Saturday, April 07, 2007

The Last Supper

The funeral centre was crowded with people in the evening. Every table in the dining area was full, which probably meant around one-hundred people were there. It was so noisy, you could hardly hear the chanting from the mourning room. In the absence of Korean Brother, who as the eldest son of Korean Grandparents' eldest son, would have had the task of collecting and counting the funeral money, our sole cousin in attendance did the job instead. We helped him out so he could eat his pizza more quickly.

Afterwards, we helped clear tables until I was accosted by one of the Korean Aunts who made it obvious with gestures that I should sit down, I thought on the principle that men didn't do this type of work in Korea, although later when I saw some of the other men working I realised it was more because I was a foreigner. When I feigned ignorance, she pulled me into the mourning room and talked to Korean Father, who actually appeared almost amused by the situation. He only answered Korean Aunt with a shrug and some incoherent mumbling, but he spoke the international language of "He has strange ideas and I've given-up trying to control him". England 1 - Korea 0. I went back to work, but Korean Aunt caught up with me for a second time and was even firmer - almost painfully so - in her grip on my wrist and was evidently irritated. She all but kicked my ankles away to make me sit down so I gave up, and let my sick wife work while I sat bored at a table. England 1 - Korea 2 then the final score.

So there were brief conversations with the various relatives most of which revolved around food and Manchester United (I'm not from Manchester either) and there's only so many times you can go through that before it all turns into a bit of a blur. Back to the hotel, where I wrote up a blog entry, and saved it to a USB (which I would later overwrite when I got home tired and misunderstood a warning message in Korean Windows XP).

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