Public..........things!!!

I've gotten over the whole no dryers thing, and I think I may manage to survive another x years without Chick-fil-A, but I've decided that there are two things that are quite lacking in South Korea.

1. Trash Cans
I've mentioned this before, but after last weekend, I believe it deserves a revival. The reason why people leave their trash EVERYWHERE in Korea is that there is no place to throw away anything!! Or, if there is, then that space is occupied by like 10 receptacles with specific purposes, which I'm sure are clearly outlined on the signs that are too faded for me to read. I carried around a Starbucks cup for an hour last weekend because I couldn't find a place to throw it away (conscience was too guilty to just leave it on the train).

I am wondering if the lack of trash cans is just the government's way of creating jobs for the elderly. All around my complex, there's a giant team of ajumas whose job it is to straighten up the trash area. Koreans are quite picky about recycling, and anything that isn't supposed to be thrown away is usually just thrown in front of the (what in the world would you call those things?) From everything I've gathered, this is the proper procedure. However, if you live in Suji, please reply and explain to me the difference between the purplish-red and the purplish-blue but-otherwise-identical trash centers. I know one is trash that can be burned and the other.....isn't...but I don't get the difference.. .

2. Public Restrooms
Before we begin - I'm not entirely sure I want my grandmother to read this. Well. Maybe it's more that I don't want my grandmother knowing how much I think about bathroom behavior.. .

Okay, yes, I know they exist. But I always happen to be in that one part of Seoul when I REALLY HAVE TO go potty (terminology is backlash from having a pediatric nurse for a mother - the phrase stuck =p). I've mapped out the public restrooms in the places I visit regularly...with the exception of the Gangnam subway station - that sucker just keeps teleporting on me. I've come to terms with squat toilets, and even with the one-giant-roll-of-tissue-outside-of-the-stalls-for-everyone-to-share. I even got past the whole no-soap thing (hello anti-bacterial cream).

That said, if I rubbed the magic bathroom lap (don't even try to make a metaphor out of that one) and the genie only granted me one wish, it would not be an increase in quantity. Oh no. It would be to redesign the entire country's men's room floor plan. Specifically, the location of the urinals in proximity to the doors. Other foreigners in Korea know what I'm talking about: there is no privacy wall or convenient corner to hide these babies behind. No. If you walk by a men's room (which usually is required when walking out of a lady's), you are face-to-face with a row of urinals. Being that it is obviously located in Korea, my school is designed the same way. I'm frightened out of my mind that I'm going to walk out of the bathroom one day while one of my male students is taking care of business.

Sidenote: According to a sign in the Suji Shinsegae restrooms, there is such a thing as the Korean Toilet Association.

Public Transportation

Living in Korea has become a culture shock for a number of different reasons. The obvious aside, this is the first time in my adult (or at least old enough to be allowed to go out on my own) that I've lived in such a big city (yes, I know that I don't actually live in Seoul, but it's close enough). This is also the first time that I've lived anywhere in which public transportation is the preferable option. For my first several months here, I only used the subway. I couldn't really read hangul and I didn't know enough about where I was going to want to chance getting off at the wrong stop and then just getting lost.

Then came the weekend we went to Busan. I had a choice - I could get up at 5am and take the subway, or I could sleep until 7 and take the M4101. Guess which one won? The M4101 was actually a good "first step" bus because it has this convenient light-up sign that shows where you are on the route and a marquee sign that alternates between Korean and English (which, as I've discovered as time's gone on, is usually malfunctioning). A few weeks later, we had to take the 8201 to Gangnam, and I realized that I totally recognized the whole area and totally could do this By Myself. I stopped taking the subway and was bus-only.

Until the battle started. The M4101 is convenient, but not without a price. The M busses don't allow you to stand, so once all the seats are filled, that's it. And everyone who lives in Suji wants to be on the M4101 when coming back from north-eastern Seoul. It got to the point in which I would dread coming into the city because I just wasn't looking forward to the ride home (as Tim knows, that dread wasn't enough to stop me from our almost weekly meetings in Myeong-dong =p). I'm also not a general fan of the whole pre-boarding zoo. Koreans, who are polite people, become pushy and impatient when a bus or subway shows up. They crowd to the beginning of the line, and act as if the world is melting behind them and their only escape is that bus.

So, getting to the thought behind this entry (yay long preludes), tonight wound up with me on the opposite side of Seoul than I originally intended (I was supposed to meet a friend for TACO BELL which just opened in Korea, but he totally stood me up - otherwise, this entry would've been about how Taco Bell is just one of those American things that's impossible to explain to non-meeguks). I had a choice: line 2 to Gangnam and 8201 home, or just keep taking the train back to Suji. Being that it's been a while since I've spent quality time with the Bundang line (last time was either Aaron's Last Weekend or the time I was refused entry to the M4101 and had the convo with Tim about how I felt like Rosa Parks), I decided to take the train home. Man, it takes longer, but it is so much nicer! None of that traffic nonsense! It's so much quieter! The walk home is a pain, but it also made me feel less guilty about the....things I've eaten and probably shouldn't have *^^*.

With today not involving meeting Edward (oh he gets a name on the blog!) in Itaewon (omg, yes, my first visit to Itaewon - which I've successfully avoided for the entire 5 and a half months I've been here - resulted in me getting stood up! Jerkface...), Tim came to my social rescue and invited me to crash his dinner party with our mutual friend, Siobhain (yes, Macbook spell-check, she *does* spell her name with 2 i's), who has introduced me to the knitting world of foreigners in Seoul. She also sold me some of her stash yarn, which is pretty sweet seeing as my supply is running a bit low.. She lives near the Sports Complex, which is an insanely beautiful area! I'm adding that to one of the places I'd like to live while I'm still in Korea.

I Got Lost!

There is no metaphor behind that title - I literally got lost. More lost than I have ever been in Korea. Before we go any further, I feel the need to reassure all concerned parties (e.g., my parents) of something insanely important: I live in one of the top five safest places on the PLANET. Little children in Suji-gu walk home alone after their 10pm academies let out.

Back story: My friend Tim threw me a "surprise" birthday party. Surprise in quotation marks because I knew about it (however, it did involve one fantastic surprise - I got to see my favorite Korean friend who had said earlier that he was completely busy...he did have to leave right away, but it was nice seeing him :)). We had a very American dinner followed by norebang (Lady Marmalade!) and it was exactly what I wanted.

Okay. So. Tonight was definitely the night of Bad Decisions. Not the type of bad decisions that involve hospitals and babies and brain poisoning, but definitely not ones that involved thinking. Bad Decision one was not to get on the M-4101 - a bus that goes directly from Myeong-dong (the neighborhood in Seoul where we had dinner/norebang) to Suji. I have a love-hate relationship with that bus because it's such a battle to get on. The M busses don't allow people to stand, so once all the seats are full, that's it. And everyone wants on that bus because it's the fastest way to get back to Suji from north of the river. Instead, I got on the 5500-2. Mostly because it was there. And convenient. It's a G-bus...and while they are less crowded, they also don't have that nice convenient light-up map that shows where you are on the route. Leading us to mistake number two (the Big One).

I got off at the wrong stop. I wasn't quite sure where we were. I heard the bus announcement say "Suji" - I looked around outside, thought I recognized the area, and just jumped off. I was afraid that I'd stay on it too long. Bad Decision number three is directly correlated: I looked around and realized I was a bit further away from Pungdeokcheong-dong (my neighborhood) than I realized, so I looked around again, thought I saw one of the downtown buildings, and started walking straight. I was wrong. Then I saw the M-4101 take a turn, so I followed it thinking that it would lead me to stuff I recognized. Wrong again. Had no clue how to get back to the bus stop. Had no clue where I was in relation to anything.

So I hailed a cab. Told him that I wanted to go to Pungdeokcheong. He had no clue where that was. So I told him to take me to the Suji Lotte Mart. He insisted there was no Lotte Mart in Suji (if any coworkers are reading this, here is a good place to laugh - to those who don't live here, I go to the Suji Lotte Mart like once a week). So I did the only thing I could think to do. I called Tim so he could help translate (Tim, if you're reading this, I love you and thank you forever for talking to that cab driver; I'm going to speak for my mother and tell you that she loves you too as you were involved in me getting un-lost, even though the idiot cab driver was...well...still an idiot). I overhear him telling Tim that there is no Lotte in Suji, but there is a Shinsegae in Jukjeon. Ok, fine, it's a million years away from my apt, but I know where it is in reference to where I live and, obviously, how to get home. So I tell the man that the Shinsegae in Jukjeon is fine. He looks at me as if I have 8 heads and starts driving. I look around to see if there's anything I recognize so I don't have to make that long-ass walk home. Nothing. Oh well. We get to an intersection that I kinda recognize, and he points out Lotte Mart and asks if that's where I want to go. YES!!! Well, he turns toward Shinsegae anyway. At one point, I swear he said something insanely derogative about having a foreigner in his cab..

Drops me off at Shinsegae. I walk home, laughing the whole 15 minutes. The whole time, I was just a few blocks away from where I wanted to be.

Top Five Annoying Things about Students in Korea

I've already pulled the culture card once on here, so I might as well throw a round of Go Fish.

I mentioned this as a venting on my blog, but, come on, we can all relate..

1. Oh-my-god-my-____________-fell-and-I-have-to-get-it-right-now!!!!!!
Picture this. You're teaching class. Your kids have been a bit overly rambunctious and you're pulling your Satan-teacher card to scare them into being quiet. You've done it. They're all listening. You're telling them that whatever-important thing that they need to know _right now_, and, for once, you think you won't have to repeat yourself. Then a kid drops his eraser. Despite the fact that they're doing nothing relating to writing at the moment, the kid goes into a manic frenzy. Of course, it's the kid who sits in the middle of the row, so it's not just a matter of reaching over and picking it up. Oh no, whatever attention you had is now completely lost as the kid leans over his desk and looks forlornly at his lost friend. Then the once-quiet class becomes an eruption of grinding as the kid scoots his desk forward so he can capture his eraser underneath. Don't even think about telling the kid to wait until you are done talking. Oh no. Clearly, possession of the eraser is linked to bodily functions, and the kid NEEDS it right next to him AT ALL TIMES or else his lungs will collapse. The more important whatever it is you're telling them, the more frantic the kid will become if he drops something.

2. Umbrellas
This is probably a cross-cultural thing. When it rains, kids come to school with umbrellas, and they quickly become automatic toys. I think it's worse with kids here because more tend to carry umbrellas (I thank the parents for this). But we've all had it - the sword fights, the pretend machine guns, and, my favorite, whatever you call the game where they trip each other. The annoyance doesn't end with the mischievous ones, either - as umbrellas have no way to independently free-stand, rainy days become a chorus of "clack, clack, clack" as gravity bests the unwieldy objects and they clatter to the ground from their precarious perches. Related to the previous, the kids can't just let them be* - oh no - they need to jump up and fix it RIGHT NOW. No matter what is happening at the moment, they've got to right their umbrella. Because clearly it is a bomb and will explode if they don't fix it immediately.

*Well, 1% of them can, but they are the ones who like to sit on the edges, and their umbrellas are scientifically designed to fall right across my path.

3. Two volumes: 0 and 10000000000
Korean kids have one of two tones of voice. Either they speak at a volume that only certain species of bat can hear (because clearly foreign teachers are bats), or THEY TALK IN ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME. The quiet ones can't be understood - and they're usually insanely sweet, so you feel awful that you have no clue if they're saying "Teacher, I need help with number 5" or "Potatoes and bananas are a terrible combination." The loud ones - well, that's obvious.

4. "TEACHER, FINISHEE!!"
Does this one even need an explanation? Okay, from people back home who are reading this, a few things you should know.. There's a word in the Korean language for "teacher" - it's a very polite term, and that's what they use to address their teachers (they don't call them Ms. or Mr. So-and-so); there's no word equivalent in English, so they just call us "Teacher" - I expected this to be annoying, but it's actually kind of cute (and a bajillion times less annoying than choruses of "Ms. Eagle! Ms. Eagle!"

But I digress..

"Teacher, finishee!" is a whole new level of nails-against-a-chalkboard. I'm not sure if this is something their public school teachers encourage, or a habit that one kid started and the rest picked up on like a cruel Punk'd joke, but for some reason, Korean kids _love_ to announce when they're done with something. It's like a contest between them. You just want to look at the kid and go, "Okay, your point?" but you know that's not polite. My response is usually to tell them what to do next, and they always look so dejected that I'm not praising them for their accomplishment (sorry, but you don't get a cookie for numbering your lines).

5. "Teacher, me! TEACHER ME!!!!"
Remember that saying so shoved down our throats that we lost it's meaning: "Patience is a virtue"? We weren't entirely sure what it meant, but we did know that if we were ever impatient or demanding about something, we had to sit and listen to a long lecture. So, not because we sought to be virtuous or anything (hell no, we just didn't want to listen to our parents), we learned at a young age not to demand what we needed RIGHT NOW THIS INSTANT. Well, kids in Korea have missed out on this one. It is a truth acknowledged by all foreign teachers in this country that as soon as you start giving one student one-on-one attention, you will immediately be interrupted with a chorus of "Teacher! Teacher!" This whole lack of patience manifests itself in many ways. The most common include calling on one student to answer a question and having five other kids shout it out in the nanosecond it takes the initial kid to look in his book to fact check; kids mistakenly thinking you are blind, despite all evidence to the contrary, and feeling that they must shout "ME! ME! ME!" because you are completely unable to see that their hand is in the air; a student asks you a question, and mid answer, another kid "SHOUTS HIS OWN!!"

Oh, and my personal favorite, "Alright, turn to pag----""TEACHER! WHAT PAGE!!"

Sometimes you want to go / Where everybody knows your name / And they're always glad you came

Confession: I've never actually seen an episode of Cheers. However, I felt that it was fitting seeing the subject matter of my post.

Underground.

On the surface, it's a club/bar/not entirely sure of the correct table. But, looking past, it's much more. The owners told me that when they created the place, they wanted to make somewhere for foreigners that they could have a connection to - where they could feel like they could go and be a part of something (this wasn't said, but I think the implication was there, "Because often, this country can be really closed off to outsiders"). Obviously, when we think about belonging, we don't think loud drunk people (well, I don't), but there still is something really comfortable about that place.

Sunny and Daehee have definitely shown that not everyone in this country is closed off to outsiders. They have gone out of their way to welcome us and to make sure that we do have a place here. Daehee has become one of my best friends here. Despite language barriers, we've found countless things to talk about and laugh about.

If you ever end up in the Suji area, definitely go find Underground. You'll have a great time, and you'll make a ton of friends - Korean and foreign alike (admittedly, much more of the latter - however, the locals who do go there go for the purpose of mingling with foreigners, so there isn't that line of separation that normally exists at such places).