Impressions of seoul

I'm not really sure what I was expecting from my visit to Korea this time around. It had been so long since I had last been here and what remained of my memories there had faded to the back of my mind, much like my ability to speak the language. My parents had long ago moved away from the apartment of my youth and adolescence; what vestiges remained of the familiar was wiped away with that move.

My parents are still what they were before. My parents. Only their bed time earlier and their hair greyer, but they are still as I remember, only older. My father seems to smile more than I remember from my childhood. I suppose it is because he two sons have finally made their trip home and he doesn't have to sit watching his baseball games alone with my mother, who doesn't understand the difference between a strike and a ball. My mother is abuzz with newfound energy; she introduces us to everyone, every chance she gets. These are my two sons visiting from America, she announces in Korean almost everywhere we visit.

I didn't understand before, but I realize that my parents are lonely without us in the house. In this culture, where the birds don't leave the nest, they have an empty nest. My mother has no one to fuss about, to nag to, to watch over, to cook for. She loves to cook, but with only her and my father, they often times just eat out. But now she cooks, if only for two more weeks.

Seoul has changed so much. It was like a child when I left it; now it is a city struggling through the growth spurts of a rebelling adolescent. It has turned a dichotomy of the new and old; new, huge apartment towering over old fashioned houses, huge grocery stores neighboring mom and pop restaurants. Twenty four hour MacDonald's have arrived, along with overpriced coffee selection of Starbucks on every corner. Costco is a high priced bazaar of Western goods in a culture that craves anything that uniquely not Korean. The only thing that is seemingly not lost in the translation are the crowds at the aforementioned Costco.

This past weekend was the Korean Harvest Moon festival. It roughly translates to the equivalent of Thanksgiving in the United States. I saw my grandmother for the first time in nine years. She seemed so small and old; her hair was now a snowy white, instead the pepper grey that I once remember. I held her hand as we walked down the stairs. I don't remember if I had ever held her hand before in my nine years here. She gripped it tightly even as we rode the elevator. She told me as the elevator rose to live my life well because my mother (her daughter) worries about me much. I smiled and told her I would. I'm not sure if she heard me though, I spoke softly and her hearing is not what it used to be.

I'm not really sure what else to write at this point. I apologize for the randomness of the blog and I know it's not the normally funny observations I typically have. I just wanted to write something down for now. I'll write more later.