Sunday, August 26, 2007

I'm back part II

Top Bad things about Korea:
1. People (mostly men) let gobs of spit out at any time or place. They don’t spit, they let it fall out of their mouths.
2. The girls dress like whores, think like nuns.
3. The speaking style is to whine when emphasizing a point. So you get grown men yelling and moaning like bratty children at the dinner table. Similarly, when women want something from their boyfriends, they often put on a pouty face and literally squeal like 5 year olds. Not charming after the first time seeing it.
4. People don’t let you finish your point when you’re asking for advice or help. They let you start the idea then come up with an answer for the beginning of the problem (cutting you off), and don’t get to here what the question/problem is. I’m constantly saying: okay, but that’s not the problem…
5. Smoking is rampant with men, so you get drawn in or bombarded with smoke.
6. People constantly stare at you as you walk/shop/do anything.
7. The people in this world’s 3rd biggest Agglomeration basically act like county folk might: They don’t want to try speaking in English or Korean with you, they laugh at random things you say whether in English or Korean, they stare/watch you while you do ANYTHING.* People take their shoes off at bars and put their feet on the seats of chairs (nasty). Actually, they sit anywhere (cross-legged) with bare feet (my bed for a terrible example).
8. Guys who seem quite timid when they first arrive at a bar will eventually get fucked up drunk and come sit with you and try to talk with you in shit-ass English. Since they know 5 things in English they run out of stuff to talk about quickly and just sit there. (that sounds mean, but when is the last time you went to sit with a table of… [pick a language] guys and loudly and drunkenly started yelling kindergarten questions at them?)
9. The girls are very, very pretty, but they are 1) scared of guys, 2) scared of foreign guys, 3) mega shy, 4) terrible at English and not willing to try anyways, 5) trouble, as if you walk with one, your interestingness as a foreigner skyrockets, and even more people watch you.
10. People don’t seem to know much about anything that is not in their immediate sphere of interactions. Especially true with directions, every person who can afford one has a GPS system in their car. People even download them to their cell phones and use them while driving.
11. The roads are either not named or the names are not known. This is really true, I think like 5 road names are known (the center of city-tourist area). If you want to meet somebody you have to go by landmarks (seriously! 3rd biggest city in the world!), most commonly subway stations and exit number (necessary as the stations are huge and exits could be easily not visible from each other). That is why:
12. Meeting someone here makes having a cell phone necessary. The process involves getting a general area, then calling and honing in bit by bit, call by call, till meeting. Imagine trying to meet somebody who’s already at a given place where there are no street names and everything that’s not a local restaurant is something that is found everywhere anyways (ex corner store, bank) so not great as a landmark. People walk out to the main street to pick up people all the time.
13. Funny one. In a standard conversation: you ask a question and people stop moving and talking. They just sit there… for like a minute. You find out after that they were thinking about the answer. Funnier: you get used to this un-announced pausing, so sometimes you’ll ask a question and do your standard waiting. Only to find out later that the question or comment didn’t register and the person has only been sitting silently!!!!! Oh the joy!!
14. Drink portion size is tiny at 175ish per can/bottle. (not important, but irritating if you want more than a gulp and less than 2 liters.)
15. Bad feelings towards foreigners (especially Japan and the USA) is palpable, and often spoken. I’ve been asked twice whether I’m a fake English teacher (by strangers). Told once that I should go home (that one was unclear – whether I should leave the neighborhood I was in, or go back to my home country).
16. Where you plum? Is a question that can be asked of any foreigner at any time by anyone. It is the origin of my Country people analogy. (‘Where you from bo-ah?’)
17. People are constantly asking other people for input if you ask a question. Not clear whether a lot of people don’t know the answers to general (basic) questions, or, want input on whether their answer is correct/acceptable, or, want help in wording the answer in English. It is a constant and troubling situation.
18. As a teacher, especially infuriating is this: when asked a question children may look at the teacher’s eyes and either stay looking, or look away, and sit silently. And sit. So you wait, and wait, and the child might, if left to continue, never speak again. I’m talking 30 seconds, a minute, more! If I’m feeling extra playful, I may just stand and wait… I’ve gotten to at least a minute, maybe two. I can only guess that silence is a cultural way of saying that you don’t know. It seems as though many children don’t have the concept of ‘I don’t know’ or at least of saying it. Maybe silence when faced with more powerful is an appropriate position to take here?


* In regards to (number 7) why they don’t want to speak with you: maybe they are embarrassed by their bad English (doesn’t matter how empathetic you are – not your issue) and/or they take each time speaking English as a major emergency. Maybe the social order is more uptight and should go smoothly in some way. I’ve had people RUN away leaving only the braver workers to face the foreigner (true story – happens often if you go to stores). In korean, though you may attempt, you will most likely either 1) say something incorrectly, or not close enough to fit into the person’s accepted range of word variation (a major problem with mono-cultures, saw it in Mexico too. Here it is a constant that people are asking for others to repeat themselves.), OR, 2) the person will not expect the Korean word to be coming out of your mouth and you’ll have to repeat yourself many times. Often, if you do say something that locals understand, you will either 1) say it with a ‘cute’ accent and people will laugh, or, 2) you’ll say it fine, but you spoke Korean so people will laugh. It’s a good environment to come into terms with the idea that people’s problems/hang-ups are their own and don’t have to be your issue.

Here is the link I promised for the pics from my (and my friend Gisella's) recent trip through Korea. Starting in Suwon, then DaeJeon, then Busan - then back.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=19506&l=1fde2&id=642731186

ps. I tried to be as fair as I could with the goods and bads. There are more bads (was aiming for 10), but they aren't as heavy as the goods. All told they about even eachother out. This is a fun place to spend a year or so...

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I'm back bitches!


Okay, so this is like me coming back to blogging time. I realize its been a while, and people have been hitting me up for the knowledge about Korea, about Seoul, and even about me. So, this edition is kind of a double-whammy. It will have a good subject AND a link to cool pics. Yeah.


So, maybe you wondered why I pretty much cut out blogging. I'll tell you: 1. at some point a Korean friend made some change in my cpu (trying to help me with another project no doubt) and so those sites with variable language capabilities were all in Korean, including this blog program. I couldn't figure it out.

2. I might of worked on it (I eventually did get a K.O. to fix my shit - or rather show me how to work around it) but my laptop cpu keyboard really heats up, and the last thing I need after a sweaty, hot day with kids, is getting hot and sweaty with my cpu (bar porn). Point being, now I bought a new keyboard and shit is nice.


Moving on... I finished my first year in K.O. about 3 months ago. It was at this time that I made two lists. One is the greatest things about Korea (Seoul really) and the other... you guessed it, the shits. So, without further ado, here are my top ten lists of great and shit things about Korea (Seoul).


Great:

1. Beer, food and Soju are all cheap and plentiful. A 500cc (a little less than a pint) of draft costs $2.30 a many places. A meal with fresh cooked meat, fish or tofu costs around $5. This includes 'pan chan' which are various FREE/REFILLABLE side dishes. Soju is around $2.40-$3.60 for a bottle.

2. You can sit outside the vast majority of corner stores and drink/eat snacks. Alot of them are 24 hours, you can sit ALL NIGHT at those, and just take in the scene.

3. Very easy to meet locals. I've had many local men/women try to meet me and start up language exchange.

4. The women are beautiful. Forget your KO-Can neighbor. These girls are delicate, pretty flowers.

5. Clothes and shoes are maaad cheap.

6. Pan Chan. Again, free and refillable. Sure to fill the hunger gap... fast.

7. Scooters. Before I came here I knew nothing about scooters or 'autobikes' (gay word for scooter). After my touring trip last ChuSeok, I was so hooked on my rental that I bought one. Mini Scoot Scoots is the current love of my life.

8. People are out at all hours. The streets are NEVER empty. You know in TO on Sunday, shit pretty much wraps up around 11-12? Here the bars stay open, and some areas, like DongDaeMun (clothing market) stay bumping ALL NIGHT!

9. Oh yeah, so you know how I said that it's bumping all night, right? Well the cool thing is that, unlike back home where drunk and drugged and thugged out people fuck the vibe up while you're trying to cool out with that new g, here NO ONE fucks with you. It's mad safe and comfortable.

10. This one is mostly funny: every time a new business opens up, the business owners throw a 'grand opening' affair. Basically they get huge flower arrangements, and then they hire two girls to dance in front of the store all day. I like the second part more.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Mike's Art Show

A couple of weekends ago, American Mike had an art show opening in HongDae. There were a good number of people, most of the tables were full all night...
Here are some pics of the event.
A.b.
Pics:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=7486&l=defd4&id=642731186

Saturday, May 12, 2007

A true test

This is a test to see how to use forwarding:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=5648&l=722a3&id=642731186

A true test

This is a test to see how to use forwarding:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=5648&id=642731186

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Who's dumb?





There's a very pervasive trend amongst Westerners to shit talk at various levels the quirks of Korean culture. Some of the observations seem warranted (ex. very liberal interpretation of driving rules), and some of them are debatable. Some guys from the West seem to get off on putting down the culture and locals here. So I try to take a step back from judging things which seem to indicate a fault in the people and/or society here, at least until I can observe enough to make a limited conclusion.
There is a perfect example to this end. I was trying to have my laptop fixed after it fell to shit on me one night a couple of months ago. I was surprised to have a KO teacher advise me to go to Kangnam (eastern part of Seoul south of the river), a 30-40 minute trip, instead of just taking the bus across the river to Yongsan (15-20 mins). I could have charged that to KO's being ignorant about their city. In fact, many times folks have little idea of areas outside of their travels here.
However, it would have been real ignorant to assume (as many I speak with do) that this lack of geography is a KO trait. Yesterday a co-teacher (real nice guy) from the west advised me to make the same trip Kangnam instead of going to Jongno for my KO lessons. They are pretty much equal in time wasted (he may know something I don't, but I would rather take one bus than 3 trains). So is he just not good with directions? Here's another case of a Westerner with different (worse) directional skills than I. This guy has clearly been here a short time (he still doesn't have a cell), but has not figured out the general location of one of the most famous areas of Seoul. Two things that every newcomer has are high-speed internet access, and a subway map. Can I assume therefore that Westerners are shit at geography?
Lesson: don't judge these KOs, West ye be judged.
ps The pic is not loading properly, if you want to see his post, click on the pic.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Trip Through NorthWest Korea pt. 1









Prelude... We told Okwhan we wanted to have a fun trip, and that his rendezvous with a tv producer in ChangJoo in the south for Thursday was unreasonable. That meant riding down for two days straight, having an interview, and returning back to Seoul, non-stop. He said we should all relax and chill, and things would work themselves out. Well they did.
The blogger software is difficult to change the order of pictures, so I'm going to have to work around a messed up order.
Pic 1. On day 1 of the trip I took a moped and was to meet Mike and Okhwan en route. I was to drive ahead of them and take pics of them riding. Remember, the whole point of this trip was to get promo footage for Okhwan in order to raise awareness about him and get some sponsors for his next trip. This pic is of beautiful greenery on the road between maybe PyunTek and Chunan.
Pic 2 & 3. This is a really bad part of Korea as compared to Canada. The bathroom facilities are often, if not usually, very sub-par for the developed country lavatory circuit. This is only one example of a VERY common situation (I actually, really saw this at a place in Seoul -not a hick, country place!- tonight!). If you look at the sink and the urinal, you will note that there is no running water in the sink - no connection actually. Also, the only usable water comes from a tube connected to the piss pot, and the tube's spout is lying in the piss water, dirty shoe sole zone. Nice.
[Skip to] Pic 10. We met Okhwan at the agreed upon place at roughly 8am Tuesday (Wednesday?) morning. We were pissed at having to go so early, but at least we would get on the road nice and early. Remember, we're under time constraints as we have to bike as far as we can today. So we leave right away in order to maximize our travel right? Wrong! Okie walks through a tiny, dilapidated market, with token white folk in tow, to get to a tiny SongPyun shop. There we waste an hour and a half of travel time so we can get some (yummy) breakfast and (instant) coffee. I had already eaten, as had Mike. Pic 10 is Okhwan leading us, and Pic 9. is Mike and Okhwan. Note the Seoul/PyeongYang 2016 shirt Okie has.
Pic 8. This huge church is on route to Ansan city hall. It's in the middle of the biggest vacant lot I've ever seen (maybe). Lots of churches in Korea.
Pic 7. This is something sold in Lotteria, the McDonalds-esque fast food joint owned by the Lotte family. They also make food goods, buildings, malls etc. This is a hamburger with two patty-esque pieces of rice patty. 7/10 for taste but 3/10 for bun holdtogetherability.
Pic 6. The town that Mike and I finally met at is called KohngJoo. We were searching for eachother for more than an hour, and the main points of reference in this fun town are the bridges. This is the view from one of the many bridges, and you can see it's a pretty nice view, except for the dirty-ass stream. If they clean it up, it could be a major attraction for walking, something like ChungGayChun in Seoul.
Pic 5. This is some sort of refining plant in the countryside between KohngJoo and Ahsahn. The logo is that of the Kookmin Bank, which may show that most major companies are in fact institutions which can be crazy diversified.
Pic 4. I saw pillars like these three times on the road from KohngJoo to Ahsahn. It's like a huge bridge to nowhere. Maybe there's a invisible highway with invisible space-cars running overhead.
So, long story short, no Okhwan. He was playing strange games all day the first day, and actually tried to cut out on me in KohngJoo (maybe). So, we let him keep on his way to GwangJoo, and Mike and I turned around and went kind of in a circle heading back to Seoul.
Part 2 coming soon!

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Kidsarekrazy



















Kids do the darndest things. This week was Market Day week, a day for the students at Oedae Hagwon to get together and learn about the most important institution in western culture: buying shit. Throughout the term children were given stamps in their 'Oedae Hagwon Passports' (I couldn't make this stuff up) in either the Reward section, or the Penalty section. All the good stamps were worth 10 cents, and the penalties -10 cents. Some kids had near $10, so you can tell that the penalties don't amount to jack squat.
These are 10 of the most affecting:
1. He's Indiana Carl... the roughest, toughest english teacher around. He's actually a cool guy, but has no idea about his hat. He's in deNial (get it?).
2. This is a new student of mine. He won some sort of award at school, so I copped this pic with him so I can say I teach champions, for references etc... BONUS GAME: Find the snake-monster posing as a student.
3. Look at the facial poses on these guys. A deeply impacting portrait of two of Korea's future leaders. Intense.
BONUS QUESTION: Which one rips the other a new asshole in ten years?
4. Some real cool kids I now teach. Maybe the cutest ones, the boy and girl in blue on the right, are actually cousins.
BONUS GAME: Pick the kid who has since dropped out of the class.
5. Another really cute kid. Nothing funny here.
6. This is Chinon Counta Grabcrotchi. The counters at the school were actually designed to his exact body specs for maximum whiny-pants usage.
BONUS QUESTION: Which secretary recently released two of my students from punishment, allowing them to leave the office without my OK?
7. Victorious gloating after spending half an hour solving two-piece kid's puzzle.
BONUS GAME: Guess who was reprimanded for singing 'I am the Champion'.
8. A bouquet of popcorn and another cute kid.
9. and 10. Ok, this is kinda cool. Read this before looking at them. Look at the eyes of both kids in pic #9. Then, look at their eyes in pic #10. Repeat... Cool! I didn't plan this at all, it just happened. I want to put this up on my wall and trip people out.
Okay, that's it.
Peace,
BA.
PS. I have the pics from the trip, I'll post them soon, probably tomorrow...

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Trip to knowhere?



Long time no hear from (me). I haven't had my computer. It broke down a little while ago, and I haven't been able to fix it yet.
Tomorrow I'm going on a trip by moped down through Korea from Seoul to somewhere around Daejeon (Pronounced Taejun - messed up Korean 'english' spelling). I don't know exactly where since I'll be going with two others but they'll be biking. One is my friend American Mike, and the other is Yoon, Okhwan, a man who has biked through 118 countries around Asia, Europe and Africa. He is a biking maniac and actually wanted to bike several hundreds kms down to the south of the country. Since we only have the few days of Chuseok (2nd Moon Harvest - something like Thanksgiving), we'll only be going as far as we can in two days biking. I am going to film the event, and get footage for a project that Mike and I are considering: getting Okhwan international fame and sponsorship, and a healthy managerial fee.
We'll see how it plays out...
I'll be back in town in a few days, and I'll have my notebook up and running shortly thereafter. I've included a couple of pics. One is of a grumpy dude I met with Flood at this bar in Chongno, and the other is a famous Korean TV gameshow called Is This A Chick Or A Dude?
I'll update as I can.
Peace,
BA