Lee's Korea Blog

Back in the Game

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 13:27:00 +0000

Alex is a very cool and chubby chap. But immediately after his birth, the ethereal master switch that governs the daily events of the Farrand household was reset again, as it was when Baengy was born.

And once again, we find ourselves under the command of another tiny tot.

We have thus far surmised that he enjoys a snuggle, and a wrap.

And is becoming increasingly agreeable to the taste of milk.

Mother Farrand breastfeeds him when possible, but at times the (wailing) demand exceeds available supply.

He's nearly a month old now, and on most days of the week appears to consume his own bodyweight in milk.

Heather is a star.

As she has always been, in the role of Mother.

Alex lost his fetal name of Ga-ga, pretty much as soon as he was born. He just seems more like an Alex than a Ga-ga.

Ashley, on the other hand, continues to be called Baengy by just about everyone. I'm sure it'll pass in due course.

Alex opens his eyes for a few hours each day and has a look around. It sometimes seems as if he can see things, but at his age, he doesn't quite know what he's looking at.

If you zoom in and pay close attention to his pupils, you can see that they're just moving around in a somewhat random and leisurely manner. If I were obliged to narrate what I suppose he's thinking when he's looking all over the place, it would go a little something like this:

"I think I'm gonna have a little look towards the vicinity of my left now. Great. Ok, now I'm gonna have a look in the general direction of my right...A-huh. Now back to the left and up a bit. Cool."

Sometimes it seems as if he can see us. But then if you move, he continues to stare at the place where you used to be.

And then if you say "Aaaaalex!", he'll wiggle his eyes over toward the general direction where he thinks you are.

Australian Grandma and Grandpa kindly sent us some baby boy's clothes. But apart from those, we've just got a whole lot of Baengy's old garments. It seems a waste to go out and buy new ones.

I'm pretty sure Alex doesn't mind.

Baengy's also being helpful and seems to be acutely aware of the new household arrival. When Alex starts crying, she'll turn to us and say "Agi-ya!" (baby!), as if to alert us to the wailing, in case we hadn't heard yet.

She also touches Alex very carefully sometimes and says "Yeppeuda", which means "pretty".

With a bit of luck, they'll grow up to be good chums.

The Birth of Alex

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 05:55:00 +0000

This past week has been a flurry of activity, sleeplessness and excitement. Both Mother and Alex Seo-jin Farrand are recovering here in the maternity ward in Busan and continue to do well.

Like his older sister, Alex opened his eyes on the first day and took his first panning view of a room. While he couldn't see us, we hoped that our voices would have sounded somewhat familiar and reassuring.

Watching Baengy grow up has been profoundly rewarding beyond anything we could have expected. Her birth was a somewhat difficult affair, however. Heather was in labour for 36 hours without food, as our limited options dwindled to the decision to undergo c-section.

This time around, the doctor's first recommendation for Alex's birth was c-section as a result of the previous delivery. While the surgery was an uneasy time of waiting for all of us, the event overall was easier to prepare for.

We arrived at the hospital at 6:30am on Wednesday. Heather received her local anaesthesia at around 9:40am, and Alex was out breathing air in the real world at 10:35am. Although in relative terms the procedure went fairly swiftly, birthing wards are strange places where time itself follows exclusive rules. The wall clock transforms into a stoic guardian of time, allowing only tiny sippets to flow past in excruciating suspense, so as to magnify the significance of the event. The only option for those in wait is to attempt to address the quiet storm of worrying thoughts, self-reassurances and uncommon reflections circulating in the mind.

Then after what seemed like a short eternity, out popped Alex in all of his newborn glory. Considering his nine months in the womb, he was looking pretty good. The first thing I noticed was that he cried a little less than Baengy did, as the nurse proceeded to check his ears and count his fingers and toes. Then he was whisked away to a safer part of the hospital, out of our sight with his mother. Korean Mother-in-Law and I walked out into the foyer area, beaming and utterly relieved. The feeling lingered for many rewarding minutes, before we started worrying about Heather again. My lack of Korean proficiency comes back to punish me on occasions such as these, as I attempted to lighten the mood and reassure Mother-in-Law using the vocabulary of a Korean pre-schooler.

But it soon turned out that Heather was wide awake, could answer our questions and thankfully seemed okay. C-section will never be an easy event, but fine and strong ladies like Heather make the experience less terrifying for husbands like me.

Heather and I have been sleeping in one of the recovery rooms at the hospital here, where we have easy access to view our little Alex downstairs. Heather will stay here for a few more nights before transferring to joriwon accommodation, which is in the same building but with more privacy. Baengy is staying in the care of her grandparents nearby, while I'll be returning from Seoul each weekend. We plan to reunite as the all-new Farrand Family of Korea back in Seoul in around three weeks.

Fatherhood is a great thing. For me, the instinctive feelings to nurture and protect grow slowly and steadily rather than rapidly, but the change persists with unmatched longevity. The biologist in me finds it rather fascinating.

It's not possible to fully prepare for the arrival of a new child. Parenthood is a colossal privilege suddenly bestowed, to be properly earned in the years to come. I imagine that with every birth, a divine debt is abruptly incurred. And the stakes for non-repayment are sufficiently high that dutiful responsibility manifests itself as quiet undertones of influence that permeate into all facets of life from that point onwards.

Heather and I are looking forward to our future together with our two wonderful kids. And as it was for Baengy's birth, we can't help but feel deeply indebted to the medical staff for their professionalism, as well as to those around us who have been offering their kindness and support.

Our Second Little One

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:27:00 +0000

At 10:35am on March 13th, Heather gave birth to our second child, a son. He weighed in at 3.4kg and opened his eyes a little on the first day.

We've named him Alex, and his Korean name is Seo-jin (서진). His mother is recovering well. Overall the birth went quite smoothly, and we're relieved and excited.

We greatly appreciate everyone's support.

More details coming soon!

The Wonder Years

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 14:35:00 +0000

Baengy started attending daycare around the time of her first birthday. While she seemed very young, we thought it best for her to interact with others of her species as early as possible. And by that I mean chubby, drooling, like-minded and often hairier-headed Korean babies. We hoped it would help give her a headstart on such important lessons as Social Norms 101 and Introduction to Different Toys.

She has been attending the Geumbit ("sun ray") Daycare Center, a small but cosy place in Nakseongdae. These photos were recently given to us by the Geumbit staff, as it's now time for Baengy to move to a much larger daycare center.

We were a little worried about how she might settle in, and Mother Farrand stayed with her all day during her first visits.

We get filled in on the day's events every time we pick her up. It's fun to imagine what went on during the days passed by looking through the photos.

One can speculate that during those crucial beginning months, much of her surroundings elicited mixed baby feelings of confusion and curiousity.

"...but where's Mum?"

Eventually the surroundings became less menacing, as food could be accepted from familiar strangers.

While barley water of our own was preferably drunk in private.

Birthdays were celebrated, despite obliviousness to the occasion.

And bridges were built. And crossed.

New friendships were formed, although no one can quite remember how.

And the wild outdoors were explored in fantastic detail.

Shapes, colours and sensations all coalesced into an educational experience that would somehow become meaningful in future.

While energy levels cycled through periods of depletion and replenishment. Somehow, our daycare mummies were uncannily tuned to the instant when our tiny bodies were exhausted from a morning of play.

And when we awake, those same friends remain.

New items invite endless new experiences.

And then we suddenly realise that we are no longer the youngest or the smallest.

As the sun sets on the first episode of Baengy's experiences amongst peers, we remain cognisant of the fact that she'll be leaving friends and familiar faces behind. But every ending is a new beginning, and we are very much looking forward to the next patter of baby steps forward.

All in all, we've found the quality of daycare in Korea to be excellent.

Here's hoping that the next center will be as good as the last!

What We're Eating in Seoul

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:58:00 +0000

Unless I'm vastly mistaken, our small family of three remain the only representation of the Farrand tribe residing on the Korean peninsula. However, a non-zero possibility also exists that we are the initial flashpoint of a future mighty Farrand empire that will eventually spread from Busan to Northern Manchuria, enslaving all members of the Lee, Kim and Park families. As such, I thought it timely to create this recording of our daily degustations.

Just in case our descendants of the future find pertinent to ask: "Which nutritional substances fuelled our imperialistic origins?"

To which I answer: Strawberries.

If indeed a substance in strawberries is later identified that leads to imperialistic behaviour, let the record state that I'm not to blame. Both Baengy and Mother Farrand eat them quite often. Their modus operandi is to rinse a bowl of strawberries, sit on a chair together, and consume them slowly and savouringly.

I'm more of a banana man myself.

This old cook once new a trick or two, but now he only remembers one. That's to find out what's in the fridge, chop it into sections and fry it with whatever condiments can be redeemed from our aging collection beneath the stove. Luckily the Farrand ladies are not fussy eaters.

In the photo above is an impromptu eggplant stirfry, an old lentil curry, and a bowl of makkeolli with a cinnamon stick in it. Not too bad for a household that spends the majority of its budget on babywear.

Our allies of the Lim tribe joined us for an expedition to Ansan quite some time ago. James is a self-described fan of food and his heartbeat quickens with any mention of deliciousness. For James, trains of deep thought can be quickly corrupted with a simple mention of the words "large juicy burger."

Hypothetical conversation

James: "So that's why I was having a dilemma about whether to invest my savings in a balanced portfolio or put them towards a comprehensive life insurance plan."

Lee: "That's fascinating. Nearly as fascinating as large juicy burgers."

James: "But you know, insurance can be.... mmm... burrrrgers."

We stopped by at the trusty Dieu Hien Quan, one of few locations in the Republic that serve Vietnamese food without pickled onions. In the photo above is the lemongrass duck, which we ingested along with cold rolls and the mandatory phở.

After that it was time for a walk in the park. Which, as the idiom quite rightly suggests, was a very easy thing to do.

Baengy had a nice time sitting on James's lap. Brings a whole new perspective to the word 'chairman'.

After milling around lazily in our fine food-induced digestive delirium, I went shopping for the Ansan Essentials: tumeric, and those shrimp-flavoured instant noodles from Thailand.

Back in Seoul we've been keeping to our bi-annual scheduled visits to Chili King. The burgers here fulfill the two requirements of every respectable burger:

1) Big, and

2) Good

To avoid burger dismay, I now lurk within the shadows of burger veterans on Facebook's Burger Lovers Seoul group. I gorge myself on the endlessly fascinating conjecture about what makes a burger deserving of praise.

Little did I know that some burgers are worthy of knighthood.

We also tried something new at Steve's house, a cookoff with couples and children. On the way there, Baengy was staring at me like this while sitting in her babyseat. Sometimes she does that.

I hope she's thinking productively.

Most people would be wary of hosting any kind of event that simultaneously involves couples and babies, and exceeds 6 pax. However, such people are not likely to be in possession of the largest house in the Korean hemisphere. Which Steve is.

The luxuriousness of Steve's aircraft hangar can be summarised by mentioning a single feature in the bathroom: Magnetic Soap.

It hangs from a rod above the sink and can be pulled down, as opposed to the pesky soaps that we barbarian folk use, which requires us to pick up the soap.

Within the masterchef kitchen, amenities previously unheard of quickly highlighted the unsophisticated among us. For instance, many seconds I spent trying to operate the faucet, only to be kindly told that the faucet is operated by the hidden foot pedal. But of course.

I didn't dare mention that I had never seen a household yoghurt maker.

These sorts of gatherings are a good opportunity for our wives to catch up and pour forth their deluges of chatting, carefully stored since last meeting.

Steve has single-handedly created a dish I call the Cardiologist's Nightmare, consisting solely of fried asparagus and bacon. Luckily we had enough red wine to hopefully invoke the French Paradox.

That's Steve sitting on the right. The man of the house, deliberating on the day's earnings.

After slowly sampling each dish and chewing carefully, he emitted a number of happy grunts, and we all breathed a sigh of relief as the night turned out to be a modest success.

Many years ago, the first dish I ever cooked for Heather was a noodle soup. It must have been fairly good, because we eventually got married. Back in those days, I was fresh out of the kitchens of the Casuarina Malaysian Restaurant, and could whip one up in ten seconds flat. These days my hands are a little slower off the mark, and I sometimes forget to add important things. Like water.

But the ones in the photo above turned out pretty good.

Here's a laksa I made on the following weekend. Laksa is quite possibly my favourite dish.

Itaewon holds an annual international food festival, and this year we chose to brave the masses. Into the thick of it we went, with me pushing Baengy out in front with the stroller, and Heather following immediately behind.

We, the Farrand Tribe of Korea, like to travel in single file - so as to hide our numbers when walking in the sand.

As always, it was a good chance for the mothers to catch up and share the stories that mothers like to share. I like seeing them happily chatting together like this.

Even though we fathers are pretty sure they're chatting about us when we're not looking.

At the end of a long day out, we ended up at Vatos, a nearby Mexican place. Vatos is fairly good, a little oversalted and overpriced perhaps. What I like is how they dunk their Corona bottles in the cocktails like that. A couple of them are sure to put you in a jolly mood. In which I was.

As for the future of Farrand dining, I can't see too many drastic changes on the horizon. We'll continue to eat what the seasons bring, while the Farrand ladies are sure to dine on strawberries whenever they drop below W5,000 per kilo.

See you next time!

Munich in a Nutshell

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 02:52:00 +0000

A habit this young blogger has cultivated over the years is to work odd jobs, in addition to a primary occupation. It's nice to have extra cash flow, and staying busy can be a good thing.

When I first arrived in Busan in 2006, nearly all of the casual work I did was tutoring English to students.

After 6 years here, things have changed a bit. Anthony and I have been working as part-timers for the Dong-A University Hospital Clinical Trial Center since April 2011. The center is in Busan and I live in Seoul, with our work revolving around a mix of consulting, document preparation and business development. Most of the work gets done by email.

Not long ago, we were sent on a business trip to Munich, Germany.

We've learned a lot on the job, and traveling is one of the perks. I can only travel when my lab work is going well, but Anthony has been going overseas every few months. Our main task is to build relationships with organisations related to clinical science, and learn how things happen in different parts of the world.

Before new medicines can be used in hospitals or pharmacies, they first need to be tested on human subjects. These tests occur in clinical trials, which are complicated events that have spawned a large industry to support them. Hospitals and private companies will set up clinical trial centers to win contracts that are often sponsored by pharmaceutical companies. These centers are a blend of research and business, and our role is to focus more on the business aspects.

Our trip to Munich coincided with the European Society of Cardiology conference, one of the biggest such events in the world. There were 30,000 heart doctors from all over the world, clamoring around in a refurbished aircraft hangar.

We attended a lot of meetings and completed our work objectives, but I only took photos during our downtime. We spent ten days in Munich, and were given generous free time to roam the city. Dr Kim's daughter, Sue, accompanied us. She's fond of horses, so we tracked down a horseriding club while we were there.

The food in Munich was a welcome change from the usual cafeteria lunches in Seoul. Quite a few times we ate at a Brauhaus, the collective name for local pubs that sell delicious beer and huge chunks of meat. In the photo above is a great local specialty dish called axen, which I imagine was often devoured by hordes of ravenous Visigoths in the past. It's baked pork with crackling and gravy; a little salty and very good with the white beers they sell.

It was strange, but nice to eat three meals a day without rice again.

As well as the food and beer, we were similarly stunned by the richness of the city architecture. I'd never been to Europe before, and this gothic building that watches over Marienplatz seemed to speak volumes about the old world. How humans could design and build such a thing amazes me.

It looks even more daunting at night. I would expect organ music to go quite well with it.

I can't say I know a lot about carving things out of stone. But there were many fine-looking lions in Munich.

Here's Sue and Anthony, hanging out in one of the modern shopping districts in central Munich. Prices for clothes and food in Munich are slightly higher than in Korea.

We received an invitation to a celebratory dinner for the completion of a large clinical trial called Trilogy-ACS, headed by Duke University.

The trial itself involved thousands of volunteers and was focused on comparing two drugs that inhibit blood clotting, for application in heart surgery.

It was a lavish affair with food, beer and wine flowing freely. In Germany, I ate so much meat that I eventually had a continuous aura of meatiness emanating from my body.

Meatify (verb): To make a dish even meatier than normal.

Ex: Refrain from adding more cured meats to that plate, lest you meatify it beyond recognition.

Later that same night we were invited to the launch of a new company. It was a cocktail party held at the Munich Skybar.

Quite nice, although overwhelmingly pink.

It's hard to find good breakfast restaurants in Korea. The traditional Korean breakfast is largely indistinguishable from other meals of the day; there's soup, and there's rice.

In Germany, patrons line up at their local delicatessen to get their breakfast. I like that.

Bread and sausage make a good breakfast only when both bread and sausage are delicious. And indeed they always were. Even the mustard and tomato sauce were good.
German bread is more than just bread. I don't know how that's possible, but it's incredibly bready bread. In a good way.

If there was a bread heaven, it would be full of German bakers.

One peculiarity often reported about some Korean people when traveling is a lingering addiction to Korean food. This has caused all sorts of odd situations, like stories of crowds of ajumma eating Shin ramyeon in front of the Eiffel Tower.

Korean food in Germany is very similar to that found in Korea, but it's described in much more colourful language. For example, kimchi jiggae is "Eintopf mit Kim-chi, Tofu und etwas Schweinefleisch."

If memory serves me correctly, that final word means "pig flesh."

For our little band of Koreans, the Korean food addiction manifested itself in the desire to seek out the only Korean restaurant in Munich, to eat dinner at one night.

We even drank soju.

In Germany, nearly everyone drives a BMW, a Volkswagen, a Mercedes or an Audi. I know they're all German, but I imagined they would be too expensive for the layperson. I guess there's some kind of secret German discount.

The BMW museum building is designed to resemble the pistons of a car engine.

This is a concept car made from material. The material moves around and can hide and reveal things like the headlights.

One of the cool things we saw was river surfing. In Munich, they have bridges that funnel water quite swiftly.

Locals bring surfboards and surf on them, similar to a flowrider.

Here's Anthony teaching Dr Kim how to play Angry Birds. Overseas, Anthony is a Wi-fi addict and can often be seen holding his phone up in the air, attempting to catch passing morsels of free connectivity. He can detect a Wi-fi hotspot from a distance of ten metres, using his enhanced sense of smell.

Dr Kim thought it would be pleasant for us to visit Salzburg in Austria. So we took the ICE train from Munich Haupfbahnhof.

Salzburg is the birthplace of Mozart. It is not possible to visit Salzburg and not be made aware of this. The tour buses play Mozart, all the maps point to places where Mozart frequented, and Mozart merchandising is in full swing.

When we left, I felt I had been forever and irreversibly tethered to the ethereal omnipresence of Mozart.

Here are some happy campers in the gardens of an old king from a bygone era.

Overall we had a great time in Munich. It was nice to have the excitement of being in a new corner of the world.
We have some more plans in the works for 2013, as well as my thesis defense and a second baby on the way. Looks like it will be another busy year.

Here's hoping that it will be a prosperous one for all of us.

Seasons Greetings

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 09:53:00 +0000

This year has been a good one for us. Ashley is walking and starting to talk. Thus far, she has learned to say "Omma" (Mum), "Appa" (Dad), "Ji-Ji" (dirty) and "Mul" (water).

Our hands are full most of the time, but we count it as a good thing.

Wishing you all a happy festive season and a productive 2013.

Quotes About Aging

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 09:31:00 +0000

“All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, ‘Oh, why can’t you remain like this for ever!’ This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.”

- J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Watching children play is one of the most enjoyable pastimes in the world. It reminds us that there are many fun things in life that we adults have long since forgotten about.

Like finding oneself within a pillowcase.

As the leaves fall from the trees, autumn in Seoul begins its departure. We, the Farrand Family of Korea, like to spend the waning days of extended twilight within the confines of Hoam Faculty House, a residential cafe on campus.

An afternoon on a swinging family chair signifies a Sunday well spent.

Baengy has reached the point where she can understand what it means to chill out. Prior to this, her being quiet and motionless while awake was usually just a case of her resting or obliviously waiting for something unknown.

Chilling is generally enjoyed by adults, and one's ability to chill vastly improves one's standing amongst them.

"Children are made readers on the laps of their parents."

- Emilie Buchwald

Mrs Farrand is the biggest contributor of reading time to our budding bookworm. I do what I can, but am unable to match her range and skill in voice acting. All my animal voices, be it an elephant, pig, alligator or giraffe, all sound curiously similar.

How does one distinguish between different reading voices for an elephant and a hippopotamus?

Even when reading time is over, Baengy will pick up books and read them to herself. She'll turn the pages one by one and add careful narrative baby chatter to each, even if the book is upside down.

In the photo above, she's reading 1984.

Although we humans stopped digging for edible roots with our bare hands some time ago, evolution has yet to slow down our fingernail growth accordingly. And it recently became apparent to us that our daughter doesn't appreciate having hers clipped. Perhaps she's saving them for a digging expedition.

What we need is an evolutionary process we can communicate more effectively with.

Shopping these days has become a more colourful affair with the inclusion of our very own embedded Quality Control Officer. Baengy will poke, squeeze and occasionally taste-test any goods that are placed within her area of jurisdiction.

Items that are not to her liking are frequently tossed overboard.

“The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”

- Robert Frost

After months of observation, we've concluded that Baengy loves fountains like a fat kid loves cake. Perhaps it's the allure of dynamic motion or the temperature shock associated with the cold rush of water on a hot day.

I like to think it has something to do with her future career in the broad field of nanobiological microfluidics engineering.

When the nights are warm and she's finished her fountain play, she'll happily sit on our table and munch on her favorite gangnaengy snacks.

Drenched in the fountain of youth.

Anthony Nguyen remains a staunch friend leading a parallel life of parenthood in Busan, with his wife and baby daughter. A few years ago we'd be egging each other on to drink yet another bottle of soju at the barbecue table. These days we hold lengthy discussions on the wonders of baby development.

“We may not be able to prepare the future for our children, but we can at least prepare our children for the future.”

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

We recently went to the Seoul Zoo, as a welcome escape from the Zoo of Life that entails the daily happenings of the Farrand household.

The Seoul Zoo is a typical family-oriented quasi-industrial entertainment complex designed to handle large volumes of human traffic while simultaneously selling copious amounts of disposable toys.

In the photo above, Baengy is communicating to the kid next to her "Why are you standing so far away from the action?" in baby eye-contact language. We have observed that she, in general, is not scared of animals. She's had close encounters with all manner of bugs, dogs, sheep, cows and horses without batting an eyelid.

A lady once held a chihuahua right next to Baengy, who was being held by Mum at the time. They glared at each other in a kind of hierarchical showdown of willpower. Seconds seemed like minutes. After an indeterminable period of silence, Baengy broke the impasse by reaching out, grabbing the dog's nose and twisting it counter-clockwise.

The dog pulled back, sneezed and withdrew its head in defeat.

As each sheep stuck it's head out to nibble on the dried grass, Baengy went around sinking her paws into their wool and pinching their ears.

Although in retrospect, I think she probably mistook them for carpeted toys.

She also fed this giant rabbit for some time, before deciding to poke it in the eye with her thumb. The rabbit just closed it and pretended to sleep.

It must be a pretty liberating feeling to be a rabbit that no longer fears giant babies.

After any big day like one at the zoo, Baengy's brain needs to process the treasure trove of new information obtained. She'll pass out in a plethora of awkward positions and remain comatose for approximately 45 minutes.

“The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults.”

- Peter De Vries

For centuries, Western medicine advised unsound remedies like blood-letting and mercury poisoning to cure ailments.

On a completely unrelated note, at our local Wondang markets, a new shop selling clinically-untested traditional remedies has opened. Some in Korea have strong opinions for or against such things.

The various forms of alchemy on offer involve live turtles, eels, white snails and silkworms.

Interesting.

Here's a photo of Steve, Jooyeoun and Lienna, celebrating Oktoberfest at Beer Terrace. Funnily enough, our topic of conversation that night drifted toward this blog, and now they're on it.

Is this yet another case of metacircularity?

“Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains.”

- Winston Churchill

Here we are, celebrating the Obama victory in Itaewon with Ian Kim. I can't claim to be very knowledgeable when it comes to politics, although I do find it fascinating. I was happy with the election result, because Obama's stance on most issues are in line with principles I agree with, which include LGBT rights, generally reasonable foreign policy, compulsory healthcare and higher taxes for higher earners.

Taxing the rich proportionally higher might stir up debate in terms of fairness. But excuse the narrow analogy if one may contend that it's probably better to put more money in the hands of the poor than for the same money to be used to buy someone another Ferrari.

Ian Kim is Daniel Pak's cousin, whom I have known since our middle school years in Adelaide. Ian has grown into a rock of a man with strong values and ideals, contributing a substantial amount of his own money toward the Obama campaign.

“The memories of a man in his old age are the deeds of a man in his prime.”

- Pink Floyd

We're pretty sure that Baengy is going to follow Ian's example and grow into a rock of a lady.
She already has strong opinions on the quantity of rice she will eat at any one time.

“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them”

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Here's Baengy and mother, visiting the outdoor area of the maternity ward where Heather will give birth to our second child next Spring.

Time is just rocketing by these days.

And for our final photo today, the columns above are Homeplus virtual supermarkets found in the subway stations here. Instead of stocking products on shelves, pictures of various grocery items are displayed. You can use your phone to take photos of the QR code underneath any product that you want to buy and send it to the Homeplus website. Within a couple of hours the goods are delivered straight to your house. It reminds me of that old song "Video Killed the Radio Star."

A sign of the times really.

Here in Korea, as the weeks turn into months and the groceries turn into pictures of groceries, I can't help but wonder whether the correlation between my increasing age and an accelerating decline of the familiar is something worthwhile to mourn.

“It's paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone.”

- Andy Rooney

Wriggle One's Hips

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 07:43:00 +0000

We here at Lee's Korea Blog have never been shy of the catwalk. We've also been quite fond of dog walks, when the opportunity arises. No matter the flavour of walk you're into, this post is dedicated to educating our valued readers on some of the biggest names in the baby fashionverse.

One of the labels causing us the most excitement this year has got to be Wriggle One's Hips. This outstanding lineup from none other than the extraordinary designer Von Incognito is characterised by sophisticated chic motifs and minimalist pastels. You may notice that the four animals on the front of this piece are all facing rearward.

We noticed it too!

Hot on the heels of Wriggle One's Hips and demanding star attention is the exclusive upcoming haute couture label, Ducks are Good. We immediately fell in love with the loose silhouettes and summer palettes of this season's releases. Modeling this piece is one of the biggest bangs in fashion history, Big Baengy, who now meets all requirements of the Institute for Modeling Ethics (at least 15 months of age and weighs more than 8 kilos).

An irresistible combination: the latest Ducks are Good t-shirt, with matching Duckling pants and Apples jacket.

Pure genius!

Fruity Cutie makes its much anticipated return to Farrand Fashion week, after it's successful debut at last year's event held in the fashion hotzone of Living Room. This much-coveted label has released its hottest lineup inspired by Polish gypsies, who have been known to eat watermelons.

Unless you've been living under a rock and not paying attention to any of the biggest tabloids for over a week, chances are you've already heard of the Nameless Brand. Just to clarify, the brand itself isn't called 'nameless', but of course, is referred to by that name because there are no tags or branding present on their items. Is this perhaps a cheeky designer's nod toward the immaterialist views of Irish philosopher George Berkeley? We like to think so!

The floral print on the green pants has been executed perfectly. We sure hope they release it in adult sizes before next summer, or we'll have nothing to wear.

Whoever it was that first uttered the phrase "the night is young', most likely said it because they couldn't stop thinking about these pink pyjamas from Winnie the Pooh.

The wrap-around stylings and bold colours are a dead giveaway in identifying the designer's obvious penchant for samurai futurism.

This matching two-piece with chef's hat and apron brings hints of comic nostalgia to the catwalk, as we hilariously recall the outrageous mishap that occurred when two minor celebrities wore this exact same outfit to the 2008 Oscars. We remind our readers that such embarrassment can easily be avoided by employing your very own fashion consultant from LKB Fashionistas, quite a worthwhile investment considering the endless benefits to be had.

Another label subjected to much anticipation this year was Traditional Hanbok Inc., who did not fail to impress the A-list guests by again revealing their deft hand at couture-quality finishes.

Our photographers were out on the streets all week, busily catching up on the latest trends in celebrity fashion. Seen here is Ashley Farrand, fooling no-one as to her true identity while she attempted to shop anonymously at E-Mart in a light cosmopolitan summer blouse. Apparently she thought that her Michael Jackson-inspired sunglasses would hide her from our camera clicks. The fashion diva has got to do better than that to escape the radar of our shrewd photographers!

Having settled down from the plume of scandal surrounding her crying outburst in the Subway, we also spotted Ashley at Robert and Jisun's wedding. These photos by our undercover photographer had the critics unanimously raving throughout the fashionverse. It seems that with her sheer gravity of starpower, Ashley is single-handedly attempting to bring back the long-forgotten combination of mini-skirt, hoodie and balloon.

Here again we see Ashley hitting the streets of Gwanak-gu in plain view. Our offices were abuzz for days after receiving this photo, showing her choice of giraffe shirt and blue stretchy pants, a riot of colour and wit.

Rumor has it that she was needlessly obssessing over her choice of socks before venturing outside in this outfit. Our fashion analysts have concluded that it was a bold choice that seems to have paid off.

These latest paparazzi photos appear to have caught Ashley off-guard as she sits in a car with her third boyfriend in 3 months! We can't help but point out their matching feminine-masculine sandals, as Boyfriend Number 3 hurriedly tries to start the car and escape our camera flashes.

But not before we managed to snap this front-on beauty! It seems that Ashley has a thing for clean-shaven guys with strong arms. We noticed that the car also has a painting of a car on the bonnet, which is a very fitting reminder of the vehicle type. One thing that puzzles us though, is why there are two steering wheels. Is it a sign of their imminent parting-of-ways? We hope not!

And to Ashley we say, "Although your daddy doesn't approve of your new boyfriend, he says don't come home too late!"

Funny English #6

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 06:04:00 +0000

My time here in The Korea has been both burnished and brightened by grammarly rules bent, and others broken, courtesy of our enduring friends on the peninsula.

For those of you unacquainted with Funny English, it's a delightful documentation of instances of English that this young blogger finds amusing.

This happy message on a vending machine greets subway commuters every morning at Nakseongdae Station.

Here at Lee's Korea Blog we wish all readers a feeling fine day, everyday.

The chefs work very hard in this restaurant.

You can almost taste their efforts.

This enigmatic zen kōan continues to confound teams of monks in the Korean highlands.

Here in Seoul, we can cookies. But unfortunately we can't grammar too well.

As a person who considers myself somewhat internationalised, this chess set is essential for handling the world's inescapable globalisation.

One might be forgiven for thinking that a simple spell check could have picked up the errors in 'Seoul Metorpol itan Government'.
Before they carved it into a metal mold for manhole covers.

And placed 4500 of them all over the city.

This old poster has been left in our building's elevator, and is written mostly in Korean hangeul. Fortunately for the non-hangeul readers out there, the event's name is spelled out phonetically in English.

One only needs to ask "How can I get to Cantata UBOOSASISA?"

Approximately half of my time at university is spent doing research. The other half is spent methodically deciphering translated official documents that I need to fill out.

Here's a note that I found on my desk one afternoon, left by our lovely admin staff. It was referring to an invoice problem for our office chairs.

This is our university mail client. Especially around lunch time, I like to send many Ham Messages.

There are many suspicious backronyms in the world of university student clubs that appear to contravene the purposes of choosing a backronym in the first place.

This one, SOCSOC, is one of the finest examples.

The popular K-blogger Roboseyo may be interested in a pizza that was named after him, from "Elnopim Pizza".

Snapped while on the move, deep in the cavernous batcaves of Sillim E-Mart's underground parking lot.

The politically correct term would be 'Parking Personless Office.'

The disposable cup industry in Korea contributes to approximately 20% of GDP. The remainder is composed of the Parking Personless Office industry and Robster Pizza delivery.

What we're looking at in this picture is the delectable image of fried chicken in the middle, with cherry tomatoes strewn across a picnic table in an idealistic vision of what will happen the moment such chicken is purchased for only ~~9,000~~ 7,000 won.

Although I guess the 'Siandard Oil' box in the background is a simple spelling error, the more pertinent question would be "Who garnishes their fried chicken with black gold?"

Here's an example of an excellent, but terrible motto.

Found on the front cover of the KTX Magazine.

And this is what you wake up to if your baby daughters consume too many beans the night before.

To lead us out of this episode's Funny English is an amazing one-piece retailing for only W10,000 at our local Wondang markets. These days, who wouldn't want to be known as a Truck Furniture Maker?

The previous episode of Funny English is available here.

Have a feeling fine day!

Another Little Announcement

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 09:55:00 +0000

Heather is a happy 9-weeks pregnant with our second baby, who is going by the fetal name of Ga-Ga.

This photo was our first glimpse. We'll be expecting our newest little one in late March/early April next year.

The name Ga-Ga was chosen by Baengy, who is developing into quite a big Baengy indeed. Heather and I were both stumped on a placeholder name for our newest family member, after all, how can you top Big Baengy?

After dispensing with suggestions including 'Small Baengy', 'Big Baengy 2' and 'Baengy of Reasonable Size', at dinner we turned it over to the original Baengy who was toddlering around the table. When we asked her what her sibling should be called, she simply stopped and said "Ga-Ga".

So, Ga-Ga, we very much look forward to meeting you in the new year.

How to Feed Babies

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 10:20:00 +0000

Blogcrastination

noun.

The act or habit of, putting off or delaying blog posts.

Ex. He dearly loved to blog, yet his blogcrastination led to very sparse posting indeed.

Of late, this blog and I have come to an agreed framework of sorts. A roadmap for peace. A six-point plan or a four noes and one without.

Whatever one may like to call it, it's a way for us to coexist in peace together. The problem with blogs is that once an author endeavours to cultivate an online following, it feels somewhat uneasy to neglect posting for long periods of time, leaving your possibly still-existent readership base with a void once filled with your mediocre ramblings on life in the conventional lane.

Thus a conflict ensues between the forces of time management and those derived from the imagined expectations of one's audience.

The agreed framework hinges upon the idea that as long as readers continue to jingle the sitemeter with daily visits, Lee's Korea Blog shall continue, but only as time permits. In other words, nothing changes.

But it's official.

One of the other reasons that blogging has become sparse these days is because all of my photos are of Baengy. So if that's what you want to see, hey, you know where to come.

As someone somewhere famously once said,

"I have nothing to offer, except blood, toil, tears, sweat and Baengy photos."

As you may recall from biology class, babies require sunlight, air, water and nutritional sustenance in order to survive. While administration of the former three can be fairly straightforward, the proper feeding of babies can require years of practice.

For the average human baby who is busy building a bitsy burgeoning body, teeth are non-critical luxuries with a high calcium cost. With the elongation and strengthening of bones also in full swing, such valuable mineral resources become thinly spread.
Baengy hasn't developed molars yet, so she can chop things with her incisors, but she can't chew. To help her out, we do a bit of parental preparatory pseudo-chewing, which consists of us manually mushing Baengy Rice in a bowl with a spoon.

Baengy Rice is very much like normal rice, but Mrs Farrand adds more water and some other goodies like miniscule bits of tofu and vegetables. The result is a commendable concoction of pasty pebbles.

Now there are many ways to get food into a baby's mouth, but there are only a couple of ways to do it that are sustainable for a parent's mental health. You see, nearly every baby is fascinated with everything for Two Golden Minutes. The key to accomplishing tasks that are longer than two minutes in duration is to distract them long enough. Even if you manage to cram food into a baby's mouth after the two minutes have expired, if they're bored, they just dribble it out onto their clothes. That's why Baengy is holding a spaghetti jar lid in the photo above. I have become reliably confident in lids, most of which extend the Two Golden Minutes by an order of magnitude.

And because each baby will only allow a specified number of spoonfuls to enter their frontal crevasse in any one sitting, one needs to optimise the volume of food going in on each run. This necessitates paying attention to the architecture of the rice on the spoon, or as I like to call it, the rice-chitecture. You'll notice in the photo above that the amount of food is clearly suboptimal. One needs to really pack it on there more like a champion.

Here's one I prepared earlier.

Note the look of apprehension on Baengy's face, in full knowledge that an enormous dose of ricey goodness is coming her way.

This is after the spoon has been retrieved for reloading. If you're wondering what happened in the middle, just imagine an abstract blur of mouth, teeth and spoon.

This was one of our daughter's first experiences with eating barely solid food. The food wasn't hot, so I guess her expression of disdain was more reflective of the repulsion of consuming anything but milk.

A slight improvement occurred over the next few days. As babies learn to eat, parents learn the intricate art of feeding.

These days Baengy has learned all sorts of new tricks. She can spot her favourite foods by sight alone, imbibes fluid from an adult glass and has developed a screeching affinity for nuts and berries.

Her favourite food would probably be spaghetti and/or peaches. Both of which she manages to obliterate by squeezing through her hands and smearing onto surfaces within her general vicinity, like some kind of culinary graffiti.

We like this chicken noodle place near our house in the Nakseongdae area. They sell a massive chicken kalguksoo for W6,000, which by general rules of geometry would typically not be consumable by a single person alone.

The owner of the place is this halmoni, who always comes and sits with Baengy for a while, and often times carries her off triumphantly to tour the kitchen. This particular photo was taken back when Baengy was in the Chubby Checker phase of infantile development.

Now she's well into the Lanky Legs phase.

Last winter was six months ago, which certainly was a long time ago, but that is when we went to Cheongpyeong. Cheongpyeong is one hour east of Seoul, in Gapyeong county.

Every signpost in the photo above is pointing to a different pension. It's reminiscent of the crossroad intersection scene in that non-existent book, Alice in Pensionland.

In Korea, a pension is not what retirees get by on, it's like a holiday house for rent.

We stayed for two nights in a pension complex called Over The Mountain. It was a nice place, but a more accurate name would have been 'At the End of a Dirt Road, Near a Mountain'.

Away from the busy roads and sloped roofing of regular Korea, we huddled in our cement cell blocks, warmed by combustion heating.

We ate a barbecue dinner pack, which was one of a few things orderable from the local store, the name of which was, fittingly, Store.

The mountain air was crisp and punctuated by short bursts of profound realisation.

In the mountains of Cheongpyeong, all is possible.

Here's a frozen waterfall in the frozen Botanic Gardens of Cheongpyeong.

And here's Mrs Farrand near a frozen waterfall in the frozen Botanic Gardens of Cheongpyeong.

Baengy now holds the distinction of quite possibly being the only Korean-Australian baby to have ever slept through an entire hike through Cheongpyeong's Frozen Botanical Garden.

All in all, we rather enjoyed our trip to Gapyeong county. We also enjoyed the transition back to normal civilisation, facilitated by a cup of boiled water seasoned with powdered instant coffee. It was delicious.

Here's Baengy and Heather checking out the newest kid on the block, Anthony's daughter Khalisi. She was born with a full head of hair, which is a source of envy in the world of babies.

Khalisi is around 8 months old now and growing up fine. We expect that she and Baengy will get along like a house on fire.
Right before this photo was taken, Khalisi informed me that she is a fervent reader of Lee's Korea Blog and has been dismayed at the recent lack of posting.

Hopefully there won't be too much blogcrastination before the next one.

See you soon!

Turning One

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 00:28:00 +0000

Three hundred and sixty five days after catastrophic translocation into the world of bright lights and cold air, Baengy turned one. In the beginning, a faint awareness of environment and self coalesced as mixed feelings of warmth or discomfort were liberally applied by unseen hands of immeasurable strength. As the world continued to turn, it was observed that objects afar became less blurry, things nearby could be grasped with hands, and milk could be summoned through vocalisation of the hunger pains arising from the stomach area.

Babies become noticeably more human at twelve months of age. At this milestone, any new kind of food is first inspected before being eaten and the two large people walking around the house become known as omma and da-da.

Heather and I do what we can to raise (but not smother) and mother (but not spoil) our little bundle of joy and wonder. It's an infinitely fulfilling learning experience, as Baengy drags us, kicking and screaming through parenthood.

First birthdays are big events in Korea. As such, a meeting was held between the ladies of the Farrand house, in which it was decided that a trip to Busan would happily fulfill all familial expectations of the (Heather) Jung family.

After all, Busan is where the largest concentration of Jung's choose to reside.

It's also where the joy of soap bubbles can be shared with fellow infants graduating towards toddlerhood.

The house of Jung halmoni is the agreed location at which various family offspring interact under the collective watchful eye of seasoned caregivers.

Offspring are free to eat and do mostly as wished, save for a few hard rules.

Eating of fruit: allowed

Eating bits of rubbish: not allowed

Clapping of hands: allowed

Slapping each other's faces: not allowed

Baengy is the fourth of five granddaughters in her family chapter. The benefits of successful infant-politics are vast, and include access to used toys, as well as the transfer of intimate know-how concerning their operation.

The eldest granddaughter is Ji-Ye, who evidently derives much humour and satisfaction from blocking camera shots.

It wasn't long before we had Baengy hanbokked up and ready to go. In Korea, the first birthday often includes a dol ceremony, in which various articles said to symbolise future life developments are laid out on a table. For example, a pen can symbolise academia, money can symbolise wealth and a piece of string can symbolise a long life. The first-birthdayee is then placed in front of the table and reaches out for an item, that will supposedly foretell their future happenings. Baengy usually grabs whatever looks interesting, and she reached out and grabbed the money.

I guess that means we can retire early.

Although an early night was had, it seems the festivities lasting until 8:30pm were sufficient to induce deep daytime sleep the following day. Heather and I used the opportunity to relax and recharge.

The simple act of falling asleep at the right time of day can be a priceless gift. Like all parents who know that such occasions are not to be trifled with, we let the sleeping baby lie.

One and a half hours of paradise later, Baengy was up and learning about flowers.

Traveling on a high speed train with a high maintenance baby is both exhilarating and exhausting. Parents attempting to do so are advised to pack plenty of snacks and plenty of patience.

We also had a small gathering in Seoul at the Hoam Faculty House on campus. Drinks and mischief flowed freely.

On the right is Ji-An, on a reciprocal visit after we dropped by on her first birthday a few months ago. Her father, Joe, is a fellow Nanoomite who runs ZenKimchi. They're currently organising some exciting Food Tours in Korea.

If you're in Korea and looking for something different, I recommend checking them out via this link.

All in all, Baengy's first birthday was a resounding success. It was my 30th as well, which was nicely convenient. But once a baby is begotten, one's own birthday becomes decreasingly relevant. I guess that's a good thing.

Thanks to all the well-wishers!

Moving House in Korea

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Sat, 19 May 2012 03:44:00 +0000

One heartwarming general rule of thumb is that most kids will someday grow old enough to look after themselves. In the meantime, sleepless nights endured and food throwing events inflicted ensure that all parents pay the price for daring to persevere. But cutting through the relentless barrages of baby bombardment exists an arcane instinct continuing to power the minimal energy requirements needed for a civilised amount of patience.

Hence the continuation of the human race.

Every once in a while, Baengy learns a new trick. Some are taught, while others seem to materialise from thin air overnight. Not more than a few moons ago, we discovered her feeding herself.

We watched, astounded. While she just gave us a look that said "Yes?"

The intellectual development of human babies is driven by endless short-lived curiousity in all things forbidden. Then again, I guess it's easy to see why a champagne bottle might be more enticing than her regular barley water. Holding Baengy in this photo is Jinkang, who is also expecting.

The word expecting is rather nice. Although if indeed the Korean Farrands find it pertinent to produce further offspring, we will dispense with the word 'expecting' and instead focus on 'physically and mentally preparing'.

But babies do have their rewards. Mostly it's to do with wearing hats.

Baengy's favourite book is called Pizza Tiger.

Synopsis: An anthropomorphised child tiger extends warm invitations to his compatriots Eudyptes chrysocome (penguin), Ursus arctos (bear) and Giraffa camelopardalis (giraffe) to eat pizza. Much to their dismay, household ingredients are insufficient. Together with mother tiger, the four animals (who would normally not be in such friendly association in the wild) go shopping for ingredients. Due to differences in opinion as to what deliciousness entails, they choose strawberries, fish and the inexplicable Korean guk-soo (noodle soup) as ingredients. The story ends with mother tiger executing a culinary improbability by producing a pizza that all animals enjoy.

When I read it to Baengy, I enjoy pointing out the inaccuracies.

Earlier this year, we were offered accommodation in the Seoul National University family apartments. It's much cheaper and closer to the lab, but not quite as nice as our old place and not big enough for three adults. We had to part ways with Jang-Ho, Heather's brother, with whom we had been living. He now has a new place not far from us, and word on the street is that he has a new girlfriend.

The tabloids are going nuts.

For every itch that arises in Korea, there are numerous companies who specialise in scratching. Most can be found online, and these days for companies like removalists there's a peculiar reverse-auction method available. As a customer, you can post online what your needs are (expected moving date, address, amount of furniture etc), and different companies will ring you and offer their lowest bid. A few removalist company reps visited us in the days before the big move. One of them was a 60 year old guy who told us that he had been moving furniture in our area for over 30 years.

Then along came a younger representative from a different company who told us that he moves furniture faster and cheaper than the old guy we had just met.

In the end, the company we chose sent three men and a lady to our house. The price was W700,000, but we didn't have to pack up anything. All the clothes were still in our wardrobes, blankets on the beds and utensils in the kitchen cupboards. You can pay a cheaper price and do all the packing yourself, but we wanted to take it easy. Two of the men set to work piling our stuff into large blue boxes, while the lady went to our kitchen and started recording how everything was stored.

I think the third guy's job was to stand outside, smoke cigarettes and make sure nothing went wrong.

Because most Koreans live in apartments and because most apartments have small doors, nearly all furniture extraction on the peninsula occurs by means of skycrane.

The move went fairly smoothly, with the removalists even making our beds and hanging our pictures on the walls. They had drawn plans of where everything was stored in our old place and unpacked it all as accurately as they could.

Meanwhile, Baengy played some tunes on her baby piano to help us settle in.

Our friends from Adelaide, Damien and Susan, left for Australia around the same time we moved house. Whenever longtime expats head home, it's a great opportunity for a virtual garage sale. We picked up quite a few things, including their car, which runs on pure enthusiasm rather than gasoline.

We've named her Sunny the Sonata.

Prior to moving, we were a bit concerned about how our little offspring would fit into a change of abode. Babies will cry when they're bored and cry when they're overstimulated. Baengy just spent the night sitting quietly and staring at the new surroundings.

But early in the morning, she was up and happily chewing on her favourite gangnaengy rice puffs like nothing had happened. She's either a very flexible character, or somewhat forgetful. We like to think it's the former.

For those moving house in Korea, we recommend saving yourself the hassle of packing and unpacking. Pay a little more and all you have to do is stand around and watch. You can find the removalist auction services by searching on Naver for the term 이사경매.

Happy moving!

Product Review: Boba Carrier 3G

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 16:56:00 +0000

"Give me a place to stand and I will sling the Earth"

- Archimedes, perhaps.

It's not often that the Product Review Bell tolls ominously down the hallowed hallways and into the sprawling offices of LeesKoreaBlog.

*Donnnng!* *Donnnng!* *Donnnng!*

But indeed it does, from time to time. At which point some kind of product review usually occurs.

This story starts in the early spring of 2012. Outside, bouncy Korean sparrows chirp cheerfully in the warmer air. Sunlight twinkles through dewdrops on newly budding leaves awakening from winter slumber.

And long after morning nappies have been changed, a solitary baby sits in quiet contemplation.

We shall call her Big Baengy.

"Hello, what's this?"

As if by some miracle of postal express, a strange device Designed in California appears by her side.

Upon touching the plastic buckles and closely woven fabric, it expands gracefully to reveal its true Function.

It is a harness that can be used to ride Mother.

Much like how one can ride a Banshee, if harbouring appropriate courage.

Courageous banshee pilot, with appropriate safety headgear. Note the facial expression of confident exhilaration.

A sling is a device for carrying that which would normally be carried by arm and hand. This frees them for other important activities, like resting or administering gentle reassuring pats to a baby's bottom.

But our newest device is no ordinary sling. It's the Boba Carrier 3G.

The G's, I assume, stand for Gentle Gentrification (of the) Gwanak (area).

The Carrier is a comfortable and customisable carrier of cids (kids). We previously owned a sling whose brand shall remain nameless. Suffice to say, this one is better.

The Norwegians have a saying: Bad is called good when worse happens. And so in the case of slings encountered by the Korean Farrands, I guess we could say: Acceptable becomes undesirable when super-duperness appears.

Why so much fuss over a simple sling, you inquire?

For those happily unacquainted with Baby-Related Backpain, Newborn-Associated Nausea or Infant-Induced Insomnia, anything that eases the predicaments of parenthood is worth its weight in gold.

The Boba Carrier is thoughtfully designed and surprisingly comfortable. It's kind of like a Ferrari, I imagine, except affordable. The padding is in the right places and it fits the wearer snugly like a good shoe. And the clips all clip like clips should clip. That is, with smooth and easy action, yet reassuring sturdiness.

And the design is good. There are other styles available from the same company, but the main strap on ours can be flipped over to hold newborns. That means only one sling is needed per unit offspring.

If you've seen a sling or two before, well the Boba has two hidden pockets in the front, a handbag clip on the side, the dangly bits all tidy up nicely and the secondary clip on the upper back slides far enough to be opened and closed without dislocation of a shoulder.

If James Bond needed a sling, I'm pretty sure he'd use one of these.

Most importantly, this sling distributes more weight to the hips and less to the shoulders.

Which means that happy parents and gleeful babies can venture further on foot to more exciting destinations.

The other day we went slinging out in good old Nakseongdae Park. I couldn't help but wonder about the extra victories possible if General Gang Gamchan's horse had worn a Boba Carrier instead of a regular saddle.

Einstein once postulated that a chair, a table, a bowl of fruit and a violin was all that one needed to be happy. My recommendation would be: a lovely wife, a lovely baby, a lovely sling and a lovely park.

If you have a baby or know someone with a baby, have thought of having a baby or know someone who is thinking of having a baby, then buy a Boba. They ship fast and have excellent customer service.

The best place to get them is via their website: http://www.bobafamily.com/

Happy slinging!

Motile Forces

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:46:00 +0000

Do you remember the day they reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet? I guess the consortium of star-gazing scientists responsible had good reason to do so. But for those in the general public, it was almost as if our feathers of general knowledge had been abruptly ruffled.

As well as wreaking havoc on our cosy relationship with the solar system, it also muddled up a few other things. There used to be a handy meme by which we could recall the names of our solar system neighbours: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto - which was: My Very Excellent Martian Just Showed Us Nine Planets.

But now it just stops at 'Nine'.

Real planets are now regarded as only those bodies that orbit a star and are massive enough to clear their neighbourhood of other circulating bits and pieces. In other words, they are planet-like, but not quite big enough to be planets just yet.

So if the International Astronomical Union can reclassify something according to those rigourous standards, perhaps we can too.

My proposal is that we reclassify human babies as dwarf people. Babies are similar to people in many aspects, but are not quite big enough to understand the bits and pieces that circulate in their immediate neighbourhood. And sometimes not even aware. During the cold winter months, we've been applying these muffs to the ears of our very own household Dwarf Person.

And by reading her body language, it often appears that she's completely oblivious to their presence.

Baengy will often sit, as snug as a bug in a sling, while we cart her around shopping centres and markets. At the time the photo above was taken, she was uncharacteristically quiet, although the later bulge in her nappy indicated that a Category 4 poop was in the mix.

Dwarf people, it seems, have well-mastered the art of stealthy pooping.

Due to various commitments, I've had to cut back on doing some things I used to enjoy, including Toastmasters. In the photo above, Gilles was predicting a future conversation that will occur between our daughter and another Toastmaster baby, Sejong Cahoon.

Baengy is developing well in every aspect, except that her hair is coming out in much the same style as my PhD. Kind of slowly.

Nevertheless we're encouraging it as 'good progress'.

Heather takes her to special daycare classes these days, in a room filled with a noisy abundance of Korean progeny. The conglomerated clutter of infantile exploration and prudent motherly oversight combines into a bubbly scene of choreographed pandemonium.

Like all mammals, Baengy feels most at home when grazing on coloured balls in the company of her own kind. In such circumstances it can be easy to lose track of her in the colourful mileu.

After all, she's got a round head, is kind of bald and wears cute baby clothes...

When a baby enters your life, a number of noticeable changes occur in quick succession. One of the first is that you become less able to visit bars and drink with friends. You instead find yourself hanging out more with other new families. At these coveted events, mothers will exchange information on baby food recipes, feeding habits and pooping schedules.

Fathers, in lower tones, will mostly share advice on domestic survival.

We've named Baengy's favourite item of clothing The Mongol Vest. We're thinking of embroidering the name Ghenghis Bhaeng on the back.

Then all she'll need is a motortricycle.

I tend to wake up in a similar position to how I fall asleep, while Heather and Baengy apparently share a gene that sees them wake up in all sorts of amusing contortions. Sometimes Baengy wakes up on the opposite end of the bed, and sometimes on the floor. The photo above is how I found her during one of her daytime naps, which usually last for around 45 minutes.

At the time, she may have been dreaming about a certain platform hero.

Baengy developed limited motility a couple of months ago. The first movements were fairly reptillian in aesthetic terms, mainly consisting of her swatting the floor with her palms and pulling herself around on her stomach.

Within a few days, it progressed into something reminiscent of a wounded soldier, still awkward but appreciably more human.

Strangely enough, her first movements occurred when we weren't watching. At first we wondered how she was flipping herself over on her stomach. With baby limbs, this can be more difficult than it sounds.

We discovered that she was employing the principle of angular momentum.

Then there were a few false starts. It was as if she knew what she wanted to do, but was yet to figure out the coordination necessary.

After that, we had a short period where she was crawling around, but only if we weren't watching. Whenever she started crawling, we would sit and stare, causing her to just sit and stare back at us. Eventually we found that she could be coaxed into moving with a dried blueberry.

One of our most useful items has been this babywalker, which has served as a handy place to put her when dishes need to be washed. The table keeps most things out of grabbing distance, which is important because that which can be grabbed can also be chewed.

It has also taught her a lot about basic movement, including the idea that walls generally cannot be traveled through.

She has since picked up a fair bit of speed and now responds to her name, or any name for that matter, if spoken in a tone that is sufficiently enticing. Her new skills and heightening awareness ensure that she's an attention magnet, pretty much anywhere we bring her. And that's good news for us.

All in all, I would have to say that dwarf people are fairly high maintenance, but well worth the effort.

Meeting the Mayor of Seoul: Courtesy of TNM Media

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:00:00 +0000

A good way to get in the firing line of serendipity is to seek out groups of people with whom one enjoyably chills. For me, those groups have been Toastmasters (a public speaking club) and Nanoomi, a conglomeration of independent yet mutually supportive bloggers. Nanoomi's parent is TNM Media, a company based in Seoul with an online media focus.

Last Friday some of our members were invited to have a Q&A session with the mayor of Seoul, Park Won Soon.

While on my wonderful way to meet the merry mayor, I soon realised that my meagre understanding of Korean politics left a little to be desired.

Waves of insecurity ensued. Would I fit in with the politically-knowledgeable? Was I under-dressed? Was I indeed meeting the Seoul Mayor, or perhaps going to an equine farm to meet the Sole Mare?

Not to be swayed, I clutched my hastily translated question and decided I would employ that sage advice, to take things as they come and see what happens.

The very fact that we, as bloggers, were invited to have a chat with him was notable in itself. The mayors of Korea's largest city are very big fish, not least for their propensity to later win presidential elections.

Being a 'blogger' is a fairly broad description, and although some bloggers are thoughtful opinion leaders, you also have guys like me who just sit around and post photos of Big Baengy. So even before arrival, I was grateful for the opportunity to take part.

Arriving late for a meeting with the mayor will surely earn you a negative score on the Awesome scale. And while definitely not a habit of mine, I managed to rack up some overtime on the scenic journey to City Hall. In our unwritten rulebook, that is very unbecoming of a Nanoomite.

The meeting had already started when I arrived and Cynthia, our fearless leader, was waiting just inside the door, whereupon she signified her discontent with a tiny look of silent Doom. It was then time for me to go into damage control mode, and after calming the slight panic in my neurons with a mental clap, I sat on a chair and focused solely on maintaining an attentive facial expression.

My first impressions are only correct about 50% of the time, but my first impression of Park Won Soon was that he seemed nice. My Korean vocabulary is on par with that of a kindergarten kid, but my accompanying grammar skills are more around the monkey level. So although I couldn't understand a lot of what the good mayor was saying, his body language did speak well and it wasn't long before elements of charisma began to emanate. He listened patiently, took notes when necessary and answered thoughtfully.

We, the people, were soon allowed a free for all, better known in Starcraft circles as an FFA. Or, to be more precise a Q&A FFA.

Thus I had a dilemma. Do I raise my shaky hand and read my translated Korean question to the mayor, and risk the possibility of looking like a complete imbecile in the wrong classroom?

In vain hope that fortune may indeed favour the bold, my answer, was yes.

My question, which I read in Korean, was as follows:

"It can be difficult for potential mothers to choose between starting a family or keeping a stable job. Does the mayor have any plans to make it easier for new mothers to re-enter the workforce?"

"아직도 기혼 여성들이 아이를 가지는 것과 직장에 계속 다니는 것 중 둘 중 하나를 선택하는 것에 큰 어려움을 느끼고 있습니다 (일부 대기업이나 공무원이 아닌 경우) 시장님은 이러한 여성들이 다시 직장에 복귀할 수 있도록 하는 어떤 정책이 있나요?"

My pronunciation was off, clarity poor and delivery odd, but after some initial confusion about whether it was 'new mothers' or 'divorcees' that I was referring to, my question was answered a little something like this:

"보육의 사회적 부담이 중요하다고 생각한다. 출산율 높이기 위해서 많은 지자체가 돈을 주는데 돈을 준다고 아이를 낳겠습니까? ‘서울시 보육정책이 엉터리인 이유가 애를 키워보지 않은 4~50대 남자들이 정책을 만들어서 그런 거 아니냐’ 라는 칼럼을 본 적이 있다. 그래서 정말 여성들의 입장에서 와 닿는 보육 정책을 펴야 한다고 생각한다. 집에서 가까운 곳에 보육 시설을 확장하는 게 가장 좋은 방법이다. 보육은 개인의 문제가 아니라 사회가 책임져야 한다고 생각하고 중요한 정책으로 계속 해나가겠다."

For those who are interested, the video is here (1:14:30.)

Luckily, Cynthia provided translation, saving me the effort of pretending I understood everything. Basically the mayor's opinion is that child-raising is the collective responsibility of society as a whole.

I thought he gave a good answer.

Widhi also asked a question, as did QiRanger Steve via a newly met connoisseur of the Korean language, Andy from Kojects. In the photo above, our ever-pleasant Cynthia is whispering translations to QiRanger Steve, like a voice in the king's ear.

Either that or she was talking about her fabulous new haircut.

After the question session had ended, the mayor extended his hospitality and let us see his office. Bloggers like taking photos, and there we were, shamelessly snapping macro shots of his coffee cup, his favourite ballpoint pens and his functional food tablets (Propolis, to be exact). That was until one of his aides mentioned that the FFA had ended, and we were now documenting his personal space.

Sheepishly, the barrage of shutter clicks diminished to a dull roar, with the bloggers then shooting from more respectable distances.

Apparently a few of our fellow Seoulites have created a new genre of art called ParkWonSoonism. It consists of various manipulations of the mayor's appearance, and he has a few examples on his office walls.

Now I'm not sure what the correct procedure is when receiving pictures of yourself. I guess displaying pictures of yourself in your own office is a little funny. But then again, hiding pictures of yourself is even stranger.

It's one of those rare catch-22 situations in the world of mayors.

Displayed on his wall are Post-Its, from the citizens of Seoul. Some of them are suggestions, others expressions of support. Mayor Park is quite proud of this display, and I have no doubt that he's read them all. If I were to write one, it would go like this "시장님, 궁금합니다.... 혹시오세훈처럼아리수 (수돗물)를 좋아하십니까?"

It's a question related to my interest in Arisu.

Then it was time for a photo session. In the photo above, there are various Nanoomi folk and a TNM guy thrown in for good measure.

This particular photo is going straight to the pool room. The coolest thing about meeting the Mayor of Seoul is then being able to tell others that you have met the Mayor of Seoul. I have found that indirectly mentioning it is usually more fun.

"Yeah I missed that episode of 선덕여왕 last Friday... what was I doing... oh yeah, I was just hanging out with my new friend, the MAYOR OF SEOUL!!"

Upon arriving home with a buzz, my next dilemma was what to do when one is in possession of a mandarin from the Mayor of Seoul's fruitbowl.

I decided to hand it over to one of our household's most discerning of fruit critics, whose favourite fruit just happens to be mandarin.

Here Baengy Baengy! Oh look Baengy, it's a mandarin... your favourite!

It's 박원순시장님의 귤!*

*(Mayor Park's mandarin)

Baengy observed the fine details of the fruit, laying it out on her table, before deliberating on whether she should take a liberal or conservative approach to its consumption.

In the end, it was center-left and another victory for the moderates among us. The fruit of the mayor, it seemed, was delicious.

Overall it was a great evening with the mayor. I found him to be a friendly and sincere person, and someone seemingly capable of what must be a very complicated job.

Thanks go out to City Hall, TNM Media and Nanoomi, for inviting this young blogger out for an eye-opening experience.

Photo credits: TNM Media (mostly!)

Part-Time Work in Korea

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:23:00 +0000

Long ago, a guy I once met told me that he liked baseball because it reminded him of life itself. For example, having a successful date would begin by first obtaining agreement from a second party that a date shall indeed take place. This, he said, could be thought of as making it to First Base. Hitting Second Base successfully would consist of a jolly night out where charm is served generously to a backdrop of a nice restaurant with dim lighting. Third Base would be the movies, or some such endeavour, while a home run was inexplicably symbolized by the flash of a grin, with a gold-capped molar thrown in for effect.

Upon later reflection, I've found that the Baseball-Life analogy can indeed be a useful way to describe a series of events. However, with the progress of time, the magnitude of significance becomes somewhat recalibrated.

To a man of the family persuasion, First Base would be a successful birth, free from medical complications or feuding between in-laws. Second Base would be decently raising a toddler in circumstances above the poverty line, while Third Base would be ensuring a wholesome education.

And I guess a home run would be when your kid moves out of home.

Heather and I are currently dashing for Second Base, with Baengy strapped on our collective back. One of the biggest difficulties that quickly becomes apparent upon departure from First Base, is that along with unwavering commitment and the warmth of parental care, babies also require a rather sustained ongoing financial contribution. Purchases of nappies, food, clothes, toys and books encroach considerably upon the territory of bank statements once dominated by visits to bars and nice restaurants.

I've been lucky to have had part-time work for around 15 years, beginning as a paperboy for the Messenger Newspaper back in Adelaide, to a restaurant cook in university and various jobs in Korea. While we could probably survive on my graduate student funding alone without the looming threat of scurvy, a little more to supplement the proverbial bread on the table is always helpful. Metaphorically speaking, we, of the Korean Farrand tribe, enjoy a little cheese with our bread.

And sometimes a Gorgonzola, which, incidentally, can be found at Costco.

Luckily, Korea is a busy place and opportunities can be found for those who are looking in the right places. A common way is to teach private English lessons on a part-time basis, but for those who have been around, you can get a job more focused on your particular interests if you have a good bunch of friends who are the right kinds of people. And the good news for me was that the right person happened to be an old housemate of mine, Anthony Nguyen, of surfing/ukelele fame.

Anthony's uncle is a heart surgeon in the US, and after a few meetings, introduced us to shiny new part-time jobs working for Dong-A University Hospital in Busan. We've been working for them since April 2011

We're consultants for the hospital's Clinical Trial Center, with Anthony drawing on his background in finance and me adding background elements of a medical/academic nature. Being a consultant can mean a lot of things, but for us it means doing a lot of English document editing, meeting a lot of industry representatives and networking with copious amounts of beverage.

Because I'm based in Seoul, most of my work is done online, editing manuscripts and preparing medical presentations on behalf of the center's doctors. Every once in a while, we're sent off to a conference or a meeting to represent the hospital and gain further insights. These past few photos are all from our trip to Jeju Island, for the Regional Clinical Trial Center forum.

I had been to Jeju a few times before, but coming as a student and coming as a consultant are two different things. For one, consultants have access to more extravagant cuts of meat.

About once a month we head to Busan for work and family-related purposes. We made it back for a trip that coincided with the fireworks festival some time ago.

Courtesy of Anthony's old apartment, Baengy experienced her first fireworks show. She stared long and hard at the pyrotechnic magic for about three minutes, before losing interest and deciding it was a good time for a nap.

As hospital representatives, we were also sent to Taiwan to attend the Clinical Trial Magnifier Conference. On the plane, I stumbled on some nostalgia - Street Fighter II, Champion Edition on the entertainment system. Back in middle school, we used to play this game religiously.

Unfortunately the difficulty level was locked at 8 stars, and the control pad was not very responsive. Much to the chagrin of the resident middle-school boy still inside me somewhere.

Taiwan is a nice place, and similarly in the midst of burgeoning economic explosion. The Taipei 101 looms above the neighbouring buildings, marking the skyline as some kind of monument to the legacy of affordable plastic toys we all received as kids in Australia.

Although we didn't have a lot of time to get out and about, we did make it to the night markets in the northern sector of Taipei. Here, live snakes were for sale, as medicine.

Markets are very similar in format throughout Asia. Wares are displayed and prices often haggled. As a general rule, they're also good places to buy freshly squeezed juice.

We tried some Taiwanese beer. It tasted a little like Korean beer with a mysterious aftertaste.

It was okay.

Anthony and I also thought it would be nice to visit a temple. Taiwanese Buddhist temples seem to have a lot of red and gold, while Korean temples have a lot more of the aqua-green colour.

The conference consisted of about 250 industry representatives. The man in the photo is Dr William Summerskill, a senior editor for The Lancet (a British medical journal) and a very pleasant man. That title slide in the background is one I made for our director.

Anthony and I delivered presentations on topics related to the Korean clinical trial industry. It seemed to go well.

The conference was fairly good overall, and we exchanged a small fortune in business cards.

Here are some members from our entourage. The man in the middle is Dr Kim, our director and a man of considerable generousity. On the far right is Dr Lee, a rather important individual currently entrusted with US$1 billion in Korean government funding. The pharmaceutical world operates on financial numbers a few orders higher than the normal world.

This dish is a speciality that even some Taiwanese locals have not tried. It's made with the reproductive glands of a male saltwater fish, which, due to their reproductive strategy, are much larger than one might expect. It's served with spring onions and hoisin sauce.

As fluent Konglish speakers would say, "It is believed to be good for the mans."

And this is a bottle of Taiwanese spirits, at 58% ethanol content. It tastes a little like the long lost cousin of soju, sent away for an exotic education in a tropical country.

These fried critters are another speciality called Dragonballs. They're the orbicular muscles of the mouth of squid, fried in batter. The mouths of squid are collected and the beaks discarded before cooking.

The taste was good, although very much like any other part of the squid.

It rained a lot in Taiwan when we were there. A kind of warm, sticky rain, not particularly unpleasant but better if absent. Our time there consisted of dashing into taxis between the hotel and the conference venue.

On the final night, we went to a nightclub near the Taipei 101 called Club Myst. Anthony was particularly fond of this place, although I found it to be a bit noisy and crowded.

And one of the other tasks we're entrusted with as representatives, is to welcome people from Seoul to the waters of Busan. To do this, we sometimes hire a yacht, complete with onboard booze and a Korean captain. Yachts like these can fit around 20 people, and a guided tour of the surrounding waters will cost around US$900 for two hours. Part of the deal is that Anthony and I are allowed to jump overboard when we're out at sea.

Here are some of the people we took boating last year, from Dr Kim's night classes.

The journeys are very enjoyable, at sunset, allowing us to go under the Gwangali Bridge.

This is the new Dongbaek Island residential development. I think those taller buildings are around 80 floors high.

By now, it may seem that we have a pretty sweet job with the hospital. We do have more than our fair share of fun, but there's also a lot of stress and hard work involved. This past week I edited medical manuscripts, around 100 pages in total. Manuscripts are articles written for academic journals, and tidying them up for submission can be somewhat daunting.

Nonetheless, I'm happy that Anthony's uncle hooked the job up for us. And although I enjoy incessantly annoying him with my sarcastic emailing skills, Anthony is proving to be a good working partner.

Finding good part-time work in Korea depends on a lot of things. It gets easier for those who have lived here longer, because it allows an understanding of the hierarchical nature of the social environment. There are also a few other quirks. Finding work in any of the big cities is best done through people you are close to.

After that, a bit of hard work and a resilience toward exasperatingly illogical situations can also be helpful.

Poop and Parenting

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:29:00 +0000

Life with a baby is a journey of discovery. It's mostly uphill, but every once in a while the view gets a little better. Childhood development is truly rewarding to observe, but a baby wailing at 3am can be merciless in every sense of the word. There is no resistance possible to such incessant crying, only unconditional surrender.

Forty minutes after a parent is pounded into complete submission through an unstoppable bout of endless crying, the baby often stops spontaneously (sometimes with a cheeky grin), leaving the parent in a confused state of mental disarray. And then as if plunged into a cloud of ether, the parent hits the pillow in narcotic slumber, before the next scheduled barrage three hours later.

The three major challenges for parents are sleepless nights, an extended state of vigilance needed throughout the day and diverse encounters with Baby Poop™.

Of these three challenges, a fascination with the gastrointestinal process often lands me in a dazed fixation on the topic of poop. Though I find baby droppings to be not entirely repulsive, I'll keep such photos off this blog, lest Baengy rediscover them many years in the distant future.

Basically, it's a mushy yellow substance dispensed in unpredictable bursts with an aroma that can best be described as humanised natural yoghurt.

To manage appropriate household responses, I've devised the Farrand Level Alert for Poop (or FLAP, for short). It's a code to quickly categorise the magnitude of a detected nappy event, with severity scale as follows:

Category 1: False alarm, flatulence.

Category 2: Mild peppering of the loins.

Category 3: Medium intensity deposit. Weighted browning evident.

Category 4: Potentially damaging situation. Notify Mother-at-arms.

Monumental Poop: Deposit has oozed beyond containment barriers. Automatic response for all household members to DEFCON 2 level.

Mother Of All Poops (MOAP): Catastrophic devastation. Expect weeks of clean-up and counselling for survivors.

Fortunately, we at the Farrand household have only been subjected to a Monumental Poop on two historical occasions. Both events were preceded by excess milk consumption, had tummy rumblings as an immediate forewarning and were followed with aftershocks of flatulence.

While Baengy will occasionally take interest in other household fluids, such as beer, her ingrained lactophilia means inevitable rejection from her Bumbo table.

Very rarely will anything remain on her Bumbo table for long, before being thrown on the floor.

Her interest can be aroused by stirring, as we've found when mum scrambles eggs.

And also when mum stirs jjajjangmyeon.

Babies have excellent intuition when it comes to knowing what is important to adults. Trying to entertain a baby with jingling keys will rarely last 30 seconds, whereas clipping your own fingernails will evoke intense fascination and a futile attempt to grab the clippers.

Similarly, a plethora of colourful toys on the ground will not nearly be as fascinating as two bowls of hot soup on a table. And no matter how many times her inquisitive paw from below is swatted away, it just comes creeping back.

In a failed attempt at reverse psychology, I have indeed pretended to clip my nails with keys, and engaged in mock dining of colourful toys on a table. But babies are wily creatures.

They'll just give you a stare that says "What on Earth are you doing?"

One thing that rings true for both first-aid training sessions and babies, is that dummies and slings can work wonders.

I guess the prehistoric sling was the monkey mother's arms, while the prehistoric dummy was the monkey mother's nipple. From this, all I can conclude is that our prehistoric ancestors were incredible parents.

I don't know if a thousand-yard-stare is a sign of enjoyment, but Baengy sure is quiet when slung.

It also magnifies her comedic appearance when wearing hats.

This is a ParentCam shot, taken from a natural perspective when slinging. Baengy will often stare at me like this, for minutes on end.

I have no idea what she's looking at, and I've found that staring back just prolongs the engagement.

And walking around in a sling will magically put her to sleep in around 5 minutes flat. Maybe it's the warmth of the human body, or the close sound of a heartbeat. The result is always the same.

Knocked out like a butterfly in chloroform.

Autumn passed some time ago, taking with it the maple colours around Jahayeon, the campus pond.

We managed to squeeze in a picnic with homemade kimbap and boiled eggs. When I was young, I always wondered why parents liked tupperware so much. Now I know.

As a person who likes pointing out firsts, having a baby is a great thing. Baengy's first picnic was met with approval, but she was completely fixated on us and not the nice surroundings.

Next time we could just have a picnic in the living room.

Those who agree to babysit for the Farrands receive an automatic Order of Merit. Heather's mother has done it on more than one occasion, resulting in her status rising to Hero of the Farrand Family.

But in a puzzling turn of events, sometimes when babysitting has been organised, we squander the precious time by running in charity marathons.

Heather's father may have something to do with that. Just like my old man, Heather's old man likes to run around.

But we did our ten kilometres in rather nice weather and felt pretty good about it. Father-in-law's time was one hour and six minutes, which is great for a man of his age.

Oh look, he's eating natural yoghurt.

There's a little playground near our house that Baengy isn't quite tall enough to romp around in. So we just carry Baengy from place to place and she seems to enjoy it enough. These days she's eating a lot and growing fast.

Our developing morning ritual is to exclaim how much she grew overnight.

Our day at the park ended in tiny smiles, those frequent yet immeasurable rewards for tireless parenting. We're looking forward to a lot more of them over the months to come.

The Farrand Family Korea hopes you had a merry Givmas/Festivus/Christmas, and wishes you an exciting new year.

Baengy Bathtime!

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 05:19:00 +0000

It could be said that babies are like an industrial processing system for milk, from which useful nutrients are extracted for growth and development.
Liquid output is then excreted from every orifice in the repertoire of their miniature human anatomy.

In biological terms, we could think of them as compact milk bioreactors.

Baengy spends much of the day crying, drooling or otherwise liquefying a normally dry environment. To avoid the yuck factor, I simply remind myself that drool is just a dollop of orally hydrated glycoproteins, while boogie is much the same but of a nasal origin.

While being somewhat hypersensitive to household cleanliness (spotting a hair on the floor from a distance of eight metres), Heather suffers from no such aversion to baby fluids, including poop. Baby poop smudged on surfaces normally unassociated with baby poop are nonchalantly dismissed as 'Just Poop™.'

For this young blogger, the wonders of nature continue to amaze.

Cute as Baengy's face is, it often needs a wash. We experienced three phases of bathhood behaviour from our daughter, as follows:

First 2 months: Oblivion

2 to 3 months: Rebellion

3 months until present: Acceptance

As with many Koreans, Heather is of strong conviction that there exists a build-up of dead skin (때) on everyone, that must be removed daily for one to remain of good standing in the community. For Baengy, this means that mother ensures a thorough cleaning of every bodily sanctuary where 때 might possibly exist.

The (hidden) neck is an area of particular focus.

Unfortunately Baengy has developed a taste for soapy bathwater, and much as we try to discourage it, she'll often sample her surrounds by giving her hands a dip.

"Today's hors d'œuvre: a succulent baby thumb dipped in warm bathwater."

May Thor strike me down for doing so, but I've been roughly estimating Baengy's developing intelligence levels in comparison to familiar animals. As a keen biologist and animal enthusiast, it's an irresistible temptation. At the time this photo was taken, I estimated that her quiet blank stare was indicative of the IQ of a turtle. Nowadays, she's closer to a domestic cat.

We're expecting a baboon within the next few months.

Baengy enjoys a good scrub, along with the accompanying baby-talk happily provided by Mrs Farrand. Seeing her in the tub like this reminds me of that old rhyme:

Rub-a-dub-dub,

Three men in a tub,

And how do you think they got there?

The butcher, the baker,

The candlestick-maker,

They all jumped out of a rotten potato,

'Twas enough to make a man stare

As a parent, I'm experiencing the pleasure of reuniting with past songs and children's stories, the entertaining poignancy of which I had long since forgotten. Dr Seuss books are providing exceptionally good material.

I recommend The Foot Book.

And with a bit of soap and water, every baby is looking their best. Baengy's bathtime ritual has been repeated almost every day for the past six months, to which we must credit the Lady of the House. This despite the not-so-infrequent semi-submerged kicketty kicks that send arcs of soapy water in her general (and now unflinching) direction.

Decidedly less bemusing after so many recurrences.

When I'm home in time to witness these events, I often receive Baengy straight after the wash, with a freshly cleaned body reminiscent of a samgyetang chicken. I then proceed to pat her dry with towels, before dressing her for bed. Babies, in general, seem to prefer nakedness over cloth and when especially alert will often resist being clothed with admirable yet futile protest.

This coming Christmas will be the first such event with our daughter. I guess that means we'll be making some extra special festive food, like Santa's Rice Porridge and Rudolph's Formula Milk.

Now there's something to look forward to.

Ken Wong Comes to Korea

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:20:00 +0000

"We're all passengers on the ship of life... and my ship is heading to the realm of old people."

- in a recent letter to a friend

Around 10 years B.B (before Baengy), one of my closest friends was a chap named Ken Wong at the Norwood-Morialta Middle School. He and I would discuss the important things in life, like the theoretical speed limit for a Mechwarrior or the presence of AT-STs in the Battle of Hoth. Our destinies diverged, and I became more interested in social rebellion while he became fixated on graphic art. For years we lived parallel lives with little knowledge of each other, until I tracked him down on the other side of the Yellow Sea. Before long, in a much vaster homage to our reciprocal house visits between Dernancourt and Magill, he flew to Seoul from Shanghai by means of aluminium plane.

They say that fundamentally, our personalities are irreversibly defined during the first 12 years of life. After that, only minor changes will occur. Say for example, my personality was defined as mint at the age of 12. By the age of 29, my flavour would still be mint, but perhaps mint-choco-chip, or spearmint. It is not possible to change from mint at 12 years old to lemon sorbet at 29.

In the bemusing-yet-understandable situation above, after arriving in Seoul, Ken found himself tying helium balloons to some rungs on the side of a wall. Somehow this told me that he was pretty much the same guy I knew, all those years ago.

Ken and Baengy got along like a cat and a treadmill. Baengy, in general, doesn't mind being picked up and taken for mini-tours of the immediate surrounds, provided mum is within eyeshot.

Over-enthusiastic baby handlers who hold Baengy for longer than 5 minutes, outside of mum-viewing distance, soon find themselves a recipient of baby squeals, frantic struggling and kicketty-kicks.

Ken's sister Emily also came along for her first visit to the land of writhing seafood. And with all visitors who come to Seoul, I felt the need to show them some pylons.

As we used to say in the middle school days:
"Some day in the distant future, we shall view pylons together."

Ken is a formidable art nerd, and I'm a less formidable science nerd. We both appreciate the biology of octopuses, movies by the Coen brothers and the fact that someone beat Sim City.

If temples have been seen, folk villages undesirable and Seoul N Tower unremarkable, what else can one do in Seoul? We ended up going to Insadong, Gangnam, the Han River and Times Square.

Out the front of Times Square Seoul is a wrought iron monument, the meaning of which eludes me.

Being the inescapable artist that he is, Ken is drawn to surrounding examples of art like a bug toward a windshield.

An arcane motherly instinct present in the vast majority of human females creates a broad smile whenever a baby is slung to them. Baengy is a whopping 7.8 kilos these days, and we're only too happy to have someone else carry her around a shopping mall.

Down the rabbit hole we went, stumbling upon this imprisoned giant teddy bear, whose job delighting kids appeared nothing to envy. Whenever I picture myself being climbed upon like this by my kid(s) of the future, I imagine a feeling of overwhelming tiredness laced with necessary patience.

Baengy is an attention magnet, whose tentacles of distraction reach out and subdue innocent bystanders.

Fortunately she isn't carnivorous (only a devout lactivore).

There's even less Mexican food in Australia than there is Korean food. During celebratory occasions these days, I often feel like eating something other than pickled vegetables, gochujang and self-cooked meat.

On The Border is a Mexican restaurant doing the rounds at the moment. Our verdict is that they're conclusively superior to Dos Tacos in every aspect except pricing.

Wanna hear some geek humour?

"The number of particles in a guaca-mole is equal to Avocado's Constant."

Haha. Hilarious.

Surf and turf, Mexican style. Yum.

On The Border wrapped up our long overdue reunion with Ken quite nicely. To where he is going next, I know not, but hope to see him again in the not-too-distant future.

That little Panda was Ken's gift to Baengy. These days if you enter a room unannounced, stand outside her field of view and call her name, she'll start looking around for you. She hasn't yet mastered the usage of peripheral vision, but is rapidly getting better.

Previously she used to look around the room and if she saw my legs or body, she'd scan right past in the continuing search for the Origin of The Voice. But nowadays when she sees my legs, her eyes will slowly follow the trail of human body upwards to find the location of the Face from Whence the Voice Cometh. The process takes around 10 seconds.

And to reward her for such success, I always have an expression of feigned amazement, which invariably invokes a giggle or two.

Heather calls Baengy 'chim-jaengy' which means something like "drool person". Throughout most of the day, she's slobbering over items of inspection like a hairless St Bernard.

When I think about it, it's kinda funny how she has only ever consumed milk since birth. She was born at 3.6 kilos and is now more than double that weight. So more than half her body mass is just converted lactation.

Yet another fascinating idea courtesy of Human Babies:

Composed of and powered by milk.

Strange Encounters of the Infant Kind

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:08:00 +0000

The other day at work, I was looking at photos of my daughter when my phone rang. The caller ID indicated it was my wife. I picked up the call but it cut off, so I rang back.

"Baengy dialled your number, she was sitting on the phone."

While that little moment was the first definitive attempt at First Contact, there have been other occasions where I felt communication was attempted. Unfortunately the language of babies is cryptographically advanced and nobody I know has the cipher key.

From what I can tell, babies communicate through a combination of hypnotism and semaphore. They'll stare straight into your eyes, intensely but blankly, conjuring some kind of abyss that penetrates the mind. At the same time, they'll wave their arms around mechanically in simple morse code. When the receiver fails to decipher the message repeatedly, tears and wailing break out, which subside only when the baby is picked up and comforted.

The other day when this happened, I realised what the original message was: "It's time to hold me!"

One of the advantages of the Bumbo is that it allows the preparation of food.

Immobilisation of a baby is a marvellous thing, and is situationally more advantageous than having half your DNA rolling around on the living room floor.

It's rare these days for Heather and me to be able to enjoy a nice sit down meal at home. We're either exhausted or out of groceries. Luckily, this crafty chef knows that chopping a lot of veges and a bit of boiling can be passed off as cooking to an unsuspecting clientele.

I'm convinced beyond reasonable doubt of a supernatural link between babies and grandmothers. In some parallel world where babies are rockstars, grandmothers could be their hordes of adulating fans. This revelation struck me when I realised that rockstars often greet delighted fans with an air of nonchalance, while being generally dismissive of other rockstars.

Rockstars and fans also wear very different kinds of hats.

Hmm, yes.

Definitely some kind of rockstar.

We went for a walk in Geumjeong Park not so long ago, where I was witness to an historic event. Three generations of women from the Jung family, engaged in the ritual of babyslinging, Korean style.

Baengy enjoys being slung. She'll keep an eager watch from her new vantage point, like some kind of autonomous periscope scanning from left to right.

And I've noticed that she doesn't seem to stare for any specific purpose. It's just staring for the sake of staring, especially at passers-by. It has reaffirmed my belief that all humans, if stripped of social entrainment, bias and knowledge, would probably spend most of the day staring at other people's faces.

Baengy's head recently surpassed average Korean Pear size. That was a big milestone in our books.

We hope it stops somewhere between grapefruit and watermelon.

The first thing that a baby probably learns about themselves and other youngsters is that they're less adept at motor control than adults.

Luckily Baengy has learned to blink. Cousin Yujin will often launch an affectionate assault with very little warning.

And to round out this little post is a short task for our dear readers (and leaders?)

Match the emotive descriptions to the facial expressions above:

a) Delight

b) Accomplishment

c) Disgust/Horror

Good luck and see you soon.

Hey Cockalorum!

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 15:31:00 +0000

Aye¹(also ay)

noun.

An affirmative vote or voter.

Ex. The ayes outnumber the nays on this issue.

Hey

interjection.

An expression indicating surprise, dismay, discovery, etc, or calling for another's attention.

Ex. Hey cockalorum! (To view the definition of Hey cockalorum, activate your Merriam-Webster unabridged FREE TRIAL now!) ...

Let us pause for a moment to marvel at the emerging business strategies of free online dictionaries.

Okay I'm done.

Not long ago, 'Aye' and 'Hey' went down in history as the first identifiable words to emerge from Baengy's mouth. Audibly, they were more like "aaaaya" and "aaheey", but the author of Lee's Korea Blog is not one to deny credit where credit is due. One could endlessly debate the age old enigma "If a word is used unknowingly and completely out of context by an infant with no concept of words, is it still a word?"
To which I would say "Definitely. Please."

After all, if someone mumbles some meaningless nonsense in their bed while dreaming unaware, it's certainly enough to get them arrested by the Thought Police.

And I like to think that Baengy is actually expressing an early desire to participate in democratic process, while expressing her surprise and/or dismay at the general state of today's political landscape.

We pseudoinherited this babywalker from Heather's second sister. Pseudoinheritance is when a hand-me-down must eventually be returned to the giver, because the giver is pregnant with another baby on the way.

In the photo above, Baengy is greeting the walker with her customary gesture. For suckling reasons, the mouth is the most developed tactile organ of the human infant. As such, babies often investigate new objects by placing them within the mouth cavity, or for larger objects, by sucking on them. And I've observed that it's not always done in the most elegant way.

More like the early days of Soviet spacedocking, a bit of a hit-and-miss affair.

The woollen hat Baengy's wearing in this photo was knitted by Heather's mum. I prefer to call it a Brain Cosy.

Also note the emblem on her jumpsuit. I couldn't help but notice that it seems like the baby version of Amnesty's logo.

Along with attempting to revive words deserving of more attention, this young blog author also indulges in the forgotten art of frivolous nicknaming.

The blue patch on our daughter's left foot is a birthmark. Somewhat comically, I happen to have a similar one on my right hand. Baengy Bluefoot is my newest nickname currently doing the rounds. Earlier, her common household name was Milkytongue - due to her habit of finishing milk sessions, but somehow neglecting to perform the final swallowing action. This results in her tongue remaining visibly milky.

Here's Baengy Bluefoot, passed out on her mother's lap. We've long since learned the folly of waking her too soon, and her entire body is littered with motion sensors.

The indentation at the top of her forehead is called a fontanelle. It's a membranous part of a baby's skull that allows the bony plates to flex during birth. It also pulses with her heartbeat. Eventually it closes up and becomes bone (ossification), which coincidentally renders her entire brain impenetrable to ultrasound imaging. In other words, her skull becomes an acoustic fortress... which I'm only saying because it's fun to say.

Fontanelles are the reason why Heather's mother calls Baengy daechu-mori, which means Jujube¹ head.

¹Ziziphus zizyphus, a dried Korean date.

Fontanelle means fountain in French. These ones near the Hoam Faculty house caught Baengy's eye for a good five minutes. One could imagine that sparkly, stimulating objects would hold her attention the longest. But that isn't always the case. I've observed her to be fixated longest on the most unlikely objects, namely bits of discarded fruit peelings and the wrinkles on my forehead.

Baengy likes looking at things, and I like showing things to others. That's why I have this blog. We're a good match. I try to narrate my showing sessions to Baengy in an NPR-documentary style.

"And this is a device for aiding sausage consumption, colloquially referred to as a barbecue plate..."

I often have to work on the weekends, and sometimes wife and baby come along for a visit. To my knowledge, Baengy has successfully stared at every piece of furniture.

They'll often wait around and watch me like this until I'm finished.

Here's the new chairman of the board, sitting in my spot. The politically correct term would be chairperson, or a word I have recently coined myself:

Chairbaby

noun.

A baby who presides over meetings and ensures business is conducted in an orderly fashion.

Ex. "This meeting's chairbaby is none other than the amazing Ashley Farrand, with a full one hundred days of life experience. The meeting shall begin when she says the word 'Aye'."

When not chairing meetings of dubious outcome, Baengy can often be found slung to her mother in prominent Seoul locations. Wikipedia just told me that in this particular situation, we can say that the mother is wearing her daughter. How interesting.

She's like a little hot water bottle during these cooler autumn nights.

Baengy is a fine little baby, and Heather is a fine mother. I do what I can to clean poopies and make funny faces, but Heather is the real star. Credit where credit is due. I've recently decided to strive to be a more helpful nuisance around the house.

And so, Hey cockalorum! I guess that's the end of this blog post.

*For those wondering what cockalorum means, it's a noun. A little man with an unduly high opinion of himself

100 Days After The Big Bang

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 00:48:00 +0000

The feeling of grogginess experienced by someone who has just awoken, but whose body and mind is in need of further sleep, is called sleep inertia. At the Farrand residence, sleepless nights precede sleepy mornings on every day of the week ending in the letter Y.

Perhaps as some kind of ethereal compensation I have yet to understand, it could be said that the rocky road of early life is paved with abundant milestones. Ashley recently reached 100 days of age, giving us time to pause and reflect on the road we've covered.

Here are some videos from along the way.

This is the family that Baengy was born into. When this video was taken, Heather was only a few months pregnant, with Baengy just a suspended morsel of fragile life. Three female toddler cousins and numerous uncles and aunts ensured a consistent dull roar in the background, for Baengy's developing neurons to ponder.

The first thing that surprised me about Ashley was that her little gums were a single line of upright flesh. I guess I should have known, but I previously imagined gums to be rather flat in the absence of teeth.

And like all babies born à la Homo sapiens, she came into this world blind as a bat. Although it often seemed that she could see us in the early days, what was really happening was that her eyes were looking in the general direction of where sound was coming from.

Crying is the first word in an infant's vocabulary. The younger they are, the cuter the pitch. So far we've translated the following definitions of crying:

"Waaaah, waaaaah" - I am hungry and/or sleepy

"Waaaah *hic* waaaaah *hic*" - I have hiccups

"uuu-waaa, uuu-waaa" - I dislike train rides to Busan

"A-a-a aaaa, a-a-aaaa" - I cannot see any adults and would like a cheek rub

"AAH! AAAAAH AYAAAHH!" - My prior requests have been ignored

Heather's voice at this stage must have sounded like garbled nonsense, although one would imagine somehow familiar and reassuring. She's saying "Are you hungry? Ooooh yes, you're hungry. You want some milk..."

These are the kicketty kicks that Baengy does when she's upset. When she first started doing them, it was with her right leg only. I therefore surmised that she was right-handed. When she's angry nowadays, she can cycle her legs like she's riding a bicycle.

Balance is something we adults take for granted.

A Bumbo is a device for immobilising a baby in an upright position. Baengy cannot yet locomote in any appreciable way, but the Bumbo is handy in that she is often happier when she's upright. That's because Baengy's newest hobby since she received the gift of sight, is looking.

Looking is another one of those free things in life that most of us take for granted.

These days she's getting more responsive and displaying primitive forms of curiousity. Items that have held her interest are often left with a complimentary smear of drool.

Baengy can touch her face with her hands, but has yet to figure out the dubious link between having one's eyes covered, and the diminished ability to see.

This is Baengy's newest trick. Evidently aware of the dangers of being smothered, she has developed her own close-in weapons system, which is a kind of primitive short range acoustic device. Good for repelling pirates and boisterous mothers.

All things considered, we're having a grand old time with our daughter, and the irritability of sleep deprivation is at least somewhat alleviated by the odd giggle or a brand new facial expression. The next milestone we're both looking forward to, and simultaneously dreading, is when Baengy receives the gift of self propulsion. We'll be sure to inform you when and how it happens.

Rain in Seoul

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 03:26:00 +0000

"Après moi le déluge"

(After me, the flood)

A person to whom I was listening was once talking about time management. The emerging point being that everyone tends to focus on time management, when really they should be thinking about priority management. When you get your priorities clear, time will take care of itself.

That was nice, I thought.

But what to do if one has too many priorities?

"People say 'I'm taking it one day at a time'. You know what? So is everybody. That's how time works."

- Hannibal Buress

If it weren't for a daily breakfast and a splash of humour when needed, I think I'd go a bit nutty. Not to say that going nuts isn't a good thing, it just makes it more difficult to accomplish tasks that require a degree of focus.

A baby and a parent can be thought of as two celestial objects orbiting each other in space. During pregnancy, the baby is a growing moon in fast orbit, inflicting a noticeably enlargening wobble on the lifestyle of the parent. Only by sheer weight of inertia, can the parent maintain accomplishment of daily tasks like doing the laundry or going shopping.

However, the gravity of the baby eventually increases to such a size that the parent's life stops and then in an unusual cosmic event, begins to revolve around the baby. At 3 months of age, the baby is sufficiently massive that once commonplace tasks like, say, eating or sleeping, often times become an unwinnable battle.

Most days at the Farrand household begin at 3am. At this unholy hour, Big Baengy will often make a sound, which I will call a snickle. It's a kind of snorting sound that she makes when she's about to wake up.

One snickle soon follows another, and ten or so snickles later, Baengy is awake and needing attention.

If such attention is not acceptably forthcoming, Baengy activates her personal siren, which can penetrate the deepest of adult dreams like some giant serpentine claw that yanks one from the depths of serenity and into a world of cacophonous din.

If the laws of physics are being policed by some kind of deity, I would like to promptly bring it to their attention that many of the laws are being broken every night at around 3am.

There would be no other way to explain how a body so small can create a sound so loud, for such an extended period of time.

But life hasn't all been about bawling babies. Arthur came over to our department a while ago and gave us a presentation on statistical analysis. One of my hobbies at university is to figure out new ways to educate ourselves.

Nisha also gave a summary of life in Korea. Her time here finished and she left for the greener pastures of the London School of Tropical Medicine.

Did you know that malaria comes from the words mal = bad and aria = air?

Baengy tends to emit her fair share of malaria in the mornings, to the tune of a tiny trumpet.

Jina and Franco's Trattoria serves cuisine that tastes even better when paid for by the lab credit card.

One thing I've noticed in Korea is that there's no medium quality pasta. Sorrentos and Mr Pizza serve synthetic overpriced nonsense not worthy of sale, while places like Trattoria and Tombola dispense immaculately flavoured, but small, lumps of heavenly spaghetti.

In Australia you can get good cheap pasta at quite a few places. But then again, it's difficult to find good cheap kimchi. I guess it all balances out.

I also had the pleasure of drinking wine while Superman played the piano. This was a Hollywood themed night for the Area 30 Toastmasters clubs. I was supposed to be Neo and/or Morpheus.

Art Michalak coined the nickname Neopheus.

And in the immortal words of Impatient Chicken, we were serenaded by a co-worker again.

Actually, there were a few good performances that night.

My favourite ongoing wine joke is from Jef Robison. Whenever someone complains about something incessantly, he will quip

"Would you like some cheese with that whine?"

Cassie Sung also took off for greener pastures. For her, those were the hallowed fields of Vancouver. She's studying environmental management, a field to which I wholeheartedly tip my symbolic hat.

She might be interested in Upcycling and Mossariums.

Mount Gwanak towers over my lab like a watchful guardian. I like to think that it feels a certain amount of displeasure whenever I procrastinate.

I spotted this humourously long name for a workshop at the law school entitled 'International Seminar and Workshop on the Development of Multi-Disciplinary Program on Sustainability and Environmental Management.'

They felt it wise to leave out the ubiquitous -in the Asia Pacific Region suffix.

In this photo, you may notice that Baengy has a rather large cranium. I noticed it too. She has evidently concluded that her future hyperintelligence necessitates an expansionist policy in gray matter real estate.

She is also somewhat neckless. To explain this, I've come up with the Neckless Baby Hypothesis. In summary it states that babies have shortened necks to reduce the chance of whiplash, much like how a car-crash neckbrace is designed to immobilise the head. One comical outcome of this is that it's very easy to sneak up on a baby from a peripheral origin.

Then again, the most common outcome of sneaking up on a baby and surprising them is akin to the facial expression of a bug staring at a wall.

Domestic life is fairly good, especially when Baengy endows our household with one of her non-crying excerpts from the Book of Early Life.

But undeniable cuteness compensates for all inconveniences to that point experienced.

Goo-goo-goo, ga ga. I'm pretty sure that babyspeak is a natural instinct of parents. However, it's different in different countries.

For example, Heather uses the Korean form "ah-ja-ja-ja jaaa! ah ja-ja!"

It's worthy of further study by an infantile linguist.

And just as I enjoy a good gorgonzola, Baengy enjoys a good cheek rub.

A cheek rub for the cheeky, that's what it is.

The hanging mobile is a mysterious device with arcane powers.

The witchcraft it weaves, I ponder not.

Like some kind of primordial hallucinogen operating as suspended semaphore, it holds Baengy's undivided attention for minutes on end. And yes, minutes on end could just as well be a short eternity, in which a depraved parent is free to prepare a meal or visit the latrines.

The current mobile is black and white, designed to catch the attention of babies up to three months (who are unable to distinguish colours). Each of the toys makes a rattling or squeaking sound when agitated, and one of them plays a battery-operated "It's a Small World After All." Baengy will gaze at each artifact intensely, as if it is somehow communicating to the observer some hidden truth.

Overall, a splendidly conceived device worthy of praise.