Yeah, it’s been a while. I apologize (to the three of you reading this); not much exciting has been going on.
This week we started our new semester. Things are going pretty well. A new teacher just started so it’s weird that I’m the experienced guy now. Just the thought of having experience has made me more confident in my teaching though—it’s a bit weird. Not that I wasn’t already extremely confident in my massive quantities of teaching skills. Kids enter my classroom without any comprehension of English and leave able to read James Joyce. It’s a gift, what can I say?
I have a couple little vignettes in case you have managed to read this far and not fall asleep:
The Gym Crew
Lucci, Haley and I all have joined a gym about four blocks from our apartment. It has great facilities and everything and so far it has been a great place to go and work out. The people who work there are all really nice, but Lucci and I had a kind of “What the Korea?!” moment with a couple of them.
Lucci and I call them the “The Boys.” There are about four of these huge Korean guys who work at the gym and always talk to us when we go in. The head one’s name is Alex and he calls me “House” because there was a mistake made on my gym card and my surname was listed first—being as it’s difficult to pronounce “Hawks” I have become “House” in the gym.
The first week we met them Lucci bought a 6 month membership and Alex is the one who registered him. I guess a six month membership means you’re a high roller or something because Alex was treating Lucci like royalty. Every time he came he would wave and say “Hi, Michael!” (I didn’t receive such treatment until I also purchased the 6 month membership.) The “Hi, Michael”’s are comical in themselves because nowhere in America will you see a six foot tall 220 pound brick house of a man smile and wave at you two handed when he sees you.
Anyhoo, one day after Lucci joined the 6 month elite we entered the locker room (listed on the signs as the “Rocker Room”—no joke) and heard giggling coming from the showers. We thought it was a bit odd but didn’t bother to check or anything. After we had changed we walked toward the door and we see a large naked man with a scrub brush waving frantically from the showers and saying “Hi, Michael!” Lucci’s jaw just kind of dropped and I was laughing to hard to do anything else. Right after the “Hi, Michael” another one of the gym workers (also naked in the shower) slapped Alex with another brush. The two giggled again and proceeded to chase each other around the shower.
Lucci and I were quite perplexed by the scene for two major reasons:
1. Do all Koreans clean showers naked?
2. Do all Korean men giggle and play together in the buff?
Solution for No. 1:
We asked one of our Korean friends if it was common to scrub the showers naked—he told us that it was indeed protocol and that most everyone scrubbed their showering facilities naked. I am happy to say I have tried it and find it to be a pretty utilitarian move. You don’t have to wear gloves or worry about dirtying clothes, you just go to work.
Solution for No. 2:
Lucci and I went to the spa the other night. The spas in Korea are all nude, so guys go to their side and women to theirs and they bathe in mineral baths and go into saunas. We went on a Saturday night and were surprised to find that it closely resembled an amusement park. Naked kids were running all over the place, wrestling, fighting, sliding around and splashing each other. So, yes. It is common.
There is a larger point to this story—mostly having to do with how cultures deal with nudity. I have always thought of America as pretty liberal in some senses—in its portrayal of sex and violence in the media and on television. It never occurred to me how this “screen nudity” covers a society that is pretty oppressed the actual acceptance of the human body.
The first time I was in the spa I was mortified at the idea of “being naked in front of a bunch of dudes” but in Korea it’s really a kind of accepted normal thing. I find it fascinating at how enduring the Puritanical foundations of our society are—even two hundred years after our founding we still have this kind of taboo on nudity and the sexual aspects of the human being.
Maybe I’m a lot more prudish than most people (okay, I am a lot more prudish than most people) but I would still feel uncomfortable being naked in front of a bunch of my male friends—there are definitely some sexual and cultural taboos placed on that situation. I just find it interesting how America’s religious roots still have an affect on the cultural norms of our country today.
I don’t know if this makes a lot of sense, but it was just interesting to me and gave me something to think about the next time I’m scrubbing the showers sans clothes.
Hmmm…I was going to write more than this but I’m too tired. Maybe I’ll update more than every month from now on.
No comments:
Post a Comment