西洋오랑캐

I am now under the impression that there is some sort of 외국인 (foreigner) quota in my apartment building. My apartment has been on the market since late last week, so there has been a parade of humanity strolling through to check out my pad. Today around 3 in the afternoon there was a knock at the door. There was my landlord again, with some new white guy, and said white guy’s Korean buddy / coworker.

“Mind if we have a look around?” the guy asked. Actually “guy” is a poor word choice. “Gentleman” or “chap” would be much better since he was so British.

“Yeah sure buddy, c’mon in,” was how I responded, or at least how I should have responded.

Let me set the stage for you. It was a Tuesday at roughly 3 o’clock in the afternoon, I had not shaved in several days (see picture at right for an artist’s rendering as to how much stubble I had going on), and I was sitting in my room watching pro-wrestling and eating peanuts. Clearly I was not doing anything to dispel the belief that Americans are lazy and gauche.

Like all people who come to visit my house the English gentleman departed 4 minutes or so after arriving. This says nothing of the quality of my room, but more the size of it. The entire thing can be examined in under a minute.

“There’s the bathroom. This is the kitchen. This is the bedroom/living room/dining room/study/Mike Brady’s den, and out there is the laundry room.”

Having seen the room the Englishman departed with a “Cheers,” which was more than any of the other people check out my pad did, and also lead me to believe that British people are totally awesome! I mean “Cheers!” in place of “Bye!”, how radical is that?

A short while later I got a call from the Englishman, which really surprised me since I hadn’t given him my number. Apparently he liked my homestead and was looking to move in. So he came back with his friend to draw up some papers with the landlord, and shake on it so that he had a “gentlemen’s agreement” with me as to my date of departure. I told him I’d be out by this weekend, and then offered up the Kimchi & Me yard sale special deal: all my furniture for one price so low I must be crazy. He snapped it up. I then showed him the washing machine and informed him that for some reason only cold water worked on the machine.

BRITISH ENGLISH EXPRESSION #15: Don’t worry, I had a flat like that back in London.

So we had our gentlemen’s agreement. He told me he would stop back on Thursday to pay for furniture and then departed once more with a, “Cheers!”

Since I have much packing to do, I too must be taking my leave now. Cheers!