An American in Ulsan

Kkeut!

2007-09-26T22:57:00.000+09:00

Due to the insanity that was leaving Korea and the ensuing jet-lag, I am a bit late in posting this, my final post. As some of you already know, I have now left Korea in order to (hopefully!) pursue a PhD in Anthropology, my dream. So, it is now time to reflect on my year-and-a-month in Ulsan. Before arrving in Korea, I was clueless about basically all things Korea, short of the cursory research I did on the country and culture before I left. I originally chose Ulsan as my home for the enxt year because as an island boy I wanted to be near the sea and seafood. The seafood in Ulsan was fantastic, from hoe (raw fish) to king crab to blowfish stew, but as it turned out I ended up in Cheonsang, which is about as far as you can get from the sea and still technically be in Ulsan. I also imagined that Ulsan, being one of the smaller cities in Korea, would be less polluted than, say, Busan or Seoul. Of course, as any Ulsaner knows, we are actually the MOST polluted city in Korea (at least, that's what I've been told, but I don't have any data on the subject), although the mayor has been making steps toward creating the Ulsan "ecopolis." Suffice it to say, Ulsan was not what I expected, but it grew on me. I still wish Ulsan had more "cultural opportunities, i.e. museums, theaters, live music, but once you get to know the city and can explore beyond its facade of concrete behemoths you learn to love it. It seemed like every time I went to Seongnamdong I found something new in one of the many alleyways. Mugeodong was my usual weekend haunt, although I tended to steer clear of the foreigner bars. I got to see Mr. Song's pizza and the D.D.R. Zone come and go and Yoo Jae-Yong expand his business, "Yes" (my favorite bar) into three locations and a samgyeopsal restaurant. I spent a lot of time at the university studying Korean, preparing for my PhD applications, and assisting Professor Hong with her presentation. In that time, I learned that the University community, and by extension the community of 20-somethings of Ulsan, is deceptively small. It seemed that everyone new that I met was somehow connected to someone else I already knew! As to my life at the hagwon: I had orginally intended to write a well-thought out description of the system, somewhat critical, but I don't think it's worth the time it would take. Hagwons can be effective places for learning for certain students, but I often think they are simply places that parents send their children so that they can keep up with their neighbors, and that's too bad. It can be a very stressful environment at times, and at other times mind-numbingly boring. On the other hand, there were every so often times that I loved being a teacher. And with a few exceptions, I loved my students. I was also blessed with great co-workers and bosses who didn't cheat me, so I consider myself lucky in that regard. All in all, Ulsan is a place where I made many friends whom I hope to remain friends with forever and it is a city that I will never, ever forget. I will be back, hopefully as a PhD student in the field in a couple of years, and I'm sure the city will have changed immeausrably by then. As to this blog, I've tried to present some of the things about Korea that amazed me, annoyed me, and intrigued me and I hope that it has been amusing, interesting and maybe even educational for some. I tried to steer clear of controversy (any of you who know me personally know that even when I did touch on controversial subjects I tried to reign myself in), but I do know that sometimes I stepped on some toes, resulting in losing my best friend, so I apologize to anyone I may have offended. It's been fun and even a little therapeutic for me to write this for the past year, so thanks for reading!

Student Showcase

2007-09-22T18:27:00.000+09:00

Friday was my majimak kareuchineun nal, a.k.a. my last day of teaching in Korea. Tomorrow, I'll be posting the FINAL post from An American in Ulsan, but for today I present to you (dear reader) my students on their last day with me as their teacher. Since it was game day anyway, I decided to have a snack party for all of my classes (and even some of the ones that aren't mine) and a pizza party for a couple others. It's amazing how much the make-up of my classes has changed over the year, but some have been there since the beginning. It was nice to have them tell me that they'll miss me, even the bad ones!

Irresponsible Purchases

2007-09-18T22:05:00.000+09:00

As some of you may recall, the last time I was in Seoul I visited the DMZ, where among other things I found some merchandise from across the border in North Korea. There are a few products that North Korea exports into the south, but the only ones that I am aware of are alcohol-related. This particular one is Korean brandy, which I picked up at the train station that could potentially link the South to the North someday. It cost only 9,000 won and it didn't taste especially good, but I was so enraptured with the idea of consuming something from North Korea that I didn't really care. Now, I see that not only was that instinct motivated from a very bad place, mainly a part of me that still sees North Korea as some sort of exotic, secret land in the "East," but perhaps even worse is that I have no idea where the money from my purchase ended up. Most likely, as with just about everything else in North Korea, the money somehow ended up in the hands of the State, a.k.a. Kim Jong Il. The North Korean State is certainly something I do not want to support. The situation in North Korea does get a little bit more attention these days because of its "Axis of Evil" claim to fame and the giant, mushroom-shaped elephant in the room, but I really don't think that anyone except North Koreans themselves have any idea how bad it actually is. Whatever we imagine it is like there, I imagine it is probably one hundred times worse. There are a few good documentaries that have been made about the current situation, one of which I saw last weekend. It included footage shot clandestinely in the North by a defector who routinely crosses the border and smuggles film out in order to bring more attention to the plight of his people (talk about dedication). It was eye-opening even for me, who thought I had a pretty good idea of how bad things were there. At any rate, the idea of consuming something seemingly "taboo" like North Korean brandy doesn't seem worth it to me anymore.

My University Life

2007-09-16T20:44:00.000+09:00

(From left to right: Professor Park Hye-Won, me, and Professor Hong Su-Myeong)

This is a little story about coincidences, taking chances, and above all the Korean spirit of jeong (something akin to what we would call "brotherly love" or "community mindset"), which I believe accounts for why Koreans are so ridiculously kind to foreigners (for the most part). A few weeks ago I was doing some research for my statement of academic intent for PhD applications when I happened upon an article about Korean university students' patterns of PC Bang usage co-authored by a professor at the University of Ulsan. Figuring that I could get a copy of the article for free and possibly even talk about the research with the professor, I tracked down her email address and sent her a message. Sure enough, she was more than happy to meet me, and that is how I ended up going to the mountains to eat guksu with Professor Park Hye-Won and her friend. Strangely enough, Professor Park had visited my hometown (Bar Harbor, Maine) and her friend had studied interior design at UMass Amherst during which time she visited Historic Deerfield, near where I went to middle school. The world is certainly a small place. After lunch, we visited their mutual friend Professor Hong Su-Myeong's house, which is a hundred-year old han-ok (traditional Korean house) in Yuli. The next day, Professor Park asked me if I would be willing to help Professor Hong, a nutrition professor, prepare an English presentation for an international symposium in Seoul in November. Of course, I was willing to help and have been meeting with Professor Hong for the past two weeks to work on her presentation, which is about the proposed implementation of menu labeling in chain restaurants in Korea (actually, pretty interesting stuff). After working and before going to my real job, Professors Hong, Park and three other professors usually have lunch together somewhere near the university. Just imagine, me having lunch everyday with five 50-something Korean women; it's quite funny. To thank me for all of the help I've given her, and because she is a typical Korean who always wants guests to have the best time possible in Korea, Professor Hong threw a barbeque party in my honor at her house today. Unfortunately, the approaching typhoon "Nari" made the weather too bad to have the party outside, and so the guest list was smaller than intended. Still, I had a magnificent time feasting on beef bulgogi, hobakjuk, duck soup, and both year-old and two-week old kimchi, which have incredibly different flavors. Of course, I was ever-so-grateful for the opportunity. It is a shame that I met these wonderful people so close to the end of my time here, but I am hoping that these are connections that I will be able to maintain for some time to come. You never know where a simple little email will lead you!

(This is the ondeol floor-heating system in Professor Hong's han-ok)

(Professor Hong showing off a T-shirt she bought on safari in South Africa)

(The barbeque party-goers)

The End Is Near

2007-09-16T11:41:00.000+09:00

(The teacher as chef/party host)

A couple of weeks ago, my director informed me that I would be throwing my own going-away party at my apartment for my students. Although I was a bit perturbed at the prospect of preparing and funding my party, and hosting it myself (which certainly means more cleaning than would otherwise be necessary) it turned out to be a great time. The students from my favorite class showed up, along with some of my new roommate's students from the local GnB. I prepared some makeshift nachos (it's difficult to find the necessary ingredients in Korea):

and some bruschetta, which was a hit with some students, and with my director, but which others found disgusting.

My director brought a cake, another student brought another cake, and it seemed like everyone brought some sort of food. In the end, we had one giant feast! Also, all of my students prepared some small presents for me. I received a photo album of our antics in the class, a new charm for my cell phone, a few bouquets made from colored clay, and a small janggu, one of the instruments involved in samulnori:

Later, my director and the GnB students departed and I was left with my students who wanted to prepare rabokki for me (basically a spicy dish made with ramen noodles, rice cake, and odeng, a.k.a. fish cake):

The kids played cards and watched "Home Alone" on CGV while I, ever the responsible adult (ha!), did the dishes and cleaned up from the party. As stressful as work has been lately, these are the moments that I hope I remember when I leave, and the times that I am happy to be a teacher over here. This year has taught me that I really enjoy working with children and I hope to be able to do so in some capacity in the future. Here are the girls bidding me farewell:

Health System Comparison

2007-09-11T09:24:00.000+09:00

As most people who need to know already know, I might as well go ahead and tell the rest of you who read this site that over the past two months I have ended up in Korean hospitals three times. Nothing life-threatening, just a bit annoying. But it has given me the opportunity (along with a viewing of a pirated copy of Michael Moore's latest mediocre cinematic offering, thanks ridiculously cheap Korean broadband connection!) to reflect on the differences between my experiences in the Korean health care system and the one in my home country. One of the biggest differences for me is that (until recently) I have health insurance in Korea through my job, and I don't have any sort of health insurance in the States. In Korea, I pay 50% of the monthly costs of the insurance (about $60) and my boss pays the other half. But besides available and affordable health insurance, the most shocking difference for me has been the cost of the care. For example, my latest trip over the weekend involved a trip to the emergency room, a series of blood tests, a chest x-ray, and a prescription for two days. On top of all that, I discovered that my health coverage had also lapsed since my previous visa status expired, so the cost was much more than it would have been under my old plan. The damage? 200,020 won, just over $200! I'm not sure exactly what the cost for those procedures would have been in the States, but I'm fairly certain that simply walking into an emergency room would have been around $200 alone. Korea does not have a socialized medical system, but there is a national health care plan that citizens can pay into for which they receive coverage. As I've discovered, this makes their attitudes toward health care different from the average American. For example, whenever I had a slight cold over the winter, my co-workers would always ask, "Why don't you go to a doctor?" I would always reply that I wasn't sick enough to need a doctor and that all I needed was rest, fluids, and time to recover. But since health care is affordable here, Koreans will visit the hospital for what might seem like the most minor of ailments to Americans. In addition, there are pharmacies and clinics which treat patients with traditional Korean medical techniques. I can't be certain that these treatments are covered under the national health plan (anyone with information about that, please enlighten me), but I'm sure they are also affordable. Of course, affordable is a relative term, but let's put it this way: it's not like my salary makes me rich by Korean standards and I could certainly afford the care I needed without going into debt or having to tighten my belt, so to speak. On the other hand, my experience in the States has conditioned me to be afraid of going to the doctor because of how much it might cost. It simply isn't realistic to go to a hospital in the States unless it's absolutely necessary. Now, I know that there are several reasons why our health care is so expensive (malpractice insurance, subsidization of medicine in other countries, etc.), but it also seems as if the privatized HMO system just isn't working for the majority of us. Around election time (like now), there is always a lot of talk about reforming the system, but it seems like nothing ever changes. Perhaps I am naive, but I just don't see why a system like Korea's couldn't work in the States. Does anybody have an answer?

Out On The Range

2007-09-03T12:09:00.000+09:00

Who says one needs to have hundreds of acres to enjoy golf? (There's really nothing that could make me enjoy golf, but I digress). Golf is perhaps the most popular sport among middle and upper-class Koreans, who spend exorbitant amounts of money on outfitting themselves in the latest golf gear and paying for club memberships in the country. But in the middle of Ulsan, the land of high-rise apartment buildings and traffic jams, there are only two options for golf enthusiasts. One is "screen golf," which is also popular in the States, where players take shots on a virtual golf course displayed on a screen. The other is the enclosed driving ranges that dot the city with their trademark green netting. These places are often several stories tall and are placed just about anywhere. Not being a golfer, I've never been inside one and I have no idea what it costs. But when I'm one the bus I always see that they are packed with golfers perfecting their swings by whacking balls against the giant green netting. I've also heard that there is an actual golf course somewhere over in Bangeojin, but I'm not certain about that. This is all part of Korea's ubiquitous "bang" culture: rooms (small and large) where people can take part in all variety of leisure activities (online computer gaming, karaoke singing, DVD viewing, baseball hitting, comic book reading, etc. etc.). I would write more here, but as it is (hopefully) the subject of my PhD dissertation, I'll save my comments for later.

Stack Bundles

2007-08-31T12:44:00.000+09:00

This is what about nine months or so of work at a Korean hagwon looks like in material form (minus expenses, of course). Thankfully, this money is no longer in my apartment and is safely in my bank account back home. To any aspiring EFL teachers out there, it is a lot easier to transfer your savings (to the States, at least) if you have an account at a large, nation-wide bank, unlike me who has an account with a small-town bank. At least it's nice to have visual recognition that enduring the frustrations that mischievous children and an incompetent hagwon director engender has its reward!

Batman

2007-08-26T23:00:00.000+09:00

Who are you Batman? These tags can be found all over Ulsan. I've seen them in at least four different locations in Mugeodong, Samsandong and Seongnamdong. This particular one is in one of the many alleys of Seongnamdong, near the Indian restaurant. Clearly, it is done with a stencil, but I wonder whether it is the work of a collective of graffiti artists, a lone tagger, or maybe some sort of advertising firm. Actually, there isn't much graffiti in Ulsan at all; I can't say that I've seen anything memorable, and there certainly aren't any murals or anything. I guess "Batman," whoever he/she is, will remain just another of Ulsan's mysteries.

Anniversary

2007-08-25T15:25:00.001+09:00

Today I have officially been in Korea for one full year! If I hadn't extended my contract for a month, I would probably be on a plan somewhere over the Pacific right now. I can't believe it has already been a year; it seemed to go so quickly. But when I think about how I couldn't even read hangeul and knew virtually nothing about Korean culture before I got here, I realize that I have really come a long way in a short time. Also, when I look at pictures of myself from year ago, I can see that I have developed a lot more wrinkles since then. Ah, the joys of teaching in Korea... There have been ups and downs to be sure, but fortunately more ups than downs, I think. Only one more month to go and then it's back home, but I'm positive I'll be back here some time soon.

Independence Day/Last Trip To Busan

2007-08-17T00:13:00.000+09:00

Yesterday was Gwangbokjeol, technically "Liberation Day" or Independence Day, in Korea, the day when Koreans celebrate the end of the brutal era of Japanese colonialism in 1945. It isn't one of the biggest holidays in Korea, and I didn't notice that there was anything different except that the streets were lined with flags, as they are on any national holiday. But it did mean that I had the day off of work, which gave me the opportunity to make what will probably end up being my last trip to Busan before I leave in five weeks. Although the meteorologists were threatening rain, it turned out to be a beautiful day, if a bit hot to my liking. I traveled alone, as I have one many an occasion to Busan, and basically followed my well-established routine of visiting the Busan MoMA and Haeundae. The MoMA is currently hosting the 33rd annual month-long Busan Art Competition. Artists from around the city (I couldn't get a straight answer as to whether they were professionals, semi-professionals, art students, or simply amateurs) entered their works in several different categories, including sculpture, water-colors, oils, commercial graphic design, and traditional ink calligraphy. The latter was the most interesting for me, even though I couldn't understand any of the languages that the banners were written in. My favorites were written in Jeonyeseo, which I believe is a style of writing Korean characters based on Chinese that is no longer used for official purposes. The characters look almost like animals, which adds to their aesthetic appeal. I liked some of the more risky paintings and sculptures, like the collage pieces, but there were also many still-lives and studies of streets scenes that were simply boring to me. As near as I could tell, most pieces were entered by different artists, but there seemed to be a congruency of style in many of the pieces so I am led to believe that many of the entrants were art students studying under the same teacher. The one piece that stood out to me, strangely enough, was Hyundaein, which loosely translates as "Contemporary Person." It was a simple portrait of a Korean man, done in a very minimalist color scheme with little detail. What made it unique was that instead of painting the face, the artist used a think slice of wood and then painted the facial features on top of it. It gave the subject a truly weathered look. Perhaps I was just in a particularly social realist mood yesterday. Afterwards, I headed down to Haeundae beach for a stroll on the beach, which was packed as usual, and then to the English language section of the bookstore in Sfunz. As the sun was fading, I made my way back to Ulsan. I'm sure I'll see Busan again someday, so it was more of a "See ya later" than a true "Good-bye" to a city I've come to enjoy.

Bamboo Forest

2007-08-12T23:34:00.000+09:00

One of the best ways that I've found to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon in Ulsan is to stroll through the bamboo forest in Taehwadong (it's also one of the 12 scenic areas of Ulsan). The forest is man-made and runs along the Taehwagang for about a quarter of a mile, give or take. I'm not sure when it was built, but it seems to be a relatively recent addition to the city, maybe as part of the "Ulsan Ecopolis" campaign to beautify the city and make it seem less like an industrial wasteland. As a matter of fact, in the 1980s and 1990s many cities in Korea (or, at least, Seoul) began beautification projects, perhaps as a response to the decades of industrialization that brought economic success to Korea along with environmental degradation. For example, Seonyudo in the middle of the Hangang in Seoul used to be a water purification plant before it became an "eco-park." It is perhaps significant that this renewed interest in the environment coincided with the end of the military dictatorship and the beginning of (nominal) democracy in Korea. Of course, I could simply be talking about something I really don't know anything about and this is really just speculation anyway. After all, the relationship between humanity and the environment has always been an important part of traditional Korean culture, especially the harmony between humans, Earth and heaven. But I digress. I have spent some memorable times in the forest, during the day and at night. It's strange to see something like a bamboo forest in the middle of the high-rise apartments and traffic jams of Daundong and Taehwadong, and I'm glad that it's there.

Highlights Of Seoul

2007-08-06T10:41:00.001+09:00

Instead of boring you with a story of "first I went here, and then I went there," I'll just give the highlights of my summer vacation in Seoul. There were two unfortunate circumstances: the weather was terrible as a typhoon was passing across the peninsula this week, and my camera battery died as soon as I got there (so no pictures). But still, I had a great time.

DMZ: On Thursday, I went on a tour of the DMZ, about 40 minutes north of Seoul. There are two different tours that a tourist can do, one takes you just on a tour of the South Korean side of the DMZ and the other takes you to the Joint Security Area in Panmunjeom, which is controlled by North and South Korea. For the Panmunjeom tour, one needs to have a passport and there is a strict dress code and code of conduct to follow. I had left my passport in Ulsan, and I didn't have the proper attire with me, so I had to opt for the simpler (cheaper) DMZ tour. The tour stops in three locations: "the 3rd tunnel," the Dorasan observation post, and the Dorasan train station. The "3rd tunnel" is the third tunnel discovered by the South Koreans that originates in the North and was supposedly intended for an underground invasion force from the North. The tunnel was discovered in 1978, a full 25 years after the cessation of the Korean War. It is significant because it is a larger tunnel than the two previous discoveries and by some calculations could have allowed for a force of 30,000 soldiers to pass into South Korea in thirty minutes. The North claims that this tunnel, and the others, were built by the South. Also, the third tunnel was painted black inside by the retreating North Korean forces in an attempt to disguise it as an abandoned coal mine. The Dorasan observatory post was the closest we got to the North Korean border, as it overlooks the DMZ itself. Unfortunately, the weather was so bad that even with binoculars we couldn't see the Northern side. The train station was built as part of former president Kim Dae Jung's "Sunshine Policy" of detente with the North and is a symbol of a hopeful future of peace and unification. Potentially, the station could connect the South and the North, but the stations it runs to in North Korea are closed, so it actually doesn't go anywhere. Visitors can stamp their passports with fake stamps from North Korea, which is a nice gimmicky souvenir.

Monet: I also got to take advantage of the traveling Monet exhibition, "From Instant to Eternity," at the Seoul Museum of Art that will be there until the end of September. The information panels in the different rooms were written entirely in Korean, but fortunately for me I was accompanied by the incomparable Ja Young, so she was able to translate for me. The pieces covered most of Monet's career, and it was interesting to see how much his style changed, as he moved more and more towards trying to paint only light and ignore form. Several pieces from the his water lilies period were the highlight of the show. This is the first time that the water lilies series has been exhibited in Korea and so it has been a big draw for Korean art lovers. It made me want to visit Paris to see his giant wall murals at the Musee de l'Orangerie. I also learned a lot about Monet's life that I wasn't aware of, like how he lost his eyesight in one eye towards the end of his life and how he lived in poverty until his forties. The next show at the Seoul Museum will be Van Gogh in October, so unfortunately I won't be able to see it.

Chinese Treasures: On Saturday, the remnants of the typhoon crossed the peninsula, so it was another nice day to go to a museum. I decided to make my way to the Seoul History Musuem, which I had never been to before. I wasn't aware that, currently, the museum is hosting an exhibition of some of China's national treasures. These artifacts span Chinese history from the second century BCE through to the time of the Tang dynasty in the ninth century CE. Once again, the information was all in Korean, and this time Ja Young wasn't with me. But as luck would have it, a Korean middle school English teacher was behind me in line and she took it upon herself to be my personal tour guide! I was happily surprised and extremely grateful for her help. There were six whole rooms of artifacts. I was amazed by the intricacy of the craftsmanship of some of the pieces and by the preservation. I was curious as to whether most of the pieces were representative of the upper classes and the emperors, or whether there were any pieces from the ordinary citizens' daily lives. Unfortunately, my companion said that there wasn't any information about who would have used the objects or where they would have been found. There were also some fascinating pieces from the height of the Silk Road period that came from Rome, Byzantium, and Persia. I realized how limited my knowledge of Chinese history is, which is to say it's almost non-existent, but I feel that I know a little bit more after having seen the exhibit. When we reached the end, my guide told me she felt honored to have been able to speak with a foreigner because she doesn't find many opportunities to during the school vacation. I told her I was the one who should feel honored. Once again, the seemingly boundless Korean hospitality has awed me.

Marionette: Ja Young has encouraged me to try to see a play just about every time I come to Seoul, but I had never gone prior to this latest visit. Sometimes, Korean plays have English "subtitles," and of course there are some great non-verbal shows. So, I headed up to Daehangno, the former site of Seoul National University and a district full of small theaters, to see what was on offer. Ja Young and I decided on "Marionette," a truly unique experience. The acting troupe was comprised of three famous b-boy and b-girl crews (that's break-dancing groups to the uninitiated) who have been doing the show for four years now. Incidentally, break-dancing and beat-boxing are wildly popular in Korea for some reason, even with fans who aren't that into hip-hop music or culture. The show follows the story of a marionette master and his favorite marionette who falls in love with a girl in the audience. There is also an evil magician who wants to take over the master's theater. The dancers themselves play the roles of the dolls, using their b-boy skills to move like marionettes. There was also a full-size marionette model which was operated by three puppet masters rather than by strings. Apparently, it is a technique borrowed from a Japanese theater tradition. It also reminds me of a performance I once saw at the Fringe Festival when it visited Prague, but I digress. The costumes were out of this world and the dance scenes were interspersed with short videos drawn in an original style that was an entirely different art experience in its own right. The actor who played the marionette master totally looked like Lee "Zorro" Quinones from "Wild Style," too. At the end of the performance, one of the actors had a memento from the show to give to someone in the audience. He asked if any of the Korean audience members could speak English, and Ja Young volunteered to translate for him. There were a few other foreigners besides me and the actor wanted to know where we were from and what we had thought of the show. He was impressed that I had come all the way from Ulsan to see the show, so he gave me the memento, a cell-phone charm, as a sort of "bribe" to tell people in Ulsan to go see the show in Seoul. All in all, it was definitely one of the most original and coolest things I'd seen in a long time.

Once again, Seoul was great, even if the weather wasn't. It's not long now until my contract expires, but something tells me I will be back to visit the city again.

More Of Ulsan At Night

2007-07-31T22:07:00.000+09:00

Here's a couple more pictures of Ulsan at night, these of the flowers skirting the pedestrian bridge to Seongnamdong across the Taehwagang. I'll be back after the latest Seoul adventure...

Yassin's Got Seoul

2007-07-29T20:47:00.000+09:00

As quickly as he arrived, he left. Yassin's ever-so short three month contract in Korea expired this week and so I accompanied him to Incheon for his departure flight this weekend. Of course, this afforded us the opportunity to make another trip to Seoul, which I can never pass up. As per usual, we arrived in Seoul in the wee hours of Saturday morning and went for pancakes in Apgujeong. This time, I mustered the courage to try the cream cheese and mozzarella pancakes, which were surprisingly delicious. The sweetness of the maple syrup played well with the saltiness of the cheeses. From there, we headed to our hostel and while Yassin napped, I went out for a lunch of Vietnamese noodles and fried rice with Ja Young in Sinchon. Afterwards, we walked around Seonyudo, a small island in the middle of the Han River. The former site of a water purification plant, the island is now an eco-park of sorts with several different kinds of plants, many of which aren't indigenous to Korea. I think I even saw the same type of pine trees we have in Maine, although it's been so long since I've seen them I can't be sure! With Yassin finally awakened, we headed up to the National Folk Museum in the palace district where there was a special exhibition of Jeju Island pottery, known in the Jeju dialect as "heobeok":

Apparently, the art of making pottery on Jeju is dying out and so these artifacts represent a tradition that is slowly disappearing. We also wandered around some of the other exhibits that show what daily life in Korea was like during the Three Kingdoms, Unified Silla, Goryeo, and Joseon periods. What was remarkable in my opinion was the conscious depiction of class differences during these periods and the acknowledgment of how radically different life was for the yangban and peasant classes. We left the museum and had a dinner of bulgogi, a.k.a. barbequed beef, which is one of Yassin's favorite Korean dishes. From there, we headed downtown to Namdaemun, a labyrinthine open-air market that has existed (in varying forms) for several hundred years.

Most of the merchandise was cheap rip-offs of major labels, but it was still quite an experience. As Yassin put it, it's kind of like being in the Twilight Zone. Finally, it was on to Hongdae for a relaxing time at Gr8, the tobacco-free hookah bar I've mentioned on this blog before. Our friends Yu-ran and Sam-chul from Ulsan, who happened to be in Seoul this weekend, met up with us in Hongdae and joined us for a midnight snack of su je bi, a spicy soup with thick noodles. At this time, virtually every bar and restaurant was tuned in to the Asian Football Cup third-place consolation match between Korea and Japan, which is quite a big rivalry. Korea eventually won in a shootout and it seemed like all of Hongdae erupted in cheers.

This morning, Yassin and I hopped on the airport shuttle and made it to Incheon with plenty of time to spare. As I'm sure I will see Yassin again some time, I'm not sad to see him go and I know he really made the most of his three months here. Still, I will miss his company as my time here also winds down. I will be back in Seoul later this week when our hagwon goes on a very brief summer vacation, so expect more stories from the capital city next week.

Reunion In The Kitchen

2007-07-29T20:23:00.000+09:00

On Friday morning, most of the members of my Korean language class reassembled at our professor's apartment for a lesson in Korean cuisine. As this week has (sort of) seen the end of the rainy season and the true beginning of the "dog days" of summer, samgyetang, a.k.a. ginseng-chicken soup, was on the menu because it is a traditional dish that Koreans eat to help fight the heat. In fact, last Wednesday was Jung-Bok, the second of the official three hottest days of summer (as determined by the lunar calendar, I believe), when many Koreans eat samgyetang and bosintang, which I already covered on this blog. In addition to samgyetang, we also got a lesson in making kimchi and gimbap (a sort of Korean version of sushi). Afterwards, of course, we got to eat the fruits of our labor. It was nice to see everyone again and to share in the experience of preparing some of our favorite Korean foods. Who knew that our teacher could teach cooking as well as language?

Ulsan At Night

2007-07-24T22:55:00.000+09:00

This picture is actually from a while ago, but I just like how serene the Taehwa looks here and the perfect reflection of the moon, which was eerily red that night. Sometimes, you gotta love the pollution here (light and otherwise)...

Tension Release

2007-07-23T10:32:00.001+09:00

Yesterday I got my first massage in Korea (in fact, my first massage ever). Having never been for a massage before, I have nothing to compare the experience to, but I can say that it was quite relaxing. Everywhere I travel in Ulsan, I always see signs for "Sports Massages" with a pictures of feet on it. I randomly chose a spot near the Hyundai Department Store in Samsandong and hope for the best. I just recently learned the names of the body parts in Korean class, so I was able to explain to the masseuse, who spoke no English, that my back was hurting. I paid 70,000 won for the hour and a half treatment and she handed me a toothbrush a led me to the shower. After showering, brushing my teeth, and changing into more comfortable clothes, she led me into one of the rooms and laid me face down on the table. The massage itself was performed with both hands and feet, which was a little strange (that must be why there is a foot on the business sign). She worked the tension out of (almost) literally my entire body, from my scalp to my toes. Although I couldn't understand most of what she was saying, I think she was trying to explain that I had a lot of tension in my stomach muscles and that that made my neck, shoulders and lower back tense as well. After a rub-down with something like Ben-Gay and steaming hot towels, I felt rejuvenated. I had been a bit skeptical before my visit, but I have to say it was completely worth it and that I feel much better now.

Cultural Outings In Ulsan (!)

2007-07-23T00:40:00.000+09:00

Today as I was riding home in a taxi along the Taehwa river, I noticed a giant plastic bubble floating in the middle of the river. I was so intrigued by this very unusual sight that when I went over to my friend Brandon's apartment later I suggested we walk down the riverbank path to check it out. Sure enough, the giant bubble was part of the "Taehwa-river Eco Art Festival," a group of sculptures by Korean modern artists and Ulsan University art students arranged in one of the many parks along the river. Besides the "Water Pavilion" there were nine other sculptures, all fascinating. I especially liked "Meul-e Nugak," a sort of house constructed out of glass jars filled with water, which gives it an interesting effect when hit by the floodlights at night. There were also some fish constructed from pieces of compact discs ("Recurrence"), a boat made out of giant pencils ("Drawing"), a sculpture of a child drinking the river water from a long, blue straw (aptly titled "A Child Drinking Taehwa River"), a maze of screen-printed and painted tapestries ("Suda"), an arrangement of reflective jigsaw puzzle pieces, some with photos of city life in Ulsan ("Koong!), a giant armchair made of grass and sticks ("Rest"), painted balls with butterfly wings suspended high in the air ("The Wings of Icarus"), and a tower of wooden rods with giant ball-bearings trapped inside ("Neo-Genesis"). It was a real surprise for me to see modern art in Ulsan, where there is usually a dearth of anything remotely cultural. Brandon and I were approached by the organizers of the exhibition, two art professors at Ulsan University, who shared my dissatisfaction with the state of art in the city. I hope that this is the beginning of a trend to bring more cultural opportunities to Ulsan. Here are some of the pictures I took:

Last Class

2007-07-21T22:06:00.000+09:00

Yesterday was my last Korean class at Ulsan University, and so we had a farewell pizza party, played Korean bingo with the advanced class and had a chance to say good-bye to each other and to our fantastic teacher, Yoon Hye-Sook. I had so much fun in this class over the past six months; for me, learning Korean was an adventure and never at all stressful or frustrating. Which is not to say that Korean is an easy language to learn, but my classmates were always enthusiastic and the teacher made many jokes so it became something I looked forward to every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I am the only member of my class who will not be continuing on with the intermediate classes in September because I am returning to the States, so it was also a little sad for me. Korean class has become such a part of my routine that I'm not sure what I'll do in the mornings now! As our final project we all had to write a page or so about ourselves in Korean which the teacher compiled into a sort of "yearbook." While I'm sure all of us made a slew of spelling and grammatical errors, it's kind of amazing that we've come from barely being able to read and write in hangeul to being able to compose an entire page. I hope to continue studying Korean in the future, although I fear losing some of my ability. I guess I will have to practice even harder! Here are some photos from Nguyen Ducanh (one of my Vietnamese classmates):

Young Street

2007-07-20T08:53:00.000+09:00

I was sorting through photos the other day and came across this one that I was saving for a rainy day. This is a view of the infamous "Young Street" in Seongnamdong, a covered walkway with neon lights flanked by stores and restaurants of every size shape and color. Some stores cater to those with more "Western" tastes (Starbucks, McDonald's, Levi's, K-Swiss, etc.) and others offer some of the craziest deals on the newest trends in Korean street fashion. There also several bars, of course, and a decent (by Ulsan standards) hip-hop club. A series of alleyways lead off from the main drag where shoppers can find vintage jeans and t-shirts and surprisingly good Korean food. This is what gives Seongnamdong it's charm and makes it my favorite part of Ulsan.

Pop Star Wars

2007-07-12T21:09:00.000+09:00

I've meant to post this for a while now and keep forgetting to. Stephen Colbert is a bit hit or miss these days, but this particular bit is a major hit in my opinion, especially if you know anything about contemporary Korean pop music. The premise of this clip is that Colbert was named the second most influential personality on an on-line Time magazine poll behind the ever-so-popular, ever-so-typical Korean R&B singer, Bi (a.k.a. Rain, who I like to call "the Korean Usher"). The perceived slight prompts Colbert to prove (as only Colbert can) that he is a better Korean pop star than Rain could ever be. I had personally never heard of Rain before coming here, where, like any Korean celebrity, he is televisually ubiquitous. However, apparently Rain has a following in the States, and even sold out Madison Square Garden, or so I hear. Anyway, the Colbert clip is especially funny to me because of the research he much have done for it. He actually sings in Korean, although it is even worse than my Korean! But the joke about the bibimbap at the end is classic. It's an old clip, but I thought I'd share it here with anyone who may not have seen it yet.

Happy Independence Day

2007-07-08T19:43:00.001+09:00

I may be one of the least patriotic Americans on the planet, but I do so love the 4th of July. In my hometown, it is always a fun time with a parade, cookouts, and fireworks. Of course, we have to make some concessions over here in Korea, but my friends and I were not deterred by being on the other side of the planet. Yesterday, I threw a belated Independence Day party at my newly empty apartment for seven of my friends, mostly Koreans. The menu (all prepared by me) included classic American potato salad, burgers with a special glaze (ketchup, steak sauce, sugar, oil, tabasco, and garlic), and BBQ chicken made with my homemade barbeque sauce. All of this was done without the use of a grill, so it made things a little more difficult. We washed it all down with some Budweisers and MGDs, which taste surprisingly good when one hasn't had American beer in many moons and the Korean variety smells like feet. After sunset, we trekked out to the small lake in Cheonsang and burned some sparklers, our lame stand-in for fireworks. All in all it was a good time, but no substitute for the real thing!

Gyeong Dong Tae Won Happenings

2007-07-08T19:33:00.001+09:00

Recently, there has been a lot of activity in my apartment complex, much of it beginning in the wee hours of the morning, which causes me much distress (just kidding). The apartment buildings are getting a fresh coat of paint, which seems a little misguided because it is the rainy season and it tends to rain just about every day. Here is a view of the painters (I think OSHA would have a field day this one!):

And of course the cars are protected:

When I first arrived, I often wondered how people moved all of their belongings into these apartments high in the sky, especially since we don't have service elevators. There is an answer to that question-- this:

Every once in a while we get a new tenant and there is the constant sound of the mechanical platform zipping up and down its mechanical arm. These are the pieces of the Korean quotidian existence that I won't know that I'll miss until I leave.

Gajisan

2007-07-01T22:23:00.001+09:00

Yesterday, my director and I went for our last hiking adventure together as employer and employee, as he will be retiring from the hagwon next week. Hopefully, we will be able to go hiking more in the future; he has introduced me to so many of Korea's beautiful mountains and to the outdoor adventuring culture that is so popular here. But this was a nice coda to our time together this year. He took me and two of his friends to Gajisan, the highest peak in the Yeongnam alps and one of the 12 scenic areas of Ulsan. I am always amazed by his stamina and the pace with which he hikes. Here is a 48 year old man who runs marathons and thinks nothing of attacking a 60 degree ascent! Initially, he wanted to take us on an eight-hour excursion, but at lunch it became evident that I was going to be a drag on the team as my body was giving way. I was coming down with a cold and suffering from exhaustion and even though I was willing to take on the Korean "Fighting!!" mentality and persevere, he took pity on me and changed our plan and instead took us to Sari-am, a small temple tucked away in the side of a mountain that is one of the three most famous temples in Korea where people visit to pray for their dreams to come true. Of course, not being a Buddhist, I didn't offer any prayers, but the view was incredible, even through the fog that had settled over the valley and the peaks. I am very thankful to have met my director; unlike many hagwon directors that I hear horror stories about, he is a truly generous and kind man who wants me to have a great experience in Korea, both in and out of the classroom.

Samul nori

2007-07-01T22:01:00.001+09:00

On Thursday, my Korean language class had a special "culture" class, which allowed us all the opportunity to participate in samul nori, a style of Korean music. Samul nori is actually not a relatively old musical style; it is only about 30 years old. But its origins lie in rural "farmer's music" traditions and the shamanistic/clowning tradition of the countryside. It involves four percussive instruments (the "samul"), each of which represent a sound in nature. The most important one is the kkwaenggwari (thunder), which acts as the conductor and sets the pace for the other instruments. It is a small, gold and cymbal-like in appearance and is played with a stick and a cupped hand which can be used to manipulate the sound. The jing (wind), which is like a gong, and the buk (clouds), which is a large drum, keep the rhythm. Finally, the janggu (rain) is played with two sticks alternating between hitting two stretched skins on the side of the drum. In my opinion, it is the most difficult to play from a novice's view. Together, the players follow one of three paces set by the kkwaenggwari player, each of increasing speed. The result is a rhythmic, trance-like sound that is quite infectious. It reminds me of Moroccan gnawa music, except that it sounds completely different. Apparently, samul nori was an important part of the opposition student movement in the late 1970s and 80s, when President Park Jeong-hee had banned most forms of "traditional" Korean artistic and religious expression in the name of "progress" and "modernization." After a short concert played in the Yeongnam style popularized by the most famous samul nori player, Kim Duk-soo, we broke into four different groups and the musicians instructed us in how to play the instruments. I chose the buk, which seemed to be the easiest. However, I was overly enthusiastic and really wore out my arm with some expressive drumming! Afterwards, our groups reassembled and played all together. All in all, it was a great experience. Here is a picture of me playing the buk:

My Condolences

2007-06-26T22:11:00.000+09:00

This weekend, my director's mother passed away after a long battle with cancer and so yesterday, my co-workers and I went to pay our respects. It was the first, and hopefully only, funeral/memorial service I've attended in Korea and, as with weddings here, distinctly Korean. The "reception" (which is the best word I can find to describe it) was held at the hospital where she had died. As near as I could figure, the bottom floor of the hospital has an entire wing devoted to funerary receptions, and Mr. Park's family had one of the many small rooms reserved for his mother. Visitors lined up outside the room and waited their turn to enter. Inside, there was a display with floral arrangements (which looked exactly like those used at grand openings for businesses in Korea, except that the flowers were all white and not pink), a photograph of his mother, burning incense, and several dishes of fruit like dried persimmons and dates arranged on a sort of altar. Mr. Park, his elder brother, and his eldest brother-in-law stood on one side of the room dressed in black suits, greeting the visitors from the far side of a rattan-like mat in the middle of the floor. We each took a white flower from a vase on the floor (I'm not sure what flower it was exactly, but it certainly wasn't a lily) and then placed them on the altar next to the pot of incense. Afterwards, there was a short moment of silence and then we lined up across from Mr. Park, knelt and bowed our heads to the ground, as did he. Finally, we deposited our envelopes full of money into a wooden box below the altar, contributions for the bereaved. There were also beige-colored armbands with a thin black stripe running through them for the family members to attach to their suits, but of course my co-workers and I didn't don them. Outside of the room there was food available for the visitors (what looked like samgyeopsal and soju), but we didn't partake and made our exit, after getting our parking tickets validated. As with Korean weddings, the only other family-oriented ceremony I've attended in Korea, it was a hasty affair but deeply significant for all those involved. All in all it was a very somber time, but I hope that Mr. Park can take some solace in the fact that his mother's suffering is over and she is at peace now.

Bosintang

2007-06-19T09:52:00.000+09:00

Recently, I finally had the opportunity to try an old Korean delicacy: bosintang, a.k.a dog meat soup. It beings to appear in certain restaurants during the summer months because it is said to help keep the body cool in the heat (as well as working as a natural laxative, but let's not get into that). Essentially, it is similar to a lot of other Korean-style soups: some vegetables (leafy greens and onions) and some meat (in this case that of a dog) in a spicy broth served with a side of steamed rice. In addition, there is a side of sweetened gochu sauce (red chili paste) that is mixed with thinly sliced ginger and something that isn't mint but is from the mint family; the dog meat is supposed to be dipped into this. The meat itself had a lot of fatty portions attached to it that I chose to remove, and it tasted like a cross between slow-cooked beef and the dark meat of a turkey leg. In short, delicious. According to my Korean lunchtime companions, only about 25% of Koreans have ever eaten bosintang. Of the two of them, only one had tried it, and then only once. The dog is a specific breed that is raised only for slaughter. As with beondegi, my students are equally split as to whether bosintang is good or not. The other fact that separates it from other meals is that it was more expensive (8,000 won in the restaurant I went to, about twice or even three times what sun dubu jjigae or doenjang jjigae would cost). My first experience had no negatives, so I see no reason for me not to try it again.

Rose Festival

2007-06-10T21:38:00.000+09:00

The second annual rose festival is currently underway in Ulsan Grand Park, and so far I have been three times, finally bringing my camera along on the third day. The rose garden near the south gate is actually one of the first places I ever visited in Ulsan, over nine months ago (can't believe it's been that long already). The roses are representative of a variety of different strains, mostly from Japan, Germany, France and the States. The garden is quite impressive, and even more impressive at night under the lights. Clearly, I know absolutely nothing about botany and even less about roses aside from their aesthetic qualities, so without further adieu here are some pictures of the flowers:

Free Hugs

2007-06-10T10:31:00.000+09:00

This is actually a picture from my trip to Seoul last weekend (snapped by Yassin, who demanded that I give him credit for the photo), but it photographically illustrates a phenomenon I was introduced to in Korea called "Free Hugs." The Free Hugs campaign was started by an Australian named "Juan Mann" in Sydney in 2004, and then popularized by a video on YouTube in 2006. According to Mr. Mann's website, he started the campaign after watching people greeting their loved ones with hugs at the airport in Sydney and realizing there was no one there to greet him. He started standing in the busiest pedestrian sites in Sydney with a sign reading "Free Hugs," and although most people were initially wary, they soon began approaching him and accepting his offer of a free hug. The campaign was temporarily banned in Australia because he hadn't bought public liability insurance, but a petition with 10,000 signatures led to the ban ending. Now, the Free Hugs campaign has spread around the world to many major cities, including in Korea. I have seen it a couple of times in Ulsan (there's even a television commercial involving it on Korean TV) and have always approached the person for a hug. Every time I've been to Insa-dong in Seoul, an area of the city that is heavy with pedestrian traffic and popular with tourists, I have seen someone with a "Free Hugs" sign. On this particular occasion, someone had initiated a "relay free hugs," which means that if you hug the person, then you have to take up the sign and wait for someone to hug you and pass it on. As one can gather from the picture, I too got caught up in the action. Sure, it sounds a bit hippie-ish (ok, really hippie-ish), but sometimes the only thing you really need is just a hug.

Sailing Through The Air

2007-06-08T21:21:00.000+09:00

Those of you that know me well know that I have a severe fear of heights (which is only compounded by the fact that I live twenty stories up and have recurring nightmares about falling to my death, but that is neither here nor there), so it will come as some surprise that I was talked into trying out the latest craze to hit Ulsan Grand Park. As summer vacation approaches, the good folks at SK have erected a "bungee-trampoline" contraption near the front gate (it's off to the right for any Ulsanites who want to try it) and it caught the eye of my friends as we were walking through the park on the Wednesday holiday. I was one of the only members of our group who weighed under the 80 kilogram weight limit and was also willing to give it a shot. Basically, you are strapped into a harness attached to twin sets of bungee cords and suspended over a trampoline:

The attendant winches you into the air a meter or so and then pulls down on the bungee cords, and soon enough you are launched high into the air. As thrilling as it was, it also scared the living daylights out of my acrophobic self. I'm still surprised I did it, but at least I tried!

Beondegi

2007-06-07T20:47:00.000+09:00

As with any city around the world, Ulsan offers a wide variety of street cuisines to choose from when one is wandering around downtown. One of the more "distinctive" Korean street-food specialties is beondegi, which I've had the lack of sense to try two or three times. literally means "pupa" or "chrysalis" in Korean, and it is just that: silkworm pupae which are boiled or steamed and seasoned. It is one of the oddest foods I've ever eaten (and I've even eaten camel before!). One of the best descriptions I've heard is that it tastes like "moldy dust." Certainly, it has a strange texture inside, but there really isn't much taste to it beyond whatever seasoning it has been prepared in. Depending on the city one is in, it can cost between 500 and 2,000 won for a small paper cup full of pupae. I've never been able to finish an entire cup, but just a few can actually be quite appetizing from time to time. Impromptu polling of my students and friends leads me to believe that one either loves it or hates it, and there seem to be equal numbers on both sides of the debate. There is also tinned beondegi available in most grocery stores, but I haven't been brave enough to try it yet.

Seoul Pictures

2007-06-05T10:08:00.000+09:00

Since Blogger can occasionally be an extremely frustrating platform to work with (and my browser is in Korean, which doesn't really help matters), I was somehow unable to attach my pictures of Seoul to the last post. Try to read the post in conjunction with the pictures below, sorry for the confusion.

Seoul Part III

2007-06-05T09:30:00.000+09:00

This weekend was one of those beautiful weekends at the beginning of summer that begs one to give in to itchy feet and so, along with some Ulsan friends, I headed up to Seoul. Even though Seoul was brutally hot this weekend, it was the same welcoming, exciting city that I've come to admire. Once again, we hopped on the midnight express (really the 1 A.M. express, but whatever) out of Ulsan, arriving in Kangnam at 5:30. After a breakfast of pancakes in Apgujeong, we took the subway to Sinchon to meet up with my friend Ja Young, who has just completed the exhausting process of applying for a job with the United Nations and anxiously awaiting their decision, and one of Jessica's friends, Dae Jin. From there, we walked around Cheonggyecheon, a small river near the palace district that used to be the home of newly emigrated Seoul residents and has been preserved as a walking path.

From there, it was a short walk into Insadong for lunch on different jjigaes. Thankfully, Ja Young, was able to get us the "student" menu so we avoided be price-gouged like most other tourists in Insadong. Ja Young had a wedding to attend on Yeouido, so we followed her down there and took the opportunity to ascend to the top of the 63 building:

The view from the top was actually nice on Saturday as there was relatively little haze. Afterwards, we took a ferry from Yeouido to Jamsil, which takes about an hour, and met up with my friend Gyeong Min, another Ulsanite who has been studying for the TOEFL exam in Seoul. As the evening was fast approaching, we decided to head over to Hongdae, one of the centers of Seoul's nightlife. After dinner, we went underground to Seoul's famous "Ice Bar," a bar that is constructed almost entirely of ice, complete with ice cups. The temperature inside is kept at a "balmy" -5 degrees Celsius. The bar provides guests with insulated ponchos and gloves. Apparently, the record for time spent in the bar is a little over three hours. We certainly couldn't last that long. My camera battery died at this point, but here is a picture of Jessica posing in an ice sculpture holding a sign that reads "Stop Global Warming." I found this incredibly ironic given the amount of energy it must take to keep the bar frozen (a more cynical person might even suggest that it was intentionally ironic):

After a changing locations to a Belgian beer bar, Yassin and I met up with Ja Young again and spent a couple of hours dancing at a hip-hop club called Catch Light. Once again, I was amazed by the breadth of the DJ's knowledge of American club hip-hop. Although it wasn't entirely up to date, most of the songs weren't exactly the biggest hits outside of the club, and I was happily surprised to hear them there. Finally, fatigued, Yassin and I walked back to our hostel in Hapjeong to sleep.

The next day, Yassin and I went up to the palace district and walked around Gyeongbokgung, one of the main palaces of the Joseon era. It is quite magnificent and elaborate without being ridiculously ostentatious. I was especially excited to see this building (the name of which escapes me) where hangeul was invented in the 15th century under the auspices of King Sejong:

Finally, this is the view from outside of the Traditional Folk Museum, which is adjacent to Gyeongbokgung, and some of the examples of traditional village guardian totems. Unfortunately, due to time constraints we didn't have time to visit the museum as we had to meet up with the rest of our Ulsan posse and catch the bus from East Seoul back to Ulsan. I guess that means I will have to go back to Seoul, which isn't such a bad thing at all.

Buddha's (Belated) Birthday

2007-05-29T09:42:00.000+09:00

Korea, along with many countries, actually celebrated the Buddha's Birthday (seok ga tan shin il) last Thursday, but I have been too busy/lazy to do a post about it yet, so here I am finally getting around to doing so. It was a public holiday in Korea, so I didn't have to work and took the opportunity to visit Gyeongju again with my friend Areum. Even though the weather report was threatening rain, the morning was positively beautiful, which meant that vacationing people from all over Korea headed to Gyeongju, perhaps the most popular domestic tourist destination, resulting in a little traffic jam. After my bus driver negotiated his way through that, Areum treated me to lunch at the most famous sun dubu jjigae restaurant in the city (sun dubu jjigae is a sort of very spicy stew made with soft tofu and, in this region of Korea at least, seafood. Sometimes, restaurants serve it with a raw egg dropped inside which quickly cooks in the rapidly boiling soup. It is fast becoming my favorite Korean dish). It was there that I encountered my first really xenophobic locals who were angered that the waitstaff served me and Areum before them, asking her "So, he gets special preference because he's American or something?" Incidentally, we were seated closer to the kitchen, but it didn't keep the angry couple from staring daggers at me for the rest of the meal. Oddly enough, it was a refreshing experience for me. After lunch we wandered lackadaisically around the city and the Bomun lake area, ending up here at the waterwheel:

It was then that the rain that had been predicted finally arrived. Having been overly optimistic, I had left my umbrella at home. Fortunately, Areum was wiser than me. We sought refuge in a tea house in the new downtown with an eclectic display of kitsch from all over the world. We tried a tea unlike anything I've ever had; at first, it had a mild, green-tea-ish flavor, followed by a natural sweetness. Quite enjoyable. It was then time for us to part ways, she north to Pohang and me south to Ulsan and the elaborate lantern displays lining the boulevards.

Land's End

2007-05-22T09:32:00.000+09:00

This past weekend I had to fulfill my work obligations and take part in "membership training," which basically consists of a weekend retreat with my co-workers where we don't actually discuss work at all. Previously, we have visited Jirisan, and this time around the destination was Jeollanamdo, the historical site of the Korean political opposition on the southwest coast of the peninsula. We headed out early on Saturday and stopped for lunch at an old fortress that has been preserved as a historical site. Apparently, it was once the station of General Lim, one of the Joseon era heroes of Korean history for his fierce resistance to the Japanese invasion. While there, we also got to witness part of a traditional wedding, which was quite something to watch. From there we drove to the spot where the great 18th century thinker Dasan (author of over 500 political, economic, and philisophical texts) had been exiled and instructed his disciples in shirak, Korean pragmatic philosophy.

In the afternoon, we arrived in Haenam and took a cable car up to the top of Duryusan, the highest peak in the area. On a good day, one can see all the way to Jeju-do and see the outline of Halasan. Unfortunately for us, it was a high pollution day and Jeju was completely obscured.

Out of the blue, my director announced that he and I were going hiking while the rest of our co-workers rested and took me on a scramble up and down the steep side of the mountain on a trail that I'm sure is rarely used. Here is a look back at Duryusan from the helipad we hiked down to:

We headed back to the min bak where we were staying (basically a small country condo) and cooked our dinner of samgyeopsal and galbi. I was amazed by the amount of dishes that we were trucking around with us and our ability to recreate a restaurant-style meal on our porch:

The next day, we drove to ddang kkeut maul, literally "the end of the earth village," where we took a ferry out to Bogildo. On the boat ride out there, Jessica and I were intrigued by the sea of buoys that dotted the horizon. As we passed by them, we realized that they were part of a massive seaweed harvesting operation, which seemed to be the major part of the local economy:

Bogildo was once home to another important figure of Korean literary history, the great poet Gosan. Gosan spent his final days of exile in the wake of the Manchurian invasion in the 17th century on this island, which I wouldn't mind be exiled to if I had to be. This is the view from the pavilion where he liked to sit and read books, and a picture of the reflecting pond by his former home:

On our way back to Ulsan, we stopped by the green tea farm in Boseong for a brief visit. The Korean green tea industry has taken a hit as of late because of competition with China, so the farm, which used to be free to visit, now charges a small entrance fee. It was a surprisingly breathtaking site to see the terraces of green tea bushes and it certainly smelled of nok cha.

We enjoyed some soft-serve green tea ice cream (a first for me) and then wearily made the journey back to Ulsan. As my time here winds down, I am realizing I have less and less time to see all the sights in Korea that I want to, and it was nice to be able to see these parts of the country that I wouldn't have otherwise.

Parents' Day

2007-05-08T23:45:00.000+09:00

In the wake of "Children's Day" on Saturday, and keeping in step with this month of holidays recognizing people in Korea, today is "Parents' Day." Unlike the States and other countries that separate a day for mothers and one for fathers, the Korean version celebrates the familial atomic unit, so to speak. Of course, reverence for parents and elders is an important part of Confucianism, as it is in many cultural systems. Children are supposed to buy carnations for their parents, or make paper versions of the colorful flower, and write notes to their parents expressing their filial affection. Here is a view of one of Mugeodong's many flower shops preparing for the event:

Sights In Mugeodong

2007-05-07T22:42:00.000+09:00

Mugeodong, the University neighborhood in Ulsan where I spend all together too much of my time, is full of strange sights worthy of being recorded here. Usually, I forget to bring my camera with me, but this weekend I happened to have it along. First, the mannequins at "Bodyguard," a lingerie/underwear chain:

The mannequins are the same at every "Bodyguard," and they are always just as scary-looking. It was nighttime, so I'm not sure whether the pictures convey how odd they actually look.

Next, the "Ddong" store, the name of which anyone who teaches Korean children should recognize immediately. Unfortunately, they appear to be changing their display right now. Most of the time, there is a very scatological display that keeps in step with the name of the store:

Finally, this one is a clothing store. I'm fairly certain the name wouldn't fly back in the States:

Tina's Wedding

2007-05-06T22:23:00.000+09:00

("Tina" the bride)

This afternoon I went to my second Korean wedding, this time for one of my classmates in the Korean class, "Tina." She is from China and met her husband while they were at graduate school together in Auckland, New Zealand. Another of our classmates came as well, as did our professor. The ceremony was virtually exactly like the previous wedding I went to as far as structure, but this time I understood a little bit more of what was going on. The highlight was definetely when the best man ordered the groom to do push-ups until his nose bled. Here is a picture of all of us (looking very confused) after the ceremony:

Children's Day

2007-05-06T21:58:00.000+09:00

Saturday wasn't only the Cinco de Mayo celebration in my hemisphere, but also "Children's Day" here in Korea. "Children's Day" is celebrated in over 20 countries all over the world, most on different dates. The Korean version was created in 1923, during the time of the Japanese colony, officially adopted by the government in 1973, and became a holiday in 1975. According to one of my co-workers (and later confirmed by my professor), "Children's Day" was originally a time for children to have fun and feel special when Korea was a very poor country. Since most people didn't have much and times were extremely depressing (especially under the colonial authority), this day was set aside to maintain the innocence and happiness of the children. Nowadays, in my co-worker's opinion, it is a little redundant because sometimes it seems like everyday is "Children's Day." Young children receive presents (toys, school supplies, etc.) from their relatives and teachers and generally have a good time. According to some of my students, they are considered too old to receive presents when they reach middle school. At the hagwon, we handed out presents (an alarm clock) to all of our students and had a day of games and snacks, which was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Yesterday, I went shopping and ran into pack after pack of children and their parents, including three of my students, all buying toys. While I wish we had a "Children's Day" in the States because I agree with the sentiment of celebrating the importance of children (just watch "Children of Men" to see what life would be like without them), I also don't think we need any more reasons to celebrate conspicuous consumerism in America.

International Worker's Day

2007-05-01T10:06:00.000+09:00

Happy Worker's Day! May 1st brings with the annual recognition of the successes (and failures) of the labor movement in just about every country except my native land and, for some, time to reflect on the relationship between labor and capital in this day and age, a.k.a. a holiday. Unfortunately, hagwon employees are not among those who get the day off, but other laborers across Korea do. Those who know me know that I'm "red" enough to revel in this day; in fact, I am proud that (at least during my first year), my undergraduate school was one of the only, if not the only, college in the States to officially recognize Worker's Day on its calendar and commemorate it with a day of panel discussions about labor issues. In subsequent years, our efforts were thwarted by an increasingly reactionary administration. The May 1st holiday remembers one of the darkest chapters of the American (and world-wide) labor movements, the Haymarket Square killings in 1886 (which actually happened on May 4th). Of course, exploitation of labor is still a world-wide problem and one which doesn't get enough attention, and the American labor movement is nowhere near what it used to be at the time of Haymarket. Although it is a day to celebrate the achievements of labor movements and the value of workers, it is also a time to remember what has been sacrificed and how much still needs to be done.

Yassin

2007-05-01T09:56:00.000+09:00

My old university friend Yassin arrived in Ulsan this weekend for a three month sojourn, which keeps alive my streak of being surrounded by Rockers/Llamas wherever I go. Our tiny undergraduate college, Simon's Rock, produces some of the oddest graduates and for some unexplained reason, to which most of us will no doubt attest, each of us is our own tiny quantum singularity, pulling in all others from around the world. Thus, we have set up colonies in cities in several different countries. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only SRC colony in Korea, but I'm almost positive that there has to be another one so if there are any other Rockers out there on the peninsula, give a holla!

Capital City

2007-04-23T22:39:00.000+09:00

(View of downtown Seoul from Namsan tower on a day of particularly bad hwangsa)

After too many consecutive weekends spent in Ulsan, I finally made a long overdue return journey to Seoul this weekend to see my Chicago-era friend, Ja-young. For those that know her, Ja-young is in excellent spirits and currently working towards getting a position at the United Nations in Korea. Thankfully, she wasn't opposed to me tearing her away from her preparation for a couple of days, and thus I was able to renew my love affair with Korea's capital city. Before I go any further, I should note that Ulsan does have its charm, as hard as that may be to believe, and that my affection for Seoul probably has a lot to do with the fact that I don't actually live there. But I can assure anyone in Seoul who may be reading this that there is a lot more to do in your city than there is in mine, so it's a nice place for a Ulsaner to visit.

I took the "red-eye" bus out of Ulsan, leaving Samsandong at 1:00 in the morning on Saturday and getting into the express bus terminal in Gangnam four hours later, having slept all the way there. I headed up to Apgujeongdong for a breakfast of blueberry pancakes at Butterfinger's, which seemed ludicrously expensive but worth it considering I haven't had pancakes since I left the States. From there, I made my way up to the palace district near Insadong to check out what was on display in the many art galleries there. First, I basked in the beautiful simplicity of Ryoo Byung-yup's pastoral paintings at the Hyundai Gallery, which were truly some of the most magnificent pieces I've ever seen in person, let alone my favorite modern Korean paintings.

Something in his style, which apparently has remained virtually unchanged since the early 1990s, reminded me of the Fauvist and Cubist movements, but done in an entirely Korean way. Then it was on to the Kumho Gallery for an entirely forgettable exhibition, and then to the ArtSonje Center, which is currently displaying the BMW Art Cars. I was unaware that these existed; basically, some of the most famous and important pop artists of the 20th century, including Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein and Ken Done, whose cars are on display, were commissioned to paint BMW race cars that were raced at the LeMans 24 hour race in France. In addition to the full-size cars, there were also some scaled down models designed by, among others, the likes of Robert Rauschenberg and Alexander Calder.

After a morning of art, I met Ja-young for lunch, an arrangement of different jjigae. From Insadong, we took the subway over to Myeongdong and rode the cable car up to Namsan Tower. Although the hwangsa obscured most of what would otherwise be an almost perfect view of Seoul, the remaining beotkkot were visible, which provided me with some nice juxtaposition in this picture:

We descended from Namsan and spent some time at the han-ok village in Myeongdong, an example of traditional Joseon-era architecture. Although it was a bit too touristy for my tastes, it allowed me to see for myself the features of the han-ok that I had recently read in my collection of Korean anthropology articles.

Dinner time found us in Hongdae eating sushi and drinking soju before reclining in Gr8, which we discovered when I visited over New Year's, with a hookah and some cocktails. To my great fortune, this past weekend just happened to be the third anniversary of "Sound Day," a monthly (?) event in Hongdae where the jazz, rock, and hip-hop clubs band together to showcase the local musical talent under one, affordable 15,000 won cover charge. We started out at Club Evans listening to a jazz trio under the direction of Lee Yeong-gyeong, considered by some to be the premier jazz pianist in Korea (coincidentally, I had actually seen his trio perform before in Itaewon). In addition to Lee there was an electric bassist and a drummer, both much younger. The drummer's solos in particular seemed strange to me; I wished that my musically-inclined brother had been there to tell me whether what he was doing was genius by playing outside the beat or just really awful. The highlight came on the last song of the set, an energetic and entrancing retooling of an old Django Reinhardt song (sans guitar, of course) where Lee really showed off his chops. Afterwards, we popped next door to FF to catch the end of the rockabilly-punk group "The Moonshiners," a supergroup of sorts assembling some of the biggest names from Seoul's underground punk scene. Their brand of punk was more up-tempo than some, which I enjoyed because it meant the crowd was really having fun. The lead singer/guitarist, Cha Seung-woo, formerly of "No Brain," was definitely the coolest Korean guy I've ever seen. He was dressed like a cross between Buddy Holly and Colonel Sanders, but he had the stage antics of Pete Townshend. I was glad to have caught the end of the set as FF is a relatively small venue and was quite literally a "sweatbox." To cap off the evening, we made our way to Hole for a hip-hop set by a local DJ. The set was an interesting mix of the biggest hits of the summer of 2004 ("Lean Back," "Where The Hood At," etc.) and a surprising amount of trap and crunk music. He also played two tracks off of Nas's latest album ("Carry On Tradition" and "Hip-Hop Is Dead"), so I guess the Koreans appreciated the album even if no one else did (I was one of the minority that thought it was good, I gather). I danced myself to the brink of pain, at which point it was time to go back to the hostel.

On Sunday, Ja-young and I lazed about in Gangnam, visiting an extensive English language bookstore where I purchased a copy of Mikhail Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita." I left Seoul at 5:00, hoping to return again soon. As long as I keep having positive experiences like the last two visits, Seoul has the potential to crack my top five favorite cities worldwide.

Pop Anthropology

2007-04-17T11:21:00.000+09:00

I just recently finished a book about Korean culture, titled Korea Unmasked: In Search of the Country, The Society and the People, that I found interesting enough to post about here. It is a popular look at Korean history, people, and culture in cartoon form by Rhie Won-bok, a professor and one of Korea's most famous cartoonists. Pop anthropology can always be fun, and in this case I was surprised at how serious some of the observations were. Although Korean culture is now the focus of my research, I am still quite a novice and therefore I can't sufficiently measure the validity of the author's statements, and I am reluctant to take him at face value since he seems to have a clear agenda and there are moments of outright nationalistic blindness. Nonetheless, it is filled with useful information that anyone living in Korea will immediately recognize and anyone who is interested in Korea and Korean culture would benefit from reading. Originally published in Korea in 2002, the book was immensely popular in Korea and has now been translated into English. The book is divided into four chapters: the first offers comparisons between Korea and the other East Asian giants, China and Japan (as well as comparisons to the United States, the de facto global benchmark for many Koreans), part two describes some of the socio-cultural peculiarities of the Korean people, part three is a brief but dense overview of Korean history, and part four deals (quite even-handedly, actually) with the issue of reunification with North Korea. I'll just mention two aspects of Korean culture that I found particularly interesting here. First, the concept of choong, which comes from the Chinese character that represents the middle. In the Korean context, it stands for orthodoxy and pride in Korean originality. Choong in part explains what outsiders sometimes see as obstinacy and blind adherence to an "outdated" way of doing things, as well as preferences for all things Korean and mild disdain for non-Korean cultural goods. The other is jeong, the concept of "affection" that is at the center of the egalitarian and communal spirit of Koreans. According to Professor Rhie, this social attitude has always existed in an uneasy relationship with Confucian ideals of social hierarchy, and now lives in a strange harmony with rabid capitalist competition. Also included are the Korean penchant for taking everything to the extreme, a look at the Korean education system and at chaebols, the importance of age, family, and place in social relations, cultural psychology and the "peninsular mentality," and explanations of the competitive spirit and the notion of "keeping up with Joneses." Although I think Professor Rhie comes off as a bit too much of a nationalist at times, and he doesn't deal as critically with Park Chung-hee's regime as I would have liked to see, the book is definitely a fun and worthwhile read and I urge anyone who hasn't read it to check it out.

R.I.P. Kurt Vonnegut

2007-04-12T22:15:00.000+09:00

Once again it is time to eulogize one of the greatest figures of modern literature. I am a bit embarrassed to admit that I am not as familiar with Vonnegut's work as I wish I was. The only one of his works I've read in its entirety is "Slaughterhouse Five," which I thoroughly enjoyed, but my knowledge of Vonnegut does not go much further beyond that. It is unfortunate because I am aware that he is widely considered one of the geniuses of American literature and I have always meant to read more; perhaps his death will be a wake call for me. Salman Rushdie once wrote of Vonnegut, "He is the only important and original writer in the world whose entire oeuvre can be summed up in three words: 'So it goes.'" Here is a link to a BBC obituary that I enjoyed, especially the final quote.

Gyeongju

2007-04-09T22:02:00.000+09:00

Yesterday, as the culmination to a weekend dedicated to celebrating my birthday (a bit overly self-indulgent, aren't I?) several friends and I headed up the coast to Gyeongju for the annual cherry blossom festival. This past weekend is when the blossoms are at their most picturesque. The festival is well-known throughout Korea and consequently virtually the entire country makes its way to the (relatively) small city to flower-peep, turning the roads into a mess (as they are during any Korean holiday). In order to avoid what I had been warned would be little more than a giant parking lot on the highways, we decided to take the train, which only takes forty minutes. Once there, we rented some bikes and rode around the city taking in the breathtaking pastoral beauty that is Gyeonju during beotkkot season. We had lunch at a ssam bap restaurant, which Gyeonju is famous for, and then took another bike ride into the countryside before taking the train back home. Although I tend to detest touristy things and this was certainly one of the most touristy activities I've engaged in recently, it was well worth the trip and a perfect ending to what was a great weekend. Here are some more pictures of the flowers:

China Wind

2007-04-03T10:29:00.000+09:00

In stark contrast to the beauty of the spring flowers I posted about earlier, last Sunday brought with it the hwangsa ("yellow dust") wind and was probably the most disgusting bits of weather I've ever experienced, enough to bring Al Gore to tears. I seem to remember hearing about this weather pattern before moving here, but it's something else entirely to actually see it; it was like being in some sort of apocalyptic post-nuclear sci-fi movie. Essentially, it was a dust storm that originated in the Gobi desert and its environs (China/Mongolia), where increased farming has hastened desertification. However, according to the Korean Meteorological Association, the dust also carries with it dioxin particles, a by-product of China's industrial growth that just happens to cause cancer when inhaled. People were urged to stay inside and if they did go out, most wore the cloth masks that are so prevalent in this part of Asia. I took a taxi to Seongnamdong and was mesmerized by the bizarre yellow haze that blanketed Ulsan. Apparently, the problem is worsening. In the the past, Korea used to experience about four "yellow dust" days a year. 2006 had eleven, and 2007 has already seen five. Sunday was the worst that many had seen in their lifetimes. China has begun a reforestation project in the Gobi region in an effort to ameliorate the phenomenon, but one has to wonder if it's too little too late.

Sa Weol Kkot (April Flowers)

2007-04-03T10:04:00.000+09:00

Although it wasn't a particularly nice day on Saturday, I thought I'd share some of the photos I took of the spring flowers that have started to bloom at the University of Ulsan (they fall far short of the quality of photos of flowers and fauna that my friend Jamie takes, but here they are anyway):

These are known as gaenarikkot (I'm not sure what the name is in English), and they are everywhere, a brilliant burst of yellow that creeps all over the sides of buildings and out of cracks and crevices here and there.

Here is the mogryeon flower (again, no idea what the English name is). The petals are gigantic and look a bit like a drinking goblet to me.

Finally the beotkkot, better known as cherry blossoms. At the end of March and the beginning of April, the south of the peninsula is awash in these small white flowers and many cities and towns have festivals in its honor. Last night, I went with my co-workers to Gyeongju (about an hour north of Ulsan, former capital of Korea during the Silla period and one of the most important cities to Korean history) to see the famous cherry blossoms there, and they were certainly magnificent, even at night illuminated by a full, clear moon. I will be returning to Gyeongju on Sunday for the start of the festival, so expect some more pictures from that excursion.

Ess-Board

2007-03-29T09:40:00.000+09:00

Last weekend, I moved one step closer to being able to relate to my students on their level by learning how to "Ess-board." The Ess-board is extremely popular with Korean children, and some adults also use it as an exercise tool. It's a little bit like a skateboard, a surfboard, and a snowboard combined (none of which I've ever ridden before), and yet it's completely unlike any of those things. A Korean company, Decolee, began marketing the Ess-board to the growing customer base of the Korean leisure industry in 2003-2004. However, it's originality is questionable as it is remarkably similar to the Wave Board and the Ripstik caster board, both of which may or may not have been developed before the Ess-board, it's difficult to determine which came first. Essentially, all three consist of two oval shaped platforms connected by a shaft in the middle. The two platforms can move independently of each other and pivot back and forth along the shaft's axis. Each platform has one wheel attached to the bottom of it, which can also pivot 360 degrees. The rider's momentum is maintained by twisting the platforms back and forth with one's feet. It's actually much more of a workout than it seems! One of my waygukin friends, who is still a child at heart, purchased one about a month ago (at 150,000 won they aren't exactly cheap) and has been learning to ride ever since. He was gracious enough to give me a lesson, and although my first few attempts were failures I soon got the hang of it. It's definitely a lot of fun, and I can't understand how it hasn't taken off all over the States, except that the skateboarding industry is probably actively working to suppress it's introduction. I can't do any tricks, but I can make a complete circuit of the exercise track in Daundong, where my friend lives, which is an accomplishment as far as I'm concerned.

Apparently, the Dutch are avid Ess-board enthusiasts as well and have been developing all sorts of new tricks. Here's a promo video for a Dutch Ess-boarding collective.

Making Amends?

2007-03-28T00:20:00.000+09:00

I know I'm a little behind the headlines with this one, but this seems to be a small step toward a meaningful resolution of one of the worst chapters in the history of the Japanese occupation of Korea, i.e. forcing Korean "comfort women" into sexual slavery. Prime Minister Abe had previously denied any evidence that women had been forced to engage in sex during the occupation... and then admitted that there might be some evidence... and then withdrew that statement. Although Abe's comments of a couple days ago fall short of a true apology (as my friend Ja-young said, she would love to have seen it in Japanese in order to understand that subtleties involved in what he actually said), it is definitely a step in the right direction. I am by no means an expert about this piece of colonized Korea's history, but I am aware that it is still one of the chief reasons for resentment of Japan in Korea. At any rate, one can only hope that further reconciliation can be reached and that someday the crimes of the past can be acknowledged for the disgusting acts of inhumanity that they were.

Copyright Infringement, Anyone?

2007-03-27T10:46:00.000+09:00

... Not that I'm one who has ever been known to passionately defend the intellectual property rights of multinational corporations; I just thought this was sort of amusing. Whoever "Donald Donuts" is, they had a big promotion in Seongnamdong this weekend with boxes of donuts going for 3,000 won.

The Internet in our apartment was out for a few days, so my apologies for the lack of updates. However, I have a new (much better) digital camera so expect some more posts of pictures, especially as spring has finally sprung in Ulsan.

Hangeul

2007-03-22T21:41:00.000+09:00

As an addendum to my previous post about learning Korean, I thought I might relate a little of what I've learned about the origins of hangeul, the Korean alphabet. Like Japanese, and unlike Chinese, modern Korean has its own alphabet, which is more or less phonetic. Certainly, this makes learning the language easier than it would be if "everyday" Korean was still written in hanja, the Chinese characters introduced to the peninsula from Manchuria in the 4th century B.C. since the student of Korean would have to memorize tens of thousands of different characters (obviously, it is still important to learn hanja because it helps one understand Korean vocabulary that is borrowed from Chinese and it sometimes appears in newspapers). During the Three Kingdoms period of Korean history (1st to 7th centuries C.E.), hanja was adopted by the royal courts as a means of written communication. However, it was only taught to the elite classes, and so that vast majority of Koreans remained illiterate. Three methods were developed to represent the specificities of Korean vocabulary, syntax, and grammar while using the original Chinese phonemes and semes: idu, which was used primarily for legal contracts even after the invention of hangeul; gugyeol, which Confucian scholars and Buddhist monks used to make annotations to the Chinese texts that they studied; and hyangchal. Although these writing systems were useful for professionals, Korea still lacked a popular, unified script that reflected the unique character, so to speak, of the peninsula.

Finally, in 1440, King Sejong of the Joseon dynasty ordered a team of linguistic scholars to set about creating a way to accurately represent spoken Korean in distinctive graphemes. King Sejong and the creation of hangeul is one of the most important of Korean national myths. Many Koreans take great pride in this event in their history (for example, a few months ago one of our one-on-one interview questions at work was "Who was the greatest person in history?" to which the majority of my students answered "King Sejong, because he invented hangeul"). Over the course of six years, the scholars undertook an exhaustive survey of Korean vocabulary and accents, as well as studying different Asian writing systems. The project is considered by many to be the greatest scientific and cultural achievement in Korean history. The scholars eventually developed what we know today as hangeul, possibly based on a contemporary south Asian script. It is perhaps the only writing system in the world still in use today that is the result of such a scientific and methodical survey. In 1446, hangeul was codified in a document called Hunminjeongeum. There is a national holiday on October 9th to commemorate is adoption as the official national language.

There is an interesting footnote to this story that I found in an article by a German professor of Korean studies, Werner Sasse. Apparently, part of the reason for the invention of hangeul arose from the need for a standardized rhyming dictionary! As in China at that time, civil servants were chosen according to a system of meritocracy and an important part of the government examination was writing poetry in Chinese. Since the pronunciation of Chinese characters on the peninsula had become very confused by the 15th century, the hangeul project would give potential civil servants a method of determining the way words were actually pronounced (by providing a more accurate phonetic representation of spoken Korean) and therefore make rhyming easier.

Set It To A Beat

2007-03-18T22:35:00.000+09:00

My last post elicited a response from "Blake" back in the States, in the always happening borough of Brooklyn, who informed me about a project he's working on to create educational Korean hip-hop music through Swagger Lou Press and his company, Flocabulary, which creates hip-hop themed educational material. Any of you that know me also know that hip-hop is one of my many passions, so of course I was intrigued. You can check out one of the songs, "Ahn-nyeong-ha-sam," here on the Flocabulary website (there are also links to other Flocabulary projects, which have been lauded by the likes of Cornel West and Howard Zinn). From what I can gather, the MC is a whitey waygukin like yours truly, living in Korea, most likely in Seoul. The lyrics are especially amusing for any foreigner living over here; I urge my fellow waygukins to take a listen. Incidentally, Korean hip-hop is alive and well, as the musical genre has become a worldwide phenomenon over the past 30 years or so of its life. I am told by my friends that most Korean hip-hop songs are about girls and partying, a little tamer than some of the crime tales that are popular back home. Korean is actually a very aesthetically pleasing language for hip-hop, given that it sounds quite staccato to begin with (at least to an outsider's ear) and there are so many words that rhyme. The only Korean hip-hop megastar that I can recognize is the televisually ubiquitous MC Mong, who seems to be a funny, gimmicky rapper, sort of like an early Eminem without the references to abusing prescription pain medication and fantasies about killing his girlfriend. B-boy culture (break dancing/locking/popping to the uninitiated) is also popular in Korea; there are several b-boy contest specials on Korean TV, mostly held in Seoul I gather. And since there's been a dearth of good hip-hop coming from the States recently (although I urge everyone back home to buy the new Devin the Dude album on Tuesday!), the Korean take on the art form is a welcome break from the same-old-same-old.

Hangungmal

2007-03-14T22:22:00.000+09:00

I am now in my second week of Korean language classes at the University of Ulsan and I have really been enjoying learning the language of the people I live among, as well as being back in the university atmosphere (if only for a few hours per week). I think that taking classes now, after I've already been in-country for six months, was a good idea because I have already learned hangeul (the Korean alphabet, which deserves its own post actually) and a few key phrases in Korean. It's shocking how much I've learned just from being around my students everyday; I sometimes think that I'm learning more than they are (which doesn't say a lot for my teaching abilities!). Here are three things that I really like about Korean:

Honorifics: Sure they make learning a language that much more difficult, but they also make it that much more interesting. Additionally, learning how to use honorifics teaches one about social stratification in a given society. As I've mentioned before, age is all-important in Korea, in large part because it effects which honorific level to use when speaking to someone, whether they be senior, junior or chingu (friend- someone who is the same age as you are). The point of any social interaction is to denigrate yourself and exalt your conversation partner through language. To illustrate my point: a couple of weeks ago, I was out on a Friday night with a group of my Korean friends and they decided to play a trick on one of the girls, Da-eun, by convincing her that one of the boys was younger than her. She ordered him to "Drink up!" using the very familiar form of the imperative, which is commonly used when talking to people younger than you, especially children. As it turned out, he was in fact her senior, and poor Da-eun was extremely embarassed. In some ways, I wish we had something similar in English. Certainly, there are ways of speaking English (parole) that are reserved for specific situations and people, but there isn't anything comparable on the level of langue, which would make the subtleties of Anglo-American social interactions more legible to non-native speakers.

Hanja: As in Japanese, many words in Korean are borrowed from Chinese. There is a way of writing these characters, known as hanja in Korea and kanji in Japan, that students learn in school, although I think it is becoming less and less popular in Korean curricula. However, many of these loan words are also written in hangeul and used frequently. For example, saram is the purely Korean word for "person," while in is the Chinese character, used in waygukin (foreigner) and migukin (American) for example. Our professor told us that it is usually considered more polite to use the Chinese loan words as it indicates that the speaker has been educated. In addition there are two counting systems used for different situations, one based on pure Korean numbers (hana, dul, set...) and one Sino-Korean system (il, i, sam...). The Sino-Korean system is used for counting anything that would usually be represented in a text-artifact by written numbers (1,2,3...), such as monetary amounts, telephone numbers, ages, years, etc., while the Korean system is used to count things. However, both are used to measure time, the Korean system to count hours and the Sino-Korean to count minutes, which keeps things interesting.

Economy of language: I don't really know enough Korean yet to meaningfully comment on this, but Korean seems to me to be an economical language. In other words, many of the tools we use in English to draw contrasts between things in language, such as articles and conjugations based on person, for instance, are absent from Korean. Comprehension of any given utterance comes as much from its context as it does from what is being uttered. It makes things a little more complicated at first, but it gets easier.

I had forgotten how much I love learning languages, I guess I'm just a big ol' dork like that! I hope to be able to have a conversation with one of my taxi drivers by the end of three months; already I can stumble through in broken Korean and "Konglish" for a good ten minutes.

An Introduction To Social Categories

2007-03-08T22:02:00.000+09:00

A few weeks ago I was chatting with one of my free-talking classes (comprised entirely of fifth and sixth grade girls) when they asked me, "Teacher, do you know what a doenjang girl is?" I replied honestly that I didn't, only being aware of the word doenjang in reference to the soybean paste that is used in doenjang jigae. They explained (sort of) that "doenjang girl" is a label given to young Korean women who are "conspicuous consumers;" that is, they have developed a taste for (mainly) American cultural goods and, in the words of my student "Ann," have "gotten hooked." A recent article in the "Munsu Journal," an English-language magazine published by University of Ulsan students, helped define the term further, as well as providing some clues as to its etymology (although, I'm still confused as to how soybean paste got in there). Apparently, "doenjang girl" was popularized last year by Korean netizens (i.e. Korean internet users) to describe young women, mostly of high school or university age, who consume "western" clothing (non-Korean name brands), food (in the form of chain restaurants like Outback Steakhouse and Bennigan's, which are remarkably popular here), and drink (Starbucks) and romanticize the "New Yorker" lifestyle that they see on imported American television programs such as "Friends" and "Sex and the City." Another way of putting it is (and I quote Kim Eun-eui of the "Munsu Journal"): "A woman who is filled with vanity but has no ability."

Needless to say, I am intrigued that such a social category exists, especially as there are so many issues about contemporary Korean culture embedded in the label. Miss Kim makes several astute observations in her piece, some of which I will recount here. First of all, she points out that it's not just any woman who happens to buy a Starbucks coffee or carry a Louis Vuitton purse that gets labelled a doenjang girl; there seems to be an unmeasurable point at which the consumption of foreign, particularly "western" and American goods, is deemed problematic and opens the consumer up to ridicule by wider Korean society. Korea, like most places on the planet right now, is not immune to American economic and cultural hegemony, and for the most part American cultural exports are embraced with open arms. However, their is also a strong nationalist strain among Koreans (somehow related to their past as a colonized subjects, I suspect) that is reflected in their consumption patterns, as evidenced by the failures here of Wal-Mart, Carrefour, and Nestle, just to name a few. It is almost as if a person can be judged to be "too" friendly toward these "western" goods that they become like caricatures, so obsessed with anything non-Korean that they end up appearing as poseurs to their Korean peers and are viewed as ignoring their "own" culture (I would argue that we have similarly prejudiced social categories in the States, although in entirely different contexts, such as "wigger," "Oreo," and "banana.")

Another salient point of Miss Kim's is that the doenjang girl category has arisen to give a negative connotation to the most emancipated generation of Korean women and the economic power that they wield. As youth unemployment continues to rise, jealously of the conspicuously consuming Korean woman by out of work young Korean men leads to a knee-jerk reaction against Korean feminism. The doenjang girl label is hastily plastered on any woman who expresses her independence, especially with her pocketbook. Perhaps it isn't a cross-cultural issue at all, but one of localized gender stereotypes. However, my students assure me that there are also doenjang boys, i.e. boys who wear foreign fashion labels and quaff their Starbucks on the way to Bennigan's.

Whether a reaction to the Korean woman's changing role in society or to the increasing influence of foreign over domestic culture, the doenjang girl label is interesting, and maybe even useful, for the outside observer as an indicator of contemporary social attitudes in Korea.

The Future Is Now

2007-03-08T01:19:00.000+09:00

I saw this Korea-relevant article from the BBC today and thought I'd share it here. As one can see, Korea is beginning to seriously consider what the world will look like once "social" machines are fully integrated into the daily routines of the everyman and woman. I am surprised by the government's prediction that every Korean household will have a robot in it by 2020 at the latest, but I'm not an expert, so what do I really know? Being aware of the current state of capitalist production and contemporary legal concerns, I imagine that the Robot Ethics Charter will have a lot more to do with intellectual property rights and guarantees against pirated copies or whatnot than it will with actually addressing the impact that interactive machines that are human-like in appearance will have on human society. This isn't exactly my branch of anthropology, so I can't say that I have much to add to the discussion, but I'm sure someone out there is working on a journal article about this right now. At any rate, it will be interesting to see if the vision of the authors of the Robot Ethics Charter does indeed come to pass.

On another, unrelated note (and keeping in line with my penchant for celebrating my favorite authors on this site), a happy 80th birthday to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whose novels make me want to become fluent in Spanish (and visit South America).

The Tigers Are Back

2007-03-04T20:59:00.000+09:00

It's time for the beginning of the K-League (soccer) season and today was the first home match for Ulsan Hyundai. Even though it was quite a wet day (we are in the midst of what promises to be several days of rain), we trekked down to Munsu stadium to watch the Tigers take on Gyeongnam FC. There were many other fans and supporters there who were undeterred by the rain, more than on the previous occasions that I've attended a match. The Tigers started off strong, scoring a truly fantastic goal in the ninth minute. The players clearly had a tough time with the slippery pitch and there seemed to be a lot of errors, but most of them came from the Gyeongnam side. At the end of the second half, Ulsan's defense fell apart, and even though the goalkeeper made three spectacular saves in a row, number four got past him in the eighty-fifth minute and the match ended in a one-one draw. As a matter of fact, I have yet to see Ulsan win in person, but hopefully their next home match will have a more favorable outcome.

Samiljeol/Jirisan

2007-03-01T19:37:00.000+09:00

(The view from the summit of Jirisan)

Today is a public holiday in Korea known as Samil-jeol, literally the " March 1st (3-1 )memorial" ("sam" is "three" in the Chinese-Korean number system, and "il" is "one;" hence, March 1st). The holiday commemorates the Declaration of Independence from Japanese colonial rule signed on March 1, 1919, nine years after the start of the occupation. Although Korea wouldn't be free until 1945, the Declaration was a symbolic gesture and is remembered as the beginning of the Samil movement, a year-long series of uprising against the Japanese military in which it is estimated that 7,500 Koreans were killed and 45,000 were arrested. Although the occupation didn't end then, the Japanese military police were replaced by a civilian police force and some of the most objectionable policies that the Japanese had instituted were removed.

Because of the holiday, we had a day off from teaching. However, this did not mean that I was free to fritter away my day in Ulsan as Jessica and I joined Mr. Park and the rest of our colleagues for a day of "membership training" at Jirisan National Park, about three hours northwest of Ulsan. According to Mr. Park, Jirisan is part of the "triumvirate" of (South) Korean mountains: Halasan, on Jeju-do, is the highest mountain, Seoraksan (where we visited last fall) is the most beautiful, and Jirisan is the largest in area (at least the mountain range it is a part of is the largest). We left Cheonsang at 6:00 A.M. and arrived just after 9:00 for a breakfast of fermented vegetables and rice porridge, a completely vegetarian and traditional Korean countryside meal. The trek to the southern summit (not the main summit, apparently) took just under an hour and wasn't particularly difficult. Even though it was an overcast day and low-lying fog (or pollution, I can never tell the difference) obscured the view of the valley from the summit, it was still a beautiful place, and I'm sure it is even more stunning in the fall when the leaves are changing. Afterwards, we headed to a traditional village market in Hwagae where a transvestite performer called Jessica and me out as the only waygukins on scene, thereby embarrassing us both. I am exhausted, but glad to have seen another of Korea's natural beauties.

Aesthetic Pursuits

2007-02-28T01:31:00.000+09:00

Another week of work brings with it another set of one-on-one interview questions, which are always my favorite part of the week. As with any other week, we downloaded a set of two questions from Elite's website (which, in this case, is significant in and of itself), one of which deals with the students' attitudes toward plastic surgery. I have to admit, I was previously unaware of Korea's "obsession" with plastic surgery, but after looking over the statistics and listening to my students this week I feel like, in my opinion, I've happened upon a significant, and perhaps even disturbing, trend on the peninsula. I am aware of three plastic surgery clinics alone in Samsandong in Ulsan, and I'm almost positive there are probably more in the city. A BBC article from 2005 cited a statistical attestation that around 50% of Korean women in their twenties have undergone some sort of plastic surgery procedure. The most common procedure is called the "double-eyelid" surgery, wherein Korean women (and men for that matter, although they are in the minority) enlarge the size of their eyes by removing "excess" flesh from their eyelids. Other popular surgeries include creating "more prominent" noses and breast augmentations (for women, specifically). Many have theorized about why Koreans, who in some circles are considered the most aesthetically pleasing of all Asian nationalities, have turned to "the knife" in recent years in increasing numbers, citing everything from the social competitiveness of young Koreans and their parents (which, being a hagwon teacher I can certainly attest to) to aspirations to look more "Western," whatever that may mean.

The latter part of that last sentence touches upon an issue that I have wanted to address here on my blog but have been hesitant to thus far. To write about these issues as a white person, and a white American male at that, is extremely difficult because my experience of race has been one of privilege in the extreme, and so my observations are, naturally, affected by my experiences and I risk the possibility of sounding racist (and sexist for that matter). However, I feel that I must say something about this because it has made me feel uncomfortable on more than one occasion. I've written before about how often I am called "handsome"* here by people I may not even know, even though back in the States I don't think anyone (besides my mother) would rate me amongst the most handsome of people. And I feel that much of this phenomenon has to do with the fact that I'm white. The perception of race in Korea, however one may define it, seems to me to be different from the way we look at it back in the States (which isn't in and of itself surprising since racial perceptions, stereotypes, and hierarchies tend to differ from social group to social group). The desire to enlarge the size of one's eyes, for example, certainly stems, in part, from a desire to look more white. I say "white" because, given my students reactions to pictures of Tiger Woods in one of our textbooks (e.g. "His skin is dirty teacher!," "He is ugly!," "I think he is maybe dangerous," etc.), I doubt that Korean women and men are augmenting the size of their eyes so they can look more like Denzel or Beyonce, let alone Gael Garcia Bernal or Salma Hayek. America, with all of its shortcomings, does indeed have a more diverse complexion than Korea. And even though racially hierarchized standards of beauty certainly exist in America, I believe that there is more diversity among what (and who) is considered "beautiful" there than there is here. I remember an incident early on in my teaching career here when one of my Korean colleagues asked me if all Americans have the retractable eyelid like Jessica and I have, to which we replied, "Well, pretty much everyone except the Asian-Americans," invoking one of our own cognized racial categories in the process. Reflecting on that episode, I wonder if my colleague equated "American" with "white" in her mind, even though white Americans aren't the only ones with retractable eyelids. Which leads me to wonder whether the apparent Korean desire to learn "American" English means that they expect their children's teachers to be white (because in their opinion non-white teachers must not speak the "proper" English) and whether that has something to do with why it is more difficult, from what I hear, for non-white foreigners to land a position as an EFL instructor in Korea. It's as if their children's English education isn't authentic unless it's administered by "whitey."

In summation, I don't mean to suggest that Korean women, or men, want to look more "white" and that's why plastic surgery has become so popular among young Koreans recently. However, I do believe that racially charged perceptions of the world exist in Korea (as they do most anywhere) and that my current profession has a seriously problematic relationship with these perceptions. Obviously, this needs to be investigated further, but I am curious if any of you reading this have any comments to add to this discussion.

Here are a couple of other links to mainstream articles about Korea and plastic surgery.

*Although, many of my students also ridicule me relentlessly for my big nose and hairy arms, face, and chest and call me "ugly" in a daily basis.

Intellectual Satisfaction

2007-02-22T00:32:00.000+09:00

Yesterday I visited Busan with Jessica and Melissa and was led to an English language bookstore by Melissa's friend and fellow Brisbaner, Hugh, where I happened upon an anthology of journal articles written by anthropologists of Korea, mostly Koreans with a few foreigners thrown in the mix. I am sorely lacking in sources of intellectual stimulation, especially on the anthropology side of things, so needless to say I was in heaven and immediately purchased the book. It was compiled under the direction of Prof. Han Kyung-koo of Seoul National University from articles published in the Korea Journal, a social science publication produced by the Korean National Commission for UNESCO. Unfortunately, I know absolutely nothing about the Korea Journal, and even though their stated intention (to fill a "need for a forum to to bridge the gaps between Korean and non-Korean scholars, to make a space for a multiplicity of voices, and to promote an interdisciplinary academic approach to Korean studies") sounds all well and good, its association with the UN makes me worry that it may be a relatively "conservative" journal by anthropological standards. My cursory search of the Korea Journal website gives me the impression that my fears are completely mislaid, but I am still curious as to where it falls on the spectrum of social science journals dedicated to Korea. If there is anyone out there reading this who is familiar with the Korea Journal or knows of some alternative academic resources about Korean anthropology, any advice would be much appreciated.

Happy New Year (Redux)

2007-02-20T01:10:00.000+09:00

This weekend saw the coming of the New Year once again, this time according to the lunar calendar, and with it celebrations in Korea. The holiday is called seollal in Korean and people mark it in several different ways. I was fortunate enough to be invited, along with my other waygukin friends, to the house of our Korean friend, Kang Jung-hoon. Kang’s father was in Qatar on business, so his mother hadn’t planned a big, traditional observance, and therefore no one was dressed in the hanbok. Kang and his sister are also too old for the sebae tradition where children bow before their elders and show deference to them, for which they receive money; most of my students said that they usually got around 100,000 won. However, we did partake in a few traditions. First, we ate ddeokguk, a soup made of rice cake and scallions in a broth to which we added seaweed, egg gidan, sesame seeds, and ground beef, and afterwards we played yut nori, a game wherein in players toss four wooden sticks into the air to determine the movements of four playing pieces around a board. In our “battle of the sexes,” the men defeated the women and split the small wager we had made.

Several weeks ago, Jessica purchased a bokjori (a “scoop” of sorts made from woven bamboo mesh) from a door-to-door salesman, mostly because he made an attempt to deliver his spiel in English even though he clearly didn’t speak it.

During seollal the bokjori is hung on the door outside the house in order to collect good luck for the coming year. Unfortunately, we don’t have any way of affixing it to our door, so it looks like we won’t be having any good luck this year. Another seollal tradition we ignored was moving our shoes out of the entryway and into our bedrooms so that wandering ghosts wouldn’t abscond with them.

As each year on the lunar calendar is represented by an animal, this year is the year of the pig. Many in Korea (and perhaps elsewhere) believe that this is a particularly special year of the pig in that it coincides with the year of the gold element, therefore making this the year of the Golden Pig, an especially lucky year that only comes around every 600 or so years. Plastic, golden piggy banks of all sizes (some are really quite large!) have been on sale in shops throughout the country for months now, which means that some corporation is making a killing off of the Golden Pig marketing scheme. Supposedly, it is also a good year to have children as they will grow up to be intelligent and successful. Our friend Young-woo, who was married only last year, hopes to have a child this year for this very reason (although, his wife may feel differently). In anticipation of this year, Korean wedding halls were booked far in advance in 2006. However, there seems to be some controversy over whether this is indeed the year of the Golden Pig, and even if such a year has existed in history or whether it is a more modern invention. Apparently, some skeptics believe that it may all be a ruse by the Korean government to encourage procreation as they are starting to worry about the declining birth rate. Whatever the case may actually be, I prefer to be optimistic and believe that it is indeed the year of Golden Pig, although personally I don’t plan on having children any time soon.

Couples' Appreciation Day

2007-02-14T23:38:00.000+09:00

Valentine's Day has come and gone and once again it wasn't a very big to-do for me as I have no one to properly celebrate it with. It did give me a good excuse to distract my younger students from "real" work and let them make cards to commemorate the day, and I even got chocolates from a few students. But it certainly didn't seem to be as big of a deal for them as Pepero Day was, partly due to the fact that it coincided this year with elementary school graduations, so there wasn't any time for them to exchange gifts with their friends. And for the older Korean couples, it doesn't seem to be as important a day as Christmas, which is the date night to beat all date nights. Some of my students explained to me that there are three days during the year that are focused on couplehood (or the lack thereof). The first is Valentine's Day, when girls are supposed to give chocolates to boys. Next comes "White Day" on March 14th, when boys buy candy and flowers for girls. Finally, there is "Black Day" on April 14th, which is a celebration for singles (finally, something I can participate in!) when boys and girls eat jjajangmyeon (Koreanized Chinese noodles made with black bean paste) with all of their other single friends. This little discussion of coupledom in Korea makes me wish I had some pictures of the most coupley of all Korean couples, those who go out in public dressed in the exact same outfits. It is a very popular look among young couples and really has to be seen to be understood, so if anyone out there has any pictures of Korean couple outfits that they are willing to share I'd love to see them.

The Herbalist Strikes Again

2007-02-13T23:11:00.000+09:00

I found myself coming down with a cold yesterday, much to the dismay of my co-teacher, "The Herbalist" Mr. Lee, whom I mentioned in the previous post. When he arrived at work today, he handed me a bottle full of one of his home remedies for the common cold, a combination of seven different herbs found in Korea (the only one he knew in English was ginger root). I have to admit, the taste was not the most appetizing thing to have ever made its way down my esophagous, but I hold out some hope that it will help rid me of this sickness, even if it's only a psychosomatic effect. Here's a look at the thick, brown liquid:

Artemisia absinthium

2007-02-12T21:24:00.000+09:00

During the six months that I've been here, I've been introduced to my fair share of herbal medicines, especially since one of my Korean colleagues, Mr. Lee, considers himself an "herbalist" and has made it his responsibility to provide us all with various medicinal teas during this cold and flu season. But today's introduction was stranger than anything I'd seen thus far: ssook ddeok, a greenish cake made of rice powder and wormwood (artemisia absinthium) prepared by one of my student's mother. It actually tasted quite good, although it is very dry and made it necessary to drink several cups of water afterward. My only previous knowledge of wormwood was that it is one of the active ingredients in absinthe, which is, for all intents and purposes, illegal in the States but very legal and popular in my former Bohemian home, Prague. Apparently, the curative properties of wormwood are well-known and it used mostly for the treatment of gastro-intestinal problems. I can't say that I noticed any difference in my physiology, but I'll take the word of the experts.

"Here For A Different Reason"

2007-02-06T20:33:00.000+09:00

I had a chance encounter with another young American in Ulsan (visitor, not resident) this weekend that reminded me of a controversial/contemporary issue on the peninsula I had yet to address in this forum. He made the correct assumption that I was an EFL instructor and said "I bet I'm here for a different reason than you are," after which I made the correct assumption that he must be part of the U.S. military presence on the peninsula. Sure enough, he was an airman visiting from the Osan Air Base south of Seoul, an expert in missiles and bombs who is about to be promoted to the rank of staff sergeant. We chatted briefly at one of the foreigner bars in Ulsan that I sometimes (reluctantly) find myself in, and although we had diametrically opposed views on the military and the ongoing colonization of Iraq, he told me some news that I thought was worth remembering: the current Korean Prime Minister wants to evict all U.S. personnel from the peninsula.

Currently, the States have over 30,000 personnel (troops, support, and their families total somewhere around 37,000) in Korea at 22 different bases and camps under the "United States Forces Korea (USFK)" umbrella (in Korean, Ju-han Miguk). The military presence dates back to 1945, the end of the Japanese colonial government and the occupation of the peninsula by the Soviet Union north of the 38th parallel and the U.S. to the south. The two superpowers arbitrarily divided the peninsula into separate occupation zones and supported "ideologically appropriate" regimes in their respective zones, leading to the rise of Lee Seung-man in the south and Kim Il-sung in the north and sowing the seeds of the (inevitable at this point) Korean War. During the war and its aftermath, Cold War politics "necessitated" the U.S.'s military commitment in the south in the eyes of many American international relations eggheads, especially after the successes of Mao Tse-tung to the west. The two successive military dictatorships that ruled in the south until the late 1980s welcomed the U.S. presence as it helped ensure their grip on power. However, ever since Korea has begun moving away from its totalitarian past, the U.S. military's presence has been an issue up for debate. Of course, there are many in the new generation of I.R. eggheads in the States, most of whom have the ear of the current U.S. regime, who believe that it is absolutely necessary to maintain a presence on the peninsula in order to keep tabs on the "nuclear North" and on the "growing danger" posed by China. However, popular support among Koreans for the U.S. military has certainly suffered, as evidenced in pop culture by last summer's blockbuster "Gwoemul" ("The Host") about a monster born of a river polluted by an American base (based on an actual event, at least the pollution part) and in another Korean movie that I wish I knew the title of where the protagonist is attacked and brutalized in an alleyway by a trio of very drunk and very malicious U.S. soldiers. There is also the 2002 incident when two teenage Korean girls were crushed to death by an armored vehicle during a military training exercise, and the subsequent acquittal of the soldiers tried for the deaths by a military court. Not to mention the countless complaints of sexual and physical abuse of Koreans at the hands of American troops over the years (in no way am I saying these individuals are representative of the other, law-abiding members of the USFK, but I am saying that the actions of these few have provoked some significant anger among the Korean public and helped to create a not-so-friendly caricature of U.S. troops stationed here).

Unfortunately, I have not been able to verify the claims of the airman I met this weekend. According to him, the new (as of 2006) Prime Minister, Han Myung-sook (incidentally, the first Korean female Prime Minister) isn't a fan of the U.S. presence and would like to see it reduced and possibly ended as early as 2012. The Prime Minister's role in Korean politics is largely ceremonial and so it's unlikely that her plan, if it does exist, will be implemented, especially given the current stirrings of fear (real and imagined) about the intentions of Kim Jong-il in the north. Still, her opinion is indicative of the the U.S. military's loss of face here since its days as the "savior" of the south in the years following the war.

When The Mighty Fall

2007-02-05T20:26:00.000+09:00

Today's news brought with it one of the biggest (and I'm sure most satisfying for some) shocks to hit Korean business since the market crash in the late 1990s: Chung Mong-koo was convicted. For those that don't know, Mr. Chung is the chairman of Hyundai Motor Group, probably the most internationally recognizable entity of the formerly gargantuan Hyundai corporate conglomerate. He is also the son of Hyundai's founder, who enjoys almost mythical status here, and one of the richest (if not the richest) men in Korea, a true legend among legends who benefited from, and contributed to, Korea's rise as an Asian economic powerhouse. His trial for embezzlement of over $100 million from his company's coffers, intended to line the pockets of Korea's political and corporate elite, lasted over six months, and many analysts had warned that his conviction could be devastating to the Korean economy. Others assumed that he would be treated leniently by the court, given his stature in Korea and the nation's past record on dealing with corporate corruption. However, the verdict came down as guilty today, and he was sentenced to three years in prison (which honestly seems a little low to me, and is half of what the prosecutors asked for), although his lawyers have promised to appeal and there's still some skepticism as to whether he'll ever actually serve time.

It's at times like these that I am reminded of what Marx wrote in the 1844 manuscripts: "Under private property ... every person speculates one creating a new need in another, so as to drive him to fresh sacrifice, to place him in a new dependence and to seduce him into a new mode of gratification and therefore economic ruin. Each tries to establish over the other an alien power, so as thereby to find satisfaction in his own selfish need ... Man becomes even poorer as man; his need for money becomes even greater..."

Pastimes

2007-01-31T22:18:00.000+09:00

I feel as though I've been even more slack than usual in updating this blog, and for that I offer up my apologies. The fact of the matter is that I haven't been doing any memorable or worthy of posting about recently. My elementary school students head back to school this week after their month-long winter break (which is the longest break in the school calendar, unlike our two and half month summer vacation in the States), and so they have been more testy than usual. In other news, Ulsan finally has an honest-to-do rock club, "Purple Haze," which is fantastic because it means that there's finally a place I can go on the weekends to see live music (perhaps there was a place before, but I was definetely unaware of it if it existed). It's actually quite a nice, intimate little place, on the basement level of a building in Mugeodong with a pool table, foosball table, friendly staff, and a small stage where local (mostly student) bands can show off their chops.

Speaking of weekend excursions, there is one activity that I have found myself engaging in virtually every weekend since it has gotten too cold to go hiking and have neglected to address so far: norae bang. In Korean, norae bang literally means "song room," and it is basically the Korean version of karaoke. I was introduced to karaoke by some friends during my sojourn in Prague and, to my slight embarassment, became hooked. I've never actually done karaoke in the States (save for one night at the International House in Chicago, but that barely counts), so I can't compare it to the Korean experience, but I am fairly certain that the Koreans do it quite differently. First of all, rather than getting up in front of a bunch of strangers in a bar, the countless norae bang establishments in Ulsan offer private rooms for small groups of friends. The average rate here is 15,000 won/hour (a little over $15), which is a small pittance when split between eight or so people. Most places have machines that can judge the "accuracy" of an individual's performance, and groups that perform well are rewarded with free extra time. In just about every Ulsan neighborhood, a quick walk down the street will lead one past at least five different places, the majority of which don't close until the last customers decide they've had enough. There is definetely a range of quality among places, some of which are run-down and a bit seedy and others that are state-of-the-art and have "theme rooms," such as "Rock" in Mugeodong, a favorite among Ulsan University students. The most elaborate joint I've seen thus far was in Hondae, in Seoul, a three story building with large plate-glass windows facing the street (allowing passerbys to peek in on the customers) and high-ceilinged rooms with small lofts! Going to the norae bang appears to be a popular activity among Koreans regardless of age as both my youngest students and their parents love to go. Last week, Jessica and I went to one with our Korean colleagues after a staff dinner, which was a welcome surprise. I've also gotten the impression that, on the whole, Koreans take the quality of their own singing more seriously than we waygukins do. They love to sing, and they also love to sing well. Of course, there are also those who love to go just to have fun, like me. One final note, a social measure of just how popular a pastime it is: certain Orion brand snack foods come in "norae bang" specific sizes, enough to accomodate a large group of people.

R.I.P. Ryszard Kapuscinski

2007-01-25T01:22:00.000+09:00

I know this bit of news isn't very Korea-related (actually, it isn't at all related to Korea), but yet another of my favorite authors has passed on and I feel like honoring him in my own little way here. Ryszard Kapuscinski was perhaps the most relevant journalist of the twentieth century, spending most of his long career covering some of the most important, yet undereported, events at the end of the most world's most tumultuous century. For years, he was the sole Polish reporter in all of Africa, one of the only journalists who could claim to have an entire continent as his beat. I read "Shadows of the Sun," a collection of stories about his time in Africa, while I was in college and it made me want to learn Polish (I never did though) because the writing was so beautiful in English that I could only imagine what it must be like in his first language. My undergraduate Politics professor regularly assigned "Shah of Shahs," Kapuscinski's account of the 1979 Iranian revolution, as a reading for his "Revolution and Political Violence" course. Unfortunately, I am having some trouble finding a good obituary on-line, so here is a link to the BBC story where I heard the news. Certainly, the era of journalistic curiousity, intergrity, and relevance that Kapuscinski was a part of has, sadly, long since passed, although I hope it will return one day.

Accessorize

2007-01-23T22:06:00.000+09:00

Although it sometimes seems to me like the daily life of Korean children is all work and no play as they spend most of their days either in school or at various academies, at least the study accessories they have available to them are a lot fun. I seem to remember that when I was in elementary school there were definetely some "must have" school supplies that were popular; everyone wanted to have the flyest "Trapper-Keeper," for example, and I remember having a few triangular neon pencils, but they all pale in comparison to the items my students bring to class. There seem to be a few companies that have cornered the school accessories market and all of the separate items they produce follow some sort of theme. Most have cutesy cartoon characters and ridiculously sappy slogans written in Konglish. The most sought after pencils are definetely the 1,000 won mechanical pencils, also known as "sharps." I have yet to see anyone with a pencil that has an eraser on the end of it. Usually, students have a separate eraser, some of which are simple, monochromatic, rubber rectangular-solids. However, others are shaped like fast food items and have very distinctive smells. And then there are the countless styles and shapes of stickers that are used to decorate everything (sometimes the stickers are quite funny to the waygukin observer since the sticker companies can't use licensed trademarks and the kids end up with "Dream Donuts" logos and such). Of course, the most important item, and the one that is most semiotically charged (as they are often markers of class status, as well as material representations of extracurricular interests), is the almighty pencil case. Pencil cases are popular all across East Asia, and Korea is no exception (I don't remember ever having one in the States, so I'm not sure they're as big of an item back home). Here are a few of my favorites that I see on a daily basis:

This one belongs to "Ann," a simple cardboard case that opens up into several compartments that pivot outward from the body. It is part of the "Honey Bear" series; the caption reads "Nobody can stop my feeling to you."

Next is "Jess's," a plastic case from the "Sweet Hamu" series, which features a giant hamster. The see-through top flips up to reveal a small white board for writing notes, reminders, or messages to friends. "Jess" has decorated hers with some pieces from one of the avatar-sticker books that are popular among the younger girls.

This one belongs to "Britney" and I think it's cool because it has an abacus, although I don't think she knows how to use it. The abacus may have gone the way of the slide-rule (much to my father's dismay).

"Belle's" case opens to an elaborate study diversion: a miniature baseball game. It is from the "Maple Story" series, based on the ever-so popular computer game.

Finally, "Carla's" case, another from "Sweet Hamu." A few of my students have similar cases; the top flips over and reveals a video game on an LCD screen. This one is my personal nemesis as it is a constant source of distraction from lessons.

I have my own pencil case, which my students love to raid for pencils, pens and erasers (the American "Papermate" ballpoints I brought with me are a big hit since they can't be found in Korean stationery stores). It's nowhere near as elaborate as the ones above, but it serves its function.

Games Pt. 2

2007-01-16T22:40:00.000+09:00

Another popular Korean game that never ceases to distract from "real" work in my classroom is gong-gi, a.k.a. salgu. The game is similar to what we call "jacks" in the States, except that there isn't a ball and the "jacks" are colorful octagonal solids made of plastic, not spiky metallic objects. Basically, players start by throwing one of the five pieces into the air and trying to scoop up another piece and catch the airborne piece in the same hand before it falls to the floor. The next round, they try to scoop two pieces and so on. In the final round, the player tries to throw all five pieces and catch them on the back of his or her hand. The pieces themselves have imprints of numbers, Korean letters, Latin letters, and pictures of different sports. None of my students could give me a satisfactory answer as to what significance, if any, these decorations have. They don't seem to change the play of the game in any way. Gong-gi seems to be more popular with the girls, although I've seen some boys play it as well. Here one of my students, "Laura," demonstrates how to play the game:

Back To Busan

2007-01-15T10:22:00.000+09:00

This weekend saw me return to the Busan MoMA, this time accompanied by my Australian friend, Melissa, to see a new traveling exhibition of modern Indian art entitled "Hungry God." At this point, I am even more unfamiliar with Indian art than I am with Korean art, so it was a real treat to get some exposure to it. As I've mentioned before, it is sometimes difficult to grasp the significance of works of art that inhabit different signification schemas than the ones the viewer is entwined in (perhaps some of my friends who are more attuned to these schemas could enlighten me?) This became immediately apparent to me as I entered the ground floor of the MoMA and was met by Nataraj Sharma's ode to the Indian independence movement (which turns 60 years old this year): a large rusted bus with a phonograph attached to the roof and pictures of the revolutionary leaders in the windows. Of course, I recognized Gandhi and Nehru in the driver's seats (which in and of itself says something), and I also recognized Subhas Gose, Tagore, Jinnah, and Patel, but the others, I am sad to say, I do not know. Another case of semiotic dysfluency occurred with Reena S. Kallat's "Penumbra," an alumnium bed frame suspended over the floor containing an arrangement of public officer's stamps. The stamps were all either white, green, or saffron-colored, so at least I recognized those as the colors of the Indian flag, but I could not make out what the shape they were arranged in was supposed to be. Upon looking at a political map of India when I returned home, I think it may have been in the shape of the state of Andhra Pradesh, but I can't be sure and I'm not certain what sort of significance that would have for the piece. Besides the cross-culturally confusing (yet beautiful) pieces, there were several other fantastic pieces in the exhibit, far too many to enumerate here so I will just point out my favorites. First, Tushar Joag's "Unicell" project, which took as its inspiration a recent land reclamation battle in Mumbai in which hundreds (perhaps thousands?) of citizens were given eviction notices to make way for the construction of Mumbai's "New Eden," which I think was supposed to be a series of condominium projects. In response, Joag's Unicell team constructed a replica of the iconic Flora Fountain and set about erecting and dismantling it in four (politically and historically significant) locations around Mumbai, in what I imagine was an attempt to show how the brains behind New Eden were treating Mumbai as if it was portable and malleable, but I could be wrong. My other favorites included two video installations, one called "Crossings" by Ranbir Kaleka and the other titled "Mother India" by Nalini Malani. The former involved an artistic process I've never seen before; Kaleka's piece had four screens, each with a video loop of a different actors overlaid on top of another video loop which kept shifting between typical Indian street scenes and more surreal imagery. In addition, Kaleka had painted silhouettes of each of the foreground videos onto the screens. Over the course of the loop, the actors move back and forth from screen to screen so that the painted silhouettes are temporarily emptied. The latter was a feminist indictment of the treatment of Indian women and how women's bodies had been appropriated for the inscription of the revolution. Complete with two quotes from Veena Das (hooray Anthropology!), Malani had erected five screens in a semi-circle, each of which alternated showing images of (among other things) women spinning thread during the days of the revolution, images of the goddess Lakshmi, and images of a young Indian girl in a sari (there was also a point when the Lakshmi images turned into Coca-Cola logos, and I'm not sure why), while the sounds of giggling and screaming women came from the speakers. Finally, I really liked Bharti Kher's pieces in which she had arranged thousands of bindis of different shapes and colors into geometric patterns in some cases and into what vaguely looked like figures in others. For some reason, it made me think of a more abstract, modernized version of some of Klimt's work.

Afterwards, Melissa and I headed down to Haeundae beach to (appropriately enough) an Indian restaurant called "Ganga" for lunch. I had the Paneer Butter Masala, which our one Indian restaurant in Ulsan doesn't offer. It was a nice ending to my latest outing to Busan.

Games Pt. I

2007-01-11T09:49:00.000+09:00

Many of my experiences in Korea are viewed through a child's perspective, which is simply a matter of circumstance, really. That being true, I am very aware of what games are popular right now among the elementary school set. One of the most popular, and distracting, forms of entertainment (at least among the boys) is a card game named "Yu-Gi-Oh!" (in Korean "Yu-Hi-Wa). The cards themselves cost 100 won a piece (about 10 cents American) and come in packs of five. The are manufactured by Konami (the same Japanese company that made a whole slew of video games in the 80s and 90s that all had the same cheat code) and distributed by Upper Deck Entertainment (known in the States more for sports trading cards than games). Based on my observations, it seems to be similar in form to a game like "Magic: The Gathering" (if anyone remembers that one), which is no surprise as its creator has said that he wanted to create a game similar to "Magic" but with rules that were less complicated. "Yu-Gi-Oh" was originally a Japanese anime serial created by Kazuki Takahashi first aired in 1998. It was so popular among Japanese and Asian youths that a second series was produced, "Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Monsters," in 2000 that was exported to over 60 countries. The franchise has spawned a multi-volume manga, two movies, video games, and the card game. Of course, it involves an intricate narrative about a shy Japanese high school student named Yugi Moto who is given an ancient Egyptian relic, the Millenium Puzzle, by his grandfather. After completing the puzzle, he is possessed by the spirit of a 3000-year old pharoah who has forgotten all memories of his past. Yugi Moto and his friends attempt to unlock the secrets to the Nameless Pharoah's history by playing the card game. All that being said, some of my students become so engrossed in the game that there is nothing I can do to win back their concentration. Sometimes, they actually play the game, but usually it seems that they just like trading the cards with their friends or pinch them between their thumbs and middle fingers and fling them across the room, which irks me. Any attempts to confiscate the cards are met with loud, sometimes violents protests. It looks like a lot of fun, but being the teacher and not knowing Korean exempts me from play.

Death Of A (Ramen) King

2007-01-08T12:13:00.000+09:00

I read this article this morning and felt compelled to write something about the man whose invention is so popular both here in Korea and at home. Momofuku Ando may not be a household name, but instant ramen noodles are immediately recognizable in many, if not most, corners of the world. When I was very young, I used to have a bowl of "Oodles of Noodles" after cross-country skiing expeditions; for a while, I even thought it was a special wintertime food. In middle school, I remember the Korean and Thai students becoming small-time entrepreneurs as they would sell contraband packages of ramen that their parents had sent them to the other students for vastly inflated prices. Of course, anyone who has been to college in the States has probably had a bowl of ramen at one time or another (during my first-year orientation week we had no less than three "Ramen Fests" in my dorm). We often eat ramen for lunch at work because it is simple and, well, tasty. Although Koreans are quick to remind me that it isn't a very healthy food, they love it too. Some of the ramen over here is much spicier than the American version, which is just fine by me. All of this makes me want to see one of my favorite movies, the Japanese "noodle western" Tampopo, which I urge anyone who loves food to see.

Haeinsa

2007-01-06T20:05:00.000+09:00

The new year in Ulsan is off to a good start as I spent a truly amazing day with my director, Mr. Park, and his wife and daughter in Gayasan National Park, about two hours west of Ulsan. Besides being another of Korea's sanctuaries of natural beauty, Gayasan is home to Haeinsa, the most famous Buddhist temple in all of Korea:

Haeinsa is most well-known for the Haeinsa daejang gyeongpan, a collection of over 80,000 wooden blocks that make up the "Tripitaka Koreana," a record of the essential writings and teachings of Buddhism. The project of creating these blocks began in 1237 and was completed in 1251. The blocks were used to print Buddhist teachings for distribution to temples throughout the kingdom and represent one of the most important pieces of Korean history and culture. Koreans also take pride in the magnitude of such a project and view it as an example of the technological innovations of their ancestors in the field of printing. In 1995, the Janggyeong panjeon, which houses the blocks, was named a UNESCO site:

After visiting the main temple, we attempted to hike into the mountains behind it when a snow storm sprang up out of nowhere (apparently, the western half of Korea is much colder in the winter than the east is, where I live). So, finally it feels like winter to me. I never thought I'd be so happy to see snow:

I-Heart-Seoul

2007-01-03T10:10:00.000+09:00

My recent trip to Seoul has restored my faith in Korea and in Koreans. Seoul has everything I wish Ulsan did: art, live music, international cuisine, history, intriguing architecture, and a friend from my Chicago days whom I can discuss Frankfurt School aesthetic theory with, Ja Young. For those of you I-House alums that might be reading this, it was great to see Ja Young and she's doing well now. She was kind enough to show me around some of her favorite haunts in Seoul, and she taught me a lot about Korean politics and the social divisions between the north and south of the R.O.K. In short, I couldn't have had a better vacation to the capital city.
(Note: as my bus was pulling out of Ulsan I realized that in the mad dash to pack everything I had forgotten my camera, so this post will not be visually enhanced. However, not having a camera was a great thing as I felt a little less like a tourist).

Here are some of the highlights of the trip (I won't bore you with the mundane details):
Friday: I arrived late at my hostel and met up with Ja Young for a very late dinner in Hapjeong-dong, where I was staying and, coincidentally, where Ja Young lives. We randomly walked into a tuna sashimi place where I ate enough raw tuna to last me through the new year. I also experienced something which is becoming more and more familiar, and that is the almost ridiculous lengths that Koreans go to in order to show deference to foreigners. The sashimi chef kept piling extra pieces tuna on our plate and was eager to explain everything I ever wanted to know about tuna. Honestly, the special attention makes me feel very uncomfortable, especially when I think that the only reason I get this attention is because I'm white and I am morally opposed to exploiting white privilege for personal gain. However, I think non-white foreigners also get this attention, and it's really offensive to refuse anything.

Saturday: I headed up to the palace district to visit some of the numerous art galleries in Seoul. First, the Kumho, which had a small exhibit by some modern Korean artists (paintings, photographs, sculptures and video installations), all nice pieces but nothing remarkable. Right next door at the Hyundai gallery there awaited a surprise I didn't expect to find: an exhibit of Robert Rauschenberg's work, spanning most of his career from the 1970s to the 21st century. I've always liked Rauschenberg but had never seen his pieces in person. It seems that he has become far less chaotic in his mature years, as his collages from the 2000s usually have only three of four images rather than fifty. From the Hyundai, I headed over to the ArtSonje center. There were some contemporary non-Korean artists' works displayed there, but the Korean pieces were much more interesting. Describing art that is entwined in "webs of significance" that the viewer is not intimately associated with is always a difficult thing because one is lacking in semiotic fluency and doesn't always immediately understand the indexicality of certain works. In the end, one is left with a mess of unconsummated references and a vague understanding of the work in question. A perfect example of this was my viewing experience of a sculpture titled "Gimhongsok (Oval Talk)." Basically, it is a large purple egg with an audio loop coming from inside the egg. Apparently, it is supposed to interrogate the "myth of oviparity," something I am unfamiliar with. Later, Ja Young explained to me that many of the myths about the kings and queens of the Three Kingdoms period involve the leader emerging from an egg. Perhaps this has something to do with "Gimhongsok," perhaps not. Next, I headed down to Insa-dong to meet Ja Young for lunch at a samgyetang place tucked away in the maze of alleyways. Insa-dong is quite beautiful, but maybe a little too touristy for my likes. Later, Ja Young suggested that we tour Changdeokgung, the final palace of the Joseon dynasty, which ruled the country at the time of the Japanese occupation in 1910. The palace was fantastically beautiful and I imagine it would be even more so in the summer months. Ja Young had previously studied to be an English-language tour guide, so she was actually able to tell me more about the palace than the official tour guide! After one more stop in Insa-dong for tea, Ja Young went to meet some universtiy friends in Kangnam and I went down to Itaewon for dinner. I was struck by the diversity in Itaewon (Ulsan is about as diverse as Maine is), especially where I had dinner, at a Turkish restaurant called "Salam" near the Seoul Central Masjid, one of the only mosques in the entire country. Unfortunately, the mousakka I had wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be, and the flatbread tasted a little too yeasty. Finally, I ended my night at a jazz bar called, appropriately, "All That Jazz." There were two groups, the first a foursome that wasn't very good, and the second a five piece group (piano, drums, electric bass, electric guitar, and saxophone) who played an absolutely, heart-rendingly beautiful version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and a lively take on Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely."

Sunday: Sunday found me heading down to Yeouido to indulge myself in my love of skyscrapers by visiting the 63 building, the tallest building in Korea. Back in my Chicago days, one of my favorite activities was going to Sky Lounge at the Hancock building for a cocktail. It was a little too early for cocktails, but the feel was essentially the same as I surveyed all of Seoul with a capuccino. The building itself is unique, a sleek (sexy even) tower of iron and glass that has a slight curvature to its twin facades. Determined not to be a tourist, it seems as if I ended up doing some of the most touristy things one can do in Seoul, and the 63 building was perhaps the most touristy. From there, I visited two of the more upscale Seoul neighborhoods: Apgujeong-dong (Korea's "Beverly Hills") an Myeong-dong (home of Ewha Women's University and a favorite shopping spot). I didn't do any shopping, but I did see some incredibly beautiful buildings in Apgujeong, all of which housed top fashion names like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, Ferragamo, etc. The two Louis Vuitton locations were especially interesting, the one time I wish I had brought my camera. I also drank the most expensive espresso of my life. As the sun was setting, Ja Young got off work and I went to meet her in Sinchon for dinner, where she went to college as an undergrad. We had some Vietnamese food, my first bowl of pho in almost six years, and then headed out to celebrate the New Year's festivities. Most places in Sinchon were absolutely packed; eventually, her older brother showed up, who was bored and girlfriend-less, which was a good thing because he knows Sinchon very well and led us to some more secluded spots where I can almost guarantee no tourists have ever been. First, we headed to his favorite sake bar where he generously provided us with a $100 bottle of the driest sake that exists. It was delicious, the best sake I've ever had by a longshot. It was there that we watched the Korean equivalent of the ball dropping in Times Square, which is the ringing of the bell in Independence Park, on TV, rather than standing around in the cold to see it live. The night was just beginning, so Ja Young's brother led us around the corner and down into the bowels of Sinchon to an out of the way soju bar. But this was unlike any soju bar I've seen; the walls were filled with old records and the proprietor played requests while cooking up various anju for the customers. Ja Young and her brother educated me in the history of Korean rock (which is surprisingly good music) and we threw in a few Anglo selections as well. There aren't many experiences as surreal as hearing Run DMC's "King of Rock" blasting at top volume early in the morning on New Year's Day hundreds of thousands of miles from Hollis, Queens. Finally, it was on to the obligatory first norae bang experience of the year, and then back to Hapjeong to crash.

Monday: I spent most of Monday taking it easy, going out in Sinchon for lunch and then waiting for Ja Young to finish New Year's dinner with her extended family. After she was free, we walked to Hondae, which immediately became one of my favorite Seoul neighborhoods. It surrounds Hongik University, the top art school in Korea, and the neighborhood reflects the attitude of Korean art students. It is filled with hip restaurants, bars, clubs and record shops. After wandering around in the snow that was just beginning to fall and getting slightly lost, we eventually decided on popping into "Gr8," a relatively new hookah bar (although, I don't think it was real chicha that we were "smoking" as the menu advised the customers that everything was 100% nicotine free, thankfully for me who is one and half years smoke-free). The whole atmosphere was geared toward providing the most relaxing experience possible. We choose a table upstairs, lounging on plush pillows and cushions as we drew clouds of pomegranate "smoke" from our hookah and sipped on cocktails. We talked about everything from Habermasian modernity theory to popular Korean movies of the past few years. It was one of the best evenings I've had since arriving on the peninsula, mostly due to the excellence of the company I found myself in. At last, the charcoal burned out and it was time to leave. I bid Ja Young adieu with plans for her to come visit Ulsan some time this spring. The perfect ending to a perfect vacation.

The next day I made my way back to Ulsan. I wonder what things would be like if I hadn't moved to the southern industrial city and had gone against instinct and chosen Seoul. At least it will always be there and I am sure to return someday.

National Flavor

2006-12-28T09:55:00.000+09:00

So, how did I spend Christmas Eve in Korea? By partaking in one of the oldest and dearest Korean traditions: making kimchi. For those that don't know, kimchi (sometimes romanized as gimchi, which is actually closer to how it is pronounced) is the national dish of Korea and is ubiquitous on Korean tables. It is a part of virtually every meal, from breakfast to dinner, usually as one of many side dishes. The Kimchi Field Museum (Seoul) has documented no less than 187 varieties of kimchi, both historically and currently (let's see Heinz try and top that). However, the most common type, and most recognizable to the waygukin eye, is baechu kimchi, which is spicy fermented Chinese cabbage. Historically, the Korean people made kimchi in the winter in order to have vegetables in their diet during those long, cold months in which no fresh vegetables could be grown. The traditional method of burying kimchi in clay pots in the ground is still used by some, but has largely been replaced by the invention of special kimchi refrigerators that keep their contents at the optimum temperature for fermentation. Although virtually all kimchi is now made with hot red chilies and red pepper, chilies weren't introduced to the peninsula until the 17th century by Portuguese traders via Japan. Also, historians believe that baechu wouldn't have been used until the 19th century. Therefore, the modern-day kimchi is actually quite a recent creation.

To get an idea of the place of high esteem that kimchi holds in Korea, just ask a Korean. During one of our weekly interviews at the school about food, many of my students espoused the many virtues of kimchi, which was cited as "the best Korean food" by the majority of my students. They are very proud in their belief that kimchi is recognizable as Korean all around the world. In addition, they believe strongly in the health properties of kimchi. To hear some tell it, one would think that kimchi is a miracle cure-all, fixing everything from the common cold to constipation to SARS and avian influenza. While the latter claims may be exaggerations, it is true that kimchi is a healthy food. Red chilies are rich in vitamins A, B and C, and the curative qualities of garlic and ginger (which also go into the mix) are well-documented. However, there are some who theorize that excessive consumption may lead to stomach cancer, and may explain the relatively high rate of stomach cancer among Koreans (although others believe it may be the glutinous rice that is favored by Koreans that may be to blame).

I had sampled kimchi a few times in my life before arriving in Korea, but now I have truly found a love for it (although my favorite is the mu variety, made from radish, not baechu). I usually buy a quarter-cabbage from the local Cheonsang "Top Mart" on a semi-weekly basis. The Korean cookbook I brought with me from the States has a recipe for baechu kimchi, and I had always been tempted to try my hand at it. Finally, at Jessica's urging, I decided to give a try this weekend. I bought a new food processor at E-Mart, a special clay kimchi pot in Seongnamdong, and rounded up the rest of the necessary ingredients. After letting the cabbage halves soak in salted water all day, I prepared the pepper mixture, spread it between the leaves of cabbage and placed it in the pot out on the balcony to ferment for three days, Last night, it was finally ready. The final verdict: it tastes like kimchi, but it is much, much too salty (somewhere along the line, I added too much salt).

I am going to Seoul tomorrow for the New Year's holiday, so I will not be updating for a few days (not that I update that regularly or frequently anyway). But that brings me to my favorite Korean news article of the past week; sounds like a good idea and easy money for some.

Last but not least, R.I.P. James "Godfather of Soul" Brown, you will be sorely missed.

Dong-ji/Christmas

2006-12-24T11:35:00.000+09:00

Friday was a special day at work for two reasons. First of all, December 22nd was the winter solstice, therefore marking the world's movement into a new period of the solar calendar. In Korea, this day is known as Dong-ji and is, I gather, celebrated in different ways by different people. Most of the rites surrounding Dong-ji involve battling evil spirits. Mr. Park's wife prepared the traditional dish of red bean and rice soup for the teachers at Elite (the name of which I've unfortunately forgotten), which is meant to help expel ghosts. I found it interesting that when I mentioned to my students that it was Dong-ji, only about half of them knew what I was talking about. The others had to have it explained to them by their fellow students. It makes me wonder whether the observance of this day will not be as important to the younger generation.

It was also the last day of classes before the Christmas holiday on Monday, and so I baked some Christmas cookies (many thanks to my mother for her recipe) for my best students. The conditions were not ideal for baking cookies (baking in general is more difficult in Korea because the necessary equipment, and ingredients, are hard to find), but I think they turned out well in the end. The younger students spent the day making Christmas cards, and everyone got to have some dag (rice-cake with red bean filling), which was provided by Mr. Park. Not surprisingly, Christmas isn't as big of a holiday here as it is back home. As I understand it, children may get one present from their parents to mark the occasion. For high school and university age students, it is almost like a second Valentine's Day as young couples exchange gifts. The young students seemed very excited about Christmas, but the older ones seemed decidedly non-plussed. They are much more excited about Solnar, the "Chinese" New Year's celebration in February when their relatives give them money. Without further adieu, here are some of my favorite pictures from the day:

'Tis The Season

2006-12-21T22:41:00.000+09:00

This week I participated in one of the most common, and supposedly effective, methods of advertising over here; that is, going door to door in apartment complexes and hanging up flyers. I've written about the clutter that greets me on the door to my apartment each evening, which I casually toss on the ground outside. These flyers are meant to inform the citizens of Cheonsang and Beomseo, which is just on the other side of the Taehwagang, about Elite's special offer to prospective students (or, rather, parents of prospective students) during the upcoming winter vacation. Apparently, the longest school vacation in Korea is the two month break in the winter. However, this doesn't mean that the children will cease their studies altogether. To the contrary, they will spend even more time in hagwons of all kinds: English, math, piano, tae-kwon-do, etc. My schedule will be changing dramatically as I will be teaching an extra three hours in the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, for which I will be compensated with overtime payments (sweet!). It seems that most of our competition is making similar changes, as just about every day I return from work to see a flyer from one of the many English academies in the area. This week's publicity blitz did mean that I had to get up before I usually do, but at least climbing up and down the stairs (mostly down) gave me some much needed exercise, and I did get two free, delicious lunches out of it. Check out the spread at this seafood restaurant we patronized on Tuesday:

Rachel's Wedding

2006-12-17T17:24:00.000+09:00

This morning, Jessica and I attended the wedding of our former work colleague, "Rachel teacher." It was my first experience of a wedding in Korea and gave me an excuse to wear my suit, an opportunity to sample a wide variety of food at the reception buffet, and, of course, watch a friend begin her new life. I get the sense that if one stays here long enough, one ends up going to at least one wedding, if not several. Every foreigner teacher I know has been invited to one of their workmates' weddings. These are far from the traditional Korean weddings of yore, which I am told are day long events that take months of preparations. The more popular option nowadays is to have your wedding in one of the many wedding halls in any given Korean city. A wedding hall is a building of several stories, each floor with several rooms for individual wedding ceremonies and receptions. Rachel's wedding was held in the "Diamond Room" at the Munsu wedding hall, beneath the Munsu Soccer Stadium. Several things struck me as memorable about the ceremony. As the guests were arriving, the bride sat in a room separate from the room where she would be married, posing for photos, while the groom and the families greeted the guests at the door. Here is Jessica posing with Rachel:

The first part of the ceremony involved the mothers of the bride and groom, dressed in the hanbok (as many of the other married female guests were), lighting candles on either side of the altar at the front of the room. Then, the groom entered, walking down the aisle under two crossed swords raised by employees of the wedding hall, who were dressed in what looked like American university marching band outfits. A bubble machine shot bubbles into the air as a fog machine poured fake fog over the stairs in front of the altar. The bride followed, escorted by her father. The man performing the wedding (I'm not sure what his title is, and since I don't think there was anything particularly religious about ceremony it seems wrong to call him a priest) made a statement, presumably whatever the official words are that make a marriage legally binding. All the while, another wedding hall employee was constantly rearranging Rachel's dress so that it looked perfect, to which Rachel paid no attention. The bride and groom exhanged neither vows nor rings, and they did not kiss when the marriage was over (public displays of affection are very rare in Korea). After bowing to each set of parents (groom's first, then bride's), the couple walked hand and hand back down the aisle as streamers were shot over their heads:

Then, it was time for the official wedding photos. First, just the bride and groom, then the entire extended family, then the friends and colleagues, and finally a very staged "throwing of the bouquet." Afterwards, all the assembled headed to the reception hall, named the "Versailles Room," for the buffet. Rachel and her new husband arrived shortly thereafter, having changed out of their wedding outfits, and we gave them our wedding gifts: money in an envelope (nobody actually gives a "real" present). The whole affair took about thirty minutes. I think what was most different about this wedding from weddings I've been to in the States was how impersonal and "cookie cutter" it all seemed. Of course, some of that feeling has to do with the fact that I don't understand Korean (and therefore didn't understand anything that was said during the ceremony) and didn't know any of the guests besides Jessica, our fellow teachers, Mr. Park (the hagwon director) and a few students from Elite that Rachel invited. But besides that, it seemed as if everything was done according to the established program of this particular wedding hall; nothing reflected the personalities of the people involved. In addition, there was another wedding going on next door in the "Ruby Room" simultaneously, and we had to vacate the ceremony room quickly so that the wedding scheduled after Rachel's could begin. Rush 'em in, rush 'em out. In no way do I mean to suggest that it was any less meaningful for the bride and groom or any less beautiful a ceremony than weddings I am more familiar with, but it certainly wasn't my style. At any rate, I wish Rachel the best and thank her for allowing me to be part of her wedding day.

Busan MoMA

2006-12-17T16:11:00.000+09:00

One of the biggest gripes I have with Ulsan is the lack of "cultural" outings available in the city, especially the lack of an art museum. When I lived in Prague, I used to love wandering around museums with my friends on the weekends. We got as excited about new exhibits as we did about the latest concert at the Roxy. Before I left the States, one of the customers at my old job told me that I should be sure to check out some of the modern art in Korea, as she had been wowed by what she saw on a trip to Seoul a few years ago. With this in mind, I made my way to "Dynamic Busan," Korea's second largest city, about an hour south of Ulsan, to visit the Busan MoMA (Museum of Modern Art).

The MoMA is currently hosting two exhibitions: "Vision & Perspective" and "at the Groove of Time." The former is a showcase of four young, up-and-coming Korean artists, Lim Jong-kwang, Son Hyun-tae, Kang Tae-hun, and Park Young-sun. Each artist had a room to themselves where they had constructed their installations. To be honest, I was underwhelmed by them. I've seen better art at university student open houses. One was far too cluttered and trying too hard to be symbolic, another was boring and overly self-indulgent, and the third was a time lapse video installation of an apartment complex, which was mildly interesting. The fourth, Son Hyun-tae's, was the best of the group, two incomplete casts of humans constructed out of aluminum wire with a woven vinyl and cloth overlay. The wire frame bursts away from the figures in waves and literally spills out of the room, giving sense of fluidity of form.

"at the Groove of Time," on the other hand, was everything I had hoped for. The stated purpose of the exhibit is to explore the relationship between time, space, and human experience, especially memory. In particular, the work of the featured artists focuses on how one experiences time in a foreign space, the often painful adjustment one must make to the new space, the immediacy of experience during that adjustment and the insights that one gains about the passage of time. I couldn't have been in a better state of mind to deal with these objectives. The works of five Korean artists were featured: Han Soon-ja, An Zong-de, Kim Sung-soo, Jeon Kang-ok, and Han Myeong-ok. Han Soon-ja's work explores the distinction and interchangeablity of objects in different places, thus bringing attention to the distinctiveness and continuity of space. The piece I liked best was "Rounds Moving," a painting of a large, bright orange circle on a square, blue canvas with several smaller orange circles or differing sizes and shades arranged inside the circle. The color contrasts create the illusion that the small circles are moving, even though they are stationary. An Zong-de's medium is time itself. He takes objects that change noticably when exposed to the elements, arranges them a certain way, and leaves them be until time has transformed their colors/shapes/physical make-ups. For example, several of his pieces were large pieces of cloth on which he had placed small nails and aluminum hairpins. As the metal objects rusted, they stained the cloth, thereby creating a pattern on the makeshift canvas. Kim Sung-soo's paintings are meant to make the viewer question his or her own memory. Each painting is of the same face with the same melancholic expression, but none of the features of the faces indicate qualities like age or gender that would allow the viewer to "know" the subject. Yet, his intention is that the face be recognizable enough that the viewer is sure that he or she has seen it before somewhere, but that their memories are failing them. Jeon Kang-ok's works deal with gravity. He uses his understanding of how gravity works to hold objects in seemingly impossible positions. His intention is to make the viewer aware of how accustomed we are to gravity's pull and to question our viewpoints of the world from the standpoint of how we experience gravity. Several pieces were open, wooden cubes with transparent fishing line strung between the edges and rocks suspended on the webs of line. From afar, it looks as if the rocks are floating in space. My favorite piece was "Suspended Cubes, Suspended Time II," three stacks of wooden cubes jutting out perpendicular to the wall, held in place by heavy iron weights suspended by wires above the stacks. Finally, Han Myeong-ok's work comments on everyday objects and the transference of space to time. I enjoyed her exhibit the least, mostly because I couldn't understand how her pieces were supposed to accomplish her stated objectives. However, she did have my favorite piece in the whole exhibit, entitled "Sound": two parallel lines of rocks of differing sizes and shapes linked together by unwound casette tapes.

A pleasant surprise was that the entrance fee had been waived, so my visit was free. I definetely plan on going back in January when two new exhibits open, and for any art-lovers who live in or around Busan, I recommend checking it out if you haven't already. There wasn't any photography allowed in the exhibit spaces, so here are some pictures of a few of the sculptures outside the entrance to the museum:

La Haine

2006-12-15T21:23:00.000+09:00

Every week at Elite, we foreign teachers conduct one-on-one interviews with our students as part of their curriculum. Apparently, this isn't standard in every hagwon, and that's too bad because I think it's the part of the job that I enjoy the most. There are always two questions provided by the high mucky-mucks at Elite on our website, which Jessica and I then amplify to fit our purposes. Sometimes, the students' responses can be really amusing, and sometimes it can be a forum for students who are too shy to talk in class to make use of their English skills. For me, it's the closest I get to doing ethnography nowadays. Whereas I like it when there are a myriad of different responses, I think it is even more interesting when there is a definite congruence in their answers. Case in point: this week's questions about "good" and "bad" countries. There was certainly no surprise in which countries were the students' favorites. Korea was far and away the most cited; other favorites included the Netherlands (because their national team plays soccer well), Switerzland (because of their neutrality), and the United States (because it is a strong and rich country and because hamburgers taste good). There was also an overwhelmingly lopsided vote for the "most hated" country: Japan (other nations of ill-repute included Switerzland because of the 2006 World Cup loss, "Africa" because it's too hot, the United States because of it's arrogance and provocation of terrorists, and North Korea because of the war and the bomb). The fact that Japan was the "most hated" country among my students isn't all that surprising. Tension with and outright hatred against the neighbor to the East runs deep here, going back to the days of the extremely violent colonial occupation of the Korean peninsula (1910-1945). The Japanese regime has done little to relieve tensions as of late, as it refuses to grant reparations to Korean "comfort women" from the occupation era, not to mention the former Prime Minister Koizumi's insistence on making an annual pilgrimage to the Yasukuni Shrine that honors, among others, war criminals who are directly responsible for the misery of many Koreans. However, what I found most intriguing was that in addition to the usual grievances levied against Japan, the contemporarily contentious issue of Dok-do was mentioned by most of the Japan-haters. Dok-do is one of countless territorial disputes that exists in the world today. Basically, it is an island in the East Sea that has been under Korean control since at least 1954 but is also claimed by Japan. Although there hasn't been any outright conflict regarding the issue of Dok-do's sovereignty recently, Japan is largely seen here as raising tensions by conducting a survey of the continental shelf near Dok-do this summer. What interests me, however, is that my students were aware of the dispute. These are children who couldn't tell you were most Asian countries are on a map (let alone the rest of the globe), and yet they know where Dok-do is and have intractable positions supporting Korea's claim. It makes me wonder whether it is in school or at home that they learn about Dok-do. Of course, I doubt any American child their age could name our disputed territorial posessions around the world, or even begin to comment on the question of sovereignty regarding our indigenous populations. At any rate, this week of work offered a glimpse into the burgeoning political attitudes of Korea's youth (or at least those who live in Cheonsang and go to my academy).

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

2006-12-10T16:39:00.000+09:00

Here are a couple of photos of the Christmas display outside of Lotte Department Store in Samsandong: a nativity scene and a giant glowing tree of lights. I'm actually not feeling the Christmas spirit much yet. In fact I keep forgetting that it's right around the corner!

Ego Boosters

2006-12-10T16:19:00.000+09:00

In my experience thus far, being a (white*) foreigner in Korea frequently seems to invite compliments about one's appearance. One of the first things my director said to me when I got off the plane was, "Oh, you are so handsome." Since then, I have been called "handsome" by Koreans, men and women alike, more times than I can count (and just to clarify things, it's not like I'll be winning any beauty contests anytime soon). Often, I think that they say this because they simply want to compliment me in some way and not because I measure up to any standard of beauty that exists here. I know that the Korean language is structured in such a way that the speaker must humble him or herself and exalt their conversation partner, and I feel like these compliments play into that social schema somehow. If that is the case, then I imagine I am either supposed to reciprocate or engage in some sort of self-denigration, but usually I just blush. At any rate, it can be quite an ego booster sometimes. Case in point: my trip to the Cheonsang Lotteria yesterday. As soon as I stepped up to the counter to place my order, one of the girls working that shift exclaimed in broken English, "Oooh! You so handsome! Just my style." Later, as I was eating my burger and fries, she brought over a handwritten note, saying "Hey handsome guy, I write this for you." It reads: "Hi~ You handsome guy! You very good. You best. Oh~ ^^ I'm happy! (drawn smiley face) P.S. You smile very good." I chuckled and said thank you. Sadly, I'm not at all interested in her, but it's the thought that counts, right?

(*I say "white foreigner" because I'm not sure if this is the case for non-white wayguks. I have a sneaking suspicion that racial prejudice runs deep in some people here and I wonder how accepting they are of non-whites, especially the ones who even give white foreigners a hard time. I have been told that it is more difficult for non-whites to get teaching jobs here. I've been meaning to do a post on the issue of white privilege in EFL jobs and perhaps I will sometime; it seems to me to be an important and extremely problematic part of this experience and one that I would like to explore further.)

Changing Faces

2006-12-08T00:11:00.000+09:00

The upcoming weeks will be bringing some significant changes to Elite in Cheonsang as (possibly) two of our Korean teachers will be departing, to be replaced by a couple of young Ulsanites. With the earlier departures of another Korean teacher on Halloween Day and the two Canadians that Jessica and I replaced over the summer, all of Elite's teachers will have changed within a period of five months. I wonder what these changes must be like for the students. The faces of most hagwons are always fluid as wayguk contracts last between six months and one year, and it seems that only a few foreigners renew those contracts. And I'm sure that Korean teachers also cycle through the system. It makes the whole experience very unstable, and helps explain why the students don't seem to immediately bend to the authority of their instructors (respect is a hard-won honor, as I've finally discovered). To add to the confusion this month, the make-up of three of my classes changed last week as students were sorted into different classes based on their abilities (and presumably their test scores). While it is nice to have classes that are closer together in their comprehension of English, it just so happens that essentially one of my most problematic classes was split into three and has now spread its "cancer" to two of my classes that were previously well-behaved and fun to teach. Of course, I am never made aware of these changes until the last possible moment; I only learned of one of the Korean teacher's plans until she gave me an invitation to her wedding (which is next weekend). Hopefully, everything will sort itself out in the new year.

At any rate, such major changes dictated that the entire Elite staff go out for brunch this morning (which I wasn't made aware of until yesterday afternoon; the attitude toward foreign teachers seems to be an assumption that you don't have a life of your own so if you're not at work, you are therefore available at a moment's notice for anything the director decides). It's a bit of a tradition at ours as well most hagwons that everyone goes out for a meal when a new teacher arrives or an old teacher leaves, but so far it has only been dinners at Korean barbeque joints and a king crab restaurant, which have been lovely, don't get me wrong. But this was an entirely unique experience, and well worth it. After a long van ride from literally one end of Ulsan to the other, and halfway to Busan, we ended up at a small vegetarian restaurant near a Buddhist temple, hidden away in the hills. We were seated in our own "hut" with a heated floor, as are all of the individual dining parties at this particular place. The food was brought in from the main building, which contained the kitchen, and it just kept on coming, course after course. I always wonder must it be like to work as a dishwasher in one of these places since every meal uses so many dishes. The food was divine, and some dishes were completely different from anything I've had thus far in Korea.

I neglected to bring my camera along, so to check out a couple of photos that Jessica took follow these links.

Movie Night

2006-12-03T22:50:00.000+09:00

As I have mentioned before, in the haircut post, one of the best ways of assessing your new home is by doing things you liked to do back "home." Today, I finally went out to the movies for the first time since I've been in Korea. The experience wasn't all that strange, but there was enough local flavor to make it worth posting about.

I decided to go to the Lotte Cinemaplex in Samsandong to see Martin Scorsese's latest picture, "The Departed." This particular theater is attached to the ultra-chic Lotte Department Store, and thus I thought it would be a very nice theater, which turned out to be partially true. In order to purchase a ticket, one takes the escalator to the third floor and takes a number from an "automatic queueing" machine, like the ones at DMVs in the States. When the number on the ticket appears on the digital display above one of the ticket counters, one can make a purchase. This wasn't particularly strange for me (in fact, I thought it was a good method of controlling the flow of customers), but the fact that there were only eight counters and they were numbered one through fourteen, with several numbers omitted, obviously, was very strange. Stranger still was the fact that there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to which numbers were left out. At any rate, I made my request and learned that the next show was already sold out and so I would have to buy a ticket for the later screening. I then got to pick my seat from a computer display. Seating is assigned in Korean cinemas, which makes the American practice of arriving early in order to get a good seat entirely obsolete.

After sitting in a cafe drinking coffee and reading a book for three hours, it was time for the movie and so I headed back over to Lotte. I ascended what I assumed was the stairway to the screens themselves, but soon realized that I had ended up in an empty hallway. Two cinema employees approached me as if I was doing something very taboo and kindly informed me that I was in the wrong place (the inexplicable deference that Koreans seem to show to clueless foreigners is a subject for another post). Thus, I descended and waited for the correct entryway to open, as it was cordoned off by one of those nylon gates that one finds in airports and banks. It finally opened about ten minutes before the movie was set to begin and my fellow viewers made their way into the cinema, seeking out their assigned seats. In a way, it makes finding a seat that much easier since one literally has only one option. The seats were padded and much more comfortable than I have come to expect from American cinemas (with the notable exception of "Reel Pizza" in my hometown, which is outfitted with plush couches and Lay-Z-Boys). It reminded me of the theater in Charlottetown, P.E.I. where I saw "The Thomas Crown Affair" remake, which is still the most comfortable theater I've ever been in. I was one of three foreigners in the theater and I got the sense that many of the amusing parts of the movie were lost in the subtitle translation as I seemed to be the only one laughing at certain points. When the movie ended, everyone exited out of a different door than the one we had entered and climbed down the stairs I had mistakenly taken earlier.

By the way, I enjoyed the movie; if a super-violent, obscenity riddled tale about the Irish in Boston is your cup of tea, then I recommend it. And for anyone in Korea who is interested, "Casino Royale," the new James Bond flick, opens on the 21st, so I know what I'll be doing on Christmas weekend.

Lessons From My Students

2006-11-28T20:31:00.000+09:00

I recently came to the realization that, at this point in my life, I spend the vast majority of my time in the company of children (and to make it even stranger, children who understand only about 50% of what I say, but that's another story). What I enjoy most about that fact (and I'm certainly no Humbert Humbert so don't get any ideas) is that I think it has changed my perspective on the world: I am far less jaded than I was previously. Without further adieu, here are three lessons that I've learned from observing my students.

1. "Rock, paper, scissors" solves all disputes
It's a very simple method of conflict resolution that is virtually universal no matter what you call it (my students call it "Rock, scissors, paper" and one of my teacher's books calls it "Paper, scissors, stone," so clearly there isn't a consensus on its title). Most of my students are extremely competitive. On days when we have one-on-one interviews, when it's time to read out loud in class, or especially when it's time to decide who will go first on game day; basically any time they have to take turns doing anything they crowd around me screaming "Me first!" at the top of their lungs. So, I tell them "Rock, paper, scissors" and immediately they begin shaking their fists and within a couple of minutes everything has been sorted out. And the best part is that (usually) there is no further dispute. If only adult conflicts were this easy to resolve!

2. "Hangman" never gets old
Often, it is difficult for my students to remain focused on the lesson for an entire half hour. For some, their attention span doesn't extend much beyond sixty seconds, especially in the second half-hour of the hour most of them spend at the academy each day. Thus, it is necessary to have a fall back position when the lesson goes down the tubes. Personally, I find my sanctuary in "Hangman," the spelling contest game. For some reason, my students never tire of trying to guess which of their vocabulary words I've chosen to test them on this time. Sure, it's a game and I'm supposed to be teaching them something, but I think some of them learn more from "Hangman" than they do from reluctantly sitting through my lessons, blatantly ignoring me the entire time. At least with "Hangman," they are somewhat engaged. Also, my skills at the game have become quite formidable.

3. Age matters
Sorry Aaliyah, but age is of the utmost concern in Korea. This part of Korean culture actually deserves more explanation than I'm going to give it here, but suffice it to say that Koreans are very age-conscious. There are different words that are used to refer to people who are older or younger than you, and chingu, which is sometimes mistakenly equated with the English "friend," is only used to refer to a friend who is of the same age as you. Employment of honorifics also depends on knowing the age of your conversation partner. There have been a few occasions when one of my fellow wayguk friends (although, we're not chingu) has invited some Korean friends from the university to join us for dinner and the younger ones have later told him that they don't feel comfortable accepting the invitation if they know that they'll be in the company of their "seniors." Another example of how important a role age plays: one of my classes informed me that when they meet someone for the first time the first question they ask is "What's your name?" and then they ask "How old are you?" Age-ism plays out in several different ways in the classroom. At its most benign, it means that younger students usually defer to the older students in classroom games, and if they don't they are quickly reminded of their place in the age hierarchy. At the other end of the spectrum, it can be used by older students to justify their bullying of younger students. In one of my classes, the older students constantly harass the youngest student in the class, sometimes driving him to tears. As much as I try to do my best to police it, there's not much I can do as an outsider.

So as not to end on a sour note, I'll relate one of today's cuter episodes. I have a class that is comprised of three very spoiled and precocious young girls who, for most of the past three months, have battled tooth and nail with me to keep from doing their lessons and have delighted in calling me babo, which loosely translates as "stupid" or "dummy." I had been surprisingly tolerant of their insubordination, and then last week something changed in them and now I am suddenly the "best teacher ever." Today after one-on-one interviews, they locked me out of the classroom while they wrote something on the whiteboard. Once they let me back in, I figured I would be confronted with notes reading "Teacher is babo" and pictures of me in a dress, which also never cease to amuse them. Instead, they had each drawn a heart and written "Teacher, I am vary (sic), vary, vary, vary sorry. You is not babo, you is chunjae (which means "genius")." I was honestly touched. Now if we can just fix those grammar and spelling errors...

Makeshift Thanksgiving

2006-11-26T17:28:00.000+09:00

Yesterday's Thanksgiving feast turned out to be a smashing success, even without a turkey. In the end, Jessica and I decided not to substitute anything for the missing bird, which meant that we had a vegetarian Thanksgiving. The menu included mashed potatoes, scalloped potatoes, acorn squash, creamed onions, sweet potato casserole (all prepared by yours truly), a spinach and cheese torte and crescent rolls (made by Jessica):

And of course, le piece de resistance, apple pie:

Tracking down the ingredients for some of these dishes was difficult. Korean cuisine does not feature many baked goods, and thus I had to make a pie crust without shortening and bake the pie in a pie plate crafted out of some small aluminum dishes (surprisingly, I was able to find pecans for the topping to the sweet potato casserole). We began cooking everything Friday night after work, finally stopping around 2:00 in the morning to sleep, and then it was back to work at 7:30 in the morning. Finally, all of the dishes were ready around 2:30, just in time for the first guests to arrive. I was unsure of how many people would be coming as the guest list was up in the air right up until the meal itself, so I was a little worried that we wouldn't have enough food. But in the end, eight people showed up in addition to Jessica and myself:

From left to right they are: Richard, a business management professor at Ulsan University (whom I'd never met before, but we brought homemade chocolate chip cookies so he's alright), Su-ok, Melissa, Kang, Brandon, In-seok, Yu-ran, and Yeong-in. A good time was had by all, and in true Thanksgiving fashion we had plenty of leftovers.

Thanks go to Mom, Grandma, and Brandon's grandmother for their recipes.

Happy 60th Dad

2006-11-20T10:42:00.000+09:00

Taking a break from all things Korean to wish my father a happy 60th birthday today! Have a great day, retirement is that much closer.

Wild Turkey Chase...

2006-11-19T19:44:00.000+09:00

... and I don't mean the bourbon. Yesterday, my roommate and I set out in search of a turkey for the Thanksgiving dinner that we are hosting for some friends here next weekend. Turkey is not a staple in Korean grocery stores, or department store markets for that matter, so it is much more difficult to find than most of the other traditional Thanksgiving dishes. And since it is the centerpiece of Thanksgiving dinner, we have been eagerly trying to procure one. Word has it that Costco, the American wholesale warehouse chain, occasionally stocks turkeys, and so we traveled north of Ulsan to the nearest Costco location in Daegu. To make a long story short, we didn't find any turkeys, but we did find some foods that we'd been without since leaving the States, which was nice, and another item that is always on my family's Thanksgiving table: Martinelli's sparkling cider. So, it looks as if we will have a turkey-less Thanksgiving, but one must make concessions. Now all that's left is to actually prepare the other parts of the meal; hopefully it'll be a success even without the dead bird.

Lil' Jon Eat Your Heart Out

2006-11-16T09:51:00.000+09:00

Another one of Lotte's treats, not so much a "Chunky" bar as it is a "Krackel."

Crunk: 1. (noun) A type of rap originating in the Southern United States. 2 (adjective) US slang; crazy and drunk.

Seoraksan

2006-11-14T08:33:00.000+09:00

This past weekend, my boss, Mr. Park, invited my roommate Jessica and me to join him on a trek to Seoraksan, widely hailed by les habitants as the premier example of natural beauty in (South) Korea. Mr. Park had mentioned the idea of this trip to me during our trip to Shinbulsan earlier, but said that we would have to wait until November after he had completed his exam for a real estate license. As late as Friday, neither Jessica or I knew exactly what we were getting into. Mr. Park informed us as we left work that we should be ready at 5:50 A.M. the next morning so we could hit the road for the six-hour drive North to Seoraksan National Park (quite near the border with North Korea, actually). What we didn't expect was that Mr. Park had also invited several members of his extended family: one younger sister and her husband, three nieces, and three nephews (two of whom are students at Elite). We all piled into a van with very little leg room and settled in for a long ride. About an hour later we stopped for breakfast (gimbap and udon noodles) at a highway rest stop, which was much nicer than any rest stop I've ever seen in the States (it even had a koi pond!). Finally, after several rounds of "Uno" with the children, we arrived in Inju, on the West side of Seoraksan, and so began a series of misadventures. The first trailhead Mr. Park wanted to take had been washed out in the floods this summer, so instead we took a hair-raising bus trip to Baekdamsa

a Buddhist temple that houses a wooden statue of the Buddha that is considered the most outstanding statue of the early 18th century. We intended to hike along the river running alongside the temple, but the children were exhausted, so we headed over to the East side of Seoraksan to take a cable car to the top of one of the epaks. Unfortunately, we arrived to late and the line was too long for us to hope to get on before sunset, so we began what became a three hour search for the condo we were staying in that night. By the time we finally found it, all I wanted to do was sleep.

Sunday was much more successful. We set out for the cable car we had attempted to take the previous day, and even though we arrived relatively early, we couldn't reserve a spot on the ride until 3:00 PM. Mr. Park told me that probably between 30,000 and 50,000 people would pass through this part of the park that day, so it wasn't a big surprise that we would have to wait. So, in the meantime, we decided to hike up Ulsanbawi ("Ulsan Rock").

It's no coincidence that it shares its name with the city I currently reside in. According to legend, the sky God called upon all of the great peaks on the Korean peninsula to come together to form Keumgangsan (in present-day North Korea), thus making it the most beautiful mountain in Korea. Ulsanbawi represented Ulsan, but he was too late in arriving at Keumgangsan to get an ideal spot, so he headed back to Ulsan. However, his heavy weight soon made him tired and instead he decided to rest at his present site because of its prime view of Seoraksan. The trek up to Ulsanbawi itself included climbing one of the sketchiest iron steps/ladders I've ever seen,

but as you can see for yourself, the view was worth it:

Afterwards, we had to race back down to the cable car

in order to make it in time for our reservation, which we did, just barely. Here are a couple of views from the top of the peak at the cable car's terminus:

Finally, it was time to head back to Ulsan. We arrived back in Cheonsang around 11:30 PM, just in time to take a shower, hop into bed, and get some rest for another week of teaching. In summation, here are some more pictures from the excursion that I liked. First, a shot of me, Jessica, Mr. Park, his sister, and all of the children:

Second, the gigantic bronze Buddha statue at Shinhungsa, a temple near the cable car route:

And finally, my favorite photo, a stone pagoda with Seoraksan in the background:

Pepero Day

2006-11-13T23:52:00.000+09:00

In Japan they call it "Pocky," and in Korea they call it "Pepero." Basically, it's just a sweet-wafer stick covered in chocolate. According to my roommate, this particular candy is available back home in the States, although I can't verify that (however, she is from the West Coast, and I don't like candy, so I'll take her word for it). What makes this snack significant is the unofficial holiday that surrounds it, which occurred this past Saturday. In the "Western World" November 11th marks Armistice Day/Veterans Day, the day the "war to end all wars" officially ended at the 11th hour (if only that sentiment had rung true for the remainder of the bloodiest century in the history of humanity). However, for children and young lovers in "Far East" Asia, November 11th marks the day when people exchange Pepero/Pocky in the spirit of friendship and love. According to some, Pepero Day was first celebrated at a girl's school in Busan in 1994 and has since become a nationwide event. Whether one believes the foundational myth or not, one thing is certain: Lotte, the corporation which makes the official Pepero snack and backs other economic ventures on the peninsula that are too numerous to cite here, has made a killing off of the similarity between its snack food and the "11/11 sticks" of November 11th.

Jessica and I both decided that it would be wise to join in the fun last Friday and thus we invested heavily in Lotte's product and distributed the sweet sticks to our students. We were also recipients of Pepero love; most of the students who gave me gifts were the ones I expected would do so, but there were a few surprises as well. My students don't really need an excuse to consume candy (they always have some sort of sweet during class time, and I've never seen more cavities and fillings in children so young before), but I didn't feel so guilty about supplying their sugar addiction on this occasion. It felt nice to be included in their fun.

Another date-related candy-holiday that I neglected to mention earlier (because my students neglected to celebrate it properly) is "Thin-Thin Day," which falls on October 10th. The "th" sound is absent from the Korean language, and thus "Thin-Thin" becomes "Tin-Tin," which sounds enough like "Ten-Ten" aka "10/10" for the association to be drawn.

I know the picture is fairly low quality, but the caption on the box reads "Slim style chocolate for girls: The smile will make happy and joyful time." In my humble opinion, Pepero taste much better than Thin-Thins. Here's hoping the candy companies haven't figured out how to exploit December 12th yet.

Meanwhile, In Ulsan

2006-11-13T08:54:00.000+09:00

I am pleased to announce that I am now reconnected to the outside world as my new computer has arrived safely in Cheonsang. A lot has happened since my last post, so I'll take this opportunity to catch my faithful (and not-so-faithful) readers up on goings on here on the peninsula.

The first event worthy of note was an aborted trip to the Paraeso waterfall two weekends ago, which ended up being worth it as my roommate, Jessica, and I found ourselves wandering around the beauty that is Seongnamsa, a Buddhist temple operated by a group of nuns outside of Eonyang:

Seongnamsa was established in 824 C.E., during the Silla Dynasty period, and was last renovated in 1957. Typical of temples in Korea, it has some wonderfully vibrant, painted eaves and roofs. Here are some detailed examples:

Seongnamsa is also the site of a stone stupa (Korean National Treasure #369) that is said to contain the ashes (sarira) of the Monk Douiguksa, who founded the temple. This particular stupa is considered one of the best examples of stone masonry from the Silla period:

Apparently, Seongnamsa is a typical "date" location for the youth of Ulsan, and thus our trip there quickly became fodder for rumors among the Koreans that Jessica and I were dating (which certainly isn't the case, just to clarify things). So, for those of you in the Ulsan area looking for a new spot to take your squeeze, hop on the 807 and ride it all the way to the end of the line.

The other noteworthy event was our impromptu Halloween party at Elite. Many of the hagwons traditionally throw a party on the Friday before Halloween (as far as I could tell from what my students told me, Halloween isn't a big event in Korea, as to be expected, but the younger children, especially those who have had some exposure to Anglo-American hegemony, enjoy any excuse to don costumes and eat candy). Before our school became an "Elite" franchise earlier this year, it was a "GnB," which has several hagwons throughout Ulsan. Apparently, GnB always had a big Halloween party, and many of our students who remember the GnB days expected that Elite would do the same. However, as Halloween approached, there was no indication that we would be marking the occasion in any significant way. Every day it seemed my students would ask, "When are we having our party?" and I would sheepishly inform them that there would be no party this year (Jessica's students became downright mutinous). On the morning of Halloween, Jessica and I discussed how we would try to incorporate some sort of All Hallow's Eve theme into the day's lesson, fearful of the sure-to-be-disappointed students. To our surprise, the Korean teachers had made a spur of the moment decision to give into popular demand and as we were planning our lessons, they arrived with several cases of snacks and drinks. They proceeded to lead the younger students in mask-making activities. Some Halloween decorations were hurriedly placed around the entryway and soon it became clear that no actual learning would get done that day. Although it was all fun and games for the students, it was a bit more frustrating and exhausting for the unsuspecting and unprepared wayguk teachers (gotta love those healthy lines of communication between us and the Korean teachers!). Never has work seemed more like glorified baby-sitting, and never have I seen the classrooms so trashed. At least the kids had fun. Jessica has a great picture from the day on her Flickr site, just follow the link to take a peek.

Finally, fall has officially arrived in Ulsan, and its arrival was quite sudden. One week, we were still wearing T-shirts and sweating it out in the hazy air, and then we woke up on Monday morning to temperatures in the mid-40s (Fahrenheit) and colorful foliage. I'll end this post with a picture of the changing leaves Munsu-san taken from my balcony:

R.I.P. Clifford Geertz

2006-11-02T13:41:00.000+09:00

I know I'm a couple of days late on this, but I felt I had to post something about the passing of Professor Geertz (thanks to Nell and Majid for bringing it to my attention; the death of an eminent American anthropologist isn't exactly big news in Korea). Although I didn't always agree with his writings (and I still think "Balinese Cockfight" simply points out the obvious), he was certainly one of the giants of the field and indirectly had a significant impact on my life and my decision to study Anthropology.

Hiatus

2006-10-25T13:41:00.000+09:00

Due to technical difficulties (namely a dead computer) I will be taking a (hopefully) short and reluctant hiatus from posting. As soon as I have the necessary equipment again, I will write an update on all that happens in the interim. But in the meantime I wanted to post this message so no one out there thought I was dead!

New 'Do Reactions/Calling All Theory Dorks

2006-10-23T21:54:00.000+09:00

Some of my students' reactions today to my new haircut were too priceless not to be shared here. Most of the young girls went out of their way to call me "ugly," one student suggested that the job hadn't been finished and that I should return to the salon for a touch-up, and others thought it was an improvement over my old hairstyle (my Korean colleagues said that I looked "much better," and one of them, Mr. Lee, insisted that I looked so much younger that he couldn't tell the difference between me and a student). But the best reactions were from the elementary school boys who made comparisons between me and several different international soccer stars. The haircut I have now is commonly known as "Beckham style" among the Koreans, so David Beckham was an obvious point of comparison (which I thought was quite flattering since I don't think I could ever claim that I look like Beckham), but I was also called "Zidane" (hopefully, I'm not that bald yet), and, by far the oddest, Thierry Henry (who, for those of you that don't know, isn't white and whose hair doesn't look even remotely similar to mine).

On a more serious note, I've begun to notice something in one of my students, "Alex," that interests me from a linguistic standpoint. He has some difficulty distinguishing between pronouns and employing the correct personal referent. Instead of employing a self-referential pronoun like "I" or "me" (or even "my," which many of my students use as a stand-in for "I," but that's another issue entirely), he refers to himself as "you." I believe that this habit comes from hearing me and his other teachers ask him questions like, "Alex, what do you like?" At some point, he must have equated "Alex" and "you" in his mind. I notice it especially when I play Hangman with his class (which happens more often than I would like, but it does keep them under control). Alex always rushes up to me and shouts "You Hangman!" while pointing at his chest, meaning that he wants to pick the vocabulary word for the game. Alex's problem reminds me of a story a professor once told my seminar about her daughter when she was an infant. Whenever her daughter wanted to be picked up she would turn to her parents and ask, "Pick you up?" meaning "Will you pick me up?" If I remember correctly, some theorist who works/worked on language acquisition in children (Vygotsky? Chomsky?) did some work on referent-confusion, or whatever you want to call it, so if any of you theory dorks out there know who it was, please leave a comment because I would love to know.

One final note: as I write this, my main man Choi Hong-Man is doing the limbo on a Korean game show; truly one of the funniest things I've ever seen on Korean TV.

Seonbawi

2006-10-22T16:36:00.000+09:00

Today I ventured out to Seonbawi (another of Ulsan's 12 scenic areas), the "Standing Rock" formation just outside of Beomseo with my roommate, Jessica, and our friend Melissa, a fellow Cheonsang-based wayguk. Although the skies were threatening to rain all morning long, the rain only started after we headed back towards Cheonsang. The picture above was taken from the bottom of small dirt trail behind a Buddhist temple which clearly wasn't well-traveled. As you can see, the leaves are beginning to change, although so far they haven't been nearly as impressive as the fall foliage in my New England home.

Hair Queen

2006-10-22T16:13:00.000+09:00

One of the best methods, in my opinion, of determining just how different the place you are currently living is from the place you know best is to do some of the seemingly mundane, everyday activities that you are familiar with back "home" (wherever that might be). Getting a haircut is just one of these activities; I find that if I have been somewhere long enough to need a haircut, then I truly am living there, not just visiting. I clearly remember my first haircut outside of the United States, in Chabanate, Morocco. The barber was a hip, young Moroccan man who was extremely excited that I had walked into his shop. He showed me to a chair, and then popped the tape of Arabic pop music (which I was kind of digging on, actually) out of his casette player and put on an old Tracy Chapman tape (I guess because that was more "appropriate" music for an American customer or whatever). He took the opportunity to practice his English with me and gave me his email address before I left (I think I may have emailed him once and never heard anything back). As to the haircut itself, he cut it shorter than I expected, using a straight razor on the back of my head, which was subsequently bright red for days. During my stay in Prague, I got two haircuts, one at the trendy Toni and Guy, where not only did I get a quality haircut but also the best scalp massage of my life, and one at a Macedonian barbershop where my friend Martin knew the brothers who ran the place. Both were similar to any haircut I could expect to get in the States.

My Korean haircut experience was a little different. I decided to walk into one of the salons that I pass everyday on my way to work, named "Hair Queen." I was the only customer early on a Saturday morning, and the middle-aged woman who operates the salon did not speak a word of English. My Korean is nowhere near functional enough to stumble my way through explaining what kind of haircut I wanted, so I resorted to paralinguistic measures. I pulled out my passport and pointed to my picture (which is six years old, by the way) and she nodded and smiled, understanding what I meant. She performed the haircut almost completely with an electric clipper and a comb, using a pair of scissors only once, and then only briefly. Afterwards, she gave my hair a rinse, placing a styrofoam mask over my face to prevent water from splashing into my eyes. All in all, I was quite satisfied and I can't wait to see how my students react on Monday.

Techno Goliath

2006-10-19T22:20:00.000+09:00

This is a somewhat random post from me, but I felt compelled to share my favorite Korean celebrity of the moment with those of you who aren't here on the peninsula: Choi Hong-Man, a.k.a. "The Techno Goliath." Mr. Choi is a professional K-1 fighter (kickboxer), stands 7' 2", and weighs in at 360 lbs. These statistics would make him a large person anywhere, but he is especially large in Korea, both literally and figuratively. Not only is he successful on the K-1 circuit (a record of 9-2), but he is also a ubiquitous personality on Korean television, like any real-deal Korean celebrity (I believe he even has his own show; if anyone can verify this for me I would be grateful). As I was watching Korean TV last week, I saw him on no less than four local channels: two variety/game shows (including a hilarious guest spot on "6 Girls," which is fast becoming my favorite Korean TV guilty pleasure), a re-broadcasted K-1 match, and an advertisement for some sort of drink. Inevitably, his role on game shows revolves around his physical enormity relative to the the other stars. One of his most memorable appearances, in my opinion, pitted him in wrestling and jousting matches against a variety of opponents (including a couple of Korean Greco-Roman wrestlers), all about 1/3 of his size. However, he is also very charismatic, the archetypal "lovable oaf." Admittedly, my grasp of Korean doesn't allow me to fully appreciate his humor, but some of it needs no translation.

In other news, Ulsan Hyundai (Heavy Industries) fell to Chonbuk Hyundai (Motors) last night in AFC Champions League action, losing 6-4 on aggregate. I was able to catch the Tigers in action last weekend in a match against Jeju-Do, which they drew 2-2. My roomate and I both bought official supporter jerseys, and she ended up catching one of the promotional team balls that was kicked into the stands before the start of the match. Also, we befriended a group of local kids who remembered seeing us the last home match Ulsan had. It seems that even on weekends, I can't escape the hagwon "brats."

View From The Top

2006-10-15T20:36:00.000+09:00

I haven't posted any pictures in a while, so I thought I would put up this view of Cheonsang from the summit of Munsu-san that I snapped during my hike yesterday. Unfortunately, it was a very hazy morning and so this picture of Ulsan is difficult to see:

On a clearer day, one can literally see the entire city, all the way to the beach and Daewangam. I can't wait until the leaves start changing colors in earnest. So far, it's been spotty.