The Banana Crisis

Upon my arrival into this country, I expressed a rather excessive zeal about entering into my first grocery store. A dip back into the archives reveals that "I tried very hard to conceal my absolute exuberance as I walked up and down aisles of foods that I didn’t even know existed; […] The excessive variety of herbs, sprouts, seaweed, tofu, noodles, and slimy fish was almost overwhelming. Where you would normally find the section of artisanal meats and cheeses in an American grocery store, you would find soy products and various organisms that came from the sea. Where you would normally go to pick up a whole frozen chicken you would go to pick up a whole frozen octopus."

I am mildly disappointed to admit that my unbridled enthusiasm for mysterious sea organisms and soy products on the shelves of Korean grocery stores has plummeted quite dramatically. I've seen the interesting ingredients that grocery stores here have to offer several times now, and I still have no idea what to do with most of them. Back home I would find exotic ingredients to be thrilling, and would get pleasure from experimenting with them; but here, I merely find them puzzling and a little terrifying. So it is on this date, my nine month anniversary with Korea, that I am ready to declare that I've had enough of Korean grocery stores: I want my Western grocery stores back.

Let's s start with the problem of produce. The bananas here infuriate me. I never expected this seemingly uncontroversial fruit to produce such a powerful emotional reaction, but bananas have caused me more stress than I'm willing to admit, even though I did just admit it. The thing about bananas here is that they mysteriously ripen at twice the rate as they do back home, and if you don't eat them fast enough, they literally start to peel themselves without even the slightest provoking touch. They are extremely sensitive. I can put a perfectly ripe banana into my bag before work, and in the 5 minute walk there, it ages into a brown, mushy senior citizen that is only vaguely reminiscent of its former glory. But here's what really irritates me about bananas: you are forced by what I assume is the Korean Grocery Alliance to purchase bananas in enough bulk to feed a family of eight. It is apparently a social crime to simply break off the number of bananas you desire from the bunch. You're either stuck with 10 of them, or you're forced to purchase a few single, heavily spotted nomads who are nearing the end of their natural life cycle. For me, the choice has become simple: stop buying bananas unless all the conditions for purchase are optimal.

Another issue I have with the produce in grocery stores is fruit flies. I've been to the grocery store on several occasions this summer in which fruit flies have been swarming around the produce section in heavy concentrations. Now, I've seen a few too many Monsanto documentaries to feel entirely comfortable eating genetically modified foods loaded with pesticides and other chemicals, but I'm not exactly crazy about ingesting rotten, bug-infested produce either. At least I can't see the chemicals that I'm putting into my body.

But while I may complain about the quality of the produce in grocery stores in Korea vs. America, at least a good portion of that produce is still available. There are several longed for foods, however, that are almost completely unavailable to me: Greek yogurt, proper bacon, palatable sandwich meats, kuchen, frozen pizza that doesn't include sweet potatoes and corn as a topping, and the most sorely missed item, quality Mexican ingredients. I can walk down entire aisles that exclusively sell ramyeon noodles or soy sauce, but I am unable to locate a bottle of ranch dressing within the perimeters of Daegu.



While I do miss a lot of foods from home, I have discovered some new staples. Hot pepper tuna is phenomenal!

Perhaps I'm being a little hasty to judge. After all, there are far more Western foods in Korean grocery stores than there are Korean foods in American grocery stores. Perhaps the larger issue at hand involves my lack of a kitchen. What good are 20 varieties of good quality, inexpensive mushrooms when you scarcely have the facilities with which to whip them into a tasty pasta or stir fry? My kitchen is, in a word, tiny. Furthermore, it has a triple function as a kitchen/laundry room/cat food and litterbox area. I have a two burner gas range, a microwave, and a toaster oven. My gas range and dish drying rack take up the entirety of my counter space, meaning if I need to chop something, I have to do so on my living room floor while my cat undoubtedly plunges at the knife. As if these harsh working conditions aren't bad enough, I am strictly limited in cooking options, not only by lack of ingredients, but also by lack of an oven. It's hard to remain passionate about cooking when so many forces are simultaneously working against my success. The act of cutting an onion back home used to give me pleasure; in Korea, the logistics of completing this simple task only cause me stress and anxiety.



Upon my brief arrival home in January, I plan to have a massive bake-a-thon, just because I can...



This is my oven, which is actually part toaster. Note that it is forced to reside on the floor.

Lost in Translation

One of the more amusing aspects about living in a foreign country in which English is scarcely spoken but widely used for marketing purposes is that I am in a unique position to make fun of the misuse of my native tongue. The average Korean wouldn't recognize a comb by the brand name of "The Cock" to be comical or perhaps even controversial, but for someone as immature as myself, the discovery of such interesting phrasal choices that aren't intended to be facetious is one of the primary reasons why I like living in Korea.



By far one of the most interesting moments of mistranslation that I have witnessed occurred a few weeks ago on a journey downtown. In downtown Daegu, there is a stage that acts as an axis point, connecting voracious shoppers to an number of potential streets on which to spend cash. It is at this centralized location that Koreans and foreigners alike habitually meet up with friends. For this reason, the stage acts as a multi-purpose venue for performing a number of different rallies, concerts, benefits, etc. On the particular day that Tim and I wandered downtown, we were halted at the stage by a rally that we assumed was promoting AIDS prevention, but to a native English speaker, it appeared to only be promoting AIDS distribution.



The "Free AIDS" slogan has a double meaning in English that certainly does not call for the termination of AIDS. On the one hand, "Free AIDS" could mean that it is being given away for no cost, in the same way that free samples of cheesecake are given away at Costco and free shipping is given to orders of over $200. (i.e. "Excuse me sir, would you like some free AIDS?") On the other hand, "Free AIDS" could also mean that it should be released and uncontained, in the same way that captive animals should be freed to their natural habitats or our imaginations should be freed from the stupidity of Stephanie Meyer's insults to literature. (i.e. The land of the free, and the home of the AIDS!)



If receiving free AIDS or spreading AIDS to the general public seemed a little rash, it was also an option to simply "Hug AIDS," which doesn't seem like the smartest idea, but it's still probably safer than freeing AIDS. I'm a little unsure what the creator of this sign was intending to communicate, but since it was an option at the rally to hug a few men in condom suits, I assume it meant "Embrace the prevention of AIDS."



While the English signs and slogans provide ample entertainment in Korea, the people of Korea themselves are like walking advertisements of hilarious English confusion. T-shirts bearing English expressions are extremely popular here in the same way that tattoos of Chinese or Japanese symbols are extremely popular back home. And in the same way that these tattoos often carry little meaning to the person who puts it on his or her body back home, the English t-shirts here typically register little meaning to the person who is wearing them. And that is precisely why it's so funny.

One day at work, my friend Hannah spotted one of her students wearing a t-shirt that said, "Olde English: 40 oz. of fun." For those of you unfamiliar with Olde English, it is a malt beverage sold in the U.S. that is consumed almost exclusively by minors and/or the homeless. It is typically not consumed by 12-year-old Korean children. Feeling a certain nostalgia for the glory days of late adolescence, Hannah purchased the shirt off the student's back for 20 bucks.

I, too, have witnessed some interesting apparel choices in my classroom. One tiny, smiley-faced girl routinely wears a t-shirt that says nothing more than "American Red Indian." It shocks me every time I see it, not only because of the racist connotations, but also because of the futility of the message. It's kind of like wearing a shirt that says "The Green Bananas," without offering any picture or further explanation. What about the green bananas?!?! Just yesterday, one of my brightest and most likeable students wore a dark gray t-shirt with bold white lettering that said, "Talentless but Connected." At home, people would wear this sort of shirt ironically, but 11-year-old Korean girls rarely have the same sense of humor as 20-year-old American frat boys. I didn't have the heart or simplified syntax to inform her that her shirt essentially claimed she was Paris Hilton. I am confident that if Amy knew she was offending a group of people, and if Yuri knew she was offending herself, neither of these girls would wear these shirts ever again. But if their enlightenment would detract from my own amusement, then I'd prefer they remain in the dark...

A few more misunderstandings...



Perhaps more hilarious to the British, as "bin" in the U.K. is the equivalent of "garbage can" in America. Probably not the preferred location where I'd like to get my spaghetti and wine...



It is truly amazing how simply altering one letter of one preposition in a phrase can so drastically change the meaning of the sentence. Notice the phallic connection between the elephant's trunk and...errr...nevermind...



I seriously don't understand how this could get misconstrued...

It's Too Late to Apologize

One of the first phrases that I learned upon arrival in this country was "Mi-an-ham-ni-da," which translates to "Excuse me/I'm sorry." I assumed that this would be one of the most useful phrases I could learn when moving to a foreign country in which I scarcely spoke the language. I imagined myself constantly apologizing to strangers for my inadequate Korean linguistics and for my innate clumsiness and poor depth perception. However, it didn't take long to realize that my efforts at implementing this phrase into my everyday Korean interactions were almost completely futile. When I first got here and I bumped into someone, it was a natural reaction to apologize. However, every time I tried to offer the "polite" gesture of apologizing with a pseudo-sincere smile, I was aghast to discover that my attempt at forging a short-term amiability between strangers had been completely disregarded. There was never any hostility about my incompetent mobility; it was just that the stranger failed to even notice that I was attempting reconciliation for doing something socially unacceptable by the standards of most Western countries.

Initially, it angered and confused me when someone would nearly run me over with their scooters without acknowledging that they had done something wrong, even if it was an innocent mistake. However, upon months of further contemplation I realize that it's just as natural for Koreans to not apologize for an accidental boob graze as it is for Westerners to apologize for this same offense. The idea of personal space is just different here than it is in most Western countries. I suppose in a West Virginia sized country with a population of nearly 50 million, you can't get too comfortable with your personal space. A movement into someone's personal bubble here is less of an invasion and more of an expectation. Nevertheless, this doesn't entirely explain why someone would fail to care when they sever your pinky toe with the wheel of their cart. Truthfully, the only Koreans that I think I've ever heard say "excuse me" or "I'm sorry" are my Korean co-workers, and I have exclusively heard them say these phrases in English. It makes me wonder if "Mi-an-ham-ni-da" is reserved only for social misdemeanors of the most severe variety. It seems that apologies are meant to occur exclusively between friends and acquaintances in Korea. Apologizing to a stranger appears to be unnecessary and perhaps even inappropriate.

This isn't a judgment on Korea; it is merely an observation. The truth is that I'm not exactly sure that our incessant apologizing back home is exactly healthy either. The problem with our apparent politeness is that it is rarely sincere. Back home, someone could cut me off with their shopping cart and step on my big toe with a 3-inch stiletto, and I'd still be apologizing all over the place while writhing on the floor in pain, as if it were somehow my fault for perceivably being in the way. Servers apologize profusely when their guests find a hair in their food, customer service workers tell you they're sorry when they inform you that the damaged merchandise that was sold to you can't be returned, and faceless automatons working for credit card companies mechanically announce through the receiver that they're sorry you've been on hold for the last 45 minutes. None of these people are truly sorry, and why should they be? It's not their fault. While you may deserve an apology from someone in all of these situations, you're getting it from the wrong person. Does it really offer any form of reassurance when someone scarcely connected to the grievance at hand tells you with vague indifference that they're sorry they can't find the hotel reservation you made a month ago? Does their scripted apology leave a less bitter taste in your mouth?


So which is weirder: a bicyclist who fails to apologize for splashing a puddle onto a pedestrian, or a pedestrian who apologizes excessively for standing next to the puddle through which the bicycle was moving?