Your Local Waygook Celeb

Have I mentioned yet that I’m a celebrity? A minor celebrity, anyway. Really more like those dogs in storefront windows that everyone pets and pokes and waves at.

“Hi!” I get constantly. “Hello!” “Where are you from?”

“Chicago[1]. Where are you from?”

“Korea!”

Orly?

They only talk to me (and, in one case, put me on television) because I have double eyelids, a high nose bridge, and a small face, which—I am informed by my Korean friends—is cute. I should have moved here in middle school to boost my self-esteem! Reverse racism really has its perks. Last night Izette, my friend from church who harkens from South Africa—and plays the viola!—and I made some new friends at my favorite hoddeok[2] stand in Nampo.

Unfortunately, I haven’t yet rhapsodized about hoddeok, but let’s just say that we stood in line—outside the in freezing cold—for about ten minutes, took one bite of our hoddeok’s and swiveled around to join the back of the line again.

We munched as the middle-aged group ahead of us smiled at our hoddeok enthusiasm.

“Hoddeok!” The man with glasses pointed to what we were eating and then at the stand where round 2 was waiting for me and Izette. The couple next to him smiled at us. And the fourth man openly laughed at our scarfing.

“Mmhm. Hanbeonda![3] Tashi!”[4]

“You like hoddeok?” Glasses Guy seemed to be the talker of the group.

This time Izette jumped in for both of us. “Masshita![5]” I smiled and munched. It’s a go-to.

Inevitably: “Where are you from?”

“Chicago.”

“Ahhh yes! Chicago! Yes.” They nodded and made approving gestures. I know the feeling: I get pretty excited when someone says they’re from a place I recognize the name of. Like “Seoul” or “Busan.”

“She’s from South Africa!” I pointed at Izette who munched and smiled. They didn’t quite know what to do with that.

“Where?”

This time Izette explained. Shockingly, I’m a little hazy on my South African geography. I mean, I know where it is in Africa (south), but if you gave me three dots and asked me to label Johannesburg, Capetown, and Durban I’d be lost. However, I’m not certain our new Korean friends knew that South Africa wasn’t in the States. But they weren’t too phased.

“Oh I see. You like...movie star. Um, for example...” He looked at me expectantly. The woman smiled at me and nodded encouragingly.

“Hmm...wha—?”

She and the man exchanged some rapid-fire Korean, giving me time to chomp through another few bites. Deeeeelicious.

“Movie star. Do you know? Look like....for example?”

“Um...I don’t know?”

The conversation ended thereabouts with Glasses Guy wishing he could remember the title of any American movie[6] and me wishing I could magically be fluent in every single language of the world so he wouldn’t have to.

I think they exchanged some jokes about us as we double-fisted our hoddeok’s and said goodbye. But I’m not going to complain. I had two hoddeok’s and a little celebrity status.

---

[1] Sorry, Indianaians. I’ve given up saying “near Chicago in Indiana at the tip of Lake Michigan” because you should see the baffled stares I get. And in the end they just ask me if I know about the Chicago Bulls. “I’ve heard of them.” More puzzled stares.

[2]호떡= awesome

[3] 한번다 = one more

[4] 다시= again    I was doing my best.

[5] 맜있다 = delicious

[6] Starring Meghan Fox, I’m sure. We’re practically twins by Korean standards. I see your doubt. But when you think about how most Americans can’t tell a Japanese from a Cambodian, it sounds a little less crazy. J  

Footnotes

BEFORE....VICTORY!!!!

I have a toilet seat.

Yesterday was a glorious day. I woke up after only 5 hours of sleep[1] to my absolutely obnoxious doorbell. Anybody who knows me will just knock or, if they really know me, walk in. So the doorbell of a thousand decibels means someone real[2]—and most likely Korean—is at the door. By the second time my gong of a doorbell resounded through my cheesebox of an apartment, I had yanked on a sweatshirt, flattened my hair out of its early-morning cockatoo impression, and stumbled over to my mudroom.

I unlocked the door and pushed it open.[3] There stood a Korean man—shorter than me—who said something in Korean and, noting my baffled expression, pointed to the floor. There lay a thin, flat cardboard box. I looked back at the man, noting his workman’s boots, casual clothes, and that capable look in his eye that says, “I can fix anything in your apartment before you know it’s broken” and my hazy morning mind made the connection.

“Oh! Yes! Toilet—! Grbhlf!”

It’s tough to be articulate in the morning, especially when trying to think of words your Korean conversation partner might recognize. Grghlf, by the way, is not one of them. It’s like the first year of Spanish class when you try to speak only in cognates and forget to use all the real words in your lexicon.

AFTER!!!

I practically leaped back into my room, barely remembering to hold the door open for him, and started clearing a pathway to the bathroom.[4] Luckily, my new best friend carrying the toilet seat pretended not to notice the state of my floor, the bra peeking out of my top drawer, and my unmade bed. He was working in the bathroom for about two minutes before I realized I should turn the light on. After five minutes he had finished with the toilet, and I had tucked my bra back into its drawer, picked up the floor and made my bed.[5] On his way out, he made my sink stop wiggling—victooooory again!—and said a few more things in Korean at me.

Then, faster than a mongoose, he slipped his shoes back on and was out the door. I lept after him, and thrust an orange into his hands. “Thanks! 고맙습니다! Orange!”

He smiled and I like to think he understood how desperately happy I was to have a toilet seat.

But that wasn’t all I saw of Kim Lee Park that day.[6] He was fated to enter my life just two hours later. We spent a good three minutes figuring out that I wasn’t Elijah and that my washing machine didn’t need fixing. Then he pointed to the electrical outlet, said “snack car,” and “Monday,” and “pay.”

I’m still confused, but I like to focus on the parts I understood: I have a toilet seat.

---

[1] Yes, I was up late watching a cheesy Japanese drama like the fangirl that I am.

[2] You know what I mean. “For reals” as in “serious,” “important,” “someone I shouldn’t be wearing pajamas in front of.”

[3] It swings outward and this is the first time I realized that’s not completely normal. Yet another way to maximize space, I think.

[4] In that moment, I looked at my coat that I had flung to the floor, my backpack that I had dropped next to it, the empty shopping bags that, also, had been dumped right in front of the door and finally understood why mom was so frustrated by my high school ritual of sloughing off anything I was carrying within three feet of the doorway.

[5] It is a truth universally acknowledged that once you actually decide to clean your room, it takes far less time than you assumed all week as you were dirtying it.

[6] This is not his real name. You don't just ask people who are older than you what their names are, so I don’t know his real name. Instead I will henceforth refer to him using the three surnames that make up 50% of Korean surnames - cover as many bases as possible.

Busan's Book Alley

I have a theory. My computer is not only sentient, but sadistic and is messing with me all the time. Every time I open it up, it’s changed somehow. Though I have done nothing to instigate this change, Microsoft now automatically displays new documents at 120% instead of 100%. My homepage has changed from Google to some unidentifiable and utterly useless search engine. Also the keys on my keyboard are taking turns not working, forcing me to hit them extra hard if I want to use that letter. Sometimes I completely rewrite emails, status updates, and blog post in order to avoid certain letters. This week it’s my s key and let me tell you, it’s hard to write a sentence without an s.

Devilspawn!

All that to say, although I’ve embraced technology, I still view it as a necessary evil. I tolerate my kindle because it is light and currently holding 46 books I couldn’t read in Korea without it. Skype is cool—free video calls across the globe still seem like something out of a sci-fi novel—and I love being able to look up the geography, history, and so on of Crimea[1] without going to the library after said area comes up in dinner conversation.

But I’m dumber than a brick when it comes to utilizing anything on a computer beyond basic functions. You may have noticed, all three of you who occasionally comment on blog posts, that I never write you back. I really want to! I just...can’t figure out how yet. Someday!

I don’t trust this new-fangled technology stuff and bother. I much prefer face-to-face conversations with friends, encyclopedia’s in the library, and—relatedly—real books. So a day after I became enamored with the Korean jjimjilbang, I found a new favorite part of Korea: Nampo’s Book Alley.

Mini Busan Geography lesson for clarification:

I live on Yeongdo, which is an island (do, pronounced “doe” as in “doe a dear” means “island”), from which I have to take a bus to the mainland of Korean, where the rest of Busan resides. The neighborhood closest to my island is Nampo (pronounced sort of like “nompo” and spelled 남포). Every area of Busan that is not Nampo requires a bus and a subway and at least 45 minutes, so whenever anything is in Nampo, we give a little cheer for convenience.

Hooray!

Books, books, books were everywhere! It doesn’t matter that most of them were in Korean or that all the shop owners looked at me like I was some kind of white alien. Books! There will be many a trip back to said book alley, particularly when I have a better camera and a little more money on hand.

I’m not going to rapture about books because so many other writers have already done it so much better. The final word is Maya Angelou’s:

 I love the book and the look of words

The weight of ideas that popped into my mind

I love the tracks

Of new thinking in my mind.

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[1]  It’s an autonomous parliamentary republic within Ukraine (pop. 2 mil) which seems to have been conquered by everybody and their pet turtle. 

Old News

After growing up in Indiana (essentially a cornfield with cows and, also, Gary), living in the city is a big change. No grass is probably the worst part, closely followed by the odd ways my apartment smells based on the foods other people cook.[1] But the best part—unequivocally—is the subway.

I have a thing for public transportation.

Of course, I miss the freedom of driving—blasting the music, rolling the windows down, taking speed bumps far too quickly, and so on—but I am happy to leave behind the gas prices, handicapped drivers, and the hassle of finding a parking space on Calvin’s miniscule campus.

But the best part? I now have hours of forced reading/studying/people-watching time.

Some of my best studying gets done on the subway. Today I covered 30 verbs in the past and present-continuous (-ing) forms on my way to Bible study. On the way back, I stared at people (surreptitiously, of course) and decided that people are at their most beautiful on the subway.

Maybe it’s because everything is so stark white and silver, metallic and plastic that humans stick out from such sterility merely by breathing and blinking and being alive—by being anything but clinical.

Or maybe I just love subways so much that I wax nostalgic. Either way, I also have some great epiphanies while confined to that narrow tube. Today’s?

I—me, Elaine Schnabel, the girl who would only wear dresses in first grade and never left my mom’s side when she came on field trips and is still scared to go into our basement by myself—I am in Korea.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Old news, but it still surprises me. Maybe it always will.

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[1] And because I can’t put my smelly cleats in the garage. The temporary solution is the purgatory space between the window screen and the glass panel that actually separates my room from the chilly Yeongdo winds. Yeongdo rains are problematic, however.

Parts is Parts: A 찜질방 Experience

This is not a jjimjilbang. It is a
mountain with me doing a half-lotus.

I have a new favorite part of Korea. It used to be the movie posters I can get for free at every movie theatre closely followed by hotteok 호떡[1]. But now, it is the jjimjilbang 찜질방, or Korean spa. The veteran readers among you will recognize the 방 character which designates “room.” The 찜질 denotes “heated baths.” The Japanese nerds among you will recognize these as the Korean version of the Japanese hot springs, called onsen 温泉.

Now, a little 찜질방 101: there’s a naked part and a not naked part and a corresponding sex-segregated part and a co-ed part. The naked part includes the natural spring spas and the actual bathhouse part of it. Awesome. The co-ed part—in which you wear baggy shorts and tunic[2]--includes everything else: saunas, footbaths, tv rooms and, though you have to pay a little extra, massages, nail treatment, and restaurants. The basic fee is only 12,000 won (roughly $12) for four hours of complete relaxation.

This is also not a jjimjilbbang but a
cracked-out notebook I found.

First were the footbaths which are shallow pools of water at about 40 C for people wading. Not that cool, except it’s outside on a patio and it almost—almost!—feels like you’re completely out of the city and your feet are warm enough that you can sit comfortably in the night air. Next were the saunas. Spaland (the 찜질방 I went to) has 13 saunas, all set at varying temperatures with varying themes. One is an Egyptian pyramid, another a Roman bathhouse, another has bamboo walls and vibrations running through the floor. Very neat and very sweaty. 

Then there’s the naked part.

“Parts is parts,” my dad used to say, I can only assume quoting some ancient Schnabel Family Proverb. Other famous Schnabel Proverbs include “There’s always room for dessert” and “Sing at the table, and you’ll marry a crazy man.” Both of those are used around the kitchen table, obviously and are used with some ubiquity, but “parts is parts” is a rarely heard and much more difficult Schnabel Proverb to use in an appropriate context.

Excerpt from my incredibly helpful Korean
textbook. Delicious.

And the naked part of 찜질방s is a most appropriate context I think I’ve ever found. It’s also the best part of SpaLand (as long as you’re okay with naked and obviously, with a family adage of “parts is parts,” I am). Pools range from 19 degrees Celsius (that’s cold for those of you of a Fahrenheit persuasion) up to 40 C. The pool outside—with a waterfall, trees, and walls high enough that you really can believe you’re not in the city anymore—was like something from a resort magazine.[3]

Back inside, you can sit in the 70 degree C sauna and watch Korean sports news with naked old ladies and then dip back into the freezing 19 degree pool before soaping up, rinsing off, and calling it the most relaxing night of your life.

Thanks, Korea.

p.s. I don't have any idea what's with this random white hilighting, so I hope you'll excuse it. It's driving me up the wall.

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[1] Fried donuts with goop and seeds in them. I don’t want you to know how good they are because the line in Napo at the best street vendor’s is always too long anyway.

[2] Growing up on fantasy books, I’ve always wanted to be able to use this word in a legitimate context. Yet another reason to love the 찜질방.

[3] I wanted to say “something out of a Korean drama” but I realize I still haven’t written about them much and you will have no idea what I’m talking about. Soon and very soon.

A Country of Scholarly Gentlemen

This was yesterday’s post, but I couldn’t be bothered to write it yesterday because after a day[1] of wrestling with Excel—some people were not born to constrict their lives into a spreadsheet! Freedom!—I was busy treating myself to seven full hours of Korean dramas.

Busy, I tell you. It’s finals week, after all, and what better way to celebrate these holy days than by staying up irresponsibly late doing things that have nothing to do with finals?

I did, however, do teachery things yesterday morning. For Global Conversation class, each student is forced to endure a five minute conversation with their professor. Child abuse, some might call it, but in response, we people on the Korean peninsula say 참아 [2](cha-ma). So for three hours, I had about 45 students tromping n and out of my office with such rapid-fire frequency I had time only to blin, circle scores, and 참아, 참아, 참아.[3]

Who knew enduring could be so enjoyable?

Henry is a bespectacled boy who has two expressions: the Korean Stare and Chuckling Face. He is stockier than most Koreans, a hard worker, and not particularly good at English. He and Tom were partners for their speaking final. Tom is the Korean Harry Potter.

Me: Okay, Henry, what will you do over winter vacation?

Henry: (enthused) I will go to Jeju-do!

Me: Won’t it be cold?

Henry: No! Korean stare face.

Me: Skeptical face.

Henry: Because I am a man! Chuckling face.

Iris wears heavy eye make-up and wears her hair like Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction. She blinks a lot, pouts, and tilts her head to one side when I talk to her.

“Iris, who do you think is more polite: Americans or Koreans?”

Blink blink. Pout.

“I think Americans are more polite.”

“Really? Why?”
Blink. Blink. Pout. Tiiiiilt.

“They are so handsome.”

But aside from Iris who—based on my superior teaching instincts—might not have understood the question, most of the kids said Koreans are politer.

Me: Why?

Tom: Because Koreans are…old people. Um…looks at Henry. Koreans are like…

Henry: helpful *shouts angry-sounding Korean words*

Me: confused

Tom: No, no! Old people!

Henry: Oh. 그리고…

Tom: Because we are nice to old people and we say…polite to them. We call them by honor names.

~

Me: Why?

Rachel: Um…Here! Cookies for you, teacher!

Me: Cool! *snarf*

Sidenote: they were so delicious you would have given her extra points, too.

~

Me: Why?

Marine: Because Korean people…they are so…we bow and…I’m so sorry. I can’t focus because my teacher is so beautiful.

Me: hyuk, hyuk.

~

Me: Why?

Sally: Because Koreans are the polite people of the east Asia.

Me: Oh, I see.

~

Me: Why?

Cindy: Because of…동방예의지국. Do you know동방예의지국?

Me: No.

Cindy: Hmm. Okay. She writes it down. Internet.

~

Internet, turns out, or more specifically, Wikipedia, is a goldmine about동방예의지국. In Romanized form it’s dongbang yeui jiguk and its one of many nicknames for Korea meaning exactly what Sally said: the country of courteous people in the east.

Other names for Korea include

백의민족(Baeguiminjok): "The white-clad people"

계림 Gyerim  "Rooster Forest"

And, my personal favorite:

군자지국Gunjajiguk, "Country of Scholarly Gentlemen".

Rock on, Korea.

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[1] Okay, 30 minutes.

[2] “Endure.” Hanna says I’m using it wrong, that참아 can only be used when referring to conflict between people, but who reads footnotes?

[3] Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!

A Love Letter

I hate you, writing. Hate, hate, hate.

I’ve never met anything or anyone who could make me feel quite so insignificant. So inadequate. I could write all day every day and only produce two sentences worth anything—if I’m lucky. I used to think I was consistent before I met you. I used to be content with my ability to work through problem (or creatively side-step said problem). I used to approach my keyboard with a sense of confidence and happy expectancy.

Like a dragon licking its lips before it roasts a marshmallow to perfection with a delicate blast of flame.

But you are a jerk. You force me to sit for hours, fingers still on the keys, eyes staring blankly at the screen. You make me lost. You make me repeat myself. You make me use the dumbest clichés. You make me pissy and mopey and ten kinds of frustrated. You make me look like an idiot.

Like a dragon scared to fly, allergic to fire, and unable to fit into its scales. Or something. You could said it better.

But do you know why I really hate you? Of course you do, you jerk. Because without you, I can't say

A Double Post

Also, I fear sea captains and being thrown into the ocean and eaten
by sharks.

I dislike being the outsider. I dislike not fitting in and that feeling of walking on ice, hoping to pass for someone who ought to be there. I hate being alone; I fear it worse than most things[1]. Fear is probably why I’m a Christian—not fear of Hell or God or judgment, as it ought to be, but fear of having to go it alone.

Then again, I hear tell that’s what Hell is—eternal separation from God and therefore from everything and everyone. Hell is loneliness.

When I think about the times I’ve felt alone, it doesn’t seem like an unreasonable belief. Being third wheel is pretty awful and being the new kid in town is worse. Korea has its moments, too. Sometimes at the beginning of a class when all 52 students are ignoring me and jabbering in Korean, I think Goodness, I could start talking about practically anything, and no one would understand—even if they bothered to listen.

Not a great feeling. Luckily, it’s not one I feel very often here in my post-pubescent days. I have an overabundance of confidence and I’m generally secure about finding my place. But there are exceptions to every rule.

I’ve never gotten the hang of soccer, in a social way. Pretty early on I understood the whole passing thing, and the don’t use your hands thing, and even the off-sides thing clicked before I was ten. But I have never—never, during all my nearly 20 years of soccer playing—figured out how to relax like a proper jock while kicking a soccer ball around.

Consequently, the joy of soccer has always come with a huge opportunity cost: awkward loneliness in left midfield. Most days, I’m okay with awkward, because of how beautiful the sport is and how inexplicably joyful passing, dribbling, shooting, and defending make me feel. Most days I’m willing to pay it, but not today.

Glad that’s out of my system. Now, because I hate sounding like Harry Potter in The Order of the Phoenix, here’s part two of this post. Here’s why not today:

I would rather...

...hear an entire opera sung at two very slightly different pitches

...read the Epic of Gilgamesh for the eighteenth time

...listen to an hour-long sermon about how women should learn in silence and full submission.

...watch a silver Solstice get smashed up by a Hummer

...smell whatever my downstairs neighbor cooks in the lining of all my clothes for the rest of my life

...have every single one of my students use the word “fastly” instead of “quickly;” misuse “good” and “well;” use articles at random and just as randomly not use them; confuse there, their, they’re and your and you’re at every possible, maddening opportunity. In short, I would rather hear people wildly butcher the English language

...than have to watch and be a part of lazy soccer.

Maybe that makes me a terrible English teacher but, lazy soccer is boring. Half-assed defending, passing, and moving all for the sake of one cool move or a too-high shot makes for the dullest game on earth. Bad soccer like this is—and I am freely admitting this without anyone aiming a gun or 6-iron at my head—worse than golf.

I get it. Really. I understand that there are very, very few people possessing an iota of the competitive drive that I have. Nor are there myriads of soccer players diseased with the perfectionism that plagues me. So it makes sense that for that enormous majority, playing soccer isn’t always about precision and speed and intelligent passing patterns, but more about hanging out with friends and goofing around.

The Little Prince and his rose and me. Nevermind - third wheel's kinda fun!

I get it. Really. Except I don’t. I missed something—probably somewhere in middle school or high school when I was reading books about mice with swords—I missed something about how to have fun the way jocks have fun. And it’s even harder when everyone else is speaking Korean. They could all be making horribly racist, sexist jokes about me and I would have no idea. Not that I think it would happen, but it’s a pretty lonely realization to have.

On Sunday, a friend and I were walking on Haeundae beach and we saw this sand structure (pictured above). It was such a perfect rendition of the Little Prince—so meticulously done and exquisitely proportioned. As we walked away, I looked behind me just in time to see some little kid kick the sand Little Prince. The Little Prince’s boot sprayed back into nothing but sand and the sculpture was marred. I felt wounded. If you’ve read the book, I think you’ll understand.[2]

That’s what lazy soccer is like to me: watching some little kid destroy something whole and perfect for ninety minutes. It’s awful, and it is way worse than “fastly.” Sorry, Grammar Nazis.

I know where my loyalties lie.

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[1] Snakes being a huge and ever-present exception.

[2] For the Harry Potter nuts out there, I can’t help but compare this to killing a unicorn. Remember the first book?