I stare at a bowlful of grape husks and seeds, and think to myself, gently but earnestly, that re-location involves a lot of learning, and one of the most important things to learn is how to eat. The first time you receive a big bunch of these grapes from your co-worker who, in his turn, received them from his brother who received them from the earth after much toil and labor, you just start popping them in your mouth because you LOVE grapes—and this is a point worth emphasizing: YOU LOVE GRAPES! Well, you realize pretty quickly that these are grapes that have an interesting flavor, and you accept it is an inevitability because you are, after all, living in an entirely new country, and their grapes are bound to taste different—otherwise why would we have so many flavors of wine. It’s not a bad flavor, it’s just got this interesting combination of bitter and sweet that you just can’t quite suss. Obviously, this does not stop you from consuming the entire gigantic bunch, even though you also realize they contain seeds—but you’re a plucky chap and grape seeds have never even slowed you down. You don’t even spit ‘em out: “Here they come intestines... have fun!”

That’s one bunch down, but you’ve got another bunch in your refrigerator because Koreans never give anything in singles, always twos or threes: two for reserves and three for love. Well, because they were given to you inside your first week, there certainly isn’t three bunches, but you ponder what to do with this other bunch, knowing you will eat it eventually because it is the only food in your refrigerator at the moment, but at the same time being absolutely certain that you’re missing something. Something just isn’t right here.

When you arrive at your place of employment, a bowl of soup is placed in front of you, and you look down and realize that in the red chili base there are potatoes—which kind of makes your heart flutter—and the only real other “ingredient” is fish… in its entirety. Tools are kind of at a premium (from a westerners standpoint) in Korea. You get chopsticks and a spoon, and you wonder briefly how they expect you to eat a smallish fish that was tossed whole into soup with no real tools to bone it or remove the head that is kind of smirking at you because it seems to know your dilemma. Looking around, nobody else seems to have a problem with it and they just pick the meat off and drop the bones onto a pile of toilet paper—the cure-all paper in Korea, used for drying hands, it’s general purpose, and apparently for the piling up of fish bones. The teacher you gave you the grapes comes in, sits down, and says, “Oh! My favorite. I know how to eat this one.”

The next day, the other bunch of grapes is reduced to the stem and bag it came in. They’re good. They’re very good, but you’re still curious.

Time passes, and after a week, same said teacher invites you to eat duck in his abode two floors above you. Duck is delicious and spicy and perfect with a bowl of rice. Sitting with his family and watching CSI: Miami—which might be an entirely different entry—a bowl of grapes is placed on the table, and an empty bowl. Sweet. Grapes for dessert shall never be sneered at in your world. You go at them, but you haven’t watched TV in two weeks, so even a show with as many obvious shortcomings as CSI: Miami is somewhat interesting—sorry to those who may enjoy that sort of thing. You realize when you look down that there is only one difference between your teacher friends experience with the grapes and your own: his grape husks are in the bowl with his seeds.

Jackpot.

Well, being who they are, Koreans give. You are given another bunch of grapes before you leave—along with an apple because it’s always in twos and very rarely does it matter whether the two things are the same item.

Finding yourself peckish of a morning, your body cries out when you open the admittedly barren refrigerator because you espy a bunch of grapes. “Grab a bowl,” you tell yourself, and have a go.

That slightly bitter taste was because you were ignorant of the process. The meat of these grapes is sweet and fantastic and worth the effort of removing the slightly leathery skin—it would be the skin that needs to be removed wouldn’t it… something meaningful there—and spitting the seeds. You’ve just learned, after only three tries, how to eat.