Amanda Takes Off...

There is a man at work, the head of the janitors I think, who gives chocolate bars to everyone from time to time. I never bothered to remember his name because Koreans don't use names. My principal asked me if I knew who he was. I grinned and said he was the "Chocolate Ajosshi." She scolded me and said his family name was Kim. Mr Kim Chocolate Ajosshi just laughed.

On Valentine's Day in Korea, women buy men chocolate. I stopped by the Family Mart this morning and bought a bar of Dove dark chocolate. I found Chocolate Ajosshi in his office, smoke-filled always, in our "smoke free building."

"Mr Kim Chocolate Ajosshi!" I called out, while handing him the chocolate.

Yesterday, walking to the bus stop from work, I passed a man selling large baskets of strawberries. "딸기!" he called out, then muttered in Korean, "I don't know that in English."

I laughed and said, "Strawberries."

"Strawberries, sam cheon won!" he grinned.

I told him I couldn't buy any because I needed to go to taekwondo class. "다임에 살 거예요... Next time, I promised.

Well, next time was today. I had exactly one 1,000 won bill in my wallet, but plenty of change. We chatted a bit, he complimented my Korean, asked about taekwondo.

When I got on the bus, a student of mine waved, "Amanda Teacher!" I sat next to him and opened the bag. "Eat," I commanded.

He took one strawberry and bit into it, eyes closing. "Ummm," he said. The next stop was his stop, and I foisted three more strawberries on him. That was all that would fit in his hands. I watched him at our bus pulled away. He hopped down the street on the way to his hogwon, dropping strawberry stems behind him. A red and green trail.

I came home and found out a friend is getting divorced.

A few hours later, I found out another friend is pregnant.

A few minutes later I found out Good Man would be later than 10 pm. Why? Another wayshik of course. Points for texting me before he was already late. I didn't plan anything special for Valentine's Day because we had agreed not to, but I had wanted to make a nice pasta dinner. I was hungry, so I just made a simple pasta dinner for myself, leaving leftover for him.

More points for Good Man for showing up 7 minutes before his new arrival time of 11. Good, good.

But I still bitched. "Why don't Korean men like their wives? Why do they all love booze so much? Why do they like controlling their employees? Why does this country claim to be so 'family-centered' when it's so obviously not?" I was on a roll because today I had listened to my Cool Coteacher whine about her husband coming home at 3 am this morning from a wayshik.

I have been bothering Good Man to speak Korean for weeks. We decided Thursday would be our Korean-only day. He smiled at me, "한국어를 말하자..."

And ten minutes later—after he'd already dealt with his mother calling (which I'd predicted)—while I was examining a strawberry flower still attached to the berry, KT called Good Man wanting tech support. "Five minutes," he said.

Much more than five minutes later, we were watching America's Next Top Model together. The Chinese lion/dragons came out to inform the girls that they were going to China. Good Man said, "수퍼모델들은 한국에 간다고 들었다면 기뻐하지 않았을 거예요."

And even though I didn't understand everything, I understood what he was saying. If the supermodels had been told they were going to Korea, they wouldn't've been happy. I laughed, and suddenly the day was a bit better, 17 minutes before it was over.