Suwon and Halmoni

In the last few days I visited Suwon, a place just outside of Seoul, to visit my (brace yourself), father's mother's sister, father's mother's sister's husband, and their son, wife, and daughter. Whew. Unbeknowst to me, a good chunk of the fam I've met here in Korea are in medicine, like this Uncle and Aunt who are both doctors (well, the wife is now a professor at the Aju University hospital). Oops... maybe law school isn't right for me? Just kidding!

It's funny because my relatives referred to Suwon as "rural," when, to me, it looked just like Seoul. Only with Hwaseong, a really impressive fortress wall that is 5.7km long with command posts, entrance gates, fire-beacon platforms, etc, and Hwaseong Haenggung, the palace.

Quick didja know fact: King Sejong was the father of Hangul, the Korean writing system. He created Hangul to unite Korea under one, simple alphabet (according to my travel book, "anyone can learn it in 2 months" though having spent a semester trying to learn it at Harvard, I kind of doubt that...). Since his aim was to teach everybody, even the poor, to use Hangul, he based the characters' shapes on where the readers should place their tongues to make it especially easy to learn. Quite remarkable, and a good idea, though, I tried it just a second ago, and I'm not so sure that ㅊ looks like my tongue when making a "ch" sound, or ㄹ looks like my tongue when making an "r/l" sound.

최세라 (Choi Sa Ra). Hm... maybe the tongue rule made sense back then.

Quick day trips to Insadong and the War Museum, and then off to "Emo Halmoni"'s, my mother's mother's sister's house (which is what "emo" means, haha). She's also a doctor, and, she's still working as a primary care physician at 80 years old! She is very headstrong, and, I love her for it. She argued with the movie theater people about starting the film earlier so we could see it, and then demanding that they seat us in good seats (it was open seating). She ended up walking into a film that had started 30 minutes ago, but, we watched it anyway, and she exclaimed LOUDLY during it. This was her first visit to the movie theater, and, she's a little hard of hearing which came in handy when she overrode the movie theater people's explanations.

For whatever reason, my folks here are obsessed with taking care of me, and demonstrating their love in really bizarre ways. For example, the first house I stayed at housed my aunt who immediately asked me if I had had bowel movement that day. When I said no (BIG BIG BIG mistake), she produced thirty vitamin C tablets and, what I can only describe as bowel movement yogurt. She refused to take no for an answer! I thought, how harmful can yogurt be, right? Wrong. Needless to say, after that first yogurt, I refuse her yogurt three times a day (not even an exaggeration)

My emo halmoni was obessed with making sure I was cool enough. It hasn't been particularly hot in the last few days, yet, she cranked the ac to 17 degrees celsius (let me do the conversion right now... that's 62.6 degrees fahrenheit!!!) AND, insisted on putting a fan in my room (which I turned off asap). Her clinic was even worse. I think the real reason why she loved the movie theater was because it was so darn cold inside.

One universal way my family is showing me they want to take good care of me is by over feeding me, and feeding me fatty, delicious things all the time. The food here is the best I've had, and I'm not one to back down from finishing an entire bowl of spicy hot nangmyun which I've done no less than four times here. I am gaining weight at an alarming rate here seeing as we eat out twice a day. I made a heartbreaking resolution to refuse to eat out starting now because this is ridiculous, and I just threw 2 months of twice a day work outs down the drain.

Worth it!

Pictures:

View from the top of Seoul

I feel like an awful person for a) taking this picture, and b) thinking what I did, but, come on. The only two white people I see on this entire trip are carrying McDonald's AND Starbucks (though you can't really tell from this picture). It made me think of Wall-E... I KNOW, I'm an awful person!!

Part of the reason why I went to Emo Halmoni's was to get some missing parts of our family's history when they lived in North Korea. Unfortunately, she's the only living member of our family who also lived in North Korea, and, she is getting on in years. These are pics from her family albums.

So, in a nutshell, some of the missing pieces go like this:

My great grandparents lived in North Korea, and owned a rich lumber company that transported logs. In 1950 (later than I previously thought), my folks crossed the 38th parallel by US boats and landed in the southern part of South Korea where they lived in houses made of cardboard for 3 years. My emo halmoni had been proposed to in North Korea by a childhood friend, but, declined. In South Korea, they ran into each other on the streets in front of her cardboard house, and, they got married. She lived by a school, so, at night because there was nothing to do, she went to school and learned English.

This same emo halmoni rose to become a doctor... everybody loves a true rags to riches story :) I taped her speaking so my mom can help me translate the parts that I missed.

Korean traffic

Me being a tourist in ancient admiral clothes

The war museum. On the left are flags from all the nations that participated in some way in the Koraen War

My ridiculous cousins behaving ridiculously! The small one on the right is CRAZY. She would not stop singing "DOMO ORIGATO MR. ROBOTO"!!

Cousins and dad's mom's brother's wife on the right :)

Hwasong

The heat has broken, and, I've discovered this smokey mosquito repellant for night times, so, I have not had another mosquito bite since the last post!

Therefore:

Waistband 10; Family history 10!

It could be worse :)