Humidity

The weather in Korea is becoming exceedingly hot. It is not even mid June but already temperatures are hovering around 90 degrees. What is worse than that is that a humidity hangs about that I am not used to. Weather extremes were always a point of pride for me as a resident of New England with often brutal winters (ice storms that change the landscape for years) and summers were generally hot as hell thanks to the humidity. This humidity, though: good god.


I was told upon moving into my new apartment that I would soon be purchased an air-conditioner but to this I shrugged and told my director not to worry too much about it. I hope he knows that I was just being polite because official summer has yet to even arrive but my apartment is unbearable.

I leave my sliding door open when I am home and that seems to work well enough to steal an occasional breeze to circulate stagnant air. However, thanks to crappy wiring, the screen does not seal firm against the door so any bug clever or lucky enough can fly in unabated. To my luck, a smallish spider has set up watch at the to of the opening so that I have not seen more than one elaborately marked moth and one mosquito (who pent an entire night biting me, little bugger).

For a while, when I was at school I would close the window in an effort to keep the heat out. After today, I will not do this anymore. Frequently, these little Korean studios develop a funky smell. It doesn’t smell terrible and seems to come and go but it’s origins have to be the pipes that carry toilet and sink water to god knows where. I do not know for sure but Korean pipes don’t seem to be as efficient at carrying away waste water. In fact, most Koreans seem to employ the “wipe and toss” method when it comes to the toilette so there doesn’t seem to be the pressure for businesses to strive for nice smelling and clean bathrooms.

Anyway, I returned to my place today and opened my door to be greeted by what might have been the smell of a hundred dying zombies. I have no food to rot and I am generally good about taking out my trash so the smell is a mystery to me. In any case, a weekend ago I walked to Uptown and purchased a boatload of incense that I burn almost constantly.

They smell like grape children’s Tylenol. I hate the smell but it beats the alternative.

Each room in school has a ceiling mounted air conditioner that is made of shiny white plastic, turns on with a chirp via one of three remote controllers. Now, I won’t bore you with details about fancy air conditioners but these things are awesome. The bigger units, for example, have several flaps that are constantly opening and closing to distribute cold air evenly. They are efficient and futuristic enough for me to pretend I am on some Star Wars space ship. Thing is we barely use them.

The school is pretty well insulated and the windows aren’t usually open all the way so the temperature is generally reasonable, but it still tends to get a bit warm and stuffy. Perhaps adult Koreans have more of a heat tolerance than I do but that has yet to be picked up by the kids, particularly the Three Monsters.

Classes with them have become more and more difficult, though just as hilarious. Every class that I sit in with Han teaching involves her having to force them to do anything but lay their heads on the desk and every other word out of their mouths is “ice cream?”

For a long time they demanded that Han bring them ice cream. When that didn’t work they tried their hand at extortion.

“They told me that if I brought them ice cream that they would behave for the week,” Han told me.

So, she brought them ice cream that they devoured. They then welched on their end and went back to being little monsters.

“They tell me,” Han said, “that the ice cream was not delicious enough.”

The Three Monsters have become so desperate that they no longer ask Han to bring them ice cream, only that she end class a bit early so they might go out and buy their own ice cream.

This doesn’t usually happen as it is hard to get through any material when you have three boys screaming ice cream at you. The goofier one (the one who tied his hands together with balloon ribbon) took things into his own hands.

A week ago one of the AC remotes went missing. It wasn’t a big deal but we were left having to look for the remaining controllers whenever we wanted to turn on the air conditioners. Assumedly, the missing remote was beneath papers or books in the corner of one of the offices.

Today I was sitting in with the Three Monsters before Han came to class. It was stuffy and Han had already refused to turn on the air conditioner. I watched as the goofy one pulled the missing remote from his pocket and turned it on himself. Turns out he had been doing this for the past few days whenever he felt it was too hot to effectively give you a headache.