Category: Life in Korea

Caveat: 환갑

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / My Photos

Yesterday I was invited by the owner of the guesthouse where I’m staying to accompany him to his older sister’s 환갑 [hwan-gap]. This is a special ceremony/event that accompanies one’s 60th birthday party, which is considered quite significant. It really wasn’t that different from a 돌 [dol = child’s first birthday party, one of which I attended last year], nor was it different from a wedding or catered business party, for that matter. But it was interesting to once again be an observer at another Korean social function – not really a fly-on-the-wall, as I’m too conspicuous for that, but I don’t think anyone’s behavior is that different because I’m there, either.

pictureI felt proud of the fact that it seemed my Korean was improving, in small ways. Still, sometimes I hate to write about feelings of improvement, not just for fear of “jinxing” my progress, but also because it makes it sound like I’m out there in the world having actual conversations, when in fact, I’m still stuttering along with occasional good sentences, a few chunks and phrases now and then, but mostly just incomprehending smiling, and barely understanding the things said around me.

Later that day, I joined an “English class” that the owner here coordinates for occasional Sundays, where some neighborhood children (the building’s owner’s son [building owner is distinct from guesthouse owner], for example) showed up and I pestered them about their likes and dislikes in English. One boy, Jun, was quite good, especially at his ability to listen to what I said and synthesize it in succinct Korean for his less-comprehending peers.

After that, Mr Choi (the guesthouse owner), took me to a traditional Chinese tea-maker’s establishment (I have no idea what better term to use for this guy’s profession). The man was some acquaintance of his who lives and runs his business a few blocks away from the guesthouse.  This was a fascinating experience, and the people – the tea-makerand his wife – were quite kind. They struck me as a sort of wonderful syncretism of the very traditional Korean, mixed in with some loopy western counter-culture. They had a computer playing mp3 tracks of western music, and a wine-cabinet on one wall with all these European wines, but he was sitting at a traditional-looking tea table and doing all these elaborate things making tea, talking about 30-year fermentations and the fact that evidently (based on my face?) I needed something for my kidneys. And there was a lot of beautiful traditional pottery and furniture around.
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Caveat: Zina’s Musical

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / My Photos / My Videos

Last year around this time, I went to see my student Zina in a musical production. I blogged about it. This year, I had the opportunity to go again, even though she’s not now my student anymore.

pictureThis time, I had my video camera with me. Here are some clips from the musical. I’m still working on figuring out the plot (I bought the CD and the words are in the extended program, so I can spend as much time as I want deciphering it), but the basic idea is that some kids who live in a futuristic “ecologically sustainable” village get bored and decide to go to visit the big, dirty, polluted, future-city, and have some interesting and scary experiences. It was pretty cute, although I liked the plot of last year’s production better (nothing is better than the idea of mosquitoes bringing lawsuits!).

Note that although the kids are lip-syncing during the performance, I’m pretty certain it’s their own voices, that were pre-recorded so as to raise the production value a little bit – Zina’s voice defintely sounds like Zina’s voice to me.






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Caveat: Hermit Kingdom 2.0

Databases, Smartphones & Computers / Internet & Blogging / Life in Korea

I've commented before about South Korea's stunning loyalty to Microsoft – that company's 90-something-% market-share is the highest of anywhere in the world, I believe.  And I think I've noted before that it's driven been by one major thing:  early adoption of internet-banking and online secure-transaction tools, under the aegis of extensive government mandates regarding middleware and security features, that coincidently relied on Microsoft's proprietary ActiveX technology. 

Mozilla has recently taken the time to post an excellent blog entry on the subject of South Korea's "Monoculture" vis-a-vis browsers and operating systems (and no wonder, being Microsoft's most successful competitor in the browser market).  They provide a good summary of the issues, and implicitly explain why iPhone and Android will fail in South Korea, despite their huge cachet and positive brand images.

Given that Samsung recently announced they were going to try joining the crowded field of smartphone OS design, with their "Bada" product (I think that's what it's called – I'm writing from memory on this), I wonder if this will change?  Or will Samsung go ahead and pay some kind of royalty to MS in order to license and use ActiveX and/or internet explorer, in exchange for being able to exploit the current monoculture to protect and enhance their potential for suceess in their home market and suppress their most innovative potential competitors (e.g. Google, Apple, RIM)?  Hmm… I bet there's some kind of dealing going on, there.   I wonder how many shares in tech chaebol Bill Gates owns?  He should own a lot.

Caveat: I am not a criminal

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea

Finally, after more than a month of sending off the paperwork and waiting, I have received my "apostille" criminal background check, which is a document that I will require when I apply for my Korean alien registration card – at least, presumeably.  The last time I was asked to present such a document, I was told when I finally took it in that I didn't need it.  But, it's important to be prepared, and no one will offer me a contract unless I can show that I'm prepared.

On Thursday, I'll get my copy of the medical checkup I did last week, which should mean that at least from a bureaucratic standpoint, I'm 100% employable in Korea.  Then, of course, there's the matter of finding a job.  But, as I've mentioned before, I haven't been looking that hard, to date – because the fact is that I'm enjoying putting my energy full-time into trying to learn the language, and I can afford to do so, at least for now.

Caveat: 금산사…

Banalities & Journaling / Buddhism & Zen / Hiking & Travel / Life in Korea / My Photos

I went on a “templestay” tour to Geumsansa over the weekend.  Here are some pictures.
Here is the main entrance to the provincial park that hosts the temple, down by the parking lot:
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This is a turtle statue near the entrance to the temple complex:
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Here is a view of the main stupa (left, over a 1000 years old, though repeatedly rebuilt) and big old main temple (right, 400 years old, currently being restored due to arson by some right-wing Christian group):
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Architectural detail on the structure housing the old drum, bell, and gong:
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A cool painting on the side of a side-building:
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The entranceway to a small temple dedicated to Chijang Boddhisattva (I think), with the statues visible inside (this is where I did my 108 prostrations, see farther down):
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A view of the main temple courtyard looking back toward the entrance building (a modern building but in the traditional style), and the gong structure off to the right:
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The ancient stupa that is the core of the temple site (i.e. the oldest part, dating in one form or another to at least the 500’s AD):
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A cool statue I saw (well-armed, indeed):
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The men’s dorm where I slept Saturday night (bathrooms are around back – this is a modern building built to look traditional, but women’s dorm out of sight to the right is quite old and traditional, with a fire-burning ondol heating system) :
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Walking from the dorm area across the stream to the side gate into the main temple courtyard:
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A waterfall that I found while wandering around a ways up the stream beyond the dorm area:
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These beads below represent my 108 bows (or prostrations) to the Chijang Boddhisattva. I really did this – it was quite tiring, and yet an old woman came into the temple, about the time I was working on bow number 50 or so, and she did 108 of her own, and finished and had left when I had gotten to my own number 70! I will keep these beads as a souvenir, because each one represents a bow that I actually did:
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This is the charismatic monk who led the templestay guests around and led us in meditation, etc. He was very friendly, positive, and interesting (despite having an incoherent interpreter):
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Caveat: Baru Gongyang

Buddhism & Zen / Life in Korea

Korean Buddhism has a tradition called 바루공양 (sp? = baru gongyang), which is the idea of eating in a very structured, formalized manner and making sure that absolutely no food is wasted.  It's a bit similar in concept to a Japanese tea ceremony, I suppose.

So for breakfast this morning we had a baru gongyang meal.  There were four bowls.  Food between the bowls should not be mixed during eating, and the sound of chopsticks and spoons against the bowls should be minimized.  Also, bowls should be held while eating so that the mouth is hidden from others around you as much as possible.

Before eating, there is a chant:

Where has this food come from?

My virtues are so little that I am hardly worthy to receive it.

I will take this as medicine, to get rid of greed in my mind and to maintain my physical being so as to be able to achieve enlightenment.

The following etiquette rules are given:

Sit cross-legged

No speaking except for chants or recitations

Be careful not to make noise while eating

Always hold bowl while eating

Do not mix food from separate bowls

Do not let your eyes wander while eating

Be mindful of equlity, purity and tranquility

After the chant, we bow, and begin eating.  There are four bowls:

Rice (Buddha) bowl

Soup

Water

Side dish (kimchi, radish, some greens)

After finishing, place chopsticks in bowl 2, receive warm water in bowl 1.  Clean bowls with the water and a piece of radish that you've reserved, and drink this water – this ensures that no food goes to waste.  A second washing is performed and the water is placed into pots.  The monk told us that there are hungry ghosts who will drink this cleaning water, but that if there are particles of food in the water, the ghosts will choke and disturb the peace of the monastery.

Finally, you wipe the bowls dry and wrap them up again.  You bow and put the bowls away.

I did all this, this morning.  It was very interesting.  [This is a "back-post" written 2010-02-24]

Caveat: The Left

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea

Yesterday, on the subway, I saw my first left-handed Korean. 

I'm sure there have been others, but I know it's exceedingly rare.  I was teaching here for over two years, and never saw a student writing with his or her left hand.  The pressure toward social conformity is very great, even in the pre-school and kindergarten years when things like what hand one writes with are established.

But on the subway, yesterday, there was a young woman writing diligently in a notebook with her left hand.  I felt this startling feeling of recognition, and then a weird kinship with her.  Totally unjustified, I'm sure.

Koreans sometimes notice that I'm left handed, and although they're clearly not offended by it, they nevertheless seem to find it even more alien than, for example, my bluish eyes.

So, anyway.  Today, I'm going to Geumsansa, which is a major temple complex a few hours south of here that's important historically and that's also important to contemporary Korean Buddhism.

Caveat: inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea

The title to this post is an obscure reference to a 60's cultural phenomenon. 

Actually, I went to get a medical check-up, yesterday afternoon.  In order to qualify for an E-2 visa in Korea, a person has to have a medical clearance:  drug test, HIV check, etc.

The check-up I got yesterday was quite thorough.  For 55 bucks, I had my vision and hearing tested, got blood and urine tests, dental checkup (not cleaning, just looking around), TB x-ray… and it was all quite efficient.  I'm not sure how much of this is actually required for the visa.

The one thing that disturbed me:  my blood pressure is much higher than I'm used to seeing.  Not in the "danger" level, but higher than accustomed, certainly.  I haven't had it checked in quite a while, and after losing all that weight 3 years ago, I've been pretty blase about it, but obviously I should be trying to get back into that exercise routine I had when I was living in Ilsan.  And maybe cut back on coffee.

In other news, my blog received it's first "spam" comment recently.  These things are a plague.  I hope it doesn't become a serious problem.

Caveat: Classroom Chaos

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Teaching & Methodology / The Wonders of Work

Yesterday morning I did a demo teaching in a real classroom.   I felt very nervous.  I knew the job was a long-shot, and I'm pretty sure that the demo teaching wasn't, ultimately, a deciding factor, either way.  The fact was that the potential employer, a rather posh private elementary school in Northeast Seoul, seems disinclined to hire me due to bureaucratic obstacles (i.e. the complications of getting me a "fresh" E-2 visa by working with the Korean immigration authorities, as opposed to the convenience of hiring someone already on a valid visa, either E-series or F-series, where it's fairly simple to set up). 

I don't know why I was so nervous.  I think I had a pretty good lesson plan, although the main caveat (yes, caveat) would have to be that no lesson plan survives actual contact with children, at least not 100%.   And I'm experienced enough to know this.  The kids were first-graders – younger than most that I've worked with, at least in Korea.  But they seemed very entertained by what I'd put together:  I had them going around asking each other questions about what they would like to eat, based on the contents of a story they'd been reading that the school gave to me ahead of time. 

My thoughts:  probably, it was a more chaotic classroom than the Korean teachers were used to seeing.  I have always striven for a "student-centered" classroom, as much as is possible given any particular curriculum.  And since they'd only given me the story, without any other curricular guidelines, I simply did what seemed like the best thing:  make a lesson that kept the students moving around and talking in English to each other as much as possible, without worrying too much about "controlling" it. 

The result was apparent classroom chaos – any time you get a dozen first graders on their feet, you can hardly expect anything less.  But I saw two important things:  they were speaking English to each other, and they were having fun.  That, in my opinion, is success.  Hmm… I feel like I'm trying to defend myself, here.  And, as I pointed out at the top of this post, I don't think I need to – I actually think that they understood what I was doing and were not disappointed in it.  But I think, too, that they were just "going through the motions."

Hard to read the Koreans, on this matter – my Korean language comprehension is still quite weak, and I therefore don't pick up what they're saying to each other during or after the class with much accuracy or detail.   But I could tell the native English-speaking teacher they had watching me was cool with it – he was quite friendly to me after we finished, and said something like, "go ahead and just stay with them as long as you'd like," which was a pretty positive evaluation, I thought.

Conclusions:  I will only get the job if the school still finds itself without any other viable, "easier" candidate several weeks down the road and becomes "desperate" to fill their position.  Not to mention the fact that I'm still missing one piece of paper I need to present (it's in the mail, hopefully).   But, as far as the demo teaching, I was feeling pretty happy with it, afterward.

Caveat: 난 드라마를 보면서 한국말을 배울 수있습니다.

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc)

I’m getting back into the habit I had last year of watching Korean “dramas” on my computer. I prefer to download and watch them on my computer, rather than on broadcast television, because that way it’s possible to find subtitles for the shows (there exists a vast “fansubbing” community whose members freely create and post English subtitles for Korean shows, online).

pictureThe drawback is that I mostly end up watching “what I can find,” and I don’t get to watch the series in real time, because there’s the delay waiting for a subtitled version to show up. But with the subtitles, I can actually learn a great deal of Korean sometimes by watching the shows. And, the fact is, these shows can kind of grow on you.

Lately, I’ve been watching episodes of a series called “별을 따다 줘” (officially translated as “Wish upon a star” but maybe more accurately “choose a star”). Like most Korean dramedies that I’ve seen, it’s a weird combination of drama and comedy that’s hard to find in American television, and it’s not a series or soap opera in the western sense – more like a mini-series in that Korean dramas generally have a planned, fixed time frame from their outset, and aren’t meant to be episodic in nature but rather tell a plot (sometimes is a drawn out, complicated plot, but it’s still just a single “story”).

The fact is, I’m a pushover for these types of shows. They’re sappy and romantic and they are full of little moral parables and endless repetitions of unlikely coincidences and ridiculous plot complications. Yet they present the most compelling and also the most annoying aspects of Korean society and culture side-by-side, somewhat glamorized and somewhat exaggerated, but hardly simplified, at least in my opinion. This particular show I’ve been watching has me hooked.  I’m waiting impatiently for the next subtitled episode to appear.
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Caveat: We made our down payment a decade ago

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

The other night I was discussing with my friend Seung-bae Korea's apparently rather efficacious management of the current world financial crisis – of all the OECD countries, Korea has experienced the least recession and least impact on economic statistics such as growth and recession, although there has been some inflation, linked to the somewhat-managed slow-motion "crash" of the won (currency) a year and a half ago. 

My friend Seung-bae made the following wry observation:  "we made our down payment a decade ago."  This is a reference to Korea's "IMF" crisis that occured in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis.  That's true – from everything I've read, that was quite a mess.  What's perhaps disorienting or odd, at least to me, is the idea that the country's government and economic leadership may have actually learned some lessons from that experience that have allowed them to better weather the current crisis.  To me, it doesn't seem like very often that economic leadership is actually capable of learning lessons.

Caveat: 3rd Class

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea

Some people have observed that being a foreigner on a work visa in Korea is like being a 2nd class citizen.  I've always said that, in fact, that's perfectly logical – really, a foreigner working in Korea isn't a citizen at all, so by the logic of national chauvanism, a term like "2nd class citizen" really is actually too good.   I mean, "citizen" is exactly what a person is not, in those circumstances.

I'm not writing to complain about that, however, but rather I want to talk about what it's like to try to spend time in Korea as a foreigner without holding even a work visa.  I'm not talking about working illegally, either.  I'm doing exactly what a tourist should do:  I'm sitting in the country, spending my money. But things can be so difficult.

First, there was the cell-phone thing.  I couldn't get a "normal" cell phone, because I had no National ID card.  I have to subsist with a rental.  It's not actually that much more expensive, but it's just the hassle of it.  Next, I've realized there is a lot of free wi-fi in the country (e.g. at every single Starbucks location) that I simply cannot use, because there's a sign-on page where you have to put in that same National ID card number.   It's all about tracking what people do online, I'm sure, and enforcing that national firewall.  But still – it's not very "tourist friendly."  Finally, last night I realized I can't watch Korean TV online, because I don't have that number.  If I was outside of the country, I could, as they make allowances for that.  But within the country (which my IP-address tells them that I am), the only way to register for the website is to put in the National ID number, which I don't have.  Argh.

Caveat: A World Worthy of Invention

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Life is a Dream / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism

I used to read a lot of science fiction.  I liked the complex, imagined futures, the invented civilizations and cultures.   It was a sort of escape, obviously. 

I hardly ever read science fiction anymore.  I haven't stopped, entirely, but I will plow through less than half-a-dozen novels of the genre in any given year, anymore.  I had a weird insight, yesterday, as to a possible reason:  the real world is more interesting, more complex.

Take, as an example, one particular aspect of the sort of thing I like about those science fiction and fantasy novels:  imaginary languages.  I used to spend time inventing languages, myself.  A strange hobby, I know.  And at least once before in this blog, I've alluded to the fact that the Korean Language is in many ways a surrogate for those invented languages:  whenever I feel that language-inventing impulse, I simply pull out my Korean reference grammar and browse a few pages.

Yesterday, I was walking down the street, watching the people, looking at signs, thinking about the world's complexity, and realized the whole of Korean culture was the same kind of surrogate.  At some point, the real world became just as interesting and complex as any possible imaginary one.  In that sense, the sort of escapism I used to achieve by reading a book  I can now achieve simply by looking around.   Maybe that seems strange.  Or even trivial.  But it felt like a great insight, at the moment.

Caveat: The Party Crasher

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism

As I've said, I've kind of made friends with the proprietor of this guesthouse that I'm staying at.  Two nights ago, he said he was going to a "younger brother's" opening ceremony, and asked if I wanted to go along.  I really didn't know what this meant.  But I went along.

Koreans use brother and sister to mean anyone in their social cohort.  And the fact of being younger or older is important:  it's about rank in the social hierarchy.  They have specialized vocabulary for all of this:  "older brother of a male," "younger brother of male," etc. – all are separate words.

After some quizzing and discussion, I figured out that this wasn't his "real" younger brother, but a colleague from his high school years that had been a few grades behind him.  In the U.S., we'd call such a person, having been in contact with him all the years since, simply a "friend."  But Koreans maintain these historical hierarchical relations throughout life.

Anyway, the friend was a successful businessman.  And the opening ceremony in question was in fact an anniversary celebration of the man's business.  A kind of business birthday party, which they labelled, in giant letters on a big sign in bad English, "Renewal Open!" 

It was definitely a business party.  A catered affair in a place similar to a wedding reception hall.  These kinds of events are mind-numbingly common in Korea.   They'll have a catered business event of some kind or another at the drop of a hat.  There'll be a DJ, some contests, some exhortations to work hard in the year to come from various vice presidents in dull black suits, too-loud music, a few aimless children running around having been dragged along by their parents, dancing girls (entirely G-rated and vaguely silly), karaoke events, a buffet table, soju and beer on each table, a company song to be sung, etc., etc.

I felt like an alien, of course.  The only obvious foreigner there, and no clear reason to be there except that I probably represented some kind of bragging rights for my newfound friend, the guesthouse proprietor.  I was a  "pet wegugin [foreigner]".

I had some food from the buffet and sat and tried to be friendly with the various men he introduced me to:  the founder/president of the business in question, his "younger brother";  some man of uncertain profession;  an alleged "artist."  It was interesting, to see one of these parties for a line of business outside of the realm of the hagwon industry.  Basically it was the same thing, but with a different crowd.  This was an advertising and marketing company, so there was a patina of creative types in attendence – Korean "longhairs" who wore no ties and had hollywoodesque goatees.  I've seen the type plenty on Seoul's streets and on television, but in the hagwon industry you don't get to interact with them much.

Their English was all stunningly atrocious.  But they were pleased and amazed at my own halting efforts at Korean.  At one point I had an almost-conversation with a man:  I'm here with a friend;  I'm American; I work as an English teacher;  Korean is very difficult.

I had a weird thought, I guess as sort of short story idea:  a foreigner such as myself, with a smattering of Korean, could perhaps almost subsist by crashing business events of this sort.  They're always going on, and by visiting the sort of catered halls where they take place, he'd find them easily enough.  As a foreigner, everyone would be afraid to ask too many questions as to who he was or what he was doing there.   Such a foreign party-crasher could avoid confrontation completely, with simple protestations of "sorry I don't quite understand, my friend is around here somewhere."  And many would be friendly just to be friendly.

It would be like a sort of perpetual party-crasher adrift in a Kafkaesque Confucian paradise, free soju, free food, hospitable people.  One would never have to buy one's own meal, and every night would be different.

Caveat: Commuting

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / My Photos

I have had such terrible experiences with being a “commuter,” in the past, that I had some apprehension about how I’d organized my life, temporarily, around the long commute into Gangnam each day from Suwon, where I’m staying.

But it’s turning out that I actually really like it. I’m sure part of it is that there’s a giant difference between a commute that involves getting in a car and driving for an hour, generally in terrible traffic, and getting into a bus or train and riding for an hour – even if it’s riding standing up.  Driving requires concentration and singe-mindedness, whereas riding, one can daydream, doze, read, study….

Some of the worst periods of my life were when I had a driving commute: the hour and fifteen minutes from northwest Philly to Cherry Hill, when I was teaching H.S. in the late 90’s, was truly horrendous, and the hour from Long Beach to Newport Beach in 2005-2006 was almost as bad.  Yet I recall actually liking the hour-long commute into West Philly in 1996 when I was in grad school – because I had the option of taking the train in that case, I suspect, and I often did.

Anyway, the commute now, on the bus, is cool. I always assume it will take over an hour, but some mornings, if the timing is right at the bus stop and the traffic on the expressway isn’t terrible, it can be over in 50 minutes. It’s always nice to get a seat – standing on a bus for an hour is pretty uncomfortable, but not unbearable. I can lean on the side of a seat or against a rail or something, listen to my mp3 player, and doze. It’s very cool as the bus plunges through the 3 tunnels through the mountains separating Suwon from Seoul – the last tunnel must be about 2 km long, and as we pop out of that tunnel right into the heart of Seocho-gu with its high-rises and right-angled streets, it feels like arriving in Manhattan through the Lincoln Tunnel or something.

I love the feeling when I get off the bus at Gangnam-yeok and walk toward the subway entrance. I go into the subway station and through it but I don’t get on the subway – it’s just a convenient way to get across the main Gangnam intersection at Teheran-no (yes, the main east-west street in Gangnam is named after the Iranian capital – it’s kind of as if Park Avenue in NYC was called Teheran Street). Everyone is busily going to work or school or wherever they’re going, and Gangnam has a very different feel than later in the day when people are strolling around shopping or on dates or beginning a long evening of nightclubbing.

The picture shows the pre-dawn light as I arrive at my bus stop at about 7 AM, with that weird Suwon First Church in the distance down an alleyway. Keep in mind that it was about -10 C (15 F) and windy. It’s not an idyllic, gentle dawn.

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Caveat: 어제

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

어제 5시반에 일어났습니다.  일기를 썼습니다.  일기를 쓴 후에 또 블로그를 했습니다.  6시반에 샤워한 후에 아침을 먹었습니다.  강님에서 7시에 버스를 탔습니다.  도착한 후에 카페에 갔습니다.  8시반부터 9시40분까지 한국말을 공부했습니다.  9시50분에 한국어 학원에 갔습니다.  한국어 수업에서 학생 다섯명 있습니다: 중국 한명, 태국 한명, 필리핀 한명, 캐나다 한명 하고 미국 한명 있습니다. 어제 12시에 우리 같이 점심을 먹으러 멕시코 식당에 갔습니다.  1시부터 1시30분까지 교보문고에서 지냈습니다.  1시반부터 버스로 수원에서 돌라왔습니다.

Caveat: Random Wanderings-Around

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / My Photos

I went to class yesterday. And then studied for like 4 hours. Solid. Then I decided to go on one of my random wanderings-around. I ended up “downtown” (the old part of Seoul), and it seemed very cosmopolitan and crowded. There’s this one high-rise at Jonggak that I’ve always thought looks really cool:

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After that, I went back to Suwon on an oddly-uncrowded #1 subway train, and walked back to my guesthouse. I studied for another 3 hours. 한국말을 힘들어요.
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Caveat: Oh, so that’s what he’s doing…

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea

I’ve always suspected that Kim Jeong-il had a secret life in Ilsan. It’s such a modern, prosperous and exciting city, and it’s well within tunnelling distance of North Korea. He could have his troops put in a new, 15 km tunnel and pop out right at WesternDom (a big mall). There’s great shopping, multiplexes, good hospitals and the giant KINTEX convention center. Beautiful parks, museums (included the famous Korean Toilet Museum, never to be missed) and sports facilities.

Finally, my friend Peter found evidence of Kim Jeong-il’s secret: in the form of a business card he found lying on a sidewalk. It turns out Dear Leader Kim is moonlighting as a nightclub representative. This is a perfect job – he’s got the looks, he’s got the wide network of influential people, not to mention, he’s got “muscle.” The nightclub is a chain called “Shampoo.” With a club name like “Shampoo,” he’s got the hair for it, too. Wow, maybe he owns the whole chain? He could integrate it with his network of spies and tunnels.

Below is a photo of the business card in question.  The name says Kim Jeong Il, of course.
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Caveat: Rule of Law

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

I think "rule of law" is important. 

I have been depressed and alarmed, of late, by the number of offers for illegal employment.  I realize that this is an endemic problem in Korea, and I will acknowledge that the often inconsistent and bizarre application of the poorly designed laws that surround employment of foreigners in Korea probably encourages the practices in question.

But it's just frustrating.  I think one area where Korea's made so much progress in recent decades is in "cleaning up" its reputation for corruption.   It's part of what has led to its remarkable growth and new-found prosperity, too.  Although that's an unsubstantiated opinion. 

Basically, people find out I'm looking for a job, and they make offers for me to teach English (as a tutor or as a classroom teacher) in exchange for cash – without getting a regular work visa and without participating in the formal economy.  On the one hand, my sympathy for the situation of "illegal immigrants" in the US causes me to question my own discomfort with these sorts of arrangements, but I worry a great deal that the Korean immigration authorities are sufficiently competent that if I were ever to be caught, their system of deportation and blacklisting for illegal workers would essentially ban me for life from Korea – I like it here too much to want that to happen.

But there's a broader philosophical concern:  I truly believe in the importance of rule of law.  I'm not going to make the outrageous claim that I'm a 100% law-abiding citizen.  Clearly not.  There are the occasional downloads.  The jaywalking.  The 10 miles-an-hour over-the-speed-limit.  And, when traveling in Latin America, things get much more problematic than that, very quickly.  I've paid bribes to border officials in Central America, for example.  And to cops in Mexico, in the 80's.  Most famously, in my own life, is the fact that my work in Mexico in the 80's was irregular – it was, essentially, the "gringo's revenge," because I was an illegal immigrant in Mexico, working a hotel job without visa or paperwork.

These are part of existing in societies made of imperfect laws.  But, in general, I feel badly about these violations.  I make rationalizations about why they've occured.  I suppose, I could easily make rationalizations about working illegally in Korea, if it came to that.   But I really think that one should make at least some degree of effort to "follow the rules" even when they appear illogical and inconsistent – as Korea's immigration and work-permitting processes so clearly do.

It's one thing to race across the street between crosswalks late at night when the light refuses to change.  It's another, somehow, to take envelopes of cash from people who feel their government places undue restriction on their ability to hire "foreigners."  Maybe the difference has to do with where the petty violations become unduly wrapped up in financial gain – something like the difference between illegal downloading for personal use, which feels OK, and illegal downloading for financial gain, which feels wrong.  Is this irrational?  Probably.  But it's pretty much the way I seem to draw the line, in my own mind.

Caveat: Mole poblano en Osan

Banalities & Journaling / Español Aleatorio (Random Spanish) / Food & Drink / Life in Korea

He encontrado un nuevo amigo acá en Suwon.  Es un coreano hispanohablante, que parece ser una clase de persona tan rara como un gringo coreanohablante, por ejemplo.  Parece que se ha afiliado conmigo porque se dio cuenta de que yo podría ofrecerle oportunidades de practicar el español.  No siempre hablamos español, porque siente más cómodo en inglés.  También, me brinda lecciones en coreano con mucha paciencia. 

Anoche me llamó y anunció que querría invitarme a cenar en un restorán mexicano que conoce.   Entonces, fuimos manejando casi 40 minutos, partiendo directamente hacia el sur de Suwon, para llegar en la ciudad de Osan.  Lo interesante de Osan es que es una ciudad donde se ubica una de las bases más grandes estadounidenses en toda Corea.  Me acuerdo haber pasado una noche allí en 1991.  Por esta razón, hay muchas tropas estadounidenses residentes en el pueblo, y hay muchos comercios orientados al negocio con estos extranjeros.  Así, se explica la presencia de un restorán mexicano, bastante auténtico (digamos según un estandar norteamericano si no según un estandar mexicano puro).

Comimos una cena temprana de sopes y mole poblano, y tomamos horchata.  Pareció un milagro, poder hacer esto en Osan, Corea.  La comida era bastante bien, aunque el mole era un poco débil, probablemente para mejor adaptarse al gusto de las tropas gringas más que por acomodarse al gusto de los coreanos.

Tuve la oportunidad de hablar con el cocinero, un verdadero mexicano chilango de Ecatepec, bastante amigable si no tan entusiasmado de su estadía en Corea.  Me explicó que al terminar su contrato, volvería a México, pero que la oportunidad de vivir en un país extranjero "tan extranjero" como Corea había sido muy interesante.

Después de nuestra cena, exploramos la ciudad de Osan un poquito, y finalmente volvimos a Suwon.  A las once, mas o menos, comimos otra cena más ligera, como es la costumbre coreana en noches sociales, de 회 (sashimi, pescado crudo). 

Igual con casi todos los coreanos que he tenido la oportunidad de conocer, este nuevo amigo mio tiene un sinfín de conceptos difusos sobre posibilidades de futuros negocios, en el campo de intercambios interenacionales de jovenes y agencias de empleo para extranjeros en corea.  Incluso, me quiere reclutar como partner de negocios.  Siempre hay que aguantar tal clase de vagos ofrecimientos, porque Corea parece ser un reino de entrepreneurs frustrados.  No me molesta de ninguna manera, aunque a veces tengo que cuidar mi cinismo.

Aquel fue mi noche vagamente mexicanizada.  Hoy, vuelvo al estudio del idioma coreano.  Estudia, estudia, estudia!  파이팅!

Caveat: 밥 먹었어요

Banalities & Journaling / Food & Drink / Life in Korea

I ate dinner.

A very Korean dinner. To start with, I went shopping at the market area east of the 팔달문 (Paldalmun, which is the south gate of the city wall), rather than at a 슈퍼 (shu-pa = supermarket).  I got three kinds of kimchi (regular, “white” and radish), I got some tiny dried fish that I still haven’t figured out what they’re called [update, 4 hours later: my friends Christine and Jinhee both made comments and told me what they’re called. 멸치 = myulchi, little dried anchovies. I’ll put a picture down at the bottom of this entry. Thanks!], I got 오뎅 (odeng = “fish sausage”) and a bag of polished (sticky) rice. Finally, I got some 김 (kim = “dried squares of seaweed”).

I came back to the kitchen at my guesthouse. I stir-fried some chopped onions with the odeng and a dash of salt. I cooked rice in the rice cooker.  I put my varieties of kimchi in tupperware buckets. And I sat down with the guesthouse owner-guy to a meal cooked rice, kimchi in containers, tiny fish, kim, and the bokkeum odeng wa yangpa, eating chopsticksfull of each thing from each container with the rice.

I’ve decided to stay in this guesthouse in Suwon. It’s terribly inconvenient, since my class is in Gangnam, but the rent here simply can’t be beat.  And the owner is really friendly without being overbearing. The regular nightly charge is only 20,000 won (around $18 at current exchange rates), but the owner gave me a 50% discount if I committed to staying a full month. That means less than $10 per night – cheaper than rent in a regular studio apartment anywhere in Seoul (and that would require a 1 year contract). There’s internet here, and a kitchen and all the basic necessities.  So even with the cost of the commute (about $5 per day round trip to Gangnam), it’s a pretty darn inexpensive living situation.

I can use the commute time to veg out or study or whatever. It’s about an hour on a direct Suwon-Gangnam bus (the #3000 is almost door-to-door, guesthouse to hagwon), or a slightly circuitous subway + bus takes about an hour and a half (but runs more frequently, so timing is less of an issue).
Finally, Suwon has grown on me a little bit, in its extraordinarily mercantile, unglamorous way – it’s kind of the polar opposite of the Beverly-Hills-like character of Gangnam. A nice antidote, as it were, at the close of each day’s studying.

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Caveat: What, me worry?

Life in Korea / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

So, the revanchist Globally Dynamic and Xenophobic Cosmopolis had a little border skirmish with their annoying revanchist neighbor, the Insanely Autarkic Hermit Kingdom, involving artillery and machine guns.  Oh… some 50 km northwest of Ilsan.  Two very different brothers, squabbling in the back seat of the car, over where the dividing line lies.

Is it scarier than living in Los Angeles?   Not really.

Caveat: Visionarily Fashionable

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism

When you see it once, it's just someone being eccentric – or else they're having some kind of bad day, maybe.  When you see it twice, on the same block, it's two schoolgirls trying to make a statement.  When you see it a third time, down at Suwon Station, maybe it's a peculiar local trend.  But when you see it a fourth and fifth time, on the subway around Seoul, you realize it's an all-out fashion movement.

What's this, I'm seeing?  Women wearing heavy-framed plastic eyeglasses, generally high-end designer frames like Ray-Ban or DKNY, without lenses.  Personally, I think it looks cool, but it does strike me as a bit out there, as a fashion statement.  Most of the few comments out in the interwebs that I could find are overwhelmingly negative, attributing the behavior to "emo posers" and the like.  But… whatever.

Caveat: 컴퓨터&효성

Life in Korea / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Teaching & Methodology

My friend text-messaged me the above, saying he’d seen it as a name for a 학원 [hagwon].  It means:  “Computer & Filial Piety.”  Which, in and of itself, just about summarizes the weird tensions in Korean society between old and new, East and West, etc., etc., and all that trite cliche stuff that’s nevertheless totally going on.
I wonder what the classes are like, there?  Is it like a Confucian-style computer-literacy school?  Or is it computer-based Confucian moral education?  Or a little of both?  Or is it just a cool sounding name, and has nothing to do with curriculum or teaching philosophy?  Hmm… I’d vote for that last one, based on my personal experience.  Maybe there’s neither a PC nor an analect in sight.

Caveat: Circumperambulation

Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / Life in Korea / My Photos

My friend Peter came down from Ilsan today and we took a long walk around Suwon, which is where I’m staying for now – just be somewhere interesting and different, if not terribly well-located vis-a-vis the Seoul metropolitan area.

Suwon has old city walls around about 80% of it’s old-city perimeter, but it’s otherwise a rather stark, industrial city. Together the old fortress elements combined with its proletarian character make it seem vaguely European.

Peter and I walked a full circle along the top of the wall.  Here is a view of the weird, gothic-industrial church to be found just southeast of the old city wall.

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Here is a picture of a bird.

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Here is a picture of Buddha, perched against the mountainside in the western part of the walled-in old city.

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Caveat: Navigating

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea

Everyone who knows me knows that I love maps.  And I love online maps, too, and the amazing things that can be done with them, for example, google earth.  Unfortunately, google earth, yahoo maps, and related "international" (really, US- or Europe-based) mapping websites don't have very good data on Korea's mind-numbingly complex urban geography.  Google earth, for example, is inconsistent in their romanization of Korean place-names and therefore it can be impossible to find locations because one has no idea how the google-earthians might have spelled them.

But, in fact, there are excellent online mapping resources for South Korea.  Every single Korean vehicle has a GPS-using map-o-matic device of some kind on the dashboard, which delivers down-to-the-building navigation information.  It's definitely out there.  The problem is that it's not in translation.  You've got to be willing to work in Korean.

So, recently I have begun to feel competent using naver.com's map section.  I have figured out bus routes, located ATM's for my bank (외환은행), and located "addresses" (not street-number-based, as in the West, but rather based on "block numbers" and neighborhood names).  It's extremely cool, and I can spend hours poking around with it.

Caveat: 엉덩이에 사과한다

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

Oh dear, oh dear. Sometimes, I can understand just enough Korean to create hilarity and confusion in my brain.

I was riding the subway, and in a sign above my head, right in front of me, I read “엉덩이에 사과한다.” Now, as best I can figure out, this means “Apologize to your ass.” Really.  Here is a picture of an ad (found via naver image search) that roughly resembles the one I saw.

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It’s advertising a product called “apple hip”. There’s a lot going on here, perhaps more than anyone should want to know.

First of all, it’s important to realize that the Korean “엉덩이” can mean all kinds of things, from the innocuous “hip” to the dirty-sounding “ass” – the same word is used for all of these things.  I’ve had humorous moments in the classroom, when a student, after a short session with their little electronic dictionary, will innocently and confidently use the word “ass” where we would use the word “hips.”

Secondly, there is a common pun involving the word “사과” which means both “apology” and “apple”. So they work in the name of their product and make a joke about how you need this product to improve your butt. It is also drawing on the huge popularity of Apple Corp. products (and note the Applesque design look, below), making an English-language pun on the word “hip,” drawing on the Korean meaning of “butt” and the English meaning of “cool”.   Which is to say, you need this product if you want to be “hip,” or cool, butt-wise.

Now, I could get this far, but I still had no idea what the hell the actual “apple hip” product is. Obviously, something to improve your butt, in some way. One of an apparently infinite line of Korean “beauty” products of dubious intent and claim. Some more research… The best I can figure out, it’s some kind of butt massager. Here is another picture I found on naver:

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Seriously!  I would expect to see this advertised in my email spam box, not on the subway. But hey (butt, hey?), this is Korea. Strange country.
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Caveat: Melting…

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea

It was raining yesterday.  And foggy.  And all the snow was melting.

Korean weather has been very weird for the last month (I missed the first part of it).  More Minnesota-like than typical, with lots of snow on the ground and sustained cold. 

Now, the weather is back to "Korean normal":  warm front came through, last several days, with rain.  Then, today, it's clear and bitterly cold.

Caveat: It’s OK

Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / Life in Korea

I was having dinner with my friend Peter out in Ilsan last night.  We went to the Hoa Binh (Vietnamese Pho seen through a Korean lens, roughly) at La Festa.  Talking about various things, I was feeling very patient with my current limbo. 

After eating I showed Peter the convenient 하이마트 (Hi-Mart) supermarket that's almost literaly across from his building, that he didn't know was there.  I used to shop there when walking back home from work, because it was right on the way and not out of the way like the other supermarkets I knew about. 

Peter and I parted ways, and I was walking to Juyeop station to take the subway back into Mapo-gu when I spontaneously decided to ride a bus instead.  I stood on the bus-stop island and waited for a bus to go by that had in its destination list a location not too far from where my guesthouse is (near Hapjeong).  I ended up hopping on a Number 72 bound for Sinchon.  Not super close, but I knew how to get from Sinchon to Hapjeong easily — it's only 2 stops away on the circle line and I've walked it before, too.

I felt very pleased and competent to be able to just get on a bus, at 9 pm on bitterly cold winter night (-13 C), in this vast, alien metropolis.  Meaning… it's not so alien to me. I know my way around.

It was a local route, and zigzagged through Ilsan, then Hwajeong, then Susaek.  It was about 50 minutes.  I listened to my mp3 player and gazed out the window.  Life is good.

Sinchon is Seoul's Greenwich Village, basically. Trendy, tons of shopping and nightclubs, a bohemian and university neighborhood.  I like walking through there, although it's so "youth oriented" that I sometimes get melancholy.

I took the circle line (green line #2) back to Hapjeong.   I'm craving tteokbokki really bad – it's great comfort food when it's cold — but I didn't see any places selling it on the walk back to the guesthouse.  Hmm, maybe tomorrow.

Caveat: What we’re here for

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Quotable

OK, I was in limbo for 4 days, and then, this:   discouragement.

I always understood it wasn't a "done deal."  So Curt broke the news to me last night… he can't hire me.  I believe he's sincere when he says he wants to, but he just can't take on the financial burden of hiring a foreigner on an E2 visa — the financial burden in such cases isn't just the matter of my salary (which I was happily and willingly negotiating downward) but a matter of business licenses and legal compliances and such like.   So, in the end, it's too much for his small, start-up hagwon to take on.  Easier and cheaper to hire Korean nationals and/or F-series visa holders who are free to take whatever job they wish.   Curt and I will remain friends, I hope… he has been very kind to me.

Meanwhile, I face one of those flexion points:  what next?   Plan B.  I must plunge into the job market in earnest, because it is truly my intention to stay in Korea.  It will take a lot of further disappointments before I give up and go with plan C.  

I spent some time surveying the online classifieds this morning for the Korean ESL market.  I don't think I need to be that worried… there seems to be an awful lot out there.  Given I'm flexible on location and pay, I should find something.  But of course, there's the gumption trap of getting started.

I've updated my resume, and I really should try to put together one of those "sample teaching videos" I'd been plotting last summer, but then kind of dropped.   I could post it somewhere for potential employers to see.

I've rented a cellphone, finally… this business of trying to get a pre-paid phone (which is cheaper than a rental) on a lowly tourist visa is annoyingly impossible, as far as I've figured out.  I'll put my phone number on resume and facebook if anyone wants to call.

Lastly, one more bit of… argh.

I was up at 5 am, this morning, which has been my wakeup time since settling down from the jet-lag.  It's not going to be optimal, if I get an afternoon teaching job, but I'm very adjustable, that way — it just takes time.   Anyway… this guesthouse I'm staying in is my favorite so far of the various I've sampled in Seoul.  It's a bit of the atmosphere of the Casa, where I worked in Mexico City in the 80s (and have stayed there many times since).  Of course, it doesn't have the same lefty-liberal bent, here, that prevails at the Casa.   So you run into travelers, mostly Japanese and "westerners," and you have occasional conversations.

I had one at 5 am, with this scraggly but friendly fellow American.  He was surprised to see someone else up and about.  I mentioned my jetlag, briefly, and he was shocked I was "getting up" rather than ending my day.  Of course, Koreans are night-owls, so anyone adapted to Korean lifestyle would find it odd, too.  But as the conversation progressed, there was this weird, judgemental tone.  Like somehow I was morally deficient because I was failing to stay up late and go out drinking each night.  "Man, that's what everyone does, in Korea."  Well, yes… and, no.

I felt annoyed.  I began to feel that this guy, he's exactly the sort of ugly American that is partly why so many Koreans dislike or distrust "foreigners."  And then, the icing on the cake:

The conversation had drifted to what I was doing.  The job-hunt.   I was mulling the fact that I wasn't being very productive.  You know, voicing my guilt-feelings, I guess.  And his response was quick and aggressive, locker-room toned: "Yeah, man.  But that's not what we're here for, is it?"   We're not here for being productive?  And.. the alternatives?

No wonder so many Koreans see us Americans as lazy.  Sigh.

So.  파이팅!

Caveat: I ♥ Korea

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea

I don't know why.  I just do.  It's not like I have any super close friends here… and there are other countries that have felt friendlier (such as El Salvador) or are more stunningly beautiful (such as Chile).  Just a weird fascination, I guess.

Lots of things are just comfortingly familiar, now.  The convenience store on every corner.  The crazy moped drivers (worse with all the snow and ice).  The heated floors.  The way everyone tries to dress fashionably in an utterly impractical way.   The ubiquitous cell phones (I have got to get one or I will be like a blind guy at at deaf persons' convention).  The smell of kimchi.

OK.  Enough nostalgia.  Am I over the jetlag?  Not really, but feeling more rested.  Time to try to be productive.

Caveat: Long-promised [임형주 – 행복하길바래]

Background Noise / Hiking & Travel / Life in Korea / Life is a Dream / My Videos

I’ve been saying I would post a video from my visit to Ulleungdo [울릉도] for a while, and I finally have. It’s not as carefully edited as the ones I made before, but it’s a glimpse of what I saw when I was there. The music is 행복하길바래 by 임형주 [haeng-bok-ha-gil-ba-rae = “I hope you are happy” by Im Hyeong-ju]

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