I’ll keep this blog rather short. It’s about meeting my future in-laws in one fell swoop.
Previous to the New Year weekend, I had met Fiona Treelover’s oldest sister and her husband and two boys and Fiona Treelover’s youngest sister and son.
As I was told by Fiona Treelover, meeting the family in a single gathering would be rather difficult because of the very nature of family gatherings in Korea. Most Korean family gatherings involve two things: holidays and the man’s side of the family. It’s not that families cannot gather for other occassions, just that they seldom gather for anything else. Women are at the whim of their huisbands’ desires for the major holidays, considered to be Lunar (or Chinese) New Year and Chuseok (Korea’s Thanksgiving).
For this new year, though, as rare as it seems to be and equally as rare as Fiona Treelover would indicate it to be, her family, brother and two sisters and their spouses and children, decided to gather at Fiona Treelover’s sister’s home. I was invited along and agreed that I would meet my future family. Of course, I was also nervous as I garnered a boatload of possibilities both positive and negative in my mind.
The actual event was not that overwhelming, though. Of course, I had the usual problem of not being able to communicate well with the family without Fiona Treelover’s help. However, Fiona Treelover’s sister-in-law was an English teacher before she gave birth (she’s also pregnant again and due soon) and could communicate quite well, giving me two arms to lean on during family gatherings.
For me, it was nice to meet the family, but there were two bonuses. The first was that I unexpectedly had an opportunity to meet Fiona Treelover’s parents for Sunday lunch. Through Fiona Treelover’s translation, I was able to communicate my pleasure in meeting them and thank them for welcoming and accepting me into the family. All Fiona Treelover’s mother wanted me to do was to promise to be good to her daughter. Done.
The second bonus was seeing the children open up to me through time. Of course, we still won’t be able to communicate well, but playing with children goes a long way in them accepting a person. The two oldest children are 8 and 9 years old (I think), international age. I’ll explain the age differences on this blog one day. The only girl in the family is 2. I spent as much time as I could playing with them, falling dead to their toy guns or acting as their jungle gym. In the end, I think the next time I see them will be a time when they happily greet me rather than their parents prodding them to do so.
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Note: This blog entry was structured four days ago and I am just now getting around to writing it. I had more to write, but I lost the momentum bu putting it off. Next time I will write in a time relevant way or not at all. Maybe I’ll touch upon some more of the topics I intended to write about at a later date. As for now, this is just some information. I won’t even post a FB link.
Debbie said:
Hmmm..inlaws!! Great to hear it went over well.
As for commuication barriers..well..you’ve spoke to your family already. I barely know what half of them are talking about, the other half I just try to ignore. lol Lord knows some you can barely get a word in. Then..there’s Dawn. Well..need I say more?? lol
Debbie said:
Oh yeah…international age????? WTH? Really?? Or was that for Dawn?
koreafied said:
Thanks, Deb!
About the international age, yes, there is a difference between Korean age and international age. For the international age, which most of the world uses, you begin at zero and turn one one year after you’re born (birthday). In Korea, you begin at one and turn two on January 1. So, in Korea, if you’re born on December 31, you are 2 years old on your second day of life. Hope this explains it!