A New Toy, Picasso, and a Correction

I realized that I'd forgotten to include the answers to the pop quiz that ended an earlier post in the latest one like I'd promised. Here you go: Yoo Jin and Myung Bin are girls, Sung Pil is a boy.

Went up to Yongsan today and bought a digital camera. Everytime I head up there I have these delusions of intense bargaining, of all sorts of weighty consideration of the best deal, of playing the merchants off of one another yadda yadda, then I just wind up settling for the first reasonable deal that comes along. So it was again today. I got a decent enough camera for (what I think was) a fair price so I'm happy.

I probably shouldn't write this, because I know it'll distract you, reader, from my protracted prose, but I included a few shots I took on the way home at the end of this post. Go ahead, look, I know my words can't compete with the colorful pictures. They're nothing too fancy. After I bought the thing and got it working I thought I'd cruise around Seoul and take a few shots of interesting stuff, but as soon as I started doing that I realized I didn't feel like hiking all over the city today. When I came back home to Bucheon I thought I'd at least spend an hour or two taking shots around here, but again, I was feeling lazy. I did muster up the strength to press the buttons a few times as I was walking from where the taxi dropped me off, so that's what you'll see below.

I guess it was another normal weekend. I tried to stay up for the Korea World Cup match Friday night, but Sophia had a party at her (new) place to celebrate the fact that she'd bought an apartment and I got drunk too fast. I was sleepy by 3 and once the game began at 4 I was dozing pretty heavily...and it's not like watching a soccer game is all that invigorating. I left at halftime. Oh, btw, Korea lost 2-0. Oh well.

On Saturday Myra and I went into Seoul to check out this Picasso exhibit the Museum of Art is hosting. It was pretty cool. We had a helluva time finding the museum, but it was worth the struggle because the paintings were generally pretty interesting. My favorite was this pretty big family portrait with a blue background, which seemed normal enough at the first glance but then when you check out the expression on one of the little girls' face you start to realize that something is fucked up with this family...I haven't been able to find an image of it online and this was pre-camera purchase, so, well, you're just going to have to trust me when I say it was cool.

I guess that's it.


The Pics:
I live in the building at the end of the street.


My apartment, which is, you guessed it!: dirty.




Just some apartment buildings near where I live.


The view from my window. You can almost make out the building where I work, which is just to the right of the sign.


Just some commercial buildings near where I live. Imagine these spreading into near-infinity and you'll get a good impression of what Korea looks like.

Hurricane Onion

I was as happy as the next bandwagoning (ex-)Raleigher to follow the Hurricanes Stanley Cup run, but I think this Onion article is pretty spot on. Kudos to them for researching a few local Raleigh restaurants, though...loved the shout out to Snoopy's and Brother's, but the Waffle House? WTF? Anyway, I really liked this part:

"We couldn't believe what was happening," said Sam Weber, owner of Playmakers, a Raleigh sports bar. "I still don't understand it. We had a decent crowd here to watch the 1982 North Carolina vs. Georgetown NCAA Championship game on ESPN Classic when out of nowhere a lamppost comes crashing through the front window. Then these huge pasty white guys, all wearing, like, matching sweaters, run in screaming like madmen and holding this giant planter over their heads, which they demanded I fill with beer. They invited all my customers to join them, but we were too shocked, terrified and disoriented to even move, so the gang got angry and stole four of my big-screen televisions."

The Onion sports articles have been really hi-lar-i-ous of late...the "dying boy brought in to cheer up Kansas City Royals" article is pretty good, too.

'Korea' Moments, and Smiling More

I was walking down the street today after work through a bar district. I came across a group of bikers gathered around their Harleys, smoking unfiltered cigarettes, swigging soju and probably gruffly cursing in Korean (I don't know enough to say one way or the other). I guess I was a little intimidated, and I didn't make eye contact or anything. The idea of Korean bikers might seem a little funny to you, reader, and it seems a little funny to me, too, but let me assure you these guys were the real deal. At least, they were as real as bikers can get over here.

Anyway, after taking in the scene for a second or two and getting past that first impression, I looked up to read the name on the bar where they'd decided to gather. It read: "Kenny G Bar."

This is what is called by me and many other expats over here a 'Korea Moment.' It's a point in time where expectations get confounded by Western perceptions, to put a dictionary.com spin on it. It's when 1+1=3. It's usually the highlight of my day.

Today was otherwise highlight-less. Joanne and I had the first of two Open House Days, in which the kindies' mommies come to SLP and meet with the directors and such, and then spend 45 minutes sitting in our class while we coteach. Everything went fine, though Joanne was upset because one kid burst into tears when we asked him to answer a question he's been given everyday for the past four months ("Sung Pil, how are you today?" answer: Crying) and another yawned a few times. I thought she was getting a bit too wrapped up in the whole thing, but of course I don't have to talk to these mommies, they're just 10 more expressionless ajummas like the ones I pass on the street everyday...I don't have to interact with them...she's the one who has to field their pointless phone calls about Yoo Jin not getting enough rice at lunch or Myung Bin having trouble reading my handwriting.

To be honest the whole exercise is so bizarre and pointless that, as I so often do, I just insulated myself from worry with a nice fuzzy blanket of not-giving-a-shit. In that way it's like so many other things here in Korea... But what I mean is that at SLP we ALREADY have cameras in every classroom and a special room set up for the mommies to come watch the classes whenever they want, but on top of that we want to set aside a special day for them to all crowd into our little classroom where we know the kids will be distracted and/or disturbed by their presence (see: Sung Pil) and as such the viewers will get (probably) an inaccurate impression of how much their son/daughter has learned, and to make matters worse instead of having a normal teaching day where there is one teacher and 10 students, we make the co-teachers teach together in front of the class so that they can stumble over each other as they try to adhere to what they normally do with a lesson, and then after we've warped the system and fucked everything up we have to listen to these mommies complain about things going wrong that would've been right on a normal fucking day when there was one teacher and 10 students in the class and pale faced permed up ajumma was sitting alone sipping overhot green tea in the observation room in front of a bunch of monitors.

As I said there's no point getting too wrapped up in this shit. And there were few complaints, and, if my boss can be trusted (which is quite a big if) none of them had anything to do with our teaching style, but were about institutional problems at SLP.

Honestly the most trying thing about the day was having to remember to smile. A few weeks ago my boss observed my class and his biggest complaint was that I didn't smile enough. No shit. Not a smiler, here. I mean I like to laugh as much as the next person but I'm not someone who normally walks around with a big grin on my face, and when I try to pretend I always come off looking like a deranged escaped mental patient. With the kindies I've just been being myself, and I get along fine with them, but apparently that's not good enough for the mommies so the word was passed down that I had to up my grinning by a good 25%. That was a fun adjustment.

What else, what else. I got my first Korean haircut the other day and it went really smoothly, which was a tremendous surprise, and it only cost owe-cheon (5,000). I've started to get a pretty good grip on the number system, and I actually understand what someone is saying when they tell me the price. This has made things a lot better.

Oh, here's a pop quiz for the rare reader who's made it this far. I mentioned a few Korean names in this post, Sung Pil, Myung Bin, and Yoo Jin. Try to guess which of them are boys, and which are girls. I'll post the answer next time. Until then,

McDonald's and the Cultural Womb

I thought this article was really interesting and insightful. I spend way too much time in my local Mickey D's here in Bucheon and after reading through the article I think I have a better understanding of why.

Indeed, despite its vaunted reputation as a juggernaut of American culture, McDonald's has come to function as an ecumenical refuge for travelers of all stripes. This is not because McDonald's creates an American sense of place and culture, but because it creates a smoothly standardized absence of place and culture — a neutral environment that allows travelers to take a psychic time-out from the din of their real surroundings. This phenomenon is roundly international: I've witnessed Japanese taking this psychic breather in the McDonald's of Santiago de Chile; Chileans seeking refuge in the McDonald's of Venice; and Italians lolling blissfully in the McDonald's of Tokyo.

Interestingly enough, the author mentions that he taught for 10 years in Busan, S Korea.

Speaking of Busan, I did a short trip down there this past weekend. There's nothing really interesting to report, but it was good to see the city, however briefly, and it sure as shit was nice to get away from Bucheon for a while. Every time I travel outside of the Seoul area in Korea I feel relieved...I dunno, there's just something about this area that doesn't really suit me. I'm not sure what it is yet. I guess I'll check back in when I get a better idea.