Photo courtesy Crystal Jo via Unsplash

Mari, my mother’s younger rich sister, wanted to get rid of us.

My mother had been calling her nonstop, treating her as her personal assistant, her GPS, her tech support. Mari’s solution was to buy us an all expenses paid tour of the southern area of South Korea. 

The tour focused on sights and seafood along the southern coast. It started with grilled fish dishes, then progressively became more obscure, less recognizable and less cooked. We quickly realized that breakfast, lunch, and dinner would consist of a full Korean set which included rice, ban-chan—side dishes—and an assortment of cooked and uncooked sea creatures. It was challenging to face kimchi first thing in the morning, let alone three times a day. My mother, on the other hand, accepted the challenge by eating for all of us.

Because we had been the last to arrive at the start of the tour, we were relegated to the rear of the bus. The other guests were mainly older women traveling in pairs. One woman, seated in the last row next to my brother and his fiancé, held out a small tin to Gabrielle, saying “Brrubhezzhi.” Gabrielle smiled and accepted it. The lady motioned for her to pass it around to our group. 

“What is this?” Tae asked. 

Gabrielle, having retrieved a couple of dark colored balls, replied, “I don’t know.”  

The lady repeated, “Brrubhezzhi.”  

Gabrielle read the label and said, “Oh, she means blueberry,” —blueberry flavored chocolate balls.  

The lady’s mind cracked open in epiphany and exclaimed, “Bloo-bearry!”—as if she’d witnessed an image of Christ in the chocolate balls. In the glee of her expanded consciousness, she continued to shout, “Bloo-bearry! Bloo-bearry!” The lady’s enthusiasm was so infectious, soon we were all shouting “Bloo-Bearry!”

As the meals progressed, we noticed the same group of elderly women taking their seats next to Tae. At lunch they proffered cockles and compliments, “My how handsome you are. How well you eat cockles.” At dinner, the same ladies formed a wall around my brother, attempting to edge out Gabrielle. He had become their bait.

Our final meal: the wait staff presented us with small platters of freshly chopped up octopi, still writhing on the plate. Our party refused. The ladies ignored us and served my brother, putting it on his plate and encouraging him to try it. He obliged. This set up the rest of the evening of my brother being served—with one lady putting a creature directly into his mouth with her own chopsticks. It appeared they were feeding him raw guts. Nothing had clear distinctive shapes, everything wobbled in a slimy goo. The last bit launched Tae over the edge; he blanched and said, “I don’t feel so good.” When we walked outside and looked into the tank of live sea creatures, we pointed out the last bit he had eaten; it looked like a penis. “Oh God, I wish I hadn’t seen that.”  

“Here, have a Bloo-bearry chocolate,” I said, “it’ll cheer you up.”