Korean guests for lunch

Richard must have read my Thursday Thirteen post about inviting people over for lunch. He invited a Korean family from our neighborhood over today. They have a four year old daughter and one year old son so it was a meeting to help us ALL make some new friends.

We don't speak Korean and they don't speak English so we all (including the little ones) conversed in Indonesian. They have been in Indonesia five years and were far better than us at the language but we still managed to have a great time talking about what its like living here. They were easy going and straight forward. The interesting thing I noted about them was the fact that they have no plans at all of returning to Korea. Its only the first time that we've had any extended conversation with them so I didn't want to ask too many personal questions but I'm so curious to know why they plan to live in Indonesia forever. We also found out that there are about five of six other Korean families in our neighborhood. I know there are probably a similar number of Malaysian houses here but no families. All the Malaysian men are here alone because their families aren't willing to make the move.

These days I feel that meeting new people is like going for an interview. So much so that I find myself hoping that we made a suitably pleasant impression that they would like to spend more time with us in the future. The wife leads a similar lifestyle to me (i.e. at home with the kids 7 days a week) so maybe I can arrange more play dates in the future.

So, what do you think the Malaysians served their Korean guests for lunch in Indonesia?

I had thought of Laksa Lemak but chickened out in the end because I've only made it once before with my mother's help. I fell back on something I knew I wouldn't screw up: Spaghetti with a homemade tomato sauce and a capsicum and cucumber salad to cool us in this hot weather.