Intercultural Life
He swears he never really thought the train announcement was this, but I distinctly remember him saying he thought it was this…. for a long time haha. Now that his English is better he conveniently forgets the problems he had before.
What things have you misheard and not even realised you heard wrong for a long time? It can happen even in your own language and then one day it all becomes clear… and it’s like “Ohhh!”
I’m visiting my parents right now while he stays in Sydney for work.
I did an interview with Ahn Junghyun for the radio program 1013 Main Street yesterday which will be on the show today at 11:30am. You can listen on the website or on the smart phone app.
I was a bit worried I sounded very incoherent because I had an echo on the phone meaning I could hear myself 1 second after I spoke, which was distracting. I was also doing it in 40 C heat (that’s 104 F for you Americans ^_^) so please forgive me if I sound rambling. Yes, Australia is very hot at the moment. Especially where my parents live.
So my husband was annoyed that I said his name in the interview at first, but very quickly got over it. His Korean name is Sunhong which should actually be spelled “Soonhong”, but when he first made his passport years ago he wrote it with a ‘u’ because it fit onto one line on the passport form. He has forever condemned himself to having his name read out as “SUN hong? SUN hong?” in Australia.
Koreans tell me his name is very countryside sounding, but of course not being a native Korean speaker, I can not tell that at all. His family often call him “Honga” or “Hongie” but of course when calling out to him drag the sound out. Many times at his parents’ house I heard them saying “Hongaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Hehe.
Okay this comic doesn’t have my husband in it. But I drew it because I’m visiting my parents right now. They go to bed at a normal time… but I don’t. In Sydney my husband finishes work at 4am, so I don’t usually sleep until he comes home. This means our sleeping schedule is pretty messed up and we have to sleep very late. I still kinda have that routine here at my parents’ house but I feel bad when I accidentally make noise at night. Everything seems so loud at night! And why do I drop EVERYTHING?
Anyway I’m sorry Mum and Dad, and Typhoon and Olivia (Korean couple who are living with my parents). 🙁
I was going to just put this one on the Tumblr but I thought I’d show it here too to remind you to check out the Tumblr sometimes. The Tumblr has most of the comics on here but some extra things as well. My husband thinks it’s just a place where I draw G-Dragon pictures…. haha.
He did then give me more money, he just wanted to annoy me. He is a lot more careful with money than I am and he knows being a cheapskate can annoy me sometimes. We prefer to just use our cards to pay for things BUT a lot of shops near us either don’t allow cards for small amounts or charge a fee. It’s so annoying. The Korean grocery store below our apartment building in particular has a $20 minimum. The other grocery store near us charges a fee if we want to use our savings cards. A lot of restaurants only let you pay with cash. So we are always asking each other “Do you have any cash?”
When I ask him that I mean an amount like $10… not $2. Haha.
My husband really wanted me to make a comic of this.
Haha, they had such a bad day. We’ve had very hot and sunny weather in Sydney – except for this one day. Unfortunately they had planned to go to the beach on the rainy day and it wasn’t a close beach, it was one far away. They had travelled all the way there so they didn’t want to let the rain ruin their BBQ. But, actually they were pretty miserable..
My husband said people were staring because they looked ridiculous. Everyone else left but they were still there huddled around the barbeque. The samgyupsal they were cooking got all wet, but they ate it anyway.
Yeah he was showing off a bit in front of the other guys. All the Korean guys there were single. Something that I’ve noticed is that Korean guys tend to be more vocal and expressive about being single and wanting a girlfriend or even wanting to get married. Sometimes in Western culture, single guys can say a lot of derogatory things to their friend who is married, like marriage means you are locked up forever or something. For Korean guys, once they hit 30 they can be quite anxious to get married. There is the outside pressure from family, friends and society to settle down, but also personally, in general, they seem to want to settle down once they reach a certain age and it’s not seen a bad thing to desperately want to get married.
For example, while not all Australian guys are like this, there is a culture here where men act like they are always forced into getting married. Even if they really wanted to, there is this act in front of single friends about being tied down and all those type of jokes.
When we hang out with my husband’s friends who are a similar age to him and single, they will say a lot, “I’m so jealous of you guys. I want to get married too.” I’m often surprised at this honesty and their openly displayed jealously at friends who are married. Part of this is because they want it to be very clear that they are looking for someone, as they are relying on their friends to introduce them to someone. I’ll talk about that type of matchmaking in a future post though.
Sorry that this comic is a bit messy. I was travelling for a lot of yesterday and I’m now at my parents’ house and had to do this post quickly last night. My husband is still in Sydney because of work, so we’ll be apart for at least a week 🙁
He is really into this sort of thing. I tend to be the more cynical one, but he is sincere in everything he does. He loves being inspired by things and planning things for the future. Sometimes I have fun with that and deliberately do things to annoy him.
Okay dinosaurs can’t go on the ‘Vision/Inspiration board’ apparently. But I like dinosaurs!
I drew one while he was at work and stuck it on the board:
Hehehe.
Seriously though, it is one of the things I love about him. He has big dreams for the future and actually takes steps to achieve them. I get really frustrated at the type of person who is a “dreamer” and talks big but then never do anything about achieving their goals. I know my husband is not that type. He has already achieved a lot already, so I know that his inspiration/vision board is something that does really help him. It really motivates him.
But for me, maybe I do want dinosaurs in my future!
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