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.

The Korean Institute of Foreign Studies

Wednesday after my Korean class ended I got on the subway going the opposite direction. I wasn't lost (for once), nor was I just exploring. I headed to southern Seoul and then took a bus out of the city to the south east with express purpose. I was on my way to meet YoungBin at the Korean Institute of Foreign Studies.

The story of how i met this YoungBin is a curious one that also happens to be quite common to me so far. Suffice it to say that strings are being pulled by a mysterious individual on the other side of the world. Already I have been introduced to five or more people through this omnipresent power across an ocean and a continent. YoungBin and I had met once in Insadong, the historical portion of the city, and had a good enough time. When he invited me to take a tour of his campus, I couldn't refuse.

Little did I know, however, that the KIofFS would be two and a half hours away from my university! This wasn't even the suburbs of Seoul: it was a small town in the outskirts. When he called me at 8:15 to ask where I was, the best I could muster was "next to a stream." The town and campus were nestled in the mountains in the country side, and it was beautiful to see. There was very little around, despite that not 15 minutes away was one of the only them parks in Korea, and 30 minutes from that was the third biggest city in the world. On the other side of the mountian we were at the foot of was a special forces training base for the Korean military. Lots of helicopters.

YoungBin and I are a good pair since we both speak about the same ammount of eachother's languages. We both have to struggle in a mixture of Korean and English to communicate effectively, and we're both very eager to learn.

The night that I arrived we went out to dinner in the nearby town, where I was probably the only foreigner they had ever seen. I spent the night in his homestay/bording house, which was a little quirky and was photographed a lot. The next day, YoungBin gave me a tour of the spacious and lush campus, and I met several of his friends at the school. I then had to take the bus back to school for my four o'clock class, but I can't wait to go back some weekend. There are alot of pictures below of my first venture outside of the big city.



1)The giant stone with Chinese on it marking the entrance to KIofFS.
2)The living room of the homestay (note that even computer use is done sitting on the floor).
3)The man dries peppers for a living. It's hard work, trying to get the sun to dry all those peppers.
4)This was inside the cabinet in YoungBin's room. The room used to belong to the homestay guy's son, and these are his little cultural souveniers. One is a very traditional helmet, and the other is a very cultural catch phrase "Dear God, Oh! I'd like to get married. Do I have to wait until I grow up?"
5)They take those old school western photos too!
6)One of the buildings on campus.
7)YoungBin and I infront of an outdoor amphitheatre.
8)Another campus building across a scenic pond.
9)YoungBin by one of the many picturesque bridges.
10)The campus is designed as one long road with buildings on either side. The strip is on a gradual incline up the foothills of this mountain. This is me at the top of the campus with the rest of it behind me.

My Journey to School: A Photographic Chronicle

So here in the first shot is totally hip me, using a camera, cell phone, iPod, and sunglasses all at the same time. I begin every trip anywhere on this street, since it is the street our apartment is on. Today we'll be going to school.

The second photo is the infamous "mushroom feast house" where I had five mushroom stew. I pass it everyday on my way to the subway.

Thirdly is what Koreans think Americans look like. This baker greets me every day as I approach the subway gates.

Fourth: the dark entrance to the subway. It's about four stories worth of stairs just to get to the train.

Next we can see subway is approaching. Every day I take the pink line (#8) for two stops and then transfer onto the green line (#2) going counterclockwise until I reach SinChon.

Then we have lots of Asians on the subway. They all have the same hair color!

A fruit vendor. There are lots of people in little kiosks all up and down the streets selling newspapers, snacks, produce, clothes, and other goods.

These guys are crossing the street from Yonsei while i am crossing toward it. I took a lot of these pictures with my hand by my side, all incognito-like, so please excuse the rudimentary design layout of most of these photographs.

And next we have tis woman, who is selling dollar store junk on the sidewalk.

The following photo is where Asians get there shoes. There are scare few "shoe stores" per se, but there are a ton of street vendors with mats or wheel barrels full of shoes. Hmm, nothing in my size....

I pass everyday this construction site. Yonsei is building an addition to the college run and funded hospital, and they wasted tons of money covering the unsightly construction with this four story tall divider wall painted green with a white picket fence and adorned with fake ivy.

The next to last photo is New Millenium Hall, where all the international classes are held, as I approach it from the mile long 40 degree angle hill. THis hill is the last stretch of my daily journey, and it's not going to be fun when the day comes that I'm late and have to run up this thing.

Lastly we see me arriving at New Millenium Hall and the voyage is at finally complete!

Change of Heart

This is me after my first Modern History Class: I'm keeping it.

I wasn't the only one who walked in there skeptical. There were several students who were going to try it out and then probably switch over to Korean War. After one class we've all decided that Modern History is going to be far superior.

The Korean War class is taught by an American ex-general who fought in afore mentioned war. This has it's lures and repellents. For one, the English would be great and we'd know entirely what expectations are. Taking class from differently cultured people is sometimes a little unnerving (can I drink a Coke in class? Can I just get up to use the bathroom? How strict are they exactly?) The drawback, however, is that the class would be an American perspective, so why not just take it in the States? I should be taking classes and learning things that are impossible back home. Besides, the guy was a general, so does tardiness equal push-ups?

The instructor for Modern History is an older Korean man, maybe in his 60's. He introduced himself by his full name, then told us what we could call him:
Mr. Park (because he is a Mr.)
Dr. Park (because he is a Dr.)
Professor Park (because he is a professor.)
Prince Park (because he is a prince.)
or
Genius Park (because he is a genius.)
He had various justifications for each claim, but suffice it to say that I don't foresee "Prince Park" catching on in the near future.

If it's not already apparent, the man has a great sense of humor, but kind of in that "wow, that was a weird thing to say" kind of way. He's clever and approachable, and very knowledgeable about history in this region. He got a masters at Korea National University, a Doctorate at Washington State University, taught for 14 years at Oklahoma State (where he claims 80% of the population will still tell you they know Genius Park), was the vice president of another university here, aspires to the national presidency, and was a lunch monitor in a middle school in California. He told us not to buy the textbook because we should save our money for partying. He's a "born again Christian chain-smoking party animal." The man has so much personality and flare that no subject could be boring in his hands. He's the kind of teacher who makes you want to come to class. Today he taught us his secret knowledge that we may only share with a significant other, so if anyone's interested I am available.

Classes Begin at Last

More in the style of Canada of all places, classes here at Yonsei are three hours long for one day a week. Just thought I'd throw that one out there. I have difficulty staying focused in a seventy-five minute class. Some of the classes are broken into two hours on one day, one hour the next, and that's not so terrible. Korean is two hours every day.

I went to Korean International Relations on Friday. The class should be interesting for me, as it not only talks about the Korea-US factor, but also focuses on major powers in the region (Russia, China, Japan) and puts it all in the context of a tumultuous modern history. The professor's English is like most here, what I like to call "textbook" (big on vocab, big on accent). The class should involve mostly reading (three textbooks this semester, cover to cover) and two short papers. These papers might actually be more of a challenge for me than one might think, however. Since the professor is in no position to criticize, the emphasis of the paper is less on style, grammar, and spelling, and more on original ideas and intriguing thought. Ouch.

My Monday morning was Korean-American comparative government, another that should be entirely interesting. We take a trip to the Korean Congress, do a little reading and some writing, and have a lot of discussion about differences in the governments, voting populace, tendencies, predictors, and procedures of the two countries. This professor's English was slightly better and less monotone.

Friday afternoon I took a placement test to see just how much Korean I actually knew. The University predicted that anyone with 4 semesters at another university would place into beginning level 2, and they were right about me. At first I felt jewed, but I know realize from attending my first Korean class Monday afternoon that it's exactly where I'm at. I have two teachers that alternate days, and the class size is maybe ten people, so learning will have no choice but to ensue. Oh, and the instructors don't understand when I speak English. So, yeah. This oughta be fun.

Today I go to Modern History, which I feel will simply repeat what is being taught in my other two classes. I may drop this course and sub in Korean War. We'll see.

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.