We just passed the three month anniversary of our arrival in Korea and when I think about how we're adapting I'm reminded of a drinking game we played recently with a group of friends. The game is called "Cheers to the Governor" and the objective is simple: count to 21. The tricky part is that every time you make it to 21 a new rule is made. For example, the numbers 7 and 14 are switched or the person who gets number 4 has to shout "I'm crazy!" instead. When someone messes up you start from the beginning again and it basically goes on as long as everyone has the patience and sobriety for it. Combine this with a language barrier and the game gets pretty interesting. To to get to the point, our friend James makes a rule that on 21 you raise your glass and say "I got this shit." We come to the end of the first round following the creation of this rule and who messes up? James, of course. Thinking he was supposed to be on 21 and not 20 he raises his glass, a huge smile on his face and says "I got this shiiiiii-" -and then he, as well as everyone else, groaned and realized that we did not have this shit. I think this is the perfect anecdote to describe our day to day here. Some days we got it and others we get dropped somewhere in the middle of "shiiiiiiit." A lot still surprises us, in good ways and bad, but with each week that goes by the average day feels a bit more predictable. To summarize, a list of the weirds and wonderfuls of note that we've experienced so far: THE WEIRD -We saw a man walking his pet raccoon through a busy nightclub area on a Wednesday night. -This hat: ,-Korean girls wear super short skirts and heels no matter how cold and icy it may be. Blame it on the influence of K-Pop. Boobies, however, are a big no no. -Hand washing and covering your face when you sneeze and cough is not a thing. This is a cultural thing I'm really struggling with given the recent MERS outbreak last spring and the large amount of Koreans who go into medicine. One problem is that most public bathrooms have neither soap nor warm water, but there is this thing called hand sanitizer, ya feel? The sneezing and coughing is especially not cool because you're regularly surrounded by other people in small spaces. After giving one of my students with particularly bad allergies the angry teacher face repeatedly he now sneezes into his hands rather than projectile spraying across my desk. My personal favorite was when a guy in a classy-enough-to-know better business suit standing above me on the metro, sneezed directly onto my head. Luckily I was wearing a hat so I was shielded from most of the blast....but I'm still blaming him for the cold I got the following week. THE WONDERFUL -Insadong, aka where everyone goes to shop for the gifts people back home actually want. Quirky shops, delicious street food, and this time of year, the Lantern Festival on the Cheonggyecheon. -My students. No doubt, there are those classes that will occasionally make me want to throw myself into the Han but in general, I really love my students. All 130 of them. Eh...make that 123 of 130. My third and fourth graders are my favorite. They understand a lot of English and are at the point where they can use it in creative and exciting ways. The majority also study Chinese so they'll be trilingual by the time they're 16. Asians are so ahead of us. -Our new friends are the best! We're beyond that college freshmen stage of "Oh my god every person I meet is my new best friend" and have finally landed with a group of really great people. The majority are not American which makes it a language exchange as well. We celebrated Thanksgiving with them this past week and it was one of the best Thanksgivings I've ever had, despite the fact that I was missing my family and there was no turkey or stuffing in sight. That night, we also celebrated our friend Jin's birthday and after cake he made a speech that was sweet, beautiful and encompasses everything I'm getting at here. To paraphrase: "We come from many different places and I am happy to celebrate this Friendsgiving with you. I"m happier today than I have ever been and to be here with you. Let's see each other's faces often." Comments are closed.
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