It’s 11/11 so you know what that means… Lotte’s commercial holiday is here! Peppero is a chocolate-dipped pretzel that is long and thin like a pencil. I pretend that means I can eat the whole package as one serving. In China, this is actually called “Singles Day” due to the many “1s” in the date and everything goes on sale. Here, rather than singles celebrating it was a corporate festival and all day I saw businessmen carrying around stacks of Peppero boxes I assume were meant for coworkers and bosses. As it was our last in-person class, our first period teacher had gone through the effort of cutely bagging up…

Saturday carried me once again to the center of the city and bustling night market. If you’ve ever been, it’s reminiscent of Namdaemun. I scared a poor hot cake seller and a different barista with the threat of speaking English when they looked upon my foreign face. The young hot cake promoter spoke English to me even though I answered him in Korean to put him at ease; his shaking hands didn’t escape my notice, though. I scared him once more once I reappeared at his side a few minutes later and mid-sentence to return my empty paper cup as Korea has no public garbage cans. “And then I— oh…

It seems that I committed a blunder. Luckily, our textbook has a whole chapter on apologies. I’ve spent over a year in Korea hearing that I look tired, don’t try on that dress because it’s too small for you, why is your butt so big, do all Americans have hairy arms, you have a nose like Pinocchio, your face got smaller, you look tired. None of these were ever made with ill intent and as a large foreign woman in Korea, I have to accept these comments for what they are. I want to tell you that Korean culture rubbed off on me, or that I’m just carrying that straightforward…

Today was my first… and second to last day of in person classes on campus. It was a taste of all the things that could’ve been but weren’t and I don’t know how I feel about it all. It was a cold morning and campus was empty at 8AM save for our four level three classes. My teachers were both somehow much much shorter than I anticipated, and upon remarking this one Chinese student hit me in the arm as if this was inappropriate. Ironic considering the amount of commentary made on face, beauty, and weight every day by the average Chinese or Korean. If it was wrong, just chalk…

The night before Halloween, House Owner and I experimented with several Halloween recipes that ended with chocolate all over the kitchen. The morning of Halloween, House Owner was working so I invited Freshman to come make and decorate marshmallows with me. On Halloween night I found myself running through the streets of Busan in a green jumpsuit while House Owner filmed me. (An ode to 원류환). Our Halloween party had finally came to fruition after the fateful discovery of wigs in storage. The four roommates plus Brazilian’s girlfriend and House Owner’s mother and sister came to our festively decorated café. Corgi also made an appearance and ran circles around the…

Goodnight ~

My Saturday was going well, treating myself to noodles in a window cafe where everyone stared at me and then egg tarts by the beach, until I recieved a text from House Owner. Freshman had caught the male Korean roommate feeding the corgi chocolate even though he had been warned against doing so several times. This was the last straw for House Owner and she gave him twenty four hours to move out. The corgi is in fact a rescue: someone had found her north of Seoul trotting along the side of the road, chain dragging behind her. She’s afraid of cats though she behaves like one: she doesn’t like…

There are days that are just plain good. This week has been full of them. Once I decided not to enroll in the next semester of Korean, my stress levels dropped significantly. This also means I can take a longer vacation in the US without having to worry about school deadlines. A call to Delta got me a changed flight and a hundred dollar credit; my teaching exams were easily rescheduled; with some panicking I finally found a rental in Seoul for quarantine upon my return since the presence of roommates means I can’t quarantine here, and special city rules say I can’t use a Busan Airbnb to quarantine. House…

A friend texted me earlier this week asking if I wanted to… model. In the attic of my heart there has always been a desire to be a model. I imagined being “spotted” at the mall, at Disney, on the beach. I wanted to submit my photos to the Ford Agency self application page. I browsed Craigslist ads. People always told me I was pretty so wasn’t that the ultimate conclusion? To be professionally recognized for my appearance? The reality was that I was chubby, tall but awkwardly long limbed, unaware of how to dress myself, averse to makeup, and had a face too long to campaign for anything. And…

It is fall and persimmon season has begun. Until this year, I have never had a ripe persimmon and now… Well now I can understand every poetic reference to the fruit. Without my subconscious knowledge, Korea has won me over with fruits I’ll be sure to miss in every season: mild yellow melon, sweet tangerines and tangy hallabong from Jeju, dusky orange persimmons, fibrous jujube, bitter yellow apricots, violet-hearted figs. Local fruits are only sold in season and what a difference it makes.