Unemployed, homeless, and loving it

After getting paid, I decided to go ahead and say goodbye to the wee ones anyway. I'm so glad I did, and it gave me a whole lot of closure on that end: "If your mom gets better, will you come back to Korea?" "I'll try, buddy. You'll be the first person I call, ok?" I was able to squeeze in one last game of musical chairs, and showed the new guy how to control ten amazingly hyperactive kids during the once-weekly recess period they're permitted (all work and no play retards Jack-san's social development). After drying my eyes and eating a burrito, I hopped on the first and fastest (300 km/h) train out of town.

I spent the first four nights at a hostel in Busan. Made good buddies with this 41 year old Scottish retiree who's living in India right now - doing absolutely nothing. The last night in Busan was a laugh riot. I made buddies with this guy who is new to Korea. You can talk Brits, backpackers, and especially British backpackers into having a ridiculous evening when in a new country just for its own sake. Started at the Busan foreigner district, which has recently transformed just to the Russian district. In Korea, "Russian" is synonymous with "whore" (with apologies my palindromically-named amiga who reads this who might take especial offense). There were so many Russian whores, and Korean peroxide blondes trying to keep up, that we got pretty sketched out and bolted before we even finished round one. Round two through something were over this one neon district. Spoke Korean to a waiter wearing a Scream mask, which did not help us understand one another. We found ourselves at this "hof" which is a German derived Korean word (indigenously pronounced "hope") for beer + mandatory complimentary food items. There was some confusion with the waiter, so we ended up having dried fish, a bowl of peaches, and a pitcher of beer. It was quite an absurd cocktail, and we really weren't in the mood for the fish (or the peaches). I talked my new friend, somehow, into putting dried fish into his breast pocket and wooing (rather attempting to woo) the local women: "lady, our gift please have." They were suitably put off, but it did help us make buddies with our cabby later on. We bonded over dried fish and some ten minute story about somebody sometime getting punched in the face. My "yesses" (in Korean, "nay," which is complicated) must've been well-timed because he kept going on and on and on much to his own (and our) delight. The night ended at a karaoke type place called "Kenny Rogers," bearing his iconic bearded goodness everywhere.

Sunday I flew into Jeju Island, a charming, isolated place that cohosted the 2002 World Cup. People outside of Seoul are especially friendly, I'm finding. Every tenth person on the street wants to say "hello" and chat. To the very little kids who shout, in Korean, "foreign person!" I enjoy saddling up to them and saying "Little brother, hello. Me foreign person I am? No, I'm a Korean person." They inevitably hide behind their parents, but the parents really enjoy it. Seoul is like an Oriental New York. But, now I really feel like I'm in fuckin' Asia. It's bizarre and I'm loving it. I've slept on the floor - at least in a private room - for the last couple nights. When the owner of the "(love) motel" moved me in, he wanted to practice his English. "USA?" "Yeah, [Korean for "I'm an American"]" "[English] North Korea... bang bang. USA [thumbs up] ... USA number one!" I was the only Westerner on the plane here, out of probably three hundred people in total. And, yet, 40% of all the airplane business was still conducted in English. The entire thank-you-for-flying bit was done in English, which was odd. At this moment, I haven't even seen another white person for almost 48 hours. I did have a conversation yesterday with a black dude from Philly at this temple, but the no-whitey streak is still alive.

Last night in Jeju, I had a tasty meal as all meals tend to be so far in Korea (except for a "cold noodle soup" that I ordered a month ago; I didn't know that it would have chunks of ice in it). When I ordered my meal in Korean ("sea product mixed with rice"), the waitress - in English - was very complimentary toward my pronunciation of Korean. I asked what places were worthwhile visiting at night. She was very happy to tell me, and circled all the places on the map nearby that I should visit. Then, after awhile, she asked if she could show me personally. "Can I show you where to go?" "Of course!" "Thank you! It will be my honor!" "Umm... you're welcome? When do you get off work?" "When you finish your meal," which she then proceeded to watch me finish. She'd never had a real conversation in English with another foreigner, despite having studied English (on her own) for the past six years or so. Though all her previous interactions with whities in the restaurant had been strictly business, it's not too hard to befriend the dude trekking around a strange country with a working lexicon mostly consisting of pleasantries. Though, I can do a little better than that. Even though I've been a little lazy with the language study, I'm can see oodles of progress. This girl's mom owns the restaurant, and was also working. As we were saying goodbye, the mother said to me, in Korean, "you (something) handsome face." And then I turned to her daughter, and said, in Korean, "you have a beautiful mom." The mom was pretty keen on that, though she did call to check up on her 24 year old daughter a few hours later.

After a couple hours of walking around, followed by drinks, reciprocal English/Korean lessons, and more walking around, this Onion article feels applicable:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/54114

I'm hobbling around at this moment, since I screwed up my foot running in Busan (Feels like a stress fracture, which I've had before and am not too excited about). Kerry Strugging around has kinda bummed me out, since I had plans to go running atop the volcanic mountain that formed Jeju Island. My lady friend, "Young-Jew," awaked me this morning with this text message: "it's bright day. feel the cool autume breeze. how are your legs?" [despite the cruel Asian boss of months past, compassion does exist in Korea]

Tonight (Halloween night), I'm taking the 12 hour overnight ferry back into Busan. Then I'll immediately get on another ferry and go to Fukuoka, Japan, where I need to go to get another visa. So, for Halloween this year I'm going to be a vagabond, which at least won't require any costumes. I hope to be back in Oriental New York by this weekend, but we'll see if it actually happens.

The best part about being unemployed and homeless: watching the World Series in the morning, in pajama pants, with a beer, and successfully defending myself against Brits, Frogs, and Aussies who think that "World" series is a bit of a misnomer. Another six days before I have a room of my own, in a highrise apartment likely somewhere between the 8th and 16th floors.

xox, MH

Sans Casa

Yesterday was my last day at work. I "trained" my replacement, and he's a seemingly good guy. Should be good with the kids, so that makes me happy. They didn't end up letting me say goodbye, and I got a bit bummed especially when I was high-fiving them at the end of the day saying "see you later" - as opposed to my usual "see you tomorrow." And then, a student who had been in Japan for the previous week returned with a gift and a note: "Mark teacher: I love you. You'r a good teacher. You'r so a good teacher. I love you. Wendy K." That bummed me out a touch, too. But, goldfish memories, so they'll forget about me within a couple weeks. One kid does know, since I told his father about what happened when I bumped into him on a field trip over a month ago. He was educated at Berkeley, Cornell, and then got his PhD from Wharton in econ. So, I decided to tell him what was going on. "So, obviously education is important to you..." He seemed a little embarrassed: "Wow. It's not like Korea's a third-world country. Why are they treating you like this?" He then offered to find me a lawyer, which I haven't needed. Anyway, I went out to dinner with the family Monday night, and talked to his kid. I think the school is telling the parents that I "got sick and went home." At any rate, I'm going to stay in touch with this kid, perhaps auxiliary tutoring or baby-sitting. So, he'll eventually tell all his buddies that I'm still around.

I'm off to be homeless. Things to do in the next few hours. Clean, finish packing, get paid in full, drop off key, find train station, hop to Busan, figure out the subway system and find the hostel. I've booked four nights at a hostel in Busan. I'll figure out my next move from there. In all likelihood, Jeju Island (Korean owned between Kr and Japan; somewhat tropical) and Japan - where I have to get a new visa.

While I'm dropping off my key, I plan on actually saying goodbye to those adorable monkeys.

The next drunkest thing I’ve done in Korea, that I hope will repeat itself (part 2)

A continuation of part 1.

Went to a really rad DJ show last night, DJ Sasha of Sasha and Digweed. It was in this really, really swank hotel on the outskirts of town. The hotel has a prominent casino, that only lets in foreigners for some strange reason. They let white people walk right in, but the Japanese, Chinese, and Korean Americans that seem to make up most of the clientele have to show their passports. Before the show, some buddies and I went to the casino - it was my first time ever - and I pissed away a chunk of change in about 10 minutes playing roulette. However, after an epic DJ set, at about 4am, I talked a buddy into coming back to the casino (blackjack’s his bag) and I hit up this quiet table with this cool American military chick I’d met at the show. I cashed out $100 in chips, the figure I was willing to lose, and was pacing myself at the beginning.

When about half my stack was gone, I hit two solid numbers within a couple spins. I found myself with a couple hundred dollar chips, and would occasionally throw one of those down on odd or even, black or red, and got really lucky. Eventually, these Japanese businessmen came over to the table and were throwing down the same moves as me. I was up a grand at one point, but there were a couple spins where I lost a couple hundred at a time. And then the occasional four hundred dollar spin ($200 on red, $100 at 2:1 on a third of the board) so it’s all gravy. Fortuna’s Wheel was pretty good to me overall. And, after my companion ran out of cash, she was making decisions for me and helping me spread the table, which I totally owe her a nice dinner for. Koreans are super efficient, and at times there were only 15 seconds or so to place bets. I didn’t have my gogogadget arms on, so this chick really helped me out. Roulette doesn't require "skill" per se, but just balls, as far as I can tell. I have an addictive personality, and I recently saw "Deerhunter." We’ll let that be a cautionary tale of roulette in Asia. I’m going to limit this to a once monthly activity, but I do plan on doing it again. I can’t, however, count on being that retardedly lucky again.

I’ll be able to afford a couple more bottles of pseudo-whorehouse sugar wine, not that I will. Instead, I’m going to be homeless in more style than I’d planned, beginning on Wednesday. Plus, I should have something left over for the Thanksgiving cocktail party in my new digs.

The stupidest (drunkest) thing I hope to ever do in Korea (part 1)

So, last Saturday night I was excited, since I just signed the new contract the night before, and wanted to stay out as long as I could handle. Saturday was a field day with work, so the drinking commenced around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. It was quite a bender. I had drinks until about 4am with the lads, then the lads either went to bed or ditched me for random bar hookups. So, around 5 or so I called up some other friends. Then, I hopped on a taxi and met other friends at this gay bar - on "homo hill," adjacent to "hooker hill" - and had a couple more long islands there. Around, I dunno, 7 or so these friends were eventually pooped out, so we trucked toward home. They caught a cab, and I was on my way toward the subway (they start running again at 5am). On my way back, stumbling homeward by myself in the sketchiest part of town - the foreigner district, which is where the military men hang out; luckily they have a 1am curfew - I was approached by this attractive Korean chick who asked if I wanted to grab another drink or two. I figured, even at my drunkest, that it was a bit sketchy, but I’d already spent a good bit of dough for a belly full of booze, and wasn’t quite tired yet. So, I go inside. The details are a bit fuzzy after this, but next thing I know, we’re in this private karaoke kinda room, with some music playing and we were taking turns singing - though I couldn’t tell you what we sang. And, there’s a bottle of wine on ice with two glasses.

Anyway, next thing I remember, the barstaff asks me for my credit card. I was low on cash, and not really thinking with a clear head, so I handed that shit over - which I immediately regretted. Next thing I know, I find myself asking "um, so what exactly am I paying for?" "You are meaning what?" "Well, uh, so... there’s no polite way to say this...." Even at my drunkest, I’m not too comfortable with quasi-prostitution, or whatever the arrangement was. And sexual contact with people I can’t really understand or don’t really know isn’t really my thing, either. I’m not too much into Cartesian womanizing - the mind/body split - unless it’s with an axe. We all pay for sex indirectly - dinner, booze, etc - but to be in as direct a way is a little... gross. Anyway, my next memory is getting charged 265,000 won for the bottle of booze. Keep reading to see what that translates to. I was so drunk, I’m not really sure how it tasted. A little desserty, I think. Kinda sweet and too syrupy from what I remember. At any rate, I was so sketched out, but even at my drunkest I’m not as creepy as I sometimes fear I am (way to go, Mark), that I bolted before the bottle was even finished.

But, whateverthefuck. It’s the equivalent of a couple day’s hard work, sure. And, sure, I could’ve lived on that shit for a week whilst homeless. But, it’s as easy to shrug shit like that off as it will ever be in my life. Que sera sera and so on. And, you gotta pamper yourself every now and then, I guess, although hopefully not in AS frivolous a way next time: even if I could’ve gotten drunk, plus a rub and tug (new favorite phrase), for a quarter the price or so. I was at least smart enough to ask for a receipt, and I was pleased with myself when I found that relic in my pocket the next day. So, if they tried to dick me over and charge me even more than they did, I should be ok. The receipt is also a good addition for the scrapbook. I didn’t contest that shit, because I wasn’t really in a position - mentally, physically, linguistically - to negotiate. And you never know who knows Taekwondo, a Korean invention, here.

Come to find out, the establishment is something called a "flirt bar," where Korean - and especially American military - men pay for the companionship of ladyfolk. It’s kinda escort-esque, and apparently sexual favors are part of the game.

A couple days later, at four in the morning, my mom called me. She said that the credit card fraud department was looking for me. So, I called my bank in the middle of the night. They were concerned because I had "bar/nightclub" expenses that were "out of (my) typical spending habits." Apparently, $277 and change was put on my credit card, from some place called the, giggle, Cream Color Bar. Later on, my mom asked if I went to a strip club. I of course told her that if I were planning on going to a strip club then I would’ve at least been smart enough to take out some cash in advance. So, I just told her the truth, kinda.

It's so hard to not say goodbye

So, a month previous to today is the day that I was threatened to be deported, and thus the last day that I was due to work here. I'm actually working a few extra days. 1) to keep from being homeless through another weekend. 2) I'm working the Friday so that there's a replacement and the kids aren't stranded without a teacher. 3) I'm staying an additional Monday and Tuesday so that the replacement teacher will have some training (though I wasn't trained myself).

My supervisor doesn't want me to say anything to the kids. She just wants me to disappear, and then will make up some excuse once I'm gone. I was perfectly willing to fake excuses myself, excuses that would sound plausible to a six year old: ex., "my mom got hit by a bus." However, she'd just prefer to do her own lying, and lord knows what they'll come up with. They're going to call the parents on an individual basis the day after I "disappear" into the abyss of Seoul. I'm a little bummed about this, since they're all really cool kids in their own monkeyish ways. I really have little say in this, since I'm not getting paid in full until my final day.

It will be a little weird spending a couple days in front of them with their new teacher, without being able to tell them that that's exactly who he is.

Giggle Fit

In kindergarten, we read the same book for a month, a couple times a week. The smarter kids (all of one class, half of the other) get bored as shit with the same book, so it's a struggle to make such redundancy interesting with for the kids. This month, it's "Sleeping Beauty" - always met by groans of "Oh, no! 'Sleeping Beauty' again?!" To keep it interesting for the more advanced kindergarten class I have, I told the kids to bring in a version of "Sleeping Beauty" that they may have on their shelves at home, so we can compare the two.

The supplementary version of "Sleeping Beauty" was one of the more interesting spins on the tale I've ever come across, but is more noteworthy for its awkward prose. After all of the kingdom gets encased in thorns by the bad fairy and is unseen for decades:

Hundred years later, a prince passes by. "What is in this thorny shrubs?" The fairies give the prince a magic spear: "You never come in this palace." The witch turns into a dragon. And she starts to spout fire. "Bad witch, disappear!" The prince beats off the dragon.

Perhaps having the whole kingdom encased in thorns is a way of circumventing an alone kiss between the charming prince and his unconscious bitch. Beating off the dragon, however, is in plain sight. That last line - and the angling of the spear didn't help - made me giggle for a bit, which I attempted to conceal by faking a sneezing fit. Six year olds are two smart for that: "Teacher, why do you laughing?" "Uh... No reason. Sometimes I do that. Sorry." Anyway, this is a verbatim transcription, since I asked the genius nose-picker if I could borrow her book. "Yeah. But why?" "Uh... So my friend can read it to his class?"

It's pretty easy to get desensitized to bad English here, especially when, on a conservative estimate, about 95% of the lettering on any given apparel you see on the street is in English. My kid with some learning difficulties wears a shirt that makes me smile - which is great because everything else about that kid is effing frustrating - and I get to see it about three times every fortnight. It's a glorious DIYer, in rainbow colored speckled letters: "MY LOVER IS THE BISKIT." Yeah, mine is too, buddy. Let's hope at least one of us is keepin' it safe, yo.

I Be Stupid

For the last couple weeks, something roughly equivalent to "I be stupid" or "I be a fool" has been my favorite thing to say to shopkeepers, cabbies, people I bump into, and chicks in bars. This is done in the construction for introducing yourself. Except when you would normally insert your name - "I’m Mark" - you substitute the word "stupid," thus making for an ungrammatical and stilted way of letting people know that you’re a fucking idiot, which is all the better.
I’ve run "I be stupid" by a few of my more advanced classes, and invariably about half of them get out of their seats and start jumping up and down in excitement. It seems to be one of the funnier things you can say in Korean, all the more since I’m doubtless fucking up the pronunciation and grammar. Then, without fail, 3-4 students will pull out digital recorders and ask me to say it again: "Teacher, say ‘I’m pabo eem-nee-dah.’" Then the jumping up and down in excitement commences once again. The suckups, not every class has one, will try to fill me in:
"Teacher, what you said, it’s not nice. It is that you are, uh, ‘fooleesh’."

"I be stupid" is a good way of getting people to listen without automatically dismissing you as a waygook ("foreigner," and I’m a little uncomfortable with the spelling, too). When you walk into a store, and ask "How much this be?" - apparently, my pronunciation is adequate, which belies my utter retardation in the Korean language - and they say something in response that is Charlie-Brown’s-mom-esque, "I be stupid" will get people to chuckle and slow the fuck down: "Lady, I’m sorry. One month in Korea (I) exist. Now, I be stupid. Korean, now, no me friend. Tomorrow, yes, yes-no, I be stupid little bit. Long time no see! Aw-right!"* Invariably, they say something like "Stupid? No way... wah wah wah Korean language wah wah wah wah wah, yo." Some of my 10-year-old female students taught me how to say "is that so?" really sarcastically, which is the right thing to say in response to sycophantic, overly polite shopkeepers. People are too polite here, and don’t expect too much from the waygook. I’m not exactly comfortable with the implications of being a whitey living in Korea without making the effort to learn Korean, but many people make little effort. Not that I’m busting my ass to learn Korean myself. Once I have the new job and a bit more leisure time, I hope to spend as much time learning Korean as my students spend learning English.

[On a related note, I really, really wanted to be Borat for Halloween. However, I had to stop growing my mustache - not only because I teach kindergarten and that’s a little weird. Facial hair kinda freaks out kids in Korea, and my supervisor actually asked me to shave what was a pretty full beard that I grew over Thanksgiving. Also, I didn’t sign the contract for new-job until last Friday, and I really didn’t want to make a bad impression there. It’s far too sweet a gig to fuck around with. At any rate, I can be Borat for Halloween ‘07, and my Korean will be even more Borat-esque. For example, I have no idea how to say "sexy time explosion" in Korean - or "my sister, she give the best sex-in-mouth in Kazakhstan" - but will certainly try to have that shit down by late Oct. ‘07. I’m waiting for someone to offer to send me a "mustache rides, 5 cents" belt buckle in a care package, which would make for a delightful Borat accoutrement. Costume ideas for this year? What’s the perfect costume for the hairiest mofo on the block? Or for the white dude in Asia?]

With the proper rising intonation, "I be stupid" can become "I be stupid?" This is useful for haggling on the black market when someone tries to sell you a blanket for $20. "I be stupid?" gets people to knock it down at least a few bucks, but you still fall victim to the waygook tax. People assume foreigners in Korea are wealthy, which is fair enough because foreigners here make well over - easily double - the average Korean wage, which is itself a pretty decent wage on a global scale. Drunk Korean men will ask you on the street or in the bathroom, in English, "So you are... uh... uh... Oh my God! Are you, uh....uh... Are you... rich?"

Not that people here are after your money. On the island where I spent Thanksgiving, I flagged down a van thinking it was a cab-esque service. After going through my repertoire of overly-rehearsed pleasantries, this middle-aged woman went was once again excessively complimentary: "wah wah wah wah Korean language good wah wah wah." Then they turned up the radio, almost certainly to drown out the waygook, and I invited them to sing with the infinitive of a verb I couldn’t then remember how to conjugate: "to sing, to sing. to sing." Whatever the song was, it sounded like a Korean version of "I Just Called (to Say I Love You)," or whateverthefuck, which totally shouldn’t exist. It wasn’t until I asked "How much this be?" - and they mocked me back with my enthusiastic "It’s aw-right!" - that I realized I’d just hitchhiked for the first time.

Later, the man from the van spent a quarter hour explaining, okay mostly gesturing, that the ferry wouldn’t arrive for awhile - it was morning - because there was too much "smoke on the water." Luckily, I knew the word for "sun" and "water," and he somehow knew the English word "smoke" (bilingual no-smoking signs? There were several on the ferry) or I wouldn’t have had taken me even longer for my stupid ass to figure out what be going on. Eventually, he got a little tired of my overuse of "aw-right," and pointed at his face to indicate age. Then he pointed at me, and bowed, as if I should be more deferential to him. Then he instructed me on how I should’ve been saying "aw-right" using verb stems reserved for Jebus and the elderly - omitting the "-yo," which I am remiss, and completely unable, to do. Still, he was cordial about it all, and so I wrote it down. And, due to social hierarchy implicit in language here, it’s more than just a "who/whom" distinction.

I’m getting a little bored with "I be stupid" and its derivatives, like "I have a stupid ear." On the island where I spent Thanksgiving, someone overheard my "I be stupid" and gave me something much cooler to say that I’ve been rehearsing in front of the mirror. It’s a nice companion to the "that is a spicy fart" [actually, my kids have taught me two two ways to say "fart," one of which seems to translate literally to "room ear"; it’s a bit of a problem that my Korean dictionary includes words like "banns" and "wet nurse," but no "fart"] that I’ve been holding up my sleeve for just the right occasion: "I speak Korean the width of a mouse’s tail." Fucking poetry.

*I’m a little bored with "yeah" since Koreans use the affirmative in a ton of situations, so I like throwing down an enthusiastic "aw-right!" whenever possible. "Yes" is semantically flexible, and seems to mean "cool," "fine," and "get to the fucking point, already": [telephone] "Hello?" "Hello." "Yes?"

Every Single Fold

Monday night, I'd just gotten paid - in cash money, and the Koreans don't have anything larger than a tenner - got some booze from the boss for Thanksgiving week, and was looking to meet up with some buddies in a close enough bar. There was some problems with the cabby. I should've told him "foreigner bar" (lit. "foreign nation booze house") but I just told him "bar," and the name of the area. "Here?" "Uhhh, alrighty!" So I got let off kinda far from my ultimate destination. A ninety minute walk later, and I finally run into some whities, who I assume can point me in the right direction.

These four Canadian gents tell me to walk about 1.5 km to the left, and I'll see the name of the bar - Gold Bar III - in big gold letters. I'd already been 1.5 km in that direction, so I assumed it wasn't directly on the main road, but I was pretty sure they were at least getting me warm. So I took off. Then, two minutes later, the female who was with them chases after me, panting: "Oh my god. I am SOOOO sorry. I'm as new to Seoul as you are, and so I didn't know. My, uh, friends thought it would be funny to give you wrong directions. It's not all the way on the left, it's about 3-5 minutes on the right. They laughed about it when you left, so I decided to let you know." "So they heard my accent and thought it would be fun to lead me astray, then?" "Yeah, I'm sorry. I only date American military men here, and they all treat me wonderfully." I appreciated her honesty/generosity, but wanted her to tell them off for me. So I was hunting for something vivid: "Tell your friends that they can lick every single fold of my scrotum. And when they're done, they can circle my balloon knot a few times. And if I have pinworms, they can catch them. Can you remember all that?" I've had a few bumps in the road in Korea, some blips and bleeps, but I still haven't been as steamed as that moment.

In other news, there seems to be some shit going down in this part of the world. The locals shrug it off, so I'm not too worried about it either: "The nuclear test was conducted with indigenous wisdom and technology 100 percent. It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the KPA (Korean People's Army) and people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defense capability." It's a little hard to be afraid of a country whose PR man writes with so many fortune-cookie aphorisms, innit?

Happy Thanksgiving

It's Korean Thanksgiving, so I have some time off work. I'm about to hop off to a nearby yet remote island, Duck-juck-do/DuckDuckGoose. Bought a tent yesterday, which took about four hours to find. So, I'll be kicking it on the beach probably for two nights.
Tent, backpack, bottle of Crown, food, toothbrush, sweater, jacket, blankets, Flannery O'Connor. I'm set.
Gotta hurry. I'll hate myself if I miss the ferry, or if it's booked up already.

Señor Bong

There's this pool hall down the street. I played a couple weeks ago with a buddy. The only Western table, by which I mean a table with pockets, was next to a rail like at a crowded bar, so at one point we needed a short stick. The owner, an aged Korean man, brings out the stick, which he called a "chiquita." I thought that was odd, and I didn't figure out until we were on our way out the door that he spoke really good Spanish.

Last Sunday night, I spent much of the day negotiating the black market and trying to find some refried beans. It's a staple of my diet, and I've been known to pick up 20 cans at a time when they're at an especially good price. I picked up a can when I first got here, but $3 a can was a bit steep until my first paycheck came - which happened last Monday. There has to be a cheaper way to get my bean fix, especially when you can pick up Louisiana-made hot sauce for a dollar a bottle at most grocery stores. Koreans just aren't an especially beany people, which complicates things since this is among the more ethnically homogenous countries in the world. So, I thought, "oh yeah, the pool hall man. He might know where I can find a fuckin' tienda."

So, I go to the pool hall. And for some reason, he was having a hard time with "frijoles. " "Come on man, frijoles. You eat and you eat and then your ... ass smells bad. You have smelly ass ... sky ... nearby your ass. Frijoles." He still had no idea, but laughed, so I went to the fridge and showed him a can of coffee. I pointed to the coffee bean on the front. "Frijole." "Ah. Cape." "No, frijoles. Ass that smells bad." "Cape." There's no "f" in Korean, so that caused some problems for both "beans" and "coffee."

Anyway, he introduced himself as Señor Bong - the first time I've ever heard those words used together in unstoned earnest - and insisted that we play a game of pool together. We started on the 8 ball table. It wasn't the most competitive of games, and he seemed kinda bored with it. So, then we moved on to the Korean pool table, a game I've been pretty curious about. Then, I got a 90 minute tutorial on danggu from Señor Bong, who rules at it, in the weirdest fucking Spanish I've ever heard in my life. Spanish with a Korean accent is weird. Korean Spanish with an Argentinian accent is much, much weirder. For example, when teaching me how to more effectively hit with English, it was "acka" - which I've never heard before - instead of "aqui." But, he spent 13 years living in Buenos Aires (oh, "ass AIR"! Why didn't I think of that before!?), so his vocabulary is much better than mine even if the pronunciation was way wacky.

Korean pool, danggu, is played on a smaller pool table, with four balls and no pockets. Two of the balls are cue balls, one white for one person, and a yellow ball for the opponent. And then there are two red balls. You gain a point if you make the cue ball hit one red ball, and then the other. So, the cue ball has to cleanly hit each of the red balls (rather than a red ball into another red ball) for you to gain a point. You keep getting points until you miss. Also, your score goes back to zero should you cause the two cue balls to collide. The game ends and the points are tallied when you make the cue ball hit both red balls as well as three rails - or I think that's how you play it. So, basically, he just toyed with me for over an hour and then finally ended the game once I got the rules down. I'm a decent shooter, which puts me at something of a disadvantage when their are no pockets.

Señor Bong only charged me $2, and that was just for a couple coffees and a gatorate-ripoff. Since it was $10 for an hour the first time I went, and especially since I had a pretty lengthy tutorial - including pointers on how to work the rail, and how to keep the red balls roughly together - I felt indebted to Señor Bong. "Hey. For me, money is money." "And for me, money is money." "If you insist. ?Are you hungry?" "Always." So I rushed home and made Señor Bong a burrito, which sans refried beans requires mashing up a can of kidney beans and throwing that shit on the stove. I only fried that shit once, though. I think frying them again is a wasted step.

So, Señor Bong liked his burrito, I think, and I brought the can of frijoles so that maybe he can help me out. He's got "frijoles" down now, but "refritas" is another problem. It's hard to explain if one person sucks at Spanish and the other isn't familiar with the product. The burrito was hot and spicy. My Korean students hate how in English "hot" is "heat" and "spice." Señor Bong hates the same thing about Spanish. So the burrito wasn't caliente and caliente. "No. Caliente y picante. Y muy rico," which I think means he liked it, right? We chatted for over an hour this time. I was kind of curious about Koreans in South America. Apparently, he lived in Korea, but then took part in a mass exodus in the late 1980s, when the Korean population in Buenos Aires dropped dramatically. That one required pen and paper. There were a few tough years of discrimination all of a sudden, and they moved on to places like Australia and Canada, and the population of Koreans in Argentina supposedly was cut in half within just a couple years.

He did things like mix up "before" and "after," and I did things like forget how to conjugate verbs in the past tense, so that was a problem. Especially since I used "before" and "after" as often as possible to get around the tenses. Then there was the occasional Korean for words I have forgotten from Spanish but know in Korean, like "ball" - learned in the kindergarten basement funhouse, also the word for "zero." I understood about 40-50% of what was going on at any moment. For example, he told me to hit the [Korean] ball "acka con finito" more than a few times. I didn't know "finito" (anyway, more like "pinito" with his accent") and wasn't paying attention to the suffix, and so I smacked the shit out of the ball when I should've used finess." Ah, con finito. (smack)" He owned some kind of costume jewelry store in Buenos Aires, and then somehow $50,000 is involved, though I'm not sure how. My horrible Korean has made me feel much more confident about my less-horrible Spanish, so that's helped a lot.

Spanish is a real emotional language for me, so needless to say that a few hours of speaking Spanish - without the option of English - is the most epic Spanish conversation I've ever had. On his last weekend alive, I was lucky enough to spend a day playing dominoes with my grandfather and cousin. One of the last things my grandfather ever said to me in Spanish was "pierdo mi alma." "?Grandpa, que quiere decir 'alma'?" "Soul." "I lose my soul" stands as the saddest thing I've ever heard, and it's always on my mind whenever I speak Spanish with old people. Of course, switching up "before" and "after," it was quite morbid for me to explain to Señor Bong why I was un poco triste.

Prodigies

My kindergarten kids - 6 years old - make me smile about once every five minutes. Today, we were reading a story about this girl who sits down on a couch, eats some snacks, and watches TV. Then a dinosaur comes out of the TV and they chill out for a bit. You can ask questions like "so why is the dinosaur thirsty?" And they can answer "because she doesn't have any more milk."

Anyway, it was called "Dino the Dinosaur." I didn't want my fondness for the Flintstones to fuck up their sense of phonetics, so I thought I would have the class vote on whether we were going to call him "dee-no" or "die-no." 7-3 in favor of "die-no" in the end.

During deliberation - "so is it 'dee-no' or 'die-no'?" - the most demure girl in the class cracks a grin, looks up at me, and says, "I dun-no."

One day, Me Pretty Talk-yo (pt. 2)

Tonight, I was hungry as people sometimes are. I really wanted to throw down on some kimbap, which is kinda like a sushi roll. Also, they're about $2 and pretty filling. It was my preference to get it to go, but, shit, how do I express that? I can read menus now, by which I mean I can sound shit out and I only know about 25% of what I'm saying ("rice" and "seaweed" is 20% of any given Korean menu, so that just leaves about 5% of miscellany that I was taught by my kindergarteners). I did ask which one had fish, and which one had no meat, by which I mean I pointed at the menu and said: "Here. Water meat (fish)?" "Yes." "Good. I can't eat meat. Water meat kimbap-only one, please give-yo." Above is how I synthesized two units of several Korean books to make a simple request in a stilted way. Although, it's not a fair grammatical representation of what I actually said. I left out things like topic particles (yeah, I'm not really sure what that is either) and subject particles. But, grammar can wait. Communication is much more important to me now and I'm still a very, very long way from not fucking that up.

I still had to pick out the ham, and there was some kind of mystery water-meat. But the kimbap was tasty, and enjoyed in the comfort of my home. Real soon, I need to learn to say "I don't eat anything that makes a sound, unless it's a splash." "I" would start the sentence, and "eat" would come at the very end. The negator would come right before the final verb, I think. So, yeah, that's still many many months away.

Korean is kind of an invented language, so it's not too hard. For example, one of the royal ugly dudes on Korean currency is the person who came up with the Korean alphabet. The alphabet is pretty nifty - and takes just a couple days to learn - because the characters actually represent the shape of the mouth and the position of the tongue when making those sounds. So, reading Korean script is really phonetic, so the literacy rate here is sky high. For example, a kindergarten coworker swears that he's seen one of his six year olds reading a translated version of "Treasure Island" in his spare time.

Really and truly, I'm a little peeved with myself that I can't yet flirt with the ladies in their native language. Korean women are absolutely stunning.

Day One, Me Pretty Talk-yo.

On my first morning in Korea, I was a bit hungry as people often are and wanted to eat something before work. "Bread" was one of the only food items I was comfortable with saying aloud. "Bakery" (lit. "bread house") was the only place to get food that I knew, other than "bar" (lit. "booze house") and they weren't open yet. It was super early, and the only man I saw on the street was this frail old man. Apparently, I could say "where" and "exist"/locational "is" well enough to convey that I saw looking for something. Word-initial frontal consontants are a bitch in Korean, so I totally used the wrong p/b in "bread." There are three different consonants in Korean that exist somewhere on the English p/b continuum, and even with some schooling in phonetics I still can't really distinguish two of them. I picked the wrong one. And the ch/j continuum is also a bit hard for me to hear, and when teaching myself Korean phonetics this summer, I got the characters for almost-ch and almost-j mixed up, apparently.

Anyway, there was about two minutes of charades and rerepeating of my simple request before something clicked. There was a lot of sniffing, nose touching, and belly rubbing on my end. For awhile, he seemed to think that I had the trots and a runny nose, and was asking me if I needed a pharmacy. I looked like a FOB, so perhaps it was a place to sleep that I needed, and he made a hand-pillow charade. I could smell bread, but where exists the house from which the smell of food eminates? Eventually, he got it. "Bread house!" "Yes, bread house! Where exist?" Then he got really excited, made a 10 second phlegmy noise, and pointed me in the right direction with all kinds of other instructions that I didn't understand.