I will quote some of what Vika wrote me in the last months, with her permission, since I cannot show her comments.
"Appa, I made kimchi from Grandma's recipe with the round cabbage (I found one in a Russian shop). My Korean friends tasted it and said: this is not kimchi. Then they asked for more."
"Appa, at the office they asked where I am from. I said Irad. They said, where is that. I said, near Kazakhstan. They said, so you are Kazakh? I said no, I am a Koryo-saram from Irad. One of them said, my great-grandmother was also from Primorye. We stood in the corridor for twenty minutes."
"Appa, the pay is good, the flat is small, the winter is long. I send what I can. I do not know how much will come through; the banks there and here are strange this year."
I have thought about the last line for a while. The dollars are rationed, the som is smaller, and money from Seoul passes through hands that charge more than before. We manage. Nelli and I have the garden, the pension (1,250 a month, which buys less each season), and the rice in the cellar. My children send money and I send them recipes. I think I am winning this exchange.
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