tales from Korea

It’s a new beginning for me, again. I’ve been in Korea now for about eleven months, the time has gone by very quickly yet at the same time it feels like I’ve been here for a while. I do think I have quite a good ability to adjust to how I live and even though Jayeon helped eased the transition, I’ve settled into Korean society quite well. I’ve really learned a lot about the Korean psyche and this learning process was speeded up through my wholly unique living situation. As you may know already from previous posts, I moved into Jayeon’s family home from day one when I landed in Korea last August, and we just moved out of her home about two weeks before into our own apartment. For a westerner to move into a Korean family home and live an extended sojourn there is to say the least, extremely uncommon. But the fact they her family had never met me before and even more importantly that Jayeon and I were not married at the time, seems almost like me living there would be impossible. I never fully realised the profoundness of this situation until I came over here and started living in it for myself. Trying to explain it to other westerners had them confused and asking questions, but explaining to Koreans had they absolutely perplexed.

In retrospect, a decision I made rather lightly (and with a great deal of naiveté) could have gone horribly wrong, and I think we were all lucky that didn’t happen. I lived with Jayeon, her mom, her grandmother, her brother and her young cousin. From the moment I stepped in the door, they had accepted everything about me. Their unemphatic welcomes had me a little worried at the beginning (In contrast to Irish welcomes), but I soon realised that it’s part Korean style and part that their acceptance of me meant there was not need for that kind of greeting. One main reason for moving in there was getting the chance to know them; Jayeon knew my family well by this time but I had never met hers even once in our three year relationship. And I really did get to know them, I got to understand a lot about Korean behaviour, idiosyncrasies and their overly practical often down-to-earth attitude. Her family are incredibly easy going people, a contributing reason for my moving in and we had a lot of good times over the eleven months we lived together. The language barrier presented problems, especially between Jayeon’s grandmother (Who can’t speak a word of English but can speak Japanese) and her mom (Whose English is basic). But I was fortunate enough to have three fluent English speakers with me: Jayeon, her brother and her cousin. Jayeon’s mom did make a huge effort to learn English and bought books and persistently and when necessary used her limited ability really well. I picked up a bit of Korean from overhearing conversations and together in a mixture of Korean and English, we got by. Her young cousin of just fourteen years old can speak English really well. I guess the 3 nights a week of attending English institutes after school is paying off.

A little sad to move out, but it’s great that we can finally have our own space. They miss us too.

Our new apartment is only about 100 meters away from her mom’s house. We can even wave and see each other! It’s great, if I’m hungry I can go over any time I want and eat her mom’s delicious food. But more than that, I had a wonderful experience and I’m glad I took that one opportunity for me to really get to know her family, who are now my family too. Without doing that, a trip to the ‘inlaws’ may have been the awkward experience a lot of other people dread.

I’ll never forget that one great year, thank you. 나는 올해는 절대 잊지 못할거야. 감사합니다.

It was great news to hear that JaYeon’s brother was cleared by the doctor and doesn’t in fact have the chronic back problem they suspected he might have. It’s also good to know my original situation of living in JaYeon’s apartment will now go ahead! It may be a little squashed for a couple of weeks, as Myung-Gi will most likely still be staying there by the time I land in Korea. At the same time, I’m looking forward to meeting all of JaYeon’s family. So now that I know I’ll be living in Bundang I’ve been doing a little routing around for information on the city. I was surprised to find a Wikipedia entry that documents some pretty detailed information. First and foremost, Bundang is considered to be a very wealthy region. JaYeon calls it “One of the snobbiest towns in or around Seoul” and comments how she’d prefer to still be living in her town that they’re moving from. Bundang is primarily a residential area with many tall apartment blocks using yuppie sounding English names to try and make them sound more posh. Some of them are actually pretty hilarious, I like the “Royal Palace Houseville” (interesting amalgamation of words), this apartment building is just down the road from where we’ll be staying. Even the place we are staying in doesn’t escape the posh naming, it’s called the “Hyundai Pantheon” – Pantheon a word that literally translates from Greek meaning “a temple of all gods”, not the most modest of names is probably sounding like an understatement. In reference to the apartment block we are staying in – I’ll save it for a post that I’ll draw up once I’m actually there and have explored the building itself, let’s just say the place could be described as being ridiculous – it’s 27 stories, has a few levels of shops and a level of leisure facilities including a swimming pool and GYM, not to mention the 320 or so apartments contained within. The most awesome thing about the location of our apartment block is its proximity to the subway station, it’s literally one block away – about 3 minutes walk. If I were offered a position in Seoul it would be very convenient to take the subway into the city.

There are a few ridiculous buildings in Bundang, such as St. John’s Cathedral – the largest Catholic Church on the Asian continent (not that I care about religion, though). The Seongnam-Arts Centre looks totally awesome, the style and slickness defiantly reflects the attitude of Bundang itself. There are loads of public schools in Bundang, mostly elementary, and JaYeon informs me there are also a lot of Hagwon (Private institutes). Overall Bundang seems like a well-developed area with modern services and should be a nice place to live, even if the snobbiness gets a bit annoying. I’ll be able to cast a better judgement once I’m there, of course.

I guess it may be time to update the status of my applications; things have been looking promising until some bad news was received today. JaYeon was on to mom for a while, the usual catch-up, but she informed JaYeon there have been some problems with her brother Myung-Gi, who appears to have a chronic back problem which may require surgery. This problem may upgrade his status level on joining the army above 4, which may mean when he starts his conscription he’ll have more of an army ‘office’ type job. This may sound both good and bad, he gets out of the grub work, but it also means he may have a serious back problem. The issue with me is that the plan of me moving involved taking over Myung-Gi’s room when he leaves for the service sometime in June, but if he gets the ‘office’ position he’ll be doing a 9-5 type thing and come home every night instead of living in the military barracks.

I hope he’ll be OK, but it does mess my plans up a bit, not least as I’ve already stated my living arrangements to the agencies I’ve applied to and they’ve taken that under consideration during the applications. I’ll look like a bit of a douchbag turning around and saying, “Actually, yeah, I’ll need the apartment”.

It’s a pity really, I have spent the last while mentally preparing myself for that living situation and now it may not be so. We’ll see what happens though, and at least some of the applications seem to be progressing.