이 바보*

 * = this idiot.

I have to share this brief moment of insanity with the masses.

While (not) rehearsing for my 15-minute presentation (which I'm giving tomorrow in class - oh hey!), I was suddenly struck by an incredible feeling of nostalgia/missing things random and stupid from the States.  Namely, bread.  So I went out (at 10pm) with the intention of buying a baguette from one of the imitation French bakeries near my apartment only to realize that any bakery, imitation or not, would not be selling baguettes at 10pm because they wouldn't be fresh.  I settled for a bag of Paris Baguette's notorious "milk bread," which is entirely too soft/sweet (I really wanted something crunchy and chewy), but that didn't stop me from wolfing down two slices.  Each slice is the size of about 3 ordinary slices of sandwich bread.  Fatass.

A similar feeling struck when I was at the convenience store today, prompting me to buy a bar of milk chocolate (HOW DO THEY NOT HAVE DARK CHOCOLATE HERE/IF THEY DO WHERE THE FUCK IS IT).  I also cried for about 10 minutes earlier thinking about MY OLD JOB AT STERLING MEMORIAL LIBRARY.  What is the matter with me?

This all comes amidst a minor existential crisis in which I realized (thanks to Jung Min Unni's incessant studying for the GRE) that I have no tangible plans beyond June 2011 and thus no future.  Amazing!  I've started researching graduate programs.  Am I too dumb to get into Harvard?

All of this clearly points to one thing: our week-long vacation begins TOMORROW AT 1(!) and even though I will be speaking at a conference all week long and thus lose the freedom of a break full of sleeping and ignoring reality (my specialty), I don't care as long as I don't have to go to Sogang for one week.  It's not that I don't love you, Korean language learning institution, it's just that we all need a break from time to time.

Since I am incapable of making long-term plans, I'll go with the short: practice presentation, call JM Unni and practice presentation (gomaps, 사랑하는 언니야!), give presentation tomorrow, eat lunch with last year's fave Choi Sunsaengnim(!), meet with that elusive brat my homegirl Hayeon and relieve some of my insanity, hopefully followed by dinner with Unni (gawd, if I can't have Western food, I want shabu shabu).

Sorry for all the caps in this post?  I'll try to update soon and not sound like a crazy person.

잔소리*

* = nagging

Well, I took my speaking midterm today, and because I like to talk about my problems/opinions incessantly, here is a post about it.

Last year's speaking midterm was all but a disaster; see the Horrifying Crisis that Befell Me by checking the archives.  This year's was a marked improvement in that I didn't have to endure the absolutely terrifying Lee Hyejun Sunsaengnim telling me that my absolutely blank face during class indicated to her that I might be about as good at Korean as an amoeba, but I was still slapped with some of the same criticisms I keep hearing, the first and most prominent being this absurdity one:

"Jangmi, if I were talking to you on the phone, I would think to myself, 'Wow, this person speaks Korean well...but they don't seem like a Korean.'"

Well, I've been thinking about how best to do this for awhile now, and I guess there's no better way to do it than to just come out and say it.  This is my horrible truth: I am not Korean.

Try, if you can, to suspend what I'm sure must be a feeling of incredible shock and devastation.  You must feel lied to, but I can hide the truth no longer.  Despite my oversized v-neck t-shirt, skinny jeans, BB cream, and sandals with 9 unnecessary straps, I am actually just not Korean.  I'm sorry for attempting to deceive you all.  I don't deserve your forgiveness.

Okay, enough with all of the unnecessary theatrics, but seriously.  Sogang grades us on a bunch of things for our speaking exams, and one that I do not understand at all is 억양, which Google Translate is translating as "accent," but it more encompasses tone and inflection as opposed to pronunciation.  If you don't think they are different, they are - I usually get positive feedback on my pronunciation, but terrible feedback on my inflection.  The reason my teachers give for my poor grades in this area is that I speak Korean words, but I sound American.

WELL, NO SHIT, I SOUND LIKE AN AMERICAN.  I AM an American.  My teacher (whom I love and very much respect, don't get me wrong) said it was very obvious that I wasn't raised in Korea because, despite my use of the language, I don't sound like a Korean.  Well, isn't that...um...expected?  Why am I being graded on how well I am assimilating into a culture that isn't mine?  For me, the goal in learning Korean was never to "fool" people into thinking that I'm a native speaker - I don't think I know anyone outside of Hayeon Lee who could successfully fool people into thinking that they were both simultaneously 100% native Korean and 100% native American.   I think that the way that I speak, with all of my wild gesticulations, changes in inflection, and use of tone, reflects the culture in which I was raised.  I think it's an indelible part of me, this mix of obnoxious, sarcastic American English peppered with the Bronx-Italian New York accent I picked up from living with two parents who grew up in Little Italy.  I don't think anyone or anything can take it away from me, and I think it will always be present in some capacity whenever I express myself in any form of communication.

So what is Sogang asking us to do, exactly?  Are they asking us to internalize Korean to the point where we develop this novel identity, a new skin that we put on when we converse in Korean?  Maybe, you might say, that I'm overreacting - if tone and inflection are a reflection of culture, and my last post was all about being able to deeply understand the culture of the people whose language you're attempting to learn, then it is a necessary and vital part of language learning to master appropriate inflection and tone as well.  But let's keep in mind that I said it was important to understand the culture, not necessarily to absorb or adopt it.  I could live in Korea for a hundred dumb years and be an academically-certified expert on Korean culture and traditions, but they still wouldn't be mine.  They would still belong to Korea and Koreans, and I still would just be an admittedly smart and culturally sensitive observer.  In a nutshell, no matter how well-versed I am in this language, culture, and people, I will only ever be able to achieve an understanding of it.  I will never internalize it as my own, and I think it would be inappropriate of me to do so.  Maybe it's just my opinion, but I would scoff at a Korean who moved to Italy and thought that just because they spoke Italian and really liked gelato they were in some way internally, culturally Italian.

To clarify, I'm not saying that one has to be ethnically Korean (or Italian, or anything) in order to be internally a part of that culture, because culture is something you're brought up, not something you're born with.  What I'm saying is that my use of American inflection or tone in speaking Korean should not and does not impair anyone's understanding of what I am saying, and I shouldn't be judged in any way, shape, or form for speaking the way I was brought up to speak.  Imitation of Korean speakers in the tonal/inflectional sense is just that - imitation - and I don't think it adds or detracts in any way from my ability to converse.  Actually, I take that back, or rather, add an addendum: I think it detracts markedly from my infusion of ME into my language.  I didn't come to Korea so I could be a Korean speaking Korean.  I came to Korea so I could be an American speaking Korean.  I will not be told to calm my exaggerated manner of speaking simply so that I can trick unsuspecting Koreans into thinking that I'm not white.  Even if I did successfully trick someone (which, I actually have, so HAH), what does it accomplish, anyway?  Eventually, they are going to find out I'm white (if they ever meet me), and so what am I supposed to say then?  "Joke's on you, sucker!"?  No.

Well, for the sake of my grade, I suppose I ought to work on sounding more like the calm, reserved Korean of my teachers' imaginations.  But I still don't believe that anyone learning a language should be expected to internalize the cultural nuances of speaking that language.  I often tease Jung Min Unni for speaking what I horrifically termed "Jung MinGlish" (I know, you can cringe), but it doesn't matter to me in the slightest that she doesn't sound like a native English speaker.  This just in: SHE ISN'T.  And her progress in English, her ability to learn and practically apply new expressions and vocabulary to novel situations, should never, ever be minimized because her inflection and use of language reflects her Korean upbringing.  We're learning second languages here, and if we are successfully understood, then that's a damn big accomplishment, and the way we said it shouldn't take that away from us.

hilarious post-script: I was just woken up from my nap by what I can only presume was a telemarketer, since he introduced himself as being from SK Telecom, and my phone contract is with LG.  He asked me what country I was from, and I responded in Korean that I was from America, and he hung up on me!  In America, it's totally the other way around, it's like you can't PAY telemarketers to leave you alone, but BOOM!  In Korea, they totes don't want to talk to me.  Maybe it's because my inflection was off.

와, 한국말 잘 하시네요!*

* = wow, you speak Korean so well!

 No, I don't.

Depending on where I am/who I am with/what the situation is, I hear this roughly between 3 and 15 times per day.  It is practically obligatory the first time someone meets me.  But most hilariously to me, it usually comes at the start of the conversation, not after someone has practically established whether or not I am conversant in Korean at all.  An example (using JM Unni for convenience):

Jung Min Unni: Oppa, this is my friend Dana/Jangmi.
Me: (in Korean) Hi, it's nice to meet you.
Random Friend of Jung Min Unni's: Wow, you speak Korean so well!

Now, Random Friend, how, exactly, did you manage to glean that?  I feel the same way when I offer my seat to ajummas on the subway with a simple "아주머니, 앉으세요 (Please take my seat, ma'am)."  All I said was one stupid thing!  This crap is written in guidebooks that foreigners use to get around Korea.  Also, every English teacher in Korea, even the dumb frat boy ones, knows how to greet people in Korean.  Well, okay, so I don't actually know that.

My point here is that Koreans are ridiculously quick to laud a foreigner who says even the most rudimentary of things to them in Korean, which hearkens back to my post on the forced atmosphere of politeness in Korean society.  If I were to continue the conversation listed above, it would look something like this:

Jung Min Unni: Oppa, this is my friend Dana/Jangmi.
Me: (in Korean) Hi, it's nice to meet you.
Random Friend of Jung Min Unni's: Wow, you speak Korean so well!
Me: Oh, no I don't, I have a long way to go.  I study Korean at Sogang University.
RFOJMU: [eyes nearly pop out of head] Wow, you are REALLY good at Korean!

So the initial compliment (you speak Korean well) is not really a compliment at all - I would have gotten the same compliment whether I followed it up with actual Korean or not.  I guess I still have a lot to learn about the structure of formal Korean conversation (I mean, I guess I know now why Sogang teaches us about 8 different ways to deflect compliments regarding our spoken Korean - a modest reply is part of the script that will inevitably follow if you're conversing with a Korean you're meeting for the first time).  More so, however, than an indictment (or merely an observation) of Korean social customs, it is to me a rather sad indicator of how uninterested foreigners are in Korea.  I assume (maybe incorrectly?) that a good chunk of the reasoning behind any Korean's (genuine) surprise at a foreigner being able to converse comes from the fact that so few of the English teachers, who comprise a decent percentage of the foreigners in Korea, bother to learn any Korean at all before coming here or during their time here.  This actually makes no cognitive sense to me, because I have struggled so much as a foreigner in Korea who only has a tenuous grasp on the language; how the hell are these people functioning?  How do they feed themselves??  I mean, I understand that their hakwons probably take care of a lot of their bureaucratic stuff, but that doesn't change the fact that you need to know SOME Korean to get by in daily life!  Seriously, I just don't get it.

Also, not learning Korean but living here means missing out almost entirely on what it means to actually LIVE here.  I will never be Korean and thus will never really be an insider in this culture (not that I particularly want to be), but voluntarily not participating in the language or culture beyond eating and drinking (and by that, I mean alcohol) has the effect of keeping you perpetually on the outside while preventing you from gaining any meaningful inside into Korea, its people, and its traditions.  Why live here, then?  Is it really just about the money and your resume?

Dr. Richard U. Light, the man whose essential purpose in life has become mine in that I would not be in Korea doing what I am doing if not for him, believed that America's foreign policy problem was an acute failure on the part of American ambassadors and diplomats to deeply understand the language and customs of the country to which they were administering.  It was this failure that accounted for our miserable dealings in the Korean and Vietnam Wars.  Quite frankly, I don't think we've learned from our mistakes; a friend of mine is here on behalf of the U.S. State Department for the summer, and he doesn't speak a word of Korean, nor does he know anything about Korea at all.  What the fuck is he doing here?  Why is he here?  Are you telling me there was no single individual better qualified to deal with Korea-US relations than this guy?  Not to belittle him in any way - he's a brilliant scholar who I'm sure does great work.  But I just don't get it.  What can he possibly bring to the table?

Geoffrey, another Light Fellow, told me that the State Department's policies are based on the idea that American diplomats should never have too much loyalty to the country they are sent to.  Diplomatic stays are typically 2-3 years because that gives one a chance to get to know the country without getting so attached that you forget your loyalty to America.  I get that and all, but I don't understand why it's not even entertained as a possibility that diplomats can be well-trained and well-versed in a country's language and culture without running the risk of repatriation.  Sounds better to run that absurd, asinine risk than to send someone completely ignorant to craft policy that will directly affect a country and its people.

I wrote this post because I had an experience over the weekend that made me realize just how important language is to truly and completely understanding someone.  Without it, you might as well just pack it up and go home.  So here I am in an effort to stay, and to stay with as much comprehension as possible.  I wish others here would do the same.

In an effort to relieve how horrendous this post might have sounded, check this out.  There may be hope for the K-pop industry just yet!  Although one must acknowledge that the unremarkable nature of the performances is part of K-pop's charm; it's all about the spectacle and about the appearance.  Jesus, I might just have said a mouthful.  But that's another post.

역시 너밖에 없어*

* = there's no one but you (yoek-shi nuh-bakk-eh eobsuh)

Things I Learned Today:

1) Like subways, buses go in two different directions in Korea DUH JANGMI YOU IDIOT.  This surprisingly simple piece of information somehow eluded me when I got on a bus today to go to one of my tutoring jobs in Ilsan, a suburb of Seoul (Korea really gives new meaning to the word "suburb" - what it really means is Seoul 30 minutes outside of Seoul, as it looks exactly the same and seems just as crowded).  Fortunately, the bus that I was on was a circle line, and so my blunder only resulted in me sitting on the bus for an additional 30 minutes.  Maybe I'm not very smart.

2) Korean high school students put their American equivalents to shame.  The girl that I tutor, a very sweet cousin of Jung Min Unni's named Hyerim, will be entering her final year of high school in the fall, and her schedule is absolutely ridiculous - school every day, private lessons every night, weekend classes, extracurrics, etc.  Next week, she's moving to a goshiwon (the same kind of place I lived last summer) for a month because she'll be attending 학원, a private tutoring academy, every day in Gangnam (quite far from Ilsan, where her family lives).  What the hay-ell?  Seriously, if you told an American student to move out of their house for a month so they could prepare to apply to colleges, they'd be like, "wtf no."  American students bitch and moan about taking a 3 month SAT prep course, so I imagine that they'd either die or join a monastery if they were subject to the demands of a Korean student.  It's really unbelievable.  I mean, this is also the country that was accused of robbing children of their childhood, so I guess it has its pros and cons.

3) I was more than incredibly lucky to have met Jung Min Unni.  I mean, I already knew that for a thousand reasons, but going out to tutor Hyerim just added to it.  In the first place, I need the money (the Light Fellowship is very much like having your parents pay room and board - it keeps you fed and sheltered, but if you want to do other things, like eat out, take trips, shop, etc., you'll need to get a job), and so far Unni has hooked me up with two very well-paying tutoring gigs; more than that, though, I couldn't have asked for nicer people to work with.  Hyerim is a curious, motivated, and intelligent girl; her family (especially her mom, who is Unni's mom's younger sister) are the sweetest.  Not only did they increase my hourly wage because I made the trip out to Ilsan, her mom also fed me dinner at the restaurant that they own and bought me kimbap simply because she heard I liked it.  There must be something in their blood; they are nicer than almost any other people I've ever met.  Every time I am with anyone connected to Jung Min Unni, I feel so taken care of and even more grateful.  It sounds absolutely ridiculous, but the minute I saw Jung Min Unni, I had an instant gut feeling (was it fate?  God?  indigestion?)  that we would be friends (also, it was predicted by a Tarot reading; ask me if you're curious).  I know it's ridiculous and nonsensical to blather on about destiny and crossing paths and blah blah blah but some things were absolutely meant to be and I think something - someone? - out there knew that my life would be much less rich (and also a lot hungrier HAH) without her.  운이 좋지?

4) Maybe if I stop panicking and running around like Chicken Little with her head cut off, things become manageable.  Again, maybe I'm not very smart (or I am just not smart enough to not let my emotions get the better of me).  Life is a learning process (duh).  Korea is a learning process.  How very wise of me.

 This is about how seriously people should take me.

I think I make this face a lot, actually; should that be cause for concern?

Well, I decided blogging was a smarter idea than was doing homework, and as it's 12:30AM already, maybe I should shut up and start writing.

사랑방 소님과 장미*

* = the houseguest and Jangmi (sarang-bang so-nim gwa- jangmi); a play on a Korean movie title, The Houseguest and My Mother, originally filmed in the '60s and remade recently, although I've only seen the older version.

A positive note before I begin whining (again, sorry): I titled this post as such because my rinky-dinky apartment was graced by my very first houseguest!  Besides Jung Min Unni and her mom, of course.  Last Sunday, my dear JaeIn Unni spent the night here in anticipation of her flight to Bali from Incheon (she lives outside of Seoul, so transport on the day of her trip might have been difficult).  Despite it being a little cramped, I loved having her here - there's no denying that it gets lonely at night with no one to talk to (I've so far only met one of my neighbors, who thankfully seems quite friendly is and very good at English).  She gets back from Bali today, and since I haven't seen any of my other unnies in quite some time, it'd be nice to have her here again.

This week would have been frustrating enough given that we've had to prepare for midterms, but I had the added horror pleasure of dealing with the fact that the user account on my computer was mysteriously and irrevocably corrupted yesterday, rendering me unable to even log in.  Consequently, I had to wipe my C drive and lost...everything (ALL OF MY KPOP - you don't understand, it's like a part of me).  It's also complicated things with my antivirus programs, and I had to spend a couple of hours dealing with that today (I talked to the customer service rep while eating frozen kimchi dumplings that I purchased from Grand Mart - an excellent purchase for a poor cook).  This is all doubly irritating because I purchased this computer, a Samsung, not more than 4 months ago when the hard drive crashed (for the second time) on my old HP.  I know I was all fuzzy and glorifying of my shiny new Korean cellphone last time I posted, but really, one should never trust technology too easily.

ALSO I JUST LOST INTERNET FOR 5 MINUTES FOR NO APPARENT REASON. WHY.

Okay, deep breath.  You are a capable human being.
Or not.

Anyway.  Midterms.
So on Tuesday, we had essentially 3 hours of testing - one of 듣기 (listening), one of  말하기 (speaking, even though it was a written exam), and one of 읽기 (reading).  All in all, I thought the exams were fair, but I just don't think I am cut out for the kind of exam Sogang gives.  When you teach a semester that covers at least 16 grammar patterns and over 300 vocabulary words, it must be difficult to design an exam that adequately tests knowledge of everything learned; while I think I learned everything and learned it well, I just don't know how well that translated onto the test.  I guess we'll see?

We took our 쓰기 (writing) test today, and I don't really care about writing (because it's an optional class, it doesn't factor into our final grade), so I am not going to think about it any further.  Actually, I'm starting to wonder if the writing class loses its utility as one climbs up in level; part of me thinks that it's actually a tremendous way to reinforce what you're learning in speaking/reading/listening, but part of me is also pretty sure that that depends on intelligent structuring and good teaching, which I think is definitely lacking in my case.  I heard from a classmate that my writing teacher has a reputation for being...crappy(?) at Sogang, so I guess my dissatisfaction with the class is probably due almost entirely to that (and the fact that it starts at 9am and the classroom is always blisteringly hot).

Next Tuesday: the actual speaking midterm, in the form of 3 5-minute dialogues performed with a partner (perfect timing, really, given that I have absolutely NO TIME this weekend due to the Light Fellow visit - which, of course I'm tremendously happy about, but no one else has stepped up at all to help out with organizing things, and I can't afford to lose my entire Saturday here).  And then the week after that, I have to give my 15 minute presentation (my topic, you ask?  SNSD, of course.  I actually thought I might branch out, but when my teacher heard me say that I might present on them, she got really excited).  Aish.  Not a single break till the end of the month, which is ironically our week-long vacation in which I am supposed to be giving 2 lectures at a conference being held at Yonsei and in Daejeon (I'm confused about how this is going to work), so essentially this is no break at all.  And then two weeks after the break, finals.  FML.

Well.  That was all very encouraging.

Again, I've managed to blog an absurd amount while saying absolutely nothing of value or importance (another Fellow told me my blog was impossible to get through because there were too many words); I think frustration manages to oust every intelligent thought from your head while filling it entirely with selfish, whiny preoccupations.  All I've managed to feel these past few days is anger, disappointment, sadness, and subsequent shame in not being able to do better for myself.  There have been small victories here and there; I successfully put together a bucket of bathroom-cleaning supplies and managed to scrub what may or may not be at least 6 months' worth of grime off of my sink (I've decided that the line between adulthood and childhood is absolutely determined by the motivation to clean your own living space and clean it well - this means that there are probably some very old children out there).  I also procured a new free shower puff simply by buying mascara at a makeup store (I <3 swagga).  But otherwise, I feel like a general failure, like I am taking all of the lessons I supposedly should have internalized the last time Unni lectured me to grow up and start dealing with things like a responsible adult (okay, so maybe being able to scrub a toilet is not the only thing that makes a person an adult, so sue me) and throwing them out the window.  And now I sound emo again!  WTF I need a latte.


I had so much more to say, and I'm disappointed that if I segue into it now, it will be totally unrelated and also no one will read it, so I'll save it for another time when I am hopefully less pissy about life.

Quoted:
J: People change.
H: Maybe, but that doesn't mean the relationships between us should.
(if you want to know, just ask).

사랑해.