This was a pretty good week. I think. It all went by so fast that I don’t really remember what happened. I started practicing our winter play with the students in my class. It’s going to be an unmitigated disaster. The performance will require my ten 5 year olds to stand in a straight line and only move when it’s time for them to deliver a line, or complete and action. My students are a very energetic bunch of students. They can’t stand still in a line for 5 seconds much less five minutes. It’s not going to be a fun next couple of months.
This past Thursday was my speaking and writing finals for my Korean class. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had much time to study…it definitely showed on my speaking final. I went into the room for the test and the teacher asks me a question that I don’t understand. It was apparently about family reunions, which I only understood after clarification. It was rough, and I ended the interview by apologizing to my teacher. I think I did a bit better on the written test. And I actually made some time to study for the reading and listening portions this weekend, so I hope that they will go better tomorrow.
On Friday night I went to the really fancy part of Seoul to meet some friends for dinner. This is the part of Seoul with Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Mercedes parked all over the place. I thought I knew how to get to the place I was going, but I was mistaken, so I ended up wandering around in the bitter cold for over an hour. I tried to flag a cab but the cab driver refused to take me because I was a foreigner traveling alone. I even talked to him in Korean, so it can’t be because he was afraid to speak English. I was lucky enough to be raised in a place where I didn’t have to encounter racism, but coming to Korea has truly been an awakening experience on what it’s like to live as a minority. People often refuse to sit next to me on the train, cab drivers refuse to stop for me, I get lousy service at restaurants, people at stores ignore me until they have no other option but to talk to me. It hurts my feelings sometimes, but at the same time, I’m grateful that as a white middle class suburban female, I get the chance in my life to experience this racism so that I will NEVER treat anyone like I am often treated here.
Saturday I slept in which was glorious. I haven’t had more than 7 consecutive hours of sleep in about a month, but I slept for almost 10 hours on Friday night. It was amazing how much energy I had on Saturday. Saturday afternoon I went with some friends to the Embassy housing on the military base, and had Thanksgiving dinner with a family from church. They are both Foreign Service Officers working at the US embassy. One of them is one of the leading North Korean experts (you may have seen some of his work on WikiLeaks). We asked them about the North Korean situation, and neither of them seem to concerned, which was comforting, because if anyone knew, they would know. They briefed us on what we should do if something does happen. The place we have to meet to get shipped out of Korea is only a 25 minute walk from my house. Then they filled us with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie…all acquired from the military base…it truly is a magical place. Walking through embassy housing was like walking through suburban America…a car even stopped at a cr
osswalk and waited for us to cross instead of trying to run us over. It was shocking.
Saturday night guess what I did? If you guessed another K-pop concert then you are right. But this one was a pretty extreme K-pop concert. If you know anything about K-pop at all, then you know about Big Bang…I saw Big Bang!!! and 2NE1 and Se7en, and Gummy. It was a really good concert. My favorite Korean musician is TaeYang, and he is a member of Big Bang as well as being a solo artist, and I got to see him again! We were even closer to him this time. I may or may not have screamed like a teenage girl when he came over to our side of the stage.
Now that it’s December, it’s time to get into the Christmas spirit. So I would just like to tell everyone how thankful I am for the savior and his birth and all of the many possibilities that are available to us in this lifetime because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I hope everyone will take this Christmas season to think not about gifts, and shopping, but about what you can do to help others, and to feel the true peaceful spirit of Christmas that can’t be found in the crowded stores.
Big Bang Dancing it up on Stage...crazy costumes and all.
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