![]() ![]() He twisted wisps of yellow straw to the left, knotting coal, paper, pine needles, red peppers, and what little love he had left into a makeshift rope, heart lifting at the prospects of redemption. The Golden String an outdated custom in Korea by the time we made it into the world, but Grandpa Choi paid no mind. In the dead of winter, the vegetables froze stiff on straw ropes and ripened into smooth, crimson icicles. My twin brother was named first and I happened to inherit the ‘Mi.’ When Mir and I were born, Grandpa Choi hung peppers outside the gates. When I was younger, I used to wonder why, why Mi-in, why such a nonconventional eye-catcher of a name, and hoped there was more to it, a buried purpose, something deeply moving. ![]() Many fell about laughing when they made the connection. Eventually the name became a nuisance, its repercussions clinging to me like low hanging fruit. That is, until time negated this reasoning. At the time, it was expected that I, too, would follow in the footsteps of my grandmother and mother in becoming a bona fide mi-in. So it was with great irony that he’d named me at birth, Mi-in, beauty-person (美人)-a beauty. I knew what he meant I wasn’t beautiful enough to be a fool. There wasn’t wiggle room in his vernacular. “Jang Mi-in, you’ve got a face that needs education.” ![]() Grandpa Choi once sat me down and said, you’ve got a face that begs to study. #Ilift twin brother full#The author has a wonderful eye for the smallest details that build the lives of the main players, and I won’t spoil anything here, but the turn at the end of the second chapter gave me chills and sets up a premise full of intrigue and mystery. These first chapters chart her course, jumping to adulthood, where she tutors and takes care of a now-ailing Grandpa Choi. Named Mi-in-beauty-person (美人)-she has struggled against the weight and implications of a name she feels she hasn’t, and can’t, live up to. This opening chapter of Sena Moon’s, Familiar Strangers is the second-place winner of the 2021 CRAFT First Chapters Contest, judged by Masie Cochran.įamiliar Strangers follows the life of Jang Mi-in from her birth alongside her twin brother, marked by her Grandpa Choi with the Golden String. ![]()
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