The kimbob fell from my chopsticks and skidded across the table, unrolling itself. White grains spilt from its insides haphazardly. With great self-control Yeonhee kept a straight face, ignored the mess, and offered me another piece.

 

It was two o'clock in the afternoon. Yeonhee had cooked a feast. We had started an hour earlier and I had managed the grand total of five successful mouthfuls. The little I had eaten was delicious, making my inability to master my eating utensils all the more frustrating. However, I was determined to finish my meal with chopsticks, and not give up and ask for a fork.

It wasn't my only new experience of the day. Arriving at her house I took off my shoes and to my surprise Yeonhee handed me a pair of pretty red-and-green slippers. Were they a gift; was I meant to wear them? Growing up in the hot, rural city of Mt Isa in Queensland's northwest I was used to being barefoot inside (it was too hot to wear shoes), but taking my shoes off to put other shoes on was an unfamiliar custom.

 

Six months earlier, Yeonhee and I had met at a Chinese language class we were both taking at the University of Queensland. I was just months out of high-school and studying law; Chinese was an elective subject. Yeonhee and her husband had arrived in Australia from Korea less than two weeks ago as international students. With the world of university being new to me, and life in Australia new to Yeonhee, we were both a little nervous at our first Chinese class. But we quickly fell into the routine of pinyin pronunciation, tone practise, and grammar instruction. Along the way Yeonhee and I became friends.

One semester later I was at her house for lunch and my first, messy attempt at using chopsticks.

 As we continued our meal, Yeonhee offered me a glass of water. My first thought was that there was something very wrong with her house's piping because the liquid in my glass was brown. But evidently Yeonhee saw nothing wrong and I was meant to drink it. As a testimony of our friendship, I did, and realised it was weak tea. In my opinion, water wasn't tea, weak or otherwise. However, it was refreshing and I tried to ignore the unfamiliar colour and taste.

 

As we finished our lunch Yeonhee, laughing, informed me that I might now pass as a native-three-year-old Korean child. She had a niece who used chopsticks as well as I did. Despite being compared to a child only recently finished with diapers, I was delighted to register at any skill level whatsoever. 

Another six months later we were organising a trip to the Sunshine Coast with several of our classmates from Chinese class. Yeonhee called me to finalise some last details.

She began the call with ‘Where are you?’

I asked ‘How are you?’

Yeonhee answered, ‘Ahh, tired and a little sunburnt. But ok’.

I answered, ‘Umm, at Chermside Shopping Centre. In Target, buying some togs’.

After some initial confusion, the differences in our languages’ traditional greetings gradually become a joke with us. Yeonhee said the English greeting and emphasis on health made her feel like she was on her deathbed and I was a nurse checking she was still alive.

 

I said the Korean greeting made me feel like an ex-prisoner reporting to my parole officer.

 

Two years after our first lunch together I was waiting at a restaurant in Toowong (a Brisbane suburb) for Yeonhee. She and her husband were moving to Melbourne at the end of the week and we were having a final meal in Brisbane together.

Water or tea was available. As I waited for Yeonhee to arrive I poured her some tea and me some water. Our table was set with both knives and forks and chopsticks. I chose chopsticks.