AZIJSKI SPISI 2: Quiet Life

Yes, a quiet life it is. At least here. My greatest challenge these days is studying Korean. Three times a week, after breakfast, I re-check my homework, take my books and notebooks and walk downhill to our nearest neighbour. Most of the times I take with me some still hot pancakes, tufahija or any other sweet delight I invent that morning. For my teacher, of course. She is giving me lessons for free, so I try my best to repay her with work. In the garden. Repairing the road to her house. Fix her computer. It all comes easy. I'd rather build her a new house than study. I've come to a point where the learning process is just humiliating for my ego. Not her fault, for sure. I've never been so patient as a teacher. Learning new words is a piece of cake - but what to do with them? She asks me a question. I understand every single word but I simply have no idea what would it mean and I give her my blank moronic look. But I will not give up, not until she is willing not to give up on me. Not only her, everyone is supporting me in this. Even Guryun, the little boy with the long braid, is doing his best to help me and teach me.
Even if it's a quiet life, it's in no way boring. Not only that there's always something to do since here everybody helps everybody, literally, but because we have fun almost all the time. Believe it or not, I am considered as a most serious person - but that's only because I'm so shy.
Maybe because of my seriousness I was asked, few days ago, to take care of some kids. We went in the village for dinner and after dinner the folks had some meeting. Since the kids were in the way, i was with them on the school playground and we had some great time (if we don't count some nasty spanking I had to do with one). Tiger was with me but he was bored all the time. Oh, yes, Tigar Sungbae is another friend I've made. We've met at a dinner and he introduced himself as Tiger. Simple as that. So I introduced myself as Chicken, you know, Tak meaning chicken, even if written slightly different than my name but pronounced almost the same. Two days later we worked together and during the first break he announced that he should change his nickname to Cat. I call him simply Hello Kitty. I hope it will not piss him off even if he considers me stronger than him. I saw when three students pissed him off when we were at the Lantern Festival in Jinju.

Another day Andrzej, a friend from Poland who is studying korean in Daegu, came to visit me here and stayed two days. He wanted to see "the end of the world" as he calls the view from the top over our house. And he saw it, we climbed it at sunrise, not for any particular romantic reason but because at eight I had my lesson.

Later he helped us with planting garlic and was rewarded with a delicious lunch at the feet of the Mosan.

The lady on my right is my teacher.
Some friends of Sang Pyeong (Guryun's father) live quite far away, but we help them anyway. One lives near the Jirisan and has just finished his new house so we were there as a cleanup team. No real work, it was another excuse for social gathering and we had all the afternoon for one of the Jirisan valleys.

And last weekend in Jinju was held the Korean Pansori Festival. On Saturday I declined the invitation to join them with my troubled stomach as excuse, on Sunday I just couldn't do it again for I might seem rude. I'm not sure that they believed me that I really do know pansori, but I've heard my fair share of it two years ago in Gangwon do. Boring as hell when you don't understand a single word. I managed to resist some time, mostly because I had two kids to play with, but eventually I just left. And caught a nice shot of the moon over the gate of Jinju Palace.