All My Korean Children

There's a Chinese saying that every family has a book that's hard to read. I guess Chinese people really liked round-about metaphors. The phrase basically means that every family is dysfunctional in its own way. True, but some are more messed up than others. And because TChu and I are into comparisons and would-you-rathers, and who-could-take-who scenarios, he's come up with "Whose Family is Most Worthy of a Korean Soap Opera*?"

Over burgers (and a wimpy salad for wimpy Ranwei) this past Sunday, TChu, Ranwei, and I duked it out. Sure neither TChu and I had an uncle who's actually been kidnapped and held for ransom (with a priest dropping off the ransom for them- double awesome), but Ranwei didn't have much in the way of sketchy family history and quickly fell out of contention. And thus off we went, TChu and I, round after round: On the prestige side, Tim's family boasts a national scholar (a man that was essentially the smartest man in China in his time), but I have a great great who was a general for the emperor. In the way of rags-to-scholars, Tim's grandfather taught himself to read on a ship, but my grandfather was pulled out of school and had to secretly read books by candlelight so his mother wouldn't find out. I also have photogenic cousins and soaps only portray beautiful people. Tim's family has Chinese triad connections and a whole side of the family so shady that they no longer stay in touch. But I have relatives who have bought passports, had more than one family, and escaped in the dark of night. It looked like I was going to take the competition toward the end, what with secret sons and near-executions and writing screen plays and all- but I didn't have one story good enough to trump Tim's ace: a grandfather in the merchant marines who won the heart of a British lady and fathered two Chinese-British kids only to be recalled home and forced into an arranged marriage. Do you know how hard it must have been for a Chinese merchant marine to marry a British barkeep? How I wish I could have half British second cousins running around in the world not knowing whatever happened to their grandfather! And because of that fatal missing piece, I decided to call our family soap competition a draw. I didn't win, but there's no way I lost.

Is your family worthy of a Korean soap? I want to hear the stories.

*Oh, it's got to be Korean. I can't speak much for telenovelas, but from what I've sampled of North American, Asian, and some European soaps, I know that the Koreans do it best.