Korean friends

Despite the fact that I'm in Korea, I don't really know any Koreans other than the teachers at my school. But a few weeks ago I met a woman my age who works in the same building as I do. I run into her around town and at the gym all the time and it took me forever to remember her name (it's Min-jong). But she was always so excited to see me and her boyfriend was in town this weekend (his name is Un-yong) and we all went out for some drinks after she and I got off work tonight.

They were so nice! They cracked me up, kept saying how excited they were to have a foreign friend. And I could truthfully respond that I was really happy to have Korean friends. They said they want to visit my home in the States and I said they are always welcome, that my parents love to have people from other countries stay at our house. So Mom and Dad, stock your kimchi refrigerator.

Jaime, me, and Amber (two of the foreign teachers at my school).

a good trade-in

I didn't feel that my little scooter was going to cut it, so I decided to trade it in for this bike. The Koren boyfriend was part of the weekly special, a good incentive to buy now!

Actually, I rode to the coast with three friends today and these really intense bikers parked their bikes right next to ours at the beach (wanted to make us feel insufficient or something). So I asked for a ride, because who doesn't want to ride on the back of a superbike with a Korean man decked out in all that gear? I mean everybody loves a ninja.

He and his friends sure got a kick out of me asking for the ride. I speak next to no Korean and they spoke no English, but I was determined. I just grabbed my helmet and waited for him to invite me up. I felt like a celebrity with all the cameras that came out once that happened. I'm laughing cus he made me put my arms around him for the picture.

Tomorrow I'm going to go see Sung-mo (the man I bought my scooter from) and ask him to find me a Korean boyfriend with a bike like this.

I don't get it.

One of the strangest things I find about Korea is the infiltration of English into their language. For example, stores always have the Korean and English spelling of the store names on them. So the tire shop down the road says "Hankook Tire" right under the Hangul that says the same thing. But here's the weird part: it's not a translation of the Korean, it's actually what it says. So the tire shop, in Korean and to Koreans is "Hankook Tire" (which means Korea Tire). But surely there's a word for "tire" in Korean. Or the bike shop where I bought my bike being called what sounds like "eengee moters" although there's got to be a Korean word for "motor". Every day my google homepage displays a new Korean word and so often the word sounds exactly like the English equivalent -- "cancel" is the only one I can think of right now. And "ice cream". Anyway, it just doesn't make sense to me.

my sweet bike

I bought this little motorbike (ok, scooter) the other day. Unfortunately, rainy season hit the same day, but I'm still totally stoked.

Street meat

Sometimes I think teaching here can be a real drag. Smart students too sullen to answer a simple yes-or-no question (not to mention the toughies that might require a full sentence -- in the preterite); younger kids who don't understand, after 4 months, 'get out your book;' the isolation of not understanding anything I read or hear while my attempts to learn Korean prove almost futile.

But last night I called up my new friend Suzanne. We met at the 7-eleven between our apartments, bought some mekchu (there's one Korean word that has been well impressed into my vocabulary) and hung out at a 'street meat' stand for about 40 minutes. There were plenty of kids coming by in their uniforms, book bags hanging from their hands; drunk old men shuffling by; old women packing up fruit and vegetables they'd been selling on the sidewalk.

Like toting water, I guess eating street meat makes me feel a little more connected to the community here. And anyway, street meat is awesome. Though illegal, it's cheap, convenient, pretty tasty, you can eat as much as you want and then pay afterwards, there's always a small yet diverse crowd gathered. And not surprisingly, I ran into one of my students there. He was on his way to a class that would end at 1am.

Small town.

Daejeon is Korea's fifth-largest city with a population of 1.4 million, but that doesn't mean it can't feel very small for a foreigner, as I have learned over the past few weeks. Let me try to explain it.

A while ago I met a man named Todd on my way back from Daecheon, a city two hours away from Daejeon, where I was taking a flight lesson. "What were you doing in Daecheon?" he had asked. "I was taking a flight lesson." "Oh me, too -- from Matthew Walker." "Wait a minute -- 'Matthew Walker'?" "Yeah." "Weird; me too."

Two weeks ago, a friend of mine who had left Korea came back for a visit. His name is Ron. He said he'd be staying with his friend, Todd, and gave me Todd's number so I could get in touch with him (Ron). Just out of curiosity, I checked the two Todd numbers -- the one Ron gave me and the one Todd had given me several weeks before. Yep, same Todd.

So via Todd I got in contact with Ron, who had by this time acquired an old cell phone from a friend of his to use for the week. I asked, "Who's the friend?" "Moe." "How long has he been here?" "About three years." "Oh, cool."

A few days after Ron left Korea again, I was talking to a guy at a bar who introduced me to his friend, Moe. "Wait a minute -- 'Moe'? How long have you been here?" "Three years." "Oh, so you're the Moe whose phone Ron was borrowing." "Yeah -- you know Ron?" "Yeah; weird."

That week I had met a girl named Suzanne who just started a contract here. The day after I met Moe at the bar, she told me she had bought an old cell phone off this guy named Moe. I said, "Wait a minute -- 'Moe'? How long has he been here?" "Like three years or something." "Let me see that phone." I checked the numbers, and it was the same phone.

Maybe none of that makes sense, but the point is that this place is tiny when you speak English. It's also not uncommon to run into my students, sometimes all the way across the city. It's so weird. Bainbridge has small-town competition for sure.