Forty Bibles and Forty Dictionaries

There’s a bookshelf in the lounge room that shelves books that date back to the seventies. And then there are the dictionaries. There are English/Korean dictionaries, Korean/English dictionaries and Korean/Korean dictionaries. There is also a Korean/French dictionary and there is even a English/Korean dictionary of Military terms with definitions for “gyro control, gyro horizon, gyro stabilizer, gyro pilot” and of course there are the dictionaries in English.

The thing about these dictionaries is there isn’t just one copy. One copy for Father wasn’t enough. Even to have one copy of the Maths textbook for while I was in the 6th grade wasn’t enough for Father. He insisted I get another Maths textbook, a second copy for home. I got screamed at by a classmate coming across the playground that she was missing a copy. She had some nerve to scream at me like that coming across the playground in front of the other students, teachers, parents in the morning before assembly and before the first class was due to start. It still riles me to this day."

About the Author

Hae-Lyun Kang was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1968 and grew up in Sydney, Australia from 1970. She graduated from the University of Western Sydney with a BA in English, Text and Writing and Asian Studies. She has spent a year in Japan in 1992/1993 and a year in South Korea in 1999/2000 ESL teaching. She lives in Sydney. Forty Bibles and Forty Dictionaries is her first book.