Saving Face

It's Sunday evening, and the end of another slow weekend here in Bundang. My first 3 months in Korea have involved a good mixture of tourist-based activities and good old-fashioned bar hopping with with newfound friends. What can I say? You take your culture with you when you travel. Last night I spent a very relaxing time with Matt and West (both laid-back Oregonians) down by the Tancheon. It was a warm evening and there was just us and a large bottle of soju, along with our free flowing English conversations about work and expat life punctuating the sounds of the river.

I am going into my final week of semester at school. I finished teaching classes a week ago and have since been putting together a program for the unlucky few students who get handpicked by their homeroom teacher to join me for a further 2 weeks of schooling during summer. And at the end of this week I am joining the other teachers to go on "teacher camp." I will be bussed to the city of Cheongju (or Jeonju, I didn't hear Lucy properly) on Friday for an evening of God knows what with the rest of the Imae Elementary staff who weren't fast enough to think of a good excuse to avoid it. I am not exactly looking forward to this, but experience tells me these things are about attitude and if I attempt conversation with some staff members then the evening might whizz by quicker than I imagined. The problem is, I've been super grumpy for the last 4 weeks and it's obviously showing on my face: even the sandwich girl told me I need to smile. You make concessions away from home: if anyone ever told me that in Australia, I made a mental note to avoid them for the remainder of my life. However, Korea isn't the place to stage a little tanty. Expressing opinion equals making yourself look arrogant and is foolish. Lying in order to preserve the status quo and prevent disharmony, on the other hand, are values that Koreans regard very highly. Fortunately, I am just passing through the Hermit Kingdom on my way to cultures which came out of their metaphorical shell years ago.



A Doosan batter prepares to belt the Kia pitcher out of the park

Remember Stephen? You may remember him from earlier blog entries including that one where we went to Seoraksan National Park or the one where we watched Korea play Ecuador in Seoul just before the team left for South Africa. Well, we still hang out from time to time, but I think we've found our own groups of friends that are closer to our respective ages and with whom we have more in common in life. Anyway, it was his birthday on Thursday so a group of us went to Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul to watch the Doosan Bears play against the Kia Tigers. The baseball teams here in Korea are all named after (and owned by, I think) the major conglomerates of the country. The conglomerates are the mega-businesses like LG, Samsung and Lotte who diversify time and time again and so often own all parts of the production and shipping and sale and maintenance of a product. Lotte are primarily a department store like David Jones. They also make a lot of foods which you can find in convenience stores, they run a chain of fast food stores called Lotteria, and they have their own amusement park called Lotte World. Doosan is a construction company but I'm not sure if they have their own fun park.



The author poses with the Doosan team mascot.