It is fall here -- and that means that everyone is sick. Beautiful weather, beautiful foliage, miserable people. I wonder if germs here have evolved a way to travel along cell phone lines, because they are certainly hardy and mobile.
Both my boys have the sniffles, and I was tempting fate by neglecting my sleep. Mr. Max has been getting up every night to nurse for a few hours straight. I’m pretty sure this has something to do with him starting preschool, so I’m trying to wait it out. But I’m drained -- literally! Of milk and of energy. So now I’m sick too.
Of course, being sick, even when you can’t take medicine because you’re nursing, makes everything feel a little less real, and your mind and body don’t work as they should. So it shouldn’t have surprised me that when I went to the bank this morning that I would find myself stumbling over the language.
I haven’t carried a dictionary with me for two years now. Not because I know everything -- I certainly don’t -- but because my receptive vocabulary is good enough to recognize what I need and I can explain everything else well enough. But every once in a while -- when I’m particularly nervous, or sick, or in pain -- I lose the language. It is a strange feeling.
It happened when I was in labor with Max. For that pregnancy I had gone through the regular clinic (rather than the more expensive International Clinic). Once we got the hang of the system it wasn’t bad. I studied all the vocabulary: amniotic fluid, uterus, ectopic pregnancy, contractions, etc. But after 6 cm I couldn’t understand a thing. I remember them telling me all sorts of stuff and me yelling, “What?! I don’t know what you’re talking about! I can’t understand you!”
Language is unreliable. And what we choose -- or are able -- to say represents only a small sliver of what we think or experience.
One of the blogs I read regularly is printculture. I like how the contributers often include something about what they are reading, listening to, or watching. I think I will start doing something like that here. When I’m writing something, I often listen to the same song over and over, and something of the atmosphere, the “느낌" of that song seeps into the writing and my take on the world at that moment. When I was in grad school and attempting to produce a great quantity of decent writing while sleeping only a few hours a night, and only clumsy, ugly prose was coming from my fingertips, I would read something written beautifully and with feeling and let it seep into my subconscious and from there into my writing.
We live multimedia lives. We walk around plugged into our MP3 players, we download music with the push of a button, and in Seoul we are surrounded by TV screens: TV screens in restaurants, in elevators (because who wants to suffer through an elevator ride with nothing to look at?), on the subway, in the fitness center, and even TV screens in the ceiling of the dentist’s office so we can watch TV to take our minds off the pain of drilling. Our ringtones and playlists are part of our identities. (In 동갑 내기 가외 하기 the soon-to-be lovers have the same ringtone -- oooh, that’s romance for ya. I think it was Sheena Easton's "Morning Train").
I always thought that TV show Aly McBeal was genius for embracing the multi-media narratives that guide and inform our everyday lives. Aly had a “theme song” which played in her head and set the rhythm and mood of her day, and affected the way she interacted with people.
The other brilliant aspect of this show was that it made the characters’ inner landscapes visible by showing their fantasies. I love the premise that fantasy guides and clothes our actions and reactions in everyday life. Perhaps this is just me, but I’m only living a small percentage of my life in the moment (which is maybe the reason why I get so easily distracted); a good portion of my mind is being lived in my head, thinking about things perhaps completely different from what I am doing. Part of that is to fight off the tedium that often comes from hanging out with a toddler (or a 6-year-old who only wants to talk about Star Wars all day long), but I suspect that we all, no matter how exciting our daily lives, are always imagining and reimagining ourselves into different futures, entertaining scenarios that we will never live out, or trying on different scenarios to see if we like them.
So I’m sick. My throat hurts, so I’m trying not to talk. And my head is too fuzzy to remember the words I need to say anyway. I’m listening to Zero 7’s song “In the Waiting Line.” I don’t really know what this song is about. But. It somehow captures the listlessness and detachment of being a little bit sick, maybe a little bit restless, mind wandering and imagining, filling in the silent spaces.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere...
Many things divide the childless from those with children. One of them, undoubtedly, has to be ideas about the cleanliness of excrement. You all are probably sick of my peeing stories, but I can tell you that pee doesn’t faze me -- as long as it is my kid’s pee. When Emily was here in July she happened to witness Aiden spraying me in the eye during one of his midnight bathroom runs. This disturbed her because it was gross and disturbed me because I was wearing glasses and couldn’t understand how such a thing could occur given the laws of physics.
Exhibit A: average childless person. Avoids other people’s excrement.
Exhibit B: parent of baby or toddler. Swims in excrement all day with little or no perturbation. “It’s not pee, it’s my baby’s pee!”
I bring this up to make the point that cleanliness is not all that straightforward. In colonial, missionary, imperialist rhetoric the promotion of ideas of cleanliness and hygiene reinforced categories of civilized and barbarian, conqueror and conquered. Even these days, cleanliness provides a way of ordering the stages of development within the 2nd world -- those who have been to China are surprised how clean Korea is and people who have been to Japan are surprised how dirty it is. There is little garbage on the ground (especially compared to many large American cities) but the pollution is pretty bad.
But to really discuss contemporary “cleanliness” in Korea, we have to go beyond the amount of garbage on the street and the quality of the air. We have to recognize another paradigm shift -- another divide -- between Korean senses of cleanliness and American ones (not to lump the spic and span among us with those who have dried up pieces of bread under our beds -- I know the category of “American” is problematic, but hear me out).
Let’s begin with the shoes. Most Koreans would have a heart attack if you entered their house with your shoes on and lay on the bed without taking them off. Shoes belong to a very specific geography -- namely, the floor outside. On the subway, people will take off their shoes if they wish to put their feet up on the seat. At the park, they take off their shoes to sit on the mat/picnic blanket, or on the wooden raised platforms where people rest. In a restaurant, you take your shoes off to sit on the floor.
The rules surrounding the proper placement of footwear are just a symptom of a larger, foreign system of categories of inside and outside. Let’s look at clothes, for instance. In high school, I was notorious for not wanting to sacrifice precious moments of sleep in order to get dressed, so I would occasionally go to sleep wearing some or all of the clothes I had intended to wear to school the next morning. Here, however, you have inside clothes and outside clothes. You come home and change into your inside clothes. When it’s time to leave you put on your outside clothes. Outside clothes, by virtue of being worn outside, are dirty. Inside clothes are clean (unless you are Christina Aguilera, then they may just be dirrty). My Chinese teacher lives with her grandma, who won’t even let her past the shoe cabinet -- she has to take off all her outside clothes and shake them out before entering the apartment proper. Coming home has all sorts of new procedures here -- shaking out your clothes, changing them, washing your hands, and sometimes also washing your feet. Because feet (since you have to take off your shoes so often, or because you may have been wearing sandals) have come in contact with the dirty world, they need to be washed.
Categories are indicated not just by what you wear, when, but also by what you wash together or separately. Underwear? Washed separately. Baby clothes? Also washed separately. Cleaning rags are also separated into two categories: “haengju” (행주 ) are rags used to wipe tables and dry dishes, and “kollae” (걸레 ) are rags used to wash the floor (generally no carpets here, so people wipe the dust off the floor periodically -- much more often than you would in the States -- much more dust here). These rags are also often sterilized by boiling them in a mixture of water and bleach on the stove. But separately, of course, so you don’t mix the floor dirtiness with the table/dishes dirtiness.
No one has expressed this directly, but there seems to be some idea of cross-contamination underlying all these categories, handed down from elders to the younger generation. Just as it is my Chinese teacher’s grandma who makes her disrobe at the entrance of the apartment, it is my mother-in-law who insists on having all the cleaning rags boiled and washed separately. Now a habit, I can’t even think of washing them with the rest of the laundry. And I wonder how much of these cleaning ideas come from older notions of the spread of disease. My in-laws, for instance, seem to have very weird ideas about disease transmission. They don’t seem to understand about germs, but they have all sorts of ideas about the harmful effects of wind and sun on babies and weak people. Women who have given birth, for instance, are supposed to stay indoors and rest for 3 weeks, being careful not to touch anything cold. Somehow a weak body’s sudden exposure to coldness is supposed to to take a toll on one’s system. This is why babies are not supposed to be in the wind; the wind will sap the heat from the baby’s body. When my kids get sick, my in-laws assume that they have eaten something bad or done something wrong. My explanation that it is just a virus going around, nothing much we can do about it, falls on deaf ears. When Max was young, it drove me crazy that strangers on the street would come up to him and touch his hands, and then tell me I didn’t dress him warmly enough. In my vision of the world, they were making him sick by spreading their viruses to him through his hands (which he would immediately put in his mouth) and in their vision of the world I was making him sick by not keeping him inside and warm.
These alternate inside/outside/clean/dirty categories apply to food as well. Food you make yourself (or rather, food your wife or mother makes for you) is “clean.” Food from restaurants is “dirty.” So feeding Max kimpap from a restaurant was considered “dirty” even though it is healthier than some of the junk food I see small children eating here sometimes (chips, sweet drinks, etc.) I can understand that where this understanding comes from, however: until recently, the health and cleanliness standards at various restaurants and shops were pretty uneven. Even now I wouldn’t feed my kids kimpap from the people who sell them at small stands near the subway.
Any anthropologists out there wanting to do a field study? You are welcome to come to my place and clean for a while. Just be prepared for all the pee.
Exhibit A: average childless person. Avoids other people’s excrement.
Exhibit B: parent of baby or toddler. Swims in excrement all day with little or no perturbation. “It’s not pee, it’s my baby’s pee!”
I bring this up to make the point that cleanliness is not all that straightforward. In colonial, missionary, imperialist rhetoric the promotion of ideas of cleanliness and hygiene reinforced categories of civilized and barbarian, conqueror and conquered. Even these days, cleanliness provides a way of ordering the stages of development within the 2nd world -- those who have been to China are surprised how clean Korea is and people who have been to Japan are surprised how dirty it is. There is little garbage on the ground (especially compared to many large American cities) but the pollution is pretty bad.
But to really discuss contemporary “cleanliness” in Korea, we have to go beyond the amount of garbage on the street and the quality of the air. We have to recognize another paradigm shift -- another divide -- between Korean senses of cleanliness and American ones (not to lump the spic and span among us with those who have dried up pieces of bread under our beds -- I know the category of “American” is problematic, but hear me out).
Let’s begin with the shoes. Most Koreans would have a heart attack if you entered their house with your shoes on and lay on the bed without taking them off. Shoes belong to a very specific geography -- namely, the floor outside. On the subway, people will take off their shoes if they wish to put their feet up on the seat. At the park, they take off their shoes to sit on the mat/picnic blanket, or on the wooden raised platforms where people rest. In a restaurant, you take your shoes off to sit on the floor.
The rules surrounding the proper placement of footwear are just a symptom of a larger, foreign system of categories of inside and outside. Let’s look at clothes, for instance. In high school, I was notorious for not wanting to sacrifice precious moments of sleep in order to get dressed, so I would occasionally go to sleep wearing some or all of the clothes I had intended to wear to school the next morning. Here, however, you have inside clothes and outside clothes. You come home and change into your inside clothes. When it’s time to leave you put on your outside clothes. Outside clothes, by virtue of being worn outside, are dirty. Inside clothes are clean (unless you are Christina Aguilera, then they may just be dirrty). My Chinese teacher lives with her grandma, who won’t even let her past the shoe cabinet -- she has to take off all her outside clothes and shake them out before entering the apartment proper. Coming home has all sorts of new procedures here -- shaking out your clothes, changing them, washing your hands, and sometimes also washing your feet. Because feet (since you have to take off your shoes so often, or because you may have been wearing sandals) have come in contact with the dirty world, they need to be washed.
Categories are indicated not just by what you wear, when, but also by what you wash together or separately. Underwear? Washed separately. Baby clothes? Also washed separately. Cleaning rags are also separated into two categories: “haengju” (행주 ) are rags used to wipe tables and dry dishes, and “kollae” (걸레 ) are rags used to wash the floor (generally no carpets here, so people wipe the dust off the floor periodically -- much more often than you would in the States -- much more dust here). These rags are also often sterilized by boiling them in a mixture of water and bleach on the stove. But separately, of course, so you don’t mix the floor dirtiness with the table/dishes dirtiness.
No one has expressed this directly, but there seems to be some idea of cross-contamination underlying all these categories, handed down from elders to the younger generation. Just as it is my Chinese teacher’s grandma who makes her disrobe at the entrance of the apartment, it is my mother-in-law who insists on having all the cleaning rags boiled and washed separately. Now a habit, I can’t even think of washing them with the rest of the laundry. And I wonder how much of these cleaning ideas come from older notions of the spread of disease. My in-laws, for instance, seem to have very weird ideas about disease transmission. They don’t seem to understand about germs, but they have all sorts of ideas about the harmful effects of wind and sun on babies and weak people. Women who have given birth, for instance, are supposed to stay indoors and rest for 3 weeks, being careful not to touch anything cold. Somehow a weak body’s sudden exposure to coldness is supposed to to take a toll on one’s system. This is why babies are not supposed to be in the wind; the wind will sap the heat from the baby’s body. When my kids get sick, my in-laws assume that they have eaten something bad or done something wrong. My explanation that it is just a virus going around, nothing much we can do about it, falls on deaf ears. When Max was young, it drove me crazy that strangers on the street would come up to him and touch his hands, and then tell me I didn’t dress him warmly enough. In my vision of the world, they were making him sick by spreading their viruses to him through his hands (which he would immediately put in his mouth) and in their vision of the world I was making him sick by not keeping him inside and warm.
These alternate inside/outside/clean/dirty categories apply to food as well. Food you make yourself (or rather, food your wife or mother makes for you) is “clean.” Food from restaurants is “dirty.” So feeding Max kimpap from a restaurant was considered “dirty” even though it is healthier than some of the junk food I see small children eating here sometimes (chips, sweet drinks, etc.) I can understand that where this understanding comes from, however: until recently, the health and cleanliness standards at various restaurants and shops were pretty uneven. Even now I wouldn’t feed my kids kimpap from the people who sell them at small stands near the subway.
Any anthropologists out there wanting to do a field study? You are welcome to come to my place and clean for a while. Just be prepared for all the pee.
Monday, September 11, 2006
My "blog persona"
I had all sorts of plans for today's post. I had a recap going on my "blog persona." I had thoughts on being American for 9/11. I was working on something about cleanliness.
I was walking along, thinking about an article on Susan Sontag’s journals that I had read this morning, and about Diane Middlebrook’s excellent book on Plath and Ted Hughes, and thinking of the “self” that one constructs through a journal or blog. Even though I started this blog without a clear sense of what I would write (hence the changing titles), using it more as a receptacle for ideas which were neither developed nor edited enough to become articles, I have been, in a sense, creating my “blog persona” -- a long-winded character, simultaneously insider and outsider in both the U.S. and Korea, always a parent, attempting to be funny. (In real life I am not funny.)
But then I got run over by a car.
More specifically, I was walking on the edge of a typical narrow street , a maze of pedestrians, cars parked haphazardly, construction, and cars going opposite directions slowly trying to pass each other. I was edging my way around a parked car while cars were coming from both directions, and the ajuma driving the car on my side of the road was only watching the other car and didn't notice that there was a person standing in front of her. So she casually ran over my feet and trapped me between her car and the parked car while I screamed HEEEYYYYY ARGHHHHHHHH.
From now on I will think about my usual walking subjects: how to fund my next latte fix and what I will do if I have to give it up again to have another baby and whether it is crazy to think about having THREE kids and if I will ever be able to have a career with so many children afoot.
Anyway. Feet are amazing things, remarkably able to handle being rolled over by a 2,000 pound car. Either than or I am endowed with some heroic indestructable power that I am not aware of (have never broken a bone... never know...) So I am perfectly fine. I yelled at her for a while and continued on my way.
What I had been planning to write about, before being mashed, was what the heck this blog is all about. After four months, I think it might be about “parenting and living in Seoul.” In the beginning I was trying to write about life in Seoul but so much of my life is my parenting, and I purposely would balance the posts to have some of both. But looking back I realize that almost all the posts have something of both in them. I am first and foremost a mom, my kids structure my day (and night), my children are always riding around with me in my head (strange Zeus/Athena image there) and color the way I see the world. No Hephestus around to split my head and get the kids out. So this is a blog about living here in Seoul but living is inseparable from parenting.
Perhaps it is the back-to-school smell of fall in the air, but I was feeling a hankering to look back at what I have written and take stock.
Some posts are just snapshots of a moment or impression: Stop and smell the ramen, Go reds, and Time warp. Some are sort of meta-blog posts -- posts on the blog (including this one): Surprise, surprise, Thanks, and Delusions of grandeur.
Some posts are truely just about my kids or family: Stories to embarrass Aiden, KCisms, Penis Envy, and Whack-a-mole.
But most of the posts are on the meatier subject of living in Korea.
now. I feel like, in a sense, living here is learning a new set of grammers. In body language and on boys I talked about the sort of grammer of physical and emotional expression. Walking in Seoul and to some extent Independence Day and the Good Life were all about the battle between living in the moment and seeing things in the more spontaneous way that kids do, and living in our quick, well planned adult jaded eyes (a little like being hit by a car while thinking about your blog).
Self-monitoring and ex-pat stories were about the kind of sensibility that develops when you are an ex-pat.
playground politics and fear and to some extent self-monitoring, are more directly about the different sense of boundaries here and how that manifests in what you say and fear.
Flashes of anger and Our Daily Rice have more of a generational sense to them, I think -- more of a feel of what it is like to be taken into a family and the expectations and negotiations that go with that.
So I was going to be really eloquent and write something about that, but now I feel like I need to say something about driving.
Many smarter and more eloquent people have talked about how driving and the invention of fast travel (via airplane, train, or car) have changed notions of time and space. But driving in Seoul is a further distortion of time and space. Hey! Maybe those looking for black holes and wormholes and anti-matter should look here! The existance of distortions in the space-time continuum would explain how deliverymen can travel faster than the speed of light and why one ages so quickly on KangNamDaeRo.
Seoul's traffic as improved a lot since I was first here. Now people actually seem to pay attention to those lines painted on the road, or at least take them as a suggestion. Now people usually follow the traffic lights. And the addition of many traffic cameras have cut down on speeding and other excesses.
But on the road, it's a whole new ball game. Although the number of lanes painted now more or less corresponds to the number of lines of cars on the road, there is a lot of switching back and forth in the name of efficiency. If there isn't room to switch, you force your way in. Centuries of repression and kowtowing to elders has resulted in alternative hierarchy of ruthlessness on the roadway. Forget the old farts, this is the law of the jungle. Now look out, we're coming to an intersection. Just like the real estate laws and the policy on North Korea, LOOK OUT! the lanes on the other side of the intersection don't line up. It's a free for all!
And parking. PARKING! Someone should write a dissertation on the social construction of parking. Because here, it literally is socially constructed! As in: you pick a blank spot of real estate, and you park there. It happens to be on the sidewalk? No problem. Oh, it's in a no parking zone, you say? Who cares, park there anyway. So it disrupts the flow of traffic. That's ok, just think about yourself. So what if the street is not wide enough for two cars to pass now, they other cars will work it out. And parking lots... see my post of Parking/Engineering.
But after a year or so living here I got my driver's license and cautiously, nervously took to the roads. Now I, too, join the pissing contest that is driving in Seoul. I bully my way into my lanes, I honk and yell, I expect people to cut me off, I expect sudden stopping, cars randomly parked in the road, people running red lights, bus drivers trying out for a part in Speed 3.
All the people privy to the system can function fine within in. The problem is that not everyone has the crackerjack timing and the delicate sense of space to function like this. I haven't had any bad incidents other than a scratched bumper, but it takes all my concentration, the partnership of a good book on CD for the kids, and a good dose of courage from caffeine, and I hit the road. But driving here has subtly shifted my sense of the driving space and the flow of driving time.
When I return to the U.S. I'm a nervous, hesistant driver. I want to push my way in, but have to force myself to hold back -- too much -- to the point that I become a bad driver again. I don't have a sense of the appropriate window of time or space that I need to leave before moving in.
There is a kind of grammer to driving, or if you prefer, a sense of decorum and etiquette. You develop this sense through practice, but some people never get it. And it's a delicate sense, easily thrown by mood or lack of confidence or a competing sense of decorum.
Don't need someone to run over my foot to tell me that.
I was walking along, thinking about an article on Susan Sontag’s journals that I had read this morning, and about Diane Middlebrook’s excellent book on Plath and Ted Hughes, and thinking of the “self” that one constructs through a journal or blog. Even though I started this blog without a clear sense of what I would write (hence the changing titles), using it more as a receptacle for ideas which were neither developed nor edited enough to become articles, I have been, in a sense, creating my “blog persona” -- a long-winded character, simultaneously insider and outsider in both the U.S. and Korea, always a parent, attempting to be funny. (In real life I am not funny.)
But then I got run over by a car.
More specifically, I was walking on the edge of a typical narrow street , a maze of pedestrians, cars parked haphazardly, construction, and cars going opposite directions slowly trying to pass each other. I was edging my way around a parked car while cars were coming from both directions, and the ajuma driving the car on my side of the road was only watching the other car and didn't notice that there was a person standing in front of her. So she casually ran over my feet and trapped me between her car and the parked car while I screamed HEEEYYYYY ARGHHHHHHHH.
From now on I will think about my usual walking subjects: how to fund my next latte fix and what I will do if I have to give it up again to have another baby and whether it is crazy to think about having THREE kids and if I will ever be able to have a career with so many children afoot.
Anyway. Feet are amazing things, remarkably able to handle being rolled over by a 2,000 pound car. Either than or I am endowed with some heroic indestructable power that I am not aware of (have never broken a bone... never know...) So I am perfectly fine. I yelled at her for a while and continued on my way.
What I had been planning to write about, before being mashed, was what the heck this blog is all about. After four months, I think it might be about “parenting and living in Seoul.” In the beginning I was trying to write about life in Seoul but so much of my life is my parenting, and I purposely would balance the posts to have some of both. But looking back I realize that almost all the posts have something of both in them. I am first and foremost a mom, my kids structure my day (and night), my children are always riding around with me in my head (strange Zeus/Athena image there) and color the way I see the world. No Hephestus around to split my head and get the kids out. So this is a blog about living here in Seoul but living is inseparable from parenting.
Perhaps it is the back-to-school smell of fall in the air, but I was feeling a hankering to look back at what I have written and take stock.
Some posts are just snapshots of a moment or impression: Stop and smell the ramen, Go reds, and Time warp. Some are sort of meta-blog posts -- posts on the blog (including this one): Surprise, surprise, Thanks, and Delusions of grandeur.
Some posts are truely just about my kids or family: Stories to embarrass Aiden, KCisms, Penis Envy, and Whack-a-mole.
But most of the posts are on the meatier subject of living in Korea.
now. I feel like, in a sense, living here is learning a new set of grammers. In body language and on boys I talked about the sort of grammer of physical and emotional expression. Walking in Seoul and to some extent Independence Day and the Good Life were all about the battle between living in the moment and seeing things in the more spontaneous way that kids do, and living in our quick, well planned adult jaded eyes (a little like being hit by a car while thinking about your blog).
Self-monitoring and ex-pat stories were about the kind of sensibility that develops when you are an ex-pat.
playground politics and fear and to some extent self-monitoring, are more directly about the different sense of boundaries here and how that manifests in what you say and fear.
Flashes of anger and Our Daily Rice have more of a generational sense to them, I think -- more of a feel of what it is like to be taken into a family and the expectations and negotiations that go with that.
So I was going to be really eloquent and write something about that, but now I feel like I need to say something about driving.
Many smarter and more eloquent people have talked about how driving and the invention of fast travel (via airplane, train, or car) have changed notions of time and space. But driving in Seoul is a further distortion of time and space. Hey! Maybe those looking for black holes and wormholes and anti-matter should look here! The existance of distortions in the space-time continuum would explain how deliverymen can travel faster than the speed of light and why one ages so quickly on KangNamDaeRo.
Seoul's traffic as improved a lot since I was first here. Now people actually seem to pay attention to those lines painted on the road, or at least take them as a suggestion. Now people usually follow the traffic lights. And the addition of many traffic cameras have cut down on speeding and other excesses.
But on the road, it's a whole new ball game. Although the number of lanes painted now more or less corresponds to the number of lines of cars on the road, there is a lot of switching back and forth in the name of efficiency. If there isn't room to switch, you force your way in. Centuries of repression and kowtowing to elders has resulted in alternative hierarchy of ruthlessness on the roadway. Forget the old farts, this is the law of the jungle. Now look out, we're coming to an intersection. Just like the real estate laws and the policy on North Korea, LOOK OUT! the lanes on the other side of the intersection don't line up. It's a free for all!
And parking. PARKING! Someone should write a dissertation on the social construction of parking. Because here, it literally is socially constructed! As in: you pick a blank spot of real estate, and you park there. It happens to be on the sidewalk? No problem. Oh, it's in a no parking zone, you say? Who cares, park there anyway. So it disrupts the flow of traffic. That's ok, just think about yourself. So what if the street is not wide enough for two cars to pass now, they other cars will work it out. And parking lots... see my post of Parking/Engineering.
But after a year or so living here I got my driver's license and cautiously, nervously took to the roads. Now I, too, join the pissing contest that is driving in Seoul. I bully my way into my lanes, I honk and yell, I expect people to cut me off, I expect sudden stopping, cars randomly parked in the road, people running red lights, bus drivers trying out for a part in Speed 3.
All the people privy to the system can function fine within in. The problem is that not everyone has the crackerjack timing and the delicate sense of space to function like this. I haven't had any bad incidents other than a scratched bumper, but it takes all my concentration, the partnership of a good book on CD for the kids, and a good dose of courage from caffeine, and I hit the road. But driving here has subtly shifted my sense of the driving space and the flow of driving time.
When I return to the U.S. I'm a nervous, hesistant driver. I want to push my way in, but have to force myself to hold back -- too much -- to the point that I become a bad driver again. I don't have a sense of the appropriate window of time or space that I need to leave before moving in.
There is a kind of grammer to driving, or if you prefer, a sense of decorum and etiquette. You develop this sense through practice, but some people never get it. And it's a delicate sense, easily thrown by mood or lack of confidence or a competing sense of decorum.
Don't need someone to run over my foot to tell me that.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Archaeology of Language
I used to want to become an archaeologist. In high school I was part of the archaeological triumverate/troika (with Sanjay and Larry) of Mr. Hines’ minions and we’d go on digs almost every weekend, chanting “dig it, don’t doze it!”
Now I haven’t held a trowel in years. But I’ve been looking for an excuse (for about 10 years) to use the word “edaphic” in polite conversation, so as an adjunct to our little language experiment I propose an archaeology of language...
Oh. What language experiment, you say? Sorry, forgot to fill you in. Each night after our little ones have gone to sleep, KC and I hook up the lighting rod and channel electricity in their little brains, hoping to stimulate language development. I play them Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, my beloved, so that they will gain a richer vocabulary than that which comes forth from my mouth. And we move them all over the globe in their formative years, keeping them learning a new language every few years. Mwah ha ha ha.
Now, this is a skewed perspective, as I live in the Educationally Obsessed Mommy Capital of the World, but I’d say I’m not a pushy parent. My kid is only taking taekwondo and soccer (and golf, taught by KC). I have him do math workbooks and ask him to read to me, yes. I bribe him with Lego mini-figs, I admit it. But other kids his age are enrolled in after-school art, math, piano, violin, Orda, English, etc. and studying until 8 at night. When’s a kid allowed to be a kid on that schedule?
But when it comes to language we are pushy. One of the main reasons for moving here was so that the kids could acquire a good grasp of Korean at a young age. And one of the main reasons we plan to move to China is so that they can do the same with Chinese. This is my gift to them -- the acquisition of these languages at a young age so they don’t have to suffer too much when they are older. With those three languages (Korean, Chinese, English) they should be able to pick up a bunch of others with ease if they want (thinking Japanese, Spanish, German, French, etc.).
But because we’re always moving back and forth between different countries, and exposing them to all these different linguistic influences, I can see the different linguistic strata accumulating inside their little brains.
So let’s take out a trowel, scrape away some dirt and worms and take a look at these edaphic zones.
The kids first. So far they speak fluently in both languages, but the fluency is of a different type. Aiden, for instance, knows a lot of adult vocabulary in English -- words like “compassionate” and “considerate.” In Korean he’s much better at kid’s slang. I learned words like “cutting in line,” (“엄마, 그 여자가 쌔지기 했어") “attack,” ("발사! 덤벼!") “bad guy,” ("나쁜 놈") “graffiti” ("낙서") from him. And he’s mastered exclamations in Korean: “Ya” or “Asa! Asabio!” rather than “Hey” or “cool/awesome.” And because their exposure to English speakers is limited, I hear my own phrases parroted back to me: “OK, here’s the deal,” “hold your horses,” “understand, rubber band?” And then, echos of the mass media influence, “I cannot believe it!” (from the Little Einsteins). And have to handle questions about different types of English, because his teacher at school is British, but teacher Leo’s British accent is different from David Bowie’s accent on the Peter and the Wolf CD (“Mommy, what’s a brahnch? what is “ahgued?”). I chuckle to myself every time I hear myself explain, “He’s from Great Britain, like Harry Potter.”
Now for me. My lowest and most primary strata would include an underlying uncertainty about certain grammatical forms and pronunciation, especially when nervous, which comes from being raised by two non-native English speakers who thought they were doing me a favor by speaking English at home. (Hmm, by that logic, I should avoid speaking Korean to my kids lest they pick up some of my non-native speaker idiosyncrasies. mental note.) The occasional jaw-dropping appearance of the word “pod” or “podded out” comes from spending sophomore year as Marina Lang’s roomate (along with the desire to use the delicious line, “you got a man? how long you had that problem?” though up to this point the occasion has not arisen). And then the main influence of my adult life has to be KC’s anti-article stance along with his various inventions (“hairlist” and “slow like dirt” come to mind which have managed to get past my alert sensors. “Hairlist” has spread beyond myself, in fact...) and his skepticism about certain words I use (he thinks I made up the word “rubbernecker.” Give a little credit to the native speaker, huh?)
Then there’s my Korean. I try to avoid driving in Seoul, but when I do I find myself uttering all sorts of things like, “야, 봐줘야지, 아줌마. 뭐 하냐? 이 자식 이게..." and other worse insults which have come from KC’s driving repertoire as well as from various taxi drivers.
My English parenting vocabulary is heavily influenced by my friend Diana: “You may not hit him. You may hit the pillow, you may hit the blanket, you may hit the floor, but you may not hit him. OH! That is not an inside voice. You may talk or you may whisper. Will you show me how your whisper?...”
As I wrote in Body Language I initially learned Korean from men, so I had a decidedly masculine way of speaking, which I haven’t quite conquered. I have also, like many English teachers living here, picked up quite a bit of vocabulary and intonation from my own children. (It is quite funny to hear Aiden’s teacher Leo speak Korean, as he sounds EXACTLY like the kids he teaches.)
If this little archaelogical experiment is any indication, it is a good thing I never became an archaeologist. I’m surrounded by dirt with no clear idea of whether a civilization exists.
Some detritus...
Language is such a funny, fascinating thing. There are words in Korean which are so perfect that I can’t help wanting to adopt them (like so many Korean children) in the U.S. Words like “씽씽카" (shing shing ca) which is what you call a kid’s scooter with 3 wheels. It somehow captures the feeling of the wind flowing past your ears as you propel yourself down the sidewalk to the consternation of your mother. And then there are all the English terms, or perhaps I should call them “Konglish” terms, which, like Korean Americans who come back to Korea to visit, are given much more weight than they should be. The Englishish advertising terms used so frequently here used to provide a constant and much needed element of humor to my life here (I remember gathering in the local convenience store outside Sogang Univ to snicker at the yellow Coolpis soda.) They used to sound so weird to my ears, but now I’ve been worn down by the advertising and I don’t even blink at “digital exciting” or “bravo your life” or “well-being” (as in well-being yoga, well-being ice cream, well-being rice, etc.). The Yangpa (Korean for Onion), has a great spoof on these advertising campaigns as well as all those bizarre tee-shirts
Korean has adopted a lot of foreign words: sofa, radio, television, engine, leadership, internet, etc. But many other adopted words have taken on mew meanings here which don’t correspond to their use in American English. Well-being (pronounced wellbing) is one of these; it’s a very fashionable word right now that has about the spread of “green” in American English (“green” referring to anything environmentally-friendly; well-bing referring to anything healthy). Both are mainly marketing terms whose job it is to add a luster of vibrancy and social responsibility to something entirely banal. “Cider” is another mutant; it refers to a clear soda like Sprite or 7-Up here, not what we American’s think of as cider. “Rouge” here refers to lipstick, not rouge (though I suspect that may have come by way of France; if I were a better scholar I would track these words’ entry points). “Orae” is commonly used when someone’s trying to help you park your car. I think it is supposed to be “all right.” “Condition” is most commonly used like this: “His condition is not good” (“컨디션이 안좋아") which means “he’s feeling a little under the weather.”
These mutant words caused me a lot of confusion, as did some Korean words which seem like they can directly translate into English, but in reality have different categorical associations. For instance, “friend,” in English is, well... anyone who you are friendly with. But “친구" in Korean only can refer to someone who is the same age. I can’t tell you how many weird conversations I had because of that. (“Are they friends?” “No, she’s a year older.” “But are they friends?” “No, she’s a year older!”) Similarly, “school” only refers to elementary school and above, and not kindergarten. People ask me, “Is your son in school?” I say, “Yes, he goes to FYKO kindergarten.” Insert weird look here. “OH, he’s in kindergarten.”
As I move back and forth between the two countries, I can feel how quickly the languages are changing. Young Seoul people are famous for their slang, and new words are constantly falling in and out of favor. My chinese teacher just taught me “된장녀" (“bean paste girl”) which refers to young women who spend too much money on clothes, purses, and drinking coffee in expensive cafes. I can’t even begin to guess what that has to do with bean paste. The written language has changed quite a bit since the early 1900s, and even since KC left Korea in 1985. I remember him correcting the spelling of my Korean essays while I was at Michigan, and having them returned to me full of red ink, since there was a language reform after he left and his spelling was out of date. Intonation is also changing a lot: when a young woman (I cringe to write that, as it admits that I am no longer in that category) takes my order at some restaurant or cafe and ends with and rising and really elongated “다...." or "요...."
It’s the same feeling I get when I watch an old movie or listen to an old speech (President Kennedy comes to mind) and hear the different speech patterns. I already feel somewhat alienated from English since as the child of non-native speakers I always feel that my grammar and pronunciation are on shaky ground (I learned most vocabulary from reading, but reading doesn’t teach you the correct pronunciation as I learned in various embarrassing moments), and now I’ve been living out of the U.S. for long enough that I can no longer recall English words that well. Trying to speak English now is a bit like trying to write with a full bladder -- there’s a point where the particular point you wish to make gets sacrificed to the limits of physicality (bladder or lazy brain). But when I go back to the States and listen to the young people (there it is again, my former category... ) they sound so loopy and ditsy. I’ve become one of those geezers who sits around and talks about the good old days of English without the word “like?” I’m almost tempted to keep Aiden away from U.S. English so he doesn’t learn to talk like that.
Now I haven’t held a trowel in years. But I’ve been looking for an excuse (for about 10 years) to use the word “edaphic” in polite conversation, so as an adjunct to our little language experiment I propose an archaeology of language...
Oh. What language experiment, you say? Sorry, forgot to fill you in. Each night after our little ones have gone to sleep, KC and I hook up the lighting rod and channel electricity in their little brains, hoping to stimulate language development. I play them Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, my beloved, so that they will gain a richer vocabulary than that which comes forth from my mouth. And we move them all over the globe in their formative years, keeping them learning a new language every few years. Mwah ha ha ha.
Now, this is a skewed perspective, as I live in the Educationally Obsessed Mommy Capital of the World, but I’d say I’m not a pushy parent. My kid is only taking taekwondo and soccer (and golf, taught by KC). I have him do math workbooks and ask him to read to me, yes. I bribe him with Lego mini-figs, I admit it. But other kids his age are enrolled in after-school art, math, piano, violin, Orda, English, etc. and studying until 8 at night. When’s a kid allowed to be a kid on that schedule?
But when it comes to language we are pushy. One of the main reasons for moving here was so that the kids could acquire a good grasp of Korean at a young age. And one of the main reasons we plan to move to China is so that they can do the same with Chinese. This is my gift to them -- the acquisition of these languages at a young age so they don’t have to suffer too much when they are older. With those three languages (Korean, Chinese, English) they should be able to pick up a bunch of others with ease if they want (thinking Japanese, Spanish, German, French, etc.).
But because we’re always moving back and forth between different countries, and exposing them to all these different linguistic influences, I can see the different linguistic strata accumulating inside their little brains.
So let’s take out a trowel, scrape away some dirt and worms and take a look at these edaphic zones.
The kids first. So far they speak fluently in both languages, but the fluency is of a different type. Aiden, for instance, knows a lot of adult vocabulary in English -- words like “compassionate” and “considerate.” In Korean he’s much better at kid’s slang. I learned words like “cutting in line,” (“엄마, 그 여자가 쌔지기 했어") “attack,” ("발사! 덤벼!") “bad guy,” ("나쁜 놈") “graffiti” ("낙서") from him. And he’s mastered exclamations in Korean: “Ya” or “Asa! Asabio!” rather than “Hey” or “cool/awesome.” And because their exposure to English speakers is limited, I hear my own phrases parroted back to me: “OK, here’s the deal,” “hold your horses,” “understand, rubber band?” And then, echos of the mass media influence, “I cannot believe it!” (from the Little Einsteins). And have to handle questions about different types of English, because his teacher at school is British, but teacher Leo’s British accent is different from David Bowie’s accent on the Peter and the Wolf CD (“Mommy, what’s a brahnch? what is “ahgued?”). I chuckle to myself every time I hear myself explain, “He’s from Great Britain, like Harry Potter.”
Now for me. My lowest and most primary strata would include an underlying uncertainty about certain grammatical forms and pronunciation, especially when nervous, which comes from being raised by two non-native English speakers who thought they were doing me a favor by speaking English at home. (Hmm, by that logic, I should avoid speaking Korean to my kids lest they pick up some of my non-native speaker idiosyncrasies. mental note.) The occasional jaw-dropping appearance of the word “pod” or “podded out” comes from spending sophomore year as Marina Lang’s roomate (along with the desire to use the delicious line, “you got a man? how long you had that problem?” though up to this point the occasion has not arisen). And then the main influence of my adult life has to be KC’s anti-article stance along with his various inventions (“hairlist” and “slow like dirt” come to mind which have managed to get past my alert sensors. “Hairlist” has spread beyond myself, in fact...) and his skepticism about certain words I use (he thinks I made up the word “rubbernecker.” Give a little credit to the native speaker, huh?)
Then there’s my Korean. I try to avoid driving in Seoul, but when I do I find myself uttering all sorts of things like, “야, 봐줘야지, 아줌마. 뭐 하냐? 이 자식 이게..." and other worse insults which have come from KC’s driving repertoire as well as from various taxi drivers.
My English parenting vocabulary is heavily influenced by my friend Diana: “You may not hit him. You may hit the pillow, you may hit the blanket, you may hit the floor, but you may not hit him. OH! That is not an inside voice. You may talk or you may whisper. Will you show me how your whisper?...”
As I wrote in Body Language I initially learned Korean from men, so I had a decidedly masculine way of speaking, which I haven’t quite conquered. I have also, like many English teachers living here, picked up quite a bit of vocabulary and intonation from my own children. (It is quite funny to hear Aiden’s teacher Leo speak Korean, as he sounds EXACTLY like the kids he teaches.)
If this little archaelogical experiment is any indication, it is a good thing I never became an archaeologist. I’m surrounded by dirt with no clear idea of whether a civilization exists.
Some detritus...
Language is such a funny, fascinating thing. There are words in Korean which are so perfect that I can’t help wanting to adopt them (like so many Korean children) in the U.S. Words like “씽씽카" (shing shing ca) which is what you call a kid’s scooter with 3 wheels. It somehow captures the feeling of the wind flowing past your ears as you propel yourself down the sidewalk to the consternation of your mother. And then there are all the English terms, or perhaps I should call them “Konglish” terms, which, like Korean Americans who come back to Korea to visit, are given much more weight than they should be. The Englishish advertising terms used so frequently here used to provide a constant and much needed element of humor to my life here (I remember gathering in the local convenience store outside Sogang Univ to snicker at the yellow Coolpis soda.) They used to sound so weird to my ears, but now I’ve been worn down by the advertising and I don’t even blink at “digital exciting” or “bravo your life” or “well-being” (as in well-being yoga, well-being ice cream, well-being rice, etc.). The Yangpa (Korean for Onion), has a great spoof on these advertising campaigns as well as all those bizarre tee-shirts
Korean has adopted a lot of foreign words: sofa, radio, television, engine, leadership, internet, etc. But many other adopted words have taken on mew meanings here which don’t correspond to their use in American English. Well-being (pronounced wellbing) is one of these; it’s a very fashionable word right now that has about the spread of “green” in American English (“green” referring to anything environmentally-friendly; well-bing referring to anything healthy). Both are mainly marketing terms whose job it is to add a luster of vibrancy and social responsibility to something entirely banal. “Cider” is another mutant; it refers to a clear soda like Sprite or 7-Up here, not what we American’s think of as cider. “Rouge” here refers to lipstick, not rouge (though I suspect that may have come by way of France; if I were a better scholar I would track these words’ entry points). “Orae” is commonly used when someone’s trying to help you park your car. I think it is supposed to be “all right.” “Condition” is most commonly used like this: “His condition is not good” (“컨디션이 안좋아") which means “he’s feeling a little under the weather.”
These mutant words caused me a lot of confusion, as did some Korean words which seem like they can directly translate into English, but in reality have different categorical associations. For instance, “friend,” in English is, well... anyone who you are friendly with. But “친구" in Korean only can refer to someone who is the same age. I can’t tell you how many weird conversations I had because of that. (“Are they friends?” “No, she’s a year older.” “But are they friends?” “No, she’s a year older!”) Similarly, “school” only refers to elementary school and above, and not kindergarten. People ask me, “Is your son in school?” I say, “Yes, he goes to FYKO kindergarten.” Insert weird look here. “OH, he’s in kindergarten.”
As I move back and forth between the two countries, I can feel how quickly the languages are changing. Young Seoul people are famous for their slang, and new words are constantly falling in and out of favor. My chinese teacher just taught me “된장녀" (“bean paste girl”) which refers to young women who spend too much money on clothes, purses, and drinking coffee in expensive cafes. I can’t even begin to guess what that has to do with bean paste. The written language has changed quite a bit since the early 1900s, and even since KC left Korea in 1985. I remember him correcting the spelling of my Korean essays while I was at Michigan, and having them returned to me full of red ink, since there was a language reform after he left and his spelling was out of date. Intonation is also changing a lot: when a young woman (I cringe to write that, as it admits that I am no longer in that category) takes my order at some restaurant or cafe and ends with and rising and really elongated “다...." or "요...."
It’s the same feeling I get when I watch an old movie or listen to an old speech (President Kennedy comes to mind) and hear the different speech patterns. I already feel somewhat alienated from English since as the child of non-native speakers I always feel that my grammar and pronunciation are on shaky ground (I learned most vocabulary from reading, but reading doesn’t teach you the correct pronunciation as I learned in various embarrassing moments), and now I’ve been living out of the U.S. for long enough that I can no longer recall English words that well. Trying to speak English now is a bit like trying to write with a full bladder -- there’s a point where the particular point you wish to make gets sacrificed to the limits of physicality (bladder or lazy brain). But when I go back to the States and listen to the young people (there it is again, my former category... ) they sound so loopy and ditsy. I’ve become one of those geezers who sits around and talks about the good old days of English without the word “like?” I’m almost tempted to keep Aiden away from U.S. English so he doesn’t learn to talk like that.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Stop and smell the ramen
I had to teach at 9 this morning, and of course I had last minute things to prepare. So I planned to get up at 6, go for my sauna fix, go to KC’s office and print some stuff, have a cup of coffee to brace myself for the onslaught, and teach. Of course that’s not how things worked out.
First, Aiden slept late but Max got up at 6 and wanted to nurse for a half an hour. Aiden is usually up by 6, except for the days when I WANT him to get up early, then he sleeps until 7. I wanted to see him wake up before I left because he lost his first tooth last night and I wanted to see him discover the treasures the tooth fairy left under his pillow (Darth Vader mini-fig -- hey, its the first tooth, it’s a big deal). Anyway, naughtiness by the king of naughty ensued, who then refused to go to KC and kept asking for “Mommy nurt just one more minute” (how do they learn to negotiate so well at that age?) which woke up Aiden, leading to a battle over who gets to play with Darth Vader. By the time I got out of the house it was 7:20, no time for the sauna. Headed over to KC’s office, had issues with his security badge, couldn’t get any of the printers to work (though KC was kindly guiding me through each step over MSN messenger and phone (with echos of “Max, finish your milk” in the background). Finally gave up in favor of more time drinking coffee and thinking through my lesson.
I don’t like to wake up in the morning but I love the morning, especially fall mornings like these. The air smells different, the streets are somehow quieter, and today the air was the kind of clear, crisp blue that I associated with California -- even buildings at a distance had such sharp edges they looked a bit unreal. Fall in Seoul is the most beautiful season, lasting far longer than Michigan and, for the space of a few months, banishing the haze and fog that usually clothes the city.
My mornings are usually spent around the apartment, at the river, or across the street by the gym. Although KC’s office is less than a 10 minute walk from our apartment it is in an area of offices and restaurants, so as I left his office the air was heavy with the smell of cooking ramen. Having lived here long enough that I don’t walk around consciously thinking about how I am living in a foreign country, now and than something like the smell of ramen, the sight of an ajoshi wearing his pants high on his waist, or a street vendor selling cocoons as a snack will serve to remind me that I’m here, in Seoul, and no where else. These are the details particular to this city, that make it unique in spite of Starbucks, McDonalds, Gwynth Paltrow ads, and the new Paris Hilton song on TV. Sometimes you have to stop and smell the ramen.
But I am, after all, sitting here in Starbucks now. It is a few days after I wrote the above, and I’m celebrating another milestone in my kids’ lives: today is Max’s first day of preschool. I dropped him off and walked two blocks (that doesn’t seem very far, but Seoul blocks are quite long -- it took me a good 10 minutes, and I walk incredibly fast) so I can sit here for 3 hours and read, write, and study. So... apologies for the dearth of blog posts lately but now (at least until some other activity fills my time) I have some time to write. Can’t promise that it will improve the quality of writing, however!
It is good to stop reflect every once in a while, but I’m feeling a little empty and lost without Max around.
First, Aiden slept late but Max got up at 6 and wanted to nurse for a half an hour. Aiden is usually up by 6, except for the days when I WANT him to get up early, then he sleeps until 7. I wanted to see him wake up before I left because he lost his first tooth last night and I wanted to see him discover the treasures the tooth fairy left under his pillow (Darth Vader mini-fig -- hey, its the first tooth, it’s a big deal). Anyway, naughtiness by the king of naughty ensued, who then refused to go to KC and kept asking for “Mommy nurt just one more minute” (how do they learn to negotiate so well at that age?) which woke up Aiden, leading to a battle over who gets to play with Darth Vader. By the time I got out of the house it was 7:20, no time for the sauna. Headed over to KC’s office, had issues with his security badge, couldn’t get any of the printers to work (though KC was kindly guiding me through each step over MSN messenger and phone (with echos of “Max, finish your milk” in the background). Finally gave up in favor of more time drinking coffee and thinking through my lesson.
I don’t like to wake up in the morning but I love the morning, especially fall mornings like these. The air smells different, the streets are somehow quieter, and today the air was the kind of clear, crisp blue that I associated with California -- even buildings at a distance had such sharp edges they looked a bit unreal. Fall in Seoul is the most beautiful season, lasting far longer than Michigan and, for the space of a few months, banishing the haze and fog that usually clothes the city.
My mornings are usually spent around the apartment, at the river, or across the street by the gym. Although KC’s office is less than a 10 minute walk from our apartment it is in an area of offices and restaurants, so as I left his office the air was heavy with the smell of cooking ramen. Having lived here long enough that I don’t walk around consciously thinking about how I am living in a foreign country, now and than something like the smell of ramen, the sight of an ajoshi wearing his pants high on his waist, or a street vendor selling cocoons as a snack will serve to remind me that I’m here, in Seoul, and no where else. These are the details particular to this city, that make it unique in spite of Starbucks, McDonalds, Gwynth Paltrow ads, and the new Paris Hilton song on TV. Sometimes you have to stop and smell the ramen.
But I am, after all, sitting here in Starbucks now. It is a few days after I wrote the above, and I’m celebrating another milestone in my kids’ lives: today is Max’s first day of preschool. I dropped him off and walked two blocks (that doesn’t seem very far, but Seoul blocks are quite long -- it took me a good 10 minutes, and I walk incredibly fast) so I can sit here for 3 hours and read, write, and study. So... apologies for the dearth of blog posts lately but now (at least until some other activity fills my time) I have some time to write. Can’t promise that it will improve the quality of writing, however!
It is good to stop reflect every once in a while, but I’m feeling a little empty and lost without Max around.
On Boys
Boys. They drive me crazy. Can’t say I really understand them. I remember being a wiggly, active thing as a child, but I can’t say I was ever quite as illogical and obsessive about guns and swords as my two -- oh make that three -- boys. And what’s with the bathroom always smelling of urine? Really, how hard is it to aim?
I’m sure it’s not easy to be a boy. Here you have to deal with military duty, corporal punishment in schools, and low tolerance for crying. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to have a boy who is good at sports and incredibly social. I’m starting to see how hard it is for boys who aren’t athletically or socially inclined, and I’m not sure how I would handle that as a parent. Even social little Aiden, who has so many friends, seems to be having trouble with teasing and peer pressure these days, and we’re not even in elementary school yet.
But right now, I’m very glad to be raising my boys here rather than in the U.S. Sure, the education system is messed up. And despite the social pressure not to cry, and the tendency toward adult alcoholism, there is an emotional freedom of expression here that I don’t see in the States. Boys and men can hold hands, hug each other, and be affectionate to each other. The older boys in Aiden’s taekwondo class hug him, hold him, pat him, hold his hand, even kiss and comfort him when he’s upset. His taekwondo and soccer instructors, men from their 20s on, pick the kids up and throw them in the air, hug them, give them high fives. There’s a kind of natural physical affection expressed between men, and between men and children here, that you rarely see in the U.S. because in the U.S. any touching between a man and man or man and child has become sexualized.
Aiden has reached that age when he’s no longer cuddly. His body has become, in KC’s words, “a weapon”: all angles and hard edges, no trace of baby fat. He’s at the age where people don’t try to cuddle him anymore, rather they approach him with a high five and a challenge: how fast can you run? want to play catch? Even though he looks grown up, though, he still needs a lot of physical attention. He needs to be cuddled and kissed, patted and soothed. He’s at the age, though, where he’s vaguely aware that these are babyish things to do, and doesn’t like to ask for them.
I tutored a couple of kids around this age -- a boy and a girl -- and I noticed that they really liked activities what gave them permission to interact with me physically. Doctor, murder (someone had to be the corpse and the coroner -- yes, these were morbid kids), reporter (along the same lines), police (ditto), sports, etc. I suspect that starting around the age of 5 kids don’t get much physical comforting and cuddling, but they still really need it and crave it.
Here Aiden gets a lot of that kind of physical contact, and it comes naturally, from all sources, not just me but also from men he looks up to -- the older kids, his teachers, his grandpa and his father. There is no shame to this kind of touching, no point at which expressing friendly affection through touch becomes problematic.
I wonder about the boys growing up in the U.S. today -- I wonder what they’re learning about what it means to be male, about how men are supposed to behave and feel.
I see my primary job as a parent as making my kids feel safe and loved in this world. That means acknowledging fears but teaching them not constrain their lives based on fear. It means giving and sharing affection as a healthy and normal part of interaction, not relegating affection to the realm of deviant behavior. I want my boys to grow up feeling comfortable with hugs and kisses, able to sit right next to another man in the movie theater, ready to reach out and comfort or congratulate a friend.
I was going to say something here about all the books and articles that have been coming out on raising boys lately. But I’m making a concerted effort to make my posts shorter and more concise. I’d be interested in hearing what anyone out there thinks, though. Any comments?
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
surprise, surprise
I'm starting regret this last post on the public bath. I just added a site meter to this blog and added it to the blogger listings, and thought I'd do a quick check to see how many people were reading. Imagine my surprise to find many views from all over the world. Temporarily delighted, I started looking at the entry pages... people came to this blog from searches on various (and disturbing) sex-related searches. So I'm taking it off the blogger listing. Most of these visits lasted only long enough to determine that this is no sex site, but seeing the results was like waking up to find a hairy spider in your ear. You'll still be able to access this blog through the address yunmay.blogspot.com, just not through internet search. So friends, read on... and don't expect any naked pictures of the boys.
Monday, September 04, 2006
the Public Bath
Ten reasons why I love the public bath:
10. Good for your skin
9. Relaxing
8. Good for muscle ache
7. Good for exhaustion
6. Nobody saying “Mommy! He peed on the floor again!”
5. Can get exfoliated.
4. Makes you feel warm all day long.
3. Good for circulation.
2. Sauna social life.
1. Check out what real women really look like.
I’m no David Letterman, huh?
In the beginning, I was not thrilled about the prospect of being nekked in front of strangers. That’s not what we Americans do. Unless you grew up in a Naked House (not me) or lived in Synergy (ditto). Especially since my future mother-in-law was the one who kept telling me how great it was, and how she wanted to take me there. Ah, hello? Being nude in front of your future mother-in-law? I don’t think so.
First time: We were staying in a resort on the east coast of Korea, in the off-season. I went down to the public bath by myself. It was empty, so that was good, but because it was empty I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. The worker tried to explain it to me, but my Korean wasn’t very good at the time. Verdict: no glasses + naked + clueless = BAD
That put me off for quite a while. I don’t think I went back until after we moved here, that’s what, 8 years later?
Second time. I think we were at a water park with a big public bath. Went with my mother-in-law. She totally checked me out. Said, “You don’t look so bad for having had a kid.” AWKWARD. But I started to appreciate the experience more. Maybe it was because I was not so self-conscious about being naked? I guess after childbirth in a University hospital -- after having your nether regions exposed to any visiting EMT who happens to wander into the delivery room -- you don’t really get rattled by that stuff anymore.
Anyway, I’ve been going to the public bath regularly for a while now. You may be picturing something like the Roman baths, or thinking that people just stroll in off the street, but it’s not quite like that. It’s more like a cafe -- there are neighborhood public baths, which are more crowded, not as nice, and cheaper, and there are more upscale ones. Public baths seem to be analogous to cafes in the U.S. You pay 4 bucks or so and you can hang out there for quite a while, chatting with your (same sex) friends and relaxing, or you can breeze in and out every morning or evening. The public bath is a part of everyday life, a place to congregate and relax, to see and be seen, to connect with others or sit and think.
I guess the term “public bath” is misleading. Here, they are often called “saunas,” but that’s also misleading because they include more than a sauna. A basic, neighborhood public bath includes a locker room/dressing area, shower area (usually sitting down and standing up showers), a place for massages and exfoliation, two big pools of water (one hot, one cold), one sauna, and an area for lying down/sleeping. The fancier places have more pools of water of different temperature, made from different materials (jade, wood, marble, etc.) and with different additives (ginseng, charcoal, honey, green tea, etc.). The different materials and additives are supposed to have different healthful effects. The fancier places can also have multiple saunas, also made from different materials (wood, jade, etc.), different humidity levels (dry or moist), and different aromas for an added aromatherapy effect.
Here’s a primer, in case any of you are interested in going and don’t know what you’re supposed to do. Usually, you pay first (about 4 dollars is a good price, though the nicer the bath, the more expensive it will be. Hotel baths are really nice and often open 24 hours. Sometimes people will, instead of getting a hotel room, just sleep in the bath all night long). The cashier will give you either a ticket or a key. You go into the correct entrance (men and women have separate entrances) and take off your shoes before entering. Many places have shoe lockers at the entrance; if you have a key, usually you put your shoes in the locker with the same number as your key. If you have a ticket, upon entering you’ll give your ticket to a worker who will give you your locker key. Find your assigned locker, take off all your clothes and stow them away, and head towards the shower area, picking up an exfoliating towel along the way.
Then you should take a shower to make sure you are clean, rubbing yourself with the exfoliating towel if you want to. After you shower, head into the pools of water or sauna. People usually alternative hot and cold, staying in for as long as they want, sometimes immersing themselves but most often only going in halfway. This “반좌욕" (“half sitz bath”) is supposed to be really good for your circulation. At first you won’t feel too hot, but if you sit there for 20 minutes or so you will be sweating like crazy.
After you’ve dunked and steamed to your heart’s content, you back to the shower area and wash yourself again, this time scrubbing with the exfoliation towel. Lots of dead skin will come off, leaving your skin nice and smooth. BUT often, after going through the bathing and sauna process, you will feel so tired and relaxed that it’s hard to gather enough energy for the scrubbing. That’s why you can also be scrubbed down by someone else (it costs extra, about $15). These exfoliation people (they also do massages and facials) are really strong. The process may be a bit painful but it is worth it.
After that, you dry off and get dressed. Most places have lotion, hair dryers, curling irons, Q-tips, etc. so you will see all sorts of people going through the process of beautification. Then you leave, giving your key back to the person who gave it to you, and feeling... very... relaxed.
Now, I go to the sauna to be by myself and have some time away from Silly and Naughty. I get a little bored sitting there for a long time so I bring things to read. Usually I copy the vocabulary I need to memorize onto a piece of paper and put it into a Ziplock bag. The bath I go to also has laminated articles to read.
But many people are there for social interaction. Friends and families go to the sauna together and sit and chat and gossip. They scrub each other’s backs, talk about their problems, catch up on news.
I think if I ever have a daughter that I will make sure she goes to the sauna periodically. It scares me to see so many young girls having a warped idea of what human bodies are supposed to ideally look like, and I think there’s something healthy about being exposed to naked bodies from a young age. Old wrinkly bodies, fat bodies, thin bodies, young girls starting to sprout hair and breasts -- you can see them all on a given day in the public bath, walking around without self-consciousness. This is what women look like in the non air-brushed world, and they all are, in their own unique ways, beautiful.
But one type of body you don’t often see in the sauna is the foreigner’s body. I can’t see much without my glasses and I’ve mostly lost my sense of self-consciousness so I don’t notice it much, but people often are curious about me and my presence there. That’s how I met my Chinese teacher -- she had seen me in the public bath several times (we used to both go on Sunday afternoon) and one day she said, “I thought foreigners hated places like this!” On top of being a foreigner, I have a very non-Korean body; KC’s opinion is that if people stare, it’s because they’ve never seen such a muscular woman before. I don’t know about that, but I do have a nice six pack under my stretch marks. They also stare because they are curious what I’m studying in those Ziplock bags. “What is that girl studying so diligently?” “Is it Korean?” “No, it doesn’t look like Korean.” “How can she see such small writing?” “It looks like Chinese.” “Why would she study that?” An enigma, indeed.
A last word on baths... baths are part of Seoul’s neighborhood culture. Even though Seoul is a huge city of 14 million, there is a strong sense of belonging to one’s neighborhood -- not because of some sort of neighborhood patriotism, but just because daily interaction is centered around your neighborhood. Since most people walk, and because Seoul is a good mixture of residence and business, almost every need can be met in a 10 or 20 minute walk from your apartment. I tend to see the same people at the grocery store, the public bath, waiting at the bus stop, at the video store, the dentist, the river, the bank, and walking on the side walk. So often, I’ll be at the bath talking with some stranger who will say, “Oh, I know you, you live in HanShin, right? And you have two boys? I see you walking around with them.” Which sometimes disturbs me in a big brother type of way, but in general makes me feel like part of a community. Mental note: don’t do anything embarrassing in public. And tell Aiden to stop picking his nose. You can see where the social pressure comes from... but that’s another topic.
10. Good for your skin
9. Relaxing
8. Good for muscle ache
7. Good for exhaustion
6. Nobody saying “Mommy! He peed on the floor again!”
5. Can get exfoliated.
4. Makes you feel warm all day long.
3. Good for circulation.
2. Sauna social life.
1. Check out what real women really look like.
I’m no David Letterman, huh?
In the beginning, I was not thrilled about the prospect of being nekked in front of strangers. That’s not what we Americans do. Unless you grew up in a Naked House (not me) or lived in Synergy (ditto). Especially since my future mother-in-law was the one who kept telling me how great it was, and how she wanted to take me there. Ah, hello? Being nude in front of your future mother-in-law? I don’t think so.
First time: We were staying in a resort on the east coast of Korea, in the off-season. I went down to the public bath by myself. It was empty, so that was good, but because it was empty I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. The worker tried to explain it to me, but my Korean wasn’t very good at the time. Verdict: no glasses + naked + clueless = BAD
That put me off for quite a while. I don’t think I went back until after we moved here, that’s what, 8 years later?
Second time. I think we were at a water park with a big public bath. Went with my mother-in-law. She totally checked me out. Said, “You don’t look so bad for having had a kid.” AWKWARD. But I started to appreciate the experience more. Maybe it was because I was not so self-conscious about being naked? I guess after childbirth in a University hospital -- after having your nether regions exposed to any visiting EMT who happens to wander into the delivery room -- you don’t really get rattled by that stuff anymore.
Anyway, I’ve been going to the public bath regularly for a while now. You may be picturing something like the Roman baths, or thinking that people just stroll in off the street, but it’s not quite like that. It’s more like a cafe -- there are neighborhood public baths, which are more crowded, not as nice, and cheaper, and there are more upscale ones. Public baths seem to be analogous to cafes in the U.S. You pay 4 bucks or so and you can hang out there for quite a while, chatting with your (same sex) friends and relaxing, or you can breeze in and out every morning or evening. The public bath is a part of everyday life, a place to congregate and relax, to see and be seen, to connect with others or sit and think.
I guess the term “public bath” is misleading. Here, they are often called “saunas,” but that’s also misleading because they include more than a sauna. A basic, neighborhood public bath includes a locker room/dressing area, shower area (usually sitting down and standing up showers), a place for massages and exfoliation, two big pools of water (one hot, one cold), one sauna, and an area for lying down/sleeping. The fancier places have more pools of water of different temperature, made from different materials (jade, wood, marble, etc.) and with different additives (ginseng, charcoal, honey, green tea, etc.). The different materials and additives are supposed to have different healthful effects. The fancier places can also have multiple saunas, also made from different materials (wood, jade, etc.), different humidity levels (dry or moist), and different aromas for an added aromatherapy effect.
Here’s a primer, in case any of you are interested in going and don’t know what you’re supposed to do. Usually, you pay first (about 4 dollars is a good price, though the nicer the bath, the more expensive it will be. Hotel baths are really nice and often open 24 hours. Sometimes people will, instead of getting a hotel room, just sleep in the bath all night long). The cashier will give you either a ticket or a key. You go into the correct entrance (men and women have separate entrances) and take off your shoes before entering. Many places have shoe lockers at the entrance; if you have a key, usually you put your shoes in the locker with the same number as your key. If you have a ticket, upon entering you’ll give your ticket to a worker who will give you your locker key. Find your assigned locker, take off all your clothes and stow them away, and head towards the shower area, picking up an exfoliating towel along the way.
Then you should take a shower to make sure you are clean, rubbing yourself with the exfoliating towel if you want to. After you shower, head into the pools of water or sauna. People usually alternative hot and cold, staying in for as long as they want, sometimes immersing themselves but most often only going in halfway. This “반좌욕" (“half sitz bath”) is supposed to be really good for your circulation. At first you won’t feel too hot, but if you sit there for 20 minutes or so you will be sweating like crazy.
After you’ve dunked and steamed to your heart’s content, you back to the shower area and wash yourself again, this time scrubbing with the exfoliation towel. Lots of dead skin will come off, leaving your skin nice and smooth. BUT often, after going through the bathing and sauna process, you will feel so tired and relaxed that it’s hard to gather enough energy for the scrubbing. That’s why you can also be scrubbed down by someone else (it costs extra, about $15). These exfoliation people (they also do massages and facials) are really strong. The process may be a bit painful but it is worth it.
After that, you dry off and get dressed. Most places have lotion, hair dryers, curling irons, Q-tips, etc. so you will see all sorts of people going through the process of beautification. Then you leave, giving your key back to the person who gave it to you, and feeling... very... relaxed.
Now, I go to the sauna to be by myself and have some time away from Silly and Naughty. I get a little bored sitting there for a long time so I bring things to read. Usually I copy the vocabulary I need to memorize onto a piece of paper and put it into a Ziplock bag. The bath I go to also has laminated articles to read.
But many people are there for social interaction. Friends and families go to the sauna together and sit and chat and gossip. They scrub each other’s backs, talk about their problems, catch up on news.
I think if I ever have a daughter that I will make sure she goes to the sauna periodically. It scares me to see so many young girls having a warped idea of what human bodies are supposed to ideally look like, and I think there’s something healthy about being exposed to naked bodies from a young age. Old wrinkly bodies, fat bodies, thin bodies, young girls starting to sprout hair and breasts -- you can see them all on a given day in the public bath, walking around without self-consciousness. This is what women look like in the non air-brushed world, and they all are, in their own unique ways, beautiful.
But one type of body you don’t often see in the sauna is the foreigner’s body. I can’t see much without my glasses and I’ve mostly lost my sense of self-consciousness so I don’t notice it much, but people often are curious about me and my presence there. That’s how I met my Chinese teacher -- she had seen me in the public bath several times (we used to both go on Sunday afternoon) and one day she said, “I thought foreigners hated places like this!” On top of being a foreigner, I have a very non-Korean body; KC’s opinion is that if people stare, it’s because they’ve never seen such a muscular woman before. I don’t know about that, but I do have a nice six pack under my stretch marks. They also stare because they are curious what I’m studying in those Ziplock bags. “What is that girl studying so diligently?” “Is it Korean?” “No, it doesn’t look like Korean.” “How can she see such small writing?” “It looks like Chinese.” “Why would she study that?” An enigma, indeed.
A last word on baths... baths are part of Seoul’s neighborhood culture. Even though Seoul is a huge city of 14 million, there is a strong sense of belonging to one’s neighborhood -- not because of some sort of neighborhood patriotism, but just because daily interaction is centered around your neighborhood. Since most people walk, and because Seoul is a good mixture of residence and business, almost every need can be met in a 10 or 20 minute walk from your apartment. I tend to see the same people at the grocery store, the public bath, waiting at the bus stop, at the video store, the dentist, the river, the bank, and walking on the side walk. So often, I’ll be at the bath talking with some stranger who will say, “Oh, I know you, you live in HanShin, right? And you have two boys? I see you walking around with them.” Which sometimes disturbs me in a big brother type of way, but in general makes me feel like part of a community. Mental note: don’t do anything embarrassing in public. And tell Aiden to stop picking his nose. You can see where the social pressure comes from... but that’s another topic.
Monday, August 21, 2006
the Good Life
I’ve been holding onto this post for a while, because it is not exactly the way I want to say it... but there are things I want to say... but I can’t work on it anymore. Got to work on some other things. So here it is.
It started with the Thomas trains. Somehow, even at the tender age of 2, those were much cooler than the Brio ones. After that, brief flirtations with Yu-Gi-Oh, bug fighters, and Potris (this one was interesting because he came home from school asking for some mispronunciation of the toy’s name, and we didn’t know what it was, and nobody at the toy and shoes stores knew what he was talking about either... finally I had to ask his teacher. It’s hard to be the cool kid when you don’t have any older siblings and you’re not allowed to watch TV...). Now of course, Star Wars. (aside... just have to pipe in here that Aiden, like his father, tends towards the obsessive...sometimes I wonder if other than his eyes if my genes had anything to contribute to that kid)
The character obsessions didn’t disturb me much. I just tried to make sure he had a variety of stuff that wasn’t branded (though it is hard to find things that AREN’T branded these days) and for some things, like his Thomas underwear, which really helped him potty train, I didn’t mind the character branding at all. But the other day we were playing Uno and he stopped me short by asking for a pair of Nike shoes.
Aiden’s always been picky about his shoes (see my post on Walking in Seoul), but Nike? We’ve branched into the abstract branding now -- the idea that some brand, some symbol, is innately cooler than the other. That somehow because most of his soccer team is wearing Nike soccer shoes (which cost about 50 bucks!) he needs them to fit in.
Peer Pressure has taken residence. He is renting ad space on his fort in the corner of the playroom.
I love to lay down with Aiden until he falls asleep at night. I hold his hand, or cuddle him, and the kid who answers “I don’t know” to all my probing questions about school and so forth during the day suddenly begins to talk about all sorts of strawberry fields and whatnot. His legs are resting, finally, but his brain is running helter skelter, and his words follow. The other day, he told me sleepily, “Mommy, I called you ‘Jennifer’ today at school [when I’m teaching the kids call me ‘Teacher Jennifer’] not because I don’t love you but because I thought they might make fun of me.... but now it’s just you and me and Max and I love you, Mommy.”
Anyway, I am a mommy who believes in the power of habit. So rather than lecturing him about peer pressure, or making his own decisions, or the importance of saving, or the value of money, or evil corporate empires, I instituted a new bedtime ritual. I told him, “Aiden, sometimes it is easy to focus on the things we don’t have, and forget all the wonderful things we have. So from now on, every night let’s talk about five things we’re thankful for.”
This first discussion was held in the bathroom while he was brushing his teeth, so his five things were:
1. Mommy
2. Daddy
3. the toilet
4. the bathtub
5. his World Cup soccer ball
After we’d been doing this for a few days, Max started to chime in, repeating whatever Aiden said. “I dakpul Mommy, I dakpul Daddy, I dakpul Episode” (that’s the Star Wars lego computer game... ).
Being thankful is often a fleeting thing, a feeling that occurs at odd times during the day, usually in response to some close call or perceived threat: “thank goodness he didn’t fall off that chair! Thank goodness I remembered to pay that bill! Thank goodness I found the Obi-Wan and Yoda mini-figs!” But it is rare to have a pure moment of thankfulness for the people in your life or the shape your life has taken. I think that most of us, not so different from children, are caught up in our own desires: I like those shoes she’s wearing. I would like to live in a bigger house with a white picket fence and Corian sinks. I want that job. I would like a different nose. I would like to make more money. I wish I could speak 5 languages. I want that person to envy me. We’re not so different from kids, thinking about the next step, the next line on our resume, the next purchase, the time in the hazy future when people who were popular in high school will look upon us with the awe and respect we deserve.
Although it adds more time to our bedtime ritual (by this time of night mommy is usually quite cranky) (you may think, hey, it adds, what, 5 minutes? But actually it goes on quite a bit longer. NOTHING Aiden does takes 5 minutes), carving out this space, separate from the daily ups and downs of ego and social acceptance, to say thanks has been really been good for us -- not just Aiden, but for me too. Just taking a moment to acknowledge all the good things in my life helps me, a little, during the day, to avoid getting caught up in the petty details and desires. It has been a nightly equivalent of leaving the U.S. to live in another country, a stepping out of the mainstream track that allows me to look back upon my life and reflect.
We’ve been living in Korea for three years now. I think no matter where you move, it takes about 2 years to settle in. And three years to become thankful for the way in which this new place has reshaped your life.
There are so many things I miss about the U.S.: our friends and families, really good reuben sandwiches, big playgrounds that aren’t crowded, Halloween and the Fourth of July. But looking at my boys and our life here, I am so thankful for the decision that brought us here, and changed our lives.
It all started over a cup of coffee at our local Ann Arbor Starbucks. I had been there to work on a paper -- fueled to boldness by caffeine, grand theories and sweeping, compelling narratives were pouring from my fingertips. Taking advantage of Aiden’s temporary absence at preschool, KC and I were trying to fit our lives into those few precious moments without a child around. KC stopped by to talk and share a latte, so we could have some adult conversation. As always, we began talking about Aiden, and the child we hoped to have in the next year or so, and the kind of lives we wanted them to have. We had always talked about having our children live part of their lives in Asia, and how important it was to us that they spoked several languages, knew their grandparents, and knew their parents’ cultures from personal experience. And suddenly we both realized -- the future is now. We have the opportunity now, we have the time, and our parents aren’t getting any younger. The kids will be the right age to pick up a new language. What’s stopping us?
It was like the moment after he proposed. What had been theoretical, something for the future, suddenly appeared right in front of our noses, demanding details and decisions. When? Soon. How long would we be this free? Me in school, about to do a dissertation, him with his own company, able to make his own decisions. His parents aging but healthy in Seoul. Our kids -- one in preschool, one non-existent. .We jumped off the cliff and decided to leave in June, 6 months later.
It was so hard to leave Ann Arbor; it was such a difficult time in my life. We had such good friends there, Aiden went to a wonderful school, we loved our house and neighborhood, and KC got to play a lot of cheap golf. We had a wonderful, relaxed lifestyle. I was doing my PhD, he was working on his company. We were on track to get all the things we wanted: professional success, a comfortable life. As one of our friends asked, “Why go there and throw all that away? Why take that risk, for less money and less security?”
Michigan was full of open spaces, wide skies, long expanses of green grass. But we wanted to open something in our and our kids’ lives. To provide them with more languages, more cultural familiarity, so that they would have more freedom, more choices available to them in their lives. Our parents opened doors for us by raising us totally or partially in the States; we wanted to open doors for our kids by returning to Asia.
But those first months were suffocating. I had never lived in the city, was exhausted and irritated by the small spaces, the constant crowds always bumping and rubbing against me, our claustrophobic apartment, the oppressive heat. The constant noise, the signs everywhere, the pressure of people’s gazes studying me, the effort to speak and listen to Korean all day long exhausted me. Nothing was straightforward and I found myself going back and forth to the Immigration Office (way out in another part of the city, requiring 2 subway rides and a labyrinthine 20 minute walk in the heat) to the straighten out visa problems. I had to figure out how to the work the hospital system to make sure my body was healing from surgery and to take care of all the viruses Aiden kept getting (guess the viruses in Seoul are different that those in the U.S... and 14 million people are spreading them around... his little body was a hot target). Banking required special stamps and books and straightening out our family registry, since everything here references your family tree.
Although we moved to open up opportunities, those first few months were claustrophobic, oppressive, suffocating. Sometime I will write more about that, but not now.
But the hard part passed, and we have settled in. I cried the first time our saw our tiny apartment, but I have grown to like it here, not to be weighed down by so many things that I never use. I have grown to like the feeling of having something close to what we really need, and of throwing things away periodically, like a snake shedding its skin.
I’m thankful for every day that our kids get to spend with their aging grandparents. Even though they drive me nuts sometimes, I’m so grateful that they get to see these kids grow up for a little while, and in a place where they are comfortable and respected. I remember, growing up in the U.S., being so embarrassed by my grandparents, because they didn’t know how to behave or talk like everyone else, they chewed loudly, and they farted loudly. I never got to see them in the context of their own world, with their friends, where they knew more than me. KC’s father loves to take Aiden to the mountain with him and introduce his grandson to his buddies, who go hiking every week. He loves to show off his knowledge of Korea and of Seoul.
I’m thankful that I can stay home with Max. I haven’t written much about Max yet... from this blog it may seem to all of you that I only think about Aiden. Actually, Max has been a real challenge -- he’s a really sensitive kid. One of the reasons I get so frustrated with Aiden is because I’m actually frustrated with Max but I end up lashing out at Aiden. Anyway, more on Max at another time. But Max is growing up really well now, he’s becoming a very funny little character with quite a personality, and he’s so happy and secure. He still has his crazy moments, but he’s come a long way. I think he really needed to be raised with his mommy always around, always ready to hold him close or nurse him or comfort him. I think the last two years I’ve basically spent just holding him. And it was worth it.
I’m thankful that I left the PhD program. I feel like most of us live our lives on invisible tracks -- you keep going, doing what you think you’re supposed to do, not thinking about whether you want to do it or not. Especially if, like me, your parents kept pushing you forward when you were young, filling any hesitation or boredom with educational workbooks, writing summer school, and piano lessons. It is easy to keep taking the next logical step: high school to college, college to grad school, this award or that, to a professional career and a white picket fence. That is not a bad life -- a life of social and professional respect, of enough money, of comfortable possessions. It was the path of least resistance to stay, to keep on going on those invisible tracks that we all follow without thinking... once you get started, and it beckons with the promise of respect and security, it’s hard to think seriously about other options. But I left, and rather than feel like some sort of failure it has been a liberation. I’ve enjoyed being able to spend the time with my kids without the additional stress, and I have really enjoyed being able to spend time on things I always wanted to do but felt I couldn’t: learning Chinese, reading non-academic things, and writing. I still feel, in some sense, that I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, but for now I’m comfortable with not knowing and enjoying the adventure. My life has not been the linear, progressive, positivistic narrative I once imagined... perhaps I embraced postmodernism first theoretically and then later in my personal life... ;-)
I’m thankful for all the good people we have met here: Aiden’s friends and their parents, my Chinese teacher, other ex-pat friends, our Kindermusik teacher, KC’s business and golf friends. Each of these people come with their own stories, which I don’t have room for (hey, I met my Chinese teacher in the public bath...) but I am thankful every day for their presence in our lives.
Leaving the U.S. and taking a bit of a bizarre track has made KC and I see the world a little bit differently than most others, I think, and perhaps made us a little... idiosyncratic. Weird, perhaps. But having this shared experience, this shared adventure, this common perspective from which we study those around us has made us even closer in a way that we weren’t before. Somehow this coming and going, this crossing of borders, and the encountering and re-encountering of the same people, has given us strong ideas about the way we want to raise our kids and also the things we want in our own lives. So we're weird together, and I'm thankful for the way that our meanderings have cemented in us such a strong sense of the rightness of what we're doing, how we're living, and how we're raising our kids.
Putting aside for a moment the long philosophical questions about living the “good life,” the trick, it seems to me, is to somehow be able to live in the moment, appreciating the beauty and splendor and gifts as they occur, and yet also somehow place these in some sort of framework which provides meaning to the overall direction and expanse of your life. No mean trick, if you ask me. I’m a high-level person, not good with details. Give me a history book and I can tell you about the themes, the ideas, the significance -- but not the dates, the people, the microcosmic aspects. And I like aesthetic things, I like things to be beautiful, not messy. In mah jhong I almost never win because I go for the big hands, all the same suit, not wanting to settle for a mishmash of ugly things.
But somehow in these past three years, leaving the US and leaving the PhD has given me, temporarily at least, a sense of that micro and macro good life. The details of this life are still wonderfully strange enough to lend a glint of fascination to the everyday, and the freedom of embarking on this strange journey has opened, even in this crowded land, a sense of wide number of roads available in this world. Who knows which one we’ll travel next.
It started with the Thomas trains. Somehow, even at the tender age of 2, those were much cooler than the Brio ones. After that, brief flirtations with Yu-Gi-Oh, bug fighters, and Potris (this one was interesting because he came home from school asking for some mispronunciation of the toy’s name, and we didn’t know what it was, and nobody at the toy and shoes stores knew what he was talking about either... finally I had to ask his teacher. It’s hard to be the cool kid when you don’t have any older siblings and you’re not allowed to watch TV...). Now of course, Star Wars. (aside... just have to pipe in here that Aiden, like his father, tends towards the obsessive...sometimes I wonder if other than his eyes if my genes had anything to contribute to that kid)
The character obsessions didn’t disturb me much. I just tried to make sure he had a variety of stuff that wasn’t branded (though it is hard to find things that AREN’T branded these days) and for some things, like his Thomas underwear, which really helped him potty train, I didn’t mind the character branding at all. But the other day we were playing Uno and he stopped me short by asking for a pair of Nike shoes.
Aiden’s always been picky about his shoes (see my post on Walking in Seoul), but Nike? We’ve branched into the abstract branding now -- the idea that some brand, some symbol, is innately cooler than the other. That somehow because most of his soccer team is wearing Nike soccer shoes (which cost about 50 bucks!) he needs them to fit in.
Peer Pressure has taken residence. He is renting ad space on his fort in the corner of the playroom.
I love to lay down with Aiden until he falls asleep at night. I hold his hand, or cuddle him, and the kid who answers “I don’t know” to all my probing questions about school and so forth during the day suddenly begins to talk about all sorts of strawberry fields and whatnot. His legs are resting, finally, but his brain is running helter skelter, and his words follow. The other day, he told me sleepily, “Mommy, I called you ‘Jennifer’ today at school [when I’m teaching the kids call me ‘Teacher Jennifer’] not because I don’t love you but because I thought they might make fun of me.... but now it’s just you and me and Max and I love you, Mommy.”
Anyway, I am a mommy who believes in the power of habit. So rather than lecturing him about peer pressure, or making his own decisions, or the importance of saving, or the value of money, or evil corporate empires, I instituted a new bedtime ritual. I told him, “Aiden, sometimes it is easy to focus on the things we don’t have, and forget all the wonderful things we have. So from now on, every night let’s talk about five things we’re thankful for.”
This first discussion was held in the bathroom while he was brushing his teeth, so his five things were:
1. Mommy
2. Daddy
3. the toilet
4. the bathtub
5. his World Cup soccer ball
After we’d been doing this for a few days, Max started to chime in, repeating whatever Aiden said. “I dakpul Mommy, I dakpul Daddy, I dakpul Episode” (that’s the Star Wars lego computer game... ).
Being thankful is often a fleeting thing, a feeling that occurs at odd times during the day, usually in response to some close call or perceived threat: “thank goodness he didn’t fall off that chair! Thank goodness I remembered to pay that bill! Thank goodness I found the Obi-Wan and Yoda mini-figs!” But it is rare to have a pure moment of thankfulness for the people in your life or the shape your life has taken. I think that most of us, not so different from children, are caught up in our own desires: I like those shoes she’s wearing. I would like to live in a bigger house with a white picket fence and Corian sinks. I want that job. I would like a different nose. I would like to make more money. I wish I could speak 5 languages. I want that person to envy me. We’re not so different from kids, thinking about the next step, the next line on our resume, the next purchase, the time in the hazy future when people who were popular in high school will look upon us with the awe and respect we deserve.
Although it adds more time to our bedtime ritual (by this time of night mommy is usually quite cranky) (you may think, hey, it adds, what, 5 minutes? But actually it goes on quite a bit longer. NOTHING Aiden does takes 5 minutes), carving out this space, separate from the daily ups and downs of ego and social acceptance, to say thanks has been really been good for us -- not just Aiden, but for me too. Just taking a moment to acknowledge all the good things in my life helps me, a little, during the day, to avoid getting caught up in the petty details and desires. It has been a nightly equivalent of leaving the U.S. to live in another country, a stepping out of the mainstream track that allows me to look back upon my life and reflect.
We’ve been living in Korea for three years now. I think no matter where you move, it takes about 2 years to settle in. And three years to become thankful for the way in which this new place has reshaped your life.
There are so many things I miss about the U.S.: our friends and families, really good reuben sandwiches, big playgrounds that aren’t crowded, Halloween and the Fourth of July. But looking at my boys and our life here, I am so thankful for the decision that brought us here, and changed our lives.
It all started over a cup of coffee at our local Ann Arbor Starbucks. I had been there to work on a paper -- fueled to boldness by caffeine, grand theories and sweeping, compelling narratives were pouring from my fingertips. Taking advantage of Aiden’s temporary absence at preschool, KC and I were trying to fit our lives into those few precious moments without a child around. KC stopped by to talk and share a latte, so we could have some adult conversation. As always, we began talking about Aiden, and the child we hoped to have in the next year or so, and the kind of lives we wanted them to have. We had always talked about having our children live part of their lives in Asia, and how important it was to us that they spoked several languages, knew their grandparents, and knew their parents’ cultures from personal experience. And suddenly we both realized -- the future is now. We have the opportunity now, we have the time, and our parents aren’t getting any younger. The kids will be the right age to pick up a new language. What’s stopping us?
It was like the moment after he proposed. What had been theoretical, something for the future, suddenly appeared right in front of our noses, demanding details and decisions. When? Soon. How long would we be this free? Me in school, about to do a dissertation, him with his own company, able to make his own decisions. His parents aging but healthy in Seoul. Our kids -- one in preschool, one non-existent. .We jumped off the cliff and decided to leave in June, 6 months later.
It was so hard to leave Ann Arbor; it was such a difficult time in my life. We had such good friends there, Aiden went to a wonderful school, we loved our house and neighborhood, and KC got to play a lot of cheap golf. We had a wonderful, relaxed lifestyle. I was doing my PhD, he was working on his company. We were on track to get all the things we wanted: professional success, a comfortable life. As one of our friends asked, “Why go there and throw all that away? Why take that risk, for less money and less security?”
Michigan was full of open spaces, wide skies, long expanses of green grass. But we wanted to open something in our and our kids’ lives. To provide them with more languages, more cultural familiarity, so that they would have more freedom, more choices available to them in their lives. Our parents opened doors for us by raising us totally or partially in the States; we wanted to open doors for our kids by returning to Asia.
But those first months were suffocating. I had never lived in the city, was exhausted and irritated by the small spaces, the constant crowds always bumping and rubbing against me, our claustrophobic apartment, the oppressive heat. The constant noise, the signs everywhere, the pressure of people’s gazes studying me, the effort to speak and listen to Korean all day long exhausted me. Nothing was straightforward and I found myself going back and forth to the Immigration Office (way out in another part of the city, requiring 2 subway rides and a labyrinthine 20 minute walk in the heat) to the straighten out visa problems. I had to figure out how to the work the hospital system to make sure my body was healing from surgery and to take care of all the viruses Aiden kept getting (guess the viruses in Seoul are different that those in the U.S... and 14 million people are spreading them around... his little body was a hot target). Banking required special stamps and books and straightening out our family registry, since everything here references your family tree.
Although we moved to open up opportunities, those first few months were claustrophobic, oppressive, suffocating. Sometime I will write more about that, but not now.
But the hard part passed, and we have settled in. I cried the first time our saw our tiny apartment, but I have grown to like it here, not to be weighed down by so many things that I never use. I have grown to like the feeling of having something close to what we really need, and of throwing things away periodically, like a snake shedding its skin.
I’m thankful for every day that our kids get to spend with their aging grandparents. Even though they drive me nuts sometimes, I’m so grateful that they get to see these kids grow up for a little while, and in a place where they are comfortable and respected. I remember, growing up in the U.S., being so embarrassed by my grandparents, because they didn’t know how to behave or talk like everyone else, they chewed loudly, and they farted loudly. I never got to see them in the context of their own world, with their friends, where they knew more than me. KC’s father loves to take Aiden to the mountain with him and introduce his grandson to his buddies, who go hiking every week. He loves to show off his knowledge of Korea and of Seoul.
I’m thankful that I can stay home with Max. I haven’t written much about Max yet... from this blog it may seem to all of you that I only think about Aiden. Actually, Max has been a real challenge -- he’s a really sensitive kid. One of the reasons I get so frustrated with Aiden is because I’m actually frustrated with Max but I end up lashing out at Aiden. Anyway, more on Max at another time. But Max is growing up really well now, he’s becoming a very funny little character with quite a personality, and he’s so happy and secure. He still has his crazy moments, but he’s come a long way. I think he really needed to be raised with his mommy always around, always ready to hold him close or nurse him or comfort him. I think the last two years I’ve basically spent just holding him. And it was worth it.
I’m thankful that I left the PhD program. I feel like most of us live our lives on invisible tracks -- you keep going, doing what you think you’re supposed to do, not thinking about whether you want to do it or not. Especially if, like me, your parents kept pushing you forward when you were young, filling any hesitation or boredom with educational workbooks, writing summer school, and piano lessons. It is easy to keep taking the next logical step: high school to college, college to grad school, this award or that, to a professional career and a white picket fence. That is not a bad life -- a life of social and professional respect, of enough money, of comfortable possessions. It was the path of least resistance to stay, to keep on going on those invisible tracks that we all follow without thinking... once you get started, and it beckons with the promise of respect and security, it’s hard to think seriously about other options. But I left, and rather than feel like some sort of failure it has been a liberation. I’ve enjoyed being able to spend the time with my kids without the additional stress, and I have really enjoyed being able to spend time on things I always wanted to do but felt I couldn’t: learning Chinese, reading non-academic things, and writing. I still feel, in some sense, that I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, but for now I’m comfortable with not knowing and enjoying the adventure. My life has not been the linear, progressive, positivistic narrative I once imagined... perhaps I embraced postmodernism first theoretically and then later in my personal life... ;-)
I’m thankful for all the good people we have met here: Aiden’s friends and their parents, my Chinese teacher, other ex-pat friends, our Kindermusik teacher, KC’s business and golf friends. Each of these people come with their own stories, which I don’t have room for (hey, I met my Chinese teacher in the public bath...) but I am thankful every day for their presence in our lives.
Leaving the U.S. and taking a bit of a bizarre track has made KC and I see the world a little bit differently than most others, I think, and perhaps made us a little... idiosyncratic. Weird, perhaps. But having this shared experience, this shared adventure, this common perspective from which we study those around us has made us even closer in a way that we weren’t before. Somehow this coming and going, this crossing of borders, and the encountering and re-encountering of the same people, has given us strong ideas about the way we want to raise our kids and also the things we want in our own lives. So we're weird together, and I'm thankful for the way that our meanderings have cemented in us such a strong sense of the rightness of what we're doing, how we're living, and how we're raising our kids.
Putting aside for a moment the long philosophical questions about living the “good life,” the trick, it seems to me, is to somehow be able to live in the moment, appreciating the beauty and splendor and gifts as they occur, and yet also somehow place these in some sort of framework which provides meaning to the overall direction and expanse of your life. No mean trick, if you ask me. I’m a high-level person, not good with details. Give me a history book and I can tell you about the themes, the ideas, the significance -- but not the dates, the people, the microcosmic aspects. And I like aesthetic things, I like things to be beautiful, not messy. In mah jhong I almost never win because I go for the big hands, all the same suit, not wanting to settle for a mishmash of ugly things.
But somehow in these past three years, leaving the US and leaving the PhD has given me, temporarily at least, a sense of that micro and macro good life. The details of this life are still wonderfully strange enough to lend a glint of fascination to the everyday, and the freedom of embarking on this strange journey has opened, even in this crowded land, a sense of wide number of roads available in this world. Who knows which one we’ll travel next.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Ex-pat stories
One of the most convenient aspects of life in Seoul is its delivery system. Almost everything can be delivered, and delivered quickly. I go to buy groceries at the grocery store a few minutes’ walk from our apartment, but rather than hauling the heavy purchases back, I have them delivered to my apartment. I order everything from books to cosmetics on the internet and usually these are delivered, free of charge, within one or two days. If you really want something quickly, you can order “quick” delivery, and your things will arrive an hour or two. KC does this when he orders computers, so he can enjoy the ecstasy of instant gratification. When I needed to pick up an album from the photographer and was too tired to trek across town to get it, I asked him to send it to me that way. It only cost a few dollars and arrived in an hour. When I arrived at the Immigration Office (90 min journey from my apartment) to renew my visa missing one of the documents, the officer said, no problem. I left my passport and foreigner’s card there, faxed the missing document, and she sent my passport and foreigner’s card through a delivery service. Even the American Embassy sent Max’s new passport that way, saving us a painful trip to the Embassy.
And, of course, there’s the food. OH, the food. Chinese food is the fastest, arriving sometimes only 5 minutes after I ordered it, leading me to wonder how they cook it so fast. Pizza takes a little longer, maybe a half an hour. You can order beer and friend chicken, or kimpap and soup. For many months after Max’s birth, I had soup delivered daily to the apartment at 6am so I wouldn’t have to cook breakfast. All these services are either free or dirt cheap. Although food is expensive here, labor is cheap, and service important. With so many people and so many stores, competition is fierce, and consumers like me take advantage.
But, alas, if you don’t speak Korean it is hard to enjoy this aspect of Seoul life. Some, like my Chinese friend Helen, memorize one key sentence of Korean: “This is apartment 1407. Please send me one large pepperoni pizza.” She calls the number, says her one sentence, and hangs up, because after all, she can’t understand anything the other person says.
Helen’s friend, let’s call her Mary, does the same thing. Every week, when she needs her cheese fix (funny, those cravings for cheese), she calls the number, says her one sentence, hangs up, and a little while later the pizza arrives. One day Mary’s Korean friend comes to visit and Mary says, “Oh good! YOU can order the pizza this time.” So Mary’s friend calls the number, and the person on the phone says, “FIANLLY, someone who can speak Korean! Will you tell that American that this is NOT a pizza place?!?!” Turns out that all this time, Mary had been calling someone’s house, and that person had ordered the pizza for her...
And, of course, there’s the food. OH, the food. Chinese food is the fastest, arriving sometimes only 5 minutes after I ordered it, leading me to wonder how they cook it so fast. Pizza takes a little longer, maybe a half an hour. You can order beer and friend chicken, or kimpap and soup. For many months after Max’s birth, I had soup delivered daily to the apartment at 6am so I wouldn’t have to cook breakfast. All these services are either free or dirt cheap. Although food is expensive here, labor is cheap, and service important. With so many people and so many stores, competition is fierce, and consumers like me take advantage.
But, alas, if you don’t speak Korean it is hard to enjoy this aspect of Seoul life. Some, like my Chinese friend Helen, memorize one key sentence of Korean: “This is apartment 1407. Please send me one large pepperoni pizza.” She calls the number, says her one sentence, and hangs up, because after all, she can’t understand anything the other person says.
Helen’s friend, let’s call her Mary, does the same thing. Every week, when she needs her cheese fix (funny, those cravings for cheese), she calls the number, says her one sentence, hangs up, and a little while later the pizza arrives. One day Mary’s Korean friend comes to visit and Mary says, “Oh good! YOU can order the pizza this time.” So Mary’s friend calls the number, and the person on the phone says, “FIANLLY, someone who can speak Korean! Will you tell that American that this is NOT a pizza place?!?!” Turns out that all this time, Mary had been calling someone’s house, and that person had ordered the pizza for her...
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Self-monitoring
Part 1: different systems
My friend Emily was here this last month, visiting Asia for the first time. She got to experience, for a time, what it is to live here -- staying with us, going to Aiden’s school to help me teach, sightseeing, eating Korean food, throwing away food garbage, paying outrageous prices for fruit, and being the only white person in the vicinity.
She was at the gym on her last day here, running the treadmill and lifting weights, and an older man approached her. “You’re exercising too fast,” he chastized her. “Slow down!”
I had warned her about this. One of the hardest things to learn in another culture is what is OK to say and what is rude. In Korea, it is completely fine and normal to comment on other people’s appearance: “You have gained weight,” “Do you know you have a pimple on your forehead?” or sometimes women will just come over and brush lint or dandruff off my shirt. It is also OK for an older person to give constructive advice based on his or her wealth of knowledge derived from age: “Your baby should be wearing more clothes.” “Don’t use your MP3 player near your belly when you are pregnant.” “Eating kimchee prevents cancer.” Or: “Don’t exercise so fast.”
Even though I warned her, she was unable to follow through with the standard response: a “yes” followed by a bow of the head as acknowledgment, promptly followed by incident amnesia. Instead, she gave him that kind of smile/grimace which is technically a smile but communicates, “Fuck off.” As she said later, still filled with anger, “It took all my control not to scream, ‘I was a varsity athlete in college and am the only one in this gym breaking a sweat you #W$%#$%^%’!”
That’s the hard part of this whole cultural intermingling: if they receive you, its on their own terms, and if you respond, it is on your own terms. It is hard to break out of these, even when you know what’s happening. I’m sure that man was trying to break the ice, trying to be friendly and welcoming. And Emily wanted to me civil and kind and friendly as well, but her upbringing and personality made it almost impossible to provide the kind of response that he would have expected.
I run into this almost everyday. I’m pretty good now at feigning the smile and nod, except when it comes to my own father-in-law. I remember a conversation with my friend Nicole, who has been living here for 2 years, complaining about how people comment on appearance. “How is that not rude??” she asked. The only way I could think to explain it is that in the U.S., if you were talking with your boss, exchanging ideas about something, and your boss said something that you thought was ridiculous, you could say, strongly, “I completely disagree and think your approach is wrong,” though depending on your work and your boss your response could range from “That’s complete bullshit” to a more placating, “Perhaps we should consider different options.”
But in Korea, disagreeing with someone of higher status is trickier, and a strong response would most likely be taken as impolite. But here, commenting on some factual part of a person’s appearance -- “you look tired,” “you’ve gained weight” “you’re breaking out” -- is not considered rude. Whereas in the U.S., even if someone gained 100 pounds, you most likely wouldn’t comment. Different systems.
Part 2: living in a fishbowl
When we first moved here, I always felt that I stuck out, that people were watching me, remarking on my foreignness. I don’t know if that was the case or if my psychological paranoia was just a manifestation of the social awkwardness I felt (as my friend Ezra used to say, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you”). On the one hand, being an American (because other nationalities don’t have the same power) here can give you a sense of privilege, of power, of uniqueness that you don’t have when you’re just another person at the mall California. You’ve become exotic. It is my impression that many Americans, especially English teachers (I’m sorry in advance if I piss people off) come here to escape something in the U.S., and sometimes that something is just a feeling of mediocrity. Here, you are Someone. Often an Enviable Someone.
But there are a bunch of other power issues. Being a foreigner gives me power because Koreans are very sensitive to how other nations see them. One day I came upon some middle school boys writing graffiti on the side of our building and I scolded them, first in Korean, and then in English, partly because I was upset and fumbling for words and therefore not being my most articulate self in Korean, but also because I knew if I made clear that I was a foreigner my words (and the experience as a whole) would probably have more weight. I even told them that a foreigner seeing what they were doing would consider them ignorant and this country as an ignorant one (though inside myself I was thinking of all the graffiti in places like New York, and how the US is home to the art of graffiti and knowing I was grossly exaggerating....) Bad person. But hopefully they won't do it again.
But you are also representative -- not just an American but sometimes The American, somehow standing in for all that is good or bad about the U.S. in general. For the many Koreans who have never been to the U.S. and have had limited access to foreigners, your small habits and idiosyncrasies will fill in the largely absent pieces of a larger picture of what Americans Are Like. (And remember that a large part of the ex-pat community is made up of the military.)
Sometimes, after the excitement of being unique wears off, people get sick of being remarked upon. I am reminded of a story of a woman who was tired of people pointing at her and saying “외국사람" (“foreigner”) so she began pointing back and shouting, “한국사람" (“Korean”).
And the Korean Americans who come have a tough time -- they are not marked much by their appearance (especially now that fashion and facial features have changed so much here), often are just as lost and confused as other foreigners, and yet people expect them to act like Koreans and fit in socially and linguistically.
How does all this affect an ex-pat’s ego? Or my kids’ ego? After a while you get used to being the odd one, but you can also become addicted to that feeling of being special -- the one trusted as an expert on the English language (although you can’t spell worth a damn, and know nothing about grammar), the one given superstar status by virtue of having attended a Name University. After living in a place where you are the Special One, it can be hard to leave. Now, I walk around without much self-consciousness, but I still get more attention by virtue of being different. Shopkeepers remember me, awakening from their dazed reverie to ask me how long I’ve been here and compliment my Korean, and my students’ mothers stop me in the street to talk to me and thank me. After such attention, how can you go back to being an average Jane who has to bag her own groceries and pump her own gas just like everyone else?
Part 3: opting out
But there’s another side to being an American in Seoul: being able to opt out of the perpetual sizing-up that goes on in every social situation.
You know what I mean. You enter a store, and secretly, furtively, you are sizing up everyone around you. Are these people better than I? Are they better looking, cooler, are their children better behaved? We all do it. Maybe women do it more than men?? Even in a place of absolute self-confidence and pride, isn’t there a little part of you that listens to the woman behind you in line, talking loudly about her vacation in Cabo, that thinks, “She’s SO showing off for everyone else. Does she think we care? I’m so glad I don’t feel that insecure.”
Although I stand out, it’s nice to enter a building and check out the Sizing-Up process from a position a bit removed. I can enter a nice cafe in wrinkled clothes and sneakers and not feel too awkwardly underdressed, because, hey, I’m American. I can study the women with their strappy high heels and Bling, preening and fawning over each other and be amused in my private little world. Or just interested, because in some ways the preening and fawning is the same here, and in some ways it isn’t. With women of a certain age and class, there’s a lot of “Oh, I’m so tired, the kids have been so hard, and I should exercise but it’s too hot and my mother-in-law has been working me so hard...” complaining, followed by the requisite, “Wow, you poor thing, you’ve had it really bad, you need to rest...” type sympathy. This type of conversation makes me realize how socially unacceptable it is to complain in the U.S.
Part 4: sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
I went to school here with an Irish guy named Eamon who lived in Korea for 4 years, teaching English. He liked to mess around with people sometimes, especially after he shaved his head -- he’d tell them he was a Buddhist monk or some other concoction. He grew tired of the same questions, over and over again: “Where are you from? Are you an English teacher? Do you like Korea? Do you like kimchee? Do you like Korean girls? Are you married? Are you a Christian?”
One day he was standing around, thinking his own thoughts, waiting for a bus when he caught a Korean guy staring at him, not too far away. Inwardly he sighed and prepared himself for the onslaught of the same questions. But he was annoyed, and wanted to be left alone, to be just an anonymous person waiting for a bus. So he put on his headphones and scowled a bit, and turned away.
Then the guy began to approach, trying to catch Eamon’s eye. Eamon’s scowl deepened, until it was a “fuck off” kind of face, and the guy hesistated, but then kept approaching.
As he neared Eamon, he leaned in close and whispered, “Your fly is open.”
Lest we lose sight of the fact... sometimes a person is just a person. The people are not all out to get you.
My friend Emily was here this last month, visiting Asia for the first time. She got to experience, for a time, what it is to live here -- staying with us, going to Aiden’s school to help me teach, sightseeing, eating Korean food, throwing away food garbage, paying outrageous prices for fruit, and being the only white person in the vicinity.
She was at the gym on her last day here, running the treadmill and lifting weights, and an older man approached her. “You’re exercising too fast,” he chastized her. “Slow down!”
I had warned her about this. One of the hardest things to learn in another culture is what is OK to say and what is rude. In Korea, it is completely fine and normal to comment on other people’s appearance: “You have gained weight,” “Do you know you have a pimple on your forehead?” or sometimes women will just come over and brush lint or dandruff off my shirt. It is also OK for an older person to give constructive advice based on his or her wealth of knowledge derived from age: “Your baby should be wearing more clothes.” “Don’t use your MP3 player near your belly when you are pregnant.” “Eating kimchee prevents cancer.” Or: “Don’t exercise so fast.”
Even though I warned her, she was unable to follow through with the standard response: a “yes” followed by a bow of the head as acknowledgment, promptly followed by incident amnesia. Instead, she gave him that kind of smile/grimace which is technically a smile but communicates, “Fuck off.” As she said later, still filled with anger, “It took all my control not to scream, ‘I was a varsity athlete in college and am the only one in this gym breaking a sweat you #W$%#$%^%’!”
That’s the hard part of this whole cultural intermingling: if they receive you, its on their own terms, and if you respond, it is on your own terms. It is hard to break out of these, even when you know what’s happening. I’m sure that man was trying to break the ice, trying to be friendly and welcoming. And Emily wanted to me civil and kind and friendly as well, but her upbringing and personality made it almost impossible to provide the kind of response that he would have expected.
I run into this almost everyday. I’m pretty good now at feigning the smile and nod, except when it comes to my own father-in-law. I remember a conversation with my friend Nicole, who has been living here for 2 years, complaining about how people comment on appearance. “How is that not rude??” she asked. The only way I could think to explain it is that in the U.S., if you were talking with your boss, exchanging ideas about something, and your boss said something that you thought was ridiculous, you could say, strongly, “I completely disagree and think your approach is wrong,” though depending on your work and your boss your response could range from “That’s complete bullshit” to a more placating, “Perhaps we should consider different options.”
But in Korea, disagreeing with someone of higher status is trickier, and a strong response would most likely be taken as impolite. But here, commenting on some factual part of a person’s appearance -- “you look tired,” “you’ve gained weight” “you’re breaking out” -- is not considered rude. Whereas in the U.S., even if someone gained 100 pounds, you most likely wouldn’t comment. Different systems.
Part 2: living in a fishbowl
When we first moved here, I always felt that I stuck out, that people were watching me, remarking on my foreignness. I don’t know if that was the case or if my psychological paranoia was just a manifestation of the social awkwardness I felt (as my friend Ezra used to say, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you”). On the one hand, being an American (because other nationalities don’t have the same power) here can give you a sense of privilege, of power, of uniqueness that you don’t have when you’re just another person at the mall California. You’ve become exotic. It is my impression that many Americans, especially English teachers (I’m sorry in advance if I piss people off) come here to escape something in the U.S., and sometimes that something is just a feeling of mediocrity. Here, you are Someone. Often an Enviable Someone.
But there are a bunch of other power issues. Being a foreigner gives me power because Koreans are very sensitive to how other nations see them. One day I came upon some middle school boys writing graffiti on the side of our building and I scolded them, first in Korean, and then in English, partly because I was upset and fumbling for words and therefore not being my most articulate self in Korean, but also because I knew if I made clear that I was a foreigner my words (and the experience as a whole) would probably have more weight. I even told them that a foreigner seeing what they were doing would consider them ignorant and this country as an ignorant one (though inside myself I was thinking of all the graffiti in places like New York, and how the US is home to the art of graffiti and knowing I was grossly exaggerating....) Bad person. But hopefully they won't do it again.
But you are also representative -- not just an American but sometimes The American, somehow standing in for all that is good or bad about the U.S. in general. For the many Koreans who have never been to the U.S. and have had limited access to foreigners, your small habits and idiosyncrasies will fill in the largely absent pieces of a larger picture of what Americans Are Like. (And remember that a large part of the ex-pat community is made up of the military.)
Sometimes, after the excitement of being unique wears off, people get sick of being remarked upon. I am reminded of a story of a woman who was tired of people pointing at her and saying “외국사람" (“foreigner”) so she began pointing back and shouting, “한국사람" (“Korean”).
And the Korean Americans who come have a tough time -- they are not marked much by their appearance (especially now that fashion and facial features have changed so much here), often are just as lost and confused as other foreigners, and yet people expect them to act like Koreans and fit in socially and linguistically.
How does all this affect an ex-pat’s ego? Or my kids’ ego? After a while you get used to being the odd one, but you can also become addicted to that feeling of being special -- the one trusted as an expert on the English language (although you can’t spell worth a damn, and know nothing about grammar), the one given superstar status by virtue of having attended a Name University. After living in a place where you are the Special One, it can be hard to leave. Now, I walk around without much self-consciousness, but I still get more attention by virtue of being different. Shopkeepers remember me, awakening from their dazed reverie to ask me how long I’ve been here and compliment my Korean, and my students’ mothers stop me in the street to talk to me and thank me. After such attention, how can you go back to being an average Jane who has to bag her own groceries and pump her own gas just like everyone else?
Part 3: opting out
But there’s another side to being an American in Seoul: being able to opt out of the perpetual sizing-up that goes on in every social situation.
You know what I mean. You enter a store, and secretly, furtively, you are sizing up everyone around you. Are these people better than I? Are they better looking, cooler, are their children better behaved? We all do it. Maybe women do it more than men?? Even in a place of absolute self-confidence and pride, isn’t there a little part of you that listens to the woman behind you in line, talking loudly about her vacation in Cabo, that thinks, “She’s SO showing off for everyone else. Does she think we care? I’m so glad I don’t feel that insecure.”
Although I stand out, it’s nice to enter a building and check out the Sizing-Up process from a position a bit removed. I can enter a nice cafe in wrinkled clothes and sneakers and not feel too awkwardly underdressed, because, hey, I’m American. I can study the women with their strappy high heels and Bling, preening and fawning over each other and be amused in my private little world. Or just interested, because in some ways the preening and fawning is the same here, and in some ways it isn’t. With women of a certain age and class, there’s a lot of “Oh, I’m so tired, the kids have been so hard, and I should exercise but it’s too hot and my mother-in-law has been working me so hard...” complaining, followed by the requisite, “Wow, you poor thing, you’ve had it really bad, you need to rest...” type sympathy. This type of conversation makes me realize how socially unacceptable it is to complain in the U.S.
Part 4: sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
I went to school here with an Irish guy named Eamon who lived in Korea for 4 years, teaching English. He liked to mess around with people sometimes, especially after he shaved his head -- he’d tell them he was a Buddhist monk or some other concoction. He grew tired of the same questions, over and over again: “Where are you from? Are you an English teacher? Do you like Korea? Do you like kimchee? Do you like Korean girls? Are you married? Are you a Christian?”
One day he was standing around, thinking his own thoughts, waiting for a bus when he caught a Korean guy staring at him, not too far away. Inwardly he sighed and prepared himself for the onslaught of the same questions. But he was annoyed, and wanted to be left alone, to be just an anonymous person waiting for a bus. So he put on his headphones and scowled a bit, and turned away.
Then the guy began to approach, trying to catch Eamon’s eye. Eamon’s scowl deepened, until it was a “fuck off” kind of face, and the guy hesistated, but then kept approaching.
As he neared Eamon, he leaned in close and whispered, “Your fly is open.”
Lest we lose sight of the fact... sometimes a person is just a person. The people are not all out to get you.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Independence Day
OK. I know I’m late for an Independence Day post. I missed July 4th, both blog-wise as well as culturally. But I figure I can get a little slack here, since Korea’s Independence Day is August 15th so I can pick and choose my holidays at my convenience. Kind of like how I excuse being late with my New Year’s cards because Chinese New Year is in January or February. (Though I’m usually late for that one too... around St. Patrick’s Day I give up.)
This year the idea of independence is bittersweet. Not only am I missing the fireworks for at least the third year in the row, but I have also lately begun to morn the independence which is coming, slowly, like the drips of mustard off a hot dog, from Aiden.
We’ve been having our share of struggles lately, Aiden and I. He is very much like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes -- wrapped up in his own little world of battles with bad guys and the constant threat of monsters or dramatic death. His concept of death, though, is not so threatening -- he thinks it is easy to slip into death, but that the good guys will somehow come back to life. I’m always answering questions like, “Mommy, of I drink the bathwater will I die? Mommy, if it rains too much I’ll die, right?” His world doesn’t have many shades of gray.
He is a social kid, with a great imagination and an ability to play by himself that I’m always grateful for when he pops out of bed at 5am. But when it comes to accomplishing tasks in an orderly and efficient fashion he is, shall we say, out to lunch. This morning he was running late for the bus, particularly because he needed to have a last minute poop. “Don’t forget to wash your hands!” I yell at him. The bathroom is suspiciously quiet -- no noise of running water. “Aiden, are you washing your hands?” “Yes, Mommy, I’m shooting my hands with water from the water gun.”
Ah, Foucault, when did I become the instrument of discipline and punishment? I used to be such a good postmodern disobedient, throwing about terms like “deconstruction” and “reading against the grain.” Suddenly I am The Man, armed with my Skinner Boxes of Positive Reinforcement: charts and checklists of Aiden’s duties so he can check them off, a sticker chart where he gets a sticker every time he does something the first time I ask, etc. I deliver long lectures (actually, having Max has been really helpful, because Aiden gets to experience how it feels when someone doesn’t listen to him...) where I implore him to listen better. I have replaced my over-the-shoulder commands with the power of the Gaze: kneeling in front of him and making him look me in the eye. Here I am, promoting modernity, with its rigid schedules and sense of time and attention to productive efficiency.
I am the source of any and all efficiency in the day. I am a streamlined, multi-tasking machine. I can carry on this dialogue with Aiden while conducting delicate negotiations with Max over changing his diaper (“Do you want Mommy to change your diaper or Daddy to change your diaper? Do you want to change your diaper now or in two minutes?” Gotta give choices. Otherwise I have to chase him around and deal with “No” and kicking and crying.) And do the dishes and laundry and everything else.
Aiden, on the other hand, will always take the most indirect method to do something. Brushing his teeth involves light saber battles and a tour of the apartment (“how many times do I have to tell you to brush at the sink?”). Putting on his clothes involves throwing the articles up in the air or at Max, or putting them on in different ways so that he has more than two arms, etc. (“Aiden where do your clothes go? Fold up your pajamas!”) And he always has to ask me where his clothes are, even though he knows perfectly well where they are. (“Mommy, where are my clothes?” “Where do you THINK your clothes are?” “Oh, that’s right.”)
So there’s actually a kind of double disciplining going on here: I am disciplining and training myself as much as I am him. Gone are the halcyon days of solitaire, grande lattes, and reading in bed until noon. Gone are the days of writing e-mails to professors in limerick. Gone are the days of 20 minute showers and performing experiments on font size. Now the only surreptitious pleasures I allow myself are applying wrinkle cream and reading people.com. The Jennifer who used to paint and spend hours rewriting papers has been replaced by a robot who tracks her kid’s progress in his math workbooks with Tayloristic zeal.
And yet, at night I take out those Calvin and Hobbes comics and laugh, and write about those little Aiden moments -- not the big talks about sex or life or drugs, not the moment he wins the PGA tour (KC is planning that moment as we speak), not his first step (already forgotten) or first word (ditto). Rather, I cradle in my memory those moments when he’s sitting upside-down on the sofa, bottom in the air, staring into space. Or when he tells me he likes the song Bang-a-Gong by T. Rex but he doesn’t know what it means. I love the fact that he can make sense of the world in his odd way, with no pressure to sum everything up, with no pressure to define who he is. He can gain a morning’s pleasure from a pair of chopsticks, or by becoming a Blob under the blanket and just moving threateningly around the apartment. He just is, butt in the air, focused on the next moment’s adventure, excited to wake up in the morning and surrendering so completely to sleep at night.
And having reached such a high level of training and efficiency, this is the world I have lost irrevocably. I can no longer hear Santa’s bells ring or go into Narnia. My world’s lurking dangers and secret places provide me little pleasure, and my imaginary friends have all become investment bankers. After 28 years of suburban life, my way of dealing with the bustle and competitive pressures of city life is to buckle and strain and transmit these pressures downward, to Aiden, rather than protect him from them.
It is getting late, and Aiden should be in bed, and I have asked him 5 times to put his pajamas on. But he and Max have hidden naked under the covers, giggling and shaking with anticipation for the moment when they are discovered (even though their feet have poked through the other side). I bite my tongue and stand back for a minute, letting the anticipation build. “Where are Aiden and Max? I can’t find them anywhere! Did they go for a ride? Did they hop on a space shuttle?” Suddenly they pop out, shrieking and squealing, Aiden with his skinny, muscular little boy body, hair about two months past needing to be cut, and Max with his protruding belly and his huge dimples. Bedtime can wait a few minutes. Although I can’t give up the training, I need to figure how to how to train both him and myself to keep the world of schedules and efficiency in the background of life, without dismantling the serendipitous daydreams that come to us, moment by moment.
This year the idea of independence is bittersweet. Not only am I missing the fireworks for at least the third year in the row, but I have also lately begun to morn the independence which is coming, slowly, like the drips of mustard off a hot dog, from Aiden.
We’ve been having our share of struggles lately, Aiden and I. He is very much like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes -- wrapped up in his own little world of battles with bad guys and the constant threat of monsters or dramatic death. His concept of death, though, is not so threatening -- he thinks it is easy to slip into death, but that the good guys will somehow come back to life. I’m always answering questions like, “Mommy, of I drink the bathwater will I die? Mommy, if it rains too much I’ll die, right?” His world doesn’t have many shades of gray.
He is a social kid, with a great imagination and an ability to play by himself that I’m always grateful for when he pops out of bed at 5am. But when it comes to accomplishing tasks in an orderly and efficient fashion he is, shall we say, out to lunch. This morning he was running late for the bus, particularly because he needed to have a last minute poop. “Don’t forget to wash your hands!” I yell at him. The bathroom is suspiciously quiet -- no noise of running water. “Aiden, are you washing your hands?” “Yes, Mommy, I’m shooting my hands with water from the water gun.”
Ah, Foucault, when did I become the instrument of discipline and punishment? I used to be such a good postmodern disobedient, throwing about terms like “deconstruction” and “reading against the grain.” Suddenly I am The Man, armed with my Skinner Boxes of Positive Reinforcement: charts and checklists of Aiden’s duties so he can check them off, a sticker chart where he gets a sticker every time he does something the first time I ask, etc. I deliver long lectures (actually, having Max has been really helpful, because Aiden gets to experience how it feels when someone doesn’t listen to him...) where I implore him to listen better. I have replaced my over-the-shoulder commands with the power of the Gaze: kneeling in front of him and making him look me in the eye. Here I am, promoting modernity, with its rigid schedules and sense of time and attention to productive efficiency.
I am the source of any and all efficiency in the day. I am a streamlined, multi-tasking machine. I can carry on this dialogue with Aiden while conducting delicate negotiations with Max over changing his diaper (“Do you want Mommy to change your diaper or Daddy to change your diaper? Do you want to change your diaper now or in two minutes?” Gotta give choices. Otherwise I have to chase him around and deal with “No” and kicking and crying.) And do the dishes and laundry and everything else.
Aiden, on the other hand, will always take the most indirect method to do something. Brushing his teeth involves light saber battles and a tour of the apartment (“how many times do I have to tell you to brush at the sink?”). Putting on his clothes involves throwing the articles up in the air or at Max, or putting them on in different ways so that he has more than two arms, etc. (“Aiden where do your clothes go? Fold up your pajamas!”) And he always has to ask me where his clothes are, even though he knows perfectly well where they are. (“Mommy, where are my clothes?” “Where do you THINK your clothes are?” “Oh, that’s right.”)
So there’s actually a kind of double disciplining going on here: I am disciplining and training myself as much as I am him. Gone are the halcyon days of solitaire, grande lattes, and reading in bed until noon. Gone are the days of writing e-mails to professors in limerick. Gone are the days of 20 minute showers and performing experiments on font size. Now the only surreptitious pleasures I allow myself are applying wrinkle cream and reading people.com. The Jennifer who used to paint and spend hours rewriting papers has been replaced by a robot who tracks her kid’s progress in his math workbooks with Tayloristic zeal.
And yet, at night I take out those Calvin and Hobbes comics and laugh, and write about those little Aiden moments -- not the big talks about sex or life or drugs, not the moment he wins the PGA tour (KC is planning that moment as we speak), not his first step (already forgotten) or first word (ditto). Rather, I cradle in my memory those moments when he’s sitting upside-down on the sofa, bottom in the air, staring into space. Or when he tells me he likes the song Bang-a-Gong by T. Rex but he doesn’t know what it means. I love the fact that he can make sense of the world in his odd way, with no pressure to sum everything up, with no pressure to define who he is. He can gain a morning’s pleasure from a pair of chopsticks, or by becoming a Blob under the blanket and just moving threateningly around the apartment. He just is, butt in the air, focused on the next moment’s adventure, excited to wake up in the morning and surrendering so completely to sleep at night.
And having reached such a high level of training and efficiency, this is the world I have lost irrevocably. I can no longer hear Santa’s bells ring or go into Narnia. My world’s lurking dangers and secret places provide me little pleasure, and my imaginary friends have all become investment bankers. After 28 years of suburban life, my way of dealing with the bustle and competitive pressures of city life is to buckle and strain and transmit these pressures downward, to Aiden, rather than protect him from them.
It is getting late, and Aiden should be in bed, and I have asked him 5 times to put his pajamas on. But he and Max have hidden naked under the covers, giggling and shaking with anticipation for the moment when they are discovered (even though their feet have poked through the other side). I bite my tongue and stand back for a minute, letting the anticipation build. “Where are Aiden and Max? I can’t find them anywhere! Did they go for a ride? Did they hop on a space shuttle?” Suddenly they pop out, shrieking and squealing, Aiden with his skinny, muscular little boy body, hair about two months past needing to be cut, and Max with his protruding belly and his huge dimples. Bedtime can wait a few minutes. Although I can’t give up the training, I need to figure how to how to train both him and myself to keep the world of schedules and efficiency in the background of life, without dismantling the serendipitous daydreams that come to us, moment by moment.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Stories to embarass Aiden when he's older...#5
Aiden mixes up words sometimes.. perhaps he takes after K.C.?
My friend Nicole gave Aiden a brown Bionicle (Lego-type toy) for Christmas. For some reason, he kept mixing up the words "Bionicle" and "diarrhea," so he kept asking me, "Mommy, where is my brown diarrhea?"
My friend Nicole gave Aiden a brown Bionicle (Lego-type toy) for Christmas. For some reason, he kept mixing up the words "Bionicle" and "diarrhea," so he kept asking me, "Mommy, where is my brown diarrhea?"
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
flashes of anger
“Hurry up!” I call to Aiden, although I have promised myself I would try not to tell him to hurry all the time. It is almost 2 and my in-laws will be here any minute. Aiden, in his usual fashion, has taken the most indirect route possible from the bedroom to the door, hurdling over various toys, stepping on more toys, knocking some papers off my desk, scattering his pajamas and dropping his socks along the way. Is it impossible for a 5-year old to do anything efficiently?
I am getting stressed out, even though we aren’t really late for anything important -- but I know how much my in-laws hate it when we’re not ready on time. Old people. They don’t have anything to do, and yet they are so attached to their schedules. My mom says that old people are just like toddlers, except no one wants to kidnap them. I am frantically throwing toys in their boxes and shoving dirty dishes out of sight. When my in-laws come, I need to keep of the appearance of being at least somewhat neat, although this is next to impossible with two kids. They are like little monkeys, scattering lego pieces all over the floor and hiding food in odd places. I find caches of important documents and spoons and overdue DVDs hidden in the nooks and crannies of our apartment. I know my in-laws know how messy we are although they pretend to ignore the fact.
I remember my first meetings with my in-laws: decked out in my finest clothes, new heels, and stockings, with what I hoped was a happy, friendly smile plastered on my face, back straight as a ruler, knees firmly pressed together. We bowed and smiled and gestured at each other, trying to make the best of things, me trying to convince them and myself that having Korean in-laws would be just fine, and that I could win them over; they, probably trying to convince themselves that this American girl would not be a complete disaster. I think they’re reasoning went something like this: She’s not really American, her parents are Chinese, so she’s really Chinese. And Chinese is close to Korean, so she’ll be able to understand us... right?
I finally manage to get my kids ready, and my in-laws show up, right on time, of course. I see my mother in-law scan the messy floor (didn’t have time to vacuum and mop) and my wrinkled shirt, but she doesn’t say anything. I make the kids bow and greet them, though it takes Aiden several tries because he’s determined to be silly and use his duck voice, and then he keeps dramatically falling down at the end of the bow. Anything Max does is cute, so my in-laws eat up his greeting even though he barely looks at them and is playing with his penis the whole time. My father-in-law chides Aiden for not doing his bow properly, “Aiden. Do it straight! Look me in the eye and don’t wiggle! Why can’t you do it right?” Having worked his way out of the bare rubble of the Korean War to feed and clothe his brothers and sisters, then his own children, winning them a better life, he can’t let any opportunity go to teach us all something. At 5, Aiden has now grown tall and mature enough to be the newest target of his grandfather’s improvement projects. So every encounter with him is now a teaching moment -- a chance for his grandfather to point out how Aiden could be more polite, know more math, exercise more, save money, and conserve electricity. Aiden has quickly learned to ignore what his grandfather says, which makes his bowing sloppier than ever, which unfortunately reflects poorly on my skills as a mother, making this simple, daily greeting scene even more stressful for me. I’m shooting threatening faces at Aiden behind my father-in-law’s back, but he gleefully ignores those too, caught up in some invisible light saber battle, spit shooting out of his mouth as he “ppeww chang zhhjjjj arghs” his way across the room, escaping from his enemies.
I greet them with a bow and ask them if they’ve eaten, and if they want any coffee. My father-in-law seems annoyed at the question (of course they’ve eaten), but he would also be annoyed if I didn’t ask it -- it’s the polite thing to say. My mother-in-law is kinder, tells me that they’re fine and fusses over me a little, telling me I look tired and worrying that the kids are wearing me out. I tell her not to worry; I’m fine. This is the script we run through to show concern for each other: I ask them about their meals and their health, they fuss over me, I reassure them. My father-in-law’s grumpiness is part of the script too, he wants to believe it is his role to take care of us and not vice-versa. And yet he wants me to act out my role of the daughter-in-law. This script that we follow is so laden with expectations on both sides, sometimes it exhausts me, unraveling the nuances of each action, each question asked or not asked, and weighing the correct response.
In the beginning, we started with grand gestures. I was over the moon, and prepared to adapt to their world, to learn Korean and act as Korean as I could. I listened with sympathy to KC’s stories of his father’s life, which emerged slowly, one by one, as we cuddled and grew closer night after night. These were family matters, family tragedies, not to be shared with just anyone. When the Korean War began in 1950, KC’s father was only 18, and he and his younger siblings were stuck on one side of the bridge while his parents were on the other. His family was split not only physically but ideologically: KC’s grandfather had been a prominant landowner and member of the aristocracy, making the family an enemy of the Communists; KC’s father’s second brother was a general in the Communist army, making the Nationalists suspicious of the family. KC’s father, suddenly forced to care for his four younger siblings (his youngest brother was just a baby) with no money, went to friends for help, but most were too afraid to help him. He was thrown in an internment camp and sentenced to death, but escaped that punishment at the last minute through some technicality. He briefly saw his mother in the internment camp, but never found out what happened to her, or his father. After the war KC’s father worked odd jobs to survive and raise his siblings. He married, but still under suspicion by the then dictatorial “democratic” regime because of his brother’s Communism, he was under surveillance by the KIA (Korean CIA). His wife died of breast cancer when KC was 11, and lost KC’s sister several years later. Only in recent years, since the government has become less repressive, do KC’s father and aunts and uncles gather carefully together to celebrate holidays and birthday. And that’s just some of it... How much more can one family deal with? It was easy to feel sympathy from afar, for my heart to go out to a person with such a hard life, whose life has brought little happiness and much struggle. I understand where his annoying idiosyncrasies come from, and to some extent admired the strength and determination which allowed him to survive so much. I intended to be a balm for them in their old age, to serve them and make their lives easy, to be the daughter-in-law they had hoped for. It was too late to change them, I thought. It is not my place to try to convert them to feminism. I could be a feminist and still be a good daughter-in-law, I thought. I understood that I was not just a daughter-in-law, I was KC’s wife.
KC -- the pride and joy of his father’s life -- the fruit of all his pain -- the one who went to the U.S., the one who got his PhD from Stanford, the one who got married and had two sons. I know how much KC’s successes mean to him. I understand that he can’t normally express happiness or live in the moment because his whole life has been one back-stabbing after another, a constant struggle to prepare for the next blow. He has survived because he has trained himself to look gift-horses in the mouth, to prepare for the worst-case scenario, to be wary of the powerful and always, always, to push and prepare his son.
But his son lives in a different world. KC’s father was only able to finish high school because of the war. KC has a PhD. KC has lived in the US for 18 years, apart from his family.
KC has come back to Korea now, an act which excites and disturbs his father to no end. To have lived 18 years without your own children, with few relatives in this world -- how does that feel? To be alone as you grow old, seeing your friends with their own grandchildren, having nothing to fill the time. But, for KC’s father, the U.S. represented freedom, safety, and success. Freedom from the government of Korea (which he still doesn’t trust) and the burden of the family history; safety from war; success in education and business.
Although I didn’t cook and didn’t do much cleaning, my in-laws treated me as they felt a daughter-in-law should be treated. My mother-in-law bought me nice clothes and suits, and put make-up on my face as she would a little doll. She used her savings to buy me a Cartier watch and three sets of jewelry (diamond, sapphire, and ruby) as wedding gifts. I was shocked by this generosity: this may be common in Korea, but I don’t even wear jewelry. What was I to do with such gifts? They were beyond my style of living and incomprehensible to me.
This unexpected generosity caused the first of many subtle negotiations between our parents. My in-laws assumed that such gift-giving was traditional in China as well, as indeed I believe it is. But my parents, though raised in China, had very practical American wedding expectations. The gave us some money and one of their old cars to use, but of what use is jewelry? I had to diplomatically suggest to my mother that she buy KC a similar watch, so the families could consider themselves even. These things are not logical: even though both families think of themselves as open-minded and generous, in the back of their minds the demon of “are they looking down upon us?” lurks. Each gesture, each word is interpreted differently, so even though we think we’re on the same page, often we’re not.
Our parents’ first meeting, two days before the wedding, illustrates this perfectly. We chose a steakhouse as a “neutral” location. My mother wore a nice suit; KC’s mother wore a dress and shiny jewelry. Our waiter, who looked like a Iowa farmboy, broke the ice; he had spent 4 years teaching English in Korea and spoke Korean quite well. “What, you don’t speak Chinese?” joked my father. Turns out he spoke some Chinese too. Both sets of parents smiled woodenly, eyes wandering, wondering where to look, fiddling with their silverware. KC hurriedly ordered some wine.
Wine glass in hand, KC’s father gave the first toast. “gombei!” (“cheers”). Unfortunately, in Chinese, “ganbei” means you have to drain your glass. My father, in surprise, drained his glass; my father-in-law, seeing this, quickly followed suit. Glasses were refilled, my father-in-law offering another “gombei”; miscommunication again draining both glasses and ushering in drunkeness. My father-in-law’s English suddenly improved and soon he and my father were crudely communicating by writing Chinese characters on a napkin. My father refilled my father-in-law’s glass, suggesting “no ganbei this time.” Finally the varying meaning of “ganbei” in the two languages is discovered and everyone had a good sloshy laugh.
We gotten beyond the formulaic greetings and are now heading out the door to the car. My father-in-law, hating any waste of time, has already taken off down the hall taking some recycling with him. I hate taking out the garbage but I know, or at least believe, one of the reasons he so ostentatiously takes out some of our garbage every time he visits is to make a point about a.) how efficiently he uses his time and b.) how slovenly we are. The boys and my mother-in-law follow slowly behind him, Max stopping to try out all the neighbors’ bikes in the hall, Aiden having to return to the apartment because he realizes he has to pee, even though I asked him not 5 minutes ago and he said he didn’t have to go.
In the car I am nervous; I am still not used to driving in Seoul, and having my in-laws in the car makes me more nervous. My father-in-law is the worse kind of backseat driver, suddenly yelling, “stop stop!” or dramatically drawing in his breath; otherwise offering helpful advice, “you don’t have your hands at 10:00 and 2:00 -- that’s why you turn so clumsily.”
The conversation turns to Aiden’s taekwondo. I used to take him to class, but after Max’s birth, KC’s father took over that job. I was grateful to them for their help, though I missed seeing for myself what was going on. The things that I would see as important were not the same things that KC’s father would see. Aiden had been unhappy at taekwondo recently, and I had finally found out that his instructor had changed, and that he didn’t like the new instructor as much as the old one. I am annoyed that KC’s father didn’t mention this to me. I ask KC’s father, “Why didn’t you mention me that his instructor changed?” This is not a rude question in English, but unfortunately I translate it directly into Korean, not realizing that this particular phrasing sound rude and accusatory. KC’s father explodes at me. “What am I, your servant boy?” He recovers quickly, realizing by my face that I had not intentionally meant to be rude. He tries to cover up by giving me a lecture on my tone and phrasing. But I am shocked by his anger, and angry myself. I WAS annoyed, and was not trying to be really polite, but I wasn’t trying to be rude either. I’m doing my best here. I don’t HAVE to speak Korean. Of course I will make mistakes. His lecture only makes me angrier. I’m not Korean, why should I bow and smile and mimic subserviance? How Korean do you want me to be?
In a few moments our years of small eruptions, of assumptions and miscommunications and good intentions, of small pricks and simmering frustrations has emerged like lava from a volcano, rushing towards the surface, filling the car with its suffocating smoke.
I am getting stressed out, even though we aren’t really late for anything important -- but I know how much my in-laws hate it when we’re not ready on time. Old people. They don’t have anything to do, and yet they are so attached to their schedules. My mom says that old people are just like toddlers, except no one wants to kidnap them. I am frantically throwing toys in their boxes and shoving dirty dishes out of sight. When my in-laws come, I need to keep of the appearance of being at least somewhat neat, although this is next to impossible with two kids. They are like little monkeys, scattering lego pieces all over the floor and hiding food in odd places. I find caches of important documents and spoons and overdue DVDs hidden in the nooks and crannies of our apartment. I know my in-laws know how messy we are although they pretend to ignore the fact.
I remember my first meetings with my in-laws: decked out in my finest clothes, new heels, and stockings, with what I hoped was a happy, friendly smile plastered on my face, back straight as a ruler, knees firmly pressed together. We bowed and smiled and gestured at each other, trying to make the best of things, me trying to convince them and myself that having Korean in-laws would be just fine, and that I could win them over; they, probably trying to convince themselves that this American girl would not be a complete disaster. I think they’re reasoning went something like this: She’s not really American, her parents are Chinese, so she’s really Chinese. And Chinese is close to Korean, so she’ll be able to understand us... right?
I finally manage to get my kids ready, and my in-laws show up, right on time, of course. I see my mother in-law scan the messy floor (didn’t have time to vacuum and mop) and my wrinkled shirt, but she doesn’t say anything. I make the kids bow and greet them, though it takes Aiden several tries because he’s determined to be silly and use his duck voice, and then he keeps dramatically falling down at the end of the bow. Anything Max does is cute, so my in-laws eat up his greeting even though he barely looks at them and is playing with his penis the whole time. My father-in-law chides Aiden for not doing his bow properly, “Aiden. Do it straight! Look me in the eye and don’t wiggle! Why can’t you do it right?” Having worked his way out of the bare rubble of the Korean War to feed and clothe his brothers and sisters, then his own children, winning them a better life, he can’t let any opportunity go to teach us all something. At 5, Aiden has now grown tall and mature enough to be the newest target of his grandfather’s improvement projects. So every encounter with him is now a teaching moment -- a chance for his grandfather to point out how Aiden could be more polite, know more math, exercise more, save money, and conserve electricity. Aiden has quickly learned to ignore what his grandfather says, which makes his bowing sloppier than ever, which unfortunately reflects poorly on my skills as a mother, making this simple, daily greeting scene even more stressful for me. I’m shooting threatening faces at Aiden behind my father-in-law’s back, but he gleefully ignores those too, caught up in some invisible light saber battle, spit shooting out of his mouth as he “ppeww chang zhhjjjj arghs” his way across the room, escaping from his enemies.
I greet them with a bow and ask them if they’ve eaten, and if they want any coffee. My father-in-law seems annoyed at the question (of course they’ve eaten), but he would also be annoyed if I didn’t ask it -- it’s the polite thing to say. My mother-in-law is kinder, tells me that they’re fine and fusses over me a little, telling me I look tired and worrying that the kids are wearing me out. I tell her not to worry; I’m fine. This is the script we run through to show concern for each other: I ask them about their meals and their health, they fuss over me, I reassure them. My father-in-law’s grumpiness is part of the script too, he wants to believe it is his role to take care of us and not vice-versa. And yet he wants me to act out my role of the daughter-in-law. This script that we follow is so laden with expectations on both sides, sometimes it exhausts me, unraveling the nuances of each action, each question asked or not asked, and weighing the correct response.
In the beginning, we started with grand gestures. I was over the moon, and prepared to adapt to their world, to learn Korean and act as Korean as I could. I listened with sympathy to KC’s stories of his father’s life, which emerged slowly, one by one, as we cuddled and grew closer night after night. These were family matters, family tragedies, not to be shared with just anyone. When the Korean War began in 1950, KC’s father was only 18, and he and his younger siblings were stuck on one side of the bridge while his parents were on the other. His family was split not only physically but ideologically: KC’s grandfather had been a prominant landowner and member of the aristocracy, making the family an enemy of the Communists; KC’s father’s second brother was a general in the Communist army, making the Nationalists suspicious of the family. KC’s father, suddenly forced to care for his four younger siblings (his youngest brother was just a baby) with no money, went to friends for help, but most were too afraid to help him. He was thrown in an internment camp and sentenced to death, but escaped that punishment at the last minute through some technicality. He briefly saw his mother in the internment camp, but never found out what happened to her, or his father. After the war KC’s father worked odd jobs to survive and raise his siblings. He married, but still under suspicion by the then dictatorial “democratic” regime because of his brother’s Communism, he was under surveillance by the KIA (Korean CIA). His wife died of breast cancer when KC was 11, and lost KC’s sister several years later. Only in recent years, since the government has become less repressive, do KC’s father and aunts and uncles gather carefully together to celebrate holidays and birthday. And that’s just some of it... How much more can one family deal with? It was easy to feel sympathy from afar, for my heart to go out to a person with such a hard life, whose life has brought little happiness and much struggle. I understand where his annoying idiosyncrasies come from, and to some extent admired the strength and determination which allowed him to survive so much. I intended to be a balm for them in their old age, to serve them and make their lives easy, to be the daughter-in-law they had hoped for. It was too late to change them, I thought. It is not my place to try to convert them to feminism. I could be a feminist and still be a good daughter-in-law, I thought. I understood that I was not just a daughter-in-law, I was KC’s wife.
KC -- the pride and joy of his father’s life -- the fruit of all his pain -- the one who went to the U.S., the one who got his PhD from Stanford, the one who got married and had two sons. I know how much KC’s successes mean to him. I understand that he can’t normally express happiness or live in the moment because his whole life has been one back-stabbing after another, a constant struggle to prepare for the next blow. He has survived because he has trained himself to look gift-horses in the mouth, to prepare for the worst-case scenario, to be wary of the powerful and always, always, to push and prepare his son.
But his son lives in a different world. KC’s father was only able to finish high school because of the war. KC has a PhD. KC has lived in the US for 18 years, apart from his family.
KC has come back to Korea now, an act which excites and disturbs his father to no end. To have lived 18 years without your own children, with few relatives in this world -- how does that feel? To be alone as you grow old, seeing your friends with their own grandchildren, having nothing to fill the time. But, for KC’s father, the U.S. represented freedom, safety, and success. Freedom from the government of Korea (which he still doesn’t trust) and the burden of the family history; safety from war; success in education and business.
Although I didn’t cook and didn’t do much cleaning, my in-laws treated me as they felt a daughter-in-law should be treated. My mother-in-law bought me nice clothes and suits, and put make-up on my face as she would a little doll. She used her savings to buy me a Cartier watch and three sets of jewelry (diamond, sapphire, and ruby) as wedding gifts. I was shocked by this generosity: this may be common in Korea, but I don’t even wear jewelry. What was I to do with such gifts? They were beyond my style of living and incomprehensible to me.
This unexpected generosity caused the first of many subtle negotiations between our parents. My in-laws assumed that such gift-giving was traditional in China as well, as indeed I believe it is. But my parents, though raised in China, had very practical American wedding expectations. The gave us some money and one of their old cars to use, but of what use is jewelry? I had to diplomatically suggest to my mother that she buy KC a similar watch, so the families could consider themselves even. These things are not logical: even though both families think of themselves as open-minded and generous, in the back of their minds the demon of “are they looking down upon us?” lurks. Each gesture, each word is interpreted differently, so even though we think we’re on the same page, often we’re not.
Our parents’ first meeting, two days before the wedding, illustrates this perfectly. We chose a steakhouse as a “neutral” location. My mother wore a nice suit; KC’s mother wore a dress and shiny jewelry. Our waiter, who looked like a Iowa farmboy, broke the ice; he had spent 4 years teaching English in Korea and spoke Korean quite well. “What, you don’t speak Chinese?” joked my father. Turns out he spoke some Chinese too. Both sets of parents smiled woodenly, eyes wandering, wondering where to look, fiddling with their silverware. KC hurriedly ordered some wine.
Wine glass in hand, KC’s father gave the first toast. “gombei!” (“cheers”). Unfortunately, in Chinese, “ganbei” means you have to drain your glass. My father, in surprise, drained his glass; my father-in-law, seeing this, quickly followed suit. Glasses were refilled, my father-in-law offering another “gombei”; miscommunication again draining both glasses and ushering in drunkeness. My father-in-law’s English suddenly improved and soon he and my father were crudely communicating by writing Chinese characters on a napkin. My father refilled my father-in-law’s glass, suggesting “no ganbei this time.” Finally the varying meaning of “ganbei” in the two languages is discovered and everyone had a good sloshy laugh.
We gotten beyond the formulaic greetings and are now heading out the door to the car. My father-in-law, hating any waste of time, has already taken off down the hall taking some recycling with him. I hate taking out the garbage but I know, or at least believe, one of the reasons he so ostentatiously takes out some of our garbage every time he visits is to make a point about a.) how efficiently he uses his time and b.) how slovenly we are. The boys and my mother-in-law follow slowly behind him, Max stopping to try out all the neighbors’ bikes in the hall, Aiden having to return to the apartment because he realizes he has to pee, even though I asked him not 5 minutes ago and he said he didn’t have to go.
In the car I am nervous; I am still not used to driving in Seoul, and having my in-laws in the car makes me more nervous. My father-in-law is the worse kind of backseat driver, suddenly yelling, “stop stop!” or dramatically drawing in his breath; otherwise offering helpful advice, “you don’t have your hands at 10:00 and 2:00 -- that’s why you turn so clumsily.”
The conversation turns to Aiden’s taekwondo. I used to take him to class, but after Max’s birth, KC’s father took over that job. I was grateful to them for their help, though I missed seeing for myself what was going on. The things that I would see as important were not the same things that KC’s father would see. Aiden had been unhappy at taekwondo recently, and I had finally found out that his instructor had changed, and that he didn’t like the new instructor as much as the old one. I am annoyed that KC’s father didn’t mention this to me. I ask KC’s father, “Why didn’t you mention me that his instructor changed?” This is not a rude question in English, but unfortunately I translate it directly into Korean, not realizing that this particular phrasing sound rude and accusatory. KC’s father explodes at me. “What am I, your servant boy?” He recovers quickly, realizing by my face that I had not intentionally meant to be rude. He tries to cover up by giving me a lecture on my tone and phrasing. But I am shocked by his anger, and angry myself. I WAS annoyed, and was not trying to be really polite, but I wasn’t trying to be rude either. I’m doing my best here. I don’t HAVE to speak Korean. Of course I will make mistakes. His lecture only makes me angrier. I’m not Korean, why should I bow and smile and mimic subserviance? How Korean do you want me to be?
In a few moments our years of small eruptions, of assumptions and miscommunications and good intentions, of small pricks and simmering frustrations has emerged like lava from a volcano, rushing towards the surface, filling the car with its suffocating smoke.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
KCisms
"does this haircut make me look viral?" (virile)
"OK, smarty panty"
"that's my athletic foot" (athlete's foot)
"survival of the fitness"
"OK, smarty panty"
"that's my athletic foot" (athlete's foot)
"survival of the fitness"
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