Mistakes & Confusion in Korea

Thursday, February 7th, 2003

My first week or two in Korea were marked by misunderstanding, confusion and mistakes on my part. I guess that's just natural when you move half-way around the world. And, although I am amazed at how well I am able to survive and adjust to live here in Korea it doesn't always keep me from making some very big and sometimes very awkward mistakes. Three of the most memorable are as follows:

• One of my first mornings in Gumi I was awaken to hear a loudspeaker blaring something. [Prior to coming to South Korea ALL I had heard on the news and from my family back home in Canada was that is isn't safe to go to South Korea cause North Korea has nuclear weapons and can/will invade at any moment. I reassured my friends and family that is was safe or Canada would not allow me to go and that there weren't even any travel advisories against South Korea]. I guess I was more nervous about the potential of North Korea invading South Korea than I had admitted to anyone including myself. For, in my half asleep state I thought the loudspeaker was announcing an evacuation or air raid or some such dire thing. It was only around 6:00 a.m. so I hurried out of bed and got dressed and was hurrying to stuff my passport and traveler’s cheques into a backpack when Ms. Park, my Chinese roommate saw me and started laughing at me. She lead me to the fridge and showed me some lemon melons and with sign language and a dictionary and pointing out a window to a blue bongo truck FINALLY made me understand that the loudspeaker was just the advertisement for the melons for sale. I didn't know rather to be relieved that I was safe or to be annoyed that I had been woken from a sound sleep and scared to death by some stupid truck trying to sell produce.

• The second mistake I made happened because I know that it isn't safe to drink the water straight from the tap [in Korea] and getting tired of drinking tea and coffee I decided to buy some bottled water. I went for a walk one night and stopped at a small convenience store [not the normal corner store I usually went to]. I found a large 2 liter bottle of water and the price was really good like about $1.50 Canadian. I said to the Harmonie [Grandmother] running the shop mul [water?] when I took it to the counter to buy it. She smiled at me and nodded. I bought it and took it home. I needed to take a vitamin pill so I just took the cover off and not bothering to get a glass I put the vitamin tablet in my mouth and proceeded to take a large mouthful of water to wash it down. Well as soon as the liquid hit the back of my throat my eyes teared up and I spit the fiery alcohol all over the place. The vitamin pill went flying and hit the wall. I was coughing and chocking when Ms. Park came in and started patting me on the back. She laughed at me and told me something in Korean I couldn't understand. Finally, she mimicked a drunk person staggering around. She told a co-worker who spoke some English at our school the next day and I was informed I had tried to drink Soju for water. Of this one fact I became convinced SOJU IS NOT WATER!

• The third and final mistake I made in my first week living in Korea was because of my ignorance of the culture and how things worked. When the teacher I was replacing left she had left a lot of stuff [some of it was useful to me and I was glad to have it] but in sorting through it I found a lot of old papers, empty juice and beer bottles, and just plain garbage. So, after sorting the recyclables I bagged them up to take them out. There must have been at least 6 bags of recyclables and 7 or 8 bags of garbage. Only about a block from my apartment the day before when I was walking to school I had seen neighbors putting trash out near a tree by the road. So everyday when I left the apartment I could grab a bag or two and take it. The second morning I did this my landlady [who lived downstairs] came running out after me yelling "sur-reg-ei" [garbage]. I couldn't figure out what she meant. Was she calling me garbage? Did she want me to take out her garbage, too? What was going on? Since I couldn't see any other spot for garbage around the neighborhood I ignored her and continued to take out the garbage and recyclables each day until they were gone. But everyday she would chase after me yelling "sur-reg-ei". Eventually, I remembered to ask an Administrator at the school what she could mean. And, I found out that in Korea it is OK to put out recyclables in old grocery [in my case E-Mart] bags but that for garbage one had to go to a convenience or corner store and buy a "special" garbage bag. Since there is no city tax to cover dump fees so you pay each time you buy a gargage bag. Sure enough I went to the corner store and asked for a "sur-reg-ei bong-tu" and paid 1,200 won [over $ 1.20 CDN] for one large bag. The next time I took out the garbage my landlady came out saw the bag smiled at me and patted me on the back and went back in her house. Poor thing she had just been trying to tell me I was making a mistake and doing the wrong thing. I've heard that the fine can be upwards of $1,000.00 CDN so she was trying to save me. I just didn't know it.