It was decided at our first meeting that I would spend a night with them towards the end of my trip at their home, which I had suspected would happen even before I left for the trip. I think there was a real need for them to be able to cook for me, they wanted me to meet the rest of my family members and see how they live.
Byung-Ho picked Amy and I up at the hotel in the morning and after about a 45 minute car ride we pulled up to their apartment complex. In Korea the apartment buildings tend to be very high and clustered together in small groups with courtyard/parking areas in the middle. Byung-Ho was very quiet in the car on the way there, not his normal joking self. I later found out he had worked the night shift and stayed up to pick me up and drive me to their home. He really is such a nice man.
We arrived at their house and the first thing I noticed is that there was NO air conditioning. Korea after the rainy season is HUMID. REALLY HUMID. On top of the already uncomfortable heat they had also been cooking for god knows how long, so when the door opened I was almost blasted off my feet by how hot the apartment felt. As I walked inside I noticed the apartment was small, not small for New York standards, but small for the fact that four people lived in it together. So there were four adults (I'm counting my 15 year old nephew in the mix here) living in a three bedroom apartment. How does that work out? Well, my poor sister Jung-Hee shares a small room with my mother. The room has its own private bathroom, but they sleep on a day bed! My sister has a single mattress and there is a wooden panel that pulls out from the side that my mother sleeps on. No wonder she's unmarried...how the heck do you meet someone THAT way?
Here is a picture of what their bedroom and bathroom looks like.
Notice the little tiny red thing on the floor? That's a stool that they sit on to SHOWER. Yep, they have the traditional Korean shower going on in this apartment, just a shower head and pure ambition to get clean.
Crazy, eh?
After we hung out a bit, we sat down and they cooked me a wonderful meal. My brother came home from work to eat with us and spend some more time with me. He joked with me about the feast that my mother made us...
"You're here and look we have this big feast. When you're not here? Soup."
I'm hungry just thinking about the food. Here's pictures of some of the food they made for me.
After we ate lunch we went to the movies and saw one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my entire life. We saw D-War. A movie made by a Korean comedian who wants to be a director, made for the Korean people, but for some reason it was made in Hollywood and done in English. It was so bad that during the movie, my nephew turned to Amy and I and said, "I'm embarrassed to be watching this movie." Yeah, it was BAD.
We left the movies and decided to go and eat AGAIN. Honestly, these people eat more than anyone I've ever met. While we were on the street Amy suddenly got very quiet, but I didn't really think anything was up. As we were walking to the restaurant, Amy was explaining to me on the side that my fourth sister, Jung-Hee was on the phone with my 3rd sister trying to figure out a place for us to meet because we hadn't met yet. I kept asking about her all week long, and I knew there was something going on there, but they would just tell me she was busy, or she couldn't take time off from her business to come and see me. Very sketchy. She did want to meet me after all so we were walked along to try and find a coffee shop for us to meet because she had driven down from her house to the neighborhood. Then another phone call took place (keep in mind I don't know any of this is going on, Amy is telling me secretly because she is overhearing them talk) and the meeting was off. My sisters didn't tell me any of this was going on, they just did it.
We sat down to eat and I was a little bummed. I wasn't sure what was going on with the 3rd sister, but now at least I knew something was up. It wasn't because she was too busy, there was family drama there and they weren't letting me in on the secret. Amy thought she overheard them saying something about my 3rd sister calling my mother to ask if she could come and meet me, and my mother saying, to her "do what you want". In the end I was disappointed, but I found why we didn't end up meeting later on.
We ate lunch and had a great time. At the end of lunch they decided to start teaching me Korean and I tried to teach them English. So, the words we went over were, bowl, spoon, rice, window, all objects that were sitting on the table. Well then we go to ashtray. My second sister, Hye-Suk was trying to say ashtray and while her pronunciation was correct she would do this Sly Stallone type thing with her mouth when saying the "tray" part and we were pretty much crying we were laughing so hard. I had also done quite well with my pronunciation of ashtray in Korean, but when asked to do it from memory (and not repeat it) I somehow cursed. I have no idea what curse word I said specifically, but my nephew leaned over and whispered to me, "You say curse word for penis."
Great.
Clearly after my two Korean language errors "fucker" and "curse word for penis", I think its time to take Korean classes officially.
That's all for now folks, will write more about the Great Um Family Confessions 2007 conversation I had with my sisters next.
Seriously, what is up with those tiny shower stools? I tried to sit down on it, missed, and nearly cracked my tail bone. My American-fed butt is just too big for miniature Korean shower stools, I guess.
Posted by: Ji In | August 21, 2007 at 11:23 PM