Seo (서 or 徐) family of Daegu, Korea, circa late 1940s

I just returned from a trip to Montreal to see a good friend from my early years in Korea (1998-1999) as well as my wife’s family, many of which live in Montreal. It was a wonderful weekend filled with laughter, chatter, memories, family history, and a wonderful graphic novel about North Korea.

It was also a bon vivant’s tour de force with the following on the menu:

We also made some wonderful progress on the Seo family history front, capturing several family relations and their current whereabouts, saving several as annotations to Flickr images, and emailing a few others. With all good luck, we might be able to have a family reunion sometime in the next few years. I suspect that I will be creating a Facebook page quite soon to collect everyone and everything towards this purpose, the gathering of all the descendants of 서상돈 (Seo Sang Don). So far, we have counted at least four spellings of 서, including Seo, Seoh, Suh, and Suhr.

Seo (서 or 徐) family of Daegu, Korea, circa late 1940s
A family gathering in the late 1940s with notables including my wife's mother (baby) and grandmother (holding the baby) as well as Cathy Hardwick, a fashion designer who would later go on to discover a young Tom Ford, later of Gucci fame.

Passing over Pont Champlain made me remember a good Stars song, which I provide for you below. I like this version much better as it sort of gets at that melancholy of rain, Montreal, and lost love. At least I think this version does a better job of it than the more popular one. Either way, great song.

Stars-Your Ex-Lover Is Dead (Final Fantasy)

So, to all my friends and family in Montreal, I say goodbye. Hopefully, we will return sooner than expected, hopefully I will learn more about this gravlax recipe of my uncle’s, hopefully it won’t snow the next time.

Heading to Pont Champlain, Montreal, May, 2010

By Michael Gallagher

My name is Michael Sean Gallagher. I am a Lecturer in Digital Education at the Centre for Research in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh. I am Co-Founder and Director of Panoply Digital, a consultancy dedicated to ICT and mobile for development (M4D); we have worked with USAID, GSMA, UN Habitat, Cambridge University and more on education and development projects. I was a researcher on the Near Futures Teaching project, a project that explores how teaching at The University of Edinburgh unfold over the coming decades, as technology, social trends, patterns of mobility, new methods and new media continue to shift what it means to be at university. Previously, I was the Research Associate on the NERC, ESRC, and AHRC Global Challenges Research Fund sponsored GCRF Research for Emergency Aftershock Forecasting (REAR) project. I was an Assistant Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (한국외국어대학교) in Seoul, Korea. I have also completed a doctorate at University College London (formerly the independent Institute of Education, University of London) on mobile learning in the humanities in Korea.

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