Sometimes I get overly-confident and proud of myself. Every now and then I will order food, completely in Korean. The person will give me my total in Korean and without having to cheat and sneak a peak at the price I can understand the amount of money the clerk said AND they give me what I order. It makes me swell with pride every time it happens and I do a little, unnoticeable happy-hand jive dance in celebration. Small accomplishments. Recently, I think I have gotten a little full of myself. I smugly walk up to the counter and flawlessly place my order in "perfect" Korean, secretly wishing another westerner was around to witness my coolness. In the past week, I have had 3 transactions without once having to resort to my elaborate mime routine. Each time I am plum proud of myself, pay the woman and wait for my order. The problem is--I am most certainly not getting "what I ordered". I guess I should not be so quick to put my mime act on the shelf...just yet. Although I still can't figure out how I managed to get a Hot Chocolate, when the word for Cafe Latte in Korean is, "Cafe Latte". I think this particular barista just takes a stab and guesses with me...so far it is about a 50-50 accuracy rate. Not sure why I keep going back. ;) I think she feels sorry for me and my pathetic use of the Korean language and doesn't want to make me feel bad, so she just fakes it and hopes for the best! She is probably doing her own version of the 'happy-hand-jive' dance at her world renowned abilities to understand "Konglish".
Last night at a different place I ordered two Mon-du. I got 10 of the wrong thing. I kept thinking, I said, "deu-gae"!! (2-units)--obviously more concerned with the quantity issue than the complete wrong item. I don't even know what the word is for ordering 10 of anything. I am limited to quantities, no higher than 5. My apartment is full of items purchased in quantities of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. I also sound cooler when I say "Han-gae", "deu-gae" or "Sae-gae" rather than holding up 6, 7, 8+ fingers. Knowing me, if I really needed 8 of something, I would order 4 and then go back a few minutes later and order 4 more! Fortunately, I only have to worry about myself, so I usually don't need more than 5. I really enjoyed the 10 food items I got by accident though. I just wish I knew what they were and what the word for "10 units" is, so I could order them for real next time! Or just stick to my orginal plan and order 5 and then go back for 5 more.
One of the best things about Korea, is that you can eat cloves, upon cloves of garlic at every meal and your fellow citizens will never be the wiser, because they too, have eaten cloves upon cloves of garlic. It is one of the major perks to a garlic lover, like myself. At home, I would think about what I had going on the next day, which would be the determining factor of the amount of (if any) garlic I consumed. There are meals here, where they bring you a small bowl of about 10 or so cloves. You can eat them raw, you can cook them on your hot plate w/ the meat. It's your choice. It's brilliant. I fear when I go back home I am going to have to be quarantined for an indeterminate amount of time.
Survival: You have to learn rather quickly that everyone, I mean everyone, besides you has the right-of-way. I doesn't matter if you are up against another pedestrian or a moving vehicle. However, if you are on foot and up against a moving vehicle, you are at the bottom of the barrel. I haven't quite figured out the logic behind this. Just because you move slower? Maybe? Or possibly, because chances are, you're going to be the one to die if you come head to head? I don't think there is a word for "safety" in Korean. When you are walking on the sidewalk you have to make way for motorcycles who often times come flying down the sidewalk when the street gets too congested with other cars. Or when they are running red lights, sometimes they'll do it up on the side walk so technically it's not illegal? It's pure madness. I have been here for 10 months now, and I still haven't gotten used to it. Every time I am doing the side to side jiggy trying to dance my way off the sidewalk when a motorcycle comes flying by, I am just as baffled as the first 100 times it happens. In all my time here I have never seen a police man pull anyone over. In fact, people run red lights in front of the police. Per red light here, you will see at least 5-10 people blast right through them, right into oncoming traffic that legitimately has the green light. Another funny thing about red lights: If you are in the front of the line, stopped at a red light and the person behind you wants to go, they'll just start honking at you until you run the red light. It's crazy! I am such a nice Colorado girl when it comes to giving everyone the right of way and politely waving others to go first. I would never cut it as a Korean driver. Of course I don't think there is enough medication in the world to make me brave enough to get behind the wheel in this country.
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