My mother's birthday

Tomorrow is my mom's 53^rd birthday and I am going to tell you what happened 10 years ago on her 43^rd birthday.

About 10 years ago, my family and I immigrated to San Diego from small village in Korea. We settled under my aunt's place for couple months until my mom found a job in K-town in L.A as an editor for Korean newspaper. At first, my mom and I moved to Downey on Florence Ave and Old River School Rd by ourselves, leaving my dad and my brother in San Diego. I had no friends, nothing to do, and of course, could not speak a word of English other than “Hello, my name is Ben”, “How are you? Fine thank you and you?”, numbers 1- 20, and the alphabet but saying Z as in “jet tuh”. So I gotta say, I had an extreme case of culture shock. Since I had so much free time, I decided to explore and get an idea of what is around my house. I got on my bike and starting cruising east bound on Florence ave. I found couple things that we see still on Florence ave. There was the Mexican market(Amapola), Cosmic Bowling ( had no idea back then), Tacos Mexico (it used to be 25cents per tacos), and Sav-ons. I can't recall if I bought anything, but I did get an idea of my surroundings. Of course I felt like a complete stranger at home as well as just in city of Downey. I never knew anything about Mexicans, didn’t know what Spanish was, or seen so many damn cars. Well I should have realized back then that I was going to call this place home in the future.

On Nov. 16^th, 2000, my mom's 43^rd birthday, I decided to make this a very special occasion. I remember I wanted to give her the best birthday ever because well, there were couple reasons. First, our family recently moved to a new country, even though it was mainly I who was crying every single day because I was frustrated at the fact that I could not communicate with other kids at school. But I was sure at the time that everyone in our family was struggling to adjust to this new life. Secondly, my dad and my brother were in San Diego and could not be there to do anything for her birthday. So it was pretty much my responsibility to do something special for her. Picture this, 12 year old Korean kid, who is from a small tiny village in Korea, who can't speak/read/write English, all alone at home, 10 bucks in his possession, trying to throw a special birthday party for his mother. I have to admit, this kid had a pure heart, I mean just the thought of it was heart warming, wouldn't you agree?

So now we move on to the planning. I had limited resources that I could use so I did my best to use it wisely. The set up was simple, put the kitchen table in the middle of the living room. For entrees, I had Mi Yuk Gook (Korean birthday soup), Job Chae(Korean noodles), Korean pancakes (Boo Chin Gae) that my mom had cook the night before and the start of what we now call the “Cheese Egg” where I put crap load of cheese on top of the eggs. Now, it would not be a birthday unless there's a birthday cake and a present. So I casually went to Amapola, not knowing a word in English or Spanish, just to look for any bakery goods I can use to represent as a birthday cake. With the 10 dollars I had, I was only able to purchase 1 slice of cake. After purchasing that, I was left with 6 dollars to buy my mom a present. I headed towards Sav-ons, only to find myself eating 2 tacos that I have ordered from Tacos Mexico. Right now I'm trying to think how the hell I ordered 2 tacos, I probably just pointed at the sign, saying I want 2 of those. Back to my route to Sav-ons, when I got there I was able to find a birthday card for 3 dollars and 2 candles for dollar each. So I came home, made the entrees, wrote something pretty sweet on the card, and called to confirmed that my mom was 5 minutes away. So I lit the candles that I bought, held the slice of cake, and as she opened the door, I sang her a happy birthday song to her. She was shocked, she smiled, and after she blew out the candles, she started crying.

This has been the most memorable birthday I gave to my mom. The thing is, this is nothing compare to the things that she did for me. For all my brother's birthdays, I got a present also. I never understood why she bought me a present also but I always got it something for my brother's birthday. She threw me a birthday party every year until I was 13. And now she gives me cash for every birthday, and I gotta say that's the best present gift ever. This year, I'm planning on getting her the shoes that I wanted for the past month but I'm going to give her the priority of rocking them first because she truly deserves it. It's her birthday tomorrow and I just wanted to bring up the past for a quick second. 

Toodles.

Viviano and Lorabora: if you read this, don’t you dare to think for a second that I'm still this good kid because I'm a bad boy now. nah ppun nam jahs will soon rise again.