Annyeonghaseyo

Ms. Young is about four feet eleven inches tall. Her hair is perfectly coifed, not one hair out of place, and rests just above her shoulders. She is always in uniform, which is a navy pilots dress with gleaming white tennis shoes. It is unclear how old she is. She has no pores or wrinkles, and she wears round wire rimmed glasses that frame friendly, warm brown eyes. She has worked for Korean Air for twenty years at LAX, and she is now tasked with teaching a dozen white people the spirit of Korean culture. These white people are going to work alongside Korean Air agents, and together we are going to run the brand new forty six million dollar Korean Air Lounge, which sits loftily on the sixth floor and overlooks the Tom Bradley International terminals.

The airport, specifically the TBIT, calms my restless soul in a way nothing else ever has before. I love the airport. I am slowly becoming Tom Hanks in The Terminal, every day settling in at a new terminal, chatting with the Germans flying to Munich, sleeping on empty seats at night, enjoying a twelve dollar cup of coffee, and looking at the flight board, the most beautiful board in the whole world. To me, the flight board is like a librarys bookshelves, each destination a new story waiting to be written. And it fills me with hope. I do not feel trapped or alone. The world feels big and full of possibility, everything unknown waiting to become known by me. It is all waiting. All I have to do is buy the ticket.

To exist in this world, you must have a badge. Once cleared and in possession of this badge, you suddenly have access to many doors, which someone like me should probably not have access to. Not because I am suspicious or have a shady past or a photo album of mug shots, but because I am curious. And this often leads to danger, undesirable outcomes, and sometimes injury or death.

When we toured the airport and the lounge, I was obsessed with all the things that people wearing neon colored vests and hard hats are in charge of and manage. A large red button. What happens if you press it? An unmarked keypad. Explain. This bag of solar water softener. How does it soften water? A door with a sign that says NO UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS. I am waiting for everyone to clear out, then standing before it holding my badge out to the sensor, hoping to walk in and discover a secret underground drug smuggling operation. And to be clear, if I did, I would join it, not expose it in some journalistic attempt to win a Pulitzer Prize.

To get to the airport, employees park in different assigned parking lots and take a bus that drops them off at their designated terminals. Employees hate this bus. To them, this broken down bus has diminished all their dreams.

I love the bus.

The ride to work on the evening bus is fine. You take a seat and ride as the sun slowly sets and the airport glows. You sit among a diverse cast of characters, all wearing different uniforms, all there to perform different roles at the airport. An Air France flight attendant with her red lips, red scarf, and matching red nails sits next to a weathered man wearing a safety vest and work boots, who is seated next to a human storm of defeat and violent rage, otherwise known as a TSA agent. On my first bus ride, the driver was blasting Sade. His name is Alan, and he always plays a nineties R and B station when he drives. I do not understand why all the other bus drivers do not play music as well. Maybe Alan is breaking a rule. But his rides are the best. The bus ride that is most exciting, though, is the bus ride after work, which is at one in the morning.

At one in the morning, the airport is still buzzing, almost like Vegas where there is no sense of time changing. Employees gather at the bus stops and wait, exhausted from the day and sleepy eyed. Almost all of them are complaining about their jobs to one another, some laughing, some angry, and some just silent, waiting alone with headphones in. I am among them all with wide bright eyes, taking everyone and everything in. The airport employee driving a small vehicle that looks like one of Noahs Lego toys, collecting carts and zigzagging through the middle of the street while buses honk. The confused travelers. The people I can see through the windows who are lying down in the middle of the baggage claim floor, fast asleep waiting for their luggage. People huddled in corners charging their phones. Being in the airport that late at night feels like belonging to a secret club where life is not just passing by slowly. Things are happening. People have places to go, things to see, people to meet. Discovery. Exploration. Do I sound insane yet?

The trick for the one AM bus is to board it last. It may seem counterintuitive, but by boarding last you protect your face from being smashed intimately into someones armpit. This is because by the time the bus arrives everyone rushes onto it, spilling out of seats, standing in the middle of the rows. It becomes so packed that from the outside the bus looks like it is slowly sagging and about to tip over. It is a claustrophobics true hellish nightmare. But with patience and trust, if you board last, you can slide your skinny ass right behind the safety line and secure your position directly behind the bus driver. I ride to the East Employee Lot with a front row view, my face in the rearview mirror behind the bus driver. Above the bus driver is a sign that reads DO NOT TALK TO THE OPERATOR. If you notice my face in the rearview mirror, you can tell my face desperately wants to talk to the operator. I am scanning all the buttons, pedals, and gadgets, learning the bus drivers names, which one wears a beanie every night, which one is grumpy, which one is loud and happy, a small round white lady with bangs, and which one is just a total mystery, a silent shadowy figure just driving the bus.

There was one time I saw Ms. Young waiting to board the one AM bus. My eyes filled with tears at the sight of her there, standing with perfect posture, her hands politely clasped together in front of her, wearing a gray puffer jacket and backpack with her small white tennis shoes. In my imagination she became a younger version of herself. We traveled back twenty years to her first day working there, and then I watched her slowly age with the passing of time until now, the version of herself that stood before me. I felt thankful for some reason to encounter her in this version of herself, like it was a gift given to me and one that I would remember and treasure forever.

Bowing is the most respectful way to greet others in Korean culture. A small polite bow and a quiet “Annyeonghaseyo.” It is pronounced “ann neh yong ha ce yo,” and it is said in a sing song cadence that sounds friendly and whimsical. After annyeonghaseyo, the whimsy ends and conversations are almost impossible to track when they fall on dumb white ears that are used to words like “hi” and “corn” and “dead ass.” Always at a low volume and incredibly fast paced to a Southern California valley girl, the conversations whip around at what seems like light speed, and I stop blinking while listening in order to concentrate. My first day I went home and tried to learn phrases, but the only one that stuck was “na museowo,” which means “I am scared.”

When Ms. Young teaches us, she speaks very slowly in English and uses her hands. When something is not good, she makes an X with her arms over her chest and says, “No, ineligible.” When something is good, she puts both hands above her head so her hands give her Mickey Mouse ears, and she opens and closes her palms while smiling. “Yes,” she says, and we all beam with her. “Yes!”

My coworkers and I gather in front of her while she teaches and explains things, and Ms. Young locks eyes with me. I think it is because I am staring at her adoringly. Sometimes, most of the time, I have no idea what she is telling us all. I get lost in her charm and am so utterly enchanted by her that by the end of her lesson I have learned nothing, but have the strongest desire to make her proud and do everything right.

When the lounge opened, it hosted a party with a guest list of important Koreans. I was in charge of greeting them all by name with Ms. Young. We stood together, me the giant white slob next to this pristine tiny Asian angel, while an array of expressionless Koreans approached us as I violently butchered their names like a serial killer. This name was not on my list, but it will give you an idea of what I was working with:

“Haneulbyeollimgureumhaennimbodasarangseureouri”

One of the longest Korean names, and it means “more lovely than the stars, sky, and clouds.” Which, how beautiful. If I ever have another child, I will absolutely name them Haneulbyeollimgureumhaennimbodasarangseureouri, or Han for short.

Korean lacks specific consonantal fixatives such as F and V. Something Americans would pronounce using the F sound in Korea would be replaced with the P sound. The American V sound is replaced with the B sound. So you can see how I struggled. But my struggle made Ms. Young laugh, and it did not feel like she was laughing at me. It felt like I had brought her some sort of unexpected joy that she had no choice but to emote. As I was sweating and grinning stupidly while bowing and speaking broken Korean to stoic Korean businessmen, I noticed Ms. Young smiling adoringly at me, like I do at her when she gives her lessons.

At the end of the night she said, “Good job, Julia Roberts.” I looked at her confused until she explained, “I see you and I think Julia Roberts.” I could have hugged her right then, but instead I bowed, my hand to my heart in thanks for such a high compliment. I happen to love Julia Roberts.

Korean culture is beautiful. Reserved, intentional, respectful, and thoughtful, every interaction is filled with thank yous. I am used to ugly America where somehow, in the time it takes for the nasty white man to exit his taxi and enter the building, something has ruined his entire experience and before you can even say hello he is already full of complaints and wanting a dinner or night stay comped for the inconvenience we caused.

Koreans quietly enter and thank me just for being there. They thank me when I give them back their boarding pass, if I tell them where something is, if I give them the flights boarding time, and when they leave. There is a lot of bowing and thanking one another. Also, Koreans do not like chitchat. I understand this from deep within my soul. There is no need to ask them how they are. They do not wish to tell you, a random stranger, and I respect that. “The weather sure was hot today!” They look back at you like, why did you waste breath on that sentiment? So I stick to bowing, thanking, and smiling, and that is enough. Truly, that is enough.

Also, Koreans do not have pores. I have thrown away all my American skincare products and replaced them with Korean skincare because Koreans have the most beautiful skin I have ever seen. Even old yodas are poreless and beautiful, with just the slightest wrinkle around the eyes or mouth. A sixty year old Korean woman looks younger than Kylie Jenner. I said it.

Every night we all eat family meal together. This means we eat the leftover five star dining options we offer guests and as a result I now have well defined abs and zero percent body fat. The Korean diet is incredibly healthy. Vegetables, protein, fermented foods like kimchi, and if you skip the rice, you will slim down in a mere few weeks.

I am sure that if I were Korean, I would speak about it more like I do America, where I am from and have observed all my life. I would have complaints and could point out everything terribly wrong and corrupt about it. But this is why the airport is so beautiful to me.

The airport opens up your world in a way only travel can. You encounter the unknown and realize how small we all are. How we really are not lost in translation if we try. My observation of a different culture, a different way of being, can be eye opening and appreciated, adopted even. It shows me how many different ways there are to exist on this earth, connect to others, be a human, and live a life. Seeking to understand what I do not know or what I have not experienced makes me a more important and invaluable human.

Ms. Young and I both encounter one another waiting for the bus. When she sees me, she turns and bows. I bow politely back and we smile at each other. Then we stand next to one another in a silence that connects us and wait for the bus together.