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Lunch Differences

2012/09/28 / Nic / 27 Comments

When eating lunch at home we often eat something together, whether it be Western style or Asian style or a mix of both, but if we make lunch just for ourselves we can be quite different. I love my sandwiches, particular what we call ‘toasted cheese sandwiches’ here. He loves his Korean noodles and eats them on the floor, straight out of the pot (it’s a Korean thing apparently). I bet that’s what he is eating at home right now while I’m not there because he hates cooking anything more complicated than packet noodles. I’m at my parent’s house for a few days visiting but he has to stay in Sydney for work.

Let’s talk about food! What do you usually eat for lunch?

Talking to his parents

2012/09/27 / Nic / 15 Comments

Oh boy…. I don’t like it when people hold a phone up to me and tell me to talk when I only have to speak in English… so having a phone held up to me and being told to speak in Korean is way worse! PANIC MODE!

I get blackmailed into it. It’s hard backing out of things in Korean culture! My husband will say things like “They just want to hear your voice. They miss you. My mother says that when she hears your voice all her aches and pains from working on the farm go away.”

How can I say no to that? Speaking shyly and softly hasn’t worked so well in the past because I end up having to repeat myself. So now I just panic and speak really loudly and just say a bunch of stuff. Luckily they don’t care and just like that I’m trying. Also they have the phone on speaker so I’m not damaging anyone’s ears… hopefully. But yes, his family is really really sweet.

The Force

2012/09/26 / Nic / 13 Comments

…and I continue my stubborn belief that I can actually use The Force. This is a Star Wars reference in case you didn’t know ^_^

Shinee Giveaway

2012/09/26 / Nic / 47 Comments

Time for a little SHINee giveaway.

You can win: 5 Shinee pairs of socks and a Shinee post it/notebook thing (not sure exactly how to describe it and can’t open it as it’s still in plastic).

All you have to do is leave a comment! A winner will be picked at random in 1 week.

Also, if you haven’t already, don’t forget to like My Korean Husband on Facebook or follow MyKoreanHusband on twitter.

(P.S. The G-dragon album giveaway will be drawn on Sunday).

Koreans choosing English names

2012/09/25 / Nic / 61 Comments

When Koreans come to an English speaking country they often choose an English name for themselves. This is usually because many Korean names are too hard for native English speakers to pronounce. They may choose something that is similar sounding to their Korean name, or use the initials from their Korean name (I’ve known a GD), or they may just pick any name they randomly like.

I’ve found that Korean guy names tend to be much harder than Korean girls names to pronounce. I know too many guys with names like Sung-hyeon, Sung-yong, Sung-eun, Sung-hyuks. Confusing right? The ‘hy’ sound in particular is difficult.

A lot of Korean girl names are easy enough and I don’t think they always need to adopt an English name, especially when they tend to pick the same few names. I’ve known so many Ellies, Ellas, Irenes, Eileens… That gets confusing too! But I can understand the desire to pick a new name when going to a new country, perhaps it can be seen as an opportunity to reinvent yourself.

So what is my husband’s English name? Well… it’s Hugh. And this is how he chose it:

Yup, that’s how. He named himself after Hugh Grant. He actually uses the name ‘Hugh’ with other Koreans as well. His Korean name is a bit country sounding and Koreans will often comment on it. It is ‘Sun-hong’. But actually should be spelled like “Soon-hong” as that’s how you pronounce it properly. But, when my husband first made his passport he couldn’t speak English and if he wrote “Soon-hong” it didn’t fit on one line, but “Sun-hong” did. And that’s how he got stuck with the wrong spelling in English.

Choosing the English name ‘Hugh’ didn’t stop Korean people from making comments about his name either. Hugh Grant is not exactly the coolest actor and people laugh at him for copying that name. Especially Korean girls because they don’t think he looks like a romantic comedy actor. So often this happens:

Sometimes it’s just easier to pretend that he named himself after Wolverine.

So what do I call him? Neither of those names usually. An interesting thing about Korean culture is how much you can avoid actually saying someone’s name. You end up having many names/titles, not only both a Korean and English name, but for example, with my husband: younger guys will call him Hyung or Hyung-nim and younger females can call him Oppa. Technically he can also be called Ajusshi now – but don’t call him that! It makes it sound like he is old! Anyway, I usually use Korean pet names like ‘Jagi-ah’ but we don’t use ‘Yeo-bo’ yet because that feels a bit weird and young people don’t use it as much these days. And I use ‘Oppa’ when I want something or want him to do something.

So if YOU could choose a new name for yourself, what would you choose?

Greetings

2012/09/24 / Nic / 19 Comments

And of course should be saying something like ‘안녕하세요’. I manage to do that fine, I just bow really badly sometimes. But Koreans have always been really polite even when I do it like that.

How to make Chocolate Covered Strawberries

2012/09/23 / Nic / 13 Comments

It’s Sunday! No comic today but I thought I’d show you have easy it is to make chocolate covered strawberries like the ones I made for my husband’s birthday.

What you need:

Strawberries– of course. They are cheap in Australia at the moment so I’m using 2 punnets.

Chocolate– I used a milk chocolate and white chocolate. You could use other kinds like dark chocolate. It doesn’t have to be really high quality, I’m just using the normal supermarket blocks (though it’s always good to try and get ‘fair trade’ ones). It may depend on what the normal quality of chocolate is in your country. Some countries don’t have very good chocolate (um… Korea). However I have made these in Korea and I used the Ghana brand which worked fine – I would not recommend Hershey though. Also, you don’t need to use cooking chocolate or special melting chocolate, normal chocolate is fine.

Non-stick baking paper

Paper kitchen towel– I use 100% recycled because I don’t like killing trees unnecessarily.

The first step is to wash the strawberries. Leave the tops on because you want something to hold onto when you are dipping them later. Put the strawberries out on some paper towel.

Break up the milk chocolate into a bowl.

Okay now we need to melt the chocolate. DON’T PUT IT IN THE MICROWAVE! Chocolate burns really easily and once it’s burnt it’s disgusting. We gotta do this slowly. So we have a smaller bowl right? Get one that’s bigger. The smaller bowl needs to fit inside but there needs to be some space. Then boil some water. Pour some boiling water into the bigger bowl and then place the smaller bowl that contains the chocolate inside it. Don’t let any water splash into the chocolate! Water and chocolate don’t mix. The chocolate will slowly start to melt. Stir it around to help it along.

Stir until it’s a nice smooth consistency.

Eh, close enough. Also tear off a sheet of the baking paper and put on a large plate, you may need a few plates, depending.

Okay remember how I said chocolate and water don’t mix? Well we just washed those strawberries… and they are wet. The chocolate isn’t going to stick on wet strawberries and water will make the chocolate gross. You could wash the strawberries hours before and let them dry. But who has time for that? I’m showing you the quick way.

Grab some paper towel and dry a strawberry gently. So just press the paper towel to the strawberry and let it soak up the water.

Holding the leaves of the strawberry, dip it into the melted chocolate.

Then place it gently on the plate covered with baking paper. Repeat with half the strawberries. Stick the plates in the fridge so the chocolate sets.

Now do the same with the white chocolate. Two bowls with hot water in-between.Dip the remaining strawberries into the white chocolate and put on baking paper lined plates.

So hopefully the milk chocolate ones that we put in the fridge are set enough, so get them out of the fridge and put the white chocolate ones in. I still have some of both chocolates left which I’m going to use for very quick decorations.

Get a chopstick or a knife and dip it into the leftover chocolate.

Drizzle the white chocolate over the strawberries. You can do this really quickly, no need for it to be perfect.