You and I are from islands. One day, you'll understand that people from islands are different. We have more freedom."
She liked is voice-it was a masculine, knowing voice with a trace of melancholy.
"You'll probably spend your entire life here."
"Yes," she said. "This is my home."
"Home," he said thoughtfully. "My father was an orange farmer in Jeju. My father and I moved to Osaka when I was twelve; I don't think of Jeju as my home. My mother died when I was very young." He didn't tell her then that she looked like someone on his mother's side of the family. It was the eyes and the open brow.
"That's a great deal of laundry. I used to do for my father and me. I hated it. One of the greatest things about being rich is having someone else wash your clothes and cook your meals.
Sunja had washed clothes almost since she could walk. she didn't mind doing laundly at all. Ironing was more difficult.
"What do you think about when you do the laundry?"
Hansu already knew what there was to know about the girl, but that was different from knowing her thoughts. It was his way to ask many questions when he wanted to know someone's mind. Most poeople told you their thoughts in words and later confirmed them in actions. There were more people who told the truth than those who lied. Very few people lied well. What was most disappointing to heim was when a person turned out to be no different than the next. He preferred clever women over dumb ones and hardworking women over lazy ones who knew only how to lie on their backs.
"When I was a boy, my father and I each owned only one suit of clothes, so when I washed out things, we would try to have them dry overnight and wore them still damp in the morning.
Once-I think I was ten or eleven-I put the wet clothes near the stove to speed up the drying, and I went to cook our supper. We were having barley gruel. and Ihad to stir int in this cheap pot, otherwise the bottom would burn right away, and as I was stirring, I smelled something awful, and it turned out that I burned a large hole in my father's jacket sleeve. I was scolded for that severely."
Hansu laughed at the memory of the thrashing he got from his father. “A head like an empty gourd! A worthless idiot for a son!" His father, who had drunk all his earnings, had never blamed himself for being unable to support them and had been hard on his son, who was keeping them alive through foraging, hunting, and petty theft.