The last weekend in October was Halloween weekend. At Oberlin, the 30th of October is marked as a school festival day. I know it seems lame but I've watched Japanese television dramas before so I wasn't new to this "school festival" idea, I just didn't know that they legitimately had such an event let alone held one. I guess it's because western schools don't really entertain the idea of a school festival...at least the school I went to. I don't know if it was because of the kids (we really weren't the best behaved class), the amount of kids (our high school had over 3,000 kids), or money (the budget was always tight in my city so I'm going with the money). Since I had never been to a school festival before, I didn't think it would be horribly terrible of me to miss this one. I decided at the beginning of the month to book a flight out to Korea to visit my mom's side of the family. Originally I had wanted to leave on that friday and stay a week and return 2 sundays later. I was happy to hear that that friday was considered a school holiday because of the festival. I thought it was great because I could add in one more day that I could spend with the family. Unfortunately, my japanese sensei's informed me that our first major exam, the written portion of the japanese midterm, was on friday so I had to be in class or else I could not make up the midterm. So I booked a flight to leave on thursday evening and a return trip the following thursday afternoon.
I was so excited to see my mom's side of the family. The last time that I had seen them was about 8 years ago when I was 14. A lot had changed since then...three of my cousins had gotten married and my eldest cousin had a son and was pregnant with another child.
The trip over to Seoul/Incheon airport from Narita was quite short; only 3 hours away. I would have loved to live in Japan for an indefinite time...I would be a lot closer to my family.
When I arrived in Incheon it was around 11:30 pm. I was greeted by my mom's two younger sisters and her youngest sister's daughter and son-in-law. It was the first time I had ever met my cousin's husband whom, in korean, i had to call my "hyung-bu." My "hyung-bu sanban" or "brother in-law number 3" had studied some japanese in school. So we were able to converse a bit in japanese since my korean is very very poor. In case I hadn't mentioned, I'm full Korean but my mother stopped teaching me Korean in an effort for me to learn clear and unaccented English. I only understand some of it and I'm not very good a speaking it. So it becomes a bit difficult for me to communicate with my mom's side of the family. It can be frustrating especially since I believe that communication is the key when assessing a person's true qualities. Because I can't fully communicated with my cousins or my aunt's it feels as though as if there is a barrier between them and me and they won't ever get a chance to fully know the real me and likewise with them.
After speaking to my hyung-bu sanban in japanese I found out that he worked at Samsung. Not just any Samsung, but THE Samsung. The home base Samsung that is located in Asan. Asan is a small but up and coming city located in the country about 2 and half hours from Incheon. It is still very young and, therefore, still being developed but the area that my cousin lived in with her husband seemed pretty nice. They lived in a very nice apartment in the more urbanized area of Asan. My hyung-bu sanban was explaining how a lot of the workers from Samsung lived in the city and was, undoubtedly, contributing to the development of the city.
When I arrived at the apartment, I was happy to be reaquainted with my other cousin, one of the daughters from the second to youngest sister, and her husband my hyung-bu niban. I named them according to age. Since he was second eldest he got the title of brother-in-law number 2. It turns out that he and I would get a long very well during my stay. His english was a bit better than everyone else's so he was able to converse with me a lot easier than my other family members. He seemed generally curious about everything, how my life was in japan, how school was back home in the states, and most of importantly politics. During this time, the presidential election was just days away...I would actually find out the results while I was staying with my family in Korea. I was all gung ho about the election and it didn't take long for my family to know my politically affiliation with Obama, my hatred for Bush, and the horror that would ensue if McCain took office. I even told them if McCain became the next president I would just hide out in my neighbor's room in Japan and not return to America.
It was interesting to note the reaction from my family. They were one of many opinions from foreigners about the American election. It's easy to forget that even though we live in a country where we are allowed to choose our president and should (for the most part) really care about American politics, it's often over looked that our decisions affect everyone else around the world. It's hard to imagine living in another country other than America and be literally glued to American politics because their decision, the country's decision, could affect the welfare of the country that I live in and its people. The general consensus I received while in Japan was that most of the college students and some professors considerably favored Obama. Some of it was his ties to Japan, according to Robert Orr he visited the Daibutsu in Hase, Kamakura when he was a young boy, but, mostly, it's the fact that Obama excudes an image as a peace keeper. I'm pretty sure that by now they've labeled Bush as nothing but a warmonger, but it was interesting to see that the japanese people were all about peace given their colorful military history. This ideal was shared by my hyung-bu niban in korea. He sided with Obama because he believed that he would bring an end to the war in Iraq and try to establish peace as best as he could. It reminded me of a question posed by a japanese student in the seminar with Robert Orr earlier in the month. The japanese student asked if Obama was for peace and if he was interested in creating a council of peace. My blatant westerner reaction was 'what kind of dream world do you live in.' Call it pessisism I call it realism. I don't think peace is very very high on Obama's agenda once he becomes president. There's a whole shit load of other troubles that was made by the pervious admin that he first has to deal with. I don't see all that mess being resolved within his first term so good luck to that. That question coupled with my cousin's response got me thinking. My first reaction was that it was too idealistic that it wasn't possible because peace doesn't really ever exisit fully in the world. We are all humans we are all men. All men thirst for power and thrive in competition we are never ever going to be in full peace. Then I thought, well is it my pessimistic thinking that influenced my opinions about peace? Or is this strictly a westerner attitude? Am I influenced by the politics, power, and independence of the west? Are my cousin's and the japanese students quest for peace a result of cultural differences? These questions I'm still pondering even now.
Since I hadn't seen my family in almost 8 years I was surprised to find that all of my cousins looked the same from when I remembered them. I was able to meet my nephew for the first time. He was a bit shy at first but he eventually warmed up to me. My family took me everywhere that they could in the short time that I was there. They took me to an amusement park, parks along the water, and out to some really good restuarants. It was awfully sad when I had to go. I'm not sure when I'd be able to go back. But the time I spent with them was time definitely not wasted!
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