Korean Sign Language I

This was so long ago, I can't even remember the specifics, but I think one time I mentioned to Nik that I wanted to check out the Seoul deaf school (located near KoRoot) and he mentioned it to Pastor Kim, the director of KoRoot, an adoptee guest house in Seoul.  The director goes to a church (same church as Sarang) with a deaf Pastor and said he could introduce me.  But, things got busy and honestly, because it was a meeting through church and I'm not Christian, I felt a bit uncomfortable about it, so I just kept putting it off.
But, Nik mentioned it again last week and since my trip is coming to an end, I decided hey why not.  I knew if I didn't do it, I would regret it, so I made an appointment to meet Pastor Kim (KoRoot director) at his church last Sunday.

I was introduced to Pastor Son, who is deaf and leads services for deaf and hearing congregants.  He was really really nice and knew a bit of American Sign Language (ASL).  (*Every country has its own sign language, so Korean sign lang. and American sign lang. are completely different)  My ASL is super rusty because I haven't actually formally studied it since high school and haven't signed in over a year, since doing my observation at the Wisconsin School for the Deaf during college.  However, it slowly started to come back throughout the day.

His wife, who is an interpreter asked me if I would prefer to have the service translated into spoken Korean or ASL. Since my Korean still isn't super great, I said ASL, as my ASL comprehension far surpasses my Korean comprehension.  She seemed to think this was really funny, but said she would find me someone who knew ASL.  There were two women, one who had studied in the States for 4 months, and another who had traveled around South East Asia and picked it up from other travelers she had met.  That is crazy cool, if you ask me!

Anyhow, the woman Hyejung, who had studied in the States was in the choir, so the other woman, Joo, sat next to me and interpreted the sermon/service from KSL to ASL.  Actually, it was really cool.  So, the pastor's wife was interpreting it into spoken Korean, and the text for the hymns and passages was projected onto a screen, and someone had lent me an Korean/English bible, so I could read the certain passages that were being addressed in English.  Plus, I could watch the pastor signing in KSL and get a more condensed version in ASL.  So, I would hear what was being said and perhaps get the gist or it or at least the theme or concept from various words etc. that I recognized, and then maybe read it in Korea and piece it together some more, and then, Joo would tell me in ASL.  In Korean you would describe that situation as 복잡해 or congested/busy. haha.

Anyhow, the service was a very interesting experience.  On top of it being carried out in multiple languages and means of communication (text, auditory, visual), they were discussing some passage about Peter and some visitors.  Early in the service, Joo had asked me if I was Christian and I said I was Jewish.  She didn't know the ASL sign for Jewish, so I finger spelled it.  But she didn't know that word in English, so I wrote it in Korea and she got it.  Whew.
Anyhow, this whole passage was about how g-d sends down a sheet filled with unkosher animals and tells Peter to go kill and eat.  And he protests because he says they're unclean. So, during the sermon I got a lot of questions from Joo about what Jews do and don't do. haha.

So, of course, right when the Pastor starts his actual sermon, all of a sudden I had to go the bathroom.  Arg... I felt like it would have been rude to get up and leave, so I held it.  I figured it wouldn't go too long.  Well, it did, and then we had to stand up! ah! And then, when I was about to burst, they called up new people, which included me. I had to go up in front of everyone and introduce myself.  That is stressful in it of itself, plus I really needed to go the bathroom, plus, I wasn't sure what language to introduce myself in.  I asked when I got up there, and the pastor said I should do it in ASL, but the pastors wife, didn't really know ASL, so she couldn't figure out my name. So I said it out loud like three times, but for some reasons, she misunderstood me and said my name was LeeAnn. So not my name. lol!  Anyhow, after that, they called up all the people with June birthdays. After we sang happy birthday, I booked it out of there and found the bathroom. ^^

After the service, everyone went to lunch together at a neighboring restaurant.  I sat with the KoRoot director, Pastor Son and his wife, and Joo.  The pastors wife interpreted from KSL to Korean.  Joo interpreted from KSL to ASL and Pastor Kim (KoRoot) interpreted from Korean to English.  Whoa.
I primarily talked with Joo because she was closest to my age and is a really interesting, well traveled person.  At lunch, Pastor Son, who is the past president of the Seoul Deaf Association and an alumni of the Seoul National School for the Deaf said he would take me and Pastor Kim on a tour of the school that coming Thursday.  (We went on Thursday and the school was really nice!) 

Nik was actually supposed to join us for lunch because he had something to give me, but had difficulties on the purple line because its confusing and splits... He ended up going the wrong direction, so he was a bit late.  After lunch, I talked with Pastor Kim a bit and then went back to the church.  When I got back, there were a few people who had memorized passages from the bible and we reciting them from memory.  Wow, I am terrible at memorization!
Nik came, I brought him up and he caught the last five minutes of the service.   

Afterward, some of the congregants hung around including Joo and Hyejung and we sat there and chatted for a good hour and a half.  A lot of the people I met seemed to know a little bit of ASL, so we could kind of communicate and if someone got stuck, we would ask Joo or Hyejung to translate.  It was a very cool experience, linguistically and otherwise speaking, and I met a bunch of really nice people! Joo invited me to go see a movie with them this Saturday, so I shall report back on how that goes.  Good night!