Blog Post #1 Jaeyun Moon

    Food has many definitions. According to my mac dictionary, food is any substance that animals eat or drink, or that plants absorb in order to survive. The Free Dictionary.com defines food as a specified kind of nourishment. However, for me food is a source of nourishment that can give you happiness and great socializing opportunity.

I was sitting in a room anxiously with my family waiting for a counselor from Edupro, a company that offers study abroad programs, on the top floor of POSCO building in the heart of Seoul in December 2005.  We were discussing pros and cons of studying in Canada.  

Pros

•         I can learn English living with Canadian families, being in classes taught 100% in English, speaking English when I communicate
  
•        Learning how to socialize with people, be independent from my family and be responsible for my own action.
  
• -    Coping with multiculturalism. Canada has the highest per capita immigration rate in the world.
  

 

Cons

• -       Missing my family.
  
• -       Korean food (the only kind of food I ate)
  
• -       There’s no guarantee that I can adapt to a new culture
  

 

After the meeting with the counselor, my parents and I decided that I am going to establish a new life in Chilliwack, a pastoral town near Vancouver in Canada.

January 4^th, 2006 is the date when my life permanently changed. I left Seoul to Vancouver with good-byes, kisses, and cries. I could not sleep on the plane at all. I had too many thoughts imagining what my life would be like and how this decision would affect my life.  After 10 hours of flying, I finally arrived in Vancouver with my eyes barely opened. My whole homestay family: Don, Shirley, Andrew, Kevin, and Daniel were waiting for me at the gate with big smiles on their faces, and we drove my new home.

We arrived at our house on Darwin St. around dinnertime. It was a very big house made of floors with 6 bedrooms. We were sitting around the dinner table waiting for my first meal in Canada and that’s when I began to have troubles with them. We were having regular and fine looking spaghetti. However, that day I learned that whether or not something looks and tastes good is a matter of your own opinion. The spaghetti had acerbic and salty tomato sauce and Capelli d’angelo noodles, which I DO NOT LIKE. I thought myself, “How can they possibly devour this kind of food? Can I really live with them?” On the same night, I couldn’t get out of my toilet.  

 

                                                    Capelli d’angelo noodles(very thin)

I did like the family. They were very approachable and helpful especially when I had difficulty speaking English. I even went to A.D. Rundle Middle School with Daniel. They gave me rides to basically wherever I needed to go even though it might have been a 30-minute drive. They were comfortable to deal with just like my real family.  But when it came to eating, it was horrible. I had to ask if I could have some leftovers from the fridge. I could choose my breakfast meal from only 2 options, Raison Bran or Corn Flakes with milk. I remember one day it was raining a lot in winter. I was missing my mom’s food, so I was having a pleasant time eating my instant Korean noodle with Kimchi that I brought along from Korea. I do admit that Kimchi has very strong and rotten egg odor since it is a fermented vegetable side dish.  Do you know what happened next? My homestay mom, Shirley, walked into the kitchen, and kicked me out into the rain with a bowl of noodles and Kimchi. It was one of the most frustrating and embarrassing moments in my life. I was fourteen! After two months of food issues with Shirley and Don, I moved out.

From Left to Right.

Me, Nicole, Gwen, and Jim 

I was an international student and under the age of nineteen, I had to live with a homestay family. That’s the law in British Columbia. I met my new homestay family: Jim, Gwen, and two little lovely girls, Chantell and Nicole. After 15 minutes of driving, we arrived at my new house. The house had red worn-out painted walls with a dirty white roof. I was a bit disappointed thinking why I am paying $800 a month. When I opened the door between garage and kitchen, I smelled something that melted my heart; something that all my senses were paying attention to. The first meal I had there was Spaghetti as well. I put a forkful of spaghetti into my mouth and it was simply perfect. It had rich juicy tomato meat sauce with regular thinness of noodles. It was just my taste.

Kind of Spaghetti Jim used to cook

 Jim asked, “How do you like my Spaghetti?” “It’s the best spaghetti I have ever had in my life.” I said without any hesitation. “How did you make it so goooood?!” Gwen replied, “When Jim makes Spaghetti for supper, he starts cooking at 11 in the morning.” I was very impressed by Jim’s respects to his guests, family, and himself.

 

      The food that they offered was staggering. Their casserole dishes, fish and chips, and steak were their specialty. Occasionally, I skipped my lunch at school to eat fabulous suppers. Whenever we had meals together, I could sit on the table talking to my homestay family for hours and hours making a close relationship. Sometimes we had some difficult times, but we tried to understand and forgive each other whoever made a mistake. Jim and Gwen’s irresistible food gave me energy and self-confidence, and helped me forget all the sadness that I had being away from my family in a foreign country.  

 

Being at the first homestay with nasty food gave me a hard time. I was very stressed about what I had to eat and what I had to consider before I ate. Being at a new homestay with delicious and remarkable food made my experience in Canada more pleasant and built a strong relationship between my homestay family and myself. 

Image reference: Capelli d’angelo noodles, simliar spaghetti compared to Jim's site is written on the picture.