Being Normal

Our conversations revolve around it here. Our blogs report on it. We complain about it. We love it. It's the reality that every single ex-pat faces when leaving the house, when arriving at work. You have lost your anonymity, which gives you privilege when you want it, and too much attention and focus when you don't want it.... You live in a hub-bub of noise and sounds that, sometimes (rarely), turn into meaningful words.... A trip to the bank or post office takes twice as long...

But sometimes, you can communicate just enough, or understand a new word, or just pretend for a morning that you aren't all that different from everyone else. And it feels damn good.

I find that I tend to frequent the same businesses repeatedly. In my mind, they have become classified as "Foreigner friendly" (or at least "Virginia friendly") businesses: Places where a group of noisy foreigners with minimal Korean skills are tolerated, or encouraged to return. Places where I've been served with a smile instead of a stare, or just wonderful discoveries that are (generally) delicious. Most of the time, there isn't anything special (like an English speaker) at these places, it's just that they understand that we are simply paying customers like everyone else. They understand that we might take an extra 5 minutes to do something, but that their patience is greatly appreciated. There are kimbap and dak galbi places on every corner here, but if I tell a friend to meet me at "the dak galbi place", he or she will know exactly which one I mean.... but I digress.

I wonder sometimes if businesses like the kimbap place or the dak galbi place (or the shabby family-run corner store up from my apartment or Waltz or Texas Moon or P-Club or Cafe Manon or the gynecologist in Hadang or the vet who all the foreigners use or my acupuncturist or... or...), I wonder if they realize just how much of their business comes from word-of-mouth in the ex-pat community. We trade business cards with each other, and draw elaborate maps to show each other the way to these places... not a week goes by without one person or another sending out an e-mail asking where to find a good optometrist, or passport photographer, or hair dresser (I'm still waiting on a good tailor or seamstress, by the way....).

Well... anyway... that wasn't the point when I sat down to write this.

I really just wanted to talk about my morning, and how cool I felt just being a normal citizen here, recognized as a customer, but not as a freak... So... okay, here goes.

With errands to run, I headed downtown. One of my students passed me and we had a nice little conversation (How are you? I'm good. It's hot today. Yes). I stopped at a plant store to buy a nice plant for Ty's desk at work - I've been there before, the 100-year old bent-double halmoni (grandmother) recognized me. The entire transaction was in Korean... including the instructions on how not to kill the little plant with my decidedly brown thumb. Waiting to cross the street, an older man approached the woman next to me, asking her how to find the ferry terminal. I understood him and was able to tell him how to find it, whereas she couldn't. He nodded and replied with a nice "Sang you"... there was no look of shock on his face that I understood the phrase "yeogak teminar", and no giggling from the 4 younger women with him when I used the most basic phrases to get them where they wanted to go.

My next stop was a dochang (Korean name stamp) place where Madeleine had bought stamps for herself and a few friends when she was here. Transaction (buying dochang as gifts) done through Korean and interpretive dance/miming. Next stop, the bank, where "my lady" helped me out - and gave me juice (nothing special about that, everyone gets juice at Nonghyeop) - and the bank manager stopped by to proclaim his love for me (Hello. I love you. Thank you. I love you too.). Okay, maybe that bit was special.... I think I might be the only foreigner who goes in there regularly, and they are used to me by now.

Finally, I headed to "the kimbap place" to meet Ty for lunch, where the new plant was inspected happily by all the waitresses, but where (once again) we were just another part of the lunchtime crowd.

I didn't get pointed at by any children today... Nobody that I wasn't dealing with shouted "Hello!" at me, then ran away to laugh with their faces covered... I didn't get leered at by any old men thinking that I was a Russian prostitute... I interacted like a regular, average person, communicated what I needed (in Korean, English, and charades) and was understood. I got everything done that I needed to do, without wasting a ton of time and without having to return to the same place with a Korean speaker.

And that shouldn't be that big of a deal... but it is!