“So a carnival of fun,” I reply.

“I developed a bad stutter,” he admits.

“No.” I don’t want to believe it because it would’ve taken a lot of awful comments to make a child stutter, and that sounds like an actual crime.

“It’s true,” he says cheerfully, clearly over that childhood trauma. He flips the meat over. Grease makes a spitting noise and smoke is sucked up the vent flume resting a bare foot above the grill. “My appa came over for a visit and I stuttered so badly that we could barely have a conversation. That was the end of my stay in America. He brought me back to Korea and I’ve been here since. Well, I did go to college in the States, which helped develop my English-language skills.”

“They’re better than mine,” I tell him. “Was it better the second time around?”

“Much. I didn’t stutter anymore and I even thought about staying and working there, but my appa”—he pauses and there’s something that he decides against sharing—“and my eomma needed help. Eomma is ‘mother’ in Korean. She’s technically my stepmother but we’re very close. She helped me get over my stutter.” He smiles fondly. “And when she took over our company, she made changes, some of which were very unpopular, but it helped so many people, particularly disadvantaged people.” He speaks of his stepmother with a great deal of pride and affection. “Ah, enough of that. Have you been to LA?” He changes the subject.

“No. I went to DC on a class trip when I was in seventh grade and my mom took me to Chicago a couple of times. It’s fairly close, relatively speaking.”

“You mean in America terms.”

“We do have a different standard of measurement when it comes to geography,” I agree. Korea is roughly the size of Indiana but has eight times the people, so six hours can take you across the country here, whereas back in America, it takes you to the state’s border. “Anyway, I’m uncultured. I admit it.”

It’s not a great feeling, either. I don’t know why I haven’t traveled more. There was the opportunity to travel to Spain with my Spanish class my sophomore year of high school, but I ended up staying home after getting into a fight with my then best friend, Sophie. One day at lunch she told everyone at our table that my refrigerator smelled like dirty socks. My mom had tried to make some kimchi but it didn’t quite work out, and yeah, the house did smell bad, but it took me back to when I was in elementary school and kids made stupid—but surprisingly cruel—comments about stinky Asians. Sophie apologized and said it was a joke, but I hadn’t wanted to spend ten days with her after that. I spent spring break baking apple pies and Mom stopped making Korean dishes.

“America has different standards of measurement for everything. Who measures things in feet?” Yujun serves me the cooked meat and I refill the grill. We get down a good system of cooking and serving. The meat is melt-in-your-mouth tender. Hanwoo, Yujun explains, is a special Korean beef that isn’t allowed for export because the government wants to keep the best for its own citizens. “How long are you here for?”