I love to tell the story,
because I know 'tis true;
it satisfies my longings
as nothing else can do.
A Red Line train pulls into Union Station, and amid the morning rush of workers one man scurries unnoticed out of the middle car, a couple of steps down the platform and back into the very next car.
The bing-bong does its thing, the doors close, and just as the train begins to move, Fisher Yang, squarely in the doorway, one hand on a pole, the other holding his hymnal, loudly says, "Good morning, 'scuse me," and in a firm but scratchy, heavily accented voice, he begins to sing.
Most people refuse to react. They stare into nowhere, plow deeper into their paper, continue chatting. A few dare to look directly at Yang. Two men laugh out loud at him. A mother directs her son to watch and listen.
As the train pulls into the next station, Yang finishes his song of praise, barks a quick "Thank you, blessed day," and hurries off, only to scamper onto the adjacent car and repeats it all -- same greeting, same song, same farewell, his timing always precise. Sometimes a few people applaud, sometimes a woman -- it is almost always a woman -- thanks him. Here and there, someone offers Yang money; he never accepts.
Just as often, people shout "Shut up!" or worse. "They try to take my book away, try to knock me down," Yang says. "But I am making some changes in this world. At first in a train, there are faces that are not peaceful. After I sing, some faces have love."
Fisher Yang, a 40-year-old Korean who came to the United States in 1992, does this Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., ranging around the Metro system. On other days, he stands outside Union Station, playing hymns on his trumpet. He has been singing in the subways for three years.
His two teens -- he also has a 3-year-old -- "were very negative in the beginning, very embarrassed to see their father outside singing," Yang says. But over time, he has persuaded them there is no shame in trying to bring joy to others. His daughter Hana, a junior at Falls Church High School, says she respects her father's work, even if it doesn't bring home any money. But she hopes instead to be a musician, like her mother, who earns a bit of money teaching piano.
Yang dresses well; today, he's in tweed jacket, turtleneck and cream cords. He speaks hardly any English, singing from a hymnal that provides English sounds in Korean characters. If you don't know the songs, he can be very hard to follow.
Yang always sticks with one song for the entire day. But his favorite remains "I Love to Tell the Story," because back home in Korea, Yang lived near a U.S. Army station, where "one soldier, a Christian, sang that song and taught me to sing it," he recalls.
Years later, when he immigrated to Montana at the invitation of several Korean women who had married U.S. servicemen and now wanted Yang to be their pastor, he rediscovered the hymn. The Montana job lasted until Yang visited Los Angeles, saw legions of homeless men and decided to settle there and work with them. Their lack of a common language struck him as immaterial. "I'm not the greatest singer, but I could communicate with the wounded homeless and help cure them," Yang says. Men on the street christened him Fisher.
Four years later, on a missionary trip to Washington, he fell for the city and its seasons. Reluctantly, the Yangs came with him to Fairfax, and Fisher started riding the rails.
"He lives on offerings," says Curtis Lee, who owns a coffee stand at Union Station -- and an Internet startup in Annandale. Lee got to know Yang when the singer began showing up daily to pray for Lee's ailing father-in-law. The Lee family was so impressed by Yang's dedication that they, like several other Korean families in Virginia, began to subsidize him. "At first, I thought he was not somebody normal," Lee says. "But after months of talking to him, I saw he's doing this for a noble cause, whether people accept it or not."
"Excuse me, sir," Yang says with a slight bow. "Have to go on train." He enters a car. "Good morning, 'scuse me." No one reacts. Yang's face is certainty and bliss.
The column is taking off the rest of the year. The big show resumes Jan. 4.
