I have found that the most difficult aspect of being in South Korea is the language barrier. Though many Koreans know basic English it is still difficult to communicate. I can finally say hello “annyeonghaseyo” with a little bit of confidence, but that won’t get you very far in South Korea.

It is however amazing how much can be communicated with body language and facial expressions. In the elevator the other day a woman looked at my dog Titan with a weary look on her face. I said “he’s friendly” and pet him on the head. She said something and I thought I heard the word canine in there. She had a look of disgust on her face. I said to her “oh, you don’t like dogs.” She looked kind of surprised by this. I have no idea what she said but her expression said it all.

Just like a picture, a facial expression can be worth a thousand words.

On a separate occasion, a small Korean boy got on the elevator and looked scared of Titan. I said “it’s OK, watch.” I then said “anj-a” which means sit in Korean. Titan sat down and looked at me expectantly and I praised him. The young boy looked pretty impressed and said “wow”. (OK so Titan does not know Korean, I trained him with some basic commands in puppy class years ago using sign language, but the boy didn’t know this).

I do need to get serious about learning the language. I still cannot read the controls on my oven, and food shopping can be pretty difficult when all of the labels are in Korean.

The “acclimation” period is officially over, time to get serious.