Warning: If you had difficulty with Part 1, run away while you still can. This post is truly a Monster. (or take it in small doses)
AND NOW YOU GET LEARN ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE THAT HAS HAPPENED THIS SUMMER! (with the help of Psy)
yaay.
So first I would like to inform you that I am afraid of old people. Great.
(and to prevent horrid misunderstandings, I'll state more diplomatically that dealing with elderly people makes me uncomfortable and I often don't know how to act other than smile nervously at them.) Super.
While on the subway one night, I was standing next to the door, trying not to stand out too much, and old man approached me (trapped me in a corner) and asked in pretty good English, "Is this the last train?" I didn't know, so after a moment of staring into my confused, helpless, and terrified eyes, he left me. But I have a question for the world: WHY DID THIS HAPPEN? I am very clearly a foreigner. I know little to nothing about the subway schedule and if I did know the schedule, I don't think there is any actual way of knowing if the train we are on is the last one or not... Also. Old man. You are Korean. You are on a train full of Koreans. I am the only foreign person in the whole car. WHY DID YOU APPROACH ME? Was it to show of your English proficiency? Bravo. You creeped out this foreigner while being completely comprehensible with your pronunciation.
While on my class's excursion to the Southern area of Korea, we stayed in a traditional home one night and the very kind old couple running the place made us dinner. Before serving me the fabulous fish she had cooked, the old woman grabbed my face and encouragingly nodded. Letting my face go she said, "예쁘다. 너무 예쁘다." Basically saying that I am pretty. Thank you old woman. I was nervous about having to approach you for fish, but I like fish, and the tour guide was raving about your fish, so I took my chances and then you grab my face. I know you probably didn't mean any harm. Maybe this is how you greet every foreigner (she did not do this to the other Harvard students that I saw). If that is the case, next time i will wear a mask or be sure to go swimming in a bee swarm before asking for some fish. Or dance through flying garbage foam stuff.
There was another incident with an old woman coming uncomfortably close to my face and telling me I am pretty, but I must've blocked it from my memory with terror since I cannot recall any more details. Wait it was at the interview we had with the traditional Korean dance troupe. One of the elder performers came up to me after I was tired and sweaty from squatting to look through the camera eyepiece for the whole interview with the main performer. I did not feel pretty at that moment. And that woman's make up scared me up close.
Korea. You are a great place. But your old folk scare me.
As do old people in every country. But Koreans are more bold.
On the note of interviews here is a short summary of who we interviewed*:
*(we interviewed a person from the Korea Tourist Organization, but since I wasn't there I won't talk about him other than he gave us lots of free stuff - so I wish I had met him)
- Professor Cho, who I first thought was just a ballet professor at Ewha, but is actually the director of the Ewha Center for Performing Arts - one of the most well known of such centers in all of Asia. She was really fun and smart. So much of what she said was brilliant that we had a hard time cutting down her interview. She also gave us candy and when we left we gave each other dramatic ballet farewells with bows and curtsies and arms reaching out to one another. She is awesome.
- Traditional dance troupe. We went to film their outdoor performance which included four different routines of women wearing beautiful costumes and dancing. The final piece was a solo of an old women that had the whole audience of 40 or more (all old men) cheering and clapping. This soloist is the leader of the dance troupe and the lady we interviewed. She was pretty dramatic with her statements about, "Protecting traditional Korean dance until I die". But was very nice and let us take a picture with her at the end.
- Random audience members at a novice dance competition. One was an awesome old guy who went up and owned the audience participation dance competition dancing to "Gangnam Style".
What? You don't know Psy's Gangnam Style?
GO BE ENLIGHTENED: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0
- Jinjo crew. ONLY THE COOLEST B-BOY CREW EVER! They competed at an international B-boy competition called R-16 that Christian filmed earlier, and won the performance division, and we somehow called the right manager (and used the word "Harvard" a lot to get them interested...) to get an interview scheduled. We went to their studio, and when we walked in they were all sitting in a circle on the dance floor eating dinner (did I mention they were all shirtless and glistening? And that they are all hot? No? Okay I'll just keep my inner-seizure to myself).
They were all really friendly and cool about the interview even though we were like blumbering (blubbering and lumbering) baby walruses learning to swim with the camera equipment and interview questions. Christian and I introduced ourselves in broken Korean and they acted like we were babies learning to walk. I proudly spoke my smooth, memorized intro with some complex grammar bits I learned in class without pause. Jinjo seemed impressed. Then one of them asked how old I was (something you learn in the first week of elementary Korean) - and my mind was completely blank. My "fluent in Korean" cover was blown in less than a minute. I tried to cover with a "in Korea or America?" because ages are different here but I'm pretty sure no one was fooled. SMOOTH GABBY.
The interview was fine, we got a photo with them (my current desktop wallpaper), and then they ran through some of their routines for us and I cheered like the brain-dead fan-girl I'd become in their presence.
I still keep on imagining how I could've acted differently during that interview to make myself less of a loser... from breaking out my awesome "stunts and stumbling" dance class moves to responding to their teasing "Have a boyfriend?" question with "Need a girlfriend?"
Instead of what I actually said: "No..."
All in all, it was really cool, and I appreciate b-boying so much more after meeting them and making this documentary.
My film course was pretty good overall. Our film ended up being just under 10 minutes and it won the audience favorite award at our fancy screening event - Team Blue pride! <3
Things I will miss when I leave (since I am leaving in half a week OMG NO THIS CAN'T BE):
Music announcing the subway's arrival.
Cute couples with matching plastic surgery and underwear <- LOL JK NEVER HAPPENING ㅋㅋ
팥빙수
My babies (the babies at Holt, where I'm interning/playing with babies every day)
My dorm room's air conditioner (both my Oregon home and Harvard dorm lack this...)
Bad and/or obvious English words/phrases
김치 and side dishes and Korean seasoning and KOREAN FOOOOD
찜질방 (Korean sauna)
More wonderful examples of English (version "lets describe everything in one English phrase under our Korean store name")
"Waffle and something" - good because I AM CRAVING SOMETHING
"Bagels and sand" - what? no cream cheese?
And general statements like, "Yoga makes you happy and life better" or "The perfect blend of tea and milk to make you happy". In the States you'd need an official doctor's statement of acknowledgment to go around with statements like that. ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
Observation: When I was going to work one morning I saw a girl calming eating some corn on the cob as she walked like it was a Nutrigrain bar. Apparently that is normal here, but I never could imagine eating corn at 8:30AM... corn is for Thanksgiving... and other feasts in my book.
Speaking of work, really quickly I forgot to mention the absolutely crazy radio station that plays in the nursery. It plays the randomest songs of all time. Sometimes the music goes well with nap-time, like Chinese lullabies, Mozart, and soundtracks to Hayao Miyazaki films. Then it plays hard-core Korean rock, followed by an operetic "The Water is Wide", followed by the "Lady Marmalade" from Moulin Rouge, followed by "Lalala it's Love" from the Korean drama Coffee Prince, followed by an extremely twangy-country version of "Sweet Home Alabama". It blows my mind. I honestly never know what song will play next. At least "Gangnam Style" played while the babies were awake so we could all dance along.
EDIT:
I have deleted the final few paragraphs after re-reading these old blogs with nostalgia. The paragraphs I deleted were more than just embarrassing (and yes, a lot of what I wrote on this first trip to Korea and my first time in Asia was embarrassing) but these paragraphs were honestly offensive and just incorrect. I wrote this almost ten years ago now and have more perspective and yes, I was very wrong.
Let me just summarize why I am wrong: Just as every person on this planet has a different personality - every person has their own genes - every person has their own preferences for playing outside. You cannot say blanket statements about an entire COUNTRY of people after a summer in one city. So yes, if anyone remembers what I wrote about skin tone I apologize. I was absolutely wrong.
*back to original blog post*
... is it safe? Okay. Thanks for reading this monster. (Congrats if you did in one sitting)
Later,
선냥개비
... is it safe? Okay. Thanks for reading this monster. (Congrats if you did in one sitting)
Later,
선냥개비
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