“This is Mom’s go-to move for guilting me into doing something I don’t want to do. […] It’s like baking soda, useful in so many different scenarios. I’m dying to know what nonimmigrant parents say to coerce their kids.”

Yumi explains the typical way that Korean parents get their children to comply. As the quote indicates, guilt plays a large part in this tactic because the parent is so quick to point out the many sacrifices they’ve made to ensure a better life for their offspring. The implication is that Yumi would be selfish and ungrateful if she didn’t cooperate. While this comment is meant to be humorous, it’s also a good indicator of how deeply Yumi has been conditioned to fear disappointing her parents.

“‘Mr. Lee, Yuri is not teenager anymore!’ He pauses. ‘She is twenty years old. Skipped two grades and graduated from the university early,’ he adds, injecting himself into the conversation. I swear, my sister is like his own living, breathing trophy.”

Mr. Chung scurries across the restaurant to converse with a customer to brag about his overachieving daughter. While the quote demonstrates the one-upmanship involved in boasting about a parent’s progeny, it also depersonalizes Yuri into an inanimate trophy. The comment also implies that Yumi can never make her father equally proud.

“I picture waking up from surgery after having charisma and confidence stitched alongside my organs and being miraculously healed from my stifling self-consciousness. I’d leave the hospital a totally different person. I’d participate in class, have a ton of friends, and my jokes would land.”

In these early pages, Yumi is desperate to change her persona. This fanciful wish to have a personality transplant will shortly be fulfilled. By masquerading as Kim Nakamura, Yumi can pretend to be what she’s not. In rejecting her authentic self to please others, she distances herself even further from the True Yumi.