For those who don't speak Korean, it means "You are handsome". As a beautiful ivory skinned giant in this land of little people, I get told this quite regularly. The speakers range from male elementary students (weird) to middle aged men (more than a little awkward) to female middle aged coworkers (which takes on a sort of motherly tone, which is really weird in itself). But they've got nothing on middle aged, sorta manly but super scary female waitresses at restaurants. But that story comes a bit later....
First things first, school life. I've now have a full week of classes, and all appears to be quite good. Class sizes aren't anything overwhelming in size and the kids are really well behaved. But that good behavior might have something to do with the co-teacher being up on the naughty ones like a horny dog on, well, anything. She keeps them under control at all times. Plus the rules and punishment system is well explained and known by the students. Fuck, I sure as hell wouldn't want to have to write one of the class rules 50 times in a foreign language if I acted up twice. Being as this school is in a much less affluent area of town, the students' levels are much lower than the old school, but they seem to be willing to do the work, which is all I really ask of them. The co-teacher and I are still trying to figure out how to work together, but I don't have too many worries about that, so all seems to be good.
Being as it was the first week interacting with the kids, I naturally had to do my introduction to the classes. Sadly, I didn't get too many really off the wall questions like I was expecting. I really didn't get many questions at all. Poor buggers were too scared to ask questions in English. That's not to say there wasn't highlight moments. Like one student raised her hand and said "You look like Harry Potter". Obviously not a question but amusing none the less. My gut reaction is to think that they say that about any white fellow with glasses and hair similar to mine, but again, they don't see many white folk, so they can be forgiven. Methinks i should take advantage of this. People seem to really like Harry Potter and some people are in fact women (but not all women are people.....let that one sink in for a little bit), so it can't hurt my chances with the ladies to play up that angle. And it leads so easily into talking about one's "wand". I think I like where this is going. The other highlight was when one boy raised his hand and asked (I shit you not) "Did you dye your hair?". More than the shock over the absurdity of such a question was the realization that this 4th grader asked, in perfect English, a question using absolutely useless and random English vocabulary. What 4th grader in their right mind knows the word "dye" in English? Why? Why????? But then I remembered how much Koreans, of either gender, love their freaking hair and how Korean moms get their elementary children (boys too) f'n perms. Then it all makes sense. In answer to his question, I calmly explained that, no my hair looks this awful all by itself. Au naturale.
And if you were wondering how long it took before I was challenged to my first paper-rock-scissors throwdown vs a student....it was about 5 minutes. One 6th grade girl in particular wanted to cut the new guy down to size. And cut me down she did. She played by hardcore Korean rules, meaning that every time you lose, you get flicked in the forehead. Think the same flick motion used to knock a paper football around. Sure, it doesn't draw blood or anything, but it does kinda smart. And being the big, tough man I am, I didn't want to admit that it hurt, but darn, those things, sniffle, sniffle, really hurt. And of course, I lose a lot, so the shots to the head pile up.
The most interesting student, at least to me, would have to be the boy who lived in Ireland for 6 years. And he's in 4th grade, which means I've just about lived in Korea as long as he has. Poor bastard's gotta be dealing with some serious culture shock, as Ireland and Korea aren't super similar in anything. But at least he didn't like Ireland or miss it, so that helps. Probably the weather and all the Irish. Yeeeesh.
As for interacting with those kooky co-workers, times are still good. I went to my first badminton lesson last week and I was mildly disappointed. See, I was under the impression that all the office ladies were doing the badminton thing. Meaning I would get a chance to show off my athletic prowess in front of the young teacher my age (step 1 of the DENNIS system: Demonstrate worth). Plus, I'd get to see how she handles a racket (giggety). Sadly, I was mistaken. Just the older lady teachers would be doing it. Shit. Well, I guess there's nothing left but to use these lessons to become the greatest badminton player ever and break Asia's stranglehold on the badminton world. I was hoping I'd just get to play, cuz running around and whacking the hell out of the shuttlecock is a lot more fun then learning proper footwork and swings. But they weren't kidding when they said it was a lesson. But I caught on quickly and earned the ladies praise. "Wow, you're really good Eric." Geee, thanks ladies but given I'm competing against middle aged women who get winded walking up a flight of stairs, it doesn't take too much to look super coordinated and athletic. My only qualm with badminton: It is incredibly difficult to spike it at someone, let alone cause serious harm to them. Take volleyball for instance. It doesn't get any better than getting ready to serve and searching out/locking in on the weakest player on the opposing team and making them your bitch till you tire of scoring points. And headhunting when spiking? God, I miss gym class.
So the badminton will be taking up Monday, Wednesday and Fridays every week. I wouldn't be so into it if not for the fact that they are during work time. I'm getting paid to play badminton. I can handle that. Also, I've been told that we'll be starting yoga on Tuesday and Thursday at the same time. I like, I like.
Now on to the creepy waitress. So Friday the whole staff headed out for dinner at school ended. Well, almost everybody. We were missing 2 English teachers, but I certainly wasn't lacking in people to talk to as I still had 2 English teachers, the young teacher who speaks pretty well, and the one older lady that really seems to like talking to me. I don't really understand why she likes talking to me so much. I mean, its just me. Not freaking Harry Potter or something. Or is it? No. It isn't. Anyways, when we sat down, as I was closest to the communal pot, the waitress leaned down right near me to distribute the goodies. While placing the goods on the table, she turns back towards me, looks me in the eye, makes some sort of facial expression (a wink? licking of the lips? gnashing of teeth? I'm not too sure, as I was paralyzed with fear) towards me and then says the words in the title. I don't think she knew I could understand some Korean, but she certainly didn't back away from it once she found out. She made sure I had a fork, in case I couldn't use chopsticks, and even served the food for me. Which would be flattering and wonderful had it not come for a middle aged women who physical appearance frightened me. At this point I should just admit defeat, give up on the young ladies and resign myself to the mothers and grandmothers that find me irresistible. Either that or dudes, as I seem to pull them pretty well here too. Le sigh. The rest of the meal didn't get much less weird, as some of the ladies inquired into my dating history (wait, I have a dating history???? since when???) and then the whole group of 8 or so debated my goofy haircut. "I don't like it". "Well, I think its cute". Ohhh, don't mind me ladies, I'll just be zoning out so I don't have to deal with this conversation. I felt so dirty, like a piece of meat, getting passed around and critiqued on its cut, texture, flavor, etc.....sob, sob. So yeah, that was a weird dinner.
As for other excitement at the dinner, when the subject turned to my weekend plans and I spilled that I had a date that weekend (a date? Yeah, surprised me too), the ladies got so excited they nearly shat themselves (actually, maybe I’m the only one that happens to when they get excited. Hmm….). Within approximately .0007 nanoseconds of the words “I have a date this weekend” leaving my mouth, the entire table had turned its attention towards yours truly and had begun the grilling. The co-teacher even got a little offended. “Eric, you told me you didn’t have a girlfriend.” I politely explained to everyone that this was the first date and that I barely knew the girl. They weren’t having any of that. “Eric, where is your girlfriend from?” “Where did you meet her?” “What’s her favorite type of rice cake?” “How many children does she want to have?” (those last 2 questions weren’t asked, as far as I know). So many people here really seem to treat not being coupled with someone else as a tear in the space time continuum or something that threatens to wipe out all life as we know it. Shit be serious.
Now, I imagine all of you out there just had your heads explode from the idea of me on a date, but fear not, it didn’t end up happening. Too bad about those exploded brain bits everywhere though. Who is she? Well, she’s a fellow member of the capoeira group here. Is she Korean? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH, that’s rich. Next question. How did you manage to fuck it up? A very good question which I shall now delve into.
Yes, despite the magical and mystical powers of Collin’s good luck in love charm (that I received during New Years), shit didn’t pan out. Can’t really blame it on a faulty love charm. There is only so much mystical power a little charm can wield and apparently said power is not enough to counter whatever I’ve already got working against me. Maybe next year he’ll get me 10 or 20 (hint, hint). That should do the trick.
Anyways, the female in question had been coming to capoeira for the last few months or so and I wanted to ask her out from the beginning, but being the big floppy wiener that I am, I didn’t manage it for quite some time. Not like it was all my fault, as she disappeared from class for a few weeks at one point. Whatever the excuse or reason, I didn’t muster the stones till last week. But when I actually did, things went very well. I asked, she said yes, and we would figure out the details after capoeira class on Saturday. Well, capoeira class rolled around and she laid on the bad news. First, she was busy today so she couldn’t make it today. No big deal. We’ll just reschedule it, or so I thought. Turns out she had misunderstood my intentions. If I simply wanted to grab food and such, then okay, but if I had intended the meal to be a date, well, then no. At least she was straight, clear and concise with her answer.
As for weekend plans the last few weeks………….umm, yeah. Zero. Nothing. However you wanna say it, there was nothing going on. 2 weekends ago saw me moving my shit from apt to apt all weekend, so that was hella fun. Last weekend wasn’t much better. After missing capoeira due to the aforementioned teacher’s dinner, I got called out to Hongdae by drunk Carrie and Jenna (which if you haven’t been priviledged enough to experience firsthand, I highly recommend), only to have them skitter off home after one hour. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if it didn’t take me 40 minutes to get to Hongdae, then another 40 back.
The rest of the weekend wasn’t even that enjoyable. After capoeira on Saturday I did nothing, as I had made no plans, you know, cuz I was supposed to be on a date. What did I do with my newly acquired free time? I went to Costco (the oddity of which deserves its own post), bought groceries and cleaned my apartment. Fuck yeah, I’m such a badass. On Sunday, I tried to get together a capoeira practice in the park to practice music or anything, but the weather ended up being shit, so barely anybody showed. Then I went home and cleaned some more. Then I found 10,000 won (which is only 8.83 dollars, so not even as impressive as finding 10 bucks).
I do have reason to believe that this weekend will be much more enjoyable, as the crew is getting together for some sort of club party/concert thing on Friday night and then reconvening for a big St. Pattie’s Day party on Saturday night. I’m confident there will be sizable portions of fun to be sussed out of the whole thing.
That’s all for now and I promise pictures next time.
P.S. The miniature horse came back again just the other day. I was so excited. Next time he rematerializes I will be sure to snap a picture of him.
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