International Women's Day

Today is International Women’s Day. I’d only vaguely known, and never really thought, about this day while living in the States, where Mother’s Day is the main women-related holiday.

For reference among my American readers, International Women’s Day is like a combination of Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, when appreciation is expressed for women and our roles in society, and our social progress is celebrated. It began as a socialist holiday, but has lost its political meaning in many countries and is still celebrated today with little regard for its potentially controversial origins. Just goes to show there are some ideas that are good no matter who puts them forth. Different countries usually have different themes for each year. This year’s United Nations/global theme is “Women and men united to end violence against women and girls”. You can read U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Women’s Day address here.

It’s interesting to hear such words coming from a Korean, particularly given the plight of women in Korea despite its status as a modernized country. (Yes, I know he was saying them as U.N. Secretary-General and not as a representative of Korean society. Bear with me.) While no country – including the U.S. – is a stranger to violence against women, I’d not come face to face with this fact before moving here. I have found, from conversations with foreigners and Koreans as well as personal observation, that domestic violence in Korea is disturbingly commonplace.

One Saturday afternoon, my usual brunch-making routine was interrupted by a couple yelling at each other in the hallway. I was annoyed, but didn’t think too much of it, as at that point the woman was certainly holding her own. However, once the couple went into their apartment at the end of the hall, the yelling turned to desperate screaming from the woman and absolute rage from the man. In a flash of righteous indignation, I threw on my coat, shoved on my shoes and stormed down the hallway to do something about it. About a foot from the door, my courage evaporated as I heard the woman pounding on the door, continuing to scream as though her life were in danger, trying to get out. Standing so close and yet so far away, I had never felt so helpless in my life. What exactly was I going to do? My three sentences of Korean were not going to help in this situation – there was no way I could make myself understood. I was just as likely to make the situation worse as to help, and I had absolutely no means of defense if the man’s anger encompassed me and my intrusion. So I stood in the hallway, momentarily paralyzed, trembling with my heart pounding in my ears, before running back into my own apartment to call the police. But the police don’t speak English, either. So I just stood there, listening, hoping the woman would make it through all right, and feeling like a coward and a traitor to womankind.

I still feel guilty for not pounding on the door anyway. Much can be communicated by tone of voice. I later spoke to one of my co-teachers about the situation, and she told me that next time I could call her and she would call the police for me. Fortunately there has been no “next time” (at least none that I’ve heard), but I still wonder whether the police would even do anything about it. Addressing domestic violence is a tricky thing, particularly in a society that is still very patriarchal and tolerant of violence in everyday life. Several of my friends here have told me they’ve heard similar rows from their neighbors, and no one seems to have come up with a good solution. I am told that there are services for women who are victims of domestic abuse, but they must have a reference from the police. That means something really bad has to happen that somehow gets the attention of a Korean-speaking neighbor or friend, and the abuser must almost literally be caught in the act.

Evidence of how normalized domestic violence is in Korea slapped me straight in the face during my winter camp. I was a bad teacher and didn’t fully preview all of the music videos I was showing during a lesson on how to discuss preferences and tastes in music. The first one, a K-pop video, featured a scene in which the singer is hit several times by her boyfriend. (You can watch the video and see how she gets her revenge here.) Before beginning the intended discussion, I asked the girls in the class what they should do if a man ever hit them. Now, these were bright students; that’s why they were in my camp. I know they understood the words of what I was asking. But the concept just didn’t compute.
“You should break up with him, and maybe call the police!” I told them.
Blank stares. Why would they do that? In Korea, being in a relationship is of utmost importance. What’re a few knocks to be endured once in a while?

I have mixed feelings about special laws and protections for women. Ideally, these would not be necessary, and in a way I feel that putting women in a special category permanently makes us more vulnerable in the eyes of society and negates the equality that the measures themselves are striving for. But I have now been about as close as I ever want to be with the fact that, (almost) no matter what, a man will always be stronger than me. What can I do to defend myself? And abuse is never just about the physical violence. The accompanying power-play of emotional entrapment makes it extremely difficult for women to get out of abusive situations. The strength of men over women also applies in the halls of power in business, politics and religion. While I would rather ignore it or laugh it off, women are still marginalized and kept out, to some extent, of many of the real positions and gatherings of power in my own beloved and supposedly forward-thinking, equal-rights touting city – the one that should be a shining beckon of true freedom and equality for all the world to see. Are these initiatives promoting the defense and uplifting of women necessary to get us over what seems to be an ever-rising mountain ahead of true equality? Will we ever see the other side? And if so, will we have a need for Women’s Day at all?

A cuisine without cheese

Happy Tuesday! Also know as Lesson Planning Fail Day #2. Seriously, if anyone has seen my motivation frolicking past their window, please net it and return it to me ASAP. This is getting bad.

So today, rather than getting a jump on next semester, I’ve been compiling my thoughts on food in Korea (among other activities that might fall into the procrastination category). The first question to tackle was where to start. I can’t possibly cover it all, so you’ll just get a dose of what I’ve eaten (or just observed) over my time here so far.

First, we’ll start with some basic facts about Korean food and eating customs.

• Koreans eat for health rather than taste. Well, maybe they would say they also eat for taste, but Koreans’ taste has been developed over thousands of years to favor things that are at least believed to be good for you. Foods are recommended based on how they will benefit your health rather than how delicious they are. So when I’m eating too much of that fried vegetable pancake, I’m told that “Caity, there are more nutritious things on the table.” That’s why they’re all so thin.
• Kimchi and rice with every meal. Kimchi is one of the numerous little vegetable side dishes that come with every Korean meal. But, unlike the other banchan, kimchi possesses miraculous superpowers that may not just be limited to the health arena. Not long after my arrival in Korea, there was a cabbage shortage that was considered a national crisis. That’s how seriously they take their kimchi here. And no meal is complete without rice. If you haven’t eaten rice yet, your meal is not finished. There will be at least one more course, so save room. There’s also usually soup with every meal, which helps with the no-water thing.
• Eating is a communal activity. Always. It is very rare to see Koreans do anything alone, most of all eating. If you have a snack, you share it. Relationships are built over food (and drink), and the quickest way for a native English teacher to ruin his or her relationship with a co-teacher is to not partake in lunch or snack time with everyone else. Everything is always served family style, so everyone eats the same thing. The question is not “Where shall we go for lunch?” but “What shall we eat for lunch?” This dictates where you shall go, as the majority of restaurants (with the exception of the Kimbap Nara and its counterparts) only serve one thing. This fact is also the main reason that waygooks frequently find themselves in tough spots – you’re expected to eat what everyone else is eating, or risk insulting every Korean in the entire restaurant.
• Manners. Rice goes on the left. Rice that is set to the right is reserved for the dead. Naturally I was eating somebody’s ancestor’s rice for at least a month at lunch before someone clued me in to this one. Never finish the side dishes unless you intend to eat more, as this means that you weren’t given enough to eat, and your dish will keep getting refilled. No Clean Plate Club here. Never pour your own drink, and always hold your glass with both hands as someone pours for you. When drinking with elders (that’s anyone who’s at all older than you), turn your head away as you drink. Offer to refill your elder’s drink when their glass is empty, and do so with both hands.
• Creativity. Even after six months, I continue to be surprised by things that are set on the table in front of me. Koreans eat things it would never even occur to Westerners to eat. Some of this may have been born of necessity in years past, but I have no idea why some of these foods persist in the modern Korean diet. Examples: leaves that belong on trees rather than in my salad, bugs in various stages of their life cycles, fish that are so tiny they must be eaten whole and in piles (how do they even make nets small enough to catch those things??)

So, in that context, here are some things about Korean cuisine that stand out in my mind:

• Seafood. Koreans eat a TON of seafood, and it’s incredibly cheap compared to Western prices. This is a peninsular nation, and they will eat anything with which Poseidon doth bless their nets (or whoever the traditional Korean sea-god is). The thing is, lover of seafood that I am, it is still my opinion that there are things in the sea that just aren’t meant to be eaten. Sometimes it seems that someone just scraped the bottom of the sea with a giant plastic bucket and dumped it all into my soup. Koreans are also loathe to remove the bones from their fish, a fact that causes me more trouble than anything else about eating in this country (*gag*).
• Love affair with seaweed. Seafood is not limited to creatures. I have seen more varieties of seaweed sold on the street than I even knew existed before I got here. Recently I was introduced to seaweed-flavored jellies. No sugar - they're not like candy – just an extra-firm, rectangular jelly with seaweed flavor in it. I rather resent them for their deceptively candy-like packaging. This came right after the seaweed soup we had for lunch that contained a variety of seaweed which strongly resembled the stringy algae one finds floating on a small, stagnant pond. Lukewarm pond water with little rice balls floating in it. It didn't taste too bad, so I just tried not to look at it. I’ve actually become a pretty big fan of other varieties of seaweed soup, as well as kim.
• Obsession with fresh food. Koreans like everything to be as fresh as it can possibly be. Frozen and prepackaged foods are looked down upon as extremely unhealthy. Yes, this is reminiscent of Western attitudes, but Koreans actually follow through on these views. Fish are bought from squirming buckets-full on the street and vegetables with dirt still clinging to them. Many dishes are brought to the table uncooked, and you get to do the grilling/boiling yourself, just so you know it’s really, really fresh. The most infamous of the super-fresh foods is raw octopus. No, not just raw, but still squirming on the plate. You might think that after a while, when the tentacle pieces have stopped moving, it might be safe to eat. But as soon as you touch that slimy mass with your chopsticks, it starts writhing all over again. And detaching the suckers from the plate is a challenge all to itself. This is usually served as part of a larger raw seafood meal including everything from white fish to as-yet-unidentified shellfish.
• Regular meat is as expensive as seafood is cheap. This makes sense, given that Korea has little, um, ranchable land (add that to your dictionaries). However, some of the ways they work around this – well, one way in particular – is disturbing and puzzling to the average American: Spam. Now, I’m sure this lovely Spam eating trend probably started around the time of the Korean War (see #5 here for a similar story), but unlike Guam, Korea most definitely has a native cuisine to embrace. They also, at least these days, have plenty of money to spend on things other than meat product. So why, in Korea, does Spam come in gift sets and cost at least twice what it does in the U.S.? Perhaps some insight can be gained from #1 in the previously mentioned article, but I’m not completely convinced.
• The almighty sweet potato. Forget yams, there are more kinds of sweet potato than I could have ever imagined, and they are all eaten with gusto here in Korea. They also turn up in rather unexpected places, like on pizza, in cakes and in milkshakes and lattes.

Given all of these, um, challenging foods, the majority of which I have eaten at some point, it’s a miracle that I’ve only had a couple of meals that I’ve really had to choke down (both of which involved fish bones). This is in stark contrast to the experiences of many of my friends here, so perhaps I’ve just been lucky. And yes, there are many foods here that I genuinely enjoy, but they'd make for a rather boring blog post, now wouldn't they? All things considered, when I get back to the States, I doubt I’ll be rabidly tracking down Korean food. Some bean fish, cinnamon pancakes or kimchi might be nice once in a while for nostalgia’s sake, but you won’t see me hanging out in the Korean groceries of McLean or Centerville sniffing out the best dried squid to go with my beer and peanuts. You might find me at Spa World, though – a Korean institution I am quite glad I won’t have to leave behind.

Not all of Asia is like Korea

I know you want to read about my trip to Southeast Asia, but I just have to share this first. I am a frequenter of coffee shops, mainly because I am incapable of getting work done in my own apartment. I’m in one right now, in fact. Coffee shops in Korea, it seems, all own the same collection of jazz tunes by this one female vocalist. But these are no ordinary jazz tunes – no “Blue Skies”, no “La Vie en Rose”, no “Take the A Train”. Instead, we have smooth, slightly upbeat remakes of pop tunes, new and old, that were never, ever meant to be set to a jazz beat. Some examples: the theme from The NeverEnding Story, U2’s “With or Without You”, “Barbie Girl”, the list goes on. At the moment, I have been spared the vocalist and am being treated to a jazz piano version of “Pomp & Circumstance”. I practically expect to hear a velvety voice crooning the lyrics to “Baby Got Back” in the next shop I go into.

So, to the truly Korean soundtrack of bastardized tunes, I shall now tell you about my vacation (patience pays off, dear readers). In summary, I began my trip by meeting my friend and fellow Englishee teacher Laura, and her friend Katie who flew in from England, in Phuket, Thailand. Thank God I was only there for one night; that place is a westernized black hole of entitled tourists. We then took a bus and ferry to Koh Phangan, a charming little Island in the Gulf of Thailand. We spent several days lying on a beach of fine, white sand next to a turquoise sea with calm waters at exactly the right temperature for cooling off without giving a cold jolt to the nether-regions. We spent our last night at the famous full moon party on Haad Rin (one of the many beaches on the Island), but don’t worry folks, my compatriots became ill after just one vodka-and-cheap-grape-soda bucket and we never even made it up to Mellow Mountain. The most tricked-out thing going on in our trio was the horrendous neon paint job on my face. After that, we flew to Bangkok where we did a walking tour of Chinatown before Katie and Laura flew back to their respective winter wonderlands. I spent the next couple of days tooling around Bangkok on my own, which was a lot more fun than it sounds. Bangkok is remarkably easy to get around on public transport and is filled with friendly people and mind-blowingly cheap, tasty food. And temples and markets and great places for people watching.

I then hopped on a flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where I met Paul. Since we were both flying Air Asia (me on my way back to Korea, him on his way to Ireland to visit the family), a point-to-point carrier with its main hub in KL, this was an easy, logical spot to see together, if not on the top of either of our lists of world traveling destinations. Compared to Bangkok, KL is a nightmare to get around, but we stayed in fairly convenient locations, so that helped tremendously. We tried two new fruits every day; had Malay food, Moroccan food, Spanish tapas, proper English tea, Indian food and Chinese food; visited the Batu caves, the Petronas Towers, the aquarium, the bird park, the Chinatown market, Little India, the national mosque, the national museum and Merdeka Square. Now you can click over to my Picasa album and check out the photos and get a bit more info on what I did and saw.

One of the main things I learned in my travels is which differences I’ve observed/experienced here that are just the Asian way, and which ones are Korean quirks.

Asian things: squatties; sink-hose “showers”; omnipresent cacophony of mostly unpleasant smells; lack of personal space concept (though Koreans are way worse about this than Thais or Malaysians); enthusiasm for food coupled with an illogically high metabolism; communal (“family style”) eating customs; fondness for strong fishy flavors; use of a wide array of brooms to sweep anything, everything and everywhere; love of super-sparkly, over-decorated items

Korean quirks: ajumas and their elbows; acute social distress in the presence of foreigners; trustworthiness and general good will towards others; absolute, every day, young to old obsession with fashion; a sweet tooth that even extends to things like garlic bread (this may just be a misunderstanding of the concept of baked goods); the ability to take almost anything from almost anywhere in the world and somehow make it Korean (please refer to the previously mentioned frosted garlic bread); lack of trash bins in public places; army of ajumas with tongs picking up the results of the immediately preceding item in this list

To their credit, Koreans are much better at following through on environmental concerns than people in Thailand and Malaysia. Sure, they don’t have the natural resources (jungle/rainforest) to exploit that Malaysia and Thailand do, but they are far more conscientious about recycling and the efficiency of their vehicles. There are ads plastered all over Thailand and Malaysia encouraging citizens to recycle and use less water, but the cars, trucks and buses spout noxious fumes the intensity of which I’ve never seen before. I’m not sure whether it was actually the pollution or the fact that I was all of a sudden sweaty all the time when I had become accustomed to winter weather, or perhaps a combination of the two, but my skin – and I don’t just mean my face - freaked out after just a day in Bangkok. It’s only now even considering the concept of clearing up. Fortunately my lungs got along just fine, so maybe the amount of pollution got blown out of proportion in my smog-loathing mind (or I just got lucky).

The other major difference that I noticed is that Malaysia (or at least KL) and Thailand are much more Westerner-friendly – English is almost universally spoken to at least some degree (and the locals aren’t terrified to speak to you); Western stores, restaurant chains and food are all much more prevalent; it’s difficult to find a sign that doesn’t have an (almost always correct) English translation along with the local language; and you could, with relatively little effort, completely isolate yourself from the local culture and live in a bubble of Western-ness. This is not at all possible in Korea. When you are in Korea, unless you are extremely wealthy and never leave Seoul, you know you are in Korea. There’s just no escaping it.

And there’s no escaping the fact that I am now back in wintry Korea without my boyfriend for three weeks (whine, moan, complain). Fortunately I don’t have to desk warm, which means I’ll only have to spend three days in school this entire month. These days are for grade 3 graduation, though I have no idea how in the world a graduation ceremony requires three days. In the mean time, I’ll be keeping myself busy with lesson planning for next semester, catching up on the reading I’ve wanted to do, and attempting to lose the weight I’ve gained over the past semester (due in no small part to all of the Thai and other food I consumed over my travels), and getting my ass back in shape.

So happy Lunar New Year, my dears. Stay warm and feel free to send over any food you have that tastes really good but will miraculously melt away all of my fat.

This post is NOT about New Year's resolutions.

Christmas Day has come and gone, and New Year’s, and plenty of Caity Teacher’s Daily Korean Adventures™. The best and brightest (or maybe just the ones that come to mind at the moment) shall be recorded herein.

Best Christmas gift EVER

For Christmas the group of friends affectionately known as the Lenny Crew put together an admirable potluck, which we ate using our host’s bed platform as a large table (we are resourceful people), sitting on the floor in classic Korean fashion. The pumpkin pies (ingredients sent by the Jacobs American Food Goods Acquisition Service in Kingsport, Tenn.), complete with real whipped cream, were a big hit. I was also introduced to the European Christmas desserts known as mince pies with custard and Christmas pudding. The mince pies are decidedly not worth the calories, but the Christmas pudding was rather nice (especially smothered in whipped cream, as most things are). The winning ugly Christmas sweater was a neon-green & black snowflake fleece, and the winning Secret Santa gift was a holographic poster of Jesus arm-wrestling Satan. And I got cheese! The metaphoric angel on top of the non-existent tree was the snow that fell while we were eating dinner, covering the city in a peaceful white dusting, which we promptly ruined with our tipsily-made tracks heading toward the bar. Yes, the bars are open here on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day – it is a couples’ holiday here, remember?

Paul and I headed to Seoul for New Year’s weekend, expecting to be followed by several of the Lennies, but ended up being ditched at the last minute. But that was their loss (Seriously. Lennies). We literally rang in 2011 outside City Hall, where an enormous Buddhist bell was struck at midnight. The bell ringing was preceded by cheesy Korean musical performances (e.g. Seasons of Love in Korean – yes, I was a RENT-head back in the day, so I loved it) and followed by a few performances of more traditional Korean musical arts. The crowds weren’t nearly as bad as we were expecting, as New Year’s by the solar calendar isn’t nearly as big a deal as Lunar New Year on this side of the world. Temperatures were well below freezing the entire weekend, especially on NYE. After nimbly avoiding the storm of roman candles in the streets and the human maze created by lines of way more policeman than could possibly have been necessary, we landed ourselves in a McDonald’s to warm up. Then we decided to go to a few bars, but near where we were staying so we wouldn’t have as far to go when we were done. Well, maybe just one bar. Ok, so we just got to our subway stop and decided to go to bed. We’re not old people! It’s just that kind of cold can really get to you after a while….

Feet fish

We did plenty of touristy things that wore us out, too. We toured the ChangDeokGung Palace, where members of the Korean royal family lived until 1989. That means there are still easily traceable living descendents of Korean monarchs. How weird must that be – to be living among the common people, knowing that your ancestors lived in a palace and ruled the country? And how much crap must said descendents have taken at school when they were kids? Must be like being the principal’s kid, only worse. Later, and after much searching, we finally found some doctor fish to spruce up our tired and beleaguered feet. What in the world are doctor fish? This is a perfectly legitimate and oft-uttered question. Doctor fish, also known (maybe just to me) as feet fish, are little fishies that eat only dead skin. People in Korea keep them in small pools in special cafes, where they freak out adventurous Westerners looking for a “cultural experience”. They also tickle quite a bit. I had the entire coffee-sipping, toast-munching café full of Koreans staring at me with all of my shrieking and laughing, and I was honestly trying to keep it down. I don’t think my feet were any smoother afterwards, but it certainly was an experience. On New Year’s Day we managed to find some sauerkraut at an Austrian restaurant (good luck for all!), and I even made it to an honest-to-goodness, English speaking, Lutheran church on Sunday. 2011 ought to be a good year; I’ve certainly started it out right.

With the help of a good friend and her glorified toaster oven, I baked my first (and possibly only) cake in Korea (from scratch!) for Paul’s birthday the following week. It was a huge hit, as real cakes, like cake mixes, are not to be found down here in the armpit of Korea. Winter camp started last Monday and has been fantastic. They’re all good kids with fairly high levels of English, the classes themselves are pretty low-key, I have a fantastic Korean teacher helping me out, and we get to have snacks during movie time every day! Planning the camp was plenty of work up front, but I’m pretty much sailing through now. Only two days left!

On Saturday I’m heading to Thailand and Malaysia for my allotted winter vacation days. I am eagerly anticipating the summer weather with every fiber of my frozen being. The difference between the cold here and the cold back home is not as much that it’s below freezing and snowy the majority of the time, but more that back home, when you go inside, it’s actually warm. Anywhere you go indoors. It’s pretty much a given. Here, not so much. There are days that I do not feel truly warm until I get home, crank up the heat and flatten myself against my ondol floor like a squirrel licking a brick in a walkway at Elon University. I also really miss having a bathtub. A hot bath would be an excellent way to thaw out after an entire day spent wrapped in my poufy coat, trying to warm my icy fingers and toes. I guess I could go sit in a jimjilbang, but the other patrons would likely disapprove of my wine, tea candles and book, and there’s no way I could afford enough bath salts to make the entire communal bath smell of lavender. So, the ondol and I are great friends.

Also in recent days, my attention has turned from crazies in North Korea to crazies back home. It seems that, periodically, the U.S. must be challenged by the realization of some of our deepest fears. Our response to this tragedy, our following discourse, the choices and changes we make together as a country and as a community, will be telling of who we have become. We had a chance to follow the path of compassion and courage after September 11, 2001. In my opinion, we chose a different road. I pray that, this time, we live up to the high ideals on which our country was founded – those of respect for individuals and individual liberties alike – rather than fear and scapegoating. May love and peace prevail, at home and abroad.

Two posts in one day!

I know, I know, but try to stay in your seat. I figure you’ve all got extra time on your hands with the Christmas/New Year’s vacation and all, so here’s some extra reading material.

There are few good things about not being home for Christmas, but one of them is that I don’t have to fight the traffic barreling down I-81, cowering in my tiny Civic between ever-present pairs of 18-wheelers. Admittedly, crossing the road in front of the Home Plus to get to the Christmas party that I am attending may well be a harrowing experience, as is crossing any road in Korea (never assume you have the right of way as a pedestrian), but that should only take 5-10 minutes as opposed to 7+ hours.

Christmas cheer at the Nutcracker

Christmas in Korea, while it is commonly observed, is not nearly the huge holiday that it is in the West. It’s a religious holiday for those who are religious, but the secular angle is not nearly as played up as it is back home. Mostly, Christmas Eve is like Valentines Day – a big date night when you hope it snows not because you’re dreaming of a white Christmas, but because the first snow of the year in Korea is thought to bring new love with it. So, in order to fill the void of family and warm fuzzies, we waygooks had to make our own Christmas cheer. For me, these activities included making 12 dozen Jack-Daniels-because-I-couldn’t-find-bourbon balls with the help of a green but promising Irish baker; helping to raise 670k won for the family of a migrant worker through a caroling session downtown (ok, so raising money was just gravy – I love caroling, especially with jingly antlers!); and attending a very Korean performance of the Nutcracker by the Gwangju city ballet company. The sentimentality of simply attending the Nutcracker at Christmas – and the fun of introducing the uninitiated to such a ritual – were quite enjoyable. However, the meat on a stick at concessions, what looked for all the world to me like a giant Tigger on stage during the party scene, the appearance of a tie-dyed flag and countless other features of the performance that were just slightly off all served to remind me approximately every 5 minutes that I was, in fact, still in Korea, Tchaikovsky or no. In anticipation of this, my group decided to class it up. Instead of purchasing an overpriced cup of mulled wine at intermission (there was none to be had anyway), we snuck in homemade eggnog and noshed on Christmas cookies during the performance. As a former usher, I was mortified at first, but since the Korean ballet is apparently an usher-less affair, I quickly relaxed.

In non-Christmas-related news, I enjoyed a nice day trip with……

…..Ok, I don’t know why I’ve danced around the subject for so long, especially since a good number of you probably already know that I now have a boyfriend. [Insert sigh of relief from the entire Korean community. Another case of the singles, cured!] As do all of my students, who have reported back to my co-teachers that Caity Teacher’s boyfriend (whom they’ve seen with me on the street) is handsome and that, therefore, they approve. His name is Paul; he’s from Ireland; and yes, he’s very handsome. Now you officially know and I can refer to him by his name and quit coming up with ways to work around his existence when I write my posts.

So, I enjoyed a nice outing to Namwon with some of Paul’s high school students a few Saturdays back. A group of them attend school on scholarship and live at the school like boarding students. Paul occasionally takes them on day trips to practice their English and expand their knowledge of their own country. (Koreans travel surprisingly little around Korea, despite its small size. I’m pretty sure I’ve already seen more of the country than a large portion of the teachers who’ve lived here their entire lives.) He gets to bring other Native English Teachers with him as co-chaperons, and we all end up with a bit more cash in our pockets and a bit more sight-seeing under our belts. Namwon is a village known as the setting of the famous love story of Chunhyangga. In a nutshell: Nobleman and woman of low birth fall in love and are secretly married; nobleman is transferred to Seoul; woman is taken as a wife by the mayor of Namwon but remains loyal to the nobleman; nobleman, having gained more power, returns to claim the woman and publicly takes her back to Seoul as his wife. A much nicer ending than Romeo & Juliet. We visited two lovely sets of gardens with love, of course, as their theme. Appropriately, this was the first time that any of Paul’s students had seen me, so I was also part of the love-themed entertainment. They were damn good students, though, and even the girls who have crushes on Paul caved and said nice things to or about me by the end of the day.

That trip began what I shall refer to as Caity Teacher’s Grand Week of Korean Cultural Experiences (Part I, as I hope there will be more to come). Final exams meant that classes were over after lunchtime, so the week began with a trip to a grade 2 teacher’s house outside the city. I had never been in any Korean home, but I understand that the vast majority of people in the cities, including fairly well-off and well-established families, live in apartments. So it was also a treat for the other teachers to have a change of scenery. We had tea and snacks, complete with three different kinds of persimmons – green, ripe and dried, all remarkably different in taste and texture. I spent about 3 hours sitting on the floor, picking out the occasional word that I knew from the lively Korean conversation going on around me, and enjoying the fruits of the special chestnut-roasting drawer in the wood stove that was heating the pipes under the floor. My legs were asleep and my ass was sore, but surely I’ll never get used to it without practice. The home itself is newly built, covered in what looked to me like stucco (very unusual in Korea), and models a strange fusion of West Coast USA-Spanish Mission and Asian styles. In true Korean fashion, there was next to no furniture except for cushions and low tables (they always sit on the floor), and the kitchen had no oven. Now I understand why my apartment came so sparsely furnished. On another afternoon, we had a teachers’ activity in which we made our own natural moisture cream while being lectured on the benefits of aromatherapy and how it’s replacing doctors in developed countries (??).

You may have wondered to yourself in the above paragraph just how much Korean I can understand these days. Well, folks, I can understand as much as a person who has diligently studied (ha!) for 48 hours worth of Korean language course credit at the prestigious Chonnam National University. I can now say many useful things, such as고양이가 어디에 있어요?(Where is the cat?) and 앤나씨 도서관사에 공부 하고 있어요. (Anna is studying at the library.) We wrapped up last night, and presented our course instructor (who is probably the awesomest Korean teacher EVER) with this little gem as a Christmas/thank you gift. This was honestly one of the most difficult subjects I have ever studied, probably not any less so because I haven’t taken a real class in 5 years. But I attended every session, I actually passed, and I am quite proud of me.

And in my final bow to Korean culture this month, I caved under the pressure to wear a coat indoors. In my Western mind, coats are for outdoors, hallways should be heated, and windows should NEVER be opened in the winter. When the other teachers asked me if I was cold and why I didn’t wear a coat, I firmly told them that where I come from, our mothers make us take off our coats when we come inside. But after weeks of seeing my breath in the restroom, scurrying down the frigid hallways between my classroom and the office, and enduring frozen fingers and toes while an arctic wind blasts through the windows at cleaning time (“Air must be presh-ee!”), I decided that it might be better to walk around the school in my down coat looking like the Michelin Man. At least my core is now warm, if not my hands and feet.

For those of you still worried, I have one more thing to say: Not surprisingly, Kim Jong-Crazy's bark is worse than his bite.

That’s it; that’s all I’ve got to say this time. Merry (or Happy) Christmas to all! I wonder if the Land of Morning Calm is still calm on Christmas morning?

Merry Christmas!

즐거운 크리쓰마쓰!

 From Korea (and Caity Teacher and her friends)

A month of catching up

First, we’re all still alive down here in Gwangju, and aside from the few who were killed in Yeonpyeong, so is pretty much everyone else in Korea. Kim Jong Crazy still has his thumb above the button, not on it, and despite the tough talk, everyone seems to be exercising some measure of restraint. My students got over it a few days later, and there’s been little talk of it since, except on the news. Pray it stays that way.

So, a rundown of what I’ve been up to recently (and not-so-recently, you know, because I’m behind):

Nov. 6  Went hiking up Mudeung Mountain. I would like to say that I hung back with the kids who were getting over a cold because I was being nice and wanted to make sure they were ok. In reality, I just couldn’t hack that hike. I will be back to conquer you later, mountain.

Nov. 7  Visited the Biennale on the final day before it closed until the next one in 2012. Apparently the one here in Gwangju was Asia’s first contemporary art biennale. Interesting and surprisingly edgy stuff. One exhibit included front pages from newspapers published around the world on Sept. 12, 2001. Fascinating to see the varying international coverage.

Nov. 11  Veterans’ Day, also know in Korea as Pepero Day. Americans commemorate the end of World War I (Tom Nelson, if you’re reading this, I still remember that trench you made us dig) and thank the veterans who have fought to protect us. Koreans swap boxes of stick-shaped cookies dipped in chocolate because, um, 11/11 looks like four sticks of the stuff. And we complain about Valentine’s Day being created by the card companies! Also, my president was in Seoul for the G-20 summit. I watched him on TV.

Nov. 23  Giant box of Christmas goodness, including the necessary ingredients for pumpkin pie, arrived at my desk. And there was much rejoicing.

Nov. 25  Thanksgiving Day. Went to school; taught my students about Thanksgiving, complete with the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Special. Went to Korean class; struggled. Yep, that’s pretty much it. They don’t do turkeys in Korea. Unless you’re really dedicated and have an oven and other such bourgeois contraptions. I am not and do not.

Nov. 26  Accepted that I was coming down with a cold. Also, decorated the apartment for Christmas.

Nov. 30  Box of cheese arrived from home. I now have sharp cheddar, haloumi, havarti with dill, and edam. My refrigerator is complete.

Dec. 1  Following much urging from all of the Koreans around me, I finally gave in and went to the doctor. He gave me a shot in the ass and mystery miracle pills. I felt worlds better. This is why Koreans don’t take sick days – why would you stay home and be miserable when you could go to the doctor and get a string of medication for less than 5 USD that makes you feel as healthy as a strung-out horse?

Yay for kebabs!

Dec. 3-5  A large crew from Gwangju piled on a bus and headed to Seoul for a fantabulous Western-style Christmas dinner. I had resolved not to eat a bite of Korean food the entire weekend, and I succeeded. Beginning with dinner on Friday, I ate Chinese food, greasy bar food, a total of three kebabs (the Turkish version of gyros), waffles, a full and proper Christmas dinner (TURKEY!!!), Italian food, and a roasted veggie sandwich. We also finished up our Christmas shopping and did some drinking and dancing. We love Seoul; we will be back.

On a more informative note, it’s hard to believe that such a vibrant, modern metropolitan city is just 30 miles from the flailing economy, starving population, extremely restrictive censorship and general backwardness of North Korea. It’s also surprising just how different Seoul is from Busan, the second largest city, let alone from Gwangju and other cities I’ve visited in the south of the country. It just has an entirely different feel to it. If you’re at all interested, this is a fantastic article on Seoul’s rising.

Dec. 6  Pictures from Seoul were posted on Facebook. I resolved to buy a scale and eat more Korean (read: healthy and super low-cal) food. Just because I know where to find Western food now doesn’t mean I should be eating it all the time. Maybe start exercising? Nah…..

Dec. 7  Today I finally figured out what it is that I’ve been drinking LOADS of in school every day since the weather turned cold: Solomon’s Seal tea. Apparently it’s good for sports injuries, broken bones, gastrointestinal issues, menopause, PMS, blood pressure, coughing and mental clarity. Just call me Super Woman.