It’s now been 20 years since I studied Russian in college. And unlike some other things I’ve studied, I’ve not made much use of it. At the time, I was quite good at it. I completed a year of college Russian and got one of the highest grades on the end-of-year final that the department had recorded for a first year student — high enough that I remember being contacted by a CIA recruiter (remember that 20 years ago, the cold war had not yet ended). I was flattered but uninterested at the time. Imagine if I’d pursued that? How different would my life have been?
Anyway, I was with Basil today, we went to a bookstore and then we went out for Russian food at a restaurant in the Russian neighborhead near 동대문 (dongdaemun). After having some pretty good borscht and kebabs, we went into a tiny Russian cafe (picture at right) where we drank some kefir and I bought a loaf of dark Russian bread. And then in a Russian supermarket I bought some Russian chocolate (for the novelty, of course).
I was stunned to realize that I was interacting with the Korean-Russian lady behind the counter in Korean, much more comfortably than if I’d been forced to use Russian. And it felt like a weird sort of linguistic milestone, to be in Seoul’s Russiatown interacting in Korean… it means Korean has passed Russian in terms of my linguistc comfort and competence. That’s not really saying a lot, of course. The Russian is very very rusty. But it felt good, in a very weird way.
The title says шоколад, хлеб и борщ в Сеуле (“chocolate, bread and borscht in Seoul”). I ate the borsht in the restaurant, but here below is a pic of the bread and chocolate I brought home with me.
