Because the World is Round: March 2009

That lady sat next to me at lunch today. One of the other teachers-- although I'm not sure what she teaches. She's one of those that maybe feels like she has to talk to me, in order to make me feel comfortable or welcome or part of the loop. Or maybe she genuinely enjoys trying to communicate with me in English... but it always turns into the same conversation.

"Hello," she says quietly, bowing her head slightly as she sits down next to me.

I give a sweet "Hiii," bow head, avoid too much eye contact because I know where it can lead if I allow it.

Next will come some comment on the weather.

"Cold outside," she pieces together.

"Oh, yeah, I know!," curling shoulders in, and appearing to be grateful to have my jacket.

"I catch cold," she continues.

*cough, cough* two measly put-puts of a cough limp out of her mouth.

"Oh, really?," seemingly concerned. Which, it's not like I'm not concerned about her, but... c'mon. those coughs were somewhat pathetic. And I've learnt the dramatics of Koreans-- clear your throat and they think you've caught pneumonia; sneeze and you've got the flu; one sniff of the nose and that's it: quick! rush her to the doctor! For anything, "you must go to doctor." They'll feed you antibiotics or tylenol or sugar pills or whathaveyou. Supply you with 6 baggies all filled with 5 different pills. All different colors, different sizes and shapes. This seems very important to them-- to go to the doctor and receive medication. So, knowing this, I continue:

"Aw, I'm sorry you're sick. Do you have medicine?"

She regretfully shakes her head.

"Maybe the school nurse will have some," I suggest, trying to be helpful.

"Yes," she confirms.

It's coming. I know what's next. Do it. Comment on the food. Tell me what it is, in every language you know!

"You know this?" she says, holding up a slimy piece of red-sauce-drenched tofu between her metal chopsticks.

I take note of how skillfully she keeps that slippery sucker between her sticks, keeping it from plopping back into the pool of sauce below.

"Yeah. It's tofu," I say, confidently.

"How you say, English?"

"Tofu."

"Ta-foo?"

"Tofu."

"Spelling?"

"T-O-F-U."

"Tofu!" she exclaims.

"Yeah, tofu."

And now, she gets to the real meat of it all-- what she's been dying to tell me:

"You know in Korean... Du-bu," she says proudly.

"Dubu," I repeat.

"Aaahhhh, yes," she says and mutters queitly "Dubu"

"And this," she adds, pinching a grain of rice between her chopsticks and hovering it over my tray.

"Bap," I say. and add on the English word "rice".

"Wow! Yes. And you know, Korean, this... we say Muul-go-geeee," stabbing a piece of fish and holding it up like a discovered treasure.

I nod and repeat, "Mul-go-gee."

"English, how you say?," she asks.

"Fish"

"Aaaahhhh, yes. Fish-uh," she says, looking back to her chopstick-stabbed treasure and repeating "Fish-uh, fish-uh."

I'm free of the Korean-English translation game for a while, as we shift focus back to eating. I'm surrounded by the sounds of slucking slurps of soup, the scraping of metal chopsticks across metal trays, the guttural UUuuuughs and UUgh-ng, Uugh-ngs and ham-ni-das and keep my eyes to the kimchi. Now, I love how kind Koreans can be, and it's nice the effort they seem to put forth at times, and it's sweet the couple of words they may know in English and will faithfully recite them to you when they see you ("hello" or "cold") just as I'll say the little Korean that I know, but it's times like these that just start to irk me-- when somebody wants to tell me how to say everything in sight in Korean.
Some of it can be useful. Maybe if I wrote it down. But, I didn't ask and I will never remember all of this. They'll be shootin' one after the other, pointing to pencils and lettuce and doors and toilet paper. Or ladies like this will take lunch as an opportunity to have Heather recite the menu in Korean, when, some days, I'm screaming in my head "I don't care, lady! Why are you telling me all this drivel!"

Eyeing a new crowd of teachers making their way to plop down across from me, I finish up the mul-go-gee and the bap and the dubu and the kimchi and scoop what's left into my soup bowl. I recognize the teacher right in front of me as one that speaks a handful of English. I grab hold of my tray and start to stand up from my seat, bowing down and giving the polite "Meon-jah-gamnida" farewell to those around, when the new arrival lady makes eye contact. She motions towards me to stop and spurts out, "How?" Confused, I bend back down to meet their eye level and say "I'm sorry?" She quickly nips a piece of tofu and holds it up to my face.

"English, how you say?"
Raising the jiggling piece of tofu a little higher, she adds
"Spelling?"