1. Woke up and it was rainy hard, “crazy rain” as Snickers called it. On account of the rain I was a no-go for weight training and instead stayed to lie in bed listening to it. I love the sound of a good rain storm.
2. No sooner had I stepped into the shower but Snickers and one of his sisters arrived and they didn’t exactly arrive empty handed. Besides the two twin boys they brought along, they also walked in with massive bags of food. I, of course, didn’t see it all until they left because I was trapped in the bathroom with nothing to cover myself but a measly face towel and I wasn’t about to introduce the two twin 5 year olds to the female body, or at least my version of it.
3. So what was in the bag, you may ask… food, too much food. I knew she was trying to help but I got really offended when I saw that she had packed 9 containers of rice and about 38 packages of seaweed. For starters, Snickers doesn’t even really eat seaweed and so I think it was mere “filler”, to make her gesture all that more elaborate. Secondly, Koreans are pretty religious-like with their rice and so eating cold rice is a no-go. I got the strong impression that she sent rice thinking that I couldn’t make it. Oh please, I thought, making rice is a no-brainer and consists of a mere switch of a button. Did she honestly think that after 5 years of me living in Korea I either a. still didn’t have a rice cooker or that b. I didn’t know how to make rice?!
4. Upon returning to one ticked off Pollack, Snickers tried to reassure me that the food was for both of us and that she meant well. I knew she had meant well but she went a little extreme with sending rice, and so much of it. I argued that if the food was really for me she would have sent either food she knew I liked or would have sent it before the move. Does she honestly think I’d let Snickers starve?! Honestly, if you were to come over to Guum Ggum you’d be able to see first hand that I by no means hard off or am in need of any kind of handout. Moreover, I am proud that I take damn good care of Snickers and while they all forgot about his birthday, it was me who took the time to make a gift and then it was me who took him out for dinner and then it was me who had bought him his first birthday cake in God knows how many years. I love Snickers like no other and if I could I would give him the world. I may not be a Korean girl but I find my ways to take care of him, show him I love him and he is by no means struggling or in need of some one to drop of cold rice.
5. Well, you can imagine my stubbornness and high pride mixed with Snickers stubbornness was like oil and water and so we got into a big argument. We’ve only one other time had an argument like this before and we both came out feeling like poop on the bottom of someone’s shoe.
6. I knew and I know… but I was still offended. It was nice that she had sent some traditional side dishes but she knew just the other week her mom and other sister had sent some. Snickers and I eat a lot but there was no way on God’s green earth that we would have finished those. But what really got me was had I been a Korean girl I don’t think she would have sent the rice. And yes, okay so it was just rice but it was way more than that. I have never in my life accepted any kind of handout like that. Maybe it’s because of my Polish pride, or maybe it’s because my parents taught me differently, but a massive drop off of food like that made me feel like I was incompetent, like a begger or some stupid fool who couldn’t take care of another person let alone herself. Whatever it may be, my views and her gesture definitely clashed but I felt bad for Snickers because it had instantaneously put him in the middle of it all. I really like his family, especially his father, but it hurt to think that she may think I can’t take care of myself or, more importantly, can’t take care of Snickers. I’ll have you know that I’ve had my own apartment for over 10 years now and am definitely not starving. Anyways, I told Snickers not to tell his sister but added that I want nothing to do with the food; it’s “gogee umshik” [begger’s food] I told him. Thankfully I have a big fridge now but even it is packed to the max because of this gogee umshik. I had to throw a bunch of my own food into the freeze to make room for it all, well, that and I fed a bunch of it to Mi Nam… hahaha.
7. So now, as it stands, I have32 extra containers of food and, with Snickers’ game just three weeks away, sending him dunkass (fried pork that averages about 800 calories) isn’t exactly the gesture from the heart, that is, unless you’re referring to the fact that those 800 calories could possibly clog that heart up!
8. Leave it to me to add more salt on the wound. When Snickers and I were making dinner tonight, he went to make fresh rice. I stopped him and added “eat your gogee [begger] rice”. It is times like this I really appreciate my parents’ tough love. As much as I respect and admire Koreans for their incredibly strong family ties, sometimes I view their family love as smothering and restricting. Restricting in that they always seem to have their hand in their kids’ coming and goings. Snickers can’t even so much go a day or two without his family checking up on him, like he’s some kind of child. As for my parents, they definitely didn’t give me everything on a silver platter or feed it to me with a silver fork, but instead they taught me how to go out and earn my silver platter and silver fork.
9. New temporary house rule: if something is bothering you, we talk about it all at once, agree on a solution, and then drop the subject.
10. By the time evening rolled around Snickers and I had somehow found a way to joke about the “gogee food”, as it is now referred to as. I knew full well that I had let it get to me more than t deserved to be and that she meant well but... whatever, it's over. Anyways, Snickers spontaneously took me out on a movie date tonight. We checked out the flick “G.I. Joe”. I’m not really into action movies but I was definitely into the much-needed smiles Snickers made while watching in. Later, after the movie, we headed up to our roof top patio where Snickers surprised me with a huge mosquito net tent. It was awesome. He had bought it today for us and so while we sat in it we chatted the hours away.
QUESTION OF THE DAY...
What piece of advice would you give to your parents?
QUOTE OF THE DAY...
Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs.
-- P.J. O'Rourke
As the story has it, one day I headed to the opposite side of the globe – the Flipside. I arrived in Korea February 16th, 2005 and thought I’d do a year, then leave. I was wrong. I stayed, launched my first company, Flipside Fitness, and then opened Korea's largest boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now called Hulk's Club).
After 11.5yrs in Korea, I then picked up one day and returned to Toronto, Canada. But then I left again.
Now I live in the Philippines where I am the CEO and head coach of Empowered Clubhouse, the Philippines' first and only boxing clubhouse exclusively just for women. I also am the founder of the Lil' Sistas Project, CEO and designer of Slay Gear and Baa Baa Black Sheep .Ph.
1 comment:
Chapter 9 ,a fine rule ,if you can do that ,you are on the richt trac!
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