South Mouth

So this weekend my daughter wanted to try ramen.  My son is not big on food experimentation.  He’s a teen and this year he finally decided that he would branch away from cheeseburgers at sit down restaurants.  He’s branched out to chicken strips.  It’s a big move for him so I’m applauding it.

My daughter, on the other hand, has been experimenting with foods for a while now.  She started marginally earlier than my son, about four or five years ago.  In case you don’t know, she’s a few years older, so she’s only a little ahead of him.

About a month ago I took them to a Korean food court in our area called ASSI.  We are not in agreement on how to pronounce it.  While there I got the bibimbab. Bibimbab, which I’ve seen spelled different ways, is a bunch of different things.  Basically, it is rice, coupled with vegetables, a spicy soup, a fried fish, kimchee and sometimes other things.  It’s a lot.

To my kids’ credit they both tried it.  But neither seemed especially in love with it.  I guess it has to grow on you.  Now my daughter talks about craving kimchee and wanting to go further in her Korean food experimentation.  So this weekend we got ramen.

She had ramen with some vegetables and chicken flavor.  Mine was chili flavored.  Hers tasted like chicken and vegetables while mine tasted like fire.  I swear I could feel it burning in my stomach.

Later that evening I told her that my stomach was very upset and complaining.  But instead of tossing his opinions up he was “shouting through my south mouth.”  To this both she and I started cracking up.

I’ve never heard the phrase before so it was new and a surprise to both of us.  I know that there are hundreds of people on this planet, possibly thousands, and that some of them also speak English.  So I know there is a good possibility someone has said this phrase before.  But I’m going to pretend I made it up and log this creation here. 

New Phrase:      Screaming from my south mouth.

Meaning:           Farting or expelling gases and/or substances from the colon; especially with some                               degree of noise/commotion.

K-Pop

I’m sure it happens to every generation.  Their parents don’t understand – or won’t understand – the things that they are “in to.”  So the kids get frustrated and rebel, embracing more holistically that which the parents don’t understand.  And subsequently they promise to never be so out of touch with their children, but they are anyway.

I was lucky.  My parents were fairly liberal.  They never questioned my or my siblings' music.  They rarely questioned our fashion sense.  Our hair was ours to style.  Pretty much anything to do with culture they let us have our own way.  But then again, unlike my siblings, I was pretty slow to notice anything cultural.  I was so entrenched in video games and comic books that I didn’t notice the culture or counter culture all around me.  I didn’t care about my clothes.  In seventh grade my teacher teased me for wearing bell bottoms.  It was 1987.  I didn’t even comb my hair – no exaggeration – until my sophomore year. And I didn’t discover New Wave music until 1994; arguably ten years after the genre's halcyon days.

Still, I had the occasional parental bout and I had more than a few friends who clashed with their parents.  So I promised I was going to be understanding.  I was never going to be one of those parents who said, “That music is too loud,” or “That movie made no sense,” or “Those clothes are ridiculous.”  I’ve done pretty well so far.

So, long story short, my daughter has gotten into K-Pop.  In case you do not know, K-Pop is an abbreviation for Korean Pop music.  I’ve been made to listen to at least three different bands.  How many songs I could not guess.  I have to admit that the dancing and the music and singing are certainly professional.  It is all appealing to the eyes and ears.

But the lyrics.  Ah the lyrics.

I don’t speak Korean.  Though Korean is the second most spoken language in Georgia, my home state, it has never been one of my top languages to learn.  Now I find that I may be forced to learn the language or I’m going to wind up being one of those parents who – very honestly – says, “I can’t understand a darn thing they’re sayin’!”