Pain

As usual we went to my great-uncle’s place for Thanksgiving dinner, as we have since I was a little kid. I’ve mentioned this before but I’ll say it again. My family’s kind of unusual because on both my mom and dad’s side, we have relatives a generation above my parents that married Caucasians. So there’s always been a lot of that influence in my family. Most notably and unusually for a Korean family, I think, we’ve always had a traditional American Thanksgiving for as long as I can remember. No rice involved. I’ve always liked that.

The most memorable Thanksgiving there for me was the first one I went to after my parents moved to Texas. All my life I had sat in the other room, at the kids table, surreptitiously feeding Fuzzy, their dog, who had the most pathetic, mournful begging face I’d ever seen on a dog. All of a sudden I was at the adults table, and it was completely jarring. Totally emotionally disorienting, and I don’t quite know how to explain it. I’m not even joking, I think that was one of the fundamental events that made me realize I’m not a kid anymore and I have to grow up. I’m fairly certain I started shaving more regularly after that night. One of those paradigm shifting nights.

Anyway, my great-uncle frequently talks about the past. The stories are crazy, involving war, death, interrogation, Communists. I love hearing about it because my family in general doesn’t talk about Korea all that much; there’s too much pain there. I find that aspect of our parents generation fascinating. Every single one has stories of pain and suffering, without exception. And because of that, I think they’ll have a perspective I’ll never be able to understand. Like, it fascinates me how, when my parents generation goes on missions to poorer places, it reminds them of their childhood. That’s something our generation can’t relate to at all.

Anyway. So Jieun’s parents came up to visit for a day, and we went to Za Zang on Stevens Creek, the place that bizarrely serves Jja Jjang Myun and pizza, and of course, for the love of the game, we got both. This place advertises as serving, I don’t quite know how to translate it, but old-time Jja Jjang Myun. Jieun’s dad says it reminds his generation of their youth. And since we had just talked about the pain his generation went through in Korea, Jieun decided to ask about it, for some reason in English, which led to this exchange:

Jieun: Dad, do you have pain?

Jieun’s Dad: No. I have gout.

That killed me.