22. American Family

An American office came to visit us. Father tried to speak to him in English and he did not go far with him. So, I got to talk to him.

 

He was the second in command of US missile company in Sam Song Ni. His wife and three children were coming to live with him in few days. He was looking for a place to live and saw our house which was the cleanest in the neighborhood.

 

The big house we used to live became the restaurant and father built a separate house with three bedrooms and a bathroom. Father agreed to rent one of these rooms to him.

 

The officer was ‘Rex,’ and he was from Utah. He joined ROTC to save school tuition and was serving his required term. He had a wife, Barbara, two sons, Michael and Bruce, and a daughter, Evelyn. Evelyn was the baby. They were Mormons.

 

In few days, they moved in. When Barbara needed to go out alone, she asked me to babysit the children. When my sister was around, she asked her to help her cooking and she gave us what they cooked. We often shared food. We offered her ice cream, and she brought gram crackers.

 

Father raised few turkeys. Turkey was new to Koreans and we did not know how to cook it. Thanksgiving came and Barbara cooked the turkey. She often showed me and my sister how to make western food. She filled the turkey with bread crumbs and raisins. She borrowed an oven from her friend and cooked the turkey. Two families got together and had the turkey dinner.

 

After I came to America, I learned about the history of Thanksgiving and realized that dinner must have been very special to Barbara and her family. She came to the foreign country and had turkey dinner with the natives just like her ancestors did with the Indians.

 

While kids took the nap, Barbara taught me English and games. We played ‘Yahtzee,’ ‘Scrabble,’ and ‘Battleship.’

 

American military family could buy American goods. They could buy TV and other appliances. Barbara did not have money to buy these items. Mother talked to her and she agreed to buy these items for us. They agreed to go to PX together. A day before the appointment, Barbara informed mother she could not go. Her husband, Rex, told her it was illegal for American to buy things for local Koreans, which was true.

 

Rex introduced another military couple and they came to live with us, too. The wife’s name was Terry. I do not recall her husband’s name. Soon after Terry moved in, Barbara’s family moved to Ui Jeong Bu. In the first winter after I came to America, I went to Utah with the church friends who were visiting their aunt. I went to Barbara’s house and ate the turkey she cooked with her family.

 

I got English tutoring from Terry. During the weekdays, we read English books for 30 minutes. She would read a sentence first and I read it aloud. If and when I made a mistake, she corrected me. In lieu of tuition, she had lunch with us. She liked most Korean food on the table. Father liked grilled sandfish. The whole fish was grilled on coal and served. She took the head off and ate the whole fish as we did.

 

She adopted a cat with stripes. She asked me how we said “stripes” in Korean. That’s how the cat got the name of “Earl Rook Ee.” She took the cat with her when she left Korea.

 

I learned how to read and talk like American from her. Thanks to her, I did not have any problem communicating in English when I came to America. There are lots of native speakers teaching English in Korea now. 30-40 years ago, Koreans mainly learned English with the book and studied written English. Even college graduates majoring English had difficulty communicating with Americans due to their poor pronunciation and intonations.