Cherry Blossoms '10

It's almost spring again, and we set out on a weekend trip to see the cherry blossoms again (see last year's post).


We decided to make the trip a little differently than last year. No one had ever been to the East Sea (known to most of you by the fascist name 'Sea of Japan'), so we made out to the city of Gangneung. Gangneung is well known for having the largest beach on the east coast of the peninsula, and the province that it's in is famous for various potato dishes that you can't find in Seoul. We hopped an early bus out of the city and struck out eastward. The first stop was a farm for sheep raising. The weather hadn't let the grass come in fully yet (there was still snow and ice in some places! In April!!), but we had a fun time hiking around and feeding the stabled sheep. I know I must have seen sheep up close at some point in my life, but I don't remember them being so shaggy. I'm not sure whether or not these were being fed, but they were quite ravenous. It was cool that the baskets of grass were free! That stuff would've cost three bucks a pop in the states, but Korea hasn't quite figured out that you can gouge tourists/theme-parkers/movie-goers at every turn and we'll still pay for it.


The next stop was lunch, which sadly did not include any of the unique potato dishes. Due to our proximity to the ocean, there were several great places for fish. In the end, we opted for the region's home-raised beef barbecue. Hanwoo is the name for beef that hasn't been imported, and they take a great deal of pride in their cows. This would have been really expensive in the city, but we got a great deal. The main event turned out to be after lunch. The five of us rented a tandem bike for an hour and decided to take it around the lake. Actually, we decided to do a quarter of the lake and then turn around, but we made it all the way around in less than an hour! The thing looks like a golf cart, and 4 people pedal at any given time. There are two steering wheels, but only one of them has any control thankfully. Around the back half of the lake is a series of statuettes that told a historical story, but we were going counter-clockwise around the lake, so the story would have been backwards (if we had known that it was a story at all). This was the whitest, most touristy moment I've had in Korea in a long time. We were a spectacle. All five of us had cameras out and were snapping pictures frantically. It was a Saturday afternoon and the lake path was filled with Korean families, couples, children, and other tour groups (the most notable of which were 30-odd college students all wearing the same white hoodie that said "LAKESIDE FLORIODAS" across the front). To everyone whom we passed, we yelled "안녕하세요!" (Hello, how are you?) excitedly. I attempted to high five some of the other families on tandem bikes (as pictured below), with one success and one recoil. There was a girl who could not have been more than four years old who would have dropped her ice cream had she been holding one. She was terrified and slack jawed, and probably cried after we left without understanding why. Nonetheless, people who were older than her had said hello, so with her wide eyes and open mouth should reflex bowed like a good Korean child. All in all, it was a total blast, even if we disturbed the peaceful lake-side walk of the locals. When it was over, we could barely walk. We had been pedaling so furiously since at what seemed to be halfway we came to the realization that we had to do the whole thing, but we had a bus to catch! We arrived in plenty of time though, and it was onward to our next destination.

"High five!"

Our last stop was a strawberry farm. We showed up and it all seemed really ghetto. There hadn't been much rain, the weather was cold, and the fields were not much to look at. However, after stepping inside the greenhouse structures we realized that it was a really nice operation. There was a short lecture (in Korean) about the strawberries, how they were grown, and the proper way to pick them. We then got a chance to fill up a paper cup with fresh picked strawberries that also turned out to be organic. Without the chemical fertilizers or pesticides to worry about, we were allowed to eat them on the spot. The farm then gave us a packet of strawberries each to take home. Sunday morning: organic (practically) hand-picked, (practically) beach-side strawberries.

What was intended to be a trip to see the cherry blossoms on the beach turned out to be a trip to pick strawberries and feed sheep near a lake. but we had a great time anyways!

Holy Crap When?

Costco

Many months ago I made one of the most important decisions any expat must make.  The location of his unofficial embassy.  It's not a decision that one can simply make, however.  There are many factors, almost to the point of a mutual choosing of one another.  For me, the bond was made with Costco.

Costco represents everything about America that can't be accessed anywhere outside its walls.  Bulk discounts, most notably.  If I buy a whole box of juice bottles as opposed to a juice bottle per day, the unit cost is identical!  Logical but infuriating.  Costco spares me that furor by once again restoring the natural order of things.  Spending more money is the only way to save it.

Married to this idea is also that of excess.  Sure, I may never use 100 packets of instant oatmeal without developing either an aversion or a digestive problem, but no other option is presented.  You buy the whole salmon or you go home empty handed.  Costco is perpetually super-sized, and I derive sick pleasure from enveloping myself in the security of such excess.

I can not overlook the comfortable familiarity of brand recognition either.  Be it Head & Shoulders, George Foreman, Swiss Miss, or straight up Kirkland, Costco offers all the props necessary for recreating the authentic illusion of home.  It also offers me my most coveted food item: cheese, the subject of many a nostalgic blog post to date.  Not just pre-sliced, individually wrapped "cheese," but blocks of cheese in cheddar or jack, tubs of feta, wheels of brie, even little sacks of La Vache Qui Rit whole milk mozzarella are available to the man willing to cough up the won.  Coupled with this cheese is a variety of breads.  Wheat, bagel, croissant, muffin: it's everything I could ever hope for.

Lastly, Costco's food court is identical to that of any Costco I've ever been in.  The pizza is greasy, the hot dogs are cheap.  Even Koreans will tell you that this is the best part about Costco, but of course they manage to confuse their priorities even in this.  Every single Korean at the food court, without exception, makes a kimchi-substitute side dish to go with their food.  They grind a fresh plate full of raw onions, squeeze out a package of relish, juice it all up with copious amounts of ketchup and mustard, and stir.  This condiment "salad" is to be enjoyed with a spoon.  Although it looks like vomit, I refuse to allow it to ruin my experience.  However, I can't quite understand how an entire nation could be so crazy for spoonfuls of ketchup and raw onion.

My Hobby: Naming

Over the past year, I've had the unique opportunity to name children. Most people only get that opportunity 2-3 times in their life, but I'm here with hundreds of Minhyeoks and Jiyoungs and they all need names.

The benefit of this kind of freedom is the opportunity to make mistakes. Whereas I would never name my own child Phineas or Dexter, here I have the opportunity to test drive without having to buy.

The obsession stems partly from the fact that all of the students who choose their own names select the same, tawdry names that end in -y. Harry, Jenny, Tommy, Julie, Sally, Christie, and Ellie. Then there's the just bland names like Bill, Ryan, Eric, Chris, Sarah, and Grace (which gets particularly old because the Korean word for grace is a popular name here so they all just translate it).

Most annoying of all is June. In every class there is at least one June/Jun/Joon. The difference is that this child is exclusively male. Since many male Korean names include the syllable joon and they all know that June is an existing English name, they take the easy road. Surprisingly, no one has ever explained to them that June is, like all names from months, seasons, or plants, reserved for women.

It is expressly because of the Junes that I've adopted my interesting names hobby, though it may have started as a cruel joke. One of the things that is pretty consistent across the Junes (as well as other students who refuse to choose an English name) is that their resistance, laziness, and apathy usually extends further than just their lack of name choice. Often times these students become the problems of the classroom. As a type of passive-aggressive rebellion, I began naming these imps with English names that other children didn't have because Koreans find them difficult to pronounce. Valerie and Charles, for example, have both l and r juxtaposed, which Koreans find next to impossible.

The practice soon spread, however, and became an intra-office competition to give students the most outlandish names. From this period Tank and Blackhole were born. Finally we come to rest at the current situation. Select members of the office have joined my crusade to rid the school of Junes and increase the variety of names among students. Having come from a country where I'm used to international classrooms and jobs, I'm tired of the seas of identically named students. I miss going to school with Alfredo and Sauna, working with Juanito and Magno. We're starting more humbly (Douglas, Eve, Felicia, and Clive to date), but I've got a list and I'm passing out more original names.

If you have suggestions for a child's name, just add a comment. Think of it as adopting an African child but without the dollar a month. I'll even send you a picture of the child with your name.

Girl Scouts

I just want to say that while all of you people are buying your Thin Mints and gorging on Samosas, I'm in Korea where there are Girls Scouts but they don't sell any cookies.  What is even the point.  Now I have to look at my students in their taunting little uniforms and be constantly reminded how much I want to drop 30 dollars on a week's supply of Tagalongs but I don't even have the opportunity.  On the bright side there's always barbecue...

24

Today was my star birthday (when you turn the same age as the day you were born), and it was a good one.  I was at first nonplussed by the idea of it all, especially since I've been "24" for the past year and that I had to go to a workshop all day yesterday. As it turns out, I am not yet of the age where every birthday is worse than the one prior.

To begin with, this workshop was out in the middle-of-nowhere's suburbs. By the time I got back Saturday night, I was so in the zone. I was on the elevator to my apartment, headphones in and totally rocking. I'd been travelling for an hour and a half and nothing was going to stop me then, in the home stretch. I come bobbin' down the hallway, inserting and turning my key in rhythm, and fling open the door to find the below.

At this point, the room is dark and I can't tell what is going on inside. My music is still blaring, so I can't even listen to hear if there's movement inside or not. I slide my hand along the right wall until it reaches the light switch. It would seem that at a certain age, one stops receiving birthday spankings and begins receiving birthday punkings. The room is a maze of toilet paper and laundry, strung up wall to wall. Someone has meticulously wrapped most of my possessions with aluminium foil (including dishes, furniture, and slices of American cheese). The furniture has been rearranged.

I stood spinning slowly in the centre of the room, dumbfounded and disoriented like a cat in a new house. Over the course of time I noticed smaller details like the disappearance of my laundry, the post-its that completely covered my mirror, or the pots and pans in the freezer. After 24 hours I believe everything has been discovered and corrected, including the shrink-wrapped shower head and toilet bowl.

While unwrapping, I got about 3 books in before realizing that everything had been replaced with chick-lit.

Lovingly and painstakingly done. I love it. Thanks to everyone for a kicking birthday that was full of surprises, delicious food, and fun.

My New English Vocabulary

I teach elementary English as a second language. I struggle daily to help children understand the nuances of the word take. Needless to say, I had consigned myself to a year of advanced English retreating. It is then an understandable surprise that I've noticed certain expansions in my vocabulary. Unfortunately, these words are not necessarily accepted or understood by the mainstream public. This is my first step in socializing the Konglish that has become such a part of my daily life.

Service
pronunciation: suh- as in 'suck'; -bee- as in the animal; -si as in the first syllable in 'swish' when we colloquially elongate it for effect

This one has been part of the repertoire for quite some time, but it's important to make the distinction. When Americans talk about the service at a particular restaurant, we are referring to a complex combination of server attitude, attention to detail, promptness, and overall dining experience. Korea takes a much more direct approach to the matter: service means free stuff. If I go to a restaurant and order, they will bring me a free cola. The waiter denoting that it is "service" is the social clue that I will not be charged for the Coke.

The practice does not stop at the dinner mint, however. If I get a fill up at a gas station, the attendant may give me a free packet of tissues for my car. "Service." If I'm at a karaoke room and I've paid for an hour but 30 more minutes magically appear on the clock, the monitor will inform me: "Service." If I pick up a prescription at the pharmacy and the clerk gives me a toothpaste sample, "service."

Consequently, this has made other imported phrases uncomfortable or impossible. "Self service," for example, because the awkwardly truncated and somewhat philosophical "Water is Self."

Hacking/Cunning
pronunciation: Heck-keeng and Cun-neeng

Hacking is of course the extremely 90's practice of infiltrating personal computer files and illicit programs, and cunning is the slightly less negative sly. A gerund and an adjective, respectively. In Korea, however, these words are synonymous. For that to be the case, they would also have to be identical parts of speech. In a true diplomatic fashion, they compromise and both become nouns. In Korean as well as in broken English, one literally "does hacking" or "does cunning."

This pair has been morphed to mean cheating. It is most predominant during quizzes when a student is taking a quiz and looks at a peer's paper. I have also seen it used in the context of a cheat sheet, or "cunning paper." There's a standardized test prep series called "TOEFL Hacking."

Interestingly, these terms do not apply for changing one's answers after grading (in which they simply label that student a "Sagee" or fraud) or for plagiarism (which they do not recognize as wrong on any level.)

Fishing
pronunciation: peesh-eeng

It's not a sport, unless you consider Ashton Kutcher's behavior on Punked to be athletic. In Korea, when you say something opposite of what you mean in order to fool someone, you follow the awkward silence that ensues with "I fished you," or simply "Fishing." It's greatly similar to phrases such as "I'm just pulling your chain," "Gotchya," or everyone's 1990's favorite "Psych."

Examples of fishing include, but are not limited to:
What's that on the ceiling? [nothing is on the ceiling] Fishing!

Teacher, I didn't bring my book today...I'm fishing!

I keep an extra refrigerator in my home to store the bodies. I just fished you!

A: You're fat!
B: You're mom's fat!
A: Not cool, my Mom's got breast cancer.
B: Dude, quit fishing me.

Happy Birthday

More appropriately, Happy New Year. However, in Korea at least and probably in other parts of the far east too, one's age is counted by the lunar calendar. Sort of. You see, although there will be no present giving or candle blowing until the actual date you traversed the birth canal, everyone in country is officially one year older on January first. So, since my 24th birthday is this year, you could safely assume that I am now 24.

But you'd be wrong. There's also this weird thing where you add one year. I'm not sure whether it's some hyperconservative life-begins-at-conception thing (wherein the math still doesn't make much sense for normal 9 month gestaters not to mention the premature) or if it's a way of counting the year you're about to live or what, but I was born in 1986, my birthday is the end of January, yet somehow I am "25" according to Korea. I guess in a culture where socially everything hinges on age, it sure is easier that we all make gains in that department at the exact same time. I also think this has suspiciously something to do with the fact the first semester of the school year starts now and not in the fall.

So, thanks Korea for adding 2 numbers to my mathematical age. Misery liking company, I implore you all to add 2 years to your age (1 if you're birthday was in the past 4 days) and contemplate how much you feel like you've just withered away.

새해 복 많이 받으세요.
(New Year's blessings many please receive.)

The End of B*Desh

DAYS 6 & 7: The End

Damn that coconut. Or one of my other indiscretions. I spent the whole night evacuating everything I've eaten thus far in every way my body knows how. We "woke up" at seven, myself completely empty and Imran (I now learn that I've had his name wrong from the beginning) with a migraine and lacking sleep as well, presumably from my symphonic indigestion.

We took a CNG to the anti-climactic Lawachara rain forest. Deep in past the tea and rubber plantations was a national park that promised primates, parrots, and panthers. Instead, it delivered little more than a bird that looked like a robin, a black squirrel, and an empty potato chip bag. There was, however, a rather soothing "rain" effect. The trees kept the temperature of the area low enough to form mist in the morning, so for the first couple hours of the day one could hear the dew falling from leaf to leaf.

On the way out we stopped at a pineapple field, where I picked my very own pineapple. We cut it up for lunch, though I could hardly enjoy it. After that, we started the long journey back to Dhaka. Imran insisted on trying to feed me or talk about the food we had eaten that could have led to my present condition. It did not help.

I drank a Sprite on the ride home, hoping the carbonation would be settling.

I slept delusionally but felt healthy in the morning. I hungrily ate the leftover nan I had been hording and got ready to return to Korea. The airport was more crowded than when I had arrived, masses of people huddled around the entrance to meet relatives returning from years abroad.

After an hour on the ground (there are only 4 other flights leaving Dhaka. This city is inexcusably disorganized.), I and the 4 infants surrounding me depart for our Bangkok layover. Who would've though I could have finished a 400 page novel already? This was a long flight with nothing but Thai folk songs and opera on the radio and E Inside Bollyywood on TV. Suvarnabhumi airport has even less to offer the traveler with 5 hours on his hands. It's good to be back home, where my bed is familiar and I recognize the pop music.

Thailand is so thoughtful. This would be weird in the states.

EPILOGUE
My overall feeling is emboldened, despite the freshness of the memory of illness. I took risks and survived, which is nothing short of courage boosting. Contrarily, I have also been reminded that not all places outside America would be modern and comfortable. Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong had lulled me into thinking that all foreign locales would be air conditioned and accessible, an illusion which Bangladesh quickly shattered. It will be quite some time before I venture as far off the beaten path as this again, of this I feel confident. Although, with every new trip my appetite for exploration is deepened rather than sated. I still am unsure of what new direction my adventure may lead me, but I am ever open to the challenge. I leave you with an outtakes of sorts.

The 10 Facts about B*Desh that Didn't Fit into the Stream of My Story

10. The #1 (and only recorded) hair/beard dye color of choice: Henna Orange
9. Only American song heard: You Belong with Me by Taylor Swift
8. Strangest Deformity: The man whose right arm couldn't grow muscles. No, the cab driver who had a third thumb. No! The guy at the park with a second nose in the middle of his forehead!!! I can't pick!
7. National Sport: Cricket. This is a very confusing sport.
6. The Best Car Seen: Mazda RX8 (shiny!)
5. The 2nd Best Car Seen: Toyota Corolla (it had both rear-view mirrors)
4. Most Interesting Thing Learned: Though we derive our number system from Arabic numerals, the look nothing alike.
3. Most Ridiculous Thing Seen: A cow giving birth in the street.
2. Saddest Beggar Ever: The 3 toddlers, each with their hair in pigtails and babies on their hips, followed by a toothless, one-eyed mother.
1. Most Dangerous Road Stunt: Our bus was passing two other buses on a two lane road. An oncoming CNG went all the way around the buses we were passing (off the shoulder of oncoming traffic's side of the road) to avoid being hit by our bus.

Into Hindustan

DAY 5: Sri Mongol

My honeymoon period of regularity ends as the food gets the best of me at last. I suppose garbanzo bean soup from a street vendor was simply asking for it. Although I had it coming, it can't be said that my condition made the following 3 hour bus journey comfortable for any party involved. It's also not discouraged me from another food packed day. You only live once, right?

At noon we arrived in Sri Mongol, a town that approaches the Indian border from another side. Sri Mongol is distinct from other places I've been so far in that it demonstrates an inversion of the typical 80% Muslim 15% Hindu makeup.

Lunch is rice with curried green beans and a fish fillet from something Imlan calls rui. Afterwards we enjoy a pastry, if that's what it can be called. Jilapi is batter, spiraled into fry oil and cooked, then marinated in honey. Not only is it covered in the orange-pink hued honey but the goo has seeped its way into the pockets created within the fried batter coils. It's the shovel for honey that french fries are for ketchup.

Our motorized rickshaw, or CNG (#6), took us into the Finlay tea fields. Imlan and I strode through the bushes and streams with a raw tea leaf in our front gum like it was chew tobacco. Unlike tobacco, the spit can be swallowed since you're only really making tea in your mouth. Even after fully removing all the bits of leaf, my mouth was still (quite literally) steeped in tea flavor.

We watched for cobras at all times, even when we passed out of the tea bushes and into the rubber tree fields. I observed what looked like watery Elmer's glue snaking down the carved trenches in the tree bark and dripping into collection cups. We finally reached an outpost at which I could drink some of this tea, having been comically layered liked a specialty alcoholic drink, black on white on red on oolong on green.

Later in the day, we rickshawed around the city area, me with coconut in hand. A local boy had hacked it open and popped in a straw. I sipped on coconut milk as Imlan and I strolled through a Hindu temple. On our way back into town we got the same boy to sever in two my then empty coconut. I scraped the minimal "meat" and ate it with part of the shell. It was like ectoplasm, but I finished it politely.

To be continued tomorrow...

To the Edge and Back

DAY 4: Jaflong

We had traditional Bangladeshi breakfast of parata (like a pancake and a croissant's edible baby!) and a marinated, diced potato dish. So, "pancroint" and home-style hash browns, with the Queen's beverage of course. After our breakfast, we went outside the hotel to take a car to Jaflong.

The car we hired was speeding down a two lane road to Hindi techno, weaving through buses, "lorries," other cars, rickshaws, motorized rickshaws, bicycles, pedestrians, livestock, and roadkill. As we passed a military college and base, the driver cut through the parking lot to avoid some speed bumps. Unfortunately, the other side of the dirt lot ended in an unforeseen two foot drop, and before you could say "foursyllableromel," we were stuck.

If only I had my camera for these pictures it would have been AWESOME. Foreign problem solving in action is always legendary. Unfortunately, we bought some Bangladeshi batteries yesterday and they got my camera up and running enough to take three pictures of the tandoori before the piddly things petered out, so words alone will have to suffice.

Plan 1: We spun out the suspended wheels of the Corolla for a few minutes.
Plan 2: We pushed on the front of the car while spinning out the suspended wheels of the Corolla for a few minutes.
Plan 3: (By now, locals are gathering.) Lance Corporal Tahel explains that this has happened to him before. We jack up the car (Sub Plan 1: From a point just in front of the back left tire. Sub Plan 2: From a point just in front of the front left tire.), then take stray rocks and bricks to build a mini wall under the tires. Once they have traction, drive backwards back into the parking lot.
Plan 4: After the car blows rocks all over the place, utilize the 20 some odd people around you and the just push the car back up and into the lot. Do not use for leverage the plastic bumper which is affixed by three distant screws.

We finally arrive in Jaintiapur, though with significantly less Hindi techno. Jaintiapur is just a few kilos outside of Jaflong. There are mountains in the distance that jut up suddenly out of the infinite rice fields. We wander through the town, observing the ruins of old structures such as the mayor's house and the building where the magistrate would preside over prisoner executions (After the car fiasco I made Imlan buy me batteries that didn't expire in seventies, so I'm back in action).

We pressed on to Tamabil Zero Point, the border crossing between Bangladesh and India. The illusion of the land jumping up unexpectedly like a cardiogram is only further proven the closer we come. The range is 7 rows of mountains deep, says Imlan, and it marks the border. We could see India and a border town from across the checkpoint. People were crossing and trading. We ate a handful of seasoned dates from a small newspaper clipping. They had been tossed in salt, diced peppers, and cilantro, yet under all that they tasted like raisins. They proved a bizarre but somehow appealing snack.

Just beyond the border crossing were a few kilometers of coal...I don't quite know what to call them. The coal is all within the mountains and therefore in Indian territory, but Bangladesh imports a good deal of it. So it piles up just inside the border and waits to be sent throughout the rest of the country. So, coal redistribution centers? That sounds way more formal than it was though. Coal redistribution mounds.

At last we pressed on to Jaflong itself. The "town" was little more than a dirt road fringed with rows concrete huts for selling shoes and soda. At the end of the road was a river. People were lined up waiting for unromantic gondolas to ferry them to the far bank, along with their families, motorbikes, and bags of sugar and concrete. On the other side of the river was a deep and wide field of tea plants, amongst which were staggered palms for shading them.

Beyond the tea plantation was a forest. We took a rickshaw down through the forest, stopping to inspect the papaya, banana, orange, and betel plants. Local people lived in small houses within the forest, gathering the fruits and nuts for some small income.

Further up the river was the town of Bholla Gart. It was a bustling market along the banks. People were pulling large stones from out of the river, selling stone crafts like cookware and jewelry, and crowding around shuttle boats so they could shop on the opposite bank. We snacked again, this time on sliced star fruit. It was prepared just like the dates, so again sweet, spicy, salty, and soapy all at once. First it tastes like Cajun popcorn, then like apples. Strange.

Our lunch was pancroint, curry chicken, and omelet, then we rode back to the outskirts of Sylhet. It was there that we saw our third tomb, that of Hazrat Shah Paran, the sister son of Shahjalal whom we'd seen yesterday. Again, there was a large crowd of devotees, come to climb up to the top of the hillock and pray over the saint's casket which lay draped under colorful fabric and roofed by tree branches. After their prayer, many people would sling water onto the casket from whatever water bottles they had with them, though to what end I can only guess. This time when we left the shrine and descended the stairs, we walked down backwards like the rest of the crowd, so as not to put our back disrespectfully to the saint.

We had a more substantial snack of chapati, a curry flavored garbanzo soup with 6 spices, fresh veggies raw and sliced, crackers of sorts, and chunked boiled egg. Street food, my fourth disobedience. Chapati comes along with something like homefries, which are made from a grain called dal.

We rested for a few hours while I wrote of today's events. We have just now taken out dinner of piles upon piles of nan, chicken with curry vegetables, and beef kurai, a beef'n'veggie stir fry. There's a lovely accompanying "salad" of sliced cucumbers with lime juice. A winning combination. To top it all off, we went around the corner to a confectionery for Imlan'a favorite, doi. It was like lemon meringue pie filling stirred together with cream cheese frosting. Rich!

• healthy
• Up to 16 whities (I saw 8 backpackers crossing the border into India)
• Oh yeah, I drank water from a pitcher while we ate street food. #5.

To be continued tomorrow...

Outside of Dhaka

DAY 3: Sylhet

I'm awoken by a menagerie of bird noises and something that sounds like Bollywood. I eat my organic bananas and oranges for breakfast then board a taxi with Imlan, my guide for the rest of the week, and Mr. Milan, the hotel owner. On the drive he tries to explain his country's history to me, but I find it hard to concentrate on stories of independence and unity while literally watching a dog being run over and a blind man beginning for food.

[Because all of today went unphotographed, today I present the miscellaneous collections]
TRANSPORT

We get on the bus for the trip to Sylhet, a city in the northeast. For the duration of our 5 hour bus ride my camera was out of commission. So, what I witnessed:

• All around us are miles and miles of rice fields embroidered with rivers and ponds, smattered with various livestock.
• Women carry laundry and fruit in baskets on their heads.
• Occasionally, the tall smoke stack of a brick kiln and its surrounding rows of bricks rises over the trees.
• Two young boys bathe a cow.
• A mujaheddin scarecrow guards some crops (I imagine the Wizard's witty solution to If I only had DEATH TO AMERICA)
• Rice is baking in shallow piles on large concrete slabs.
• We pass a mosque whose four story minaret was completely ensconced in bamboo scaffolding.
• Every few miles another billboard for concrete slides past.

On the bus with us was Bangladeshi folk star Pothik Nobi (above). He had dreadlocks and blue eyeshadow.

After we arrived, Imlan and I took a local bus (disobedience #3) into the city proper to our hotel. After checking into Hotel Supreme (Service with Smile), we had a late lunch of beef biriyani. This was the beginning of a whole 24 hours of "WHERE IS MY CAMERA?!?!?!" moments. Damn foreign batteries.

After eating we visited the coffin of Hazrat Shah Jalal al-Mujarrad, one of people credited with bringing Islam to the colonial Indian territories 500 years ago. The mayor of Sylhet some years back made it law that everyone pay their respects to this man upon first arriving in the city. Even Hindus gladly oblige seeing as how Shah Jalal provided the whole city with a wealth of charitable services.

FOLIAGE

We visited a second tomb, this of another man who accompanied Shah Jalal from Yemen to the region. Chashni Pir Saab had a pet monkey in life, and after his death that monkey began multiplying. Supposedly the ancestors of this monkey are those that populated the hill on which his coffin rests. It was a small, grey variety of monkey, and we watched 7 or 8 baby ones wrestling in the trees before we rickshawed onward.

Afterwards we visited a local Hindu temple. Some friendly temple employees explained some of the statues as well as some of the basic tenets of the religion. Some of the statues were hundreds of years old and had been discovered when an area building was demolished and the land excavated. The monks themselves had repainted and adopted them. The men offered Imlan and I some famous Bangladeshi sweets. One tasted like brown sugar having been condensed by honey. Thankfully the other one was sweeter.

CURRENCY

Sylhet is nicer than Dhaka on a whole. It is neither overcrowded nor as dusty. At about 4 pm in Dhaka, a misty fog settles over everything, making it impossible to see the sun and thus effectively ending the day, but not here. The city is far shorter and there are more trees. It still suffers from the same dim, orange glow from the terrible lighting.

Imlan and I rickshawed on to the restaurant where we'd had lunch for a quick dinner. We ate a chicken and a half between the two of us. It was grilled in a tandoori rub, the nan was fresh and baked in house, and it all came with a powerful garlic-raw onion-mustard seed dipping sauce that was inexplicably green. I am now so full and ready to pass out.

• healthy
• continent
• 6 whites, 3 Chinese, innumerable goats

To be continued tomorrow...

I remind you of J. Peterman, admit it.

DAY 2: Dhaka

Take a good look at how this crazy fan was hung.

I slept warm for fear of fan death (not the Korean kind, the Indian Jones propeller to the face kind). Breakfast was charming; toast with butter, mango jelly, and a plantain, eggs over medium, Ispahani Mirzapore tea (not sure which one of those words is the brand and which is the leaf) with ~~lime!!~~

My hostel offered me a driver, Shumon, to show me the city. We first looked at Bashundhara, the largest mall in South Asia, which was disappointingly mostly closed due to some national holiday. I snapped some photos of the National Parliament House, a river, Zia park, and the mausoleum of the second president. I haggled over the won->dollar exchange rate, bought a $3 copy of Adobe CS4, and registered my stay with the American Embassy. I even enjoyed a brief rickshaw ride! Since being out on the street, I have seen more goats than white people (or any other foreigner for that matter). Current count: 4 whities, 2 Chinese, 30+ goats. Granted, the 2 were in a Chinese restaurant and 3 were dead in a wheelbarrow (I'll let you guess of what!), but the count still stands.

Shumon

There is an armed presence almost everywhere I've been, be it Parliamentary paramilitary, mall cops, or even flea market cops. Shumon says they aren't all national or even city security, but I still can't tell who's privatized, who's government, or who's affiliated with whom.

Things I can say in Bangladeshi:

Hello/Hello's response
How are you?/I'm fine.
I am going to ______.
1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10
o'clock
teacher

For several hours in the afternoon and early evening I enjoyed tea and conversation with the only other Westerner in the hostel building. Though ethnically Bengali, the man I know only as Mark or Brother Mark is a Canadian citizen who, after the loss of his family, has devoted his life to missionary work in Muslim countries (of which Bangladesh is one it would seem). We spoke extensively about English education (as that is the shape his work has taken here), the inter-ethnic group conflicts in the country (which strike me as remarkably similar to those in Israel), and religion.

Mark lives and works in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and he enlightened me as to the government's intentions to discourage tourists from leaving the Muslim capital to spend money in the rural Hindu areas. He also told me of the wealth of beauty and culture which I could enjoy were I to venture outside of Dhaka. So, under his advisement, I commit to my second disobedience. I plan a trip outside the nation's capital.

I have also learned that the city is now at only about 20% capacitance on of account of this Muslim holiday. Almost everyone has returned to their parent's house for an annual bull slaughter and subsequent week of feasting. So, tomorrow I will leave Dhaka in search of her denizens.

Out in the open countryside awaits orange groves, coal mines, rain forests, plantations, and a plethora of "tribal" foods, or so I am assured. I have paid the hotel for its seat-of-the-pants tour package offer and I am now in possession of 70 Bangladeshi taka, 212 Honk Kong dollars, and 6,000 South Korean won (Do the math, it's only like 27 bucks). I will either see the wide open country or live like its people: starving and alone. At least now there is nothing that can be stolen from me!

(Still no loss of continence or onset of feverish hysteria. Steven 1, Jungle ailments 0!)

To be continued tomorrow.

The End of November Trip

PROLOGUE

You may recall that at the end of my trip to Hong Kong, I mentioned turning my sights toward a long trip at the end of November. Well, November came and went fast, so a week ago my trip was upon me. I had to do something impulsive or twiddle my thumbs for 9 days. So, I got online and found a country that filled 3 important criteria:

1. Lack of health/safety warnings from the DoD/CDC.
2. Lack of entry visa requirement.
3. Within my budget constraints.

With its weak currency, stable government, and visa on arrival system, Bangladesh was my match. Knowing nothing about the country as I imagine you do, I booked a ticket to leave Seoul the following day. I had time to do some limited research on Saturday morning, and I drafted a consensus of rules from various blogs and hostel sites.

1. Don't eat street food,
2. Don't leave the capital,
   
3. Don't wear shorts,
4. Drink only bottled water,
   
5. Don't ride...

• ferries,
• buses,
• taxis,
• or motorized rickshaws,

Hereafter follows the day to day chronicle of my survival in a dusty and tropical unknown land.

DAY 1: Arrival

Mortifying. The airport may not have been much worse than Detroit, unless you consider smaller to be worse. The people I nervously spoke to in the airport were friendly enough, if not a little surprised at my presence. I secured my visa, grabbed my luggage off the 4th of 4 carousels. Everything is going to be fine, I repeated. Deep Breaths.

Beside carousel 4 of 4 was a sea of unclaimed "baggage."

I stepped outside the terminal, however, and I began to fear the worst. The sidewalk outside the doors was littered with people offering me a taxi, but there are no taxis (at least not in the conventional sense of the word...) to be seen. Beyond the sidewalk was two lanes of pick-up road. Then, the whole area was fenced in with the street entrances guarded by some level of the armed forces or local authorities. People were clamouring at the gates, though for what purpose I was unsure. It was then 10 pm.

I was expressly warned against the use of taxis, but I didn't know what else to do. There were no buses in sight, no friends in the country, not even a rickshaw. So, not 60 seconds into the open, steamy air of Dhaka and I disobey my first rule: I acquiesce to an insistent "taxi" driver.

Though it was somewhat reassuring that his dispatch has a booth inside the actual airport building, it was disheartening to slide past the guards and see the state of the jalopy which I was requested to get into. It was a burgundy Toyota hatchback from sometime before I was born. The front windshield was badly cracked. My suitcase was locked into the back with what appeared to be a 50 gallon tank of propane. The car was missing at least one rear-view mirror that I cared to notice. It was not labeled as a taxi in any way. If I had thought the mosquitoes were bad in the airport, I soon learned that that was because this man (whose name was 4 syllables I could not decipher and then ~romel) had parked their hive just beyond the gates.

After an argument with a very unofficial-looking person at the exit from the airport, we were driving. There is clearly no established system of road rules which I could discern. Part of me thought we would die on the street which functioned exactly like a New York sidewalk. The other part of me believed I would survive the drive only to be brutally murdered by the taxi driver in some alleyway for the 300 dollars worth of Korean monopoly money which I possess. A small, persistent, sliver of a liberal voice inside kept assuring me that I have faith in humanity and that I'm not afraid of brown people.

Foursyllableromel continued to stop, ask for directions, and then turn around (all in the middle of the street while honking incessantly). I tried to occupy my mind by observing my surroundings. Rickshaw drivers are ubiquitous. The apparatus is like a bicycle meeting a baby carriage. They appeared very colorful, though it was dark and very uncomfortable. The city at night is lit by street lights so dim the best they do is cast an eerie orange glow over things.

Finally we tracked down the correct address, although the name of the hostel is technically different than that on my paper. I didn't care, just get me outta that car and into a bed. I was so mosquito bitten from the drive that I can already feel the effects of such a high dosage of malaria.

One angle of my hostel room.

The hostel doesn't look like much but it does come off better than anything I saw in Hong Kong. I am treated astoundingly well by the young men at the desk. I spoke with a man on the phone who I presume is the owner. He said we will go sight-seeing in the morning. The boys offered me dinner, but I'm too nervous and excited to eat anything. Then they asked me what time I would like breakfast. One of the two carried my suitcase to the elevator, pressed the button, jumped out, and ran up the stairs to meet me and carry the bag again.

This will surely prove to be catastrophic.

My room smells heavily of some pineapple-mango-unknowable fruit spray. It is now 11 pm. Thus ends my first hour, and I'm beginning to feel optimistic about my prospects. Assuming, that is, that the Korean pharmacy gave me diarrhea medicine and not laxative, and that I don't in fact have malaria. Crossed fingers.

To be continued tomorrow.

Oh, and did I mention?

Remember the mystery soup I posted a photo of in my Hong Kong slide show? Well, I cast out my net and reeled in an answer. Thanks to Kevin and Caitlin for being addicted to Food Network!

You may find it difficult to see the difference between my picture...


...and this one.


The two photos might as well have been taken of the same bowl of soup. That soup is bird's nest soup. The nests come from a particular species of swift. Unlike a normal nest, these are not made of twigs and leaves but rather of the swifts cement-like saliva. The saliva is pasted onto the inner walls of caves by male swifts in China and Indonesia, and is then harvested for the many mythical health benefits it provides. Though considered to be a delicacy and normally quite expensive, there is a garden variety for the every man, and thus it was the 2 dollar soup of the day.

A lesser man would wish he didn't know that he had eaten "nutritional", congealed bird spit soup, but a truly admirable one relishes in the discovery of the truth and the adventure of trying new things. He is not disheartened by the culturally myopic notion that something scraped of the inside of a cave wall should never be boiled, soaked, and eaten, but knows full well that knowledge is empowering and that there is no "right" food. In this situation, I believe I am the former of the two.

Changes

If you've detected some blog silence you would be right. Lots has been happening in the office and I'm struggling just to tread water! Well, tread water when the water is rising, so swim up? Let me explain.

I am now foreign head teacher. This means that not only do I have a full class load, but I also handle a number of other duties. I'm primarily responsible for communication (i.e. the bad news from the management and the complaints from the foreign teachers). Consequently, I've found a certain distance grow between me and my coworkers since I'm seen as "one of them" in a way. Disappointing, as I'm constantly working to improve the work place for us while making the management more satisfied with our performance and increasing the quality of education for the students. What a juggling act!

I've also been given a number of special scenario duties, including interviewing new potential employees as well as training new recruits. I also act as universal substitute, and (increasingly) curriculum supplement-er. This makes the fact that I have 2 periods off almost irrelevant.

I never realized how needy and difficult we were until I had to manage us on an individual level. I have to repeat myself constantly. I'm always reminding and (what seems like) micro-managing, and yet the minute I stop there's a crisis and a complaint. It's incredibly taxing, and yet fulfilling in a way. I finally get the feeling that I am respected and have a certain autonomy over my destiny. The freedom and recognition have more than made up for the long hours and low pay thus far.

How am I coping with the hustle bustle of two new teachers and a half new curriculum? New episodes of The Office and How I Met Your Mother sure aren't hurting. Mostly though it's been a strictly "head down, power through" approach. Don't get distracted and don't realize that you're as busy as you are. How long before I burn out? Well, as long as things continue on a track of improvement all around, I just may be motivated enough to keep up the pace, but I fear that disappointment will take the wind out of my sails pretty quickly.

On a lighter note, apparently I need to shave. This I've known since well before I came here, but my students have been making it increasingly prevalent in our exchanges. Last week, the students told me that when I don't shave I look like a homeless man. Of course, they want to make sure that I understand the meaning so they tell me as many ways as they can think of. Teacher! You know Geoji? No home man? Live in subway station? Dirty? Sleep in newspaper blanket? Always always ask more money? Thanks, I get it. 2 weeks prior, a 6th grader tried to scrape hair off my arm with a razor blade. Don't we expel for that sort of thing???

Hong Kong

It's not the beginning, but a good place to start would be here: on top of Victoria peak, looking out over the glittering landscape, overwhelmed with accomplishment. I stood there on top of Hong Kong in more ways than one. With no regrets, I came off that mountain and back to Seoul.


That was, of course, the high point. I was seriously questioning my logic the night before I departed Korea. There's something just plain ominous about buying a ticket to China in my mind. It's not something to be taken lightly. I was equal hours from confirming the purchase and boarding the flight, breaking down as I imagined my bags packing themselves. The situation was going to get worse before it got better. My developing head cold was in full swing by morning, and I forgot to shave (which I've made a point of doing before every flight since 9/11...). I took a cab straight out of work 15 minutes before I was allowed to leave, because I wouldn't make the flight otherwise. There I was, having scurried from one end of the city to the other, in an airport, with a Muslim appearance and symptoms of swine flu. As you can imagine, by the time I got onto the Airport Express into the city proper, I...well, you don't have to imagine.


My hostel was in an overwhelming area after all that. I rode the cab (British style backwards) to the heart of the madness, where I was accosted by groups of people attracted to my baggage and trying to get me to stay with their hostel or hotel. If buildings were humans, this one would have been a zombie. The room was beyond minuscule. I've seen more spacious janitorial closets.

When I eventually went to the history museum, I learned the bizarre geological history of the area. It was once a swamp, when sea levels rose and it became ocean. As land changed it was just a lake, until it was a bunch of volcanoes for some 200,000 years. Then it was a desert, then a bunch of mountains. During the ice age it was actually glacier, and when everything melted it became the bunch of islands it is today. But for my duration there, it was 100% a jungle. The first morning I shook myself out of slumber and snot and drug myself into the oppressive heat. More oppressive than anything I've ever imagined. Hong Kong is as far south as Hanoi, and parts of it look like what I imagine Hawaii would look like, particularly when I left the city proper.

On a few occasions I took bus around to the south side of Hong Kong island to a pair of small towns known as Repulse and Stanley. As opposed to the city itself, which faces north into mainland China, the south end of the island opens up straight into the South China Sea. There were some beautiful beaches and plenty of ritzy places to live. It was here I really experienced some of the wacky weather of the island. It would go from sunny to ten minutes of downpour completely unannounced. Then it would clear up and be lovely for an unpredictable amount of time, when rain would again materialize for ten minutes.


I didn't mind the unexpected rain. It gave me an excuse to duck into buildings, especially restaurants. I surprisingly only ate Chinese food less than half of my meals. There was a wide variety of noodles+ (from beef and veggies to more questionable supplements) and there was Cantonese barbecue. I had pork, duck, and goose. The birds were a bit disturbing, but the pork was excellent. The reason I ate such little Chinese food was that the options were so abundant! I was in a former British colony, and the global feeling of the city was present in every aspect of my stay (I spent 30% of my culture shock on the Britishisms everywhere). I was so not the only foreigner. Never was I stared at (unless I was coughing) since there were Indians and Africans and all sorts of Europeans everywhere. This of course meant that there was excellent foreign food in Hong Kong. I mean excellent. I ate Indian food half of the time. The absolute best of my life. It didn't even survive long enough to be photographed. I had top notch sushi, great fish and chips with an actually good Guinness, and just about popped in for a real steak.

When I wasn't eating or window-shopping, I was walking. Due to my worthless Korean bank telling me there was no way to access my account from one of Seoul's only nearby major cities (3rd world banking quality imo), money was much tighter than I first expected. I accepted the challenge optimistically and cut back on paid transportation. I took the ferry (it cost about a quarter) and hoofed it most everywhere else. In this way I got lost several times (the most frightening time in some sort of steel working part of town on the mainland peninsula of Kowloon) but always managed to right myself more reliably than I thought I was capable of. I also managed to walk/bus myself to some very peaceful temples and such. In the end I was glad both for the enforced budget as well as for forgetting my iPod in the rush out of work on Tuesday night. I was forced to experience a greatly different group of sights as well as sounds.

Hong Kong had it's quirky times as well. Take, for example, the fact that on literally every busy street corner three Indian men offered me a tailor. I was in a t-shirt and cargo shorts. Did I look so bad that everyone in the city wanted to make me a suit? Were I there much longer I would have been approaching Indian men myself and preemptively offering them tailoring services just to throw them off. "Excuse me sir, can I interest you in a tailor? Prices very cheap! Very good quality! Please just come and see my location, perhaps you will change your mind!"


As far as just the flat out crazy times, I think the hostel getting raided by the police took the cake. I came back at the end of the day to find our humble tenements surrounded by cops. They let me in without a second glance, but then I couldn't get out without presenting papers. I was disallowed from using the stairs, and my papers were again checked when the cops came around banging on doors in the hostel. The word was that twice a year it's legal for the police to just blow through and check every foreigner they can until they find illegal ones. I witnessed the biannual panforeign screenings!


In the end it wasn't what I had expected (though I had only really left myself about 12 hours to build said expectations in the first place), but it was an adventure. I was mostly in such an international place that English was always readily understood, so I didn't really get that lost-without-a-sole-who-can-understand-me experience that I had wanted, but I think this was a good toe in the water. The trip did garner me an overall feeling that my job thus far has been worth it, as I had hoped that finally reaping the benefits of my labor would. With more to come, I turn my mind now towards surviving more Avalon until I can take my 9 day trip to who-knows-where at the end of November.

A Quick Word

Just got back into the apartment, and I have to work early tomorrow so I'm gonna hit the sack. I couldn't leave you without a taste of the mania that was Hong Kong though. So, without further ado, a billboard:

'LEMON TEA' has been nerdy, and it has been gangster.
Never before, however, has it been so nerdy and so gangster simultaneously.

The Real Trip

Well, I'm finally off. Half of the reason I came out here was to polish my Korean, but I could do that with a Korean girlfriend and a textbook anywhere in the world. The other half of the reason was to continue my travel, and tomorrow that's just what I'm going to do. I just flash packed for a flight to Hong Kong that I booked not 24 hours before it departed. It's probably one of the scariest moments of my life. I'm alone, I've not prepared one bit, I speak ZERO Chinese, and I haven't even checked the weather. This is the trial by fire. How well can I survive in a totally foreign place? I guess not totally foreign, since there should be a great deal of English around. I think. Anyways, in 16 hours, the first stage of my real trip begins!

www.KoreanEssays.com

I enjoyed this book very
much, because I love ha-
rry potter and 'the whipping
Boy's carectors are similor to
potter and, Hagreed. My opinion
is change carectors name. And
it is not funny. It is complex.
please more funny. Like Harry
Potter or Transformers or Terminators.
This book is short, so essay is
short.

I Want To Go To Prison!

In the Philippines.

www.KoreanEssays.com

All I have for you this time is one essay. But it's incredible!

Topic 2: "A helping hand"
How would you feel if you saw an injured animal on the road?
What could you do for the injured animal?

I feel is so excited. and. so
suprised and I like
animal for eat meat becuuse
It is so good. but
I like eat grasses for animal too.
because It is so
cute