Anthony in Korea, Day 8, Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Today I tutored Olivia at Starbucks for about two hours. As usual, she soaked up the information I offered like sponge. On the walk back to her apartment, I was hungry so I asked her what I should eat. She recommended “toast.” In Korea, “toast” means a sandwich with two pieces of white bread browned on a griddle. In between is a scrambled egg and vegetable patty (fried simultaneously with the bread) smothered with ketchup and mayonnaise and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese. It may sound gross but it’s actually quite delicious. It’s served folded in half in a cup, with a free drink [see photo].

After that I went to meet a former student from INTERLINK named Wany (Eunwon Seo). In North Carolina I wasn’t particularly close to Wany, but I always thought he was a nice guy. When I contacted him and asked him to meet for some drinks he was very happy. He greeted me at the Hongik University subway station with a big smile. The Hongik area is much like the Daehangno area I visited last night…loaded with college students, bars, restaurants, etc. It seems that every young Korean goes out every night and they are all having a blast.

Wany and I had a few beers at a bar, and then headed to another bar/restaurant where we had a few more beers and soju. We also ate some potato buchimgae. It looks like a pizza but tastes entirely different. Any “buchimgae” is basically a bunch of rice flour mixed with vegetables, formed into a large pizza-shape, and fried on a griddle. We just happened to have the potato kind, but as mentioned above there’s also a kimchi version, and many other kinds. You eat it with chopsticks in between glasses of soju and beer and it’s all quite delicious. I may have mentioned this before, but Koreans generally don’t drink and not eat. They consider it unhealthy and strange to drink like a fish like a typical American does at a bar, and then eat food afterwards. For Koreans, food and drink (lots of both) always go together, and it’s not uncommon to see a group of Koreans sitting at a bar drinking and eating, drinking and eating for hours. Not a bad tradition if you ask me.

My conversation with Wany turned out to be very interesting and fruitful. We talked first about the Korean cosmetic surgery issue—neither Wany nor I understand why Korean women want make their eyes and breasts bigger. We both agreed that Korean women should look like Korean women, plain and simple, and that’s what made them special, and each ethnicity’s unique physical characteristics should not be changed. But, Wany said, the pressure to look more beautiful was so great that it was difficult for people to change the culture; rather, they follow the trends of their society like lemmings.

We also spoke about English, and I was especially interested in hearing about why Wany went to America to study English. He explained that he wanted to get a better job in Korea, plain and simple. He’s about to start a new job at a recycling plant (he’s an environmental engineer) this summer, and although the job requires no English at all, he explained that the company was impressed that he could speak English and he feels that that is one of the reasons he got the job. Like Wany, many Koreans and people from all over the world travel to America (and other English-speaking countries) to learn English. (Indeed, on the subway ride to see Wany I met a nice young woman who was reading an article in Newsweek, and she said she improved English in Australia). All Koreans learn English in school but most do not master it until they study in the USA, and only the rich an lucky few get to live abroad. Wany confessed that he initially came to America for selfish reasons. However, he said that once he got to Greensboro he got excited about learning the culture and realized there was more to life than learning a language just to earn a few extra bucks.

This conversation led into a more profound one that I will only touch on here…Wany mentioned that he was reluctant to meet me at first because he was embarrassed about his English. He said some other Koreans from Greensboro felt the same way. But I explained to him that English was just a language. In other words, we didn’t need English to communicate at all, or, if anything, it was just a helpful factor but not the most crucial. Wany said, “you mean you feel me?” I said, “yes, yes, I feel you, you feel me. Language not important because we feel…language is just language but feel is human.” “So all human can feel,” he said, “because we are all same.” Much more was said but again it’s hard to express on a blog. What was nice is that Wany and I exchanged a human moment of truth…it wasn’t about anything other than two people agreeing about some basic truths regarding language and communication. We had just as great a conversation as we would have had Wany’s English been only half as good (and it is pretty good). I think if everyone just learned to “feel” everyone else then the world would be a much better place. But instead many people focus on minor differences and use those as reasons for hatred, violence, and prejudice, and even environmental neglect.

Yes, Wany, we should all just “feel” each other.