Address et. al.

Send letters/donations to:

Mike Roy c/o Hyun Sook Lee
Herald Institute
Bukgu Guamdong 766
Prime Plaza 4th Floor
Daegu, South Korea 702-280

Also appreciated would be any input on what sort of Xmas food I can make without an oven – preferably involving only 2 burners, as well. And no expensive ingredients. And also, nothing too smelly. Remember that I sleep in my kitchen, or maybe I cook in my bedroom, whichever way you want to put it. Anyhow the bosses might have me over for Christmas dinner, in which case I’d like to bring some homemade American food. Not because I’m generous, but because so far Korean desserts (not counting the sugared corn dog – that’s a category unto itself) have been on the lame side. For instance, the other week, some little 1 year old that the bosses knew had a birthday party, and for some reason or other I wound up with a box of treats on my desk. There were two types: the first were little dumpling-looking things that would have been delicious if filled with meat and veggies, but were relatively gross owing to the pseudo-chocolate bean paste filling; the second was some type of powdery rice cake that I can’t really describe other than with the words dry, excruciating to chew, and yucky.

Then, later on in the week, my boss got into some sort of fight (I wasn’t there) with the boss from another English center upstairs, who later apologized by giving us a cake. Each of the other 4 school employees (IE 2 bosses, secretary, and my coteacher) had a slice, then gave me the remaining half. It was alright, but there was something a little funky about it that prevented me from eating all 4 remaining slices. I could only choke down 1.75 before I got this slimy sugar overload feeling.

I’m not complaining, though, about the way my employers and coworkers and even students indulge my tendencies to mooch; so far, in addition to those desserts, I’ve been given numerous tangerines, treated to various homemade, incredibly labor-intensive riceball treats, bags of chips, bags of little fried snacks sort of like you get with Chinese soup back home, and handfuls of these awesome little fried things. I wonder if they’ll stop giving me all these goodies once I get my first paycheck.