Fast forward a few years and it is Annie who wants to drive. Her father, conceded to be the family’s most skilled driver, is tapped to teach Choi how to master California’s highways and byways, and to pass her driver’s test. Choi assumed she needed to take the wheel and receive all the necessary pointers involving go, stop, turn, and merge. Her dad had other thoughts making it something akin to Olympic competition for Choi to even sit in the driver’s seat. Fast forward again and a grown-up Choi, in LA for a visit, provides an alternative account to two women sharing a kitchen, here a daughter and her mom sharing a car. Who can fault her mother for wanting Choi to move into the right hand lane ten miles before they have to turn off? Well, you get the picture.
Objects also figure in this memoir. Choi’s dad is a chemist. At one point in their life together he becomes obsessed with gold plating everything. It is an hysterically funny story about science, jewelry, and a man with a dream. And the same man who hordes gold bars for the safety of his family, obstinately clings to the hexagonal wood table covered with glass that is the center of the family’s life. Eating, socializing, paying bills, and bickering over money take place here. The Korean Times is read there. Laundry is folded, mail, backpacks, and lunches sit there. Friends gather there. The Choi family aged and so did the hexagon: corners splintered, glass chipped. Choi believed that "After twenty-five years, the table was suffering a deep, relentless pain and needed to be euthanized." Time for a new table where the family "could get into new arguments and make new memories." Choi had it marked for Goodwill; her dad viewed it as offering decades more service to the family. Families fight over furniture. All families dispute what is to be loved or lost. Choi makes this classic domestic struggle a side-splitting one.
And then there is Choi talking to us about underwear. "When used properly," she writes, "underwear prevents chafing, keeps things warm downstairs, and plays a vital role in public health." So imagine her concern when one Christmas, flying Virgin American flight 317, she found herself without luggage and, without underwear. This puts her at the mercy of her mother who only wears underwear from Korea. It is, her mom argues, "the softest, most durable, and most affordable underwear on the planet." She says that American versions don’t fit well — "Why so low? You bend over, you see everything! Why even wear panty?" Childhood for Annie was an unending series of confrontations over "pink panties with fuzzy pigs in rhinestone collars." Choi’s riff on body wear is a wonderfully funny metaphor about immigrant moms and American born daughters, a tune with universal appeal.
Many a day I wish for a good news newspaper. So far I have had no luck in convincing the media that decency and peace sell. In the absence of media cheer, get yourself a copy of Shut Up, You’re Welcome. Choi’s wit is pointed but not savage. She uses humor to underscore the essential, sustained importance of family, the collective umbilical cord that binds.
©2013 Jill Norgren for SeniorWomen.com
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