Amanda Takes Off...

I talked to H, one of my language exchange partners, for the first time in almost three months yesterday. He's got a new job, and he's been working on an album, so we haven't met in months. Four, five maybe?

He asked how things were with Good Man and asked how long we'd been dating.

"음, 백일을 했어요." We had our 100 Day Anniversary.

H freaked out. What did we do, where did we go, what did we give each other?

Young Couples (ie under 35-40?) in Korea do this 100 Day Anniversary thing. It is, to put it mildly, A Very Big Deal.

(I think it is especially so with Campus Couples and high schoolers, who also seem to dig the whole "the 14th of every month is a romantic holiday of some sort" thing. Then again, these age groups of couples also dress alike. And I can't handle that.)

Men pressure their girlfriends for sex on this day (I asked Good Man, he said that was true). People get engaged on this day. Movies have been made about 100 Days Anniversary. Expensive gifts (engraved watches, rings) are exchanged on this day. You can send flowers specifically for this day. (Of course, they're just marketed this way.)

At least, this is what I've been told.

Good Man and I did absolutely nothing special for our 100 Days, which happened to fall on Chuseok, the day after my birthday this year. The women I work with think this is a shame. H apparently agrees. "You must find out why you didn't do anything special for 100 days!"

So last night I said to Good Man, "Why didn't we do anything for 100 days?"

He grinned. I poked him. He hugged me, buying time. "Um, because we do something special every single time we're together, so we don't need one day. We have every day."

(I was only teasing him, but poor Good Man... I started asking him questions about 100 Day for this post and he asked if I was upset. "I am not very Koreanized," he said.

"I asked for cheese for my birthday. Don't you think if I wanted to celebrate I would've told you?"

"Oh, OK. Good.")

I paid 50,000 won on my T-card. The clerk looked at me and held up five fingers, saying nothing. I said, in Korean, "Yes, it's 50,000 won."

"Oh! You speak Korean so well!"

Later, I was trying to buy some filled buns from the market. I asked the woman, very nicely, how much they were. She dropped to the lowest form and sort of sneered at me while answering, "One thousand won."

I looked at her and said, "Excuse me, why are you speaking banmal to me?" in banmal. She froze.

I bought my buns elsewhere.

I've gone from being annoyed that Koreans assume I can speak Korean to being annoyed that they assume I can't even handle the most basic transactions.

Tonight's taekwondo class was a test, technically. It didn't look like a test. Crybaby and I worked on poomse and the boys worked on sparring while everyone got criticized. Master's Son sat on my lap to watch sparring, and Master's Daughter sat on Crybaby's lap.

A good class though, I was drenched by the end of it.

Before our test was the really big test. There were 13 or 14 people in my class, but on test days there's a bigger test at 5 or so. I got to the studio early and sat down, and approximately 50 pairs of eyes (possibly more!) stared at me and the students started poking each other to make sure everyone saw me. The few students in there who knew me (Amanda Eonni being one) sort of stood up taller. They smiled and waved at me and whispered knowingly to the kids around them, "Her name is Amanda! She's il dan!"

As they were being dismissed one ten-year old (Korean age) yellow belt came up to me, "Ajumma..." I gasped and said in Korean, "I'm not an ajumma!" This is the first time anyone in the studio has ever called me anything other than "Amanda" or "Amanda Big Sister" or "Waygookin."

He scurried off and Master laughed. I went over to him, knelt down, and said in Korean, "My name is Amanda. What's your name?"

He told me his name and he and his friends asked my belt rank and my age. Then Yellow Belt said, "한국 사람이에요?" Are you Korean?

"No," I smiled, "I am American."

We chatted a bit more and other kids swarmed and I was a movie star, once again.

On the way home five middle school boys saw me at the subway station. I was coming down the single-width escalator and they were huddled at the bottom, sorting themselves out. "Ohh! Oh," they said, jostling each other, "a foreigner!"

By this time I'd reached the bottom. I stared at them, expectantly.

"Oh! Unh! Hi! Hi!"

"Hi. 하지만 한국어를 말할 수있어요." But [I/we] can speak in Korean.

They immediately switched to Korean to make their small talk with me. Good thing they didn't ask anything I couldn't answer, since I said we could speak in Korean!

When I talked to my brother on my birthday (He called me! Good on you, Johnny!) I asked if he'd seen my Vietnam album.

"You have a website?"

"Yes, amanda takes off dot com."

"Oh, that's where you sell your knitting patterns?"

"No," I laughed because I've told him more than once about my website, "That's [my other website] dot com."

"You have more than one website?"

Oh, brother...

Went to taekwondo tonight. (No class this week until tonight, studio was closed for Chuseok.) As soon as I got there Master's Daughter and Son followed me into the changing room. Master's Daughter picked up some doboks, "Is this yours? Is this?" I pointed to my bag and she happily pulled some pants and a jacket out. She stared at the bag, stared at the doboks she'd thrown on the floor and said, "Amanda, two? You have two?"

As I was changing, she made a comment. I'm pretty sure it was about the size of my bust, and then she and her brother broke into a fit of giggles and acted like they were going to open the door. I said in Korean, "[Master's Daughter], don't do that. I have lip gloss, but you must sit down." She sized me up and I repeated myself until she sat down. She yelled, "루즈 빌려 주세요!" Please give me lip gloss quickly!

Then the three of us talked about Chuseok. Hooray for me, I can chat with two and three year olds! (Actually, I just learned the permission and no permission form, so that was nice.)

So I bribed a three-year old with lip gloss to keep her from showing me to the whole class in my dobok pants and a sports bra. Was it worth it? Yep.

At Costco Good Man said to me, "Do you think Koreans don't really care about other people?"

We were attempting treacherous navigation around who were acting (keyword: acting) clueless, bumping into others, walking very slowly, stretched four or five wide across an aisle.

"Yes!" I launched into a brief rant about Koreans. At the end I bit my lip, afraid I might have offended him. "Um, what do you think?"

"Koreans are rude, I just wanted to know if I was right."

I looked at him. He has his trick questions, too.

I am reading a really neat book called Flatterland: Like Flatland, Only More So by Ian Stewart.

I laughed aloud when I (a philosophy major in college) read this:

Planeturthian mathematicians would like to think that their universe is built from mathematics, but that's only natural, after all. Planeturthian physicists would like to think that the Planeturthian universe is built from physics. Planeturthian biologists would like to think that the Planeturthian universe is built from biology. Planeturthian philosophers would like to think that the Planeturthian universe is built from philosophy. (Let me tell you a secret: it is. The fundamental unit of the Planeturthian universe is the philosophon, a unit of logic so tiny that only a philosopher could hope to split it.)

Tonight the main character (Vikki) was in an infinite space. The population briefly flickered from ∞ to ∞ +1 (due to a birth) before changing back to ∞. The Space Hopper (who explains math to Vikki, a descendant from a family in the original book Flatland) said, "You see, infinity plus one equals infinity, and infinity minus one equals infinity. Infinity, basically, is Where Things Happen That Don't."

Chuseok is normally a huge family thing in Korea. Families travel to the father's parents' home, clean the family grave plots, do ancestor rites, etc. This year Chuseok was Monday through Wednesday. My birthday fell on Monday.

A month ago I said to Good Man, "Are you going to be able to visit me on my birthday?"

"Yes, I promise."

"Are you sure? Because if you aren't, I need to plan a trip." I explained, "It's one thing to be alone on your birthday in Korea when you don't have a boyfriend, and another to be alone in Korea when you do. I'd rather be alone in a foreign country on my birthday if you're not going to be able to see me."

"I will be able to see you. I promise."

I smiled. "Promise to infinity?"

"Yes, promise to infinity."

I thought of what we said when we were kids. "Promise to infinity plus one?"

He cocked his head and looked at me. "Um, Amanda, infinity plus one is still infinity."

Infinity or infinity plus one, he kept his promise.

Yesterday Good Man and I took some pictures of each other. All photos shot in RAW and cropped and lightly color corrected in Lightroom. Again, all photos were eyeball metered.

Almost all of these photos break one of the most fundamental rules of composition: don't put the interesting stuff directly in the middle. But sometimes breaking the rules works.

Seeing Me in Good Man's Eyes

When Korean Eyes are Smiling...

Good Man has brown eyes, like every Korean I've ever met. (Koreans don't have eye or hair color listed on their driver's licenses. As far as I know, neither do the Japanese.) But sometimes, when the light hits them right, they've got a blue cast to the edge of them. I haven't been able to capture that on film yet. His eyes are so brown that I can always see my own reflection in them. So you get the fish-eye lens effect behind me, the curving sidewalk, for example.

Cat's Eyes

A few Fridays ago, Good Man and I were walking past an eyeglass store when I declared, "I want those!" Twenty minutes and 116,000 won later (about $125), I had a sales slip for two pairs of glasses, complete with the thinnest, lightest frames available. I got the exact same style in green and blue. Glasses are so cheap here. I will be stocking up before I leave, because six pairs of glasses and one pair of prescription sunglasses just aren't enough, apparently.

I also wanted to photograph eyes because they are so interesting from a social standpoint here. Cat's eyes, single vs double eyelids and that Epicanthal Fold. The fold is that stretch of skin that runs over the inner eye in many populations around the world (including babies from most cultures). It apparently makes the eyes look cross-eyed sometimes, smaller, and wider apart than normal. "Normal" meaning "European." My students will say "he has big eyes" or "she has small eyes" at least twice a week. In America I remember people pulling the edges of their eyes out to look "Chinese." In Korea, I've seen Koreans do that, but I've also seen them push the edges of their eyes inward to look like "roundeyes."

Reflections

Near where we were taking photos there was a security guard's booth, though I've never seen a guard in there. The inside of the booth is dusty and there's a mirror there. Good Man took a photo of us. I thought I would see us looking at us. I didn't expect the reflection of his shirt in the glass we were facing.

Me In Me

Me Over Me

The two photos were hard to get. Autofocus was certainly confused, as was the in-camera light metering system (thank you, eyeball!). I focussed on my reflection in the mirror first, then my reflection on the glass. What's also interesting is how the sharpness of the bush reflection in the glass changes in each frame. Shutter speed and aperture were unchanged. Photos were shot vertically and then cropped down.

Saturday, Good Man says, "What do you want for your birthday?"

"Good cheese."

He stares at me.

"I'm serious. I have all the books I want right now, anything else would have to be special ordered, you don't know what kind of yarn I like, there are no CDs or DVDs I want right now, I don't want jewelry right now. I want good, nice, cheese. Cheese makes me happy." After a brief pause I add, "This is not a trick."

Sunday, Good Man says, "Why don't we meet early and go Costco and give you present of cheese and go back to house and celebrate? Because it's nothing without cheese, right?" Smart Man.

I got to talk to each of my family members on the phone, and all of them were amused. My dad pointed out that if the only thing I was not content with in my life was cheese, then I was having a good life. He's right. (There are things I'm not content with, but Good Man can't fix them.) My brother just giggled and told me it was cool I wanted cheese. My friend Mark has lived abroad, so he especially understood. He said he always craved frosted flakes and ice cold milk.

So Monday for my birthday, I got a Costco membership. We were in Costco and I was so excited. Good towels and mustard and and pasta sauce, dried cherries and dried blueberries, Honey Nut Cheerios and pasta and marshmallows and baked beans ("What's that?" "A key ingredient to a barbecue.") and...cheese...

Ahhh, yummy food.

The rest of the day was spent eating delicious food and watching Simpsons: The Movie and eating decadent slices of cake from the bakery near my house. I squealed when I say a Korean sign in the movie and forced him to sit through the credits to see the Korean illustrators because the Simpsons is inked in Korea. "Look! Look, the whole screen is Korean names!" I said. Sometimes I feel more Korean-pride than Good Man displays.

Very low key. Very nice. Wonderful day.