- Visit the market past the bamboo stalks where azaleas cling to thin air and swindlers grift the crowd.
- Among the distant chatters and leaking floors, pick out the Napa from the vendor with calloused hands.
- When you reach home, wash the Napa with water, careful not to let any leaves drift to the mud.
- In the kitchen, fan out the leaves so they resemble the crescent moon the day Appa fled the village on his tricycle.
- Flick the salt in the veins like how the dirt spiraled in the air as his rubber tires carved the road.
- When the skin around your nails begins to shrivel, imagine they are Ginseng roots: Health, Luck, Prosperity.
- Mix the shards of Gochugaru from the hills of Jeolla-do with the ingredients from Halmeoni’s garden, where the back gate lay open: ginger, garlic, fish sauce, shrimp paste
- Knead the ingredients into each leaf so they turn crimson like the hibiscus fields that Eomma fled from.
- Fold each leaf into the clay pot behind the Mugunghwa trees.
- Bury the pot in the ground and sit by the window, watching the swallows flit by and the firs flutter while you wait and wait and wait.
Eric Pak is a 17-year-old Korean-American living in Thailand. He has lived in diverse countries around the world and aims to share his experiences through his writing. His works have previously been published in K’in Literary Journal, The Paper Crane Journal, and The Cathartic Literary Magazine.