roots

this past weekend i stayed at my cousin's house again in bundang. he showed me our chokbo (family tree) for the paik family, which at this point is ten volumes long, each about 300 pages or so thick. it's a bit awkward because my cousin is actually 47 years old, and my father (who's 57) is his uncle. that puts me on an equal level with him, so i actually call him "brother" rather than "uncle". i'll try to explain:

my father's father was the youngest of three boys. the eldest of those three had several sons. the eldest of those sons is my cousin's father's father. that means my cousin's father is on an equal level with my father, making me equal level with my cousin.

in korean tradition, it is the responsibility of the first son of every generation to take care of the chokbo (family tree). since my cousin is the first of three son, and his father also the first of three sons, and his father's father also the eldest, that makes my cousin responsibile for keeping all the names in our family up to date. me and my brother's names are already in them, as it was last updated in 1982.

i met up with my aunt and my cousins for the first time in about nine and seventeen years, respectively, this weekend. they all live in the northwest part of seoul, ilsan. it was kind of trippy to seen them after so long, and i'm sure it was especially weird for them to see me since the last time i met most of them was when i was seven. i was very happy to see them all in good health, and doing very well in their respective jobs. my cousin so-young's husband was especially interesting to meet since he grew up in england and now teaches poetry at yonsei university (with a specialty in milton). so, naturally, he's quite connected with most of the professors there, giving me an easy ticket into attending yonsei in the future for short-course language programs ^^ his brother also is a venture-capitalist type who does a lot of consulting work for the big guns here: lg, samsung, and hyundai... he has a particular interest in advanced biotechnology, and after discussing briefly with him the work that i'm involved in with our startup company, we're planning on meeting up for an informal session. it's all about the connections...

anyway, it's the start of another week of work. i'll post up photos as soon as i get a chance...