I work in Incheon but I live right over the border in Bucheon, a smaller city (we only have 1 million people instead of 2 something) which prides itself on a few esoteric things, the most memorable being (for me anyway) its adoption of the title "Cartoon City." Wow, what an awkward sentence, but it was borne from the moment and I'm going to let it endure into posterity. Anyway, on Tuesday the SLP morning crew took a field trip to the Comics Museum in the city.
I know what you're thinking. A Comic Book museum: score! Well...not so much. There was some cool stuff...we watched a 3D animated movie that was really good I thought even if it was a little intense for kids (it was about apocalypse and dead robots and whatnot), there were some kickazz old Korean cartoons filled with all sorts of narrative non-sequiturs, and I think I caught a glimpse of Amazing Fantasy #15 (the first appearance of Spiderman - yes, I'm a dork) behind some thick glass but I was moving by too fast to really get a good look at it.
And yet, this may come as a surprise to you, but most of it was about...Korean comics, which are, how can I put this delicately? Not at all interesting to me. And not really all that interesting to the kids, either.
I did get to fill up on a lot of my kids' snacks, though, so that was good. You see whenever we go on a field trip the kids bring along stuff from home and then they love to give one piece of candy or one potato chip or one squid candy thing to me, and after the first one offers up something all the others have to imitate so I wind up with a shitload of shit I shouldn't be eating. And I didn't have to teach, so that was good too. But otherwise it was just another boring day here in K-Ville East.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Death of a Blogger
My friend and co-teacher Joanne got some really crummy news today. Her ex-boyfriend and still-friend Shawn, who had written extensively about his time in Korea on his blog, committed suicide a week ago in China, where he was teaching. You can read the details here. I'd never met the guy and never really talked about him with Joanne, but before I set out for Korea his was probably the blog I read most and from it I got a lot of ideas about how life here was going to be. It was a really cool moment for me when I found out that she was the 'Julie' he'd written about during his time in Bucheon...it was kinda like meeting the actor from a TV show, I guess.
Anyway, he had quite a bit to say and it was one helluva blog, and he seemed like he was a really decent person. What a waste. Joanne was devastated, and I can only imagine how his friends and family back home must feel. The whole thing has me really bummed out and feeling bad for those who were directly affected by his death...
Anyway, he had quite a bit to say and it was one helluva blog, and he seemed like he was a really decent person. What a waste. Joanne was devastated, and I can only imagine how his friends and family back home must feel. The whole thing has me really bummed out and feeling bad for those who were directly affected by his death...
Sunday, May 28, 2006
War, Juseyo...
Saturday was the day of the big DMZ trip. Finally, I'd be seeing something truly interesting in this country, something it's known for, something someone on the other side of the world might've heard mentioned on the news once or twice. It was going to be a good day.
Well...not so much. Let me begin by saying I'm at least partly to blame. I drank way too much Friday night (surprise!) -I'd been planning on not drinking at all- and I felt like shit well into Saturday. It didn't help that the day began at 7:30, which is about an hour and half before I start functioning normally on a weekday. But when the alarm sounded, to my credit, I hopped out of bed and got going.
Myra, Lara and I got to the pickup point in Hongdae ahead of schedule. We met up with some other people we knew and everyone boarded the Adventure Korea bus around 9. 20 minutes or so later we started moving, and after about an hour we made our first stop, in Imjingak. We were only there for 20 minutes, as we'd be stopping back there again on the way out. I didn't see much except for the convenience store and the parking lot.
Next stop: lunch. What had been an annoying drizzle matured into a good old fashioned drenching. As Canadians say, it was "fucking pissing." The meal we were served was about as satisfying as most Korean meals I've had, let's just put it at that. I started feeling less hungover but more queasy...not really a good trade off.
Next up: the DMZ museum and Tunnel #3. This was probably the best part of the trip. The museum had a lot of interesting displays about things that've happened in the last 50 years or so along the North/South border, including all sorts of stories about pointless minor skirmishes that nearly escalated into war. There was a bizarre film that did a good job of walking that fine line between touching/hilarious, whose star was a sad little girl who walked along the fence on the border with a flower in her hand contemplating the pointless devastation of war and other such things (I think), but who cheered up at the end of the flick when the narrator awkwardly said something like "unimaginable perhaps it was once but the prospect of peace appears on the morning horizon like a hopeful dove." Ok I'm exaggerating a little there, but the film was still kinda funny.
The best/most exhausting part here was the descent into Tunnel #3. You see, apparently over the last 50 odd years the North Koreans have been steadily digging tunnels from their side of the country into the South. The Americans and South Koreans have uncovered four of these tunnels, and we were allowed to enter the third one which was discovered sometime in the mid 70s I think. The last one, #4, was discovered in 1990, a little too close in history for comfort, for me. What was even more unnerving was the fact that tunnel #3, if it had been left undiscovered, could have delivered 30,000 North Korean troops/hour to within 30 miles of Seoul. That's more than a little frightening.
The tunnel itself was nothing spectacular, it was between 5-6 feet in height and about the same in width and we were allowed to walk maybe a half mile into it. But before we started that venture we had to descend about a mile or so underground by walking down a steep sloped passageway, which was a little tiring. Walking back up that slope was a lot tiring. I was sweating like the hog who knows he's dinner once I got to the top.
Next stop: some sort of observatory atop a mountain from which on a clear day the visitor might be able to see pretty far into North Korea. Saturday was not a clear day. The soldier who gave us a briefing about what we could see as we looked out into the distance had an impressive command of the English language, but after I lost interest in seeing if he split any infinitives my mind started to wander and I thought, "Christ, it sure would be great if something fucking happened. War, juseyo (I want war)"....
We hopped back on the bus and headed over to Dorasan Station, the "first stop headed north." Myra pointed out that was kinda wrong, but I wasn't in the mood to quibble at this point. I got my passport stamped which was kinda cool and bought a 500 won ticket to tour a (mostly empty) train station. If our tour guide was right, and I certainly hope he was, within a coupla years people will be able to buy a ticket here for Paris. I don't know shit about the current state of North/South talks, but I'm a little skeptical about that.
The last stop was the same as the first, Imjingak. I spent most of my time in the gift shops and smoking cigarettes near the bus, so I didn't get to see the Freedom Bridge where families split apart by the war had been reunited, nor did I see the ginormous bell that somehow celebrates/mourns for Korean unity. Whatever. After that it was another long bus ride to Hongdae, then a long cramped train ride home. Ah, there's nothing like being soaked and exhausted and having to stand buttcheek to buttcheek with a gazillion Koreans who're also riding the #1 from Seoul to Incheon.
Despite some of the disappointments of the trip, and despite how I felt Saturday night, I'm still glad I went. It needed to be done. I've been there, I've seen something that is important in the whole Korean experience and maybe I understand the country a little better.
But still, a little war would've been nice.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
YouTube
The internet's full of time wasters, of course, but this new one might be the most insidious and addictive of all. I really don't have much to say on the subject, you can head over there and check it out for yourself, I just wanted to test its video linking thing in blogger. Carry on...
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Hot 'n Heavy
Monday was Teacher's Day here in Korea. In the good old days, teachers would be bribed with all sorts of shit so as to pay better attention to the progress of the briber's son/daughter...at least if what I read on the internet is true. But these days, the bribes're out of reach, to paraphrase Bon Jovi, because at SLP we don't believe in them. Well, at least management doesn't believe in them...for the teachers.
Apparently in the week before we'd sent home a letter telling the parents not to give us cash gifts, new computers, or tickets to Jeju like they were planning to. If only I wasn't so damned Hangul-ignorant I could've intercepted said letter and made out properly. Alas, I would have to settle for the stuff SLP deemed kosher, like gifts of food and meaningful letters and whatnot.
My preschoolers dumped a half dozen or so flowers on me, one from each giver. Some were fake, some weren't, some were wrapped in plastic others were exposed to the world...sort of like people, I suppose, and like people despite their differences they met the same fate: they were dumped in the trashcan near my desk the next day. Not that I didn't appreciate the gesture, but my job is already emasculating enough and I don't really need a bunch of 7 year olds handing me flowers to be reminded of it. But it's the thought that counts.
The afternoon crew was a little more thoughtful, I guess. I got a few buckets of candy, some sweet hair gel which I'm gonna use to catch roaches in my apartment, and one interesting, sweet, and slightly unnerving letter from a student.
Yeon-Woo is one of the brightest girls in my Honor's class and she's a really good student. She's very energetic and she's a delight to teach. She also apparently has a crush on me. Check it out:
Apparently in the week before we'd sent home a letter telling the parents not to give us cash gifts, new computers, or tickets to Jeju like they were planning to. If only I wasn't so damned Hangul-ignorant I could've intercepted said letter and made out properly. Alas, I would have to settle for the stuff SLP deemed kosher, like gifts of food and meaningful letters and whatnot.
My preschoolers dumped a half dozen or so flowers on me, one from each giver. Some were fake, some weren't, some were wrapped in plastic others were exposed to the world...sort of like people, I suppose, and like people despite their differences they met the same fate: they were dumped in the trashcan near my desk the next day. Not that I didn't appreciate the gesture, but my job is already emasculating enough and I don't really need a bunch of 7 year olds handing me flowers to be reminded of it. But it's the thought that counts.
The afternoon crew was a little more thoughtful, I guess. I got a few buckets of candy, some sweet hair gel which I'm gonna use to catch roaches in my apartment, and one interesting, sweet, and slightly unnerving letter from a student.
Yeon-Woo is one of the brightest girls in my Honor's class and she's a really good student. She's very energetic and she's a delight to teach. She also apparently has a crush on me. Check it out:
As I said to AJ, "I am SO in with this 8 year old." Anyways, kudos to her for the flattering portrait. I don't think my waist has been that thin since I was her age. And if there were brownie points to be had, she's got em.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Dog Testicles Are The Best Part
After work yesterday a bunch of us were planning on going to eat duck. Tasha, one of the Korean teachers, had arranged the whole thing and been talking up this mud-baked delicacy for days. Well, on Friday people started to bail. One wanted 'to go buy a phone card.' Another had 'errands.' By quitting time there were only three people still in, myself included.
I still wanted to go, and I think the other white person did, too, but Tasha didn't. So we cancelled the duck.
"You know," Tasha said to me as we were all getting ready to go our separate ways. "There's a restaurant in my neighborhood that serves that kind of food you want to try..." Notice the roundabout phrasing, as if she doesn't want to be the first one to say 'let's eat dog!' Koreans are a little bashful about the whole thing, at least at first...
"You mean dog?" I asked.
"Yes...let me call my husband and see if he can meet us there."
That accomplished, and after having given an overly positive answer through Tasha to the husband who asked 'can he drink soju?', Tasha and I set out (in her car) for some dark corner of Bucheon where they slice open man's best friend and devour him.
The restaurant was busy. It was clean and tidy, there weren't any mutts hanging by their tails in the window. The people all looked reasonably sane. Children chased each other around the tables.
We removed our shoes and sat down at a table off in a corner. Tasha and I arrived first, her husband came in a few minutes later, carrying their 11 month old with him. He (the husband...whose name I can't remember) was one of those rugged urban types, ya know, with the long hair tied back in a pony tail and the cigarettes in the shirt pocket. He looked like he spent his days in a studio tossing buckets of paint at an enormous canvas. He didn't have much to say. He told me dog meat supposedly counters the effects of soju, which would be important that evening.
They brought out the kimchi and other side dishes first. I dug into the radish kimchi, so much so that later in the evening the husband (who only knew a little English, but it was still more Korean than I know) attempted to ask me 'you....like...' I said yes, of course, though the answer is still no (though I am warming up to the stuff). Actually I was just trying to fill my stomach up with something, because I had no idea what was coming. And the kimchi was pretty good, it wasn't overly spicy...I've heard you can judge the quality of a Korean restaurant by the quality of the kimchi, so maybe I was in one of the premier dog places.
Next came the big bowl of soup which they put down in the middle of the table and which everyone shares. It was ok, also not too spicy.
Then came the main course. Tasha ordered some sort of 'very young' (as she put it) chicken, which was excellent. I would've liked more of that. Her husband and I had the dog to share.
It was served in cutlets...it sort of looked like strips of bacon, only a little bulkier and brown. It was very close to raw, in fact, it may have been raw, I honestly don't know because by that time we were on our 3rd bottle of soju and I wasn't thinking about that sort of thing. The meat itself was just a thin strip on the top of the cutlet, there were big globs of fat attached below.
The taste, the taste...was not something you'd write home about. There was very little flavor at all. The meat was very chewy, but what made getting it down wasn't the chewiness, or the thought that occasionally popped into my head 'Christ I'm eating dog,' but rather it was the fat on the meat that was so disgusting. Take a handful of fat from any digestible animal, pig cow or dog and shove it in your mouth and tell me if you like it.
I helped myself, and probably had six or seven pieces. Even if I don't like something in a situation like that I'm not going to refuse it. And I thought I was representing myself pretty well.
Then they brought out the balls. I think the husband ordered more because he saw I was enjoying my dog so much. He takes his chopsticks, points at this round piece of something on the new plate, gives me a wicked grin and says ''
"What?" I asked.
He said it again. Tasha had to translate, but by now I had it figured out. She did an admirable job "this is the part of the dog that...hm...how do you say..."
"The sensitive area?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Balls."
"Yes, balls."
Well, fuck it, I though, I didn't come all this way to avoid eating balls. I tried it. Twice. And let me tell you dear reader, dog testicles really are the best part. They almost taste like chicken, they have actual substance (unlike the fatty meat we'd been consuming) and I can almost recommend them.
After that was eaten there were no more challenges to overcome. I didn't have to eat dog eye, or brains, or toenail, or whatever. An hour or two and a lot of soju later, Tasha and her husband pushed me into a cab and sent me home. I had big plans for the evening of hanging out with the duck avoiders and bragging about my dog experience, but when I went up to my apartment I collapsed and passed out. Too much soju. Not enough dog.
I still wanted to go, and I think the other white person did, too, but Tasha didn't. So we cancelled the duck.
"You know," Tasha said to me as we were all getting ready to go our separate ways. "There's a restaurant in my neighborhood that serves that kind of food you want to try..." Notice the roundabout phrasing, as if she doesn't want to be the first one to say 'let's eat dog!' Koreans are a little bashful about the whole thing, at least at first...
"You mean dog?" I asked.
"Yes...let me call my husband and see if he can meet us there."
That accomplished, and after having given an overly positive answer through Tasha to the husband who asked 'can he drink soju?', Tasha and I set out (in her car) for some dark corner of Bucheon where they slice open man's best friend and devour him.
The restaurant was busy. It was clean and tidy, there weren't any mutts hanging by their tails in the window. The people all looked reasonably sane. Children chased each other around the tables.
We removed our shoes and sat down at a table off in a corner. Tasha and I arrived first, her husband came in a few minutes later, carrying their 11 month old with him. He (the husband...whose name I can't remember) was one of those rugged urban types, ya know, with the long hair tied back in a pony tail and the cigarettes in the shirt pocket. He looked like he spent his days in a studio tossing buckets of paint at an enormous canvas. He didn't have much to say. He told me dog meat supposedly counters the effects of soju, which would be important that evening.
They brought out the kimchi and other side dishes first. I dug into the radish kimchi, so much so that later in the evening the husband (who only knew a little English, but it was still more Korean than I know) attempted to ask me 'you....like...
Next came the big bowl of soup which they put down in the middle of the table and which everyone shares. It was ok, also not too spicy.
Then came the main course. Tasha ordered some sort of 'very young' (as she put it) chicken, which was excellent. I would've liked more of that. Her husband and I had the dog to share.
It was served in cutlets...it sort of looked like strips of bacon, only a little bulkier and brown. It was very close to raw, in fact, it may have been raw, I honestly don't know because by that time we were on our 3rd bottle of soju and I wasn't thinking about that sort of thing. The meat itself was just a thin strip on the top of the cutlet, there were big globs of fat attached below.
The taste, the taste...was not something you'd write home about. There was very little flavor at all. The meat was very chewy, but what made getting it down wasn't the chewiness, or the thought that occasionally popped into my head 'Christ I'm eating dog,' but rather it was the fat on the meat that was so disgusting. Take a handful of fat from any digestible animal, pig cow or dog and shove it in your mouth and tell me if you like it.
I helped myself, and probably had six or seven pieces. Even if I don't like something in a situation like that I'm not going to refuse it. And I thought I was representing myself pretty well.
Then they brought out the balls. I think the husband ordered more because he saw I was enjoying my dog so much. He takes his chopsticks, points at this round piece of something on the new plate, gives me a wicked grin and says '
"What?" I asked.
He said it again. Tasha had to translate, but by now I had it figured out. She did an admirable job "this is the part of the dog that...hm...how do you say..."
"The sensitive area?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Balls."
"Yes, balls."
Well, fuck it, I though, I didn't come all this way to avoid eating balls. I tried it. Twice. And let me tell you dear reader, dog testicles really are the best part. They almost taste like chicken, they have actual substance (unlike the fatty meat we'd been consuming) and I can almost recommend them.
After that was eaten there were no more challenges to overcome. I didn't have to eat dog eye, or brains, or toenail, or whatever. An hour or two and a lot of soju later, Tasha and her husband pushed me into a cab and sent me home. I had big plans for the evening of hanging out with the duck avoiders and bragging about my dog experience, but when I went up to my apartment I collapsed and passed out. Too much soju. Not enough dog.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Frog is Life: Frog Live!
Friday was Buddha's Birthday (and Children's Day...I'm not really sure if that's a coincidence or not) and we had the day off. Lotsa people were travelling and getting out of dodge...several people from my school were going to Seoroksan Mountain east of Seoul, some others were going to some islands somewhere, but I decided to be my usual anti-social self and head out on my own. I wanted to see if I could make it across the country by myself (I can) and I wanted to do my random/traveller thing that I used to do back home...you see I used to be big on the road trip thing, I loved heading out in a car and winding up somewhere unknown. I don't have a car here, of course, but I have the next best thing: an extensive network of overheated and bathroomless buses that constantly careen up and down the highways of S Korea.
I had planned on starting in Busan. It just seemed like the place to go...it's a big city (second only to Seoul) it's on the coast and has a lot of beaches (not that I'm a big beach guy, but hey, at least I'd have options) and it has a pretty big expat community. I'm basing this on what I've heard/read, you see, I didn't actually make it to Busan.
'Work' on Thursday was fine, we were prematurely celebrating Children's day by playing a bunch of games with the kids and selling them cheap wares which they purchased with the 'dollars' they 'earned.' Let me explain. In preschool, when a kid does something good (which is pretty rare) s/he gets a sticker on his/her grape sheet. The grape sheet is a sheet of paper with the image of an oversized bunch of grapes. Each sheet has, I dunno, 30 or so grapes on it. When you fill up your sheet with stickers, you get a dollar. The more dollars you get, the more crap you can buy on Market Day (which was Thursday). In Rabbit/Horse classes (the two I teach everyday with my coteacher) stickers have been pretty hard to come by. Two days before Market Day I think we had three or four kids with 1 dollar...out of 20. Now, the shit they buy on Market day costs 2-3 dollars, and every kid is supposed to have at least two. So on the Wednesday before Market Day we were handing them out when the little brats tried to pretend to be caring about learning. Of course, in a just world, the idiotic Jin Kyungs out there would be dollar-less and crying in a corner on Market Day, but preschool is just as unjust as everywhere else, only moreso. An example of the charade:
Wayne Teacher: What day is today, Jin Kyung?
Jin Kyung: Twu-dae is...
Wayne Teacher: Yes...
Other Students: Wednesday! Wednesday! WEDNESDAY!
The Smart Student Who Likes to Make Fun of the Dumb Ones by Feeding Them Wrong Answers: Monday!
Jin Kyung: Mu dae...
Wayne Teacher: No, today is Wednesday.
Jin Kyung: We dae...
Wayne Teacher: Fine, here's a dollar.
So because we had all of this crap to do on Thursday, in place of teaching, (I'm not really complaining about not having to teach, but escorting the munchkins around from one pointless activity to another and feigning interest in who wins the soccer kicking game can be tedious, too) it was an early day. We were permitted to leave at 5. So when the whistle blew I high tailed it back to my apartment, packed, and made it to the Express Bus Terminal in Seoul a coupla hours later.
The chica at the ticket booth didn't speak much English, but she had one phrase down pat: "Sold out," she said, when I asked for a ticket to Busan. I was disappointed, I guess, but not upset. There were plenty more places to go. So I stepped out of line, dug my Lonely Planet guide outta by bag, and started flipping through looking for the pages I'd dog eared. I wanted to go to a city, but not necessarily a big one. I wanted to be able to meet expats there, but I wasn't looking for Itaewon South. I wanted a place with a little culture, maybe a sight or two to see. I wanted to get laid.
I settled on Gwangju Sure enough, there were tickets left for the penultimate bus that evening. After four or so hours in the back of a bus, I arrived around 2. I was not impressed. Maybe it was the KFC at the bus station, maybe it was the neon 'DISCO' signs, but I kept thinking about what someone had told me about Korea: "everywhere you go, it looks the same."
Well, that person may have been half right....I found out the next day (Friday) that Gwangju was a little different, under the surface. I still don't have a camera (at least not a digital one) so instead of showing you I'm gonna have to rely on my limited descriptive abilities. But Gwangju is in many ways like Seoul/Incheon/Bucheon. There are the same HOFs/PC bangs/Vespas/barber poles/red-light-running buses that you see everywhere else. But for me it had a real small town feel that I liked a lot. The people were very friendly, and they seemed eager to speak to a foreigner, especially one who was visiting their city. I get that where I live, too, but I also get a lot of surly ajoshis (I think that's the word...) and people with their noses stuck up in the air. I didn't find that in Gwangju. I even had one guy come up to me in a bar and ask for English lessons...that hasn't happened in 2 months in Incheon.
What I really liked was how un-crowded it was compared to where I live. Maybe it was b/c of the long weekend and a lot of natives had left town, but I never felt the press of people like you do sometimes in Seoul. And I don't think I heard a single horn honked, which was nice.
The nightlife was kinda dead, again, maybe because of the long weekend. I didn't see many foreigners, and the only ones who tried to strike up a conversation with me were a drunk German couple. That didn't work out so well. But I did see a lot of the city during the day. I saw a couple of the memorials in the city, one dedicated to students who protested Japanese occupation 80 years ago, and a park dedicated to the students who died in the Gwangju Massacre I tried to make it out to the cemetery where they're buried which is supposed to be a sort of holy place in Korea, but I couldn't find a bus and the cabbie wanted to charge me 20K.
I saw the World Cup Stadium up close, which was cool as hell. But the highlight of the trip, I guess, was my visit to the art museum.
Gwangju is apparently known as one of the (if not THE) artistic centers in S Korea...they even had an 'Art St' which is not something I expected to come across in this country. So I was ready to be impressed with the museum...
Well, not so much. There's only so many times you can look at another variation of some 15th Century Chinese guy's take on rural life. I swear to god there were at least a dozen of these in one room and every single one was the same: a broad river in the foreground that snakes away into a mountain in the distance which has a few wispy clouds around it. The only difference was what the peasants were doing. If you covered their farming/fishing/eating/whatever you couldn't've told them apart.
But the modern rooms were a real treat. There was one artist who's apparently obsessed with snarling dogs and there were all these portraits of scary mutts under yellow moons...me gusta. And there was the usual WTF? stuff like bees collecting honey from a guitar and shit like that. But the highlight was this one large piece which was apparently set in a swamp and there were several oversized frogs resting in it and staring with contempt out at the viewer. At the top, written in English, was: "Frog is Life: Frog Live!"
I think I've found another pseudo-philosophy to live by: Frog Live!
I had planned on starting in Busan. It just seemed like the place to go...it's a big city (second only to Seoul) it's on the coast and has a lot of beaches (not that I'm a big beach guy, but hey, at least I'd have options) and it has a pretty big expat community. I'm basing this on what I've heard/read, you see, I didn't actually make it to Busan.
'Work' on Thursday was fine, we were prematurely celebrating Children's day by playing a bunch of games with the kids and selling them cheap wares which they purchased with the 'dollars' they 'earned.' Let me explain. In preschool, when a kid does something good (which is pretty rare) s/he gets a sticker on his/her grape sheet. The grape sheet is a sheet of paper with the image of an oversized bunch of grapes. Each sheet has, I dunno, 30 or so grapes on it. When you fill up your sheet with stickers, you get a dollar. The more dollars you get, the more crap you can buy on Market Day (which was Thursday). In Rabbit/Horse classes (the two I teach everyday with my coteacher) stickers have been pretty hard to come by. Two days before Market Day I think we had three or four kids with 1 dollar...out of 20. Now, the shit they buy on Market day costs 2-3 dollars, and every kid is supposed to have at least two. So on the Wednesday before Market Day we were handing them out when the little brats tried to pretend to be caring about learning. Of course, in a just world, the idiotic Jin Kyungs out there would be dollar-less and crying in a corner on Market Day, but preschool is just as unjust as everywhere else, only moreso. An example of the charade:
Wayne Teacher: What day is today, Jin Kyung?
Jin Kyung: Twu-dae is...
Wayne Teacher: Yes...
Other Students: Wednesday! Wednesday! WEDNESDAY!
The Smart Student Who Likes to Make Fun of the Dumb Ones by Feeding Them Wrong Answers: Monday!
Jin Kyung: Mu dae...
Wayne Teacher: No, today is Wednesday.
Jin Kyung: We dae...
Wayne Teacher: Fine, here's a dollar.
So because we had all of this crap to do on Thursday, in place of teaching, (I'm not really complaining about not having to teach, but escorting the munchkins around from one pointless activity to another and feigning interest in who wins the soccer kicking game can be tedious, too) it was an early day. We were permitted to leave at 5. So when the whistle blew I high tailed it back to my apartment, packed, and made it to the Express Bus Terminal in Seoul a coupla hours later.
The chica at the ticket booth didn't speak much English, but she had one phrase down pat: "Sold out," she said, when I asked for a ticket to Busan. I was disappointed, I guess, but not upset. There were plenty more places to go. So I stepped out of line, dug my Lonely Planet guide outta by bag, and started flipping through looking for the pages I'd dog eared. I wanted to go to a city, but not necessarily a big one. I wanted to be able to meet expats there, but I wasn't looking for Itaewon South. I wanted a place with a little culture, maybe a sight or two to see. I wanted to get laid.
I settled on Gwangju Sure enough, there were tickets left for the penultimate bus that evening. After four or so hours in the back of a bus, I arrived around 2. I was not impressed. Maybe it was the KFC at the bus station, maybe it was the neon 'DISCO' signs, but I kept thinking about what someone had told me about Korea: "everywhere you go, it looks the same."
Well, that person may have been half right....I found out the next day (Friday) that Gwangju was a little different, under the surface. I still don't have a camera (at least not a digital one) so instead of showing you I'm gonna have to rely on my limited descriptive abilities. But Gwangju is in many ways like Seoul/Incheon/Bucheon. There are the same HOFs/PC bangs/Vespas/barber poles/red-light-running buses that you see everywhere else. But for me it had a real small town feel that I liked a lot. The people were very friendly, and they seemed eager to speak to a foreigner, especially one who was visiting their city. I get that where I live, too, but I also get a lot of surly ajoshis (I think that's the word...) and people with their noses stuck up in the air. I didn't find that in Gwangju. I even had one guy come up to me in a bar and ask for English lessons...that hasn't happened in 2 months in Incheon.
What I really liked was how un-crowded it was compared to where I live. Maybe it was b/c of the long weekend and a lot of natives had left town, but I never felt the press of people like you do sometimes in Seoul. And I don't think I heard a single horn honked, which was nice.
The nightlife was kinda dead, again, maybe because of the long weekend. I didn't see many foreigners, and the only ones who tried to strike up a conversation with me were a drunk German couple. That didn't work out so well. But I did see a lot of the city during the day. I saw a couple of the memorials in the city, one dedicated to students who protested Japanese occupation 80 years ago, and a park dedicated to the students who died in the Gwangju Massacre I tried to make it out to the cemetery where they're buried which is supposed to be a sort of holy place in Korea, but I couldn't find a bus and the cabbie wanted to charge me 20K.
I saw the World Cup Stadium up close, which was cool as hell. But the highlight of the trip, I guess, was my visit to the art museum.
Gwangju is apparently known as one of the (if not THE) artistic centers in S Korea...they even had an 'Art St' which is not something I expected to come across in this country. So I was ready to be impressed with the museum...
Well, not so much. There's only so many times you can look at another variation of some 15th Century Chinese guy's take on rural life. I swear to god there were at least a dozen of these in one room and every single one was the same: a broad river in the foreground that snakes away into a mountain in the distance which has a few wispy clouds around it. The only difference was what the peasants were doing. If you covered their farming/fishing/eating/whatever you couldn't've told them apart.
But the modern rooms were a real treat. There was one artist who's apparently obsessed with snarling dogs and there were all these portraits of scary mutts under yellow moons...me gusta. And there was the usual WTF? stuff like bees collecting honey from a guitar and shit like that. But the highlight was this one large piece which was apparently set in a swamp and there were several oversized frogs resting in it and staring with contempt out at the viewer. At the top, written in English, was: "Frog is Life: Frog Live!"
I think I've found another pseudo-philosophy to live by: Frog Live!
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