Some events in life only become clear in retrospect. One of these events centered on a visit to my sister-in-law¡¯s house in Seoul. In 1984 I was in Korea teaching English at Dan Gook University. My wife was still in America and I was obliged to visit my wife¡¯s sister, Hyun Hee, to eat dinner at her house.
We enjoyed the time together. I showed her pictures of her sister and nephews. Then she said ¡°My husband and I have already eaten, so you can eat alone as much as you want¡±. That seemed unusual to me but I understood that I was an honored guest.
Hyun Hee served a full Korean meal: a big bowl of rice and lots of little side dishes. The meal included a side dish of bul-go-gi. I finished it off pretty quickly. After a while, Hyun Hee opened the sliding door and popped her head into the room. She saw that the first dish of bul-go-gi was empty so she took the empty dish and quickly returned with it re-filled.
I like bul-go-gi so I soon finished off the second dish too. Hyun Hee looked in again and saw that the bul-go-gi was gone. As she went to pick up the dish, I told her ¡°No, no I¡¯ve had enough¡±. She took it anyway. This time I heard some conversation and commotion in the outside room. Hyun Hee was sending her son, Sung Gyun, to the market to buy some more bul-go-gi !! I couldn¡¯t believe it. I told her that my stomach was full. After a 30 minutes or so, she entered the room and presented me with a third dish of bul-go-gi. I was sick of the stuff, but I didn¡¯t want to insult my sister-in-law. My parents taught me to finish every thing on my plate. They would say ¡°Just think of all those hungry people in China¡±. So I just managed to finish off my third bowl of meat. I was really stuffed. But when my sister-in-law saw that the bul-go-gi was gone, she gave me fourth bowl. This time I couldn¡¯t eat a bite (even if I thought of the hungry people in China). I just pushed the table away and said, ¡°my stomach is full, I¡¯m gonna die¡±. That ended my big meal. We talked some more and then I left.
A few months later my wife came to Korea and together we visited Hyun Hee. I understood enough of the conversation to catch that Hyun Hee was laughing and telling my wife how much bul-go-gi I ate. I defended myself by saying ¡°I only ate what she gave me. I thought I was supposed to do that¡±.
As the two sisters talked and talked, a light bulb went on in my head. ¡°It was a battle of ethics¡± I thought. My Protestant ethic told me to finish all my food and not be wasteful. This clashed with her Confucian ethic to give me as much as I could eat¡±. With 20/20 hindsight I could see that I ate and ate and nearly got sick in order to be polite and that she sent her son to the market to buy more food in order to be polite. I chuckled to myself ¡°That lesson cost me about five pounds of weight