kangmi: learning korean

추석

Last Saturday, I had the most 추석 I’ve had in a few years. It wasn’t really 추석, but it had a few key elements: Koreans, 송편, and family.

On Saturday, our church celebrated a baptism on the rousingly windy shores of a local lake. Mr. 감미 performed the baptism of a teenager who had been attending our church with her family for the last few months. The family are Korean-American, and I’ll call them the Parks.

I had made a vague resolution a couple of days before the baptism to brush up on some of my Korean so that I could communicate with 할머니 Park. 할머니 is not shy. What English she speaks she speaks well and spreads liberally. She’s good company and seems to appreciate my attempts to speak Korean to her.

Hence my forehead smack when I saw her in the distance and too late remembered my resolution. Ultimately, it wasn’t important, as it was both good to see her and to share the day.

Park relatives came from far (at least as far as Atlanta) and near to celebrate the occasion. Mrs. Park invited some church members back to their home for supper, and our friend Lisa and I were drafted to help prepare food.

I think it was Joel who once said something along the lines of when a Korean invites you to something, you should be prepared to devote your whole day to it. And whatever you thought it was going to be like, it was almost always better (you might not have actually said that, Joel, but that was what I thought when I read it). That’s the kind of day this turned out to be.

Having previously received the Parks’ generous hospitality, I wasn’t surprised by the large quantities of food that we were preparing. While we chopped and sliced, I asked if their family celebrated 추석. Mr. Park said no, not really, but explained that since his mother’s lunar birthday was two days after 추석, there was always a celebration at that time anyhow.

It was then that Lisa and I learned her birthday celebration was the primary reason for the evening festivities, and that family members would soon be arriving from Ohio to celebrate.

The Atlanta relatives had brought 송편 from what is allegedly the best Korean bakery in Atlanta. 송편 and I have not had a good relationship. I’ve always eaten it to be polite, but I wished for a family dog to be hanging around to surreptitiously accept my 송편 offerings.

This 송편 was different. This 송편 was good. This 송편 made me want to eat more 송편, which I did. I can’t tell you why it was different, except that I liked it, and I never expected to like it.

The remaining relatives descended. They were a pleasant, talkative lot. At dinner, I sat across from two friends of 할머니, a Japanese woman and her daughter whom 할머니 had met on the plane a couple of years ago. They were visiting her for a week. We engaged in the kind of conversation one has when one party doesn’t speak the other’s language, and the other party speaks a little of the other. Occasionally the other 할머니 (both of the junior Park’s grandmothers were there) did some translation, but mostly we were on our own with Chie, a 35-year-old event planner from Tokyo.

Later I found myself sitting in the darkness around the backyard fire pit with several of the Korean relatives, the only non-Korean in the group. Sometimes, I just like to listen to the sound of the language, without trying to understand it. I didn’t understand most of it, anyway, usually bits and pieces here and there, although occasionally I made out the whole thread of a conversation.

Such was my 추석. How was yours?

Posted by kangmi on September 28, 2004 at 8:00 AM1 comments