An Excellent Weekend

At some point during the weekend I figured out (maybe) that the problems Thursday~Friday were culture shock. It's partly work BS that you could have in any job, but certainly a large part related to the culture. So I largely neglected the work duties this weekend, doing approximately an hour on Saturday and two on Sunday, and instead immersed myself in having fun and interacting with people from all over the world, part of the reason why I work here.

Friday night I met about a dozen people from church to have a late dinner with Holly and Jody near the university. Holly and Jody went to Thailand and then to Canada; in all they were gone about a month, and were only in Ulsan for a couple of days to get some stuff before going back to the area near Seoul where they have a university job. Lucky them!

On Saturday I was the only student in Korean class, which felt a little weird, yet gave me some good practice with reading and I didn't feel as stupid asking what a word meant. After class I went to get a haircut, and while he was cutting my hair he asked about the highlights, as he almost always does. I explained, again, that I do them myself at home using a spray-on stuff and the hairdryer. He sounded very interested, and asked questions about where I got the stuff and what company it was (USA, and I don't remember). Then he asked if he could highlight my hair—"service"—Konglish for free. Why? I don't know if he wanted more practice with foreign hair (as my hair strands are rather thinner and silkier than Koreans') or if it was because I've been a regular customer for so long, or because I had to wait for 45 minutes, but I agreed. I must say I was somewhat nervous, knowing that he gave Sandra jet black hair one time when she asked for brown. He brought me a board with sample hair strands on it, and he suggested one that was entirely too light—I explained I didn't want anything too bright or crazy. I picked a somewhat conservative color, he suggested a lighter one, we decided on a shade between the two with lighter highlights. It took a little over an hour of two people working on me. They painted the strands and combed the dye through, let it sit a while, then painted the roots and let that sit (maybe used the blowdryer some) and then shampooed the hair. Then they did the highlights, blowdried that some and shampooed it again before drying and styling it. 10,000 won ($8)—pretty good deal.

As he was doing it he asked if it was the first time getting my hair colored in Korea. Yes. I didn't say that it was the first time getting my hair colored--ever! At the end he asked, somewhat concerned, if it was too bright. Actually it's not too different than the color it was before. It looks good, just a subtle difference. I reassured him that it was perfect and I liked it. At some point during the visit I told him that I was going home soon, but I didn't specify when. If I don't get there again before I go home, I'll email Sandra and ask her to tell him again that I liked his work. Otherwise I'm afraid he might think that I never came back because of what he did!

Only a couple of people even mentioned the haircut (which is slightly different than before). At work one class talked amongst themselves about me when I walked in, but didn't say anything to me.

Saturday night I met people at Java Coffee at 9 PM; we saw The Terminal. There were 10 of us—9 foreigners and 1 Korean, all English teachers. It was a hilarious movie and so applicable to our lives here—we've experienced a lot of the culture/language problems Tom Hanks did, and his English mistakes we've heard from our students. Some of the stuff obviously didn't translate well, as we were the only ones laughing in some sections, especially those about American culture or immigration procedures or English mistakes. Examples: Cher losing underwear on Virgin Airlines; Tom Hanks getting "cheat" and "shit" mixed up; the maze of forms and how strictly immigration laws are followed; some stuff just from how Tom Hanks said phrases with the Eastern European accent.

After the movie we went outside to talk (as inside was rather warm). It was perhaps 12:30 AM by that point. We were standing not too far from the door, and within 10 minutes a security guard came out, sort of shuffled around, cleared his throat, then hesitantly said, "Excuse me……" The message was pretty clear without any words—Get outta here! We moved farther away, yet still within the courtyard area. We stayed another hour goofing off and wondering if the guard would return. Nope. A group of dangerous foreigners standing near a door propped open into the main department store is much better than having them stand near the door to the still-open movie theater!

On Sunday there were tons of people at church, both old and new. Kendall was extremely funny with the announcements; it was a good atmosphere. Some people were going bowling in the afternoon but I went home to do a few productive things. Later I met everyone in old downtown to have a goodbye party for Bridget and Alex. We ate at a Chinese restaurant (owned by a Chinese guy). I haven't had that much meat at one meal in ages! Sweet and sour pork, garlic pork, honey chicken with cashews, a vegetable dish, sweet rolls, dumplings….everything was so good, and only 14,000 won each. We were stuffed. It's always so sad to say goodbye! They're headed to China and India for a few weeks of travel, and then to England. Because Alex's mother was born there, they can work there. They don't know what they'll do yet, but they want to do a little more crazy stuff before settling down in New Zealand.