"Our" husband and spicy chicken

Last night I went out with two of my friends who happen to be my former Korean teachers, Peace and Lee Yu-Ri to have 양념 치킨, spicy fried chicken, and beer. I had learned about this popular dish during my class last month and couldn't believe I had never had it.

We had a lot of fun eating, drinking and chatting. I really enjoyed the dish, but it was a very spicy version and Peace, not a fan of spicy food, suffered through the meal. Relieved only momentarily with her pulls of beer.

Those girls have a lot of 인내, patience, as I struggled to tell stories in Korean. I explained how patience was the first (and only) Korean word I knew, when we found out we were moving to Korea. Since my dad has been studying Taekwondoe for many years, at the beginning of each class they recite words like integrity, honesty (I cannot remember the actual words, but you get the gist) and the word that stuck for me, was patience.

It was a really fun night, albeit challenging trying to hold a conversation in Korean. I tried hard to use some of the expressions and grammar that I had learned. Sometimes it worked, other times it did not. For example, it is part of their culture to say "our" husband/family/brother/etc, when referring to your own husband/family/brother. I thought you could also use it when you are talking about someone else's husband/family/brother/child, so I asked Lee Yu-Ri if "our" husband was studying now. Both the girls looked at me strangely and said something about Nicholas being in Brazil...

I repeated my question, again, emphasizing, "Our." This time, they both thought I was just mispronouncing Lee Yu Ri's name, as it sounds similar to our in Korean. I explained that I was trying to use the cultural reference of "our" husband and they both started to laugh... No, no, they explained, that expression is only used when you are personally speaking about your own husband. Not about someone else's... I smiled while I could feel my face heating up

When Lee Yu-Ri's husband showed up at the end of the night, we laughed as I greeted him as "our" husband ;)