I'm munching on some ddok as I write this.

Actually, I'm not munching, I'm just chewing; ddok is a soft, sticky pastry made out of rice. On New Year's Day, it's tradition to eat ddok gook, which is soup made out of ddok, because the ddok that goes in the soup is shaped like long cylinders, and the length of the ddok represents the long life you'll (hopefully) live.

The ddok I'm eating now is not that kind of ddok. There are several different shapes in this package, of different colors and tastes. One is a round pale green color, and tastes of pinenuts. Another is Crayola yellow, and studded with beans and dates. Quite tasty.

The sweets came from an office colleague who got married last weekend. Did I mention this before? Someone in a different department (team) emailed me last week to ask if I was going to Mr. Marrying Guy's wedding. I said, no, because I don't know him very well, plus I haven't been invited.

"Oh," he wrote back, "I don't know him that well either, he only joined my team four months ago. But everyone is invited. He needs to know how many people are coming so he can charter the bus."

"What bus?" I asked. "Are you going?"

"Of course I'm going," he replied. "We're on the same team. And he's chartering a bus to pick people up at the office on Saturday and take them all to the wedding site."

Ah.

I asked my dad what was up with that -- wasn't it expensive to invite all these people? He said, "Yes, but they all give money too, usually $30 to $50."

Interesting. I read a great article in the Washington Post today about a Vietnamese immigrant family in Atlanta, which included a description of a wedding. At the wedding, after the traditional blessings and prayers, people dug out their wallets to pass the dough forward. Terrific quote: "We are very spiritual," a woman whispered to the reporter, "but very practical." (Incidentally, this article is one of four fascinating articles in a series about immigrants in Atlanta, which some people are calling the next Los Angeles.)

Anyway, Mr. Married came back from his honeymoon late last week and today passed out these packages of ddok to, as far as I know, everyone in the office. That would be about 80 people or so.

Different, huh?
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I took my written tests for the speaking, and listening and reading classes today. They weren't as bad as I feared, but the reading was touch and go. I finished everything on time, but with an eye on the clock. I really need to get faster at reading; the test was pushing the outer limits of my reading speed. Strangely enough (or is it so strange?), I don't have a problem with writing. I mean, I don't always know how to phrase things, or what markers to put in (in Korean, there are subject and object markers that you add to the end of the word in question, and a number of prepositional markers as well), or even how to spell very well, but I do okay. Reading, however, is still a tortuous process -- I have yet to be able to glance at a sentence and grasp its meaning.

I don't mind too much; it's only been two months that I've been studying, after all. I mean, I could fake being concerned about my rate of progress, but I'm really not that industrious. Plus, I think I've done okay for being here since October. I haven't made particularly strenuous efforts to immerse myself (witness my habit of reading Harry Potter novels a dozen times over), but I'm okay with that. Lord help me, I can't be diligent all the time, not even close to it.

Tomorrow is the last part of the final exams, the interview with the teacher. After I sign off here, I'll ask Dad to practice with me. He's been quite helpful, answering all my vocab questions, reading out passages so I can practice my listening skills, and insisting on driving me to the subway, even though it's only a 10 minute walk away, in order to save time.
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On the subway tonight, coming home, I was surprised to see an advertisement outside the window, being projected onto the tunnel walls as we barreled toward the next station. Consumer culture -- gotta love it. At the movie I went to two weeks ago, we went to our assigned seats (yup, just like the theatre) while advertisements were played on screen. It reminded me of a time in DC when I went to see a movie and witnessed a woman storming out of her movie before it even started, because "[she] wasn't going to sit through 10 minutes of advertisements in order to see a movie -- ridiculous, just ridiculous."

Clearly, she should not come here.
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Another subway observation: as I stood in my place in the sardine tin (and it is a metal box, after all, isn't it?), I gazed at some women sitting in front of me, wondering, "Why dye your hair these varying colors of orange if in a week everyone sees your roots?" As I thought about it, though, I thought it probably wasn't about the root visibility, but about changing your look to define yourself. Just like any fad, there isn't any particular reason why it starts, except that a few people start out to distinguish themselves from the crowd. And then the crowd catches on.

What if I'm happy with my hair being black because I'm used to being one in a pantheon of hair colors? Yes, there are a lot of black-haired people in the States, but there are lots of brown-haired people, and some yellow-haired people, and a few red-haired people too. Maybe I don't feel the urge to distinguish myself by dying my hair because I'm used to being surrounded by people of lots of different hair colors, and so feel that hey, black is special too.

Just a thought.