My Family

On my second night here, my uncle and his family took us out for Korean barbecue. This is when I remembered that actual Korean barbecue is really nothing like American Korean barbecue. American kalbi are neat little strips of shortribs in Asian-style marinade. Real Korean kalbi are huge honkin' chunks of meat that look like they just got hacked off of a cow. And they taste crazy awesome. I should have taken more pictures of the food, but I wanted to be polite and not become a mad picture-taker. Don't worry. I'll get over that soon. Anyway, the only pictures I took were of my family.

That's my uncle Sung-chul. He speaks very little English, but we're valiantly trying to teach each other. We actually communicate pretty well by continually repeating ourselves and gesturing. He's very nice, and he keeps buying me things.

On the left is my aunt Jung-hee, and on the right is my cousin Eun-mi. Eun-mi is the only one who speaks English, so I think I'm going to be spending a lot of time stuck to her. That's fine with me, because she's very sweet and also completely adorable.

My mom, and me with my eyes closed. I know, I'll get the hang of taking more and better pictures soon. My mom is just here for the next couple of days, to get me settled in to the point that I can survive here without her. She is an awesome, awesome lady, as most of you know, and I'm a little nervous about her leaving. I'm going to have to learn Korean really fast!

Okay, it occurs to me that some of you may not know the saga of my Mom's family. My Dad's family is simple - they all know and love each other, his mom my Grandma is the matriarch, and they've all lived in the NW for generations. My Mom's family is a little more complicated. There are stories within stories to be told here, but the short version is this:

My Mom's mom died when my Mom was about sixteen. Mom had an older brother, an older sister, and a younger sister - my Emo. It was decided that the two youngest needed a mother figure, so my Mom and my Emo were sent to live with their aunt Esther in Olympia, Washington. Well, it turns out that Esther wasn't the greatest mother figure in the world, but in any case the girls ended up American citizens and were pretty much cut off from their family, especially when my Mom's dad died shortly thereafter. My Mom married my Dad and they moved to Portland, and I grew up with a sort of vague knowledge that I might have some extended family in Korea. Then, when I was in high school, we were suddenly contacted by my uncle. His daughter, Eun-mi, was coming to the States to study abroad. It had been about thirty-five years since he and my Mom had spoken, and we hadn't even known that he had a daughter. Well, Eun-mi came to stay with us and she was wonderful, and eventually my uncle also came to visit and my Dad discovered that they shared the international language of golf and booze. About five years ago I went with my Mom to visit my uncle's family in Suwon, bringing the total number of times I'd met the guy up to about three.

So when I effectively graduated a term early, I decided to get in touch with my roots and spend some more time with my long-lost family. And here I am, eating kalbi at a real Korean barbecue restaurant. Glee!