Yep, I made my daughter skip school. Virtual school. On a Friday. So that I could take her with me on a possibly once in a lifetime excursion.
Here’s the backstory:
I’ve been teaching fitness classes at the local YMCA since February 2018. One of my first participants to become one of my “regulars” is a small Asian woman named Chong. She’s been coming to my dance and strength classes for over two years.
Fast forward to COVID closing us down in March 2020 and us reopening in June 2020. Our classes were small. I mean like 2-6 people small. Compared to classes that usually were filled with 20-30 people.
These smaller classes were a great opportunity to really get to know some of my participants. We’d sit and talk between classes. (This ends up being a blessing because pre-COVID we were all in such a hurry that we never stopped to get to know each other.) This is when I find out that Chong is an artist!
We had the chance to talk and listen and I found out how she works with the Houston Museum of Fine Arts to support their Asian arts, specifically Korean art. I mentioned that I’d love to see her art one day.
That one day comes in September 2020 when she asks if I’d be interested in going to a small restaurant of her friends that has some of her art displayed in it.
Knowing that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and with my teenage daughter being the artist at my house, I tell Chong I’d like to take her with us. We set the date for the following Friday at lunch.
Let the adventure begin
My thirteen year old technically had online school that Friday. I tell her she can log into each class if she wants to be counted as present, but she doesn’t end up logging into any of her classes for the day. Oops. Once in a lifetime, remember? :)
We met Chong at the YMCA and she drove us across town to the Korean restaurant. I honestly expected the restaurant to be a small place in a strip center. I would have been happy with that, but that is not the restaurant we went to.
On our way to the restaurant, Chong told us about how she was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea. She tells us about her family and attending a private Christian school as well as explaining some of the differences between North Korea and South Korea. She also tells us about how she came to the United States after her sister to attend college in California.
After attending school in California, she met her husband while she was helping her parents at their cafeteria in Long Beach. He was from Houston and they ended up living in East Houston where he worked for Shell Oil Company and she worked on her art.
Chong told us about how she has learned about fashion design and art and received two master’s degrees in art, one from the University of Houston and one from New York University. She told us about her work with the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and helping them with building their Asian art collection.
Arriving at BORI
Chong drove us to a beautiful new restaurant called BORI. She explained to us that BORI in Korean means barley. Chong explained to us that people in Korea would use barley to supplement their rice and make it go farther when times were tough. The restaurant is named BORI to honor the history of barley in Korea.
Upon arriving at BORI we are immediately impressed with the walls surrounding the restaurant. They automatically give BORI an ambiance of elegance and tradition. Once we entered through the large wooden doors of the walls we saw the beauty of the outside garden area.
Chong showed us the cooking pots used to make some of the sauces and kimchi. We saw an art sculpture honoring the Wednesday Demonstration as well as some other art in the garden and a rock map of Korea. We are also wildly amazed at all of the tiny lizards running through the grass and flower bedding.
Upon entering the back of the restaurant we saw some meeting rooms, a bar area, and a lounge area. Then Chong led us into the art gallery portion of the building. One entire side of the gallery is covered with Chong’s works.
Chong’s art is large and colorful! She walks us from painting to painting and explains what she saw and what she was experiencing when she painted each piece.
It was absolutely amazing and wonderful to have THE artist standing next to us and telling us about her experience in creating each piece.
It was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity for my daughter and me!
Chong also walked us through the other side of the gallery which features art styled after the art created in North Korea. The style is very detailed and realistic. It is also very beautiful.
Time to eat
After looking through the studio we are seated for lunch. My daughter and I have never eaten Korean food before so we tell Chong we trust her to order for us and we will eat whatever is brought to us.
Each table at BORI has a gas grill at it where some of the foods are prepared. It is a Korean BBQ restaurant after all.
Chong ordered hot tea for us which I loved because I’m all about hot teas and trying new ones. She also ordered us a seafood pancake which was really yummy. (I didn’t tell my daughter she was eating octopus until later.)
Our servers then brought out an assortment of plates and bowls covered in food. We had two types of salad mixes, kimchi, pickled beets, spicy onions, soybean sauce, rice, barley, broccoli, an egg souffle, and soybean soup.
The star of the meal though was the beef combo! Our servers cooked the beef, along with some onion, over the gas grill at our table. All of the beef cuts were delicious, but the marinated beef was my personal favorite.
We try everything that is offered to us and really enjoy all of the flavors. I think the hottest thing I ate was the pickled onion. My favorite thing I ate was the pickled beet. My daughter’s favorite was the egg souffle.
Chong explained to us that in Korea they don’t have desserts and would traditionally eat a piece of fruit for something sweet after dinner, but BORI does offer a few desserts so we tried the hummingbird cake because it has fruit in it. Our servers refilled our hot tea and we split the sweet and tasty cake.
Surprise stop
After lunch, my daughter and I think we’ll be heading back to our side of town, but Chong surprises us and takes us to her art studio!
Upon walking into her studio, we saw the largest canvas ever! It covered most of the floor! Chong has a special “bridge” built for her to slide over the canvas so that she can reach the middle area of the canvas for painting.
Chong talks us through a tour of her studio and shows us her most recent works which are still enclosed inside stacks of artist paper books. She describes how she’s been attending sessions of sketching the human figure and how much she is growing to enjoy this style that was once unfamiliar to her. She even gave my daughter one of her sketches that she went back afterward and added watercolor to!
Chong also has a show ready to go in the studio of her paintings that she completed in France while on a scholarship to stay and paint at the home of Dora Maar. The paintings are in frames and ready to go for her show. They are beautiful! Gorgeous and rich colors and show the beauty of the French countryside and some of the daily scenes of life in Menerbes, France.
Connect and engage
The day with Chong was truly a once in a lifetime adventure for my daughter and me. And it might not have happened if COVID-19 hadn’t affected our classes at the YMCA.
Who knows if we would have ever slowed down enough to stop and talk to each other and listen?
So at the end of this I know one thing I hope I’ve learned is to not always be in a hurry and not always be focusing on what I’m doing, but instead to take the time to get to know the people around me. To really take the time and listen to others. To learn about them and not be so focused on me.
I hope you take the time too.
Until next time,
Katie
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