Every Friday we visit our daughter’s house. I take care of the youngest, Carys, and my wife makes chicken salad and chicken soup that we enjoy eating. Since my daughter has to take care of three daughters, we take care of them so she can have her time outside, or for her to care of her business.
But because my daughter was sick, she had to head to a doctor. Instead of visiting, we stayed home today. I usually like to head out to my office to work. But today my wife wanted to celebrate my birthday and wanted to have a lunch outside. We went to a well known buffet called “TODAI” and had a great lunch. It was also great that there was a rain on our way home. We had waited so long for that welcoming rain. I give thanks that the rain came constantly and has finally quenched the dried land. It was so rare that it would happen only once out of 100s of years.
Around 2PM in the afternoon, there was a resident’s meeting of the senior apartment. The manager was looking for a council member in the Koreans to appoint, and I was selected. Before, more elderly people used to be in the council, but due to the difficulty of hearing he had resigned. While looking for a new member, I was selected as I was the youngest. In here, 70 are considered young. The average age of the elderly in Korea is male 77, female 84. In here, there are about 20 elderly Koreans. Most of them have past 80s.
In the meeting room, the council members sit in front of the desks. There is a card with the name “Mr. Lee”. After the manager came in, he called me to sit in the desk, but it felt awkward. Around noon, there was a pledge of allegiance to the flag, and then the meeting started. After the meeting’s representative’s speech, there was the reading of what was going on this meeting, and finance report.
After short while, the manager call on several people to stand up if their name was called. I always had a bit of discomfort with standing when my name was called. It was if the monthly tuition was late, or if I did wrongly on tests, I would get punished after standing. With that, about 30 people were called, and at the last of the names, I was called. All of the people stood that were on the list. The manager said everyone else was allowed to sit down again, but I was told to remain standing. I was slightly astounded… I didn’t do anything wrong that I knew of…
Those names of people, who were called, had their birthday in the month of February. The manager also noted that today, the 28th of February was Paul Lee’s birthday. There was a suggestion to sing “Happy Birthday”. When you look at the hallways or the wall outside of the office, there are pictures of those who had lived here in the past. About 15 years ago, most of it was Caucasians. But after the wave of immigration, the most populous is Chinese, American, Russian, and Koreans. But as if the “Birthday Song” is “all – national”, everyone sang me happy birthday in loud, unison.
Every Friday, I visited my daughter’s place. So in a year I would miss 2~3 of the resident’s meeting. After I was appointed, the first meeting happened to be on my birthday. I was happy to hear the birthday song, and by far the most amounts of people, and the most diverse community group. I give thanks to the manger’s consideration.
(March 1st, 2014)
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Happy Birthday (4) 
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