Indian community in Korea

Apparently, there's a sizable population of people from the Indian subcontinent here. I've noticed this around town and this semester I have a T.A. from India. His name is Sabby and he introduced me to a real Indian restaurant in Suwon (I'd been to two in Seoul before. One was good but overpriced. But it has the advantage of being next to Bandi and Luni's bookstore. The other was in Itawon, which I dislike).

Anyway, this place was really really good. Sabby said that when he first arrived in Korea 3 years ago he used to eat there so frequently it became like a second home and the proprietress treated him like family (in the good way) when we were there. They both seemed pleased and impressed that I knew anything about Indian food already.

I went back on my own on a Friday night a couple of weeks later. The same woman was there and not only recognized me but remembered that I liked yogurt for dessert and gave me some on the house without my ordering it, which I thought was very kind of her.

Being there on my own and on a weekend was a very different experience from my first visit though. For starters, I was the only woman customer. It's a very small restaurant (maybe maximum seating 20, if you're friendly enough to sit so close) and was about half full when I arrived. I was stared at when from the moment I walked in. I don't think it was a hostile stare, more of a curious and surprised one. One funny thing--if I closed my eyes I could have been on Lexington Ave. in the 20s back home. The sound of the Indian language(s?) was kind of an aural flashback.

The same thing happens when I hear Russian spoken in public here. It takes me a minute to notice that I'm hearing a language I can identify, and even understand a few words of, yet isn't English or Korean. Then it takes another moment for me to remember it's a little odd to be hearing Russian (or Hindi) on the street because I'm not in NY (I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore Toto)

A couple of fun things in the restaurant (aside from the really good food): volleyball on tv, Indian dishes spelled in both Korean and English on the menu.

I read a review of the new Jhumpa Lahiri book while I was eating and had another one of those moments of global intersection--i.e., reading about a novelist from a Bangladeshi background, based in NY (educated at Barnard, where I unhappily worked for a semester while in grad school) whose books I read and enjoyed in the US, while I'm sitting in a restaurant reminiscent of her original homeland (I know India and Bangladesh are different countries, but it's the same part of the world) and my hometown too.