Amanda Takes Off...

On a TV show I quickly changed, I saw a man trying to shove a live octopus into a hollowed out onion in a boiling pot of soup.

Yesterday, rushing to taekwondo, I passed one of the dozens of fish shops in the market. The proprietor was whistling away, a blue plastic watering can in his hands. He was watering his dead fish.

***

Tonight's taekwondo class was a test, but it was an unusual one. We met our new Sabumnim since New Sabumnim is now in China teaching the women's national team. She's 20 years old, a 4th dan, and this is her first job as a sabumnim. She's a student at the police academy! I have never seen a female police officer in South Korea, so I think that's pretty neat.

After class I took Crybaby out to dinner. We went to the restaurant I used to take the boys to all the time. The owners said, "Long time, no see!"

I blushed, "I know...I'm sorry, I've been busy."

While we were eating, Crybaby made what I thought was a rather astute observation for a 6th grader. She said, "Amanda, you used to talk to Master after class all the time. But now you don't. Why?"

Well, first, Master isn't in class a lot lately. I don't know why, but he's been leaving a lot of class to Goalie. But I didn't say that. Instead I said, "When I was working at the hogwon, I could stay late. I didn't work until 10 am. And I wasn't getting paid. So if I was late, it was OK. Now I am working at a public school and have to go to school at 8. And I can't be late." She nodded and I got to the real meat. "When I was working at the hogwon, I wasn't getting paid. She still owes me 2,500,000 won."

Crybaby's eyes got very big and she double-checked my numbers. When she was satisfied that she understood, I continued. "I missed home. I didn't like my job. I didn't have a house!" I use my dictionary to look up "evicted" and show it to her. "I loved taekwondo. Only taekwondo. And Master's family was my family. But now I have a nice job. And I like my house. And I have [Good Man]. So I like Korea more."

"Ah," she nodded.

"I think Master understands. He is a smart man. And he's met [Good Man]. He knows I am happier now."

"Ah. I understand," she said.

I think I was right, I think Master understands. But coincidentally, last night after class I said, "Master, we need to drink soju. It's been too long."

"When was the last time we had soju?"

"I think in May, when my parents were here."

He glanced at the calendar. "Ah, and with [Good Man]!"

"Oh yeah, but that was in August. We need some soju. How about the night before the election, because I don't have school?"

He gave me a thumbs up, "OK!" A few moments later, "Oh, Amanda, [Good Man] come too? Ask him."

This morning I looked at my wallet and it looked very thin. I think my students lifted some money. I have thought, brainstormed, receipt-examined and there is no way I've spent that much money in the past five days. Sigh.

I did, however, find 11,000 won on the floor of the taxi I rode home tonight. For what it's worth.

I was late to taekwondo tonight, due to a project. I got there and the boys were prepping for tomorrow's test. I groaned, because usually that means Master's ended class early. I talked to Master. He said we were going to go running. It was cold, so I'm glad I bought the track suit he offered a few weeks ago.

We waited for Master's Brother's studio and I asked where we were going. He said the Speedom (velodrome). I said, "But that's far away."

"I know. We have one hour."

I stage whispered to Ghost, "Master is crazy."

Actually, it wasn't as far as I thought, about 3km away. While we were running, Master's Brother made us get into a rhythm while chanting.

Hana (step step step), dul (step step step), set (step step step), net (step step step).
Hana (step), dul (step), set (step), net (step).
Hana, dul, set, net. Hana, dul, set, YA!

He kept telling us to start with our left foot. I couldn't do it. I couldn't get on the left foot. It reminded me of the single day I tried marching band. I could not get eight steps. Seven, sure, no problem. Eight? Nope.

The run there wasn't a problem. The run back, I had to walk a bit and my chest was a bit tight feeling. Still, considering that I no longer run, I was pretty pleased.

After class I asked a new white belt his name and age. He's 19, so I asked why he was starting taekwondo now. That's very unusual in Korea; usually new students are elementary aged, they get to first or second poome and then quit. Turns out he wants to go to military college, and he needs taekwondo for it.

Class ended after 10, which is why I took a taxi home. Missing money or not, it was worth it. I was exhausted.

"This," Good Man says, pulling off his jacket, "is why you need a Korean boyfriend."

***

"Master, I'm sorry. I couldn't come last night. Um...last month my ondol [floor heat] wasn't working." He nods. "And the gas man came and fixed it. It was OK. But last night I got home and there was an...'information' on my door." I mispronounce 'information' so Master is confused. We quickly figure it out and I say, "Um, information on my door. I looked, only I have it. So it's not a restaurant. But I didn't know what it was." He understands what I'm trying to say about finding a note on my door, so I continue, "So last night it was like this!" I pantomime banging on a door. "I was so scared! I said, 'Who is it?' 'Yeah! Apartment ajosshi!' He was so angry!"

I take a deep breath. "He started yelling '200,000 won! 200,000 won! Gas 3 tons! Gas 3 tons!' But I didn't know, 'What? What?' Why was he so mad? Well, the gas man made some mistake." I fake the valve being open too far and Master nods. "I said, 'Ajosshi, not me! Not my mistake!' but the ajosshi was like this," I scoff and mumble ajosshi rants about foreigners not speaking Korean.

"So he fixed it. Then he left. And I called [Good Man]. I was crying. '200,00 won! 200,000 won!'" I boo hoo into my fists. "And [Good Man] came to my house. He said, 'You need a Korean boyfriend!'" Master laughs. "He called last night and they said to call today. So [Good Man] called. 'Oh, my foreigner friend...yes, but mistake...she didn't know...' So it was 231,000 won, but now it is 160,000. 'Give me a discount,' he said. Thirty percent!"

Master claps, "Yes, you need a Korean boyfriend!" He puts on his Big Brother look, "But no boyfriend, I help you."

I nod, "I know. I was so mad! 'It's not my mistake! Not me! Gas Man!' but [Good Man] is Korean, so he said, 'Oh, I understand, but...I know, but...'" I grin because I am telling a fairly complicated (to me) story and doing fairly well and Master understands me. Good Man got the discount because he is Korean and knows how to save face whereas I was just saying it wasn't my fault over and over.

I shake my head. "Master, that ajosshi was so angry!" I drop my voice. "I think he needs a girlfriend."

Master bursts out laughing.

***

Class was good tonight. We did poomse work. I adore poomse. We also did some drills. Crooked Teeth was near me. He drew something in the condensation on the windows. I drew 月 (the Hanja for 월, Monday or month) and we smiled at each other. Crybaby then drew another character and Master scolded her.

"But Master! Crooked Teeth drew this, and Amanda drew this," she whined, pointing.

Crooked Teeth tried to look innocent and shook his head, I went wide eyed and mouthed, "She's crazy" in Korean.

She whined and Master faked a glare at me. "Master! I don't know Chinese!" I said.

All four of us—Master, Crybaby, Crooked Teeth and I—laughed loudly.

I was doing drill work against the wall. Directly below the calendar.

While my Thanksgiving dinner was wonderful, I did something else on Thanksgiving proper. Since reading Jennifer's post about Doctor Fish, I've wanted to do it. Doctor Fish are slightly cannibalistic fish that eat the dead skin on your body.

So Good Man and I went to a cafe near my house. We ordered some tea and could eat whatever bread we wanted.

Shadow of a Tree Please Love Us!

The interior of the café ("Shadow of a Tree Book Café") was very large and airy. It was nice and the tea was good, too.

Shadow of a Tree Doctor Fish Book Cafe

When our number was called, we washed off our feet, then slowly put them in a bath of water. As you can tell, Good Man didn't seem too impressed.

What Are They Doing?

The fish felt pleasant. I told Good Man it felt like the little fish at home that nibble your toes when you put them in the lake back home in Minnesota.

He looked at me. "You swim in a lake?"

I nodded. I'd forgotten that Koreans don't generally swim in lakes.

The fish bit a little harder than those little minnows, but after a while it felt nice, sort of like my electro-therapy, or a good massage. However, when they stuck their little mouths in the crook of the toes—wowsa!

It's Like Being Home...

Good Man stuck his feet in first and the fish zoomed over to him.

Good Man Has Fishy Feet

Why Does He Get All the Fish?

Hee Hee. I Get All the Fish.

When Jennifer and Gym Guy arrived for dinner, Good Man and Gym Guy asked what they could do in the kitchen. Jennifer kicked them out. Earlier, Good Man had asked me what men do for Thanksgiving. I said sometimes they clean, but often they just watch TV and drink beer. We left the boys in my living room while we chattered away. "OK, let's heat this up...oh this looks delicious...how did you make that?"

Odd how quickly we fell into those roles.

Good Man had shown up earlier to help me out, but I was done with nearly all the cooking when he arrived, and my kitchen is small (small convention oven and a two burner gas range), so I set him to work instead.

"I need you to clean the bathroom. The sink, toilet, and that spot on the floor," I said, pointing.

"OK."

I turned my back for a minute, and when I turned around again, Good Man had his pants off.

"What are you doing?"

"I will get wet cleaning."

OK... Well, pants or no pants, he did a great job cleaning the bathroom. When he finished the bathroom, the dishes, the fridge, and the counters, he sat down on the couch.

"I like doing house things," he said with a nod.

I stared at him. How did I find this guy single?

Thanksgiving Dinner in South Korea

Jennifer and Gym Guy came over for a Thanksgiving dinner last night. And Good Man, of course.

Chicken, wild rice hotdish, mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade applesauce spiced with cinnamon sticks and (fake) maple syrup, cranberry sauce (Jennifer bought it for me as a favor for $5 a can!), roasted veggies, beer bread, dill butter and cinnamon sugar butter to go on whatever, apple crisp (Jennifer brought it), cocoa cookies and vanilla ice cream.

Delicious. (The green plate really makes it look not-good, but trust me, it was great!)

Gym Guy and Good Man hadn't eaten half of the stuff we had, and Gym Guy joked that he wanted kimchi. There is no kimchi in my house, though there is soju!

Speaking of soju, if Jennifer and Gym Guy ever consume it, we're going to have to have a video camera ready because those two...

Sometimes I wonder how this country functions.

Yesterday I had to judge an English skit contest. Twenty-three teams were competing and I was judging for fluency, accuracy, and naturalness of the English used in the skit. The other three judges were looking at other criteria.

The skit contest was held at a beautiful school where the entire fifth floor is dedicated to English. There's a mini art-museum, a 3d movie theater (!), an extensive English-language library. Very impressive.

After sixteen skits, at noon, we were going to have lunch. I stood up, expecting we'd leave our judging sheets there, only to find all of the Koreans running around frantically tearing everything down. Signs for the contest (which, for the record, were only in Korean!), flowers, moving chairs, removing tables, taking away the lectern.

"What are they doing? There are seven skits left."

"Oh, there is an opening ceremony in this room at 1:30." Koreans love opening and closing ceremonies. I don't get the point of them.

"Where?"

"Here."

I was confused, "But we have the skit contest here."

"Yes, we will start again at 2:30."

So they double booked the room, and rather than have lunch at, say, 1 (giving them plenty of time for this ceremony and us plenty of time to finish the last few skits), we were tearing everything down.

Koreans are piss poor planners. Seriously, piss poor planners.

We had lunch, then got shuffled from room to room and floor to floor until 2:30. I won't detail it because it will make me crazy. We stood outside of the the room (where the sign for the "Opening Ceremony of English Theme Land" was...only in Korean) until 3:15, then set everything up again to watch the last seven skits. And we had to set up everything differently because someone wanted some people from the city's board of education to watch. Did they watch? Nope.

When we finished, we went to the fourth floor to score them. Of course, we were given score cards, but we weren't actually supposed to assign them points while we were judging. That wouldn't make any sense, would it? No, not in Korea. Instead we ranked them (and someone was in somebody's pocket, based on whom the three Koreans wanted to take third place) and then reverse-engineered their scores. There was one first place, three second places, and five third places.

While we were trying to do this, we were given loads of food. Jeju oranges, loads of apple and persimmon slices, four different types of rice cake, tea and coffee and chocolate. I watched my not-nice coteacher move three plates of food to three different locations eleven times. She kept loading one plate with some food, then putting it down. She'd then load another plate, move the first place, and put the second plate down. She'd then load a third plate, move the second plate to a third spot, put the third plate down, then switch the second plate and first plate spot. Repeat. I can't describe how nonsensical it was.

Then we were told we needed to go somewhere else to meet the board of education members (that we'd already seen before lunch, eaten lunch with, and seen after lunch). We walked into a room and found four tables, stacked with the same food. They made me sit at the head table with the board members. I shook their hands and the head of the board said I was the first foreigner he'd ever shaken hands with (I think in this case "waygookin" was used to mean "white person").

I drank some tea and ate while the Korean men babbled on (old men in suits can talk and talk and talk) and five minutes later the board members all left and we went back upstairs to finish grading.

On the way back upstairs I realized that I can never be a diplomat. This shuffling around, eating food, just to appear and say a few dumb words...I can't deal with it. Had they not been stupid and double booked, we could've been done with everything (including lunch) by 2:30. As it was, we didn't leave until 5:15.

Ridiculous.

And when I asked why the room was doubled booked, I was told, "Opening ceremony is only one day."

"The skit contest is only one day, too," I said.

"Yes."

That is the perfect example of klogic (Korean logic) people.

Good thing these people don't run wedding halls.

As for the skits themselves, I got to see Cinderella get drunk off of a soju, a pumpkin get plastic surgery to get huge pumpkin breasts (which other cast members then poked!), and I got to hear the line "I'm bored. Let's play with some gisaeng girls."

So weird.

Ahh, Black Friday. A day I do not miss.

I was a retail slave (albeit part-time) from the time I was 15 until the time I was 22, so I have a lot of horror stories about the day after Thanksgiving. But my favorite is from when I was 20, and working at Best Buy.

I was the Best Buy Idea Box mascot at 6 am.

The box sits on your shoulders. You see through some black mesh in the Bs. You're wearing tights, and felt shoes over your regular shoes. It was very uncomfortable, but I was getting paid time and a half.

1) That box is huge. 2) That box is hot. 3) That box is heavy. 4) Hot and heavy equals friction (no matter where you are). 5) Friction equals heat rash. 6) Heat rash equals not worth what happened while I was The Box.

I was standing at the entrance, handing out free little Idea Box Santa Clause beanie babies when it happened.

Ever heard of eMachines? They are (or at least, they were at the time) a very low-cost computer. They're also the sole brand that was returned within its 14 day return period constantly, without fail.

Some internet company made a deal with Best Buy. If someone signed up for 3 years of service with them, they'd get a $400 rebate on their computer. And what was the Black Friday price of those eMachines? You've got it.

Everyone wanted a free computer. (A horrible, horrible deal. A crappy computer with overpriced dial-up internet service that you're locked into for 3 years. Never underestimate the stupidity of comsumers.)

So at 6 am, bleary eyes, beanie toy in hand, the doors opened.

And wham!

I was on the ground.

Whoa.

What happened?

An evil woman knocked me over in order to get to a really crappy computer.

And did she help me up? Oh no, of course not.

So I was on the floor, on my back. In a foam box that went far below my butt, hence making it nearly impossible to get up.

Legs and arms waving in the air.

Like a bug.

I hope her computer melted down and set her house on fire.

Good Man walks into the bathroom. He looks at a logic puzzle magazine on the floor in front of the toilet, complete with a pen on top of it.

"This," he says, pointing, "Is your weird habit."

Photos are up in the Gallery.

Nami Island

Saturday morning Good Man and I met at the Eastern bus station. We took a 90 min ride to Gapyeong , where we had some lunch (the restaurant was not impressive) before taking a taxi to the ferry launch for Nami Island.

The taxi ride to the island was scary. Our driver was not a bad driver, but a taxi in front of him slammed on his breaks and we very nearly rear-ended him. Good Man and I hit the seats in front of us. The driver froze, then turned around and looked at us. He tried to say something while we tried to catch our breath, but I think he was a little confused as to which language he should speak. Finally he said in Korean, "Are you OK?"

"Yes, we're OK."

We all sort of laughed that nervous laugh you do after you've nearly had a car accident and the rest of the ride was fine.

We got to the wharf (an overstatement) and took the ferry to the island. Nami Island is...an odd little place. The island is very new. It was formed on the Han in the 40s when a dam was built. But that's not why it's odd. The land is owned by one person...

Nami Island calls itself "The Republic of Nami." Your round-trip ferry ticket is your "visa" from "immigration." You can buy a "passport" to give you discounts or yearly access, I'm not sure which. No cars are allowed on the island, but you can get golf cart tours of the island and rent various types of bicycles and bicycle-like contraptions. Some really famous drama was filmed there.

Japanese tourists like the place so much that you can exchange money on the island—only Yen to Won and vice versa.

The island has a Unicef center, a wax museum, an odd recycled cans brick statue museum thing. Lots of tourist shops, of course. But once you start to get away from the shops and "first kiss" statue and grave of the island's founder or whatever, once you get to the edges of the island, it's actually quite beautiful.

There are many different trees, and the 단풍 (autumn leaves) were very lovely. According to one sign, on Nami, "there are trees tall enough to touch the sky." Other places, it seems, trees don't touch the sky. Maybe they touch water. Or dirt. In fact, the sky was flat and grey, which made the colors really pop. The river around the island was a gorgeous sea glass green.

There were many couples there, a few families. So we wandered around, holding hands, looking cute, taking pictures.

At one point we sat down on a bench and I broke out my I-don't-have-a-cake-pan-so-I-made-strawberry-bread-instead-not-cake-cake-like surprise. I had some cream cheese, and we'd gotten a plastic knife at the bakery before getting on the bus. We ate chunks of strawberry bread with cream cheese and I sang happy birthday to him, mixing English and Korean until I got to a line that sounded like, "생일 축아합니다 내 남자 친구...happy birthday to you!" What can I say? "Boyfriend" in Korean (namja chingu) rhymes with "you" in English. It worked.

Photography on the island was interesting. So, so, so many people taking pictures, about an even split between point-and-shooters and digital SLRs, though I saw one Yashica SLR. (I wonder if my mother still has her Yashica?) Many people had tripods.

So we've got tons of people who can take pictures or think they can. Great. And what do we end up with? Four or five couples in a tight area, setting up their tripods and self-timers.

"Why don't they ask each other to just take the picture? Easier, faster, less room for error, the person can wait until nobody is walking in the frame, unlike a self-timer..." Before Good Man can answer me, I supply the answer, "Cause Koreans are so Confucius and afraid to talk to strangers. Weird."

Good Man laughed and told me I was right.

Also, many people had these huge, huge zoom lenses. I don't know why. I don't think I'm too much of a photography snob. If you want to spend money on expensive lenses or cameras when you don't even understand the relationship between f/stop, shutter, and ISO, go right ahead. But they had these huge, heavy zoom lenses, and they weren't using a flash (to account for decreasing light), shooting sports, or taking pictures of birds. The island is small. The island is crowded. You're not taking a picture from 500 feet away, why do you need a 586mm lens for?

And thus my Photographic Theory of Korea was born. "In Korea, buy as many accessories as you can so you can avoid interacting with anyone else, ever."

Really, think about it. If you're tripodless, you need to ask someone else for help or get creative. (We did both. I like my tripod, but was not lugging it around.) If you have a prime lens, you actually have to move your feet to get to what you want to see—and other people might be standing there!

I told Good Man, who just laughed at me.

As we wandered around the island, we found some interesting insects. I sat on a bench and shot 40 frames of one insect. Good Man, who put up with my spider obsession well, said that I was "a bug person." I wasn't in the States, but bugs in Korea are unusual.

I wanted to see ostriches, and we finally sound some young ones. The adult "wild" ostriches apparently left the island five days earlier. Now, if anyone can tell me how "wild" ostriches got on and off the island, please do. We wandered around while eating sugared donut hot dog things and four ostriches ran in front of us. At this point, Good Man had a horrible headache, I was cold. I turned to him and said, "OK, I've seen the ostriches. We can go now."

On our way to the dock, I saw a group of people taking pictures. I said to Good Man, "Go offer to take their picture."

"Why?"

"Because they're a group, and all of their group photos are going to be one person short, and they're Korean, so they're not to ask anyone."

We went back and forth about this and he finally said, "Why do you care about other people so much?"

Well. That stopped me. He said, "I'm sorry, I have a headache. You're very kind to care about other people but..."

"But you're Korean."

He just did a smile-grimace at me.

Fair enough. And the group had broken up by that point in any case.

Once we landed, we went to a dalk kalbi restaurant. Korea is very boring sometimes. There is an area of Seoul known for jokbal, another for ddeok kalbi, another for jajangmyeon, etc. Well, this area was dalk kalbi. We had some kalbi and raspberry wine for dinner. And it was delicious.

We went to our hotel, Picasso, and crashed around 6 pm. This was a fairly expensive love motel ($60) and one of the lesser quality ones. The bed was hard, there was no supplementary pack of, uh, stuff, though we did get toothbrushes and one double-blade razor. No internet access. Unlike past love motels we've stayed in though, this one had adult novelty vending machines on each floor.

"Hey, Good Man, did you know my mom sells sex toys?"

He lifted his head off the pillow. "Um. What?"

"My mom sells sex toys."

"Has she always done that?"

I shook my head, "She didn't when I lived at home. It's soft-core stuff, lotions, creams."

He just looked at me. Considering that he lies to his mother about our weekend trips, considering that she thinks he drinks with his friends a whole lot...well, if the positions were reversed, I'm not sure how I would respond either.

The next morning we got up late, lounged around a bit before heading back to town. Guess who our taxi driver was? Yep! The same guy! I recognized his steering wheel cover and some lotus flowers hanging off his rear view. "Did we ride you yesterday?" I said. He nodded and laughed, mentioned the near-crash. The ride back to the bus station was smooth.

Good Man and I headed back to Seoul, but it was still fairly early, so we went to Technomart. He finally decided what he wanted for his birthday: RAM. We bought some RAM, had some pizza...

A very nice weekend.

Thunderstorms, thunder (천둥) and lightning (번게), are not common in Korea. Last night Korea outdid itself. It was thundering, lightning...and snowing.

Master called me over to the window during class. "Amanda, look! Snow!"

Without knowing why, I texted Good Man. "눈이 와."

His answer? :)

I found out today that it's standard to call—and hopefully meet—your lover during first snow. Good Man doesn't know why. Perhaps it relates to some Korean drama. Perhaps it relates to the flower water (봉숭아물) that Koreans paint their nails with. The water turns your nails orange (like iodine) and if it's still on the nails during the first snow, you'll marry your true love.

I didn't have my camera.

***Tonight, on a subway car with some seats still open, and some people willingly standing I took out my camera.

A homeless woman was taking up two seats. The last seat of the section held her backpack, filthy. The second-to-the-last-seat held her. On the floor around her were multiple plastic bags with newspapers, plastic bottles, and cans in them. She was sleeping, covered in multiple layers of clothing, shoes old.

Next to the woman was another woman's bag, taking up one whole seat. The woman attached to that bag was well-coiffed, well-heeled. Next to her, three salary men with shopping bags, discussing their company's doings.

So, from left to right, we had four well-to-do people, a purse, a homeless woman, her backpack, and a pile of recyclable trash waiting to be turned into a few won (I presume).

And diagonally across the aisle, we had me, with a camera that cost more than one thousand US dollars.

I wanted a picture. I wanted the contrast. Korea has no social net whatsoever. I wasn't trying to exploit the woman's homelessness...I wanted to take a photo to examine it. I wanted it.

But too many people were looking at me. Nobody was looking at the homeless, sleeping woman. Anyone who was looking at someone was looking at me. Or seemed to be.

I didn't dare take the shot. I wasn't brave enough.

Dammit.

I left some extra pasta on the stove for Good Man. He heated it up but didn't drain the water off of it. "Why is there water on your pasta?"

He smiled. "Cause I'm lazy."

"Too lazy to drain water? That's going on my blog."

"But I did your dishes."

I laughed, "OK, I'll make sure to mention that."

***

Amanda, 18 Nov 2008

"Birthday spankings. Don't you have those in Korea?"

"No." Good Man looks suspicious. Like I'm making this up.

"You don't have the Easter bunny or tooth fairy either."

"Nope."

***

I enjoy weekend trips with Good Man for a few reasons. First, I really enjoy the time with him. I don't want to kill him. A very good sign. Second, I find out new things about him. Subway phobias, how he wants his body to be handled after death. Third, if I sleep until noon on Sunday at home, I feel lazy. If I do it in a hotel, who cares? It's vacation.

What don't I like? Sorting through 487 photos.

A few...

Good Man and Me

Good Man and Me, Again

Really Cool Bug

***

I usually wear my hair in an octopus clip. Instead, this weekend, I wore my hair in a ponytail.

I can not tell you the number of times Good Man tugged on my hair. Walking around the island? Tug. Putting on my shoes after dinner? Tug. Going up an escalator? Tug. Multiple other times? Tug.

Are we in third grade again?

Good Man very nearly spent his birthday/our anniversary alone because he was so dang indecisive about he wanted to do.

We were originally going to go to Nami Island for the weekend, but Good Man didn't make hotel reservations and said we couldn't. A half dozen mind changes later, he decided that it didn't matter that we didn't have a room and we'd go to...Nami Island.

I smacked him on the side of his head when I finally saw him today.

Koreans are weird.

My principal is a woman in her mid-60s (my best guess) who can handle 4 or 5 bottles of soju, according to my coworkers. She speaks three sentences of English. "You are very beautiful...oh, my heart is happy...thank you!" She gives me gifts for no reason. We speak in Korean all the time. We speak maybe 5 minutes total a week. She, like nearly all principals in Korea, does nothing but sit in her office all day, drinking coffee and chatting with people.

She asked what I was doing this weekend. "I'm going to Sunchon."

"With your boyfriend?"

"Yes."

"Why? It's his birthday. And he's never been to Jeollanamdo. But I think Jeollanamdo is very beautiful."

She said, "You will sleep together?"

I put on my best horrified look. "No! Ms [Soju]! We are not married!"

"But in America, many people sleep together."

"I am not in America. I am in Korea. We are not married!"

Could this conversation get any worse? Yes. It could.

"Oh, very good! You are Korean!" she said. She switched to English and laughed, "No pre-sex!"

Oh. My. God. My principal just said "pre-sex" to me. Pre. Sex.

I told Good Man about the conversation later. He said too many old Koreans were nosy and bored with their jobs. I said Koreans think they're so polite and respectful just because they use -sumnida but their behavior doesn't match.

***

Late last night. Good Man stumbles into my house after work, whimpering. I hug him, rub his shoulders. "You work too much." Whine. "Are you ready to go to America?"

"I've been ready for ten years." I laugh and he starts doing figures in the air with his pointer finger. "I'm twenty-seven...fourteen years. I've been ready for fourteen years," he says. He presses his head in the crook of my neck. "I want to go."

***

Photos from taekwondo a few days ago.

He was cleaning up some bricks. He is one of the few kids who smiles without throwing up a V-sign or hiding his face when I have my camera. He's very photogenic.

Crooked Teeth

This kid's big sister was watching class and he was teasing me, so I grabbed him and kissed his cheek. Man, oh man. The boys went nuts. There are sharper pictures, ones with the correct focus, but this photo had the best emotion from my taekwondo "little brother."

Kissing My 'Little Brother'

"Why is she taking pictures of shoes?" Kiss' Big Sister asks Crybaby Gold Medal Girl.

"Because we don't have this in America," I say.

They look at each other. Crybaby shrugs.

Two of these pairs of shoes are mine.

Shoes

Something has gone terribly wacky with my website. If you made any comment within the last five days, it's entirely gone and there is no way for me to recover it.

To be brief, I couldn't upload photos, my email suddenly got corrupted and went haywire. Posts went missing (and comments, of course). All of my /files a href links need to be changed to /files.shtml links (or, rather, that's the only solution I've found so far). I can send email FROM my account, but can't get email TO my account, unless it's sent from another Squirrelmail account. All changes I've made in the last five days are gone. I had to change some permissions (no, I don't know what that means, but yes, I figured it out by myself!) in order to generate a static file. I had to change nameservers.

Do you know what any of this means? I didn't. Now I sort of do. Nothing like a "trial by fire and tech guy."

I currently have a help ticket open with my host that has, oh, 22 messages in it.

This morning there was gnashing of teeth, crying. Good Man, who was up until 1:30 doing tech support with Costa Rica, went into Girlfriend Tech Support mode.

He hugged me. "You'll be OK, we'll use the cache, get the posts, no problem. I can help you. Give me your passwords, I'll work on it today."

I was crying. He works too hard, he doesn't need to do my tech support at work. And since the HostPC guys were already at it, I didn't want another thumb in the soup. "This is my whole life in Korea! And now everything is going crazy and I can't even back anything up!"

But, Good Man kept up the Girlfriend Tech Support. He rescued me. He found the files, I reposted them. (Three times. Yep, first two times they didn't stick.)

Meanwhile, the tech support guys over at HostPC rescued me (still working on email), upgraded my account, backed something up, restored something else... I made one of them blush, telling him I'd kiss him if he got it to work.

You know, computers were supposed to make our lives easier.

***

Idiots I
Yesterday some women dressed like prostitutes came into the corner store I was in. (Most women dress like prostitutes here. The days get colder, the skirts get shorter!) I was signing a credit card slip and they hollered over my shoulder for some cigarettes. Suddenly they froze.

"Wow! She's writing English so quickly!" one of them said.

I caught the clerk's eye. I said in Korean, "Well, it is my name."

"Oh," the second one said in English, "What? Sorry, no Englishee."

I said it again, slowly and loudly this time, still in Korean. "Well. It. Is. My. Name!"

When I exited the gimbap place, I saw the two women smoking on a bench. Smoking. In public.

They were prostitutes.

Idiots II
Good Man, pissed at a coworker for royally screwing something up, messaged me, "I'm going crazy."

"Why?"

"Because he is still dumb."

Your Friends [sic] Hot Mom Isn't Here

OK, whoever has searched for "my friends hot mom" AND clicked on my website 29 times already this month and 17 times last month—STOP!

I know it's the same person because you're using the same browser and search engine each time, search.daum.net. You're coming from 121.254.251.54 or 58.237.90.142 and you're on the computer for hours at a time, banging out that search term. Nine times in an eight hour period yesterday? And six times, during the same time of day the day before? Come on, man, get a girlfriend.

And for the record, go back to an English hogwon! "My friend's mom." 's! 's!

Also, +"laughed at him" +rubbing +feet +class +socks ? Ewwww! Halifax, Canada has got some pervs, eh?

Quit already!

Weird Habit

Good Man has a weird habit.

I pick up the Diet Coke. A quarter turn of the cap and it's off. The toothpaste tube? A sixteenth a turn (seriously) and it's off. Water bottle? An eighth of a turn.

If the man ever helps me build a piece of furniture with screws in it, I'm going to have to trail behind him to make sure they're actually screwed in.

Trick Questions

Good Man has come up with a way to answer my trick questions. He just nods/turns his head in a circular way.

I kept getting a side stitch in taekwondo tonight. Master asked what was wrong, because I was pinching my side.

"I hurt," I said in Korean, then I switched to English to say, "Um...side stitch?"

"Breathe," he said in Korean. "Did you eat?"

"Yes, I had a corn dog." I remembered that Koreans call a corn dog a hot dog, so I self-corrected, "Hot dog." Master laughed at me. "Master, it was two hours ago!"

Twenty minutes later I was still in pain. "Amanda, breathe."

"Master, I think next time I won't eat a hot dog." The kids all laughed.

Master said he'd eaten 부대 찌게 for dinner. Budae jjigay is a throw back to Korean wartime food. It's kimchi stew plus ramyeon noodles plus hot dogs or Spam. I like it, actually. I said I'd had tuna jjigae for lunch. "Amanda, I thought you didn't like fish."

"I hate fish. But I like tuna. Tuna jjigae, tuna gimbap. Tuna is very cheap." I switched to English, "Um, low-class, you know low class?" Master nodded, "But I like tuna." When I was a vegetarian, tuna sandwiches were the single animal food I missed.

"Amanda, tuna sushi is very expensive. You like sushi?"

"No. Fish must be cooked."

We were doing an activity in class, and a boy was supposed to give the pointer to "a girl from a different table."

He was wandering around, looking so confused. My coteacher and I, and the students, were yelling at him in Korean and English, "A girl. Different table! Hurry up!"

Finally he turned around and thrust the point in my hands, "Here!"

I laughed and my students turned the tables on me, "Amanda Teacher! 빨리 하세요!" Hurry up!

I stood up, mock ran over to the board and drew an imaginary line between "zoo" and a picture of one. My kids whooped and cheered. Thank goodness I know "zoo" in English, eh?

***

I made it to taekwondo for the first night in a long time tonight. I still have the very last bits of my bronchitis, but it's not too bad and I took it easy. Class was good, but Master was only there for the last five minutes or so. He greeted me kindly, told me he hoped I would feel better.

Most of the older boys that I so adored last year—Cocky, Powerful, Brave, Tired Guy, Cheater, Studious—don't come to class anymore due to studying for their college entrance exam or hogwons (or being in university now). I miss them. The class now is mostly middle schoolers and even though I love those boys, they're a bit obnoxious.

One of the boys tried to say my name tonight but somehow "Amanda" came out like "han beon do" (one more time). The boys laughed at him, but I didn't. When I first got here, for the first month or so, hanbeondo said quickly enough did sound like Amanda said entirely with soft as. I tried explaining that to him. "Little same, I thought. I didn't know. But yes, they do sound similar." He looked relieved. I was telling him the truth.

"End of the journey, Korea."

Beyoncé came to Korea for a concert a few days ago. Good Man said, "Is she not popular in the US anymore?"

I laughed, "Why? Cause she's in Korea?"

"Yeah. Korea is where everyone comes when they are no longer popular. It's where they go when they're dying." He shook his head, "End of the journey, Korea."

Last night while Good Man and I were waiting to meet Lab Guy last night, three tall mimes were walking around. I got photos of two of them. As soon as they realized I was taking pictures, they started hamming it up for me. I had to shoot quickly, and I had the 50mm (turned 75mm) lens on, so I couldn't compose some shots exactly as I wanted to. Still, I'm pretty pleased.

Getting More Brochures

"Me?"

"Me? Me?"

Super Model

Posing

Take a Picture of Me!

The two mimes walked over to Good Man and said in falsetto voices, "Picture, picture!" in English. Good Man didn't look too comfortable, and I was trying to shoot photos quickly. I think the mimes may have been resting some of their weight on his shoulders.

Mimes and Good Man

Today is Pepero Day. As we know, Korea has a "romantic holiday" on the 14th of every month. Pepero sticks are thin bread sticks covered in chocolate. Legend has it that in the mid-90s some middle school girls in Busan exchanged Pepero sticks in this day because the sticks look like 1s (11/11) and they wanted to grow up to be "tall and slender like a Pepero stick." Sounds like marketing from Lotte to me.

In any case, Pepero sticks (and all the off-brand copies) are yummy and I told Good Man I wanted to "celebrate" this day. Friday I got two boxes at work. One from a student, which I promptly ate, and one from my Mary Kay lady. (Yes, I have a Mary Kay lady, quit laughing.) Yesterday Good Man showed up with two more boxes. So we ate choco on chocolate, Boy Meets Girl banana, and choco almond Peperos.

Pepero Display at 7-11

At the end of the Pepero table there was a vat of fish cake sticks but nobody manning the vat, so I managed to get some photos.

Fish Cakes

And since no post is complete without some portrait of Good Man...

Good Man

"None of the bathrooms have toilet paper," I complain to Good Man.

"We can get some at Seven-Eleven," he says, steering me toward the store.

Inside the store I pick out a pack of travel tissue with a sheep gracing the wrapper. "운동할때...when you're doing sports...운전할때...when you're driving...여행할때...when you're traveling...핸드백속에...in your handbag...사무실에서...at the office..." I read. "And there's a sheep. Fabulous. You know," I say, turning to Good Man, "I just think bathrooms should have toilet paper in them. And soap. Toilet paper and soap."

He laughs.

"OK, that's it. I'm done with Korea. Time to go home. Adventure over," I say.

"There you go."

***

Tonight I met Lab Guy (a friend of Good Man's who studies at Kyung Hee and is constantly in the computer lab, hence the nickname) with Good Man. Good Man and Lab Guy spoke mostly in Korean, which was fine with me. But Lab Guy kept thinking I was bored. He didn't understand. I wasn't bored; I understood quite a bit of their conversation and was interested in seeing Good Man interact with his friends. So I didn't mind that they were speaking Korean.

"Have you met [Good Man]'s parents, Amanda?" Lab Guy asks as we're walking him to the subway station.

I shake my head. "No." I bite my tongue and smile while formulating the Korean in my mind. I am a foreigner. So his parents don't want to meet me.

When he's gone, I say, "I bit my tongue about your parents."

"I know. And it is good, cause [Lab Guy] has good feelings toward my mother."

"I wish I could say the same. I'm sorry."

Good Man shakes his head, "No. You don't have to."

***

Good Man and I are in the elevator with an ajossi. We exit on my floor. As soon as the doors close, Good Man spits out, "I don't like that man!"

"Why?" I'd said goodbye to him because he'd held the door when I'd yelled "please wait!" on the first floor, and well, he lives in my building.

"He saw you like this," Good Man says, running his eyes up and down my body twice.

I have never seen Good Man so upset about something. "He looked at me? Like how? Like, 'God, a foreigner?' or 'I wish I could see her body under that coat?'"

"Xenophobia!"

"Yes, but honey, I live here, I need to be polite."

Good Man shakes his head. "I know. I don't care. I don't like that man."

I showed my sixth grade students The Tale of Mr Morton today. Before showing them the video, I got down on one knee and mimed proposing.

"What am I doing?"

"Amanda Teacher! Anyang station! 돈이 주세요!" Give me money, please.

Ah, apparently I was begging at the subway station. I burst out laughing. My students are so funny sometimes. (As a side note, only six students out of five classes of about 35 students each knew what a typewriter was. I don't mean only six students knew the English term; only six students knew what it was!)

Soju

Good Man and I had jokbal for dinner tonight. It was loud because all these company men were drinking after work but the pigs' feet dish was delicious. Can you see the toes?

Jokbal

When the table behind us cleared out I begged Good Man to ask the server if I could get the four empty soju bottles they'd left for my project.

Good Man wanted me to take the photos from where we were or to grab them myself. But I had my prime lens and the table was too cluttered to shoot. Since I was the only foreigner in the place, I was too embarrassed to grab the bottles myself. He asked the woman, who gave us the bottles and asked why we needed them.

"Pictures."

She asked if I was taking pictures for a job (or something like that) and Good Man said yes.

I did get the shot I wanted. Actually, several shots I wanted. Also figured out why the lens wasn't autofocusing and fixed that, though I shot manual focus and eyeball exposure.

I think the Mexican restaurant may be cursed.

I have bronchitis, and my doctor (a very cool woman who speaks good English) forbade me from doing taekwondo until I am better. So this week I've been home every night. Good Man works one subway station away from me. Last night he called around 10 and said, "I'm coming over, I have to do work on my laptop late tonight."

I gave him keys for a reason. (So he can do my dishes when I'm gone, of course.) I didn't mind if he came over.

Except he had to be up past midnight and up again at 6 am to do tech support with Costa Rica. When I was leaving the house this morning I told him to call in late. "Your employer doesn't know you're at my house. You can't possibly do tech support with Costa Rica and be on the subway at the same time. Call him, tell him you're doing tech support, and take a break! Rest! You work too hard."

Good Man took my advice to the extreme and called in sick. (And did my dishes.) Good for him, he is getting sick and he deserves a rest after working 12+ hour days and the last few Saturdays.

So after work we decided we'd go have Mexican food. The food was delicious and afterwards we went to the place we had breakfast for coffee and ice cream.

Good Man was a bit quiet over dinner and coffee. He's stressed from work. And he's sick of Korea. He wants to get out of his home country. I understand the feeling. Both being sick of Korea and wanting to leave one's home country.

Finally we were getting ready to part at the subway station. And I realized I didn't have my handphone.

Good Man callled my phone and a guy answered, but he was all the way in Indeogwon. Turns out he'd found the phone in the taxi and didn't realize it wasn't his until he'd gotten out. It must have fallen out of my pocket. There was no way I could get my phone back without Good Man's help, so even though it was ten and we were both tired, we headed back to Indeogwon and waited to meet the guy. When we got out of the taxi at Indeogwon I jokingly asked Good Man to check that I hadn't left anything behind. He looked in the taxi and held up my pineapple lip balm. I can only wonder how many things I've left behind in taxis.

We finally met the guy. I saw him on the phone talking to Good Man and said, "Is that my phone?" but he shook his head. Good Man turned around and saw the man. The man looked at me. He looked at Good Man. He slid the phone open, looked at Good Man's picture, looked at me, "Oh, that is you!" he said to Good Man with a laugh. We thanked him several times and I tried to give him 10,000 won as a reward, but he refused to take it.

Last time it was shoes, this time my handphone...what will go wrong next time?

Good Man decided to take a taxi home and I made him take 20,000 won to help pay for it. I climbed into my own taxi, because even though I was two stations from my house I was tired. "Why did you leave that man?" the taxi driver said.

"What?"

"The man, not friend?"

"He's my boyfriend."

"Where's he going?"

"He lives in Seoul," I said, praying this one wouldn't ask if I sleep with him.

"Oh. Why not go with?"

I really didn't want to talk to this man, even though I knew he was just doing that taxi driver thing. I said, "His mother was calling him."

"Oh. Yes," the driver said with a nod, "Korean mothers are like that."

Subway Good Man

Coffee Good Man

Photos taken with my new 50mm f/1.8D lens. I wanted the 1.4 but just couldn't afford twice the price for 2/3rds a stop. I'm having problems with the autofocus aspect of it. Honestly, shooting at 1.8, autofocus is going to be a pain anyway because the depth of field is so darn narrow.

I don't know when I last shot with such a fast lens. Heck, I don't know that I've ever shot with such a fast lens. I love throwing the f/stop as far open as possible, so this is a dream come true. Except I need to ready my eyes to manually focus with such a narrow depth of field. And still, getting used to the fact that 50mm is really more like 75mm when mounted on my DSLR is difficult.

I bought five bottles of soju today for a project. (No, the project is not "get drunk").

I then set up the bottles and shot photos of them outside of my apartment complex.

Not a good idea.

Four women on the cusp of being halamonis (barely younger than grandmothers) were intrigued and wouldn't stop chattering at me until I explained to them, in as much detail as I could fluster through, what I was doing.

Was I going to drink the soju myself? Why was I alone in Korea? Why wasn't I married? Did I have a boyfriend? Was he Korean? How much money did my Korean boyfriend [specified, as if I have several boyfriends and keep track of them via nationality] make? Why hadn't he proposed? When was I going to leave Korea? Would I marry a Korean man? Did I color my hair? Did I sleep on the floor? Did I like Korean men? What did I think of Korean history? How old was I? What did my parents do? When did I move to Korea? When did I move to this apartment complex? Wasn't my apartment too big for me to live in alone? I really should be married, right?

And that was about the convoluted order that they asked those questions in, which didn't help my comprehension in any manner.

I didn't even try to answer using honorifics, it was hard enough to answer their barrage of questions sticking to -yo form.

I must admit, those questions were more interesting than the usual "can you use chopsticks/eat kimchi/do you like Korean men" questions I usually get.

Today I was walking through the school parking lot when I ran into a first grader on the ground, holding her knee and crying. Her friend said, "I'm sorry," and patted her shoulder, but the girl still cried.

"You're OK," I said in banmal. I stretched my hand out and she took it. She stood up, still sniffling, as her friend apologized again for knocking her to the ground.

She looked at me and purposefully ignored her friend.

We walked very slowly to the school building, her friend eventually going ahead of us.

The girl said nothing as I chattered away in the low form of Korean. "You're OK. That hurt, right? I know, but you're OK now. And your friend made a mistake. But she's your friend. She said sorry."

The girl just kept looking at me, her limp becoming less pronounced as we reached the front doors.