Banana
by Sorin Choi

The term Banana is a slang word, what we, Koreans, call second Korean immigrant generation in America. Banana, yellow peeled but white inside. They, yellow skinned but white-cultured.

My eyes rolled all around the room, trying to find something else rather than altering my eyesight on my traveling feet and my passport. Every second that passes weighed with heavy air filling me with the strangeness.

"Hey, are you the…"

My lonesome silence broke. As I looked up and saw a girl with a flat yellowish face, the strangeness disappeared. I knew she was a Korean girl; who I have seen in the photograph shown by my mom. She is my mom’s friend’s daughter, who I’m going to home-stay with.

"An-young!"

I said hello with a smile on my face, cutting her introduction off unexpectedly. But then, awkwardness appeared in that girl’s face. Huh? Did I make a mistake? Her face puzzled my mind.

"… So I guess you are Sorin? I’m Jennifer. One more thing, Can you speak ENGLISH? My Korean is really bad."

The girl finally opened her mouth, speaking with a hard accent on the word English. Her perfect English pronunciation made me feel the strangeness but not the same one I felt right before.

"Oh, so you are BANANA." I replied with saying Banana with an accent on it.

"Banana?"

"Yeah, Banana. Korean who born in America. Don’t you know?"

"Oh… never mind, my mom is waiting in front of the airport. We gotta go now."

With her picky words, I sensed a tension in her high-toned voice. My gut started to tingle. This was not the first time I felt this way. For instant, when I visited the state several years before, because of my broken English, two Banana girls were calling me a FOB that meant ‘fresh of the boat’. Strange. I didn’t made fun of them with their poor Korean, because I knew they were actually American. This was a reason that I felt so unfamiliar with Bananas.

* * *

Being here for one week was enough time for my jet lag to be gone, but I was not sure it was enough time to open my mind to this Banana girl. Though she and I retained a formal relationship, I still felt an uncomfortable jelly-like air between us. This Banana girl loved to sing pop songs, knew how to roast "S’mores" in front of a campfire, and enjoyed playing handball with her friends. But I on the other hand, loved to sing Korean R&B, knew how to clearly break the printed shape on a sweet cracker called "Pope-Kee", and enjoyed playing "Gong-Gee" with my peers. These were the only several differences between us, which made a distant wall within each other.

* * *

In one Sunday morning, the Banana girl was eating her toast topped with sunny-side-up fried-egg, while I was eating rice with an omelet. Commonly, we both kept silence.

"Good morning, Jennifer." I started the talk, hoping to have a nice conversation with her. I really didn’t like the awkwardness made by our unfamiliar relationship floating in the dinning room.

"Morning." She replied, connecting a smooth start of mine.

"Hey, do you watch ‘Even Stevens’?" This time the girl asked me first.

"‘Even Stevens’? What’s that?" I looked at her face, waiting her to explain what it was.

"Don’t you ever hard that? Oh well, never mind." Said the girl, half teasing instead of explaining. I hate whenever she says ‘never mind’ since it sounded like disregarding me.

"Then, do you know ‘Gag-Concert’?" I asked, suppressing my anger toward her. This is my turn.

"A what?" She answered just what I have expected.

"It’s a real-famous comedy show in Korea. Everyone knows it. Well, I guess you don’t. Never mind." I spoke my words filled with confidence. I paid back.

In that afternoon, the Banana girl knocked on my room. She was holding a bundle of papers and two scissors.

"What’s up?" I asked, wondering what she is holding.

"School project. Don’t you want to work with me? You know, fourth graders are allowed to work with the friends if we want to." Said the Banana girl. Then, she sat next to me, handing me some colorful papers.

"Sure, why not." I agreed and took those colorful papers from her hand.

"Ouch!"

With a short scream, the Banana girl pulled her hand back.

"Jennifer! Your finger is blooding! Are you okay?" I screamed at her, grabbing her hand to stop a blood slowly falling down along her wrinkles of her finger. Red blood from her finger blotted on my hand.

"Bleeding!" She yelled back, fixing my English.

"Whatever! This isn’t time for the correction! Is your finger okay?"

As I cried, we gazed at each other in blank dismay. One surprised her friend worrying at her finger, and another one surprised of her friend correcting the English in the meantime.

"Come down, this is an only slight paper cut. Still, thank you for worrying me."

Said Jennifer, with her lip smiling.

Suddenly, I felt the warmth in my gut. I could breath comfortably. I was sorry and shameful for Jennifer since she had got the cut by passing me a paper, but in another hand, I was happy to receive gratitude from her.

"Hey, Sorin. I never heard of ‘Gag-Concert’ or something, but I know the Korean idol group ‘g.o.d’. I’m actually big fan of them! Aren’t they so hot?" After the laughter, she continued right away. Than, she proudly brought a bromide of ‘g.o.d’.

"Of course they are! I’m really glad that you knew ‘g.o.d’. However, I thought you wasn’t interest in Korean-things."

"Why not! I am American but also Korean. Though I don’t know lot of Korean-things yet… Right! Since I know all these American-stuff and you know Korean stuff, I can teach you more about America and…"

"And I can teach you more about Korea!" I concluded Jennifer’s word.

We looked each other and finally roar with laughter.

Over the wall of culture and language, the true barrier that people make between each other is prejudice. It is true that cultural backgrounds form prejudice, but reasoning with the difference of the cultures is only an excuse about our relationships. Because Jennifer couldn’t speak Korean well, I jumped to a conclusion that she ignores Korea but prefers American culture. The term Banana is an only outcome of biases, from people who thinks Korean-American desires to be white, but cannot abandon their skin color. For having wrong idea, I used to call Jennifer as ‘the Banana girl’. Who ever knew a girl who loved to sing pop songs, knew how to roast "S’mores" in front of a campfire, and enjoyed playing handball also loved to sing Korean R&B, hoped to knew how to clearly break the printed shape on a sweet cracker called "Pope-Kee", and enjoyed playing "Gong-Gee"; just like I did.