Korean Jesus Welcomes You, 할렐루야 - Part One
After I escaped the English Academy, Sunny’s older sister Gemma* gave me a place to live.
Gemma offered me the extra bedroom in her three room apartment where she, her husband and daughter lived. It was your typical, modern Korean apartment, with sliding doors to the balcony, a compact kitchen and open living room with one, long couch where the family gathered to watch ‘1박 2일 (2 Days & 1 Night)’ in the evenings.
I was grateful to have the little bed to collapse onto each night, even if there were piles of stuffed animals lined up against the wall (as per the daughter’s whims) and a very early wake-up (as per the husband’s loud morning routine). I paid a monthly rent and lived there while I sought out a new job and home.
Sunny and I were chatting over coffee one day when she invited me to Hope Church. It was small and local, the kind you see in every alley in smaller cities, distinguished from other buildings by an electric red cross that beams over the rooftops at night. There are always large portraits of a suspiciously white Jesus stretching his hands out, welcoming poor and rich alike - with a distinct preference for the latter.
Religion in Korea is a curious topic of its own. The corruption is rampant. Power-hungry pastors push the limits of culturally-demanded respect to establish personal empires mechanized by fervor and believers. Divisions and squabbles over authority fracture churches in every town, and have culminated in hundreds of small congregations, each with a pastor who believes he knows the Bible best. Newcomers are greedily welcomed. Korean churches demand your allegiance, and you are rewarded with an excellent after-service lunch and congregation that will take care of you no matter what, unless you do one of the following:
Decline to give money
Decline to blindly agree with the pastor
Decline to serve
Then, you will be gradually pushed out with a false smile and empty words of blessing.
This isn’t every church, of course. There are communities that love and respect their members very much, and Korean churches are among the few organizations in Korea that have really made contributions to the underserved. The Catholic church played an immense role in the early democratic movements and have taken care of the poor and hungry that Korea society largely turns a blind eye to. My uncle is a dedicated Catholic, and every year at Chuseok he tells me about the people he visits; those who have no family or even those who are dying alone. It is his beliefs that compel him to do such good and I have immense respect for that.
Sunny’s church was somewhere in the middle of those two categories. It was a church with a pastor who believed he was God’s mouthpiece to the world, rallied on by his faithful parishioners who cried out, “Amen!” as he preached from the pulpit, whether they understood his theology or not. But also, had a congregation full of incredibly gracious and loving people. Sunny was a rare example of a Christian who really lived out genuine love for others.
“The pastor is very good,” Sunny told me, “he has two sons who speak English, and there’s a youth group. You can make friends there!”
She continued to tell me about the choir who was led by a new 지휘자 (Conductor) and how since I’m such a great singer, I should join, despite the fact that I had never sung in front of her before.
“We practice for an hour before service on Sundays. It’s so much fun,” Sunny said, her eyes shining with the excitement she felt on my behalf.
Reading between the lines, I eventually realized that Sunny had been wanting her sister to come to church and she believed that if I attended it would encourage her sister to go, too. Of course I’ll go, I agreed. I was, in actuality, looking for a church and hoped this might be a nice place to get connected. After leaving the Academy, I had been left with a bewildering amount of free time and thought that maybe this would be a good way to fill it. Besides, for Sunny 언니, I would have done anything.
I showed up at the church by myself on the following Sunday. Sunny was waiting for me outside, wearing a floral dress that billowed around her ankles, and huge, dangling earrings. She hugged me and led me inside. People were milling around, laughing and talking with familiarity about their week, their children, their plans for the day… until I passed by.
Each person turned with great amazement at the sight of this new stranger. Women exclaimed, “Sunny 권사님 (deaconess)! Who is this?” and men crossed their arms and puffed as they listened. Sunny steered me from person to person, beaming as she enthusiastically introduced me over and over again. That was the nice thing about Sunny. With her, I rarely had to speak. I simply bobbed my head and said, “안녕하세요, 베키라고 합니다” and was immediately granted Favorite Youth Member status for being in the glow of Sunny’s patronage.
If you attend a Korean church and you are not “Korean”, you might feel overwhelmed or left out. There is a particular way things are run that is never explained but simply understood. This is distinct to churches in Korea only, I’ve concluded. I’ve been to churches all over the world - Haiti, Uzbekistan, the Philippines, the USA - and only Korean churches have ever made me feel simultaneously welcomed and shut out all at once.
I attended Hope Church for about a year, and always felt like the one yellow goldfish in a bowl full of blue minnows; they let me swim with them but I wasn’t granted access to the groupthink that synchronized their movements, leaving me to awkwardly bump into things as they watched me from their implicitly understood positions.
Sunny settled me next to her on the wooden pew and primly put a finger to her lips as the pastor leapt onto the small stage and faced his small congregation. He had a long face, with hawkish, dark eyebrows and eyes framed by thick glasses. He wore a church robe which sleeves fell back when he raised his hands to pray. His preaching style mirrored that of great speakers. He spoke loudly and stridently then dropped his voice suddenly so that we all leaned in to catch his words. His voice trembled as he read the Bible, exhorting us to read, pray, listen and repent. He wiped his face with an embroidered handkerchief and made humble jokes, prompting a rumble of laughter from his listeners. He was a practiced and professional orator, and his congregation loved it.
The choir stood up noisily in the choir stands and ended the service with a warbling hymn. I was ready to leave when the pastor returned to the pulpit with one final word.
“Maybe some of you have noticed but we have a new face among us today,” he said into the microphone. Sunny clutched my hand, her eyes fastened to the pastor with breathless anticipation. Heads turned eagerly in my direction and I felt myself shrink into my seat.
“Please welcome our guest! Stand up,” he commanded me, smiling, “stand up.”
Sunny pushed me to my feet and I stood, face burning as everyone applauded and cheered. I bowed in all directions and attempted to sit again when the pastor said, “and now let’s sing” and lead the congregation into a song that many Korean churches use when they welcome new members. Sunny pushed me to my feet again, beaming and clapping as she sang loudly,
“축복합니다,
주님의 이름으로”
for multiple verses.
I stood awkwardly, clapping once or twice before putting my hands down as I tried to avoid making eye contact with the members and waited for the song to end. The pastor’s voice rose above the rest with an operatic thrill and he conducted the final lines with a flourish. I tried to sit for the third time when the pastor then said, “and now, why doesn’t she come up and introduce herself to everyone?”
Sunny squealed with delight and pushed me out of the pew. I wondered if I was being pranked as I walked unsteadily to the front and accepted the microphone with two hands. I turned to face the group which seemed to have multiplied in the last few seconds, every eye glued onto me, and said squeakily into the mic, “Hello… I’m Becky. Today is my first day. Thank you for the warm welcome,” and passed the microphone back to the pastor and tried not to run back to my seat.
Smiles and curious looks followed me, as the pastor said warmly, “oh, her Korean is so good!”
I wasn’t allowed to leave until I had eaten two servings of rice, 미역국, and 갈비, made by the ladies who volunteered to cook every week. The pastor shook my hand, saying “let’s greet American-style!” and introduced his two sons to me, both similar to my age. Sunny steered me towards 지휘자님 (Conductor) and told him that I was joining the choir. 지휘자님 was a youthful man in his early thirties, with a soft voice and sober face.
“Are you a singer?” he inquired, as Sunny bustled off.
“I used to sing soprano in a choir,” I admitted.
“You should join,” he said, “we need good singers.” He gave me a wry look. “You heard us today.”
I hid a smile. “I’m sure they can get better,” I said.
He shrugged non-committedly. “If you join, perhaps.”
“I’ll see,” I said, equally casual in my response. We gave each other looks of mutual understanding, two young members in a sea of middle-aged bored housewives and elderly men looking for purpose in their later years.
“I hope you come next week,” 지휘자님 said, speaking formally. He inclined his head and left.
I found Sunny regaling a group of women with a dramatic tale that ended with them all falling over each other in laughter. I said hello to everyone who chirped ‘she’s so tall!’ ‘how pretty!’ ‘my son should meet you’ and told Sunny that I was going to leave. She leapt to her feet and walked me to the front door.
“How was it?” She demanded.
“Oh, it was nice,” I said.
"Pastor never introduces people like that,” she trilled, “wasn’t that so special?”
“Um, yes,” I said.
Sunny grabbed my hand, exhilarated by the day’s success, and said, “come to choir practice next week. 지휘자님 will be so happy to have you there.”
I thought about 지휘자님’s introspective, serious face and the undercurrent of humor in his words.
“Okay,” I said.
As I walked home past the field where high school boys kicked a ball around, and looked up at the blue sky, I untangled the morning’s events and how I felt about it all. To some, it might seem like little things, but I knew it heralded the way things would be at this church. A pastor who was secretly smug about his new member - how he had handed me the microphone, how he shook my hand ‘American-style’, how he chuckled over my ‘excellent Korean speaking skills.’ All trivial interactions that highlighted how different I was. I could imagine how he would casually let slip to his pastor friends and rivals that his church had a half-Korean girl from America. The women who asked repeatedly if I ate kimchi, tofu, 된장찌개, spicy food, etc. and required me to assure them that I did before placing food on my plate. The men who didn’t know how to talk to me because I was ‘too pretty’, ‘too tall’ or ‘too smart’ for their comfort. Such small things that when you mention them out loud, they’re simply dismissed, but they stick to me like little pins, pricking me each time it happens. You’re never fully comfortable in your skin.
But for Sunny, I’d do anything. And so, the following Sunday I showed up early for choir practice. 지휘자님 showed no sign of surprise and simply waved me to a seat while the rest of the choir pretended not to stare.
“This is Becky,” he said, “she’s our new soprano.”
He leaned over to hand me a folder of sheet music and murmured, “let’s see what you can do.”
to be continued.
*all names have been changed.