Weekly Reader: Coin For A Dream: Stories from My Early Childhood; Mae Adams Presents The Lighter, Sweeter, More Fanciful Side of Korean Life

 

Weekly Reader: Coin For A Dream: Stories from My Early Childhood; Mae Adams Presents The Lighter, Sweeter, More Fanciful Side of Korean Life

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Mae Adams's previous book, Precious Silver Chopsticks: A True Story of a Korean Noble Family, is a beautiful and tragic book about the life of Adams's family including her childhood and youth, covering the years before, during, and after World War II and the Korean War. Adams wrote about many grim topics including her abuse at the hands of her mother, her father's early death, the suffering and poverty that her family endured during the two wars, her troubled second marriage, her eventual escape from her family to America, and her happy third marriage to Hewitt Dayne Adams. 

It is a wonderful, but heartbreaking book.

For her follow up, Coin For A Dream: Stories from My Early Childhood, Adams takes a lighter and more fantastic approach. It's different from her previous book, but just as good.

 Instead of one full chronological story, Adams selected twenty stories from her childhood and Korean legends that cover various incidents in her life. The stories are humorous, clever, sweet, and enjoyable to read. They remind Adams's Readers, that her life didn't just begin and end with child abuse and war. Sometimes, she had happy memories filled with odd situations, jokes, heartwarming moments, and laughter.

Some of her stories are integrated with Korean myths and legends. The legends are magical and beautiful, and they also sometimes serve as commentary for the incidents in Adams's life. For Readers who are familiar with Korean legends, this book will serve as a reminder of these tales. For those who aren't familiar with such stories, this book gives them an introduction to Korean mythology.

The stories are all good, but the best are:

"Monks' Minds Are Flapping"-Many people from different cultures and countries love to poke fun at authority figures, including religious figures. Many Korean legends and jokes tease Buddhist monks. Some of these jokes stem from stereotypes of monks being lecherous, pompous, and not following their religious calling.

Adams candidly revealed that many monks appeared at her herbalist grandfather's door to beg for food or donations. She became familiar with their daily habits, such as eating soybeans.

Soybeans are a basic diet staple for protein in Korea. Monks and lower class people eat them for health, but they produce some embarrassing, um, gassy side effects. Adams's description of a temple of monks in prayer making their discomforts known is hilarious and pokes a few holes in the image of Buddhist monks in silent repose. Thanks to their consumption of soybeans, their repose is anything but silent.

Adams also recounted a few short anecdotes about monks's fobiles. One story involves a lecherous monk impersonating Buddha to a beautiful, but naive young woman who prayed to marry a wealthy governor. The monk told the woman to hide in a box while he carried the box to his temple. On the way, he stopped and put down the box to hide the woman from an upcoming procession led by, of course, the governor. The governor led the woman out of the box and told his men to put a live tiger inside the box. The monk was unaware of the switch, so he took the box to his temple. He opened the box to an angry tiger who bit him.

Another anecdote is about a head-monk telling two young postulants a story about four monks who constantly argued and boasted about everything, including about the size of their temples. One claimed that his temple is so big that visitors had to ride a horse for a day before they can reach the end. The head-monk, who told the story, inquired whose temple was the biggest.

While pondering the answer, the two postulants saw the prayer flag flying outside their window. One said that the flag flapped in the wind, while the other insists that the wind flapped the flag. The head-monk's answer and the postulants's realization reveals that sometimes an answer is a matter of perspective and for people to not be so prideful and full of themselves that they can't listen. Otherwise, they are just blowing wind.

"Blood Red Serpent Flowers"-The South Korean countryside is filled with beautiful flowers. Adams and her grandmother loved to share stories about the flowers, particularly the Rose of Sharon and the crepe myrtle.

The Rose of Sharon is the national flower of South Korea. It is also known as the "everlasting flower" and "eternal flower." When Korea was under Japanese occupation, Adams's uncle, Little-Pa, taught her a song that he sang when he was a member of the Secret Korean Independence Movement Organization. The song included a lovely lyric: "Arise beautiful tenacious people/To witness the winter's passage/The rain has washed the dust away/The eternal flowers are now blooming/For the season of spring has come." The passionate lyrics reveal how much the Rose of Sharon means to the Korean people. It is a symbol of beauty, independence, and immortality.

Another important flower is the crepe myrtle. Like many flowers, a myth is connected to how the crepe myrtle came to be. Two lovers, Duk and Gaye were promised to be married. However, Gaye was chosen to be sacrificed to a three-headed serpent that attacked their village. Duk and a group of men intended to fight the serpent. Duk promised his fiancee that his ship would fly a white flag if he was successful and a red flag if he failed. They fought the serpent and won. Unfortunately, the flag was smeared with the serpent's blood. When Gaye saw what she believed to be the red flag, she killed herself. At the woman's graveside, a bush of red flowers grew for one hundred days. The crepe myrtles are known as the "hundred days flowers" and the "blood red serpent flowers." While the myth of Duk and Gaye is sad, Adams's grandmother reminded her that the story revealed the passionate love between two people and that Gaye's death resulted in a beautiful flower that returns every year as a testament of their love.

"Ginseng Boys"-Since Adams's grandfather was an herbalist, he taught her about the various herbs and how they treated ailments. Ginseng was used to heal many things and was also cooked in stew or ate fresh or dipped in honey. Because of ginseng's omnipresence, many stories and legends were told of the plant. The stories often are about creatures that are made of ginseng. These creatures are similar to fairies, elves, and other such creatures, because they are considered quite powerful and mysterious.

The Ginseng Boy Tales were told by Adams, her grandfather, and two friends. In one story, a young boy befriended a young boy with leaves on his head and hair on his legs. His greedy parents realized that their son played with a ginseng boy. They invited the ginseng boy to their house and attempted to trap him inside a cauldron. They intended to eat the ginseng leaves and become young again. While the parents argued, the boy let his friend out of the cauldron and they disappeared into the woods.

Another story concerned a couple who lived with their young son and their grandfather. Their grandfather fell ill. The couple dreamt that an old man with a long silver beard told them to cure their grandfather, they had to kill their son and make a soup out of him. Grief stricken, but longing to save their elderly relative, they did as they were told. While grieving the loss of their son, they heard a familiar voice behind them. They turned around and saw their son, alive and well. They lifted the cauldron and saw the remains of a ginseng boy. They served that in a soup to the grandfather.

Like many fairy tales and legends, the Ginseng Boy Tales give nature human elements and investigate the possibility that there might be creatures that exist beyond the realm of our understanding. These creatures protect nature and allow people to use it, provided they treat the natural world with respect.

"My Dragon Lady"-As mentioned in my review for Precious Silver Chopsticks, Adams's grandmother, Go Jaesoon was a positive influence on her young life. She raised Adams when her mother could not and treated her like a daughter. As the family fled the Japanese soldiers after WWII, Jaesoon distracted them and poisoned several soldiers before committing suicide. 

This chapter provides more information about the woman whom Adams referred to as "(her) dragon lady."

Jaesoon was a feisty strong willed woman who fled an unhappy marriage to a wealthy psychopath on their wedding night. She traveled to a far away village where she became a sea diver. She eventually left that occupation and contemplated becoming a Buddhist nun.

Meanwhile Adams's grandfather, Yum Hyung Kee, was a widower with three small children. He dreamt that a voice told him to go east to a Buddhist temple. When he arrived at the temple, he saw Jaesoon. He was shy about courting her (since all of his three marriages were arranged), so he told her about his dream. Jaesoon laughed at him.

Embarrassed Hyung Kee lost his footing and fell into a nearby pond. He wetted his cool face by dunking his head under water, but Jaesoon believed that he was drowning so she dove in and rescued him. Hyung Kee informed her that it was her destiny to go with him, so she agreed. Later, Jaesoon confessed to her granddaughter that she later learned that Hyung Kee was a champion swimmer. Despite the mistake and unintentional deception, the two later married and had a long happy marriage.

Jaesoon's early years showed her as a plain spoken strong willed independent woman who cared for her young daughter. She was a woman who her family knew would give her life to protect the people that she loved.

"Coin For A Dream"-Besides her grandmother, Adams had another role model, one from history: Queen Seondeok of the Silla Kingdom in Korea. Seondeok was the younger of two sisters, daughters of King Jinpeoyng. Even though they weren't sons, the people of the kingdom loved and respected them. 

Seondeok was known for her outdoor activities such as hunting, shooting bows and arrows, and chasing down thieves. She was also pretty clever. One example of her cleverness occurred after her sister suffered a bad dream. Seondeok offered to buy her dream for a single coin. Jinpeoyng was impressed by her courage, protectiveness of her sister, and was concerned that the meaning behind the dream interpreted that the older daughter would not make a good ruler. He appointed Seondeok as his successor.

Seondeok became a beloved queen. She sent officials to provide assistance to the poor and made Buddhism the official religion. She was fond of kite flying and encouraged people to celebrate the 

Lunar New Year by flying kites.

She had many legends about her such as a musician who constructed a flute in her honor. After he died, no one else could play the flute. 

She was also known for precognitive abilities. After she saw a band of white frogs croaking by the Jade Gate Pond, she then sent 2,000 soldiers to the Women's Root Valley. When asked about her accurate prediction, she revealed that the frogs symbolized soldiers, the color white symbolized the west, and the Jade Gate Pond represented female genitalia. 

She had many enemies, particularly those who didn't care for a female ruler. One, Kim Bidam took her illness as a means to revolt against her. Thanks largely to the efforts of General Kim Yushin, Seondeok's lover, Bidam's rebellion ended. After, Seondeok died, her successor had Bidam executed.

Seondeok's story was an inspiration for Adams with her cleverness, strength, and leadership ability. The influence of Jaesoon and Seondeok helped Adams grow into the woman that she would later become.

Classics Corner: The Elements of Style by William H. Strunk Jr.; The Definitive Writer's Guide

 

Classics Corner: The Elements of Style by William H. Strunk Jr.; The Definitive Writer's Guide

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews 

There are many good reasons why The Elements of Style is considered by many to be the definitive writer's guide and English grammar textbook to help Readers improve their writing ability. Those reasons are that it is helpful, simple to follow and break down, interactive, and is easily accessible and updated for modern readers.

The book breaks down into several sections to give the writer good advice how to improve their grammar usage. The first part includes elementary rules of usage for punctuation.

"A participal phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject," is one such example.

Instead of writing "On arriving in Chicago, he met his friends at the station," the proper usage should be "When he arrived in Chicago, his friends met him at the station" No

one knows whether the man or his friends arrived at the station in the original version.

The second part features elementary principles on composition. Readers can improve paragraphs and other sections in writing assignments. 

This Reader admits to making the mistake of using needless words in sentences. The book advises readers to omit them, so their writing will flow better and become understandable.

"I know a lot about this subject" is an easier and more understandable phrase than "That is a subject  in which I know a lot about." The words "that is" and " in which" are not necessary to describe the subject. They also put the phrase in passive voice, rather than active.

The third part is the shortest. It features suggestions on how to form numerals, parentheses, quotations, references, syllabication, and titles. A sentence with a parentheses should be treated as if the parentheses were absent. It should not have any capitalization or punctuation, unless it ends in a question mark or an exclamation point

"He declares (and why should we doubt his good faith?) that he is now certain of success" is an example.

The phrase in parentheses "and why should we doubt his good faith?" offers a different thought from the rest of the sentence. The speaker seems to doubt the other person's good faith, so the phrase in parentheses is questioning, almost sarcastic, about the other person's certainty of success.

The next part offers help for commonly misused words and expressions. These are some of the most common mistakes writers make. The "effect"/"affect" confusion is one.

Effect is a noun, meaning the result. Affect is the verb, meaning to influence" "The side effects for the medicine include:..." as compared to "The Impeachment trial affected the results of the election."

The noun effect has been misused as perfunctory writing about fashion, music, painting, and arts. Phrases like "very nice effects" are vague. 

The book includes a list of commonly misspelled words. The list includes words from "accidentally" to "villain." Even in this day and age, spell checker does not always work. Writers should double-check words for confusion such as "there," describing a place, "their" referring to plural possessive, and "they're," which is an abbreviation of they are.

Writers are also advised to improve their texting and emailing style in two parts. While texting style is informal, writers are still suggested to to treat the recipients like they are worthy of their time. This include using proper capitalization, punctuation, and capitalization. Other suggestions include planning text messages in advance so the sender isn't in an awkward place to send them and to use abbreviations sparingly.

Emails are usually more formal. They require more structure, especially in business settings. Emails should include salutations and signatures, and different subject heads. Don't use three questions in a row, because that's too intrusive. Also, email writers should choose a more personal situation to convert bad news. 

The book's modern readers can improve their texting and emailing abilities by following the advice.

The Elements of Style offers the best advice to help create better writers, personally and professionally.

Weekly Reader: Precious Silver Chopsticks: A True Story About A Korean Noble Family by Mae Adams; Beautiful and Tragic Memoirs of Adams' Life Growing Up in Mid-20th Century Korea

 Weekly Reader: Precious Silver Chopsticks: A True Story About A Korean Noble Family by Mae Adams; Beautiful and Tragic Memoirs of Adams' Life Growing Up in Mid-20th Century Korea

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Like many in Korea, Mae Adams and her family were firm believers in dreams and omens. Pregnancy dreams foretold the birth of a child. If a mother-to-be dreamt of picking seeded fruit, she was predicted to give birth to a boy. But if she dreamt of a flower, then she was predicted to give birth to a girl. When Adams's mother, Yi Nam Hyang was pregnant with her second daughter, she dreamt that she picked a Rose of Sharon, the official flower of South Korea. The thorns pricked her fingers, even though Roses of Sharons don't have thorns in reality.

A first born son is important in Korea. He is the heir and is believed to carry on the family legacy. A first born daughter is considered useful, because she is marriageable, but a second daughter is considered unimportant. After Nam Hyang dreamt of the Rose of Sharon, she tried to abort the pregnancy.  When that didn't work, she gave birth to her second daughter, Yum Mae Hee, who would one day grow up to become Mae Adams. Adams's mother's dream and her ambivalence about her second daughter's birth cemented their relationship forever.

Mae Adams's beautiful and tragic memoirs, Precious Silver Chopsticks: A True Story About A Korean Noble Family tells about Adams's difficult childhood and youth, and relationships with her family, particularly her abusive mother. She tells her story with memorable description and details that reveal what life was like for a Korean woman in the years preceding World War II and Korean War and afterwards.

Adams's childhood was largely shaped by her parent's dismissive attitudes towards her and their preferences for their other children: oldest daughter, Mae Ree (whom Adams nicknamed "Big Sis") and youngest child and only son, Intaek. 

Adams described her father, Yum Suck Jung, as an angry and distant man with great artistic talent, but a strong addiction to alcohol. He painted watercolor art, embroidered fabric, carved figures, composed and played music. Some of his songs were famous, particularly in the Korean countryside. Suck Jung was something of an iconoclast and rebel, not wanting to work in a regular non-artistic job. He was quite well known, but family responsibility and his role in Korean tradition as a husband and father appeared to weigh him down with disappointment.

There was a dark side to Suck Jung's behavior. Many times, he visited the tavern and got drunk on soju. He then returned home with an empty wallet and to an angry wife. 

He also wasn't above playing favorites with his children. Suck Jung lavished attention towards Mae Ree by always bringing her beautiful gifts after he returned home from travels, but ignored Adams and beat Intaek. This had a detrimental effect on the siblings's childhood, especially the sisters.

 Her father's preference caused sibling rivalry between the two as Adams thought of Mae Ree as rather vain and superficial and Mae Ree saw Adams as argumentative and obstinate when they were children. Mae Ree however longed for attention and inherited her father's musical abilities to become a singer and actress, ultimately becoming a film star in Korea in the 1940's-'50's.

 

Yum Suck Jung was very frail and succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of 32. One chapter describes a hunt that Adams and Mae Ree went on for a snake to treat their father's illness, maybe a live miracle snake that would cure him. After the hunt, in which the two girls nearly drowned in a river, the sisters eventually bought a dead snake from a peddlar. This incident haunted Adams. "The failure of catching a miracle snake to save our father, which had seemed such a hopeful idea in the morning, totally crushed my spirit," Adams wrote. "Would it be my fault if he died?" 

Later as her father lay dying, Adams still remembered that day. She gained immense knowledge through her studies, but considered herself a failure anyway. "Should I have tried harder to catch that miracle snake?" She asked. "But knowing how to count and read was quite different from catching a snake."

Suck Jung's death left Adams confused and uncertain about her feelings for him. She didn't remember him as a loving man, only one who was a drinker who preferred his oldest daughter over his other children. "Whether I was a filial daughter or not, I had to mourn his death and forgive him for the wrong things that he had done to me," Adams wrote. "For his death canceled all his sins and debts. But it wasn't easy to do so, because I harbored complex feelings about Father's indifference towards me."

As complex as her relationship with her father was, Adams's relationship with Nam Hyang was consistently contentious.Adams believed that much of her mother's behavior was because of her youth, as the daughter of a noble family and a fourth daughter. She was held in little regard except as a target for marriage and to be cared for by a husband and family.

However, Yi Nam Hyang wanted more out of life. She received a college education, despite objections from her traditional family. 

"Mother had full of aspirations at one time in her life," Adams wrote. 

"She'd wanted to conquer the world. She'd wanted to smash the social inequity, and become the first woman to achieve fame and to stand tall, right beside any great man in the world. But by the time she grew up, Korean society had already brainwashed her with its stringent Confucian doctrine, and didn't even realize until it was too late."

While this doesn't excuse her behavior towards her daughter, Adams allowed herself to see her mother, as she saw her father. They were people who were disappointed by life. Her father had the talent and her mother the education, but neither were able to do much with it. Nam Hyang especially lived a life of disappointment, made even worse by an education that gave her a thwarted ambition and then told her that she could do more with life and was unable to do so. She took her frustrations and anger out on her second daughter.

Adams explored the ambivalence that her mother felt towards her birth with wry observation.

"Saddled with another girl, (Nam Hyang) grumbled, 'Who needs more than one daughter?' Although she had been born a fourth girl and her mother endured a full term, she felt no appreciation for her mother's labor. Her mother had two sons to show off before she gave birth to daughters," Adams wrote.

"Mother knew that it was every mother's duty to give a child a place in the world as a wife and mother, and her birth family and her in-laws all upheld the principles, but that call could sail down the river for all she cared. Mother thought that she had little to look forward to in life with the impending arrival of a second daughter, useless in every way."

Even after Adams was born, Nam Hyang still wasn't happy. She refused to bond or feed her newborn child, leaving Adams's grandparents to search for a wet nurse. No sooner than her daughter was born, than she took off for Seoul leaving Adams to be raised by her grandparents. She returned a year later, not wanting her children to grow up as country kids.

 She periodically allowed Adams to return to her grandparents' country home. Adams hovered between her city home with a cold unloving mother and her country home with her grandparents, who became the loving adult figures in her life that her parents could not.

Nam Hyang subjected Adams to frequent physical and verbal abuse.

Adams's first memory of her mother was when she was 2 1\2 and she tried to collect rainwater. She slipped and hit her head knocking over a metal dustpan. Nam Hyang took her to the doctor, but only after she gave her a few blows to the head.

Like her husband, Nam Hyang too had a favorite among her children, particularly after her husband's death. That was her only son, Intaek She smothered the boy with maternal affection and indulged his every whim. As he grew and became a commercial artist, Intaek became a spoiled entitled brat unable to accept adult responsibility, because of his mother's influence.

There was a ray of hope during Adams's childhood and that was in the form of her paternal grandparents. Yum Hyung Kee, her grandfather came from an Imperial academic family and worked as an herbal doctor, Christian missionary, and Kung Fu instructor. Go Jaesoon, her grandmother came from a family of commoners and worked as a sea diver. Despite their different backgrounds, they had close marriage and were able to give young Adams the love that she lacked from her parents.

After Adams was born, Go Jaesoon declared, "Being a second daughter is nothing to be ashamed of," and held the newborn close, the way that her mother should have.

Adams's grandparents always greeted her with embraces and cries of joy, when she visited them. They allowed her to eat and sleep whenever she wanted and didn't criticize her when she made a mistake or broke something. They defended her firom her mother. They treated Adams as a daughter, better than her mother did.

The title of the book comes from a gift that Go Jaesoon gave her grandaughter on her birthday. The silver chopsticks were made by the best silversmith in the country and were decorated with pretty drawings on the upper and wider sides and the words "Happy Long Life" in Chinese characters on the back. The chopsticks were a sign that portended Adams would never go hungry. They also changed color if the food being served was poisoned. 

Adams considered the chopsticks as symbols of her grandmother's love for her. Adams kept the silver chopsticks with her, everywhere she went as if keeping Go Jaesoon's spirit with her. She never sold them, even through war and poverty. To Adams, selling or losing them would be like selling her grandmother's spirit.

The tensest moments occurred during the war years and had a detrimental effect in Adams's family. World War II. The Japanese had control over Korea. They forced people to labor for them by making weapons and other military supplies. They drilled children in school in military fashion. While, they introduced voluntary enlistment originally, the orders changed to mandatory conscription by 1942.

"Many  Koreans died in the war, and many young Korean girls went to the factories or served as 'comfort girls' for the Japanese soldiers," Adams wrote. "....The Japanese companies greedily stripped our forests for export to Japan, but they didn't allow Koreans to cut trees for their use. If the Japanese caught a Korean man cutting down a tree in the night for fuel, they beat him and put him in jail."

The war and Japanese occupation affected Adams's family. Her aunt and five children moved to her grandparents's farm, to get away from the constant blombing and air strikes. Christians were under attack and many were killed by Japanese soldiers. Hyung Kee's mission escaped human casualties, because he swore that he would not support the Korean independence movement and that he would continue providing opium for the Japanese.

After World War II ended and Korea was divided between North and South Korea, Adams and her family fled to the South. Her grandmother and aunt, Little-Ma, remained behind as bait to distract the soldiers as the rest of the family fled. Go Jaesoon succumbed to suicide (though not before poisoning several Japanese soldiers). Adams's never learned what happened to her aunt.

Adams's uncle, Little-Pa summarized the protectiveness that Go Jaesoon felt towards her family, particularly Adams. He quoted her final words, "A wife just protect her husband and children. It's her duty and privilege. I now have the privilege of protecting all of you. Why do you question it and make it more difficult for me?'"

Adams detailed the fear and anxiety that her family held as the world around them changed.

"The world we had known was no longer in existence and anything valuable in it was useless," Adams said. "We were fugitives in the eyes of the new world that had replaced the old world. The large house that had been our home could shelter us no more."

Adams, her brother, sister, and mother lived in poverty in Seoul. Nam Hyang worked in a machine embroidery job and barely earned enough to provide nourishment for her family. However, she retained her haughty attitude.

Adams admitted that her mother's inability to humble herself helped her family escape the grimness and she was determined enough to accomplish certain things. She challenged her brother to help her grow cabbages and radishes to get past the food shortage. Nam Hyang eventually bought and managed a tea shop with Mae Ree providing the entertainment.

War once again rocked Adams and her family. Adams led the rest of her family to escape via ferry down the Han River. They spent a tense time living in a mountain village, hiding from the Communist soldiers. Eventually, they returned to a destroyed Seoul, devastated by war and destruction and reunited with her grandfather at a refugee camp. 

The war ended after three years, but Korea remained separated. Adams wrote about Mae Ree's visit 47 years later to the Demilitarized Zone which separates North and South Korea. It is considered one of the most unspoiled green spaces left in Asia and is one of Asia's most hospitable homes for plants and wildlife.

"Every year more than two hundred thousand people visited the DMZ, about thirty miles North of Seoul to see the world's most dangerous border, where North and South Korean soldiers stared at each other eyeball to eyeball," Adams wrote. "The sceneries were spectacular with the steep ravines and valleys covered with thick firs, pines, and aspens as if only the hands of the Three Gods had created them. Big-Sis couldn't help, but wonder at the incongruity of it all."

After the War, Nam Hyang borrowed money and enrolled her second daughter in Sook Myung's Women College. Adams speculated that her mother wanted her to get a decent job, so she could live off of her money, which proved to be true. Nam Hyang and Big-Sis's teahouse closed and Big-Sis and Intaek left for a business opportunity leaving Adams with their mother.

Adams got a job in the construction office of the 226th Battalion of the United States Army. She became fond of the American soldiers and they reciprocated their affection by gifting her with a classic rice chest and a fluffy white dog, named Snowe. Adams doted on the dog despite her mother's dislike for him. In a fit of spite, Nam Hyang sold Snowe to a place called the Dog Stew House. She then sold the rice chest for a handsome price. Adams's only relief was that she never let her mother know that she still had the silver chopsticks or she would have sold them too.

 After defending Mae Ree from her abusive boyfriend, Adams retained a good reputation. Nam Hyang couldn't resist riding on her now famous daughter's coattails. She enticed Adams to pay for her brother's education and force him to become a doctor. Adams however, allowed Intaek to make his own decision and study fine arts.

 Adams worked for the Cosa Export Company, managing to pay for living expenses, Intaek's education, and Nam Hyang's luxuries. Nam Hyamg began to sponge off of her by buying exorbitant items and leaving Adams to pay for them. She also constantly subjected her daughter to financial abuse by taking the money Adams earned and spending it on herself, Intaek, and a preacher who may also have been her lover.

Adams recounted her stormy love life, some of it because of her mother's interference. Adams's first marriage to an American named Dex ended just as quickly as it began. She married him mostly to get away from her mother, but Nam Hyang guilt tripped her into remaining in Korea. They got a divorce and Dex married his girlfriend. Mae Ree however married an American and moved to Hawaii.

Adams's second marriage to a man named Chang was rough from their first meeting. Nam Hyang forced her to get back money that her mother leant and give it to Intaek. Despite the frustration from her mother's manipulative request, Adams had tea with Chang and had what she thought was a pleasant time, but later was revealed to be less pleasant.

Adams realized that she married Chang mostly to play the role of the dutiful daughter and help provide for her mother and brother. During a fight, Adams told Nam Hyang off saying that unlike her who tried to abort and then abandon her, Adams never would do the same.

Adams told her, " I will never abandon you even if you become a shriveled up, helpless old woman with meanness dripping out of you. I refuse to stoop that low. So, stop lying, scheming, backstabbing, and blackmailing me. It is beneath the dignity of a highly educated woman like you!"

 Adams made it perfectly clear that she was marrying Chang and caring for Nam Hyang solely out of duty and not for love. Her mother showed her no love, so Adams let her know that she would receive none in return. She compared the narcissistic Name Hyang to the selfless Go Jaesoon. "Everyone in the village would jump in the river if Grandma told them to because she would never have let them drown," Adams told her. "Do you think that you can earn that kind of trust? Never!"

Besides her mother, Adams realized that she was also being manipulated by Chang even from the beginning. During their marriage, she realized that he had spiked her tea with opium. When confronted about it, Chang admitted that he not only had been doctoring her tea throughout their marriage, but the day they first met as well.

 She also learned that contrary to his earlier claim of being a childless widower, he in fact had a wife, two daughters, and a concubine. Even though current Korean law dictated that Chang's second marriage was technically illegal, there were exceptions if the marriage did not produce sons. "Many people who came to my wedding knew that Chang had a wife and concubine," Adams wrote. "I was the last one to find out."

Adams gave birth to a son, Hooney, but she and Chang were estranged at the time. Nam Hyang kept insisting that the two get back together, but Adams had enough of being manipulated by her mother and soon to be ex-husband. 

However, Chang played one final trick. When Hooney visited his father's village, Chang had him registered in his family's registry under his wife's name. Adams was no longer considered his mother and ended up separated from her son.

Adams took over Chang's business and made a profit from it. This success gave her financial satisfaction and became the first step towards her independence from her mother. The second step came from her desire to study business management and textile design in America so she could learn to create and sell handicrafts and run an export business. She settled her affairs with Nam Hyang and Intaek by offering them a house and money if they allowed her to go. She paid her respects to her grandfather, uncle, and her grandmother's spirit. Adams finally obtained her freedom from her family.

Besides freedom, Adams's plans allowed her to get acquainted with the man who would eventually become her third husband: Hewitt Dayne Adams, a Marine colonal. Introduced by a mutual American friend, Hewitt not only proved to be a kind sympathetic man, but was useful for her business. One of his responsibilities was to help Korean citizens begin and operate businesses.

While she found him to be a charming man, Adams knew that Hewitt was married to another woman. Unlike the passivity that was forced upon her by Confucian doctrine, her abusive mother, and previous unhappy marriage, Adams refused to continue the relationship while Hewitt was still married. Her newly won independent spirit would no longer accept being a mistress or a concubine. 

They separated while she continued her ecucation. He obtained a divorce and the two resumed their relationship, eventually marrying. Hewitt became a professor in Asian and American History at Clemson University and Adams ran a successful business. They had two children, Michael and Mae Lee, along with Hewitt's two daughters from his previous marriage.

There were two incidents in Adams's life that helped provide closure towards her unhappy past. The first concerned her mother. After her children grew, Nam Hyang hovered between them and friends continuing to live off of other people's money and kindness. In 1998, as the older woman lay dying, Adams wrote a letter condemning her for all of the abuse and manipulations that she submitted to her all those years. Even though she never sent the letter and later learned about Nam Hyang's death, Adams believed that the letter finally gave her a chance to liberate herself from all of the anger and negative feelings that her mother bestowed upon her.

The second incident concerned Hewitt and her grandparents. Adams gave the silver chopsticks to Hewitt while they were dating. She told them that if he didn't want to see her again then he was to return them to her. She never got them back until after his death in 2003. While going through his belongings, she found the silver chopsticks realizing that he kept them close all those years.

 With tears streaming down her face, Adams placed the silver chopsticks inside her husband's urn. The once traumatized young girl shared a gift of love from her grandmother with another person that she truly loved, allowing that love to continue beyond death and into the next world.

New Book Alert: The Last Moon Before Home by Barbara J. Dzikowski; Moving Dramatic Novel About Alzheimer's Disease and Broken Family Ties

 

New Book Alert: The Last Moon Before Home by Barbara J. Dzikowski; Moving Dramatic Novel About Alzheimer's Disease and Broken Family Ties

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Alzheimer's Disease is a difficult condition to live with, not only for the person who has it, but also for friends, family, and caregivers around them. Little by little, the person that was once a person with memories and a past, forgets pieces of their lives until they become a complete stranger. They do not know the people around them with whom they once shared a life.

That is the situation faced by Walt Ziemny and his family in Barbara J. Dzikowski's moving dramatic novel, The Last Moon Before Home. Walt's diagnosis comes after his bouts of forgetfulness become more frequent. Walt doesn't want to admit it, but as he begins to forget his wife and children's names and confuses past and present, it becomes apparent he has Alzheimer's.

 

His family deals with his condition in their own way. His wife, Mary, tries to stay loyal to him following the vow "into death do us part," but feels drained by the responsibility. His younger son, Ricky an artist and recovering alcoholic, tries to maintain a cheerful front. Meanwhile, his older son, Leon, a sometimes self-centered businessman, is in denial about the disease.

The Ziemnys need a caregiver for Walt. Enter Willow Trudeau. Willow has had some nursing training and endless patience. She would be a perfect companion and caregiver for Walt. She is able to communicate with Walt with patience and understanding towards his outbursts and forgetfulness.

There is also another reason that Willow is there. Her mother, Noel died in childbirth and Willow never knew her or her father's identity. Reading her mother's journal, she comes across the name of her birth father: Leon Ziemny. She pretends to be Noel's niece, rather than her daughter.  Once, she is hired by the Ziemny Family, Willow clicks with them, particularly Walt who calls her "Mis "

The Last Moon Before Home is a definite tear jerker of a book. It is definitely one that the Reader needs to have tissues nearby just in case. The hardest parts to read are the ones that take place from Walt's point of view.

Dzikowski captures the voice of someone going through Alzheimer's rather well without resorting to theatrics. Walt gets easily frustrated and irritated by the people around him. He goes off on mental tangents of the past caught up in a memory of his childhood. Then, he returns to the present with no memories of the world in front of him.

 In one passage, Walt watches Bill Clinton's denial of having sex with Monica Lewinskny. He then drifts into disconnected thoughts about his high school days, his Catholic faith, including some of the Polish prayers of his childhood, and his thoughts about death. When he returns to the present, Walt mentally calls the President on the TV, "President Kennedy."

 It is heart wrenching to read about this man's mind and personality slowly being annihilated by this disease that transforms him into someone his friends and family don't know and he doesn't kno, himself.

Willow also goes through her own discovery, that of her own family and identity. She helps the Ziemny Family reopen old feelings that they had towards Leon and Noel's early marriage and divorce. As compared to the Ziemnys, Willow is not near as developed as a character except through trying to learn about her family. However, she is a catalyst to help the Ziemny Family through their own individual crises.

Walt grows to love Willow unconditionally even though he had trouble distinguishing between her and her late mother. He sees a kindred spirit who is able to look through  the disease and recognize the kind man inside. 

 Mary has to recognize her own arrogance and snobbishness which helped drive a wedge between the couple and put Leon down a path of marital unhappiness. Ricky also has to deal with his unrequited feelings for Noel as well as the unhappiness in his life which resulted in his alcoholism and subsequent health problems.

By far the character that goes through the most change is Leon. He starts out completely narcissistic and concerned more about material gain and retaining the happiness of his spoiled unfaithful second wife, Stella. He is impatient with his father's lapses in memory, rapidly changing emotions, and repetitive questions. He tries to have as little to do with Walt's disease as possible.  

After a death in the family,,Leon becomes more involved. He works at the family inn. He bonds with Willow rediscovering the love that he had for her mother. He also becomes more patient and loving towards Walt. One passage during 9/11 conveys this. Walt constantly asks if planes fell from the sky and Leon answers "Maybe somewhere, but not here." They talk about other things in a roundabout manner, but Walt returns to asking about the planes as if for the first time. Leon has finally learned to speak his father's language and understand  the father he was is still inside the sick man.

The book becomes unbearably sad as the family suffers tremendous loss. However, ties that were once broken become stronger and the family becomes closer better people in the face of illness, loss, and death.

 

New Book Alert: When She Touches Book One: A Discovery of Destiny and A Gift Like No Other By Sheryl M. Frazer; Touching Modern Fantasy About The Gift of Empathy

 New Book Alert: When She Touches Book One: A Discovery of Destiny and A Gift Like No Other By Sheryl M. Frazer; Touching Modern Fantasy About The Gift of Empathy

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Many who practice and study supernatural or psychic abilities know that there is a distinct difference between a telepath and an empath. A telepath can read a person's thoughts while an empath can read a person's emotions. Both can be difficult and amazing for a person.

 Those with such abilities are able to access the subconscious and ascend to a higher level of existence. It can be difficult because they can be overwhelmed by such knowledge. People may think they are lying or are afraid of them. They may have hardships separating themselves from the other person.

 Too much thought and emotion can depress them or drive them insane. Sometimes they have to spend time by themselves to get away from the unwanted thoughts and emotions. They may also create coping mechanisms, like wearing gloves when they aren't working or focusing on one thought or emotion at a time.

Genevieve Walker, the protagonist of Sheryl M. Frazier's novel When She Touches: A Discovery of Destiny and A Gift Like No Other, is just such an empath. She first experiences these abilities when she dreams that she is standing in front of a hospital bed surrounded by people who are sick from some unknown illness. Then, she hears an unknown voice and sees a mysterious teenage girl tell her that she has a fearless soul and to trust the path that she will follow. Genevieve will understand after the birth of her daughter.

Genevieve is shocked. She doesn't know what the girl is talking about, besides she isn't even pregnant! She is 17 years old and only just got married to Teddy Walker, a commercial real estate developer from Northern England. 

Besides, Genevieve hasn't exactly had the best start in life. Her father was killed in Vietnam and her mother abandoned her and her younger sister, Tess. The sisters were then raised by their loving Uncle Steven and Aunt Madeleine who treated them like the children that they never had. This difficult past made Genevieve reluctant to accept love and friendship from anyone, until she met Teddy.

Genevieve's path is laid out after, as predicted, the birth of her daughter, Ariella. Genevieve feels a sense of newfound curiosity and euphoria and she realizes the emotions are coming from her daughter. She also remembers all of the times that she felt a wave of depression in the presence of her mother.  The dream reenters her mind and she realizes that she has empathic and clairvoyant abilities: She is able to access and feel the emotions of others.

The discovery of her empathetic abilities opens up new possibilities for her. While watching over the hospital bedside of Chrissy, her friend's daughter, Genevieve gains a further understanding over how her abilities work.

She is in communication with the Soul. The Soul is ageless and often wiser than the body that it inhabits. It knows many of the person's buried secrets, knows their life path and destiny, and knows when it's time to leave the body.

Through the years, Genevieve begins to consult with medical and legal professionals as well as worried and grief stricken friends and family members to help comatose or missing victims and find out what happened him. 

The answers are interesting insights into the human condition. Beth,  a woman reveals that Nick, her comatose husband was attacked by a man with whom she had been having an affair. However, Nick and his Soul are willing to forgive her.

 While peering into the Soul of Mario, a young man, Genevieve discovers a cycle of abuse, recriminations, and revenge that runs through his family from which he was trying to break.

Sometimes the Soul leaves clues for Genevieve to decipher. One encounter with Mario's Soul causes her to picture a coffin. At first, she thinks of death. Then, she imagines a box and goes through metaphors like "boxed in." Finally, she learns that the key to the Soul's message is inside a box which holds the answers that Mario's mother seeks.

These experiences open Genevieve's mind and heart. Through her abilities, she becomes a better character who understands and relates to other's struggles while exploring the dark past and haunting questions towards her own life.

Genevieve has a wonderful family with a loving husband, Teddy and two understanding children, Ariella and Broc. She is very close to the aunt and uncle who raised her, but has so many unanswered questions about her missing mother.

A Soul delivers her a personal message to forgive and understand. This message leads Genevieve to learning about Liv, her estranged mother.The revelations about Liv's whereabouts cause Genevieve to question her aunt and uncle, her upbringing, and her history with her mother, as well as her abilities. 

At first, Genevieve is furious and feels betrayed about the secrets that Melinda and Steven kept from her. She is confused about the hole in her life in the shape of her mother. Genevieve digs deeper into Liv's history and how her aunt and uncle have tried to fill that void. This causes Genevieve to gain a better understanding towards them.

 She honors Melinda and Steven for the roles that they played in her life and sacrifices they made for her and Tess. She also learns that their arrival helped Melinda and Steven through the voids and sadness in their own lives.

She also begins to see her mother in a better light. Instead of a mentally unstable depressed irresponsible woman, Genevieve sees someone else. She recognizes Liv as a depressed woman with intense grief for her husband's death and who feels disconnected from her children.

 Genevieve also learns that she inherited her abilities from Liv, but unlike Genevieve who was able to channel them into a higher level and a new life path, Liv couldn't get a handle on them.

Liv's empathic abilities overwhelmed her to the point that she became disconnected and depressed.

 She tried to block herself from them with distractions. She tried to start a new family. She got checked into a psychiatric hospital and ultimately became a drug addict. 

Genevieve learns to love and embrace the woman that her mother  was. She also meets her half-brother, David, who also is an empath, and accepts him into her family.

When She Touches is a wonderful book that explores how one's abilities can be used to help them gain a stronger perspective and knowledge onto their life path and find closure with the past. The subtitle is right. It is a real discovery and a gift like no other.

New Book Alert: Behind Blue Eyes: A Cyberpunk Noir Novel by Anna Mocikat; Engaging Science Fiction Thriller About Cybiotics and What Humanity Really Means

 

New Book Alert: Behind Blue Eyes: A Cyberpunk Noir Novel by Anna Mocikat; Engaging Science Fiction Thriller About Cybiotics and What Humanity Really Means

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: I suppose it's serendipitous or synchronous that I am reading Anna Mocikat's excellent and engaging Cyperpunk Thriller, Behind Blue Eyes:A Cyberpunk Noir Novel at the same time that I am watching one of my favorite science fiction series, The Outer Limits (1995-2002 version). The reason is because various episodes explore some of the concepts in Mocikat's novel: The existence of robots, androids, cyborgs, computer operating systems, and other forms of artificial intelligence and what it means to be human and have emotions and thoughts that run counter to their programming. 

Many episodes of Outer Limits involve AI's falling in love with their creators ("Valerie 23", "Mind Over Matter", "Bits of Love"), AI's trained for fighting and killing gaining consciences and deciding not to kill (" I Robot," "Glitch," ,"Mona Lisa"), robots raising or becoming members of families ("Mary 25", "Simon Says," "Family Values "), robots and AI's fighting against or controlling humans-sometimes with humans fighting back  ("Stream of Consciousness", "The Camp," "The Hunt" "In Our Own Image","The Haven," "Human Operators," "The Grid," "The Tipping Point"), humans gaining abilities by being implanted with or studying new technology ("Living Hell", "Virtual Future," "The Awakening,"  "Identity Crisis," "Fear Itself", The Other Side," "Small Friends",) and in reversal, robots in a destroyed future recreating humans ("Resurrection"). 

In each episode, the initial questions are asked: What does it mean to be human? When does humanity stop and machinery begin and vice versa? Can AI feel or think for itself and if it does, how soon will they question and rebel against their programming? Are we becoming more human or less and will AI become more human to make up for it?

These questions and themes are also addressed in Behind Blue Eyes, particularly through the journey of its protagonist, Nephilim. Nephilim lives in Olympia, a futuristic city in what used to be the East Coast of the United States. Nephilim is part of an elite force of commandos called The Guardian Angels, who are 60 percent cyborg and 40 percent human. 

They have augmented hearts and other organs, titanium metal bones, lightning fast reflexes, titanium blades and high tech weaponry connected to their bodies, and wear high tech bullet impenetrable synthetic silk suits. They are an unstoppable killing force. When their victims sees the eerie neon blue optic sensory eyes of the Angels, usually those eerie blue eyes are the last things that they see.

Nephilim is considered the best of the Guardian Angels and on the fast track to getting promoted to Archangel, one of the heads of the force, thanks to the interest of the creepy sinister Head Archangel, The Metatron. Nephilim, like the other Angels, has been trained since childhood with no memories from her life beforehand. 

She and the rest of the Angels are trained to kill, destroy, and serve the interests  of the Olympia company that now controls the former United States.  They attack members of rival corporations, Rosprom (Europe) and TogbuaXiang (Asia) as well as people who live outside the Olympia as rebels or off the gridders.  Their motto is "Custodio et mortifico." ("Protect and Destroy".) They do not hesitate. They follow their orders and kill without question. Or at least,Nephilim used to.

During what should be a routine seek and destroy mission against a family of rural outsiders becomes deeply personal for Nephilim. After a little girl's parents are killed, Nephilim looks at the girl and sees herself through the child's eyes: Nephilim sees herself as a monster. 

This encounter awakens several repressed emotions, thoughts, and memories inside her.  

These emotions, thoughts, and memories become stronger when she is injured during another assignment and receives a glitch which allows her to disconnect from Olympia's mainframe.  This disconnection allows her to think for herself for the first time and question her purpose as a mindless killing machine.

Most of the book centers around Nephilim's rediscovery of her humanity. Repressed memories are reawakened. Nephilim recalls her youth on a  farm living with a beautiful loving mother and a gentle blind father. One night, she was taken by "blue eyed monsters" and trained and augmented until she became one of the blue eyed monsters herself.

Nephilim makes the most of her new found humanity. She entices Finwick, one of their scientists, to implant her with a device that turns her off from the mainframe. She explores the forbidden areas around Olympia. She goes to the seedier sections and finds Sarah, the young girl who looked at her with such fear, reduced to becoming a child prostitute. She rescues her, leaving a trail of dead bodies behind them. Protecting Sarah gives Nephilim a maternal instinct and empathy, remembering what it was like to be a child lost and helpless to the whims of adults around her.

She sees a brothel where the clientele are dressed like Angels, so regular humans can experience what it's like to have sex with one of those death machines. (The Guardian Angels have an intense sex drive and no concerns about reproduction or catching V.D. It is said for a human to have sex with one is like courting death.)

Nephilim is amused and horrified until Finwick is kidnapped and assaulted by one of the prostitutes and her gang. In this encounter, Nephilim learns about gratitude for what Finwick did for her and accepts friendship in place of lust and sexuality.

One of the most important lessons that Nephilim learns is about love and trust. During her nightly jaunts, Nephilim encounters Jake, who is part of the Resistance movement against Olympia. Until she encounters Jake, Nephilim has begun to question her programming and the Angel's purpose but only in an abstract. After she meets Jake and the other Resistance members, Nephilim becomes determined to fight the system that built and trained her. 

Throughout the book, Nephilim emerges from a two-dimensional unremorseful obedient killer to a strong willed independent badass using her impressive abilities to fight for freedom and against the  oppressive corporation which controls everything and treats its people like commodities rather than human beings.

Her greatest antagonist is her formerly biggest supporter. The Metatron is one of the most memorable villains that I have read this year. He is one of those characters who is so good at being bad. He is the corporation personified. He views the Angels and everyone else around him as a means to an end. He is completely analytical and results driven. He orders the death of his allies just as quickly as his enemies. He makes plans and counter plans putting himself above anyone who may plot against him or Olympia and that includes Nephilia.

While The Metatron  is terrifying with his initial cold icy persona and his manipulative controlling tyranny, he becomes even more terrifying when he displays his vulnerabilities in front of Nephilia. He breaks down the former Angela's current alliances one by one and shatters her emotions and newly discovered allegiances, particularly her love for Jake.  He then reveals his past connections with her converying all his rage and hatred on this young woman with whom he both lusted after and wanted to destroy. This passage between Metatron and Nephilia reveals his true villainy. He wants to destroy her emotionally and mentally before he destroys and reprograms her physically.

The final chapters of the book ask a lot of questions and some are unanswered. What are the Resistance and Jake's real goals? What is Nephilia's real role in this Resistance? Are some of Nephilia's fellow Angels starting to question their own programming and becoming rebellious?  If Nephilia is reprogrammed to become a killer will she retain her memories and emotions and if they are wiped what's to stop them from happening again? The ending suggests a return to status quo, with a new and improved Guardian Angel but is it? While the questions are purposely left open ended for a second book, it also suggests that the link between humanity and machinery is an ongoing process. The discovery of the things that make us what we are-thought, emotion, development, reason, memories, change-can never truly be suppressed or wiped.

Anna Mocikat gives us a suspenseful science fiction with some thought provoking questions that allow the Reader to experience what really goes on behind those blue eyes.