First weekend in Seoul

(Sunday, 11/16/08 8:12am)
Yesterday I went on my first big adventure into Seoul with one of the other English teachers. Well, first we had to put on a little mock lesson in front of two hundred prospective parents of nearly kinder-aged students. That was funny, and it’s so cute how all these little kids like to say, “Hi,” and, “Bye-bye,” showing me their good English. Parents here are really invested in their children, and though I understand fathers are nearly never around on weekdays, Saturday and Sunday are spent affectionately with family. Then I called my mom, 16 hours behind me.

Actually, first I woke up at 6am and leaped into cleaning my apartment. The situation is that the former teacher left the day I arrived, having packed practically the night before, and had two cats! One of those cats she brought with her, and the other she couldn’t afford to take, so for the time being that cat is at my colleagues’ house, hiding behind their oven and being completely traumatized. The result was a very fairly tidy place with a lot of things left behind (many helpful items) and cat hair under every piece of furniture and in every corner. It isn’t obviously dirty, but for two nights my asthma has woken me up, and that didn’t even happen to me at my parents’ house with their 20-year-old carpet…I knew something had to be done now.

I’ve been throwing items away, moving furniture, sweeping, cleaning surfaces and glass, and just personalizing my space. I’m rife with things to do, so having no television, telephone, or Internet connection hasn’t driven me crazy…yet. The television coaxial cable was cut in half inexplicably, so no TV for now. I have to wait to get my residency registration card, and first I have to do an employment physical exam, wait for the certificate of health from that, get my immigration card, then go get a bank account, and then get a cell phone and an Internet account, and perhaps a television account? I’m not sure. So this will be a process, and I have plenty of time to be methodical.

Then there’s the glorious aspect of my newfound privacy! There were some small computer speakers left behind, so I hooked them to my iPod and have been listening to whatever I please. Certainly, I need a stereo with better sound, but probably not so much bass that I blast my neighbors… I can really do what I please! I haven’t lived alone for a really long time, and though I had a lot of me-time and complete creative license at Toby and Tyler’s place, I couldn’t sit around naked! It’s too cold here to be naked, however.

Enough about me, let’s talk about Seoul! Here are some tidbits of Korean life that I have learned in two days: Everyone drives on the right side of the street, but in stores and on sidewalks they pass on the left. You can bump into people without acknowledging them and neither party is offended (there are too many people moving around each other not to bump into a few). Koreans really want to include English skills in with their education (enter foreign English teachers). Scented toilet paper is everywhere. Families hang out together (all ages!)! There are motion-sensors everywhere that activate lights in hallways, doorways, and along streets, which turn off as soon as you have moved along. They sort and recycle practically EVERYTHING, and if you don’t do it right, there is somebody keeping an eye on the trash that comes to yell at you. The weather is pretty cold, wet, and beautiful. The trees are yellow, red, orange, and some evergreen, and they delicately lean over streets and sidewalks. There is a forested hill just behind my apartment complex where you can go on walking trails through the trees; I can see it from my back patio. No animals, though. Laurie said, “This is Seoul; they’ve all been killed and put in soup!” Bummer.

The food is amazing, and restaurant portions are surprisingly large (American-sized, even) and incredibly cheap. Everything is stacked several floors high, and stores, restaurants, drycleaners, bakeries, PC bangs, everything, attempts to be efficient and also somehow grab the attention of the swarms of consumers. Oh, and shopping is a major pastime, and though the cheaper department stores I went to are set up like a Ross/Wal-Mart hybrid, people are very neat with the merchandise and there are employees standing around waiting to sweep up the smallest mess, so the floors are spotless. The floors in apartments (and everybody lives in one) are heated, called ondol, and it’s so much more comfortable than using a heater blowing in your face. If I were sleeping on a traditional mattress on the floor, I would certainly be very cozy. As it were, I am sleeping in a Western-style bed. I guess Korean women are crazy about Western men, be they geeky or GQ, but Korean men are not attracted to Western women’s perceived unfeminine, non-submissive natures. I guess that’s me in a nutshell.

I met with my new coworker, Laurie, who has been here since late September, and showed me how to get groceries and clothing, how to use the bus, and where I was on a map (most important!). First we got lunch and I practiced reading the menu items written in Hangul. I can actually do it! It’s a much simpler system than I anticipated, and if I may say, much easier than Kanji! Then she took me to a subway entrance to buy a transit card, and then we went to a bus stop to catch a ride to the grocery store. We first went to some bargain department stores next door to each other, to look at their excellent variety of winter coats (since my Phoenix-idea of warm clothing will soon be inappropriately lightweight). Then we went to a house ware section and I bought a trashcan, then downstairs several floors to the grocery store, which was absolutely teaming with shoppers and employees. First I bought a plant (I need something to be alive in my house with me besides the occasional wayward beetle), then meandered around the vegetables, where I was boggled by the variety of unrecognizable items! There are people all over the grocery yelling over each other to get your attention to buy their products/meats/fish/breads, or offering free samples, or both. Sometimes it seems like employees just pick something up and start talking about it to everyone walking by. I picked up a lovely assortment of mushrooms, soups, snacks, some sort of greens I don’t recognize, some seasonings and condiments, red bean bread (YUM!!!), all kinds of juice, coffee, and eggs.

Ultimately, my major impression of Koreans is that they are incredibly nice people. There is a sense of community here I had always hoped for but could never find with the sprawling nature of the U.S. It clearly has something to do with the amount of people efficiently compartmentalized into small space. Everywhere are apartment buildings ten storeys high or more. People look out for each other, but lack the sense of paranoia and entitlement I saw everywhere in the States. The crime rate is significantly lower, even in a city with 19 million people. I really love it here, but I say that from a perspective of someone three days in, feeling significant pressure to learn to speak and read Korean, do well at my new job, find some form of communication with my peeps back home, and remember everything I ever learned about French and Japanese!