Pig liver and iced noodles

I'm getting used to the constant miscommunication here, as it seems to happen to me every day. Not only was I ready to move out of my apartment mid-week, on July 1st, when my boss had apparently tried to tell me July 4th ("July firth" is how that one happened), but I also wasted a good 15 minutes of class time earlier this week, thanks to the language barrier. One of my students walked into class half an hour late so I said, "where have you been?" She looked at me, bewildered, sat down, and then started telling me that her name is not Ben, it's Ashley, and that Ben was not in this class. I didn't make the connection, so I told her I know her name is Ashley, and I asked her why she was telling me about Ben. She started speaking to the class in Korean and then the entire class spent the next few minutes trying to explain to me that Ben was not in our class. I looked through the attendance sheet to see if there was a Ben, but there wasn't. I kept telling them that I know Ben isn't in this class, and asking them why they were talking about him, and they kept trying to tell me that I was the one who had asked about Ben in the first place. We were all confused until the late girl finally got up and said "teacher, I walk in and you say to me where Ben?" At that it finally clicked and I just started laughing. When I could control it, I explained to her that I had asked "where have you been?" as in, "Where were you?" not, "where's Ben."

At least in those situations both parties knew some English. My current situation lacks that factor.

Today I was moved out of my lovely, spacious apartment and into a different lovely, spacious apartment. They are both in the same gated area, so still walking distance from my Hogwan (academy I teach at...and don't assume any of this is spelled correctly). The difference is that I'm sharing this new one with a Hagima (Ha-ji-ma), which is a Korean grandmother, who speaks zero English. Since I speak zero Korean, aside from kamsahamnida (thank you) and juseyo (please give me?), we are unable to communicate with each other without the use of hand gestures, and so far those haven't gotten me anywhere either. I'm told this arrangement can be either temporary, until August when another apartment opens up, or permanent, depending on what I want. My boss is trying hard to sell me on this set up and keeps telling me this is the best thing for me, but I am far from sold on it. While he was helping me move in, he kept pointing out the beautiful, traditional furniture, and saying this situation is the best way for me to learn Korean. He also kept trying to tell me, in whispers, how this family is very influential and a friendship with them would be beneficial to me. Of course, my staying here is free so he wouldn't have to put up rent money each month, either. As much as I want to help him out in this, I just can't see myself ever being at ease here or enjoying it. First of all, this Korean grandmother, while very generous, is far from the soft-spoken, nice, feeble, old grandmother-type. She is very strong willed and when she talks to me I feel as though she is yelling at me. It doesn't help that I don't understand her and she thinks she can resolve that problem by repeating herself over and over. Second of all, I have no internet here. Obviously I need internet in order to communicate with my favorite people on the other side of the world :). I also don't know how this works with her being a grandmother and me being a 22 year-old who likes to stay out late with friends (since I doubt I'll be able to convince anyone to come hang out here). Is she a light sleeper who is going to wake up when the 3 (yes THREE, including a code) locks on the door click open? I guess I won't know until I try coming in from the late showing of Eclipse this Thursday! Needless to say, I'm going to make the most of the situation while I'm in it, and hope that I'll be out of it soon!

Anyway, none of that has anything to do with the title this post, so I'll get to that now. The grandmother I'm living with is the grandmother of one of my students, who was here with her mother today to welcome me. After I moved all of my stuff in, they told me I was going out to eat with their family. They took me to a Korean bbq restaurant, where you sit on the floor at low tables. The family consisted of my student, Melissa, her mother, father, 9 month old brother, and her grandmother (my new roommate). Melissa was the only one that knew any English, and only as much as she had learned at our Hogwan in the past few months. The conversation was pretty comical, to say the least. The main course that I was treated to was pig liver, cooked in front of us and then cut into bite size pieces. They kept putting pieces on my plate so I kept eating, and it was actually pretty good. They put a bunch of other things on my plate too, and I still don't know what any of it was. After that they ordered me iced noodles, which is supposed to be a favorite in Jinju. It was literally a big bowl of ice with buckwheat noodles in it, and then kimchi, some sauce, and an egg on top. I'm still getting used to using chopsticks so noodles take me forever to eat, and the ice made it even more difficult. At least it all tasted good.