FICTION

Posture of Apology

By Lim Hyeon translated by Yaerim Gen Kwon     VOLUME 58 No. 4

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I

My father owned an electronics shop for years and walked with a limp. You see, he had an accident during his military service, which left him a war invalid. Afterward, he learned some technical skills to make a living and worked all day sitting down, but he made sure to collect every benefit available for people with disabilities. Once, we took the train together, and we must have purchased standing tickets because we kept having to move, looking for empty seats. We weren’t on vacation but traveling to a distant cousin’s funeral. I remember how embarrassed I had been at my father’s behavior. He’d sit in someone else’s seat and act clueless until we were asked to move. That’s why each time we neared a station and the train stopped, I lingered in the hallway or ducked into the bathroom. He got mad and said I was too fidgety. I hated that he was short but had a loud voice. And that he lit a cigarette as soon as we stepped onto the platform. I could see the discomfort on people’s faces, but he didn’t care. Through this, I came to understand what kind of person he was.

It might have been better if he’d kept being rude. But whenever someone confronted him, he’d get visibly flustered and hold his cigarette awkwardly, unsure whether to put it out or finish it. He didn’t even apologize or ask for their patience. Instead, he fumbled through his wallet and held something out. For a long time, whenever I thought of my father, I recalled that memory, and it made me uncomfortable. I was angry, ashamed, and somewhat sad. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what I felt. Why did he have to reveal it at that moment? Why the disability card? What did he expect? Maybe he believed that card excused small transgressions—with a card like that, you’d be forgiven, or having it somehow explained why you did certain things.

I didn’t want to live like that. I didn’t want to be so shameless. Not because I’m a kinder person. I just knew something my father didn’t. That it’s better, more advantageous to live otherwise than to live like him. Every altruistic act hides a selfish motive. When someone gives you a gift, they expect a return one day. A compliment improves your reputation and lays the groundwork for a brighter future. See? Acts that seem like losses right now pay off later. It’s an investment, not a loss. A transaction, not a gift.



In almost fifteen years of teaching, I’ve emphasized this to my students every year on the first day of class. Follow the rules that are in place. It’s more beneficial for you to do so. What are you thinking? Maybe you’d like to challenge me. You want to give a different example and prove me wrong. Okay, fine. Good. That’s a good attitude to have. Hold on to your doubts. Ultimately, that’s what I’m trying to say. People are inherently selfish, and therefore, they need to keep trying. They need to reflect on their actions and seek penance. Without that awareness, you live as you were born. But people don’t know how bad that is. They don’t know how selfish they are; they think they’re always standing for the good. Surely you’ve heard it before. Tenants complaining over a redevelopment deal or neighbors rallying against the construction of a local disability center? No? You haven’t? Are you not interested in such people and their problems? There you go. That’s a perfect example. Why aren’t you interested in other people’s misfortune? See, that’s how selfish you are.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying this to scold you. I’m no different from you. One time, a parent called me early in the morning. Her son had an accident, and his condition was critical. I consoled her, but at one point my mind drifted to the upcoming midterm. Why did it have to be the student council president who got hurt, out of all people? He had the highest grades in my homeroom class. What a waste. How much would my class average drop? The teacher next door and I had a bet on which class would get better grades on the midterm. It was such good news for him. I wasn’t not concerned about the kid, but that was the thought that kept me awake after the call. What did you say? I’m disgusting? You still don’t get it, do you? Humans, from the very start, are selfish. That’s what I’m telling you.



II

Once, someone disagreed with what I said. I taught ethics back then too, and around that time, I was hired to teach for the first time at a public girls’ high school. The student who spoke up came from a wealthy family and knew pretty much nothing. She said she volunteered at a center for disabled people with her parents every month and gave the charity a certain amount of money each year. The previous week, she’d handed all her pocket money to an old beggar in the subway. But she did it out of the goodness of her heart, not for anything in return, and she said, “Don’t we all have a bit of that in us?” Far from being hostile, she delved into the heart of the matter by revealing the type of ignorance that kind people have. There’s a disturbing certainty in their conviction that they alone are in the right.

I was an ambitious young teacher at the time, but I lacked experience. I didn’t know how to talk about things that could be taken the wrong way. How to explain that in this world there’s no such thing as real charity, and if losing the money she’d given to the beggar had any impact on her well-being, she wouldn’t have been as generous. It doesn’t mean that volunteer work or acts of charity are inherently bad—in fact, they are noble things—but the point is that at the end of the day, they all serve to satisfy the person who’s doing them. Of course, if that were to happen today, I would’ve handled it more deftly, with some humor and a simple example.

“You think you’re so fucking great.” This came from the student sitting next to the rich girl, who looked bored the whole time. Someone laughed, then others joined. Quickly, I reframed what the rich girl had said as self-satisfaction—feeling content with one’s own behavior, the sense of superiority gained by extending generosity toward others.

“What, it’s like masturbating?” Once again, the student’s comment made the others laugh. But most of all, it ridiculed the rich girl who’d asked the question and her parents too. The girl blushed; it was obvious she felt flustered.



The student’s name was Yeon-ju—the rude girl who disrupted my class. I called her into my office and tried to scold her. All I managed was to tell her not to say things like that. At the time, I was inexperienced in every aspect, and even that felt difficult to do. I couldn’t exert any authority. Yeon-ju slouched before me and kept looking around with an awfully bored face, as if she hadn’t done anything wrong. What on earth made her so proud? Did I have to spell out the problem step by step? Even then, would this child understand me? Because of these thoughts, I almost felt more intimidated. How can I put it: I thought she was looking down on me. Like she knew I was a young teacher who’d just been hired. An idiot who thought he was cool as fuck.

Yeon-ju interrupted my thoughts. “Hey, can I go now?”

She didn’t even try to stifle her yawn and mumbled something to herself that sounded like exhausting, or exhausted, which one was it? What was so exhausting? Was the subject of exhaustion Yeon-ju? As in, Yeon-ju was exhausted? Or did she mean I was exhausting? Either way, it didn’t feel great. Whatever it was, she shouldn’t have said it in front of me.

You see, I despise people who are rude. I’m sick of that carelessness, that refusal to restrain oneself and behave properly, or adults who declare they don’t want to grow up, as if that’s something to be proud of. They do whatever they please and excuse themselves wherever they go. Point out their flaws, and they won’t repent; worse, they’ll mock anyone who corrects them, dismissing them as condescending old men or whining about how old-fashioned everyone else is. Meanwhile, holding on to a moral compass is really tiresome. You have to rein in your desires and watch over your behavior. Hide your selfish nature, cooperate for the community’s sake, and bear the consequences if you fail. People who can’t even meet those basic obligations—you’re better off without them. They cannot be persuaded by any means. They almost never admit their mistakes. Hey, she’d said. Hey? If I asked why she was addressing me like a server in a restaurant, she would only get defensive and snap back, accusing me of belittling restaurant workers.

So instead, I said: “Sorry for bothering you when you’re so busy.”

See what I was doing?

What do you think I was sorry for? Do you think I was actually apologizing?

No need to think too hard. It’s just a phrase, nothing more. I said it to show her that, unlike her, I’m not rude. I said it to prove that I was someone who could apologize, who observed the basic principles. That was the more noble act. It didn’t matter if I’d done anything wrong, or whether I felt remorse. The point was whether I could say the words. That’s what matters most. Hypocritical, you say? I don’t believe in authenticity, in so-called truthful words. How would you even measure that? By what standard? What truly counts is the angle of the bow, the posture of kneeling. I am beating you to teach you a lesson because I love you—nonsense. Look, there is no such love. What’s the use of appeals to feeling? Expressions like that are empty platitudes, a script everyone knows. When you’ve done something wrong, what’s required is to kneel for as long as it takes, to lay yourself down in prostration. That’s what matters. It is, in a sense, an obligation and a stance of accountability. I did it out of love. I hit my wife and destroyed my family because I love them. No. If you wanted to prove your love, you shouldn’t have done it in the first place. How is that any different from excuses like I was also whipped as a kid, or It’s because I was raised by abusive parents? Between those excuses, which one sounds truer? Answer me.

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YAERIM GEN KWON is a fiction writer and literary translator from Seoul, South Korea. Her work has appeared in Cream City Review, Reed Magazine, Al Jazeera, and elsewhere, and has been supported by the Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference, the American Literary Translators Association, the New York State Summer Writers Institute, and the Indiana University Writers’ Conference. She is a PhD candidate in creative writing at the University of Illinois Chicago and holds an MFA from Indiana University Bloomington, where she served as editor-in-chief of Indiana Review. She is currently at work on her first novel, 29, and her first full-length translation of a novel by Lee Seung-u.

LIM HYEON was born in 1983 in Suncheon, South Korea. He made his literary debut in 2014 by winning the Hyundae Munhak New Writer’s Contest. In 2017, he received the Munhakdongne Young Writer’s Award for his story “Posture of Apology” and was recognized again the following year for “Their Interests.” His work includes two story collections, a novel, and contributions to multiple anthologies. He currently teaches novel writing at the Seoul Institute of the Arts.


VOLUME 58 No. 4