Kimchi Mamas

America needs Pororo!

As many of you already know, I'm currently halfway through a year of living in one of the most densely Korean populated areas in the United States.  Seriously.  There are condo complexes around here that are occupied entirely by Koreans.  That's 100%.  I know this for a fact because someone I know just moved into a complex and she says she kicked out the last non-korean family who lived there.  

The downside to this is that the McDonalds and Dennys in the area are filled with lots of loud Korean talk in the morning over coffee, I park my humble Camry in parking lots filled with luxury cars and since I'm usually dressed in non brand clothing and carrying a bag from Target, well let's just say that I get looks that say I need to do better.

BUT, it also means great Korean food everywhere (omg the soondubu and dongchimi kooksoo rocks) not to mention lots of choice in Korean products and entertainment.  Which we have been totally taking advantage of and is probably why suddenly the Little Einstein and Go Diego Go DVDs have slowly been pushed aside to make room for Pororo the Little Penguin.  And what a relief it is.  I actually like watching it.

Pororo is a cartoon about a cute little penguin who dreams of flying and lives in the arctic.  He has several cute and warm hearted friends to keep him company.  The creator, Choi Jong-Il, has actually been featured in Time Magazine for possibly changing the preschool cartoon world.  The episodes share simple stories, usually with some social lesson.  A big part of the success though, seems to be that unlike most Korean children shows, the lead character is not an adult.  Pororo is 4, and acts like a 4 year old would.  It's been translated into multiple languages and currently shown on cartoon networks in 80 different countries.  Not in America though, I have no idea why.

There are DVDs with multiple episodes in either Korean or English.  The English ones have much more simple dialogue because I think they're meant to teach Korean children English (judging by the occasional Konglish.)  But, they're still really enjoyable.

At first I was disappointed a bit by how although the characters spoke Korean, very little of anything else was Korean.  They ate with forks and knives, and none of the set looked Korean.  I guess the makers might have done this on purpose so it wouldn't look out of place anywhere else.  But as I kept watching, I realized I might have judged too quickly.  The lessons taught through story are certainly more Korean than not.  For instance, there's an episode all about keeping one's face and hands clean.  That's a top priority as something to teach for parents in Korea.  Even now my mom makes me and my kids wash our face and hands before going out anywhere, or coming home for anywhere.  But it's not something American parents may feel the need to take a whole episode of a show to teach.

I've look online, and currently you can find DVD sets of Pororo at different sites that sell entertainment products from Korea, BUT make sure to check the region code of the DVD player it needs to be played in.  We are region 1, but the DVDs on those sites state that they sell region 3.  I have found though, that I can change the region code on my computer so it will play region 3 DVDs.  They also sell them at Korean video and DVD stores here, which is where I've been getting ours.  I find that I can play these on our regular DVD player attached to our TV.

I know not everyone is so lucky to live by so many Korean choices, so I'm willing to buy them and ship them to you Kimchi Mamas out there in what I have been calling "true America."  Of course, because the cartoon is not yet on American TV, you can also find episodes of it on Youtube.  But if you need them for a car trip or something, I could get one of those flat rate boxes and fill it with your favorite ramen and some choco pies too.  ^^

-jooliyah 

May 1 is much more than lei day this year

Growing up in Hawaii, the first day of May was always filled with flowers and school Hula performances because (sing with me) "May Day is Lei Day in Hawaaaaaaiiiiiiiii."  But this year, I am looking forward to May 1st not for it's fragrant flowers, but because DANIEL. HENNEY.  swoon.

is he hot, or is he hot?  his mom is Korean, and his dad is British.  He grew up mostly in America, but found a career on the small and big screen in Korea.  I first saw him in the Korean drama "My Lovely Samsoon."  But he was in Spring Waltz and a couple of Korean films too.

Wait, so what does he have to do with May 1st?

That's the release date for X-Men Origins: Wolverine in which Daniel Henney plays Agent Zero.   Somehow, someway, I am going to be parked in that dark theater to see it as soon as it's out.  I haven't quite figured out who will be watching my kids as I snarf down popcorn and drool over him, but it's gonna happen. 

Honestly, his acting in Korea was so so for the most part so I fretted about him not being that great in such a major American film.  BUT, now I can watch knowing everything will be ok and I won't be embarrassed for him because my husband (deployed in Iraq) already got to see it (I guess they figured the troops all the way over there were special or something) and he says that Agent Zero was spot on.

So who is with me?  And why do I get the feeling that there will be quite a few ajummahs in the crowd at this movie.  I'm thinkin the usual high school/ college boy crowd will be mighty confused at all the Korean ladies elbowing their way to the best seats.

-Jooliyah, is tickled by the fact that Daniel Henney eats the stinky Korean food that she craves too.

DAE HAN MIN GOOK! (clap clap -- clap clap clap clap)

Is what you will hear chanted at our house tonight starting at 6pm PT (9pm ET)  as we watch Korea face off Japan in the World Baseball Classics.  The tournament has been on our set a lot during the last week, and in very rare form we consumed our dinner in front of the TV during the last two evening's semi final games.  Korea and Japan have already played each other twice during the tournament.  Korea won the first game.  Japan won the second, and now we'll just have to see tonight.  

Korea played Venezuela on Saturday and won.  Last night, Japan trounced the USA team.  My parents were rooting for USA fervently because it's such a tense and crazy game when Korea and Japan get together.  They say they didn't want the stress, so they wanted team USA to win because they'd rather lose to USA than Japan.  I, however, wanted Japan to win because 1) I'm always conflicted a bit when it's Korea vs the US.  I am both.  I know both sides of the story and want good things for both, and 2) I think it'll be way more exciting tonight for everyone if the final game is Korea vs Japan.

It's always interesting to me how much Korean Koreans have a problem with the Japanese.  I really see them as similar in a lot of ways.  In fact, the language was easy for me to learn because there was a lot of the exact same words and sentence structures in both languages.  People from both countries bow all the time, and share the love of raw fish.  Yes, I know the history.  But to me, it's just history.  It happened, and most of the people who live in both countries had nothing to do with it.

Then again, it helps me better understand the continued rift between the black and white communities even after everything is supposed to be all better now.  I guess there's a lot of old stuff still there.  

In any case, I predict there will be much yelling and throwing things at the TV tonight at our place.  Hopefully there will be some cheering too.  Will you be watching?

I am an Ummah once again

Up until he started preschool at 2.5 (I was pregnant and in need of some down time, and he was only there for a few hours a day until he was 3) my son, Noah, spoke mostly Korean.  I speak fluent Korean and think it's one of the best gifts my parents gave me, and wanted to do the same for him.  So I made the decision early on and the effort to speak mostly Korean to him and it was all going swimmingly. But then when he started preschool he realized that the rest of his world, including his new friends at school, lived in English and it was all downhill from there.

Literally within 6 months he was speaking and functioning in complete English.  On the first day of school he said "bye Ummah!" in his little baby voice, excited to get his hands on the new toys he saw on the shelves.  Then on the third day of the third week he said "it's my MOMMY!" when I arrived to pick him up.  My jaw dropped to the floor.  It was like he was calling me by a foreign name.  I was not his Mommy.  I was his Ummah.  I loved being his Ummah because I thought I had the world's best Ummah and I wanted to be that for him.  For me, Ummah just feels warmer, deeper, solid, just more THERE.  Is it just me?

He continued to call me "Ummah" at home because I requested it, but it was always "Mommy" at school.  Time passed and I realized one day that he called me Mommy at home too and it wasn't so strange to hear it anymore.  I thought about having a talk with him about re-renaming me.  But I decided that what's done is done, and if I'm "Mommy" to him in his head, I guess I could live with that.

He forgot most of Korean soon after, and when I did speak Korean to him, he'd ask me "not to talk like that."  It saddened me when he couldn't communicate with my parents anymore during a trip to visit them a few months after he turned 3.  But I was mostly amazed at how quickly he discarded one language for the other.

Then we moved into my parent's house in southern California.  (In case you don't follow my personal blog:  We lived in Hawaii.  Husband is a psychologist in the military.  Husband deployed last month.  I decided to move in with my parents who live in a heavily Korean populated part of Southern California for the year of husband's deployment.)  When I looked for preschools for Noah, I found that there were several well recommended Korean speaking/teaching preschools very near us and decided to send Noah to one of them.  He is currently attending Sunny Hills Preschool.  I had some reservations about sending him to a Korean speaking school and changing languages on him again, but the opportunity to give him  shot of in the arm and give him back his Korean was just too tempting to pass up.

The first couple of weeks were hard.  He's the kid who runs into school without a backward glance.  Even at 2.5 on his first day, he waved happily to me when I left him.  But the first day of the second week, after a long weekend, I left a wailing child behind, one I had to pry from my legs.  When I asked him about his friends at his new school, he solemnly told me "Mommy, my new friends don't know how to talk."  It must have been hard for him to go to a place everyday where he didn't know what anyone was saying.  He didn't know how to ask to play with his friends, he didn't know how to even ask to go to the bathroom.  I know it was hard for him because he'd come home and either tantrum the whole time, or talk manically about anything and everything.

But then, about three weeks in, he started understanding what my parents and I were saying to each other in Korean.  His teacher mentioned that he was following directions better in class.  Then around the 5th week, he started to sprinkle in Korean words and phrases into things he said.  And I noticed that I wasn't "Mommy" anymore.  I was "Momma."  I think he found a compromise between Ummah and Mommy.  It had a nice ring to it, and I responded as if nothing had changed.  And then two days ago, I was in the living room picking up some toys and Noah was in the playroom.  He called for me saying "Ummah!  Ummah!"  I turned towards his voice as my heart stopped for a second.  I realized how much I had missed hearing it, and how much I thought of myself as an Ummah to him.  I quickly made my way to him to scoop him up and give him a hug.  A big one from his Ummah.

-- by jooliyah who is relieved that Noah has friends who play with him at school now.

an addiction i plan to encourage

Hello.  I am a Korean drama addict.  It used to be much worse than it is now.  I used to hole myself in my room with the tv and video player and only pause to get something to eat or use the bathroom.  I'd watch until the wee hours of the morning and wake the next day with a significant headache, a Korean drama hangover.  The final month before my first child was born, I had just graduated from law school and because of the impending birth, I wasn't planning on taking the bar right away like the rest of my law school buds.  With the nursery done and the birthing plan written (i was so incredibly naive) I beached myself like a whale on our couch armed with all the dramas I didn't get to watch while in law school.  They all had been recommended, so they were all good.  It was gluttony in full glory.  I watched until my eyes and head hurt and watched some more.  sigh.  Good times.

Since the birth of Noah however, I've had to take my Korean drama viewing down a few notches.  I only watch when the kids are either napping or asleep, and only if most of my chores are done.  It's a more moderate level of viewing now, but I think that's for the better anyway.

I know that there are those who roll their eyes at the mere mention of a Korean soap opera.  They may even look down on the likes of me and wonder why I would waste my time.  Well, I don't think it's a waste of time.  Here is my case.

• It's a way for me to keep up my language skills.  I prefer to watch them straight from the Korean video store without subtitles because the subtitles only distract me.  That said, I also don't understand 100% of what's said.  If the vocabulary or situation gets too difficult, I try to figure things out from the context.  There are times when I have to ask my mom, and those are the times I learn new words and phrases. 
• I see the subtle expectations and social rules of Korean culture in action.  I notice how the people eat. I notice what to bring when visiting, what to expect when visiting and what to give as gifts.  There's still a lot for me to learn, but it still helps for me to see it in action.
• Which also helps me to see what's "normal" in my parent's world.  I don't mean that it's normal for people to frequently go around collapsing in a heap of sadness in the middle of the street, or get hit by a car and lose their memory.  But that it's normal for them to give gifts of money in white envelopes or buy paper bags of sweet potatoes roasted by street vendors in the cold of winter.  It helps me relate to them, and to know where they come from.  And to understand why they don't understand what may be "normal" for me having grown up in America.
• But times are changing and so is how Korea things.  Sometimes, there are dramas that help my parents understand new issues, but from a Korean perspective.  Some great topics that my mom has become aware of recently are how having HIV does or doesn't affect someone's life and how being Gay doesn't make a person any different. 
• Having watched since my teen hood, I also credit them as a big reason why I never had issues about the way I looked.  I had people I admired who didn't have the deep set eyes, had my complexion and kind of hair.  I thought Shim Eun Ha and Ha Yi Ra were beautiful.  I understood that Nicole Kidman and Nikki Taylor were beautiful too, just a different kind of beauty.
• More than my looks, it's helped me to be proud of my ethnic and cultural roots.  Especially so in Hawaii where Korean dramas aren't only enjoyed by Koreans.  Little Filipino grandmothers are known to scoot out of mass early so they won't miss the latest episode.  My Japanese co workers couldn't wait to talk about that jerk who cheated on the poor girl. The local Hawaiian culture fully embraced Korean food.  Besides my parents occasionally not being able to communicate without my help, I never felt ashamed of my Koreanness.

Finally, they are just darn good.  The good ones anyway.  In fact, I think whatever formula those Korean writers have figured out to make them so good has been discovered by the author of Twilight and it's the reason for her success.    Bella and Edward are SOOOOO meant to be together and they sacrifice themselves for the other and would be so happy together if it wasn't for just one little obstacle.  He wants to drink her blood.

In any case, these are some of the reasons why, when I think Natalie will be old enough to appreciate them, I plan to introduce her to Korean Dramas.  It might be a waste of time for kids in Korean, but for my Korean American daughter, I see it as an educational thing for her to watch.  It'll expand her horizons and help her to become familiar with more than one way of living.  I can just see us someday.  Three generations, my mom, me and Natalie sitting together intently watching a series, gasping together when something surprising happens.

If you haven't watched one in awhile because you found them cheesy when you tried to watch one years ago, you should try one again.  They've evolved.  No longer is the girl perfectly angelic.  Now the lead female is usually someone who is a bit clumsy or quirky.  She is more outspoken and feisty.  She might even be older than her love interest.  One of my favorites was even a bit overweight.  And still, she celebrates herself and usually finds herself some really good loving in the end.

Some recommendations:  (You've probably read these favorites of mine in a comment in the past.  And if you have any favorites of your own, please feel free to share.)

Thank You, Coffee Prince, Lovers in Paris, Full House, My Lovely Samsoon, My Girl, First Wives Club,  Mom is Dead Upset.

Mind you, I don't really like the ones with sad endings and dying people.  I like the ones that really explore a character's life in the context of living in Korea.

I have a new one called Beethoven Virus on deck.  My mom promised it was a short one and that it was good.  I love it.

Manseh!

I think it's a tradition to teach babies how to do the Manseh in Korea.  Well, at least that what I get from the Korean community I've been a part of.

What is the Manseh?  The action itself requires you to lift both arms, palm open straight up as you shout "Manseh!"  The word itself means "ten thousand years", but it can be best translated into meaning "hooray!".  Personally, I feel like the meaning goes deeper.  To me, it's more of a "Hooray for us, as Koreans for ten thousand years!"

Korean Preschools Galore

Recently, when a Kimich Mama and great blogger FingKAsil started writing about her son attending a Korean immersion kindergarten, I found myself wishing I could give Noah the same thing.  But in Hawaii, there are no such programs, except for Saturday Korean School at various churches.  Too young for Korean school, I accepted and expected the fact that Noah would be educated in English.

When he entered preschool, his Korean was better than his English.  But within a few short months, his Korean has sadly diminished as his English vocabulary and language skills sky rocketed.  During a trip to my parent's last week, he couldn't understand them in complete Korean anymore.  I was a little sad.

Screening Humanity: a look into real Korean life, sort of...

You would think that my first post about Korean Television would be about a majorly addicting Korean drama.  But as I was mulling over in my head where to begin on such a topic, Screening Humanity came on and I realized that I'd much write about this little gem.

Screening Humanity is a daily event for me.  My DVR captures it when it's on early in the morning so I can turn it on whenever I want during the rest of the day.  Lately, it's been my companion during nursing sessions with Natalie.

Hold on, what IS Screening Humanity you say?  well, let me tell you.....

And being a montessori mom is bad?

Apparently it is, according to some of my 1.5 Korean mom friends.  Because I go to a Korean church, THE big Korean church here, I am in touch with several more Korean than not KA moms.  Which is really great.  Noah plays with friends who's moms speak Korean to them, just like I do.  We are served snacks on these play dates that really agree with us like, dduk or kim bap rolls or bin dae dduk and lots of cut up fruit.

There is a down side though.  It actually took me awhile to discover it because it really didn't kick in until Noah will a little older.  But now that we've really reached preschool age, I feel like I'm trying to head off a storm that's coming my way.

What in the world am I talking about?

Pickles with Pizza

10 was a big year for me.  I learned that I was not "white" when I was 10.  huh?  Well, in Hawaii I'm part of the Asian majority, so even if I knew I wasn't white, we certainly weren't considered black, so therefore, I thought we belonged to the "white" category.

My family was riding along in our car one day and my dad asked us what we were studying in school.  I said that in social studies we were reading about slavery.  Then I casually said "I can't believe WE did that to those people."  My dad laughed.  loudly.  He then enlightened me on the fact that if schools were still segregated, that I'd be attending the colored school.  It left me speechless.  My view of myself and my place in this world was never the same.