Oh!!!
Koreans make this surprised sound a bit differently from how I’m used to hearing it. They sort of… breathe it rather than say it, and add undertones of grunts so that it comes out sounding like they’ve been punched in the stomach. It’s terribly dramatic.
I spent all day on Monday hearing this sound, having forgotten to put on suncream during the very briefest of trips to the beach before we left Boryeong on Sunday afternoon. I was there for under an hour, I was swimming and chatting, it slipped my mind, OK? Anyway, by the time I left the opticians and went to meet the others for dinner, my new skin colour had developed nicely, much like a negative in a darkroom. I skipped happily into the restaurant, marvelling at the clarity of everything around me, and was greeted by half a dozen startled expressions, stopping me in my tracks. Had I chosen some particularly unattractive frames? Had I been given the wrong prescription and mistaken a bunch of strangers for my friends?
My God, Hails, you’re a tomato, said Irish Friend One in his polite and tactful way.
When I saw myself in a bathroom mirror a few hours later, I realised that not only was I a tomato, I was a radioactive tomato. With burns. Wearing a lot of rouge. And blushing. My face glowed so brightly at me from the mirror that I, too, let a startled “Oh!” escape my lips. My taxi driver on the way home greeted me with an “Oh!” and spent the entire journey looking at me in the rear view mirror and laughing hysterically.
The next morning, I actually tried wearing some make-up to cover the horror story that was my face, but of course by the time I arrived in school after my brief walk, I remembered why I can’t wear make-up here in the summer – a combination of humidity and sweat meant that it was practically running down my face in murky beige rivers. I sighed and washed my face clean, turning to face a day of “Oh!”s.
“Oh!” said every child who came into my classroom. “Oh!” said every colleague who met me in the corridor – often regardless of whether they’d already seen me and “Oh!”ed at me. “Oh!” said the Cooking Lady, the postman, the bus drivers, and a couple of parents. I spent the first ten minutes of every class explaining to the children and their equally bewildered teachers why anyone would lie out in the sun, even if they were wearing suncream. It was exhausting.
And then yesterday morning, I was sitting at my desk drinking my iced coffee and preparing for the day ahead, when Ellen, one of my newest Korean colleagues, came in with a bag of potatoes, a cheese grater, a mixing bowl, and a tub of flour. I looked at her in the way that you’d look at anyone if they came into your workspace with a bag of potatoes, a cheese grater, a mixing bowl, and a tub of flour. These are for you, she said as if she was in fact carrying a bunch of flowers and a bottle of wine, and not what she was actually carrying (a bag of potatoes, a cheese grater, a mixing bowl, and a tub of flour, in case you missed it).
With very little in the way of explanations, she proceeded to grate potatoes and mix them with the flour until she had a gloopy paste that looked not unlike vomit. Then she tucked my t-shirt sleeves up into my bra strap and spread the stuff all over my arms and shoulders. She almost did the same to my face until I protested quite strongly. It will help your burns, she said with great conviction as she produced some cling film from her bag and wrapped me up in it.
I waddled into my first Musical class with my cling filmed arms sticking out at my sides like a penguin’s wings. This made teaching dance routines decidedly difficult, and then of course all the movement made the cling film start to come loose. I first became aware of this when I slipped on something and looked down to see a trail of potato mush on the floor. It was seeping out from the cling film, dripping down my arms, and sticking to the floor, my t-shirt, my shorts, the children…
I ended up spending the last half of the class carrying a towel around to catch the potatoey gloop oozing from my shrink wrapped arms, and that’s a sentence I very much doubt anyone in the world has ever used before.
How is your burn today? asked Ellen anxiously when I met her at the water cooler this morning. I couldn’t help but notice that she had some potato-shaped objects in a bag. Oh, all better now, perfect, excellent, thank you! I lied, grinning insanely and backing away. I forced myself to hold on to the smile rather than scream in agony when she patted me on the shoulder. I cannot spend another day smelling like potatoes and covered in blobs of mush.
I am almost completely certain that this kind of thing does not happen to normal people.
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This makes it sound even funnier than your facebook status did
Yeah, Facebook statuses only give you a snippet of the sitcom that is my life! :p
Pain!!! You poor thing, burns are not conducive to a good night’s kip. Hope you’re feeling better and settling into a nice tan.
Think of all the fun you’ll have peeling your skin off though, that’s my favourite part.
Ha ha, I quite enjoy that, too! My arms are now nice and brown, although my face and neck now have random scorch marks on them. It ain’t easy…!
I was having a bit of a bad day but this made me laugh. Next time, I’d skip to geting the potato mush in a more processed form – vodka!
Glad to be of service! And what an idea: I wonder how my colleagues would react if I just tipped a bottle of vodka over myself? Or maybe it’s the type of medication that you take orally…
I was thinking orally for the pain. Although, I once applied beer to my arms and legs at a bbq in some sort of drunken belief that it would help fend off midges. For the record, it doesn’t help, you just smell funny in the pub.
You haven’t changed a bit. I’m glad.
Check my blog out. You’ve won something.
Wow, I’m so delighted with this! Thank you for saying such nice things about my blog. Cheers!
Loved that post, very deserving of MLS award. I’ll be back.
Welcome, and hurry back!
What a great story! I was laughing out loud, except that I also can feel the pain from the sunburn. Ouch! Mr London Street is right; this was excellently written.
Thank you so much! And yes, it was painful…but it gave me a blog post that seems to be entertaining people, so it was worth it!
I wished I’d known this potato mush secret with all of the sunburns I’ve had! Loved the “Oh” Korean explanation. I could almost hear these reactions
.
Well done!
Thank you! I’m so surprised by all the nice things people are saying here. I thought this post was just a bit of confused rambling.
I came here via Mr Londonstreet. Very funny writing. The description of the Korean “oh” is perfect.
Glad I got it right! It took a while to try to put it into words!
Here via Mr. London Street.
Very funny post – the Oh! bits were hysterical.
It’s amazing how many people think that have a homemade cure for burns etc. when really all they have is a sure fire way to make a mess and/or stench. I usually opt to suffer and whine.
Thanks! And yeah, I mostly just suffer and whine too…but the Koreans can’t stand to see suffering, they have to offer a solution!
But did it WORK? Because as a freckled, albino AUSTRALIAN I would very much like a cure for accidental sunburn. Possibly even one which involves potatocaking myself.
Then I’m sorry to tell you that no, it did not! It eased the burning for a while but it wasn’t worth being covered in potato goo if you ask me!
Great story! With sunburn that bad, it’s amazing you weren’t knocked out with pain.
A bit of salt&pepper and an onion, and you could have made potato pancakes instead.
They would have fried fairly quickly on my skin, let me tell you!!
Oh my goodness, that was a classic.
I can understand it wasn’t any fun to go through, but when you publish your memoirs this will be a highlight.
This was a really fun read, Hails! I, too, came here via MrLondonStreet’s recommendation. Once here, I couldn’t help but spend an hour or so with your past posts. I’ve added you to my roster of blogs to follow. Looking forward to hearing more about your holiday in Japan.
[...] Getting spanked by a farmer on a literal ‘field’ trip. Being severely scolded by the cooking lady when she serves the one soup I dislike and I don’t eat it. Hiding in a dark corner of the corridor to eavesdrop on an entertainingly psycho parent going ballistic in the director’s office, while my colleagues provide whispered translations and try to bleep out the swearwords. Arriving at work on days like today after what feels like a brisk uphill swim in a monsoon, and having our morning coffee together as we fight and bicker for a good drying position in front of the fan. Saying sternly “Now look, you know she’s scared of bananas, stop torturing her” as I remove the offending piece of fruit from in front of a trembling colleague. A child bringing two extremely noisy quail chicks in a box to class (having purchased them as pets after school without consulting her mother), and my colleague not even asking any questions when I pop my head into her classroom and ask “Can I just leave these birds here for a while? They’re disrupting my class.”. Rearranging the office furniture with the director and the secretary, because they were ‘bored with it’, only to find that nothing fits anywhere other than its original place… then repeating the entire procedure a year later (the very definition of insanity). Finding three colleagues performing a K-pop dance routine in the corridor and just quietly walking on by without raising an eyebrow. My director calling me into the office and asking quite seriously: “Why didn’t you tell me your toilet was moving?”. Having a colleague at whom I can yell “HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” in Korean at any given moment, knowing that she will respond with the next part of the baseball chant, which basically means “Damn you, you total loser!”. Having another colleague who reacts with laughter when, in response to someone saying that she appears to disapprove of something, I remark “That’s just her face.”. The almost daily fight that the director and I have with the photocopier that needed to be replaced over a year ago, always accompanied by apparently genuine surprise from her, as if it’s the first time she’s seen it chew up my papers. Being worried about causing offence at the lunch table as I finally say in a meek voice: “Please could we move this plate of chicken feet to the other end of the table?” Being handed a fortnight’s supply of some healthy yoghurt drink along with a chart to monitor its effects on my bowel movements, with no explanation whatsoever. Sitting in a classroom, at the kids’ desks, with several colleagues after the two weeks are up, filling in our response questionnaires and behaving like schoolchildren. Finding a cage with a squirrel in it in the corridor, and receiving no explanation for it at any point. Tears of laughter at least once or twice a week at the staff lunch table, and the slightly frightened faces of the children who pass through, staring wide-eyed at their teachers. Teaching a class with mashed potato paste oozing from my shrink-wrapped arms. [...]