Lots to report. let’s see. I’ll start with last week. There’s of course one day that stuck out, like it always does, even though it’s a totally stupid, arbitrary holiday. Yup, valentine’s day. Here in the korea there are two valentine’s days. on feb. 14th, the chicks buy the dudes chocolate and various treats pledging their undying devotion. On march 14th it’s white day and the ladies get the treats. And then there’s black day in april when all the single people are sposed to commiserate, lamenting their lack of a significant other whilst slurping down black ja-jjang noodles. I guess relishing one’s independence isn’t a viable commercial option. How exactly do you market that? Anyhoo, on valentine’s day, I attended an animation festival at the library, then met up with my other two pathetic single friends and ate copious amounts of pizza. Not too different from any other day. Except for the level of pathetic-ness. I could be mistaken, but I think it was heightened.
The next day was english play day. Woohoo! The time was nigh. I had been burdening myself with some arguably undue stress over these english plays performed by the munchkins at ye library o’ miracles. I tend to stress out about things that for the most part don’t warrant so much mental stewing. It’s not like I was the one who had to stand up there in front of lots of people and try not to embarrass myself. For some reason, the kids didn’t realize that until this day. They arrived at the library at 4 to begin practicing (actual performance at 7). Up until this point, lots of the beginner munchkins still didn’t have their lines memorized. by about the 3rd run through, they had them down. They spoke quickly, and konglish-y, but at least they didn’t have to look at their papers. Then we only had to worry about adding microphones and using props for the first time. Also, at the last minute of the advanced english play, 2 of the students dropped out. So we had to add a little tango number at the end—replete with roses in mouths—to make up for the dialogue the quitters had taken with them.
only when people began filtering into the theatre did my kids get really really nervous. It was just about the cutest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Now these lines “why are you three cutie cuties walking alone in the woods” had some actual weight to them--there was an audience! Both my students and myself were equally surprised to realize that there were a shit-ton of other foreign teachers in the audience. I knew mike, erica, and scott would come, but I wasn’t sure who else would end up there. I think it really motivated them to know that other people who might actually understand the english they were speaking were in attendance. When it came time to actually perform, they all spoke soooo quickly, but with very few mistakes. Of course I understood every word they said because I’d written it all. I was so proud of them, and they were so proud of themselves. Afterwards, all the city hall teachers posed for pictures and mr. Bak (city hall supervisor) gave me a bag of candy that had a bunch of empty wrappers in it. But there was plenty left. And it was a nice gesture.
On Saturday, I decided that even though I had no money, a trip to seoul over the extended weekend was in order (the lunar new year meant an extra day off work. It also meant mandu dokk guk su soup. Traditional lunar new year soup. Also, random and not necessarily worthy of parenthesis, but I got a gift from my library director on account of the holiday. As I was leaving on Friday she handed me a large, heavy box. I chose to open it on the bus, excited by the innumerable prospects of what could possibly be contained therein. So I remove the lid, and to my surprise it’s a box of cans of tuna. I think there are around 20 of them. gotta be honest, never been a big tuna fan. Especially tuna in oil.). When I arrived by bus in seoul, a man from my bus approached me. He said that since I was a foreigner maybe I needed help with a taxi or hotel or something while I was here. I didn’t really have any plan, so I took him up on his offer to help in some way. He helped me buy my return bus ticket, he bought me lunch and he told me all about the mission work he had done in africa. And I sat there the whole time wondering “what’s the catch? When are you going to molest me, or try to get me to go to your church?” and he didn’t do any of those things. He just said that it was his duty as a man of god to help people in need. And because I looked confused, I was a worthy recipient of his good deeds. I’ve had so many bad experiences with korean men, this was a welcome contradiction.
Anyhoo, my only real plan was to stay with my friend’s girlfriend’s korean family. That was sort of uncomfortable, just because I hate when people feel like they need to entertain me. And I can say “don’t feel like you have to entertain me” and they can say “oh, we don’t feel like we have to entertain you” (or they can say nothing because they don’t speak english) but I still feel like a burden. But at least I got the guilt about being that burden out in the open ahead of time. Anyhoo, seoul was good. always good to hang out with clayton (friend from high school) and sung hi (clayton’s girlfriend). The only bad part was sung-hi’s dog. she hates me for some reason. The last time I was there, she snapped at me and made me spill coffee on myself. Same thing this time around. I was just reminded of the world according to garp when garp bites bonky’s ear. “garp bit bonky.” I don’t think I’m that brave enough to bite a dog though.
On Saturday and Sunday, did lots of hanging out, lots of drinking. Sunday I went to a hookah bar with clayton (sung hi had to work quite early). I haven’t been to a hookah bar since I was in toulouse, france a few summers ago. And it was nice to be reminded of the glory that is travelling. Sometimes I forget that I live in a foreign country. And oddly enough, this reverie of my first travel adventures abroad brought the reality that is my current life in south korea back into focus.
I also got to see a family I used to tutor in columbia, mo while I was in seoul. That was round 2 of the traditional lunar new year soup. It’s so hard for me sometimes to believe that I’m getting to see these people in their native country. A lot of the koreans I know I’ve met in missouri. And when I was in missouri tearfully wishing them goodbye, I never actually believed I’d get to see them in korea, even as I was crying and blurting “I’ll see you in korea.” Sitting in the cho’s apartment in seoul was sort of surreal. Here are young lim and su hyun, the little girls who have grown up almost beyond the point of recognition. Their mastery of the english language growing with them. so we sat on the floor of the cho’s apartment and played uno with the whole family while drinking coffee. And there wasn’t a damn thing awkward about it. The girls were quite bummed that I wasn’t spending the night. They wanted to stay up all night watching cartoons with me. But I promised them that next time I was in seoul we would have a sleepover. But I had very important matters to tend to the next morning. Which leads me to this next vague thought: there are a lot of decisions I need to make very quickly that have to do with seoul. I’m nothing if not indecisive.
Jules and rory will be in the china very soon. It doesn’t really affect my life directly, but the fact that they will be geographically closer to me and getting to have their own unique excitement and drama (all good, I hope) makes me exceedingly happy.
The next day was english play day. Woohoo! The time was nigh. I had been burdening myself with some arguably undue stress over these english plays performed by the munchkins at ye library o’ miracles. I tend to stress out about things that for the most part don’t warrant so much mental stewing. It’s not like I was the one who had to stand up there in front of lots of people and try not to embarrass myself. For some reason, the kids didn’t realize that until this day. They arrived at the library at 4 to begin practicing (actual performance at 7). Up until this point, lots of the beginner munchkins still didn’t have their lines memorized. by about the 3rd run through, they had them down. They spoke quickly, and konglish-y, but at least they didn’t have to look at their papers. Then we only had to worry about adding microphones and using props for the first time. Also, at the last minute of the advanced english play, 2 of the students dropped out. So we had to add a little tango number at the end—replete with roses in mouths—to make up for the dialogue the quitters had taken with them.
only when people began filtering into the theatre did my kids get really really nervous. It was just about the cutest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Now these lines “why are you three cutie cuties walking alone in the woods” had some actual weight to them--there was an audience! Both my students and myself were equally surprised to realize that there were a shit-ton of other foreign teachers in the audience. I knew mike, erica, and scott would come, but I wasn’t sure who else would end up there. I think it really motivated them to know that other people who might actually understand the english they were speaking were in attendance. When it came time to actually perform, they all spoke soooo quickly, but with very few mistakes. Of course I understood every word they said because I’d written it all. I was so proud of them, and they were so proud of themselves. Afterwards, all the city hall teachers posed for pictures and mr. Bak (city hall supervisor) gave me a bag of candy that had a bunch of empty wrappers in it. But there was plenty left. And it was a nice gesture.
On Saturday, I decided that even though I had no money, a trip to seoul over the extended weekend was in order (the lunar new year meant an extra day off work. It also meant mandu dokk guk su soup. Traditional lunar new year soup. Also, random and not necessarily worthy of parenthesis, but I got a gift from my library director on account of the holiday. As I was leaving on Friday she handed me a large, heavy box. I chose to open it on the bus, excited by the innumerable prospects of what could possibly be contained therein. So I remove the lid, and to my surprise it’s a box of cans of tuna. I think there are around 20 of them. gotta be honest, never been a big tuna fan. Especially tuna in oil.). When I arrived by bus in seoul, a man from my bus approached me. He said that since I was a foreigner maybe I needed help with a taxi or hotel or something while I was here. I didn’t really have any plan, so I took him up on his offer to help in some way. He helped me buy my return bus ticket, he bought me lunch and he told me all about the mission work he had done in africa. And I sat there the whole time wondering “what’s the catch? When are you going to molest me, or try to get me to go to your church?” and he didn’t do any of those things. He just said that it was his duty as a man of god to help people in need. And because I looked confused, I was a worthy recipient of his good deeds. I’ve had so many bad experiences with korean men, this was a welcome contradiction.
Anyhoo, my only real plan was to stay with my friend’s girlfriend’s korean family. That was sort of uncomfortable, just because I hate when people feel like they need to entertain me. And I can say “don’t feel like you have to entertain me” and they can say “oh, we don’t feel like we have to entertain you” (or they can say nothing because they don’t speak english) but I still feel like a burden. But at least I got the guilt about being that burden out in the open ahead of time. Anyhoo, seoul was good. always good to hang out with clayton (friend from high school) and sung hi (clayton’s girlfriend). The only bad part was sung-hi’s dog. she hates me for some reason. The last time I was there, she snapped at me and made me spill coffee on myself. Same thing this time around. I was just reminded of the world according to garp when garp bites bonky’s ear. “garp bit bonky.” I don’t think I’m that brave enough to bite a dog though.
On Saturday and Sunday, did lots of hanging out, lots of drinking. Sunday I went to a hookah bar with clayton (sung hi had to work quite early). I haven’t been to a hookah bar since I was in toulouse, france a few summers ago. And it was nice to be reminded of the glory that is travelling. Sometimes I forget that I live in a foreign country. And oddly enough, this reverie of my first travel adventures abroad brought the reality that is my current life in south korea back into focus.I also got to see a family I used to tutor in columbia, mo while I was in seoul. That was round 2 of the traditional lunar new year soup. It’s so hard for me sometimes to believe that I’m getting to see these people in their native country. A lot of the koreans I know I’ve met in missouri. And when I was in missouri tearfully wishing them goodbye, I never actually believed I’d get to see them in korea, even as I was crying and blurting “I’ll see you in korea.” Sitting in the cho’s apartment in seoul was sort of surreal. Here are young lim and su hyun, the little girls who have grown up almost beyond the point of recognition. Their mastery of the english language growing with them. so we sat on the floor of the cho’s apartment and played uno with the whole family while drinking coffee. And there wasn’t a damn thing awkward about it. The girls were quite bummed that I wasn’t spending the night. They wanted to stay up all night watching cartoons with me. But I promised them that next time I was in seoul we would have a sleepover. But I had very important matters to tend to the next morning. Which leads me to this next vague thought: there are a lot of decisions I need to make very quickly that have to do with seoul. I’m nothing if not indecisive.
Jules and rory will be in the china very soon. It doesn’t really affect my life directly, but the fact that they will be geographically closer to me and getting to have their own unique excitement and drama (all good, I hope) makes me exceedingly happy.
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