In to Daegu: Out of the Funk

Becoming complacent.
I knew I needed to make a change in my personal appearance.

Being in Korea and tattoos and/or piercings out of the question, I went for a haircut. Unfortunately, I wanted to get a haircut the same weekend that the Australian grandpa of the only English speaking hair stylist in the country passed away. So, after a fabulous lunch in a cutesy little restaurant, Marize and I headed out into the unknown world of Daegu hair salons, only stopping every four or five minutes to check out a cute scarf or hat or vintage clothing store. And we had to get some pictures at one of those chinzy photo booths. Which was actually harder to figure out then you'd think...but all the middle schoolers were doing it!

We found a hair salon that wasn't "full," as sometimes these kind of things are "just closing" or "no space" when you're a waygook. Traveling around in Korea, no one has to ask if I'm a foreigner. It's the only place I've been where I didn't have to open my mouth before natives knew I wasn't from around there. I have blue eyes, for heaven's sake. Some people will go out of their way to help you find what you're looking for or to get you someplace, while others take one look at you and refuse to deal with you in any capacity. Taxi drivers won't stop, restaurants aren't open, places are full with empty seats. Some of it is pure racism. Other times it's because they just don't want to deal with a foreigner. Typically communication is a lot of work.

And communication at the hair salon was a trial of patience and Marize's nerves. I had printed out a picture  of the kind of haircut I wanted (a photo of Victoria Beckham), just to give them an idea. Marize had forgotten her picture, but found one online there. We waited around for a while and finally one of the stylists came over. What followed was about a twenty minute ordeal that I thought was going to leave Marize in tears with or without a haircut. I arrived at the conclusion that I was getting my hair cut whether or not I had to sit in a spin chair and do it myself. The stylist had some qualms about our pictures, but of course, we couldn't understand. Marize called a Korean co-teacher of hers and after passing the phone around and around, the fears were relayed and hurriedly dismissed.

Things I wish I could have said in Korean and tried to convey by charade:

I know I will not look like Victoria Beckham when you are done with my haircut.
I know I am not Posh Spice.
I know I am not married to an international soccer star, nor do I have a team of stylists.
I just want it short in the back and long in the front, bit of an a-line.
No, it will not curl when it's short, I am not going to blow dry it, and I promise I won't scream at you if I don't look like Victoria Beckham when you're done. Promise pinky swear.

What ended up happening went much like this: Picture, picture, point, point, pray, pray.

I ended up loving my haircut. And Marize didn't end up with orange hair or bangs halfway up her forehead. Now she looks even more like Liza Minnelli in Cabaret than before. Which is fabulous.

Marize caught a train back to Jeomchon and I was left on my lonesome for awhile. Emily gave me directions to a bookstore, which I wish she hadn't because of course I just had to have a book of Korean poetry, one on Buddhist temple symbolism, and some Bertrand Russell. Wallet lighter, backpack heavier, I preceded through the streets of downtown Daegu.

I'm not exactly what you would call a "city girl." I'm from Idaho, we don't have them there. I've been to big cities, I'm not scared of them, I like visiting; I always feel so wide-eyed walking through one. So I didn't mind having an hour or so between friends. Neon lights, people, stores, alleyways, I just followed my feet. When Emily called, I knew I could meet her at the McDonalds, no problem. One of the few things I inherited from my father was a good sense of direction.

It's always good to see Emily, she's from the "before time." I knew her in Oregon, we went to college together, she dated my roommate, etc. So with her and a few friends, two British, two Korean, we headed to a cat cafe. Which is a cafe where cats are free range and not on the menu. Though I could imagine that happening, PETA hasn't gotten to Korea yet. Unfortunately, the cat cafe was "closing" early at ten that night. It was 9:50 and we knew they were simply refusing to "deal" with all of us foreigners, but what can you do? So we got some cat hair on our clothes and headed to a bar.

Well, we stopped at a bag-drink place first. I have no idea why we don't have these in America. Besides the obvious conflict with open container laws. And that they make drinking way too easy. You can't spill your drink or break a glass, they're drunkard proof. I've watched a guy drop four of them, kick one, and still bring them back to his buddies, full.

Bag-drinks: Drinking just got easier!

So then to a bar for cheap beer and a game called Pirate Roulette. Which is just what I'm looking for in a drinking game, some thing that pops up at me. I wanted to kill my liver AND get high blood pressure tonight, this is great! Two organs with one bar.

Then it was a bar and another bar. Someone ordered food. More beer. Hey, I know you from orientation! Another vodka cran. Another bar.  I know her from orientation, too! Taxi ride. Another bar. Did we pay our tab? And then the sky is a lovely shade of blue because the sun is going to come up soon and what time is it anyway?

You just can't stay out in America like you can in Korea. Places close in America. You're home by three because the bars close at two, Pita Pit is only open to three, and you had to call your taxi an hour in advance. Here you can literally party until the sun comes up. Don't worry, mom, I rarely do. And never on a school night.

The Squatty Potties.

I do not like the squat toliets.
I use them because I am an adult and a world traveller and the alternative is a urinary tract infection or peeing my pants.

But I don't like them.

I find there to be something completely undignified about squatting. Especially inside a building. It's a modern world, I'm in a modern country (despite my friend's and family's idea that Korea is a third world country) and indoor toliets are supposed to be the opposite of outdoor ones. You sit down. You don't have to worry about falling over, touching too many gross things, or peeing on your shoes/pants/self. Going to the bathroom should not be a test of balance and/or calf strength.

I'm faced with the reality of squatty potties at the schools I work at and in public places, like the restrooms at bus stations. One guy at orientation had been here a month and had yet to use the bathroom at his school. I wonder how long he's going to make it?

I am a spoiled American, accustomed to the luxury of indoor plumbing and toliets you sit on. I am also a realist and a practical person. This is how most of the world relieves themselves. Am I not going to travel or live other places in the world because occasionally I have to squat and sometimes I have to bring my own toliet paper? Preposterous.

One last concern I know you're all worried about...explosive diarrhea.
That just got less fun with a squatty potty.


In summation:

If I'm not camping or drunk or (and most preferably) drunk while camping, I don't want to squat.

Girl, I can thrill you more than any ghost would ever dare try

If the bus had been on time, I would have gone to Mungyeong Saejae for the teacher walkathon, dinner thing. Really I would have. If the bus had been on time, I would have gotten on at one thirty on Saturday October 30th, made my way there, joined up with all my Korean teachers, and gone along with it. I would have nodded politely as everyone spoke Korean around me and I made up imagined conversations in my head. I would have walked where they told me and eaten what they gave me, even if it was dried, chewy, stinky fish. And it was going to be dried, chewy, stinky fish.

But the bus wasn't on time and as I stood there with all the middle school girls at the bus stop in their school uniforms, a little itch started. A little devil popped up on my right shoulder and whispered every so quietly, "You know, you could not go." Of course a little angel immediately poofed up on the left shoulder. "No, you have to go, you said you would. You're all ready to go. Just wait for the bus." I turned back to the little devil (who was wearing this really cute black dress I own) and back toward the direction of my apartment. "If you left right now, you could be on a bus before three, easy. You could be in Seoul by five." There were Halloween shenanigans going on in Seoul I really wanted to partake in, but I said I would do this teacher thing and I couldn't do both. "Just call and say...you fell off the curb and sprained your ankle." That's dumb, I told the little devil. I'm not faking a limp on Monday. The little angel agreed. "At least say you're sick. Your stomach hurts. That's perfectly ambiguous. If it's questioned allude to diarrhea, no one asks questions about the toliet!" Little angel, not helping! I saw the bus coming behind the little angel on my left shoulder. I turned around and ran the opposite direction. I fled back to my apartment, put on that little black dress, grabbed the angel wings, and headed out the door. I brought a small backpack with my contact stuff, toothbrush, a plastic orange pumpkin filled with candy, roll-on glitter, you know, the essentials.

Hopped on a bus, hopped on the subway, met up with Mark and Zach (two experienced and learn-ed Couch Surfers), liberally applied too much liquid eyeliner, and hopped back on the subway. All while either listening to or humming Michael Jackson's Thriller.

We were meeting up with Couch Surfers for dinner and then a Halloween party on the subway, but the exit six we were supposed to find at the station alluded us. Signs went like this: Exits 1, 2, 3, 4,  ,  , 7, 8, 9, 10 This Way ----->. We eventually went out Exit 6-1 after walking through a subway station worse than a Las Vegas casino. Then we ended up in a basement and then a poorly lit parking garage. We were a Halloween horror movie waiting to happen.

We finally found the CS group and we headed off to dinner. Sam-gyp-sal, that foreigner favorite, and then on to the subway where we planned to hand out candy while riding the green loop the long way around to the Hongik University district to party in Hongdae.

I'll admit, I was timid at first. While Mark grabbed a handful of candy and immediately started making his rounds of the subway car, passing out candy and exclaiming Happy Halloween, I merely chatted with the foreigners in our group. It took me a couple stops until I was ready to approach strangers while wearing cat ears and angel wings to offer them candy. The doors opened and a couple of people came on and someone yelled, "New people, candy them!" I stepped up, held out my pumpkin and said, "Happy Halloween, candy?" The couple smiled and laughed, peering into my pumpkin to see if I had anything good. They both picked out a mini-Mentos and found seats. Then it was easy. I was a regular backwards trick-or-treater. And the flask of vodka in my wings didn't hurt either.

I was surprised at how willing people were to accept candy from strangers. Very few people turned us down and most seemed excited about the idea of Halloween. Some Koreans even gave us stuff in return. One man, all geared up in his Korean hiking finest, gave us pumpkin candies (very appropriate) and another guy gave us a cookie.

Fast Forward to outside the Q Club where I have lost everyone I was with, but gained a buddy from home.  John, who I worked with three years ago on Paint Crew in Coeur d'Alene, moved to Seoul to teach two days before. I had gone to meet him at the subway exit while everyone left the club we were at. I am on the phone with one of the guys, I wasn't even sure who at the time, when another guy approaches me and asks if I was looking for a group of Couch Surfers. I'm talking to one right now, I tell him, surprised. I had not mentioned Couch Surfing at all on the phone, this guy had taken a random guess and had NAILED IT! I get directions (which were terrible) and then John and I wait with this stranger for some of his friends to get back from buying booze across the street.

John strikes up a conversation in Spanish with a guy from Spain and I chat with a boy in a dress, his long hair braided back in two French braids. Two guys cross the street and join up with us and we do the preliminary questions. Where are you from? How long have you been in Korea? etc. etc. Now I had just been lamenting the fact that I had not met anyone from Idaho here. John was my first Idahoan and he didn't count. So when a guy wearing a tight white tank top, tighter black bicycling pants, and a yellow helmet with fake blood dripping from a pretend gash on the side of his face gathered us up in a giant bear hug when John and I said we were from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, I was a little shocked. "What high school?" he yelled. "Lake City," John said and he got pushed out of the bear hug. "CHS," I said and got pulled in closer. "What year?" Before I could reply he yelled, "01," pointing franticly at himself. "05," I tell him. Then, pulling at his pants, he yelled, "Check this out!" My immediate response when a guy starts pulling down his pants is to look away and I did this, even before he said, "Don't look at my balls! Check this out!" I turned back to see the black outline of Lake Coeur d'Alene filled in with blue on his right thigh. "What does that look like, huh, huh, huh?" he said. There were no words. My mouth dropped open and I laughed. "Oh My God."
It's A Small World After All.

Back on the phone with who I would later find out was Richard, a guy from Virginia I had just met on the subway, John and I are hopelessly lost and wandering. These are my directions: neon sign that said "On Top." At one point in time I was asked if I had passed a building that reminded me of bubbles. What? "Did at any time did you think to yourself 'bubbles' on the way to where you are?" "No." "Then you didn't go the right way. You will see a building that will you make you think of bubbles." I never did see anything that made me think "bubbles," but I did eventually find a neon "On Top" and met back up with the group.

John and I stayed out until the subway opened at five, made it back to his apartment, and stayed up until almost nine catching up. The sleep deprivation made us loopy and we giggled like two twelve year old girls at a sleepover.

Shame by Badminton

The first week I was in Korea my co-teacher invited me to the indoor gym. She showed up at my apartment at about eight o'clock in her awesome track suit and woke me up from a sound sleep with what I like to call the-cleaning-lady-knock. This particular ype of knock is very loud and persistent. You are either opening the door or they are comin' in, damn it! I answered the door in shorts and a tank top, bleary eyed. Oh, Sunny said in surprise, were you sleeping? There was no denying it and I nodded. Do you want to go to the gym? she asked, brandishing a sporty-looking bag with racquets sticking out of it. I would love to, I told her, let me just grab my shoes. I threw on a sports bra, socks, and my sneakers, threw my hair up in a pony and jabbed in some bobby pins. Let's do this, I thought as I left the santuary of my apartment.

They tell you at orientation to participate. Don't say no. Take every invitation you're offered. Don't know how to play table tennis? Too bad. Don't want to get naked and swim around at the gymjilbang? Double too bad. Don't want to sing karoake at the noreabang? Well, that's happening. And if you don't drink, start.

I was excited to get invited anywhere, so still groggy, we started walking in the rain to gym. There was one badminton court open and a lot of people playing table tennis. I was handed a racquet and pointed to one side of the court. Sunny served and I smacked the birdie back at her. Immediately I thanked my father for buying a badminton net when I was little. I remember playing on a camping trip and again at home in the yard. Also, I'm naturally athletic, thank god. I was thinking about some of the girls at orientation as I ran around. Some of them might have been struggling...

I mean, I'm athletic. I'm tall and while not in incredible shape, I get by. I've been playing sports since I was six. Soccer two seasons a year from six years old to eighteen.  Seven years of basketball, five of track, a short stint in t-ball when I was seven (spent two seasons picking dandelions in the outfield while the coach's kid played first base), four years of varsity lacrosse in college. My hand eye coordination is actually pretty decent (especially from playing goalie in lacrosee) and I've got a good reach if terrible hops.

I'm not used to getting my ass handed to me by a woman in her forties with three kids.

I couldn't help but think of my sister telling me not to bring shame to my people. I didn't have my tennis shoes, only my clunky sneaks and they weigh exactly one pound, eight ounces. Being my heaviest pair of shoes, I wore them on the plane, and now they were loud and heavy on the hardwood as I skidded around to volley and return. I did fine, but when we played later with her husband, I realized she'd been holding back. I was reminded of Brian Regan talking about playing racquetball--You ever play against someone who knows how to land the serve where you never touch it? I mean, is that fun for them? BAM! 1, nothing. Bam! 2, nothing. Bam! 64, nothing.

It was August when I arrived in Korea and though it was raining out, it was still like 90 degrees. It was also a 100 percent humidity. I was sweating on the walk over. Running around in the enclosed gym, the sweat began to drip. In a very literal fashion, I was dripping. Koreans don't have deodrant. That should explain that. While I was soaked, Sunny had a healthy, glistening sheen of sweat on her face, fresh as a spring daisy.

When we finally took a break, Sunny asked, "What's the expression in English? Sweating like a...?"
"That would be 'pig,'" I told her. "The expression is 'sweating like a pig.'"

You Don't Look Like a Dick

Hanging out in Seoul with my new buddy Zach, we went inside this kitschy little Halloween/party store and I bought wings and cat ears ('cause you never know) and the guy who owned the place clearly wanted to use his English. And this is what he came up with, looking directly at me and saying, very serious, "I no think he looks like a dick." Now, this might have made since if I had just called Zach a dick. Or an asshole, or any name at all, but seeing as how I had just handed him my purchases and was digging in my pocketbook for the appropriate amount of won, it kind of threw me. What? I asked him. So he repeated himself, insisting that Zach didn't look like a dick. So I start laughing uncomfortably and Zach just says, thank you, sincerely. He figured he'd take it as a compliment, since it came out of nowhere. The owner asked if we were boyfriend and girlfriend (every Korean man knows the word boyfriend because he wants to ask you--pretty, young American girl-- if you have one) and we say no, just friends. The man doesn't believe us, insists that Zach doesn't look like a dick one more time for good measure ((as if the only reason I wasn't dating him was because I thought he was a dick) and gave us heart shaped sparklers. At least, it looks like a sparkler in the shape of a heart, but I don't want to light it up in case it's not. And it's the Busan Fireworks Festival this weekend and if it IS a sparkler, I don't want to waste it. So, I guess what I'm saying is, whatever it is, this weekend I'm lighting it on fire.

1...2...3...BAIL!

Bailing on my last blog attempt. I was never happy with it. I was bored writing it, you were bored reading it. I've moved on.

Chatting with my mother today on The Facebook, she commented on the pictures of me all dressed up for school. You look nice, she told me, but you don't really look like you. Which is about the same as the last blog. It looked nice, but it wasn't really me. All the David Copperfield crap. I'm slightly more Holden.

There's a lot of pressure to write well when you hold a degree in Creative Writing. Suddenly every little spelling error or wrong verb tense or misused semi-colon is an affront to your competence. Also, I have the added pressure of being considered a funny person. Unfortunately, I find that the more humorous I try to make my writing, the less funny it actually is. The funniest thing I ever brought into a writing class in college was a heart wrenching retelling of a childhood trauma. One girl claimed to have literally cried laughing while reading it aloud to her roommate. I was horrified. Apparently the embarrassing, scarring moments of my youth were hilarious. And they are.

Since people who strive to be funny rarely ever are, I will not try to be funny. I will not try to imbue the events here with any needless additional humor. I will tell things as they are and as they happened. Therefore I will not be held responsible if they are or are not comical.

Now that the pressure is placed anywhere but on my too broad shoulders...let's do this.