Three days after arriving back in Philadelphia from San Miguel de Allende, MX, where I live for nine months every year, I went to the first of many appointments with a new dentist, Dr. Jung (hard “J”) for extraction of four lower front teeth, which were holding on precariously to each other and the eye teeth on either side of them thanks to some very worn-out bonding that was well over six months old. Needless to say, I was quite apprehensive. In walked an adorable (dare I say that about my dentist who was young enough to be my grandson?) Korean man with spiky hair and a most-charming chair-side manner. He said that in his practice, he liked to get to know his patients a little before working on their teeth. Already less nervous, I told him that I lived most of the year in Mexico, and that I had just arrived in Philadelphia for a long list of doctor and dentist appointments, and that he had the honor of being the first one. He asked me if I spoke any Spanish, and I told him yes, that I had been studying for about 15 years.
He then told me that he had first come to Philadelphia when he was 16-years-old, at which time he knew zero English. He was of course placed in an English class at his high school, he told me, but somehow he also wound up in a Spanish class. We talked a little more, and then he took pictures inside my mouth with some fancy, new-fangled digital camera from which an impression could be made. This substituted for taking an actual physical impression, as that would have been impossible in my case.
A week later, as I waited in the dentist chair, draped and ready for Dr. Jung, he strode in and said, “Buenos días, ¿como estás?” And of course completely surprised, I responded automatically with, “Muy bien, ¿y tú?” and we both laughed heartily. He said that was all that he remembered from that not-so-long-ago Spanish class he took. This appointment was for the extraction of the teeth and the insertion of the temporary bridge which he had made on the physical impression made from the digital one, a complete miracle to my eyes. The whole operation was a breeze as the teeth practically fell out of my mouth when given a small tug with dental pliers. My eye teeth were sculpted to receive the bridge and it was glued in with a temporary adhesive, to be removed and replaced several months later, when my gums had thoroughly healed, with a permanent bridge, just before I returned to Mexico.
Later, at home, I replayed the exchange in Spanish in my mind and realized that, had we actually been in Mexico, he would not have addressed me in the “tu” form, as I was his elder by several decades, not related to him, and a new person in his practice, and I wouldn’t have used that informal form with him, either, as he was a professional, a dentist, and I his patient. But what wonderful short, simple sentences they were in Spanish that day between a young Korean man and an old American woman, showing at its best what America can be—a little of this and a little of that to form a beautiful tapestry overall.