Stares and Steers

I may or may not have written about this in here before, but it sort of came up last night and I find it very interesting and new. I have never known what it felt like to be in the minority. Most white people in America haven't. In the U.S. most places you go everyone looks like you, or is at least used to seeing people who look like you. For obvious reasons, this is not very true here. Last night I went to the grocery store and Tonya came with me because she was over at my place. As we were walking down the street she commented on what I have already gotten used to: when I walk by every single person stops and looks at me, and many of them stare. Tonya doesn't have this problem quite as much, because she is half-Korean and half-black. Her hair is the same color as most of theirs, and the shape of her eyes is also very Korean. The main difference between them is skin color; her skin is just slightly darker than theirs. For me, everything is different. I have a very different body type than most of the women here, very few of whom have curves at all. My hair is curly and (right now because of the summer sun) somewhat auburn.  My eyes are blue. My skin is light. I am the epitome of all physical characteristics that are not Korean. I get a lot of attention because of it. Once when Anna took me to E-Mart (which is Target on crack, an apt description that I must admit I stole from Holly) two Korean kids in a cart stopped talking, stared at me slack jawed, then began to point at me and jabber in Korean, words that Anna told me later basically meant "Look a foreigner! A foreigner! It's a white girl! Look mom, a white girl!" Beautiful. I've sort of gotten used to it. To be honest, I never really noticed it until those kids pointed at me, and I still don't unless other people, like Tonya, point it out. When I do notice it, it makes me feel kind of vulnerable and uncomfortable.  I suppose there's really nothing to do about it. Maybe I'll dye my hair dark brown and straighten it more often. It probably wouldn't help that much.

What I find interesting is that there doesn’t really seem to be any slant to it other than general curiosity, and I don’t know that most people realize they’re staring.  No one is rude, or treats me any differently.  The people I’ve encountered who speak English are always happy to do so, and extremely helpful.  The perception of the foreigners who come here to teach isn’t necessarily negative or positive, and considering the number of Westerners who do come here to teach, it’s even slightly surprising that staring still happens as much as it does.  It must just be an understandable byproduct of growing up in one of the world’s most homogenous cultures.

In other news, some more cute stuff has happened with my kids recently though. Yesterday two girls, Jasmine and Sophie, were fighting over the bathroom shoes (in a previous post I explained all this, how Koreans wear different shoes outside, inside, and to the bathroom) so, in my best Peace Games voice, I said to them "Girls, how do we fix this?" I was, obviously, thinking they should take turns. Without a word they both took one shoe and hopped on one foot into the bathroom to wash their hands. Not exactly what I meant, but kind of funny. At least they shared.

This anecdote happened today and was, admittedly, a bit embarrassing. I'll tell it anyway. You know when you're in a public setting and you realize you have to fart, but you're pretty sure it's a silent one? I'm sure some of you are laughing right now, and you know it's true so stop denying it. While the kids were playing today I had one of those moments. And I decided that since they were being loud and playing I would just chance it and let it go. It went off without a hitch- silent and not even smelly. Then like, thirty seconds later, one of my favorite kids, Sewook, comes over to me and he's holding his nose. And I ask him what's going on, and he says "You smell bad." Immediately, I get all offended because I don't smell anything and I am embarrassed by the fart that I thought had passed without notice. So I start arguing with him. "I don't smell bad. You smell bad." (Yeah, I took it there). And he keeps insisting that I smell bad, and I'm starting to blush, I can feel it. Finally he says "You smell like..." and takes a huge pause, in which I imagine he's going to say something horrible, or in which I'm guessing he is probably struggling to remember the word in English, and then he says "coffee." My coffee was sitting on the floor right next to me. Thanks for scaring me so badly Sewook. It was sweet of you.

Last note, and definitely a less gross one, there's a really interesting and slight cultural difference I was informed of recently. The other day I was doing level testing and I was calling the kids over one by one and beckoning to them. They kept looking at me, confused, and a few of them were angry. Apparently, here, when you are calling someone toward you, you DO NOT put your hand out palm up and beckon. This is how you call livestock. YIKES. You have to put your hand out palm down and kind of wave to the floor, folding your fingers in toward your palm. I'm glad I learned this though, because they're responding to me much better now that I'm not treating them like sheep and cows anymore.