spaghetti sauce and skin lotion

Well, would you look at that? Over to the right. There are now six different years during which I've kept this blog. Six. I genuinely can't believe I'm still living and teaching in South Korea.


It's been a rough winter here in South Korea, and it's only just begun. I think it has already snowed more this winter than it did during all my previous Korean winters combined. On New Year's Day the girlfriend and I awoke before dawn and hiked a nearby mountain to catch the first sunrise of the year. Unfortunately, about halfway through our climb it began snowing; by the time the sunrise rolled around, there wasn't much of a sunrise to behold.

I met my new director today; a woman the owner has hired to oversee everyday academy operations. She asked me how long I've been in Korea, and I told her that this was my 4th year. She gave out a tempered, "Oh, wow," to delineate that she was expecting an answer of just a year or so. She followed up by asking if, after having lived here so long, I could speak Korean. I hate being asked this question, because it stirs up such an acrid sense of shame as I confess that, no, I can't speak Korean very well. I always qualify this admission of ignorance with the statement "I can understand it pretty well, though," which, while true, doesn't do much to mitigate my embarrassment.

I regret not learning the language whilst I've been here, but can't help but think that perhaps if Korean was a more beneficial language to know I would've put more of an effort into learning it. I'm not trying to demean Korea, but other than for living here there's not much use in learning Korean. Whereas, if I were to live in China, I'm confident that I'd have a much better go at learning Mandarin, because doing so would actually be a very valuable skill to have.

Yes, learning Korean would make my life easier, but only marginally so. Obviously, one can get by here with only a cursory knowledge of the language. I'm living proof of that. You can often communicate fine with English, and Koreans frequently like to show off or practice their English when they get the chance. Today, on my way home from work, I had to stop at a corner store to buy some spaghetti sauce and skin lotion. I put my two purchases on the counter. The clerk picked up the spaghetti sauce and looked at me. "Spaghetti sauce," he said, and he rang it up. He picked up the skin lotion and looked at me. "Body lotion," he said, and he rang it up as well. "8,000 won, please. Thank you." He was delighted to be able to handle that transaction with English, and I expressed my gratitude by telling him, "Thank you very much. Goodbye."

Though I kinda wished I wasn't buying such a peculiar combination of products as spaghetti sauce and skin lotion.