Korean is a language

hello! well, i just finished my fist week of korean classes and was it tough! but also really fun! i learned how to read real well, and say, "Hello! My name is Shannon. I am American. I am an English teacher. It's nice to mee you!"...in kroean of course...i was so proud of myself i tried my speech on the taxi driver and he just kept saying, "what? what?"...i thought he was korean! i mean he looked korean! turns out, he is, my pronounciation is just so bad.

oh well, i'll just keep working at it. it's good though to know other things cause for a while there, my only phrase was, "what is that?" in korean and i'd ask it all the time, one because i really wanted to know what "that" was and two cause i just like to speak korean. well, i was in the nursery at church and playing with this really cute little korean girl, mee joo, and all i knew what to say to her was, "what is that? what is that?" and you know, when you ask a question in korean, you'll get an answer in korean. for some reason, i think people are going to answer in english.

so this poor little girl is telling me what "it" is in korean and i keep saying, "what is that?" so she just says the word louder and louder. at one point, she put her hands on my face and shouted in my ear the koean name for this object. i still don't know.

oh! here's some more intersting "korean facts":
1. if you sit in the front seat of the cab, you are expected to pay the fare
2. it is VERY uncommon for the family to join the mother in the hospital room while she is giving birth. unlike americans who like to make a movie out of it...
3. when a guy is married to a woman who makes more money than him, he is called a "Shutter Man" because all he has to do in the relationship is close the shutter, or rolling metal door, to the shop. this is equvelant to the american slang "Sugar Momma"...ha ha...
4. there are like a million names for family names, ie sister, brother, mom, and dad...there are like 3 names per family member and it all has to do with your age and whether or not your a male or female yourself...crazy...
5. if you call someone "crazy" here, it's actually a HUGE insult...so i'm sure my students felt real good about themselves when i was joking with them and calling them crazy. you know, it would be REALLY HELPFUL to know these things before coming into this country...