The Korean guy

I grew up in a small family: two parents, one sibling and I. We made a quiet, contained, and mobile unit. We weren’t entirely cloistered – we did, after all, venture out to collect the mail and purchase supplies when necessary – but we did tend to keep ourselves to ourselves. We had a small circle of valued friends and enjoyed entertaining them in our home. We weren’t a casual family however; friends generally didn’t drop in spontaneously but rather arranged plans well ahead of time. Most of our time at home was spent with each of us quietly reading our own book, music playing softly in the background.

Needless to say, life is very different here, in the House of Nuts. There are five very active boys, one very exuberant Daddy Nut, my sister who somehow keeps them all together (alive, fed, clothed, content) and me...maintaining a semblance of sanity in my quiet corner, but loving all the chaos nonetheless.

This is a house where people do drop in, and events occur spontaneously. Take this past weekend as an example. Family friends came to visit for Thanksgiving. They have four boys who get along with the five Peanuts very well. We had planned the sleeping arrangements, stored up sufficient provender, and prepared the house to be seen by company.

The evening before their expected arrival, we were enjoying our Friday Fast supper of rice and beans. As often happens when the menu features rice, we talked about how in many parts of the world, rice is the main component of all three meals in the day. “For example,” said Daddy Nut (my brother-in-law) “the Korean guy who’s coming here, would appreciate this rice very much.” Knowing my BIL as I do, I began to imagine scenarios of what he could mean with that statement: a Korean gentleman involved in scouting, the Knights of Columbus, or the school, was coming by the house later in the week; or, a Korean man would be arriving during the week to work on the water meter or some such thing; or, maybe it had to do with BIL’s marathon, and the Korean fellow who was coming here had been talking about the nutritional benefits of rice for athletes in training?

But no. The friends who were spending Thanksgiving with us were bringing their Korean exchange student with them. Apparently BIL had told us earlier in the week, but honestly, the first my sister and I heard about it was with those words: the Korean guy who’s coming here would appreciate this rice very much.

What fun it was, to have him with us, this man of 28 who barely spoke English and had never experienced a Thanksgiving, or even eaten turkey before. Have you noticed how people communicate with each other, when they don’t speak the same language? Speech becomes slower, and louder, loses prepositions, and gains exaggerated gestures. There are broad smiles all around when communication is successful; when understanding is not achieved, the same words are used over and over, but ever more slowly and with greater volume as if somehow the same sentence spoken more loudly will aid comprehension.

Regardless, we managed to share complex ideas such as Korean social structure, and the differences between a marathon and a triathlon. We enjoyed the beauty of Sohoe together, seeing the Falls through his eyes, and laughing at his three helpings of his first ever turkey. He narrated (in Korean-tinted English) for us a slide show of his trip to the Philippines where he met many Spanish people, and talked about how much he missed his mom.

You see how it all comes home again? You can travel half-way around the world, you can find yourself in unexpected circumstances, but at the heart of us all, is family.