156 WELCOME TO THE FAMILY?

"HELLO, Wonhee-ssi. I'm Hwang Yebin, Yejun's mother."

Oh.

[Korean women don't take their husbands' last name legally, so Yejun's mother must be a Hwang from the beginning.]

"I'm Hwang Junsang, Yejun's father."

Aha.

[Now I know why Yejun wanted to combine our names for our future children in his imagination– he was named after both of his parents' names.]

Wonhee bowed her head politely. "It's an honor to meet you, Yejun's mother and Yejun's father."

It may sound weird to foreigners.

But that was a normal and polite greeting to a friend's parents.

"That's too formal," Yejun, who returned to Wonhee's side after his brief conversation with Grandpa Suk-yong, said. "Wonhee-ya, you can call my mother 'Eomeonim' and my father 'Abeonim.'"

It was also a polite way to address a friend's parents, but…

[I can sense Yejun's ulterior motive!]