Jill ne sais quoi

Last night I ate dinner with the Parks (the family of the girl I tutor). It was excellent. Mrs. Park cooks the most delicious food! She made this kiwi salad dressing that was out of this world. She promised she'd send me the recipe, so I'm definitely going to try to make it back home. Also we had macaroni and cheese with shrimp and then we had spaghetti with shrimp and some unidentifiable mollusk.

After eating, Ha-jeong put on a little concert (she plays violin), which was really really excellent. She's been taking lessons since she was 6, so it was very impressive. Her little sister, You-shin then decided that she wanted to perform too, so she sang a song for us.

After the concert, the girls came up to me with a Zara bag and were like, "open it!" I pulled out a Korean Christmas card, in which Ha-jeong had written:

Hi Jillian,
It's Ha-jeong
I am very happy to know you
I had lots of fun with you these past months
We can still chat on MSN
I am sure that we will see each other again one day
We will send each other cards, stickers and other things
This present is a souvenir of us
This card too.
I hope you have a merry Christmas and a happy new year.
Say hello to your family.
We wish you the best of luck with your studies.
Gros bisous xxxx,
(You-shin drew you a picture)
Ha-jeong

I translated it from French, so some of it might sound awkward. But isn't that the sweetest thing you've ever read in your life? "Yes" is the answer. But oh no, it does not end there! The girls continued with their, "open it, open it!" and so I looked into the bag to find this really nice box, which contained this really gorgeous floral tissue paper which was wrapped around this amazing jewelry box. I was speechless. Apparently this is a traditional Korean gift, boxes with shell inlays. It was absolutely incredible. Oh and then they also gave me a Christmas ornament of traditional Korean dress shoes. It was really way too nice.

OH! So the story I wanted to post about tutoring.

So Thursday, Ha-jeong shows me a card she got from her grandmother in Korea. It's in English. The front is all pink and sparkly and it says "On your birthday, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for being such a great daughter..."

"Can you translate it for me?" Ha-jeong asked.

"Oui, bien sur!" I responded, and did so. Then I opened the card. Written in huge letters is the end of the sentence: "...and waiting until after I'm dead to have SEX." After the printed bit, Ha-jeong's grandmother had written a bunch of stuff in Korean. I was flabbergasted.

"Does your grandmother speak English?!" I asked, already knowing the answer. "I'm sorry Ha-jeong but I cannot translate this for you. It's not a card for kids."

Haha I was so surprised and then of course, I couldn't stop laughing for a good five minutes because the situation was just so funny. The girl is 10 years old, and the poor grandmother! Oh, if she knew what she'd sent! But the thing is, the word "sex" is the same in French, so I'm pretty sure Ha-jeong has a general idea. But oh, it was hysterical. After dinner last night when the girls left the room I brought it up, and we laughed about it, because Mr. Park knows a decent amount of English, and so he got the meaning of the whole thing right off the bat. Good times.