I’m not sure when my older sister, Mimi, started disliking me and my straight hair. It could date back to an early family Christmas photo (I was 7, she was 8-and-a-half), where the differences in our coifs were noticeable.

Or it could even go farther back to my crib days. Another family photo shows my toddler sister reaching through the bars, attempting to comb my baby-fine hair. I was an oblivious, drunken-looking baby. My sister, on the other hand, looked a little torn: Was she trying to comb me or hurt me?

For a Korean kid, Mimi had kinky hair. No one in our family can explain how this came to be. Most Koreans, like most Asians, usually have straight black hair from birth. My father and I shared cowlicks, but that’s the extent of any “wave” in our hair. But my sister had dark, dry, frizzy hair that rose about three inches off her head — a Korean ’fro, if you will.

My parents joked that Mimi’s hair came from the southern countryside of Korea, where we once had peasant roots. Koreans often practice a twisted “reverse psychology” form of showing affection, which some may “mistake” for cruelty, and perhaps rightly so. Another theory is that a misguided childhood perm from the Duke and Duchess Salon had permanently damaged Mimi’s hair. So exasperated was my mother by my sister’s hair, that she slathered it in olive oil every night to tame it.

Mimi and her hairdos over the years: the beginning of the ’fro in elementary school;

I felt badly that my older sister had unruly hair, whereas I was bequeathed with regal straight locks. But I didn’t feel so badly that I refrained from teasing her. “Hello, peasant,” I’d say, before darting away, as Mimi unleashed her dagger-like claws. Sometimes my sister would corner me and slowly dig her fingernails into my flesh, laughing sinisterly as she drew blood.

To compensate for what they deemed her follicular shortcomings, people complimented my sister’s elegant hands and manicured nails. “Mimi, you could become a hand model,” they’d say. Mimi obliged by dipping her hand in a clear bowl of green Palmolive, just like Madge did in her commercials.

In addition to coarse hair, my sister inherited a darker complexion compared to other family members. We called it “southern” skin. Peasants were darker because they worked outside, extended the family joke. To me, my sister always looked more African American than Korean. I thought she bore a striking resemblance to the queen of soul, Aretha Franklin. Whenever I saw Aretha on TV or in magazines, I’d get Mimi right away and say, “You know, you look just like her.” My sister never appreciated my comparisons.

Ttight French braids in junior

Mimi never knew what to do with her hair. If left untamed, her dry, fly-away outgrowth became a large bird nest. As we got ready for school, I watched my sister as she sat on the bottom bunk, balancing a mirror between her knees. She would tightly pull back her hair into two French braids. A self-taught braider, Mimi’s hands worked quickly, almost as if they were robotic. Sometimes she would lace ribbons through her braids. Her hair rested flat against her head and she looked like a wet seal.