WHY I CANNOT LIVE WITH HUMANS, EXHIBIT A

Welcome back to my Korean life. As some of you may know, I have to live in a 3 bedroom until the end of November, which of course comes with two other humans occupying the other rooms. I wasn't particularly worried - I mean, it's temporary and I have successfully lived with other humans on occasion in the past 10 years and successfully maintain a friendly relationship (or required family relationship) with the other occupants. 

This is the story of a not-so-successful roommate relationship. We'll call it "Cleaninggate."

After deciding that 9am on a Saturday was an opportune time to have a roommate meeting because I happened to get up to get some water, girl roommate took it upon herself to WAKE UP guy roommate and tell him that we needed to talk about cleaning. Like straight up just made him get out of bed when he was dead asleep. I felt bad for the poor kid, he was sick like I'd been for weeks, and now he was being dragged out of bed at 9 on a Saturday to be told he's require to clean part of the apartment every week.

The gist was that we split the apartment into 3 zones (I say we, but I really mean "she") - the kitchen, the living room (that NO ONE EVER USES), and the HALLWAY by the bathroom I share with guy roommate. She says we need to rotate cleaning every week. I say that every week is unreasonable, but she insists and I just assume if no one touched it she'll be okay with it remaining as clean as it has been.

I made the  mistake of offering to do the kitchen first, and after scrubbing the sink, counters, and stove as well as taking out the trash, I go back into my room for some TV. I get a knock on my door.

"Did you vacuum the kitchen?"

Of course I didn't fucking vacuum the kitchen, the floor is WOOD. I used a goddamn broom like a normal human.

"Well it's Korea, they vacuum wood." Good for them. I don't. And I'm slightly offended that my thorough sweeping wasn't "good enough," because I actually made an effort which isn't usually my M.O. regarding cleaning.

The next week I was scheduled to do the living room. The living room that NO ONE has sat in the entire week, so there is NOTHING to clean. I took a quick peek and saw nothing that required cleaning, so I went back to my life. 

Later that day... "Don't forget to clean the living room."

"No one used it. There's nothing to clean."

"Yes there is. The floor needs to be vacuumed, and it gets dusty." Again with the vacuuming wood. And how does one week's worth of dust harm you if you don't set foot in that goddamned room?? Also are you my mom? Wait, no. My mom isn't unreasonable and has never asked me to do something that doesn't need to be done.

A day after I didn't clean a room that was already clean, I got a note on my bedroom door about how I needed to clean the clean place. Guy roommate, who had been to the doctor twice in the past week and was on a ton of meds, who had been told to STAY HOME from the school event the day before because he was sick, also got a note on his door to clean the kitchen. ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS WITH THIS SHIT?

For the next week, I avoided any part of the apartment that wasn't my room or the bathroom. I didn't need to see her and be told to clean the living room for the 50th time. I didn't cook a single thing. I got food delivered and ate it in my room with the door closed. I didn't need to be nagged to do something unnecessary.

Last night, being Saturday (designated cleaning day by the apartment emperor), she decided to talk to us about cleaning and how we weren't doing it. I finally said what I needed to say:

We are at school all week. Not one person sits on the couch the entire week. I might go into the kitchen once a day for 10 minutes, and I always clean up after myself. The hallway between my room and guy roommate's room doesn't need to be cleaned, and if it does, that should be up to the people who use the damn hallway (i.e. not you). Once a week for intense deep cleaning is unreasonable. The kitchen is IMMACULATE -

*interrupted*

"The kitchen is so dirty! Look!" *I look around and see spotless counters, no dishes in the sink, and two ramen crumbs on the stove and one on the floor, and am genuinely confused*

I try to explain once more why cleaning up after ourselves means we don't need to bust out the Comet every 7th day.  MAYBE once a month, but that should be determined after seeing how dirty it gets in a month.

"But like no one has ever cleaned behind the microwave! It gets so dusty! And in the microwave!"

WHY THE HELL ARE YOU LOOKING BEHIND THE MICROWAVE? WHO CLEANS BEHIND THE MICROWAVE? You shouldn't even MOVE the microwave unless you're throwing it away or moving it out of the damn apartment!

...and a closed microwave cannot get dusty inside. That's just not a thing that happens. If your microwave has enough exposure to the outside for dust to get in when it's closed, you need a new fucking microwave.

The peace talks ended in somewhat of a stalemate, with the one victory being that our cleaning is now once a month. I am relieved and go to bed.

I go out today to buy a big puffy winter coat, and come home to this:

Please, feel free to zoom in and read the whole thing. I'll wait.

Yep, that's 3 pages of how and when we're supposed to clean. Things that are necessary - 1) taking out trash, 2) cleaning the sink drain (goddamn no garbage disposals in Korea), 3) possibly cleaning the stove depending on how much it's been used/how dirty it is, 4) sweeping (with a BROOM) the wood floor to clean little pieces of stuff that end up on the floor.

Wiping the outside of the cupboards? Are we splashing food on the cupboards now? How messy do you think we are? I'm not making smoothies without a lid on the blender or something, jesus.

Clean the OUTSIDE and inside of the microwave? Has anyone even USED the microwave since I've lived here? I've never heard it being used. Unfortunately for myself, microwave meals are hard to come by in Korea. Also cleaning the windows in the kitchen? Once again, what are we splashing on the windows??

And the schedule going into next year? Uh, nope. The next single apartment is opening up at the end of November, I'll be out of here in a month. And I doubt guy roommate will stay any longer than he has to, which will likely be January. Not sure why you think we'll both be living in the temporary apartment in April...

But yes, a 3 page note telling us exact dates and specifically which nooks and crannies are supposed to be cleaned. Not a group consensus, but what one individual believes is necessary. I don't know who made her Apartment Gestapo, but it sure as hell wasn't by vote. Just one month until I return to solitude and my own place...

STRANGE THINGS ARE AFOOT AT THE (CIRCLE K)OREA

Every culture has things that others don't understand, and Korea is no exception. Luckily I have found that squat toilets are relatively rare, unlike mainland China, so no bathroom-related disasters have happened...yet.

But don't worry, their bathrooms aren't devoid of all strangeness. Weird thing number 1: often times there is no toilet paper in the bathroom. However, there IS toilet paper somewhere nearby - perhaps on the wall outside the bathrooms (between the men's and women's), or behind the counter at the cafe. This requires you to have a relatively good idea exactly how much TP you're actually going to need BEFORE you use the bathroom. Certain situations this isn't a problem. Others, well, we've all had those times when we've needed more TP than originally anticipated - which is MUCH EASIER to deal with if you have it right there with you, instead of making that agonizing decision before you have all the facts.

At school there's another small problem. I actually mean literally small. On each floor, there's a girls' and a boys' restroom, usually each containing two stalls. The first day at school I had to use the restroom, and one of the stalls was occupied. I walked in to the open stall and was horrified when I saw that I would have to pee in a tiny, child-sized toilet that was barely a foot off the ground and half as wide as my ass. There was no sign of the other stall becoming available, so I sucked it up and sat down on a comically small toilet, hoping to all that is holy that I wouldn't break a child's toilet on the first day of school.

The other problem was that there was no lock on the door. It closed, but I had no way to keep any random child from flinging the door open at any moment. Picture Will Ferrell in Elf sitting on an elf chair. Now switch that to a toilet, and have him desperately grasping the door handle with one hand, and you have my situation. Luckily the bathroom visit ended without incident, and I got out and washed my hands.

Weird thing number 2: the handwashing facilities are completely inadequate for one reason or another. The options are either a) no soap nor any place for soap to exist, b) soap, but no hand drying implement such as paper towels or a blow dryer, or c) neither soap NOR a hand dryer. I would say the majority of situations fall into category (b). Because not washing your hands is gross and unsanitary, I will often find myself with clean, dripping hands that I have to fling about wildly as I search for a place to dry them, eventually settling on my jeans as a towel replacement. Do Koreans  just wander around with wet hands all day? Or do their hands magically soak up water so that drying is unnecessary?

Another weird thing: THERE ARE NO TRASH CANS. ANYWHERE. EVER. This place is insanely clean. There is never litter or trash thrown about, and you only see a pile of trash on trash day by the curb. Such a clean system must be a result of many trash cans, right? WRONG. I can walk 5-6 blocks and not run past a single trash can the entire way. In a very urban part of the city, where anywhere else in the world there would be trash cans every 100 feet. So I'll get an iced tea, drink it as I walk, then be stuck holding the empty cup FOREVER because I cannot find a single appropriate place to throw it away. Restaurants have no trash cans. Office buildings, none. The gym, also none. Malls, NOPE. WHERE DO THEY PUT THEIR TRASH? WHY AM I THE ONLY PERSON WALKING AROUND HOLDING EMPTY CUPS ALL THE DAMN TIME??? If I die in Korea, I guarantee there will be an empty plastic cup in my hand when I do.

Final weird thing of the day: no napkins. I'm seeing a trend here about inadequate facilities for hand maintenance. When you go to a restaurant, you are lucky if they provide you with one single, small square cocktail napkin. You can't find napkins by the straws and silverware like most places. I keep wondering, do Koreans just not get their hands dirty? EVER? How do you not need to wipe your hands, mouth, chin, whatever while you're eating? How can an entire population NOT BE MESSY?

I got dinner tonight at a big food court in a department store. As I brought my (napkinless) tray to an empty seat, I noticed that all the tables were very clean with no trash or food particles on them. This wouldn't be surprising except for the complete and utter lack of people employed to clean tables. No one was walking around cleaning tables. So basically, Koreans eat ALL KINDS of food, spill nothing on the table or themselves, get nothing on their hands, and somehow leave the table spotless and immaculate WITHOUT THE HELP OF A NAPKIN. I am starting to feel like a giant slobby mess, because I can't eat noodles without getting sauce on my face, or eat certain things without getting something on my hands, or having a tiny crumb fall onto the table. I am the person who gets EXTRA napkins because I'm likely to make more of a mess than normal people, so now I'm super self conscious about eating in public for fear that napkins will not be made available and I'll have to walk out with red sauce all over my chin and curry on my hands.

And just FYI, the next time I went into the bathroom at school I saw that the occupied stall was in fact a full-sized toilet and I didn't need to use the kiddy potty at all... Whoopsie.