Notes on Korea....
1. I have yet to decide whether it is better to breathe through my nose or mouth. The smells in the air remind me of pure sewage mixed with rotten animal carcass and a whiff of motor bike exhaust. Nose, mouth, it is gross either way.
2. I think I am going to start a Goodbye Kitty business. Hello Kitty is so successful, why can't I be?
3. Korean children have no bridge of their nose, watching them try to keep glasses on is sadly hilarious.
4. You cheat death every time you successfully cross a street.
5. If you don't know what you are eating thats probably a good thing.
6. I get pointed at all the time. I have no idea whether it is my boob size they are laughing at or my face. If I am wearing my massive sunglasses then I know it is the former.
7. Cab drivers will spend the entire cab ride teaching you the correct pronunciation of your address so you don't have to point to the spelling on a laminated cheat sheet.
8. Every so often a van comes by with billowing steam pouring out of the contraption on the back. Only after you breath in said steam do you realize that it is bug repellant, choke, keel over and die from poisonous gas inhalation. The neighborhood children love to run after the van and bask in the spray. I will find them dead on the corner someday.
9. Korean children think they know more about Full House then I do. Idiots.
10. I have become an expert on mumbling things that don't even sound remotely like thank you or goodbye but as long as I do it with a wee little bow of the head I feel genuine enough. Maybe I should start learning.
11. Everything outside looks the same. Maybe it is the writing on the buildings. I don't know. There are no indicators like "take a left at the starbucks." All I have to go from is the wall with the waterfall printed on it means I am within a 15 block radius of my home establishment.
12. People in department stores are trained to dance when particular songs come on the speaker. This I am determined to capture on video!
13. I am a master at gesticulating to get what I want. I also seem to talk with my hyphenated language skills, i.e "YOU-GO-WASH-HANDS-NOW" "YOU-WORK-I-SLEEP-IN-CORNER, DON'T-TALK-LOUD", you get the idea, apparently the kids do too. Sometimes.
14. Three year olds speak more English than my boss.
15. There is no such thing as dumpsters or garbage cans for that matter. Bags of trash are discarded on the sidewalk and street until someone decided to move them to another location (most likely the river that runs along my apartment.)
16. There are no Trader Joes in Korea. I asked.
17. You can kill 30 minutes of class time by showing kids American money. They were so intensely interested I am debating about repeating it next week.
18. Our copy machine is in Korean. I'm screwed.
19. My freaking 8 year olds have a cell phone and I don't.
20. It rains here. Monsoon weather they call it. Not sure what to expect.
You are adding to this list, right?
ReplyDeleteMost is it was hilarious.
There were some sad parts.
And I now feel bad that I went to Trader Joe's today.
I laughed my ass off at most of it, like number 1 on your list. sorry about the copier that sucks. Hope all is well though.
ReplyDelete