Sa jikkol, Seoul,
November 8, 1929.
Dear father and mother:
I have been thinking about this being
mother's birthday more than if It were &y own, and thought I would
start this letter to you now, although it h*s beenlonly"a few days
since I mailed the last one. The day is nearly gone, but it is
still tomorrow for you; and I am hoping you wiil'celebrate it by
being completely well and treating yourself to a good rest*
I am initiating a new typewriter ribbon,
for which you will probably be thankful.  I wore the last one almost
to tatters.  It was the extra one which Uncle Victor ^ave me with
the typewriter•, and this is the firs* one I have bought here.
I mailed at noon today two packages to you.
One is a box of Christmas things and the other contains the two
pairs of shoes which the mrinity men asked for. They were forty
sen a pair.  I hope they will like them.  I was about to buy a pair
of the grass shoes which the laborers wear so you could see'what
they are like;  but Pyung Yong said that verv day that he wanted
to make a pair during his Christmas holidays for you.
As to the Christmas box, I did something
which I hope will not mean a great deal of trouble to you. I put
the presents for all the relatives in with yours. The reason for
doing that was that I had the big box which your things did not
nearly fill; and I did not have boxes for the other things.  If
you all get together at Christmas time, you will not have to mall
anything but Uncle Victor's present.
Han moksa gave me the box to mail the things
tn, and he could not be content to let me wrap them-alone. He had
a hand in all of it.  I had intended to put the shoes in with the
other things, but forgot them until I had the big box all tied up
and addressed. Perhaps they would not have gone in anyway.
vou will find several things from Han moksa
and the children, ^hey have been planning and working for several
weeks on them. They did not specify whom they were for, and vou
can divide them as you please. I had spoken of wishing you could
have a sample of Korean" candy, and so Mrs. Han said she, would make
it so it would be clean, ^he candy sold on the streets would have
to be reboiled to sterilize It. It is a plain taffy with sesame
seeds, pine nuts, peanuts, and Korean dates mixed in, and I think
it must be much more wholesome than the sweet candies we eat.
I wanted you to have a taste of the Korean
dates, and so I put In a fe*. They have not been washed; and so
you must wash and sterilize them before using in order to be safe.
They are not a date at all, but grow on an ordinary deciduous fruit
tree, probablv closely related to the prune. I find them wonderfully
apetizing when mixed with my chopsal (millet)'mush for breakfast; I
cook them together, and sometimes add chestnuts too. vou will remember too that they are one of the ingredients in yaksik, for which I
sent you the recipe last year. By the way, In that recipe I failed
to specify that it was the glutinous rice that is used and not the
ordinary rice. I wonder if you can buy glutinous rice in America?
The little red bacr made by Sang Sook is a
Korean lady's nocket-book. The old-fashioned Korean gentleman wore