Strange Moments in Korea

Strange moments here in Korea. After a week and a half, I now feel comfortable wandering up to strangers and pointing and using 1 word phrases in Korean until they understand me and point me in the right direction. Most of the time it works marvelously. Every now and then they just stare blankly, and in those moments we just move on to a sharper Korean.

What's been striking me recently (like within the last 2 days) is how easily we've fallen into our new life. We moved into our new apartment Saturday afternoon (it was Friday in Texas). We unpacked our 2 suitcases and this place feels like home. I almost feel like I've been here a few months. Already I love the little apartment. It's not huge, well it is by Korean standards, but by American standards it's not that big. But our recent lack of belongings makes the place feel giant. We actually have a room right now who's express purpose for the moment is housing my umbrella. I'm not really even sure what we'll do with the space. I'm beginning to realize how much surplus I had in my old life. The drying of clothes on racks as opposed to in a dryer may take a while to get used to. Basically we'll have to stay up on laundry because there's no way we could do 10 loads over a weekend like we used to in the states. We just don't have enough space to hang it all up. On the up side, we don't have that many clothes any more, so we could probably wash every piece of clothing we owned in 6 loads right now.

Our community out here is fabulous. Most Koreans view us as a strange but not unpleasant oddity. They don't seem to dislike us, but honestly they don't spend a lot of time interacting with us. Save the Korean teachers at our school. Some of them are fairly willing to spend time with the slightly confused and uncouth foreigners. One such teacher went with us to visit an English church service today. I'm not sure if the church is a perfect match for us, but since there's only about 4 English services in Gwangju we may have to make some compromises. Who knows? Perhaps the Lord will use them to give us new insight into Himself.

The foreign teachers are a pretty tight knit group out here. Most of them are at least 2-3 years younger than us, and almost all of them are a little more inclined to the night life than we are, but despite those differences we really like them, and they are very pleasant to work with. They keep telling us that you meet most of the other foreigners in the area at the local bars, but Steve and I have agreed that the bar scene isn't for us, and we're determined to find new friends other ways. We're hoping that getting plugged into a church will help us in that direction.

The new job is pretty ok, although it is funny being the low dog on the totem pole after being at Emler for so long where I didn't really have to think hard or fight hard to do a good job. It's been a real treat to work with Steven as well. It's funny getting to see him throughout the day. It's gone from being a little stressful to being pleasant. Don't take the stressful thing the wrong way, but Steve and I have lived almost separate lives for nearly 3 years, and being around each other 24-7 has taken a little getting used to. I think we're functioning much more like a couple and less like housemates these days.

They told us that homesickness would set in later on in our stay, say 4 months down the road, so while I'm very happy and content at the moment, I am a little nervous about what the future will bring. Korean lessons are a definite. We found out today about Korean classes we can take through the international center here, and I think we'll be setting those up early this week. I'm determined to learn this language.

The only other thing that we've got to learn in a hurry is the bus schedule. We've been way to cowardly to ride the bus as of yet, because we'd heard some horror stories about people getting onto the wrong bus and ending up on the wrong side of town, and such, but taking taxis is going to get too expensive. Plus our cabby who took us to church this morning nearly killed us by trying to turn left into on coming traffic while our light was red. A fairly common occurrence in Korea, but nerve wracking to us foreigners. Despite all of this crazy driving we have yet to see a wreck, or the remains of a wreck. The Koreans are apparently ninja drivers.

I can only leave you for this thought. We keep seeing this commercial on TV that has caused us significant mirth as well as confusion. It's what I would call a normal pizza commercial. Actually the commercial itself is fairly uninteresting, until they put the tag line up on screen. The company's name is Mr. Pizza. Their catch phrase "For the love of women". So we've been postulating on the meaning behind this very random statement (I'd put it up there with Oily Mom, something that was miss translated). Finally at lunch the other day I asked one of the Korean teachers about it, and she explained that Mr. Pizza's marketing bracket is women. So Mr. Pizza is basically the Pizza pimp. Think about that for a while. (Ok, don't really, it's probably only funny to Steve and I.)

So with that I'll leave you with a goodbye. Next time I get a shot I'll write on here about my new students as I've found them to be very funny for the most part.

Much love to all of you!