Love on Park Avenue - Namjoohyuk

Episode 2: The encounter

Every year, New York University gave recent alumni a chance to go to the annual conferences by volunteering to help with the events. Instead of two thousand dollars, which I certainly couldn't afford for a conference, I was able to attend for free. I only had to pay for a cheap plane ticket I found with two long layovers in Miami and Houston.

The conference was in a Portuguese style luxury hotel located at Copa Cabana beach. I arrived around 2 pm at Antonio Carlos Jobim Airport named after the legendary musician who famously put Rio on the jet setting celebrities' map in the sixties with his beautiful song, "Girl from Ipanema." The Copa Cabana palace, where the conference was to be held, was way too expensive for a recent college graduate like me. Hilton was not cheap either, but it was the cheapest I could find near the area.

The happy hour and dinner started at 6 pm, so I had plenty of time to get dressed and walk over to the Copa Cabana Palace. Copa Cabana beach was bustling with the locals and visitors. The promenade with its signature black and white geometric wave pattern looped around the beach for miles. Cariocas (Brazilian locals) were everywhere - rollerblading, drinking caipirinhas, playing beach volleyball half naked. They seemed to enjoy life despite its crime rates, corruption, and favela (Brazillian slum) crisis. Perhaps this beach was an escape from the environment that they lived in. Street musicians played bosa nova songs hoping today is their lucky day for a hefty tip. Lone travelers sipped their flavored caipirinhas hoping today is their lucky day for love. I almost wished I could stay outside and observe rather than going to a business conference in an old, stuffy hotel.

It was old. Yes. But it was not stuffy as I had imagined. I was transported back to the golden era of Rio. Hanging under the glass-domed ceiling of the lobby was an eye-catching chandelier fit for a Parisian castle; Romanesque marble floors matched the tall columns with white and gold moldings. The center column had an impressive tropical flowers arrangement centerpiece that looked like they were picked from the rainforest this morning. The rest of the ceiling was painted with Gods and angels like the ceilings of the Vatican. Several dark cherry chesterfield sofas and ottomans filled the rest of vast space.

And there he was standing in the corner surrounded by a well-dressed crowd. Juhyuk Nam.

I could tell that he had just arrived by his smooth porcelain skin. Untouched by the blazing Rio sun. He had thick, well-defined eyebrows with angled arches that accentuated the sharpness of his face, unusually big eyes for a Korean guy, a nose that most plastic surgeons and actors would die for. His face had a certain adolescent quality that instinctively made me lower my guards. He was about 6'2" tall enough to be a male model.

He saw me staring, and I quickly turned to another direction. Was I drooling?

Calm down, Annie. I told myself and walked over to the desks with name tags and introduced myself as a volunteer.

"Good to have you here. Annie. Can you help me with the name tags?" Alumni relations director greeted me.

"Sure." I said enthusiastically deciding to focus and start handing out badges until, I heard someone say, "The name is Juhyuk Nam" in Korean.

"Anyoung haseyo. " I said Hello in Korean back to him. The words barely came out of my mouth because I was so nervous. I made a light bowing gesture. He bowed back and smiled. Where did I hear that name before? Wait, is he the heir to Samsung Corporation? I now vaguely remembered his face from an article. He certainly did not seem like someone that had so much power. I had expected Chaebol to be more intimidating. Like some Asian bankers at Lehman Brothers who acted like they were better than other Asians. I almost wished he wasn't someone famous.

I should have realized there was something different about Juhyuk. "Chaebol" (conglomerates owned by families) sent their children to only one particular University of their choosing. LG sent their kids to the University of Michigan. UCLA was the preferred choice for Korean airlines. The University of Chicago had Hyundai and so on. They did not care much about ivy leagues - they cared more about the experiences their children would get. That meant consistently donating to one school so the relationship would form and their kids would be "taken care of." Wings were named after their brand. I doubted college students would even care to buy Hyundai cars or LG tv once they got out of college because they studied in a fancy lounge donated by these royal families. But I don't think they cared. Each generation of descendants had a common syllable common in their names like a badge of honor. For Samsung, the syllable was "hyuk."

"Umm. Can you give me my badge?" He asked in perfect English.

"Sorry, I was a bit shocked to hear Korean." I murmured and handed him his badge. My cheeks were hot. And then he was gone. God! Why couldn't I say something smarter?