How are you?

So let's imagine you're walking past a work-related acquaintaince in the hallway of your office. What do you say? Probably some variant of "Hey, how are you?" right? Depending on your level of intimacy with this person, he or she could either say "Fine. How about you?" or proceed to tell you all about that awesome fishing trip last weekend, the recent divorce, and/or what he or she had for breakfast.

So recently, I asked my Korean language exchange parnter how to say, "How are you?" in Korean. He looked at me for a second with a furrowed brow. "You know, 'how are you?'" I repeated. "What you say to a casual acquaintaince just to make conversation or add a little more than just 'hello' to your interaction."

He thought for a good long while and concluded that there was no Korean equivalent to "How are you?" a ubiquitous question in Western social interaction. In fact, it's so important that there are multiple variants of how to say it, some of which I will here repeat for the sake of color.

How are you?
How's it going?
What's happening?
What's kicking?
What's shaking?
What's up?
How's it hanging?
Who's your daddy?

(Okay that last one wasn't real.) But you get my point. Shin Woo told me that the closest Korean equivalent would be "What did you do yesterday?" but this, to me, is a very different sort of question. It asks for a particular response and specific information. I have no particular desire to know what my coworkers did yesterday. "How are you?" on the other hand, is a very open question. Depending on your level of intimacy with your conversant, your amount of free time, and your desire to share information, your reply could be quite comprehensive or a single word. And everything in between is okay.

Differences in a language almost always reflect differences in a culture. So what does this phenomenon signify? It could grow out of the more socially stratified nature of traditional Korean society, as contrasted to American society. "How are you?" is an open and flexible question, and Koreans are traditionally anything but open or flexible. Either you're intimate with someone or not. No grey space, and no room for inviting intimacy where it does not already exist. But if anyone else has theories, I would love to hear them.

So you caught me at a critical moment...

So sometimes I get a little discouraged. I think about how I can't tell a good wine from a great wine, or about how little appreciation I have for culinary delights compared to some people I know. Every man wants to have a good "nose" for whiskey, but to me they all sort of taste... well, whiskey-like. Far from being the responsive, sensitive tuning fork of pleasure I would like it to be, my palate sometimes feels like an all-too blunt instrument. So I get a little bit sad.

But for the rest of my life, I will be able to console myself, knowing that an entire country of people lacks even the fundamentals of what, in the West, we would call "good taste." I will now treat three aspects of the Korean culinary experience that have left me wanting.

Let's start with the bread. I think every bread-product in Korea must be made from rice and sugar instead of wheat. Their bread lacks texture. It lacks character. It lacks flavor. Really, the BEST bread you will find in Korea is comparable to Wonderbread. And yet, today I dared to hope... I went to the supermarket looking for pita bread, knowing full well what a desperate, hopeless quest I was on. As I sauntered over to where the bread-lady was displaying her wares, I had a moment of optimism! That bread-like thing, there! It looks flat, and almost resembles pita! Luckily, the bread-lady was there to offer me a sample, otherwise my hopes would have been mercilessly extended until I got home and tasted it for myself. It was sweet. Sugary sweet. Brutally sweet. Probably made from rice. And soft as a marshmallow.

The word "crusty," as in "crusty bread," is not in the Korea culinary vocabulary. In fact, "baking" at all here is an unknown art. It is extremely rare for a domicile to be furnished with an oven, and so a whole slew of Western-favored foodstuffs are unavailable here. Cookies and cakes? Rare. And of such a low quality when you happen across them that you are best to stick with things the Koreans do better.

Let's move on to the wine, which I may have mentioned in an earlier post on alcohol in Korea, but it deserves to be recapitulated here. Wine in Korea tastes like grape juice. It tastes like if you took 2 parts Welch's Grape Juice (wait, not Welch's... too high quality. Substitute CVS-Brand instead of Welch's) and added one part cheap White Zinfandel. That is what passes for wine in Korea, and it's available for two dollars a bottle (made by Lotte, of course). Thankfully, there are easily available imports from Italy, Chile, Spain, Argentina, France, etc. In fact, you can buy imported wine at any of the million corner stores.

Lastly, let's talk coffee. Now, it's no secret that Americans love coffee. For many of us, the first thing we do in the morning is start a pot of coffee, letting that wonderful aroma permeate the home as we gird ourselves for another workday. Some people prefer to stop at Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, or their favorite coffee shop on the way to work. Some people (as is the custom in my family) brew a pot of coffee (decaf!) immediately after dinner. What do all these coffees have in common? The key word is BREW. I just returned from the supermarket, so the horrifying image is still burned into my mind: an ENTIRE WALL of... INSTANT COFFEE! It's available in many flavors. At many different strengths. With sugar. With no sugar. Creamer. No creamer. Decaf. Super Caf. But it's all INSTANT! I think on the entire wall of shelves there were three or four REAL coffee products. Korean instant coffee is almost always packaged in these single-serving sleeves, the horror of which is enhanced instead of mitigated by their cuteness.

All of this having been said, Koreans do seem to enjoy brewed coffee... judging by the supermarket aisle, they just never make it themselves. There are an abundance of Starbucks and other more Korean coffee shops where, for the prohibitively expensive price of $4-$6, you too can enjoy a cup of kah-pee! (Konglish for "coffee")

So how do I conclude this scathing missive? Perhaps with some palliative words. Korean food is not all bad. In fact, some of it is really really good. I love bibimbap (a mix of fresh vegetables with egg and fried rice) and dak-galbi (a kind of stir-fried chicken?) as well as many other things here. But stuff just ain't like it is back home!

Mountain God

I made another pilgrimage into the mountains North-ish of Busan yesterday for a stellar hike with my colleagues and friends. We had a great time. I have no idea how far we hiked (it was at least a few miles), but as you can see from the pictures, the trail stretches along the ridge of mountains. I guess these ridges were used to defend against the Japanese, back in the day. (As any Korean will tell you, the Japanese have been a persistent problem throughout Korea's history, mostly because Korea is a peninsula that provides very convenient passage to the mainland. If, you know, it weren't for all the Koreans in the way.)



There were many, many Koreans hiking the trail along with us. I've noticed that Koreans take their sportswear VERY seriously. People buy these special hiking jackets, pants, shoes, and backpacks. And those ski-pole-type-things that I guess help you hike on difficult terrain. But I honestly find that whole practice pretty silly. When I showed up in some durable denim pants and a short-sleeve shirt, my Korean colleague commented that "I didn't look like I was ready for hiking." Jeez, sorry I didn't drop a few hundred thousand won on the "appropriate" gear!



In other news, the end of the session is approaching, which means that in two short weeks I'll be getting an entirely new group of children. And believe me, there are some kids that I will be all-too-happy to have out of my classroom. However, I might have to teach some classes that I've never done before, which is always a little uncomfortable at first. And it also means that I have to submit reports on every student I have right now (probably a little less than one hundred). Which I'm officially late on! Back to work on those...