My 3rd Expat Christmas – 2010

 

Gift giving guilt

A traditional style Korean building at the Shilla hotel

Christmas decorations in the lobby of the Shilla hotel

Sparkly. Good.

Kristin primping

Me and some beautiful Christmas lights at the Hyatt

More lights at the Hyatt

In the lobby of the Hyatt.

We drank and dined for very unreasonable prices in the beautiful lobby of the Hyatt. There were lounge singers, an incredible view of Seoul and everything just dripped sophistication...except for me, of course.

Ridiculous cars outside of the Hyatt

Kristin and Sunday Indian lunch

Winter Chill and Holiday Reverie

Winter and I got along in North Carolina. The trees were bare and lovely and numerous, and when I went on hikes you could see the bones of the land stretching further than you could see in other seasons. The land said walk off the path, and I did. Winter was a mild affair, so mild that I was never desperate for spring. In Korea, I hate winter. Today was bitingly cold, the first such day, and just when I was considering not despising it. There was frozen shit water on my street.  Inexplicably, a pipe was pumping sewer water onto the street and of course it froze.  Thank God for the jacket my mom bought me back in college. Aesthetically it’s akin to a sleeping bag, though dare I say that it was a pricey purchase, and very nice compared to its cousins? I’ll have to live in it for the next few months, and come to loathe its heft and the sartorial monotony.  It’s a good jacket though. Blameless, really. It’s all winter’s fault.

My work schedule has been incredibly light these last few weeks. You won’t ever see me complaining about that!  And the kids are funny, and my coworkers lovely people.  The principal, Mr. Kim, is particularly sweet to me. We talk about politics.  He told me he’d miss me when I leave.  What a nice man.  And Ms. Choi is back from her honeymoon in Bali. Though she came back with a cold, she also came back glowing.

In my sixth period class we made Christmas cards.  While the students were cutting out Christmas tree shapes and drawing with glitter glue, a voice over the intercom was giving instructions on what to do in case of a military attack on Seoul. Oh, how cruel that I was deprived of the full effect of the irony of the scene because the instructions were in Korean, a language I will never speak.

This weekend I ate at my first sushi bar where the sushi is on a conveyor belt.  Initially I found it a visual novelty, but after some food in my stomach my hangover reared it’s ugly head.  Kristin said that the sushi was doused in mayonnaise. She was right, but shoot me, I like mayo.

I was keyed up to go to a traditional German Christmas festival last weekend. When Kristin and I got there we were underwhelmed. Not more than seven booths!  Where were the singers in lederhosen of my imagination?  And the booths were an antiseptic white.  We were so full (too full) from the sushi to have room to spare for bratwurst and hot mulled wine.

I’m not full of Christmas jeer, mind you. This atheist can appreciate Christmas music, the decorations, the family dinners.  I am not hard hearted!  My parents always decorated the house with greenery and fruit, they were not ones to go for gaudy little lights tossed over a shrub.  I miss going to the charming garden stores with them and picking through the baubles and holiday verdure.  How I would love a long hike in the chill before a longer, hearty holiday dinner.

Gosh gee golly, I have been one tired lady all week.  On Monday night a few mosquitos got into my room.  Where they came from beats me.  Uncharacteristically there hasn’t been a single mosquito in my room all summer, so why they decided to show their horrible little selves on one of the first cool weeks of the fall is beyond me.  Korean mosquitos have a bit of a temper. Their bite hurts much more than their passive relatives in North Carolina, so I lost half of my sleep that night tossing and turning and scratching and slapping.  I’ve had a sleep deficit all week.

At work we were preparing for Wednesday’s Halloween party. It was an after-school event, and I only had to have one party. Some of my friends had to have Halloween parties each period of their classes.  Exhausting for them!  We played Halloween music (Thriller, some tracks from The Nightmare Before Christmas, and spooky noises), and provided the students with an array of masks, hats and headbands with which they could dress themselves. Only three students brought their own costumes.  Then we herded them into a circle, had them sit down and turned off the lights.  I had a flashlight under my chin. I told them about my dear, dead friend Sam. When Sam was alive he loved to share his food and his money, but now that he’s dead he has another gift. (They, of course, didn’t really understand any of this.) Then we offered them the opportunity to feel Sam’s “gifts” and guess which body part they were.  Ramen noodles for brains, spam for his liver, two skinned grapes for his eyes, a peeled tomato for his heart and, my personal favorite, vermicelli rice paper for his skin.  They were enjoying being grossed out and I walked around the circle with the flashlight under my face making stupid faces at them.  Afterwards we broke a pinata that was left over from my summer camp and which I decorated for the occasion. That was also a success.

While I could see that the students were having a good time, I am never satisfied with the Halloween party. Why? When I first started working at this middle school there was another foreign English teacher who had worked there for a year.  Her name is Jennifer. Jennifer had seven years of teaching experience from back in the states and was a drama major. Those are some big shoes to fill.  She even persuaded the students to dress up for Halloween.  There was a very excellent Joker, some vampires and some princesses.  I don’t have the same work ethic or ability to inspire kids.  She was definitely talented.  She was even my teacher, in a way.  She helped me through the first awkward months without an ounce of judgement showing.  She was also an outspoken Libertarian. I haven’t heard from her since I told her about applying to the Peace Corps.

My friend Phil has been back in Seoul for a vacation.  Last Friday he took me to my first casino.  He’s apparently quite a fan of casinos, black jack in particular.  It was lovely to see him, and he waxed philosophical about life and gambling and the mutability of success and failure, all the while with a self-deprecating grin on his face.   I lost 40,000 won and on the taxi ride back to my neighborhood I had to ask the taxi driver to pull over.  That was a first for me, which should be regarded as phenomenal given the amount of imbibing I’ve done in this city.  They’re incredibly gracious about that kind of thing here.  He gave me some napkins and smoked a cigarette while I did what nature intends one to do after many long island iced teas.

But alas, Molly will leave Seoul this coming Wednesday. We had what may be our final Friday night romp, which naturally ended at a noraebang. Looks like I’ll have to join a gym.  Come back to me soon Molly so I won’t have to fill my time with such mundane things!

And now, some photographic evidence:

Ms. Molly and me

Nice frames you got there, Molls

Silly face

Pig snouts for sale. For the adventurous diner.

Fancy that. After a night of drinks we end up at a noraebang.

Self-deprecation!

Sing it, lady.

No doubt I am singing Desperado. Oh don't you want to go to a noraebang with me?

Some of my middle school girls at the Halloween party. I love the face the girl is making on the far left.

School Halloween party

Pinata time