51. Do you want to live like this? (Correction)
A shack with a dirt floor and some sort of paneling that looks like it was picked up here and there, barely enough to keep out the rain and wind.
Meanwhile, there were cockroaches the size of my fingers crawling on the walls, and rats the size of puppies or cats running around in the corners.
It looked like a cat would be hunted rather than hunted.
To put it mildly, it was worse than a Korean cow shed.
How could anyone live in such an environment?
“Oh! Sheets!”
Even Harry, who never blinked an eye at the sight of America’s wars, was shouting Shiet at the top of his lungs.
“Where’s your mom?”
Seeing her mother is a priority.
“She probably went to fetch water.”
“Fetching water? Is there a tap nearby?”
“No, we don’t have a tap, we have a communal well.”
“Ha—.”
I’m at a loss for words.
There are probably many children on the planet growing up in conditions worse than this.
Many children in Africa, South America, India, and other underdeveloped countries in Southeast Asia like Cambodia.
But I’m not God, and I can’t take care of all those children.
I’m not capable of it.
However, this child is a child who is so strongly born with Korean blood that anyone who sees him will think, “Oh, that’s my Korean child!”.
If he was in Korea, he would have been selected as a basic welfare recipient and given the support to grow up as a human being.
But because the son of a b*tch who sowed the seeds didn’t know me, he’s growing up miserable in this goddamn slum in the Philippines, in a place worse than the old shacks in Korea.
This is not right, this is not right.
Even if I could turn away from the children of Africa, I didn’t think I could turn away from the children of Kopino.
Because they look so much like me.
In other words, there’s a blood tug.
“Jose, do you have a cell phone?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Harry!”
“Yes, boss!”
“Have someone get you a cell phone and a bite to eat.”
“Yes, sir.”
Harry immediately instructed the remaining team in front of the slum to get a cell phone and something to eat.
From nob le mt l. co m
Just then, a shabby, sickly Filipina woman ran into the house and grabbed Jose, looking terrified.
I mean, a bunch of white dudes and fair-skinned Northeast Asians just walked in the door.
“%&*&%$%#@$”
They’re yelling at us, and I don’t know what the hell they’re saying.
It was in Tagalog or some other Filipino language.
“What the hell is he saying?”
The kid speaks English, but his mom doesn’t.
“I asked who the uncles are.”
“Is that your mom?”
“Yes.”
“How come you speak English, but your mom doesn’t?”
“I learned it in school, and I learned it separately at the Kopino Center.”
“Huh? Copino Center? Did you go to a place like that?”
“Yes, in Manila.”
“You used to live in Manila?”
“Yes, until last year.”
“Then why did you come here?”
“My mom got weak and couldn’t work, so we couldn’t afford the rent anymore, so we came here where there are a lot of kopinos like me.”
“The rent is cheaper here, and there are a lot of copinos here?”
“This house is 500 pesos a month.”
“Five, 500 pesos?”
500 pesos is about 10,000 won in Korean money.
I was cursing the landlord for renting such a sh*tty place for money, but for 500 pesos, I can’t even curse.
Sorry, landlord.
“So what do you mean when you say there are a lot of copinos?”
“The kids in this neighborhood are either Copino, Zapino, or Chipino in the womb, but Copinos are the most numerous.”
“Zapino? I get the Japanese half-breeds, but the Chipino are the Chinese half-breeds?”
“Yes.”
“Phew, can you ask your mom, what happened with your dad?”
“Yes, sir.”
I heard the story through Jose’s translator.
He doesn’t go into details, but he says they met at a place called LA Cafe in Malate, Manila, and they were together for a week and had Jose,
and when she got pregnant, she called him and he got mad and cut her off.
That’s all I heard, but it gave me a rough picture.
Malate LA Cafe.
Also known as Galibjip, it is a famous place for Koreans traveling in and out of the Philippines.
It’s a popular meeting place for Koreans traveling to and from the Philippines.
So, to make a long story short, Jose’s mom, like many rural Filipino women, was an athlete, met his dad, and gave birth to Jose.
I mean, how the hell were they both not on birth control?
Honestly, they both looked the same to me, the mom and the dad.
By the way, it’s now very late at night.
Time to head back.
From nob le mt l. co m
Just then, my bodyguard comes by with my phone and a quick bite to eat.
“Jose.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you going to keep selling peanuts and live like this?”
“No, I want to study and get out of here if I get the chance.”
“Don’t you miss your dad?”
“Not at all, I don’t want to see him at all, he’s the one who abandoned us.”
I could see the hatred she had for her father.
Hagiya, it seems, has been through the whole prenatal process at a young age, and when she is around children like her at the Kopino Center or here, she knows how she was born.
There’s no way she’d think well of her dad.
“Okay, okay. I’ll think about it and come back tomorrow. Here’s something to eat and your phone, so I can call you.”
“You’re giving me this?”
It’s probably the first smartphone I’ve ever owned in my life.
From nob le mt l. co m
Jose’s face lit up.
“Okay. It’s a rough neighborhood, so take good care of it. I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.”
The resort we’re staying at is quite far from here, almost an hour away.
When we get back to the resort, I tell my dad about Jose.
“So, what are you going to do about it?”
“If I didn’t know, I wouldn’t know, but I don’t think I could live without knowing.”
“So, you’re going to apply to the Clean Water Foundation?”
“I think that’s better, it’s not like we’re just going to throw money around, someone has to stick with it, and honestly, there’s no one to trust. Some of the stories I heard during my language training were that there are religious people who are scamming people with relief projects, and there are people who are shooting each other in the back like it’s a business—. Anyway, I don’t know if it’s because we have such a large diaspora here, but there are some weirdos in the mix, so you have to be careful.”
“Hmm, okay. Hold on.”
Dad picked up his phone and started dialing here and there.
The Philippines is an hour behind Korea, so it wasn’t too rude to talk on the phone yet.
After a while.
“I was introduced to this guy. He said he knows the most about copino in Cebu. Says he’s trustworthy.”
“So soon?”
“You know, it’s been a while since I became the secretary-general of the welfare corporation Jung-Hwa Foundation. Young-dong and I are quite famous on this floor, and we know a lot of people through this lineage.”
“Oh, so I’ll have to see my dad again?”
“You son of a b*tch, I’ll see him tomorrow morning, so why don’t you come out with me?”
“Okay, Dad.”
The next day, Mom and Somi stayed at the resort while Dad and I went out to Cebu City.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Ki-Hoon Yeom. I’ve been running a Korean restaurant in the Philippines for 20 years.”
“hahahaha, nice to meet you, I’m Kang Man-soo, the secretary general of the Jeonghwa Foundation, a social welfare organization. This is my son.”
“Kang-sik.”
“I was surprised to get a call from Prof. Kim yesterday. Your ladder center was a hot topic in the Philippines. You’re doing really good work.”
“hahahaha, you’re welcome.”
You said the Ladder Center was a big deal in Korea, but I didn’t think anyone knew about it here?
“Yes, you want to know about Kopino? I understand your interest, but it’s not an easy problem to solve.”
“I know it’s not easy.”
“A lot of visitors, like Korean tourists, get sentimental when they see them, but it’s not usually a complicated issue, and there are a lot of them out there. Moreover, they often make promises that they can’t fulfill out of sentimentality and then lose touch with them, leaving a scar on their hearts.”
“I hear what you’re saying, but we’re not those people.”
“I’ll tell you anything I know from living in the Philippines for over 20 years, what do you want to know?”
“Let’s move on, everyone knows how the kopinos are born, and what they’re like to live, I saw it yesterday. I guess the question is this: how in the world are they being left out there, with nothing being done about it?”
This is what I’m most upset about.
Yes, I understand abandoning a child a hundred times over.
I understand abandoning a child a hundred times over. It’s just that once you’ve come to have fun, the babae you’re playing with is pregnant.
Birth control?
Let’s get this one out of the way.
I don’t know what kind of balls she had to fly all the way to the Philippines and start slurping raw macho broth with no concern for STDs or pregnancy.
Of course, Filipino women don’t have it easy either.
Even if you were born in the countryside, learned nothing, have nothing, and think that marrying a foreigner is your only way out, where the hell do you get the idea that a Korean will marry you if you get pregnant?
And you’re unwilling or unable to get an abortion because it’s practically a Catholic country?
Okay, let’s get past all that.
The thing is!
What the hell is this kid’s dad doing in the Philippines, where if he’s ever been, he’d know what it’s really like?
If we could just send him 200,000 won or 300,000 won a month, he’d be able to live a decent life.
You don’t want that?
“That’s right, first of all, nine times out of ten their dad refuses to contact them at all, claiming that they’re not his kids, and he’s right, because no human being with a placenta would risk family breakdown to admit that they have kids in the Philippines.”
“Aww, bad people!”
“And it’s the same if you don’t have a home. The Filipino girls you hang out with, whether they’re career women or just plain house girls, are all lower class. If you’re even middle class, let alone upper class Filipino, you’re not going to date a Korean, at least not with the opposite s*x. Or if you do, that’s better, because there’s no reason for kopino issues to arise in a normal relationship like that.”
“…”
“Korean bachelors who think they’ve had a relationship with a foreign student, or a language student, or a girl who came over and hung out with them for a while, or bought a girl on the cheap, will they admit to having a child when they’re not even married yet, and then marry her? That’s just not possible.”
“Ha—.”
“In a word, money is money, but they don’t want to admit that they’re in a situation where even death can stop them… Well, they’re bad people.”
Real assholes.
“No, so there’s no way to legally force them to pay child support?”
“Well, it’s not usually that hard. First of all, you have to establish who the father is, and the placenta doesn’t even know who the kids’ father is.”
“No, you don’t even know who the father is?”
“No, I don’t, I just met him at a pana cafe and a club and stuff, and we were together for a week or so, and then I had a baby, and I don’t even know his Korean name.”
“Huh—.”
“So how the hell do you find the kid’s father? Even if you’ve been living with a regular Filipina for a long time and know her identity, and she’s not one of those nightclub players, it’s still going to be difficult. To claim child support, you have to first prove that the child is legally the child of some Korean and get a court to rule on it. It’s called a recognition claim, and proving it isn’t usually a hard thing to do. You have to test the DNA of the child and the alleged Korean father to match, and what kind of a nutcase would go along with that?”
“…”
This is so darn complicated.
“The bottom line is, unless the suspected father is willing to cooperate, it’s going to be really time-consuming and expensive.”
“And what do you do when you’ve gone through all those hoops and gotten a child support judgment? You just lie down on your stomach with no money? Especially with young kids who come here as international students or language trainees, they don’t have any property in their name, so it’s hard to enforce.”
“Hah, that’s hard.”
Nothing was easy.