Sunday, January 14

my "homestay"

I am staying with a very nice Korean family. Their son just went to Texas to stay for a year and learn English the day that I came here for three weeks, so they let me stay in his room. Their daughter got married in November and lives in this apartment with her husband and her parents. The mom/wife was especially surprised that I like all the Korean food she serves. She talks about it every time we eat together. I was spared a little this weekend, though, when some nieces and nephews of the son in law came over. She wouldn't stop talking about how much the littlest one ate and how she did it all by herself!

I just ate a late dinner with them and then finally successfully helped with the dishes. (I had been barred from helping up to this point, but I kept trying and she finally told her husband "What can I do? I might as well just let her help.") She then started talking about how I was a great dishwasher and I am ready to get married. Then the dad/husband said, "Yes, I think she'll get married this year." I drank the coffee that he made for me and then came back to my room. Now, they are still in the living room, I think talking about why I'm not married, how Koreans get married earlier, etc. I am glad I escaped that conversation.

The topics of conversation have actually been quite interesting. They have included: Korea's standard of living (which they don't think is very good, but I keep telling them it is), whether people in the Phillipines have a better life, the fact (they say) that single women in Canada have the best standard of living, whether there are aliens living in America that look like humans (I'm not kidding about this. It actually came up.), how Koreans equate peppers to important parts of mens' anatomy (I think they thought I didn't understand that part, and I was glad), how Americans don't have a special food like kimchi, etc. I'm telling you, it's interesting here.

Since you can't join in our conversation, I leave you with a few more Harbin ice festival pictures, because my Mom was "wowed" by the ones I put up earlier. Just FYI, I read that Harbin has one of the three largest ice/snow festivals in the world, the other two being in Japan and Canada.




1 comment:

Nana said...

Wow, how beautiful!