CHAPTER 1
January 1, 2004
My Age—63
Returning to my apartment around 8:25 p.m. ...
Nearly twenty hours ago, the New Year was announced as a hugeball dropped in Times Square. Gathered people on the streetsang "Auld Lang Syne" and shouted "Happy New Year!"
I think Times Square's New Year's Eve festivities are worthexperiencing once, with people pushing, pulling, and millingaround. After that, it is wiser to watch it on television. I had dinner atKumkangsan Restaurant and then returned to my studio apartmentand turned on the television.
On January 1 every year, Public Broadcasting Service TV'sannual event was a program of Johann Strauss waltzes, performed bythe Vienna Philharmonic as many handsome and beautiful dancerswaltzed to the performance. It was narrated by Walter Cronkite.
I've felt close to Mr. Cronkite since he calmly announcedon television the news of President John F. Kennedy's shockingassassination on November 22, 1963, when I was in Hawaii.
The conductor on the PBS program was Maestro Muti. I saw himconduct his Detroit symphony, as a house conductor at a Renaissancearea, when I was in Detroit in 1972. I also may have seen him as aguest conductor at Carnegie Hall or Avery Fisher Hall with the NewYork Philharmonic. Elegant waltzing makes women proud to beborn a woman. I enjoyed waltzing when I was younger.
On the other hand, the tango is like expressing nonverbal fightingand hiding a man and woman's passion. When doing the tango, thereis a half-lying pose on the dance floor—it made me feel as if I wasin bed with a stranger! So I avoided the tango—although my storychanged delightfully when La Kumparsita was played.
Nowadays, I am very thankful that I didn't fall or trip over stonesor grass roots.
Oh, Vienna! Beautiful Vienna! I was sightseeing there in the1980s. A long time ago, when the Roman Empire was expanding,Roman soldiers from the warm and balmy south were advancingto the cold north. Those soldiers remembered their hometown'sfragrant and aromatic wine drinking, so they planted grapevinessent from Rome. From that time on, they knew the place as Vienna,which meant the place where wine trees grow.
Political power also has changed through history. The Hapsburgsroyal family had political power. They became friendly withGermany, the German language became their national language, andAustria started to expand. When Princess Maria Theresa wanted toascend to the throne, Austrian nobles rejected her by saying, "Austrianever had a queen in her history," but Maria Theresa liaisoned withHungarian nobles. "If you make me a queen," she told them, "I willgo through political procedures to make my crown prince the kingof Hungary first and then an emperor of Austria." Nobles of Hungaryhappily agreed. Maria Theresa became an empress and ruled theunited Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Empress Maria Theresa had sixteen children—princes andprincesses—and one of the princesses, Marie Antoinette, marriedFrance's King Louis XVI but later became a tragic heroine andguillotine victim during the French Revolution. During MarieAntoinette's princess time in Austria, she would come out througha door in the wall via the royal family's secret path in the gold-gildedwinter palace in Vienna to the reception room.
Once, the great boy musician Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wasin the reception room, and he fell down. Princess Marie Antoinetteassisted him to his feet, and Mozart was always thankful to her. AfterMozart's sudden death, his wife, Constanza, remarried a baron, andhe heard about this genius musician's story through his wife. Hewas so impressed that he began to buy back Mozart's works, one byone—they had been sold for a cheap price to pay living expenses.
So many of Vienna's historic and legendary stories center onEmpress Maria Theresa and have spread by word of mouth. Inaddition, the empress's statues are still standing in a few places.
At one restaurant in Vienna, I was eating an American-style beefsteak. One of the violin players came to my table, and I requested thathe play the Blue Danube waltz. I'd walked the banks of the DanubeRiver, walked Vienna's wood path, and saw the famous Vienna OperaHouse. Since Mozart's time, the Viennese have been proud of theopera house, as they are the most opera-loving people. During WorldWar II, they were bombarded, and their only enjoyment was to hangaround the opera house. That alone would cause them to be thankfuland satisfied, even though they couldn't get tickets when the war wasover and opera was performed.
Our tour guide told me that they were so thankful to theAmericans after the war that, as a token of their appreciation,they gave the United States a special product of Austria—a crystalsnowflake-shaped chandelier and candle sconces for the New YorkCity Metropolitan Opera House. The tour guide asked me whetherI'd seen them. I told her that I thanked the Austrian who gave suchbeautiful chandeliers and that I enjoyed those chandeliers whenever Iwent to the Metropolitan Opera House. I said I also enjoyed Mozart'soperas, such as Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, and The Marriageof Figaro, under those chandeliers. As soon as she heard that, webecame friends at once.
Vienna's dark eastern wall belonged to a Communist country.From Vienna Airport, people can go to Warsaw or Belgrade—easternCommunist countries. I also remembered one sad story ofSouth Korea's beautiful actress Miss Yoon Junghee, who was living inFrance when someone kidnapped her to Belgrade, and she sufferedunnecessary hardship and returned to France. Austria paid theRussian authorities a lot of money and goods every year, but Austriathought it was better to pay than to have Russian troops come.
The Austrian national religion is Roman Catholic, and they still doa Latin mass. I just joined because I was familiar with the Latin mass;it was as if I came home, because South Korean Roman Catholics useda Latin mass until a Korean mass was permitted. Johann Strauss'swaltzes were played at any time and any place in Austria. I onceheard South Korea's famous violinist Miss Jung Kyungwha playingRichardo Strauss's "Alps Symphony." I was sitting in the front row atthe New York Philharmonic's Avery Fisher Hall in New York City. Iheard the Vienna Boys Choir at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City. Isaw a waltz-dancing white Lipizzaner stallion at Belmont Race Park inLong Island on the first weekend in June, racing for the triple crown.He was elegant and majestic, with two of his front legs in the air, andhis rider on his back was very attractive as he saluted the crowd.
The Vienna Winter Palace had some two thousand servants atthe time of Empress Maria Theresa. If you go to European palacesfor sightseeing, you'll notice there are no visible bathrooms forkings or other royalty. Queens and high-ranking ladies went to thepowder room to touch up their makeup or straighten their dresses.They sat on the commode like a butterfly when lifting up their full-circlelong skirts slightly. They would do their personal business,and then servants or ladies-in-waiting would come and move outthe commode. Therefore, you don't see bathrooms in palaces. Inone corner at the Vienna Winter Palace, there is a glass-covereddisplay box of Napoleon II, son of France's Emperor Napoleon I andhis Austrian-born queen Marie. After Napoleon I was defeated inwar, he was sent to exile on the isle of Elba. Empress Marie returnedto Austria with her son, Prince Napoleon, and was remarried to acommoner. After Prince Napoleon died of tuberculosis, Austria'sand France's diplomatic relations became normal, and then Austriareturned to France their Prince Napoleon's skeletal remains but kepthis heart in a glass display box in the corner of the Vienna WinterPalace. It reminded me of American pop singer Tony Bennett's song"I Left My Heart in San Francisco."
Handily talented Austrian women are always knitting orembroidering. I bought a set consisting of a necklace, earrings, anda bracelet that was a crisscrossed embroidery of roses. Austria's mostdreaded foreign adversary was Turkey. A long time ago, the TurkishOttoman Empire was in power. They invaded Austria and beheadedresisting Austrians on the spot. After that, Austrians determinedthat the cruelest human beings were Turkish. Because of that, theytreated Turkey as an Asian country.
And certain people blame Austria for Adolf Hitler's going toGermany to become a political dictator and causing World War II,because originally, Hitler wanted to become a painter, but Austriansdid not praise Hitler's painting skills or guide him as a futurepromising painter. He gave up the idea of being a painter and decidedto become a new professional politician in Germany.
I went to the outskirts of Vienna and heard sad stories of thosewho were poor, unhappy, and suffered from hardship, includingthe sudden death of composer Franz Schubert who composed the"Unfinished Symphony" and numerous songs.
I went to Salzburg, which was the hometown of WolfgangAmadeus Mozart and visited his home. Whenever moving fromroom to room, I had to bow down or lower my head because duringMozart's time, people were smaller and shorter, so the door frameswere lower.
German composer Ludwig Beethoven boarded in Salzburg fora while. He was touchy and nasty, so he moved around from oneboarding house to another, more than six times in a year. The movieThe Sound of Music was filmed at a real baron's mansion. Sightseerscould not go inside, but their buses circled around the mansionto show them the clear lake where swans floated. This also wasthe setting in the film where the baron's eldest daughter and herboyfriend sang "Sixteen, Going on Seventeen" as they danced at theoctagon gazebo. Up the hillside was the nunnery where governessMaria came from in the movie.
After Salzburg and Vienna, I then went to Mayerling. The movieMayerling starred Omar Sharif as Crown Prince Rudolph of Austriaand Catherine Deneuve as Baroness Mary Versera. The film toldthe true story of their apparent murder-suicide at a hunting lodgein Mayerling—he shot her in the head and then shot himself. Thistragedy occurred in the Mayerling woods.
Imperial Hapsburg family's tragedies continued. PrinceMaximilian became the Mexican emperor, and Mexicanrevolutionary forces shot him to death. Archduke Ferdinand wasassassinated by a young Serbian, which caused World War I—oh,tragedy, tragedy.
As of this writing, I will be age sixty-three in July. I am stillunmarried. I have lived in this studio apartment for the past thirtyyears. The only time my studio apartment looks big is when I'mcleaning it. When I get older and go to a nursing home, they will giveme a smaller room than my studio apartment. I have no complaintsor dissatisfaction about my studio apartment. Actually, my childhoodwish was to live alone in a small house for a long time, and my wishcame true.
In my childhood, my mother had a few houses here and there.All my family was scattered and lived in big houses. Housekeepersand workers might have liked it, but ours was not a close-knit familylife. So my child mind's wish was that when I grew up, I would livewith the whole family in one house, together. But now, at over agesixty, I have no family and live alone in a small apartment.
In 1973, I started to work at a Queens, New York City, hospital,five blocks away from a new condominium building that was beingconstructed. My thoughts at that time were that I did not know howlong I would live in New York, so I purchased my studio apartment,which was within ten minutes' walking distance of my working placeand had twenty-four-hour security services. I could have a parkingspace allotted to me if I owned my car, and each floor had a laundryroom, garbage-chute room, and mail-drop box. On the first floor,there were barbecue grills, a sauna room, an exercise room equippedwith exercising machines, a children's playground, and a children'soutdoor swimming pool as well as adult swimming pool. My studioapartment is convenient, safe, and comfortable for me. Since I livein studio apartment without a car, my pocket money is more thanenough.
In 1997, I retired early at age fifty-six, getting my pension andSocial Security retirement benefits at age sixty-two. Short of money,I spent my savings and maintained my living level as it was before myretirement. Next to me, my blond-orange boy cat, Morris, is sleepingand snoring. My girl black cat, Blackie, is rubbing my leg with herhead. Her tail is wrapped around my leg, which is her signal to hugher. "All right, Blackie, I will hug you. Let's waltz together," I tell her. Ihug her to my chest. I am going to drink cocoa when the water boils.Oh, marriage—ha-ha. Why didn't I marry yet?
I did not forget....
I always believed that I could marry anytime that I felt like it.Someone always proposed at least once a year. So I was not bored,but then, for the first time, in 2003 nobody proposed marriage to me.Perhaps I was showing my gray hairs and wrinkles, which made melook so old, like a grandmother look-alike, but my mind is alwaysyoung and energetic.
In 2002, when I was sixty-one, I received my last proposal ofmarriage. It was from my neighbor, John, who was in his seventiesand grandfather-like. We spoke occasionally over the past twentyyears, and in 2001, he told me his wife had died of kidney failure.After a one-year mourning period, he proposed marriage to me.
"Ms. Kim, I want you marry me," he said. "I have my own house andhave more than $500,000, so you don't have to worry about money."
Wait a minute, I thought. Grandfather John has less than myassets. I don't want to marry a man who has less than me. At my age,we don't love as in Romeo and Juliet; we marry for convenienceand as the situation dictates. If we married in old age, I could notlose my assets. In the current economic condition, I expected mysuitor to have more than two million dollars, at least. One milliondollars would be for him; the other million would be for us to spendtogether. Then it would be possible to protect my assets. So I saidto him, "John, thank you for proposing to me. I've always lived bymyself, freely. I cannot change my living style at my age!"
Truly, I am sure that I am an expert at refusing marriageproposals. My unmarried status proves it! I always assume I willget married. Someday, at least once, I will get married. It comfortsmy mind and helps me to maintain a young mind, and it also givescomfort to those marriage-asking persons.
On television, they are waltzing again. I can see closely, as I'mwearing my new eyeglasses. Every new year, I give new eyeglasses tomyself, alternating between a gold frame and silver frame. This year,my gold-framed eyeglasses cost $571. I don't care for laser correctionor contact lenses. I wear eyeglasses because they also act as a shieldto prevent dust from getting into my eyes.
Because I like to eat sweets, I get a lot of cavities. When I hadtwenty-third dental cavity, my dentist said that he could not drillor repair it anymore. Eight of my molars were covered with goldcrowns. I regretted that I did not take better care of my teeth. Myremaining hope is that I will not have to get dentures. Good teethare a blessing, but I am on an eating spree. So I abused my teeth andneglected to take care of them properly.
Today's temperature was about 40 degrees F (in January). I worea white wool coat. Usually when it's below 39 degrees F, I wear a bluefox jacket and blue fox ear covers; when it's below 29 degrees F, I weara blue fox long coat and blue fox hat. I wear a long white mink coatwhen someone comes to pick me up.
A few days ago, when I returned from seeing the Broadwaymusical The Producers, I talked to Jenny, my friend for the last thirtyyears. I said when summer comes, after work, I want her to take meto Jones Beach, to walk on the sand, get a suntan, and swim. I liketo swim in salty ocean water rather than swimming in a swimmingpool. I used to live near the seashore when I was in Korea-Pusan,Jinhae, Masan.
