My Restroom Difficulties

Since its the season of giving again, I'll give you all an amusing story about my restroom problems at school (sure as hell wasn't amusing to me, but you may find it entertaining). As you probably know, my school has only squat toilets, which as you might imagine, pose numerous issues for me. My first encounter was several months ago when I was at the DMZ and the results weren't very pleasant. First off, unlike the Koreans, I haven't been practiced in squatting for long periods of time. I shit you not, over here people when waiting around for something or while chatting will just squat down and stay like that for long, long periods of time. Me? Well, I can effectively squat for about 10 seconds before my knees cry out. And even if I could squat, I still haven't figured out how you wouldn't just drop your payload right into your pants around your ankles, cuz when I do squat, my legs are directly underneath my posterior. And I certainly don't want that. How do I solve the basic posture issue? I go into cocorinha, or for those of you who don't know capoeira, its a squat with one hand on the ground for support. Well, its actually closer to this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CapoeiraMeialuaDeCompasso%26QuedaDeQuatro_ST_05.jpg). See the guy on the right. This seems to work, but over time one's hand gets very uncomfortable having to support most of the bodies weight. But Eric, you say, why not put both hands on the ground? Simple, I need the other hand to make sure I don't pee all over my pants. With the posture difficulties parsed out, lets discuss some other complications. In Korea, for some idiotic god-forsaken reason, they never have toilet paper dispensers inside the stalls. No, you have to pull off however much TP you need before even starting your business. This, as you can see, is an awful, awful Catch-22. If you take too much, you feel bad about wasting TP, as nobody in their right mind will use TP torn off the roll and set next to it, as you don't know where its been. If you don't take enough, well, let's not even discuss that as the idea of it is just to horrifying. Also, my school, and it would seem many other schools, don't heat the bathroom or anything outside of the classrooms for that matter. Last year, the bathroom wasn't heated but they had heated toilet seats in the teacher's bathroom, so at least part of me was toasty. What's more difficult that trying to do your business while squatting? Doing your business in 40 degree temperatures. Or less. Lastly, in the afternoon, the school "cleans" the bathroom, meaning to say they just slop a bunch of water on the floor. That's right, you must balance on the floor with one hand and that floor is dirty and wet. I won't go into how many times I slipped and nearly fell into the narrow toilet. Sure, I wouldn't have done much harm to myself, but I would surely have prayed for death to save me from the utter shame.

All this brings us to our most harrowing adventure yet. On Thursday, as many people are want to do, I felt the need to use the restroom. No problem, I'll just wander off to the faculties. I walk into the bathroom and what do I see? No toilet paper. That's cool, no biggie. I'll just check the other boy's restrooms on the other floors (the school has 4 floors and there are mens and womens on each floor). Second floor? No TP. Third floor? No TP. Fourth floor? Still no goddamn TP. Now, I'm starting to get worried, so I checked the girls bathrooms (I just looked in as I was walking past) No TP there either, cept for the female teachers bathroom. I tried to remain calm, thinking maybe they are just gonna get refilled later in the day. I waited for several hours, checking off and on, to see if they had been refilled. No luck. Well, now I'm getting pretty desperate. Did they change to a bring your own toilet paper policy? Don't laugh, I know other teachers here in Korea that do have to bring their own. Idiotic beyond belief, but that's how Korea rolls sometimes. If they did change the policy, then somebody surely forgot to inform me. Anyways, eventually, I got desperate and, after checking to make sure everything was clear, went into the women's bathroom to retrieve some TP. Now, I obviously wanted to make this as quick as possible, seeing as how being caught in the women's bathroom would be hard to talk your way out of, even if I could speak the language and wasn't in a country where people like me (foreign white male english teachers) are openly discussed and stereotyped as sex addicts/sex fiends/perverts/pedophiles in the newspapers. Needless to say, I didn't wanna get caught. As luck would have it, I heard a door opening as I was still pulling off TP. Now, since everybody at my school is a big wuss about the weather (40 degrees is not cold people, so stop bitching!), they wouldn't leave their heated offices unless it was something important, like perhaps the call of nature. So I grabbed what TP I had, having no idea if it was enough, and got out of the bathroom. But the person leaving the office was coming from the room directly across the narrow hallway from the bathroom (meaning they were like 2 feet away). I'm screwed. Wait, they are turning around to close the door. I'm out, I'm gone, I'm free. Now, in my haste, I wasn't really sure if I had grabbed enough toilet paper, but I'd had enough shock for one day, so I just took my chances. In the end, it was cold, it was painful and it was wet, but I was finally able to go about my business. As I was telling Maria, I'm now completely ready for going to the bathroom in a third world country, cuz outside of shitting in the middle of the woods, perhaps into a hole, and having to use my hand or a leaf to wipe my ass, I'm not sure how defecating could get any more difficult and harrowing.

Now on to some other happier news, at least for me. I FINALLY GOT A BERIMBAU!!!!! It only took damn near a year. Now, my parents have still been unable to get me mine from home, so I had originally hoped to pick up one here, but because the group here cares little to none for music, they are hard to come by. One of the American guys in the group had one for sale, but it wasn't ready and I had almost no hope for it, as the wood simply wasn't loosening enough to allow it to be strung properly. Well, salvation came this week, when I was informed out of the blue that it was ready. Well, sort of. Thing still takes 2 or 3 people to string it, so I'm leaving it strung, which worries me, cuz if that thing snaps and goes.....yikes. It's super tall and I have a super short ceiling in my apt, so I have to play sitting down, but otherwise, I can't ask for more.

School is well, the same. I keep saying this, but it keeps on keeping on, with the same stuff. Winter camps are coming up, and I need to prepare 3 weeks worth of stuff. Still not sure who I'm teaching, as I've heard word that they want me to teach the 1st and 2nd graders, who I have no experience or knowledge of, as I've never taught them before, and I also hear that the classes will be broken up by levels, instead of grades, which will also be bad, as a high level 3rd grader is nowhere near a high level 6th grader in terms of ability. Guess I just have to prepare some materials and if its too hard or easy for the students, all I can do is shrug my shoulders and go "Oooooops". Not much else I can do. Also, as a nice Christmas thank you from the District of Education, I'll have to go to bullshit workshops the last two days before schools ends for winter break. Ohhh, but District of Education, I didn't get you anything...wait, no I do have something for you, its called a middle finger. Hell, you guys have been so awesome, I'll give you two, cuz I'm a giver like that. So here's my schedule for the last two days: go to school as normal and teach all my classes in the morning, then at lunch time run to wherever this stupid workshop is, then shit through stupid lectures from 1pm to 9pm. Yeah, that's right till 9pm. Then I go home and repeat the next day. Not only am I stuck at stupid lectures till that late, but I still do all my regular teaching in the morning (I only lose out on the planning, relaxing, and chatting with office mates part...you know, the good part). I also have to miss my Korean classes, which I actually like. Now, in theory, workshops would be helpful and informative, but as everyone knows, we don't live in a perfect world. Good thing I have plenty of books and a Game boy.

Now, weekend exploits. Two weekends ago, I got out and about in Seoul. To start the weekend, Jenna and I took in a weird little photo exhibit at the nearby Seoul Arts Center. It was exhibiting the works of some British photographer lady living in France. She had distorted or painted on or messed with her photos in some way so that they all looked like some manner of expressionist paintings. They were all especially sad and depressing, covering such cheery subjects as isolation, cold, winter, death, and the like. After that, we headed to some huge food expo. We sampled various teas and coffees, looked at dishes more accurately classified as art rather than food, and watched the national barista championships (it was heart pounding...). I didn't find any of the crazy expensive coffee where the bean is digested then crapped out by some tropical cat, but probably cuz its too damn expensive to give samples of. In the evening, the whole group gathered for a Thanksgiving dinner put on by a brewery in the Gangnam area. The owner was Korean-Canadian, so he understood the illusive concepts of "good beer" and "good food". Now, this is the first brewery I have ever seen in Korea. Quick recap: Drinking is an even bigger part of the culture in Korea than in America and 99% of the consumption is of 3 things, soju, Hite beer and Cass beer. And they all really, realy, really suck. Sure there are some smaller companies for beer, but they all suck too. As a result, microbrews, albeit not great, were greatly appreciated. Hell, here you give thanks for being able to find a Heineken or something and they kinda suck too. Anyways, despite not being American, the owner put on a really great Thanksgiving buffet. Sure we had to wait in line for like an hour (160 people waiting on just a few dishes would do that), but they chose to broadcast the Packers and Lions game on TV, which was awesome. And I must say that Rodgers fella looks like a decent quarterback. That's how long I've been away. The last packers game I saw, our quarterback was Brett Favre....haha. On Sunday, a few of us checked out some Science museum near Seoul. It was definitely orientated for kids with lots of interactive games and such, which was good since most of the directions and everything were in Korean, obviously. My favorite part was the awful, awful English translations on the various exhibits. Can you say babelfished? Cuz I can. Ohhhh, and I also laughed at the green living exhibit, which spent a considerable amount of time talking about how Korean homes are the most green homes ever, cuz they are made using nature's resources and coexist with nature or some bullshit. Course, on that same vein, Native American traditional housing and any other aboriginal tribe's dwellings would be even more so. Plus, nobody fucking lives in traditional housing anymore, so its kinda moot.

The next weekend saw me spending basically the whole weekend way down by Busan, in a temple stay. We got up and were on the bus bright and early at 7:30am, and were gone by 7:40am. Way, way too early on a Saturday morning. For the entire 4 hour bus ride down, we were forced to some stupid girls talk about their stupid thoughts and lives. And I mean the whole time....they never shut up, ever. Sleep was impossible, reading was impossible. All you could do was sit there, staring at the seat while your brain slowly oozed out of your ears. Finally, we arrived at the old Silla kingdom capital of Gyeongju (several hundred years ago Korea was divided between 3 kingdoms and the Silla kingdom, based around Busan in the south eventually conquered and overtook the other kingdoms and united the peninsula under one rule, thus their fame here in Korea). After some very, very Korean lunch (I'm so excited....not), we wandered around the burial mounds for the old kings and queens. There were 20 or so mounds around the area. As you can see from the pics, they weren't much to look at, as they are just 20 feet tall hills with grass grown over them. Maybe I'm just a weirdo, but all I saw were a bunch of huge breasts. We got a tour guide to guide us through the one mound that was open, but he was a monster dick. He spoke super fast cuz he was in a rush or something and was super pretentious (repeatedly asking "Do you understand what I'm saying?"....ummm yeah, asshole, its our language your speaking, we understand English), then when we told him that we were in a rush and had to move on quickly, he just up and left. Wow. After that we headed to another area to stare at the milk jug looking thing that nobody knows what purpose it served. The classical city was a bit underwhelming, as there really wasn't much remaining from the kingdom. Sure, the area was pretty, but I can take pics of mountains and hills almost anywhere in Korea, I wanted to see some impressive architecture or something. Soon afterward we headed on to our temple we would be staying at. Now, this was my second temple stay and it was much, much different from the previous temple stay. The other temple felt like a much more authentic experience as there were only 20 or so of us and we actually all prayed in the same quarters as the monks. This temple was very nice though, especially for those people that wanted to do a temple stay, but not really leave the comforts of home. We stayed in a big separate building built just for temple stayers with showers and everything. The other temple stay? It had a shower house that was a little walk away. They also had a really, really nice gymnasium area at this new temple as these Buddhists practice the martial art, Seonmudo. The old temple stay??? Not so much. Our schedule at the temple stay was very much filled. We arrived just in time for dinner at 5:30pm, then over to the gymnasium for evening prayers, a video about seonmudo, then a 90 minute seonmudo workout. Now, by this point, we had begun to become really, really annoyed with some of the other group members, as they complained when they found out that Buddhists are vegetarian (seriously, you didn't fucking know that???? dumbasses), they complained about how hard the seonmudo workout was (it was basically yoga, sure its a martial art but its much more about balance and holding kicks and moving with grace), they complained about the cold, etc. Not really sure why they came. The seonmudo exercise would probably have been hard for me before I started capoeira, but with all that flexibility practice behind me, it didn't pose much of an issue. I did find all the groaning and moaning quite funny though. I thought seonmudo was cool, but at the end of the day, there is reason why I do capoeira and never any of the other asian martial arts: cuz they are so dull, slow and boring at times. The peace and serenity and self reflection is great and all, but I need something lively, something with energy. Seonmudo is not that.

Sunday morning came way, way too early too. Despite going to bed at 10pm, 4:30am came much too soon. The group groggily wandered up to the morning prayers and after an hour of groggily bowing and mumbling along with the Korean chants, we were given time to wander around the premises before breakfast. We wandered up to the dangerous looking prayer spots. Sometimes there was a rope railing, sometimes there wasn't. Sometimes there was a rope ladder for ascending, sometimes there was just rocks. However, there was always a very, very steep fall to the ground below and there was always a gorgeous view to make it all worth it. We meditated and watched the sun rise over the mountains. This part of the Buddhist lifestyle I could get used to. The food and sleep schedule? Not as much. I would die if I was forced to survive like that long term. Well, maybe not die, but I would be a walking zombie at least. 6 hours of sleep a night and with that diet sorely lacking in any type of food for energy (I wasn't seeing too much in the way of carbohydrates unless they go crazy and have an Italian night every tuesday or something and I just don't know about it), I would be in a constant haze of fatigue. Plus, Korean monk portions are not Eric Wallin portions. Ohhh, but I can have another bowl of rice if I'm hungry? I can't fucking wait. After leaving the temple we headed to the ocean for some pictures, but not for too long as it was only about 30 degrees and the wind was around 20 mph or so. Along the way, we stopped off at some other, smaller buddhist temples. The temple architecture looked the same every time, which is also the same as all the old Korean temples and palaces, so needless to say, that got kinda boring. The actual alters to Buddha were always different and always impressive. Hell, they carved into cave walls and into cliff faces at times. However, I got a question for ya Buddhism. For a religion based on the ideas of living simply and not being extravagent, you sure do have a lot of extravagant and gaudy idols to worship to. Just saying. That comes off a little, well, hypocritical. With all our temple visits finished, we boarded the bus and were subjected to another 4 hours of absolute nonsense from the girls behind us. Hate to break it to ya girls, but I don't give two shits about your hair or what you do to it. So shut the fuck up. Thank you.

Pics: See album "Buddhism for a Day"