Culture Shock

Saturday the culture shock started to set in.

I actually don’t want to blame it entirely on culture shock, but I can feel it happening even now and it’s an unsettling thing to realize. 

Being that it was Saturday, I had a list of things I wanted to do which mostly including shopping for household items.  The trashing system is a bit different in Korea and you have to have special bags to throw stuff out so I have a week’s worth of random garbage that I had yet to take out.  So first, I went to a market to find them.  Three markets later, I finally found them but trying to convey in my limited Korean how many I wanted was a challenge.

After the garbage was sorted out, I still needed to buy a trashcan, a hair straightener and some cleaning items.  I would usually go to Target or Freddy’s but that’s not Korea.  I did my research and found a place that looked promising but I had tried to walk there last weekend and failed miserably.  I decided it would be easier to take a taxi there (taxis are really cheap here so once in a while, whatever). 

The actual shopping part was when all of my feelings of frustration and general confusion started to set in.  I could read all the signs, but didn’t know what they said.  I could ask where something is in Korean but I wouldn’t understand the response.  I spent a few minutes explaining to a security guard what stuff I had bought in the electronics sections and what I had yet to pay for.  He was really nice but nevertheless, it made me stretch my Korean to try to convey what I wanted. 

The store was three levels and each level had a different theme (food, home stuff, electronics/appliances) and each level you had to pay before going to another one.  It was confusing.  What should have taken a quick 15 minutes took an hour.  When I left, I was glad to just find a taxi and go home.  When I tried to hail a taxi, they would drive right by me.  I tried for five minutes and then just started walking, hoping I would find a bus that went to an area I knew.  I managed to get my taxi after walking with my trashcan and other stuff I just bought for a while but as I went to get inside, my shoe came off and I stumbled into the backseat.  It wasn’t enough that I was exhausted from the mental exertion of the day, but the embarrassment of tripping into the back of a cab was undesirable and it was the first time I just wanted to curl up and tell the world to back off for a while.

This is the first time I’ve felt like this and as pissed off and tired as I am, a little piece of me burns and wants to prove that I’ll be fine. 

I started studying my Korean again, and after today, I am even more inspired to study harder so I won’t have to worry about the language barrier.  It’s really the biggest hurdle to get over at this point. 

Despite the depravity of Saturday, I have some really awesome news… this posting makesme appear really depressed but honestly, it was just one of those days.  I have some awesome new though… for the next posting J