always an ordeal

I sent a box of seven tee shirts off to France today. It's always an ordeal to send anything internationally, especially if the language of the destination country isn't English. Every time I go to the post office now, I've learned to first type up all of the information needed for the staffer to key in, then I print it out so that the staffer gets a neat copy instead of having to decipher my chicken-scratch penmanship written on the package—information like the recipient's address, phone number, and email. I also present my own ID so that the staffer has a neatly printed copy of my personal information. The one thing I always forget to print out, though, is my own email address, which I always end up having to spell out letter by letter. I should really include all of my own information on the same printed sheet where I type out the recipient's information.

Even with the aid of a neatly printed sheet, today's staffer managed to make two typographical errors on her first-draft shipping label: She misspelled Kevin as "Kebin" (typical in Korea, where there is no "v"), and she typed "le" instead of "la" as part of my French brother's email address. When I found the errors, she gave up her seat to a male staffer, who dutifully corrected the errors. I guess the female staffer had had enough of French by that point.

In fairness, Western names are often long (my real surname, which is German, is ten letters long; Dominique's email address before the "@gmail.com" part is 17 letters long), and writing syllables out as a string of letters, all in a row, makes the name seem even longer. From a Korean perspective, in a country where names are typically no more than three syllables long (there are exceptions), Western names are a lot to take in. Koreans use an alphabet, too, but they also write their words in syllabic clusters of roughly two to six letters each (depending on what counts as a letter). And also in fairness, if I were an American postal clerk who suddenly had to enter data in hangeul for a package being sent from the States to Korea, I'd have trouble with spelling, too, especially if I had no familiarity with hangeul. So I try to cut the staffers some slack: They're being asked to do data entry in a foreign language. It's not just a matter of incompetence.

But whatever. The deed is done; the package is being sent. Spring's shipments included only seven of the eight tees I had ordered; along with the eighth tee, I'm also still waiting to receive a mug and a glass—gifts for three other people. If they don't arrive this week, I'll box up and send a tee, mug, and glass that I have here at my place. One way or another, this will get done. I might no longer be attending Augustin's wedding, but I can at least get gifts to his family in time... as low-quality as those gifts might be.