Kristin's Korean Life

Retracing my Steps- Getting Married

2010-10-13T08:21:00.000-04:00

Now that I'm so far behind in this blog that I can't even remember what I have to blog about, I'll try for big events. Here's a big one: I got married!

On July 9, 2010, the day after my plane landed in Korea, my fiance and I went to the American Embassy in Seoul and did some paperwork because I'm an American citizen. Then we walked about two blocks to the Seoul City Hall and did some paperwork there because Kyu Won is a Korean citizen and we're in Korea. Then we were officially married in Korea. Once again, we went to the American Embassy and gave them a copy of the marriage license from the Seoul office, making us officially married in the United States. It cost about $100. Very anticlimactic, but I wore nice white clothes and he wore nice black clothes so it felt like a wedding a little. If you are an American citizen thinking about getting married to a Korean citizen, go here: US Embassy website.

After the paperwork, we celebrated by going to eat at one of our favorite restaurants, then we went to the CoEx Aquarium in Seoul. I'd wanted to go there since I first heard about it last year, but I never got the chance. It was amazing! Then we went to a nice hotel with a big jacuzzi. When I got out of the shower, there was a full bubble bath with rose petals, just like in Pretty Woman! Kyu Won had also prepared my favorite cake- chocolate mousse cake- and wine and candles. It was every bit as wonderful as having a big white wedding. We want to have a wedding later on Jeju Island, but we'll have to save a lot of money to do that.

The day after we were married, we met with our closest friends living in Seoul and ate at a restaurant called Gogi King ('gogi' means 'meat'), which is an all-you-can-eat meat buffet. You sit at a table that has a round grill in front of you with a retractable air vent above it (common in Korean restaurants), and you fill a large plate at the buffet with all the raw meat you want to eat. Then you cook it yourself at the table and everyone takes what they want. It was delicious and fun, and everyone had a great time. Then we went to the Seoul Tower on Namsan, the tallest mountain in Seoul. We didn't do any of the expensive things, but Kyu Won and I participated in a tradition: couples buy padlocks without keys and heart-shaped plastic things to write messages on, then put the hearts on the padlocks and lock them to the fences. If a couple has a padlock on Namsan, they are going to be in love forever. Of course that's not always true, but it's a sweet couple activity and there are a LOT of padlocks. We put ours next to my best friend's. She is Korean and her boyfriend is American. He came to Korea for summer vacation to learn some Korean, meet her parents, learn about her culture, and just to be with her. What a guy!

After getting married, we went back to Andong and rested for a while. Then we took a trip to a bamboo forest! I really wanted to go there, because of course we Americans don't really see a lot of bamboo in our lives and I have a thing for plants. The day we went it was raining cats and dogs, which was great because there weren't many people there. On sunny days, you can't take a picture without 10 people in the way. The bamboo was just like in kung-fu movies, tall, close together, and serene. I expected people dressed in old-fashioned nonspecific Asian clothes to come out fighting in a nonspecific martial art style. Speaking of martial arts, the uniquely Korean martial arts are Tae Kwon Do, Taekkyeon, as well as a Korean version of kendo called kumdo. We walked around the forest slowly, trying to find baby bamboo shoots because supposedly it's lucky if you see one. We didn't see any, but that's okay. I still have good luck from when a white tiger looked me in the eyes at Everland (the day Kyu Won proposed to me, 12/24/2009). Don't worry, I'm not superstitious; I just like the idea of luck. Did you know that knocking on wood comes from a superstition about distracting fairies from stealing your luck? We're all a little superstitious.

After leaving the bamboo forest, we slept in a hotel and slowly headed home the next day. On the way, we had to stop in Daegu to transfer buses, and Daegu just happens to be the homeplace of my favorite Korean food (yookgaejang, a spicy beef and vegetable soup), so we went to that restaurant. Amazing~! We drank my favorite Korean alcoholic drink, macceoli (rice wine, tastes a bit like skim milk mixed with sweet champagne) with its rightful side dish, nokdoojeon (kind of like a spicy shallot pancake) while we were waiting for the soup. It was a great date, eating, drinking, talking, and just being happy. That was our little honeymoon.

After our honeymoon was over, we returned to Andong again and rested a few days before opening up our restaurant. And that, my friends, is a topic for another day.

Retracing My Steps: Hello California!

2010-08-09T06:36:00.000-04:00

My mom moved to Silicon Valley, California in June, so I decided to take a five-day layover in sunny Cali on my way out of the country. As the plane circled the San Francisco Airport and came in over the Pacific, all I could see out my window was the ocean drawing nearer and nearer to the plane. I'm sure my eyes almost popped out of my head, and I started to panic. What was the idiot pilot doing so close to the ocean?!?!? Turns out, the runway backs up to the water, and however seasoned the traveler, the first landing there is always terrifying. After flying all over the U.S., to Germany, England, France, Japan, and Korea, you'd think I'd seen it all. Maybe now I have?

When I arrived, I was half elated and half exhausted and half just wanted to go to Korea already. I know that's three halves, but like the (John Mayer?) song, I was bigger than my body. My mom was waiting by the baggage claim area and gave me a hug and a 'congratulations' for finally finishing school. We got my suitcases and headed home, stopping for a late night steak and onions for me and breakfast food for her. Yes, there is a restaurant that serves both 24/7. California is that cool. Over the next few days, we did the tourist tour of San Francisco and Silicon Valley, including the Stamford campus and its famous tree-lined street and beautiful buildings, the Golden Gate Bridge and a fort that overlooks the bay with Alcatraz in the distance, the sea lions that play and chat at the docks, Lombard Street's famous curvy section of red-brick road, and some local shopping areas. We like window shopping, but not wasting our money.

I remembered that I can't buy women's shoes large enough for my size 9 1/2 feet in Korea, nor can I buy deodorant (at least nothing that works), so we went shoe shopping and deodorant shopping. Hopefully they will last me at least 6 months. I can order things online, or have somebody in America send them to me at great expense, but I don't want to think about that right now.

Being my first time in California, I drank it all in. The summer is cool and sunny in San Francisco, and there are no mosquitoes whatsoever because it's not humid. My mom pointed out that many houses don't have screens in the windows because they don't need them. The houses are very different from Michigan houses. Michigan houses look old and like they are made for the sole purpose of withstanding all kinds of weather, which is largely true. In Michigan, the lake effect drives the weather crazy, even crazier than most midwestern states. In one day it can be warm t-shirt sunny weather, then rain, then snow, then be warm again. Michigan people all know to dress in layers in the transition seasons. I call them 'transition seasons' because Spring and Fall are each less than a month long, and more of a start and end of the 6-month-long winter. My mom says that the weather in northern California is always perfect. I can see that in the houses. But, the houses there are made to withstand constant sun and occasional earthquakes. They are stuccoed and painted in cheerful, clean colors. There are pastels, bright colors, all shades of white, blue, green, pink, yellow... I don't recall seeing a single gloomy house. Honestly, just the fact that there are no mosquitoes makes me want to live there, but it's extremely expensive. I guess everyone hates mosquitoes and winter. Ha!

San Francisco architecture reminds me of a mix between Florida and Paris. Of course, that's just out of where I've been, so it's probably not a good description. Anyway, it's gorgeous. If I get rich, that's where I want to go! Anyway, I can visit my mom the California licensed lawyer (congrats!) anytime I want, as long as I can afford $1500 for a round-trip plane ticket.

There's a little Koreatown where my mom lives. She showed me areas where every sign has Korean and English, or even just Korean. They have everything from food to healthcare to insurance. Koreans generally only trust Koreans when it comes to important things, so I'm sure the large Korean population is largely self-sufficient.

Other than that, there's nothing from that week that's pertinent to this blog, so I'll stop at that.

Next installment: getting to Korea and getting married!

Retracing My Steps: Goodbye Michigan!

2010-08-03T08:27:00.000-04:00

The past month has been a whirlwind of activity. For the first time since I started writing this blog, I made an outline so I could remember most of what I wanted to write. Now comes the hard part: filling in the details for you. I'll break it into installments to make it less crazy.

Let's start in Michigan: my last few crazy days.

I had three final exams, two of which were online and therefore rather easy, and one of which was “fundamental” genetics. I don't see how molecular chemistry and complicated algorithms are fundamental, but I spent a good all-nighter studying after barely sleeping the night before because of one of the online exams. I used my human alarm clock (my fiance) on the other side of the world via MSN messenger to wake me by sending me messages with my computer on high volume after a catnap, and then studied some more, got a bagel, coffee, and an orange to go from the cafeteria, and walked and ate to class. Little did I know that almost everything on the exam was exactly what I'm terrible at: statistics and memorizing names of things. Also, because it was my last semester and therefore totally futile to buy expensive things, I had no calculator.... I almost passed. The other two classes I passed no problem, headed straight for graduation, but... ouch. I emailed my professor from California a couple of days later begging for a 1.0. More on CA and the professor's answer later (suspense!).

After the genetics exam, I was exhausted, so I slept a couple hours and woke up to my human alarm clock again. Bedodoop! That's the best I can describe the telltale MSN sound. Then it was time for more cafeteria food (I was living in a dormitory for the summer session) and the last online exam. Although I was sleepy, it wasn't bad. After that I took a shower and got ready for my going away party!

It was supposed to be a take-my-stuff-so-I-don't-have-to-deal-with-it-and-then-let's-get-food-and-drinks party, but it ended up a Kristin waiting for an hour in Bubble Island for people to come, then everyone coming late so the restaurant I wanted to go to was already too packed, so everyone sat around feeling awkward until we decided to go to Buffalo Wild Wings instead party. Although I was exhausted and a little annoyed at first, it ended up being more than I had hoped for. More than ten people came, and everyone got along even if it was the first time they had met. While people were arriving, my dad stopped by on the way through town to say goodbye and drop off some things I needed for the move. Again, awkward but nice. My father looks very strange without a beard. All in all, my last day in Michigan ended up being very warm, and I crawled into bed for another catnap for the last time. Although nobody took my things that day, a couple of friends had mostly cleaned my room out already, taking things like kitchen necessities, clothes and towels, office supplies, and other things that everyone needs and uses.

The next morning I took a shower, got in some comfortable traveling clothes, did some final packing (i.e. toothbrush and hairbrush), and went to play piano for the last time while waiting for my friend Jessica to come take my TV and a couple other things I promised her if nobody bought them. Jessica and my brother were “dating” in kindergarten, if kindergarteners holding hands all the time can be called dating, and he found her again on Facebook recently. She happened to live near me, so I got to see my brother more and made a new friend a couple months before leaving. After we hugged and said goodbye for the millionth time, I went back in and cleaned up what was left of my room. Then another new friend, Tei (whom I had met recently because he was something equatable to my RA) came to my room to help me take my baggage to the bus stop. I hadn't found a home for my dorm fridge yet, so we lugged it downstairs and left it in a corner, an the front desk called someone to take it to some storage area. Before it was taken away, a random conversation ended up with a guy taking it to his room. He was checking in while I was checking out. Funny how things just work out sometimes. After checking out, we rolled my two suitcases, me dragging my smaller one with my carry-on bag on top, and he dragging the larger one with a box of textbooks to sell on the way on top, the fifteen minutes or so to the bookstore, then to the bus stop (now bookless). We chatted until it was time for me to go, then said another sad goodbye. I got on the bus, which took me to the airport, called my mother so she wouldn't worry about my getting up on time, and slept.

The flight to California was an uneventful flight with one stopover. One interesting thing was that, with the new baggage fees, it was about the same price to check my bags as it was to upgrade the first leg of the trip to business class. As the southern businessman sitting next to me in business class later said on the topic, “that's what we call a no-brainer!” That was July 2nd.

In the next installment, Kristin goes to California for the first time ever!

One semester to go

2010-05-05T18:11:00.003-04:00

I finished my last two final exams for the semester today, and now I just have to write ~20 pages for a history of medicine class by Friday. If you were wondering why I haven't posted for months, school is the main reason. Also, I am not in Korea, so I have seen and talked to my friends and family a lot more; and, America is not as interesting to me as Korea is.

This semester has been by far the most complicated one. I suppose I couldn't expect less considering I signed up for five classes and planned to support myself and my fiance for three months while trying to spend as much time together as possible before he had to return to Korea. Visa laws are evil.

In case you're curious about the kinds of classes I take for my International Studies major and Psychology cognate, I'll tell you what I took this semester: cultural anthropology, introduction to international relations, history of international relations, history of medicine, and biology and psychology of sex and sexuality. This was the first semester since middle school when I respected most of my teachers. I tend to have a disdain for the educational system, and am a strong believer in "those who can't do, teach." Also "those who can't do or teach, manage." That is why I don't bother applying for part-time jobs anymore. So where does my income come from? Private English as a second language tutoring. I've been doing it for three years and have an ESL (TESOL) teaching certification. Considering the fact that I have personally studied 3 foreign languages, I can relate to ESL students and understand what they are trying to say because I'm usually familiar with the grammar of their language. So for me, it's basically talking to friends whom other people can't understand, and trying to help them improve so other people can understand them.

While my fiance was here I had five students: two from South Korea and three from Saudi Arabia. I met them an average of 3 hours per week per student, not including travel time, so I was working about 15 hours a week. That doesn't sound like much now that I think about it, but it felt like a lot.

Kyu Won couldn't go to school or work in America (visa laws are evil), so he and my brother's cat, Polly, hung around the house all day while I went to school and work. Sometimes he went out and explored. Every Tuesday and Thursday I had an hour and a half between the end of classes and meeting my first student, so Kyu Won spent those days cooking at home (he's a chef) and brought dinner to me on campus. We ate together and talked, then he studied cooking and/or English while I tutored, and then we went home together. On Mondays and Wednesdays he would cook dinner at home around 9 or 10 so it would be ready when I got home, and we would eat together and talk or watch TV. I really miss that. My apartment is about a 10 minute walk from the nearest bus stop, and it's in a residential neighborhood , so it gets really dark and creepy at night. It was always nice to have him there with me or knowing that he was waiting for me at home. Fridays I didn't have class, so he came with me to campus and studied or explored while I tutored, and then we had time to ourselves.

It was very stressful for both of us living under those circumstances. For Kyu Won, he wanted to work and support me while I went to school, but all he could do was be the equivalent of a housewife. Psychological studies have shown that men whose wives earn more than they do have higher levels of stress, and that the higher the ratio of woman:man household income, the shorter the man lives. Those studies may or may not be complete bogus, but I think there's truth in those results. Also, the language barrier was very stressful in daily life for him. In Korea, when I speak a little Korean, people are amazed and think I'm a genius. In America, if a foreigner speaks a little English, Americans think he or she is an idiot and not worth talking to. All of my students dread the typical American "what????" and this was especially difficult with my friends. Most of my friends are really kind, understanding, and patient. But not all of them. It's very humiliating to need someone to translate from your broken English to American English. On top of all that, there was culture shock. Kyu Won had never been on an airplane before, and the only country he'd ever visited was Japan. I kind of know that feeling.....

For me, having him here was extremely stressful, but having him gone is equally stressful. While he was here, I felt guilty because I couldn't take him traveling or buy him all the American things I wanted to buy him or help him make friends or even spend enough time with him. He was so lonely waiting for me at home all day, and then when I finally got home I was exhausted and only half there. I felt like I dragged him to this country just to imprison him for 90 days. It was a paradox: I felt like I needed to earn more money, and I felt like I needed to spend more time with him. I couldn't have both. Another paradox: he had all the time in the world and couldn't earn money, and I didn't have enough time in the day to earn enough money. I took out some $5000 in student loans just to get through this semester, and needed every penny even though I worked and earned money, too.

The stress of not having enough time or money was intense, but I didn't have to do laundry or wash the dishes or cook or anything. No matter how hard the day was, I had a loving pair of arms to come home to. Another psychological study shows that married people are happier than single people. This could be for a variety of reasons, both emotional and physical (I mean like chemicals in the brain and bloodstream, for those of you with dirty minds). When I was sick, he took care of me. When I was sad, he hugged me and did sweet little things to make me happy. When I was happy, he made me happier. When I was hungry, he fed me.

Now I only have to support myself, but I have a negative balance on my credit card that is slowly creeping back to zero. But, there's nobody at home. Just me. And the cat, who sometimes drives me crazy and requires more attention that I care to giver her. I'm depressed and empty, like a shark bit a hole out of my abdomen and nobody came to the hospital to condole me. I have friends and family, but it's not the same. It's been over a month since he left. He got on a plane early in the morning on my 22nd birthday, March 25th. Ironic... last year I got on a plane to Korea on the 26th. I haven't had a birthday party for two years. All of the feelings I had that drove me to sell everything and run away to Korea are still here in East Lansing, but now there's the added one of being lonelier than a single person. I know he's out there, I know I love him, but I can't remember him clearly and he can't be here to remind me. I finally quit tutoring about two weeks ago. I asked my mom to support me until I graduate in July. For the first time since I was 16, I admitted that I can't take care of myself.

Every day I have to tell myself that I only have to be here a little longer. Now it's just two months more. I'll be living in a single room in a dormitory on campus. I don't want a roommate unless it's him or my best friend, and they will both be in Korea (my best friend is Korean, and she goes home during the summers). Also, I won't have to worry about housework, and there is a piano so I can compose songs and work on a Korean pop song I want to play and sing for my fiance when I return to Korea.

I apologize for the depressing nature of this and the last post. I was thinking of telling a cheerful story, but that would be mostly a lie. I didn't enjoy my life here before I went to Korea, and I especially don't enjoy it now that I was forced to come back because my adviser didn't take my situation seriously and advise me not to go because I couldn't graduate in Korea. No, he said I could graduate without returning to America before I bought the plane ticket. I'm bitter about that. Anyway I decided to keep in the spirit of honestly blogging my life and my thoughts about it. I'll start blogging more now that the semester is over, so there will be ups and downs again, and the quirky insights you all tell me you love. Stay tuned!

Languages and the languages within them

2010-05-03T03:31:00.003-04:00

Rather than give a play-by-play of my life for the last 5 months, I'll try to jot down some of my observations both of how I've changed and how my fiance dealt with the entirely new experience of living in a country he'd never been to and couldn't really speak the language of very well.

For me, it felt like I had been gone a million years and come back a different person to a totally different world, but at the same time it felt as though I had left only a day before and nothing had really changed. Upon arriving in America, suddenly my 9 months in Korea seemed like a dream that had passed in the blink of an eye but contained so many experiences. The fast-slow time paradox still hasn't faded, as I realize that this semester I had dreaded so much is almost over. As I write, I should be studying or writing one of my numerous papers due this week, final exam week at Michigan State University. This is my last full semester here; I will finish my studies on July 1st. That day can't come soon enough. But where did the time go? Was I ever in Korea? Was I ever here before, searching for a way out? Will the day I leave again ever come? Time is anything but exact. It's a subjective measure applied objectively to an abstract phenomenon. I hate time. It's never on my side. I guess that's because I only notice it when it doesn't work in my favor.

It takes about 2 weeks to get over jet lag when you fly between Asia and America. This is a generally accepted reality, and it was no different for Kyu Won and I. Amidst a dream-like state, we celebrated Christmas with my mother and brother, and then again with my brother, father, and stepbrother. Everything in my family happens in twos. If you include the extended families and stepfamily, things sometimes happen in fives. This could be part of the reason I'm good at adapting. I'm always changing anyway, why not be a chameleon? Anyway, both American Christmases were just like I remembered them, plus a feeling of awkwardness and a sense that I didn't belong. I've always had that sense that I don't belong in my family. I also had the sense that I didn't belong in my friend groups in elementary, middle, and high school. I always have a sense that I don't belong anywhere, except when I'm alone with my fiance. That's a good sign for our relationship.

After coming back to America, that sense of being an included outcast became even greater. I had two roles in conversation: telling everyone else about Korea, or listening to everyone else talk about things I didn't know about. I still think in Korean often, and at the beginning, I inserted Korean words into English conversations. I was always trying to bring up Korea because I had nothing else to talk about; it was like the "word vomit" Lindsay Lohan's character has issues with in Mean Girls. At some point it became evident that nobody cared, but I couldn't stop. I needed to be admired so that I could stand out of the group in a positive way rather than in an awkward way.

I know Kyu Won felt even more awkward, because he couldn't understand the fast speech, slang, and complicated words and phrases in American conversation. He had only heard me speak to one American in Korea, and to my best friend, who is Korean but has studied in America for like 6 years and is fluent in English. With my best friend, Jenny, we could also speak in Korean, and she could translate anything one of us couldn't understand, so it wasn't really an American conversation. My family is sarcastic and witty, and tends to talk about technical things, as both my parents and my brother are or were engineers. My mother is a lawyer now but has worked as an engineer for companies like GM and NASA. My father is an automotive engineering sales manager after working his way up the ladder. You may remember I saw him on a business trip in Korea. My brother majored in electrical engineering and is basically a wonder boy. He programs and builds things for computers, guitars, motorcycles, and more, and he once built a high-tech motorcycle with touch screen rear-view mirrors and Windows XP installed. I almost failed statistics in high school and college, and my major is International Studies and Psychology. I can't keep up with my family. I always feel like the dumb one in my family, although I know I excel in other things, like languages and music composition. The other problem with the huge difference between the rest of my family and I is that I always feel alienated, like I love them but I don't know how to talk to them. This got a hundred times worse. Hopefully I also excel in acting and nobody noticed that I was more awkward than usual. Kyu Won must have felt like my pet, calmly sitting or standing by me, listening only to me, and not understanding what anyone was saying. I remember how that felt in Korea, and I still feel that way sometimes although I've improved a lot. Everyday conversations in Korean give me confidence because I can follow them, but as soon as things get technical I feel like a moron again. It doesn't matter whether it's my family talking about microcontrollers or my fiance's family reminiscing. Both are foreign languages to me, and it was strange to come back to America and make that connection.

I realized that language is not just English, Korean, French, or Japanese. Each language has its own sub-languages that only certain sub-cultures can understand. Take generation gaps in slang, for instance. Try telling you grandparents that you lol'd when your bff friended your bf's homie on Facebook coz he's smokin' hot. Technical terms and concepts create a huge language barrier between my family and I. Instead of thinking of language as purely a country- or ethnicity- based construct, I've begun to think of it in more multilateral terms. What I mean by that, for those of you who don't speak my language, is that languages aren't just alphabets and vocabulary. Language is made up of so many different factors. For instance, I have a English conversation student from Korea who is studying for her master's degree in statistics. If she were to explain what she's studying in depth (thankfully she doesn't torture me like that), I would probably have no idea what she was talking about. Although she is the foreigner and I am the American, I would not be able to understand her speaking prefect English. What a concept! I think languages like English and Korean are just the modes of expression, and that people who speak different languages could actually be speaking the same one but not understand each other. I'll explain that with the same student. If she talked to a Chinese student studying for a master's degree in statistics in Germany, they could talk about the same thing in four different languages and never understand each other, just like a doctor, a lawyer, a fisherman, and a chef could talk about their fields in the same language and never understand each other. To fully understand a conversation, you need to be fluent in two languages: the topic and the linguistic means of talking about that topic. You could expand on that and say that culture is a language. I've always thought that music is a language, but I never saw this big jumbled picture before. All of this because I don't understand my family any better now that I went to another country for 9 months than I did before I left.

This redefines compatibility for relationships. I realize why I love Kyu Won. We speak the same language, even though he speaks Korean and I speak English. We think in similar ways, and the ideas trying to get out are similar enough that we can break through the language barrier on the surface and reach a greater understanding of each other than I can with any of my friends or family members. We can't have witty reparte, and we can't chit chat for hours about nothing without difficulty. But we often don't realize that our conversations are strange and incomprehensible to others, or that we are from different countries and ancestries. To me, he's not Korean first, and to him I'm not American first. Those things are way down the list of things we think of when we think of each other, but they're the first things we use to describe each other to others.

So how do you talk to someone who doesn't speak your language? Speak another language you both know. Although most of our early conversations were about 60% body language and 40% a grammatically incorrect, unclear mix of jumbled words in Korean and English, I remember the ideas Kyu Won expressed to me as if they were expressed fluently in English. I merely translated those conversations into a format easier to file in my memory. Try it. Talk to someone from another country. Find a language you can share with someone you can't understand. It's amazing.

Coming Back to America

2010-02-08T00:12:00.002-05:00

On Christmas Day, 2009, my boyfriend, his father, his little brother, and I all went to the Incheon International Airport early in the morning. Those of you who have traveled internationally know that it is very stressful, and this was no exception. I was tired from our day at Everland and sleeping on a Korean futon on the floor (like a thick blanket rather than a mattress), and I'm not a morning person anyway. Although my boyfriend's father had traveled internationally for business quite a bit in the past, airline policies have changed a lot in the past ten years, so he was in the dark about what to do. After my travels from America to Korea and between Korea and Japan, I was the foremost expert on the subject. Unfortunately, I am to this day stressed out about missing planes, getting arrested for nothing, or whatever else can go wrong. What I'm trying to say is that nobody had a head about them. However, we managed to get on the right plane with plenty of time to spare despite confusing information given me by the airline desk that led me to believe we would miss our flight and thereby freak out. My boyfriend's father's last memory of me is a jittery, stressed out, snappy, tired, nervous brat. I hope he understands. As it turns out, my stress was well-founded, as we discovered during our connection in Washington D.C.. From the scheduled landing time of our plane from Japan to the departure time of our plane to Detroit, we had two and a half hours. That's more than enough time, right? Nope. Instead of docking at a different gate like normal planes do when the assigned gate is occupied, our plane waited for half an hour. Then we finally got into the airport, and I had to separate from my boyfriend because I'm an American citizen and didn't have to go through immigration. After going though customs and getting my passport stamped, I went to the baggage claim and re-check area, which is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of in my life. I found my and my boyfriend's bags and sat with them, watching the door for him to arrive. After waiting a long time and starting to worry, a security woman told me that I couldn't wait in the baggage claim area. I told her politely that I was waiting for my boyfriend to go through immigration and that this was his first time traveling by plane and his English wasn't too great. I was worried that he would have a lot of trouble figuring out this step of the process, because I even had trouble with said ridiculousness. She responded very impolitely that I was in a baggage claim area, not a waiting room. I was under the impression that one could function as the other, seeing as it had never been a problem in domestic flights, and reiterated that my boyfriend was not American and had no idea what was going on. She, again impolitely, inquired his age, to which I replied 23. She then quite rudely reminded me in an unnecessarily raised voice that he is an adult and can take care of himself and I had better get my own self taken care of so that I don't cost the airline money by missing my flight. I held back tears of stress, anger, and helplessness and also restrained from using profanities. I did as she said, hatred for United Airlines building in my chest.

After making it through security, I took a look at the departures board and realized that we didn't have much time left before missing our flight. I asked the nice (no really, the guy was as helpful as he could be) information kiosk guy how far away our gate was and how long it usually took incoming flights to get through immigration. As it became evident that we would probably miss our flight unless I could get my boyfriend through some lines faster, I asked the kind guy if he could radio downstairs to get my boyfriend to the front of the line. I've experienced that in security often: people with flights really soon are ushered to the front of the line. This saves the airline money and unwanted customer dissatisfaction at missing a flight because of the airline. Well, turns out, the nice man wasn't even allowed to talk to security or immigrations people. Isn't a pillar of good customer service communication between employees? Now I was really mad at United Airlines. At long last, my boyfriend emerged through the doors, and I wiped my tears that had been streaming down my face at increasing intervals as the minutes passed because the next flight to Detroit was five hours later and we had already flown overseas and were on our second connection. I told him to run, and we ran to the terminal. We were five minutes late. The plane hadn't departed yet; the doors had closed. I asked if there was any way to get us on the plane before it left in five minutes, and the guy working there walked away talking into a radio without answering me. A couple of minutes later, during which minutes my boyfriend and I were waiting hopefully and breathlessly from running on nearby seats, an angry man who had been waiting at the wrong gate because that's where a United representative told him to wait came yelling at the gate guy who was still there (not the one who walked off with the radio). The guy told him that the doors had closed and he would have to wait for the next flight five hours later. I became livid and yelled something like, "you mean we've been waiting here for you to tell us if we can get on the plane or not and you were never gonna tell us that the answer is no?!?!" He made some cocky remark, but I was already in tears. After stressing out in now three airports in one day, after the stress of waiting helplessly with no way to contact my boyfriend for more than an hour, after being snapped at by now four United employees (including two snotty flight attendants), I had missed a flight for the first time in my life. It was totally out of my control and nobody had tried to help me.

We then waited for like an hour in a service counter line and although I had all these grand ideas about bitching out the service counter person, I realized that a lot of the people in line were on the same flight we were that waited too long outside the gate. I'm sure the service counter people had already been yelled at, and I just didn't have energy. So I switched our flight and called my mom on that phone because she was waiting to pick us up in Detroit, and I complained very loudly so that everyone could hear about how much I hated United because of the events of the past few hours. I suppose they were thinking similar thoughts. My mother was also thinking similar thoughts, because she had to drive over an hour back home and then drive back to the airport again later to come get us.

We ended up eating hamburgers and fries while waiting, and spending some relaxing time watching my boyfriend experience his first moments in America relaxed me a bit. After finally arriving at Detroit Metro, we had a little baggage confusion but nothing too bad, and had an awkwardly emotionless meeting with my mom. Everyone was exhausted and annoyed about the flight change, so after nine months in Korea the first moment I saw my mom had no tears or laughs. Those would come later, as will the next post.

The gist of this post is... NEVER FLY UNITED AIRLINES! To back up my point here is another person with a similarly angry outlook on United: United Breaks Guitars

Remember December?

2010-01-18T15:06:00.003-05:00

At long last, I will elaborate on what I mentioned in the last entry.

As I mentioned in earlier entries, I really wanted to try dog meat once before coming back to America. I love controversy and culture and food, and here was one thing that encompassed all of those. My boyfriend's mother has, for years, enjoyed a good dog meat dinner once in a while, so when she heard that I wanted to try it she was kind of excited. Also, it's a well-known fact in Korea that foreigners don't eat dog. If you didn't catch this when I said it before, many Koreans also refuse to eat it on moral grounds. Anyway, we went to a dog meat restaurant, where my boyfriend's mother and I got spicy dog meat soup, and my boyfriend got a dog soup with a mild flavor. We also had a dish of dog skin, which made my skin crawl when I ate it because I don't even like chicken skin. In case you're wondering, dog meat has a lot of connective tissue, which makes it hard to chew, and the flavor is a little strange- definitely something I will not eat again by choice. Anyway, I'm glad I tried it because now I'm not wondering what it tastes like.

My boyfriend and I wanted to do a lot of traveling around Andong while we lived there, but it didn't really end up happening much. One day in December, we just got up and did it. We gathered his old watercolors and paper, bought some bread from a bakery and some convenience store snacks, and hopped on a bus to the countryside. Now I know it's taboo to cite Wikipedia, but whatever. What we saw was Korea's 15th national treasure, 봉정사 (Bongjeongsa). For more information about the architecture, look here. Anyway, it was really cold, but we had a lot of fun. We walked up a mountainside to get there, including a little rice farmer path my boyfriend's mom tipped us off about that got us around the entrance gate where you have to pay something like $3. We saw some women coming down from recreational mountain climbing while we were going up, so I guess it's an insider secret. After looking around, taking tons of pictures, and talking to some monks, we found a little pond my boyfriend remembered from a few years ago when he visited with his mom. We ate our bread and sat on a bench, freezing, and then painted the pond in watercolors while the sun set. Then we walked back down the mountainside in the dark and hopped on the bus back to civilization. It was a great, romantic, relaxing day. I recommend it for couples and families, but try to pick better weather. Autumn or spring would be best. I don't think that will be our last watercolor picnic in the countryside. :)

For my boyfriend's mother's birthday, we tried to do something simple that she would love. We went out a little before she got home to do some birthday shopping and trick her into thinking we forgot it was her birthday, and also because we woke up late. We bought a chocolate mousse cake and some persimmons, because she doesn't like sugary things like cake, but everyone loves blowing out the candles. She eats persimmons all the time- at least one per day. I, personally don't like them the way she does: she waits until they're soft and eats them with a spoon. But I did try something in Seoul I thought I mention. It was a hot milk and cinnamon tea with a slice of soft persimmon in the bottom. It's really delicious, really healthy especially if you don't use much sugar, and if you serve it at parties or with holiday dinners, it will be something your guests have never tasted before because persimmons aren't as common in America. Anyway, for the birthday party, we also bought some tortilla chips, which are an exotic foreign food in the international section of the grocery store. I introduced chips and salsa to my boyfriend and his family, and his mom likes to eat just the chips by themselves. Finally, we rented Mamma Mia, which she loves and listens to the soundtrack all the time. We all sat down to munchies and a movie for her birthday. All in all, a toned-down version of American birthday parties. Why toned down? Well, I'll tell you. Age in Korea is counted differently than in America. When a baby is born, it is one year old. Then, everyone turns one year older on the lunar ("Chinese") new year. That has two big effects (well, more than two but I won't talk about them): one, everyone is one or two years older in Korea; and, two, people don't turn older on their birthdays, making them less meaningful. Recently, the cake and candles and presents tradition is normal with some people, but it hasn't caught on in other circles.

Before coming back to America, I wanted to see all the people who were important to me, and my boyfriend did, too. We started with a day out with my friends from 울산 (Ulsan), 성동 (Sungdong) and Reza (from England, no Korean name to romanize). We went to 하회마을 (Hahoe Maeul, traditional village). It was, again, cold, so we didn't get to see it at its' prime, and we didn't see any dancing people with traditional costumes and masks. But we did see a guy who makes pottery, and he helped Reza make a coffee mug, which was cool. After that, we got pizza for dinner, and the boys went back home. It was nice to see them one last time in 2009.

The next day was a family party at our apartment. My boyfriend's aunts and uncle and cousins all came over. We made Christmas decorations from paper with the little girl cousin, who came early with her two friends to play games and eat snacks... basically so she could show off her chef cousin and his American girlfriend. I taught them how to make snickerdoodles, for which one of the aunts asked the recipe. We ate homemade spicy chicken, 삼겹살 (samgyeopsal, like bacon but thicker cut), pizza, fruit, and various alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. I sat at the adult table and understood about half of the conversation! Yay~! It was exactly the same as my family gatherings in America, except in a different language and with different foods.

The day after that, we lugged three suitcases and some bags to Seoul via bus, where we transferred to the subway and made our way to my boyfriend's father's apartment. We were greeted with hellos and offers of food. My favorite. :) We crashed and woke up the next day to hang out with our friends in Seoul. We invited about ten people, and we ended up seeing my friend Julia, whom I met in Korean class at MSU last year and moved to Seoul over the summer. We went shopping, had dinner, and caught the subway home. Well, close to home. We bought some chicken, snacks, and sodas and went to my boyfriend's friend's apartment. He made even more food for us and we ate and talked into the night. After sleeping in the morning, we got up and went home to get ready to go to dinner with his father and little brother. We went to VIPs, a popular Western food buffet. The one we went to was a special all-you-can-eat ribs buffet, and we ate and ate and ate all we could eat. Let's just say we got our money's worth. Like the rest of my boyfriend's family, his father and brother like me. That's a good thing.

On December 24, we had a special couple day at Everland, the Korean equivalent of Disneyworld. We won a contest by telling our couple story, and won free entry, free cute mittens and a little red Christmas cape and reindeer antlers, a free special safari in a jeep (during which we fed lions and siberian tigers), free dinner, special reserved seats in the ferris wheel timed for us to see fireworks from the sky, and we were the key feature in a stage show just after sunset. It was amazing- a great last day in Korea before coming back to study.

Next time I'll tell you about our long plane ride, why I'll never fly United again, and our life in America up until now. I'm not stopping this blog just because I'm not in Korea anymore, because I think that both my reverse culture shock and my boyfriend's experiences are interesting and related to this blog. Anyway my fingers are tired. See ya~

Merry Christmas!!!

2009-12-23T11:26:00.002-05:00

A lot has happened in the last moneth, although Andong life is slow. I'll write notes here for myself to remember later and to give you a taste of what's to come, and later I'll write in more detail.

My boyfriend, his mother, and I went out to eat dog meat and go sing karaoke (노래방).
My boyfriend and I went on a watercolor picnic date to one of Korea's 15 national treasures.
We threw a little birthday party for his mother.
We had a party at his mother's apartment with his aunts, his uncle, and his cousins (all younger).
We packed up and came back to Seoul to stay with his father for a few days before leaving for America together.
We saw some of our friends for the last time before going to America.
Today we ate at VIPs, a popular buffet restaurant, with his father and little brother until we were so full we felt like we would surely die.
Tomorrow we will go to Everland (Korea's Disneyland) and reap the benefits of winning a couple contest: free entry, free private safari, free special dinner, free special seats for fireworks, free git set, etc.. Because our couple story is so special, we will be featured Christmas Day in one of Korea's most famous newspapers, and maybe also on TV.
Christmas Day, we're heading to America together~ almost home! I must admit I'm pretty homesick.

That's December. More details later. Intrigued?

Thanksgiving Day

2009-11-24T13:03:00.002-05:00

As most of you probably know, Thanksgiving is coming up in one day (for me) or two days (in America). Try explaining to Koreans that Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday so there's no real day of the year they can mark on their calendars. Also, in America we have the Easter four: Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. I don't even know how those are decided. Not to mention our Monday holidays which very few people actually celebrate. What ever happened to normal holidays like Christmas, which is December 25th every year. Or, better yet, holidays like the 4th of July and Cinco de Mayo, which tell you the day in their very names! Anyway, confusing as it may be, it's Thanksgiving time and I didn't realize it until I saw it on my Facebook news feed. I don't know how I remembered any holidays, especially birthdays, before Facebook.

Anyway.... since my parents divorced about ten years ago, my family holidays have been a muddled mess of calendar days regardless of the confusing nature of day-of-the-week-based holidays. So, I don't really consider the day itself as important as the people and the activities that go along with it. So, if I have five Christmases on five different days like I did once two or three years ago, that's totally fine with me. Plus, for me, Thanksgiving has never been a huge deal, so not celebrating it is also fine with me. It's just... strange not to have everyone else around me celebrating it. It's strange to have the urge to draw an elaborate hand turkey and show it off to... all the people who have no idea what it means. For me, tryptophan, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin or rhubarb pie after a long day of watching older family members cook and playing with cousins and/or my brother makes my mouth water and my heart pang. Remember when dressing up like a pilgrim was a drag and dressing up like an Indian made you a cool kid for the day? Remember when hand turkeys were sacred expressions of individuality rather than cute, silly things? Growing older, remember when you first got to drink wine or champagne at dinner for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year's Eve? Even though most of us hated it, we pretended to like it because it was oh-so-forbidden. I spent one Thanksgiving with my best friend's family in high school, and there were so many people there and so much delicious food. She and I set the table and helped out with a couple other things, and I felt so useful and needed and like I was part of something special- something that only happens once a year. Last year, my roommate and I invited my mother and brother, and some of my English students (international students studying at our university) to our apartment and hosted a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I want to do that type of thing here, but I don't really know how to cook the food in the tiny gas-fire oven with approximate temperature in Celsius, and I wouldn't know where to buy it in the first place. Plus, I'm sure most is expensive. Maybe next year or the year after that I'll try.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, have a happy Thanksgiving, all you Americans. I really miss it. Not celebrating Easter or Independence Day was okay, but now I'm really missing the food holiday. Whether you realize it or not, food is one of the most important aspects of culture. Every (excuse the possibly inaccurate generalization) society in the world has rituals surrounding the consumption of food, including table manners, distribution of responsibility, and even restaurant manners are different. For instance, in Korea, one must call the waiter or push a call button for service. In America, waiters come to the table periodically and it's embarrassing to call one. Also, most importantly, what we like to eat is largely culture-based. In Korea, more than half of the food contains red pepper (the spicy one, not bell pepper) powder, paste, and/or peppers themselves. Most Koreans don't feel like they are eating if they don't have kimchi and rice, and prefer to have more choices of side dishes as well. In America, side dishes are included on the same plate as the main dish, because the utensil you eat with must not touch food other people might eat. There are separate serving utensils. Your food is all together on one plate, but it is seen as barbarian to mix it together. In Korea, you usually only need chopsticks and spoons, and everyone has a small dish on which to combine ingredients (like lettuce, pork, and kimchi) or to let food cool, or to avoid spilling soup on the table. So, your spoon or chopsticks make a line from the shared dish in the middle of the table to your dish (or just above it) to your mouth. Every type of food is served on a different dish. Therefore, if you are served a dish consisting of separate parts, you mix them all together before eating so it's all one dish. For instance, bibimbap, one of the most popular Korean foods in the world. It's basically rice, some vegetables, beef, and a fried egg stacked in a bowl. You add red pepper paste and mix it together before eating with a spoon. If you use chopsticks to pick out each piece separately, you are quite strange indeed. Another point about food is that culture also determines (mostly) what we are willing to eat. Yes, most of us like kung pao chicken and fortune cookies, but have you ever tasted real Chinese food? Some menu items include bugs or parts of animals Americans never thought of as edible. Even here in Korea, dog meat was traditionally eaten, and is still available. Many younger people refuse to eat it on moral principle, and others only eat it on special occasions on which dog meat is the required traditional food. But, if you think about it, how is eating a dog any different from eating a pig? Pigs are smart, clean, and make great, family friendly pets. The reason pigs that live outside roll in the mud is that they don't sweat, so they use the mud to act as sweat, allowing their body heat to escape by transferring to the evaporating water. They don't have tusks like elephants do to splash water on themselves. Anyway, dogs weren't usually pets in Korea before Western influence incited their popularity. I intend to try dog meat because I'm curious, just like I've tried almost every other food offered to me here. It's not a moral thing, it's just food. And no, Koreans aren't going to eat your dog, just like you wouldn't eat your neighbor's pet pig, chicken, cow, deer, fish, etc.. That's just xenophobic thinking.

It's interesting that an American with a Hyundai car and an LG cell phone and a Samsung TV could think that a Korean would eat their dog. Before I moved here, people asked me if there were cars in Korea, or if I was going to North or South Korea, or what language people speak in Korea. Funny to think that a few years ago, I didn't know anything about Korea either. What an oddly inspirational country!

A few years ago, I would be eagerly awaiting a week of Thanksgiving leftovers. I wonder what I'll have for dinner tomorrow.... I wonder if I can even buy turkey for a reasonable price here.....

Andong- the little big city explained

2009-11-06T11:02:00.005-05:00

This is what I meant to write last time, but instead I ended up writing about visa inequality.

Andong is, compared to anywhere I have ever lived in America, a big city. But, Koreans laugh a little when they think of living in Andong, because it's the countryside. With busy streets and very few buildings less than three stories, how is this a small town? There are looming apartment buildings and the people who live in them in constant motions on the sidewalks. There are bars, restaurants, grocery stores, clothes stores, bakeries, flower shops, cafes, billiards, PC rooms, motels, convenience stores, a movie theater, and much more all in walking distance from the apartment I share with my boyfriend and his mother. And, we can get on a bus and go pretty far away to get to downtown, which is even more bustling. To me, that is a big city.

Now here are some facts to consider (from the wonderful CIA World Factbook):
South Korea has a land area of 96,920 sq km, much of which is mountainous and therefore almost uninhabitable. That makes South Korea basically a mountain range/peninsula "slightly larger than Indiana".

The population of South Korea is about 48,508,972 people (25th in the world). Women bear an average of 1.21 children, and the population growth rate is .266%, making it 178th in the world. 81% of those people (growing at a rate of .6% a year) live in cities. Notice the correlation between density (read the next paragraph) and growth.

Population density is difficult to describe in Korea because of the large amount of uninhabitable land, but here's a useful tool: The National Atlas of Korea. We live in Gyeongsangbuk-do, if you want to look at the chart. The national average population density is 474 people/square km, according to this source. Other sources report it even higher. According to Nations Online, it has the 15th highest density in the world.

Again according to the CIA factbook, The United States has a population of about 307,212,123 people (6.3 times more than South Korea) and a land area of 9,161,966 sq km (94.5 times larger than South Korea). Doing simple math with those numbers gives a population density of about 34 people/square km.

For every one person you bump into in America, there are 14 people in South Korea.

Not to make this read like a textbook, but those are some interesting numbers. Those numbers can easily explain why Andong is big to me, but small to Koreans.

In 2000, the population of Detroit, MI metropolitan area (my home) was 4,456,428. Just Detroit has a population of 912,062, according to this source. Detroit, although quickly shrinking and more or less crashing and burning due to the failure of the Big 3 (Chrysler, GM, and Ford), is one of the 15 biggest cities in America.

Not including metropolitan ares- Seoul's 2005 population estimate was 10,147,972. Busan's was 3,719,989. Incheon: 2,716,702. Daegu: 2,595,202. Daejeon, Goyang, Gwangju, Seongnam (where I lived in Bundang district, next to Seoul), Suwon, and Ulsan all have populations over 1,000,000. That's 10 cities in an area comparable to that of Michigan with more than 1 million people. Detroit, Michigan's biggest city, without its metropolitan area, has just fewer than 1 million people.

Andong has 176,164 people. Now that looks small!

East Lansing, where I go to college, has 45,857 people. In 1990, around the time I moved there as a child, Southgate, MI had a population of 30,771 people. The city in which my parents live now has a population of 69,014 people.

Andong has 176,164 people. Now that looks big!

Sorry, that was a lot of numbers, but I thought that aside from the "little big city" thing, a simple country comparison was long overdue. Especially in the Seoul area, I just don't see familiar faces in Korea. Part of the reason for that is that I don't know many people here. Part of the reason is that there are so many darn people here.

What's interesting about Andong is that I feel like I'm in a big city and a small town at the same time.

Small town- People here usually speak with an accent strong enough for me to tell the difference. If you've ever learned another language, you know that you have to be really fluent to notice accents unless they're super obvious. There are often groups of elderly people lounging around in small park areas next to the sidewalk, passing the time relaxing together. My boyfriend has two aunts who own restaurants in walking distance of our apartment, and one of them usually closes early, walks across the street, and works at her sister's restaurant for the evening. Big-city chain stores can be out-competed by locally-owned stores. You can't order chicken or pizza after about 11pm.

Big city- Everything is in walking distance in multiples and stacked on top of each other in multi-story buildings. There are almost always people on the sidewalk (less than Korean big cities, but more than a small town in America). My eyes are assaulted by advertisements when I walk outside. Famous people come to Andong to perform sometimes (this places it in the middle, but definitely is not a small town thing). Apartment buildings. Oh my god the apartment buildings in Korea- I saw a town in the countryside nestled in a valley from a train window once, and there was an array of about 20-40 (I'm not good at estimating numbers) apartment buildings reaching into the sky like long, skinny fingers digging out of the flat plain. So, in Korea, giant apartment buildings are not an indication of big cities. It's just how people live.

One last thing for this post. I thought of this the other day while blowing my nose in the shower. Bodily modesty has different standards in different countries. In Korea, sneezing, burping, coughing, farting, spitting, blowing your nose, and other such natural bodily functions are totally okay and require no verbal or gestural apology or excuse. No "God bless you" when someone sneezes, no "excuse me" after any bodily sound, no embarrassed face. Farting and burping on purpose are frowned upon or laughed at depending on age and gender and other social factors, but spitting in the street isn't impolite at all. On the other hand, facial expressions in Korea are more modest. Koreans are generally more "poker-face" people than Americans. I think part of the reason for that is that the Korean language has words for emotions that Americans have no words for, and instead express with our faces, bodies, and voices. When Korean women laugh, they usually cover their mouths with a hand or something they're holding at the time. It's rude to let someone see the inside of your mouth. There's a crossover in which Americans' disdain of bodily functions and Koreans' aversion to the inside of the mouth influence a disdain for chewing with an open mouth and yawning or coughing without covering the mouth. Of course, as always, these are my own observations and postulations, so don't take them to be 100% true, because I could just see a strange aspect of society.

Andong- the little big city

2009-11-04T09:48:00.002-05:00

Today my boyfriend had internet set up in the apartment, so I'll post more than once a month. Sorry about keeping you all in the dark. Anyway, this one will be short.

We bought couple plane tickets to America. We will sit next to each other on three planes for the approximately 20-25 hour journey. Then he will return to Korea on my birthday, March 25. Bad timing, but that's the way the allowed 90 days in the country fall. There is only one other option, after extensive research, that is available to us that would allow him to stay in the USA for more than 90 days. We could get married. We have neither decided to do that nor ruled it out.

Why is it that I can get a visitor's visa to Korea in 3 days with no interview and very little information given, then leave and return twice, extending my stay to 9 months? But, my boyfriend was told he had a 70% chance of failure getting a travel visa to America if he applied, which would require extensive paperwork, proofs of wealth and residency, proof of intent to leave America in a limited amount of time, and an interview. If he failed, he would not be allowed to enter the United States for a year. At all. Not even for 90 days. I know Bush's policies were intended to cut down on terrorism, but how many South Korean terrorists have you ever heard of? South Korea and the United States are extremely close and economically intertwined allies, and therefore I think the immigration and visitor policies for this country should be relaxed. It's like telling a Canadian he or she can't come to America. How ridiculous is that?

Anyway, ranting over for today. More later, as always.

2009-10-23T08:17:00.002-04:00

Unfortunately, there is no internet in my home now, so my posts will probably be more infrequent. I'm in a cafe now with my boyfriend, an iced cafe mocha, and a chocolate mousse cake. My taste buds are so happy!

I have yet to take pictures of the apartment I now share with my boyfriend and his mother, but I will eventually. It keeps slipping my mind. Anyway, we're very comfortable, although the language barrier makes me very shy around his mother. It's also the cause of many laughs. For instance, we were talking about how people stare at me all the time in Korea, especially here in the countryside city of Andong, and she asked if people will stare at my boyfriend when we go to America. I explained, "미국에서는 외계인이 많잖아요" which means "As you know, [unlike in Korea] in America, there are many aliens." The word "외계인" (wae-gae-een; alien) sounds like the word "외국인" (wae-goog-een; foreigner) to me, so sometimes I make that mistake. So, rather than assuring her that her son would blend in in America much better than I do in Korea, I assured her of the common knowledge that there is an ongoing extra-terrestrial invasion in my home country. Mostly, I just listen, nod, and look confused most of the time. My boyfriend's translation skills are rapidly improving, as I'm sure mine will in America.

Speaking of translation skills, as I mentioned before, my father came to Korea on a business trip a while ago. My boyfriend and I took the subway in Seoul to the express bus terminal, from which we took a bus to Andong. Once we arrived with all of my earthly belongings in tow, we rested a while and then left for Ulsan late at night. We arrived in the wee hours of the morning, and my friend 성동 (Sungdong) picked us up from the train station and took us to our friend Reza's house. We all talked for a while, then 성동 (Sungdong) went home, Reza made up a bed of blankets on the floor for my boyfriend and I, and we all slept. In the (later) morning, we woke up and Reza walked us to the bus station and gave us directions to my father's hotel.

Walking with my so very American father and my so very Korean boyfriend in Korea was... strange for sure. Not bad, just really, really, somehow intrinsically wrong. It would be even stranger if we were in France, I suppose, and then I would have a lot more translating to do because I'm the only one of the three of us who knows French. I'm sure there are a hundred million ways it could have been stranger, but I can't explain how odd it felt. As I expected, it was a jumbled collision of two worlds. It was so strange to hear my father trying to say Korean words and sounding so American, whereas in the past seven months I have begun to forget that I'm not Korean. It was so strange to have a melt-in-your-mouth filet mignon at Outback Steakhouse for lunch, speaking almost exclusively English with a person I've known my entire life in America, then stepping outside to be reminded that no, this is not America, this is Korea. It was strange to be so excited that my father had brought me American deodorant (I have yet to find deodorant in Korea I don't have to re-apply 5 times a day) and s'mores ingredients, whereas a year ago those things were just everyday items.

Now I have to sidetrack about s'mores. When we brought the marshmallows, Hershey's chocolate, and graham crackers back to Andong and shared them with my boyfriend's mother, she asked if they were expensive. I laughed, then realized that this simple food I think of as a cheap, fun part of a normal summer or autumn was a novelty to my boyfriend and his mother. Actually, my boyfriend loves s'mores, and his mother likes them, but his little brother hates them. I never imagined someone not liking s'mores, except one of my best friends, Anna, who abhors chocolate. Still, I'm sure she likes marshmallows and graham crackers. There was so much ado about s'mores in the apartment, it made me understand how I'm perceived here sometimes. In Ulsan, we walked by a cart/booth/kiosk (very common in Korea) where a man was selling fish. But it wasn't fish- it was bread shaped like fish. I was thinking, "it's shaped like a fish, so it must be fish-flavored." I've never been a fan of fish, so I was very reluctant to try it until I was informed that it had nothing to do with seafood. My dad bought one for each of us, and as soon as I bit into it apprehensively, I was elated. It was delicious! Hot, soft, sweet bread with soft red (sweet) beans inside. I love soft food, and I love sweet flavors. It was absolutely savory, and even as I'm writing this now, I'm craving another. And how clever- bread shaped like a fish! I've seen ice cream shaped like a fish, but that was the first fish-shaped bread I tasted. My boyfriend was so amused. That food is a traditional autumn food in Korea, and each one costs 1000 won, which with the exchange rate the way it is is less than $1. It's just like s'mores for my boyfriend and his mother.

After lunch in Ulsan, we walked around, alternating tour-guide roles. My father has been to Ulsan maybe five times now on business trips, and always stays in the same hotel. Like me, he's an explorer, taking the first opportunity in a new place to walk around and get the lay of the land, so he knew a bit about the area. My boyfriend is Korean, as you all know by know, so he knows more about Korea than my father and I do, and is obviously fluent in Korean. I'm between worlds; at this point I know a lot about Korea (not nearly half, I'm sure, but a lot), and I have an American perspective, so I knew what things about Korea would be the most novel for my father, and could draw interesting similarities and contrasts between cultures, much like I try to do here in my blog.

In terms of language, my boyfriend can understand the gist of English conversation better than I can understand Korean conversation, because his English vocabulary is larger than my Korean vocabulary. But, I still had to do some translating. However, as I just mentioned, my Korean vocabulary is somewhat lacking. So what I did was translate from English to couple-ish. That's my new name for the English, Korean, Konglish (Korean directly translated into English), and Youngeul (my name for the reverse of Konglish) that my boyfriend and I mix together into our own language. My boyfriend does the same (Korean -> couple-ish) for me when we talk to Koreans or watch TV.

Speaking Korean, around my father was really strange. When I left America, I had one semester of Korean class behind me, so I could read and write and say simple present-tense sentences. Now I'm using more complicated grammar structures by habit, and my vocabulary of everyday words has expanded to an almost fluent level. So, to the untrained ear, it can sound like I'm fluent in Korean even though I sound like a child to Koreans. Where I'm going with this is that Here I am in Korea, chatting away in Korean with my Korean boyfriend and then shifting to English with my American father in America-wait no- still in Korea!

Anyway, I have a lot of things to take care of, so I will write more later, as always. I hope this satisfied curiosity for a while. :)

Family in Korea

2009-10-06T16:08:00.002-04:00

I'm moving to the countryside this weekend. My boyfriend's mother lives in 안동 (Andong), which is about four hours away from Seoul by bus or train. You might remember from an earlier post that my boyfriend and I visited there together a while ago. We will move there together this Saturday. In the next couple of weeks, we'll figure out how to get him on the same planes as I am to America on Christmas Day.

My father will be in 울산 (Ulsan) this weekend on business. You might remember from an even earlier post that I have a couple of friends there and went to visit them for a weekend over the summer. It works out quite nicely so that my boyfriend and I can go there Saturday night or Sunday and see my father and my friends Reza and 성동 (Sungdong). We'll be a bit tired after this busy weekend, but we can take some down time after moving in to rest.

So there's the cold version of my moving and seeing my father this weekend.

Here are my thoughts about it.

I won't have to pay rent, just earn enough to pay off the credit card balance my Japan trip racked up and to grocery shop and travel a little bit. My boyfriend will also be working. That means I don't have to worry about rent for a whole two months. I love that. It's so stressful working and studying and always traveling here and there to meet friends and students. Also, one big stress in my relationship with my boyfriend has been that we both wake around noonish (me usually even later) and work in the evenings, and we live an hour and a half away from each other. Somehow we still manage to see each other every weekend and usually once or twice during the week, but the difficulty of organizing our lives takes its toll. In Andong, even if we work our butts off, we will come home to each other. We can cook together, watch TV before bed together, even clean together. I really love him. People are starting to ask if we're getting married (Korean society is more conservative than American society) and it doesn't freak me out. I just say, "I hope so, much later."

Anyway, I'm terrible at living alone. I love the freedom, but at the same time I loathe it.

I love that I can eat anything I want anytime I want to, but I hate eating alone and I'll never cook delicious, healthy food for myself. I live mostly on ramen, 삼각김밥 (convenience store triangle sushi rolls), and egg fried rice unless I go out. Living with someone else encourages me to have a normal eating and sleeping schedule. Also, because my boyfriend and I both enjoy cooking, we can rotate meals and have motivation to make more and more delicious food.

I love that I don't have to study or do my homework, but I hate that it's so easy to forget about my online courses that I'm falling dreadfully behind. I hate myself for it, but as usual, I'm much better at wasting my time doing nothing and feeling busy anyway than I am at studying. I think I'm allergic to studying. My boyfriend has promised to make me study, and even to "take" my classes with me, like Physics, my worst subject. When I lived with other students, seeing them study made me feel guilty for not studying and I got my homework done and went to class for the most part. Living with my mother was even more conducive to study because she's got the motherly nagging thing down. I guess I never thanked her for that. Thank you. :) Another problem now is that online classes don't feel real to me, whereas sitting in a classroom however many times a week makes me feel like they're obligatory and therefore I'm more likely to complete assignments because I'm accountable to a real person. Basically, I need to be held accountable to study. Messed up, I know. I just prefer learning via the sponge method to making a conscious effort. I also learn better that way, anyway. For instance, I've learned Korean much faster by making friends and living in Korea, although I don't really actively study aside from curiosity, than I did taking a class which I mostly ignored. I willingly admit that this is a mental problem I have, and that I'm not fighting it as actively as I could be. Although I know my procrastination and detachment is a completely ridiculous issue that exists only in my head and that I could change it if I tried. But on the other hand, I can't seem to find a way to light that fire under my own ass and get my life in gear. I'm lazy and a hard worker at the same time, but my priorities are not in order. Living with someone else, especially someone who loves me and cares about my future and is willing to push me toward it, helps me get my life in order.

I love that I can watch whatever I want on TV without thinking about what anyone else may or may not like. I hate that the TV is my only friend. It's lonely. Even if I talk to five people on MSN while the TV is running so there are voices in my room; even if I think about the fact that almost 100 people also live in 2m x 2m rooms on my floor... I'm so lonely living alone. I'll gladly give up my freedom of TV programming in order to have a warm body on the couch next to me. Especially if that person I'm sharing the couch with is cuddly and lovable.

Anyway, about seeing my dad... it's strange. Now my two worlds are colliding. My Korean friends whom I happened to become friends with in America and also met in Korea don't constitute a collision of worlds in my head because they've always been associated with Korea. My father is rooted and anchored in America. The only time I've seen him in another country, although he goes on many international business trips, was when we went on a family trip to Germany and England about 15 years ago. Being in Korea, I've left America in a corner and concentrated on my life here, my new start. But I only have two and a half months left before returning to America for six months. It's really helping to pound that reality back into my head. I'm on cloud nine, but I have to find a balance between that and the real world. And, I have less than a year to choose a country, a career, allegiances, direction, etc.. I'm pretty sure I want to stay in Korea, but for how long? What comes next? I could imagine myself living in either Korea or America, but having them collide makes it more clear that they are separate by nature and that I can only have one at a time.

Thinking way far ahead, I would prefer that my children grow up in American schools, because the Korean educational system has issues I've already discussed in terms of the extracurricular network of academies Korean children are expected to spend all of their spare time in. Also, attending English-speaking schools will increase their chances in global job markets, because Korean is not a global language. But, at the same time, I want my children to have Korean culture and to love Korea. This is, of course, assuming I marry a Korean man, perhaps even my current boyfriend. Another important factor concerning my future children is that I obviously have wanderlust, which is either genetic or a result of moving so many times during my childhood. I think it is both a gift and a curse. I want my children to have a concrete idea of a place they can call home, but at the same time I don't want them to be so anchored to home that they can't break free and find their own paths. At what point to I ignore my wanderlust so that I don't damage my children's lives? To what extent to I follow it so that I instill cultural acceptance, social skills, and independence in them? Being forced to start over in a new school is a painful but rewarding process. How do I know how much is too much? Why am I worrying about children when I don't even know where I'll live and what I'll be doing next year? Am I growing up? Haha.

Japan Trip #2 and More

2009-10-01T04:30:00.003-04:00

Because my multiple-entry C-3 Korean visa allows me to stay in Korea for 90 days after each entry, I had to leave for the second time last week. I lined up the 90 days perfectly so I left the day my visa expired and will leave again the day it expires, December 25 Christmas Day. That meant I was in Fukuoka from Tuesday September 22 to Saturday the 26th. The 27th marked exactly 6 months that I've lived in Korea. Half a year!!

Anyway, I didn't have much money, and I went to Japan alone, and I find Japan rather creepy, so I mostly stayed in my room eating convenience store food, reading textbooks, and watching Korean movies on my computer. I also find Japan frustrating because while I can understand more Japanese than I can Korean, I've been in Korea so long that I think in Korean and can't remember Japanese vocabulary when I'm trying to speak. Also, I can't read Japanese well because they use so many kanji, Chinese symbols. In Korea, I can read just fine. I'm a little slow, and I often don't know the meaning, but I can look up the words in my cell phone's English-Korean dictionary. Anyway, I accidentally spoke Korean to a few people, then corrected myself in Japanese, then asked if they could speak English or French.... it was pretty ridiculous.

Just after I checked into my hotel room, I asked the front desk if they had power converters for American or Korean plugs. They didn't. I asked where I could buy them, and was given a map and directions to a store. I went there, but I felt like I had gone too far and was getting lost. It was dark, although not very late, and everything was unfamiliar. All of the people looked different... I'm used to Koreans now, and I'm used to Americans and the American mix of ethnicities, but Japanese people look different and are, on average, significantly shorter. In Korea, I'm still shorter than the average man if I don't wear high heels. In Japan, I think I might be taller than the average man! When I finally got to the store, there were so many signs and arrows and people and everything was Japanese. I was so lost. I asked the information counter, showing my laptop charger and converter for Korean outlets, and used what Japanese I could throw together. She directed me to the second floor, where I found one for my American computer, but not one for my Korean cell phone. So I asked an associate, who walked with me to the third floor and asked someone else, who led us to the right section. Eventually there were three guys who worked there all trying to understand that I wanted a converter for BOTH American AND Korean plugs because I'm from America but I live in Korea so I have something important to plug in from each country. Finally, after about 15 minutes, one of them presented me with a converter for my three-pronged computer plug and my Korean plug- both in one! It's great, because I was expecting to have to buy two different ones. I was very happy that despite the language barrier, I ended up with something better than I expected. As I paid, the cashier apologized profusely and thanked me way too much. I know this is just Japanese culture, but I'm almost offended by the excessive apologetic atmosphere in Japan, as if the people are patronizing and self-depreciating at the same time. If the same situation occurred in Korea, the worker would apologize once- maybe twice- for taking so long, thank me for buying something, and ask me to come again. Same as in America. I guess I have a culture bias that favors Korean culture based on the things I like about American culture.

Let me elaborate on that whole culture bias thing. In America, being white from some unknown mix of European countries and either Native American or gypsy, I always thought I had no culture. My friends whose parents or grandparents came from other countries had culture: Chinese, Egyptian, Korean, German, Italian, etc. My African American friends had culture. My half African American, half German friend hit the culture jackpot (I love you E.B. haha)! So how is it that I can recognize in myself a culture bias when I am devoid of culture? Well, I'm like a goldfish in a tank with many other goldfish and a few different exotic fish. I can see that the exotic fish are different, but I never think about the water I'm in or about the other goldfish as being distinctive. Now I'm the goldfish in a bowl full of one kind of "exotic" fish. Who's exotic now? I'm still figuring out just what it means to me to be a goldfish, and at the same time, I'm changing my scales a bit to adjust to my new surroundings. Why do I like Korean fish better than Japanese fish? That's complicated.

In American culture, people are often very bubbly and friendly to strangers, which sometimes even puts foreigners on edge. Japanese are not at all bubbly and friendly to strangers; instead, they are distant, polite, and cordial. An American will tell you more than you ever need to know about their life if you happen to be sitting next to him/her on a plane. A Japanese person will tell you the basic facts and then get back to his/her book or newspaper. Koreans are in the middle. While Americans can be a little rude, and Japanese cold, Koreans are genuinely kind, or just too shy to say anything at all. Of course, these are generalizations, and therefore only apply to maybe 60-80% of people from each country, and I have by no means met everyone from each country. Even within each country, people vary according to regional culture. San Fransisco, Detroit, New Orleans, and Washington D.C. are all vastly different, for instance.

In American culture, everyone pays equally for everything. If two friends go out together, they either split the check or one person pays and the other person owes him/her the same thing later. In America, I always had to remember how much I owed this friend, how much that friend owed me, etc. It's very confusing and stressful. In Korea, the older person pays. Or, the person with more money. That's it. Now, the younger generation is embracing the idea of "Dutch pay" so groups of friends often split the price to alleviate the burden on one person. Or, one person buys dinner and another pays for drinks at the bar and another pays for a singing room, because you don't just do one thing when you hang out in Korea. I don't know the custom in Japan, but I like the one in Korea. Partly because I'm just about the youngest of my friends, and partly because it just makes sense. Right now, I'm still a college student and can't get my career off the ground until I graduate. Therefore, I don't have the opportunity to make a lot of money. A year or two from now, I'll have a stable job, a stable income, and a home, and I'll have more money to spare to buy dinner for my younger friends. I love when people buy things for me, and I love buying things for people. It's the Christmas effect. I know that when someone pays for me, they enjoy the smile on my face, and when I pay for someone else, I enjoy the smile on his or her face.

In America, we drive on the right side of the road. Korea, too. In Japan, it's the left side. So confusing to me when crossing the street. I guess in that respect, British people would prefer Japan.

In America and Japan, signs, commercials, and other everyday parts of the man-made environment are usually in the no-funny-business style. Simple, block print. Easy to read, mildly eye-catching, professional. Here, "under construction" signs have adorable pictures of construction workers who look like children. Restaurants often have cute illustrations of smiling pigs or fish on their signs. Part-time working girls in cute outfits do silly dances on stages on the sidewalk to attract customers. My boyfriend wars socks with cartoon depictions of G-Dragon (a popular singer), Jack Skeleton, and 윤지후 (Yoon Ji-hoo) from 꽃보다남자 (Boys before Flowers, my favorite popular Korean drama) and that's totally not gay here. T-shirts are cuter, the text on signs is adorable, the commercial jingles are catchier in a cute way, even office supplies and decorations in legitimately professional institutions are often cute. Korea is so cute, it makes me smile every day. Japan and America are mildly depressing in their efforts to look more professional than the competition.

Just a personal preference: I like the voices and melodies of Korean pop better than any other country's pop I've heard. Of course, I love 70% of music, and couldn't live without listening to and playing music on a regular basis, so that's not really a huge factor in why I prefer Korea.

Because of the devastation following the brutal Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910-1946 (Japan was forced to relinquish Korea after being defeated in WWII) and the exhausting Korean war (which never technically ended, resulting in the shaky situation surrounding the DMZ or JSA) from 1950 to the armistice in 1953, almost everything in Korea was built in the past 50ish years. On top of that, Korea has a very trend-based society, valuing the newest and rejecting the oldest (unless it's the historically meaningful brand of old). So, the buildings are quite modern and clean, usually white or light gray or completely walled by windows. The main streets are wide, as well as the newer subway stations. Japan, on the other hand, seems to me to be in the American 70's style of dark colors, although there is an interesting mix of architecture styles because of the naturally occurring replacement of dilapidated buildings with modern ones, and because of the inevitable localization of wealth in certain areas. Because most of the infrastructure was established before the advent of cars, the streets are narrower, and the older subway system has smaller stations because as technology advances, wider holes in the ground are possible. I personally follow in my mother's footsteps in appreciating open spaces and bright colors. Japan just feels ominous and eerie to me.

Actually, when I'm in Japan, I feel just as lost and confused and 답답해 (tapdaphae; no real English translation, but usually translated as 'stuffy' or 'anxious') as I did when I first arrived in Korea over sis months ago. The difference is that I lack passion for Japan, whereas I'm in no short supply of passion for Korea. I can see how another American could easily have the exact opposite opinion of the two countries as I do. Japan has a rich variety of, well, everything. Korea has variety, but has fewer cultural collective outliers than Japan and America do. Most people like the same music, as opposed to the constant battle of the genres in America (I must mention that there are distinctive genres in Korean pop, but most Koreans like all of them that are suitable for their age group). Most people like the same general types of food and can't live without kimchi and rice. Most people follow the same general fashion trends. If you want to stand out in Korea, it's not a hard thing to do. I dare you to go to Harajuku in Tokyo and try to stand out. If you aren't familiar with Harajuku, Google "Harajuku fashion" and click "images" for an idea.

Anyway, aspects of Korean and American culture are the same. Some things I don't like about American culture aren't as pronounced here, like overly aggressive men, lone-wolf valorization, impossibility of bargaining in most circumstances, and P.C. (politically correct) fever. Some things I do like about American culture are stronger here, like friendly customer service (it's also FAST in Korea!), being able to ask any stranger for directions without fear, curiosity, and lenience. If you stay past check-out in a hotel in Korea, they call the room and ask you nicely to leave, but they don't charge you extra.

Of course, there are things I don't like about Korea. Koreans usually don't have ovens or dryers, which are generally assumed indispensable in American homes. The Korean language has three levels of formality, and knowing when in a relationship to switch from the "normal" language to 반말 (banmal; informal language used for close friends and younger people) is confusing, and I don't think I'll ever become comfortable with that. The grammar used in the most formal language is so difficult that I just decide not to use it, but at this point I can understand it as well as the other forms. Considering that I'm a foreigner and have been living here only 6 months, people are satisfied with the level of formality I use in my speech and text messages. I have my whole life to master the language, so I'm not too stressed about that point.

The Korean education system is frustrating and unfair for the children. Because government employees can't be fired, including public school teachers, there is no competition among public schools and they come up short of satisfactory for most Korean parents. Therefore, those who can afford it go to private academies after school and study to exhaustion starting in elementary school. Thus, those who can't afford private academies have an inferior education and are less likely to break out of poverty, much like the issue of inner city school districts vs. suburban school districts in America. In Korea, no child wins. Also, the Korean (generally, the Asian) education system trains people to be machines by testing them all in the same tasks and rewarding empirical excellency. Put in anecdotal simplicity, imagine a 30-student class reads a novel and is assigned a three-page paper. In America, this paper would most likely have a topic including the words "analyze", "think about", "compare", or "draw from your own experiences". The teacher expects 30 completely different papers, and suspects plagiarism if two are too similar. In Korea, the paper assignment may be a summary or a specific research assignment into the history or author of the novel. The teacher expects 30 almost identical papers and punishes papers that are different by subtracting points for incorrectly completing the assignment. This is good and bad. It is the reason for the American stereotype that Asians are human calculators and encyclopedias, like perfect robots with whom nobody can compete. It also robs Korea from out-of-the box innovation. Korean companies have been accused of copying foreign designs and concepts, whereas the companies themselves probably intend to follow the trend and make it empirically better. Nobody can deny the global success of Korean companies like Hyundai, LG, and Kia. Nobody can deny the perfect, even haunting musical technique of many Asian musicians. But, how many Asian composers are praised for their originality? Although, that particular topic is a whole thesis, book, encyclopedia of volumes including the difference in how different cultures perceive intellectual property rights or lack thereof.

In other news, My boyfriend and I are probably moving from Seoul to Andong, a "countryside" city (compared to where I lived in America, every city here is a big city) next weekend. His mother lives there, so he has asked her to let us live with her, and she's thinking about it now. Then, on Christmas, we will fly together to America and stay there for 6 months. Again, this depends on his mother's decision because she would be funding his plane ticket. Assuming we're still together after that (I think so), we'll come back to Korea next summer, perhaps permanently, perhaps not.

Homesick at Last

2009-09-14T04:52:00.003-04:00

I had felt a little homesick before now and then, for instance, missing American treats like Slurpees or Taco Bell. Sometimes something reminds me of a friend or family member and I miss him or her, but that happened back in America, too. My extended family has never exactly been geographically close, and since going off to college I haven't spent much time at home. Also, my parents are divorced and the last two years before going to college I lived only with my mom. So, it's been about 5 years since I lived in the same house as my father, brother, or stepfamily.

What's interesting is that my homesick reinforces what I already knew: I don't have a geographical place that I call home. Another dimension has been added, too: my home consists of different points in time. I miss my different Christmases. Watching James Bond and frosting sugar cookies in unnecessarily elaborate ways with my mom and brother. My grandmother's last Christmas, with four generations in Illinois at my aunt's house. Hanging ornaments on the tree as a kid, making sure they were high enough that the cats wouldn't eat them. I miss my high school friends. Going to so many rock concerts I can't remember all of the bands we saw. Hanging out at Caribou Coffee after school. Sleepovers and memorizing lines of stupid movies like The Faculty and Zoolander. Coming up with creative birthday presents for each other and silly nicknames based on TV shows. I miss Michigan State University. Douglas J Aveda Institute haircuts are the best I've ever had and at such low prices. Menna's is enough food for two meals, but if you're still hungry you can get Pokey Sticks from Gumby's Pizza. I met all kinds of people from around the world in Japanese class, including one of my three best friends. I miss the fact that almost everything in America is in English. I miss that movie theaters show all the movies that are out at one time, instead of 3 or 4 per day. I miss Corn Day in Adel, Iowa in the summer and eating snow mixed with soda or pink lemonade in the winter. I miss driving manual transmission- I don't drive at all here. I miss walking in the rain with no umbrella; here I'm constantly warned of acid rain. I miss Meijer Grocery Store. I miss living in a space larger than 9 square feet and I miss having a window so I can keep my beloved plants. I miss having my own bathroom, because let's face it, everyone poops and it's not something you wanna share with 50 other people. I miss having a kitchen with a full spice cabinet and tons of dishes. I miss home, but I'm not really sure where or when that is. I have to settle down and start my own family before I have a clear idea of home again, I think. So, I'll be a lost wanderer for a few more years while I figure out where I'm meant to be.

My boyfriend is going to come to America with me. We're not really sure yet how we're gonna make it work, but we will somehow. Learning English will be faster and easier if he's in America, and the language barrier is a big stress in out relationship. And, we don't want to be separated for six months. One month is bearable, but six months is unthinkable. Also, it will bring us closer if he can see where I'm from, like I've seen where he's from. I've met most of his family and been to his hometown. I want him to meet my family, too, and to see where I grew up. That will require a lot of road trips, but I want him to experience an American road trip, too.

Falling Into Place

2009-09-04T19:05:00.002-04:00

Between the time I made the last post and now, I was able to enroll in another class, bringing me to a full-time student load of 12 credits rather than the original 16 I had before that fiasco. I got the problem with my classes showing up on the website fixed, found out what textbooks I need, and ordered them. It is now 8am, I'm done freaking out, and I'm going to do some laundry and take a shower. Not to mention I'm going to take a few deep breaths and try to stop hating my beloved Michigan State University.

School Frustrations and Big Decisions

2009-09-04T14:50:00.002-04:00

I finally had it worked out. I was changing my major to International Studies and Psychology instead of Asian Studies and Psychology, and I was registered for 16 credits of online courses for the fall. I was so caught up in making that work and living my life that I forgot to tell my parents about the tuition deadline. Well, it passed, and I was disenrolled. I was told that I need to re-register, a new bill would be sent out, and everything would be fine. Well I tried, but two of the classes I was in are now full so I have 10 credits; not a full time student load. I emailed the professors for overrides, but they won't give them to me. On top of that, I can't access any of my courses, so although I'm enrolled I can't actually see my classes. I don't know what textbooks I need and it takes a long time and a lot of money to get them to Korea. So I have too few credits, no other choices, no time, no books, and I can't see my classes! What the hell is going on here?!? I have spent so many late nights making this work and it's all falling apart. If I drop out of school I have no future and student loans to pay back that I don't have the money for. I'm stuck with no choice but to attend school and no way to do so. Where do I go from here???????!!!!!!

I felt better a few days after my last post, and then all of these school problems fell on me, so I fell even harder. On top of that, I got really sick again. I was vomiting, had a fever and diarrhea, I hurt from my head to my toes, and had no energy. My boyfriend came all the way from his home across the city (2 hours) to take me to the hospital (hospitals here are somewhere between a hospital and a family practitioner). Apparently it was a flu, and although the chances of it being H1N1 were almost nonexistent, the doctor told me to stay home for one week. No work, no seeing friends, nothing. Well, I felt mostly better the next day but I had already told everyone I couldn't go out for a week. It was probably another case of food poisoning, but just in case I'm taking the week off anyway. I need a rest because of all this stress. I was so relieved when I finally had all of my classes worked out, and then...... back to square one.

I have a plane ticket back to Detroit for December 25, 2009. I was planning to return to Korea in January, but if my last semester of school will be as stressful as this one online, maybe I should just suck it up and return to East Lansing for four months. I could live in Owen Hall, where the rooms I once thought were so small are more than twice the size of where I live now. I could keep tutoring English, and many Koreans and other international students live in Owen Hall, so I could avoid all of the traveling from student to student that caused me so much stress last year and causes me some stress now. Also, with my Korean language skills I would be more of a commodity and could charge higher rates. After living in/around Seoul for almost half a year, I'm used to public transportation and walking long distances, so by living on campus I wouldn't feel the need for a car. I do miss some of the places around Michigan State University. Bubble Island, Taco Bell, Udon Sushi, the Red Cedar River, Gumby's Pizza, etc.. I miss my friends, too. And, living in Owen Hall, I could keep using Korean as much as I wanted, and there is a piano so I could still practice and compose music.

That's about four months away. Four months is forever; four months is the blink of an eye; four months can and has changed everything. I have a life in Korea. I have friends, I have a boyfriend whom I love, and I have confidence. I feel like I belong here. Maybe four months in Michigan would tell me if Korea is my home. Four months in Michigan, one month in Missouri with my grandfather, maybe some time in Iowa with my other grandparents, and if my brother moves to California, some time there. Six months in America. Five months in Korea has told me that nowhere in America is my home because I don't long for it at all. Will six months in America after nine months in Korea make me long for it? When I decided to leave America, I couldn't wait to leave. Now that I'm deciding to go back to America, I'm dreading that day. One thing that I've discovered about myself through all of this is that I'm impulsive in following my heart, but I'm also measured when it comes to following through. In weighing the stress of completing school while living in Korea vs. completing one last semester in America, I can swallow my pride and admit my defeat. I have to go back to East Lansing for the Spring semester.

I think I've already found the direction I was looking for in coming here. As I mentioned before, there's a unique business that I want to open here. I won't tell you what because I don't want anyone stealing my idea, but I think I'm uniquely suited for it, and I have a passion for it. After a few years, I want to marry a Korean guy and have adorable mixed children who speak Korean and English, and I want to raise them in Korea where it's safe and they will have a culture they can be proud of. I want to speak Korean like a native and write songs in Korean and sing them while playing piano for my friends and family. I want to live on my own schedule so I can wake up in the afternoons and work hard late at night and into the early morning, like my body is comfortable with. I want to inspire people and be inspired by them, and I feel like I have a purpose when I'm in Korea. In America, I'm lost- a nameless face in a crowd of other lost people. I like just about everything about Korea better. The food tastes better. The music is better. The fashion is better. The average person is nicer. It's safer. The environment just fits me better. I know my father hates coming to Korea, and I'm sure my mother and brother would, too. Most of my non-Korean friends would think Kore is cool and interesting as an exotic place to visit a friend, but would never imagine living here.

I will view returning to America not as a defeat, but a test of my conviction. If I still have the same dream when I'm on the other side of the world, then I know that these nine months here are only the beginning. If I find some other path, I'll know that coming to Korea was 100% worth it anyway.

I'll keep working out this semester online (probably ending with bad grades), and register for courses on-campus for the Spring semester (hopefully ending with good grades for the first time since Spring 2007). I'm sorry to everyone in Korea who expected me to come back in January, but you'll have to wait six months for me instead of one. I'm sorry to everyone in America, but I'm not coming back for you. I will be happy to see you, but I will leave again like I did in March. Everyone has their own place, and don't ask me why, but I think mine is here in Korea.

Depression

2009-08-28T12:32:00.003-04:00

Yes, folks. You knew it was coming. Nobody can move to the other side of the planet alone at 21 years old with no solid plan without hitting that solid wall of depression sooner or later.

I think a big part of it is that I live in a room the size of my mother's walk-in closet, maybe even smaller, with a window to the dark hallway. I share a bathroom and a kitchen with tons of strangers who looks at me like I'm some kind of exotic species, and I can't make much noise lest I disturb my neighbors in their 2 meter x 2 meter cells.

Another big part is that my life is going nowhere and I know it, but I don't know what the hell to do about it.

Another is the pressure from everyone.

Pressure from people in Korea: move closer to the place I usually work, move closer to my boyfriend, don't move. Moving is difficult for many reasons, like money, work, etc. but staying is even more difficult. When am I going back to America? Stay. Don't go. Stay. Stay in Korea.

Pressure from school: I must graduate, I must take certain classes, I must change my major (now it's a Bachelor of Science in International Studies and Psychology), I must get textbooks because classes start next Wednesday- when did it become September?

Pressure from home: I must keep in touch. I should move home. Am I failing in Korea yet? What am I really doing? Why not just go back home and everyone will be happy! Don't stay in Korea. Come home. What am I doing? What is the exciting life of Kristin like? Am I still alive? Helloooooo? Honestly, if I were dead, people would be informed. I do have my passport. Anyway I'm pretty sure Bundang is the safest place I've ever lived and life is actually pretty normal now. I have a daily routine and a social life, and when I feel the urge to spill my revelations onto the internet I do so for all to read. I never talked to anyone when I lived in America, and I haven't changed. I try to keep in touch a little more, chatting via this blog, letting everyone know what's up. Don't you know more about my life now than you have for the past 3 years?? I know I've been a distant daughter, friend, sister. It's just my nature. Only the things and people in front of my face feel real, and there are so many of them that it's difficult to reach out beyond them to the things and people not included in my daily life. I'm sorry, okay? It's just who I am, so please stop pressuring me because it's driving me insane.

Pressure from myself: Where is this amazing epitome I'm looking for? Where is the new start? It feels like the same thing with different scenery and characters. Like Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. I love it here so much, but why haven't I changed? I still forget about my responsibilities too much, I procrastinate, I back out of friendships when I get annoyed, I ignore the people who care about me, I sleep way too much and it affects my life in negative ways, I can't handle being alone, I need other people to admire me in order for me to admire myself. What has changed? Where is the new, stronger, Kristin? Why am I still like this? Didn't displacing myself completely light a fire under my ass to shape up and start acting like a responsible adult? I'm paying bills on time and being a nice person, but that's not enough. When is the magic moment when I don't need my mom to remind me to take care of things anymore? How do I make myself take care of myself? Why do I keep looking for someone to take care of me? Grow up already!!!!!!

Pressure from the lack of.... : I still have nowhere that really feels like home. I love my family but I've never felt like I belong in it. There is no geographical place that I'm attached to. I love my boyfriend but I'm terrified that this relationship could fall apart. Where am I even going with my life? Where will I be this time next year? Even if our relationship is still strong then, will I even be living in the same country? What kind of job will I have? I have a dream of starting a particularly unique business but I know absolutely nothing about business and I don't have the money or Korean citizen status or Korean language fluency necessary to start a business here even if I had the money, so where will I find a partner? Do I have enough passion for it? My future is a complete blank so I completely lack motivation to do anything. What goal am I reaching for? I'm headed in a direction, I know, and I'm working toward something, but it would help if I knew what the hell that something is!

I'm overwhelmed and under-supported. I don't mean that you all aren't supporting me enough. It's just that your support, while helpful, uplifting, and greatly appreciated and comforting, is not really tangible unless I'm sitting in front of my computer reading it. What about the other 23 hours a day? And the support of my friends in Korea is the same. When I'm not looking at their faces or reading their text messages or talking to them online it's not tangible. The support from my boyfriend is the strongest here, but he is only one man and he lives quite far away, so when I've needed him every day this week it's been physically impossible for him to be here for me. I've always been a very physical person, and things and people, as I said before, if they are not in front of me they are easily forgotten. Not in a malevolent way; it's just that I'm not good at remembering five bajillion things at the same time, and because my life is not very focused, there are always enough things going on immediately around me to push thoughts of the more distant things away. And, I'm only good at focusing on one thing at a time. So if I'm working, I'm only working. I am 100% there. And when it's over, it's over until the next time I work. When I'm with a friend, I am 100% with that friend. When I'm with my boyfriend, I'm 200% with him. When I'm not singularly occupied, thoughts explode in my head and I can't sort them all out. If there's too much to do, I do nothing because I'm overwhelmed and I can't make choices like where to start. If there's one thing to do, I will be more focused than most people ever can be. Basically, what I mean by under-supported is that I need so much more support from others than I should need, because I can't be my own supporter. I don't know how. And until I figure that out, I will always have this depression no matter where I run and no matter who I rely on and no matter what I do. To be my own supporter, I have to have more than the pride I hold in my talents. I have to have an outlet for those talents that I can be passionate about, and I have to see myself accomplishing something and constantly improving.

I am improving a lot. My Korean language skills, my patience (which I already had a lot of), my flexibility, my interpersonal skills, my radar for detecting people's intentions (i.e. if a guy wants to be my friend because he likes me, or if it's because he wants inappropriate things), my ability to laugh at myself, my knowledge about the way I think and assess the world, the fourth piano song I've been composing, etc.. I'm even gradually losing weight and gaining self-confidence, although like almost every person on earth, I am still very self-conscious.

But all of these things are a hodgepodge, a mess of random talents, personality traits, and insights. There's no focus, nothing to apply them to. Like the classes I'm taking just for the credits toward graduation. I feel like I'm killing time, that I don't even need school except for the stupid piece of paper that tells the rest of that world that I'm smart. I'm smart without the paper. Any of you who know me personally can attest to the fact that I am a clever, insightful person with academic knowledge equal to that of a person holding a bachelor's degree. I'm a language and music composition genius, and although I often downplay my intelligence in other areas, I'm also great at science, writing (note: I don't edit or plan these blog posts so they're not the best sample of my writing ability), and a very philosophical and intuitive thinker. I'm not very good with numbers or remembering names, but anything that can be thought of as a puzzle, progression, or pattern is simple to me. Well, not Rubiks cubes. But I'm sure if I applied myself to figuring one out without getting bored before finishing like I usually do, I could. I'm also eerily good at figuring out what people are thinking without them having to say it, which helps me a lot as an English as a second language teacher. It's also the reason, coupled with my patience and lack of judgmental answers, that many of my friends come to me with their problems. No, I'm not perfect, but I'm good enough to have that stupid diploma so I can get my life started already. After five years, I am tired of working and going to school at the same time. I want to do one or the other. My grades are suffering because I just don't care anymore. Last year, one of the biggest reasons I almost failed was that I cared more about tutoring English to foreigners than I cared about my classes, interesting as they were.

Last year, I was also devastated over my grandmother's death, and working way too hard and still not making enough to pay the bills which resulted in more stress. I won't even go into the other reasons I've discovered. Basically, I ended up a pretty self-loathing and world-loathing human being and lost all care for anything. I would not like to repeat that. So no, I am not going back to that place where all of those memories are, where it is winter for six months every year, where Detroit is dying and everyone is calmly digging their graves, resigned to slowly dying with it. I prefer my prison cell-like room and all of the complaints I have in this entry to that gloom and the stale air. Yeah, it's fresh and clean air because of its chemical purity thanks to the Great Lakes, but it's suffocating all the same. I realize now that the only reason I always thought of Michigan as my home was that I had nothing to compare it to except my one horrible, maladjusted, friendless year in Florida.

So basically, sorry this is not chipper and humorous, but I am a human, and humans get depressed, so I thought it a valid and very integral part of my journey to include in this journal. I have had more than enough time here to think about it. Funny, though, I still haven't found my answer.

That doesn't mean I won't find it. That just means I haven't yet.

Pictures Posted

2009-08-17T13:54:00.002-04:00

If you hadn't noticed already, I've posted links on the sidebar to all of the photos of my Korean life that I've uploaded thus far. I just added more today from of the Korean countryside as seen from a train window around sunset.

Here you can find a lot of pictures I took from the train on the way back from my trip to 안동 (Andong):
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2698201&id=2356262&l=7714f19d2a

Here are some from 서울 (Seoul) and 부산 (Busan):
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2708203&id=2356262&l=fc9c9b4279

These are from when I first arrived:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2676050&id=2356262&l=3be7996bda

And these are from a few weeks after I first arrived, during the cherry blossom festival:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2683709&id=2356262&l=e5df13907c

More Traveling!! And not just me...

2009-08-08T12:53:00.003-04:00

Wow so busy~!

Last weekend I went to 안동 (Andong) with my boyfriend. I had a long weekend so I told him I wanted to travel. We each chose two places we wanted to go, and then chose one from that list. His mother and aunts and grandmother live in/around 안동 (Andong) so it was the least expensive choice and he's familiar with the area.

My boyfriend's family really likes me. When we got off the bus in 안동 (Andong) Friday evening, we walked around for a ridiculously long time seeing a couple of sights and being cute together, then caught a taxi to his mother's apartment pretty late at night. At first I was really shy because 1. I was meeting my boyfriend's mother and 2. I can't speak Korean all that well. But, she was so excited to have us there and prepared some watermelon, beer, and snacks and we all chatted and ate together. There was a lot of "pass" said, which is what my boyfriend and I say when we can't understand each other, but it's amazing how little those moments detract from conversation.

Saturday we went to his aunt's restaurant, which is within walking distance of his mother's home. I swear, his aunt makes the best 육계장 (yukgae jang, a spicy beef and vegetable soup that is my favorite Korean food) and delicious 김밥 (kimbab, like Korean sushi rolls). His aunt asked me some questions, and with only a little trouble, I was able to understand and answer. Granted, they were simple questions like "When did you come to Korea?" "How old are you?" "Are you a student?" "Why did you come to Korea?" "How do you like Korea?" etc. I hear those questions all the time so I'm used to answering them in Korean. Then, while my boyfriend and I were eating, his cousins came in because their mother called them saying "규원이 (Kyu Won) is here with his girlfriend". They were two young boys, and very curious but shy. The younger one didn't believe I was really dating his cousin. My boyfriend wanted me to speak to them in English, but I didn't know what to say, and when I asked the younger one simple questions like "What is your name?" and "How old are you?" and "Do you go to school?" he didn't answer me. I felt like a monkey in a zoo, with everyone talking in Korean and looking at me and expecting me to do something, but neither I nor them knew what that something was. It was seriously awkward and I kind of wanted to disappear. But I knew that if I spent more time with them it would become more comfortable, so I put on a smiling face and tried my best. Then his other aunt and little girl cousin came. No kidding, that little girl speaks English better than even my boyfriend. She was by far the best among all of them, and also the youngest. She studies in an academy with a native English speaking teacher, and she wants to study in an English speaking country. At first, though, even she was shy. She also couldn't believe I was dating her cousin. It took a while to prove it.

My boyfriend and I were planning to go to a fish festival or just wander together, but his cousins wanted us to go to their grandmother's house with them. Since I don't really like fish and I was curious about the Korean countryside, I was up for it. So we crammed into a taxi with his aunt and three cousins and headed to the countryside. It was so beautiful. I was really nervous to meet his grandmother because I've heard that many Korean grandparents would never approve of their grandchildren dating foreigners. But, she really liked me. We all sat around in the living room chatting (mostly me listening and watching, understanding very little) and eating fruit as quickly as his aunt could cut it. Everyone kept giving me more fruit even when I was still eating, so I ended up with a toothpick topped by a peach (maybe peach?) in each hand and a nervous giggle. Culture note: around his grandmother, I had to sit on the couch with my feet flat on the floor, not touching my boyfriend at all. The older Korean generation's definition of PDA (public displays of affection) is very strict. Holding hands in public is as bad as making out. So when we were sitting together and his arm was around me, his grandmother walked in the room and fussed and separated us. Then his cousin told me to uncross my legs, because I guess that's disrespectful or unladylike here. I'm not 100% sure why on that one, but lesson learned.

After eating fruit, we went with the cousins to wade in the nearby stream and hang out. By the time we waded down the stony, mossy stream to the little dam, nobody was shy anymore. His cousins were teasing us and picking cattails to make couple rings. The little girl picked some flowers for me. They were all trying to use as much English as they could and were teaching each other and asking questions. I was trying to use as much Korean as I could, too. Then we were called back to the house for dinner. We ate home-cooked, flavorful, melt-in-your-mouth 불고기 (bulgogi = beef) and country side dishes (every meal in Korea must have side dishes- they even serve pickles with pizza) outside. His grandmother insisted that I try everything and even handed me some potato. Everyone wanted to do something for me, and when it was time for my boyfriend and I to go to catch the bus, his cousin ran inside the house to get my purse for me. His grandmother gave him travel money and walked us to the bus stop, and even gave me a hug when we left, making sure to tell the bus driver where we were going so he could tell us when to get off. On the bus, the passengers were chatting with each other and with the driver, and they were sharing corn with everyone. I was handed two ears of corn with smiles, and my boyfriend and I munched all the way. When we finished an ear of corn, we simply threw it out the window like everyone else. After returning to civilization, we wandered around for hours and then returned to his mother's place. We all watched TV together, and we ate watermelon and snacks again.

Sunday, we wandered around, ate more delicious food, and got on a train back to Seoul. I should also mention that his mother gave me a shirt, some hair ties, and a 하회탈 (ha hweh tal- please correct my Korean spelling- traditional Korean mask, a symbol of 안동 (Andong) and of Korea) necklace that was won in a marathon and therefore very special. Anyway, I'm looking forward to returning there and visiting all of them again in the future.

I didn't come to Korea to be just a tourist, so getting to meet my boyfriend's family and go to the true countryside (which some Koreans haven't even seen) was a great experience. Actually, it reminded me a lot of my own family. Much of my family lives in the countryside, and I actually spent many years celebrating corn in Iowa every August with my mother's grandparents, parents, and so many relatives I couldn't remember all of their names. My great-grandparents passed away when I was in high school, so we don't go to that small town every year anymore, but those memories will always be an integral part of my childhood. Interestingly, the corn in Korea tastes very different than the corn in America. I can't really describe it. They're both good. Anyway, most of my father's side of the family lives in a small town in the middle of nowhere, Missouri. I'm related to probably a third of the people in the county, and my various relatives farm pecans, corn, soybeans, and even pigs. I'm sure I'm missing a few crops, but again, I don't even know the names of many of my relatives. I have hundreds of relatives and I don't see them much. Despite all of the glaring differences, like rice fields and mountains instead of endless plains of corn and cattle, Korean countryside people seem to be, at the core, the same as American countryside people. Relaxed, friendly, sharing, and appreciative of the simple things in life. Of course, this is a broad generalization of both nations, but this is just my experience. When I walked into my boyfriend's grandmother's house, my heart ached for a moment because it looked and felt and even smelled similar to my great-grandparents' home in Iowa and my great-grandmother's home in Missouri (she's still alive and farming). Even the way his family treated me was the same way my family treats new boyfriends and girlfriends who are brave enough to meet all of us. For the first time in my life, I really feel like a country person. I think there's a little farmer in me that will never quite fade. Although I don't want to live in the countryside, I feel at home there. It's a strange contradiction, I know, but the atmosphere feels so familiar and cozy to me. The problem is that I'd go stir-crazy and get bored. So far I love the big city because every day is different and I see so many different faces that I don't have to worry that they're making rumors about me or that I have to be careful of my actions so they won't judge me. Also, everything I need is within walking distance and public transportation is amazing. But sometimes I really wish I had someplace to be alone, to scream, to cry, to sing, to write, to breathe, to relax, to be a person instead of feeling like there are eyes on me. I have to be quiet in my room because the walls are thin and many, many people live here. I have to be respectable in public because I'm a representative of American culture, and on a more basic level because I'm a person and I don't want to look stupid in front of other people. I've developed one dual identity: human and American. Now I'm developing a second: country girl and city girl. In America, I was always a suburban girl, so it's strange that I've become somewhat homesick for a countryside life I've never actually lived.

Upon returning to Seoul, I met my friend Reza, who was visiting from 울산 (Ulsan). You might remember him as one of the friends I visited when I went there a few weeks ago. Here's a hint: he's the British one. Anyway, because we met so late at night we stayed out all night and ate, chatted, and hung out in an Indian-style cafe, then took the first train home (well, him to a hotel, me to home). Then I got a little sleep and woke up the next day feeling kind of sick, with a mildly painful case of diarrhea. Ignoring that, I went out again Monday night with Reza, my friend Julia who just moved here less than a month ago, and my boyfriend and two of his friends. Out of the foreigners, my Korean was the best. Out of the Koreans, my boyfriend's English was the best. My boyfriend and I have a hard time communicating relatively often, so you can imagine the six of us had quite the struggle. But, we all had a great time. One of my boyfriend's friends came up with the idea that at dinner, we should all introduce ourselves in the other language (Koreans in English, foreigners in Korean). It was both hilarious and a good language-barrier ice breaker because I think I was the only one who didn't have much trouble. I've been introducing myself in Korean for four months so I have that pretty much down-pat. It's the whole 'real conversation' thing I'm still working on. At the end of the evening, contact information was exchanged and we all said goodbye. It was one of the most awkwardly fun nights I've had in Korea. I love when people can try hard and laugh when they fail. Most of the conversation was in English, because they speak more English than we do Korean. Well, I might be even with them by now but I stumble a lot, and my vocabulary is only very utilitarian. I can talk about myself, make plans, buy things, give and ask for directions, and tell simple stories (the latter usually ends up extremely choppy). Most Koreans I know have a more well-rounded English vocabulary because they learned English from books, but they have a lot of trouble speaking because they don't learn speaking in class and they don't have many chances to practice. Also, I think the biggest problem is confidence and the intimidating fact that I'm often the first native speaker they've tried to talk to. I know I'm still nervous to talk to Koreans in Korean, Japanese people in Japanese, and French people in French. A couple of my friends have told me that my biggest problem speaking Korean is that I lack confidence so sentences often come out as questions because I'm more asking if I'm saying something right than just saying it.

Tuesday I was really sick. Abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting (which I haven't done in years), and lightheadedness. My boyfriend had had a stomachache, too, on Monday, so we guessed it was food poisoning from something we ate together in 안동 (Andong). I canceled all of my plans and spent half the day trying to sleep but being called every hour or two (unusual... most Koreans just text) and the other half between the bathroom, the computer, and bed. On Wednesday when I re-emerged into the real world, one of the first things I heard was "Wow you got a lot slimmer! Did you lose 2 or 3 kilograms?? Maybe I should get food poisoning!" Actually, that reminds me- I don't know if I mentioned it before but I've lost almost 10 kilograms since coming here. That's about 20 pounds, I think. I was at a pretty heavy weight, even for me, when I left America, so I still have to lose another 5 kilograms to be the skinniest I've been since early middle school. Causes of weight loss: public transportation, healthier food, and living alone but sharing a kitchen with many people (just think about the last one and you can imagine my eating habits at home).

This week's strangest encounters with people: I was in an elevator with a guy on my way to work and he said "hi" when we had almost reached the first floor. He then walked with me out of the building, talking in Korean and English, gave me his business card, and asked me for my phone number. He works for Rosetta Stone, the company I have to thank for SharedTalk.com which is where I have met most of my friends here including my boyfriend, and he seemed nice, so I gave it to him. He called me a few days later, but I was busy. We might get dinner later, we might not. It doesn't really matter to me because as a business contact he probably couldn't be of much use to me, and I have a boyfriend whom I love so there's no romantic intrigue. On Wednesday- or maybe it was Thursday, more strangers randomly talked to me than any other day I can remember. It was truly strange and I have no explanation except maybe cosmic coincidence. Yesterday evening I got out of the shower and a small, drunk, middle-aged woman who had been trying to puke in the toilet said "미안해요" ("I'm sorry") and hugged me for at least a minute, talking in a continuous stream that I couldn't understand. I didn't know what to do, so I just rubbed her back in a comforting way. Then she pulled away a little and apologized again, and she looked like she was going to kiss me. I was freaking out a bit, so I said, "I'm sorry but I should go to my room" as I stood there with wet hair, wrapped in a towel, and holding my shower basket and underwear. She said "I know that too, but I'm sorry," and hugged me again. She talked some more, then let me go and said "고마워요" ("Thank you"). I left, confused, and almost forgot to leave the bathroom slippers in the bathroom as I stepped out. The owner of my 고시원 (goshiweon) keeps asking me to spend half an hour chatting with him in the kitchen. He always mentions this when I'm going out, coming out of the shower, or otherwise obviously busy. I want to talk to him, but it's a very awkward situation in terms of timing. Also, he can't really speak English and I can't really speak Korean. He wants me to help him with English, I think. Usually I don't understand most of what he says. If I don't get something, he just says it more slowly instead of using easier vocabulary.

I'm watching Shrek 2 dubbed in Korean. Odd.

Side note - my earlier post "Fame" is getting a lot of attention. I thank everyone for your encouragement, insight, support, and even for your criticism (the valid and constructive kind, not the childish kind). Since that aspect of my experience here is such a hot topic, I'll make a conscious effort to include events and thoughts related to my minority status in future posts.

New Places and New (and familiar) Faces

2009-07-26T12:37:00.003-04:00

I took a weekend trip to 울산 (Ulsan) on the south side of Korea last weekend to meet my friend, who has been an email and instant messenger friend since January or so. His name is 성동 (Sungdong), and I helped him find a British friend a while ago, whose name is Reza. I spent the entire weekend with those two guys. We went to 부산 (Busan) as well and met Reza's friend Eve and some of her friends. Basically, it was a social bonanza and exactly what I needed to get over my stir-craziness. As far as my impression of the area, it's about the same as the Seoul area, but with a beach and higher mountains. It's gorgeous, really, and I look forward to returning whenever I get the chance. I feel right at home with 성동 (Sungdong) and Reza, like they could be my cousins or brothers, and I'm sure I will miss them after a while. By the time I got back to 분당 (Bundang), I was refreshed, a little tan, exhausted from traveling, and missing my friend 규원 (Edward) a lot.

I got back home and back to daily life. 규원 (Edward) took me to a 찜질방 (jjimjilbang, like a sauna and public bath house) Monday night. He researched which one was the most famous in Seoul, as he had done for a noodle restaurant the week before. It turned out to be the new spa at Garden 5, an under-construction 3-building mega-mall which takes up 3 city blocks. It was difficult to find, and when we finally got there he tried to explain what I was supposed to do. For all of you Americans, let me just say it's something you've probably never tried before. There are separate shower rooms for men and women. When you enter, you get a key that works for two lockers: one for your shoes and one inside the shower area. You also get two hand towels (Koreans generally don't use large towels like Americans do) and a shirt and shorts; in this place brown for women and tan for men. When I walked in the door to the women's side, the first thing I noticed (which 규원 (Edward) had warned me of) was that most of the women there were 100% naked and completely unashamed. Korean society is very conservative about sexual things, and here before my eyes were girls and women of all ages with absolutely no clothes on, acting completely normally. I asked a middle-aged woman in lacy lingerie where I was supposed to go, adding that it was my first time. She led me to a locker with my number (17) and said to put everything in there and then the shower room was the other way. I was unsure and embarrassed, and started taking off articles of clothing one by one, starting with my socks, jewelry, and hair tie. I watched as another woman wearing clothes passed me to go further into the locker area. I pretended to be primping and checking cell phones messages until I saw her walk by the other way, completely naked and holding a towel. Thus, I was assured that was what I was supposed to do. By then I was in pants and a bra, so I stripped and followed suit. In the shower room there was a large bath with some women relaxing and girls playing, and rows of half-height showers with mirrors and stools. There were also full-height showers without any dividers, like swimming locker rooms in high schools. I saw a couple of women getting massages, too, but I didn't know if you had to pay for that or not. I was still self-conscious about my naked body so I didn't want to draw attention to myself by exploring or asking questions. I just found a shower with a stool in an empty row, sat down, spent about 3 minutes figuring out how to turn the water on, and grabbed the bar of soap. After bathing, I walked back to my locker completely bare past all of the other completely bare women and donned the brown shirt and shorts. With my key on its stretchy bracelet around my wrist, I entered the main area to meet 규원 (Edward).

He had said to meet him in the 찜질방 (jjimjilbang), which is the sauna area, in 20 minutes. Neither of us had ever been there, so we couldn't have anticipated the fact that there were 3 of them, plus 2 freezer rooms (don't ask me why Koreans have cold rooms and hot rooms in their spas, but 규원 (Edward) didn't think it was odd). There were also two rows of what look like Western half-circle brick fireplaces at the entrance, but are person-length tube-like room things with heat lights in them. Sorry for the choppy description, but it's not something I'd ever seen before so I don't really know what else to compare it to. Anyway, the place also had a hot and cold water purifier (standard just about everywhere like water fountains in America), a little playground area for kids, a snack bar, a restaurant, a coffee shop, a large flat-screen TV in view of a row of massage chairs, a PC room with internet at every computer, an indoor balcony area with a view of an indoor park on the floor below, a room decorated like the outside with a bird in a birdcage and a bench swing, a movie theater downstairs with lazyboy chairs in rows, a pile of sleeping mats, and two or three super-hot sauna areas that look somewhat like Native American medicine man sweat lodges if I had to compare them to something Western. I might have missed something in that list because it was quite overwhelming for me and we didn't do everything.

Anyway, I was petrified. Here I was, my cell phone in my locker, the only foreigner, where everyone was dressed the same, and I didn't know where the hell to wait for my friend. I looked in all of the 찜질방 (jjimjilbang) but I didn't see him, so I figured I had come out before he had. But what if he was waiting for me somewhere? What if I was just stupid and couldn't find the right place? I asked a little girl where the 찜질방 (jjimjilbang) was, just in case I had misunderstood what I was seeing and there was one big one where I would find 규원 (Edward). She confirmed what I thought, that there were three of them, and scampered off. I like asking children questions because I don't feel as ridiculous and insecure, and because they use easier words. I checked all three, but he wasn't in any of them. I decided to go back to the main area in view of the men's shower exit, and I watched TV while keeping a nervous eye on the door, above which was a clock. After what felt like forever because I was so anxious (I just did something completely new by myself and then emerged to a place where I was helpless and with which I was also completely unfamiliar), but the clock said was only about five minutes, 규원 (Edward) emerged.

After exploring a little, we decided to check out the movie room, which was showing American Gangster at the time. Neither of us had seen it before, so we settled into neighboring, big, comfy chairs (being clumsy and nervous, I almost knocked mine over), and started to watch the movie. After a while, he asked if it was okay if he took my hand. With butterflies in my stomach I agreed, and we spent the rest of the movie hand in hand, occasionally chit-chatting a little. I guess you could say that was the moment we started dating.

규원 (Edward) is pretty crazy in a way I really like. Not destructive or cruel crazy, just individual crazy. So far the only problem I can imagine is the language barrier problem. At the beginning of any relationship, if you forsee problems, it's doomed to fail. But, I'm learning Korean quickly and will try even harder for him, and I'm sure his English conversation will continue to improve as it has been over the last month or however long we've known each other. He read this blog and could understand 95%, and he reads English language newspapers and has very little trouble understanding. So, vocabulary and comprehension isn't an issue; he's just not used to listening and speaking (very normal in Korea because of the traditional educational system's stress on test-taking rather than conversation when it comes to English). While I'm learning a completely new language, he's learning a pretty new aspect of a familiar language. We'll keep getting closer and closer to meeting in the middle and eventually we won't need excessive body language anymore. He's completely devoted to me, as I'm quickly becoming to him. He lives far away from me, but that hasn't been much of a hindrance, as he's willing to come all the way to where I live with no complaints. I would gladly go to him as well, but recently I've had almost no time and have been constantly exhausted for more than two weeks. Now, because of the new subway line 9, which literally just opened, it takes half an hour for him to get to 강남 (Gangnam) instead of the hour it took before. 강남 (Gangnam) is about 20-30 minutes away from my home by bus, depending on which bus I take and how the traffic is, plus there's usually up to a 15 minute wait for a bus. So, distance isn't a real problem anymore thanks to serendipity and Seoul Metro. I haven't had a chance to do something half as nice for him as he does for me on a weekly basis, but I'll think of something. Sorry, the only pictures we have together are on his cell phone, but I'll try to remember to pull out my camera next time I see him.

Well, as always, I have written way more than necessary on one topic. Now I'm really tired and it's 4am so I can't tell you about the other exciting news I have. I'll jot down the other biggest event to satisfy your curiosity. My friend Julia from Korean class back in America (a year ago) moved to the north side of Seoul two weeks ago. FINALLY, I got up to see her with my friend 선형 (Seonhyeong/Sunhyoung) and we had a girls' night at Julia's place on Friday. I don't even wanna talk about my transportation nightmare that turned a 2-hour trip with time to spare to see 선형 (Sunhyoung)'s new room into 3 hours with no time to spare. Anyway, we had a good time, and the next day Julia went home with me. We got some breakfast and I showered while she watched cable TV in Korea for the first time (hers doesn't work), and then we went out to meet someone for a short while. Then we shopped, watched a little more ridiculous TV, talked, and headed to 강남 (Gangnam) to meet 주환 (Joohwan). Remember him? It's been about 3 months since the last time I saw him! Way too long~! It was really great to meet again, and he and Julia got along well so it wasn't too awkward or anything.

When I say it was really great to meet 주환 (Joohwan) again, I mean that in a few ways. One, of course, is that we're friends and it's been a while and I missed him. Two is that I have an old friend in Korea now. I know 4 months isn't a really long time, but with all the changes and new experiences I've had, it feels like a lifetime. I barely even remember living in America at this point! Also, I've had a lot of friends come and go, but seeing 주환 (Joohwan) again is like validation that I can and have made a lasting friendship out of all of this. Even when we couldn't see each other, we sent texts back and forth periodically, which is something I don't generally do. I'm one of those if-you-call-me-it-should-be-to-plan-a-meeting people. Here, I send texts just to keep in touch with 주환 (Joohwan) and also 성동 (Sungdong, the friend I traveled to visit in the south). I barely even keep in touch with my own family, so it's really surprising to me that I do that. Mostly it's replies, but I've even initiated a couple little conversations. This shows me something I hadn't expected: I'm learning to value friendship more and to lean on simple conversations for emotional support. Just knowing that my friend on the other side of the country is hanging out with his friends this weekend makes me feel like I have a little more meaning in my life. Places change, many friends come and go. Oddly, though, those are the only two of my friends here that I value in that way. Maybe it's because they're both around the same age as my brother and they treat me like a little sister. I do miss my brother quite a bit, so maybe because my friendships with them remind me of him they're very comforting. Also, I feel like I'm important to them to about the same extent that they are important to me. I don't like unbalanced friendships in which a friend relies on me more than I rely on that friend, or vice versa. Although it's very rare that I rely on a friend for anything more than trivial favors or trivial advice. That's reserved for my two best friends: Anna (my longest-lasting friendship ever) and 은영 (Jenny) (my former roommate). For me, I have to really feel close to someone to call or send a message when I'm in trouble or feeling down or afraid. Maybe my walls are coming down as I'm growing up here.

Oh, and now it's 4:35am. Really, I'm going to sleep now. Oh my god. So yawny.

International Dating Conundrum: an Observation

2009-07-16T10:43:00.005-04:00

Why are there Korean-Korean couples and foreigner-foreigner couples, but not many Korean-foreigner couples in Korea? Here's one aspect of it as conversed with a friend earlier:

Most of the Americans I've talked to like to know what goes on in their girlfriend's or boyfriend's life. They like to meet his/her friends and they like knowing what he/she does on a daily basis. It's like keeping tabs. Jealous boyfriends/girlfriends verge on stalking and know who their significant other is with at all times and where. Americans want to know about the exes and other things about their boyfriend's or girlfriend's past.

Most of the Koreans I've talked to don't want to know about exes. They don't want to know about opposite-sex friends. They would rather just not think about their boyfriend/girlfriend being with any other members of the opposite sex, ever. I have heard some Koreans say they would rather be lied to than know what their boyfriend/girlfriend has done or does that would upset them. Some Koreans don't think this way at all, as my friend just pointed out. Haha. I guess I shouldn't make generalizations!

Fame

2009-07-11T15:27:00.005-04:00

In America, if you see 100 people and 5 are not white (the majority race), you think, "there are a lot of white people here." In Korea, if there are 100 people and 5 are not Korean, you think, "why are there so many foreigners here?"

At first it was kind of fun. I'm kind of a celebrity here without even trying. Everyone thinks I'm beautiful and is fascinated by me. People like to give me free things and gifts. Strangers say "hello" to me on the street or speak to me in English on the subway sometimes. A large number of my friends and students say I'm the first or maybe second foreigner they've ever talked to. They're shy and excited and they have a million questions. My guy friends make jokes about dating me and some of them ask periodically if I have a boyfriend or am looking for one. There's a waiting list at this point.

Girls whisper about me and guys stare. When I'm with a Korean friend speaking English, we might as well have a flashing neon sign above us saying, "UNIQUE SPECTACLE" or "LOOK SHE'S AMERICAN~GUESS IF (S)HE'S KOREAN-BORN OR NOT" or one of a million other things Korean think about us. Men tend to think, based on movies and TV dramas, that I'm easy, and I've even been asked for sex on a first meeting. Old people sometimes gape in horror if I'm with a guy. I still remember the incident with the crazy old man in 까치산 (Ggachisan) who grabbed my boob and kissed my cheek. Someone I originally met for a job interview ended up trying to kiss me. Even in my own home, if I cook something in the kitchen and there are other people there, it's extremely awkward. I don't know if I should say something or not, and although the people are usually kind, I have a strange feeling that they are judging me.

I'm becoming narcissistic and paranoid, and I'm developing illusions of reference. If I look around, I can tell that not EVERYONE is staring at me. But, I still THINK they are. Sometimes I strut my stuff and drink in the attention, real or perceived. Some days I just wish they would all go away or that I could find a place to be alone and scream and release some steam.

I'm gradually losing weight. I bought jeans that were too tight in America in anticipation of this (public transportation, healthier food). Now I need a belt to wear those jeans. My legs are becoming more toned and less jiggly. I'll admit readily that I'm not a skinny person, but I might finally get to know what being thin feels like while living in Korea. After a lifetime of being average, the extra attention here and the fact that looking at myself in the mirror is becoming more satisfying is really inflating my ego. I see this and I hate it. I love myself and I hate myself at the same time. I feel guilty that I'm enjoying the result of West worship in Korea. I've always wanted to be admired, but I wanted to earn it. Here I get a million extra points just because I'm American.

When I do see other foreigners, it's strange to me now. They look so awkward and out of place. The men are usually not handsome, and the women are usually not beautiful. Since I prefer Korean men over western men anyway, most foreign men here look just plain ugly to me. But many of them have beautiful Korean girlfriends, because Korean girls generally LOVE men who are fluent in English. Western women don't often accept Korean boyfriends. I know it's easy to get a Korean boyfriend as a Western woman, but it's much more unusual to see a Korean man-Western woman couple than it is to see a Western man-Korean woman couple. This could have to do with women valuing conversation more than men, thus making it difficult to find a good boyfriend whose first language is different. Maybe it has to do with the size stereotypes. It could be because Koreans usualy have smaller bodies and muscles and much less confidence than Westerners. This goes for both men and women. In women, small and shy is almost universally desirable, whereas in men, strong and confident is desirable. Therefore, the women from a small race and shy culture are sought after, but the men are shunned. Usually if I see another foreign women with a boyfriend here, the boyfriend is also a foreigner. Remember, the night I broke my nose I talked to a Russian girl who likes black men. I think Western men also become narcissistic after a while here, as most of the ones I've met are players. They can't really speak Korean, just enough to get a girl in bed where they say they can speak a "universal language" with those cute Korean girls. There's a reason all of my friends here are Koreans.

All in all, I'm becoming very self-conscious. I find myself looking around for mirrors in public, of which there are many compared to in America. Koreans primp a lot, both men and women. I wonder if people are staring at my large feet or my imperfect skin and judging the entire western world by my actions and clothes. I'm extra embarrassed when I do something clumsy, which as those of you who know me well can attest to, is pretty often. I try to look sexy, cute, and/or sophisticated at all times and I'm always trying to look like I know what I'm doing, even if I don't. You can imagine I make a fool of myself pretty often. There are language barrier issues, culture differences, the differences between living in suburbs like I have for my entire life and living in a big city in which half the population of Korea is crammed. On top of all that, I'm a 21-year-old girl living alone in an unfamiliar country with no real goals or purpose and no clue who I am. I'm at the finding-out-who-I-am stage of my life and I have no anchor to help me keep my feet on the ground. I'm drifting in white-water rapids, and the days here are the slowest I've ever felt but at the same time they're going by more quickly than ever before. There are so many things I need to do, so many things I want to do, so many things I forget to do.

Life is completely overwhelming and I really don't know how I would stay afloat without having a place to play piano. I'm lucky I have some hobby that's so close to my heart that I can take anywhere. Now I've been playing piano for 11 years and composing music is my catharsis. But even in the music academy where I practice, I'm always wondering if people are judging me because I'm the only foreigner and the rooms aren't 100% soundproof and I sing. I know I' m a good singer but what if they're listening and picking out every slightly wrong note and ever time my voice cracks, and what if while I'm learning a song they're mocking how little talent I have and thinking Americans must be terrible at playing music? What if they don't like the songs I choose to play, or worse yet, what if they hate the songs I compose? What if they secretly think I'm strange and they talk about me where I can't hear them. Well, they'd be talking in Korean so I wouldn't understand them anyway. When I hear them talking, I always wonder if it's about me.

Whenever I hear people talking, I always wonder if it's about me. Sometimes I know it is because of body language or the few words I understand. Mostly it's neutral or good, I think. For instance, I hear the phrase "English teacher" a lot, and one of the first words I learned here because I hear it so much is "beautiful". But my Korean vocabulary is very limited, especially in terms of negative words. I don't know the word for ugly, so I would never know if someone said it. This heightens my anxiety because if they're saying good things, I feel like a red carpet celebrity. If they're saying bad things, I feel like a front page criminal. I always feel like a monkey on display at the zoo.

When the attention first bothered me, I tuned it out easily and got on with my life. Now I make a conscious effort not to look at people. If I meet someone's eyes, I have a moment of terror. I don't completely know why terror is the feeling I get. I have a constant anxiety and a fear of people following me. I'm even afraid to talk to people because I'm sure I'll understand enough to prove I can speak Korean, but not enough to understand what they're actually saying. That's worse than understanding nothing because I feel like a child or an idiot. If I understand nothing, the Korean is the one who feels stupid because he/she can't speak English, which is becoming a class distinction in Korea. The only thing I hate more than being frustrated by the language barrier is the thought that people are assuming I'm a tourist. I try to speak Korean even if I know the person can speak English because I don't want to be seen as a tourist. That nullifies my existence here. I'm trying to make Korea my home. I can't be a tourist and a resident at the same time.

The funny thing is... I hate it more when people don't pay attention to me than when they do. It makes me indignant. Like, HEY I'm special~ you should be admiring me!! You should want to sit next to me on the bus or the subway so that you can brag about it to your friends later!! Because the worst thing is when people see me briefly and then purposely avoid me. I've seen people stand or walk to the other side of the subway to find a seat rather than sit next to me. On the bus, one woman even put her purse on the empty seat next to her as I got on to prevent me from sitting next to her. Do they hate me or are they just afraid? A bank teller admitted that he was afraid when I approached his desk because he would have to speak English. His English was really, really good. He had no reason to be afraid. Some of my friends say that some people hate Westerners and want all of us to leave, especially Americans. It's a very complicated political and cultural situation that I don't completely understand. I came here curious about how Koreans think of Japan and Japanese people, but I find myself being an object of so many different emotions and judgments. Whether I like it or not, I will never fit in here.

I just want to scream "I'M A HUMAN TOO~!!! PLEASE JUST TREAT ME LIKE YOU TREAT EVERYONE ELSE!!!"

As a white, middle-class, suburban-raised girl, being a minority (minority feels like an understatement~ more like rarity) is completely new to me. I had many foreign friends in America and sometimes hung out in groups that were 100% Asian except for me, but this is something I can't compare to any other experience in my life. To every minority member in the world, I'm sorry for the way you are treated.

Hopefully I can get past this stage soon. I know I will find a comfort zone in my mental assessment of my daily life eventually. At this point I actually sometimes go out for no real reason except that I crave the attention. I'll buy one thing at the convenience store just to see the look on the cashier's face when I say something in Korean. I'm testing the boundaries. I'm playing a game. I'm experimenting on society. They're doing the same to me. The future should be interesting.

Life Lessons

2009-07-06T06:27:00.003-04:00

So, I was strongly debating whether to admit this or not, hence the long delay in recounting this sad tale. But, there's a good chance I will have a scar from it so I won't be able to keep it a secret from you all forever.

Last Saturday (6/27) was the three-month anniversary of my move to Korea. It was a very special day for me because three months is a quarter of a year, and I had to go to Japan and come back just to reach that day. So, I originally planned to invite a group of my friends who had never met each other before to 강남 (Kangnam, one of the social hot spots in Seoul) for a night of eating, drinking, and talking to celebrate. I told my friend this during our Japan trip, and he said that his friends had something planned for Saturday evening/night and I should cancel my plans and just go hang out with his friends instead. Reluctantly, I found a compromise and changed my plans to lunch so that I could do both things. Then, on Friday (the 26th), he said he just plain didn't want to go because meeting my other friends would be uncomfortable for him. Anyway, my lunch bombed because of the plan change and only one friend could come. Because it was a female friend and only one, my guy friend agreed to come, later, with his friend. They were both cold to my friend and she was very uncomfortable, despite my best efforts to lighten the mood. So my little anniversary celebration was a complete bust.

When we were parting ways to head home, I was expecting to go meet those other friends for food, drinking, and overall merriment. I was informed that the plan was canceled. I changed my plans on MY special day for them, had a terrible celebration, and after all that, those plans that had caused me so much trouble were canceled. On top of that, I had just learned from an email from my mother that one of the family cats who was my brother's closest companion, died at the age of 14 (I think). Also, it was nearing my grandmother's birthday (July 3rd), and it's only been about a year since she passed away. I was NOT having a good day. So I begged my friend to hang out with me at least a little that night to make up for ruining my day. The bars and clubs in 서현 (Seohyeon) are open until 5 or 6am, when you can take the first bus or train home. He finally agreed to stay until midnight and take the last train home. We got some food and drank some 소주 (Soju, Korean sake) and when he left I went to my room mildly drunk and prepared to crawl into bed, miserable.

At this point, my acquaintance whom I had recently me through another acquaintance called to say she was in 홍대 (Hongdae, another social hot spot on the other side of Seoul) with her friends and she really wanted me to meet her friend who also composes piano music. I said it was impossible because the buses and subway were closed and I couldn't afford a taxi. She said she would pay for the taxi and all I had to do was hand the driver the phone and she would give him directions.

About an hour and a half later, I arrived in 홍대 (Hongdae). She paid the taxi driver and bought me a beer, and we walked to a nearby club. I had met one of her friends before, so we talked a little bit, and I talked to the friend she wanted me to meet. I was proud of myself for using Korean so much because they couldn't speak English well. I had some fun dancing with her a little, and then they started buying rounds of shots. In Korea, if someone older than you gives you a drink or some food, you must consume it. It is your cultural obligation. Almost all of my friends are older than me, including this group. I won't say I protested... I was having a REALLY bad day. The next thing I remember is people helping me up because I had fallen on my face on the ground. Then I was sitting in the entryway with all of them around me and a cool, damp cloth in my hand, trying to stop the bleeding on my nose, watching as there were more and more circles of blood on the white cloth each time I checked to see if the bleeding had stopped. I talked to a Russian girl who was being checked out by a black guy. She said she liked black guys, so I told her to talk to the one checking her out. This was after she asked if I was okay and I responded that I'm clumsy even when sober and I'd be fine. Apparently I'm an articulate drunk.

My friend said that she had called one of my friends and that he was coming to get me. He lived in 수지 (Suji), which is about 2 hours away from 홍대 (Hongdae). He had to take a taxi because of the time. I don't even know how much it cost him to come to my rescue, but it had to have been expensive. In the meantime, my friend and her two friends took me to a restaurant, and I vaguely remember trying to eat something and make conversation a little. When my friend finally arrived, he glared at my friend, and took me out of the building. He frantically looked around for a hospital, but there weren't any, so we got into a taxi and went to the nearest hospital with an open emergency room.

We ended up at 신촌연세병원 (Sinchon Younse Hospital, i think was their odd English spelling). They took three or four x-rays, put three stitches in my nose, and gave me an antibiotic injection in my hip. The whole time, everything was in Korean, I was in pain and exhausted, and I was so ashamed of my stupidity. Luckily I was still drunk enough, around 5am, to experience the wonderfully pain-numbing effects of alcohol, because I didn't get any anesthetic or numbing injection for my stitches. I just concentrated on my friend's voice as he told me what they wanted me to do in English. The total cost of that emergency room visit, as I don't have any insurance in Korea, was 141,970 won. With the current exchange rate, that's about $112. Each of three subsequent check-up visits has been 18,880 won, or about $15, including a private consultation with a doctor, re-bandaging, and another injection. My three thrice-daily medications which I took for a week totaled about $20~$25. I got my stitches taken out on Saturday and I have to return again this Friday. The bone should take about a month total to heal, and is well aligned and only barely broken so surgery is not necessary. The swelling has gone down, and I can finally remove the bandage and wash my face tomorrow.

So here are my life lessons:
1. When upset, drinking is only a good answer if you are with people you can trust.
2. Don't trust anyone you met through a gangster, even if he's only a part-time gangster now.
3. Never go somewhere far away in the middle of the night, especially to meet someone you barely know.
4. Appreciate anyone who will take a 2-hour taxi ride in the wee hours of the morning to come to your rescue and who apologizes that he can't afford to pay your hospital bill.
5. Korean health care is cheap and efficient; mock American health care in comparison.
6. Korean health care is maybe a little less sterile and confidential than American health care (three patients to a consultation room, less use of gloves, although still very sterile)
7. Be wary of girls. (I already knew this one, but was trying to cultivate female friendships).
8. Living alone is lonely. I don't really know what to do about that right now.
9. Emergencies in another country are perhaps the scariest thing in the world. Without my friend, I don't know what I would have done. Note: the friend I was out with did NOT take me to a hospital. She waited 2 hours for my other friend while eating and drinking more with her friends, as I sat next to her with a gash in my nose and dried blood on my face. It took me three days to get all of the dried blood out of my nose with Q-tips, and somehow I had ended up with blood on my forehead and up to my hairline. I can't imagine how bad I looked when my friend rushed me out of the restaurant.
10. Never make the same mistake twice. I promise myself and my readers I will never again drink so much that I don't remember what happened the next day. This was the first and the last time. Many people black out every time they drink and have never been injured. I have no such luck and no intention of testing my bad luck any further.

Anyway, on a lighter note, some observations made on a rainy day:
1. On the bus, a young woman was literally drying herself from head to toe, including inside her shoes, with tissues.
2. A man with prominent tattoos (extremely rebellious in Korean culture) was nonchalantly carrying a bright purple umbrella. Purple is just a color here. There is no gay connotation.
3. Many people use umbrellas to protect against a light mist.
4. Many buildings have an apparatus that holds a long, thin plastic bag that you put your umbrella in to prevent the floors from getting too wet. On a rainy day, exits of large buildings are littered with these plastic bags. It seems strange to me because Korean culture is very conservation- and recycling-focused. Even fast food restaurants separate trash into liquid, paper, plastic, and other, and there is a little tray for unused condiments and such.

Back from Japan

2009-06-26T02:03:00.003-04:00

I got back from Tokyo yesterday morning. It was a tiring trip, but the stay in Tokyo was relaxing. My friend and I left the Seoul area late Sunday night and took a train to the Busan/Pusan area. When we arrived, we ate some traditional food (I had 소고기국밥, beef rice soup) and took one of the first morning buses to the airport, where we hung around napping until our 11:30am flight. Upon arriving in the Tokyo Narita airport, we went through customs and immigration and took the airport limousine (just a bus) to our hotel. Public transportation in Japan is much more expensive than in Korea~ -_-. When we got to our hotel room we collapsed and fell asleep for most of the afternoon, then went to a convenience store to buy some food because we're cheap. We got instant ramen, some cheap, delicious breads, and some cold tea. People don't drink tap water in Korea and Japan. I'm not sure if it's because it's not safe or because they think it's not safe, but I don't drink it either, just in case. From our hotel window there was an amazingly close view of Tokyo Tower, so we watched some Japanese TV, some CNN, and gazed at the brightly illuminated Tower out the window while eating our ramen and tea.

On Tuesday, we wandered around Tokyo aimlessly, much like I do in Korea, discovering things and people watching. We took some ridiculous pictures, discovering that both of us are so NOT photogenic. We ate some ざるそば(zaru soba) and きつねうどん(kitsune udon) in a small restaurant. We had to order by choosing via vending machine, then taking our vending machine receipt to the waitress. It was a new and confusing way to eat for me, but the food was delicious and cheap. :)

Wednesday was the return trip. It was basically the same as the trip there: killing time in the airport, killing time waiting for buses, etc.. When I got back into Korea and turned on my phone, I had 7 new text messages even though most of my friends knew I was gone. It was a really great feeling to know I was missed although I was only gone for three days.

Tokyo is a lot like Seoul, but there's something intrinsically different about it. It's older, cleaner, quieter, and somewhat eerie.

More later, but I have to go out now.

Changes

2009-06-16T01:07:00.003-04:00

My 고시원 (goshiweon) has a new owner. He changed the management and is personally heading the major cleaning of the entire place. I was wondering what was with all the new faces recently. I can tell which one he is because he's always a little shocked, shy, and excited when he sees me, like I'm the prize in the box~ there's a pretty young foreigner in my new investment!!! I'm really happy, because my friend said the new guy is fixing EVERYTHING and he's going to buy dishes and other necessary things we've been lacking. I went to pee and there were new bathroom slippers already~!

I must admit, I've neglected to talk about the lax hygeine around here because I thought you all may be worried. Apparently there used to be community dishes and the kitchen was clean, but now the dishes have mostly been stolen, and the cabinets and surfaces are sticky. The bathroom is a disgrace. There are two toilet stalls and three shower stalls. The layout isn't terrible, but the locks on both toilet stalls are broken, and the floors are disgusting. There's a pipe leak next to the one by the wall that causes part of the floor to be wet with god knows what, so you kind of have to pee sitting sideways to avoid it. Two of the showers barely drain. In the one that does drain mostly, the light has been burnt out since I moved in, and the showerhead has major leakage problems. Lately there's been a pervasive stench much like that of a port-a-potty at a crowded outdoor concert or carnival. The sink hasn't drained well for weeks. However, the laundry room isn't noticeably bad, and my room itself is much better than the one in 까치산 (Ggachisan). My only complaints are that my window faces a hallway instead of the outside, so it's more difficult to wake up in the morning because there's no daylight; and, the air conditioning is centrally controlled so my room ends up being hot, then cold, then hot, then cold. Right now it's a comfortable temperature, which means it will be hot soon. Then it will be very, very cold and I'll need a sweater and maybe my blanket.

I finally found a good place to play piano. There's a music academy less than a minute's walk from my home, and I went there yesterday to see if I could use their pianos for practice. Turns out I can use a clean, private practice room to play a well-tuned piano as much as I want in the evenings from Monday-Saturday for 130,000 won (about $110 maybe) per month. I started yesterday~ it had been about a month since I last played piano. For musicians, playing music is an addiction, almost a religion. I was having withdrawl symptoms: playing air piano on escalator handrails; reading sheet music like novels; dreaming of composing.... The impetus was finally watching someone play Chopin's Revolutionary Etude (which I can't play but love) on TV.

I've lived in Korea for almost 3 months now. That means I have to leave the country and come back to keep a legal status. I decided to go to Japan because it's the closest country and therefore the cheapest to travel to, and because I speak Japanese decently well. I'll be almost as confused in Japan as I am in Korea, but it will be much easier than going to China or Thailand or somewhere where I don't speak the language at all. However, coming to Korea alone was scary enough and I was at least departing from a familiar place. Korea is still very unfamiliar to me, and I've never been to Japan before, so this trip is very daunting. I asked a friend to go with me. We're going to Tokyo together from the 22nd to the 24th. He has final exams until this Saturday, so we're leaving Sunday night to go to Busan for our Monday morning flight (the tickets are cheaper from that airport). When we return to Korea, I'll be able to stay for another 90 days legally. :)

My sleep schedule is completely messed up. Twice in the past week I've skipped an entire night of sleep, and once I slept for 19 hours afterwards. Last night I was exhausted so I went to sleep at 8pm only to wake up at 1:30am. I've been killing time by studying Japanese and psychology and cleaning my room a little. I have to tutor from 9pm-10:30pm, so I'll get home around 11-11:30 tonight. I'm already exhausted, but if I sleep now, I'll miss eating dinner, playing piano, and probably also tutoring. I'm hungry, too, but I still haven't figured out the grocery store situation well, so I can't really cook anything but ramyun (Korean ramen) or egg fried rice. I should ask random people on the street to eat with me. Haha. Koreans don't eat alone in public. Maybe~ MAYBE at a fast food restaurant they do, but there are none near me. I guess I could walk or take the subway to the neighboring stop and go to the Lotteria (Korean fast food) there. But... that's really strange. I could get take-out kimpap (Korean sushi rolls) from the place across from my building, but that's a language barrier ordeal I'm not ready to face. So, usually in these cases I buy 삼걱김밥 (triangle kimpap) from the convenience store and eat a couple of them and maybe some ramyun. Usually I go out to eat with various friends at least 3 times per week so I get plenty of meat and veggies.

I'm in the stage of setting up a student base where jobs are semi-transitory. Amidst the coming and going of students, I can't really pinpoint how many I have. Most of them are businessmen. I think I have 3 now, plus the two children of one of them. There's another, but he's too sick right now with his asthma so he's planning to resume tutoring in a month or so. I'm constantly meeting new students and losing old ones. This is business.

I got a positive response from my adviser. It looks like I will be able to pull off this whole graduating-from-another-country thing. I'm really excited!

An Appeal to my Adviser

2009-06-11T17:14:00.002-04:00

I'm sure you're all wondering how school is going. It's not easy to finish a degree in a country you don't live in anymore. Well, it's looking almost impossible for me to do just that, so I took a different approach and sent this email to my adviser after scheduling a semester of classes that are not on the list of courses that count towards my major. I have spent so many hours scouring course lists and descriptions and transfer courses. I found a way to fill the Spring semester, but I need to take Fall courses to maintain student status for my student loan deferral and to stay a dependent on my mother's health, dental, and optical insurance. Not to mention, I want to graduate as soon as possible so I can finally do just one thing. Work and school is very stressful.

Anyway here's the email I sent. I'll let you know the gist of his reply when I get one.

Hi,

I apologize in advance for the length of this email, but I can't exactly make a compelling argument for my case in person so please bear with me and skim it.

The courses I had planned are not offered online. I'm really having to stretch the boundaries of the major requirements here.... Actually, I have to break them. Because of deadlines for MSU enrollment and for my student loans, I had to enroll in some courses. Basically, I scoured the online offerings at least ten times and came up with a schedule that should fit my major. I know you're not gonna like it very much, but I don't know what else to do. My life is here in Korea now. I have work, a social network, and a boyfriend. Also, I'm learning Korean at a breakneck speed and have businessmen waiting for me to graduate so they can fight for me to work in their companies. I can't go back to America.

I'm sure this is unprecedented, but please allow me to mold my own major by coming as close as I can to the one I've chosen. Basically, I interpret my major as follows:
Global and Area Studies: I want to know about the world. How does it work? How do people differ? Why does it work that way and why do people differ? How does the differences between people influence the way the world works? Etc...
Asian Studies: I want to understand Asia. What makes Asia unique? How and why are the history and culture of Asia different from the rest of the world, and how does that influence interactions with the rest of the world?
Psychology: I want to understand how people think. Why do people do the things they do? What can go wrong in a person's life that makes him or her a social outlier? What makes people interact with each other the way they do, and how can I predict these interactions?
All together: I want to understand how Asia works and where it fits with the rest of the world. Asia is completely unique, but surprisingly similar to everywhere else. What is purely human nature, and what is affected by environmental influences? What are the causes and effects of Asian thinking, tradition, and Westernization?

I believe my course selections for the fall reflect these interests and issues that I need to know about. Theoretically, the point of college is to prepare students for what we will encounter in the real world. Well, now I am in the real world, a world I'm completely unfamiliar with. I have the rare opportunity to be independent and a part of society at the same time as having access to university courses. This helps me see what's important in my life and use the university resources to the full extent. I hate to be confined by the bureaucracy of mildly arbitrary course selections by people who will never live the exact life I am living now. I understand that the major requirements are selected carefully, but as you've mentioned before, the GLAS major is new and constantly undergoing changes as it gains clarity and focus. I have carefully chosen courses that I feel are important for my focus, given the limited resources available to me in my unusual circumstances.

Here are the courses I enrolled in (as previously mentioned, I have time constraints that make this difficult):
ANR 250: Global Issues in ANR (agriculture and natural resources)
ANP 200: Navigating Another Culture

EC 201: Introduction to Microeconomics
HST 140: World History to 1500
ISS 310: People and Environment

I know you already rejected ANP 200, but I think it would be very helpful for me. Yes, I have firsthand experience every day in navigating another culture, but let me tell you it's very haphazard. It would be nice to add a little method to the madness of living in another country.

Here are my justifications for the other ones, if you can't figure out what I'm thinking:
ANR 250: In Korea, land is limited so the prices of meat and produce are higher, and research about maximizing land productivity thrives. Koreans are using technology to improve agriculture, applying their one resource, human intelligence and motivation, to try to extract what they can from their land. I would like to know more about this kind of thing in a global context, as well as understand what's going on in Korea more deeply.
EC 201: I know next to nothing about economics. I just know what I learned in high school and basic common sense. It's important for everyone in the world to understand economics. I would also like to take macroeconomics later.
HST 140: I'm taking the counterpart to this course, HST 150, in the spring. I don't understand why "World History Since 1500" is applicable to my major, but it's not important to know any history before 1500. I've been taught modern world history since middle school; I don't know ancient history. In developmental psychology, the earliest stages of life are arguably the most crucial to a person's development. Human history is the same as the history of one person's life, but on a larger scale. I want to understand the world's infancy so I can see trends and the effect of human nature as history repeats itself and builds on itself.
ISS 310: ISS 330B is unavailable online. This is the closest course I can take. Please just let it count. Aside from that, environmental factors are a big psychological, social, and economic factor in everyday life. How is that not important to me?

If necessary, I will appeal to the department. I think that I have a unique perspective and situation that require some exceptions if I am ever to graduate. I love MSU, and I would hate to have a reason to be frustrated with it. I know I have a bright future that will reflect well on MSU, but if I am forced to return to America to finish my degree, I may as well choose a different university because I don't belong in America anymore. People in Korea are incredibly impressed with my strength, morality, and cultural, personal, and psychological insight, as well as with my intuitive absorption of their language. If I am impressing everyone I meet even though I can't express myself adequately in Korean yet, imagine what I can accomplish in a few years. Please allow me to use these courses I've chosen to count towards my major. This is my life, and I don't believe that uneccessary boundaries should stand in the way of my future. If I have to send 1000 emails to the dean of the college, I will do it. I just want to stay in Korea, graduate from MSU, and start changing the world. I hope to start an English and music academy, revolutionizing the way people think about language by applying psychological research on learning techniques and my passions for languages and music. If I am to do this in the next 5 or 10 years, I can't be a college dropout. Please, please, please don't tell me I can't graduate.

-Kristin

An emotional portrait of my current life

2009-06-01T08:42:00.003-04:00

I'm starting to think in Korean. Even though I still can't speak or understand well, I'm trying so hard to assimilate here that my thoughts are more and more expressed in this unfamiliar language.

I decided a couple of weeks ago to take classes at a Korean language academy, so I signed up for the second half of May and was placed in the intermediate class. It was a little above my level in terms of vocabulary, but I was mostly able to keep up. But, at the same time as I started that class (Tuesday through Friday 9:30am-12:20pm), I also started an online psychology class through MSU, and I was suddenly inundated with potential students and new regular plans with language exchange partners. So, I was suddenly exhausted and started experiencing the all-too familiar insomnia, which causes depression, which causes worse insomnia. I was feeling lost and confused and so completely alone. Even though I have friends and a lot to do, I felt like I was walking in deep mud and going nowhere but deeper down. Life was swallowing me again, and I was hungry for a way out by my own devices. If I can be depressed in my new life, then what was the purpose of leaving the old one? If I could feel that same urge to scream until my heart burst only to open my mouth and release silence until my face turned red, what had I accomplished? I will not let myself be the reason that I'm unhappy. I must find a solution.

I'm not depressed when I'm with other people. So, I've been seeking out social interaction more than ever these days. I've made about 7 or 8 acquaintances in my 고시원 (goshiweon) who mostly don't speak English, and I've been stuffing my weekday schedule with plans. I now have five students, so that keeps me pretty busy. I study for psychology on the subway. I have two language exchange partners. I watch lectures once per week, which takes a couple of hours. I talk to Koreans on MSN late at night to practice Korean, build friendships, and stave off loneliness and boredom in my insomnia.

I've realized that I have no idea what to do with my life. I was going to be an interpreter, but not only is that daunting, but it's so much easier to just teach English and I love teaching. So maybe I'll teach for a few years and then open an English Academy here. I'll do something unique, something nobody has ever tried before. Maybe I'll teach music and English at the same time. Maybe it will be an academy that uses absolutely no textbooks; just conversation, discussion, and debate. Maybe I'll open a cafe/academy along the conversation lines. Free beverages and snacks for students; and, customers who come to the cafe will be intrigued by the English conversations around them, so advertising will be a "see it and believe it" type thing. Maybe I could combine art with English and have an acting school so people can act in English plays and write their own scripts. Whatever it is, my academy could be so creative and tap into the natural intuition everyone has when it comes to expressing themselves.

When you ask children what they want to do when they grow up, they give you ten different answers and they believe that they can do all of those things. I fee like that now. What do I want to do when I grow up? I want to be an interpreter speaking English, French, Japanese, Korean, and maybe some other language or two; I want to open my own language academy that is completely revolutionary; I want to write poetry in different languages and publish it; I want to write a book about my life; I want to study the way Korean people think about Japan; I want to compose music; I want to open a restaurant or a cafe; and, most of all, I want to make a positive impact on others' lives. Somehow I honestly believe that I can do all of these things. The problem is, right now, I feel so useless because I still have trouble with even daily things and I still forget to do the important things. Life is overwhelming as it is. How could I possible be so naive to think that I could accomplish so much when I feel like I'm standing still? Why can't I just light a fire under my ass and chase a dream or two?? I guess you could say coming to Korea was chasing a dream, but I feel like I came here to figure out what my dreams are, who I am, and how I'm supposed to chase my dreams. I still don't know. I really don't know.

I feel simultaneously overly self-conscious and pretentious. I hate that I can't speak Korean; I feel so stupid because I can't understand when people talk to me. But, most Americans here don't bother to learn Korean, and they think that Koreans are stupid for not knowing English. Many Koreans themselves feel stupid for not perfecting English, which is completely ludicrous because this is Korea. The Korean standard of beauty is even thinner than the American standard of beauty, so although I've lost a noticeable amount of weight, I'm as self-conscious as I was in middle school or high school because I'm bigger than most of the girls here. I already stick out like a sore thumb because I'm a foreigner. Do I have to be a fat one, too? I know this is unfounded, because I am a healthy weight and it's a just a difference in genetics and the lifestyle I'm used to (greasier food, using cars instead of walking and standing on subways and buses). As I said, living in Korea is making me thinner. I got new jeans just before leaving America that were too tight. Now I can't wear them without a belt. Anyway, the pretentious attitude I'm slowly adopting is the direct effect of my "fame". I'm not famous, but people treat me like I am because foreigners are rare here, especially young foreign girls. Every day I'm told that I'm beautiful, which has never happened before in my life. When I speak my clumsy Korean, people look at me like I'm the most amazing person they've ever met. They call me a genius. When they hear my story, they say I'm the bravest person they know, and they're jealous that I'm so strong. One of the first question men in their 20's ask me is, "do you have a boyfriend?" Even men with girlfriends they love flirt with me. It's difficult not to become egocentric. Women express their envy of my small face, big eyes, high nose, light skin, English fluency, and my overall American-ness. I have to consciously suppress the "yeah, you either want me or you wanna be me" attitude when I walk around 서현 (Seohyeon, my home) or crowded areas of Seoul. I love the attention, and I hate myself for loving it. That's not the reason I came here, and it's not the reason I want to stay here. For the most part, the general public has become invisible to me at this point. It's just a mass of curious or indifferent people. I stare at other foreigners just like Koreans do. I'm sure Koreans stare at me in surprise when I stare at other foreigners in surprise. I can see the people next to me reading my text messages on the subway when I write in Korean sometimes. I'm an anomaly, but to me this whole country is an anomaly. I can't begin to describe the social atmosphere of Korea. Maybe I'll try another time.

In any case, my life feels aimless now; I'm taking a sebatical from reality to absorb my new surroundings. I'm just beginning to wake up and face reality, submerging myself in the unfamiliar waters as much as I can bear. I don't miss America, but I don't feel like I belong here yet. I'm caught in between and overwhelmed by the unique sensation of belonging nowhere. By belonging nowhere, I intrinsically belong everywhere. It's completely pardoxical, oxymoronic, absurd. If I have no roots, the world is mine to explore and make my own. I predict that one year from now, I will have reached financial freedom. From now on, barring some major catastrophe, I will not have any need to borrow money. I have already started saving money this week. I will pay off my student loans and I'll return all of the money my mother has given me both in America and in Korea to support me when I couldn't cut it by myself. One year. When I graduate college, I will have no debt. I will have no home. I will have no concrete plan. I will be comfortable living on two completely opposite countries. Can you think of anything I won't be able to do? By being nothing, the door will be open for me to be anything. I am almost there. It's frightening and thrilling. In my entire life, I never thought I would come to a crossroad like that. I could have never imagined, even two years ago, that I would be in Korea shaking my wings open now. Nobody who knew me in high school would ever picture me being on such an adventure.

The very core of my personality is the same as it has always been: I can't hurt a fly without feeling immensely guilty; I can't say 'no' easily; I value other people greatly, and am loyal, protective, and generous, as long as I have respect for a friend; I am extremely forgetful when it comes to obligations, numbers, and names, and along those lines I'm terrible at keeping in touch; I am always hungry for people to like me and feel dejected when alone, but at the same time I value my solitude immensely; I love plants and animals, but not bugs; I have massive ambitions but very little drive or self-motivation to work toward those ambitions; I have a lot of inertia in that I'm reluctant to start anything but once I do I will not stop until it's finished and perfect (as seen in my infrequent but really long blog entires); I am addicted to music and self-expression; I overthink some things but neglect to notice others, often resulting in a mix of memories different from those of the people I shared that time with; I crave admiration and recognition that I'm unique and amazing, which drives me to pursue interests that make me more unique without being strange; the world never ceases to fascinate me; I love anything that can be thought of as a puzzle, including people, languages, cultures, music, sudoku, Legos, physiology, and psychology; and, I have a tendency to describe things completely, which often results in long lists and the excessive use of parentheses and tangents. Correct me if I'm wrong. I know I missed some things, but I try to suppress my habit of over-describing. How many people know themselves that well when they are only 21 years old? It's refreshing and helps me identify what I need to counteract to live more happily.

I have a homework assignment for all of you:
Think about your entire life, as much of it as you can remember. Think about how much you've changed. Was it positive or negative change? Was it gradual or sudden? I'm sure you've thought of these things before. Now, think about what hasn't changed. Often we notice the differences, but we never notice the constants. It's that simple to know who you are. It's comparable to physical growth. When you are born, your eyes are done growing. As an adult, you look completely different than you did as a baby, but your eyes are still the same (with the exception of cases where pigmentation occurs after birth, resulting in a blue-eyed baby and a darker-eyed adult). Sorry if my facts aren't right on here, but you get the idea. People always think about the fact that they have grown taller and their skin has wrinkles and their hair goes gray, but how many times do you realize that your eyeballs themselves have never changed? If you want to know who you are, just compare all the different people you have been and find the ways they are the same. That is who you are, and that is what will never change, good or bad. I hate being desperate for attention and lazy, but that's who I am. I can only find ways to counteract those tendencies. I love that I'm creative and imaginative, and I'm glad to have the security that I will never lose those traits. What about you?

The Subway is Great for Studying

2009-05-13T13:12:00.004-04:00

Now that I moved all the way across the city, I have to take the subway for about an hour and a half, then transfer to a bus for a total trip of about 2 hours to tutor my one student. I believe I introduced him before.... Just in case, I'll explain again/for the first time. That day that I was so miserable I decided to go to a bar alone for some drinking, I made friends with the manager of that bar. She then called two of her friends to come join us. One of those friends is an English teacher for little kids. That friend, 선화 언니 (Big Sister Sunhwa) got me a job tutoring her friend's son. The boy's name is 지호 (Jiho) and he's in 5th grade. Later this summer, he and his mother will go to Canada for 8 weeks, so his mother wants him to learn some English really quickly and get used to speaking and listening. So, I get paid about $30 US dollars per hour to talk to him in English and get him used to culture. I go there every Tuesday and Thursday from 5pm to 6:30pm. 지호 (Jiho) was extremely shy at first, but now is eager to show me things and tries hard to make me understand. Sometimes he uses Korean and I can understand a little, but I told him to assume that I can't speak any Korean at all. He showed me some of his schoolwork, and the math and drawing are especially impressive. I think he can do both better than I can! He loves soccer and he likes baseball, too. His favorite books are Le Petit Prince, Charlotte's Web, and a short series of Korean books. Of course, he reads translated versions of the former two in Korean. His English is extremely limited. But, he's a very fast learner and a good speller.

Last night (Tuesday night) I kept my promise to visit my bar manager friend, 마찌마찌 이모 (Mazzi Mazzi (bar name) maternal aunt) on a weekly basis. After tutoring I went to 까치산 (Ggachisan) and walked around the familiar streets, which was amusingly surreal. Then I played piano at the church for an hour, waiting for the bar to open at 9. I went to the bar, but a part-timer said my friend would be in around 10:10 (oddly specific) so I went to 까치산역 (Ggachisan station) and read/studied until I fell asleep (subway/subway station sleep is like a light half-sleep state, more like recharging than sleeping).

A side note here: I bought a book that fits roughly in the religious philosophy genre a while ago. It was originally written by a Korean pastor in an attempt to combine Christianity, Buddhism, and Taoism into his thought processes, but my copy is a translated text in French. Needless to say, it is not an easy topic to read in a second language. French isn't really necessary for me to study, so it's kind of a fun thing for me to kill time on the subway or while waiting for people to read it, underlining words I don't know and jotting down notes like "false cognate?" or writing smiley faces next to phrases I particularly like. I'm almost halfway done with it now.

Anyway, around 10, who should call but my best friend 은영 (Jenny)!! We made plans for this afternoon. I figured I'd stay at the bar until closing (4am) then study in the station until the first train home (5:30am), then sleep a little bit, then get ready and go talk to a teacher at a Korean Language Institute in 분당 (Bundang) at 10am, then get on the subway immediately to meet her on the other side of the city at 12pm, then leave at 5pm to meet my friend 래욱 (Raewook, English name Eddie) back on the east side for dinner at 6pm, then return home and sleep. Take into account I got 3 hours of sleep the night before.

After hanging up the phone, I headed to the bar and, as usual, got a couple of beers and some food and had a nice chat. After a while 미주 (Miju) came to join me, which was great because we don't see each other much anymore. She says my Korean is getting better :) Unfortunately 주환 (Joohwan) and my old landlord couldn't come, but I'll go there every week so there will be many chances to see them. 미주 (Miju) invited me to come back to her room and sleep a little before getting on the subway because she didn't want me to be alone from 4am to 5:30am, which was a very good idea. So we went there, again surreal because I lived there less than a week ago and now I was a guest, and I got up for the early train. I got home around 7:30am and decided to sleep from 7:45 to 8:00. I woke up at 12:30 to a text message from 은영 (Jenny) asking where I was. Awesome.

Anyway I finally ACTUALLY woke up around 4pm, took a shower, and read the email from 서 선생님 (Mr. Seo) who teaches at a 한국어 학원 (Korean acadamy) next to 서현역 (Seohyeon station), which is where I live now. That was a lot of Korean in one sentence for you guys, wasn't it? Haha. He gave me directions to the place, so I memorized them because they were very simple. He said to go out from 서현역 3번 출구 (Seohyeon station exit gate number 3) and take the left overpass to the SH Sienne building, and 굿모닝 어학원 (Good Morning Academy) would be on the second floor. I entered the station and looked EVERYWHERE for an exit 3. I couldn't find it, and I was running out of time because I had to meet my friend for dinner. So I asked a guy standing by a door in a suit with an earpiece (these people are there just to answer questions, basically), "SH Sienne Building 이 어디에 있어요? 알아요?" ("Where is the SH Sienne Building? Do you know?") He was very confused at the name and said something like, "Is that a store in AK Plaza?" (AK Plaza is the giant mall attached to the station, which is technically where he works). I responded, "AK Plaza 에 없어요." ("It's not in AK Plaza.") and I pointed outside. Then he asked me to repeat the name, so I wrote it down, at which point he pulled a small map out of his pocket, looked at it for a while, and called for help. I heard the word "외국인" which means foreigner, a word I hear almost every day. After all that, we had been practically staring at the building the entire time. I think sometimes I can be so smart and so stupid at the same time. So, I thanked him and walked the one or two minutes across the street to the SH Sienne building.

Apparently I'm at a low intermediate level of Korean according to this particular academy's standards. Their classes consist of 3-8 people, and the one that would work best for me is a little advanced for me, but the other classes would be too easy. I'm a very fast learner. As I told Mr. Seo, I was that kid in French, Japanese, and Korean class who never studied and got the highest score. He seemed very excited by that. He was also very impressed with my Korean skill, as I had told him that I'd studied for one semeseter at MSU and the rest was from teaching myself by talking to friends. The class is Tuesday through Thursday. I told him I will decide and get back to him by Monday. It's appealing, but I was talking to one of my friends on MSN tonight and explained, in Korean, about my day and the academy. He corrected my sentences as usual and said, "very good^^... absolutely you are good... you don't need to go there." I've been talking to him since before I came to Korea, so he's been watching me improve. If he thinks I don't need to go there, maybe I don't need to go there. I'll have to get the opinions of my other Korean friends and think it over.

For dinner, I met 래욱 (Eddie), who is extremely chivalrous and kind, funny, and completely average-looking. We got sushi and udon at a Japanese restaurant in 신천 (Shincheon) and then walked to a park in 잠실 (Jamsil). There, in the middle of a lake, is a cute amusement park called Lotteworld (I think that's the name). Lotte is a large corporation in Korea, I believe. There are Lotte stores, Lotte products (like the "FLAVONO" gum I just bought), Lotte this, Lotte that... it's everywhere like Samsung is. We didn't go to the amusement park, just walked around and sat on a bench. While on the bench, I got a text from 은영 (Jenny) asking if I was available to meet, so we started texting back and forth formulating a plan. At the same time, another started texting me. In Korea, people just have conversations via text all the time. On the subway, at dinner, while hanging out with friends, walking down the street, in class, lying in bed, whatever. I'm starting to become Korean in that way, but my texting stealth is not exactly up-to-par and multitasking stressed me out a little. So, here I was having 3 conversations at the same time, and believe me Koreans can text very quickly so it's really a conversation. I was talking to 래욱 (Eddie) in person about how ridiculous texting in Korea is and how it's tough for me to keep up, while at the same time making plans with rapid-fire texts to 은영 (Jenny) and talking about my day via text with my other friend. 래욱 (Eddie) was extremely amused by how flustered I was becoming when we started walking to the subway station while I was still texting both people, and said he's going to text me at random times and immediately follow each text with "you're so slow" or "hurry up" or "what the hell" or "bite me" just for fun. My friends are great~!

So FINALLY I got to see 은영 (Jenny) after 6 weeks. Last time I saw her was in our apartment in Michigan. It seems like a million years ago and a million miles away already. We didn't have much time to see each other because it was pretty late, but we went to a sticker photo booth and took cute pictures together. My set is in my wallet now. We're going to see each other tomorrow evening, too, and Friday night, probably with some other friends.

Random culture note: "oppa" means big brother - in Korea, people who are close, no matter what the relationship, are called by the corresponding family member. So, I should call my younger friends who I'm close to 동생 "dongseng" - younger sibling, older female friends 언니 "eonni" - older sister, etc.. 오빠 "oppa" is kind of a term of endearment for girls to call older guys, often their boyfriends, and guys LOVE it).

Another random culture note: Private movie rooms are very common date places in Korea because the definition of PDA (public displays of affection) is much more conservative and couples usually don't go to each others' homes because they generally live with their parents until they get married (women) or get a job (men). So, going to a DVD방 (DVD room) is cheaper than a movie theater and gives couples the opportunity to cuddle up and watch a movie together, which is a rare opportunity in Korean culture. Women can also go there with other women. If men go together, people think they are gay, which is a big no-no in Korea.

Getting Busier and Busier

2009-05-09T12:51:00.004-04:00

No wonder you all have been badgering me to post something new. It's been a really long time. But it feels like only a few days. Time flies!!! Now let me think... what have I even been doing???

I registered for an online psychology course through Michigan State University and ordered the textbook, and I've been working on scheduling fall and spring classes, too. It's difficult because the online options are, of course, significantly fewer than the on campus options. And, my major is unusual (Global and Area Studies with an Asian Studies Concentration and a Psychology cognate).

I met some more new friends who I will describe later (I'm very tired now). 주환 (Joohwan) says my Korean has improved a lot. He was really, really surprised.

I went all over Seoul with 영하 (Youngha), including an ancient palace, a few famous malls, and some other landmark or interesting places. We also went on the first trial ride of the new subway line, line 9, which will start runnung at the end of this month. I was the only foreigner there. That means that I'm the first foreigner ever to ride Seoul's subway line 9. Yeah I'm special~

I got a tutoring student. He's a 5th grade boy who's going to Canada in a couple of moths with his mother for 8 weeks. Remember I made friends with a bar manager? This student is her friend's friend's son. It helps to make connections!

A couple of days ago, I moved to 분당, which is just south of Seoul. My scenery has changed drastically. I live just outside 서현역 (Seohyun station), which is attatched to AK Plaza, a giant department store mall thing. There's Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc. as you walk out of the subway, and around my new home (on the 4th floor of its building) there are many stores, clubs, restaurants, bars, coffee shops, you name it. During the day people shop here, and at night they party here. 서현 (Seohyun) never sleeps. My new 고시원 (goshiweon) is co-ed and most of the residents are students, I think. At the old one, it was women-only and half the residents were students and half were middle-aged women. Today, I was sleeping in for the first time in a few days, and at about 11am there was a knock on my door. A guy who works here (I'm getting really used to his face) handed me his phone. It was the owner of the 고시원 (goshiweon) telling me in pretty good English (he said he studied in Georgia a while back) that he's really excited to have me living here because I'm the first foreigner to ever live here, and if I ever need anything to call him because the workers can't speak English.

New place pros and cons:
Pro- my room is bigger and cleaner
Con- the window in my room opens to a hallway, not the outside like the old one did
Pro- no more noise from traffic
Con- I can hear karaoke at all hours of the morning (actually quite amusing)
Pro- the kitchen is much nicer
Con- the bathroom is worse
Pro- I live closer to maybe half of my friends
Con- I live further away from my student (it's a 2-hour commute now) and 미주 (Miju) and 주환 (Joohwan)
Pro- I love the atmosphere here
Con- it's more expensive (340,000won per month as opposed to 250,000won per month)
Pro- I have shelves and drawers and a mirror in my room now!!!
Con- there's no fan or air conditioner in my room (central cooling in the whole building)
Pro- there is a Krispy Kreme really close
Con- I don't know where the nearest grocery store is yet
Pro- my refrigerator is larger and has a freezer and doesn't have a funny smell
Con- if I can't find the grocery store, the fridge is useless (I couldn't think of a corresponding con)
Pro- my bed is longer and has an adorable headboard
Con- I was nice and left the pillow and blanket from my landlord in the old place so I have no pillow (my thin blanket is warm enough because my room is warm)... I've been sleeping on Softie, leaving me nothing to cuddle!!
Pro- there's great food on the street for cheap
Con- I miss rice cake man and all the free rice cakes he gave me
Okay this is getting ridiculous, enough with the pros and cons!

Now for some awesome news: 은영 (Jenny), my best friend and roommate in America, got back home to Korea today for a while before she goes to study in Japan for the summer! AND, she lives closer to my new place than to my old place! Yayyyy!!!! I might get to see her tomorrow night!!!

And now, it is 4:30am. I must sleep. Seriously.

I'm on TV!!!!

2009-05-08T10:35:00.004-04:00

The three girls in the beginning are my friends, and I'm in the middle. The host is 김 창렬 (Changryul Kim). He's a famous singer. The other two are a rapper and a singer competing to lose weight. It's a reality show about those two and their significant others and they do a bunch of ridiculous things, like holding "Free Hugs" hearts in a park. I talked about this a few posts ago. 영하 (Youngha) just found the video for me today. :)

My Band and other Notes

2009-04-23T04:40:00.003-04:00

I almost forgot~ On Sunday, I went to the 홍대 (Hongdae) area of Seoul to meet with a band who posted an ad looking for a female vocalist. There were supposed to be two of us girls, but the other one didn't show up. The band consists of two American guys and two Canadian guys. All of them teach English here (I believe). Dave and Nick are American, and Ryan and Matt are Canadian. Their style is a combination of reggae, rock, and slightly folk, with a lot of energy. They were really excited that I can play piano, too, so I had them send me files of the music they've recorded so I can try to write some keyboard parts this week. I have just today and tomorrow.... and I'm lazy today, so I guess I'll head to the piano tomorrow.

This was my first time meeting other foreigners in Seoul. With the five of us walking down the street speaking English and being caucasian, we got a lot of stares. I met three of them at the subway station, and Matt met us at the studio/practice room place. The practice room had a drumset, some amps, a pretty nice keyboard (all options written in English), and three microphones. The door to the room was glass and had a clouded window decal on it for privacy. Said decal was Winnie-the-Pooh themed. Everything in South Korea is a little bit gay by American standards, I think. More on that in a minute.

I found it fascinating that out of the four of them, only one guy was making any effort to learn Korean (I think... he was looking through a flower catalog in Korean). All three of the guys I met at the station ordered in English at a Quizzno's (to be fair, they said they didn't eat American food often). Earlier, I had mentioned that ordering at restaurants is really difficult for me, and they said, "why not just point at things?" Make what you will of that. I see the other kind of American now: instead of integrating, they choose to live a transitory surface life, just making money and hanging out. I'm not saying it's necessarily bad, just that it's the complete opposite of me.

Some interesting side notes:
In Korea, women often wash small articles of clothing in the shower, like socks and underwear. I did that for the first time yesterday. It's not as odd as I thought it would be.
In Korea, instead of having one cell phone battery and charging your phone, you get two cell phone batteries and charge the battery, then just switch them out.
In Korea, when people of different ages go out together, the oldest always pays.
In Korea, the size of your face is important. Small faces are beautiful. As are big eyes and light skin. So, Koreans think I'm very beautiful.
In Korea, women usually care more about a man's height than about his face.
In Korea, instead of having waiters come around intermittently, you press a button on the table when you want service and a doorbell sound rings, calling the waiter.
In Korea, people talk to themselves a lot, especialy old men.
In Korea, people often ask you to compare attributes. For instance, "who is more handsome, him or me?"
In Korea, or maybe just in my area, they think that if you flush toilet paper in the toilet, "there will be a disaster."
In Korea, women judge the character of men in many small ways. One of them is that a good man walks between the woman and the street. Another is that a good boyfriend buys earrings for his girlfriend. Also, the 100-day anniversary is extremely important, so a good man never forgets to do something great on that day.

Anyway, about the gay thing: Korean culture is, by American definition, gay. Men wearing pink and purple, and brightly colored pants, is definitely not strange here. Men often carry handbags. When men speak English, their "s" is often soft and gentle. Sometimes I can't tell the difference between men and women because the hair and clothing styles can be so similar. Men love cute things almost as much as women do, and are not afraid to admit that they love dramas and romantic comedies. Many men walk and assume stances that would be stereotypically gay in America. Men walk around with their arms around each others' shoulders or place their hands on their male friends' backs. None of this is gay in Korea. Koreans are actually quite homophobic in general.

Ah, I also almost forgot a person~
현석 (Hyunseok): He's older than me, of course, and quite tall and slender. I met him quite a while ago, now. He has midterms now so I haven't seen him in a while. He studied American literature and wants to be a financial specialist, if I remember right. I went to dinner in 강남 (Kangnam) with him and then his friend came to meet us and the three of us went shopping. Yes, two men and a girl shopping, and the girl is the one tagging along. See what I mean about Korean culture being American gay? Anyway it was fun and they are both very kind and funny. I hope to see them again relatively soon.

More from the forgotten wonderland

2009-04-22T09:07:00.004-04:00

Now I will organize this by people:

미주 (Miju): You all know and love her by now. Unfortunately, after seeing the cherry blossoms with her and her friends, I haven't spend time with her. Our letters are having more and more days between them, and I know she's always tired. I think tomorrow I will go out and find something to buy for her. I don't know what to get that's cheap and will make her smile. I feel bad because I let days go without writing even though I'm not nearly as busy as she is. We were supposed to hang out today, but I woke up too late! I ran into her last night on the way home from hanging out with my friend.

영하 (Youngha): Here's a new face for you all. He's two years younger than I am, and I met him on the same language exchange website where I've met almost all of my friends here (Miju is the only exception). He's incredibly eager to learn English better, although his English is good already. He's also an enthusiastic Korean teacher. So far I met him once for breakfast (I couldn't sleep and he happened to text me at 7:30am) and we talked for 6 hours. Then I met him again yesterday for lunch and he took me to the biggest bookstore in Seoul. Our first breakfast was at a McDonald's which is connected to a "Grand Market" department store. McDonald's breakfast here is healthier and tastier than in America. For our lunch, we hopped on the subway downtown and went to his aunt's Chinese restaurant, where we had 짜장면 (jjajangmyeon), which is noodles in a sweet black sauce, and some Chinese-inspired fried pork, which I forgot the name of but is the favorite dish of two of my friends [The name is 탕수육 (Tangsooyook), thanks 영하]. I tried to take off my jacket at the restaurant, but his mother came hurried over to me and put it back on me. I was confused. He said that in Korea, it's scandalous to show your shoulders. I was wearing a sleeveless shirt. Not even a spaghetti strap, just a wide tank top. Culture difference I should be aware of, eh? 영하 (Youngha) loves maps, books, baseball, and soccer. He always carries a map book of Seoul (maybe all of Korea?), at least one book, and in his wallet he has discount passes for games and club cards for various stores. He's quite tall, probably 5'10~6' if I had to guess. He has millions of questions and wants to tell and show me everything. Actually, as I'm writing this I'm texting back and forth with him because he had a question about something he's studying. He's a quick study and really funny. Time flies when we hang out. :)

기균 (Kigyun): After having lunch with 영하 (Youngha) yesterday, I went home for a while and then went halfway across town again to meet 기균 (Kigyun, pronounced like Kee-gyoon). He's 5 years older than I am. We walked and talked for a while. He's very similar to me, actually, in terms of personality and philosophy. He and I both have that "you only live once" mentality. His English is better than he thinks it is, and he's starting to learn French. At one point in our conversations before, I had said that I like baseball and basketball but I'm no good at them. We walked by a batting cage and he suggested we try. He went first and hit almost every ball. Tall and athletic~ I said I was too terrible and embarrassed, but I tried anyway and just knicked three or four. No hits. He apologized profusely for making me do it. Koreans are like that. I said it was okay because I prefer failure to success sometimes. You can't learn anything from success, and I love learning. We ate some spicy octopus and vegetables simmering in soup, served on a hot plate. I forgot the name of that, too. But, it was ridiculously delicious. We also had some soju (Koreans really like to drink). He was wearing a beanie, which he says he doesn't like to do, because he got a bad haircut recently. I don't know why, but that struck me as hilarious. Anyway, this time I did not miss the last train home. I hope I'll get to see him again this week or next week.

주환 (Joohwan): I haven't seen him for a while, since the photos I posted. He checks up on me via text every now and then. He has midterms until Friday, so on Saturday we're gonna go drinking together.

성동 (Sungdong): He's two years older than I am, and I've been talking to him on MSN since before I came to Korea. At that time, he was studying in Australia, but now he's back in Korea. He lives in the south, and I'm thinking of visiting him in May sometime. He's a great comfort and help when I need it. He made a flyer in Korean for me to post around town for English tutoring because I told him I didn't know how to find students. He said he'll send it to me soon, so I just have to find somewhere to print it. I also have to print materials to teach piano to two people starting next week. I have a mission! I'll ask one of my local friends for help....

It's been too long

2009-04-20T06:20:00.003-04:00

Wow it's been a long time. Sorry everyone!!!

Instead of the daily thing, I'll give you some highlights. Basically every day I eat egg fried rice for brunch, go out walking, play piano half of the days, and learn something new about Korea. For dinner I eat some kind of ramyun (Korean ramen).

Last Wednesday I went to see 벚꽃 (cherry blossoms) with 미주 (Miju) and two of her friends from school. That's what the pictures in the previous post are from. The weather was warm, almost too warm, and sunny. We went to 선유도 공원 (Sunyoodo Park), which is a man-made island in the middle of 한강 (Han River). There are more pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2683709&id=2356262&l=e5df13907c

When we got to the island, there were people filming a reality show which I had ironically watched the night before. It's about a fat rapper and a chubby singer and their significant others (not fat) and they're competing to lose weight. The host is a famous singer. So, 미주 (Miju) was really excited because she loves the host. We watched them film for a while, then had our picnic where they were filming. The director came over to us and asked me to speak to the fat guy in English for the show. So, I was on Korean TV. My friends also got to go on the show just after I did, so we were all really excited. The rest of the afternoon was fun and tiring, scampering around the park taking ridiculous pictures and doing our best to communicate. One of the girls speaks a little bit of Japanese, comparable to my own, so we talked in Japanese a lot. None of them could speak English any more than I can speak Korean. But, it was really fun! After the long day, 미주 (Miju) and I could berely walk up the stairs out of the subway and into our 고시원 (goshiweon).

In my walks, one day, I was walking by a vendor on the street who makes rice crackers. He's in the same place every day and I usually just ignore him like I do the others, but he called out something to me specifically. Something about foreigner girl, you're so pretty, have a rice cracker. Something like that. So I stopped and he talked to me for a while, handing me a free rice cracker every now and then. He tried to seel some to me, and they're cheap but I didn't feel like buying any so I just told him I didn't have any money with me. Well, a week later, I stopped and talked to him and bought some rice crackers. They're so good, I finished them in two days. He told me to come back often. I just might. He's about 50 years old I'm guessing. Good salesman.

One day, I was really upset for no particular reason (maybe stir crazy?) and I decided to go out for a walk around dusk. As I was walking by a Paris Baguette bread shop, I saw and old man drop his lighter while smoking. So, being a nice person and not wanting him to injure himself bending over, I picked up his lighter and handed it to him. He was go grateful that he ushered me into the bread store despite my protests in broken Korean and told me to choose anything to eat. So I relented and chose the cheapest thing in the store: a croissant. At first he just watched me eat it, then he mauled it with tongs and took a couple huge bites, securing crumbs all around his mouth, then shoving it in my face. I was so embarrassed and uncomfortable, and most of all, confused. He was trying to throw out all the English words he knew, like city names and random vocabulary. I was trying to speak in Korean, but he had that unique Korean old people accent that I can't really understand. Finally, when the croissant was almost gone, he got up, said "see you next time" in Korean, kissed me on the cheek, grabbed my boob, and walked out. I yelled "no" and hit his arm as he walked away but then I just sat there dumbfounded. Then I laughed. So ridiculous. That's what I get for being polite. Oh well, no harm done. I asked the girl working if he had given her money. She said no. Good thing I chose the cheapest thing. I asked her if he did that every day, and she said she had never seen him before. All of this in Korean, mind you. I'm improving! ^^

After the old man incident, I was really upset. Why is it that I can get the attention of a sick old man so easily, but there are no young, handsome guys in my area?? I went into Dunkin Donuts for the first time and got an iced mocha. Then I walked around the streets for another half an hour sipping it, desolate. Finally I decided that for the first time in my life, I would drink alone. I asked a random guy on the street, who was taking a break from work so I knew he wouldn't follow me, where a good place to drink was. He told me to go to 소주호프 (Soju Hof). I found the place but it was on the second floor and I couldn't find the stairs. So I asked a random woman how to find the stairs, and she gave me directions. I didn't know the word for stairs, so I made a motion like my hands were feet and I was stepping up stairs with them. Haha. I got there and tried to ask the guy working there where I could sit, but he didn't understand my Korean and he didn't speak much English, so he just said, "wait." So I waited. A woman who could almost be my grandmother came up to me and asked me in English what I was doing. I said he told me to wait so I was waiting. She led me to a table and sat down with me. Turns out, she's the manager. After I had had a beer and eaten a bit, she came back over to chat again. Her English was pretty good. I asked her if I could work for her a little bit, just cleaning or something before or after hours. She said that would be too hard because I can't speak enough Korean to talk to the other employees. But, she called her friend who's an English teacher for children. Said friend came and joined us at the table. Then that friend called her friend, who also came. Those two were about the age to be my aunts. So, I drank and talked with them until like 6am, and got their phone numbers and a potential twice-a-month job. I walked the block and a half home with the sunrise and a smile on my face.

Everything works out in the end. :)

Sorry for the absence, here's a taste

2009-04-18T10:11:00.003-04:00

Cherry blossoms (벚꽃)

Another dose of daily life

2009-04-07T05:22:00.004-04:00

Last you all heard, it was Friday, right? So here's Saturday-Tuesday:

SATURDAY
As usual, I got up, ate, took a shower, took my time getting pretty, and did the whole internet routine (email, Facebook, etc.). 주환 (Joohwan) had said that he'd come over around 2pm, so a little before that I grabbed a book, walked around the block, and sat on the stairs outside my 고시원 (goshiweon) to wait for him. As I was reading, people walking by stared more than usual. Come to think of it, I've never seen someone just sitting outside reading. So that odd action mixed with my ovbiously different ethnicity must have been the cause. On middle-aged man walked by, stared, and while walking backwards said, "Hello!" Being polite as I am, I looked up in a surprised fashion, smiled and said "hi" with a wave, and went back to my book. A minute later he returned with a couple of books in his hand and a pen. He said something like, "Uh, hi. I loves Americans. Where you coming from?" I answered, "Michigan." He replied, "Ah, I like lunch you. Phone number?" To which I, somewhat flustered, replied, "I don't have a phone. Sorry." He then asked, "Where you living?" Mildly perturbed, I answered, "Over there," and pointed far away. He said, "Okay so I can call you?" and positioned his pen on the paper. I repeated, "I just moved here last week. I don't have a phone. 저는 전화가 없어요. 미안해요. (I don't have a phone. Sorry.) I'm waiting for my friend." He looked confused. I said, "My boyfriend can't call me because I have no phone, so he is coming to meet me here." He caught one word. "Your boyfriend? Okay, see you." With that he walked away. I looked around nervously and walked back up the stairs to my room. I had a message from 주환 (Joohwan) on MSN saying he'd come around 3. It was then 2:30. So I told him that if anyone asked, he was my boyfriend, I didn't have a phone, and I lived on the other side of 까치산 (Ggachisan). So he told me when he was leaving his house and said, "I'll be there in 5-7 minutes." So exact, haha.

When 주환 (Joohwan) arrived, it was the same routine as last week. Just follow him because I have no idea where I'm going. It's like an adventure. He told me what to say to buy a subway card, and went with me to the window to help. So, now I have a subway card. We went to an English conversation group he goes to every Saturday from 4pm-6pm. All the people in it have been abroad, and they want to keep their English skills. The leader is a young Korean-Australian woman who works as an English teacher with the company that hosts the group. They read articles and discuss them. This week it was a "Dear Abby" letter and an article about British political scandal. After the meeting was over, the leader, another girl, 주환 (Joohwan), and I went to a restaurant for dinner. The other girl's friend met us there, too. We stayed at the restaurant eating, drinking, and talking from about 6:30 to about 11:30pm, and I was so tired by the end. But, it was a lot of fun. The leader and the friend who had met us there went their separate ways, but the other girl lives on the way to 까치산 (Ggachisan) so the three of us headed to the subway together. While transferring trains, we realized that the next one was, in fact, the last train home. So, like everyone else getting off the first train with us, we literally ran through the subway station to get on the second train. It was a first for me: a crowd of people, young and old, casual and professional, who usually walk confidently and i na composed manner, running desperately up and down stairs and down long hallways and onto a train to sigh with relief. Note to self: try to head home around 11pm. Haha.

SUNDAY
On Sunday, 주환 (Joohwan) came to get me and took me around the corner to the main street to get a cell phone service. Yay! He had gotten an old cell phone from somewhere or another, I'm not really sure. Then he did all the paperwork under his name and got everything prepared. It cost me 20,000 Won to get a charger and some prepaid minutes. That's less than $20. Good deal! Incoming calls and texts are free, and there were no deposits or start-up fees. Because nobody really does and office work on Sunday, they said my phone would be activated Monday between 11am and noon.

After that, 주환 (Joohwan) asked me if I wanted to go home or if I wanted to hang out with his friends whom I'd never met. My first impulse was to say I wanted to go home, but I didn't have any plans and this was an opportunity to socialize, something I don't get to do much yet because I don't have a lot of friends here. So, I said that I didn't have any plans, so.... So, we went to go meet his friends. There were three girls and one guy. One of the girls is Joohwan's ex-girlfriend, but they're still friends. It was the guy's birthday, so we went to an adorable cafe and had something analagous to Italian Ice, some fruit, fresh fruit juice, and white toast with cool whip (surprisingly very delicious). They had bought a cute little cake too, so they lit the candles and sang "Happy Birthday" in Korean (saeng-il choo-ka hamnida, saeng-il choo-ka hamnida, saeng-il [name] saranghae, saeng-il choo-ka hamnida). Then the boys went home one by one and I went to a bakery and a clothing store with the girls. The bakery is named, "Le Pommier," which I explained to them means, "the apple store/person" in French. There is a glass case full of apples above the counter, and the packaging on some of the bread has an odd poem about apples in English that made very little sense. Korean bakeries are amazing. I honestly think bread is way better in Korea than in America. I still have to go to Paris Baguette and see how it compares to France.... Anyway, after going to the clothing store and looking at bras and underwear (oddly not awkward), the girls walked me back to my 고시원 (goshiweon) and said good night. They know where it is because they're also friends with 미주 (Miju). They hang out every Sunday after church, so they invited me to join them next week, too.

MONDAY
I am over jetlag. I woke up around 11am Monday :) Back to my old self! I decided to see if my cell phone had been activated yet, so I turned it on. Sure enough it was connected to the network! Excited, I sent one of my friends a text message. He replied soon after, and I tried to reply back but it failed to send the message. I tried calling a couple of people, but there was some woman's voice saying something wasn't there, followed by a beeping tone. I took a shower and ate, tried again, and still nothing. I figured out how to put the menu in English, and played around with settings, but still nothing. Frustrated, I felt oddly exhausted. So, I went back to sleep and woke up around 5pm. After trying again, I decided to throw on some makeup and go to the cell phone store. On the way there, and old man offered me a drink, and when I refused kindly he tried to hand me a bag of chips. Flustered, I refused and thanked him, then kept walking. A guy walking past looked at me and laughed a little. I said to him, "두번재이에요!" which I believe means "This is the second one/time!" He laughed again and kept walking.

Then, all alone, I walked in to the cell phone store and went to a representative. In broken Korean I explained that if my friends wrote something, it was okay, but I couldn't do anything. I handed her my phone and she talked to the other two, who were there on Sunday and set it up for me. They said I'd paid 10,000 Won for minutes (I caught that in their conversation). I guess the problem was that the minutes weren't properly credited to my account. The representative did that and handed the phone back to me, prompting me to make a call to see if it worked. I called 주환 (Joohwan) and it rang. Success!! He didn't pick up, but that wasn't the point.

I spent the rest of the evening getting in touch with old students. Two of them, 승범 (Seungbeom) and 경수 (Kyoungsu) sent messages back and forth for a while. At some point during the evening 주환 (Joohwan) called and apologized for not picking up earlier. I told him why I'd called and he was so shocked and proud that I'd fixed the problem by myself using Korean. :) I was getting hungry, so I decided to make some curry I'd bought. But, I can't read the directions so I grabbed the package and walked around looking for my landlady. I couldn't find her anywhere, so I just made shin ramyun (spicy ramen) again. On the way back to my room with my ramen, my landlady was in her office. Sigh~

TUESDAY
Today the weather was beautiful. I can tell I'm from a colder climate than everyone here, because I was walking around very comfortably in a T-shirt past all the Koreans in sweaters and jackets. After my shower and internetting, I decided to hit the market during my walk so I could make something great for brunch. I bought pork (돼지고기 dwaeji gogi) and the storekeeper asked about me in English a little, then gave me some free green onions. I also went to the grocery store and bought garlic and 고추장 (gochu jang = red pepper paste) for cooking. I ended up frying the pork with worsteshire (I can NOT spell that ever, for the life of me) sauce, garlic, and green onions. Then I cooked egg fried rice in the remaining sauce and combined everything for a delicious stir-fry. I don't think I'll eat dinner tonight; I'm still full.

After eating I went to play piano for about an hour, then went on an extra-long walk because my normal route is starting to feel short. Also because I ate so much for brunch. Now I think I miss chocolate, so I'll go out and hit a store or two in search of some cheap, delicious chocolatey goodness. I finished my Andes Mints yesterday :(

Accustomation (my first week)

2009-04-02T05:22:00.005-04:00

Now you've seen the pictures and read my thoughts from the plane. It's time for me to tell you what my life here has been like for the past (almost) week.

FRIDAY NIGHT
I landed in the Incheon Airport around 10pm on Friday and went through customs and immigration easily. I made a couple of acquaintances on the plane who helped me at the airport, because I was lost, exhausted, and barely functional. As I exited the terminal, I saw a small crowd of people waiting and started thinking of how I could find a phone to call my friend Han, who was coming to pick me up. As it turned out, that was unnecessary, as he stepped out of the crowd and flagged me down. I gave him an exhausted hug and he bought me a sandwich and we hopped on the train to Seoul. While on the train, Han helped me do some budgeting. As he had been in touch with my friend Joohwan earlier, he knew which station to go to to take me to my temporary home. I had never met Joohwan in person before, and had never seen a picture of him. Han saw the stupidity in this and talked to him in person before letting me go with him. So, as Han handed me one of my suitcases over a gate in the subway station, the first leg of my journey was over.

I was so worn out that as Joohwan and I climbed the stairs out of the station, he ended up far ahead of me with one of my 50-pound suitcases, and I had to rest in the middle of the stiarcase with my backpack, purse, and the other suitcase. I began to climb again with one of the handles in my hands, and a middle-aged man came from behind me and grabbed the other handle, helping me carry it to the top. People are kind all over the world. I am learning this every day here; the people in Ggachisan (my district of Seoul) are helpful, smiley, kind, and patient. I tried to roll my suitcase the 5 or so blocks to Joohwan's house, but the hills were steep and the walk seemingly endless. So, he took both of them and talked to me kindly as we continued. When we got to his house, his mother made a whole dinner for me (chicken soup, seaweed soup, rice, side dishes). I thanked her in Korean, but struggled to understand or say anything else. Joohwan's brother is in England now, so they have an empty room in their house. Joohwan gave me his own room, which is bigger, and slept in his brother's room. I took a shower (the showers here are different and were confusing at first so I had to ask for help), brushed my teeth, and collapsed into bed (complete with heated matress pad).

SATURDAY
On Saturday I woke up at 1pm to Joohwan knocking on the door. He wanted to make sure I was okay; also, he was waiting for me to eat lunch and he had been hungry for hours. He cooked some beef, heated some chicken soup, served some side dishes, and poured me a cup of cold tea. My clearest memory of those first couple of days is talking to him while eating lunch and feeling like a stranger, but so comfortable. His English is really good, as he studied in Vancouver a while ago. He said that the day he arrived there the only English he knew was 'hello' so when he heard that I would be in the same situation, he wanted to help. After lunch, he took me to three goshiweons where I could live. A goshiweon is like a dormitory, generally associated with people who study 24/7 or can't afford an apartment. The one I chose is near Joohwan's house. It's not the reason I chose it, but it's nice to know he's close if I need him. I chose Atom Village because it's in a relatively quiet part of town, the price was the lowest, and the building manager is really sweet.

Anyway, after looking at potential homes for me, we met some of his friends at a bookstore in a subway station and went to get drinks in Myoungdong, which is kind of a business district hot spot that's really popular for eating, drinking, shopping, etc.. Then we went to a resaturant in Ggachisan to eat samgyeopsal, which is basically pork that you grill yourself in the middle of the table. His friends spoke very little English for the most part, and I speak very little Korean, so most of the time at least one person was left out. Joohwan did some translating, but mostly I just watched and tried to listen and understand what I could. While somewhat frustrating and alienating, it was a great experience and I hope I get to go out again this weekend with some Koreans.

SUNDAY
On Sunday I woke up very early because of jetlag, but I didn't want to disturb Joohwan. So, I used my computer a bit, took a quick shower, and did some reading. By the time he knocked on my door for brunch, I was starving! I could have gone out and made a lot of noise to make it obvious that I wanted to be fed, but I felt that would be rude and I didn't want to ask anything when they had already given me so much. After eating, Joohwan helped me move into my goshiweon. He was adamant about being a gentleman and rolled both of my suitcases about 5 hilly blocks, then carried them up a tall, steep flight of stairs (one by one; he told me to wait for him at the bottom while he took the first one up) and down the narrow hallway into my room. Panting and sweating, he introduced me to his friend Miju, who lives around the corner and down the hall from me, before she went out. I invided him to sit down on my bed to catch his breath, and as he sat there he listed everything he could think of that I should know and said he would come back to check on me around 4. When he came back, he called Miju, who knocked on my door, and I went outside to meet him. It's a girls only goshiwoen so the only reason he was allowed in while we were looking at it and when I moved in was to translate. I haven't seen him since then, because he has school and probably spent too much time on me last weekend. Miju said he told her he'll bring me a cell phone today or tomorrow. It's 7pm now, so maybe it'll be tomorrow.

Sunday night, Miju took me down what was then an unfamiliar street to a restaurant called Lotteria, which serves "American" fast food. We each had a bulgogi (beef) burger, fries, and a soda. She can speak English about as well as I can speak Korean, maybe a little better. So, with Korean, English, hand motions, and a cell phone translation program, we had our first conversation. Miju is from the countryside about an hour and a half away from Seoul, and she has a boyfriend back home whom she sees once every two weeks. She's a musical theater major and goes to school during the day 3 days per week, and she works from 6-11pm on weeknights at a bread store chain called Paris Baguette. She's a few years older than me, and treats me like a little sister and a good friend. I'm thankful for all the help she gives me, and I think she's thankful to have a friendly face in the goshiweon other than the manager, who lives next door to her. She told me that she (Miju) is my eonni (big sister) and the manager is my eemo (maternal aunt).

At some point on Sunday, I went to the ATM on the corner of my street and the street with the subway exits with Joohwan to get money for rent. Then Sunday night Ma (what the manager told me to call her) gave me a pillow and a blanket, and I payed my rent. Talking with Ma is like talking with Miju in terms of our discombobulated mode of communication, but Ma knows more industry-specific words in Korean. The relationship itself is a lot like an aunt-neice relationship, in which she eagerly gives me guidance when I need it and greatly enjoys watching me learnKorean and about Korean life.

MONDAY
On Monday, Miju took me to a general store to buy shampoo, soap, a laundry hamper, a shower basket, etc. and to an outdoor market to buy side dishes so I would have lunch while she's at school. The general store had Andes Mints (my favorites) and I was so surprised and excited that she bought some for me. She, like me, is a price shopper, so when I shop with her she knows the cheapest place to buy anything. She asked what kind of food I like, and I said my favorite Korean dish is yukgae jang (spicy noodle soup with beef and vegetables). She also loves it, so we went to a restaurant to have yukgae jang together for lunch. All of these places are on the same main street that is now pretty familiar to me. In Korean culture, older people buy food and drinks and such for younger people, no questions asked. So far I have yet to pay for a meal at a restaurant because, with the exception of Han, everyone I have done anything with here is older than I am.

In the evening, Miju had to work, so I took a shower and went to my room to unpack. I got hungry and tired at the same time, and since eating would be a lot more frustrating and confusing I just went to sleep without dinner.

TUESDAY
Tuesdays Miju has class so I didn't get to see her. But, she had suggested on Monday that we write each other short notes every day so we could help each other learn. When I woke up on Tuesday there was a note she had written in English the night before taped on my door. I realized that I didn't have any stationery and my pencil was almost out of lead. So after a breakfast of rice alone in the dining room, I took a shower and went to the store she had taken me to before to buy paper and pencils. When I got there at 8:30am (oh, jetlag...) the door kindly informed me that the store hours are 10am-10pm. So, I kept walking until I got to the next crosswalk, crossed the busy street at the green pedestrian light (if you cross on red you're bound to get hit), and walked back the way I came. By then my ankles and feet were so sore from all the walking I'd done in the past few days, but I ignored it and kept walking all the way home. I enjoyed walking around town so much that I've made it a daily morning ritual, and my body is getting used to it now. Anyway I was quite embarrassed about the whole ordeal, so I didn't return to the store until around 11:30. The ladies who work there recognized me (I think I'm the only foreigner around here) and I went about trying to find pencils and paper. After much scrutinizing of shelves and price comparison, I bought a two-pack of pencils and a pad of paper for less than $1 each, and returned home feeling accomplished. When I opened them to find drawing pencils and carbon paper forms, I literally laughed out loud for about five minutes. On the bright side, this carbon paper works with pens AND pencils!

So, I wrote a note to Miju in Korean with a drawing pencil on paper I tore out of one of my notebooks and taped it with her note and my corrections on her door. This has continued every day :) After that I spent some time on Facebook and chatting on MSN and had rice and side dishes in my room for lunch. Once again, I fell asleep without dinner. Before falling asleep I sent an email to Joohwan trying to gently elicit a visit because I was bored. Unfortunately for me, he's busy with school. The only people I know in Seoul right now are Joohwan, Han, Miju, and Ma, and I live with two of them....

WEDNESDAY
After my morning walk (about an hour) and a breakfast of rice and side dishes, I occupied myself a bit more around my room and got a knock on my door in the early afternoon. It was Miju. She asked if there was anything I wanted to do that day, and I said I wanted to buy shin ramyun (spicy ramen) because I used to eat it at home in America and I was getting tired of only rice and side dishes for every meal. Oh, by the way, the side dishes I have now are ojingeopo (spicy dried squid) and some form of kimchi. So, we went to the grocery store (also on that main street) together. I bought some eggs, apple juice, meat, ramyun, cereal, snacks, and curry. I won't have to shop for food again until next week. The cereal is by Post and is comparable to Frosted Flakes. Oddly enough, the cereal is less sweet than in America but the apple juice is sweeter (it's kind of cloudy white like actual apples instead of orangey-brown). Sometimes I'm surprised that they have American things here, but on closer examination they're a little different. Like, there are 7 Elevens, but they don't have Slurpees :(

At some point while shopping, I mentioned that I love to play piano. Miju was very excited and told me that she plays, too, and there's a church close to our goshiweon that has a piano the public can use. So, on her way to work, she took me there and excitedly watched me play. She says it's open from 8am to 9pm on weekdays. It happens to be Joohwan's church. I tried to go there and play today, but as I walked past there were a lot of people and I felt embarrassed, so I just walked on by.... twice. I watched CSI and and the second half of Superman Returns on the American channel. It has Korean subtitles and Korean commercials. I didn't realize that Grisham had left the show, but that's a huge ad campaign for CSI here. Once again, I fell asleep without dinner.

THURSDAY (TODAY)
Today I woke up when it was still dark outside, and struggled to go back to sleep. After a while I gave up and opened my computer to see the time. 6am. Miju had to wake up at 7 for school and had asked me to knock on her door to help her get up, so I gave up my battle for sleep and stared at the ceiling for half an hour. Then I played around on the internet for another half an hour and went to go wake her up. Ma laughed; I'm sure she thinks our friendship is adorable. She commented on the notes when we started writing them. After waking Miju, I stumbled back to my room and tried one last time to go back to sleep. I was successful and woke up again around 9. I started my daily ritual: shower, dress and put on makeup, check my email, go for a walk, come back.

For lunch I made my shin ramyun. I filled a pot with water and put it on the stove, but noticed that it was dripping. It had a tiny hole in the bottom. That wouldn't be good for my ramyun or for the open-flame stovetop, so I got another pot and filled it with water. I turned the dial on the stove, but nothing happened. I switched my pot with the frying pan on the other burner and tried again, but still nothing. I switched them back and looked on all sides of the stovetop (just a stove, no oven; sits on a countertop) and I couldn't find a switch. So, embarrassed, I shuffled to the front office and in broken Korean told Ma that I was making shin ramyun but [insert hand motion and sound effect for flame here] wasn't there. She lead me back to the kitchen and explained that the blue knob in the pipe behind the stovetop controls the gas flow. Then she chatted with me while I cooked about how she and many other Koreans don't like shin ramyun because it's too spicy, and about how she likes her noodles to have tension, but I like mine overcooked.

I ran out of tissues today, so in the middle of writing this entry I went to the 24-hour corner store and bought a big box (about $1.50). The air here is different than in Lansing or Rochester, MI. Sometimes it smells fresh and clean like I'm used to. Sometimes it smells like fumes from passing cars. Sometimes it smells like dust and sweat from construction sites as I walk past them. Often it smells like Chicago or Detroit, that dirty city smell that is difficult to describe but has a signature pungence to it. When I walk by fish stores it smells like fish, and when I walk by restaurants it smells like the food they serve, and when I walk in the outdoor market, the smells and sounds change with every step.

The sounds here are mostly unusual for me, but I'm already getting accustomed to them. In my room, of course there's the traffic at all times, the vroom vroom of car and motorcycle engines, the shrill beep of the Korean horns (similar to in Europe), the click-clack of heels and the voices of people walking by. There's also some construction during the daytime really close to me, so the drilling and sawing and yelling can be incessant. The sounds I've never heard before are the trains as they pull into the subway station just below frequently, and people driving or bicycling by with megaphones shouting what I can only guess is advertisements or propaganda. Inside my building I can occasionally hear the shuffling sounds of other womens' slippers, the opening and shutting of their doors, and sometimes I can hear the woman in the room next to me talking on her phone. So, I try to be quiet most of the time unless it's the middle of the day. I don't want to annoy anyone, especially since I probably represent Americans to these women.

Today I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom when another woman came out of the stall. I moved aside so she could wash her hands, and she said something I didn't understand. I gave her a confused look and she motioned for me to follow her to the laundry room, where she pointed out two sinks there. I'm supposed to brush my teeth there. Oops. I bowed a little to thank her, because my toothbrush was still in my mouth, and she smiled and said something else before walking away. It was just another reminder of how everyday activities here are so difficult for me. Eating and using the bathroom are not things I expected to be confused about after a week. A friend translated a picture of a sign in the bathroom stalls for me, and one of the rules was "Put your used toilet papers (or pads) into the garbage bin." Since I read that, I've been trying to figure out whether it means just pads or both toilet paper and pads, because there seems to be a lot of toilet paper in the garbage cans, but it doesn't look used.... That same sign also asks that we remove our slippers. Well, does that mean removing the hallway slippers and putting on the bathroom slippers, then wearing those into the stall; or, does it mean removing the hallway slippers, putting on the bathroom slippers, walking to the stall door, taking off the bathroom slippers to pee, then stepping back into them to wash my hands?? The second option seems a little ludicrous to me. I just wear the damn bathroom slippers into the stall because I tried taking them off a couple of times but I felt dirty and foolish so Ma can just deal with it. If she sees me doing something wrong, she'll gently correct me.

Now, I'm going to finish my cup of tea, go wash the cup and return it to the kitchen, and once again go to sleep without dinner because I'm too tired to deal with it. I had a couple of handfuls of cereal while writing this. So, whatever. I'll make a good breakfast tomorrow. Eggs and meat and rice and side dishes and hot tea.

Thoughts from the air

2009-03-30T18:58:00.003-04:00

Here's what I wrote on the planes (over 20 hours of traveling) from Detroit to Incheon.

2009년 3월 26일
I just finished reading the letter that came with this journal [letter from Anna in red leather-bound journal]. Sometimes it takes the most difficult journey foster the most valuable relationships. There are a lot of people who care about me, and leaving my home made it obvious.

I'm on an airplane from Washington, D.C. to Tokyo, Japan right now. The reality of that statement comes and goes and is vague and fleeting. As I realize the transitory nature of my current existence, I begin to wonder what that is. My current existence is caught within an ellipsis.

Two years ago, I was sure that I would become a doctor. One year ago I had changed my major to Asian Studies. I was caught in the tip of the whirlwind I now find myself riding. Who was I? I had been such a stable, numb, nonchalant person. Now I had become someone I did not recognize on paper. If my official self had changed, had the rest of me changed, too? After the death of my grandmother in May 2008, I struggled to find meaning in my life; a struggle which has only become more difficult and pressing. I worked so hard last semester tutoring English that I was constantly exhausted. I nearly failed two classes that weren't difficult for me, and my 4.0 in Japanese dropped to a 3.0 in spite of my knack for languages. I dropped the fourth class at the beginning of the semester with an excuse of my reading glasses being outdated, causing severe reading headaches (partially the reason).

Now after plunging towards the bottom, I'm trying desperately to climb back to the top, or at least to a point where I'm not drowning anymore. Honestly, frankly, I'm extremely scared when I actually think about what I'm doing, what I have taken upon myself, and what I have given up or left behind.

My mom and my brother spent as much time with me as they could, and I called them from Washington, D.C. for the last time. I can't use my American cell phone anymore.

I don't live in America anymore.

Me, two 50-pound suitcases, a backpack, and a purse. On a plane to the other side of the world. My feeling is indescribable. My heart and lungs won't stop trying to escape from their bone cage. My stomach is doing somersaults. My mind is racing, but t the same time standing still. My pencil is flying across the page in a semi-futile attempt to capture this moment.

I am over international waters.

Photos!!!

2009-03-30T05:37:00.001-04:00

Okay, it's a little difficult to post a lot of pictures on here, so I'm giving you a link to my Facebook album "Welcome to Seoul".

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2676050&id=2356262&l=3be7996bda

There are pictures of the place I'm living now :)

2009-03-28T20:22:00.002-04:00

my temporary room in Seoul

my temporary room in Seoul

my friend took a picture of me in Seoul

a street in Seoul

at the airport in Japan

I'm In Korea!

2009-03-27T12:35:00.002-04:00

I'm exhausted after more than 20 hours of traveling.

Han picked me up from the airport (THANK YOU!!!!) and brought me to meet my friend. Now I'm at that friend's house, and his mother made a delicious meal for me. I just had a shower and now I'm about to go to bed. All is safe for now.

This weekend Han said he'll take me to a hostel and probably help me find a prepaid phone.

Later, I'll post the entries I made in my journal (thanks Anna) on the planes.

Almost There

2009-03-24T20:10:00.003-04:00

It's been too long since I posted last. I'm sorry. 미안해요.

I went home to Rochester on Sunday and stayed until Wednesday. I went to the doctor, the dentist, and the eye doctor. I got new reading glasses, finally!

While home, my mom helped me a lot. She bought traveler's checks and some Korean money for me, and helped me get a C-3 short-term visit visa. I can now enter the country without a return ticket. Once I'm there, I'll go to the American embassy and talk to them about how other Americans have extended their visas in the past, then I'll try to do that. The most likely option is a student visa.

Also, because my birthday is March 25th, I celebrated with my dad and stepmother at their house. My stepmom made hamburgers and we had cake and ice cream :) As I left, my dad was waving out the window until I was out of sight, which is our family tradition when someone goes on a trip or leaves after a visit.

I celebrated Christmas, my brother's birthday (February), my birthday, and Easter with my mom and brother. We went to Chili's and got that DELICIOUS molten lava cake thing, which is kind of tradition for us. I had lunch at Pizza Hut with my mom and my old friend. That's another tradition.

I returned to East Lansing with a car full of years' worth of things from my house to add to what I had already in my apartment. After the heart-wrenching deconstruction of my beloved high school bedroom, I watched as people who had seen the ad on craigslist.com and a few of my friends picked meticulously through my belongings. I had no idea how to answer the recurring question, "how much do you want for this?" because I don't know what things are worth. Most of what I have was handed down to me or given to me as a gift. The things I bought are so old I can't remember buying them clearly. One man came back today (two days later) asking to see my bed, so I told him it was $40 (a fair price because it's in good condition) and he came back later again to look at the mattress. Then he said $40 was way too much for him and walked out, leaving a strong smokers' smell in my bedroom and my nerves shaken. Be careful of craigslist. I made a bit over $500. My life to this point is worth $500. I don't care.

It's still surreal. I'll take what's left to the goodwill store down the street tomorrow morning. Tonight I still have to finish packing, meet with one of my students to say goodbye, and go to a bar with my roommate to get a drink in public as I turn 21 at midnight.

Tomorrow I will go to the goodwill store, the secretary of state, I'll meet with other students to say goodbye, get lunch with my friend and say "see you later," get in my brother's car, and go to Dearborn to spend the night. Then on Thursday I'll fly out of Detroit at 10am.

So surreal.

Plane Ticket and Sale #2

2009-03-09T23:38:00.003-04:00

I bought my plane ticket. I leave March 26th at 10:09am from the Detroit airport and I will arrive at the Incheon Airport in Korea March 27th at 9:10pm. I got a great deal using studentuniverse.com so if you're a student looking to travel, try there. No, I was not paid to advertise that.

I will sell everything else I own on March 22nd at my apartment. Anything that is not sold will be donated to charity or returned to my parents.

I still have no place to live, no visa, no money, etc.. I'll figure it out.

I found a replacement tutor for my students here, thanks to my friend Han. Her name is Megan, and I'm sure she'll do well.

Job Hunting Snag

2009-02-27T07:41:00.003-05:00

I started applying for teaching jobs by posting my resume on some sites dedicated to English teaching jobs in Korea (thanks for the tips, Han). The only problem is that I need an E-2 visa to teach a language there. Although almost all jobs I've been offered include visa sponsorship, I can't get an E-2 visa because it requires a bachelor's degree. Unfortunately, I have a year left of school to accomplish that. New idea: take Korean language classes at Yonsei University over the summer on a student visa, then keep taking transferable classes while private tutoring for a year. The other idea is that I call the ambassador/consulate/someone and BEG and make some kind of deal, like I can teach English with proof of enrollment in MSU online courses toward my degree. I'm set to graduate in Spring 2010 so that's about a year. Not too long. I can figure something out.

My General Project Idea

2009-02-16T15:45:00.002-05:00

I met with that professor today and we decided that a good topic for me that would be in her area of expertise as an adviser would be analyzing a Korean talk show that features girls from around the world with different levels of Korean language skill. The format of the report itself might be a Wikipedia entry. I have to sit down and make a detailed proposal in the next week or so and meet with her again. If you're curious about this show, search YouTube for "Global Beauties Talk Show."

Brainstorming What to Write for Graduation

2009-02-12T00:29:00.003-05:00

To get certain types of degrees at MSU, students have to complete a Capstone project. This can be anything from a vigorously reworked paper from one of their classes to an independent study supervised by an MSU professor. I'm choosing the latter, and I have a meeting on Monday with a professor I had last Spring for both an Asian literature/writing course and a Korean culture/history course who has accepted my request to supervise my Capstone. I told her I was thinking of writing a paper of fiction based on what I write in this blog, and she asked for some more specific ideas. So, here they are. What do you think? Do you have any other ideas?

Capstone Ideas

1. Memoir

- Reflect on personal revelations, even if the revelation is that there were none

- Condense blog into compelling and insightful flashback journal

2. Observations of cultural differences

- Family

- Business

- School

- Bias: I’ve only lived in suburbs in America

3. Interviews/surveys on my area of interest: Korea-Japan relations

- This is ultimately what I want to observe and try to understand

- Compare generations, social classes, location, gender, travel experience

4. What I did well, what I could have done better – advice for international travelers

- Preparation

- First month

- Friends

- Living situation

- Amount of work vs. play

- Budgeting

5. Poetry anthology

- Write in both English and Korean

- English poetry: insight about experiences

- Korean poetry: language improvement in an abstract way (translate into English)

6. Fiction based on my life and the lives of my fellow ex-patriots

- Create a short realistic fiction revolving around a character modeled after myself

- Integrate themes that reflect life lessons I will learn from my experiences

- Integrate cultural aspects I will have observed in the setting

7. Education in Korea vs. education in America – compare/contrast

- Difficulty of different levels of school (high school vs. college as hardest)

- Effect of intense study vs. part-time job on development

- Brain knowledge vs. life knowledge: wisdom of university students

- Discipline in education: how strict is just right?

- Age, gender, level of education differences of teachers and administrators

- Budgets: who’s in charge? Where does the money come from? How much?

8. Learning and teaching a second language in that country vs. in home country

- Tutoring experience in America

- Teaching experience in Korea

- Learning experience (French, Japanese, Korean) in America

- Learning experience (Korean) in Korea

- Grammar vs. function

Planning Courses

2009-02-10T18:52:00.002-05:00

I talked to my adviser earlier today about my possibilities in terms of graduation. I was worried that it would be improbable, but I was in for a pleasant surprise! I have only 31 credits left to take (I already have 90) and I can get most of them online pretty easily. The remaining few should be easy to take at any Korean university and transfer. Aside from that, I just have to study a little more Japanese and take a proficiency test. All I need is a 202-level fluency (I took through 201).

This is good news because now I can go there on a work visa and I won't need a student visa to continue my studies. Technically, MSU online courses are counted as on-campus classes. So I'll be in two places at once!

TESOL Certification!

2009-02-09T21:42:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I completed my TESOL English teaching certification course. I am now a certified ESL teacher! This will be a great resume boost so now I can apply for jobs. Before, I could say, "Hi, I'm an American with no degree or certification but I speak English and have done some tutoring!" Now, I can say "Hi, I'm a certified English teacher with tutoring experience!" Don't worry, my resume and cover letter will include no exclamation marks or the word 'hi' ... I'm not an idiot :P

Reality still isn't smacking me in the face yet. It's tapping, though. Knock, knock, Kristin. You have marketable human capital now. You have to go market yourself. You're planning to move in less than two months. Tick, tock.....

Testing a Video

2009-02-06T02:12:00.005-05:00

If this works, I can have a video diary in Korea!

[edit] If anyone knows how to fix this, please help. The sound speed is fine but I assure you my hands don't move THAT quickly.... Plus, this is supposed to be about a 4 minute video :/

This particular video is of me improvising on piano. I took eight years of formal lessons starting when I was 10 years old, taught beginners to play piano for two years in college, and have been composing music since I was about 12 years old. I was recording low-quality videos of my actual compositions and decided to record some of what I do as the first step of the composition process. So, here is my test video. If anyone steals this music, I'll be extremely upset, but since I never wrote it down and I didn't spend years working on it like I did the others, it's not too important to me as intellectual property. Also, this will let you all see another side of me and thus connect better with this blog and how my personality affects my experiences.

My Koreans

2009-01-23T17:05:00.004-05:00

My roommate is back from Seoul :)

I've gotten a few Koreans to agree to help me learn some useful Korean before I go. I met one of them today and made a schedule to meet twice a week.

Due to unforseen circumstances, I no longer have a place to live in Korea so I've asked my friends there to look around. I'll figure it out :)

Barack Obama's Inauguration

2009-01-20T13:11:00.002-05:00

Barack Obama is now officially the President of the United States. Now, when I get to Korea, I can be proud of my home country.

There was a lot of snow on the day of my apartment sale so there were not many customers. I made $30 though, so I can't complain too much. I'm hoping for a bigger turnout at the one in March. Whatever I don't sell then will go on craigslist.com and whatever doesn't sell there will be donated to goodwill.

My TESOL certification course starts this Saturday at 9:00am.

Goodbye Former President George W. Bush. Thanks for trying.

Apartment Sale #1

2009-01-04T23:01:00.002-05:00

I'm having my first of two selling all my stuff parties on January 18th from 2:00pm to 6:00pm at my apartment. If you would like to come buy my things, contact me using the box on the left sidebar for the address if you don't already know it. I'll probably bake cookies or something ^^

Here is the requested inventory of my books, CD's, and DVD's (there are also clothes, shoes, furniture, kitchen supplies, etc.):

DVD’s – Originals

10 Things I Hate About You

A Walk to Remember

Big Fish

Body Worlds (from the anatomy exhibit)

Bulletproof Monk

Closer

Cocoon

Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights

DodgeBall

Dune (Sci-Fi Channel version)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Flash Gordon

Garden State

Grind

Incubus Vol. 2

Inu Yasha (The Movie)

Jackie and the 36 Crazy Fists (Jackie Chan)

Kate & Leopold

Kung Fu Hustle

Man Against Crime

Mean Girls

Memoirs of a Geisha

Mona Lisa Smile

Monster-in-Law

Napoleon Dynamite

Ong Bak: Thai Warrior

Runaway Jury

Scooby-Doo

Shrek (the trilogy box set)

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Spider-Man

Stealth

Super Mario Bros.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The Faculty

The Grudge

The Incredibles

The Perfect Score

The Princess Diaries

The Terminal

V for Vendetta

Without a Paddle

X-Men 1.5

X-Men 2

Zoolander

DVD’s – Burned

Collateral

Zeitgeist Remastered

CD’s – Originals

“Weird Al” Yankovic – Dare to be Stupid

“Weird Al” Yankovic – The Food Album

Acceptance – Undone

Bob Marley – 3 CD Collection

Capital City Noise 2

Derek Zott – On the Mend

Eths – Autopsie | Samantha

Franz Ferdinand

Gary Jules – trading snakeoil for wolftickets

Hot Hot Heat – Elevator

Ibex/Millionaire’s Club - Split EP

Incubus – Fungus Amongus

Incubus – Light Grenades

Incubus – Make Yourself

Incubus – S.C.I.E.N.C.E.

Jack’s Mannequin – Selections from Everything in Transit

Linkin Park – [Hybrid Theory]

Lostprophets – Start Something

Measured in Angles

Men As Trees – Warred on by cranes

No Doubt – Return of Saturn

No Doubt – Rock Steady

Pink – Missundaztood

Rock Against Floyd

Seventh Echo – another generation EP

Social Code – a year at the movies

Star Wars Return of the Jedi Soundtrack

Tha Grand Alert

The Killers – Hot Fuss

The Kinison – What are you watching

The Kinks – It’s the Kinks

The Lion King Soundtrack

The Noise of Summer

The Stills – Logic Will Break Your Heart

The Strokes – 12:51 (single)

The Sunstreak

They Might Be Giants – Flood

This Is Me Smiling

Tooth and Nail – Solid State

Warped Tour ’06 Compilation

CD’s – Burned

Too many to count~ mostly in the rock/alternative/punk genre

Cookbooks

Better Homes and Gardens Cooking for today: Vegetarian Recipes

Betty Crocker Italian Cooking

Grill by the book – Chicken and other Poultry

Let’s cook Asian

Rachael Ray Express Lane Meals

The best of Martha Stewart Living – what to have for dinner

The Busy Cook’s Cookbook

The complete book of Japanese Cooking

The Eating Well New Favorites Cookbook

Books

Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi – From Emperor to Citizen (the autobiography of the last emperor of China)

Ballard – Empire of the Sun

Collins – The Moonstone

Cummings – Korea’s Place in the Sun

Dell – Great French Short Stories

Dial – The Golden Argosy

Edgeworth – Castle Rackrent and Ennui

Forster – A Passage to India

Ghali – Beer in the Snooker Club

Goldblatt – Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused

Hamid – The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Hamilton – Mythology

Herbert – Children of Dune

Herbert – Dune

Herbert – Dune Messiah

Herbert – Eye

Hull – The Sheik

Kim – Lost Names

Lamb – Tales from Shakespeare

Lee – Modern Korean Literature

Lee – Native Speaker

Lu Hsun – Selected Short Stories

Morris – Modern Japanese Stories

Reiland – Get Me Out of Here

Silverstein – A Light in the Attic

Silverstein – Falling Up

Silverstein – Where the Sidewalk Ends

Tulin – Aardvarks to Zebras

Velde – Tales from the Brothers Grimm and the Sisters Weird

Vera – Without a Name and Under the Tongue

Reference and Language Books

Garnier Paris – dictionairre de Poche (pocket French/English dictionary)

Harbrace College Handbook Tenth Edition

Langenscheidt – Basic German Vocabulary

Langenscheidt – German in 30 Days

Larousse Student Dictionary (French-English, English-French)

Learn French the Fast and Fun Way

Merriam-Webster Desk Dictionary

Oxford - The Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English Second Edition

Pocket Oxford Duden German Dictionary Revised Second Edition

Practical English Handbook

Practical English Workbook

Random House Pocket Thesaurus

Schaum’s French Grammar Fourth Edition

Schaum’s German Grammar Third Edition

Webster’s New World Compact Dictionary of American English

Happy New Year Everyone!

2009-01-01T03:52:00.003-05:00

Finally, one of the most difficult years of my life is over! Here's to a new year full of adventure surprises, and new difficulties which I can turn into adventures! What's your resolution?

My resolution is to fight back next time someone tries to take advantage of me. It happens often, and the old me almost begged for it, but now I've realized that it's one of the major contributors to how much I hate my life. So, this year if someone asks for an outrageous favor they will get a "no". Along with that New Year's resolution comes my ever-present commitment to making the lives of those around me just a little bit better in any way I can; so balancing the two in a less self-destructive yet equally productive way should be an interesting feat to say the least! Basically, I love making people happy but this year I resolve to make other people happy in a way that doesn't make me unhappy anymore. This way, this year with all its changes will not have the same pain as the last 20. I am my own bodyguard now :)

TESOL Certification Course Registration

2008-12-29T22:39:00.003-05:00

I registered for my Oxford Seminar TESOL certification course the other day. By mid-February, I'll have my English teaching certification s I can earn money in Korea while I'm in school.

I've also been looking into which Yonsei University courses can transfer to MSU and it looks like with online courses, a lot of begging and bending the rules, and Yonsei courses, I should be able to get a degree without starting over :) I'll know in Janaury.

I think I picked a date!

2008-12-24T00:57:00.002-05:00

My 21st birthday is March 25, 2009, so I think I'll leave on the 27th so I can celebrate with family and close friends and then leave.

I have been doing research and finding out who to contact within my university and sending emails. When the new semester starts I'll talk to a lot of people who know a lot more than I do so I can figure out exactly how to make this work. I don't want to get off a plane ready to start a new life and get sent home because there's nowhere for me to go and I don't have a visa.

I going to my dad's house for Christmas. It's kind of sad to think that whatever he gives me will probably be sold or returned. I chose a bad time of year to make a decision like this. I have two crates of clothes, three bags of shoes, and two boxes of little things to sell/donate already. Most of my things I'll just leave where they are on the shelves and let people browse like in a store. I will miss my plants, my world flags, my world map, my books, my stuffed animals, and my toys from Japan and from my grandmother. I will bring one stuffed animal (I've had a stuffed bunny named Softie since I was 2 years old and I sleep with her every night), my international currency collection, maybe a few books, a music box from my grandmother, and my collection of fortune cookie fortunes (I have over 120 of them from about 6 years of collecting). Such downsizing.... It's freeing.

My friend is here to make crepes. That's enough for this entry.

Talking to my Parents and Other Things

2008-12-15T20:12:00.003-05:00

I had a very eventful weekend. On Friday, I drove my roommate to my brother's house, which is 10 minutes away from the Detroit airport, and we stayed there for the night. Then early Saturday morning I drove her to the airport so she could go back home to Korea for winter vacation. My brother, who is an automotive engineer (among other things), said that my car isn't safe for anyone to drive because of the brakes. So, now I'm driving his old Lincoln Mark VII and my 1996 VW Jetta is at his house waiting to be repaired :(

Saturday evening I went to my mom's house and talked to her. Since we had already talked on the phone about my going to Korea, it was more like a normal visit. The only thing she had to say was that I should figure out how to deal with money in my move (her suggestion was to keep my account here and transfer money to myself once I get there) and that I should make sure I know the laws and penalties in advance. She had to study for her exam on Monday (she's in law school) so we didn't have much time together. Then I went to a friend's house to celebrate his university graduation. He, like my brother, dad, mom (until now), and my second and third boyfriends, is an engineer. I have never had any desire to be an engineer. Haha.

Sunday I went to my father's house. I had not yet talked to him and my stepmother about Korea. They seem opposed to the idea, but resigned to my decision. They tried to scare me out of going. My dad told me horror stories about how rude his Korean coworkers are and how he's been cheated and disrespected by them. He said that they made his female colleague sit in a corner in meetings even though she was the expert, and they were even reluctant to talk to him because he was American. He also said that they wasted a lot of time during business dealings eating and drinking, and then made him pay. My stepmother brought up the example of the boy who was caned for doing graffiti in another Asian country recently. Also, the story of the English teacher who was raped and killed by one of her students was thrown around, not to mention the group of English teachers who were abandoned by the company that brought them to Korea (or was it Japan?) and were stranded with no money, place to live, or plane home.

Here are my thoughts on all of the negative things about Korea and Koreans: there are good and bad people everywhere. There is crime in every big city; Seoul is just like New York or L.A.. There are always cultural misunderstandings in business dealings, and while Korean society is more chauvinistic and xenophobic than American society, it will be much more accepting of me than some other cultures, like in Saudi Arabia. Yes, I am a very young girl going to a harsh, unfamiliar place, and there will be a lot of people just waiting to take advantage of me. I know that. I will deal with it accordingly. I'm not stupid or blind. I don't trust anyone. I have people there to help me with the things I can't handle myself and people here to teach me how to handle daily life before I even get on a plane. Yes, I am really scared. No, I will not change my mind. I'm going. I'm not going to get myself killed, robbed, raped, or kidnapped. Millions of people have dropped their whole lives to go live in a completely unfamiliar place before and been successful, or at least okay. I'll be fine. Don't worry about me, okay? I can take care of myself and when I can't, I have learned to ask for help.

Starting to Clean

2008-12-12T02:14:00.003-05:00

I started cleaning my room today (it really needed it after all the neglect it's had this busy semester) and as I was going through my years' worth of belongings I realized that most of them are not important. I have at least 100 pairs of earrings, and only about 15 are worth keeping. I have a tiny glass orca whale that sits on a little mirror that suddenly seems useless after years of being one of my favorite things. I have over $5 in pennies. Why have I kept all of these things? I have every card and letter I've received since elementary school. I don't even remember some of the people they're from. I've always had a tendency to horde because I feel like things have sentimental value or they will be useful eventually (i.e. broken jewelry and old shirts and jeans as fabric scraps) or I feel guilty getting rid of them because they are gifts or look somewhat valuable. But now that I'm trying to gradually make my way down to two suitcases and two carry-ons, I realize that many of my things are, in fact, of very little value to me. This completely opposite view from the last 20 years is really refreshing. I feel like I'm cutting away anchors and confinements.

I got an email from my stepmother, and one of the things she said struck me. She asked me what I'm really running away from. My answer that I will give her when I go home to each parent's house to talk about my decision is this: She has known me for almost 10 years. I would like to know when, out of all of those years, she ever saw me happy. I don't know what I'm running away from exactly, but I know that whatever I need to be happy is not here and it never has been. What has been here is personal growth. I can face this challenge I've made for myself with courage because I've moved so many times (6 cities, at least 10 houses/apartments/condos, plus 5 years of split custody on a switch-houses-every-two-weeks basis). I can face it because I've been hurt and healed so many times. I can face it because I can look back at the lonely, hopeless little girl I used to be and know that I've grown into an optimistic young woman with a lot of people who care about me. I can face it because I know I can't face the same thing any longer. New pain brings new lessons. Old pain just tells me that even though I figured them out and tried to fix them, the same problems will never leave me alone. I can face this challenge ahead of me because it's not so much what I'm running away from. There's really almost nothing here for me. It's what I'm running away to. I'm running away to a life that will be my own crazy, unpredictable, incredible journey without all of my baggage. I'm purging the black hole that lives in my heart when I think of the past and the direction I'm going as a direct continuation of the past. I'm bringing very little baggage, physically and mentally, to Korea. I'm ending my life as it has been. I am making myself be reborn.

So, this is me casting off my chains. To anyone I hurt, I'm sorry. To everyone who hurt me, I forgive you. Soon my cluttered wall will be as blank as the day I moved in. Soon my closet will be empty; no more monsters. Soon I will start over. Nothing can hold me back. I am spreading my wings and shaking them off in preparation to fly. Just try and catch me!

MSU Final Exams

2008-12-09T23:12:00.002-05:00

Today I took my Japanese class final exam, which is officially the end of my classes at Michigan State University here in East Lansing (other than my TESOL certification course, which is on the MSU campus on weekends). It's bittersweet. Now I have a lot of work and a lot of planning to do. 자 지금 시작해요!

Also, I'm figuring out how to make a video diary with the webcam I got Sunday for Skype. When I get it to work I'll post video diary entries here :)

Why I Decided to Run Away

2008-12-09T01:08:00.004-05:00

What exactly happened in my life that made me want to leave with no plan to return? This question has a lot of answers, and maybe it doesn't ask everything you need to know. So here are my reasons. The answer to 'why Korea?' is simple: I have the beginnings of a social network there and viable opportunities; also, I am interested in Korean culture and love Korean food, music, history, etc. and I've discovered that Korean people are on average some of the most honest and caring people in the world.

1. There is almost nothing here for me. I'm young so nobody depends on me and I have no career to tie me down yet. Although I have a lot of amazing friends, I barely see them because I'm working all the time. And when I'm not working, I'm in class and/or sleeping. And even with all the work I do, the bills pile up and I find myself coming up short again and again. Right now the tires on my car have dangerously little tread on them but I don't even have enough room on my credit card, which is being used to pay for rent, electricity, my phone, gas, food, and parking, to buy them. I'm not claiming that I'm completely responsible with money; I get parking tickets and I go out for coffee or dinner every once in a while. But those small expenditures are less than most of my peers'. There's some disconnect; some lost time in traveling and transitions between students. Oh yeah, I'm a freelance private English as a second language tutor and also a personal assistant for a man with rare dwarfism. I had seven students for the greater part of the past semester and worked about 20 billable hours per week, which doesn't include half hour travel time between appointments, which tend to be 1-2 hours long. I do this because I haven't been able to find a real job here. At first, I taught piano for two years, but piano students are unreliable and the money isn't worth my time anymore. I love my job but it's really driving me into the ground and I have very little to show for it.

2. My grandmother, one of the most important people in my life, passed away in late May. I have been having a lot of trouble dealing with that. She always wanted nothing more than for everyone she loved to be happy, and I feel like I'm failing her because I can only make those around me happy instead of myself. Also, she loved adventure and travel and spontaneity. So, I feel like she would love this decision and live vicariously through me if she were here. If she's been watching me for the past few months, then I'm sure her tears have been in the rain often because I can see myself going crazy from stress. That would cause her pain.

3. I can't concentrate. I've always been a forgetful person, but recently it went from being quirky to impeding my ability to function in everyday life. I laugh and make jokes about it, but it's a serious issue, and when I say I can't remember anything unless I write it down, it's not an exaggeration anymore. For the first time, I'm failing classes. It's not because I don't understand the material; it's because I can't force myself to do the homework and I can't hear my alarms to make it to class on time, even though my first class this semester was at 12:40pm. Little things add up and even though I absorb languages like a sponge, my Japanese and Korean class grades are suffering. And even though I'm an eloquent writer when called upon, I just haven't written my papers for my classes. I hate myself for it and I sit down prepared to work and nothing happens. Time just disappears and then I'm more exhausted, more ashamed, and more stressed.

4. My relationships with the people around me have become dry. I find myself caring less about everyone around me than I used to. People whose company I once thoroughly enjoyed now mildly annoy me. When someone is talking to me it goes in one ear and out the other more often than not; whereas I used to be an attentive and genuinely caring listener. I am becoming listless and cold, which is not a person I want to be or enjoy being. I'm losing hope in life, so I'm losing interest as well.

5. For years, the glass has not been half empty nor half full. It is completely full: half full of whatever you put in there and half full of whatever was in there before (i.e. air). This extreme optimism comes in part from the good experiences I have, but mostly from my hope that the future will be better and the determination to make it so. At the end of every bad day, I go to sleep thinking "it's okay because tomorrow will be amazing." At the end of every bad semester, I think, "it's okay because it's over now and next semester I'll work harder, my teachers will be great, and I'll have a lot of great experiences with great people." But I was thinking about next semester, next year, until I graduate; and, for the first time, I thought, "who am I kidding? It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better." I was planning to move to Japan or Korea after graduation in 2010, and that was the earliest point I could imagine getting better. If I have to live like this for another semester, much less three or four, you'll see me in a mental hospital for sure. I'll crack like an egg. Ironically, 달걀 (dahl gyal), which means 'egg' in Korean, is my nickname from my roommate. It means I'm white on the outside (Caucasian) and yellow on the inside (Asian). But this 달걀 would like to stay out of the frying pan, thank you very much.

6. I've moved quite a bit in my life. Therefore, I have a mild case of wanderlust. What better way to quench such a thirst for change of scenery than by hopping on a plane to the other side of the world?

7. HOPE. I know I mentioned this somewhere up there, but it is the most important reason. I'm not happy with my life right now, and I have no hope that it will get better. So, instead of being miserable, I am making a new start for myself. I'll get a real job and a degree, and I'll do it all without my past mistakes, hardships, and pain hanging over my head as constant reminders of the cruelty of life. I am cleaning the slate of my existence and starting with bright, innocent eyes. But don't worry; I'm not stupid. The last 20 years have not been easy and I know the next 20 aren't going to get simpler. All I want is to work hard and go home without being afraid to check my bank account balance or finding a bill in the mailbox. I want to wake up with a smile instead of wanting to cry just because I have to get out of bed. I want to be satisfied. I want to be happy. I want to feel accomplished instead of useless. I want to be me, just living a life that suits me better than this one. I have hope that I'll find that in Korea.

My First Wishlist

2008-12-07T23:20:00.005-05:00

Here are a few things that I want and would use in Korea, but I can't afford. I'll try my best to get sponsors so I can get them before I go. If you would like to sponsor me or make a donation, please use the secure Paypal button that says "Donate" on the right-hand menu. Also, I will try to make a few speeches throughout the next four months so you can attend those.

A video camera so I can record my daily life and big moments (like leaving America, arriving in Korea, and starting work and school):
http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=177&modelid=16187
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8734907&type=product&id=1201913483595

A hand-held electronic translator. I don't have one in mind yet, but it needs to have a lot of Korean in it. Also, if I can get one with Japanese and French as well that would be great because I speak those languages too.

Initial Preparations

2008-12-07T22:15:00.005-05:00

Classes: I canceled all of my MSU classes for Spring 2009 and emailed my adviser about it. I'll talk to him in January about taking classes in Korea. My Korean language teacher from this semester offered to let me sit in her class next semester until I leave, and some Korean friends are going to teach me useful Korean. I'm going to take an Oxford TESOL certification class in January and February to get my English teaching certification. That way I'll be able to get a real job and make money in Korea. I'm planning to take classes at Yonsei University in Seoul, which is MSU's sister school; they offer some classes in English. I'll either transfer and get a Yonsei degree, or I'll try to do a two-year study abroad and get an MSU degree from overseas.

A Place to Live: I can probably live with my roommate's parents in Seoul, but if that's not an option one of my students (I've been tutoring English as a second language for over a year) told me I could live with him. Once I'm financially able and have the confidence to make it on my own, I'll get my own apartment.

Communication: I bought a webcam today so I can talk to my friends in Korea until I leave, and then when I get there I can talk to my mom and friends here using Skype and MSN Live Messenger. I tested it with my roommate, and it works wonderfully!

Money: This is the hardest thing, both in my life now and in planning this crazy move. First of all, I have canceled the trip I was planning to California for winter break so I can work. My jobs here are tutoring English as a second language and acting as a personal assistant for a guy with dwarfism. My TESOL course guarantees job placement for 6 months, and if that falls through I have a friend who will start teaching in Korea in February who could help me find a job, so when I get there I'll start making money as soon as possible. I'm going to sell almost everything I own. But I'll need a lot more money. I'm thinking I can try for some scholarships, and maybe I can make a speech at alumni meetings and such to try to get sponsors. I hope this blog can be a tool for me to get sponsorship, kind of like the updates people get on African children they've "adopted." If you have any ideas or if you want to make a donation, please let me know!

Informing Friends and Family

2008-12-07T21:15:00.000-05:00

Telling everyone you're dropping all of your classes for the next semester and getting a one-way ticket to the other side of the world isn't exactly the easiest thing to do. What do you say? "You have four months left to see me ever" doesn't really cut it. But, it's been surprisingly simple thus far.

Roommate: I made th decision while talking to my roommate, so she saw my thought process and I didn't need to plan telling her. She's surprised, a little sad, and pretty excited. She's actually Korean, and there's a good chance I'll live with her parents when I get there. So, whenever she visits home, I'll see her; and, if she moves back there when she graduates, we'll be neighbors. No matter what, I know we'll be lifelong friends.

Friends: I wrote a post on my much-neglected Livejournal, which is automatically imported to Facebook. Isn't technology great? Then I changed my Facebook status to "Kristin just decided to change her life completely by moving to Korea in March." So, I got a lot of Facebook replies and a few friends called me to talk about it. So, that was easy.

Brother: I called him. He's supportive and excited. I was never worried that he would disapprove. Also, he was there when I started thinking about it and said it would be really amazing if I went through with it.

Parents: Because it's a time-sensitive matter and I'm always busy except when they're asleep, I sent me parents emails explaining my thought process and my decision and the plans I already have. Then I called my mom yesterday to talk about it. As expected, she's not happy about it and never will be, but she doesn't think it's a bad idea. I'll go home to the Detroit area next weekend, after my final exams. Then I'll talk to both of my parents (they're divorced, so everything involving my parents always comes in pairs).

Extended family: I'll let my parents handle that. I've never really been close to my family. Plus, some of them have Facebook so they've already seen all about it.

The Decision

2008-12-07T21:07:00.000-05:00

Hi!

My name is Kristin. I'm 20 years old, and until six days ago, I was planning to finish my Bachelor of Science degree in Global and Area Studies with an Asian Studies Concentration and Psychology Cognate at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan in 2010.

What happened on Monday, December 1, 2008? I decided to change my life. There are many reasons, which I'll write about later. The change is this: I am running away to Korea in about four months.

This blog will tell my story from now until after I go there. You will see how I prepare here and how I live there. This is the diary of my greatest adventure.