What a tiring week!

I spent most my week fatigued with my three hours of Korean language amplified by waking up each day at 7-7:45 AM (it started at 7 and expediently fell to 7:45).

I decided against taking an online course. I am still at 12 credits. One student from Norway tempted me to sign up for a World History Through Movies course on Friday by citing the minor work load, movie selection and the comfort of the chairs. I was pleading with her to stop but she took a sick sense of humor teasing me...

Tea Club: Just like college back home, it is easiest to make friends by joining a club. The student union had activities by various clubs trying to recruit new members, identical to club recruiting back home. Some clubs offered candy, cookies, doughnuts (sadly they have Krispy Kreme in Korea...oh, and spell check says doughnuts is wrong but chose to avoid competition) and so forth. One big difference between clubs at Ewha and clubs back home is that clubs here appear contractual -- as in, you join the club, pay the fees, and are expected to attend nearly every event that happens or they quickly kick you out. Back home, it is possible to be a member of both the College Democrats the College Republicans in order to acquire a couple free meals and then disappear, but it doesn't the same way here.

They had a diverse selection of clubs. There was bird watching, HAM radio, dance, traditional music, Christian, Buddhist, chorus and so forth. I was with a French woman who speaks Korean to help me ask about joining most the clubs. Apparently, the dance, music and theater clubs do not allow men to join. Of all the clubs that I saw, I was most interested in the tea club. But I wanted to give it some thought and ask some people if they had heard anything bad about the tea club...

Let me quickly justify that last sentence with two stories. The first involves coffee with a friend: my friend was minding her own business one day when a slightly obsessive (understatement) Christian woman asked for her phone number to keep my friend updated on activities. Being slightly rushed and not wanting to completely offend this Korean woman, my friend gave it to her. From what I recall, this woman was texting and calling my friend some dozen times a day to ask if my friend was praying and so forth. I didn't want to join a club where people would harass me in such an unwelcome way...

Second story: when I was waiting outside the student union for some people to go to lunch, this Korean man came to talk to me and give me some free candy (the candy was inside a bag with information about his group. Writing that sentence and ending with free candy reminded me of countless warnings as a child and how persistence in education doesn't guarantee the lesson learned). I took it and was surprised that he started speaking to me in English. Remembering that this is a women's university, seeing men recruiting was a little confusing, but I was pretty stoked about free candy. He starts telling me about his club that is focused on learning about Korean language, culture, history and philosophy. My ears perked even more because that is essentially everything I wanted to learn. We talked for a little longer and then prepared to leave for lunch. I asked a PEACE buddy around me at the time about this group and if she has heard of them, because it was bizarre to have this male recruiting. The PEACE buddy indirectly classified it on the same level as a cult.

With these two events circling in my head, I wanted some time to think over the tea group. Another thing about clubs at Ewha is that they have recruiting periods where nobody new can join after the last day. For nearly all of the clubs, March 7th was that day. That gave me two days to think it over.

I asked around (see also, lazilyaskingthreepeople) and it checked out. Sometime between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday night, I join the Ewha Tea Club! I just tried recreating the time line of these events and it wasn't matching up, so I may have joined later on Wednesday.

On Thursday, I received a call that the first meeting of the Tea Club was on Friday at 4:30PM. So let's skip ahead to that meeting.

It was 4:25PM on Friday. I was waiting at the location they told me to be at and getting a little worried. At 4:28PM, a group of about 7 women came to the table who were also members/joining now. Two minutes later, 4 international students (2 from China, 1 from France and 1 from the USA) came quickly followed by 5 other Korean women. I stopped counting at that point as a couple more trickled in. All in all, I am the only male and half of the Tea Club's white population...on the Ewha side that is.

After we were gathered, I learned that we were going to Yonsei University to meet. Although nobody told me this with confidence, I believe that the Yonsei Tea Club and the Ewha Tea Club form the unified alliance of Tea Clubs. The male population quadrupled once we arrived at Yonsei, but my proportion of the white population stayed the same.

Us international students had a woman from the Ewha group that was kindly interpreting the meeting and filling us in on what was going on. We arrived around 5PM and sat in a big circle of some 25 people with more filling the room over the next half hour. I spent my time talking with two Korean women next to me that could understand English if I spoke slowly. We enjoyed some green tea and rice crackers in these beautiful jade cups. Then the meeting started.

At this point, I completly lost what was happening. The speakers spoke Korean and I couldn't hear our translator, so I nodded with a smile and laughed when everyone else did (that probably looked weird...). I think the first two speakers were the co-presidents and they started introducing officers. I understand when someone says "English" in Korean and it seemed like each time someone got up to speak, a different person asked the speaker to say it in English. I didn't really understand how it was funny after the first three speakers...although I laughed each time.

After the officers were introduced, our translator told us it was time for each member to introduce themselves to the group. The point of the exercise was to say something about ourselves (although I know the words for sun and rainbows, I didn't know how to say I like something or I would have said "my name is Erik and I like sunshine and rainbows"). I was the first foreigner to be picked, which made me about the 5th speaker. I stood up and said that my name is Erik...everyone laughed at me. I said that I only understand a little Korean...and everyone laughed at me. I said that I was American...and everyone laughed at me. My translator asked me to say my major, I said philosophy...and everyone laughed at me. My translator asked me to say how tall I was...and everyone acted amazed...and then laughed at me. In fact, each time I said something, the group laughed at me. For a few brief moments, I felt the bliss of a stand-up comedian.

Now that I think about it, I don't recall a time that I said anything in Korean (to a Korean) where that person didn't laugh at me...

There was this woman sitting almost directly across from me that took shy to a new extreme. When she was picked to speak, she literally turned into a strawberry (a Korean getting that red takes some serious talent) and spoke while she covered her face. After the meeting was over, my translator brought the girl up to us foreigners and asked her to speak to us in English. The woman turned deathly red and said hello. We all said hello back to her. Our translator asked the girl another question in English and she responded to us in English. For the first five answers, it was our translator asking her in English to tell us about herself. The girl seemed really sweet, but it was noteworthy because the whole experience was sort of strange.

One cultural lesson that makes me very happy: from what I've been told, it is very rude in most Asian societies to forget a name. Meaning that when a Korean tells me his or her name, I better work my ass off to find some way to remember that name. One woman said her name was (spelled phonetically) "Dauson." Obviously not Dauson, but the only way I could remember it at the time was to say "Dauson is awesome!" We joked a little more and as we were preparing to leave, I said that I think I would be able to recall her name since I had a strong word association. She then made this interesting request, "please remember my name."

That brought to light a weird trend...she was the third person I've met to tell me "please remember my name." How can you respond to that request? I haven't figured out if that is just a statement that is awkward to say in English and a better meaning would be "...," never mind, I can't even get one. All I can think of now is like someone dying and begging, "please remember me!"

So here is my goal -- when I introduce myself to people in the future, I will say "my name is Erik," and then adding in a whining voice "please don't forget my name."