The hubbub was instantly silenced when the front door of the classroom flew open and the Head of Student Discipline appeared.
“You there! Screaming by the window! Come out to the front! All of you!”
Everyone sitting by the window was called out to the front of the room. The girls protested—“We were just sitting in our seats, we didn’t shout, we didn’t even look out the window”—and the teacher picked five and took them down to the teachers’ office. They spent fourth period doing drills as punishment and writing letters of apology. The class bully who returned during lunch spat out of the window.
“Fucking hell. He’s the one who stripped! Those dumb fuckers are punishing us instead of catching the pervert? What the fuck did we do? What’s there to apologize for? I’m not the one who flashed my junk!”
The girls giggled. The bully spat out of the window a few more times, still furious.
The five girls called to the teachers’ office, who were habitually late for school, started coming to school before everyone and slept all through the morning classes. It seemed they were up to something, but they weren’t causing trouble of note, so the teachers left them alone. And then it happened. Like enemies running into each other on a bridge, the bully came across the flasher in an alley early in the morning, and the four hiding behind her pounced on him with clotheslines and belts, tied him up and dragged him to a nearby police station. No one knows what happened at the police station or to the flasher. But the flasher was gone for good, although the five girls were suspended. For one week, they weren’t allowed to attend classes; they wrote letters of apology in the Student Discipline room next to the teachers’ office, cleaned up the school field and toilets, and never talked about what happened.
Sometimes, teachers would give them noogies as they walked by. “You girls should be ashamed of yourselves. Tsk, what a disgrace for our school.”
The bully hissed “motherfucker” under her breath once the teacher left, and spat out of the window.
Jiyoung had her first period in the eighth grade. It was neither early nor late for girls her age. Her older sister also got her first period in the eighth grade, and since the two were similar in physical type, diet, and rate of growth (the hand-me-downs she received came at regular intervals and fit her perfectly), so Jiyoung had a feeling it was coming. She calmly used one of the sky-blue sanitary pads in Eunyoung’s top drawer, and told her sister her periods had started.
“Ugh, your happy days are over,” Eunyoung said. Jiyoung didn’t know if she should tell the rest of the family, and, if so, what to tell them. Eunyoung passed on the news to their mother on Jiyoung’s behalf. And that was it. Father said he’d be late, there wasn’t enough rice in the cooker to go round, and the mother and the three siblings agreed to make three packets of ramen to share and finish off the rice. As soon as a large pot of ramen and four bowls were placed on the dining table, the younger brother filled his bowl to the brim.
“Hey! Leave some for the rest of us!” Eunyoung gave him a noogie. “And Mother should serve herself first, not you.”
Eunyoung filled her mother’s bowl with noodles, soup, and an egg, and took half of her brother’s noodles. The mother then gave her noodles to her son.
“Mom!” Eunyoung screamed. “Just eat! From next time on, we’re gonna make ramen in individual pots and all stick to our own portion!”
“Since when do you care so much about me? Why are you so worked up about ramen? And who’ll wash all those pots? You?”
“Yes, me. I do a lot of washing and cleaning around here. I put away laundry when it’s dry, and Jiyoung helps out, too. There’s only one person under this roof who never lifts a finger.”
Eunyoung glared at her brother, and the mother stroked his head.
“He’s still a baby.”
“No, he’s not! I’ve been taking care of Jiyoung’s bags, school supplies, and homework since I was ten. When we were his age, we mopped the floor, hung laundry, and made ramen and fried eggs for ourselves.”
“He’s the youngest.”
“You mean he’s the son!”
Eunyoung slammed down her chopsticks and stormed off into her room. The mother sighed at the closed door with a conflicted expression on her face, and Jiyoung worried about the noodles getting soft but didn’t dare eat.
“If Grandma were alive, she would have ripped into Eunyoung. A girl hitting a man’s head!” The youngest slurped his ramen and grumbled. Jiyoung gave him another noogie. The mother did not try to comfort Eunyoung or become angry, but poured another ladleful of ramen soup into Jiyoung’s bowl.
“Eat lots of warm food. Dress warm, too.”
One of her friends got a bouquet of flowers from her father when she started her periods, another had a family party complete with cake. But to most girls it was a secret shared only among mothers and daughters. An irritating, painful, somehow shameful secret. It was no different in Jiyoung’s family. The mother avoided referring to it directly, as if something that should not be said out loud had happened, as she offered her ramen soup.
Uncomfortable and anxious, Jiyoung lay awake next to her sister that night and calmly went over the things that had happened. She thought about menstruation and ramen. About ramen and sons. Sons and daughters. Sons and daughters and chores. A few days later, she received a gift from her sister: a cloth pouch the size of her palm containing six regular sanitary pads.
Absorbent gel pads and pads with wings did not become common until a few years later. The pads, packed separately at the store in black plastic bags to hide them from view, had a weak adhesive agent, the stuffing bunched in the middle, and they weren’t very absorbent. Jiyoung was careful, but blood would leak onto her clothes or bedding when she slept. It was especially more noticeable in the summer when she wore lighter fabrics. Jiyoung would be getting ready for school half-asleep, wandering from the bathroom to the kitchen to the living room to wash, eat, and pack her things, when her mother would suddenly gasp and jab Jiyoung in the side to signal her. Jiyoung would then rush into her room as if she’d done something horrible and change.
The discomfort was bearable compared to the cramps. She’d heard about it from her sister and was ready for it, but the second day of her period came with heavy flow and swollen breasts, waist, lower abdomen, pelvis, bottom, and thighs that felt stiff, tight, achy, and out of joint. The school nurse lent the girls a hot-water bottle—large, red, filled with hot water and stinking of rubber to boot—but it was as good as a public sign announcing that she was on her period. She tried painkillers that were advertised as being good for “headaches, toothaches, and menstrual cramps,” which made her dizzy and nauseous. So she endured the pain. She also harbored an unfounded concern that getting into the habit of taking painkillers for a few days every month would be bad for her body.
As Jiyoung lay on her stomach on the floor to do homework, she clutched her cramping lower abdomen and repeated to herself, “I don’t understand. Half the population in the world goes through this every month. If a pharmaceutical company were to develop an effective pill specifically for menstrual cramps, not the ‘pain medication’ that makes you sick, they would make a fortune.” Her sister filled a plastic bottle with hot water, wrapped it in a towel and passed it to her.