The imminent Ugly Christmas Sweater Party put me out on the streets of Daegu searching for the perfect holiday sweater. While the first day of looking was a 2 hour bust, the second day I had some luck.
The thrift stores here are run by Ajummas. For those of you who don't know....
Ajumma is a Korean word meaning "aunt" literally, however, it is used for calling name of "married woman," which is generally only used to refer to women who are middle-aged or older, and working-class. (The Korean word samo'nim describes a married woman of high social status.) The Lonely Planet guide to Seoul describes ajumma as a term of respect, but most other sources say it is mildly pejorative. An ajumma is often a restaurant worker, street vendor, or housewife.
Ajumma has connotations of pushiness, with ajumma described as hard-working and aggressive people who "push and shove their way through a crowd to find a seat in the bus or subway, "grab you by the arm and try to get you to eat at their place," or "push" friends and relatives to buy insurance.
Ajumma has connotations of unfashionableness, with ajumma described as wearing baggy pants, mismatched clothing and little makeup, being "pudgy," having unfashionably short hair in an "ajumma perm,"and "wearing rubber shoes."
(According to Wikipedia.. :)
These small stores were run by Ajummas, and since Ajummas rule Korea, this is a problem for foreigners. I found so many sweaters that I was interested in, but when I would ask how much, "μΌλ§μμ?" (eol-ma-ye-yo). They would tell me 15,000 won, 20,000 won, or even 25,000. Here in Korea, you can get a new sweater for 10,000. And in a few of the stores the sweaters were marked 3,000 won. So, it was obvious that they were ripping us off. When I would look displease with the price, they would always point at the sweater and tell me that it was hand stitched...
After finding my awesome Christmas sweater and getting the Ajumma down to 8,000 won, I learned that Ben was possibly coming to the party and would need a sweater. I popped into a few stores before heading home and found my awesome find:
An extremely awesome hand-stitched sweater with not one, but TWO dinosaurs.
And, I got this sweater for 8,000. At first I thought it was a unicorn and a dinosaur, which would have been awesome, but then I realized it is two dinosaurs, and continued to love it! I still don't know what the future has for this sweater, but as of right now it lives with me.
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