So hey, what's up? I live in Korea now. I've been here for a whole week and three days. I'm practically a native. Lots of things have happened, but I'm unorganized so it's going to seem like a cat going all nimbly-bimbly from tree to tree.
First things first. My arm itches and therefore this issue is at the forefront of my mind. They have bugs here. Ones that bite you. I don't love this. I spent the last 7 years in a mosquito-free zone, so I'd kind of forgotten the joy that is being a bug buffet. I currently have 5 bites on my right arm, 3 on my left hand, and one ON MY FACE. It looks like a zit BUT IT'S NOT. Ugh.
In the day time I go to school. I teach kids from age 6 to 12. I only want to murder certain ones, which is a giant step for me. To be fair, the other teachers want to murder the same kids, so I'm not alone in my judgment. They're actually pretty cute - cute as in "children don't make me want to flee" but still not cute as in "I want my own." Giving them back is the best part about being a teacher.
One of my favorite things is the kids' English names. Just like when I was Juanita in Spanish class, or Gabrielle in French class, the kids have English names for English class. Their parents gave them the names, which is insanely hilarious. I personally have about 4 Elsas, one Sia, an Olaf and an Elvis. Even though those names are funny, nothing beats calling a 6-year-old Korean kid "Steve" like he's the guy at the watercooler at work.
I don't win the name game, though. My first week when I was watching people's classes, one of the other teachers had a kid who had decided the name his parents chose for English class wasn't going to cut it. The teachers let him pick a new name, and as all good children would when thinking of what they want to be called at school, he named himself "T Rex." This was only made better by the fact that he was acting up that day, so the teacher had to sternly say "T Rex" multiple times and I had to hide my face from laughter. T Rex was only matched by a kid in a different class who found himself in a similar dissatisfaction with his chosen name - but this one named himself Laser. I have to give him some cool points for that one.
Here some answers to questions you might have about the rest of my life in Korea:
- Yes, I do eat kimchi every day.
- I also don't wear shoes for 90% of the day. I found out that the "take off your shoes" thing extends at least to schools, perhaps other workplaces. So I bought a lot of cute socks.
- Koreans don't sweat. I am personally taking it upon myself to represent the sweat of every human in America so they are able to accurately imagine a country full of sweaty assholes.
- They have rain here. It's a thing.
- Yes, there are Korean beauty stores on every block, and yes I have bought many things from them.
- They play kpop in stores and restaurants and I finally feel like I've found people that understand me.
- My students occasionally call me "Kimchi Teacher"
- They also think that I chose a name for myself in Korean, since they have English names, and they keep asking me what my Korean name is. I tell them Kim. This is technically true.
If I raved about the Hong Kong and Singapore subways being beacons of cleanliness and modernity, I must take a step back and admit that HOLY SHIT I AM WRONG and Korea is the cleanest place on the planet. If someone dropped food on the subway, they could definitely pick it up off the ground and eat it - however, this would never happen because they wouldn't dare eat food on their clean subway for fear of soiling it.
My apartment has a hot water switch. This is not intuitive. The first day I stood in the shower for like 10 minutes waiting for the hot water to get to my damn showerhead. It never came, and I took a cold shower. Twice more I have decided to shower, forgotten the hot water switch, gotten completely undressed and into the shower, and just given up and taken a cold shower because that was easier than getting dressed in dirty clothes to walk across the place to turn on hot water I will use for 5 minutes. Yes, I am a nevernude, but currently I also live with two other humans in a three bedroom, so I can't just go running across the place in a towel. I get my own place in a couple of months.
If you'll excuse me, I must go now, because there's an insane thunderstorm and this a super fun new novelty for me.
