May 2007

If you told me a year ago that Id one day insist on keeping a ready supply of kimchi in my refrigerator (one we’d have that was specifically designed for the purpose, in fact) or that I’d develop a once-a-week kimbap habit, I’m not sure what I would have said.

But in a year of pleasant surprises, these were actually some of the least surprising.

More surprising, I think, is how well David and I’ve adapted to both a new country and a new life at the same time. It’s sometimes hard to separate in my mind what adjustments we’ve made as newlyweds getting used to being married, and those that we made as Americans getting used to Korea, both life changes having happened almost simultaneously.

Not that it’s all been smooth sailing.

I’m sure he was surprised to have me go from someone who had no problem with rush hour traffic in Atlanta during a rain storm to a woman who would freak out at the prospect of driving five blocks in Seoul. It can’t be exactly comforting to move halfway around the world to discover that, among other things, your formerly independent-minded wife no longer wants to go the grocery store by herself. (The cold weather actually took care of that particular phobia. After February, I’d have driven a scooter through hell to avoid lugging bags from Kim’s Club out to the taxi stand. But, I still won’t drive north of Namsan.)

As for me, I wasn’t exactly thrilled at his newly proficient use of what I like to call the “Korean ‘maybe.’” Here, it is considered socially uncomfortable to refuse to do something someone asks you to do, even if you don’t want to do it, and sometimes even if doing it may be physically or otherwise impossible. To any newcomers out there, be advised, if someone in Korea says to you it is “maybe difficult” to do something, it usually means “it ain’t gonna happen.”

This took some getting used to.

Me (at 6 p.m.): Hey, instead of cooking, do you want to go to that new Italian place for dinner tonight?
Dave: Maybe . . .
Me: Well, do you want to think about it and let me know?
Dave: Maybe…
Me: !@%@@#?!

But, overall, the year has been very good to us. And not just because we are expecting to add a third person to our interesting adventure.

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I’m still in some sort of denial about how big I’m getting. I waited until last week to have “the talk” with my boss, and he had the grace to actually act surprised.

(He sort of cancelled that out, though, by following up–in front of my six female coworkers–to tell me to tell my husband that “wished for me to have a son, and not a daughter,” but I’m saving my rant on that particular topic for another day.)

I just think it’s pretty neat that—at 21 weeks—I can fit into some of my pre-pregnancy clothes (OK, really just sweatpants and pajamas), and I guess that’s led me to the erroneous assumption that maybe not everyone realizes that I’m pregnant.

But when random people on the bus and subway stand up to give you their seats, you know the jig is up.

From what women back in the States have told me, I’m definitely lucky that this is such an ingrained tradition here. Older women who, five months ago, would have knocked me over to get to a vacant chair now voluntarily surrender theirs. (There are still lots of men who are either clueless or deliberately faking when I stand directly in front of them—and the sign above their seat that says it’s reserved for the elderly, disabled and pregnant women.)

But, for the most part, people here are really good about not letting the elderly, pregnant, or people carrying young children or packages, stand up. I boarded both a crowded subway car and a cross-town bus yesterday and both times someone got up so I could sit down.

I try to accept as gracefully as possible. But, I confess, I’d usually kill to get a seat, so I am millking this for all it’s worth. Two days ago, I was riding the subway home from work, I did manage to find a convenient spot leaning against the wall at the back of the cabin, when a woman made her husband get up from one of the reserved seats. He was a good bit older than I was, and I was feeling not totally exhausted at that point, so I told her it was OK, that he could keep it. She insisted, pushing him out of the seat and gently scolding me as I sat down, “아기” (”Baby”) she said, patting my belly, indicating that, “it’s not about you, silly, but the well-being of that kid in there.”

And, I have to say that before that day I would have said I was the kind of woman who would absolutely hate having a stranger touch my belly. But, it turns out, that if you’re giving me your subway seat on a crowded train at 6 p.m., then you can pat any part of me you want.

Almost ….

And, only if you’re a woman.