Turning One

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

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

"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

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.