500 Nights

Oh yeah...

2010-08-08T06:05:00.000-07:00

http://www.shipsanddip.com/

This is a regular cruise I've been wanting to go on for a few years. It's hosted by the Barenaked Ladies, and features Great Big Sea and a bunch of other cool bands. Last year, one of the Ladies' lead singers left the band, and there was no cruise. I figured that was it; an opportunity blown. But it's back, I'm coming back, and I AM going.

Trouble is, unlike trundling about Newfoundland or jetting off to Cambodia, you can't just go. You have to buy a whole cabin on the cruise ship. So if none of your friends are interested/available, you're SOL. Which I will NOT let happen.

So, if you know a person or two, trustworthy and not TOO unpleasant, who might like to take a short cruise (just long enough to enjoy; not long enough to get sick of it) with some awesome bands, please please please send them my way.

Ports of call this year are Costa Maya and Belize, another reason I'm hellbent on making it happen this year. The last time, they went to the cruise company's private island--super lame, and something I don't want to take a chance on again.

So, again, seriously...your cousin, your grandma, your neighbor's daughter's boyfriend's Roman History professor...I don't really care. I want to set sail with 'em.

The State of Things

2010-08-08T05:48:00.000-07:00

My last weekend in Seoul is ending. It's been another in a long string of Silent Sundays--days when I talk to no one but for a couple of "kamsamnida"s to store clerks. I'm not sorry it's the last.

I've been packing and prepping for about 2 weeks now, but nothing felt particularly different. Personal effects have been disappearing from my apartment and desk at school, my wardrobe has been shrinking, and I've said good bye to a couple friends, all without having any real sense of impending change. This morning, though, I took all the postcards down from my door, and now the place feels officially barren.

5 more days in Seoul. I literally can't believe it.

Not that my apartment is empty, not by any stretch. I've mailed several boxes home, and my suitcases are all bulging, but somehow the effect is to make the room ridiculously cluttered. Where did it all come from??? And, of course, I've been out buying more. If I bring back nothing from Hong Kong, that'll be ideal. I can't really think of anything it's famous for, so hopefully that means I won't feel compelled to have some tangible representation.

Perhaps, too, the busy-ness is keeping me from fully appreciating that the end is near. I've been trolling university websites since May, looking for jobs I might start when I get back. There's been no response from any of them, and I'd just resigned myself to waiting 'til I'm home to look in earnest when THE job, the one I've been using as an example of my perfect situation, was posted: International Student Counselor at the UofR. I plied my connections, got my cover letter done, tweaked my resume...but they have one of those websites where you have to fill in all the information like a Burger King application, so that still awaits. Plus, Nazareth and Keuka have openings for admissions counselors, and that's not to mention the lesson plans I still have to make for my last week of camp, the emails I owe people, the confirmations for my trip next week (and for my flight home, now that I think of it), boxes to mail, cleaning, Gulliver's Travels to finish (what a slog!), my phone to cancel... And oh yeah, I need to set up voice mail on my home phone in case anyone should actually call about aforementioned jobs. It's gonna be a busy week! So, yeah, I'm blogging.

I turned on the air conditioner in my apartment Friday night. It was the first time, with the exception of once when my friends were over. Apparently, 7 weeks is my limit for 86 degrees and 96% humidity. I've never found the idea of living in the tropics particularly appealing, but now I know I couldn't. I love hot weather, but I love variety just as much. Needing a jacket at night sometimes is kind of nice. Trouble is, now I'm getting addicted to being dry, and even more so to the quiet. Ideologically, I think it's better if we do without A/C where possible (as my own quick addiction demonstrates), but emotionally, my biggest beef with air conditioners is being cut off from the world outside. I love the moving air, the sound of the trees, the hum of life going on on the street. I love that sometimes it's sticky and sometimes it's chilly and sometimes the rain mists in. In Seoul, though, I don't love the construction, the shouting, the hacking, the horns, the motorcycles, the clanging metal posts, the truck PAs, and so on. Having had one quiet night, I find myself rationalizing another and another, despite temperatures having dropped a couple of degrees to within tolerable. I knew this might happen. But with only 5 days left, who cares? Now if the person in the parking lot outside would just realize that if the car hasn't started after 15 minutes of cranking, it's not going to...

I do have my notes from Japan, and I do intend to post a bit about it. I have a post about Asian vs. Western education that's been kicking around in my head for a while, too. Watch this space. Nothing may in fact happen, but you never know.

Whoa! Check it Out!

2010-07-20T06:25:00.000-07:00

Hello? Anyone still checking this blog? Hi Mom, Hi Dad, Hi one random other person I wouldn't suspect. My favorite blogger just resumed posting after a month's hiatus, and has inspired me to try it also.

I'm over my depression, but the urge to write still eludes me. I just don't feel like talking about Korea any more. I had my final to-do list of stuff to get to before I go, and I'm finding now that I don't care if I do it or not. And I say that without drama or Eeyorishness. I'm just done here. I'm satisfied. I feel like it's complete. (or been complited, as the transit card machines would say)

It's occurred to me to blog many times over the last couple of months. I went to a baseball game in May. That was especially fascinating for its platform of comparison. I actually choked up as they started playing and I realized I knew what was going on. It was amazing. I had a whole list of things to talk about surrounding baseball. The main snack is dried squid, which can be in little pieces, or it can be a 3' long, completely flat and foul-smelling thing. How do you carry one of those around? Fans were more involved than they get in the US, and cheerleaders for both teams were present, dancing throughout the game (though there is NO 7th-inning stretch). The most diverting habit is that of the Lotte Giants fans (all teams are named for the corporations that own them, plus an American sports team name--the rendering of "Twins" is amusing), who blow up yellow plastic bags, twist them off, and hook the handles around their ears. They look like low-budget cheeseheads. The game I went to was really exciting--the first batter up hit a home run--and I've been trying to get to another one, but have failed to appease the rain gods. We'll see.

In June, I went to Lotte World, Korea's answer (perhaps I should say "echo") to Disneyland. Of course, the climate here is more like Cleveland than California, so half the park is inside. Swinging on a pirate ship ride toward hotel room windows is odd. Lotte World's use of space is incredible. The whole park is nestled right in the middle of the city, and you wouldn't particularly notice it. It takes up less space than your average mall parking lot, but has enough attractions to easily fill a day and more. And the rides were FANTASTIC. Some were such blatant Disney knockoffs it was almost comforting, while others were unlike any I've ever been on. Our favorite was Atlantis, a roller coaster where the cars are like sitting on a motorcycle; I both feared and loved another one where we sat at the bottom of a huge pendulum simultaneously spinning and swinging (and our chicken friends waiting on the other side knew when we were getting on the ride because the safety announcement was suddenly in English); and I tried the Gyro drop, which swirls you up a massive pole, feet dangling, before bringing you down via free fall. A really fun day, lots of great Konglish, and probably worth its own post.

And then, amid a lot of other things probably worth mentioning, there's today--the last day of classes! I never have to teach again and I'm going to Japan tomorrow. No comprende. Actually, there is camp yet, and I really don't envision a life without teaching at all, but it still is a momentous day. I will actually miss the kids. For the most part, I won't miss trying to control them and impart information, but I will miss seeing them, being greeted in the halls, joking around with them, and hearing all the wonderful things they come up with to say. I love these kids, especially the 3rd graders, whom I've taught all year, and it's poignant to think that they're just going to disappear from my life (or I from theirs, as the case may be).

So for the next 3 weeks, I'll be teaching half days and half classes, with no co-teacher. Since I know what I'm getting into this time (as compared to winter break), I'm crossing my fingers for smooth sailing. 3 weeks (technically 5 'til I leave, but I've got some vacation time) is ample opportunity for more surprises and snubs, but I'm really almost done! And...I don't have to eat school cafeteria food any more!!! That alone is worth a party. If I could go back in time, I'd visit my elementary school cafeteria and tell my 8-year-old self to enjoy it while I could--I'd later find out how much worse it can get.

Headed to Tokyo for 4 days...I promise to think about blogging something.

Do you know World Cup?

2010-06-18T02:48:00.000-07:00

You may not realize that the World Cup tournament is currently going on in South Africa. It's like the Olympics, but without the American media. Or like the rest of the world's Super Bowl. (do I have to pay royalties to write that?) Korea's in it, and...gosh, it's hard to even mention sports without immediately sinking into a morass of cliches. World Cup fever is sweeping the nation. It means so much to this tiny country. You just can't help but get caught up in it!

Actually, that last sentence was quite literally true last night. I went with a couple of friends to City Hall Plaza, one of many sites where the game was being screened. You could tell when you were getting close because vendors of light-up devil horns started to blend together, and the line at KFC could kill your appetite if the chicken didn't. I was sorely tempted to buy a "We're 12th Player" t-shirt, but if I wore it to a Bills game, I'd just look retarded. Convenience stores had iced beer at the front door in a very efficient form of crowd control, and squid and pre-cut fruit were in abundance.

We showed up just in time for kickoff, so were relegated to the back of the crowd...fine, because the claustrophobia was intense. There were no chairs, but everyone spontaneously decided to sit down, so we all plonked down, Indian-style or criss-cross-applesauce (depending on when you grew up), right there in the street. Made me nostalgic for elementary-school assemblies. The great thing about elementary school was that you could sit there on the gym floor and watch the proceedings unaccosted, without anyone resting their leg against your back (come on people, it's 89 degrees; if you wanted to cuddle, why didn't you say so when I was hypothermic on New Year's Eve?), whacking you in the head with rigid handbags (no matter how many times you shoved the thing away), or dong-chimming you with their hooker heels (I was fortunate to be in the last row of people sitting, with the usual pushing & stiff-arming going on at my back). One couple kept letting their little flag hang in my sightline so it perfectly obscured the screen; at least I wasn't the guy 2 rows ahead who sat impassively as it covered his face time and time again. A sudden wet spot on my head turned out to be merely a passing water bottle fresh out of a cooler. I was more concerned with where the loogies were going. And God forbid someone should feel sick...the plaza was acres of devil horns with no space in between; anyone who needed to make a quick getaway simply couldn't. I lasted through the entire first half, not minding my sleeping leg so much, but in increasing agony over my jackknifed back. Finally, Korea scored as the first half died; everyone stood up to cheer, then forgot that they were ever sitting.

Just like at the baseball game I never blogged about, the Koreans expressed their enthusiasm by banging inflatable plastic tubes together, and spontaneously bursting into songs...all of which have familiar tunes, and, for that matter, familiar lyrics, since I've heard the word "Korea" before. Bet you didn't know that "Dae han min guk gloria" were the words to Beethoven's 9th.

Ultimately, they lost (to Argentina, who one of my kids told me is going to win the Cup), but we had long since started wandering the city, stopping to check in at every screen along the sidewalk, musing at the knot of people around a tiny tv in the subway station. It was a fabulous night to be outside, and I'm glad to be spending the World Cup where people care (I have a knack for this; I was in England for the festivities in '98, and even caught a good deal of the action in '06 by nannying for a soccer-crazed 11-year-old).

I skipped out on the first game, where Korea beat Greece, because it was cold and raining, but I could hear the elated screaming and the celebratory vomiting from my apartment. There's one more guaranteed game, but it's in the wee hours, so that'll be it for me unless Korea advances (which they could). Crap, it just occurred to me I'll probably still hear the screaming and vomiting for the wee hours game. Lifelong memories, these.

Why Johnny Can't Blog

2010-06-14T04:16:00.000-07:00

I've been gone for over a year now. I think I can readily say that it's been the most difficult year of my life. I've been looking back at some of my posts from Colorado, and I'm surprised at how chipper they seem. Things had already gotten trying by this time last June, but I was excited about Korea, hopeful about how the summer might still play out, and curious about everything. Now I'm just tired. I've been needled frequently about posting more often, and I've truly meant to. There's a roster of things to talk about in my calendar, and 'blog' is on every to-do list I've made for months. I want to do it, want to keep a record and share all these observations I'm still making. But most of the time, I just don't have the heart to write.

This is what defeat feels like. Last week, as I ran dialogues with every kid I teach, was the final (or not...there always seems to be more shit, no matter how much you've waded through already) proof that what I'm doing here is futile, and my approach to it pitifully ineffectual. Very, very few of the kids understand anything I say. Even fewer care. Most of my co-teachers are desperately overworked and down to their last nerve, and I'm just one more mosquito in their ear. As I've known with quiet certainty for 11 years now, I'm not a classroom teacher. "If you're neither learning nor contributing, use your two feet and move on." But I can't yet. Not for 9 weeks. (10 if they screw with my vacation, which is always a distinct possibility in Korea)

So there's nothing else for it but to show up every day and make a game attempt, although I'm losing my spirit for that, too. Some days are not so bad, some are. Most classes consist of 2-3 kids who are listening and reacting, 4 or 5 who are mocking and cutting up, 6 or 7 who are sleeping, and 15 or so who are chatting with their friends. It's not rewarding work.

Funny thing is, I still want to work with kids. Just not in a classroom. This is really not my scene. And not in a place where everything happens TO me. I'm looking forward to being an agent in my own life again.

So in the swirl of weariness, frustration, humiliation, and resentment, I don't have many words. I'd envisioned writing letters and postcards, talking about more than 'What I Did Last Weekend', keeping a second blog that would be worthy of touting to schools, answering emails that I get... I'd envisioned feeling really enthusiastic & alive, adventurous and fulfilled. Gifts don't always come in the box we expected. One of my mantras during the last year has been, "Even if you hate it, it'll be one of the most important experiences of your life." And I don't HATE it. Not usually. But it has been a critically important experience, and I'm not at all sorry I've done any of it. I wish I was a better teacher, I wish it was over just a little bit sooner, but none of that is going to burn forever. I've taken the measure of myself, and it's not as flattering as I would have fancied. I feel that I'm at the crest of a mountain, and something new and pretty amazing is about to open up in front of me. If I can just hold myself together until it does...

"Come and play with us, Danny"

2010-06-01T21:00:00.001-07:00

I'm not at school today because it's Election Day, and for that I am intensely grateful. I'm less grateful for the sensory onslaught that is Korean campaigning, although, to beat this theme to a pulp, I'm grateful for the chance to see it, and also that it doesn't last anywhere near as long as it does in the US.

I believe I heard that there's only an Election Day every 4 years (though the presidential term is 5 and they're not voting on him--that must be a different thing), so I'm lucky to be here in an 'on' year. From what I can tell, the election is for every office other than president...city, district, local...provincial? (not being able to read more than the names on the signs, I'm a bit underinformed)

Whether the start date is by decree, I don't know, but there was a big bang and suddenly campaigning was everywhere, comprised (whether in Gyeongju, Cheongju, or Seoul) of 3 main components:

1. Posters and banners. The banners are strung up between posts at every intersection, and the posters line every wall, one bordering the next in a tight collage that echoes the people themselves. A patchwork picturing candidates in various "action" poses...brandishing a pen, making an 'open arms' gesture, beckoning the viewer...reminiscent of the cloying head shots Newsweek adopted for its columnists a few years back. My EEP students last week were doing creative writing, about what they would do if they were invisible, and one boy (who I really have always liked) finished with, "and I use a scissors and cut election announcement paper. Because they have so many space. Also they look like dirty things."

2. Loudspeakers on trucks. Usually the domain of fruit vendors and religious proselytizers, these have all been co-opted by the candidates, the volume cranked to 11, and set to roam the streets blasting songs with tunes like 'Mary had a little lamb' and 'If you're happy and you know it', with new lyrics presumably detailing the person's fitness for office. These are catchy enough that I've accidentally learned a few of the candidates' names. I must have spent a bit of karma because none of them have parked outside my window, a miserable fate that elicits my profound sympathy for anyone it was visited upon. (the aforementioned student also planned to take advantage of his invisibility to "use a needle and prick wheel of election campaign cars. Because they are so noisy." Good kid.)

3. Dancing ajummas. An ajumma, for those of you who haven't heard me use the term, is a lady somewhere between middle age and dotage. They're iconic in Korea, known for attitudes worthy of a DeNiro movie, clothes with lively patterns, and a vampirish aversion to sun. And for wages that could never possibly be enough, they've been donning sashes and white gloves and dancing for hours on street corners. If it rains, they throw clear plastic ponchos over the getup and keep at it. Strangely, my neighborhood hasn't gone in much for the dancing, preferring instead an eerie chanting (inspiring the title of this post). Several packs of them stand at the subway station entrance droning couplets at 5-second intervals (rhyming in Korean is easy because every sentence ends with "ib ni da" or some variation). There's one candidate who has braces and employs not ajummas, but young people who hold his picture over their faces and talk on cell phones behind it. Going to the subway is creepy enough, but the lot that station themselves across the street from my apartment could drive me to distraction. I look forward to abandoning the ritual of getting up at 6 to close the window.

100!

2010-05-27T01:41:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long lapse...my muse died.

I've actually been in a better frame of mind for the last week, but I ran off to Gyeongju for the holiday weekend (the holiday being Buddha's Birthday), and now have family in town (!), so the time to sit in my apartment and bear a blog hasn't been available. So, my apologies if you're disappointed, but you'll have to wait a bit longer for a "real" entry.

I do need to mark the occasion, though. The name of this blog refers to the 500 nights from the time I last slept in my own bed until I return to it. As it turns out, the whole thing will only be in the ballpark of 460 nights, give or take a bed, since my original plan to backpack around southeast Asia has long since revealed itself to be folly, but nonetheless, as of today, May 27, there are 100 nights left!

88 til I'm again on American soil, 98 til my first night in Rochester, and 100 until I sink into my own soft mattress for the first time in way too long. Still seems interminable, but at least it's starting to feel like it'll really happen one day.

So stay tuned; I'll be back...

15 and Really Counting

2010-05-07T01:41:00.000-07:00

I bought my plane ticket home last night! I feel excited, like I should do something to mark the occasion, and yet, unlike my vacation visit, this has been on the calendar all along, so there's not a whole lot to do about it. I arrive in Seattle the night of August 23, and what I anticipate now is spending a couple of days there to get my feet under me (and maybe see Vancouver?), then road tripping home. I want to go to North Dakota, since I haven't before; want to spend nights in Spokane and Helena because I liked them when I passed through last August; want to walk through the rumored-to-be-lovely old neighborhoods of St. Paul; and my target date for returning to Rochester is September 2. We'll see what happens when Great Big Sea's tour schedule comes out.

I've been a bit of a deadbeat blogger again lately... Partly life has been rather busy, and partly I've been in a royal funk and uninspired to write, and partly the longer I'm here, the less I come across that's new and noteworthy (although that last one is a small part--I've hit on the major cultural curiosities, but my pocket notebook will attest that there is still much to comment about). My latest musing is why Korean blind people keep their eyes closed. When a cartoon in my 4th-grade reader depicted Helen Keller with her eyes closed, I figured the illustrators must be stupid. Perhaps they were instead Korean, having no reason to suspect that blind people ever open their eyes.

School has been stressful and discouraging of late. We had exams last week, and, having grown accustomed to teachers cancelling my classes in the days before and after, I planned accordingly; ie general games to play with the kids, so I don't spend hours prepping a lesson I use twice, and so I don't have all my classes in different places in the 'curriculum' (I use the term very loosely). The round-robin story writing I'd intended to use all week was a dismal disaster (the kids do NOT understand the concept of creative writing no matter how you couch it), and the verb soccer game I'd assembled in its place just didn't feel like it was ready for prime time. In desperation at the last minute, I pulled out an old standby game, one that always seemed like barely controlled chaos last year...and it worked beautifully! The kids did great with it, they seemed to like it, and one of the co-teachers said it was fun. I feel a bit better now, but add all this to a recalcitrant lesson the prior week plus EEP last Saturday, and I've had 3 solid weeks of daily writing and rewriting during what was supposed to be my down time.

Next week, I teach Monday, then the kids go on field trips for 4 days in a row. After that, we have a 6-week push and then finals. I plan to show some kind of video for the leftover weeks in July, so while my head is spinning with plans and the agony of producing them, there really isn't much left at all.

I have a boy who's taken to talking to me for extended stretches of time. He's a really nice kid, quiet and long-suffering--I'm not sure how much of a social life he has; I never see him roughhousing or teasing with the other kids. His English is really limited--in the course of a conversation, he'll go to the other teachers multiple times to ask how to phrase something. I hope they're not too exasperated...Ms. Jeon kicked him out after he'd been talking to me for 45 minutes. He left without saying another word to me--I don't know what she said to him; hopefully it wasn't too harsh. He told me he's making me a birthday present. I hope it's on the order of a card. I told him he didn't have to do that, etc, but I'm afraid if I get really vehement about it, he'll think I'm angry at him.

It's 6:30 as I write this...the time I should be making dinner and usually take a nap instead. So, sleepy and hungry, I'm trying to remember what else I wanted to mention.

Wednesday was Children's Day. No school! Diana & I wandered around downtown, taking in several "trick" fountains--I love watching them as much as the kids love standing in them--and discovering that the ice rink has moved out of Gwanghwamun Square in favor of grass!! Real grass that you're allowed to sit on! Last year, it was a sea of flowers, but now there are just enough beds to make the place fragrant. We'd been headed for Insadong and the Cheonggye Cheon, but once we parked on that grass, that was it for the afternoon.

We did meet up with Sarah and a friend from home later to get Mexican food in Itaewon. Itaewon would make a great model for an economic textbook (or a marketing one)...deprive people of tasty, diverse food, and they will be willing to pay any outlandish price (plus tax) for crummy service and minuscule portions. I thought the US was overboard with the a la carte trend, but in Itaewon, you'd better be prepared to fork over some more if you want rice with your curry or pitas with your hummus.

Thoughts and Observations of an Evening's Walk

2010-04-29T05:51:00.000-07:00

Just came back from a walk to bask in the full moon. I thought Professor Lupin was my favorite Harry Potter character because he's smart, sweet, and competent, the irresistible trifecta, but it may just be that I'm a complete lunophile, so who better to attach to than the werewolf? It's been a wet, blustery week in Seoul...glad things cleared just in time.

A couple of thoughts from my meanderings:
Korea has way too many cute cat things, and I have more money than willpower. Just bought my second pencil case. I've resisted this one before, but it wore me down. I did manage to leave the adorable journal & pen behind. This time.

If you need a surgical mask or a 20-lb bag of rice at 10pm, you've got choices. Bread? Good luck.

Saw a couple holding hands, walking across the KHU campus. He was wearing a business suit, she was in high heels & pajamas.

One of our frequent trainers here signs all his correspondence and has as the motto of his website the quote, "When one teaches, two learn". I think he's got the numbers exactly right.

Jon Stewart was ON FIRE tonight interviewing Ken Blackwell. Wish I could assemble thoughts at a moment's notice like that!

This is midterm week (Korean kids have a midterm and a final for each semester), which is hell on the kids, but heaven for me. I get to sit by myself in the office, planning (or not--though that's coming back to bite me and I have homework now), and leave at noon. I checked out Seoul National Cemetery today...not listed in any guidebook, but I saw it on a map. It's a fantastic place for a walk. I saw it from the subway a couple weeks ago when the cherry blossoms were out and it was breathtaking, but the plain ol' green I saw today was not half bad. The cemetery itself is amazing--it's huge and the graves and decorations are all uniform, so you can stand in a pathway and see the same image repeating endlessly to infinity in all directions. it's like being in an Escher sketch.

I saw the graves of a couple of presidents. One had a Winnebago covered with flowers and fitted with a picture window to drive him around the country after he died. Once his farewell tour was finished ("pinishee"), they parked it in the cemetery and walled it in with glass, and there he lies to this day. Another president and his wife are up on top of a hill (everything on Korea is on top of a hill) with the usual acoutrements--stone lanterns, a big totem, and massive grass mounds. There was also a golden carved incense burner with an urn in front, and people would grab a handful of something from the urn and toss it in the burner. One couple brought flowers, and a college kid in a booth came out to make forbidding gestures at them. They didnt' take the flowers back, though, and he didn't do anything either, although he continued to lurk rather than going back to his tiny glass office, and I didn't stick around long enough to see it resolved.

All in all, it was nearly as nice to walk as Mt. Hope. Nowhere near as interesting--uniform military graves don't tell their stories--but hilly and green and peaceful (if you ignore the construction equipment). A couple random bits: Korean birds look as bedraggled as Korean cats. What's with that? There was a bell that was dedicated by the Korean Veterans' Association. The sign says it's rung on June 25 (the Korean 9/11) and for the "staff's monthly bowing ceremony". I noticed in the tributes, they refer to Korean soldiers & patriots dying for the "Fatherland". Wonder what that says about cultural differences.

Tomorrow, we have a district workshop. I'm rather looking forward to it. It's some kind of culture education thing (the teacher responsible for me couldn't work up the courage to tell me about it, but Terrie, my old wrangler, was asked to help out with it, so she filled me in)--I think we're going to learn to bow, make kimchi (as long as they don't make us eat it...), and try on hanbok, the Korean traditional dress (glad I didn't pay to do that at the various tourist spots I've visited). It'll be nice to be on the receiving end of a class.

2010-04-27T20:46:00.000-07:00

I've been reading old posts of my favorite blogger, and one of his entries begs sincere flattery. I'm as fond of lists as he is, and I thought this was neat: simple delights, from the world of culture/human expression. All year, I've been keeping lists of seasonal pleasures as an outlet for homesickness--getting into a sun-warmed car on a crisp autumn day, sitting in a room lit only by Christmas tree lights, the first 'no-jacket' day of the year, walking home from Netsin's on a balmy night... This list, however, draws from media: movie moments, passages in books, tidbits from a song...little dumb things that make your soul giggle or soar.

I figured it would be a while before I blogged this list--there are hundreds of things that belong on it, all requiring a very specific messenger to extract them from memory--but it's a rainy afternoon and I don't have any lessons that are due tomorrow, so here's the infant rundown. Right now, it's mostly comprised of category favorites; the sort of stuff that comes to mind immediately in response to "what book/movie/band do I love?", but I hope to add to it as inspiration occurs. So far:

Maria & the Captain dancing the Laendler in the Sound of Music. He has a few great looks, too, though I'd have to watch it again to remember where.

The scene at the end of A Christmas Story where the parents are sitting on the couch, Silent Night is playing on the radio, fat bulbs are glowing on the Christmas tree, and fat snowflakes are falling past the window.

Dumbledore's repartee with the Dursleys in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. McGonagall's answers to Umbridge during Harry's career counseling session in Order of the Phoenix are equally delicious.

Pretty much any lick The Edge has ever played. Any time I shift my focus to the guitar in a U2 song, I am blown away by the exquisite perfection of it....the timbre, the rhythm, the restraint....*blow kiss off fingertips*

In Great Big Sea's Love Me Tonight video, there are shots of Murray & Bob each cracking a smile, and they never fail to elicit the same response from me.

The fillers & lyric changes that have been canonized on GBS' live CDs, like Sean's gleeful, "and Bob broke out his fiddle and danced naked around the floor!" in Scolding Wife.

Maybe this is stretching it, but I've watched Bert & Ernie spliced to gangsta rap a couple dozen times and laughed every single one.

...and so much more.

While I try to think of other memorable minutiae, I'm curious what's on YOUR list. I'd like to invite everyone--especially if you've never commented before--to post your own favorites, even if it's just one thing. Remember, it's little things--I've even gone a bit macro in my items, but you get the idea. I'm looking forward to reading them!

I'm Not Alone!!!

2010-04-22T06:09:00.000-07:00

So I was blog-stalking my new friend Meaghan, and came across this passage:

"There are lots of things about Korea that drive me crazy, for sure. I swear to god, the spitting is liable to make me hurt someone. The other day I almost threw up on the train, like literally gagged and had to turn away, when a woman seated on a bench (and sandwiched in by two people, mind you) took a ziploc baggie out of her purse, proceeded to clear her entire nose and throat and hock phlegm into the baggie before sticking it back in her purse. I was aghast. On the way to work I dodge, without exaggeration, at least 30 piles of phlegm on the streets, steps, sidewalks, etc. Yesterday I got really angry as a middle school aged asshole cut me off as I exited the train just so that he could purposely hock a giant loogie onto the BENCH in the subway station. I mean that is just disgusting. I am so sick of the hacking and gagging as people spit. I'm also sick of the lack of personal space. I am only half joking when I say that the next old person who pushes me on the train for NO REASON is getting slapped in the face. So sick of it. Hate the spitting, hate the pushing. "

I feel less like a Bitch of Unusual Proportions for being at the end of my rope with this stuff. After watching my friend Sarah slip on a loogie and almost fall flat on the pavement in Itaewon, I decided that if Wile E. Coyote were Korean, he'd skip the banana peels and just hock an oyster in RoadRunner's path.

PS: Meaghan, you forgot to mention the puke

Miss Nelson Redux

2010-04-22T02:02:00.000-07:00

In my high-level classes, we've been reading the classic "Miss Nelson is Missing". After reading and going over vocabulary for the last 2 weeks, this week I gave the kids a piece of paper with 6 panels and tasked them with retelling the story, with pictures and words. Giving the kids creative work is always my favorite thing, and I got a lot of great work (great for reasons ranging from painstaking effort to comical deliciousness), but this one is my favorite so far (reproduced verbatim, errors and all):

[Picture of a teacher with no face, only an 'N', and children throwing paper planes and what looks like a human-sized screw]
Here is Room 207 and Miss Nelson is there. They didn't listen Nelson's voice.

[ At the teacher's desk is only a dotted outline. The kids are saying "Horray" and "She's gone~"]
Next morning, Miss Nelson is missing. Then, children was realy act up when they know the Nelson is missing.

[A woman comes through the door saying, "I'm your new teacher Viola Swamp". Kid: "Oh my, she is wich...we are dead" Another kid is writing on the board: 'Go away~', and, in progress, 'Fuc']
And Miss Swamp is appeared. Everyday, they must spend terrible time.

[Kids stand outside a house. An arrow-shaped sign says, "Miss Nelson". A spider dangles from a web on the sign]
Some of Nelson's children went to Nelson's house, but She was not at home.

[The teacher with an N-face is back:"Hi everyone. Are you missed me?" Kid:"Wow~realy are you Nelson?" Board: "Turn back Miss Nelson!"]
Next day, Nelson is come back. Children cried, and Nelson had a secret. 'She was Swamp.'

[Teacher: "Let's have read time" Kids:"Yes. Miss Nelson"]
And they have read time. But no more act up.

Just when I'm ready to strangle them all, they get all cute on me!

Off to the Races!

2010-04-18T02:19:00.000-07:00

I have a new hobby! Gambling!

Actually, I only bet on one horse, in one race, and he came in dead last, but it was still great fun to sit outdoors and talk with friends, and every 30 minutes, the Koreans would stand up and yell and a crowd of horses would dash by. Saratoga, here I come! (which reminds me, I haven't been to the speedway since the last century...need to fix that ASAP)

Fortunately, I was meeting 4 friends, because otherwise I probably would have skipped the racetrack and just gone to a park or something. I'd made up my mind to go some months ago, and had lately been wondering what the attraction was. Still, it's a new experience, I figured. But it was fun!!

I had no idea what to expect. We were greeted off the subway by the unmistakable, rotten-egg smell of bundaegi, always a sign of festivity. Horse statues were everywhere. We followed the crowd to a gate where, after paying our 80 cents admission, we were welcomed by women wearing the sort of dresses one associates with mint juleps or porch geese. There were tulips, a fake waterfall, a hole in the ground with bleachers and stables.

Inside, it was just like a European airport. Even the rows of chairs must come from the same distributor. People queued, people dashed about, people sat along every wall and median, papers spread in front of them, meals arrayed around. Instead of flight times, tv screens showed odds and videos of the horses, while crowds squatted in the concourse below, taking notes and filling in bet cards.

Lonely Planet promised a lounge area just for foreigners on the fourth floor, so, with difficulty, we found the place, and a desk where the attendants spoke a smattering of English. They gave us a printout of the competitors and a brochure detailing how to fill in a bet card. Finding no seats, we sat on the floor and made arbitrary choices (mine was, anyway...some of my companions chose horses with cool names). We'd arrived just in time for the one race of the day with waygook horses...I bet on an American. Looking around the "foreigner" lounge, it seemed like many of the people were Korean...maybe just Chinese, I figured. Then I went back to the info desk to see how to place a bet and also happened to see the sign that announced "The foreigner lounge will remain open, but as of April 17, 2010, will allow both foreigners and domestics."

We placed our bets, a 2-step process, then decided to go outside and see if we could find seats out there. Good choice! There were dozens to choose from, all with ashes staticked onto the plastic. We moved a couple of times trying to escape cigarettes before realizing how utterly fruitless an endeavor that was. (Next time, bring a mask...in Korea, no one will even glance twice) It was like being downwind of Krakatoa. Ashes rained on us steadily the entire time. The sound of loogies being enthusiastically prepared was continuous and in stereo surround. Nonetheless, the track is away from the urban jungle, ringed by mountains, and made all the more attractive for the cherry blossoms that filled the center.

We watched with interest not only the occasional run-by, but also the infrastructure; the placement of the starting gates, the camera towers and video replays, the families frolicking in the center. Tractor zambonis would come out to groom the dust after the horses had done their exhibition prancing, and I noticed they were the very John Deere models I saw manufactured in Iowa last year.

We stayed for three races, and I hope I have a chance to go back. Much more fun than the lessons I now have to write.

"My assistant is going to polish your crown"

2010-04-17T04:59:00.000-07:00

Yes, this is my fourth post today. I had an entire day without obligations; I'm actually starting to get bored, a feeling I'm not well acquainted with. Of course, I did consider going to the cat cafe tonight and opted not to (despite feeling like it's been WAY too long since I've been, and wanting to see the cats very much); I also have shopping I could do, but I've just completely had it with being around Koreans. I took a walk this afternoon and discovered some wild space very close to my apartment--I will be visiting there many more times, despite its having some annoying Korean features, the most egregious of which being a glaring green fence that diligently prohibits people from getting from my side of it to the summit. I understand neither the need for it, nor the unusually assertive precaution of lacing the top with razor wire. I was in a public park; the people on the other side didn't LOOK like criminals. I don't get it. Nevertheless, I'm pleased to discover some measure of retreat at a distance I can easily cover.

A few random observations:

Kids are always looking over my shoulder when I'm sitting at my desk. I don't have to worry too much about them reading (ie understanding) anything they shouldn't, but they do occasionally ask me why it's not in Korean. I don't think they've gotten their heads around the idea that I speak English all the time.

My system of crimes & punishments in the classroom dictates that if you're breaking a rule and have been warned once, on the second offence, you have to write your name on the board and stay after class. Students staying after class must push in chairs and pick up trash from the floor (I used to have them erase the board, too, until I realized this was a treat). One of my co-teachers, Mr. Lim, really backs me up on this. There have been times I've forgotten to detain the offenders, only to discover him using his wooden stick to point out bits of flotsam under desks. He even insists that they get the trash out of the desks...probably fortunate since there is always a bunch. One crew turned up two pairs of pantyhose. The next student to really rankle me should probably be required to clean all the profanity and pornography off the desks. Writing on desks is something of a national pasttime in Korea, and after 6 weeks of classes, most of the desks make for extensive reading material, not to mention a recap of the syllabus to date.

Why is it that if you ask a Korean the equivalent of, "So let me get this straight, 'park' means leaving your car and also a green recreation space?" they will invariably insist that no, those are two different words. If you really press the issue, they will concede that the words are spelled and pronounced the same, but are still different words.

Dogs here are almost universally minuscule and airheaded, but one thing I much appreciate is that they virtually never charge or make as if to eat you when you pass them on the street. On the short list of things I'll miss when I get home, this is one. The other is having a doorbell on your table at restaurants so you can summon the server whenever needed. (This actually only exists at a small fraction of Korean restaurants, but when I mentioned to my co-teachers that I thought it was a great idea, they couldn't imagine how we get service at American restaurants)

I had my tooth finished yesterday with very little ado. They put me in a private room, which I didn't think boded well, and then said they were going to remove the temporary crown without any anaesthetic, but told me repeatedly to let them know if the pain got too excruciating. I tensed and gripped the chair arm, she reached into my mouth with the overgrown tweezers...and the thing came out in a split second as if it had been waiting perched on my tongue. I didn't feel it at all. The crown fitting was almost as easy, although they left me to think about it for 20 minutes (during which time I realized I should have asked someone who has crowns what the process entails). She said I was very lucky; a perfect fit on the first try is extremely rare. Fortunately, the cement they use to secure it is tasteless, a far cry from the industrial glue that holds in the temp. Once it was in, she gave me a string of instructions in heavily accented English, from behind a face mask, then said that because porcelain is delicate, I should eat soft food. "You mean like tonight, or forever?" I asked. "Well, forever would be good, but..." Yeah, but. Now that I'm stuck with it, you're telling me porcelain's not up for the job?

All the instruments in the office have plastic bags on the handles and film on the screens and touch pads. Koreans NEVER take that stuff off of anything.

I've decided that my objectives for the next 5 years of my life are: to become financially stable (and hopefully buy my house), travel as much as possible, and lay the foundation--with specific actions--for starting the experiential after-school program that is my life's work. To that end, if anyone knows of a job I could do in the Rochester area that pays a workable salary, please let me know. I'd especially like to work for a university, especially especially with foreign students, but that's just my first choice.

Also, I plan to go to Hong Kong and Shanghai (for the World's Fair!) sometime between July 21 and August 21. I would really, really prefer not to go alone, so if anyone out there wants to come, please let me know about that, too.

Fighting!! (I'm told the Koreans say this, but I have yet to hear it or figure out what it means)

Better

2010-04-16T19:34:00.000-07:00

The previous entry was written in utter pique (yes, really), but, peevish as it is, it's part of the experience, so I feel a certain obligation to post it. I could have written Korea over and over, Shining-style, it felt so good to stop trying to be tolerant. Korea's like a bad date; it's very nice and has many things to recommend it, but there's no chemistry between us, and the longer we spend together, the more exasperated I get. I'm sure someone else will be very happy with it, but I'll be very happy to delete it from my address book. I wish it every success in the future.

Another issue I had yesterday was that I was hungry. Like "it's been days since I had a good meal and my body won't put up with this crap for another instant" hungry. Being hungry and hating Korea are so interconnected that when I find myself inwardly ranting at everyone, my first thought is "what have I had to eat today?". It was to be a long time til dinner--there was an overlong dentist visit, an unsuccessful attempt to reach my next stop via an alternate and more convenient subway line, and the increasingly-frustrated walk around that station that ultimately ended with me getting back on the train and going the 'right' way--but when I finally arrived at Yeouido, met a patient Diana, and emerged onto the street rather desperate, instead of the usual wasteland that greets such a situation, there, across the street, was....Kraze Burger!!! I've been wanting to try one of those! They're American-style, which means expensive, tax extra, and vegetarian option(s). I had a tomato and fresh mozzarella sandwich and, most gloriously, french fries! I've been craving fries for a while...while they're available frozen at Costco, the necessary stovetop preparation doesn't scratch the itch. Anyway, Kraze Burger was a moment of grace at the end of an extremely trying day. I thoroughly appreciated it, and we even capped the evening with mint chip at Baskin Robbins. :D

In between courses, we walked around the perimeter of the island (a small chunk of land at the edge of the Han River) and enjoyed the cherry blossoms, now in full flower. It was really, really nice. Yeouido is much more recently developed, and with infinitely more attention to aesthetics than the rest of Seoul. It's also a very wealthy district. The apartment high-rises have design elements, the streets are lined with trees, and there's space between things. It was one of those rare pockets in Korea that allows my soul to breathe. Walking under a canopy of flowers is a rare treat, and we even discovered a lilac bush just beginning to bloom. I could feel the quizzical stares of Koreans as Diana and I took turns burying our faces in the one flower that was open enough to smell. And smell it did--heavenly is too tame a word to describe it. Great salve for a very weary soul.

I had a nice respite last weekend, too. Decided to take a day trip to Incheon, inspiring a lot of puzzlement from anyone I told. Incheon's a port city, replete with cranes, smokestacks, and an industrial aura that make it potentially off-putting at first glance. Second glance, too--after checking out its impressive but not lovable Chinatown, and mingling with the masses at Jayu Park (home of the General MacArthur statue commemorating the American's liberation of Seoul--the first time--during the Korean War), I was in a veni-vidi-vaminos frame of mind. But I felt obligated to check off the areas mentioned in Lonely Planet so, too cheap to get a cab, I followed the traffic signs on foot out to Wolmido, a recreation-oriented peninsula that's the uvula in the throat of the port.

There was almost nobody around, and I had shipyards on one side and their administrative buildings on the other. And it felt great. I realized that what I've been needing for weeks is peace. I have a bit of a thing for shipping and its environs anyway, but the really great part was the physical & psychic open space. It was fantastic. When I reached Wolmido proper, Lonely Planet's information was too vague to be of assistance, so I had some blind decisions to make. They mentioned a promenade, and I had velleities toward walking it, but followed instinct instead and wound up in a bastion on top of a hill, nearly alone and with a view over the ships, bridges, and sea. I'd found my happy place.

I could have stayed up there a long while, longer even than I actually did. I wished it was close enough to return to repeatedly, but the journey may be justified by the awesomeness of the place. It probably is less enchanting at the height of summer crowds, but to enjoy the peace and beauty of that spot for $3 in subway fare and 3 hours of reading on the train is, I believe, a fair exchange, and a perfectly good use of a free day.

The Whole Truth

2010-04-16T19:33:00.001-07:00

Things that are irritating me right now:
1. Korea
2. Korea
3. Korea
4. Korea
5. Korean food
6. Someone stole something that belonged to me out of my classroom.
7. This probably happened during cleaning time, which is useless because if they're cleaning it at all, it's in a most perfunctory way.
8. Being reprimanded, twice, by a co-teacher because kids complain I don't call on them when they want to answer (amazing the difference giving stamps makes!). There were 10 questions on the worksheet and 33 students in the class. You do the math.
9. For the second week in a row, the copy room has printed my worksheets one-sided, despite my requesting double on the form. That's about 1000 sheets of paper used needlessly. It's also a bitch to hand out.
10. Another co-teacher who emailed me the group charts 1 1/2 weeks late and changed the groups without telling me (since we give stamps to groups for participation, this wreaked havoc with the reward system). When the kids complained, she told them I did it.
11. Constant hunger & its various manifestations.
12. Kids mocking me openly in class has gone from almost non-existant to rampant in the space of about 2 weeks.
13. The teacher who's in charge of me now is afraid to speak to me, so I only find out about stuff if someone else thinks to let me know.
14. It takes an hour to go anywhere, even if it's 5 miles away.
15. How hard is walking in a straight line, really?
16. Constant noise & people.
17. Kids' behavior in general has taken a distinct dive of late. It's not just me; other teachers are noticing as well.
18. Co-teachers who show up late or not at all and/or chat with the kids while I'm trying to teach.
19. One co-teacher who keeps remarking, over and over, how few responsibilities I have compared to everyone else.

I don't need any encouraging comments, and I hope this will pass in time (like 4 months! :) ), but I'm taking a savage pleasure at venting my spleen at Korea, and how convenient that I have a forum to do it publicly!

It May Be Time to Leave Someday After All

2010-04-16T19:23:00.001-07:00

Late September vs. Now

That's What It's All About!

2010-04-13T03:33:00.000-07:00

I finally, FINALLY made it to noraebang last weekend! Noraebang is a quintessential Korea experience, and great fun, but usually done when drunk in Hongdae, and since I don't often find myself drunk in Hongdae, it has eluded me lo these many months. Now that I know what all the fuss is about, I hope to get a few more noraebang nights in before fleeing the country.

What is noraebang? Karaoke (we use the Japanese term). "Norae" means "song", and "bang" (say it with an "ah", not like "big bang") means "room". Bangs are popular in Korea...you have PC Bang, DVD Bang (really just a place to make out when you live with your parents), and any number of other types. And that's the beauty of Korean karaoke (I could probably get deported for sticking with the Japanese moniker)--rather than waiting hours to sing in front of strangers in a bar, you pay for an hour in your own room, with just your friends at witnesses. No waiting, minimal humiliation, and nothing to hold you back from taking advantage of every opportunity Koreans can dream up. Where else are you going to wear a fox suit and bang on a light-up tambourine?

Not kidding about that. Korea and camp go together like peas and carrots, and like so much else here, noraebangs are a sort of psychedelic rococo. The fixtures at this place were county-fair-does-Versailles, and the floors were plexiglass with...displays, I guess you would call them, underneath. There was a desert section, birds and blooms, bugs... As Obi put it, you felt like Godzilla walking over it all. The 'bang' itself had one giant mirrored wall, framed by an LED arch with strobe lights. A large flat-screen tv showed dreamlike (as in that ad with Abe Lincoln and a beaver playing chess in the attic) Korean videos for each song. If the fox suit was too hot (it was), there were also wigs and goofy props to abet the silliness.

Besides the free (well, included) ice cream and caramel corn, the guy offered us the foreign song book. Not sure where he thought we were from--that one had 4 different languages in it, all of them Southeast Asian. The English songs were in the teeming binder along with the Korean ones, and offered hundreds of choices. Time ran out for John Denver or Cyndi Lauper, and my friends were unacquainted with Starship (too bad!), but we did belt out some Journey, butchered U2, did a laudable rendition of Twist & Shout, and closed the night bouncing to Chumbawamba. Decided against doing any "Pill Collins".

Thinking I was merely going to dinner, I didn't have my camera with me, but as soon as my skiving friends post pictures on Facebook, I'll steal them and share.

Variations on a Theme

2010-04-08T02:30:00.001-07:00

It occurs to me the folly of titling these posts, as at this point, they're all aimless meanderings in a feeble attempt to summarize increasingly ridiculous amounts of time. As usual, I've got several topics to pontificate on, and as usual, they'll be hitting on the same themes:

The trivial: Out of nowhere (ok, because of reading my blog crush's old posts), I decided to watch Jon Stewart online tonight, and was treated not only to videos of gamboling kittens--he actually managed to make the church sex scandal funny--but a 7-year-old video clip of Steve Carell making kimchi ("It's a delicious treat, for outdoor dining or a well-ventilated area")

The existential: I'm in the process of getting my first dental crown. The idea of this being an existential issue is probably laughable to many of you, but it's really messed with my head. After years of dire predictions that always ended in relatively harmless fillings, I've finally hit a body part that's beaten beyond repair. As I white-knuckled the chair arms and mentally sang "Beautiful Day" for all I was worth, while one of my teeth was ground to a stump by a Korean lady with way too much makeup who repeatedly promised that this spin of the drill was "the finishing touch", I felt surprisingly vulnerable and mortal. This stuff isn't just for other people any more. When the doctor says you have to undergo freakish, unpleasant procedures, you suck it up and let it happen. With a phantom Bono as a stand-in for your mommy. My mom has often mentioned how she had to go a few rounds with the doctor about the necessity of my Blankie when I split my head open at age 2. I wouldn't have minded if she'd done the same now.

The what-the-f*ck's-wrong-with-Koreans: so many choices here, but today's rant will be on littering. I've been noticing for a while the ubiquity with which Korean teens mindlessly drop the wrapper from whatever they're eating, wherever they are. I've had the urge to go up and shake them and say, "This is YOUR country. Why are you befouling it?" I see littering in the US, too, but here it just seem so universal. Leaving your mess for others to clean up is apparently the modus operandi. (though so is leaving others to clean up their mess--it always amazes me that if you drop something on the street, no one will help you, even if you're an old lady with a cart full of groceries, or even if it was someone else's carelessness that caused the spill) I've been 'castigated' for erasing the board after my classes...though maybe the other teachers have fairies I don't, 'cause I'd then just have to erase the board in the next classroom I went to (I'm spared this now, teaching in the same room every time). I could go on & on, but the real kicker was the guy I saw today spreading leaflets. And I mean that literally. I've seen flyers floating around on the streets before, and figured they'd escaped from somewhere, but this guy was walking with a stack and just tossing one on the ground every few feet. My cultural sensitivity is strained perilously close to the breaking point.

The literary: I'm on to Wuthering Heights. I read it in high school, and remember precious little beyond one of my classmates summarizing the dramas/emotions so insightfully it blew my mind. I don't recall being plussed by the book, but I'm getting pretty into it now. Maybe not quite so thoroughly (ie obsessively) as Harry Potter or John Rebus, but I've done a bit of one-more-chaptering. I know a bunch of them are going to die, but otherwise, I remember nothing. It says in the foreword, and I agree, that Emily Bronte's understanding of human emotions is quite impressive for someone who never interacted with any.

Those crazy Koreans: I'm still deciding if being crowned here is fortunate or not. I've been to the dentist's office twice now--once for the initial procedure, and a second time to re-glue my wayward temporary crown, which came off in a mouthful of gimbap the first time I let myself chew on that side. The waiting area--the size of my vestibule in Rochester--is furnished with attractive upholstered chairs & couch, and I have my choice of English magazines, several of which claim that Patrick Swayze is back at work (they must have made a single pilgrimage to What the Book and cleaned out their magazine rack, to rot the minds of waiting Westerners forevermore). When called, I was directed to a chair in a lineup...no individual exam rooms here. The technician took my purse for me, but jackets being fashionable indoor wear here, I was examined in mine. They have nifty self-filling rinse cups that top themselves off when replaced, and little video cameras with giant monitors so you can look closely at your fillings and caries (and those of the patient before.....did someone say privacy? I didn't think so), and the sinks are artistically streaked with the blood of the previous patient. The drill sprays water that you can gag on while they work, and when I expressed my concern that swallowing might nudge the drill, Dr. Park assured me that swallowing is ok because the water is sterilized. They did make the concession of getting more aggressive with the spit-sucker, so I have several tongue hickeys to distract me from the discomfort of the wannabe crown. I could go on, but I'll save it for next week, when I go back for the real thing.

The students: seem to have gone crazy. The honeymoon's over. Besides the ones who behave like caged animals (which, I suppose, they are), there's the class that doesn't speak--a real rarity here, and not as thoroughly great as it sounds (though they did titter when I taught them the expression "cat's got your tongue")--and the gay boy who's in love with me. The first time or two he said he loved me, it was cute, but we're quickly progressing to freaky. He lavishes me with compliments, announces his undying love at every opportunity to absolutely everyone, and even asked me to be his Show & Tell object in speaking class last night. I don't want to crush him, but I can't exactly encourage him, either. I hope he gets over it soon. Having a Talk with an American student would be hard enough; shouting it across the language barrier is a pretty hairy proposition.

The weekend: plans to go to Jeonju and hike and see a traditional craftsmen village have succumbed to total apathy. I'm going for a day trip to Incheon, to--likely--walk in the rain. Looking forward to it, though. Checking out the islands and beaches sounds cool, too, but that may have to wait ('cause no matter how much time goes by here, there's always more).

The blog I didn't write: yeah, the Temple Stay. I'll get to it.

20 weeks!

2010-04-02T03:35:00.000-07:00

As usual, there is much to talk about. Funny how that happens when I let almost 2 weeks go by between posts.

Today's musing is, what's with the word "story" for Koreans? I noticed a shop called Pizza Story on the way home today. One of the major rice cake makers (and rice cakes are BIG business) is Story of Rice Cake. There's Hair Story, Storyway, and at least a dozen others I can't call to mind at the moment. Methinks maybe there's some misinterpretation going on. I might have to ask someone. Another question: why, when you ride to the last stop on a subway, do they always tell you to be sure you have all your belongings? Is leaving something on the train ok when it's on its way elsewhere?

"June", one of my new co-teachers, is very good about explaining things to me. Good thing, since my 'caretaker' is on maternity leave, and her substitute hasn't plucked up the courage to talk to me yet. I continue to learn about English as well, from answering my colleagues' questions. Issues I've fielded this week: "sure" and "no problem" are indeed acceptable responses when someone says "thank you", while "don't mention it" makes you sound like Cary Grant; "I like that you enjoyed your vacation" is awkward, but "I like that he took a leadership role" isn't, for reasons I haven't yet unraveled.

I'm nearly through Bill Bryson's "The Mother Tongue: English & How it Got That Way". Lots of interesting bits...why does the US Postal Service deliver the mail, while the Royal Mail delivers the post?...myriad reasons why English is so inconsistent: we're a mix of Anglo-Saxon vocabulary and Latin rules, when adopting foreign words, we tend to preserve the spelling but not necessarily the pronunciation, etc, etc. Though he has little to say about Korea, his frequent mention of Japanese difficulties with English are all too familiar. Another place he fails to mention is Newfoundland, which I would think would be a gold mine for a linguist, as it seems to be a bit of a time capsule--at several points, Bryson details archaic pronunciations and obsolete rhymes that I've actually heard spoken on The Rock.

My lesson this week was about Easter. Korean kids know about eggs, but that's it. The Easter Bunny was a new concept even for the teachers, while the kids got a big kick out of children "dyeing" eggs. They also were very impressed that Peeps are made from marshmallow (I don't know why), and were mostly convinced that the coconut-covered bunny cake I showed them was made of rice. Thinking about it now, I should have made "jellybean" a vocabulary word, but too late. The lesson was fun, but after 20 repetitions, I'm glad to be done with it. This coming week, I start differentiating lessons, so I've got 3 separate plans in the works, in addition to 2 for tomorrow's EEP classes (yes, my first stressful Saturday). I even started working on them early in the week, but my head is still spinning trying to keep track of it all.

Speaking of head spinning--or perhaps swimming--I may have mentioned this before, but WHAT is with Koreans and onions at Costco?? Last time I was there with friends, we resolved not to sit near the onions in the dining area, but I realized this time that proximity to the dispenser is largely irrelevant. EVERYONE gets themselves a giant plate of diced onions, stirs them up with ketchup and mustard, and then--this is the amazing part--EATS it. But not before the stink gets all over my jacket. I guess it's the Korean garbage plate (though that term could be applied to so many things here), but the name is so apt, it loses the wry element.

I'm going to a Passover Seder tomorrow. I'm excited--I've never been to one before. It's a potluck, which is a real bear...potlucks in general are a trial here, since I don't have the ingredients/equipment to make my usuals, but add the Passover food rules, and I'm totally lost (this is the holiday where I once had a parent, when I was babysitting for a full day, tell me "it's probably best if you don't eat anything 'cause you might mess up the plates"). I floated a few ideas past the host, who either shot them down or suggested expensive, needle-in-a-haystack ingredients as substitutes, and finally got the brilliant idea to just make applesauce. I hope there's nothing wrong with cinnamon.

I scratched a major itch this week by walking around Deokso. Back in the fall, I was making a point to go exploring every week, and one strategy was to pick random subway stops and see what's there. I'd chosen Deokso early in March, and penciled it in at least 3 times, but was always thwarted. This week, I finally set out. It seems to be located on some kind of lake, which was neat-looking from the subway, but Koreans like to put major roads along water, so you can't just walk up to it. I did find a drainage ditch to walk along, which was nicer than it sounds. The full moon was coming up, in rather sinister color, and there were cranes (I think) fishing in the water. Hardly a nature preserve, but much more satisfying than my neighborhood. I didn't bring my camera, and it was dark anyway, but I wish I had a picture of the airplane church. Someone's taken an old 747, raised it up on stilts so it's about its own height off the ground, and turned it into a place of worship. I'm half tempted to go to a service. The plane was oddly eerie, jutting out of a hillside. I've heard that the essence of scary is putting ordinary things where you don't expect them to be...worked in this case.

Also in the "where's my camera?" department: FAG company (no idea what they make), and a bus from BS Tours.

Someday (theoretically), I'll post about my Temple Stay last weekend. Pretty touristy, but pretty cool.

I Never Expected This!

2010-03-21T03:33:00.001-07:00

Yellow dust...you hear about it from every guidebook, website, and person having anything to do with Korea. Sand from the Gobi Desert, blows in in the spring, irritates noses & lungs. Ok. I still wasn't really sure how to picture it. I guess I had in mind the sandstorms on the dunes in Colorado, or perhaps something like the film of pollen you find on your car every morning when the trees bloom? How about something between nuclear fallout and Krakatoa?

All last week, other expats were mentioning yellow dust in their Facebook posts, and I was wondering which Seoul they were living in, having seen nothing out of the ordinary myself. Yesterday, however, was unmistakable. I THINK it was a regular storm that made it nighttime-dark around noon. But once that blew by, it got lighter, but not clear, and there was a pronounced yellow glow. You couldn't discern anything in the air, like with snowflakes, and I didn't end up with sand in every crease, as I did after climbing the Colorado Dunes, just eerie yellow overcast, like wearing cheap sunglasses. This must be what the Dust Bowl or Mt. St. Helens were like. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take any pictures. I thought I might try today, but it was sunny and clear, as if the yellow dust were never here.

I don't think this has anything to do with the cold-ish ailment I've been nursing this weekend. That's probably more related to the Korean disdain for calling in sick, and thus the liberal sharing of germs around the office. I had to bail on the cat cafe on Friday--a wrenching decision, since I haven't been there in 2 months, though it can hardly be called a decision...more a lack of ability to stand up. I missed the St. Patrick's Festival/Parade and a middle eastern lunch with the Seoul Veggie Society yesterday, too, though that was in part due to having to be at school to interview applicants for this year's EEP program. The kids were supposed to choose one of four pictures and tell a short story (ie 4-5 sentences) about it. Whenever I've tried activities like this in my classes, the students seem completely flummoxed, so I was curious how this would go. And either this year's crop of 1st graders is pretty poor at English, or this activity truly is outside the repertoire of most Korean schoolkids. (I'm inclined to believe the 2nd, as I've never seen evidence of anything creative taking place in a Koren classroom)

I had 2 or 3 kids stare at the paper until my co-teacher told them "time over". About 45% gave perfunctory answers when prompted ("What's happening in this picture?" "Basketball."), and about 45% did put together a few sentences, usually descriptive rather than creative ("They are in a classroom. They are studying English.") Then there were the standouts. One boy labored through a couple sentences about the picture he'd chosen before asking if he could do a different picture. He then proceeded to read the sample at the bottom of the page verbatim. Another, when asked which picture he chose, gave a long explanation of how the other kids in line didn't seem to be choosing Picture 4, so he was going to do that one in the hope that he might earn some extra points for it (Picture 4 wasn't actually that unusual, but he did earn full marks for a good, competent story). There was one fantastic tale of a basketball game involving teenagers from Russia who eventually had to flee because they were cold; and then there was the story that even got my head teacher to laugh: the boy and his family were sailing to the USA when they met a sea monster; after fighting the monster, the boat sank, and then they discovered Atlantis (a 7-syllable word) and swam to an island where they called a Korean scientist, and in the end, they were rich. The pronunciation and grammar were atrocious, but he got his point across, was far more creative than anyone else, and I've conversed with this kid about the English books he reads at home, so I know his attitude is good. The other interviewers were asking kids if they like English or want to be in this program, and several were honest and said 'no'.

So this week, we start EEP, in addition to all the other scheduled insanity. I've GOT to get better, 'cause I don't have time to be sick. My temperature was within a couple ticks of normal this afternoon, but it's back to 100 now, so I'm hoping this is the final battle. I'm teaching classes the rules and consequences this week, and I still have to decide how exactly I'll do that, and what the consequences are going to be. The good behavior of the first week was apparently just a 'welcome back' respite; my last class on Friday let me know how much work there still is to do.

Groovin' on a Thursday Afternoon

2010-03-18T04:22:00.000-07:00

I wanted to explore Deokso tonight (because I didn't go last Thursday), and I have a Skype appointment that I need to keep, but I'm feeling tired and unadventurous. I know I need a walk, and I want to ensure that the cat cafe hasn't folded, and see N'Seoul Tower lit green for St. Patrick's Day, but reading and writing are appealing to me right now. Normally, I look forward to Skype conversations, but tonight, I'd rather grab one of the countless books and magazines lying neglected around me and forget what time it is.

I finished Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul yesterday. It was a slog, though judging from the multiple pages of radiant praise (and the Nobel Prize for Literature), I'm the only one who thought so. It wasn't uninteresting--I've gained insight into this city I hope to visit next year, and the author seems like someone I might get along with--but the lengthy, loving descriptions were better suited to someone who's seen the place, and the same goes for the dense, nostalgia-laden historical litanies. I've now switched gears completely, having brought "Little House in the Big Woods" back with me from NY. The inscription reads "Christmas 1980, To Melissa with love, the start to your personal collection. Mommy and Daddy." I know I was seldom without one of these books in the early '80s, but I don't remember revisiting them since. It's interesting and informative (in just 2 chapters, I've learned details on butchering, smoking meat, and making butter), and made richer by the dual experience of vividly recalling pictures and passages, and appreciating the story through a vastly different lens. This is the first of 9 books I've collected to read this semester--it doesn't sound like much, but I'm not sure I'll make it. The others are: Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue (a re-read), Wuthering Heights, The Ugly American, The Secret Life of Bees, Little House on the Prairie, Travels with Charley, Rats, and Gulliver's Travels.

Today was a remarkable day, with many diversions and simple pleasures. Lessons and planning continue to go well. If I get around to it, I'll post separately on that--there's certainly enough material for it. While I saw the last class for the first time today, and taught a low-level class a lesson that I'd mentally composed just for them on yesterday's walk home, I've seen most of the 3rd-graders twice now, and the honeymoon is in its waning moments. Still, teaching in my own classroom has numerous benefits, one of which is that I think the kids behave better. But again, I'll address that on its own (or say I will, anyway). Classes today were all 35 minutes, and the dreaded extra period we have on Thursdays was cancelled...only later did I find out why. I was told that parents could come to school today to observe their children. Sure, fine. I was not prepared for the pack that gathered outside my classroom door 6th period. Maybe I should have bowed to them or something when they came in, but I was trying hard to pretend they weren't there, jealously guarding my newfound confidence. Fortunately, this was an advanced class, and they behaved like church mice (or maybe unfortunately--they probably would have been pretty good anyway and I could have used the parent influence on my delinquents), but since they were a "high" class, I not only wanted to get through what's usually 45 minutes of material; I felt they were capable of doing it that fast. I don't know how good the parents' English is, but we FLEW through getting-to-know-you and St. Patrick's Day. After class, the parents lingered while I shut down the computer, erased the board, pushed in the chairs. And then Ms. Kim returned and I discovered what they were waiting for--evaluations. SO glad I didn't know that was part of the deal. Nobody told me what they wrote, but at least the lesson was coherent, somewhat interesting, and used PowerPoint, and the kids made me look good.

Ok, so that was more "diversion" than "simple pleasure". The short classes meant we had a long afternoon to while away, and I found two fascinating websites with the potential for long-term enjoyment (a good thing, since the Africa Overlanders I've been following one country a day since December are now 3 days from finished): fedupwithschoollunch.blogspot.com, an Illinois teacher who's eating what the kids eat for a year and has sparked an incredible conversation about something I hope to crusade on in the future, and the Prelinger Archives, where old ('40s-'60s ish...or were they 40-60 years old?) commercials and 'education' films are viewable. I watched a sales pitch on careers in sales, a travelogue for Freedomland amusement park in the Bronx (sounded pretty cool!), an exhortation for kids to share, "Pornography for Profit" (see the world's first powerpoint, and learn how homosexuality causes communism in this gem), and a neat system for families to enjoy more free time. Also found "Leave it to Beaver" on YouTube (Beaver: "That's my shrunken head." June:"Why, so it is"). Good times!

On the way home, my co-teacher, June, took me to a jewelry shop, where I got the 13-months-dead battery in my given-up-for-lost watch replaced in two shakes of a lamb's tail for $4. A few paces down the sidewalk, we came upon a vendor hawking fresh strawberries (they're in season in Korea, somehow). For $2, I've got a carton all my own! I asked June why prices ranged from $2-$5 (the rough won equivalent) for what appeared to be the same size cartons. She said it was the size of the strawberries. So while it may be important to someone to pay more than double for the mutant ones, I got the succulent ones (which aren't all that small) for a song. I had some for dessert, after my tortellini (from home) with fresh tomato, garlic, basil, and olive oil. :D

Shorter posts. Yup.

More Bathroom Adventures

2010-03-18T02:17:00.000-07:00

Yes, after nearly 2 weeks of silence, I am blogging about nothing more substantive than bathrooms. In my defense, I'll say that I've been quite busy with evening activities, I've been making a concerted effort this week to update my languishing kids' blog (2 whole posts!!), and bathrooms are probably what a lot of you find most interesting anyway.

I'm also trying to make my posts shorter, as I think a lot of my procrastination on the blogging front is due to not wanting to start unless I have an hour or more to sacrifice, so I'm working (undoubtedly slowly) toward the paragraph here 'n' there format many other bloggers use. We'll see how that goes.

Anyway, while following some colleagues to the cafeteria a couple weeks ago, I discovered the teachers' bathroom. It's in the other building, and so requires a few minutes and the donning of a jacket (not that I'd leave the office--the literal one--without one anyway...it's still only in the 40s here), but it's nicer, provides toilet paper, and I won't set off a shrieking frenzy if I run into anyone else in there. It also seems to be heated, though this could just be the rising ambient temperatures of near-spring.

There are 4 stalls; 3 squatters, and the "handicapped" toilet. (It doesn't use the word, or any amusing substitute, just the ubiquitous stick wheelchair guy...or maybe it's a woman, since she's in the ladies' room) I don't know if it's gauche to use the handicapped facilities, but I've never caused a line, and my foreigner status gives me an almost-universal "get out of faux pas free" card.

I did actually take the plunge and try the squatters for 2 days last week. It wasn't that bad, just disorienting to have tp available in that posture. I don't have a problem with them, but am still preferentially gravitating to the western option. Interestingly, they're the first of their kind I've used (outside of Italy), meaning that if I hadn't chosen to use them, I would still have never been forced to.

Add to the list of brilliant ideas in use here: a plastic accordion door on the restroom stall. It thwacks into place via magnetic strip, and there's a hook & eye for busier bathrooms or paranoid people. It covers the entire opening (no "peep strips" on either side), and you don't have to maneuver around it. Brilliant!! (especially in airports--I had to explain repeatedly in the line at JFK that I was waiting for the handicapped stall because it was the only one I & all my luggage would fit into)

Not content with making my life easy, the bathroom sink has a lift lever similar to many in the US, but you lift to turn it OFF. I'm proving even denser with this than with the newer-style car window switches, which I did master after only a dozen or so times--I've yet to turn the sink off on the first try. Then there's the heat dryer, whose electric eye is back against the wall--you almost have to walk your fingers up the back to turn it on--but the heat comes out in the front. I thought for days that it was broken. Now I've learned you can only dry one hand at a time, while the other keeps the sensor active.

Last week at Riverdance (yes, Riverdance) at the Sejong Center, I offset the squat toilets with one of the most incredible bathrooms I've ever been in. Besides the giant lounge and the individual sinks (separated by mirrored partitions--Koreans do love a mirror), the toilet had a heated seat! A first for me! It also had a bunch of other buttons, but after an episode at the Dongbu education office where I pressed a random button and jumped back just in time to watch in both bemusement and mortification as a hose emerged and launched a fountain that hit the stall door and ran onto the floor, I didn't try any of the deluxe features at Sejong. They also had one of the increasingly common "jet dry" devices where you lower your hands between two plastic panels, then withdraw them slowly through a horizontal wall of moving air. It's kinda like the dryer at the car wash.

From my Canadian friend, on her now-"paroled" American boyfriend: "He kept saying 'restroom', which I thought was so weird. Is that an expression in America?"

Rolling Into Week -24

2010-03-05T03:06:00.000-08:00

The flags on my fridge are getting noticeably fewer. They're not as weighty as they once were, but it's still satisfying to pull one off every Friday afternoon. And thus I roll into week -24, riding high on a wave of optimism, though likely about to get jerked under by the lingering riptide of jetlag.

Actually, the jetlag hasn't been nearly as bad as I'd anticipated. Both ways, it's mostly manifested as late-night narcolepsy. Normally, I need a little wind-down to actually fall asleep. In the first few days after arrival, however, I reach a point where I shut down as if by switch, around 7:00 the first night and working back to a more manageable 10 or 11:00 now. The first nights back in Seoul, I also had the familiar waking with the roosters, but, instead of lasting a week like it did in August, I only had to put up with it for 2 nights this time. I guess after staying awake for 30 hours straight, one's body doesn't really care what time it is anywhere.

It's been a pretty low-key week. I threw together a lesson Tuesday morning (Monday was Korean Independence Day) before learning that I wouldn't need it this week, so I've had 4 days of deskwarming without the agony of birthing a lesson. The changes and developments at school are mostly on the positive side. Our office is now a henhouse, and the new arrivals include the art teacher who's been really friendly and helpful to me throughout the last 6 months, and a new English teacher, Ms. Yi, who seems to be on my wavelength. Everyone's English is stellar, and though most of the banter is in Korean, I like the vibe.

My classroom is just about ready to go. We had a small setback when someone(s) apparently came in and made off with a few desks and chairs, though they did make the effort to replace them with a handful of dwarf chairs. At least there's a heater now, and the computer at long last has a working mouse. Ms. Cho, my new advocate, said that the kids would schlep the desks when I have my first (and only) class on Monday. I must be turning into a real teacher because the news that my class would be 10-15 minutes shorter elicited more panic than relief.

There has been a shift in my reality. I still spent more time this week reading blogs and weeding emails than writing lessons, but I'm in good shape for next week, I have ideas about the rest of March, and I have a SYLLABUS. More or less. After getting my hands on the school calendar yesterday, I laid out each week, when classes would be, what blocks of time I'll have, and came up with topics through July for both grades (and it still is just 2--more on that in a minute). I found this so compelling I actually continued working on it after I got home. I've never understood people who bring work home when it's not imperative, but I got a little taste of it yesterday (and again today!). Coming up with topics is still a LOT easier than teasing them into lessons, but I feel much more adept at it now, and comfortable with the idea that it'll work out one way or another.

I've been in a bit of a planning frenzy in general. In some ways it makes the time seem shorter...August looks frightfully far away, but when you think of it in terms of "I'm gonna do A, B, C, D, and then I go home", it's practically tomorrow. And I actually do have to sketch out right through to the end to make sure I'm getting to everything I want to get to. I've signed up with 2 Adventure Korea trips in March, a cave thing this weekend that a friend recommended a while back, and a Temple Stay at the end of the month--one thing that every visitor here should experience. I'm a little leery of going with a bus group, but I've been trying for months to arrange something and gotten absolutely nowhere, so bus it is. If friends follow through, I'll also be visiting the National Museum of Korea, and going to the Seoul Racecourse, then in April taking a weekend trip to one of Korea's southern provinces. I've even picked the weeks I want for summer vacation, though they'll have apoplexy at school if I mention it. I'm looking at a week in the Philippines with an extended layover in Hong Kong for July, then a 4-day weekend in Tokyo in August before my valedictory road trip.

Getting wordy here, but 2 happy things I want to mention. I was afraid that this semester was going to be a death march. EEP, the evening program I taught in the fall, is moving to Saturday this year; AND there was a rumor in school that I was going to be teaching all of the 1st graders instead of just the advanced ones, bringing my weekly class load to 25 (anything over 22 and we're entitled to overtime). I assented to Saturday EEP most unwillingly and was bracing myself for writing more plans with just one planning period a day. Turns out there are only 6 Saturdays that EEP is meeting...not so bad over the course of 6 months (though it does mean I can't go camping in the DMZ with Adventure Korea). And, getting my class schedule today, the 25/week plan was apparently scrapped. My 20 classes are actually one less than last semester. And I don't have an additional level to write lessons for (though I may still if the low 2s are as bad as they seemed during camp).

On top of it all, Spring does look like it's going to come this year. Temps have been in the high 40s, and look to stay that way for the foreseeable future. I had to put my umbrella back in my school bag after getting caught without it yesterday. Going out without mittens is actually worth considering. It's a happy time. I'm optimistic.

Part 2

2010-03-02T03:39:00.000-08:00

I've been mentally composing this post through a long, quiet day at school, and it was the picture of eloquence (is that a mixed metaphor? what's the equivalent expression for sound?). Now, though, I'm in a jetlagged stupor, but determined to commit this entry to bytes if only to keep myself awake a little longer. With a sleep deficit that rivals the one in my bank account, I might actually go to bed if I thought it would help, but I'd just be perpetuating the cycle, and turning in at 8:30 is not something I want to make a habit of.

Neither is boarding 14-hour flights. Any subsequent East Coast-East Asia travel is going to involve a West Coast layover, for sanity's sake. Once again, I was very lucky yesterday (or was it the day before?), scoring a window seat with magnificent views, and a sweet elderly couple as seatmates. We did go over the top of the Earth, never really leaving daylight, and it was clear most of the way, affording a look at the North Pole and its environs. There are some nifty formations up there (land? snow?), and I feel privileged to see it all. Nonetheless, being confined in an airplane for 14 hours is a whole new kind of crazy, and watching the little electronic airplane get progressively (but so slowly!) farther from New York is just that much more traumatic.

At first, hearing Korean made me nauseous, watching North America disappear from under me made it feel as if my internal organs were all bolting in different directions. Once in Seoul, though, it was as though I'd never left, albeit in a considerably less buoyant way than I felt in New York. (and why is sleep so elusive on an interminable plane ride, but so readily indulged in on the Airport Limousine bus?) I am resigned. With an occasional inner scream. 25 weeks to go. And no more nourishing meals, purring cats, loving arms, or wooded walks. It's not so bad. It just seems like it.

And so for the first day of the rest of my life here. I got to school 1/2 hour early today, to find Ms. Cho, with whom I have a spotted history, making herself at home at Terrie's desk. Terrie's old desk. Terrie has given up being my liaison, for reasons I'm not privy to, so Ms. Cho is now the person to whom I'm to direct all questions, although she will be gone for 3 months on maternity leave beginning in April. There was also somebody completely new at Mr. Kwon's desk, so I've lost my 2 best advocates/helping hands. The news was better from there, however. I don't have to teach this week, so the hours of fretting and the madcap PowerPointing this morning were unnecessary. EEP doesn't start until March 24, and my signing away my Saturdays will really only affect 6 of them. The new English teacher is nice, speaks English very well, and lives in my neighborhood. And Terrie and Mr. Lim, the teachers with the best discipline, will now be teaching 3rd grade, the kids with the worst, so maybe it will be somewhat less hellish than last year. On top of everything, the NY teacher continuing ed requirements that I've been searching for for years are readily available on Wikipedia. Who knew?

Oh, and by the way, RCSD...those "diverse" kids studying in that charming little picture on your website...are IN Korea.

I'm losing the battle with sleep. Should REALLY go for a walk, but...

Still Alive!

2010-02-14T09:08:00.000-08:00

I did make it back from Cambodia, despite the impression my lack of posts may have given. I liked the country, and really liked the food, and I would go back, but I never got over the "fight or flight" feeling...right up until I went to the airport, my gut was telling me "get out now!". Friends have suggested various explanations, all of which have merit...it was more alone than I've ever been before, 5 months in Korea had exhausted my appetite for challenge, etc. Whatever the cause, I've never had that happen on vacation before.

The end of the trip was rather pleasant, too. On Thursday, my last day at the Angkor temples, I met a kindred spirit from Nevada, and at dinner that night, we met a retired Canadian couple putting a nifty twist on the snowbird concept by volunteering at a Cambodian school for the winter. We all had dinner together on Friday, too, and it was great fun to hear about everyone's experiences, not least of which was Gordon & Dorothy's time building desks and teaching sewing in Siem Reap.

On the bus back to Phnom Penh, I chatted with an Australian whose friend was living in the city, gathering evidence for the Khmer Rouge trials. I sat on the Riverfront wall in the evening, and, while watching the full moon rise over the party boats and keeping my feet clear of the rats, had a good conversation with a Khmer student who turned out NOT to want any money from me (glad I didn't brush him off immediately), and a Nigerian soccer player who also seemed relatively agenda-free. The Cambodians, as they are wont to do, had a little sidewalk dance party, with a boom box, a couple of dancers, and a flock of good sports of all ages. Children and old women sold cold drinks from coolers slung over their arms. I hated for the night to end.

And now I am Home, and it feels wonderful. In spite of the stresses and struggles that life is never without, there is a rightness to being here that sits well in my soul. It's a little bit surreal, in that I have a sense that time has passed, yet it feels like I never left. I expected everything to be magical, but while I'm conscious of a current of gratitude running deeply below, it all just feels incredibly comfortable, with a subtle veneer of freshness. One attempted "kam sam ni da" to a baggage handler in NYC, and I haven't looked back. Ironically, what struck me most upon reaching New York was how friendly everyone is. Suddenly, I am visible again.

It's odd things that get me--the colorful license plates draw my eye again and again, I wanted to hug the man next to me on the plane for covering his mouth when he sneezed, and I feel a vested interest in the Korean Olympic team. But the cats, after brief consideration, decided that they know me; birds chirp outside the window; I can sing in the car and walk in the woods and talk to my family two days in a row, and it's totally fantastic.

Things I saw while riding through the Cambodian countryside on a tuk tuk

2010-01-27T05:45:00.000-08:00

A tuk tuk, if you're wondering, is a motorcycle pulling a carriage. They're the more humane replacement to old-school rickshaws/cyclos. And for those of us who aren't crazy about zipping around ON the motorcycle. Anyway, I've spent a LOT of time in the countryside over the last 2 days--more stories than I have time to post here, though maybe I'll fill in a bit later. But here are some of the more arresting sights:

--1 cat, and more dogs & chickens than I could ever count. The dogs are all lactating, and they all lay as if dead in the red dirt. The chickens all have a ton of babies, too.

--lots of people in pajamas. I'm not sure whether they were manufactured as such, but it's sure what they look like. Although Cambodia never gets cold, most people over 10 wear long sleeves & long pants all the time.

--motorcycles with entire families on them. In Phnom Penh, the driver is usually wearing a helmet, but here nobody does. The kids stand on the seat between the parents, squat between the driver's legs, or, if they're really little, cling to the driver chimp style.

--gas sold in old pop or liquor bottles

--coconut husks all over the place

--snail (?) vendors. The shells are spread out on screen-type things that remind me of what we used at Antietam to sift for artifacts. Did I mention that I also saw street vendors selling beetles and other insects? Still more appetizing than bundaegi!

--temples. Some of the farther flung Angkor temples are surrounded by huts, and are just an everyday part of people's lives. At one, a baby played while her brother slept in a doorway. Kids laughed and chased each other over ruins, and on top of one pyramid, two little boys laughed and showed off for the tourists.

--lots of huts suspended over the river, many with balcony pigpens

--a kid driving a cart pulled by two white oxen

--swarms of kids in school uniforms (they look just like the Mercy one), pedaling bikes taller than they are

--tons of kids waving. They're insanely cute, especially when they're not trying to get money out of you. Even tiny ones crack a big smile and wave when they see foreigners, and the older ones often yell "Hello!"

A couple other interesting events:
-I got dollars out of an ATM for the first time in months. The Cambodian currency, the riel, is so devalued (though there are possibly other reasons) that American dollars are used for most everything. There aren't any American coins, though--or any coins at all, for that matter--so riel is given if your change is less than $1. It's about 4000 riel to the dollar, so a 1000 riel note is equivalent to a quarter.

-In Korea, I keep hearing about these places where you put your feet in a pool of fish and the fish eat all the dead skin. Everyone says they want to try it, but I've never actually seen it on offer. Here it's everywhere, always called Dr. Fish. I figure there's no way I'll find it in Korea for $2, so I tried it. It tickles insanely, but it seems to have been pretty effective, and was an interesting diversion to boot.

-Angkor Wat was pretty awesome. I'll post pics when I'm back. Going back for the 3rd day tomorrow to see sunrise, and the temples that are all overgrown. Then I've got one day with absolutely nothing to do, back to Phnom Penh on Saturday, and then time for some sightseeing before my plane leaves on Sunday. The week has felt incredibly long, but suddenly it seems there's not much left. Getting back to Korea will actually be kind of relaxing, but, while I'm glad to have winter, going back to jackets & hats doesn't hold much appeal. If only my hotel window opened...

Cambodian Countryside

2010-01-24T03:50:00.000-08:00

Wow, take away anything else to do and I'm blogging like a fiend! I didn't do an outline tonight, though, so we'll see which stray thoughts surface as I speed through another entry.

Took the bus to Siem Reap today. I was going to stay in Phnom Penh until tomorrow, but didn't think I wanted to. Then changed my mind, but still, there's so much I want to do in Siem Reap, decided just to forge ahead. I can always go back to PP early if I choose.

Walked through the market and had a traditional Khmer breakfast of noodle soup, squatting on a plastic stool with a bunch of Cambodians. I don't do things like that often enough.

They have signs on butcher shops here depicting ducks, pigs, cows, chickens, and dogs. Usually some hopelessly friendly looking golden retriever or something equally unlikely to stoke your appetite. I was really alarmed when I walked past a cluster of people eating at a street stand and saw a picture of a cat and dog above them. Fortunately, I then noticed the English on the sign: Änimal Health Clinic. Just a coincidence. Maybe.

I've often said that if you wanted to see real differences between countries, you should have traveled 100 years ago. Everything is the same now. Not everywhere, apparently. Outside of Phnom Penh, I doubt much has changed for centuries. We saw all the quintessential things: houses on stilts, built of scrap wood or palm leaves; farmers with wooden plows pulled by those white, bumpy cattle (though one plow had car tires on it); scooters and carts piled high with goods & trucks overflowing with people; huge piles of hay in every yard; rice paddies and palm trees... It was fantastic. Probably could have done with a few hours less, but neat to see all the same. I really can't imagine the lives these people live, though the more I thought about it, the easier it became. If I offered them a plane ticket and a new life in America, would they want it? Perhaps not. They may not have the slick entertainment we do, but they also don't spend most of their time on consumption. Is that something to pity?

My guesthouse in Siem Reap is quite nice, if far removed from the attractive district. I didn't eat all day, so I took the first restaurant I found tonight (and got oily stir fry...could've been worse), but I'll be more selective from now on. Refused to make a deal with the pushy tuk tuk driver for seeing the temples tomorrow, but maybe I should have. He seemed a little gormless, though, and I'd like one who knows all the best stuff to see. Also wanted to check my email again to see what the going rate for a day is. I overpaid for the killing fields, which I sort of suspected.

Normally I like traveling alone (or am ok with it anyway), but it's been a bit of a burden this trip. Haven't found anyone to talk to today at all, and the guesthouse is set up more like a hotel than a hostel, greatly decreasing my chances of befriending anyone. As with many things: next time, I'll know. I'm glad I decided to do one week, one country for this trip. A good intro to the rest of the world.

First Impressions

2010-01-23T06:09:00.000-08:00

I'm working with a terrible keyboard and paying by the minute, so if this blog is riddled with typos, it's staying that way.

Cambodia was overwhelming at first, but I'm calibrating and warming up to it (easy to do when it's 80 degrees--I love summer nights!). It looks just like the Vietnam movies, and is truly a different world, full of skinny animals, naked children, people with stunning deformities, and Toyotas. I'd estimate 95% of the cars on the road are Toyotas. The rest are Lexuses, which my dinner companions and I were trying (unsuccessfully) to explain.

Speaking of the streets, they are totally insane. Korea is easy by comparison. They flow like arteries, with things moving fluidly through in no particular arrangement. Roads are shared by cars, tuk tuks, mopeds, bikes, carts, and people. Crossing is a duck and run kind of proposition. A handful of intersections do have lights, which come with a digital countdown for both red & green, and an animated walk sign (a green guy running). They say you can't walk in this town, but once I started doing it, I liked the place a lot better.

This afternoon, I was coopted by a hard-selling tuk tuk driver, who took me to the killing fields, where I wasn't necessarily intending to go. It was pretty horrific, but hard to grasp what really happened, especially in my already agitated state of mind. There were bones everywhere, teeth in a glass, and one section of path roped off because bones were surfacing through the dirt. I find it even harder to fathom than the Holocaust. I bought "First They Killed My Father", which was a bestseller in the US. It came in a plastic bag, which I've become used to in Korea, but in this case, it was so that I didn't notice the whole thing is photocopied. At least it's all there, it only cost $6 (the seller probably thinks he got a great deal, but so do I), and it's a very authentic souvenir.

My tuk tuk driver left me at the river promenade, which is when I started having fun. I ate al fresco at an Indian restaurant--a tourist splurge at $6/plate, but it was yummy, and I was joined by an older Australian couple who've been touring SE Asia for 10 weeks now. They were ready to leave Phnom Penh the first day (they stay a week in each place), but got used to it and quite like it. And they can't understand why Americans don't provide health care for everyone. I was SO happy to talk to someone...think it's been about 2 weeks since I really did. They almost convinced me to change my mind back about leaving for Siem Reap in the morning (I was originally going to stay in PP for another day). I found some nice things on my walk back to the guesthouse (soft beds! I'm lovin' it!)--the best was a park with a fountain that had some kind of laser/music show going on, and all kinds of Khmers hanging out. More promising parts of town, too.

BTW, I loved Hong Kong. The whole waking hour I was there. I slept in a windowless concrete cell in a tenement, but it was a NICE windowless concrete cell in a tenement. I loved the mountains, the ships, the British touches, and the fact that it actually looked like somewhere different (as opposed to Seoul, which is just America sans aesthetics). Gotta go back. Their money is cool, too. Ended up with a $20 bill left over as a souvenir.

Probably can't post pics til I get back. Haven't been able to photograph the most interesting stuff, anyway (although I did get a shot of the elephant walking down the street at dinner). Here's hoping the 6-hour bus ride tomorrow isn't a little slice of hell.

Paid Vacation

2010-01-21T18:25:00.000-08:00

I got back yesterday from 4 days in Jejudo, the honeymoon destination of choice for Koreans, and home of an English Village, a popular camp-type thing where kids go for a few days for some English immersion. I don't know how to explain my luck in being allowed to go--it wasn't originally the plan, and staff there told me I'm the first native-speaker teacher they've seen. It was an awesome trip, and while I'd like to do it justice in blogging, I have to leave for the airport in 3 hours, and I'm sure it will be a mere wisp of memory after a week in Cambodia, so no paragraphs or narrative for Jeju.

This was NOT an American field trip. I expected to have to herd the kids, assist with classes, be summoned in the night, etc. Instead, they put us up in a large seaside apartment, took us out for a massive dinner the first night, and left us to explore the island at our leisure.

I do have my suspicions that the place is designed to entertain/educate the kids as expediently as possible, while pampering the teachers so they'll vote to return year after year. The students were far less impressed with their lodging and rations, and the staff were as disgruntled and flailing as any waygook.

I couldn't decide if the camp gets commissions from the crap the kids bought at our tourist trap field trips, or if they just thought that was the essence of a good time. Tuesday was field trip day, and, with the exception of the orange farm, none of our stops were anything I would willingly part with money or moments of my life for:
--the jewelry museum: someone put their grandmother's leftovers in display cases. Granted, I couldn't read the signage, but it was basically just a bunch of costume jewelry, the kind of gems you see in plastic racks at the RMSC gift shop, and pictures of Princess Diana and Audrey Hepburn. The gift shop primarily offered items that said "Hawaii".
--the butterfly museum: I expected the kind of butterfly pavilion so popular in North America, but instead saw a collage made of dead butterflies pinned to the wall, and a maze of dioramas depicting all sorts of bugs in goofy scenes--skiing, training at a gym, engaged in warfare, etc. Upstairs was the truly horrifying part--a bunch of live animals for visitors to accost. I pet one of the cats leashed to cages, then fled.
--the mirror museum?: a large room with 7 or 8 mirrors in various configurations, and a table for playing Jenga (I've learned not to question)
Then, after lunch (bibimbap! the one time I could eat more than rice & spinach in the cafeteria):
--folk village: a whirlwind tour of a traditional house, a black pig pen, and a Jeju totem, followed by a lengthy sales pitch for omija, a customary Jeju drink. I tried the sample, and it was quite good, like apple juice-flavored tea. Somehow, hard selling adolescents with spending money seems sleazy and opportunistic. I cringed at the fistful of won the old lady waved around as she gestured to the departing group. The presence of a dyed dog didn't add to the place's credibility.
--orange farm: this I liked! We basically barnstormed the place, but I got to eat the freshest orange I've ever had. Maybe I was doing it wrong, but they're hard to pick! I tore the peel of every one.
--horseback riding: we took turns cantering around in a circle a few times. Plenty dramatic, though. The horses were not pleased with their fate, and behaved much like my 3rd-graders do in class. The staff put us on them, then let them loose, so there's no way to stop them if they're of a mind to do something else. Mine kicked the horse one of the kids was riding, then took off at full gallop. I think they let us teachers do an extra revolution around the track, for which I was not at all grateful. When we finally rounded on an open gate, my horse headed for the road. Fortunately, they caught him, and when I at last got down, I was only shaking instead of crying like the kids.

Three things Jeju is said to have in abundance: wind, storms, and women
Three things Jeju is said to lack completely: beggars, locks, and thieves

The place actually reminded me quite a bit of Newfoundland. Or Newfoundland and Craters of the Moon's love child, who was adopted by Koreans. It's a traditional fishing island, and the towns are small and all on the shoreline, with boats moored everywhere. The whole thing is volcanic, with Hallasan presiding over the center, and lava rocks are more abundant than puke puddles in Seoul. Basically, Jeju consists of a ring of fishing villages surrounding a landscape of lava cones and agricultural fields (oranges, garlic, and gigantic green radishes), latticed with walls of lava rock. It's gorgeous.

It's warm, too. Not like Hawaii or Cambodia. But, despite frequent wind and rain, temps were in the 50s, and when I set out touring on Wednesday afternoon, I left my jacket behind. A nice little break.

Wednesday, the teachers were free to do as we wished for the whole day. I'd read and heard that you could rent a taxi for the day for $100, and was prepared to part with half of that and to humor Ms. Jeon a bit on the itinerary, but we ended up hiking over the hill to Hamdeok Beach in the morning, then I took the bus on my own to Sunrise Peak in the afternoon. Terrie considered renting a car, but Ms. Jeon said the principal wouldn't like that because she was supposed to be available for the students. So instead, the two of them went on a transportation saga to the other side of the island to see the vaunted Teddy Bear Museum. They were gone for 7 hours. Whatever.

Sunrise Peak was a little like Diamond Head in Waikiki, though less spectacular. It's a 20-minute haul to the top, up hundreds of lava steps, past honeymooning couples taking scores of timer photos, posing with all the glee of an 1890 portrait. The view from the top is pretty cool, of the sea on one side, and the moguled Jeju terrain on the other. Supposedly, you could see haenyeo, Jeju's famed women divers who have been looking for seafood without tanks for generations, but I didn't spot any. Too bad, since the tradition is dying with the women. I loved Jeju enough that I'd like to take a family vacation there when I have kids, but by then, haenyeo will be just something to read about in a museum.

On the bus back, I ended up sitting next to the teacher from a high school that was also at the English Village. He was really friendly and tried to engage me in conversation, but his English was extremely rudimentary. I'm baffled at how people get to be English teachers without being able to have even the most basic of conversations in English, and also grateful that the teachers at my school are of a higher caliber than most.

Things I really liked seeing in Jeju: sandpipers; amazing clear water with many hues, like looking into a geode; pheasants--all over the place though I was never able to get a picture; tide pools where all the shells were alive; roofs of houses like the doors of Dublin, in a striking palette of Crayola colors; fishing boats; the mint chip-evoking fields of green with black walls like English hedgerows.

More crazy Korea: our toilet paper was printed with cute purple giraffes.

Neat trick: at our first night feast, they poured a line of beer glasses, then balanced shot glasses of soju between each beer glass. Someone hit the end shot glass with a chopstick and they all plonked into the beer, creating an odd mixed drink.

Flying in Korea: you can bring liquids on board!! In Jeju, we had to go out on the tarmac by bus and get on the plane the old-fashioned way. We were on Eastar Jet, an Asian budget airline. The planes were cute, decorated on the inside like a kid's room. It was all space and astronauts on the way there; on the way back, it was photos of world attractions with cartoon kids superimposed creatively in each. They were just posing, with the usual two fingers raised, in front of Angkor Wat and Mt. Fuji, but in Venice, they were in a gondola, and the one little imp was trying to push over Pisa's tower with a finger. Eastar may be no-frills, but one service they do offer is taking your photo on the flight, which they'll then email to you. They didn't offer it on the way back, as we were all too busy bouncing, lurching, and screaming.

Gems from the kids:
The airport bathrooms advertised bidets on some of the stall doors, prompting the kids to ask me about how to say it in English. When I didn't understand what they were saying, I was treated to a comprehensive pantomime performance of a bidet's use.

From the kids' letters home posted on the cafeteria wall: "Today we visited a fork museum"

When Lee from Milwaukee got up to address the kids on the bus, talking at full speed in full dialect: "Teacher, you can understand him?"

The trip was great, the sea exhilarating, and I loved spending time with the kids. Now, time to change gears: Hong Kong tonight, Phnom Penh tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Occupation

2010-01-17T01:20:00.000-08:00

The shock, awe, and sheer fatigue that was last week pre-empted all my sightseeing plans, so, determined to stick to my schedule, I have stopped watching U2 videos twice this week to go out and learn about Korea's subjugation by Japan in the 1900s.

A summary of what I've learned (or think I've learned--if something sounds wrong, it probably is): the Western world seemed to notice Korea in the later half of the 19th century. China and Japan already knew they were there, but continued to notice them. A lot of countries set up trade treaties, which the xenophobic Koreans were a little uneasy with, but the real problem was the aggressive designs of Japan & Russia (and possibly some others). Korea was at that time beginning to wiggle out from under its feudal system, so the government was at a vulnerable point. The courtship of the Russians was having some success, so in 1895, the Japanese assassinated Korea's pro-Russia princess and dragged her body through the streets of Seoul. There was further grappling, and in 1907, the "Illegal Treaty" was signed, giving Japan some significant trade advantages and port control. I'm a bit fuzzy on what happened next, but by 1910, Korea was a Japanese colony. Many Koreans moved to Russia or China and started their own schools & military training academies in preparation for chasing the Japanese out. In January 1918, the exiled Korean Emperor "suddenly demised" (as the museum put it), fanning the flames of resistance, and on March 1 of that year, Koreans issued their Declaration of Independence. There were demonstrations all over the country, and a provisional government was set up, running things from China as they tried to figure out how to get rid of the Japanese. After 20+ years of protests, assassinations, bombings, and guerrilla warfare, with varying degrees of brutality in response from Japan, the Korean government got its own military together and that, coupled with the blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, finally forced a Japanese surrender. August 15, 1945 is Korean Liberation Day. And then the Americans and Soviets took over. Which begins another epoch of history, covered in different museums.

On Wednesday, I toured Seodaemun Prison, built by the Japanese to incarcerate Korean resistance fighters. It's attractively set at the foot of a towering mountain, and it was a strikingly bright day, with temps in the single digits (Fahrenheit). I'm glad I didn't know there's no heat in the place, or I might have postponed my visit. My suffering was nothing, though, compared to the woman taking me around. Dressed in a military uniform of slacks, blouse, & blazer (and, I can only hope, longjohns), she walked me through the complex with no overcoat, hat, or gloves. When she first came out to ask if I wanted an English tour (most sane people being in warmer places, I was the only waygook there), I didn't immediately notice her clothing deficiencies; as the tour went on, it got increasingly alarming. We went through two barnlike prison buildings (with doors open at either end), the leper house, execution building, and women's prison, her skin getting whiter and voice getting shakier the entire time. She had a little pocket translator that she used whenever she got stuck on a word, and by the later stops, her stiff, blotchy fingers could barely peck out the letters. Loath to prolong her misery, I didn't linger over the displays, but I got the gist of it. The first barracks had artifacts--sticks for beating, tiny rice cookers for the prisoners' fist-size rations--while the second contained wax mannequins undergoing all sorts of brutal and creative torture. Behind the execution house was a concrete tunnel used to take the bodies into the mountain, where they could be disposed of without the dead's family having a chance to bury them. I contemplated asking if I could have a look round by myself, but by that point, I was also a bit shivery.

Yesterday (Saturday) required a bigger excursion, to the town of Cheonan, outside of which is the Korean Independence Museum. I was greeted in Cheonan by several massive art installations of varying styles. A plaque described the local council's efforts to build a more welcoming, less strictly functional bus station than is found elsewhere in Korea, based on an official's visit to bus stations in other countries, such as the US (really?!? I never think of Greyhound stations as particularly welcoming or inspiring). They did a bang-up job on the attractiveness factor, but after lunch at the Buy the Way convenience store, I noticed one glaring omission--any signage whatsoever indicating how to get places, such as one of the most significant museums in the country. Lonely Planet, helpful as ever, only said to consult the TI, and gave directions from the subway, so I set off in the direction indicated by a road sign with a train on it. After 20 minutes of walking, I was getting into more residential areas with no sign (literally) of a rail station, so I headed in a different direction. Finding myself back at the bus terminal, I went up the street the other way, but did not fare any better. Taking yet another turn, I saw a sign for a post office, and since I had a letter to mail, thought maybe I could knock off two objectives. 3 blocks and no post office later, I was getting a bit desperate. I copied the Korean letters for the museum into my pocket notebook, and started showing it to people. As slinking back to Seoul became an option, I was at last given a bus number (NOT the ones in Lonely Planet), which happened to be on the bus then approaching, and, at no extra charge, got a Six Flags-like ride half an hour out of town to the museum.

It's an imposing 10-minute walk from the road to the entrance, with a sharp mountain rising just behind the buildings and a spiky sculpture punctuating the long sidewalk. A woman at the ticket gate told me it was free (uh oh...that usually means a place is not in its full glory for one reason or another), and I trekked the rest of the way in, passing families playing in the snow, and a looooong line of kids dressed in identical jackets, carrying Korean flags (no idea). As is Korean wont, the museum is actually several buildings, requiring a brisk trip outside between each, but the exhibits are very well done, with significant English translation. I had just enough time to read through the narrative and contemplate the wax soldiers, strikers, bombers, and diplomats. I could skip most of the primary source stuff (usually my favorite), which consisted mostly of papers written in Korean and uninformative head shots of important players. Museum fatigue started to set in, but it was altogether quite interesting, and I have a much better grasp of what happened here in living memory.

I asked my freezing guide at Seodaemun if Korean-Japanese relations were better now. She said that Japanese people visit the prison sometimes...many are horrified by what happened there, some are not. Relations between the countries are normal, and "you see us at our soccer games, and we are smiling, but inside, we are not smiling."

Half...full?

2010-01-17T00:43:00.000-08:00

Yes, I've been a Bad Blogger lately. Camp required a ton of preparation, including many, many hours of procrastination. I managed to fit in a LOT of YouTube videos because they are each only five minutes long, as opposed to blogging, which, at about an hour per entry, is obviously unsuitable for someone with homework. Some of the videos--several Mr. Beans, I Love Lucy, clips from the Vacation movies--were actually school-related, since I let the 3rd graders chill out on the last day of camp. Hours of U2, an inventory of Great Big Sea concert bootlegs, and the new CBC series Republic of Doyle were strictly for my own edification.

So camp is done, and so is half of my exile. The official halfway point of my entire absence was last week; the 6-month mark for Korea actually occurs next month during my visit home, but, as I don't have to teach any classes 'til the new semester in March, I'm as good as there. I do have to be careful though, about thinking of this week's trip to Jeju Island as time off. "Korea's Hawaii" it may be (with temps expected to move well into the 50s), but I'll still be responsible for 12 excited and rowdy kids, perhaps 4 of whom understand English with anything resembling facility. I've no idea what to expect, but since all the planning is done by other people, it's GOTTA be better than camp. Right???

Speaking of camp, Dr. DeSoto turned out to be a tad ambitious for the 2 classes that read it, although there were 3 or 4 students who understood it and made some really nice cartoon versions at the end. The Very Hungry Caterpillar (or California, as one class called it), on the other hand, was a home run. I hammered on "caterpillar", "hungry", "stomachache", and the days of the week until the kids had them as firmly as I dare hope, and a few of them were using "cocoon" too (when we first turned to that page, in every class was an outcry of "Bundaegi!!"--the popular larva snack sold on Korean streets). They made books, with a Very Hungry character of their own choosing, and I dictated most of the words, leaving the items consumed up to them. It was structured enough that most of the strugglers got it, and creative enough to occupy even the ones who found the vocabulary easy. And the products were fantastic! Those of you who'll see me when I'm home can enjoy The Very Hungry Maneater, The Very Hungry T-Rex, The Very Hungry Yoda, and The Very Hungry Dragon Obama, complete with some Very Charming illustrations.

(Boot) Camp

2010-01-06T21:23:00.000-08:00

This week begins (and next week ends) "camp", a regimen of extra classes for the unfortunate, during winter break. And it's all about me! Really. I don't understand why SMOE doesn't do away with our "vacation time" (which we're only allowed to take during school breaks) and just let us travel when everyone else is off school. But that's the system, and so they have to come up with work for the native teachers to do when regular school isn't in session. In the past, there were EEP camps, or district camps, but this year nothing was slated, so my school (or, more precisely, one of my co-teachers) was forced to create a program to keep me busy.

Things I'm grateful for regarding camp:
--Small classes! Each group has 15 enrolled, and only about half that show up each day, so it's a much more congenial and manageable situation. I can actually tell who's thriving and who needs help. It's actually reasonable to have the kids make nametags and for me to use them. I really enjoy this size.
--No co-teacher. I feel much more relaxed without anyone looking over my shoulder. I feel free to try things and see how they go. I feel more in authority because I'm running the show, and the kids' behavior isn't going to suddenly change if someone else decides to leave the room.
--Half days. Classes go from 9-12:15, and then that's it. I've gotten home a little earlier each day this week. I was planning to go to a museum today, but I'm worn out and intending to visit one on Saturday, so I put it off. Hopefully not for too long.
--It only lasts 2 weeks. Most of my friends have 3-4 weeks, but with me going to Jeju and Cambodia, 2 weeks is all we could manage.

Things that make me keep repeating what I'm grateful for:
--Half days. I'm still teaching 4 classes/day, they're just all compressed, with only 5 minutes in between, so once you start, there's no time to organize, revisit, finish up, or draw breath. There's also no lunch, so the difficulty of devising meals for myself has been doubled. I'm actually starting to miss rice.
--No co-teacher. Terrie's not involved with this at all, so I'm totally on my own. Questions, problems, confusion? Too bad, sucker.
--The preparation is intense! Suddenly, the school year seems like a cake walk. I had picked the books I wanted to read ahead of time, but after the first day, it was apparent that those plans were (to quote Dumbledore) optimistic to the point of foolishness. 3 of the 6 classes were not ready for sentences, let alone a whole story (though one has a kid who lived in New York for 3 years thrown in, just to make sure I don't get too complacent). I'm settling into a trajectory now, but the first few days were each taken up with hours of reading, searching, agonizing, and rejiggering. I've gone through more objectives than I can count in Korean, and I'm back to the panic and anxiety that dogged my first days here. I have 3 different books I'm working with (The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Dr. DeSoto, and the third is actually a website of news articles), and each group progresses at a different rate (the 1st graders are doing well with Dr. DeSoto, and are poised to finish it next class, while I can only drag the 2nd graders through 3 or 4 pages at a time), so, like kittens, my "free" afternoons are anything but. And since I'm doing all the work at home, I have to sprint to school every morning to get things printed & copied before the scrum at the copier gets too impenetrable. The really scary part is that if I were teaching in the US, the whole year would be like this!

In other news, it's REALLY cold here. -6F yesterday morning. 0 today. The Weather Channel's 10-day outlook doesn't promise anything different. I don't think this is typical. Cambodia's looking pretty nice!

Snow! Snow! Snow!

2010-01-04T20:51:00.000-08:00

I'm told this is the most snow Seoul has had in 103 years. 27 centimeters would, I believe, be pretty routine for Western New York, but the startled Koreans stepped up admirably. I did see my first plow here, going down one of the arterial roads. The rest, though, were left to individuals and the army, and it was impressive. On every back street were brigades of citizens with brooms, spades, and even a few snow shovels, hand clearing the passage. Merchants whacked at the sidewalks in front of their shops, getting every last hard-packed clot (and much of the snow was pretty trampled--there were some closings, but mostly the city trundled on as usual). At one crosswalk, a team of shovelers lined up to cross with each green, opening a little more each time. The collective effort was really amazing, infusing the air with an almost tangible communal spirit.

The city really isn't built to handle this kind of thing. Streets are narrow, with no "grace space" before buildings loom. Sidewalks are cobbled, the bane of any shovel, and polished stone is extremely popular for stairs, curbs, and walkways. Flattened cardboard boxes are de rigeur as traction assistance devices. When the ones in front of the escalators at the subway station disintegrated, they tried grass mats (in ribbons within hours), then moved on to indoor/outdoor carpeting (aka sodden, wadded slides). By the time I headed home in the early afternoon, the escalator was closed. Everywhere, there was a lot of slipping, a lot of falling, a lot of cars getting stuck (and a lot of revving engines--nobody seems to be too skilled with this). Even for city driving, a great number of cars have strap-on ribs for their drive wheels. I also saw a ton of umbrellas in the morning, when the storm was still raging. I chuckled to myself at the Koreans and their weather phobias, but by the time I got to school and had to dry out everything I owned, they were looking pretty smart.

So Seoul is looking pretty beautiful. The dusted mountains remind me of Boulder, and the fluffy piles (for now) are much more appealing than the Slurpee-like stuff we had in December. If the forecast is accurate, it should be with us for a while.

Here (from the highest level class in winter "camp"), is one student's take:

Snow is very cold and very dirty
but I like snow.
because snow is very beautiful
and when I see that
I think about heaven

Fire Away!

2010-01-03T04:03:00.000-08:00

I changed my comment settings so you don't have to log in to leave one. Hopefully that will make the process less intimidating and less of a hassle. I look forward to hearing from you!

Welcome, i cheon ship!

2010-01-01T21:09:00.000-08:00

My first indication that something was going on was the burning smell as soon as I climbed up from the subway. Some cracks down an alley revealed the source....Roman candles, a Korean New Year's Eve staple. They were on offer from many of the street vendors, alongside the more standard fish pastries, pancakes, and dumplings. I headed toward Jonggak, home of the huge bell that is rung 33 times at the New Year. Plenty of people jostled alongside me, but just as many were going the opposite way. I took some drummers in traditional costume to be a good sign. I'd heard rumors of a parade, read the historical plaque about the bell, but the lack of any online listings or word of mouth had me wondering if this would all be a big bust. My friends, excited last week at the prospect of a parade, had lost faith and limited their evening plans to pay-at-the-door parties in the clubbing district. With better things to do with $50, and craving an authentically Seoul experience, I decided to take my chances downtown.

After a couple blocks, I saw the temple-style shelter that houses the famous bell, complete with temporary stage in front and a gathering crowd across the street. I chose a spot by a patch of shrubbery, on the theory that I'd have a few feet of unobstructed view. Time and temperature were both 10. Thinking of the hours of preparatory revelry at Times Square, I figured the show was bound to start any time.

In 3 layers head & legs, and 4 layers torso, I stayed warm for the first hour. I noticed the full moon directly overhead, the line of cameramen on the roof over yonder; read all the Korean on the various buildings; watched hundreds of policemen march in in riot gear and surgical masks--a couple dozen held hands and formed a line facing the crowd, while the rest massed in front of the stage like eager spectators. Occasionally someone would leapfrog through the shrubbery, making the gaps just a little wider each time. I marveled at how many Koreans had nothing at all on their heads, and started bouncing a little myself as the cold asserted itself.

Around 10:45, the screens above the stage came to life, and I was briefly hopeful for something to distract me from the shoving & shivering. Discerning number words amidst the stream of Korean was briefly diverting, but after seeing the same ads for a tv station on endless repeat for half an hour, it wasn't doing much to diminish my awareness of my frozen toes. The crowd circulated, everyone perpetually finding someplace they'd rather be and elbowing their way to it. People started planting themselves in holes in the shrubs, looking like poorly-disguised Munchkins. At one point, the wad of police up front suddenly moved away, and the void filled as a vacuum, leaving me on the uninsulated back end of the crowd.

At 11:15, the entertainment started. I believe it was the women's drum troupe I saw at the Seoul Drum Festival, but by now, my foliage buffer had been completely trampled, and I had to crane over shoulders to see anything. People continually forced their way through non-existent holes, tipping me this way and that. There was another drum act, some black-clad guys that made everyone scream, and a woman in nothing but a dress and silk shawl who did a heavily-accented rendition of "Memories". Through it all, a drum/pan band practiced/performed in the alley behind, creating a boisterous cacophany. By now, I was miserably cold and heartily sick of being pushed. Finally, I heard murmurs of "i bun"--"two minutes". At 11:59, the countdown began on the big screens.

No ball, no Auld Lang Syne, but at midnight, the crowd cheered while roman candles crackled from all around. I could see men striking the bell, but the other noise drowned its dull hum. Eventually it became audible as the shouting tapered off. I think it was parade time, but I was tired and frozen through, so turned for home. I thought I'd be clever and walk to the next subway stop where, I reasoned, it would be less crowded. However, where to go was not my choice to make.

The flow of people moving down the sidewalk was thick. "Wow, someone who gets nervous in crowds really wouldn't like this," I thought. It wasn't long before I was thoroughly not liking it. The scrum got so thick it stopped moving. People in the back pushed, with all the efficacy of horns in a traffic jam. The mob compressed, and my movements became involuntary. I stumbled, lurched, and twisted in whichever way I was buffered, helpless to do anything else. I could feel a forearm in my back, pushing as if there was somewhere to go. A man nearby held a cake over his head. I crossed my arms over my chest, to protect both. I looked for someplace to step aside & wait, but we were between buildings and barriers, and I had no idea where everyone was trying to go. Big shock waves kept coming from the back, making everyone list and scream. If anyone went down, there would be no mercy. We inched along, individuals powerless against the collective. A girl to my right lost her scarf; they made a couple attempts to reach down and grab it, but it was hopeless.

At last, I got within shoving distance of the steps to the underground shopping arcade, and finally had room to walk normally. Ever the clever one, I followed the signs for the station down the block, but all side passages were gated. So into the next wave I went, aiming with thousands of others for the 3 working gates into the Metro. The merciless pressure began again, and you got one chance to swipe your transit card and make the turnstiles move, or the crowd would slice you in half across them. People vaulted over or forced the bars; when I got up there, a girl was standing & swiping her card again and again, so I didn't even have to use mine. I went down to the platform and mentally urged the train to come quickly--I was only 5th in line, but it would take some blocking skills to get on regardless. Once the train arrived, I moved to the middle of the car, where I stood with room to do calisthenics, while most everyone else huddled around the door, leaving dozens of people stuck outside. I wondered how it would be at the next stop, but remarkably, most of the passengers got off there and it was an uneventful ride home.

Happy New Year!

Christmas, Skiing, and other Diversions

2009-12-30T05:43:00.000-08:00

Here comes another scattered post from a scattered mind. I'm staying up tonight to hear Carl Kassel's last newscast, which happens at 1am my time. I sit surrounded by sundry pursuits...my 2010 engagement calender stacked on top of Lonely Planet Korea, with which I've been laying out sightseeing plans. My goal is a day trip, a weekend trip, and one Seoul sight a month...nothing set in stone, but if I don't sketch it out, before I know it, it'll be June and I'll have 6 weekend trips still on my wish list. I also have here Lonely Planet Japan, not needed 'til summer, but fat enough that I want to eke away at it over time; "A New Earth", one of those books that revolutionizes your mind, with a notebook for distilling the author's Deep Thoughts and a journal for pontificating on mine; Rand McNally 2000, my only link to the wonders of my homeland, facilitating dreams for next fall; a wad of foil and wax paper containing homemade bark; my Rick Steves Christmas DVD, which has inexplicably stopped working since last Monday, but hope springs eternal; a thin Korean notebook with random pictures on the cover, including one of Moki Dugway--had to buy it for that (actually bought it for 75 cents, which made the decision easy)...periodically, I clean off the couch, but it never stays that way for long...

Christmas has come and gone since I last wrote, and it was pleasant and even rather festive. I went to a Christmas Eve potluck where my contribution of boxed mac & cheese was cause for much rejoicing and I escaped the grab bag gift exchange with a much-needed winter scarf. Midnight Mass was nixed after I learned that getting inside involves queues reminiscent of a Star Wars opening, so I went to the Christmas morning service instead. Myeongdong Cathedral was built in the 1890s with brick, stained glass, and the works. In Europe, no guidebook writer would waste a keystroke on it, but in Seoul, it's quite remarkable, and I was glad I went as soon as I walked in. For the most part, I could have been anywhere--particularly Ireland, since that's where the priest is from--there were just a few subtle clues: the Korean women wore veils; there was no kneeling, wine, or hand-holding; and you "peace" people by bowing to them. I was fortunate enough to have presents--mostly socks--to open at "home", then off to another party. At this one, they collected money and did all the cooking, and it was something to write home about...so I am. Stuffing, tofu, vegetables, deviled eggs...and homemade applesauce. No bedtime snack necessary!

Sunday was a banner day. Met some friends for brunch in Itaewon. Itaewon is the international district, which means:
1. prices are double everywhere else
2. VAT is not included in said prices, like it is everywhere else
3. English is spoken automatically
4. You have to remember to say "Excuse me" if someone's in your way
5. It's easy to pretend you're home, just for a little while
We sat in the little "garden level" restaurant and watched Seoul's first measurable snowfall of the year come down. I ate a giant plate of phenomenal pancakes, covered in bananas, nuts, and ice cream. And way too much syrup (you don't pour your own). I felt kinda sick for hours afterward, but it was worth it. We moved on to What the Book?, the English bookstore, where I found a used copy of Gulliver's Travels. And the best part...requires some backstory:

Animal hats are big here. THE 'in' thing. Cats, bears, dogs, sheep...it doesn't matter. And whether you're 2 years old or in university (or middle school!) doesn't matter, either. Guys, girls, everyone is wearing animal hats. They're cute. They're quintessential Korea. The last thing I need is another ridiculous-looking hat....but I realized that if I wear it in Korea, I WON'T look ridiculous! Except for the fact that my head circumference is big by American standards, so in a place where everyone is already tinier than me--forget it. I tried one on in Gongju and it wasn't the ears and eyes that made it look dumb. Still, when I was downtown last week and saw the "wolf-in-sheeps-clothing" hat being sold by Paris Baguette, it was a very strong temptation. But the hats weren't for sale as such; they were a giveaway if you bought a Christmas cake (the preferred celebratory accessory in Korea). Prices went up from $20. Nah. As you may have already guessed, though, Sarah and Diana bought a Paris Baguette Christmas cake on Friday, and they gave me the hat! Good friends, they! It's awfully cute in my apartment here, but maybe I'll have to wear it home in February.

Monday was the last day of school--I've seen "Merry Christmas Mr. Bean" close to 20 times now--and the reward for us teachers was a free trip to a ski resort. Transportation, meals, lift ticket, ski rental, condo accommodation, and even a bag of snacks were all included. I spent the night in a palatial (by comparison) unit with 6 young Korean teachers, 4 of whom were afraid of me (though 2 were over it by the end of the evening). I wondered if I was foolish for eschewing free lessons, but after the first run, I got my ski legs back. After hiking Korea's vertical mountains, I'd been concerned about what skiing here entails, but there were a couple of greens (although they don't use that system exactly) and I managed not to break anything. Except for the hopeless English on the gondola signs (and a few other places: "please warming up before the skiing" was one of the better translations), it could have been anywhere.

The whole endeavor was billed as a "workshop", and the schedule showed a few sessions for "talking about next year" as Terrie told me. She also said, "Probably that means drinking," and it was so. Again, it strikes me how the differences between countries aren't linear...it's not that one is "more" than the other; things just manifest in different ways. We did have one short meeting this morning, where everyone pulled a slip of paper from a can, read it to the group (I gather they were bon mots about teaching), then got a wrapped package corresponding to a number on the paper. Generally, people don't know what to do with me, and either decide to be overweening, or deal with it by pretending I'm not there. I hoped the latter might be the case in this instance, but my "babysitter" for the trip prevented that. I chose my strip and, without once looking at the audience, read it syllable by syllable, and got my gift--a tube of toothpaste. With pictures of rice plants on it. Wonder how that's gonna taste.

Have I mentioned that Koreans brush their teeth every time they eat? I noticed that toothbrushes are always sold in a super-economy pack, which I wrote off as a cultural quirk, but now I understand--even if you're just one person, you need a bunch of them. One for home, one for work, one to keep in your purse/pocket, etc, etc. Not only does everyone brush after lunch, but if we have a snack in the office, they're all over at the sink afterward. I feel like an adolescent boy by comparison.

So I'm off to school tomorrow, with serious doubts about whether anyone else will be there. Even if they're not, though, I have "camp" for the next 2 weeks, and having only been filled in on this right before we left yesterday, I've got a bit of planning to do. Gotta make sure I remember my longjohns!

PS--my new camera is (hopefully) on its way across the ocean as I write, so with any luck, I'll have photos to post again before too long

Notes from Underground

2009-12-21T01:32:00.000-08:00

Things I've learned on the Seoul Metro:

--If there's nobody on the platform it doesn't mean that you're going to get a seat on the train. It means that your train just left, and it'll be plenty crowded by the time the next one comes.

--If you get on the train, and there are a ton of seats, it means it'll be going out of service sometime very soon (probably before your stop).

--In a similar vein, I've learned to sight-read Cheongnyangni, the stop before mine, and look for it on the train's screen (if it has them). Whatever the time or station, odds are good that the first train that arrives is terminating there, so I need to wait for the next one unless I fancy a walk.

--Sounds: ringing phone-train is coming
classical dirge-this is the last stop
Mozart excerpt/jaunty jazz riff-upcoming stop...I've been working on distinguishing the pattern--does one mean a stop with transfers? something else? I haven't come to any definitive conclusions
blaring K-pop-someone's phone is ringing
tinny, mournful music-coming from the radio hanging from the neck of the blind person walking down the aisle with a collection plate
unintelligible Korean on the PA-???? Just do whatever everyone else does.

--Subway trains are a great place to buy cheap stuff. People clamber in with wheeled carts and give a little spiel, usually with a demo straight out of a 50s parody. In the summer, it was band-aids, household helpers, and other unlikely stuff; now it's almost universally stretch leggings. I actually want some. They look super cozy, and I need more long underwear. What am I waiting for?

--If Koreans are running in the station, you might want to step lively, too. They probably know exactly when the train is coming.

--Acceptable train activities: napping (Korean=narcoleptic), reading, talking on your phone, watching tv on your phone, fawning sycophantically over your boyfriend/girlfriend, making faces at babies, giving candy to young children, giving the stinkeye to everyone else, chinning yourself on the standee handles, trying to stand wherever you're not

--Seats may be scarce, but if you're on one of the older trains with metal seats during heating season, you probably don't want one anyway, unless you're wearing really thick pants.

--Old people must get off the train RIGHT NOW. Do NOT get in their way.

--There's a hierarchy to who gets the open seat on a crowded train. I don't understand it, but on more than one occasion, I've been handpicked via a tug on my jacket by an older person vacating their seat.

--The red seats at the ends of the cars are for people who are old, frail, or pregnant. God have mercy on your soul if you sit there without qualifying. Standing in that area is best avoided as well.

--Wherever you're sitting, there IS somewhere better, and you really should find it. If a seat opens up, it's best to move to it, even if it is more or less identical to where you just were. The spot at the end of the row is the Chosen Spot, for the Very Lucky.

--Any given car will contain: 20 businessmen, 25 students, one parent with young child(ren), 2 unaccompanied kids, 6 hikers with enough gear to thru-hike the AT, 1 waygook, 2 old ladies done up like Leona Helmsley, 1 old lady carrying a huge bundle in a pink scarf, 6 middle-aged women with shopping bags, 1 person who wants money from you for some reason, and 5 wild cards.

--When the doors open, it's every man for himself.

Gongju Getaway

2009-12-20T02:49:00.000-08:00

After the nightmarish bus ride back from Daegu, I decided to stick closer to Seoul for my December escape, and the Gongju trip was an ideal weekend: perfect weather, interesting sights, and smooth sailing from beginning to end.

Gongju itself is a pleasant town, on a river, surrounded by mountains, under the watch of a centuries-old fortress. (granted, that could describe just about every town in Korea, but the effect is no less appealing) Its glory days were in the early Centuries of our Lord, when Korea consisted of three kingdoms and Gongju did time as the capital of one of them, Baekje.

In 1971, crews were digging in one of Gongju's hills for a drainage project when they discovered a cluster of tombs that turned out to be from the 6th century. Most were long-looted, although their structure still provided insight into the death and times of the Baekjes. The tomb of King Muryeong, however, was completely intact, providing not only a chance for modern historians to do some looting, but also important corroboration of ancient legends.

The outside of the tombs are grass humps, familiar to westerners with some knowledge of either Celtic habits or the Teletubbies, and familiar to Koreans as the form still used for graves today. The insides, recreated in a very nicely done exhibit at the tomb site, were impressively engineered, with crypt and arched entry of lotus-stamped bricks, murals of spiritual animals on the walls, and a ring of niches for lamps (they had to hope that the king & queen would head out for the afterlife before the candles burned out). I was particularly fond of the stone critter that guarded the entry to the tomb, resembling Haechi (Seoul's mascot) with a single antler tied to his head like the Grinch's dog, and proving that the Korean penchant for using cartoon characters in every conceivable (and inconceivable) context didn't start with anime.

The recreated tomb (as of discovery--no extant corpses) really enthralled me. My inner archaeologist/anthropologist could feel the excitement of finding something like that, and the allure of the story it told...the way things lay where they had fallen, the way they were direct, visible evidence of the existence of people that I can never completely convince myself were real. We hiked over to the Gongju National Museum (leaving our packs with the kind lady at the TI, who had us write down our names when we retrieved them) to see the relics, where I again felt the awe of looking at actual objects that were crafted by actual people 1500 years ago. Earrings, necklaces, ornaments for the crown, mirrors, shoes, head- & footrests, all decorated in exacting detail by people to whom they mattered. I envisioned someone dressed in all this stuff walking in to the museum and realized it would be terrifying, less because they'd be a ghost, and more because that getup would be so radical amidst the skin-tight jeans and day-glo Nikes and bear hats (themselves unsettling if I hadn't become completely inured) as to be truly freaky.

Speaking of freaky, the metal construction fence that lined most of our walk to the museum was decorated with murals telling what I assume is some sort of folktale. A man chases a blue rabbit, falls into a lake of some sort, where he is rescued by a bear with a cub. They all live happily together, until the man starts to dream of his former home and sneaks out one night to swim back across the lake. The bear is devastated by his departure, and swims across to find him, nearly drowning herself and the (now two) cubs. The man finds them unconscious on the beach, and there is a tearful reunion, but his expression in the embrace is cryptic. I tried to ask one of my co-teachers, but we got hung up on the concept of pictures on a wall, so I remain on a quest to discover the meaning of this.

The weekend's other highlight was a visit to Magoksa (temple). I'd almost axed it from the itinerary, as it's an hour's bus ride from Gongju and the temples do tend to bear a strong resemblance to one another. But Lonely Planet had high praise for it, Diana had never seen a temple here, and I was able to reconfigure our plans to comfortably accommodate it, so on Saturday morning, we made our way to the Gongju bus terminal and were off to the mountains. Unlike most temples, this one has not been recently repainted in a Fisher Price palette, making it much easier to appreciate its age (350). Its setting astride a wide stream, features like a two-story prayer hall (unusual) and shrine with hundreds of little Buddha statues (all different), and relative uncrowdedness all made it particularly pleasant and more spiritual than others. I would have been happy just with that, but I also got to hike a short trail into the mountains, walking through trees on dirt and needles, and meeting only a handful of others (one of whom pointed out a Buddha carved in the rock that I would not have seen otherwise). I don't know when the last time any of THAT has happened.

We missed the next bus for the sake of seeing an odd little park with all kinds of carved totems and statues, and buildings that look like they were inspired by Dr. Seuss. Unfortunately, with the dark LCD on my camera, I was unaware of its death rattle, and got "home" to find that only about 10% of the weekend's pictures turned out. I'm waiting for Diana to post hers so I can steal them.

A couple other random details:
We stayed in a typical Korean hotel, leaving our shoes in cubbies by the front door and walking around in provided slippers. The room was strikingly similar to the one in Sokcho, except that this time the heat was on. With a vengeance. I didn't have the blanket fully over me at any time, and it wasn't until the second night, when I slid my hand under the pillow and found it hot under there, that I deduced what the switch on the mirrored headboard was for. The bed was heated, too. I could use a little of that at home!

I took my big, woods backpack this time, and was pleased that although it was reasonably heavy, it rode quite comfortably and wasn't a burden to walk in. All the same, when the young Korean man offered us a ride halfway to the bus station, I accepted without a second thought. I'm sure that will horrify many of you back home, and indeed I probably wouldn't have done it back home, but it's routine in Korea. For every 30 people who unapologetically slam into me or insist on walking in front of me only to stop dead at a narrow spot, there's someone who goes out of their way to be helpful, and they remind me what Korea really is--a nation of preoccupied introverts who are usually pretty nice.

The Fabulous Adventures of Week (-36)

2009-12-18T03:26:00.000-08:00

Danger! Danger! I'm starting to believe they mean it when they say I'm going to Jeju Island with the EEP kids in January. They bought a plane ticket for me yesterday, and today Terrie was making specific plans about who'd be responsible for which group. I chose 1A because their English is the best, so I'll be able to communicate with them, but it also means I'm in charge of Jeffrey Dahmer and the girls who never shut up. Still, Jeju is called "Korean Hawaii"...it's a bit of a stretch--it'll be plenty cold in January--but I'll still be glad to get there and I'm looking forward to doing something fun with the kids instead of just making them dread my existence. I wrote it in pencil on my calendars, and I've been wary of actually planning on it, but I'm getting frighteningly optimistic.

Proud of myself for resisting the allure of a Tony the Tiger mug AND a fleece blanket, and buying the cheaper cereal I actually wanted. Proud of myself for going to HomePlus at all...it's a very long walk on a very cold night.

Seoul has been extremely cold this week. (though I guess nothing like y'all in New York are getting) I had to turn on the heat in my apartment, at last. So the floor is hot most of the time, which is often nice and sometimes annoying. I have to be careful where I set things down, especially since I don't really have any tables, so the floor is the default receptacle. Not having a dresser is actually proving to be a plus. The only thing I don't get is that the bathroom isn't heated. With the size of my place, it's not as if it gets cold in there, especially since it has no outside walls, but going from the toasty main room floor to typical tile temperature is a bit of a shock.

The bathrooms at school fare no better. When I went in during EEP last night, I heard water running and noticed that the faucet hadn't been turned off completely. BOTH faucets, in fact. Damn kids...but wait. Fortunately, I avoided causing a major crisis by cottoning on that they were running on purpose, to keep the pipes from freezing. 'Cause it IS that cold in there.

The corridors, too, required some attention this week. The steel staircase and bridge on the temporary building gets a nice icing, so one of the pink & green construction blankies has been laid across, trading the security of not slipping for the very real hazard of tripping over the wads at either end. The water filters on each level also proved dangerous--lacking cups, the kids just turn the water on and stick their heads under...what they don't catch pools on the floor. I don't know how many people took an unintentional skate before someone finally salted the halls.

This week was the end of EEP, at least until the new school year starts in March. No more 12-hour days--yay! No more fat supplementary paychecks--boo! The school did allot us teachers $100 to go out drinking in celebration last night.

If I eat another rice cake, I'll gag. As high school placements are announced, jubilant parents are drowning us in the traditional Korean celebratory food. With the texture of Dots, the taste of flour, and the glycemic index of a doughnut, I'm not a huge fan. Actually, some of them don't taste like flour alone. The gift boxes come with a flavor variety, and they're a lot like Bertie Botts' Beans--some have chestnuts or other nice things; others you need to discreetly spit out FAST. I've got 2 on my desk now--one's been rolled in sawdust and the other is a seaweed green. I'm ALMOST curious enough about the green one to try it.

I've been having the kids write letters to Santa. Not free-form--I am learning something--but a fill-in-the-blank thing where they have to say what they want, why they deserve it, and what they're going to leave for Santa. Korean kids have Santa, but the rest of it is foreign to them. I had to explain that American children usually leave cookies for Santa to eat, and even with that, the stuff they promised to have out for him was a hoot: some had the general idea with ice cream or chocolate; several offered socks or cash, one wrote "love and a picture of me", and another thought a razor would be appropriate.

I wrote a lesson...and it was okay.

2009-12-16T00:05:00.000-08:00

We are in the lame duck phase of the school year. Finals were last week, and winter break is still 6 school days, or 22 classes with Melissa, away. (not that I'm crossing off marks in my planbook or anything) The students care even less than before--that is, apparently, possible--but now nobody else does, either. So I'll be showing a lot of Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean in the next couple of weeks.

My original plan was to read The Polar Express to the kids. Fortunately, I'm showing signs of being able to recognize impossibly difficult material BEFORE I bring it into the classroom, so I limited that book to EEP evening classes, which are far more advanced. In good teacher form, I showed the kids the picture of a train on the front cover and asked them what they thought the story would be about (tricky when 1/3 of the class has seen the movie). Our little Dahmer's apprentice, a tiny kid who wouldn't recognize a pencil unless it was sticking out of someone's throat (and would have a fat file of psychiatric referrals if he were American), suddenly got very animated and answered my question for the first time this semester...in Korean. Another student translated his prediction, the gist of which was "murder in the subway". I ruined any chances of him paying attention by telling him upfront that there's absolutely no blood in The Polar Express, but the other kids didn't seem to mind. When I was camping with Terrie, she pointed out that the students are really still children. Though it's not top of mind when they're writing "fuck you teacher" on their worksheets, the point has stuck with me, and when everyone is listening avidly to a story about Santa Claus, shifting absentmindedly in their seats as I move about so they don't miss a single glimpse of the pictures, it hits home.

I got to share another of my Christmas favorites, in yet another lesson where my "supplementary activity" became the focal point. I finally had my first class with the low-level 1st graders, and the plan was to read The Snowy Day, then do a word puzzle about winterwear. En route to class, I decided to warm up with the winterwear--wise choice. One of my friends has been teaching this vocabulary to her 3rd graders (and here I do mean 8-year-olds), but that doesn't mean that my kids are all that firm on it. We spent the entire period on 9 clothing terms, and then inspiration struck--why not teach this to the other classes using the "can't put my arms down" sequence from A Christmas Story? I found it, cued precisely where I need it, on YouTube, and, miraculously, Randy wears exactly the items that I put on the worksheet! The only ones missing are a jacket and earmuffs...and Ralphie's wearing those! PERFECT!

The yang to this yin is that, instead of the 12 or 21 repetitions my lessons usually get, this one's a 3-and-out. Bummer. I had one great class with it, and was actually looking forward to the second, but I got there and the projector didn't work, so the kids saw the scene as if looking through frosted glass. But one class got to watch, actually laughed, then went through it a second time with pauses to identify each article. We made a list of them, dressed a stick man they named Michael Jordan, and they did their word puzzle. The way lessons are supposed to be. One great class. I'll take it.

100, and getting senile

2009-12-14T02:34:00.000-08:00

My public is getting antsy because I haven't written in a while. Actually, it HAS been longer than I thought--a number of factors account for it.

This is my 100th blog. I feel like it should be a Good One, but nothing Good is springing forth. There's the one on names I've been meaning to write for 2 months now. The one about the subway that's been marinating even longer. It almost became an entry on why I miss my car, because that was top of mind a couple times last week. But I never got the focus and the drive to pick up the computer and write, at least not at any time where that was an option.

I've been writing a lot in other venues, too. Finally started the blog for kids I've been thinking of since before I left (find it at www.auntlissatravels.blogspot.com). "I want to travel with kids" keeps ringing through my head, and until I can literally do that, virtual will have to suffice. When I get home, I'll need to put some serious effort into the after school program idea that turned up a couple years ago and has steadfastly refused to leave. I do think it's my life's work, and it's time to get going.

These thoughts have also caused a profusion of journaling (not to mention converting this blog from a travelogue to navel-gazing rambles). While I like Korea, I can't honestly say I'm enjoying this, but it is having the desired effect of giving me a good shake. To date, this year gives every appearance of being the watershed I expected, and a ton of my energy is being consumed by sitting on the couch. Really. There's so much to think about and sift through, it's all I want to do.

I'm also reading two very thought-provoking travel books: Blue Highways, and Traveling with Pomegranates. The first, a classic by an amazing writer, making me want to mark passages just for their artistry. The second is a mother and daughter journey chronicle, and I'm unable to get through a whole chapter without reaching for my journal. Lots to think about. Not much to talk about. Unless you've got a while.

I thought I'd made it past the "three-month hump". I'd figured it would be somewhere around Thanksgiving, and when the magic 3-month mark came and went, I concocted a theory about having been away for more than 3 months already, so it actually should have happened in August, but that was when I came here, so that changed things, and maybe the doldrums of early October were all I'd get, blah, blah, blah. Right. I'm not at 4 months yet, and settling embers of homesickness have ignited again. Online chat has been a godsend, but at the same time it makes me tear my hair out; and likewise, the gift that is Skype is also frustratingly inadequate. I want actual face-to-face, sights, smells, non-verbal cues, the whole thing. I want to be & do with people, spend time in someone's company without talking, just have it be normal for a little bit. Time both flies and drags. It is still 9 long weeks before I visit home; 9 unbelievably long months before I get to stay there.

Despite my insatiable appetite for "cave time", I have been forcing myself out. Just spent the weekend in Gongju--full report to come; getting out of Seoul never seems to lose its lustre. Went downtown a couple times last week. It's all glitzed out for Christmas, and is quite cheery. Nothing can quite replace that red triangle in the building windows, but it does compensate nicely. Got to see what a Korean field trip looks like on Friday--everyone wandering to a museum within an hour or so of the appointed time, wandering around for a couple hours more, then calling it a day. One of the teachers didn't even make the kids stay with her, and I was specifically told not to. The last few months' context has made the exhibits much more interesting to me, but I was unable to enjoy the Korean War section thanks to a hustler who followed me like a lost dog, reading the placards and expounding at length (but not in depth). As soon as he pulled out a laser pointer, I knew--one of these people who hangs around tourist sights and acts the friendly local, then hits you up for money when it's too late to say no. I've read about it in other countries; I guess it happens here, too. Here are 2 random facts I did glean: The spikes on the "back" of Korean turtle boats were to thwart the Japanese navy, whose specialty was ship invasions. When they jumped on Korean boats, they got impaled....and....the "Korean War" is obviously not an appellation that means much here. It's their civil war, known as "6/25" (just like we say 9/11), the date in 1950 when Northern armies stormed into Seoul.

Reconstituted some refried beans for dinner tonight. They make me think of Grand Teton, where I made them with water heated in my JetBoil, and ate them on a log at the shores of Jackson Lake, enjoying a stunning sunset and watching a picnicking family nearby. I think wistfully of it because it was there and not here, but also feel an aversion to it as the time Before, when all of this was still to come.

Friday #(-37)

2009-12-04T03:13:00.000-08:00

I just came within 3 points of acing Africa. My latest online addiction/time-waster: a geography quiz that requires you to identify places on a map. Some I'm utter rubbish at (provinces of Germany or Afghanistan, for instance), others (states/capitals of US or Canada) such gimmes as to be pointless more than once, but I've been practicing Africa all week, and thought tonight might be the night I get a perfect score. Which Republic of Congo is Democratic, and discerning Liberia/Ivory Coast/Sierra Leone still elude me, though. Reason to keep playing!

I'm having a night in. I've been a hermit all week, briefly considering inviting people to accompany me, but always dismissing the idea. Trying to decide if this is a phase, a sign, forced acclimation, or really nothing new at all. Maybe exhaustion. Maybe I feel like talking to someone right now. When you're on an odyssey, everything's a signpost. Some are irrelevant, but you don't know which ones.

We had a "workshop" for Dongbu's middle school teachers today. I love the Korean definition of workshop--an hour presentation, then a great big field trip. The presenter was one from orientation (half-relieved, half-dismayed it wasn't Nick)--I thought this guy was brilliant in August, but today the emperor was wearing cellophane. An avalanche of PowerPoints, techno tricks, and lesson seeds, all given in ADD order, is no longer very useful to me. I've got more ideas than I can keep track of; what I need now is guidance on taking one seed and cultivating it until it blooms into something that's not ugly and smelly. But this presenter gets a lot of mileage out of extroversion and charisma, and someone who comes by things naturally is not always the best choice to show another how it's done. Nor does it help that my colleagues at Hwigyeong view games, etc as a waste of time. While English Variety Show may in fact be engaging and educational, and probably just what the students need, my co-teachers ain't buyin' it.

So after an hour's edification, we piled onto a bus and drove an hour and a half into the countryside. Looking out the window suited me immensely, and I did so happily until they fogged up. Is it something inherent in Korean buses, or am I just not on enough American ones to realize? They took us to lunch at a traditional Korean place where they boil up beef soup at your table (bibimbap, sans egg, for me)--it must be some sort of conditioning thing because all the waygooks get fidgety after sitting on the floor for a few minutes--then to the English Village in Gapyeong, where I won't be going with the EEP kids this winter break (they're taking them to Jeju Island instead, and Terrie's the only teacher they're willing to spring for). Picture a mountain resort, or boarding school, or cult compound. With 18 different experience classrooms (store, airport, art, board games, and on and on), hotel for the kids (in America, we call them "dorms"), and barracks for the teachers, groups of 120 students can come hole up in the hills for 5 days to get a total immersion experience. There are expensive A/V setups, ovens in the kitchen (eliciting much envied murmuring from our group), nature trails out back...all kinds of evidence explaining why our schools can't stock chalk. If I were going to do a second year in Korea, this place would definitely merit serious consideration. What would it be like if I had a focused curriculum, engaging props, and grass & trees to walk with every night? Alluring enough to justify 90 minutes each way for every E-Mart run or museum visit? Another Deer Hill? Would I have boxes of the same lesson plan, typed over and over on ream after ream of paper? A moot point, 'cause come August, I'm headed home as fast as wings and wheels will carry me.

Our final stop today was Nami Island, or, as they style it, The Republic of Naminara. Manmade and site of soap opera filming, two things Koreans find irresistable. I've been finding them pretty appealing myself. This one is island enough to require a short ferry ride, after which I spent most of our allotted hour walking the perimeter. Contrived, certainly, but comfortable and enjoyable nonetheless. I shared the hard-packed path with bicycles, surreys, and other strollers, passing empty steel boat rental docks, build-by-number bungalows, random maintenance buildings (with at least one rooster on premises), and lots of foliage, albeit brown & dormant. The weather was ideal, sunny and seasonably brisk but without bite. Maybe it's the intense communality of Seoul, but hiring a bungalow and basking on the front porch in view of mountains and lake while legions of holidaymakers parade past the back didn't sound half bad. Placards outside listed the cost (anywhere from $70 for a weekday shack to $250/night for an 8-person weekend), and other features, including "Stationaries": bedding, toothpastes, and towels. It'd be charming. It was charming. A lovely day at work.

Uijeongbu

2009-12-02T05:00:00.000-08:00

I had a pleasant surprise tonight. Actually, one this afternoon and another yesterday, too. First things first: yesterday, after racking my brains for hours over how to begin with my new first grade classes (the 3rd graders have ceased having subject classes, so in their place, I'm teaching the 6 lower-level 1st grades) and still not having a complete lesson plan, the English teachers decided that introducing me now would be too disruptive right before finals, so I won't take the new classes until the week after next. They also decided they needed extra time with the 2nd grade classes they had yesterday, so I ended up not having to teach at all. Good timing--I think I was fighting off swine flu, and was quite content to keep my headache and fever at my desk, where I didn't have to exert myself.

My lesson this week is on giving directions. I was afraid it would be too easy--I found a 5-street map in a workbook and was limiting the vocabulary to "go down the street", "turn right/left", and "it's on your right/left". In my lone class today, we never got that far. The workbook with the map also had some locating questions, ie "Where is the supermarket?"; "It's across from the bank." "Where is the gas station?"; "It's on Maple." Sounds like a good warm-up. I made a giant map to hang in the front of the room, and printed worksheets with the map and the 4 vocabulary elements, so everything was not only at the front of the classroom, but on the students' desks as well. I went through and named all the streets with the kids. I introduced one bit of vocab at a time. I asked, "Where's the bank?" and pointed to it on the map. I said "It's on Elm" and ran my finger up and down Elm Street, then pointed to the bank again. I had the kids chorus "It's on Elm" a couple of times. Then I asked individuals "Where's the bank?". Nobody knew.

But on to more hopeful things. On the way out this afternoon, Terrie asked me if I walk around and explore my neighborhood. When I told her I do virtually every day, she started talking about how she found a great area in her own neighborhood that's "old Seoul" (aka 1970s), and offered to take me for a walk there next week when we get out early. Cool!! That also reminded me that I'd once planned to set aside Wednesday nights for exploring different parts of the city, but have gotten out of the habit. But it's Wednesday, I had nothing planned, and after spending most of the last 2 evenings napping, I was ready to get out and see the town.

I unfolded my Seoul map and scanned the possibilities, but my attention kept wandering to the subway map. My original intent was to pick a random station and just see what went on in the area. I've done downtown to death, so I decided to head up Line 1 (where I live) in the opposite direction, and check out Uijeongbu, the terminus for many northbound trains, and one of the funnier names on the line.

It's not quick or cheap to get all the way there, but Uijeongbu is definitely going to be part of my regular round. At first glance, it looked just the same as everywhere else, and I thought I was a sucker for trekking all the way up there. A few minutes' walk down the main drag brought me to a huge Christmas "tree" (a la Liberty Pole) with multi-colored lights. It was a cheery sight, and though the green (or tan, this time of year) it's on is fenced off, 3 girls had gone in anyway and were laughing and taking photos, making it seem alive and festive. There was a park across the street, too, giving me a much wider view of the smoggy sky than I'm used to here. I turned the corner and decided to check out the library.

Behind the library was a large, hilly, treed park, with paths winding this way and that. Exactly what I've been looking to take my evening walk in for 3 months!! One path led up into the trees, passing the obligatory exercise equipment and some seriously cool playground stuff. There were slides coming out of a gaping frog's mouth, a snaking truck tire tunnel that must have been 20 yards long, and a rambling arbor with dozens of rings hanging on long ropes. I almost wanted to play with it myself. There was a climbing wall, and, though I've never seen a skateboard in Korea, a small skate park at the top. Behind the skate park--bliss!--were wooded hills. "Wooded hills"....completely inadequate words to convey the simultaneous elation and serenity of finding myself in such a place. An expressway rushed by just out of sight--not usually what I would wish for in a park, but tonight it was perfect. The place felt exactly like Tryon. I realized I've spent probably 1/3 of my time on Earth within earshot of 590, and the sound was actually kind of refreshing. I wanted to lose myself in the trees, stay in there forever, but, it being night, there was the chance of doing exactly that, so my explorations will have to wait for another, hopefully not-too-far-off time.

The highway wasn't the only unusual sound in the park. I walked the network of paths to the accompaniment of Christmas music, coming from speakers mounted on lightpoles and trees. Koreans abhor both nature AND a vacuum, so strive to make every outdoor experience as similar to a city street as possible. Thus, music in parks is pretty routine here. Apparently, there isn't a lot of Korean Christmas music, so I've had the privilege of hearing a lot of familiar stuff lately, and, somehow, walking through the woods with Bruce Springsteen singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" suited me tonight.

DMZ!

2009-11-28T19:07:00.000-08:00

The DMZ is one of the major must-sees in Korea. The 2km wide strip of no-man's-land has been the buffer between North and South Korea since the war (sort of) ended in 1953. It's become something of a nature preserve, since nobody's been allowed in there for 50 years, and apparently, conservationist groups are poised to make it a protected area (in a different sense) the minute hostilities cease. Now, though, it's heavily guarded, heavily mined, and off-limits unless you're with a guided tour. My friend, Molly, and I went with the USO--pricey, but reputed to be the best by far.

I had to get up at 6, and roll into clothes, past the kitchen, and out the door in one fluid motion to get to Camp Kim, the US Army base on the other side of downtown Seoul in time for 7am check-in. Not good news, exactly, but acceptable. The real bad news came once we were on the bus and underway. Our tour guide, a middle-aged Korean lady with excellent, but heavily accented English, informed us that the slide show, supposedly superb, had been suspended due to swine flu paranoia. Then she told us about the "temporary" buildings, erected along the border so the two sides could enter from their own territory and talk. Normally, tours are allowed to go inside and step into North Korea, but we wouldn't be doing that because of swine flu. Next was Checkpoint 3, site of the axe murders in 1976, and vantage point into the DMZ and North Korea. But that's under construction, so we're not allowed to go there. So I've spent $70 (and I really mean dollars), and we're just going for a bus ride? Seems like the USO might have mentioned this when I signed up, but if my mantra for the year is "whatever", I guess I have to apply it to Americans as well (though with a little more bile).

We were greeted at Panmunjom Joint Security Area by South Korean soldiers in camo surgical masks. They let us through the gate, where the bus then had to zigzag, Nintendo style, through a gauntlet of concrete barriers, then let us all off by the gift shop to board another bus, which would take us and our American soldier to where the action is (or isn't, hopefully). The DMZ looked very pastoral, under brilliant sunshine and a gentle dusting of snow. Ringed by wire fences and punctuated by concrete barriers, designed to fall into the road if "the signal" is given. The chain link fences were full of rocks, painted red and white like Polish half-moon cookies. Soldiers check the rocks every day, and if they're out of place, they know someone's been rattling the fence. Photography is forbidden.

We started with the Freedom House, built for family reunions between North and South, but never used. Behind that was what everyone thinks of as the DMZ: blue buildings lined up along the boundary line, soldiers posturing and staring blankly from either side. Being too contaminated to go inside, we were allowed to take pictures, ask questions, and nose around, as long as we didn't a) go off the steps of Freedom House, or b) gesture/point/make faces at the North Korean soldier studying us through binoculars. Our American, Specialist Strickland, explained what we saw...that the South Koreans, in their taekwondo stance, were nose-to-corrugated steel with the buildings so as to present less of a target; that any movements we made directed at the North Korean soldier would be interpreted as mocking and grounds for an international incident; that the blue building belonging to the North is known colloquially as the monkey house because the DPRK soldiers make gestures and faces at the UN guys through the windows; and that the noise you hear when a South Korean soldier goes by is from the ballbearings in his boots, a holdover from a long-ago fight where the South Korean army was badly outnumbered and trying to make themselves seem more formidable.

We climbed a little pagoda next to Freedom House, our consolation prize for skipping Checkpoint 3, to look at Freedom Village. Each side has a small, carefully controlled, settlement inside the DMZ. North Korea's is reputedly empty, save for the blaring propaganda and the flag that makes Perkins' look like a postage stamp. South Korea's is inhabited by 219 people, all of whom have ancestors that farmed the area before the war, and all of whom agree to strict curfews and heavy surveillance in exchange for government subsidies.

After a visit to the Duty-Free gift shop, they put us back on our original bus and shuttled us to the observation deck. We sat in an unheated auditorium with a wall of windows facing North Korea and listened to the guide from the other bus unintelligibly narrate the panorama (photography forbidden). I did glean that the towers all along were for jamming broadcast signals that may wander over from the modern world, and that North Korea is completely defoliated due to heating with wood and the government eliminating places to hide. Methinks it may be more the latter than the former. The border is starkly visible, with the South as forested as a New England hillside, and the North more comparable to New Mexico. Outside on the actual deck, you can look through binoculars at the railing, or stay 15 feet back and hold your camera in the air to take photos from behind the yellow line. I did both...I got a couple good shots, and saw a person walking in one of the villages.

We went back to the rest stop for lunch and more souvenirs (and I learned from a Scotsman that I can legitimately claim to have visited 12 countries), then back again through winding mountain roads interspersed with fields of tall, elegant birds, to the Third Tunnel. Between 1974 and 1990, four tunnels were discovered under the DMZ, all pointing toward Seoul. The 3rd Tunnel, found in 1978, is about a mile long and 500 feet below ground. North Koreans claimed that the South actually dug it, but when drill marks and other details proved this impossible, they spread coal on the walls and insisted they were mining. Since hordes of tourists pay money to creep through it, our guide says it IS a mine--a gold mine for the South. Photography is forbidden. There's not a lot to see, anyway...it's a damp cave full of tourists bent over and wearing hard hats to protect from the low ceiling (mine did scrape a couple times)...more of a "guess where I am" experience than anything. They have highlighted all of the scores of drill marks with yellow paint, in case you have any doubts about the direction they point.

It was a good trip, though I'm still a bit frosted about missing the slide show and the chance to go to North Korea. Like everything here, I feel like I saw it in a bit of a daze. I may compromise my principles and do it again next summer, by which point one can only hope the flu frenzy will have faded.

The Road to Hell

2009-11-25T04:15:00.000-08:00

Two weeks later, and still trying to blog myself home from Daegu. Part 2 was getting way too long, so here's Part 3.

And so I came "home", by myself because after I bought my bus ticket, Sarah stepped up to get 2 for her & Obi and there was only one seat left. If we'd been in the US, I probably would have tried to change my ticket, but I was too exhausted to play charades. My ticket was for 6:25 (even though there was no 6:25 bus to Seoul on the board), and theirs was for 6:40, so no big deal. I had seat 25, which I really, really hoped was a window. Obi'd had seat 28 on the way down, and it was the window in the back row, so it looked promising that 25 would be the window on the other side. Not so fast. The back row numbers go, from left to right, 26, 25, 27, 28. Whatever. I got settled in the middle. But nobody sat next to me. As we pulled away from the station, I moved to the window and got my phone out to indignantly text Sarah that there were plenty of seats on the bus. And then remembered that we had to stop at the North Daegu station. Where someone did, in fact, get on and claim my coveted seat. I was consoling myself with the thought that the elevated back row gave a nice view out the front window, when someone else came along and claimed seat 25. She was miming to me that I should get up, and I thought she wanted to switch seats, which was ok with me. This didn't seem to be the case though. I got out my ticket to prove my right to the spot, when she suddenly switched to perfect English and explained that my ticket said 6:25 and this was the 6:20 bus, "so I'm sorry, but you are wrong." I got up and the driver came back to see what was going on. He looked at my ticket and sent a torrent of Korean at me, or maybe just by me. And suddenly, I was That Immigrant. The one that just stands there dumbly when being questioned and ordered about. For a minute or two, he talked in a steady stream while I stood doe-eyed and expresionless, and then I caught the word "computer", and then a couple more times, and he seemed calmer and gestured to an empty seat by a window. I felt very fortunate. But not for long. Soon the windows fogged up, so it was like riding in a cardboard box. I traveled with Least Heat Moon for a bit, figured out the order in which I'd drive to all 48 contiguous capitals if I were doing it in 48 days, then dully wondered which layer of hell I'd achieved. The bus was stuck in mile after mile of Sunday-night traffic, the side windows were completely opaque, and every time I looked through the windshield, my eyes were drawn to the 25-minute-long segment on pig hunting & slaughtering playing on the bus' tv. It was a long ride. Kinda like this post. But it's over now.

Thanksgiving Art

2009-11-23T06:22:00.001-08:00

What could be more American than drawing hand turkeys? These are capping off my Thanksgiving lesson this week. Here are a few of my faves from Monday (a couple are sideways because they're easier to read that way).

The Rest of the Story

2009-11-23T03:52:00.000-08:00

I'm going to finish this thread if it kills me. And it might.

I need to make sure I properly rave about the town by Haeinsa, though. I'm not even sure what it's called...Haein, or something that starts with a "c"...I don't know; my map's not that detailed. Maybe it should just be called Eden. It was small and sleepy and ran down the side of a mountain...not sure if that's enough to make it wonderful, but something was right. I felt like I was in Pennsylvania, a good feeling indeed.

Luckily, we found an open restaurant. It was only 8:30 on Saturday night, but despite the bars and noraebang up and down the street, the place seemed to have pulled in the sidewalks and gone into hibernation. As will happen here, though, a guy outside his restaurant beckoned us in (and then sat and watched tv while his wife, who looked less happy to see us, cooked and served). Korean restaurants always give you side dishes, but it's usually kimchi, Grandmas-kitchen-yellow radishes, and maybe something palatable. At this place, the lady brought out a tray probably double the circumference of her arms, with a dozen or so little dishes on it. All were vegetables, and, other than the kimchi, there was maybe one that was awful! The worst looking option turned out to be the most addictive--I thought it was some kind of seafood, but it was tempura'd sweet potato skins. Mmm! We were seated under a painting of black pigs on a traditional Korean farm, the sort of thing grocery stores sold in the '70s; and a tiger in a black velvet sort of palette. Stuff I could decorate my stairwell with!

We walked around town after dinner, up into the residential section and through the dark streets. It felt like home, where people go to bed at night, and the gentle smell of fallen leaves hangs in the air. Wispy clouds dashed across the sky, leaving room for a kaleidoscopic view of vivid stars. The air had a late-autumn sharpness to it, and the rush of the stream by the main road was louder than any human-generated noise. Hugging the little town's boundaries, with fingers reaching in in spots, was thick, sloping forest. It was oxygen for my soul. I couldn't get enough. Literally. After Sarah & Obi headed in, I did another winding lap, pausing regularly to be still and drink it all in. I found the school (how would it be to be the native teacher there?), and followed the road that rose along its fenceline. It led past a humbler cluster of houses, and over a cement bridge, where I stood for a long time watching a trickle of water juke around flat rocks. Going home to Rochester seemed agreeable, but not imperative. Where else would I rather be than right here, right now? All the way back to the hotel, I kept tilting my head back, trying to stop time with those starts all above me.

Haeinsa itself was quite nice, if not as inspiring. All summer, I was perpetually on the verge of being jaded by rocks; now it's temples. Difference was, the rocks all had distinct identities. The temples are like Wegmans--not entirely interchangeable, but made up of all the same parts, and always packed to the gills. At this one, you could even get Dippin' Dots. Still, we appreciated the architecture and the statues and the stunningly sunny day. Haeinsa is famous for the Tripitaka Koreana, which is more impressive to hear about than to see. It's (they're?) housed in a building with slatted walls, and all you can do is look in through the slats and say, "Hmm. How 'bout that?" I'm glad I saw it. I'm glad it wasn't all Haeinsa had going for it.

All during our temple visit, and the previous evening, there were particles in the air that none of us could identify. Pollen? From where? Snow? It was cold enough, but again, from where? The sky was virtually cloudless. Yellow dust? It's known for blowing in from the Gobi Desert, but that didn't seem right either. We never did figure it out.

Eventually, it was time to bus back to Daegu (and the beginning of a stultifying 8-hour journey). In both Haeinsa and Daegu, we were hardly off the beaten tourist track, but were cognizant of a lot more staring than we get in Seoul. I think my favorite bit was on Daegu's subway, where late-middle aged Korean couple had a REALLY extended conversation about my convertible glove/mittens. One half-covered hand was clinging to the handle above them and they traversed the city puzzling out how it works. Of course, I couldn't understand anything they said, but their gestures were most informative. When, after several stops, they'd exhausted the subject, they noticed Lumphy peeking from my pocket. Wonder what's the Korean equivalent of "Hey, Marge!"

Speaking of which, we came up with a brilliant marketing idea for anyone looking to make a quick killing in Asian business. Snuggies!! I haven't seen one anywhere here, and they seem like the perfect fit. The kids already walk around school with fleece blankets draped over them. Snuggies would be the perfect marriage of gimmick & practicality. Marketing them here would be like selling fish to polar bears. And, according to their website, if you order one today, they'll send you a second absolutely free (except for another $8 shipping & handling...yeah, check the definition of "absolutely"). Who's in?

Ok, the Walnut Cake Bag

2009-11-21T20:46:00.000-08:00

I've spent the week on the phone, primarily, so have not had the time to chronicle last weekend's adventures. Now, a trip to the DMZ has joined the queue as well, so in the interest of catching up, and being on time for my walk in Olympic Park this afternoon, I am eschewing paragraphs.

The background: Last weekend, I went to Haeinsa with my orientation roommate, Sarah, and her boyfriend, Obi. Haeinsa is one of Korea's 3 major temples (according to my TempleStay guidebook), and home of the Tripitaka Koreana, a huge set of woodblocks with scriptures in Chinese characters carved into them, from the 1300s. "One of the world's most significant complete Buddhist texts," says Lonely Planet. They have miraculously escaped destruction from fires and bombing 3 times over the centuries, and are stored in a 600-year-old building that has preserved them perfectly, more than can be said for the replacement that was built in the 1970s and abandoned when the test blocks quickly grew mold. Haeinsa is said to be one of the big must-see sights in Korea, and it will be closed for a recess year in 2010, so getting there was imperative. It's a 1 1/2-hour bus ride into the mountains from the city of Daegu, in the southern part of the country. So...

We saw a bunch of tombs by the highway on the bus ride down. I suppose Koreans must have cemeteries somewhere, but what I've seen in abundance is family plots, usually on the side of a mountain. The tombs are grassy hillocks, sometimes with a carved stone pillar next to them.

Korean drivers are insane! Whether in car, bus, or sometimes even subway, you get used to lurching, swerving, and horns. When driving in Korea, if you want to make a turn, you do. Even if you're not in an outside lane. Even if there are cars between you and your destination. It' s ok. This can be mildly alarming under normal circumstances, but I start to feel like I'm in a movie when the bus is passing cars on mountain roads, and it's even more remarkable to be looking over the edge of a short concrete retainer to an armrest-clenching drop and then feel the bus swerve and sway.

Daegu is utterly unremarkable. It pretty much felt like Seoul, but with more sky. I think the traffic is worse, though, and that's saying something. Being a Rochestarian, I can allow for charms that aren't immediately evident, but all the same, the place did nothing for me.

Koreans have a penchant for clustering like businesses. I first noticed this last week, when walking down a Seoul street that apparently specializes in prosthetics. Window after window displayed hands, feet, and other braces, most somewhere along the decay spectrum. There were a couple of shoe stores, which I speculated must offer deals on singles. Daegu is particularly prone to this...an entire block of auto mechanics, a mile of hardware, and so on, all through the town. I was pondering this with my friend, Diana, last night as we walked past 20 hole-in-the-wall restaurants in a row, all specializing in the same dish. Wouldn't it cut into profits? Or is it useful in a place where most people are on foot? I don't know.

The only time I've left town without a place to stay prior to this was when going to Sokcho with Ramsey, who had been there before and knew of a decent motel. In Daegu, we were all on our own. A Korean saw me looking at my guidebook in the bus station and asked if I needed help; when I told him I wanted a motel, he swept his arm in a circle and told me they're all around. That did seem to be the case, but we were baffled that every one we tried said they had no rooms. A street full of high-rises, all full at 4 in the afternoon? Maybe because there were 3 of us? We tried going in in various pairs--same result. Finally, one proprietor attempted to explain. All in Korean, so it did little good, until a man walked in who knew a smidgen of English. Fifteen minutes, 5 people, one phrasebook, and a lot of failed gestures later, it was established that to get the nightly rate at a love motel, you have to check in after 10pm. Until then, rooms are rented in 3-hour blocks. So checking in at 4 would mean paying for 2 blocks, plus the nightly rate. Aha.

About love motels: while undoubtedly handy for affairs, they're primarily for young Korean couples who live with their parents. They are also, however, frequently used by travelers (and frequently recommended by Lonely Planet and others). They're pretty much like a normal motel, except that they have indoor parking lots with fringe over the entry, are likely to be decorated in black and red, and sometimes have interesting vending machines or decorations. I haven't stayed in one yet, but probably will at some point.

We finally gave up on the Daegu scene and took the bus to Haeinsa. We were due to arrive at 8:30, and a tad fretful about finding accommodation. Sarah called one hotel from the subway station in Daegu and was quoted a price of $87--a lot for Korea, but doable split 3 ways. She gave them her name, but didn't want to make a reservation without discussing it with Obi & me. Once we'd purchased our bus tickets, she called again to make a reservation and was told the only room available was $150. She declined, and we were all a bit pensive about what would happen to us. Upon arrival in Haeinsa's little town, we followed the sign for the tourist hotel, hiking up and up through and out of town, getting turned away from a couple of little places until we arrived at the giant chalet on the hill. Inside, they asked if we had a reservation, and Sarah, in a moment of divine intervention, said yes. She gave them her name--no one was fussed that it didn't match anything they had--and they gave us a sumptuous room for $87. Which, split 3 ways, isn't bad.

We were beside ourselves over the room. 2 double beds, with MATTRESSES, carpet, a shower, sheets, closets. We scuttled about the room like cockroaches, taking in and exclaiming over every detail. After a flurry of photography, we collapsed on the beds. Further scrutiny revealed the room to be little more than a glorified Super 8, but it was super and glorious to us.

The room required putting the key in a slot to make the lights come on. Which the overhead one did as soon as the key was inserted. The table lamps could be turned on with switches, but went off when the key was removed. Come bedtime, we puzzled over this for a bit, before Obi discovered a button on the nightstand (along with the radio console) that controlled the overhead lights. Brilliant! I wish American hotels had that.

To be continued...

Notes from a Walnut Cake bag

2009-11-16T05:58:00.000-08:00

The actual notes on the walnut cake bag are from my trip to Daegu and Haeinsa this weekend, but before I get to those, a few tidbits from the Monday that, at the time of writing, has not happened yet for you, Dear Reader.

--My co-teacher, Terrie, is reading a Bill Bryson book. It's translated, which makes me curious how much of the original flavor is retained, but it cheers me nonetheless. The bit she related to me today was about the French, and how they queue to get on a bus, but when it arrives, they mob the door, pushing and elbowing. Terrie was musing over how Koreans do this also, and wondering why they bother standing in line in the first place. This is why I like Terrie.

--I'm now a Costco Korea member. Stocked up on bagels and cheese, got some "marine crackers" to snack on at school, and snagged myself an industrial-sized pumpkin pie (and even managed to carry it home without incident). Also violated the "you don't get more dessert than you had dinner" rule I usually impose on kids, chasing a single slice of pizza with a huge cup of soft serve. Holly, my mentor, came with me, reminding me that, as the Holly Hobbie pencil case I had in 1st grade observed, "two is much more fun than one".

--I've been looking for a thin jacket to wear at school, since the distinction between inside and outside is really too fine a point to quibble over. I like my winter jacket, and I want it to last for many years, which it won't if I'm wearing it constantly for 4 months. I decided I wanted to pay about $30 for the new jacket, realizing that for that price, I may as well just ask Santa to bring me one. On the way to Costco, though, I passed a store called Crocodile (although I am SURE they're not trying to make you think it's Izod), with a rack on the sidewalk of fleecy, inside-out-Muppet style jackets. And, in a layer of miracles too thick to comprehend, the jackets were all of the following:
-colors I like
-warm, but compact
-sturdy and well-made
-NOT size 6X
-NOT covered in patterns reminiscent of 1970s upholstery
-$29
So I bought one. And have been wearing it around the house all evening. In fact, I like it so much, I think I want it to last for many years, which it won't if I'm wearing it constantly for 4 months. So maybe this will be my new spring/fall jacket, and I can wear my current, cheap, ill-fitting fleece jacket at school until it falls apart. Or I freeze to death anyway.

--I got a completely unexpected package today. One is never too old to be excited about receiving mail, especially when it is full of good things to eat and a really cool crepe turkey.

--Also got a formerly-expected-but-now-given-up-on postcard. It was mailed with a twin, which arrived last Monday, and after a week of ransacking the mailboxes, I'd decided it had been eaten by one postal service or another. These are the mysteries of the universe which we are not meant to understand.

--Taught a class today, for the first time in ages. Actually, "taught" is overstating it significantly. The 3rd graders had finals last week and have abandoned any lingering vestiges of diligence. Anticipating this, I planned to do a game with them this week. My one success with this was in annoying the co-teachers, who hate games; the kids were even less attentive than in the past, a feat which deserves recognition for pushing the boundaries of imagined possibility. For the 1st & 2nd graders who did speaking tests last week, I'm planning to teach them some animal-related idioms...ants in your pants, raining cats & dogs, horseplay, chicken, etc. This lesson does NOT want to come together, and I head into Tuesday with the PowerPoint only half finished. I think it'll be ok, though, and I have Terrie's support with this one.

--I have at long last begun reading "Blue Highways", which I bought at the Cortez library in June and have toted with me everywhere since. I love it. William Least Heat Moon is a gifted writer, expressing things so effectively, succinctly, originally, and delightfully, I feel like rolling on the floor speaking in tongues. I'd like to think I could learn to write like that, but if you have to work at it, you ain't got it. This is a book that demands to be read with pencil in hand, but is none the less enjoyable for that. As suspected, it's got me dreaming of the open road again. I'm once more plotting my madcapitals, 48-states-in-48-days journey of insanity, and, having left my travel notes & notebook at home, I'm creating the itinerary for at least the dozenth time. I've really got a winner, though, worked out on the interminable bus ride from Daegu last night.

Speaking of Daegu, at some point this blog was supposed to segue into weekend chronicles, but I've once again managed to clog up cyberspace with digital diarrhea...tune in next time to find out what was REALLY written on that walnut cake bag!

Time to crawl into bed with my road atlas and succomb to the bliss.

"Do You Carry Umbrellas?"

2009-11-11T03:49:00.000-08:00

I'm giving speaking tests this week. I like it for two reasons...1)no lesson plans to write or classes to worry about; and 2)I sit down with every student in the school, one-on-one, even if it's only for a minute or two. The test itself is more like a memory test--the students have a few dialogues from the textbook to memorize, and I feed them the first line and wait for the proper response. Last week, the 3rd grade teachers had me sitting out in the hall, sending the kids out one by one. This week, the 1st/2nd grade teachers are inclined to have me sit at a desk in the front of the class--much warmer, but torment for the students. If it's quiet (which rarely happens), the students feel very on the spot. If it's noisy (usually), the student and I have a hard time hearing each other, compounding the difficulty for them. Think of trying to converse with your friends in a crowded bar. Now think of trying to do it in a foreign language. I wonder if the kids' scores would be better if conditions were different.

The dialogues themselves are not without difficulty, either. One for the 1st graders is "What does that mean?" "It means 'I love you'". What 12-year-old boy wants to say that to a teacher? (of course, they say it in the hall, so maybe I'm worried about nothing) Then there's "Can you return at 5:00?" "Pardon me?" Even after a couple hundred repetitions, I'm fighting the urge to repeat the question. And I've got the phrases running through my head like a bad song. Tell me you're tired and I'll reply robotically, "I think you should take a rest."

In typically Korean fashion, the test rewards rote memorization over practical skills. (though Terrie did say they tried to address that; they just couldn't come up with a workable alternative) I'm supposed to give a point if the student gives me an answer that's for another question, hence "You broke my new watch" "Never mind" is ok. So is "You lost my book" "Sorry to hear that". It may get you punched in America, but it gets you a good score here. My favorite mix 'n' match was "I'm from Busan, Korea" "I don't think so." (I don't think so, either, kid!) That question also elicited the best free form response I've gotten (which, fortunately, I can also give a point for), from a kid who otherwise was clueless: "I'm from Busan, Korea" "You Korean? Me too!"

Hopefully, I can make it through all these tests without coming down with The Pig. While I enjoy the chance to personally communicate (even if scripted) with each student, that's face-to-face time with a LOT of people, many of whom don't bother covering their coughs. The classrooms were ghost towns last week--the "short vacation" that was rumored to happen if too many kids got sick was abandoned when practicality interfered; shutting down schools would basically mean all of them, for a long time, and it just wasn't doable. I'm going to have to get vaccinated, or else face a week's quarantine every time I leave the country (4x, if all goes as planned, aka a month in my apartment), but apparently, I have to wait until after the vaccination of every elementary, middle, and high school student in the country, as well as all "weak" Koreans, before I'm eligible. I'll probably end up getting the needle at home, except it'll be all gone by then.

In the meantime, I'm making myself sick with Pepero sticks. 11/11 is Pepero Day, a Hallmark holiday where you give candy sticks to people you like. (One teacher told me it's people you love, but the class adamantly corrected her, and the sticks have been piling up around the office at such a pace that I think the kids may have even overstated it) Most of the sticks are somewhat smaller than a pencil; crispy cookie-ish substance dipped in chocolate...and sometimes rolled in nuts. They're awfully good--I've eaten several already and it's only 11:00. There are other varieties as well, everything from fat chocolate-covered wafers to massive gift packs involving stuffed animals, overflowing from every convenience store. Last night, a student gave me one in an "I heart New York" wrapper. (something else I've been meaning to blog about...that phrase is huge here. The first time I saw it, I thought the kid had actually been to America, but I quickly learned it's on bags, pajama pants, pencil cases, folders, shoes...Pepero wrappers. Maybe I'll get everyone I heart New York t-shirts for Christmas) One wrapper says "I'll be loving you forever, deep inside my heart." Kinda restrained for Koreans, actually.

Variations on a Theme

2009-11-08T04:05:00.000-08:00

It's been a solitary weekend. I went Out last night (first time in Seoul!) to celebrate a friend's birthday, and had a good, long phone conversation with my uncle this morning, but otherwise have been completely by myself. Not for lack of trying either. The novelty and desperation have worn off, and people no longer jump at invitations regardless of who with or where to. So I adventured on alone, and it was a weekend well spent.

Wicked weather reports for Sunday moved my nature encounter to Saturday. I trucked off to Namhan Sansung Provincial Park, reachable by Seoul Metro (passing "where da green loyn intersects wit da pank", as it will forever be known in memory of my single phone conversation with Nick). And being on the subway means an opportunity to buy a bag of little cakes, shaped like an ear of corn and filled with yummy custard, and filling the tunnels with a smell WAAAY better than stewed silkworm larvae. Then to walk down a suburban street, which has much better connotations here than in the US (where, according to Wait Wait, New Jersey is changing its nickname to The Olive Garden State). Quieter, friendlier, full of yellow trees, it was a pleasant, if uphill walk from the subway to the park, where it was a tolerable and very uphill walk to the ACTUAL park, where it was a pretty and uphill walk along the old fortress walls, which I eventually abandoned because I couldn't find a map and didn't know where to get back down and was fast losing the use of my legs. In usual yin/yang fashion, the absence of both a companion and any useful navigation aids, the relentless incline of the cement trail, and the penchant of the Koreans for bringing things like radios to the woods and walking in what I'll charitably call a less than straight line were all trying my patience. On the other hand, the day was warm and rainless, the scenery was compelling, fall was in its full glory, and my new Korean hiking socks and boots were comfy and sturdy. I sat on a rock to write a letter and was, unusually, surrounded by birds of all descriptions twittering and being charmingly birdlike. It might be the most wildlife I've seen since the Lincoln Park Zoo.

I generally do quite well with solo time, often preferring to travel that way, but it seems that my tolerance for it is substantially reduced here. Or maybe it's that I'm fully stocked on it and don't need any more. As someone who has been known to ignore a ringing phone, I'm surprised by how bereft I feel without one. That oft-malfunctioning and intrusive instrument, with the power to restore promise to any day, is sorely missed in my little apartment. Instead, I leave the computer on for hours and hours, one ear perpetually cocked for the pop that means someone wants to chat with me on Facebook...inadequate substitute for a real conversation, but much anticipated all the same. Pricey cell minutes mean that phone is just for arranging meeting details, so even fellow expats use Facebook to just shoot shit for a while. Whatever the cause--no calls, no close connections, no cats--I find myself getting ratty and depressed when I've gone too long without hearing anyone's voice. I think, as I've said before, that that will be the nature of my year. High points, low points, fun times, moments of staring into the face of insanity, and all the while dragging a weight behind me that I may feel but won't fully appreciate until I'm cut free. I discovered a new Alan Doyle song on YouTube, about the Newfoundland diaspora, and while most of it is very Newfoundland-specific, the "punch line" (as it were) is "I don't know where I'm going, but I know where I belong." So poignant, it literally hurts.

At any rate, I was substantially cheered today by talking with my uncle for the first time since I passed through Springfield in May. He doesn't read this blog, so in giving a synopsis of the first 11 weeks, I was treated to fresh interest and insight, and the chance to distill my experiences into something easier to examine and understand. There was also another element I hadn't noticed missing before--immediacy. Blogging allows me to stay connected to far more people far more efficiently than I could do if I were trying to maintain regular correspondence with each & every one of you, but it also robs me of the give-and-take of normal conversation. By the time I talk with anyone, they already know what's going on here and it's old news. So I don't tell the story again, and the debriefing and manipulating of experiences into productive action is lost. But this post is deteriorating into a stream of consciousness more suited to my journal.

So it was with lighter heart that I set out for today's explorations--the Seoul Museum of Art (and Kyobo bookstore, but I never made it there). The art museum is right behind one of the city's palaces, and my timing was good...as I stepped from the subway stairs into open air, I heard the distinctive clang of a Korean band--time for the changing of the guard at Deoksugung. I watched the festivities and followed the procession down the alley next to the palace. I absolutely love downtown, and this was one more incredible spot--brick-paved, lined with a white, tile-topped stone wall, overarched with trees whose yellow leaves popped against the leaden sky. The drizzle made the colors stand out, and it was strikingly beautiful and soul-satisfying.

After blogging recently about how Koreans would rather eat mustardless pizza than speak English aloud, on the way back through this spectacular alley (having quite enjoyed the art museum--and the fact that admission was a remarkable 70 cents!), I was accosted for the SECOND time this weekend by a starstruck Korean wanting to talk. Yesterday, I got on the subway after my hike and a teenager bounded over with a carrying "HI!" worthy of a Texan. She then just stood there and beamed at me until I had the presence of mind to say, "How are you?" I ran through my admittedly short repertoire of pleasantries, then tried to understand what she was telling me--her enthusiasm outstripped her English ability. I'm pretty sure "you are beautiful" was in there--the complete lack of Korean self-esteem weirds me out a bit. I'm beautiful just because I have Western features? I don't get it. (incidentally, ALL the dolls at HomePlus are Western-looking) Another uni student standing nearby felt compelled to help when my fan was struggling to ask where I'm from, so then she got sucked into the conversation too. Finally, the girl went and sat down, but when I got off the train, she yelled "BYE!!!" and turned around to wave through the window as I walked down the platform. I've heard of Koreans getting rude and violent when people speak English in public, and I know they're not fond of making a scene...wonder how they felt about one of their own doing it.

Today's stalker was more subtle (and more fluent), although it started like a scene from a Cary Grant movie. Walking through the alley, she was keeping pace with me, neither passing nor falling back, until it got annoying. I stopped and turned around under pretense of admiring the foliage...and she stopped 20 yards ahead to do the same. I waited...waited...so did she. I started walking, she started walking. The thought that she was "following" me crossed my mind, but only in a comical, Scooby Doo, sort of way. Finally, as I caught up with her, I turned on the jets, intending to speed walk to a comfortable distance in front. At which point, she abandoned the coy routine and whacked me on the arm. She has a friend coming from Ireland and wanted to know what I think of Seoul and the food and what I'd suggest she take the friend to see. She was pleasant and fluent, and I can sympathize with her hesitancy to approach me. I know talking with a foreigner has a rite-of-passage aspect to it, and I don't mind doing it at all. Just getting a taste of how Bono feels.

One more thing; a confession to make. I ate at McDonald's. Just fries. But, the aggravating circumstance: I did it because of an ad. I was painfully hungry (the reason I skipped the bookstore. That, and I don't need/have money for any books. Just shows how addled my thinking was). A bus went by with a McDonald's poster on it. And it succombed. I did my penance, though, carrying that bag through the subway station like a walking stereotype. But, mmmm, they were good!

A Taste of RV Life

2009-11-04T05:19:00.000-08:00

I have a Korean-style shower, or, in American terms, Winnebago-style. Shower, and the bathroom showers with me. The door has a large lip on it, and the floor slants toward a drain under the sink. All the fixtures are waterproof, and there's no point keeping anything on the counter. It's a bit of a nuisance, requiring significantly more choreography than the mindless showering I do at home. The routine:

--put toothbrush/cup in the cabinet, along with anything else that's migrated to the counter

--pull plastic bag out from between counter & toilet tank and cover tp (dispensers in Korea have a flap that goes over the paper for just that reason, but it's not sufficient)

--stuff hand towel into space just vacated by plastic bag

--move bath towel and hair towel from towel rack to outer door handle

--move washcloth from its place on the faucet to the towel rack

--array clothes and hairbrush within reach of door

This setup makes it impossible to adjust the water temperature before getting in. Fortunately, the nozzle detaches from the wall, so I can run the water on just a foot until it warms up.

--Shower. I initially thought maybe the water would stay isolated in one area, but I was very wrong. It goes everywhere.

--Try to dry off & do everything else I have to do without going in & out of the bathroom, because drying my feet every time is a pain. After the first time I showered here, I realized I needed a little mat outside the bathroom. The way the towel rack is positioned, I can't dry my feet and then hang the towel up without stepping back into the bathroom.

--Before leaving the bathroom, remember to reverse as many of the above processes as possible. Some, like getting the hand towel out, have to wait for surfaces to dry.

--Lifting the toilet lid means the seat will probably be dry by the time I get home from school. Likewise, squeegeeing the floor with my foot also seems to hasten the drying process, although I usually still have to dance around puddles in the evening. On weekends, I just have to take my socks off if I have to go later.

One might think this would mean I don't have to clean the bathroom. One would be wrong. It just means the whole place is covered in film.

Climate Control

2009-11-03T04:10:00.000-08:00

November's come in like a lion (or saja, as the case may be), and it's been a somewhat unsettling preview of what the winter's going to be like. I thought traveling to New York in February was unusual, but doing it to keep warm might actually be a first. The last two days have seen temps in the 30s--my apartment dropped 3 whole degrees, to 68. I imagine I will eventually have to turn the heat on. But school? I'm going to need a wardrobe of hats.

I thought I was a fresh air fiend, keeping windows open until much too late in the season, then still having them cracked til I'm paying for heat and my Scottish blood won't allow it. For Koreans, however, there's no such thing as too cold for fresh air. I'd wondered in previous posts about the practicalities of an outdoor floor plan in a deciduous climate. Wondered about how walking outside to get to the cafeteria and most of my classes was going to be. Now I know--COLD. But, really, the trip to lunch is pretty irrelevant because the windows and doors in the school are all as wide open as they were in early September. Like a stubborn foreigner, I kept taking off my jacket, and worse, leaving it in the office when I went to class. Mr. Kwon asked me at lunch why I didn't dress more warmly ('cause I'm just a goofy American who thinks that a turtleneck and sweater is sufficient?). He also took me to task yesterday for closing a window in the hallway. I assumed it was open because students had been clowning around, but I guess it's just standard operating procedure. (The same thing happened in my apartment building, where I thought I was being conscientious by closing the stairway windows in the morning, but found them all open again when I came home) The classrooms, heated via refrigerator-like units in the corner, are tropical cocoons, while the hallways provide the counterpoint (and the bathroom might as well be an outhouse). Everyone just wears their jacket all the time. Our office tries to straddle both worlds, cranking the heat until oranges are growing, then opening the windows wide for a brutal blast. My llama gloves, though very cute, are a bitch to type in.

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-30T02:31:00.000-07:00

I was just out in short sleeves for the second day in a row. The good weather entices me to take a walk immediately after getting home from school, and, on the whole, it's a much better arrangement than waiting until it's dark and I'm tired and pressed for time. Today's surprise was a good one--on the last Friday of the month, we get to go home an hour early. The idea is to give teachers time to socialize and "community-build", but nobody does anything together. So I walked over to a park near my school that I've been wanting to check out. The problem with green space in Korea is that it's all vertical. Not that I don't need the exercise, but it would be nice sometimes to just go for a quiet stroll. Nonetheless, for the investment of sweat and the possible sacrifice of my ability to do a Wing Chun set tonight, I got to trek among trees and magpies (and exercise equipment and carefully dressed Korean seniors). It wasn't totally getting away--it never is--with the resonant booms and growls of construction at the bottom of the hill, and the general dearth of wildlife, but I sat on a rock and even catnapped with my head on my arms, and it was agreeable for all that.

The weather's been pretty glorious, but that's about to come to a screeching halt. According to the forecast, things are going to change on the first of November as if required by law, with temps dropping 20 degrees, and only expected to reach 40 on Monday. One of my friends is going on a day trip with Adventure Korea tomorrow, and if I hadn't already scheduled 3 different things, I'd probably be joining her. They do run the same trips again and again, so I hope I'll catch them later, though this is the ideal time of year. I'm still hoping to get outside on Sunday, despite the dismal forecast.

Other than a few pumpkins & spiders in Baskin Robbins, Halloween doesn't really exist in Korea. The kids have all heard of it, and when I asked when it is, they invariably replied, "Candy!", but even the phrase Trick or Treat was completely new to them. As waygook domain, Halloween becomes a drinking holiday. I might be the only sober American in Seoul tomorrow night. I think I'm going to a music fest...if I stay home, I'll be at one anyway. Came home this afternoon to all kinds of commotion in the church parking lot (and it's still going on at 10:30)--hammering, banging...ultimately, erecting a bunch of tents and a stage. *Groan* It's "Love Fest". Details at 11.

Folk Village Idiot

2009-10-29T07:21:00.000-07:00

Went to the Korean Folk Museum near Suwon last weekend. I’d been told to go this time of year, and the advice was spot-on—the essence of fall pervaded the place like a friendly ghost, and being there was glorious. Korean leaves still aren’t as riotous as the hometown varieties—another teacher from Toronto and I got into a bit of rhapsodizing about the wonders of Northeastern (or southeastern for her) autumn—but it was close enough, and the colors and the crunch and the smell were salve for the soul.

This is supposed to be one of the better folk museums in Korea, and it certainly is attractive, tucked in next to forested hills, full of trees, with a large creek crossed by several bridges. I was initially disappointed that I hadn’t arrived the minute the gates opened, then figured it was just as well when I hit saturation around 4:00, but on second (or third) thought, a few extra hours to roam the fringes would have been well-used. Feeling pressed for time after lunch, our group split up so we could all tend our highest priorities, and I wandered out behind the Nobleman’s House and suddenly found myself in Corbett’s Glen! In my mind, anyway. The hill, the foliage, the forest floor, the quiet, the light filtering in...my life force filled up like I’d found the golden coin in a video game. Opportunities to walk on an unpaved surface through the woods don’t grow on trees around here, and it was another, albeit pleasant, reminder of what I so painfully miss.

I got another rare opportunity just a few minutes later when I hiked up to the village’s temple. Temples in Korea all have virtually identical architecture—I used to think the “seen one, seen ‘em all” attitude was pitiably cynical, but they might have a point. What almost never happens, though, is seeing a temple in total solitude. Apparently, most people don’t feel that another temple is worth the hike at the Folk Village, and I got a precious 15 minutes of just me and the persimmon trees to really appreciate the place. It makes a difference!

Yet another cool experience was at the pottery studio. The English signage was concise, so I don’t have a lot of details to relate, but the dioramas and mud kilns imply that pottery goes back a long time in Korea. You see it (all over) today in the form of kimchi pots, which have changed very little in the intervening centuries. Diana the Torontan and I were poking around and discovered a crowd watching a 4-year-old boy molding a bowl out of clay (with a great deal of guidance, mind you). A little sleuthing revealed that we, too, could have the privilege for a mere $10, so I’m waiting expectantly for my very own handmade souvenir to arrive in the mail. The Korean potter did most of the work, guiding my hands at key points, but I was on my own for decorating the thing. So, like the sandblasting in Corning, the Korean fanmaking at orientation, and several of my knitting projects (to cite just a few examples), the bowl looks like the punchline of a Far Side cartoon. I needed no Korean to comprehend the sad, resigned look of the lady who was overseeing the site as she watched me savage this heretofore beautiful craft with my plastic stylus. It won’t even be a conversation piece when I’m serving peanut M&Ms in it next Thanksgiving, since people will be too diplomatic to mention it. At least I know it was made in Korea!

While the setup and feel of the place was reassuringly universal, the details were unmistakably Korean. Traditional Korean houses have a linear floor plan, like the Lego houses kids build, and you spend a lot of time outside getting from one section to another. I’m mystified by how this became the prevailing architecture in a country with a climate like New York’s, but for all the regional variations—thicker walls to withstand the wind on Jeju Island, different roofing materials based on what was locally available—the basic layout was consistent. As for the roofs, they were either clay tiles (what you still see in most traditional architecture), wood shingles (of the same shape as the tiles), or thatched. The thatched were said to last 10 years, and they did look remarkably sturdy. Some of the houses had pumpkins growing on the roofs—I’ve seen it in Seoul, and I speculated that it was an answer to space constraints, but it doesn’t seem as though farmers of centuries gone by would have had to make room for the PC Bang next door, so maybe it’s a climate thing, or just a national quirk. We were wondering what time period all these buildings represent…it doesn’t appear that Korean building styles changed much for several hundred years, but maybe that’s the glib assertion of a foreigner. Like so much else, the more I learn, the more I don’t know.

Status Quo

2009-10-26T01:08:00.000-07:00

Why I want to blog when I first get home from work is beyond me. Haven't I just been staring at a computer screen for several hours? And why do I immediately check my email when everyone I know is asleep? (I may know the answer to that one. I'm still looking forward to checking phone messages as I come up the stairs, despite not having had an answering machine for 5 months now...has it really been that long since any of you wiseacres left a message for Tony?) And why do I persist in pounding peanut M&Ms before dinner when I know they'll give me a sugar crash? Questions no one can answer. Like the ones I ask in class.

This week's topic is fall/Halloween. Oh, how it would benefit from some real-life props. I've got a great picture of cider and doughnuts, but would dearly love to have some actual samples for the kids. I can describe how to carve a pumpkin, but how cool would it be if I could show them? I was hoping to give them some American candy, too, but at $1/oz, they'll have to settle for E-Mart's fruit drops. If I taught ESL in the US, I could do such a better job! Maybe I will. It'll be too late for me when I get back, but maybe I'll make some videos for other esl teachers...like how to carve a pumpkin without assuming that you've done it before. How to trick-or-treat, how to order food, tons of things. For now, though, I'm showing pictures and discussing terms. There were several gems today when I asked the kids to describe Halloween things...one I remember was witch=ghost grandmother. I should be writing this stuff down--I get a laugh out of them several times a week.

With luck, I'll have a second chance at gathering appropriate materials. Nailing down vacation time is notoriously aggravating here, as I'm beginning to discover firsthand. Terrie has made inquiries for me, but all they tell her is that I HAVE to be here for winter vacation camp, and they haven't yet decided when that will be. Rising airfares and filling planes matter not to the bureaucracy. Terrie's guess is that I'll be at liberty for the last 2 weeks of January. That's a week later than I'd planned, but it's also $500 cheaper, so I'm down with it. Now if I could just get that confirmed. I'm so excited at the prospect; weeks of uncertainty are almost unbearable. Never before have I looked forward to 15 hours on an airplane.

Another unprecedented event: I have nothing scheduled for any night this week. Endless possibilities, but it might get a little lonely, too. I've gotta go check out that cat cafe. I've gotten out my knitting again, after a lengthy hiatus--Christmas is coming, after all--and that seems a good match for sitting with cats. I don't think those places are cheap, though, and I actually went through most of my budget this week, for the first time in a while. Time to get creative!

Context!

2009-10-22T07:31:00.000-07:00

Ironically, though intending to blog about the importance of context, the scatteredness of my thoughts at the moment means this post will be largely without it. I'm in the midst of some revelations, though one never knows how fast they will stick. Maybe I'm just in a philosophical mood; maybe tomorrow will suck. Who knows? A convergence of input has made me ponder the control we have over our moods and what kind of day we have. I believe that, to a point. I believe that I can take steps to make my time here enjoyable and my job something I love. I also believe that we are innately programmed to a certain disposition, and no amount of willpower is going to make me a bottle of bubbles. (and suddenly feel like I'm writing a "This I Believe" essay for NPR...something I've long wanted to do, but never have been able to pin it down) But I've got absolutely nothing at all to lose from being more generous, less fearful, and waking up with the expectation of a good day.

I did manage to get myself a "date" with Nick the Newfoundlander. Probably won't manage another, but I enjoyed talking to him. Even managed to stop twitterpating about his accent relatively early in the conversation. He's a really interesting person; smart, motivated, and adventurous. Not that into me, though. At least I won't die wondering. He did give me a huge "Aha" moment when I was talking about the difficulties of lesson planning from scratch: there's no context. Context for me is like gravity--or something; science isn't my forte--without it, particles just fly off in every direction. Without knowing anything about my kids' language ability, their culture, their lives, Korean school practices, or what a "native" teacher lesson looks like, I'm supposed to keep these kids educated, busy, and entertained for 45 minutes. No wonder it's hard.

The lesson this week was reading Where the Wild Things Are and attempting a retelling. I may post a few of the responses--what the kids come up with and the way they express it is delightful. Context was an issue here, though, too. Not only knowing how much the kids understand--different classes had vastly different levels of comprehension and facility with the story--but just the nature of the story itself. A couple of my co-teachers told me after class that this kind of story is unknown in Korea, so the kids may have had trouble understanding it. That being the case, where do you even begin? And how do you define "imagination" or "mischief" to someone whose English vocabulary is so small? Next week, I try to explain Halloween.

Communication does seem to be improving with everyone in the school. I've been emailing out lesson plans in advance, and getting some small bits of feedback on them. Now that I actually have classes with Terrie, she can tell me what she thinks of what I'm doing. (uh oh!) I'm developing a "fan club" of students who want to talk to me every chance they get. Maybe I'll learn to make small talk in English too!

I love giving the students more creative (relatively speaking) things to do. In speaking class on Tuesday evening, I first handed out a haunted house picture and a list of directions they were to read to partners. "There is a cat on the roof. There is a mummy next to the house." Students had to draw the things in the designated places. Their pictures were fantastic! I wanted to keep them. Then I had the kids do a DIY Outburst game--gave them each a category and made them list 10 things. The spellings are interesting--always give me insight into Korean pronunciation. There's no "z" sound in Korean, so it usually ends up as a "j" or "ch" (hence Kraze Burger being said "Crotchy Burger")...and then the phenomenon reverses, so you get an item of clothing called "pazamas". On the Food list, I had to think for whole minutes and ultimately speak out loud to figure out "hilaphaniow". My favorite, though, was a dictation exhorting students to care for the Earth--one had written "bitch beach", then apparently decided the latter was correct.

I definitely made the right choice in applying to public school. I haven't taught a full week of classes since mid-September, and won't for another 3 weeks at least. Today was supposed to be an arts festival, but it, too, was a casualty of swine flu paranoia. Yesterday, however, was a surprise--some kind of career day thing or some such where each grade trotted off to a different location in Seoul for reasons I haven't been able to wheedle out of anybody. I almost had a quiet day at my desk, but, so very fortunately, I realized that did NOT mean I would get any work done and so took Ms. Cho up on her offer of taking me to the 3rd graders vocational high school fair. Korean kids can choose either a comprehensive, university-prep high school, or one that begins training for some kind of trade. And while, according to Ms. Cho, only about 10 kids in each class are looking at the vocational schools, they all got to come mess about at this fair for a couple hours before calling it a day and going home.

Typifying the Korean penchant for form over function, the schools had booths set up to attract students with activities and trinkets. Initially, I was looking for some connection between the school's specialty and their setup, but that just proves I'm still new here. Ms. Cho and I wandered around, watching kids make magnets and hair bows, laughing at the lineup of boys at the hand massage booth (girls could have their hands massaged directly, but boys had to have it done through a plastic bag); and picking up our share of tchotchkes (I have a pig charm for my phone now--I'm starting to assimilate) and free cookies from the teacher pavilion. The whole thing was outside...fortunately yesterday was the apotheosis of fall days and the event was in a beautifully treed area of town, so was quite pleasant all round.

When our day ended at 10:30, the teachers were discussing getting lunch or going to a movie. I would have just as soon gone home, but I didn't want to be a party pooper, so, awful as being in a movie theater on a day like that would have been, I was ready to follow the crowd. But then a magical thing happened...Ms. Cho asked me if I wanted to go shopping--at Costco!!! Cue angel trumpets! So we drove through this beautiful neighborhood on this beautiful day to Waygook Eden and walked among the Stacks of Yummy Familiarity and ate fabulous, unadulterated pizza for lunch. I haven't had such a good time since City Market in Cortez! And it was still only noon--rounded out the day with a walk through traditional alleys and boutique shops near Gyeongbokgung Palace, and got started on my Christmas shopping in Insadong.

I feel like I'm nearing the end of "the beginning". A good place to be!

The Language Barrier

2009-10-19T04:19:00.000-07:00

It's ridiculous how many Koreans speak English. The young ones, certainly. They are incredibly fluent. Everyone, though, seems to know a word or two that they can spit out when you're at an impasse. Actually having a conversation, though, is another matter altogether. In general, Koreans are an extremely self-conscious people, and are wildly reluctant to give their English a try.

My weekend with Terrie's family was a perfect microcosm of this phenomenon. Terrie herself is flat-out fluent. We talked of many things over the campfire, in a conversation not much different than I would have with any native speaker (in fact, more in-depth than with most). Like almost every Korean I've talked to, though, I initially underestimated her English. Koreans are always infinitely more skilled in the second conversation--the first time you talk with them, they're so nervous about using their English, they can't get anything out. My first week or two here, I was surprised that everyone's English was so rudimentary. Then I talked to them all again, and got a totally different impression. Written, even more so--the emails I get from my colleagues are virtually indistinguishable from ones I would get at home. I've heard over and over again that Koreans are taught to write English extremely well, but almost never to speak it, and my experience has been that that's absolutely true.

This gives rise to the second common occurrence, which I encountered with Terrie's husband--complete refusal to speak. I was surprised when he didn't even say hello when I met him, but began to get the drift when Terrie was flummoxed by his behavior. I guess he speaks English fine--apparently spent 2 weeks in the Ukraine doing just that--but has no desire to do so in front of someone who might call him out (not that I would). I think this accounts for another of my co-teachers as well--he greets me with a bow and a smile when he's on temperature duty at the school gates, but never, ever speaks to me at all. Terrie was obviously disappointed by the unexpected impasse on Saturday--as a foreigner (and a vegetarian one at that), I have to get used to being a walking hardship on everyone I meet--but her husband reassured her in Korean (she told me) that he understood our conversation fine, so that was all we could do.

Terrie's kids went in the other direction. Both were initially bashful, as kids frequently are, but once they warmed up, they were endearing little show-offs, spouting whatever English they could summon. We walked from the train station to the campground accompanied by a monologue of "I want a hamburger! I jump in the park! I jump in the bus! I want to be a rock! That is very hot!" and on and on. I'm not sure he ever spoke directly to me, but he polished off all the English he knows. The younger son, being only 5 and not having had any formal English education, was more limited in what he could do, but still had a few outbursts of "tree! apple! table!" It was cute. Kids often show none of the reticence of their parents, and I am frequently greeted on the street by children I have never seen before (all the more remarkable for the fact that greeting strangers is not really done in Korean culture). A girl of about 9 at the train station Saturday said hello to me, then came back repeatedly to converse, one sentence at a time. Talking with a foreigner seems to be a rite of passage for Korean kids, appearing regularly in "have you ever?" games and the like.

The kids at school seem to have warmed up to me all of a sudden, too. They've always greeted me enthusiastically in the hall--even the ones who glare at me for 45 minutes straight in class give me a cheery smile and hearty hello when I pass them on the stairs. Now, though, they appear to be bold enough to try conversation. Several have stopped by my desk in the last week (a new photo collage with cats and family doesn't hurt, either), and my favorite was one boy who flagged down the teachers I was walking back from lunch with and asked them to tell me he wanted to talk. I asked him some standard small talk questions, and, consulting in whispers with Mr. Kwon before each, he had some good questions for me. He wanted to know what was difficult about my job, and I told him sometimes the students don't listen. He asked Mr. Kwon to tell me that HE listens! These exchanges just make my day! I can't afford to give candy to all 600 of them for Halloween, but I'm thinking maybe I'll bring some to school and "pay off" anyone who comes by my desk for a chat.

Reboot

2009-10-17T23:21:00.000-07:00

I am definitely an outdoor cat. I was off camping for less than 24 hours, but boy, it did a body good. It was a perfect fall weekend--crisp and breezy, but sunny--and, while the leaves seem to be just dying and dropping rather than erupting in color, even the brown-orange adds a tinge of interest to the already-fetching mountains. While I can't get enough of summer, fall runs a close second, and I think part of my funk of late was due to feeling excluded from this satisfying sensory festival. There are no leaves to be kicked (or their scent savored), no pumpkins to be selected and brought home with a jug of cider and a white bag of fried cakes (glazed, sugar, and plain--1 each), no vivid canopy to revel in on the drive down Merchants Rd or even sun-warmed car to bask in after my morning walk. But for a few hours this weekend, I was reminded that Nature is still having its poignant party, and not entirely without me.

Since inviting me on the trip, Terrie has repeatedly warned me that Jarasum Island, site of the annual International Jazz Festival, is not that natural and I shouldn't expect wilderness. I was picturing Woodstock, and instead got a pleasant campsite backed by squash arbors, on a grassy (for Korea) island encircled by mountains. When we first arrived, there was music from 2 stages competing for our attention, but the cacophany was still infinitely preferable that the same 3 pop songs in enless rotation. Terrie's husband and kids put me back in a reality I haven't contacted in way too long, and demonstrated that kids are the same everywhere, regardless of language and culture. Well, not entirely the same....it was really refreshing to see her boys, ages 5 and 7, play happily with neither adult direction nor a carload of toys. They were absent for over an hour this morning, playing with other kids at the park playground, and when they wanted to get Cokes, Terrie gave them 1000 won and sent them across the field to the 7-11. Korea has its share of overbearing parents, to be sure, but the smothering paranoia that's become the norm for "good parenting" in the US has, fortunately, stayed there.

Anyway, camping...that was very much the same, too. We sat around the campfire, eating shish kebabs and hot dogs, dodging smoke & sparks, talking and shivering, and (in their case) drinking beer. Terrie filled me in on a lot of things I didn't know about at school (the English classroom rumor is--at this point--true!) and talked culture, politics, and the drawbacks of Seoul. She reminded me of 2 important things: that, however annoying they may be, the students are still children and should be understood as such; and that judging Korea on the basis of Seoul is like judging the US on the basis of NYC. She also told me that everyone will want to have a go at me and my teaching, and I should accept their criticism but ultimately do what I believe is right and what works for me. I'm really glad I got her as my main co-teacher!

They had a pretty sweet setup--Terrie's husband sounds like a bit of a gear hound--and Terrie said all I should bring was my clothes. I brought a fleece sleeping bag liner, too, since I tend to freeze at night, but I won't be bringing it next time! There were air pillows and the loveliest plush sleeping bags, but the very best thing was the floor-lining electric blanket! Apparently that's a Korean standard, the camp version of their traditional floor heating. Terrie says it's because Korea has 4 distinct seasons--that phrase should be a drinking game--but I don't care why; being warm as toast all night was a new and thoroughly enjoyable camping experience!

And for all of you who thought I'd be spending a year in the third world, the campground even had hot water and flush toilets, not to mention free showers if I'd been of a mind.

I was up before 7, but with 20 minutes or so to boot up, was able to thoroughly enjoy the sunny quiet. Terrie's husband went for a walk with the boys, while she & I wandered the island the other way. Dirt & grass to walk on, water full of lily pads & ducks, misty mountains, little red trees, flowers, squash, a gradually warming sun, and--being Korea--giant neon spiders...it was glorious. After breakfast--ramen for all of us, kimchi for them--we sat in the sun in that delicious autumn air, talking and feasting on the scenery and watching her husband pack up the gear (an hour+ process) until it was time to walk me to the train station. (Terrie's husband and younger son set up camp on Friday; I came with her & her older son, who'd both had school yesterday, on Saturday evening; and they were all going back in their overstuffed car while I paid the whopping $4 for the train ride) All this, just over an hour outside of Seoul. After Sokcho, I'd vowed that I need to get out of Seoul more often, and again, I see why. It's cheap, quick, easy, and so crucial to mental health.

When I'm Up

2009-10-12T02:27:00.000-07:00

After being in a growing funk for the last week or two, I'm suddenly...happy. You know, more or less. The weekend was most enjoyable (lesson panic notwithstanding), and things have gone right today. I really shouldn't broadcast this to the world when there are still a few hours of the day left, but if anyone was hanging out with me tonight, they might even find me rather bubbly and silly. (or maybe the term is "punchy"--didn't get much sleep last night) And I've just tripped over another brick of the foundation of happiness--people to let down your hair and get goofy with. But I'm starting to ramble. Any (or all) of these could be making me cheerful:

--Out of nowhere, I had a good lesson today. I was still writing it when I got to school this morning, but, miraculously, it worked. Actually, a couple of the classes were still disasters, but my gut feeling is it wasn't because the lesson stank. Grabbed a framework off a website at 11:30 last night for a lesson on "When was the last time you...?". Target vocab: last _____, _______ ago, and the _______ before last. Some listening, some writing, and some speaking for the kids. I whipped up a worksheet for my first class, and didn't even have to modify it afterward--that's a first. When I ran out of activity before I ran out of time in one class, the solution came to me instantly. Two co-teachers said it was a good lesson, and the one I've been getting the weirdest vibes from sat with me at lunch and asked what I wanted her to do in class. After lunch I went to the library to get "Where the Wild Things Are" for a class next week, and had a long conversation with one of the kids about which books are good, interesting, hard, etc. THAT'S the kind of thing I've been wanting. And to top it all off, Wild Things didn't turn out to be impossibly complicated.

--Rearranged my vacation intentions last night to include 2 weeks in Rochester. A total departure from what I'd originally had in mind, but the thought of being home just a little makes me cheery and hopeful. August seems crushingly far away, but January? I can live until January. All the arguments against coming home just seem to not matter--it is a long plane ride, and I will be jetlagged, but would I trade that for the welcoming embrace of loved ones and cherished places, the chance to gather my wits and regroup for another campaign, and a big green salad and breakfast at Jines? You betcha! I've even decided it may not traumatize the cats so much if I return and go away again--hope I'm right about that! What's more, rather than being disappointed at the radical contraction of my plans for Southeast Asia, I actually feel like a week in Cambodia is perfect--the kind of focus and manageability that I strive for in my lessons.

--Got my hair cut today after being driven to distraction by it for the last several weeks. I actually think I look kinda good! I was going to go short last time I had a haircut, back in May, but wasn't ready to give up my ponytail. I was ready today, and I do think this is a better look for me. I feel more professional, more up-to-date, more like I meant to look this way. I was nervous about walking into a random Korean hairdresser, too, but the lady was really nice, did a great job, and only charged me $7! I don't know when I've ever had a haircut that I liked instantly.

--Great Big Sea on YouTube! Granted, that's pretty much a daily occurrence, but it rarely fails to make me a bit effervescent, to use one of Bob Hallett's favorite words.

Off to HomePlus for groceries. If my happy groove continues, maybe I'll even find the right bus!

The Time Machine, HG Wells

2009-10-09T21:45:00.000-07:00

"It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble...Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change. Only those animals partake of intelligence that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers."

Another week down

2009-10-09T01:15:00.000-07:00

Friday afternoon, 45 weeks to go. All of a sudden, it feels like fall here. It's been cooler at night (though my apartment holds steady at 76), and after being able to wear shorts without thinking about it for 7 weeks, the last two days have been the type where long pants & a jacket aren't unthinkable. The new weather came in on a cool breeze on Tuesday and the leaves are actually dry enough to rustle (if still stubbornly green). It was an encouraging sound.

It hasn't been a particularly encouraging week. After 3 weeks of feeling like my lessons were getting better and more solid, it now seems to be crashing down around me like Manhattan in an apocalypse movie. Through September, I felt that my lessons had educational merit, but needed to be more engaging. Then last Monday's attempt to teach telephone skills was not only a confusing mess, the kids were completely comatose. After three attempts at revision, I decided to scrap it, necessitating new plans for the smattering of classes I had this week. My mentor visited my school yesterday for the privilege of watching me scramble to pull together 3 different lessons, none of which took flight. The one for the 3rd grade was unfocused and dry. I knew the 2nd grade story lesson needed refinement, but my mentor was adamant that the material was too complicated, and pointed out that most of the kids were asleep. I punted and did a game with the first grade, which the kids really enjoyed, but I was rebuked for it at dinner. My mentor shared her evaluation with me, and she was forced to spill into the margins after filling the "constructive criticism" box completely. I was planning to do "Ordering food in a restaurant" next week, but I've been gnashing my brain over it for 3 weeks and come up with nothing workable or interesting, so I have to hope for divine inspiration this weekend, write something from scratch, or just go in with more dull crap. It's all rather bleak.

I went to my mentor's school today. Missed a field trip at my own, which sounded interesting if only for the sheer difference from the American version. In fact, I'm not even sure what was going to happen, just that the kids arrive there on their own by subway. There's another one in December, so hopefully I'll get to check it out then. Anyway, Holly's school was a real treat. Having the chance to see what class is actually supposed to look like was a fantastic opportunity...I realized a few days ago that it makes sense that this is so hard, considering I'm supposed to perform this (teaching English) behavior without ever having watched it done. There is no a priori class in my head, no model to emulate. Now at least, I have some idea. Holly didn't put on a circus act, just led the kids through the material with warmth and direction. In her knockout classroom. She has her own room, full of her own stuff, with tables for the kids to sit in teams at, new and working A/V equipment, her own rules and slogans posted on the wall, and kids' work beside it. The back wall has a huge map of the world painted on it. The floor is dry, the table surfaces are unmarred, and it even has funky sliding murals for holidays (did you know that Jesus brought corn to the first Thanksgiving?). At 4 this afternoon, I was still slack-jawed and sputtering about it. It was gorgeous. I learned from Holly's conversations with my co-teacher yesterday that there is a chance I will have my own room in March, albeit a slight one, and that I will have some classes with Terrie herself in November. While that's happy news, I'm confused about why the schedule is changing, and what else might be different.

This is the first weekend since I've been here that I have no specific plans. I guess everyone's losing their tourist enthusiasm. I'm going to need to summon the discipline to work diligently and with focus on my lessons anyway. Still need to get out, though. This hasn't been a banner week for exercise, and exploration keeps me in a better mood. After declaring Wednesday my adventure night, I've sat home for 2 of them in a row. I'm hoping to get some shopping done, find out what's really available in this town. Maybe I'll even go and knit at the cat cafe.

It's Here!

2009-10-07T03:09:00.000-07:00

I feel almost as though I've given birth. After thinking for a long time that it would never happen to me, after knowing for months that it would, after imagining what it might look like and what it would be like to have, my cell phone arrived today. I'm surprised at the affection I feel for it. I keep picking it up, looking it over, trying to figure it out. I know this is going to change my life forever, that I will never again be able to imagine not having it. I'm a little baffled by it, and afraid it's going to be noisy at inconvenient times and wake me up at night, but I'm sure others will have plenty of advice for dealing with it. And so I stare at this little thing, amazed that it's mine and that for the next year, I'll be carrying it wherever I go. I'm a little concerned about all the accessories I now have to bring when I travel, and the money it's going to cost me, but I imagine I'll rather like it on the whole, and will soon understand other people's devotion to their own. Just hope I don't break it.

Culture Roundup

2009-10-04T06:30:00.000-07:00

Here's another collection of observations on life in Korea:

Whenever there's construction, they have these huge rolls of pink & green striped blanket to cover everything. You walk over them rather than through mud in a torn up sidewalk or road. They encase the scaffolding that surrounds what used to be the other wing of my school. They're uniform, they're everywhere, and they're surprisingly resilient.

Usually, when I travel, I look for cats, and often photograph them. Many of my Lonely Planet & Rick Steves books have cat tallies in the back. Having been away from my own fellas for so long, I would expect to be particularly excited to see cats here, but most of the time, I hate it. They're almost always skinny and fearful, and more often than not, have oddly truncated tails. I know Koreans don't hold cats in high esteem, and it's heartbreaking to see the examples...I'd just as soon not be reminded. Even a kitten that an old lady was holding at her vegetable stand down the street made me sad. For one thing, it was much too young to be away from its mother. For another, I just don't have any confidence that the lady's interest in the kitten is long-term. That's just not the way Koreans roll.

People put their phone number in the corner of their windshield, where New Yorkers put their inspection & registration stickers. They sell suction-cup things at the dollar store that you can use; many people have embroidered pillows that look like tooth fairy pillows. My first thought was, it's so you can call someone if you need them to move their car from the skinny street. But I've also heard that Korean cell phones come with a contact category for strangers--it's common to trade phone numbers with someone you've chatted with on the subway, for instance. Maybe when I get a phone, I'll start calling... ;)

There are multiple chain bakeries on every block, most of which have French names--Paris Baguette and Tous les Jours are the most common. These are great places to pick up a quick snack, with many options under $1. Stuff is usually labeled in English, too, so you actually know what's inside. The peanut butter baguette is good if you want something desserty--it's similar peanut butter to what you get in a sundae at Friendly's. My favorite is strewed bread...you know, with crumbs on top.

I'm collecting pizza ribbons. Since people are quite often on foot, packaging is designed to be carried some distance, and pizzas always come with a red ribbon around the box, tied up like a Christmas package so you can comfortably walk with it. Look for them in mailboxes near you this December.

Copy paper here is longer, size A4. 8 1/2 x 11" is nonexistent. Of course, the margins on Word are the same as in the US, and envelopes are no bigger, so you do a lot of adjusting & rejiggering.

I saw a middle-aged lady with gray hair on the subway last week, and it took a few moments to realize why she looked odd...Koreans almost universally dye their hair. If I offered money to find 5 gray-haired Koreans, it'd take you all day to collect.

Sidewalks are all made of paving stones, and always have a ridged yellow stripe down the middle. In certain spots, this yellow stripe changes from ridges to bumps. My best guess is that this is for blind people, to help them follow the sidewalk and know where intersections & crosswalks are. This is pure speculation, however. I also figured out that the buttons at crosswalks are for blind people...the light eventually changes no matter what, but if you push the button, it chirps when it does. People must have thought I was a wanker for pushing the buttons my first week here.

Seoul is beginning a major campaign to get people to walk on the right side of staircases & passageways in the subway. Since I've been here, bilingual "Keep Right" signs & arrows have been appearing on floors and steps all over the Metro system. They're fighting an uphill battle...if anything, Koreans seem particularly inclined to walk on the left. Especially if someone is already walking there.

My first day here, Ramsey was kvetching about the way Koreans walk. I figured he was just on a rant; then, when I noticed it myself, figured it was just because I'd been primed to look for it. But it's really hard to ignore. If you're walking down one side of the sidewalk, people will cut in front of you to squeeze between you and a wall. Even if you move to one side when approaching a couple holding hands, they will try to walk on either side of you rather than the clear path straight ahead. I got bulldozed by an old lady on the subway last night who came from behind me and HAD to dart in front of me right then...to get to a seat that was 4 feet behind me. Walking in a straight line seems to be prohibited by law. Factor in the usual folks on cell phones and strolling groups, and it tries one's patience. It's possible that it's just because I'm used to having sidewalks to myself most of the time in the US, but it's just so consistent...

I tend to think of the ubiquitous high-rise apartment blocks in Korea as fairly undesirable...kind of like they are in the US & other western countries--the projects, mostly. It wasn't until I read it in a book that I realized they're highly prized. I thought it odd that nobody I know lives in one, but that's because they're the high-rent district. People consider them modern and attractive, and, after living closer to street level for a few weeks, I see the appeal of keeping your visual and auditory distance.

Have I mentioned this before? Korea doesn't really do street names (although they are sort of attempting to change this), so giving directions to one's home is a complicated process. At home, when I go to a party, I jot down the last few turns/landmarks that happen within the neighborhood. Here, I have to print out the page (and it usually is a page) of explanations. "Take subway line 1 to the Hoegi stop and go out exit 2. Walk straight ahead approx. 300 meters" And on and on. Usually a Dunkin' Donuts is involved. "Look for the stack of kimchi pots, walk up the hill, and turn right at the little road near the top". And, always, a phone number..."If you get lost, call, and I'll help you".

Happy Holidays

2009-10-02T04:31:00.000-07:00

It's been a quiet Friday. For me and for Seoul at large. This weekend is both Chuseok and Independence Day (I'd forgotten the latter until I saw flags flying from every streetlight), so things were definitely slow today. No mail, very little traffic, plenty of seats on the subway, and shuttered shops up & down the street. The pop music even stopped around 5 or 6. Having been home most of the day, that wasn't a second too soon. The corollary to the "don't travel this weekend" advice I often got was "it's really cool to be in Seoul at this time", and I agree. After 2 weekends in a row of nonstop action, I was ready to scale back a bit. Slept in today for the first time in 3 weeks, and spent the rest of my time reading (finally started Deathly Hallows; I'm on page 165 already), listening to NPR, and puttering. Made a brief sojourn to my mentor, Holly's apartment--it's like a real place, with cupboards and shelves and counters! She has a huge window, a view of trees, and no musical convenience store around. I'm envious, but also remembering that this is her second year, and her tales of last year's apartment are much more sobering, so I can take heart. Next year, I'll have storage, counters, and trees too. Holly made me lunch, chatted with me about teaching (as usual, I should have done less talking and more listening!), shared her lesson plans for this week, and even sent me home with a baggie of trail mix! I'm a bit overwhelmed by all the help & generosity I've received from both sides of the ocean while I've been here. It's helped SO much.

Yesterday was anything but quiet. Bolted from work to try to transfer money to my American bank, and mail stuff--succeeded with the mailing anyway. It would have been better if I'd done all of it earlier in the week, but if I haven't learned that lesson before now, what makes me think I'll suddenly change? Then dashed downtown to meet folks for a tour of Changdeokgung Palace, one of five in Seoul, and the first I've seen. Actually, it wasn't a tour at all...on Thursdays, you pay a lot more to have free run of the place. You get to poke your head into some places that usually aren't open, and see the full extent of the "secret garden", but the extra price and lack of interpretation make me think the usual tour would be preferable. After hearing of the vastness of this garden, I was expecting something like Versailles, but it was more like Ellison Park with Asian pavilions. Pretty nonetheless, and I'm never sorry for a chance to get away from concrete for a while. They had a Korean folk music variety show, so we got to sample the various instruments and singing styles of traditional Korean music. It was the first time I've heard the traditional stringed instrument, which name I don't remember, playing actual Korean stuff. Nothing I'd buy a CD of, but neat to get acquainted with.

In the absence of a guide, I wasn't able to do anything with the palace but walk around and take pictures...I really didn't get a sense of the place much. My friend Megan had taken the guided tour before, so she filled us in on what she remembered. I might need to visit museums on my own; I find it difficult to focus on the signs & absorb the information when others are around. It's interesting the way the rooms are all strung out and in different buildings so you have to go outside to get around--this in a country that sees winters not much different from ours. The whole place is like a sunporch, with walls of latticed doors, covered only with paper. It'd be great in the summer, but I don't know how they kept warm. Other than with floor heat--we saw the openings in the foundation where they'd stoke the fire. I'm not sure of the particulars of that, either. Everything's wood--the floors were a cool pattern, and the whole place had a delightful old-farmhouse smell. I don't know when floor heating was invented, or how they kept the whole place from immolating. The furnishings were pretty spartan. Obviously, they must have had more when the place was inhabited (and this one was until the 1980s), but I wonder whether it was as lavish as what you see in Europe. Plenty of palaces left to see; maybe I'll get some of my answers there. I can see how one might get palace fatigue--the architecture is strikingly similar in all the old buildings--but I'm definitely not there yet.

I was planning to go home after the palace, before heading to Itaewon later to see a band, but Megan was going right to Itaewon and I had nothing but pasta to eat at home, so I went with her. Itaewon is the international district, and while prices are determined based on the desperate and not-too-discerning foreigner, the options for something different are like siren song. Most of my compatriots have spent many a drunken night there; I've never done more than walk through once. We found a middle eastern place and happily tucked into hummus (pitas are extra; if you don't buy them...do you eat it with a spoon?) and falafel sandwiches. Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm! The place was run by Koreans, so I was worried that the falafel would have chili paste in it, but it tasted just exactly right. The hummus was essentially the falafel batter, but we were too enthralled with it to care. I knew we were in Itaewon because tax was extra and there was a tip jar.

After dinner, I tagged along with Megan to a pub where everyone speaks English and it was trivia night. Forgot I was in Korea until the American soldiers next to me lit their cigars inside and let them smolder all over us for 2 hours. I thought my team was putting down all the wrong answers, but turns out that was me. Guess I don't know so much after all. I was excited by the "where in the world" category, but most of the questions were sports-related. I did have one shining moment as the only person on my team who knew the song Ricky Nelson wrote after getting booed at a 1971 oldies show. It wasn't enough to save us, though--from the guys' reactions, I think it was a very bad night.

Left that pub for the concert venue. Was told the place was on Hooker Hill--"when you get to ------ intersection, just ask anyone with a crew cut where it is". Walked around wondering if I was in the right place, but when I reached Hooker Hill, there was no doubt. Once at the bar, though, I didn't see anyone I know, and being tired, and self-conscious in shorts, sneakers, & backpack, I decided to call it a night. Turns out I just missed Summer, but I'd had a full day anyway, and getting home while the subway was still running was a relief.

I actually talked to a middle-aged serviceman on the train--the first soldier I've exchanged words with. He assumed I was in the military too, and asked if I was a Ranger because I was skittering up the stairs with my backpack on. Fear of missing your train can give you the strength of 10 men, but another flight, and he would have been giving me CPR. Saw a few more of those Spam packs on the subway...the bag says "For Your Smile".

I've been reveling in my idle day, but I'm starting to get restless, and I remembered it's Friday night...time to get lost!

Say it with Spam

2009-09-30T05:20:00.000-07:00

Chuseok is coming. It's the Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving, and it's affording me a 4-day weekend (although, as expected, further questioning has revealed that I WILL be teaching some classes next week, so a weekend without plan stress remains a fond wish). I've been warned against traveling or expecting to get anything done, so I'm gearing up for a low-key weekend. Everyone on the subway is carrying boxes and wheeling carts--this is the time of year for presenting gift sets to your relatives. Fruit, soap, and tuna appear to be the hot items--$30 will get you 12 Asian pears in foam cozies, arrayed in a box, and I haven't checked how much it is to express your affection with stylishly organzied tuna fish cans. I passed a guy near the subway station carrying a Spam gift set, complete with matching bag. I didn't even think they HAD Spencer's in Korea.

As everyone prepares to celebrate the harvest, I'm feeling increasingly frustrated and desperate. And not just because of the pop music that plays all day outside my window. I just got back from another grocery shopping trip, and it appears I will be eating pasta for about 330 more days. I went to E-Mart tonight determined to find something else I could make for dinner. And came up completely empty. I've finished the kidney beans Ramsey gave me, nursing the can for 4 dinners' worth, and 3 taco salads (or approximations thereof) have just about depleted my supply of Deer Hill refugee dehydrated beans. And now I don't know what to do. I'm not sure where Ramsey got the beans--probably in Itaewon for $15/can. And I know there's no tempeh, gardenburgers, not dogs, phony bologna, or fake beef. There's not even peanut butter. Ramsey suggested dumplings, but rudimentary inquiries of the sample lady at E-Mart indicate that they all contain "gogi". I can buy tofu...but then I eat it with pasta. My body seems to be on to this, and is calling my bluff. 2 hours ago, I felt uncomfortably full and bloated after noodles & tofu. Now I'm feeling hungry & shaky. What will I do about it? Um...have cereal? Perhaps Costco can come to my rescue. (I'm already going over budget on groceries every week--just what I need is to buy a membership to pay inflated prices for imported food) In the meantime...I sprang for the $4 jar of spaghetti sauce.

And speaking of consumption, I also signed up for a cell phone today. I had the afternoon off, and thought it would be nice to have a phone for a long weekend of meeting people for this and that. I guess 1 out of 2's not bad. There were a number of free phones to choose from (a nice surprise). Some really did not appeal to me. One of them looked--and felt--like an '80s pocket cassette recorder. It even had buttons on the side. I felt like I should be shoving it in someone's face as I chase them down the street. Naturally, that was the one available today. The one that really called to me (another surprise--I'd browsed some phones in Seattle just to see what I liked and the result was "nothing") is out of stock, so they'll mail it to my school next week. Because of the holiday, it's going to take longer than usual. I considered taking the cassette one--after all, you can watch tv on it!--but after going 6 weeks without a phone--make that 33 years and 6 weeks--being stuck with one I hate for an entire year just to have it my hot little hand TODAY seemed stupid. So 'round about next Thursday, I'll have the one I truly want. A little uplift to comfort me as I start having to teach again. :(

Meanwhile, I continue to feather my nest via the "dollar" store (my term, not theirs). I've been twice this week, resulting in a mixing bowl (pancakes ahead!), a stainless steel bowl & lid for leftovers (which I really like--if it turns out to actually be all that, I may head home with a few), and a laundry hamper, along with mundane stuff like pot scrubbers, envelopes, and packaging tape. I'm very glad I noticed the laundry hamper--I'd figured to spend around $15 on a plastic one, but this is one of those mesh ones for $2...and since it's collapsible, I can even bring it home with me. I'm sort of developing a "dollar store wish list"...good God, what's happened to me? Trying to quell the urge to buy humorous wastebaskets for everyone. But if you want one, by all means, let me know!

On Being an Immigrant

2009-09-29T03:31:00.000-07:00

I may have to edit this post several times...it's one I've been meaning to write for weeks now, and it's hard to keep all the points I want to make top of mind. Especially since, as usual, I can't find the piece of paper where I've been jotting blog ideas. The bottom line is, I've gained a lot of sympathy and understanding for people who come to the US from other countries and act in ways we Americans think are inexplicable or insular.

First, let me say that if you're worried about threats to the hegemony of the English language, fear not. Imagine if all the road signs in the US were in English, Spanish, and French. Ditto for all the mass transit signs, airport signs, restroom signs, etc, etc. Imagine that everywhere you went, restaurant menus were bi- or trilingual, and so were many groceries, advertisements, and maps. All the signs in McDonald's and Brueggers were translated. Spanish was cool among the younger generation, and everyone wore t-shirts and hats with Spanish phrases on them. Now imagine that the US government was spending massive amounts of money to bring in Spanish speakers from all over the world to ensure that every American school child had at least 7 years of Spanish teaching. Some of these things are the case in certain cities. Koreans live with this reality every day, but show no signs of ceasing to speak Korean, despite their cities being maggoty with expats who can count off their Korean vocabulary with digits to spare.

When I made plans to come here, I assumed that I would be reasonably fluent in Korean at the end of a year. I realize now that that's highly unlikely. I haven't met any way-gooks yet who can do more than interpret simple signs and directions, and these are the ones who've been here several years. The reasons for this are many, the most obvious being that learning a new language is hard. Especially when it's really different from your mother tongue. People do it, of course, but it takes a lot of time, and you still have to conduct your life in the interim. Learning a foreign language in situ is extra difficult because your brain is so heavy with a deluge of new stimulus. When you can't even wipe your bum without wondering how, learning a whole new system of communicating is tremendously demanding. Talking is one of the most vital functions of our existence--we do it more than just about anything else, and use it for an incredible array of functions. In our home country, we have the luxury of speaking almost automatically, or worrying about "How do I best phrase this?" rather than "Can I phrase this at all?". To suddenly have to plan, rework, and devise alternate means of conveyance for everything you need to communicate is exhausting.

This, too, when you're already exhausted by everything else. Immigration forces you back to the early stages of your life, and the early stages of human history. You're a child again, living in a society where you don't know the rules, the mores, or the means of carrying out basic transactions. The world is a baffling place. To get anything done, you need someone to help or to do it for you, and the difference this time is that you don't have a mom who instinctively wants to look after you. You're also a caveperson again, spending a great deal of energy on meeting basic needs. The accustomed ease of mulling over eating plans, knowing where to go to make them happen, actually finding what you expect, and routinely procuring/preparing it is gone. Instead, you have to hunt, forage, devise, improvise, and settle every time you want to eat. Think of a meal you regularly make. Are the ingredients sold in this country? Where? Will you recognize them if you encounter them at a store? Do they taste the same? Do they have unexpected components? Are they considered a luxury item with a price tag to match? Do you actually have the necessary tools to prepare them? And what's more, what are the local customs for shopping? How are you expected to behave in the store? What rules and procedures are there that have never occurred to you? What services are available, and which cost extra? If all this makes your head explode, there are always restaurants. But those, too, have a list of questions just as long.

And these lists extend into every corner of your life. I still don't know if I'm sleeping between the right layers of bedding. I felt proud of myself last week for taking out the trash, but I'm not sure which receptacle to throw it in if I'm in public. When there are announcements in public places, I can't act on the information unless someone mimes for me what to do. I can't ask questions about anything I buy, nor can I read ingredients. Communicating non-routine needs to a cashier is nearly impossible, telling a taxi driver where I live is fraught with complication, and calling any establishment for information is simply not an option. At work, I'm limited to rudimentary conversation with my co-workers, and I'm often a source of levity for them--sometimes I know why, sometimes not. On top of all this (and realizing that I've likely forgotten several of my favorite examples), simply everything is unfamiliar. I'm surrounded by new faces, new styles, new sounds, new tastes, and new expectations, and I have none of my usual refuges available. It wears me out.

Being around other Americans is relieving. For that amount of time, I can speak without thinking (as it were), share frames of reference, seek and give assistance, feel confident that I'm behaving acceptably, appear intelligent, and make my needs known. I can connect with my identity.

I can also appreciate the need to keep that identity alive if I were to stay here long-term (don't worry, Mom, I'm not going to). If, in some parallel universe, I married a Korean man and had Korean children, and made a home in Korean society, America would still be important to me. I would want to speak English to my children. I would want them to know what Thanksgiving was like, and how peach pie tastes, and what to do with a fork & knife. I would want to sing the songs I know with them and read them my favorite books, and serve them grilled cheese or peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. I would want to decorate for Halloween and maybe even have a carpet. No matter how assimilated I got, there would still be things in America that I loved and missed and wished for. It wouldn't be a slap in the face of Korean culture, it would be an acknowledgement of the things I've valued and enjoyed for decades.

And so too for the immigrants in the United States.

1000 Words=A Picture

2009-09-24T04:22:00.000-07:00

It's another night at home by myself, but I'm gearing up for a wild weekend. My district has a training session after school tomorrow, where they'll give me a mentor (here's hoping she's helpful!), then I have a party to go to; plans to see a palace (which I may put off...we'll see) and check out Seoul Drum Festival on Saturday; hike & shopping on Sunday. And 2 Skype calls scheduled to folks at home. I got on Skype this week, and it is a wonderful thing. Free internet-to-internet, 2 cents/minute if you want to call a phone. And chatting--I've actually never chatted online before. Bantering with my loved ones is so nice, and the time just flies; I really have to be vigilant that I don't live on the computer. I'm going to wear this thing out!

I'm finishing up a week of teaching personality adjectives and shopping vocabulary. It seems so limiting to teach just one phrasing for every situation, but any more than that is just overload. After my first class on Monday, I halved the vocabulary list, and it still feels like I'm flying through it. I hope I'm not just teaching vocab all the time...it's about the driest thing you can do. For shopping, we focused on "Do you have any _______?", "In aisle 7 (or whatever)", and "How much is this?" For personality, we covered optimistic, pessimistic, generous, selfish, bossy, stubborn, confident, responsible, loyal, curious, artistic, and honest. I doubt they'll retain much, but I suppose any exposure increases receptivity later. The 9th graders don't give a damn and keeping the room quiet enough for me to be heard at all is a losing battle. If I were a bit more experienced, I'd want to be involved in curriculum development. I don't know how things go in elementary school, but the middle school syllabus is so scattershot, it's amazing the kids know anything.

I found a small version of E-Mart down the street from me tonight. I still think I prefer HomePlus, but being able to walk there easily counts for a lot. And for $5, I can have my own bag of Peanut M&Ms. It might be worth it. Although I got paid today, and while it's true there is no tax, there are an insane amount of other deductions. I'm wondering if I'll actually have enough money to do anything at all this year. Anyway, I'm hoping to stay true to my convictions and shop at local groceries where possible. The thing I like best about E-Mart and Home Plus is that they put prices on everything. Once I have a sense of what things cost, maybe I'll have more confidence in getting things around the corner. It's still really hard to buy food when I don't know what any of it is, and can't read the directions to prepare it, but that's a topic I want to cover more in-depth in another post. Got some broccoli tonight, more cereal, and a big box of marshmallow pies that came with a bonus box of chocolate ones. Had one for dessert and they're actually really good...many sweets are a disappointment because they don't taste the way I expected them to. Also picked up a package of Post-It flags and made a graphic representation on my fridge of how long I'll be here, one flag for every week. I have to see things to get my head around them, and this will give me a tangible way of marking time. I've been here an entire month already! Incredible.

So, anyway, here's another collection of observations, in no particular order (or maybe the order in which I find the scraps of paper I wrote them on):

I see now why blond kids get so much attention in Asia. A cute, blond boy of around 7 was coming down the stairs at the subway station the other day. It took a few moments for me to realize why I was staring at him.

"Gook" (spelled phonetically) in Korean means "country". "Way gook" is any foreigner; "me gook" is an American. The ethnic slur comes from American soldiers who heard the Koreans saying this often.

Pale skin is considered beautiful here. Women go to all kinds of lengths to avoid sunlight--you'll see them with umbrellas or holding up papers; I saw one girl whose boyfriend was walking with his hands shielding her face. Old ladies wear white foundation; it looks just as ghastly as the old ladies in the US who put their makeup on with a putty knife.

Korean adults don't do shorts much. In fact, they seem to dress without much regard for the weather, and you'll even see little kids in long sleeves when it's 85 degrees and insanely muggy. They have fancy outfits for hiking that they wear year round, so when I'm dissolving in a pool of sweat with bare arms & legs, they're in black pants, long-sleeved pullovers, and scarves. These are always immaculate, and the women have their makeup done, too.

A sound I'm getting used to is the vegetable trucks with PAs. It must be a recording because they all sound the same, but they drive around in tiny blue pickups with their message blaring.

There's some kind of ROTC or something training in my area...probably connected with the university. Suddenly, there are soldiers everywhere, and I hear them shouting and drilling and slamming doors on their troop wagons just outside. They line up on the steps of the mega-church outside my window. Military service is compulsory in Korea...maybe they're new recruits.

All in all, I'm glad I look different. People instantly understand why I'm clueless, and are generally pretty helpful. When I was struggling to explain the problem with my alarm clock at the HomePlus customer service counter, a 20something Korean woman stopped and translated for me. Last night on the subway, the train I was on was going out of service, but of course the announcement meant nothing to me. An old lady with a bag of chestnuts beckoned to me as she exited; I was a bit slow on the uptake but the penny dropped when a younger guy started waving me out, too. I suppose I would have figured it out when all the lights went off, but it's nice that they were thinking of me.

My proximity to biker bars in Rochester means I deal with a lot of loud pipes...and interrupted phone conversations, missed television/radio dialogue, bolting cats. Here, they don't have Harleys, but a plethora of these bikes that sound like a jackhammer in a well. I may have a different outlook on those Harleys by the time I hear them again.

You see pictures of people wearing face masks in Asia, and it's true. You can buy masks with floral designs or smiley faces, or cartoon characters for the kids, even tiny ones with bears and things for your baby. I got one as a promotional item the other day, the way American companies might hand out pens or bottle openers.

I knew Korea was on the metric system, but I didn't realize that the unit "dozen" is meaningless here. Eggs come in packs of 10 or 15. Dunkin' Donuts is everywhere, but if you want a box, it means 10. And speaking of unquestioned paradigms, you get paid on the same date of the month regardless of the day on which it falls. I keep trying to make my paydays all Friday, but they're not.

The hardest thing about being a vegetarian here (other than not having much to eat) is not being able to try all the awesome street food available. They've got these corn dogs with french fries in the batter that I'm just dying to taste.

I have a weakness for subways. I was thoroughly smitten with the London Underground, and expected that to be the case here as well. While I more or less enjoy riding the subway, I have none of the attachment and affection I felt for the Tube, or the excitement of riding in Toronto, New York, or Paris. Not sure whether that's an era in my life that's passed, or if it's the soullessness of the Seoul Metro. The trains are generic and there's nothing interesting about the stations...no incredible tile work, no wooden escalators, no bricked-over steam vents. And there's no point playing "spot the rat", my favorite waiting game. It's just very functional.

Wedding halls are absolutely everywhere, and the architecture is a marriage of Cinderella's castle and the Haja Sofia. They're monstrous and can be spotted from a significant distance. They make good navigation aids. I have to remember to take photos of random stuff like that.

I keep thinking I'll post more fractured English, but the phrases are so nonsensical that they're tricky to remember. I see weird statements on t-shirts just about daily. I did discover today that the cracker "sand" I bought when I was first here was not a fluke...you can get all kinds of "sand" at E-Mart. I don't know whether the "wich" was too hard to transliterate or if it was simply forgotten. My award for this month, though, goes to the male university student I saw on the subway, wearing a baseball cap and tattered jeans and cool in every way, except that his t-shirt said "If you think I'm cute, you should see my mommy."

Lemonade again, etc.

2009-09-23T06:01:00.000-07:00

Tonight actually turned out quite nice. I've spent the last couple evenings close to home and wanted to get out today, but my suggestion yielded no takers. Wasn't really sure where I wanted to go, debated doing nothing, but after an hour or so at home I couldn't stand it any more. So I opened my Seoul map, picked a spot downtown that I haven't been yet, threw a few things into my backpack, and off I went. I decided I would walk around between City Hall and the Myeongdong area (there's a European-style cathedral, among other things, that seemed worth checking out), and was still debating where I'd get off the subway as I rode. When I got to the City Hall stop, however, I walked in the opposite direction.

In London, I was under some sort of Chinese food curse--whenever I decided to get a takeaway, the Chinese restaurants all disappeared. Here, it seems to be a pizza curse. I've been hankering for pizza since the first week, but haven't had one yet. A big part of this is poor decision making. Every time I'm thinking of getting pizza, I go downtown, where it's touristy and expensive. And then just can't bring myself to spend $14 or more for something I can get for $7 in my own neighborhood. I was considering it, though, and actually walked into a Mr. Pizza, figuring overpaying was better than walking around hungry and unhappy. Their pizzas, however, are $23. No way.

A couple hundred yards down the street, however, was the New York Deli stand, with a takeout window and a translated menu. 3-cheese sandwich? I'll do it! And throw in an order of banana toast...I don't know what it is, but how can you go wrong? The guy spoke really good English (although I still muttered rather dumbly at him--I feel like a creep coming to Korea and waiting for the natives to speak my own tongue to me), and he gave me half of a huge nectarine to eat while I waited...mmm, mmm good! I carried my food to the Cheonggyecheon, one of my favorite places in Seoul. Parked myself next to the stream and enjoyed my dinner. The comforting indulgence of spongy white bread has worn off. I'm ready for some real stuff (and have to wonder why I balk at paying more than 1100 won for a loaf of bread when I spend $3 or more at home to get good stuff). They did a nice job with the sandwich, though, and the banana toast was a delight--like a banana sandwich, cut into 9ths with a dollop of cream and a dab of chocolate sauce on each piece. Gotta go back for more of that!

Sat by the stream longer than I intended. I love the running water, and, unlike my neighborhood, which just feels noisy and seedy, the busy-ness of downtown feels vibrant and exciting. A busker sang John Denver songs, and was good enough that I dropped some money in his collection box. I was tired by this point, and ready to head home, but thought I'd just take a quick walk around the cool gardens I saw on my first day here. Turns out they were having a free outdoor concert. Sat and watched a symphonic band play Champs Elysees and a song I heard on I Love Lucy. It was just exactly what I wanted to be doing. Listened to the whole concert and wanted to stay out longer, but it is a school night. I'll have to make a night out part of my regular routine. 48 weeks of exploring the city piece by piece should take me pretty far.

Other stray events:
My co-teacher asked me today how my classes were going. I told her it gets better all the time, but I still need to fix something because the students aren't interested. She said even if I do fix something, the students are not likely to ever be interested. I'm wondering whether to concede this. There are maybe 3 in each class who pay attention because they are the dutiful type, and the rest range from out of control to comatose. I have not yet exhausted all of my considerable ingenuity, as Dumbledore would put it, but have been in this world long enough to have a measure of realism. So what CAN I do? How do I walk the line between cynical resignation and touching optimism?

I finished The Watsons Go To Birmingham-1963, a superb childrens' book that I've been meaning to read for a few years. I highly recommend it for all ages, although if your kid reads it, be ready for some heavy discussion. It's the story of a black family in Flint, MI, who drive to Alabama to visit their grandmother and are there for the church bombing that actually happened. There are 15 chapters in the book, and the bombing doesn't happen until Chp 14, so there's a lot of regular kids' book before it gets intense. And even then, the author crafts it very skillfully, so you only have to deal with as much as you can understand. He does a great job getting inside the head of Kenny, the 10-year-old narrator, and framing things as a kid would interpret them. The language is a delight, and the first 13 chapters are a funny and fun read. The last two are really well done--it's easy to see why this book became an instant classic, widely read in American elementary schools. Next up was going to be Blue Highways, one of my reading list selections (and one of my Cortez library sale finds), but I'm leaning toward Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows instead. I haven't read it since it was released 2 years ago (when I stayed up half the night in the Downtown Hostel, then spent the entire next day moving from bench to bench in Bowring Park in St. John's), so I'm eager to get back into it and see what I missed. It's almost--almost--like having a new Harry Potter to enjoy.

And speaking of St. John's...I was thinking again tonight that I really liked everything I did, but having someone along to talk to and enjoy it with would have added a measure of real joy, and sent me home with a bit of a buzz on. The old love=happiness equation. But I keep thinking of Newfoundland and how that just screws everything up. I was all alone all over that island--twice--but still had plenty of buzz. I was smitten, joyous, delighted, enraptured, and any other word you can think of. Makes me wonder about past lives, cosmic energy, and forces beyond our ken. Of course I set to work straightaway on getting others to come back with me, so maybe it wasn't that far outside the paradigm after all. Anyone wanna go to Newfoundland in a year or two?

The Hard & The Easy

2009-09-22T01:49:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to do a "what I've been up to" post, but can't seem to gather my thoughts enough to make it happen. Decided today would be the day. Now there are Korean men all over my apartment drilling holes and opening cupboards. Not sure what half the stuff is for. At least I'm here; I'd be slightly weirded out if I came home and found all this. The perils of a brand-new apartment.

Ever so slowly, I feel like I'm settling in. Still feel large amounts of dread on my way to school in the morning, but classes aren't that bad. I'm still pretty inept, but also feel like the first light of dawn is appearing in my mind. I can do this, and do it well, I just don't know how yet. My lessons this week are not exciting, but (with a little help from my friends) they are fairly focused and possibly even useful. Besides refining my lesson-writing, I need to learn to deal with exceptions. I scrapped the plan for one class today and gave them dictation because their behavior was so awful. I don't really foresee this changing much, though, so will need an effective way of dealing with it in future. It's the age-old problem--it's not fair to the kids who do want to learn to have them on "punishment plans" all the time, but carrying on in the midst of a cafeteria atmosphere is annoying and difficult for everyone, and it makes me look like a buffoon. Then there's also the issue of the really good classes--I'd like to do something really engaging with them--and having a stable of good activities for when the lesson's done before the class period is. On top of it all, I'd like to be more "ahead of the beat"...having priorities and addressing them rather than teaching the arbitrary language feature I'm assigned each week. I want to work more pronunciation practice into my plans, since that's the most significant point of difference between me and the Korean teachers.

On a more fun note, I got the heck out of Seoul this past weekend--much sooner than I'd expected to. Lonely Planet says precious little about Sokcho, and I had my objectives lined up accordingly...use Sokcho as a gateway and get into Seoraksan National Park as quickly as possible. Fortunately, that's not what happened. Sokcho is certainly not glamorous, but there's enough to do there to make it a destination in its own right, and it's immensely likeable. Maybe a little like Rochester. All Ramsey & I kept saying was how good it felt to be there. It's quieter, smaller, more personable, more open than Seoul. You can cross the street without a light. People kept stopping to talk to us and give us directions, and one lady, when she heard we wanted to go to the beach, just gave us a ride. There was some kind of street party going on--the main street was closed to traffic and lined with booths and people were singing and hamming it up on a big stage while a crowd in plastic chairs clapped and hooted. Add some blond hair and it could have been Iowa. Teaching there would mean sacrificing some of the expat support network, but maybe that wouldn't be so bad...it definitely seemed a place I could live. Like NYC I suppose, Seoul is a fun adventure, and obviously people do make a life there, but it's a bit too jarring for me to deal with on a permanent basis. Plus, set between dramatic mountains and a real sand beach with waves, Sokcho is awfully inviting.

The practicalities of the trip were a piece of cake, too. Buses leave from Seoul every 15 minutes, so you can show up at the terminal whenever and be on your way almost immediately. The ticket is the equivalent of $13 (it's approximately a 3-hour trip), the bus is comfy, the drive is scenic, and it's all rather enjoyable. As far as accommodation, I was prepared for anything, but for 30 bucks (the standard rate all over Korea), you get a room that's not significantly different from what you'd find in Europe, and possibly better appointed. There's A/C, a mini fridge with complimentary water in it, soft (if small) towels, and an array of toiletry products on the dresser. In some places, you sleep on the floor, but that's not as brutal as it sounds, just the way Koreans traditionally did it.

Seoraksan was misty and pretty; my second encounter with Korean hiking. Koreans LOVE to hike, so the trails are always extremely busy, but also very well-maintained. We went to Ulsanbawi, an incisor of rock bursting from the landscape that's scalable only with rope and harness. Until they built a staircase on it. Maybe it's a different attitude toward these things, or maybe it's just that most of the eminences in this country are ridiculously steep, but Koreans don't let forbidding landscape deter them from going where they want to go. Cables, ropes, and stairs are a fundamental part of hiking here. So are stores and food stands. There's an element of Disneyland in Korean nature...we kept wondering who trucks all those supplies up there. You can truly get away from it all, but you have to hike in a significant distance, probably more than a day. Offsetting all of this is the temples. I believe it's because Buddhism has a rocky history here, and temples were for a long time banished from population centers, but you don't have a park without a temple. And even though they're crawling with people, they are places of prayer and worship, and they do have a bit of mystique surrounding them, so you can be still and connect with it all if you want to.

Two days after the climb, my calves are still a bit stiff, but as grueling as these trails are, you routinely pass grannies and small children, so I'd better get myself in shape.

The Existentialism of Place

2009-09-18T06:22:00.000-07:00

It's becoming my Friday night tradition to get lost. After reading, eating, and (now) net surfing, I set out to get some exercise and see what's around. I usually walk for about 2 hours, enough time to cover good ground, and it really helps to piece together my concept of the surrounding area. Living near 2 major universities means I can usually find signs pointing me back, and I always take my T-Money card, so if I ever get truly off track, I can just find a subway station and have myself delivered back to familiar ground. Tonight I discovered tombs not very far away, found a park I've been eyeing on the map for a while, and located a Mexican restaurant within easy walking distance. Not bad.

Walking also gives my mind a chance to cut loose and let my impressions roll around and settle. I was pondering the nature of happiness tonight...what are the essential ingredients, levels of intensity, etc. I like my apartment. I'm never at a loss for things to do at home (my Seoul home), and my time here always goes quickly. I don't, however, feel joy at being here, as I do in my Rochester home. That apartment is more comfortable and provides more comfort (2 different things); the aesthetics are more soul-nourishing. It is a place where friends and family come and go. The cats live there, and their personalities infuse life into the place; interactions with them punctuate my time there and give rise to little explosions of delight that are addictive. So is it love that gives rise to happiness? I am not unhappy in Seoul, but delight seems a precious commodity. Is a completed circuit of affection a missing link? I looked at the married couples at Orientation, and realized how different this experience would be with an emotional home port at hand. For that matter, how different is the experience of Life when you have an emotional home port?

Familiarity, too, gives a sense of well-being. My interest in Seoul, and Korea, at this point is completely intellectual. Navigating a new culture is interesting, and I enjoy seeing different things and spotting differences. The waffles they sell on the subway platform are wonderful, and I think about them all week. But when I'm deciding what to do on a weekend, it's with a bit of a checklist approach. At home, the things I do in my free time, when not the result of someone else's suggestion, are often due to a sudden yearning to be in a particular place. Durand Beach, for instance, is not that empirically special, but is a place I frequently feel drawn to. I love the Lake and the sky and walking on the sand, but a visit there is also a continuation of all the visits in the past. It is where I swam as a kid, where I liked to drive when my license was new, where I watched the leaves change and the sun rise on my way to various jobs, where I went to polka at Oktoberfest, where I took my car to turn 200,000 miles and again for 300,000, where I walk with my Dad and without, where I've skated and frozen and gotten stuck in the snow with Mark, and all these mundane, magical moments that are cumulative and make simply being in that space a joyous occasion.

C.S. Lewis saw joy as proof of the existence of God. While this seems a potentially specious connection, as someone with beliefs tending towards animism, I think of the exhilaration of the aurora borealis or watching 30' waves crash on a beach or a humpback whale doing laps under the Zodiac I'm sitting in, and I have to concede that he may have a point. Maybe god is not so much in the details as in the semantics...we term religious those experiences that put our fingers on the pulse of the universe; for many people that takes the form of a personified God, for others it is simply a sense, an intuition, or something else entirely. And maybe that's why love and memories and cherished places feel so good--they connect us to what is eternal and give us confidence that we have a place in it all. So that is why moving away is so jarring...it's like pulling the plug on your umbilical cord to the Universe.

I'm sure things will soon be different. I was surprised by the pull Denver exerted on me, and I frequently think of London with affection, and I was far more bereft when I initially found myself in those places. I have no doubt that I will enjoy my time in Korea--hell, I already am--and will feel nostalgia for it when I'm home again. The people who've stayed for several years probably felt exactly as I do now. In fact, they probably felt worse because I've been lucky enough to have friends--and knowledgeable ones at that--right away.

I'll be so curious to hear myself in 48 weeks.

How to Eat in a Korean Cafeteria

2009-09-17T06:33:00.000-07:00

Start with the divided plastic tray. These appear to be standard everywhere. Food goes directly on the tray. Pick up your spoon (a cross between a British tablespoon and a sundae spoon) and metal chopsticks (an extra element of fun because they are so slidey).

If it's a good day, there will be a cidery kind of drink or a tea, and paper cups to put it in. This is really a dessert, but if you're a stupid American, you can drink it with your meal.

Next on the line is kimchi--it can be either cabbage or radish, red or white, but it's ALWAYS there. It goes in one of the twin small compartments. In the other one goes whatever chilied-up vegetable of the day there is--it always looks like tempting greens, but is rarely something that can be agreeably chewed & swallowed without immolating your entire digestive system. Occasionally, it is sesame leaves, which are wrapped around a glob of rice in a deft chopstick movement that I can actually sometimes pull off.

If there's no drink, there will be a salad. It's usually mostly cabbage, sometimes mixed with lettuce and served with a super-sweet dressing. The best is when it's fruit (usually mixed with cabbage), although sometimes they will mess with your head by putting chili sauce on the apples.

Now comes the entree. Many days, they will helpfully have the meat & vegetables in separate concoctions, but not always. Sometimes, there are eggs, or these pancakey things with green onions in them. (If you like green onions, this is your country) Many times, there are mushrooms that look like squid. Sometimes it is actual squid. Once, there were tofu cakes, but I guess that's a "once in a while" treat. They're also partial to sticking hot dogs in stuff, so keep an eye out.

At the end of the line, to fill the large round and square spots in your tray, are the soup and the rice. ALWAYS, without fail. (so no matter how hot or meaty the lunch is, there's always rice) The soup is so hot it can kill you, but will often have tofu chunks in it, or seaweed.

Koreans don't drink anything during meals, but if you're a weird American and/or the kimchi vaporizes your skin on contact, there is a filtered-water dispenser and tiny metal cups. Right next to the dishwater rice, next to the door, because they're all meant to be consumed on the way out.

When you're done, you really should put all your uneaten food in your soup bowl, then dump in in a bucket containing a cafeteria concoction far worse than anything you managed in your school days, put your silverware in the dishpan full of water, and stack your tray and soup bowl in the big steel sink.

If you see any cafeteria workers, you might mistake them for a haz-mat team, with full-coverage uniform, bonnet or ludicrously tall chef's hat, apron, and knee-high rubber boots.

The School Skinny

2009-09-17T05:33:00.000-07:00

It occurs to me that I kind of take my teaching scenario for granted, even though most of what they told us about it was news to me at orientation. So this post may be a little dry, but I'll explain the way things work.

The kids have a regular Korean-person English teacher who goes through the textbook and does all the meat & potatoes stuff with them. Then, once a week, I show up along with their regular teacher, to let them hear what English really sounds like. Now that I'm saying that, I'm really not sure why they're paying so much to have me here, but I'm not complaining. The "native" English teacher is not the one who was born here, but the native English speaker. In elementary schools, the native teacher follows the state-supplied textbook and teaches one of the regular lessons. Upper level schools have more freedom, and, fortunately, mine opted not to have me use the textbook (they have a really scattershot approach and are very hard to organize around). So I have 21 classes/week, each of whom I see once, and I do practical stuff with them--shopping, talking on the phone, asking directions. My job is to model pronunciation and supply practical phrases that people really use (like many language textbooks, this is a major weakness: asking the kids "How are you?" invariably yields a mechanical "I am fine, thank you", and every time I thank one of my co-teachers for anything, he responds, "Don't mention it").

Our middle school has 7th-9th grades, but they are called 1st-3rd--in Korea, moving up means starting over. I teach 9 3rd grades, 9 2nd grades, and 3 1st grades (the most advanced). 1st & 2nd graders are split into classes by ability; the 3rd graders are mixed (no idea why). I have 5 different co-teachers (and when I say "different", I really mean it), 3 men and 2 women. 2 of the guys are really nice and have good control of the class, 1 woman has a personality sort of like mine, really, and has no control of the kids, and the remaining 2 are scary & routinely whack kids with their sticks. I didn't know any of their names until someone redid my schedule & anglicized the names. The scary woman is also the head English teacher, so she can boss me around if she wants to. Of all the co-teachers, we're supposed to have one who is mainly in charge of us and answers all our questions and tells us what to do and is basically your Korean mom. Mine is actually a 6th person, whom I don't have any classes with, but she's really nice and helpful. I call her by her English name, Terrie, but apparently no one else does because when I referred to her this way to another teacher, I got a blank look.

I don't know what the other teachers call each other because I can't understand them, but I refer to the others as Mr. or Ms. whatever, except for the head teacher, whom I call "son sang nim", the Korean term of respect. The kids don't address teachers by name, calling them all "son sang nim" and me just "teacher". Occasionally, they will remember my name, in which case I am "Muh-lee-sah". I don't know any of their names, and I'm not expected to. The first week, I was going to have them introduce themselves until I realized I have 600 students and no hope of remembering anything. From what I can tell, the Korean teachers don't know their names, either...I think they all have a chair number and go by that. When we talked of making small, mixed-ability groups in each class, the teachers were going to have to look at the kids' test scores to see who knows their stuff. I am getting to know the kids in EEP, but cannot remember their names to save my life. Not a problem I'm used to having! And no one ever calls them the "kids", it's always "students".

After doing group work with some of the classes, I really understand why we were warned that it would be difficult. These kids are never asked to do anything in class but sit and pay attention, and they either go nuts or clam up when the paradigm is changed.

Instead of the teachers having a room of their own and the kids moving around, it is the opposite. I have a cubicle in an office with 5 other teachers, 2 of whom teach Social Studies (I don't know why the other English teachers aren't in there...it would be so convenient). I have to carry all my supplies to each class & back, and if I use a PowerPoint or other computer thing, I have to have it on a USB and hope the computer in the classroom works. The classroom computers are kept locked, and turned on & off between every period. One of the kids is the keeper of the key, so I have to locate that kid, and then usually get to spend a few minutes standing in front of the class waiting for the computer to boot up and recognize my USB. Not that starting promptly is a big thing. The first day or two, I conscientiously got to my classes before the bell rang, so everything would be ready to go right on time. But then Mr. Kwon, who's the friendliest and most helpful, told me to relax a bit...you don't actually leave for class until the bell has already rung (or the music has played, rather). And if I have consecutive classes in adjacent rooms...I still go to the office and hang out in between.

For lunch, there's a separate cafeteria for the teachers that serves better food. (I'm told...one of those soggy, square #46 school pizzas sounds pretty appealing right now, with the plastic tray of canned fruit, and a peanut butter & jelly bar...but I digress) Other differences...the library is only open after school (a royal pain); I want to bring in a picture of the cats to put on my desk, but nobody else has anything of the sort; there are always puddles of water on the floor (this probably isn't an all-around Korean thing, but who knows); and the teachers take no responsibility for the kids outside of class--they can throw rocks, run through the halls, shove people, whatever, and it doesn't faze anyone. Several times, I've heard a tremendous commotion and expected everyone to go running, but nobody blinks.

My favorite part, of course, is the full-length mirrors at the front of every classroom, 'cause I LOVE looking at myself and especially watching myself do things.

Score!

2009-09-17T05:23:00.000-07:00

Lonely Planet China new at Borders: $30
Lonely Planet China when I'm not sure whether I'm going there: a risky investment
Pre-grubbed up copy of Lonely Planet China from the used bookstore down the street: $5 :)
Not exactly priceless, but enough to make my day!

Huh?

2009-09-17T05:16:00.000-07:00

I do not get it. This is why computers frustrate me so much, because they are completely inexplicable and unintuitive. We had EEP, the evening program, tonight, and one of the other "native" teachers showed me how to set up the internet for automatic configuration at home. Cool. I'm typing from my living room/bedroom/dining room/kitchen. But he also had me write down the school's IP address because apparently I will have to enter this manually to have internet tomorrow morning. This makes no sense at all to me. If the computer can automatically find my home internet, why can't it do the same at school? Just asking.

I feel like the snail in the well from elementary-school math problems, the one who covered half the distance out every day. We'd dutifully do all the calculations and then the teacher would explain that it was a trick question, and the snail was never going to get out. At least covering half the distance every day keeps me temporarily placated. And if I'm always placated until tomorrow...

Dear Me,

2009-09-14T05:45:00.000-07:00

I've been on the computer ALL evening. I had intended to read a chapter from "A Practical Handbook of Language Teaching", a super-useful book, but I started it and couldn't focus. The computer was calling. I was able to justify not going for a walk on the grounds that I have a cold or something (please don't let my school think it's swine flu!), but I really could use some exercise and my legs are getting pretty stiff after a pretty stiff hike yesterday. But it's almost 10 and I MUST get proper sleep tonight. That, and if I had a nice leafy 'round the block to do, I'd be out in a flash, but cement & steel & flashing lights are no damn good for me, to borrow from a song.

I fear this blog is turning into a platform for broacasting the kinds of meaningless comments we normally inflict on our familiars. (or pets) In the absence of any familiars, blogging allows me to indulge in the imagined relevance of passing thoughts. I have the sniffles and want to pick apples, and you're all on a need-to-know basis. Right. Hopefully the novelty of home internet will wear off before long, and I won't be too long gone from my weekly ritual of walking to the university.

I have to keep reminding myself it's still early in my journey (though when I tot up how long 'til homecoming, I need no reminders). Just like the internet frustration has magically disappeared, so too will other sources of vexation, and suddenly, I'll be living a normal life. Which'll be just about the time all my friends go home. It's sort of like being in prison...we're all here with a set time to serve, and when people's time is up, they go away. I need to keep cultivating friendships with my orientation group, since they're all stuck here as long as I am.

I also have to allow myself some slack. I just started my second week of teaching; it's unrealistic to think I'd be an expert yet. It feels like it's been a while, like I shouldn't be coming up with these dull and unfocused lesson plans, but it's only my second attempt. I do need to get better, though. I have 2 plans for this week, one for the "high" kids and one for the "low" kids. My only directive is to teach using storybooks. Teach what? Well, that's up to me, I suppose. And I'm basically using a dartboard method of deciding. My lessons haven't been total disasters, but for next time, I need to work on having a point. And getting the kids to care about it. I knew this was going to be really hard, and it is. I was looking for kids' stories on the internet, and I found this little book about a girl who caught alligators sneaking in in the night and messing everything up. She went to complain to some wise person about it, and the reply was that because of the alligators, she knew how to do a lot of things. I'm trying to keep the alligators in mind...it would be nice to go through life without any trials, but then I wouldn't know how to do anything, and what satisfaction is there in that? Hard times are always better in hindsight, but they have to be "now" sometime, and all you can do is plow through them. I long for the comfort of an undemanding job, but if I had that, I'd be longing for the fulfillment of authentic effort. Just trying to keep myself on track and my life in perspective.

One thing I miss that I didn't anticipate was the rhythms of the year. If I were home now, I would be picking apples, and parking myself on the floor in front of a football game to peel & dice them for applesauce & pie. I'd be planning a trip to Naples for a hike and cookies. I'd be going to Netsin's as many times as I could before they close, and maybe sneaking in walks to the new Donuts Delite/Salvatore's to see if they have pumpkin fried cakes. I'd be watching the changing leaves of my front-window tree, and the changing vegetables in my CSA share. I'd have "Halloween decor" written on my calendar a couple Saturdays from now. But none of that matters here, and it leaves me adrift in a much more subtle, yet fundamental, way. Will it all come rushing back when I get home? Or will I be out of step again, "coming home to a place I'd never been before" in a different sense than what John Denver meant?

I guess none of it really matters, though. I've got 49 weeks to live in Seoul, and if my mind is perpetually in New York, I'm never really here. And if that's the case, then all the struggle is wasted and I might as well just go home now. Despite what I may think, I really DON'T want to do that.

I would like a pumpkin fried cake, though.

WOO HOO!!

2009-09-14T01:44:00.001-07:00

Well, this trumps all. I have a real backlog of blog topics since I haven't had much time lately to sit and commit my thoughts to cyberspace, but the big news of today is that I'm online at home. Blogging live on the internet, in my own room! This is a happy occasion indeed. I don't have my personal computer sorted yet--I brought the school's home--but just the fact that I can access the internet on my own, for free, is enough lift for today. Wonder how much I'll get done tonight.

Little by little, things come together. I got my settlement allowance on Friday. They told us we'd get it during the first week. It only happened because I told my co-teacher I didn't have any money and she pulled some strings. So, finally, I can relax a little. Just a little, but it feels good. Friday night, I went on a shopping spree. All the things that have been annoying me in my apartment can now be rectified. Started slowly with the $10 coat tree I've been eyeing at the shop down the street. Came home & put it together (no tools required, fortunately). It lists, but at least if I have a wet jacket, I don't have to lay it on the bed or hang it next to my good suit. Had to consciously remember that I can leave plastic bags on the floor without fear of anyone smothering.

Next stop, the little grocery store. They don't post prices, though, so I'm really uneasy about shopping there. Decided I need to find a new store. So I set off walking in a direction I haven't been. Not much useful for a while. Finally came across Lotte Mart, a sort of Wal-Mart meets Marshall Field in Korea. It was 8pm. They were closing. Still can't make sense of that, but whatever. Instead, struck oil at a "dollar" store next door. I'm still pleased as punch about this. For $20, I got:
--a paring knife
--a wooden spoon
--a frying spatula (splurged on the $3 one for the nice, round handle!)
--a plate
--a cute bath towel with elephants on it
--a mat to dry dishes on, shaped like a fish
--9 hangers, sturdier and cheaper than the ones at the store down the street
--a little present for Ramsey, for loaning me money and giving me food
--a cutting board, shaped like an apple
--a can opener
--and, gratuitously, a bookend that looks like a cute cat

Then, for whatever reason, I kept on down the street and found--cue music of wonder--a Tesco HomePlus. It had a bunch of Korean writing on it and the number 24--does that mean what I think it means? It does!! 4 beautiful floors of *mission accomplished*! 2nd floor--a new USB, so I don't have to subject my personal one to the hard use and promiscuity of daily classes; 3rd floor--birthday present for Mark, and quirky Chinese alarm clock (though this might have to go back--I can't figure out how to turn off the alarm, and the Korean directions I had my co-teacher read today refer to a non-existent switch...more miming & ineptitude in my future); basement--groceries! "Corn Flight" (you know them as Frosted Flakes) with a jaunty lion on the front and a free pack of colored pencils (yay!), chocolate chip cookies (almost $3 for what turns out to be 12 individually-wrapped cookies--boo), butter ('cause I'd used up the packets I got at Outback when they threw a few extra breads in with my leftovers), oj with a sample of grape juice taped on (this is big here), and crackers (also in micro-packs inside the box, but I'm quite self-satisfied for discerning that they were buy 1 get 1 free). My kitchen is almost properly functional now. And I know where to get Western groceries when I need them. Things are good.

Then the big bonus--I went to a chili party on Saturday night, and my new friend Amanda had gone to Costco and gotten me a welcome gift--a giant slab of cheddar!!!

After the bounty of this weekend, I'd be a damned fool to complain about anything, but I probably will, so watch this space.

2009-09-08T17:15:00.000-07:00

Taco Salad - Korean Apartment Style

Pour purchased filtered water into bowl. Microwave till hot.
Shake in some dehydrated refried beans, which in a previous life, schlepped around the Rockies in some kid’s rented backpack. Stir with spoon because this morning was rushed and fork is dirty.
Tear up a slice of processed cheese (just one—the pack of 14 cost $5*)
Using Swiss Army knife, cut up a tomato on the little styrofoam tray from the bananas. Put the stem in the compost bag in the freezer.
Top with Bugles—corn chips are $5/bag, and tortillas don’t exist.
Decide against adding canned corn…it would be valuable to save it for another meal, and there’s nowhere to put the leftovers anyway.
Rinse off Swiss Army knife and styrofoam to allow slicing of wicked-sale kiwi for dessert.
Sit on sweaty plastic couch & enjoy!

*when I say $5, what I mean is 5,000 won. They’re not exactly equivalent (it’s about 1000 won:80 cents), but dropping 3 zeroes is a handy, and common, way of getting a sense of what you’re spending.

2009-09-07T18:02:00.000-07:00

The glass is half .....?

I’m typing on “my own” laptop again. I’ve been sort of avoiding it on the grounds that if I don’t try to turn it on, it can’t die. I’ve grown quite fond of it, and would miss it for more than just practical reasons. I like it much better than the beast at school. It’s not always cooperative, but, I suppose, neither am I. It’s nice to type on a keyboard that doesn’t have a plastic overcoat, and won’t slip into Hangeul if I hit the wrong key.

Another weekend has come and gone…probably even for you home folks by the time you read this. I spent a large chunk of it acting totally out of character. Friday night, I turned on the tv and got sucked into a biography of Celine Dion that turned out to be 2 hours long. If I’d had to predict what I’d be doing in Korea, it would have taken more than my life span to guess that. She’s actually a really nice, centered person. I spent a lot more than 2 hours with my nose in a detective novel I picked up for 50 cents in the Cortez library. To justify, it’s not just any detective novel, it’s Ian Rankin. I’m on a bit of a Scottish author kick, having let my Alexander McCall Smith absorption lead me to check out this real life author he wrote into one of his books (to say nothing of JK Rowling, whose last book is also on my “soon” list). Both Rankin and McCall Smith write with such a tremendous sense of place, I want to put a big map of Edinburgh on the wall so I can follow the action.

I did get out this weekend, and quite a bit. As plans were being made via Facebook, it looked like a competing jumble of wishes and needs, the kind of thing where there’s so much to do that none of it works out. Instead, the opposite happened. One of my fellow SMOE-ers was trying to organize an outing to the Korean War Memorial Museum. I ended up being the only one who showed, and was worried for a while that she wasn’t going to, but she did, and I was so elated to be talking to a fluent English speaker, I almost didn’t care about the exhibits. (As it was, the exhibits had only very sparse English translation, so it was more a matter of absorbing the gist of it anyway) Looking for an ATM beforehand, I was reminded of possibly my least favorite part about London, namely that the ubiquitous Chinese takeaways would magically disappear whenever I wanted Chinese. There are convenience marts with ATMs on every block in Seoul, but not near the War Museum. Fortunately, it took me less than the 2 hours I’d routinely spend in London to turn one up. I guess my neighborhood really is quite a handy place.

Next moved on to free Korean lessons with Amanda, whom I met last weekend. They were really useful; better taught than the class I went to at Orientation. We went over the Korean alphabet—I have the consonants pretty solidly, but only about half the vowels. The teacher gave us some good mnemonics, though…some flashcard work, and I’ll be a pro. Lessons culminate in a dinner outing, where I was able to reconnect with some SMOE folk, then Amanda & I met Ramsey for tea. The place was awesome—a little nook up some stairs; a floor made of stones with a stream drifting through it and fish swimming by; tables made of stumps. Ramsey & I got carried away telling stories of my cousins/his friends in Illinois, but the taste of home did both of us good. Unfortunately, the tea shop is in a nest of alleys of the sort the mafia might use to conceal their location, so I’ll probably never find it again.

My Korean neighbor just stopped by to give me the password for the newly-erected glass door at the foot of the stairs. I arrived home late last night, laden with groceries, to find it operational, an eventuality I’d been anticipating since they installed it. I punched in every code I could imagine on the keypad, headed back out to call my first co-teacher whose phone number was in my wallet, decided it was too late for that, paced the street for a few minutes, then decided to try knocking. Pounded on the glass door & it slid open like something out of Star Trek. Used a similar strategy when I got home tonight. Wondered if this was how it’s supposed to work. Thankfully, no.

Got acquainted with the world of Korean mass retail on Sunday. Bookstore first—lots of tempting possibilities for my students, all the books helpfully encased in protective plastic, but no money for books, and they’re awfully expensive even if I was funded. Did pick up a used copy of The Watsons go to Birmingham, which I’ve been meaning to read for years. On to E-Mart, every bit the Sunday-afternoon circus you might expect. Made a stupid-foreigner money miscalculation & ended up with $1 remaining to my name. So thankful for all the little things I considered buying and didn’t. At least my fridge doesn’t look so pathetic now that it’s got milk & eggs in it, and “Happy Morning Toast” (aka bread) in the freezer. I was so happy (and lacking anything else), I had corn flakes for dinner last night. 2 bowls!

Another stroke of luck was Ramsey’s 6:30 appointment getting postponed, so our on-again, off-again hiking plans miraculously saw fruition. There’s a small mountain near his house, which we set up near dusk. My jotted notes: “Seoul is big. I am sweaty. Hiking is great.” Superlatives for all. The most amazing thing is, you get a bit of elevation, and though this massive city and all its lights and features stretch out in every direction, you can’t hear it at all. More lights than Manhattan, quieter than Deer Hill. This could be addicting.

There was one minor event yesterday that is my Korean experience in a nutshell. Having eaten my last oatmeal on Friday (and not yet acquired the corn flakes), I was scrounging for breakfast over the weekend. I have granola that I’ve been trying to find yogurt for, but in searching the cupboard for something else, I found a bag of powdered milk I’d forgotten. Perfect! That’ll do for the granola. I poured some in a bowl of water and let it sit. When I returned, it was a little sludgy, but I figured this was ok—it’d be like cream. I stirred in a generous helping of granola. And it was like cream…of wheat. Turns out it wasn’t powdered milk at all, but dehydrated mashed potato. (Oh, the number of times I warned kids about things like this this summer) It was positively nauseating. But I can’t afford to waste food, and I didn’t yet have any food disposal bags, so I made my way through the whole thing. The good news? I’ve been dreaming of mashed potatoes a lot lately, and I have some right in the cupboard!

Everything is a good news/bad news scenario. It’s good training to find the silver lining in everything that makes me groan. It seems like I’ll be here forever…but time is flying by. I only have to write one lesson plan for all my classes…but I’m sick of it after 4 today, and I’ve got 17 more repetitions to go. All I can do is roll with it.