I didn’t leave Korea … I just adapted.

I’ve been in Ulsan for seven months, and while there are plenty of hilarious observations that I should be making, the scenery and everyday occurrences have started to meld together. I have become complacent with my life in Korea. With a few glitches here and there, I am able to communicate what I need and go where I want. If something doesn’t work out, I shrug my shoulders, accept, and move on. My request for a double latte that came out as a doppio is hardly worth noting.

Sooo … after two months and only one thing that prompted me to write a blog post, I’ve settled on posting a random list of occurrences and observations.

OCCURRENCE ONE: Please, can I have … your boyfriend?

After nearly seven months of writing “Please, can I have ____?” on the board, in an attempt to steer my students away from saying “Give me …” which feels rude in English, I finally taped some laminated cards with the question in all of the classrooms.

In one class, this prompted all the students to start making requests. They started out as normal, but quickly escalated to ridiculous, quick-fire requests.

Joel, “Please, can I have one dollar?”

Peter, “Please, can I have a million dollars?!”

Hellen, “Please, can I have your hair?”

Amy, “Please, can I have your body?”

Hellen, “Please can I have your boyfriend?”

“Please can I have your husband?”

Perhaps it was the look of shock on my face or some other reaction that prompted the escalation, but in the end I was blushing and shut it down.

OBSERVATION ONE: In Korea I have yet to see a spot of untouched, untamed wilderness.

OBSERVATION TWO: When teaching kindergarteners, sometimes children will just want to climb on you and will call you mom.

OCCURRENCE TWO: A social experiment with a hammock.

Here are the facts:

1) A casual Easter picnic.

2) Conveniently far enough away that the hammock did not seem associated with our group.

3) Accidental. Definite happenstance.

4) Hilarious to observe Koreans interact with something that was not theirs and something some had obviously never interacted with before.

5) Interesting to note that the use of a hammock is fairly intuitive.

OBSERVATION THREE: A country the size of Kentucky with more than 10 times as many people.

Overall life in Korea is comfortable, which gives foreigners room and time to complain. What’s the number one thing, aside from squat toilets, the price of vegetables and fruit, and the lack of whole wheat bread, foreigners (especially from the Western United States) like to complain about? The lack of give and take with personal space.

OBSERVATION FOUR: Dogs are not to be left off the list of things that Koreans have made “cuter.”As if they weren’t cute enough on their own, in Ulsan, they wear dresses on Easter and get pruned and manicured like the landscape, only with dye (purple, blue, green, you name it).

A Smiling Waygook: The answer to all your problems

The weekends will often find me sitting in Starbucks. While there are many other, smaller coffee shops that have superior ambiance, where I am less likely to be disturbed by screaming children, for some reason I prefer the ever-changing, noisy crowd of people in Starbucks. Often I create my own atmosphere with my iPod, but occasionally, I enjoy the murmur of couples chatting intimately in Korean, the stray English that floats over to my table, and the laughter or cries of small children.

One crowded morning, as I sat reading, the frustrated cries of a young child jerked my thoughts away from the words on the page. Looking up, I noticed an incredibly cute little girl, probably around 3 years old, trying to get attention from her mother, who was busy with a younger sibling. I smiled and shook my head when I saw her mother immediately jump to attention and attempt to deal with her whining daughter.

The girl continued to whimper about something or other. I assumed it was about a pastry because of the gestures and blubbering accompanying the tears. Her mother talked to her a bit but returned to fussing over the younger sibling. Two children and not enough of mom to go around. The girl’s sobbing continued, varying in volume depending on how much attention she thought she was attracting. Huge crocodile tears streamed down her face, but she was fine. I looked back at my book, but continued to smirk because I understood.

This was not a girl in distress because she had hurt herself. Rather, she wanted attention and knew if she was loud enough, her mother would stop whatever she was doing and come running.

As she continued to throw a mini-tantrum, I saw out of the corner of my eye that her mother had finished with the younger sibling and crouched down to talk to her and give her a hug. The girls sobs continued, though a bit softer than before, so I looked up, again.

The girl saw me, paused for a split-second, then continued to sob and rub her eyes with her fists while staring at me. She was being silly, so I smiled at her.

Suddenly, the crying ceased.

The spigot turned off.

She gave me a half-smile.

Her mother, whose back was toward me was visibly taken aback. I’m sure she thought, “What the hell just happened?” Then the mother saw her daughter looking at something or someone, so she turned around. Obviously surprised to see a waygook (foreigner), she appeared a tad bewildered. We made slight bows to each other in understanding, though the astounded look did not leave her face.

I laughed to myself …

Having trouble with your children? Are they always crying for attention? Do they scream in public and embarrass you? … Find a smiling waygook! They will entertain your children. They will keep your children from driving you crazy. Imagine silent afternoons at home, while your child “studies” English. If you sign up now, we’ll enter you in a lottery for lessons at three of our sister academies and even more time away from your child!

Repost: A Silent Laugh with Strangers

Perhaps it's too soon to be reposting, but as a tribute to appreciating the small things in life, I'm doing it anyway.

Originally posted November 21, 2009.

A quick note to the reader ... all dialog in this post in merely my impression of what was said. The metro is noisy and my Russian is not THAT good.

Usually, everyone in the Moscow metro wears their serious, worn out, or sad faces. They look through each other. They scrutinize the way others are dressed, and they definitely DON'T talk to strangers.

But tonight was different.

In a good mood and feeling confident and a little talkative, I got on the metro with a sparkle in my eye. I watched others get on, and I noticed a group of three people who sat down across from me - a couple and their friend.

After the train left the station, the woman asked for a piece of gum. Her boyfriend didn't have any, so the friend looked in his bag and pulled out a piece. It was a little crumpled, yet overall, it looked all right.

The girl took it and stared at it like it was something alien, "What is this? What's wrong with it? Why is it all crumpled up?" she accusingly asked the friend.

He sort of shrugged in response. As if to say, "What's the big deal?"

Rather than refusing it, she opened the wrapper, shrugged in about the same way, and stuck the gum in her mouth.

In this midst of this, I couldn't help thinking about a parallel situation from high school. A good friend of mine often had "random snacks" in her sweater pockets and would offer them to people, regardless of the state. Maybe you'd like a Sour Patch Kid? or a saltine? Needless to say, I couldn't hide the smirk on my face, which quickly turned into a giggle when the boyfriend and friend noticed my smirk.

The boyfriend turned to the woman and told her that I thought the situation was funny. We all exchanged entertained smiles and shaking of heads.

Then the friend rooted around in his bag a bit more and pulled out a piece of candy for himself. Further amused, the boyfriend asked, "What else do you have in there?!", looked at me and sort of shook his head.

I couldn't stop giggling. Maybe he had a Sour Patch Kid ...

At this point, the four of us were openly having a silent conversation.

Reaching in his back again, the friend took out another piece of candy and offered it to me.

"Thanks."

What was I supposed to do? refuse?!

The whole situation was ridiculous.

Finally, the boyfriend looked at his friend, who had continued to rummage around in his bag ... "What? Do you have more?"

"Nothing. That's it."

The friend turned his bag upside down to show that there was nothing else and shared his last piece of candy with the boyfriend.

Human interactions can be hilarious

My nature is shy and introverted and perfectionist. If you catch me at the right moment, sitting in Starbucks or at a park reading All Story, my favorite literary journal, you might get a glimpse of this more introspective girl. I will get wrapped up in the story, laugh, and occasionally look up to ponder something the author has just written. I will be having a constant inner dialogue. If it’s a particularly well-written story, my disposition will change based on the scene being described. When you see me drawing, or walking down the street listening to music, you might recognize that I am perfectly happy to be alone.

And while I am perfectly happy to be alone, over the years I have come to value human relationships more. Often in a comfortable and familiar setting, I am fairly passive when it comes to meeting new people. I’ve learned to be a bit more outgoing, and living abroad by myself has pushed this to the extreme. Now I actively seek out genuine, honest, down-to-earth, laid back people, who are like me but challenge me.

Throughout my experience of meeting different types of people. I’ve become better at reading people and judging from first impressions, body language, and attitude if I will get along with someone. I have also come to thoroughly enjoy other people’s interactions.

Names have been removed from the following example to protect the unaware.

One evening out, while sitting at the bar, I was introduced to my friend, J---’s close friend, H--- and two girls that were acquaintances of J---’s. Particularly attractive, especially for an Asian, H--- spent much of the night scanning the bar for women, despite having two interested girls, M--- and G---, sitting right next to him. My first observations of H--- established him as intelligent, confident, aloof, and aware that girls find him attractive.

After spending a bit of time talking to J--- and getting acquainted with H---, I went to talk to the girls, M--- and G---. They taught at an art school, and I wondered if I could possibly make some good connections. While this didn’t pan out because the school mainly taught performance arts, I gained quite a bit of entertainment from the situation that followed our brief conversation.

I sat down between M--- and H--- at the bar, and M--- quickly told me that H--- was her boyfriend in a flirty, cute way. Because I didn’t know either of them, I accepted this statement at face value and quickly suggested that maybe we should switch seats, so she could sit next to H---. She shook her head coyly and said it was alright. Then, she looked at H--- and asked him to give her a kiss while gesturing to her cheek. At this point, I just thought perhaps she was a slightly territorial girlfriend that was a bit nervous to have me sit between them but not willing to take my seat from me.

After a few retrospectively hilarious minutes of H--- denying her a kiss, and M--- letting me know she wasn't actually his girlfriend, she was just flirting, I got up to go to the restroom. Because H--- had seemed moderately interested in her, though he didn’t want to lean over me and kiss her on the cheek, I suggested that she sit next to him, of course, in order to flirt more properly. When I exited the restroom and looked across the bar, M--- was sitting next to H---, hugging his arm while H--- scanned the room. For all intents and purposes it was as if the girl hanging on him was invisible.

As I walked back over to the group, I laughed.

Disregarding the comfort of either party, it was quite a comical scene.

Picture it. An attractive male, uninterested in the girl hanging on him and talking up a storm, while the girl is completely oblivious to his obvious lack of interest. The situation appeared as a caricature of similar situations that happen all the time.

Because of the new seating arrangement, M--- having occupied my old seat, I chose to sit on the other side of H---, next to J---. H--- continued to scan the room and occasionally make comments to M---, while I shared my observation with J---. As soon as M--- left to go to the restroom, H--- quickly turned to J--- and me and said, “She keeps trying to get me to kiss her.”

“What did you say?” I asked.

“I told her I was shy.”

I laughed and said, “You are not shy.”

“But I am.”

“No, you aren’t. I can tell. You just aren’t interested in her, right?”

He admitted to having been interested from afar, but upon closer observation he had lost interest. Regardless of why he suddenly lost interest in the girl, I was quite entertained by his extreme change in body language, and let him know that I could tell he wasn't interested in her because he was scanning the room.

While this exact scenario has not occurred again, I have run into H--- on other occasions, and observed him looking up from his conversations for extended periods of time to glance around the room. Because most guys are a little less picky or a little less obvious about their lack of interest, it has been quite entertaining to run into H---. It almost seems like a bit of a performance, and I have let him know how hilarious I think his interactions are.