adventures south of the evil empire

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Shopping for Jeensuh

I had yet another awkward moment due to the language barrier. I went to the mall to shop for some jeans, or as the Koreans call them, Jeensuh. There are all the same brands as back home, mainly designer, like Calvin Klein and Levi's. But there are also a lot of funny "almost brands" such as H & T (not H & M), Ralph Polam (not Ralph Lauren), and Black Face (which could probably go in any number of directions, but I think it resembled North Face). Anyways, I went to the Calvin Klein area because I heard you could get nice American brands for a little less than back home (this turned out not to be true). As soon as you enter any shopping area, an attendant immediately comes to your side. This is not just at the mall, but anywhere. I'm sure that it would be super helpful if I spoke Korean, but since I can't communicate that well, it's sort of awkward having this Korean person silently follow you throughout the store as you shop. So I picked up a pair of jeans and motioned to try them on. Great. He led me to a dressing room. They didn't fit. I tried on another, no luck. I kept having the same problem--the crotch area was too baggy. Anyone that is not taller than 5' 9" or so will know exactly what I'm talking about. So by the third pair my little Korean attendant guy asked me what was wrong. I told him that the waist was fine but the crotch area sagged just a little. Unfortunately, I did so in English and he just looked at me with a blank stare and an empty smile. So I tried to explain it to him in Korean. Unfortunately, I only know about 40 Korean words and "saggy crotch" was not one of them. So all I was able to do was grab the crotch of the pants and say, in Korean, "too big." For some reason, the guy just walked away in disgust like I had something wrong with me. I don't think he understood what I was trying to say.

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