A Visit From Big Sister

Sushi with Misun

Misun, aka my big sis­ter, vis­it­ed from France yes­ter­day. We gorged our­selves on all-you-can-eat sushi, and I let her sur­prise me by choos­ing not to know what she ordered for us. Now I wish I had kept note so I could order the same things again.

Sushi with me

It was hard to argue with her about the bill. She kept insist­ing that she pay because she’s old­er (from her Korean cul­ture), and I kept insist­ing that I pay because I’m the host (from my Chinese cul­ture). I even used the argu­ment that if it’s the elder who pays, then she would always be pay­ing. Unfortunately, the host­ess took her side and refused my mon­ey.

She was only able to stay in Ottawa for the night, but before turn­ing in well beyond our bed­times, we caught up as peo­ple can only do in per­son. We’d been keep­ing in touch the whole time we’ve been apart, and now had the chance to fill in the details.

The time I most felt like I knew what it was to have a sis­ter was when we brushed our teeth togeth­er in the bath­room. Afterward, we com­pared grey hair, me laugh­ing at her three strands, as I have a steady diet of salt added to my pep­per.

Misun's note

When I woke up, I found this cute note, with our faces (includ­ing Dolly’s) drawn on it.

8 comments

  1. Aw, I miss hav­ing a “sis­ter.” Mine lives in LA and I moved away from So Cal to Detroit for my soul mate, so she and I nev­er see each oth­er. She man­aged to miss my wed­ding. :(

    THat is the cutest note ever. I’m so glad you’re sur­round­ed by peo­ple like that.

    And look how cheesy hap­py you guys are!

    I agree with you as the host, you should pay. I don’t think that’s only a Chinese cul­tur­al hall­mark. Pilipinos are the same way. But gen­er­al­ly they will feed the shit out of you the moment you cross the thresh­old, so there is prob­a­bly not many instances where an argu­ment ensues over a restau­rant bill, because there would be no need to go out for food! :)

    • Cheesy hap­py is good. I need more cheesy hap­py in my pho­tos.

      And feed­ing the shit out of some­one is such a hilar­i­ous image!

  2. You look like you’ve put on some weight…more meat on the cheeks, more man­ly and mature.

    • I know that I’ve kept the weight that I gained when in Hong Kong, but I did­n’t know that I gained more. That’s a good thing. I think the man­li­ness comes from the sweater though. People tell me it makes me look a lot big­ger. I need more sweaters like that.

  3. Trust me, Koreans tend to argue you into the ground on the sub­ject of age hier­ar­chy. But: in this case my hus­band sug­gest­ed that the “host” card should have won out. He thinks prob­a­bly it would have been fine for her to let you pay.

    • Hmmm…now I’m begin­ning to sus­pect that she was real­ly just using the age card as an excuse to pay. I must remem­ber this for the next time we’re out.

  4. the lit­tle draw­ing she did of you actu­al­ly kind of resem­bles you! haha­ha cute.

    • I did­n’t real­ize the draw­ings were of us actu­al­ly, until I saw the cat. Then it clicked right in!

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