After the debacle of introducing Lina to her potential in-laws ('Do I call them outlaws now?' she asked), I did not look forward with any confidence to my meeting with her father. I mean, here I would be bucking that lotsa love syndrome, compounded by the fact that Lina was an only child, compounded by the fact that she had no mother, which meant abnormally close ties to her father. I would be up against all those emotional forces the psych books describe.

Plus the fact that I was broke.

I mean, imagine for a second, some nice kid from down the block in Paju, Gyeonggi. He comes to see Mr. Park, a wage-earning pastry chef of that city, and says, 'I would like to marry your only daughter, Lina.' What would the old man's first question be? (He would not question his love, since to know Lina is to love Lina; it's a universal truth.) No, Mr. Park would say something like, 'how are you going to support her?' Now imagine the good Mr. Park's reaction if he informed him that the opposite would prevail, at least for the next three years: his daughter would have to support his son-in-law! Would not the good Mr. Park show him to the door, or even, if he were not my size, punch him out?

You bet your he would. This may serve to explain why, on that Sunday afternoon in May, I was obeying all posted speed limits, as we headed northwest from the capital city. Lina, who had come to enjoy the pace at which I drove, complained at one point that I was going forty in a forty-five-mile-an-hour zone. I told her the car needed tuning, which she believed not at all.

'Tell it to me again, Lin.' Patience was not one of Lina's virtues, and she refused to bolster my confidence by repeating the answers to all the stupid questions I had asked.

'Just one more time, please.'

'I called him. I told him. He said okay.

'But what does 'okay' mean?'

'Are you implying that SNU Law School has accepted a man who can't even define 'okay'?'

'It's not a legal term, Lina.' She touched my arm. Thank God, I understood that. I still needed clarification, though. I had to know what I was in for.

'Okay' could also mean I'll suffer through it.''

She found the charity in her heart to repeat for the nth time the details of her conversation with her father. He was happy. He was. He had never expected, when he sent her off to Kyunsung, that she would return to Paju to marry the boy next door (who by the way had asked her just before she left). He was at first incredulous that her intended's name was really Kim Jaejoong IV. He had then warned his daughter not to violate the Eleventh Commandment.

'Which one is that?' I asked her.

'Do not bull thy appa,' she said.

'Oh.'

'And that's all, Jaejoong. Truly.'

'He knows I'm poor?'

'Yes.'

'He doesn't mind?'

'At least you and he have something in common.'

'But he'd be happier if I had a few bucks, right?'

'Wouldn't you?' I shut up for the rest of the ride.

p/s: double updates since i have more time :) enjoy!!