Meet the Parent

     Last week on Wednesday afternoon, Ami took off for her hometown and a visit to her father and grandparents. They all live in a place called Chuncheon (pronounced "choon-chun"), which is a little over an hour away depending on the route you take to get there. I don't wish to get into Ami's personal life here, so I'll only say that her parents are divorced. Her mother lives in the states and her father is over here. I've met her mother many times and we get along well; in fact, I met Ami's mother before I met Ami and it was her mother who introduced us. But I'd never met her father before.
     I didn't go to Chuncheon, but on Saturday, he drove her back to Seoul (she had taken the bus on Wednesday) and the three of us went out for lunch. At first, it was little awkward as any meeting between future son-in-law and father-in-law will be--and perhaps extra so for us as we are of different cultures and different languages--but soon we both relaxed a bit and while the conversation may not have been flowing freely between us, we did manage a few exchanges and had a few laughs.
     At one point when Ami tried to be the interpreter, he told her to be quiet as he wanted to try his English--a gesture I appreciated very much as it takes effort and a certain disregard for risking embarrassment to speak in another tongue. He also bought me a winter coat as a gift. After lunch, we walked back to our apartment where I made coffee for us all before he hit the road home. During the coffee and baseball--I had turned on the tv and found game three of the KBO (Korean Baseball Organization) championship between the SK Wyverns and Samsung Lions--he turned to me, smiled, and said something to the effect of "You come to Chuncheon. My parents want to meet you. No problem?" I said that I would go, no problem, to which he looked very pleased and then discussed more details with Ami in Korea.n So I guess I will be going to Chuncheon sometime before Christmas. Should be an interesting weekend.
     When he left, Ami came back to the apartment after seeing him off and was very happy. She said he'd liked me. So overall, I guess things went rather well. He even called her last night to talk for a few minutes and when she got off the phone she looked at me and said, "Jeez, my father really likes you!" "That's not surprising," I thought.