I’m off to Seoul for a week, and I have to admit, I’m a bit anxious. I’ve been living at my sister’s place in Busan the last two weeks, so I can hardly say I’ve been backpacking in the post-collegiate-European-jaunt sense of the word. But today I headed out with my monster backpack stuffed with clothes and toiletries yes, but also a towel and sheet — two essential items for the erstwhile traveler who plans to go low-budget on house to be able to splurge on local customs. I haven’t done this for over a decade, so I remind myself that was just fine as a single gal backpacking through Paris, Rome and Florence, so I’ll be just fine now, when I’m 10 years wiser.
I *think* I’ve reserved tickets for a pansori, a traditional Korean stage performance that apparently is the anchor of the “Korean Wave” — which is what the South Koreans use to describe international interest in their traditional performance art. I say I think I’ve reserved a ticket because the Chongdong Theater is closed on Monday, so I only sent a “reservation request” through the English-language version of the Web site. No actual payment for a ticket, and no reservation confirmation number. I plan to call the theater when I arrive in Seoul, but a mangled-English phone conversation isn’t likely to provide that much insight. They go something like this:
“An nyung ha say o”
“Hello. Do you speak English?”
“On no. Please wait minute.”
“Yes”
click…silence for 60 seconds
“An nyung ha say o”
“Hello. Do you speak English?”
“Little eengli-she”
“I would like to reserve one ticket please”
“Wa persa?”
“Yes. One person.”
“Wa persa. Day?”
“Thursday.”
“Tuesday?”
“No. Eleven December.”
“Oh. Eeleben Deesehm.”
“Yes.”
“You name?”
We spend about 2 minutes going back and forth while I spell my name in English, they repeat the spelling they heard, I invariably correct them, then they repeat the new spelling, until I decide it’s close enough and they probably won’t have any other foreigners showing up claiming to be me. They also ask for my email address to send a confirmation email; luck me, my email address is my full first and full last name, so I get to spell everything all over again, then read it back to me, I correct, and so on.
Now repeat this process another four times to make lodging accommodations and reservations for a few other cultural activities. You can see how this took upwards of an hour to complete. Following these stellar exchanges, I promptly located the email address for each business and sent a confirmation message to hope someone could match it with the conversation that just occurred. So far, that worked for the two places I reserved for my accommodations.
