Productive

I felt assimilated and productive today! (yay!) We have a neighbor, Mr. Yang, who used to work on Post and speaks very good English. He and his wife live in our building, a few floors up. Yesterday, I ran into him and he told me that he was doing some translating for the apartment complex manager. He asked me if I could help translate. I agreed of course, because I wanted to help, and I thought it was about time the office started translating the information for us Americans.

I went to the main office and spent almost 2 hours talking with Mr. Yang, mostly about things other than the translated document! He is such a nice man and has so much to say, and says it so eloquently. He told me out of 720 families in the complex, about 70 of them are American families. I didn't realize there were so many. It felt good to help out and the manager was very appreciative. He asked how long I was in country, and wrote it down, so he could use my help again!

The manager didn't speak English so Mr. Yang translated for him. He told me that the manager remembered me from several months ago when I came into the office to report that I had bumped a Bongo truck (sort of like a pick-up, but smaller, see below) and I wanted to let the owner know. The office workers had laughed at me at the time--because it was so minor-- but he said that he was impressed by my honesty and that I represented Americans very well. I was so happy to hear him say that. (Sometimes the people here are not so nice because I am American.)

Mr. Yang is an avid hiker and I told him I wanted to go hiking sometime with him. He was very happy to hear that. He is a Christian and also invited us to church with him one sunday. Leave it to me to find a friend in Korea, and it is a 65 year old man! (Don't worry, Chris is aware of my weakness for old men--not older, but old....)

Appendix A: More about the Bongo truck incident:

Okay, so I'm not sure I shared this at the time it happened... probably because I thought I had participated in a hit and run.

I was trying to park the car and here in Korea. You have to back into the spots, everything is really tight, and I was parking in the underground garage. So I bumped a Bongo truck with my front right bumper (see: Bongo).

Just that same day, or the day before, I was preaching to Chris about how there is no social responsibility anymore. People need to be more honest blah blah blah.....

So, here I am. I have just bumped a work truck. You can hardly see it. No one was in the parking garage to witness it. Just me and my socially responsible conscience. I tried to rub out the scratch and most of it came out. I decided that I had to do what I knew was right.

I went over to the main office to try my hand at explaining "fender bender" in Korean. Eventually I called my realtor and had her translate what happened. All I wanted to do was leave my name and number in case the driver saw it and came looking for an answer. The manager came with me to look at what I was talking about. He looked, closely, then laughed. Then he said, "Don't worry."

All I could think was thank you Bobby McFerrin for writing a song that transcends language barriers!