It’s Hard Not To Compare

November 4, 201438 Comments

It’s been about a month and a half since I peninsula hopped. I know I haven’t written too much about it so far, and I’m not sure why that is, but it may be because I don’t feel like I’ve settled just yet. My heart is still wheeling for Korea, and I’d say all around I don’t have the feels I initially got when I began life in Koko.

I can’t stop comparing things, which I know is totally normal given the whirlwind I bestowed upon myself, but I also feel like maybe it’s hindering my enjoyment of Spain. That’s not to say I’m not enjoying myself – because I am. It’s just taking a little longer to wrap my heart around the continent that was my favorite just 4 years ago, before Asia and the family I made there stole it.

I guess this is what homesickness feels like. Just whack when it’s for your 2nd home and not the 1st.

In an effort to make this more than a sap story, I have taken mental, and when applicable, pictoral notes, of those noticeable differences between the 2 peninsulas that have had the great pleasure of hosting my American ass.

Because comparing is inevitable, here we go.

1. Drunk Ajussi vs. Señors Who Siesta

It is by no means a rarity in Korea to find a ‘salary man’ in his glittery tie passed out in his own vomit whilst molesting the trash laden curb, or passed out in the fetal position in a corner, or basking in his glory on a subway bench at nearly any time of the day.

Or in his case, traditional ajussi garb.

In Spain this is nonexistent. Instead, you’ll find a gentlemen fully dressed to the nines having his afternoon siesta in the middle of the hustle bustle of the city center on a park bench.

2. Ajummas vs. Señoras In Pearls

Ajummas are a breed all their own. They don’t care what they throw on in the morning (unless it involves hiking a mountain), and I’m convinced do not own mirrors and/or have someone to veto the clashing patterns they’ve got draped. When they hit a certain age, the only hairdo is one of tightly coifed curls, and their elbows can kill.

My eyes!

The señoras in pearls are women who have not given up on life, and will go down looking their best. Perfectly tailored dress sets, strings of pearls around their necks and dazzling their ears, and the best designed hand bags to boot! Please note that this element of putting oneself together translates to the señors as well.

Arguing the proper marrying age of a young woman. I’m officially on the shelf in case you were curious.

3. Early Bird Special Plus Round 2, 3, Noraebang vs. Tapas Then Dinner Whenever

I had never eaten dinner as early as I did than while living in Korea. School would finish at 4:40pm and then the whole faculty was off to dinner together en masse. We’d sit down for Round 1 around 5pm and everyone was prepared to get smashed. After a couple hours and a couple drunk falls by the maintenance man, or principal, we’d move onto Round 2 at some hof. I usually tried to duck out around this time. But if I stuck around, that would ultimately lead to noraebanging the night away.

Germ swapping builds a strong immune system, and is good for health.

The Spanish will eat tapas at the time when we Americans would typically eat dinner (or really anytime), around 7-8pm, and dinner no earlier than 9pm. That’s even pushing it. I have come home on multiple occasions to a roommate cooking dinner at 11pm. Don’t they know that shit sits in your stomach and makes you fat?! Both enjoy their food though, there is zero arguing of that.

Never thought I’d crave mushrooms as much as I do whilst looking at this photo.

4. Korean School vs. Out Of Control Spanish School

Of course, the reason I am allowed to legally live here, duh. I must admit, even though this is only my 2nd teaching gig and I was in Korea 3 years longer than I have been in Spain, no one has anything on Korean kids. Maybe I’m biased, but then so I am, but they just latched onto my heart so much quicker. Maybe it’s because I was so novel to them. Whatever it is, Korean kiddos, even at their worst, are FAR more obedient and attentive to authority figures than Spanish kiddos. And that’s just the kids.

The teachers do NOT know how to discipline the students here and spend the majority of class talking over the kids because they don’t quiet them down. I work in a bilingual school, so all subjects are taught in English. They’re little, so obviously they aren’t going to understand everything and every direction being thrown at them. Yet, I have co-teachers who bark at the kids and expect them to understand everything right away. I have never experienced such coldness from teachers to children, or kids so out of control off their rockers. It’s like a vicious circle of non-discipline, shouting, students running around throwing pencils in class, crawling on the floor, and of course nothing getting done. I teach only 16 hours a week, and am in the biggest hurry to get out of that school when I’m done. By this time in Korea I had already sold my heart over for a 2nd year, Spain on the other hand, I’m majorly leaning towards negatory.

I will say though that the differences in schools are very telling of the cultures and how completely opposite they are of one another. Koreans strive to be the top of the tops and get into the best university possible, while the ability to finish school at 16 years old in Spain is a welcomed one. Not to mention, I can’t help but notice how impassioned Spaniards are. While I hate the shouting with a passion, emotions and creativity run wild in the Spanish classroom, something that is 110% lacking, in Korea. You win and you lose I suppose.

Since I’m not supposed to take photos of my Spanish kids, here’s a photo of me trying to squeeze my large ass into a child’s photobooth ride.

5. Table Staples

Seeing the staples on any given country’s table is so fascinating to me. I was thinking about this the other day, how I guess in America it would be salt & pepper, maybe some ketchup and mustard. In Korea you’ve got one of the millions of kimchis and gochujang on every single table you sit down at. Which also makes my mouth water and my mind explode with the notion that I have not stuffed kimchi in my face in over a month. It’s tragic really.

Well in Spain you’ve got extra virgin olive oil and what I missed with tremendous abandon for 3 years, balsamic vinegar, on nearly every table. If not balsamic, you’ve at least got oil and some other kind of vinegar. But it is ever-present and they slather that shit on every piece of jamon or pan con tomate they devour.

Since you know what oil & vinegar look like, this is a sampling of snack time my first day on the job. Chocolate cake with sprinkles for breakfast.

6. Cafés Of Every Theme vs. Cafeterias

I could step out of my apartment in Korea and find a million cafes in every direction I turned, and they’d be of any theme imaginable. It was perhaps one of my hands down favorite things about Korea and something that that country reigns supreme in. Café culture in Korea is TOP.OF.THE.POPS. While some of my best cups of coffee were definitely not had in Korea, the best slices of cake were. HELLO HACKNEY DARK BABY AND FRANK’S RAINBOW CREAM ROLL CAKE. And anything Earl Grey flavored, because they have it.

Too bad I discovered this an exact week before my departure. ME-OW.

Café culture in Spain isn’t so prominent, and that’s probably because Spaniards are a little more adventurous in their outings with other individuals. While the coffee is a million eons beyond Korea, the experience is lightyears different, and not really my style. I LOVE sitting in a cafe with my computer typing away, and so far that experience has been pretty hard to replicate. Most caféterias are bar style and you order a cafe con leche from the bar and drink it standing up alongside others who are also at the bar. They’re also not a very grab-your-coffee-to-go type of people.

Except for La Bicicleta, which happens to be one of the trendiest cafés, and also happens to be up the street from me.

Except for La Bicicleta, which happens to be one of the trendiest cafés, and also happens to be just around the river bend from me.

7. American English vs. British English

This is a bizarre as all hell thing people! It’s adorable slash makes me feel a little heeby jeeby inside. Hearing little Spanish babies speak in British accents might be one of the most precious things I have ever willfully exposed myself to, and hearing a 1st grader ask me everyday “Teacher, where’s my rubber?” will never cease to make me cackle with dirty abandon inside.

That aside, while my co-teachers encourage telling the students what we’d say in America, I find it to be hardly enforced. It’s merely brushed over, probably because it won’t be on the Cambridge Exams. Needless to say, I miss teaching American English, even if the kiddos thought every black person on the TV was Obama.

Well, there you’ve got it! Did you like that British English I just threw at you?! I thought you would. These are just a month’s worth of immediate observations that have tipped my senses. I hope I didn’t come off as so unbearably whiney about my new life in España, I’m trying here people! Now let me know about your experiences in your 2nd, 3rd, or 4th homes. What things really shocked your pants off, or merely stood out to you?

España, I’m Comin’ For Ya!

May 16, 2014May 16, 20148 Comments

The cat’s been let out of the bag, peeps! In a little over 4 months I will be calling Madrid, Spain my second home away from home! It took me a hearty nanosecond to get back to the thrill I had when I first clicked apply, but I have since found my way back and BOY, AM I FUCKING EXCITED!! Excuse the emphatic fuck, totally necessary.

This is coming as a bit of a shocker of shocks to at least a handful of you, I know, considering just as recently as Monday I was on the boat to make Shanghai my next hop. I talked to a recruiter in China, sat at my desk preparing a spreadsheet of countries I’d like to hit on a 4 or 5 month backpacking excursion, sent text messages attempting to recruit travel companions to India, and when that was a bust, because you know, people have jobs back home, psyched myself up to bite the bullet and hit India on my own to get down and dirty with myself. I began concocting this plan to travel through the end of the year, be back home for a few months to watch people tie their knots (and quite possibly go mentally insane), and then peace out after that.

That flipped almost instantly as soon as I got my 2nd acceptance from Spain.

I applied to two programs that are specific in getting us North American’s legal working rights in the European Union. BEDA and the Ministry Auxiliares de Conversación program through the Spanish government allow Americans to work in Spain under a student visa for one academic year. This is huge because work visas for us are notoriously near impossible to come by in Europe, and well, my dream must be conquered!

I found out I had been placed with BEDA at the end of April, and decided to turn it down since the start date is 1 week after I finish my contract in Korea, the pay is super shitty, and that big of a move with zero time to decompress frankly stressed me the flying fuck out. The Ministry program in turn starts at the beginning of October and runs through June, meaning I’ll need to get myself to Madrid within the last two weeks of September to get settled and attend an orientation. The pay is still crap, albeit a teency bit higher than BEDA, but I will be working less hours than I would with BEDA, for a smidge more money, AND 4 day weeks! YAYAYUYUH! The program doesn’t provide housing, so I will be tasked with finding a little nook to call my own. That should be fun, considering the last time I was in Spain MayMay and I got horribly lost during our first hop on the metro, and my Spanish needs some severe help. Rosetta Stone I’m coming for you.

But we survived, and very much fell in love with Barcelona (and a boy named Giuseppe).

I’m sure you’re curious about my sudden change of pace, right? Well, lately I had gotten the notion in my head that I’d be turning any offers from Spain down because I decided I fancied making a bit more money, something China would ensure, and up until recently, I thought I’d enjoy an extra cherry on top (read: man). Even though China still is a massive adventure I want to conquer, when this offer popped into my inbox, something snapped. I instantly remembered why I jumped through hoops in a flurry to make the application deadlines. I wasn’t basing my next move on the money, but on following my heart for the experience I’ve always dreamt of. Cue sappy music now and an ecstatic 4th grade (and 30 year old!) Danielle.

Not to mention, cobblestone streets, architecture adorned with character, paella, wine and delicious espresso need a fatass place in my life right about now.

I won’t lose my Asian touch though. That shit sticks with you like kimchi to your refrigerator and apartment and breath. Sorry Cori.

So now begins the annoying task of getting all my legal documents in a pretty little row. I feel pretty overwhelmed right now. It was a huge pain in the ass when I had to get everything for Korea, and now that I’m abroad I feel a little more flustered because there’s all that distance from America. I also have to get all these documents translated to Spanish to add another layer of fun. But it’s all in excited good flustering. Since all my classes were cancelled on Wednesday, literally all I did was scour blogs of people working in the program and it got me SO PUMPED!

To think, just a year ago I was on the phone with Papa Schaeff freaking out about staying a third year, and how my major goal to tackle in the next year was to really figure my shit out, because I was not going to stay in Korea for a 4th year. I’m quite proud of myself for sticking to it and putting myself en route to checking another huge experience off the ol’ bucket list.

Whether or not I will be home in between contracts is up in the air at the moment. I have plizans to hit up the motherland on a free flight that I get for being Bat Mitzvah’d and now in my 30th year (don’t ask), and pop on over to Greece to visit the man my family once asked to bring toilet paper up to our hotel room just because we wanted to see him (don’t ask again).

So if I don’t see you in Korea before August, or home, I better be seeing you in Spain. I’m on a mission to get double the amount of visitors I had to Korea (and that’s a big number to top).

In other news, it looks like I’m gonna need to start brainstorming a new, broader name for the ol’ bloggy blog. I may just stick with Seoul Tapper because I am quite fond of it, but something all encompassing of the globe may be nice. If you have any ideas, please, help a sista out with your creative seeds.

Hasta luego purple people eaters!

Culture Shocking My Pants Off In Reverse

March 5, 201410 Comments

For the second time in the past 2.5 years, I made the flight home to the land of LALA, mostly because lots of my friends are maturing at a more rapid pace than I and are bearing children, but also to see lots of lovely familiar faces (but that jibber jabber is for another post).

I’ve been home since I’ve left, and that was after an even longer period of time than this time, however this trip actually felt quite a smidge different than the first. I’m not quite sure why, but it did. It was mostly in the realm of culture shocking my pants off in the weirdest and most microscopic ways. While you may laugh, these are real things that made me feel like a foreigner in my own land of reign. Super weird to you, and even super-er weirder to moi.

Landing In America and Still No English.

For some odd reason I had a layover in Dallas on my jaunt home to LA. Why that makes sense, I have no idea, but I did. After getting through security I had to empty my bladder so I went to the restroom. While I was doing my business, all I heard being spoken around me was Spanish. I know I’m in Tejas, but it was so bizarre to me. Here I was in my own country, land of (obviously many languages, but…) English, and still none in sight, aside from the TSA people that were so cheery and talkative. I’m so used to Korean making up the white noise in the background of my life these days, and when a different language was being spoken my ears perked up, yet still no super understandable cigar to be found.

Fondling Money & Pressure To Order At Starbucks.

This was perhaps my 2nd day home and the oddest of the odd in my book. We’ve got Starbucks aplenty in the Koko, though I actually don’t go much, unless it’s the holidays or I’m homesick or I’m with my lassie, Veny, and we only eat and drink American things together. It’s our thing.

Well, I was home and I really had a hankering for a Starbucks visit. I’m usually a weird person at the counter on any given day because I usually always order 1 of 3 things, but sometimes I feel like I’m gonna be spontaneous, and then I’m not, then there I am standing there trying to make up my mind, then spit out a wild order of “I’ll have a tall cafe latte. Oh! nonfat!” (Nonfat milk is like nonexistent in Korean coffee shops, so I forget).

This time I still ordered my nonfat tall latte, but that wasn’t the issue. Rather it was the swiftness of the process that caught me off guard. I felt so pressured from the second I stepped in front of the girl taking my order, to blurting out my order to fumbling with my dolla bills. For some reason the fact that I had dollars in my hand opposed to wons made me nervous, then throw in coins. Eeeesh! It was weird. I’m just used to muttering “tall capay latte” and it still sometimes getting lost in translation just because I’m a white face staring back at the scared-of-foreigners Korean face, and then forking over some wons, and it just being an all around slower process.

But like, 2 minutes later my beverage was ready. I was shocked by the efficiency. In Korea, there will be like 5 people making one drink and it’ll still take a year to receive. Blown away, off I happily walked with a puzzled 5 minute encounter giggling in my brain.

When Collin and I had our rendezvous, I had this feeling reassured when he told me some of his most uncomfortable moments upon returning to the States involved paying for things. Phew!

Another Starbucks Soiree.

I went to another Starbucks with sista, this one being the little setup in the local Vons. Much like Cori made fun of me for saying “bye bye” to everyone while we were in Thailand, Jacquie made fun of my way of ordering my tall iced Chai tea latte (one of my 3 staples). Apparently I was talking to the barista like he was a moron and I needed to speak as if I wasn’t in Asia anymore and he was in fact a capable human being. Well, apparently I didn’t realize I was talking in a drawn out dialect. It’s become a way of life that is unbeknownst to me at times. Adjustments people!

Supermarket Window Shopping.

The morning I went to the DMV to renew my drivers license (I’ve got a great new picture, BTW, and I no longer weigh the 105 lbs. I never was), was also the one day my mother let me cruise around in her vehicle. I took the liberty of showing myself around the neighborhood and those adjacent to see the new popups since I’ve been gone. I was pleasantly surprised. But that’s all besides the point.

I took a trip to the local Trader Joe’s, because I miss it so, and I just have a love for supermarkets. They’re actually one of my favorite things to see when I travel because they’re so unique everywhere you go. Another aside, sorry. Well, I went to Trader Joe’s and I just wandered the aisles to look at all the things that I just can’t get in Korea. This was my preliminary visit to Trader Joe’s. I had to mentally prepare myself for treats to bring back with me. I told this to my sister and she thought I was so weird. I literally just wandered, read labels that don’t require me to Google Translate and checked out the new delicacies that have been added to the shelves.

I definitely felt weird whilst doing this and then exiting without dropping a penny. It’s the little things, like being able to read a label and know exactly what a product is before purchasing.

Nail Talk Jibber Jabber.

On mine and Kayla’s day of wandering in the sun, we also went to get our nails did, something I haven’t actually had done since I was in Vietnam 2 years ago and got them done for $2. I’ve become my own personal manicurist and pedicurist and I thoroughly enjoy it.

In nail salons people sit and talk talk talk, mostly about how the nail polish shade they’ve chosen is going to change their outlook on life for the week, or the latest celebrity gossip, and this was the first time I was acutely aware of all the chatter going on in my vicinity. As I said before, I basically swim through the white noise of Korean being spoken everywhere, so actually being able to fully understand everything being spoken around me made me so aware of how stupid most people sound. I’m obviously guilty of the celebrity gossip because I love it, but seriously, most people just need to STFU because they sound like idiots.

Next.

No Crayon Pop.

Only mah peeps in Korea will get that play above there. Anyways…

Korean magazines looks like a crayon box vomited all over paper with flashy bubble print and exclamation points everywhere and guys with makeup adorning cover after cover. There’s also very rarely American magazines in sight over here. So, while Jacquie and I were strolling through Westwood, we passed by a newsstand. I had to stop and peruse a few because I was just so excited to see American magazines in English and without the Crayola effect.

I also had a couple incidents where I couldn’t put down the Us Weekly or People at the check-out counter. There’s just something special about having the Hot or Not, Who Wore It Best? gossip in your hands as opposed to a link on the interwebs.

I’m sure there were more exciting culture shockers that popped up, like just how capable of eating cheese for every meal I really am, but these are the ones that were super apparent to me, and when I told others about them they couldn’t help but laugh in my honor. Living abroad is weird, but returning back from abroad is even weirder. Are there any subtle but mind-blowing reverse culture shocks you’ve experienced?! Do tell, because I’m sure it’s happened here too!