Loose Feet

Thursday brought the completion to one of my business classes here in Seoul. A group of middle-aged, married, and fairly conservative businessmen working for a major Korean corporation who want to learn English from....me? Oh yes, it was true, and even better, it was one of the mot fun classes I had over the past year and a half.

I mean, who can resist a student who calls himself E.T, despite being over 30?

They were great. In the beginning, some of them were nervous, and didn't feel like giving me the time of day. But over the past five months (that's it, five months, I can't believe it) we've built up a Tuesday Thursday relationship that has been quite nice, quite comforting. These men have come to be some of my greatest supporters here in Korea, reminding me what's right and what's wrong with adults, and what should and should not fly with my students in the classroom. We talk and they tell me who deserves pizza, and who deserves detention. They dole out Korean culture and I return with Western culture and together we learn. It's amazing, fascinating, and hilarious all in one. Because I never expected to see myself doing this.

At one point, one of the students, Yoon, tried to get me to go for an interview on the Korean show "Beauties", or "Beauty Chatter". Is it what you think it is?

Let's see...it's a show all in Korean, with foreign women who are (often) dressed up like Korean dolls. A panel of male Korean judges sit in front of the women and ask them all sorts of questions -- everything from, what is your favorite Korean food, to what is your most embarassing moment in Korea, and even, what do you like most about Korean men...Now the show recently got into a bout of trouble, because they recently had a guest female student on the show from Hongik University who said that men who are short -- under 180 cm, or 5'9 -- are losers. (Short Men Are Losers) One man is suing the show now for 10,000,000 won because of 'emotional damage'. Anyway, that being said, I don't really want to be on the show. My Korean's not good enough, I don't want my students hearing about my boyfriends, and in general, I'm just not Korean enough, I think. Still, it was funny to watch Yoon try to get me to go on the show. Lots of text messages there. At the end, though, he just said -- "I want to see you do well". It was so kind.

One student, T.S, had told me a story a month or so back about how he has a persimmon tree in his front yard (which, in Korea, is like having a blinking sign on your front door that says 'wealth grows here'). In case you are unfamiliar with persimmons -- they look like this:


They're sweet - though they look like a strange mix between oranges and tomatoes. Ancient Greeks used to refer to persimmons as 'the fruit of the gods'. In Korean history, it was persimmons and pears that were used as sugar when people wanted to sweeten things up. I've heard everything in the book as to how to eat these things -- bite into them, chop them into pieces, peel them and eat it with a spoon. T.S, the man who brought in the persimmons, offered a new take on it though. Apparently, I am to let the persimmons sit out for a few more days until they turn to jelly inside. Then I put them in the fridge for a day. The next day I have to take it out, core it, and then eat the rest with a spoon. More or less, it's supposed to be like a persimmon jelly. Sounds delicious. I'm going to try it and see how it goes. Though in the kitchen, I tend to have bad luck.

Anyway it was sad to say goodbye to those students. And strange to think about them having a new teacher. I keep forgetting about how rotational education really is. Students come and go, teachers come and go. I'm not quite comfortable with that aspect of the educational position I have come into for the time being -- but I think I'll have to get with it or get out sometime in the near future. Either that, or I'll become another emotional bag on the street that noone wants to hang out with.

Tomorrow, though, they're taking me out for dinner - Nepalese food in Dongdaemun, which I'm quite excited for. It should be interesting to watch their English disintegrate with the beer, while I somehow in my head convince myself that my Korean is getting better...which it most definitely, willl not be.

It is not a joke. 소주 is the devil.



Incase you don't know, 소주 (Soju) tends to be the drink of choice for most Koreans. There is a very small selection of beer available, and most of it is of poor quality. Soju, instead, is an extremely cheap version of traditional rice wine. These days, though, some companies have started a trend of substituting the rice for other starches like potato, wheat, barley, even sweet potato. Which just enforces the fact that with soju, you never know what you're going to get. Now the alcohol content is high, but not ridiculous -- 20 to 45% depending on the manufacturer. The problem is that the processing of the soju adds sugar to the contents, and that baby gives you a mean hangover the next day. Soju has given me, by far, the worst hangover I've had ever. And I've had some mean wine mornings. You can add it with beer, to create soemaek (a handy-dandy mix of the two words soju and maekju, which is Korean for beer). That makes it better -- but only by a little bit. You can also have a 폭탄주 (Poktanju) which translates literally to "Bomb Drink", where you drop a shot of soju into the glass of beer and drink it as fast as you can (ONE SHOT, ONE SHOT! as they love to say...) Needless to say, it only costs 1,200 won (oh the KRW), which is equivalent to about $1.00. Makes it incredibly difficult to say no to Soju when you're on a budget.

This leads into an important comment that must be made about Korean society.



One of the most shocking things that I have come across on a daily basis since living in Korea are blackouts. And I don't mean me blacking out. I mean men of all ages -- and sometimes women, but usually men -- passing out in the middle of the street, on top of tables, inside coffee shops, next to subways. Without a doubt, living in Seoul you will see more than 100 business men passed out somewhere that is definitely nowhere near their home. It's useless to try and get them in a cab, as they won't be able to give the taxi driver their address and furthermore, the taxidriver won't be able to haul them out when they get to the apartment. Even more furtile is to try and get them to sit up, or lie in a more comfortable clean place. Most times they're 100 pounds heavier than you and what's worse, sometimes if you wake the sleeping giant, they get PISSED. So just leave it...really. Most of these guys are just completely drunk from a Soju binge with the businessmen. It's common for them to go out and have dinner together with their buddies after work and just casually go from drinking a beer to drowning in the clear devil that is known as Soju. It's tradition, and I don't see it ending anytime soon. Anytime I go out with my Korean friends, they always get a bit flustered when I tell them I'm more into the beer -- until I finally give in, take a shot, and start riding downhill.

I'm sharing with this you not to scare you -- really, on the whole, they're completely harmless. It's just one of the most shocking things I've surprisingly become completely used to in the past year and a half of living in Korea.

Check it out. There is even a website for this. Yikes. Please be warned there are a few graphic photos in here so if you have a queasy stomach at all, I advise you not to look.

http://blackoutkorea.com/

Just about to finish Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. Here's the shocking thing about that book. I got about 3/4 of the way through the book and suddenly realized that it's nonfiction. It's a true story but it's like a fairytale almost. Hard to believe, at least for me. I'm going to spend a better part of the next hour looking up some of the main characters in the novel as well. Oh how exciting my life is.

As for suggested reading...browsing through the newspaper, here are some of the eyepoppers, mindthunders, whatever you choose to call them (as you can see, some of my students have come up with some really good names for articles that can grab your attention :) )

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/us/24amigos.html?em

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/opinion/24iht-edcohen.html?em

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/opinion/22friedman.html

I'm going to China 2 weeks from today. Flying from here to Beijing to begin an adventure around the East coast of the country for nearly a month. The great part about it is that I get to see Penny in Hangzhou and celebrate Christmas with her. The bad part about it. Well, in reality, there is no bad part. I'm going to China. It's just that I keep reading all this bad news about China...

China, China, China....you keep getting bigger and with it comes all the unrealities: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/world/asia/25china.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

This is one of my favorite pictures to look at when I think of my travelling in Asia. It's nothing really. Just a menu from a Japanese restaurant I went to with my brother one night late at night in Kyoto. But still...it's that feeling, when you look at the menu and your stomach is rumbling and you just think....wow, I have no idea what this says....Shit.

It's exciting. Makes you even hungrier. But at times, a little frightening. And then, if you get what you want, it's complete satisfaction. I quite enjoy that whole adventure of it now.

If you know him, chances are maybe you love him. If you don't know him, well...he's pretty hot.

This is Rain...Infamous for his album Rainism whose complete destruction of all forms of music I am not ashamed to admit. He is also well-known, however, for being that really beautiful Korean star who turned down Meghan Fox, the star of Transformers. No biggie, you know.



I know him better as the star of the notoriously overemotionally driven Korean drama Full House, which my dear friend Lisa got into in her pre-Korea departure phase, and which I fell in love with during the 3 week vacation (where I still had to be at work) while the students took final exams.



But most importantly, he should be known for defining what we today can proudly refer to as 'the washboard abs', and creating a fever amongst women of a diverse range of ages.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful 비. Enjoy.

A great discovery has just been made and published in the New York Times, and it's enlightening, and yet even exciting news for the growing population of foreigners that lives day to day here in Korea. One step at a time...afterall, that ishow we got to the moon, isn't it?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/world/asia/02race.html?_r=2