Birthdays

The small boy. The big one is hiding behind the cherry tree.

Today my brother Josip and his son Stipe celebrate their birthdays. Good timing - a father and son born on the same date. Josip is 38 and Stipe 7. Just over a week ago my older brother celebrated his 41st birthday. When I talked to him, he complained about unusual aches and pains, a sure sign of having entered the middle age. As I am soon to join him on the journey through the 5th decade (ohmigod!!!), I know his pain all too well.

I adore my nephew. He's the sweetest most beautiful boy. When he was a toddler, asleep, he looked like an angel. I would just sit beside him staring at his golden hair, rosy cheeks and long eyelashes... To touch his face and take in his sweet smell - heaven! - he was like a peach left in the sun.

My brother... We've always had our differences, horrible fights (sorry, bro, you know it's true!), harsh words were exchanged. But, at the same time, we've been incredibly close and we understand each other without words. When mom died, the whole family was falling apart, but he was like a rock, strong for all of us. I love him for who he is and for too many things to mention, but I love him most for keeping the family together, for the continuation that he provides... Josipe, ako ovo citas, istina je. Neke stvari se trebaju reci prije no sto je prekasno. Sretan Rodjendan! I da mi pozivis jos milion godina.

Today - because I know what big family celebration they'll have - is one of those days when I seriously questions the wisdom of having lived away from my family for most of my life. The inevitable and sad truth is that friends, as much as they love one another, come and go, but family remains. The older I get the more I see how mistaken I was in deciding to adopt the nomadic lifestyle that I've been living, hopping from country to country, from continent to continent. . . Now, the idea of going back to 'normal life' scares me. I don't know if I could go back and be 'normal' again, and I don't know where that 'back' is anymore.
Yesterday was J's birthday. Not J who died, but my friend J who lives in N.Y.C. She finally wrote to me enquiring about J's death. She's busy working part-time and writing papers for her second M.A. A friend will throw a party for her with sangria, cake and all that jazz, as she puts it.

I'm glad that she's doing fine in the friends department. Soon it'll be the anniversary of her dad's passing away, and she'll be very vulnerable and quite possibly needy. My god. It seems like it was yesterday when I had her at my place, a hot ball of raw pain, rolling back and forth on my sofa, lips and teeth stained purple from too much wine, eyes bloodshot from weeping.


Tonight D1, D2 and I went out for beer and chicken. I felt so bad for D2 (the one who'll not be be working with me soon). He's been having lots of interviews, but none of them seem to have secured him a job. As we were bitching about this and that, a crazy ajoshi came over to us and placeed his hand in the middle of our table, mumbling something. I looked up and - lo and behold - it was Chang-dae. He was in the same establishment to enjoy tasty chicken and cheap beer, with a friend, 'a gag-man who's not so famous.'
*****As I expected, when I called Josip, they had a full house. Dad and Marija were also there. According to Josip, dad was the best-looking and best- dressed man of them all. I never thought about my dad as a dandy, but he really is. When he was younger, he often travelled for business and almost always came back home with a nice new shirt, sweater or tie that he claimed to have found 'on sale.' Oddly, he never found anything on sale for the rest of us. Now we tease him about it, and he just laughs.

To Sleep, perchance to dream...

Here I am at it again. My mind is working overtime, and I can't sleep. I've been thinking of J. and about what dreams he may be having.
He will be burried today in his small town in U.S. Still can't belive he's gone.
As I was googling insomnia and sleeplessness, I came across this beautiful Ode .(Keats).
The illulstration is entitled: "Sleep and night." In my mournful mood, I like the purples - the colour of mourning, at least in the Catholic Church during the Lent - and the poppies.

To Sleep


O, soft embalmer of the still midnight!

Shutting with careful fingers and benign

our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the light,

enshaded in forgetfulness divine;

O, soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,

in midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,

or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws

around my bed its lulling charities;

Then save me, or the passèd day will shine

Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;

Save me from curious conscience, that still lords

its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;

turn the key deftly in the oilèd wards,

and seal the hushèd casket of my soul.

***********I'm so tired, but there are no lulling charities around my bed, just a pair of socks. Oh, why, oh, why can't I sleep?!

The American Way

Our lunch was not exactly as shown - it was better. The chicken breast was grilled,not breaded and the salad had cucumber, tomato, onions... with a huge serving of blue cheese dressing on the side.
My colleague D. is a very resourceful guy. He's the one bound to know where you can find anything, from miniature battery operated drills to fish tanks. Yep. One day, at lunch, he said how swell it'd be to have a fish tank in his office. I thought he was just saying it. Whaddya know? The next day, I walk into his office and see him lovingly feeding a couple of small fish, a big turtle and two tiny turtles. He had ordered the fish tank online after lunch the day before and had it delivered a couple of hours later. He named the big turtle Godzilla and aske me to suggest the names for the babies. I chose Kim and Chi. He liked the idea, so now he's a true Korean who keeps KimChi in even in his fish tank.

Today we wanted to have lunch together in the cafeteria, but after seeing squid tentacles entangled with strings of cabbage and onion, we both made faces and left the cafeteria. "No problem," D. says. "I know a perfect place in Hyewhadong, if you like chicken and salad."

I do, so we hop on the little village bus and go down to the main drag. He hails a taxi, and minutes later we are in front of Bennigan's. Shoot, I think, I wasn't planning to have an expensive lunch and I have only 4000 won in my pocket. "No problem," D says. "That's more or less all you need." What?, I think, a lunch at Bennigans for 4000won? Which planet does he live on?

When the menu arrives, he points to the side dishes: garden salad with a choice of dressing (2,500won), grilled chicken breast (3000won). Glass of water = free.
When the dish arrives, I am surprised at the size. It's just about enough to fill you up nicely without stuffing your face. The salad is served in a regular-sized plate, topped with tender sliced chicken breast. As an appetized we were given a big bread roll with butter.

So, for about 5000w, we enjoyed a really nice lunch, in pleasant surroundings, and we paid much less than we would have, had we ordered from their regular lunch menu that starts at about 12,000 won. I thought that the waitress would be raising her eyebrows at our order, and I was slightly embarassed, but she seemed perfectly unperturbed. D told me that Outback is even a better place to have a good quality yet cheap lunch, if you stick with the side dishes.
D is American, and I couldn't help but admire this "No problem" attitude. Most Americans I know are really cluey, they know how and where to get what they want. Not a bad thing.
I think I'll become a regular lunch muncher at Bennigans, except I won't take a bus. I'll be walking over Naksan - this way I can eat my lunch and burn it off, too.

Speaking of burning it off: I really must get serious about it. The super-detailed medical exam I had recently has shown that I am at a high risk of developing serious cardio-vascular diseases. Pretty soon, my arteries will start clogging, according to the good docs. I would think so cuz, apparently, according to this exam, I am 156% overweight. Although the only way I can interpret this result is by the way of some weird mistake in translation, I fear that in the country where a 175cm woman should weigh 48kg, it's quite possible that I am 156% over my 'normal Korean weight." Aigoo.

The Flower Girl

Just as H. was about to leave, my phone rang, so I motioned to her to sit and wait a bit until I finish the conversation. She obliged, positioning herself next to the big bouquet. While I was talking, I was trying to take a good photo of her, but she proved to be the most difficult model.
In the end I got a better pic than I was hoping for: it captured the moment of H. rubbing her tired eyes, eager to put on her pretty pink coat and go home.

Tubu Kimchi Chez B's

Pictures: Kimchi and bacon cooking on the stove.
Tubu kimchi on the plate.
Milchreiss (German rice pudding)

Tubu kimchi is my fave Korean dish, and tonight I made it for the first time in the discomfort of my tiny kitchen. I love the dish. It can serve as a metaphor for Korean themselves: earthy, vibrant, almost dangerously hot, but still wonderfully irresistible because of the mildness and softness of the tubu piled under the cabbage. Come to think of it, if Koreans choose to give their kids more original/weird names, my friend J. should be renamed to Tubu-kimchi Kim. It'd match his personality perfectly.

****A month or so ago I partnered up with H. for a weekly langauge exchange session. We meet Tuesdays around 6 or 7 pm alternating between my modest 'billa' and H.J.'s grand apartment with an even grander view, right on the Hangang. The deal is: the hostess prepares the dinner, the guest brings of bottle of vino, and for several hours we let our toungues do vigorous exercise in three lanaguages. She is, namely, a German teacher and I , long ago, had similar ambitions. She usually cooks Hanshik (Korean), I usually cook Yangshik (western), for no other reason than to add the cultural a.k.a culinary componenent to our lessons. Oh, yes, and we like to eat. A lot!
It was my turn to host the evening of linguistics and leisure tonight. However, I decided to cook Korean, as my neighbour E gave me a big container of fresh homemade kimchi that I really need to use up quickly. Fresh or not, it made my ordinary fridge (not Dimchae, the fridge for kimchi!) smell like a Seoul subway car on a busy morning. Not wanting to disappoint H. in her expectations of non-Korean food, I also made something very German for dessert - Milchreis (milk rice, or rice pudding German-style).

Since I was either teaching, or working in my office, or puttering about the campus, it was already 4:30 when I made a quick dash to the grocery store, and minutes later attacked my kitchen duty with gusto.

I had no time to google the recipe for tubu kimchi. Left to my own devices, I just guessed what needed to be done. I guess that my guess was not so bad cuz in the end the dish turned out just fine - more than fine, actually. First, I heated some sesame oil and fried a bit of minced garlic in it. Then I added bite-sized peaces of bacon, cut kimchi, sesame seeds, a dash of soy sauce, a dash of Oyster sauce (why not?!) and let the whole, admittedly quite unappetizing-looking mess simmer for about 20 minutes). When kimchi was about ready, I boiled a big block of tubu, for about 3 min.
The Milchreiss was already bubbling on the stove. It's one of my winter favourites and so easy to make: 1 cup of rice, 4 cups of milk, 2 Tbsp. sugar, a dash of vanilla sugar or a few drops of vanilla extract. I boiled the milk, reduced the heat, added rice, sugar, vanila, and let all of this creamy goodness simmer at lowest for about 30 minutes, stirring vigorously and often to prevent burning. It's delicious.
C. started her "ways you know it's winter" on her blog. I might add: when I start craving hot gooey porridgey mass of simple carbs, I know it's winter.
I served tubu kimchi with a pitcher of beer. It was delicious... and the tuby kimchi wasn't bad either. H. said that no one could guess it wasn't made by a proper Korean ajumshi.
After the dinner, we both felt very tired and uninspired so there was impromptu class cancellation and move to the living room, where we sprawed on the warm floor and watched "The Lake House."I slept through half of it.

No wonder, as I was tired beyond description. Last night, after a long absence, Hypnos visited me again stealing my sleep and cruelly refusing to knock me out. I was tossing and turning until wee hours, and of course, it just so happened that I had to get up at 6:00 and prepare the final written exam for my IEC class. I am a terrible procrastinator, and I know I need to do something about it.
At this very moment I have a pile of dishes -of the most pungent post kimchi- meal kind -waiting to be washed, but I let them enjoy their bath in the dirty reddish water choosing to scribble.
E. gave me a wonderful bouque of flowers last Friday. She was on her way up to her apartment and just knocked on my door to say hello. I invited her in, and we had a nice chat, finishing a pitcher of beer. (All these pitchers are leftovers from last Saturday when my colleagues were here for dinner). She was carrying the bouquet, given to her by her university study group. It wasn't the usual Koren extravaganza of tulle and paper, but a very tastefully done big bouque simply tied by a ribbon. I must have expressed my adoration very vocally, since E. absolutely refused to take it home with her and gave it to me. It's been sitting on my dining room table for a few days. It smells great, too: I open the door to my apartment and can smell the lilies.
Well, maybe not now, as the smell of kimchi is quite overwhelming.

On a different note: there's a strangest exhibition going on at our exhibition centre. It's the fine arts students' graduate work. When I say strange, I mean strange: huge canvases with gaping hairy beavers not of the kind that made Canada famous, but that other kind of beaver pursued by the straight male population. I'll go for a second look and try to sneak a few photos.