korean buddy

past notes from my little pink notebook:

How’s this for some crazy: today I met my Korean buddy (of the “friendship” program organized by my university whereby foreign students studying Korean language are paired up with Korean students who volunteer to help the foreigners with their Korean language) and well I know my Korean buddy already! That’s not the crazy part. The crazy part is that I know him from Speed Dating.

Yes, the guy that is to help me with my Korean is the same guy I met at speed dating. He just finished his 2-year Army obligation as a KATUSA, a position which is generally thought to be available only to the more intelligent Korean soldiers (= soldiers whom have learned and can use English well) and is a prized position among Korean soldiers as it commonly thought in Korea that the U.S. military is generally less strict than the Korean military, and allows for more personal freedom. Anyway, he’s spent the last two years of his life living and breathing and eating among my fellow Americans, on base and in the context of the military. As such he’s so tapped into the American culture from working so closely with American soldiers, especially those in their pre- to early-twenties, that he says things like “throwing up deuces” and “hit me up when you have free time”. Granted, he’s 10 years my junior but listening to him speak English is like being stuck inside an MTV program with Ryan Seacrest, but not exactly cause I can just tell by the unfamiliar familiarity of his brand of colloquialism that he comes from an even younger crowd who perhaps thinks Ryan Seacrest is either a dinosaur or worse yet, “so yesterday!”. I’m bewildered by my American culture being reflected to me through a Korean and even more bewildered to be so dated by it.

Update:
So yes, I met him while speed dating and knew there was no chemistry for a match but liked his positive energy and we exchanged contact details when we both found out that soon I’d be attending the same school as he (studying Chinese!) and in fact, during my first week of school we played phone and text tag trying to catch up with each other but our schedules were too busy. Until the day the Korean Buddy Program brought us together once again. At first I insisted that he pre-arranged it. It was just way too coincidental to have been as random as he eventually assured me it was.

In addition to helping the foreigner with his/her Korean language abilities, the Korean buddy’s responsibility extends to include sharing information about the university and Korean culture and … believe this or not, the Korean buddy is obligated to escort the foreigner to the airport on the day of his/her departure. That’s service! The program is completely voluntary; no money or credit is given to those Koreans who participate. Sounds like a great idea, until I found out one tiny drawback: the blooming paper logs, or Diary Sheets, that are generated per contact – email, phone call, or meeting – which are to be annotated and signed by both parties, taking us back to the 20th century and driving me insane. So if I send an email with questions, BAM!, that generates a Diary Sheet. If I call to ask a simple question, BAM!, another Diary Sheet gets added to the pile. These things I have to sign and annotate and I just can’t be bothered with that procedure for collecting information. My schedule is too busy and I had to sort out in the first week of the buddy program what my Korean buddy’s expectations were and explain mine as well. Perhaps lunch every day would have suited him while I could barely squeeze in a once per week meeting. I had to reconsider whether or not I was appropriate for the program and whether or not he would be more satisfied with another foreigner to assist. And then there was the problem that I already knew my Korean buddy and found it very hard not to communicate with him in English as I had done so upon our first meeting and during subsequent text messages. Anyway, we sorted it all out and meet like once or twice per week. Can’t say that the program has been tremendously helpful – due to my lack of effort to exploit it – but I will say that he is very motivated to be my Korean buddy. He is an ideal candidate for the program. I can see why he was able to get the KATUSA job.