Going Back Home (?)

Tomorrow I'm getting on the plane back home...well, not really home; Canada is my home. My oldest son (aged 3.5) seems to think that Daddy's home is Korea. "Daddy is going home," he says. Kind of heartbreaking, but makes sense if you figure that I'm there more than here by about a margin of 5:1. Hmmm....well, this won't go on forever. We'll all be in Seoul soon, then my 'college life' (studying some, working some, drinking...um, some) will be replaced by my Daddy life, which is fine. I figure also that since I'm with them for 24-hours a day when I am here my time:kid ratio on an annual basis is probably not all that bad. Heck, things could be worse...I could be in Iraq or some place where bombs are going off...although that's not entirely out of the question given the political stuff going on with the North these days (but this has been going on for decades).

My friend who is getting married to the gal in Daegu stopped by tonight for dinner. He was here for like 3.5 hours and he, my wife and her sister and I talked about Korea and Koreans...there's a lot to know and except for his little trip here last month he's really a newbie at figuring things out (well, so am I, but I've got a few years on him). It's interesting and challenging to explain Korean ideas to someone who has not been there for at least 6 months (the time I think it takes, in total immersion/submersion to get a grip in the slightest sense). All I can say is that you have to keep at it and remember that 'Western' logic does not prevail in Korea. Like a friend of mine who said to my statement, "There are no gays in Korea...but there are gay bars there": "But isn't being gay a natural thing for some people and they are just gay from birth?" I replied, "That's just Western thinking." Weird as it sounds, there are lots of things that Koreans just think differently about. I know Koreans who were 'born' southpaws but had their 'leftist' thinking beaten out of them (sometimes literally) until they wrote with their right hand. Draconian and medieval as it sounds, this still goes on.

I'd better get some sleep. That plane leaves early tomorrow and the kids are in bed early so should really make the most of this time.