Month: November 2012 (Page 1 of 5)

Raisin Toast

2012/11/30 / Nic / 18 Comments

We both love sweet things but different sweet things. My tastes are more for things like chocolate and cake. My husband’s is for honey, honey, honey. In the morning if I make him breakfast he insists on toast with honey and a cup of tea with honey. I’m usually health conscious and only buy healthy bread full of grains and stuff. But I got some raisin toast bread the other day which he loved (and still slathered with honey). I’m not sure how raisin bread would taste with a chicken and avocado sandwich but I don’t doubt that he would try it. I’ve made him sandwiches before that had egg, cheese, and tomato sauce…. and he still added honey.

It is weird the difference taste in sweet things. He will complain that the caramel chocolate I’m eating is too sweet… but then goes and puts honey on everything.

(Also the nudity is an accurate representation of him these days. It’s coming into summer and the weather is very warm so he seems to have no use for clothes).

Speecher

2012/11/29 / Nic / 13 Comments

I have to smile at some of the English he comes out with sometimes. So while his English obviously benefits from being married to a native speaker, it doesn’t mean that I can correct him constantly. It’s not good for a relationship to have one partner always correcting the other, so there are times when I have to let things go, especially if we are focused on watching a movie. There are varying levels of correction. I might not correct at all, I might subtly correct him by repeating what he said in the right way, or if there is time and it’s appropriate to, I’ll correct him and give him an explanation why.

“Speecher” does make sense though haha. I don’t know why he was concerned about whether Abraham Lincoln was good at speaking when the movie is about him fighting vampires!

Less Friends

2012/11/28 / Nic / 13 Comments

This post is a not a funny one and is a bit sad actually. For many years my husband was in Australia on working holiday visas and student visas. With that comes a certain type of socializing. There are many other Koreans in Australia on those type of visas and they usually stay for 1 or 2 years. The usually live together in the same type of apartments and areas. It’s a chance to make a lot of friends and there is a certain type of relaxed party lifestyle.

My husband is a permanent resident now and unfortunately most of his friends have gone back to Korea. He still knows plenty of people here and we have friends but it’s hard knowing that really good friends will all leave at some point.

A few weeks ago we were at the park and we saw a bunch of Koreans having a barbeque. We knew they were working holiday visa or student visa Koreans just enjoying their time in Australia. My husband hasn’t had that type of relaxed hanging out for a long time.

I told him he could go introduce himself and maybe they’ll invite him to join them but he couldn’t do it (Koreans have a lot of trouble introducing themselves randomly to other Koreans). So instead he stood some distance away and looked over longingly at the fun time they were having. I felt really bad for him. They didn’t notice him.

While getting permanent residency comes with many benefits, there are some aspects that are a bit sad, like friends always leaving. The other problem is my husband’s work hours means he only has a few evenings a week off, so it can be hard to see friends when he wants to.

He doesn’t complain much about it but it does make me sad sometimes that there are so many friends he can’t see for a long time because of his choice to be in Australia with me.

One Photo

2012/11/27 / Nic / 7 Comments

We’ve had this argument before. Out of many photos that were taken he’ll fixate on the one photo that doesn’t really look like him. This photo made him look like a body builder, and while he is muscular and kinda stocky, he doesn’t really look like a body builder! Other times it was photos where he looks really skinny but isn’t actually in real life. He’ll then upload to certain forums he is on and tell people he always looks like this AND will insist to me that it is a real representation.

I know it’s something that lots of people do, we all like to look good online, but I’m a bit less concerned these days. Perhaps a bit of a cultural difference: Korea is a lot more focused on looks than Australia is. Actually the first time we went to Korea, we met some friends and family that had only seen photos of me on Facebook. Many people told me I look much better in real life and that I look terrible on Facebook…..um thanks? I remember someone saying these exact words, “Real life….GOOD! Facebook…..BAD!” It’s not like all my photos are terrible! I just don’t care too much, have a lot of casual snapshots and I don’t even know how to use photoshop.

In the end I don’t think he put that photo on Facebook because his phone wasn’t working. He needs a new one. Also, he got stung by a jellyfish! When his friend was taking photos, he told him to lay on the sand in a pose but unfortunately there was a jellyfish in the sand. Makes me wonder how much frolicking and posing him and his friend were doing on the beach…. anyway he’s okay. It wasn’t a really bad sting.

Cheezels

2012/11/26 / Nic / 11 Comments

This also happened on the weekend at the memorial service for my grandmother. I mentioned that all my little second cousins were scared of my husband because he looks different, but there was one time he was scared of one of them.

Some of the children were playing outside and one of my very young cousins dropped her packet of cheezels on the ground and ran back inside. My husband picked up the packet but she was not impressed.

So cute but so scary at the same time! Not only a redhead but a twin too! She stood there for quite a long time glaring at my husband.

The twins’ father mentioned later that it was the first time they’d had cheezels so perhaps the artificial cheese goodness was too addictive and caused them to creepily glare at people they thought were stealing them. My husband wasn’t stealing the cheezels though, just picking them off the ground for when she came back but she not happy. It was funny, adorable and creepy all at the same time.

Oops. My husband has just pointed out that this twin was wearing blue and it was the other twin who was wearing pink but too late now.

ALSO: I have a tumblr now. http://mykoreanhusband.tumblr.com/

While it may still have some comics on it it won’t just be a replica of this main blog but it will also be for more random stuff. What do you think about allowing submissions? Would you want to contribute things to it?

Little Cousins

2012/11/25 / Nic / 9 Comments

There was a memorial service for my grandmother yesterday. It was a really nice celebration of her life and a chance to see extended family again. I have many second cousins who are very very cute and my husband thought they were adorable. UNFORTUNATELY, they all were scared of him! Possibly because they had never met him before but also because he looks a bit different. Most of my cousins live in towns that are predominately white and haven’t interacted with Asian people before. My poor husband, every time he tried to talk to them, they ran away or just stared back, stunned, at him. It didn’t help that my husband was like, “Hello little children!” and came across kinda weird in his enthusiasm. They are all very young too so they didn’t really understand that my husband is part of the family now… even though he looks a bit different. My husband gets slightly upset at that, but eventually some of them interacted with him a bit. The little boy in particular found enough courage to run up to my husband say “G’day mate!” And we taught one of the older girls how to say “Annyong”.

Hopefully next time we see them they’ll be used to him and talk to him instead of just staring back haha.

New Books

2012/11/23 / Nic / 22 Comments

Sometimes he doesn’t get my movie references. Also his family lives on a farm in Korea, which was why he was insisting they don’t have a cow. Also I love (the Disney movie) Mulan.

So I bought 2 new books.The Korean Mind by Boyé Lafayette De Mente and Korean Thought and Culture by Chai-Shin Yu. I have a bunch of other books on Korean culture and Korean Thought but I like learning more and seeing how books on it differ. I’ve found reading these types of books helps me immensely as they just make things so much clearer. Learning about Korean culture from the average Korean only gets you so far, as they are not usually able to articulate certain aspects of Korean culture or even realise how something differs to another culture. It is actually quite hard to explain your own culture and it usually takes an either an outsider or someone who has studied extensively to adequately explain well to others. Which is why I really appreciate these types of books. They explain things that my husband can never explain to me. Sometimes things are explained that I was wondering about, but other times it’s something I hadn’t even consciously realised but once it’s explained it gives a much bigger picture of Korean culture. Which of course, benefits our relationship as my husband’s ‘Koreaness’ is a vital part of who he is and it’s not something that can just be separated from him.

Unfortunately there just aren’t enough books on modern Korean culture. South Korea has changed rapidly in the past few decades and I don’t think literature has really caught up properly yet. Even in the past 5 years Korea has changed a lot. I feel like I’m still waiting for a really good comprehensive book on the subject. That’s not to say there are no good books – there are – but I think they could be better. For example, The Korean Mind by Boyé Lafayette De Mente, this author is widely regarded as an expert on Asian culture and has published so many books. But when you open the book there are very obvious spelling mistakes in the Hangul. The idea of the book is to look at many different words in Korean and show how they relate to Korean thinking and culture. But with such big mistakes quite obvious as soon as you open the book, it makes you wonder what else is wrong in it. That is disappointing.

The big question is: Why is did he throw the books on the floor? Because he wanted to have a nap and was lazy and tossed everything off the bed. I think that’s just him and not anything to do with Korean culture.