My mother later told me that this was hanja（韩文汉字）, a special Korean way of writing using the Chinese alphabet. This was the hanja version of my Korean name. She said, “Your grandfather was once a famous artist. All the people in his town wanted him to draw their names.”

“Wow,” I said, holding the rice paper carefully.

“You know what your name means, don’t you?” she said. “It means ‘Wise One.’ Do you remember?”

“I remember,” I said. I held up my Korean name to the light, the paper so thin it glowed.

Not too long after that my grandfather went to a nursing home, and during the next summer he died while I was away at camp. My father turned the attic into a storage room. Now it's filled with dusty boxes of old clothes and shoes and old furniture.

I still have the drawing of my Korean name. My mother had it framed for me, and it hangs in my room right now. I wonder what my grandfather used to tell me those afternoons when he spoke in Korean, going on and on in this strange language that I never learned. Maybe he was telling me stories. Maybe he was telling me about his life in Korea.

Sometimes, if I go up into the attic and listen very carefully, I can almost hear his voice rising and falling, telling me stories I don't understand. I can almost see him in the corner, hunched（弯腰驼背） over, listening to his radio and fanning himself. I can see him swishing his brush over the rice paper, and then pointing to me, telling me my own name.

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