Korean Women

Sorry it's been so long since I last posted, but I've been pondering a few things instead of writing lately.

SEOUL - After a four-day English teaching conference where I found myself surrounded by a wide mix of fairly arrogant foreigners, I've come to realize that I got pretty damn lucky nabbing a kush job that also makes me happy. The stories I heard spew out of my fellow comrades' mouths all seemed like nightmares on Elm Street compared to my own bubbly family sitcom. But by the second day of falling asleep to useless lectures in broken English, I started to question if it was just dumb luck that dealt me this Full House of a job.
An 80-year old die-hard Christian grandmother I befriended during the conference told me that Jesus had brought me here. Was it really divine influence then? Should I really have lied and said "yes" like I did when she asked " Are you a believer?"? Curiosity crucified the cat. But I wouldn't have begun questioning blind chance if my nose didn't grow a little longer first. Why was it that out of 20 or so jobs I applied for back in the states, this teaching job, in South Korea of all places, was the only one that even called me back? And why did the original, more qualified, candidate decide to back out of the contract and allow it to fall into my unquestioning lap? Maybe I heard enough negative truths about the position in the interview process to make me believe the job offer didn't reek of old kimchi.
While most of the foreign teachers surrounding me at the snorefest explained they had contacted private teaching agencies or the provincial education office to land their locale, I seemed to be the only one who contacted the school, and the teacher I'd be replacing, directly.
Was it divine intuition then that landed me the sweet setup? Were my instincts that spot on? I'd like to think so. My track record at the poker table could attest to some sort of cognitive ability to interpret subtleties, but luckily my putrid fantasy football records currently keep me grounded. Yet, what I'm writing about here is real life. The problem I'm facing is I've never been good at that before.
Today I found myself dab smack in the middle of my usual lunch routine. I descend four flights of stairs, returning the hellos from about 40 different Korean kids on the way down, before I escape the chaos with a duck into the teachers' lunchroom. There I find the usual metal food cart, and the 10 or so Korean women leaning over it as if they're warming their hands above a fire in the middle of a blizzard. Kimchi does that to Koreans. Life without it would be, well, uncivilized.
The food isn't bad today. In fact, it's never bad. Not like the memories I have of elementary school food back home, where I sat on a shitty green fold out table watching the unfortunate "buyers" repeatedly tap their rock-solid taco boats with a white plastic spork.
Once I'm done waiting patiently for my coworkers to fill their trays to the brim, I plop today's menu onto my metal tray: dokboki (rice noodle things that look like potato sausages), japchae (imagine gelatin noodles with beef), kimchi (pickled cabbage with a ton of chili paste thrown in), spicy seafood soup and, of course, sticky white rice.
I take a seat next to the vice principal and greet the other teachers at the table with a slight bow accompanied by an "Annyung haseyo." They do the same back to me, practically dipping their heads in their soup like a congregation of passed out drunks. We've all got smiles on our faces. We're the lucky teachers who don't have a homeroom class. Those are the unfortunate souls that have the pleasure of eating lunch with 38 of their "michin" students whose hunger doesn't hinder there energy levels.
Light table conversation I can rarely understand usually fades away quickly, making room for mouth fulls of food. Koreans don't normally eat slowly unless there's something worth taking a long time for. Most of the time I feel like I'm one of Tolkien's Ents in a forest of soup-slurping hairless hobbits.
It's nice not having the ability to pay attention to conversations though. It gives me some time alone with my thoughts. But some days I'm invited into the circle. And by now I've picked up enough Korean to realize when they're asking my co-teacher to translate something to me.
Today it's a question I haven't heard before, at least not from my coworkers, and it catches me off guard enough for me to pause.
"They want to know what you think of Korean women," my co-teacher Jenny says to me with a hand over her mouth, as is customary when Korean women talk with their mouths full.
My facial reaction makes the women still left at table laugh out loud.
What do I tell them? I can't tell them what I really think. Half the reason stems from my educated guess that Jenny can't translate "high maintenance." The other half comes from me not wanting to be rude. Intuition reigns.
"Very beautiful," I say after judging the situation rather quickly.
They all understand what I say without need for Jenny to step in, as do most Koreans when you talk about appearances. They love appearances. They rely on appearances. In high heels, foundation make-up and short skirts they trust.
They can have their appearances. I'll put my faith in what got me over here.