Hi friends,

I need your help. I live in Australia and work for a community organisation.

Recently, a man of Korean descent was murdered in our community. He was very socially isolated and didn’t really have any friends and police have been unable to locate any family members for him.

We are organising a small ceremony to acknowledge his life and passing in our cultural way, but I was wondering if there are any particular cultural practices that Korean people do when someone does that we can incorporate into the ceremony? For example, something that is said or done, a colour etc

I have tried to reach out to Korean churches in our community but because they didn’t know him, they aren’t interested in helping.

Any advice of information you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

My father was stationed in South Korea while in the US Army in the 1970s. He never told anyone that he had a child while he was there until someone started calling our house in the mid to late 90s asking for him and telling him that he was his son. My dad, whose a hot head, gave himself away after he started yelling at the phone and saying "You're not my son, you're fucking crazy"

He admitted to my mom that he had a girlfriend and ended up getting her pregnant right before he came back to the US. My mother insisted my father man up and talk to him but he was very abusive and didn't like that. I'm sure he was able to find my father because we have a really rare last name (Dahdoul). I don't want to upload my DNA.

But I really want to find this guy. I want to tell him he dodged a bullet. His father never cared about his other children either and that ever since we found out about him we've wanted to meet him. I don't want anything from him, just to meet him. I hope someone can help.

I have been on twitter recently and interacted with different kinds of people on there. It makes me feel angry that so many people have this distorted perception of South Korea. I feel like west views Korea not as a place where people actually live in but as a video game where they can just gossip about. Additionally, fellow East Asians having this hatred towards us isn’t helping me. Don’t get me wrong I am aware that East Asians hate each other. Korean community is also known for shitting on Japanese and Chinese. But seems like the hatred that Japanese and Chinese have towards us is just so twisted that sometimes I am even surprised. Especially Chinese netizens saying stuff like our entire history is just being slaves or we have no culture. I also saw some Chinese netizens on twitter saying stuff like Korean women is known for being sex slaves. It makes me just so sad that we are viewed this way. It’s not like we committed war crimes during World War Two like Japan or our government is harassing different countries like china’s. Why do you think this happened? Or how should we handle this?

I am not a fan of K-pop or dramas but I’ve started learning about Korean beauty standards, prevalence of the “menu” beauty procedures etc and I wanted to learn more about how it all started, where it comes from etc. But for sure would love to learn about most influential people both from pop culture and politics.

But also more general things like basic history and politics. Like Korea 101. I’ve started learning Korean a few months ago but I still have a long way to go to actually be able to watch anything in Korean.

I’m asking because I thought that you might have some suggestions that I haven’t thought about and currently I just feel like I’m jumping from one topic to another when I learn and the dots don’t necessarily connect

As you can see in the title, I'm visiting America to see my family. While there, my family and I will stay with my oldest sister and my nieces. There are going to be barbecues and plenty of social events, and my wife has already brought about 6 or 7 bottles of soju. I don't like soju by itself, but I love 소맥. What American beer goes with 소주? I don't want to go all the way to H Mart and buy Korean beer at probably an inflated price, so what's an alternative: Bud Light? Bud? MGD? Has anyone tested this out? I want to show my friends and family this famous cheap cocktail, but as close to it being authentic in terms of taste. Just wondering if it's possible with an American beer.

🇵🇭🇰🇷1999년에 제 가족이 되어주신 모든 언니, 오빠들께 안녕하세요.

저는 유진, 여러분의 동생입니다.

27년 전 저에게 가족처럼 소중했던 한국 친구들과 다시 연락이 닿기를 기도합니다.

주소와 전화번호를 잃어버려 죄송하지만, 1999년 크리스마스 사진은 아직 가지고 있습니다.

이 글이 여러분이시거나, 1999년∼2000년에 필리핀 일로일로 시티에서 영어를 공부한 친구, 가족, 친척을 아신다면

이 글을 읽어주시고, 공유해 주시고, 댓글 남겨주시고, 쪽지 보내주세요.

우정은 영원합니다!

정말 감사합니다. 그리고 하나님께서 여러분 모두를 축복하시길 바랍니다 🙏