I'm in a weird mood so excuse this post for being a bit strange.
It's gonna be a bit until my next post. I'm going to Dokdo finally for my short little trip this weekend. Get siked!
This Saturday I had orientation at 10:00. My partner for the trip's name is, Gunhee/Benjamin (I'm writing his American name so that my Mom has some chance at remember what to call him when I talk to her, heehee) and I was going to meet him at the subway station where our paths would converge at 9:30 so that we could go to there together. Unfortunately I got a text that said that he was in the hospital. (Don't worry, he just had a stomach ache; Koreans go to the hospital for everything.) So anyways, instead of waiting in the subway for two hours, I decided to set off and find the university on my own. I got there just ten minutes late and sat for the first two hours alone, wishing someone was there to translate the 50% of the speech that I didn't understand. He got there eventually and basically the entire orientation was useless. I got a free meal out of it and had to learn some dance we're doing for a documentary that I'm apparently going to be a part of, and I learned that I did the wrong thing for the presentation I have to make for kids at an elementary school on Ulleungdo (the island nearest to Dokdo where we will be staying overnight).
At the orientation I noticed a few things. On top of gaining confidence in my Korean skills (apparently even though I'm among very few beginners there, I am actually one of the few people that can actually communicate effectively with the non-English-speaking Koreans) I also encountered, all at once, all of my favorite and least favorite type of foreigner in Korea. I will give a rough categorization. Keep in mind that most people are hybrids of all of these.
1.) the foreigner who refuses to actually try to speak Korean 2.) the one who knows a few key phrases in Korean and will use them incessantly to try to impress people 3.) the one who thinks that everything in Korea is the best and will love/praise/purchase the Korean version of anything just because it's Korean 4.) the one who thinks that Korea is an inferior nation and is "just so adorable and cute trying to be just like America" 5.) the freaked out one who is too terrified to even respond to a hello 6.) the one who is just chilling out 7.) the one who knows Korean and uses it effectively 8.) the one who knows it but blurts out the wrong stuff all the time
I think I'm a hybrid of numbers 6, 7, and 8. I used to be a tiny bit of a 3 when I first came to Korea because everything was so new, but I'm starting to miss American stuff again (i.e. REESE'S PUFFS!!!).
I can't tell you how annoyed I got at this one guy who was a textbook case type 2. He repeated the phrases for "good job!" and "cool!" and a couple of slang words like thirty times. The most frustrating part was that he kept getting compliments. He was literally just going around and saying words at the Korean speakers. I may have been a little jealous that he was getting so much attention for so little effort and here I am over in the corner negotiating suit rental prices with the director of the Dokdo trip and the RealKorea program and no one was saying anything to me. ...I am a bit of an attention seeker. Anyways, that's not important. What IS important is that they were going to charge all of the foreigners 40,000원 for a ONE-DAY suit rental so that we could look good for the government documentary, and I complained so much that they called RealKorea and made them erase the fee. I think I got my skills from my mom (further evidence: I still refuse to ever sit near the kitchen or the restroom when I go out to eat in a restaurant).
I left the orientation early because it ran over by two hours. And then that night I went clubbing!! My friend Levis is friends with a pro golfer who, for his birthday, rented an entire club in Apgujeong for the evening. I was on the super special guest list and didn't pay a dime!
While we were there that night Kyle had ordered a long island iced tea but I didn't see him get it and so I yelled at the bartender for ignoring us and he just sighed, talked to his supervisor, and made another one. I brought Kyle the tea proudly and he looked at me like I was crazy, and then I realized that I had literally just intimidated a Korean bartender into giving me a free 10,000원 drink. All in Korean! I feel so awesome these days.
I am so so so sorry for sounding like I'm bragging about my improvement in Korean. It's just so exciting and I'm really pumped to go back to America and show 백선생님 and Mia and all the other Korean adults that they didn't help me for no reason.
Anyways, this friday is 빼빼로Day (Pepero Day) which is sort of like a (similarly overly commercialized) second Valentine's Day; it came about because the date 11/11 looks like the little pepero sticks, which are basically crunchy cookie sticks covered in chocolate - the Korean version of Pocky. This year is the biggest Pepero Day ever, because it's 11/11/11. At 11:11 on 11/11/11 people are going to be going crazy. I think it's not a coincidence that at 11:11:11 on 11/11/11 it's also going to be THE BIGGEST 11:11 WISH EVER!!! (For any of you who don't know what the 11:11 wish is [parents] it's basically some dumb thing that people made up where if you look at the clock at exactly 11:11 you can make a wish.) I'm so pumped. I will eat so much pepero it's not even funny.
On Friday I also get to pick up my now #2 Alien Registration card. Ugh. I can't believe I went through all that trouble. At least I get to keep one as a souvenir now.
On Monday at 8:00am (oh my goodness) I went to a place called 나눔의집 (Nanum-eui-jib - Sharing House) which is a place where surviving Comfort Women, victims of Japanese governmental sex crimes during World War II, live together and try to get noticed by citizens, the Japanese, and the world. Women from countries all over the globe were conscripted, abducted, and sold into sex slavery serving the soldiers fighting for the Japanese stationed all over asia. Most of them were slaughtered at the end of the war to hide the Japanese government's involvement, but there are still hundreds of survivors and they want an apology and punishment for the responsible. They hold protests every Wednesday at the Japanese embassy in Seoul. This December they will hold their 1,000th protest, and I hope to attend it. The trip was really interesting - we got to take a walk around the museum, watch a video about their struggle, and speak with one of the survivors. They had a reconstructed model of a comfort station and various artifacts on display (including a 70 year old (unused, of course!) condom that had been found intact at an old destroyed comfort station - icky). Anyways, after it was all over we took the bus home.
I'm going to go crazy if the little girl I tutor on Mondays does not calm the heck down by next time I see her. She tried to give me moldy orange, mocked me repeatedly, stuck a candy she sucked on onto my face, and keeps saying she has to use the bathroom every five minutes - either she's drinking too much water or she's not focusing hard enough. I had a stern talk with her at the recommendation of her mother and told her that she was making me very sad and that I don't want to get angry at her so she'd better focus and pay attention. I think I traumatized her. But at least now maybe she'll listen better. I think after she started doing better in school she thought she could treat me like some sort of teacher-slave-punching-bag but THAT WILL NOT BE THE CASE. I will defeat this child's short attention span! Also after her kid started getting awesome scores, her mom has started making me full meals instead of tiny sandwiches when I go over. So happy.
Anyways, that's all for now! I hope you're all doing well and I love you!
<3,
Janet
