10:05 AM.
WANTED: CHOICES
This morning we looked at the classifieds and jokingly assessed our market value as either translators or medical personnel.
Only, I wasn't really joking.
NOT JOKING AGAIN
AMY : "Do you want to eat Ja Jang Myun (a saucy noodle dish) today?"
ME : "Sure. I'll have to wear my white shirt first."
AMY : "Hahaha!"
Ja jang myun is a combination of thin slippery noodles and dark brown sauce that always make any white shirt end up looking like a sloppy speckled Zen painting by the end of the meal.
Ja Jang Myun should only be eaten with a dark shirt.
SUBSTITUTION DRILL
In the early mornings and late evenings when Amy is asleep, I've been either reading Korean history or costume design or going over substitution learning drills in my language book.
That's when Amy and I had the following "conversation" in Korean, as she was coming out of the shower :
ME : "Where is the school?"
AMY : "…" (Ignores.)
ME : "Where is the embassy?"
AMY : "What? I don't know. Be quiet."
ME : "… Where is the pussy?"
AMY (catching on) : "I won't give it to you. Be quiet."
ME : "Give me the pussy."
AMY : "No."
ME : "Damn. Give me the pussy, woman!"
AMY : "No. I will not give it to you."
ME : "Please give me the pussy."
AMY : "Crazy."
ME : "AIGOOOO!!" [Difficult to translate in English but a term of extreme frustration. You get the idea.]
I did it all for the "boji." [That's pussy in Korean. Should I be teaching people this word?]
RICE RICE BABYI recently learned that rice has two names. "Pap" (like "pop") is the common term. "Jin jee" is the more polite term you call it around your parents or elders.
FINAL FANTASY1 PM. At a Chinese restaurant in Seoul, eating our Ja Jang Myun, a favorite Chinese noodle dish among Koreans. Not even the employees are Chinese here though.
We were discussing extending our stay in Korea indefinitely. At least I was.
ME : "… so, your sister could take the car. My mom could have our apartment belongings. The only problem would be our house … we'd lose the downpayments we paid already."
AMY : "I'm sure there's a clause or penalty as well for backing out too."
The financing situation is becoming a hassle with our house. Amy and I are both getting pretty sick of the crap we're hearing about the screw-ups and delays on our house situation. I didn't think we would ever move in.
ME : "You really wouldn't want to live here (in Korea)? Why not?"
AMY : "It doesn't feel like home to me. I like sleeping in my own bed."
ME : "Like in the apartment?"
AMY : "Yeah."
ME : "Then why'd we get the house? Your bed isn't there either."
AMY : "But it will be."
ME : "Your bed could be here too."
AMY : "It's not the same. You know what I mean."
ME : "No. I don't …."
Amy and I watched a movie yesterday about a man who decided to leave his life and start anew in another country. His wife went with him. Amy said she would go with me wherever I went as well, at the end of that movie.
Of course, that guy was also an ex-drug runner and fugitive and had $2 million dollars in a briefcase, but that's not the point.
A man is the sum of his frustrations. I think Hemingway said that. I used to write literary quotes I read in a notebook in high school. I had a lot of Nathaniel Hawthorne's and Emily Bronte's in there as well. I didn't quite know what he meant when he said that, but I remembered it if only to see if it was indeed a truth, or just a bitter writer's line. It just never really applied to me.
Today it did. And for the first time in Korea, I was sad.
Why this now? This whole self-discovery thing? It would make things a lot easier to just not care about any of it. But that wouldn't change feeling estranged there, and at home here.
What a mess I've become, I wonder at times. Asian issues. Half-asian issues. Identity issues. Some passive-aggressive tendencies. Occasional mild obsessive tendencies. Socialization problems. Father figure issues. Problems with "authority." Video game addiction. Mild porn/sex addiction (if that's possible with only one sex partner). Affection issues (as in not getting enough of that either). Femme worshipper tendencies. Bastard complex. Rescuer complex. Adonis complex. Middle age crisis?? God complex? Um, thankfully no on that last one. Just a guilt-death complex with a morbid fear of rings and swollen fingers. And an often Heathcliffian Stoney Heart as a defense mechanism.
AMY : "What are you thinking?"
ME (surprised at her question) : "What? Why are you asking? You never ask before."
Amy and I were having major couple problems before Korea and they came along for the trip.
It was related to her job back home and her inability to relax since starting it (even on vacation). And my growing discontent with the lack of affection on her part because of said job. I was accepting sex as a replacement for love from my Amy. But those too rare episodes (only 2 or 3 times all vacation?!?) didn't fill in the days when I would wonder why she doesn't look at me the way she used to lately. The way I still look at her.
AMY : "Because you look like you are thinking a lot about something."
ME : "I think a lot about everything. I just don't usually make it so obvious."
I didn't feel like expressing myself then. Everything was too messy and tangled in my heart and my head.
I started feeling regret then as well. Then guilt over thinking so selfishly. My life is not completely my own. It's shared now, with responsibilities to boot. And adult and marriage stresses as well, I suppose.
Koreans don't even have a word for stress. They use the English word, pronouncing it as "stressuh." Before then, they would just deal with it ... or not, and eat their noodles and rice.
There must be a middle ground though. I'll just have to deal with my messy issues one a time, I decided. And maybe get used to the changing and frustrating dynamics of our evolving marriage. (When is that sexual peak women are supposed to have going to start anyway? I'M ready.)
I started with mixing my Ja Jang Myun noodles and sauce and vegetables. It tasted great, as everything did here. But just the same as it did back home too (as far as I could tell).
And I was wearing a dark shirt as well (so the sauce stains wouldn't show).
I considered that a good start.
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