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more than about twelve. He was a foot shorter than Bobby and he acted at least six years younger than he was. “What kind of a job would you like then,” Bobby asked. “If you’re eighteen.”
    â€œA real job, a job where you go to work and then come home. A job with a quitting time. I could make more than this every week.” He held up the thousand-won note Bobby had given him.
    Bobby nodded, about to say more, but he heard a commotion from a room farther down and, not wanting to be a bother to anyone, hurriedly pushed the Goma back, closing the door once more. He turned off his light again and stood there in the dark until the Goma went away.
    Bobby unrolled his bedding and lay down diagonally across his room, so that he could stretch his toes and still not touch the wall. He had almost been in a fight that night, saved only by the expert Judo Lee. Perhaps Bobby did not know enough about himself, but he did know that he was not a physical coward. He had had to prove that too many times at home, using his rampant bulk to subdue the muscular insults of those who were always in his way.
    He was sleepy and a little sick from the wine, but he was suddenly awake again, gratified by the thought of himself as far better off than the Goma. In America he had a place of his own, at least inside his grandmother’s house, but what place did the Goma have? In America Bobby had only his fat and the weakness of his impulses to worry about, but the Goma was pitiful and ugly and decrepit, and the thought of him made Bobby’s fatness seem, for a moment, almost beside the point.
    As Bobby let the sleep come back, he tried, as an experiment, to imagine the Goma’s life instead of his own. He could imagine the Goma quite easily, traveling into the country to bury his father, but he could not imagine what was in the Goma’s mind as he went.
    I am amazed how fat this American is. He is tall, like all Americans, but he has the shape of a Western pear, with most of its meat down low. I’ll wager that he weighs one hundred thirty kilograms, perhaps more. When he got off the train he dwarfed our poor Mr. Soh, but his size, rather than making him seem strong and fit, as is the case with Mr. Lee, gave him a helpless and muddle-headed look. His face is wide and his eyes bulge from it like those of a frog! Also he has poor posture and sits in his chair as if dumped there like a sack of rice. And he makes noise when he walks, which is good, I suppose, because it lets us hear him coming and we can prepare ourselves.
    It is odd to have an American in our teachers’ room and in our school, but it makes me understand how appropriate our word for foreigner is. The word means “outside person,” and all one has to do is observe this man to realize its aptness. He is outside of everything imaginable, and because of it he has no way of relating, no way of being among us, no way of partaking in our everyday lives.
    Ah, but this is too complicated for an old country man like myself. Let me be satisfied with the realization that he is “outside,” which is so obvious as to be evident to a blind man, and let me not spend so much time thinking about him and worrying about what it all means. Outside is outside, simple as that. It is the opposite of inside, and inside is normalcy, an ordinary view of things. The youngest teacher on our staff could tell me that.
    I have decided that I must say something good about this American before I close my diary for the day, and what I have chosen is this: his Korean, though I haven’t heard him say much, sounds better than I thought it would, and he is a good singer, who knows all the words to at least one song.
    Written as I sit in my study, watching the leaves fall from the plum tree in my neighbor’s yard.

Decrease
    Six in the third place means: When three people journey together their number decreases by one .
    Â 
    B obby was having trouble with an old