If there's one aspect of my Korean that I know that I'm excellent at, it's ordering food. Haha! Yesterday two unique situations happened. I will begin by telling you about the first situation:
For lunch, I went to a small Vietnamese restaurant near my home and I ordered my food from the restaurant ordering machine. The owner is Korean, but she's only there occasionally and cooks in the kitchen are Vietnamese. After I ordered my food and waited, one of the Vietnamese cooks came and brought my food to me and said my order was ready in Korean and I said "thank you" in Korean. That's one thing that I haven't gotten used to. Both of our native languages aren't Korean, but in order to communicate, we have to speak Korean because I don't think she knows English and I definitely can't speak Vietnamese!
Now I'll discuss my second interesting situation. Usually my wife cooks but she had a long day yesterday, so I decided to get food from Burger King. I had Asian food for lunch and I went to the gym, so I thought I could spoil myself with a burger. I go to this particular Burger King in my neighborhood and go at the same time (10:00pm) twice a month. Before I get back to my story, you're probably thinking 10:00pm is fairly late to eat dinner especially if it's a burger, but my evening classes start at 6:30, I'm not hungry at 5:30pm, and I'm starving after three hours of teaching in the evening. Anyway, back to my story. There's one lady that is always behind the counter at that time and she knows me pretty well. And because I can't stand mayonnaise on my burgers, I can't order from the kiosk; I can only order at the counter. The strange thing about it is that she mixes Korean and English, which always makes it an awkward experience. She greets me with a "hello" in English. Then I tell her the combo meal (known as a “set" in Korean) that I want in English since she starts off by speaking English. After that she repeats in Korean ("You don't want mayonnaise right?"). So I respond in Korean "right". Then she goes back to English to tell me to put my ATM card in the machine next to the cash register, but then goes back to Korean to tell me to take it out. Ugh! It's so confusing! Can she just pick a language and we can just run with it? Yesterday to end the transaction, she told me in English that my order was ready and back to Korean "there's no mayonnaise". Oh Korea. I love you! Anyway, despite the awkwardness, she always gets my order right and when my order is ready. I can't complain too much, right?
Do you have any funny or interesting situations in Korea? I'd love to hear about them!
P.S. Here are a few links below to use when ordering food in Korea. I thought they were all fairly useful. Enjoy!
Ordering food at a restaurant in Korean
Essential Korean Phrases- Eating
Ordering in a cafe
Scott Worden (The L.A./Seoul Guy)
Instagram: l.a.seoulguy
