BET, that's me

I know my eyes are big. I get it.

But in a year among the slanty-eyed populous of South Korea, I'm not simply aware of the fact, but painfully conscious of it. Really, I wouldn't make such a big deal of it if they didn't make such a fuss.

It would probably have been better if I'd never learned the Korean word for "eye," (which, by the way, is "noon"). Then I wouldn't know when the fruit vendor ladies cackle about them to their fellow fruit vendor lady friends. I'd be blissfully unaware when small children gasp and cry loudly to their mothers, "Look at her eyes!"

The Koreans who speak English are unabashed about pointing out my more unusual of physical features to me -- as if I weren't aware. "Wow," they say, widening their own almond-shaped eyes. "You have really big eyes."

Perhaps I'm supposed to respond, "Oh? I hadn't noticed."

Those who don't speak English pantomime their way through it, and my students are constantly stretching their eyelids with their fingers in attempt to recreate my look.

Most of it is delivered in a nice enough way, so I take it in stride. I smile and giggle, but there are days when the smile is stretched a little tight. Sometimes their candor puzzles me. I would never think to point out someone's big, bulbous nose or thin bird lips.

Some say they feel it's okay because they think the eyes are beautiful. "Pretty girl, big eyes," a cab driver blurted out just today. Last week, I met a monk who told me I could take in the whole world with my eyes, and then she gave me (and no one else in my group) a present. My first day teaching, one class nicknamed me BET -- Big-Eyed Teacher -- a name that stuck until I left ECC 53 weeks later.

But there are certainly others that find the orbs large to the point of freakishness. Take, for example, that bitchy teenager in my Toeic class who physically recoils when I (and my eyes) get too close -- say, within two or three feet of her. So, behaving like the morally superior and more mature teacher that I am, I open them as wide as they'll go and lean in toward her, just to freak her out. And I console myself with the fact that her face looks as though it's been smashed in a plate. Hey, I'm not proud of it, but it is what it is.

Outside the confines of my apartment, I'm constantly "eye aware." Walking around town or on public transportation -- where I spend 10 minutes to two hours every day -- I alternate between keeping my eyes downcast or half-masted so they look smaller or opening them to their regular wide-eyedness and meeting stares defiantly. My eyeliner has gotten thicker as I've discovered this, too, will help eyes look smaller.

It feels very indulgent to have written an entire blog about my eyes. There are certainly larger issues other there. But in the end, know that I wouldn't change them. They're a conversation topic here in Asia, if nothing else.