Amanda Takes Off...

Good Man and I have only been on a few weekend trips. Anseong, and Nami Island. We have tried planning other trips, only to have his downstairs neighbor die, or to have his bosses make him work.

Well, this weekend we decided we'd go somewhere. Good Man decided on a location, but the train tickets were sold out. We decided we'd just show up at the train station, but then he decided Soraksan would be good, so we planned a trip there.

Friday morning, on my way out the door, I said, "If your bosses say you have to work this weekend, lie. Tell them your aunt is turning 60 or something."

"OK."

"약속해?" Promise?

"Yes," he said, before rolling back to sleep.

Friday evening, while we were chatting, he sent me an "OMG" message that his coworker's father had died.

In South Korea, when someone dies, everyone who knows Someone who that Dead Someone is related to drops everything to travel back to the hometown to sit around for a few days and wait for a funeral. Oh, and give the family money. Cause everything (birth, 100 days, 1 year, 60 years, wedding, death) is about money here. (And we must keep careful, careful track of who gives us what and exactly how much, because when we must give money back, it will be the exact same amount. I will never get married in this country. Tacky.)

He said he would have to go to Daegu and maybe we could meet in Daegu.

I. Lost. It.

His coworkers don't even know about my existence, and he thought I was going to hop on a train to Daegu to sit around and wait around God-knows-where for him to escape and maybe meet me?

Oh, no.

So I said as much.

On top of it, I had already declined a skiing invitation and a birthday party invitation and a drinking invitation and I had not contacted YJ because I was supposed to be out of town.

So I said as much.

He is not close to this guy, he is not friends with him. He doesn't intend to be at this company much longer. I know this is Korean culture, but I did not care.

So I said as much.

Lucky for me, Diana was online at the time. I started CHATTING WITH HER LIKE THIS! YELLING ABOUT KOREA! LIKE THIS!!!! Then she had to get off the computer, but she fabulously called me on the phone SO I COULD YELL AND RANT AND RAVE FOR REAL!'

Now, side. Diana lives in Daegu, and I bet I could've done a "please let me stay with you, I'll be nice to your cat and clean up after myself" if I needed to, but she was going skiing this weekend and wouldn't be around.

So after I ranted and raved about how I hate Korea, hate Koreans, hate Korean culture, I went back to my computer to find out that seven minutes earlier, while I'd been ranting, Good Man had written that he'd said he couldn't leave.

Now, this was true, as his coworkers had all dropped everything to go to Daegu, and were already on their ways out the door, but he'd been on the phone doing tech support for two hours.

Still, he did it for me.

And then I sort of felt my stomach crumble because I am just such an utter bitch sometimes. Especially every four weeks or so, and it wasn't Good Man or Dead Man's fault that the moon was aligned perfectly this weekend.

"Hmm," I said to Diana, "I think I owe Good Man something special now."

So then I went back to packing and prepped and thanked Good Man and apologized.

But this is Korea. You rarely, rarely apologize in Korea. It's not face saving to do so. And when you do apologize, the face saving thing for the other party to do is to act like it's not a big deal.

Now, anyone who's known me for a while knows that I do not like to be wrong, I do not like to apologize, I do not like to admit that I am wrong. Because I am so rarely wrong that we might as well say I am never wrong.

You would think that I would relish the Korean face-saving-no-apologizing-thing. Problem is, somewhere along the way to adulthood, my mom and dad and stepdad and brother and Mark all convinced me that apologizing is not a sign of weakness or defeat.

And so when I apologize, I mean it, because I am not quick to do it.

And when Good Man just said, "It's OK, baby, I'm not upset with you. We'll have a good weekend," I was left sort of standing there. Still feeling crappy about YELLING LIKE THIS.

And also very grateful. Because Good Man is so awesome. And he understands me. EVEN WHEN I AM LIKE THIS!!!!

사랑해, 규드멘.