An American Learns How to Share

Closing

2009-03-18T16:23:00.000-07:00

I am saying "anyoungeekahsayo" to this blog and I have started a new project. It is just too weird to post on here after coming home from Korea. If anyone is interesting please check out my new project! It is a blog about finding stuff.

Recyle, Reuse, Rebirth

2008-08-05T12:24:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about science and technology lately. And death. And bugs. And how to kill bugs. And death again. And about the traditions associated with death. And how hard it is living out of plastic containers and only having four outfits to choose from because of these damn bedbugs!!!! Deep breath. But seriously...

I want to donate every cell of my body to science when I am gone, but I have been reading a lot of essays lately (too many actually because once you become inundated with other people's opinions sometimes your own start to fade away like Micheal J. Fox in Back to the Future or become a sort of Frankenstein opinion with arms and feets taken from too many different places). My mind hasn't changed at all, but my heart is singing another tune. Life is for the living and death is for the dead. Therefore, grieving is left to the living, so who should choose what to do with the remains? I have always felt that it was a person's own right to choose what to do with their fleshy matter, but the more I think about it, if your family and loved ones are against what you want and it hurts them to imagine your body being used in some unsavory way, even if it is for the betterment of humankind, it could stunt the healing process. It could potentially rob them of the closure they need to push the grieving cycle to a point where the pain isn't so sharp. Time heals all wounds, as we have all heard five million times, but time takes too long! When something so terrible happens people don't want to wait the interminable amount of time it will take for them to actually feel better. A quick fix is needed. Something to help us say goodbye.

DISCLOSURE:
As I am writing this I feel a bit self-conscious because I have never had a close friend or relative die. I have had other traumatic loses in my life, but never one so final (though divorces and break-ups really do feel like a death of sorts, and some divorces are as final as death, in my opinion). So, I am writing about the grieving cycle through the eyes of other people's experiences and not my own. If you have a different opinion or an experience you would like to share please contact me, I don't want to come off as a know-it-all.

ANYWAY...

So, there's all that. About the pain, and the closure, and the goodbyes and the grieving. So, what are the acceptable options? I personally love the idea of being buried. It seems so romantically permanent (like death, but with added romance...you know, some sexy dude dressed in 19th century poet duds weeping over your headstone...that kind of thing). Though those of us who frequented cemeteries in our adolescences (or who still do, like me! I took a road trip down to Savannah Georgia just to go to Bonaventure Cemetary. Well worth the trip.) know that permanent is about 150-250 years depending on how "perpetual" your perpetual care is...The old stones, though fascinating to see, can be illegible, worn away by wind and time. Some cemeteries aren't permanent at all, if you have read Bradbury's "The Next in Line" then you know exactly what I am talking about. Cremation is another option, but I think funeral director/poet Thomas Lynch put it best when he wrote, " We burned the trash and buried the treasure." I ain't knockin' cremation, but there is something more hokey to me about burning my body down to (unusable!) dust (as if I am subjecting my earthly vessel to the fires of hell) than being opened up on a gross anatomy lab table. I dunno. Just my thoughts.

I don't believe in reincarnation. I am not sure about life after death, but like most people I would love to have some sort of legacy. Legacy isn't exactly the right word, because I don't need people to remember my name specifically, or have a "Son, someday all this will be yours." kind of situation, but I want to help people. Also, I don't like to throw ANYTHING away. Those of you who have seen my mom's house can attest to where I got this from. Over the years, and repeated moves, I have paired down my possessions to a more manageable amount and, I hope, become less neurotic about my saving habits (I don't keep sauce packets and I only keep the take out containers I can't recycle), but I still believe in saving things and using them over and over again. Bodies save lives. It takes recycling to a whole new level. I am not talking about feeding the trees and rejoining the Great Cycle of Life, but saving a life RIGHT NOW. Maybe it isn't always that immediate, but bodies save lives in the Great Unknown Future as well through research and development. How fucking cool is that? To me, pretty damn cool.

I don't think of it as a selfish, grabbing at immortality kind of thing. I think it is probably the most selfless thing you can do because you can't choose how your body is used when you die. You donate it and maybe they take your retinas and that's it or maybe they use you for R and D in a crash test lab. I was talking to Jeremy, my boyfriend, about this (he is an organ donor, too) and he used the term "harvest" when talking about organ donation. It is an appropriate term for the situation, but personally, I don't want to be treated like "a crop" of sorts. It brings to mind creepy faceless dudes in Bangkok slipping me a "ruffee" and slipping away with my liver. But on the other hand, the harvest is the best time of the year! You get to take a break and enjoy the spoils of your toils! The harvest feeds our bellies and our pockets throughout the "winters" in our lives. But I feel it takes away the amazing gift that donation is. Harvesting organs makes it sound like you are taking them from a body that had no choice (which happens...), not from a person's body who made the direct choice to give up those organs prior to death. I don't want to be harvested from, I want to provide the harvest, to be the giver of plenty.

There is also the potential of giving a stranger a second chance, whether it is a heart or some life-saving discovery made down the road. I think of all the times I have seen a person that needed help (usually little things like holding open a door, or help picking up dropped papers) and I just walked by thinking that someone else would help them, or I felt socially embarrassed and awkward if I stopped and helped them. (That is strange isn't it? Sometimes, helping a person is to become an awkward accomplice in whatever tiny/large mistake/failure/problem happened and it is socially easier on one or sometimes both parties if everyone just ignores what happened. Weird.) But being a donor isn't awkward. It is straight-up anonymous help that is truly needed. If you donate people can find out about you, but they don't have the information thrust upon them. "This person died. You have her heart. Here is her picture." Uh uh. Not unless you want to know.

So, I'm thinkin', what if after I die my family is so freaked out that they can't handle the fact that I want my body donated. In my defense, if I am donated whatever isn't used will be sent back to my family eventually, for a burial or what have you, if that's what they want. Though it isn't exactly the quick, put together (no pun intended) kind of closure most people want. But is it wrong of them to change up my final wishes? That is rolling through my thoughts and the only solution, of course, is communication. But even past that, people change their minds, and if I am dead I can't really argue with them about it. Is it my right as a human being to be selfish even after death? I have to say no, but if something happens and I don't get donated I will be deathly disappointed.

Oh yeah. I got a hair cut, yesterday.

In search of...

2008-07-30T16:53:00.000-07:00

I think I have finally figured out something blindingly obvious. I just opened a letter from my grandmother. I am never quite sure what kind of information I am going to be on the receiving end of when I get a letter from my grandmother, but I can rest assured that it will always be some sort of cut-out from one of society's accredited news sources (unlike the forwards from her clogging the arteries of my inbox). Usually these cut-outs have some remote connection to my life like random theater clippings, want ads for movie extras or even info about cheap housing being built in my neighborhood. Although, more often than not they are harbingers of doom: clippings of organ stealings and kidnapped girls being sold into prostitution rings (before my journey to the East) the murder rate in my neighborhood (when I moved to Bushwick), deadly diseases lurking in the corners of NYC, women in their late 20's are no longer safe in NYC because...because...because. Anyway, today's installment was thankfully of the "remotely connected" type. It was about Korea. Just a little editorial about a man who is doing a professorship in Seoul teaching writing. The article is all like "Seoul is all high-tech blah blah I almost beat up a Korean guy blah blah". He tells the story of how he and his Korean girlfriend (of course!) go out to eat sometimes in Seoul and on occasion some (probably drunk) Korean man accosts them and basically scolds the prof's girlfriend for not staying within the perfectly acceptable Korean male dating pool.

Funnily (my favorite adverb!) enough, this has happened to me before, too. I'd be out with Korean friends and some middle aged dude with serious Western dependency issues would try to accuse my friends of anti-nationalistic, anti-Korean, America-worshiping behavior for just hanging out with me (Though usually it was some middle aged dude coming over and regaling me joyfully in his below beginner English, which was very cute and welcoming though sometimes invasive.) . It was really awkward when this happened. Beyond awkward. Humiliating on all fronts. I felt angry and sorry for my friends and my friends were mortified by the behavior of their fellow countryman. We would apologize to each other for a good 30 minutes before any other conversing or merrymaking could continue! I feel anxious just thinking about it!

Anyway back to our hero. So, finally on one occasion prof gets fed up and stands up for himself and his girlfriend, Ja-Won, (in English) and the dude backs down (in Korean). He goes on to say that that kind of behavior makes him want to "break faces". I completely agree. That kind of bigotry is unacceptable and can be found all over the world and it sucks. This was all a set-up for the final thing he said which stuck with me, but could not be produced here as a quote without that long-winded prior explanation.

"Other nights Ja-Won and I will be at a restaurant and things will be much different. Our chopsticks will be flying. I won't understand the language going on around me, and I won't be able to fathom the simple miracle of how I came to be sitting there, but I will feel as if I belong."

BAM! That is it! Right there. Ever since I came back to NY I have been missing that "simple miracle". The fact that you are so completely isolated from everything and everyone you have ever known, so utterly alone and at times lonely, and yet simultaneously you feel so perfectly at home, like you have always belonged there. That oxymoronic juxtaposition of contradictions is life-fueling for me! It is depressing as hell and totally inspiring. Since I've come back I have been sullen, anti-social, truly struggling on so many different levels and it is that absence of the profoundness of everyday life that I had in Korea that plays a major role in those feelings. The isolation and the never-ending social parade, the loneliness and the friendship, the feeling of being so at home somewhere, and yet still knowing that you will never ever truly fit in. Does that make any sense? Some people have said to me, "It's hard coming back to the US and being just like everyone else again, isn't it?" Yes. It is. REALLY HARD. But what I have realized is that what defined my day-to-day life over there and made it so intoxicating (other than the sheer awesome-ocity of Korea and her art, history, beauty and people's lifestyles of course) was how much I felt I belonged there even though at the same time I felt so fucking alone. Well, it is something that I am facing now. I hadn't labeled it until today. I feel like kind of a loser still talking about and thinking about this stuff. I mean, I need to get over myself already, right?! RIGHT?! Right. Here's to the first of many steps.

Segue to my ridiculous search for that same feeling here (probably not the best of "steps" to be focusing on...). I am thinking of becoming an embalmer. DON'T LAUGH OR SCOFF OR HAVE ANY OTHER REACTIONS OF RIDICULE. I am feeling very sensitive about this new interest/obsession/goal and I now realize that confronting my life-long fear of corpses while at the same time feeding my keen interest in death and the ways we deal with the dead by joining an almost unanimously culturally repellent job I might be able to attain that level of accepted pariah that I had while in Korea. Don't worry! This isn't the only reason I am interested in this field! I am truly interesting in becoming a person who assists in preparing bodies for scientific research (a subject I feel VERY passionate about and yes I do plan on donating my whole body to science and I hope to get cut up into many different science-y parts and used to benefit society in some science-y way after I'm gone). I think this is something I could do well, and I could still teach if I wanted to. I dunno, but maybe it's worth a try.

Oh Yeah!

2008-07-27T15:19:00.000-07:00

I made this crazy drink today after I got back to NY from the Berkshires. It is not Ectocooler, but look at those GREENS!

Im r3t@rd3d

2008-07-27T14:35:00.001-07:00

Hello to anyone who still actually subscribes to this inconsistent pity party!

I have some good reasons for dropping off the face of the earth.

First of all, I have three words for alls y'alls: Reverse Culture Shock.

Read up. It sucks. This article is for students, but I personally feel everyone's first experience is still the same.

I am still working at ALCC (and Leadership, but on hiatus until the school year starts up again) and I just got a part time job bartending at the restaurant Counter. It is a cool joint. I love working there. I currently only work 1.5 shifts (brunch does NOT qualify as a full shift) which includes Monday night and Sunday brunch, but I am petitioning for a more permanent posish. We'll see. My bar manager, Tonia is an adorable, fashionable and talented 24-year-old woman with awesome tattoos who does not understand the meaning of "More shifts please!!" The subtle hints continue.

So, over the past 3 months I have had bedbugs TWICE. The new saying is once bit twice had. The first time we confronted these buggers they were only in my roommates quarters, but now, two months later, they have infested my bed and are only biting ME out of my entire household. Here are some unnece-SCARY photographs:

This is the trademark bite-pattern named appropriately "Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner".

I haven't slept throught a night peacefully in two months. These are all bite pics of course. You wanna see the real deal? Once day I got fed up and bleached my bedframe and found 10 of the little fuckers bloated on My Own Blood!

To top it off, I also have an ESL student who is obsessed with me. He is from Tunisia. I am at a loss at how to conduct myself in this situation and I can't seem to shake him. STRESS.

At the same time my relationship is going through some major (though not insurmountable) transitions. It is difficult, but necessary and I hope everything turns out for the best.

Also, I just found out that my crazy methed-out brother has started harassing my Grandmother in a very crazy sexual manner and I am not sure how to process this information.

Basically, I want to run away to another country again.

BUT!

I am not going to because I don't have the money and I need/want to work everything out right here. I don't want to ignore these problems. So, here goes nothin' as I try to confront my life head-on. Plus my longest friend is having a baby next month and it is going to be totally awesome. I can't wait!

To distract myself I am trying to read as many interesting books as possible. More on this later.

Also

2008-04-17T15:16:00.001-07:00

This is Lucy my American cat and I cut my bangs.

What can I say?

2008-04-17T15:03:00.001-07:00

So, I have decided to bite the bullet and keep chronicling, is that even a word? It is! Adjustment is good. I still remember how to count to 10 in Korean (both ways) and I am teaching English here in the US. It is funny though, I feel like my Korean English teacher counter parts because here on the continent I can't find a full-time job and I spend most of my time in-transit which is such a kill-joy.

I am not going to lie. Life has been hard. I decided not to take the easy route and find a restaurant job and I have been pursuing teaching since I got back. I am fucking exhausted. I have two jobs right now. One is with the Leadership Program, a for-profit community based organization that places artists in schools to teach conflict management, anger management, communication skills, provide TLC and consistency, and be good role models for elementary, middle and high schools in the greater NYC area. It is a great job, but very exhausting and when you start working in the middle of the school year there aren't many hours available.

I have a costume/set design club right now. It is not as cool as it sounds. We have no budget and no materials. We drew and are currently painting a backdrop, but my students don't want to do anything, but hang out and shoot the shit so I highly doubt we will be ready for the May 7th performance of our student generated musical "American Pop". Oh well! I took 4 of my kids to the MET and they almost shit. It was amazing. They were running around the museum making everyone crazy and touching stuff and talking too loud and constantly proclaiming "That's hot!" "This is so hot!" "Look at this Miss! It's hot!" It was wonderful.

My other job is as an ESL teacher at ALCC, which is a HUGE English school in mid-town Manhattan with a sister campus in Queens. The classes are also huge. I teach a beginners class and a low intermediate class and both classes are over 25 students. It is a nightmare of bureaucracy...more like bureaucrazy! I have to fill out a form to go to the bathroom! I have to fill out forms for EVERYTHING, and I can't wear my nose ring, so I have to take it out and put it back in EVERYDAY. They monitor EVERYTHING. They make there own text books, which are super expensive and cater only to their own methodology (Their methodology is all about drills. I say something, you say something, repeat, repeat, REPEAT!) which is boring and hard to keep the students excited about. BUT I get to teach people from all over the world. I am currently entertaining students from: Turkey, Morocco, the Dominican Republic, Africa (Benin and Mali), Moldova, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Brazil, Pakistan, France, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, Russia, Kazakhstan, Poland, Switzerland, Hungary and a couple more that have slipped my mind. How cool is that?! I love meeting people from all over the world. Just the other day in class I was explaining how "snake" is a negative word in English, like a slimy lying person and my student from Mali was like, "Being called a snake is a very positive thing in my country." I love learning shit like that!

I just finished Assistant Directing (I didn't really do anything), Props Mastering and basically doing everything that wasn't getting done for a new play called "Torrents" with my friend Lyndsay's theatre group, The Barracuda Theatre Club. Click on the link for the review. Sadly, I am not credited at all on this website even though I ADed, was the Props Master, make-up person, blood effects, House manager/box office/back stage person, and part-time Stage Manager. Harrumph. It was a crazy time and I am tired, but I am glad I did it and I am glad it is over.

And now I am thinking about leaving ALCC for another part-time ESL job for the summer, but I have to find a night job if I do this because I won't have Leadership again until mid-Sept. Yes folks, I am sending out the ol' B-tending and waiting resume. Sucks. The things we do to stay alive...

oh yeah i burned my arm wicked bad making cupcakes! Check it!

The Gift of...

2008-02-24T07:30:00.001-08:00

First of all, hi, I haven't posted in about five million years, but something happened yesterday that I thought was share-worthy. Got some mail from my grandmother. I opened it up and a little note fell out which said, "Hello Autumn, Please read this book. I love you and I worry about you. -Gram" I turned the book over and read the title. "The Gift of Fear, and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us from Violence" Wow. My grandmother gave me the gift of fear! The cover boldly proclaims, "This book can save your life!" Fucking awesome. I am now going to carry this book around in the breast pocket of my coat because it is obviously meant to stop bullets and prevent stabbings! I am so lucky.

I also haven't had water or electricity in a day and a half. A pipe burst inside the walls at 3am on Friday night and water was pouring into our bathroom. The firemen came and shut everything off. We couldn't shower, drink water, flush the toilet or see. We had a "pee toilet" for a while. Have you ever had a friend who had that second toilet that didn't work very well and you could only pee in it? Well that is what we had. You know what it is surprising though? How hard it is not to flush the toilet immediately after you use it. I accidentally flushed after doing number one and my roommate Greg urgently reminded me, "If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down!!!"

Power and water are back now. My roommates and I feel like kings! Running water is awesome.

i'm sorry.

2007-12-31T00:53:00.000-08:00

i'm sorry i haven't posted in so long. i am apologizing to those of you who have messaged me as well as myself for failing myself in these past 2 weeks. i am leaving tomorrow. i feel like a phoenix because i have to light myself on fire, which is very painful, before being reborn. The past 2-3 weeks have been a total blur. Lindsay was here and I swear I am going to finish writing about what happened during her visit, because having her here was so refreshing and amazing. Having Lindsay come so close to my departure time actually made the thought of coming back to NYC so much more alive and exciting. She tends to have that effect on people. She also managed to make me feel calm about coming back, something that quickly dissipated as soon as she left. I want to come back and i am not just telling myself that, but oh my god this is so painful. almost as painful as my new tattoo which hurt like a motherfuckingbitch.

i can't handle the idea of never coming back here. i feel like my brain syncs with the heartbeat of this country. it isn't just the people it is the country itself. i love korea.

i have a feeling i will write a true requiem tonight or tomorrow while in transit. i will keep this blog up and going once back in NYC, but change the title. i have a lot more to say for those of you who are interested. i just have to keep my shit together for 3 more hours. wish me luck.

Worst Popsicle Ever.

2007-12-12T05:18:00.000-08:00

Decorated.

2007-12-11T12:56:00.000-08:00

I hate this picture of me, but it is the only one we took with all of us after we decorated the tiny little tree! I didn't have any Christmas ornaments so I just used the cell phone accessories I have been given by my students (and been collecting) and it worked perfectly. Cell phone accessories aren't completely useless!

CHRISTMAS TREE!

2007-12-05T04:53:00.000-08:00

I bought a fake Christmas tree today and Lindsay and I are gonna decorate it!! Wanna see?

I haven't decorated it yet, but I will show you when I do!

MIDNIGHT SNACKS!

2007-12-02T06:31:00.000-08:00

Lindsay calls these "Air Cookies"

Just look at the cat.

Yes this is real.

Can you find the cat in this picture? If you can I will buy you a beer when I get home!

Lindsay!!!

2007-12-02T05:06:00.000-08:00

So, my other Lindsay is here visiting now! It is so great having the opportunity to have two of my best friends in the whole world come and visit me. I am very lucky, and in honor of Lindsay's arrival I bought a bunch of extremely ridiculous hats. There is a fad here to wear these silly animal head stuffed animal hats. Usually just middle school aged girls wear them but also I have seen couples (oh jesus) and delivery men partaking in the fad as well (they are wicked warm!). She had the opportunity to choose between a bear, a sheep, rudolf the RNRD, or a husky! Let's see which she chose!

Yes folks, it was the bear, and isn't she just the cutest little bear you have ever seen!? I probably don't have to say this, but everyone thought we were insane and we didn't take them off ALL NIGHT LONG!

Linds, me, "Jennifer", and "Carmen"

I feel like each animal ended up being a good match for each person. I was pleased. Then we played the kicking game:

I will get a better picture with the whole machine in the shot later, but basically it is a soccer ball attached to a machine which measures your "Kicking Power!" along the same lines as those carnival games with the hammer and the bell thing. I like the punching game better.

The Restaurant

Then we had:

Sam Gyup Sal (BBQ pork)

and drank:

Soju!

We met up with Casey and Claudia (see "New Friends Are Fun!") and everyone tried on the stupid hats some more!

No one can deny the fun of trying on ridiculous hats while drinking. The possibilities are endless. And Carmen learned how to thumb wrestle!

Then the next day we woke up and went to the bathhouse!!! Best. Place. Ever.

Lindsay agrees!

We did all the usual shit:

Doctor Fish

Silly towel hats

The mechanical horse

Cupping!

Chillin' in the hot room and lastly:

Touching Pirates.

After that we had grilled shellfish.

And one of the clams had a tiny fuckin' crab in it!! GROSS! Lindsay ate it! She's GROSS!

We helped along our digestion by enjoying a post-seafood coffee at "White Angel" aka "Coffee Heaven".

Take a look:

private rooms

fountain

Lacy Foyer (pronounced "foiyay" in this case)

complimentary cosmetics

Tissues...Lamps...

Fuckin' Chandeliers

and Hot Chicks. Yes it was Heaven. And there was whipped cream on everything.

Then we joined Claud and Case at my new favorite bar:

Yes. In Korea Vikings and Pirates are the same thing.

It's a hook, not a hooker.

A Porthole! What?!

WHAT?!!! Well, since I am a Cyber Ice Pirate this is truly the perfect bar for me.

Ice. Beer. Cup. Lindsay. Pirate. Face. Make.

I touched a sword.

And on a final note I would like to share with you the most amazing picture ever taken of a human being in an elevator. EVER. (in my humble opinion):

Milleniuuuuuuuuum! (sing it like Robbie Williams!)

2007-11-30T00:12:00.000-08:00

The Hwarang show!!! For lack of a better word the Hwarang were a bit like Samurai, but totally different! Anyway they are fucking cool!

Before I tell you about "Shilla Millenium Park". You have to check out their webiste! I LOVE IT! Anyway, let me tell you about our condo...or rather CON-DON'T!!! MWAHAAAAHAHAHA! It was so gross and old and there was no furniture and no hand soap or dish soap or hairdryer or just anything that you would normally find in a condo! I wouldn't normally have a problem, but it was $180 a night (luckily we got a discount...).

not so bad...yet...

old.

yellow walls.

sofa? I think not.

It also smelled like mothballs. YUCK! Nice view though:

Sunrise.

And the elevator was cool!

The place where we stayed is called Pomune and it is fulled with hotels and condos because there is a really pretty lake there:

The Shilla Millennium Park is also in the area. It was about a 20 minutes from our condo by:

Tandem Bike~!

We were going to rent regular bikes but Eunyoung was more than a little unsteady on hers so I decided to avoid any possible traffic accidents by renting one of these babies. It was awesome, but being in the front of a tandem bike is HARD WORK! Oh my goodness. You have to pull all the weight, it was like walking around with a dead Siamese twin still attached to your body! Seriously. Dead. Weight. But it was great! We also could have rented one of these...

TINY MOTORCYCLES!

These little machines were everywhere like a swarm of gnats. Also mini-ATVs, full-sized ATVs, reggie bikes and bikes built for four. Pomune Lake doesn't fuck around when it comes to alternative modes of transporation. But surprisingly for an area with so many non-car vehicles there is NO SPECIAL LANE for anyone so you are constantly almost hitting or being hit by something animal, vegetable or mineral.

And there was this really cool tower!

I couldn't find any info about this tower, but it is damn cool.

So, the park was actually a bit disappointing. Mainly because WE MISSED THE HWARANG SHOW! That show was the main reason I wanted to go there, but the last show was at 2:30pm and we didn't get there until 3:30! We didn't even get to Gyeongju until 12:30 (it is a 4.5 hour bus ride from Seoul and we left at 8am), then it took 30 minutes to get to the condon't and we had to check in and then 20 more minutes to get to the stupid park...sigh...there was nothing I could have done. I was crushed BUT I made Eunyoung watch every other show that was offered and I will post some short vids tomorrow or later tonight. I know, I know, it is going to be hard to wait that long, but a girl has to go to work! So, the park was great for kids, but for adults...it left a little to be desired. There weren't many tour guides to explain stuff (It was November so I can understand that it is off-peak season blah blah blah...and it was also FREEZING, so the staff that were working that day were hiding in buildings shivering in their adorable traditional threads!). There were so many things for kids to do. Tons of shows and activities (fabric dying, doll making, ceramics, jewelry, paper art, etc.) but not a lot of stuff geared toward the historically interested adult, in my humble opinion, but it was still really cool. The Silla dynasty had a crazy class system and each different class had a different type of village within the larger town so I got to see how like 10 different classes lived. The replica buildings were really cool, I just wish that there was more info about everything there. Check out some pics:

Field Trip! Students walking by the statues of the 10 animals of longetivity. Tell ya later.

The animals at night!

Aptly and Mysteriously titled "Event Waterfall"

Replica of the Emile Bell which had been converted into a sushi restaurant. Oh my God. A traditional symbol of Korea made into a Japanese restaurant. No comment.

The original Emile Bell (which I saw in Gyeongju city). The legend goes that a baby girl was used to make this bell which is why the sounding of the bell is so pure and resembles a baby crying. Though the bell is not rung anymore in fear of damaging it. Eh, just click on the link above for more info.

Eunyoung and the talking Jangseung!

Ceramic goodness!

Hwarang!!!

but no Hwarang...a crushing disappointment!

Big wheel keeps on turning!

Proud Mary keep on burning!

The actors!

The casualties! It was so cold out and they floated in the water for like 10 minutes! No one could concentrate on the show they were just worried about the actors catching cold!

I love show.

action show!

romance show!

Bathroom sinks!

For a parent and a child, or a really codependent couple!

night view!

tree used in the shamanic ceremonies

I *heart* plastic rocks!

That night we came back to the condon't and drank a bottle of wine, but we totally corked it to open it because the wine opener broke! Before drinking the wine we went to the grossest bathhouse ever filled with dead skin and hair!! I was so disgusted! Yeesh!

So, that in a nutshell was the park. I didn't take too many pictures of the replica buildings because, really all traditional Korean buildings are only subtly different so I wanted to show the crazy fun stuff and not just the history because I have been getting a bit history heavy of late. So if you are curious about the history just click on the little links, but I didn't want to inundate this post with too many stories. But I have to show you the living proof that Koreans have been drinking like fish since before Jesus Christ:

Don't be fooled. This isn't the first D & D die ever, but a drinking game! Each side gives you an order that you must obey!

I really love "never abandon your unpleasant partner". I am not sure what that means exactly, but I feel it is a pretty good tongue in cheek comment about Korean marriage! So, prepare yourself because this game is going to take America by storm!

And finally here are just some disjointed afterthoughts.

Cute old bowl!

The first ice!

Book vending machines!

HA!

crazy recycling truck!!!

OMG.

2007-11-29T23:13:00.001-08:00

no. way.

2007-11-27T23:08:00.000-08:00

I haven't been to the dentist in 5 years. Today I went to the Korean dentist and...I have NO CAVITIES and NO TARTAR and NO PLAQUE.

unbelievable.

How is it possible? I have NO idea. He didn't even charge me for the visit. He wouldn't even clean my teeth! He said it was unnecessary. I do feel a but suspicious because I eat so much candy, but hey, the dentist himself turned me away! I have to say, I feel pretty good right now! I hope he wasn't just lying to me because he didn't feel like working on a foreigner like that other doctor who didn't even take my temperature!

wiki wiki what?

2007-11-27T05:00:00.001-08:00

How it was used?

So upon further research I found out that I was originally spelling Cheomseongdae (click here for the Wikipedia link) wrong which is why i couldn't find any info on it anywhere online. The reason for this misspelling is that there are 3 romanizations of Korean: Yale, McCune-Reischauer, and Revised Romanization. This makes it really really hard to find the exact combination of letters from the roman alphabet which fit with the current trend of spelling Korean historical places!

The McCune-Reischauer method was used in Korea up until the year 2000 when it was replaced by the Revised version. The Yale version was used primarily for the military and I am not sure if it is still used today. Anyway, since the romanization system was switched in 2000 you can see up to 3 different spellings of any Korean word. For example I live at Geumjeong Station which has also been written Geumjung, or Keumjong or Keumjeong depending the writers whim. There is a lot of argument about which system is better and I honestly don't know enough about either to really have an opinion. The hard thing about the Korean language is that each consonant represents a subtle combination of two sounds which can change depending on whether the letter is a beginning or ending consonant. In English the bitch with pronunciation is truly the vowels, but in Korean it is the consonants. For example this letter "ㄱ" represents a "g" and a "k" sound, but both are soft, aspirated sounds not a hard "g" as in "good" or a hard "k" as in "kill". If the word starts with "ㄱ" it is closer to a delicate "k" sound (like "kg" at the same time), but if it ends with "ㄱ" it is closer to a "g" sound (like a quiet "g" way in the back of the throat). Easy to write into English? I think not.

Back to the subject! Cheomseongdae is one of the oldest scientific installations still in existence today and it is one of the oldest astronomical instruments in East Asia. Here is what one website had to say:

The 12 rectangular base stones are positioned in a square, three on each side, representing the four seasons and twelve months of each year. The twelve tiers of stones to the window entrance and twelve tiers above the window opening also represent the 12 months of the year (or the 12 symbols of the zodiac). For over two thousand years, astronomers studied the movements of stars and planets and charted them. They predicted solar and lunar eclipses, as well as the courses of comets. Court astrologers reported and interpreted their findings to the King who would then act according to their predictions.

The stars dictated all aspects of policy making: agricultural developments, celebrations, wars, and other events and festivals. Astrology also shaped people's views of life and the universe. Koreans still tend to believe that the exact time of birth for each person is closely governed by the heavens.

Why couldn't it just say that somewhere near the site!! Even just in Korean?! In terms of Seokbinggo I found out that it is much more scientific than I had originally thought:

It is 2.4 meters in width, 1.78 meters in height, and 18.8 meters in length. The entrance is located in the south and three ventilation ducts were built in the arched roof. The floor is angled in an incline so that melting ice water flows toward the floor. Originally the ice storehouse was in the west of Wolseong (the name of the place Seokbinggo is kept) but has been moved to its present location near the northern castle turret. The icehouse was used during the Joseon Dynasty (the last dynasty of Korea it lasted for about 500 years). The storage facility is considered important for its architectural technique and the magnitude of the structure.

Well that is enough education for one day I am sure!

I could think of so many witty titles for this post...

2007-11-26T23:52:00.000-08:00

MOUNDS! (also known as tumuli are the ancient burial mounds of kings and nobility)

Two weekends ago I went on a trip with my friend Eunyoung to Gyeongju, which is the ancient capital of the Silla dynasty, (pronounced "Shilla") one of the ancient dynasties in Korean which is credited with unifying the three kingdoms of the Korean peninsula, Silla, Baekje, and Goguryeo, under one rule in 668. Sadly, this was just a tentative union, but we're not gonna get into a huge history lesson today! The Silla dynasty lasted for about a millennium so there is a butt-load of history to see in this area! Huzzah! The dynasty which came after Silla was Goryeo which is where the name Korea comes from.

So, on a whim I decided to go to Gyeongju before coming home. It is one of the main things I remember from my first trip to Korea during my freshman year of college. We came at the height of summer so the tumuli were a gorgeous vibrant green like this picture:

Alas, I came this year in November so the mounds are not at their most beautiful, but they are still pretty impressive. We got to the center of Gyeongju fairly early in the morning and it was freezing, but we mainly had the park to ourselves. One of the tombs is excavated and you can go inside. We actually had to have the grounds keeper open the tomb for us!

This tomb is called Cheonmachong. It means Heavenly Horse Tomb. If you click on this picture to enlarge it, it will tell you how a tumulus is built!

The Double Mound means a husband and wife.

The foliage was still awesome despite it being mid-November.

Ate some bamboo. I took the same picture in the same place over 7 years ago.

After viewing the tombs we went and saw a few other major monuments, like a really really old astronomical observatory called Cheomseongdae.

Looks kind of like a big pizza oven. I have no idea how this is an astronomical observatory because there was NO INFORMATION ANYWHERE about how this damn thing worked. None of my students knew either. If I were taking a poll I would say that 0 out of 70 Korean adults know how Cheomseongdae works. I can't judge, I am sure plenty of Americans don't know how the Badlands were created or maybe even which presidents are on Mount Rushmore (I hope I am pushing it with this one!), but I am going crazy trying to find out how this damn piece of ingenious history worked! My complaint is not with the Korean people, but with the board of Historical Preservation and Tourism.

I must register one complaint which I have about historical places in Korea. In general there is not enough, if any, information available about the purpose, construction or general history of things. I am not complaining about the lack of English because my Korean friends are always nice enough to be willing to help me with translation, but how can they help me if there is nothing to translate?! This is not just the situation with the above monument, but also in museums, at palaces and sculpture gardens all over Seoul. There is just no info. I felt the same way when I went to the DMZ. These important historical places are still here, but now that Korea has the money to invest in bringing them to life it chooses to spend its money elsewhere. Of course mouths to feed, bodies to cloth and employing citizens must come first, but this history is so unique and cannot be seen anywhere else in the whole world. To think about these monuments being forgotten and neglected makes my blood boil. I am in the process of writing a letter to send to the Korean English newspapers before I go. Hopefully I will have enough guts to send it. Anyway the case was the same with Seokbinggo which is an ancient refridgerator (no idea how it was used) and the tower which is featured on the 10 won coin.

Seokbinggo

There are actually two towers but the ones that I saw were replicas of the real ones which are located at Bulguksa temple, also in Gyeongju, but I didn't have time to go there. At the museum there was no history about these two important and symbolic pagodas. They are called Dabotap and Seokgatap.

Dabotap on the 10 won coin.

Dabotap replica

Dabotap and Seokgatap replicas

There also is no mention of this sad history which I took from the www.heritage.go.kr website:

It is unfortunate that Dabotap Pagoda entirely contains the sorrow that the people felt when the Japanese Empire deprived them of the country. The Japanese dismantled and repaired the pagoda around 1925, but they didn't leave any record about this fact. In the process, sarira, sarira casket and other relics that must have been put into the pagoda all disappeared. And out of four lions that were on the stone staircases of the pagoda, the Japanese Empire robbed us of three lions that must have been in good condition. Though we have long made efforts to retrieve the precious cultural properties, we can't find their trace yet.

You can see that there are four lions on the replica I have pictured above. I never would have known any of this history if I hadn't looked it up myself based on some hinting from my students. I was actually really excited about these lions because their faces are so awesome and expressive. I immitated them for Eunyoung the night before going to visit the replica of Dabotap. How did I do? You be the judge.

Will finish up later! gonna be late for work!

5 am thoughts

2007-11-26T13:01:00.000-08:00

Two thoughts this morning. Completely unrelated thoughts.

1. I like this blog. This band has nice music and the guy has a nice perspective on things:
watched pots.

2. I think that the ability to find beauty in the obvious is just as important as finding beauty where it is difficult to see, or discovering beauty where no one has ever gone.

3. I am getting another fucking cold. jesus christ.

That third thought was what I like to call, an afterthought.

in the dark

2007-11-26T01:01:00.000-08:00

i would also like to point out that i have been so lazy that for the last 2 weeks i haven't replaced the light bulb in my bathroom so i have been showering at 530am by romantic candle light. my lack of enthusiasm to go to the store and get a light bulb has overpowered my fear of the dark. how's that for melancholic indifference?! BAM!

Huston, we have a problem and other such obvious metaphors and similies

2007-11-26T00:11:00.000-08:00

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Well, that is how my cat feels today. He thought he would let you know by kindly strutting across my keyboard while I went to get something to drink.

So, one month left and though I do not regret my decision to come back to NYC I am certainly feeling some cold feet. How can I say goodbye to a country that I have lived in for a whole year? How can I say goodbye to these people when I don't know if I will ever see them again? What the hell am I going to do with my life when I get back to the US? I am almost 27 and I still feel that I don't have anymore direction than I did before. I feel a big pit full of energy in my stomach but like a gun with a plugged barrel I am just going to backfire in my own face if I don't figure out what to do with myself.

I can feel the cold hand of melancholy begin to grip the mini-sun of my usually cheerful disposition. Case in point, usually to kill time here I play Twilight Princess or beat Okami again or watch Gladiator, Sin City, 300, Samurai Jack or Grindhouse over and over again. This is how it has been for a whole year, but today I watched PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Pride and mutha f-in' Prejudice. The Whole Thing. And then I just cried. Cried cried cried. Then I watched BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY (just shoot me in the face now) (Is that the correct punctuation?! Seems weird doesn't it? Well, it is what the DVD cover says...and I call myself an English teacher.) and I cried...AGAIN! I hate romances. I hate romantic comedies. They never make me feel better, they just make me feel sad like when I watch Firefly and I know that the life of an outer space cowboy bandito who swears in Chinese is never going to happen for me no matter how badly I want it to. I am not saying that I don't believe in love or romance, but those movies just make me feel sad. Kiddie romances don't though. I can totally handle the Princess Diaries or other such nonsense, in fact that shit just feeds the fire of hope burning in my soul! I eat it up.

I also spent about 3 hours today listening to mellow indie rock and reading other people's blogs. I wonder if I will still write like this when I get back to New York. I wonder if anyone will still read my blog when I get back. I guess it doesn't really matter, but I feel I need to keep one thing constant in my life and this blog seems like the best thing. Anyway, other people's lives are awesome. If you ever have some spare time, go blog surfing. It is a never ending stream of personal hopes, dreams, fears, loves and opinions. It is quite inspiring and intoxicating.

Gotta apologize though. I hate writing a self-pity rant, but that isn't quite what this is. More like a fleshing-out of frustrations and pent up worries (hmmmm, that sounds suspiciously like a self-pity rant to me said using some 50 cent scrabble words...) . Sometimes when I am here I really miss my electric guitar and my dulcimer. I just want to play something, to get better at something. I feel that I have made developmental progress coming here (which is pretty invaluable) but I have nothing really to SHOW for it except a now 31 inch waistline, slightly (so so so so slightly) lower debt, and the ability to say "Where is the bathroom" in Korean. I didn't learn to paint, become an amazing song writer, write a book, build a house from Korean matchbooks, become an International Korean Sensation or choose a career or life goal (...). The main thing I figured out is that I should probably go back to school. I am not even sure what I am good at anymore! I am good at adjusting. I can blend in. I can compromise and I can teach (I think. I hope. I dream.). But how do I want to use all of these things, it is kinda hard to show someone these skills in a job interview. I can't really open a brief case and show them. ("And here in this top pocket is my talent at adjusting well along with flexibility. Oh this one? That is my peace-making and compromising skills, and down here you will see my ability to walk through walls and manipulate fire...")

Well, thinking and worrying will only get me so far. I just got to hope for the best. Plug my nose and jump.

Thanks.

2007-11-22T06:41:00.000-08:00

Today was Thanksgiving. It was kind of depressing and overwhelming to think of a Thanksgiving Day with no close friends, no family and no turkey in sight. So, in order to thwart this lurking depression I decided to have a Thanksgiving Day party in EVERY SINGLE CLASS today. 7 Thanksgiving parties in all. I brought fruit and I made over 60 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches which I then cut into quarters to share with my 70+ students at BCM. I had asked my students to bring in some other things to share if they could and most of them did which really made me happy and some of them didn't which is ok, but kind of pissed me off because it is part of the heart of Thanksgiving to share with others. It is also ingrained in Korean culture to share food with each other so I was kind of offended at the lack of enthusiasm presented by some students.

In case you haven't noticed the title of my blog is "An American Learns to Share". The reason why I picked this as my title oh so many months ago is because Koreans share EVERYTHING. If I attempt to pass out a handout every student's first response is to pass the paper around like a hot potato until everyone has one and then and only then keep one for themselves. If I bring food in and pass it around, sometimes it goes all the way around the room without anyone taking a thing because they are worried that other people will not get their share. In most company it is even taboo to pour your own drink. This is a society of putting the comfort of others above yourself, not in all cases, but especially when it comes to food and drink. I feel that this has become ingrained in Korean culture ever since the end of the Japanese occupation and also the end of the Korean War when everyone here was dirt poor and the common greeting was not "Goodmorning!" but "Have you eaten?" so that if you hadn't maybe your neighbor could help you rustle up something meager to fill your belly.

Koreans don't operate on a "Can I have a sip of that?" mentality. They just give you the whole bloody can and be done with it. Have you ever shared one huge bowl of soup with 5 other people? I have, because I live in Korea. It is just the style here. The only thing that people don't share is rice. Everyone has there own individual portion of rice.

Anyway, being here has really reinforced how important it is to be aware of other people's needs. I have also become a lot more comfortable with sharing anything and everything that is mine with others. There is no "Joey does NOT share food!" trend here. Korean people take without thinking because it is a part of their culture (At most meals you don't even have your own plate anyway. There is no "mine" or "yours" only "ours".). It is a cultural norm to constantly press against someone's personal barriers. Nothing is only mine. If my friend has something I like she gives it to me. If I have something my friend likes I give it to her. It made me crazy at first because I thought this was so selfish and invasive until I realized that Korea is a homogeneous culture and many people feel a very strong kinship with others just because they are Korean. It is like a big family here. We don't really have that in America. Even though we are all Americans there are so many differences that I feel there is no real everyday common bond between citizens, but in Korea that is not the case. Because of this I can feel myself becoming more patient, giving and communal because the Koreans I know have readily and willingly accepted me into this lifestyle. I am very lucky to feel so included in this culture.

So, Koreans truly understand the heart of Thanksgiving Day and I felt so (I really HATE to use this word, but I am gonna do it anyway...) blessed (oh jesus...) to have the majority of my students share food and talk with me and listen to me tell about the history and meaning of American Thanksgiving Day. I felt happy and loved and not lonely at all. It was really wonderful. Sometimes it is really important to me to share about American culture. I really do miss it a lot and my students were so receptive today. Even if they were just acting, I don't care, because it made me feel like they really wanted to learn about America because they care about where I am from because they care about me.

After my last class I got BBQ with some students and I realized just how much my students appreciate me (I am a bit thick-skulled when it comes to this sort of thing so please bear with me through the final cheesy sentences of this holiday blog!). They really love my class. They really learn things from me. I am actually a teacher. There is no better day to discover all these things than on Thanksgiving Day. Even in Korea, so far away from everything that I love with the deepest part of my heart, I can feel so loved and so thankful.

P.S.

Thanks for reading this. b(^.^)d

What's your...Type?

2007-11-21T12:36:00.000-08:00

So, here is a neat little thing that Korea borrowed from Japan: the idea that a person's blood type influences the type of personality that someone has. When I got here so many of my students asked me this question (the "What's your type?" question). It is kind of like the Korean equivalent of "What's your sign". Yes, Korea does have the "Chinese Zodiac", but most people don't really care about it because it is too complicated, but blood type is really simple and easy to remember. I know my blood type because I tried to give blood a lot in college (I'm AB positive), but I think that American's don't really think about that kind of thing. How many of you know your blood type? Jeremy doesn't know his and I am DYING to find out which personality his is based on that info!!! Speaking of Jeremy, just a little side note, he won the Barcade (a cool bar in Brooklyn filled with old arcade games) "Chili-off"! I am so proud of him! His chili was called, "It's Chili; Put a Sweater On!" Isn't that great!? I can't wait to come home and have him make me his "Brooklyn-famed" chili!

After glow.

Anyway, if you want to see who you are based on your blood type I made up this little article below:

Blood Type O "Hot" - Tend to be loners or leaders and are intuitive, focused, self-reliant and daring. They handle stress better than other blood types and have strong immune systems, a well developed physique and a physically active nature. Blood type O's tend to have sluggish blood flow and feel better with vigorous exercise for about an hour each day. They express their opinions freely, but do not enjoy taking orders. They are great at organizing activities and groups but may forget about the details to finish the project quickly. They can be easily distracted. Rougly 38% of people are O+ and 6% O-

Blood Type A "COOL - Tend to be cooperative, sensitive, clever, passionate and smart. Often bottling up anxiety in order to get along with others, they may hold in their emotions until they explode. Many are tense, impatient and unable to sleep well. While they are capable of leadership positions, they may not take them because the stress is not good for their tightly wired systems. Blood Type A people can also be reserved, calm and even tempered. Since they are very sensitive to other people's opinions they can be introverted, shy and nervous around people. They may be pessimistic and also unwiling to change, but they value relationships and are very loyal. In Japan many "A"'s are in research. They have roles in discovering more about and refining science, economics, manufacturing, etc. They are perfectionists to say the least.Roughly 34% of people are A+ and 6% A-.

Blood Type B "Active" - Blood type B individuals tend to be balanced: thoughtful like A's and yet ambitious like O's. They are empathetic, easily understanding others' points of view, yet often hesitating to challenge or confront and can put their own needs over others' needs. Chameleon-like and flexible, they make good friends.They are also energetic and have drive to reach their goals. They are not the best team-players because they are so individualistic. They like being around people and have strong personalities.Roughly 9% of the word is B+ and 2% B-.

Blood Type AB "Care-free" - Tend to be very charming and popular. They don't sweat the small stuff and can be seen as spiritual but at times a bit "flaky".They are not very reliable and can get bored easily. Only about 2 - 5% of the population are blood type AB. There is never a dull moment in a AB's life, so if you find one for a friend, consider yourself lucky! You'll enjoy some exciting times together! Like blood type A's, AB's react to stress poorly. Sometimes it is difficult to be an AB. AB's don't like to fit in anyone else's "boxes". If they feel too confined, they'll break out of that box and do things their own way. They are a bit unpredictable and can have two conflicting personality traits at the same time, like introverted and extroverted. They are a blend of opposites. Roughly 4% of the world is AB+ and 1% AB-.

The first snow!

2007-11-19T04:38:00.000-08:00

Today is November 19th in Korea and it snowed tonight starting at 8pm! It started as a light snow and then it started to thunder and lightening out! Then it started raining at the same time as the snow and the flakes got all big so that I could catch them in my mouth as I was riding my bike back to my apartment. It was awesome and now the thunder is almost like a constant rumble in the background. I am not sure if I have ever seen lightening and heard thunder during a snow storm before!

But anyway I think Korea beats NY in terms of first snow! BOOYAH!

A Relatively Awkward Day

2007-11-12T05:14:00.000-08:00

The Han River

It is very difficult to maintain a professional relationship with my students because many of them want to be my friend. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining about this, sometimes this is the best part about my job, but honestly I don't want to come to work and teach my friends. I have to maintain some kind of sense of decorum, but it is so hard when so many people want to invite you to their house, or go with you to some Korean touristy thingy or take you out for drinks.

This being said sometimes I get roped into doing something that I really find uncomfortable or awkward like going to the DMZ alone with one of my 50 year old male students (AWKWARD!) or my day yesterday, which was going for a walk along the Han River with one of my University age male students. DON'T JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS! THIS WAS NOT A DATE IN ANY WAY!! He knows about Jeremy and I talk about Jeremy to him all the time and I was very very very clear that this was in no way, shape or form a date-like meeting. NO. NOT AT ALL.

Anyway, this guy is super nice and he has a great sense of humor and I really enjoyed having him in my class, but he often calls me just to "chat" (my own damn fault for giving out my phone number) which I find infuriatingly annoying because I really really really hate talking on the phone especially to someone who is ESL because it is so hard to understand each other. I sound like a total whiny bitch, but the only person I like to "chat" with is Jeremy and that is because he is my BOYFRIEND and he lives 5,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles away (and he REALLY hates to chat, so maybe I like chatting to him because he really doesn't like it...i dunno). So, he calls me to talk about how he has to study a lot and he hasn't been here and he hasn't done that(He is kind of like a little Eeyore. You know that type of person who, when he hears about something he has never done, he will get all "big eyes" and say "Wow, I have NEVER been able to do THAT. I don't have a girlfriend you know, and none of my friends want to. Yeah. That sounds REALLY nice. *sigh*") so me and my big mouth got in the way and that is how I ended up spending 2 and a half hours walking up and down the banks of the Han River in uncomfortable silence.

I realized that it is kind of American style to say "Hey, we should totally do this sometime!" and not really mean it. We always offer to do something, but we don't make plans. We just say it and never do it, it is a kind of conversational device. BUT my students take me up on every "conversational" offer I make and that is why I keep ending up at in an awkward position. Conversely, It is Korean style to say "Yes!" to everything and set a date and never show up. This happens to me all the time with my Korean friends. Honestly, I am not sure which one is worse.

It wasn't so bad at the Han River. After awhile the atmosphere warmed up (but not the temperature unfortunately), but after that walk I was so exhausted from keeping the conversation going I was ready for bed by like 6pm. Unfortunately, I didn't go to sleep until midnight or after, but that is because there are STILL mosquitoes in my room and I kept having dreams about Jeremy getting into car accidents. Yikes! Here are some pics of my Han River Day. If you have seen the Korean movie "The Host" it might look a bit familiar. You should see that movie anyway, at least I really enjoyed it!

That old man in the distance was totally walking backwards. Isn't that weird?!

Not getting married here.

A cat house!!

To help get your bike up the stairs! Ingenious!

Chinese food delivery...TO THE HAN RIVER! Seriously, you can order delivery to anywhere in Korean, inside or outside. Unbelievable.

I totally agree.

My thoughts exactly.

A good place to keep ya chips!

My student reflected in the subway door.

It's kule season!!

2007-11-11T04:57:00.000-08:00

One last thing before I go to bed. I love clementines or mandarins or tangerines or any kind of tiny orange-y thing that is easy to peel. Here in Korea they are called "kule" or "귤". They are so cute and tasty. Here is a neat little 귤 peel that I found on the subway. It was so neatly folded I had to take a picture of it. It looks like a little 귤 letter!

And I just ate some 귤! Wanna see???!!! HUH HUH HUH??? DO YA?!

The Day the Shrimp Stood Still

2007-11-11T03:59:00.000-08:00

I don't know why, but all over the Gyeonggi province today the shrimp in the tanks outside of seafood restaurants were hanging out on the bottom instead of doing their adorable little underwater doggie paddle with their 5 million legs up and down the glass wall. I love watching them do that! Instead today they were all just sitting on the bottom of the tank looking sad and depressed. I saw it happen at about 5-6 different places. My friend Amy even put her finger in to check the water temperature, but she said it felt warm. It is a mystery!

Look at little Albiney! He is the only one who will survive!

But you know it might have something to do with:

PEPERO DAY!!!!!

Pepero (known as "Pocky" in the States) is this candy produced by one of Korea's largest monopoly corporations "Lotte". Lotte created this holiday which is like Valentines Day, but on this day you buy Pepero and some other kinds of candy that the retailer is trying to unload, for all your loved ones. Even the bakeries sell homemade Pepero and baguettes with their top halves dipped in chocolate, to imitate Pepero! I even bought Pepero for my students and in return received a truck load of Pepero which I then unloaded onto other people so I wouldn't have to eat all of this damn Pepero!

Romantic Pepero displays.

Pepero Hearts with Bears!

Pepero gift baskets!

People linin' up outside to get their Pepero!!

It just goes on and on, and I think it needs to stop because it is obviously making the shrimp upset.

New Friends are Fun!

2007-11-10T19:16:00.000-08:00

I met my internet friend. The one who "cold" messaged me on facebook (shutup). I have gone out twice with her (Claudia) and her boyfriend (Casey) (note: Don't comment on the cuteness of their name alliteration!!! If you do, I can't be held responsible for the physical and/or verbal carnage that may or may not ensue). The first time we went gallivanting through Seoul with about 10 lesbians (it was a birthday party) and the second time we took a $20 taxi ride to an area that was totally "happening" but yet totally NOT happening, but we still managed to get hit on, get in fights, not sing at the noraebang, and cause endless annoyance to the local Korean shop owners! All in all a very exciting time!

Before I elaborate I have to tell about one other thing that happened prior to our meeting which is relevant to the story. One of my ex-coworkers is now teaching TOEIC (a kind of business and grammar focused ESL) in the most expensive and competitive area in Seoul (Gangnam). He makes bank, and if he keeps doing well he will make even MORE bank. Anyway, he has to make his own textbook so he called me up to do some vocal recording for his class listening exercises. I tell you this now because on the first day I met Claudia we went into Seoul near to where the sound studio was. I had sent my ex-coworker a message telling him that if he needed a fem British voice Claudia would be totes down and as Clauds and I were eating lunch he called me saying that he needed her today if she had the time. Luckily, we were right in the neighborhood and we popped over and she did some recording!!! ("The man is looking at the book." "The woman is using a tool." "The people are sitting in a circle." "The man is holding a gun." and so on and so forth...).

The studio also doubles as a dance studio.

After that we walked around aimlessly looking for this one bar called "Moo Bar." Our quest seemed hopeless but then...we found it! The bar is also titled "The Millennium Fusion Theme Park". This place was like something out of Star Trek, but filled with these disturbing pornographic images, and everything was white which made it even more strange and unnerving.

This is the urinal (or ur-I-nal as Claudia would say). You pee on a bum.

Exterior.

Mushrooms everywhere.

It looks like we are holding hands here...but we're not.

And now for something really exciting!!!

The beer pitchers had DRY ICE in them!!! So fucking cool!

After that we went to...

M-ER F-ING KOREAN HOOTERS!! One of Casey and Claudia's ex-coworkers was having a birthday party with her girlfriend and a bunch of other couples and friends (wink wink wink don't make me say the L-word wink wink wink). It was hilarious. I had read an article about the Korean Hooters and all kinds of social uproar it was causing so it was really funny to actually see it in person and it is just like the US minus one really important thing...the Hooters. Not gonna lie folks, and I hate to say it but there was a serious lack of T and A at this place, but they did some cute little dances! These girls were cute! Not sexy, but totally cute, and super friendly!

After that we went to some crazy hookah bar, which ironically was called "Rainbow" and yet managed to have nothing to do with gender preference whatsoever. They played some good music here, but then, sadly, lapsed into playing that one Bob Marley CD for the rest of eternity.

Then we went to some crazy dance-y type place, nothing too exciting, but I had a great time chatting with Casey and Claudia (You know I met Claudia first but every time I use their names I have an undeniable urge to put them in alphabetical order!!!).

Ms. Autumn Clark and Ms. Claudia Roberts

Mr. Casey Bingham

There was one point in the night where Casey started going like this:

And then Claudia started going like this:

So I started going like this:

I still am not sure if this is something they do often, just start aggressively photographing everything, but it definitely prevented the conversation from becoming dull, and now the three of us have tons of pictures of the other three taking pictures.

The night was coming to a close and we ended up in what one of our compatriots called "The Last Chance Bar". Sound ominous? Good. Because it was. It was the scuzziest, scummiest, creepiest, nastiest bar that I have been in ever. It was like a combination of The American Legion, a VA home, Las Vegas, and some local dive bar in east bumfuck Arkansas with an international flare, oh yeah and Halloween decorations. I accidentally whipped open what I thought was a closet in the girl's room to expose some poor regular peeing. She then threatened to kill me. She wasn't serious, but if I hadn't apologized as nicely as I did who knows what would have happened! I was scared! Why do I always have to open every door I see?!

One funny thing about hanging out with Westerners who have recently arrived in Korea: they expect me to speak Korean. Casey and Claudia use me as a liaison with the taxi driver or the waitress, not all the time, but I can speak a little and they can't, so they just look at me with their big baby blues and I try my best. It is kind of fun. I get to "play the Korean". Except doing this got me in trouble the last time we went out.

We started out in Sanbon near my house and we went to this amazing bar called, and I shit you not, "King of Pirates". I will supply more pictures after my next visit there. The place was amazing. You get beer in a kind of half ice glass with a plastic thingy of beer inside it:

After you drink the beer you remove the ice from the plastic holder and throw it at a target on the wall to win free stuff. I am sorry I have no pictures of this at this point. It is so awesome. King of fucking Pirates. Unbelievable. I don't know how Korean people think up this stuff on their own and sometimes hit the nail right on the head. We left this bar. Big mistake.

We went all the way out to...ummm...far from Sanbon and met up with some people who I had met last time (scroll up). They are all really nice, but nothing was really happenin' way out there. It was more hopping at the old K.O.P (King of Pirates!! duh!!!). We went to a "Western Style" bar which basically means no food and get up and order your own damn drinks. I am so out of practice with that style that I felt like a lost lamb as I tried to order my...PALE ALE!! They had PALE ALE!! This was nice as all I have drunk for the past 10 months has been yellow piss water (which I have grown to love in my own way), but that sadly was the highlight of the evening.

Had a great time chatting with Claudia and I truly enjoyed it when Casey gave me a lecture about the beauty and glory that is Tom Clancy, but then we went to the Noraebang and no one wanted to sing and two of the girls left (Maybe crying, we don't know. I think it was literally an "It's my (birthday)party and I'll cry if I want to" situation, but no one was really quite sure what happened. It was weird.) and one of the other American dudes was getting drunk and belligerent and called me a fucking retard when I tried to help everyone order something to eat after getting kicked out (literally) of the Noraebang. Needless to say this was the first time I have really gone out solely with a bunch of Westerners since I came to Korea and I didn't feel good about it. Last weekend on the Hooters excursion I didn't know anyone and so I just spoke to Claudia most of the time, but this time I had already met everyone so I felt it should be more comfortable.

I used to go to Seoul a lot, but there were a good deal of Japanese, Chinese and sometimes Eastern European people there, so it wasn't just a Best of the West party. I have to say I was disappointed in the group dynamic. I don't know what it is, but sometimes I think that Koreans really know how to drink together well, but we Western people, and most specifically Americans, really need to learn a thing or two about group drinking. I can't really explain it more and maybe the mojo was just all thrown that night, maybe it has something to do with constantly eating while you are drinking, but this is just the way I feel right now. Let's end on a light note:

Hi-5 Santa!

Shoe-mobile!

Lyndsay part the second.

2007-11-10T03:50:00.000-08:00

So, to conclude Lyndsay's lovely visit there are just a few more interesting little tidbits to show you! The next day after Lyndsay's adventures around Seoul by herself we had a pretty low-key day. We just went to a near by shopping district with my friend Jo Eun (she is the one who recently got married and I had to give that stupid speak...yeesh!). Nothing particularly exciting happened, but we saw an entire fried chicken, or an entire chicken fried I am not sure the clearest way to say it:

A shirt that called NY the Garden State:

A shit load of ginseng:

And a shit load of jujubes (yes, these are what jujubes look like!):

On Friday we had outdoor Seoul adventures! We went to the most beautiful palace in Seoul with my friend Eun Young. The palace is called Changdeok palace. It is a UNESCO designated historical sight so it isn't open to the public all the time. You have to take special guided tours for around 3 dollars or you can go on a Thursday and pay 15 bucks to walk around freely for as long as you like. It is such a beautiful place and it is truly unique compared with all the other palaces in Seoul. It is the only palace remaining with so many different types of court buildings and with obvious hints of how people actually lived within the palace. There is also a huge mult-acre forest with gardens spread through-out located behind the main buildings. We went there right as the leaves were beginning to change, and it was so beautiful that I went back the following week and took more pictures. I will show you those pics another time!~

"The King's Road": only the king could walk on the elevated middle stone road.

The Secret Garden

The Concubine's Quarters

Lyndsay and Eun Young

Stealth Tour Guide Pictures

The Doorway of Longevity

We also went to Insadong to do some shopping and saw a crazy truck! I love this truck. There is one just like it that drives up and down my street sometimes...

...and we hiked up a mountain in Seoul called Inwan. Inwangsan (san means mountain) is a really interesting place because at the foot of the mountain is a traditional style Korean village which is a holy place for both Buddhists and followers of the traditional Korean shamanic religion which is focused around ancestor worship. It is so cool to see two religions located literally doors away from each other. It's a bizarre and fascinating place. The mountain itself is a national park filled with people's personal shrines and sometimes personal squatting zones. We walked past numerous squatters airing out their bedding, exersizing, feeding the birds and in one case, washing her dog!

There had been a fire. Kind of hard to avoid when all the buildings are so close together and everyone cooks over an open flame.

The bathroom...

There were so many pigeons. Many of the squatters fed and took care of them.

Inwangsan

Later that night we met some of my students for drinks and went to the Noraebang (individual kareoke rooms) and I will post the rest of that story in the exciting conclusion: Lyndsay's visit part the third!

I found my brother.

2007-11-08T21:13:00.000-08:00

I sent him an email and he replied to it. Isn't weird how simple that is? I am trying to tentatively reestablish contact with him, but I don't really know how. He sounds so lucid and coherent and intelligent and wonderful just like my brother Jon, but I can't erase the suspicions planted in my head by the matron rulers of my family. Even when I went to California and I saw his apartment and I truly felt the creepiness of it all and I heard him admit that he has a drug problem, it was still hard for me to believe that my brother was an addict. He is such a convincing performer and I just want to believe what I want to believe.

Growing up Jon was my whole world. He was mysterious and cool and untouchable and everything I wanted to be. When I was 13 and he decided to let me into his life, I was his completely and unconditionally. I would have done anything for him and I trusted him and defended him without thinking. I went to visit him once at Wesleyan University before he moved to San Francisco and it was one of the best times of my teenage life. I have never felt closer to Jon than during that time. After he moved to SF I wrote him as often as I could and I counted the days in between Christmas breaks. I was honored that he thought so highly of me and I didn't want to do anything to disappoint him or jeopardize the way he thought of me.

Then as I grew older I saw how scary he could be and I saw how fickle and unreliable he could be. I saw how violent he could be. But I also saw other amazing things in him. I saw an artist, I saw a poet, a philosopher, a writer, a dancer, a performer, an amazingly loyal friend, an adventurer, an organizer, a leader, a man with a head for numbers, a man with unlimited creativity, basically an innumerable amount of things that blinded me with hope for his future. These realizations came during my month long visit to SF when I was 19.

Then I don't know what happened. A distance grew between us. Jon has always seemed on the other side of a mirror. So, close you can touch him, but separated from everything by an unbreakable boundary. I am never sure if I am seeing Jon or one of his many different reflections. Also it is hard to maintain contact across the country and I started college and there were long periods of silence, broken by short visits around the Holidays, but Jon's appearance was sometimes sporadic.

Then after my move to NYC about 3.5 years ago now I think, Jon came back east. He was back at Wesleyan and I went to visit him a couple times, but something snapped. This was a very uncertain time in my life even without adding Jon to the cocktail, but his presence seemed to exacerbate my behavior. I am not blaming my own behavior on Jon, it was just a kind of catalyst. Then I became scared. I could see my own behavior, my own volatile behavior, and how it was so similar to Jon's (we are absolutely siblings in so many ways, positive and negative). I couldn't control myself when I was around him. I could feel raw energy and violence burning inside my stomach and whenever I was near him I would just unleash it. It was very scary and surprising to me (and probably to him too) to realize that I had so much violent energy and anger buried inside my body somewhere. Even now I have these surges of anger and I almost feel like I am going to lose my mind, and while in the past I would suppress it, I am not as capable at doing that anymore. So, contact with Jon became associated with those feelings and I decided to stop talking to him for a while. I never told him any of this though and, well, that really sucks on my part.

Then the whole "Jon is a drug addict" hoopla started, and ever since Jon went into rehab that first time my contact with him has been very very limited. Mostly by my own doing. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say, and most importantly I don't know who to trust and I don't know what to believe. And now as I slowly try to figure out what I want from my brother and what I can do for him, I am totally stumped as to how to write that second email. All I know is that I love him very very much and I don't want to push him away any more. I am not afraid. I am just uncertain.

Selsun Blue! Stat!

2007-11-05T22:20:00.000-08:00

Saw this yesterday. I almost fell off my bike. Again.

Lyndsay. Part the First.

2007-11-05T19:48:00.000-08:00

Right now I feel weird. I am leaving in 2 months so writing about my adventures here just seems to reinforce the fact that I am going to be leaving Korea soon, and most likely it will be a permanent move. It is hard to think about this. My time here has been unbelievably special in the cheesiest and most after-school-specialiest sense of the word.

Anyway, I'm getting over this and so I am back and I would like to tell you about my friend Lyndsay's visit. Lyndsay is a truly amazing woman unlike any you will ever meet. She is brave, and fearless and fun and unpredictable while still maintaining an unshakable sense of decorum and the kind of maturity that is only seen from a person who is able to assert amazing amounts of self-control. Do these seem like conflicting traits to you? Well, that is the mystery that is Lyndsay. She is going to be so psyched that I spelled her name correctly so many times in a row.

Lyndsay's visit got off to a rough start on my end. The day before she got here I came down with a wicked cold and then succeeded to fall off my bike pretty badly. My bruises were Awesome, but the big welt on my head was Not Awesome. And then the menstruation started. I thought, "Surely this visit is cursed!" Which, luckily, turned out to be an incorrect premonition.

We accomplished so much in the 10 days that she was here that I am amazed I didn't die. Ask Jeremy, I am a SLAVE DRIVER when it comes to vacations, but when I am sick I can't really do much of anything. Yet contrary to all prior situations of being sick while on "vacation" Lyndsay and I RIPPED THE F*&%ING LID OFF OF IT! Let me tell you about it, in brief, a day at a time.

This past visit was one of a truly culinary variety. Lynds tried just about every Korean food that I could remember the name of in my entire 10 months here. So each place we visited is punctuated by the specific traditional dish Lyndsay tried.

After Lyndsay got off the shuttle bus at a subway station near my house some friends and I took her out for Korean BBQ and various traditional types of food and alcohol.

BBQ!

Friends!

Alcohol!

Lyndsay!

On Saturday one of my students took us to a beautiful garden and a private museum which was founded by the owner of Samsung. It was GORGEOUS. I won't say anymore, just refer to the pics below. Actually I have to say one thing. Korean gardens and Japanese gardens are similar but so so so so different. Whereas the feeling of a Japanese garden is balance and perfection, the feeling of a Korean garden is harmony with the environment. A Korean garden is not molded it is only guided, and it feels like nature is doing the guiding and the gardener is doing the following. I am not an expert this is just my gut feeling as an observer. See for yourself.

We were also freezing our rocks off. It was the coldest day of the year!

The last rose

Some French sculpture

That night we walked around Seoul a bit and saw some shopping stuffs and some touristy stuffs with Goeun.

We drink water from small inconvenient paper bags here in Korea

The piano road (note: does not make sound of piano)

Chungae stream

The next day we rocked the socks off the Jimjilbang with my friend Goeun. Lyndsay did everything: the Dr. Fish, the body scrub, sitting in the tubs, going into the wicked wicked wicked hot room and even doing cupping. It was so nice to share the true wonder and crazy amazingness of the public bathhouse ($7!!!!) with another girl. This place is the BOMB and there is one somewhere in Flushing, Queens and once I get back to the city I am SO there, and now, hopefully, Lynds will be there too!

Below are what my cupping marks looked like. I had a cold so they were TOTALLY different from last time. Don't they look gross?! Like some kind of weird sausage or something!? Yuck!

Lyndsay and Goeun were so funny when we went to the Dr. Fish pool. They were having a really hard time handling the tiny fishy bites.

Now I had to work the entire week that Lynds was here so during the day she went off on her own a couple times, but I was primarily able to guide her around, not that she needed me to because she did just fine on her own. Monday was class day and walk around my neighborhood day. Nothing too exciting.

Then Tuesday after my morning classes we had lunch with my Ajumma class and then went to the old walled fortress called Hwaseong in Suwon city near where I live. We took 3 hours and walked the entire perimeter of the wall. It was great. We even paid a dollar and rang the big bell! 3 times! Some crazy guy followed us for about 15 minutes and we couldn't seem to shake him, but he got the hint eventually which was a big relief, and then about 50 middle school students walked by us like the parting of the Red Sea screaming, "HI!", "VERY BEAUTIFUL!", "NICE TO MEET YOU!", "WHAT'S YOUR NAME???!!" and "WHERE ARE YOU FROM??!!!" It is really great to see Korea through the eyes of one of my girlfriends. I forgot what it is like to see and experience all of this crazy stuff for the first time, so every moment I spent with Lyndsay was doubly enjoyable. It was so great to see her surprise at all the new things and it made me laugh even harder when I noticed that I no longer reacted to anything!

On the way there we got lost...

The signs had very mysterious directions on them.

Luckily we were looking for a big walled city, so it wasn't too hard to find in the end.

awesome.

STEEP INCLINE

You can get delivery ANYWHERE in Korea.

The Bell.

Not my idea.

Lyndsay is featured in this picture for scale.
UGLY CHURCH.

Old Suwon

oh. yes.

On Wednesday Lyndsay had some adventures of her own. I had to work most of the day so she went gallivanting around Seoul unsupervised! Yikes! She walked around, went to fold museums, saw a big palace and went to a traditional Korean village. Then I came to Seoul and we went to my favorite place, which has now been featured on this blog 3 TIMES: NAMSAN F-IN' TOWER! Sadly the visibility sucked that day, but it was still awesome. It is ALWAYS awesome at Namsan Tower.

PUMPKINS OVERHEAD!

Visibility: D-

Rock-in-Roll Attitude: A+

Lyndsay wanted this pic so bad and it took me FOREVER to line up the shot! This was not easy as people were continuously walking past my camera which was precariously perched leaning against the bottom railing of the fence. OY!

After Namsan I RUSHED back to work (I was almost late!) and Lyndsay had her own adventure attempting to see a Korean musical (called "Catsby" which is based on a Japanese animation starring all cats of the same name which in turn is based on the Great American Novel "The Great Gatsby") on her own. She ventured to the Korean theatre district without having written down the directions to the theatre and with her minimal Korean, excellent pointing skills and adorable mimery she succeeded in making it to the theatre. Then she had to try and reserve a ticket which was a bit difficult once again due to the language barrier BUT one of the stars of the show popped up to her rescue and got her a really nice seat. How cool is that?! Okay that is enough for now. We will continue with part 2 tomorrow.

They all thought I was a Rudolf the Rednosed Reindeer!

2007-11-01T05:53:00.000-07:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

2007-10-30T14:01:00.000-07:00

Another question...

2007-10-30T07:21:00.000-07:00

Is there a female equivalent of a "sausage party"?

I made a new friend!

2007-10-30T07:16:00.000-07:00

I just got cold messaged by a British woman name Claudia! She just moved to my area and found me on Facebook (yes I SOMETIMES use Facebook...leave me alone...). She seems super nice and I think that I might have succeeded in making my first woman foreign friend in Korea...2 months before leaving Korea...better late than never!!! I might meet her and her boyfriend this weekend and to go into Seoul. I am so excited about this! I haven't hung out with Western people since the Exodus of August when all my international friends left. I should sleep now, but I am all hopped up on M & Ms and friendship! Huzzah!

SHE'S GONE!!

2007-10-29T02:04:00.000-07:00

Hi all!

Sorry for the silence but one of my best friends in the whole world visited for the last 10 days and she left this morning. Her name is Lyndsay Becker and I love her very very much. I will write all about her visit as soon as I finish uploading everything but if you can't wait for the stories you can view all of our crazy adventures here: photos

Just click on "lyndsays visit".

I do have some exciting news though.

No that isn't a picture of warp drive on my cell phone screen...I broke my cell...by somehow dropping a big huge container of kitty litter on it:

But my student GAVE me her old cell with picture of sexy Korean pop artist "Rain" and built in camera AND mp3 player!!!!

This phone is incredible, and my student put all sorts of music videos (Avril Lavigne) and pictures ("Rain" and famous Korean pop star "Eric") and ringtones (Korean pop!) and pop songs (K-pop, Britney, Beyonce and everything in between!) in here! I feel like the most stylish Korean woman in her early 20s...EVER! I love free stuff and this phone's technology is so out of my price range that I feel so pissed that I got it for free and I will have to give this AWESOME piece of machinery to BCM at the end of the year. sucks.

A question for the masses

2007-10-18T05:54:00.000-07:00

Question.

In Korea, when someone says something to a bunch of people that is supposed to be a joke but it totally isn't funny and no one laughs and there is that really uncomfortable silence, someone will say "It's so cold in here!", or "Ooooh, it's so cool!" to lighten up the mood and to point out how un-funny the other person is.

What is the equivalent saying of that in English? I know there must be something but I can't think of anything. I know the cricket sound effect, but is there an actual phrase that we say?

PLEASE HELP ME! My students always ask me this question and I can NEVER think of an answer.

Hiccups.

2007-10-16T22:06:00.000-07:00

After discussing the Nazi topic one more time with another group of students I realized something really important, which really reinforces the fact that I am such a young teacher. The more I talked about this topic the more I realized that the students didn't have the best vocabulary to deal with this situation. They are not accustomed to talking about such personal and deep issues and it makes them back off a bit and that can be misconstrued as indifferent. Because of this "stepping back" the students were able to view the situation honestly and answered using very basic phrases. In English using a short basic phrase can sometimes seem rude or careless like saying "No." instead of "No thank you I am busy at the moment." And sometimes being too honest can also be rude, as we usually soften our opinions by "un-exaggerating" them, (For example, "That party was a little boring." instead of "That party was so so so so so boring!!") or making it a negative-positive sentence instead of just negative ("I don't find him attractive.", instead of "He's ugly!") It is a situation I come accross everyday when teaching my students.

Also, They say "Hey!" instead of "Excuse me, Autumn." and they say "You look tired." instead of "Did you get enough sleep last night?" or "Are you feeling well?" Instead of answering or asking a question in a more polite indirect style they reply or ask in a very short and blunt manner. It is hard to not take these things personally, but I have to understand that when I speak Korean I do the same thing! Probably worse!

I was just too near to this situation to understand that. Once I backed off and more calmly talked about this subject a lot of great stuff came out about how Koreans also harbor a constant deep sorrow in their hearts about the Korean War and the Japanese colonization period. Of course I knew that, but to have one of my students be able to communicate it to me so clearly and simply was really moving.

I will still say that some of my students were dumbfounded by the fact that people are so upset about this bar, and others who said "The swastika is just a symbol or a picture, what's the problem?" Which I do find offensive, but as a teacher I have to separate myself emotionally from these hot topics and try and understand where their opinions are coming from. Otherwise, I won't be a teacher, but some woman trying to bend her students to have the same thoughts and opinions as herself. I don't want that.

A suprising discovery

2007-10-15T06:30:00.000-07:00

I have discussed the article below about the Nazi themed bar in 3 different classes now. Each class has the same exact reaction: complete unaffected indifference. They feel a bit of shock and think that maybe the owner of the bar is crazy, but they all have a very strong sense of dissociation with the swastika as a symbol of hate and destruction. At first I thought, "Maybe because the swastika is also a Buddhist symbol?", but that theory was quickly negated because all of my students were VERY aware of the difference between the two. I can't understand it, but at the same time I can't judge them. They are on the other side of the world, and were under Japanese control at the time and the media and textbooks here have been filtered and altered a lot for the past 50 years and they have their own history filled with so much blood, pain and sorrow that I feel a little selfish trying to force my students to understand how truly awful and offensive this bar is (in my opinion).

Maybe you could argue that WWII was mostly European and American history BUT I can't wholly agree with that because despite media filtration (like I mentioned a second ago) Korea was a colony of Japan and Japan was GREATLY involved in WWII (obviously) and there is a reason why it was called a "World War" so I still can't completely wrap my brain around the sense of total disconnect that they feel. Lack of knowledge, sure, but total disconnectedness, no. Now, there were a few students who were quite offended by the presence of such a bar in their country, but they were truly in the minority while we were discussing the article.

Also it isn't just a lack of caring about the symbol, but kind of a lack of empathy toward the many cultures that suffered during the WW. Sometimes I feel like if something didn't happen on Korean soil then it didn't happen at all in the minds of these people.

Please don't misunderstand this rant. Koreans are amazing people, many of whom have the most incredible open hearts and open minds, but this is truly a country pointed directly at the future without many glances backwards to check or reassess their progress. I can understand this, looking back is painful and the past half a century has completely torn Korea apart. Also looking back for Korea would take a LONG time because Korean history goes very very very very very far back into the past and most people would need special glasses to see that far in the opposite direction!

But in my opinion Korea is not very big on "The World View". It is kind of a bubble here, where it is assumed that all white people speak English and all other countries are assessed in how they affect Korea and not how they affect Korea AND the world, kind of an "ignoring the forest" way of life. I am not playing the role of the "pot" right now, pointing at Korea's lack of concern about the rest of the world while many American's sit at home with their fingers in their ears going "LALALALALA!" or conversely can't keep their damn hands out of the cookie jar, but when it comes to history and/or social issues Korean people really shock me with their lack of knowledge and/or surprising insensitivity. I am going to say it again, this is just my personal opinion and not a grand sweeping statement about Korean's as a whole, but Korean people do like to mind their own business (Isn't that nice how I followed up my disclaimer about Grand Sweeping Statements with another Grand Sweeping Statement?). This means that I am the crazy-empathetic American running around embracing homeless people and trying to adopt a culture that isn't my own (often too strongly at times) whereas the typical Korean that I have had experience with will try his damnedest to mind his own damn business and not "meddle" in the affairs of others, whether historically or socially speaking.

My Korean students are always shocked when they hear stories of American neighbors calling the police to report child or spouse abuse or some kind of noise complaint. "That is none of their business!!" my students exclaim! "But what if it is a matter of life or death?" I challenge. "I don't know what I would do." they honestly reply. Of course many Americans also choose the path of least resistance like that situation where the girl was killed while all the neighbors in the apartment complex watched and waited for someone else to do something. So, maybe it is just an issue with human beings and not cultures. I don't know. I am just trying to figure stuff out!

Back to the article, when I asked them what they thought should happen to the bar and the bar owner, some said maybe he should be forced to change his theme, while others simply suggested waiting to see what would happen. They figured that if enough people refused to go there then the bar would eventually go bankrupt anyway so why rock the boat? The bar owner was probably using the Nazi theme as a marketing strategy, not because of some crazy political beliefs so, many of my students felt that it wasn't their business to force him to change his idea. Wow. I can understand their view point, but when it comes to Nazi Germany I will make an exception and step on the toes of Freedom of Speech. I can't help it.

It makes me wonder, if I brought in a news article about Darfur or Rwanda would my students respond with the same emotional detachment? I know it is a completely different situation, but in all cases we are talking about horrible atrocities committed against our fellow man, and in my mind this man's bar is condoning that kind of mass destruction and murderous behavior no matter how "innocent" his intentions originally were.

After this article I would be lying if I didn't say that I am a bit disappointed in my students and that I am actually quite hurt by their cultural insensitivity. I brought the article to three different classes hoping that someone would understand why I was so upset and commisserate with me about the insensitivity and stupidity of people in this world, but each time I was met with blank stares. The swastika could have been a picture of Mickey Mouse or Coca Cola or something. Sometimes I feel very alone here, and all the time I feel incapable of showing my students just how much their innocent bluntness can often break my heart.

Cupping

2007-10-13T19:15:00.000-07:00

Most of you already know this, but in the vernacular what I had done to my back is called cupping, or fire cupping. Above is the very nice Ajumma who performed the cupping. It felt weird, then kinda good, and then weird again. The process is based on the whole theory of removing toxins and "bad blood". My friend does it every week and the marks left on your back look INSANE. Today I feel sore and tired, but my back feels nice and my muscles feel nice, so who knows...maybe it works!

Here is the general process:

Crazy painful massage

Cups on your backs and legs, left on for about five minutes

and then removed.

Then you are cupped again sitting up.
They are left on for 5 minutes and then removed. The end!

Here are a few videos. They are kind of boring BUT there is an awesome Korean historical soap opera playing in the background which gives the vids a very important and epic feel! Warning you can see my bum a little bit. If you fear a little bum, please do not continue on.

Massage!

Cups on!

Cups off!

Today I did this!

2007-10-13T04:08:00.000-07:00

Tune in later for an explanation! Right now I am too tired. I will only tell you one thing...it was not an accident and it cost $10!

PS:

If you can guess what this is before I finally post an explanation then I will treat you to dinner when I come back to NYC!

In other news...

2007-10-12T09:05:00.000-07:00

I finally found the converse shoes I have been searching for for about 6 months.

Also...

Does this shirt look kinda scary to you?

My students were a bit freaked out by it.

Hey you can see my unicorn Bernard in the background!! Hey, Bernard!

I went to a touristy place all alone! it was great!

2007-10-12T01:31:00.000-07:00

The Tower

So, I went to Namsan Tower, aka Seoul Tower, and now known as N Seoul Tower alone last week to try and lose my my-boyfriend-done-left-Korea-and-now-I-am-oh-so-sad blues.

I also hoped to acquire this really cute souvenir that I could only buy at the N Tower gift shop:

It has sparkles in it!

Jeremy and I had gone here in February at night to see the rocking night views. It was so romantic and beautiful that I made a mental note to come back sometime during the day. Last Friday the weather was great and I didn't have to work so I thought "This is the perfect day to go back!"

Night Seoul

Day Seoul

Night Tower

Day Tower

Anyway, it worked a little bit, relieving my blues that is. I really love Seoul. It is a cool city, and it is really fun to walk around by yourself. It made me feel a lot better. I am not sure what it is about Seoul. It is so huge and uber dense, it has one of the densest city populations in the whole world, but it is very easy to walk around in and it feels so peaceful. Here are some photo highlights.

Old Namsan neighborhood

On my way I saw a movie shoot.

and I saw some developers with blueprints going through an old and soon to be demolished Namsam neighborhood. sucks.

The hike up

Scenic spot

Once I got up to the tower I fooled around a lot and took a billion silly pics.

a view fit for one

reflection

timer went off too early

these locks have names on them

who loves their camera timer?!

Peace Pavilion

?

retarded hipster pose

the hike down

After leaving the tower and walking around Seoul:

Seoul Station

Just like the Exorcist!

This looks safe!

Roof action!

High tech gas pump action!

Famous menu action!

Ajumma head-bag action!

Namdaemun (the South Gate)
Seoul has four gates, one for each direction.

I wonder if anything is under here?

Old Seoul at dusk

Jeremy's visit in a nutshell...a BIG nutshell.

2007-10-10T00:40:00.000-07:00

I love it when Jeremy visits. This was his second time here and we had a great time! We were supposed to take a romantic trip to Jeju Island (the Korean Hawaii), but there was a huge typhoon and all the ferries were canceled, so we just bummed around Seoul and did a bunch of cool stuff that I hadn't done yet so we could share some new experiences together! Hooray!

On Sunday (Jeremy's first full day in Korea) we went shopping for a dress for me to wear to my friend's wedding on Saturday.

Jeremy LOVED the Korean brand name "Bean Pole" and took about

3,000,000,000 pics of this sign

And then we found this completely vulgar T-shirt and had to explain to my Ajumma student who was with us what the word "cum" means. WOOOOO BOY!

On Monday, we went to the Coex Aquarium where Jeremy enjoyed the human conveyor belt, and we saw otters fighting and a two-headed turtle!!

TWO!

We also took a million stupid pictures.

And then Jeremy didn't shut his mouth for five minutes:

After the aquarium we went to Lotte World, which is Korea's half inside/half outside amusement park, and Jeremy was too tall to go on one of the rides (We found out after waiting for one hour!!!) and Jeremy and I got in a fight about candy (Don't even ask how that is possible. It is too complicated to explain...)!!

inside:

outside:

It was so goddamn crowded. Unbelievable.

Important Regulations:

On Korean Thanksgiving (Chuseok (Which was Tuesday)) we got to see the traditional memorial ceremony unique to this holiday at one of my student's houses (no pics because it would have been rude), and that night we had dinner with a friend of mine's family and made a wish on the Chusok moon from her roof.

My friend Go une.

Her brother and his fiance.

The Chusok moon

Scary pictures!!!

Then on Wednesday we went shopping in Insadong (The place to go for traditional Korean art and crafts, but you have to be careful 'cuz a lot of the stuff is made in China!! Oh no!) and Jeremy got interviewed by a gaggle of cute Korean college students. And then I took Jeremy to my favorite palace, Changgyung palace.

my favorite palace:

getting sleepy!

Thursday we had lunch with some of my Ajumma students (housewives) and then went to the city of Suwon and saw all the old stuff there, like this cool fortress (a wall that wraps all the way around the city), a little summer palace and this huge random golden Buddha.

Yes this is actually part of the restaurant.

Fortress:

Small Palace:

Gold Buddha:

We went out for Korean BBQ on Friday night and we went to a bar where you could text message a note to be shown on an electric banner in the restaurant, so this is what Jeremy did...

Finally on Saturday we went to my friend Joeun's wedding and Jeremy looked smashing!

And on Sunday we sent to see The Invasion in the Korean movie theater and went to bed early.

What a busy busy week!

Side notes:

Jeremy really liked Yanggoon:

And Yanggoon really liked Jeremy

Jeremy's favorite food other than Korean BBQ (there is Ramen underneath!):

Two things I really miss seeing:

That's all folks!

Unbelievable!

2007-10-07T04:35:00.000-07:00

Koreans, very similar to their neighbors across the sea (I mean Americans!!!), quite often, paradoxically, will do anything to be different. In a country where sticking out is often seen as highly unusual and sometimes socially unacceptable, there are some cases where the need to be different really shines through. Specifically when it comes to retail: shops, restaurants, entertainment...you name it. That is why I wasn't so surprised when I read the below article in the Korea Herald, but I still find it completely unbelievable.

Nazi bar disturbs foreign community

Imagine this: The Nazi swastika hanging over a 20-something woman crying in disbelief over the sight that has shown up in her country.

No, this is not a scene from a new Hollywood movie and no, this is not an article revisiting the past; this is about a Nazi-themed bar/noraebang in a northern city of Seoul.

"I feel repulsed, outraged, and disgusted," said Israeli Ambassador Yigal Caspi. "Koreans, like Jews, suffered seriously during World War II and it is deplorable to see that some people are blatantly neglecting to understand the suffering of others."

Caspi's outrage is felt within the entire diplomatic community, both foreign and domestic.

From every part of the world, ambassadors have strongly condemned this bar in the harshest rhetoric, and, in a way, have unified the diplomatic corps to take strong action against this establishment.

So as to not give them any publicity the establishment and city in question will remain nameless in this article.

During an interview with The Korea Herald, the bar owner, who didn't want to be identified, said that he got the idea from watching World War II movies whereas the Nazis are characters in a movie.

The reason why he opened a bar with this theme was "I wanted to be different," the owner said.

"This is a part of European history and that's what we want to show," he added.

Yet, the question about celebrating an ideology that spewed hatred, inequality and ethnic cleansing in an establishment where people go to escape the hardships of life didn't come to mind for the owner.

"I never thought about it," he said.

Ukraine Ambassador Ukraine Yurii Mushka said: "This is not something you can play with. Fifty million people died. Nazi propaganda is condemned in a democratic and progressive world."

"All Nazi symbols have been prohibited by the Nuremberg trials all over the world. I can't believe that in a country like Korea it's allowed," Mushka added.

Slovakian Ambassador Pavel Hrmo, also stunned in disbelief, asked if this was legal.

According to Korean law, the bar owner is in full compliance with all rules and regulations.

The city in question confirmed that they do not have any bad-taste laws and that when one registers a business neither the Tax District Office and the Environmental Hygiene Division requires investigation into the specific nature of the registered business.

According to the Environmental Hygiene Division, the Nazi-theme bar in question is registered with City Hall and there have been no complaints filed.

But standing outside this downtown bar on a busy Saturday night one cannot miss the disgust in many people's faces upon seeing the sign.

Arian, a Filipino worker stood there in shock asking, "Does the owner know that Hitler considered Asians inferior?"

"I never thought about that," said the owner.

Finnish Ambassador Kim Luotonen said, "I can't understand this, maybe if he didn't read the history then it would be one thing."

Inside the bar there is a meter and a half famous poster of a Nazi soldier pointing a rifle. The picture has been cropped, the original shows a Jewish boy in tears on the other end of that rifle.

"There is no excuse for this, not only in Europe but anywhere in the world," said Bulgarian Ambassador Alexander Savov while expressing his outrage.

This is not the first time a Nazi-themed bar has reared its ugly head in the land of the morning calm.

In 2002, before the World Cup kicked off, Seoul City Hall and the Embassies of Israel and Germany visited the owner of a similar establishment to explain to him the embarrassment a bar of this kind would bring to Korea. He accepted and changed his theme.

There are also rumors of one in Busan but as of the printing of this article none has yet to be found.

The bar owner has refused to call back The Korea Herald for a follow-up interview to clarify some of his responses.

Response from the German and Israeli Embassies and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was quick. All are looking for ways to have the owner change the theme to something more tasteful.

"But first and most of all, I hope the Korean public see the imprudent act of the bar owner and react against it to force him to take off all the Nazi memorabilia," Caspi said.

(yoav@heraldm.com)

By Yoav Cerralbo

OMG!

2007-10-07T04:08:00.000-07:00

There was a baseball team in Korea called the Unicorns and I didn't know!! And now they are done!! They are all broked up! I feel like I just showed up to my surprise birthday party but someone already blew out my candles and ate all the vanilla from the neapolitan icecream!

READ IT!

Guilty Pleasures

2007-10-04T09:59:00.000-07:00

Today in one of my classes I was teaching about family. Just normal stuff like family titles (mom, dad, aunt, uncle, great grandmother, half brother, step-sister, ex-step father...the usual) and common questions you can ask someone about their family (like: Do you have any brothers or sisters? or If both your parents were drowning in a lake and you could only save one which would you choose?), but then I was able to teach them something truly enlightening. I was telling my students the difference between "Are you like your mother?" and "Do you like your mother?" Basically, how "to like" and "to be like" are different. I said "Can anyone tell me the difference between these two phrases?" and one student said "Yes. One is like 'similar to' and the other is like to love someone, right?" To this I said "Not exactly, because you can love someone, but not like them." My students looked puzzled. I continued, "For example, it is possible to love your family, but not enjoy their company or even like them as people. When I was a teenager my mother and I really didn't like each other. We were always fighting and never had anything nice to say to each other. In that situation I would say that I loved my mom (because I had to) but I didn't like her (because we didn't get along)." I went on to say that sometimes love is more of a responsibility than something you actually enjoy, and sadly this usually ends up applying to your family...

Jaded, anyone?

Why the hell was I teaching them how to say these things in English. Why do I feel I have to allow people to give voice to their dysfunctionalities?!

Then I put my students into groups to chat about family things and I was able to hear such delicious conversational tidbits as:

"I love my Dad but I really don't like him!"

"Frankly speaking, I really don't like my family, but I have to love them!"

"When I was young I really didn't like my father, but now I like him AND I love him!"

"My mother and I used to be good friends, but now I don't like her, but I still love her a lot!"

It was amazing. It was like a therapy session. My students were openly explaining the disfunctionalities in their family relationships and how the burden of love sometimes doesn't seem quite worth the effort.

I feel that learning a foreign language like English is really liberating for many Koreans becuase they are able to say things in English which they normally wouldn't dream of saying in their native tongue. When they speak English it isn't only a whole new set of grammatical rules, but also social and cultural rules as well.

I wonder if as I learn to speak Korean better and better I will begin to feel the restrictions of their language. I truly hope not.

The way of the FUTURE!!!!

2007-10-03T06:42:00.000-07:00

Video blogging, it's what's for dinner.

Roughly...

2007-10-02T23:18:00.000-07:00

I forgot to tell you, but roughly translated here is my little speech. It is very very short and simple because speaking in Korean is really really hard. This is not an exact translation because this speech was actually FAR FAR above my current Korean level and some of the grammar and vocabulary I don't know. As I mentioned before my tutor and my students helped me write this and some parts I can't remember exactly how to translate, but below is the general idea of what I was saying.

Good evening,

My name is Autumn and I am teaching English at Min Byung Chul school of English. It is very nice to meet you.

First of all you may not know this, but I am not Korean. Therefore, I cannot really speak Korean. Right now I am cheating by using this paper! So, if you come up and speak to me after this speech I probably won't know what you are saying!

But in all seriousness I am very honored to be here today. Joeun is my best friend here in Korea. She and her family have always made me feel like a member of their family despite any language or cultural barriers and for that I am eternally grateful.

I would like to wish Joeun and Woogeun a beautiful life filled with happiness and love. Congratulations and thank you very much for listening.

That's it!

And for a man named Martin, here is the speech written in Hangul. I know it isn't exactly the same as my English translation above, but not too far off!

안녕하세요!

저는 민병철 학원 에서 영어를 가르 치는 Autumn 입니다.

우선, 아실지모르겟지만 저는 한국사람이 아닙니다. 그러니 제 한국말에 너 무 감명벋지 마십시오. 전 지금 컨닝중입니다. 나 중에 제게 한국말을 하셔도 저는 잘 모릅니다.

이자리에 서게 해 주셔서 가슴이 두근 두근 합니다. 조은이는 저의 진짜 소중한 친구 입니다. 조은이 와 그 가족은 저를 항상 한가족처럼 대해 주시며 제가 한국 에서 지내는데 많은 도움을 주셧습니다.

진짜 진짜 바라건데 조은이 와 우근씨 가 사랑 과 행복이 가득한 예쁜 가정을 이루시기를 빌면서 이만 마치겟습니다.

고맙습니다!

There might be some spelling mistakes and my computer won't let me use the "ㅆ" as the bottom consonant for some reason, but there it is! My speech in Korean!

I'm speaking in KOREAN!

2007-10-02T09:50:00.001-07:00

My friend 조은 (Jo eun. She is the one who hosted the "hahm" last month) got married last Saturday. At the begining of May she asked me to give a small speech at her wedding, in Korean, because she is mean and crazy and I said yes because I didn't think she was really serious. It turns out she was dead serious and she told all of her family and friends that a "foreign woman" (That's me!!!) was going to speak in Korean (Can I speak Korean? Of course not!!) at her wedding in September and it became a point of pride and excitement for her family. Jesus. There was no backing out of this. As September slowly grew closer I started to get really nervous about this speech thing. I can't speak Korean yet! I am barely a toddler in terms of my speaking skill!!! So, I begged the woman who is helping me study Korean plus two more of my older students, to help me write a very very very short speech. Which they did. Then I practiced it about 300 million times before the date, but still not enough to memorize it! It was SO DIFFICULT! Much harder than I thought it would be.

Anyway, I haven't been that nervous in front of a group of people since the first time I sang the national anthem in front of my school in the 7th grade!

Another reason why I was so nervous was that it is really unusual for someone to give a speech at a Korean wedding so it felt really weird and the audience didn't know how to react, but it is over now and she and her parents were so happy.

Jeremy recorded it using my little Sony camera. The quality isn't very good, and people kept walking in front of him and bumping into him, so it is a bit rocky at points, but you can hear me speaking in Korean! I still can't watch the video because it is too embarrassing and I think I look like a barge in that dress, BUT I though y'all might get a kick out of it.

Holiday!

2007-10-02T09:29:00.000-07:00

Here is why I don't have to work tomorrow!

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

2007-10-02T02:05:00.001-07:00

Jeremy was here for the past 9 days. He left yesterday to go back to New York. I am so depressed. When you don't see someone for a long time you adjust to life without them. You miss them a lot, but you forget what everyday life with them is like. Otherwise everyday would be too painful, you would spend all your time thinking about the person you were missing and you wouldn't be able to focus on anything around you.

This, of course, is exactly the situation with Jeremy and now I am here in Korea living in an empty shell of an apartment with a job I can't care about any more because my heart isn't here.

I am ready to come home.

I will see you all very soon

T-minus 3 months and counting.

NEW!

2007-09-21T07:06:00.001-07:00

I got new glasses today so that when Jeremy visits we don't look like twins because his glasses look exactly like the ones I bought here before. See:

Whaddaya think?

Think before you...

2007-09-21T06:17:00.000-07:00

...talk to your class about diarrhea because it will come back and bite you in the ass.

For example:

The first four months here I had A LOT of stomach problems as I was adjusting to the food and water, so I was sick a lot. My students would ask me how I was and I would tell them about my stomach problems and ask them for some advice on what to do. I mean, who else I am going to ask about this stuff? And anyway I got a lot of really good advice!

Yesterday a student came to my Free Talking (conversation) class that I hadn't seen for about 4 months. I said to her, "Wow! I haven't seen you in a long time! When was the last time you came to class?" To which she replied in front of the whole class without blinking an eye, "Oh the last time I saw you was when you had diarrhea all the time. Do you remember?"

She said this just like a five year old pointing out some awful abnormality with the most open-eyed mater-of-fact tone of voice possible.

I don't know about you, but I tend not to remember periods of time based on the specifics of my bowel movements. I prefer the Roman style calendar, I find it much more reliable.

I know....

2007-09-17T05:52:00.001-07:00

Jesus Wept.

I know you should never look a gift horse in the mouth, but I needed a fuckin' gift PACK horse to carry my Korean Thanksgiving Day present from my boss back to my apartment! It is a box filled with the heaviest fruit imaginable: The Asian Pear.

It's almost as big as my fuckin' HEAD!

FURTHERMORE, why?! Why on God's green earth would a single girl living alone with no roommates and no family necessitate having 10 of the HUGEST fruits on the planet to keep her company in her apartment?! This box was 17 pounds. I am now the owner of 17 pounds of Asian Pear.

I'M RICH!!!

PS: what's with that little character?! Doesn't he look like an orange?! Why are oranges selling their helpless pear cousins to feed The Man?! I fucking HATE oranges now! I hate oranges and their goddamn pear slave ring selling their own brothers for food!

Hahm, anyone?

2007-09-16T23:30:00.000-07:00

조은 (Jo eun) and I before the 함(Hahm) began!

I'M BLOG CRAAAAAAZY TODAY! I realized that I have a lot of catching up to do so sorry about the surplus! Yikes! Anyway, let's talk about Hahm, Korean 함, which is the Korean word for "hope chest", but is also the name given to a crazy tradition that happens before a young couple gets married.

This is a 함.

Here is some history:

Napp'ae (Exchanging Valuables)
Before the wedding, the groom's family sent presents to the bride and her family in a box called a Ham. Additionally, the Hamjinabi (person who delivered the Ham)(SIDE NOTE: This man must wear a dried squid on his face. No one I asked knows why!!!) and a small group of close friends of the groom also took a pot of Bongch'i Deok (red bean rice cake) from the groom's family. The bride's family would have a small party for the group, offering them food and drink for their efforts. The ceremony of delivering the Ham has evolved into a major event for friends of the groom, with the bearers "selling" the contents of Ham to the bride's parents. The Ham usually contained 3 items. The Honseo (marriage paper), wrapped in black silk, specified the name of the sender and the purpose (marriage) of sending. It symbolized the dedication of the wife to only one husband (SIDE NOTE: Yes this means that if by any chance your husband died you could NOT marry again.). The wife was to keep this document with her forever, having it buried with her when she died. Ch'aedan was a collection of red and blue fabrics, used to make clothing. The blue fabrics were wrapped with red threads, while the red fabrics were wrapped with blue threads. The two colors represented the philosophy of Eum/Yang (Yin/Yang). The Honsu was a collection of other valuables for the bride from the groom's parents.

My friend 조은 (which means "good" in Korean) is getting married, and her family is really fun and a bit traditional so they decided to do함.It isn't so common nowadays because it is expensive and loud and those are two things that most Korean people simply don't like, but I am lucky enough to know the right family at the right time so I got to participate in this great tradition!

조은 in her 한복 (Hanbok: traditional Korean clothing)

조's Dad explaining the rules.

The happy couple!

Basically, there are two groups: the friends of the groom and the friends of the bride.

bride

groom

The groom's men want to stay outside with the box of goodies (함), but it is the ladies job to entice them inside by offering them food and drink and entertainment and MOST importantly: $$$$$$$$$. We were able to get enough money from this thing to go out to an expensive night club and rent a VIP room. This may sound "cool", but it is more funny than anything, but more on that later!

Yum!

Bottoms up!

There is a big group of guys, but the only two who really matter are the guy with the squid on his face and his spokesperson (you can't really talk well with a squid on your face...)

This thing(the squid) really really really smells bad, and the 함 is really heavy and uncomfortable, so it isn't easy to stay out too long.

This is the "spokesman", who ended up being a kind of "MC" for the whole night. This guy was hilarious. His English was deplorable, but he kept telling me that I couldn't understand him because he spoke "real English" and I did not!

So, after about an hour of pushing and pulling and hemming and hawing and the girls dancing and singing (Oh I sang a song alright! You could say that I was the first one to get them to move...heee!!!) and giving the dudes money and food and beer and soju, we finally physically dragged the squid guy into the elevator and up into the apartment. During the whole time that we were outside the whole neighborhood was watching. People came outside to cheer us on and people were yelling from their windows to show support. It was really cool.

Once we got upstairs the grandmother was waiting outside of the elevator to greet the men! She was so cute. Then the hope chest was finally brought into the house and the squid guy broke a bowl (a la Jewish wedding) and the tradition was complete.

ACTION HUG! 조's Dad hugging Squidward.

Squidward sans squid.

Then we had a great dinner prepared by the family to thank us for bringing the 함 home safe, but before the dinner 조' s parents RANSACKED the 함! It was hilarious! The gifts are for the bride, but, just like everything in a Korean wedding, it is truly the parents who have control. 조 just stood in the corner patiently as everyone else manhandled and "OOOHed" and "AAAAAAHed" over her cool new stuff (clothes, expensive jewelry, traditional crafts, etc...I couldn't get close enough to take any pictures!!! Sorry!!) Anyway, During the dinner the crazy MC guy who was the "spokesperson" from before played all these icebreaker games with the group because the people who bring the 함 home are all single so this tradition is kind of like one huge blind date (Don't worry Jeremy, I was a good girl and showed them all your picture and told them that they would get to meet you at the wedding!!!).

Dinnertime!

After dinner we rounded up the troupes and headed to a night club. This is where we spent all of the money the guys earned from the ceremony. Here is the room:

V-I-P!

This room had a karaoke machine (See the screen in the back?), and snacks, and beer and drinks, a bathroom (only for dudes) and comfy pillows, and MOST IMPORTANTLY a refuge from this:

I have NEVER seen anything so ridiculous and awesome in my life. I felt like i was in an '80s movie. Every hour a new act was on stage. Sometimes it was a cover band playing classic Korean hits, and other times it was some crazy dance team (usually men wearing ALMOST NO CLOTHES, or some crazy Power Rangers outfits!!!!!!) accompanied by some horrible DJ/MC who kept stopping the music every 5 seconds to say some indecipherable gibberish, making the music literally impossible to dance to. I was in heaven.

Then we went to a restaurant to eat what my new friends called "hangover food", but what was actually a type of soup made out of congealed cows blood. HOORAY!!!

Love,

a

FISHWIVERY!

2007-09-16T22:00:00.000-07:00

About 2 months ago I traveled with some friends to the East Coast. We drove all night at got there just as the sun was coming up. It was quite beautiful:

beautiful!

After we got there the first thing we did was drive into the town:

the town.

and go to the fish market:

the fish market.

dingy, dingy, dingy!

dingy dingy!

BUT the fish market wasn't open yet so we went to the beach and drank some wine. It was 6am:

the beach. the wine. the breakfast beach wine.

And I made a new friend:my new friend.

Then we returned to the fish market at 8am, to buy some breakfast. Yes, breakfast. And I am not talking some user-friendly fish breakfast taco. I am talking about 회(hweh) which is Korean-style sashimi BUT it is NOTHING like sashimi. It is basically just raw fish, right out of the ocean, hacked and sliced into bite sized pieces and put on a plate. It is quite good, but not the easiest thing to eat (with soju) before noon after you have been up driving all night.

The best part about 회 is watching the preparation. I got to see TRUE FISHWIVES IN ACTION, AAAAAAAAAND you are so lucky because I taped it using my nifty little camera. CHECK IT OUT!!!

The Final Product!

Quetin and Ivan and 2 bottles of soju!

Daniel and Fiona eatin' fish heads!

Startin' early (8am) and Staring early (8 years old).

What the hell IS this?!

Then for lunch we made ramen IN the room using portable gas ranges (THREE OF THEM! It was a gas-range-o-rama) which I am sure breaks about 10,000 different fire code laws and then at night there were fireworks and we ate BBQ.

lunch!

fireworks!

"Wow, fireworks!"

BBQ

Then the next day we had 회AGAIN for breakfast (to my dismay), and started the drive home. There was a lot of traffic...

so it took...

a long time...

to get home.

But it was OK because the ride home was very beautiful:

And I got to see this cool 장승 (jang seung):

hot mama!

they weren't real...they were made out of wood.

To find out about the history of 장승 click here.

more 장승

And I got to get this video of these crazy fish in the back of a truck!

-Fin-

Son of a....What?

2007-09-16T21:43:00.000-07:00

The common expletive "Son of a Bitch!!!" is very confusing to most Korean people who cannot pronounce the short "i" sound that is present in such words as "snip" and "clip", but rather pronounce "i" as "e" as in "creep" and "sleep". So, one of my students the other day asked me to explain what "son of a bitch" meant because she was confused.

"What is so wrong about the beach?" she asked.

"The beach?" I replied.

"Yes, 'Sun of the beach'. Is it because the sun at the beach is so hot and uncomfortable?"

I almost died. It was the cutest thing anyone has ever asked me here in Korea. I explained to her the real meaning of the swear and told her it had nothing to do with either the "sun" or the "beach", but I wish it did! It is like when I was trying to explain "Jesus Christ!" as a swear to my students and one of them thought I said "Japanese Christmas!" Which, in my humble opinion, should be the swear of the new millennium. Please add this to your list of favored flamboyant colloquialisms and minced oaths.

COOKIES!

2007-09-14T19:37:00.000-07:00

Today is Saturday. Today I usually sleep REALLY REALLY late because of my crazy ass work schedule, but one of my students woke me up around 10:30. Why? To give me some cookies that she made in her Saturday Junior High cooking class!!! I am so happy!

...

2007-09-12T06:54:00.001-07:00

i just read the transcript for the democratic presidential debate. i am so depressed. what the fuck are we going to do about our political situation? i worried about it before, but living abroad really really really changes your ideas about American politics. i live next to north korea and i have learned to see north korea as an impoverished neighbor and not as a threat to international security. this year 23 korean missionaries were kidnapped by the taliban in afghanistan and the united states would not help korea because of our no nonsense stance toward terrorism. not i think we should negotiate with terrorists, but how can anyone be black or white about every situation? 2 of the hostages died because of a lack of international intervention, specifically the united states refused to help korea negotiate with the afghanistani government and with the taliban. i have always known that the us is powerful but i never understood how powerful we really are until i came abroad (i know that sounds stupid, but it is the whole "bird's eye" view thingy), and every time bush makes some questionable policy my students would look to me to give them an answer. it is really hard to know what to say when your students ask you, "why won't your government help us?" and at that moment i realized that there is no person on earth qualified enough to manage such a powerful nation.

Who let the dogs out?! or Drug Prescription in Korea

2007-09-11T22:09:00.000-07:00

I would like to take a moment to talk about the prescription system here in Korea because it is just crazy, or maybe just different, but I think it's just crazy. Up until about 6 or 7 years ago there were two places that you could go to get prescription drugs in Korea, from a pharmacist or from your doctor. Most doctor's offices and clinics had their own drug dispensaries and pharmacists were allowed to prescribe many prescription-only medications to people without a doctor's permission. Due to the amount of drug over-use that this system caused, and the growing concern about resistance to antibiotics, the government decided to separate the pharmacy from the clinic in 1999. After this people got a prescription from the doctor and then went to the pharmacy to fill that prescription, just like in the good ol' US of A. So currently the majority of the power about which drugs people take lie with the doctors and not the pharmacists. A recent problem that has arisen because of this is that the doctors have taken to prescribing specific brand name drugs and not generic ones to their patients, thus increasing the cost the average person spends on medicine. This also forces the patient to always frequent the same pharmacies that carry that doctor's specific medications. I have a student who had to go to 3 different pharmacies trying to find the exact brand name drug that her doctor prescribed for her. This problem is exacerbated by partnerships between drug companies and doctors and doctors and pharmacies. The drug companies provide serious benefits (allegedly) to the doctors who then specifically prescribe that company's drugs, then doctors form partnerships with certain pharmacies (many times because the doctor's family members operate that pharmacy) so that people MUST go to one pharmacy and not to another. It is FUCKED UP! For some info you can check out these articles: regime change and current situation.

Then there is the issue that pharmacists always want the doctor's power of prescription. There is a constant tug-of-war between the doctors and the pharmacists to see who will get control of prescribing which types of drugs. Every time a new drug is introduced to Korea there is a cat fight to see who will get to control it. For example with viagra. Everyone wants the kickbacks and benefits from the drug companies. Also the pharmacists want the right to buy cheaper generic drugs at wholesale prices and then make a higher profit by prescribing individual doses of this wholesale medicine instead of selling one package of brand name medicine at a predetermined price. SNEAKY!

In Korea you can buy over-the-counter medication from a pharmacist with no prescription BUT if you go to the doctor because you don't feel well and you don't have a bacterial infection he will still write you a prescription even just for over-the-counter medication. You then go to the pharmacist and he will make you a three day cocktail, each dose is neatly wrapped in a small wax-paper envelope, of the specific brand name non-prescription medicine that your doctor thinks you should take. Isn't that weird?! If I don't feel like going to the doctor and I just want to buy the drugs I think I should take I still have to ask the pharmacist for those drugs. I even have to ask the pharmacist for vitamins, but get this...birth control pills DO NOT REQUIRE A PRESCRIPTION!!! I can't believe it. Anyway, I don't need a prescription for vitamins and Tylenol and stuff like that, but I have to request them from the pharmacist. He technically can't say no to what I want but he will try with all his might to get me to buy the brand name that is most lucrative for his business. It makes me crazy. Check out this guy's experience, and the newspaper's explanation:

Q: "As my personal choice in painkillers, I look for the over-the-counter drug Advil. That is, if I were in the States. In Korea, though, because I'm not familiar with local brands, I would take the empty box of the drug I wanted to buy and ask for the same one from pharmacists, but nine out of ten times, they offer something else and insist I buy it. They invariably tell me they are "the same." A pharmacist once offered me pills out of a large bottle and wrapped them in paper. I wish I could speak Korean fluently enough to explain that I'm serious about my purchase. Why are Korean pharmacists being so tough on customers?"

A: "Due to severe competition among local drug makers, pharmacies constantly receive offers to purchase drugs at varying wholesale prices. Although the active ingredients and the effects of a particular drug may be exactly the same, the wholesale prices can vary depending on the brand, packaging or quantity sold. For pharmacies, selling one particular brand can be more profitable than selling another. Selling individual pills from a large bottle meant for prescriptions can also be more profitable. It's best to know more than one brand, or visit chain drugstores where over-the-counter drugs are readily available."

CRAZY! No one cares about the patient here. It is all about how to make a profit. I never felt this way in the US. Maybe our doctors and pharmacists are just better at hiding it, but a patient has a lot of power in the United States concerning which drugs we want to take. Part of the reason for this is, I think, the amount of aggressive prescription and non-prescription drug advertising in America. Through that advertising we, as the consumer, can gain more knowledge about what medicines are out there and what they do. In Korea it is illegal to advertise prescription drugs and since the pharmacies and doctors control most of the over-the-counter scene many pharmaceutical companies don't even bother to advertise to or educate the masses. Almost none of my students knew what acetaminophen or penicillin were! Something else I was thinking about is that my doctor always told me what drug he was prescribing me as he wrote up my prescription and if I had any questions about the medicine he was giving me I could ask him or write the name down and look it up later on the internet. Patients and doctors don't really communicate here. You kinda just go there and the doctor pokes you around a bit and then you go to the pharmacy.

What Korea needs is an f-ing drug store and not all these goddamn pharmacies. There is no CVS, no Duane Reade, no Brooks, no RiteAid, just these bossy-ass white coats who never want to sell me the medicine I want! Japanese Christmas! What's a girl gotta do to get a bottle of Tylenol over here!? I am so tired of these tiny wax-paper envelopes filling up my garbage can! My cat loves to tear them up and strew them all over my apartment and whenever I turn my fan on they fly out of the garbage can everywhere!!! Don't even get me started on the doctors. Patients are to be seen and not heard in Korea. God forbid you ask your doctor what he is prescribing you!!! It is seen as an insult. Now I must mention that the times they are a-changin' and there are many cool hip young doctors out there who don't subscribe to the old-boy way of thinking, but I don't live in Seoul, so I have yet to experience this situation. I wrote about this before! The doctors here even wear that crazy miner's light thing on their head that you only see in movies from the 1950s! GARG!

Phew, just one more thing. If you go to the doctor's for a cold in Korea, depending on the doctor you go to, he will try and give you a shot. No one knows what is in the shot (All of my students get this shot, hell they ask for it, but none of them actually know what is being injected into their bloodstream. This blind faith in doctor's has got to be nipped in the bud because the doctors motives are not pure!), but I am guessing that is it some crazy combo of really strong antibiotics that even when given to a person with a virus just fucking annihilate ANYTHING foreign in your bloodstream. Does that sound like a good idea to you?! I have read articles and heard stories about doctor's giving this shot to patients (sometimes twice in one visit) so that they will become renown in their community as a cure-all and as a result make more money by gaining more patients!!!! OH MY GOD!

If any of you made it to the end of this article please remind me to buy you a beer once i get back to New York, because you know what? You deserve it \(^-^)/~~~~~~~~~~!

I ATE TOO MUCH CANDY!

2007-09-11T08:51:00.000-07:00

I ate too much candy and now I can't sleep. I totally have a sugar headache and I have to wakeup in four hours!

the culprit.

Here is what is to blame! Damn you "Mah-ee jew!!!" (my chew), why are you so chewy (or jewy) and delicious?!

^^, OTL, (-.-);;;, ㅜㅜ, ㅠㅠ~~~~~~~!!!!

2007-09-11T06:05:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody!

Did you know that Korea has a whole different set of emoticons that are so fucking cute, and enigmatic that when I first came here I had NO IDEA what anyone was texting me about?! For example, today i received this little guy: o(^v^)o. Can you identify this? Can you classify this little guy's emotional message in a clear and simple way? Six months ago I could not, but now I can tell you that this is a little guy shaking his fists up and down in excitement with one of those cute anime triangle smiles and squinty happy eyes. BAM! How about this one: OTL. I think this might have made it to America or maybe even originated there, but I never saw it until I came to Korea. It is a stick figure on his hands and knees(!!!!!so smart!!!!I love it!!!!) and it is used to communicate a tired, frustrated and hopeless feeling! Korean emoticons are mainly different from American ones because they are more like pictures, written from side to side instead of sideways.

American smiley-----> :-)
Korean smiley--------> (^-^)

Korean netizens also feel free to borrow English letters and use them to enhance their little emoti-pictures like this little guy: d(^-^)b. He is giving you a thumbs up! Isn't he sweet!

Korean emoticons are far superior to English ones for THREE REASONS. These THREE REASONS are:

1. Korean emoticons are cuter.
2. Korean emoticons are more expressive.
3. You don't have to turn your head to the side to read them. It just makes sense!!!!

So here are a few of my favorites:

(^o^) = laughing out loud

(*^.^*)= blushing

(ㅜ.ㅜ) or (ㅠ.ㅠ) = CRY CRY CRY!!!

v(^_^)v = victory (It is the crazy peace sign thing that everyone does in pictures over here!!! It is like a bunch of little Nixons running around doing the "V for Victory" thing all the time.)

(-(-(-(-.-)-)-)-) = An angry mob of people, or a gang.

\(^_^)/ = It is a little guy with his arms raised in the air, "Hooray!!!"

()()() ()()()
(-(-(-.-)-)-) = a rabbit gang.

()()() ()()() ()
(^(^(^.^)^)^) = a happy rabbit gang.

(>_<)or (>.<)= angry, upset or frustrated

(^_^); or (^.^);= small sweatdrop, it means a little embarrassed

(^_^)U or (^.^)U= A huge sweat drop (anime-like), it means more embarrassed

(-_-);;;;;;;;;;= unhappy and really really embarrassed, or a little upset, or really embarrassed and sorry about something

(^_^)a= He is scratching his head.

(=.=) or (=_=) = This can mean really really tired or squinting your eyes at something.

(ㅁ.ㅁ)or (ㅁ-ㅁ)= I am really not sure about this one, but it looks like kind of a cute robot face to me!

Also there are lazy smilies and complex smilies.

lazy: ^^

less lazy: ^.^ or ^-^

complex: (^-^)b

Anyway I could go on and on for hours. If you want to see more go here, or here, or here!

Lastly let me remind you about "~", the tilde.

This is used to communicate warm fuzzies when you are writing an email or text message to someone. For example:

Hi Autumn~~
You are my best teacher~~~ o(^-^)o You were so funny in class today \(^O^)/~~~
I cannot attend tomorrow's class (-.-);;;;;; I am very sorry~
Have a great day~~~

It is crazy the amount of "~" they use. They use more "~"s than I use "!"s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hard to believe I know, but it is a damn fact.

BTW, does anyone actually know what a tilde is used for?

What's this?

2007-09-10T05:48:00.000-07:00

It's a PEA muffin. A muffin made with peas.

PEEEEEEAAAAAAS!!