There ARE Koreans here

Well, I stand corrected, again. Yesterday I blogged that Coquitlam was an oasis of Whiteness in the sea of Asians that is Vancouver, but oh how I was wrong. We went to the, aptly named, Coquitlam Mall today and put Spencer in the play area with a few other kids. I heard a lady speaking Korean to her boy, then a flock (well, three) ajumas (older Korean ladies) came and sat near us. Later, when we went to the pool, we saw that the neighbors right next to us and across the street are Koreans too. Then on the way back I learned that another two sets of neighbors are Korean as well. They're everywhere!

It's actually pretty cool. One thing about Koreans is they have a pretty good sense of community. Get a group of white people (who aren't farmers) together and we seem to be pretty stand-offish...or at least it takes a while to warm up. Koreans, as you may know, refer to each other as sister or brother as soon as 3 minutes of meeting one another (as I have seen). This is, I think, quite extraordinary. From first meetings with my son my wife called the girls in the area "nuna" or "older sister, as said by a younger brother" (they have a special word for every family member). Also, since Koreans don't normally take to English all that well (or quickly) they really, really appreciate speaking with someone from home. Thus, the community here is quite tight.

So I've still got jetlag...although it's pretty nice not to have to work through it. The boys tend to keep me moving all day, though. Usually I sleep at 3AM or 4AM then get up at 11AM, but it's not a good REM sleep. My best sleep seems to be 1-2 hour naps at 3PM or 7PM. When I wake up from those it's really like getting up in the morning; and getting up in the morning is like waking up at midnight. My father-in-law thinks I should just adjust 100% in like 2 days, but I'm not sure if I'm built that way. If I need to I can do it, but it's like I'm on vacation here. Besides, I do my work at night anyways, when the kids are asleep (and Seoul is awake).

I guess that's it for now. Nothing more profound than this from the day, which is a little sad. I love it here: so clean, peaceful and easy to live; but I kinda miss Seoul too: so dirty, loud and easy to get run down by deliveryboys on motorcycles.