“Oppa” is the Korean term that I often use for Hugh as he is an older male. It can also be used in the context of our relationship as a pet name. Unfortunately in a crowd there are many “oppas” so Hugh often assumes it’s a woman calling out to another guy, and not to him. If I call out “Oppa” to him it doesn’t really get his attention. Calling out “Hugh” also doesn’t get his attention if we are in a loud place. Lately I’ve been calling out “oi” in a very Australian accent and have found it works so much better! Especially when I stress my Australian accent as he knows it’s immediately me. The word “oi” is used quite a bit in Australian English.

Being in an intercultural marriage means that you are comfortable talking about race and cultural differences and cultural identity. But some days you just have conversations like this… haha.

He says “ew” but I’m pretty sure he has eaten this before and liked it.

Because of the romance/couple culture in Korea it’s quite normal to see guys holding their girlfriend’s handbags or doing things like tying their shoelaces for them. It’s nice to change things up though! I also sometimes grab his wrist the same way guys do in Korean dramas.

Australian native cockroaches are the nice ones! They don’t come into houses. It’s the European and American ones that are the dirty evil ones. Unfortunately those pest ones are in Australia and love our warm climate. You’ll sometimes find cockroaches even in super clean homes in Australia unfortunately.

My husband hates cockroaches even more than the average person. I know a few other Australian women married to Korean men as well and their husbands are terrified too. We always have to be the ones getting rid of insects and bugs. Maybe it’s because we grew up in Australia and are just used to creepy-crawlies… but doesn’t matter how macho our husbands think they are… we are the ones dealings with this stuff.

The other night my husband and a friend were watching cockroach videos on YouTube. I guess they like to terrify themselves. I managed to sneakily film some of their very extreme reactions and maybe we’ll show you sometime. Actually that’s why I wanted to see if we could see a native cockroach up close, because they can be quite big, and I think Mr Gwon’s reaction might be YouTube worthy haha.

http://youtu.be/JwChtcSCmRo

If you want something we said in the video explained in more detail, just ask! We had to cut a lot out otherwise the video would have been over an hour long.

I know he likes to be thanked properly for nice things he does so I’m always concious of thanking him…. but perhaps now I overdo it a bit. Especially when he is having a nap before going to work.

Okay this is true. My hair gets really tangled and knotty easily, so brushing my hair can be painful sometimes. He just laughs at me though. You don’t understand you Koreans, with your thick, shiny and silky hair! You don’t understand *sobs*.

We didn’t grow up watching the same TV shows, so there are some I have an emotional connection to that mean nothing to him.

Haha I just turned the TV on and Happy Days is on. I was like “Yeah Happy Days!” My husband didn’t even turn around from his laptop and just said “Psh”.