Today in class we talked about names. Very important deal in Asian cultures, auguring all sorts of fortunes and the like. Often the paternal grandfather will play a role in the naming of the children, but professional name-finders are also consulted, and sometimes monks and other people.

In the olden days, parents would give their kids crazy names like "Kimchee" and "Dogshit" so as to prevent ghosts from coming too close to them. I'm so not kidding.

My own name, as with all Korean names, is derived from Chinese characters. It means a certain kind of flower that grows on rocks; ergo, beautiful exterior, but possessing gritty determination (and maybe perverse sort of perseverance? I mean, why a rock?). My brother's name means a stone tiger (raaarh!).

The rock in my name and the stone in his comes from the same character: "Sok-." The common syllable is sort of optional for siblings, but what is much less optional is the common syllable for male cousins of the same generation. (Getting confused yet?) For easier understanding, here's a chart of my cousins' names. [Shit, blogger doesn't keep the spacing, so I had to work with what I had. I realize that it doesn't look much like a chart now.]

Sok-ran (F) Sok-ho (M) (my dad's kids)
Yoon-gyun (F) Yoon-ho (M) (one uncle's kids)
Jong-eun (F) Jong-ho (M) (another uncle's kids)

See how the "-ho" is repeated across all the boys' names? Now, consider this:

Hee-jye (M) Yong-jye (M) (my aunt's sons)

Why don't the two boys in this family have the "-ho" suffix? Because they belong to my uncle, who just passed away, and who isn't part of the Kim family. Hee-jye and Yong-jye's male cousins from their father's side probably share the "-jye" suffix.

Thus endeth the lesson.
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The other day, John's cousin mentioned that his daughter had graduated kindergarten and was a rising first grader. When I left L.A. for Korea, she had just started kindergarten. Man. I've already been here almost an entire school year. One school year used to seem so long.

I swear, time moves faster when you're older.
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Funeral
Part 2: Kim is an Irish Name

The funeral process takes three days. The day my uncle died, Thursday, was counted as the first day. People joked that it was lucky/kind of him to die late at night (about 10 pm) so that the first day was short, because when you're staying up all night, three days starts looking like a really, really long stretch.

Shortly after my uncle died, his body was washed and prepared for cremation. As I remember from my grandmother's funeral five years ago (in fact, around this time of year as well), besides the monks and hospital staff, only the sons are supposed to handle the body. The older of my two male cousins, Hee-jye, said later that he thought he would be afraid, but that when he actually touched his father's body, he found he wasn't afraid at all.

My uncle died in a hospital in Inchon, a town adjacent to Seoul and known for its ceramics. In a neat display of communications prowess, everyone was notified by the day after he died, and I would say at least one hundred people showed up on Friday, the second day of the proceedings.

I arrived in the mid-morning, having been picked up by my father's older brother (Kun Abohjee, or "big father"), plus wife and son. Kun Abohjee's family is all devoutly Christian (his son is planning to become a pastor and his daughter is married to another pastor-in-training), and now that I think of it, I wonder if they weren't a little uncomfortable with the Buddhist overtones. Perhaps that's why the wife and son left after a few hours? But the funeral process wasn't very religious on the second day, except when the monk came by to chant. Anyhoo. My dad and aunt said I could go, but I opted to stay because I was curious. "I want to see," I said, and then immediately felt like a jerk for treating the death of my uncle like a spectacle.

Everything on the second day took place in the basement of the hospital, where we were in one of two suites on the floor.
The suite contained two rooms -- a reception room and an eating area. The reception room contained my uncle's picture and ritual offerings, including food (which was changed throughout the day), candles, drink, and incense. This is where my aunt and her two sons greeted visitors.

My aunt wore a black hanbok (traditional Korean dress), and a small white ribbon bobby-pinned to her hair. My cousins wore black suits and armbands of yellow and black. Their wives also wore black hanboks. (I nearly didn't recognize one -- she usually wears (what I now realize is) a lot of makeup, and she looked totally different.)

Visitors starting coming to pay respects in the late afternoon. The mostly male visitors took off their shoes and bowed twice to my uncle's picture and then once to my cousins, who bowed back. Then the visitors would head in the larger room right next to the first, where they ate, drank, smoked and played cards all night.

What!? At a funeral?

My older cousin's wife (whose 8-year-old son Gyu-hyun is possibly the only human under the age of 18 that I've enjoyed spending time with) said at one point, "I don't understand it. I don't understand why people have to stay up all night and play cards and drink at a funeral."

I told her that the Irish do a similar thing, and that maybe it's so that the spirit of the deceased can come and have a final hurrah, so to speak. She agreed that was probably the case -- "they say it's good if many people come to a funeral; if there's not many people, it makes the dead person feel bad."

Later, it occurred to me that if I could stay up all night with old friends, drinking, smoking, talking and playing cards while other people served me free food and drink, I wouldn't think it very weird at all.

Understanding the tradition is one thing. Living through it as 1. a female and 2. a non-Korean is another. The food was prepared by a service in hospital and an employee covered the evening shift (until at least 1 am), but before that, my cousins' wives worked hard to set up the tables and see that all the visitors were taken care of. I tried to help, but mostly didn't know what was what. However, a few times my cousin Yong-je asked me to bring out some food to newly arrived visitors, so I did.

At one point, I took out some soup and rice for a couple men who'd arrived, and a man sitting next to them asked me to bring out a bottle of water. Well, there were no bottles of water, so I brought back cups of H2O, at which the man groused, "Why didn't you bring out a bottle of water like I asked?" His companion shushed him as I told him there were no bottles of water.

I suppose that doesn't sound like a big deal, but this took place in roomful of 40-50 men in their 50s or 60s, drinking and smoking. There were only about three or four women, probably relatives of my uncle, seated with them. The only people serving were women. All these men were of a generation and culture that values age and the male gender more than youth and the female gender.

And then there was me! (Teeth-baring ironic grin.)

Servers (always women) in restaurants deal with this all the time ("Bring some fresh lettuce!" "Hey, where's the bean paste?"), and I reminded myself to be even more polite in restaurants than I am. Why didn't I bring a bottle of water? This isn't a fucking restaurant, this is a funeral, and none of the people who are serving you are waitresses, they're fucking relatives of the deceased. Jesus.

My dad, who was getting soused along with everyone else, saw me bringing out the food and asked if I was okay. I said, "Yeah, I just don't understand people." He then introduced me to the man he was sitting with, who was a high school friend, and his friend made this little observation (seemingly apropros of nothing): "You know, the the problem with Koreans who are raised in America is that they just don't match with Koreans when they come back. My friend's daughter was raised in the States. She came back and met with some prospective grooms in matchmaking sessons. But her way of thinking didn't match theirs. She's over 30 now, I believe. But you [meaning me] are pretty, so you won't have a problem finding someone who will be willing to take you."

I snorted. As he talked, I saw this kind of statement coming, so that snort was partly amazement, partly disbelief, and partly derision, and I really, really hope it conveyed all those things. My dad, who was listening with a similar sort of dread (I could feel it!), hastily said, "Ah, well, Helen's not worried about that kind of thing and you know, Helen, you probably don't need to stay here." I replied, "Yeah, I don't think I need to be here either." I retreated to the blessed quiet of the reception room and subsequently mysteriously disappeared whenever new visitors arrived.

I don't mean to make it sound like every Korean man is a complete, um, throwback. I got sent out with food for some newbies, and they took the food off the tray for me and thanked me politely. It was just a shock to actually come face to face with someone who really believed that: 1. having a personality that doesn't match a Korean man's is automatically a bad thing, and 2. that a woman unmarried at 30 is a sad, desperate creature. When in fact -- well, I don't really need to say, do I?

Tomorrow, Day 2 goes on. And on. And on. Highlights: Hanging out with my 8-year-old second cousin (and liking it!); and going to the bathhouse.