Work, Last Names, Olympics

The big news first- Steph and Andy welcomed a little baby boy on March 2nd!! Congratulations to them! Sadly Uncle Andrew and Auntie Haley will have to rely on Skype to meet their little nephew but we'll take what we can get.

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After three weeks, I'm getting into the swing of things at work and I'm relieved that I haven't been "donkeyed" even once. The U.S. and R.O.K. militaries are consolidating their bases on the peninsula and Camp Humphreys where we live is slated to be the big hub of U.S. operations. That means the Army base is expanding over three times its current size at the cost of something like $10 billion (a big chunk paid for by the R.O.K.) It means we more or less live in a construction zone, but for those of us who are engineers it makes for interesting work.

The majority of people I work with are Koreans or Korean-born U.S. citizens who speak to each other in Korean primarily and will translate for me as necessary, which isn't a problem except that it makes eavesdropping nearly impossible. It drives me nuts to hear my boss speaking in Korean to someone and hear my name repeatedly in the conversation but to have no clue what is being said and no translation afterwards. I'll have to get used to that. Another thing to get used to is the way that Koreans are very formal and respectful to their co-workers. They use Mr. and Ms. to address people of the same status and use the Korean title "SungSangEem" to address their superiors. When I was teaching English the students called me "SungSangEem" so I thought this term was a direct translation for teacher but in fact it is just a very respectful term because the teaching profession is highly respected. My point is, I have to get used to being called Ms. Rieck all the time!

A huge advantage of the Mr. and Ms. system is that it's a cinch to remember the names of my co-workers. Something like 45% of Koreans have the last names Lee, Kim, or Pak/Park so I have only a few short syllables to remember. (Other common names are O, Chae, So, No, Yi, etc.) In my department of 16 people there are two Mr. Paks, two Mr. Parks, and a Ms. Pak. When in doubt I can throw out Pak as a guess.

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So how much did you love the Olympics? I sure did and Andrew did even more. I love the history, the suspense of the events, the drive of the athletes- and I love the patriotism most of all. This year was more exciting than most since Whistler is a Rieck family favorite. It was also fun to cheer on the South Koreans. Kim Yu Na (woman figure skater, last name Kim) is the darling of Korea and she certainly lived up to the impossibly high expectations. She's so big here that she has Michael Jordan's endorsement power, Julia Roberts' sweetheart longevity, the Beatles' crazy fan base, and a dash of Miley Cyrus' young appeal. The middle aged male engineers were huddled around their little video cell phones during her Olympics performances, cheering her on like it was overtime in a March Madness game that had the potential to bust their brackets. With complete seriousness, these men explained to me about the point system for triple toe loops versus triple axles and all the details of figure skating that might seem effeminate if it wasn't for Kim Yu Na's superstar status here.

But let's not forget the speed skaters. The South Korean speed skaters rocked the Olympics and made their country proud.... well all of them except the dude who knocked down his teammate when South Korea was poised to win gold, silver, and bronze in the same event. One twist that I loved about speed skating is that Koreans absolutely abhor Apolo Ohno. In the 2006 games, the whole country was up in arms over what they consider was Apolo's dramatic flailing that got a South Korean skater disqualified. After four years of that anger festering, the Koreans were not the least bit pleased that Apolo won so many medals, especially since the error of a Korean skater let him luck into one of his silvers. Another attribute of Ohno's that's not popular with the Koreans is his Japanese heritage. Sports events like these just pour salt on the wounds of Korean's long and messy history with Japan. And Andrew relishes the drama of the sports world like few people do, so he asks all the Korean soldiers he works with their opinions about Apolo Ohno just to watch them get fired up. Now let's all get fired up for March Madness!