Thursday, September 24, 2009
How Koreans Pronounce Duchamp's Name
I was looking over last year's first grade middle school art test, and low and behold, what do I see but a picture of Duchamp's "Bicycle Wheel." But in the question I saw how his name was written, and it was as follows: 뒤샹. This would effectively be pronounced as Dwee-Shyang. I thought of my dearest boyfriend and his French studies and figured this would make his skin crawl, hence leading to my writing about it. The end.
It Is Impossible to Explain to Koreans What the Concept of a "Nerd" Is
This endeavor is wildly difficult to do, b/c well, in Korea everyone is a nerd. The socially awkward nerd doesn't really exist in Korea's schools b/c the majority of the students fit the American definition.
Korean students study more than most college students do in the United States. My host sister in second grade middle school (the equivalent of 9th grade) has 11 midterms next week (math, science, english, korean, chinese, art, home ec, social studies, ethics, music, and physical education - yes there is even a written test on phys ed). Many middle school students go to school during normal hours (anywhere between 8/9am and 3/4pm) and then go to private institutes to study more (until maybe 10 or 11pm). There is a big emphasis on math and english. My 8-year-old host sister can do multiplication of mixed fractions and reduce them in her sleep. And even in middle school they dream about going to a great college.
Most children when they're young learn how to play at least one instrument. Many of them like animation/anime, playing Starcraft, reading comic books, and wear plastic framed glasses. Many of them can draw really well and adorn everything from their desks to their worksheets and sometimes even their closes with amazing drawings. And now that they are wearing their fall school uniforms, they have sleeve protectors to prevent their long-sleeved white shirts from getting pen on them. Yes, they wear brightly colored sleeve protectors.
And all of the kids are socially well adjusted, probably b/c being a nerd doesn't mean belonging to a minority group. Hence the concept of being a nerd is nonexistant.
I love it!!!
Monday, September 21, 2009
Nature vs Nurture - What Koreans and I Have in Common
So there are a lot of things ingrained in my personality and mannerisms that have made adjusting to Korean life a hell of a lot easier. I don't know if this a nature vs nurture issue, but it is certainly strange. Ok, so here it is:
1. Koreans eat soup, rice, and various savory side dishes for breakfast. - As a kid, I HATED cereal. My parents made me eat it every morning until about junior high/high school, until I decided that I would eat soup for breakfast. I loved eating soup (or leftovers from dinner) for breakfast. I still hate eating cereal in the morning.
2. Koreans sit and sleep on the floor, actually they love the floor. - As a kid, I loved the floor too. I remember my father barking at me to get off the floor and sit on the couch or at the table. Actually I still love the floor. ^_^
3. They don't wear shoes in the house, they're usually barefoot or wear socks. - Again, I think my parents told me not to wear just socks around the house b/c I would wear them out.
4. Koreans have a different concept of personal space, for example they don't really hang out in their room by themselves with the door closed. In fact they think it is strange if you do. - This is how I was in my apartment after college. I never hung in my room by myself, I was usually in the common space. Though my roommates usually would, and then I would feel lonely! haha. Well not actually lonely, but I definitely feel more comfortable if people leave their doors open if they're home, or if they're milling about where I can see them. This trait is something that has made adjusting to Korean home-life infinitely easier than for other Americans.
5. Squatting, Koreans will squat to rest or chill. - I would do this while waiting for the trains in Boston, usually at Park Street.
6. Koreans are such awkward huggers!!! - Ditto. Though Koreans are super touchy feely otherwise, same sex touchy feely. In my classes, boys will sit in other boys' laps, with their arms around each other. Same with girls. Girls hold hands with other girls, and boys hold hands with other boys. But man, if you try and hug them, they have no idea what to do. I am by no means touchy feely, but I am definitely an awkward hugger!!
7. Koreans don't eat from their own plates, well b/c they don't have one. They're all about the sharing. - Another one of my favorite things. Usually when I go to restaurants, I want to split food with other people so I can try everything. I eat off of other people's plates at home, sometimes whether they like it or not, hehe. That is not strange here, well b/c they don't have their own plate. The food is placed in the middle of the table and it's all up for grabs.
8. They also eat everything at the same time. - They don't have courses or finish one thing first and then move on to the next thing. This is how I eat too. Doug always finishes his salad before beginning on his pasta. I like to eat everything at once.
9. And last but not least, Koreans LOOOVE hitting each other!!!! - This is pretty self explanitory if you know me. Hehe. They like seriously hit their good friends. As a kid I always wanted to play fight with my younger sisters. So I would hit them in expectation that they would hit me back. But they would just cry and I would get frustrated (or in trouble with my parents). hehe. And man, I remember Ryan would get sooooo mad at me when I hit him hard. Well, now I understand where it comes from. If only I could explain that to him now.... ^_^
1. Koreans eat soup, rice, and various savory side dishes for breakfast. - As a kid, I HATED cereal. My parents made me eat it every morning until about junior high/high school, until I decided that I would eat soup for breakfast. I loved eating soup (or leftovers from dinner) for breakfast. I still hate eating cereal in the morning.
2. Koreans sit and sleep on the floor, actually they love the floor. - As a kid, I loved the floor too. I remember my father barking at me to get off the floor and sit on the couch or at the table. Actually I still love the floor. ^_^
3. They don't wear shoes in the house, they're usually barefoot or wear socks. - Again, I think my parents told me not to wear just socks around the house b/c I would wear them out.
4. Koreans have a different concept of personal space, for example they don't really hang out in their room by themselves with the door closed. In fact they think it is strange if you do. - This is how I was in my apartment after college. I never hung in my room by myself, I was usually in the common space. Though my roommates usually would, and then I would feel lonely! haha. Well not actually lonely, but I definitely feel more comfortable if people leave their doors open if they're home, or if they're milling about where I can see them. This trait is something that has made adjusting to Korean home-life infinitely easier than for other Americans.
5. Squatting, Koreans will squat to rest or chill. - I would do this while waiting for the trains in Boston, usually at Park Street.
6. Koreans are such awkward huggers!!! - Ditto. Though Koreans are super touchy feely otherwise, same sex touchy feely. In my classes, boys will sit in other boys' laps, with their arms around each other. Same with girls. Girls hold hands with other girls, and boys hold hands with other boys. But man, if you try and hug them, they have no idea what to do. I am by no means touchy feely, but I am definitely an awkward hugger!!
7. Koreans don't eat from their own plates, well b/c they don't have one. They're all about the sharing. - Another one of my favorite things. Usually when I go to restaurants, I want to split food with other people so I can try everything. I eat off of other people's plates at home, sometimes whether they like it or not, hehe. That is not strange here, well b/c they don't have their own plate. The food is placed in the middle of the table and it's all up for grabs.
8. They also eat everything at the same time. - They don't have courses or finish one thing first and then move on to the next thing. This is how I eat too. Doug always finishes his salad before beginning on his pasta. I like to eat everything at once.
9. And last but not least, Koreans LOOOVE hitting each other!!!! - This is pretty self explanitory if you know me. Hehe. They like seriously hit their good friends. As a kid I always wanted to play fight with my younger sisters. So I would hit them in expectation that they would hit me back. But they would just cry and I would get frustrated (or in trouble with my parents). hehe. And man, I remember Ryan would get sooooo mad at me when I hit him hard. Well, now I understand where it comes from. If only I could explain that to him now.... ^_^
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Art Stuff!!! Finally!!!!
So while I was in Seoul this past weekend, outside of taking photos of funny Engrish things, I did finally get to check out some art stuff. I first went to Arario Gallery, where I saw a solo painting show of Jin Meyerson's works. His paintings are really ambitious, taking imagery from various sources of our contemporary visual culture and turning them into a vortex of both representational imagery and abstract color on a large scale. For those that know me, it's not really my cup of tea, but I have to admire the ambition and his handling of paint. I really liked some of the passages of heavy abstraction, more-so than the more representational parts. I actually got to meet his family b/c the friend who I went to Seoul with, she knows his mother through her grandmother. He is actually a Korean adoptee as well, and I was hoping to meet him too, but he was too busy and our schedule was tight as well.
I also went to the Artsonje Center, which was a short walk down the block. I got to see Kyungah Ham's show called, "Desire and Anesthesia." Her show was really cool, and explored the complexity of the displacement of art throughout the ages, and how much of history's great art does not reside in its actual place of origin. This conjures up more serious issues of power, materialism, and colonialism and how they have helped to create the magnificent power house art museums that exist today (the Met, the Louvre, etc). She addressed these ideas through various media, including painting, photography, and mixed media. I really liked photos up on one wall where she documents her own partaking in artifact displacement. She would steal coffee cups in one country and swap them out at other coffee shops in other countries. Humorous, but to the point.
At the Artsonje Center, on the first floor they have a bookshop. So of course I bought an art book. I ended up buying a book by a Korean American artist who shows at the Tina Kim Gallery, in NYC. The artist's name is Kyung Jeon, and it contains plates of drawings illustrating an almost fairy-tale-like story. It had drawings of naked asians, skulls, and monsters and was only 15,000W ($12), so I had to buy it!
This was the inside of the book shop part of the art center.
For Those Who Don't Believe My Toilet Paper Woes
Ok, so this sign was on the stall door in a Starbucks bathroom in Seoul. This is why I have toilet paper issues people!!! >.<
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Beginning the Search for My Birth Mom
Ok, so I finally got the balls to call HOLT, the adoption agency who dealt with my case on the Korean side of things. I will be meeting with a social worker at their Seoul office at the end of the month, on Sept 29. Eeee!!!!! I will be reviewing my case with a Ms. Lee (who sounded extremely nice over the phone) and will be putting in my official request to begin the search for my birth mother. Oh this is inducing a lot of very complicated emotions!!!
Monday, September 14, 2009
How Did I Miss a Pop Video With Hot Korean Girls and Hints of Bondage???
I hear this song everywhere. And my host sisters sing it ALL the time. Ok, enjoy!!
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Noraebang With Teachers Last Night
So I went to Daegu last night with some of the teachers from my school. Daegu is the third largest city in Korea and only about 25-30 min East from Gumi via train. We got dinner (bibimbap!) and then went to a bar. It was me and 5 other female teachers (ranging from early 30s to late 40s? Koreans look younger than their actual age, so they could've been a little older). After drinking beer and eating dried squid we went to a noraebang and sang korean songs and drank more beer. The older teachers were amazing singers! I could only sing the choruses to a few select Korean songs, but I did do the dance for "Sorry, Sorry," which is posted below for the Americans who haven't seen or heard this song. ^_^
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Oh Toilet Paper Troubles!!!
So today I discovered that I can indeed flush toilet paper down the toilet at my home and in the school.
For those who don't know, in a lot of places in Korea you can't flush toilet paper down the toilet b/c the pipes can't handle it. In Chuncheon we couldn't flush it in the dorms. So I thought we couldn't here in Gumi.
But I finally had that conversation with my host mom. This also cleared up her question about why the tiniest of tiny waste baskets next to the toilet started to become full more quickly when I moved in. Oh cross cultural misunderstanding. Who would've thought that even wiping your ass could be so complicated?? ^_^
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Thoughts on Looking Like Everyone Else
Obviously I knew that by coming to Korea, I would look like the majority of people (for once in my life). And I knew before arriving in Korea that my minority status would switch. In the USA I'm about as American as they come (I believe in freedom of the individual over the good of the whole, diversity, democracy, etc) but I am a minority by race. In Korea I am a cultural minority but my face is SOOOO Korean.
Yeah, let me repeat that, my face is SOOOOO Korean!! I confuse many Korean people, actually let me take that back. I confuse ALL Korean people!! The first thing out of every Korean's mouth when they hear me speak for the first time is, "Aren't you a Korean person???" (in Korean of course) I get this in taxis, department stores, grocery stores, in school, etc etc etc. Here ethnicity and culture go hand-in-hand. Here it is a very foreign idea that a person who's face looks so Korean is not really a Korean.
Foreigners here who look foreign (esp if you are white) are treated like super stars. Korea is a very homogenous place and so if someone clearly sticks out as foreign, they are greeted as someone special. However if you don't look foreign and you speak English, you are treated with skepticism. And apparently if a Korean person speaks English with a good accent, to other Koreans they are considered snobbish. Hence I get dirty looks all the time when Korean people (especially middle aged women) hear me speak English.
Most of the time I can't communicate with most people. I can speak a little Korean, but nothing on the level that can express complex or abstract thoughts. So when I see foreigners, sometimes I feel a sigh of relief knowing that there are people who I can probably talk with. But they look at me as just another Korean person, and not an American.
So the combination of these different things has led me to feel as if I am a ghost sometimes. I'm nothing special to Koreans or Westerners, and so effectively they don't really see me. And who I am is not what I am projecting to these people, and this projection is not anything that I can control either. In the USA I can better control the personality that I project to strangers b/c our surrounding symbolic system is the same. Here, my face says it all, whether I want it to or not. It wouldn't matter how I dressed, how I carried myself, my mannerisms, my face is Korean and so I am assumed to be Korean, and a snobby one at that. It is a very interesting dilemma.
This hasn't really bothered me yet, if anything it amuses me. I may have the quality of a ghost from afar, but then I retain that element of surprise when I actually have to talk to people. And then when I drop the adopted bomb, hehe, oh man. But that will be a topic for another posting. ^_^
Yeah, let me repeat that, my face is SOOOOO Korean!! I confuse many Korean people, actually let me take that back. I confuse ALL Korean people!! The first thing out of every Korean's mouth when they hear me speak for the first time is, "Aren't you a Korean person???" (in Korean of course) I get this in taxis, department stores, grocery stores, in school, etc etc etc. Here ethnicity and culture go hand-in-hand. Here it is a very foreign idea that a person who's face looks so Korean is not really a Korean.
Foreigners here who look foreign (esp if you are white) are treated like super stars. Korea is a very homogenous place and so if someone clearly sticks out as foreign, they are greeted as someone special. However if you don't look foreign and you speak English, you are treated with skepticism. And apparently if a Korean person speaks English with a good accent, to other Koreans they are considered snobbish. Hence I get dirty looks all the time when Korean people (especially middle aged women) hear me speak English.
Most of the time I can't communicate with most people. I can speak a little Korean, but nothing on the level that can express complex or abstract thoughts. So when I see foreigners, sometimes I feel a sigh of relief knowing that there are people who I can probably talk with. But they look at me as just another Korean person, and not an American.
So the combination of these different things has led me to feel as if I am a ghost sometimes. I'm nothing special to Koreans or Westerners, and so effectively they don't really see me. And who I am is not what I am projecting to these people, and this projection is not anything that I can control either. In the USA I can better control the personality that I project to strangers b/c our surrounding symbolic system is the same. Here, my face says it all, whether I want it to or not. It wouldn't matter how I dressed, how I carried myself, my mannerisms, my face is Korean and so I am assumed to be Korean, and a snobby one at that. It is a very interesting dilemma.
This hasn't really bothered me yet, if anything it amuses me. I may have the quality of a ghost from afar, but then I retain that element of surprise when I actually have to talk to people. And then when I drop the adopted bomb, hehe, oh man. But that will be a topic for another posting. ^_^
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Zombie Korean Children
This what I see every morning when I get off the bus. It's like Night of the Living Dead, just with adorable Korean kids.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Hmmm... I don't know what this means....
So I asked all of the kids to write me a self introduction so I could better know what my students like and don't like, what music they listen to, what they watch on television, etc. And this is one boy's response I got:
"I like a Furry and Music and so on. My hobby is watch animation. I love animation and Furry."
Ummmmm, I'm pretty sure that he is not the type of American person I am thinking of that likes animation and furries.... I wonder if there are furries in Korea? Hmmmm..... a year of misunderstanding begins!!
Another good response was simply, "I like girl."
"I like a Furry and Music and so on. My hobby is watch animation. I love animation and Furry."
Ummmmm, I'm pretty sure that he is not the type of American person I am thinking of that likes animation and furries.... I wonder if there are furries in Korea? Hmmmm..... a year of misunderstanding begins!!
Another good response was simply, "I like girl."
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