New Friends

So, for the many who have been asking, classes start for me tomorrow. Expect full details sometime next week.

Other than that, I've been spending my days waiting for it to happen. I went this morning to apply for alien registration. You will see my card once it arrives. The Immigration Office was even further away than my school, so that was pretty miserable. I met several people at the welcome parties last week, but only two acquaintances gave me contact numbers.

One was the buddy that Yonsei assigned my. Her name is SunHee, lives over on my side of town, and she's and 18 year old freshman. I don't want to be skeptical, but how is a freshman supposed to help me find my way around the school and campus? If I remember correctly, all freshmen are clueless. We'll see how this works out. SunHee and I met at the department store on Tuesday for lunch. That place was pretty interesting, and deserves a post all to itself. SunHee is majoring in both education and English. She hopes to teach middle or high school. I think she wants to teach English, but now that I think about it, she maybe just wanted to know English really well. Like most people here, she's interested in going to the U.S. Her English is pretty decent, but it's that textbook English that's so common in this region: big vocabulary, very little physical practice with fluent speakers. This means that she understands me if I steer clear of slang, but that her accent is really thick. SunHee likes Korean pop music, so that's a dead end. I don't see this becoming a rich and meaningful friendship, but I've been surprised before.

The other person whom I've met outside of welcome parties is Jae. Jae is another person participating in the buddy program, but I'm not his buddy. Jae and I met when we were all playing games at after dinner, and then we met on Wednesday for lunch at the tofu house (everything on the menu was made of or contained tofu. Actually there was a surprising amount of variety and flavor.) Jae is my age and lives on my side of town as well. He had a much more brimming personality. He was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan while his father was studying at University of Michigan. They left when he was seven, and he promptly forgot all the English he ever knew. He's since then gotten his English back to near fluency. His buddies are a Korean American and a Finnish dude, and we're all planning on a group dinner one day soon. Jae is interested in breaking out of the terrible music scene that is Korea, so we found lot's to talk about in that department. We'll be seeing much more of Jae.

Lastly, HyeJeong (my friend in the States who found this host family for me) has a friend here in Korea whom I'll meet on Saturday. YoungBin is exactly what I need. He speaks about as much Korean as I do English, so the two of us will be forced to struggle and learn! YongHee speaks far too much, so as a rule we speak English and then struggle in Korean if he doesn't have the word, but YoungBin and I should learn a great deal from each other. HyeJeong and YoungBin himself have boasted about this kid's knowledge of Seoul, so I expect to see some new places in this city.

Dear kurlyfryz,

Thanks for the post and for the compliment. I didn't know that I was competing for the Most Entertaining Thing I Do on the Internet award, but I'll take it!

Let's see, the thing I miss most about America. It's not the food, that's for sure. That's going to be the thing I miss most about Korea. I'd have to say that it's the English. I miss being permeated in English. I know it's not the best or easiest language in the world by any means, but it's the easiest language I've ever tried to speak. I miss being able to use slang and idiom. I miss word games. I miss not having to think to read menus. I miss the ease of which it just jumps out of my mouth. I open, and English appears. No translating, piecing together, stumbling, and then finally repeating a moderately correct sentence that only half conveys my meaning.

So far I haven't caught any really good translation stories. It's sad I know. I'm sure they have some about me. One day one of Umma's church friends was over, and I knew they were telling stories about my time at adjusting, but I couldn't tell which classic moment it was. The time he tried to drink tap water? The time he tried to eat such and such with chopsticks when that's obviously a spoon food? That time I had to cut pancakes for him because he couldn't do it with chopsticks? I'm sure she has thousands by now. As far as English, there have been a couple when YongHee translated something literally that made sense but we wouldn't actually say. Today he was going to the ATM, and in Korean the word for 'withdraw' and 'find' are the same, so he said he "needed to find some money."

As far as speaking Korean, I had difficulty trying to explain nerd to people of a culture to whom we stereotypically attribute all the qualities of nerdiness. "Well, they wear glasses, I guess. They do really well in school, but don't have many friends. Hmm, how do you translate 'pocket protector'... They usually like to play Starcraft or other computer games. Crap, this is really hard. They eventually go to college and end up being bosses of major companies..." He totally didn't get it. All the dictionaries said 'stupid,' but that's about as far from right as possible. So we've dropped back to a stance of pointing and saying 'nerd' whenever one is spotted. Hopefully he can build the translation from examples and context clues. Then there was the time that Collin Ferrel came up and I couldn't explain why I didn't like him because there was no translation for the word 'douchebag.' Like I said, I miss slang.

Cultural Oddity Moment #8

I'm getting quite a bit of mileage out of the way people cook here, but it's so different that it causes a great many of the cultural differences I've noticed. My family cooks alomst every day. They enjoy eating out just as much as the next person, but when they do the food is no different than what they could have made at home. So how does a family that cooks daily grocery shop? Well, my mother cooks almost every day and she does one mass shopping trip about once a week with small runs if we need specific items or regulars like bread and milk. This family, and I think many others, play by different rules.

Every meal we have the same six mini side dishes. Umma makes one good sized batch of, say, pickled garlic and then for the rest of the week we all just eat a little bit of it each meal. The same goes for all the other mini side dishes, but they're all on a sort of roatation so that Umma never has to make more than one at a time. So for each meal the sides are pretty much covered. Of course there's also always plenty of rice, so that also seldom needs to be bought. The only thing she needs to purchase are the ingredients to whatever the main dish is going to be. Whether it's the soup or the stir fry ingredients, those are the only variables in every meal.

So, does she buy a mass quantity of main dish ingredients to last a couple of days? No, instead she goes out every morning and shops for the day. This way, since most of the ingredients are without preservatives, everything's fresh when she cooks it.

It's this pattern of shopping every morning which has birthed our cultural oddity. There are certain gentlemen who have deal in specific produce and meats that either don't want to sell to the big grocery stores or can't. These merchants drive around the residential areas instead and try to catch all the women out doing their shopping for the day. They announce their wares over megaphones with a recorded message. Sometimes they have many items, so all I understand is "braghbraghbraghLETTUCEbraghbraghbraghbraghONIONSbraghbraghbraghbraghSALEbraghbraghbraghPLEASE PURCHASEbraghbraghbraghbraghbraghTOMATOESbraghbraghbraghbraghLETTUCE." These megaphones are on a very short repeat, so you get used to the pattern very quickly. One went by while I was using the computer, and subconciously I thought that I heard in English:
"Hey, gonna kick you in the mouth,
gonna kick you in the face,
gonna kick you in the chin, in the cheek,
You're a workaholic
shopaholic
chocaholic
alcoholic
Hey, gonna..."
Don't ask me where those particular words came from. Others peddlars opt for the more basic advertising method of just yelling the name of what it is they're selling. For instance one local dude likes to walk through the neighborhood yelling "SAGUAYO!!! SAGUAYO!!!" Literally translated, "It's apples. It's apples." One of my personal favorite merchant announcements is as follows:
banabanabanabanabanaBANANA! BANABANANANABABABABANANANANA!
If you didn't pick up on it, he's selling bananas. Very straight forward, direct, honest marketing. Very old at seven in the morning.

This has been you cultural oddity moment of the day.

All Asians Look the Same

This one has been slowly developing like the termite larvae in your home's foundation. When I left the states I had some sense of what Koreans looked like as opposed to Chinese as opposed to Japanese, but that's because I had only evolved from "all Asians look the same" to "all Koreans look the same." Just 2 & 1/2 weeks have taught me that they all look so different it's scary. Of course the Koreans on television look the same, but it's the same in America. There is one perfect mold, and all the models, singers, TV and movie stars fit the mold. The variety is astounding though. It's become easier than ever to know the difference from one to another. All that "Oh Jiyeon, I thought you were Minha" malarky is over. It's still not any easier to remember names, but at least I can see the differences in face, hair, and style.

I've even found that some Asians have almost American eyes. I know that it's considered attractive over here, and some people tape their eyes open to achieve the look. Some have even had surgery to make their eyes look bigger. I don't know if the people whom I've seen have natural or artificial eyes, but I do know that those people look more human to me. I was ashamed when I first realized it, but it's true. I can read their faces, their emotions. I feel more connected with them. I feel like they have more personality just because I can understand it more easily. It's sad, and will probably pass with time, but for now it's inescapable truth.

Dear Uncle Tony & Zach,

The seasons here are very defined and balanced. Right now it's still in the nineties and very muggy, just like Georgia. I'm already adapted for such a climate, but I was hoping for a change. Fall is supposed to be a very beautiful season for Korea, and the temperature will be very nice. It's the winter that I'm truly excited about, though. Korea gets snow for several months in the winter, last year being particularly snowy. I have every intention of photographing religiously all the downtown city snow as this will be the first full white winter of my lifetime. In the spring it's warm but comfortable and the Korean national flower can be seen in blossom everywhere.







The particularly snowy winter 2006







I actually wondered the same thing about the roads. Koreans drive on the same side of the road as we do, so at least that is familiar. I don't know what I'd do if it was opposite. All the terror of the streets combined with constantly looking the wrong way before crossing would combine to engender a pale Steven who never left his closet.

They don't eat cats. I think that's only American Chinese restaurants. They do, however, eat dog. It's a separate breed of dog expressly for eating, so it's not like they get tired of the pet one night. This practice stemmed from the harsh treatment of the Korean people under Japanese rule from 1910-1945. There was lots of famine, and desperate times called for desperate measures. Nowadays, for the most part, only the older generations eat dog meat and the younger generations steer clear. For everyone's information I have every intention of eating dog, especially because YongHee is one of the few young people who enjoys the taste.

I haven't left the city yet, but I plan on traveling to Pusan in the future. Seoul is about an hour south of the North Korean border, and about three more hours south is the East Sea. Korea's second largest city and their most important port is Pusan, and the sushi there is the best and freshest in the country. I believe either IYC or the Mentor's club will take a Yonsei University affiliated trip to the country somewhere, but that's planned in a few months. Most of Korea outside of Seoul is still very rural and traditional.

I shaved my face in an effort to look at least somewhat more Asian. From those who have seen the older photos of me with goatee they say that they much prefer the sans goatee look since facial hair is so rare and foreign here. It would be as if a tribal Kenyan came to America in full headdress and a loincloth, walking up and down the streets chanting. The goatee makes it insanely obvious that I do not belong here, so (though I miss it) it has taken a leave of absence.

Cultural Oddity Moment #7

As you may or may not be aware, Koreans always always always take their shoes off before entering a home or any restaurant that doesn't have chairs. This is something you get used to very quickly as there is a huge pile of shoes in the foyer of every home. The cultural oddity here is not that everyone takes off their shoes, since we spend a lot of time on the carefully lint rolled floor. There aren't chairs in the homes and we don't have elevated beds. It's all about the floors, so I wouldn't want shoes on it either. The strange thing is what the custom effects: a culture with relatively no sneakers. Barring sports activities, tennis shoes aren't worn by anyone. It's all flip flops, loafers, high heels and other various slip-ons. It's astounding and somewhat isolating (not nearly as isolating as being the only one not laughing in a room full of laughter, of course) to be the only one with a pair of shoes with laces, but the culture demands a shoe with fast in and out access. Even if you forget your hat, the shoes come off, you run and grab your hat, the shoes go back on. I would try to acquire some more Korean shoes, but my particular market isn't really catered to even in America. I'd hardly believe it if Ren found shoes here, much less myself.

Showing My True Colors

For those of you who've never been a white man on the streets of Asia, let me tell you all about it. Imagine being a bearded lady in the middle of a small Southern town: everybody stares and whispers but nobody wants to make eye contact with you. Of course there are several things about me that make me a little out of the ordinary, but if I had to pick one factor that garners me the most goggley eyes it wouldn't be the size 15 shoes or the big non-squinty eyes or even the height: it would be body hair. Never before have I been the only person with leg hair. Never before have I been the only one with five o'clock shadow. If I wear shorts on the subway the whole car stares unabashedly and small children turn away in fear. "What's wrong with him, Mommie?"

Now I know what it's like to be black in Alpharetta, minus the whole lack of rights thing. If we take, for instance, my terrible sense of direction. In America I can walk down the street, stop, turn around, and play it off with only a few smirking glances from those with internal maps. Not here, however. With every eye already fixed upon me, with every old man outside the car wash already noticing my uncustomary presence, it's impossible to turn around without everyone noticing and likewise without feeling terribly touristy and noobish.

I can't decide if this attention is embarrassing or a rare gift. I feel sometimes as though I could face plant in the brick and no more eyes would be on me. Isn't that the freedom to do anything free of embarrassment? When everybody's already looking what's to dissuade you from tripping huge and proud or walking into a glass door?

I also find it somewhat insulting but not entirely unexpected that no one believes me to know any Korean. If they know enough, store clerks will tell me prices in English. I've even been talked above on the subway (quite a feat with my height) to avoid being asked something as simple as "What station is next."

My super height isn't as big a deal as one would have anticipated. I'm tall, and most everywhere I go I'm going to be taller than everyone else. While this nation does have more short stacks it still has a large variety, so I don't feel that much taller than the whole sidewalk full of people. Like I said, it's not the worst thing I deal with as a white guy in a city of ten million yellow ones. It's been so long since I've seen a black person, much less a Mexican. I'm kind of starting to miss those little guys.

Now Taking Requests

Wait a minute, they're not Korean.... Anything you've ever wondered about the far east? Any particular story you thought you'd hear? Any aspect of Korean life that I'm probably clashing with but just haven't informed you of? Curious about anything? Before I left people were asking questions like What kind of wildlife do they have? and Is there TV? No question is too stupid, no topic too mundane, no crevice too private. At least not on this blog anyways. Give me a shout out! Lemme know what you're hopes and dreams are!

Now those are Koreans!

Give Us This Day Our Daily Church Service

Korea is famous all over the world for it's large population of Christians. More than half of the nation that professes any sort of religious preference says that they are Christian, and my family falls into that demographic. This family attends a Presbyterian church down the street from where we live, but Korean church is no walk in the Garden of Eden for any foreigner.

For instance, if given a multiple choice question in which the question was which of the following is a church in Seoul and the answer choices were photos, an American would never get it right. Churches in Seoul are on the scale of some sort of epic office building, maybe for like AT&T, except this is for placing calls to God. These churches aren't just occasional either. They're lined up all the way down the road. I know there are 27 million Christians in this place, bit the worship halls aren't any larger than the good sized churches in America. What gives? What are they using all that other space for???

I'm having difficulty deciding whether the services here are the hardest I've ever had to sit through or the easiest. I'm leaning toward hardest. One would think that this would be so easy since I don't understand what's going on so it can't be obnoxious, but I don't understand anything! After an hour and a half of constant flowing sounds that you don't comprehend, I'm desperate for something I get to be talked at me, even if it is sermon. In that way, it's the hardest church I've ever sat through. The hymns at the beginning aren't bad though. It's kind of like karaoke. There's a big screen on the wall that has the words, Mickey Mouse Club style.

This family goes to church almost every day of the week! Wed-Fri night and three times on Sunday. When they started offering me young adult services and all male services, I broke down. "Listen, first of all we go to church only once a week maybe in America, and second of all I'm not getting anything out of this. Every extra service I attend is another hour and a half that I sit there in a coma on a pew. I'm not about to start going to extra services alone." Since that discussion they've toned my attendance back to just Sunday mornings, which is fine because that's the only one where the whole family attends. I don't want to just sit at home alone, but there's no need to torture myself with words I can't comprehend and uncomfortable chairs.

Cultural Oddity Moment #6

So, I came home from the IYC welcome party on Thursday night at almost exactly midnight, which is pretty good timing considering the subways all stop running at about 11:30 or so. I came in, said hi to the family, had a brief discussion on Skype with Brooke, then proceeded to tell the family goodnight and hit the sack (and by sack I mean board). All is well, right?

Let's interject the story with some back story. Being in a new culture, whose hygienic values are unbeknownst to me, I have taken particular care to be extra clean. Err on the side of safety, if you catch my drift. I've showered every morning, been more diligent about shaving and brushed pickled garlic out of my teeth with rigor and vigor. I could never have expected what was about to come.

Umma: indiscernible Korean sentence.
YongHee: She wants to know why you didn't shower last night.
Steven: Because I showered yesterday morning.
YH: indiscernible Korean sentence.
U: indiscernible Korean sentence.
YH: I'm sorry, not shower, indiscernible Korean word. Do you know that word?
S: Excuse me?
*dictionary usage*
YH: Wash your hands. Why you not wash your hands yesterday?
S: Excuse me?
U: indiscernible Korean sentence.
YH: Last night you are using the computer, then you just go to bed.
S: Oh, yeah. I didn't think about it.
Steven's Mind: There's no sense in washing any part of me before I go to bed because I just wake up covered in a film of sweat.

What did we learn? That the Koreans must wash their hands before bed. The subject came up twice more over the course of the day. We also learned that the family is watching me and my hand hygiene habits, so.......weird.

The IYC Welcome Party

It was the night of the tuna fish jamboree, and all of Lake Wobegon had gathered at the old sawmill to taste the Dolores' famous tuna fish gumbo and cut a rug.

Yeah, something like that.

IYC (International Yonsei Community) is the university sponsored organization for helping the international kids adjust to Yonsei. Last night they threw us all a welcome party, and this was my first chance to meet other University students, since I've been living an hour away from the school. We all trekked en masse to a relatively small restaurant. They brought to the table one of the most bizarre dishes I've ever encountered here yet. It was a combo plate, half being mixed fruit, half being mixed fried items. It was more than confusing for my palette to be alternating between pineapple, tater tots, watermelon, fried squid, apple slices, french fries, orange wedges, chicken nuggets.

I met a great many students from all over the place. There were several from France, one from Japan, a Finnish dude, two from Holland, people from all over the States, and even a South African guy.

One whom I met was Fleur. She was one of the French, but she was born Korean and adopted. This girl probably has it the toughest of all the international students. She's 100% French. She speaks English with a rough accent, she smoked three cigarettes before the food came, she hates the food here, can't speak a word of Korean, yet she's the only one who gets stopped and spoken to on the subway. Bummer, Fleur, major bummer.

Most of the international students fit into classifications that I've managed to be on the outs of. For instance

1. The international community lives almost exclusively in I-house, the dorm designated exclusively for exchange students, a building which I don't even know how to find.
2. The vast majority of the students are here to take Yonsei's business courses, one of it's stronger suits. There was only one whom I met who was actually a Korean language and culture major. The rest of them will probably never be in a class with me. They're taking things like Chinese Economics and Accounting, I'm taking Modern Culture and the Korean War.
   
3. Most of these international students don't know the first thing about the Korean language, it's alphabet, or their culture, nor do they have the faintest interest in learning about it. They all repeated the same mantra. "I don't want to waste credit hours on a language I'll never use." This attitude, however, expresses a sort of foolhardy bravery that I can only aspire to yet never attain. Perhaps it stems from being in Europe, closely packed with dozens of languages you'll never be able to speak and cultures you'll never understand.

I was able to learn a lot of names and got a few email addresses as well. Being as I don't live in the dorm this will be somewhat of an uphill battle for me. All these kids have been hanging together for almost a week now, and it won't be easy to slide right in with a group like it is the first day or so. Tomorrow is the welcome party hosted by the Mentor's club, so I'll have another chance to mingle and mangle.

Spam

Where is the name derived from? The last two letters are definitely from 'ham,' though I'm not sure who made the correlation between gelatinous cat food and lean, juicy, Boor's Head pork. But the first two letters...are they from 'special?' Maybe it comes from 'spongy.' Perhaps it's from 'spoon,' in the same vein as the ever popular 'spork.'

You may be wondering why this food item comes to mind. Allow me to inform you of the purpose of this referance to Spam. Previously unbeknowst to me, the Korean population has been eating Spam. Maybe iit's a lack of land, maybe it's a lack of pigs. Nevertheless, the only version of the other white meat you can find on the whole penninsula is Spam. They have huge tables with piles of Spam at the end of grocery aisles. You know, the kind where you might take the bottom can and then someone would have to announce "Clean up on Aisle 7."

I've now officially eaten Spam soup and pan seared spam over bean sprouts. Where am I, a trailer park!?!

Cultural Oddity Moment #5

Jet lag has been a tough nut to crack for me. I wake up automatically at six or seven in the morning. That would be fine and dandy if I could drift back into sleep, but I can't because my bed is hard and the sheet that I sleep on is sticky from sweating through the night and so is my pillow. So, I'm well awake with no solution at 7 in the morning. Therefore, it doesn't take long before I'm sleepy. If I take a nap, I'll never beat the JL, so I force my self to stay awake. I'm pretty much a zombie from about eight o'clock onward, but I fight it until midnight hoping that the next morning I'll be exhausted enough to sleep in. But I never am, and thus the cycle begins again. Currently I've only made it to eight am once since I've been here. Every day is up at dawn, zombie 'til midnight. I'm not sure if my body counts the unconscious hours as "rest" and therefore doesn't think I need to sleep in, or if discomfort wins out over exhaustion.

Regardless, I spend many days living a dream, and the dream is that I haven't slept well for a week and a half. YongHee, in sympathy, offers me an energy beverage one day. So I unscrew the medicinal white lid and take a swig. This energy drink was made up of three flavors in the following order:
1. The rotten brown spots on week old plums
2. The way that dumpsters behind restaurants smell
3. The dull, lingering hum caused by licking a 9 volt battery

Though it may be popular here, I don't expect to drink "Bacchus" ever again, regardless of how insurmountable jet lag may be.

This has been your cultural oddity moment of the day.

Asian InTelevasion

Let’s talk about television. One certainly can’t learn all there is to know about a culture just through watching their TV, of course. What would people think about Americans if that were true??? However, at the very least one can learn about what entertains this culture and about what degree of moral authority the government has (based on what’s not shown.) Even less than that, one can entertain oneself for countless hours based solely on the comedy of stark differences.

Where to begin? How about with the filler in between programs, the all important commercial. Commercials are a huge part of American pop culture. Be it “Got Milk?,” “Aflac,” “I have good news…I just saved a ton…,” or “I’m Lovin’ It,” advertising campaigns are drilled into our heads until they bleed into our comedy and everyday conversation. The same can be said for other cultures. The commercials are a segment of the jokes that young people make or the phrases they use. They’re also short and satisfying. Watching a barrage of commercials serves both to keep me interested in television that I don’t really understand and to give me a rapid fire glimpse of culture.

Unlike America, you might see one or two car commercials in an entire day. While there are plenty of cars on the road, I’m in an immediate family of six including significant others, and there is one car between all of them. They don’t even live in the same house! However many cars seen on the road has to be divided into the factor that this is a city of 10 million (Atlanta doesn’t even top 70 thousand). Understandably, this is not the market for car commercials. So what does this population do with the money they’re not spending on cars and gas? Electronics, one would assume. Now, in America there are also tons of electronics commercials. Digital cameras, flat screen TV’s, Dell laptops, PDA’s, and Mp3 players inundate our subconscious. In this the world’s #3 electronics producer, what electronics commercials supplant the plethora of car ads? The cell phone. There are virtually no other electronics commercials at all. It’s all cell phones. There are some of the hottest cell phones in the world here, cell phones with ball joint swivel screens that receive television broadcasts, cell phones the size of toothpick boxes, cell phones stuffed full of music, pictures, videos, and all controlled by remote.

The other variety of commercials prevalent are food commercials. Now, there are no TV dinners, and there are far too many restaurants for any one to advertise. There aren’t really any McDonald’s commercials on. What kind of food commercials are there? Mostly it’s ingredient brands. Brands of different sauces and bases, broths and spices. I will say that there are also snack food and beverage commercials. One of my most jarring moments was watching a Cheeto’s ad. At some point through the commercial the Cheeto’s Cheetah speaks…and it’s (what do ya know) in Korean! and the voice is totally wrong!! I was shaken out of half sleep and just stared in disbelief.

In the same vein as the food commercials there are the cooking shows. Now, in America the purpose of cooking shows is for Emeril or Rachel Ray to show us kitchen-retarded Americans how to prepare some fun new dish in thirty minutes or less, or to teach us technique, or to introduce a nifty blend of ingredients and cultural styles that produces some trendy culture clash dish (Mexican Pizza and East-meets-West kind of stuff). In Korea, however, every woman knows every recipe in Korean history. All of them know all of them. There is only a set repertoire. Nobody is blending anything or creating new dishes. So what use would a culture who knows how to cook have with a cooking show?

Well, let me give you a typical Korean cooking show rundown: An announcer gives you a quick 30 second run-down of the foods history, the origin of it’s ingredients, and the entire cooking process. The next five minutes is a compilation of showing the food on a spinning plate, interviewing people about the taste, and showing people eat the food. If you’ve already figured it out, good for you. For the rest of you: the sole purpose of Korean cooking shows is to watch people eat delicious and tantalizing food. To further solidify this analysis, allow me to present you with this next piece of evidence, classified as Exhibit A. There is a panel of host, usually somewhere between 5-8. This panel does not actually every eat food, but while the food is being paraded n front of the camera their faces appear in little bubbles in the corners of the screen. They then proceed to make faces indicating hunger, or “ooh, that looks good.” In addition, there is something in the way of a laugh track, but it’s an ooh-aah track. They don’t even attempt to disguise it as a studio audience. It’s almost completely on repeat. Every time a new ingredient is added or the food is eaten, the ooh’s and aah’s happen again.

I watched a cooking chow the other day, and they were conducting an in-depth report on one particular Japanese restaurant. This restaurant makes spaghetti, then it takes a large bowl full of said spaghetti to the top of a graded incline. Going down the middle of this incline are two small, bamboo waterslides about six inches in diameter. These waterslides are side by side, and on either side of these twin water slides are stools. This continues all the way down the incline, which is outdoors and covered but a pavilion of sorts. The stools are filled with children. The woman at the top of the incline with the spaghetti takes small, bite-sized, chopsticks-full of spaghetti and drops them into the water slide. Then the kids try to catch and eat the sliding spaghetti (with chop sticks, mind you) as it whooshes past in the current.

I’ve never seen so many music videos with stick fights in them. Hell, I’ve never seen so many stick fights. Not samurai swords, not nunchucks (sp?), but baseball bat sized sticks are apparently the weapon of Asian choice. They aren’t exactly featured in hardcore music videos either. It’s always the crying girly-boy pop, the Michael Boltonesque songs that have dozens of Asians beating each other with branches. Whose making these stick fighting sticks? Is there a store for them?

The news refuses to do advertising for anyone. All building logos, food brands, cell phones, brand labeled t-shirts, and car makes are blurred out. It also seems that they’re policy on identity is secret unless they give you permission. And most people don’t give permission. Consequently, since so many things on the news are blurred out, they have found several ways to keep it interesting. Sometimes it’s a blur, sometimes it’s pixilated, sometimes they throw a jacket over someone’s head. sometimes they just show you their feet, sometimes they Alvin and the Chipmunks the voices, and any combination of the five is possible. In addition, no one is given the option of closed caption for news programs. All news programs have a guy in a bubble in the bottom right hand corner signing everything in real time.

These are just some of the things that amuse me about Korean television. Anyone with Skype or who posts a comment may get free untold stories! If you hadn’t noticed yet, I’m desperate for two-way communication, so make it happen!!!

Baby's First Asian Cinema Experience

Tonight YongHee and I treated ourselves to a pre-fall semester viewing of the hottest Asian blockbuster, 괴물 (The Monster). It being an action/horror movie, I rightfully believed that the plot would be cookie-cutter and not dependent on dialogue and that I would be able to almost fully enjoy the film. Supposedly six years ago an American scientist forced his Korean intern to pour hundreds of bottles of formaldehyde down the drain because the bottles were dusty. The drain then fed the chemicals into the Han river, and mutated some frog or something into the elephant sized sea monster known as the 괴물 (GWAY-mool). When it takes several Korean citizens, including one man's daughter, and stockpiles them under one of the dozens of bridges on the Han, the man and his family set out to find the beast, kick some monster butt, and rescue his daughter. This movie reconfirms many cinematic truths.

Americans are the root of all evil

Pollution will one day bite us in the ass

Every day convenience store owners can be ultimate monster battling warriors if the script permits

Hundreds of deaths are forgivable if one orphan finds a home

Stay tuned, for in a couple of weeks YongHee and I will return to CineWorld to watch the new action flick coming to Asian theatres near you, 일본침몰 (Japan is Sinking! [finally])

Cultural Oddity Moment #4

We have a dish washer. That, however, is not the odd part. The odd part is that we never close the dishwasher. Umma washes all the dishes by hand. So why have a dishwasher, you may ask. Wel,, there are always dishes on the dish racks. These dishes are clean dishes. The dishwasher has been redubbed the dishstorer in this household. Yes, rather than take up valuable cabinet and drawer space with clean dishes, we put the clean dishes in the dishstorer. Whenever we want dishes, we simply get them out of the dishstorer, which is always open like so.

This has been your cultural oddity moment of the day.

Yes, yes you did....but may I talk to him?

So Umma picks up the phone yesterday, and from what I gleened from the situation, the following occured:
Other line: "Is YongHee there?"
Umma: "Yonghee? I birthed him."
Maybe I got it all wrong, but that would be a funny way of saying "no, this is his Mom." What do you say to that? My response is above. What would be yours!?!

Asians Can't Drive

We have a stereotype in America. It's the slow Asian driver. You get stuck behind one and you just crawl. I've ridden in the car with one of said variety of Asian, and if you have to be somewhere just give up. So upon arriving in an Asian nation, especially coming from one of the most erratic driving areas of the nation, one would expect to find the highways rather lethargic, clotted with many busses and drivers afraid of 40 mph.

Not so, however. Not. So.

I would rather walk than ride with these Korean drivers. Maybe I don't understand the rules, and then maybe there really aren't any. They all laugh when I buckle my seat belt, but I am genuinely scared for my life.

In America we have Stop Signs to excess. Whenever there is a road that crosses, meets, passes, or even approaches the current road, we stop traffic with the power of octagon. There is no such thing as a Stop Sign in Korea. We find it laughable that we're tested on the meaning of a Stop Sign in order to obtain a license, yet these people wouldn't know one if you beat them with it. Major intersections have stop lights, but most smaller two lane intersections have absolutely nothing. When a Korean approaches an intersection, they "use their judgment" when deciding whether or not to bring it to a halt. Obviously this system would never work in America, Land of Idiots, but even here in Asia I wonder how there aren't constant accidents everywhere.

Much as the concept of personal space is different in other cultures, the concept of suitable distance between cars is different here. And it is far less. Partially this is due, I'm sure, to the fact that most of the roads are three cars wide....and there are cars parked on both sides of the road. This leaves only a narrow margin for even one car to navigate. One way streets? No, two way. How do they do it? I have no earthly clue, but it always involves near scraping things on all sides.

If there are two cars in the left turn lane, the light changes, and the first car isn't paying attention, it is not uncommon for the second car to pass him ON THE LEFT SIDE and just make a turn.

Stopping in the middle of six lanes of traffic to let someone out is frequent, and the rest of traffic just swipes around the stationary roadblock.

Motorcyclists and Vespa riders obey no rules, but instead ride down the right side of traffic at the stop light as though it was a special HOV lane for 2 wheels or less.

All vehicles on major streets are parked on the sidewalk, so you can expect cars to be driving on the sidewalk at any time you're walking on it.

All in all, I fear for my life even walking in the vicinity of this mayhem, and if walking is an option, I take it.

Cultural Oddity Moment #3

In America you can't always tell who's in high school and who's in college. There's not that much developmental difference between a nineteen and eighteen year old. Sometimes the seniors look old, sometimes the freshmen look young. Here, however, there is no mistaking it. Due to compulsory military service, there is a two year age gap everywhere in society. You don't see 19 and 20 year old people on the subway, the sidewalks, or in the restaurants. Two years is enough time to make a big enough difference that you never don't know who's in what division. It's obvious.
This has been your cultural oddity moment of the day.

Olympic Park

As I've said before, I don't believe I've done Olympic Park justice. As you can see from this map, the South half of the park is buildings built to house the 1988 Olympic Games. They North half, however, is all trials, picnic areas, and scenic views. I live five minutes by foot away from this world class location, so spending time there is pretty easy and enjoyable. In addition, I don't feel out of place taking pictures here because even the Koreans take pictures. It's like a zoo of modern art.



This is one of my favorite ensembles. You sit in a traditional Korean pavilion at the top of a small hill on the water and look out on this. There is a lake full of these wind powered scissor sculptures that just spin and blow in the wind. Whoever came up with it had a knack for the comical and fun. It's great to just sit and watch them all spin around and around, and luckily it stays fairly windy here. They are so dynamic!








If your sculpture can't stand on it's own, you need to redesign your sculpture.













A lot of the work is just part of the landscape. Kids will be playing on it like it's jungle gym equipment. It's all right off the path and in the grass, and there are benches near at hand always. Everything is very pedestrian and family friendly. There are the occasional drink machine, but tastefully done. The park isn't covered in trashcans and water fountains, so it remains very natural looking.






My favorite pieces in the park are the ones of epic size. I like 'em towering and I like 'em modern. There are plenty of smaller works and plenty that look more organic, but I don't really have an eye for that kind of art.










Here's one that's just stuck in the middle of the gymnasiums on the south side. Most of the bigger stuff was placed here because their is much more room. This guy looked cool from every angle: it was hard to find the best one.












Ah, that's why the Koreans are so prosperous....they just throw it all up at once! There were several other cranes that I couldn't capture in the frame. If some of my pictures of Korea make it look really new, that's because it is. Seoul as it stands today is about 60 years old, though it's been the capital city for almost 600. Koreans are very proud of the fact that they came from nowhere at the end on WWII to being the third most populous urban area in the world.









For those of you who don't know, that says KOREA!!













There are plenty of places that were just fields, but this was the only one that had this wheat-like reed. There were benches in the middle of this tall grass....I don't know how you get to them or why you'd want to sit there with the plants sticking up through the slats~~



There are lots of places within the park where there aren't any buildings covered with Korean, any strange looking cars, maybe an Asian or two but you can totally ignore it and pretend you're somewhere comfortable like north Campus. Most of the trees are the same, the grass is the same, the sky is bluer but we have our occasional blue days too. That may be my favorite part about the park: I can sit and escape the overwhelming qualities of the rest of life.






This was the inside of a building in the park. They built it over some ancient dwelling sites that they found within the park during excavation. There were four sites from different time periods that kind of overlapped just within this small building.









This is the giant red swoosh near the park entrance. I think it's got class, and did I mention that it's HUGE! This one even manages to not need a ton of wires to hold it up.






After spending so much time in the park, I've realized that even the isolated places are distinctly non-American after time. It's the little things that give it away. You could wake up in the middle of the park and it wouldn't take but an hour to figure out that it wasn't home. For instance, there isn't a single bug I recognize. The mosquitoes are yellow, seven times natural size, and don't bite. There are cicadas, but in Georgia there's maybe four or five out there. Here there are a deafening dozens!




There are squirrels, but those are a chocolate brown to our grey. They aren't fluffy either, but look sleek, sinewy, almost mongoose-esque. They have fluffy tails and still act a fool, but they're still noticeably different. There aren't any familiar birds either, just Korean magpies and cranes everywhere. That one'll shock you time and again. "Hey a crane! Hey another one!"





Another epic piece of art. A lot of it was either about the Olympics, or about Korean culture. This one had something to do with North Korea I believe. Look at those colors! That is real, un-photoshopped sky, grass, and tree my friends and it's all like this. I can't wait until fall.






This one was some sort of tribute to a deceased Korean King, I think the one who invented their alphabet. That was kind of a big deal, since everyone was so sick of Chinese and that whole thing not making any sense. (Hey guys, I got an idea. Let's draw a new picture every time we want to write a word. It's brilliant!)


Here's the side view. It was called "Tunnel of Light" There are several on site like this that are a cool combo of organic and very modern and clean. This one is fun from multiple angles.




















Hey look! There are more flags here then when the U.N. has wacky tacky tie day!














This is what all the sidewalks look like in our neck o' the woods.













This is my favorite sculpture of all. It's one of those modern-organic combos. It looks as though they just pealed up the Earth and this is how it happened. There's grass on the top sides of both segments, so it looks like you could fold it back down again and no one would ever know.









"Where Seoul meets body"
-Death Cab for Cutie










Don't ask me what this is, I think they are still working on it. Eventually I believe it will be filled with water and be some manner of active fountain, but until then it just looks like a cluster of the mushrooms that we all love so much over here. Yeah, chrome mushrooms....mmmm.








"With my lightning bolts a'glowing
I can't see where I am
going."
-the Arcade Fire









This is clearly some sort of take on the Korean Flag. You first see it from very are away, but as you get closer you realize that it's not solid by any means, but is instead long tubes or PVC or something that has been colored and then strung to that structure to form a sort of liquid sphere. As it blows in the wind you can see through it at certain points.









More art just in the middle of a public place. This is a bunch of tables and umbrellas (even they are artsy) outside a sort of cafe on the south side of the park. I think there's a fountain a little further down. The place is just rich with art and style.







In the middle of the nature portion of the park there is this giant hill. It's gotta be 60 or 70 degrees straight up. It's not an easy climb and there isn't much up there. They built a path to the top, but it's still like climbing up Stone Mountain. The top of the hill levels out for a while and there are whole walking paths up there. There isn't any sculpture, but you don't need it. From that monstrous hill you can look out on all sides and see the entire park, all of Seoul, the Han river, and the Mountains that surround us.





I sat at the top for a while and looked down on all the large art I had just taken pictures of, at the massive church that we go to, at how close the mountains are to the city, at all the people driving across the all the bridges over the world's largest metropolitan river. The only people up there were a very old couple on one or the other benches. Don't ask me how they got up that hill.



They must still be very spry and limber, because that was a crazy hike. Maybe they live on top somewhere. It was so windy on the ground, and by the time I got to the top of that hill the wind was so bad I was holding my hat on and my Milkis can was blowing away. That couple must have been holding on to the bench, for they looked light enough to go with that wind as well








It's two teeny Asian cars covered in burlap and arranged like some technological beak! SWEET!

Menu Update

Tonight, being Saturday, we went out to a restaurant with the whole fam (parents, YongHee and his chica SeonHwa, June and her husband, and me!). At this restaurant we dined on a five blend mushroom soup, which we kind of fondued. They brought a plate piled high with five kinds of mushrooms and a little bit of shaved venison, then got the broth started in a pot on the table. After that we just dumped in the shroom-fest and waited. We didn't actually eat the mushrooms in the broth we cooked it in, but instead moved it to a small bowl of vinegar and green onions. I was pretty tasty. Afterward they fried rice in the broth until it was crispy. It was enough food to feed twice our number once you include the mixed side dishes on the table, but that's how these Koreans roll.

The Story of Yoduk Story

These free tickets were no ordinary free tickets, I'll start by saying that. There were three different sections of theatre. One was the nose bleeds for 30 bucks (experience the musical entirely through the medium of sound), the middle section for 50 bucks (not bad, but you're still squinting), and VIP for 80 freaking bucks!!!! Well, as you may have guessed, YongHee and I were sitting on 160 dollars worth of chair, right in the sixth row of the whole Olympic Auditorium. YEAH BABY!

I would have taken pictures, but it wasn't allowed, so just try to imagine a stage full of people dressed in North Korean uniforms, dancing and twirling flags/weapons, singing about what a living hell North Korea is, and smiling, all to the backdrop of a Giant hammer and sickle. You got that image? Now throw in some throbbing techno beats. Yeah, that's about right. It was great fun and almost exactly like what an American musical would be, minus the occasional techno song of course. I probably would have had more fun if they weren't projecting the English to one side of the stage. Not knowing would have been so sweet.

Here, if t's any consolation I'll throw in these packaged photos not of my experience but of the same tour with the same people. Maybe this will help spur the visualization.

Cultural Oddity Moment #2

Let's talk about gas. Not the kind you put in your car (Which is about $1.62 per liter, for anyone who cares to do the math). Not the kind that you fuel your stove with, but you're getting warmer: it is natural gas. That's right. Methane. Pure intestinal air bubbles. In America we all know that releasing these little pockets out into the world is rude and we recognize that it should be done in private, if not at least incognito.

In Korea however it's a whole 'nother story. At least in my family it's treated like a sneeze. No matter where you are (be it the park, church, the dinner table, teaching a piano lesson, lint rolling the floor) the expulsion of gas is treated as perfectly normal and acceptable. In fact, no one even blinks. It's passed off more nonchalantly even than a sneeze. No matter what the volume, whatever is natural is completely fine.

This has been your cultural oddity moment of the day.

(If I could have taken a picture, I would have, but it always catches me so off guard. Plus you can't really capture gas on film / a memory card.)

Orientation

Today was the big Orientation for international students. YongHee had to go to school, so Appa and I boarded the subway and took line 2 all the way out to ShinChon (ShinChon, I've learned, in fact means "New Town" and is the main portion of downtown accessible to the Yonsei students) When we finally arrived I sat in the auditorium of the Millennium building for the presentation while Appa waited outside. It was long and dull, but I was able to sign up for some immersion/adaptation oriented clubs, learn how to register, and receive a map of campus.

The best story that came out of this Orientation was by far Han Song I. I found that every time a new speaker took the stage, I was unconsciously evaluating his or her English. First there was the Associate Dean of the International Exchange College, and his English was better that average. Next was the Dean, who's English was a little worse, but still good. Then the President of Yonsei spoke, and his English was lacking but still a good show for someone who's not really in the International Division of the college. Finally we heard from Song I, the program director and exchange coordinator. Her English vocabulary was impressive, but her accent was stronger than garlic breath. It came to the part in the presentation when she was talking about 'the blue sheet.' Unfortunately these two particular words proved insurmountable to Song I.
"Now if everyone would please turn their attention to the bullshit,..."
"One of these forms is white, and the other is bullshit..."
"Please fill out and turn in this bullshit..."
"Everything is explained here in this bullshit..."
Needless to say there were a few well deserved snickers from the 321 English speakers in the audience.

Afterward, Appa and I got back on the subway. It's truly amazing how much the two of us communicate when we really try. When YongHee is around Appa and I just use him to translate because it's convenient and easy. I spent about six hours with him today, however, and we talked about everything including his mother's premature death, his nerve damage problems while he was in Japan, issues in North Korea, and vacuuming.

When we were getting off the 2 line to transfer to the 8 line of the subway, we decided just to walk the rest of the way and get some lunch on the road. We stopped and had BiBimBap (rice and veggies and spicy sauce all mixed together in a big bowl) and then continued our trek homeward. On the way we stopped and spent at least an hour walking through Olympic Park. I can't emphasize enough how awesome that place is. A little later I'll dedicate an entire post just to that park and it's contents.

Pertinent to this story, however, is the Olympic Auditorium. At the end of our walk in the park we came upon said Auditorium and saw that it was showing a musical entitled 요덕 스토리(Yoduk Story). It just so happens that Appa saw this very musical a week or so ago, and it also just so happens that he used to go to church with the head director of this tour of the show. Even though the director was in L.A. today, Mr. Chung SungSan got a call and Appa scored YongHee and I free tickets! So, while you jokers are laying around at seven in the morning, I'll be nestling in for a three hour musical performance about North Korean refugees. Prepare for pictures!

Family Matters

It’s about time to talk about the family. Immediate family consists of YongHee, Umma, Appa, and June. Where the extended family goes from here I have no idea, but here follows the family description.

YongHee: Actually pronounced Yohng-ee with a very hard ‘o.’ Think somewhere in the range of Homer Simpson’s infamous 'Doh!' Yonghee is a graduate student who has recently turned 25 years-old . Due to compulsory 2 year military service for all males, he’s not as far ahead of me education-wise as one might think. He is a baritone major, which in Korea pretty much translates to 'total academic failure.' If you don’t do science or math then you have nothing to live for anymore, but the uniqueness is somethingI've grown to respect about him. He listens exclusively to opera and praise music and teaches voice lessons as a part time job. His English is decent enough that I’m comfortable around him. YongHee lives in the room across the “hall” from me, and we have spent a lot of time in transit to various places, be it the apartment from the airport, Yonsei from the apartment, or the book store from the CD store. We are always enduring long rides on the subway, bus, or just plain on foot, so we’ve already gotten really creative with our conversational topics. Since our language skills aren’t perfect either way, there’s a ton of misunderstanding, which leads to lengthy explanation. Within that length of explanation there will undoubtedly be another misunderstanding or unknown vocab word, which then leads to an endless string of tangents until finally we find ourselves on a piano bench discussing umbilical chords and Che Guevara. He’s definitely my best [only] friend to date, so ROCK ON YONGHEE!

Umma: Not really her name guys, but I have no reason to call her anything other than “mother,” since this woman is a living, breathing archetype. She does laundry daily. Daily. She asked me not to give her my wash in one lump per week, but just a little bit as it happens. She hangs everything to dry on a clothesline. We’re in the middle of the city! A clothesline! I lived in the rolling countryside and we didn’t use the clothesline for anything but doormats. Umma cooks twice a day. During lunch she’s usually at her job (it involves cell phones in some way but she could be a receptionist at the Cyon corporation or a telemarketer for all I know). As we speak the woman is taking the socks off my feet to sew the holes closed. She offers me food more often than a Greek family would. I walk around the house in a constant state of stuffed-miserable. She spends her free time watching cooking shows, hoola-hooping, washing the dishes, and cleaning the floor. (This family doesn’t believe in brooms. They use the twisted love child of a lint brush and paint roller to continuously roll hair and dust off the ground…..weird.) Then there is the bunion at the joint of her right foot's big toe. That thing isn't just a bunion, it's an eleventh toe! She uses it to maintain balance in tricky situations and to pick up dropped papers, clothes, pencils, etc.

Appa: Appa is an interesting character. His profession, as far as I can call it that, is that of a chef. While it is feminine to cook in Asia the same way it is in America, like America there is some cooking that is manly. Appa is a master of the Korean equivalent of grilling. He has traveled the world working in various restaurants in places like Syria, Iran, China, and (most recently) Japan. Currently, however, I believe he is unemployed. My first big clue is that he doesn’t really go to work. My second was that he sits on the floor during his spare time and circles segments of the classified ads with a highlighter. Every now and again he’ll go to some odd job, but he’s definitely in the market for full time employment. Appa enjoys American folk songs (e.g. Danny Boy, She’ll be Comin’ Round the Mountain) and watching the news. Appa dislikes eating eel (“too slimy”) and the Chinese circus.

June: June’s English is the best of all four. While her production is somewhat lacking, I can pretty much say anything to her that I want to say (barring odd slang, etc.) and she’ll understand me. She was married in March and is expecting in December, so I am very excited to be a part of the Korean babyness, mostly because I want to verify the legend. [Koreans are said to be born with a blue “hand-print” birth mark on their butt cheek, a trait that only Koreans, Mongolians, and Native Americans have. The birthmark fades after three or four days, but it is enough to prove the Bering Strait theory at the very least.] June teaches piano, voice, and music theory as a part time job. The weird thing, though, is that she does all three at once for one hour, running madly from one student to the next, screaming across the house at the pianist as she looks over the shoulder of the music theorist. As I type there are three musically inclined Koreans in the house, and all are doing their own thing. June enjoys Solfeg and leading her church choir, and dislikes walking up the one flight of steps to get to the house, instead opting to wait for the elevator. Ridiculous, but excused in her pregnant state.

While the family is a little quirky, they take good care of me and we all get along well. I enjoy living with them and their oddities serve to amuse me when verbal jokes no longer have any effect.