Communication

Today was a great weather day here in Dallas, sunny, cool, low humidity. I was working outside all day out at the airport, humping freight off of airplanes, and onto trucks. Great exercize!

When I got home, I spent an hour trying to explain to my beautiful wife the subtle differences between what you can take onboard the aircraft in your carry-on bags, and what you can take in your checked luggage. I love the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration. Oh, the trials, and triumphs of living with a deaf, Korean princess, whose English reading and writing skills are limited at best. Oh, well, I knew what I was getting into when I married her. So, anyhow, the issue of going to Korea with my wife, and the issue of communication comes up. Now, I know about five Korean words, most of them having to do with food, so I will not be having many technical conversations with our hosts. Add to that the fact that two of her three brothers are also deaf, and it's starting to get a little more complicated. Next, I really do not know much American Sign Language, either. She and I mostly communicate with a mix of ASL, Korean Sign Language, lip reading, pantomime, body language, and signs we've made up. Real clever...and lazy. We get by. The last time we were in Korea, I was able to pick up on their Korean Sign Language enough to follow along with the basics. We mostly hung out with her littlest brother and his wife, and their cool friend, all three deaf reborn christians. They never hit me over the head with the religion thing like people here in the States like to do. We had a great time. The three of them would come pick us up at our hotel every day, and we'd go do whatever fun thing came to mind. I never could get these people's names, so I just assigned them English names. I called her littlest brother Mike, and his wife Julie. Their cool friend I called Jerry. These names just seemed to fit them. They couldn't hear anyway, so it really didn't matter. Jerry worked in his brother's body shop, and he would show up every day with a different car to shuttle us around in. I never asked. By the end of a week, I found that we were having pretty long and deep conversations. Don't ask me how, we just found a way. People have an innate sense of language, and a need to communicate, so they find ways. This coming trip to Korea, we will probably be spending a lot of time with her mom, as mom is getting pretty old, and this is really the reason for this trip. Her mom is a sweet, fun old gal. I really fell for her last time. I'm looking forward to having some long conversations with her, one way or another.

I will try to post again before we leave on Friday morning.