Family Matters

It’s about time to talk about the family. Immediate family consists of YongHee, Umma, Appa, and June. Where the extended family goes from here I have no idea, but here follows the family description.

YongHee: Actually pronounced Yohng-ee with a very hard ‘o.’ Think somewhere in the range of Homer Simpson’s infamous 'Doh!' Yonghee is a graduate student who has recently turned 25 years-old . Due to compulsory 2 year military service for all males, he’s not as far ahead of me education-wise as one might think. He is a baritone major, which in Korea pretty much translates to 'total academic failure.' If you don’t do science or math then you have nothing to live for anymore, but the uniqueness is somethingI've grown to respect about him. He listens exclusively to opera and praise music and teaches voice lessons as a part time job. His English is decent enough that I’m comfortable around him. YongHee lives in the room across the “hall” from me, and we have spent a lot of time in transit to various places, be it the apartment from the airport, Yonsei from the apartment, or the book store from the CD store. We are always enduring long rides on the subway, bus, or just plain on foot, so we’ve already gotten really creative with our conversational topics. Since our language skills aren’t perfect either way, there’s a ton of misunderstanding, which leads to lengthy explanation. Within that length of explanation there will undoubtedly be another misunderstanding or unknown vocab word, which then leads to an endless string of tangents until finally we find ourselves on a piano bench discussing umbilical chords and Che Guevara. He’s definitely my best [only] friend to date, so ROCK ON YONGHEE!

Umma: Not really her name guys, but I have no reason to call her anything other than “mother,” since this woman is a living, breathing archetype. She does laundry daily. Daily. She asked me not to give her my wash in one lump per week, but just a little bit as it happens. She hangs everything to dry on a clothesline. We’re in the middle of the city! A clothesline! I lived in the rolling countryside and we didn’t use the clothesline for anything but doormats. Umma cooks twice a day. During lunch she’s usually at her job (it involves cell phones in some way but she could be a receptionist at the Cyon corporation or a telemarketer for all I know). As we speak the woman is taking the socks off my feet to sew the holes closed. She offers me food more often than a Greek family would. I walk around the house in a constant state of stuffed-miserable. She spends her free time watching cooking shows, hoola-hooping, washing the dishes, and cleaning the floor. (This family doesn’t believe in brooms. They use the twisted love child of a lint brush and paint roller to continuously roll hair and dust off the ground…..weird.) Then there is the bunion at the joint of her right foot's big toe. That thing isn't just a bunion, it's an eleventh toe! She uses it to maintain balance in tricky situations and to pick up dropped papers, clothes, pencils, etc.

Appa: Appa is an interesting character. His profession, as far as I can call it that, is that of a chef. While it is feminine to cook in Asia the same way it is in America, like America there is some cooking that is manly. Appa is a master of the Korean equivalent of grilling. He has traveled the world working in various restaurants in places like Syria, Iran, China, and (most recently) Japan. Currently, however, I believe he is unemployed. My first big clue is that he doesn’t really go to work. My second was that he sits on the floor during his spare time and circles segments of the classified ads with a highlighter. Every now and again he’ll go to some odd job, but he’s definitely in the market for full time employment. Appa enjoys American folk songs (e.g. Danny Boy, She’ll be Comin’ Round the Mountain) and watching the news. Appa dislikes eating eel (“too slimy”) and the Chinese circus.

June: June’s English is the best of all four. While her production is somewhat lacking, I can pretty much say anything to her that I want to say (barring odd slang, etc.) and she’ll understand me. She was married in March and is expecting in December, so I am very excited to be a part of the Korean babyness, mostly because I want to verify the legend. [Koreans are said to be born with a blue “hand-print” birth mark on their butt cheek, a trait that only Koreans, Mongolians, and Native Americans have. The birthmark fades after three or four days, but it is enough to prove the Bering Strait theory at the very least.] June teaches piano, voice, and music theory as a part time job. The weird thing, though, is that she does all three at once for one hour, running madly from one student to the next, screaming across the house at the pianist as she looks over the shoulder of the music theorist. As I type there are three musically inclined Koreans in the house, and all are doing their own thing. June enjoys Solfeg and leading her church choir, and dislikes walking up the one flight of steps to get to the house, instead opting to wait for the elevator. Ridiculous, but excused in her pregnant state.

While the family is a little quirky, they take good care of me and we all get along well. I enjoy living with them and their oddities serve to amuse me when verbal jokes no longer have any effect.