Because Trump dropped bombs, the Korean government bought me my bananas

I’m now at the stage where I’ve been living and working in Korea longer than many of my university students have been alive. I remember the toilets that were little more than holes in the ground. The aggressive street-level sounds of men hawking bootleg DVDs and low-sheen neckties from folding tables. The pachinko parlors that lined Jongno. The high-temperature public anxieties of mad cow protests. Individual cigarettes sold illegally out of cardboard boxes at local pharmacies. And the constant wet throat-clearing soundtrack of old Seoul. My god, the spitting. Much has changed since then. I’ve developed a great burning love for the people and the culture. I throw myself at it – the history, the music, the social concepts, the politics, the art, the food, and the language. While I often give my university lectures in English, I spend my days talking to people in Korean. Discovering the nuances and battling through my own difficulties with the grammar and the vocabulary. Even when uttering a simple hello or thank you, people now look at me with an eye raised: “Where are you fr

Original source: Korea Times