Next year in Seoul

I went to a Passover seder at a religious retreat center connected with the US Army base in Seoul last Saturday. There must've been about 100 people there. Who knew there were that many Jews in Korea? According to a Mr. Irving Gussow, sitting to my right, this is the one time of year that eveybody comes out of the woodwork. In fact, there are at least a few more, (Jews in Korea) because Chabad has just arrived in Seoul and hosted a seder of their own.

I brought my friend/student, Ohseok Kwon. We've had really interesting discussions about religion and culture in both the US and Korea. He's Buddhist and he says his wife "has no religion." They're both fine with each other's outlook. (He told me that Buddhist families are often reluctant to have their kids marry Christians here because they're afraid the in-laws will try to convert everybody.) Anyway, he was curious about Jewish culture and happy to come along.

It was very chaotic, with a beleagured looking rabbi trying to run the show with only moderate success. I felt for him, having tried to manage unruly groups myself. Ohseok and I arrived late (there was lots of traffic on the way from Suwon to Seoul and we joked that it must have been the Passover rush), and wound up sharing a table with an American family. The father was from Queens and works in public service for the army here, basically dealing with their radio station, I think. He said things like "Drinking makes life easier" and "After what we paid for your Bat Mitzvah, you'd better...." His wife looked like she was determined to enjoy the holiday in spite of him. I talked with their pre-teen daughter about how grandmas make the best matzoh ball soup and the 3-year old son showed his toy trucks to Ohseok.