Before I go any further, let me state for the record that what follows are my observations and my observations only; nothing should be taken as a sweeping generalization and while truthful, I'm sure not all of it can be taken for fact. Judge the veracity of my statements against your own intelligence and experience. Actually, that's a pretty good formula for judging the veracity of anyone's statements.
1) It is considered (somehow) disrespectful to wear a seat belt in a person's car.
2) I don't need to know the conversion of miles to kilometers to know that 150 kph is fast, especially on a slick, narrow, country road.
3) Mayonnaise is almost as ubiquitous as rice.
4) Foreigners can only withdrawal cash from international ATMs, making the won in my pocket pretty scarce, as I am in a reasonably rural province.
5) When asked if you like "soybean noodle soup" discard any visions of steamy broth-laden vegetable and noodle and then say "no thank you." Imagine the milky remains of a bowl of honey nut cheerios, you know, that last bowl when all the powdery cheerios falls into the bowl and makes the milk not only sweet, but grainy. Then add julienned strips of cucumber, a whole lotta fat noodles, and a single soybean.
6) Anything not human is treated decidedly less than humanely here. Little girls threaten dogs with umbrellas (and said dogs subsequently flinch) at church when they dare to consider stepping in out of the rain. They don't like people wearing shoes in their houses; you can imagine what filthy, filthy people that makes animal lovers like myself, who for instance, sleeps with two cats and would care little if I had a dog and it came inside.
7) Generally, the mosquitoes here don't really like me, but when they go in for a bite, they invariably chew on my ankles.
8) Stick figures, line drawings, and liberal gesticulation work wonders to get one's point across, especially when one's dictionary is hardly comprehensive and all shared language has been exhausted (about 12 seconds).
9) I really don't like plates of food that can look back at me.
10) Hanging squid out to dry, with clothespins, on the clothesline, right next to the towels, is a perfectly acceptable thing to do.
11) Looking like a westerner and smiling and saying "I don't speak Korean" is not enough to dissuade old ladies from speaking to you in it regardless.
12) A bow and a nod go a long way.
13) I am fluent in family.
14) Six hours of church won't actually kill me.
15) But, with few exceptions, the bible still pretty much manages to evoke at least a low-grade irritation. If I cared more, it would probably piss me off.
16) Thunder was named such for a damn good reason. Wow.
17) Postcards are almost as difficult to find as international ATMs.
18) Koreans can tell you every health property imaginable in your food (onions are good for lowering cholesterol, didn't you know) but there are trucks that drive around town letting off huge clouds of gas (imagine a dense fog that covers an entire block at a time, so thick you can't see through your windshield, and that takes a good 30 seconds to disperse) which are either anti-septic, or pesticides, to kills germs and bugs. "Same thing," they say, "makes it clean."
19) I'd almost forgotten how much I love the sound of frogs when I'm drifting off to sleep.
20) I did not, however, forget that I love the smell of rain.
21) I can't recall what it feels like to be hungry. I mean really hungry. I hope to be so as much as possible, once I leave my homestay family.
22) Koreans like ice cream. A lot.
Well, that will do for now, I suppose.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment