It's about a Korean lady...She is the first person that I came to know when I arrived here, in Adelaide. She was the owner of the hostel in which I used to live. She is very kind and nice, and you can see a smile on her face almost every time you see her. She just has the "peaceful" aura around her all the time...It's not just peaceful, to be precise. As a matter of fact, she is the kind of person who's always there, ready to help you. Every time she sees me, even now, she'll definitely ask me how I am doing, and whether I need her help or not. Well, it's because she knows that I'm new to Adelaide and I think she feels that she has the responsibility to take care of me. When I was at the hostel, I felt so taken-care of. She took care of everything and all I needed to do was to clean my laundries, cook my own food, and study hard, that's all. I just want to make my point that, she's a very kind and well-intended person, who's trying to make a good day for everyone.
But then, bad happenings are just around the corner...
To be continued...
Just about two weeks of living in the hostel, she told me that we might have to move out from the hostel if she would lose the lawsuit. Since she's a Korean, there is a gap in our conversation. She could not describe it in detail, but I got her meaning. There was something wrong with the contract between the previous owner of the hostel and her. Then, the hostel was to be shut down if she cannot afford another sum of money, which she did not expect to pay. To cut the long story short, and skipping all the things that happened in the second month, we had to move out eventually. She had no luck.
From the first day that she told us (students living in the hostel) we had to move out, she lost her natural smile. Since then, I noticed that she began to stare in the air, thinking of things only known to herself. Then, most of the times when she talked to us, her eyes and nose would turn red, and tears filled her eyes. She did not cry, but wept. She never let a single tear roll down her cheeks. She would wipe them with her hands before they came off. I sensed that she was really trying very, very hard to withstand the pressure. The pressure was leaving her no way out, but she still persisted to push on, not knowing if she can hang on or not. She gave me the feeling that she doesn't care if she can make it out alive. She just want to push herself to go on, and find something out of the odds that are all against her. It really sunk my heart to see her doing it all by herself.
Normally, we would have our family to support us in these times. But I don't see her husband anywhere, and I never dared to ask her about it. She has two sons, but I don't think they are doing anything about it either. When she wept in front of us, her sons were just as helpless as we were. Pardon us(non-Koreans) for the language barrier, but they should have done more than us in the first place. They are her sons!!! Anyway, she loves them very much, and I should say no more bad things about them.
Luckily, I found a place to move out, and I moved out fairly early, few weeks before the due. When the day came for her to move out, none of the students from the hostel came to help her move, as they had all moved out earlier. I'm proud to say that I went to help her ^^ out of 30 to 40 people, only 1 came to help, and she was so nice to all of us. That is no one's fault, but it would really mean a lot to her if some more came back to help her. There were so many things to move. Fortunately, she owns a house just beside the hostel. So, it was really near. However, there were so many things to move. She had some of her Korean friends to come over to help her, just few, just enough.
When it was nearly finished, she just sat on floor, and took her shoes off. She said that she had no more energy. She had been standing and walking around from morning to nearly night, non-stop. And her feet hurt a lot by then. Her eyes became red again. It could have looked like a bit childish, taking your shoes off, sitting on the floor complaining that your feet hurts, but she was not joking. She really looked tired and exhausted. It looked worse with her skinny body, as if she would break down. Ah, the sourness struck my heart again. I really did not know what to do. I could have help to massage her feet, obviously, but, I would not do it. Maybe because I was still not close enough to her. Unlike my cousin who is with 2 children, still wants to force me to massage her feet. She practically just ordered me to massage her feet =.="
Anyway, for nearly a month, I saw her wept silently but couldn't do anything about it. I'm glad that finally, everything is over. Hope that she will have a better life ahead...
