Jeong-Hun and the Budgie

Bleary-eyed and cold, Jeong-Hun made his way down his neighborhood street. He definitely underestimated how chilly Southern California mornings could get, especially in the morning. Sometimes, he asked himself why he was still here. He hated the American culture, the glitz, the glam, the absolute shallowness, devoid of the warmth that it supposedly had. 

It was even worse during the holidays. All of those loud, pale faces lined up in shopping malls, wanting gifts that they will eventually get bored of. And the only thing playing on the radio stations were Christmas songs. God, didn’t Americans eventually get sick of all of the Christmas stuff? Not that Korea was better, but at least it felt and sounded more like home. 

His only daughter, Minso, had invited him to Christmas dinner, but Jeong-Hun had said no. He hated California traffic. And Minso’s fiance wasn’t that great either.

“Ah, Minso, just send me a Christmas card,” he said in one of their weekly calls. “I don’t really want to bother you.”

“Appa, I really want you to come over. You can meet Isiah’s family.” 

“I don’t think Isiah’s family and I would get along well. I don’t even know what I’d talk about with them,” Jeong-Hun had admitted to Minso. That wasn’t a lie. He could barely speak to the cashier at the market. How could he speak with such an All-American family?

“Okay, but you at least have to give them a chance. They’re super nice. And, also, they want to meet you.”

Jeong-Hun really just wanted to get through Christmas by himself. He told Minso this.

“Alright. But, can I at least get you a gift?" Minso asked.

“Nah, nah, Minso. No need.” 

“Hey, It’s Christmas. I gotta get you something.” 

“Fine.”

That conversation happened last night. Jeong-Hun didn’t expect anything to happen the next day after that, until he saw a familiar blue sedan in the front of his house. It was Isiah’s car. And Isiah was standing at the door.

“What the--” Jeong-Hun began.

“Appa!” rang out a familiar, sing-song voice. Jeong-Hun sighed in relief when he saw his daughter at the door too, waving her hand wildly. 

Jeong-Hun walked a bit faster, trying to ignore the lower back pain. “Minso, why are you here?” 

“Isiah and I just wanted to say merry Christmas,” she said cheerfully, giving her father a  hug. She then looked at Isiah and gestured towards Jeong-Hun. She said something in rapid English that Jeong-Hun barely caught on. He could hear the words “tell him” and “taught you”. 

Isiah turned to Jeong-Hun. Awkwardly, like a toddler, he said, “annyeonghaseyo”. But it was more like “ahn-yo-haw--” --turning to Minso for help -- “--say-yo.” 

Minso laughed. Jeong-Hun felt rather insulted. He could understand an English "Hello" fine. He didn’t need Isiah trying so hard. 

Minso and Isiah giggled and said something together before Minso turned back to Jeong-Hun. “Appa, we have a gift to give to you.”

“Oh right.” Jeong-Hun straightened up. “What is it?”

“Close your eyes.” 

Jeong-Hun decided to play along. He closed his eyes, trying to discern any words or clues that would tell him what to expect. It could be the crinkle of gift wrapping, the shuffling of boxes, or even the scuttling of nervous feet. He held out his hands to see if Minso or Isiah would place anything in them. 

“Appa, open your eyes.” 

“What?” There was nothing in his hands. 

“Just do it!”

He did. And instead of a brightly covered box or a festive shopping bag, there was a giant cage. Inside was a small tropical-looking bird. It had green-yellow feathers with long black stripes along its back. It had a small round head, beady eyes, and a downturned grey beak. It looked up at Jeong-Hun, and cocked its head, chirping a strange tune. 

“What the heck is this?” Jeong-Hun said in a deadpan tone. 

“This is a parakeet. I know you used to take care of chickens when you lived in Korea. I thought maybe you’d want another companion since you’ll be all alone.”

Yes, Jeong-Hun took care of chickens. But he took care of them so he could eat them. You couldn’t really eat a parakeet. It was too cute and too small. 

“Isiah knows how to take care of birds. He can explain more about it.”

Jeong-Hun looked at Isiah and shrugged while nodding. He kept his eye on Isiah with great hesitation. 

With his signature smile, Isiah pointed at the bird. In English, he explained something that Minso translated. “It’s a budgie. It’s an easy bird to take care of, I used to have a budgie when I was younger. They like to play with people and toys, especially chewing tools. And the best part about them is that they can mimic human speech!” 

“How?” Jeong-Hun asked.

“They’re just that smart.”

Jeong-Hun let that circulate in his head. A bird constantly talking in his house? That sounded like torture. Slowly, he asked, “do they talk all the time?”

“Well, they can be pretty noisy birds. But they’re super sweet companions. Makes the house feel less lonely.” 

“Okay…”

Isiah dug through his pockets and eventually pulled out a piece of paper. “Here, this is a list that can help you.” 

Jeong-Hun opened it. Thank goodness, it was written in Korean. 

“Um, Minho helped me with that,” Isiah added, pointing at the Korean. 

“Thank you,” Jeong-Hun slowly said to Isiah. To Minho, he said, “Minho, what were you thinking -- getting me a bird?”

“You have experience with birds. And you need someone -- or something -- to keep you company. I was so worried about you.” 

“A sweater would’ve been more effective.”

“Look, you didn’t want to come to visit me and Isiah and his family. That’s cool. But, ever since Mom died, you haven’t been socializing with people. And I’m worried about the effect that’s gonna have on your health. Look, if you find you can’t handle it, Isiah and I will take it from you. But, you know, at least try it out for Christmas.”

Jeong-Hun stared at Minso. Her wide eyes stared back at him, begging him to say yes. She gave him a small smile, which reassured him. Minho would always be his child, but sometimes, you could learn from children. 

“Alright, fine.” He looked back at the bird. It cocked its head and flapped its wings. “I’ll take it in for the weekend.” 

“Oh yay!” Minso gave her father a tight hug around his chest. “You won’t regret this, I swear.” 

Jeong-Hun nodded, somewhat skeptical of Minso’s claim. He hugged her back though and told her to have fun for Christmas. 

After helping Jeong-Hun move the cage and other bird essentials into the house, Isiah gave Jeong-Hun a friendly pat on his back. “Alright, remember if the bird causes you any trouble, just give us a call. I can work it out with you.” 

“Yes, yes. Thank you,” Jeong-Hun responded in stilted English. 

He stood in front of his house, watching Minso and Isiah pull out onto the street. He waved until he couldn’t see Minso’s pink hand waving back. 

Then, the car turned the corner, and it disappeared out of view. Jeong-Hun walked back into his small abode, and immediately, there was a clack clack clack. 

Jeong-Hun swung his head. The bird had started singing and clacking its beak. It turned its little head at him. Excitedly, it began jumping about its enclosure. 

“Why are you so happy to see me?” Jeong-Hun asked it in grumbled Korean. “We just met.” He stared at it some more. “Are you hungry? Did Minso or her boyfriend not feed you?”

The bird bobbed its little head. It sang a cheerful “kir-kir-kirucheu.” 

“I guess I should put some food in your feeder.” When Jeong-Hun was little, his mom would always wake him up at the crack of dawn to feed the chickens. They were nasty little creatures that would bite at his fingers and attack him if he got close to them. Was this bird the same? 

After reading through the written guide he was given, Jeong-Hun picked up the bird feed and poured it into the feeder. “There. Eat now,” he told the bird.

The bird glided over to the feeder and seemed to eye it peculiarly. It gave Jeong-Hun a nod and hopped around it. However, it didn’t start eating. 

“What’s wrong? Are you suddenly not hungry?” He paused. “Maybe you were never hungry.”

He squatted down in front of the budgie’s enclosure, staring silently through its bars. “Aigu, I should’ve asked them to take you with them. Chickens were easy. Just feed them, keep them outside, scare any foxes that got too close. And that was it! And you were rewarded at the end too.” 

The budgie glanced at him again, giving no answer nor indication of what it wanted. Jeong-Hun grumbled. “Fine, you know what? I am going to take a nap.” At this point, the bird seemed to be ignoring him. Jeong-Hun didn’t seem to notice the state of the bird, but instead grabbed a soda can from the empty fridge, and sat down on the one lounge chair that sat alone in the living room. 

The house had been pretty quiet ever since Minso’s mother, Hyon-Suk, passed away years ago. At first, Jeong-Hun didn’t like the silence, but the thing about silence is that it doesn’t expect you to like it at first. Eventually, Jeong-Hun became used to it, and somehow he came to believe that it had always been normal for him. 

From the little he knew of Isiah and his family, Jeong-Hun knew that they were a loud and festive group. Minso would sometimes show videos of them to him, and he didn’t like how loud they were. English was already the harshest language out there; it hit Jeong-Hun’s ears like knives and made him want to shrivel up. Just being surrounded by it made him feel worse. Besides, Hyon-Suk was the fluent one. And Minso was born as an English-speaker. Jeong-Hun could never figure it out completely. 

Jeong-Hun hadn’t even realized he had fallen asleep when he suddenly hear the BANG BANG BANG. He jolted up, wondering if some annoying neighborhood kids were throwing rocks at his gate. Grumbling and swearing under his breath, he slowly got to his feet. The BANG BANG BANG echoed again in the house. He then realized it was coming from inside the house. 

For a second, he considered the heater. Then, he knew. 

“That bird!”

He stormed towards the cage, where the small bird was. It was biting and scratching on the cage bars. It noticed Jeong-Hun, and squawked at him. 

“Hey! What are you doing now?” Jeong-Hun scolded it. 

The bird cocked it’s little head, almost like it was asking Jeong-Hun to let it out. But why did it need to go out? When he was little, chickens would just stay put in one place. Weren’t all birds like that?

“Could you not bite on your cage bars? It’s so loud, you stupid bird.” 

The bird persisted in biting the cage bars. It continued with a cheeky stubbornness. 

“Aigu! No, I am not going to let you out.” 

The bird squawked back at him. 

“What should I do?” He looked at his phone. He should call Minso to take this bird back. So he picked up his phone and dialed the only labeled number. 

He retreated into the kitchen to get away from the clanging. Eventually, Minso’s voice popped up. 

“Hello?” she said. 

“Minso! Get over here right now and take this stupid bird away!”

“Wha--”

“It’s too loud! It just keeps on biting its cage! So annoying! Such a stupid animal.”

“Hey, Appa, we’re too far to go and pick it up right now. How about I just give the phone to Isiah and he can walk you through the process?” 

Jeong-Hun was about to stop her but then realized that the bird was only getting louder. He could leave it outside, but it would then freeze in the harsh winter night, and as annoying as the bird was, he couldn’t bring himself to do that. He might as well speak with Isiah, even if he wouldn’t get everything. 

“Okay. Fine.” 

There was a shuffling on the other end. Jeong-Hun scratched his chin, trying to figure out how to translate every single word from Korean to Broken English to Proper English. He wracked his brain but then -- Isiah picked up the other side. 

“Hi, Mr. Kim. You need help with the budgie?”

Suddenly, every single word Jeong-Hun just translated faded. “Um… hello? Yes.”

“Okay, what’s going on?”

Jeong-Hun let out one long, “ummmmmmmmmm” as he translated a sentence in his brain. However, he couldn’t figure out the word for “cage”. No matter how hard he shuffled the words and rearranged them and searched, the language didn’t come out and his tongue was static. So, instead, he just said, “listen,” and held the phone up to the budgie, biting on its cage bars. 

There was a pause. Isiah slowly admitted, “sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

Jeong-Hun sighed. But, just as he did, there was another shuffling of the phone. He could faintly hear Minso talking to Isiah. Then, Minso said on the other side of the speaker, “tell me what’s going on, and I’ll translate.”

Jeong-Hun did so. Minso then took a second to tell Isiah, then handed the phone back to him. But Jeong-Hun rolled his eyes at this, wondering why Minso took the phone to translate if she wasn’t going to translate the whole thing. 

“What?” Jeong-Hun asked Isiah. 

“I think the budgie’s bored.”

Jeong-Hun paused. He looked at the bird. Miraculously, through some innate connection, the bird stopped biting its cage and looked back at him. “Bored?”

“He’s understimulated. I mean, he doesn’t have anything to interact with. You can put some toys in the cage. Or, maybe let him out.” 

“Let it out?” Jeong-Hun looked at the bird again. “You sure?”

“What do you mean?”

“It will…” Jeong-Hun hesitated. He never spoke this much with Isiah. “It will poop.”

To Jeong-Hun’s surprising relief, Isiah laughed heartily. Jeong-Hun didn’t realize he wanted that reassurance. “Put down some old newspapers. It might poop, but I can help you clean it later.”

Isiah then instructed Jeong-Hun how to let out the budgie in slow English, with Minso sometimes jumping in to help. He then told Jeong-Hun which toy to give the bird, and throughout it all, Jeong-Hun slowly felt his comprehension improve, as well as his general feeling of Isiah. 

Watching the budgie play with its new biting toy, Jeong-Hun asked Isiah again if the bird needed anything else. Mostly, Jeong-Hun did so just to see how good at English he was. 

“Nah, I just think he’s bored,” Isiah responded. 

“He?”

“Yeah, the bird’s a boy.”

“A boy? How do you know that?”

Isiah gave a lengthy answer about feathers and coloration that Jeong-Hun didn’t understand very well. When Jeong-Hun didn’t give a response, he simply then stated, “it’s just the feathers.” 

“Okay.”

“Anyways, did you give him a name?”

“No.” 

“Ah, I see. But, are you thinking of giving him a name?”

Jeong-Hun turned to the budgie, who was now prancing about and flinging its biting toy. The toy collided with the table leg, making a loud clang. Jeong-Hun sighed. “Maybe.”

“Alright then. Merry Christmas, and, again, if there’s anything you need from me or Min, give us a call!”

“I will. Thank you, Isiah.”

There was silence from the other side of the phone. “Isiah?”

“Sorry, that was the first time you ever called me by my name.”

“Did I say it right?”

Isiah laughed. “Yes sir. You did.” 

“Good.” Jeong-Hun took a breath and then admitted, “I was worried that I would say it wrong.”

“Well, it sounded pretty right to me.”

“Alright, thank you.”

“Merry Christmas.”

He then hung up. Jeong-Hun slowly realized he had a smile on his face, and wondered when it formed. 

The budgie then flung the toy towards the couch. It grabbed the couch leg and scaled it up like a mountaineer. It then glanced at Jeong-Hun and hopped over to his side. The bird clucked at him and he held his arm out to it. 

Jeong-Hun sat there and laughed. His house was so quiet that a bird had to tell him that it was bored. Then, he suddenly thought of a name for him. 

“What about Hyon-Suk?”

The bird bobbed its head again.

“It was my wife’s name. I know you’re a boy, but I think it fits you.” 

The bird opened its mouth. “Aigu!” it crowed. 

Jeong-Hun swung his head towards it. “What did you just say?” 

“Aigu! Aigu! Aigu!” Suddenly, the little small budgie spoke like a beleaguered middle-aged Korean man. Even with its strange croaking crow -- it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. 

“Could you say that again?”

The bird hopped towards Jeong-Hun, clicking its tongue. It almost seemed to be smiling. “Hello?” it purred, just as nervous and lost as Jeong-Hun. Then, it shook its head. “Aigu!”

“You are a multilingual bird!” Jeong-Hun said with a smile. “Just as I am a multilingual dad.” 

With that, he gave the bird another stroke on the head with his pinky. He then started searching for his phone to ask Isiah if he and his family would invite him to the New Year’s Festivities. 

Korean Translations (note: Korean is in Anglicized spelling)

• Aigu = a common declarative when someone is stressed, annoyed, or upset. Used mostly with older generations. 
• “Aigu! You know better than to drop that plate!”
• Appa = daddy or dad; a casual form for father, or abeoji.