영어소설 (넌픽션) 시리즈: 이야기 1/5
영어소설 (넌픽션) 시리즈: 이야기 1/5
안녕하세요, 독자 여러분:
101번째 "내가 배운 뉴욕영어"시리즈부터는 영문소설을 게재하려고 합니다. 물론 제 이야기들이지요. 사실 이 이야기들은 브런치 초기부터 한국어로 올렸던 이야기들이고, 이들을 영어로 다시 써서 올립니다.
첫번째 이야기는 "뉴욕, 첫 키스"라는 제목으로 올렸던 것들로, 총 5회입니다. 영어 version 의 제목은 "At 782 Lexington Avenue"로 만들었습니다. 번역프로그램을 쓰지 않고 한 작업이라 시간이 들긴 했네요.
바로 아래 링크는 브런치에 올렸던 한국어 version 이고, 그 아래 Youtube 영상은 제 Youtube 에 올린 영어 voice 영상입니다. 한국어나 영어나 이들 이야기들을 통해 제가 느끼는 감정은 같은데, 여러분들은 어떤 느낌이 드실지 궁금하네요. 한국어와 영어를 비교하시면서 듣고 읽으셔도 좋겠습니다.
Anyhoo, enjoy!
https://brunch.co.kr/@acacia1972/52
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu_FxGACKAk&t=19s
I remember the cover photo of the album “Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits,” a collection of their most famous songs released between 1964 and 1969. The first time I encountered this duo’s music, including that album, was in the winter of 1988. It was in the form of a gift that was just an ordinary cassette tape. The person who gave me that gift said to me:
“It’s really nothing, but I hope you like the songs on this cassette tape, because they’re my favorites.”
It was Holly, a 26-year-old lady who was ten years older than me at the time, who gave me the cassette tape — the music that didn’t really fit my age or generation — as a Christmas present, whispering to me in my ear. I still love their songs, which were hugely popular with people a generation or two older than mine. I think the reason is that my memories of Holly are inseparable from those songs.
Holly was Caucasian of Scottish descent, and she was beautiful. I remember the very first time I saw her, because I was completely, utterly frozen by her appearance. She was of such bright nature, too. Looking back now, those brief memories with her were truly a happy time. More than anything, she represents my first kiss, experienced not against the magnificent backdrop of New York but on the near-empty streetside on Lexington Avenue, and also remains a memory tinged with great sadness that suddenly arrived just eight years later. I want to write down the story of her, reviving those past memories.
I first met Holly at the pen shop — called Joon’s — my uncle ran. Going back a bit further, my first experience of Manhattan was in the early 1980s. I arrived in America after a 16-hour flight on Korean Air, connecting Seoul and New York City through Anchorage. I spent my first day in America at a hotel in Manhattan. I was 12 years old then, and as soon as I entered school, new and joyful days opened up for me.
Despite the language barrier during the first year in the States, and since I was really young I began communicating effortlessly in both English and Korean around 1986, which was about two years after I started living in New York City. While there were no language issues in my daily life with friends or living in the suburbs, I first encountered truly sophisticated New York English in the winter of 1988. It was when I started working part-time during the winter at the pen shop on Manhattan’s East Side, run by my uncle who had immigrated quite early for a Korean, back in the 1960s, and had settled long ago. He told me that experiencing the City of New York in advance would be very helpful for my future, and he even paid me a decent weekly wage to do this job I wasn’t particularly keen on at the time. My memories of Manhattan, which began that way, remain vivid enough to recall even now.
My first day of work was during winter break. Commuting to and from Manhattan on the New York Subway at the young age of sixteen was truly a great fortune for me. After that, every morning I’d hold a bagel in my hand, walk down Lexington Avenue sipping coffee bought at a street-side cafe, though I was still young, and at lunchtime, I’d enjoy two slices and a Diet Coke at Ray’s Pizza on 62nd Street — one of New York’s famous spots — watching the countless people rushing by… And right there, next to Bloomingdale’s — known as New York’s one of most upscale department stores, frequented by such elegant gentlemen and ladies — was my uncle’s shop. It was also the place where I had a five-minute, one-on-one conversation, face-to-face, with Brooke Shields, though I didn’t recognize her at the time.
Holly was an employee at my uncle’s pen store, but I remember not noticing her at all when I first saw her. On her first day of work, as I walked into the store, I saw my uncle was standing next to the register, and beside him was a beautiful white woman with short blonde hair, the kind you’d see in movies, smiling and chatting with him. It was America, where seeing white people on the streets or at school was nothing unusual, but I had never seen someone with such striking looks and a smile like hers before. So, I simply thought she was a customer there to buy an expensive pen. Within minutes, I learned she had already been working there for a year and was pursuing a master’s degree at Columbia University, not far from there.
Holly, with her bright smile, brown eyes, short golden hair, and tall stature, left such a strong first impression on me. Whether I’m in America or Korea, whenever winter comes, the memories of that time inevitably surface in my mind. That winter of 1988 held such great significance for me that I feel like the first button of my life in America — no, my New York Life — was actually fastened there.
- Continues on the next post