After witnessing Maren's strong command of Vietnamese, I was quite inspired to try my hand at learning Korean. Usually when I get inspired to try something new, it quickly passes when the next inspiration comes along. This, however, was more important than most of my short lived schemes. While I have gotten along quite nicely here only knowing how to say hello, thank you and the names of my favorite foods and activities, not to mention not being able to read Korean, it was high time that I delved a little deeper into the culture, especially since I've decided to stay for (at least) another year.
A few days after proclaiming my desire to learn Korean to Jill, we ran into my friend Tara walking down the street. She told me that a teacher at her school had approached her about giving English lessons to her college age daughter. Tara politely declined (though many native teachers do give lessons on the side, it is really illegal and could result in deportation if it is discovered), but said she would ask around to see if any of her friends were interested. When Tara asked me if I would be interested in doing the lessons, I thought it was just the ticket to learning Korean - a language exchange. I proposed this idea to Tara, saying that while I wouldn't be comfortable giving her friend English lessons and receiving compensation for said lessons, I would be more than willing to meet with her in a setting where we could speak English and she could teach me some Korean too.
A couple of weeks later, I received a Facebook message from Tara with Yeeseul's phone number, saying she was really excited by my proposition and wanted to set up a meeting right away. I texted Yeeseul and we agreed to meet at a coffee shop. We sat there for a little over an hour, talking and sizing each other up. Yeeseul is 24 (in Korean age - probably closer to 22 or 23 with the difference in the way Korean's calculate their age) and is attending graduate school in Sports Medicine with a focus on Physical Therapy. She hopes to spend some time working for a hospital or clinic in the US so she wants to brush up on and become more comfortable with her English. Also, she has several friends who attend universities in the US and when she talks to them online, she can't understand their internet lingo and slang, so she's especially interested in acronyms like lol and omg and typical American college student slang. For my half of the language exchange agreement, I am compiling a list of acronyms and slang terms to share with her and explain. She makes a list of anything her friends say that she doesn't understand and I explain them to her. (If you have any suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with me...)
I feel a little cheap about the lessons because of our agreement. Basically, the way she practices English is by teaching me Korean using English. Because of this, I try to throw in impromptu English tid bits during the Korean lessons so that she feels like she's learning something new too. I guess it is good practice for her English to be teaching me about her native language using her second language, but I still feel bad (it's part of my nature - if I didn't feel bad about something during the course of the day, I'd worry about myself :) )
Originally, Yeeseul wanted to meet two or three times each week, but now that she has secured a part time job at an English academy that will occupy her most week nights from 5:00 until 10:00 pm, we have decided to meet on Sunday mornings. We meet at the organic coffee shop called Brown Story that Jill and I discovered on one of our walks around Gwangju. The shop owner is starting to recognize us and it's fun to be a regular customer somewhere beside my duk boki stand in E-Mart.
Our first meeting was (predictably) a little awkward but now that we've grown more familiar with each other and met a couple more times, we've become good friends. I genuinely look forward to our meetings, not only because she is a great teacher, but it's fun to have a Korean friend! She's so sweet and we have a great time together. One night we were so engrossed in our conversation and lesson that three and a half hours passed without us even realizing how long we'd been talking. Our conversations remind me of conversations with my best pals at home - sometimes serious, sometimes funny, and always comfortable. We talk about Korean culture, college life (she asked me if my sorority was like Legally Blond - I carefully explained the similarities and glaring differences) American culture and we laugh as I fumble to relate Korean pronunciation to English sounds. She also laughs at the faces I make when I fumble through sounding out words. She is, in a word, delightful.
P.S. I can now read Korean, albeit quite slowly, but I can also tell I'm improving. The language makes soooo much sense. It's fun to be able to read menus and not have to mime the specifics of what I want to order and to be able to read the station names on the screens in the subway without having to wait for the English to appear. My next project is conquering the numbers. Because they use different numbers to refer to money, dates, phone numbers and minutes of time (numbers derived from Chinese) than for counting things, age and the hours of time (pure Korean numbers), I have to learn almost twice as many...EEK. But, I've made some real intense flashcards and I'm getting a (slow) handle on them. HOORAY.
Also, this week marks me being here for six months! I can't believe how quickly the time has passed! Sometimes it feels like I just got here and other times it feels like I've been here for years. My apartment feels more like home and less like temporary housing and everything becomes more and more second nature each day. One year (and sometimes two years!) just doesn't seem like enough time to fully experience all that Korea has to offer.
Stay tuned for two editions of Spring Break escapades, just as soon as I get the pictures from Diane - my camera had a minor malfunction, but now we're back in business... just in time for the new school year to start :)
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