Of Koreans and Roaches..

Guess this is one of those posts where disclaimers are necessary right at the beginning....:-)

All characters are real with imaginary names and any reference to real persons were always intended and never was it an off the cuff remark..:-)

Easy ppl, and my korean friends..this is just another humorous attempt...and not to belittle anyone..just see the funny side and get on with it...

Kim sun moon..he was one of my grad school friends..

By the time I joined grad school in the summer of 99, he had already been there for 2 yrs. Coming from a country that dint speak English...He had had to attend ENglish development classes for the first 2 years and hence could not take any course work..till he managed to get done with his English classes., that is.

A very very hard working fella, but having been taught English the American way, he would find Brit English and Indian English very tough to understand...

We used to pull him always, but he would always take it in the right spirit..

The first brush with his english happened when we got our first take home assignment.

And so we all got done with our 'homework' and poor moon, still not proficient enough..

was struggling with it. So I thought, maybe I'll help him and asked him

"Hey moon. Are you done with your home work "

" Wajt..home work..wajt iz jhat"

(yeh thts how he sounded then..:-) )

I gave one stary eyed look at him..
"home work man...the class assigment that is due tomorrow"

" Oh.the take home you mean.. Why ju call it home work..."

And then followed the long sermon about how we say it back home, british english ...and what not..

After some time, I wasnt even interested in seeing if he understood, I just wanted to stop all the other desi morons laughing at my predicament..
...of this convo between A korean keen to improve his English vocabulary...and a Desi('me')...who was starting to forget HIS. :-)

Everything you speak to him had to be familiar with the American equivalent. Anything that the americans dont say or use...he would no way understand..

A queer predicament that we were in..but fun neverthless..

He was staying with another korean, when one fine day he announced that his GF had joined him and he was moving to a bigger better apt..pretty close to ours..
And that meant..we had to help him move..

Me and 3 other desis said we would and one bright sunny saturday..helped him move that..

He was pretty happy with it..and wanted us to repay the 'debt' or watever...
He called us for an early dinner (early by Indian standards..esp students) by around 6PM. I was pretty much reluctant to go...those days I was still a strict vegan..and wasnt sure what he would cook...

So the other 3 finally left without me...

I settled down nicely in my sofa @ home , thinking if I did the right thing and dreaming abt what delicacies they werent eating..
I had just popped in an oft repeated movie..into the VCR..and had barely gone past the first song sequence.. when there was loud and hurried thudding on the door.

I need not have worried, cause no sooner had I opened it, I saw 3 pale faces covering their mouth and fighting to use the 2 restrooms in the apt.

My face was beaming by now...and waited for them to reemerge..frm the rooms :-D

"What happened guys..Itz not even 10 mins since u left"

"man..tht bugger...U *^&%*@ u escaped...guess u probably knew abt it. No wonder u dint come over. I knew something was wrong the moment u declined.."

"Arre dude. what areyou talking abt, what happened to the dinner"

and so inbetween further trips to the restroom and the occasional..vomiting I got the full story. This is what I grasped from them.

They were pretty much happy that it was just the 3 of them and since I declined, they vowed not to bring home anything for me and finish off everything by themselves.
The moment they stepped in, there was this wierd smell...and the very moment their stomach started churning.


If you remember the first time u stepped into a chinese restaurant, you will know what I am talking about :-)
even now, the moment u step into a chinese grocery store, u still get that sic feeling, but now I get over it pretty soon :-)

And so, came the first dish...some eggroll appetizers and some other stff with a wierd blood red sauce..

Rofl..they managed to ahve it in.
All this time, they were having some small convo going on..and all these guys, though they ate non veg, hadnt havent had anything other than Chicken and Lamb.
So anything else was new to them, More so...sea food.
Next came some small wierd little creatures fried and roasted to a golden yellow brown.. and some fried rice to go with it.

And so our Korean host decided to humor then..and decided to call the lil Prawns by another name..
Well yeah...what do you think he called it as...

"Hey guys.want to taste some delicacy of Korea. You wont get it any better any where else "

"what is it, Moon"

"eat it first. Itz a sea food delicacy. u'd love it. Here have some"

And so all three grab a bite..

" So how iz it"

" Pretty good. but what is this stuff like hair hanging out.."

" Oh guys..come on..cant u tell them yet. Itz cockroach.."

"whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat" < all three in unison>

and thats when one rmembered that he had to call his gf, another to take me to the doctor, cause I was feeling sic and the third to have to get back to his experimental setup at the lab :-))

All this when Moon was totally confused as to what happened., and not even wanting to wait and hear what he was trying to say after that...:-)

Poor moon, came over to my apt a hr or so later...and lolz, with all the three guys listening to our convo hiding in the other room, and me trying to listen intentively to Moon.

And he then asked me about my sudden mysterious stomach ailment that I had developed, which was apparently the reason I had given him for not having dinner at his place.

He was kind enough to bring me some of the delicacies that were left over..that I could have.. :-)