Amanda Takes Off...

I got a couch. Yesterday morning, a few blocks down, in front of a furniture store there was a green couch. Velvety fabric. The other foreign teacher at my school, Ali, wanted it.

Yesterday afternoon we went there and I refused to just assume the couch was trash. I wanted to make sure; no point in getting arrested over stealing a couch. Ali said, "Um, will you go talk to him with me?"

The poor shop owner just about panicked when we walked in. The look on his face was priceless. He said, "No English, no English!" while crossing his fingers at us.

I said as well as I could in Korean, "OK, green color thing [point] how much is it?"

He freaked out, "No English, no English!"

Ali laughed and said in English, in a friendly tone, "Well, that's OK, because she's speaking Korean." I know I have the phrase "how much is it?" down, so he really could've relaxed.

He kept saying the same word over and over and I handed him my dictionary. He was so freaked out over us being there that he wouldn't even look up the word. So I looked up "trash" and handed him the dictionary.

"Nay, nay!"

I said, "OK, kong won?"

"Nay! Nay!"

Then he asked us where we lived and refused to let us pick up the couch. So he carried it all the way up to her apartment and set it up.

Then I tried to give him 20,000 won. I didn't think he'd actually take it, but I had a plan... And I was right. After my telling him thank you three times, he finally took 10,000 won.

Ali asked why I did that and I said, "Goodwill. Now if anyone mentions the random foreign girls in our building in front of him, he won't have bad feelings. And believe me, word spreads fast about us in this town."

She already had an orange couch, which we moved to my apartment after he left. So now we both have couches. I lived in my own apartment in Atlanta for more than a year without a couch, but then at least I had more than one room. It's nice to have a couch here as I can move from the bed to the couch and feel productive.

Yes, folks, this is my oh-so-exciting Korean life.