On needing, feeding, reading and strange superstitions

Also "4 of approximately 24"
or "Where the money goes"
or "These letters are getting harder, you guys should start paying me :-)"
or "You better be nice to me or I'll write your name in red"

I didn't tell you in emails because I didn't want to be a complainer but, it took a long time for my school to pay me. My co-teacher isn't the most helpful person I have met in my life and doesn't really have my best interests at heart. Let’s be honest; she is not very good at her job as a co-teacher. I am wonderful at my job, and I am pretty brave when it comes to trying to get things done on my own so we balance each other out (That’s my positive approach to this situation). Anyway, Petra, my angel sister, has been sending me money to live on for a few weeks and I have been trying to spend wisely. This means that I spent most of my money on food and transport and didn't buy things like the bathroom mat I need, the desk lamp I need, handy-andy, detergent or shampoo (by the way, shampoo is an essential item, living without it is not easy). But now, I am a millionaire! I got paid and it was glorious! The first thing I bought was yogurt, then shampoo, then washing powder, then a bathroom mat, then a nail clipper and some Tupperware, then some cereal that looked like it might  not contain sugar (I was mistaken) and a massive  bag of Nesquick (chocolate flavour, my first real luxury item). If you do want to send me a care package, because you love me or because you think I am abnormally good looking then please try to include oats. Oats and Oros are the two food things I really seem to miss from SA. Soon I will have a laptop and you guys can Skype me. After the laptop I'll buy a camera and I'm thinking of not buying a phone at all. What do you think? I don't know who would phone me, I suspose the other teachers who live in Buyeo, but do I want them to phone me? I could stay low profile if I don't get a phone and then they wouldn't suck up my time with their drinking nights. I’m not sure; travelling is better with a phone, if anything happens I could call someone. It's always hard to meet up with Petra because neither of us can let the other person know if plans change, since I don't have a phone. I’ll make it a poll; tell me what you think and I’ll take it into consideration.

Bibimbap

Eating out is cheaper in Korea than cooking at home. I know you’re thinking; “Now this is hard to believe. Maybe per night yes, but if you add it up then at the end of the month you could have done more with that money". You, my dear are wrong. Korean fast food, especially street food, is drastically cheaper than fresh food. I can get a roll of kimbap, big enough to be my supper for R6. I often buy this massive dumpling thing for R6 and have that for supper. Bibimbap, a dish made of raw veggies, rice, eggs and meat costs me R14 and I cannot finish the meal. It’s about three rand for ramyeon (seasoned noodles) and there are many other things like that. However, western food is more expensive. If you live in the city and you want to eat McDonalds or KFC every night you'll pay quite a lot but Korean fast food really is healthy and cheap. However, their fresh produce is very expensive. You will pay at least R10 for an apple, bananas are about R35 a bunch, and there is a box of strawberries that I really wanted that costs about R80. The reason for this is that Korea is tiny in comparison to SA. The Whole of Korea could fit comfortably into the Western Cape. Over and above that only 30% of their land is arable, the rest is covered in what they consider mountains, but what we would consider medium to large hills. They also have a slightly larger population than South Africa. This put together means that fruits and veggies are in short supply and high demand. If you've ever done any economics you'd know that prices will skyrocket under these conditions. I must say I found it very difficult to buy fruit. I still flat out refuse to pay R140 for a fricken watermelon! Veggies are cheaper but still more expensive than in SA. I will know more about vegetable prices when I buy them, and then I’ll tell you, but I know a cucumber is like R20. I haven't bought meat and I don't intend to but I know meat is also quite expensive here, I have bought tuna and it’s cheap.  It was roughly R9 for a can and you can get three for R25, so naturally I bought three. Since the whole country is a peninsula the seafood is affordable and you can get fresh seafood from vendors everyday at super reasonable prices. In fact I could live off of crayfish rather than beef. It's strange but if I wanted to make my Aunty Patricia's delicious Crayfish Salad, the most expensive thing would be the veggies. Bread is hard to come by, and brown bread is even harder. Uncle Salie has never been to Korea. There is a bakery in Buyeo that sells brown bread; they sell it 6 slices at a time. Those six slices cost me about R16 but they are pretty big slices... and it keeps me off the carbs. Do you have any questions about food? No, I have not yet tried dog, but I have found a restaurant in Buyeo that sells dog. The more fancy places allow you to go to the back and choose a dog which they will then slaughter and serve for you. I don't think that is for me though, I've never been one to have my food growl at me before I chow down.

I can now read Korean. Not well but enough to get by. I know all the sounds the characters make (roughly) and I can see the names of stuff on road signs. It sounds tough but it's not that difficult. Obviously I can’t understand a word of what I'm reading but I know when I'm getting on the right bus and that's a big deal. It's not permanent knowledge. I'll have to keep practicing but I’m proud of myself. Also there are different pronunciations for some letters, depending on its position in the syllable, so that is tricky, but I think as a third language speaker, I'm doing ok. The name of my town is 부여 I know there is a chance that you can't see that (it might come out as blocks) but trust me it’s pretty cool.

I’m a little behind on my luxury reading. I planned to sit under tree and read for hours on end... I'm not sure where I thought I'd find the time. There is so little time. I don't know how these letters get so long when I barely finish them on time. Since I started these letters the list of people wanting to read them has gotten longer and longer. I'm trying to think of it as a compliment to my writing but it actually just adds pressure, I'm even thinking about getting an editor. You know; someone who can actually spell to go through my letters first.

The longer I am here the harder it is to gauge what is differs from South Africa. People really are people everywhere.

Lots of the ridiculous things that I was told about Korea and Koreans before I left South Africa have either been explained to me  (so they seem reasonable) or they have been proven false. For example: Korea’s society is very conservative and they don't like to drink alcohol; this is nonsense. Koreans on average drink more that South Africans, well either that or they cannot hold their liquor because they are so small. But ya, I can confidently say I see a drunken Korean every other day, and a few more on weekends. Their drink of choice is Soju, the cane like substance I mentioned in my first email. Soju can be bought at any shop and at anytime of the day. You can get Soju on Sundays at seven from the corner shop near your house. And it's cheap.  A bottle of Soju costs roughly the same as a bottle of water. You can drink it clean or drink it with coke, orange juice, Chilsing (Korean sprite) or even just a dash of grenadine. You also get different varieties of Soju. Since I’m not a very big drinker, my favourite kind is lemon Soju. Everyone makes fun of me because it’s like drinking a wine cooler... but I am never the one vomiting out the side of the taxi when we get back to the apartments, so they can laugh all they want.

Koreans aren't very approachable in general, but it’s not because they aren't nice, they are very nice and want to be helpful but they are very self conscious. They don't like speaking English if their English is poor, so they would rather not speak it at all than make a mistake and be laughed at. But after some Soju, they are a lot more open. They’ll speak to you in broken English and laugh with you at the ridiculous things they say. They get louder, they are pretty quiet in general (it’s impolite to speak loudly on busses or trains so everyone sits quietly like in South African lifts. It kind of freaks me out!) One drunken Korean man came up to me and just repeated the words "Nama-Gong, world cup, soccer, and Mandela" like fifteen times. I smiled and nodded. The ten Korean words I know would not have improved that conversation much.

However, some things which I thought were not going to be an issue when I arrived in Korea actually turned out to be true. For instance, followers of Confucianism believe that we should not write down our names in red ink because that is the colour that the names of the deceased was written in the death registry many years ago. Writing down someone’s name in red means you wish them dead. Writing your own name in red means you believe you are going to die. While about fifty percent of Koreans are not religious, 25 of them Christian and the other 25 and Buddhist; Confusion ideas still circulate widely in Korea. Last Thursday when I was playing a really fun game with my kids and I wanted them to write down their scores on the board, I gave a kid a red board marker (just because I was using the black one) and the whole class protested loudly in Korean. I didn't even realise what was going on but when I did I quickly realised my mistake and gave him the black marker so that he could write down his name and score. Unfortunately, after that I tried to think back to my week of introductions, I wrote my name down in every new class I was introduced to and I don't know if I did it in red at any point and if they are all expecting me not to survive my term at this school... If the letters stop coming, you know what happened.

Here is just one more strange yet wonderful thing about Korea that I find entertaining. It’s called ‘fan death’ which means, death by fan. The heat in Korea's summer is quite intense, humidity and high temperatures keep people indoors (unlike Cape Town and Durban where it sends people to the beach). But when Koreans put on the fan or the air conditioner, they will open all the windows and doors. This is to prevent ‘fan death’. Cases of ‘fan death’ are reported every summer and even some teachers in my school leave their windows open when switching on the air-con (which, as you know, basically defeats the purpose). I've heard two explanations for this so far, the one is that the fan sucks in the good, breathable air and creates a partial vacuum in the room which suffocates its inhabitants. The other is that the blades of the fan chop up the air particles until they become too small for human beings to breathe. If this sounds really ridiculous to you and you think I’m making it up, check out this article on Wikipedia-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death


I sincerely hope you are well and that you will let me know if you're not. 
The only thing worse than hearing shocking news about your friends and family from someone other than the subject of the news, is hearing it long after everyone is done talking it out and no longer want to gossip with you about it. 
I want all my news fresh and still in scandalous tones!


Much love
Bashti Teacher