Kimchi and so forth

This weekend I studied Korean for a little and then taught an art class with Yung-he. Immediately after that, a Korean man I had not met before took me to his family's house on Ganghwa island, where I met my coworker Bettina. We ate like kings and drank like Koreans (except for the soju at breakfast time - we both passed on that).

Yung-he's art class. It was Barney Bear's Birthday Party. "Birthday? Birthday. Today is Barney Bear's Birthday. Surprise, surprise for me!" (I sung that. Apparently dignity does not follow you when you come to Korea).

Grating the turnips.

The purpose of our visit was to participate in making kimchi - the traditional Korean side dish. We helped a little (Bettina probably a lot more than I, since she got there way before I did), but for the most part, the Koreans had their system, and we only got in the way.

The woman on the right was described as the "neighborhood grandmother." She didn't take kindly to the idea of me making kimchi. She actually yelled "hajima!" "Stop it!" when I started. Haegyeon smiled at me, and encouraged me to keep going, but I felt awkward crossing the neighborhood grandma, so I stopped shortly after. Also, she was scrutinizing my kimchi quite closely - no cabbage I seasoned was seasoned good enough for her liking. Her main objection to me was that I am a man, and men should not be doing the kitchen work. As soon as Haegyeon told me this, I said "What about him?" and pointed to her father in law. "It's okay. Grandmother age man."

Although maybe it was that they just didn't want our inexperienced hands on their precious supply of kimchi, because they figured out a way to get Bettina out of there too not long after me.

In the outdoor picture with the two kids, you can see Haegyeon on the left, her kids Jay and Ryan (their English names - I never learned their Korean names), and her husband on the right. Haegyeon is the only person whose name Bettina and I could remember through the duration of the trip, which I feel a little bad about because I spent so much time bonding with her husband on the drive up. We were behind a truck full of Korean military. He told me that he was still in the military, as all Korean men are required to do at some point, and that didn't really enjoy it. He was telling me that the soldiers we were following were going to be performing reconnaissance missions on North Korea.