US, US, baby

My sister and I visited the welfare agency that worked with the American adoption agency through which we came to the US. Now the Korean agency has an in-house hospital where babies are cared for until they reach a month and then are placed in their adoptive homes or a foster home.

This full-head-of-hair baby was sporting a onesie that I believe all the others were wearing as well…a little “Disney Babies” one. He/she was SO cute wearing the little American cartoon characters!

All throughout the agency was evidence of our two countries’ ties through children…from the volunteers in the nursery helping care for the babies to the photos of adoptive children when in foster care and later when in their adopted American homes. (But just so you know the agency does try to place them with Korean families first, so only about half are sent to the US or Australia)

Per Hannah’s request, here’s another gratuitous photo of me…this time it’s after a manicure/nail art session my sister and I had at a nail salon in Seoul. We were visiting this salon and the owner’s school while her daughter translated.

And if you can’t see my nails in the above photo (where we’re all giving the standard Asian photo gesture), here they are, zoomed in. I couldn’t decide between this and the pink design with rhinestones. I thought this looked more Korean, and I figured “When in Korea…”

In case you don’t read Hangul, I’ll tell you that this is my ticket for Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. After being in China, where all movies are dubbed, I’d resigned myself to probably not seeing any new American movies while on this trip. This ticket, however, is proof that I’d resigned too early.

Thursday I got to see Johnny Depp and crew swash-buckling there way through another Disney epic; and I must say, I was made quite homesick. Watching it, I remembered the day my Redondo Beach roommate came home and told us they were filming this movie off the shores of RB. For the next week, my (room)mates were often on Black Pearl watch and would be on the lookout to see it dock near Joe’s Crab Shack each night or talk about whether or not Orlando Bloom really had been hanging out on the Hermosa Pier or not. So watching this movie here, definitely made me think about “back home” (if I could call LA that!).

Aye, but at least I saw the movie with an Aussie bloke who brought LA a little closer to home that night when he bought me a churro from the movie concession stand.

Sidenote: Do any of you know why some countries choose to dub American movies and others choose to use subtitles? If you do, I’d love to know…

Socks and sandals are something I haven’t done since I wore Umbro shorts and had the black massaging Adidas sandals that I threw on after middle school basketball practice.

Wearing the two (socks and sandals, that is) together is now quite upper Midwest, and so I couldn’t believe I found myself doing it again. Yet, with the temple’s standard of wearing socks in the actual temple and the fact that I’d only brought flip-flops, I really had no choice but to look like a dad from a Great Lake State.

On the first of three days at a temple in the central part of South Korea, I was briefed on the temple’s history. During this orientation, I learned just why the temple was right where it was. Apparently a few things went into choosing the location, one of which was that standing on the top level of the temple, there would be an unobstructed “view” to the U.S. Why? Because the monk who founded the temple believed that Buddhism was moving west.

The above photo shows the view from the third level of the temple. Below is the temple.

I’ve been a little stunned that there have been a few people here who’ve automatically started talking to me in English. One restaurant greeter later told me it’s because he doesn’t speak Korean, but as for the others…I’ve wondered why. Is it because they’ve heard me speak to someone else? Do my clothes give it away? Or do Americans have a certain walk?

Yesterday’s McDonald’s cashier may have given me the answer. “When I saw your eye makeup, I knew you weren’t from here,” she told me. “It looks different than what girls here wear.” She wasn’t being catty, just conversational. Still, I wondered if my MAC eyeshadows branded me a foreigner (or worse, a hussy). I mean, I had noticed that girls and women here rarely wear eye makeup, and for that reason, I’d been keeping my greens and blues to a minimum.

The color of choice yesterday was light purple. I don’t know the name of it because the sticker came off the bottom of the container. I think I’ll start calling it not-Korean purple.

(and here’s what my makeup looked like yesterday)

With all the food posts I’ve had, it’s even hard for me to believe that I’ve dropped a potato sack’s worth of weight over the past six weeks. But it’s true. And I promise I’ll try to keep my food posts to a minimum and my eating to a maximum.

But today I had to take reader VT’s advice and try the bulgogi burger from McDonald’s. It was my first time at Mackers since arriving in Korea, but I wanted to make sure I got at least one visit in here!

So the rundown. The meal cost about four dollars for the bulgogi burger, fries (what would be about a medium in the US) and a drink (what would be a small in the US). Pretty close to small-town Missouri prices, too, although the fries and drink would be bigger. The fries were amazing (as always), and I wondered if the McDonald’s here still use the oil with the bad fat. As for the burger, I’m still deciding on how I feel. I loved that the lettuce was real iceberg lettuce and not the over-shredded type, but the burger’s BBQ flavor was SO strong. It nearly made the fries taste bland…which is getting into dangerous territory in my opinion. Overall, though, I think I’d probably have the burger again (but would definitely not try the shrimp burgers they have here…ew!).

On another note, McDonald’s is having green-themed desserts to promote the new Shrek movie. They’ve got green shakes, McFlurries, and ice cream with kiwi. I thought the McFlurry was kiwi flavored as well…passed it up when I found out it was actually green-tea flavored.

So, this post is pretty much the opposite of my others…at the prompting of reader Jennifer, I’m gonna talk about how another country is impacting the US.

Jennifer is a fellow writer in LA, and while researching a story, she asked me to go with her to a new Pinkberry in LA. For those who don’t know about Pinkberry, it’s likely you’re living in a Ted Drewes world…but alas, chances are you’ll hear about it sooner or later. And just so you know, like Pinkberry’s Korean flava (influence, here, not actual flavor), Red Mango is a similar frozen-yogurt place that has it’s Korean origins, too. And they’re everywhere here.

I went to my first one this weekend. And I have to say it’s pretty much amazing. I don’t remember the same feeling from Pinkberry, but I also hadn’t sweat out 500 gallons of sweat at a 90-degree baseball game before plopping my fro-yo-craving butt down to eat some cold goodness.

Whether or not it’s as good as I thought, though, you should know that Red Mango’s making it’s way to the US this year. And it’s taking friends on myspace.com if you’re looking for new pals.

In the summer, there’s no better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than at the ballpark. Whether it’s at Ralph & Debbie Taylor Stadium, Busch, or even the Stadium at Seoul’s Sports Complex, a baseball game is a relaxing way to spend a weekend afternoon.

Watching yesterday’s game in Seoul, I had a great time, but I couldn’t help but want to hide from the three obnoxiously drunk American military guys behind me. It was their first time at a Korean game, and I don’t knowif they realized their trash talking was actually making them sound like arrogant idiots. Yes, Korean professional baseball isn’t at the same caliber of the MLB, but is it really necessary to keep telling the players “you’re not even AA”?

Oddly, though, I think I was the only one who minded. Most people just ignored them, but the not-as-drunk (and definitely not-as-obnoxious guy) got the number of some Korean girl who came up to hit on him. Which made me wonder, is the Ugly American not so ugly here?

I don’t know what I expected from South Korea. OK, actually I do. I expected everyone to be annoyed at me, an obvious Korean, and frustrated that I didn’t speak the language. I expected to be a freak of nature. And I expected for them to not understand that I grew up in the US.

My expectations stemmed from stories I’d heard from other visitors to South Korea and what I experienced in China. But my expectations were wrong. Very wrong. I’ve not been singled out here in Seoul. A few people are curious, but many here just assume I’m Korean and was born in the US to parents who didn’t find it necessary to teach me the language. They accept that I’m American, are happy when I try to use Korean, but don’t badger me with personal questions.

But it’s not just me that they don’t poke and prod at like circus freaks. It’s all Americans. They don’t gape and gasp at overweight ones nor do they whisper about African Americans. They’ve been exposed to so many Americans through the military families here and the girls of America’s Next Top Model that they realize we’re the melting pot we claim to be.

This was exemplified in my visit to the War Memorial Museum yesterday. The museum had information about all the UN troops who fought in the Korean War. In one room, the Koreans have put up statistics, dates, and a uniformed soldier mannequin for each country largely represented. The US’ soldier was an African-American. I looked around at the other countries, and most were represented by the country’s majority race. But I found it incredibly intriguing that the Koreans seem to have realized that not all Americans are white…something I find many other countries struggle with understanding about us.