...and this one of Seodaemun prison taken a few weeks ago:
Cheerio!
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Spot The Difference and Win a Prize
Wait a tick, readers. I just thought I spotted a similarity between this photo of the inside of my apartment building...
...and this one of Seodaemun prison taken a few weeks ago:
Cheerio!
...and this one of Seodaemun prison taken a few weeks ago:
Cheerio!
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
The Busan Edition
I fear it may be one of those evenings where I get drunk in front of the computer and write things I later regret. You'll have to excuse me. Today has been a particularly bad day and I turn to the greatest set of remedies I know: token meditation, followed by 2 bottles of red, Morrissey and Cold Chisel on repeat, and a new blog entry tapped out with an aggressive snarl and two rigid, pointed index fingers.
My Chinese trip hangs in the balance now as the new principal overturned something I had organised with my manager 2 months ago (specifically to avoid this happening). Her power within the school overrules whatever my contract might say. This Friday she will tell us if we can begin winter camp on December 27, as we already planned, or if she wants to shift it to the middle of January and ruin my plans.
And my 6-4 class went haywire too. And they did it the moment my co-teacher walked out of the room too. After I'd said my piece, and sent them packing, 4 students came to apologise to me in my staffroom. "Is there anything you want us to do to make it better?" they said. I think they had candy in mind. God knows, but that's how it is over here. Angry people are placated with chocolates and other items of food. I however, actually want them to change. Their attitude is rubbish. That's why I repeatedly ask them for their attention, and say they shouldn't do this, or that, or whatever. Do I want anything? Yes - change your behaviour. That request has always be the same.
I think this generation of Korean kids has been raised on a collection of electronic items that don't get shitty if you ignore them and they therefore struggle to change their attitudes for the classroom, where there is a real human being at the front. They often seem genuinely repentant if they realise they've pissed off the teacher; the problem being that I have to change the tone of my voice or shout to grab their attention in the first place. Anyway, I'm no longer angry. It must be the wine from HomePlus.
A shitty class and a crappy employer. Big dicking deal.
On this weekend past I travelled with the lovely Joelle to South Korea's second (or third perhaps) largest city. It is in the south east of the country and is home to the 5th largest port in the world (what is this obsession with the size of things?). Gyeongsan-do province has historically been one the rich provinces, along with Gyeonggi-do, where I am. That makes for a kind of northwest-southeast line of traffic in the country. We booked for the 7:03PM Seoul-Busan KTX (very fast train) on Friday night, which reduces the 379 km journey to a mere 2 and a half hours. Between Daejeon and Daegu the train noticeably picks up speed and is said to reach a top of 300 km/h. Outside of those areas it goes alright too, but just at the speed of a normal intercity train. Even so, it doesn't take long to traverse this country.
Once again my camera was shitting itself for the big occasion so I didn't record the magnificence of the weekend in all its...magnificence? Truth is, it was an absolute belter of a weekend. Jubes and I squeezed a lot into a short and precious period of time. I feared it was going to go belly up for a moment however: Joelle's body clock is all over the shop as she doesn't work. On Saturday morning she was sleeping in and I worried about how much of our short weekend we were going to lose to Captain Snooze. Then I remembered that we weren't in a relationship and I had no obligation to stay! Oh the miracle of being single and lonely and having forgotten what affection is!
So I told her I was off to find this temple I'd read about in Lonely Planet and I'd catch her at lunch. They made it sound like a real mission to find but that it was worth every bit of effort. I later discovered that only one of these statements were true. It was indeed a true gem and a genuine nugget of Buddhist beauty; one of those rare "so-not-everything-in-Korea-is-draining-of-spirit-then" moments.
Seokbulsa temple is tucked up in the mountains of Geumjeong park. I took the cable car to the top of the mountain, followed the signs to South Gate, then followed the directions of Lonely Planet down a ridiculously steep mountainside, then up another one. There was of course a much simpler, unpublished way of getting there just on the other side.
On the mountaintop I meditated. Fancy that. Me, in a foreign country, meditating in the epicentre of a remote and beautiful Buddhist temple perched on a mountaintop. I need these reminders. Meditation is what saved me after all.
Then I was accosted by a group of about 12 middle school girls who acted as if I was the 2nd or 3rd native English speaker they had met. Possibly true. I heard them coming and shuddered. By the end of our acquaintance I had cheered up enormously and wished I been placed somewhere outside of Bundang, where you can find these kids that delight in asking simple questions to foreigners. My students are all jaded and fed up with English this and English that. I don't really blame them. These girls did all the cliched things: asked where I was from and did I like Korea (a little white lying never hurt anyone eh?) and could they touch the hair on my forearm. I forget how hairy I am in comparison to Korean men. The other day I stretched in class and my midriff was exposed.
"Teacher you look like chimpanzee" was the call from the back.
"Like A chimpanzee, whoever that was" the reply.
Haeundae Beach, where Joelle and I watched the people and talked about stuff for an afternoon, before starting the walk over to Gwanganli, only to realise it was much too far and that we should just get a taxi to Jagalchi fish market.
This is Joelle! She's about to tuck into an oyster at Jagalchi. We have our differences but seem able to talk about them without me getting too shirty. We've gone on two trips together now and we're still friends. Actually she's a wonderful person and one of the 3 or 4 here in Korea that have truly made life better for me over here.
At Jagalchi I ate a few live octopus tentacles and survived. They were wriggling around on my chopsticks and stuck to my tongue as I tried to grind them up with my teeth. It's funny how the claim of the just-landed - "I'd never eat that" - becomes "Yeah sure" just like that. The deal is, you walk around the bottom floor checking out all of the fish in their tanks and then select from your chosen vendor which one you'd like to eat. Sometimes they don't even kill it for you which kind of makes the service charge a rort but other times (like when we were there) you get to watch the vendor chop off its head and blood spurt all over him and I believe that is included in the service charge.
This little gem was just near Busan station. To paraphrase Tony Martin's joke, I believe you get a 50% discount on your room if you can prove it actually exists.
My Chinese trip hangs in the balance now as the new principal overturned something I had organised with my manager 2 months ago (specifically to avoid this happening). Her power within the school overrules whatever my contract might say. This Friday she will tell us if we can begin winter camp on December 27, as we already planned, or if she wants to shift it to the middle of January and ruin my plans.
And my 6-4 class went haywire too. And they did it the moment my co-teacher walked out of the room too. After I'd said my piece, and sent them packing, 4 students came to apologise to me in my staffroom. "Is there anything you want us to do to make it better?" they said. I think they had candy in mind. God knows, but that's how it is over here. Angry people are placated with chocolates and other items of food. I however, actually want them to change. Their attitude is rubbish. That's why I repeatedly ask them for their attention, and say they shouldn't do this, or that, or whatever. Do I want anything? Yes - change your behaviour. That request has always be the same.
I think this generation of Korean kids has been raised on a collection of electronic items that don't get shitty if you ignore them and they therefore struggle to change their attitudes for the classroom, where there is a real human being at the front. They often seem genuinely repentant if they realise they've pissed off the teacher; the problem being that I have to change the tone of my voice or shout to grab their attention in the first place. Anyway, I'm no longer angry. It must be the wine from HomePlus.
A shitty class and a crappy employer. Big dicking deal.
On this weekend past I travelled with the lovely Joelle to South Korea's second (or third perhaps) largest city. It is in the south east of the country and is home to the 5th largest port in the world (what is this obsession with the size of things?). Gyeongsan-do province has historically been one the rich provinces, along with Gyeonggi-do, where I am. That makes for a kind of northwest-southeast line of traffic in the country. We booked for the 7:03PM Seoul-Busan KTX (very fast train) on Friday night, which reduces the 379 km journey to a mere 2 and a half hours. Between Daejeon and Daegu the train noticeably picks up speed and is said to reach a top of 300 km/h. Outside of those areas it goes alright too, but just at the speed of a normal intercity train. Even so, it doesn't take long to traverse this country.
Once again my camera was shitting itself for the big occasion so I didn't record the magnificence of the weekend in all its...magnificence? Truth is, it was an absolute belter of a weekend. Jubes and I squeezed a lot into a short and precious period of time. I feared it was going to go belly up for a moment however: Joelle's body clock is all over the shop as she doesn't work. On Saturday morning she was sleeping in and I worried about how much of our short weekend we were going to lose to Captain Snooze. Then I remembered that we weren't in a relationship and I had no obligation to stay! Oh the miracle of being single and lonely and having forgotten what affection is!
So I told her I was off to find this temple I'd read about in Lonely Planet and I'd catch her at lunch. They made it sound like a real mission to find but that it was worth every bit of effort. I later discovered that only one of these statements were true. It was indeed a true gem and a genuine nugget of Buddhist beauty; one of those rare "so-not-everything-in-Korea-is-draining-of-spirit-then" moments.
Seokbulsa temple is tucked up in the mountains of Geumjeong park. I took the cable car to the top of the mountain, followed the signs to South Gate, then followed the directions of Lonely Planet down a ridiculously steep mountainside, then up another one. There was of course a much simpler, unpublished way of getting there just on the other side.
On the mountaintop I meditated. Fancy that. Me, in a foreign country, meditating in the epicentre of a remote and beautiful Buddhist temple perched on a mountaintop. I need these reminders. Meditation is what saved me after all.
Then I was accosted by a group of about 12 middle school girls who acted as if I was the 2nd or 3rd native English speaker they had met. Possibly true. I heard them coming and shuddered. By the end of our acquaintance I had cheered up enormously and wished I been placed somewhere outside of Bundang, where you can find these kids that delight in asking simple questions to foreigners. My students are all jaded and fed up with English this and English that. I don't really blame them. These girls did all the cliched things: asked where I was from and did I like Korea (a little white lying never hurt anyone eh?) and could they touch the hair on my forearm. I forget how hairy I am in comparison to Korean men. The other day I stretched in class and my midriff was exposed.
"Teacher you look like chimpanzee" was the call from the back.
"Like A chimpanzee, whoever that was" the reply.
Haeundae Beach, where Joelle and I watched the people and talked about stuff for an afternoon, before starting the walk over to Gwanganli, only to realise it was much too far and that we should just get a taxi to Jagalchi fish market.
This is Joelle! She's about to tuck into an oyster at Jagalchi. We have our differences but seem able to talk about them without me getting too shirty. We've gone on two trips together now and we're still friends. Actually she's a wonderful person and one of the 3 or 4 here in Korea that have truly made life better for me over here.
At Jagalchi I ate a few live octopus tentacles and survived. They were wriggling around on my chopsticks and stuck to my tongue as I tried to grind them up with my teeth. It's funny how the claim of the just-landed - "I'd never eat that" - becomes "Yeah sure" just like that. The deal is, you walk around the bottom floor checking out all of the fish in their tanks and then select from your chosen vendor which one you'd like to eat. Sometimes they don't even kill it for you which kind of makes the service charge a rort but other times (like when we were there) you get to watch the vendor chop off its head and blood spurt all over him and I believe that is included in the service charge.
This little gem was just near Busan station. To paraphrase Tony Martin's joke, I believe you get a 50% discount on your room if you can prove it actually exists.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Constant Cravings
I've just discovered kd lang. I know, her breakthrough "Constant Craving" was released 19 years ago now, but I've always been slow on the pop music front. My verdict? She's terrific! And she sings about difficulties in love mostly, which is a fitting backdrop to this Sunday evening's blogging, as I am thinking about how everything I do in this sphere invariably turns out all wrong in the end.
The sickness has lingered for 2 weeks now. It's as much of a get-me-out-of-Korea-and-get-me-out-now sickness as it is the common flu. I'm suddenly repulsed by this place. The people. The staring. The food. The school lunches. The congestion. The congestion on the subway. On the footpath. In shops. In HomePlus. Everywhere but in my apartment. The rudeness. The hurriedness-to-get-nowhere. Slow people who don't get out of the way. The fashions. Seohyeon. My phone. HomePlus. Especially HomePlus. Seaweed. Rows and rows of seaweed. The scarcity of cheese. What they think a "sandwich" is. How they call it a "sandwichy." What they do to bread. (Why don't you just stick shit through my letterbox?) The absence of pubs. The way people give you a menu when you go out for a drink. The traffic. Especially the traffic. That and HomePlus. HomePlus is only over the road but you can guarantee I'll almost get squashed on the way. Even with the green man. I HAD THE GREEN MAN!!!
The guy watching me put my recycling out. The family watching me check my letterbox. The 70 somethings by the river watching me exercise. The food. The stomach cramps. The way I can't even eat toast anymore without experiencing pains. The bottled water. The drunk and crying men at the chicken hof underneath my window at night. Anyone who drives. People who walk at the same time as me. Foreigners. Foreigners who act like Korea is one big college party. Foreigners who love everything Korean the minute they arrive. The way my co teacher expects me to read her mind, after weeks of next to no communication. The way people think soju is just "fun." The way people believe every food increases "virility and stamina." The way some people extend this believe even to soju. Especially when it's the drunken crying man at the chicken hof, who doesn't look virile at all but rather like a drunken late middle aged taxi driver.
The way work has become a God. The neglect of children. The way children are forced to study. The way the volume of study they do robs them of their childhoods. The neglect of wives. The neglect of families in favour of work and social climbing. The way this creates legions of bitter middle aged women. The way they then make being a pedestrian much harder than it should be.
The author points the finger for all his maladies - past and present - fairly and squarely at the ROK.
Yesterday I spent the day at a place called Seodaemun, in the west of Seoul, with travelling buddy Sarah. As keen history students, we both had the desire to investigate the Seodaemun Prison History Hall. This structure was used by both Koreans and Japanese over the 20th Century for incarcerating dissidents to their respective regimes. As the Japanese annexed the peninsula in 1910 they locked up anyone suspected of fomenting rebellion in their new territory. Many Korean nationalists met their deaths in this gory complex. We were able to see the solitary confinement chambers and the execution building - the one part of the complex off limits to photography. We also witnessed the original torture chambers and some techniques which gave me some good ideas for the classroom.
One of the rows of cells at Seodaemun
The new Seoul looks down onto the old. In fact, from the tops of these residential towers it's possible to see down into the old execution house. The willow on the left became famous as martyrs being lead to their death would often grip the tree and cry out in grievance that their land had not yet been freed. In 1992, a passageway was discovered behind the execution building. It had been used by the Japanese to secretly remove the bodies so as to conceal the amount of prisoners they were killing.
I feel that any historical site like this loses its atmosphere when you are competing for the space with a legion of screaming schoolkids who have been forced to tear themselves away from the xbox on a Saturday. It was nonetheless a beautiful Autumn day and the sun shone warmly on us. Looking at the trees and enjoying this more open and less hectic part of Seoul were the highlights for me. Also was spending time with Sarah, and then meeting up with Lianne and Joelle in Itaewon (the foreigners' punching quarter) for some Thai food later in the evening. Every now and then we relive our Thai holiday together.
The author bites down on the straw of his Long Island Iced Tea so as to distract himself from negative thoughts. On the left, all stylish with lovely new hairstyle - Joelle. On the right, my easygoing and lovable Canadian travel pal - Sarah.
Next weekend I go to Busan with Joelle which should be lovely!
The sickness has lingered for 2 weeks now. It's as much of a get-me-out-of-Korea-and-get-me-out-now sickness as it is the common flu. I'm suddenly repulsed by this place. The people. The staring. The food. The school lunches. The congestion. The congestion on the subway. On the footpath. In shops. In HomePlus. Everywhere but in my apartment. The rudeness. The hurriedness-to-get-nowhere. Slow people who don't get out of the way. The fashions. Seohyeon. My phone. HomePlus. Especially HomePlus. Seaweed. Rows and rows of seaweed. The scarcity of cheese. What they think a "sandwich" is. How they call it a "sandwichy." What they do to bread. (Why don't you just stick shit through my letterbox?) The absence of pubs. The way people give you a menu when you go out for a drink. The traffic. Especially the traffic. That and HomePlus. HomePlus is only over the road but you can guarantee I'll almost get squashed on the way. Even with the green man. I HAD THE GREEN MAN!!!
The guy watching me put my recycling out. The family watching me check my letterbox. The 70 somethings by the river watching me exercise. The food. The stomach cramps. The way I can't even eat toast anymore without experiencing pains. The bottled water. The drunk and crying men at the chicken hof underneath my window at night. Anyone who drives. People who walk at the same time as me. Foreigners. Foreigners who act like Korea is one big college party. Foreigners who love everything Korean the minute they arrive. The way my co teacher expects me to read her mind, after weeks of next to no communication. The way people think soju is just "fun." The way people believe every food increases "virility and stamina." The way some people extend this believe even to soju. Especially when it's the drunken crying man at the chicken hof, who doesn't look virile at all but rather like a drunken late middle aged taxi driver.
The way work has become a God. The neglect of children. The way children are forced to study. The way the volume of study they do robs them of their childhoods. The neglect of wives. The neglect of families in favour of work and social climbing. The way this creates legions of bitter middle aged women. The way they then make being a pedestrian much harder than it should be.
The author points the finger for all his maladies - past and present - fairly and squarely at the ROK.
Yesterday I spent the day at a place called Seodaemun, in the west of Seoul, with travelling buddy Sarah. As keen history students, we both had the desire to investigate the Seodaemun Prison History Hall. This structure was used by both Koreans and Japanese over the 20th Century for incarcerating dissidents to their respective regimes. As the Japanese annexed the peninsula in 1910 they locked up anyone suspected of fomenting rebellion in their new territory. Many Korean nationalists met their deaths in this gory complex. We were able to see the solitary confinement chambers and the execution building - the one part of the complex off limits to photography. We also witnessed the original torture chambers and some techniques which gave me some good ideas for the classroom.
One of the rows of cells at Seodaemun
The new Seoul looks down onto the old. In fact, from the tops of these residential towers it's possible to see down into the old execution house. The willow on the left became famous as martyrs being lead to their death would often grip the tree and cry out in grievance that their land had not yet been freed. In 1992, a passageway was discovered behind the execution building. It had been used by the Japanese to secretly remove the bodies so as to conceal the amount of prisoners they were killing.
I feel that any historical site like this loses its atmosphere when you are competing for the space with a legion of screaming schoolkids who have been forced to tear themselves away from the xbox on a Saturday. It was nonetheless a beautiful Autumn day and the sun shone warmly on us. Looking at the trees and enjoying this more open and less hectic part of Seoul were the highlights for me. Also was spending time with Sarah, and then meeting up with Lianne and Joelle in Itaewon (the foreigners' punching quarter) for some Thai food later in the evening. Every now and then we relive our Thai holiday together.
The author bites down on the straw of his Long Island Iced Tea so as to distract himself from negative thoughts. On the left, all stylish with lovely new hairstyle - Joelle. On the right, my easygoing and lovable Canadian travel pal - Sarah.
Next weekend I go to Busan with Joelle which should be lovely!
Monday, November 8, 2010
Drugs
I forgot the stories I heard about the quantity of drugs Korean doctors prescribe for common things like colds and flus. This was the handful I received this afternoon (3 times daily, 3 days running) after complaining of a cough, chills and a headache.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Foolish
There hasn't yet been a moment on this trip when I've wanted to pack it in and come home immediately, but right now is about as close as I've come to that. There's nothing like common or garden flu like symptoms to tip one into homesickness. I spent the weekend surrounded by snotty tissues breathing the stale air of my flat wondering when I would next have to go to the Mini Stop downstairs for some more bottled water. On the upside I got to watch a few episodes of the classic BBC / David Attenborough series "Life On Earth," which is a decades-old televisual feast in the same vein as Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" and Jacob Bronowski's "The Ascent of Man" that, looking at today's offerings, makes me wonder where television went wrong after demonstrating such promise earlier on in the piece!
Anyway, I've finally given in and will see a doctor this arvo. My manager is coming with me. She has a son fighting with the American Army in Iraq. Apparently she and her husband think I look like him and have made that connection to go the extra mile to help me, ie, looking after me will help them to feel easier about their son fighting someone else's war in a middle eastern hell hole. I never use that sort of language around her of course. I've met the guy and he's, well, young and naive. And there's all this talk about him becoming a man in the army. And stuff.
There's nothing like teaching to drain you of whatever resources you started the day with. "Yes! I can get through the day" soon becomes "Shit! How many more to go?" in the break between first and second periods. I am officially sick and tired of Korean food and I wish I was sunbathing on Koh Samui or somewhere equally exotic right now. There was a night I bobbed effortlessly in the tropical ocean, I looked up at the stars and the lanterns floating over from BoPhut Beach, then back at the decorations on shore - twinkling lights wrapped around a half dozen palm trees - I think I've written about it earlier, and I thought "this is the image I will carry with me!"
Backpacking in China in Winter - a fool's desire?
Anyway, I've finally given in and will see a doctor this arvo. My manager is coming with me. She has a son fighting with the American Army in Iraq. Apparently she and her husband think I look like him and have made that connection to go the extra mile to help me, ie, looking after me will help them to feel easier about their son fighting someone else's war in a middle eastern hell hole. I never use that sort of language around her of course. I've met the guy and he's, well, young and naive. And there's all this talk about him becoming a man in the army. And stuff.
There's nothing like teaching to drain you of whatever resources you started the day with. "Yes! I can get through the day" soon becomes "Shit! How many more to go?" in the break between first and second periods. I am officially sick and tired of Korean food and I wish I was sunbathing on Koh Samui or somewhere equally exotic right now. There was a night I bobbed effortlessly in the tropical ocean, I looked up at the stars and the lanterns floating over from BoPhut Beach, then back at the decorations on shore - twinkling lights wrapped around a half dozen palm trees - I think I've written about it earlier, and I thought "this is the image I will carry with me!"
Backpacking in China in Winter - a fool's desire?
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