Hi there. Most of my students are always asking to hear the true story about Ginger, the ‘miracle-cat’ that we found in Korea in 2007. It’s hilarious and true. So here it is and you can watch the video version too if you want down below. This is the actual video I made the very first day we found baby Ginger! Enjoy.
One day while I was living in Seoul, Ahyundong area, after work my family and I decided to walk down the hill to a Kamjatong restaurant for dinner. (감자동 Kamjatong is a great soup). Anyways, as we descended this really steep hill towards the restaurant, about 60 metres from our house, my youngest son, Gene, spotted a little baby kitten under a car. Well we had already become cat lovers in our house. So we all instantly decided that we were going to save that poor little kitten. We all got down on our knees around this car on the side of the street and with a little luck we were able to grab this poor, tiny, helpless cat.
We brought him home right away and the only thing we had to feed him was some sandwich sausage. So I cut it up very small and gave it to him. That poor cat was so starving he couldn’t stop eating it. The sounds he made while eating were so funny! You can see the video.
As Ginger grew older, however, my wife who seemed to be cleaning the cat littler the most declared that “come summer that cat will be gone”. The boys and I strongly protested. But it would appear that two fuzzy ears were also listening at the same time because for two weeks later, I kept going to the bathroom to discover the toilet “unflushed.”
“Who’s not flushing the toilet?” I scolded everybody, but it kept happening almost every day! After about ten days I started to look towards Ginger. “Was it you Ginger?” I asked. Not likely. I joked and I told my students at school that our cat might be using the toilet. “If it’s true I’ll get a video of it for sure,” I promised.
One summer morning I woke up earlier at 5:30 am. I walked into the bathroom and was shocked to see Ginger using the toilet. I grabbed the camera and you can see the actual video down below if you want.
We were shocked and surprised at this spontaneous learning by Ginger. The only thing we can think that might have taught him, was simply holding him on our laps while were in the bathroom (if he happened to come in while we were going).
It was funny because after my wife witnessed her “smart cat Ginger” using the toilet, she swore she’d never think of getting rid of him again.
As this story spread around Ahyun-dong in Seoul, many of the food delivery drivers would ask to see the “miracle cat” Ginger who had become pretty famous. Talk about rags to riches. Ginger ought to be in his own Charles Dickens tale. “The Cat Who Became Human” or something like that.
This is a really cute picture of Ginger drawn by one of my students, Yewon 공예원
