Anecdotes

Numba One

Being single in Korea is a funny thing. When meeting my students, in every single class (and I had 10 this past semester), at least one student asked if I have a boyfriend. Many Korean adults (including all three of my co-teachers) ask me that when they meet me. One friend told me about her principal gathering a lineup of single Korean men for her to choose from during dinner! More than once, I've heard a single friend say that yet again, a Korean asked "Why aren't you married yet?" It can get a bit annoying, but it's not as if that doesn't exist at home. Koreans are more direct about it than I'm used to, but I also think my family is particularly indirect about it. And a lot less worried about it, generally. Which is PERFECT for me, thankyouverymuch.

So, last Thursday, I went to a GIANT end-of-school-year lunch with all of the middle school teachers. It was really nice and fun. We ate for TWO HOURS (the courses just kept coming). The P.E. teacher kept trying to get me to sing Jingle Bells and the teacher across from me was being pretty adorable about trying to get me to drink Soju (some other time, I'll have to write about their drinking rituals... That's a whole blog entry right there). At some point during the dinner, the administrative guy sitting to my left asked if I "need a man on Christmas" in English. Of course, my feminism bristled and I wasn't entirely sure what he was driving at, but I just said "uh, that's ok" in Korean. Then he asked if I liked older men (pointing to himself) or younger men (pointing to the adorable social studies teacher across me). I said "uhm, I like nice men" in English. He giggled at me and moved on. AWKWARD.

Numba Two

Last Saturday, I was riding the subway back toward my home from Gwangju. I was writing furiously in my sketchbook, as I've been doing sporadically for weeks. Before I can actually storyboard my comic about my relationships with various mentors, I've decided to pretty much write out every memory and/or observation about those relationships. Rather than being as blunt as I was in the first chapter of my comic, I've decided to make the contents abstractions of the common themes in those relationships. In a different country and a new community, I don't feel as comfortable putting it all out there as I did showing my work at university (also, I now say "university" instead of "college." weird.)

At any rate, I was writing on a tangent of sorts (funny that, me on a tangent....). I was thinking about a time I had gone to a dinner 'n' scripture discussion at a Catholic church in Erie with a previous mentor. That night, we were talking about the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, a story that had always bothered me. I remember telling the priest that I thought that it was quite manipulative of Jesus to just hang back for 3 days, waiting for Lazarus to die, so that he could impress everyone. I don't remember the priest's response at the time. Now, it's important to point out that I left the Church when I was 20 and am now in the (slow...) process of converting to Judaism. [I've not been the most rigorous student the past two years. That's something I need to amend stateside, once I have my own synagogue and rabbi.] So, it's odd that I was writing about Jesus at all.

As I was sorting out my current thoughts on the story, a very happy looking Korean woman suddenly appeared in front of me. I realized she was speaking to me and let her go on for a minute. When she paused I said "jogeum Hangul" (a little Korean) and pointed to myself. She pointed upward and said "Jesus." I pointed to myself again and said "Yoo-dae-een" (Jew). She said "Thank you," shook my hand, told me to have a nice day, and walked to the next car. It was wonderfully silly.

I find the proselytizing Koreans quite adorable. They're just so happy. And with a language barrier, wonderfully brief. Except for that guy on the bicycle, but his enthusiasm made up for his lack of brevity.

Numba Two Point Three

My first sentence written by myself in Korean (and as such is probably wrong):

저는 늦어서.
Juh-neun neut-uh-suh
"I'm late."

That's it for now!