I Really Need To Learn Some Korean

I had to make a trip to the hospital today to get a check up. My employer requires it and I'd neglected to get one before leaving home, so I had to get that done here. Walking in there with naught but a short note quickly written by one of my co-teachers before I'd left the school to explain my presence was a bit daunting, and a reminder of how piss poor my Hangul is.

I walked in, handed my note to a receptionist who directed me toward another office. I arrived, handed the same note to a new receptionist, and things went downhill from there.

Receptionist Girl: Anyeonghasayo, derka derka derkayo, derkayo mashayo, imnica?

Wayne: Uh, what?

RG: Ill ashayo mushidoya?

W: Der....

RG: (wildly flailing her arms about now) Ill ashay mushidoya?!?

Me: Hanguk-mal upsayo... (Translation: "The Korean, it does not exist")

RG: Hangul hasayo? ("Can you do Korean?")

Me: Aneyo. Young-uh. ("No. English.")

RG: Ok. Deep sigh. ("Fine. This is gonna be rough. Yet another witless waygookin who's too lazy to learn some simple conversational Hangul has arrived to wreak havoc on my day. I shall make grand motions with my hands and guide him around as if he were a child, and whenever he's not looking directly at me I shall make some sort of comment to my chica co-workers about how hairy his arms are or something, and giggle.")

I finally figuired out that she was asking for my alien card and once I produced that things went a little more smoothly. I was measured and assessed with all of the usual medical instruments. I was taken to an ear nose and throat guy who poked around ye olde cranium and then said something like "very good!" I guess I've got a good head on my shoulders. Another doctor asked me if "you been skin disease?" to which I answered no. I had my blood drawn and my chest was X-rayed.

I also had to give an urine sample. The orderly in this room spoke the best English, or at least she was the most confident in speaking it. She handed me a small paper cup and told me to "fill to here" a little black line halfway up the side. I went across the hall to the public bathroom, found an empty stall (fortunately) and proceeded to do my business.

Before I began I was a little worried b/c I didn't really feel like I had to go, but as my piss was quickly filling up the cup and nearly overflowing the rim it occured to me that I was going to have to act, and act fast. I jerked the cup away a bit too quickly and splashed some urine on my hands, but what was of more concern at the moment was the fact that I was spraying piss all over the toilet like it was a Jackson Pollack painting. I finally steadied myself and finished in the water, cleaned up, and crossed back to the nurses' room to deposit my urine. With that, my humiliating Korean hospital experience was ended.