My Korean Husband

Intercultural Life

BBQ Restaurant

BBQ Restaurants

Living in Seoul we are surrounded by great BBQ Restaurants but as a family we don’t get to go out to them that often. It is usually a special occasion. So, Jisoo does get very excited when she sees the BBQ meat as she loves it. Already as a two-year-old she can tell the difference between cheap meat and good quality meat and can be fussy about it. Only the best meat for her apparently!

When Hugh was young and growing up in the countryside of rural South Korea, meat was still something of a luxury so he didn’t get to eat it every day. He remembers getting upset at his parents and grandparents when there was no meat in a meal. Meat was absolutely his favourite food. Yul will eat meat but doesn’t love it like that. In the comic (and in real life) he was only eating rice and the egg dish. I am also not a big meat eater and just like Korean BBQ occasionally.

I spent most of the meal having to frantically cut up the meat and cool it down for Jisoo, who spent the whole time yelling for more meat. We tend to use the Korean word “gogi” for meat at home, even when speaking in English, so Jisoo was mixing languages here too. This is her copying our examples, rather than her not knowing the difference.

These days Hugh has to be careful about eating too much meat because of health reasons, so it is still something for business meetings and special occasions. His former child self would be disappointed!

Comics are back! How things change…

Hello! Comics are back! They will be regularly appearing here and on social media. The internet has changed so much since I first started this blog. It used to be that people would visit individual websites every day and now we all just scrolling through social media. So, I don’t know who is actually here reading this anymore. If you are, hello!

This is where I try to give more background to comics and videos. Also, videos will be coming back soon as well. Hugh and I are still in Seoul, and we have two children. A six-year-old and a two-year-old. Things have changed a lot!

We still live in the same area as the YG Entertainment building and sometimes I have to walk past it. I remember pre-children when I would walk past and would hope to see someone famous, and occasionally would. These days I am usually hurrying past in full mum mode and not wanting any Kpop star to see me like that! It has happened though. I saw and talked to an iKON member while a mess and picking up the kids from daycare. But the other thing about becoming a parent is you care a lot less about how you look. Age comes for us all! Both Hugh and I are in our 40’s now.

The past few years have been hard for a lot of reasons. It has taken me a long time to get into the mindset of even wanting to make anything. It’s been hard since my best friend Sara died. I talked about that on our YouTube channel. Possibly in the future I will talk more about grief in a video, but for now I am just finally glad to be in a head space where I can start to make some comics again.

Taking the kids on a Bluey Australia Trip

In April, I headed back to Australia with the kids. Hugh couldn’t come because of work, but I was determined to give the kids a good holiday. While living in Korea, the kids tv show Bluey has been a vital connection to Australian English and culture for us.

For those that don’t know, Bluey is a wonderful Australian cartoon that has gained popularity worldwide. It’s heartfelt, funny and quintessentially Australian. Especially during the pandemic it was wonderful for Yul to watch something Australian and hear real Australian kids’ voices. It helped his English a lot.

Even though the characters are dogs in Bluey, the world feels very real and very Australian. There were elements of the show that I wanted my kids to experience. So while filming a bit of what we did in Australia, I tried to match up some experiences to actual Bluey episodes.

Bilingual Update! How a four-year-old switches between Korean and English

We filmed a video to give an update on our son Yul’s language process.

Hello everyone! Finally a bilingual update video! We tried to get it as natural as possible but of course can never be completely like a normal conversation at home.

Our bilingual method:

We do “one parent, one language” method but with flexibility.

Nichola speaks English with Yul and Hugh speaks Korean with him. Nichola and Hugh speak mostly English to each other, so Yul constantly hears English conversation.

Within the community Yul is hearing mostly Korean. He goes to a completely Korean daycare/preschool but they also have some English classes a few times a week. Multicultural families are offered free Korean classes for kids in Korea, so he also attends Korean class twice a week. Even though he is a native Korean speaker, he goes to them to make sure there are no gaps in his learning. The teacher also caters to what he needs or what we ask. For example, there is a whole element of culture and manners in Korea that children are taught but what Nichola, as a foreigner, might not be able to instinctively instill in him. So the teacher is making sure they know manners and bowing etc. He really enjoys his Korean classes because the teacher makes them very fun.

Nichola will sometimes use Korean with Yul in public, as a way of showing others that he can speak Korean, and to not just use English with him. It’s a way of signalling that although Yul’s mother is obviously a foreigner, that he is a Korean child, and to treat him as one.

Hugh does the opposite sometimes to show that Yul can speak English too.

Nichola can participate in basic conversations in Korean and can understand the general gist of Korean but has to answer in English at home usually. This is for Yul’s benefit and because the focus on English means she doesn’t have opportunity to develop speaking skills at a higher level yet.

We are working on Yul changing using his own name to “I” at the moment in English. Nichola often corrects him gently, but didn’t during this video. While it’s something that is normal around this age, it’s also something to get kids to adjust to.

At the moment Yul is still working out the difference between English words in English and English loan words in Korean. Sometimes he will say a Korean pronunciation of an English word that is used in Korean, but he wasn’t sure of the English pronunciation in English. That’s something that gets corrected gently as he still needs to know how to pronounce loan words how Koreans do, rather than never saying them at all. He can have a few issues with pronouncing some English sounds that aren’t in Korean, and when quizzed he can say them, but he is still working out how they are used in English and sometimes defaults to the Korean adjustment of that sound. We are keeping an eye on his speech and will make sure he has some evaluations as he gets older.

Yul has not been back to Australia since 2020, so it’s difficult to check his English compared to other Australian kids. We will be visiting next year and will have a better idea of his progress.

(We show videos to Yul before we post them to make sure he is okay with them. He found this one hilarious. He also banged the keyboard and deleted the whole video accidentally! Luckily I managed to undo and get it back and export it, but there may be a random blue square that appears at some point, which I think was because of that haha.)

Korean 100 Days and Updates

It’s been a while since we have updated. This has mostly been because having a new baby is so hectic, plus Hugh has been busy with work stuff. We originally had vlogged our baby girl’s 100 Days as a separate video, but as time went by, I realised we needed to update everyone about the other things that have been happening. For us, it feels like we are just trying to get past this early stage of having kids before we can become more consistent. I always have comic ideas but need a new drawing tablet before I can continue. Hugh’s work deals a lot with the behind the scenes of YouTube and social media but ironically it means he has less time for our own channel.

The 100 Days celebration used to be bigger in Korea, with a ritual aspect to it, but these days it may only be a small family gathering and a photo shoot. We only did the photo shoot and even that was stressful. But I do like acknowledging 100 days and feeling a bit more freedom to go outside with my baby. Traditionally, the mother and baby would not leave the home for 100 days and even today in Korea people still somewhat abide by that rule. If I went out with her before 100 days the first questions the old women in the neighbourhood would ask is, “Has she had her 100 days yet?!”

Rather than having to buy the props for a photo shoot, there are companies that hire packages out. There are a range to choose from, depending if you want it to look very traditional, or have more of a modern look. There are also many different hanboks (the traditional clothes) to choose from. As we show in the video, it is delivered to you and has instructions on how to set it up.

We also give a glimpse into seeing my family again as they were finally able to come to Korea. My brother was able to move to Korea last year (he was living in Japan), but my parents had to wait until Australia opened up again and Korea allowed Australian tourists. It was been wonderful to see some of my family again and to see Yul reconnect with them, as the last time he has seen them he was only two years old.

Our New Baby!

We are very happy to welcome our baby girl to our family. In this video we show our time in the hospital and Yul meeting his little sister for the first time. I also show you all the food I ate in hospital as honestly, Korean hospital food is very good! Watch the video to find out her Korean and English name.

It’s been a hectic few months of adjusting to a newborn again but slowly starting to get some sort of routine now. I’m aiming to get a few hours a week to work so please expect more videos soon. Hugh has switched up his work schedule and is keen to create more content again. Later in the year I’ll be starting some more comics again about being a bilingual and intercultural family. Stay tuned!

« Older posts

© 2024 My Korean Husband

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑