Flouting Communism, Practicing Korean

Certainly buying stuff has both allowed me to use my limited Korean and shown me where it's deficient (pretty much everywhere, see: oven-buying debacle). I think I would weep for joy if I were suddenly dumped into a Romance-language speaking country. Comparatively, it is so easy. There was actually a French film on t.v. a few days ago, and I ended up watching it for a few minutes just to hear a foreign language in which I'm not functionally retarded. Oh, the linguistic humble pie is served hot and fast here.

I look up really anything I think I don't know the word for on my shopping lists, but I usually write them down, to curtail any misunderstanding that may be a result of my mispronunciation of the Hangul. (I also think there's something to be said for the notion that paradigm shifting to accept a white person speaking Korean makes it hard to understand, even if the pronunciation is perfect - indeed, it may be harder!)*

Holy God, what a disaster is the Korean supermarket. There seems to be some mass incomprehension of the laws of physics as they apply to persons wielding shopping carts in narrow aisles, not to mention proper supermarket etiquette. There's no, "Oh here, let me stay on the right so traffic doesn't get totally bolluxed up" or even "let me not STOP RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD BECAUSE I AM OBVIOUSLY THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON HERE" (not that I'm bitter, you understand). It's a nightmare. A complicated nightmare with tiny children running around like they do and adults sort of moseying like big, chatty cattle with no sense of flow, combined with the deafening cacophony of certain goods-hawkers. They don't just have free samples in the stores, they have people trying to convince you of their merits at the top of their lungs. It's kind of like the worst possible combination of the modern supermarket with an old-world bazaar. It's all together appalling, and I defy a flow analyst to make it work. These people behave like an extremely viscous fluid with gas-like properties when it comes to expansion (they can occupy any area). For sure, it is a cultural experience, coming as I do from the cherished background of the East Coast, where we perform the traditional People Avoi-Dance every day. (PUN! Do you still miss me?)

*I don't say that just to point out, subtly, that my pronunciation is probably fine, or to give myself another target for blame when I'm not understood, but seriously, some words I am really not getting wrong, and I still get the Look of EGAD (Exceptionally Great Amazement and Dumbfoundedness), That White Girl is Trying to Speak to Me!