Impressions

OK, well the first 1/3 of my year is almost done, and I figured it's about time to give you some of my serious impressions about Korea. But first, take a look at this letter a student wrote to a college admissions officer after his interview (all of the spacing is actually how it looked). I guess I shouldn't make fun of my kids so much, but sometimes they just leave themselves vulnerable to attack:

Dear Mr. ----

Hellow?

My name is Lee(Roy)Kim, the smile man.

I am a student that is passionate to go to your school, -------.

I am really sorry that my reply is late.

anyway,

Because I knew that this school was one of the hardest and the best school to attend, I was very nervous before the interview was held. Like it's reputaitions the interview questions were stunning, "How do you learn?"

At first I did not know where to start my response, I would like to thank you for explaining me how to find a way to answer this question.

After the interview, I knew that I would be thrilled to attend this school if I get a chance.

I hope to see you again when I go to the school tour this winter.

Sincerely, Lee (Roy) Kim the smile man

Leroy, as I call him, is certainly a deep thinker. How DO you learn, smile man? The smile man's letter was perhaps only surpassed by another student's response to the SAT Essay question, "Is it important to be able to 'unlearn' what we have grown up thinking?" His thesis: "No, because unlearning can be dangerous. For example, if I unlearned that all black people have guns, i would be in much more dangerous situation. Because they do." Indeed.



So, down to my impressions of this cool/lame/traditional/modern/dirty/clean/strange country I am in. This post is not for the "attention span-impaired," as I have a lot to describe. You can't say I didn't warn ya...


Before I get to the culture critique, I'd like to start by saying that Korean students are not exactly the most vivacious kids I've ever laid eyes on. I liken them to downtrodden peasants in 14th century England, just hoping to survive one more day. Except they are solving math problems, not hoeing potatoes. The one energetic girl in my class brings me oranges every day and has asked her mother if she can marry me (the answer was yes, by the way). She also bought me three pairs of socks for Christmas. I don't know what to read into that. Anyways, the bad thing about this job is that my classes are taught to those students who sign up each day. So, I have new students every day, every class. It never affords me the opportunity to get to know them, and it makes it so that I never really know how many students I will have in class (ranges from 3-20). I don't even know what/when I'll be teaching on any given day because of this system. Getting to know groups of students would make this job much more enjoyable and allow me to really get my students interested and involved. Instead, I have to spend a lot of time repeating myself, and making sure everyone is caught-up with the material.

Now, for the social science textbook stuff. There are a few things that are very specific about Korean culture that I can describe: 1) the introversion and stress caused by education, 2) obsession with looking Western, and 3) the role of women. Takes notes, this will be on the final.

1) Because the culture is one in which, traditionally, the young take care of their elders later in life, the young are expected to work their butts off at school in order to get the best jobs. In this sort of atmosphere, naturally the competition to do well becomes fierce and after-school institutes like mine, called hakwons, come into existence to give students an edge over other students. But then all the other students, to keep up, need to go to hakwons too, and so on. I believe there was a Dr. Seuss book about this, where Sylvester McMonkey McBean offers the Sneetches without stars on their bellies a chance to have them by going through his Star-On machine, for three dollars. The old star-bellied Sneetches are furious until McBean tells them about his Star-Off machine, costing ten dollars. This continues until the Sneetches are penniless and McBean leaves a rich man. Old man McBean, in this case, is Mr. Park, and the hakwon is his English-On machine. He charges a fair bit more than $3, however. But just like in Dr. Seuss's book, these Sneetches will wise up soon and realize that they never needed that star on their belly in the first place. I'm pretty sure I have mangled this Dr. Seuss story that is usually used in analyzes of peace negotiations between waring countries, but I do like a good Sneetches reference.

The hakwon system is cut-throat, much more so than anything in America, and one which leaves little to no room to focus on an extracurricular like sports or music. Students obsess over their class rank because it is based on just four tests throughout the year. Furthermore, admission to Korean Universities is solely based on the results of one examination in the middle of senior year, sa-neung. Every single student I've ever talked with about the Korean education system dislikes it and wishes to go to an American school.

One of the reasons for disliking the Korean public school system is the way things are taught. It is ALL about memorization. A teacher lectures, the students take notes. There is NO discussion at all. Public schools do not really assign homework; they expect the kids to memorize and work things out on their own (at hakwons). There are no analytical essays or reports or projects to be graded; the majority of a student's education is expected to be done at hakwons.

I don't teach at a public school, obviously, but I hear this same description from all my students at hakwon. They spend most of their time sleeping at school (really) because they learn everything from their paid after-school hakwon sessions. Did you know there are over 100,000 English-speaking foreign teachers at hakwons in Korea? And here I thought I was special. Kids go to hakwons for English, History, SAT study, college application, Math, Physics, etc. On average, they attend from 5 to 9 hours of additional schooling at hakwons after regular school gets out. Some of my SAT students, after taking the test and reviewing it from 5:30-10:00 pm, have to go to a science hakwon until 1 am! Many students don't EVER have dinner at home and return from hakwons after midnight. And remember, this is a schedule that includes Saturday! The Korean education system looks inefficient as a result of this hakwon system that is detracting from the accountability of regular schools, yet is so widely accepted in this society. The newly elected Korean president, Lee Myung Bak (or, "horse face", as I know him), has vowed to change the education system, but I'm not yet sure how he plans to do it. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence to learn that his two children are attending American schools...

Interestingly, I asked my students if they supported the idea of hakwons and they all generally agreed that they were necessary for various reasons, especially because they think that they would not learn anything on their own if not for hakwons. Essentially, they feel they need someone constantly hovering over them, pounding material into their heads. They are not used to doing work on their own, like research projects.

When I ask my students, "Do you hate hakwons?" they say yes; however, when I ask them, "Would you send your kids to hakwons?" they also say yes. Almost all Korean public school students attend these after-school hakwons, just to give you an idea. Their parents ascribe such importance to the name value of colleges like Yale that they push their kids to the absolute limit to achieve their Ivy League goal. I think it's safe to assume that most Americans are under no illusion that because a person went to a big-name school that he/she will be successful. I think most of us more reasonably think that it is the motivation of the person that determines success. But Korean businesses put a lot of stock in a name like Yale on the diploma, and parents know this. How do you think I got this $50,000+, apartment provided, first-year, no experience, teaching job? I literally sent in a single e-mail asking to know more about this opportunity (from my Yale e-mail address), and received a call from the Korean recruiter within two hours, telling me I was just PERFECT for the job, but not telling me any actual info about the school or teaching. No, I had not sent a resume, or a cover letter, or anything at all. My school plasters the Harvard and Yale banners of its teachers anywhere it can, because that's what parents want to see.In fact , simply speaking native English is good enough for many hakwon teaching jobs here (less reputable than my school's jobs); I actually read on another Korean teacher's blog that his school's kindergarten teacher down the hall used to be a bounty-hunter in Mexico.

Hakwons, when it comes to college admission work, are somewhat corrupt. If a mother comes in, dragging her son behind her, and tells my boss that her son must get into New York University, and he needs help with his college applications, my boss finds me and says I need to "help" this student with his applications. Some of these kids cannot speak or write English! Thus, my boss does not so much want me to "help" as he wants me to rewrite the translated version of the essays and get this kid into the school (the funniest things about Korean students' essays is their love of metaphors; everything is a "tiger eager to pounce", or an "eagle spreading its wings"). I have not been so amenable to this, and have been simply making suggestions and comments, rather than changes to the sentences and ideas themselves. Sometimes, if the student is closely connected to the school in some way, my boss will call me into his office and say, "James, we need a final draft of this by tonight...understand?" I nod my head, go back to work, make a few changes to terrible ideas/sentences and e-mail the paper back. I have become pretty cynical about this, as you can see. I would hate to think that I'm unfairly helping kids get into schools that most definitely do not deserve to get in. The kids themselves don't even understand what's going on. It's their parents who drag them through this process kicking and screaming, making deals with hakwons to get their kid into good American schools.

Also concerning education: physical punishment by teachers shows that Koreans are serious about their education. I understand that public school students, if they are late to class, are slapped or told to go outside and run around the field ten times before coming inside. In my own classes, I try to keep an energetic atmosphere in the class, and, just when things are starting to go well and I've got the students talking, the headmaster comes in to every class to check homework, and, if a student doesn't do homework, he uses a ruler to whack their open palms (the lightest punishment), firmly smack them in the head a few times, and even head butt them (no kidding)! There is usually no need for more than the ruler, and it never becomes outrageously violent, don't get me wrong, but it is disconcerting to sit there in silence and watch him take their heads into his hands, and head butt them. I mean, really! This is nothing out of the ordinary for either him or the students though, and he always smiles at me and asks about my day before leaving. He is a very nice man and I like him a lot, but the students sit up straight and buckle their lips when he comes into the room. All teachers in public schools have their own personal canes/sticks in their desks or hanging on the wall, I am told. None of my students has ever responded "yes" when I asked if physical punishment is good for discipline in schools.

2) The obsession with the West, as I will term it, is interesting. Obviously American culture is everywhere in the world these days. You can't go anywhere without finding American movies and music being played. But what I mean is how so many Koreans want to not only dress like us, but to literally change their bodies to look more Western. I have heard that plastic surgery is a booming business in Seoul for young people because of the desire to have "bigger eyes". Every girl I have asked about this has said that the MAJORITY of girls in Korea have had plastic surgery on either their eyes (to make them wider), their noses (to make them less flat), or their jaws (to make them narrower). In my TOEFL classes, which I mentioned above about creative thinking, sometimes there is a question that asks about the qualities of a good person. Almost all the girls respond with something along the lines of "tall, blonde, big eyes". Clearly these girls are deep-thinkers. Well, Korean men are not tall, not blonde, and don't have big eyes. I know this is a very simplistic example to use, from teenage girls in my class, but the men of any culture want to impress the women, and if the women want Western looks, it kinda puts the men in a tight spot. Not that there is any surgery that makes you taller and not many Korean men dye their hair blonde, but I think there is some tension between Korean men and Western men because of the Korean womens' desire for Western looks. I guess I shouldn't be complaining, right?

3) Lastly, the ladies! This is a major economic power, South Korea, but it is still in the 1920's of American thinking about women. Women work in the home or help run the family restaurant or maybe have a clerical job, and that is it (foreign women teachers are obviously a different category). You have to be a pretty woman to get a job as a secretary in a nice office. Ugly women, unfortunately, you do not see employed anywhere but convenience stores and the like. Blunt, but true. This does not mean that girls are given less education than boys (nowadays, at least); I think the girls in my classes are actually brighter than the boys! I think by the time this young generation grows up, the role of the sexes will be on more even footing. It is so difficult to judge how fast Korean society is maturing because it has only been 60 years since they were freed from a truly horrific Japanese colonial occupation and began a democratic society where women could live in a modern society. Well, the democratic part didn't start until the late 1980's, but you get my meaning. The women's movement in America was going for a lot longer than that to expand the female sphere to where it is today. Also, you may have heard of Korean Karaoke Rooms. At these places, which are everywhere, you can actually pay for pretty women to come sing with you. In many of these singing rooms, you can wink-wink nudge-nudge with the manager to purchase "special services" from the women. They are essentially karaoke-brothel houses. I have been told that over one million Korean women work in these places, selling their "services", not because they are sinful depraved souls but because those are the highest paying jobs for women in Korea.

So, those are my observations of Korea. There lots of other little stuff, but you might fall asleep while reading if I listed it all.

Final thoughts. I wrote in my last blog that I don't really know what to think right now about the future. I vowed when I left the US that I would not get to the end of my year in Korea and realize that I have nothing planned for the (immediate) future. I know I still have a long time, but it worries me a little that I still don't even have a clue. I don't especially want to apply for a finance job via online apps and all that jazz, but on the other hand maybe I should. Or, I've always envisioned myself running a business, but I've never thought of what I would do. I've even pondered writing something, seeing as I spend a lot of time doing that anyway. This business of teaching how to write essays, speaking well, and reviewing the SAT is just a job, nothing I can get excited about. I consider myself good at my job and try my best to teach well, but I know I need to do some serious thinking about what I'll be doing 10 months hence.

For that matter, I don't even know where I want to be. There's always New England, around friends. But then there's the rest of the world, too! Not that I'm crazy about gallivanting off to the far corners of the map. It's just a possibility. But possibilities are nice. Friends would be nice to be around, but I need something to want in life, first. I know that sounds forlorn, but don't worry, I'm just anxious for something to look forward to. Whether it's a job I like, or something else.

I'll keep you up to date if any of these opinions of mine change. And now, I'm gonna make like a tree and get outta here.

(if you didn't get that reference, shame on you)

Spotless Mind

(unfortunately my camera is busted, so no pictures)

One of my students asked me today if I was Canadian. I said, "No, why would you think that?" He replied, "Because all Americans are fat, and you are not fat." Take that for what you will...

A coworker who lives below me just got a cat this weekend. She got the cat from an animal adoption agency that looks for a permanent owner while she takes care of it. I've never been a cat person, and cats have never shown me much love. But, I have to say, I do like this cat. It's still very small, and it has some sort of disease that has stunted the growth of the hair on the tip of it's tail, and it has cataracts in one eye. I've seen it run into unseen walls other conspicuous objects more than once. As I said, I like this cat.

You might have heard that Korean kids play lots of video games. Whatever you heard, you didn't hear enough. Now, the government has recognized they actually have a serious health/economic/social issue on their hands because of the amount of time their kids spend online. Check out the cyberspace addiction boot camps the government has set up. The picture of the addicts itself is pretty funny, if you're into the whole brevity thing.

So. Thanksgiving in Korea. The day before, my boss told all of us American teachers that he would take us out for dinner. I was expecting it because Korean bosses are almost supposed to take their employees out on a somewhat regular basis. He pulled me aside and showed me a picture on his cell phone of what we would be eating. It was the decapitated and seemingly deep-fried head of a quail. "We will have bird for Thanksgiving," he assured me. Luckily, quail heads are tough to come by in Korea, so we ended up stuffing ourselves on the "turkey of the sea" for Thanksgiving instead--squid. And instead of cranberry crumb-cake, we had fried kimchi. In place of wine, we had soju. All in all, a pretty good Thanksgiving.

There are still a lot of superstitions in Korea. This is a modernized country, but underlying the big business and metropolis of Seoul is a very traditional culture (you'll probably read that exact same thing on any online blurb about Korea). I've graded multiple college essays that discuss fortune tellers and their role in the shaping of the authors' lives, and other essays concerning "objects" that people keep with them for a supernatural purpose. One particularly ridiculous belief is "fan death". This is the idea that, if you leave a fan blowing in your room when you go to sleep, it will create a vortex that sucks the air from the room and suffocates you. Well, I don't keep a fan blowing when I go to sleep. But that might have something to do with winter, and not impending doom.

Believe it or not, I got an opportunity to practice my French recently. I tagged along with a friend to a "French dinner" she had set up with someone via the internet. On my way to the dinner, I got nervous because I couldn't think of even the most basic words like "when" and "how"; I just kept mixing in Korean words. This was a problem I was having when first trying to speak Korea, I just kept mixing in French words. It's like there's only room for one extra language in my head, and when I try to think of one, I inevitably use some of both. Well, as long as you can speak some Frenglean we should get along just fine (that was the best way I could think to combine those three languages, and I have been thinking for a good while). At the French dinner, I was pleasantly surprised at how much French came back to me while talking. It was broken French to a certain extent, but it was always constant, and fluent at times.

As for Korean speaking, I'm getting better. I'm still taking classes and spending a good amount of time studying on my own, and have been able to have a few halting conversations over the past week. Unfortunately the "busy season" for work, meaning the 12-hour days, begins in mid-December and I won't be able to continue classes. Studying has been one of my hobbies thus far, however, so I think I will continue with it and, if all works out, have a language partner to talk with regularly.

And, just in case you forgot about the rest of the world while deciding whether Hill-dog or Obama will be the next ruler of the free world (is that an accurate breakdown yet?), the Korean Presidential election is next month. I've begun to see street-corner stump speeches lately, and, although I don't know what they're saying, I've read a bit online about the candidates. Most of the presidential policies are focused on domestic issues, mainly closing the opening wealth-gap and unemployment. If you think about, Korea has crammed about 200 years worth of economic development into about 50 (and it shows in both the physical infrastructure of the city and greedy business philosophy of the young people). What has happened is that the Korean economy is one step ahead of its society. In 50 years, it has voluntarily adopted Western business ideas to create huge corporations to get rich quick. These adopted business philosophies are in quite contradiction with the Confucian lifestyle Korea has lived with for a long time. 50 years is not enough time for social ideals to change, because, literally, those same Koreans that were around BEFORE 1950 and remember the older values are still alive! As my boss described to me when I was talking with him, "Korean youths are immoral and only concerned with money. They no longer respect anything." My boss is 45, by the way, in case you were imagining an 80 year-old miser with a penchant for hating on young'ins. Yes, he was born after 1950, but Korea didn't completely give itself to the economic Dark Side until the 80's, when a military dictator took firm grasp of Korea and forced development down its throat. Naturally, some groups of people (meaning, the majority) have fallen behind in the "economic count" during this rapid growth. Hmmmm. I just realized I've been getting carried away from the presidential election topic. But, to be fair to myself, so often these days I sometimes find myself generalizing about an aspect of Korean society or city or business, only to stop and have to rethink the whole thing because Korea (Seoul especially) has undergone crazy change in such a quick amount of time. The old and young generations here are very much at odds because of the rapidness of change. Anyway, I'll devote my next entry to discussing my impressions of Korea after three months, but, for now, suffice it to say that it is difficult to discuss any shortcomings of Korean life without putting it into a historical context. Yes, that is an obvious remark for any country. But also, Yes, many people forget it.

Another tidbit of Korean foreign policy lost on international ears is relations with North Korea. Though foreign policy is an ancillary concern in the Korean election because the candidates agree on most of it, the changes taking place in the North seem to be significant. I guess I always imagined that this would be a sudden change, and that, one day, Kim Jung-Il would die, the borders would open up, and people would cheer in celebration. But realistically it's happening as I write this. The idea of North-South reunification is becoming somewhat of a reality. Pyongyang has hosted more foreign diplomats in the past few months than ever to discuss the opening of North Korea, literally and economically. There will be a train running between Pyongyang and Seoul for the first time in 60 years next month, for the purpose of reuniting families whose oldest members are close to death.

I had dinner after a Salsa class with my classmates, one of whom was a Master Sergeant in the Army (a pretty good dancer, to boot). He told me he'd been there when the Berlin Wall was taken down (on duty), he'd been there when the Saddam statue was torn to the ground (on duty), and he thinks this North-South reunification will be the next big page in his lifelong history lesson. He was an interesting guy, so I'll describe him briefly. He is from the former British colony of Guinea in South America, where he designed airplane engines. Now, he is Master Sergeant of the Biological Weapons team (WMD team) of the US Army in Korea. He also is a semi-professional soccer player for Seoul United. And he dances Salsa. He insisted to me over and over that I had the right mindset and had made the right choice to come out to Korea and explore the world. He thought Korea especially was the right place to be because of the impending economic boom, though he did not mention when/why/where/how this boom would occur. He was just very sure of it. Regardless, he obviously is a traveled person and has seen some things in his day that I never will. I did appreciate his comment, because he seemed very sure that I was doing the right thing. More and more, though, I'm starting to feel that way too. More on that in a different entry, when I feel the urge to discuss such things. I'm going to go see this guy's soccer match next Sunday, apparently it's a championship game for his league.

Lastly (concerning the elections), I think it's safe to assume the US-Korean joint control of military operations here will continue. Plus, there was just the Free Trade Agreement between the two countries, giving all the more reason to maintain a strong relationship. Although, this does not mean people here in Seoul lose any love to the American soldiers in town on the weekends. Korean men especially don't like the idea of big, drunk, tough looking foreigners hitting on their women.

I'll try to get a new camera for my next entry, cuz I'm sure to lose some of your attention without visual enticement.

A dieu.

And now for something completely different...

This has been my first post in nearly four weeks. Sorry if you're a regular reader of mine. But if you consider yourself a "regular reader" of this blog, then you certainly have bigger issues to deal with. Not that I do not appreciate your readership, reader. Read on.

This past month has gone by quickly. It seems like yesterday I was in the Busan beaches for Korean Thanksgiving, and the day before I was packing my things in Colorado. Knowing how fast my time in Korea will elapse, I'm starting to worry about life after Korea. I can already feel the gravitational pull of the NYC job market. If you're wondering where I'm planning on going after Korea, well...don't hold your breath. I mention NYC only as a gut reaction to the word "job". Honestly, I could not guess where I will be a year from now. Would I have guessed last November that I would be sitting in Seoul, South Korea right now? Maybe. And then maybe I'd be struck by lightning for that heinous lie.

I thought I would write this post in order to clear the clutter in my head and perhaps get a few ideas for next year outlined, but all that comes to my mind as I sit here, mulling life over, is ______. I'm still waiting for that epiphany down here, Big Guy.

I have not yet decided if it is better for me to be here in Korea, uncertain about what to do with myself, than to have taken a job in America, also uncertain about what to do, but around friends. Sure, I am learning a foreign language. Hopefully I will be passable after a year. But how I will apply this skill to my future job search, I do not yet know. When it comes down to it, I really just want to do something worthwhile and meaningful. I have not really felt that deep sense of accomplishment in a good while. You know that feeling. It's a nice feeling, if I recall correctly. I feel trickles of it occasionally after a very good class, but not the full-blown, "Damn I'm good!" feeling. As you can tell, you've caught me at a confusing time. If my life were a Magic 8 Ball, it would say, "Things are cloudy. Check back again later."

I'm still having fun in Seoul, however. So hold off on sending me the "Positive Thinking" books for Christmas. When I have time, I sit on a bench down at the playground around the corner from my apartment to work and think about Stuff. Usually I just do homework or read a book there. It's always fun to have little kids of any age run to me, climb up onto the bench, look at whatever I'm doing for homework and point out any errors in my grammar or spelling. This generally helps my grades, these 4- to 8-year old spell checkers, but I've noticed that one of them, a decidedly unintelligent 4 year old with a very loud shriek for a voice, always incorrectly changes my words/phrases. After multiple returned homework assignments with red marks next to the words that Jun-Bok "corrected", I've decided I will never again accept help from him. Who needs help from a 4 year old anyway? It's the 6 year olds who are truly helpful. At least they know basic sentence structure. Stupid Jun-Bok...

Partially because of being busy at work and partially because the novelty of being in Korea has begun to wear off, I feel that I have been in a bit of a lackluster rut. Sure, I've been keeping busy with the "regular" life of work, language classes, working out, etc., but it has been a few weeks since I just grabbed my subway map, backpack, and baseball cap and jumped on the subway to go explore someplace new. I really would like to get that feeling back again, and I tried this weekend by going to a Salsa dancing club with my Peruvian friend. In a nasty ploy to lure me along (just kidding Catherine), she neglected to tell me that she had, in fact, danced Salsa before and even performed it on one occasion. I had assumed she was more like me, a complete Salsa noobie. To further my embarrassment, the Koreans in the class were all great dancers. I couldn't believe it. I thought I was going to waltz in there (no pun intended), learn a few moves quickly, and show these people how to cut some rug. I imagined myself like the dancing version of Tom Selleck in that one movie where he goes to Japan to play baseball and thinks he will, by default, be the best ball player in the country. But, just like the venerable Mr. Selleck, I learned a valuable life lesson: Koreans can play ball. Mine was a similar case of incorrectly stereotyping Koreans. Perhaps Asians in general are not the best dancers, but Koreans have got the devil in their damned feet (I had forgotten that Koreans made the game Dance Dance Revolution). I looked like a cloven-hooved goat on the dance floor in comparison. Hint: that is not me in the picture. The girls were leading me, my hips were made of stone, and I was constantly staring at my feet, trying to do the Salsa step-counting, "1, 2, 3...5, 6, 7...damn! Sorry! Wait, we have to start over, I'm completely lost." It was a very humbling experience. Nevertheless, I think I will be back next week, and the week after, and so on, until I can compete with the likes of Emmit Smith on Dancing with the Stars.

I was in central Seoul at a restaurant earlier last night, and I have never felt safer in my life. By that, I mean the security was excellent. And by that, I mean there were thousands of stick-wielding riot police lining the sidewalks, sitting in organized rows on top of their riot shields and helmets. You might have heard of the recent US-Korea Free Trade Agreement and that rioting has been marring the otherwise lovely little village of downtown Seoul. Korean farmers are protesting the pact because this agreement would lead to an influx of American produce. Rice was left out of the deal, thankfully for Korean agriculture (this FTA is the largest ever for Korea and the second largest for the US). There were droves of these riot police all over the city tonight. I couldn't get a good picture of the police because a Korean I was with insisted I put my camera away lest we be arrested (for taking pictures?), but, naturally, I tried to snap off a few furtive frames. These police look like they mean business, and the sword-like sticks on their backs I'm sure could break a bone or two.

Also last night, while trying to find a restaurant, we walked past this very amusing sight: a small Korean man wielding a very large mallet, perhaps bigger than him, pounding rice into a thick paste. This Korean Gallagher heaved his large pounding tool over his head and, with a war cry, brought it smashing down onto a large bowl filled with rice. Rinse and repeat. He would do this until the rice was pulverized into a paste that was used to make Rice Cakes, small rice candies (very good). As you can imagine, a large mallet like this would have a lot of energy as it smashed into the rice paste, and, seeing him put on gloves to scoop out the paste, I could see the steam rush out from underneath the smoking hot rice paste. It was a rare moment of thinking back to a high school physics lesson about Potential and Kinetic Energy. I vow it will never happen again.

Here's another amusing story: Last Saturday night I was invited by a friend from my Korean language class to go to a club. Seeing as I had no other plans/excuses, I agreed, but wasn't so sure I would enjoy the experience because I wasn't sure what type of party animal I was getting involved with. He is 23 years old and from Switzerland, so paint whatever mental picture you want. During classes, he is the person who steers all discussions towards how to use the material at a bar. After learning the word for "girl", the natural progression in his questions would lead to the word for "girlfriend", and then to the phrases, "do you have a boyfriend?", "but is he even here?", and, finally, "let me buy you a drink." His questions are quite useful, I will admit, but tend to detract from the "academic" environment.

Anyway, I went to this club, along with a friend from work, and we arrived around 2 am. We could hear the House music being pumped from around the corner, and it seemed like a very promising place. We paid the necessary 20,000 Won entrance fee ($20) and found my friend. He was very sorry to hear that we had paid any entrance fee at all, because he was friends with the owner and manager. He slapped a couple of VIP bracelets on our arms and led us into the bowels of the club (almost all night clubs are underground, because there's not more space in Seoul at street level, so they need to get creative). He also was friends with the DJ that was spinning the tunes; apparently he is a very famous European DJ called StoneBridge. If you recognize that DJ, then it was a successful name-drop on my part. Anyways, up in the VIP lounge (looking down on all the poor souls trapped in the crowded tangle of sweaty bodies and limbs below), we sat down with his friends, who apparently run a model agency in Seoul. My Swiss friend went to grab drinks and I notice that there was a bottle of Grey Goose vodka and an empty bottle of champagne already finished on the table. Hmm, I thought, these people drink the good stuff. When he returned, he was carrying two more bottles of Grey Goose and champagne! I was delighted, but even more so when I read the label on the champagne: Dom Perignon. I looked back at the empty bottle, also a Dom Perignon. He told us that everything they drank was "service", Korean for "on the house, baby!" By the time I left, the table was littered with empty bottles of Dom, Grey Goose, and MGD (considered a top-shelf beer here). It was "service", but if I tallied it up correctly, we drank over $1500 worth of alcohol. I think I will be accepting any invitation from this particular classmate in the future without hesitation.

Another random story: One of my students came up to me after class and said, "Can you get me into Harvard?" I was so taken aback by the directness that I laughed, but quickly recovered as I saw the confused look on his face. He then asked if I could read his "college essay" for him. It was a piece of notebook paper upon which he had scrawled "College Application Essay" at the top. The writing was barely decipherable. His essay was nice and...concise. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the euphemism of the century. The essay went something like this: "I want to go to Harvard. It is best school and I like Harvard. I want to be President of USA like JFK, the best president ever. Harvard is so smart, and that is why I want to go to Harvard." He then asked me for my business card and again if I could get him into Harvard. I told him I would do everything in my considerable power to influence the Harvard admissions officers. And I have. Which is to say, I concentrated very hard to mentally project my thoughts at them, and then patted myself on the back for a job well done.

Well, that is all. Sorry for the delay. But the best things in life are worth the wait...



I'd like to go out on some Mr. Baseball quotes (the Tom Selleck movie I couldn't remember above):

[a reporter asks Jack what he thinks about Japan after being there for less than an hour]
Jack Elliot: Well, the airport's nice. I guess. And there's lots of little people walking and talking very fast.
Toshi Yamashita, Jack's Interpreter: [in Japanese] Architecture beautiful. Society on cutting edge of progress.

Jack Elliot: I'm a World Series MVP!
Skip: That was four years ago, Jack. Last season, you hit .235.
Jack Elliot:LAST SEASON, I led this team in ninth-inning doubles in the month of August!

Teaching, and more interesting things...

The title "English Teacher" is not quite accurate. Most of the students know English at least decently if not very well. Rather, I am more of a "utility teacher". I do private essay tutoring, SAT review, TOEFL test taking skills (English proficiency test), and college application/essay review. For some reason, I like the college application essay classes the most. Remember all those papers you got back in high school with red ink all over them and "Where's the thesis??" underlined three times near the top? That's what I do. And I can definitively say now that yes, teachers DO get a sadistic pleasure out of tearing into a student's essay that took four hours to write, but only took me fifteen minutes to destroy with a red pen.

I'm not actually that harsh in my comments, but I do enjoy the essay classes. I imagine it's because I'd rather be brainstorming for questions like: "Who belongs on a modern day Mt. Rushmore?" than going over another SAT passage-based reading section about abolition and women's rights. By now I might be qualified to teach a college seminar on the connection between Frederick Douglas and Susan B. Anthony.

Sometimes I get applications from students applying to very prestigious American Universities, and their English is so poor that their writing is completely indecipherable. Every now and then, however, I get an application from a student whose English is just *barely* good enough as to get an idea across but couldn't describe his ass from his elbow. These are the gems. They can, and do, amuse me for hours on end. One such that I just graded is from a Stanford application short-response question:

9. What historical moment or event do you wish you could have witnessed or participated in?

I really wish I could see the birth of a missing link, the first mutant chimp that finally evolves into human because I'm very interested in the origin of human and it may provides much information to settle my curiosity. Though it's not recorded historically, what a historical moment it is!

What a moment indeed! Almost as historic as Stanford accepting your application...

Teaching English in Korea has been a pleasure, for the most part. The kids are disciplined, studious, and well-dressed (nearly all in immaculate school uniform). They are never wild and crazy like children from other countries (Amanda). They also don't do something that kids from any other part of the world do: talk. It takes a Herculean effort to pull the words from the closed mouths of some the these students. They are very shy, especially when they first meet you, and it takes time to get them to open up even a little. And when I mean "a little", I mean even just one word like "yes" or "no". Nonetheless, as introverted as they seem, they are indeed quite diligent about their work, moreso than I can believe of kids. Mom, if you had tried sending me to an after school program six days a week to take the SAT test and review it each time, I would have, well, politely refused. Korean school children are at regular school from 8 am until about 4 pm, at which time they take the buses to our after-school program and take the SAT or TOEFL (English proficiency test) from 5:20-7:15, and we review the tests with them until 10 pm. They then go home to do homework. Some students, however, go to an ADDITIONAL hakwon (after school private education institute) from 11 pm until 2 am for the sciences. I am good at recognizing these students in class now. They are the ones who are pale faced, sunken-eyed, and seemingly narcoleptic. I pity the fools.

By the way, the above pictures are some fireworks in Seoul and a bartender breathing fire for us. They were inserted to maintain reader interest. My marketing research shows that you are less likely to continue without explosions and fire every so often.

When I started teaching, I began trying to learn the students' names by handing out a piece of paper and having them all sign it. When I joked to the other teachers about how difficult some of the names were to remember/pronounce, most of them looked at me blankly, telling me they had never tried to learn names.They simply pointed to students and said "you" in order to call upon somebody. I found that extremely awkward and made it difficult to manage a class full of students that are so shy that they stare directly at their desks while you speak and don't realize that the "you" might be them. Though, inevitably three or four Yu's will look up (OK, that's my one Korean joke for this entry). I am actually enjoying learning names now, though I accidentally called one student the Korean equivalent of "romantic horse" and I think his friends are making him pay for my mistake. Don't you miss high school?

These pictures are from a street celebration that we stumbled into last weekend. Or, it stumbled upon us. We were eating/drinking at a restaurant when suddenly these long conga-lines of red- and blue-shirted college age Koreans begin pouring down the street, chanting school songs and taunting each other. There were thousands of college students doing this in this neighborhood, and they would form groups of 15-20 students and go from restaurant to restaurant (bar to bar), stopping in front of each one and singing a song until the owner would bring out at least a few bottles of soju (Korean alcohol) and plates of food. If the owner did not bring out a sufficient amount of either, they would chant until he did (we were told later that the universities paid all these establishments ahead of time for this night). All of this would be devoured in a matter of seconds before they moved on to the neighboring establishment and a new group came up to sing their song and wave their flag until their food and alcohol appetites were satiated. I saw over 40 bottles of Soju given out over the course of an hour at one bar. Our Korean friend attempted to give us a rough translation of the songs: "We are Yonsei! We are Yonsei! We are poor college students! We are hungry and thirsty! Bring us food and Soju!" Perhaps something was lost in the translation. Or perhaps not. Despite the creative dearth of song lyrics, this was an amazing display of a great way that colleges interact with their surrounding neighborhoods (the two schools were Yonsei University and Korea University). For some reason, I can't quite see drunk Yalies going from bar to bar in New Haven in a long conga-line, demanding food and alcohol in iambic pentameter. Maybe one day...
Also, the celebration was either the culmination of a sporting match between the schools...or a science fair. Seriously. Our translator wasn't sure which. That doesn't count as a Korean joke, because I didn't make it up.

One other funny note: white people all look the same to Koreans. While at the bank I was asked if I was David Beckham. And at a bar we got rounds of free shots because a heavy-set balding man we were with was mistaken for Bruce Willis. "Broo-suh! Broo-suh!" He denied nothing.

GO ROCKIES!!!!!!!!!

Beaches and Buddhism in Busan

(Click on any picture to see a bigger version)





What is the word for "sunscreen" in Korean? I certainly don't know. And I'm paying the price for this lack of knowledge and Korean-English dictionary. I got some sun at Hyundae Beach while on vacation, unfortunately God was holding a magnifying glass aimed at my face for an hour and I'm red as a turnip now. The girl I was traveling with is Peruvian, so her skin was a tad more resistant to the evil sun rays. She woke up the next morning complaining of an imperceptible sunburn on the tip of her nose, whereas I checked the mirror and looked like a flush-faced drunk Irishman. Or Asian, if you believe in the "Asian flush" (I don't see it here, though). It was still worth it, I think. As you can see, the beach is beautiful; the sand is not too hot, the water bright blue and very clear, and it was the second half of Chuseok so most people were back at work and the beach was deserted.

We took a little ferry tour of the outlying rock islands in the Korean Straight afterwards, and saw a lot of Busan's newer developments, like a huge ferris wheel mimicking the "Eye of London", a great white bridge resembling a similar (golden) bridge in San Francisco, and a couple of other futuristic, aesthetically pleasing structures including this light house and the APEC Conference Center in Korea. Pusan is really a great looking city, and these pictures don't even scratch the surface. The other image here is of a group of women gutting/preparing the daily sea harvest of squids, eels, fish, and crabs. Grandpa, you would love the seafood here, if you would just try it. Also, I keep looking for a deep-sea charter fishing company, but they don't seem to exist here. I'll just buy a fly or lure rod sometime soon and do it myself.

To get to Busan, which is on the Southeast coast of Korea (as far from Seoul as possible, basically), we took a 5 hour bus trip, costing just 20,000W ($20). We stayed in a hostel for $15 a night, which is a great price for the quality of the housing we had (TV/Internet/Shower). Unfortunately the first night a couple drunken Brits woke everyone up at 5 am when they got back, but other than that the people staying there were very nice. We went out for drinks the first night with an Aussie named Ben who had spent the last year in Japan and was doing some traveling after school. The next night we went out with Ben and a couple of other (more sober) Brits who were taking a year off from their respective Accounting and Marketing jobs to just "travel the world until the money runs out". They didn't give much other reasoning behind it; they were roommates in university, and, one night--eight years later--after a party they attended, they came to the (less sober) decision to go gallivanting around the world, and "to hell with our bloody jobs!" For an accountant and a marketing man, I'm sure this year will be a bit out of the ordinary, and perhaps lead to something for both of them that they never dreamed about while behind a desk. That, or they will both end up broke, drunk, and jobless. I guess that's the thrill though, eh? Maybe.
Also, the bars have great names here. This one we went to was called "Who? Beer Frend." The next was called "Girl & Beers". I'll try to remember to snap a picture of the better ones, but they're all hilarious.

Another highlight of our trip was the Beomeosa Buddhist Temple. It did not look as old as its 1500-year history made it out to be, though I'm sure much of it, being made out of wood, had to be reconstructed a few times. In any case, it was fascinating to see Buddhist monks at work, leading chants, kneeling and bowing to large golden Buddhas, etc. There were many people being led in prayer, most of whom I suspect were doing a "Temple Stay", during which time they live in the Temple, wake up at 4 am with the monks, and pray and meditate all day long. One of my coworkers told us about having attempted a day-long Temple Stay, and was not happy with the fact that the monks gave him a bowl of water to wash his hands in, and then told him to drink the water (they don't like to waste anything at all). He is a very disagreeable person, and told them no, stating that he didn't see any monks drinking the dirty water from wash bowls. The two parties insisted back and forth at one another until the monks gave up in exasperation; Buddha himself would not have the necessary patience to deal with this man (he's Italian).

If you look closely at this rock I'm standing on, you'll see it has a lot of old Buddhist carvings in it. I'm not sure how ancient it is, how revered it is, or if Buddha himself carved into it, but I'll be damned if I can't take a picture of me not giving it the respect it deserves. One of the Temple workers shooed me off of it seconds later.



I also caught this cool frog at the Temple, which looked just like the frogs Dave and I used to catch out in Seymour, except with psychedelic colors.



OK, that's it. Go Rockies! Can't believe I'd be saying that this late in the season...

Thanksgiving, Korean style

This week is Chuseok, the Korean thanksgiving, and it seems as though the majority of the 18 million Seoulites (Seoulians?) have left the city for the warmer regions of Busan, in Southern South Korea. This mass exodus--that nobody told me about--coupled with the fact that I have seen a handful of broken-down hospital patients walking down the nearly-abandoned streets in their hospital gowns, dragging their I.V.s alongside them (I guess there's a small hospital in my neighborhood? that, or an asylum break-out), makes me feel like I'm in a Charlton Heston apocalypse movie. Except I don't have a shotgun, and they're not zombies apes.

I don't know the precise meaning of Chuseok yet, other than the popular description of coworkers, "It is Korean Holiday!" Apparently it is the equivalent of American Thanksgiving, but I don't think any Indian named "Squanto Lee" helped out the founding Koreans when their first rice harvest failed. I guess it is just an appreciation for the year's harvest and a time for families to get together. And, if you don't want to get together with your family, you go to the beaches in Busan. Actually, I just looked it up on Wikipedia, which states that Chuseok is a time for Koreans to "visit the tombs of immediate ancestors to trim plants and clean the area around the tomb, and offer food, drink, and crops to their ancestors. Harvest crops are attributed to the blessing of ancestors, and Chuseok offers Koreans a unique opportunity to refresh their memory and gratitude to their ancestors." However, I did see a lot of swimming suits being packed, too.

Before I knew Chuseok was approaching, at the end of last week my boss' right hand man (Colbe) called me over. He seemed unusually severe, and said he needed to talk to me and would I please follow him right now. He indicated his/my boss' open door, behind which Mr. Lee, also unusually serious-looking, told me to please sit down. By this time, I was nervous and quickly thinking if I had missed a class sometime during the week. I asked him, "Is there a Problem, Mr. Lee?" He said, "Yes." I've been amazed at how much sweat my body has produced since being in Seoul, as a cause of the heat-shield that the thick layer of smog forms above the city, but I think my sweat glands kicked into overdrive just then. I asked him if I had forgotten a class accidentally. "No." He maintained a slight crease in his brow. "You know next week is Korean traditional holiday, don't you?" I did not, in fact, know, and started thinking that the point of this meeting was to rebuke an unintentional comment or act I had made not in accordance with Korean tradition. "Well then, James, you must know...that we are giving you a holiday bonus." At this, I looked up and his brow had unfurled and he had on an ear-splitting grin. He apparently takes much pleasure in torturing his employees before any good news, and I was next in line. Anyhow, he gave me an envelope with 200,000 Won in it ($200), and told me to have a good time in Busan.

Busan, as you probably gleaned, is my destination during Chuseok. I'm going with a coworker and we're going to stay at a hostel. We'll probably see a lot of touristy stuff like palaces and temples as well as get to the beach. I can remember it being not that long ago that "touristy" was the type of trip I would grimace at. Although, if you had asked me a year ago where I'd be in one year's time, Seoul might have been 200th on the list, a close second to Darbyville, Ohio. I'll also be trying to catch a day-trip on a deep-sea fishing boat while we're on the coast. Perhaps it will be cheaper than I'm expecting, though I'm not holding my breath.

In other random news, I walked around the "younger" part of downtown Seoul with a female coworker last Saturday, and we were turned down when entering a club because "Only Koreans" were allowed in. It was the first time I had ever been turned down at a club for being white. It felt oddly cool. Is that weird? The last time I was declined entrance to a club was in Paris, where the bouncer resoundingly told us (me and the girls/guys I was with) that "Your women, they are too ugly." But in Seoul, it was especially surprising because, only minutes before, we had left a club because, upon entering, the head of the club saw us and took the hand of the girl I was with and dragged her by the wrist into the abyss of the night club (many businesses are underground due to lack of space) as I quickly followed and he sat us down at a table, quite forcefully, blathering at us and pointing to what apparently was the alcohol menu at something that had "W 100,000" written next to it. He seemed to be asking for payment, which I was not prepared to pay. When we began our pantomimed "No, thank you" gestures, he immediately cut the price by half (he wrote on a napkin), making us further doubt the quality of whatever he was selling us. I can only guess it was a bottle of liquor for the table, but I wasn't about to shell out even 50,000 Won to get shit-faced in the basement of a sparsely populated night club called "Disco and Beer". That privilege would be reserved for other fine establishments later that night. (Just kidding, mom....or am I?)

I've also tried my hand at drinking/eating Korean Ginseng. Not the pills you buy at a GNC store, but the actual ginseng root sold by old Korean women in crowded marketplaces whose faces are as rough as the roots they sell. The roots look like pale Rastafarian carrots (see picture). As for how to prepare them, I've tried it all. I've attempted to boil them, grind them, make them into tea, chew them, and add them to noodles, but I just don't feel the "energizing" effects I had heard so much about (http://www.quickchange.com/ginsengstore/faqs.html#3). Nonetheless, I will continue the various methods of ingestion until I find one that is juuuust right. Unfortunately it is kind of expensive; each of those roots cost more than $7, and those are the cheaper 5-year old ginseng. The 6-year old roots were $12+.

I went down to a park with a coworker of mine to kick the soccer ball around a few days ago. We played with a few little kids being dropped off from school by the buses you see riding around in the background. And when I say "park" in Korea, I mean "gravel pit". There don't appear to be any (significant) green city parks here, which is a major let-down. I guess space is too precious? No. Look at NYC! They have one of the most extensive park systems of any city on earth, and their Quality of Life is vastly improved for it. City revenue is even increased by the open spaces around which property taxes soar. Someone needs to introduce a proper city park to Korea. Sure, they have small little squares with a statue or two and they call it a park, but they have no grass fields for concerts or sports matches or flying a friggin' kite! To be fair, the Seoul government is spending a lot of money to improve (landscape) the green strip all along the Han river (runs through the middle of the city) to make scenic walking paths and picnic areas.

By the time the Han River project is completed in a few years, pollution will hopefully be reduced as well. Smog is a major concern for people here. You know those Asian people you see in the States walking around with surgeons masks on? Don't they look a little ridiculous? I know I've heard more than a few "SARS jokes" about them. Now I see why they do it; many people wear masks/handkerchiefs here just from fear of the carcinogenic smog. Koreans blame China for the foul air, saying it blows over their "little city" from the mainland. Whether or not this is true, I've heard the masks do next to nothing for your health.

Now, I'm off to Busan for some sun, sand, and more smog.
Adieu.

Food for Thought

As per my mom's request, here's a quick submission on Korean food...

The inevitable question asked of anybody abroad: "How's the food?" My answer: "Great." (See picture) Food in Korea is spicy, fresh, and delicious. Yes, dog is eaten. No, I haven't yet. Yes, I probably will. Now, that's out of the way. The best food, which is the actual Korean food, is the cheapest. The traditional starter, or side dish, at all food stops is kimchi, and I have grown to like it. It looks like cooked cabbage (almost soggy leaves) spattered with a paprika-like spice. My advice to people that say they hate Korean food: close your eyes when you eat it, it will probably improve the taste. I wish I had a picture of kimchi for you, but the picture wouldn't do it justice. It would most likely do it an injustice.

At Korean restaurants, the dish you order is always complimented by numerous pun-chun, side dishes, such as rice, kimchi, pear, noodles, strange-yellow-fruit, and strange-pink-fruit. You can stuff yourself on the numerous side dishes alone. Tonight, luckily, I did remember to whip out my Kodak camera and capture my dinner in a delicious still. It was my best dinner in Seoul so far, and it cost $10 (expensive--but worth it). There were four of us at the table and a gas burner in the middle. They brought out a pot of a orange Korean soup and placed it on the burner. Notice the multiple side-bowls everyone has; those are the numerous pun-chun. They then brought out fistfuls of fresh greens and vegetables and threw them unceremoniously into the then-boiling soup. A large plate of uncooked, thinly-sliced beef was placed at our side, from which we threw pieces of meat into the mixture as we liked. The beef was sliced so thin that it was browned within a 15 seconds. They continued to bring out further handfuls of mixed vegetables and mix them into the soup when it looked like we were running low. I have never had better mushrooms, sprouts, asparagus, onion, beef, or potato as those in this dish, from which everyone kept picking out as much as they'd like. Needless to say, my chopstick skills have progressed. The "communal" nature of traditional Korean eating might annoy some people I know who don't appreciate the utensils of multiple people being dipped repeatedly into community pot. Regardless, this meal was delicious.

When I don't have time to sit down and eat, there is always kimbap. I often find myself going to class on a bowl of cereal (Tony the Tiger lives in Asia, too), and, hungry, deciding to stop at one of the numerous restaurants on the four blocks in between my apartment and the school to pick up two or three rolls of kimbap (left). It is a roll of sushi wrapped in tin foil, and it costs $1. These restaurants always have a pile of them near the door, where you grab a couple, say hi, and throw a couple thousand Won on the table. I have subsisted on kimbap alone on multiple occasions, and it is not only healthy, cheap, and filling, but also tasty.

Produce and seafood are very big here because they are so easily driven in from the country/coast (Korea is smaller than Tennessee). Everywhere you go, you find farmers/fishermen selling king crabs, octopus, fresh fruit, and vegetables out of their truck beds. The food is quite good and, as you can imagine, inexpensive. The downside to these merchants is the loudspeakers that every one of them has purchased and mounted on their trucks. Every morning I wake to a scratchy Korean voice blaring from one of these produce trucks coming down my alleyway. It sounds like a 1920's gubernatorial candidate on a grass-roots campaign through farming country. Beyond their annoying loudspeakers, these trucks make it much easier to purchase fresh food since their wares are sitting in front of me and can easily be pointed to. No unnecessary Korean is needed, simply my pointer finger, an appreciate grunt, and slight bow.

My first break (one of two week-long breaks throughout the year), is coming up next week. I'm thinking about doing a "Temple Stay" for the first couple days. This is when you pay a small amount to live in a Buddhist temple as a Monk for however long you want. Why not? Could be interesting. After that, I might try to organize a fishing trip with a coworker. The trout that run in northern Asian countries, Manchurian Trout, is supposedly the oldest trout species in the world, and is easy to find (Korea is 70% hills and streams). The DMZ supposedly holds the most serene (and untouched) trout fishing rivers in Asia. I might not make it up near there for obvious reasons. Four fishermen were accidentally killed there a few years ago when they were confused for North Koreans. Furthermore, there are still landmines washing down the river out of the DMZ zone that kill dozens of farmers every year. Besides, you don't need a fishing license to fish in most of Korea! I can just hike off into the mountains around Seoul, find a river, and cast in! It sounds so simple. All I need now is a rod, tackle, and a sense of direction.

The Land of the Morning Calm...

For a country whose earliest shops open at 10 am, this nickname fits. I have now been living in Seoul for 4 days and, due to stubborn jet lag, am cursed to wake at 7 am every morning with nothing to do but wander the streets of Korea's capital for hours before seeing another living being. And, having explored some of the many markets and neighborhoods of this high-tech metropolis (which contains 18 million people more densely packed than NYC) I've decided that I made the right choice with my year after school. I still think longingly about being back home amongst friends in Boston or New York or Washington as many of you are, but I'm sure some of you are thinking the same things about me right now. Let's just say there are ups and downs to all our situations. For me, my new beginning in Seoul has been very enjoyable; the people are approachable and friendly, the language barrier is not extreme and will improve with classes, the food is pretty good (spicy and raw), and my co-workers are nice enough. This is in strict contrast to my last attempt at living abroad, in Paris, where I believed the Parisian people to all have sticks up their asses.

NOTE: This first update to my blog is lengthy and is just my thoughts on Seoul at first glance. When I post in the future, I'll be making it more fun/interesting with stories and pictures. For now, I'm just giving my gut reaction to Seoul...

It is quite evident that I am somewhat special in Seoul. I am anywhere, of course, but especially in a country of 99.9% short(er) Asian people. I've gotten used to the constant stares by now. Korea has very, very few foreigners and even fewer white foreigners. And I have yet to see a black person in Korea. I heard that a friend of my coworker traveled with a black friend of hers to a village in southern Pusan province and when the children saw her friend, they started crying and running away scared. Talk about an isolated little island.

Well, anyways, the attention I receive in the forms of glances from older people and outright staring from children as I pass on the street is somewhat amusing to me; I actually kind of enjoy it. Whenever I'm on the subway, groups of little girls run past me, slowing down when they near me and then giggling hysterically before running off again until one of them has the guts to say hi to me. If I smile and say "hi" back to the brave girl, she and the friends hiding behind her back all scream and run away giggling. It's kinda fun. (a quick note: the Seoul subway system is the cleanest, most efficient, user-friendly system I have ever encountered; it puts NY, Paris, and London to shame). Even in restaurants I find that small children will stop eating, turn around in their seats and stare open-mouthed at me as I wait for my food. Again, all I have to do is wave or say "hi" and they immediately get wide-eyed and turn away. Perhaps I'm an attention seeker, or perhaps this will soon become tiring. My guess is, a little of both.

The place where the staring is most uncomfortable is in the bath house. Before you hit the "comment" button and make a joke about San Francisco bath houses to me, they "bath houses" in Seoul are places with saunas, showers, workout rooms, massage parlors, and recreational facilities for men and women. The saunas are co-ed, but the shower rooms (which are more like club areas with TVs and loungers) are filled with naked men and groups of wild little naked boys running around. I am no stranger to gym showers, but jumping into a large hot bath with a bunch of naked Koreans who are openly appraising you is somewhat disconcerting. In the men's area, there is a service included in the $8 entrance fee whereby you lie on your back and a male attendant takes each of your limbs and exfoliates your skin with a harsh brush. He gets nearly your whole body. I opted out of this part of my entrance privilege and went to the co-ed area instead. There, they have massive TVs everywhere, saunas, massage chairs, food courts, and game centers for little kids (there are PC game rooms all over Korea, Warcraft being the national game or whatever--they even have network TV stations solely dedicated to the 24/7 showing of classic Warcraft online battles). Most people, however, grab a cushion and go to sleep on the warm marble floor for an after-work nap. These places are open 24 hours a day, so if you're ever lost/drunk/both and need a place to crash, you can do so comfortably in one of the bathhouses. Perhaps I may not partake in the exfoliation process, but I certainly plan on going again, perhaps with some friends so I am not attracting the looks of every Korean in the room.

You're probably wondering, "Isn't he supposed to by working in Seoul or something?" And yes, I am. However, the workload after a busy summer is relatively light (about 4 hours a day now, with upwards of 12 during Christmas time, Korean holidays, and Summer). I am reviewing SAT reading/writing sections with students who are trying to get into good American colleges. My hakwon (Seoul Language Institute), is actually quite famous in Seoul as perhaps the best of these type of schools, of which there are many. There are 100,000 English teachers in Seoul, to give you an idea of the demand. I was teaching full classes on my second day here, and was quite nervous for the first five minutes, but did not take long to get comfortable. I have also come to realize how to take these damned SAT tests, finally. Perhaps a little late. When I got the job, I thought it ironic that I would be teaching the SAT section once known as the "verbal section" because I scored significantly lower on it than on the math section in my high school days. But now that I'm teaching it, I've picked up a few tips on how to choose between these reading comprehension answers I once considered stupid and completely subjective and now consider just stupid. However, the question, "What is the best title for this passage?" remains the bane of my test-taking existence, I having never answered one correctly. In addition to SAT review, I also do TOEFL writing and college essay writing tutoring. I feel surprisingly useful in these roles. In short, I think I am becoming a better writer and expanding my vocabulary as a result of this job. It turns out I could've been getting paid to become a better writer here in Korea rather than paying to become a worse one in college.

My room is interesting. The former tenant graciously left me a broken TV, a Jay-Z Live in Seoul poster, and three dozen eggs, unrefrigerated. It's about 250 square feet, but Koreans are very industrious space-savers, so everything goes into or comes out of a wall (drawers, stoves, etc). The bathroom was the most intriguing. On my first inspection, I noticed a sink and a toilet. All normal, I thought. I asked where the shower was. The landlord pointed to a detachable shower hose above the sink, and a drain in the middle of the bathroom floor next to the toilet. Apparently you shower yourself off with the hose as you hover above the toilet. I'll say it again, Koreans really know how to shave off excess square feet from a room. Also, Koreans don't user clothes dryers. You hang everything on dry lines. And my window shades (not pictured) that span the whole left side of my room are broken, so I am expecting to get an angry notice from the landlord sometime soon saying he is getting complaints of public nudity from the apartment across the street.

Something that may surprise you New York financiers reading this is that I may end up saving more money after one year than any of you! Above the base $35,000 salary I will make, I understand I could make another $20,000 in overtime pay, plus my housing is paid for, and an average meal costs $5-$6. Alcohol, by the way costs $1.50 for a bottle of "soju", the vodka-like Korean alcohol. In the street markets, clothing costs as little as $5-$10 for a dress shirt. I was told Seoul was the "second most expensive city to live in behind Moscow", and could believe it if I were living in a Western style apartment (~650+ square feet), eating Western food (Burgerking, Subway, etc.), and purchasing Western commodities. But I am doing none of those things (much), and, as you would imagine, better deals for anything are found in back-alley Asian markets, which are prolific in Seoul. Whereas a pair of shoes may cost 30,000 Won ($30) at the large malls in Seoul, the same shoes (of suspicious but presentable quality) cost 2,000 Won.


I plan on taking language classes at Ewha University starting in October. It is actually a women's university and the only males allowed to take classes are foreigners. Imagine being at a University with a female:male ratio of 1000:1. That's me at Ewha. Or, will be, in October. I am also going to start Taekwondo with some coworkers sometime in October hopefully, unless it conflicts with my Korea classes. Until December, I'm only teaching about four hours a day, so I'm trying to fill my day with anything interesting. If you have a suggestion, I'd love to hear it.

I'll make my future posts much shorter, with less insights that are boring-but-interesting-to-me, and hopefully some amusing photos/stories.

I hope everyone is doing great back home (and around the world!). Any and all of your comments to my posts are happily invited.