Touch your elbow... dumbass

So, two weeks in and I'm starting to learn more and more about the culture. Things like nodding and saying annyeonghaseyo ("how do you do?") whenever I pass people in the street that make eye contact with me or whenever I walk into a store, especially a small store with only a few people. Also, I didn't know it until yesterday but there is even a polite way to pay for things that make Koreans happy to see foreigners do: you hand them the money with your right hand while the left one touches the inside of your right elbow; and make sure that you get your change with both hands together. It seems small, but it really does improve our image here and that is a huge deal. The more polite, mature, and accepting of the culture, the more people are inclined to help you, deal with you, and give you something extra. This is especially true in restaurants. Smaller restaurants like people who are polite, follow custom, and order a lot. If you do this you are greeted warmly, given GREAT food and very often are given something extra as a sign that they want you to return (free beer, soda, rice, extra meat).

Now comes the tough part: the language. I have been studying and can almost read without stuttering too much, but actually trying to put together a sentence is insanely hard. Even basic ones, there's just so many damn syllables and honorific conjugations that it's going to be quite a while before I'm able to say more than a few words with a horrible accent. So for now I've taken to what most foreigners do here when they don't speak the language: mutter some incomprehensible jibberish under your breath followed by "haseyo" (an honorific). This seems to work well as the locals take it that you are trying and just have horrible pronunciation (to which they politely giggle and then try to help you in an extremely kind way). To be honest, so far Korea has been the most peaceful and polite place that I have ever seen. I have yet to see anybody fight, shout, or even look angry (besides my principal, she lays the law down on our students). Even when a foreigner makes an idiot mistake (like beckoning a child with their finger, the equivalent of calling a dog, always tell them to come to you with your palm down and all fingers moving towards you) they just politely smile at your uncultured mistakes and later they politely and discreetly tell you what you did wrong. So far the harshest people on mistakes has been the other foreigners. Like I said: we take our image seriously around here. We work for private schools with parents paying small fortunes to have their kids learn from us. We can't afford to look like idiots in our day to day lives.

But anyways, today I was lazy and decided to make fried tofu and spam for dinner... worst mistake of my life...