I can now cross off “Attend A Birthday Party At A Senior Citizen Center In South Korea” on my list of things to do, since that’s what I did last weekend.
For those of you that care or are perplexed this celebration was for my wife’s grandfather…which I guess makes him my grandfather-in-law (if such things exist). Anyhow he lives in the country and was having a big ass birthday party since he was turning 90 or 91 or 92 (I got all three numbers from different people), so the party was held at the local senior citizen center. There was a decent spread of food but far too many relatives. Relatives are fine in small doses, but when there are that many I feel like I have to say the same junk again and again. “We’re leaving in the begining of February.” “Our flight is on February first.” “The first of February is when we leave.”
Aside from that the other thing that I dislike about these family gatherings is there are always one or two relatives that haven’t seen me before so the novelty of a white guy that can speak Korean is still mind boggling to them. Most of the other relatives: the afore mention grandfather, aunts and uncles, and first cousins have all seen me enough that the novelty has worn off and I’m just “Jinhui’s husband.” But there’s always some second cousin or nephew or some random 팔촌 guy that finds my existance amusing, meaning they try to make me do all the stuff they think only Koreans can do.
“Here eat this kimchi.”
Chomp!
“Wow! He ate kimchi and used chopsticks to do so! Can you drink soju?”
“I can. Seeing as how it’s like 12:00 in the afternoon I’d rather not.”
“C’mon. Just one glass.”
“Fine.”
Chug!
“Wow! You need some anju. Eat this raw beef. You can eat raw beef right?”
“Yes, but since I ate like 3 plates of food before you got here since everyone else wanted to see me eat kimchi and raw foods I’m full and would rather not.”
“C’mon…one small piece.”
“Fine.”
Chomp!
Anyhow I really got off on a tangent there. These aren’t bad people, and after performing for them the one time they’re cool, but for me the performing has gotten old. Where was I?
Oh yeah so I’m in this old folks club house in the middle of nowhere South Korea eating sushi and various stuff rolled in seaweed when my wife hits me with the most random piece of personal information, “I was born here.”
“In the senior center?”
“Well it used to be a house, but they built this center here.”
“So you were born on this land?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think I’m the first white person to ever come into this building?”
“Yes.”
After we ate we went outside where we found this really awesome puppy. He was totally chill and was all about following me around and being my buddy. It kind of made me want to get a dog. Anyhow that’s about it. Like most family events everywhere in the world, this one was all about eating too much food and then having to endure people that you only associate with because of some family ties…not the awesome 1980’s television show kind, but actual family ties. I’m rambling, and this is a really dated post, so I’m finishing now.
i don’t know how i found your blog. but i spent some interesting time to surf around here. thanks for that.
i’m glad you had good time in korea.
Comment by alexa — May 11, 2007 @ 9:38 am