Sometimes you read something that, before reading it, doesn’t look much like an inspiration, but after you read it, your own personal tragedy/comedy floats from your fingertips as though you are born for it. Perhaps it struck a chord, but I’d think even the most unremarkable writer (read: me) would be compelled to update on whatever goings on happened to happen. For me, it took the semi-autobiographical words of a previously unread established author for me to pour something new out.
You have to get back on the horse somehow, right?
Let’s start with an easier Korean observational topic. Two very basic human functions: walking and talking. I have more than once commented that Walking In Korea would make a great video game. Not a super awesome X-Box 59000 game, but it would be perfect for a smart phone or a Nintendo DS or something. It would go something like this:
You are Jack or Jill Teacher, and without a car you are forced to walk everywhere with the small caveat that you can’t touch your surroundings. The first level is easy. Walk to the store a few blocks away on a normal Sunday. You’ll pass by a few stray cats and an old lady hobbled over peeling garlic, but that’s about it. As the levels progress, it gets more difficult. Walking downtown on Saturday night for example. You’d have to not only be a little intoxicated, creating another variable for stumbling, but you’d have to avoid throngs of people, old men urinating or vomiting in public, passed out people, motor scooters making bold decisions, Army soldiers street fighting, and an endless amount of cars that are driving down streets not designed for them. As in real life, the more difficult levels prove nearly impossible to navigate without hitting something.
The possibilities for obstacles are endless. It could even take the route of surreal, a-la Paperboy, the NES classic. Avoid falling North Korean bombs, try walking through an earthquake, a train station full of runaway trains, a street of food vendors in a food fight. Here’s my million dollar idea and I’m just putting it out there for anyone to use. How bloody stupid am I?
Let’s talk about talking. As a foreigner, talking here obviously entails more effort. There are those who make the effort, and those who don’t. If you are one of the former, your effort is paid off in understanding more minutiae than the average teacher. The complications that then arise perhaps sometimes outweigh the reward.
In a homogenic society like Korea, if you give them an inch they take a mile. I'm not saying anything (or not meaning to say anything) offensive with that statement. What I mean by it is that when you present yourself as having a very basic understanding of the Korean language, they assume you are as fluent as everyone else in Korea because it's still somewhat rare to meet someone who isn't. So you'll say something as simple as, "Do you have milk?" and they'll go off about whatever and the answer to your question is somewhere muddled in the madness. What we look for in asking that question is a simple "Yes, it's right here," or, "Yes, it's on aisle three," or "No, we don't." This is life, though, where answers, both literal and figurative, are not as clean cut as a textbook.
In a pertinent example of this in a reverse situation, I watched a Korean film concerning the Korean War yesterday wherein a wounded U.S. soldier was taken to a small village for treatment. The only teacher in town finds his "Learning English" book and sits in front of the soldier. "How are you?" the teacher asks. "How the hell do I look!?" The soldier answers, "I'm lying here wounded, propped up with boards in a strange village..." The teacher turns to his Korean neighbors and, pointing to the book, says, "Hmm, that is not the correct response. If I say, 'How are you?' he is supposed to say, 'Fine, and you?' and I reply, 'I'm fine, thanks.' That is the typical American response." So they assume that he is ornery and perhaps looking to fight. A humorous example of situations that come up in real life.
Neither of these topics are particularly new or eye-opening to a veteran of Korea. In fact, you don't need to spend three days here before conclusions such as these begin to take form. It's really just a matter of one observer typing emotions into a keyboard. I'll still have the same complaints (no matter how trivial) next week until someone gets those damn scooters off the sidewalk!
Kind of a dick.
