A fragmented account of various cool things

People keep telling me I'm pretty. The first one to do it was a 60 year-old Korean gentlemen whom I was teaching - he told me that the ladies behind the front desk recommended me to him because I'm pretty. Since then, I've had roughly three other students tell me the same thing, as well as a group of young Girl Scouts on the subway (who couldn't have been more than 10 but they all spoke lovely English). They asked if Andy was my boyfriend, so we told them we were engaged, and they became very wide-eyed and smiley. One of the girls gave Andy a thumbs up and said "good job."

I have taught the older Korean man twice now. In our first lesson, I had mentioned to him that I was interested in reading English translations of Korean literature. Today, when I had my second class with him, he gave me an English version of The Camellias, which is a Korean novel from the 1930s. He told me he hadn't had time to go out and get it himself, so he had his driver go out and find me a book.

Also, today I learned about Korean wedding ducks. One of my students is getting married this Sunday, so we looked up pictures of Korean weddings online. There were several pictures of wooden ducks (all of them in pairs), so I asked her what they were. She said that they symbolize the man and woman, and that people keep them in their house for good luck. They are usually displayed facing each other, but she told me that when the husband and wife are having an argument, they move the ducks so that they are back-to-back.

Hey you! Smile!

Today was a day of motion. We got to experience the cramped subway life of Seoul - we traveled from Gangnam to the downtown area, then walked in the rain through a park, a royal shrine, and a market. We've been in such a near-constant state of travel that now, sitting here in the motel, I feel like I'm on a train.

Apparently the area around Jongmyo royal ancestral shrine is a hang-out for old men: old men sitting on the stairs, old men eating street food, old men leaning on their umbrellas and laughing at some joke I can't understand, old men crowded around other old men playing Go) on park benches. The first thing you see when you exit the subway is a stand selling typical old guy hats.

The ancestral shrine was really cool. It consists of several old buildings spread out over a big stretch of woodland, which was a welcome break from dirty city air. Very pretty, very rainy, very fun.





The market was crazy but fun. We found several stands that sell cheap kitchen supplies, so we'll certainly be back when it comes to adorning our new apartment with knick knacks and bric-a-brac (are pots and pans bric-a-brac?).



Finally, here is a funny ad that I saw on the subway. Sometimes things are a lot better if you can't understand what's being said. The title of this entry is "Hey you! Smile!", which I saw on the side of someone's shopping bag. So I've decided that "Hey you! Smile!" is the caption for this advertisement. Any suggestions for what you think the people are saying? I think they're having an enthusiastic conversation about the man's snazzy suit.

Yogurt bread??

Today was my last day of training, and my first day in the Direct English branch I'll be teaching in. I sat in on a couple of classes. In one class, the teacher spent about thirty minutes trying to help the Korean student pronounce "war" and "wall." This proved to be extremely challenging, because "r" and "l" are pretty much the same consonant here. They are written with the same symbol, but pronounced "r" in certain situations and "l" in others. So I got to sit there, quietly observing, while for thirty minutes "wa" noises were made nonstop by both the teacher and the student. I thought I was going a little crazy.

By the end of my orientation, I had been there for about an hour and half longer than I was supposed to, mainly because a student whose class I was supposed to observe chose not to show up. On my way out, the Korean girls behind the front desk took pity on my grumbling stomach (it was almost 9pm, and I had been there since 3) and offered me a piece of bread. It turned out to be a sweet roll filled with what tasted like chocolate yogurt.

I'm constantly being surprised by how important youthfulness and beauty are here. Students keep telling us how popular plastic surgery has become, the reasons often being to get job promotions. A Korean businessman (the same one who couldn't distinguish between "war" and "wall") was expressing some worries he has about his job - he's 37, and according to him it's very common for Korean businessmen to lose their jobs around age 40-45, only to be replaced by younger men. So, since businesses only want to hire young workers, these laid-off middle-aged guys struggle to get new jobs. They either sit around at home and do nothing, leave Korea to work abroad, or put up with a lower pay scale job that nobody else wants to do.

I have finally decided on a name for this blog. Suitable, I think, because I've never lived in a city that is also an active tourist spot.

First real day of work tomorrow. Rock.

Where's the air?

While I'm waiting for my newly-purchased jasmine tea to steep, let's explore some flavors I've encountered in Korea so far.

We had pizza a few evenings ago from Pizza Club (not to be confused with Pizza Mall, another joint on another street in Seoul). It was good, but the sauce tasted more like barbecue sauce than what my taste buds have come to know as pizza sauce. I figured this was just a Pizza Club thing, until Andy and I went to an Italian restaurant tonight and discovered that our lasagna and spaghetti were slathered in a freakishly similar, sweet tomatoey sauce. We reasoned that this was just Korean tastes revealing themselves, that people here must prefer sweet things.

Until we bought cookies.

First of all, the chocolate cookies depicted on the box look like your typical Chips Ahoy-type pre-packaged dessert. But on the actual cookie, dough and chocolate chip are indistinguishable in terms of color, and they're much smaller than the box had led me to believe. Andy also pointed out that the cookie didn't taste as sweet as you'd expect. So there went our theory of Koreans having a sweet tooth. I suggested that the taste tendency here must be a consistent slightly-sweet, which Andy then compared to people who only drive at 40 mph no matter what, whether they're in a residential neighborhood or on the express way.

Also, bread here is very squishy, and largely crust-less (at least on pre-made sandwiches in convenience stories). I've seen an excessive amount of "milk bread," which Andy tells me is eaten in the UK by babies who are just beginning to consume solid food. Hmm.

In other news, Seoul is probably the most polluted city I have ever been in. It seems to be perpetually coated in smog, the streets are filled with chain smokers, and the sewers aren't very good at keeping their smells underground. I thought I had a cold for the first several days we were here, but I think now that my sinus gross-ness is my body adjusting to really alien big-city conditions. I guess pollution is just one of the compromises of living in a really awesome place. Luckily, there are some mountain-filled national parks nearby, which just sings to me of clean air. I think we have some day trips in our future.

I don't have pictures to share yet, but Andy and I will soon be moving into our apartment - awesome! we can cook again! - and I'll definitely post images of that so ya'll can see where we live. For those of you who were familiar with my senior year BG housing, this apartment is actually smaller, but it's still a normal size for Seoul. Bedrooms are synonymous with living rooms and dining rooms in this city, at least in the price range we're dealing with.

The Big Buddha is Upstairs

I am back from Japan. I spent my last day there with a subway day pass, and just kept getting off at various stops and seeing what there was to see (without wandering very far each time, because I can't say anything in Japanese except for 'hello' and 'thankyou,' so how was I to get directions if I got lost?). I spent my day buying socks, and reading what English-language books I could find in bookstores, and eating as much dessert as possible.

The highlight of the day was by far stumbling into a Buddhist temple. It was beautiful, with lovely pagoda-esque buildings and sand and statues and trees. There weren't many signs in English, so I was left mostly to guess what everything was, but I was intrigued by a paper sign in English taped to the side of a stairway: 'THE BIG BUDDHA IS UPSTAIRS.' Big Buddha? What big Buddha? I had to find out.

They really weren't kidding. Buddha was about three stories tall and made out of wood. He was sitting cross-legged, and smiling mysteriously between a stylishly thin mustache and goatee. People kept coming in and bowing their heads before him in prayer, then tossing some money in a wooden box and leaving. Some cans of orange juice had been placed in offering at his feet.

I watched a girl awake from prayer and walk toward this door at the base of the buddha statue. So I followed. It led to a little passage-way that curved around Buddha's bottom. On the walls were pictures of really scary demons barbecuing babies. At the end of this tunnel of terror was another doorway, which led into a pitch-dark (no kidding - pitch dark, not even some cracks of light) winding passage that curled its way back out the other side of the Buddha. Kind of a strange meditative trust-walk, I imagine. I tried entering twice, chickened out twice, then finally went all the way through. My fingers never left the walls. I've never been so afraid of trap doors or people jumping out at me (of which there were neither, except in my head).

After the Big Buddha, I went downstairs into a wide temple (picture the scene from Lost in Translation when Scarlet Johannsen visits the temple. it looked just like that). A group of Japanese ladies were kneeling on the floor, clanging bells together and singing. I don't know what else I was expecting - robes, perhaps - but they were just in their jeans and shirts. Some guy came up to me and asked a question in Japanese. I just said yes, which seemed to please him, because he smiled and said something else and walked away. Good save.

On my way out, I saw a sign in English that explained a few things about the temple, and apparently I was supposed to have seen a statue of the Thousand-Hand Goddess of Mercy, dating all the way back to something nuts like the 1100s. Couldn't find her, though. Shame.

And now I'm back in Korea, and to celebrate Andy and I went out and bought a box of tissues and a stuffed animal (which Andy has dubbed the giraffe-erpillar). Apparently the Koreans like strange creatures.

This Blog is Not a Pun

My brain is suffering from strange and sporadic sleep, so I nearly named this blog something lame like "Seoul Searching" or "Seoul Power." But I overcame that strange, 5 am desire, and I am pleased to report that This Blog is Not a Pun. The title will probably change once I think of something jazzier, but right now I'm too tired to try.

To keep with the theme of jet-lag and sporadic things, I will begin with a stream of consciousness description of what's currently going on.

I am in Fukuoka, Japan. The toilet seat in my hotel room is self-heating. It's hard to understand the bus system when you don't speak Japanese. My lunch yesterday consisted of miso soup, a sampler plate of 6 ambiguous dishes (one being fish, one being a strange hambuger patty in soy-like sauce, one being unidentifiable vegetables in a grey sauce, one being a tasty potato and vegetable hodgepodge, one being more unidentifiable vegetable, and the last being a creamy squidge of ginger-decorated tofu), and unlimited rice. Instant noodles are basically the same as anything you'd buy in the international food aisle in Kroger, the one big difference being that I can't read the labels here. Bread and cakes are very squishy, very soft, very moist, very fun to sink your teeth into. Pokemon is even stranger in Japanese.

I'm getting my visa back from the Korean embassy later today, and after that I get to putz around for 8 more hours before I go to the airport to check in for my 9pm flight back to Incheon Airport. I might go see some temples and some castle ruins.

And now let's go back in time a little bit. Here is what I wrote in my notebook during the flight from Germany to Korea:

"I'm on my way to Korea. I can see my reflection in the personal television screen in front of me. I look tired and warm. There's a Korean man sitting next to me, and I'm afraid to ask him if he speaks English because I'm ashamed to have learned so little of his language this summer. I justify this by promising myself I'll sign up for Korean classes once we're settled in our new temporary home. He seems nice, even though we haven't said anything to each other. I suspect this will become a familiar feeling to me - the sense that someone is nice, but without the linguistic capacity to find out. It seems that you can get far with body language, though. The reasons I suspect this man is nice are that he smiles a lot, and he passed my empty plastic cup to the flight attendant for me. I may not become fluent in Korean this year (though by God I'll foolishly try), but I'll probably hone the skill of reading people's bodies and communicating with my own - in a sense, become fluent in body language.

For perhaps the second time in my life (the first being my first flight, because who can help but be excited?) I am looking forward to the in-flight meal. They're serving Korean food, and it's my first time eating bibimbop miles above Russia..."

It turns out I was right about both things. The man sitting next to me continued to be extremely nice, even though we couldn't say much to each other, and the airline food was actually awesome.