Amanda Takes Off...

Oh how terribly embarrassing. I cried during the break in class tonight.

Right before class, a bunch of the boys were kicking around balls, playing soccer. I was reading a really interesting book (written in comic book format) about Korean history on the bench. (Graphic novels and graphic books are very, very popular here, and not just with young kids. Tired Guy said, "Oh! Amanda! Cartoons! Good!" to me.) I got hit in the face with a ball. Usually this is No Big Deal. You get hit with soccer balls, and sometimes in the face. It happens. Heck, I've hit people in the face.

But this kid had such power behind his kick that I expected my nose to start bleeding. It knocked my glasses off my face and bent the nose-piece. The boys rushed over to see if I was OK, and that says something, because part of the face-saving aspect of this culture is not to do that, even to a female. Whenever I've gotten hit before, it's just been, "Oooh! Amanda, you OK?" from a distance and laughing. (Not laughing at you, but laughing to save you face.) This time was different.

I managed not to cry (face-saving attempt on my part), but the poor kid who hit me kept apologizing and bowing very low and the teenage boys starting hitting him and it was chaos. I kept saying, "It's OK, it's OK, I'm OK, I'm OK." It really was a great kick.

Then, just when they were believing that I was really OK, I got hit three times in rapid succession, each time with Cocky Guy yelling at the other boys, "Amanda...don't do that...Amanda...stop!" After the third time I got up to move, Cocky Guy followed me saying, "Amanda, Amanda, you OK? Face red, you OK?" and this was exactly when Master walked in and asked why my eye and half my face was red.

And it started all over again. Cocky Guy started yelling about it, Master smacked the kid, he was bowing over and over and over...

We were doing work on our stances in class. I want to change my stances to the way Master practices them. I feel a sense of duty and honor to do it my studio's way. Since this is the first time we've worked so intensely on stances, and since I recently told him I wanted to change my stances to his way, and since this didn't pose much risk to my leg, I have a feeling he did this class for me.

But it was so hard. My legs were shaking from the concentrated work in horse riding stance and I felt stupid even though neither the students nor Master was giving me any reason to feel stupid.

One of the most common and basic stances is a front low block. In my American studio, a left one would start with the left fist near the right side of your neck, below your ear, and the right fist near the left hip. When you block, you bring the left hand down straight over your left leg, right hand drawn back by right hip, left arm very straight.

He wants me to have both fists by my right ear, not touching but backs facing each other. That feels strange. And he wants my left arm to go to the middle of my body, and be slightly bent. The right arm goes to the same place as before.

I learned that stance the American way back in 1997. I may have had a six year break between the first and second times I did taekwondo, but that one thing was the same in both Minnesota and Atlanta. Here I am, 9 years later, trying to break the muscle memory. So I kept jutting my arm out over my leg, then drawing it back.

Master had us do the third poomse—with every new stance and block I need to change in it—for practice and I mostly messed up. And worse, I realized I was messing up 3/4 beats too late, just quickly enough to shake my head and get frustrated, but not soon enough to fix it.

I'm homesick with the holidays coming up, an extended family member slighted me in an email to our entire family this morning, my face hurt, and I was frustrated. The whole time during class I was trying not to cry and I just wanted to change after the hour was up and leave. A bunch of boys were in the changing room, so I went outside to breathe and try to calm myself down. Master came out to ask what was wrong.

I shook my head and then burst into tears.

Poor, poor, poor Master. He was concerned that I was upset over tonight's class, or about January and how I won't be able to do class for the whole month because of things neither of us can change. And no surprise, "homesick" doesn't translate even though I know the words for "home" and "sick."

I just mumbled in bad Korean, "American Thanksgiving and Christmas and my mom and dad and American little brother. Home, home, home." (I said "American" little brother to make sure he understood I wasn't talking about Ghost.)

He said, "Home here? Home?"

"No, America, America."

He switched to English. "Amanda, your brother. Ummm... Iraq? He OK?"

"Yes, yes, yes."

Back to Korean. "OK. Good. Breathe, breathe, Amanda. 화이팅, fighting. It's OK. It's OK. And poomse, hard change after one year? One year?"

"Eighteen months."

He smiled, "Eighteen months, very hard. Slow, slow, you're doing good. It's OK. 화이팅, Amanda. 화이팅!"

I just nodded and he stayed with me for a few more minutes. He went back inside, I kept breathing. Finally, a few minutes later he came back out and said, "Amanda, it's cold. Change. Stay in there [the changing area], OK?"

I just laughed, went inside, changed, breathed deeply. When I left I avoided any eye contact with the boys, but I did say "Tongil, Kwanjangnim!" and bow out properly. (Not quite. Everyone else mutters some long sentence; I have no idea what it is.) The boys all yelled out (in English), "Bye, Amanda!" "Night!" "Bye! Bye!" I called back, "See you tomorrow!" in English.

I texted Master during the subway ride home. I looked up homesick in my digital dictionary. There were two different words and looking them up in reverse was useless. I texted Master in Korean (I think the last sentence was correct in Korean, actually).

American Thanksgiving (11/23) and Christmas...[word 1 for homesick]? [word 2 for homesick]? English 'homesick.' And the ball hurt my face.

That studio makes me feel like people here care about me, and while I'm sure none of them think less of me, I was so embarrassed that I couldn't keep it together. I felt like I wasn't showing any self-control. Alas, tomorrow is another day and I will show perserverance and go on. (Hey, it's soccer Thursday! Besides, I have to take photos for an essay that I submitted to an online publication.)

In other news there's a movie opening here soon, Saibogujiman Kwenchana or...wait for it...I'm a Cyborg, But It's Okay. It features 비/Rain, a former-boy band singer who is popular here and one of TIME Magazine's 100 People Who Shape Our World.

You simply must see the trailer, even if you don't speak Korean. (I can't link directly to the trailer, use the first link at IMDB.) You don't need to speak Korean to know that this is going to be one of the best bad movies in the world. Heck, it may be my Christmas gift to everyone next year.

Back to Rain. He has this song, "Touch Ya," that gets stuck in my head so easily. I haven't been a boy band/pop boy fan since I was 11, but his music is just clear enough that I can make out the words (even if I can't understand them). This video shows "Touch Ya" and "I'm Coming." (The second song start around 3:30.) I have no idea why he's dressed like a confused Cat in the Hat in the first song. The moves around 4:30 (shirt lifting) and 4:55 (weird gunfire noise thing) feature in an ad for a notebook computer here.