Week 19, Saturday
In the morning I bought adorable macaroons from a kind woman who was very patient when I forgot how to count past five. At this point I’m well versed in Chinese-Korean numbers since my kids and coworkers seem to discuss money often.
However, I’m much less adept at Native Korean numbers since I rarely order more than “five” things. (And don’t let Koreans say their two number systems are like English counting and ordinal numbers. Korean has Chinese-Korean numbers, Native Korean numbers, AND ordinal numbers.)
After a visit to the gym and my mandu man I took the unfamiliar but beautiful red line bus to Nana’s house.
A group of Thai, one Japanese, one Korean, and one American gathered to celebrate Nana’s birthday. On days like these I’m endlessly thankful for my little families here.
We are too much, drank some kind of Korean homemade whiskey, and discussed animal sounds. A korean tiger says “ah hung” which is the least scary thing I’ve ever heard. Everyone was intrigued by the American rooster’s bravado.
There was a point where most everyone was speaking Thai so the Japanese friend and I looked at each other and then fake laughed loudly above everyone else. I also taught her my old Japanese friend’s very special and inappropriate cheers slogan which she thought was very hilarious.
Later I fought to feed one new friend a dead fly because as you know I am twelve.
On the way home I had a great chat with the taxi driver. He couldn’t see my face at first so he asked me if I was Chinese, and I’m sure his mistake was a shock to him when he saw me in the light. I practiced using honorifics with him since he’s older and told him about the party and how my mother and brother might visit. But I said, my mom has very American tastes to which he replied “oh she likes steak and potatoes”. Yes, this guy gets it.
In the end he asked if I could pay in cash which I’m sure is to avoid taxes and hey, why not. Here you go. He said “beautiful” and wished me good luck on the TOPIK exam. “Fighting!”