Month: April 2012 (Page 3 of 4)

Big Bang Fantastic Baby

2012/04/06 / Nic / 3 Comments

So not only is the video for ‘Fantastic Baby’ amazing but the song is so many levels of wonderfulness. It gets stuck in your head but it’s actually enjoyable having it stuck in your head.

If you haven’t seen the video it’s here.

Big Bang Fantastic Baby

But what are the consequences of such an insanely catchy song? Haha well it’s definitely changed our reactions when someone says “wow”.

And then one of our Korean neighbours who is also a Big Bang fan joins in too.

Biggest distraction ever.

Hmm… even as a cartoon character I’m a terrible dancer…

Simon and Martina from Eat Your Kimchi have had the same problem too. Check out their review here: Fantastic Baby Kpop Music Mondays

I rarely get to ride a bicycle as an adult, though I loved riding when I was a kid. There isn’t a good casual bike riding culture in Australia and the laws are more restrictive so I don’t own a bike anymore.

Two of my favourite more recent memories involve riding bicycles. One memory is of riding bicycles through the streets of Tokyo with my brother (who lives there), and the other was last year riding around my husband’s hometown.

His hometown is actually more of a village… full of old people. His family lives in a very rural part of Korea. But actually it was nice being there. I loved riding along the paths that crisscrossed through the rice fields with the mountains and the river in the background.

We only had two bikes and because my legs are longer than his I took the larger bike while he was stuck with the smaller pink bike.. haha (he is actually taller than me, it’s just that my legs are long). He didn’t complain… much.

But what about cultural differences?

2012/04/05 / Nic / 0 Comments

We get asked this question sometimes and it’s only natural that it does come up. Relationships can be hard even with someone from your own country, and who speaks the same first language as yours, so how do you make it work when you are both from different countries and have different native languages?

Well we have some advantages:
– my husband is from a younger generation that is very exposed to western culture. I think there would be a lot more issues about being with a western woman for someone of his father’s generation.
– my husband has traveled around a lot, enjoys discovering new cultures and interacting with all types of people
– before I met him I’d already had a lot of exposure to Korean culture, which meant I wasn’t working through my own prejudices and ideas with him- I’d already been adjusting my views and trying to understand more about Korean culture before I met him.

As with every relationship, communication is very important. How do we communicate with each other when we grew up speaking different languages? His speaking English skills are quite good but my speaking Korean skills are beginner. However, being constantly aware of communication helps us because we immediately try to understand what the other person is trying to say and trying to see their perspective instead of jumping to conclusions or getting upset or defensive.
When we had some premarriage sessions with my hometown pastor he commended us on using our cultural and communication differences to our advantage instead of just letting them hinder us. So that’s advice I would give: take the disadvantages and work hard to make them help your relationship.

One of our sayings is “It’s not wrong, it’s just different” when one of us may not like or understand something in the other’s culture. We make sure we never say “That’s wrong” or “That’s stupid” about a cultural difference.

When you have problems in your relationship with someone from a different culture it is easy to blame the culture when things go wrong. I’ve done that in the past. My husband was not the first Korean man I dated. In a previous relationship with a Korean man- when it all fell apart I came to the conclusion that ‘He is too Korean’ and that’s why it didn’t work.
Actually it was just that we were not compatible and had different goals etc. But it is easy to fall into the trap of blaming culture.
At the same time though, some things will be related to culture and you do have to try understand it. But if both of you are trying to find the middle ground things will go a lot smoother.

Cookies

2012/04/04 / Nic / 6 Comments

So it’s not like Koreans don’t have cookies* it’s just they don’t usually have home made ones. With many Korean homes not having ovens they don’t do much baking. They have their own variety of store bought cookies (can’t think of the name but I really like those ones that come in the yellow box) but sometimes homemade cookies can be a bit of a revelation for them when they come to somewhere like Australia.

My husband is addicted. He could eat a whole batch of cookies in one sitting. Eventually his obsession became too much and I had to wean him off them and only allow them as a treat because otherwise he wants to eat about 20 a day.

Seriously, when he’d come home from work he’d be like this:

For me, it’s been ingrained in me from my childhood that we should only each 1 or 2 cookies at a time and I feel guilty (and sick) if I eat too many at once. But he has no such guilt. Perhaps that is part of it too- I’ve had my whole life to get used to and to tire of cookies but for him it’s a new discovery.

He also gets upset if I want to share the cookies I’ve just baked with other people- like friends or neighbours. Such an idea usually causes exclamations like “Why??!! No!!!” But I just laugh at a grown man getting so upset about not being to eat all the cookies.

So while most other recipes on this blog will be for Korean food, I thought I’d share this cookie recipe. It’s quite simple, many other choc chip cookies recipes have many more ingredients, but sometimes simple is the best.

Favourite Choc Chip recipe:

Ingredients (Australian measurements)

250 grams of butter (softened)
1/2 cup caster sugar (or just white sugar)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 egg
half cup of choc chips (or 1 cup if you prefer)
1 and 3/4 cups of self raising flour

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C and put baking paper on some oven trays.
2. Put the butter and both sugars into a bowl and mix with electric beaters on a medium speed.
3. Add the egg and vanilla essence to the bowl. Mix with electric beaters until it becomes lighter and and fluffier (about 4 mins).
4. Add the choc chips and half the flour to the bowl. Mix with a wooden smooth and then add the rest of the flour.
5. Make the mixture into balls and put on trays. Bake in oven for 15 mins. Take out trays and let them cool for 5 mins on trays.
6. Hide from your Korean husband.

* the words cookies and biscuits in Australia are somewhat interchangeable. ‘Cookie’ is more American but since Koreans are used to American English I use the word cookie more with my husband.

YG Building

2012/04/04 / Nic / 8 Comments

If you are a Big Bang fan you know what the YG building is. If you don’t know: it is the headquarters of YG Entertainment- the record company Big Bang (and other notable singers/groups) belong to. It is a unique looking building and easy to find in Seoul.

Last year I stayed with a friend in Seoul and her family just happens to live a few streets away from the YG building. In order to get to the train station she has to walk past YG. Although my friend is a fan of Big Bang she feels really embarrassed about walking past all the time and keeps her head down and doesn’t look.

She walks past like this:

When I stayed with her and had to walk past I was more like this:

Um… yeah. Okay it was more of a stage whisper I swear. And then I’d keep walking.

There are always fans opposite standing next to the convenience store though. They are hardcore. They are there in all kinds of weather. One time my friend and I had to go somewhere but it was pouring rain (monsoon season) and when we passed YG there were still fans waiting in the torrential rain!

Kimchi

2012/04/04 / Nic / 5 Comments

I remember my first experience with kimchi was not actually eating it but watching some Korean friends make it. Well one step of making it. These Koreans were in my home town for a working holiday and where I’m from you can’t just go pick up a tub of kimchi from the supermarket. One time when hanging out with them I watched them salting the cabbage and putting into containers but I did not realise how important this thing called kimchi was!

Flash forward to living in Sydney with Koreans. I did not know what kimchi tasted like but I knew I didn’t like the smell of it! Every time someone opened the fridge the whole living area would fill with the smell of kimchi and I would gag (and probably complain).

I would refuse to eat it if anyone offered it to me. Keep in mind that I was a very picky eater at the best of times. It wasn’t until later when I actually started eating Korean food and a friend would wash the kimchi in some water to get rid of the spice and then give it to me to eat. “Hmm, not bad,” I thought. Gradually I became used to it until I was eating it like a normal person. And now I love it. Oh and now I also make it! But, the trials of kimchi making will be talked about in some other blog posts.

Kimchi is one of those things that if you didn’t grow up eating it… well it can take a while to really enjoy eating it. Or maybe some people will never be able to enjoy it (like non-Australians and vegemite). But if you are going to marry a Korean you better get used to it as it’s pretty much eaten with every meal!

Do you like kimchi?

Reading Korean

2012/04/03 / Nic / 10 Comments

I’m learning Korean. It’s pretty difficult. My teacher always tells the class to read aloud the dialogues and narratives in our text books at home. So I read to my husband to make sure I’m pronouncing things right. Now if I had to listen to someone read the same dialogue 10 times in English I would start banging my head against the wall. So overall he is very patient while I butcher Korean pronunciation.

However, this does happen.

So I’ll be forcing him to listen to me read.

And some more…