An American in Seoul (there's no song and dance in this version)

Well, this is my maiden attempt a travel blog to chronicle my adventures here in Seoul (come visit!) and beyond.  Thanks to those who expressed interest in what I've been up to and for your encouragement to start this blog.  I hope you find as much joy in reading it as I find in writing/sharing my stories with you.

So... I've mentioned to more than a few people that it's been a pretty big culture shock being in Korea.  Rather than find a sense of autonomy here, I've found a sort of reaffirmation of my Americanness.  It's an unexpectedly patriotic feeling that is lost in a sea of Koreans, despite their general western enthusiasm.

Part of the disconnect with the folks here is definitely the language.  Yes, I do speak fairly well, and I can get by on my own.  And yes, even my accent is pretty good.  My cousin's boyfriend even told me that he was surprised because I spoke much better than he anticipated (which must be the equivalent to "pretty fly for a white guy" -- something like that right?).  But who ever would've thought that having my slightly above average Korean skills would come back to bite me in the butt?

I realized when people start speaking to me, they start saying all sorts of things that I don't understand.  I guess because I'm conversationally okay and my accent isn't terrible, they assume that I can just understand everything.  This random girl stopped me on the street today, and I think (and this is a guess because I didn't actually know what she was talking about) that she was trying to recruite me for some sort of cult.  Hah.  She asked me what my last name was and whether or not I knew exactly what type of "Kim" I was.  A brief aside -- we can have the same last names (i.e. Kim, Lee, Park, the list goes on...) but can descend from different regions/family lines from even those with the same last name.  Well, I told her that I'm from the US, so I'm wasn't really aware of that kind of thing.  I told her we're all just plain old Kim over there.  She started asking me all sorts of questions like whether I believed in spirits and ghosts and ancestors who watch over us.  At some point, I probably should've stopped nodding because it was like a pharmaceutical ad gone awry, dressed as a FOB in glasses.  Do you have frequent dreams or nightmares?  Do you have a family history of ____.  I told her, "NO more than the next person."  At this point, the "conversation" was just getting ridiculous, so I tried to plead American ignorance as a last ditch effort for escape.  I told her that in America, we don't live our lives thinking about ancestors and that kind of stuff and that she would just have to accept the difference in mentalities.   Well, I guess even the crazy Koreans respect cultural boundaries because that shut her up good.  She didn't know what to say after that, which is cool since she's lucky I let her talk so much nonsense in the first place.

In any case, I guess I'll have to learn to start being snippy in Korean or start unleashing the some East Coast attitude on Seoul.