4th Generation

12/07/09




So I had dinner with my boy sunawh today at a Thai joint that has the illest Chicken Red Thai Curry, and it happened to be down the street from my parents crib. I normally have dinner with them on tuesday's but i decided to swing by anyways since I was in their hood, and just say hi. When I got to their home, it was empty and silent. My baby brother david was upstairs doing his homework, Andy was down stairs doing his Bible Tribe (Bible Study) thing in the basement. So I walked down the hallway to my mom's bedroom and she was in her bathroom in front of her vanity winding down and taking off her make up. I walked in sat on top of the sink and just started to chop it up with her. We talked about everything! What went from a "stop by and say Hi" turned into a 2 hour converstaion about our family, her business, he joys and her pains, and about just everything under the sun. I felt like she was just looking for someone to converse with and get certain things off her chest and just someone to dialogue with. But it was so beautiful to sit there and just chop it up with my moms. I feel like I don't do that enough with all my family members. But my mom deserves my attention and love the most, just b/c how she raised me and been there for me. She never doubted me even was a wack as hell as a teen and crushed her heart over and over again. She always loved me and supported me.

Anyways she shared a story with me and i wanna share it with you all,

KIM JANG - Story of the difference of appreciation b/t 1st generation and 2nd generation.


Kim Jang = (loose translation) When the moms of a certain town BACK in the DAY would get together right before the winter time to prepare KIM CHEE! yes our most treasured .... ummm treasure.... anyways, Wut the moms would do is 10 to 15 of them in one town would get together and start to moo chu (prepare) the kim chee together. They would do this b/c they needed to make a HUGE batch that they could have for the winter. Every mom had her own secret recipe so they would even trade and share different batches with one another and after all the days work is done they would all go back to their own homes. When they got home they would get these HUGE jars and dig a hole in the ground and bury this jar. B/c it was so cold in the winter the temp would naturally preserve the kim chee and a family would be able to have kimchee all fall and winter long. You gotta understand that meat was a RARE commodity and everything was either rice based or noodle based and so KIM CHEE was soooooo valuable and made every meal a complete meal. They would bust their ass off just to have enough kim chee for the coming cold season. They valued something so simple.

To us being 2nd generation Korean Americans, we take kim chee for granted. There is such a huge divide between the way our parents appreciate things and the way we appreciate things. Even if our families are wealthy now or well off we don't appreciate the things we have b/c we don't understand how valuable things are b.c it was given to us by birth. Whereas our parents had nothing growing up. You assume Korea was just alike America in the 60's and 70's but we were coming out of being a 3rd world nation! Our parents lived worse conditions worse than the ghetto's that we know of today. So even though kim chee is given to us freely at restaurants and we can go to H Mart and buy are jar for merely nothing, our parents appreciate the crap out of something so simple b/c they understand how valuable it use to be and how hard moms would work to make it just so the family had something to eat in the winter.

Again im not talkin bout kim chee just to talk about it, I mean everything that we have, house, cars, clothes, a pantry full of snacks. Even though our parents live in the same luxury there is a HUGE difference in appreciation b/c they once did not have, but we for the most part of our lives did have. Thank you parents for working so hard as immigrants in this nation during times of civil unrest and racial discrimination. Thank them that you will never have to know what it felt like to be like them. To have to send your younger brother to your neighbros house and lie and say you just need a small bowl of rice to take on a field trip but really your bringing it back for your whole family to share with a few pieces of kim chee... Appreciate what you have and what your parents provided b/c neither of the two is garunteed to be there tomorrow.


Danny Tek Eun

Grandpa Eun By Andy Eun

A true story by Andy Eun

My Grandfather is an amazing man of God. I just felt like writing a little story to honor him.

Just about two hours ago, my mom and I shared a meal over our kitchen table. Microwaved white rice, hehjang gook, and some leftover spicy pork. As we sat with our feet reclined, we started talking about the friends we knew. Friends who were hurting.
Realizing in that moment, that there is so much pain all around us. And it is real. Whether its the oldest sister of four children working full time while trying to nurse her younger sister in the hospital, translating for her parents who feel helpless.
Or whether its the little boy whos 17, who has never met Dad. Wondering what he looks like. Feeling trapped in mysterious lonesome.
Or maybe its the family that struggled as immigrants back in the early 80's. Single father of two boys, working the alterations store to feed his two kids.

and this is where the story began...

So my mom tells me this story of how my grandfather poured out his life to help people in need all around him. While working at our restaurant known as "Korea House", one day a father of two came in with his two boys looking pale and lifeless. Face emaciated from hunger he sat in the corner of the restaurant with a look of dispair.
In the compassion of Christ, my grandfather goes in the back and cooks up the biggest bowl of soup with beef, with all the love he could muster up.

And he brings it out to this man.

"Here, this one is on me. Eat this soup and feed your two boys. Let us know if there is anything else you need before you leave".

With tears in his eyes, all he can say is. "gahm sah hae yo" (thank you)
And they eat with no worries. Maybe the best bowl of soup in the whole wide world.

And still to this day, this man says of Mr. Ho Ki Eun, " I will never forget what he has done for our family."

Look around the world today, and you can find pain behind every street corner and veiled smile. The question is, does anyone really care anymore?
The only scary thing with all of our humanistic thinking that has permeated our society, is that as we scientifically explain everything, and cognitively explain how depression works, we lose the belief that our life has more unseen cravings. That there is so much more to this life that we can not explain. That maybe, we were created.. to make soup.

This is my grandfather. A man of God. A man who has poured out his life to serve others. And I want to be just like him. Thank you for reading.