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.

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Sweat and Sashes

Thursday began what would become a very long weekend. Friday, thanks to a huge population of Buddhists, would be another day off for me and almost every other expat teacher. Friday was the Buddha’s birthday. Happy birthday Buddha!

Thursday started off too early and way too uncomfortable. I was told by my coworkers that I would be attending a special meeting at the broadcasting station down the road. I tried several times to understand what it was that I would be going to and how important it was. Still, the most explanation that was given to me was that it was for the parents of our students and that I would be picked up by Boram in front of the Paris Baguette down the road at 8:45am.

Ok, fine, fair enough: 8:45am is not very early for most people but I haven’t woken up at a normal hour in I don’t know how long. One of the benefits of working for a nightlife magazine and then being unemployed is that your hours don’t really change all that much. Further, sleeping later has allowed me to forget that breakfast even exists outside of the realm of breakfast-for-dinner, or Ihop. Heck, there are times when I roll out of my bed to go into the school at 1pm. So, 8:45 was damn early to me.

I dragged my sorry behind, wearing fresh jeans and my favorite sweater, into the humid Korean morning a little early so that I might grab a little breakfast. I do not recommend pizza quesadillas and orange juice. It is not a good combination to start the day with.

Boram arrived shortly after and we were taken by cab to the broadcasting center where we met up with Han, the Younger Receptionist, Older Receptionist, the Directors Wife and apparently everybody who worked for our chain of schools. I walked and soon learned that jeans and my 5-inches-too-short Freddie Kueger sweater were a pretty bad idea. Of the 70 or so people in the lobby almost all were wearing dress pants and a tie at least; a few had full suits.

To make me look even more idiotic and uncomfortable I was given a blue sash with Hangul script and soon looked like an anti-beauty queen.

After standing about for 30 minutes or so the Younger Receptionist waved me over to the door.

“Thomas,” Han said, “you will be the greeting party!”

This day was turning into a nightmare. Here I was in jeans, Hadley’s worn out shoes and a sweater that looked like a belly shirt, ready to single-handedly cause every parent to turn around and pull their kids from the school. To make things even worse the pizza quesadilla and warm orange juice in my stomach were beginning to quarrel. Things had the potential to take a very bad turn.

Then, to my surprise I was joined by a handful of other Westerners just outside the entrance in the hot and humid late Korean morning. I was beginning to think that I was the only white person in this dirty little city. I didn’t even know what to say; it had been a little while since I had had a proper conversation in English that involved much more than noun, one adverb, verb.

There were three guys and we all asked the standard questions. All of them had been in Korea for a pretty significant amount of time and none of them had any immediate plans of returning. The three of them knew each other fairly well and were really nice. If any of that original three were from the States I do not remember but I remember at least two being from Canada.

The heat and humidity were oppressive. Each time somebody walked through the doors we bowed and said “hello” in Korean. While I know the word I generally lack confidence in my pronunciation skills so I spent most of the time bowing, sweating and mumbling.

After a time, another Westerner showed up with a beard in sunglasses. He might have been nursing a hangover but of this I don’t really know. As conversations sprung up amongst us I asked him where he was from, expecting another Canadian.

“New Hampshire.”

Another New Englander! I asked him what town he lived in and to my shock he said Rochester. I laughed and asked if he knew Larry Boire.

“Are you shitting me?”

He did know Larry Boire. Not only did he know Larry Boire but his aunt had been his neighbor at a summer house on some lake. Last he had heard of Larry was a newspaper article announcing Larry’s achievement of Eagle Scout.

It is a small world when it comes down to it.

One thing I was not prepared for in Korea was the humidity. Massachusetts summers are hot and humid but they have nothing on Korea. It would not have surprised me if upon reaching the entrance, a parent would have looked at the four of us pouring sweat and simply turned around and walked back to their car.

We stood there bowing and talking for over an hour until finally we were pulled from our posts and told to sit down until it was time to leave. It was then that we realized that our part at this special meeting was simply to show off that the school employed native speakers. That was it.

A couple of hours later we turned in our sashes, exchanged our phone numbers and were off to our respective schools in soaked through clothes.

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