Thursday,
January 31, 2002.
Listening to: G.O.D.'s latest album (G.O.D. as in Groove Over Dose).
Amy's due date: May 14
Makes me laugh: Andrew
My artwork is probably the tamest of
all of them on this
site.
LONG LOST COUSIN
Several days ago, on the phone with my mom.
MOM: "My cousin is visiting this week, son."
ME: "Cousin? I didn't know you had any cousins over here."
MOM: "He just moved to the U.S. from Brazil recently. He's bringing his children to take classes in Michigan. They're going to be staying with me."
ME: "Wha-- What? How old are they?"
MOM: "Twenty and twenty-three. Can they stay with you a couple days until I get the house cleaned up?"
ME: "Um, sure, I guess. ... Are they boys or girls?"
MOM: "Boys."
ME: (big sigh of relief ... I'm not sure why though)
LONG ROUND AND YOUNG
The past couple nights have been kind of exciting. We've already been to dinner with them twice as of tonight.
My mom's cousin is in his fifties, like my mom. They haven't seen each other in over thirty years.
Apparently he's a Korean pastor in Brazil. His two boys are from Brazil too. They are Korean-Brazilians. Can you believe it? Apparently they speak perfect Portuguese (thanks Chris), decent Korean, and a little English.
The pastor is kind of short with a square head. He always has a warm smile behind his sophisticated glasses. He dresses impressively, like a humble bird showing off its noble plumes.
The boys are both good looking. The older one (23) is taller and handsome with large eyes like a Korean movie star. Thin, lithe, and easily bored; he seems more sports-oriented. For now I'll call him Long Round.
The younger one (20) looks exactly like this quiet Korean kid I used to see at my bus stop back in high school (whom I never talked to). Amy says he has more common Korean features. Narrow eyes, broader cheeks. Already I can tell he's the quiet one. His eyes lit up when I mentioned my Playstation 2 though ... and Xbox ... and my Dreamcast too. I'll call him Young.
Last night we met them at a Korean restaurant. The Pastor said he recognized me from my pictures immediately.
After some initial awkwardness, I tried to bond with them the same way I bonded with Amy's teen cousin in Korea last year.
"Um ... Do you like FinKL?" I asked in Korean.
Blank stares, from everyone.
"Hmm... Baek Ji Young? Park Ji Yoon?"
Silence. (What? Am I talking a foreign language here or something?)
Amy then translated my Korean into Korean they could understand. They had heard of them, but didn't seem too enthusiastic. Damn. Two young Korean guys new to the U.S. and neither listens to FinKL. What are the odds?
Ah, they were from Brazil, I remembered. I have no idea what that means.
My mom and the pastor talked for a bit in Korean. My mom frequently including me in the conversation, in Korean.
"You know I have no idea what you're saying to me, right?" I asked her in English.
As Americanized my mom is, when Korean people are around, she seems to forget what language she's talking in.
For most of dinner, I felt a little intimidated. I really wanted to become fast friends with these guys. I mean this whole situation was perfect. We could hang out, see movies, play video games, and teach each other Korean and English. But it didn't seem to turn out that way during dinner. They didn't really want to talk at all it seemed.
I kind of wished I was back in Korea with Amy's female cousin leading us around. She thought I looked like Keanu Reeves and had an obvious crush on me. Everytime I said anything, she would cover her mouth (a native Korean thing), giggle and say, "Oh! Your pronunciation is really good!!"
Whether I was speaking Korean OR English.
It's so much easier talking to someone when they have a massive crush on you.
I think the Korean brothers mistook my rare silliness for plain retardedness.
I hate it when that happens.
WAITING FOR G.O.D. ... Oh.
After dinner, we took them to the Korean store. I told them I was looking for a new K-pop album by a popular boy-group called G.O.D. (stands for Groove Over Dose ... seriously).
The pastor looked at the CD cover and laughed.
I didn't get the joke at first, and I was pretty sure he wasn't too hip with the latest K-pop groups.
But then I got it. He's a pastor. And I was looking for G.O.D.
ADULT PLAYGROUND
We showed them our place. The younger one, Young, was too shy to accept a choco-pie. While Long Round was eating one before I knew it.
I happily showed them my room. Young was quite tickled by the fact that I had a Playstation2, an X-box, and a Dreamcast surrounding the TV. Long Round asked if I had any football games. The closest I had to a sports game was my boxing game, so Long Round chose that and they went at it.
Then their father, the pastor, walked in.
He smiled and looked around at the video games, the drawing board, the comic books, the k-pop posters, the movies and music video discs, and summed up the madness perfectly,
"It's like a playground in here."
"Yeah, haha!" I said.
It was even better before I deleted my 2 MB file of hardcore Eros movies yesterday. I still don't know why I did that. I guess I didn't want to scare them. Damn. And my Baek Ji Young sex scandal video was in there too. *Waps forehead*
[ INSERT PSYCHO MUSIC AT THE END OF THIS SECTION ]
While I was at work today, mom and Young had stayed at our house waiting for the Comcast guy to change my cable modem (I'm on dial-up for now) ... who never showed because of the snow.
Young said he watched my FinKL music DVDs and played more video games. Long Round stayed at the motel.
We ate dinner tonight at Mountain Jack's.
When Young said he watched my FinKL disc, Amy brought up the fact that I've bought all of their stuff, watch their videos all the time, and know all of their names, voices, AND birthdates. They seemed a little perplexed at this odd bit of information. I just shook my head because Amy was blatantly exaggerating.
I only know their birth years, not the actual days.
TALKING SHOP
During dinner, mom cheerfully asked me how work was today (probably to remind her cousin that her son is a doctor of course).
MOM: "How was your day today son?"
ME (unenthused): "Same."
MOM: "Was it hard?"
ME: "It always is. The same."
MOM: "Is staph pneumonia bad?"
ME: "It's a bacterial pneumonia, depends. Why?"
MOM: "My neighbor had it. Her husband said he thought she was going to die. She's on home oxygen now."
I remember that neighbor. A chimney of a German woman. My dad used to talk to her a lot. So much so that her husband would get mad at her and him both.
She had emphysema along with lung cancer last year. Had a lobe removed. And a stroke. Last I heard, she was still smoking. With home oxygen. Hopeless, but not atypical.
MOM: "He said the steroids she was on made her sugar go over 800."
That's pretty high, even for steroids. Sounds like she may have some diabetes and/or pancreatic insufficiency if not worse. Multiple pneumonias. End-stage pulmonary cripple.
I reflexively give an estimate.
ME: "One or two years."
MOM: "What?"
ME (barely audible): "That's how long she has."
EVERYONE: " ...."
ME (enthusiastic again): "So, do you guys play Street Fighter ??"
In both cases, I'm being optimistic.
CONTACT
Young chimes up for the first time, "Street Fighter? Yeah. And King of Fighters."
"I have both of those for my Dreamcast! Cool!" I say.
Tomorrow they're spending the night.
Let the world's first Korean-Brazilian versus Half-Korean-American video game tournament begin.
Now, that's what I'm talking about.
