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just had a really nice dinner with two of my co-teachers (not the crazy one lol ). they're both younger than i am i think- maybe 22-24- and i really like them. they're easy to relate to and talk to. oh and they both think my main co-t is crazy. in fact they said everyone at the school thinks she's crazy and they try to avoid her at all costs! i'm not the only one! that makes me feel even worse for my crazy co-t but really she brings it upon herself. if she were a little more receptive to other people she'd get the picture when she needs to chill out.
anyway, jens and i cleaned and shopped all day to get ready for tonight. after breakfast and a shower we went to emart because jens wanted to look for a summer hat. he's still been wearing his scottish wool cap and it's way too hot for the summer lol so he got this cream-colored semi-mesh fedora with a dark brown ribbon around it. it's pretty cool! i also finally bought a pair of shorts...i hadn't really thought about the fact that i didn't have any until jens was like- why are you wearing pants? it's really hot! lol so i got some shorts and they're great! :o)
after shopping around a little we got some mcdonald's to go (there's a mickey d's in emart). the place was packed so we decided to take our lunch to a nearby park. as we were walking over to some benches two old men spotted us and came over and sat with us...i was a little bummed at first because i was looking forward to having a a nice, private, quiet pic-nic with jens. it was really hot and i didn't feel like having to communicate with two hallabojis (grandpas), but it turned out to be somewhat amusing and not that annoying lol
it seemed like one man had all the ideas for questions and the other man had the courage to ask lol the one guy would quietly say something to the other and then the other would be like YAA- BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH!? and then jens and i would pause and try to figure out his question and then try to respond as best we could in korean. we had to talk really loud and slow because he was over 70 years old. we know because he asked us our age and we asked him his lol he asked by saying NA-EE??? really loudly. it just means AGE??? lol
his list of questions were: where are you from, how old are you, how many hours does it take to get from korea to the usa, how much does a plane ticket cost to get there, how much does it cost to get from korea to australia, and then he asked a question related to australia that we couldn't figure out...he kept saying da-ri which i thought meant leg...? lol he even wrote it in the sand for us with a stick. then he wrote his last name in english- KIM and then he wrote his first and middle names in korean and asked me to write the romanization of them- JEONG WEON. then he and his friend clapped and looked very pleased and jens and i moseyed on at that point (we had finished our lunch. )
from there we went to home plus and picked up some groceries and then we headed home.
the weather was great for a scooter ride today! finally sunny! it had been raining every day for at least a week so it was nice to have some sunny weather. it wasn't so great for cleaning and cooking indoors though! lol we were sweating the whole time :oP
we made chicken and veggie fajitas (with bell peppers, onions, mushrooms and green peppers). we had fresh salsa that jens made, plus some store-bought salsa, chips, cheddar, corona and faux-hitos ( we got some apple mint from emart but it still didn't make the mojitos taste minty enough...i'm starting to wonder if you're supposed to use some kind of mint liquor to make it mintier....either that or our ingredients aren't high-quality enough to make it taste right.) at any rate they were pretty decent.
my two co-ts came over about 6pm, we ate and then hung out in the living room while eating dessert- they brought a really good cheesecake (not like back home- it was fluffier and lighter) and we provided grandma harbour cookies and chai...mmmmm it was sooo goood!
they left kind of early (8:30pm) but it was a good amount of time. we had good convo :o)
so now jens and i have a little time to ourselves for the rest of the night. i'm on the computer and he's reading.
tomorrow night i think he's having some guys over for a movie night so i may do something with one or more of the girls. then wed. night we might go out with some friends and thursday we leave for seoul! yay!
one new thing we're gonna do while we're up there is eat at on the border!!!! lol
anyway, it'll be fun. then we'll be off to japan! you can definitely expect some updating and some pictures posted after that!
for now i must go! have a great summer!!
and has been for a while but now it's officially my summer vacation!!!! :oD i'm so happy!
since i last posted we had our annual 4th of july tex-mex fiesta and it went really well! it was the best one yet! i think about 25 people showed and we had veggie fajitas, refried beans, black bean and corn relish, cheddar, sour cream, chips, salsa and "faux-hitos" lol we didn't really have enough mint to make them taste right. can't wait to get back to the states and have a good one! :o) anyway, i think we'll carry on this 4th of july fiesta tradition once we get back to the states! it's a great time!
i haven't done a whole lot since then. i was mainly focused on winding up the end of the semester. it was mostly spent not teaching lol i had one week where all the classes wanted to "self-study" for their final exams, then a week where i supervised the final exams, then a week where all the classes wanted to recouperate from taking exams by watching movies lol i tried to teach a few of the classes after exams and it just wasn't happening. they were impossible to teach. so yeah! easy last few weeks!
my co-t really got to me by the end of it though. i was getting to the point where i just couldn't handle her any longer. i avoided her at all costs and when i did have to interract with her i just tried to zone her out. sounds horrible but if you knew her you'd understand. one day i spent 30 mins. straight trying to explain a problem to her that i was having with my computer and she still didn't understand. i know that this had nothing to do with her english ability because it's a very simple problem and i was able to explain it to two other teachers- one with good english and one with no english and they both understood me just fine. she just has a brain problem! lol sad but true.
anyway- she actually asked me- can i call you OFTEN over the summer? and i'm like- maybe not OFTEN...lol i told her i wasn't going to be in mokpo that much but i'm sure she'll try calling me daily. i'm going to avoid her by never answering the phone. if jens is home he can answer it and if it's her he can say i'm not here. i just have to have a good long break from her so i can get through another 4 months with her next semester.
on another note- we're going to seoul next thurs.! we're just gonna eat lots of western foods and go to what the book. then on the 26th we fly to japan! i'm really excited! i'm so glad we're getting to spend more time there. it's such an awesome country! i wish we could have lived and taught there but it's just so freaking expensive! cheapest hotel we could find was over $100 a night! luckily most of the time we'll be staying with our friend kacie that we went to uni with. the only time we'll have to stay in hotels is when we want to take excursions outside tokyo. we're going to hakone for one night (near a nice lake with a view of mt. fuji) and nikko for two nights (temples). we'll also see our uni friend, erin and my high school friend anne and her husband martin while we're there so that'll be really cool. i know so many people in japan! lol the main things we want to do in tokyo are see temples/shrines, go to museums, go to akibahara (video game mecca), shop, see a sumo wrestling match, stop by harajuku and see some cosplayers again and eat wonderful food! aahh i can't wait! :o)
AS SOON AS we get back to korea we'll be meeting up with ben and vivienne!!!! another exciting summer event! i'm so happy we got some of our friends to come visit us in korea before we go :o) they'll be here from aug. 5th-19th. we're gonna spend time in mokpo, gwangju, jeju island and seoul. i think going to jeju with them will be the nicest. we're gonna take our scooter and once we're there they can rent a scooter too and we can drive all around the beautiful island, go to beaches, see our favorite temple in korea, etc. eeeeee!!!! so fun!
only thing i'm bummed about is i have to go back to the work the DAY AFTER they leave! it's like BAM summer over! :o( i won't even have time to plan anything. i hope i don't have to teach lessons the first week. guess i'll just start with "how was your summer?" lol and a review of the rules cuz god knows they will have forgotten everything by the time they come back. but! it'll be my last full semester in korea! :o) then i just have a loooong winter break and two months of teaching and i'm home!
i've already put a countdown on facebook lol i think it's something like 281 days lol
but i'm not dreading the rest of my time here. i'm going to enjoy it. it'll be great to show ben and vivienne around and then once the holidays get here i'll have fun doing holiday related lessons, having parties, etc. it'll be my last halloween, thanksgiving and christmas in korea! i'm not sure what we'll be doing for halloween. usually there's a huge party at p club but i dunno who's planning it this year. i would but i dunno if i really wanna do something on that scale. it'd be nice to have a smaller party at my apt. we'll see. as for thanksgiving i definitely want to do a small thing with just close friends this year and jens and i are already planning a christmas sing-a-long at our place- complete with wassail and xmas goodies Po: mmmm i love xmas time!
we're planning on going to se asia for all of jan. and feb. but we've gotta work out some things with jens's school first. they want him to do a winter camp but jens might be able to get out of it by doing some other things for them during the semester like extra classes, teachers classes, etc. i'm hoping that'll work out because it'd be really nice to have the 2 full months in se asia. we'd like to go to cambodia, laos, thailand, malaysia and singapore. jens's parents may even meet us out there for a couple weeks which would be cool.
ah! i love traveling! i hope once we move back to the states that it's not too long before we can travel somewhere again. i still wanna go back to france. but i wanna see a lot of the u.s. too! right now i'm reading the lost continent: travels in small-town america by bill bryson and it just makes me wanna take a long random road trip in the states. the u.s. is so HUGE! there's so much to see! i hope i get to see every state in my lifetime. that'd be awesome.
ok well i'm gonna go now. may be a while before i update again. have a great summer!
yes it's official!!!! jens and i are going home at the end of this contract! unfortunately that does not mean his book was picked up to be published yet. we just thought it all through and decided that no matter what we'll go home april 2010! i'm so excited!!!
it all started when i emailed jens and told him i was done with korea. that i couldn't take it anymore! lol korea has been a wonderful experience and i definitely don't regret doing it but there just comes a point when it's time to leave, ya know? (i emailed him because we always do that when we're both at work).
he wrote back giving me all the numbers- like how much we've saved, how much we could save this year, how much we would save if we stayed a 4th year, how long it'd take him to write a 3rd novel and go through the firefighter emt training he's going to do, etc. then he sent a second email saying he had just found out some more info about the training- turns out he has to do a boot camp (in person in texas of course) before he can finished the last 9 months of the training. originally he was thinking he could get ALL the training out of the way before going home so he could immediately start looking for a job when we got back. but since he can't finish the training in korea that changes things a bit.
but he was still sounding pretty pessimistic and wanted to know more from me- about why i wanted to leave now, what we would do in texas, etc.
long story short- i convinced him that this should be our last year! woohoo!!!!! i can't believe it!
it's such a relief! it's amazing how much it's changed my perspective already. i feel so much more optimistic. i feel like i can really appreciate korea more now that there's an end in sight, ya know? i find myself wanting to take pictures again like i did when i first came here! pics of random things like mailboxes and carts filled with cardboard boxes and little dogs with dyed hair!
aaaaaahhhhh it's so refreshing!
now we're thinking about all the places we wanna see and things we wanna do in korea before we leave. we're still planning to go to se asia in winter. i think we're gonna try to go for the full two months- jan. and feb. depending on how much we wanna spend. se asia is super cheap though so it should be doable. i mean some places cost like $5 a night lol
then when we go home in april we'll live in my grandma's old apt. that my dad built onto their garage. we call it the bungalow. it's really nice and we'll share my parents one acre yard with them. that'll be REALLY nice seeing as how we've had NO yard for 3 years lol it'll be great to be able to let the dogs out the front door to use the bathroom and run around. no more pee pads! (hopefully they'll catch on pretty quickly lol)
career plans:
jens will write his 3rd novel in sept./nov. then do part of the emt/firefighter training online in nov./dec. we'll go on vacation then he'll do another part of the training in march/april. once we get back to texas he'll do that boot camp and then he'll have 9 months left of training.
as for me i'm seriously thinking about getting into event planning/wedding planning. i want to try to be an assistant to someone who's already doing it so i can get hands-on experience right away. then if i really like it i can become a certified event/wedding planner and do it on my own. another option for me is culinary school. in high school i wanted to be a chef but gave up on it when i became vegetarian because i didn't want to deal with meat- plus i was young and wasn't sure what i wanted to do. but now that i'm not vegetarian anymore and i've really gotten into cooking the past couple years i think it's a possibility for me again. i'd love to work in the cooking school at central market. so those are two things i'm going to pursue when we get back. a 3rd thing i'm interested in is the eco-friendly field in general which opens up a lot of options. hopefully i can find a job in one of those fields right off the bat but if not i'll just take anything until i can find what i want and we can get on our feet.
so our to-do list so far is:
see and do things in korea
go to japan
have ben and viv visit
go to se asia
jens- write novel
jens- train to be a firefighter-emt
randi- look into job opportunities
sell stuff off
ship stuff home
prepare ourselves for culture shock! lol
go home!
yaaaaaaaaaay! goodbye korea! hello texas!
hey! i'm gonna make this short. just want to give a little update.
we only have about 4 weeks left of this semester which is nice :o)
classes have been going pretty well. i've been teaching a music lesson where i show lots of american music videos and a lesson comparing high schools around the world which have both been pretty fun for the students and i.
i'm realizing my co-teacher does have some very human parts to her so we're getting along better lol
i'm getting to know the japanese teacher, akiko, better and i think we'll start hanging out outside of school soon.
jens is still liking his job and he just started to edit his second novel.
we take things pretty easy during the week but we have stuff going on almost every weekend. last weekend jens and i went to a bachelor party and bachelorette party respectively which was fun. a couple americans here are getting married in korea next month. this weekend there's a b-day party and i need to get a lot of things done for a baby shower i'm helping to host next weekend. the baby shower is for my best friend here in korea and i'm having a lot of fun planning it! :o) i love planning parties! weekend after next jens and i are hosting our annual 4th of july tex-mex fiesta which i'm really looking forward to! should be fun! then we just have that wedding to go to and we'll be on vacation!
we're planning on going to japan for 10 days and then meeting up with ben and vivienne in seoul when we get back. they'll be visiting us for two weeks. i just hope all goes to plan despite all this swine flu nonsense! i'm hoping none of us have to be quarantined in japan or korea lol
in entertainment news - jens and i are watching the series madmen which is really good! it's about men in advertising and life in general in the 1960s. it's very well-done.
two movies i watched recently that i liked - revolutionary road and the reader. i like revolutionary road more. both are sad but good.
and the book i'm reading now is called - the girls. it's fiction but it's written like an autobiography of conjoined twin sisters. very interesting and good!
in other news- our basil plant is getting really big! i should take a picture! lol also, jens finished stringing and tuning our chromaharp today! i think it took him 4 hours total lol i made the mistake of telling my co-t we have a chromaharp and that i'm gonna try to learn it and she's told me like 3 times she can't wait for me to come up to school and play the chromaharp for them...oh boy lol
anyway, that's all for now i suppose. hope you're all having a great summer so far!
you may not believe this but i ACTUALLY had a good night with my co-t!
she finally took me to buy that hairpin she's been wanting to buy me for weeks!
we left school at 5pm and went to a shop in shinae first (old downtown)- apparently it's one of her favorite shops and she's familiar with the owner now.
as we were driving there she put on some music and surprisingly i liked it! it was like yoga-style, indian, buddhist music of some sort and i felt a little weird actually having something in common with her lol
anyway we arrived at the shop and it was a really cute place- half coffee shop, half clothing shop. very small and a somewhat expensive. it's one of those places that only has one of each piece of clothing and i think some of the items have been creatively altered by the owner- the hairpieces especially look handmade. pretty cool.
anyway i thought we were just there to look around for fun- you know, eye-shopping as they say in korea. so i looked around and found some REALLY cute dresses. they were so cute i wanted to know how much they were so i asked- one was like 40,000won or so so i didn't bother trying any on. that's a little out of my price range. so i finished looking around and then my co-t asked- are you finished? i said yes and she asked- are you not satisfied with these clothes. and i was like oh yeah i am. i like those dresses but i can't buy them. and she was like oh oh! try one on! go go! and i'm like ok whatever. i would like to see how they look (still thinking it's just for fun).
so i tried on a long dress on and it fit perfectly. i showed my co-t and she said- oh so however i would like to buy this dress for you! and i was like oh nono, you don't have to do that!! but she argued with me and convinced me that she should buy it for me. but she told me to try a few other things on and decide what i want. so i tried on two other dresses and decided on a short dress (similar to the first one, just short and a different pattern). i told her i liked it and she said something like oh you like this one? not the long one? and i was like yeah, i like this pattern more. she hesitated for some reason and i worried that the one i picked was more expensive than the other but figured if she really didn't wanna buy it she'd say so. but she bought it and then she bought us some drinks at the coffee shop and we sat down and hung out.
she started talking about the dress again and said she thought i would have picked the other one and i was like no i like this pattern more (the other one was way too bright and loud for me and i probably wouldn't have worn it much so i wanted to get the more subdued pattern so i'd actually wear it and get her money's worth out of it lol) but then she started talking about how the one i picked "showed the breast" (meaning it was low-cut) which i know koreans are squeamish about but the weird thing is the other dress was the exact same style so i couldn't figure out why she was surprised i picked the one i did. it wasn't even super short either. it comes down to the knee. i kept thinking it was more expensive than the other but i finally looked at the price tag and it was actually cheaper! so i dunno what her deal was lol she did say- oh you can't wear this kind of dress to my school because it shows the breast so maybe she forgot the other dress was low-cut too and was thinking i'd be able to wear it to school and she could show off that she bought it for me. anyway, i told her the other dress was also low-cut and that either way i could still wear the dress she bought to school if i wore a sweater over it. she didn't seem to really listen to me and proceeded to ask me what else she could say for "shows the breast" and i taught her the word cleavage lol as in this dress shows cleavage.
anyway, we moved on after while and went to another one of her favorite stores in hadang. this one was bigger and had many more pieces of jewelry, hair clips and clothes. the main purpose of this expedition was to buy me a hair clip so i looked at those first. i had already had in mind what kind of hair clip i wanted - a long, rectangular one to clip all my hair back behind me- since it's going to get hot soon and that hairstyle looks a little more professional than a ponytail. i found one i liked immediately- it was long oval clip made of black plastic with tese small, white rhinestones all over it. simple but shiny. at the same time my co-t and this other woman were showing me smaller clips i could use to pull my bangs to the side but i really wanted on to pull all my hair back and when i told my co-t that and showed her the bigger pin she hesitated again and acted weird...but i figured it was just her being weird for no reason again lol so i put the clip in my hair and went and looked at it and said oh i like this one. but then she took me back to the counter and showed me some other clips and said see you can see the prices here. each pin had a tiny little dot on it with the price and the long clip i had been looking at was....you'll never believe this....48,000won!!! (back when the exchange rate was even that would have been $48!!!) i immediately said oh! surprisingly and put the clip back lol i could not believe that cheap looking thing was almost 50 bucks! that's insane! so i proceeded to find the smallest clip they had and we got that lol it's a tiny version of the big one with multi-colored rhinestones on it an i can use it to pin my bangs to the side. don't know how much it ended up being because it was so small a tag couldn't fit on it lol
then she told me to look around some more. i looked at some of the clothes and noticed the prices were all 100,000won and up so i knew i probably wasn't getting any more clothes that night. she said i could try some stuff on though so i found one top i liked and tried it on. it was really cute and i thought for a moment she might buy it for me but she asked if it was on sale and it wasn't so she asked me- do you like this more or the dress we bought earlier more? i definitely liked the dress more so i told her that and i put the shirt back.
we lingered a little while longer and then left so she could take me to her favorite flower shop to meet the owner. random i know, but that's my co-t!
we drove a while and i decided that since she had bought so many things for me i would treat her to dinner. earlier that day she had said- oh and so however i am taking you shopping so maybe you will treat me?? (meaning for dinner) and i thought this was a bit rude to say that outright so i just said oh i dunno, maybe. but that was when i thought she'd be spending like 5,000won on me lol after she spent 35,000won for a dress and however much for that pin i decided it would only be right for me to treat her to dinner. but then she said oh maybe the flower shop owner will come with us and i got a bit worried about how much that would cost lol
on the way to the shop we were stopped at an intersection near this bedding store i always admire when jens and i drive by it so i told my co-t - oh i really like that bedding store! they have really beautiful bedspreads there. and she was like oh! shall we drop by there? and i was like sure! i hadn't been there in like a year and they had some new stuff so i figured what the hay. i like eye-shopping lol so we went in and looked at everything. at one point i was looking at one bedspread and i said - oh this is really nice. and she said oh i think we have the same taste. we both like beautiful things. and i thought- god, i guess we do have some things in common! aaahh!!!! lol after looking at all the bedspreads we found a section of houseshoes and started looking at those. she asked how much they were and i thought maybe she was wanting to buy some for herself. but no- she wanted to buy some for me! i said no- you already bought too much for me. but she wouldn't have it. she said no i want to honor our visit to this bedding store. and i'm like ok whatever! so i picked out some slippers and she bought them!
after that we went to the flower shop and the owner ended up not being there. two other ladies were there and we hung out for a while. at one point one lady said something to my co-t and kind of pointed at her stomach and mine. and my co-t laughed and said something i can't remember now but she must have gestured to my stomach cuz i looked down and realized the way i was standing my stomach was kind of pooching out and i was like oh ok and then the lady said in korean (is there a baby in there??) to my co-t and i said no! no baby! and they all laughed because they were surprised i understood her and then i think the woman was embarrassed that she had asked lol i wasn't really offended. it was probably partly because i'm of child-bearing age and she was curious if a foreigner was having a baby here. anyway we laughed it off and left shortly thereafter.
as we were walking out though my co-t looked back and that same woman was walking directly behind us and they laughed and my co-t said oh she is imitating my walk. many people say when i walk (and she demonstrating swinging her hips) and i was like oh you swing your hips? (which i had noticed before but didn't say anything cuz that's rude) and she was like yes! and we all laughed and left. i was really surprised that woman did that though. i dunno if she didn't mean to get caught and my co-t just noticed her. or if she did mean to get caught and that's a normal thing to do in korea. very weird lol
so then! it was finally time to go to dinner (at 9pm! lol) i asked her where she wanted to go and she couldn't decide. only thing she could think of was galbi- but i know she doesn't like to eat galbi because she has high cholesterol or blood pressure (don't remember which) so i tried to think of something else. then i thought of shabushabu. by some miracle we happened to be right by my favorite shabushabu place so that worked out nicely! we ate there and it was really very pleasant! she really liked it and praised my choice over and over and we talked about various things including the difference between my old school and my new one. she wanted to know all about that.
after dinner she drove me home and went the wrong way a few times so it took a while and the whole way there she gave me advice about marriage and friendships lol after a while she put in a different cd of korean buddhist music and it was really pretty but at one point she had me sing along a phrase with her lol from the outside looking in it would have been a really funny sight lol
i think i got home about 10pm and that was that.
overall it was a good night! she never really irritated me and i made out like a bandit! lol
now some of you may be thinking- ok she's obviously bribing you! trying to put you under her thumb little by little. trying to show you that she's better than all the other teachers because she buys you things. but i bought her dinner so it was more of a back and forth thing. granted she spent more on me but she certainly didn't seem to mind and in fact she seemed thrilled by just getting to hang out with me. you may also think she's just doing nice things for me so i'll do nice things for her but what's so bad about that? don't we all do that on a regular basis? i think it's more fun to do nice things for each other rather than not doing anything at all for each other and just have a robotic, work-only relationship. hey i don't mind paying for dinner if i get a dress out of it! lol
and it's situations like last night that i can actually see a positive side to my co-t. not just because she's buying me things but because we're outside of work, we're doing something fun that we both enjoy (shopping around) and there isn't really any chance for conflict, ya know? i think doing stuff like that with her will help balance the frustrating times at work.
yes, she's crazy but i think somewhere in there she has a good heart. she does say lots of nice things to me. she compliments me almost everyday (my hair, my skin, my clothes, my decorating skills, my teaching skills, etc.) she's always telling me that she wants to help me in any way she can. she's been much more open-minded about my foreigness than any other co-t i've ever had. it's weird but it seems that since she's so crazy and out there she can kind of relate to being foreign, ya know? and any time i do get upset with her she does what she can to mend the situation. not just having me say sorry to her but she'll say sorry to me if she makes a mistake too. and sometimes she'll make coffee for me or take me out to lunch or invite me places (like shopping last night). i really do think her intentions are good. they are misguided at times but overall i think she means well.
i know a day or two or a week from now i'll probably be ranting and raving about something she did that frustrated me but maybe i can come back to this and remember she does have a good side too lol. i think that's the only thing that's gonna keep me sane this year lol
anyway, the end!
so the owners of our apt. bldg. and a repairman came to our apt. monday night and finally fixed our gas range problem. they put the cabinet back together and screwed on a metal serving tray to the side of it to protect it from the gas range fire. good enough i guess lol we didn't have to replace the gas hose because it's only slightly burned and now it can rest down low, far away from the range.
their visit was fairly uneventful. the only amusing thing was that they just bought a random metal tray to screw on there. instead of some kind of special metal sheet or heat-resistant tiles.
all in all we could have fixed the problem ourselves had we known the repairman wasn't going to have any more skills or ingenuity than we have lol we even have our own power drill!
that'll teach us! lol
facebook note jens wrote about our gas range ordeal:
I'm not the sort of guy who likes to make broad generalizations about any culture without first saying how I don't like to do it - so now that's out of the way, here we go!
What's up with Korean workmanship? It's baffling. These people make very fine supertankers and mp3 players and economy cars, but in construction, quality is all over the place. Often one encounters maddening and bizarre cases where a minimum concession is made to necessity, and a maximum to laziness and getting the job done in as quick a way as possible, never mind how it looks (or functions).
In our first Korean apartment, back in Daegu, they installed the air conditioner exhaust hose, from which condensation drips, by breaking the window. They just smashed out a corner of the pane, snaked the hose through, and taped up the rest in a half-assed way. Mosquitoes leaked in through the gap, and cold air leaked out. In our last place, here in Mokpo, the bathtub was sealed improperly, and it leaked every time we showered. The balcony doors didn't seal - no problem with the doors, though, it was the very foundation of the building that was crooked. At my insistence, the handyman drilled the sliding screen doors into place, blocking out mosquitoes, but preventing us from ever opening the screen. Our hot water heater constantly conked out; after many complaints, the maintenance guys finally condescended to come and give the filaments a good scraping with a pair of needlenose pliars, fixing the problem for at least a week and a half.
Now, certainly Korea has a valid excuse for this sort of thing. The aforementioned trauma of the 20th century aside, they've only been industrialized for fifty or sixty years, or about two generations. In 1950, most of them lived in shacks, huts, or wooden houses, where such, shall we say, temporary repairs might have been acceptable. But this "good enough" spirit just doesn't cut it an age when everyone lives in fifteen-story apartment buildings.
When we moved into our current place, we noted some problems with our gas range and kitchen cabinets. The cabinet was too close to the range, so the side of it was blackened and peeling. It was also too close to the wall, so it pinched the hose for the gas range against the wall, holding the hose at such an angle that the hose sometimes dipped perilously close to the open flame. I believe life should be lived at the edge, and this existential hazard gave me a little thrill every time I fried eggs, but Randi is of a steadier temperament, and did not appreciate living under the looming spectre of devastating explosions. For some reason.
A few weeks of complaining got an apartment guy to come see it, who told us that he could do nothing with the hose, as it was the gas company's business; a gas man came, and told us he could do nothing because of the cabinet blocking it; the cabinet belongs to the apartment. Today we had a visit from the people empowered to move the cabinet. It only needed to go a few inches away from the wall to allow access to the hose.
The ajumma (middle-aged woman who wears a visor) pondered the problem, in pondering pose, hands on hips. Then, when my back was turned, she grabbed a peanut butter-smeared knife from the sink and hacked away the glue holding the cabinet to the sill behind the range. I offered a saw so she might not ruin the kitchen knife, but she merrily declined. Then she had me empty the contents of the cabinet, covering the dining table and ruining that room of the house unusable for the nonce. The repairman arrived, power drill in hand, and the real work began.
At first, the ajumma walked around the house, looking for another suitable place to site the cabinet; I stopped her when she suggested we put it on the balcony, on the other end of the house, where my exercise bike is. (Where would the bike go? Behind the refrigerator?) I didn't relish the idea of walking through the dining room and living room, and opening the patio doors (which stick) every time I want a spoonful of mustard (which is often). In the pantry, then, where the oven is, and put the oven in the bathroom. No, thank you. Please just move it a few inches out from the wall to unpinch the hose, and an inch or two to the left to remove it from the heat of the stove. Simple.
So they did! Problem solved. Thank you for your help.
And then they disassembled the cabinet, removing the two top cabinets from the bottom one, giving us two cabinets - one three feet tall, with no top surface, the contents exposed from above - and then another section about five feet tall that would go where the oven is. The oven would go on top of that one. And what about that expensive and totally functional oven shelf? Who cares? Why was this arrangement better than leaving the cabinet in one piece? They mused for a while, hands on hips, then realized that now we had access to the gas shut-off knob, which we didn't before. Much better.
So much better.
When the repairman got out his tape measure to prepare a new top for the first cabinet section - after first seeing if our now-displaced wooden floor grate from the pantry would fit (it didn't) - I knew I had to speak up. I explained in my pidgin Korean that we didn't use the knob before and didn't need it - what we did need was our cabinet in one piece. "Can you please reassemble it in this new location, a few inches from the old? That would solve every problem at once, easily." "Oh, sure, we can do that. On Monday, at 6:00. See you then!"
"Wait! Why can't you do it now?"
The ajumma had a good laugh, and I asked again. Finally, she gestured at the repairman, and said, in Korean, sotto voce, "He's stupid!"
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. Of course. All becomes clear now.
And they left. Our cabinet is in two pieces, our oven is unusable, on top of the cabinet, and our foodstuffs are all over the kitchen. Until Monday. Then everything will be fixed.
