I arrived to the apartment building and immediately knew that I was going to live in a beautiful home for the year. We took the elevator up to the 14th floor and I was home. The Park family greeted me at the door with lots of waves and hellos. My host mother, Elijah, is even more beautiful than my co-teacher described and was full of smiles during our introduction. My host sister, Heewon, is in the fifth grade and my brother, Sungchan, is in second grade. Both of the children learn English in schools and from tutoring at private academies and have basic conversation skills.
I was given a tour of the apartment and showed my room for the year. My host family is Catholic and was very excited to hear that I am also Catholic. Before I was finished with my tour of the apartment I was on the floor bowing to statues of Mary and Jesus and praying with my host father in Korean. My host parents asked me to call them by their Catholic names, Mark and Elijah, rather than their Korean names. There was some discussion about calling me by my confirmation name, Anne, but it was decided that the same name, Meghan, should be used at home and school. I was happy about that decision.
We had our first traditional Korean dinner together and I was treated like royalty. I spent most of the night unpacking and discussing the logistics of the house with Mark. Within the first hour I was informed that Elijah would do my laundry (very nice!), but that I would need to clean my own under garments (also very Korean). Nothing says family like talking about underwear on the first night!!
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