The Two Types of Expats in Korea

Now that I have been living in Korea for six and a half years it is interesting to look back over these neglected pages and see the ways in which my perspective has changed. One way to frame this is to think about how I perceived my journey when I came here and how I think about it now. Reflecting on this I theorize that there are two kinds of expats in Korea (at least in the teaching community): those who are "short-term" and those who are "Lifers." I never intended to become the latter. I still want to think of myself as a "short-termer" and of my time in Korea as temporary, but somehow, as the years here have passed I have never really found the motivation to seek out someplace else to go. Like many people (mostly men) who come here, I have fallen in love with a Korean person. This has made finding an exit strategy immensely more complicated. Luckily, the Korean person I am dating is ok with the idea of immigrating elsewhere. But the logistics of doing so (finding jobs for two people, finding places where we can both get resident status, etc.) make moving two much harder than moving alone. And then there is the cat to think of. I have also been fortunate to procure a good job at a university here. And I have one of the better jobs at one of the better universities in Korea (imho). I teach American Literature in an English department, something that would basically be impossible in the US given the glut of unemployed PhDs floating around (I have an MA). My job is incredibly rewarding from the personal standpoint, and while the pay isn't fantastic, it supports the travel that I love and allows me a comfortable lifestyle here. Another issue is the matter of where to go and why. I have heard people talk of greener pastures in the Middle East, BRICS countries, Eastern Europe...and while all of them have their upsides, (money, adventure, culture) somehow none of them offer anything (at least for me) that can motivate me to give up my cushy sinecure here in Korea at this time.

"An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion..." Newton's First Law

It seems ironic, to me at least, that the forces that moved me to pick up stakes and leave my country (which have been enumerated ad nauseam in this blog) have not affected me here. I still face many of the same challenges and frustrations, but the cumulative effect is lessened somehow. I think this points to a fundamental difference between Short-timers and Lifers that may explain why they end up leaving quickly or staying forever, respectively. Short-timers, I have noticed, are always talking about going somewhere, planning for some goal, using their experience here as a stepping-stone to something else. For them, the expat experience is often less a destination than a stop-off on the way to someplace else, most often back to where they began. This is a fundamentally good way to look at the opportunity to live in another country. I have also seen that Lifers, people who tend to stay here long term, often talk about escaping from something in their past. In my case this is certainly true. I have heard Lifers talk about escaping from addictions, bad relationships, bad jobs, frustration with political or cultural conditions, poverty, unemployment, and many other things. For these people, finding a place where we felt loved, valued, safe, healthy, or whatever is an end in itself. "Going back" is something with negative connotations,"moving on" a prospect with inherent risks. We are, in many ways, objects at rest...happy to have found a place to exist in relative peace and comfort. There are exceptions to every rule, and everyone has a different perception of the expat experience, but I have seen this pattern again and again as I visit with people living in Korea. People seem to have some idea of what they are after, whether it be a place to land or another step on a journey. And both are ok. I am not sure what the future holds for me. For the time being I am here, doing what I can to live a good life and help those around me.

Post-Election Reflections

  Things are going swimmingly here in Korea. The weather is cooling steadily and the trees are turning on the mountains here in Busan. It is lovely. A sense of optimism has returned following the elections. There is nothing more depressing than an election cycle and this one was worse than most. I was encouraged by the numbers in Florida and elsewhere that suggested the GOP has a real problem with Hispanics. It was also lovely to see Akin and Mourdock go down on their slimy barges of misogyny. This gives me hope. The Republican party will have to somehow separate itself from the vitriol of the ultra-con Teabaggery or risk political oblivion. In doing so the will shoot themselves in the foot with their biggest grassroots constituency and most well-heeled political donors. And I am going to make a prediction: in the next presidential election there will be a tangible third party threat from the right. A Pawlenty/Palin ticket.  I also predict that Hillary Clinton will resign from the Department of State at some point to begin gearing up for her run. The abysmal display by the GOP must have been very encouraging to her. If Obama can work with Boehner to introduce moderate fiscal reforms and further repair the economy the next Democratic nominee will be in pretty good shape against a divided conservative movement.

Still Here

It's long since I have written but I once again take the thing out and dust it off. I recently returned home from a visit to the US, my second since coming to Korea, and my reaction to that journey seems to require some comment, if only as a way-point for my own personal reference. This blog, after all, has been if anything a record of dis-orientation, beginning with my first dizzying days in a foreign land, progressing through my gradual (and sometimes difficult) acclimatisation, and even, though only referred to by the absence of any post whatsoever, to a level of comfort where further comment seemed either completely unnecessary or merely trivial. I have always allowed myself the illusion that I am writing for myself alone which might excuse to some extent the content if not the tone of these missives.

To come to the point, or a point, my recent trip home was not much fun. I enjoyed seeing my family and friends and I ate enough melted cheese and fried potatoes to regain about 10 pounds of hard lost fat but overall it was just not a satisfying experience. I realized at some point that I had been expecting a vacation and that I had had failed for the simple reason that one cannot take a much-needed vacation in one's own hometown. It is not a get-away, it is not a relaxing retreat. It is home. And even though I have been away from the place for quite a while and the people and place have changed significantly, it is still at the end of the day my hometown. And as the song says: "Nothing brings you down like your hometown."

Now perhaps I am doing it wrong. I initially chose Thanksgiving as an opportunity to see as many family members as possible at one gathering. Now, with my cousins all marrying and going everywhere, the gatherings are becoming more of a drive-through affair than an all-day affair. Certainly there is no strong motivation to see me, and I am not hurt about that. We all have our own lives now. Perhaps it is just as effective to keep in touch over Facebook and leave it at that. I had felt that there was some obligation on my part to be physically present periodically but this may not be the case. Reassessment. Now my mother is another story and as the primary reason that I return each year she should be addressed separately. She does require my physical presence and I require hers and for that reason some annual journey is required. And there are my two grandfathers, to whom every visit is a gift granted by time. But it is my current speculation that the next meeting will not be at Thanksgiving.

One problem with November in Illinois however is the weather. I saw the sun for about three hours in the week I was there. It is a cloudy depressing place in late fall when all the leaves have fallen and all you can see for miles is grey and mud. And, I hate to say it, but I have started to become sensitized to what I might describe as culture of lazy obesity and waste, TV-addicted couch potatoes complaining at the drive-up windows of the Taco Bell. I was shocked to see what would have never shocked me before I left, a huge woman in an electric wheelchair dragging a grocery cart through the "frozen-sin" section of the Shop-N-Save, too fat to reach the donuts. It would simply be impossible where I live now for that woman to exist. And I have a right to be critical, yes I do, because that was, to some extent, ME.

And I am none too happy about discovering this sense of overall dissatisfaction with the stereotypic Mid-westerner (who is, I'm sorry, obese). It is as if I woke up and didn't like who I was and decided to change and become different and, once I had, saw myself as I was before and realized that I in some way missed that person. I miss my beer-driven mediocrity. I can still appreciate the feeling of a summer breeze drying the condensation from a can of Busch pulled directly from a cooler full of ice. I chuckle to remember the calls through a creaky screen door to "light the other grill," the quintessential and uniquely Mid-western American problem: Too Much Meat. And I miss the stupefying simplicity of that life, the lack of competition (driven by an appalling and culture-wide sense of entitlement), the glacial pace, the contentment with cultural objects deemed classic merely because they were on the radio twenty years ago. All of this would seem, looking from the other side of my brain, the one I would suppose has become "urbanized" if that is an accurate diagnosis, to be disturbingly quaint at best and abjectly hopeless at worst.

So while I was at the aforementioned supermarket on my first day back I had a bit of a panic attack at the sight of everyday hometown humanity and the only word on my mind was "Escape." At that moment I actually wanted more than anything to go back to the airport. We left what few things I had gathered (I was looking for some small "American" gifts which, note, do not exist) and went back out to the grey parking lot. I can laugh about it now but there was one vivid instant where I didn't know who I was.

The Most Breathtaking Country

I have been living and working here in Korea for two years now so I feel qualified to make some observations on the subject. Bear in mind reading this that I am anything but a dispassionate observer. I love this place, this culture, and these people. Also, admittedly, my experience of other cultures with which to compare it is rather limited. Nevertheless, I am a fan and I tend to beat the drum and the observation I have chosen to make is probably universal regardless. Now I know Korea isn't perfect and there are a lot of entrenched attitudes that should change. But I think that there is a lot more positive about this place than most expats I talk to give it credit for. For one thing, living in a place like Korea gives you an opportunity to learn a new way of thinking.

For instance, in talking about Korean cities, some people complain about the stink. I will admit that on a hot summer day in Busan sometimes you get a whiff of something coming out of a sewer grate that feels like a punch in the gut. But I love the other smells: the fruit and vegetable markets early in the morning when the stands are freshly rainbow stocked with produce, dried peppers and piles of pungent aromatic herbs. The pine woods along the singing brooks on Geumjangsan when the sun hits hard the west side of the mountain before setting over Gimhae. The smell of the sea spray at Igidae, ripe with brine, with hints of seaweed and barnacle. The smell (yes, smell) of child laughter on the beaches. Eyes closed and earphones squawking, I can smell them, just beyond my eyelids: sun-blocked though fully clothed, bobbing in yellow rubber tubes, screaming in the rollers. Sun block and fried chicken and dried squid and sand. And wet towel. Yeah, that's it. And how can you not love the smell of a sizzling pile of samgyeopsal, kimchi and garlic popping in the fat, sea salt and sesame oil, duenjang, lettuce leaf. A bottle or two of cold Hite. These are smells that stay with you, too. And they enable the recall, walking past a forgotten alley or sitting on a beach or by a stream sometime after, of moments spent laughing and eating and drinking and talking and walking and swimming with friends.

You can spend a lot of energy feeling bad about something. I have a well-known propensity to get in a funk and stay there. But I have found that there is cheer and beauty available when you actively look for it. It is simply a matter of perception. I am perfectly capable of perceiving the stink of the world... but I can choose to call it something else. Juliet pointed this out when realizing that she had managed to fall in love with someone who had the wrong last name. She said: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet." Shakespeare is shaking the very epistemological foundations of his own art with these words by calling into question the link between language and meaning. And it is something to reflect on in the present discussion. What is flower? Red? Sweet? How much to the adjectives and nouns we choose to describe the phenomena around us affect our perceptions? It has been proposed that the act of naming may constitute nearly the whole of our conscious experience.

So what is the point of all this babble and what does it have to do with life in Korea? There are a lot of people who walk around frustrated because this place doesn't conform to their image of how things should look, or work, or smell. And if it is different it is by definition bad. This is a myopic and self-centered world view from which the inevitable outcome is discontent and anguish. I have learned, while here, that there is another way of thinking, and naming, that is outside of myself. When I am presented with an experience, say a smell, it is essentially a choice. And whether it is a bad smell or a good smell is largely irrelevant. It is a smell. And I am in control with what I do with it. Is it a stink or a "pungent aroma"? No, it is neither. It is merely another color in the rich palette of life. And neither am I saying to live a life of pure reason divorced from emotion. I am only pointing out that emotion is also a choice, and a powerful force which can and should be channeled positively. This applies to interpersonal situations as well. Like when one of my children removes the paper from the brand new crayons I just brought to class. Those are (were) crayons. This is a child. I name which one is more important and let that knowledge further inform my reaction.

I guess what I am saying amounts to the old adage that life is what you make it. And the little things that make up our daily life are all less things acting upon us than opportunities for us to act on the world. And in doing so, we can take control of our attitudes and possibly even our actions. I am very grateful for the chance I have had to live in a culture and landscape so foreign from my own. It has taught me a new way of seeing. And smelling.

Some Thoughts on Turning Forty

First: I am not old. I thought I would be by this point, but I am not. I am in better shape physically now than I have been since my early twenties: my blood pressure at my last annual check-up was 120/80, my vision is still 20/20, and I have never yet had a cavity. I am fine.

Second: I am not wise. I still make the same mistakes over and over, the same ones I have been making my entire life. I talk too much and rarely say anything. I love the wrong way. Yet I have at least, I think, come to the point where I realize how much I have to learn. And I have an inkling now of the difference between knowledge and wisdom. And I have begun to assemble a mental archive of the potential sources of wisdom (none of which are books, by the way). So there is a chance that in after another forty years of my life I might approach something like wisdom but I doubt it.

Third: I am lucky. I should probably be dead. When I think about some of the stunts I have pulled I can only shake my head. If not deceased in some way that would have placed me in the Darwin Awards Hall of Fame at the very least I should be severely brain damaged. I also managed to somehow avoid prison, a mortgage, drug addiction, reproduction, and marriage. I have a level of financial and personal freedom of which many employable men my age can only dream.

Fourth: I am both more and less attractive than I think. How this is possible: I am more appealing (according to my sources) for reasons I can neither comprehend nor appreciate, as I am not a woman, and I am more unappealing for the same reasons that it is impossible to see certain parts of my anatomy without the aid of reflective devices. We simply don't see ourselves the same way other's see us and for the most part this is good, although it can make us, or me, unjustifiably vain. And (oh no don't do it) on the subject of the fairer sex: I enjoy, from time to time, listening to them talk, trying to concoct theories about how and why women think the way they do and although you couldn't pay me to publish them here I will say that they are full of all the necromancy and convolutions you might expect of a man unschooled in physics attempting the description of a black hole based solely on observation. Yet I have come to understand that this mystery is the finest thing about a woman, the thing that makes them unceasingly fascinating and beautiful like a car wreck in slow-mo. It's like Willie sang about the cowboy, or cowgirl in this case: "[She] ain't wrong / [She's] jist differnt..." But never let it be said that they were wrong in their assessment of us as men. Women are natural born observers. If you have ever overheard two of them sit and dissect another woman who has made the unfortunate mistake of being physically absent... heard them shred personalities, point out deformities, clinically analyse and dismiss wardrobe and hairstyles, and frankly recall critical and often unavoidable lapses in personal hygiene... then you are well aware that nothing gets past them. So your back/nose/ear hair, your balding psoriasis, your hemorrhoids, your bilious gases, skin and tooth decay, moles, spots and warts...she has marked each and every one. Knowing this... and noting her unabashed pleasure at not only seeing you but on occasion stooping to touch you... the only possible conclusion is that you, with all your obvious imperfections, must be, in her eyes at least, beautiful. And that, boys, is a fine, fine thing.

I could go on but I think this hole is deep enough. I thank all of those who made this life possible. I would also like to thank the many individuals who have helped make it enjoyable. I am in your collective debt. More at 50, j.

China

I meant to write every day while I was here but last night when I logged on I found that both Facebook or Blogger are being blocked by the Chinese government. I actually found out they didn't work on my own and then did a little research and found out why and then found out how to bypass the IP address (which I already knew how to do from getting baseball and "The Office" in Korea which isn't supposed to work either but anyway) and by the time I figgert all of that out I was too tired to write.

The flight over here was uneventful. The Beijing airport was quite a piece of work architecturally and one of the most intriguing spaces I have ever seen. It is huge and seems to hover over the air above you. This (size) soon became a theme and may be the biggest impression I have of China. Everything is giant-size. We got out of the airport and caught a cab to our hotel, the Minzu. This is an old historic hotel which recently celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. It is historic because it is one of ten buildings commissioned by the government when the communists took power back in the early fifties. There are two kinds of old in China. The Minzu kind, the new old, and the Great Wall kind, the old old. They often coexist side by side, as in the case of the famous portrait of Mao affixed to the front of the main gate to the Forbidden City.

After getting checked into the hotel, which is strange in a way but nice, we met a friend of my co-traveller Matt: Ma Huidi. She is so funny. She took us to the National Center for the Performing Arts. This building is surreal. It looks kind of like a partially submerged egg floating in the middle of a lake. It is huge (it actually contains several performance spaces and I believe the one that we were in was one of the smaller ones and it probably seated around 500) and is interesting in that it has no visible entrance. To enter you take a tunnel under the lake which has a glass ceiling: it was amazing to look out through the water of the lake from below. The concert itself was thrilling. The Chinese National Symphony performed with an aging pianist who I gathered from the reception he got was something of a national treasure. Matt told me that the program, which was a mixture of old classics (Grieg and Rachmaninoff) and pieces made famous by the aforementioned pianist during the cultural revolution, was controversial. I wasn't so interested in the politics as the music and enjoyed it thoroughly. After this we walked near Tienanmen Square and then back to the hotel for a late dinner (salted duck and shredded pork).

We woke early and went for a walk. We had booked a tour of the Great Wall through the hotel but we weren't scheduled to leave until ten so we had a leisurely breakfast (bacon, eggs, and Stilton on wheat toast for me) and hiked around for a while. The city was beautiful in the early morning and it was fun to watch the people getting out and about. By the time we were picked up for our tour it was already getting hot and it would eventually reach ninety F. The man who took us on our tour was quite an efficient driver but I don't believe he spoke to us three times throughout the day. He wasn't unfriendly per say, just incredibly quiet. The traffic was horrible the whole day but I was able to catch up on some sleep and it was nice to see the countryside anyway. A few miles north of Beijing the mountains begin and they are very beautiful, rocky sharp ridged, just like the ones you remember seeing from old Chinese ink paintings.

This part of China must have skipped spring because the cherry blossoms were just starting to bloom and only the crazy birches had leaves on. That is another one of the surprising things I found about China. I would have thought that a country of six billions would have had every square inch of arable land under cultivation to produce food (as it is indeed in Korea) but they have apparently had a big drive in the last few years to plant trees to offset their carbon emissions I think and plant they have done. The whole place is covered with newly planted and fast growing trees like poplars, willows, and birches. Everywhere we went it was like one giant tree farm.

Once in the mountains we climbed till we got to our destination, the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. This is not the most popular (the tourist frenzy what puts the bad in Badaling) or the most picturesque (probably Jinshanling) but strikes a nice balance between the two. We took the cable car up but it was still quite a but of work for both of is to get there and we had to rest in the shade a few times. Once we got to the top the view was of course incredible, the wall rising and falling huge distances as it rode the ridge of the mountain from horizon to horizon, reappearing far off in in places before finally disappearing for good in the distance. The mountains looked a bit naked without their greenery but the puffs of cherry blossom everywhere was a nice accent against the dark of the hills.

After running the gauntlet of the souvenir stands (which is a story all in itself), we got back down and found our driver and headed for the Ming Tombs. We didn't have the time or the energy to really explore them but what we did see was spectacular. I especially loved the Hall of Souls, a thick-walled hall built to look like a wooden structure but constructed of stone so as to last for eternity. Inside was a giant granite obelisk with an ancient inscription. It was amazing to think that these things were built long before the first Europeans set foot on North America. There is a juniper tree there that has been found to be several thousand years old. It was most likely transplanted there during the construction of the tomb complex.

On the way back we stopped at a dumpling house that I found in one of my guidebooks (Matt lived in China for several years and loves dumplings, as do I). They were hand made after we ordered and I made a movie of the lady stuffing and forming them. We had duck, pork, mutton, veggie, and just for fun I ordered donkey. I liked the mutton the best and second probably the donkey, which had a lot of tooth and a beefy texture with a little bit of a whang at the end. All of that was washed down with cold Xingtao. When we got back to the hotel tonight Matt wrote his wife an email and promptly passed out. We are both exhausted. It was a lot of driving in a hot car today and quite a bit of walking. And I have a bit of a cold. One of the funny things that happened today was that I sneezed and had a big string of snot hanging out of my nose. While I was trying to find a tissue or something in my bag the driver turned around and caught a look at me. He turned back around to face the road and silently rolled down his window. That was the end of our air conditioning for the day.

Bed now. Up early tomorrow. More soon and pictures.

Americans of BOTH parties despise SCOTUS ruling.

The new poll by the Washington Post et al reveals a strikingly bipartisan rejection of the SCOTUS ruling in the Citizens United case. Eight of ten respondents oppose the ruling, and 65% "strongly oppose" it. And the response was not strongly differentiated by party loyalty. 85% of Democrats and 76% or Republicans opposed it. Age, sex, race, education, and income levels also made little difference in responses.

This ruling reveals what has been suspected since the Robert's court was seated: this SCOTUS is deeply out of touch with how the majority of Americans understand the most basic tenets of representative government. Forget abortion, forget gay marriage, this court is out of touch with even the concept of fair elections. It is telling that across the board- across party lines, across all demographic boundaries- the country is clearly aware of the dangers of this ruling. The infusion of ready corporate cash into the election process is seen as an act of universal disenfranchisement and reveals a recognition that our democracy is under assault from a narrow self-interest that has now been firmly tenured in our nation's highest court.

Bipartisan efforts are now underway in the other branches of government to undo the damage that has been done but the sense of urgency is far from unanimous. The legislative effort does not have the support of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who praised the ruling as "a victory for free speech." Maybe McConnell should take a good hard look at the recent poll and consider the effect of his stance on the next election.

Regardless, this court remains and will be considering several important cases in the upcoming session, including rulings touching church and state (Christian Legal Society and Salazar), the Sherman Act (American Needle v. NFL), and Miranda (Florida v. Powell). These and many other decisions this court faces will have far-reaching implications for all Americans and will, if the Citizens United case is any indication, be decided with little recourse to precedent.

I Hate Microshite Winblows

I have been listening to Bolser screaming at 'puters for a long while, the brand name "Microsoft" often the only non-profane word in his colorful diatribes and I always jist shook me head but now having spent three weeks and given myself a nose-bleed trying to get this new netbook to allow Korean keyboard input only to have the $49 Microsoft chat forum tell me that my XP Home version not only does not include the default East Asian IME's but is not upgradeable nor is the file download compatible with XP or Vista unless you have the Ultimate version in which case you don't need it anyways...

[editor has deleted the remainder of this post]

Oh, Blogger! Where art thou?

How did it come to this?
On my recent trip to the US many of my friends asked me why I haven't been writing. I have been writing, just not here so much. I have been doing some pieces for a travel website and I have also been working on a couple of independent projects which may or may not be ready for public viewing at some point. But the blog, I think, has fallen victim to a kind of feeling-at-home-sickness, a complete loss of the conviction that my experiences here are any longer remarkable, literally, either to myself or for others.
Looking back over some of the early entries, full of so much wonder and awe, I am aware of how truly sad this is and know deep down that this sense of leading a commonplace existence is probably very misguided regardless. Not because my life or any life lived outside of its familiar geography is special, but because I feel that all lives are uncommon unless extraordinary measures are taken to make them less so (an eventuality all too common in our cyber-driven world, cave-dwelling people living the better part of their lives inside a simulated universe although I have read and believe that it is possible, given complete enough submersion, to have an authentic emotional and psychological existence through an avatar of one sort or another, although this does not in any way make such an existence any less pathetic). Anyway, I guess I came to feel that these entries were a waste of time to produce let alone disseminate since I had recorded a goodly cross section of the amazing things one can experience as an expat living in Korea and what was left were the day to day matters of existence which I didn't particularly care to record and I felt nobody other than possibly my mother would care to read.
But there have been some remarkable activities of late on which I should, if only for sake of my own processing, make comment, one to which I have already alluded: that of my journey home for the Thanksgiving holiday. I think at one point I might have mentioned a section from the wonderful poem by T.S. Eliot entitled "Little Gidding" which goes "...And the end of all our travelling will be to return to the place we started and to know the place for the first time...", and so, with this adage in mind I ventured forth on my homeward trajectory with the highest of ideals and the loftiest of inward prose: not only would I witness the complete transformation of my home ground and all of its inhabitants, but wouldn’t they also necessarily and reciprocally witness an equally miraculous transformation in me? I must, after this much time away (an incredibly long 16 months), have become essentially a new person, barely recognizable.
And the things I discovered, about myself and others, were even more amazing than I had ever imagined and they will be the subject of my next post…in June. ;)

Back to School Time

It's back to school time here in Korea and that means back to normalcy for teachers at private academies like mine. The summer break (mid-July to the end of August) is a time of chaos as the tight schedules the children keep become jumbled. Piano lessons, computer class, Math, Science, Art, Tae Kwon Do...most kids maintain a grueling pace during the school year. With the summer break, all the extra-curriculars become jumbled. At many small private academies it becomes impossible to maintain a schedule with leveled classes...you might have 5th year English students in the classroom with beginners. Thankfully, during this period I was given a lot of leeway in lesson planning. I was usually able to find material that was both interesting to the older students and accessible to the less experienced. However, I have nearly used up my giant bottle of Advil.

Thankfully, as I said, things are now returning to normal. As the new classes form I have been making careful notes in regard to individual assessment and class maturity levels so as to begin selection of teaching materials. Unlike at my previous school, where my opinion was not solicited, here I am consulted and expected to have an informed opinion about the students and their needs. That is incredibly refreshing. I recently took a trip to the teacher store with our head teacher and we looked over all of the possibilities and found some good stuff. I am looking forward to teaching with the new supplies.

In other news, my finger is still healing. I have lost a lot of mobility but I am surprised at how adaptable the hand is. Things that I thought I would basically have to completely relearn, like typing, have kind of adapted themselves on their own. And things that I worried would be affected by the loss of strength, like sailing, have come along as well: the other fingers seem to have picked up the slack when I pull a jib sheet or the like.

All in all, things are going well. I recently purchased another scooter (number 3!) and got a huge lock to put on it. I am being careful and hope that this one won't get stolen. It is sure fun riding around on that thing.

Fable

I don't think I ever really discover anything new... I am only abruptly reminded of something which I had already learned the hard way.

When I got on the elevator last night at 1:30 AM (I don't usually come home that early but I had to work the next day) I was assaulted by a horrible smell. "My god..." I said, waving my hands around my face to swat away invisible swarms, the kind which in my experience always attend such a stench. When the elevator opened on my floor my knees buckled. Now I live on the eleventh floor of a twelve story apartment complex and if I could smell it on the first floor...

As I approached my apartment (retching-eyeswatering-gags) I began to suspect the worst: yep, it was coming FROM MY APARTMENT. At that point I seriously debated going back downstairs, taking a cab to the airport, and catching the first plane to Bangkok. The only thing that stopped me was the knowledge that the poor cat was stuck in there with that. If she was still alive.

I turned the key and opened the door. I am a farm boy. I have seen and smelled and done things that most people cannot imagine. But this was another level of stink. I quickly opened the windows turned on the fan and the oven vent and the bathroom ventilator and the air conditioner (it was quite hot in there) and tried to find the source of the stench. It didn't take long.

Here in Korea recycling is compulsory and all organic household waste is put back into the system as well, collected in tiny sealed buckets that you put by the curb with a quarter ticket stuck in the lid. I could never be troubled with that of course so I was in the habit of sticking everything in the bags you have to buy for your non-recycleable garbage (about $.25 a liter). The smell was coming from my garbage can.

I didn't take the time to do a complete autopsy but but when I pulled the bag I realized that something horrible had happened. In the bottom of the bag was another bag filled with the contents of my kitty's litter box. Around and in that was the contents of a bag of live clams that died in my refrigerator(dead clams and clam juice). In addition there was some rotten garlic and broccoli, cigarette butts, moldy yoghurt, and used toilet paper. (I had cleaned the refrigerator, bathroom, and litter box the previous night in a fit of domestic energy resulting from relationship issues).

When I got back from the dumpster and cleaned up the cat vomit I reflected on the lessons learned and fondly recalled the other times I forgot to take out the trash.

"No Reservations" Hits Korea!

I am probably way too excited about this but for anyone who loves food porn as much as I do it is a dream come true for Anthony Bourdain to make a stop in Korea. I only have access through YouTube so I am posting the links to the five parts below. He, as usual, captures the essence of the culture with great cinematic flair. Enjoy!

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&v=y-9SOq_QgsQ
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDrH6bBCbHA
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxXatYZXrfo&feature=related
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOs6Qf58OP4&feature=related
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lpoGAQpj3E&feature=related

Yokjido

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New photoblog from a couple of weeks worth of frivolities, including a trip to Daegu, a day at the beach and a weekend on Yokji Island.

"I got it! I got it! I got it!...."

Proximal interphalangeal joint fracture-dislocation of the right index finger. Occurred during attempted catch of foul ball at Lotte Giant's game Sunday, July 5th. Will likely require surgery.

Update: Orthopedist said that unless the bone fragments migrate into the joint surface as swelling goes down surgery is unnecessary. I go back Friday for x-rays and reevaluation. On antibiotics and pain meds. Exit wound closed without sutures.

The Happy Trekker

We got up early this Saturday to meet some friends for a hike up and over Geumgang from Beomosa. Prior to this I had been going up the cable car and hiking from there so I was a little apprehensive but my condition throughout the day was good and my endurance was actually kind of surprising.

We had gone the night before and got 2 kilos of samgyopsal for a picnic. I was packing that and fruit and a cooker and fuel, plus water. I would estimate thatI was carrying about 10 kilos all together but my pack (Deuter Futura Pro 38) spreads it out and holds it high so I was able to climb cool and easy. I can't say enough about this bag. It is a joy to climb with.

After the usual launch troubles we got out to Namcheon and met Mr. Kim and Mr. Tak, who were to be our guides. In addition to Yujin and I our party included Rachelle (a Missoula bred mountain girl and hardcore climber from my former school), Mr Bak (Korean buddy from the bar), and Nuna (said bar's long-suffering proprietress). We went a strange way, up past the bus parking lot (where I was startled to find that we were not even taking the bus which takes you about a quarter of the way up to Beomeosa Temple) and in between a couple of buildings and immediately onto a dirt path through some hillside garden plots planted with corn and cabbage. The smell of the corn gave me a little bit of homesickness but I was soon busy climbing and got over it.

The lower slope was strewn with pieces of jagged granite ranging from baseball to suitcase size. The trail is hardpacked clay and with these pointy rocks sticking out everywhere. I am hiking in a pair of lowtop Keen walkers with leather uppers and although they are comfortable and offer quite a bit of protection to the top of my feet they are a little light in the sole to I was being careful where I stepped. Last week we came down in a steep wash that was almost all rock and my feet were beat up pretty bad when we finished.

The flora at that lowest level is tall pine trees that are without branches until about thirty feet up, where they form a thin but tight canopy. The ground cover is sparse and low: fern and bracken, some ivy and a few light grasses. Daisy fleabane and camellia grow pretty much everywhere but we were climbing to about 800 meters and I am surprised at the distinct ecosystems even within that short jump. It goes from pine forest to mountain meadow with ground cover changin almost constantly. In addition, the east and west side of the mountain seem to have different climates. The ridgeline runs roughly north and south and although both sides are surrounded by city, the western face fronts a huge river delta that gets significantly more rainfall. Where we crossed little brooks on the east side we were fording rushing streams on the west. The ground cover is much thicker on that side and there are deciduous trees much higher.

I was disoriented so I kept expecting to cross the temple road which makes a kind of one way loop up and back down the mountain. I could hear the temple, a monk singing prayers and a mallet on a wooden bell, and I kept hearing it as we went above and beyond it on the left. After a bit I deduced that we were not inside the loop at all. I had been counting on that as a way to mark our progress, but it was actually liberating to find that I was unable to see where I was at or how far I had to go. I could just concentrate on my feet and the beauty around me.

It had been hot when we set out, but we soon climbed into the sweet cool of the pine forest. We climbed over and along and sometimes in the little brooks that bubble down from the peaks. They each sing thier own tune. There were bird calls in the air but I didn't see many. Notable were cuckoos calling back and forth across the hillside. Near the top we can to a small ledge where there was a tiny house and garden and a little spring coming out of the hillside, channelled through a piece of bamboo and trinkling out into a giant bowl carved out of a single piece of stone. The water filled the bowl and trickled down over the edges. Tin dippers were hanging from nails in another piece of bamboo at the side. Weary travellers were stopped there, sitting in the shade, refilling water bottles and soaking down neckerchiefs. That water was sweet and cold.

Soon after that we left the trees and entered the alpine meadow that runs along the higher ridge line. We stopped there to take in the view, which was specatacular. To the right and the left huge split granite spires jutted up into the sky, looking for everything like a set of precariously stacked children's blocks the merest breeze might blow over. Somewhere below the city smouldered but we couldn't see it: the whole valley was shrouded in mist. Far off a few other mountains poked their heads up.

We crossed the wall of the Geumgang fortress and began almost immediately to descend. After crossing our first large waterway we came to a small group of buildings in a hollow on the other side. Wooden platforms were built right up to the edge of the rushing stream and people were sitting there eating the simple fare served by the women in the hut: fresh tofu (still warm!) with kimchi and ganjang sauce (soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, red pepper powder, sesame seeds, and chopped green onion...I could drink it), fresh cabbage leaf salad in red pepper sauce and sesame oil, and, the ubiquitous mountain likker, makgeolli. After a year here I have finally acquired a taste for this tart rice-based concoction. If you like a nice toothy Belgian wheat beer you should try this stuff. It looks like drinking yoghurt and kicks like a mule.

This was to be our appetizer so we moved on and about ten minutes later found ourselves at a nice flat spot along a boulder strewn stream bed. You had to talk loud to hear eachother over the sound of the water finding its way around and under and over all the rocks. Unfortunately, we had no sooner gotten our stove out than it began to thunder and pour buckets of rain. We soldiered on, Yujin holding the lone umbrella over the griddle. Soon we were all soaked but we got it all packed up again and hightailed it down the mountian to the road that would take us down to the bus stop. Along that road we found a little tent restaurant where we stopped to check our cell phones and cameras (all fine...did I mention I love my bag?) and have a little snack: odeng (fish cake soup) and haemul pajeon (green onion pancakes with seafood...usually squid, shrimp, and clams but depends on season/locale. One of my favorites.).

On to the bus and down the winding hillside road to town for a taxi ride back to the bar where we could discuss our individual and collective heroics over half-liters of maekju, sitting barefoot on newspaper, our muddy clothes hanging in the bushes out front.

Signs of Progress

This is a pretty crummy picture but what it represents is a bit of a milestone for me. Since I had the surgery my condition has improved dramatically and Yujin and I went on a long walk with mild exertion on Saturday and a long hike with serious exertion on Sunday (up the cable car and over and down the other side and back up to Seokbulsa, the temple carved in stone) and neither time did I suffer even mild symptoms. It wasn't very hot though, which is the true test. It was great to be able to get out and do some hiking.

I have completely lost the tourist attitude and I forget sometimes to even bring my camera along. I actually took pictures at the South Gate while I was out yesterday but I was so blown away by the temple I forgot to get it out. I sat for a long time in the temple. It was so quiet and peaceful. I would like to go to that place again.

We had left my scooter at the gate of the park where the cable car goes up but after we hiked all the way down the other side of the mountain and then half way back up in another place to go to that temple we only had three hours to get all the way back up to take the cable car down again to the scooter. I know there was probably a short cut to the top from the temple but as you know nothing is marked and I couldn't risk a descent in the dark if we missed the last cable car down at 7pm and Yujin was wearing Brikenstock's which she always does but the descent to the temple was basically "bouldering" and she wore out her little toes and although my balls were fine my knees were not and I was already into the Advil.

So we walked down further from the temple (still on the wrong side of the mountain) and came to a little noodle shack at the end of the paved road up from the other side. There was a taxi parked there with nobody in it and I asked a guy sitting there where was the driver and he said he didn't know (Yujin was in the bathroom) and I sat there and here comes this guy drunk off his ass and he goes over to the taxi and tries to get in and it is locked of course and he starts kicking the door and cussing. He then tried the doors of all the other cars. I am just sitting there watching all of this.

When Yujin came out of the bathroom the guy and his wife I had been talking to said they would give us a ride but it was a delicate situation given the belligerent nature of the drunk so we hiked down the road a way and when they finished their noodles they picked us up. They dropped us off very near the scooter and it was a minimum cab ride to the pick-up. We thanked them profusely and I gave them my two hiking apples. Home and then to the Bali Sauna and Jimjilbang for a scrubbing, steam bath, and massage chair. I slept soundly.

Cheap Sunglasses

Why, in a country where an umbrella can be purchased for W5000 ($3.50), is it so hard to find a good pair of cheap sunglasses? I lose (or break) sunglasses at a rate which precludes purchasing an expensive pair. The ones I see at HomePlus and the like are cheap, but they are priced at W30,000 and up. Someone somewhere is getting rich off sunglasses. The same goes for watches. The plain analog Casio's I see everywhere being sold for W70,000 are in the dollar store at home. I am also frustrated by the price and selection of clothing my size (biggish). I am still wearing what is left of the wardrobe I brought with me a year ago. It is wearing thin. An uncapped pen and a rainy struggle over a taxi claimed two shirts. Most of my t-shirts have lost their former shape as a result of the humidity and the clothes line. The situation is becoming somewhat critical.

The price of some things seems almost punitive. Kitty litter is W12,000 for 10 kilos. Is it imported? If so, this makes sense. I didn't really think about it until I arrived here but this country is essentially an island. There is no land route. Everything that they don't have must be imported. I guess kitty litter is one of those things. And it is heavy. So is peanut butter. A rice cooker will set you back a pretty penny. So will a new laptop.

Food is the best value. It is so cheap to eat out here that it is actually less cost effective to eat at home if you factor in waste. Factory farms with products bio-engineered for shelf life have apparently not hit the market here. Tomatoes look like the ones we grow in the garden at home and taste like tomatoes, but they go bad overnight. I have taken to buying all my veggies from the bulk bin one or two onions at a time, other things as I need them.

I have formed an addiction to the fresh tuna shops. At W20,000 and up they aren't the cheapest place to eat, but how can you put a price on heaven? The price is graded according to the cuts you get, but I always get the cheapest for the same reasons I will never fly first class: a. I can't afford it and b. I don't know the difference and c. I don't want to know: it would make Coach unbearable. Sitting up at the bar you can watch as the sashimi chef carves off cool chucks of fresh raw tuna: the tartar-looking head meat, deep red cuts from the fillets, and, holy of holies, the fatty tuna belly. The leaner cuts get a dip in sesame oil infused with crushed garlic and sea salt. The fatty tuna belly only needs a touch of soy sauce and wasabi. I like to wrap them in the nori provided. And they keep giving the stuff to you until you say quit. Then they bring you some more stuff: a small baked daggerfish, tiny spicy-tuna rolls, huge crab and salmon hand rolls. Top that off with some delicious beverages and you can roll. Heavenly.

One thing that has changed since I moved is that I now have a TV. I told them to take it away at my first apartment. I have become a soccer junkie so this time I kept it and it is a blessing and a curse. It is nice to be able to watch FIFA matches without going out, but I am a chronic channel flipper. I have discovered, however, that although I will sit flipping through the channels for three hours, I will not walk across the room to turn the thing on. As a result of this I now keep the remote sitting on top.

Let's see... what else was I going to write about? I guess the biggest change lately has been the arrival of the scooter. It has made getting around almost too easy. I think that I am gaining weight. This might also have something to do with the elevator. But there is no denying that it is fun zooming around town. I bought a second helmet, a flat black unit in the style of a WWI German brainbucket. It offers mimimal impact protection but it is cool (temperature-wise).

We are getting ready to begin monsoon season here: hot and wet and hot. The mosquitos are out, carrying god-knows-what. I burn coils at night but that doesn't help my hack. My blood alchohol level usually makes me unappetizing anyway.

I finally got some credit into my Skype account so if anyone back home gets a phone call from a very strange number it might be me. Later.

A Status Report

As you know I have tried in this blog to be upbeat and to accentuate the positive aspects of this experience. That may be why I haven't written in a while.

My tenure at KidsClub had been difficult from the beginning. There were many reasons for this, some of them my fault, some of them not. Long story short, I have moved on. After a bit of soul-searching I decided to try again in a better school and, putting to use the hard-won lessons I have learned, make a fresh start. After a few stressful weeks I found a new job with a new apartment, both of them much, much better than what I had before. One of my problems with the previous place was that they required so much administrative work that there was little time to do anything else. In my new job I go to work, teach, and go home. It is wonderful. I have signed on for another year and it is my intention to come home for a week around Thanksgiving.

I bought an ugly, second-hand scooter to get to work. I teach in two locations now so having my own transportation will make getting around much easier. I am wearing my helmet.

Spring has been something to witness here. The cherry blossoms exploded in early April and then the greenery. It is still cool but the hot, wet summer is just around the corner. From my apartment here on the eleventh floor I can see the mountains to the north and west. Through the rain they look like they are wearing an old, dusty green work-coat, dark green and darker yet in the creases. The rotary is lit up with neon advertising Thai massage and love-motels. I have made new friends in my new neighborhood and found new favorite haunts and eateries. This neighborhood never rests. I have engineered a combination of sleep sounds to drown everything out: crickets for the squeaking roof ventilators, ocean for the booming trucks, rain for the unmuffled delivery scooters, a creek for the rest. It works sometimes.

It is an overused truism that what does not kill you makes you stronger. Facing homelessness and unemployment a world away from home would cause a more stable person than I to have panic attacks, and I passed some uneasy nights in the last month. It was very gratifying, however, to be able to hold it together, take inventory of my assets, and find myself of value not only to others but to myself. That may seem like an overly dramatic recounting, but, believe me, there were moments when I had to reassure myself that I was not a complete failure and that I had something to offer. And I know it must have been this way because of how I feel now: nearly weightless. Where there had been a dread and hopelessness there is now anticipation and light. It takes a long, hard night to make one appreciate the warmth of a good sunrise.

On Feeling at Home Away from Home

It has been 10 months now and the earth has gone far enough in its circuit around the sun that the city is starting to throw recollections at me, fleeting memories of my first days here. The slant of the sun, still up now at the end of the work day, the outdoor revelry on weekend nights, the smells erupting from the open-fronted grills, and even the feeling of warm sand under my feet, these things all recall to me in brief moments the initial thrill of being for the first time in a place, then to me, utterly foreign.

It is a bittersweet emotion I feel when a sight or smell reminds me of that first rush in the early days of this journey. In my blissful naivety I felt like an explorer. Every walk to the grocery was an adventure. Every meal was an unfolding mystery. Every weekend was epic in its delicious sense of possibility. Those days are gone now. The streets still glow, but it is no longer the same quality of light. It is as if someone snuck into the booth, focused the camera, turned on the surround sound, and then, adding insult to injury, switched on the subtitles. For because I can read hangul now the menus and bus routes are decipherable. I know my way around the subway and the railway. I can negotiate with shopkeepers and motel-keepers. I can find deodorant and chicken bullion and Land-of-Lakes butter and fresh baguettes and Monterrey Jack.

Yet all of this familiarity has come with a price. It's an odd feeling of being lost in the familiar. This is juxtaposed in my mind with those first magical days, especially now, when I am being bombarded with intimations of what it was like before, back when I knew too little to be unimpressed by the now common sights that were once a source of wonder. An old lady sitting cross legged on a piece of cardboard selling tiny bunches of what look like weeds in the subway. A shop where a man is making tea from wood chips and roots. The street markets teeming with a thousand varieties of commerce, where live fish stands abut purveyors of rainbow hued sandals on one side and handmade ceramics on the other. The stinking drunk laying in his own puke, pockets turned out, in an alley off the rotary. The million tiny dishes and smoking grates covered in meat, that make up the cornucopia that is Korean cuisine.

All of this is still wonder-full, and I have come to love this place more and more as I have become comfortable, but I still miss those golden afternoons when the air, the light, and the sounds of this city all seemed permeated by an unknowable otherness. That loss is the price you pay for making yourself at home.