And you?
Right, so I'm living in Korea now. So far I'm liking most things-- the rain, the busy streets, the way a four year old ran up to me on the subway and gave me a lemon donut. The only disappointment thus far has been our apartment, which is about the size of hollowed watermelon.
I'm trying to do some writing about this experience, but it's proven to be pretty difficult. I mean, who wants to hear about someone else's travels? It's so fucking boring. I can't bear to read that kind of writing myself, "Blah, blah, we saw so many AMAZING things and it was, like, totally amazing. And then we saw this poor person on the street and I realized that, like, there is so much suffering in the world. And then I saw a lotus flower... etc. etc." So I'm trying to find someway to write about Korea that doesn't make ME want to fall asleep. And it's really hard. Even though I love living here and many things are, like, totally amazing to me. So, we'll see. Any ideas for a hip book about Korea that the world is dying to read?
Teaching is going well, except that I teach too many classes. I teach a wide range of ages and levels, so I keep busy with planning. So far I really like the youngest kids (about 6?) and the oldest ones (13) but I'm having a harder time bonding with those pesky 10-year-olds, who have lost their cuteness but haven't developed very interesting personalities yet.
Ok, that's it for now. Hope you are both well.
posted by Lavender Yum Yum at
10:48 AM
1 Comments:
Story about Korea, eh? I've been thinking of this since you last wrote.
Perhaps I'm unpracticed, my brain won't let me think of concepts or threads that long, so I've been at a loss to think of anything as long as a book. I know that it's not my job to write the goddamned book, but I am stunned at how short my attention span is and how impatient I am when it comes to developing plots or characters or the like. Good thing I never got into film school; I'd be making television commercials.
The best theme that I can think of is this: a westerner, probably American, in Korea recognizes the child that his/her family "adopted" through a television commercial when he (the westerner) was a kid. The family paid ten dollars a month and got a picture in the mail along with some scrawled broken-english letter thanking them and a crayon-drawn picture of a rice field and a little yellowish boy. Secretly the westerner always believed that the boy was a sham. The parents put the Korean's photo and the picture on the refrigerator and talked about little [cute Korean name here] to their neighbors and friends during barbeques and holiday parties. Aparently, the little Korean waif would send them updates in an adorably broken and oft-illegible english. Anyway, the westerner resented the attention that this surrogate child got.
So anyway, westerner is grown-up now and in Korea for whatever reason. Westerner is buying a plum or someother cute asian fruit, or maybe our hero is doing some other thing that westerners who don't want to think of themselves as tourists do. Anyway, the westerner is trying to go about his life cooly as if nothing was special about being a recent transplant in Korea. I'm getting too wordy and detailed, but the westerner sees the waif, but the waif is still a child. The westerner begins to doubt. "Oh no!" the westerner thinks. "Maybe I'm one of those awful westerners who secretly think that all asian people look alike." and "Maybe I am just mistaken about how the Save-the-Waifs fund Korean waif looked." But no; deep in the westerner's mind he/she knows that waifs face like it were his/her own sibling. So day after day, the westerner returns to the market and sees the waif doing cute little waif things.
Here's where I become totally uninterested in my own thoughts and fail to finish the story. I want something more than a case of mistaken identity and I certainly don't want magic. I'm not sure how their encounter would play out or if they'd encounter at all. I don't know. It certainly is more short story than book material (if it's any sort of material at all).
Anyway, that's all I've got, unusable as it is. I'll keep thinking. Surely there is something else i can start but not finish.
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