Nobody Expects...

… well, yes, the Spanish Inquisition. But also, the things that happen to me here in Korea. At least, I don’t. You already heard my story about the trip to Daegu with Su-jin. Now listen to this story about my not-so-simple trip to the grocery store. So, after a day of sitting around school, I decide I am a little low on food and should go to the store. See, my co-teachers are scandalized that I can’t cook. Su-jin was shocked. Mr. Lim was concerned; how would I eat and get enough energy every day? Turns out sandwiches are a foreign concept, as are microwave dinners. So, I had been avoiding buying food on our many shopping trips so they wouldn’t see the type of sad, American “culinary preparation” I was capable of. And now, on my first night to myself, I figured I would just slip out and buy a few things at the local Yes Mart (a small grocery/household goods store). While there, as I attempt to discern from the pictures just what it is I’m buying, another young woman approaches and asks if I am also a foreign teacher. Turns out she’s from Canada and is teaching in Yeongcheon through a sister program to EPIK which handles after-school classes and tutoring rather than public school classes. We talk a little, and it’s nice to have an English-speaking person to cling to, so we hang out as we shop, even though she buys actual food and I buy potato chips and processed cheese. She explains in the course of our browsing that she lives in Yeongcheon, but she went out for a walk and got lost and ended up here. Somehow she needs to get back to Yeongcheon. Yeah, she started at 4:30. It’s almost 7:40 now. Shocked and confused, I tell her this IS Yeongcheon, and did she really walk for three hours looking for a grocery store? Cause I seem to pass one every three minutes. She has no idea where she is, where she lives, or how to speak Korean, and now it’s dark out. I just can’t let her randomly wander off into the night, so I tell her I’m sticking with her until she finds a taxi or something.

She does have her address written down on a piece of paper, so we pull it out to look at it. I suggest she ask any old Korean off the street, as I have had a good experience so far with finding friendly, helpful people. She asks a guy on a moped who’s making a delivery. He doesn’t speak any English, but he gets all caught up in our cause, goes back into the Yes Mart to borrow a phone from the cashier and calls the landlord of the girl’s apartment. They discuss how to get there, but he has to make his delivery, so he tells us “Wait here – five minutes.” He knew those words in English, anyway. We wait awkwardly for two minutes when someone suddenly greets me. I turn around. It’s Mr. Lim. He just happened to be walking by.

I explain the situation to him (hastily explaining to him that I am the not the one that’s lost – I live two block away. It would be pathetic even by my standards), he looks at the address, and points out the right direction. But we have to wait for the delivery guy to come back, ‘cause it would be rude to just disappear. So we chat a little with Mr. Lim. When the guy gets back, Mr. Lim speaks to him in Korean and the end of it is that Mr. Lim will walk her home, and I will accompany them, for my health. To compound my new friend’s embarrassment, Mr. Lim insists on carrying both of our heavy grocery bags (we bought milk and stuff). To compound MY embarrassment, he looks in mine and asks me what I bought. So much for keeping my eating habits a secret! Her apartment is only 15 minutes walk away –- she had just been wandering in a huge circle for three hours – so we drop her off and then walk back. Mr. Lim tells us a little about the joint Chinese and Korean history and actually it’s a pleasant walk, especially once we convince him to let us carry our own groceries. When Su-jin first told me to think of him as a grandfather, I had a hard time. My experience with grandparents is a little lacking, and Mr. Lim intimidated me. But it’s starting to grow on me. I realize more than ever that I really lucked out with kind, generous co-teachers, even if they do predict my sudden collapse from malnutrition.