A Different Sort of Flower Festival (G&G)

These will get redundant, but the poppies were... the most populous

Our plastic pins for 11/11 don't really do these justice.

Middleaged foreigner to innocent Korean: "Some can be used to make heroin you know!"

A Jejudo of Sorts…

Medusa Xmas tree at the Glass Castle.

Dinner cruise and a view of the evening coastal rainbow.

Couldn't have done it better myself - colour wheels be damned.

I thought the point of photography was to capture reality... this looks so fake.

Towards the bottom of the falls, a sliver of the intense greenery.

This wouldn't be an album about Jeju without the ocean and a mountain.

Sparkling shallows (unexpectedly protected by really gross bugs in the rocks).

Looks almost as soothing as it sounds.

A Cherry Blossom Festival at Yoido

large crowds around the National Assembly Building

a little song and dance

notice the lovely highway ramp in the background

Recovered, and Wordier than Ever

I think my brain just starting working again. It was on a slow decline since February 23^rd, when SLP preschool began to prepare for our graduation ceremony on the 25^th. There were fits and starts where I thought I might be back on track, but rest assured I took all pains to stamp that right out with two very late, alcohol-infused nights. These romps at a local noraebang and in Itaewon jump-started the cold I was beginning to get last Friday (the 13^th – I should have seen this coming). It’s been an unforgiveable amount of time since I last wrote, but I’m alive and awake again after a very long coma and the words are a-flowin’. You’ve been warned.

So, for the record, and because it’s kind of funny, I’d like to make note of the vigorous measures that were taken to ensure my speedy recovery from one hell of a nasty cold and fever. I was more or less sent home from school on Monday morning after a couple of excruciating hours in the classroom. The lovely new administrator, Sera (who was hired approximately two weeks before Kim and I arrived) insisted that she escort me to the hospital, which had me rather alarmed. I was advised by all the Koreans to get myself to the hospital as soon as possible. Thinking that it was outrageous to go to the hospital for something so inconsequential, I was only convinced into going because I was too weak and cranky to really argue. One short elevator ride down four floors and we were there: it ended up being a regular nose/throat/ears walk-in clinic. On previous outings, Sera had treated me like a precious daughter and so I really didn’t mind being told where to go and what to do by such a benevolent female force. And, one time, she bought me ice cream for being such a good girl.

Much like the initial physical check-up, I was efficiently carted around by nurses to my general confusion and amazement at what was coming next. I was seated in what looked like a dentist’s chair where cameras, thermometers and air-blowers were shoved into my nose, ears and mouth without warning. It felt like it was doing something positive and worthwhile, but the view of the deep recesses of my nasal cavity was perhaps more than I really needed to know. Next, I was off to a small private room and instructed to take down my pants. What? What the hell do the contents of my pants have to do with a head cold and fever? Well, when in Rome… I thought. A lovely nurse came in, slapped my bare skin a few times, stuck me with a needle, slapped me a few more times and was on her way. Oh. A shot in the butt! I’ve always heard about those… Thirdly, I was sat in front of a steaming inhaler where I was supposed to just breathe in the lovely steam for two minutes (counted down on the automatic timer), leaving me with a soaked face but a happily moist throat. I should buy one of those for home. Finally, I was taken down to the pharmacy where I was given a two-day prescription for whatever it was that was wrong with me. Two days later we repeated the whole affair minus the steam inhaler (damn), plus a tiny energy drink containing 2000 mg of taurine provided by Sera, which made me feel like my usual million-dollar self, instantly. I want another one, now.

I’m thanking the Korean medical system, the health benefits I get in my contract, and the always lovely Sera-Teacher for pulling me through my feverish, sinus-headache hell. Some side effects: I remembered that I like my job, I remembered my life outside of my job, I remembered that I used to write a blog, and that I used to have a friend named Kim that lives with me.

Unfortunately for everyone I know, a general sickness still prevails over most people (teachers and students) at SLP right now – whatever’s going around is really doing a thorough job of it. Students walk around with a permanent nasal drip of green snot leaking down their upper lip. Tissue is running out faster than the red colour-pencils. Pathetic, helpless children struggle to keep their heads up until the end of the day, drooling on sleeves during those ephemeral breaks between lessons and snacks and whatever other torture we put the poor buggers through. Kim is coughing, my partner teacher Suny is sniffling, the new-kid on the block Erin is exhausted, and here I am gloating about my wellbeing. We’ll see how I feel in the morning, eh?

Tangible Contentment

as tacky as it is wonderful

Accuracy

I could kill a person if they stood very still and allowed me to aim

Burning It All Out

Some might find this off-putting, but I am an individual who believes in signs. Of course, any reasonable person will believe in regular, man-made signs like “No Left Turns,” or “Toronto – 49 km,” but I am talking about more subtle signs: non-verbal signs or coded signs. Maybe a better word would be message, or a better phrase, a sign from God/the Universe. Right now I can think of only one example from my past where I heeded a sign, and it’s particularly silly, carrying no real weight in terms of morals or important consequences for my life. I’ll tell you the story anyway.

Back in high school, I had very long hair (I’m talking, when it was straight it was reaching my mid-to-lower back) and had been considering cutting off a significant amount before leaving for university. I thought it could be a symbol of a new beginning, or just a change of pace – it is just hair, after all. Anyway, one night during the interim summer between secondary and post-secondary, I was at a party having a grand time with a crowd of old friends, hanging out in the backyard, sitting on the stairs to the above-ground pool. On the night in question, I had put my super-long hair into a ponytail, and idiosyncratically brushed it off my shoulder and into the open space behind me, letting it fall onto my back. Except, it didn’t fall onto my back. It fell into the fiery pit of a citronella candle a few steps above/behind me. Because the candle was about two feet away from my head, I had no notion whatsoever that it instantly caught my hair on fire (aided by the copious amounts of highly flammable hair product that I used at the time). A bright flame burst upwards, threatening to make me a bald woman. Thankfully, everyone at the party noticed what was happening, including one friend standing beside the stairs, who promptly smacked out the blaze growing behind me. I dumped my head into the pool for good measure, but the damage was done. I took this as a pretty obvious sign that I should go ahead and get that haircut. Message received.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, I guess there is a connection between this story and the sign I received today: there is a common theme of me, getting burned in some way or another. About an hour ago, I settled down on the couch with a cup of green tea and The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, a new book purchased this past weekend. I picked up four new novels on Saturday, and was very excited to read them all, but I have a special place in my heart for the dark and moralistic Russians. Earlier this evening after an episode of Flight of the Conchords, I was contemplating moving on to either reading, putting away my laundry, or doing a little writing of some sort. I chose to at least start with the reading and see where it would take me. About three or four lengthy sentences into the chapter, my mug of freshly boiled tea (and I mean, the water was still boiling one minute earlier, when I poured it out of the kettle) capsized and spilled all over the couch, the pillow I was leaning against, and the right side of my lower back/upper bum. I literally screeched with pain, alarming Kim, who had been quietly clicking away at her computer in her room. She rushed in to find me leaping about the living room, tearing off my scalding clothes to reveal a large, bright red blotch of burnt skin that is still humming with heat and pain. I’d say it’s about equivalent to serious sunburn acquired via an accidental nap on the beach. I can just tell it’s going to hurt when I get into bed, and hurt even more when I take a shower in the morning.

Is this a sign that I shouldn’t put my mug on the previously dependable flat couch cushion? Should I switch to another kind of tea; how about caffeine-free buckwheat? Maybe retire my interest in Russian literature? Perhaps… but I am taking this one as a sign that I should probably write something myself, instead of admiring the writing of a genius and then feeling incompetent. So here’s hoping that I interpreted accurately, and will write wonderfully tonight.

At the request of a regular reader whose opinion I respect and appreciate, I may return for a moment to the old-style blog – less of a story, more of a reflection. To paraphrase this person, perhaps I’ll write less about what I’m doing, and write more about how I feel.

Overall? I feel… like an amateur. An amateur teacher, an amateur traveler, and an amateur at life, especially because I am the youngest person I know here besides one foreign teacher (and the students, of course). It’s not really a bad feeling necessarily, or good either, but it’s new. Back at home (in Whitby and in Waterloo) I was feeling like an old fogey. Having spent five years at Laurier, I was getting too old for the mainly undergraduate campus, especially by the last year working in residence where my students were four years my junior. Likewise in the homestead, my old position as eldest child was reprieved for one more stint when both brothers were home and we were all together again. A lot of conversations were starting to feel very, been there, done that – which was fine for a while, but not healthy for me if it were to last for too long. I needed a change of scenery, I needed to know absolutely nothing and have everything to learn, everything to gain. I sure got what I wanted.

Having read the blogs of some contemporaries here in South Korea, there is a wide variation between mundane repetition of daily events, and extremely personal introspection. I’m not sure why I compare myself, because I had this blog going well before coming to the other side of the Earth. To tell a more accurate truth, I am struggling with the genre of “travel blog.” If I don’t do new and exciting things with regularity, then there is not much to report…

My Life in Korea

I ate kimchi. It was good.
The End.

Epilogue

I also drank beer, played Jenga and sang songs in a bar, bought cheap clothes at an all-night market, found Myeongdong and was overwhelmed/went in circles, went snowboarding again, watched a movie, and was really mean to my psychotic students.

It’s not exactly worthy of monetary compensation from a respectable publication now is it? But I suppose that’s quite alright – that’s not why I’m doing it.

Apart from feeling like an amateur in almost all ways, I feel more alive and purposeful than I have felt in a long time. I have something good to do every day, I have something to learn every day, I have something to contribute, to experience for the first time (if I so choose), to practice, and to improve upon. What else can a curious, learning-obsessed person such as myself ask for? Even when I am ready to hurl one of my students out of the eighth floor window, I am grateful that a job like this exists for a person like me, and that the employers are just begging to make the connection as soon as possible. If we could all be so lucky.

At times I find myself contemplating post-Korea plans, tearing up over Vonnegut, yearning for rice cakes, wondering if I appreciate colouring pencils as much as my students do, missing late night television (particularly Craig Ferguson), resenting that I can’t hang out with my Canadian friends (all three of them), being amazed by Koreans’ ability to work and drink harder than anyone in Canada, loving the gracious ladies who work at my favourite kimbap shop, anticipating the changing of the guards (teachers) at SLP as contracts end and begin anew, and relishing the weird and wonderful privileges of the TESL teacher in South Korea. A migrant worker, a servant of globalization, I dig it…

Carving a Niche

Something else to look at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2210010&id=187903903&l=5f793

Kim and I have pretty much established ourselves as photo-poster and blog-poster, respectively. We each have input regarding style and content in each other’s outlet, but are the singular editors of our domains. I think it also may have something to do with the fact that both of us are lazy, just in different ways.

So, today (Tuesday, February 17) marks the end of our fourth whole week here in Korea. I can’t tell if that is a long time or a short time. In a restaurant today, we lamented our lack of spoken Korean when the very friendly couple serving and cooking were asking us some questions about the food. I ordered something that was spicy, and while I usually don’t mind the heat, I got a little nervous about this dish in particular (only because it was pointed out to me by another patron that it was, indeed, spicy, which I knew already anyway) and decided to dilute the sauce a little with a bit of the broth I had on the side. This is a very typical wussy-foreigner thing to do – I have seen others dip a bite of kimchi into their soup before. The female half of the serving/cooking duo eyed me suspiciously, and continued to keep tabs as I devoured the whole dish without any apparent discomfort, but much enjoyment. When we were done, the male half of the duo asked me some questions which I am pretty sure were meant to find out how I liked the food, and did I find it too spicy? I proceeded to say that I was irrationally worried about the spiciness before even trying it, and regretted dumping the soup into my dish, because it was actually delicious in the end. These words meant next to nothing on their own, but I added a lot of outrageous facial expressions, hand movements, and bodily gestures to help get my point across. I think they understood what I was going for, but how can I ever know? The resolve to improve my Korean hardens.

Our vocabulary is very limited at this point. I think Kim is on par with me, and I can say: hello, good bye, thank you, one/two/three (ordering food or drink), I’m at/straight/here (taxis), thank you, no, yes, friend, do you have, how much, beer, and the names of some of our favourite things to eat. That’s really it.

There are some foreigners here who have never learned more than that small collection of words listed above. And it’s quite easy to see why – the Korean people I‘ve encountered, at least, have been very helpful and gracious, and don’t seem to be offended at our ignorance as long as we try our best to be polite. Also, it’s very easy to make friends with only fellow foreigners.

My and Kim’s first big social move was foreigner-oriented. I think a grand total of four Koreans attended, but they had all spent at least their university years in North America, so there was no big distinction. After days of contemplation and yet a few days more of planning and cleaning, we decided to break in the new apartment with a little bit of a party. Since leaving home for university, neither of us has ever lived anywhere large enough to properly have company over without feeling uncomfortably squished. There is so much space you could play pool, have a dance party, and fix some snacks in the kitchen all at once.

Instead, we opted for good old-fashioned drinking games and an extended round of Indian Leg Wrestling (see album link at top of post). Imagine 15+ grown-ass men and women, standing in the mother of all foreigner-circles (will explain later), hooting and hollering while two of them lay head-to-toe, locking elbows, engaging in what can only be described as very bad behaviour had it been our preschool students doing the exact same thing. Yelling, aggressive competition, grudges and general chaos are not tolerated in the classrooms of SLP. Thankfully, that’s only where we do our day jobs. It turns out, many of the teachers at Paju SLP moonlight as all-Korean leg wrestlers. The last time I did anything like this was probably in high school at a cottage weekend, where this kind of silliness was made acceptable by the presence of a handful of children, who were used as scapegoats (excuses) for the rowdy and immature game. Hey, I’m not ashamed, it was fun. I think Kim and I got to bed around 5:00 AM once everyone filtered out, deciding the leave the cleaning for the next morning (read: the next afternoon at 3:00 PM, when I was finally able to move about in an upright position without my head exploding). It was definitely a success.

Allow me to elaborate on the “foreigner circle.” Early on here, we noticed a phenomenon that occurred whenever four or more foreigners ventured into public spaces together. Upon the completion of one task/event, we would inevitably form a circle wherever we were (hallways, line-ups, outdoor promenades, foyers to restaurants, bus stops, etc.) to chat, look at each other awkwardly, and try to decide what we wanted to do next. This strange pattern recurs without lapse, every single time I’ve been out and about with other foreigners no matter where we happen to be, or how many of us there are. I can specifically recall one particularly persistent circle of about 15 people, lasting for at least 20 minutes in different formations, slowly migrating down the centre of La Festa after a nice dinner at an Indian restaurant in Ilsan. It’s ineffective, but safe and hilariously conspicuous.

As for the rest of that photo album: Pointedly non-foreigner-oriented was my and Kim’s Sunday, which we spent visiting a cluster of Buddhist temples on a hill (mountain?) near Gyoha. Describing the experience doesn’t really fit in the context of the rest of this post, so I may leave it for another day. We also hiked to the top of the hill to look out at the surrounding area, which turned out to be a lot of fun and a very beautiful view – check out the pictures please!

I sincerely hope that the rest of my time here includes healthy doses of things and people both foreign and Korean.

Seeking the Middle Way

lanterns and prayers on a cold February Sunday

Buddha so large I could have sat in his hand with a friend

What Else is New

First of all, look at these:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2209253&l=b2287&id=187903903

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2209244&l=8348b&id=187903903

Kim has collected a whole bunch of pictures together of our apartment, our town, our trip to Phoenix Park and a night at a Korean nightclub and a jimjilbang. I’ll get to what exactly a jimjilbang is.

As you may see, our apartment is huge and luxurious. Also, our town is empty of people. I think Kim took those pictures on the long weekend of the Lunar New Year when everyone goes away to visit their families. If I’m wrong, well, I don’t know where the people are. They exist, they do.

So, I’ve been looking around the internet, as one does when one hasn’t had unlimited internet access for three weeks, and there a lot of bloody Westerners blogging about their time in Korea, and a lot of us are writing about the same things, and they’re all equally valuable, funny, interesting and readable. BUT, what’s the point? I write, now, so that I can keep in touch with family and friends, not so much for myself as someone who likes to write (though I do still enjoy this).

I suppose it is worthwhile to keep up with what Westerners might find entertaining and different. I can’t profess to believing that I know anything about Korea, truly, because I have only been here a very short time. However, there are a lot of differences that I’m finding – some of them are simple and some are deeply complex. I fear that while it’s reasonable (that is, respectful and within my knowledge) for me to tell you about the simple differences, it’s actually not that interesting beyond the first read. The complex differences are still so unavailable to me: I’m foreign, I’m new, I can’t speak the language, I hang out with other people like me, and unless I discuss it with a Korean who has been outside of Korea, I may never get them right.

So, that said, please forgive the lack of depth in these posts… I hope they are at least worth the time.

Gyoha is the third place I have ever lived, after Whitby and Waterloo. My town/neighbourhood is a part of the region of Paju (sometimes called Paju City, or New City) which is well North of Seoul and touches the DMZ between North and South Korea. It’s a large region that’s mostly empty (relatively speaking) but apparently it helps to dilute the pollution, especially in the humid summers. I like Gyoha. The other foreigners here say there is nothing to do, but I think that’s a bit of a load of crap. There is an implication: “the things I want to do are not here.” Which is fine… I just hope I can find things I like doing here. I think it will be good.People tend to stare at us a little. Because there are so few of us around in a place like Gyoha, we stick out not like a sore thumb, but more like a sparkling rainbow eyebrow: weird, different, not altogether bad, but new.

Near us (10 minute cab ride/25 minute bus ride away) is Ilsan, a city of recent development with interesting areas to shop, eat, walk around, relax and have fun. So far I have been to Ilsan four times I think. There is a foreigner bar in an area called La Festa where people do little performances on open-mic nights. Kim and I recently ran into about 11 people from Laurier in this bar, including an old friend who was actually in our residence building in first year. Of course we did! On the other side of the planet! Honestly, last time I checked, I’m pretty sure I left Canada, but it seems to be following me. I have met one Brit, a handful of Americans, but every other foreigner seems to be Canadian (and almost all of them are from the GTA or at least Southern Ontario – I’m so not joking). Perhaps one night before we leave, Kim and I will make an appearance at open mic night. I do have my guitar and harmonica. In fact, I think Kim is a natural on the harp. She played so hard one afternoon that she gave herself the hiccups.

I should mention that in a lot of restaurants and food courts, food selections are represented by permanent plastic versions of the real thing behind glass cases. Kim loves this. It does look good enough to eat. What else is different? Well, everything. Heating is in the floors, always. Recycling is really, very thorough and intense. Public transportation is cheap. Bars stay open as long as you feel like being there and there is no such thing as last call. Stop lights seem to be optional sometimes.

What has struck me the most is something that I was not able (or more accurately, was never given the chance) to figure out on my own. A friend who preceded my sojourn to Korea by several months told me that I would find that each person who comes here to teach English has a completely different reason for coming here, for staying here, and for what they choose to see while here. I don’t mean “see” like a tourist, though that is a part of it, I mean “see” like there is an entire country full of people, history, culture and life and someone like me could easily get by learning nothing and doing nothing, living in my own world and “seeing” nothing. There are people here for money, for escape, for distraction, for focus, for partying, or for the lack of a good reason to do anything else (I suspect I fall into that last category). These are just a few of the many, of course, but I still find it overwhelming because each person seems to assume that everyone else has come here for the same reason that they did, and socialize (or not) with you accordingly – which is fine, just interesting. I’m actually glad my friend gave me this heads up. Reasons lead to purpose, purpose to action, action to association – I just got here and I’m already thinking about associations.

Here are some highlights of the associating I’ve been doing recently:

- Jenn and one of the Korean teachers took Kim and I to a Korean night club on our first weekend. The club was called Tunnel (in Ilsan) and is characterized by a vast sea of tables where personal attendants bring you drinks, fresh fruit and other snacks. Bands perform really cheesy pop music on a stage in front of a dance floor at one end of the club. The entire circumference is lined with private rooms, nori bang optional. Attendants go on match-making missions, inviting tables of women to go sit and chat with tables of men.

- The night club was a spur-of-the-moment decision. What we’d actually been planning to do was visit a jimjilbang. Some people call it a sauna, or a spa, but it has EVERYTHING. They are open 24 hours a day, and the first thing you do when you enter is take off your shoes and kiss em goodbye. Girls and boys split up, then you get naked and hang out in hot tubs, warm tubs, cool tubs, and several different saunas for as long as you can stand it. You can shower, shave, get your skin scrubbed or just sit around. Next you put on matching outfits like summer camp and go to the official jimjilbang area, which includes things like a gym, a pool, a restaurant, a library, internet stations, snack bars, sleeping areas, comfortable warm rooms, cold rooms, and these massive dark beehive-shaped things that you crawl into and sweat profusely. This may sound like a sauna, but it’s different… hotter, drier, larger, more interesting haha. When you’re done, if you feel like it, you can grab a foam pad and brick and pass out on the floor from complete exhaustion for a while.

-We’ve been to Seoul a couple of times, officially to take care of cell phone acquiring business, but unofficially to see what’s good. We’ve now been to Yongsan (electronics market) and Itaewon (foreigner hangout) two times. It’s excellent, compact, busy, alive, confusing, fun, dirty, beautiful, and I want to go again. We ended up in a couple of primarily Westerner bars on one night (sustained by the fact that there is an American military post just outside of the neighbourhood of Itaewon) and it felt like we’d just travelled through a wormhole of at least space, maybe time too (Korea is 14 hours into the future of North American Eastern time, as you know).

- Otherwise, we have been kicking it around Gyoha and Ilsan, going out for this new food, that new food, beers (pints are bigger than pints at home, and delicious, and cheap), coffees, that kind of thing. Mr. Goh (our school’s director) took everyone out for a dinner party (Korean BBQ and noraebang) to celebrate the departure of Katie and Kevin, and the arrival of their replacements, Kim and I. Also, I shot a gun. A real, functioning hand gun – Beretta 9 mm pistol – was held aimed and shot, by me, 10 times at a tiny target many metres away with 37% accuracy. 20 000 Won for 5 minutes of appaling yet satisfying pretend violence. What a weird thing to do in a weird place to do it.

I’ll make sure I do something interesting again before the next time I post.