Family

Things flatten out

Although yesterday was the March 1st Korean Independence Day holiday and my office was closed, I went in to catch up on some work.  I left pretty late, after making significant headway on two of ongoing projects.  I left work at about 10:30 p.m., got into my car, turned on the engine, and started to drive away.  Then I heard a thwump, thwump, thwump.  Oh no!  My car had a flat tire.  How did that happen?  I put my car in park and got out to survey the damage.  I looked and saw a huge nail protruding the back right tire.  That’s great, I thought sarcastically.  I’d been working all day, on a holiday no less, and now this.  It’s been about 10 years since the last time I’d changed a tire, so I pulled out the car manual, found the instructions for changing a flat tire, and went to work.  Fortunately, a colleague who was leaving saw me and offered to assist.  I was really grateful for his help.  Last night was a balmy 20 degrees Fahrenheit in Seoul with a light dusting of snow–not much fun when you’re changing a tire.  The snow and wet pavement made the work messy.  At least the flat tire happened on my day off, when I came to work in jeans rather than in a business suit.  We wrestled with the tire and eventually changed it.  I made it home at about midnight.  The night was short, and I slept fitfully.  The next day, after a 7:30 a.m. business breakfast in honor of the Korean Minister of Commerce, Industry, and Energy, I drove my car to the dealer to patch the tire and change the oil.
 
Although the flat tire was a major irritant, I’m thankful it did not happen under even more adverse conditions.  It could have happened on a mountain pass or in the middle of nowhere.  It could have happened right as I was heading to work or for the breakfast.  Still, I wasn’t adequately prepared for this to happen.  Having lived in Korea for a year, I’ve been lulled into a false sense of confidence that everything will be OK (everything did turn out fine, after all).  I could have called my insurance company for roadside assistance, but I didn’t have their phone number handy.  My cell phone went dead because the battery was low.  My colleague mentioned that I could have used an aerosol patch kit to temporarily patch the tire and inflate it, enabling me to drive it to the repair shop.  Nope, I didn’t have that either.  Instead, I had to do it the old fashioned way and use the spare.  Thank goodness the spare tire and jack were readily available.
 
This brings me to my helpful hints for the day–check your tire pressure frequently, and make sure you know what to do if you get a flat tire.  You never know when or where it will happen, and the odds are that sooner or later you’ll have to deal with one too.
 
Blog Notes:  LarcenIII and Chuck from Ohio, thanks for words of the encouragement and sage advice.  Sometimes the creative well runs dry.  When there isn’t enough time in a day, blog writing sometimes become yet another task on the to-do list.  Fortunately, things seem to be "flattening out," meaning it doesn’t feel like such an uphill slog to finish all these nefarious action items.  After working a full day yesterday, I feel better now and am ready to tackle some more creative writing.  I’d rather blog than write reports and nonsuch anyday.
 
I’m sorry to hear that Comedian Don Knotts, best known as bumbling Deputy "Barney Fife" on "The Andy Griffiths Show," passed away this week at age 81.  He lived a long, fulfilling life, and he will forever live on in TVLand re-runs.  It think that’s one of the greatest gifts of television and film–beloved moments and personalities from the past are captured and preserved for endearing fans and for future generations.

Leaning to speak English

No, there isn’t a typo in the subject of this entry.  My son has a strong tendency to speak English at home.  Why?  He has one parent who speaks English with him (me) and one parent who speaks Mandarin Chinese with him (his mother).  Why is he already becoming monolingual?  He understands Chinese well enough when it is spoken to him, and he peppers his speech with Chinese vocabulary.  But nowadays his dominant language is English.  If he is already leaning to speak English at this young age, then only living for an extended period in China will help him become truly bilingual.  I’ve met many children who learn two languages at a young age and then embrace one of them by five or six years old, reluctantly humoring their parents when they insist that the child maintain both languages.  Why is this?
 
Well, for one, my son’s early influences use almost exclusively English.  His nanny speaks English with him.  She speaks Tagalog, a Filipino language, but she doesn’t speak it with my son.  She cannot speak Chinese.  My son’s videos are almost exclusively in English.  His books are primarily in English too.  When I mentioned to my wife that we should buy him some Chinese videos, she said that she couldn’t find any good Chinese children’s videos.  I’m not so sure that’s true, and when we’re in Shanghai, one of my goals is to find some Chinese language materials for my son.  I’m sure we can find him some good Chinese books, although Chinese characters are a huge impediment to Chinese-language fluency.  His mom does her best to speak Chinese with him, but she occasionally lapses into English became it is the lingua franca of our household.  She claims that it is because I speak exclusively with our son and might not understand when we’re together.  Nah, that doesn’t matter.  I retort that she should strengthen her resolve to speak only Chinese with him.
 
We hope that two weeks in China with family will help our son improve his Chinese.  If we end up going to Shenyang, China for two years starting in 2007, then his Chinese will surely improve.  If we end up going to a Spanish-speaking country, then we will have an even worse dilemma–our son will have to grasp three languages.  If the latter is true, then he may end up just like me–a novice in many languages, master of one.
 
Blog Notes:  All, thank you for the great comments over the past few weeks since this blog was first featured on "The Best of MSN Spaces."  I don’t want to jinx anything by mentioning this, but I do feel very fortunate to have been featured longer than just about any other blogger MSN Spaces has featured since it started "Best of…" earlier last year.  I don’t really know why I’ve been featured for two weeks and running.  My wife, in her typically understated way, suggested that perhaps the MSN Spaces editorial staff is on vacation and forgot to feature a new blog.  After more than two weeks, I’m not so sure that’s the case.  I prefer to think that the editorial staff at MSN secretly likes to read World Adventurers.  Maybe they’re grateful I pursuaded Microsoft not to invest in AOL (kidding).  Who knows.  As soon as things slow down, I’ll contact someone I know at MSN and see if I can meet the crew at MSN Spaces when I get back to Seattle in May and buy them lunch.  I know at some point this long run will come to an end.  Before it does, I want to say thanks to all of you who visited this site, posted great (mostly positive) comments, and signed my guest map.  Although I don’t have enough time right now to respond to all of your comments and feedback, I have been reading them with relish.  I’ve been so busy lately that I’ve thought seriously about taking a break from writing, but I feel obligated to keep posting so you have something fresh to read everyday.  Right now I consider it a labor of love.
 
Thanks to everyone who posted comments about the Yoduk Story.  Li Min, special thanks to you for posting details about upcoming performances.  Now that the web site is back up and running, I plan to contribute.  I hope you will too.  If you live in Korea, please consider supporting this musical by attending a performance.  I suspect that the site was down temporarily and that the producer moved it to a new server.

Update from the home front

I haven’t posted an update on our goings-on at home lately.  Life here could best be described as "too busy."  I have a gazillion things to do at work.  It seems as if each action item I complete is supplanted by yet another task.  I really would like to be less busy than I am now.  Granted, I’m not as busy as some people.  On days when work seems overwhelming, I’m reminded of colleagues who left non-stop, fast-paced, highly stressful jobs in Manhattan and the Silicon Valley, and I’m glad I chose this career.  I do feel the constant pressure to perform.  Tomorrow I finish the training course I’ve been teaching since last November.  My students will take their final exam.  We’ll find out how whether they’ll pass the exam.  I hope so, because it’s vital to their careers.  Last Friday I delivered a speech on the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate to a group of 45 Korean students.  The audience was receptive to my speech.  At the same time, I have to begin working on three technical projects–our monthly performance analysis, an in-depth, statistically-significant survey of our customer base, and our information systems portfolio.  Each one in and of itself will be a lot of work, and I’m doing my best to finish tasks that are nearing completion.  The bottom line is that I have too much going on at work, and I need a really big shovel to unbury myself.
 
My wife is doing a fabulous job as a manager at the accounting firm she joined last October.  She has many Korean and international clients.  She is also a special matter expert on U.S. accounting practices and English-language financial statements.  She recently started offering free English lessons to her Korean colleagues in order to help them improve their English.  Although she does not work as many hours as her colleagues (thankfully!), I think she uses her time wisely.  Because Korean accounting must be translated into English, she can quickly and efficiently translate it into English .  Her job has also given her an intriguing window into Korean culture.  She is one of the few foreigners in her firm, and she has developed excellent rapport with her Korean colleagues.  Her colleagues have embraced her and have also learned more about other cultures through their interactions with her.  She told me that she is glad she made the decision to go back to work.  Our nanny takes care of our son during the day, and he has gotten used to both of us working full time.  In fact, it has helped my son grow a bit more independent and more reliant on me.
 
My son keeps busy playing all day.  Each week he attends a gym class and a music class and goes to the library for storytime.  "Thomas the Tank Engine" is still his favorite children’s series, although he also likes "Bob the Builder" and "The Wiggles."  We love to watch him act out storylines he’s developed in his mind, using his trains and other toys to animate the story.  He loves play dough and sticker books, too.  Lately he hasn’t done much coloring in his myriad coloring books, and he rarely does jigsaw puzzles nowadays–apparently doing puzzles was just a short-lived phase.  My son seems to have a penchant for breaking things, and he always relies on daddy to "fix" it.  Super glue is daddy’s favorite repairing compound. 
 
Although we’re usually busy, we try to spend time together as a family.  Family time means staying home, going out and about town, or even getting together with other families.  When we’re not working, my wife and I sometimes go out on dates, like we did on Valentine’s Day.  Sometimes I go out in the evening for meetings, networking events, or an occasional night out, as does my wife.