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.