Boseong was unlike anything I've ever seen. Just a seemingly endless sea of tea spread out before you, with all the rows of green curving away into the hills and trees beyond. And of course lots of inappropriately-clad tourists, stiletto heels the resounding climbing accessory in these parts. What I dislike about excursions like this is that you can never seem to be in a small crowd of people anywhere in this country. There were times when I went to rock bridge park in columbia and wouldn't encounter another human being for hours. It seems like the only way to do that here is to stay locked inside your apartment (which I'm not above, should the need arise). But everyone seems to look down on solitude. It's like if you choose to be alone, you're only saying that it was your choice so people won't feel sorry for you. That's sort of how people make me feel here. A lot of "oh, you poor thing, you went to spiderman 3 all by yourself" looks. And yes, it's a very specific look. But again, there's that collectivist culture again. So I must once again exclaim "damn you, confucius!" and shake an angry fist.
After boseong I wanted to go to a butterfly festival, also in the province, but the weather made me less ambitious than when I initally started my day.
things i don't like: making plans. i hate making plans. because as soon as a plan is made, i immediately want to figure out a way to get out of it. this shit always happens to me when I make plans with pretty much anyone outside of my family (or the mizzou peeps here in suncheon). You want to make someone happy by making them believe they're some sort of priority in your life. but in the end, it really just comes down to what I want to do trumping the feelings of any other human being. More often than not, I have to be in the mood to be around other people. It's something I brace myself for every morning that I wake up.
another thing i hate: the telephone. text messages are fine, but i generally hate speaking on the phone. korean cell phone culture is so different from american cell phone culture (indeed, evidenced by the fact that it gets to be called a "culture"). Koreans don't seem to understand that there are some times (even most of the time for me) that other people who aren't koreans don't want to talk on the phone. If you're not answering, it's seen as a personal affront or an emergency situation. Just because it vibrates (or plays hugh grant singing "way back into love" like all the syncronized phones in my library office) doesn't mean you have to answer it. if you don't answer the phone, people always say "why didn't you answer my call?" I fucking hate that. Because if I say "I just didn't feel like it," they will totally not understand and take it personally.
In other news, I saw spiderman 3 on Sunday afternoon. The theatre was packed, yet I was the only foreigner in the theatre. The aroma of hot, buttered squid combined with agimas and ginseng made for a most pleasant movie-viewing potpourri, completely enabling me to suspend disbelief. an old man and old woman sitting next to me kept explaining various parts of the movie to each other. It was pretty damn cute. All in all it was a movie that didn't defy expectations. It was also very, very loud. I sat there the whole time with my fingers in my ears, removing them periodically to eat kimbop.
I discovered an amazing bar over the weekend that boasts 50 cent beers. Okay, it's just a promotional special, but the 3 times I've been there now have been cheap and wonderful. It's also a "mexican" restaurant. I'm sure most koreans haven't ever even seen a "mexican." At any rate, their ketchup plus corn=salsa combination is something I'll have to try in the future.
2 comments:
Sting says:
I love to turn off my phone. When I used landlines, I loved to unplug my phone. When I moved into my house, I took a pair of pliers and cut the phone line off the house, coiled it up, and nailed it to the utility pole.
You know that awesome rule: "You can't control what other people do or say, but you have 100% control over how you respond"? Never more true than with the telephone.
The smartest thing Alexander Graham Bell did was (how aproprate) but a damn bell on his invention. Made the whole damned world one giant pack of Pavlov's dogs. Hear a bell/ringtone, pick up the phone. Don't think, puppy, just pick up the phone. Now they even slip ringtones into the background noise of commercials just to make people pay more attention. It's all pretty funny, but it's perfect conditioning. Next time your phone rings, don't answer it or turn it off. Just sit there and listen to it ring as many times as it will--it'll drive you crazy.
Must...answer...phone...(dies).
There used to be this annoying character Edith on "All in the Family" who would run for the phone everytime it rang, shrilly shouting, "I'll get it, I'll get it!" Cell phones are like that, but instead of running toward her own phone, Edith is running after you, shrilly shouting, "You should get it, you should get it!"
Serenity now!
i don't even know what my ringtone sounds like. it's been on vibrate for 8 months. but it still makes me jump.
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