White Socks Make the First Step Easier

On the day the Korean neighbors moved into the ranch house two doors down, we drove past their U-Haul real slow. From our Volvo wagon, we rubbernecked mightily, but couldn’t see much. Spying on your neighbors is harder than you’d think.

It wasn’t until they were unpacked that information began to emerge. Houseplants on the front step. A baby scooter in the drive. Then, one Saturday, we took our kids for a stroll and there they were. “How’s it going?” we called. They just nodded and smiled. They spoke not a word.

Our house is one block from the house where my husband grew up. The retirees across the street know his folks. When we take our kids out trick-or-treating, old ladies with bags of candy corn squint at the 45-year-old father of my children and say things like, “Aren’t you the boy who used to throw dirt clods across the gully at our Mike?”

In short, we know our neighborhood, and one of the things we know about it is that it is the sort of place where cultural differences tend to wither under the big tent of suburbia. The schools are 40% Latino, but when people talk about a big night out, they’re talking Marie Callender’s.

Having “foreigners” on the block seemed slightly novel, but nobody expected them to stay foreign for long. This being a nation of immigrants, after all, we knew there would be a brief nodding-and-

smiling period, followed soon enough by your standard tut-tutting about property values and the heat.

So we waited. This, I suppose, is how it is for a lot of people in Greater Post-Riot L.A. We nod and smile and wait for commonality to strike.

Or not. “Only connect,” the writer E.M. Forster said. But he didn’t live here, and spying on your neighbors isn’t the only thing that’s harder than you’d think.

Two days before Christmas, a knock came at the door where we hang our wreath. When we opened it, there stood two of the Korean neighbors--a young woman and a little girl. They came bearing gifts. Nice gifts. The little girl was toting a stuffed Hello Kitty the size of our 2-year-old.

Dumbfounded, we invited them in, smiling effusively, racking our brains for a way to make it appear that, what a coincidence, even though we were virtual strangers, we just happened to have gifts for them too. I rushed to the kitchen, frantically trying to assemble a plate of Christmas cookies, something, anything. When I emerged, the kids were playing and the young woman was talking to my husband in halting English. It was clear this foray had taken every ounce of nerve she possessed.

She was the aunt in the family, she said, and the little girl was now 4, and she had taken it upon herself to get to know the neighborhood for her niece’s sake. In the house two doors down, she was the only one who could communicate with the English-

speaking world, and soon she would be moving with her husband to another state.

With that, she handed me another present, in a big red box with a bow on top. I smiled and nodded, at a loss for words. What could it be? It was enormous. My husband and I exchanged a glance and opened the box. Inside were row upon row of white socks.

We thanked her enthusiastically. We couldn’t have been more perplexed. Were socks significant? We didn’t ask and she didn’t tell. By the time she left, the Korean neighbors seemed almost as mysterious as they had been in the old nod-and-smile days.

But the next morning, our feet got cold, and we took a closer look at the gift. We pulled on the socks, and suddenly something dawned on us: Somehow, they had managed to correctly guess the foot size of every person in our family.

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How could they have known? The feet in our house range from toddler to size 12. And how did they know whom to buy for? Our kitchen alone has more traffic than the East L.A. interchange.

We pictured what it must have been like for them, all those nodding, smiling months. How closely they must have watched us, how thoughtfully they must have sorted us out.

What eyes, to take in your neighbors right down to the soles of their feet. What hearts, to reach out, even without words.

So the other day, when our kids noticed the little Korean girl with her mother in her frontyard, we took them over and said another hello. The aunt was long gone. The mother nodded and smiled, and this time, she invited us in.

She gestured for us to remove our shoes in the Korean custom, and offered (aha!) fresh white socks. From the kitchen, a grandmother materialized with a tray of sliced oranges and green grapes. A thick silence enveloped the room, and everybody blushed.

Then she held up a forefinger, the international sign for “Justa sec.” She ran to an end table, picked up a portable phone, dialed long distance, said something in Korean and then handed it to me. It was the aunt.

“My sister says she is very happy you coming by,” the aunt said. “She says tell you your little girls are welcome to come any time to play.”

“Tell her we feel the same, and thanks for the socks,” I said.

“My family owns a sock factory,” she replied.

We had a good laugh and a half-hour, three-way chat, and then her little girl came to our house. When it was time for her to leave, we gave her some candy and cut some roses for her mom.

Then I walked the child home, and as we headed toward the street, she slipped her tiny hand into mine. She didn’t speak. She didn’t have to. Neither did I.

Only connect, I thought.

’ Having “foreigners” on the block seemed slightly novel, but nobody expected them to stay foreign for long. This being a nation of immigrants, after all, we knew there would be a brief nodding-and-smiling period, followed soon enough by your standard tut-tutting about property values and the heat.’