The Art of Fluent Communication

I recently read “The Alchemist” (Paulo Cuelho) which talks in part about a Language of the World. The Language of the World is something that mankind (as well as all of nature) is able to innately understand. Now, I understand Cuelho wrote a work of fiction, and I doubt he believes that a human may exchange pleasantries with the wind, but there is much to be said about communication sans words or structured language.

If art is a science and science is an art, then I may say I have learned both when it comes down to communicating with the people around me. Hand gestures, facial expressions, body language, tone of voice. In part due to the fact that I very much do not speak Korean, but I think people are naturally able to pick up on these cues (it’s just many don’t as often, because it’s usually easy to just listen to the speaker’s words). I now know that a tilted head with a smile means not “I have no idea what you’re saying, you foreigner” but “Sorry, we’re out of stock. We probably won’t have more, either.”

I know that when a co-worker comes over to my desk and looks at me with that expression of ‘ahhhhhhhhh I don’t speak English!!!’ it translates to “Hey, are you coming to lunch?” (or dinner, in which case is added: “By the way, we have a teachers’ meeting tonight.”) but, if one comes over with the same expression, and inclines ever so slightly, it translates as “Please come with me, I have something to show you/give you/share with you.”

Today on the bus home, Soyoung-teacher asked to see my camera so she could look at the pictures (“Can I play camera?”) and I had on there a photo of my tea still, since Li-teacher and I have tea after lunch every day (usually, anyway, and he’d asked to know about all of the teas I had). Now, for the record, I have offered her tea before. She declined. However, “Yesterday, you give me” is a pretty clear “Could you bring some for me tomorrow? I’d like to try one.”

Sadly, the ones that still escape me at times are, quite unfortunately, the students. They speak better English than most of my co-workers (although this is perhaps the problem), and when they emit these random sounds which, for all I know, could be Arabic, I just have no idea what they’re trying to say. It’s always fun to watch them (struggle) though, so even when this art fails me, I have entertainment. Watching an entire class of boys mime out ‘bikini’ to make their friend answer ‘beach’ is priceless.

Learn by Doing

I kicked off this weekend by catching a bus to a tiny little town called Dopyeong. Some people I met a few weeks ago said there was a really nice mountain near their town, and a group of us should go hiking. One of the saffas planned it out and told me which bus to take, and I made it on the right one and met them in said country village. Rural village- so not city. The people were so friendly (and quite eager about us foreigners). We were given free chicken and spent the evening playing ping pong (I mean ‘table tennis’ of course!). It was a very intense night- half could play, half could not. You’ll be glad to know though that America beat Canada in that match. America even beat Korea. “I beat an Asian at ping pong.” The very fact that that sentence is true is amazing. Granted, he didn’t really play ping pong, he said, and if I had played the other Korean, well… BUT STILL!

The next morning we eventually set off for Juwang Mountain (I might be corrected, but I do think it’s 주왕산). We arrive at the stop-over bus terminal (small small town=need multiple buses), and stop in to say hi to an acquaintance, the man that works in the tourist office. He doesn’t speak much English, but long story short he completely just leaves his office, kidnapping us to a festival the town is having that day, in his car. There we met his uncle, who showed us around a bit. The two of them took us to a restaurant (mushroom 전(jeon) ftw!!!), and then the uncle took us back to the festival and walked us over to the start of the trails for Juwang, and got us in for free, saving us a couple dollars. Spent a good bit of the trail chatting with one of my new buddies Jan. The conclusion of one topic being (in my summary), ‘stop being such a baby, you should travel if you want, what’s the worst that will likely happen?’ (the summary, btw, being said in the politest and most well-meaning of tones. ‘best-meaning’? ‘most well-meaning’? so much for being an English teacher…) This brings me to this post’s title.

[Tourist Summary of festival/mountain: The festival was so lovely, a very mini Septemberfest for anyone in Simsbury reading this. They had apple cider slushies (soo good), apples (they gave us waegooks whole apples, instead of slices), apple wine (meh to good), tons of glutinous rice treats (not a fan), a photography contest (lovely pictures there), a stage for music, a cultural food tent (philippino egg rolls: yesplz, chinese dumplings and black tea: yesyesplzplz, and a few other things that I can’t remember over those two), some pottery tents, and a korean traditional paper tent. We were the big hit, visitor-wise, and the local news crews covering the festival made sure to film us enjoying the booths, notably eating at the cultural tent. The mountain was beautiful- some amazing cliffs- but we had to turn back really early due to the previous kidnapping.]

I had a wonderful plan of going to see the tea fields, maybe hiking, and checking out a spa and a beach in Boseong, which is west west southwest of here. But spurred by my friendly chastisement I packed my things up once again and walked down to the bus terminal. I ask for a ticket to Boseong and am informed there is no bus. So I ask for a ticket to Gwangju, a nearby and much larger city. I ask what time the bus leaves and I find out I have nearly two hours. Thank goodness though, because in that time I notice that my ticket does not read ‘Gwangju’ (THANK YOU HYUNG, IF YOU EVER READ THIS, FOR TEACHING ME THE ALPHABET BEFORE I LEFT!!), but ‘Weonju’. The red A on the Googlemap is Pohang, where I live. Yellow was my intended destination, and the Purple marker was my ticket’s destination. This was one of the concerns I had listed to Jan.

NOT THE SAME!!!

Travel concern 1: ‘this is not my ticket!’ noticed by reading the ticket. Outcome: presented it to the teller, and I think got a refund, and asked again for Gwangju. However, I am told again: ‘no bus’. So now I don’t have a ticket at all.

After all the effort Jan went through at giving me a motivational speech, I was not about to let it go to waste. By this point my stubborn switch had been flipped, and I was getting on a bus to SOMEWHERE. Last week I’d read about the Busan aquarium, and it sounded pretty neat. So although many people would think me silly for going to Busan for only a day, I ran home to check some things and grab my tourist map of Korea, and back to the terminal for Busan. This bus runs like every 10 minutes, so off I go.

Travel concern 2: ‘where the heck am I, and where the heck is my destination? and HOW the heck do I get there without spending more than $10?’  I arrive in Busan and the subway line was in the same building as the terminal. I find the ticket machines, shamelessly stare at a few people to learn how to use it, and buy my ticket. Find the turnstiles, this kindly old man gestures at me to go ahead through first, and I shamelessly indicate that I don’t know how to go through, but thanks. So he continues on, as I openly stare at him (‘ah, so that’s what I do with this ticket!’). I get on the only train I see. I am on the wrong line. I get off, walk around for awhile, give up, and go up for air. …at this point in my trip, I am still hopelessly ignorant about how to use the subway.
Outcome: I waste ~$16USD on a taxi. (*NOTE: This taxi driver must have been on taxi-driver-probation or something! good grief! He wouldn’t last half a block in Pohang!)

[Tourist Summary of Busan Aquarium: neat. Worth the 18,000 won once, if you time your trip right to see some of the animals get fed (penguin feeding, shark feeding). They do have a great collection of tanks, and they also have a super-cool underwater tunnel which shows a tank of fish with the highlights being sharks and manta rays. You can go on a glass-bottomed boat ride on the same tank- I opted out. It’s cheap (7,000 won I think), but the tunnel was enough for me. They also have a magic show between a man in a very large, tall tank and another presenter in front of the tank. More details and pictures will go up on my facebook soon. The actual aquarium is right on the beach, so I had Lotteria (Korean mickey D’s) sitting on the sand, watching kids chuck sand at each other and Koreans jet ski in circles. Not empty, but not crowded. Stephanie-waegook approves the shrimp burger. yum. I was in and out of the museum quicker than expected, and putzed around for a bit and discovered Namaste. Tourist Summary: if you are in Busan, GO HERE! Drink chai! (I will add a picture to the post later…) a small Indian restaurant kitty corner from the aquarium. A photo of samosas drew me in, and they were delicious. I felt guilty ordering just a starter, thus the chai. Well worth the 8,000 won I paid. So a bit pricey- the dinner prices I saw though were 13,000-20,000, but it was so delicious. Stephanie-waegook approves samosas and chai. oh the chai. Bonus: they speak English]

Travel concern 3: ‘so now how do I get back?’ Zombieland Rule #22. Truly, if a traveler hits this one, it’s their own fault. I took a taxi, so it was my own fault here for not knowing how to get back in a different manner. I decide to try the subway again- I figured it would be easier to get to that central point than making your way to the right branch. Hindsight later told me (much, much later) that I was mistaken about the location of the terminal on the subway route.
Outcome: I get really, really lost.

Travel concern 4: ‘I’m so ****ing lost. And I don’t speak Korean.’ It’s the getting lost without a great way of helping myself that concerns me. I got lost in America all the time. I would still be upset (oh, it seems so long ago now, trying to find the stupid highway entrance in Albany), but I can stop and ask directions. Shamelessly. (Except, of course, for a night like that time in Albany, when everything is closed!!!) But back on track, I’m in Korea. I find a pair of Americans in the street and ask about the bus terminal: ‘not from this part of town, sorry. *continue walking*’ very friendly, guys, thanks. I try the subway again, gaining new subway-knowledge every time I look at the little lines of color. Found a brit from Incheon who helped me re-evaluate my then-current opinion of brits: very nice chat about teaching/living in Korea, and when we got off he pointed me towards what we both guessed (he wasn’t sure, as he was taking a train back) was the right direction (when I promptly started off in the exact wrong direction…) I get off at what I decide is a stop early, and am determined to just walk instead of going back in the subway, AGAIN. And I’m definitely not taking a taxi. So I go into the nearest Family Mart and ask for ‘shiwae bus-u turmeenal’ Three different stores direct me either back to the subway or a taxi. Fine, I’ll take a cab- at least then I know when to get off.

Oh how very wrong I was. I am not at Travel concern 4, level 2. When my back-up back-up plan fails. I got to a bus terminal alright. A different one. And there goes another 11,000 won. But heck, a bus terminal is a bus terminal and I wipe the hopeless tears that developed during the taxi ride (that growing feeling of ‘yea, this is NOT right…’) and walk up- even if it’s a slower bus at least I’ll get home finally! I ask for Pohang and am rewarded with deja vu as I am told ‘no bus. Pohang? no bus.’ At this point I have lost all hope of ‘I might piece this together myself’ and have a short cry in the bathroom, trying not to feel so pathetic. Of course, EVERY SINGLE FEMALE KOREAN STARING AT ME didn’t help very much. I mean, geez, enough walked past me, they could have at least asked me if I was ok. So I go outside and spread out my map a bit. I find the shiwae terminal on the map and start looking for the express terminal (korea note: there are two kinds of bus terminals- ‘shiwae’ is ‘intercity’ and ‘some other korean word’ is ‘express’), since I figure I obviously came in to the express terminal. It’s not on there and I don’t remember the Korean for ‘express’ so I feel a pang of despair for that foolishness, as well as not doublechecking (akin to Zombieland rule #2) where exactly I was when I got in. (and really, my problems can be traced back to those two things: I didn’t realize I’d come in on an express bus, and I didn’t double check where my exit was- I would like to state in my defense that I did *think* I knew where it was, thus my use of ‘doublechecking’) But, there’s a subway entrance. I try to start from ground zero (as I really, really don’t know where I am right now- rather, where my destination is, which is really the problem) with the facts I know: the bus terminal I came to was connected to the subway. It was on the red line. So I buy another subway ticket, and get on whichever line it was, don’t remember. But I get off at the transfer station (now that I understand- thank you, brit- that transfers are free), and spend probably 20 minutes walking back and forth in the rather small station looking for the right direction on the red line. I can’t find it, and give up and at least I’m on the red line. I get off at the next stop, hoping it works sort of the same as exiting a highway, and taking the opposite entrance ramp. Off again as I realized this will mean buying ANOTHER ticket, and wish at this point I’d just bought a day pass. Somewhere in there, I met another foreigner, grasped my chance at an English questionee (as I don’t know the Korean for this term), and asked about the express bus terminal. From this third American, I was rewarded with a ‘uh, dunno *walked away to stand at the other end of the car*’. Thanks America, I can see now why people think we’re mostly tools. But I get off hoping to pull a 180º, and figure I may as well try to find a Korean to ask. Magically, this station has 1) an information office that is 2) OPEN! I push the door in and sits a lone man, who rises at my entrance. As he answers ‘yes’ to my ‘English?’ I nearly start crying again, and I ask him about the express terminal. I could have hugged him as he very neatly explained exactly where on the red line it was and directed me to the right gate. I’m of course completely on the wrong end of the line, but after a 30+ minute subway ride, I march up to the tellers, and declare ‘Pohang’. As if everything previous wasn’t enough, I’m at the wrong window.
Outcome: lost money, lost time, lost tears, but I finally made it to the terminal with about a half hour to spare to the last bus, and made it home, as a Korean youth played bobblehead in the seat next to me. Offered him my sweatshirt as a pillow, but he just took it and held it. Very strange, but it was nice to watch someone else do something weird, instead of me being the one where everyone’s like ‘what the heck is she doing…..’

A really horrible day, when I’m honest (save for some of the aquarium exhibits, the FANTASTIC chai, the samosas, and to some extent the shrimp burger on the beach), but I am INTIMATELY familiar now with the Korean subway system in Busan, and have utter confidence navigating it if I know my destination. I also learned not to ‘settle’ for a meal or snack in a city- walk around first. Oh, to have had the curry as well, but 13k won was pricey for already having eaten. And really, if I had missed the last bus it would have meant more money, yes, but not actually made it any worse. Finding a motel isn’t too hard, and unless I left the city somehow, I wasn’t about to get more lost.

But I am back, safe in my apartment, exhausted, and going to now pass out. Goodnight, all.

Learn by doing (read: failing).