Smoothie Spills & Language Barriers: My Misadventures in Korea
Moving, breathing, speaking, driving, hiking in Korea for me (Steph) has been a continuous display of pure embarrassment. I count myself as someone who is a frequent initiator of socially inept encounters. This is something James and I have laughed over for the entirety of our relationship.
Back home in NC, I found this frequent barrage of faux pas to be quite amusing, or easily rolled off my shoulders at the least.
Here, as an automatic outsider, I feel the discomfort, the eyes, the whispers heavily. I say this as someone who has lived a privileged and blessed life. Becoming an immigrant, which I count in almost all areas as an incredible blessing, has, shall I say, exposed me for the first time to the truly 'other' experience.
Nearly every day I have an experience where I walk away feeling absolutely dumb. Sometimes this lack of knowledge leaves me cackling, but often it has felt heavy. I leave the situation somewhat ashamed… wondering why I can't just do the simplest of tasks with ease like everyone else around me.
The Convenience Store Chronicles & Daily Blunders
Nearly every experience checking out at the convenience store (7-Eleven, CU, etc.) turns into a lesson. Korean stores have a coupon system called 1+1 (one plus one). This means you can get one item and a second item free. Or, as I recently learned, 2+1—three for the price of two. For about 6 months I was mystified by the 2+1 deal somehow thinking it must be similar to my previously frequented American deal of buy 2 get 3 free (HELLO, you over there, Harris Teeter) and never took advantage, since I rarely am in the position to carry more than a couple drink items.
About 75% of the time, I get overwhelmed with the choices of drinks (remember, everything is in a foreign language) or someone is waiting behind me, so I just grab my go-to. Inevitably, it's a 1+1 deal. I have to leave the checkout register after being told via the register worker holding up two fingers that I should go get another of the same product since one is free.
For about 2 months, my kids said hello in Korean and bowed to every person passing us on the sidewalk.
Trying to request the correct size and number of trash bags from the grocery store is an absolute nightmare game of charades.
The Spa & Hiking Guessing Game
Let's get into the jjimjilbang/swimming pool etiquette. I'm still a newbie in this area, but I can share confidently that I've given it an ole southern girl try. Abiding by Korean spa and pool etiquette is a huge guessing game. Where and when to take shoes off, when to put their slippers on, when and where to get naked, when to shower (before, after, both?), when to have a swim cap, where to go so you don't accidentally end up in the men's locker room, when to get your swimsuit back on, when to get your own shoes back, and where you can actually put them on your feet. I've made a few blunders here, but thankfully I didn't ever wander into the wrong gender area.
Hiking is something I've really enjoyed picking up here. Although we are experiencing the summer monsoon and heat waves currently, I was consistently getting about 5km of walking or hiking about 5 days a week in May and June. Hiking with Koreans leaves me feeling really exposed and embarrassed. I normally wear what most American 30-year-old ladies would: bike shorts, a tank top, and hiking shoes. You get the picture. Now, even though I've been practicing, I still get quite winded and sweaty on these hikes. Korean hiking is often mostly straight up, with almost no switchbacks. As you can imagine, I appear to be on the verge of passing away by the time I reach the peak.
It's on the uphills that I notice my fellow hikers… They are completely covered with 0% skin showing. I'm talking a hat, a face mask, SPF cheek patches, gloves, long pants, a jacket, etc. What little I can see looks like a person is ready to walk the runway. No sweat patches, no redness. I know in my brain this is a simple biological difference, but I sure feel like everyone is wondering what's wrong with me.
The Cafe Catastrophe
Now… on to the big kahuna. The inspiration for writing this particular blog post. My girls and I recently visited a park on a Saturday morning so I could walk, and they could ride their bikes. Even though it was morning time, the heat was blazing already. By the time we finished (after taking the long way back to the car by mistake), we were ready for a refreshing break at a local café. I knew of a nice café we had visited before with a play area for toddlers.
Skip to me ordering our refreshers. Korean drinks are almost always tiny. Thinking I didn't want the girls fighting, and since it wasn't very expensive, I ordered 3 smoothies. One for each of us.
This particular café has an area where you must remove your shoes and step onto a ledge. Then there are tables low to the ground where you sit. When our drinks were ready, I excitedly threw on my tennis shoes (just keeping my heel on the back of the shoe instead of having it properly and fully on) and walked over to the counter.
⚠️ Two thoughts went through my head as I saw our order:
Those smoothie glasses are HUGE (imagine the stadium-sized plastic soda cups), and I wished I had ordered only one. I'm sure all these Koreans are going to see me as a gluttonous American getting three individual ginormous smoothies for myself and my two children, 6 and under.
How are all three of these huge smoothies on this tiny tray going to do as I walk them back to the no-shoe area, take off my shoes, step on the platform, and get them onto the very low table successfully?
I sure should have taken those two thoughts more seriously and as foreshadowing to listen to. I quickly became a scene out of what would be a hilarious cartoon. As I almost reached our table, successfully making it past taking off my shoes and stepping up onto the platform, the cups began to teeter and, in what felt like slow motion, toppled to the floor—spilling all our smoothies, splattering both my kids, and covering a 5-foot diameter of the toddler play area.
Mortified, I just said sorry over and over again. I quickly scooped what I could back into the glasses (with little to no success) and ran back to the cashier to try to mime that I needed a mop or something. She just looked at me blank-faced, and then gave me 1 small rag and a bowl. A couple of the Korean moms used some baby wipes to help me, but I primarily used the rag to scoop everything into the bowl (while honestly slipping and sliding on my hands and knees in the slippery smoothie mess myself), wringing out the rag of smoothie guts when I could. I resorted to opening my own baby wipe pack and emptying almost all of it in an effort to clean up the mess I had made.
Once I got everything wiped up, I whispered to the girls that we should just leave (bribing them with another round of smoothies ordered to our house via the Korean food delivery app). We left, paying for undrunk smoothies and parking since I didn't have the bandwidth to figure out parking validation after the spill. As soon as we got in the elevator to go to the parking garage for our car, my emotions got the best of me. I cried all the way home and for a while after as well. I still feel like I'm recovering.
Finding Grace in the Growth
I don't know what it was about the situation that had and has me so emotional. The feeling of helplessness from not being able to communicate my apologies or properly ask for help? The simple but horrifying, pure embarrassment? The culmination of this and all the above daily incidents leaving me feeling so "other"?
The origin of the emotional burden this has caused me is yet to be revealed, but this is what I can say: Sometimes doing this Korea thing is really glamorous. I mean the food, the beauty products, the public green spaces, the deep-rooted community. It's all so wonderful. But my sensitivities are on high alert. My otherness and the difficulty of doing average daily activities have also weighed on me.
Today I pray for resilience. I ask that you would join me. Pray for our family to find joy amidst the small difficulties we face. Pray for discipline in language learning so that life can become simpler to navigate. Pray most of all that we seek the Lord first in hard moments, and that we lean on each other as a family doing this thing together.
