First off, it's hanami season now here in Akita, so the cherry blossoms are blossoming, and everything is warm and sunny and beautiful. As I was walking home last night, I realized that a mere month ago, the same streets had been coated in ice, and now I wear only a light jacket. It's worth putting up with the winter for how lovely everything is right now.
Second, I got a chance to spend last weekend in Seoul, Korea. Korea is only a two hour flight out of Akita airport, so I went there with my supervisor from my base school.
Now, prior to visiting, I couldn't have cared less about Korea. I have never seen a Korean drama. I cannot recognize Lee Min Ho at a glance. I had to look up what the alphabet was called. So, I wasn't expecting much out of the trip or that I would care much either way. However, upon driving into downtown from the airport, I instantly liked the look and vibe of Seoul. The light was different somehow from Japan. More like Seattle if anything. And as far as the level of development of Korea, it lies somewhere in between Thailand and Japan, and you can see the differences and intersections of where the infrastructure is transforming from one to the other.
There were lots of things I liked about Seoul. Here is a brief list:
a) Korean fashion. Minus whoever okay-ed the neon running shoe, hose, and mini skirt combination that seemed so pervasive, the Koreans I saw, especially in some of the trendier neighborhoods we trolled around, looked like they had walked straight out of some epic magazine editorial.
b) Korean driving. Korea drives on the right side of the road, like the States. That fact was oddly comforting.
c) Korean men. In the day and half I was in Seoul, I saw some of the most beautiful men I have ever seen in my life, lounging around on train platforms and haunting cool restaurants. They were so attractive it hurt my eyes a little.
d) Korean won. It's like paying for everything with Monopoly money! Which is an okay impression to have, because stuff is really cheap. The euro also has this feel, but unlike Korea, things are actually really expensive in Europe, and you shouldn't pay for things like life is a board game.
e) Koreans. My JTE has a friend who is an English teacher in a high school in Seoul, so we met up with her, and she showed us around, how to use the metro, took us to dinner, had the ability to speak and read Korean, etc. I told her that I was interested in Korean authors, so she gave me her English translation of this really popular Korean novel. What a champ!
We also met up with one of my JTE's former students, who graduated from my base school (before my time there) and has been studying at a university in Seoul for the past year. The four of us went to dinner, and thus I experienced one of the most linguistically bizarre experiences I have ever, well, experienced.
There was:
- My JTE. Fluent in Japanese and English.
- Her student. Fluent in Japanese and Korean, with a little (though functionally useless) English.
- Her Korean friend. Fluent in Korean and English.
- Me. Fluent in...English, with functionally pretty useless Japanese.
During dinner, we were speaking three languages, without one common one between all of us, so there was loads of translating in between anything that anybody said in order to get a point across. But it worked. Sometimes the lines between 'language' and 'communication' get blurred for me, even living in a country where I can't speak the native tongue, but that dinner was all about communication and had little to do with language. It was fascinating and eye-opening, and more than a little made me feel how little we value being bilingual in America. That's a problem, people. Learn something.
So, all in all, I really enjoyed Korea, even though I expected not to, and I have every intention of going back, staying longer, and seeing, now, my friend there. Maybe I will learn how to say Thank You in Korean for next time.
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