Taking a walk...

Did you know that walking down the street and imagining walking down the street utilize the exact same parts in your brain? So theoretically, if I describe how it is to walk down a street in my town, it’d be like you were right there with me.

So, let’s take a walk.

I exit my building and hang a right toward my school. Across the way is the neighborhood’s trash pile where the garbage collector gives me dirty looks since he assumes that I’m the one that messed up the garbage system, being the ignorant foreigner that I am. To explain, here in SK, they’ve taken an interest in the environment and have set up a system to combat unnecessary waste—which in theory, I love. In practice, oysh. You’re required to buy government regulated trash bags at designated stores. The yellow bags are for food waste, the white bags are for non-food/non-recyclable waste and shopping bags are for recyclables. So, now I have 3 garbage cans in my kitchen (or as I call it: a makeshift enclosure)… why can’t they just let me be the hypocritical American that I am? While I espouse all these beliefs in recycling, actually putting it into practice is a whole different ball game. Seriously though, at the end of the day, I know it’s worth it.

I walk a bit further down the street where a row of ajummas (“adult female individuals of married age”) --stop their conversation to all stare at me at once, with nasty scowls on their faces. Now, normally, I’d chalk this up to my paranoia…but, NO. This is the reality. Things I miss #1: not being scowled at on a regular basis.

I turn left onto the next road and realize that while I have my cigarettes, I don’t have my lighter and so stop into a convenience store to replenish. I haven’t learned the word for lighter, and stupidly I’ve forgotten my phrase book at home, so I hope that the cashier happens to know “lighter”. He doesn’t. I play charades, but since I’m HORRIBLE at charades, he thinks I’m throwing gang signs at him. Eventually, we come to an understanding and I walk out of the store having bought a weird Korean toy so that this cashier doesn’t hate me for the next 11 months. Things I miss #2: not having to play charades in order to communicate with other human beings.

I continue down the street and scavenge in my bag for a spare lighter, where I find 3 at the bottom of my bag. Awesome. I light up and bask in the wonderful drags of relief, only to find that an ajumma walking towards me has literally stopped in her tracks to stare at me in disbelief. Apparently, only ‘ladies of the night’ smoke in this country. Every single man here smokes likes a chimney, but it is utterly shameful for a woman to smoke in public. Things I miss #3: not being considered a prostitute for smoking on the street, but rather, a typical New Yorker. :-/

About 2 minutes later, I’ve arrived at my school where droves of precious Korean girls run up to me and say things like, “hi!!!” or “you’re beautiful!!” or “do you remember me?!”?

Things I like about Korea #1: it takes me 5 minutes to get to my job. Things I like about Korea #2: My students are adorable.