Mirae

When I was in my final year of upper secondary school, I wrote a mime play. No speech was required, I vaguely remember that the script was brief. It was amateurish but our principal had liked it. Before that I had caught a mime performance by a foreign artist at the university theatre hence the idea of putting up a mime performance at the school concert. My dad used to bring home music albums in the form of cartridges, cassettes and I remember painstakingly putting together a medley of music. Instead of studying for the examinations, I spent hours selecting the music for each scene, recording and measuring the time for each of them. A student dozes off on her desk while studying for exams. She dreams about a degree / certificate, money, house, knowledge and fun. What was it that we were after? What is the purpose of studying? Academic success was what we were told to aspire for. Often a college or varsity degree is a straightforward way for getting employment and starting life as an adult.

When I turned eighteen,I was gifted a copy of a copy of Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. That was when I was first acquainted with the fatalistic and pessimistic views of the author depicted through his characters whose lives are shaped by forces beyond their control. I find Thomas Hardy’s fictions too sad . Perhaps fate has a role in our lives, we play the cards we are dealt and we savour the beautiful and surreal moments amidst various challenges we encounter in life. Growing up, my dad had instilled in me the concept that you chart your own life. ‘Que sera sera’ was a tune that we often sang in school. If I had read Albert Camus or Franz Kafka, I wonder if the trajectory of my life might have been different.

When we are grownups, most of us want to have it all only to find that we cannot have it all. We learn to appreciate the present and let go of things that we cannot control. Whatever happens, what matters is our attitude and our resolve to make the best of where we are.

In Park Avenue by Renée Ahdieh, growing up as the daughter of Korean bodega in Manhattan, Jia Song aspires to have all the luxuries when she grows up. She graduates in law from Columbia university. Now she is made a junior partner at Whitman Volker, a prestigious law firm in Manhattan , her dream of owning a Birkin 30 in Barenia Faubourg is finally within reach. When she is asked by her managing partner Benjamin Volker to sit in on a hush-hush meeting with a major client, she accepts without hesitation only to find out that it is the family of Chilsoo “Seven” Park who live in Lenox Hill on Park Avenue. The client owns Mirae, a cosmetics company. The Parks are one of the most famous Korean families in the world. The Parks and their mega successful beauty brand are worth a billion dollars. The father is filing for divorce, the mother is dying and the children cannot stop fighting. The father, Seven Park has claimed that twenty-five million was their net worth and his children know that he is lying. He has offered his sick wife fifteen million and the Park Avenue, his children want their mother to challenge the father’s offer for purpose of settlement. It is apparent that the father has hidden the majority of their family’ s wealth. Whitman Volker has been engaged by the siblings to challenge their father’s divorce settlement proposal . When Jenny Park agrees to give Jia one month to find out how much is their true worth, she chases the truth across the globe with the objective to find the evidence for Seven’s convoluted offshore accounts in different countries. As she navigates the delicate relationship between the three siblings particularly the estranged twins sisters, she is aware that she needs to perform her work with judicious care. When she is drawn into the dynamics of the Park siblings Sora, Suzy and Minsoo, she finds them broken and they harbour dark secrets of their own.

Jia knows that being able to buy her dream Birkin will not bring her lifelong happiness. Money certainly makes things easier but it does not bring peace. As she moves about in a world of extreme wealth, she needs to maintain her focus.

‘Jia wondered if too much money might be the antithesis of happiness. Maybe it made it harder to find contentment. After all, everything in life couldn’t be glitzy or polished to perfection. Real life wasn’t meant for a curated highlight reel. Perhaps it was important to bear witness to both ends of a spectrum to appreciate the experience of either one. Like a superhero slogan about how the darkest nights gave rise to the brightest dawns.’

– Park Avenue, Renée Ahdieh @page 185

As Mirae is a public listed company, the public must not know about Jenny’s illness.Can Jia find the truth in time to protect their fortune and secure the promotion that she has been promised? She needs to understand why Seven Park would hide his family’s wealth when in doing so, he is also hurting his relationship with his children. While she chases the truth across the globe together with the Park siblings with no expenses spared , she develops a fondness for the broken family and a crush for Darius Rohani, Jenny’s Park’s dark eyes and handsome butler/ personal assistant.

Though Jia has always relished a challenge, she feels unnerved after convincing Jenny Park to give her one month to uncover years of financial subterfuge. She is apprehensive about trusting any of the siblings and she is also not certain if Darius can be trusted. As the investigation progresses, whatever document that she manages to pick up, it gets leaked. There is a mole amongst the family members or their staff.

‘ Nothing about the Park family was ordinary. But Jia suspected this journey through the extraordinary would not be meant for the pages of Architectural Digest or Forbes.

It would be a set of shining teeth, its sharpened fangs glittering in the shadows.’

– Park Avenue, Renée Ahdieh @page85

Jia knows that being able to buy her dream Birkin will not bring her lifelong happiness. Money certainly makes things easier but it does not bring peace. As she moves about in a world of extreme wealth, she needs to maintain her focus.

‘The question of what the future might hold was something that had consumed Jia from the age of thirteen the year her grandfather had put her in charge of their family’s destiny. An honor, of course, but also a lofty responsibility for a young girl with Jonathan Taylor Thomas posters and Baby-Sitters Club paperbacks strewn across her bedroom floor.’

Jia’s grandfather died of a heart attack when Jia was thirteen years old. Jia woke from a deep sleep with a start as ‘lightning cut across the purple sky, followed by a crackle of thunder.’It was then the ghost of Harabugi appeared before her and told her that she would be the one from now on to take care of their family. Not her brothers. Not her cousins.

‘ I know you will make me proud. Song Jihae, you are destined for true greatness.’ Her grandfather said to her and then he vanished in a final burst of lightning.

Park Avenue by Renée Ahdieh is a character-driven dark comedy that takes the reader from New York to Scotland, Paris and the Cayman Islands. Korean fare such as soondubu jigae, soft tofu spicy stew, geotjuri, buldak ramyun tteokbokki, kimchi get a mention in the story.

Its protagonist, Jia Song is an endearing and a relatable character.Like Jia, I love long plane rides. When you are up in the sky, you will be uninterrupted, unbothered. As soon as the Captain turns off the overhead lights, you turn on your reading light and read the books you bring on board and watch a film or two on the plane. Bliss .