Letters from Korea 2: classes

"Letters from Korea" are emails that I wrote to people and i have chosen to post (possibly cleaned/edited) here. Some days are busy and these are the only record of them for the time being. they may have a personal feel or content that is not directly relevant or even understandable outside the original audience, but not so personal that it can't see the net.

i sent this to my parents after the second day of classes:

what to say? i started classes yesterday. korean and green growth.

korean class is coming along. the first class i got a compliment on my pronunciation. the teacher thought i had studied before. our teacher makes funny faces in class trying to teach us pronunciation. there is a story about the development of the written korean language. it says that a king wanted to further the literacy of the country, so he devloped the phonetic alphabet based on the shape of the mouth. so the mouth shape is very important here, like stroke order was in japanese. there are something like 11 pure vowels, 10 mixed vowels, 10 consonants, 9 or 10 modified consonants. so many vowels!

i'm also talking to a lot of the japanese students. between them and my roommate, my japanese is getting quite a workout. miranda and i are the only two from america. most of the students are from japan and china. there are a few men from canada and europe. but the comon language is, oddly enough, still english. it feels a bit wieird. this crowd is also in the 3-6 language range, even without the korean classes. i kind of feel like i've lost a bit of my distiction, but at the same time, it's nice to not be so alone. and i'm still distictive in the sense that i'm a tri-lingual american. they just don't expect that. my english has degraded too. i've reverted to my simple translating pseudo-asian english. it's fun, but i think it sounds weird, maybe. lol. i'm even writing in it now.

the green growth class is really bringing out my argumentative side. should i have expected otherwise? there is one student in the class, from germany; we butt heads a lot. it could have something to do with the fact that the class is taught in english and we are the two most proficient english speakers in the class. we are also both westerners so more open and agressive. it's fun though, and engaging. i just think it's a bit difficult topic to discuss in a foreign language.

i forgot how much i missed onigiri (rice balls). korean onigiri (i don't know what koreans call them) are really good. most of the ones i've had are spicy. i think they have that hot sauce i like in them. they also use korean nori. so delicious. i can't read any of them though, so i usually end up just smelling them checking for kimchee, and choosing one at random. I've started keeping sort of an onigiri journal. i keep the lables off of them and take notes on when i had it, where i got it, and what was in it as well as how i liked it. i'm pretty much going for a different one every time so i can find some that i like. i've only had one bad one so far. and even then it wasn't so bad. they seem to put the flavor and ingredients on the outside, so i can just scrape it off.

i finally asked my roommate if i could use her power converter, so now i can use my rice cooker. i think i'm going to go grocery shopping later on. i've been living off of korean rice balls and my food stockpile. i've also been taking my vitamins, so don't worry too much.

i met jeehee's mom yesterday! it turns out she works at a pharmacy just down the street from my dorm. no, i did not need to go to the pharmacy-- Jeehee told me where it was and it happened to be even closer than expected. it's also right accross the street from the bank where miranda and i exchanged our money. she was sooooo happy to meet us. she took pictures and even tried to call jeehee, but it seems Jeehee was busy witht the baby at that particular moment. they invited me to dinner at her parents' house on sunday, the 22nd. so i will be able to meet the whole family. i'm really excited. maybe try to send some recent pictures of the boys and the family, so i can show her. i'm sure that would make her happy. it turns out i left my picture thing that i made up for japan at home, so i don't even have that.

i also want to start working on my blog again soon. i think i'm just going to start by posting versions of these emails. we have our first cultural fieldtrip on friday. something about costumes and tea. it sounds really interesting. something to look forward to.

much love,
-kat