주말 잘 보내세요 (or "Have a nice weekend")

We had a relaxed weekend, in happy anticipation of the downhill stretch before us. We have a two-day teaching week, with a light inservice and turkey feast on Wednesday, then a long weekend – after that, only two teaching weeks and final exams before the three-week winter break extravaganza. This is cause for celebration and relaxation.

Friday night we went to see the school play (A Midsummer Night's Dream), then Saturday we undertook the much-anticipated hike between the Woomi apartments and wherever fate and bumbling led us. The hike was a success; we started off a little after ten with Tommy Toms, Ryan and Chola (our neighbors Ryan and Jolene’s dog). Ryan turned back after about an hour and a half, and we hiked a total of five hours before popping out in a university area in Suwon, the next city over. From there, an easy bus ride took us back home. The hike turned out to be gentle, pretty ridge-walking after the exercise oasis summit we had already hiked to several times. We had sunshine mixed with cold wind and foggy clouds, all in all perfect hiking weather, and the Koreans all paused to marvel at Chris’ and Tommy’s shorts. We are now very familiar with the various expressions that translate to, “Aren’t you cold (you crazy white people)?” It is definitely beginning to feel like winter, and snow flurries appear more than once in the forecast for the coming week.

Saturday night we bailed on the opportunity to meet up with James and Elizabeth in Hongdae, a happening university district in Seoul, in favor of lazing around the house, and having a nice dinner at John’s restaurant, our tried-and-true Suji favorite (no experimentation for a while after the tripe-fest last weekend). John, true to form, invited us to eat with his good friend, who was entertaining a visiting co-worker from Holland, and the five of us downed some soju, maekju (beer), and sweet Korean wine. The food and company were excellent. Sunday morning was reserved for Skype time with Jen, Geoff, and their new webcam, and Mom and Rob a little later. At 2:30 the bus picked us up and took us to the Seoul Hyatt for the YBM teacher banquet.

YBM is our parent company – they own Korea International School, where we work, but their primary business is in the wildly successful English hagwons. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Korean education madness, hagwons are private academies that supplement students’ daytime education with extra tutoring in a variety of subjects. The most popular are English, SAT prep, and math hagwons, but non-academic hagwons exist as well. On our runs and bike rides home in the river basin, we see rollerblading and even jump-rope hagwon students, dutifully emulating their earnest instructors, sometimes even in the absence of the actual rollerblades (actually, I fully support the idea of learning how to rollerblade before you put the skates on and wobble precariously back and forth across the bike trail). Anyway, teachers at regular daytime schools like ours have a major complaint about hagwons: students attend them for a few hours in the evenings, meaning that they have very little time to complete the homework we assign them. Lazy students deal with this by not doing their homework or copying it from their classmates on the bus on the way to school, while their diligent peers stay up until 3 a.m. finishing their work, and catch up on sleep in our classes. But many Koreans – particularly Korean mothers – are obsessed with the hagwons and will do anything to ensure that their children get ahead and maximize their college options. From what we hear, the moms whose kids are enrolled in the most hagwons earn serious bragging rights, and nothing our school says or does seems to convince the bulk of them that their children need time to rest, relax, enjoy themselves and prepare for their regular high school classes.

Anyway, YBM hosts a magnificent holiday feast for all of its teachers, from KIS and their many English hagwons. Tonight was the night, and the party included a talent show with some great acts (notably our co-worker Krystal and her husband, who have some remarkable bluegrass skills – and they told us that one of Seoul’s three bluegrass clubs is located at Miguem station, only 5 minutes by bus from our home) and an ear-splitting Mariah Carey cover, as well as two Korean celebrity performers: an impressive a-capella group and a crew of b-boys. The breakdancing from the latter was very good, and I’m eager for the opportunity to go to a full-length b-boy concert. Korean-style breakdancing involves some hard-core athleticism, with many flips, upside-down moves and weird contortions as well as the more familiar spinning on the floor.

During the meal, YBM raffles off various items, beginning with cakes and USB drive memory sticks, and culminating in digital cameras and the grand prize, a laptop computer. Rumor had it that the grand prize was a flight to Thailand, so Chris and I were listening attentively before it was announced. When we realized it was a laptop, we joked about how ridiculous it would be if we won, since we already have a total of four laptops – one each for work, and the ones we brought from home. Well, who do you think won the grand prize? You guessed it . . . now we are trying to decide whether to sell the new toy to the highest bidder and pocket the cash, or do the charitable thing and give it to someone who needs one and can’t afford it. At any rate, YBM was generous to treat us all to a nice evening out, not to mention the lavish prize that I really don’t feel that I deserve.

Well, Chris is hanging the laundry alone right now, and I should really do something to contribute to the housekeeping. Thursday morning we depart for a short road trip to the city of Jeonju, three hours south of Seoul, and a couple of mountain parks nearby. We will doubtless take more pictures than anything we see merits, and half of them will be posted here next week. Happy Thanksgiving to all –

Jess

Fashion Ad-Visor

Many apologies for my neglect of the blog over the past few weeks. The cushy subbing job that afforded me evenings to practice the trumpet, learn Korean and ponder blog entries has given way to full-time teaching. For the next three months I will be teaching biology, chemistry and AP chemistry as I cover for a colleague on maternity leave.

Chemistry! Plank's constant and Bohr's model, moles and thermodynamics, electronegativity and Van Der Waals forces: it's been a dizzying process of relearning terms and concepts I haven't thought about since sophomore year of college. The funny thing is, I love it. Throughout my education I was never very smitten with the 'central science', but teaching it has given me the chance to try and creatively reshape its curriculum. Less lecturing and more burning, boiling, and mixing of chemicals. Fewer pencils and textbooks and more Bunsen burners and goggles. But enough about chemistry and onto the topic at hand.

Visors. Korea is a country awash in the self-contained sun shade. With all due apologies to the college softball team population Korea has to be the number one consumer of the visor. On any given day in this country you will probably come in contact with well over a hundred people donning this piece of apparel.

Worn predominately by ajumma, older married Korean women (although it occasionally can been seen resting upon a man's brow: see picture above), the visor comes in two forms. The traditional, albeit lengthened, head dress and the movable tinted visor/face-shield. Both come in a spectrum of colors ranging from understated black and white to flashy red, pink or purple; however, when choosing your particular visor you must first ask yourself "Do I want square area or am I searching for a more futuristic Buck Rogers-ish look?"

If you desire an awning that would comfortably protect a small family from a monsoon then the traditional is probably your choice. Side note: I'm not sure if it's my fascination with physics or my many talks with Bruce about the properties of laminar flow; however, I often find myself wondering if the large wing-like structure hanging off the front of an ajumma's head would actually propel that person airborne during a gust of wind.

But what about the rest of the population who want to still look stylish yet lack the adequate neck muscles to support a 10kg extension cloth rooftop on their head? No worries, the stream-lined adjustable visor will fill all your vising needs. If Darth Vader ever wanted a visor this would be the one he would choose. In the world of the visor the future is now here in South Korea.

Christmas presents anyone?

Happy Pepero Day!

No doubt I’m overdoing it with the blog this weekend, but I wanted to post something positive, lest you think that tripe is the salient theme of our past week. For one thing, we have been acquainting ourselves with Korean literature, and thus far our impression is that it is not tripe, not at all. The short stories we’ve read have been somewhat bleak, with the Japanese occupation and the Korean war standing out as inescapable themes, but very readable and in some cases gripping. The one I read yesterday, “The Cry of the Magpies,” is one of the most intense stories I can remember reading in the past several years. I’m not sure why Korean literature doesn’t have more of an international presence, or maybe it does and I’ve just been ignorant of it. At any rate, look up Yi Sang or Kim Dong-ni if you’re curious. And speaking of war lit, Chris just told me that Norman Mailer died today. I can’t say much about him because I’ve only read The Naked and the Dead – but it did make a huge impression on me, more than any other war book I’ve read.

This week saw an entertaining mini-carnival appear in our Woomi parking lot. Chris bargained for delicious dumplings (with no sweet beans, thankfully) and we discovered a nightie with the thought-provoking slogan, “I [heart] ‘Em Young” (!!?). There was even an ultra-carni kiddie ride that threatened to break free of its bolts at any moment, tossing mini-Koreans all over the residents’ Hyundais. Otherwise, the week was uneventful but not unenjoyable, nothing like the previous one.

Yesterday we had a late-afternoon hike with Susan and Tommy Toms, some of our favorite co-workers and the most dedicated hikers on the faculty. As soon as we got to the summit of our own small mountain (Gwanggyo – we finally learned its name), Susan began hatching plans to connect our area via the wooded wonderland to all kinds of other neighborhoods, so we have our work cut out for us in the coming months. The weather at this point is no deterrent to hiking, and from what we hear it probably won’t be, except for a few frigid weeks in January / February. (And for now, the neighbors continue to keep our apartment about as warm as it was in August.) On the trail, we happened upon some lucky child’s woodland hideaway, where Susan and I were tempted to pocket some of the trinkets (I liked the well-used Grimace figurine best). The Koreans showed us new tricks at the exercise oasis, and I tried to emulate them, with no particular success. We did find some exercise equipment accompanied with detailed instructions and diagrams – see the photo. The woman in the diagrams was doubtless the most voluptuous Korean female ever drawn – we’re not sure where she buys her undergarments or swimwear, but I don’t think it’s at the LotteMart. After the hike, we finished up the evening with a greasy meal at a western-style diner – a pancakes-for-dinner kind of place – which was the perfect antidote for the ghastly provisions of the previous night.

Today is Pepero Day, a Korean holiday that commemorates the alignment of the date and a popular snack (not quite as momentous an occasion as Armistice Day, I think it's safe to say). Peperos are crunchy little sticks of nondescript bread-cookie, half-coated in chocolate (or other flavored dips). They’re pretty good, and since they look like sticks or number 1’s, 11/11 is a logical day to celebrate them. Well, logical if you’re the Pepero company, anyway – a little web searching offered various explanations for the holiday, but I like to believe the one that claimed Lotte (of LotteMart notoriety) invented it. Kids exchange the Peperos sort of like valentines, so we bought a few to give to our homeroom students tomorrow.

Our Pepero Day outing consisted of the short bus ride to Suwon, a city of a million plus people that turns out to be much closer to us than Seoul. The bus ride took less than 20 minutes, and we were dropped off right in the middle of Hwaseong Fortress, the main tourist attraction in Suwon. The fortress walls are a World Heritage site, and a 5.7 kilometer walk takes you around the entire loop, with nice views and plenty of old-meets-new architectural contrast, since the walls surround the modern city center. Hwaseong was built in 1734, and like everything else, was more or less razed by the Japanese, but has been carefully restored. We didn’t pay that much attention to the history, but enjoyed a few hours of leisurely walking and photo-taking in the perfect fall weather. Afterwards we spent a few dollars on the chance to shoot some blunt arrows in “traditional Korean archery” style. Chris was able to call upon his elementary school archery skills, and we both had a good time annoying the angry little fat man who ran the archery field and spent the whole time barking Korean orders and poking at us.

Hope you all had good weekends as well, or are still enjoying yours if you’re in the Western U.S. and haven’t even begun your Sundays yet (how absurd is my weekly bout of jealousy over this fact?). I’ve been procrastinating my lesson planning while writing this entry by perusing other people’s “Life in Asia” blogs, and have remembered that long-windedness is not necessarily a valued blog trait – so, I'm sorry. I’m beginning to annoy even myself with my lack of concision. There’s a goal for next week . . .

Friday Night Tripery (warning: lurid descriptions and photos follow)

Chris and I had a traumatic dining experience this weekend, and I wanted to write about it in the interest of salvaging something – humor? vocabulary? anything? – from an ordeal that was otherwise among our worst so far in Korea.

A little background: there is this cute restaurant across the street from our apartment that is always packed, but we’ve shied away from it because our friends Jen and Dow went there, and told us that the only menu item seems to be – gasp – TRIPE. Thanks to this tip, we knew the danger existed on the streets of Suji, but we thought that if we avoided that establishment, we would be safe. The thing is, Chris and I are experimental diners, and we claim that we’ll try anything once. For instance, we’re glad we tried the silkworm pupae, and are both excited for our first encounter with live baby octopus soup (although Jen has indicated that she may disown us as friends if we commit The Ultimate Transgression, i.e., consuming live flesh . . . come to think of it, my brother Rob might, too). And our accidental blood sausage event in Seoul had no lasting repercussions. But there is a line we generally don't cross, and it’s really more of a wall – on the far side of it lie the dog meat cafés and, well, the triperies. We really had no intention of crossing that wall.

So anyway, when we wanted something to eat on Friday, we decided it would be too easy to go to John’s bulgogi, the one non-fast-food restaurant in our neighborhood we know to be delicious and welcoming. To find something new, we crossed The Big Street (street names here are either non-existent or entirely irrelevant; people find their way around based on landmarks, and a taxi driver who is utterly unimpressed by the name of your street will brighten up when you tell him the name of your apartment building or the elementary school across from your home) to explore a neighborhood that was appealingly seedy, and happened upon a busy eatery that looked charming and homey. The ajummas were sweet and appreciated our fumbling Korean. We did recognize the word for pork all over the menu, but somehow, after two full months of Korean classes, the term ‘tripe’ has not yet made its way onto our vocabulary lists (I know, odd, isn’t it? That’s usually in week two of Spanish I). We like some pork, and some of the people in the restaurant appeared to be enjoying appealing-looking cuts. Our mistake was to ask the waitress for her recommendation.

The side dishes and the Hite beer arrived, and everything was looking great. The atmosphere was convivial, and small Korean children were vying for Chris’s attention. We felt relaxed and excited for the weekend. Then it arrived: a sizable platter laden with raw, chopped up pieces of some moist beige tubing . . . there was no denying it: we’d been triped.

The word tripe, as you probably know, means two things: stomach lining or intestine, and also “something poor, worthless, or offensive” (often called upon by the opinionated to disparage other people’s taste in books . . . I believe I overused this word throughout college, most frequently in describing Jack Kerouac’s writing). Well, the double meaning is no coincidence. The meat we were served in abundance two nights ago was poor, worthless, and offensive all at once. I don’t think Chris and I have ever exchanged such alarmed looks, because the thing was, this was not like the time I ordered haggis in Scotland. On that occasion, it was served to me in some handy take-away container, easily and discreetly disposed of once I’d eaten enough sheep liver and lungs (cooked in sheep stomach, might I add . . . those crafty Scots) to say that I’d sampled the national dish. But at the tripery, there was no graceful escape. Cultural sensitivity means something to us, and after establishing a friendly relationship with the ajummas and accepting their advice, there was no way we could reject the tenderly presented tripe, at least not all of it.

Well, the next half an hour was easily the most gag-worthy of our 3.5 months in Asia. Chris gets the prize: he is usually a pickier eater than I am, but he managed to load his tripe & lettuce wraps with four sections of chewy tube each. I, on the other hand, could only manage a couple of chews on each 2-tube wrap before I washed each of my giant tripe-amins down with beer. I mean, the stuff is so damn chewy on top of tasting like absolute ass; you could let each bite linger in your mouth for five minutes (five awful, torturous, masochistic minutes), and it would still go down in one piece. Kimchi has never tasted so sweet. Fortunately, we know how to say, “I’m not hungry,” so we prevented the ajummas from grilling the final ¼ of the feast for us.

After we escaped the tripe-hole, we found a nearby bar called Obby Lobby (named for one of the big Korean beer brands, OB – unfortunate initials for any food or drink, all American women seem to agree, especially the “OB Red” variety). There I attacked the peanuts and other bar snacks with unprecedented zeal, and we gradually recovered from our dining catastrophe. The thing is, we still don’t know the word for tripe in Korean, but you can bet it will be the first thing we ask Anne on Tuesday in Korean class.

We’re going to Suwon to see the fortress in a couple of hours, so hopefully I can balance this entry tonight with something a little more appreciative.

O-man won!

Well, the inevitable happened – I ruined my run of faithfully updating the blog at least once a week. I don’t think anyone but me really noticed, but small routines like the Sunday evening blog time are precious to me. I did start to write last weekend, but I was derailed by the fact that it was a nightmare of a weekend with no – or little – reprieve from work, for both of us. I was writing recommendations, and Chris was adjusting to his new full-time teaching schedule, since the chemistry teacher for whom he’s subbing had her baby a couple weeks back. Anyway, here’s last week’s aborted blog:

This weekend involved a fairly intense marathon of college recommendation letter-writing on my part, which I do not intend to whine about in this entry, but which I must admit has left me devoid of nearly all expressive ability. Instead of an exposition of the Demilitarized Zone, which we visited on Saturday, when I start typing what comes out instead are things like, “We approached the increased rigor of the third-year course – wait, of the DMZ security, that is – with resolve as well as an intellectual curiosity that set him – I mean, set us apart from our peers. I believe I speak for all members of the tour group when I say that Chris’s rendition of I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You during the bus-karaoke session on the way home earned him the respect and admiration of the entire faculty – that is, of the tour guide as well as the bus driver.” [Singing tour guide pictured on right.] Anyway, I am finished with all but one letter, and the one that remains does not need to be written this weekend and is for a student about whom it is easy to write. Sacrificing more or less an entire weekend to this activity was inevitable, I guess, so instead of complaining I will be grateful for early action deadlines at colleges, which prevent me from procrastinating these things into my Christmas vacation, when they are even less appealing. Do I sound like the worst kind of grinchy teacher? I do enjoy saying great things about good people, which is basically what writing the letters amounts to.

The trip to the DMZ was interesting and worthwhile. I don't really have anything important or even coherent to say about it, so I'll just describe the pictures. The demilitarized zone is a full-on tourist trap - a constant stream of tour buses like ours keeps the vending booths and nearby amusement park in business - and this fact in itself makes it a pretty bizarre place. I wish I had a copy of the film montage they show you when you get there, dramatizing the conflict and separation after the style of an 80's-era Whitesnake video. Chris had fun delighting the local boys with his burgeoning Korean skills, as you can see on the left. Next, take a moment to marvel at the eternal fla- no, the eternal, um, piece of red tissue paper being blown by an eternal fan? This high-class symbol commemorates something - not sure what - the dream of reunification? We saw it when we toured one of the invasion tunnels the South Koreans discovered in the 70's or 80's (the most recent one was found in the mid-90's, I think). This is worth a couple words, because it was the funniest thing we learned about N-S Korean relations. When SK found this tunnel and accused the North of plotting an invasion, the North Koreans responded, "What?? Invasion tunnel? You morons, that's a COAL mine!" Then, they surreptitiously smeared coal grime all over the walls of the tunnel - never mind that there's no coal anywhere near this region . . . brilliant. I think I was even more impressed by this story than the fact that Kim Jong Il shot a perfect game the very first time he played golf. If I had more time on my hands, I would set up a blog of homage to all the world leaders who must employ teams of comedy geniuses to help them be the very best possible parodies of themselves. Chávez, Castro, Kim Jong . . . and let's not neglect our own Dear Leader. Maybe it's a good thing I'm so busy; the last thing I need is to make a hobby of ridiculing people who control massive armies and nuclear weapons. Back to the tunnel: it was unremarkable, except we did get to wear these construction worker helmets, and for once in my life I got to appreciate my average height as Chris strained to keep from knocking his head all over those coal-smeared dynamited walls. So, in conclusion: the DMZ tour was worth doing because it was one of the weirdest tourism experiences one could hope for, and because we'll always have a whole portfolio of photos we were forced to pose for - complete with DMZ Tour Banner, "Say Whisky!" style - to remember it by.

OK, back to the un-italicized present tense:

The thing about not having a weekend, or working through it, is that it pretty much guarantees an awful week to follow. And this past week lived up to that rule . . . I won’t go into detail, but it was a week of stress, angst, anger, and even a painfully embarrassing crying fit on the bus one morning, sparked by some mild criticism from a colleague. I was a monster this week. I hated teaching and felt morose about everything except Chris and Korean vocabulary, the only two things in my life that were bringing me happiness.

Well, what I realized, or remembered, was that bad weeks happen every now and then, and now, on the other side of a great weekend, some hours of sleep and relaxation, and some good Skype time with the family, Jen (happy birthday!), Geoff, and Mark, I find myself in a much different frame of mind. We spent yesterday roaming some new streets in Seoul, eating anything the street vendors carried that didn’t look like pig snout or blood sausage, and even succeeding in some bargain shopping (well, I succeeded, and Chris brought home an exciting AP Chemistry textbook). Today we both had to work a little, but we had time for a short hike on our backyard mountain, which was positively seething with Korean fitness activities (see the be-visored hoola-hooper on the right - these hoops are heavy and have weird plastic spikes, and are provided at many of the exercise oases that punctuate the hiking trails). I don’t know that we did or saw anything that merits one of my characteristic long-winded descriptions, so instead of trying to wax poetic, I’ll just sip my green tea and paste in some photos to show the highlights of the beautiful Korean autumn. Green tea, by the way, is great, for those of you who don’t drink it. I really do think it has a noticeably positive effect on my body and my mood. In the back of my mind I’m considering it as an eventual coffee replacement, but after meeting some co-workers this year who drink so much coffee that they shake perpetually, I’m feeling fairly healthy about my own addiction. (Let’s not talk about the fact that I bought an extra coffee maker for my classroom.)

Pictures: Chris christened this street Squid Alley, but that's not to say that ojingo - squid - is not available everywhere, in every conceivable form. Usually it's dry and hard. Sometimes when I'm playing "I can assimilate!" I eat it, but most of the time there are more exciting street food options to be had. Next: this little river (on the right) cuts through the heart of downtown Seoul, and provides a pleasant alternative sidewalk after you're tired of saying excuse me with your elbows and perusing plastic-wares and pirated DVD's on the regular streets. Then: we happened upon this pastoral scene outside a gun shop - the fawn wearing the ammo clip is especially touching. It's a good thing there are no animals in this country . . . oh wait, maybe this is why? Finally, our favorite Seoul tea-house - we've been there twice now, both because it's charming and because we can't successfully locate any of the other ones. The name is wonderful: Moon Bird Thinks Only of the Moon. And somehow, although neither of us are real tea drinkers, a cup of traditional Korean tea at this place is worth 6,000 won, or the amount you would pay for . . . oh, maybe 30 dried leg of squid, two pounds of blood sausage, an entire tripe dinner . . . that is to say, about six bucks. If you're wondering about the title of this entry - I am finally beginning to master Korean numbers (Chris understood them instantly, but it's taking me a while - they're tricky because there are two numbering systems), and o-man won (or fifty dollars, roughly, but going up if that damn dollar doesn't get with it!) is the cost of the beautiful Marmot winter jacket I found at the BlackYak store in Seoul. Non-Seattlites who don't share the obsession with outdoorsy outerwear will be nonplussed by this information, but when you consider that the other western-brand jackets I'd been looking at were priced between $400 - $850 and that I nearly tried on a coat by NorthFace knockoff, "The Full Rush Hour" (?? this makes "The RedFace" and "Hampster Sport" seem like sensible brand names) you may get an idea of why I'm so excited about my new winter coat.

Apologies for an extremely rambling post, but none for the deeply satisfying fact that I had the time on a Sunday to actually write it - 안녕히게세요 (major progress on the Korean typing this week!), or goodbye.