It's another night at home by myself, but I'm gearing up for a wild weekend. My district has a training session after school tomorrow, where they'll give me a mentor (here's hoping she's helpful!), then I have a party to go to; plans to see a palace (which I may put off...we'll see) and check out Seoul Drum Festival on Saturday; hike & shopping on Sunday. And 2 Skype calls scheduled to folks at home. I got on Skype this week, and it is a wonderful thing. Free internet-to-internet, 2 cents/minute if you want to call a phone. And chatting--I've actually never chatted online before. Bantering with my loved ones is so nice, and the time just flies; I really have to be vigilant that I don't live on the computer. I'm going to wear this thing out!
I'm finishing up a week of teaching personality adjectives and shopping vocabulary. It seems so limiting to teach just one phrasing for every situation, but any more than that is just overload. After my first class on Monday, I halved the vocabulary list, and it still feels like I'm flying through it. I hope I'm not just teaching vocab all the time...it's about the driest thing you can do. For shopping, we focused on "Do you have any _______?", "In aisle 7 (or whatever)", and "How much is this?" For personality, we covered optimistic, pessimistic, generous, selfish, bossy, stubborn, confident, responsible, loyal, curious, artistic, and honest. I doubt they'll retain much, but I suppose any exposure increases receptivity later. The 9th graders don't give a damn and keeping the room quiet enough for me to be heard at all is a losing battle. If I were a bit more experienced, I'd want to be involved in curriculum development. I don't know how things go in elementary school, but the middle school syllabus is so scattershot, it's amazing the kids know anything.
I found a small version of E-Mart down the street from me tonight. I still think I prefer HomePlus, but being able to walk there easily counts for a lot. And for $5, I can have my own bag of Peanut M&Ms. It might be worth it. Although I got paid today, and while it's true there is no tax, there are an insane amount of other deductions. I'm wondering if I'll actually have enough money to do anything at all this year. Anyway, I'm hoping to stay true to my convictions and shop at local groceries where possible. The thing I like best about E-Mart and Home Plus is that they put prices on everything. Once I have a sense of what things cost, maybe I'll have more confidence in getting things around the corner. It's still really hard to buy food when I don't know what any of it is, and can't read the directions to prepare it, but that's a topic I want to cover more in-depth in another post. Got some broccoli tonight, more cereal, and a big box of marshmallow pies that came with a bonus box of chocolate ones. Had one for dessert and they're actually really good...many sweets are a disappointment because they don't taste the way I expected them to. Also picked up a package of Post-It flags and made a graphic representation on my fridge of how long I'll be here, one flag for every week. I have to see things to get my head around them, and this will give me a tangible way of marking time. I've been here an entire month already! Incredible.
So, anyway, here's another collection of observations, in no particular order (or maybe the order in which I find the scraps of paper I wrote them on):
I see now why blond kids get so much attention in Asia. A cute, blond boy of around 7 was coming down the stairs at the subway station the other day. It took a few moments for me to realize why I was staring at him.
"Gook" (spelled phonetically) in Korean means "country". "Way gook" is any foreigner; "me gook" is an American. The ethnic slur comes from American soldiers who heard the Koreans saying this often.
Pale skin is considered beautiful here. Women go to all kinds of lengths to avoid sunlight--you'll see them with umbrellas or holding up papers; I saw one girl whose boyfriend was walking with his hands shielding her face. Old ladies wear white foundation; it looks just as ghastly as the old ladies in the US who put their makeup on with a putty knife.
Korean adults don't do shorts much. In fact, they seem to dress without much regard for the weather, and you'll even see little kids in long sleeves when it's 85 degrees and insanely muggy. They have fancy outfits for hiking that they wear year round, so when I'm dissolving in a pool of sweat with bare arms & legs, they're in black pants, long-sleeved pullovers, and scarves. These are always immaculate, and the women have their makeup done, too.
A sound I'm getting used to is the vegetable trucks with PAs. It must be a recording because they all sound the same, but they drive around in tiny blue pickups with their message blaring.
There's some kind of ROTC or something training in my area...probably connected with the university. Suddenly, there are soldiers everywhere, and I hear them shouting and drilling and slamming doors on their troop wagons just outside. They line up on the steps of the mega-church outside my window. Military service is compulsory in Korea...maybe they're new recruits.
All in all, I'm glad I look different. People instantly understand why I'm clueless, and are generally pretty helpful. When I was struggling to explain the problem with my alarm clock at the HomePlus customer service counter, a 20something Korean woman stopped and translated for me. Last night on the subway, the train I was on was going out of service, but of course the announcement meant nothing to me. An old lady with a bag of chestnuts beckoned to me as she exited; I was a bit slow on the uptake but the penny dropped when a younger guy started waving me out, too. I suppose I would have figured it out when all the lights went off, but it's nice that they were thinking of me.
My proximity to biker bars in Rochester means I deal with a lot of loud pipes...and interrupted phone conversations, missed television/radio dialogue, bolting cats. Here, they don't have Harleys, but a plethora of these bikes that sound like a jackhammer in a well. I may have a different outlook on those Harleys by the time I hear them again.
You see pictures of people wearing face masks in Asia, and it's true. You can buy masks with floral designs or smiley faces, or cartoon characters for the kids, even tiny ones with bears and things for your baby. I got one as a promotional item the other day, the way American companies might hand out pens or bottle openers.
I knew Korea was on the metric system, but I didn't realize that the unit "dozen" is meaningless here. Eggs come in packs of 10 or 15. Dunkin' Donuts is everywhere, but if you want a box, it means 10. And speaking of unquestioned paradigms, you get paid on the same date of the month regardless of the day on which it falls. I keep trying to make my paydays all Friday, but they're not.
The hardest thing about being a vegetarian here (other than not having much to eat) is not being able to try all the awesome street food available. They've got these corn dogs with french fries in the batter that I'm just dying to taste.
I have a weakness for subways. I was thoroughly smitten with the London Underground, and expected that to be the case here as well. While I more or less enjoy riding the subway, I have none of the attachment and affection I felt for the Tube, or the excitement of riding in Toronto, New York, or Paris. Not sure whether that's an era in my life that's passed, or if it's the soullessness of the Seoul Metro. The trains are generic and there's nothing interesting about the stations...no incredible tile work, no wooden escalators, no bricked-over steam vents. And there's no point playing "spot the rat", my favorite waiting game. It's just very functional.
Wedding halls are absolutely everywhere, and the architecture is a marriage of Cinderella's castle and the Haja Sofia. They're monstrous and can be spotted from a significant distance. They make good navigation aids. I have to remember to take photos of random stuff like that.
I keep thinking I'll post more fractured English, but the phrases are so nonsensical that they're tricky to remember. I see weird statements on t-shirts just about daily. I did discover today that the cracker "sand" I bought when I was first here was not a fluke...you can get all kinds of "sand" at E-Mart. I don't know whether the "wich" was too hard to transliterate or if it was simply forgotten. My award for this month, though, goes to the male university student I saw on the subway, wearing a baseball cap and tattered jeans and cool in every way, except that his t-shirt said "If you think I'm cute, you should see my mommy."
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