It’s said that when you dream in a language, you’ve “learned” it. So, what does it mean when you dream in a language, wake up and immediately type the phrase into Google Translate, just to make sure you understood correctly? That’s sort of what happened this morning.
I dreamed I was talking to a child on a bus. This is rooted in reality, because when I went to Gwangju on Friday, I’d met two of my Hongnong students: two sisters in 6th and 4th grade – the younger is the girl I call “Miss Sardonica” (in my mind) because of her strange, sardonic-looking grin. But they’re good kids. I let them play games on my cell phone during the trip, because they looked bored. It’s a notable, interesting difference between Korea and the US, that it’s utterly common to run into elementary-age children traveling alone on intercity buses here, for example.
Anyway, the dream: the child in the dream wasn’t one of these two girls, but some random child – well, not completely random, he looked like one of the first-graders: a certain extremely mischievous, bright-eyed boy named Ji-hun. And he seemed a little bit lost. There was a woman giving the child a hard time, but I didn’t understand what she was saying. Asking him questions to which he evidently couldn’t offer satisfactory answers. Not his mom – she was like a bus-company employee, the kind that get on the bus to check your ticket sometimes. But then the child turned to me and asked, “돈 있죠?” (don it-jyo), and then I woke up. It wasn’t a very complicated dream. Just a dream fragment, really. But it felt significant, because it had ended with a seemingly contextless question, spoken in Korean, that I felt I’d understood. It felt like a triumphant moment.
I had fallen asleep with the air conditioner on, which normally I avoid because it gives me a sore throat (not to mention it seems an unnatural and expensive way to sleep), so my little apartment was chilly. I looked out the window, and the sun was bright. Sky was blue.
I looked at my cell phone, to see what time it was, but it was turned off. Maybe some spam-text-message had inspired me to turn it off, the night before. Sometimes, I wake up and have no idea what time it is, I will try to guess. I looked out the window, noted the angle of sun’s shadows down on the gas station in front of my apartment building, noted the shade of blue of the sky, and said to myself, “hmm, 7:00… no, 6:50.” A little game I play with myself, right? I turned on my computer, and the clock read 6:53. I felt impressed with myself, at that moment.
But suddenly I felt very insecure about whether I’d understood the Korean from the end of the dream. So I opened up google translate and typed in the phrase, “돈 있죠?”
“Got money?” the google-monster muttered back at me, textually.
Yes, I’d understood. But now it struck me: what the hell did it mean? I mean, in the dream-interpretation sense… Why was this kid asking me if I had money?
I made some instant coffee and had toast for breakfast. Good morning.