Arrival and the Baggage that Comes with it

Well, after much struggle I’m finally here. There are some very great things about this place. My family is wonderful and they’re trying to communicate with me. We all walk around the house with dictionaries: every attempt to speak is a flurry of page turning. THE FOOD! I can’t get over the fact that I get homemade Korean food all the time! I suppose the day will come when it’ll get old and I’ll long for the land of pot pie and mac n’ cheese, but that day is far from today.
Unfortunately, at the moment there are some very, very uncomfortable things. Things that are so foreign, they’ll make you say “wow, that’s pretty foreign.”

The shower is a good enough place to start. The bathroom is tiled from the door straight back to the shower stall. It’s not in a bathtub or even a little separate drain area. It’s like a shower at the gym: there is no clearly defined line between shower and the rest of it. And what about the open window in the shower? What’s up with that?
My family asks if I need anything and I tell them that all I need is shampoo and a towel. They show me the shampoo, then they show me the body shampoo, to which I think ‘whatever I’ve got a bar of soap.’ That security was quickly shattered when they showed me the towels. Think every threadbare dishcloth you’ve ever shuddered to touch, and those were the towels. All loincloth sized, unlike the 4ft long, hearty Bed-Bath-and-Beyonders to which I am accustomed.

So, I go to operate this showermabobber, and there are two knobs. I start turning one knob and nothing happens. I turn the other knob and nothing happens. So there I stand feeling like an idiot and wondering how I’m going to get myself clean. Then I lean on the knob and water comes out the handheld shower hose….cold as narwhal. So now I’m bathing myself in the coldest water imaginable and wondering how I’m going to survive like this for a whole year, so I start turning knobs again to try to get hot water to come out. In case you were wondering, there was no convenient 'H' and 'C' for me to rely on. As I turn one knob the water shifts from the handheld shower wand to the wall mounted shower head. Quickly I turn the other knob to achieve warm water. Now I want the water to be coming back out of the handheld shower thing, so I turn the first knob once more. Instead of water from the handheld, this time water sprays me from about 7 or 8 hidden wall jets at varying heights. It was like the automatic car wash, but it was me instead of minivan and I still hadn’t gotten to the washing part.

I got out of that shower feeling a lot like Fred Flinstone would have if he tried to feed himself at the Jetson’s house. I was on the verge of tears. ‘I can’t stay here! I can’t live like this!’ were my thoughts at the time, but now it seems a little foolish. That was it? That was the one thing that would prevent me from being able to stay in Korea? Deal breaker = new system of showering?

Then of course there’s the sleeping arrangements. Whereas the water was colder than Ted Kennedy’s heart, my family turns the air conditioner completely off at night, leaving me to wake up with a body covered in hot, sticky sweat. A yummy way to start your day.

It doesn’t make it any more comfortable, of course, that I’m virtually sleeping on the floor. They have given me a baby quilt worth of padding to put between myself and my wooden box, which elevates me 12 inches off the ground itself but provides no increase in softness whatsoever. I know there must be some point to it, but I have yet to discover it (Edit: nor did I ever discover it).

The thing about Korean homes in the U.S. is that they have absolutely zero decorations. Maybe some family portraits, maybe a wall clock, but that’s about all. I guess it saves tons of wasted money on pointless decorating, but I always thought that part of it was that they were immigrants and hadn’t brought all their earthly possessions, learning instead to live without excess. Not true, however. This Korean home doesn’t have a rug, a painting, a stylish lamp, a side table, or a single knick-knack. The only decorative thing they’ve done with the space is to covert they’re nice screened-in porch area into a shrine-like garden. All in all, the home feels vapid and barren.

Lot’s of adjusting to do.