Another New Student

This time the connection was a classmate's friend's cousin. I swear it is remarkable how these people just fall into your lap.

Wednesday I began tutoring my student, ShiHak. He is a ten year old boy who goes to the Korean International School. KIS is more expensive than college, and it's a place where Korean kids with rich parents can go to a Western school and remain in Korea. I thought I would be tutoring the boy in English, but it turns out that his English is as good as any 10 year old kid in America. Convenient. I am, in fact, tutoring my first ever history pupil. We move through his text books talking about world and American history. Over his break from school, the mother wants me to go down there every day for an hour and a half. That means every single day I am given $60.

These students keep getting richer and richer. ShiHak lives in Tower Palace, the most prestigious apartment complex in all of Korea. A cluster of buildings A-G, Tower Palace consists of 50-some story buildings with wacko security and awesome views. When I enter the building, I have call the clerk on a designated telephone to get out of the first lobby and into the second lobby, where I sign in and trade my Alien Registration Card for an elevator pass card. I then have to find the lone elevator with access to the highest floors, use my pass card to activate the buttons, and ride straight up at a blistering speed for 44 floors. (They really should make the elevator stop half way down and let you acclimate to the change in pressure and elevation. My eyes are killing me after the ride is over.) Then I walk to ShiHak's apartment, one of six on the whole floor, and have to find the doorbell on the keycode-fingerprint entry system. I here the bolts withdraw as they let me into their immense apartment, and my secret-agent-like journey is over.

The beauty of tutoring this kid is his ADHD. I've never seen anyone with such a short attention span, and my brother was a maniac child. ShiHak and I will be talking about Catholic Church reformation movement, and then all the sudden he'll come out with a question like "If reincarnation is real, and you're supposed to live a better life than the one you lived last time, and you can't remember your previous life, then how are you supposed to improve?" This kid is a freakin' genius. More importantly, we spend much of our class time discussing his deep, philosophical questions. When it's all over, I'm served some lavish meal, handed sixty bucks, and sent back through the security system to my home.

At times I feel bad for the kid, since this is his vacation from school and he is being drowned in private tutoring. He tells me that he prefers school time to break time because his mother makes him work harder than his teachers do. He has 8 private tutors while on break, not to mention the two sports he plays. She smothers the kid, but I'm not about to complain. That's life, that's Korea, and that's my livelihood.

Downsides to this job are the commute most predominantly. It takes me an hour and fifteen minutes to get where they are. I don't mind commuting so much, but it contributes to a bigger problem: My day is butchered by this student. I always meet him at one or eleven, which means I lose the entire center of my day. I can't do anything with anyone until his break is over. She's even got me coming over to teach him on Christmas morning! And these people are Christians!! I suppose I wouldn't be doing anything better on Christmas morning, but it would be nice to sleep in care free once in a while. Regardless, the every day is temporary and I'm banking a ton of cash, so I can stick it out until the 4th, when winter camp begins!

"Sorry, I can't tonight. I'm moving a piano at 9:30"

Sound like the worst excuse I ever made up? Well it is fact, my friends. Fact.

I was at breakfast on Thursday morning. The landlady served me the usual one egg, one slice of American cheese, and two slices of toast. Then we started making pleasant conversation.
"Looks like all the snow will be gone before Christmas."
"It's nice that it's been warmer lately, though. "
This egg is really good this morning."
"Thanks, how would you like to help me move a piano?"

Suckered right in. So I go downstairs with Xavier (who wasn't invited, but decided to help anyways) on Friday night at 9:30pm. The landlady's room is in two parts. One part that is ground level and separated from the outside by a poorly insulated door, and one part that is slightly elevated and inside a well insulated door. The piano was to go from the low, cold, and moist portion of the room up into the higher, warmer, drier portion of the room. It was a standing piano, so skinnier than a door (but not by much), and it only had to go slightly more than one piano's length.

When Xavier offered to help, the landlady's son (who speaks broken English) told him that he was too thin and weak. I haven't yet heard anything so blunt and cruel and still so comical. Thank you language barrier. Xavier is just one of those spry and stringy guys. I don't know why they would reject his help and take the help of Asians, but that's how it went down.

The piano moved easily, and we were celebrated by the beaming landlady. It was all worth it just to see the look on Xavier's face when he was told "mmmm, you too thin" and of course, to get to use the world's corniest excuse on a friend. "Sorry, I can't tonight. I'm moving a piano at 9:30"

Hey everybody. How's it going.

Ah, it's good to hear it. I'm doing fine, thanks for asking.

This week is finals "week." I put week in quotations because it's a lie. I have my first paper due tomorrow morning, a paper on Tuesday, two essay tests, and the Korean final marathon. All in all it stretched into sometime in the middle of next next week. Ich.

As some of you have already heard, my contract on the job this winter fell through. There was more opposition at the embassy with getting us all work permits than the company had initially predicted, so we were essentially left high and dry. After a week of concern and fret, I applied and was accepted at a different winter camp for the same pay. This camp assures us that they deal with foreign work permits all the time, but we are no longer naive enough to get our hopes up. If it works out, then great. If it bombs, then I've already coped with the disappointment so it's no longer a big deal.

After two weeks of intense computer troubles I'm finally back online. My computer decided one day that it was going to block internet access of all the programs and websites I use in the order I use them most. By the end of it I had tried everything I knew how to do but had still watched one thing after another fade away. Gmail, Skype, MSN messenger, Yahoo mail and messenger, Blogger, Facebook, Myspace, and AIM were systematically refused access to the internet, leaving me with an expensive and cumbersome mp3 player. Thanks to the Kazakhstani down the hall and his windows boot disks and drivers, however, everything is now back in order. Good thing too, since I was on the verge of scrapping my much anticipated February trip to Japan in order to afford a new computer. Thanks Kazakhstan! You are so much more intelligent than Borat and prostitutes.

As far as Christmas, many of us lonely, family-less foreigners are preparing to gather and be sad together on the Eve. At said gathering will be decorations, gift exchange, a veritable feast, music, and no tears....no tears. It is general consensus among us that it doesn't even feel like December, much less a holiday season. The stealth with which Thanksgiving slipped by was astounding, and Christmas is but weeks away and I still don't feel anything. Is it coincidence, just maturation, merely a blossoming lack of interest in Christmas that coincides with being abroad? Maybe its that the rainy, dark, dead weather here is more reminiscent of Georgia Januaries and Februaries than of Decembers. Could it be that there isn't a family member in this hemisphere? I like to think that it's a little of all three, with a dash of way-to-busy-to-care.

Are you following closely the resumption of 6 party talks here between the Koreas? How about the fourth coup in Fiji in less than 20 years? Midterm election shakedown? I know I am. There are so many more interesting things in this world than what I'm doing here. Thanks for continuing to come and to pay attention. I'll do my best this week to keep the posts a-coming, but it is testing testing testing from here 'til Christmas. I'll throw something up about the finality of this new potential winter job as well as the new private student I meet next week. Until then, adieu.

The Most Kick-Ass Free Day of All Time

So when our Korean teacher informed the class last week of a tour for foreigners, we assumed that a)it was for foreigners, b)it was expensive, and c)every other Korean class knew about it. About five of us signed up, sacrificing the kimchi making seminar and opting for a tour focusing on ancient Korean life. All doubts were soon lain to rest; never have I had such an awesome day and spent only $8.

Though we were initially five, Amina and Zach missed the bus in the morning and had to meet us at stop two. For the first destination we were only three, Alexis, MiSun, and myself. MiSun is a half Korean, half German exchange student who's only staying until the end of the semester. We set out together on the tour bus, bound for the Folk village. On the tour bus we quickly learned that there were no other International students in Korean class like us. Though it was technically a bus of mostly foreigners, those foreigners were about 15 Chinese students. Including the 6 or so real Koreans, the common language on the bus was Korean. In short, we were taken by surprise when asked in Korean to introduce ourselves to the rest of the bus...in Korean. The bus itself was equipped with a microphone, making it more embarrassing (more on the microphone later...).




We swallowed our surprise and fear and braced for a 14 hour day in nothing but Korean. Our first stop on the bus was the folk village, a Renaissance Festival of sorts. Except not imaginary. Or hokey. The village was set up in sections, some from JoSeon and some from Shilla dynasty with a small section dedicated to the large Jeju island off the southern coast of Korea. All employees dressed as though they were from the respective time periods, and there were houses representative of each class and occupation, shows in the traditional manner of old Korea, food available only at the time, and seminars about basket weaving and the like. The complex was huge, intricate, and well thought out. The village provided pamphlets and many signs in English, so we weren't entirely in the dark. The only performance we were able to catch was the tightrope walker, but that was so cool. We tasted many traditional cookies, including one made of honey that was hardened, stretched to the thinness of hair, coated in flour, wrapped in bundles around diced nuts, and chilled. Like ancient cotton candy plus nuts. Delicious.

Oh, by the way: the facial hair has returned temporarily for several reasons. x=My razor is officially worthless, a=I haven't found the energy to buy a new razor, b=I don't want to spend the money, m=male. So, f{H}=x*[(a+b)/m]. The 'H' means hairy.

Our next stop was a bathroom break outside the gates to the president's house. Though I would have really liked to tour the Blue House (named for it's distinctive roof), I had a repeat of the National Assembly tour disappointment. We got a drive by look at the building through some trees.




The real stop was the nearby GyeongBok Palace, the seat of the JoSeon dynasty. This place was so massive that it was impossible not to get lost. The complex consists of 330 buildings, making it the largest of the Five Grand Palaces constructed during the JoSeon era. It was originally built in the late 1300's only to be tore down by Japanese invasion in 1592. After years of neglect, a later JoSeon king returned the palace to it's former glory. Of course, Korea had to watch it be destroyed again in 1910 during the beginning of Japanese colonization. Since the Japanese took no pictures of the palace before they tore it down, scholars have struggled to recreate the all but ten buildings that were left standing in the 50's. The palace may never be restored perfectly, but there are many things about it that were interesting all the same. One of the most impressive things was the royal throne room, the ceiling of which had to have been at least four stories above the ground. On the roof of every building are dragon head statues for protection~every building, that is, except the sleeping chambers of the king and queen, since the king was considered the dragon incarnate. Another interesting building + legend was the Foreign Emissary Entertainment Complex. Lifted up on 16 pillars and in the middle of a lotus flower lake, the building was designated expressly for partying with diplomats. Legend has it that one year, when the lake was drained for cleaning, a statue was discovered at the bottom. After having removed the statue, the kingdom suffered disasters and hardships. After replacing the original with a replica, the disasters subsided.

In the back of the Palace complex, the city has placed the Korean Folk Museum, more of a series of replicas and recreations than an actual museum but still very educational. My personal favorite was the Plow Distribution Chart, which showed different styles of plow and the region of Korea in which it was employed. The museum also had several miniatures of Korean cities, pottery techniques, traditional festivals, and palaces. There were also several small artifacts and paintings, but nothing as impressive as the National Central Museum two days before.




After leaving the palace behind, we went for a traditional meal in InSaDong, the historical district of the city. Naturally, like the lunch that I forgot to mention and the tickets to these locations and the whole bus ride, the meal was free. We left InSaDong and headed for our final destination; the Traditional Art Performance. Sadly there was no photography of any kind allowed in the theatre, but we were able to take pictures of ourselves in ancient Korean garb while waiting for the show. I am a king, Alexis is a queen, and MiSun has on a wedding HanBok. The show started off with a performance by the folk musicians, a sound unlike anything I'd ever heard before. It was more akin to 12 tone Schoenberg modern music than to the sound in Europe during the same time. After that, a woman came out and sang a story (difficult if you don't speak fluent Korean), but the next act made up for everything. Seven women, each with three drums, were positioned on stage. One drum was behind them and the other two were on their left and right, all three tambourine sized and chest level. These women proceeded to bust out this incredible choreographed dance/drum concert for the next ten minutes. How they remembered every complex pattern and move over that long song is beyond me, but not one mistake was made and all seven of them smiled the entire time. These chicks were so awesome. Watch this substitute video I found on youtube:




After them, five guys came out and one-upped the whole thing. Each guy had a percussion instrument and a long ribbon on his hat. These men ribbon danced with their head, played complicated rhythms, and did spinning acrobatic dances all at the same time.




And as for the mysterious microphone on the bus, it just so happened that we were on a karaoke bus. Where there should have been a rear-view mirror there was a flat screen TV, the lights would turn off and rainbow lights would come on, and the microphone would go from normal to echo mode. We sang karaoke on the way back to the school! For free!! How cool was this day!!! I saw and learned so much, and all I paid for was a souvenir piece of calligraphy and the chance to wear the outfit before the folk performance. How did we get so lucky?? I'm still trying to figure it out, but it was hands down the coolest day I've ever spent paying for absolutely nothing!

국립중앙박물관 ~ The National Central Museum

Recently I came into the knowledge that myself and a friend from my Korean language class have all day Thursday off until four o'clock. As part of our recent resolution to stop wasting that day sleeping in, Alexis and I spent last Thursday in the National Central Museum. Currently they are hosting the Louvre, but as we were more interested in Korea (and the Louvre exhibit cost extra dough) you will not see pictures of French paintings.

The Museum featured six wings, only three of which we had time to catch. One wing we skipped was the foreign donation wing, though that is the host to a famous Greek helmet, won by a Korean marathon runner in the early 19th century. We did get to see lots of history, including clothes, paintings, statues, ceramics, incense burners, jewelry, furniture, and those nifty folding screen divider things, all dating back to various of three major dynasties in Korean history over the mast few thousand years.

Thankfully, Alexis brought her Korean boyfriend. With his help we learned a lot about the history in the paintings, Buddhist statues and the meanings behind hand gestures, royalty, history of the language and calligraphy, and specific uses for some of the more strange looking artifacts. Thanks to MinCheol we learned much more than just the art can teach you.

The Buddhist statues were probably the coolest part of the Museum. They were displayed from as small as three inches high to as large as eight feet. Made of gold or stone, they were in various poses and from various dynasties. The change in style of depiction was evident as we passed through the exhibit. We learned the six most common Buddhist statue hand signals and their meanings. There was even a chart showing the variations between Japanese, Chinese, and Korean representations of Buddha.

The comical part of the museum (you didn't think I walked out of there without one cynical thing to say, did you?) were the "National Treasures." When I went South I thought it was kind of cool that every temple or monument I bought a ticket for was labeled with it's National Treasure number. Only after going to the Museum did I discover that Korea has over 1,400 so-called National Treasures. They just dole 'em out, man. Buildings and pots, statues and crowns...they even named to National Treasurdom (my favorite) this group of old women. Something about their genes? I couldn't understand. It's as if anything that was maintained half decent got to be a treasure, immensely devaluing the whole point of the thing. At least now the government can brag to Japan about how many treasures they have.

3 Month Anniversary

Well, it's come and gone so quickly so far. Three months since the big flight o'er the sea. There are things that I miss, and things that I'm tired of. Let's take this quarter bench-mark moment and reflect, shall we?
Things Having Been Pined For:

1. Stories: After two months living with foreigners you sort of give up talking as a means of entertainment and strip it down to the bare essentials: communication. Even after being here near the international community, the best I get is effortless communication. I'm not really in a "story telling crowd." It's gotten so bad that I'd forgotten I used to tell stories will all of my social time. My mind has changed to the point where my experiences aren't automatically sorted into story-worthy and garbage. I've not only lost the habit of story telling but lost the mindset of a story teller. I'll be glad to be back in that environment.
2. Cheese: We just don't have it. Sure, I can go to the largest supermarket in Korea and pick up so pricy ass cheese from the foreign section, but effectively gone are the days of bread and Brie, cheese and crackers, Mac & cheese, cordon bleu, four cheese ravioli, nachos, grilled cheese, cheeseburgers, and cheese fries. It's almost torturous that Koreans have chosen one cheese for their diet: American. Of all the cheeses in the world, American cheese is aplenty. Just my luck.
3. Shoes: Not just shoes either, but pants and sleeves. Nothing here is me-sized. Nothing. So it comes down to my shoes falling apart and no store in Korea with accommodating pedestrian equipper on this continent. Not to mention the high water, 3/4 sleeve problem is ridiculous here. What I came with is what I've got.
4. Dryers. I haven't seen a dryer since I got here. Clothes just don't feel the same air drying.
   

Things Having Been Spurned

1. The Question Set: I know we do it, but it's become so painfully obvious what the American stereotypes here are just by the questions every Korean asks you. "It's not too spicy for you??" every time you eat the heat equivalent of gumbo. "What do you think of Korean girls??" Alright, alright already. Will you just let that one die! Not every white guy is here to find a geisha. "Why would you even be interested in Korea?" Aside from the political hot spot this place is, what about the economic miracle and investment possibility this place poses? No, I'm not in the Army. No, I don't have Korean family.
2. "Couples": The whole couple phenomenon just gets old. Youth culture here is geared around the couple. Meals come in "couple sets," every month has a couple holiday, shoes and shirts come in his and hers pairs, the streets are jammed with waltzing, arm in arm lovers. It's fun to be in a relationship, but the suffocating, mushy, predominant dating culture is too much for even the western girls to handle.
   
3. KimChi: If I never eat KimChi again it'll be too soon. And by too soon I mean three times tomorrow. The "national dish" of fermented cabbage marinated in spice is served at every meal. Yeah, it's cool that now I can tell the difference between different qualities of KimChi, but after three months of cabbage morning, noon, and night I could never eat it again and be satisfied.
4. English: Not the real language, the imitation. Everywhere you look there's poorly translated, misspelled English. Often it makes zero sense. Sounds like it could be funny forever, right? Actually the term limit on that is more like three months. After that, it just gets dull. You can predict the errors, translate the nonsensical adages and quips, even catch yourself making similar errors in your speech. Often I just wish that they would stop trying. In fact, it is not possible to find a shirt with and Korean text on it. I've been here three months and I have to say that they just don't exist. Sad for a tourist, I know. Just another example of how this country is cultural-export-reluctant combined with western obsessed.

It could be worse. Other than these few whims and irritants life here is still awesome. The droll school year is winding down to winter break, when I'll get my snow and some much needed relaxation. I have given up trying to expect where my mindset will settle in the next three months. It's futile. There is no rhyme or reason to how something like this changes a person. You just find yourself standing outside an operation room peering through glass as your old personality gets a full blood transfusion, new kidneys, a pacemaker, bone marrow transplant, and facial reconstructive surgery.

Menu Update

How have I been missing this for all these months! More than three months in Korea now and I have never seen this food! (You think you're really getting to know a place, especially getting to know the menu, but still you find surprises that you've overlooked somehow or were unexpected. I anticipate this sort of mini-shock to occur for the next several months as I discover all the little pieces that I missed while overwhelmed with everything else.)



It looks like watermelon Kool-Ade, but I can assure you it's not. I knew from the start it would not be Kool-Ade, but the mind is a difficult thing to convince. Even though there was a piece of radish floating in it, I still could not get out of my head that anything bright pink must also be sweet and fruity. Of course it was not fruity, and my inane expectations of it made that even harder to swallow. When I spooned it into my mouth I was shocked and not shocked at the same time (weird feeling, trust me) to find the flavor a sort of vinegar sour but not pucker your face strong. Will someone find a word for that? Sour like vinegar but not strong enough to cause facial reaction. If you can't find one, coin one. I am as I was at the time at a loss for words. How can I expect a flavor of something that is both deceivingly colored and indescribable in my own language. Since my first encounter with the pink vinegar I have seen it twice. The Koreans describe this "Ade" as a side dish, as though it were solid and had health benefits. I'm glad I photographed it when I saw it first, because sometimes it's not so violently pink and that would have ruined the image for you, loyal reader.

First Snow

Though it was a little premature, we had flurries last week after an unseasonally cold, rainy, and miserable day. Finally, all the arm in arm Korean girls who just drag there feet down the side walk were running for cover. Dream come true. OUTTA MY WAY!

Fall is nice. Cool, sunny, and the leaves are vibrant. So vibrant, in fact, that it's all these people talk about. I thought it odd when we learned the word for what's best translated as "autumnal tints," or "the color that the leaves change during the fall months." But the amount of times I've heard about how beautiful the DanPung are this year makes me sick. I'll never forget that damn word as long as live. Here are some Seoul Fall shots. Enjoy.

The Deeper Hole I Dig

It seems no matter how hard you try, no matter how many times you swear up, even if you resort to swearing down, the thing you avoid latches on to you. You become more and more indebted to this thing until it controls your life, affords the very air you breathe and floor (quite literally) you sleep on.

I'm speaking again, of course, of how my life has taken not just a turn but a plunge into teaching. I am now currently the jovial proctor of an unsuspecting four students ages six to forty-three. Ever the glutton for punishment, it would seem that one private student and five weeks of 8 hour per day teaching wasn't enough for me. No, I am now teaching a mother and her two children as well. In a way it's good practice for teaching the young children that I'll be handling in January, something I have very little experience with. While I do need the money of added tutoring, this job did not come without extraordinary pressure.

When I first met my new students, it was a week ago Sunday. I went to their home in ApGuJeong (the wealthy portion of the city) and was greeted warmly. Unfortunately, it didn't take me long to realize that none of my three new students were fluent enough for my previous teaching style. The children, 6 and 8, barely knew any English. They new a little grammar and a few words and greetings, but that was all. Their mother, on the other hand, has zero grasp of grammar but knows more vocabulary. In all three cases, it is not an option to teach these people English in English. Some of you by now have already realized that indeed that means I am teaching English in Korean. I, incapable of buying hangers and towels, am teaching in Korean. Needless to say, I was outrageously concerned about the weight of this job.

After meeting and determining schedule I came back that Tuesday (Halloween) for my first session. Every session is three hours long. I have not spoken three hours of consecutive Korean since I stepped off that plane on August 13th, or in my life for that matter. I have never had to think outside English non-stop for more that two hours, and that's in Korean class, mostly reading and listening and little individual production. Teaching means that I do the majority of the production, and unlike a need for bed spread this is not something that I can blunder my way through with out consequences. I am being paid good money for every session so that this woman and her kids learn English. The pressure was enormous.

On assuredly the most terrifying Halloween of my lifetime, I rose to the sixth floor of their apartment, new textbook in tow for the mother, heart pounding.

Each student poses unique challenges and benefits to me. The 8 year-old, their daughter, has had one more year of English than her younger brother. She can read children's books and recognize 85% of the words and is a calm child. She'll sit and focus on what we're working on, but she is shier than a nun in the red light district. Her English voice is mousy at boldest, and she refuses to tell me if she doesn't understand a sentence or a word without my badgering it out of her. Her brother is the exact opposite. Though he's studied less, he's thrilled to shout what English he does know. He's receptive to knew words and phrases, but not to correction. He lacks all focus and discipline. When I first walked in the house, he was jumping about at my legs, and as I spoke to the parents about scheduling he was busy scaling walls or vaulting the ten thousand dollar sofas. The mother is very dedicated to learning. She is not in school, doesn't have a job, and has no defined reason to learn English other than sheer interest. Because she's driven by desire to learn she's a very hard worker. Unfortunately, it's going to be much harder for her than for the children to pick up a second language. I can tell already that she's frustrated with the grammar, but she's willing to accept that frustration. She's also really interested in the speaking and idioms that we talk about, the interesting part, the living English. Not slang, per se, but odd uses of verbs like to "hang up" a phone or to "take" a test.

All in all I guess I'm happy with what I've got. They are at the very least the most challenging Korean experience thus far, pushing me to use what I didn't think I even had. After the first day I was relieved to realize that the parents were happy with the job I was doing and the children were enamored already. The first meeting, the "test," was over, and now they too will become part of my routine. At the end of our session on Tuesday night, the children came up to me and gave me a piece of candy each, proclaiming proudly "Happy Halloween!" A little backwards, to be sure.

Baby's First Contractual Agreement

Well, I have a job and a work permit in Korea. Hooray!

I signed my first contract yesterday to teach at Camp Eng-Land for five weeks in January. I'll be one of 20 English speakers, 4 of whom I know from Yonsei, living, eating, and working at the biggest English camp in Korea. Basically there are five one week sessions during the school break where the rich Korean parents send there elementary and middle schoolers to be exposed to English, learn basic phrases and songs, and be off their hands for 7 days.

I have to say I'm pretty excited now. The camp is going to be pretty sweet. Sure, it's teaching elementary school kids, but because of their age the program isn't really academic. They do role play, story time, English karaoke, skits, sports, and other fun activities that I basically lead in English. On top of that, I get the assistance of two Korean natives who basically do all the grunt work for me (round up the kids, take them to their respective classes, lunch, and activities, get 'em to shut up). The camp feeds and houses me for 5 weeks, all while paying me enough money to go chill in Japan for the rest of my break (YEAH!).

My boss is a nice guy, and best of all not Korean. The camp is, of course, run by Koreans, but they have a middle man between the teachers and themselves. His name is Fatih, a Turkish guy who speaks great English and even better Korean. He's really young (probably 25), and thankfully understands Western culture well. Turkey is practically a European country, and so he's a boss that understands us. Having worked under Koreans before, I have to say that I was leery about this job. Cultural differences are so strong that misunderstandings happen often, and the way situations are handled can be frustrating. With Fatih in between I feel much better about taking this position.

I don't have to lose my private students either. Though the camp is outside of Seoul, Camp Eng-Land provides a bus back into the city every weekend. I'll be able to bus back on Saturday, make more cash, crash at my home in ShinChon, then bus to the camp again on Sunday afternoon. It's a dream job. There was nothing dissatisfactory about the contract to any of us (we all interviewed together), and the opportunity to do something useful with or snowy January is unequaled. Go Being White!!

Xavier

Since the move into the HaSook, there has been a shift in my social life. I have been much nearer to the school, so I've had more time for friends in the international community as well as Koreans who go to Yonsei. One of the most influential friends in the past two weeks has been Xavier.

Xavier is a political science and philosophy major from Ontario, Canada. Like most Canadians, he's one of the most liberal people you'll ever meet. The Democratic party in America is more conservative than the most conservative party in Canada. Unlike most Canadians, however, he's one of the smartest people you'll ever meet. I dare say smarter that me. He speaks French, Spanish, and is now taking Korean. He knows more about international politics, economy, and relations than I dare to challenge. Most often when politics comes up (outrageously frequently. I find that Canadians don't have that same taboo about religion and politics. Only religion.) I do my best to keep the prodding and disagreeing to a minimum because I just don't have enough facts to back myself up! I'm an ignorant American, but at least not as ignorant as most. The fact that I even have the half acceptance of the internationals is relieving. Most of the Americans have clustered together, having been intimidated out of the anti-American European crowd and not speaking the languages of the Asian blocs. I take this opportunity with Xavier as a chance to learn something about global economy and Canadian politics, two things that I previously thought uninteresting or nonexistent.

Xavier and I eat one meal a day together minimum. I help him study for Korean and he helps me understand certain political theories. I share Family Guy and he shares Borat. We have downright decent discussion for once. It's fantastic to not have to dumb myself down for a change. My friend in Mexico is struggling with separating Spanish words from English words, sometimes confusing the two ("I know it in Spanish, what is it in English?!?!"). I, on the other hand, am just watching my vocabulary slip away. Most often I don't have the Korean skills to express myself fully, but most people understand enough English for me to get my meaning better via that language. The downside is that I have to filter my own speech to the point where I feel as though I'm speaking to 1st graders all day long. I find that I totally blank on words more and more frequently. Xavier has been a breath of fresh, fluent English speaking air.

Maybe when I have an excuse to, I'll photograph Xavier so that you can have an accurate mental image.

Déjà vu

So again I found myself at the GrandMart, this time with a friend to buy the same dirt cheap comforter. Although it was very easy the second time, the three linen department ladies remembered me from the day before. After successfully finding an identical comforter in less than five minutes and with no charades, I moved on to finding a bath towel and realized that yet again I was lost without a vocabulary clue. There I was again, after scouring the ten story store, on the 4th floor of GrandMart, this time with my friend watching and laughing, singing and dancing to the same three ladies in the linen department.
"When you take a shower you get really wet, right? Well, after finishing your shower you use this:"
makes a motion reminiscent of vaudeville "you dropped a mouse down my shirt" contortions
"Tah-Ohl"
"You've gotta be yankin' me."

World Keeps on Spinning

I'm doing fine in my HaSook, sleeping on a bed that's a little too short, waking up and killing 5 mosquitoes which have gorged themselves on my blood overnight, actually being social with the university community, and having a great time. This place is really just what I wanted to find, and I've discovered that I actually practice my Korean more often these days.

The midterms are approaching. Next week in fact. So, instead of writing a paper, researching articles for my presentation, or studying for my Comp. Gov't or four sections of Korean midterm I'm updating for you guys. I don't blame you in the slightest. I'm using you to distract me.

I take a field trip with my gov't class tomorrow morning to observe a session of Congress, something that promises to be pretty interesting. That is, as long as the tour isn't in Korean. Given that I'm the only person who's not bilingual in that classroom, I'm afraid.

In (oops make that six mosquitoes) light of the recent media scare in the States over the whole North Korea thing, I'd like to take a few moments to de-hype you out of a frenzy. North Korea is not a threat. While they may be testing nuclear missiles they will not use them. First off, they're relationship with China is on the rocks. North Korea is too small to try anything crazy without provocation and the full support of Big Brother China to back them up. Secondly, South Koreans aren't worried at all. News here stopped covering it a week ago, nobody ever really talked about except the international kids. The mood is calm and things have gone on without a bump. These people know their crazy uncle/neighbor best of anyone, and I won't be worried until they're worried. Thirdly, Kim JongIl is not a maniacal lunatic like Bush and television would have you believe. He is very cool, calculating, and rational. He knows that his government and social power is based on the propagandist claims that North Korea could take America any day. He does not want to test that out because he knows it's total lies. More than anything, he would never strike first against the States or Japan because the entire international community would be against his tiny South Carolina sized Republic in no time. Kim JongIl pulls these publicity stunts for international headlines and "respect." He's no fool.

At the very least, economic sanctions have been intensified on the North, making it increasingly more difficult for them to conduct their experiments. The United States Embassy in the country is reporting no health hazards, travel warnings, international warnings, or increased threat levels for anywhere in all of Asia. Relax, most of it is the media scrounging for stories. I mean look at what else they're publishing. Jay-Z kisses another woman. Brittney Spears has another baby. Whoopdeedoo. Take it from me. I've spent this entire semester reading nothing but books on Korean modern history. I have a pretty strong grasp on the North's policies mentalities, and previous behaviors, and you guys have nothing to worry about.

The HaSook Begins

Well, I'm moved in safe and sound and all is well. My new home is cozy, friendly, close, and (best of all) cheap. I have found the atmosphere here to be very familial. Everyone leaves their doors open and is open to conversation. We eat breakfast together in the house, and most of us eat lunch or dinner together later. There are several real Korean students here, and my international friends thus far are from California, Canada, Monterey, and Kazakhstan. Who knows one single fact about Kazakhstan? If you said "I think it used to be U.S.S.R. territory," then you're on par with me as of two days ago.

I had to purchase my own linens for my bed here. Like anyone college student would, I went to the Korean equivalent of Target (10 stories tall like everything here) called Grand Mart. So there I was on the 4th floor of Grand Mart, realizing to my shame and embarrassment, that the only vocabulary I knew was bed. Not pillow, blanket, mattress cover, sheets, mattress pad, or pillow case. I had no chance. It boiled down to me playing charades with three Korean women employed by the linen department. "This is the bed, right? I want to buy the thing that goes above the bed and under the person." *hand signals only a pitcher would understand*

Point is, everything is just fine and all set. I'm excited about my new community and proximity to the school, and am now turning my focus fully to upcoming midterms and snagging more students of the English.

The End of an Era

No, I'm not talking about peace on a divided peninsula. It's much more trivial than that. No, I don't mean Madonna's career. It's not that trivial. On Sunday evening (For most of you that's still the wee hours of Sunday's dawn) I will be moving. The story? It may be long, but it's worth the telling.

When it boils down to the truth of why, there is one big reason. The prego. In America, a child is expected to leave the nest at matriculation or shortly after. In Korea, however, a son or daughter won't leave the home until the day they marry. My host sister, June, got married last March at an age waffling around 28. For her twenty-eight years of life she has lived with her mother, and now this 7 or 8 month pregnant horrormoned (that's my little pun. I thought about the whole subway ride.) woman wants to spend these last weeks of pregnancy with her mother. Unfortunately, the only reason I was able to stay with these people was the spare room that their dearly beloved daughter had just recently left behind.

I knew something was up when June came by the house after dinner. June never comes by the house if it's not to teach piano lessons (on weekend mornings), to eat dinner with her parents, or to translate important things to me. It wasn't a weekend morning, and dinner was over, so logic would lead us to believe that it must be the latter. June and I make small talk for a few minutes while Umma sits on the floor, then the bombshell gets dropped. "We would like you to find another home."

Not the worst news anyone has ever received (think about how America must have felt when they learned Survivor would be coming back for a second season), but for a 20 year old kid in a country on the other side of the world, getting the boot is no laughing matter. I was told to "take my time in finding a new home, but please leave as soon as possible." Whatever that means. That's as ambiguous as "more or less."

I first began looking at different homestays. Since the university was incapable of finding one in the first place, I had to pull the same "ask friends if they have relatives who want a hairy American" act. The end result was only a few homes that were two subway transfers, a bus ride, and then a taxi fare away. I started to look at other options.

Just today I bought a room at a 하숙집, or HaSookJip. It's basically a boarding house and bed-and-breakfast's love child. You have your own room and do your laundry, there's a community bathroom, etcetera, but there's an Ahjooma (Kind of a landlady) who makes breakfast for everyone and sometimes dinner. I'll have Korean and foreign neighbors, a mostly stable internet connection, a five minute walk to my classes, and only a $60 per month rent increase from my current home stay.

There are many reasons why I am glad for the move. For one, the distance is going to be a life saver. No more 3 hours a day thrown away to subway time. No more $10 minimum a week on subway fares. No more not being social because I have to get on the subway before it closes. In addition, this homestay was starting to become a linguistic headache. YongHee and I can communicate most anything we want to put time into, but that kid is never home. Since school started, between opera practice and choir conducting, there isn't a day of the week that he's home before 11 pm. Appa and I can communicate well enough. The guy has traveled and worked in more than fifteen countries, none of which with English as a first language, so even though he doesn't know English at all he understand nonverbal communication, speaking slowly, and emphasizing key words. He's good for me because he understands how to communicate when we don't speak the same language. Unfortunately he is no longer a regular in the household on account of his slave job. He leaves the house every day at 7:30 am and gets home around 10 pm. With June married and out of the house, this leaves only me and Umma 85% of the time. The woman is so frustrating. She won't slow down or use simple grammar/vocabulary to save my life. When she speaks it just barrages me and I sit there staring, not comprehending a single word. Imagine the difficulty of talking about what time I will be home, when I need to eat breakfast by, paying my cell phone bill, having friends visit, or rules in the kitchen when our communication is less than one way. I can half express myself to her in Korean, but then I don't get any comprehensible feedback. How you gonna act? Despite the fact that I never understand her, she insists on nagging about weird things or trying to start conversations when there's no one around to help us. This I can't take any longer.

I have been on the hunt for new housing for more than two weeks now. As I anticipated, the ever passive-aggressive Koreans began showing more and more signs that they wanted me to leave. Food started getting more scarce. My toothpaste and other toiletries were moved out of the cabinet. I came back from my Pusan trip to find everything taken out of my closet and laying on my suitcase. Can they be any more evasive of conflict!?! Two days ago June was back again. After dinner. We made small talk for a few minutes. Then she asks, "Can you be out by this weekend?" Yeah, I guess, but I don't have a place yet. I'll try...

Well the load off my mind is that I'm now set up to move and the tension is dissipated in the homestay. The community at the new HaSook is really warm, so I'm looking forward to the next stage of my stay in Korea.

More Pusan

If you're starting here, you won't understand. Please scroll down to "The Trip Begins" and work your way up.




After leaving the ten million fish behind, I walked toward the nearby YongDooSan Park, a couple of statues and grassy patches surrounding a 100 meter tall observatory. I was able to get a fantastic view of the second largest city in Korea, and afterwards had to wonder just how massive Seoul is. Pusan is sprawling in every direction as far as the eye can see, from the fringes of the sea all the way into the mountains. Speaking of, in the picture labeled "remeber this photo" I noticed a tall monument like structure that hadn't been recommended to me. Therefore, using my Korean language prowess and a whole bunch of nerves, I asked the name of the structure and how to get all the way over there and back. Then I found the appropriate bus stop in the appropriate direction (don't laugh, no sense of direction + attempting to get on an unknown bus unassisted = major danger) and road off into the mountains of Pusan.



The distant monument was indeed the MinJu Park, or Democracy Park. THere on top of the hill was a nine pillared...thing. I guess it was meant to resemble a tent or something else of a protective nature, because it was poised above a stone tomb housing who knows how many soldiers who died for Korea fighting for independance and democracy. A multi-division statue was placed in front of the door to the tomb, and below the whole scene was a series of photographs from early this century depicting battle scenes against the North Koreans and Chinese. It was yet another chance for me to look out once again in awe at the vast city below me.

After my bus jouorney back to the downtown area, I boarded the bullet train once again and returned to Seoul to spend the official ChuSeok day with my host family. I left behind a terrible accent, the salty smell of the ocean, and tons of yet unexplored culture and history, but at least I took with me a writhing belly full of tentacles. Now my next culinary obstacle is most assuredly dog. As with any story of mine, this one is riddled with mini-stories that I'd be happy to share when you catch me on MSN messenger, AIM messenger, email, google talk, or Skype.

Moving On

After the tour of GyeongJu I was dropped at the bus station. This is the beginning of the real journey. I took a bus alone to Pusan, the second largest city in Korea. I don't know anybody, nor am I with anyone bilingual. From here on out was my first real experience doing everything I needed to do for myself by myself. I had to get a hotel room, ask directions, determine bus routes and fares, order at restaurants, and make my way back to Seoul entirely on my own in Korean.

After a night in a motel that was obviously geared towards ladies of the night, if you will, I awoke in Pusan, just a ship away from HaeUnDae, the biggest tourist beach in the city. The sunrise was a little disappointing given the hazy morning, but the sea was beautiful. Pusan sits on the Sea of Japan (the East Sea, Korean insist). When you look at a map, Japan looks so close that you'd expect to be able to sea it from the shore, but Japan wasn't there for all I knew.



My first destination in Pusan was the fish market. I had heard rumor of this fish market. The sign outside claims that it's world famous. Naturally I'm skeptical than any pile of fish could possibly world famous. So I took the subway to the JaGalChi market in order to discover world fame and dead fish. Everyone knows that I am a man lacking all sense of direction, but when you can smell a place 8 minutes away it's hard not to find your way there.

It was probably 2 or 3 miles long, not counting the small tributary streets branching off it. There were at least a hundred boats in the bay behind. There were more fish than I ever thought were in the entire East Sea, much less than could ever be caught in one morning in one town. There were live fish, dead fish, iced fish, slabs of fish, fish flayed open, dried fish, cured fish, smoked fish, flat fish, eels, giant crabs, boxes full of blue crabs, sting rays, buckets of worms, turtles, shells, mollusks, clams, piles of squid, assorted baskets, octopi crawling out of bowls, giant motionless octopi, things that looked like burnt mushroom halves, things that (if taken out of context of Fish Market) I couldn't have told you if they came from the ocean or my nose, mounds and mounds of tiny fish and shrimp, old women chopping, slicing, poking, hanging, shelling, frying, skinning, kabobing, arranging, icing, dragging, announcing, haggling, cracking, spraying, wiping, scraping, and any other verb you can come up with. I saw one shark, two or three kinds of eel, three kinds of octopus, squid ranging from purple to gray to pink to white, things that I never thought were fish in the first place, and everywhere you turned there were tons of people shopping for the freshest fish in the country, and I mean fresh. Even as I was walking up and down the market, men in boots and smelling salty were dragging trash can sized buckets and crates attached to strings up and down to their respective tents, sloshing water as they went.

Tombs, Observatories, and Ice Boxes

Continuing on through GyeongJu, we stopped at a park that had several ancient tombs and ruins. Notably, here were the humongous burial mounds of some of the original kings of the Shilla. Much like the pyramids, the bigger the better. Since it took a huge amount of money (to come up will all that dirt) and labor (to put it all there) bigger burial mounds are more respectful. Most Koreans still bury there ancestors in this manner. You can see clusters of tent sized lumps in the ground everywhere you go outside the city.


In this place were many ruins, but that just meant you could see the foundations of old buildings or the placement of pillars. Most things were built with wood back in the day. There was an interesting tower, similar to a rook for you chess fans. Though no one is exactly sure it's purpose, it has been theorized that the CheonMunDae was meant to be an astronomical observatory of sorts. In other words, it's the stonehenge of Asia.

We walked further back into the park through fields and fields of the wild flower Koreans identify as "Cosmos." Finally we reached the SeoBingGo, or stone ice closet. This underground building was used by the Shilla dynasty to store ice in during the winter so that some would remain in the summer. No one was allowed to walk inside since the floor still showed the drainage system that was dug into it. To think that people were storing ice for whole seasons at a time in 600 AD.

Cultural Goldmine

After sleeping off a stomach full of live octopus, HongDae, his mother, and I got up Wednesday morning with a mission. We met with Nami, another friend from Yonsei who happens to live in Ulsan, and drove out to GyeongJu. A quick history, Korea used to be three divided empires, each with competing ties with other major powers in the region. The Shilla kingdom teamed up with China and conquered the other two kingdoms, uniting for the first time the entire peninsula. The southeast region of Korea where I was happened to be the original territory of Shilla, and GyeongJu was it's glorious capital. Understandably, this city was a freaking wealth of culture.


The first place we visited was BulGook Sa. Named the 23rd national treasure of Korea, BulGook Sa is an ancient Buddhist temple. It was burned down once during Japanese invasion in 1592, and again during Japanese colonization in the first half of the 20th century. The temple has been reconstructed and restored to what scholar's believe was it's original glory. The building itself is one of the most sacred places of Buddhism in the whole region, considered to be a sort of proverbial bridge between this world and heaven (like a slightly less important Jeruselam or Mecca).

The architecture of the building was incredible. All of the stone was original from the initial construction in the 7th century, and it fit together perfectly. All the staircases, railings, pagodas, and pillars were perfectly shaped and perfectly matching pieces of stone. The woodwork on the ceilings and roofs was elaborately carved and painted, often with likenesses of dragons or murals of various religious scenes. Photography was prohibited in most of the most exciting places, both because the Temple was still a operational place of worship and to protect the interior artifacts from the flashes.

There were several statues, murals, and tapestries that depicted religious scenes or buddhas (in Buddhism, there is one original Buddha and several smaller buddhas, like saints). I learned a lot about the religion and the history at this temple. There were a couple walls of prayer candles in one room that people could buy and have a name enscribed. The candle remains in the temple for one year. There was a garden of stacked rocks out behind one of the buildings. Literally thousands of rocks had been stacked into little tower balancing acts that had some spiritual significance I couldn't grasp.

The emphasis on Buddhism was so much more prevelant outside of Seoul. I had believed that it was a quiter religion that Christianity, as it's difficult to find Buddhists or temples in Seoul as opposed to the Christians who throw themselves at you out of their massive churche skyscrapers. It turns out that the 26% of the country that's Buddhist is actually outside of Seoul, mostly in the country side but regionally just more focused in the southern cities.


Our second stop was at the top of the mountian behind the BulGook Sa. We drove up a steep and windy road reminiscent of North Carolina to reach an outpost that looked over the whole of GyeongJu, the surrounding rice fields, and the mountains that were ringed around them. The pavillion at the housed another of the giant bells, this time with coins tossed all over the floor around it. We walked further up the mountain to SeokGul Am, the Bhuddist Grotto. All that could be seen (and so unfortunately photographed) from the outside was a tall grassy hill with a building sticking out of it protruding from the forest. This, the 24th national treasure of Korea, was a underground shrine. The building facade and the hill behind it had strategic holes that allowed the face of the giant Buddha to be constantly lit. The walls were covered with convex carvings of other buddhas, gaurdians, etc. Once again, all constructed sometime during the 600's.

Menu Update

After leaving the grandparents house we went to the beaches of Ulsan and had sushi. I had expressly saved my first sushi experience for my trip to the south, where the fish are right off the boat. Little did I know how it was really done. We went to a fish market by the docks, where there was a huge circus tent full of fish vendors. Each vendor was packed up against the one next to her (they were all old women. I can only assume the wives of fishermen...), and each one had buckets full of live fish. We walked along, looking at tons of different fish. Finally HongDae's parents start speaking to one of the vendors, at which point I get nervous. The pointing and haggling also gets me nervous. Then about 8 of these special fall fish get plucked out of their bucket and promptly beheaded. In addition, I saw her cutting up squid, some sort of sea worm, and octopus as we walked out of the tent. We sat down in a restaurant, and about five minutes later the woman comes in with a plate full of fish slices. FRESH!

As for the octopus...the interesting thing about octopus is that it doesn't entirely die after you kill it. Like earth worms or snakes, you can cut the head off and the rest of it just keeps on moving. Well, one plate was full of writhing tentacles. First of all, I'm not the best with chopsticks. I still drop things occasionally, I have moderate difficulty with noodles, I drip, and sometimes can't get a grip on round thing like garlic. So imagine trying to pick up a squirming, slimy, tentacle.

The octopus is not just tentacles, it's suction cups. The amazing part of eating live octopus is that when you put it in your mouth, it's still gripping at your gums, tongue, inner cheek, and teeth. Statistics tell us that at least one person dies every year from eating the live octopus. These people fail to chew thoroughly and the tentacles tear the unsuspecting diner's esophagus open. For this reason, despite constant laughter as the legs gripped and pulled at the inside of my mouth, I chewed each leg for minutes on end.

The whole rest of the night I kept thinking about that writhing plate of legs and combining that image with the inside of my stomach, leaving me with a strange sort of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea meets Magic School Bus imagery that made me almost positive I felt motion down there.

The Trip Begins

Hey Everybody, I'm back from my fantastic trip to Southern Korea. With the biggest national holiday this week all of school was cancelled. I seized the opportunity to visit some of the cultural gold mines in the southeast part of the nation. Early Tuesday morning I hopped on the bullet train for DaeGu, transferred to bus and rode all the way to the port city of Ulsan.

The holiday, as you may already know, is called Chuseok, and it's the Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving. The official Chuseok is actually on Friday, but the whole population travels out to the countryside to visit grandparents and other relatives. I took the opportunity to follow my friend HongDae down to his place in Ulsan on Tuesday, planning on visiting his city and then leaving for Pusan on Wednesday so that he could be with his parents during Chuseok.


The bullet train was quite a trip indeed. It took about an hour and a half to cover almost the whole nation with one stop. Most of the trip we were pushing speeds around 300 km/h (anyone, math?) according to the speedometers on the TV screens. We could have whizzed all the way down to Pusan, the second largest city in the country and the most important port, but we took the bus to Ulsan instead.

After we arrived in Ulsan, I met HongDae's family (mother, father, younger sister). contrary to my wildest expectations, we all piled promptly into the car to visit the granparents in the countryside. I had never expected to get out of cities here in Korea. There's no easy way to get to the country without your own car, Iwouldn't know anyone there, and I wouldn't know what to do. It was really exciting to be in the rural areas though.

I think the figure is 3/5 when it comes to the mountain to arable land ration here in Korea, so I got to see the terraced rice patties that were developed to make the most of the land. The strange thing about mountains here in Korea was hard to put my finger on. I can't exactly tell if it's that they're bigger or smaller, or if the trees are just shorter or less dense, but there are weird things visually about their size and tree cover. One obvious difference though is the spacing. In Georgia it's a steady decline from Appalachia in the North to foothills to just hills to the flat south. Here, however, the mountains seem to be sprinkled all over, not in any particular cluster or range. Therefore, you can be driving along surrounded by perfectly flat land, but there are single mountains or in pairs periodically on either side.

The grandparents lived in a small house on a garden filled plot of land that could only be reached by gravel road. They were growing all sorts of vegetables, some being dried or cured in the shack, some in various storage pots out back. The grandparents themselves were interesting, as all old people are. Most shockingly for me, through them I had my first encounter with the southern accent (of which I had been warned on account of it's speed and strange sound). When they spoke I didn't understand a single word. In fact, if I had heard them on the streets I would have thought they were half Indian half Japanese. There wasn't one familiar sound in any of their speech.

After sitting around and eating fruit, we took a nap with the grandparents. I slept on the pictured "pillow" which was made of strings of wood beads connected on either side to two boards. Since it was hollow it was supposedly "comfortable" in warm weather.

Yon-Go Jeon: Day 3

The YonGo Jeon adventure finally drew to an epic close on Saturday. Going into the day we only had to come out victorious from one of the two events to win the whole festival, either rugby or soccer. Everyone was really excited to see Yonsei victory for the third year in a row.

The stadium that both the events were being played in was the Olympic Soccer Stadium, a giant bowl that offered both a view of city and of mountains over it's rim. Even once the soccer game started and all of Yonsei and Korea University were in attendance the stadium was only half full. There were lot's of regular people spectating from the other half of the stadium, but it still wasn't anywhere near to brimming.


Rugby was the most pathetic display on Yonsei's part the entire weekend. We lost 27-3. Need I say more? It was in some ways beneficial though, since afterwards it was tied 2 events to 2 events. With only soccer left, the outcome of that last game decided the fate of the entire festival. If we had won rugby then soccer wouldn't have meant anything, but the game was so much more intense because of all the pressure.

As for soccer, Korea scored an early goal in the first half. After the half went and it still remained 1-0, the Korea university students got increasingly more loud and excited while we got equally more quiet and depressed. The loudest noises we made were in the last 3 minutes, when Yonsei missed two shots on goal. The disappointment was thick, especially among us internationals, who won't have another chance to be victorious. After the clock ran out everyone was already packing up and getting ready to leave. There were a few extra fleeting moments of stoppage time that weren't even worth watching, so were wanted to get out of the stadium to beat the rush. As I stand up I look down onto the field to see a miraculous, Red-Sea-parting, Yonsei goal. At this point all of Korea University sat down and shut up. Yonsei conversely made more noise than I thought was possible. I made more noise than I thought possible. We rushed the field, where we danced and cheered for the next hour. The referees had decided not to continue the game into overtime but rather to call the soccer game and thus the entire festival a tie.


In all there were some very strange things about this festival. First, no one watched the games. Sure, winning was important, but how they got there didn't matter. Only the outcome and the resulting pride (or shame) seemed to be important. Most of the Koreans knew so little about the sports that they thought rugby was in fact American football. In America if a player was down the entire stadium would fall quite until he got up, but here it was entirely different. If players went down the crowd would continue on with there cheers until the cheerleaders silenced them.















Speaking of the cheerleaders, those outfits were outrageous. The guys had teal and pink clown jumpers on, and it was manly! "My outfit has tassels. Where are your tassels, girly man?"

If a team goes for an hour and a half without playing, as the Korea University team did, that's called forfeiting in America. There would be no negotiation. If you refuse to start on time then you are forfeiting. That negotiation stuff would never fly in the states.


The cheering and unified spirit was incredible. People where school colors in the States and all, but for every single person to turn out, where the same color, and cheer there heart out is unheard of.

All in all I don't expect to experience anything remotely like YonGo Jeon for the rest of my life. It was incredible.

아카라카! 아라칭! 아라쵸! 아라칭칭쵸쵸쵸! 랄랄라 시스붐바! 연세선수 라플라! 헤이 연세 야!

Yon-Go Jeon: Day 2

Today was the first day of games between Yonsei and Korea. The event started with speeches from the respective school presidents, the mayor of the city, and other people I didn't recognize. It was hard to be interested because I didn't understand, but I knew it was a big deal.

The baseball game was extremely hot. I didn't catch much of the actual game because we spent the entire time from an hour before the game all the way through 'til the end doing our crazy cheers. Imagine a whole stadium of non-stop red and blue Cameron Crazies on crack. I was sweating so much. Yonsei won though (hooray!) 6-1.


Then we went to the Basketball game. Basketball and ice hockey were at the same time, so you had to pick one. The basketball game started an hour and a half late because Korea University wanted to negotiate the unfairness of one of our players. In the states this would never fly. If your players refuse to start for an hour and a half, that's called forfeiting.
The entire time Korea was complaining our players kept warming up and we just kept on cheering. By the time Korea decided to play our team was so tired. We ended up losing since we couldn't make the long balls and we weren't getting rebounds and our drives to the basket were unfruitful. In other words, we sucked (but only lost by 11). The stadium was still packed to the absolute brim, and it was a ton of fun.


Reportedly, Yonsei beat Korea 3-2 in ice hockey, which brings us to an intense final day. We only have to win either rugby or soccer to take the whole event, something our school has done the past two years.


I'm getting pretty good at the cheers, but my head is still throbbing, I can't hear for all the ringing, my throat is hoarse, and my arms ache. Bring it on Day 3!
앉고 서고 STOP!
뛰고 뛰고 뛰고 뛰고
앉고 서고 STOP!
뛰고 뛰고 뛰고 뛰고
소리치며 다시 한번 힘을 내서
뛰어라!!

Yon-Go Jeon: Day 1

Today was the opening ceremony of the epic 연고전, or Yonsei-Korea Festival. Over the course of Friday and Saturday five different sports matches will be played between the number two and three universities in Korea (Yonsei and Korea University, respectively). This rivalry is the biggest and most well-known in the whole nation, and this festival will be attended by people from all around Korea. Friday will be the baseball, basketball, and ice hockey matches, and Saturday wraps the festival up with the big boys, rugby and soccer.














We the international students have spent the entire week learning the complex cheers that the whole university already knows. When you go to a Braves game, there are all manner of little sounds and shouts and cheers that the audience does to stay interested.
When I went to such a game with a Korean, they lamented the fact that the cheers are so short and uninvolved. I was forewarned that day about the level of intensity of Korean cheers. We jump, sway, kick, twirl, wave, flap, pump, flail, clap, scream, sing, curse, and rap. There is no sitting down. Today's opening ceremony was an amphitheatre packed with Yonsei in blue and Korea in red, alternating back and forth doing these crazy cheers for four hours. This is just the warm up too. Rumor has it that at a Yonsei victory the streets, restaurants, bars, and every corner of the arena explode with a non-stop marathon of victory cheers and anti-Korea University songs. I can only imagine a street full of Asians in blue and red dancing and spinning and singing at the top of their lungs.














I don't have to imagine for long, however. Day 1 has already ended, after an exhaustive and exciting opening ceremony "pep rally" we're already for the sports action tomorrow! 사랑한다 연세! 고대바보!

Cultural Oddity Moment #9

Keep away from those with weak constitutions, and no I don't mean Iraqis. This is a little bit strange to say the least. I have been riding the subway now for a month and finally encountered a totally drunk man covered in his own vomit. What do you mean did I photograph it? Or course I photographed it! It's taken me a month to get to this moment! I thought twice about taking the picture, because there were lots of people on the subway and I felt kind of sick for doing it, but it was so worth it.


Now the oddity is that the man was already like this when I got onto the subway. Everyone else on the car was doing their thing, minding their business. As though there wasn't a guy covered in vomit at the end of the car. And I mean covered. This photo is blurry because I couldn't bear to post one that was clear, but you can still make out the damp blotch all over his knee and thigh. What you can't see is the flecks and chunks and slime running from his elbow to his fingernails, pieces of whatever already smelly Korean food he had eaten earlier that evening. Pieces that his half conscious body would sling off every now and again. He never moved from this position the entire time I was on the train. That's an hour. People got on and off, but the man never moved. Here comes the weirdness, I promise. When people got on the subway, no one said anything to the man, few people looked twice, no one shook him, no one moved to another car. There were people in the seat right next to him! Their feet were almost in the puddle! This is a subway! It smelt bad all the way at the other end of the car! How could they sit next to him!?! Well, I don't know about you guys but I want some freaking answers. Hey Koreans who read this: Is this really a cultural normality, or do you also find it weird that nobody shook him, nobody thought twice about the image? Why did everyone just pretend it wasn't happening? In New York that guy would have been thrown off the subway and the car would be empty. Even on Marta. Hook me up with some explanations.

This has been your cultural oddity moment of the day.

I Have Become That Which I Always Feared

It's happened. I have been toeing the line with it ever since high school. I swore it would never be me, that I'd seen too much of the ugly side to every put myself in that situation. My will was too weak however. Too weak to save myself from the tumbling abyss that I tripped into, not knowing I was falling until now...it's too late. I'm teaching.

It seemed so innocent at first, so simple. Hey Steven, my friend is looking for someone to speak English with her for and hour and a half every week. She doesn't want to work on vocab or grammar or anything difficult. She just needs a speaking partner to build confidence and fluency. Up until this point in the conversation I was skeptical but considering. She'll pay you $50 every session. Alright you talked me into it.

So we met last night for our first session. I should have known better than this of course. No one pays fifty dollars for conversation. Not even Whoopi Goldberg is that desperate for friends. We began talking:
ME: "So, are you studying at a university?"
HJ: "Yes. Dentistry."
ME: "That's pretty cool. Do you have nice teeth? You have to have nice teeth if you're going to be a dentist."
HJ: "No."
ME: "Hmm. Well, where do you go to school?"
HJ: "Seoul National University."
ME: "How about in a full sentence?"
HJ: "To Seoul National University."
It went on like this for more than an Hour and a half. Ridiculous? Oh yes. It didn't take long before I felt like there wasn't a topic left in the world! I can make small talk pretty effectively. I'm not the master by any means, but I learned from the master. You'd think that I could babble for an hour and a half every week no problem, but this chick didn't want to offer anything!

To make matters worse/more stressful she paid me in advance for four sessions worth. For starters I left the coffee shop trying to look like the least muggable person on the whole subway. To top it off now I feel as though I really have to succeed and prepare for these lessons and make this girl a master English speaker. Though she didn't want to, we talked some grammar and vocabulary since this girl doesn't recognize three and four syllable words nor does she use any grammar construction outside of the standard S+V+O.

She does in fact have homework and I will be ready for her next week, but man it caught me off guard. As of yet I hadn't really encountered someone so poor in English and so embarrassed to speak it. It's not as though everyone else in the coffee shop was speaking English; I was the only white guy. Even if her English was terrible (and it was) she would have been impressive, but she wanted to speak as little as physically possible given all the prodding for conversation I was doing. She much preferred to use her dictionary and write things down, I habit which I quickly caught on to and prohibited. She also told me that next time she would prepare things to talk about. ????? Preparation is all fine and well, but this is "free talking" class. You won't have time to prepare in real conversation, so memorizing an anecdote isn't getting her anywhere. Oh well, I've got some ideas up my sleeve I suppose. Any suggestions Oh Seasoned Ones? Mom? Ren? JohnJasonBush?

Assessment

My first examinations begin this week. Actually they're as much examinations as Paris Hilton is a good singer. I have a vocab quiz in Korean and a Korean map quiz for Modern History, two of the easiest types of quizzes for my learning style. I have a mental gift of short term memorization, and the tests are basic to boot. The vocab words are ones that I learned back in second semester Korean one, and the map quiz is only the most famous locations. This should prove to be a nice and easy introduction into a semester at the number two school in the nation.

To tell the truth, I've not yet gotten the impression that study life at one of the most rigorous universities in Asia is going to be much of a challenge. The first reason is that these classes are being taught in English. As I may have made mention of before, the teachers are not entirely comfortable reading large quantities of papers or engaging in intense discussion, so the classes are almost entirely based on readings. If one simply reads the book the class just passes itself. I don't feel like I'm going to have to squeeze really innovative or insightful revelations out of myself in order to get A's.

Secondly, I've always felt from the first days of Korean class at Georgia that foreigners are held to a lower standard than real Korean children. I'd go so far as to say racism, but perhaps it's simply a push for Korea to make a name for itself or something along those lines. Be that as it may, I've always felt that Korean language teachers act as though it's not possible for a white person to master their language, so the expectations of pronunciation, accent, and word choice are much lower. This makes for both an easy atmosphere to practice in (everyone's impressed no matter what you say) and a difficult atmosphere in which to actually learn the language (no one seems intent on correction).

Even in a work environment, Koreans admitted to expecting more from each other than from me since I wasn't actually one of them. It's a somewhat disconcerting superiority complex that's at once exclusive and insulting. I understand that they want Koreans to be better than the people of other nations: that's just national pride. When it comes to my education, however, I don't want to be pandered because I'm white. I don't like the fact that I am not much more to the faculty and staff here but an "international competer" put here to spur their students on to greater things. The emphasis of many of the classes is not on helping white people understand Korea but on helping those of Korean descent reconnect with their great and illustrious country. I'd have to say, I'm kind of pissed.

Snowball Effect

When I first got here I thought to myself This isn't so bad at all. There are so many things that are exactly the same. But I have to say that I am experience what I thought I had more or less dodged (minus a few incidents with the shower). Though most everything appeared the same on the surface, there are little differences that were at first negligible and are now obvious. You can hear more cicadas than would be normal in Georgia. No one owns a dog bigger than a chihuahua. The bricks on the sidewalk are laid at an awkward angle. There's Korean on the manhole covers. The seat backs in the desks at school feel slightly off. Von Dutch is wildly popular. The sweet potatoes are the color of regular potatoes. It's rude not to wash your face before eating breakfast. Most places, even fast food, street vendors, and ice cream parlors, don't want you to pay until after you've eaten. There is no half second lag between when the light turns red and the next light turns green. Some TV shows end on the 15th minute of the hour. People still wear white gloves when they wear tuxedos. Laundry is done in several frequent, small loads.

These sundry little differences have created a what we in the business call a snowball effect, or butterfly effect for the Ashton Kutcher fans out there. All in all I have to admit that I have a case of culture shock.

I always knew that the culture was strange and different, but I never felt anything like a "shock" per se. I felt that ever all I had handled it very well. It now becomes clear that the slight differences in every last aspect of life make for a really big difference to my mind, and some days I just feel sick of it. I was on the subway one day and felt so sick of hearing Korean being spoken that I just got off at the next stop and waited for the next train. I find that, while I go to many restaurants and stores in the city, my favorites are styled in a western kind of way. It's still something of a relief just to walk in an area with no buildings, no writing, no Koreans.

I now know that I hadn't felt that I was culture shocked because I was looking in all the wrong places for it. I expected something like feeling weak at the knees and nauseous, a trapped, claustrophobic sensation that would just overwhelm me. In fact culture shock is a sneaking sensation that everything is just a little bit wrong, as though an alien abducted you and tried to build you a habitat like your own, but goofed all the subtle details. Culture shock is the nagging in your brain that nothing is quite right here, and that you should find something immediately that validates the reality of the world, proof that your not in a glass container.

Happy Birthday Jason!

Today is September the 13th, simultaneously marking my one month anniversery of the end of my journey to Korea and my younger brother's 16 year anniversary of the end of his journey through the birth canal. This is the first birthday of immediate family that has occured during my stay abroad, and I was confronted with the dilema of how celebrate on the other side of the world in a way that might be somewhat meaningful to him. I decided to spend some time today walking around the city of soul, thinking about my brother. During this perambulance, I was also taking numerous pictures of the things I saw that coincided with my thoughts about Jason. Here are the results:



1)You like the gators and that makes me sad.
2)It's a french horn lamp! Remember that time you tried to play french horn? Yeah, that was pretty funny.
3)Asians share your same idea of what "buff" is.
4)General goofiness reminds me of you. Like that time we made up dance moves while doing the dishes.
5-7)Soccer is everywhere! Park JiSun is like a god to these people.
8-11)Guys in pink shirts proliferate. The line between male and female style is much more hazey. You like pink shirts. The line between you and females is much more hazey.


Oh, and who could forget that time you looked like a fool on the first picture I ever took with this camera?

Nothing says "Happy Birthday" like a squinty-eyed teeth and nostrils shot.

Rampant Illegality

I bought books for my class. Some of you may wonder why I stopped to do air quotes while I typed the word books, and the reason is simple. These books (more air quotes) are in fact admittedly illegal copies of actual textbooks from America. The copying is a service provided here at the university, and we go and buy these books (you know the drill) from a book store (aka. copy room). They're bound and stuff, but none of them are hard back, none of them are original publications, none of them are legal, and it's all school sponsored. Interesting.

If anyone knows anything about international copyright law, my curiosity has been piqued. If a book is published in America and copied in Korea, whose copyright laws apply? America's or Korea's? If it's the former, who the hell is enforcing it? If it's the latter, what stops people from just setting up copy machines in a huge line in Mozambique (or somewhere with comparably non-existent copyright laws) and making millions of illegal copies and distributing them for cheap?

I've also recently learned that most of what happens on the road is in fact illegal. There's abundant illegal parking, illegal turns, driving on the wrong side of the road, running stop lights, insane lane changes, and stopping in on coming traffic. One reason some of it can happen is because towing is government operated, and police don't get commission from tickets. Therefore, there's little motivation for law enforcing, and the community has adapted to this.

In addition, all those vendors on the streets are in fact unlicensed and (you guessed it) illegal. Occasionally the cops will tell them that they have to move or their cart will be towed, but they never follow through with it. Why? When I asked a government teacher, I was told that "the cops realize that those shops are the only livelihood of those people, so to force them to close would starve and kill them." In effect it's making the laws flexible, and who can believe in a flexible law enforcement system? On the other hand, wow! Cops with compassion and judgment! What a breath of smoggy Seoul air.

Menu Update

Imagine a pig's face. Maybe you've seen the episode of Mythbuster's where they test the "catching a bullet in the mouth" fantasy with the head of a pig. For you, this task will not be difficult. Now mentally remove the skull and teeth and all other internal organs from this pig face, leaving you with a flappy mask that Leather Face might resort to when the town can no longer trap unsuspecting teenagers. Now put that pig face mask into something like the car compacter machines from cartoons, rendering a jelly-like cube, a conglomerate of pig cheek, ear, forehead, snout, and neck flab. Slice and serve.