My Oma died.

Oma is the Dutch word for grandmother.

I will add more later, but for now... I feel very very far away from my family in Canada.

September 8th, 2022: Missing Mom again is OK. Grief is part of Loving [Updated]

 This was a note I wrote on Facebook, but I think it deserves commemoration on my blog, too. It's not the first time I've written about mom on my blog (her eulogy is here, and my Jesa post, which is still one of my favorite blog posts that I've ever written, is here, and if you want to know more about Jesa -- korea's ritual to honor those who are gone, and the ancestors in particular, you can read about it here, or from Ask A Korean! here.)

Story: When mom wanted to finish a roll of film, she would walk into a room and say “hey everybody” and snap a picture of them all looking over with dull “whaa?” expressions, until the roll was full. Consistently bad, uninteresting pictures. This day, she had a roll of film, and started doing that, and me, Deb and Dan said, “no, Mom. Let US fill out the roll” and took a series of photos that are, to this day, some of my favorite pictures of the youngest three siblings.

September 8, 2005, was the day my mom left this earth. If any of you has ever spent some time with me and come away thinking I'm gentle, or caring, or a good listener, that I'm warm and affectionate, or encouraging, or good with kids, then you have met my mother as well, one step removed. If you have not thought those things, I take the blame entirely upon myself, because that is the kind of person she showed me to be, and I guess I failed to live up to that.

Most of these pictures are of mom. The one of me sitting in a tree was taken by her, and it has a story. 

Rob alone, sittin' in a tree... story below.

See, for all her good qualities, mom was a spectacularly bad gift-giver. She just never got the hang of figuring out what other people would like, so she mostly got other people the thing SHE would have liked to get as a gift.

This led to a nadir one Christmas that involved some tears and a quick save through our family's very very weird sense of humor, but at that point mom kind of threw her hands up, and instead of trying to surprise us, she made a plan to take us each shopping on our birthdays: bring us to the mall or wherever, and let us pick out the thing we wanted or needed. This worked much better in general than trying to surprise us and disappointing us instead.

Near the end of my university years, she moved up a level: the best thing she could offer, really, was her time and her company. Mom was a wonderful person to be with, no matter what you were doing, so the last few birthdays I had with her, she figured out that the very best gift she could give me was to take me out to spend some dedicated time with her. She'd take us out to a play, or something we wanted to do or see. The picture of me in the tree was from one of those excursions. She picked me up at university and drove me into Vancouver, where we had tickets to see a play (Amadeus). Before the curtain opened, we hung out in Stanley Park, probably Vancouver's best landmark, and she'd brought a camera, so we snapped a few pictures, that being one of them, and one of my favorite photos of myself from that time, because of the day when she took it, which was a lovely day from top to bottom.

We saw the play, and then we went for dinner, and I had lobster for the first time in my life... Mom hadn't asked Dad for permission to eat such fancy stuff -- I suggested lobster almost as a joke, airily saying, "You know I've never had lobster!" with the subtext, "How ridiculous, suggesting such an expensive meal! Can you imagine if Dad, who makes the responsible money choices, heard us suggesting such fripperies?" (Dad ran the family checkbook), so she agreed to do it with a conspiratorial smile. The lobster was wonderful, and the feeling of mild transgression with your mom was another layer of fun on the entire day. 

(We did get busted: mom paid for part of the meal with cash to hide how large the bill was, but Dad noticed a disproportionately large tip when he was balancing the checkbook, and mom 'fessed up. He couldn't do anything anyway: that money was already spent!)

Mom was the best at making people feel loved. The absolute best. Nobody's perfect, but that is the thing that stays with me all these years afterwards.

Grief is the mirror image of the love you had for someone: some loves never end, some people leave impacts on us that linger for our entire lives, whether they're still around or not, and where mom's love made me a better, kinder, more balanced or confident or generous person, each of those spots is a little hollow, a knot in the wood, where sorrow gathers now that she's gone.

But that's OK. It's normal, it's appropriate, I'll even say it's *proper* that such an important person in my life is still grieved, all these years later. She absolutely deserves the occasional tear or sob, the occasional melancholy 'wish you were here' dream (I had a dream where I introduced her to my son once), the occasional nostalgic thumb-through of the photo album. That's just the mirror image of the love and goodness she brought to my life, and ultimately, my life is richer and fuller both for the good things she gave me, and for the ways grieving her made me softer, more gentle, more empathetic, and better at showing my special people I love them while they are still around for me to appreciate them.

Miss you mom!

RIP

Mom with her oldest grandchild. She had a special relationship with him, and one of the hardest parts of losing her is that she never got to be a special Oma for my kid, or a special mom-in-law for my wife. My step-mom, Nana, is wonderful, and a blessing in all our lives, to be clear. I'm thankful for everything about her because she's just awesome. But I'm still sad Juniorseyo never met his Oma. It's hard, but those can both be true.

Mom and dad, at their 25th anniversary party. This is how Mom looks in my memory. A little soft, in just the right spots to give transcendent hugs.

Mom with Dad, in her last year. Losing weight because of stomach cancer. Fuck cancer.

Update: My sister Deb shared the post I wrote, which I've copied above, and added a few thoughts of her own, which were just lovely. I've had a few really nice responses and reflections from a few of the people who loved mom -- including one of her best friends, and a few cousins and relatives whose lives were touched by Mom's love, and I'm really grateful for them, too. How wonderful is it that seventeen years after someone died, they can still bring people together? That is just such a perfectly Mom thing to do.

So, with permission, here's what my sister Deb wrote.

[My brother wrote this linked post:] This is a beautifully crafted piece about my mom. My brother describes both her and the loss of her so perfectly.

One of my favourite memories of my mom was ALSO an excursion rather than a gift (I had a dream once where she NAILED Christmas. Every gift was perfect...I woke up laughing, realizing it had to be a dream because in real life that never happened!! 🤣🤣🤣)

My mom and I went walking one day up and down the walkway at White Rock. We did the beach on the way down, and the shops and restaurants on the way up.

We stopped for dinner and shared a Bellini, my first restaurant bought alcohol and still my favourite drink when I'm in the mood for a drink.

At the end of the day we had dessert (crème brûlée) and watched the sun set and rabbits frolic from a rooftop patio. It wasn't fancy, we didn't solve the world's problems, but we were together and I knew there was nowhere else mom would have wanted to be that day than spending time with me.

Mom loved unconditionally, laughed with her whole body and held onto the special moments and memories that were given to her in time shared.

I miss her on the good days and the hard days. 

I don't wallow in sadness, I don't have a deep unforgiving ache, but Rob puts it very well, deep love leaves a deep hollow and I do have moments where I just wish that hollow could be filled.

That dream where mom gave great gifts? I woke up laughing, but also, I got in a few more great mom hugs during that dream, and I'm glad I remembered those when I woke up too. 

17 years feels like forever and so fast all at the same time. Love you, mom.

/END QUOTE

I'm so grateful to my sister for sharing this. I never heard this story, nor about her (hilarious) dream where mom got every Christmas present right... but it's so great any time you get a few more mom hugs, even if they're in a dream. I love the line that "I knew there was nowhere else mom would have wanted to be that day than spending time with me." --one thing that was always great about mom is the way that when she was with you, she was with you -- she was fully present and focused on the person she was with. She died before the first smartphone appeared on the market, but I think she would have hated them more than anybody, because they cause people to be only half-present, half-looking at the phone, and mom was never less than 100% present for someone.

and I'm also grateful for my sister mentioning that mom laughed with her whole body -- things got silly in our house sometimes, and mom was a little small, and a little round, and when she really laughed hard, it looked like she'd roll right onto her back: a rock backwards so that her (so very short) legs were off the ground as she rocked back in her seat, accompanied with a welt-worthy thigh slap, and a full-throated belly-laugh that could be heard from outside the house. Oh, it was fun to try to get her to laugh like that.

Thanks again to every last person who saw and responded to my little FB tribute to mom, or who comments here. Grief doesn't have a time limit, and neither does love, and if this cluster of paragraphs can encourage someone to make a phone call or send a note to remind someone that they're loved, that'll be a perfect fit with mom's legacy, so go on and do that, and somebody new will get a chance to meet my mom, a few steps removed!

Love Rob

Speaking of grief, today, the 17th anniversary of mom's death, was also the day Queen Elizabeth II went to meet her maker. The whole English speaking world is sad on the day I'm remembering mom... Queen Elizabeth was my favorite royal by a long-shot, and carried a great deal of the English royal family's legitimacy on her strong shoulders. I wonder what will happen next, but QEII was awesome, and I'll miss her being around holding the entire rest of the royal family back from being sucked completely into a black hole of scandal.

Korean Mothers are the Best, you Know: Facepalm

The Korea Times came out with a howler of an article recently, mistakenly using the headline "Tips for Keeping Partners from Cheating" on an article that was clearly meant to be titled "How to Suffocate Your Partner and Poison Your Relationship With Mistrust." This is a far cry from its 2009-10 nadir (setting the record straight, and alien graveyards), but still. My response on Facebook was sarcastic, but basically: 1. Don't trust your partner? Find another.  2. Partner asking for your passwords? People usually extend to others the amount of trust they deserve themselves. Memo for everyone: possessiveness and obsessiveness aren't cute and charming. They're creepy uncomfortable suffocating and insulting.


Not to be topped (bottomed?), The Korea Herald ran an article by Dr. Kim Seong-kon, a longtime contributor there, titled "Korean Mother: A Cultural Icon" - now, Dr. Kim has been writing an article a week for a very very long time, so maybe we have to forgive the occasional stinker, but this one went over the line.

Kim suggests "the Korean mother" as a cultural icon for Korea - a symbol of Korean culture, or essence, or somesuch. Nothing terribly wrong with that, though compared to the examples he gives, like Japanese samurai, which only Japan has, choosing something every living person necessarily has seems odd.

Kim describes the sacrificial and nurturing quality of Korean mothers, name-checks "Please Look after Mother" by Shin Kyung-sook, compares Korean mothers to birds that feed their babies while they starve, and even points out how Korean mothers are different from the mothers in his anecdote, AND in this one TV show he saw, which is enough to satisfy a scholar these days, I guess. (Peer review, here I come!)

[Update: Smudgem writes a thoughtful response to the article, that includes some nice words about this post: thanks!]

Asia Pundits raises a number of objections to the article - asking whence Korean teen suicide, if Korean mothers are so great (but acknowledging the issue is waaaaay more complex than that), and in what way trundling kids off to hagwon until 8 or 10pm is different from sending kids to their rooms early in the evening. Asiapundits also outlines the pressure Korean moms often put on kids to get into a good school -- even using the threat of violence to bully kids into studying harder. The article is worth reading. The top comment (as of now) below that post mentions "stage mother superficiality" - making parenting decisions based on what the other moms in the sewing circle will think, rather than what's best for the kids, which happens, I suppose (elsewhere as well of here, of course).

Newer blogger Wangjangnim weighs in a little more emotionally, with his best point being that Dr. Kim's description of Korean mothers is a not-too-subtle disguise for a series of normative statements about gender roles that are a generation or two out of date, and which also fix the acceptable standard for motherhood ridiculously high. (Meanwhile, Chosun Ilbo English headline this morning: "Actress Park Si-yeon Happy to Focus on Being a Mom" -- still waiting for a major daily in Korea featuring a headline, "Famous and Accomplished Woman Happy To Focus on Career For Now" with a positive write-up). Wangjangnim also mentions (though briefly) overseas adoption, which has created a whole bunch of Koreans who are alienated from their Korean moms.

Both AsiaPundits' mention of teen suicide, and Wangjangnim's mention of overseas adoption, as presented, are probably unfair "Yeah but what about this!" reactions. Both reduce very complex issues into pot-shots in a conversation about something else, far less than these two issues deserve. (Honestly, though, adoption sprang to my mind as well during my kneejerk-rage reaction phase.) Neither of those fraught and complex issues are fair to lay solely at the feet of Korean mothers: both require far-reaching discussions of Korean society. There are other little digs one could make -- my facebook feed featured a funny wisecrack about the prevalance of car seat use, for example. Moms in Korean dramas notwithstanding, I have several main problems with the article:

First: When I try to talk about an entire country of over 50 million as if it's a single, undifferentiated mass, my commenters give me hell. Essentializing an entire culture is always fishy territory, whether it's a foreigner or a Korean holding the broad brush. Korea is a pretty big, complex thing: big enough, and complex enough, that you can find evidence to validate any bias or agenda you bring to it, from the fuzziest of happy purrs, to the bitterest of angry yawps. This gets us no closer to the bottom of things.

Second: There are tons of moms in Korea who don't fit the rose-tinted profile Dr. Kim offers. Hell, if Doc Brown and Marty McFly skipped back in time and showed this article to a seventeen-year-old Dr. Kim, I bet he wouldn't recognize his own mother in it. Nostalgia does that.

Next: for Koreans whose moms were less than ideal, or for Korean moms who aren't living up to Dr. Kim's standard, I'd hate to compound their hurt or guilt, by making them feel like their family issues also problematize their bona fides as Koreans. In my first year here, I dealt with panic attacks from a kid whose mother would beat him for bad scores. I had another kid in my second year who had internalized her mother's verbal abuse so completely I never heard my brightest student of the whole year say a positive thing about herself; she came to class with bruises sometimes, too. I've dealt with moms whose kids' accomplishments seem more to be baubles for boasting to their friends, than for their kids' own benefit. They were all Koreans. I know someone who had a (brief, doomed) engagement with a man whose parents had dropped the guillotine on OVER THIRTY previous prospective fiancees. But those three anecdotes, as well as the mom I saw on a Korean drama that my mom-in-law likes, who is a manipulating, selfish badword, don't mean all Korean moms are like that, any more than Kim's anecdotes and TV reference mean American moms are all deficient.

Dr Kim: "But those mothers don't typify REAL Korean motherhood!"

No true Scotsman would do such a thing!

The "NO True Scotsman" fallacy: Justifying funny pictures of men in kilts since the Internet

There are also tons of moms outside of Korea who do all  the things Kim describes. Tiger parenting? Pressure to succeed? Sacrifice for kids? Emphasis on education? Those ring a bell to more than Korean kids, as does every other behavior (good or bad!) you name when you describe a stereotypical, or an idealized Korean mother. Except maybe making kimchi, which not all Korean mothers do anymore.

The book thing: Kim points to "Please Look After Mother" as an example of Korean motherhood... now Gord Sellar has problems with that book; I myself found it touching at first, but trying too hard, and finally reaching maudlin territory. I have doubts that the author set out to write a book about Korean motherhood; I find it more likely she was trying to write about her mother. The conversation about whether or why any piece of Korean culture that finds success outside Korea's borders is quickly labeled "representative" of Korea is a long one, and off point here, except that I find it frequently spurious, especially because the designation is usually post-hoc. Except for D-War.

(Source) Common sight at night in drinking districts.

For that matter, how can Kim claim Korean motherhood is unique if the book became a New York Times best seller? If a book becomes a best seller, it's fair to say that means it's struck some kind of a chord with readers. If a book resonates, that means an audience can relate to it... which means all those Americans buying the book must have connected to the portrayal of motherhood in it at least a little, since the book is about nothing else... the success of that book SHOWS that Korean motherhood isn't as unique as Dr. Kim claims it is, doesn't it? If Korean motherhood were totally singular among world cultures, it stands to reason that the book would only have been successful in Korea, and not found a mass audience outside of it.

Finally, I just find it tiresome that Kim gives into that all-too-common impulse, where one seems unable to talk about a great Korean thing, without comparing it to a foreign thing that isn't as good.

Nobody has to tell me that Gyeongbokgung is in more harmony with nature than Beijing's Forbidden City, for me to be impressed by it. In fact, bringing up the Forbidden City mostly reminds me how much smaller and less fancy Gyeongbokgung is, how much more famous the Forbidden city is. Telling me hamburgers are shit does nothing to impress the health benefits of Korean food, except show me that someone has an inferiority complex, and is a bit petty, and doesn't understand American food: the Korean correlative to hamburgers is something closer to ddeokbokki than bibimbap. And it isn't necessary for American mothers to be told they suck, before we can properly celebrate Korean mothers. If it is necessary, that's a shitty kind of patriotism.

This type of argumentation is tone deaf if the author is appealing to anybody except Koreans themselves (of course he's writing this to Koreans... why in English? is the real question) Picking USA (and Japan, the other standby), again and again, as the points of comparison to show Korean superiority, also betrays a type of colonized thinking, because why USA and Japan? They're the two countries who have most recently dominated Korea politically and/or economically, so they're the two burrs in South Korea's saddle, when it comes to national pride and perception of national sovereignty, that's why. Showing that Korea is culturally superior, even with less economic or military clout than USA or Japan, is simply a tacky ploy at restoring a Korean pride somebody imagined has been damaged.

But the fact that pride is always measured against these countries over others, reveals that the Koreans who write articles like Dr. Kim's (which, to be clear, is a subset of Koreans - not the whole lot) still haven't gotten over the period when Korea was colonized: they can't leave that scab alone, and simply celebrate what Koreans are: these ones have to get a dig in. Using those specific measuring sticks to show Korea's better, unintentionally underscores that Korea was well bested by them in the past.

Korea has enough kit now that it would be utterly possible to celebrate its culture on its own terms -- between the Korean Wave, the achievements of Korean businesses on the world stage, OECD membership, Ban Ki-moon, Psy, and Storm Shadow, the growing popularity of Korean food and the medal standings of the last few Olympics, there's enough there to stand without comparisons. But compare they do (some of them), and it comes across badly every time. (Example: Why Korea Sucks at Marketing Itself. Discuss.)

Lee Byung-hun as Storm Shadow. Making Korea's national status look goooood.

Given his output, we have to expect Dr. Kim will write a clunker from time to time. But this one was over the line.

I'm glad you had a good Chuseok weekend with your mother, Dr. Kim, it shows. But please try to express your love for your country and your mother without shitting on other countries and their mothers, and next time ideas are thin, maybe take a week or two off from your column over pinching out a turd like this one.

Funny footnote: I have some history with Kim Seong-kon - a letter to the editor in response to his article was the first time I ever sent writing of mine to a publication other than my university's poetry journal. You can read it here.


Special note for commenting: let's try to keep this comment discussion more nuanced than just telling everybody how horrible Korean moms are, OK? There are horrible moms and great moms in every country.

Sick Babyseyo

Warning: the final picture in this post contains chest hair.

Babyseyo and Roboseyo.

You may notice the newest addition to my family: Spectcloseyo.
Yes. I have joined the ranks of the bespectacled, glasses-wearing four-eyes. And to all of my friends on whose glasses I at some point put a fingerprint as a prank: I'm sorry. I'm a jerk.

So Babyseyo got a cough last week. On Wednesday, we brought him to the pediatric clinic near our home; they gave him a two-days' worth prescription, and said, "If this doesn't set him right, bring him to a real hospital."

On Friday, he was worse than Wednesday, if anything, his crying had acquired a ragged buzz-saw edge to it that he didn't usually have, and he wasn't smiling: just looking around with big, "You can help me with this, right?" eyes.

So... here's peaceful babyseyo (he folds his arms like a buddha when he's really at peace)

OK ok. Or a mad villain concocting evil schemes (if the light is right)

They looked at him and said "We'd like to check him in, please." And he looked like this.


Bronchopneumonia.

Call Rudolph: the baby hospital's horning in on his turf. The gadget that measures his blood oxygen saturation and pulse has made his toe glow. Wifeoseyo did not find my shiny toe jokes funny... and I'm pretty shiny toes don't run in her side of the family, so I'll have to ask my dad about my side.


But readers...
I don't know how to describe what it is to see your own baby like that. It'd be like describing sex to a virgin, or red to a blind person - meaningless platitudes, or words that seem to fall far below the act... but every parent will nod their head and know. It's the final step in bonding with your kid, I think: seeing your little one sick takes all the deep roots of love that have been building, and suddenly reveals them to you, like a flash of lightning outlining the tree in your yard, all at once, in an instant, in every staggering detail.

He's been in the hospital since Friday, as my twitter and facebook people will know. He's better: eating more and smiling again, but it was only today that the doctors finally told us just how bad he was doing on Friday, because they didn't want to upset us then. Not that you had to tell us he was in a bad way.

We're getting good care at the hospital, but anyway... that's baby's first sick. So if you've been waiting for me to answer an e-mail or comment at Roboseyo, please bear with me. And if you're the praying type, say a short one for Babyseyo.

'cause I love this kid.

Got some Notbaby Stuff Coming Down the Pipeline...

Got some notbaby stuff coming down the pipeline - but I realized I forgot to post this video on the baby announcement post.

Babyseyo! Babyseyo! Babyseyo!

Suddenly, Everything Has Changed - by The Flaming Lips. Press play. 

 Because suddenly everything has changed.




 







(lyrics to the song "Suddenly Everything Has Changed"):

Putting all the vegetables away
That you bought at the grocery store today
And it goes fast
You think of the past
Suddenly everything has changed

Driving home, the sky accelerates
And the clouds all form a geometric shape
And it goes fast
You think of the past
Suddenly everything has changed

Putting all the clothes you’ve washed away
And as you’re folding up the shirts you hesitate
Then it goes fast
You think of the past
And suddenly everything has changed

Time to tell the World... Due Date: October

Time to tell the world...

Wifeoseyo and I are expecting a little one, in late October.

So... yay us. I played this really close to my chest for quite a while, but it's time to share it with the world. After all, you can't really look at my wife without noticing.

*actual babyseyo may not appear exactly as shown

That's all for now.

Love: roboseyo

Is Divorce in Korea finally Socially Acceptable?

Update:  The show went well... apologies to James from The Grand Narrative, who was supposed to be on the show, but who we missed because of a miscommunication.  Fortunately for you, readers, he's written some of what he would have said, over on his blog.  Awesome.  I hope I'll have a chance to invite you on the show later, James.

Also, thanks to Jennifer, facebook pals Hyunsoo, Sun Heo, and twitter pals @aaronnamba @Ben_Kwon and @TWolfejr, Wet Casements and 3Gyupsal, and everybody who listens, calls, or comments.

In my first year in Korea, I met a woman, the mother of one of my students, who lied to her family for two years, rather than admit that she had divorced her abusive husband.

Today, Yonhap News reports the launching of a magazine specifically targeted at divorcees.

So the question we're discussing tonight on "Argue with Roboseyo" or "The Bigger Picture" at TBS eFM radio is whether the launch of this magazine is an indication that divorce has finally become socially acceptable in Korea.

What do you think?  Write your thoughts in the comments, and I'll try to read them on air during the segment, from 7:40-7:55 tonight on 101.3 TBS eFM's evening show.  Or phone in at 02-778-1013.

Questions:

1. What are the gender issues and social issues at play?  In Choseon Korea, men could have concubines, and women had very few rights.  The danger of destitution and discrimination were the main disincentives for divorce in the past.  What about now?  Have women's rights improved enough that divorce no longer guarantees poverty?

2. Is it a sign of social progress, if women feel independent and liberated enough to get a divorce, rather than feeling trapped in a bad marriage?

3. Is this a sign that Korea's vaunted "family values" are disintegrating?  Maybe people just don't care as much as they used to about bringing shame on their family?

4. Other than family pressures, what were the obstacles to getting a divorce in the past?

Put your comments below, and if you have a strong opinion, or if you have experience with divorce in Korea, let drop me a line at roboseyo at gmail: the show's always looking for callers.

Congrats a Bazillion to Zenkimchi Joe!

So Captain Kimchi himself, my buddy Joe, had a baby... well, his wife had a baby, not long ago.

I wanted to send out a huge congratulations to him: I'm sure he's busy as all-get-out right now, but he's been posting pictures of the new baby girl, Ji-an, on Facebook and his website.

He also has an interesting post about Korean post-partum traditions: a pair of old coworkers of mine had a baby while in Korea, and they reported that the pregnancy and childbirth advice they got from their Korean friends was almost exactly the opposite of the advice they got from their phone calls back home.  Their conclusion was that you should do whatever the heck your body tells you to do, as long as you frequently check in with a doctor you trust.

Anyway, if you've had a baby in Korea, head on over to zenkimchi and add a comment to the post where he lists the western and Korean post-natal traditions.

And congratulations again, Joe.

Happy Times...

I'm tired every day when I get home from work... but there's a lot of awesome in my life right now.

Here's a song to commemorate my happy.  "The Heart of Life (is good)" by John Mayer, whose soft rock belies a seriously skilled guitarist.



and here are a few pictures from my wedding and honeymoon:



My Step-Mom is a class act.  We got her some hanbok made, and she looked fantastic with Wifeoseyo's ma.


This bouquet was part of wifeoseyo's birthday celebration.  It isn't easy to get flowers in the maldives, but it was worth every penny, dear readers.  They were gorgeous, and perfect for the situation.


Here is a happy Seyo.


Wifeoseyo can make a coral blue sea and a champagne glass into a nifty photo.


She's also a hot silhouette.


We chose the right night to go on the sunset cruise: the other sunsets that week were mostly grey and disappointing, but we got gorgeous skies all the way from blue to gold to pink to purple to moonlight.


see?


Oh yeah.  Also my niece.


And my other niece.  This is one of the pictures I like most, of all the pictures I've taken.

My Niece is Cute

One of the best thing about the wedding was the fact all but one of my nieces and nephews came to Korea to be at the wedding.  It was awesome!  My youngest niece (by one week) was the star of the show for a lot of the trip: her big blue eyes hypnotized the ajummas to give her free stuff, and she is very outgoing -- but just shy enough not to let anyone but her parents or relatives pick her up (fortunately).  Here, you can see her trying out her Korean (she understood what they meant, too), singing a song, kissing her new Aunty Wifeoseyo (we also call her Imo Wifeoseyo...except with her real name) and dancing to K-pop, as well as enjoying herself at the Morning Calm Garden.



One of the best parts was during the musical "Miso" at the Jungdong theater, which I highly, highly recommend: the cast of the musical spotted her sitting in the second row, and during the whole rest of the show they were sneaking peeks at her, waving at her, and the like.  Nieceoseyo, for her part, was an absolute doll: her mom (who directs plays back home) told Nieceoseyo to wave and blow kisses at the cast members, and they were total goners.  It was so fun to watch.  Even without the "the cast was flirting with my niece" part (they also flirted with my other nieces, who are three and eight, the show was great.

Finally, after the show finished, the cast came up to the Jungdong theater courtyard in full costume for some photo ops... but a lot of the people in the audience wanted pictures of my nieces and nephews instead!  :)

Family Arriving...

It's getting close, dear readers. On Wednesday night, my brother rocked into Korea, yesterday we walked around so much I got blisters on my feet, and today the rest of my family shows up.

So expect light posting from now until I return from the honeymoon:

I'M GETTING HITCHED!  I'll put up updates where I can, and I'll publish the final chapter on Korean weddings and who owns a culture when I can... but don't expect a whole lot for a little while.  Maybe some pictures.  Some awesome pictures.

so... see y'all later.

and be excited for me.  I am.

2009: Year-End Retrospective. Personal - Advent

Blind Willie Johnson - Dark Was the Night



Frankly, dear readers, this was a tough year. Hella tough. Every year, around Christmas, I've written a personal retrospective on the year, and it's traditionally been among the writing I worked on the hardest, and was most proud of each year. This year, I'm going to give you a list of the things I learned, or realized and need to apply, because it was a really full year of stuff to be learned. Before I get into that, here's the big big, tippy-top high point of the year:

On Chuseok holiday, on a pretty little bridge in the loveliest neighborhood in Kyoto, Japan, Girlfriendoseyo and I got engaged. It was pretty sweet. I gave her a nifty ring and now we're working on setting dates and stuff. Anybody out there who can recommend a wedding planner who speaks both English and Korean?

But now, in list form, are the things I learned this year, in no particular order. Some of them have stories, but some of those stories pertain to people who read this blog, so this year's retrospective is going to be a little more circumspect than previous ones. Sometime this year I became circumspect. I'm still deciding how I feel about that.

1. Two things that comfort me are the sounds of ironing, and church. Church totally stomps ironing, though.

2. If I'm not working on improving myself, I'm in decline: human beings are too malleable to stay the same. If I'm not sure how I'm changing, in the absence of actual work on self-improvement, chances are I'm regressing in some area. That's something I learned in the absolute worst way this year. Nope. You won't be hearing the gritty details here. The first place to look to suss out the shape of that regression is where I spend my time. Without a goal, a guide, or a purpose for what I want to become, the combined stimuli of the ways I spend my time will decide for me. I learned this one when, for a while in the middle of the ATEK storm, which kept me crazy busy writing, moderating, and keeping in touch with various players, I assumed an important friendship would be around for me when I got back to it, and because of that neglect, it nearly wasn't.

3. Even when I think my friend is in the wrong, stand by that friend. The middle of a messy situation is not the time to let my friend know we're not on the same page; later, when it's just the two of us debriefing about the situation, is the time to have that conversation.

4. It doesn't take that much time a week working out, to feel a lot better.

5. It doesn't take that much money spent helping people, to feel a lot better. If you don't know yet about KIVA.ORG, then you need to find out, and help out. Seriously. Twenty-five bucks is nothing to most of us, but it can change a life.

6. Be generous with acquaintances but miserly with who I call friends, and who I trust. It helps to have a network of people and connections, but I discovered I need to be really sure about a person before calling them a friend, and be cognizant that usually adding a friend to the circle means having less time for the other friends already in the circle. I started learning this lesson back in 2008, and maybe it's a necessary step in becoming an online presence, but this is especially true of people I meet on the internet, and personalities that gravitate there. That's all I'm saying here.

7. It's worth my while to maintain ties with my family. Traveling back to Canada this summer was an eye-opener for me; it was so wonderful to see my family all together, that it caught me right off guard. Especially those of us who are a long time overseas, it's easy to go "out of sight, out of mind" but it's important not to. In fact, it was kind of shocking to go back and see everybody, like pulling off a bandaid and discovering that I'd missed these people way more than I admitted.

8. Remember my audience, not just in presentations, but in social situations. I hurt some of my friends with careless comments that, though funny, were disrespectful or hurtful to them. (Notice a theme? It's been a tough year friendsip-wise for me this year. I gotta learn to read people better.) This sensitivity is especially important when hanging out with people from a different culture, who might misread the wrong intentions my delivery.

9. Read books. After spending a long time mostly reading online articles and things, I finally started reading books again this fall. Books are great: they just get in deeper than blog posts and newspaper articles, and it's vital to look a little more rigorously at stuff from time to time.

10. I can't be friends through someone. The thing about friends of friends is that they're not my own friends yet, and it takes time and effort to turn those acquaintances into actual friendships. This is especially important in Korea, where people come and go, and the connection through which I knew someone might leave Korea before I have a chance to solidify that friendship, if I'm not on top of things. Gotta take ownership of that stuff.

Dear readers, I'm tired. This year has been exhausting for me, at different times, for different reasons, but sweet mercy, I want to lie in bed for two weeks... except that I'd probably feel worse at the end of that than I did at the beginning. I had a long talk with a friend, just this week, about seeking out quiet, and the way that without some time for introspection, and meditation, things can get hollow, and even worse, important things can be lost without noticing, if one doesn't stop to take stock.

But all that said... I got engaged this year! If I don't get at least twenty comments of congratulations on this post, I'm shutting down the blog forever.

(image source)

Christmas in Gwanghwamun/Chunggyecheon, Missing Family, and Stupid Hats

Met my friend Cecilia yesterday, and she introduced her boyfriend to me.

You may remember her from here:


Well, her boyfriend a a seriously stellar guy. I like him a lot... and I'm fussy about who dates my surrogate sisters and brothers... but he's a class act, really supportive, and really sweet. Awesome.




too cute.


Took pictures of the Gwanghwamun area, and also some video. I'd also taken a bus down to Kangnam to see what it had to offer, but Kangnam was pants compared to Jongno/Gwanghwamun/City Hall/Chunggyecheon. (Pants is UK slang for "garbage") - somebody told me Kangnam was way cooler these days that it had been the last time I went down there, so I've even refrained from slamming Kangnam at every chance I get, on the off chance it actually WAS cooler... no such luck. Still too crowded, still shiny but with no feeling, still a poor man's Shinjuku. Sorry, Kangnam. You're going to have to try harder, and I don't mean installing more LCD screens.

I gave Cecilia the camera and she got these candid shots of me.





Video Turtle Boat in front of Admiral Lee in Gwanghwamun Plaza.


Gwanghwamun Plaza








Jongno, on the other hand, was in fine form.

Myeongdong



Every Christmas, there's a competition between the department stores to put on the nicest Christmas light display.

Lotte Department Store and Lotte Hotel were unusually weak this year... Namdaemun's Shinsegye spanked Lotte all over the place.



The CitiBank christmas tree in Chunggyecheon plaza was almost as big as the red-blue poo, and it changed color, so it's best seen on the video (see above). It was really nice, though.








Lotte Young Plaza also beat out Lotte Department Store/Lotte Hotel.



Lotte Dept store was meh.



City Hall's Christmas tree was nowhere near this nice; the rest of City Hall Plaza was mostly weak sauce, too.



Outside the Press Building between Gwanghwamun and City Hall



Also along that stretch: the Haechi made his first Christmas appearance. In Seoul, the Haechi comes at night to give good children Christmas gifts like ice cream cakes and stupid hats, and he give bad children's parents municipal tax notices, and arrests them for demonstrating in public spaces.





Chunggyecheon rocked, though.

















I also went around that area with my handsome buddy Evan, two nights earlier, so these pictures are from two separate nights. He's a great guy, and he has a message for you.





I already linked Brian's post about dumb Korean Christmas music and stupid hats... the comments to that post are a veritable bloodbath that boils down to a few people saying we have to respect the ways other cultures observe holidays, and if Korea wants to create a commercial monstrosity with stupid hats, that's their prerogative, and the other side saying, "it's all well and good to be a cultural relativist, but it's still jarring and maybe sad to see Christmas observed in a way that is so distant from the warm family holiday we remember from our childhood" (or even from the Christmas we see in movies like A Christmas Story, It's A Wonderful Life, and Love Actually... which is huge in Korea, maybe partly because it reinforces that Christmas is a couple holiday to Koreans.

What I'll say is this: I was never a big fan of commercial Christmas anywhere (put me in the Charlie Brown camp -- ever notice how preachy "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is?), but the fact that Christmas is not only mostly divorced from the old religious roots (didn't see a single nativity scene in two nights of walking around, haven't heard more than a few sacred carols on the Christmas music playlists in Korean shops), but ALSO divorced from the Christmas we remember from back home -- as far and away the number one family holiday of the year -- is jarring, and it sharpens the twinge of homesickness, or the sting of culture shock, for most of the month of December, for many of us. I always miss my family more at Christmas, and my students and Korean friends don't get that unless I ask how they'd feel spending Chuseok away from home, where nobody knows what shikke or songpyun is. The only way I can explain the importance of Christmas to Westerners is to say "Imagine Chusok, Sollal, and Children's Day, all in one day. That's Christmas to me."

Being critical of Christmas cakes and silly hats is a legitimate response to that cognitive dissonance -- "It looks like Christmas... but it isn't Christmas like I remember/long for it..." and frankly, I sympathize. It wouldn't much surprise me if the people attacking Brian in the comments are simply exhibiting their OWN way of coping with the far-from-home culture shock, assuming they ARE far from home, by biding no negativity, or reacting to it so defensively.

And after all that preachifying, here's the best picture of the night:

Saw reflection of blue christmas lights in metal sign. favorite hidden treasure. Whoever can find where I took this, and send me a similar picture, or post it on their blog, wins a cookie.



Now I'm off: I'll be on the road a bit, so I might not post again until next week. If you really miss me, you can read me in Korean Newsweek (assuming you read Korean) or the English original (at Roboseyo), and also at Wonju Wife, talking about why I still believe in Santa Claus.