우리 가족

(우리 가족 = "Our Family")

Hongye looked at the sky, pointed up, and said “딸!” (“Moon!”) I bent down to her level, pointed my camera upwards, and took this picture.

Hongye is the youngest member of the Seo family. She’s about 5 years old, and her sister Hongbi is almost 14. I refer to them as my sisters, and their parents as my 엄마 and 아빠, or Mom and Dad. When I was living in Jeonju teaching English two summers ago, I spent a few weekends with them. I was clumsy and foreign, trying to navigate speaking no Korean, but Hongbi loved Avril Lavigne and spoke really excellent English for a 12 year old, so we got along fine. Somehow we all fell in love with each other, even then, and I’ve been keeping in touch with their family ever since.

They’re some of the most un-stereotypical Korean people that I know. Hongbi is interested in fashion and music, and while her parents encourage her to do well in school, they also want her to follow her dreams and go to a college like FIT in NYC.  She goes to English hagwon, but only because she really likes it and wants to speak English well. Same with guitar lessons -- she begged for a guitar for a year and now she takes lessons because SHE wants to, not because her parents are forcing her to do anything.

Hongbi, over looking the mountains during my first visit this year.

I hear a million horror stories about Korean dads who drink themselves half to death with their coworkers and then hire prostitutes instead of coming home to their wives, but my 아빠 isn’t like that at all. I’ve been out with Mr. Seo and his friends a few times (weirdly, as the only woman... mostly because I’m foreign eye-candy, I’m sure, but men’s culture is fascinating and I don’t often get to see it so I don’t argue) and he doesn’t drink a drop. He’s the only non drinker almost every time, but still... his friends are all family men too and it doesn’t seem like any of them would get that out of control either. Of course it’s possible that they were on their best behavior because I was there but I just don’t think they are those kind of men.

Also, the relationship Mr. Seo has with his wife is strong -- albeit she’s ridiculously hot for a forty year old woman (she used to be a jazz dance instructor) but still. I don’t see that many happy, openly loving adult couples around. 

Or that many happy, openly loving families in general. It seems to me that Korean families are often distant and under pressure. The girls never fight, and Hongeye never seems to really get on Hongbi’s nerves, despite the age difference. Mr. Seo says “I love you,” to the girls at least once a day, even though Hongbi’s at an age when verbal expressions of love and real hugs are too embarrassing for her to reciprocate. They laugh a lot. They’re always always laughing, making jokes and ripping on each other and themselves. They’re always eating, and always at one table at the same time. If one person is peeling an orange, they always offer a piece or a half to someone else before they eat themselves... and not as a rule, just as a natural courtesy. I end up doing it too without even trying. It’s an easy, truly warm and welcoming environment to be ingratiated into.

The real reason I started learning Korean is because I wanted to be able to communicate with my 엄마. She was so warm to me, so interested, concerned, and wonderful from our first meeting -- even though we couldn’t speak to each other at all. It’s hard for me to imagine my own mother taking in a stranger like that, someone who didn’t speak a word of English, and treating them the way this woman treated me. 

Last summer I only managed to get down to Jeonju twice, and I really regretted it. I was so caught up in my little life in Sinchon that I didn’t time to spend with my “family.” This time I’ve resolved to get down there once a month if at all possible, and so far I’m ahead of schedule. I went down before school even started, and I was just there this past weekend for 설날, the Lunar New Year. 

I was amped for a traditional New Year with a Korean family, but in keeping with their general character, my family was anything but traditional. Instead of dressing up in hanbok and going to a grand gathering of extended family members, we went to a ski resort with just the five of us. 

There was a moment there before I left when I thought about not going. At the last minute, a Korean friend invited me to come back to her hometown for the holiday, and I really wanted to see a traditional 설날 celebration. There was no graceful way out, though, and I really didn’t want to disappoint my family, so I went to Jeonju as planned. 

5 hours on a bus to Jeonju because of holiday traffic, then another three up to Muju Ski Resort from their house the next day. We stayed in an adorable little room outside the resort, where they gave us free spa access because the lady recognized me from MiSuda. (“Spa” is stretching it... it was a hot tub just big enough for all of us, but still...) 

It snowed awesomely and beautifully for the whole three days. We played a lot, having snowball fights and making little igloos. We cooked samgyupsal outside on a grill, and sweet potatoes and regular potatoes, under a tent with a space heater in the backyard of the pension. In general, we ate an incredible amount of food for five people, all weekend long. Honestly, they always eat more than any group of people I have ever encountered, I don’t know why all four of them aren’t obese.

Snowboarding at the resort was brutal but fun, though must admit it was less fun than sledding. (and SO WHAT if sledding is baby stuff?!) 

I spent a lot of time playing with Hongeye, trying to tell her the names of every animal and dinosaur in English, even though she didn’t really care and she was just asking to ask. We also weirdly talked about Halloween parties several times, every day. Apparently they had a Halloween party in her English class  and this was extremely fascinating. (At the end of October. Yes. It’s still that important to her.) 

Hongeye's little butt in the car. Approximately the cutest pants on earth.

Hongbi and I talked and laughed, took pictures of each other, and constantly helped each other with language questions. We make a great team. 

For the whole weekend there was this easy comfort between us all that made me really felt like home. As my Korean gets better, the atmosphere just gets easier and more relaxed. Nothing is withheld in fear of leaving me out because I won’t understand. Of course there’s still an awful lot I don’t understand, but it’s good practice listening to their lilting Jeonju accents and their rapid, familiar speech, and when I do get on of their jokes, it’s doubly funny because my sudden laughter is surprising and unexpected.

On Monday night, I watched MiSuda with the girls and 엄마. I’m always worried that it will be embarrassing, but the editors must really like me because they always cut my awkward moments and grammar mistakes, leaving me with a few anecdotal gems and an inordinate number of funny laughter shots. This episode though, I was a little tense and my 엄마 could tell. We talked for a long time afterwards and her advice about how to deal with the show and how to think of my own involvement in it was perfect and edifying and so essentially motherly at a time and in a place where my own mother isn’t really present. 

I love her so much. It’s weird to think about how there was a time when we couldn’t speak at all, and even then we loved each other a little bit. Wordlessly, for no discernible reason and still, she had this motherly affection for me.

Obviously I made the right choice by going to Jeonju instead of ditching them for a 설날 extravaganza. 

There will be plenty of new years to celebrate in Korea, I realized, but the time I’ll have with this family is short. Not short because the duration of our relationship is temporary, but short because the girls will grow and change and I won’t always have the chance to be along for the ride to witness their youth. 

I imagine them graduating from college, or getting married someday, and me having this treasured position as an adopted sister by their side. I will have known them all along the way; will have seen their faces and bodies grow and change, their personalities evolve and eventually solidify into the women they will become. 

There was this one bad moment, when I was horribly embarrassed and I let myself forget who this family is to me. I responded using casual speech to 아빠 (응 instead of 네 when he asked me if the food was delicious) and everyone laughed at me -- 엄마 especially.  She gently reminded me that 응 (응 is like a grunt, a “yes” noise that doesn’t even sound like a word in English at all) is only for people younger than me, or my friends at school, not for my parents. I apologized and they went on laughing and eating without another thought, but I sat there stewing in negative thoughts. 

I had excuses galore spinning in my mind -- in English there is no speech level change! I’ve been using 반말 non-stop with my friends! We’re familiar enough, aren’t we?! I’m a foreigner! 

But none of those are right. The answer is that I was speaking carelessly and I simply forgot to say the right word. This may seem irrelevant, but respect mistakes bother me a lot (because they bother Koreans a lot) and even though I’m usually quite careful, it’s a hard thing to know at all times just the right level I should be speaking to. It’s one of the things that worries me when I’m wildly anxious about the future of my Korean. 

What if, no matter how long I study this language and how much time I spend here, I never internalize the formalities of these relationships and I’m never able to switch forms automatically the way Korean people do all the time? Even if I become fluent, this culture is so different from the one I’m from that I worry I’ll never get it quite right. And even then, even if I never make another mistake... I’ll never be Korean (not that I want to be, I love who I am.) I’ll never seem entirely right no matter what I do, because I’ll never have a Korean face or body and there’s no way I’ll ever be considered anything but a foreigner.

But isn’t that one of the things I relish? The being a foreigner bit? A pause. The spiral collapses in a circle of contradictions, to be revived at the next awkward moment and forgotten just as easily when I order something the right way, or I understand a simple question and answer successfully, or some equally trivial triumph occurs.

The next day it occurred to me -- Half of this is getting it wrong. Seungja Choi (my Korean professor last semester) always told us to “make a hypothesis and try it out” with a native speaker. Weird way of putting it, but she was right. The only way to learn is to make mistakes. I’m lucky I have such a warm, loving group of people to make my mistakes on, rather than really hurting or angering some stranger with my inadvertent disrespect. 

여기오! part 1

녹차떡

"nok cha dduk"

("nok cha" = green tea. "dduk" = the kind of donut it is. Thus, this is a green tea donut-ish deliciousness filled with melty sugary yum.)

전주 반찬

"Jeonju banchan"

(banchan = side dishes. Jeonju = the city where my host family lives, totally famous for food. This is a quarter of the number of plates there were at a meal for four adults. They cleared the table three times before this.)

김밥

"kim bap"

("kim" = salty, dried seaweed. "bap" = rice. There's some other stuff in there too, veggies and crab meat and egg, etc. The yellow stuff on the side is 단무지 ["danmooji," or pickled radish.] This is the best kimbap I ever had, in a street booth across the street from the Nanta theater.)

This post is called "yo-gi-o!" ~ the word you are completely allowed to yell in a restaurant to get a waiter's attention. At the top of your lungs, if the place is crowded. For all things; water, adding more food to your order, to ask for the check.... I'm just getting the hang of this, it seems completely rude by American standards but hey, when in Rome.

Food culture is huge everywhere, right, but it seems particularly important in Korea, and it's one of the things I like the best about this place. Coming home, the first thing I miss is the food and upon arrival, the first thing I always want to do is eat.

I. Hasukjip eats.

So... my rent is about $400 a month and I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner included. The food is made fresh every meal,  by a really sweet ajumma who's worried I'm going to starve if I don't eat two helpings of everything. Possibly she thinks foreigners need to eat more than Koreans because I don't hear her pushing my housemates the way she pushes me, but either way she's very concerned about my nutrition, and it's nice.

The food's a little bit monotonous, but always good - rice, kim, kimchee, a rotating assortment of veggie side dishes, some kind of soup (usually sundubu jjigae, or tofu stew with kimchee and beef. a big fave.) Eggs in the morning, some kind of entree like curry rice or fried something or other to go with dinner. 

For the most part, it's overwhelmingly nutritious and wholesome, besides the fried stuff. I've already lost about five pounds, just from eating habit changes. I like eating in the house because a) it's essentially free and b) I feel like I can actually eat a ton of food, be full, and not feel bad about it.

This is really important to me, because I've struggled with eating issues and disordered eating thought for a long time. To feel full and not guilty is so refreshing and different than the way I usually feel at home. I'll say more about this later.

II. Street food.

Street food is pretty much the greatest thing ever. Forget your shitty NY hotdogs that cost two dollars and taste like poop, forget the stale ass pretzels that never have enough salt. Korean street food is ubiquitous, mad delicious, and super cheep. 

Mostly I am obsessed with 떡볶이. ("ddukboki" - big fat rice noodles with a spicy red sauce, accompanied sometimes by fish cakeish things soaking in broth, or pig intestine, or some other weird grey meat I ate once, and have no interest in ever tasting again. Though, covered in ddukboki sauce, pretty much anything is a lot more delicious than it was before.)

If I can make up an excuse to have ddukboki for dinner, I do. I've been better about it this time because the hasuk food is so good, but over the summer I became a regular at a few tents by the 24 hour coffee shop I lived in.

III. Sweets, etc.

I have a love-hate relationship with this category. Love because it's my favorite, hate because it undoes all the healthy stuff I was talking about before. There are an incredibly diverse number of options here for mad delicious sweets that I really, really like. At home, I enjoy chocolate, but I don't like... fantasize about buying candy bars. I definitely zone out it class thinking about sweet breads, or dduk, or waffles. Another sneaky thing about this is that it overlaps with street food - meaning its everywhere, in front of me as I walk down the street, and so cheep its practically being given away.

밭, or "pat" is a Korean specialty that I often get down with. It's going to sound weird, but pat is sweet red bean paste, used for loads of delicious things like patbingsoo (icrecream, fruit, cornflakes, and pat...zomg summer means patbingsoo in my mind.) pastries, and breads. Apparently it's an acquired taste (I have a western friend who hates the stuff) but I think it's the bomb. Anything with pat in it I'm probably going to buy, and eat.

There are a million delicious snacks too, available at the jillion convenience stores studding every street for less than a dollar each. choco-nut pretzel sticks, tiny cookies, chocopie!, snack bars, little mushroom shaped crackers dipped in chocolate... I don't even know, tons of stuff. I'm more into the hot sweets from the street vendors, but yeah. I can get down with these too.

 IV. Restaurants

Eating out is super easy here, and everyone seems to do it quite often. If Seoul is an expensive city, the one thing that's cheep is the food. I'm going to write about restaurants more in part 2, but I just want to talk about 고기집's for a second. 

A gogijip is a meat restaurant. There is a grill set in the middle of the table. You order a type of meat and a number of servings, and the waiter brings a plate full of raw meat the the table, along with a bunch of random banchan, as well as lettuce, sesame oil and salt, a red paste called gochujang, big chunks of garlic, and some onions soaking in marinade, etc.  

He lights the grill, and then (depending on the place) you're on your own. One person (I'm not sure who it's supposed to be age- or gender-wise, culturally, but every group of friends seems to have it's own grill master/mistress who really likes to be the one who tends the meat.) You flip it over until its done, and then, using tongs, you hold the strip of grilled meat up and cut it into manageable squares that can be picked up using chopsticks.

Tyler, demonstrating tong-technique over the summer ㅋㅋㅋ

Now it's time to make lettuce packets. Put a leaf of lettuce in one hand, then using the chopsticks make a little pile on the lettuce of meat (possibly dipped in the sesame salt, I don't get down like that but everyone else seems to) gochujang, garlic, etc... fold up the pile using the lettuce as a little envelope and pop that in your mouth, whole. 

Chew for a long time. Repeat. Yes. This is how meat was meant to be eaten. I don't even like meat but I love this. More than the food I like the process, I like the procedure and the friendship and the sharing out of banchan dishes and not caring about double dipping or anything of the short.

I'll get more into this, and my feelings in general about eating culture in Korea, in part 2.

V. Gross things.

번데기

"beondegi"

("beondegi" - boiled silkworm larvae. Never eat this. Not that you were thinking about it... I'm just saying. Grossest thing I've eaten in Korea.)

개

"kae"

("kae" - dog. Don't eat it, mannnn. I haven't (yet?!) and I would really like to try not to. It's not very popular at all so it's not like it's hard to avoid... I don't know I don't know. Dog?! I can eat raw, wriggling squid, still sort of alive... but I can't get down like that.)

things

i'm going to do this before i forget.

Things i want to write about include:

-the veiled women in a royal procession, depicted in a ceramic painting i saw along the cheonggyecheon river.
-Korean food, potentially as an analogy for Korean people/ relationships in Korea. Also about how my relationship with food is so different here than at home.
-Korean television and its complete lack of subtlety.
-a dance off I witnessed outside of the Doota shopping center in dongdaemun, between a hot shot Korean boy, a shy mushroom-haircut sporting middle school girl who turned out to be Beyonce in disguise, and a Korean version of Little Miss Sunshine
-my host family in Jeonju
-the way that duty appeals to me, and how thats part of the appeal of Korea
-digital records as a replacement for actual experience
-masculinity, about my friends Zac and Tyler, an old man I met on the subway, two brothers i met on new years eve, and a night in Itaewon.
-an entry to go with the masculinity entry, about femininity specifically regarding myself, high heels, fabric in the 이대 clothing stalls, and Misdua.
-trepidation and preliminary justifications for my involvement in Misuda

Unfortunately I've been preposterously busy and I haven't had time to write anything but diary-esque journal entries in my paper journal. hopefully i can get through a few of those this week, before a million more ideas arise and i have even less time to write them.

Korea is like that, 빨리빨리... blink twice and everything changes.

I guess the best I have to offer is an anecdote from today. I was getting home from Youido around 7, with Vickie (another Misuda girl.) We stopped in 이대역 to watch some random zongo clown performing an act with balloons. He wasn't begging, just performing. He said "hello" to us in English when we walked up - we were the only foreigners in the crowd and it made everyone laugh. He embarrassed the crap out of these middle school girls, making them hats and swords and forcing them to dance, before he turned his attention to me.

he was making this double helix balloon with two little balloon balls in it and i had a feeling i would end up with it if i waited around for a minute. Sure enough, within 30 seconds of that thought he asks me to come over and be part of the act.

Eventually, I ended up in a gorilla mask, doing a sexy dance and confirming that yes, i actually already appear on Misuda, thank you for suggesting that I do that, you advice-giving clown.

And Vickie said, "That's Korea."

She's pretty right.