Amanda Takes Off...

Tonight, while I was waiting on the bench between soccer games (some very bloody game with three sliced-open toes on two boys; I scored one goal), Master helped me with my Korean homework. It was a fill-in-the-blank exercise with all of the words that confuse me: because, and so, and then, therefore, by the way. You'd think these would be easy, but these are those little filler words that aren't used the same way in English and Korean.

Master told me to read the entire passage out loud, he wouldn't let me get away with reading only the sentences which had blanks. I'm embarrassed by how slowly I read. I almost never worry about choppy speech, but I feel like my reading should be smooth. Brave's Brother and Cocky are sitting there, listening.

"I don't want to read aloud, Master."

Master looks at me, smiles, nods. He's not letting me slack.

I read.

At my current level of Korean, I tend to think of daily communications as falling into two broad categories: critical and non-critical.

I think of critical communication as "how much does this cost, how do I get there, what time is it, do you have this" and so on. These phrases are found in phrase books.

This is communication to survive.

Non-critical questions are the interesting ones. Samil questions. Chatting about where someone is going to college. Explaining why Americans cross their fingers. You don't find these questions in phrase books. Although you may learn the structure in textbooks, you don't find the questions in textbooks.

This is communication to discover, to relate, to make jokes. This is communication to live.

Asking non-critical questions in Korean makes me really feel like I've actually learned something. Not just "learned something" about speaking Korean, but plain old "learned something!"

Tonight was full of living, learning, interesting communication.

When class started, Master was sort of limping around. He told a story, faking carrying something over one shoulder, something else in the other hand, and pointing to his waist. I understood 20 kilos, seven bags, waist hurt. I was laughing with everyone else and he asked if I understood. I said I thought so. He stopped and retold the story in simpler, slower Korean for me.

For Samil Day, his family had gone to Grandmother's house. He had been carrying seven bags of clothes, toys, diapers, food, and so on in one hand and a 20 kilo bag of uncooked rice (쌀) over his shoulder. Thus, his waist hurt.

I had understood the major points at normal speed. Awesome.

After class I tried asking Master about our school's lineage. I had no idea how to really do this. "Master, before taekwondo, there were 8 or 9 or 10 kwans. You know?"

"Ahh! Yes, yes yes!"

"Do you have time?"

He did, and he asked me to come downstairs. He spent about 15 minutes giving me a brief history (역사) about the development (발전) of taekwondo. A group (집단) met with representation (대표) from the different kwans to integrate (통합하다) into the style now known as taekwondo. Despite all of the new vocabulary, much of this I understood because of my own reading. (Being funny, he emphasized all of those words I was filling-in-the-blank earlier, Keuraeseo...)

When he finished, I asked which style his father (the founder of our school) had learned. "Ah! 무덕관." Moo Duk Kwan, lit. martial + virtue + school. His father learned this style in his hometown (고향) of Bucheon when he was 13. He also learned kick boxing and competed in several championships. He is testing for his 9th dan on March 10th.

This was not critical information. But it's something I've wondered about for a while. If I'm going to earn a black belt from this studio, I should at least know these things, language difference be damned.

I briefly talked to Master about the sparring I saw at the Kukkiwon. I commented that there was a lot of "Chance-Making" and not much "Amanda-Style." We chatted about the tactical reasons for that and how exciting sparring can be to watch. I closed out the conversation by saying, "Your friend was nice."

"My senior is nice?"

"Yes, your senior is nice."

Master smiled. "선배 술 좋아해요."

I don't even have to think about what he's said. I don't have to translate anything. I burst out laughing.

My senior is fond of liquor.