i love korea. it is official. somewhere between the insanity of last month and the past week, i have fallen in love.
Anyway! I went to my coffee shop this evening, as is becoming my normal Friday night activity in hopes of establishing myself as a "regular" I suppose. One of the women invited me to teach me how to cook Korean food! I am so stupidly excited for this. Not only do I love cooking, but I love Korean food even more, so this will be such a great experience. She also wants to help me with my Korean outside of the coffee shop in exchange for help with English. Both of these women are just wonderful and ending off my week at their coffee shop has been the perfect topping to the weeks. I start actual language classes on Tuesday, so it will be great to get more of the foundation in a classroom setting and then work with Hanna & Eudi (coffee shop owner's names) to tie it all together. I'm really lucky to have met these women and so far they are adding so much positivity to my experiences here.
Koreans ask you random questions, that they don't really care what the answer is. It is just part of the culture. For example, they will ask you, "where are you going" as a form of a greeting. As westerners, we want to say, "well, I am going to the store and then this and that" etc. But if you start telling them where you are going and where you are coming from you will pretty much look like a doof. And they will look at you and wonder, "why is she telling me this??!?" It is kind of like a form of "hello". You also get, "have you eaten breakfast/lunch/dinner" as a form of a greeting. My co-teacher asks me every day if I ate breakfast, and I tell her every day that, "yes I eat breakfast every day, I never skip breakfast". After talking to my friends at the coffee shop did I realize it is sort of another form of a courtesy hello. Sometimes though, you get the, "have you eaten" and if you say no, then they might feel obligated to feed you, so you never really know how to answer the "have you eaten" question. One other thing in Korea, when you ask "how are you" to someone, the correct response is, "how are you". Which is kind of nice, because it is kind of like learning 2 phrases for the price of one! :)
Today one of my students wore a "lost in translation" shirt that had some stars on it and across the front in big writing read, "Tinkle".
Anyway! I went to my coffee shop this evening, as is becoming my normal Friday night activity in hopes of establishing myself as a "regular" I suppose. One of the women invited me to teach me how to cook Korean food! I am so stupidly excited for this. Not only do I love cooking, but I love Korean food even more, so this will be such a great experience. She also wants to help me with my Korean outside of the coffee shop in exchange for help with English. Both of these women are just wonderful and ending off my week at their coffee shop has been the perfect topping to the weeks. I start actual language classes on Tuesday, so it will be great to get more of the foundation in a classroom setting and then work with Hanna & Eudi (coffee shop owner's names) to tie it all together. I'm really lucky to have met these women and so far they are adding so much positivity to my experiences here.
Koreans ask you random questions, that they don't really care what the answer is. It is just part of the culture. For example, they will ask you, "where are you going" as a form of a greeting. As westerners, we want to say, "well, I am going to the store and then this and that" etc. But if you start telling them where you are going and where you are coming from you will pretty much look like a doof. And they will look at you and wonder, "why is she telling me this??!?" It is kind of like a form of "hello". You also get, "have you eaten breakfast/lunch/dinner" as a form of a greeting. My co-teacher asks me every day if I ate breakfast, and I tell her every day that, "yes I eat breakfast every day, I never skip breakfast". After talking to my friends at the coffee shop did I realize it is sort of another form of a courtesy hello. Sometimes though, you get the, "have you eaten" and if you say no, then they might feel obligated to feed you, so you never really know how to answer the "have you eaten" question. One other thing in Korea, when you ask "how are you" to someone, the correct response is, "how are you". Which is kind of nice, because it is kind of like learning 2 phrases for the price of one! :)
Today one of my students wore a "lost in translation" shirt that had some stars on it and across the front in big writing read, "Tinkle".
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