Thomas TS #14

I met with Father John again. I emailed him about a schedule change due to class and he also wanted to update me on a change in location since Ming Tree isn’t open for lunch. We chatted for a bit and he brewed some puer tea which I liked despite not being a tea person, apparently it’s a cultural norm to serve tea to guests that come over in Korea. We had a nice chat over tea; one of the topics we talked about was how old we were; he was surprised I was a young 23-year old (which I thought was old) and I was surprised he was 49-50 years old but I didn’t show it obviously. We also talked about the alcohol cultures and apparently the legal drinking age in Korea is 18 but people as young as 15 drink; he also said that soju goes well with a Korean dish where you wrap a meat with a lettuce leaf, something I’ve had before when I went to Korea. He asked me about what my goals were and I told him about my latest job offer from Interac and that I want to be a translator. He told me that I would be a great teacher and translator. I wasn’t sure if he was sparing me my feelings or if he was honest but I appreciate his kind words. He wanted to know if I was born here and I told him all about myself; where my family is from and how I ended up in Florida. After having several cups of tea, he offered to cut some peaches and we had sliced peaches from Fresh Market, which were really sweet. Afterwards he gave me two of his peaches and we called it a day.