It takes all kinds! Clothes and getting home... (And last minute touring)

MP3 Clothing

I read an article this week about South Korea’s plan to export clothing designed to play mp3s. Some pieces will obviously have to be detached before washing. I wondered to myself (and now to you) after seeing so many different types of fashion here—very few resembling anything an American would typically be accustomed to, or wear, for that matter—how what I have nicknamed “Tablecloth Apparel” would be successfully mass-marketed. The mixing and matching I’ve seen is comparable to a curtain in an 80-year-old’s home... but then I remembered that down south, land of the free and the conservative, not many people get out of the box with their attire. Even the rest of the country, though, wouldn’t wear a lot of what I see on a daily basis. However, Americans on the whole tend to be less inclined than the rest of the world to get crazy with the wardrobe. So if you wire a shirt and sell it anywhere but the US, it may actually be a success. We shall see!

Bowling.

My last days are here! In fact, this will probably be my last blog from Seoul! In preparing for departure, many goodbyes must be said. This past weekend, a few of us attempted to do that with an afternoon of bowling! We located the bowling center in Hongdae, near Hongik University, but struck out (haha, pun intended) with it being an afternoon for league competition. So Amber, Sean, Ilya, Sam and I went down the street and sat around a coffee house for a few hours. We returned to the bowling center about 6pm and most of the diehards had cleared out. What we noticed about the ones remaining was a glove-type thing they were wearing—it was like an electronic bowling skill enhancement of sorts. Who knows what it was all about (You could say I’m not exactly current on bowling accessory technology)—but it apparently improves their abilities. Regardless, we rented our silly shoes, picked up some colorful balls, and hit two lanes. Amber and Sean’s friend came to meet us later, as did my friend Gus, who was celebrating work successes and thus brought beer. Amber and Sean finished pretty quickly—Sean has recently learned a “hook” which sort of sounds like a curve ball in bowling. Ilya smoked Sam and me—he was a champion with 5 strikes! Because this was the first time I have seen Ilya since he left for a semester in America (he’s Russian—I met he and Tamas, a Hungarian, my first weekend here) it was pretty good to get to hang out again. He and Sam conversed in Russian while the rest of us listened a bit, but stuck to our native languages.

63 building

After two hours at the lanes, Sam and I headed to the 63 building. Unlike much Korean architecture sort of slopped together in what is often a more functional and less aesthetic manner, this building isn’t entirely repulsive and is certainly the most distinctive element of Seoul’s skyline. A copper colored building that tapers at the top, its name comes from the number of floors it has... though 3 of them are basement. It was the only remaining item on my “must see” list, and of course I preferred to check it out after dark. I know most cities look alike when the sun is down, but one of my favorite things about or sites in this place is how beautiful the Han River looks at night. The top floor observation deck left no room for disappointment! You could see the entire city by walking around the top of this tourist attraction—it was so amazing. Those moments really take me back and make me think about how small I am in the grand scheme of things. Anything I worry about is nothing compared to all it takes to keep everything I’m looking at going—the lights, the cars, the boats, the businesses... I’m hardly a dot when you look at all of it. But we all are... so I guess we’re all necessary for the big picture, but it’s still humbling and incredible.

Flight restrictions.

And speaking of all get concerned about, I’ve checked the sites and passenger guidelines of the airlines I’m flying, and it appears that the repercussions of the recent terror attempts are resounding everywhere across the globe. It is really a pain because for a short trip when all I want to do is have a carry-on and no checked luggage, I’m going to have to check my bags anyway, in addition to going through the already time-consuming customs and immigration and all that jazz. And as annoying as it may be and as crunched as it makes my schedule, the truth is, I’m okay with it. The same way I thanked a police officer at a home football game after September 11th for searching my purse, I know that the restrictions are just the good having to suffer for the bad. I have nothing to hide, so if they want to search my bags inside and out to make sure I’m safe and so are the rest of the people on my flight, so be it. I’ll wait around a little longer, I’ll walk through the metal detector a few extra times, and I’ll get to the airport a bit earlier... If they weren’t going through all this rigmarole, I think we’d have an even bigger problem.


Copyright 2006 Olivia R. Reed

100 days 100 degrees 100 different ways

100 days.

When a child is 100 days old in Korea, it’s a big celebration. The whole family gathers together for merriment and plays games, some of which are superstitious in their indication of the child’s future (if a child grabs money out of a hat, they will be rich. If they grab a book, they’ll pursue academic interests, etc.). It’s all good fun and just one way to have a birthday party a little early. (I don’t know historically why 100 days became the day for festivities). I just learned that the same goes for couples. They celebrate every 100 days they’ve been together. (For American men, this thing every 3+ months seems like a pretty good deal, but because you have to actually count, it requires you to know the day you started dating). One of my Korean co-workers has been with her boyfriend almost 1400 days (nearly 4 years). Your friends are supposed to give you 100Won pieces of money (about 10 cents) for good luck. This co-worker EVEN suggested to another co-worker celebrating his first 100 days giving 100 roses (come on—100 days, 100 roses? No wonder clothes are so cheap here—you have to spend that kind of money every 3 months and your friends just give you a dime? Sheesh!) But I thought the real clincher came when the cell phone companies got in on the deal: there’s a feature on phones where you can put in the day you started dating and it calculates how many days it has been. Oh wow—way to go, Samsung!


Humidity.

Man oh man is it getting hot in this country. I’ll come home and after having no a/c on all day, my apartment is 30 degrees… Celsius! (That’s 86F). It’s not the same smothering heat I recall from home, but I had to run several errands this morning before school and it felt like I was wearing a layer of slime between my body and my clothes. Even my hair was wet—and all I did was ride the bus and subway and walk down the street! I curl my eyelashes in the morning and the curl doesn’t hold because the humidity takes it right out! No kidding! How bizarre. I exercise more here than I did at home, but surely my sweat glands aren’t that much more efficient! I stopped to buy a replenishing powerade-like drink before I walked my sweaty self into the travel agent after my sweatfest this week. I didn’t want to totally look like Swamp Thing!


Yankee!

For what will probably be my last weekend in Daegu, I arrived early Saturday morning because Friday night was a sleepless one. Courtesy of the painters downstairs at school (who are now the drillers, noisily poking holes into the floor beneath me), I breathed in carcinogenic fumes for three days, to whom credit is due for the funk running from my nasal cavity into my throat. Hence my sleeplessness for all but about 3 hours. Saturday consisted of a BBQ with Army folk and then going out. On our way to the bar, our taxi passed two old Korean men fighting, throwing one another on the ground and rolling. Then we realized that they were just drunk and showing affection for one another, having a good time. A few minutes later, our taxi crossed a big intersection where we saw a man standing still, arms up over his head, smack in the middle of the road. No idea what either of these phenomena were about, but more than a year in Korea and I’ve never seen something like this before. But in less than 5 minutes, witnessed both. How odd! Anyway, we arrived at a bar whose name escapes me (Itaewon something or other, much like the armpit area of Seoul for foreigners, called Itaewon). We ordered drinks and noticed a computer next to the bar where you could load whatever music you wanted onto Winamp and have it played. What a fun idea! While I was waiting for drinks, a man who looked to be about mid-30s, asked what my drink was and how much it was. When he asked the bartender how much it was, he turned to me and said, “F*** that.” I opted to ignore him... until he later interrupted my mp3 surfing to move one of his songs up on the play list and stop the one that was playing at the moment. I mean, he grabbed my hand, clicked on what he wanted, and walked off. I thought it was incredibly rude. Then he returned to check on his playlist (which I avoided deleting despite his behavior) and pitched a fit that someone’s “Phish” song had been put in the middle of his favorites. I honestly had no clue whose song it was or who did it, nor did I care... until he started commanding me to remove this song, rearrange that one, etc. Then he dropped a few profanities and Sgt. Lee Tabor, one of the guys with us and true to his title of "First Class," turned to defend my honor. (I really was touched that he was so quick to take up for me... but this guy was entirely too old to be out at a bar, much less being a jerk about some silly tunes). So they had a few words before the bartender walked up and asked what this guy’s problem was. He started whining about how he’s been waiting to listen to his music (most of which I liked, for the record) for two hours. He spoke a little Korean, but she realized that he got greedy with his 10+ lyrical desires and told him he had too many. She asked me which songs I wanted, and at this point Taber and I had 3 songs at the bottom of the list, long after his were to be played. I said this was fine, no issues for me. I decided I wasn’t going to be involved in this, so I walked off, while she decided she was going to have to make her own playlist. Then another one of our crew went to order a drink and somehow managed to get in a macho match with this same north-of-the-Mason-Dixon guy. It was truly ridiculous. He must have realized it, too, because he left shortly thereafter. What an ordeal! Events like these are what make my remaining time here less pleasant. When something works my nerves, I just think, “Only a few more days of this!” I’m not even unhappy, but I don’t plan on many unpleasantries upon my return.


Copyright 2006 Olivia R. Reed

Paid for and confirmed!

I have reserved and paid for the following flights. Two weeks from today I'll be home. Two weeks from this moment I'll be in the air. YIPPEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

China:
Seoul (ICN) to Beijing (PEK) China Airlines Flight # 124
Departing August 27 13:05 Arriving at 14:05

PEK to ICN China Airlines Flight # 137
Deparing August 29th 18:45 Arriving at 21:25


HOOOOOOOOOOOOME:
Seoul (ICN) to Denver (DEN) United Air Flight # 892
Depart 13:50 August 30th Arriving at San Francisco Intl Airport (apparently just stay on the plane and don't transfer)

DEN to MSY United Air Flight # 1126
Departing 18:50p Arriving at 22:29p.


Because of the time difference, I will arrive in New Orleans about 8 hours and some change after I left Korea, rather than as many hours later as I will be in an airplane. Works for me! (Hello jetlag! But hello Louisiana!)

Copyright 2006 Olivia R. Reed

Scandals In The South

FUSSIN'
Koreans have an indirect way of fussing. They beat around the bush about almost everything even remotely uncomfortable. The disadvantage of this is that if they really are just casually chatting, you are unsure how to take it. Are they hinting around? Or do they really just want to jaw about something insignificant? I recently observed my Assistant Director being very unprofessional about one of our substitute teachers. For a good ten minutes in our Monday meeting, she talked about what she didn’t like about this particular teacher. Not only is this uncalled for and unnecessary, the substitute didn’t have any idea that the situation was as ugly as it was painted to peers. Now why should all the other teachers know about a problem before the source? Seems bad for morale and effectiveness, in my humble opinion. Though my June vacation timing was less than desirable for some of my coworkers, no one told me I couldn’t take it. Had I assumed my coworkers would tell me “absolutely not!” if asked, I might not have gone. But in fact, they would prefer not to say it to me (and probably said it to other teachers). I seem to have been the catalyst for everyone else taking vacation because not one single member of the staff or admin hasn’t been on an extended weekend—at a minimum—since, and most have taken a week. The one who made the biggest fuss about my trip went on the longest vacation (and is one and the same with the AD mentioned above). So how is one supposed to interpret such behavior and roundabout suggestions? I’ve decided that you aren’t. If they want to work with Westerners and want to make a point, they need to just learn to make it. They can’t expect everyone to walk in here and just “get” their ways and behave accordingly. What kind if international relations would we have if everyone from different cultures and countries were to act on assumptions? Yikes!

SOCCER: SEOUL vs. TOKYO
This past weekend was one of my last in Seoul, so my friend Gus asked if Sam and I wanted to attend the Korea vs Japan soccer match. We thought it would be good scandalous fun to watch these nemeses pitted against each other on the green grass in World Cup Stadium... and tickets were free. As it turned out, the game was actually Seoul vs Tokyo under the Football Club Seoul umbrella, but we decided to stick around anyway. Sam and I got there 3 hours early and found a quiet, mini-mountain off to the side of the stadium, where we hiked up a few stories worth of hill and plopped ourselves on a bench with reading material purchased on Yongsan Army post. After mosquitoes, spiders, and other unknown critters snacked on my white, unprotected skin, we headed down to meet Gus and take our seats. Two minutes into the game, Seoul scored. I turned to Gus and said, “Watch, they won’t score the rest of the game now!” The stadium was about half empty, but looked near capacity further into the game. We snacked on dried squid, fried chicken, beer and water. There was a halftime show that included the mayors of both Seoul and Tokyo, trying to promote peaceful relations between the nations. One particular player—married to the former Ms Korea—was retiring, so he was presented with flowers, a trophy, and other whatnots. Later, at 84 minutes into the match, Seoul scored again. And a final goal at 86 minutes! I’m no soccer connoisseur, but I called this one! We decided to attempt to beat the crowd out, since it was apparent that Tokyo couldn’t make a comeback with 4 minutes to go.

SEONYUDO
Sunday I looked through my Seoul’s Best 100 book and decided on 2 more “must sees” before I leave. Seonyudo and the 63 building. Seonyudo is an islet in the middle of the Han River with a water plant park, a large café, Rainbow bridge that leads over to the other side of the city, a museum and visitors center, etc. Weather here is hot and humid these days, though not quite as smothering as a good Louisiana summer day. So hanging out around 4pm at this islet was certainly toasty, but bearable. We watched little Korean children swimming and playing in a stream, we saw many families and groups out on their blankets in the shade. We had ice cream, fries and citrus refresher drinks at the café, we meandered through the water plant park (lily pads and other tall grasses—a bit of a rip-off for a botanist, but suitable for your typical tourist) and enjoyed the peace that this park seemingly in touch with nature, even though smack in the middle of the world’s 5th largest city, had to offer.

AMERICAN STEREOTYPING
Have you ever forgotten to put on deodorant? I had a roommate—one I considered fairly prissy—who skipped a class one day because she realized she’d forgotten her anti-smell application that morning and headed home to put it on. (That’s probably not the “Secret” that particular manufacturer had in mind!) Well the other morning I was at the corner near my apartment and realized I’d done the same thing. I didn’t want to turn back, but I knew that in this roasting weather I’d give my coworkers a reason to stay far away from me if I didn’t do something. Hello Taxi! I hopped in the air conditioned Hyundai and took the $2 route to work. As I was getting out, my driver asked if I was Canadian. I told him that no, I’m from America. He looked surprised and said that I must not eat hamburgers, because I am so skinny. Ha!

LOST IN TRANSLATION — OR THE KTX!
I decided that my Hawaii-bound boyfriend needed some flip flops—both because he only currently has two left ones that he actually wears when he’s doing laundry, and because what better accessory could a guy have if he’s going to live on an island? We found some on sale last weekend at Seoul Station just before he boarded his train home. Unfortunately, at the end of his 2-hour ride, he didn’t wake up in time to grab everything when he was exiting, and the shoes went on to Busan without him. Oops. So this weekend, we purchased his return ticket before we checked with the Lost and Found. They brought us a bag identical to the one left on the train, but with someone’s dress shoes. All of our communicating was in broken Korean and English, so it was an amusing comedy of errors to get it all explained. After purchasing my KTX discount cards, I’ve become quite fond of the semi-bilingual lady who works at the Tourist Information Desk. She could stand to be a lot friendlier and more knowledgeable, but beggars can’t be choosers. So After several dead ends with the Lost and Found crew, the woman helping us left only to return shortly with the Tourist Info lady to help. The same one we’d just purchased a ticket from. “Oh!” she exclaimed as she slightly recoiled when she saw us. Sam and I looked at one another and laughed. Well, they weren’t able to find his shoes in Busan (I’m convinced they’re there, but that’s beside the point). We tried to buy another pair, but they were out of his size. The summer sandals, and we, are lost in translation.

KOREA AND KOSOVO
My upper level class is reading an abridged version of Pride and Prejudice. I attempt to bring out the difference in two characters and their view on love and marriage (this is recommended in my Teacher’s Guide). So I pose the idea to my students of what is important in a marriage. Even when they have no idea what I’m going for, they typically throw out some ideas and get the ball rolling. I looked at one of the boys and asked what he thought. “How do we know?” he said, “We are just kids!” How can you do anything but laugh at that? I eventually took the class in the direction we needed, it’s just a matter of comparing it to something that reaches them. And speaking of teaching, my great aunt recently sent me two books she read with her Oklahoma Book Club. One is Paula Huntley’s The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo about a woman whose husband had been recruited to help rework the legal system of the country after the war there and her story is of what she taught—and more importantly, learned—by teaching English through literature, etc. The book’s arrival was truly perfect timing. I’m still less than 1/4 through it, but diving into what the author is thinking as a novice in this foreign land I can’t help but compare it to my initial feelings 363 days ago. Though Korea is hardly Kosovo—even with the Korean War history that’s 50 years old, this country has made a remarkable recovery, much to the surprise and maybe chagrin of any North Koreans who make it out and are ever able to see Seoul a mere 40 miles from their southern border—there’s something similar to be found.

COMIN' HOME
I'm thinking about not traveling at all and just returning to the US. A Korean cop stopped me this morning on my way back from the gym and post office. I was carrying flattened boxes and luckily my purse (I usually just carry my gym card when I go there, but since I had to buy boxes I brought my purse today). He asked for my ID, where I'm from—Canada or America, what state (at which point I thought, "That card has all the info about me that this country thinks you should know!" but I reluctantly cooperated), where I live here, how long, etc. The sheet he wrote my info down on said "Should... Should have... Have not" so I wondered if he just wanted an excuse to practice English. Then he started saying, "Foreign criminal" and I asked, "What's the problem?" He couldn't really get anything else out. I said, "Was there a crime?" and he said "No, no crime." I said, "So because I am a foreigner, I'm a criminal?" and he said no. He punched my ID number into his phone and then gave the card back and said OK. I was trying to call every bilingual person I knew, but no dice. Then he said, "I must go!" and crossed the street. I'm not particularly worried, but I was certainly miffed. Some caveat would have been nice besides just “foreign criminal.” I wonder if when I try to leave they'll tell me "Oh no, you came up on the police computer!" or something. Mercy! So anyway, I'll think about it over the weekend. I don't want to skip traveling and regret it... but I am ready to leave. Additionally, my director is on vacation this week and the AD started some scandal yesterday about our move out date of our apartments. I don't really care because I was planning to be finished early anyway, but my coworker who lives in the same building was hollering and threatening to quit, etc. Furthermore, there's always plenty of work to be done at home. And I could save the dough!

Copyright 2006 Olivia R. Reed

American Pie - Almost Full Circle

Well, here I am again, nearly full circle. Winter intensives were the month of January and summer intensives are through the end of August. Korea is where the over-educated (is that possible? Maybe over-saturated with academic materials is more appropriate) spend their free time learning. Studying. Reading. What ever happened to swim and slumber parties, sunny afternoons in the sprinkler, hide-and-go-seek with the neighbors, riding bikes down the street to get a snowball, hours watching movies or old sitcom favorites? These poor children! Though they tend to do better than counterparts even when they aren’t raised in such a rigorous academic environment, I’m not so sure the benefits of all this work balance the efforts. Regardless, none of that seems to matter to them, and they trudge on with their studies. Thus, I plod on with the teaching. Three solid hours of the ins and outs of communicative grammar is, as you may guess, nothing short of an absolute blast! Tack it on to my regular teaching day, followed by up to two hours of tutoring, and you can imagine I’m a regular cheerleader come midnight. At least the severity of the workweek comes to an end for the teachers and we have two full weekend days to recharge (and rethink a choice to extend the contract for some)! And if I think it’s that much fun, I can only imagine what these children think, considering that even after all I’ve done, they have to go home and study and learn it all in a language less familiar to them. Talk about paying your dues—Phew!

Alas, my remaining FOUR weeks in this city/country are here. I have discovered a Round The World (RTW) ticket that allows between 3 and 15 stops to be used in 365 days for anywhere from $1500 to $3000. Considering I know that a round trip ticket to the contiguous US can run $1800, I think this is an absolute steal of a deal! Now it’s merely the planning, sleeping, touring, funding, and language that have to be worked out. However, the adrenaline that gets going when I get an itinerary from an agent suggesting I layover in Dubai and Prague (but not the one who suggested Tel Aviv), well it’s not a difficult thing to get motivated for!

Other than this, the last of my days here will be busied with farewell visits with friends, any other touring on my “To Do” list, packing up and shipping home anything I can’t live without at home, and searching for a new suitcase wheel since my luggage suffered a blowout in Bangkok that has yet to be repaired. It should all be fun… My life seems to be on such a high right now that I have not a single complaint. To add to all the thrills of the travel, at the end of it all, I’ll be back home to see those I’ve been missing terribly and eat the food hard or impossible to find in these parts. It will undoubtedly be a whirlwind visit (ideally, perhaps not realistically) with visits, restaurants, TAILGATING, job searching and some jet lag to boot, before heading out again either for interviews or a move—eventually both. But it excites me each time I let my imagination run with it. Driving again will be weird but welcomed. Being at LSU to see people who’ve never left—the world doesn’t stop just ‘cause you’re gone, always a sobering and fun realization when one is reminded of all that carries on. Friends with new homes, offices, (boobs for some who chose to spend their FEMA money that way), significant others, cars, scars for those still recovering from the storm, yet still the same souls I’ve loved from the start. And really, the most obvious, is how changed it truly will be, since I departed a mere fortnight before Katrina spun through my home state.

Bring it on!


Copyright 2006 Olivia R. Reed

Colloquial nude baseball

I have mentioned before that I tutor a man who owns a yogurt store. Recently, he told me he was selling his franchise. “No more free yogurt,” I sadly thought to myself, and asked him why. He told me it was too stressful and went on to give me an example. “If someone wants to quit, they don’t give me six months notice,” he whined. I said, “Six months?” in surprise, and he said, “Yes, it’s very stressful.” I cannot begin to count the number of times he has sent me a text message less than an hour before we are supposed to meet for a lesson and told me something has come up and he cannot make it. I’ve even arrived and begun the lesson and he’s asked to change it. I thought, “With all due respect, dude, it’s an ice cream store!” Anyone who knows me knows that I love frozen treats more than the next guy and his mother put together, but who makes a career of pulling the lever and squirting it into a plastic cup? [An aside: Speaking of careers, if anyone knows of a company who wants to hire an Internal Auditor, HELP! I am job searching in Hawaii—though not limiting options—and it seems impossible to get anyone to foot the bill for your trip out there because so many people abuse it for a free vacation without any real plans of relocating. (Why people wouldn’t want to move there is also worth pondering, but I know everyone has their reasons!)] Anyway… this guy can be pretty funny. We’ve had several “lost in translation” moments where I try my hardest not to laugh, for fear of making him afraid to practice, but some you just can’t help. Lately I’ve been covering colloquialisms, and I finished “I’ve got your back” and moved on to “C.Y.A.” Two necessary things to know that will undoubtedly come up at some point during his stint in America. Mixing the two and trying to comprehend the meaning, he said, “So, I’ve got your @$$…” and I looked at him, thinking he was joking. When I realized what wires he was crossing, I just cracked up. I explained that these two aren’t synonymous and you really shouldn’t ever say that again!

Last weekend while in Daegu, Sam and I decided we’d try to find a tailor who might be able to make him a shirt for his tuxedo that wasn’t at Seoul prices. (I recently had a formal dress and two dress shirts made. HUGE FAN! Nothing is ever long enough for me—and both of these were winners at reasonable prices. Well, reasonable prices for America anyway, but hey!) We meandered around the market area of the city and really just enjoyed ourselves and the exploration more than the purpose of our adventure. Foreigners rarely make appearances here, based on the looks we got from all the merchants. We decided we’d head to Citizen Stadium to see if we could get a schedule for the Daegu Lions professional baseball team when we stumbled upon a college game in its third inning. We walked through an open gate into the bleachers and took our (free) seats overlooking home plate and first base. Sam proceeded to pick a team for whom to root and tell me the strategies of each play and why they were or weren’t good while I enjoyed the randomness of finding such (cheap) fun that was still somehow a cultural experience. One of the players managed to anger the umpire, but unlike in America where it would’ve been blown off, there was much bowing and apologizing and whatnot going on. Sam and I looked at one another with a small amount of surprise, coupled with some amusement at the difference in where we are and where we are from. Then someone noticed the outsiders. The teams were changing for the upcoming inning and the cameraman put us whities on the big screen so that everyone— probably no more than 50 people—could see how worldly their game had become with the foreigners in attendance. We got a kick out of it, waved, and then got replaced by a local. We vowed that we would put on a better show for those watching if we made the cut again, but no such luck. However, we did put on a show on our return drive home. The weather was positively awful! Monsoon season still underway, the game finishing just as the drizzling turned into a downpour, the car was nearly a boat! We were being careful and going so slow that we could dance at the same time. Thinking no one would be watching, or be able to see through the falling rain, we headbanged and sang at the top of our lungs at one traffic light, only for Sam to look over to the passenger in the neighboring car doubled over in amusement, and the driver rubbernecking to see the cause of it all. Uh, whoops. Well, they were having such a good time watching us that we figured we could only play it up. Sam made a “hang loose” sign with his hand, stuck his tongue out, and rattled his head up and down, all while looking straight ahead and driving onward through the rain (Dad, don’t freak out—it wasn’t even half as rebellious as it sounds). My hair was on top of my head—total 80s style—and to cover my own laughter I was bobbing up and down as well. After their SUV passed us, we rested our antics and laughed at ourselves. Who says mixing cultures doesn’t benefit anyone!

I resolved that this weekend would be a good one to check out a deal a friend mentioned—a scrub, 50minute massage, and face pack for $50—and brought along my Canadian friend who lives around the corner. What the founder of this deal failed to mention was that this was at a sauna, which requires you to get naked in front of God and everybody. I’ve learned that there aren’t many things in life I’m not okay with, so long as I’m expecting them. This, however, I was not expecting. I decided to go against the grain and be the one everyone gawks at because I kept my undergarments on. The woman assigned to give me the massage insisted I go in the sauna room first and then that I strip down. I tried telling her that I’d already taken a shower and didn’t need to go scrub myself with a bunch of naked women, and that my undies were perfectly okay. Then she left, during which one of my friends nonchalantly paraded out of the sauna room, completely in the buff, to ask me a question. I’ve never been one great at concealing my feelings on my face, so you can imagine my surprise (how many of your friends have you seen completely naked—and if so, how many were completely sober when that happened?). Regardless, the whole event was just comical. The massage lady eventually returned, my friend hid herself away in another one of these rooms where they exfoliate every millimeter of your body and then pour cold milk on you, in addition to baby oil, and such was the end of the excitement. After our pampering—if you can call such an odd experience that—we went back in the locker room to change (or dress) and meet the third person in our party who had opted for a fully clothed sports massage. However, my naked friend was still naked. So my fully clothed friend, too, got the practice of holding a straight face when their eyes met. It’s not that it’s a big deal to be naked, because when you have to do it (like in the showers at the gym) you get used to it immediately. It’s the element of surprise, and then comparing it to the normal ways back home, it leaves one scratching her head and raising an eyebrow. But hopefully nothing else.


Copyright 2006 Olivia R. Reed

Monsoon Season - No big deal!

Well this has been my fourth round of report card writing, and as you may imagine, even less exciting this time. Spitting out more than 50 pages of how someone’s child is doing, only to make sure there are no repeated comments for students in the same class, isn’t anyone’s idea of fun. And not that I expect to nickel and dime my employer, but we don’t even get paid for it! I’ve spent more than 70 hours at school this week for regular classes, writing reports, and a training session 2 hours away for an extra class I’ll be teaching later this month, and I know Mr Lee is appreciative even if he hasn’t yet said thank you. I just had a vacation last month, but some extra sleep sure would be nice!

Last weekend I traveled down to Daegu to continue helping Sam settle into the new place. We had lunch with two of his co-workers, Taber and Ford, who we call by their last names consistent with Army norms. We searched for an Iraqi restaurant because both of these men spent time there and understand enough Arabic to make it interesting. We were unsuccessful in our search, thus had lunch at a chicken restaurant. And by chicken, think Cane’s. Well, not quite. But the menu had four options, all of which were chicken. We settled on a big bowl of soup that came with a full chicken in it, stuffed with rice, some ginseng, something else I didn’t recognize, and no seasonings. Later that night, we went to dinner with five friends before a late viewing of Pirates of the Caribbean 2.

The following day, Monsoon Season reminded us of its presence and poured down morning through afternoon. After a heavy case of cabin fever by the end of the showers, we took a walk to the top of a hill on post. It’s amazing how calm and beautiful the city can be after the fury of a rainstorm! The sky was clear, the people were quiet and still, the mountains and clouds shone a beautiful sunset. However, the season will continue for a few more days or so, and typhoons are upon us. But typhoons here are nothing like the mad rushes to the store for batteries and water like with hurricanes at home—I didn’t even know until Sunday afternoon that the following day would be when the storm that had been brewing would arrive. And why would I? It was just a rainy day!


Copyright 2006 Olivia R. Reed