Lowering our Standards – I once read in Reader’s Digest “Life in these United States” that a husband was on his third trip to the refrigerator to see what he could find to snack on. His annoyed wife looked up from her ironing and said, “Fred, you didn’t find anything worth eating in there during your first two trips. You haven’t seen me put anything new in there since. What makes you think you’re going to find anything worth eating in there now? He answered, “I’ve lowered my standards”.
On Cultural Encounters and Tangents
On Cultural Encounters and Tangents
Registering with the D.O.S. – I just finished registering my family online with the U.S. Department of State. It is strongly recommended that U.S. citizens traveling abroad do this so the local U.S. embassy can find us or notify us in case f an emergency. I don’t know of any American citizens here that actually register, since the long arm of the American government seems to be able to find us anyway, but even so, I registered today for the added benefit of email updates and notifications of U.S. citizens’ evacuation in case North Korea attacks South Korea.
In the news today I read that North Korea is getting ready to test-fire a ballistic missile capable of reaching Alaska. The two Koreas are still technically at war since the Korean War because that war never ended in a peace treaty. It ended in a truce on July 1953.
North Korea is constantly threatening South Korea and it keeps the U.S. and Korean military troops ready for action but most of us civilian residents have grown numb to the threats but today the news unnerved me more than usual. The North is growing more desperate for recognition and they have kept the inspectors at large long enough to develop nuclear weapons and they are crazy enough to use them.
All I can do is pray for the Lord’s protection and His intervention in the state of affairs. I ask ya’ll to do the same.
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Still Ringing in the New Year – Tom and I just finished reading three chapters of Genesis. We’re still on track with our 2009 resolution to read the Bible from cover to cover in one year. It’s easier when the world-wide Church body is doing it too, as our church is doing. Today’s story of Joseph and the 7 years of famine brought to mind the present world economic crisis. We prayed for wisdom, faith and strength. Genesis is a fast-moving book. We’re going to get a bit bored when we get to the “begots” and other repetitious books but the Holy Word is a living seed that will undoubtedly sprout when it falls on good soil and is watered and tended. Reading the Bible is like eating spinach, “I don’t always like it but it will always do me good”.
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Taxes -
I have to confess, Tom and I haven’t filed our U.S. taxes since 2005. Actually, I don’t know of any other U.S. citizens here that do file their U.S. taxes while living here. Ever since I took “consumer math class” in high school from coach Mark Gillespie I have always done my own taxes. BTW, that class turned out to be one of the most helpful for my day-to-day adult life. Anyway, I used the EZ form during my high school and college days then the 1040EZ after getting a teaching job, then gradually moved up to the more complex 1040s after acquiring a husband, a mortgage, dependents (we sometimes had nieces or nephews living with us),Tom’s tuition and medical bills.
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Teachers’ needs -
I just finished reading about a San Diego teacher who sells a line of advertisement at the bottom of his test papers. The advertisement fee is just enough to pay for the paper and the printing of the test (including quizzes and finals). http://news.aol.com/article/teacher-sells-advertising-on-tests/277109 He hasn’t had a problem finding buyers. Some of the district’s residents have a problem with that solution so the teacher challenges them to open up their wallets.
Teachers have usually had to pay for many supplies out of their pockets. A few years ago the federal government allowed a $250 tax break for teachers’ classroom supplies when filing income taxes. This doesn’t mean we get the full $250 back. It just gets taken out of the taxable income. Sometimes it just makes a few dollars difference.
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Bus sob stories -
I just finished reading about a situation in New York City where a bus driver was fatally stabbed by a passenger because the bus driver refused to give him a bus transfer pass since the assailant’s MetroCard was invalid. Transit officials said that 74 New York City bus drivers had been assaulted from January through September (October -November numbers weren’t in yet), yet those numbers are significantly reduced from the pre-1969 crime rate. In 1969 they started putting exact-change boxes on the buses. That way the bus driver didn’t have to carry extra cash on the bus to give as change to passengers. Robberies of bus drivers went down significantly after that. The passengers were inconvenienced by always having to have the exact change when they got on the bus but most of the passengers are usually the same people who ride the bus every day so they learned to be prepared.
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How has the faltering economy affected you?
I’m sure it has touched us all directly or indirectly.
Most of my immediate family members’ economic situation is unchanged, thank God, but it’s the cousins that followed the housing boom that are hurting. The folks in California, the Carolinas, Las Vegas, Atlanta and other previously booming cities, are out of house construction jobs. Some of them have returned to Mexico with teenage kids that were born in America. My cousin in California tells me that many businesses in her neighborhood have closed and some of them that had hired many illegal Mexicans first, anonymously, called ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement) to round up the workers and deport them so they wouldn’t have to pay them. Anyway, ICE has more time on their hands to do this nowadays because illegal border crossings are down. Usually when somebody crosses illegally they do so after having communicated with a relative and being assured of finding a job with them or close by.
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Mommy culture -
I’ve mentioned before; most people my age have been there, done that, in raising children, but it’s new to me so that’s what fills my days.
Tuesdays Andy has a standing play date appointment with another church family’s two boys. Today we went to a lake and rode a duck-shaped paddleboat. Afterwards we took a nature walk along the lake and helped the boys throw rocks into the water and find dandelions to blow off the spores. Elizabeth, their mother, and I talk about the pleasures and pains of raising the boys. I told her that if I had met her four years ago and if she had had children then, we probably wouldn’t be social friends. She understood. It’s not fun hanging around a family who has young kids unless you also have young kids.
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Watching - As I write this Americans are going to the polls to vote. As I’m sure that the American television channels are closely following the voting activities, so are the South Korean TV channels, as are the rest of the world’s channels. America’s president isn’t only for America, but for the world. When America speaks (votes), people around the world listen. When the American economy sneezes, the whole world catches a cold.
In Korea, most of the nation tends to see America as our “big strong brother”. The news media here says that, so far, it doesn’t really matter which man will be president, either one would probably continue with the positive policy towards S. Korea.
The names, “Obama” and “McCain” are easy to pronounce for Koreans. I’m going to miss the funny way they would pronounce “Georgey Bushy” (in Korean, a “g” sound and an “sh” sound are always followed by an “I” sound).
Well, keeping it short today. May God bless the U.S.A. and the rest of the world.
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I love Walmart –
I went shopping at Walmart this week. The clothing here in Korea is quite expensive. South Korea used to be a shopping paradise for foreigners back in the eighties, after the reconstruction of the Korean War and before the economic boom that quickly followed. Now you have to search high and low for a good price on good quality. There are, of course, wonderful clothes out here, but they are quite expensive in my area of Korea. I also don’t have the energy to be hauling 18-month-old Andy to the crowded haggling discount marketplace of Namdaemun in Seoul to search for his fall and winter clothes.
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Retirement - It’s never too early to plan for retirement. Besides the obvious money matters, there’s also the “where will we live?” question for Tom and me. When we were young and dating it wasn’t an issue, but the older we get….. I can now better understand my dad, Tereso Velasquez’s, answer when Tom went to Guymon to ask for my hand in marriage. My mother said she was happy to see us in love and trusted my judgment of Tom and wished us God’s blessing. My father, on the other hand, paused for an unnerving while, took a deep breath and said, “I don’t prefer either of you to marry each other.”
I was surprised. I thought he would be relieved that I was engaged since I was already 31 years old. I said, “Dad, I didn’t know you felt that way. Why do you say that?”
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Mistaken laughter -
Sometimes I wonder why God has allowed me to fall into such bad health although I don’t drink alcohol, cola nor coffee. I don’t eat pork and I was even a vegetarian for six years until I got anemia and Dr. Bombach encouraged me to go back to meat since I ran 3 miles daily and used up a lot of protein. I don’t think my bad health is due to not taking care of my body but I can still learn from my suffering. In particular, I’ve learned to: be compassionate to pregnant women and, in particular, to unmarried teenagers, to have compassion on women going through menopause and to have compassion on elderly people suffering from frailty or loneliness.
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Barred –
Apology about last week’s article: I said that Jeremy Wariner’s 400 meter race was August 23 but it turned out to be the wrong date. I usually try to check with two or three sources before I write such information but in this case, after a lengthy search, I only found one website and it stated that it would be on the 23rd. Later in the week I found the more trustworthy nbcolympics.com which gave all the schedules, plus videos and fun athletes’ information.
No, I didn’t get to see Jeremy run his race. I wondered why my television showed archery, taekwondo and weightlifting most of the day. I kept waiting for the women’s (and toddlers) gymnastics but they never showed. It finally dawned on me that Korean TV only showed games in which there were Korean competitors. The only Phelps swim race that I saw was the one in which a Korean also swam (the Korean got the silver). I tried to watch the replays of Jeremy and Michael Phelps on nbcolympics.com but a caption popped up that said “sorry, viewing is prohibited outside of the United States”.
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A Sunday Drive -
Last weekend we got some new visitors in our church The younger of the two blond California men, who were fresh off the plane, had been newly hired to teach English at a local university while he works on his Ph.D. He came early to get settled in and then he’ll call for his wife and two younguns to come on over after a few days. His father tagged along to help him get settled in and to look around for a week. On Sunday Tom, Andy and I took them out to try to get them as “settled in” as you can do on a Sunday, which isn’t much. After having lunch in a Korean restaurant we hit the road (they are vegetarian so they will be limited in their Korean food offerings since most foods contain fish). We found out that they can’t get a cell phone without an alien registration card and a Korean credit card or a Korean citizen’s co-signature and their account. They can’t get a prepaid cell phone without a Korean alien registration card (which the university will later help him get). Thus, there was not much we could do without that dern alien registration card.
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The Natural –
The Olympics are upon us. As of Tuesday night (that’s America’s Tuesday morning), the top three winningest countries are: the USA, with 21 medals, China, with 20 medals (but with the most gold medals), and South Korea with 12 medals. Each year records get broken by athletes who are faster or stronger than their predecessors. It must be that the human race is getting stronger with each generation. It might also be because of the improved economies of the medaling countries which allows people to “work” at training for years and years while somebody else supports them.
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Flying pug –
Today I took Missy, our seven- year-old pug, for her evening walk. I used to enjoy taking her out for her morning and evening walks before Andy was born but my father-in-law took over that duty since it’s a hassle to push a stroller while walking a dog. Besides that, Andy’s and Missy’s schedules don’t match.
Since it’s so difficult and dangerous to use the leash (Missy crisscrosses in front of the stroller and the leash might cut or entangle Andy) I usually put the leash on Missy only when there are children around or if we’re going to cross a busy road. As I crossed a non-busy street today Missy lagged behind and a woman turned the corner and caught Missy under her car. I screamed and pointed. She stopped. Missy was okay. She had not been run over. She had kept running while under the car. The woman apologized but I knew it was my fault for not leashing her. Although Missy and I both hate the leash, it’s for her own safety (the residents think it’s for their safety but, believe me, they have nothing to worry about Missy biting them).
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Birthday - Today, July 22nd, was my birthday. Thanks to my friends and family who sent birthday wishes and to my Korean family who pampered me. I indulged myself in a new perm today. My perm takes four and a half hours to do because it’s an ion perm, not your usual conventional perms that straighten my very curly hair for a few days then go to frizz afterwards. The ion perm (started in Japan but called “magic-straight” in Korea) leaves my hair silky and straight as if I had been born with straight hair. The last time I checked at Regis hair salons in America it cost $300 for an ion perm. Here I pay $70.
Omani (my mother-in-law) babysat Andy most of the day and also presented me with some new makeup since she knew that I had run out of my American-bought stuff. The shade of makeup that she gave me was as close to my skin color as you can get in Korea but it lacked that tinge of pink that you get in the American makeup. It’s more of a sallow shade with a tinge of yellow. I don’t think of Koreans, or other Asians, as yellow, but there it is in the makeup. As I put it on I could see the pinkish hue of my skin disappear under the pancake batter.
On Cultural Encounters and Tangents
By Maggie Velasquez-Choi
Gifts -
Tomorrow I’m going to visit an ex-neighbor friend who moved into a new apartment. I plan to take her a giant package of toilet paper as a housewarming present. The norm, here in Korea, is to give something practical. The typical things given for a housewarming are industrial-size packages of: toilet paper, facial tissue or laundry detergent.
