Ask Oprah

My co-workers have become very comfortable with me, almost, maybe TOO comfortable. Now that they realize I'm very open about things, they ask me all kinds of crazy stuff! It used to make me a bit sad that the only time they would speak English to me was to ask questions about grammar or pronunciation, but these days they've opened up many other cans of worms.



Oprah airs here in the mornings and repeats again after midnight. I like watching it, and Elizabeth's started watching it as well on my recommendation. Some days, the tapes up a piece of paper to cover the subtitles, and tries to follow the whole thing on her own as a means of studying English. Often at some point or another, we end up talking about what happened the previous day on the show.

"Jenny, if dere are two resbeeans, how do dey make rove?"

"Uhhhhh, what?" I heard her, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't mistaken, and buy a little time on how to answer that question. She repeated, and I stood there looking at her, smirking, and trying to come up with something to tell her.

"Viblatoh?" she asked.

"Ohhh jeeze, Liz!" I said, "I don't know, maybe they use that, maybe they use other things!"

"Like what?" she asked. She looked all puzzled. Maybe she was praying I wasn't going to start listing household objects.

"Ummmm, fingers?"

(Lightbulb.) "Ohhhhh!"

These subjects, I think, are fairly taboo in Korea. Elizabeth told me she can't believe how many times they said the word "vagina" on one episode of Oprah. I said "well, what do you call it in Korea?"

"On television, nothing!" It's just not talked about, which I guess is fair enough! Meanwhile, my co-workers are learning things with Ms. Winfrey every day, and I, in turn, am learning things about them!