The Japanese: Assheads (I knew it!)

Not much going on here in the land of...err..kimchi (I don't think Korea has any cool names like Land of The Rising Sun or something of that ilk), but thought I would just post some amusing tidbits from the past several days. The title refers to some rather interesting discussions with my middle schoolers over the weekend. Now coming into Saturday I was pondering where I stood on this Japan vs. Korea debate. Usually I side with the Koreans since they've been terribly friendly and helpful to me, but every once in a while I think, "Wait, I completely understand why the Japanese hate these motherfuckers". Saturday saw me straddling the fence on the issue until my students made my decision quite easy. We were doing writing, so I gave them the question, "Where in the world do you want to visit and why?", and asked them to brainstorm and then write about. Well, my oddball (that's an understatement) best student from my regular classes was here and his writing was...interesting. For his destination he chose Japan. For one of his reasons he put "destroy", and the attached ideas (I had them use a bubble/web brainstorm structure) were "bomb", "war", "magic power", "nuclear", "for the world", and my personal fave, "for my pleasure". Now most teachers and sane human beings would have been (and probably should have been appalled) by this, but being the terrible person I am, I just laughed and egged him on. Another student was thinking along the same lines, as he asked the high level student for the word "assassinate" in English so he could say that he wants to assassinate the president of Japan. He was not without a heart, as he liked sushi and "was worried about if there will still be sushi after Japan falls". See, they can show compassion towards those evil Japs. "Crazy Boy" as he is called by all (and I mean all) of the other students at school, kept the hate train a rollin' when he moved from brainstorming to writing. His plan was to assassinate the president, turn Japan into a Korean colony, make peace with Japan, then follow this up by completely wiping Japan off the map. An interesting strategy, make peace, then wipe them off the map. The crown jewel was his description of what would happen to the Japanese and then then the rambling afterwards: "I will throw the Japanese to the sun. I will send them to hell. God damn it." Every once in a long while, a student will throw out some English that is unusual and not normal for a native speaker, but sounds beautiful to my ear. The line about throwing the Japanese to the sun is such a line. The hate didn't hold to just Saturday, as he spent all of the lunch period on Monday compiling a list of why Japan sucks which goes something like this: "I hate the Japanese because they are assheads (not shitting you he had written assheads), stinky, dirty, smelly, criminals, beggars, insane, mentally challenged, stupid, weak, ugly, monsters, etc (the list went on with more english words for some time after that)". I don't know where the hell he got asshead from, but it made my day. I wanted to keep the copy of the writing to show to the Japanese fans out there (mainly just Collin), but he wanted it for himself. Probably so he could put it up on the fridge at home. Sorry Brian, but they don't really have much to say about China. Hope you don't feel left out. I'm hoping this prompts Collin to give me some good examples of Korean hate so I can nod and say, "Yeah, that sounds about right", but I'm assuming that the Japanese don't really give two shits about Korea. Ohhh Korea, so delightfully oblivious to your own global insignificance. Sometimes I laugh to myself when a student asks me if I've heard of some Korean band or actor. Kid, most people in the US and around the world don't even know where the fuck Korea is, let alone some obscure band or actor. Here ignorance is not only bliss, it's a way of life. Although, that sounds a lot like home, come to think of it.

The Noraebang: FINALLY!!!

I'm had a pretty amusing last couple of days, which is kinda incredible since nothing ever happens during the week. The fun began last night after school when all the teachers traveled to downtown Yangpyeong to check out some art gallery where the science teacher had some pictures that were being displayed. I'm assuming it was a solidarity/camaraderie sort of thing, so we all played the role of someone who gives two shits about a photo art exhibit. Some of the photos were pretty cool, as I'm a sucker for landscape/scenery shots. I wasn't the biggest fan of the science teacher's pictures since he opted for the deep shot of some old ladies chatting at the Yongmun bus depot and some young monks at the local Buddhist temple. The old ladies one particularly bothered me since I'm usually terrified or at least creeped out by the really old, shriveled old folks. I mean come on, if you are so hunched over that your upper body is parallel to the ground when you walk (no joke here), you gotta have both feet in the grave and you are just patiently waiting for someone to show up with a shovel to finish the job. The US has the decency to herd their prunes all together in one place, but here they are free to roam and terrorize the countryside. After the art gallery, I was swept away to one of the town's seafood restaurants for what may have been a celebration dinner for the science teacher. Perhaps it was just an excuse to get drunk. I'm leaning towards the latter. As soon as we show up I'm swept over to the principal who has decided that I will sit directly across from him and be his drinking buddy. It's also funny to interact with him cuz he's just a drunk old man who knows no English, except for "My son...Chicago". He's got that one fucking down. Well, when my principal tells me to drink soju and to take the entire shot, I can't really say no. Plus I'm twice this guys size, so I'm definitely gonna be able to take him, alcoholic bonuses withstanding. The female teachers around me started to get a bit worried, as they occasionally leaned over and would tell me "Slowly, slowly". I knew full well that the principal would lose track of when I was and wasn't drinking at some point and then I could slow down. The culinary highlight of the dinner was freshly killed octopus. And I mean fresh as the the tentacles were still wriggling and squirming on the plate, even 20 minutes after being delivered. After the dinner and drinking it was off to the noraebang for the whole school staff. I was again made to sing "Let It Be" and "Yesterday". Thank god I like those songs otherwise this shit would get old really fast. Other highlights included the discovery that the gym teacher is the worst dancer ever and more up close time with the principal. The other teachers were just falling out of their chairs after watching him try to bust a move. It reminded me of all the awesome moves that we used to break out at West dances. You know, like "washing dishes" or "the lawnmower", only this was just plain bad instead of awesomely bad. The principal and I got even closer as he sat down next to me, clearly drunk and kinda out of it, and began patting me on the lap, which was obviously weird. I just sat there thinking, "Okay, whatever it takes to get on my principal's good side so when I go and ask him for certain days off over vacation he will say yes". I did it for you Alyse. Hopefully I shouldn't have any problems in getting him to approve me going on vacation when Alyse comes. I feel like my nose is sufficiently covered in shit.

Today was alot of the same as I was invited, at no cost to me, out to dinner, this time with just one of the teachers. She is this sweet lady who is basically my Korean mom, as she is always worrying about how I'm eating and how I'm getting to school and other mom like worries. She has a middle schooler and high schooler of her own, so this mothering thing isn't new. Dinner was delicious and the after dinner noraebanging was equally delicious. The interesting part was the interaction with the teacher's friends who also came to dinner. Now having dinner with 3 middle aged Korean women is weird enough for me, but what one lady did took it a step further. When I first met her she was really excited and started moving towards me. Now this caught me by surprise since pretty much all Koreans just settle for the polite bow from a safe distance, so I assumed that she was moving in for a western handshake that a small number of Koreans will do. Not even close. She reaches out and grabs my hand for the handshake, but she keeps going in for a full time hug. Yeah, I was shocked. Koreans just don't fucking hug. No ifs, ands, or buts. As if the hug weren't enough, it felt like her hands went a little lower than they probably should have. Granted, she is much smaller than me, so her hands reach around at a lower height than I'm used to but still it felt might low. My suspicions were confirmed at our departure. I went in for the polite, but not really making any kind of body contact hug (the I'm gonna hug you but I really don't want to hug), while she countered with a real hug. This time there was no doubt as she clearly went downstairs and got a solid handful of my posterior. Ohhhh, Korea, what am I gonna do with you?

Hooker Hill (Where Boys become Men, one would assume)

Well, it's been a couple of days since I posted last. Apologies for those that care, but there was absolutely nothing that was worth reporting last week. School commenced per usual. Saturday offered a change of pace as I was slotted to begin my weekend class and then planned to head to Seoul to drink off my frustrations. The composition class actually went better than expected. The kids wrote more sentences with much better grammar than I would have expected. Course, as per usual, I had difficulties with my coteacher. I don't know what it is, but I must give off some vibe that tells the coteachers they can just disappear and go wank in the bathroom for 45 min or so...fuck, I don't have any idea where the lady went. This was a different co-teacher, but with the same result. When she was in the room she sat at the back and said nothing while I tried to explain the ideas behind introduction, body and conclusion. This shit was way over most of the kids heads, but all she did was point out to me that most of the students arent doing anything because they don't understand what I was talking about. No fucking shit, Sherlock. When she said that, I really just wanted to clock this lady in the teeth and then stand over her while she deals with her injuries and yell at her to do her god damn job. What was worse was that she just left for one of the 3 45 minute sessions. The kids were just as frustrating at times. When I asked them to brainstorm and then write about the given question, which was purposely easy for them, they just sat there braindead. The question was "Who is your favorite singer and why?". After several minutes of seeing blank papers with not a word on it, I asked some of the students, "Who is your favorite singer?". Their response: "I don't know" or even better "Uhhh...uhhh...pass." WHAT??????? I was ready to pull my hair out at one point, but thankfully there was Chicago. Chicago is the regularly used name for a particular 8th grader who lived in the US for 4 years (from 5th grade to 8th grade). Guess where he lived? His English is absolutely amazing given his peers' levels. Honestly, this kid speaks much better English than my co-teacher. I was absolutely blown away when he entered the room and I handed him the sheet to work with and he responded immediately with "What do you want me to do with this?" in beautiful English. I also about fell over when he threw out the word synonym in the proper situation. His parents just moved him to the US when he was younger and had absolutely no English abiiity, but was thrown into US schools. Poor kid was telling me how he didn't wanna come back to Korea for school. Even they realize that the school system blows nuts here.

Thankfully, that "experience" ended and I was free to jump the train to Seoul and actually enjoy my weekend. I met up with Jethro and we headed to Itaewon for Mexican food (FUCK YEAH!!!!) at one of the many foreign restaurants there. I'm really sick of the lack of variety of food here in Korea. If you don't want Korean food, your "choices", if you can even call them that, consist of pizza, fried chicken (think KFC), or shitty burgers at Lotteria. I was absolutely dying for an enchilada, and even though it was pretty small portions and kinda pricey, it was heaven sent. After dinner it was off to Hongdae to hit up the bars with the rest of the Madison crew. Sorry guys, but no Korean women encounters this time. We spent the majority of our time trying to find HO Bar 3 (there are about 6 or 7 HO Bars), cuz I guess its a happening place, but in the end we had to settle for Luxury HO Bar, which was really slow. Drinking did commence regardless, and over the course of an entire bottle of Jim Beam for the 4 of us, I was subjected to an intense grilling session on the nature of my relationship to this "female friend" that is coming to visit over winter break. Uggg, just what I wanted to talk about: me and my personal issues. Although I was shocked to find out that they assumed I wasn't a virgin. They said it was because of the ease and frequency in which I talk about sex and porn. Where I come from, that's a screaming alarm as to who isn't getting any (see Rounds, Collin, basically everyone in our group). I just assumed that if you were getting any, you wouldn't spend all your time talking about handlebars (Jason, you dirty bastard), stonewalling, angry dragons, Cleveland steamers and everything in between. Man, I fucking miss those conversations. Ohh, I guess they also thought I wasn't a virgin because I wanted to walk up Hooker Hill in Itaewon (and did). Sure enough, there were the Asian hookers poking their faces out of their doorways to entice (well, try) me. They didn't break out any of the classic "Sucky, Sucky, 5 dollars" and such lines. Their English was too good. Although I did laugh when one of the ladies of the night starting slapping on her thigh like you do when you call a dog or pet to try and entice me. It didn't work, but the similarities between dogs and their customers are pretty shocking. I can't say that Korea isn't trying to get me laid. It's just failing, like the United States before it. I certainly applaud the effort though. It's really sweet.

I got a Haircut!!! (And Maria already hates it)

Just finished up my last fun weekend for a couple weeks, as I begin my ridiculous English Composition Saturday class next week, and it was a good one. Let me begin by saying how pleased I am with the foreign teachers in this town. They are such a diverse and hilarious group. First, we have Stuart from Scotland. Man, what a disgusting and thus entertaining human being. It's like I'm back hanging out with Jason and his dirty mind, cept now Jason speaks in a Scottish accent, which makes him almost better than the original (not quite though...nobody does it quite like Big Sexy). I hadn't realized how much I missed incredibly un-PC humor. God, he and I must have talked about the ins and outs (....) of bidets for almost 15 minutes the other night. You simply cannot get that kind of stuff from Koreans, regardless of their English ability, as they are pretty boring and tame with their humor. Stuart was also the one who informed that Yangpyeong's major industry beyond tourism is cheap love-motels. I had wondered why there were so many hotels in such a small town. Now I know: they are the getaway locations for Seoul business men and their mistresses/secretaries. I assume the put all the hotels along the Hangang so the couple could admire the river while they talked about business matters. That is what happens at the motels isn't it? They could talk back at the office, couldn't they? Seems like quite a trip just for business. The other two foreigners of note are Jethro and Bert. Both are a treat for their interesting life stories. Jethro was born in the South, went to the Yale for their graduate music school, got his music doctorate from Michigan St, is a classically trained bassoonist, has traveled all across Europe performing and has taught music at various levels. Bert has traveled numerous times across Asia, most notably Thailand, and has many things to tell. Tonight at dinner we candidly discussed the sticky details (nice) of the Bangkok prostitution business. I learned about the really cheap massages, the titty baths (suffice it to say....I want one), and about everything else about hookers in Thailand. He also informed me that many of these cheap love motels here in Korea have dildo vending machines in the stairwells. Interesting. The English company is too my liking. Anyways, yesterday Jethro and I, for lue of anything better to do, hoped the train to Seoul to see what we could see. Our first stop took us to Seoul's largest bookstore, Kyobo, where we picked up some materials for learning Korean. I, being the language learner who likes boring, chose the book of 500 basic verbs and their conjugations. Awesome, now I know the verb for to bloom or blossom. Good thing too, for as much as I love to talk about flowers and plants. After that we headed to Itaewon. Now I know I said that I had little interest in returning to a place with so many whiteys, but that was before I found out that they have Mexican, Indian, Italian, and Thai restaurants and they don't suck. Now I don't miss American food in the least but I do miss the variety of ethnic restaurants available (well I guess not Italian....sorry Rounds, Italy's just not that good). We ventured to Itaewon this time however, on a mission to get a haircut. We suceeded in getting haircuts, though mine was not what I was hoping for. However, my dislike with the cut was easily fixed as she simply left the hair too long in front and it looked a little like a shitty Korean haircut, so I cut off a little more by myself. Which was pointless, as Maria already hates it even though she has yet to see it and probably doesn't even know I've gotten a haircut yet. I assume that as soon as my haircut was finished, she probably woke from her sleep (it would have been the wee morning hours back in Madison), yelled something about how fucking hideous Wallin's haircut looks, then went back to bed. I'm sorry Maria, but not all of us can look as good as you or be as fucking perfect at everything as you are. I have to deal with what I'm given, flaws and all. I hope you can understand and appreciate my situation, given that you've clearly never had any personal experience with "flaws", you know, being perfect and all. With the haircuts out of the way, we were free to move onwards to Dondaemun Market, THE place to find whatever you are looking for for really cheap. Everything here is sold wholesale and it is dirt cheap. Shoes, clothes, books, and bedding were just a few of the specified markets we found. To give you an idea of the prices here, we found a stand selling dress pants, cordoroy, jeans, etc. for 10,000 won, which with the exchange rate now, is less than $10 dollars, maybe closer to 8 dollars now. They even had shoes and clothes in my size here. Huzzah! What really got me going was when we headed to the underground sports market. And by sports they mean soccer jersey stores. Ohhh happy day. Store after store of soccer jerseys from Serie A, La Liga, the Primer League, you name it. I think Jethro actually asked if I was okay when we wandered through there as I must have been getting a little choked up or something.

Today was fun of a different type as the soccer club had a friendly match, which means I could actually play. We left the house at 7 am and headed to Okcheon, some small town about 10 minutes from downtown as they have a nice grass/turf field to play on. And while I loved playing, the results were a bit less than expected. Apparantly, the standard procedure for friendlies is to have a completely different squad for each half, like hockey, so no one gets really worn out. In the first game, I got stuck with all the older and suckier players (only one of the other players actually played at all in the previous tourney), so absolutely nothing good happened. They insist on sticking me at forward, so I could only watch as we got steamrolled 4-0 at half, lost our goalie to injury, and just sucked all around. I got complimented at half for being the best player, to which I thought, "Of fucking course, I'm not a terrible soccer player". The second game went much better, as I played the whole game (we had lost so many of the old fogies aka everyone else to injury that they had no one else to sub for me, which I was completely okay with). I managed to score and assist 2 of our 3 goals. Sadly, our defense sucked again and we gave up 5. All this scoring happened in the first half, mind you. I did impress/interest the crowd, as I had a couple of of the big wigs (more on this in a bit) yelling "ishipsam, ishipsam, ishipsam" to get my attention (its Korean for 23, my number). Once they got my attention, they began explaining to me how to better position myself through furious hand gestures. The big wig issue is something that annoys the hell out of me with Korean soccer club games. In between the 2 and 3 games of the day (there were about 8 teams there, all playing two games), we had a break so they could have the county administrator for soccer and the various city administrators give speeches and just go through some completely bullshit pomp and circumstance. I'm sorry, I'm just not a fan of bowing and shaking the other teams hands before the game, bowing and presenting yourself to the big wigs, shaking hands after the game, and bowing to the opposing team's fans after the game. My view on how soccer should be played is probably best illustrated by the fact that my favorite player is Wayne Rooney, who has a reputation for stomping on opponents genitals with his cleats after what he deemed was a dirty challenge. There is no place for civility in soccer, especially not here, as these guys pull jerseys and hack at ankles and take horrible challenges with the best of 'em. I've never been on the receiving end of one of these awful challenges while my Korean teammates get hacked 3 or 4 times a game (we honestly had six or seven players get injured like this just today). I'm assuming that it's because I'm a foreigner, just some animal that's liable to go off on these little bastards if they wrong me. If that is the case then I'm honored. Thank you ever so much Korea. Ohh, and Korea....I will eat your babies if you fuck with me. Just saying.

Wow

Okay, so I just submitted the last post and realized that I never actually mentioned the part with reference to the kids. They have been ridiculous with the shit that spills out of their mouths. A favorite of mine was when the kids were prompted to complete a sentence given "He's poor so...". One of the kid's sentences was He's poor so he said "Show me the money". Wonderful. I laughed so hard that my gut started hurting. It could have been an ulcer, but it was probably the laughter. Also, my best student told me just the other day that he made a time machine when he was younger and that he, Kim Young Rok, invented the light bulb, not Edison. He also told me he wrote a opera when he was younger. I may have already posted about this last time, but I really don't read what I'm writing, as you might have guessed by the scatterbrained manner of delivery, so I'm not sure. Sorry.

Kids Say the Darndest Things: Korea Edition

Not much happening this week, but there were some highlights that I felt like recapping. First off, obviously was the presidential election. Honestly it was shocking the amount of coverage that Obama got post victory. My kids were asking and all the teachers were talking about it. Granted all I could understand was Obama (ahahhahyo ahejbeyneda aheueofyo Obamaga), but they were definitely talking about him. I also now realize that anyone who isn't in Korea won't understand the joke in my Korean gibberish. Ohhh well. His election due more light to the racism that exists here in Korea, as some of my kids asked if I like Obama and when I told them I do they would respond with "But Obama black?", obviously confused why I would vote for someone with black skin when McCain has white skin. For the most part though they were very curious to know about Obama, which sucks for me since I know almost nothing about him. It's a shame I don't speak Korean otherwise I would've learned a ton about him last night when one of the news channels showed a biography of Obama for about 3 hours or so. It's amazing to think about how much influence the US has on the global stage. I assumed on some level, as I'm sure most do, that by coming to Korea I would be able to escape the US in some way. Was I wrong. I should have known better since Koreans assume that all white foreign teachers are American, which is fine for me and hilarious for all the Brits, Aussies, Canucks and South Africans (well, hilarious to me, not to them obviously).
The second event of note was my introduction to the b-boy culture and community. B-boys are what they call practitioners of break dancing here in Korea. I knew coming in that I would have no chance of finding a capoeira group, but I was optimistic about finding a b-boy group and working on my .....oh my god, I've been away for too long. I just blanked on the Portuguese word. Damn it. Anyways, I wandered down to the town gymnasium as I need an indoor venue to practice over the winter, as brick and concrete gets really cold when it's covered in snow. So I wander in and what should appear but 8 or 9 Korean guys motherfucking breaking it down. I found a quiet corner and started doing my own thing, but eventually I caught their eye and they asked what I was doing and if I would demonstrate for them. I complied and in doing so probably broke some capoeira unspoken rule, as my performance most certainly didn't bring honor or respect to Omulu Granabara. Sorry guys. At least the solo stuff (handstands, macacus (spelling? sorry), and headstands) has improved since I've been here, as that was what I had to show off. They were impressed and invited me to eat their KFC or whatever chicken, but I had to bail to meet the other foreigners for Obama victory drinks. Hopefully they practice on a regular basis and I can practice with them, as they are much better than me and I can certainly learn a bunch from them. I've got my fingers crossed.

Better late than never: Orientation and the Seoram Mts.

Mother fucking hallelujah! I finally found something to add to the bland and tasteless quantities of goguma (sweet potato). It just so happens that it was an old friend, peanut butter, that I happened to have lying around. This wouldn't be such a huge breakthrough if I didn't have boxes of the shit sitting out on my porch. It's gotta be eaten. Otherwise today was interesting for the amusing interactions with some of my kids. My conversation with my best student took a strange turn (mind you, he's a bit weird, which is why I like him so much) when he told me that when he was younger he had built a time machine and travelled back in time to invent the light bulb instead of Edison. Just beautiful. I was also told by another student that he had composed an opera when he was younger, like 9 years old. He also staged a touching wedding ceremony with an eraser, but then couldn't stand to be around her and they began quarreling and fighting. To top that off he created what he called the "genius dance", which basically is walking/dancing around like a puppet on strings, with your legs and arms just kinda flopping around. Man, I love my kids some times. Anyway, on to the meat of this article. I promised I would write about the strange happenings at my Foreign Teacher Orientation workshop and at the Seoram Mts. I did, 2 weeks ago, but my computer saw to it that that venture ended in horrible failure. I've got my fingers crossed for round 2. Let's go back to that time, long ago when things were so much simpler....Well, this week long orientation thingy in Yongin (near Seoul) couldn't have happened at a better time, as I had nearly come to blows with my absurd coteacher. We approached a major shouting match over such things as our differing ideas on how to teach the kids (she couldn't understand the merit of any of my activities, whereas I only have to look at the kids to see how flawed her methods were), as well as my inability to turn in lesson plans for days I didn't actually teach. I've since decided that logic and common sense has no place in the Korean classroom and have made sure to turn in lesson plans regardless of whether I actually taught. The directions given to me by the co-teacher stipulated that I get to the Yangpyeong bus station by 7:30 to meet another foreign teacher, take the bus to Seoul, then hop the subway all the way south to Seongnam to my destination. I, not being a complete idiot, realized this was a horrible route, as I could just take the bus to seongnam for the same price and only ride the subway for 3 stops rather than 18 or so. Plus I would save a couple hours of transport time. Well, Tuesday morning rolled around and forced my hand in that direction anyway. I slept through my alarm and arrived at the station at 8:25, just in time to catch the Seongnam bus. Ooops. I got a call from my coteacher just as soon as I got on the bus, but I didn't pick up because I assumed that she would just start yelling and I knew she probably wouldn't believe me anyways. Several hours later, the entire cavalcade of foreign teachers arrived at the Hyundai Learning Center for our Orientation. See, I assumed we would be staying at a hotel or something but, no, we were in a glorified dormitory. The rules were about the same as well. As soon as we stepped in the door we were bombarded with signs laying down the numerous rules for our stay. No flip-flaps (yeah, they spelled it wrong), shorts, tank-tops, etc. for clothing as we are professional teachers and must conduct ourselves thusly, even at a workshop. Each room has 3 people staying in it, but you are only given one key, so don't lose it. Sound stupid yet? Just wait, it gets better. After a boring introductory lecture, we were informed that there is a midnight no noise curfew of sorts and that we aren't allowed to leave the premises. Plus, there is no booze allowed on the grounds. Well, fuck. What the hell else am I supposed to do to get the nonsense out of my poor head? I guess they put the insane restrictions on us because the last foreign teacher orientation conference there was drunkenness to the upteenth degree. Some folks stole a statue from somewhere and tossed it off the roof. Somebody else vomited in the sauna. Several folks were passed out in the halls. Others wandered into members of the opposite sexes rooms and some pissed on their roomates. Outrageous yes, but in the Korean mindset, if one foreigner of said country does something, then clearly all foreigners of said are guilty of the same crime. That's why all Canadians have to go through a crazy amount of background checks because of one Canuck who buggered a bunch of his male students. They are pretty rascist and closed minded here. To a level that would make an American stand up and say: "That's pretty fucking closed minded". Well, after several hours of propaganda still shit, our group of 15 teachers had had enough and we staged a breakout. So we all wandered off the premises with getting permission first and headed to the closest bar, which was 30 minutes walk away. Eventually we had nearly 50 of the 200 something foreign teachers at this bar, and the Koreans realized that they couldn't stop us from leaving the premises, so they recinded the bullshit. After that first night, the walls seemed to have been broken down and people actually started enjoying themselves. Sure the lectures sucked but we were basically there to build some networks with English speakers here in Korea. At that point I hadn't had a decent conversation in English in around 1 and a half months. I had diarrhea of the mouth in the worst way for the entire time, as I wasn't sure when, if ever, I would be able to chat in English for the remainder of my time here. Met some cool people though, like my roomate Toben from Canada. He'd been here for a year or so, so he was able to relate to me all the best hangouts and places to go for live music and what not. Then there was Gavin from Australia and Jamie from sunny England. What a pair. They found out that they live in the same town, sunny and tropical Uijeongbu (don't ask me, that's what they said...I guess it's the subtropics up there) and they share a common interest in getting ridiculously shit faced. Gavin is at least 45 or so and he didn't come home from the bars on the last day until 6 am. That is how it is done. Ohhh of course, one can't forget the Coetzee siblings, Brynley and Brianna. What a theatrical and absurd pair. They remind me a little of Busha when he's on one of his pompous blowhard bullshit kicks. The stuff that came out of their mouths, hilarious.

Now on to the Seoram Mt. trip. Not anything too crazy here. Mostly just observations and musings on what it means to be a Korean. Now I know every culture has it's weird ticks and issues that other people just don't get. Hell, I don't even understand most of Americans' issues. The Korean ticks though interest me terribly. First off they have absolutely no appreciation for nature and the beauty around them. This may be because they have such abundant beauty right around the back door, but maybe not. Their lack of appreciation was never so apparant as when we reached the peak at the Seoram range. Here we had 360 degrees of breathtaking scenery and what were the Koreans doing? Fighting and clawing to get a picture in front of the stupid little carved sign that says such and such peak, such and such meters. Out of the 100 or so people perched on the peak, I felt like I was the only one actually taking in the remarkable wonder of this area. I was the only one taking pictures of the area, save one other foreigner. What does get them off though, is leaves that have changed color. I mean, they go apeshit for this stuff. Here we are having climbed for 5 or 6 hours to reach the peak and you are stopping to admire a red leaf. They have those back in your town. What the fuck?? Another issue of mine is how they approach the whole climbing thing. I assumed that everbody went through the exertion to reach the peak in order to absorb the sublime nature of the area. Man, was I wrong. I guess Koreans just really like mountain climbing for the exercise. When I reach the top, all I wanna do is lie down and stay here for hours, maybe days, while Koreans stop only to fuel up or empty out and then they are on their way. My biggest observation and confusion with Korea is it's over politeness and yet absolute lack of decorum/manners. I wrongly assumed that a culture so focused on levels of honor and respect, would carry over into common decency towards the fellow man. Man am I an idiot. For all the dignity that they show in certain aspects of life, they are some of the most self-absorbed, selfish, and inconsiderate human beings I've ever come across. When it comes to driving or mountain climbing, they are absolutely ruthless. Here we are walking down the side of a rather steep mountain with very little pathway and we've got Koreans rushing past, pushing their way through, forcing people off the path. Not even the slightest consideration for others (moving off a little to the side to allow someone else to pass by, yielding to someone else), you know the common courtesies. These folks would shove a little kid or feeble grandma off the cliff if it helped them get down faster. I got so sick of their shoving and pushing that I contemplated throwing elbows to get me some space. You should have seen the scuffle to get on the bus to leave the park. You would have thought that we had 10 seconds to live, rather than actually having another empty bus waiting 10 yds away. Course, me trying to throw an elbow wouldn't be much good as the little buggers would just sneak underneath. Man, they are small.

Jimjubangs: It's Naked Time!!

Halloween has come and gone, so it falls on me to recap the wild night time goings-on for those souls not living here in the Orient. Our small group of Madison grads had planned to travel to Seoul on Friday night after hearing about 25,000 won (roughly 25 bucks) for an all you can eat and drink buffet in the Gangnam district. And come Friday evening that was exactly what we did. So after a lengthy train and then subway ride, we 4 arrived at the restaurant and we were not disappointed. The choices available to us were quite simply, in a word, beautiful. They had a large selection of precooked meals varying from beef dishes all the way to shrimp concoctions, as well as beef of many preparations for cooking at the table. They even had several choices of sushi as well as vegetarian options for our resident vegetarian, Carrie. Let's just say it's been a rough 2 months so far for her food wise. They like their meat over here. 'Course the food wasn't really why we were there, obviously. Ohhh yes the booze did rightly flow. Taps of Hite/Cass/OB/don't know they all taste the same (a.k.a. piss water) as well as coolers full of soju were laid to waste by our party of foreign invaders. Now would probably be a good time to explain that all of my cohorts are of the fairer sex, so after a short period of heavy consistent drinking it became obvious to me that my party was, well, pretty drunk. Being the responsible one and knowing the weird shit that Korean men are privy to in regards to women, especially foreign women, I slowed my pace so that at least one of us would be sound of mind (as sound of mind as possible, given its me). At 10:30pm the restaurant closed and we left to find more bars and eventually the noraebangs (karaoke) but not without some parting gifts. We were unable to finish all of our soju, so we simply left with a few unopened bottles hidden in the group's purses. Unfortunately, I left my man purse at home, so we couldn't steal as many bottles away as possible. Don't laugh, I'm just fitting in. The men rock the man purses all over here, even designer labels. Korean men, those words just sound like an oxymoron to me. But that's just me. So, upon leaving the restaurant our group decided to hail a cab and head to the Hongik University area, famous for its bars and clubs. After much drunken discussion, yelling and confusion, we finally managed to snag a cab and headed to Hongik. Immediately upon arriving in Hongik, it became apparent that we first needed to take a pit stop at the jimjubang to settle Carrie down for the night, as she was falling asleep in the cab and promptly deposited her dinner on the sidewalk upon exiting the cab. Now, up till now I have had no experience with the jimjubang, only that which was told to me, "You get naked and sleep with a bunch of other people". Hmm, okay, sounds fine to me. We arrived at our destination, settled Carrie down for the night and then headed back to the streets to find a bar. Not hard, considering every thing in this area is bar. Eventually, we found the exact bar we were looking for and headed down for some drinks. Now I knew that I had to make myself kinda scarce so as not to take away from free drinks provided by the Korean men for my female companions. Especially since one of the girls, Anna, is hell bent on finding herself a Korean man. Why I have no idea. Seems to me that all the likable qualities of Korean men are also found in another group of people: women. Good fashion sense, concern for their appearance, sensitivity, etc. If you wanna be with a woman, well then hell, just go all the way and be with a chick. Don't half ass it. Eventually I became bored with being abandoned by my party, so I, as the picture can attest, did in fact "mingle" with some female Koreans. Not for long at all mind you, as the conversation was...lacking. Sorry guys. No Korean wife just yet. The bar itself was enough of a treat to interest me for the most part as it played only mainstream American rap/hip hop through the speakers. Several hours later, we left with several young Korean males in tow. We wandered the streets, thinking about going to a noraebang, then deciding on street food and then bed at the jimjubang. Somewhere along the way I deposited my dinner on the sidewalk, but thankfully it was not accompanied by the usual falling asleep right where I did my business. Just finish the business and then back on my way. The jimjubang was....an experience. It costs about 8 bucks for 12 hours and it is basically a hotel/bath. You head to the front desk, pay your cash and they give you a key and a pair of pjs. You walk into your respective sexes locker room, take off your shoes and stow them in your locker and then enter into the locker room proper, where you are immediately struck by the nakedness of it. I've never really spent much time in health clubs or the such in the US where people have the possibility of being naked around others, but I'm assuming that they aren't as cool about it as Koreans are. I get in there and the first thing that I notice, well after the naked people, is the unabashed nature of everyone. Just dudes sitting around naked watching tv, not because they have to, but because they can. The locker room had a couple of massaging lounger chairs (I stayed away since it didn't appear like people had to wear clothes while seated, yeah gross), a large tv and some benches for watching it, a barbershop, and the hot tubs and saunas. Well, since it was 3:30 am at this time, I didn't partake in the nakedness, but simply went straight to bed. So into my pjs I slipped and headed downstairs for the coed sleeping area. The sleeping area was just a large open space where people picked up a mattress pad and pillow (if available, I had to search for while for the mattress pad and never got a pillow), then found a corner or something and went to sleep. There were concession stands and tvs and arcade machines for time wasters. I eventually got to sleep, which was kinda difficult given that I had no pillow, was much too long for my pad, the lights were never turned off and I found a cold corner of the place. The next morning I headed for the hot tubs and the saunas and also to embarrass the locals with my comparatively enormous "package". After relaxing in the hot tubs, showering, and emasculating the Koreans (that's gotta be the first time I wasn't on the receiving end of the emasculation; gotta say, I like it), it was time to head home. I met up with some of our party (one girl had to leave early and our early drunk was nowhere to be found...don't worry she made it home fine). We did happen to randomly run into another madison teacher, who just happened to be spending the night at the jimjubang too. Now, remember when I warned you about the weird shit that Korean men pull? Here's a brief example: One of the girls of the party actually woke up with a random Korean man holding her hand, and another woke up with some random guy sharing her mattress pad. Now it should be noted that the pads are barely wide enough to hold one person when they are lying on their back. So this bastard was pretty close. If anyone tries this kinda shit when Alyse visits in December, they are gonna get a fucking earful, at the very least. Which means I need to learn some Korean cusswords. Cultural relations be damned.