and the yellow dust approaches...
This weekend was the pits. Saturday I went hiking in the mountains, but instead of going to the top like I normally do I tried to find this shrine that some of my co-workers were talking about. I ended up in a more mountainous terrain, and ended up tripping over a root and nearly sprawled face first in the dirt. I managed to save myself, and continue to hike. I did find the shrine and took some nice photos of it, but when I was about to leave a big dog came running toward me. I paused. I wasn't sure what to do. I'm not really afraid of dogs, but this dog had no collar on and looked a little mangy, so I was a little worried about him biting me and getting some strange disease. A little over dramatic, yes, but you never know. Anyway, I managed to escape from the dog, who was more scared of me than I was of him, and went back home to veg out and play videogames.
Sunday I woke up with a throbbing foot and my whole chest hurt every time I took a breath. I found out that Saturday was the start of Yellow Dust Season. Yellow Dust Season is when some yellow sand comes down from China to Korea. The dust travels through the air, and on bad days the whole sky is yellow. I must have inhaled some of the dust when I was hiking because Saturday my whole respiratory system was on fire. I ended up staying in bed all day and sleeping, with frequent "breaks" to play Tales of Destiny. I called my friend later and talked to him about it and he let me borrow his vaporizer for the night. I slept with that all last night and this morning my chest pain was gone, though I was coughing up a bit of flem, which is pretty standard. Anyway, I know better now to not go out when the sky is yellow, or to at least wear a facial mask so I don't inhale the dust.
Two awesome things have happened to me within the past few days. As far as computer goes, I may have to wait until my parents get back from their trip to Florida (why Florida?) to get it mailed. My mom called Office Depot and read them the numbers of the computer I gave her. It turns out they had one left in stock and they held it for her so she could buy it. So I got it for the cheapest price, plus the one I really wanted. That made me super happy.
The other cool thing that happened was this morning when I was about to leave for Korean class. I thought I heard the sound of rain, so I grabbed my umbrella so I wouldn't get wet. It turned out I didn't need it, and I was a little disappointed, but didn't want to go all the way back to my apartment to return it. So I carried it with me. I had a lot of weird stairs and people wondering why I was carrying my ussan, or umbrella, with me. On the way home from Korean class it began to pour, up to the point where you needed an umbrella unless you wanted to get soaking wet. One of the buildings flashed the Chinese symbol for "rain" over and over, as if that were needed. At that moment, I was super happy that I had taken my umbrella with me and ignored the weird stares people gave me.
As a foreigner in Korea, it's pretty common to have people come up to you and try to speak to you in Korean. I've had that happen three times this week, twice today. Saturday a man tried to speak to me while I was hiking, and today two women stopped me at different times. The second was nice, she just wanted to share my umbrella. The first was...rude. I was minding my own business, waiting at the bus stop for my bus when she approached me. First she said something to me, so I took my headphones off and tried to listen to her. She asked me if I spoke Korean and I told her a little bit. Then she said something else to me in rapid Korean and I told her I didn't understand. So she said it again, not bothering to slow down. Once again I told her I didn't understand and she spoke English to me telling me how "everyone learns English". I don't want to be rude and assume the worst, but it sounded like to me she was saying that everyone here studies English, so why don't you study Korean? That would have been kind of amusing if I weren't a little irritated since I was on my way to Korean class to study Korean.
It really hit me over the head that while some Koreans are super nice to foreigners, there will always be the ones that are bitter about having foreigners in their country, earning their own money and then sending it back to their homeland. I can understand her anger, but that's how the world works. We have a lot of this going on in America, but in some cases it's worse in rhw USA because we have a lot of people who do it illegally. I worked hard to get my own visa and now I'm educating your children. I left my family and my country for this. So shouldn't I get at least some respect? But I guess that's too American of me to expect that from people. ^^;;
Well, whatever. I just don't think her method really is the best way to get foreigners interested in Korea. In my opinion, an attitude like that only drives people away from it. People might look at this woman and think that that's what all Koreans are like, and not be interested in Korean culture because of it. But maybe I'm being melodramatic. And maybe she was just in a bad mood and needed to take it out on someone. Nevertheless, it was not appreciated. I'm just glad I've met plenty of people that show me a different side of Korea.