A Reflection in Poesy

Entitled, "by now you know I'm not really talking about breakfast cereal OR hermit crabs"

i just finished my second box of breakfast cereal in this strange new place
and that means i've moved in.
when the hermit crab swaps shells,
he isn't the type to get sentimental about it,
but hermit crabs have no taste for their situation's symbolism;
they shift and shuck shells through samsara, rinsing and repeating,
unwitting victims of their symbol.
cereal is expensive where i live now.
like peanut butter and guinness, it's mostly imported.
i buy it anyway.
it costs to hold onto breakfast cereal.
it would cost more not to.
if hermit crabs were the sentimental sort,
they might get cold claws about moving out, moving on, moving up.
no doubt, it would cost them.
but it would cost them more not to.

Hop-a-Bus to Hongbeopsa

Last Sunday I visited another major Buddhist temple in Busan, called Hongbeopsa Temple (pronounced sort of like hong-bop-sa). It was very very different from Beomosa. First of all, it is a community based on farming, which differentiates it from the traditional (and more famous) "mountain temples" of Buddhism. Secondly, it had a decidedly more MODERN feel. From the outside, it looks more like a sports complex than a place of worship, and on the inside it looks more a psychedelic Buddhism-themed club than a sanctuary of quiet reflection. Obviously, I liked it immensely. Witness the gigantic internally illuminated Buddhas below, which occupy the same focal space in the temple that the crucifix would in a Catholic church.



Behold, as well, the half-completed Buddha statue which adorns the roof of the temple. It adds a post-modern (if I may be so bold-slash-pretentious) aesthetic to the temple, and certainly doesn't detract from the psychedelic theme of the interior. Buddha's dismembered, yet precisely posed hands, seem engaged in some sign language of enlightenment. It's a visual Koan. Some entity is meditating, but Who? We cannot know, since it's face is invisible. We can only see the hands. Eventually, the practitioner realizes, "I---I am Him. And He is me. And we are both Mu." And as soon as the statue is completed that interpretation will fall away, just another impermanent shadow. Like Shelley's Ozymandias , TIME will alter the meaning of the symbol. Unlike Ozymandias, it shall be the statue's completion, and not it's destruction, that supplies the irony.

But enough of this pseudo-philosophy! A famous man whose name escapes me delivered a poorly-organized but richly meaningful "Dharma Talk" on the nature of religious art, specifically Buddhist art (although he failed to make any mention on the statue sitting on the temple roof!). His talk was followed by a demonstration of traditional Korean tea ceremony, which was long and largely (I hate to say it) uninteresting. After the demonstration, we foreigners (ten total) were pressured by the host to "participate" in a tea ceremony. This consisted of me basically having a stereotypically overbearing, exacting, and unforgiving Korean mother for half an hour. She sat next to me and corrected EVERYTHING that I did, giving me instructions in terse Korean that I (obviously) couldn't understand, so mostly she just grabbed my hands and made me do things the "right" way. It was so hard not to laugh. Definitely my most intense "Lost in Translation" moment yet, although this "moment" lasted a full half hour! (Many thanks to Alex for the picture below, and you can check out her take on the temple here at "AAA"). I do want to point out that I am the only person in this image, apart from my Korean mentor, with my hands correctly positioned.



The temple was also tricked out with technology that many schools would love to be able to afford. Although only about fifty people were in attendance, the speaker's face was captured with live video and projected onto two HUGE pull-down white screens.

Strangest of all, the people of the temple offered us lunch, welcomed us sincerely, gave us tea and rice cakes, invited us to participate in some of the most sacred aspects of their culture, and DIDN'T ASK US FOR A PENNY IN RETURN. Whoa, is this Buddhism thing government subsidized or something? (Actually, I think it is... by the Ministry of Culture or something like that. Interestingly, some of the earliest Korean government support for Buddhist temples came when the generals realized how easily defensible and militarily strategic some of those mountain temples really were during Korea's skirmishes with Japanese invaders.)

And that's all for now!

Phoracter-y

"Actually, I prefer my food more on the DEAD side of life..." This picture is particularly salient because it's not uncommon here to actually eat LIVE octopus. That's right, you put the whole thing into your mouth and swallow. I understand that it's sort of a battle, because if you don't swallow aggressively enough the octopus can choke you to death in any effort to, you know, NOT be swallowed.


I guess Koreans really love neologisms made from bizarre combinations of English words. For instance, there's a restaurant near me called "Food+Feeling=Fooding." I didn't take me long to observe that another viable solution to this lexical equation (lexiquation?) would yield "Fooling." Below, you can see another example of this linguistic inanity (linguinanity?).


I found this poster in a pharmacy window. I have no idea what it's advertising. Something for prostrate trouble?


I get a "Lost in Translation" moment whenever I see a sign like this. Which happens frequently. New York is so far away it just feels ABSURD for people here to fetishize "authentic" New York culture. Especially when it's anything but authentic.


This is a clothing store at Gangnam Station, which is sort of like the Grand Central Station of Seoul. If you can't read the name of the store, it's "my freetimes change my life. sometimes luxurious. sometimes pretty and sexual."


Would you care for the Crunch Shrimp or the Squid Ring? Both of these items can be found at Lotteria, a Korean fast-food chain (read my earlier post on the Lotte brand name). For an entertaining (and very cute) Lotteria commercial featuring penguins, click here.


I found this sign attached to a big electric truck. Because I guess they had a problem with people urinating on it? But if you gotta go...

Kitty, kitty. Meow.

Just to clarify, since a few people have asked: I did not bring the cat back to my apartment (which is far too small anyway), nor will I be bringing it back to the States. I left it at the temple, since I saw other cats wandering around the temple grounds and figured the cat would be taken care of there (Buddhist respect for all living things and all that?).

As we parted ways, I tenderly whispered, "We'll always have Beomosa." She promised to write. I bet she won't. They're all the same.

Be-a-Buddhist at Beomosa

Yesterday I traveled to Beomosa Temple, located on the outskirts of Busan. One takes a long subway ride all the way out the perimeter of the city, and then takes a fifteen minute bus ride up the mountain to the temple. This was probably the best "attraction" I've visited so far in Korea, not just because of the temple or the natural beauty surrounding it, but the sincere spirituality I encountered there.

The East is spiritual, right? WRONG. So far the Korea that I've encountered is about as un-spiritual as it gets. Anti-spiritual, if you will. Children here go to school for many more hours than American children do, and don't have time for T.V. or just plain playing outside. According to the Organization for Economic Growth and Development, the average American works 1777 hours in a year, while the average Korean works 2390 hours! This leaves little time for hobbies and leisure, and the South Korean focus on material prosperity leaves little room for more "idealistic" concerns. Like religion.

Aside from some token nods to Jesus, the Buddha, and ancestral spirits, basically Koreans don't have their eyes on the "beyond" in any meaningful sense of the word. Of course, neither do most Americans, but I still had this subterranean sense that the "East" would be different. (I should have read my Said's Orientalism before I left...)

On an unrelated note, a Korean girl who I VERY BRIEFLY talked to in a convenience store at the base of the mountain actually followed me up to the temple and tracked me down. After about five minutes of conversation, she asked me if I wanted a Korean girlfriend. My first proposition from a Korean girl! I declined as politely as I could, but this is one in a series of what I call "Lost in Translation" moments. That is, moments when I am so overcome with the weirdness of a situation that I want to laugh, but I can't because no one else would realize why it's so funny.

Behind the temple, there's a trail leading even farther up the mountain. There's a dense canopy of trees overhead, but the forest floor is covered in boulders. That's right, gigantic rocks, with water flowing underneath them, and this goes on up the mountain for four kilometers or so. I got about halfway up but couldn't go on. Exhaustion? No. Dehydration? No. Frustration? Again, no.

I found a KITTEN on the trail who was very very skinny. I had seen cats wandering around the temple and decided that the kitten had probably strayed too far up the mountain. I was determined to SAVE HER. So I carried her down the mountain, even though she cried the whole way. I guess she couldn't understand me when I told her that I knew what was best. Maybe she only understood Korean. Anyway, I felt like it was the appropriately Buddhist/compassionate thing to do. And who could just leave a little kitty there, anyway?

Perhaps when I saved the kitty I actually saved the reincarnated spirit of a Bodhisattva, and I will be rewarded in the next life by being reborn as a RHINOCEROS.

Spas: Not Just For the Ladies

I just got back from a very famous spa here in Korea: Heosimcheong Spa (it's pronounced sort of like hoe-sim-chong). Actually, I learned that it's the largest natural hot spring in ALL OF ASIA. Don't believe me? Read the wiki! It's really quite something, as long as you're comfortable with public nudity. That's essential, because everyone is NAKED, including YOU. Naturally, the baths are gender segregated to, you know, keep everyone honest. I was the ONLY westerner there, so I'm not sure if everyone was looking at me because of that or because of my admirable physique.

Perhaps they were looking at me because of my tattoo. There were signs posted in Korean and English with rules, just like you might find at a swimming pool. Conspicuously prohibited from bathing were people with TATTOOS. Generally, I'm a believer in following the cultural rules and norms of any place where I'm a guest. "When in Rome," and all that. But in this case...

It is true that not many Koreans seem to have tattoos, even the younger generation. Do they really think that having a tattoo makes me somehow unfit for public bathing? Anyway, I crossed the thresh hold and bathed right along with all the non-tattooed Koreans, and no one said anything to me about it. Although maybe this is because the spa staff didn't know how to say "You have to leave now," in English. Incidentally, the spa's website states that people with OFFENSIVE tattoos cannot bathe, so maybe they were really trying to eliminate the neo-Nazi swastika-sporting demographic (although a swastika is a good luck symbol here, so I maybe even neo-nazis can bathe freely).

The bathing area was composed of a large central pool, beautifully ornamented (I would have taken pictures, but there was that whole "nudity" thing going on), and many surrounding features. I spent some time in their sauna (while watching a show about sharks on the Korean Discovery Channel) and relaxed in the "Philospher's Bath," which was, for some reason, a disconcerting green color. I doused myself with the "waterfall bath," which pours water on you VERY VERY HARD. Almost as good as a massage. Many Korean men were laying or sitting down under the waterfall and letting it pour on their most sensitive areas. Which looked painful. Not to mention AWKWARD.

Unrelated to the spa-related activities, I'm about to finish my first week teaching here. So far, so good. I teach one (three-hour long) class on Mondays and Fridays, and two on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. So the week has a nice bell-curvy trajectory to it.

My Tuesday and Thursday classes left me utterly DRAINED because on those days I teach very very basic English to a very very large and excitable class of elementary school kids, then I teach very very basic English to a class of Middle School kids who seem to be linguistically disabled. And it's not necessarily their fault. The class is called English Chip Level 4, and it's literally the LOWEST level that the school puts Middle School students into. In other words, some (all?) of the students in my Middle School EC4 class tested LOWER than EC4 (significantly lower?), but they end up in EC4 anyway. As you can imagine, this makes it very difficult for me to teach them. I have to speak SOOOOO SLOWLY and repeat myself frequently, and it's soooo frustrating when they give me this completely blank look and can't answer even the most basic "yes or no" questions. What am I supposed to do when I literally don't know how to make the questions any easier?

My elementary school students didn't like it when I insisted that they speak ONLY ENGLISH in class (which is a school-wide policy). One very precocious (not to mention obnoxious) girl asked me in this very challenging tone why they had to speak English but no one in the United States had to learn Korean. I could have gotten defensive, or pointed out the many reasons why that argument was absurd (I mean, no one is forcing them to learn English, except maybe their parents). But I DIDN'T. Instead, I pretended like she said something really insightful. "Wow, guys, did you hear what Amy just said? Does anyone have any ideas why that might be the case?" No one had any ideas. So we moved on. In English. It was wonderful.

The "C" Word

Consumption. It's what drives the American way of life. It is any wonder that, in my first weeks here, I should reflect on being a consumer in Korea?

1.) First, let's talk about alcohol. The beer. Disappointing. It's made from rice, and most Korean beers contain 0% barley. Even the American beer Budweiser is made from only 30% rice. As a result, every Korean beer is a pale-golden lager with a taste that is mediocre at best. Not once have I tasted a beer here and went, "HEY, that's pretty good!" Maybe that day will come. Foreign beers are expensive, as a result of HEAVY taxation on imports.

2.) The wine. It inexplicably tastes like GRAPE JUICE. Which makes me sad. No further comments on that.

3.) There is a silver lining to this alcoholic cloud, however. Soju. It's cheap, and doesn't taste terrible. Like Korean beers, it's made from rice. It contains approximately 25% alcohol, and tastes like weak vodka. People here drink it straight, evidently, but I've been experimenting and discovered that it mixes fairly well with, well, anything with which vodka would mix well. Fanta Pineapple soda is my favorite so far. An approximately 12 oz. bottle of Soju costs between $1 and $3. I don't think any spirit in the US is THAT CHEAP.

4.) Either the Korean labeling system is different from the American system, or half of the food I've been buying here is already expired. I have to guess that the date on the package indicates that the item was PACKAGED on that day, not EXPIRING on that day. Otherwise I've been eating BAD FOOD. You see, there's no Food and Drug Administration in Korea. Although there's probably some sort of equivalent, I simply don't feel the familiar comfort of a Federal regulating body dedicated to protecting consumers. So even IF a store is selling TONS of expired food, I have no idea what kind of repercussions there would be.

5.) Really strange things are expensive, and really strange things are cheap. Allow me to give some examples. (For the convenience of my American readership, all prices are in US dollars.) Anything imported is going to be expensive; that's a given. Especially alcohol. A can or bottle of Guinness (NEVER on draft) at a bar will set you back probably $10, if not more. Even buying a can of it from a corner store will cost at least $5. Pringles costs about $4 a can. Peanut butter and jelly are about $5 each. Cereal, being a Western thing, is expensive, even if it's not imported. Bread and bread goods are CHEAP. A loaf of bread will cost a dollar, max. Similarly low prices for sweet breakfast/desert breads, muffins, etc. Meat is very expensive, with a few exceptions: Squid. Octopus. Fish. All of the above are purchased INTACT, with freaky unblinking eyes staring you down, row after row after row. Absolutely NOTHING I would ever buy at a supermarket.

6.) I have been very impressed with the quality and diversity of the "cup-noodle" style products here. You can get many many flavors, and they are all delicious and cheap! I would only add about half of the spice packet, however. Unless you want your pansy American mouth ON FIRE. Unlike other Asian countries, Koreans use metal chopsticks (I have no idea why), but I've found these very difficult to use with slippery slippery ramen noodles. For the ramen, I "stick" with wood. Get it??

7.) Know how in the US we have laws to prevent corporations from completely DOMINATING their market (although sometimes they do anyway)? Like, anti-trust laws, anti-monopoly laws, that sort of thing? Well I guess they don't have them in South Korea, or they work very differently. A couple words on "Lotte." It's one of the biggest conglomerates here in Korea (and Japan, I've learned). Allow me to list a few of the things under the Lotte umbrella. They are a huge department store chain, like Macy's or JP Penny. They are a huge fast food chain (called Lotteria), kind of like McDonald's. They are the largest chewing gum and beverage distributor in the country, like Wrigley or Pepsi. There's an amusement park, called Lotte World. They own hotels, oil companies, and housing complexes. You can buy Lotte insurance, or other financial services (Lotte Card, Lotte Credit). They own SEVERAL Korean baseball teams. And the really amazing thing is that this company was founded by one guy in 1940's post-war Japan and is still run by his family. Hear that? All of these things are run by a FAMILY. Isn't one family controlling this much of the market, like, illegal or something? NOT IN KOREA.

8.) Finally, not only am I a consumer of goods, but I am a consumer of information. South Korea is one of the Most Wired Countries in the World, and the internet is cheap and ubiquitous here. SO WHY CAN'T I ACCESS HULU, OR ADULTSWIM.COM? Like most people, there are a few T.V. shows I enjoy watching; like many (younger) people, I don't like to watch them on T.V. Instead, I have taken to using a far more convenient medium: the internet, which hosts a greater variety of content that I can watch literally anytime I get the itch. But because of international legal issues, Hulu and Adultswim.com just aren't available in most countries abroad, including South Korea. The internet is all about the free and open sharing of information, right? SO WHY THIS DRACONIAN LEGISLATION? WHAT ARE THEY AFRAID OF, ANYWAY?? God forbid some poor ex-pat should watch his Family Guy reruns.

Busan: City of Seafood Dreams

So here I am, living in Busan, having passed training (which only 60% of my training group accomplished). Not only that, but they gave me a cute little certificate "Most Likely to Become Head Instructor." Yikes, I hate those high expectations!

Yesterday I did some exploring in Busan. Although it's larger than any city in the US (except LA and NYC), there're surprisingly few "tourist-y" attractions here. July and August are beach season in Busan, however, so I visited the famous Haeundae Beach (at nighttime, naturally, although the beach is still overrun with people getting drunk and setting off fireworks). The picture above gives you a pretty good idea of the environment, I hope.

I met some fellow Americans randomly on the subway and they invited me to go with them and their friends to a German beer place. After, we went to a bar called Thursday Party, which is part of a chain here. By this time, I was quite ready for bed. But oh no. The ex-patriots I've met here so far (American and Canadian) LOVE to party, so at 4am we headed next door to a Nori Bong, which is kind of like Karaoke except that you and your friends rent your own room--the nice ones come with comfortable couches, tambourines, and even bongo drums, so that everyone can get involves. They are VERY popular here. By the time we were done there, the subways had started to run again, so I didn't even have to pay for a cab ride home. One very bizarre thing about the Nori Bong is that every song is accompanied by a sort of "music video" with edited footage from, I don't know... Korean movies? Some of the videos looked very soap-opera-esque, but others were more action style.

Needless to say, I slept late today, but after my slumber I met up with Alex, a friend from Sarah Lawrence who is also teaching here in Busan (she's in her second year here, if I'm not mistaken). We toured the Busan Museum of Modern Art and I really, really wish I had brought my camera! But here is an article with one of the works I saw. Made me think of Magrite, if he was a photo-realist (photo-SURrealist?).

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/art/2010/06/148_58671.html

Tomorrow, I teach my first class!

Also, I'd like to wish everyone a Happy Independence Day! And I'd like to note that I was celebrating the 4th of July a full thirteen hours before ANYONE in the United States was even ABLE to do so. HOW'S THAT FOR PATRIOTISM?