School, Class, and a Teacher's Home Visit
Students at Jigok Elementary belonged to one of three different backgrounds.
The first group: kids who lived in Nakwon (Paradise) or Hwamok (Peace) apartments. Their fathers went to college and worked as managers at POSCO. Their parents visited school often to speak with teachers, who paid them extra attention in return. These kids came to school in pretty clothes, with clean hair and name-brand shoes. They stuck with their own kind. If you didn’t live in their apartments, they rarely let you play with them.
The second group: kids like me who lived in Inhwa (Cooperation) or Seungri (Victory) apartments. Our fathers didn’t go to college and worked as mechanics or technicians under the fathers of the first group. Some of our parents visited school to discuss their children’s academic progress. Many didn’t. Mine never did. We kept to ourselves, too.
The last group: kids who didn’t live in any of the apartments in Jigokdong but in old, ramshackle houses on the far edge of town. They were there only because their families had been there long before POSCO. Their parents didn’t work for the company but had odd jobs: day laborer, or a vendor who sold vegetables and fruits in red plastic basins, sitting on a low plastic stool at the street market across from Nakwon. Their parents never visited the school. You could tell them right away: unkempt hair and worn-out clothes. They looked faded, like a sun-drenched poster left too long in a shop window. Neither the Nakwon kids nor the Inhwa kids played with them. I didn’t play with them, either.
We sometimes talked about it—the classes, though we didn’t have a word for it yet—and always ended up upset. Who we were had already been decided by which family we were born into. But there was another thing that seemed to depend on which family you were born into: how well you did in school.
Who we were had already been decided by which family we were born into.
At school, we took a monthly test on all subjects and received a report card with the results. On it, we’d see Soo, Woo, Mi, Yang, or Ga—A, B, C, D, and F—for each subject. We’d also find a number showing how we ranked compared to our classmates.
My number was usually 13th, 14th, or 15th out of fifty-five to sixty kids, even though I worked hard to make it into the top ten, which always seemed to be taken by Nakwon or Hwamok kids.
Still, I liked school. As long as I worked hard, it showed on my report card, which gave me a sense of control. I had a few close friends, too, who thought I was cool. But other than that, I had no control over anything else in my life, including how I looked.
According to Mom, my hair was the kind that got easily tangled and unmanageable, so I had to keep it short. So short that many people who saw me for the first time asked if I was a boy or a girl. Which hurt my feelings, especially when my friends said they never got asked that question. It wasn’t like I didn’t care. I wanted to look like those Nakwon girls whose mothers spent time and money making them look cute with silky long hair, princess dresses, and shiny shoes. Or at least look like a girl, so I could stop confusing people.
“Umma, why do you keep my hair short?” I asked one day, even though I already knew the answer: my wild, uncontrollable hair. But I thought maybe things could be different now. I wasn’t a first grader anymore who needed her help. I was in fourth grade. “Most of my friends have long hair, and people say I look like a boy.”
“Because...” Mom looked even more tired, frustrated. “I have four kids to take care of. You know those girls’ mothers only have one or two kids, so they can afford it.”
She was right. I shouldn’t complain. They didn’t have to stretch their pennies like we did. I should be reasonable. A good girl. So I stopped asking. How bad could it be?
“I thought you were a babo when I first saw you,” one of my best friends admitted one day.
“Really?” I stared at her, shocked. “What made you think that?”
“I don’t know. You just looked like... a babo.”
Every village, every grade has one or two of them: the kids with dirty clothes, runny noses, dull eyes, dumb grins. I looked like one of them?
But then she smiled, holding my hands. “But it turned out you weren’t.”
Thank God I was keeping up my grades. What if I hadn’t? I could’ve become an official babo in the fourth grade. Maybe my hard work really did save me.
Except there were times when even that didn’t matter.
"I thought you were a babo when I first saw you.”
One Saturday afternoon, when the doorbell rang, I opened it and froze. My homeroom teacher stood there, smiling kindly—the last person I expected at my house.
“Hi, Yuri,” he said. “I’m here for your home visit. Is your umma home?”
In those days, teachers visited their students’ homes once a year to meet parents and get a sense of their home life. I hadn’t known it would be that day for me.
Too startled to greet him politely, I yelled over my shoulder, my eyes still locked on him. “Umma! My teacher’s here!”
Do I let him in or not?
Mom appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her pants, probably wondering what I meant. But when she saw a man in his early forties standing at the front door, blocked by me with my mouth hanging open, she realized I wasn’t joking.
“Oh my... come on in,” she said, giving me a sharp look. “I’m so sorry. Please excuse Yuri’s manners.”
My teacher thanked her and followed Mom to our parents’ room. (This was before the renovation that opened up the tiny hallway. No one would stay and have a conversation there unless it was just a quick stop.) But right past the door, he paused. Something uncomfortable flickered across his face before he let out an uneasy chuckle, and I realized why: our messy, cramped house had no room for him to sit. It was even worse that day. Clothes, toys, rumpled blankets, the meal tray still covered with dirty dishes, and four children, ages zero to ten, staring at him with wide, startled eyes.
Panicked, I grabbed the broom and dustpan and started sweeping, raising a cloud of dust.
“Who sweeps in front of a guest?” Mom yelled, though not too harshly—maybe a tenth the volume of her usual scream, her effort to look cultured in front of a guest. She yanked the broom from my hands and set it down beside her.
Feeling flushed, I placed the dustpan back by the bathroom and sat beside her, noticing the big brown broom lying flat next to her. My teacher, my mom, and the broom. All in the same room. What a sight.
My teacher, my mom, and the broom. All in the same room. What a sight.
“Please, sit,” Mom said, sweeping some clutter out of the way with her bare hands. “Would you like coffee? Or tea?”
“No, thank you.” He smiled, finally seated cross-legged. “I just came to tell you that Yuri is doing very well in school. She’s polite to teachers, works hard, and gets along well with her classmates.”
As he spoke, listing all the good things about me, I couldn’t stop grinning. For the first time in my life, someone was recognizing my hard work. A ray of sunlight breaking through gray clouds.
But then that precious sunlight was speared by a lightning bolt, sending a wave of panic through my stomach. Now he knew who I really was: a poor kid living in a cramped, cluttered apartment with a fat mom and too many siblings. (Mom had been overweight for as long as I could remember, always blaming it on having too many children without adequate postpartum care.) Maybe he’d decide I wasn’t worth his attention anymore and redirect it to another kid, one from a better family.
I sat there, hands folded tight in my lap, grinning through the churning worry.
For the first time in my life, someone was recognizing my hard work. A ray of sunlight breaking through gray clouds.
When he left, Mom asked me, “Do you think I should’ve given him the envelope?”
She was referring to the bribes some wealthier parents slipped to teachers during these visits. I’d heard that for certain teachers, these visits were less about meeting families and more about collecting those thin but stuffed envelopes.
“No, I don’t think so,” I said flatly. Now that my secret was out, and he’d surely give me less attention, less warmth, he didn’t deserve any money from us. Besides, even if we wanted to, we couldn’t afford an envelope like that anyway.
Yuri’s secrets explode in the middle of the schoolyard, while everyone watches.
© 2025 The SteelMaker’s Daughter by Yuni J. All Rights Reserved.
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