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2 months and counting...

in honor of my 2 month anniversary of arriving in korea, i'd like to share the following about koreans:

more people in pusan (the 2nd biggest city in korea, located 2 hours from my city, tongyeong. btw, tongyeong has the distinction of being called 'the smallest city in korea' and also the 'naples of korea') can speak at least a tiny bit of english than in tongyeong. here even the taxi drivers are mostly devoid of any english skills. in pusan you can find people to give you directions if you try hard enough and ask enough people. it's frustrating, though, that in this part of korea there just isn't very much english literacy at all. supposedly in seoul it's much better because of all the international businesses and overall cosmopolitan-ness. i'm starting to get pretty adept at gesturing to try to communicate a point, both to my students and to people outside of school.

overall people in korea are extremely kind and generous of spirit, and even if they don't speak english will go out of their way to help you. for example, i was waiting for the bus to beomeosa temple on the completely wrong street and when i asked this old man about it (by ask i mean i held up a piece of paper on which i had written the number "90" and i said "busu?" and gestured to where i was standing) he had this little boy lead me several blocks and up a hill to the bus stop where i needed to be. it was amazingly kind and really made my day. then i got onto the bus and it filled up quickly, so that when an elderly couple boarded i got up to offer them my seat. when i did this they were so appreciative and literally all the older people in the front half of the bus where i was started gushing and praising me and thanking me. i didn't know what the words meant but i could tell by their expressions and their tone. in korea, elders are supposed to be respected in a major way, and i think they were really surprised to see a westerner be so respectful of their customs and just generally un-selfish. see, so here are two back-to-back examples of how strangers made me feel really welcomed despite the language barrier. and it's really like this in spades here.

tonight i was eating dinner alone at this ultra-inexpensive restaurant, kimbap nara, near my school. i eat there at least one meal a day and it's essentially a diner but of korean food. my favorite things there are the bibimbap (a bowl of rice topped with veggies and a fried egg and seaweed and hot pepper sauce) and the chomchee gimbap (rice and veggies and tuna rolled in nori seaweed). i was eating the bibimbap and had eaten all the veggies off of the rice (rather than mixing it all together as you are supposed to) and one of the women who works there came over and looked into my bowl and saw the situation and said stuff to me that i didn't understand and made to take the bowl. i let her despite being confused, as i knew they liked me there and would not steal my not-yet-finished meal. she came back having topped off all the veggie toppings! amazingly generous. i said 'kamupsamnida' (thankyou) over and over and bowed and smiled and tried to convey my enormous appreciation. the women working there are so nice to me all the time and it's like they have this nurturing instinct toward me. it's so beautiful and again, despite the fact that i can only say in korean to them what my order is, and 'thank you' and 'it was delicious' and 'goodbye', i feel like we still manage to communicate a human connectedness.

what it comes down to on some level with korea is that people (especially in a small city like tongyeong) view you as a visitor to their country in much the way we might view a visitor to our home. they extend a level of hospitality that is unheard of in america because korea is so small and really wants people to like it. so often i get asked (i mean like at least once a day) by koreans, "what do you think of korea?". this is a severely self-conscious country that has fought for ages to have its own identity and desperately wants a good reputation. it's all quite fascinating and of course i do get treated "rudely" by our standards (ie pointed at, stared/gawked at by strangers) sometimes, but it's pretty innocent in intent and i've not encountered any anti-westerner hostility at all here.

this weekend i am headed back to pusan for the pusan international film festival. my first bout of homesickness has mercifully ebbed and now i am finding myself really loving being here.

before = after