If my choice to come to South Korea were a marraige, honestly I did it for money and not for love. I'd rather be in Latin America where I could be speaking Spanish and interacting with the culture in a much more meaningful way than I'm able to here.
Two important things right now are the calander and the calculator.
A Chinese fortune teller on a pier in Seoul told me:
"When you have money, you spend it like water."
Well, I guess I was about spend it on five other fortune tellers because it was so damned cheap. For less than ten dollars USD, I got a palm reading and a full interpretation of my star chart. I've never frequented fortune tellers in my life, but this time I wanted to do it to, to see how the big picture adds up according to the different sources. The only thing that stopped me was how annoying I imagined this routine could quickly become for the Korean-American friend who was translating for me. (The Chinese fortune teller spoke Korean)
Things I hate include math and spending money responsibly. A recent study I heard about says money does buy happiness; experiential happiness. Makes sense to me. When I did the math, I guess I should feel good about the fact that some thousand USD were spent on experiental happiness...four weekend getaways in July. When I used my Korean bankcard at the ATM I tried not to look at the balance so it wouldn't put a damper on my experiental happiness. A few other trips and I guess a handful of thousands was invested in touring South Korea. Seoul, Busan, Jeju Island, Yeosu, and a couple other places.
But into what black hole did the other money that could have been put to better use end up in?
A few things that come to mind:
1. An obession with the mysterious energy beverages they sell at the convenience stores. (I'm over this habit, thank God)
2. $3.00 coffees because a mocha latte costs more than a sandwich or a bowl of bibimbap. Why is this? I like tea, not coffee. Just because Korea is on the Asian continent doesn't mean the tea is good. The favored tea seems to be corn or brown rice based. (Not sure if it's even caffinated very important in my case, but the taste just isn't my thing. corn tea??? yuck. Luckily I can now identify which box of tea to buy in my neighborhood order to have some jasmine green tea. Now I can take a taxi across town and buy a box of Earl Gray)
3. The 5000-10000 won disposable clothing available from street vendors. Too much dirty laundry? Just buy a new outfit on the corner for tomorrow.
4. Skin care products- Stores like 'The Face Shop' and 'Skin Food' are as common as 7-11 or Circle K's in the USA. Turns out that Korean products are world famous for their quality. The products at these stores cost a lot more ordered online or in stores outside of Korea. Never in my life, have I had such an incredible arsenal of exotic toiletries.
Due to the language barrier, it's so hard to enjoy less materialistic aspects of the culture, my assimilation process has involved becoming a bit of a shopaholic. It's really so dumb I shouldn't be talking about it but maybe it may help someone else avoid the same black holes. On the other hand, in spite of my very poor money management skills I'm still getting ahead much faster than I was doing at home. Payday number five is approaching shortly and I've got a lot of sightseeing and general stupidity out of my system. Luckily, I have seven more paydays to go, plus a end of contract bonus.
For me, South Korea is just day that will last a year when it's all over. It is the ticket to the next destination. It would be a shame to look back and think about how much more experiential happiness I could buy if I hadn't bought so much 'Wakey Potion.
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Thanks for the imput. I'm doing much better this month. I think I made my last atm withdrawl of 150,000 won ($125.00) USD last for at least a week. I was going to attempt to make 20,000 won (16.74) last thru the weekend as my freezer is full of tortillas, I'm stocked up on nonperishable canned beans, black beans, chile beans, kidney beans...big part of my diet back in New Mexico. I can't buy any of these things within walking distance so I went a little crazy stocking up recently stocking up for nuclear winter at Home Plus. My plan would have denied me of fresh produce. And a jug of cheap Carlo Rossi wine.
At this point, I can say I've "seen" Korea. At first, I felt compelled to see as much as I could in case I wanted or needed to run away in the middle of the night. The DMZ is still on my list and I'm sure I'll do a little more traveling before I'm done here. When I'm travelling I'm living and spending for the moment. Now I'm thinking about other travel agendas (and responsibilities, I suppose ) after my Korea fiasco is tied up. You can stay at Buddhist temples for free. They're gorgeous but haven't figured that out yet. There are several in the mountains surrounding my community....
its not a stupid article it's important. Day to day living, real life setbacks and an analysis of common human behaviors is so crucial to educating others. Even if they can't prevent it, at least they'll have more of an awareness of the mental traps people fall in when they cannot fully assimilate and thus find alternatives. And, honesty never fails to properly inform, so for this article I am grateful. Money flows through my hands like water also. And Korea is my next big adventure, if I am accepted.
thank you much for fixing that. as for the typos, i kept getting an 'internal server error' when i went to fix them.
as for disposable clothes, if it makes me seem less wasteful, i don't mean single use clothing. disposable clothing is usually fairly cute but by 10 washes will be on the way to self destruction. one time i bought a two piece part dress/part shirt thing that i wore over skinny jeans. the mesh part of the dress immediatly got caught in the zipper of my skinny jeans. the rayonish/mesh tank top that went over the dress was destroyed by a single kindergarden session. these clothes are fairly cute but don't have much to offer in terms of longevity. i don't really believe in shopping like that but when you pack for a year, sometimes you find yourself lacking in essentials.
Hey - took out the random code - not sure where the typos are though - you should just be able to hit edit on the left hand side and correct them.
Btw, this post totally made me giggle - are you really spending your hard-earned Won on disposable clothes?! And if so what do they look like?
what is wrong with this site? why is there all kinds of html garbage in my post? and why can't i edit the three typos i know are there? dammit
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