Sleeping (or the lack thereof) and Dreaming (thus, the lack thereof)

Lately, I have not been sleeping well, something which I am sure is contributing to my fatigue. I believe the lack of sleep is due to various factors—eating late, muscle fatigue, changes in climate which make it hard to get comfortable, and dreaming. But, to reference Paul, the greatest of these (in all probability) is dreaming.

The dreams have been interesting to say the least. Often, they have been brutally violent and thus a little scary. I am not sure what is bringing these on. At times, they include gross images from the day, mostly bugs. This is probably caused by the fact that I actually do have bugs in my room and got stung by a bee for the first time a couple of weeks ago.

The strangest of them, however, have been the bilingual ones. That’s correct. I’ve been dreaming in Korean.

What usually happens is this: I will have a dream in English. The dream will be about school or home life or TKD or some other daily occurrence of no particular significance. I will then wake up, change positions in the bed in such a way that my feet are where my head was and my head is where my feet were, and go back to sleep. During this process, I am completely aware of what is going on, though apparently not fully able to control my ridiculousness. Upon falling back asleep, I dream the exact same dream, but in Korean. I then wake up, perform my strange flipperific routine once more, and dream a new dream in English.

This has happened up to three times in a single night. I’m sure that the Korean is a pseudo-Korean at best (as the English likely is as well) and would be completely useless in the real world. Still, it leads me to one conclusion and one conclusion only. My Korean knowledge must be stored in my feet. Thus, in order to access it, I have to trick my body into thinking my brain is where my feet aught to be.

That, or I’m just going positively mad. Possible. Unlikely, as … … Pardon me.

Walking the Trails

My Sunday morning ritual usually consists of this: wake-up last, grumble through a breakfast, shower (while showering, the host family leaves for choir practice), watch a little tv, hop on my bike if it is not raining, walk if it is, and get myself to the church on time, to reference My Fair Lady. The biking is not so bad. The walking takes an eternity as the bridges across the river are strategically located at each end of the hamlet. The church is just off the bridge at the west end of town, and so I would naturally take the road that direction. Unfortunately, that bridge requires me to follow the mountain road which is rather hilly and meanders far from the river. Thus, either way can take me upwards of 40 minutes to walk to church.

I have known for some time that there are trails all over these hills, trails that would supposedly offer a more direct route from the bridge to my house, but had yet to find them. Still, I knew there was a trailhead at the bridge I needed to cross. Usually, I do not take this because the family offers to drive me home if I walked to church. Today, however, they drove out to Wonju to see their grandmother, so I had to fend for myself. A perfect opportunity to test my theory.

Well, my theory turned out to be true; the trails are a more direct route. Still, trails in Korea are laughable things. They are literally “footpaths” meaning they are not big enough for even two feet. Certainly nothing you would want to take a pack animal on, nor wear shorts for. They also seem to have forgone the concept of switchbacks. If you need to go up in elevation, you just go straight up.

I might be more inclined to take the trails again in less miserable weather. (The rain made it so there were a couple of washouts where I had to run across the mud a la Sonic the Hedgehog for fear of the dirt falling out from under me. For those who aren’t familiar with Sonic the Hedgehog’s anthology, consider Indiana Jones running across a dirt ledge as the ledge falls away behind him.) Then again, in less miserable weather, I’d probably take my bike.

Tutoring: A Korean Teacher at Last

I had my first tutoring lesson with H.W. today. We will work with the textbook I used during orientation. Essentially, we will go through the material in each chapter and make sure I have no questions about it. I will then complete the exercises for that chapter during the week and memorize the vocabulary. At this rate, we should almost complete the book before I have my Winter Break, during which I plan on taking Korean classes at a University or language institute for foreigners. My hope is that I will be able to matriculate into an intermediate level class by that time.

Unfortunately, we can only meet on weekends as she goes to school in Seoul. I wanted to travel on the weekends, but I may have to forgo this pleasure for the sake of my language goals. That, or I will have work independently and only see her every other week or so. The next few weeks will be particularly difficult as I have prior engagements already scheduled, but I should be able to clear appointments for the weekends after these.

Culinary Note: Spicy Food--You never can quite tell…

One of the more common questions waeguk saram (foreigners) like myself get asked is, “Can you eat spicy/hot food?” Note, the question is not a matter of the emphatic “Do”, as in “Do you eat (meaning “prefer” spicy food?”, but “Can”, as in, “Is it even within the remotest realm of possibility for you to consume something which may or may not make fire shoot out of every orifice of your body and from there consume you as a field fire set by a farmer consumes the locust?”

Usually, my answer is a ready, “Yes.” For instance, when my friend, H.W., told me that her family would like to have me over for dinner during Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving, which is next week. Mark you calendars and eat some kimchi.) and that the traditional food is usually fairly spicy, I usually would immediately say, “Oh, that’s alright. Americans eat spicy food all the time!” Now, though…

What happened is this—On Saturday, abeoji and I were eating pajeon and watching T.V. together. As per usual, the main course was accompanied by various side dishes. Among these side dishes was the ubiquitous green hot pepper.

Now, I’ve had the ubiquitous green hot pepper, and its heat variance is pretty wide. It can knock your socks off or simply taste crisp and clean like the bell peppers back home. In all of my experience, however, they’ve always been at least tolerable. So, I picked out one of the bigger ones and began moving it towards my mouth, anxiously awaiting my surprise.

But then the abeoji stopped me. “Jeremy, no, no, no…” He literally grabbed the pepper from my hand and told me repeatedly in Korean, “Spicy, spicy.” I’ve gotten a little tired by now of Koreans thinking I can’t do something just because I’m foreign, so I told him in Korean that I would be fine. I like spicy food. He smiled and said, “Ok, eat.” And I did.

Not only did the pepper knock my socks off, it darned the holes in them, threw them in the wash, placed them in the rain to dry, and the heat from the pepper still had enough energy to defeat the pull of gravity on the rain and vaporized it as it came down.

I hiccupped. I swore. I wheezed and gasped. (Abeoji and omeoni just laughed about it, as is their custom.) It took a full 30 minutes for my socks to find their way back to my feet and about four glasses of water (we have no milk) later my mouth was back to tasting other things besides smoldering coals.

Now, when someone mentions spicy food, I have to think long and hard. I told my friend what I usually tell people. I think that I’ll continue to say, “Oh, it’s ok. Americans eat spicy food. Thai, Indian, Mexican, Creole, it’s all got spice.” I’ll just have to make sure I have some milk handy in the future…

“She is your friend?”: On being “friends” in Korea

This week at church I met an interesting character. His name is Jo. He is the uncle of my friend, H.W., and has lived in Chicago for the past 30 years, 25 of which was spent working at a steam factory of some kind. Incidentally, his Chicago accent was so thick and strangely mixed with his Korean that I couldn’t tell where he was from until he told me. I mean, really thick Chicago accent.

One of the first questions he asked me was a question of clarification. Indicating H.W., he asked, “She is your friend?” Now, H.W. is a girl around my age and the pastor’s daughter and knows English and so has been quite helpful to me, so the natural awkwardness of this situation would be an implication that we are dating or at least interested in dating. That is, this would be the natural awkwardness in America.

The natural awkwardness here is the difference in the concepts of “friendship” that Americans and Koreans have. In America, a mere acquaintance can be a “friend”, and thus my answer would be “Yes” according to that idea of friendship. In Korea, it takes a little bit more to be friends. First, the people in question must know each other fairly well and must have known each other for a good amount of time. Second, the two must usually be of the same age, otherwise the person is not called friend but rather by the appropriate familial nomenclature for someone their age. Thus, in Korea, I would probably have to call H.W. nuna (older sister) unless she gave me leave to call her chingu (friend). As it stands, I only have one chingu in Korea, and I’m fortunate that he has said we are chingu as he is quite a bit older than me and we’ve known each other for about two months. (Being a foreigner probably helps us bend the rules a bit.)

The problem was, I didn’t know if Jo was asking me in the American sense or the Korean sense, and as H.W. was right there, I was also concerned about possibly embarrassing her. So, I stuttered a bit, looked at H.W. for confirmation and said, along with her, “Uh… yes. Yes, we’re friends.”

Later on, I explained my hesitation to her. She laughed and said she understood my dilemma. Unfortunately, I forgot to ask her to clarify her position. After all, she had said, “We’re friends” with me. I just have to find out if we’re Korean friends or American friends…

Meeting the Waeguksaram

I have finally met both of my fellow foreigners in the hamlet. It was just after my haircut. I was walking to the supermarket to buy some milk and cereal as a small snack between school and TKD, when I saw a white, curly brown haired woman. You may not understand this living in America, but when you come to Korea and you live in a town where there are no people who look significantly different from everyone else (I’m talking 0% foreign population), there’s a strange magnetism that one feels upon seeing someone like that. You do not want to follow it because you think to yourself, “This is ridiculous. I come from a liberal (in the historical sense) society where people are people plain and simple and a little different skin tone shouldn’t make a difference.” But you are also powerfully drawn to these people because you think to yourself, “They know English (probably) and are going through some of the same things I am. By all accounts we are commiserates. I want to talk to a commiserate.” For some foreigners, the fact that other foreigners will walk up to them in Korea as if they are long lost friends even though they are positively strangers is an annoyance beyond comparison. I decided to brave it. And made a new friend.

One is an Aussie, the other a Scot, and both teach English at the middle school. We talked of loneliness and what there is to do and how to get around. The Aussie, David, is actually interested in taking TKD with me, and both play tennis, so I might be inclined to join them someday though I can’t return a serve worth the proverbial beans. (Or is it fairy tale-ical?) The Scot’s name is Fiona. They are married. Lucky devils.

We also talked about how well behaved the children are at our schools and compared them to children in our respective countries. Korean children [in this town, I’ve had to edit this as my fellow ATEs have differing experiences with Korean children. Shame on me for generalizing!], if they do not want to learn, usually just go to sleep. Granted, this is a problem, but one I’d much rather deal with than students disrupting class by talking or even fighting. Then the Aussie said something with a knowing smile that positively boggled my mind.

“It’s a bit like the Sixties here, isn’t it?”
“Pardon, like what?”
“You know, the Sixties. Conservative values. Everyone wants to go to school and is anxious about learning. No rebellion.”
“The Sixties?”

The Scot confirmed that the Sixties was the decade of “Leave it to Beaver” in her country as well. The Sixties?! The decade of student protests that shook the government? The decade of Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll? The decade of Peace, Drugs, and Hippies? (Notice the common theme of drugs…) That decade.

So, I explained that America usually thinks of the Fifties as the conservative values decade. The sixties and seventies are our wild side. Then I said something about it having something to do with Vietnam. That got awkward really fast…

At any rate, new friends, even if it’ll be awkward now because I pulled out some sort of historical justification for rebellious generations. We’ll have to see how it goes.

A Haircut and a Close Shave Make for a Handsome Miguksaram

At some point during the last week, I had made up my mind that I would get a haircut. The last time I had cut my hair had been July 4th at about 11:00 pm, the day before my flight to Korea, my three-day Thursday, if you will. The last time I had my hair cut by someone would have been around June 2006. I was interviewing for summer jobs, and so had shaved and cut my hair. Immediately after securing a job I started growing both my beard and my hair for Pirates of Penzance, and after that I bought a set of clippers from Wal-Mart, which recuperated their value within 1.5 uses.

Because the last time I had cut my hair I had merely buzzed it with said clippers, it had all been growing out at about the same length. This made me look fuzzy and friendly, but not very much like a teacher. My beard was also becoming troublesome as I had not been able to even it out since orientation when I borrowed a set of clippers, and it was beginning to require daily combing.

So, I gave myself one objective for my lazy Saturday. Go into town, find a barber pole, peek into the shop to make sure that it was in fact a haircutting establishment (some in Korea offer … other services …), and get a haircut.

Well, I walked into town (for the exercise, as it’s about a half hour…) and started barber pole hunting. Lo, and behold! A barber pole! Both the back door and the front door were missing, and there seemed to be no stairwell to darkened upper rooms, so I could also assume that it was just a good old fashioned barber shop. (The picture of Jesus as the good shepherd was also comforting, but no guarantee. My host family members are clearly practicing Christians, and there are clearly some porno films in the back of their video store…) So, the ubiquitous hand motions and poor Korean/English conversation followed. I got across that I wanted a haircut (Why else would I be there?) and he, the lone barber who smelled heavily of nicotine, especially when he coughed, got across that I should sit down in one of the full sized leather chairs.

And he began to cut as I warily watched him in the mirror. He is a barber of the old school. No clippers. Just a comb, a pair of scissors, and a feel for his trade that can only come from years of experience and the daily pack of cigarettes. One thing I actually missed from the American barbers, though, was the conversation. Some people find this annoying. I like it. (This is probably because barbers generally don’t want to talk about themselves. They want to talk about me, a subject I adore. – Titian, thy name is Jeremiah.)

After the hair cut, which turned out fairly decent considering I couldn’t give him exact instructions, but also turned out very Korean, he asked if I’d like a shave. I indicated, No, just a trim and maybe a shave around the edges. We haggled a bit over clipper settings for the trim (Apparently, not that old school…), he trimmed, I watched when I could and blinked the flying beard hair out of my eyes when I couldn’t, and then he prepared the shave.

The shave that would occur with a straight blade razor and shaving cream that he mixed himself. (Apparently, very old school…) He applied the shaving cream not just around my beard and my cheek bones and neck and the back of head which is where a man is usually shaved if he has an obscene amount (glorious amount, according to one Jordan C.) of hair like I do, but also on my forehead. And I thought to myself, “Do I really have hair on my forehead? And if so, is it really the visible kind that would be necessary to shave with a straight blade razor, which is already a rather dangerous implement and making me nervous as this is the first time it has ever been applied to my epidermal layer even as I pray it will not be the first time it is applied to my jugular vein?” I could only assume that he was performing a traditional Korean act of hospitality—the frontal lobotomy.

I survived the shave, during which I noticed that his pinky fingernail was particularly long. I found out what that was for in the ensuing shampoo and rinse. (My scalp has never felt newer, nor has it ever been in as much pain.) I paid my 12,000 won (expensive for a haircut, but not by American standards, and considering the service, I feel worth it), had the obligatory conversation talking about where I was from and my level of Korean (non-existent), and headed out a newer, handsomer looking (oh, I’ve had compliments!) man.

Yet another daily life obstacle conquered. Now, if I can only bring myself to go back to such an establishment again…

(SIDE NOTE: The barber did one thing during the hair cutting process that I thought ingenious. He pinned the cloth in such a way that it would not only shield me from the falling hair, but also collect the hair from falling on the floor! Amazing, I thought! This man is wise beyond his years (though given his years, perhaps not). He will not have to waste time sweeping the floor when we are finished as he can just dump the hair into the trashcan! That is what I thought. That is, until the hair cut was finished, at which point he promptly dumped the hair on the ground and began sweeping. Sigh…)