The $20 Umbrella and Other Tales

It’s still raining in Jinju.

I broke down Tuesday morning and bought an umbrella at the convenience store on my way to school. I was not in a particularly bright mood, and under normal circumstances my indecisive self would have spent about five minutes on the decision of which umbrella to purchase. Do I want a small, compact umbrella that I can easily stow in my purse on those looks-like-it-might-rain-but-who-really-knows days? Or, do I want a larger umbrella that is sure to protect more of my body from the rain, but is a hassle to store? And then comes the ultimate question—which color do I want? (And the answer would definitely NOT be the pink Hello Kitty umbrella). Lucky for me—since I was already running a little late to school—I wasn’t in the mood to make a decision and just grabbed the first umbrella in line. It was a long, pointed, plain black umbrella with white around the edges. This, I decided on my walk to school, would be my school umbrella, and at some point in the future I would purchase a smaller one for those days that I’m on the move.

Thankful for my new umbrella, I walked to a teacher’s lunch on Wednesday after the graduation ceremony for the 3rd grade middle school boys. The parents of twin boys at the school paid for this lunch for all of the teachers at the school because their sons got into the top high school in Jinju—a VERY big deal. I shared my umbrella with a teacher who didn’t have her own, but we walked in silence the whole way to the restaurant due to our, umm, lack of communication abilities. I tried once to say something, but she just responded with a nervous laugh. I left my umbrella in the umbrella container at the front door with all of the other umbrellas. We ate lunch—an amazing array of all things seafood at a Japanese sushi restaurant. Then, when I put my shoes back on and went to retrieve my umbrella for the walk home, to my dismay, it was gone. Somebody took my brand new, $10 umbrella.

They’ll leave your children and your unlocked bicycles alone here in Korea, but they’ll take your umbrellas. Watch out.

No, I’m sure it was not intentional, but you can imagine my frustration at the situation. The amusing thing was that nobody seemed fazed that my umbrella had been taken. Perhaps either Jinju suffers from extreme umbrella theft, people didn’t understand what had happened, or people were too passive or embarrassed to react (and more than likely it was a combination of the latter two).

So, I walked home in the rain and sprinted to the same convenience store this morning in the pouring rain to purchase another umbrella—this time a small one—from the same lady who sold me the umbrella two days prior. When I set the umbrella down on the counter, she looked at me, said something and laughed. I have no idea what she said, but I didn’t have to know. I already knew. From here forth I shall keep a closer eye on my new ‘$20’ umbrella.

On an unrelated and very random note, I now fully understand why my desk at school is located where it is in the teacher’s office. My desk sits directly under the heater vent, which, in many ways is quite nice and keeps me warm inside this frigid school. However, I constantly feel as though I’ve got a warm, dry wind from the north blowing through my hair. Not to mention the less than desired drying out of my skin and hair.

I would like to take this moment of randomness to also educate you on my experience at my local fitness facility and sauna. The facility is located only about a three minute’s walk from my apartment and is appropriately called “Theme Spa Land.” Makes sense, right?

The first time I went with my friend Megan. We were clueless and, like everything else here, took it one step at a time. We paid to enter and then went up the stairs to the second floor as we were told. We entered a small room lined with shoe lockers. Peering through another door, we saw hanging bras for sale and naked women bustling about a locker room. We weren’t ready for that, so we went up to the third floor and stayed away from the identical looking doors that could only have been the men’s locker room. Imagine everybody’s shock had we gone exploring in there… We found the fitness center on the fourth floor (recall that everything in Korea is built upwards, given the extreme lack of space in this country). We walked through the doors into a room with K-pop blaring through the speakers. If you’ve never given yourself the pleasure of listening to K-pop, you’re missing out. Sometime I’ll post a link to some of the popular songs. Looking around (and simultaneously being gawked at by at least ten Theme Spa Land patrons), the first thing we noticed aside from the inspiring music were the matching workout uniforms. Navy knee-length shorts and a grey t-shirt with red sleeves for the women, navy sleeves for the men. We continued to the treadmills not worrying about whether these uniforms were required, which they’re not, and decided to pull the idiot foreigner card if need be.

Megan and I finished our workout and ventured back toward the room of hanging bras and naked women. We found our assigned lockers and stood there discussing what we thought were ‘appropriate’ procedures for entering the sauna—aka, public baths where everybody’s naked, scrubbing themselves and others raw and relaxing in hot baths together. We tried to observe, without seeming creepy. We stripped down, though quite reluctantly at first, and went through the sliding glass doors. On the left were about six rows of mirrors, stools and hand-held shower heads full of women washing themselves. We set our small orange towels and stepped into the hot bath. It only took about twenty seconds for the other woman in the bath to get out. Coincidence? Perhaps, but we’ve now learned that we are to scrub and shower before we enter the baths. Note taken.

I’ve returned another three or four times and have become quite fond of Theme Spa Land and its blaring K-pop, matching workout uniforms (which I have yet to sport during my own workout) and hot baths—despite that when I went the other night there were three teachers from my school watching my every move in the sauna…

In other random news, the people of this province, Gyeongsangnam Province, have a very thick and different accent from those in the rest of the country. I suppose, then, that my learning to speak Korean in Jinju would be comparable to somebody learning to speak English in the Deep South or something. And on top of the accent, people speak very aggressively here. Somebody may be having a friendly, jovial conversation with a good friend, but to a foreigner it sounds as though they are arguing! Now when I witness two old men yelling at one another on the sidewalk, I just ignore it.

Wednesday was the graduation ceremony for the 3rd grade middle school boys (our equivalent of 9th graders), in which nothing really stood out to be too different than your average American 8th grade graduation—minus the amazing 8th grade dance that always follows in the school gym, boys lining the walls on one side and girls on the other. Today, Thursday, was a half day and I only had to teach one class. We’ve got another teacher’s lunch and then I’m free from school until March 2. To think I’ll have been for two and half months already by the time I really start teaching these crazy, unruly and hormonal boys…