a festival without festivities, a farmers market without farmers, and an argentine football game in korean
my wife is korean. or, more appropriately, she is a banana, as her asian friends say: yellow on the outside and white on the inside. despite this, she does a stellar job of maintaining her heritage and being in touch with her customs.
so yesterday was the korean-american festival in federal way. we drive out there, pay two bucks each to get in, fight with nos. 1 and 2, get inside, and the place is virtually empty except for numerous korean-americans. no kidding. there were two food booths, a drawing to win a toyota, (you woulda thought it would've been a kia, right?), and a korean drum band playing on a big stage (that was actually pretty fucking cool), and little else. i commented that if they had held the korean-american festival on south tacoma way, it would've been huge. then i thought about it for a second, and said, "actually, every day is korean-american festival day on south tacoma way."
so we nipped out of there early, and went to a nearby farmers market. lots of vendors' booths, including a local artist who painted worse than myself and charged more than i would, a fencing display complete with foil-weilders from a local high school pretending to impale each other (i stood nearby thinking en guard, take that, oh, curses, i am slain), and a traditional polish food booth with an enormous santa clause looking fella who seemed pleasantly overjoyed when i bounced my miniscule and surely-mispronounced polish off of him. at the very end, there were two booths of produce, dominated mostly by asparagus. where, then, i ask with my hands raised to the sky, were the rows and rows of ears of corn, plump raspberries still damp from the early-morning dew, the organically-grown tomatoes, the hothouse flowers and herbs? well, shit, if you don't know, i certainly don't.
since the wife felt disappointed by how dull the festival turned out to be, we decided to catch lunch at our favorite korean restaurant. so we donned our baseball gloves and headed out. (sorry, i know, i know, but sometimes the english language just strikes me as so bizaare--catch lunch? but it is a perfectly acceptable phrase. "here's the wind-up, and the pitch. oh man, that kim chee is everywhere!")
anyways, so while we're sitting there eating, i realize they are watching the world cup on the tv. i further realize that it is argentina playing. woohoo! then i realize that the announcers are speaking korean. and that i don't know who is winning. we flag down the waitress, and she informs us that argentina is beating the ivory coast 2-nil.
i'm afraid, my dear droogies, that i wasn't much of a conversationalist for the rest of the meal, barring under-the-breath phrases such as vamos, and dale, che! anda, anda flaco!, which wasn't helping anyone seated anywhere near.
but it certainly was one of those surreal moments that i so love in life.
and argentina won, 3-1. woohoo!
darth sardonic
so yesterday was the korean-american festival in federal way. we drive out there, pay two bucks each to get in, fight with nos. 1 and 2, get inside, and the place is virtually empty except for numerous korean-americans. no kidding. there were two food booths, a drawing to win a toyota, (you woulda thought it would've been a kia, right?), and a korean drum band playing on a big stage (that was actually pretty fucking cool), and little else. i commented that if they had held the korean-american festival on south tacoma way, it would've been huge. then i thought about it for a second, and said, "actually, every day is korean-american festival day on south tacoma way."
so we nipped out of there early, and went to a nearby farmers market. lots of vendors' booths, including a local artist who painted worse than myself and charged more than i would, a fencing display complete with foil-weilders from a local high school pretending to impale each other (i stood nearby thinking en guard, take that, oh, curses, i am slain), and a traditional polish food booth with an enormous santa clause looking fella who seemed pleasantly overjoyed when i bounced my miniscule and surely-mispronounced polish off of him. at the very end, there were two booths of produce, dominated mostly by asparagus. where, then, i ask with my hands raised to the sky, were the rows and rows of ears of corn, plump raspberries still damp from the early-morning dew, the organically-grown tomatoes, the hothouse flowers and herbs? well, shit, if you don't know, i certainly don't.
since the wife felt disappointed by how dull the festival turned out to be, we decided to catch lunch at our favorite korean restaurant. so we donned our baseball gloves and headed out. (sorry, i know, i know, but sometimes the english language just strikes me as so bizaare--catch lunch? but it is a perfectly acceptable phrase. "here's the wind-up, and the pitch. oh man, that kim chee is everywhere!")
anyways, so while we're sitting there eating, i realize they are watching the world cup on the tv. i further realize that it is argentina playing. woohoo! then i realize that the announcers are speaking korean. and that i don't know who is winning. we flag down the waitress, and she informs us that argentina is beating the ivory coast 2-nil.
i'm afraid, my dear droogies, that i wasn't much of a conversationalist for the rest of the meal, barring under-the-breath phrases such as vamos, and dale, che! anda, anda flaco!, which wasn't helping anyone seated anywhere near.
but it certainly was one of those surreal moments that i so love in life.
and argentina won, 3-1. woohoo!
darth sardonic
posted by darth sardonic at 9:55 AM
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