Sleeping in the Rain

Sunday night, I started dreaming that I was at a pool and my nephew was shooting me with a water gun. The water gun started shooting out more and more water until I woke up and realized that it wasn’t a dream. I live alone and there was no creepy water gun toting intruder in my apartment. I was being rained on while asleep – asleep in my bed which is in my apartment and not outside.

Sometimes, everything about living abroad seems fun and exciting. Other times, I can’t help but wonder what series of poor decisions led me to this moment. Sleeping in the rain was definitely the result of poor decisions.

In this particular situation, everything stemmed from not learning to speak Korean. I only know about 20 words of Korean. I don’t even know the 20 most useful words of Korean. (Did you know that “nabi” (나비) is Korean for butterfly?) This means that in Korea, I’m really only half an adult. On a day to day basis, I’m fine but when something big happens, I need a real, full-fledged, Korean speaking adult.

Anyway, about two weeks ago, my air conditioner stopped working. At first, I thought it was because the batteries died in the remote control. I replaced the batteries but the unit still wouldn’t work. I pressed every combination of buttons and nothing but hot air would come out of the unit. I looked up an English manual for my a/c and it didn’t help. So, I turned to my designated real, full-fledged, Korean speaking adult aka my boss.

I went to school and told my boss my a/c wouldn’t work. I even brought him my unit’s remote to show it was on the correct setting. He didn’t say anything but I knew he’d assume since I can’t read Korean, I’m too dumb to operate an on/off switch. I was correct. He sent my co-worker over to my apartment to check and see if the unit was really broken or if I just didn’t know how to turn it on.

My poor co-worker had to come to my hot apartment and play with my a/c. She declared it broken and called the landlord. The landlord decided that two people, or 1.5 adults, weren’t competent to decide the unit was broken. She sent the building manager over to check out the situation.

The building manager came and played with the unit. He then declared it broken and called an a/c technician. It turns out that in Korea, technicians won’t come on a weekend so I had to wait.

Well, the tech came and verified that the unit was indeed broken. Unfortunately, the issue was the outside intake unit and it was raining heavily outside. So, he had to come back later in the day. That evening, he realized he needed a new part and it would take a few days to come in. Eventually it came and I got my a/c fixed but it was a long two weeks.

During this time, my apartment was hot and humid like a swamp. I slept with the windows open and that led to Sunday’s issue. It started to monsoon outside and the wind drove the rain into my bedroom. Hence, I got rained on while sleeping.

If I spoke Korean, this issue wouldn’t have been entirely avoided. My a/c unit didn’t break because I don’t speak Korean. The time frame, however, would have been shortened. My boss wouldn’t have felt the need to have someone check the unit was actually broken. Also, I could have spoken with the landlord myself, instead of having to wait for someone else to do it. I also could have, possibly, gotten a technician to come faster.

I’d like to say that this motivated me to learn Korean but it hasn’t. I’ll continue to be half an adult in Korea. But, at least I’ll be half an adult with working a/c and a dry bedroom. 

This A/C unit caused me a lot of problems!