminded him.

“Doesn’t matter. Whenever someone tries to take something away from me, I freak out. I think it’s called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”

With that said, he picked himself off the floor, brushed the dirt off his jeans and approached a mountain-like stack of Roombas arranged in one corner of the department.

It occurred to me, once again, that these could not be the words of a 15 year old.

Oblivious to my suspicions, Samuel picked up one of the Roombas, briefly scanned the packaging, then bellowed, “Ma, can we get one of these?”

Mandy failed to answer, probably because she was two aisles away, rummaging through a bargain bin of children’s socks.

Samuel's Temper

It soon became apparent that all was not well between Mandy and her North Korean-born son. Inside a local Walmart, I became witness to one of the temper tantrums she had told me about. However, the first thing I noticed was Mandy appeared to be struck by consumer fever, as her cart ran over the foot of a young man in the food aisle on her way to raid the canned-ham half-price sale. I saw the look of fear in his eyes as her shopping cart bore down upon him. He tried in vain to save himself by jumping out of her way, the wheels of her shopping cart squeaking crazily, as she and three other women stampeded for the ham. When I asked the young man if he was okay, he rubbed his foot and had the dazed look of an accident victim on his face.
Later that hectic afternoon, in the Electronics section of the store, I found Samuel holding onto a Sony Playstation, and Mandy was continuously shaking her head, no. The scene then involved much huffing and puffing on the part of Samuel, his face turning red, and culminated with him sitting down on the floor while beating it with both clenched fists until Mandy gave into his demands, which on this occasion she didn’t. It reminded me a lot of the DVD movie I’d found amongst his secret bedroom chest of drawer items; a copy of the “The Producers” (not the one starring Matthew Broderick, but the original with Gene Wilder). I noted it because of the scene where Wilder ‘s character freaks out when Bialystock tries to take his blue blankie away from him. After thinking about it, I realized it reminded me of Samuel’s temper tantrum I’d just witnessed, and it wasn’t a pretty sight.

Unconventional Means

Mandy claimed that all the cute babies from China and Korea were taken, plus none of the adoption agencies would allow “a woman in her obviously deranged mental state,” as quoted to me by a Ms. Anne Reynolds, a caseworker for Trinity Adoptions Inc., to adopt one of their kids.

Mandy told me she was not physically capable of carrying a baby to term, so she tried asking a male friend to donate sperm to a surrogate mother but that didn’t work out. Then she asked another male friend to do the same, and he did, but ended up falling for the woman he’d impregnated, left his then-wife in order to be with her, and the new couple decided they didn’t want to give their offspring to Mandy after all. Having exhausted all of her options, she tells me, she finally decided to use unconventional means to adopt, which is when she went onto Craig’s List. That’s where she found Samuel.

Brilliant Samuel

I asked him what he usually did after school. He replied he would either come home and play Xbox games, do homework in his room or skateboard at the park with his friends. I couldn’t find any of these ‘friends’, however, or none who would admit to hanging around with Samuel. Mandy believed he had lots of friends and didn’t believe it when I told her many had spoken ill of him.

“They’re just jealous,” she insisted. “They don’t know how to deal with a gifted child, so they shut him out. I’ve seen it before. I was a gifted child myself. Children can be very cruel.”

When I pointed out Samuel’s poor marks, she added, “It’s common for gifted children to get poor grades in school. The system doesn’t know how to challenge them, so the child stops trying. You have no idea of Samuel’s brilliance.”

And exactly what was it that Samuel was brilliant at? I was determined to find out.

Sam and his clubs

As I continued to dig into Samuel’s scholastic life, however, all was not quite as it seemed. Despite Samuel’s straight A’s in German class, the rest of his report cards were not as much of a success story. Others seemed to view him as scholarly and high achieving, perhaps influenced by the fact that he was Asian and, in their minds, therefore must be pulling good grades. In fact, much to my surprise, it turned out that in many of his classes he was flunking out, or nearly so. Also, he was a member of almost every club available, much like a memorable indie film character: the chess club, the computer club, the choir, and a member of the student council. For some reason, everyone in these clubs, and on student council, seemed to hate him. When I inquired why, many of his fellow students cited feeling rubbed the wrong way, and that he had poor social skills. He often spoke out of turn and wasn’t good at cooperating and working with others. He sometimes became bossy and arrogant. In fact, I was hard pressed to find anyone amongst the student body that actually seemed to like Samuel.

Good at German

Morebrook Junior High is located in a clean, attractive suburb of Vancouver. It appears to be much like every other junior high I’ve ever set foot inside. Well, actually, I’ve only set foot inside one other junior high – mine: Sherwood Junior High in Sherwood, BC – but this one was actually much, much nicer.

For some reason, Samuel was fluent in German and brought home straight A’s from his German language class. I interviewed his teacher, a Ms. Niewicki, who suspected he was already fluent in the language, yet when she asked Sam if this was the case, he denied it. The teacher suggested to me that, perhaps, it was knowledge from a past life. I gazed soberly into the woman’s bloodshot eyes.

“Is it not possible that Samuel isn’t really 15 years old but much older, and that he studied German somewhere else before taking your class?”

After considering it a moment, the German teacher shrugged.

“Maybe. Do you really think he isn’t 15? You know, I had my suspicions but I try to ignore my gut feelings as much as possible.”

I found it strange that someone who purported to believe in past lives would try to ignore their intuitions, and I pointed this out to her. She claimed not to know what I was talking about. There's an awful lot of that going around, it seems.

Can I Follow You Around?

I asked both Mandy and Samuel if I could shadow them for a few days, just to get a proper idea of what their day-to-day lives were like. They seemed pleased to have this attention, and they both consented. I took the liberty of snooping inside Samuel’s dresser drawers, secretly, of course. Samuel was at school and Mandy was at a hair appointment. What I found was rather disconcerting: a box of Just For Men black hair colour – this was odd because, surely, a 15-year-old boy would have no need to dye his hair black, his natural hair colour – and three packaged condoms. No, it’s not out of the question that a 15-year-old boy would have condoms amongst his possessions, but a little disconcerting nonetheless. I held off mentioning it to Mandy, preferring instead to ask Samuel just who he might be planning to use the prophylactics with, as well as questioning the wisdom of his plans at such a young age. And, of course, there was also the strong possibility that we weren’t dealing with a 15-year-old at all, but I figured this would all bear out in time. As I was taught at OSIJ, best to let the story tell itself. In the end, I was glad I did.

The Advert

Mandy had gone so far as to frame Samuel's Craig's List ad, where I saw it hanging on the wall next to their Sears family portrait:

Available For Adoption: one 14 years old Korean boy orphan.Housebroke. Speak fluent English. Good student. Plans medical school. Quiet and clean. Has babysitting certificate. Serious replies only. No crazies please.

Sang-kyu Craig's List

When I asked why he uses the name Samuel instead of his Korean name, Mandy replied that he changed it because every time someone asked Samuel what his name was he’d say, “Sang-kyu”, which prompted them to reply, “Your welcome, but what is your name?” to which he’d repeat his name, and so on, like an Abbott and Costello routine. So taking on an Anglo name just made his life much easier.

When I asked Mandy about her feelings regarding the opinion that some whites who adopt nonwhite children (or man-children, as the case may be) secretly harbour a belief in racial stereotypes, Mandy vehemently insisted, “I haven’t got a prejudiced bone in my entire body!” When pressed for details regarding why she adopted an “older child”, as she calls Samuel, she replied, “Adoptive parents always want just the cute babies. I decided I didn’t want a cute baby, I wanted Samuel.” Samuel was playing his X-box in the living room nearby. As he pounded on the controls and yelled the occasional expletive at the TV screen, some of which sounded like Japanese, she looked at him sympathetically. “Nobody wants Samuel.” At this point, Samuel looked over at us and pouted slightly, for effect, in my humble opinion.

She also disclosed to me that she found Sang-Kyu on Craig’s List. Apparently there is a category called “Orphans Up For Adoption,” itemized by country. I can’t help but wonder if that’s really the best way to seek out orphans, as it is rather a delicate matter.

Mandy has kindly given me their guest room to stay in for a few days.

Sang-Kyu beddy much

According to Mandy, Samuel is a straight-A student and has a large circle of friends. Told by Mandy, his back story goes like this: Samuel, whose Korean name is Sang-kyu, was whisked out of North Korea by a British missionary working in an orphanage there. Upon seeing the deplorable conditions in the orphanage, the kind missionary bundled up as many babies as he could and smuggled them out of the country in his luggage. At the border, when the guards asked the missionary why his luggage smelled so bad, he told them the washing machine at the orphanage had broken down so he was taking the dirty diapers into South Korea to have them laundered. The border guard believed his story and let him, and three concealed baby orphans, across the border.

In South Korea, baby Sang-kyu was adopted first by a wealthy, barren, Korean couple, and he spent his first few years with them. They were unhappy with baby Sang-kyu’s inability to be toilet trained, however, and gave him up for adoption again. After being shuttled from orphanage to orphanage, baby Sang-kyu grew up on the streets, surviving on leftover meat from the trash cans of restaurants and whatever other scraps he could find. Mandy believes he even sold his body at one time, though to this day he won’t talk about it.

Who is Mandy?

The tea having steeped, Mandy finally entered the living room carrying a tray with teapot and cups. Just who is Mandy? She’s is a 44-year-old woman who used to be a pediatric nurse. Having given up that career for reasons she was not yet willing to discuss, a career there is every indication she cherished because she loves children so much, she currently sells hand-sewn clothing over the web. Her current specialty is hip-hop/ghetto inspired boys’ clothing, including jeans that bag so far down the rear end that they expose red- heart-decorated boxer shorts, which she also sells, perhaps inspired by her adopted son’s own clothing preferences. Mandy never married, though says she was engaged once to a stockbroker “who broke my heart”, and has no children of her own.

Big ***

On the mantle of Mandy’s gas fireplace I saw what looked like a Sears family portrait of Sam standing behind Mandy with one hand on her shoulder and Mandy sitting in front of him, beaming. He was wearing a rather ill-fitting grey suit and she was wearing a rather dowdy flower-print frock.

I sat on the couch next to Sam who, again, took no notice of me, until I asked him a few questions about his earlier life. At first, his answers were monosyllabic, but the more he talked the more he seemed to warm up, until he was telling me more personal things. My Narrative Interview instructor at OSIJ said I was good at getting people to open up (I got an A in his course), and it seemed to be working with Samuel. He told me he was shuttled around to various foster homes in South Korea before finding Mandy, “My true mother. She loves me the way I am. I’m bigger than most kids my age so I don’t get picked on much, but it hurts my feelings when they call me big ass.”