All my sisters and I are on the taller side, thanks to my father. He was 5 ’10,” which was considered to be fairly tall in those days, especially for Korea. My mom used to say it was always easy to spot him among a crowd.
I was about the second tallest in my class all throughout my school days, and among my family I measure up to be right in the middle. We used to tease Aera unni, 5 ‘3,” for being the shortest. It wasn’t until much later she found out she was pretty average when compared to outside of our family.
There’s a few inches difference between the shortest and the tallest sister, but luckily we’re all of similar build and can exchange clothes easily. We also have the same taste, which means over the years we’ve collected a lot of the same clothing pieces. This is because whenever we see a nice outfit, we have to buy one for all the sisters, especially if it’s a bargain. We call these outfits our “ sister uniforms.” Even the shoe size is the same for four of six sisters. It’s to the point where we have to make sure that no two are wearing the same “uniform” when we get together, just in case. Still, it’s nice to know there’s no need to worry about not bringing enough clothing when we visit each other between the US and Korea– you know you can always borrow from someone’s closet.
We also have a strange custom where if someone compliments a sister a few times on their outfit, they have to give their outfit to the one who complimented them. It was normal growing up for the older sisters to give hand me downs to the younger, but now the exchange goes both ways. For example, my sister Aera loves shopping and is known to be generous to both the older and younger sisters. She often hands out coats from nice brands, like Max Mara. Some of us speculate she might be giving away stuff to make room for future purchases, but I think she is simply a giving person.
Despite the age difference of 16 years, we are more like friends as we all get older together. It certainly is nice to look at your sisters who are 3,6,9 years older than you because you can imagine yourself at that age. Fortunately, all my sisters are aging gracefully and I am looking forward to getting old.
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