It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been to my mum’s hometown in Gwangju, Korea. So what better way is there to celebrate my 600th day than to celebrate it with my relatives in Korea? So off we went on a wheelchair onto a plane, lugging way too much luggage (full of chocolates and coffee for the family), flying 8 hours, then taking 6 more hours to get to Gwangju (massive traffic fest, even on a Saturday), to finally get there JUST to celebrate my 600th day!
Custom cake decorations by mum and aunt
Okay, in all honesty, we totally forgot it was day 600. We just wanted to see my halmoni (grandma, popo, nana) before I had my knee surgery done, which was now scheduled to be sometime in June. It might be awhile before I can travel once I’ve had the knee surgery, so we thought this was the best time to visit my sweet grandma. She recently had surgery done on both her knees and we wanted to see how she was recovering.
As usual, we feel like all the fine dining we’ve had fades into oblivion whenever my halmoni feeds us her home cooked delicacies. And if like me, you think, that sure, I can replicate this recipe with all the same ingredients she uses and the exact same utensils, to produce the same magical dish as she has, you’re wrong. It can never happen and it is as impossible as it is for you to get up gracefully from sitting on a bean bag, because you are not my halmoni. Just, no. I truly believe it’s her secret ingredient of love (of a mother, grandmother, and great grandmother) that makes her food heavenly.
One of the many glorious breakfast spreads we had
But it’s not just her amazing heart for her kids and grandkids that makes her awesome. My halmoni raised 5 kids on her own after my harabeoji (grandpa) passed away when my mum was only 13 years old. She battled and survived breast cancer years later, and as if that wasn’t hard enough, she watched my mum fight the same illness 16 years after that. So you can imagine how crushed she was when she found out I was sick 8 years later. Haha! I was this close to revealing my mum’s age.
My super halmoni!
If my Korean wasn’t so basic, I’d tell her how much I admire and respect her. Not just as my grandma, but as a woman. For always seeking to serve the people around her in love, and putting herself last to make sure we receive the best.
My harabeoji & halmoni maked these..
And then there are these wonderful people. They’ve most likely seen me in my diapers and have had to roll their eyes as I manipulate them into giving me more Melona ice cream (p.s. you can’t be Asian if you haven’t had one of these). I must not have been THAT annoying if they didn’t even hesitate to get their HLA tested when I needed to find a donor. But really, they are made of something more precious than gold, double rainbows, and chocolate fudge brownies with an extra gooey centre.
Being half-Korean may have made it a little harder for me as a bone marrow transplant patient, but I am so proud to be mixed in this way. I get double the culture, and another language to use when I need to tell my mum a secret in public (just not in Korea, of course). And the highest honour of all, I think, is that I get to be directly associated to both kimchi AND durians. Just don’t ask me to eat them both at the same time. I’m not THAT patriotic.
The durian-kimchi girl
If all of this makes little to no sense, you might want to meet me at the beginning: https://beebstory.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/first-blog-post/
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