Ah, yes indeed. Everything is white outside and more of it was falling from the sky. Men stood with defroster ready to spray the planes, and I thought really? Really? The day we come to Seoul, it decides to snow!?!
Bus ride from the airport
Becuz Ima 2 Kool Four Skool
I don’t speak Korean, thus I expected communication would be a little difficult. No biggie.
In our Japanese hostel, a group of French and Norwegians were furiously discussing, with quite of bit of disgust, about how few Japanese spoke English. I’ve heard this conversation before, and each time, I laugh. Non-native English speakers get very angry when citizens of the country they visit don’t speak English. Hmmm…maybe everyone assumes all these irritated English speakers are Americans and the resulting bad rep ensues.
However, despite my tangent, point being, the English spoken and written in Tokyo towered over English in Seoul. Sasha, Vitalik and I toured museums; sites of significance, national pride, etc. If we were fortunate to find captions explaining a certain statue or Korean War plane in English, it might have been better that the government left more to the imagination.
It was painful reading to say the least.
The never ending well of spelling and grammar mistakes just pained my heart. This wasn’t just one or two mistakes across town. (I completely understand a slip-up here or there, so let’s not start overanalyzing my blog…you’re friends and family here so let’s be nice). We’re talking about constant and agonizingly barefaced blunders. Excruciating. For a culture vehemently influenced by pride and shame—these faux pas hurt all that more. I asked Vitaliy’s friends and colleagues if maybe I was nitpicking and they exploded with fury sharing in my distress. They noted huge billboards and other ads that only induced cringes once read. “Couldn’t these agencies pay some expat $15/hour to at least proof read this stuff?!” One guy quipped, “It’s ridiculous.”
Don’t believe me? I have examples. I only took a few pictures. It was much too common and too much effort to take pictures of all the mistakes.
*One last thing, on the plane, they usually give you a customs form to fill out. I found two in my seat pocket one Japanese, one Korean. I, unfortunately, do not speak either. I asked a flight attendant to help me fill at least one out. I had been warned, thank you business school, that many Asian cultures, will not say no to you, but, ummm…avoid you instead. That’s what happened to me. I asked for a guide (most airlines include several translated options in their magazines, not mine) and was brushed aside. It took a while but I found an English customs form once we landed and a Korean official showed me the form through a successful game of charades. When we came back to the US, not only did United provide 10 different customs forms and guides, officials of various languages were ready to help. Just pointing it out.
Baby, It’s Cold Outside…
My rant leads me to the story of how we arrived to Seoul. You know about the snow. Part two: The bus ride over.
Vitaliy instructed me to go to the bus counter and purchase a ticket to Jeonjong Station. I walked up to the counter and requested a ticket to Jeonjong Station, then pointed to the station written down in my notebook. The woman behind the counter nodded and said, “Ah. Yes.” She printed out the tickets and said, “You take 5400. It come…oh! It there!” She pointed to a burgundy bus in right outside. I asked her, “We take that bus? And it takes us to this station?” pecking my notebook with my finger once more. “Yes! Yes! Hurry!”
Sasha and I rushed out the door and into the line of people ready to board the bus. We chuck our bags underneath, jump on board and settle for the expected hour long ride into Seoul. It didn’t take an hour. It took a little over two. I’m getting anxious. I like to know things, things like my location in a foreign country as I’m trying to find my brother. You know, the little things.
A Japanese business man in front of me gets restless as well. He asks a woman near him our location. She doesn’t speak English. He calls a Korean colleague and has him translate via phone. We’re near the city now. We stop. Sasha goes up front to the bus driver, inquiring if we are at Jeonjong Station. The bus driver nods his head like a humming bird. I get outside, it’s bitter cold and there’s wet brown slush mixed in with the fresh snow. My winter jacket is somewhere in my bag. The bus speeds off. I look around. This doesn’t look like a metro/bus station. A gigantic mall looms in front of me.
Call Vitaliy. Ok. Wait that means I have to find some who either knows English or is quick at charades. We walk under an overpass, I make eye contact with a girl and ask her a. Do you speak English and b. may I make a local call on your phone? Response: a. A little b. Yes.
I call Vitaliy to tell him we’re here (he was at school) and Sasha asks the girl for our exact location. Turns out we aren’t at Jeonjung Station, but we can take a subway there and there is a station inside the mall. Vitaliy is still a school, he’ll be on his way home soon. Thus, Sasha and I scale the underpass (ok, walk up the stairs) and squish squash our way over to the other side of street and into the mall. People stare when two befuddled giant, Caucasians wearing huge backpacks enter a mall and stand right next to the Louis Vuitton trying to figure where to go next.
Half an hour later Vitaliy found us in the Dunkin’ Doughnuts near Jeonjung Station. Yay! We could settle in now. Oh, and Dunkin’ Doughnuts in Korea are fiercely plentiful and delicious.
Mick Jagger
Koreans are heavy on first impressions. Second chances? Not really. Therefore, my first impression of Seoul:
Seoul, and South Korea for that matter, has made the most radical of leaps during these past 50 years. From farm land to being the 8th largest city and 2nd largest metropolitan in the world! It’s one of ten top financial centers, has hosted the Olympics, World Cup, and is home to Kia, Samsung and LG—it’s kind of a big deal. The sky scrapers in Seoul are as abundant as sand in the Sahara. 20,000 American-Canadian expats teach English in South Korea. Everything is very impressive.
The catch…Seoul’s impressive, but not really.
We all have that one cool friend. You know, that one friend who is just so darn cool without even trying. That’s Mick Jagger. He takes no effort to exist. There is this aurora around him, that extra something that just draws everyone to him. He’s just that cool. Mick Jagger is Japan. Seoul, on the other hand, is Mick Jagger’s little annoying overachieving sister. She’s sweet, she’s trying, she’s smart—nevertheless no one really cares. It’s as if she is jumping up and down, flailing her arms about, hoping everyone notices and appreciates the extreme coolness of her neuro-bio-adaptor reader that turns human sweat into car fuel or whatever…and no one does. Ok, they do, but quickly realize that it’s just theory paper and no actual product, and the potential is there and great…but it’s not worthy of the Nobel Prize just yet. She so desperately wants to be the cool kid that everyone adores, it’s just too painful.
Calm down little girl. You will be great. You’re almost there already. Stop trying so hard. Enjoy the ride maybe. And in the process, clean yourself up a little. Stop spitting all the time and cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze, wipe your nose too, and don’t pretend you’re better than everyone else and perhaps you’ll gain a friend or two in the process. We’ll get to hygiene issues later, but right now, it’s Mick Jagger vs. his annoying little sister.
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