when i awoke this morning, my first thought was, 'wow, i love having a week free from class.' my next thought was, 'ok i have to buy a winter coat.' and that mission was to begin in itaewon, also known to many as 'foreign town.' i made my way by subway, hoping that the land of foreigners would yield some foreign sized clothing.
i was rudely mistaken when i arrived in a relatively seedy area of town, faced with what seemed to be an endless array of cheap and dingy thrift stores. i tried on a coat and a dress in one shop, but neither screamed 'buy me.' i really hate shopping with a purpose. i hate having to search for a certain piece of clothing, knowing that i NEED a coat because i did not bring one, as the coat i would have brought has a ripped lining, buttons falling off, and absolutely NEEDS to be retired. i prefer to wander about a store, waiting for a piece of clothing to say, 'hello, kendra, you will die if you do not buy me.'
no clothing spoke to me in itaewon. i did, however, get plenty of weird looks from korean people, along with all the foreigners, who wondered, exactly, what this other foreigner was doing in the foreign part of town. i went into a paris baguette, bought a pastry and a small loaf of bread, wandered around a bit more, and then made my way home.
while on the subway, i noticed something quite unusual for me. i was not playing flirty eyes with anyone in the subway. if i made eye contact with someone, it was because they were staring at the nearly six foot tall american girl, curious as to who she was and what she is doing in their land of short people. i do not actively search out a cute male subject to entertain myself with while i pass from stop to stop. i say that this is quite an unusual occurrence for me because the 'flirty eyes' game was a game i played twice daily while in paris, once in the morning on the way to work, and again on the way home from work. i played flirty eyes with the same guy for two or three mornings in a row last year. i was quite disappointed that i had made eye contact with this man during my last week of work. had this happened earlier, i would have made sure to time my mornings just perfectly so as to increase my odds of getting something more out of this game. desolee, i just had to reminisce about my french life for a bit. i just do not think that i will find any korean man whom i find so utterly attractive that i have to make a game out of it. i also think that korean people are not really into eye contact. so perhaps, if i have my way, i will end up with some western dude to play flirty eyes with. i will keep you posted.
after a lovely meal of paris baguette bread and american skippy peanut butter, along with way too many cookies and not enough carrots, i decided that i was quite tired and wanted to take a little siesta. i napped for a bit, but was awoken by some construction men with a penchant for a nail gun. i have heard said nail gun far too many times, many of those times being when i am sleeping. bloody hell.
i got up and decided to continue with my quest for a coat. i opted to stay close to where i live, having not been in the mood for an hour's trek on the subway. i went into a couple stores before i passed by a store that i had noted the other day. there had been a really beautiful bright yellow coat in the window, one that made me say, 'wow that is cute!' to the friend i was with. i picked out said yellow coat, not really sure what size i actually needed. i found the biggest size of it that i could get, along with the biggest sizes of a couple other coats. they were all too small, but the girls in the store went in the back to get a bigger size, after i made a couple feeble attempts to explain that i was too big for their tiny clothes. one coat fit quite well and it was quite cute, so i opted to allow myself to claim victory and purchase it. the coat may not have spoken to me (in english, at least), but i did get a really good vibe from the store and the FOUR girls who helped me pick out the coat. i paid for my coat, and as the girl handed me my bag, she handed me a free umbrella. i am now the proud of owner of a white umbrella with a bunch of purple flowers on it. what doesn't scream CUTE about that?
i walked back to the love shack, feeling quite proud of my accomplishment. i had no translator, spoke no korean (i have a few words down for food in korean, but i have yet to learn shopping terms), and really had no idea what was going on most of the time. but i do believe that i can shop nearly anywhere, regardless of a language barrier.
on a similar shopping related topic, i need to take this opportunity to describe how many counterfeit products i see here. if you have been a follower of my previous blogs, you know that i hated every counterfeit good i saw in paris. seoul is another story. i see counterfeit northface jackets here, forchrissakes! i have seen 'black face' and 'one face' next to the little arching northface logo. i will not buy any brand name item here unless it is from a real store. the lancel bag i have picked out is real (and real expensive). whatever clothes or other bags i purchase here will be brand-less. i cannot and will not run around this town with fake gucci or coach or chanel.
that would be sacrilege. (and that says a lot, coming from little miss agnostic/atheist)
and now i would like to shift from talking about conspicuous consumption to talking about how some people in seoul are just trying to get by. whenever i cross jongno samga to go towards insadong, i see the same little old lady, crouched over, holding a small basket of packs of gum, just begging for someone to buy a pack to help her survive. there are a lot of similar elderly people trying to make a go of it by selling street food. it really is quite sad. and it really is quite sad/disgusting how much money one can make in seoul because they are a native speaker of english. i was talking to a korean friend a couple days ago and she asked if i thought it was fair that someone with relatively few qualifications, besides having graduated from college and being a native speaker of english, could come to korea and make a significant chunk of money, while people who probably are much more qualified than me will continue to struggle to get by. i replied by saying that i thought it was incredibly unfair, but that i probably would be in the same boat as her and many other koreans if i had stayed and faced the struggling economy in the states. you have to go where there is work. and work (and the money that will come along with it) is in korea. we don't need a whole slew of esl teachers in america, but they do need them in korea. it's all supply and demand. and while the demand is high, us americans (and brits and canadians and aussies and kiwis) will continue to milk the system and make our way. so no, it is not really fair that i can come to korea fresh out of college and make and save a good bit of money, and yes, i do feel bad when i see grandmothers trying to sell packs of gum at busy intersections in order to survive. but i do feel that it is necessary to be strategic in your life choices. this is applied economics at its finest. supply and demand, baby. you just gotta make sure that you are in demand.
on a lighter note, i move into my new place on saturday, which means i have to take the next two hours to pack up most of my life into a few suitcases, so that i can take a bunch of stuff over tomorrow or wednesday. yaaaaaaaay i get to leave the love shack soon!
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