My Korean Adventures has hit the big 4-0! The excitement is so great I can hardly control the urge to throw a huge celebratory party. Maybe I should do just that invite everyone here to Korea to see where it all takes place. Not practical I know, but I have always had a problem in that area.

 

Not a lot has happend in the past couple of days, but I feel I have a lot to say anyway. I guess we will see how it all turns out. Starting with Monday....what can I say, it was Monday. I met with Soojang and learned the rest of the Korean alphabet, though a little haphazardly and probably not in order. I guess order isn't really important in the alphabet anyway (though it would help in looking things up in the dictionary). Speaking of the dictionary, as all words have to start with a consanent, the number of starting letters is reduced by about 14. What a system.

 

Tuesday was a little better, though it is starting to feel like I live and work in an igloo without the proper heating system. (I guess igloos can be quite warm, but this one is not.) There seems to be an ongoing battle with the director and the other foreign teachers over the boiler setting. They keep turning it up, he keeps turning it down. I am not sure why the director is concerned with it at all, as it doesn't control the heat to his appartment, and the bill is paid by the foreign teachers. It is his way though, so we are hopefully all going to have a meeting to get answers about this and about the specifics of our other bills which we never see. It is an odd system, I think.

 

I went to Korean class (as opposed to Korean Lessons with Soojang) last night as well. It was German night, so I got to learn a little about how things have been shaping up in Germany since I was there many years ago. The two who were giving the presentation were from what was West Germany there was another person who was from the east. It was interesting to hear the comments she interjected in response to what they said.

I think it was most interesting when they got to famous Germans. They mentioned Karl Marx. It seems that the prevailing idea, among university students anyway, is that Karl Marx was a great philosopher whose ideas were based upon a human who does not yet exist. The East German (a generation older) was not as impressed. As usual we went to O'Briens afterward, and I rode in the car with her. She talked about the changes in Germany since the reunification and how many, in both the east and the west, are longing for the days before reunification occured. It seems it has brought a lot of problems that have yet to be addressed. All East Germans longed for it, but are not happy with the growing pains that must be experienced before the benefits can be clearly seen. Her friend back in eastern Germany, who is now worse off due to reuniffication,   said "who cares about freedom to travel? We don't have money to travel, so what good does the freedom due us?"  Perhaps it shows Maslow's heirarchy of needs: you need to have the basic needs of food and shelter met before you move onto the more esoteric needs.

 

Anyway, while at O'Briens, I talked with another member of Korea class, who is going back to the states next weekend, about life, his job and life, and my possible future goals. He provided some good insight. It is amazing what problems people can solve over a glass of orange juice. It is interesting that many of the people there get us confused if I didn't wear my hat, it would happen a lot more often then it does. He is in his early 30's, from Iowa, and worked in an American school over here. He has his Masters from DePaul University, and talked of how he had lived in a Convent to save money during that time. He also volunteered in Venezuala. He said that his two years of volunteering really paid off for him. It was interesting and inspiring hearing his life story.

 

As we were talking, a man sitting next to us asked for a cigarette, which neither of us had. He found someone who gave him three. He lit his and tried to give us one, which we refused. Rich, the Iowan, had to go home to his wife, so he left. I think I should of as well, but being the rather shy people person I am, I was drawn by the invitation of the friendly, smoking Russian.

 

The Russian, whose name I am still unsure of though it sounded like he said Nigel or something similar, was approxiamtely 6'3" 190-200lbs. He was wearing a brown-plaid flanel shirt and jeans, and looked like he hadn't shaved in a day or two. Think of your sterotypical logger in the UP and you have him though his dark hair and complection may make him stand out a little. He was friendly, though his friendliness was purly Russian. From what he said, I gathered him to be an engineer who was not fond of the current state of the world.

 

He insisted on buying me a beer, which I finally acquiesed to after refusing the vodka he offered at first. So we sat there trying to talk, rather he tried to talk and I tried to understand his extremely limited English, few words of Korean, and fluent Russian. He was questioning the US's love of money and saying that capitalism is bad and will cause the US many problems in the future. He also said that communism was not good. He is very much against having money as your number one goal.

 

He kept talking about America going to Iraq, and always going to where the problems are. He asked why America was in Africa, why Russia hadn't agreed to go into Iraq, and why it should be Russia's problem now? It all made a little sense, but not much as I never did fully understand his arguments. He did ask which would be the first to be blown up: the US or Europe? He also expressed concern over Russia being in the middle of Europe, Asia,  and North America. He showed that he felt Russia and America would probably clash with each other someday. He was visibly distressed over this and kept asking 'why' one of the few English words he knows.

 

"We are all same. No problem. Why problem in America? Why problem in Europe? Money. It cause many, many problem. I 'black', you 'black', we same, no problem." I have yet to find out what the word that sounded like 'black' meant. He used it often, and at first is sounded as if he where being racist, but further use did not bear this out. While we were communicating, someone came and sat next to us. Niger asked where this stranger was from, to which was replied the same question. I told him I was from America and that Niger was from Russia. The other, obviously an American, became upset and said we were lying: "You are no more an American than I am from Nigeria! You should be shot for trying to impersonate an American."

 

Niger came around me to be able to hear what the man was saying. He asked again where he was from, and the man replied "Romania." The Russian repeared "Romannia?" which the stranger took as mean he had never heard of it. The Russian, though, was happy to hear this and gave him a big slap on the back. This and rough bear hugs were his way of showing affection, and the stranger didn't like it one bit. He started to tell the Russian to not touch him, but the Niger did not understand. I tried to talk to him a little, but he didn't listen to me. I stood up and walked over to the pool table, which the stranger took as an offensive move. It was not a good situation, but Niger did finally stop trying to talk to the stranger and called me back over.

 

I stood behind the seat next to him, and he asked where my family was from. I told him from Germany and near Poland. "Poland? a beautiful country!" With that he decided we needed to clink mugs, and before I knew it, I was standing there with a broken mug. I took that as a sign to go, though it happend that he managed to take me to the next bar over: Monkey House. Not a bad establishment, and the girl tending bar was really nice and spoke good English.

 

Not too long after, the same stranger, who turned out to be from Texas, came in. He was going to leave, but thought better of it. He came and appologized for being rude to us. To me he said "You still look like an a******," and proceeed to take my hat and give me his much larger ball cap. I took it back and left not too much after that without even saying "Das Vadanya" to my new 'friend'.

 

This morning I finished "A Tale of Two Cities" and started on "A Full  Man" by Tom Wolfe. I haven't gotten to far in this 740+ page book, but it has already caught my attention. It takes place in Atlanta, GA and is currently talking about Freaknic and the white population's fear/hatred of it. I think I am going to enjoy it as the prose are wonderfully written, and the setting is a place I am familiar with. I will let you know if I reccomend it.

 

I told my everyday class of 8yo, that we are not going to do the secret santa, and they are not going to the Christmas party with the other students. They just won't listen, and I am having the hardest time getting them to do anything.  They seemed interested in learning the Christmas song they are supposed to sing at the party, but they won't focus long enough to even start it. They are loud, obnoxious, and won't listen to anything I say. I am going crazy. I had to take a 3 hour nap after dealing with them today. I am so glad they are the only class  I have on Wednesdays.

 

That is all for now. It isn't a long time span, but it took a while to tell. I really need to stop meeting people in the bars, which I don't frequent. One is never sure who they are going to meet or what is going to happen everyday is a surprise. Take care of yourselves, and let me know how y'all are doing.