You Can Call Me Jelly

 

I know I’ve talked about English names before.  But it’s a constant source of amusement and frustration to me.  Most of the time foreign teachers name the new students, thus “Atreyoo,” “Tobias,” “Mick,” “Raphael,” and such.  I tried to name one “Jafar” but he wouldn’t have it.  Anyway, sometimes either A, the students name themselves or B the Korean teachers name them.  Both A and B produce problems of what I deem epic proportions.

There are a few students at E-World who have named themselves.  These students are “Shinee” who named himself after his favorite K-Pop band, “Chandler” whose parents probably watch Friends, and most recently “Jelly,” whom after telling me her name proceeded to say “yum, yum.”  To this I throw my hands up.  Whatever you kids want, just don’t go to a western country and tell people that they can call you by your English name – Jelly.  No no no.

Far worse are the Korean teachers who think they know everything, which is why I teach two boys named “Raven,” a boy named “June,” a boy named “Jaeden,” and a girl named “Haley” but spells her name “Healy.”  How many times have I argued that Raven isn’t even a name and if it is a name, it’s a name for a black girl?  How many times have I told Healy and the Korean teachers that Healy is not how you spell Haley and that it can NEVER be spelled like that?  It’s like talking to a brick wall.  What’s far more infuriating is when I name a student and the Korean teachers try and tell me that it’s not a name.  Um…excuse me?  Who’s the native English speaker?  Don’t ever argue with me about that.

Just Introduce Yourself, and This Won't Happen

When Robby and I first joined the boxing gym, we were two of the very first members.  There were two trainers: 김 성 수ㅏand  이 기 봉and the few people who had joined the gym.  Since then, the gym has gotten really popular.  There are very many members and the two trainers have had to hire other trainers to compensate for the amount of members they now have.

Like I said, when we first started it was basically just us so the trainers learned our names and we learned theirs.  Now that the gym is so busy, there are three new trainers but we’ve never had the time to learn their names. 

No problem for us because we’ve come up with some pretty fitting nicknames for them.  The first day I saw the primary new trainer in the gym he was my trainer that day.  He was ruthless.  It was the most difficult workout I have ever had.  I wanted to die.  I really did.  I met Robby for drinking later and I said Robby, the new trainer, he’s like Hitler.  And thus, “Hitler.”

The next week, there was a second new trainer.  He’s really tall and when I trained with him I noticed a tattoo he has on his ankle of the Buddhist symbol/Swastika.  I am 99% sure that that tattoo is an association to Buddhism and not Nazism, but nonetheless, now his nickname is “Goebbels.”  It didn’t hurt that he somewhat resembles the infamous Reichsleiter.

I really like te last new trainer.  Now, most Korean dudes dress like hipsters.  Not because they are hipsters, but just because it’s Korean style.  But this guy, he is a hipster among hipsters.  And thus, we call him “Hipster.”

Now, we never thought these nicknames would come back to haunt us, but one night we saw Hitler out and about and so we called after him “Hitler!  What’s up  brother?”  We don’t know his real name!  I don’t think he picked up on it that time.  But I am certain that next time we won’t be so fortunate.

'7' Take Three

It had been a while since we’d been to the night club, and since Meg was out of town, and we were no longer were being invited to drink with the boxers, Robby and I decided it was time to go again.

The first part of our plan was to drink in Hakdong (which we love-I’ll get to this later or in another vignette) and see if we could spot some friends to bring with us.  You see, these past few weekends we’ve been sitting outside Wow Bar or various other places and people walk by that we know, from boxing or just from drinking around and meeting people, and they stop and drink with us.  We wanted this to happen.  But it wasn’t our night.  Our table at Wow was occupied and so were all the tables outside the ministops and all the other bars that have outdoor seating.  We were out of luck. 

Robby suggested we drink in Yosodong, and while I was reluctant because I thought for sure we’d never spot anyone we know there, our current predicament left us no other options.

We found a bar to drink outside of and we ordered some Soju and beer.  Not five minutes later a dude walked over to our table that we had apparently met last night in Hakdong (neither Robby nor I recall this) and he sat and drank with us for a bit.  We told him to bring his friends to our table but he told us they’d be too embarrassed because they don’t know English and even though Robby and I professed to speak as much Korean as possible he wouldn’t bring them over.  Anyway, he lives in Hakdong so we got his number and then off he went to drink with his friends. 

We were alone again, but that’s the best thing about being a wayguk in Korea.  We were not alone for long.  Soon after two guys sitting at the table next to us asked if they could join us.  So of course they could.  We told them of our night club plans which lead to a discussion about K-pop dancing (more on this later) and I stood up to perform my best 2NE1’s “내가 제이 잘나가” which is terrible but lead to the guys in the window that we were sitting in front of to perform their best “Gangnam Style” so there were random Korean dudes just Gangnam Styling in the window at us.  Greatness.  (Although I will say the novelty/hilariousness of seeing random people Gangnam Style down the streets is wearing off, especially after seeing a group of ten guys just Gangnaming down the street for a good three blocks the other day.) 

Anyway, so these guys were ALSO from Hakdong so we exchanged numbers and they told us they’d go to the night club with us.  We were still drinking when Robby (pretty drunk at this point) found a big weird-looking cricket, picked it up, and thought it would be hilarious to go up to a table of random Korean girls and put the cricket on their table and then just walk away.  This is why people hate foreigners.  Those girls lost their shit.  They freaked out and they were so mad.  We had to apologize profusely to them.  It was really funny in retrospect, but geez.

So we got to the night club finally.  And I will say this.  Koreans may love to sing, but they REALLY love to dance.  And not just dance.  Line dance.  They know at least 20 or 30 intricate line dances that I swear professional choreographers couldn’t pick up unless it was broken down for them step by step.  I mean, my god.  I tried so hard to learn even just one of the dances, but in the end I just looked like Lucy Ricardo in the Ballet Class episode where she just gives up and starts doing the Charleston.  That was me.

That was me until they extended the stage and invited people up there to dance.  No one was going up and I love attention so I decided to go up there and be the first one.  I did and DAMN I felt like a rockstar.

Eventually we left the night club because Robby was so gone.  On the cab ride home he just kept going “I love those people man, they’re good people.”  And I said, “Who?  The guys we met?”  And he said, “No.  All those people, man.” 

Jeju brings about the robot bitch slap

We went to Jeju for vacation for four days.  It was three foreigners (me, Meg, Robby) and 10 Koreans (Our boss May, her husband and his two nephews and one niece, May’s sister Jasmine and her three kids, and May’s mom.)  We took a ferry to Jeju and rented what I called “the party van.”  It was a big bus that more than comfortably fit all thirteen of us. 

I’ve spent some time with Jasmine’s three kids, as they are E-World students, but it was my first time meeting May’s husband’s nephews and niece.   Naturally, they were afraid of Meg, Robby and I because we’re foreigners.  We got to our pension and settled in.  We had two pensions and the foreigners were bunking with May’s husband’s niece and nephews.  Like I said, they were afraid of us.  Unbeknownst to me the youngest, 우 현 hid himself in the closet to escape.  I went to get a blanket and pillow out of the closet and when I opened the door 우 현 started screaming and I started screaming and we both just screamed at each other because he didn’t expect anyone to open the closet and I didn’t know anyone was in there.  It was so funny.  That kid turned into my bff for the trip. 

Later on in the trip we had a BBQ and we were talking about how our adult student Masashi is leaving back to Japan soon (he was in Korea working for the Expo which ends next weekend.)  Last week he gave all the teachers gifts.  We opened them and no one knew what they were so we asked Masashi.  He didn’t know either.  Lydia guessed it was a skirt, Robby guessed a table cloth, May guessed a scarf.  We’re having a goodbye party for Masashi on Friday and we decided we’re going to wear his mysterious gifts as capes to his goodbye party.  CANNOT WAIT.  It’s going to be hilarious.  We just decided, ‘”Oh, they’re capes.  Clearly capes.”

Later on in the trip Andrew, Jasmine’s son, found some crab/slug-like creatures at the beach.  He took them into the car and we were driving for a couple of hours when Robby asked ‘Andrew, are your friends ok?”  “Not ok.”  He responded.  “Die.  No in water and die.”    Later on we’re walking through E-Mart getting food for later when Andrew comes running up to me “KATIE!!!  NOT DIE!!!  ALIVE!!!!!!!!”  They then lived in the fresh sink water over night before eventually being discarded.

My favorite part of the trip was the boat ride back when Robby, Meg and I were on the deck with 우 현 and Andrew and we were just singing "I'm so curious yeeaaahhh - over and over) and dancing and pretend fighting (robot fighting - robot bitch slap) for like two hours.  Andrew is the most ridiculous person I’ve ever met in my entire life.  Sometimes he'll do this gangster move and I'll chime in like - "you doin' ho activities, with ho tendencies, hoes are your friends and hoes are your enemies."  Good thing he can't understand English.  Absolutely impossible to explain or describe this kid in words but we just annoyed everyone else on deck with our preposterousness.  We also invented “everybody Andrew’in.”  Ask me about this please, it must be demonstrated.