A Literary, Linguistic and Cultural Adventure

I've been reading like a recluse lately, and since I didn't bring many books over I've been relying on the English language book section of Bandi and Lunis. Today I went to the branch that's actually located in Jonggak station Exit Two. The selection is incredible; they have all of the contemporary hits and a huge section of classics. Browsing through those titles set on thick spines is frankly humbling. It's one thing to know that native English speakers get through these, but to imagine a Korean toiling through Finnegan's Wake makes me embarrassed of the relatively small effort it would take me to get through the many books I'd like to read but have put off indefinitely.

This morning I printed off a list of the Best 100 Books Published in the English Language Since 1900 (According to the Modern Library). I have fully read only twelve. Not that it's necessarily my goal to read all of them, I tried my best to read Lord Jim and I don't mind excepting that one, for example. But I would like to familiarize myself more with literature in general from the 20th Century, so I'd like to focus on that for a while. Besides, I think I've read enough 19th Century Lit to satisfy my interest in that time period. So I bought Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser, because I wanted to buy An American Tragedy but I have that at home so it seemed wasteful to get a second copy. I also added a Foreigners Guide to Learning Korean, which came with four CDs for only 20,000 Won! Maybe I'll finally start understanding what cashiers are saying when they give me the total. Now I just give them the biggest bill I have and hope it's enough.

After selecting these books, I went to the cash register to try to get the cashier to hold them while I visited the ATM. I succeeded with the help of my Lonely Planet phrasebook, and after getting the money I needed for the purchase I walked back. To the wrong register.

I went up to the manager and said (in Korean!) "two books". Then I pointed to myself, and to him. He asked me "holding?" I was like, "yeah, 2 minutes." And I pointed to the pimply teenager at this register, mistaking him for the pimply teenager at the other one, and kind of yelled hysterically (in Korean) "No have two books!?" Then I was pointing at my face like, 'Jesus, it's been two minutes and you already forgot about me?' The teenager was totally unimpressed, and fake-searched for my books while the manager was kind of freaking out. Then the manager's face lit up, and he walked over to the other register where another manager and pimply teenager were gawking at me, picked up my books, and rang me up.

The nice thing about this kind of thing happening over here is that I can walk away like nothing happened, and shrug as if to suggest that this is a perfectly normal way to act where I'm from. At home I actually feel the need to joke about it if I do something dumb, smile and explain...Here, I just can't. Although the situation may change once I'm done with Korean Elementary Level One For Foreigners!