Important Visitors, Less Important Thoughts

I received some very important visitors this past week: my parents! Loyally trotting the globe to find me in The City of Light just as they had loyally visited me in the Land of Noodle Soup, they arrived this past Saturday and had hardly set foot off the plane before they began seeing the sights and snapping photos. 


Naturally, there were many interesting things to see. After all, this is the city of wonders both large and small. And it is important, sometimes, to notice the little things when one is snapping photos. Things that only Paris can offer, like cops on roller blades:

Like goats in the Jardin des Tuileries (presumably eating the grass to keep it short? But this is as surprising as seeing live goats off the leash in Wahsington Square Park. Is this in the city budget?):

Like animals in even more unexpected places doing even more unlikely things: 

And even like people playing polo. But not water polo. Or British aristocracy polo with horses. BIKE polo, which looked, for lack of a better word, totally badass. 

We even saw the most famous of Parisien landmarks: La Tour Eiffel! It's named after me, pictured below, handing the tower to a younger generation, so that they too can joke about the tower's vulgarity.

Finally, let me say a few words about a disease that is unique to this city, and apparently primarily affects Japanese visitors. It's appropriately named "Paris Syndrome." This is a real disease, testified to by people who know what they're talking about, like psychologists and such, and it's precipitated by having a bad case of culture shock combined with a bad case of totally unrealistic expectations and ideas about what Paris is like. Similar in some ways to "Jerusalem Syndrome" (which you should also look on Google, because that disease is also really interesting), Paris Syndrome seems to hit the Japanese the hardest, presumably because not only is their culture and language almost the complete opposite of France's, but because their media perpetuates some of the most ridiculous lies about what's it's like in Gay Paris. If you watched nothing but Japanese commercials, you'd think that Paris was inhabited by no one except Hermes-wearing Champagne-sipping six-foot size-zero twenty-something supermodels. And although that's an almost perfect description of me, regrettably the government of the city has a little work to do to make those high standards universally adhered to. As a result, many tourists who develop this syndrome actually have a very real mental breakdown and need to cut their trip short. Or camp out in the Japanese Embassy for the remainder of the trip. 

So if you happen to be sitting next to some Japanese tourists on their first visit to Paris, please do your civic duty, and tell them not to get their hopes up too high. If it's anything like Korea, Japan is three times cleaner and a thousand time more polite than Paris, even if they don't have any good cheese. 

Be Nice or Cannes It

Get it?

Saturday we hopped on a plane and headed for the south of France to visit a family with whom Ashley is very close. They live in Grasse, which is very close to both Nice and Cannes (I tried to incorporate "Grasse" into the title of this post also, but it just didn't work out no matter how I played with it).

Today, we went to Cannes, which hosts the famous film festival. It also has some really really nice beaches.

As we gazed into the Mediterranean, I told Ash: "Just think... over two thousand years ago Odysseus sailed this sea. The Trojan War was fought across these waters. All the great heroes of antiquity were here, cooling themselves in the sun just as we are now."

"I knew you would say something like that," she replied. "Always going on about those Greeks."

(Also, let me take this opportunity to compliment the bus system in France. Whatever their other failings, and trust me, there are plenty, the French know how to economize transport in this region. We took one bus for an hour and transferred to another bus for twenty minutes... and the total fare was a little more than a dollar each. Go European socialism!)

And here's a picture of a little beach grill with a very name that just barely avoids paying big bucks for copyright infringement:

Finally, let me tell you about a very funny advertisement campaign here in France for Orangina. Apparently, this commercial was taken off the air in the USA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKK37G-ZWvk

In short, there's an entire campaign: billboards, television ads, subway ads, etc, all associating Orangina with highly-sexualized anthropomorphic animals. But not just mammals. Oh no. You can see Orangina ads with a sexy insect, a penguin, an octopus... there's even one with a sexy cactus. It doesn't have a face. But it does have breasts and some kind of sexy little number in red. Here's a sampling, for you refreshment and pleasure.  

Weird! 

Meditations on Thievery

While walking through the gates to exit the subway, two men spontaneously embraced me, joyfully crying “Hey, my friend! Heyyy!” in accented English while their comrades stood by. Following my first impulse, I pushed them away (actually quite roughly), but it was too late, and the MP3 player in my breast pocket was gone.

It wasn’t a really really expensive MP3 player. And it wasn’t my wallet or passport. And it’s not like I’m so hard up that I can’t buy another one if I really want it. But it was mine, and now it’s gone, taken by some men who called me “friend” and hugged me to distract me. Yuck.

This is the first time in a long time that anything has actually been stolen from me. (The last time I can remember was high school, when a ring of students was busted stealing $100 TI-83 calculators from other students and selling them on the internet. I was one of the victims.)

So we’re not living in the best neighborhood, and people steal things sometimes. But for some reason this is really hard for my protected Connecticut psychology to come to terms with. The feelings of violation and injustice have been described to me before, but now I’m feeling them first-hand. To distract myself from these unpleasant feelings, here is a picture that has nothing to do with these meditations: 


 Also, these guys were Arabic, and they live in a racist society that discriminates against people who come from their part of the world (or from northern Africa, the other region which sends many unwanted immigrants into France). Which complexifies things further. In all probability, economic injustices necessitate their lifestyle of straight-up banditry, and they would happily leave their life of sordid crime if they could find gainful employ. So on the one hand I’m sympathetic to the struggles of living within a racist society, and therefore (in some measure) willing to forgive their transgressions against me and the laws of this country. On the other hand, WHAT THEY DID IS REALLY MESSED UP, and on more than one level. After all, with every theft they execute, this group of people willfully participates in the systematic production of the very racial prejudices from which they are (presumably) trying to escape. In other words, I’m going to really be careful now whenever I see groups of people loitering around the subway entrances and exits: especially if they’re young, male, and Arabic. Also, it kind of looks like the gryphon is spitting on my head, right??

But with the help of my father’s example, I want this conclusion to take a different tone. He taught me from a very young age what may be the best and most therapeutic way of responding to this sort of thing. When I was a boy, some crook broke his back windshield and stole a leather jacket out of his car. Losing the jacket hardly bothered him at all: he explained to me that if someone else needed it badly enough to steal it, he would gladly give it up. On the other hand, having his window broken angered him substantially... because the car was unlocked the whole time. Tonight, I was mugged with a hug, and isn’t that better than having my metaphorical windshield broken? So today, I sign myself:

Windows Unbroken,
Chris

does the existence of existentialism precede the essence of existential essentials?

I should warn you that the following post constitutes a written record of a dirty and far-too-extended joke, and is thus of no interest to anyone except me and the young lady with whom I share it. But I report it, nonetheless, out of a sense of obligation to my loyal readers, whose boundless enthusiasm for my life and work deserves no less.

We declared yesterday Existentialist Day. Channeling Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, we dressed in dark colorless clothes and tried not to smile all day. Among the day's activities, we traveled like po-mo pilgrims to the Montparnasse Cemetery, where we visited the graves of Sartre, Ionesco, Simone de Beauvoir, Beckett, Baudelaire, and other anti-luminaries.

Here we are, testifying to the absurdity of life by silently screaming into one another's ears in front of Samuel Beckett's gravestone. (Incidentally, this man stole several months of my life as I wrote my thesis on him, so it's only fitting that I should lovingly make light of his slide into eternity.) 

Taking reprieve from the existentially terrifying rain, we stopped by Les Deux Magots, a cafe once frequented by Hemingway, Picasso, and other characters from Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, in addition to the already too-much mentioned French existentialists. 

Finally, in further testament to the absurdity of our world, I give you a photo from the Paris metro. In order to maximize the existential impact, I give it to you without comment or explanation. Bonn nuit. 

the best thing about france...

...might be the crepes, which I'm clearly enjoying in the picture above. They can be sweet or savory, but my favorite is the crepe avec banane et nutella.

Yesterday, I climbed the famous steps up to the Sacre-Coeur of Montmartre, which is walking distance from the apartment where we're staying now. It's the highest point in Paris, and affords a fairly breathtaking panoramic of the city. Check it out:

See that blue-roofed building near the top-left of the frame? That's the Centre Pompidou, the modern art museum here (it was apparently designed to look like an inside-out factory... those trippy French artistes). Also, see that domed building near the top-right of the frame? That's some other important building. Probably a church or something.

Also, on the climb through the park, I heard a familiar sound and came across a group of (feral?) cats chasing each other around like little mountain lions. (Or chasing each other around like cougars chase tom cats?) (Or like ladies chase stray cats?)
Longtime followers of this blog might notice a strange correlation between this cat/mountain connection and an earlier incident in Korea. But the cat I caught on camera this time was far cuter. Just look at how he's stopping to smell the flowers.

Permit to end this tiny photographic tour of my life with a recapitulating word about the food here: it's awesome. Witness our dinner (smoked salmon and vin rouge out of the frame), accompanied by Sartre IN THE ORIGINAL FRENCH (yes I will be mentioning that in every blog post from now until forever). 

In the Summer When It Sizzles...

So I've been in the City of Light for a little more than a week, and I though it was time to rejuvenate this ancient blog with posts from a new country in the old world... I'll be living in Paris for the summer, and my goals are three-fold:

1) Become tres proficient at French. Ironically, this is important for getting a PhD in English Literature (my uber-goal) and for pretentiously reading Sartre in the original language. 

2) Avoid getting syphilis. (This won't be too difficult, I hope, as long as I avoid the Moulin Rouge and 19th-century prostitutes.) 

3) Not be completely broke by the end of the summer.

Apropos the third goal, living is Paris is not cheap, so I had to think about ways to put a few Euros in my pocket while I'm here. Although I'm certainly not a talented guitar player, I figured, hey! This is a free country, right? A land of wine-stained opportunity, yes? The convivial Parisians (and millions of tourists) would almost certainly help out a struggling young boheme with a bit of their pocket change in exchange for songs about l'amour et la guerre, non? Why not give it a shot, n'est pas?

Well, the bad news is that it's illegal, for one thing. There are only a certain number of busking (street-performing) licenses administered by the Paris government each year, and to get a license requires an audition (which only happens once a year) and a French working permit or residency card or something. But the good news is that, just like in the United States of Racist America, my skin color works to my advantage here when dealing with the gendarmes, even if my nationality does not. Apparently the French, who admittedly have a reputation for hating les Americains, hate the immigrants from North Africa even more. About the worst I can expect, apparently, is for the police to tell me to piss off. A ticket is extremely unlikely, and getting arrested entirely out of the question. So far, c'est bon. 

So after months of practicing and nervousness, I finally conquered my fears and hit the streets yesterday. Or, to be more precise, I hit the park--Trocadero (pictured above), which commands probably the best view of the Eiffel Tower to be found in the whole city. I tried not to be too optimistic about how much I would make, but I was pleasantly surprised when I netted about eleven euros (approximately fourteen dollars?) after two hours of playing. Of course, ten out of those eleven euros came from a single benevolent benefactress with whom I spoke for some time en francais, and apparently made a favorable impression--I think I heard her whispering to her companion that I was "tres charismatique." Quell surprise! 

More bons mots from the land of the surrendering baguette will follow shortly, so keep those eyes peeled for  more interweb updates, my loyal followers & fans!

Another Epic "Thinking Project"

I gave my elementary students another "Thinking Project" the other day. This time the subject was a little bit morbid, but it wasn't exactly my choice (it's part of the curriculum that I have to administer). Our reading for the week was on organ donation, strangely enough, so the thinking project aimed at getting the kids thinking about what they would like to do if they had only three months left to live. They then had to take that "Make A Wish Foundation" themed list and turn it into a song. I wasn't kidding when I said "morbid," right?

Here is one group's list of things they want to do before they die:
1.) Travel the world
2.) Shopping
3.) Body adventure
4.) Kill all of the boys

Except I guess they thought twice about number three, since it was crossed out and "Explore in the body!" was written in its place. I refrained from commenting to this group of girls that they might find number three challenging if they carried out number four. Maybe that's why number three came first on their list? In any case, here's the song they finally came up with:

WHAT I WANT TO DO

I will die in three month. Oh! Oh! Oh! My money.
I want to go shopping.
I will travel all the countries
Because I can't use money after I die.
And also many countries are also very beautiful,
And I die.

Blue Blazers and Almond Pizza

Let me put this on the table before I say anything further: I am not a huge fan of Korean pizza. The don't put nearly enough tomato sauce on it, and the dough is soft and sweet, hardly deserving of the denotation "crust." In addition, Koreans love to put strange things on their pizzas, like corn and sweet potato. Today, the level of stangeness increased, as I bought a slice of pizza and discovered that in addition to cheese and sausage (and, unfortunately, CORN), the pizza was topped with a veritable bushel of sliced almonds.

Another less than pleasant discovery today: I thought it was normal and acceptable to dress up your look a little bit by throwing on a blue blazer. When I tried that little trick for an open class today (this is when parents come to watch your class, a stressful affair to say the least), the Korean teacher told me that I looked like a high schooler. Then I remembered that (literally) every high school across the country has an almost identical blue blazer as part of its uniform. So now I know what garment to don when going for that "youthful" look.

Students Turn the Problem of World Hunger into a Catchy Jingle

In one of my intermediate classes, the topic of the three-hour long session was world hunger. Near the end of the lesson, I broke the students up into groups and asked them to compose a song treating the topic of world hunger. Here are a few of the results, unedited and unabridged. Incidentally, I have no idea how they learned to use "yo" in song lyrics. I certainly didn't teach them that.

JINGLE HUNGERS (to the tune of "Jingle Bells," by a group of three boys)

They are dying.
They are dying.
It is not their fault.

They are dead.
They are dead.
What's you gonna do.


DONATION (a rap song, by a group of two boys calling themselves "Dark Sides of Street")

Yo. There is peoples in this world buyin food at market. But do remember there is peoples thrown out at streets baggin for some cashes and changes. What do we do? Nothin! We don't freakin care about this hommies and hobos. Instead we seat in the house at couch watchin TV.
Hunger...!
It is beatin the crap of them.
We gotta help this hommies.
Donate your money, food, and time.
There are people dyin in hunger. You know that there are foods, but it goes to the waste baskets. It's such a waste you know. They ain't got food, job, moneys, we need to help them! They are dyin out there.
C'mon.


YELLOW HOT CHARLIE CHOCOLATE (a song by a group of girls calling themselves "Burning Green Rabbit")

People are dying yo
We are living yo
So we have to help them
They are so poor
Hunger is bad I think so

Go on and donate your time
Volunteer your time

People are in hunger
Give money and food and
Time to them

Go on and donate your time
Volunteer your time

How are you?

So let's imagine you're walking past a work-related acquaintaince in the hallway of your office. What do you say? Probably some variant of "Hey, how are you?" right? Depending on your level of intimacy with this person, he or she could either say "Fine. How about you?" or proceed to tell you all about that awesome fishing trip last weekend, the recent divorce, and/or what he or she had for breakfast.

So recently, I asked my Korean language exchange parnter how to say, "How are you?" in Korean. He looked at me for a second with a furrowed brow. "You know, 'how are you?'" I repeated. "What you say to a casual acquaintaince just to make conversation or add a little more than just 'hello' to your interaction."

He thought for a good long while and concluded that there was no Korean equivalent to "How are you?" a ubiquitous question in Western social interaction. In fact, it's so important that there are multiple variants of how to say it, some of which I will here repeat for the sake of color.

How are you?
How's it going?
What's happening?
What's kicking?
What's shaking?
What's up?
How's it hanging?
Who's your daddy?

(Okay that last one wasn't real.) But you get my point. Shin Woo told me that the closest Korean equivalent would be "What did you do yesterday?" but this, to me, is a very different sort of question. It asks for a particular response and specific information. I have no particular desire to know what my coworkers did yesterday. "How are you?" on the other hand, is a very open question. Depending on your level of intimacy with your conversant, your amount of free time, and your desire to share information, your reply could be quite comprehensive or a single word. And everything in between is okay.

Differences in a language almost always reflect differences in a culture. So what does this phenomenon signify? It could grow out of the more socially stratified nature of traditional Korean society, as contrasted to American society. "How are you?" is an open and flexible question, and Koreans are traditionally anything but open or flexible. Either you're intimate with someone or not. No grey space, and no room for inviting intimacy where it does not already exist. But if anyone else has theories, I would love to hear them.

So you caught me at a critical moment...

So sometimes I get a little discouraged. I think about how I can't tell a good wine from a great wine, or about how little appreciation I have for culinary delights compared to some people I know. Every man wants to have a good "nose" for whiskey, but to me they all sort of taste... well, whiskey-like. Far from being the responsive, sensitive tuning fork of pleasure I would like it to be, my palate sometimes feels like an all-too blunt instrument. So I get a little bit sad.

But for the rest of my life, I will be able to console myself, knowing that an entire country of people lacks even the fundamentals of what, in the West, we would call "good taste." I will now treat three aspects of the Korean culinary experience that have left me wanting.

Let's start with the bread. I think every bread-product in Korea must be made from rice and sugar instead of wheat. Their bread lacks texture. It lacks character. It lacks flavor. Really, the BEST bread you will find in Korea is comparable to Wonderbread. And yet, today I dared to hope... I went to the supermarket looking for pita bread, knowing full well what a desperate, hopeless quest I was on. As I sauntered over to where the bread-lady was displaying her wares, I had a moment of optimism! That bread-like thing, there! It looks flat, and almost resembles pita! Luckily, the bread-lady was there to offer me a sample, otherwise my hopes would have been mercilessly extended until I got home and tasted it for myself. It was sweet. Sugary sweet. Brutally sweet. Probably made from rice. And soft as a marshmallow.

The word "crusty," as in "crusty bread," is not in the Korea culinary vocabulary. In fact, "baking" at all here is an unknown art. It is extremely rare for a domicile to be furnished with an oven, and so a whole slew of Western-favored foodstuffs are unavailable here. Cookies and cakes? Rare. And of such a low quality when you happen across them that you are best to stick with things the Koreans do better.

Let's move on to the wine, which I may have mentioned in an earlier post on alcohol in Korea, but it deserves to be recapitulated here. Wine in Korea tastes like grape juice. It tastes like if you took 2 parts Welch's Grape Juice (wait, not Welch's... too high quality. Substitute CVS-Brand instead of Welch's) and added one part cheap White Zinfandel. That is what passes for wine in Korea, and it's available for two dollars a bottle (made by Lotte, of course). Thankfully, there are easily available imports from Italy, Chile, Spain, Argentina, France, etc. In fact, you can buy imported wine at any of the million corner stores.

Lastly, let's talk coffee. Now, it's no secret that Americans love coffee. For many of us, the first thing we do in the morning is start a pot of coffee, letting that wonderful aroma permeate the home as we gird ourselves for another workday. Some people prefer to stop at Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, or their favorite coffee shop on the way to work. Some people (as is the custom in my family) brew a pot of coffee (decaf!) immediately after dinner. What do all these coffees have in common? The key word is BREW. I just returned from the supermarket, so the horrifying image is still burned into my mind: an ENTIRE WALL of... INSTANT COFFEE! It's available in many flavors. At many different strengths. With sugar. With no sugar. Creamer. No creamer. Decaf. Super Caf. But it's all INSTANT! I think on the entire wall of shelves there were three or four REAL coffee products. Korean instant coffee is almost always packaged in these single-serving sleeves, the horror of which is enhanced instead of mitigated by their cuteness.

All of this having been said, Koreans do seem to enjoy brewed coffee... judging by the supermarket aisle, they just never make it themselves. There are an abundance of Starbucks and other more Korean coffee shops where, for the prohibitively expensive price of $4-$6, you too can enjoy a cup of kah-pee! (Konglish for "coffee")

So how do I conclude this scathing missive? Perhaps with some palliative words. Korean food is not all bad. In fact, some of it is really really good. I love bibimbap (a mix of fresh vegetables with egg and fried rice) and dak-galbi (a kind of stir-fried chicken?) as well as many other things here. But stuff just ain't like it is back home!

Mountain God

I made another pilgrimage into the mountains North-ish of Busan yesterday for a stellar hike with my colleagues and friends. We had a great time. I have no idea how far we hiked (it was at least a few miles), but as you can see from the pictures, the trail stretches along the ridge of mountains. I guess these ridges were used to defend against the Japanese, back in the day. (As any Korean will tell you, the Japanese have been a persistent problem throughout Korea's history, mostly because Korea is a peninsula that provides very convenient passage to the mainland. If, you know, it weren't for all the Koreans in the way.)



There were many, many Koreans hiking the trail along with us. I've noticed that Koreans take their sportswear VERY seriously. People buy these special hiking jackets, pants, shoes, and backpacks. And those ski-pole-type-things that I guess help you hike on difficult terrain. But I honestly find that whole practice pretty silly. When I showed up in some durable denim pants and a short-sleeve shirt, my Korean colleague commented that "I didn't look like I was ready for hiking." Jeez, sorry I didn't drop a few hundred thousand won on the "appropriate" gear!



In other news, the end of the session is approaching, which means that in two short weeks I'll be getting an entirely new group of children. And believe me, there are some kids that I will be all-too-happy to have out of my classroom. However, I might have to teach some classes that I've never done before, which is always a little uncomfortable at first. And it also means that I have to submit reports on every student I have right now (probably a little less than one hundred). Which I'm officially late on! Back to work on those...

A Sunday Korean: "Breaking the Lules"

So I decided what I am yesterday. I am a Sunday Korean. You all know the phrase "Sunday Christian," right? Someone who goes to church and takes religion seriously one day of the week, but sins like CRAZY for the other six days (especially Saturday night, I bet)? Well that has become, unfortunately, my attitude about learning Korean.

I have a new language exchange partner who takes our work together VERY seriously, which is great. He simultaneously wants to PERFECT his English while helping me to accomplish my goals with Korean (which, by the way, are quite modest). So we spend two hours every Sunday engaged in fairly intensive language study, the likes of which I haven't known since Mr. Chandler's B-period AP French 4 class.

The problem is that for the other six days of the week, part of my job is to actively police my classroom, reprimanding any student who speaks Korean, or "Konglish," or really even speaks with a heavy Korean accent. For example:

Student: Teach-uh? Can I please-uh go to bathroom?
Teacher Chris: *with mock incomprehension* Teach-UH? What is teach-UH?
Student: TeachER, please-uh!
Teacher Chris: Please-UH?? What is please-UHH??

So I spend 6 hours every day, and three hours on Saturdays, enforcing a strict-English only policy. It makes me feel like an evil colonial governor, but that's what I get for reading all those books in post-colonial literature for Lit Crit class.

Meanwhile, I would really like to cultivate my skill at speaking the language my children would like to desperately to use during class time. I'm sure I could learn quite a bit if I didn't have to be such a Nazi about enforcing English only. Every now and then I've let a word or two in Korean slip out, and this actually completely disrupts the classroom atmosphere. Students immediately stand up and point to me, with glee on their faces. "TEACH-UH YOU SPEAKED KOREAN! TEACH-UH YOU BROKE THE LULES!" It's a sight to see.

Mentioning Christianity brings something else to mind. The churches here in Korea all have their steeples decorated with bright red/pink neon crosses. That's right; you can identify a place of holy refuge from quite far away, even in the darkest of sinful nights, by the neon pink cross, shining like a very flamboyant beacon from heaven above.

Please Don't Hit Us

And speaking of domestic abuse! Today in one of my elementary school classes, my students had to get into groups and brainstorm things that they liked and did not like about their parents. Then they had to think of what kind of parents they wanted to be, and finally, they had to write a song about parenting.

A group of five elementary school girls produced this gem. It's called, "Please Don't Hit Us."

PLEASE DON'T HIT US

Listen to my opinion
Listen to my opinion
We hope that you don't hit us.
(Because we can get hurt
Because we can get hurt)

And we can get many stress
We always try hard for
Be a good daughter to you.

Heartbreaking, isn't it? In a funny, ESL-kind-of-way. The boys, on the other hand, did not focus on the same emotionally intense issues as the girls. Instead, they wrote about a much more straightforward concept, one that is near and dear to the hearts of children from developed countries all over the world. And in the true spirit of rock and roll, it's called, "Give Me."

GIVE ME

Give me money
Give me money
Give me money

And we want.

Give me free
Give me free
Give me free

Now we have.

Everything
Everything
Everything

And we have
All the thing.


UPDATE:

So I gave the same exercise to a different class today and got surprisingly similar results. A group of boys wrote from the standpoint of a consumer in an acquisitional materialist culture, while the girls' song reflected their desire to escape from the critical judgements of their elders. Amazingly, the boys even chose the exact same title for their song.

WHEN I GROW UP

When I grow up,
I want to be a nice parent.
I don't say so many scolding,
Because...

The scolding makes them
A sense of inferiority,
The scolding makes
Children have a bad mind.


GIVE ME

Give them
Give them
Give them
A free time.

Give them
Give them
Give them
Many money.

Don't give them
Don't give them
Don't give them
A study time.

Don't give them
Don't give them
Don't give them
Many books.

PIFF and a long commentary on domestic abuse...

So this week is the Pusan International Film Festival, which is, in the words of everyone's favorite Anchorman, "kind of a big deal." The city is flooded with even more twenty-something American "waegu" than are normally here, although the really cool thing is that I know more about Korea than all of them put together!

I saw the only movie I could get a ticket to today, a Canadian film called "Twice a Woman," about a woman who attempts to reinvent herself and recover from the trauma of an abusive husband. It was actually not bad, although I'm sure I'm far from the target demographic and there's a reason why it's the only one that didn't sell out completely.

The one thing that I wished this movie gave me (and I've noticed this from other movies about abusive men) is more of an insight into the mind of the abuser. In popular culture, the narrative of an abusive relationship seems to invariably center itself on the victim, her helplessness, her recovery, her growing confidence, etc. But that's really only half the story, isn't it? I mean, does a guy just wake up one morning and declare, "Today, I'm going to send my wife to the hospital!" I mean, what's going on inside his head? I'm genuinely curious, because there must be some sort of internal progression from "I'm a guy" to "I'm a guy who abuses his wife/girlfriend." What factors turn a person into an abuser? Can ANYONE be transformed into one, given the right circumstances? (Probably more people than you'd think, anyway.) Who, or what, CREATES an abuser? And, if I may ask a more dangerous question: What narratives do abusers craft to justify their behavior?
And to become still more dangerous: Do these narratives have any legitimacy?

Also, I read a study that actually claimed that women are actually MORE LIKELY to abuse their domestic partners than men are. Obviously, less men are going to report it when their wife beats them up, because of the shame involved. Also, consider how little social support there is for abused men? For men, few people will even admit it's a problem. When I was at Sarah Lawrence, a couple of women came from an organization to talk to the RA Staff (including me) about services for abused women, and how to deal with situations where we suspected abuse, etc. When I questioned their insistence on using the female pronoun for the abused and the male pronoun for the abuser, they dismissed my objections on the basis that the "overwhelming majority of abusers were men." EVEN IF this is true, wouldn't insitence on those gender-based pronouns only serve to reinforce the social frameworks that prevent abused men from seeking help? Just sayin'...

Speaking of ABUSE, someone stole my bicycle. It wasn't a super-expensive bike, but come on. It was locked up right outside of my academy and when I got out of work at 10pm, it was gone. And it was raining. Hard. So I had a long and angry walk home to my apartment, where I promptly mixed myself a drink and fantasized about what I wanted to do to the person who so flagrantly violated my property right.

Another Month

Has it really been a month since the last time I posted in this blog?

A lot has happened here. What can I say; a lot happens in a month.

The past week has been super-awesome. Even though she is totally lame and doesn't even read this blog, a very very special person visited me here in Korea and we had a great time together. This also gave me the chance to do some sightseeing that I otherwise would have missed out on.



I went back to Beomosa Temple, which was even more awesome than before because halfway up the mountain we discovered ANOTHER temple inset from the trail. This satellite mini-temple was anything but mini, but because of its remote location it was infinitely more awesome than the temple proper. I think it was called Gymeosa or something. Definitely started with a "G" anyway.

Also, there was the Busan Bienalle, which is an art festival that happens here every other year. We saw some pretty sweet sculptures in the APEC Naru Park (including a bizarre piece called "Improbable Tree" that involved an anatomically correct rabbit mounting a porcupine in coitus among the foliage of a tree), as well as a huge exhibit at the Busan Modern Art Museum.



It was Chuseok on Wednesday, which is the most important holiday of the Korean calendar. It's a harvest festival that could probably be best compared to Thanksgiving in the states. I didn't have to work on Chuseok or the day after it, although I'm paying for it now... our Wednesday classes were moved to Saturday and our Thursday classes were moved to Sunday. So I taught for nine hours today, and six of those hours were my LEAST FAVORITE of my week... but that's the law of equivalent exchange for you.

But all in all, the past week has been a very sweet time and I'm sorry that things are back to normal now.

A Very Classy Weekend

This weekend I was intent on having as much fun as possible to make up for last weekend's distinct lack of fun. So Friday night I went out with all my coworkers for a belated "Welcome Chris and Courtney Dinner" (Courtney is a new teacher at the branch who arrived maybe two weeks ago). I always feel privileged to raise a glass with my Korean branch manager. At the office the guy is friendly enough in an awkward, standoffish kind of way, but put some Soju in his hands and it's a whole different story! There are a few social rules here regarding drinking: A) It's impolite to fill your own glass. B) It's impolite NOT to fill the glass of somebody else if it's empty. And most Koreans are pretty vigilant about keeping the glasses full. There are also many drinking games that involve drinking your whole glass at once (they call this "one shottuh" because they can't quite say "one shot"), and then your glass gets immediately refilled. Basically, the only way to avoid getting hammered is to sip your drink slowly but keep your glass full.

Saturday morning I left on a sweet rafting trip that went until Sunday afternoon. The Korean rafting is more relaxing than exciting, but this is okay. I was actually on what they called a kayak, but is really more of a two-person raft. Kind of an inflatable kayak of sorts? Once again, I was impressed by the prodigious amount of drinking that accompanied this venture. I could relate the amount of alcohol my group of twenty twenty-something English teachers consumed over the course of the evening, but that would take too much space. We all slept on the hardwood floor with only a few blankets and pillows for comfort, so it's a good thing we prepared ourselves with a few nightcaps.

On the way back to Busan from the rafting trip, we made a stop at Jinju castle, an important historic site outside of Busan. They had a decent museum and the grounds were pretty enough, but overall I was underwhelmed. It didn't have the kind of impressive architecture I've come to expect from these Korean historical sites. In fact, there wasn't much of a "castle" there at all! Still, I felt culturally enriched.

Sunday, I went with my coworkers to see the Lotte Giants play a baseball game! (Remember how in an earlier post I talked about how Lotte is a huge conglomerate here? Well the Giants are one of the TWO baseball teams Lotte owns. To me, this would be kind of like imagining the "Coca-Cola Red Socks" or the "Philip Morris Mariners." Just doesn't feel right.) The game was entertaining enough--Koreans love to get really, really excited at these events. Give me a sunny day at the stadium with some beautiful mountains in the background, throw in some home runs, some dancing cheerleader girls, and strange orange trash bags that everyone wears on their heads, and I'll be happy. And all of these factors were present. Also, the stadium was naught but a short bike ride from my apartment, so that was also advantageous.

Another complaint I meant to mention in my last post: At night time, it's pretty common to see drivers riding around with no headlights on. The streets are so well lit in most parts of Busan, it's probably pretty easy to see where you're going even at midnight. But it does make it dangerous for everyone else! My guess is that most of those lightless-drivers are, themselves, lit. They say that the number one mistake intoxicated drivers make is failing to turn on their headlights! (Thanks, Chevrolet, for giving me running lights so I NEVER have to worry about this.)

Miscellaneous Praise, Criticism, and Judgement

In this post, I'm going to do a little bit of complaining. Maybe do a little bit of unfair generalizing about Korea and people who live there. Maybe even make some judgmental, biased comments. But that's not all I'm going to do. Oh no. I'm also going to make some very POSITIVE generalizations. I might dispense praise effusively. I might even dispense it RECKLESSLY.

Maybe it's because it's a crowded country. Maybe it's because, as a people, they've developed a passive-aggressive response to unfavorable situations (such as long lines). I'm willing to give them all these excuses, and more. But the fact remains that Koreans will habitually and unabashedly cut you in line. Young and old, big and small, male and female. They'll just kind of sneak in there, avoid eye contact (just like the Dane Cook sketch) and then before you know it, BINGO. You've been CUT. And what can you say? NOTHING. They would probably pretend not to understand you anyway.

If I was in America, I would have options. I could make a scene and almost assuredly get my way (not to mention make an ass out of myself!). I could choose a similarly passive-aggressive response, and do that thing where you shuffle forward a little bit at a time until the CUT has been RETURNED. I could make those little frustrated exhalations and exchange indignant looks with my fellow queue-rs. I could assume a Buddhist magnanimity and choose to not care about who gets to check out first.

It's a good thing that I generally go with that last option in the USA because right now, it's the only option I feel comfortable with here.

Moving on, I'd like you step into the Twilight Zone with me for a moment. Imagine a world where Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks--all those places where we love to stop and get coffee first thing in the morning--DIDN'T OPEN UNTIL TEN AM. Wouldn't this be simply, unimaginably, INCONCEIVABLE!?

Well start conceiving, my stateside compadres, because "Angel-In-Us Coffee," probably the largest coffee shop chain in the country, doesn't open its doors until 10am, long after the average worker needs his or her commute-coffee (at least, this goes for the one near my apartment). Welcome to the middle ground between light and shadow, science and superstition. Welcome... to the Twilight Zone!

Alright, time for the effusive praise. In America, what is the GENERAL sentiment about people who live there, but don't speak English? Pretty negative. (Most people never mind the fact that almost everyone in the US who doesn't speak English DESPERATELY would like to but lacks the resources for doing so, but that's another story.) On the other hand, many Koreans are extremely impressed that I even know ten words of Korean, and will never ever be difficult or impolite (at least not my face) if I DON'T know how to say something. A flawlessly well-mannered people, even if they are spitting poison about us "waegu" behind our backs--and even blaming some of their national problems on us!

Doctor, Doctor, Can't You See I'm Burning, Burning.

On Thursday evening I had a sore throat rapidly manifest itself. Just like the kids at Becket, the Korean students I teach are walking little petri dishes. I hoped it would go away soon.

Friday night: fever. Damn. And my throat is starting to get REALLY REALLY uncomfortable. Like, it hurts to drink water or even open my mouth. Eating is basically out of the question.

So it gets bad enough that I want to go to the hospital, since I'm pretty sure I have strep throat (bacterial infection), and trying to "wait it out" will just prolong my suffering needlessly.

So I go the Emergency Room (there's one a short walk from my house). I'm anticipating having to drop a couple hundred USD on this trip, but that's still nothing compared to an E-Room trip in the States.

A guy who can speak a little English comes and asks me what's wrong. I tell him my symptoms, and he takes my temperature and looks down my throat. (39.6 Celsius, I learned later, converts to 103F. Whoah, Mama!) I tell him I want an antibiotic, and he agrees. He wants to hook me up to an IV and give me a shot in the butt (they are really passionate about the shot in the butt here--seriously, no matter what you go to the ER for they try to give you one. And he really tried to sell it too!), but I just want to grab my meds and GET OUT.

As I'm leaving, I pay the bill. Not even thirty USD, and that's INCLUDING the medicine. Go Korea.

The Photojournalism Continues

This picture was on a canvas bag. If you have any ideas as to what it could possibly mean, I'd love to hear them.







You have two choices... barely.







Buy any Kid's Meal at the Lotteria and receive a Milk-Squirting Spring-Mounted Box-Shaped Farm Friend!








Club Womb... a warm, safe place.









This place was only SLIGHTLY less questionable than "Dogs' Nuts Coffee" next door.








Anatomy of a Cartoon Construction Worker! (Have I mentioned that everything here is a cartoon? Sometimes I feel like I'm trapped in Roger Rabbit's Toontown.) 1) Silly Helmet. 2) Absurd smile I have never seen on ANY Korean laborer. 3) Batman-grade utility belt. 4) Mickey Mouse gloves. 5) Clown-like shoes.







And this one goes out to all the Olympians in the audience tonight: I photographed these hair-care bottles in one of Korea's famous "Love Motels." Because if you don't already smell like sex after spending time there, you can wash your hair in the liquefied essence of the Sex God himself!



I don't know what C.V.S. stands for here, but I'm sure it ISN'T "Consumer Value Store" or "Convenience, Value, and Service." Nevertheless, a moment of knee-jerk panic overcame me momentarily when I saw this sign.


Also, I can't help but share a short conversation I had with one of my elementary school students earlier today right before class. (Note One: Dog is sometimes eaten here, but mostly only by older, more "traditional" Koreans at special restaurants. Note Two: "Gresh" is the "English name" that this boy chose for himself, which all of his peers think is VERY STRANGE.)

Teacher Chris: Have you ever eaten dog?
Gresh: No, not dog... dog is dirty.
Teacher Chris: Haha, okay.
Gresh: I eat my sister's skin.
Teacher Chris: Ewwwww...
Gresh: No, it's delicious. Like a potato.