bad metaphor

A few years back, before I went to Vietnam with Eli, I had told my stepmother of my worries about not really speaking the language anymore. Her response? “It’s okay – they’ll just think you’re a Korean tourist.” My parents have made that comment a few times since I’ve grown up and left the house – that I look kinda “Korean.” I had no idea what that meant, “looking Korean,” until I came here, of course.

I’d been bracing myself for being taken as a native. I think that pushed me to learn the language early on, just because I felt expected to know it by basically every stranger I encountered. As time has passed here, I’ve actually kind of slacked off – partly because I’m busy with schoolwork, mainly because I’m lazy. But part of this is strategic, as well – sometimes I’ll intentionally pronounce things like a foreigner would, enunciating every syllable of “annyeong haseyo,” rather than mumble-slurring it like a native speaker. I do this so that people will not overestimate my Korean competency, which they still do anyways. Because of this:

One of the first phrases I learned in Korean was to declare myself a foreigner: “waegookin saram-ieyeyo.” (Gosh, that looks weird Romanicized. I need to learn how to display Hangul on this blog, stat!). I also learned the word for “Vietnamese person,” in order to explain my Asian face. I actually had a hairdresser contest this once: “face – Korean! Or Japan. Not look like Beteunam-saram.” If I’m out with my fellow foreign friends and we go to a restaurant, the waiter looks directly at me when asking for our order. This is the case even when I’ve gone out with my half-Chinese friend and my Japanese friend. I guess I look “more Korean” than they do!

This assessment of my appearance isn’t perfectly unanimous. I’ve met a handful of people here, usually other foreigners, who look at me and say that I don’t look like a Korean. (Though they typically say this after I’ve already safely declared myself of other heritage, those bet-hedgers). And Eli, the person most familiar with my face these days, does not get why so many people take me for Korean. What is unanimous is that I don’t look Vietnamese at ALL.

I never really suspected this until this last Vietnam visit. My ability to speak Vietnamese has severely deteriorated in the past two years, so I struggle with saying even the baby words that I spoke in 2009. (For some odd reason, my comprehension is still intact, though). So here you have a thing wandering around who doesn’t look like a duck, and doesn’t talk like a duck…no one would ever suspect this thing of being a duck, right? Taxi drivers and touts called over to the “Chinee” girl who walked past. If I weren’t with my mom, I’d certainly be stuck with the “foreigner” price.

In some ways, I’ve felt a bit more at home here in the ROK than I’ve ever felt during my three visits to the mother country. I have to admit that a large part of this is the whole adjustment between a developed nation to one that’s still developing. I hate saying that because it makes me feel like such a spoiled princess who needs things like “clean drinking water” and “bathrooms free of fecal atrocities” and such. But it’s true.

The other part of it is that here, I can walk around without being marked as a stranger. Until the moment I open my mouth, I belong. Other teachers I’ve befriended here, specifically the Caucasians from the US, have gone through mad culture shock due to the sudden experience of becoming a minority in society – something they’ve never had to encounter before. As for me, well, I have the answer to the question “where are you from?” on autopilot. People back home nod sagely when I say “Kansas,” and if I’m feeling like testing them, I don’t supply any more info until they later ask me, “so…uh…what’s your, you know, ‘background’?” Which is a nice way of asking “where are you really from? Cause it ain’t here, obviously.”

The ability to blend in comes in quite handy sometimes. This face allows me to stealthily check out other foreigners, to observe and see if they’re my kind of people, or the kind who loudly brag about “bagging hot K-chicks” in a restaurant they think is full of people who can’t understand them. And then I can opt out of blending – trust me, there are many times when it is not advantageous to be a Korean female! – just by opening my mouth.

Next post: less narcissistic face time, more Vietnam stories!