Communication

Sometimes, it's pretty tough living in a place where you barely know the language. Right now, I basically only say "An-nyong haseyo" (Hello) and "Kamsa hamida" (Thank you). I know more words, but the opportunity to use them doesn't come up very often. I guess I now know how new immigrants feel when they come to Canada. It's frustrating at times, but I just try to have a good sense of humour about it. Many times after greeting someone with "An-nyong haseyo", they assume I know Korean and speak really fast. I just give them the deer-in-headlights look or shrug my shoulders to show them I don't understand. Hopefully, Korean classes on Saturday mornings will speed up my understanding of the Hangul language. It'll make life easier for everyone.

One night, I was sitting in my apartment doing nothing and someone buzzed me. I picked up the phone and someone said "please open the door" and just started laughing. Of course, I'm not going to open the door to that, so I just ignored it. Then an old lady came to my window and asked me to open the door. I opened the door and the old lady handed me about 15 keys. Using mostly miming, I unsuccessfully tried asking what they were for . When it became apparent that it was not working, I tried introducing myself, but she just laughed, shook her head and walked away. Learning Hangul will hopefully decrease the frequency of these odd occurrences.