Hwajeong

I live in a city named Hwajeong. It means "Flower City" in Korean. I know, quite manly. But I'm told it's actually a very beautiful name in Korean. I'm in a northwestern suburb that was created to alleviate the population of Seoul. Hwajeong a small Korean city, yet it's population is approximately that of Minneapolis/St. Paul. I found out rather quickly how few people speak English here. I've decided that there are good and bad elements to this. Good because it forces me to learn Korean and I have job security, bad because it was a nightmare trying to do simple things my first week.

Exhibit A: doing laundry. "Ok, so the button with two chicken scratches over what looks like a temple next to a greater than sign means spin cycle?" WHAT?! Exhibit B: buying food. Supermarkets here have great customer service, almost too good. There is a little Korean lady in practically every isle to help you out. I'm thinking, "great!" As a side note, Koreans are very helpful. They will go to the ends of the earth to help you out. Just be a caucasion, look confused, and stand on a street corner with an open map and you will have a million Koreans trying to help you. Anyways, I learned to pretend that I knew what I was doing so that they would leave me alone. The funny thing about my supermarker encounter was that after explaining it to me and Korean, she proceeded to speak louder thinking I was merely hard of hearing. I've been here 3 days. No matter how loud or clearly you speak Korean, lady, I'm not gonna understand! So finally I just got this surprised look on my face like I had a revelation from above, and that I understood EXACTLY what she was saying. I smiled, nodded, said thankyou. End of conversation. That was a good lesson to learn.