Amanda Takes Off...

I finished the second Pippi book (꼬 마백만장자 삐삐) today. I'm still below where I should be (if I'm perfectly on track to reach my goal), but hey, I'm trucking along. That's what matters.

I'm going to start the third Pippi book next. I'm on a roll with these books and I've gotten into the translator's groove. No reason to quit now!

Good Man and I are celebrating the one year anniversary of our legal ceremony in less than two weeks. We're debating between going somewhere and doing something around here. What complicates it (slightly) is that I have a class on Friday nights until 9:30 and Good Man has class on Mondays, so making it a three-day weekend is impossible. Plus, Mother and Father are coming for Good Man's graduation ceremony in May and I'd like to keep my two remaining personal days for his graduation. And we're going to Mom and George's at the end of next month, which sort of make me "ehhhh" about going somewhere else for just one night.

I was missing Korea today. Korea's rice cake looks bigger than America's.

"Why don't we have more friends around here?" I lamented.

"Because we don't believe in God," Good Man answered.

"I hate it here. I want to go back to Korea."

"How can you be unhappy in a country with electric staplers?" Good Man asked me.

I stared at him. "What?"

"America! You have electric staplers! Americans are lazy, and being lazy is good for invention. Because you want what you want, then you imagine, then make reality. Heaven for lazy people, and you want happiness? Then you buy it..."

My jaw dropped. "I don't want to buy friends."

"No, but we can make more friends."

I laughed, "Make more friends and buy electric staplers?"

"Exactly."

"What is that?"

I looked in the direction Good Man was pointing. "Public Storage? You can—"

"I know, I know. You rent—pay—and put stuff there, right?"

"Right," I nodded.

"That is so—! Stupid! Americans have huge cars. Huge houses. Huge yards—yards they are never outside in! And then they rent more space to keep stuff! America is so...awkward!"

It's been over a year since I've done one of these posts.

Amanda

Good Man

Good Man's Favorite

In this photo you can see a necklace with a penny in it. That's the penny that was taped into my shoe on 3/6/09. It's an Indian head wheat back penny from 1890. It was a birthday gift from my father years ago. A friend of mine told me that when she was married it was the age of the penny which determined how many happy years of marriage the couple would have together.

My Favorite

I love this photo. I'm going to print it up as an 8 by 10 and frame it. In color it's OK. In black and white...I adore it. All of that negative space off to the right—it's negative space full of possibility.

"Why are those letters backwards?" Good Man points to an ambulance.

"So you can read the words in your rear view mirror if it's coming up behind you."

"That! That is so brilliant! America is brilliant!"

I laugh. Shortly after we arrived in America, some ambulance went speeding past. I did what you're supposed to do, you know, slow down and pull over? Good Man was so confused. "Why is everyone doing that? Oh my God! In America they stop!"

"왜 야드에 사람 나오지 않아?" Why aren't people in their yards?

"미국이야. " It's America.

Sometimes I feel like those two years in Korea didn't actually happen. It's not that life stopped in America. It didn't. I don't even live in the same state that I did when I left. But sometimes I have to stop, step back, and ask myself, "Did it really happen?" And then I look at Good Man and realize that, indeed, it happened.

And then there are the reverse moments. Those moments where I am suddenly struck, and I realize that Korea(n(s)) got under my skin.

A few months ago I reached for a new tub of gochujang (spicy red pepper paste) from our pantry. I started chuckling to myself. If anyone had told me five years ago that I'd be cooking Korean food on a weekly basis, I would've rolled my eyes. Yet here I am, with a kitchen stocked up with gochujang, dwenjang, and ganjang.

A few weeks ago, I was walking up the steps in a library. I was nearing the top and someone started to come down the steps. She glared at me and I couldn't understand why until I'd already completed my ascent. Of course. I was walking up the left side of the stairs. I didn't think anything of it, I was just doing it. I've lived here over 8 months now, and I still do it.

I also realized that I keep handing people things with two hands or my left arm tucked under my right. Nobody else cares or notices, but I do.

Last night Diana and I were chatting online and I said that I have very few friends here. But is that true? Last weekend, over dinner, Mark's Lover asked me when we were going to have an engagement party. I said, "We're not. Our wedding is tiny and besides, we have no friends here."

Mark's Lover gestured to everyone else sitting at the table and said, "What are we then?"

I didn't really know what to say. Indeed, Mark and his Lover are friends. But their friends aren't yet our friends, even though we've met them several times.

And last night, chatting with Diana, I realized that before Korea, I'd have called these people friends. Not close friends, but friends. After Korea, not so much.

It seems to me that Koreans don't have friends. They have adjective friends. "This is my seonbae," "he's my hubae," "this is my military friend," "this is my sixth grade friend..."

Have I picked up the adjective friend thing? Is that why I don't yet consider my taekwondo studiomates, or the people who go to Korean Meetups my friends? (Maybe "location friend" is a better descriptor than "adjective friend.")

It's almost as if there's a B.K. (Before Korea) Amanda and an A.K. (After Korea) Amanda. How could two years of conditioning overcome 26 years of my natural environment?

"So a registry is when you give the people who come a little gift?" Good Man asked.

"No, those are favors."

"What's a registry?"

"When you go to a store and make a list of the wedding gifts you want."

Good Man looked shocked. "What?" I nodded. "That's—that's kind of awkward and funny!"

"It's what we do. We think making people pay to get food is awkward and funny."

Good Man, still rather shocked looking, said, "It's like a wedding version of an Amazon giftlist? That's so strange! That's so—so American!"

Good Man's newest phrase: that's so American.