Watch it quiver. Body Blows Bein' Deliver by Thriller, sicker than heeler.

Me, Thirty-seven

    “Mom, where are we going?”

     I am in the plane heading to Paris, France. Korea, who has been requesting France incessantly to give back the Jikji, requested again one week ago. France had ignored those numerous requests, and this time Korea is formally sending an envoy to take care about the problem. I am one member of the envoy as a diplomat. The visit will be about a week long, and my little six-year-old son is sitting beside me.

     “Paris, son.”

     The plane had just taken off, and my son was being impatient. His name is Jin Kim, and he was adopted right after birth. I was not married, and my mom greatly opposed me adopting him because kid without being married will be just a burden in my life. However since I didn’t want to marry, I adopted Jin. Now my mom takes care about him even more than I do. He thinks I am his biological mother, and I am planning to tell him soon, because I think he may get shocked if he knows the truth suddenly. I adopted him maybe because I was just lonely, travelling around the world alone as a diplomat.

     This visit to France would be my fifth visit, two times for trip-one with my boyfriend, one alone-two times for official visits as a diplomat, and this time a member of the president’s envoy. Paris is such a beautiful place: not only because of the beautiful sights, museums, streets but also because of the dream I have had as a girl. When I was young I always wanted to go to Paris, and that memory still makes me excited every time I go there.

     I looked out the window. Lights were like small dots up the sky: it is my favorite sight. The no-electronic devices lights went off, so I took out the laptop from my bag. Jin is sleeping. On the screen I had contracts and texts I had to see. They were all about Soniafe. It’s a café that I will open in Korea, maybe next year. I have always been dreaming to start my own business, and also I have been dreaming about having my own café, so I decided to start my own café as a business. For the first five to six years as a diplomat I was in Africa and South America, and there I got to know many good coffee and chocolate farms. I visited there repeatedly, and the farmers there became friendly with me. When I first started to prepare for this company-café, my friend from high school told me she will help me. The contracts were mostly about the business between me and the farmers, but one of them was about me and her. My friend, a lawyer, would help me with the legal processes I have to take in order to establish a company, and also she would help me manage the café when I am in overseas.

     I reviewed the contracts, wrote some things that I wanted to modify, and saved them in my laptop. I will send them as soon as I reach Korea. I opened the folder about the Jikji and started reviewing. This time, France will have to give the treasure back. 

     It is jet black outside the window: my clock shows eleven o’ clock Korean time. The plane is on its way.

     *Jikji: short for Jikjisimchaeyojul, which is the oldest book printed in bronze type. It is essential evidence that Korea was the first country to invent the bronze type, not Gutenberg like most people know. It was invented in Korea long before Gutenberg. France took the book during Byeonginyangyo, the aggressive war-or just an invasion-of France in Korea in 1866.