Buying Seeds

I know that Aunt Kimchi is just trying to help us out, but Jess and I really want to do some gardening ourselves. I just don’t think she understands the concept of “recreational gardening.” Either way, I headed off to the market today before school to pick up some seeds (for the other garden that she prepared for us). I found a “seed vendor” (a tiny old woman sitting next to a box filled with open seed packets) and used my phone to translate the scribbled labels. I picked out a few that I wanted (regular tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, radishes, carrots, broccoli, and watermelon), and she individually selected out seeds from the packets and folded them into tiny envelopes made from newspaper. As I paid for my seeds, I heard a loud, “Sunsaengnim!!!” from behind me. It was Aunt Kimchi. She ran up to me, and once again blasted her rapid-fire Korean in my face. I could tell she was really angry that I was buying seeds as she yelled at the seed lady to give me my money back. I kept saying, “It’s okay, it’s okay!” and she eventually calmed down. I then told her that my bus was coming, so she took me by the arm and we walked together to the bus stop. Luckily, I didn’t have to wait very long before the bus arrived. I’ll get Jess to call her when I get home.

- Ken