Foreigner spotting with Bean Curd Bels

Two weeks down and fifty to go until the end of this contract. And what have I done since last I wrote to you. Well, my mission for the end of my second week was to find and befriend foreigners in this city. The first problem was knowing where to look. Based on previous knowledge of where foreigners gathered while I was in Mokpo I began to seek them out in their natural environments- starting with Emart. Emart is a chain store in Korea, well known to foreigners for its splendid stock of one variety of cheddar which puts it firmly at the top of the cheddar retailers in Korea, if not in the whole of Asia.

On the way to my new place two weeks previously I had seen the bright yellow lights of Emart nestled behind a sea of darkness. On closer inspection (that is to say in daylight) the sea of darkness proved to be fields that stood between me and my cheese. I questioned the Korean teachers at my school about Emart and they told me such tales of how difficult it would be to get there and back that I didn’t even dare attempt the journey for a few days. They stopped just short of actually telling me about the vultures that would be picking my bones clean if I should even attempt such a foolhardy mission, but only just. Then I got brave- or fed up with being stuck cheeseless in my little corner of the city- and got in a taxi and went there. And back with no foreigners in sight. Or mortal dangers.

My next ploy was to go to the beach which I did at the end of my first week here. And sure enough I saw one. But as I bounded over full of enthusiasm at the prospect of a conversation, where I could use actual words instead of much hand gesturing, I must have frightened him as he just said hi and then bolted for the woods.

Hum, not going well so far. And onto downtown. I went straight to the usual reliable haunt of McDonalds but a glance through the window revealed no-one but Kims and Lees. Refusing to be down hearted so early in the search I carried onto the English bookshop but nothing. As I plodded back to the main road to get a taxi home I saw one in the distance- a blonde girl. Learning from my previous mistakes I decided to play this one a touch more casually. So casually in fact that as I reached the girl, she walked straight past without any acknowledgment that she had even seen me. Maybe I had become so nonchalant as to actually render myself invisible to the naked eye- but I hoped not as this would make teaching a little tricky.

So bitter at this encounter I stuck to my own corner of town until the weekend. Well, that is not strictly true. I went to the beach nearly every morning last week because it was so nice and such a great way to start the day. I met an Indian guy who took the inevitable photo of me and his son and left, we barely exchanged greetings before it was all over, and this was still my longest conversation with a foreigner face to face in nearly two weeks. And then one morning, on the way to the beach, I saw an older guy waiting for a taxi but he had successfully hailed one and driven away before I reached him. Though I did manage to convince myself that he had got in a taxi simply because he had seen me but that it had been his plan all along.

Filled with determination I decided not to worry about it until the weekend. Saturday morning saw me walking into town which took about an hour (although, admittedly a substantial portion of this hour was spent sticking my visa card into every ATM I saw on the way in hope that one would take pity and actually give me money rather than a slip of paper covered in Korea but, alas, it was not to be that day). On arrival downtown I thought that I would explore the shops but instead I made it as far as McDonalds before spotting some foreigners. I must have played this one just right because they spoke to me and even engaged me in conversation. Within minutes they were drawing me a map so that I could meet the ‘gang’ later that night. Moments after that they decided that I didn’t seem so bad and I was invited to the movies. So, instead of ‘eye-shopping’ downtown I went for ice-cream, onto the movies, back to one of the guys’ houses, onto dinner, back to the house and then onto the first bar where I met the others. Then the second bar.

Things were getting decidedly messy for those around me but since my miscommunication with the ATMs I had more slips of indecipherable paper in my pocket than actual money so I was forced to tighten the reins a little on my drinking. I must have turned into something of a good luck charm for those that had found me first because when they left the bar they took me with them. And finally, 14 hours after arriving in downtown, I caught a cab home.

But the fun didn’t end there because I had exchanged phone numbers with a couple of people from the night before and so greeted my first visitor on Sunday. And she had very kindly brought me ‘food aid’ and also toilet paper (yes, had a memory of talking about toilet paper for quite some time the night before. All about how it is the ideal Korean housewarming gift, how I had won 24 last year in an arm wrestling competition and the fact that you have to buy 2 dozen at a time but then have nowhere to store them). We went for coffee at the beach and discovered that the coffee shop that I had had my eye on since I first saw it is universally agreed to have the best coffee in town- or so the foreigners sitting in there drinking it told us when we arrived.

So everything seems to be falling into place a bit for me now which is good. I have only been here just over a fortnight and I have made friends already which is great. I like the area that I am living in too- at first I was worried that it was a little isolated but since I now have contact with the rest of the city I enjoy it. But I was slightly perturbed when I found my little piece of Korea on the map to discover that its official tourist map title is ‘Chodang Bean Curd Village’. And the bus stop up the road from my house gave me even more detail when it announced itself to be in Chodang UNCURDLED Bean Curd Village. I am not sure whether it is a good or bad thing to be living in a bean curd village as it is not something that I have experienced before. But it seems to warrant a mention on the tourist map but I was still surprised to discover that none of the other foreigners in town had realised their proximity to a bean curd village. They must have just been overawed by the gramophone museum down the road.

So I have beaches, mountains, lakes and now friends, I am seriously considering getting a bike with my next pay cheque. Though it has been a very long time since I last rode one, I have a plan. They hire them out down by the lake and I figure that if I hire one and manage to ride it all the way around the lake without falling in then I will buy one! And I have found out that the cycle shop sells adult bike size training wheels just in case.

Over all, everything is working out nicely at the moment. I will be sure to keep you posted though.
Take care,
Love
Helen
xxx

Hello each and all,

Well, what is she up to this time? I am back in Korea and in a new city called Kangnung or Gangnung or Gangneung or Kangneung depending on how you feel that day and which street sign you are looking at. The confusing spelling is an indication that the Korean spelling contains a few letters which are difficult to translate and also difficult for the average young(ish) British lass to say- hence me having to scribble the name down in Korean every time I want to buy a bus ticket there and a complete inability to tell Korean people where I live- believe me, I tried several times today with no luck whatsoever! Not that I have been going around telling people where I live, of course, but I popped my head out of the safety of my apartment today and put myself on show for people to talk to and sigh about how handsome Beckham is with (I did kind of think that this would have worn off a bit after so long but nine times out of ten people still associate England with Beckham which I guess is better than us always associating Korea with canine cuisine. As a point of interest, the tenth person refers to the war in Iraq when hearing where I am from so there you go, there have been some changes since last year after all.).

But back to the beginning. I arrived back in Korea last weekend with only a short delay in Frankfurt due to the US military taking over half of the airport. The fact that this only led to an hour long delay altogether across both of my flights says something about German efficiency compared with the new safety procedure at Stansted (of taking your jacket off to have it x-rayed) leading to three hour long queues to get through to the departure lounge a month ago, I am sure. The flight was OK- it felt kind of comforting to be surrounded by so many Korean people after three months away- that is until the guy in the seat across the aisle from me (I took my usual position next to the window for the most amazing views across London on the way out of Heathrow) got out a Game boy. A game boy keying in fact, good for him to bring something to occupy himself I guess. That is until I realised that he had no intention whatsoever of turning off the music ever at all! Knowing that this could lead to almost permanent damage where I would find myself humming the Tetris tune for the next twelve months at least, I was very un-English and asked him to be quiet. He did. Right up until the point where I put my headphones on then he put the music back on. Determined not to listen to the music I turned up the volume and was left untouched by his evil music.

Until the lights had been turned off after the second movie and people were settling down to sleep and across the sound of fifty people snoring I could once more hear the electronic horror. This time I think that he realised I was serious and not just making polite conversation when I spoke to him- eight hours on a long haul flight with little leg room will certainly give me that mad lady you don’t want to mess with look!

Arriving at Incheon only one hour late would normally be classed as something of a triumph except that this day I had arranged to meet friends who would be leaving the meeting point about half an hour after I had arrived at the airport. But a few phone calls later and everything was sorted. I felt a sense of mild irritation at trying to get the correct bus to the bus terminal and knew that I was back in Korea- oh joy! A businessman helped me with my cases and off we went into Seoul. Weirdly enough, as I looked out of the window of the bus onto the landscape which had been so fascinating and foreign for me only fifteen months before when I had seen it for the first time, I felt a feeling of normality return which I had not felt since leaving Korea before Christmas. Maybe I have become institutionalised but I felt that I understood how Korea worked more than I did London. But this probably much more to do with the fact that I only understand, and expect to understand, about a hundredth of what goes on in Korea and feel that I should know what is going on in my home country. But somebody had changed all the Tube lines and added new stations and built loads of new buildings in London just to confuse me and it worked so well that I came back to Korea.

But back to the bus into Seoul. I made it to the terminal and my friends were there- one who was waiting for me, and had been as excited at the prospect of seeing me as I had been about being reunited with her, and one who had no idea that I was coming back that weekend. Yes, I felt like a princess again to be back with the people who had come to Seoul to see me off only three months before. We caught a taxi to Itaewon (where we had all spent my last weekend too) and found a motel for the night and went out for a walk (after a MUCH needed shower- I managed to have nearly the whole shower without breaking into the Tetris tune too- result!). Walking around Itaewon was weird and really gave me a feeling of never having been away at all- except that I was wearing different shoes, the only proof that I had to have left the country as girls here have feet roughly half the size of mine so there is no chance of getting shoes here.

Things got even weirder as we started bumping into people that I knew- inevitable really as they were all up for Paddy’s weekend which was also the reason that I chose to come back the weekend that I did but still strange.

A trip back to the motel and a short (ha ha!) nap and three bottles of lemon soju later (which my friends had kindly brought with them from Naju, all of us still bearing the scars of the fruitless search for the lemon stuff in Seoul back in December) and I was ready to face the world. We seemed to know people in every bar and it was great to meet up with the people from Mokpo again- some of whom I had never met in the first place such as my replacement (and I managed to resist the urge to spend the entire night asking how my little ones were- I contented myself with asking about a key few instead. And I was so proud to hear that one of our ‘babies’ from last year has now progressed to looking up rude words in the dictionary- the sweet feeling of success as a teacher!) We danced and drank and drank and danced until the wee small hours- around 7- and off to the food stalls that I have so missed for an egg toastie, truly nothing soaks up the soju as well as an egg toastie. And finally sleep. And sleep. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

And woke up in a panic the next day at roughly the time that I should have been on the bus to Kangung (or however it was spelt that day) but not so much of a panic that I wanted to lift my head off the pillow too fast. We missed the Paddy’s parade which is probably no bad thing as I was feeling the love so much from the night before that I probably would have thought that it had been organised in my honour anyway. But I was gratified to see many notices announcing the ‘St Patric’s (sic) Day Parade’ and with that Konglish my return to Korea was complete. The only thing left to do now was make it to my new home and meet the new little monsters.

The bus ride was OK- I slept a lot. The highway between Seoul and Gangnung basically seemed to just be a series of tunnels through mountain after mountain, somewhat robbing the passengers of the view but speeding up the journey by about eight hours. What little I did see of the countryside seemed to still be covered in snow. We reached the rest stop about half an hour before the conclusion of our journey- probably the first place flat enough to build one- and thirty minutes after that we cruised into the city where I was greeted and taken to my apartment and left. I only really took in the fact that I had a DOUBLE bed before I did the thing that I had been dying to do for the last three months- oh bliss, oh joy- I UNPACKED MY BAG!

The jetlag very kindly kept me awake between 3am and 7am and I was still fairly wrecked when I got up the next day. I had been warned that there was a problem with the water pressure up here on the heady heights of the fifth floor which is eventually going to lead to me moving down a few floors. But I had no idea that this problem was such that there isn’t enough pressure to get the water from the taps and all the way up the two feet of shower hose and back down onto my head. I gave in, filled the sink and washed out of that instead- as I will have to do every day for the next month. Fortunately, Korean bathrooms are designed to ensure that you don’t have to be careful about splashing water and if you could see the room after one of these bush baths you would believe that not only had the water been coming out of the showerhead but that I also taken time out to wash the walls and floor and ceiling while in there. It is not a big deal in a house where I have a DOUBLE BED! And I had even been clever enough to bring bed clothes with me this time (if you remember, Korean beds have duvets and mattresses but no covers which is just not comfortable or practical for us poor foreigners) and it was a great joy to get into bed the night before and snuggle down into the clean bed clothes and just roll over and over and sleep diagonally and other such things which I had been unable to do either in a single bed, on various settees or even air beds which had been my home for the last three months.

The week at school was also odd mostly because I kept expecting my students from last year to walk in at any point. I didn’t recognise or know these kids and I wanted MY little monsters back! But I have got a bit more used to them now and resist the urge to push them out of the classroom and wait for Cathy or Katy from Mokpo to show up. I am sure that they will grow on me like the mould in my old house last year. The school is pretty small with only three English teachers and only one foreigner (guess who!) but that does mean that it is quieter than my last place. I have now been here for a whole week and I only saw another foreigner for the first time today at the beach (more on that later) and we just exchanged hellos and left it at that.

And since today is a Saturday I went out to explore the area a bit and find the beach. Which I did pretty easily since it is less that 3km away and lovely and long and sandy. Somebody took my photo with his mobile phone which is a first for me and he showed it to me and I couldn’t help but notice that everything on his phone was in English whereas mine is all in Korean- doesn’t make sense to me! The beach is at Gyeongpo, a small town seemingly populated almost entirely by squid drying on washing lines and people selling film so that people can spend the day taking photos of their friends in front of various bits of the ocean. Just about 200 metres away from the beach is a lake which is also very nice. I had Korean food and a guy selling oranges out of the back of a truck gave me an orange and reminded me of what I love about living in Korea. That said, things are different here, people don’t stare at me and I miss it. I have done everything that I can do to show them that I am foreign, general poncing around being blonde for starters, coupled with wearing high heels so that I tower over most of the apartment blocks let alone people but it just doesn’t seem to work. What is their problem? Don’t they realise that I am different and therefore to be stared at continually? Like back home in Mokpo? In fact, the only person that wanted to ‘speak Englishee’ with me all day was from Seoul. It will take a bit of getting used to.

It is also strange to be in the same country as so many of my friends but still so far away from them. I think that it will take over seven hours to get down to Mokpo from here. But it has been nice to speak to them nearly every night on the phone. And I do love my new computer! Even though it isn’t connected to the internet yet. I went to a PC shop downtown to buy a Korean adaptor for it as the battery was fast running out. At first the guy took one look at my adaptor and said no. Then I asked him where and he made a few phone calls, went to anther shop down the street and eventually came back and took one out of a box by the door and sold it to me for about one pound fifty. And I was reminded at the lengths that some people will go to even if they don’t understand you and left the shop with a lovely warm glow.

I might as well come out and warn you now that you will be getting long emails for the next year now. Once my house is on-line there really will be no stopping me- plus the fact that I haven’t met any other foreigners really yet will just add to my need to communicate. But I will leave you now- assuming that you have made it this far. I hope that you appreciate the fact that I have spell checked this mail- having looked at some of the ones from last year I was shocked that I would send out that amount of curiously spelt words while having the gall to laugh at Korean spellings! But I will admit to turning off the grammar checker as it drives me nuts- what do I know about grammar? I am only an English teacher.

!
Take care and more news as and when it happens,
Love your faraway friend
Helen
Xxx