Green Tea Ice Cream

The other night was a very memorable one at the hasukjib.  연장자 (yeonjangja), which is how I jokingly refer to one of the older students at the hasukjib (it means elder or superior, and Nuna liked it so much that she even calls him by that name too), commented on my beard again, as well as the amount of food that I eat.  It was said that there was a previous student living at the hasukjib who ate so much that once he arrived for a meal, all of the other students had to eat really quickly or else all of the food would be gone. I don't think I'm at that point yet.  We were also talking about ice cream during dinner, so I offered to go out and buy some for everyone, on the condition that Yeonjangja would take me to a movie sometime in return.  I was only joking of course, and Yeonjangja suggested that I take Kayeonhee, one of the girls living at the hasukjib as well. I replied "좋겠다!" (That would be good!) and immediately blushed afterwards as everyone started laughing at me.

In the end, Yeonjangja and I went out to bring back some ice cream for everyone from a nearby Baskin Robins.  Yeonjangja's favorite flavor was Gone With The Wind (바람함께...something), and since I had never heard of it, we had to try it.  In addition to Gone With The Wind, we also brought back some Green Tea ice cream for Nuna, her favorite kind.  It was nice to get out with Yeonjangja, and I was able to find out a little bit more about Nuna from him being outside of the hasukjib with him.  He told me that Nuna was very special for all that she does for us at the hasukjib.  For her to be doing the kind of work she does at her young age is also very amazing and something you don't see very often.  The reason why she works at the hasukjib seemed like a private matter, so we just left it at that.  Another thing that I've come to love about Nuna is the way she cares for and raises her daughter.  I know it is definitely no little task preparing all of our meals everyday and keeping up with the work around the hasukjib.  But she does it without asking for anything in return and, on top of that, finds quality time to spend with her daughter.  I can often hear Nuna and her daughter outside my window, and, although Nuna has a layer of toughness about her in order to make it through all of the day's tasks, I know what a kind person and loving mother she is from the way she speaks to her daughter.  While a day in the life of Nuna seems to always involve exhausting work, she seems to have the simple things in life figured out:  taking care of the needs of others, making time for family, and enjoying company of family and friends.  I know I've written about Nuna on several other occasions, but I just think there is a lot to learn from her.

Yeonjangja and I ended up bringing two buckets of ice cream back to the hasukjib which we all shared together.  Nuna really liked her Green Tea ice cream.  There was a real family-like atmosphere to the whole night at the hasukjib, just enjoying each other's company.  Nuna even had Yeonjangja and I challenge each other in a game of arm wrestling to cap off the night's festivities.  I plan to get Nuna another bucket of Green Tea ice cream before I leave.

Andong

Last weekend I had the chance to visit Andong, "The Capital of The Korean Spirit," according to the brochure.  In order to get there, two helpful Korean friends took on the taxing duty of getting the whole group safely to Andong, which took about five hours total by car (including breaks in between at rest stops).  One thing I've come to notice about Korean hospitality is that Koreans treat their guests very well.  Not only do they make an effort to present their country in a positive light, but more importantly, I've felt that all of my Korean hosts really care about the well being of their guests and go the extra mile to see that they are well taken care of.  As a foreigner in this country, I'm still wondering what the expectation of the guest is, or if there is any at all.  I definitely feel a sense of gratitude for all that my hosts have done for and given to me, and will hopefully find a way to repay them for their kindness.  

It's sort of weird to think that I will probably never see these two Korean men again who served as our tour guides for the trip.  They simply came into my life for a span of two days and provided our whole group with a wonderful experience.  One of the things that I will remember the most about them is how they navigated through some of the most rural areas of Andong unsystematically but grittily.  Our two cars winded along curvy dirt roads through endless rice fields, under the helm of these two Korean men.  At one point during the drive we had no idea where we were and could not continue along the dirt road anymore anyway because there was a huge cow blocking the way.  At this point, one of the men got out of the car and asked a halmonim, an older lady who was farming on the side of the road, for directions.  This instance was only one example of the way our hosts took care of us. It's interesting how people come in and out of your life at different times.  While I may have only known these two men for two days, their acts of kindness and assistance have become memories that will last a lifetime.

When we first arrived at Andong, we visited Hahoe Folk Village, which is known for it's mask festivals and performances, and contains various typical Korean houses preserved since the early Joseon Dynasty.  We had jjimdak for lunch, which is seasoned and simmered chicken.  It is an Andong specialty and a must-eat meal if you are in Andong.  We then made our way to see a traditional mask performance. In the performance, the actors wore different masks and with them assumed different personalities as well as a role within Korean society.  Some of the different masks included a crafty Farmer, a grieving halmonim, some sort of drunken man, and the yangban, or traditional ruling class during the Joseon Dynasty.  The actors were also accompanied by the traditional Korean music of drums and wind instrument.  It was a form of storytelling and a way to connect with and preserve Korean traditions.  The audience also seemed to really be getting into the performance as well, as some audience members even went down on the stage and started dancing with the performers.

After touring the village, we made our way to the traditional Korean house where we would spend the night.  After winding through more rice fields and valleys, we made it to the location of our camp site which was tucked snugly in the back of the mountains.  It was nice to be in nature's embrace and away from Seoul's busy streets and bright lights.  It was clear that night too, and I had forgotten what it was like to see the stars.  We started the barbecue up and barbecued up a storm of meat.  I went all out on the barbecue, and must of went a little too crazy because the next day I woke up with some small burns.  This was great timing to get a burn because I had just learned how to say "I got burnt by the fire" in class the other day.  The burns were nothing serious though, and they are pretty much fully healed now.  After dinner, we took quick showers in the makeshift bathrooms due to the cold water.  And then we played 윷놀이 (yunnori), a traditional Korean game played with sticks.  We had learned about this game in class, and it was a great experience to actually play it.  Our team ended up coming in last the first game.  But by the second game, we had come to understand the rules better and made an amazing turnaround by beating the competition by a wide margin (the losing team had to due some sort of embarrassing task. When we lost we had to sing and dance).  Then it was time for bed.  We slept on the floors in the traditional style, and I actually was able to get a pretty good night's sleep.  Although we had to get up pretty early the next morning, waking up to the beautiful view from our lodging and feeling the mountain's embrace around us was very rejuvenating.

On our second day in Andong, we visited several different religious sites including Bongjeongsa Temple and the Icheon-dong Buddha.  Buddhism still plays an important role in Korean life, which was evident in the reverence emanating from these sacred places.  We also visited the site of a Korean drama (Andong is a very popular place to make Korean films because of its well-preserved traditional folk settings).  We headed back home on this second day.  Most of us were pretty beat, and slept during most of the ride back.  There were about thirteen of us total, and it was a very nice group of people to spend time with on this excursion, all of whom were Sogang students.

Once back at Sinchon station, an unfortunate event occurred.  As I was about to exit the station, I became aware of a growing circle of people forming right in the middle of the subway station.  I could not see what was the focus of attention, as everyone was trying to get a glimpse at what was going on in the middle of the circle.  When I pushed a little further in, I saw a girl a little older than I sprawled out on the floor of the station as if someone had just hit her.  I could not see her face which was hidden by her disheveled hair facing the ground.  Her arms and hands were shaking as if she was in a state of fear and trauma.  Above her stood a boy a little older than I, who seemed to be the cause of this girl's traumatic state.  He was yelling at her intimidatingly to get up and even tried picking her up, but the girl was in such a state of shock that she just fell feebly back down to the ground.  As the this was happening, the circle was getting larger as subway goers tried to get a look at what was going on.  What was disturbing about the whole situation was that everyone was just watching this helpless and paralyzed girl on the ground.  Eventually a security guard came and took the boy away, and I'm not exactly sure what happened to the girl.  It was sort of scary to see the type of domestic violence that can occur and the kind of response it gets.

Time for a Shave

Last week Friday we had our mid-term speaking exam.  For this exam, we had to randomly select and carry out three dialogues (out of sixteen) with one of our classmates.  Because we didn't know which dialogues were going to be selected on the day of the exam, we had to prepare dialogues for all sixteen scenarios.  My partner and I practiced a lot, and fortunately we got to do the dialogue that involved dancing and singing a song from the Wonder Girls (one of Korea's biggest female pop groups).

Just recently at the hasukjib I received an interesting comment.  One of the girls noticed I hadn't shaved for a while due to the fact that I had a pretty shaggy beard, and she commented on this.  At first, I wasn't sure if this was a mere observation or complaint.  I hadn't shaved for probably a couple weeks, mostly because of my laziness and indifference to appearance.  And obviously, it had caught the attention of this girl and Nuna as well.  I guess having facial hair is pretty noticeable here, since most Korean men don't have very much of it.  Although the attention to and consciousness of one's outward appearance are very high here, I haven't felt like I needed to go out of my way to fit the fashion trends here.  In the end, I shaved this weekend, but will probably let it grow back out again.  I know my mom is not going to be happy about this story (Sorry!).

Ever since I started learning Korean, one of the things that I always had a hard time understanding was the use of 존댓말 (formal speech) and 반말 (informal speech).  존댓말 is used whenever you are talking to someone older than you or are meeting someone for the first time and don't know whether or not this person is older or younger than you.  반말 is used amongst close friends and towards people younger than you.  Switching between the two, or more importantly, knowing when to switch between the two, continues to be very difficult and often awkward for me.  Depending on which speech you use, a relationship between the two speakers is established.  In this sense, Korean is a very hierarchical language in which it is important to know the level and standing of the two people talking.  Interestingly enough, one of the first things Korean people of my age usually ask me when we first meet is what age I am.  This is to verify which form of speech is to be used between us.  If I am just one year older than them, I am entitled to use 존댓말 (formal speech).  Unfortunately, I was unaware of this until recently, and because of my lack of discernment to know which form of speech to use, I basically have only been using 반말 with everyone I meet.  Because I am a foreigner, however, I am cut some slack.  If Korean was my native language I probably would be reprimanded for using improper forms of speech and breaching the hierarchical social standards .  I am still trying to understand the intricacies and social undertones behind these different forms of speech, and still get mixed up when and where to use them.

I've also wondered how the different forms of speech affect the levels of intimacy between the speakers, if there is any influence at all.  For example, using 반말 (informal speech) could signify the closeness of the relationship.  If you and your friend have a close relationship, despite your difference in age, you can choose to use 반말 with each other.  However, when I use 반말 I sometimes feel as if I am being disrespectful or looking down on the person I'm addressing.  Perhaps this is just a misconception.  Is using 반말 a sign of our close relationship, or does it convey disrespect and disregard for social standards?  Thus, it becomes very hard to know what exactly you are conveying with the form of language you are using. Obviously, when a mother speaks 반말 to her child (like Nuna), this is not a sign of disrespect but rather a sign of love and affection perhaps, right?

Using 존댓말 (formal speech), on the other hand, seems to convey submissiveness to an older person, although I'm not sure if this is the right interpretation either.  It is used to show respect when speaking to someone older than you.  However, if it only shows signs of respect, can a level of intimacy ever be reached through 존댓말?  Or is there always going to be a degree of separation between the speakers?

 I think I've just confused myself even more after all this talk.  I'm sorry if I've confused you as well.

Real-life Situations

Some interesting things have come up recently.  But before I go into them, I want to recap a fun story that happened during class a couple of weeks ago.  We were going over a dialogue that involved approaching an academic administrator and bringing up some sort of complaint relating to the school.  Now these dialogues that we methodically go over in class are all hypothetical situations that we might encounter in the future in Korea.  However, in order to make these situations more realistic, my teacher for some strange reason thought it would be a good idea for me to actually utilize this dialogue in a real-life situation.  Thus, in the middle of our class she made me go to the 7th floor where the administrators' offices are and give a complaint, just like our dialogue had.  And since the clock in our classroom was broken, this would be the perfect thing to ask the administrator's to fix.  I involuntarily agreed to carry out this task and reluctantly made my way down to the 7th floor, trying quickly to remember how the dialogue went.  Once in front of the administration office, I approached one of the workers and informed her why I had come--our clock needed to be fixed.  What a good reason.  I definitely made a lot of mistakes throughout the whole conversation, probably because I was nervous and caught off guard quite a bit by the whole situation.  Amazingly, however, the conversation was almost exactly the same as the dialogue we were studying in class.  Although I was hesitant to carry out this task at first, I definitely benefitted from going out of my comfort zone and engaging in a real situation.  Moreover, it showed how useful the dialogues we study can be and how similar they are to real-life conversation, as they can sort of seem redundant at times after studying them in class over and over again.  After it was all over, I wondered whether or not the whole thing was staged, considering how close the conversation and dialogue in our student books were.  Oh, and our clock eventually got fixed.

So there is this girl in my class named Valerie.  She is from San Francisco but has been living in Korea for about 17 months (and I thought two and a half months was a long time!).  I've definitely learned a lot from her and she casts a new light on Korean culture and life that I had not seen before.  Over the past four weeks of being in class together, we've both found that we barely share anything in common, which is probably one of the reasons why we've become friends.  She loves rock music, I abhor it.  I love the winter season, she abhors it.  She loves horror films, I love chick flicks.  She also doesn't feel a strong connection to her home in San Francisco, whereas I definitely feel like my home in Hawai'i is where my roots are.  Despite our differences, I've come to respect a quality of hers, one that I don't really have (another one of our differences), which is her bluntness; she speaks her mind loudly and doesn't care at all what other people think about what she says.  For example, we'll be the only two foreigners eating in a Korean restaurant amongst other Korean people, and she'll blurt out everything that is wrong with the Korean education system or some other sort of negative remark about the country.  At first I sort of had to duck my head below the table, but I've become used to her brutal frankness and dealing with it.  Obviously seeing Korea through another foreigner's or American's eyes will be different from a Korean perspective, but after living in Korea for 17 months, Valerie definitely paints a vivid picture of the realities of Korea.  And while at times I think her bluntness could be tempered with restraint and awareness of others around her, her lack of inhibitions and reservations when speaking is something I admire.  Maybe we aren't as different as we think.  Although I know I'll never like rock music.

So in news around the hasukjib.....Last night we had an interesting conversation during dinner.  Usually when Nuna and the Korean students are talking in Korean, I basically do the best that I can to piece together their conversation like a puzzle from the words and grammar that I can pick up.  In the conversation last night, for about half of the conversation the only words and phrases that I could pick up were "man", "person living on the first floor", "scary", "going out to smoke a cigarette", "lying about not eating breakfast", and "uncomfortable."  As you can see, it can be interesting trying to imagine and put together a coherent story from this list of miscellaneous words and phrases.  It wasn't until the end of the conversation that I finally understood what they were talking about for the past twenty minutes.  This sort of thing happens often when I reach an epiphany and understand the conversation in its entirety!  When this occurs, most times one of the Korean students has taken the time to tell the whole story at a slower pace for me on the side in order for me to understand.  Well, anyway, last night's conversation was about the possibility that one of the students living in the hasukjib was gay.  Apparently, as the conversation went, he had been sneaking in late at night as well as living with another male friend in his room at the hasukjib.  Although he had tried doing this secretively, Nuna had become aware of this covert operation.  One of the girls who lives on the same floor as this guy seemed paranoid about the whole situation and said she was scared.  She had seen the two men go into the room together.  I asked her "무슨 소리가 나와요?" and she found that amusing.  I told her that I had gay friends back at school and that it's actually quite common.  This conversation over dinner was the first and only time that homosexuality had come up since I've been here.  I definitely have not seen any signs of it out in public.  The fact that we could openly discuss and talk about the issue together, however, was a sign of tolerance.

Tonight, I had another good dinner at my hasukjib.  Not only was the food delicious, but the company was quite good as well.  After I finished eating, I managed to stay another hour inside with Nuna, just talking.  Another reason I stayed longer, I must say, was because Nuna let Tallay, her Boston Terrier, out of her room to play.  I miss my dogs back home and will jump on any opportunity to have some dog time.  Nuna actually got a little jealous because Tallay would stay by my side, even when Nuna called her.  At one point, she even told Tallay to go back home to Hawai'i with me, since Tallay seemed to have a fancy for me.  "누구랑 살아요?!" she asked Tallay ("Who do you live with?").  I feel like Nuna has opened up to me a bit more since I first came to the hasukjib.  She actually seems interested to talk to me now which is encouraging.  I think she likes having the company of the students here, since it seems like it can get lonely when she's all by herself.  I'm still not exactly sure what her family situation is.  I've seen her husband once, but I don't think they live together.  And her daughter only visits the hasukjib at certain times.  In any case, I'm thankful for Nuna's hard work and kindness.

So as far as first-time experiences go, I went on my first 노래방 adventure today (노래방 is like a karaoke room).  It was fantastic.  As soon as we entered the 노래방 we were surrounded by swirling neon lights and bumping music.  The room we were in was totally souped up with comfortable couches and intense sound systems.  Since coming to Korea, I've sort of familiarized myself with the vibrant pop scene, and have become a fan of some of the Korean singing groups.  I attempted a couple of Korean songs that I knew of, but soon found out that I still need a lot of practice.  I'll probably study up on the lyrics at some point again so that the next time I go back to a 노래방 (there will definitely be a next time!) I'll be a little sharper on my lyrical expression and dance moves.