Lughnasa and the Korea Moon
Tuesday gratefuls: Songtan. Rain. Lots of rain. A walk. Buying Vitamin D3 and a green tea latte with the aid of my translation app. Signing up for the gym in the apartment complex. 28,000 Won. My son playing video games he found in moving. Old ones. Having a great time. Seoah and I have a sushi brunch date today. Sleep normal. Good. My own desk and chair in my room here.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Korea
One brief shining: Pressed my index finger into the scanner with the apartment complex manager softly touching it, went into the gym area, put my finger on the scanner and got an X, back out to try my thumb, again a soft pressure from the manager, again to the scanner, X, only to learn that sometimes old people’s fingerprints are too weak.
Oddly disappointed that my fingerprints were too weak. Considering it later I think it might be years of grasping and gripping, typing polishing the whorls and curlicues, losing definitive ridges. Reminded me of my mortgage banker Valerie who was one of a rare group of people who have no fingerprints at all. Valerie would always get X’s.
The gym is a good one. Six high quality treadmills in their own room. A weight room with machines and free weights. A room with mats and exercise balls. May get down there before my brunch with Seoah. If not, I’ll for sure start tomorrow.
Took a walk yesterday down a street used by locals, lots of coffee shops, drug stores, small restaurants, an occasional clothing store. When I stopped in one of the drug stores, I typed Vitamin D3 into my app and showed it to the clerk. Ah. She said. And went to get the pharmacist. Who found it and asked me if it was for an adult? Yes. Pricey. 23,000 Won. $17.
At the Paris Baguette I met the limits of the translation app. The young Korean girl, masked, read my order, nodded and asked me a question. Well now… A bit of back and forth. Finally figured out she wanted to know if I wanted only one. Made me wish I’d been more diligent with my Duo Korean.
I backed away from it after realizing I’d been doing it wrong from the start. And, I was pretty far along before I realized it. I learned Hangul. I learned words and phrases, could distinguish the spoken words. But I had neglected to pronounce the words as I learned them. Turns out in the real world of Songtan, being able to speak it is the most important skill. Being able to read, much less so.
Hope I can leverage my immersion here, Seoah, and Duo itself to recapture some of the gains I made and add to them pronunciation.
Korea, like all nations, has a complexity and sophistication difficult for a foreigner to see. Of course the language. Of course the bowing. But the knowledge of the land, how to make it productive. The weight and possibilities offered by a long history, still shaping Korean life. Those Confucian virtues rippling down through time. The military victories and losses. The time of the hermit kingdom. Now a nation intertwined with great power conflicts between the US and China. Isolation no longer a possibility. The role of women. A fight back as contemporary women refuse to marry and bear children.
Still learning. So much fun.
