Cucumbers Gone Korean

I realize that I haven't posted a recipe here in a while, so here's one for a ridiculously simple, common Korean banchan.  This photo is of nothing more than sliced cucumbers, not anywhere close to the final product, which is sparkling red from the hot pepper flakes, so please do not be misled.  There's a picture here {+}.

I've seen this dubbed as a Korean cucumber salad by American food writers, but it's not.  I swear, we Americans need to do something about our dearth of vocabulary.  How does one douse egg, macaroni, or tuna in mayonnaise and then use the same term to describe a bed of leafy spinach and vegetables?  If there ain't no leafy greens, it ain't no salad, ya' hear?

Oh-eeh moo-cheem translates into seasoned cucumbers: oh-eeh is cucumber and moo-cheem is seasoned.  As strange and awkward as these foreign sounds may be received by an American ear, I'm gonna stick with the Korean.  At least it's accurate.  Also, please don't ever let me catch you calling this a Korean cucumber salad.  Because it ain't.

Oh-eeh Moo-cheem or Oi Muchim (transliteration sure is tricky)
오이 무침

Ingredients
6 Persian cucumbers
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons Korean hot pepper flakes (gochugaru)
2 tablespoons scallion, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 teaspoons brown rice (white is fine, too) vinegar
½ teaspoon sugar (sometimes I omit)
2 teaspoons sesame seeds
2 teaspoons sesame oil

Directions
Thinly slice cucumbers (1/8 to 1/4-inch thick). Toss gently with salt and set aside for 15 - 20 minutes. Gently drain excess liquid. Mix well with all remaining ingredients.

Serving
Can be served immediately.  Can also be chilled for as long as you want before serving (a few hours, overnight, whatever).

Merry August

Let's talk about Christmas.  Because it's August, if nothing else.  Specifically, let's talk about the expressions of everything good that the holiday season evokes and how their existence is evident in the [almost - read on for my take] everyday, not just the cold days of December.

Christmas is, to be perfectly rosy-cheeked about the situation, pure awesomeness.  There is a mindful re-focus on the celebrated components of what builds and drives fulfilling lives: family, community, love, warmth, grace, kindness, humility, forgiveness, acceptance, and joy, to name a few.  It is an annual tradition where individuals reconvene to showcase these pinnacles of our society's value system.

I'd like to say that these elements are present in each of our daily journeys, pocketfuls of posies anywhere and everywhere just as long as you look for it in every situation, but nay, I can think of several cases where this simply isn't true.  This is probably because I witnessed humanity's worst sorrows as the child of a pastor and his wife.  Churches lend support to congregants in difficult times; if you're spearheading those efforts and thrown deep into the trenches of it, your children can see a lot of the ugly, too.  My parents didn’t buffer any of that.  Part of that is because they are Korean, part of that is because they are who they are, and part of that is because I am their oldest.  From too early an age, I learned that it's tricky to see the good when the bad is all around; sometimes, it's impossible because it's just not there.

  At the start of one holiday season, what would turn out to be my last home before I moved to New York.
Rittenhouse Square. Philadelphia.
2004.  12 November.

What I have learned is that in times when there is no joy to be had, it isn't always necessary to break the impossibility of the situation by conjuring something that balances out the darkness.  Sometimes, there is a great deal of merit in staying in that moment and waiting for it to pass.  Why?  Because it always passes.  It does.  And the resilience required to get to that next point is what makes the next happy moment even brighter.

I hope life is good for you all out there.  If it isn't Christmas now, it will be soon.

'88

The exam results for the final level of the CFA program came out today.  And our little brother passed!  To pass all three levels on your first try is no small feat.  I wonder if he and his work peeps ditched out of the office early to celebrate.  There are an awful lot of watering holes in midtown.  I'm just sayin'.

It was 1988 on the day of his first birthday party.  We were forced to wake him in the middle of his nap.  Our grandmother insisted; she was more concerned about appearances in front of guests than, you know, leaving a tired baby who needed his afternoon nap alone.  (Typical.)  Our brother was promptly changed into his adorable silk Korean birthday outfit, hobbled around for a few seconds wondering why everyone kept staring at him, and then smiled for half a nanosecond before the overwhelming exhaustion took over his little body.  And then right there, as all the guests crammed into the living room clapped and waved at the adorable birthday boy, he slowly dropped down on one knee.  A few seconds later, he was down on all fours.  He then gave one final, tired look at the beaming faces watching him, sprawled out on his belly, and gently lay his head down on the soft carpet.  This shot was right before his eyes fluttered close.  I love this memory.

Philadelphia.
1988.

Simply Lunch

Unlike a lot of Korean-American families, we never, ever, ever, ever ate this growing up.  Our father wouldn't allow it.  But now as an adult, when the fridge is empty, I go to this simple meal.  And I don't mind it.  In fact, I kind of like it.

Listen.  Leftover brown rice, a hot fried egg on top, and more than a generous squidge of ketchup: I know this probably doesn't speak to your gastronomical sensibilities.  It might even look rather ick.  But if you grew up in a Korean-American home, chances are, you're at peace with this.

Lunch.  NYC.
1:06 pm.  Today.

Music

Do you know how startling it is to hear a terrible Korean pop song blare through iTunes right after The Script and Imogen Heap?  Well, it is.  My sister's music library is a curious thing.

For the Feets

One thing I've loved since the beginning of time are these Korean footies.

My feet this evening (as if you needed this caption)

Our mother always referred to them as dub-puh-sun, but I think dut-sheen is more common now. I really don't know. All I know is that I adore them and have never been able to buy them stateside.  I often wonder how I'd go about importing them to share the love with my American girlfriends. When you're at home and don't want to go barefoot, these are the bestestest.  They come in stretchy or non-stretchy weaves and can be thin or thick, printed or solid, rubber grips on the bottom or not, I mean, I've seen them in so many pretty ways, really.

I hope they stick around because I hear that they're losing popularity in Korea. My cousins laugh when I ask for a few pairs if they're passing through town.  The humor is probably from the fact that ahjummahs (older married women) wear these, not teenagers or young women. As you can see, I don't care.

On a related note, I have just about the least attractive feet you'll ever see on a girl, and these bad boys are the only things that have ever gracefully slipped onto my feet without putting up a fuss. That in and of itself might be motivation enough to start my own importing business for these guys.  The first thing I'd do is ship a bunch to my female readers.  The way I see it, there are only about a dozen of you, which is such a manageable number of packages to bring to the post office, I don't see why I wouldn't!

Yes, I really wrote my first post of 2012 about things that go on my feet. I shall continue to dance to the beat of my own drum. Hope you will, too.

Please Look After Mom (엄마를 부탁해), by K. Shin

On Thursday at 10:09 p.m., an e-mail notification arrived that a book in my queue had arrived at my local NYPL branch.  After work the very next day, carrying half gallons of ice cold milk and OJ in a loud crinkly Food Emporium bag, I checked out this hardback copy of Kyung-Sook Shin's Please Look After My Mom. I went straight home and did a load of wash.  As soon as I hung the last bra to air dry, I grabbed the book, a plate of mini banana muffins, and a cup of that ice cold milk.   (Do you know that organic milk really does taste more milky?  Scary to think why).  Aside from exchanging a few texts with Soeur, for the next few hours, I would do nothing but read clear through to the last page. 

It was the first book I had started and finished in one sitting - in years. 

It was the first book I had read by a Korean-Korean (read: not Korean-American) author - ever.

It was the first book I had read that was originally written in Korean - ever.

It was the first book I had cried through - ever.

This last fact is a big one.  I don't really cry.  For writing that I didn't find exceptionally compelling in one way or another, I can only come up with one explanation for my tears: I got caught up in the emotional tumult of the main character and its distressing parallels to my own family's living narrative.

Shin's novel is a simple story simply told.  A mother travels to Seoul from her home in a small village to visit her children.  At a subway station, she disappears, and the story revolves around her city-dwelling children's collective journey to locate their uhmmah.  The author is a bestselling novelist in Korea, but I would guess that the English version, released only this spring, will not be well-received by the American market.  (This, for example, is an amusing NPR piece).  So much of the Korean way relies on the painfully unspoken.  (Or maybe that's just my parents' way?)  Inference is paramount, a cultural nuance Americans might hesitate to identify as an acceptable form of communication: this lack of transparency might suggest that there is more behind the clean and uncomplicated words of this book's English version.  It's clear that some of the plot's basic rhythm gets lost in translation.  For example, "Aunt Peggy" is much easier than "second eldest aunt's husband." If it weren't for my hazy familiarity with some common daily aspects of Korean life like nursery rhymes and foods, I would have been left scratching my head instead of dropping big salty tears on the couch.  

I won't say more, but will leave you with five words on why 엄마를 부탁해 made me flood tears: resilience, survival, sacrifice, duty, and desperation.  It might be glorious, but there's a whole lot of grief that comes with that glory.

And So It Is February. I'm Tired.

It's been a long week.  Do you feel that way?  I've been fighting the urge to rest my eyes every waking moment.  This morning, in an effort to get through a Friday, I finally gave in to the lure of coffee which I then quickly glugged down faster than I probably should have.

Almost immediately, I saw my fingers tremble as I tapped away at my keyboard.  It was unsettling, but the caffeine helped me focus and get through my morning tasks.

Combined with the exhaustion, my appetite's been at a ridiculous level.  Every day this week, I've been chipping away at a huge sack of kimchi.  (Yes, H-Mart sells the good stuff the classy way - in a clear plastic bag tied in a thick knot at one end.)  I was worried that it would go to waste, that I'd overdose and lose interest quickly.  But nay.  Crunchy kimchi and a heavy sprinkling of fresh scallions in my chicken soup never gets old on wintry nights.  I grew up on Korean which means that I like my soup piping hot - enough to scald the roof of your mouth - and always with kimchi on the side.

I work six-day weeks, so even though I'm ever so relieved that Friday's over, I'm a little disappointed that I have to be somewhere in seven hours.  At least the days are getting longer.  Fifteen hours from now, when I step outside to return home again, there'll still be about twenty minutes of light left in the day.  But before I get ahead of myself, let me slip some cash in my wallet.  I have a strong hunch that I might be hurting for some coffee again when I have to brave the cold again in six hours.  Which reminds me: I need to get my tuckus to bed.

Bek Bool Jja Rhee

Photo courtesy of Soeur's iPhone

It somehow seemed appropriate to pay for dinner with a hundred in K-Town.  It's just how Soeur and I roll...Korean gangster style, of course.

Korean Ramen

This is Neoguri ramen bubbling away on the stove.  Say hello.  Koreans treat ramen as a snack, never a meal, but I always thought that was kind of silly because it's more than enough for a full meal.  It's chock full of sodium and MSG, but having grown up on ramen, I just can't beat enjoying a big hot bowl of this stuff whenever I'm in the mood.

After tossing the first batch of water to get rid of some of the oil from the fried noodles, I add fresh water along with whatever green vegetables are on hand, some scallions, and an egg.  It's even better if I throw in a few slivers of kimchi and a few slices of jalapeno.  Unless you prefer soggy soft noodles like me, be careful not to overcook them.

One in Fifteen

My maternal grandmother has nineteen grandchildren.  I counted for the first time this week.  Don't let it ever be said that we're not a fertile family.

My siblings and I don't really know our fifteen cousins in Korea.  An ocean does that.  Every once in a while, though, we'll have an opportunity to share a meal or even half a day when one of them makes an appearance in the U.S.  This week, our overachieving unnie cousin visited.  One of her two older brothers visited last summer {+}.

This was the closest thing to a group family pic we took when we all hung out together on Wednesday night.  The photo turned out fuzzy but I think applying a charcoal sketch filter salvaged it a bit.  As you can see from my brother's and sister's exhausted eyes, it was late, almost midnight on hump day.  I felt lucky that our cousin and I were able to sleep in the next morning when my siblings had to report bright and early to their offices.

**************************

See that beer bottle that's pretty much front and center?  I'm pretty sure it was our cousin's, but still, and I don't know why, it reminds me of my brother's baby bottles.  I was six when he joined our family and sometimes I took over the night shift to give uhmmah a break.  Still a baby, he'd sleep next to me on top of a warm electric blanket.  When it was time for his feeding, he'd wake me with his fussing, I'd feed him his bottle with one eye half open and a night light.  He was a remarkably easy baby falling asleep right after he was burped.  I'd then go off duty and switch beds with my mom.  Taking over a night feeding shift would give her a longer stint of uninterrupted sleep, you see.  My brother's come a long way since.  Not only can he hold his own bottle now, but he can open it, too.  Most importantly, he burps all on his own.

This Kitchen's Churning Out Some Good Stuff

H-Mart sells this remarkable kit of fresh soup ingredients that we finally tried last night.  You basically add water and toss in all the ingredients they've already chopped and prepped for you.  Easter dinner was delectable.  Just look at it.

Dae-gu mae-oon-tang (대구 매운탕) is one of my favorite Korean fish soups and it took less than fifteen minutes to get it onto the table.  Fresh white fish, garlic, red peppers, squash, mushrooms, shrimp, scallions, etc.  The only thing I added was a hefty block of tofu because anyone in the know will tell you that this spicy broth full of seafood-y goodness requires several thick slabs of it.

My struggle to bear the heat as gracefully as I once could reminded me that I don't have proper Korean food as frequently as I should.  My stomach is so weak compared to when I was a kid when we had this level of spice for dinner nearly every night.

This Photo Has Nothing To Do With The Contents Of This Post

Frito's are nothing more than corn, corn oil, and salt.  
Who'd 'a thunk that Frito Lay produces a snack that isn't loaded with lab-produced ingredients?

Taken this afternoon while trying to learn how to use my camera.  The 10-second delay function is nifty. 

Our oldest uncle in Korea sent out a brief group e-mail this morning in which he specifically addressed my sister and me stating, "...사진 보니까 무척 예버 졌더구나" (my painfully elementary literal translation is "I saw the pictures and you've gotten so pretty").  My uncle's paying us a simple compliment that is commonly tossed around in Korean circles.  BUT.  Does it take an American to pick up on the fact that it really isn't very flattering at all?  A proper compliment would be, "My dears, you've gotten even prettiER."  Not, "Oh, you got pretty!"  Like, "Congratulations! You're not as ugly as you were before."  Hooray!  Reading his e-mail made me feel like clapping in celebration.  Under a grey rain cloud.  Without an umbrella.

This is one of my beefs with the Korean culture. There is an overwhelming sense of value placed on one's appearance.  Beauty on the outside really reigns supreme.  White beauty, of course --- narrow noses, high bridges, deeply set eyes, rounded skulls, high cheekbones, wide toothy smiles, long eyelashes.  You know, the polar opposite of Asian features.  High schoolers even have part-time jobs to pay for eye surgeries and nose jobs to get them closer to the ideal.  The worst part is that parents are totally chill about it, frequently endorsing the procedures.  Sure, spend a few grand on your eyes.  Why not?  It's just a little anesthesia and stitches, after all.

When a little kid falls off his bike and starts crying, a Korean parent or caregiver will often soothe him by rubbing whatever hurts while repeating over and over again, "Oh, that's ok. You're pretty. You're so pretty."  The logic being then, that even though you're in pain, it's going to be ok because hey, you're pretty.  I mean, really?  Give me a break, Korea.  

Peeing In The Air And Oh, Look At My Pretty Bowl!

I went to Korea once as an adult.  I think I was twenty-one.  It was my second trip to Korea ever.  The first time I made the journey I was all of three, maybe two, and I wet myself during take-off.  Oops.  This time I managed to hold it in.  We weren't one of those Korean-American families who sent the kids to spend time with their family in the motherland (how unfortunate) so one year in college I asked uhmmah if she could send us over winter break.  She was game.  For the first time in our lives, my sister and I got the chance to spend a little bit of time with our grandmother and uhmmah's six siblings, plus their spouses and children.  I learned something valuable on that trip: my mother's side of the family is ten times more fun than my father's.  They drink (but not too much), they laugh (with you, not at you...well, ok, at you sometimes), and they kid (because they are silly).  I have a feeling we'd be different if we had grown up in the same country as they.  Our idea of extended family was seeing our paternal grandparents every now and then.  There'd almost always be church where we'd watch our grandfather at the pulpit preaching in his reserved Korean fashion.  The upside?  My Korean is atrocious, but I've retained the vocabulary for everlasting, glorious, almighty, and grace.  Actually, I can't seem to put my finger on all of them at the moment...so much for that thought.

I don't know if I'll ever have the opportunity to visit my parents' homeland again, but I do have a reminder of my brief time there.  One of the few things I brought back from that trip were a set of these rice bowls.  I thought they were so darling and pretty at the time.  I have the matching soup bowls, too.  They're not good quality or unique in any sense.  I just fell in love with them.  Ignorant friends often ask if they can get a set in one of Chinatown's bazaar stores and I'm all, "NO.  I GOT THESE IN KOREA."  They usually take the hint and shut it.

What you see here in one of my pretty Korean bowls is a bit of Stonyfield's low fat organic plain yogurt.  I drained out some of the whey overnight in the fridge and had dense and creamy greek style yogurt waiting for me this morning.  The yellow stuff is a wonderful thick lace of American honey.  Quite good.

Coffee With My Sugar

It was perplexing when relatives visiting from Korea would clamber to purchase jars of instant Folgers to lug back to Seoul.  Brew your own.  Coffee's better fresh!  Why waste precious luggage space when you can buy it there?  According to them, yes, it's available in Korea, but only in a formula different from what's sold in America.  They insisted that the American version was infinitely tastier.

Since Starbucks fever hit the nation, it was a rare occasion when I'd come in contact with instant coffee.  It wasn't until my sister started dating a Korean guy that I was introduced to these super environmentally friendly single serving packets of Maxim instant coffee.  Instant coffee?  Who does that anymore?  Evidently this stuff was so popular in Korea that they decided to bring it to America, distributing in Korean supermarkets.  Well, I tried a cup and the novelty of freshly brewed coffee vanished *poof* into thin air.  Each packet contains coffee, cream, and sugar in proportions perfect for the Korean palate.  In other words, super duper sweet.  Funny thing is that Koreans don't really "do" sweets.  Dessert is often sliced fruit, cakes use paltry portions of sugar and butter, but sugary thin coffee?  A ubiquitous Korean kitchen staple.

"...Her First Kimchee"

Button noses and chubby legs?  Awesome.  Bubbling fits of laughter and sudden bodily gas emissions?  Pure joy.  Babies sure rock our world, don't they?

There's a little one very busy sleeping, eating, pooping, and burping in Pittsburgh these days.  According to this little note that was waiting for me in the mailbox this evening, it seems likely that by the time she masters her chopstick skills, we'll happily eat kimchi together.  That time will come sooner than I can blink.  It seems like it was just yesterday when this little girl's mother slurped up her first bowl of spicy Korean ramen straight from the stove of my on-campus apartment.  My little sister's freshman college roommate proved to be a true champ that day having no problems tackling kimchi with her noodles to boot.  That was more than ten years ago.

Time is a pushy thing.  It just bumps you right along without a care in the world.

Trouble. The Good Glutinous Kind. Or Dduk.

Well, now.  THAT was fun.  Sorta.  Ok, not really.

But enough is enough and the time arrived to do what I said I'd do if I didn't start full-time somewhere by now.  You'll find me heading towards Madison Square Garden in the mornings these days.  If I take a breather in the middle of the workday, you may see me at the Borders above Penn Station stone-faced wondering why the heck there aren't ever any empty seats in New York bookstores. But who's complaining?  Not I.  Because I am super temp.  HEAR ME ROAR.

At the end of each day, being less than two blocks from the 32nd Street known as the Koreatown of Manhattan (it's really more like a pitiful two-block strip between Broadway and Madison), I can't help but make a detour through the tiny H-Mart.  Tonight, I splurged on some dduk.  This particular one is called in'-juhl-mee.

I used to have this stuff at Sunday church fellowships and special occasions growing up all the time.  Now I spend 0.00000001% of my time with Koreans so I rarely get my hands on these treats.  Made with rice flour, dduk's the sticky mochi stuff that the Japanese have popularized, but keep in mind that dduk is substantially less sweet than what you're probably used to biting into after your sushi.  Newbies to this treat usually have difficulty comprehending the lure of this chewy glutinous dessert.  It's rather bland to the unsuspecting American tongue, flavored by rolling in nutty bean powders or crushed sesame seeds and sometimes filled with small doses of sweet red bean filling and/or honey.

You want to enjoy these when they're still fresh - warm if you're super lucky.  The next day, they'll be less soft and by the next, even less so.  In our house, uhmmah would lightly pan fry day old in-juhl-mee dduk until the insides warmed enough to start oozing out a little and the powder on the outside would form a thin delicate golden crust.  Then we'd run those glorious hot dduk pieces through a smear of honey on our plates for an amazing winter morning or night treat.

In-juhl-mee perched between my chopsticks, tucked under a fuzzy blanket, remote by my side, I am feeling peaceful tonight.  And grateful...that there's an H-Mart I can visit every day as long as there are projects for me; that I can report to work in jeans; that sneakers are ok, too; that I can have my iPod plugged into both ears all day if I so wish; that tomorrow, I get to work from home (I know!).  If it weren't so biting cold tonight, I'd step outside and count my lucky stars.

"They Suffered Silently..."

There's an article in the New York Times that's getting to me.  It's about the growing level of suicides among Koreans in New York.  I'm shocked that this couple in Queens opted to light themselves on fire rather than live.  Burning yourself to death because your business endeavor failed?  That's heartbreaking.  Because you're broke?  That's heartbreaking, too.  This couple left a brief note for their 20-year-old daughter and forty dollars in cash.  That's heartbreaking to the tenth power.

Here's the thing about the Korean mentality: you either succeed or you fail.  If you succeed, it's easy to flaunt - your career, your house, your kids, your car, etc.  If you fail, well...you guard it with your life and move on.  "Move on" meaning "stuff it deep down inside and bury it and bury it and bury it some more."  Did I mention burying it?  If you're going through a hardship, you keep it to yourself and suffer not quietly, but silently, going undetected on anyone and everyone's radar.  You see, if word got out that you didn't get into your first choice top tier school, or that you didn't pass the bar, or that you bought generic over brand, something terrible might happen: like the sky may rain squirrel poop; or the earth may start sprouting porcupines; or the government may ban sex.  Failure elicits these horrific panic-inducing doomsday scenarios.

Your shortcomings and failures don't form a part of your identity: it drives your identity.  It's far better to appear well despite not being well.  It's only when the appearance catches up to you, like if the bank takes your house, or repossesses your car, that it becomes more difficult to hide the shame.  Oh, the shame, people.  It's debilitating.  I can list a dozen examples off the top of my head from my family alone, but well, there's that Korean part of me that's all "What?!  Keep your trap shut."  See how that works?  Shame and embarrassment is ten times stronger in the eye of the Korean beholder - or so Koreans think.  We are a judgmental people, but I believe that we are our own worst critics.

So this family...it seems like the Korean community has rallied (a widdle bit) after this awful event.  It's a valid concern that during these economic times, members of cultural communities that often embrace privacy, honor, and accomplishments, may fall particularly hard, victim to their own harsh standards.

I hope the new year brings some peace and relief to all of us and less news reports like this one.

The Lede: CRAZY Isn't Going Out Of Style Any Time Soon

BBC reported that a South Korean man crossed the DMZ and defected to North Korea. It took a few seconds, but I started to breathe again and drafted this letter to Mr. Kang.

Dear Sir:

I understand you moved up north recently. Like, from South Korea to North Korea and not the other way around as is so much more common these days. To each his own, right?!

Was life so difficult as a pig farmer that you needed a fresh new start in a new country? Why not choose a country that could offer more opportunity? We know so little about North Korea except the horror stories from its defectors. What an unusual choice you made...

Word on the street is that most of the population rely on corn gruel because rice is too expensive and - there isn't enough for everyone. You may have missed that memo. I guess you're hoping that you'll be one of the folks that can get food at all. I certainly hope so, too.

There's also a considerable number of personal accounts from folks who were thrown into their labor camps and gulags. One misstep can land you in one of these facilities for who knows how long. Were you aware of this when you chose the North?

I have a hunch that this move is permanent. I just don't see you being able to convince the good folks in the North to allow a return to the South on a whim. And if this is the case - that you want to return but can't - I hope this move was for a greater reason than what the rest of the world knows about you. Perhaps you have a relative whom you miss dearly and must reunite with in the North. I can understand that.

Whatever your motivation for making this move, I hope you find peace.

Julia

Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelley's Adorable Korean Daughter

Images from here

I confess: I have a gossip blog in my Google Reader feed. It's swell. Sometimes I cluck my tongue in disgust and sometimes, like today, I squeal with joy. The media recently confirmed rumors that Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelley had adopted a little girl from Korea. And then these pictures popped up today.

Hellooooooooooo, cuteness! Just look at the chubby rolls on this one! Man, someone plumped her up real good. I love it.

I hope Naleigh's new parents make for great parents and give her a great life. I wonder how they'll handle her Koreanness. Will they introduce her to Korean food at a young age? I remember feeding my toddler brother kimchi rinsed in water. Will they do that? Will they give her a proper dol (first year birthday) celebration replete with a hanbok and tall arrangements of colorful candies? And dduk? Or will they follow her lead and wait until she expresses interest first?