Amanda Takes Off...

From the newspaper. Abducted Fisherman Escapes N.Korea After 31 Years. Read it, it's a great story.

After Master left his message on my Cyworld page, I wrote back a ~50 word message entirely in Korean. Since it was original content and not similar to what I've learned in my Sogang books so far, it took work. And then I threw on his Cyworld page, where anyone can (maybe) read it.

I'm entirely brave, entirely stupid, or just not easily embarrassed...

At the end I wrote, "Whew, Korean... So hard! My head hurts. T.T Do you understand?" (T.T is an East Asian smiley for crying.) Master wrote back ㅋ ㅋ ㅋ ("kk-kk-kk" is sort of like laughing, it's the aspirated K) and a message about how my Korean has greatly improved ^^. He used the -네요 ending, which is sort of like saying, "My!" or "Gosh!"

Then he got me back by writing a message of the same length of my Cyworld page. I understood most of it (with the help of a dictionary) and then decided to run it through Babelfish for fun. I have no idea why "bedspread" keeps showing up, but other than that, my thoughts seemed to be spot on (if you can ignore the horrible translation job that a computer does about "room gymnasium song thing").

The end of his message was "아만다 화이팅! 통일 화이팅!" Amanda fighting! Tongil fighting!

Which came back as (wait for it...) "Oh the anger which rolls up thing! Unity anger thing!"

Unity anger thing?

I laughed long and hard over that.

Class was fine tonight, very small, no children, seven of us total, excluding Sabumnim. We did kicking practice. Some things never change. I need to twist my supporting foot more for roundhouse kicks, and I need to twist my waist more for jumping alternating (double) roundhouse kicks.

The jumping double roundhouse kick is really hard for me. If you're starting with the right leg, you start in fighting stance with the right leg back. You then jump straight up in the air and do a roundhouse kick with your right foot (which means you're twisting and kicking toward the left) and then twist and kick toward the right with your left foot before landing.

I am actually afraid to twist my waist. When I was 9 years old I broke my foot doing a cartwheel and for some reason, this kick makes me feel like I'm going to break a foot again on landing. I know logically that this chance of this is very slim, but for whatever reason I associate this fear with this kick, especially since my studio has wooden flooring. (Never mind the fact that the only time I've ever fallen on the ground doing a kick was doing a jumping front kick in my American studio. It was my highest kick up to that point and while I "landed" it, my landing didn't stick and I ended up on my butt.) I need to use the padded floors that this studio has to my advantage and just start twisting, however I can. "Unity anger thing!" and all that.

We did some more poomse work and Sabumnim tried to make some more stylistic changes. I just said, "I'm sorry, I can't." We worked together for a few minutes after class and I noticed that she had very short fingernails. A few weeks ago, Master told me I needed to cut mine because I was breaking them so much. I've never kept my nails super long, but I have naturally pretty nails and I sort of pouted over his suggestion for a few hours. I did cut them, because he was right, but sighting her short fingernails made me smile.

After class I asked Sabumnim if she wanted to eat dinner together. TempMaster heard us and gave us 20,000 won, which wasn't my intent at all, but it was very kind of him. He also gave me a gift, a book and a CD about Taekwondo Park that will be opening around 2013 in Muju. It's supposed to be a "mecca" for taekwondo. I knew nothing about it, so I'll read about it this weekend.

Sabumnim speaks very good English and if I understood her, she's from Jeolla province, though north or south I'm unsure. Since I was pretty sure I understood where she meant, I told her I'd been there. Much later in the conversation I mentioned Boseong (with the tea fields) and she understood exactly what I was talking about right away. She's the first Korean to not tell me I was mispronouncing Busan, so I think she is from Jeolla.

She told me her family was "very far away, like five hours" and I grinned and said, "Mine is 19 hours by plane." Her eyes got big and I was afraid she didn't know I wasn't trying to one up her. She said I must miss them and I said, "Eh, I lived 3 hrs away by plane for seven years, so I'm kind of used to it."

I also found out that her kwanjangnim in her hometown was also this kwanjangnim's (TempMaster's) kwanjangnim. He's ten years older than her, so I'm not sure that they ever trained together. If my math is right, he should have been starting university about the time she was starting taekwondo, but in any case, they're from the same area. And Muju city is in (north) Jeolla province, which could help explain why TempMaster gave me the information about it. Jeolla is sort of seen as the Alabama or Mississippi of South Korea. Traditionally very poor, strong accents. South Koreans are very, very proud of their regions and that area has been dumped on for a very, very long time so the fact that a city in the area was chosen for this park would be a big deal, especially to someone from that region.

When we were eating dinner I found out that she didn't know I was only there for a month (which makes me wonder what TempMaster said last night) but that she'd been told that I really like taekwondo. So my reputation precedes me... She's only been at this studio as an instructor for one month. She's 20 (as of Jan 1st, I am 28) and she's been practicing taekwondo for 10 years.

We spoke mostly in English because I'm really uncomfortable speaking my poor Korean with Koreans who speak good English. At one point though, while the waitress was near, I said in Korean that my brother is a firefighter and he's in Iraq right now. She said he was brave and I said about our president, "부시 바보예요." She laughed and the waitress asked her what I said. She told the woman in a different way, using a politer word, a different word, or a more correct word I'm not sure. The waitress laughed as well.

About midway through our meal, TempMaster briefly showed up. We invited him to sit down but he declined. We chatted for a short time, he said he'd see us on Monday and started to leave. On his way out, he stopped by—or was stopped by—another table and I heard "taekwondo...American...six months...teacher..." We were eating Korean food and while the restaurant had Western-style seating, we were sitting Korean-style (she offered Western style, I asked for Korean style) and when I took off my shoes the people at that table looked at me approvingly. A foreigner sitting on the floor to eat impresses far more Koreans than it should... When we left, all of the waitresses came up to us and asked me/her how long I'd been here. When I said six months I got the "Oh, your Korean is so good! You use chopsticks so well!" thing. Compliments are declined in Korea, and besides, I disagree about the language part, so I just said, "Oh, aniyo, aniyo."

I think I just made another friend here. And she understands taekwondo! I'm very happy.