The Incident at Songjeong Beach

This trip started badly: a scooter was sort of blocking my way out of my parking space, but I thought I could get through.  Horyon told me to be careful not to bump into the car on her side, so immediately after telling her I would be careful, I scraped his bumper.  I was so angry.  I wanted to kick over the scooter and slap Korea across the face for its universally poor parking lot designs.  Of course it was an imported car.  The owner was very kind, and told us he would have the paint retouched rather than replacing the bumper.  He was more interested in having harmonious relationships with his neighbors than profiting from their mistakes.  I was grateful, but before he came to look at the damage I paced back and forth like a caged tiger, ready to call off the whole trip.

I didn't.  I couldn't have without making many, many people very annoyed with me.  So I calmed down and tried to pray a bit while I waited for Horyon to program the GPS.

We went to Songjeong Beach here in Busan with some of Maxine's classmates and their families.  It was kind of rainy and cloudy on Friday, and it never completely cleared up.  Maybe it's because I'm from Kansas, but I don't really enjoy the beach that much:  the sand gets into everything, the crowds are annoying, and the need to keep an eye on my kids takes away from the experience.  I would rather be hiking in the mountains.

Still, the kids had a good time, and built up a serious appetite.  

We were prepared for that.

We stayed at a "pension".  In Korea, this means a large room that you can rent for the day, or overnight.  They typically have only tables for eating off of, and mats and pillows for sleeping.  This one had the thinnest mats ever, and funky blocky pillows that did not ease my weary head.  This pension also had a rooftop space for grilling and eating.  In the days before we went I bought sausages and made hamburgers with beef, ground onion and garlic, and spices.  I grilled them, and was hailed as a master chef.  Granted, most of them had never had a hamburger better than a Big Mac, but I will take whatever praise I can get.  We also cooked some small pork ribs and sam-gyap-sal, the bacon cut of the pig.  We also had soup and rice, because otherwise it wouldn't have been a meal, right?

The next day we hit the beach again.  The weather was much more cooperative, sunny but not too hot.  Around noon Quinten needed to go to the bathroom, so I took him to one.  On our way back, I was walking behind Quinten, and stepped around some people who had walked into my path as a wave approached.  I started walking again, then looked around for Quinten.  He was no longer in front of me.  I looked out into the water, but didn't see him.  He wasn't behind me, and upshore was so crowded with people under umbrellas that I couldn't imagine him making his way through that.  I walked back to our group, looking for him the whole way, but didn't see him.  So I turned around and walked back to where we had re-entered the beach after using the bathroom.  No luck.  I walked back and forth a couple of times, then went to our group and asked if they had seen Quinten.  Someone told me that Horyon had taken him to the showers with Maxine.  I was a bit upset that Horyon hadn't told me, but also relieved that I hadn't actually lost him.

So I ate some fried chicken and relaxed.  And wondered if the language barrier had just bitten me in the butt.  I shouldn't have wondered.  I should have just assumed that it did.

A few minutes later our group and I noticed that they were making an announcement over the loudspeakers about a lost boy, six years old (Quinten's Korean age), wearing a blue shirt, and attending Quinten's kindergarten.  So some of us started walking to the police station to pick him up.  My feet were a bit tender the next day because I didn't notice until I was halfway there that I hadn't put my shoes on, but there was no way I was going to go back at this point.

In the first picture below, you can't see the police station because it is behind the picture of Horyon and me.  It took me more than 10 minutes to walk/jog there.  It was easy to find because there is a big 119 on the outside of the building, and I could hear Quinten crying from outside across the street.  When we got inside he couldn't stop because he had gained so much emotional momentum.  I picked him up and held him as he sobbed on my shoulder.  

My emotions at this point were mixed.

I felt sympathy for Quinten, but it was a very tempered sympathy.  Every child needs to learn how it feels to be lost, go through the tears, the certainty that Mommy and Daddy are gone forever.  It teaches us that our actions have consequences, a lesson that Quinten is still working on.  One of his favorite expressions right now is, "It's all your fault!"*  I don't think that he views the consequences dealt by me as being independent of his actions, but he does sometimes think that these consequences are unfair.  It's difficult to convince a child that parental consequences are honestly designed to be far less severe than worldly consequences.  When I held him in my arms, he was wetter and sandier than I expected him to be.  He confirmed that he had gone back into the water, and I came as close to lying to him as I dared: I told him that he got lost because he walked away from me.  I left out the part about how if I had been watching him more closely, he probably wouldn't have gotten lost.  I will tell him that sometime, but when he was feeling scared and alone, I wanted him to understand his part in that, without letting him shift the blame to me or anyone else.  I want him to remember that feeling the next time he thinks about taking off when there are a thousand people around.

Another feeling I had as Quinten cried in my arms was a kind of nostalgia.  I can't remember the second to last time I held him as he cried like that.  The last time was just two weeks ago when we said goodbye to my parents, but before that...?  It seems like only a few months ago that he had no words at all, and holding him was the only way to make him understand that I love him.  I don't miss the diaper changes, or the feeding hassles.  I still rejoice that he puts his shoes on the correct feet all by himself.  But the simplicity of the emotional relationship with a baby is undeniable: you offer unconditional love, and do your best to train the little beast to become a human.  Granted, the end of this training is still under the distant horizon.  For all I know, my parents may still consider me incomplete in this regard.

Of course I also felt relieved, grateful that he hadn't drowned, or been picked up by a statistically insignificant kidnapper working the beach, or suffocated under the hoards of beach goers.  My relief was oddly spread out, not really spiking until the unpleasant possibilities came to mind after Quinten was already in my arms.  As soon as I understood the announcement I had a simultaneous jolt of panic and relief.  That one kept popping in and out of my mind for the next half hour, especially when they announced that he was uncomfortable (or perhaps inconsolable?).

And I was angry.  At myself.  My moment of inattention could have cost me one of the most valuable things I have been entrusted with.  I was acutely aware of my language limitations.  I felt like an idiot for trusting anyone else to tell me where Quinten was.  I was angry at the situation as well: I hadn't really wanted to go on this trip, don't like the beach, and quickly grow tired of crowds.  I flashed back to the fender bender that started the trip, my lousy night of sleep, the yap and chatter of the kids who came along.

Anger.  Relief.  Nostalgia.  Sympathy.  If you had asked me at that moment how my weekend was, I probably would have said something rude.  I was so quick to set aside the positive experiences of the trip.

I got to be the head cook for Friday night's dinner, and it was fun!  I was back and forth between two grills that had very uneven heat, moving burgers and sausages so that they would be properly cooked.  I love a challenge like that!  I served up burgers and sausages to almost everyone there, and nothing makes me happy quite the same way as giving people food that I've made.  Especially when their reaction is to eat with gusto and tell me that it is all delicious.  I had some beer as I cooked and ate, adding a lovely buzz to the mix, loosening my tongue, and making me more pleasant company.  Later in the evening we opened a bottle of wine, and I got to be the sommelier, pouring plastic cups for all the adults interested.  My kids had a great time, playing in the sand and water, being with friends.  Even getting lost only brought Quinten down for about an hour.  The rest of the time he was on top of the world.  And it was Maxine's first time to see a lot of these friends since we left for America a month and a half previously.  She was the main reason we planned this outing, and I don't believe she had a single discouraging word to say about the trip (if I don't count "Are we there yet?").

As with any event, the details fade with time.  It's up to me to decide which gems I will sift out to keep.  I could very easily hold on to the annoyance, the bitterness, the anger.  They are kind of sticky, and require some effort to leave behind.  I choose to hold on to the smiles, the tasty burgers, the smiling kids, and the lessons learned.

*Expressions like this are so adorable coming from him that it is difficult to avoid smiling.  When he constructs his own sentences they are not so precise, so these perfect chunks are out of place in the cutest way possible.

p.s.  Photos for Uncle Bob.

Postcard mode is fun.  Simultaneous selfie and surroundings.

One of my cooking partners.

Eating dinner on the roof.

The later stages of cooking, involving vegetables.

Breakfast on Saturday.

Quinten making something on the beach.

We got more sun on Saturday.

Maxine got too much sun.  Cucumber face!
Don't worry, it's not a permanent condition.

The Costs of Moving

We are now completely at Horyon's parents' home. Well, completely if you don't count our stuff that is in a warehouse waiting for me to go to America so it can come, anyway. Or my stuff that's been sitting in my parents' basement, some of it for multiple decades now. And you definitely don't count the stuff we have abandoned.

And we have bought tickets to move to America. We will be flying to Seoul, from Seoul to San Fransisco, San Fransisco to Dallas (I think), and from there to Kansas City Int'l Airport. I have no doubt that some of you who read this will have post-game-play suggestions as to how we could have done better on this. We know. Believe me, we know. One early option I looked into was traveling by ship. Believe it or not, not many people do that sort of thing nowadays. The only options are booking tickets on a cargo ship, or going on a cruise ship. The first is not an option for passengers under five years old, and the second is only an option if you can find cruises that connect the points you want to travel between. So travel by ship was ruled out on both counts. Horyon also gets sea-sick, but I think I could have drugged her up for the trip.

Between the stuff in transition and our plane tickets, we are spending something in the neighborhood of $8,000, almost evenly halved between the two. We decided to bring Maxine's car seat and buy a seat for her on the international flight. That costs 75% of the adult fare, with absolutely none of her fare going to the passengers seated around us who will no doubt enjoy her presence almost as much as we will. I'm figuring that for us it will be a lot like the other flights we've been on with crying babies, except that it will be our responsibility to get the baby to accept her lot in life.

We're thinking that this trip might be a good time to introduce Maxine to beer.

Just kidding!

Sort of.

The moving of our stuff proved to be more expensive than we expected. The minimum price was about $1600, and we kind of figured that we'd be doing good to keep it under $2500. Turns out we didn't do so good. The moving people told us that we had made a common mistake: we figured that if we weren't bringing furniture our costs would be low, so we could afford to bring other stuff. Even now when I think about the stuff we've brought, it's hard to figure out how it ended up being so many boxes. Granted, two industrial sewing machines, including the tables they are set up on take up a lot of space. Multiple boxes of thread and cloth bought at much lower prices than we will be able to find in the States will be a huge advantage in kick-starting Horyon's sewing business. Multiple boxes of books should keep me from spending a lot of money on more books.

Right. Like having lots of books ever stopped anyone from buying more books. But I'll tell you what: I'd really appreciate it if you all could avoid mentioning this to Horyon.

We're also bringing a lot of our kitchen stuff. Nothing electric, of course, because in Korea the appliances mostly run on 220 volts, and American stuff is all 110. (It's been my experience here that anything needing a converter is more trouble than it's worth. Unless it's a really cool gadget, of course. And nowadays the coolest gadgets run on both voltages.) So I will be able to cook as soon as we get there. I'm just missing a few odd things that should be easy to acquire. Our big frying pan was due to be replaced anyway, and most of our wooden spoons were hosting bit's of the past several meals they had participated in.

On the other hand, we already have some kitchen supplies back in the States: an ice cream maker (a Christmas present I bought for Horyon, knowing how much we like ice cream), an electric knife (wedding present, hasn't left its box since 2001)... I guess that's pretty much it. Time to put together my wishlist:

food processor
blender
crock pot

I've got a crock pot here. I've used it once since moving in with the in-laws, to make chili again. This time I toned it down in the hopes that Maxine would eat it. Didn't work.

Today I made chicken in mushroom gravy, featuring our old friend, Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup. I also used some real mushrooms, just to liven things up a bit. I didn't have time to do it in the crock pot, as we were gone most of the afternoon. We drove an hour and a half to a meat restaurant, ate, bought more meat to bring home, then drove back. I thought it might be a good indication of how Maxine will do on our trip home. My conclusion is that she will do great if:

1. we can stop and get out of the plane to walk around every 45 minutes,
2. she can watch the scenery go by, and
3. it doesn't take more than about three hours to get from here to Kansas.

The meat was good. I'm not sure if it was worth driving that far, but I'm from Kansas. To me good beef is sort of a given, and you shouldn't have to drive that far for it. Now if you want it prepared specially, you can drive a bit. In that respect, this restaurant was a bit ironic: we cooked the meat on a grill in the middle of the table. It may sound like work, but believe me, it is a good kind of work. You get the meat cooked exactly the way you like it, and every bite comes to you piping hot, right off the grill. This is one thing I will very much miss in America.

And now Horyon's mother is cooking gom-guk. (rhymes with "home juke") Gom-guk is made by boiling beef back or tail bones and other cuts for a long time. This is a kind of going away food for Horyon and me. It's one of the few non-spicy soups that Koreans like. It's very rich, though if you don't add salt it doesn't taste like much.

A quick Maxine update: she is adding a few more words to her spoken vocabulary. Somehow the word "ball" has gotten in there. We're not sure why, as she doesn't really enjoy playing with her ball that much, but there's a picture of a ball in one of her books, and she always homes right in on it. She does a pretty good approximation of "dah-het-dah", Korean for "all finished." It's very cute, and sometimes even comes at an appropriate time.

She also enjoys dancing. She doesn't need music, just a suggestion and a little encouragement. She has taken to mimicking the way I shake a finger at her when she does something bad. She knows that grabbing my glasses is a spanking offense. I try to be fair about it. The first time she grabs them I tell her "No" and remind her that the next time will get a spanking. One time I gave this reminder in front of Horyon, and Maxine swatted her own thigh to demonstrate that she knew what I was talking about. We demonstrated that we need to exercise more self-control to avoid laughing while talking about serious topics.

She loves living in Grandpa (Harabuhji) and Grandma (Halmony)'s home. Grandpa Kang finds it impossible to say no to Maxine, and will give her almost anything she asks for. Grandma is more likely to say "no". This, I believe, is why Grandma and I are sort of in a tie for third place in Maxine's affections. Not that Horyon can't say "no", but she's the mommy, and still breastfeeds to put Maxine to sleep. I just can't compete with that. Not sure if I want to. It's going to be hard for her when we leave, but I suspect that she will adapt to life in America faster than either of us.

That's all for now.

Peace,

Rob

A Special Meal

It's been a while, I know. This past weekend was Solnal, the Lunar New Year, popularly (outside of Korea) known as the Chinese New Year. In Korea it's not anywhere near as cool as in the Wikipedia article I've linked to. It's more like Thanksgiving, with lots of food, meeting family, and traveling to visit relatives. As you can see in the photo above, we all got dressed up, even Maxine.

We had family over all weekend, and I cooked a big pot of chili con carne (very entertaining article about this popular food) for one meal.
It went over very well, complete with shredded cheddar cheese to mix in. I thought it was pretty good, too, though I deliberately made it a bit mild. Koreans always seem to think that Americans don't eat spicy food, but they have a hard time handling TexMex style spicy. I don't even like my chili as hot as some people. According to Wikipedia, I should have used some chili peppers instead of the Korean chili pepper paste that was available. Maybe next time.

Maxine, unfortunately, was not allowed to try it.
She had her usual fare: porridge. Not too hot, not too cold. She did get to try my dessert, though.
It's a very simple combination of different Jell-o and pudding mixes, layered in clear coffee cups, but it was a huge hit. Tae-ho ate two of them, and Maxine seemed to like it, too. It was impressive because Jell-o is one of those products that hasn't made it to Korea yet. This was the almost-end of my stash, which was originally intended for Popsicles. (Did you know that "Popsicle" was a trademarked name? God bless Wikipedia!)

Since moving in with Horyon's parents, I have cooked a few times. It's one of those things that connect people together in a unique way. Horyon's mother usually does all the cooking in their home, and she is a fine cook. Of course, Sookmo is a good cook, too. We made dumplings again this weekend, along with all the other foods customarily served for the New Year.

But this post is not about the big meals, it's about a small one.

When we moved in here, I was a bit worried about cooking. You see, I enjoy cooking from time to time, but cooking in someone else's kitchen is always kind of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it's kind of fun to use the gadgets, spices and stuff that you don't have. On the other hand, it can be hard to figure out what's available, where things are, and what is acceptable to one's host. Add the language barrier like the one that exists between me and my mother-in-law, and it can be a daunting prospect.

Usually in situations like this, I tend to stall, but at this time I had a chicken from the grocery store that had been in the fridge for three days, and I wanted to do something with it before it decided to rise from the dead. So I braised it in some pepper steak sauce that I had recently bought. It was ready to eat around 7:30, too late for Maxine to eat it. Horyon and my father-in-law were both out, and Maxine had just eaten, so I sat down with my mother-in-law and we ate together.

It was nice. It's been two or three weeks since that meal, and as I look back, I can see that it was the beginning of the two of us getting into a comfort zone.

When I joined the Peace Corps, part of our training was a home stay: two weeks living with a family, sharing meals with them, practicing language with them, sleeping in their home, and learning how to live immersed in a very different culture. It didn't seem like an insurmountable challenge at the time. I had been through training with the other volunteers in both culture and language. It was my first time being in a foreign country, and I had no reason to think that I was unable to live up to it. Funny how bits of memory like that come up sometimes. I stayed in Gyansham Poudel's home almost twelve years ago, and don't think of it very often. I can't remember what town it was in, or the names of his wife and children, but it was such an important experience at the time, because we all knew that the family stay during training would foreshadow (in some ways) our entire Peace Corps experience.

I've been in Korea so long now that I had long ago given up on having a meaningful "cross-cultural experience." (To forestall those of you who would bring up my marriage to a Korean woman, I would simply suggest that any marriage is a sort of cross-cultural experience which is almost by definition meaningful.) I got off to such a rough start with Horyon's parents that I had become comfortable with the wall between us. I am ashamed.

Now, on the eve of our departure, the walls are starting to come down. And in my mind, one of the first bricks knocked out of that wall was the braised chicken that I shared with my mother-in-law, with rice and small talk.