This weekend I’ve had a blast with being able to use some of my Korean skills. It’s been a real adventure. I’ll tell you about some of these experiences.
One of our co-workers, Linda, has family visiting her in Korea. Her mother and her younger sister. Linda took them to a meat buffet restaurant Saturday and invited her friends. So Ashley and I went. So did Katelyn, the new teacher at our school. Linda’s family is quite nice and I’m glad we got the chance to not only meet them, but also to spend some time getting to know them. Anyway, we went to this restaurant, and Linda also invited a teacher who is new to the area. She came to Korea just weeks ago and wanted to meet people. She had been unable to attend the Friday night “Welcome to Hongseong” party that many of the foreigners in our area had gone to. So she was there, and Linda also has a few Korean friends. They were there, too, although they arrived later than everyone. This will be a factor for a later part of the story.
And what do you know, that later part of the story is now. After we had finished eating, Linda planned to show her family what a 노래방 (noraebang, or “singing room”) is like. The Koreans told us to go ahead to the noraebang. They’d come when they were finished eating. So we went. There were ten of us total, four staying behind to finish eating (three Koreans and the new teacher). That left me more or less in charge. I led us to the noraebang that our friends had suggested (after we declined their first recommendation because we’d been there, and it was not heated). There, I told the attendant, “네 명 더 올 것입니다.” Four more people are coming. Then his response made me think he didn’t have any big rooms. Eventually I realized that that’s precisely what they’re called in Korean: big rooms. “큰 방 없어요?” There are no big rooms? He assured me that there were. So we paid him and he showed us to the room. The six of us started singing some songs for a while, and finally the other four showed up. We had a lot of fun. There are a few Korean songs I can sing at noraebang, although this particular noraebang didn’t have all of them. But I sang one of them and the Koreans were impressed. I sang an American rock song called “I Walk Beside You,” and one of the Korean women brought Ashley to the singing/dancing area (she always did this whenever one of us was singing, to bring the other to the singer). So I turned to Ashley as I sang the chorus (“I walk beside you / Wherever you are / Whatever it takes / No matter how far,” and so on).
Eventually there were more Korean songs to be sang, and I was roped into joining. I did better than I expected. It was a lot of fun, and quite dangerous for the ego when the Koreans told me that I was 최고 (“the best”). Eventually noraebang ended. We went home. The Koreans didn’t need help. That left seven of us. Six of us wanted to go back to Gwangcheon (Linda, her mom, her sister, Katelyn, Ashley, and I), while the new girl in Hongseong (Melissa) wanted to go to, well, her apartment in Hongseong. The area we were in wasn’t really a downtown kind of area. The buses had stopped running and taxis weren’t exactly lined up waiting for fares. We walked to a nearby bus stop. One taxi waited there. On the way to the bus stop, I had typed Melissa’s address on her phone from her registration card, because Melissa can’t read Korean yet to tell the taxi driver where to go, and the font for her address on the registration card was super super tiny.
Back to the cab. It’s possible to call a cab, and I’ve done it successfully once in life, but it’s a very uncertain thing when you don’t really know what’s being said on the other end of the line. Here we didn’t really have a good marker for telling our location. So I did something else. I approached the taxi and opened the front door. I said to the driver, “많은 사람입니다. 그래서 택시 2 대 더 전화하세요. 괜찮아요?” We are many people, so please call two more cabs. Is this okay? There were a few more exchanges between us to figure out exactly what we wanted (such as where we were going and a clarification on the number of additional cabs needed). Then he took Linda and her family back to Gwangcheon. A second cab arrived and Melissa took that one back to her apartment. Finally a third cab arrived and we took that to Gwangcheon. When I told the driver we wanted to go to Gwangcheon, he asked us where in Gwangcheon. I don’t really know how to say that, so I tried to say “광천에 갈 때는 더 말할 거예요.” At the time we go to Gwangcheon, I’ll say more. But toward the end of my sentence I kind of stumbled over the Korean syllables that were being formed by my mouth. He understood anyway (praise the LORD). So we arrived in Gwangcheon and I said, “광천오거리에 왼쪽으로 가주세요.” At the Gwangcheon five-way intersection please go left. (I realize now that I used the wrong particle, 에 instead of 에서.) He took us home and Linda’s cab was in the parking lot turning around. The driver realized that we were all together and he laughed. We had enough money to pay the fare seen on the meter, but I was trying to find a 1,000 won note so he wouldn’t have to break a 10,000 won note. He reduced the price for us and insisted on it, so as we got out of the cab, I said to him, “행복하게 오래오래 사세요.” Please live happily for a long, long time. He seemed to appreciate that.
The next day the six of us went to Seoul. It was Katelyn’s first time, and we also went to show the Seoul Grand Park Zoo to Linda’s family. This is where the story takes a turn. We were going from Yongsan Station to Seoul Grand Park Station. It was a journey of eight subway stops, including one line transfer. Halfway to our destiny, when the train came to Sadang Station, many people got off the train. Hey, plenty of seats, let’s all sit down, eh? So we sat down. Then we remarked how there were lots of seats. Then I stood up and looked up and down the train. There wasn’t a person on board. “Oh, I think we have to get off and get on another train,” said somebody. So we made our way toward the doors in an effort to get off the train. That effort was 83.3% successful. If you’re really good at math, you know that means five of us managed to get off the train before the doors closed insistently.
As I pulled my bag from the doors – not at all like elevator doors – I looked for an emergency open button. None to be found in the few seconds I had before the train resumed its journey to just-where-does-the-train-go-when-it’s-being-swapped-out-for-a-different-one? I looked at my friends through the window. The looks on their faces. Like I was on a wrong plane taxiing down the runway to another country. Like I was being sent to the slaughterhouse. Like I was too late in reaching the airlock on a spaceship before the pod bays were to be automatically opened.
So by God’s grace, I smiled and waved at them as the train began to move, in an effort to encourage them. I thought, “Well, I suppose this is going to the train garage or something. Might be a while before I see them. I’ll just text them telling them to head to the zoo and I’ll meet them there whenever I get there.” Before I could finish the text, though, Linda called. I don’t remember what we talked about. I think it had to do something with the sudden situation I was currently in. An old woman with a broom and dustpan went from car to car sweeping up trash and dust. After she passed me I started to follow her. I started to say “어떻게” (“How?” as in, “How do I leave?”), and she promptly told me to sit down and many other things which I couldn’t understand. So I sat. The train stopped. I couldn’t see a single speck of light beyond the windows of the train car. A man without a broom passed through the cars. The old woman came back through. She spoke to me again and this time she pointed at the map. I recognized 나가면 (“if you go out”) and wondered how that could fit into anything relevant to this situation. “IF I go out”? She also said something about Sadang. We had just left Sadang, though. She said a lot, and so I tried to ask her in my own words to see if I understood correctly (which was less of me really understanding and more of just making an educated guess). “사당에 도착할 때는…” I couldn’t finish the sentence before the woman affirmed that that was right. Which is good, because I hadn’t prepared the rest of that sentence in my head, or I might have stumbled over some more syllables. The sentence, by the way meant, “At the time of arriving in Sadang…” with the unspoken half being, “나갈 수 있습니까?” (“I can go out?”)
I called Ashley back, because she had called while I spoke with the woman. I told her what I knew, and by now the train had reversed directions. We were going back to Sadang. So this is weird, I thought. The train went forward empty and now it’s returning to the station we were just at. Instead of people having to get off and wait for another train, why not stay on this one and wait there instead?
Except that was the wrong thinking. When I arrived at Sadang Station, I walked out of the train and saw that the signs now read that this car was going away from Seoul Grand Park. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone, which is what I said to Ashley on the phone (we were still on the phone). Somehow I went forward, stopped, went backward, and suddenly I’m on the other side of the platform. I think I know now what happened (writing it out makes it so obvious if I hadn’t figured it out by now), but at the time it was very strange. Of course, the entire experience was very strange.
Anyway, I crossed to the other side of the platform and waited for a train. I was two stops behind Ashley and the rest of our group. Ashley said she’d wait for me at Seoul Grand Park Station. In fact, everyone decided to wait for me. There I met with my wife and friends again. I learned that Linda’s mom had had a bit of an anxiety attack for my sake, which, while I really didn’t want anyone worrying about me and certainly don’t like that I caused a mild panic attack, did make me feel touched.
This blog is full of successful Korean usage, and that streak made me feel really good, and praise God for it all. Without Him I wouldn’t be able to learn, and my errors would prevent any fruitful communication whatsoever. But He got me through it. Perhaps I nonetheless still had too much pride. When we got to the zoo, I tried to buy tickets for us. Katelyn had already gone to the ticket counter for the tram car to take us to the zoo entrance. There was that counter and a counter for a package ticket (tram car, zoo, and sky lift). We didn’t want the sky lift, though (a combination of people that seemed not keen on heights and a previous experience of the sky lift having very long lines). We only wanted the tram car tickets and tickets for the zoo. When I tried to buy only zoo tickets at the package counter, the woman said it was for package tickets only. When I tried the tram car ticket counter, one of the two women working there said some things to me, but even though she spoke through the microphone, the other sounds in the building drowned her out completely. I only saw her making an X with her arms. Was the zoo not open today? The six of us tried to figure out what was going on. They were selling package tickets, so obviously the zoo was open. Where were the tickets? So I went back to the ticket counter and went in the other line this time. There were fewer people nearby so I could hear this time. But the woman spoke in rapid Korean, and I couldn’t catch a thing she said. I didn’t recognize any of it. I tried to rephrase my questions and do all sorts of things but…why did she have to speak so fast? I know she wasn’t yelling, but speaking through the microphone and speaking fast and speaking unintelligibly to a person in a vulnerable situation made it feel like yelling. It didn’t help when she looked at her co-worker to see if she could help address my concerns, or maybe to telepathically share, “What is up with this 외국인?” I thought, “Maybe the ticket counter for the zoo is after the tram car ride, even though it’s strange that you can buy package tickets here, including a zoo ticket, but not just a zoo ticket.” So I tried to ask, in broken and intimidated Korean by now, if that were so, but all I received in response was more quick and unintelligible speaking. I have to admit that for about ten minutes afterward I just felt so defeated. I wasn’t really bothered by the whole ordeal on the train (other than being slightly embarrassed initially), but for some reason I felt…”traumatized” is too severe a word…by the experience at the ticket counter.
But at least, in the end, we decided to just get on the tram car. And yes, at the zoo entrance was the ticket counter for “zoo only” tickets.
Overall, I was quite happy this weekend to use my Korean. I’m thankful to my Father in Heaven for giving me the ability to learn the modest amount of Korean I have gained so far, and for giving me the opportunities to practice using it in real-life situations. I’m even thankful for the awful experience I had at the ticket counter. Perhaps I can learn a thing or two about how my students may feel at times. Or at least it can encourage me to fill in the gaps of my Korean skills (though the metaphor would be more accurate if I said the gaps were in my ignorance–I’ve got a lot to fill.)
Hey, Brian, how good to read your blog this time and see what progress you’re making with Korean. The fact that you can do what you already do is a testimony to how wonderfully God has made you. You make me dread having encounters of this sort. I could not manage it! I did have a bit of an encounter on Skype with one of my past Korean students and I was able to use a few sentences that I didn’t have to actually look up in a dictionary. My problem is that while I’m learning more about Korean grammar, I can’t construct a conversation that sounds remotely natural or spontaneous, so when I talk to Sonia–my Korean contact–we always revert to English. I’ll be in Korea again this summer–probably the last time–hope to run into you and Ashley sometime in late May-early June. You can put your Korean skills to good use guiding me around! BC
Glad to hear that you guys had a good trip.
This was epic!!! I’m so glad you’re learning the language well enough to step out and USE IT! Bravo!!