War, Jeju and Ajosshis

It's been too long! I went to Jeju island over the weekend (June 13 and 14) which is the "Hawaii" of Korea. It's aight. The water was nice and blue but other than that it was just a small island and nothing compared to Hawaii.

So far Korea's Korea. They might be going to war. Yesterday an air siren went off for a minute or so and then there was a Korean announcement but none of my Korean teachers paid any attn to it. A friend of mine posted something about it on facebook and that's when I thought wow the s. Koreans really don't take the threat of war seriously. It's pretty interesting to be living and working in a place so different than America. They consistently stereotype westerners but as far as their country goes it's perfect. I guess I'm actually quite use to it and I've got a more laid back view about these things but my Irish friend James is completely confounded by this.

As Westerners here as a whole we're treated as both 2nd class and something really exotic at the same time. I'm a special case that continues to surprise the Koreans b/c I have the ability to blend in unlike my wayguk friends who get stared at a lot. When I'm with foreigners I get stared at b/c I'm a "Korean woman" hanging out with those dirty wayguks. The Korean thought is that women who "date" meaning anyone that is Korean talking to a foreign man is that their not good women.

In Korea, foreigners are wanted for our English speaking ability but they want us to conform to Korean society. An ajosshi (old man) actually exchanged words with me a few months back because of it. He said to me "why are you speaking English? You're in Korea, you're Korean you should be speaking Korean!" I told him, "I'm not Korean. I'm Chinese and we're all Americans so we don't know much Korean." He said, "Well you're in Korea, speak Korean!"

It's way easier for me b/c I don't bat an eye at most of the things I see b/c I'm Chinese and I know the way things work in Asia in terms of saving face and where women "belong" in society here. Example, women were not allowed to smoke in public until a few years ago and women still get looked at if you smoke in public.
Any female that looks remotely Russian gets a lot of unwanted attention from the men here. My South African friend gets "Russian? Russian?" asked all the time. It's b/c the men here associate Russian women as prostitutes here.

Even though I'm rant about Korea, I do really enjoy my time here. Walking to work this morning one of the students in my school got a bag stuck in a tree. I saw him trying to climb at tree that straight up and his friend was pushing him up further up in the tree. It was pretty funny b/c their was no way he was gonna get it. It was really cute. I tried to get the bag but it was too far up. I called over an ajosshi who was sweeping the street to get it. It was really funny.