Hello all,

Those of you may have remembered my diaries from early about my Korean girlfriend.  For those if you who drink like fishes (Rodriguez Era?  What's that?  I just remember drinking all the tequila on Saturdays…) or weren't around back then, allow me to explain.

It's a nice peaceful evening at home.  I'm drinking a beer and doing laundry.  So I'm wearing some stained undershirt and whatever else happens to be clean (not much) when I hear a knock on my door.  I open the door to find three generations of Koreans standing there.  

These three generations of Koreans represent my girlfriend's (now wife's) younger sister through grandparents.  They're fairly confused as when she gave them her address she neglected to mention the whole live in white boyfriend thing.  

We'd assumed we were safe from surprise visits since her parents didn't really like America that much (they had visited Michigan in February once when it was something like -17 and expressed a desire never to come back, understandable).  So when we moved in we figured we were safe from visits.  Even more so the "Let's show up unannounced and surprise our daughter for her birthday" kind of visits.  

So I met my future in laws while wearing a torn up undershirt, holding a beer bottle, and trying to keep a pair of Alaskan malamutes from rushing out the door and slobbering all over them.  All while explaining to them that yes they did have the right address and their daughter does live here too.  My introduction to the extended family was when my wife's little sister took a photo of me on her camera photo in said condition and posted it on her social networking profile.  For bonus points of course my future spouse is at the office, so I'm flying solo.  

Back in the day I had some posts up about meeting the family, showing them around Ann Arbor and the like.  Sadly I got a little to free with the personal information and some of her students (who also read this blog) put 2 and 2 together and got her name.  So they're gone, however she no longer teaches so I figured I can end the saga for those who care.

All that said, lets do a story

The Genesis of our relationship and CRex being rather ungracious in victory:

So I met my future wife when she was my GSI (I'd play Hot for the Teacher, but Special K stole all my glam rock CDs, you'll hear it at the Air Force game though).  At the end of class I Facebook friended her and she accepted.  I knew she'd all be Ann Arbor for the summer, but that was all I had to go on.  I Facebook stalked the hell out of her profile of course, but all her posts were in Korea and back then I had to rely on Google translate.  I was wrestling though with when I should ask her out.  Right after class would be creepy, but if I waited too long…

My best in was once before class I'd be talking about car racing with a fellow student, she overheard, and she expressed interest in American cars and how fast they are.  So the first week of June the car club I was in was renting an oval track and letting members run laps.  With nothing better I sent her an email asking if she wanted to come and see some American cars.  

For two days she didn't reply and I alternated between compulsively hitting the "refresh email" button my phone and straight tequila.  After work it was all  "tap, tap, Oh god I messed this up, I should have asked her to the art museum, aaaaaaahhhh, shot, shot, tap, tap…".  Then the "Sure, I'd love to" email came.  I spent the rest of the week compulsively washing and detailing my GTO.  To the point of running a 100 feet of extension cord and a work light outside so I could wax my brake calipers at 1 AM.  Ah the things we do for love.  As a side note, only the painted outside of the calipers.  Don't wax the pad or the rotor, it's a bad idea.  

Then I walk out on Saturday morning to pick her up and find my neighbor's cat on my roof.  The only reason I didn't walk back inside, get my rifle, and send that cat to great litter box in the sky was because I didn't have time to clean both paw prints and blood off the car before I picked her up.  That was literally my thought process "I'm going to fucking kill you, no wait that would make a mess…".  No ethnical dilemma on animal cruelty or firing a weapon inside city limits.  Had I walked out twenty minutes early that thing would have eaten a 3 round burst from an AR-10.  For the record/animal rights, now that we're married I've let my grudge against the cat go.  Although I don't exactly rush to call the dogs off when they chase it.

I also spent the first half of the date trying to covertly sniff my hands and make sure they didn't smell like liquid wax.  

We hit the track and everything is great.  The only real downside to the day is my car is a manual and she can't drive a manual, so she was reduced to riding shotgun on the track.  Until my Uncle walked over, handed her the keys to his two month old Corvette (which was automatic, I have no idea why you buy an automatic Corvette, but I'm thankful he did) and tells her to take it for a spin.  

As my uncle said while she was doing laps "Look CRex I'm getting old and I might need a spare kidney or something soon.  You'll be my first call and after today you better say yes."  About three minutes after he said that she skids out and does a 180 on the track.  So I guess I do owe him an internal organ of his choice (and some new tires).  

I later found out she had been seeing a Korean guy for a few months before I asked her out.  She'd actually been trying to come up with a polite way to decline, when…

She goes out for drinks at Ashley's with a group and wears a nice new summer skirt she bought.  After they leave her boyfriend pulls her aside and chews her out for wearing such a short cut skirt and says he doesn't want his girlfriend looking like a sex worker.  They fight, she goes home, and decides to take me up on my offer.  

That same skirt was worn out when she came to the track.  I was smart enough to compliment her on how fashionable it was.  She officially dumped him about an hour after I dropped her off at her apartment.  He would attempt to win her back, but he'd done a good job of burning his bridges already.  

This also become relevant years later when I walk into the living room and say:

"Honey, how would you say prick in Korean?"  

"Why would you need to know that?"

"I'm arguing with this guy online and I want to say he's a prick" (yes that was the best cover story I could come up with on short notice)

"Oh here, just use this…"

So I walk back in the other room, grab a wedding invitation and in Korean write out "Thanks for being a prick", sign it, draw a hand extending its middle finger next to my name, toss in our engagement photo and mail it.  Closure bitches.  

He did not attend.  

Interracial Dating

Is not actually all that fun at times.  For example lets say your significant other was taught English by someone that neglected to cover indefinites or the differences between past perfective and past imperfective.  All kinds of openings for misunderstanding.  Somewhere in Korea is a white dude who taught at her school and I kind of want to beat him with a hockey stick while screaming "There is a difference between I could care less and I couldn't care less".  I'm weird like that.  

Our best conversation though was when we at a Korean restaurant.  

Her:  I'll ask the server for a knife and fork.

Me:  No I got this, I'm fine with chopsticks.

Her:  No, no, let me ask.

Me:  Seriously, it's fine.  I'm getting the hang of this.

Her: You're so bad that all the Asians in the restaurant are staring at you, please use a knife and fork.  It's so embarrassing to be seen with you.  

She doesn't really do indirect hints that often.  

The other weird thing East Asians do is clean each others ears.  I think its trendiest in Japan, but it isn't really uncommon anywhere in East Asia.  East Asians have really hard and flakey ear wax that you can scrap out, as opposed to the soft and gummy stuff most Caucasians have.  So you take something that is basically a smaller chopstick and scrap the ear wax out.  It's a bonding thing like giving each other a back massage.  Or in Japan (Japan being Japan of course) you go to a salon and lay your head in a lap of a high school aged girl and have her clean it out.  

I remain convinced this is a plot by Asian female kind.  What they do is wait until you're laying there on the couch.  You're helpless and they have a metal or wooden spike in your head, inches away from your brain.  Then suddenly they have an announcement to make or a favor to ask.  You damn well better agree if you love your ear drum at all.  

The whole ear wax thiong sets up the trip to Mongolia, which I was hoping to get done but this Christmas season has been extra busy.  So perhaps that will be pushed off until the offseason.  My apologies.  I normally try to stick around in these threads and answer questions, but I have a bunch of Xmas related stuff to do.  So feel free to post a question and then check back in a day or two after I've had time to run down the thread and add replies.