This semester I am having a fabulous time teaching an intermediate reading course at the University of Illinois's Intensive English Institute. While I have students from Peru, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and Japan, the majority of my students are Korean. Yesterday, in celebration of the lunar New Year, my Korean students fixed dinner for their teachers and classmates.
I watched in fascination as my students worked together to prepare duk guk, a traditional Korean rice cake soup. While I certainly enjoyed it, Talia LOVED it and spooned up every last drop. She finally got impatient and picked up the bowl to lap up the rest! I read online that Koreans prepare duk guk because it is so easy to eat and can be enjoyed by young and old. Talia's certainly proven that to be true.
It wasn't until after I finished my meal that my students explained duk guk's role in the New Year's celebration. Apparently everyone turns a year older after eating this traditional soup. So without realizing it, I became thirty in a moment!
In many ways, this was a pretty painless way to reach the black milestone of three decades. Instead of fretting for the next six months about my impending loss of youth in September, I got it over with early. No procrastination for me!
So here's the question...if I had eaten two bowls of soup, would I be thirty-one? And since Talia devoured three bowls, is she already four? I know kids grow up fast, but wowzers....time flies. :)
2 comments:
I had some friends from Korea and they count the year they were in their mothers womb as a year of age. So sometimes they are actually a year younger than they say they are.
So I guess that would put Talia ahead of Brooklyn age wise... Maybe Talia will start telling HER what to do now... :)
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