Happy New Year. Before we go up to Seoul for the new year, we have breakfast in the cafeteria at the train station. We have tokk soup. Tokk is mushy rice balls. Like the Japanese mochi. We eat it a lot here, but we must eat it on New Year's Day.

Me: Why do we eat tokk?
Eunjoo: You can just say tokk, Mark, tokk sounds weird.
Me: It's how Alex Trebek would say it.
EJ: Alex Trebek would say it in a Spanish accent.
Me: How does that sound?
EJ: ¡Tokk!
Me: Fair enough. Why must we eat tokk?
EJ: It's a tradition.
Me: Sure, but there must be some reason, some meaning for the tokk, some symbolism.
EJ: There is.
Me: So what is it?
EJ: I don't know.
Me: I bet it gives you stamina.