We play pictionary a lot. That and charades have come in handy this past year. Chas and I gave up on the language after trying to learn how to say a few key sentences and having no one understand a word. We have found that anything can be expressed in a picture so this is precisely what I turned to Saturday night when once again we had no hot water. We weren't sure if it was going to last the rest of the summer as the same situation occurred last summer when we got here. Those of you who live pampered lifestyles and have never gone a day in your life without a hot shower let me break it down for you. Apartment complex turns off hot water heaters...due to freezing cold water showers become fewer and significantly shorter... husband and wife maintain a personal bubble and don't feel like cuddling.Determined to find out when the hot water would return I raced down to the security guard picture in hand, and my kindergarten characters which I hope said "NO HOT WATER VERY SAD FACE!" Luckily for us the security guard must also play a lot of pictionary. He got it in no time and directed me toward the apartment bulletin board wherein a document indicated in all Korean that hot water would return on August 5th. How silly of us, why didn't we just read the Korean sign. I was satisfied with this information and figured I could grin and bear it three more days. One more to go and although I still don't feel that clean I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
One more note on this security guard. He is quite a dear old man. He has learned from his grandchildren probably how to say three English phrases since we have been here. In his bag of tricks are "Good Morning" "Hello" and "It's hot." This makes me so happy and I am really impressed with his efforts to welcome us just a little. One time we made rice pudding and thought...hey, Koreans like rice I'm sure they would like rice pudding. Lets take some to the nice old man downstairs. Yeah not so much he was really confused and I'm sure he thought we just didn't know how to cook regular rice.
One more note on this security guard. He is quite a dear old man. He has learned from his grandchildren probably how to say three English phrases since we have been here. In his bag of tricks are "Good Morning" "Hello" and "It's hot." This makes me so happy and I am really impressed with his efforts to welcome us just a little. One time we made rice pudding and thought...hey, Koreans like rice I'm sure they would like rice pudding. Lets take some to the nice old man downstairs. Yeah not so much he was really confused and I'm sure he thought we just didn't know how to cook regular rice.
4 comments:
Haha, nice try with the rice pudding. I would have thought he'd like it, too. And good tip about Pictionary. I'll probably need to hone my descriptive illustration skills for wherever we may end up.
Lacey! I don't know how you do it, living in a different country with a completely different language/characters! I'd feel so lost over there!
That's genius. I would've just sat in my apartment and cried. Or...thrown a pitcher of cold water on the manager. Depends on the moment.
Years ago we had an exchange student from Japan at our house for about two weeks. We happened to make rice pudding while she was there....and she laughed herself silly. Couldn't wait to get home and tell everyone the horrid things we did to perfectly good rice!
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