GeorgeGoesKorean

A night of Korean TV

2009-09-06T04:58:00.000-07:00

I thought about posting a big catch up about what I've been doing the last few months, but I don't really feel like it now. I need something simple to write about to ease my way back into blogging. I thought some of you might be interested in what they watch on TV in Korea. So here I've logged a night of TV watching for y'all.

9:00 pm - channel 2 "Guk Hi Bang Sang" - showing and discussing St. Louis, of all things. now they're showing a recreated native american village. the native americans are hunting now. some guy nailed a deer with an arrow

9:05 pm - channel 3 "ESB" - some Korean guy is climbing a large metal structure and working with ropes. ok, looks like they're constructing one of those golf driving ranges that are all over the place here. I need to check out one of these places sometime. I wonder if you have to bring your own club.

9:10 pm - channel 3 can't make out the station ID - some guy it talking into a microphone. a phone number is scrolling by the bottom of the screen. no idea what's going on

9:11 pm - channel 5 "Champ" - Champ is a cartoon channel. some cartoon is on. it takes place in a classroom. one girl just said something that blew the minds of all the other students. she said something about foreigners

9:13 pm - channel 6 "KNN SBS" - some Korean drama. two women are talking in a bank. now a girl is riding the bus. flashback. the girl is talking to another woman in a coffee shop. back to the bus. now some guy is in the hospital. one of the women from the bank is there crying.

9:16 pm - channel 7 "OShopping" - its a home shopping show. they're selling computers and playing some American rock music. this must be some hardcore computer. the animated film "Bee Movie" is playing on the computer monitor.

9:19 pm - channel 8 "KBS2" - because one KBS wasn't enough. I think this is sketch comedy show. maybe some variety show. there's a group of people on stage sitting at school desks. one man is running around and screaming. the audience is laughing. now another man is complaining about something. the other guy is running and screaming again. one guy has a twirly mustache drawn on his face and is wearing a sparkly shirt and is doing a magic trick. I think he's supposed to be portraying a Mexican, judging by how he rolls his R's.

9:26 pm - channel 9 "GS" - GS is a convenience store chain here, so I'm not sure why they have a TV station. it appears to be a home shopping channel. they're selling cosmetic products. apparently the make-up comes with stationary.

9:30 pm - channel 10 "KBS1" - you would think KBS1 would be lower on the dial than KBS2. looks like a news program. they're covering sports now. soccer is a pretty exciting sport when you just watch clips of goals being made. archery now. Koreans are pretty enthusiastic about archery. golf now. i can't tell, but it looks like there is a golf tour in Korea. I didn't know people here golfed outside those monster driving ranges. soccer again

9:37 pm - channel 11 "Hmall" - more home shopping. selling a Pontus navigation device. also there is a graphic in the corner promoting a some lotion.

9:39 pm - channel 12 "Lotte" - still more home shopping. i think they're selling an anti-wrinkle cream. which they are now pouring into a wine glass

9:42 pm - channel 13 "MBC" - just caught the close of a sports show. commercials commercials commercials. when you don't know the language, commercials can be as interesting as actual programing. looks like a family sitcom is starting up. nope false start. more commercials. there are a lot of white people in Korean commercials. haha, the baby in this commercial is hilarious. commercial was for a water cooler. a Regina Spektor song is being played over footage of soccer to advertise a vitamin drink. Sitcom just started. maybe this is a drama actually. lots of awkward silence and yelling. the room they're in reminds me of my boss's home. where I lived for about a month in their guest bedroom. I'll have to write a little about that sometime.

9:51 pm - channel 14 "NS" - Jesus there are a lot of home shopping channels here. this one is selling cell phones.

9:52 pm - channel 15 "Comedy" - a goat is eating flowers. now a monk is petting him. now the goat and the monk are walking around. this is all being narrated and a laugh track is being played. the goat keeps rearing up to head butt the monk and the monk kind of kicks him in the head. not maliciously, just so the goat impacts the sole of his shoes when he rams. now an old lady is chasing the goat out of a house. now the goat is shitting and chasing another goat. goats really might be the funniest animals.

9:58 pm - channel 16 "KTV" - some old American movie is playing. Audrey Hepburn is in it. she plays a princess.

10:00 pm - channel 17 "ESB1" - it's an educational program. a woman is in front of a chalk board explaining something in Korean. there's a lot of shows like this that teach English. not sure what this one is about.

10:03 pm - channel 18 "ESB2" - this one is teaching English. "She is __________ a letter to her friend." what's the answer? did you guess writing? you are correct.

10:06 pm - channel 19 "Tooniverse" - I wonder if Korean kids appreciate that clever word play. looks like a pretty dramatic cartoon. anime characters are having an intense discussion in a hospital. the Simpsons airs on this channel. Korean kids are big fans of the Simpsons.

10:10 pm - channel 20 "tvN" - maybe my favorite thing to see on TV is the local commercials for restaurants. every restaurant has the spiciest soup in town. looks like this is a music channel. a very androgynous male pop star is singing a song called "HeartBreaker". jeez this guy is femmy. OH HEY! ITS G-Dragon! of Big Bang fame. I once asked a student how she felt. She said she was very happy. I asked her why and she said it was because it was G-Dragon's birthday. if a guy accidentally had sex with G-Dragon I wouldn't count it as gay. that's how girly G-Dragon looks. the ladies love him though. maybe I should think about throwing on some eye make up next time I go out.

10:19 pm - channel 21 "MBN" - looks like a 24 hour news format. they're talking about something involving North Korea and Pakistan. no good can come of this. looks like a good day for the stock market. now they're covering some protest. someone will have to let me know why Koreans always wear red head bands when they protest.

10:23 pm - channel 22 "YTN" - more news. a bunch of big shot Koreans are really happy about something.

10:23 pm - channel 23 "FX" - that's the same FX as in the states. a "Most Shocking Videos" type of show is on. a bunch of race car crashes being narrated in Korean. a rocket boat just ate it. a graphic of a shirtless man in in the corner of the screen. looks like the boat racer made it. good for him.

10:29 pm - channel 24 "FoxLife" - the show "According the Jim" is on. i don't enjoy this show, but sometimes I want to watch ugly Americans make bad jokes in English for a little bit.

10:32 pm - channel 25 "Fox" - the show "Medium" is on. I don't enjoy this show either.

10:33 pm - channel 26 "OCN" - this is a English language action movie channel. the movie "Jumper" is on. it's about a young man that can teleport. I watched it when I took a ferry to Japan. not a lot to it but it was nice of them to show something to eat up some of the 4 hours it took to get there.

10:37 pm - channel 27 "Echannel" - don't be confused with the American TV station "E!" which also broadcasts here. some people are catching some huge snakes that are crawling around the streets. looks like they're in Thailand of something. now some monks are playing with a bear.

10:40 pm - channel 28 "Screen" - an American movie is playing. people in medieval costumes are sword fighting. one lady can control plants and is wrapping people up in vines. Jason Stratham is in it. AND BURT REYNOLDS! these guys should stick to movies where they drive awesome cars.

10:45 pm - channel 29 "CGV" - wait, this channel 31. looks like I missed some stations. screw it. some Korean movie is playing.

10:47 pm - channel 32 "OnStyle" - the American show "The Biggest Loser" is on. the blue team just lost the dramatic weigh in. wow this one guy lost 13 pounds this week. oh good, one guy on the blue team was really homesick so the choice of who to send home was really easy and no one's feeling get hurt. oh no, there was a double cross! looks like the mom is going home. man, i'm hungry. i think i'm going to swing by McDonald's.

11:35 pm - just got back from McDonalds and now I'm sleepy. all this watching TV and eating hamburgers is hard work. check back later y'all.

Back

2009-09-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

Back to the blog.

Been away so long I don't know what to say.

Situation changed.

Don't know what I want to say, or what I can.

Just gotta post something.

Break the seal and the good stuff will follow.

New posts to come.

A Picnic and Pics of the Kiddos

2009-04-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

Last week, the whole morning crew at Little Campus went on a picnic. Basically, I get paid for 3 hours of playing with Korean kindergartners. Some job I have, isn't.

Every kid wore either a hat or visor. Pictured here are Katy and Iris. Iris is in the back, with a visor that kept slipping down and made it look like she was wearing a welding mask. At least she didn't get a sunburn.

I let the kids try on my sunglasses. Lucas here was reluctant to give them back.

Lewis was trying to communicate something to me here.

Then he just stuffed some kimbap in his mouth mid-sentence.

"Ya, we're havin' a picnic. You got somethin' you wanna fuckin' say bout it?"

The kids offered me kimbap after kimbap. They fed me so much I couldn't eat much of the food provided for the teachers. The kids' food was better anyways.

Katy, with a mouth full of kimbap.

I was only really able to take pictures when we sat down to eat. The rest of the time my hands were pretty full. They were literally full, because every kid in my classes wanted to hold my hand whenever we walked any where. When they had their playtime I was inundated with requests to be picked up and spun around. I made the mistake of doing that thing where you hold onto a kids hands and spin them around until centripetal force lifts their feet of of the ground and they go airborne. The kids got such a kick out of that I ended up spending most of my time spinning around in circles with little Korean kids laughing maniacally at the end of my reach. It was hilarious to see but I got pretty dizzy after a while and the kids wouldn't let me stop.

So, that was a pretty good day.

How to make Korean children cry

2009-03-29T04:11:00.000-07:00

It's an unavoidable fact that, when in the company of children for any significant period of time, they will cry, and you will sometimes be the catalyst of this reaction. Having not spent much time with children prior to becoming an English teacher, I didn't expect the frequency and spontaneous nature of this occurrence. By now, I've come to accept it as a fact of life, and have begun to apply a measure of intellectual curiosity to the matter.

Here I will lay out the hierarchy of stimuli which will cause Korean children to cry. Note that, with a very different social frame of reference than a child growing up in America, the strength of stimuli may contrast greatly from your expectations.

Physical Discipline: It may surprise you to know that as a teacher in Korea, I am allowed, and sometimes encouraged to hit my children. This isn't meant to inflict pain, much less injury. It is simply meant to catch the attention of the student and show disapproval of his or her actions. When I say hit, I refer to a gentle slap to the back of the head with an open hand or a smack to the forehead with a stack of paper. There are even objects manufactured specifically for the purpose of hitting children and they are employed by most of the Korean teachers at my school. (pictured below)

I rarely hit a student, and when I do, it is in a playfully exasperated manner. I've seen Korean teacher discipline students to the extent I felt uncomfortable. The children themselves inflict a level of violence upon one another to a ridiculous degree, and by now I think I could pass as a Taekwondo referee at the amateur level.

With all this, there has only been one occasion where I've seen a tear shed as a result of physical contact. That was the result of a well placed elbow of a 12 year old girl into the back of a twelve year old boy. Everyone present knew he had it coming. His reaction was to place his head down on his desk, drop a couple tears, and resume his studies.

Verbal Discipline:I'm probably the most mellow, laid back teacher my students have ever encountered. Korean education seems to be very regimented and strict, with every spare moment filled with instruction and recitation. My classes are pretty casual and as long as we get through the lesson plan I don't mind a little little off topic discourse or activity.

So, when I see behavior warranting correction, I can address it with a quick and simple change in demeanor. Imagine getting yelled at by Hitler for throwing your pencil across the room. Judging by historical footage, he seemed to maintain a conversational tone a few decibels outside the comfort zone, so it would seem your infraction wasn't too far out of bounds normal behavior. Now imagine getting the same tongue lashing from Santa Claus. You would know you screwed up pretty bad.

I was surprised at first by the response my change in volume and expression elicited. There have been a few occasions where a student has been brought to tears by my verbal reprimands. Again, I'm not freaking out on them, it's the juxtaposition of demeanor that startles them. Even then, I rarely cause a student to cry.

Confiscation of Possessions: There are some kids that you could probably beat in the head with a brick while screaming the ugly truths of the world into their faces, and they would still think it is a good idea to throw you the old dong chim every time your up at the board, showing them how to conjugate a verb.

These students require a more lasting form of discipline. Something to hold their attention for the duration of class. I find it very effective to take their pencil case or book and withhold it from them until they modify their behavior.

Korean students place great value on their school supplies, so their reaction to this is immediate and severe. The will first try to physically stop you. Then they will either display perfect behavior or escalate their protest. Should they choose the latter approach, they will scream at you their perspective on the unjust nature of your actions. Then, more often than not, they will break down into tears. When they reach this level it is time to solicit a guarantee of good behavior. If they agree, you are lucky if their promise holds until the end of the class period.

Subtracting from an allocation of points in an arbitrary reward system: The first teachers probably dipped their hands in horse blood, wrote their students names on a cave wall, and started writing tally marks next to their names for good behavior. I remember a point system of discipline being utilized throughout my elementary school years, with varying degrees of success. In Korea it's no different. Each students name is up on the board, and a mark is placed next to it when the teach feels the student is deserving. Likewise, a mark is erased when the student has committed some infraction of classroom etiquette.

Korea is a very competitive culture. Material reward seems to come second to knowledge that one has performed better than others. So the point system is a very useful visual representation of my opinion of the students' performance.

When a student has particularly disappointed me, I sometimes see fit to erase the entirety of the points they have accumulated throughout the day. This immediately serves to gain heir attention. I rarely resort to this tactic, and only for behavior offenses, because it doesn't simply cause the student to modify their behavior. It completely neutralizes them.

The student will stop whatever they are doing, sit down, and hope that you immediately return their points to the board. They will then make a humble plea that you rethink your course of action. When that doesn't work, the student will become withdrawn and depressed. They are inconsolable and unable to participate in the lesson. They begin processing the series of events that have just unfolded, and they almost always begin to cry. I often offer them a chance to regain points through displays of English comprehension, but usually the shock is to great and they are unable to process outside stimuli.

This method has the added affect of startling the rest of the class, who enthusiastically participate in the lesson and intermittently make statements of sympathy and support for the disciplined student.

Usually, the emotional response of the student is so great I feel the discipline is out of proportion to the offense and I end up reallocating the entirety of the students points once they have displayed a satisfactory level of remorse. Even then, the student is hardly consoled and can hardly make eye contact with me for the duration of the class period. (T_T)

So, that's my disciplinary strategy. It's a work in progress and I hope one day to be able to control a class completely by means of positive reinforcement. But, until I am able to do so, or I send a student to the psych ward for "point deficiency", my methods will remain the same.

I won so much money I threw up blood!

2009-03-08T10:20:00.000-07:00

Don't be troubled by the title of this post. I really had a lovely weekend with some interesting twists. Quite a nice change of pace from the state of mind in which my last entry found me.

Lauren had a bit of a going away party last night, in conjunction with a birthday party thrown for a couple other lovely ladies. The festivities were held at happening little spot, in Seomyeon, called 'Guri Bar'. I had actually been under the mistaken impression Lauren had left earlier in the week, so I was surprised and delighted to have the opportunity to see her again. Lauren is one of my favorite people to talk to. She has a certain way of thinking and expressing herself I find endlessly entertaining. Here's hoping she finds her way back to Korea sometime soon.

Not only was I treated to the unexpected presence of Lauren but a good mix of many of the people I've come to enjoy and appreciate here. I got to add a good many numbers to my newly acquired cellphone. Hearty drink and conversation was had by all. Dances were danced. Korean people were met. It was one of those nights you couldn't ask more from.

There was one nasty bit about 'Guri Bar'. The bathroom had the most terrible, permeating stench I've encountered in some time. It had all the regular smells you'll usually find in a public restroom, but layered upon that was something similar to rotting meat and vomit. After my second visit, my gag reflex could handle no more and I lost the contents of my dinner to the toilet. After conferring with others I found I wasn't the only one made sick by the bathroom smell. I mention this disgusting anecdote because the effects of stomach acid of my throat comes into play later.

So after a fun while at Guri Bar I was filled with beer and happiness. Guri Bar is conveniently located behind the Lotte Hotel, home of the 7 Luck Casino, my inevitable final destination for the night. I convinced a couple other folks to come with me, but for some reason I was in a hurry and headed out before the others. I didn't realize these particular guys were new in town and didn't know exactly where the casino was located. At this point in the night I wasn't realizing a lot of things. I don't really remember walking into the casino or what happened for the first hour or so after I got there. Eventually my head cleared and I found myself at a blackjack table with a big stack of chips and a bad case of the hiccups.

Things went well at the casino and in the early hours of the morning I was taking the table alongside another American English teacher. I was making big bets and drinking coffee to keep myself going. Eventually the stress of the game and the strong coffee started upsetting my stomach. I got sick in the restroom. The hiccups had been putting quite a strain on my already weakened esophagus and I was startled to find blood in the toilet bowl. If you've ever thrown up blood, or even if you haven't you can probably imagine, it's quite a disturbing experience. Someone with more sense and caution may have headed home right then, but I was on quite a roll and was otherwise enjoying myself, so I sat back down at the table, ordered a bottle of water, and continued to win money.

I finally accomplished a goal of mine. Ever since I won ₩3,000,000 at the casino, I've had one ambition: to win ₩5,000,000 at the casino. I finally pulled it off. With the sun already high in the sky, I picked up my chips and cashed in. The weird thing is, when I checked my wallet to pull out money for a cab home, I found the ₩100,000 I had originally withdrawn to gamble with. Where the hell did my initial bet come from? I don't think I'll never know.

Sunday has been spent in recovery. My throat still hurts and it is uncomfortable to eat, but I can already feel it has healed a great deal. After researching the possible causes of blood in vomit, I've decided I just went a little hard on my body and ended up with something like a blister on my esophagus.

This ailment notwithstanding, I had a pretty great weekend and I'm glad to spread the good word of GeorgeGoesKorean once again.

3 month doldrums

2009-03-05T19:56:00.000-08:00

I've been a bit down lately. It's a mix of things. Homesickness, boredom, lack of health and wellness. This is a pretty common feeling among expats around the 3, 6, and 9 month marks. Fortunately I knew this ahead of time so I was able to anticipate and recognize it when it happened. I guess it's natural to feel a little low when the initial excitement of a new country wears off and the list of things you miss about home starts to pile up.

I miss driving. I miss Jack in the Box. I miss my friends. I miss my family. I miss being able to read the ingredients on the foods I eat. I miss American grocery stores. I miss being able to pick up a magazine in English at the gas station. I miss big movie theaters with predictable show times. I would kill for a really good sandwich.

I'm not saying I'm changing my mind about Korea. I still like being here and I want to experiences the lows along with the highs. Somethings have changed for the worse here though, and it has only exacerbated my condition.

Frank and Lauren left. They brought me into this world and now they're gone. I'm thankful for the aid they rendered and wish them best luck as they continue their journeys.

My fellow foreign teachers are gone. Mary made a "midnight run" last Sunday afternoon. She never really settled in well here at Little Campus and she had an opportunity elsewhere. It's kind of reassuring to know that if things get to bad, you can just keep moving.

We've started a new term here at Little Campus. A couple things kind of suck about this. I have several classes with absolutely no English experience at all. That in itself doesn't suck, but 2 weeks into the term I still don't have a textbook to teach them from. I can wing it. It's not too hard to start from step 1, just go slow and goof off enough to keep the kids engaged. But the director of Little Campus,
Mrs. Yoon, sees fit to come into class and show me how to teach them, which would be fine if I knew how to scream instructions to them in Korean and bang a stick on the table as they hammer out memory sentences. I guess I can do the stick thing, but her Korean instruction really just makes my attempts to communicate with the kids seem irrelevant.

So work has been a drag lately. That, along with my distaste for the particular area of town I'm in is making me think about finding a job elsewhere. I want to stay in Busan, and I have some good ideas about where I'd like to be, but I don't know what complications may arise from the contract I signed with Little Campus. The contract lays out conditions for breaking the contract early. Right now I would just have to pay half my airfare over here. After 6 months I wouldn't owe anything but I would need the new school to pay for my flight back to the States in December. I'm fine with these things but I don't know how much leverage Mrs. Yoon has over releasing me from the contract and allowing me to work elsewhere. I guess if she's uncooperative I can just hop a flight to Bejing and start teaching little Chinese kids. Mandarin would be a more useful language to learn anyway. I think if type the words Little Campus enough times in this blog Google will recognize me as the leading authority on the school and I'll be able to spread the word to potential foreign teachers. Let's see how this all works out.

As long as I'm complaining about everything else I might as well mention the exchange rate. Right now, it's 1564 KRW to 1 USD. Last time I went to the bank to transfer money home the teller gave a worried look and said, "But, the rate is lowest ever." I told here I was aware and to go ahead with the transaction. So, debts are being paid down more slowly than anticipated, but at least they're still getting paid down.

Ok, hopefully that's all the complaining I will need to do for a while. I don't know how interesting it is to read about, and I know I don't like writing about it, but I want to give a full picture of my time here. Korea isn't always a land of cupcakes and rainbows, no matter what their national anthem says.

This is my job

2009-02-25T08:18:00.000-08:00

I don't question why sombrero is a vocabulary word. I simply rejoice.

Changes

2009-02-24T05:27:00.000-08:00

Much has changed in the last couple weeks as GeorgeGoesKorean. Nothing so sudden and exciting as to be entertaining enough to write a whole post about, but enough to change the tone of this blog. From now on I expect my posts to be more frequent and less topical. I need a place to pour out my ideas because there will be fewer folks around me to share them with.

The only other native speaking English teacher here at Little Campus left. She blogs here, and she can explain better than I can why she left. I still don't have much to complain about my school, but this wasn't the right job for her. I didn't really see her much through the work day, or after the work day, or on the weekends for that matter. But, we did share some good times and it was nice to have someone to share the experiences Little Campus provides with someone. Also, all the foreign teachers at Little Campus are given apartments above the school, so now I don't have any neighbors. Any weird sounds I hear during the night can't be attributed to someone else making a racket in their apartment. Best wishes Mary.

The semester has ended at Little Campus and a new one has begun. I have new classes, with new students, and still no new textbooks. It's hard to keep kids entertained for half an hour with no set curriculum to teach. Thankfully, I discovered a cache of word searches that the kids seem to enjoy. It's still pretty weird to teach new kids though. You really get used to the kids you teach for months on end. I'm teaching some classes that my old students have moved to. So, the new kids seem extra weird. I guess every new kid seems strange and out of place when you first start teaching them. Then you figure them out and they become familiar and predictable. The new ones seem so foreign and spontaneous right now. In a few weeks we'll be just like family but damned if their little eyes don't freak me out.

Frank and Lauren are going back home soon. They brought me into this world and now they're leaving me behind. Guess I'll have to start making friends of my own. It was nice to have someone familiar around that shared the same pace I did. Another old friend is probably joining me soon so I'll have that to look forward to. I finally got a cell phone too, so I should be able to set a bit of a social circle of my own. Let's hope that works out.

For the time being, I don't have much to do. I work, come home, have a few beers and watch TV show and movies that I download. Ever seen the movie "Outlander"? It's just OK.

I plan to write more about the little incongruities and emotional disposition I experience here as an English teacher. More of an introspective work. So, this blog should become more subtle and nuanced. LETZ HEAR IT FOR NUANCES WOOOOOOT!!!!!!

Disaster!

2009-02-12T09:07:00.000-08:00

I don't have a camera anymore. My adventures in photography lasted all of 2 days before my equipment was dropped and rendered useless. I took the camera to class and intended to take some pictures of the little Koreans I spend my days with. This caused an unexpected level of excitement and I was soon demanded of me that I put my expensive technological possession into the tiny hands of young people I can't communicate with and have the coordination of monkeys with down syndrome. Being the super cool teacher I am, I obliged. HUGE MISTAKE.

I did get a good picture of the exact moment my students realized my camera must be enjoyed to death.

I can't completely blame the kids. Although, their picture taking session rapidly devolved into a game of capture the camera with the other students chasing and trying to rend the camera from the hands of the student in possession. I got upset and demanded it back. The accident happened when a student was handing it back to me. Just before my fingers could come into contact with it, the camera fell to the floor and that was the end of it.

It's really my fault for bringing it into the classroom in the first place. There's a good reason everything of value in the school is stored 6 feet off the ground. Live and learn, c'est la vie, it's just money, all's well that ends when, at least nobody got hurt.

Fuck, I wish my camera wasn't broken.

I got a camera

2009-02-11T11:10:00.000-08:00

As you may have guessed from the title of this post and the picture above; I got a camera.

It's a little Olympus FE-360. Nobody's going to pay me to shoot their wedding with it, but it's small, light weight, and perfect for throwing in my pocket as I head out on my adventures.

Shown is the view from the roof of my school/apartment. This picture also shows how how novice my photography skills are. I don't know the right setting to use, I can't keep my hand from shaking, I don't know how to frame a shot.

Hopefully, as this blog progresses, my skills will improve and I can give y'all a clearer picture of what's happening as GeorgeGoesKorean.

Weird Dream

2009-02-03T07:29:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in a while. Sorry. I've been busy, and when I haven't been busy I've been resting and thinking about how busy I am. That adds up to a couple of weeks of no blog posts. Once you go a while without writing anything, you get to feeling like the next one needs to be something special. The longer you go the more special it has to be. Until, finally, there seems to be nothing worth writing about. So, I'm just going to write about something frivolous, just to break to cycle.

I had a weird dream last night. I was working at some sort of zoological research facility. My job was to hang out in a monkey exhibit, in my underwear, and document my experience so actual monkeys on display could be better accommodated. It was pretty boring. I had nothing to do all day but sit around in my underwear and eat fruit. There were other people in the exhibit with me, but we seemed to be unable to communicate. I felt pretty lonely and self-conscious about being on display in my underwear.

At the end of the day, I was to report to the scientists at the facility about my experience. Only the scientists didn't seem to care what I had to say. They didn't listen to a word I said, and before I knew it, I was back in the exhibit, doing the same pointless thing.

It got worse when a new "specimen" came to work in the exhibit. He was so enormously fat, there was hardly room to move around. On my lunch break, I went to some gas station where there was a computer, and started looking on craigslist for new jobs.

End of dream.

It took me all of 3 minutes to realize this dream was my imagination's interpretation of my job. I'm not saying it's a bad job, and I knew what I was getting into when I signed on, but certain realities seem to have stirred my subconscious in weird ways.

I was hired here because I'm American. I wasn't hired for my phenomenal abilities to manipulate the English language. I wasn't hired for my skills in developing children's linguistic abilities. I was hired because I'm a white guy that Korean parents can see and be led to believe their children are receiving an "authentic" English education. In some ways, I am a monkey in a cage.

The private English school is a business, and the most important part of any business is making the sale. It's more important for things to look good than to actually be of quality. That's why young people with no teaching experience, and in some cases, a shaky grasp of proper English, are brought here to educate the youth of Korea.

Thing is though, I'm a pretty good teacher. I actually finished the official textbook a few weeks ago, and I've been winging it ever since. I just walk into class, run through a few flashcards as a warm up, then I just talk to the kids. I keep the language simple and age appropriate. When I can't understand something through the accent I have them write it down. I tell them as much as I can about myself, about America, about life. I ask them all about themselves. I can really see them improving too. Their much more eager to have a conversation with me than to explain where a bunch of cartoon people in a text book left their backpacks. A couple of my classes have already taken their end of term tests and everyone passed with flying colors.

At the end of the day though, I don't know how much of that is recognized and appreciated. It doesn't really matter too much. My employers have their motivations and objectives. I have mine. As long as they coincide, everybody wins and the cycle continues.

Again, don't think for a second that I'm complaining that my job is hanging out with Korean kids all day. The thing about kids is, they have no sense where a professional relationship ends and a personal relationship begins. To them, I am a friend, a mentor, in some cases a father figure. In the same vein, I sometimes lose track of my professional responsibilities. Sometimes, I can't help but try to put a smile on a kid's face, even if he doesn't know how to conjugate the word "run" correctly. The kids are having fun and learning. I'm doing the same. Sometimes I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this.

But, the dreams remind me, I was meant for something more. A greater test of my abilities. A harder path. I am greatful though, that this time is a stepping stone in that direction.

* * * * *

Just to catch you up on my waking life, here's a few bits:

- I went skiing over Lunar New Year in Suambo

- I hurt my hand (only slightly) in a motorbike accident

- I ventured out into the world of dating Korean women

Learn more, in the latest edition of GeorgeGoesKorean! COMING SOON to an internet near you!

South Korea: Land of the Free

2009-01-17T07:53:00.000-08:00

It's time I make mention of the generosity of the Korean people. This is perhaps the most astounding aspect of this country. I don't even really feel qualified writing about this because I still don't fully understand it. There are a lot of cultural, social, even geographical factors that contribute to this faucet of the Korean character. I'll do my best to try to explain, but this is solely based on my limited experience and a modicum of research.

First of all, there is my situation. I'm here teaching English, with no experience and no qualification beyond having a college degree. For this I am compensated a little more than ₩2,000,000 a month. At the current exchange, this comes out to a little less than $2,000 USD a month. I'm not raking it in by American standards but for a Korean this is doing pretty good. Especially when you take into account I am provided a free apartment and charged next to nothing for utilities. At this point I'm doing alright even by standards in the States. I feel like this is by virtue not only of the great demand for native English teachers, but also for the fact that we are guests in this country. For the most part, Koreans have been incredibly welcoming and accommodating. All I have to spend money on is food and entertainment. This is where is gets good.

One of my favorite meals is a dish call "dangaseu" which is a fried pork cutlet. For this delicious meal I usually spend ₩5,000 or less that $5 USD. As with any meal here, it is not a simple offering of the entree. I am also given rice, a small salad, potato soup, kimchi, some other side item, miso soup, and usually a free appetizer since I am a regular customer and a foreign oddity at my restaurant of choice. Every meal here is saturated with free side dishes. Koreans truly believe in the practice of "under promising and over delivering". Any proper meal here will involve the table being covered in not only your chosen menu item, but an array of unpredictable dishes meant to surprise and delight. Surely you would feel compelled to give the waitress a generous tip after such an offering but, no, that is frowned upon here.

So, the food never ceases to impress me and I'm not spending much money on it even when I try. I guess I have a bunch of money left over for entertainment. Time to head to the bars. Here, it's just a matter of picking the funnest bar, because the prices are the same EVERYWHERE. Seems like in the US the bar scene is like a minefield. You never know where you're going to step into a place charging $5 for a bottle of Budweiser. Here, every place has Hite on tap for ₩3,000 a pint. It's not the greatest beer selection in the world. I guess I could go somewhere and pay more for a fine selection of craft brews, but that's not what I'm here for. The expats like to have fun and we won't pay a penny more than it's worth. It doesn't stop at the beers either. I enjoy a splash of Jack Daniels once in a while. It's usually a bit pricey in a bar in the States, but here it's ₩3,000 a shot. I have had friends insisting on buying me a shot and I insisted in turn that they purchase the usually less pricey Jim Beam. Turns out Jim Beam is also ₩3,000 a shot. Jack Daniels it is then.

So my description of the bar scene embodied the spirit of 'cheap' rather than the subject of this post: 'free'. Here's where that changes. Apparently in Korea it is customary for the oldest male of any group to completely cover the costs of any social gathering. I had heard of this practice but never saw it put into action until last night. So, here we were at a 'makli' bar (rice wine) when a middle age Korean gentleman approaches our table of a dozen young expats. He engages my friend Frank in conversation and immediately orders us a pitcher of delicious bamboo wine (they don't just serve makli here). This Korean gentleman continues to converse with Frank with his limited English, which mostly involves him apologizing for taking up our time and asking simple questions about where we are from. Being a friendly bunch, we continually invite him to sit with us and ask him questions about himself. This continues for about an hour before this Korean man decides he is too drunk and needs to find his way home. Like any Korean man on a Friday night, he is well over his limit. Through some combination of custom and drunkenness he decides to pay for the entire tab of everyone at the table. All our makli, all our bamboo wine, all our beers, all our soju. Against our protestation he pays up. We were all expecting to cough up about ₩10,000 for our fun. He takes on a tab greater that ₩150,000. We beg him not to, but he continues to insist. He heads out the door and we are left at point zero. Our night of fun has been bank rolled by this random stranger and there is nothing left to do but continue.

Pretty lucky, huh. That's what me and Frank thought. So, where do you go when your feeling lucky. To the casino, of course. Now, the casino can be the most generous or the most costly place you'll ever visit. They give you free drinks, they give you free food, they'll give you a free warm moist towel if you want to freshen up at the table. One time I wanted to write something down and they gave me a free pad of paper and a pen within a minute of asking, and they insisted I keep the pen. One the other hand, they'll let you gamble away your life savings in an hour. Fortunately for me, I seem to have a talent for blackjack and they have given me thousands of ₩ worth of US dollars of free money. At this point, my profession seems to be less of an English teacher and more of a professional gambler, as the casino has paid me more than my currently salary many times over. I like to think I give a little back to the casino by making the Japanese business men I play alongside think they can do the same as me. Due to the language barrier, I can't even begin to explain to them how I do it, and they usually end up wasting a few bucks while my chips stack up. I didn't think I could ever really communicate my strategy to anyone, but last night I was able to convey a message of instinct and algorithms and spitting in the eye of fate to Frank. That along with a few good tips along the way helped him to walk out of there with ₩700,000 he didn't have before. I, on the other hand, did very well for a time, but I got greedy at the prospect of breaking my previous winning record, and I threw away a couple million ₩ I should have walked away with. I still won ₩1,000,000, but I can't help kicking myself a little for my hubris.

So, why all the complementary offerings? Like I said, I feel as though Koreans feel that I am a guest here. In their own culture, everyone is family. Koreans very much see themselves as one people, and they extend the same gratuity to their neighbors as they would their own blood. As someone with the desire to come here and indulge in the culture I think they see me as a person at one with all things Korean. They want to show off. They want to give me the best they got so that I may be impressed. It is common practice among themselves, but there is probably a particular need to exhibit their most gracious qualities to me, as a representative of the outside world.

So, to sum it up, free rent, cheap food, inexpensive night life, occasionally excessive generosity from the Koreans, thousands of dollars from the casino.

Korea has been good to me.

No Translation

2009-01-13T08:14:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I love the language barrier here. I spend most of my work day spouting out simple sentences, one syllable at a time. If I go beyond that, the kids don't have a lick of a sense of a clue what I'm saying. This comes in handy since I have a tendency to occasionally burst forth with a fit of expression I wouldn't want children to comprehend. I don't curse much, by nature, it's how I was raised I suppose, so no worries there. But the ideas I sometimes present are none the less complex and troubling when they are understood. Here's some examples.

Henry: "Teacher, can I have Very Good Card*?"

Me: "No, you didn't finish your assignment."

Henry: "Teacher! Very Good Card Please!!"

Me: "Very Good Cards are for CLOSERS Henry! And you messed the bed on this one."

(the V G C is a coupon redeemable for candy or trinkets at my school)
__________________________________________________________________________

Lily: "Teacher, Mommy and Daddy are broken!" (she says this smiling)

Me: "Lily, I got problems, you got problems, we all got problems. It's not even 11:40 in the morning. Let's just stick to coloring for the time being, OK?"
__________________________________________________________________________

Andy: "Teacher, I don't understand." (maybe the only English this kid knows)

Me: "It's 'FROG'. Draw a line from the word to the picture."

Andy: "Teacher, I don't understand."

*I draw the line as an example and direct him on how to correctly answer the next question*

Andy: "Teacher, I don't understand."

Me: "Get a good smell of my deodorant, Andy. This is as close to America as you're ever going to get."
___________________________________________________________________________

Lucy: "My dude had a waterski and we went to the lake."

Me: "Why is 'dude' a vocab word? What do you think dude means?"

Lucy: "It is same as friend."

Me: "Ok nobody here ever use the word 'dude'. You will be in America for 10 years before you know how to use the word 'dude'. 'Dude' has many meanings. Some of them are good. Some of them are bad. Right now people just use it ironically. Like, they want to express affection for a male friend but they use this word in a round about way so as to not risk any emotional vulnerability while still expressing some level of admiration. So they say "Hey 'dude' what's up?". It could be different next month. You could say you saw two 'dudes' in sunglasses walk into the cell phone store and it would convey a sense of disapproval and a general dismissiveness of their character based on their appearance. Actually both of these uses are concurrently valid but the cultural environment will make one or the other more understandable in less elevated circumstances."

The class didn't catch a word of that after "OK".

I cross my arms into an X (the Korea signal for NO) and say the word 'dude'.

Nobody uses the word 'dude' anymore.

A Word About Work

2009-01-07T08:55:00.000-08:00

I certainly don't have the hardest job in the world. I've had physically demanding jobs (zookeeper). I've had intellectually strenuous jobs (environmental control technician for a major pharmaceutical). I've had jobs with awkward social interaction (waiter). I've held a position with so little responsibility and consequence that it tested my ability to consume absurd amounts of alcohol (high school senior).

The role of English teacher in Korea seems to utilize all the skills I've acquired through out my professional life. I'm on my feet most of the day, pacing the class room and breaking up fights, putting nine-year-olds in headlocks so they quit trying out their taekwondo moves on their class mates and do their assignments. While I do this I must impress upon these children the intricacies of a Germanic language with more irregular verbs than you can shake a stick at. I perform these duties through a language barrier so thick I can't even smell the Korean on the other side. Then on the weekend I take whatever I have left and I wander out into the most active social scene this side of the Prime Meridian. In all these endeavors I still manage to show folks a thing or two about how it's done.

It sounds hard when it's all laid out like that. That's why I posted the video above. Mike Rowe gives a speech you wouldn't think him capable of giving. "Dirty Jobs" is a rather deductive assessment of of the duties he performs. I don't fault the program for forsaking insight for entertainment value. I enjoy his little quips about the disgusting and demanding situations he finds himself in as much as the next guy. Look at him here though. Talking about the people he's met. The perceptions he's had about jobs and the inverse realities of the occupations. There is a special moment when he talks about a man who makes biodegradable pottery from cow manure. Mike says this fellow saw everyone going "this way" while this particular fellow went "that way".

I saw many a fellow compatriot scrambling for the lucrative positions still available in the States. I worked alongside many people twice my age starting over again in the jobs I was settling for as a humble beginning. I saw my my income nearly triple within a year out of college but in every new job there was never a shortage of complaint from my coworkers.

Now I am in South Korea. Earning less than half of what I used to make in the States but stretching it 4x as far. I work with young people just discovering this world, and while I have my complaints along with all the other English teachers, hardly a soul would think there decision to come here a mistake. We all made a difficult transition in coming here. Sacrifice and open mindedness are necessary qualifications for us English teachers.

At the end of the day, we sleep well, and on the weekend, we have deserved our beer and soju.

Here's to work.

Anthony Bourdain in Korea

2009-01-06T07:57:00.000-08:00

It is likely apparent that "GeorgeGoesKorean" has no production value. In fact this little blog is probably costing Google a few bucks for bandwidth and memory allocation.

But, what if someone had the means and motivation to come to Korea with a camera crew and an appetite. What if a man like Anthony Bourdain could use commercial programing to subsidize a journey over here and spread the message of those things Korean that the natives consider familiar and us visitors consider the most unique and exotic aspects of a culture fantastic.

The thought occurred to me and I deemed it an extravagant desire. Could one of my favorite television programs have come to this country and reported back on the street level culture I experience everyday?

My fingers hit the keyboard and the words appeared in the Google Search bar; "No Reservations Korea". I hoped against hope as the results tumbled down upon my screen. There it was. 45 minutes of poetry, simple and direct yet grasping at the complexities of a oh so foreign land.

If you have the slightest glimmer of curiosity about Korea watch this video. I'm a fan of the "No Reservations" series, and a fan of Korea, but putting myself in an objective mindset I would still consider this one of the best episode this program has ever filmed.

Watch for:

Jet Lag!

bottles of Hite beer!

bottles of Soju!

consumption of still squirming octopus bits!

Kimchi!

the noraebang (karaoke rooms)!

more bottles of Soju!

fish stew!

DVDbangs (with people making out within)!

chicken ass!

arcades!

uncomfortable sentiments regarding North Korea!

Korean saunas!

Korean BBQ!

and much much more!

Bourdain got it right. His few weeks of filming very closely represent my first impressions of this country. Again, watch that video and everything else Anthony Bourdain appears in.

A Night Out and a Minor Revelation

2009-01-04T04:07:00.000-08:00

I just realized something. I can eat just as well with chopsticks as I can with a fork. I just ate some ramen noodles, and I was really hungry, so I opted to use a fork to shovel them into my face faster than I may have been able to with chopsticks, but it really didn't make a difference. I use chopsticks to eat most anything here and I guess my skills finally caught up with my use of western cutlery. Just thought that was a interesting little benchmark along this path of culture immersion I am traveling.

Anyways, let me tell you about how I spent last night dancing like a maniac and winning ₩3,000,000.

Saturday started kind of bad. I accidentally broke a promise to a friend and was mulling over whether to immediately inform her so she may mitigate the potential complications, or wait until she got back from vacation so as not to ruin her fun. I chose the latter. So let's hope that works out.

So, I spent the afternoon pretty much feeling like a deadbeat and eating leftover fried chicken.

Thankfully around 5pm I was snapped out of my malaise by an invitation from Frank to attend a gathering of friends at his place. This was the perfect situation as I needed to get out but my liquid assets were reduced to uncomfortably low levels. The night promised cheap beer with friends and nothing could have sounded greater.

I got to Frank and Lauren's around 10pm with drinks and snack in tow. I mixed up a few drinks consisting of soju and aloe beverage (pretty good mix) and settled in as others started showing up. Something unexpected happened though. Of all those invited to this little shindig, the only ones to attend were all girls. I enjoy the company of the ladies, but the situation was me, Frank, and a dozen girls playing a drinking game that was all too quickly devolving into a rather gender specific gab session.

No big deal. Let the ladies have a night, I figured. I was just drinking my beers and adding what I could to the discussion. Thankfully though the decision was made to set out upon the bars of Busan. I shared a cab with some of the girls to Kyungsung, a pretty happening part of town fed by the youth of the nearby universities and a dearth of fellow native English teachers.

We hit a bar called "The Vinyl Underground". It's a good music bar, popular with the foreigners and we were treated to a live performance by a pretty competent rock band. I actually ran into an old acquaintance from college, which was immensely improbably, as he lives in another city and just happened to be in town, heading to the same bar we were. We caught up, had some beers, and then I rejoined the party of girls I arrived with.

In the right situation, the right amount of alcohol, the right company, the right atmosphere, I sometimes get the dancing bug. I caught it bad last night and spent a good portion of the night moving to the music. I don't claim to be a good dancer, but others seem to appreciate it when I do. I didn't see a lot of people rocking out before I got in front of the stage and started shaking it, but soon enough half the room was bouncing pretty heavy.

I guess everybody loves the guy dancing around like he doesn't care who's watching. I got random folks to get off their seats and join the party. People were trying to copy my moves and make their way up to where the action was. These girls I arrived with, who I hardly knew before, got pretty enthusiastic and were pretty disappointed when I needed to sit out a song to drink a beer and catch my breath.

A pretty girl even asked me to get coffee with her sometime. I had hardly spoken to her and the only impression she has of me is I'm a guy who dances around like there's no tomorrow. I told her I would, but not having a cell phone yet all I could give her was my email address. I'm not really expecting to hear back about that, since not having a cell phone is like not having a drivers license in high school and telling a girl your mom is going to have to come along on your date. Maybe it's not that bad, but not having a cell phone seems pretty lame none the less.

At some point in the early hours we headed away from "The Vinyl Underground" and went to "The Ole 55", another foreigner bar with a little more relaxed atmosphere. I had a beer there, played a game of pool with one of the girls, but it was starting to look like the night was winding down.

I seemed to be blessed (or cursed) with a frightful endurance. Here I was after a night of drinking games, barhopping, hours of frenetic dancing, and I'm not ready to call it a night. Thankfully there's at least one place in Busan where the action never stops; the casino. Objectively, this was a terrible idea. It was around 5am, I was drunk, I didn't have much cash in my pocket, and no one would agree to go with me. But, I had a good feeling.

I got to Seomyeon via taxi as the first glimmer of daybreak began to light up the streets. I made my way to the Lotte Hotel and straight on to the ATM. Like I said, I didn't have a lot of liquid assets, so a cash advance from a credit card seemed reasonable, as I'm getting payed this week and would be able to soon after reimburse myself.

It took a couple withdraws before I hit my stride at the blackjack table, but I hit it. I gave up the happy ending already. ₩3,000,000 is a very happy ending, but I want to talk about what it takes to get there.

I love blackjack. You can sit in a chair for hours but your pulse rate will rise and fall as if your in a boxing match. You can fall in love and have your heart broken a hundred times in an hour. You can gamble your future on the flip of a card and wipe away the sins of your past on a single good hand.

Ok, that's a little over dramatic, but I think blackjack is pretty fucking awesome. To play it right takes effort, patience, and courage. So, what does it take to turn ₩200,000 into ₩3,000,000? 6 hours, 5 cups of coffee, 2 beers, 4 bottles of water, a pack of cigarettes and a free breakfast. Even then, you can't just make thousands of dollars playing $10 at a time. You have to build those winnings and know where to throw them down on the table. I made ₩600,000 splitting 8's against an 8. I lost ₩300,000 with 20 against a 3. It was a wild ride, but somewhere in there I got locked into the right mindset and more often than not I made the right bets.

Around noon (Snday), I had 30 ₩100,000 chips in front of me, a belly fully of alcohol and caffeine, and 4 Japanese business men staring at me, astonished, mouth agape. It was time to go. It was weird going home. I was completely emotionally exhausted. I just didn't feel anything anymore. Physically I felt OK, but common sense told me my body could only handle so much. I just sat on the subway with a blank stare and tried not to think or move too much. I made it all the way home without any problem, put my money away, and laid down.

At first I didn't even feel tired. I had just been through so much, sleep didn't feel like a reality any more. At some point the lights when out though. I woke up a couple hours later drenched in sweat. I walked to the bathroom muttering about "how stupid people were that didn't know anything yet" before I realized I didn't understand what I was talking about. I went back to bed, but had horrible nightmares that I had sleep paralysis and was laying in a bed in an old mansion, unable to move while shadowy unknowable entities walked around me and observed me. I might have woken up screaming. At least I got a few hours of sleep and was actually feeling pretty good after I shook off the dream.

I was pretty hungry so I made some ramen and ate it with a fork. That was my weekend.

Surprisingly Awesome Things About Korea v2.0

2009-01-02T04:12:00.000-08:00

Any more, "sushi" is pretty ubiquitous throughout the States. Any of your nicer grocery stores will will have a little cooler where you can pick up some California roll and maybe some nigiri.

In Korea, what you would think of as a "sushi roll" in the States is called kimbap. Kimbap is any combination of foodstuffs rolled within a cylinder of rice and nori(seaweed). Kimbap shops are plentiful around here, and you'll usually spend less than $4 on your meal.

However, the item picture actually came from a convenience store and only cost $1. It's pretty good. I'm no kimbap connoisseur but anything rolled up in rice and nori usually tastes pretty good to me. Also, paying 1/10 the price you would pay in any restaurant back home makes it all the tastier.

Surprisingly Awesome Things About Korea v1.0

2008-12-29T02:44:00.000-08:00

I did not expect to enjoy Minute Maid's aloe flavored beverage. I expected it to taste like a watered down bottle of the green shit you rub on a sunburn. Actually, I never drank a bottle of watered down green shit you rub on a sunburn, so my expectations may have been met and I don't even know it.

This stuff is good. The closest flavor I can compare it to is that of a prickly pear. This isn't the best comparison, since most folks haven't had a prickly pear either, but if you have you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. For the rest, try to imagine a combination of kiwi, melon, and apple. Come to think of it, I remember tasting aloe straight from the freshly broken, dripping leaf. It tasted nothing like this drink. It didn't really taste like anything.

I don't know what Minute Maid put in this bottle, but it worked out. There were chunks of what I'm assuming was aloe. The liquid itself was clear. All I know is I'm going to be drinking another bottle soon.

Honesty

2008-12-27T04:26:00.000-08:00

I want to clear something up, as I've already been contacted a couple times by readers concerning this issue. My December 22 post about my job was a joke. I am not locked in my apartment. I am not given pills to take in the morning. The children can not levitate, nor do they kill a cricket and inhale its essence for lunch. I am not brainwashing them and after work I do not meet the same people every night and I don't end up back in my bed every morning by unknown means.

I figured the more fantastical elements of that piece would prevent the more believable ones from being taken seriously. But I can see how those of particular concern would focus on those aspects that could be occurring and choose to err on the side of caution. So I'm sorry if I worried anyone.

I meant to soon after write an actual post about my job. It's really quite an ordinary, after school study situation, but working with children is a very complex and uniquely stimulating experience and I think I need more time to take it in before I commit my opinion on the matter to the blog archives.

Just this Friday, I was given my only Christmas card of the season by a girl who regularly feigns shock and horror when I walk into the room. In another class I broke a girl down into tears by drawing a cartoony picture of her with crossed eyes. This job is hard to write about, as my feelings on the subject change by the hour.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-23T07:23:00.000-08:00

It's Christmas Eve in Korea. I must say I'm not in the Christmas spirit much at all. Everything here is still very new too me and there is still a lot to take in. I guess I'm still in the "new to Korea spirit". Part of me wishes I was back home at the moment to celebrate with friends and family, but I signed on for a year here and that includes all the major holidays.

I took a bit of a tumble this weekend and got a little injury.
My face had a meeting with the ground. Nothing too serious. Just a little reminder that I'm only human and I need to be more careful. My nose still has a couple scratches and a little swelling, but I'm pretty lucky not to have broken anything or lost a tooth. The details are too mundane to bore you with, but I will allow a friendly caution that you shouldn't drink gin with British girls without wearing a helmet. That isn't going to make sense to you until you find yourself in such a situation.

The great thing about South Korea is that whenever you find yourself down, there are plenty of ways to bring yourself back up. You can thank the warm, soft blanket of mass market capitalism for that. What do you do when your nose is busted, your job is stressing you out, and you find out you only have a day off for Christmas?
Ok, so I have the week after Christmas off, but complaints sound better when grouped into 3's.

But, look at that Korean Pizza Hut box. It came from right up the street. Like anything American, Pizza Hut is pretty much the same here, but indescribably different. For example, potato is a very popular topping. They also have a full selection of 'gourmet' pastas and risottos, fresh tomato bruschetta is an appetizer option, there was a salad bar with whole bananas available, and I'm told Pizza Hut is even a pretty popular dating destination here. The pepperoni pan pizza I got tastes pretty familiar though.

When I first got here I shunned western food and vowed to embrace all things Korean, but the differences in interpretation make for a unique experience all in themselves and I'm tickled to see how western staples are transformed here.

Don't worry if your thinking I'm eating nothing but Pizza Hut. If you've walked the streets of Busan lately you've seen these sold on every corner. I guess it's orange season somewhere. ₩3,000 for a bag full.

It's getting late so I'm going to polish off a Hite, a slice of pizza, an orange, and call it a night.

Merry Christmas every one!

The Job

2008-12-22T03:55:00.000-08:00

I haven't been teaching English in Korea very long, and I'm sure everyone's experiences are different, but for those curious, I would like to talk a bit about the job of an English teacher in Korea. Again, I've only been doing this a month, but I have a feel for the routine. So, let me take you through a typical day.

9:00 am - The front door of my apartment is unlocked. I have never seen who unlocks it, but I can't find any electronic mechanism attached to the door and sometimes I think I hear someone moving around outside. I used to run right out the door to breathe some fresh air, but anymore I lounge around for a few minutes. Also, on the ground outside my front door there is a tray with 3 pills and a glass of water. I'm still not sure what the pills do, but if you take the gray one, without taking the orange one, you throw up and pass out in a few minutes, so I just take all 3.

10:00 am - Student begin arriving at school, the young ones at least. The grade school kids only show up later after the public schools let out. I can see the little ones from my balcony 5 floors up streaming through the front door. From within the school building there is an intense buzzing sound that reaches and almost unbearable climax around 10:30 am then suddenly stops. I don't know what they are doing when they first get to school, but between 10:45 am and 11:00 am I know they exercise. I have snuck down and peaked into the calisthenics rooms. I was amazed to see 5 year old Korean children picking each other up and fully manipulating each others body weight over there heads, around there bodies, there is even one point were each pair will be picking each other up and remaining motionless together a full foot off the ground for several seconds. This sounds like it would be a cool thing to see, but really it is just horrifying.

11:00 am - I get ready to teach class. Everyday I am given some material to read to my students. This consists of a few pages of Korean names I don't know, followed by sentences of positive or negative connotation. "Sujin Park hits a home run. Ban Lee Kim eats a glass bottle." so on and so on. I just kind of skim through it before class and think of ways to act out the vocabulary the kids might not be familiar with.

11:40 am - I start teaching. The kids only repeat back what I say to them. They all sit motionless, in identical outfits, staring at a point exactly 20 cm in front of the edge of the desk (I measured it). I teach for about 6 hours a day. Half of the class time is spent doing book work during which time I mostly have to occupy myself, as I am not allowed to see what the children are writing down.

1:00 pm - Lunch time! On my first day I ate lunch with my students. I had some leftover soup from a restaurant I had tried the day before. The children walked into a room on the second floor of the school, and walked out with a cricket in a jar and a thick wooden spoon. In unison, they removed the lid to the jar, used the spoon to kill the cricket, took a deep breath from the jar, and replaced the lid. Then, they walked back into the room and came out empty handed. I haven't seen a delivery of crickets yet so they must have a whole lot of them in that room.

2:00 pm - Back to teaching. Like I said, the teaching is pretty monotonous. The only changes through the day are when the grade school kids show up at 3:00 pm and the middle schoolers show up at 5:00 pm. The older kids look just like the younger ones with slight variation in height. There is also very little gender differentiation beyond hair length.

6:00 pm - Quittin' Time! I usually head out for a bite to eat and a drink. I always meet up with some fellow English teachers. We all tend to show up at the same place, every day, and little ability to articulate exactly what compelled us to come to a specific restaurant. But, there were are, the same 7 people I have eaten dinner with every night since I got here. Every night it's the same conversation How did you know I was coming here? No how did YOU know I was coming here. The back of my head hurts! I'm thinking about not taking my pills tomorrow. Good luck with that, we all know how that turns out.

8:00 pm - Dinner is done and it's time to have some fun. We all go out to a bar and there will be 8 drinks sitting there waiting for us. We drink up, bullshit each other a little, complain about the job, your normal "happy hour" stuff. The cool thing is that no matter what you do, you end up in your own bed the next day. We sometimes try to stay up past 3:00 am to see what happens but nobody ever makes it. Even if we don't drink and sit there and hold hands and talk about what it's going to be like to see our families again someday, suddenly 2:59 rolls around and it's lights outs. The funny thing is nobody can fall asleep before 2:59. Isn't that funny?

So, that's my typical day. Actually, that is everyday, exactly, Monday through Friday, except for that one day when none of my students showed up and I was made to give lessons to 6 empty rooms, but hey, a paycheck is a paycheck. So I hope you were able to learn a little, but bare in mind that no matter how informed, your teaching experience could be much different from what you anticipated.

So if your still thinking about teaching English in Korea, or you already are, be sure to swing by Busan and hopefully we'll end up at the same bar. The beer might taste like licking a battery but after a hard day teaching English it goes down pretty smooth.

Blank Slate

2008-12-15T08:13:00.000-08:00

Reading over my last post, I feel like something is missing. It feels uninspired and not in the spirit with which I started this blog. I think I've figured it out.

There's not much that is uniquely Korean about my past weekend. Don't get me wrong, I had a great time, met some great people, wouldn't have changed a thing. But, there wasn't anything there I haven't really done back in the States. Now that I'm finally healthy, and more comfortable getting around town, I feel like I'm ready to start out right. It's time to put my feet on the pavement and see what Busan has to show me. Tomorrow I get off work relatively early and there's a big smelly fish market a few subway stops away that is calling my name.

Any suggestions are welcome. Some of you from the comments section certainly seem to know this town backwards and forwards so feel free to let me know what you think I gotta see and do. Hell, even if you've never been to Busan, hit the Google search and send me out on a quest. I'm going to hit this town hard and from every angle.

I'll let you know how it goes, right here.

Leaving Busan and the Korean Quesadilla

2008-12-14T06:20:00.000-08:00

This weekend found me in better health and ready for adventure. Friday, I finished classes and accepted another invitation from Frank to join him up in his neck of the woods for a night a beer and merriment. I have to ride the subway for an hour to get from my neighborhood of Goejoeng up to Hwamyeong, as this map can help illustrate (I'm down south on the yellow line, Frank is up north on the green line), but its more than worth it, as there isn't much to do in my immediate vicinity.

I was feeling quite peckish, after not eating much of anything all week, and wanted to take Frank and Lauren out for a meal as a little celebration of my luck at the casino. We decided to go to Outback Steakhouse (pretty popular here), but it was not to be. In true western style, Outback closes their doors at 10pm, so we settled for the fare at 700 Beer. 700 Beer is a bit misleading of a name, since they only have 1 beer on tap, and nothing close to 700 bottles to choose from. They do have a large entree of mussels that I enjoyed, despite the fact they were so spicy they made me a little emotional.

So after a meal and a couple beers we headed to the apartment of one of Frank's friends, where the Hwamyeong English teacher contingent had gathered. A good time was had, I met some new people, and at some point it was decided everyone would be going to the city of Daegu the next day. Most of the guys in this group had small 125cc motorbikes (you don't need any license!) and would be riding up there together. Frank and I would travel by train and meet them up there in the evening.

Saturday I woke up on Frank and Lauren's couch, came home, cleaned up, packed a change of clothes and a toothbrush, and headed back out.

Korean train travel is nice, convenient, and cheap. $6 got us where we needed to go. It was night when we left and I wouldn't get to see any of the Korean country side until Sunday when we returned. Frank and I passed the hour and a half discussing the mysteries of the universe and anticipating a particular Canadian owned restaurant in Daegu, known from good burgers and Mexican food.

We got to Daegu and checked into the luxurious White Castle motel. $30 a night and a little nicer than what you would get from a Motel 8 in the states. We headed straight out and met up with the guys at the aforementioned restaurant, The Holy Grill. The guys were already there, well into there meals and many a pitcher of delicious amber ale, a welcome reprieve from the ever flowing Hite or Cass lagers you see everywhere else in Korea.

We sat down and ordered. I was tempted beyond measure by the quesadillas a couple of the guys were chowing down on. The aroma of melted cheese, chicken, peppers and southwestern spice filled my nose and I felt like I could have been in any high end tex-mex restaurant back in the states. The four wedges dripped with cheese and were served on a wooden slab with sides of sour cream, guacamole and salsa. I ate it with determination and for the first time since I've been here, I was unable to finish my meal. Western food is filling and I've been eating mostly fish, rice and kimchi. I was sad to see them take away the last bits but thankful for the flavors lingering in the back of my throat.

We finished up at the Holy Grill and headed out to a foreigner bar called the Commune. Daegu has a healthy foreigner population as it it a big city with a US military base and a fair number of English teachers. I could have been in a good rock bar in the states except everyone had that expat disposition to them. The owner of the Commune has a vast collection of classic rock albums and the place was filled with tunes of Velvet Underground the Kinks and new stuff like Bloc Party. Beer and whiskey was consumed and new acquaintances were made.

We later made our way to a dance club called Frog. I don't really go to clubs much in the States, but I found something quite charming about hundreds of young Koreans packed wall to wall and gently undulating to electronic music. I pushed my way through the crowds just for the experience and ended up at the third floor bar having drinks with Frank and military fellows who check their watches every 10 minutes to make sure they get back to the base on time.

My recollection gets hazy after we left club Frog. The liquor was taking hold in the wee hours of the morning and nothing much of consequence seemed to happen the rest of the night. Frank and I grabbed a couple beers and headed back to the White Castle motel where we passed out after a drink and a gander at the early morning offerings on Korean TV.

We made the train journey back around noon today. I've just been spending the rest of the day napping a eating some leftover Subway Italian BMT sandwich I got at the train station.

A pretty good weekend overall.

Out of the Darkness

2008-12-11T05:36:00.000-08:00

I've been sick this week.

Before I came here, I noticed a recurring theme through the Korea blogs, of people getting sick, a lot. I thought surely these people were weak, and I, with my Biology degree and hardy constitution wouldn't fall victim to the plagues of Busan.

Korea showed me a thing or two.

First, I went into the week with a pretty powerful cold. This was inevitable. I work with children. These children aren't used to seeing Americans, so they get a bit excited while I'm around. I can't walk through a busy hallway at school without satisfying dozens of requests for high-fives, handshakes, some of the smaller kids find it only appropriate to grab my hand and rub their face on it. About 1/4 of them have a cold now so I was just waiting for mine. On top of this I had a long Friday night while the weather was bitterly cold. I was basically trying to get sick.

So, a cold I can handle. Tuesday night, things took a turn for the worse. It may be my cold weakened my system, it may be that nearly every meal I've had here has had some raw fish component, it may be that I've been tempting fate with the tap water. It was probably some combination of all those. Tuesday night I got VERY sick.

It started with my body feeling the need to expel the contents of my stomach. I guess the other end got jealous decided to join the party. I didn't think much of it, washed up, had a sip of water, and went back to bed.

Well, apparently I was in no condition to hold down a sip of water. Another trip to the toilet was soon required. I expunged whatever fluid was left in my system and went back to bed.

Something set me off again and I went to spit up all I had spit up, some clear viscous mucous.

Winter in Korea is incredibly dry. I was probably already dehydrated before I went to bed that night. I lay in bed after my bouts of illness and could feel the membranes in my throat and nose begin to dry and crack. I couldn't sleep and needed to get some water in me. I poured a glass and sipped just enough to wet my whistle. My body wasn't having it.

I tried eating some crackers and chasing it with some water. I saw those crackers again.

My stomach tries to turn one more with nothing in it, just for fun.

By now, I'm so dry my joints are starting to hurt. There is no saliva lubricating my mouth and my tongue feels like cloth on my gums. My eyes feel bruised and my vision is fuzzy. My stomach muscles are sore and my throat burns from the acid. I've already to decided have my school director take me to the hospital in the morning. I'm laying in bed and I keep getting dryer.

I figure my body is trying to get rid of something and I'm going to help it out. A couple more cycles of drinking a glass of water, and transferring it to the toilet, and I'm done. I finally keep a glass down and it feels good.

So, around 6:00 am I finally fall asleep. I get a couple hours rest and when I wake up I'm feeling pretty drained. But I'm alive, so I do what any Korean does on a day they are alive, I go to work.

Wednesday, I go from class to class with a paper bag and little sense of humor. I only eat a few bites of crackers and I take sips of water whenever I have a moment. When you consume something that makes you sick the mere thought of it can disgust you. For me, all I know is Korea made me sick and the stench of it is everywhere.

I fall asleep immediately after my last class

After 12 hours of sleep, and plenty of clean water to flush me out, I feel pretty refreshed. I got through Thursday classes and got some food in me tonight. A touch of that cold I started out with still remains, but I have to say I'm feeling pretty good all considered.

Hopefully the weekend will bring untold pleasures. The universal has always had a way of balancing me out. After my luck last weekend I knew something ill was bound to happen. I didn't know how bad it was going to hit but I knew it was going to hit.

So keep reading next week. I'll let you know how it works out.

"Roughing It"

2008-12-08T07:55:00.000-08:00

I'll be the first to admit, I'm having a bad day and I feel the need to gripe a bit. The fruit I got from the grocery store wasn't ripe and caused me a bit of discomfort. I was sick today and teaching seemed a bit taxing. I washed my clothes and the usual method of hanging them from the clothes line was inconvenient in the cold weather. I'm congested and the Korean flavors escaped me as I chowed down at the restaurant around the corner.

But anyone can understand the supreme dissatisfaction encountered when you go to take a shower and you find there is no hot water to be had. I ran the faucet for 20 odd minutes and the temperature never rose above some 50 degrees Fahrenheit. This is where things turned around for me a bit.

Sometime ago I seriously considered joining the Peace Corps. I decided against this life direction for a number of reasons, but had begun preparing for the difficulties encountered, just in case. One thing I learned was the "bucket bath". This involved heating a quantity or water and mixing it with a volume of unwarmed water until you have a sufficient amount to bath with. I applied this strategy tonight by boiling a pot of water on the stove, pouring it into my bathroom sink, running the faucet until the basin was full, then using that water to bathe with.

The water felt especially pleasant after all that time running my hand under the cold water, waiting for it to warm. For those unfamiliar with Korean bathrooms, the shower is just and extension from the sink faucet and there is a drain in the bathroom floor. This "sink bath" was not far removed from my usual routine and was maybe more enjoyable for all the anticipation. My thoughts turned to how luxurious the experience was compared to what I would have experienced in the wilds of Africa or backwaters of South America.

South Korea has it's difficulties, but they are trivial first world obstacles. Moving here, I find it like a well designed video game, not meant to be overcome in a single day, but intended to be surpassed eventually by a little logic and skill.

I'm almost excited for what gets thrown at me next.

A brief warning on Korean food

2008-12-08T05:34:00.000-08:00

I have yet to eat anything in a Korean restaurant I did not like.

The food in the market is a different story.

I got some kiwi from "Dream Mart" yesterday. I was feeling a little under the weather and I thought the vitamins would do me some good. Today I cut the kiwis into quarters and bit in. 2 things were different from the kiwis in the states.

1) These were hard. They stuck between my teeth and the flesh yielded only after a bit of exertion.

2) They STUNG! They were so acidic, I felt like I have a chemical burn on my lips. And I've had actual chemical burns, from industrial sulfuric acid in my days in the pharmaceutical industry. All that really happens in the skin is sore for a couple days, then it dries and peals, afterward the area is nice and smooth. But, damn, kiwi shouldn't do that.

I don't know what the deal is with Korean fruit. I got some grapes too. They were delicious, but coming from the States, I wasn't expecting seeds. Maybe I'm too used to genetic modification.

The eggs I got had surprisingly thin shells. When I tried to hard boil them, a few cracked when they lightly bumped the bottom of the pot.

Maybe I will let the professionals fix my food from now on. Like, I said, at every restaurant I've been too, they seem to know what they're doing.

Burning it from both ends

2008-12-06T00:57:00.000-08:00

Today will have to be a day of rest. I am drained. Between a week of wrangling the tiniest Koreans, and getting out at night, I have just burnt out every reserve. My body aches, my mind is working in slow motion, a touch of illness is even tickling the back of my throat. I'm going to have to be careful here. There is so much to do and I can be bad at knowing when I've had enough.

I went out with Frank and Lauren Thursday. The night started out simple with a small congregation of their friends at a board game cafe. Settlers of Catan is quite a game and I will need to play it again so I may redeem myself for a poor initial performance. After that we went to a makli bar, makli being a tasty fermented rice beverage. Got to meet a few fellow expats, had fun discussion. It was a pretty tame night overall but I was out late for how early I had to be at work.

I started Friday on precious few hours of sleep and faced a full day of teaching. I thought I was going to have trouble staying awake, but a dozen screaming Korean children tend to hold one's attention. I got through the day and was glad to have finished my first week of teaching. I actually like working with the kids, but I find it a bit frustrating at times. By the end of the day I was craving a drink and a nap. As those desires can't be satisfied simultaneously, I opted to accept an invitation from Frank for some more quality time out upon the streets of Busan.

We started the night with visit to a fried chicken place and ate some delicious crispy chicken bits and washed it down with some beer. Frank's friend Chris met us there. He's a British chap and makes for good company. After chicken was consumed we made our way to a bar were a dozen other expats Frank and Chris knew were throwing back a few. We had another round and I played darts with Frank and his Canadian friend Will. The strangest thing happened. On my first turn I threw 3 bullseyes! The electronic dart board started playing celebratory music and heroic animations flashed on the screen. Everyone in the bar, Koreans and expats alike, was staring staring at me, mouth agape. It soon there after became apparent I never play darts, as I barely threw anything worth hitting for the rest of the night and lost by a large margin in the end.

Our next stop was the casino. It wasn't my idea to go, as a couple people reading this will probably assume. Frank, Chris and I took a cab and put down another beer on the way. By the time we got there I was already very sleepy and a little buzzed so my descriptive skills escape me as I try to write about it now. The casino was inside a nice hotel, but the gaming area was a little tacky, as casinos tend to be anywhere. Korean casinos don't let Koreans in to gamble. Everyone inside was either a Korean employee or a foreigner, mostly Japanese fellows. We got inside, sat down at the roulette table and ordered our drinks. Our FREE drinks. You drink for free in Korean casinos. Ain't that something? We were drinking Jack and cokes like it was our job, and they gave us more like a nurse handing scalpels and clamps to a surgeon.

Roulette has never really held my interest and we soon made our way to the blackjack table. I played blackjack a bit in the States and am a fan of the game. I find it exhilarating at times. It was a ₩10,000 minimum (~$7), so I turned five of my bills into chips and started out. Those chips were soon gone and more were required. The second round went on a bit longer but by around 4 am I had lost all the money I had brought with me.

Free alcohol and sleep deprivation can impair one's judgment a fair amount and I decided to see if my credit card would work on the ATM there. To my surprise it did and I took out a ₩100,000 cash advance. Things get a little foggy at this point, but my credit card statement notes 2 withdraws from the ATM last night. Frank was perpetually out of chips and mostly just played with chips we tossed his way when we were up. Chris was playing well, I think, but the alcohol got the best of him and Frank took him home around 7 am. I was on a bit of a streak, and didn't want to leave with them, even though I didn't really know where I was or how I was going to get home.

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning something happened. I started playing very well. I was putting a lot of money on all the right cards. I got up in the count, set myself a cutoff point, and a little after 8 I cashed in. I WON ₩2,000,000!!!!!
That is a month's salary for an English teacher! That is so much that when I asked for it in ₩10,000 bills they had to give me 2 stacks bound by rubber bands!

So at this point I'm trashed, haven't slept in 24 hours, I have ₩2,000,000 in my pocket, and I have no idea what part of the city I'm in. I stumbled out the front door of the hotel and into the morning sunlight. I soon found the Seomyeong subway station, which was right next to the hotel, and got it together enough to figure out which train to get on. It was a pretty weird feeling to be stone drunk around a bunch of Koreans traveling about to their Saturday morning destinations. I must have been a stange site for them to behold.

I made it to my apartment, fired off a quick email to Frank letting him know I made it home and had won a bit, then I collapsed on my bed.

Pretty good night.

Korea at First Glance

2008-12-02T04:24:00.000-08:00

I've been in Korea for 3 days now. I haven't seen much, but I but every direction I turn I see something new.

I felt fortunate to drive in from the airport at night. I got to see the Busan cityscape in it's full, flashing, neon glory. I was reminded of a scene from "Bladerunner", minus the flying cars. Other than the brightly lit advertisement in a foreign script, I actually found Busan to be much like any other large city. The buildings are tall, the traffic is frantic, the people keep their eyes to the ground and walk steadfast to unknown locations.

Having been to a few foreign locales, I must be forgiven for equivocating Busan to previous destinations. I would describe Busan as a mix of Mexico and Russia. There is a weathered, industrial atmosphere here that I find reminiscent of Moscow. The air has the scent of waste. You can tell things are made here. Down the road I can see smoke stacks from my apartment and on the streets I see people weary from a day's work. Topographically I would compare this city to Guanajuato, Mexico. This place is mountainous and the city has grown accordingly. The main streets have curving offshoots at various degrees of inclination or declination. Everywhere you look, your line of sight is limited by the nearest tree covered mountain. The buildings don't reach beyond a certain elevation. Most are made of stucco or plaster. There are vendors on the streets selling food and goods. This really needs to become a picture blog, as I could type for every spare minute and still not begin to describe this city.

Let's scale down and talk about my apartment. It is on the top floor of my school. The school is very nice. It seems very modern and well maintained. As I traveled up the 5 flights of stair to my new residence for the first time, I allowed my hope to grow. I had told myself to have low expectations of my new dwelling, so that I may be pleasantly surprised when I first saw it. Unfortunately, my low expectations were not surpassed. After some time here, I have acclimated to my new apartment, but my first impression was of a 300 sq ft box with furniture from the 80's and a funky smell coming from the refrigerator. I've come to find that my place is pretty on par with what other foreign teachers are provided with here and there is great comfort in that camaraderie. It was just a little jolting since in the States I had a place 5x as large and couldn't see my kitchen from my bed. But, the place is clean and all the facilities are in good working order. The only thing I wish for is a desk or table. My kingdom for a desk!

I've been through 2 days of classes. Mostly observing, but a little teaching as well. The kids are painfully cute. They seem to have a pretty good grasp of English, but I soon learn a lot of it is based on memorization. They go through their "key sentences" without hesitation, but when I ask them something new I get a lot of confused looks. They are still better at English than most people in the States are at any foreign language. In fact I can have more insightful conversations with them than I could with a lot of the people at my old job.

I've been out a bit. The other native English teachers here are very nice and have shown me around a little. I'm also lucky enough to have a couple of friends in town, back from the old knucklehead days. Frank and Lauren are a couple of the best people I know and together they are better than the sum of their parts. I was glad to get to see them Sunday, and the fact I am surrounded by otherwise very foreign people only elevated my delight.

Overall I'm really happy to be here. Every moment brings new experience. I went to the grocery store for the first time last night and I can't describe the feeling of evaluating items alongside Koreans, trying to fit in and failing miserably, getting around when the only words I know are "hello" and "thank you". It is really just too big a trip to come to a foreign land. I recommend you go ahead and do it because nothing you read can do justice to the experience.

Future posts will need to be much narrower in scope. Right now everything is kinda blowing my mind and I want to share it all, but can't. So, keep reading, and I will throw some fun stuff at you.

The Journey Over

2008-12-01T03:37:00.000-08:00

I got into a car Friday morning, before the sun rose, and was driven to the airport. I talked to the driver about my destination country and about his fatherland of Lebanon. We agreed that too many people have too narrow a view of the world.

I was very tired when I got to the airport. I had not slept the night before, nor had I slept longer than a 3 hour spurt in the 2 nights prior. I was somewhat concerned by the prospect of facing a 20 hour intercontinental journey on so little rest. I pushed on.

My luggage pushed the limit of international baggage weight restrictions. So I had over 100lbs to deal with as I made my way to the check in counter. I was fortunate my departure was so early in the morning, as I did not encounter any lines at the terminal. All I had to do was walk up, hand the airline representative my passport, throw my 2 checked bags on the scale, and I was sent through to security.

As I sat in the waiting area for my flight, I was presented with a number of television sets tuned to CNN's coverage of the Mumbai terrorist attacks. The wait before a flight can be painfully boring, but I and everyone else flying out that day, were able to observe a real life action movie unfolding before our eyes. In the minutes before our final boarding call, Israeli Mossad operatives were being airdropped onto the roof of a prominent synagogue where terrorists had taken hostages. However tragic,high drama is hard to turn away from.

The first leg of my journey was uncomfortable and uneventful. It was a 3 hour flight from Houston to Minneapolis. The guy sitting next to me was from Minneapolis. I am from Houston. We had little in common.

At the Minneapolis airport, I traveled upon what seemed like miles of motorized walkways to reach the international departures terminal. I sat with a multitude of fellow travelers from the United States and any number of East Asian countries. We all waited and watched more coverage of the Mumbai terrorist attacks.

I took my seat on the plane and was fortunate enough to have a position on the aisle, right next to a pretty Japanese woman. I would have engaged her in conversation, but I was so tired I felt like I was coming down from a 3 day amphetamine binge. I ordered a couple of $5 beers and passed out sporadically for the next 12 hours. I was awoken a few times, once when I bit my tongue in my sleep and when the lovely Japanese woman was laughing heartily at some sitcom starring Julia Louis Dreyfus (Elaine from Seinfeld) which was one of the in flight theatrical presentations.

When I got to Narita airport, in Tokyo, everyone was made to go through an additional security checkpoint. As there were many people with connecting international flights, the lines were long and I only got to the gate for my flight to Busan at the final boarding call. I got on the plane sweaty and out of breath. I took my seat next to a kindly Japanese man. We talked though the flight about my job as a teacher and his business in Busan. He was by my side all the way through immigration and right on through baggage claim. I even trusted him to watch my luggage as I went to retrieve a rolling cart upon which to transport my 100lbs of possessions. I shook his hand, thanked him for his help, and made my way to currency exchange. I will always be thankful to this Japanese man whose name I could not understand.

After I turned some $$$ into ₩₩₩ I headed out into passenger pick up. I scanned through the placards, held by Koreans, displaying names of the westerners they were to receive. I was startled for a bit that my name was nowhere to be seen. Thankfully, I was soon there after approached by a middle aged man and a young woman. They addressed me by name and held a photo of me I had sent to the school. The fellow was the husband of the director of my school the girl was his daughter, and a kinder and prettier face, respectively,I could not have asked for to welcome me to Korea. They helped me load my luggage into there car and drove me into Busan proper.

Next time on George Goes Korean: My First Days in Korea!

Map

2008-11-24T13:49:00.000-08:00

When you get your visa from the Korean consulate, they give you a free map.

The front is a comprehensive highway map of all South Korea. The back is a focus on Seoul with tidbits and minimaps of other cities.

Not really the most useful thing for the Busan bound.

and now for something completely different

2008-11-23T01:21:00.000-08:00

you boys take care of this place while i'm gone, ok?

check out more from change.gov

The Process

2008-11-21T21:56:00.000-08:00

Now that everything is squared away, I feel qualified to write about how to become an English teacher in Korea. When I started out I went straight to the blogs to learn everything I could. So if your an American thinking about teaching in Korea, this entry is for you.

First of all, I worked with a recruiter. I've spent many a night talking with my recruiter over g-chat, trying to find the right job and asking questions about the bureaucratic process. His name is Aaron Seo, and his email address is korearecruit@gmail.com. Go ahead and get in touch with him if your interested. He has been incredibly helpful throughout this process and I'm looking forward to finally meeting him when I get over there. I'll go ahead and give his company a nod too. Ez English Consulting

To teach in Korea, you will need to have completed a 4 year college degree. It doesn't matter what you majored in. It doesn't matter how good your grades are or how reputable your college is (I guess it has to be accredited). Make sure you have your original degree and request a couple sealed, official transcripts.

The other requirement for teaching in Korea is that you can not be a terrible criminal. You need to get yourself a criminal background check (CBR). Getting this took the most time of any of the documents I had to acquire. So, as soon as you make the decision to teach, go to your state's highway patrol website and download the CBR form, fill it out, and mail it asap.

When you get the CBR back (it took me about a month) you are going to have to get it notarized, and THEN, you will have to send it to the Secretary of State's office (of your state, not Hillary) to get an Apostille Stamp. An apostille stamp is pretty much just an internationally recognized notarization. It will take a lot less time to get the CBR back with the apostille because the Sec. of State wants you to vote for them and the highway patrol knows that you are always going to hate them no matter what.

When I decided to teach in Korea, I didn't have a passport. Well, I did but it had just expired. Maybe you already have a valid passport. Good for you. You must be very important. If you don't have a passport, go to the post office and get an application. This will take a pretty long time to get so go ahead and send out that application asap as well. Also, get your passport photos done at a drug store, because the post office charges out the ass to get them done there. Get about 10 because you will need them for other steps in the process.

Ok, you got your degree, you got your transcripts, you got your CBR with apostille, you got a passport. TIME TO GET A JOB BROTHA! This is where working through recruiter is invaluable. I sent everything to Aaron and he was able to just shop me around to schools on his end. It's possible to just find a teaching job on your own and send them all your stuff when you find a school you think you like, but the problem with that is they got your stuff! If you change your mind, or they change the offer, they have everything you worked so hard to get. They have the CBR with apostille, they have your diploma (yes, you have to send your actual diploma), they don't have your passport because you just have to send a photocopy and do not ever give anyone else your passport, they do have your transcripts and those aren't free. Trust me, go with a recruiter.

I'm not going to talk about finding a job, because I haven't started working yet so I can't be sure how well I chose my school. I will say you should make sure you get to talk to some other teachers at the school. There is a lot of good information out there on how to choose a school, mostly things to avoid, but I won't comment until I've got some first hand experience.

So once you've got a job, the school will apply to Korean immigration or whatever and get you a visa issuance number. Your going to need that when you fill out your visa application. There are some forms you have to fill out, a visa application and a consulate checklist, that your recruiter or school will send you. Fill these out and bring them, along with your passport, a photocopy of your passport, 2 passport photos, $45 dollars or $45 money order, a self addressed envelope with special delivery stamp, and a sealed transcript to your nearest Korean consulate. You can mail all this stuff if you don't live in a city with a consulate, but you will have to travel there eventually for an interview. The interview is short and sweet and you pretty much just need to make sure you don't show up drunk.

After your interview, they put a visa stamp in your passport and you are good to go to Korea. My visa was ready by 4:00 pm on the day of my interview, but if you don't want to stick around or come back another day, that's what the self addressed stamped envelope is for.

Once you have the visa, let the school know and they will hook you up with a flight to Korea. This is as far as I've gotten.

So, I don't know how clear all of this information is, but I hope it at least conveys a sense of what it is like to go through the process. It seems like a lot to do, but it is really just a lot of little steps. If anyone reading this has a specific question, feel free to contact me at georgewatson85@gmail.com. I promise to help you out as best I can.

Permission Granted

2008-11-20T01:55:00.000-08:00

I got my visa today. The final hurdle has been overcome and now nothing stands between me and South Korea, except, you know, around 7000 miles and 14 hours in the air.

The bureaucracy has been appeased and I have been deemed worthy to live and work in the "Land of the Morning Calm". I can almost taste the kimchi. Altogether, it has been nearly 3 months since I first decided to go to Korea. Bare in mind, I started without so much as a valid passport, and spent a good amount of time searching for the right job offer, before continuing on with the harvest of documents. Now my departure looms, little more than a week away. It's finally starting to sink in that this is really going to happen.

There is so much still to do and so much I've yet to wrap my head around. There comes a time when reality encroaches so near it overshadows all the fanciful optimism your imagination once allowed. I'm still very excited to be going, but the realization has hit and the simple truth is now inescapable; this is going to be kind of tough.

First I need to pack up everything I'm going to need for the next year, and contain it within a reasonable volume of luggage. I need to wrap up all my business still unattended, so that I may not be seen to have fled my debtors nor leave a debt uncollected. I need to say my goodbyes and organize my means of contact with those in the west whom I wish not to forget . Then I get to Korea and the really hard stuff starts.

I guess my biggest concern is simply getting from the airport to my new apartment. Once I have established a base of operations, no task is beyond undertaking. As long as the fallback point is secure, the mission is of limited liability. So I just need to get to my apartment, turn some dollars into won, and I'm set.

Then, I begin to teach. I'm looking forward to be a teacher. Korea sounds like an pretty rad place to be, but I wouldn't have signed up for this gig if the job didn't interest me. I don't know much about the job yet, except the kids don't know English, I don't know Korean, and somehow I'm supposed to change that. Linguistic and cultural barriers aside, I haven't even had much interaction with children of the American persuasion in quite some time. The last kid I talked to was going door to door selling cookies. That turned out well enough. Kid walked away happy, I got some cookies, everybody wins!

I hope I can teach the kids plenty about English, but what I want to learn about is Korea. I want to get a grasp on the language. I want to get a feel for the history. I want to soak up the culture so much I can walk down a street in Busan and think this makes sense. I have a lot of questions about Korea. Tonight I wrote, and deleted, a blog entry because I didn't know how it would be taken in Korea. Would the government be monitoring everything I send through the internet tubes? Would the "risque" humor seem overtly offensive. Would the obscenity of the subject matter deem me unfit to educate children? What I wrote was nothing I wouldn't show my own mother, or any other free speaking American, but the questions it raised in my overly analytical head convinced me to save the content until I better understood the conditions of my destination country. I will speak my mind and publish my uncensored thoughts soon enough, but just as one gauges the weather before stepping out into the storm, I would like to know how many layers I require to adequately protect myself.

Taking Care of Business

2008-11-13T18:16:00.000-08:00

I finally got down to the Korean consulate and turned in all the documents for my visa application. It was a pretty hellish ordeal. By no fault of the consulate or anyone else involved. I simply transposed two of the digits in the address I was given. The two hours the trip should have taken turned into five, as my mistake and lack of directional sense threw me into the worst of Houston rush hour traffic.

The consulate itself was nice enough. A simple office suite in a nondescript building set in Houston's Rice Village (the actual name of this part of town, not my personal commentary on the racial demographics of the area). My interaction with the consular officials was brief and uneventful. I'll have an interview there next week which will surely be more deserving of note.

I found myself particularly excited as I made my way to the consulate. Exhilarated by the first official interaction with the country in question. The only other consulate experience I've had was a visit to that of China's, several years ago as I accompanied a friend on his own process of visa application. China's consulate was far larger and some how exuded a much more foreign atmosphere within it's walls. They must have had an office kitchen somewhere in there, as the air was pungent with the smell of noodles and spice. The Korean consulate differed in as much that it very much felt like any other American office space and lacked protesters outside extolling the horrors of the Falun Gong organ harvest.

Once I've completed the process, I promise to author a post describing every step involved on the way to becoming a teacher of English in Korea, for those interested in following this path themselves. So keep on reading.

Home Sweet Home

2008-11-11T07:29:00.000-08:00

I was going to go to the South Korean consulate today, so I could give them the necessary documents for my visa application. Thankfully, before I headed out into the frenetic morass that is Houston traffic, Renee Montagne of NPR's "Morning Edition" was nice enough to inform me, via the radio, that today is Veteran's Day. After a quick check I learned the South Korean consulate observes America's Veteran's Day, to the extent that they are not open for business. So I find myself idle once again.

The photo above is from Thanksgiving, 2005. Pictured is me, my father, and traditional spread upon our dinning room table. I wanted to show a little bit of where I came from. A happy family, a warm home, food a plenty. On my own I was able to accumulate a nice apartment, reliable transportation, a pleasant social life, I even had a respectable credit rating.

I sometimes find people abroad are traveling away from something, rather than toward a destination. Seems like a terrible way to do things. I know I can return to the States on my own terms, welcomed with open arms. I think that will make my time abroad all the more enjoyable.

The 5 W's of this here Blog

2008-11-09T17:55:00.000-08:00

Time to throw down some straight information.

Who?:

My name is George. I'm 23 years old. I grew up in Houston, Texas. I graduated from the University of Missouri with a BA in Biology. I worked in the pharmaceutical industry for a spell and liked it none too much.

What?:

This blog will chronicle my time as a teacher of English, in Busan, South Korea. I've done my research. It sounds like a hell of a job. It sounds like a hell of a city. I don't know if this web log will report upon my professional or personal life more. Probably a bit of both, but I'll be sure to throw the juicy bits your way.

Where?: Busan, South Korea

When?: Work begins December 1st, 2008. A one year contract, extendable to infinity.

Why?: I've always wanted to travel. No, excuse me, that isn't what I meant to say. The transit part of any trip really bugs me. I don't like airports. I don't like the lines. I don't like guided tours. I don't like tourist resorts. I don't like travel packages. I don't like people walking around with a camera around their neck, taking pictures of the same things you can get on a post card in the gift shop.

I want to get the stink of Korea on me. I want to push that limit the locals know not to push. I want to get lost and find my way back. I want to drink the tap water. I want to eat the dog. I want to reach that milestone by which I measure my time in any new locale; I want to be asked for directions.

Hopefully all this will make for good reading.

Secrets

2008-11-06T08:16:00.000-08:00

It's two days after the election. Right now president-elect Obama is getting briefed on the aliens in Roswell, who shot JFK, and that cave in Puerto Rico where we keep the last few unicorns.

What am I doing? I'm eating though a 2 pound jug of generic cheetos and counting the hours since my last shower(37).

I really need to get over to South Korea soon.

I've been unemployed over a month. No real responsibilities other than the occasional conversation with my recruiter or opening the mail when the necessary documents come through. Everything is all set now. I have a job wrapped up. Just waiting for the school to get me a visa issuance number, then I'll have an interview at the consulate, get my visa, get a plane ticket, and I'm off.

Until then, I'm just passing time. I try not to spend money. I eat mostly canned goods and Ramen noodles my parents have left in the pantry. My only expenses are a pack of smokes and a case of beer I'll buy about once a week. So, if it all goes to plan, I'll be to Busan with a comfortable financial safety cushion, but it comes at the cost of my current boredom.

Blogging is the new pastime. Soon I'll have something worth writing about. Until then this little blog of mine is going to seem kind of weird. I'll get my thoughts more organized. Try to explain myself a little better. Right now I'm pretty much just practicing my typing.

It'll get better. Stay tuned for the juice.

Today is a good day to start a blog.

2008-11-04T05:18:00.000-08:00

In less than a month, I'm moving to Busan, South Korea. For purposes of personal reminiscence and public entertainment, I going to write about it. Starting today.

Why today? Today is November 4, 2008. "What is the significance of this date?" people of the future will ask. Well, something particularly awesome is going to happen today. Today we are going to elect Barack Obama the 44th president of the United States of America.

A man with a name so strange it is not yet recognized by proofreading software. Our first black president. The candidate whose bumper sticker has been affixed to the back of my big, red F-150 for the last 6 months as I've wheeled around red state wonderland. The first political campaign I ever donated to. The first politician I ever believed in.

So how does the beginning of the Obama presidency figure into the subject matter of this blog? 2 reasons:

1] The perception of the US by the rest of world should improve dramatically after the election, and should make things easier for me as I wander abroad. I really wasn't looking forward to drunken barroom arguments on the current state of US policy.

2] Everybody is going to be so wrapped up in the election and following celebration, I can be forgiven for not telling anyone about my little blog. I haven't written in far too long and I need to get my "sea legs" back before this thing is going to be good enough for anyone to read.

With that in mind, I'll give my knuckles a rest and see how this baby is going to look.

P.S. A the time of publication, the polls have only just opened. So, if my previous prediction turn out wrong, let it be known my wishes and lack of foresight.