Hospitality, or: My Taekgyeon Teacher is a Real Nice Guy

I think my taekgyeon teacher (or 관장님, which is like "master" or "director") has become my new homestay dad, in a way. Well, at the very least, he's been a very kind and generous person in my life, and I'm deeply grateful to him and his wife.

Before I left for home last week, when he found out why I was visiting home, he personally went and got a gift set of his favorite brand of 막걸리 (makkeolli) for me to give to my parents. My first thought was, "Boy, that is going to take up all of the room in my suitcase." But then, I realized how kind a gesture it was. My parents thought so, too, even though they hardly drink at all.

He's also become my gymnastics trainer. I merely casually mentioned after class one night that I wanted to learn how to do a back handspring, and before I knew it, he was telling me to do a bridge and spotting me for a back walkover. I regularly treat his dojang like my personal tricking gym, but instead of being annoyed at this, he's always been encouraging and wants to help me reach my goals, however trivial.

Then, yesterday, he invited me and some of the other members of the dojang over to his new apartment for a small apartment-warming party. We brought some gifts (it's customary to bring household goods like toilet paper or tissues to a 집들이; I also brought donuts!) and ate and chatted with him and his wife and cooed at his chubby seven-month-old son. Over fifty percent of the time, I tuned out what everyone was talking about in rapid Gyeongnam dialect Korean, but when I did listen and comprehend, the conversation strayed from the odd sports tchoukball and "padminton" to the UFO crash in Roswell to a debate over whether the greenhouse effect was a political scam or a real phenomenon. Eventually, though, I just couldn't keep my eyes open -- an unwieldy combination of jetlag, dry eyes, sitting on the floor for hours, and taxing mental strain to follow along -- and I fell asleep on the sofa.

When I woke up, it was almost 2am, my ride had left, and 관장님 was like, "Dude, you can just sleep here overnight, if you want. You should." So I did. And this morning, he, his wife, and I ate breakfast like a family, and then they sent me off with some fruits and an invitation to come back again whenever I wanted to. How can I pay back that kind of hospitality?

All in all, I'm just very thankful that my teacher treats me not like some random waygookin (foreigner) but like his friend. I'm entertaining this wild idea that in twenty years, his son will want to study English in the States, and so I'll be like, "Dude, he can just stay at my place, if he wants. He should."

Baking Party

Some friends came over tonight because I enticed them with cookies! It was supposed to be a 집들이 (housewarming party), but in reality I just wanted to test-drive my new convection oven. The instruction manual was in Korean, so I needed some help... My friend 은진 graciously took me shopping for baking supplies this afternoon, and then we set to work making banana bread! Preparing the batter was easy and quite fun -- 은진, like most Koreans, doesn't bake often at all, so it was a novel experience. When it came to using the oven... well, we ended up just pressing a lot of buttons. (I learned that convection ovens don't need to preheat. At least, mine doesn't. Is this normal?)

바나나 브레드, which is not technically bread but who cares?

We then ate our delicious banana bread and watched a movie, and when Aaron came over, we started on chocolate chip and M&M cookies. These were less successful. I think we were all comparing them subconsciously to the warm, gooey cookies that Maggie Gyllenhaal's character makes in Stranger Than Fiction (the movie we watched). Ours were warm and a bit crispy. Too little flour? Too much butter? I'll figure this out. I have a whole year to get good at this.

엠엔엠 쿠키, which was a wonderful culinary invention!

Also, like Maggie Gyllenhaal's character in Stranger Than Fiction, I'm going to have to give away a lot of what I make, because I'm trying to eat healthfully this year, and cookies don't factor into that anywhere. You know what that means, readers who live in Korea: come visit me, and I will feed you delicious baked goods! In the meantime, I think I'll give the rest of the banana bread to my old homestay family. I bet they've never even heard of banana bread...

The Learning Curve for Apartment Living

This doesn't surprise me especially much, but there are a lot of things about solo apartment living that I'm being quickly forced to learn how to do. These are things that I didn't know I didn't know, so each one comes up rather unexpectedly, and taking care of them can be an adventure.

For instance, I have had to learn how to set up automatic bill pay (자동이체) with my bank, so that I can -- get this -- pay the bills. I went to the bank in person today and tried my hardest not to come across as a stupid foreigner, but within thirty seconds I failed to understand the clerk when she asked for my ID card (신분증) and what account I wanted to transfer funds to, so that's that.

I have also had to figure out where to buy the specific trash bags (쓰레기 봉투, not 봉지...) required for regular garbage pickup, how to return a purchased item (반품하다; at first, I asked an employee where I could go to "분팜하다", which is like asking about the powdery palm trees, which makes no sense), and how to get free furniture (hint: it rhymes with "humpster hive"). And as soon as I feel comfortably settled in, I ought to throw a 집들이, or housewarming party. There's not much room for other people in this cozy little 원룸, but I'd like to invite friends over. Only I have no idea what is proper protocol for a 집들이 in Korea! Maybe we'll bake cookies?

Then there's all the stuff that I know how to do but have grown accustomed to not doing thanks to having had a homestay, like washing all the dishes myself, figuring out how to get Internet access, and locating the closest amenities like grocery stores and restaurants for when my fridge is empty (as it is now).

The learning curve is pretty steep, but I've got help in the form of friends, fellow expats and their Facebook group, and the awesome website Changwonderful, which has tons of useful information about my city: advice on how to separate recycling, where to get a bike share pass, etc. I've read it all before without having to worry about it, but now I have to worry about it!

All of this notwithstanding, being fully independent now, in a way that I have never been before in my life, is still very exciting. I'm looking forward to the months to come.