14 months

Ben is past the 14 month mark now. He still isn't walking, although he has taken a few steps. He took his first step at Charity's house two weekends ago. He spends a lot of time practicing going from squatting to standing - which usually involves a lot of clapping for himself when he finishes - but isn't interested in walking as a mode of transportation. I guess he's more concerned with developing his fine motor skills - he can use the roller ball on the mouse!

In the past week he has suddenly started communicating a lot more. He's been waving bye-bye for months, and has now started shaking his head when he doesn't want something. He has also picked up the sign for more and will sign it without being prompted. When he wants something he points to what he wants and says, "ga." We're not sure what word that is supposed to be, if any. He also uses ga and points when he wants to go somewhere, so he might be saying go... which in Korean happens to be "ga." I don't think we can claim he's speaking Korean though.

If you greet Benjamin in Korean and bow he will bow back. We assume he learned this at daycare. I was curious, however, so we performed an experiment and it turns out he'll also bow if you say, "smell my stinky feet" and bow at the same time. So, it's not really the words he's responding to. On the other hand, if Ben's in the bathtub I can say, "bye-bye water" and he'll try to pull the plug out.

He's obviously understanding more and trying to communicate with us. I guess it doesn't matter whether he's saying a real word in English or Korean, what matters is that we understand what he's (trying) to say.

I expect it won't be long before Colin and I will both be fluent in Benjamese.

Pohang Steelers

After all this time in Pohang we finally managed to take in a game of the local semi-pro soccer team, the Pohang Steelers. (Pohang is home to a huge steel mill which owns the team, hence the name "Steelers.") The tickets were only $5 and the home team won 4-1! It was almost as interesting watching the Korean soccer fans as it was watching the game.

All the guys with red shirts are marines. There wouldn't usually have been that many there, but it happened to be a holiday. In the bottom left corner are four guys with drums - they were some of the more benign fans. Others were throwing paper airplanes and long streamers of toilet paper onto the field!

'Tis the Season to Give Spam

In September or October Koreans celebrate Chusoek - it varies from year to year according to the lunar calendar. Chuseok is roughly equivalent to Thanksgiving. People usually travel to their hometowns, visit with their relatives, go to their ancestors' graves, and eat a lot of good food. They also buy gift packs from department stores and give them to people. The most common gifts are attractively packaged fruit, - think ten huge Asian pears for about $80 - boxes of soap, toothpaste and shampoo, and of course Spam! There are a suprising number of Spam varieties around and (apparently) people buy these and give them to other people they genuinely like. I couldn't resist taking this picture of Ben with the Spam gift bag in the background. These gift bags had 8 to 12 cans of Spam and were going for $25 to $35 depending on the size.

Ben's Fusion Birthday Part Two - Korean Style

In Korea, first birthdays are a big deal. We didn't go all out, but we did want to do something uniquely Korean since it will probably be Benjamin's only birthday in the country where he was born. So,he wore a hanbok (traditional Korean clothing) which was a gift from our friends Joanne and Tom.

Also, we set a table with fruit, rice, rice cakes and seaweed soup. Seaweed soup... it will forever be a reminder to me of giving birth. At the hospital they served it to me 4 times a day! The iron and iodine are important to mothers who have just delivered, and it is supposed to help milk production. You are supposed to eat seaweed soup every year on your birthday. (Also, my students tell me you shouldn't eat it before a test. The seaweed is so slippery the test answers might slip away from you. I guess you're in trouble if your birthday is the day before a big test!) Munju made the seaweed soup for Benjamin, who enjoyed it for the next week. Our table was not elaborate compared to how it is usually done, but as we were not entertaining hundreds of guests, it sufficed quite nicely!

The last thing we did was to put some items on the table and let Benjamin choose whatever he wanted. Traditionally the items were thread to signify long life, money (wealth) and a pencil or writing brush to signify that the child would be a good student. These days people are updating and getting more creative with the items - a credit card instead of money, or a golf ball - because of several famous Korean golfers!

When it came time for Benjamin to choose something he got a little stage fright. After a couple of false starts (we exclaimed too loudly and scared him into aborting his first grab) he finally picked up the pencil and paintbrush. We cheered and I played a little drum roll on the table. Benjamin enjoyed that so much he cried when I set the pencil and paintbrush down!



The tears were short-lived, though, and Ben spent the rest of the evening modelling new clothes and playing with Jeff's cell phone.