Tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be on a jetplane back to the States in time for Thanksgiving.
It’s hard to believe that my time in Korea has come to an end!
Today I went to Ewha for the graduation ceremony. I didn’t graduate, not in the least. But I did want to go and say good-bye to everyone. I was late to the ceremony, which meant that I missed all the speeches in Korean (darn). I did make it in time to watch the presentations by the journalism club (lots of slides of hanbok), the photography club (lots of pictures of sky framed by trees or traditional Korean roofs), the music club (a kind of karaoke extravaganza complete with strobe lights and lasers), and the dance club (again, strobe light and laser craziness).
Disappointment from Mongolia was in both the music and dance performances. She’s a very serious student, to the point that I think she even takes having fun seriously, not in a crazy party way but in a ‘I should have fun now’ way. She did look like she was having a good time. However, when she was dancing she’d tied her shirt up above her waist. I couldn’t help thinking, ‘what are you doing? You’re too young to do that! Untie that shirt right away!’ Of course, she’s sixteen, which is prime shirt-above-waist-tying age, but I still felt very out of sorts about the whole thing.
Afterwards, I met up with my fellow students. They were all surprised and happy to see me, and we took lots and lots of photos. Elbows of Turkey was very delighted that I came, and gave me a big hug. I may have disliked her elbows, but I very genuinely liked the rest of her.
Earlier in the semester, she’d had a yellow pen with floppy feathers on top, and she’d flop it back and forth very happily all class. When Disappointment from Mongolia said she liked the pen, Elbows gave it to her without a second thought. But I felt very sad that she was missing a floppy pen. So I gave her a new one, orange this time, with lime green feathers and a plastic Tigger figurine on top. She was very moved. I’m serious. I was really pleased to have given her a new pen to flop.
Disappointment from Mongolia was seriously disappointed in my poor end-of-class performance, to the point that she could barely look at me. But when we were sitting down eating our buffet lunch, I knelt beside her and asked her which of my books she wanted. Before coming to Korea, I’d bought a bunch of Dover thrift editions of classic novels, all about $2 or $3, with the intention of leaving them here. Disappointment and I had spent many of our class breaks eating yogurt and talking about our favorite books. Since I don’t have room in my suitcase for those books, I brought them to give to her. I was worried that she wouldn’t want them, and would wonder why I was dumping all my old books on her (though I think it’s always nice when someone gives you a book they enjoyed). But I had no reason to worry, she was extremely delighted, to the point that she didn’t want to accept them. ‘This is very big gift!’ she kept saying. In the end, though, she took them all; disappointment slightly alleviated.
My teachers were also disappointed in me, but they were very nice about it and only gave me a few sad looks. I gave them each a chestnut pound cake from Paris Croissant.
I only had a few more things to take care of. I wanted to buy a picture frame for my Imo and Imobu, and some chestnut cakes for the doormen in our building. I took the subway to City Hall to go to the Kyobo bookstore, where I found a very cute silver baby frame so they can put in a nice picture of their new granddaughter. And then I walked into the cold, drippy day to take the 402 bus home one last time.
Oh, but before that, I wanted to buy a rice ball. No joke, this rice ball has been haunting me much like the jjimjilbang. After the first day of class, I met Eonni to walk around the shops outside Ewha. We went to Kong’s Riceball for lunch, and then to a juice store for juice. But when I walked by the next day, I couldn’t figure out anything on the menu at Kong’s Riceball. It was all in Korean, and the pictures weren’t distinctive enough for me to have any idea what I was ordering. Most of the rice balls seemed gross when Eonni had reviewed them for me – pork, Spam, tuna fish, beef – so I wanted to be sure I was getting one I liked. But I couldn’t figure any of them out. It was the moment when it sort of hit me how far away from home I was, both in location and language. I felt very, very lost, and hungry, to boot. I was determined to learn enough Korean to buy a rice ball.
When I told S that I was going to skip the test, but felt very bad about it, he suggested that I ask for the exam so I could take it on my own and therefore feel like I had finished the class. As he said, ‘you like neat endings’. It’s true. But rather than take the exam, I realized that the neatest ending would be ordering a rice ball, and then going and getting a glass of juice, just like I had on the first day of school. Only this time, I’d do it all on my own.
So I went up to the take-out awning outside of Kong’s Rice Ball. While I waited in line, I practiced what I was going to order, over and over again. I forget it now, but when I got to the front of the line, the woman there asked me if I wanted that particular rice ball before I even had a chance to open my mouth. I was undeterred. I asked for the rice ball right back at her, and added juseyo, ‘please’. That was it. I paid, and then I stood there while a bunch of people behind me ordered their rice balls and got them before me. I let myself look as forlorn as I felt because although I can order a rice ball, I have yet to figure out how to say, ‘excuse me, it seems like you’re very busy, but I’d just like to check on the status of my rice ball?’ Anyway, looking forlorn (which I hoped communicated the same thing) eventually worked and I got my rice ball!
And then I went to the very cute Bean Juice place and read all the fruits on the menu before picking pineapple juce juseyo. Juices are easy because most fruits are pronounced in English, though they’re spelled in Korean. So just having a grasp on Hangeul means that you can figure out which joo-suh you want. The woman told me that I chose very wisely, and that the pineapple juice was delicious. I drank it while flipping through Vogue in Korean, and then walked off to the Hyundai U-Plex to look for a picture frame.
I’ve yet to eat my rice ball. And I probably won’t. It’s neat enough of an ending just to have ordered it.