Korean Cab Driver

A selfie-obsessed seat neighbor. A no-nonesense Korean cab driver. Two grannies gossiping while taking a break from a hike. Yes, I've met all sorts of colourful characters in Busan, South Korea, and I've only been here for one day so far.

My seat neighbor was one of the two worst kinds of seat neighbors. The two types of seat neighbors I dread are the extremely chatty ones who talk to you from tarmac to tarmac, and the obnoxiously rude ones. Yes, people, there is nice middle ground. My seat neighbor was a Korean girl who looked to me to be about 20. However, she may have been 40 for all I know- Asian women are blessed with wrinkle-free baby skin until they are like, 70. I want those genes... Anyway, I was sitting in the aisle and she had the window seat. Instead of saying "excuse me" in any language or at the very least gesturing to the window seat so that I could get up and provide her access to her seat, she climbed over me and whacked me in the face with her purse and didn't say a word. Real nice. She then proceeded to take the pillow from the spare seat between us, because of course I wouldn't want it, and then she put all of her belongings on the spare seat. Real nice. When the dreaded turbulence of death started, all I could think was that she was the last person I'd want to crash sitting next to. Because yes, I always assume that turbulence equals inevitable crash.

Prior to taking off, she spent about 10 minutes arranging every single strand of hair on her head and practicing a number of pouty faces for a number of selfies she took. What is this world coming to?

Dear God, please make this woman stop

Anyway... eventually I landed, giddy to be in a brand new, shiny country. I immediately loved it, but felt like I was back at square one as far as being completely unable to communicate. It felt like I JUST got to the point where I could understand and converse even the slightest bit in Japanese. Time to start all over. I blew through customs quicker than a determined tumbleweed, and was ready to head to my destination.

That is one determined tumbleweed.

The first thing I came to adore about the lovely city of Busan was the abundance of free WiFi. Seriously, Japan needs to get on that. Even when I do find free WiFi in Japan, it is extremely slow. I know, I know- first world problems.

It's a hard-knock life. Just ask Annie.

So back to my story! I planned to take the metro. I had it all mapped out. But, sometimes, plans change. In this case, someone changed my plans for me. As I exited the airport, a stout little Korean man began yammering to me. I realized he was asking if I needed his taxi services, and I said I was alright, but he didn't understand me and kept insisting, so I asked how much it would be and he kept saying "one zero." I didn't know if he meant 10,000 won, or 10 won, or 100 won or what other mixture of ones and zeros he meant. A little fuzzy on the conversions still, I caved and let the determined little man take my suitcase and place it in the trunk. As I got begn to get in the back seat, he shook his head and wagged his finger at me and pointed at the passenger seat. Okay, sure, I'll sit next to you, sir.

The ride was a hilarious event during which he talked on and on in Korean, and I replied in English, and I had no idea what he was saying whatsoever. At one point, he reached in the glovebox and handed me a piece of gum. I hope he wasn't trying to tell me something about my breath. Anyways, once we arrived I realized that yes, the 30 minute cab ride was only $10. I loved the little man so much that I gave him a little extra because he was so rad.

The next morning I decided to conquer one of Busan's many peaks. I almost diverted from my plan, however, when I stepped outside into the frigid air.

I have been in Colorado, Minnesota and Chicago in the wintertime. I know cold. This cold made all of those colds look like a Miami beach vacation. This was the kind of cold that violently rips through your layers, renders your handwarmers useless and freezes you to the deepest depths of your core, down to your very soul. Okay, that sounds dramatic. But it's not too far off. The frigidness of the air was augmented greatly by the harsh wind, as well.

Finally, I decided it was all about the attitude. I was all like:

Actually, it did, like five minutes ago...

Tune in next time to read about my epic hike!

 

Up Against Leukemia and Dementia

In the Ageo-city speech contest a couple of weeks ago which my student dominated, the race was only close due to the ability of some speeches to tug mercilessly at the heart strings of the judges. One girl in the previous contest spoke about how she never met her father. Another chose to recite the depressing tale of the elephants killed in Tokyo during the war. 

I knew that my student and I would be facing tough competition at today's prefectural speech contest, the next stage en route to the national speech contest, but I had no idea just what we were in for. As my eyes scanned the list of the titles of the other students' speeches, they stopped cold in their tracks when they beheld the one called "My Sister's Message." I flipped quickly to it, and instantly felt nerves wash over me. Crap. It was about how the speaker's little sister DIED of Leukemia and how her new goal in life is to convince others about the importance of organ donation because through it, her baby sister can now live on in someone else. I felt crushed. Were there any other super emotional speeches that judges would look like completely heartless jerks for not giving the top score Of course there were. In addition to a baby girl dying of Leukemia, there was a speech about a girl's grandmother and her increasingly crippling dementia The first two lines were as follows: 

Hi, Grandma, how are you? Are you all right? 

Yes, I'm fine. But, who are you?

After that introduction alone, I knew there would not be a dry eye in the auditorium. My student asked me if I was nervous about any speeches, so I expressed my concern. Her expression turned to worry. "But, I have not had any experiences like that, so how could I have written about one?" she inquired. I told her that she was lucky that she could not write with honesty about such things and reminded her how amazing her speech was anyways. I am getting good at my speech contest pep talks. 

Thankfully, due to the large amount of students in the contest, the speakers were split up into two groups containing 22 students. There was only one speech I was a bit disappointed I didn't get to hear because the speaker wasn't in my group. The speech was about how the boy hated his father and chose the speech contest as an outlet for him to finally express those sentiments. He wrote in the speech that he invited his father just to inform him of his hatred. Honestly, I couldn't tell if it was a joke, but if it wasn't, that would make for some good, Japanese soap opera-esque drama. 

After each successive speaker, I felt more and more at ease. The content of their speeches may have been good, sure, but their pronunciation didn't even come close to the native perfection of my student's. There were a couple of kids whose speeches made me a bit worried. However, I was far from surprised when my student made the finals. I might add, by the way, that the judges ended up looking like completely heartless jerks since the girl whose sister died of Leukemia didn't make the final round. 

Before I recount the nerve-racking final round, I want to discuss how sick I am of the stupid song "Let It Go" from Frozen. It is such an obsession here that MULTIPLE students wrote about it in their speeches. One student actually wrote her entire speech about the song, and broke up her own text with lines from the song. It made me cringe. Two students related their own lives to Frozen, like the woman who tried to sue Disney claiming it stole her life story. One girl said she cried when she first saw the film because it reminded her so much of her past. I guess she is struggling to suppress the power to freeze things with her emotions.

So, the final eight students began reading, and boy, they were amazing. Their topics were well thought-out, the grammar in the speeches was flawless, and some of them had near-native pronunciation. I was biting my nails so hard and sweating buckets when the results were read from last place to first. I didn't care what place she got as long as it was first, second or third because all three get to move on to the next round. After the fourth place student was read and my student still hadn't been called, I began to hoot and hollar like an obnoxious parent at a little league baseball game. 

Of course, she was upset that she didn't get first place, because she is Japanese. But I was ecstatic and beaming, and can't wait to start preparing for the next contest!