Koreans have this showing respect thing where older siblings have a title. Like if you are a girl, you'd call your older sister, " Unni" and older brother, "oppae". If you are a boy, you'd call your older sister "noona" and older brother," hyung". My parents did not instill this korean etiquette with me and my siblings. I actually force it upon my 12 year younger brother. I felt that I was so much older than him that I warrant this respect. My other younger brother by 2 years does not call me noona. I'm okay with it especially while growing up he always acted like an older brother to me.
Hubs and I don't make our children call their older siblings by the respective titles. We are not very "Koreanized". I think it's because I was born and raised here and hubs is adopted to a Caucasian family. However, we attend a Church where it's dominantly korean-american. I overheard my two oldest daughters playing. Bunny turns to Lamb and says, " j, call me Unni!" Lamb says okay. And she was saying, " happy birthday, Unni!" "Go to sleep, Unni." And then it turned in to, "hi, onion... go to sleep, onion... where's your home, onion and then Bunny turns and says, " NO, J, NOT ONION... UNNI!!" The way they say Unni too is so funny because it said with such an american tongue.
It made me chuckle.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Call me Unni!
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2 comments:
ha ha ha! onion! that is too funny! my sisters and i didn't really do that "unni" thing when we were growing up either. we were too close in age and there were too many times when even the youngest sis was more mature than the oldest.
onion! too funny! i have a feeling G is going to demand being called 'unni' too.
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