Seoul Weekend With Madeleine

We (Ty, Zach, Alex and I) headed up to Seoul to meet up with Madeleine who was visiting me from La Pocatiere (well, now she lives in Quebec), and to see our friend Kristen who had returned to Korea after 8 months in Canada.

Friday night was an evening to explore the Hongdae area of Seoul - university nightlife and restaurants and such.

Alex, Zach, Madeleine, Kristen, Hyun-joong

Figuring that Madeleine had three weeks to enjoy Korean cuisine, we ate at a Mexican restaurant before heading out to a few places for drinks. We ended up in what felt like a higher end bar than what we're used to, and it was great to catch up on news from home with Madeleine (it also occurred to me just how homesick I must have been lately for friends from home....)

Alex, Zach, Madeleine, Me, Ty outside the "Ho Bar"

We didn't stay out too late though, because we had a full day planned on Saturday. First, we headed to Gyeongbokgung (an old royal palace).

Madeleine with a royal guard

We were quite happily posing with the palace guards when we noticed that there were costumes to dress up in and have our pictures taken (for FREE!)...

Aren't we hot?

...at which point we went a bit insane with the "Choson's Next Top Model" poses.

Me and Jongwon at Gyeongbokgung

Madeleine's excellent photo of the lake pagoda

From there, we hit the rest of the palace, including the "pagoda in the lake" and statues of our Chinese zodiac animals (Mom, you should recognize these from your visit).

The Rabbit and The Tiger

The Monkey

The Puppydog!

We spent at least an hour in the Folk Museum, which was probably the best Korean museum I have seen so far.

Madeleine with riot police.... she saw a lot of things that day!

We started off to Insadong, and were surprised to see busloads of riot police getting ready. We figured that they were probably getting ready for yet another misguided anti-American beef protest - the protests have now been generalized to anti-Lee Myeong-bak (Korea's president) protests - and we were right.

The protesters filled the street, and stretched back for blocks.... maybe a few thousand people

After walking down the street, we were faced with an entire street-full of protesters marching along. The boys ended up going out to see what all the hype was about and checking out the media circus of Korean protests.

Wait... I've forgotten Insadong... anyway.... Before we saw the protesters, we went to Insadong to show Madeleine some of the more traditional gifts to be found in Korea. After a really excellent traditional Korean meal, we shopped our way along the street until we found the Old Tea Shop - a great tea place with live birds flying around.

Madeleine in the tea shop

Our teas

Birds behind Alex

After we left, this bird came along to eat our leftovers

I've been there before with Nicola and with Ty, and it's such a unique place to visit.

Protesting China's policy on North Korean refugees
(they send them back to North Korea where they are persecuted, instead of sending them to South Korea where they will be repatriated as citizens)

Later that evening, we met up with Kristen again for supper in Itaewon at the Moroccan restaurant (Yes Mom, the same place, but they've expanded and it's great), then out for a beer before fatigue from a full day of walking and sight-seeing got the better of us.

On Sunday, we went back to Itaewon to eat breakfast and shop before grabbing the KTX back to Mokpo.

Yes, Madeleine is sending postcards to her friends...

It was a very full weekend, full of a variety of experiences, and a great introduction to Korea for Madeleine. Tomorrow, she will come to my school and we will teach my students a few words of French. Yup... I'll take tons of pictures of that too.

Obligatory couple shot

Off to Seoul.... and a bit of food for the Soul.

We're off to Seoul to get Madeleine this afternoon! We'll come back on Sunday, and I'll be uploading tons of photos...

I rarely post links on my blog that don't have anything to do with my life in Korea, but I really feel the need to get this out there. I hope you take the time to follow this link and look at the whole presentation. The use of women in advertising has always been something interesting for me, ever since a school project in Grade 11 (I went on to do a school project on the "No means no" law, then took a few women's lit and women's studies courses in university, and was quite happy to integrate ad images and women's rights into classes when I was at an all-girls' high school), and even as I have been just as guilty as everyone else of buying into the hype (I don't want to be thinner, I just think I'd like to be a foot or so taller, okay?).

One great thing about being in Korea is being (almost) immune to the advertising. My physical self is so different from that of a Korean woman, and the fashions are so ridiculous (puffy shorts with stilettos in the middle of winter, anybody?) that I am quite enjoying living outside of the realm of advertisers who are trying to get these women to hate their skin colour (LOTS of skin bleaching happening here) or the natural shape of their eyes (a ridiculous percentage of women here have had eyelid surgery to get folding Western-style eyelids).

Not understanding the language also lessens the impact.... so what happens when a kind soul subtitles the newest Korean pop sensation? As you watch this, and before you start perving over "hot young Asian girls", keep in mind that two of these girls are 15 (the others are 17/18 - or 19 by Korean age).

Click here to go to youtube.com for the video.

In their first video, the Wonder Girls did a take off on Wonder Woman (I had a Wonder Woman towel when I was 4, maybe that's when the feminism started....), fighting their way through a video where they took on bad drivers, perverted old men and jerk-store high school boys. Here's that video.



Hmm, hope all that is enough to keep you amused for the weekend!

See you Monday.

And so it goes, and so it goes, and so will you soon I suppose

Although there is a constant stream of people arriving and leaving Korea, there are certain times when it just feels like everyone is up and leaving... You're constantly saying goodbye to this or that person, while you rifle through their stuff and decide whether or not to claim their spices, or hair conditioner, or book, or whatever.

In some cases, it might be someone you barely know. A Facebook acquaintance who you randomly bumped into on the odd night out.

Sometimes, however, it is someone that you have gotten to know as a person. Someone who has been a part of your reality for 2 years. Someone who you have traveled with (with whom you have traveled, Meron) - either around the block or to a different country.

Sometimes, they are tricksy little Hobbitses, and come back for another year, meaning that you get to say goodbye to them all over again (Jen).

I had my first big gaggle of goodbyes in April 2007. It was hard to be left and to leave, but just over a year later, it's nice to know that so many of those people are still in touch with me (either through my blog, Facebook or the odd e-mail). It's also great to know that they've all gone on to fulfill their personal dreams of completing another degree, falling in love, buying a house etc. Yes, there is a life after Korea.

My next flurry of farewells has already started, with Jen, Carol and JP all having left recently, followed by Monique tomorrow, then Jessica and Nicola in August (but we'll be on vacation, so I will have to say my goodbyes in July)....

Of the original people who I befriended way back in Suncheon in 2006, precious few folks are left (some of them - like Steve and Stu - have left Korea, but with plans to return). Does this constant turnover make it harder and harder to befriend people? You bet! I mean, really, most people who come here do it for one or two years... which is, unfortunately, enough time to get to know and like someone, and to build up a true friendship, and then watch it dissolve through distance. Is it hard to say goodbye to people every month? Hell, yeah.

Another odd thing about this whole experience is how much stuff we end up with (probably from frequent "vulturings" of our friends' possessions on the night before they fly out and they are desperate to get rid of everything), especially since our apartments tend to be on the small side.

Airlines are getting a lot more restrictive on baggage weight and limits, meaning that when I eventually leave, I may need to pare it all down to *gasp* one suitcase..... which will represent everything I own. Consider that for a moment. And before you shrug and say, "But it's just stuff...", look around your room, your 3-bedroom house, even just your living room. Think of what you have in your basement, the accumulations of years. And now pare it down to what you could fit in one suitcase. And consider that I already pretty much gave away everything I owned 2 years ago before I moved and now, in my one-bedroom apartment filled with school-provided furniture, I already don't have very much (and yet, somehow, I still have too much), and soon, I will end up with even less. Hmmm, re-read that sentence. It might make more sense.

I'm trying to work on the way that I think about what I have... articles like this one are helping a bit.

Two years ago, I proclaimed loudly to anyone who would listen that I would not be rich with money, but rich with friends and experiences.

So far, it seems, so good.

Countdown....

Madeleine arrives in ONE WEEK.

Summer vacation starts in ONE MONTH.

I'll be in Europe in about SIX WEEKS.

... and it's really humid and rainy all the time.

Suncheon Weekend BBQ

Right, so I brought my camera, but didn't take it out... so no photos! :(

On Saturday morning, I went up to Suncheon for a BBQ and to visit Nina. The bus ride started off annoyingly, with a woman who stared at me, read over my shoulder, and tried to engage me in broken English conversation ("Where is go?"), then fell asleep on my shoulder! Agggggh!

Nina picked me up from the bus station and we headed to Homeplus, where I saw one of my old students from 2 years ago working there. It was nice to be recognized by a kid who last saw me over a year ago -- he's not the first former student I've seen. A few months ago, some girls recognized me in the Gwangju bus terminal and we all posed for pictures - fun.

In preparation for the BBQ, hosted by Chris and Melissa (I used to work with Melissa), Nina and I raided her fridge and cupboards and made pies (lemon meringue* and chocolate cream), bruschetta and salmon in foil.

Chris had also made tons of food, and had invited his TaeKwonDo boys over too - a bunch of little grade school boys, running around and squealing -- apparently, they had shown up at his place at 9am, but he told them to come back at 5pm. They were cool, though. Nina taught them how to make bruschetta, and we introduced them to the concept of a hotdog in a bun with condiments.

Anyway, the BBQ was awesome - lots of food and great conversation. I especially enjoyed myself because just about every person who was there had been in Korea for ages - it was "Old Skool Suncheon", with a few new faces, but mostly a nice reconnection with old friends.

*Yes, this is the proper spelling, even though it looks weird. Also, Nina and I learned to read and follow the directions before attempting to make meringue, since it's really hard to do...

An interesting discussion

Last night, a group of us gathered together in a cafe for our traditional Wednesday night French Night. We generally start out in French, and peter off until we're all just speaking English anyway.

Last night, there were about 10 of us, from many different countries, with different Korean teaching experiences (high school, middle school, university, hogwan). Some people had been here for 2 years, some for only a few months or weeks - but somehow we were all unified -- by our disbelief that the supposed non-issue of Mad Cow in American beef (of which there was one case 5 years ago, and no reported cases at all in Korea, so why are they even protesting?) had led to violent clashes involving police, people setting themselves on fire (!!), and may end up costing a few government officials their jobs. Some of us are feeling the xenophobia more than others, some even using this as a reason to leave sooner rather than later. As for me, this is an example of Korean groupthink at its worst, where a non-factual newspaper article snowballed into a nationalistic uprising.... Have you heard the latest.... that the US government is selling poisoned beef in Korean school cafeterias? The worst part is that there are people here who seriously believe it - or seem to anyway, since they can't argue against it without appearing un-patriotic and un-Korean.

When do you cease to tolerate the differences around you? How do you aim your moral compass?

In Canada, and in many other countries, we strive (we may not always succeed, but we try anyway) to make an inclusive society. We accept others' differences and do our best not
to offend - to the point of changing certain aspects of our own culture (Like using "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". Dude, I celebrate Christmas, and if I can wish my Jewish friends a Happy Chanukah, I'm sure they are not morally outraged when I dare wish my family a Merry Christmas on December 25). We are also quite outspoken about cases of racism or culture clash.... generally arguing *for* the other culture's rights to simply BE a part of Canada.

Where am I going with this?

One of my best friends here, let's call him X, arrived in Korea two years ago. Over the years, I've watched him become an exceptional and caring teacher. He knows his students' names, his lesson plans are dynamic and interesting. He has worked really hard to learn Korean, sometimes chastising for my lack of Korean vocabulary. He is dating a Korean. He dresses in wicked cool Korean style (except for that neon pink and yellow "Best Friend Good!" shirt he wore last night). He's not (as a few of us are wont to do) cheated his school on vacation time, or made un-necessary demands on them.

Last week, X found out that even though his school thinks he is an excellent and diligent teacher, they do not want him to return next year. Why? Because he is "not open to Korean culture". And what is this all about? X has protested - for the wellbeing of his students, mind you - against excessive use of corporal punishment in his school. He finds it hypocritical that students are punished for arriving late or sleeping in class by teachers who are even less punctual than the kids. He finds it confusing that teachers may smoke *inside* the school while punishing students for smoking *outside* the school. He wonders if classtime might not be better spent on lesson plans and actual learning than 13 full minutes of beatings with a metal golf club handle.

When he raises these points, he is told that he "doesn't understand Korean culture".

And this makes me angry. Every time we find something repugnant, the excuse given by Koreans for why we (foreigners) don't like (or will never understand) explicit racism, beating dogs, excessive corporal punishment, eating live octopus, or mass sexism is always "It's Korean culture". Why don't they ever tell us that some of the awesome things here are "Korean culture"??

(To clarify, I am NOT dissing Korean culture at all... I am pointing out that saying "It's Korean culture" is used to excuse certain behaviours that are, excuse me, rather awful no matter what country you live in, or where you are from. )

I think what I have on my mind these days is definitely when I will leave here. I do love my school, my students, my teachers. I love where I live, and the people in my neighbourhood. There's an old man who says Hi to us every time we pass him. There are old ladies who wave at me because they know I teach their grandchildren. The two closest convenience store owners know exactly what we want as soon as we go in. And yet, it seems that these days, I just can't wait to leave.

Another year... just another year, and then I'll leave here and (probably) never ever come back.

Gyeongju

This is a long one, go get yourself a cup of tea before you sit down to read.

As much as I have been complaining about Korea lately (and trust me, I have been), there are some really nice 3-day weekends here. Coupled with the ease of transportation (hop on a bus for $20 and cross the entire country in 5 hours or so), it's nice to be able to wander about the country and always find new things.

This past weekend, Ty and I went to Gyeongju, the ancient capital of the Shilla Dynasty in Korea - this would have been back in the day when Korea was made up of 3 different regions, and I think the Shilla one kind of conquered everyone else... hmmm, not sure - going back something like 1200 years. In some cases, we were looking at things that pre-dated a lot of buildings that can be found in Europe, and even older than Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

Gyeongju has been a popular tourist destination for Koreans for decades. It's also a pretty popular place to visit for Chinese, Japanese and other foreign tourists. This means that, for example, you can go to the tourist information booth and ask for information, and actually get information, and it's all correct and everything. If you think that isn't a big deal, you haven't tried to find your way around Gwangju or something... but I digress.

The Lonely Planet calls Gyeongju an "open-air museum", and it is. Walking down the street, you may end up strolling past an ancient tomb, or maybe even an 8th century structure.... quite incredible.

We started off on Friday afternoon, found a hotel (this one had a glass wall between the sleeping area and the bathroom... apparently so you can watch your love do their business or something... we kept the blinds on that window closed the whole time) and headed to the main tomb park of Daereungwon.

Daereungwon

There were hundreds of people wandering about, and a very long line-up for the one tomb (Cheonmachong) that you can actually walk through to see a cross-section of the burial mound. We decided to simply walk along the path between the enormous mounds of grass, constructed in a way that made it nearly impossible for them to be looted or excavated without caving in around the would-be graverobber. Pretty cool.

Just past Daereungwon (after a detour through a pretty garden with horse statues), we found ourselves in a field of kite fliers.

Our personalized kite

Flying kites, with tombs in the background

For about $4, we were able to buy a paper kite, that was personalized with Chinese characters and our names in Korean and a roll of kite string AND a guy even got it off the ground for us. Really neat and lots of fun to be flying a kite next to a collection of tombs.

A collection of tomb mounds.
The round stones in the foreground mark where pillars for temples would have been.

Anapji Pond

We continued on, looking for the Anapji pond, which was the King's entertainment place back in the day. Along the way, we passed a field with (I counted them) 57 old ladies (ajummas) crouched down scratching at the soil with short-handled hoes. We took the opportunity to have a bit of fun:

Our plans to continue on to an atypically designed 7th century temple were thwarted by fatigue and hunger (and a damn long walk), so we grabbed some supper and backtracked our way through to Daereungwon again. This time, it was nighttime, with few lights and even fewer people. Kind of eerie. We found the Cheonma tomb again and, this time, with no line up, were able to go in and check out the ancient royal burial methods with the whole place to ourselves. Very nice.

On Saturday, we ended up at Bomun Lake (#10 bus, across from the Express Bus Terminal, W1,500. Return to Gyeongju on the #11 bus), which is a grand sort of tourist resort dominated by luxury hotels. It's quite family oriented, and the thing to do seemed to be renting bikes and following the paths around the (artificial) lake.

Our bikes at Bomun Lake

It was a great way to see the area and, ahem, get lost and end up breaking into the World Expo Centre (the security guards were very nice to us, however). Plans to do some of the fun things like Millenium Land or Gyeongju World (both amusement park type things, the first one is more about Korean history, the 2nd about roller coasters) were thwarted by sky-high prices.

Our cheesy swan paddleboat

Instead, we wandered around a small garden, then went all cheesy and rented a swan-shaped paddle boat. Finally, we found ourselves at the Contemporary Art Museum, where we spent a full half hour enjoying an abstract art installation.

We returned to Gyeongju, slightly exhausted from all the exercise, but headed out again. We wanted to have a quiet moonlit picnic by Anapji pond...

A rock concert??? Wow.

but were pleasantly surprised to find that Anapji was the site of a rock concert and a fireworks show. Once the music ended and everyone got up and left, we walked around and tried to get a few night shots of the lit-up pagodas reflected in the still water of the pond.

Pagodas and trees at Anapji Pond

Our weekend wasn't over yet... and I'm even leaving out things like what we ate (always quite good), randoms, a million lotus ponds, antique stores, and getting lost repeatedly (in lotus ponds).

Really wanting to see the east coast, on Sunday morning we grabbed a bus (#150, from across from the Express Bus Terminal, W1,500) to King Munmu's Underwater Tomb.

King Munmu's Underwater Tomb

Legend has it that this King Munmu was buried under a rock formation in the ocean so that he could come back as a dragon. Apparently it worked, and he managed to destroy a Japanese ship that was trying to steal a giant bronze bell from Gyeongju.

Tyrone "I can skip bricks" Fowler in action on the pebble beach

Sitting on rocks.
(just pretend my eyes are fully open in that one picture, okay?)

At any rate, this beach is filthy and sacred. There is litter everywhere, and groups of people either fishing, running around (like normal kids on a beach), or performing Shamanistic/Buddhist ceremonies.

These ladies are beating drums and chanting, then throwing coins into the ocean...

There were groups of women everywhere, drumming and chanting and, as we sat on some rocks and gazed at the water, several came to the water's edge to bow and throw coins or rice cake into the sea (the bottom of the sea is a great place for rice cake, methinks....).

Where to throw your "delicious" rice cakes
(instead of smacking your lips together as you chew with your mouth open in the staff room)

As we were leaving, we watched a monk lead a group of a dozen people along for some kind of... baptism? Who knows....

Not sure what is happening, but they are all facing King Munmu's grave

This whole trip, besides being a long-weekend of exploration (even though we only saw a sliver of what Gyeongju has to offer) was also a celebration of 10 months together. It doesn't seem like that long, and yet we have done so much since we first met last August.

Woooo... 10 months!

I suppose I should thank you for reading this far, dear Reader, and I hope that your tea hasn't gone cold.

A Day at the Beach

One good thing about living in Mokpo is being able to hop on a ferry and head to a beach. On Sunday, my friend Candace (and her friend Christine, who was visiting from the US) came from Gwangju for the day.

It ended up being a nice day of sun, beach, beer, guitar, reading trashy magazines, correcting students' papers (for Candace and Christine), and general chilling out.

Camille, Christine, Candace and I

Teachers of the year, using bricks to keep the tests from flying away

Cheesy romantic self-cam

Model shot

Camille chills out under the pagoda

What's the beef?

I'm not sure how the Western media might be treating this, but there have been protests across Korea over the importing of US beef. A month ago, I noticed a lot of images of "fallen cows" and such on the Korean news. Not understanding what was being said or written on the screen, I spoke to a few of my friends here. Even I believed that there was something going on with US beef. But no, the images that were being shown were from 5 years ago. Over the past few weeks, there have been protests (we saw one in Gwangju) and a candlelight vigil of some sort in Seoul (we saw people with similar candles in Mokpo too).


A bit of background info from Ty, who has been doing more research into this than I have:

Here's a bit of added info. Korea started importing beef from the US in the 70's. It was first banned after it was discovered in 2003 that a single cow in the States was carrying the disease. This was a precautionary measure, which is a sensible move. What was not widely circulated in the Korean press was that a )only this single case was discovered, and it never spread from there, and b) the cow was Canadian born.

Finally shipments of US beef started again in April 2007. The beef was regulated so that only the meat could be imported (no offal, nerves or bones) The reasoning behind this is sound. Parts other than the meat are way more likely to be carriers of BSE, and other bovine diseases. So again as a country trying to minimise risks this is sensible.

The problem is that amongst the general populace, very little was known except that the government had banned "bad" US beef. Very few were in a position to understand why imports were ever resumed. So when earlier this year imports were once again suspended due to vertebrae being found in a shipment, the public was in a very receptive mindset. In fact in a perfect mindset for MBC to run a madcow spin on the story. For the public to eat it up.

MBC is a media group which supports the liberal government and has been criticized in the past for running heavily skewed politically biased stories. They (MBC) were immediately called down by other media groups for running the madcow story and have since published a retraction of the story. But as with all sensationalist media, the page 10 retractions and quiet non-headline corrections are largely ignored by the masses.

Now, while the media is bringing all this to our attention, and spurring the masses into a frenzy over beef, there isn't much mention being made about Avian Flu. There are cases that have been reported throughout Korea, with at least one death in Naju (which is about 30 minutes from Mokpo), and a mass cull in Busan.... this website mentions that there has been no human infection as of yet, which contradicts other reports. The same website mentions that the government is allocating more funding towards, you guessed it, research into the dangers of mad cow instead of the very real threat of bird flu.