But sometimes seeing the video (as I don’t have TV) gives me a new appreciation for the song. Or in some cases, a new reason to hate it.

I actually don’t hear this one all too much. One day I was on a treadmill at the gym and a clip of this video came on the television. I nearly flew off, trying not to laugh too loudly. Only guys were in the gym, as usual, and they were standing around either passively watching or looking mildly interested. Like, “Hey, this isn’t bad. Totally acceptable.”

I’m pretty sure I was the manliest one in the room.

What’s sad is I used to think this guy was cute. And then he turned all…I don’t even know.

Thursday we rode the KTX up. The train goes so fast (up to 300kph) that my ears were popping throughout the journey. I realized during the ride that we would arrive during rush hour. Wouldn’t be a big deal if it weren’t for Beth’s ginormous, heavy suitcase. We were going to meet my friend Nina, who was staying with some of her Korean family.

When we got off, there were crowds of people making their way to the metro station, and it only took me about 5 minutes to figure out which direction we were going. We made it with Bethany accidentally throwing her bag only once. We got to Nina’s apartment and met her cousin. It’s around 9 at this point and no one had had dinner. So we figure we’d better go out to get food. I didn’t want to leave. I was tired and desperately needed some down time. On the way out, we met Nina’s aunt, an older, sweet Korean lady, who invited us to come inside and eat dinner there. I would have happily accepted this offer if it hadn’t been for Nina.

“Oh, no, no…we really want to go out. We want to see Seoul. And Amber said she doesn’t want to eat here.”  she said.

I was trying to communicate with my eyes that this was really not necessary.

“No! I never said that…” I smiled at her aunt apologetically.

“Plus,” Nina continued, “Amber only eats restaurant food.”

“What!” I exclaimed. “That’s not true…” Nina, I hate you right now, said my eyes. She knew it, too, but chose to ignore it.

“Ah, no, we really should be going. Come on!”

I tried not to pout as Nina’s aunt graciously gave us a lift to the subway. For the past few days I’d been playing to the whims of my visiting guest, and I couldn’t do it much longer. What can I say? I’m a selfish person. And I like to eat. My friend differs on this slightly. As a result, I’d ended up losing some pounds and the food deprivation was making me cranky.

We decide to go to Dongdaemun. It’s not too far, and there’s a night market. As we’re stepping on the train, someone steps on the back of my shoe. Instinctively I tried to scoop in up, but it popped off. I turned around, looking inside and outside the car. It was gone. It had fallen through the gap between the car and the platform.

As the doors close, I feel the sinking feeling in my stomach and have to close my eyes for a moment. Nina is theorizing about who must have stepped on the shoe, all the while trying to stifle her laughs.

“Nina, it really doesn’t matter who did it.” I said.

“It was probably me. I’m so sorry. I’ll buy you new ones…”

“No, no. Hey, it’s not funny. Really. “

“Well, it is kinda funny, if you think about it.” Beth is also trying to hold it back. People on the train are staring at me in my skirt, leggings, and one shiny flat.

“These shoes were not cheap. And I was going to wear them to the wedding tomorrow…”

“Oh…”

“…and it’s cold and I have one fucking shoe.”

The laughing resumes.

We reach our station and go out into the cold night in search of shoes. There’s frozen packs of snow on the ground that I try to avoid. Already I have circulation problems and my foot quickly goes numb. Finally we find a shoe seller underground. The man asks what happened to me. I try to explain and he kicks off his sandal for me and stands there on one foot while Nina and Beth pick up some sad looking heels and ask me, “How about this?”

The vendor is now hopping on one foot. “Hurry up! It’s cold!”

I buy a pair of plastic slippers and we head back out.

Now we’re all starving. Beth doesn’t eat anything. Nina doesn’t want Korean food. This leaves us…nothing. Nina points out a Chinese restaurant, which I figured Beth probably wouldn’t eat but I didn’t want to risk walking around another hour as it was now 10.

“What do you want, Nina?”

“I don’t know. You know about these things, not me.”

“Uh, ok. Beth. Did any of those pictures look good?”

“Not really. But just order whatever.”

“Ok…fine.” I order.

We get our food. It was too much, of course. Beth wouldn’t touch it. It was too greasy, which made both Nina and I feel a bit sick. And too expensive.  I felt guilty Beth didn’t eat so I didn’t let her pay.

I’m feeling like a failure.

After walking and shopping, we head back. When we get back to the station we’d come from, we go to the office to try explaining my shoe situation. Apparently, this is not an all too uncommon occurrence. A couple men go back down with us, armed with a long tool with pinchers. When the train is gone, they open the doors and after some searching, retrieve my shoe. A bit muddy, but fine.

After, we catch a bus and Nina tries to ask the driver where we should get off to transfer. A passenger tells us it’s the next stop. We hop off and as soon as we do Nina is yelling that it’s not the right place. We don’t know where we are, exactly, so Nina runs into a nearby police station. She comes back out, giving me a strange look. An officer follows her out. He seems very excited. “Where you from?” he asks us in English.

“America and Norway.”

“We want to take bus 9.” Nina says.

“Yes. Bus-uh. Wait! Ah!” A bus is passing by and the officer stops it and talks a moment with the driver. The bus drives off. He motions for us to follow. I have no idea what’s going on. Waiting at an intersection, he drops the eager English and switches to Korean. “How old are you?” he asks to me and Beth.

“25 and 26.”

“Why don’t you take a taxi? You are 3 people, so it’s not expensive.”

He tries to figure out where Nina lives. He tells her to give him the phone so he can call her aunt. She dials it for him

“I just want to get on the bus! Oh shit! Please don’t say you’re the police! Amber, how do you say in Korean ‘Don’t say you’re…’”

“Hello! This is the police…”

I burst out laughing. This was just too ridiculous. Too much. All week and all the night the most simple things seemed to go wrong somehow. But I was beginning to realize, it wasn’t my fault. At least, mostly not my fault. This  made it a little better.

Fortunately, nothing ever got worse after that. I spent a few more days in Seoul then headed back to Busan. A kind boy sitting next to me on the bus saved me from getting left behind at a rest stop. My headache disappeared. The next day was warm and sunny. A lady on the street gave me chocolates. Thank you, Busan.

진정해  ㅠㅠ

“Misunderstood” is exactly how I would describe many foreigners’ perception of Korea. It’s a hard nut to crack. The culture, language, even people are not so easily accessible. You have to put forth effort. This isn’t to say that if you do put forth the effort that you’ll like what you find. It’s understandable. Sometimes it really feels like it’s not worth the effort. No matter how integrated you think you’ve become. You have a Korean partner, can speak the language well, can follow through with the behavioral expectations –you will always be a foreigner.

I find it a bit paradoxical that Koreans can be so proud of their country and culture, but then are so shocked when they discover that foreigners like it too. It’s too bad that such a proud country at times seems to suffer from such an inferiority complex. Why would you learn Korean? Really, you like Korean food? Wow, you  like Korean music? It’s too bad.

Anyway, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to hate Seoul. I mean, if we’re going to talk about cities we hate, it’s probably more for aesthetic reasons than anything else. I bet you if you were to ask any resident of Seoul, they would tell you they hate the same things visitors do. But in the end, they would also defend it. I would too.

And it’s hobak, by the way. Actually one of the first words in my vocabulary, because for whatever reason, plug my name into a Korean-English dictionary and it comes up with “pumpkin.” Multiple students have discovered this, and always I get, “Teacher, why you pumpkin!” They are never satisfied when I say I really have no connection with this particular vegetable and that their fancy electronic dictionaries are full of lies.

Also, if you call someone a “pumpkin” in Korean it means “ugly.” Watermelons are the pretty fruit. Didn’t you know?

There are two important things that just can’t be taught. They are:

1) You can make jokes as well as understand them.

Mino: *slaps my leg* Amber, you’re getting fatter.

Me: Hmm. Maybe.

Mu: [In Korean] You can’t tell foreigners they’re fat.

Mino: It’s Korean culture. You have to get used to it

(For the record: I am.)

Mu: *offering me a cookie.* Try.

Me: No, thanks. I should diet, right?

Mu: No, you don’t need to diet. You need to di-gest.

2) You can properly insert swear words into any sentence.

Mino: I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. He’s fucking crazy right now.

Mu: Amber, say ‘fuck you.’

Me: What?

Mu: I want to hear native pronunciation of  ‘fuck you.’

Me: Fuck you.

Mu: [laughs, repeating it.] Say it again.

Me: Fuck you.

Mu: Again.

This continues for awhile.

So, while there’s no impressive vocabulary here or complex grammatical structures, the fluency gets high marks. Making jokes, even bad ones, and using profanity are essential for understanding and becoming a fluent speaker of any language. How? Watch lots of TV and practice. Always practice.

So I finally had my first jjim jil bang experience.  You could call it a sauna, but really it’s so much more than that. My friend Lauren and I went to a rather posh place attached to a hotel. We were given a key for lockers to put our shoes and other belongings in. We were also given clothes to wear into the sauna area, which we tried first. This part is coed. Men and women, children and the elderly all hang out together on an expanse of heated floor or in the saunas, watching TV, drinking tea, and sharing snacks. Lauren and I ate hard-boiled eggs and after sweating it out in the hottest sauna room, we shared pat bing su. ( Shaved ice, milk, topped with red bean, fruit, and other shit. In this case, strawberry syrup, condensed milk and fruit loops.)

There was also an oxygen room that’ll give you a bit of a buzz after a few minutes. Didn’t try the ice room.

After the saunas we headed for the baths, which of course are separated by sex. I don’t know what I was expecting, but definitely not for it to be so nice. Walking into the room you can hear the sound of waterfalls. It ran over stones into various pools of various temperatures deep enough to swim around in. Before you could go in, you had to thoroughly wash and scrub. Scrubbing is important. It’s the reason you should go with a friend or family; you need to have someone help with your back. (I’ve heard plenty of stories from foreigner men who freaked out because their male Korean friend or random man would without asking start scrubbing.) I laughed watching a little girl wearing scrub mittens working away at an older woman’s back. She had to walk all around her to reach.

There were hot baths, warm baths, bubbling baths, and an Oriental herb bath. Lauren and I did get stared at a bit, but only from children. Everyone else just went about their own business or were at least very discreet when taking a peek at us.

I’m not sure if I’m ready to spend the night at one of these places. (Men and women sleep together on the floors) but I’d definitely go again. I’d never felt so clean in my life.

Korean grammar is too much sometimes for my poor head.

What has just occurred to me (through searching the Internet rather than in class) is that in Korean there is a distinction between being polite to the person you’re speaking to and respectful to the person you’re talking about. Let’s say I’m talking about your mother. I’m going to change verb endings as well as the words I use (well, theoretically I would, if I was really that good at Korean.) There’s different words for sleep, to be, food, eat, etc. If I’m going to ask you if your mother gave you a gift or if you gave your mother a gift, I’d use different verbs for “to give.”

I keep thinking: being Korean must be so hard. Being polite must be so hard.

Here’s  where my desire to be polite is tested: Today I was having lunch with a friend. A few ahjusshis (older Korean men) walked into the restaurant, talking loudly about I don’t know what. Then my friend said to me, “One of those men keeps walking by and saying ‘Ru-shia’.” (Russian)**

“Directed at me?”

“Yeah. He keeps checking you out and saying it. Basically, he’s calling you a whore.”

What had I done? Granted, I wasn’t dressed as conservative as I could have been. High-heeled boots, leggings, shorts (which couldn’t be seen under my wool coat) but every other Korean girl on the street was dressed the same way. I’d just been thoroughly enjoying my meal, which is why I hadn’t noticed the man looking me over.

I put my spoon down. We were about to leave.

“Is it the one still standing by the door?” I asked. I was hoping it was. I wanted to say something as I walked out. I’m an American teacher. Or student something. And I’d say it politely.

But it wasn’t him. I let it go. It’s the price you pay for having blond hair.

(**Note: I am not in any way suggesting that Russian women are whores. It’s just that in Korea, foreign prostitutes are often Russian. I’ve frequently been asked if I’m Russian or told I look like one. I don’t usually take offense to this. I know it’s just because I’m blond and pale. But sometimes, like in this case, you know it’s not purely an observation.)

And speaking of hair,  I decided to try for the second time to get a trim in Korea. I’ve been advised, “Don’t. It’ll be ruined. Koreans aren’t used to Western hair, and especially curly hair.” But did I listen? No. For whatever reason I became convinced that it couldn’t be possible that my request for a trim could be taken so lightly 2 times. Last time was a failure. This time…it may be an epic failure. I say this because right now my hair is straight. The man who cut it didn’t just trim…he did something else. I think it was thinning? By the time I figured out what was happening it was too late. That’s fine and all for people with straight, thick, hair, but you can’t just randomly cut into a curly person’s head. So, it could be a frizzy disaster. But it could have all been part of his plan to get me to come back. Because he said as I left, “Straight looks really good. Next time we can do permanent-straight.” You SOB.

***

Dear Santa Claus,

Hello Santa. I’m very good (?) student.  So please, I want nintendo CD or New computer game. Humm…I don’t like a small money! I like 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 money! Do you have money, nintendo CD, New c omputer game and lots of money?

Please Give me a gift! I have nintendo and computer but I don’t have lots of money.

Please!

I want money!

From Marisa <3

Dear Santa Claus

I was very good this year, so please bring me good phone I want apple Iphone I woud like money for christmas can I see you? christ-mas day, night in the my bedroom please good by Santa claus

your friend John

Dear Santa

Hi! Give me presents!!

New phone, MP3, Dictionary, clothes etc.

I’m good teenager this year.

I want to get new cellphone.

My cellphone is very old, crazy!!

I believe you’re a good Santa.

P.s. come with rudolph!

I want see rudolph!!!

From Kind teenager

Hyeon-Jung Kim

Dear   Santa   Claus.

Hello, My name is In Wook.

Later some day, It is Christmas.

How about your raindears?

I’m always fine.

I hope to snow in Christmas.

Santa, I would like new computer.

My computer is so old.

It must break.

]]> http://osamber.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/dear-santa-bring-me-awesomeness/feed/ 0 osamber http://osamber.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/arts-and-crafts-yon-mandulgi/ http://osamber.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/arts-and-crafts-yon-mandulgi/#comments Sun, 20 Dec 2009 08:18:23 +0000 osamber http://osamber.wordpress.com/?p=112 ]]> I’ve been slacking on the updates. So here’s some old news:

The Friday before last, instead of a regular class, we had a “cultural experience” class. I was hoping for a cooking class, but no, we got to experience kite-making. Yes, kite-making. Not just for kids, apparently.

We had to go to an elementary school. The teacher didn’t give good directions, which I thought was intentional because she wanted us to practice our direction-asking skills. Actually, I just misunderstood and found the school myself when we were really supposed to meet at the appointed subway station. But I wasn’t the only one. Me and a 16-year-old Chinese kid from my class ended up hanging around in front of the school for about 30min before everyone showed up. We both felt strange just standing there while kindergartners running around outside looked at us like we were aliens. Which I guess we are, technically.

My kite-making “partner.”

Wow, so multi-cultural. Wonderful.

Me and my masterpiece. I gave it to a little kid on the way out. “Say ‘thank you’.” the woman who was with him said. Best to humor the crazy foreigner. I wonder if he even flew it before he wrecked it.