Skiing in Korea: Mayhem on the Mt.

It's been about a week, so time for another post about the past week. Surprisingly, shit actually happened in the last week, so there are stories to tell. Wednesday led off the adventures, as all or nearly all of the foreign teachers within Gyeonggi province (GEPIK) were given the day off (cuz that's all it really was, a day off from teaching) to attend a workshop in Seoul. As per usual, it was a waste of time, as the lecture material and advise was unapplicable for the vast majority of teachers. We were blessed to have an actual Korean principal explain to us the finer details of the Korean mindset to help us better understand our co-workers. The shortened version: Korea is different from where you are from. We understand that you have issues with your co-workers, it's not their fault. It's Korean culture. They can't help it. Try to accommodate to them. The beautiful thing about the lecture is that they explicitly tagged the foreigner concern that whenever one of us is critical about some fucked up aspect of Korea, our co-teacher's just brush it off as, "Ohh, that's just Korean culture, that's just how it is", yet the entire lecture was basically a huge example of blaming on culture. Some day Korea will realize just how ridiculous it is and understand what we've been laughing about for years. I just hope it's not too soon, as it would make my time here a lot less entertaining. They also made a big deal of Korean smiles and the connotations/significance of the expression or some bullshit like that.

My first real opportunity to put to the test the plethora of insight about Korea came Thursday when I was privy to one of the most idiotic moments in Korean English teaching history. I've been working with the gym classes and helping teach the class/talk to the kids in English for a while and its never been much of deal, so I was quite confused when I was told that I needed to "plan" for gym class with the gym teacher. When we got outside, I was told by the English co-teacher, as she was there to, that I would be translating what the Korean teacher says during the warmup. All Korean gym classes begin with a stupid little calisthenics (spelling?) routine where they touch their toes, run in place, etc. for several minutes. Well, I'm told by both teachers that I will be telling the students what to do for the routine in English directly following the Korean instructor's rules. So basically, he tells them to run in place while he counts to 8 in Korean, then I repeat the process but in English. And since this is so complicated, we have to prepare what each command/stretch translates to in English. The cherry on top was when I was asked what you would call a particular routine where the student runs in place while they pull their arms in and tuck them close to their armpit in fists, then reach out toward the sky, directly in front of them, and then finally towards their toes. Obviously there are many ways you could that in English, so I tried to find one that wasn't incredibly long and difficult for the students and offered up "Reach out like this, like this, etc." while demonstrating. I told the teachers that I wasn't really sure what the "right" way to say that was, and I was told, and they were completely serious about this, that I should find a dictionary and study to find the proper word, then tell them. Dear Lord, It's Eric. I know we don't talk much, what with me denying your existence and all, but hopefully we can get past our differences and you can help me out here. I would really appreciate if you could strike me down where I stand and save me the agony that is me trying to wrap my mind around what just transpired. Thanks. They also asked me to type out the commands and print them out for them, then made a big deal that each command wasn't in its proper order. I had just listed them, but not in order. Chaos ensued. As I expected, the new Englishee initiative failed horribly. The kids hate the routine for the obvious reasons as its stupid and not very helpful. Most of the kids just stand around during it when the gym teacher isn't watching. In theory, we were doubling the amount of time wasted with the English parts, but it actually turned out much worse, as when I began demonstrating and going through the steps in English I was routinely interrupted and stopped by the gym teacher because I wasn't doing it right, only to have to start over from the beginning. The majority of the time was spent with the students and myself being equally confused as to what the fuck we where doing, while the Korean gym teacher screamed at them for just standing around being confused. For the 1st graders, he actually had over half the class stand off to the side and hold their hands above their heads because they were misbehaving, according to him. In a side note, the children really seem to hate gym class and the gym teacher, as he just yells at them and makes them to manual labor. One grade had to clean out the storage shed so new flooring and cabinets could be put in, while another had to carry 30 kg bags of salt up a hill so they could be spread on a hill so it wouldn't ice over. I helped carry while the gym teacher did not, thus explaining why the kids don't hate me but routinely call him "bad man" and "devil" behind his back to me. The salt bag carrying students even went as far as to say "We unpaid workers...We slaves". The best line came from one of my highest level first graders when he said "Gym teacher angry. Be careful. Don't trust him." Wise words young one, wise words. I'm way ahead of you. In semi-related "What the fuck is going on?" moment at school, my principal just walked up to me when I was in the teacher room, tapped me on the shoulder, then when I turned around he pinched both of my nostrils shut with his thumb and forefinger and held it shut for several seconds while he blathered on to me in Korean. Needless to say, I was confused. When he let go of my nose, he simply walked away and left the office. WHAT THE FUCK?

Thankfully, the weekend arrived and I, as per usual, gathered with fellow foreigners to try through the theory that many heads are better than one to solve the mysteries of Korea. This weekend the setting was different, as we gathered at Phoenix Park outside of Wonju for skiing and the requisite Korea discussions. I tried snowboarding for the first time and it was quite enjoyable. As a small side note, if you are ever interested in trying skiing or snowboarding for the first time, don't do it in Korea. I have never seen so many people on so few of slopes, or so many inexperienced people around. Try to imagine a slope the busiest you've ever seen it, then probably double it and you'll have Korean ski traffic during the day on the weekend. Uggg. In two hours we beginner snowboarders went down the bunny hill twice, thanks to very long lines and slow movement down the hill. Not only was it insanely crowded but Koreans will plop their tiny asses down anywhere on the hill, so you must avoid frequent landmines in the middle of the slope. They make absolutely no attempt to get to the side of the slope for a break. Plus, just like in cars, they will cut you off and force you to violently turn to avoid hitting them. To show how oblivious they are to everyone around them, our group actually saw one girl talking on her cell phone as she went down the slope. Just frightening. A hilarious example of their vanity was when we spied a Korean women, sitting down, presumably in the middle of the slope, to reapply her makeup. WHAT THE FUCK? To make things more dangerous, there is very little true snow to cover over the ice, so all the runs are hard to maneuver in and quite hard to fall on (that I know from experience). All in all it was fun, but much more stressful than skiing should be. Our day ended early, as both mine and Amy's rental snowboards broke. I had one binding that wouldn't re-latch and Amy's kept coming unlatched. Mine actually forced me to walk it halfway down a hill, as the rest of the group was waiting at the bottom and I was getting tired of being whistled at by some guy directing traffic for being in the way. I messed up my left knee a bit, as on my last fall, I fell forward onto my face, but the board kicked up over my back and my knee got bent around. I didn't feel anything pop or tear, but it very easily could have given the fall. I probably just sprained it which is good because I really don't wanna have to deal with Korean medicine. That's another can of worms I would like to stay far, far away from. The situation improved after skiing ended, as the group of us went to a nice restaurant near our lodge, which was right on the mountain. Think Aspen or Vale or one of those places, where an entire city is pretty much at the base of the hill. Numerous hotels and hostels littered the skyline. The dinner was really wonderful, as the restaurant felt like a nice one back in the States, not just some divey hole in the wall like most restaurants here. We all had non-Korean food. I had a seafood pasta dish with clams (what?), shrimp (no way), and scallops (holy shit!). They even had legitimate alcohols, as I had a gin and tonic with Beefeater gin, while the other group members had wine, whiskey and other reputable liquors. I can't even remember how long it's been since I had a legitimate liquor that didn't suck. Our evening ended with a engaging conversation on all things Korea, past, present and future. The most interesting revelation was that many men more than simply dress and act kinda effeminate, actually are gay. This came as a shock to us, as we had been told that there were no gays here in Korea. None, zero. Obviously, there are gays here but we didn't realize how common it actually was until we talked to several teachers who have been here for several years. Apparently it is common for men who are married to have boyfriends on the side. These teachers said that many men, as do some in the States, have facade families with wives and children, while having boyfriends on the side. We all knew that Korean husbands rarely spend any time with their wives, as they are always hanging out with their male friends, but we didn't realize the severity and magnitude and connotations of it. This revelation was especially hard for Anna, who has had her sights set on finding a Korean man while she's here. Poor girl.

"You know self-hating Jews, right? Well, I'm a self-hating Korean. Probably the only one too."

With another interesting weekend here in Korea nearly in the book, I sit down at the ol' computer to bang out yet another recap of life here in Korea. Overall, it's pretty slow going right now, as my school just wrapped up finals last Thursday, meaning we have 2 more weeks of useless class left. Stupid, right? I'm not sure whether I'll be asked to actually teach the kids, which would be impossible, as they are definitely clocked out now that exams are done. But, judging by Friday, where the co-teacher asked if I had anything prepared and I obviously didn't given the zero notice as to what was going on, then just recommended I play Hangman with the students. Okay. So we shall see. In other news, the weather has been gorgeous, well, at least compared with the shitty weather you guys have back home. The temperatures for the last week have been sitting around the high 30s to low 40s for highs and somewhere in the 20s for lows. This of course means that we have absolutely no snow, and judging from the forecast, I won't be celebrating a White Christmas. Which could be a problem considering I'm supposed to go skiing next Saturday. Of course the slope can make snow, but with the highs being in the high 40s for the next two days and with the lows not even creeping below freezing, that may even be impossible. And I was really excited about "Korean skiing/snowboarding", which is the exact same as skiing anywhere else, except you add another 1,000 or so "obstacles", aka Koreans, to the slope. I don't know why I expected it to be any different than everything else. Wherever you go, you are knee-deep (literally, in this case) in Koreans.

This weekend's adventures took me yet again to Seoul. Sadly, Seoul is starting to feel a bit dull. It's probably the fact that it is a cold, rather soulless concrete jungle. It's got its sights, sure, but in general, it has the same boring lifeless architectural look as every other Korean city, just bigger. Tons of practically identical and drab apartment building clutter the sky with countless divey shops and stores nestled in between. I've heard that Seoul is attempting to address these issues, but I've yet to see results. Maybe someday. The goal of this weekend's quest was a Korean/English language exchange program meeting in one of the university districts. I'd been keyed in on it by Max, Yangpyeong's native "gyopo" (Korean word for a Korean who moves to another country and becomes a citizen there, Max's family moved when he was 5 months old and he's lived in New York ever since), as he speaks quite a bit of Korean and really wanted a chance to use it. Obviously, my Korean is not at a real conversation level, but I wanted a chance to actually use it at all beyond just simply ordering food or buying things. As I've addressed in previous messages, despite being in a country where everyone speaks Korean, Korean conversation is difficult, as we have no Korean friends, since apparently no Koreans between the ages of 18 and 40 exist in our town. Speaking with the teachers is a possibility, but they all wanna practice English and most couldn't really give a fuck about you learning plus what exactly do I have to talk about with a middle aged mother or father? The answer: absolutely nothing. I could talk to the soccer club about soccer, and penises, I guess, but that doesn't lead to terribly deep conversations. Thus, the dilemma. Anyways, we headed to Seoul to try our hand at speaking Korean and picking up some Korean chicks (I hear that is quite common, foreign dudes looking to satisfy their "Yellow fever" and Korean chicks looking for the elusive and terribly valuable ivory "tusk"). Simply finding the place was a chore, as it was supposed to be a "cafe" but when we went to the location in question, we found an apartment building where the cafe should be. I had joked when we couldn't find the place, that it was all a ruse where they mug some foreigners and take their cash, or it was actually just a big orgy. Honestly, the environs seemed to make my bullshit sound somewhat plausible, which is frightening in its own right. Eventually, we found out that the cafe was in the basement of an apartment, and as we traveled down the stairs, we passed through a cage door at the foot of the stairs. Okay, now we are thinking that we are most certainly gonna get robbed or fucked, probably both. Turns out that the actual room was pretty decent, with a bunch of furniture and big screen tv set up. The turn out was pretty solid, with around 20 people total. The Korean learners were from all over, from an Australian English teacher to a Finn working at the embassy here to a Korean orphan who was adopted by a French family, and now speaks French (native language), English, and Spanish. Hearing fluent English with a French accent fall out of a Korean looking guy is one of the strangest things I've seen since I've been here. Not sure if that is more or less strange than the Korean looking guy who speaks English with a fucking Russian accent that I met in Hongdae. Weird. The Koreans were pretty far ranging themselves, from university students to just various professionals looking to improve their English. One of the better English speakers was a cardiologist who's been to numerous conferences in the States. Maria, isn't your dad a cardiologist? Has he ever met this guy at one of his conferences? I think his last name was Kim.....Does your dad remember him?

Anyways, the exchange was good overall. Most of the foreigners were pretty much beginners, so it turned into more of a teach Korean, rather than speak in Korean time but it was fun none the less. The group headed out for drinks afterward, then a few of us grabbed some dinner when that died out, as some of us couldn't survive on shit Korean beer and bar snacks for sustenance. At dinner, I got to converse with two of the more interesting characters, the Australian and the self-hating Korean. Yeah, I know. I didn't think they actually existed. The Australian seemed to be the standard Aussie here in Korea, his existence revolving around 2 things: getting drunk and having sex with Korean women. Some of his stories were quite intense, as he actually got so drunk that he just passed out in the street in Hongdae, then came to when he felt some Korean digging around in his pocket to steal his wallet. His Korean is pretty damn good, which means the Korean chicks don't have a fucking chance. The real "character" was the self-hating Korean. I'm not talking just a little hate, this is "I want Korea to be wiped off the face of the map" kind of hate. The hate is probably related to the fact that he loves everything American, and that Korea is absolutely nothing like the US in so many ways. He lived in Brooklyn for 3 years, so his English is really good, and really fucking foul (pardon my language.....hahah). I believe he called Rain a "faggot" and dropped the f-bomb more than me, which is quite a feat. His criticisms were valid ones that seem to be common with most young Koreans disillusioned with the bullshit traditions. Why do we need all these politeness levels and variants? They borrowed the politeness stuff from China and Confusianism, yet the Chinese don't even bother with the shit anymore (so said another Korean who is learning Chinese from some Chinese friends). The Self-hating Korean really hates the job culture, where his managers just sit around and don't do shit, yet the lower level employees must blindly follow without criticism (come to think of it, that doesn't sound too much different from home). He really hates the businessman culture of getting drunk every evening. Seriously, wander any city street starting around 7pm (yeah, they must go straight from work to the bar and just pound them down) and you are bound to see numerous packets of suit-clad businessmen at fall-down drunk level. It's not like the Self-hating Korean doesn't enjoy binge drinking, far from it. He just likes to keep it to Friday and Saturday. The duo informed Max and I of another language exchange group that has a big party once a month, where, from the sound of it, much "cross-cultural exchange" takes place, just not necessarily of the language variety. Obviously this peaked our interest. Poor Max wants to meet some Korean ladies, but they don't want anything to do with him, as he looks like a Korean, but can't speak good enough Korean to pass as a native. But, as long as he sticks close to a whitey, he won't have any problems meeting Korean women. Seriously, I still can't get over this country's fascination with whiteys. I'm starting to think my mother doesn't even love me as the people here do. Sorry mom, but these people are pretty damn obsessed.

Just another dumb wayguk (foreigner) in a sea of intellectually superior Koreans....

Well, well, we meet again. Though it has been some time since we last spoke. My fault there, as I've been pretty lazy and there really hasn't been anything of note to discuss with everyone. I've been here long enough that I've slipped into a routine with most of my days. Get up, try to teach these poor children something, anything at all, become frustrated about something ridiculous/idiotic that my co-teacher did, try and not fall asleep out of boredom, go home and try and forget about whatever happened today just in time to start again tomorrow. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. I figure the days wouldn't be so monotonous if I didn't have something to be looking forward too, but I do, so the next several weeks are going to be quite painful to get through. Thankfully I have Friday nights at Bobo's with the foreigners and some sort of trip/get together over the weekend to clear my head and regain my sanity for a few hours or days.

Winter break is nearing, so each foreign has dealt with or is in the process of dealing with the clusterfuck that is vacation negotiations. In theory, it would be a very simple process, as we foreign teachers are provided with 20 paid vacation days, 25 for those in rural/bumfuck middle of nowhere schools, and we are only allowed to use them over winter and summer break. Those are the only rules laid down about vacation, that they must be used only during breaks. Each school usually has winter English camps for about 2 weeks during the break, but since the break lasts from Christmas to the start of March, it should be no problem, right? Just tell us when the winter camp is, and we can schedule are vacation around those two weeks. Or let us decide when we are going on vacation, then schedule the camps around that. That's all there is to it. Easy as pie (god damn it, I miss pie...). But since we live in Korea, and not in some country that operates through communication and common sense, it becomes a logistical nightmare. Take my example, for instance. I asked the other teachers back in October when the semester ends and when the winter camp is scheduled for, as I have a guest coming to visit and she needs to buy her ticket. I was informed that the semester ends on December 26th, but that I should wait for my co-teacher to come back before having her get a ticket, as the other teachers didn't know when the english camp is supposed to take place. Since the co-teacher wasn't coming back for another month, I couldn't wait until December, as the prices would be way too high, and had Alyse buy the ticket. Since there was no set date for the camps that anyone knew of, I assumed that the camp had yet to be scheduled and could be fit in around my vacation time. That was until the regular co-teacher came back about a week ago and worked her magic. On her first full day back on the job, she asked me when my friend was coming to visit, as the news of this had spread around the school...I guess. I told her that the ticket was booked for December 29th through the 14th of January. She then responded that those days don't work out, as the English camp is scheduled to begin on Monday Jan 5th. She quickly followed that up with the beautiful question, "Didn't you know that camps started on the 5th?". Thud. Thud. Thud. That is the sound of me beating my head against a wall over the absolute idiocy of that statement. How could I possibly know when the camps started? You never told me. Fuck, the other Korean teachers had no idea about this shit and there isn't even a language barrier there. When I explained that the ticket was already purchased and that she couldn't change her ticket around because of the money that would cost and that school starts right away after she leaves, thus making it impossible to move around the dates, she dropped let another wonder on me. She then started claiming that I can't even take that long of a vacation because I'm only allowed to use 10 days of vacation in winter and 10 during the summer. Where does that demand come from, I asked. Why, it's in the contract, she says. Thud. Thud. Thud. There I go again bashing my head against a wall, this time till my brain starts spilling out. Lady, I have read the contract front to back, forwards, backwards, with a blacklight, in case of hidden text, etc. Well, she says, just go home and read the contract again over the weekend, then we can discuss this again on Monday (subtext translation: You're just a dumb foreigner (wayguk is Korean for foreigner), how could you possibly understand this contract as well as me, a Korean). Well, these demands were blatant lies, as there is nothing stated like that in the contract. Though, to the Koreans, it seems that the contract is not really a set of rules, more like guidelines (yeah, I know I just stole that from Pirates of the Caribbean, I'm appalled too). This is best demonstrated from a direct quote by a Korean co-teacher to another foreign teacher here in town: "Just because it says it in the contract, doesn't actually mean you get it". Thud. Thud. Thud. Man, I gotta stop hitting my head against the wall here, as its bound to cause brain damage. The contract is set up to clearly state was is guaranteed and what have you. They most certainly hold us up to the very letter of the contract when it benefits them.

Another interesting let's take advantage of the foreigners cuz they don't know any better, took place last Thursday. The English speakers decided to have a meeting at the library to discuss teaching strategies, etc. without our Korean handlers so we could talk freely and openly about stuff. After the meeting when we tried to re-reserve the same room in the library for the next week, we were issued two demands. 1: Give the library a mission statement, listing our reasons for needing the room. 2: One of us has to "volunteer" to teach a group of 8 year olds every Sunday afternoon at the library. Now, 1 seems like a fairly unshady demand, although we wanna keep our meetings off the books, as we don't want the Koreans getting word of the meetings and shutting them down, under the guise that the foreigners are unionizing or some shit like that. 2, however, is an enormous load of dogshit. Last time I checked, you weren't conscripted into duty in order to just use a library. We assume it's just some small bureaucratic peon who wants to increase his standing at our expense. This stuff is getting really old, and its not gonna stop anything soon, not until Korea cools down about teaching English. I just feel so dirty and used. They could have at least called...

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.

Harry Potter and Double Virility...a deadly combination

The last two days, well, things happened. As usual. And now I sit down to recap them. So here we go. Saturday started bright and early, as I was signed up for a Korean culture day, which originally sounded lame until I found out that I would be going with a bunch of other foreign teachers. OMG, I actually get to speak English. Thank Jesus, Allah, Shiva, whoever it takes. One of the Madison girls who was also at the orientation last week, Amy, was coming so I met here at the train station and we walked to Yangpyeong Middle School. Upon arriving, we met some of the other local teachers, most notably Bert and Max. My stunning introduction to Bert went something like this: "Where do you live? (Bert)" "I live above Myung Moon Hagwan (Me)" "...What room? (Bert)" "Room 302. (Me)" "Room 304. (Bert)". Yep, that's right. I have another foreigner living two rooms down. If we yelled loud enough, we could probably talk to each other through the wall. He's only been here for about a week, but he did talk to the landlord and the guy said nothing about me. What a fucking cockbag! If you know there is another foreigner to talk to 2 rooms away, why the fuck wouldn't you say that? Bert is a 48 year old former safety specialist at a garbage burning plant from North Carolina. He wants to work in Korea for a couple of years, save up some cash, then go to Bangkok and start a sports bars for foreigners where they can see american football and stuff like that. Like I said cool. The other townie on the trip was on Max Han, 20 something from New York and Albany College, who just happens to have immigrated to the US from...wait for it...Korea when he was 10 months, so he can actually speak and converse in Korean pretty damn well. Which means none of the rest of us have to do dick when we go to restaurants now. Well, after introductions, we hopped onto the bus and rode back to Yongin for unteenth time in the last few days. After we arrived at the folk village we were treated to a brunch of bulgogi and some sort of seafood pie kinda thing. Brunch consumed, we had 3 hours to wander the folk village. It was a very pretty with the changing leaves and the river that ran through the middle of it (see pics). Most of the small houses were actually occupied older Koreans authentically performing such tasks as blacksmithing, weaving cloth, etc. Plus, they had a old timey market where you can buy all kinds of sweet little trinkets such as hand made pipes, hand made stamps, Korean burial masks, little carved statues, etc. Expect most of your X-mas presents to come from here, or Insa-dong, since they sell the same stuff. The best part of the day was the hoards of tiny Koreans trying to practice their English. I guess their school knew that many foreigners come here, so they gave each kid a little paragraph about some traditional Korean aspect of life and the kids had to tell it to us in English. Then we had to sign their books and give them a score. It was absolutely adorable, these little elementary kids speaking better English than most of my students. As you can see from my profile pics, they barely come up to my knee so I usually squatted down to chat with them. I just wanted to grab a couple and put them in my pocket, but I'm told that's illegal. One of the many groups actually gave me a little pen and dangly thing that attaches to one's phone, which of course made the other two female foreigners jealous since I was the most popular. They just get beauty over here, that's all I can say. They even started calling me Harry Potter, since I look like him to them. I'm a celebrity wherever I go here. After our trip ended, the foreigners headed home and decided to go out to dinner together, so with our merry band of whiteys from America to Scotland to South Africa and everywhere in between we set out upon a rampage of destruction and carnage through downtown Yangpyeong, terrifying many a school child and woman with our massive height and body hair. Yeah, there was 11 of us, so we made quite the scene wandering downtown. During dinner, I bumped into a soccer team member eating at the same restaurant, once again prompting the foreigners to rib me about the town celebrity. Seriously, everyone knows who I am in this town, weird. After good conversation and drink I had to say goodbye as I had to get up bright and early for the soccer game on Sunday. 6am to be exact, as I was having breakfast with the team before the bus leaves at 7:30am. The game, however, didn't go our way, as we lost in PK's. Which, to my surprise, didn't damper the celebrations. We yet again hit the soju and beer as soon as we got to the parking lot, no different from if we had won. Several hours later I yet again had dinner with the gym teacher. To show you just how insist he is on not giving me alone time, here's my last week: Sun went to Seoram with him, Mon had dinner with him, Tues had dinner with him, Wed would've played soccer but I was much too ill, I guess, Thurs had dinner with him, Fri got alone time by telling him that I was going to hang out with another english teacher, Sat he called about dinner/hanging out, but I told him I already had plans with the foreigners (which I actually did), today went to the soccer game, he invited me to go to Yongmunsa the buddhist temple in the afternoon, I said no because I wanted to relax, but then he wanted me to go to dinner, and I did. Wow. Ohhh, and in the coming week, we are jogging/playing soccer together on Tues, Thurs, and Fri morning and playing tennis after school on Wed. I can only imagine I'll be asked to eat with his family every night as well. This is way too much. I haven't actually had sufficient alone time in the last week to be able to read a book, as school was a mess with the co-teacher just up and leaving with her illness. I blame it on his kids. I would have said no many times before, but what am I supposed to do against a 3 and 7 year old yelling in the cutest voices "Mistah Eric, Let's have dinner!!!". I'm too much of a fucking softy. But seriously, this is getting a bit much. And no mom, its not just as easy as telling them I want alone time. First, they don't really understand the concept and secondly and most importantly, there is no way to go about this without possibly offending them and causing deep long term repercussions. I still need these people to help me get stuff done for my job, and if they take my asking for distance the wrong way, my next 10 months could be absolute hell. Let the tightrope walk begin.

Everland: Even more Koreans packed into an even smaller space

Well, today was yet another interesting day. The whole school, teachers and students, went on a field trip to Korea's version of Disneyland. So, around 8:30 am I boarded one of the two couch buses to the usual squeals and shrill cries. I'm not sure how the initial thrill of me has yet to wear off, but whenever I enter a room I'm still greeted by the usual 20 to 30 voices all yelling, "Eric!!!" or "Hi, Eric!!". Which I guess can be seen as a very small victory for getting these kids to speak English...they can at least all say "Hi" or "Hello". I'm setting my expectations low, deal with it. Anywhooo, an hour or so later we arrived at the park, and my darkest fears were confirmed: it was some kind of student day at the park and there were literally hundreds of couch buses filled with screaming Korean children just aching to practice their English (see above). Well, whatever, the coasters and sweet rides will surely help ease the pain to my eardrums. Wrong. It was decided and told to me at the gates that I would be following around Jeong Dongchun, the gym teacher, rather than some of the kids, who I actually get along with quite well and enjoy. Okay, fine, it makes sense to some degree as he has the most English skill of anyone here, since my co-teacher is somewhere trying not to die from some ailment or something. That was part of the reason why I wanted to relax and enjoy myself so much at Everland, as my co-teacher abruptly left school on thursday because she couldn't hear out of her right ear and she has no plans to come back all of next week. This wouldn't normally be a problem as she offers no assistance or help in any of the classes, but she also told me that I will need to teach all the extra classes where she usually taught grammar. Hmmm, I like the sound of that. I seriously have no fucking clue what is going to happen come Monday, but rest assured, I won't be in the know until a minute before. That's the Korean way, that and never being on time for anything. Back to Everland, so maybe following around the gym teacher won't be that bad, right? Hahahah, not. We spend about 10 minutes wandering through the park before I finally ask what we are doing, if we are gonna hit the roller coasters. No, I'm told, the lines are too long...fuck my anus. So where do we go? To the lame little passenger choo-choo (not even manly enough to warrent the name "train") that travels around the park, you know the one. Every park has one, you know, for the infants and the really freaking elderly. After that thrilling ride we wandered around one of the park's gardens, admiring the flowers. Do they realize how morally wrong a cock tease of this magnitude is? Why bring me all this way just so I can look at the coasters? If that's the case, it would have been better to leave me home. This brings me back yet again to the kid gloves again. Now, I've talked with a bunch of English teachers now, and its all the same. It must be some cultural mindset that if you don't know how to speak Korean, they you must be retarded and clearly can't even go number two with someone to watch you. Well, except for English...we're all experts on that, supposedly, but beyond that we are brain dead. Eventually, the gym teacher caught on t0 my numerous love lorn glances toward the nearest coaster and asked if I wanted to ride them. I said "Yes", to which he responded "But there are long lines?", to which I thought "I don't give a fuck" but to which I said "Yes, I know". It was then decided that I would be allowed to ride the coaster and they found some of the 8th grade boys and I tagged along with them. The wait was supposed to be 3 hours (yeah, pretty fucking ridiculous even for amusement parks), but the kids cut and dodged and pushed old ladies out of the way to cut our waiting time down to 2 hours..ehhh. This brings me to the day's and my Korean trip's "Wow, I'm fucking lucky" moment. The coaster was a brand new wooden one, almost identical to Viper at Six Flags. Well, going down the first massive drop, I decided to hold my hands up and somehow my hand hit the side of my head absolutely perfectly and my glasses flew off my head. So here I am, in the midst of a enjoyable roller coaster ride, and I'm already now planning ahead to how the hell I'm going to get new glasses (I had forgetten that I have another pair at the apart.), and how I'm going to try to explain to my mom how my glasses were lost (I was leaning towards broken in a bar fight). Anyways, midway through the ride I happen to look in the car behind me and the little middle school girl behind me is holding my glasses out to me. Wow. Somehow, the glasses had flown back towards her and either hit her and she held on to them or they perfectly fell into her car. Whatever the explanation, it doesn't matter. By some stroke of luck, I managed to keep my glasses, meaning of course that I've used up my luck for years to come now. Everland itself wasn't terribly exhilarating, as there are only 3 coasters and some county fair style pukers that would interest me. It might be worth a trip back, only if I were accompanied by Ms. Sundaram, just so I could see the pain and sadness on her face when she gazes upon the European Village area. Their "representation" of German villages and the like, made me laugh and I've never actually been to Germany to know just how awful this area was. They even had signs written in Germany for show. Germany and the german language has been reduced to decorations. Beautiful. Also, the park finally showcased some really humorous awful English. My favorites were from the instructional video during the roller coaster line: "Do not over-play on the attractions" and "Do not be surprised by explosions". These weren't really bad English, but the idea of them made me laugh. How does one over-play? Who decides where that line is drawn? What explosions should I be expecting? How can you not be surprised by explosions? The coup'd'gras (I know I didn't spell that right) was the showy parade. The parade itself was the usual overblown spectacle, but something caught my eye. Of the dancers not wearing animal heads, that is, I could see their face, at least 60% were whiteys. I felt bad for the bastards, reduced to animals at a zoo, constantly blindsided with flashbulbs and yelled at. I was so tempted to just run into the parade, break the retaining rope and set them all free. I really don't how they got so many foreigners. Did they just use foreigners convicted of minor crimes as indentured servants of a sort, owned by Everland until they work off their crimes? I'm not sure, but I'm gonna do my research. I expect many hagwans (private English academies) are missing their English speaking monkeys. After the parade is was back to the bus, as we only had around 5 hours to spend at the park before heading home. The bus ride home was surprisingly pleasant, as I found out that our couch bus was packing a built in kareoke machine. Ohh, hells yeah. I'm still coming down from my cold and my voice is not completely back, but when you have a mike shoved into your face and "Let It Be" by the Beatles is queued up, you don't have any choice but to let it be. Song finished, queue the screams and squeals. Now I really feel like a member of a freaking boy band. I also was given Yesterday and Happy Together to sing. Sadly, only one other student and one of the teachers sang besides me. These folks are just so collectively terrified of fucking up, its ridiculous. Not surprisingly, the one student who sang four different Korean tunes is also my best student and has the best English. What a strange coincidence....

Me, Malnourished? Really?

It's obviously been a while since I posted last, so I do apologize to the 2 or 3 of you out there that actually care even the slightest about what I do with my time here in Hanguk (Korean for Korea). I was at an English speaker conference/lock up all of last week and I couldn't really get internet. I'll post soon on the goings on at that little shindig soon, I promise, but for the time being I need to discuss more about the god damn kid gloves they are handling me with over here. Most of this deals with the cold I developed last week Monday and is still lingering to this day, which prompted me to lose my voice during the workshops last week. Kinda hard to meet and chat with english speakers when you can't actually talk. Anyways, on my first day back, as luck would have it, I had one of my freak nosebleeds and the gym teacher saw that and freaked out. When I got to school that was all the news and I actually was pulled aside by the gym teacher so he could diagnose me. He thinks I'm suffering from a combo of malnourishment, too much exercise and not enough sleep. The malnourishment one is particularly funny as they have all seen how much bloody food I shove down my gullet and if I am in fact malnourished then that is the directly the fault of this country and its food. Course, after my 3 nosebleed in 2 days this evening, the discussions and prescriptions aren't gonna stop anytime soon. I'm thinking that it's a combination of the really dry air here, the really shitty quality of said air, the amount of cigarette smoke I'm forced to breathe in on a daily basis, and the massive lack of accessible water. That's one thing that has really bugged me about Korea. I'm used to having meals with a water glass that I refill 3 to 4 times a meal...I need alot of H20 to stay hydrated. Here most meals have no water at all, and if they do it's a tiny little glass the size of a double shot glass. As much as the Korean food burns/stings going down, its insane to think they don't have water handy. And since my teachers think I'm dying they aren't gonna let me play soccer and I really don't feel like trying to argue with these people...it just doesn't work.
My other issue that has come to the forefront is that of "downtime". I think it came about when over the weekend the gym teacher asked if I ever get homesick. I obviously said yes, and he was genuinely shocked and responded that if I ever get homesick again, I should just call him and do stuff with him. Now that he knows I get homesick, I don't think he's gonna allow me a moment to myself in which to possibly become homesick. Now the easy answer would be to simply tell him I don't wanna do stuff with him on such and such occasion because I want some alone time but the problem with this is two fold in my mind: 1) I don't possess enough Korean or he enough English for me to accurately explain the idea of downtime/breathing room without offending him (I'm trying not to burn too many bridges, as I need them to get around) 2) The Korean cultural mindset may not be able to grasp the idea of "alone time". The second problem is the big one, as from what I've seen, there really is no where you can be alone here. There are just simply way too many people in too small a space. Take the national treasure mountains I visited last weekend for example. Moving around the trails in the middle of the freaking woods felt like an amusement park line as you can only move as fast as the person in front of you and so on. You were almost always bumping into and getting into the way of some other traveler. Now the gym teacher is a nice guy, make that incredibly nice guy, but I'm quickly realizing that he isn't any genius or remarkable conversationalist. Apparently gym teachers aren't too different wherever you go. I don't mean to demean gym teachers but you simply don't see Rhodes Scholars or Genius Grant winners teaching kids how to bump and set properly. Even if my Korean got good enough to converse with him on a fluent level, I'm sure the conversation would still be sadly lacking, as he doesn't realize what level of banter and such I had the privilege of enjoying back in the states. Regardless, he seems determined to fill whatever void I have in my life, as I spent a total of 7 hours in the last two days at his house after school. Now our arrangements began as helping each other with Korean and English respectively on the way to and from school, then it evolved to tutoring each other for 30 minutes each after school. That was all good, but now it is getting a bit out of hand. Now I'm honored that they want me to come over for dinner every once in a while, but from what he said today it sounds like he expects me to eat with them every day. Which means that after being at school from 8:30 to 5:30, I'll be at his house from 5:30 to 9:30pm, which is simply too late to finally get home. In the meantime while we wait for dinner to finish cooking we tutor each other, but now he's having his 7 year old tutor me in Hangul and vice versa. This is fine in principle, but poor Jaehan just wants to play. Dude's 7 years old and he's already spending his free time outside of school practicing learning English? Just let the kid be a kid. If he wants to tutor me fine, it works for the first hour or so. After that he just gets grumpy and cranky the more teaching he has forced down his throat, and then it's no good for anyone. If a 7 year old doesn't wanna be taught, there is no power in the 'verse that can change that. Fuck, even I don't really wanna study after my day. I really just wanna play with the kids, but I can't. Boo. I know everyone over here really just wants to learn English, but they gotta understand that at some point I get sick of teaching English. You don't wanna bring your work home and I'd prefer if I didn't either. I'm sure this message came off really meandering and rambling and probably pretty trivial to your ears, but its a tricky situation. Overall, everything is really wonderful, but this little stuff is gonna fester and grow if I let it and I'm really struggling to find a solution to it, as no one over here speaks English well enough to understand the nuanced stuff in which I spend so much of my time.

"Penis Contest"

Well, I'm sure this post sounded a lot differently when I wrote it yesterday, as I was still coming down from a day of heavy drinking and hadn't had to keep from strangling my co-teacher all day (another story, suffice it say...I don't like her at all). My weekend began, or was supposed to, at 6:00am Saturday for a soccer club game. Since I really didn't feel like getting up that early just to watch a soccer game, I slept it...to the ungodly late hour of 8:30am. Yeah, I have that much of a night life...full nights sleep and still up before 9 on a Saturday. After I crawled out of bed and fed myself, I decided that rather than rot of boredom alone in my apartment, I would journey to Seoul and hit up the numerous markets to find some goodies from home. From there is was on to the train station and then on to Seoul, but not before stumbling into one of the fellow native speakers who was also heading to Seoul. I didn't catch his name, as he was Scottish/Irish/doesn't really matter as I couldn't understand him terribly well, but he did manage to write down directions to the foreigner/import grocery store in Itaewon. I now had a destination, and an hour or so later I was standing outside of my personal oasis in the middle of the desert. I thought it was pretty funny that the Hannam Supermarket was in the basement of the Volvo building...not sure what the hell they were doing in Korea either, the Asians certainly don't wanna buy their crap. The sights contained within the said grocery store were so beautiful that I actually started to tear up a little, no joke. My eyes got especially watery when I gazed upon their beer section and spotted real beers (Guiness, Spaten, you name it they had it). Also couldn't help but chuckle when I saw America's finest hard liquor, Dr. Boston's Rum, lining the shelves. But, alas, since Guiness and other like beers ran for around 4.80 per bottle and soju is very drinkable and 98 cents per bottle, I passed on the liquor. But I did walk out with salt, pepper, BBQ sauce (missed that shit), mouthwash, power converters, and my holy grail, Oreos (I really missed that shit). After leaving the grocery store it was on to the Tech market in Yongsan. Beautiful, that's really all I can say to describe it. I walked out of Yongsan with a copy of Okami for PS2 (my Korean PS2 that I have yet to acquire) and 4 black market DVDs. It seems odd to see such shady dealings just outside the door of legitimate electronics dealers, but whatever. If I can get Hellboy 2, Dark Knight, Iron Man, and The Incredible Hulk for 10 bucks, I'm content. From here it was back to the homestead, as my groceries were getting mighty heavy on my back (huge tactical error on my part to buy the heavy stuff first...dumbass). The train ride home was unusually engaging as I conversed with the woman sitting next to me...in real English, not broken words. Turns out she has been speaking English much longer than I have, hell, longer than I've been alive. She lived in New York for 25 years, her son was 10 months old when they moved to the US, and he now attends Stanford for grad school (got accepted to Harvard and Stanford). It was incredible to be talking to a middle aged Korean woman about American politics, economy, and foods we missed. You can't imagine the shock hearing this woman tell me: "I really miss Thanksgiving food...the turkey and cranberry sauce". Hell, I can't stand cranberry sauce for the most part, and here I am thousands of miles from home listening to a woman speak lovingly of it.
Sunday was even more fun, as every outing with the soccer club turns out to be...must be the heavy, heavy drinking. Our adventure started around 10am when the whole team and crowd boarded a couch bus donated by the county magistrate in honor of our success. The big man himself even came out to watch our first game. Everyone on the same vehicle with no concern for driving means only one thing: the drinking starts that much early. 10:30am, to be exact, is when the club started badgering (haha) to drink with them. Being a man of strong morals and principles, I held off...until we reached the field in Suwon at noon. Since I couldn't play as the tourney is 30 and over, it was all drinking and eating for me. No sooner had we hopped off the bus and relieved ourselves in the bushes, as there was no bathrooms anywhere, we eating kimbap (Korean sushi rolls) and chicken along with soju and beer. I felt a little uncomfortable going in the bushes as we were only a stones throw from Suwon Olympic Stadium, where only a few years ago some of the world's best soccer was played, but there really wasn't anywhere else to go. Plus, when in Rome... I feel like I did my part as English teacher, as now the entire club knows how to say someone is a drunk. Trust me, they used it alot. It felt like a Packers or Badgers game except that when they drunkenly got up and ran around, they actually ran out on the field and had to be pulled back several times by lines judges. The team won its first game 6-3 to move on to the round of 8, so, of course, drinking ensued. Sometime before our quarterfinal game, I was called over to chat with my old friend, the Yangpyeong Casanova. As you may or may not remember from the previous post, this entertaining man speaks very little English but makes up for it with graphic gestures and expressions. First, these men were amazed at the size of my feet, and as is custom with any gathering of males, regardless of location, the conversation eventually shifted to penis size. Naturally. They were all talking up their meat sticks and were curious as to my size, even going so far as to issue a "Penis Contest", where we were supposed to, I suppose, whip them out. The Casanova obviously built himself up, actually doubling over in pain when someone grabbed him around the knee, insinuating....well you can guess. The club pulled out the second game in PKs to move on to the semis, in a tourney that started with 500 or so teams. Not willing to pass up the opportunity to celebrate, the team, myself included, helped themselves to more soju before we even left the parking lot. It's an interesting feeling to be buzzed by 1pm and then sober by 5pm. Once back in town, it was off to dinner at one of the team member owned restaurants and more, you guessed it, alcohol. The tricky thing with team victory dinners is getting in a bite of food in between toasts and speeches, which obviously end with a shot of soju. Here the Casanova and I went head to head, as he decided we would drink our soju out of a real glass, the water glass, instead of those weeny shot glasses. This also meant that my sole liquid refreshment would be soju. As the custom is to never fill your own glass, we went back and forth watching the others glass in case it got close to being empty and the other was starting to wuss out. I believe that in the end I won, as I was less red faced and not sweating as badly as him, although he did invite me out for a drink at the bars later. I do have to thank my extra foot of height, German and Irish blood, and the fact he was 20 years my senior for this esteemed victory. Now it's off to the native speaker's conference for the next 4 days, where, one assumes, I will actually meet other English speakers.

Bored...good thing I've got Jesus to keep me company

Well, another week is in the books, so I figured I'd recap the less than exciting aspects of the week past. I had absolutely no work to do after Monday since the students were all taking midterms. Midterms were interesting to observe in themselves as they basically amounted to ACT or SAT exams, as everyone in the school had to move their desks down into the cafeteria and took their tests in that big room. Everyone was forced to be there for the whole time, regardless of whether they actually had an exam. After 3 45 minute exams, two 15 minute breaks in between, and lunch our days were done, at least for the students and myself. So I had to catch the bus with some of the students, which was interesting in itself as today I was accompanied back to Yangpyeong with 9 of the 7th and 8th grade girls...Suffice it to say there was plenty of whispering, giggling and the occasional "Hi Eric!". With this shortened schedule, I arrived home at 1:15pm, with little to do, as the gym teacher and the fellow soccer club members were still working, so that shoots Korean tutoring and soccer. I decided I would wander around town and finally get a definitive idea of what my town has to offer. My final verdict: not much. I really shouldn't expect too much as Yangpyeong is only 80,000 strong and it has plenty compared to my previous homes (ohhhh Oshkosh...). The town is roughly dissected into 3 sections: the area north of the Train tracks, the area south of the Han river, and the central section. I live north of the train tracks, and it is comprised mainly of restaurants (like all of town), the golf/driving range, the bus depot, the Walmart-esque super store and the major electronics store. South of the Han river is made up of more restaurants and a few apartments and hotels with a pretty view over the river. Most of anything of consequence is housed in the central downtown area. When I say there are tons of restaurants, I'm not exaggerating. Honest to god, restaurants/bars alone are about 50%, at least, of all buildings and businesses in town. Throw in convenience stores and PC bongs (rooms where kids go to play video games for many hours for a hourly rate...when I say play video games, I mean Starcraft), and you've covered close to 70% of the structures in town. Which leaves me with little to do if I don't feel like eating, drinking, or playing Starcraft. After searching the town up and down, I found 2 tiny music stores, a movie rental place, an arcade, a bowling alley, a soccer store, and a few bookstores. The arcade and bookstores were disappointments as the arcade didn't have any DDR-esque games, only 1 Beatmania machine, and the bookstores offered nothing in English, no surprise. That's probably good as I have so many unread books cluttering my room back in the states. I just hope I can hold out until Christmas when, hopefully, reinforcements arrive. Now I just need to find some people to enjoy all these things with, as bowling, drinking, noribong singing, etc. are not much fun alone. I did actually communicate with someone on the street today!! Unfortunately, she was some religious lady handing out little pamphlets on how something fun and wonderful is the devil and we're all going to hell for enjoying it. I was just so excited that I found someone that speaks even kinda decent English that I took the pamphlet with hesitation. Plus she had her name and phone number on the pamphlet...Ohhh yeah, I pulled a number! Score! Hmmmm, maybe not... This simply continues my trend of being the target of missionaries. I'm not sure what draws these people to me. Is it the stench of sin and vice that I give off or is it the sense that I'm some poor pathetic fuck who really needs Jesus in order to give his worthless life some semblance of meaning? Must be a little bit of both.