Asia odyssey

new adventures

2009-08-03T01:09:00.004+09:00

So 9 months later, I'm back with a new round of big updates.

First, a bit of catch-up: For the past year and some change, I've been working in the Daegu Center of Wall Street Institute, and I've been fortunate to have some great opportunities to build my job experience, awesome co-workers throughout the whole company, wonderful students, a perfect location in Daegu and a great little apartment within walking distance of work and downtown. There have been sizable challenges (mostly when the company went through a rough economic patch with layoffs), but overall it's been a great year and it was a really wonderful step in my life and career.

During that time, I also did a lot of soul-searching and research for future career paths, and finally settled on a plan to go back to school and work toward a career in international education development. I will at least eventually work in developing countries, and possibly I'll start out that way, but have to weigh several considerations (jobs, money, locations) in timing that.

My grad school plans went appeared to go awry when I bombed part of the GRE, but amazingly my top pick, George Washington University in D.C., took me anyway (as did American University, and I even got waitlisted at Georgetown - who knew?).

And on a most fortunate Friday the 13th almost six months ago, I fell for a friend who's since become an amazing part of my life. He's a 33-year-old Korean pharmacist in Daejon, a city a couple hours from here, and well ... just a really great guy who makes me silly happy. And as a bonus, his family is awesome, too. :)

A combination of funding considerations, grad school prerequisites and wanting to stick around with InSoo awhile longer led me to defer my admission by a year. But needing to seriously study Korean for both grad school and personal goals, and wanting to be closer to to my guy, meant giving up Daegu and my current job. So I managed to hook a university job in Seoul that will allow me to study and work simultaneously (and take a nice, long trip home over winter vacation!), and now I'm off to the big city for a year.

Leaving is bittersweet, but I know I will keep many of my good friends here and I'm excited about what's ahead. (And I lucked into a huge apartment with a great roof for dinner parties and lots of extra space for guests, so there will be plenty of incentive for visitors. Hint, hint.)

So ... yeah. That's pretty much the wrap. I don't know if I'll be updating this often again or what, but felt like I should at least post a note of major changes. Although I'm not so hot on the blogging these days (things have sort of settled into regular life rather than exotic notes of interest), I do think about all you out there in the real world and enjoy connecting with you on Facebook and other cyberspace places.

Living around the world for an extended time creates the problem of always being far from those you care about, no matter which country you're in. But it's a pretty amazing opportunity and lets us all know so much more of the world vicariously. And hopefully I'll see a bunch of you American batch in January or so when I'm back for a visit - probably with InSoo.

Love to all and keep in touch!
-K

some cute Konglish

2008-11-29T02:18:00.012+09:00

A student today gave me my favorite bit of Konglish to date: "dog happy," "dog excited" and "dog hungry" - he had just learned "dog tired" and thought it could be expounded into any adjective form (and why not, I say?). I think I'm going to make it my personal mission to infect several people's slang with this one.

Another good one I ran into today: "Thank you, Mr. Weiss. Everyone please give him big hands." (How the heck is one hand, however big it is, supposed to help you clap, anyway? Ever thought about it?)

of honest toast

2008-11-18T22:51:00.010+09:00

Every so often, I stop by a "toast" shop near work for a still-strange, yet occasionally appealing Korean version of a toasted sandwich. It's this odd mix of veggies fried into an egg square, honey-based sauce and American cheese on toast, and I can't exactly call it good, but sometimes it fits the bill.

Outside the walk-up window of the place, there's an open-top metal box with three spots for bills and two for coins. Inside, kerchiefed women flit and bustle around a couple grills and a small counter, and the system for getting something to go works like this: 1) call out your order, 2) place your money in the bins, and 3) wait for your "toast" to be handed over the grills to you.

It's a tidy system - the employees never touch filthy money. I'm not even sure they could reach from inside. Customers deposit their coins and bills - up to about 10 bucks - and collect their own change. Walnut-sized washers weigh down the stacks of paper money, and it's a happening joint - on a busy street right downtown, frequented by all ages of folks, especially teens and twentysomethings. The employees are kept hopping, and I often have to wait a couple minutes for one to turn around before I assiduously deposit my 1,400 won (about 95 cents, these days). I always make sure to have correct change; as the merely semi-literate foreigner, one learns how a little preparation can avoid all sorts of potential incomprehensible conversations. Though I think I needn't bother - I've never seen a Korean take such precautions, nor seen the toast ladies give anyone a second glance.

At any rate, every time I'm there, see that big wad of bills just hanging out in the teen-filled street with very little oversight, I get a little culture shocked all over again. "Only in Korea," invariably echoes in my head. Though I'm sure it's a naive line, the sentiment is true. Even coming from the "we don't lock our doors" Midwest, I'm shocked the system works. It's not a giant amount of cash, to be sure, but I'd be willing to bet there's a couple hundred bucks there on a good day.

I never realized crime was strange until I lived in a place without much to speak of. Sure it happens on occasion here, but petty theft is relatively rare and violent crime next to nonexistant. In fact, most police calls are to the army base vicinity, home of the proud U.S. military. The comfort and empowerment of living in such relatively a safe place makes me sad about the situation in my native country in a way I never expected.

Tonight at a busy coffeeshop downtown, a young woman left her purse, phone and MP3 player in the middle of the cafe while she went to the bathroom, then came back to collect her things and leave. The odder part was that I hardly even noticed.

But every day I see things like that money box on the street. I watch my students save study space with their laptops and nice cameras while they go out for lunch. I see shops and stands that leave a good deal of merchandise out on the street or hall when they close for the night, sometimes just draped with a sheet - occasionally not even that.

I walk by businessmen in nice suits with undoubtedly fat wallets who are out cold - sprawled out on the street, undisturbed and contentedly sleeping off the wild night before. I see young women walking solo at all dark hours through the sketchy parts of town. I shop at stores with cash registers far inside, where you have to walk past sometimes floors of merchandise to exit.

I've stared as mothers park sleeping babies in strollers outside shop doors downtown, then go about their business inside. For that matter, I've been handed strangers' children on buses while their parents fish for change.

I'm not saying these are particularly grand ideas, just that they must largely work, or the systems would change. And most of the time, still, it shocks me - the honesty of my current residence.

At least, that's the word I would have used before. But can it be defined with just that one word, "honesty"?

What about my 24-year-old Korean friend, following many of her fellow countrywomen and hiding her two-year relationship with her very nice young man because he doesn't yet have the proper job to make him marriageable? To her, it is more noble to hide the situation until the timing is right than to dishonor her parents by openly displaying the relationship. And for their part, her parents quite obviously turn a blind eye every time she goes out to meet "friends." In what apparently is somewhat of a custom, it will all be reconciled some joyous day when he lands the job, and the parents won't even question the years-long ruse. I would be skeptical except that I've seen it before.

What about the way you must respond, "Yes, thank you," to any of a dozen times daily you're asked if you've just eaten, no matter what the situation? It can roughly be equated to our "How are you?" - only say something contrary to the expected if you're prepared to go into a huge backstory and receive others' concern.

What about the hundreds of "love motels" populating this and every other city in Korea? What about the well-trafficked red light district across the way - one of a handful in town? Does it matter that most of the wives realize at least most of what's involved in executive business dealings? That society of all levels supports various forms of female "entertainment"? (It's in every country, sure, but definitely more entrenched and widespread here in Asia, home of the Japanese geisha.)

What about the unwritten edict in this Confucian society that, if it comes down to it, you should lie rather than make your seniors lose face?

These all seem to be the opposite side of the coin ... at least from a Western philosophy. And I'm still figuring out how they can be attached to the same thing.

I grew up thinking honesty was a simple concept. You either were honest, or a liar. Good, or bad. But living here, it seems that what I thought was one idea is more like a dozen. A culture code that's made up of related parts, but much more complex than just one word. I guess we all grow up thinking things are simple ... but I think had I stayed forever in the Midwest, I would still believe something close. And maybe that would have been easier. But then again, aren't we all searching for the honest truth ... ?

my new place

2008-05-18T07:40:00.008+09:00

So I just got my new apartment settled, and the location, setup and price are an absolute dream. A 10 to 15 minute walk to downtown/work (I had thought I would have to commute in), or if the weather's bad, it's two to five minutes to get to the subway and then one stop away and all indoors. And that subway stop next to my place is also one of the major train stations of the city, as well as a giant luxury department store with a basement grocery store, and there's tons of other shopping, eateries and cafes in the immediate area. And I'm paying only about 50 bucks a month - just over a fourth of what I'd expected to pitch in - to upgrade to a full one-bedroom, instead of a studio, where it would have been difficult to host the many local and perhaps couple international visitors I expect in the next year.

But that dream I'm getting is a pretty colorful one, including giant psychadelic pink flowers on the living room wall and other decor no less than three tones of orange, plus one of red. I'm finding the cheese factor and artistic challenge quite entertaining - a great trade for a one-year stint of otherwise great conditions ... thought you all would get a kick out of seeing the pictures (click here), too.

I move in late this week - new mailing address to come.

the jjimjilbang experience

2008-05-09T20:41:00.003+09:00

I finally made it to a traditional Korean spa this week - only 10 months into living here. Many Koreans go a couple times a week.

The spas (찜질방 - roughly "jjimjilbang" - in Korean, extra stress on the first J) come in different sizes and with different amenities, but they're basically sites where communities gather to scrub, soak, sleep, chat and chill out. They're roughly $5 to $10 to get in, and you can stay as long as you want - many feature sleeping rooms or mats for open floor space. The bathhouse areas - equipped of some assortment of hot tubs, showers, saunas and pools, are separated by gender and you go sans clothing. But other areas of saunas, open spaces, television, PC rooms, karaoke rooms and massage offerings are coed and you wear standard-issue gymsuits. There's a pretty good write-up here if you want more info.

I honestly didn't know much about them before, and I'd been a little hung up on the naked part of the venture - not really wanting to hang out there nekked by myself, fending off what I was sure would be 10 times the normal amount of stares you collect as a foreigner just walking around fully clothed, and feeling odd about being seen in my birthday suit by co-workers, who have been the only other easy option of companions. But being a short-timer at a job gives you immense freedom, and going to the jjimjilbang is turning into the thing everyone does, and maybe I'm just over it anyway ... I finally bit the bullet and just went. And it was totally fine - great, in fact.

Whole families turn out together - multiple generations hanging out chatting and escaping the often grueling pace of life outside. It's a quiet and friendly and bustling place all at once, a stronger sense of community than anywhere else I've seen in the country yet, and such a vastly different world than exists in Western culture.

And the naked part, well turns out that was quite alright, too. There are stares, but you're staring too, a little, and mostly it's just not a big deal. Everyone's got a body and they're all different and the same - and you just get over it. Like being in a swimteam locker room again, but with hordes of strangers from age 2 to 82. It's really healthy dose of reality for Western inhibitions, I think. Strange that it's in the same place where it's considered daring to bare your shoulders or collarbones in public, but whatever.

Anyway, if you come to Korea, get to the jjimjilbang quicker than I did. It's cool.

... and we're back

2008-05-04T22:46:00.006+09:00

Hi, everyone. I got beyond behind in posting here over the past couple months, but back now. The short of it is that I've been too self-absorbed to write anything of note - been trying to figure out job changes and life plans in general, and there was a really exciting period in which I thought I might have to leave the country and teach in Japan for the next year because of visa issues. But after considering many options, the final plan is to stay here in Daegu at a position teaching adults downtown, starting May 26.

I'm really excited to move back into civilization, and have another year here to enjoy this place and people I feel like I'm just starting to know. Not to mention work more on Korean. The next couple weeks will be a whirlwind, but it's a good thing and I'm on the countdown.

I'm planning a trip back to the States sometime this winter, and then I'll probably be coming back for grad school in fall of 2009, as I'm pretty sure I want to do this teaching thing for real - college-level languages/culture something. There won't be a whole lot of traveling this side of the world in the next year because of limited time off and budgeting priorities, but if I'm lucky I'll be able to swing a big trip next summer between work and school.

That's about the wrap right now. Thanks for all your well-wishes and I'll keep you (more frequently) posted. :)

something to nibble on

2008-02-18T22:11:00.005+09:00

So there I was, sitting in a cutesy Korean coffeeshop, with fish eating my feet.

It was the end of a typical weekend - the kind where I catch the first bus out and the last bus in and pack the day with various activities with friends in town. I had met one of my Korean friends downtown as she got off work for the evening, and she pulled out a booklet of advertisements to scan for coupons and places to go. We haltingly chatted in three languages with her Japanese co-worker about some of the shops, restaurants and spas in the book as she leafed through, and decided that we weren't all that hungry.

"Mmm, you want coffee and ... bread? This place has coffee, tea and bread," Yuni said, pointing to one of the pages. Her English is really pretty great, but there are plenty of times I miss what she's saying or only get part of it, and we hang out in part to trade language practice.

"Sure - sounds great," I shrugged, the ever-agreeable tourist. I wasn't quite sure what "bread" would turn out to be, but wherever my Korean friends want to go usually is great, so always happy to leave the decision-making up to them. Often, when you deal cross-cultures and cross-languages, you find yourself letting go of the small things and just seeing what happens - otherwise you'd be hammering out details for hours. She tore out the page and pocketed it, nodding.

We waved goodbye to the co-worker and ducked out into the cold night, then scuttled down a couple streets until we came to a nondescript set of stairs. Yuni pulled out the crumpled advertisement and consulted it a moment before scanning the signs plastered on the building.

"Here," she nodded.

We scurried up the stairs and through a door that opened into a warm, bright world buzzing with low conversations and smelling of tea and toast. Aproned staff bowed and greeted us, gesturing toward small tables surrounded by plush chairs in purple, green and gold. Bookshelves and faux trees were scattered among clusters of laughing young women. A few couples leaned close over steaming mugs, backlit by holiday lights and brick walls painted with foliage and shadows. It appeared to be pretty much the standard coffeeshop scene in Korea, with a bit of novel flair, and I was excited to have a potential new hangout downtown.

We set our stuff down and scoped out the menu, deciding on chamomile tea and the "toast bar" - basically a bunch of different breads set out by toaster ovens, butter and various jams. Koreans are pretty crazy about their toast, and there are entire shops devoted to just serving the crusty stuff. This seemed to be the coffeeshop version - aka, the "bread" Yuni had talked about. She went up to the counter to order for us and came back a few minutes later with our tea.

She said she also ordered something else, which I didn't quite understand, but I got that it would be ready when our number came up on a sign over on the wall - about 30 minutes. I wondered what could take 30 minutes in a coffeeshop, but again, it didn't seem worth figuring out sooner than necessary, so I smiled, said "Great," and asked her to pronounce "dog" and "crab" in Korean, which sound exactly the same to me but are supposedly different. Then we chatted about her sister's wedding and some translation work she'd done earlier that week for the U.S. Army in a court case for some soldiers who had gotten in a bar fight with some Koreans.

A few grammar and culture conversations down the line, number 178 was up, and I looked up at the counter, expecting to see a plate of something or other. But no, there was Yuni, calling my attention back and telling me to bring my bag. What? Um, okay ... maybe we had to go collect whatever it was from some other part of the restaurant? I grabbed my bag and headed after her, over to the side of the room where there were steps up to a long wooden platform. I hadn't really looked over here before but there weren't any other people except for the attendant, marking something on a clipboard and apparently giving Yuni some sort of instructions.

What the ...?

Yuni motioned me to take my shoes off at the bottom of the stairs and kept listening and nodding. I slipped off my clogs and padded up the stairs, curious. I could see some inset areas coming into view, and I thought for a moment that maybe they were like the floor tables I'd seen in other restaurants and this was a place for eating some sort of ceremonial food ... hmmm. But as I topped the stairs I realized that I was staring down into tanks of water ... and not just water - water full of small, darting fish. There were several cushions around the edges of the tanks, and sinks set into the floor a few feet away. I was totally bewildered.

Fish, fish ... oh yeah. I flashed back to the conversation we had had at Yuni's office about spa treatments and recalled a rather gross one about people submerging their feet into tanks of live fish, who eat away the dead skin. Kind of like a pedicure, a la Fear Factor. Wow. It all came clear. I had somehow missed the part about how we were going to get this spa treatment. But here I was, in this mod little coffeeshop in downtown Daegu, about to have my feet eaten off by a writhing mass of sea creatures. And it was a bought and done deal from a very sweet friend, and apparently quite the rage by the hip 20- and 30-somethings, judging by the crowd ... so hey, what the heck. When in cute coffeeshops with feet-eating fish in Korea ...

So yeah ... you can check out my pictures (just happened to have my camera along, by some great fortune). I really did it. And here's a Washington Post article with more information on the treatment, though about a Tokyo spa, and a link to the 나무그늘 site (the Daegu coffeeshop where I went) - though this site is all in Korean.

As for my experience, well ... learned the words for "creepy" and "tickle" in Korean, and basically tried not to think too much about it, except for realizing that this was perhaps the strangest 10 minutes of my life.

a trail of red lanterns

2008-02-18T15:20:00.011+09:00

So I'm terribly behind in getting anything up about my trip to China - the government apparently blocks Blogger there, so couldn't do it from Beijing, and got swept into work and life when I got back. Anyway, better late ..., I guess.

So Beijing, Beijing. It's a cool place. Downright cold, actually. Those Siberian winds are really something.

But other than the chill, which was really only bad one day, Chinese New Year was the perfect time to travel there. Most of the city (population about 15 million people) clears out to go to their hometowns, so there's virtually no traffic and you can zip around to all the tourist sites. And the rest of the city turns out at festivals during the day (we happened across a major fair on our one free day) and stays home to light fireworks - traditionally to scare away evil spirits but today probably more to appease everyone's inner pyro. It was one of the most amazing scenes I've witnessed, standing at our plate-glass hotel windows and looking out over the exploding city - every block, every street, every house, it seemed, aflickering and abooming. Probably one of the biggest collective fireworks shows on Earth. The ruckus went on until about 2 a.m. every night but was totally worth the experience.

Most of the trip was a packaged tour - a great way to hit the highlights for a great price, if you don't mind a little dog-and-pony showing. Got most all the major sites done (Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, Olympics area - including the Birds Nest, acrobat show, martial arts show) and a small dose of the actual city and people, and it turned out to be a fantastic intro to China. Click the red lanterns to get to my Beijing photos and captions. Once there you can click pictures individually or click the "Slideshow" button to view the pictures as you like.

Granted we were almost entirely on the tourist track, but I was really impressed overall by how clean everything was, and how much the city is obviously spending to impress for the upcoming Olympics. Everywhere, there's construction and renovation projects - more or less thorough. In just a few blocks, you might find newly-gleaming skyscrapers and sleek Western-style shopping malls, as well as hurried walls thrown up around decrepit sections of crumbling huts. And the bathroom horror stories I'd heard might all be true, but mostly there was modern plumbing and conveniences.

But the real story of China, for me, was its place at the end of a three-country spectrum: Japan, Korea and China. I saw all three within the span of a week, and through the preparations and celebrations of the Number 1 holiday for all three nations - Chinese New Year. It was like traveling backward from the spinoff to the source of the party, following a trail of the holiday's signal red lanterns.

And I find that my current home makes so much more sense in the context of its neighbors. Korea has a love-hate relationship with both its neighbors, influenced by milenniums of invasions and culture swaps. Just as Japan is markedly different from Korea, so is China, but to the opposite extent. Where the Japanese are slight, the Chinese are sturdy; where the Japanese are fashionable, the Chinese are sensible. Where Japan is all order and rule, China is color and chaos; where the Japanese are reserved, the Chinese are confrontational. And Korea fits neatly in between the two - geographically and in all other senses.

I've considered jobs in all three countries, and after traveling the others a little I can still see myself in any one. But I returned home with a new fondness for the middleman - no doubt in part because it's nice to return to a new place and realize that the foreign has become familiar. I remember the same sensation in Madrid, and any number of less exotic places I've lived. But it's also the one with the easiest language, if not the most English ... and the one most welcoming of Americans. And in the end I find that being the classic fence-dweller that I am, I like the view from here.

Japan: the Far, Far East

2008-02-04T07:24:00.001+09:00

The sun was distant as we herded onto the swaying boat, bedecked with the typical Korean blare of colors and patterns, and the lingering smell of stomach acid. On the TV in front of the seats, a muted infomercial for a Hello, Kitty! vibrating belly buster flashed. We chugged out through a maze of rust-streaked cruise and cargo ships, and into a smooth expanse of the gray sea. The Sea of Japan, according to my seventh-grade geography teacher and most of Western history. It's only this year that I realized there were other accounts, that every Korean, down to the third grade, will cry out indignantly if you happen to call it other than the "East Sea." The decades of Japanese rule still don't sit well with Koreans, and this name debate is only part of the ongoing tension. Even the venerable National Geographic - the closest thing to a world authority on place names - hasn't ruled decisively on the matter, using both (though Japan's more prominently).

It's not the only thing separating these two Pacific Rim countries.

When the boat docked at Fukuoka, I was greeted by my friends and a world of order and sophistication. Spic and span streets are lined with methodical architecture and dazzling LCD screens. Trendy couples shield runway-worthy getups from the drizzle with clear plastic umbrellas, which they then lock in special cases at the entrances of gourmet restaurants. Potted flowers adorn temporary construction walls. There are whole parking garages for bicycles, which Japanese can maneuver while holding umbrellas AND texting on their cellphones. Crosswalks play music. Robots roll through malls, delivering advertising and information. Toilets have heated seats and an inspiring array of buttons and levers. And a plethora of English and well-thought signage makes it easy for foreigners to navigate most any system. Everywhere, things are tidy, planned and systematic.

Korea is a country in the midst of a near-miraculous rebound from millenniums of invasions and a quite recent civil war. But even the relatively cosmopolitan and enormous Seoul is nowhere close to the dazzle of much smaller cities here in Japan, or so I've seen and heard. Apparently, the rush of cash here after World War II created an economic force powerful enough to lift the country from devastation to prosperity in just a couple decades. Although its economic landscape has changed dramatically in recent years, and other nations are now making inroads on its markets, this small set of islands continues to be a world powerhouse. Japan provides a stable and modern lifestyle for its population - albeit at a high cost of living and grueling work demand.

The ferry from Busan, South Korea, takes about three hours, and Fukuoka is a common hangout for those needing to start the clock over on Korean tourist visas or change Korean visas. It's on the island of Kyushu, which also includes Nagasaki, site of the second atomic bomb. We spent one day touring there. "Hi, my grandfathers bombed your grandfathers, and now I'm here to take a picture." It was a little weird. But definitely worth going - the museum, park and memorial are both moving and educational. And although the bombing of Pearl Harbor is conspicuously left out of timelines of events leading up to Nagasaki disaster, it's awe-inspiring how otherwise politically neutral and peace-focused the displays are.

Otherwise wandered around Fukuoka sites, took a three-hour tour of the suburbs when we took the wrong bus (I was NOT in charge, surprisingly), ate lots of raw fish (yum!), discovered a hot lemon drink (yum!), checked out the rave-reviewed La Boheme Italian restaurant (a must-go if you're in the city), and crashed at the Khaosan Fukuoka International Hostel - a good place to stay if you don't mind a walk, or paying an extra bus fare.

Here's a slideshow of pictures. You can click on it to get to the full album with captions.

a glimpse of Africa, and other travels

2008-01-29T20:04:00.001+09:00

So I'm a bit behind the times, but my friend Jimmie has finally updated his blog with some images from Sudan, and I wanted to put a link here for anyone interested in seeing some great photos. Jimmie, a college buddy and photographer extraordinare, is documenting church construction in Sudan for Samaritan's Purse. Read more about his work on his blog.

In other news, I'm heading for Beijing next week for the Chinese New Year ... but also now skipping over to Japan for a few days this weekend. Most of our vacation falls around the winter sessions, so I'm cramming a lot of my travel into these couple months. Pictures and posts to come.

Meanwhile it's been back to the routines of teaching and living in the Village, wrangling with Korean studies and boisterous kids, and the exquisite torture of making Asian children say "parallelogram" (I've been teaching math this session).

On Sunday I helped chaperone a field trip to an indoor amusement park of blow-up slides, playgrounds and obstacle courses, and then to ice skate, with meals and other logistics throughout. It was enjoyable - if not easy - extra money, but also a case study in how kid-oriented this country is. Being out in public with 37 random children, it's really clear how much people here seem to view child-rearing as a collective endeavor. Any child is everybody's child - and people go out of their way to talk with, comfort or chastise any little one in their vicinity as they see fit. In our case, many of them did their best to do all that in English, which really is a heroic effort.

It's a marked difference from the States, where many people do their best to avoid public interaction with unknown children - not without reason.

For one thing, Americans have many more fears of pedophilia and other improprieties involving children and strangers. No one knows the actual rates of such crimes in either country, but (like most crimes) it's reported far more in the United States, and people are generally less worried about it in Korea.

For another thing, Americans tend to more support the right of parents to choose how their children are raised, and to criticize anyone who would interfere that. In Korea, people may have just as strong opinions about the way things should be done - though I'd doubt it - but they will rarely contradict a senior person (in rank or age) about anything, and group harmony is far more important than individual freedoms.

And in a less concrete influence, but perhaps the greatest one, Korean culture seems to prize childhood more as a golden era, and Korean people tend to go to far greater lengths to ensure their children the most opportunities and enjoyment. It's not uncommon for parents here to work dawn to dusk to afford to send their children to the best private institutes for English and other skills. They push their children hard, but they also devote a lot of energy to making sure the kids have fun and are happy, both in daily life and weekend activities.

But I don't think this group effort to raise children happens only here (though I imagine Koreans have their own brand of it). I remember a story one of my friends told me about being on a bus in Latin America somewhere, and a woman who got on just handed her a baby to hold while the woman fished change out of her purse - and no one looked twice. And I remember children playing in the streets of Madrid becoming collective charges. And from anecdotes and writings about even other places, I think maybe this is the way most of the world works, to some degree.

There's good and bad to all these things, which you could argue forever, like most points of any culture. But everything else aside, it is extremely refreshing to feel so supported in doing your job - especially when it involves taking care of children.

Bali Top 10

2008-01-15T04:11:00.001+09:00

A la my iconic countryman David Letterman, here's my Top Ten Things Learned in Bali.

10) Every single Balinese person needs to know where to place you on their mental maps. Where are you from? When did you arrive in Bali? Where are you staying? When are you leaving Bali? Just go ahead and print business cards with your answers - it will save loads of time.
9) You might want to consider putting a "No, not interested" on that card, too ... for whatever gadget or service they're peddling.
9) You can't put on a Santa hat or blow a noisemaker without hitting an Australian during the holidays.
8) How to add "yeah?" to the end of every sentence, like a good Aussie. (I've still got the holdout European "no?" popping up every so often in my speech, so maybe it will cancel out.)
7) Go to the Gili Islands. And Ubud. And the rice paddies. And the volcanoes and lakes. And the black beaches on the east coast. Leave the traditional beach zone (Kuta, Legian) to neighboring Java's old hats and candy wrappers, the incessant merchants and the Speedo-clad Russians.
6) Bali is a great place to gain five pounds on the fabulous banana pancakes, mango lassis, Baileys Comets, tuna steaks or the peanut sauce at Nomad's restaurant in Ubud. Bali is a great place to lose five pounds to the Bali Belly ... just don't get caught on Gili when the whole island's plumbing is out.
5) Bali is perhaps the best place in the world to shame yourself into learning another language. Even the beggars know a minimum of three.
4) You ought to suspect something when every single Balinese person says "rain" with an Australian accent.
3) Bali's rainy season is not, in fact, "no big deal," as so many guidebooks and tourists are fond of saying. Good thing we had three weeks to wait out the clouds.
2) Sea turtles are cool. Especially when seen underwater from a few feet away. Komodo dragons are freaky. Especially when they launch spittle like bullets from yards away.
1) Know when high tide is. Try surfing for the first time then. Make sure there are plenty of small children to mow down as they're playing in the shallow water, and plenty of real surfers to annoy by stealing their waves. You'll provide an afternoon of entertainment to an entire beach - and take first place in the Technicolor Bruise Competitions.

and we have visuals

2008-01-15T03:26:00.001+09:00

So, at last, here are my first pictures from Asia - and some lifted from my friends - showing some of the highlights of our holiday trip to Bali. (Click the link above to get to the gallery of all the images, or to see them one by one as a slideshow, click the picture of the tree at right. You can change the speed of the slideshow at the bottom of the screen.)

My Christmas present to myself this year was breaking down and buying a point-and-shoot camera. It did a pretty good job, for what it is, and the fumblings of the person behind it. I swear manual settings are easier to do than programs, even though people get impressed by folks lugging around manual cameras.

I kept the pictures small and put credits on a lot of them because I have a paranoia of the images turning up as postcards somewhere and then wanting to do something with them later down the line ... hope y'all can still make out enough to keep you entertained.

so this is economics

2008-01-12T14:20:00.001+09:00

Just a few hours remain of my three weeks in Indonesia. Having signed away my rights to a shower, and with a day's journey ahead, I'm hiding away from the tropical sun in an Internet cafe in Bali touristville, aka the Kuta beach area.

Two J-school friends and I met here for the holidays and spent the many sun and rain-filled days sampling the sites, tastes, hobbies and escape of Indonesia's Number 1 island for tourism - in fact, one of the top tourism destinations in the world. This little island - about 90 miles wide by 55 miles deep - and other neighboring locales (we stayed three nights at the Gili Islands, off the west coast of Bali's neighboring island, Lombok) house all the classic tropical-island attractions: reefs, volcanoes, beaches (black and white), famed surfing waves, ancient artforms, teeming markets, legions of resident artisans, lush vegetation, exotic animals, and that relaxed island culture.

It's a beautiful place, undoubtedly a little oversold as a tropical paradise, but still fascinating and multifaceted. Known for its tolerance in oft-militant Indonesia, Bali has the country's most diverse religious climate (Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity), and the tourist machine there represents Indonesia's main outreach to the Western world. The Dutch have been regularly visiting for centuries - one of which they owned the place - and it's a major Aussie holiday destination. Several Japanese frequent the island; Koreans, South Africans, Russians, Brits and other Europeans come in lower numbers; and you can even find the occasional odd American. Estimates vary, but some say tourism makes up as much as 80 percent of Bali's economy, which makes the island - in the middle of an impoverished nation and region of the world - extremely vulnerable to threats to that industry, such as the terrorist bombings here in 2002 and 2005. Each shopkeeper, each cabdriver has a before and after story, particularly about the 2002 blast, which killed an estimated 200 people in a nightclub. Twenty were killed in 2005.

Since the blasts, tourism has slowly regained steam, with an estimated 5 million people visiting the island each year (statistics from the Indonesia's bureau of statistics). Bali is once again claiming its place as one of the wealthiest territories in the country. But it's still an island where poverty and luxury intertwine in an uneasy co-dependence.

And I find I am still a naive traveler.

In American eyes, I'm working-class, earning my own living in the lower white-collar trades. In European and Korean eyes, it's something at least similar. I travel, edging me into the realm of elite, but on my own it's mostly a no-frills style ... staying at budget hotels, navigating public transport and schlepping my own bags. It's a role I've felt mostly comfortable with, smugly self-righteous and benignly ignorant in. But this world is brown and (almost entirely) white, and coming here marked the first time I independently, irrevocably found myself part of the part of the rich, Western world. The served. The employers. The ones who buy adventure, who purchase culture. Who have more in their wallet than their waiter makes in a month.

I'm not sure how I imagined it would be ... can't say with any certainty that I thought about it at all, short of anticipating some sun, beautiful sights and good social time. But it definitely was a jolt upon arrival to find myself so classed for the first time of my adult, independent life. It's something that makes me uncomfortable, and yet right or wrong (some of both, I think) won't stop me from traveling, from spending, from hiring. I understand the business aspect of things, the fact I bring valuable cash and other benefits to struggling people. I just don't want to entirely lose that shock, to expect to live in this role. I don't want to relish my happenstance boon in social order, or to forget it. Mostly that.

It's a world of gray, this tourism business, especially to impoverished regions, but one I want now more than ever to explore. And I will bring my dollars, my camera, my glasses and my empathy.

back on the road again

2007-12-24T14:37:00.001+09:00

It's been a whirlwind of a week, and weekend, but here I am in the Incheon (Seoul) airport on Christmas Eve, waiting for my flight to Bali. There's been a 7-hour delay, and I'm missing the two books that didn't make the packing cut something fierce, but honestly I can't remember being more content in months.

It was a sprint to the finish at work, a week of both angelic and hellion children ... and not much in between. Getting through it - especially Saturday school with the little ones - is something of a blur, but by 6:30 Saturday I was scrunched into the Village shuttle amid animated Tagalag (Filipino) conversation, headed toward civilization and adventure. Spent a fabulous night on the town - my first since moving to the mountain - in the company of the best tour guide/translator/cultural ambassador, aka a native friend, and caught a few hours of remarkably comfortable sleep on the overnight commuter train to Seoul. (Tourist note: in Daegu, saw a great jazz/blues band of young Korean guys at a fun club called "That," then hit an upscale bar called "AU.") Then I rambled around in the big city for a few hours, sweet-talking my way into the newsroom of one of the major dailies (which ended up being dead, being as it was Sunday), hit the Namdaemun market and ended up walking in dress boots from there to the Seoul Tower (a mostly vertical jaunt), which wasn't my brightest idea ever, but definitely memorable. Finally dragged myself over to the hostel I'd booked near the airport and found a fairly ramshackle building but clean, comfortable, private rooms/bathrooms, a kind couple running the place, and a value that absolutely can't be beat - I definitely recommend the Incheon Airport Backpackers Hostel.

Then this morning I met a fellow passenger for my Bali flight on the shuttle over to the airport, a worldly Korean doctor from the Gwang-ju area, and the airport time has been pleasant enough, chatting away for the past few hours about language, food, culture and travel.

It's the first big trip I've done, and it's great feeling like I'm finally getting to what I came abroad for ... or at least one of the major reasons - travel. But being out and about has also made me realize I'm feeling more at home in Korea - that comfortable sense of knowing transit lines, landmarks, enough phrases to get around, good friends, and the revelation that I'll miss those Korean staples kimbap and kimchi a little in the next three weeks. Even the markets don't overwhelm me the way they used to. Plus it reminds me of all the things I love about this country - mostly the kind and friendly people, and the perks of being American here (though there's baggage with that, too, but I'll save all that for another post).

And it's vacation, one in which I'll be seeing old friends at the day's end and heading to holidays on the beach. So call me Pollyanna, but I swear life couldn't be better. How did I get lucky enough to be born where I did, when I did, to whom I did, to afford me the opportunity to do this? Thinking on it too much puts me dangerously close to guilt-trip territory, especially the more I see all the lifestyles in the world, but today I feel like it's the best Christmas present ever.

^_^a

2007-12-15T21:57:00.001+09:00

You know how sometimes computers screw up certain characters - like when apostrophes become question marks and accents turn into ampersands? For the longest time, I thought there must be something really buggy between Korean computers and American ones.

Whenever I got e-mails from Korean friends^^ (in English^.^), all sorts of strange marks would appear. Dashes, periods, underscores, random letters ... and tons and tons of carets. (You know, those things that sound like the crunch-munch-bunny kind - but are actually upside-down-Vs: ^). @.@ But then I noticed them on instant messages -_- and when someone would send me a text message on my cell phone. -.-

I just couldn't figure it out. (?_?) Could it honestly be a mass electronics bug? o.O Maybe Koreans decorate their text with symbols like they decorate their products with English words. O_o Maybe I just knew a lot of typo-prone people. @_@ Maybe their keyboards were setup in such a way that they couldn't help but hit a bunch of odd things. -_-;; Maybe they were politely cussing me out. \(>o<)/ And just what was this obsession with the caret? ^_^a Pretty sure it wasn't about beta carotene. OTL

Well the mystery was solved the other day (*´?`*) when I finally got around to asking one of my Korean friends what the heck was going on over on the keyboard there.

You know that ever-present :) that people use to show they're joking? Academics call them "emoticons," but the more common term is "smiley faces" or just "smileys." There are a few theories about where they developed, but basically computer people realized their value sometime around 1980 to clarify written messages that could otherwise be misinterpreted.

Well Americans use only a handful with any regularity, and they generally revolve around a face torqued 90 degrees counterclockwise. So, for example:

:) traditional smiley
=) another version
:( sad face
;) wink
:P raspberry (tongue out)
:-) smiley with nose

Turns out Koreans use an entirely different set. The main difference is that their emoticons tend to run vertical and emphasize the "eyes" - quite frequently written as those durned carets. In fact, the classic Korean smiley is actually a pair of smiling eyes only: ^^. Variations on that theme include:

^-^
^.^
^__^
^ㅡ^

(Not sure about the nuances of these.)

But unlike Americans, Koreans are far from content with a piddley handful of emoticons. And once I hit up my old friend, Google, for more on the subject, I realized it's more than just a collection of symbols - it's a veritable artform. (This is the land of anime and manga, afterall.)

Anyway, here's a compilation of some of the Korean emoticons I've seen in everyday use as well as some of the more creative ones I've happened upon. You can check out my sourcelist at the bottom of this post for more. I've put them in blue so the list is clearer to read, but they're typically just in black and white. Also, it appears that the meaning of several of these is fairly subjective, so don't take this list as any sort of authority, just some examples.

~_~ = content
>_< or >.< = angry
^_^a = scratching head
=^.^= = blushing
\(>o<)/ = shouting/angry
(^o^) = laughing or excited
(*^^*) = shyness
;_; or ㅠ_ㅠ = crying (the second one is made with a Korean letter, but it can also be done with English capital T's in some fonts)
-_-;; = cold sweat or unbearable (basically something that is a source of stress); can also be embarrassment or chagrin
(-.-)Zzz = sleeping
o_O or o.O or any variation of this = surprise
^_~ or ^.* = wink
@.@ or @_@ = dizzy or confused
(?_?) = perplexed, wondering about something, "What?"
-_- or -.- = something like "hmm" or just no emotion
~~~~>_<~~~~ = extreme weeping
\(^_^)/ or \(^o^)/= cheers, "Hooray!"
(>^_^)> <(^_^<) = hugging
OTL = frustration (it's a person banging his/her head on the ground - the O is the head, the T is the arms, the L is the legs)
(*´?`*) = sigh
(^(oo)^) = a pig
@}-;--`-- = a rose
>(/////)< = a candy

Here's the best one, though ...

()()() ()()()
(-(-(-.-)-)-)

... a rabbit gang.

Know any other good ones? Feel free to leave 'em in the comments.

SOURCES: Dave's ESL Cafe forum, http://blogger.xs4all.nl, Locomote.org, Lets Learn Korean

it doesn't get any better than this

2007-12-13T16:21:00.001+09:00

OK, so I just hit the high point of teacherdom: my first letter from a former student. Probably my only one, being as we are now subject teachers and I only see the students for 90 minutes a week each, rather than having them all week long, so not much time to form any sort of bond. (Not that I'm complaining - subject teaching makes far more sense with our constantly changing schedule, and is much more manageable.)

So this letter is on the traditional cutesy Korean paper decorated with flowers and hearts and nonsequitor, nongrammatical English ("Today is happy day." "Good things might come to those who wait." "Welcome to Flower garden"). Korean products, including clothes and stationary and mugs, tend to use English letters/words as decor rather than for meaning, and some of it is pretty funny.

The letter is from my one student, probably about 12 years old, who cut her finger in art class (no more big scissors). Her English name is Tracy, and she plays a traditional double-reed Korean instrument sometimes written as "piri." Apparently her brother plays it, too. It should give you some insight into how fantastic and cute the kids can be, and how they tend to talk very dramatically for humor and emphasis. I've tried to preserve the spellings, capitalization and spacing in typing it here.

Hello, Kristin marsh teacher?
I'm Tracy. How are you? I'm fine.
I want to see you. My finger is ok. Teacher, thank you. I'm crying. And I'm sad. Because, I miss you. I'm crying every day. I miss you, teacher!
Oh, dear. Soon, my brother's concert. It's the Pili. There is Donga shaping [shopping] 10thfloor.
Good, bye - Kristin marsh teacher!
- Tracy -

I'm prety. You are prety.
I'm kind. But. You are very kind.
I miss you.

Isn't that the best thing ever? :)

the holidays a la Asia

2007-12-03T18:22:00.001+09:00

I'm sitting in my dorm room on a cold December night, looking out on our resident fuselage, listening to some mellow blockbusters on MySpace music, thinking about careers and tomorrow's lesson plans, and trying corn ice cream. It's not as weird as you'd think - kinda like frozen creamed corn.

We've got our first official batch of five-day kids - about 45 from a private school or schools in a more rural region northeast of Daegu. That's 4 or 5 kids per class. Last week it was 18 in each class, and we've had all manner of daycamps, overnights, half-days and three-day sessions, so we've really seen the gamut. They're all awesome, though, and what makes everything worth it. Tensions have been high recently over various things, but these kids are the best part of everything, and what make me thankful every day, if not quite every class (We are considering getting "I Survived Group 12" T-shirts after one particular crew), that I took this job. They're just fun and creative and goofy and crack themselves up with these jokes that aren't even funny, but it totally cracks me up that they find them so hysterical.

The holiday season has fallen here, too, which I'm coming to find means giant anime-style Santas and who knows what other Christmas creations parading the streets, a plethora of cooked-batter streetfoods, and the traditional merchandise explosion you find back home. Oh and the karaoke version of "White Christmas" is about the best thing I've seen yet - one long string of pictures of Korea's verdant hills and Buddhist temples. Not one flake of snow.

Mostly it's been cold and dry and rather sunny, but this weekend was one miserable long drizzle ... the perfect kind for curling up in a downtown coffeehouse with a new book (or three) and watching civilization scuttle by outside, and I definitely indulged. It's strange finding myself reading again - entranced by the bookstore and perpetually in the middle of about six books, just like when I was a kid. I guess that lifestyle of eight-hour days of staring at words is finally relaxing its grip. Now I've just got to figure out what to do with the library I'm amassing.

I get pangs for American holidays and family time every so often - like the other day when I saw pictures of the Iowa Mills' Thanksgiving, or tonight when I told a Korean friend about last year's holiday outing to Kansas City's jazz district. But I'm also looking forward to trying out this whole island holiday thing this year, spending Christmas and New Years on the shores of Bali with good friends from college, now spread around the world.

Oh but I never did quite get my Thanksgiving story put up here ... so the 20 of us Americans at the Village (with the very important help of certain Korean staff) coordinated as traditional a dinner as we could muster the Sunday after the holiday, and I volunteered to do the last-minute shopping, thinking I was being smart to avoid the chaos of climbing over everyone else in the kitchens with all their Korean machinery. Well, the short of it is that I ended up being very much the turkey and having my most fabulous "weird foreigner" moment yet in this country, loaded down with a ridiculous amount of food, answering relentless phone calls and trying to navigate Korean public transportation.

With considerable effort, I had dragged my overladen bags down to the bus stop near the local Costco (a Sam's Club-style warehouse of mostly Western things), but the bus pulled up before I was quite ready with my fare. But I leaped on anyway with all my cargo, much to the amusement of the onlooking passengers and the bemusement of the surly driver. The next bit all sort of happened at once - me fishing for change, one of my bulging bags tumbling down and various Thanksgiving offerings rolling out across the floor of the 739, the bus jolting forward and my shoe sliding off my foot into the stairwell and just barely slipping out the closing door. I don't think anyone else saw the shoe go, and I was quite the wild-haired freakshow there, still digging for a darned 100 won piece and debating the worth of a Size 12 shoe, laden down as I was and sock-footed, two busrides and one walk from home in Asia. To top it all off, my phone started ringing again.

The shoe won out.

Seven blocks later, I had found the coin, collected my things and finally managed to hit the stop button, and all the wide-eyed Korean "aunties" watched me clamber off the bus. I then hobbled back the direction I came, at one particularly poignant moment passing a true bag lady (a rare sight here, but you just can't make up the stuff that happens in real life - no one would believe you). And even in the middle of my "I am ridiculous" haze, I did realize that my lot even at that moment was something to be thankful for, because I was strong enough to huff and puff it back, rich enough to afford a taxi for the last leg of the journey when I had missed the right shuttle, and lucky enough to have an amazing, nostalgic feast waiting for me when I got there.

And I got my shoe, dadgumit.

changes, chicken feet and cute children

2007-11-18T21:39:00.001+09:00

No time for a full-on post, but a few notes from Daegu:

1) In the lastest string of changes, we are not, in fact, getting our public school kids until at least March. Classes between then and now will be on a week-by-week or day-by-day basis depending on which schools we can schedule, and will probably be entirely daycamps. We start this week with 4 days of different grades from a prestigious private school in Daegu and one day of a kindergarten class from Yeungjin's academy. Definitely keeps us on our our toes, but we're also getting pretty good about adapting to curveballs.

2) I've realized that my friend in Sudan, where people live in huts and goats wander around in the streets, is eating less exotic food than I do. I'm pretty sure I had chicken feet tonight in town.

3) I hung out with the first- and second-grade classes yesterday to prepare for this Wednesday and Saturday when I'll be teaching youngsters, and they sure are cutie little bundles. Cutie little bundles who speak about 10 words of English. And apparently not all of their parents have impressed on them why they go to this place with the strange people who babble nonsense, because some of them feel it's their duty to teach us to speak properly. One little girl resolutely repeated "Han bon do" each time I said "Another one, please," and one of the boys had the following conversation with me:

[6-year-old scribbles what appear to be a boy monster and girl monster on his paper.]
Me: Oh wow! Two people - one, two.
6-year-old [pointing to each in turn]: Namja, yoja.
Me [pointing to each one]: Yes ... "man," "woman."
6-year-old [pointing]: Nam-ja ... yo-ja.
Me [pointing, nodding]: Yes ... "ma-an," "wo-man."
6-year-old [perplexed ... decides to take a different tack, points to a boy across the table, then a girl next to him]: NAM ... JA ... YO ... JA.
[We go a few more rounds of pointing at different people and pictures, with him first getting more emphatic, then patiently slowing down for this simpleton who just can't get it, and finally giving up to go bang on the drums.]

I HAVE RENTERS!!!!

2007-11-16T08:07:00.001+09:00

Five months later, I finally have income back at the condo in the Springs. Whew - major relief! The new renters move in on Tuesday, even. I'll still be paying a little each month, but I can finally start getting to some of those financial goals - fun and boring - I came over here with instead of just scraping by. Here's to renters!

an interesting read

2007-11-14T22:01:00.001+09:00

So my vagabond reporter friend, Megan, has had some amazing stuff on her blog, but her latest post is a particularly interesting story about a math teacher she met in Vietnam. Check this out: http://gypsyscribbler.blogspot.com/2007/11/hey-mccain-youve-got-friend.html.

where I live

2007-11-14T21:00:00.002+09:00

I'm finally getting together at least some pictures of campus ... check out my web album by clicking here (click the "Slideshow" button for the best way to see them all big one after another). It will probably be updated somewhat over the next couple months, and this just covers some of the areas, but you'll get the idea of what an amazing facility it is.

Week 2 down

2007-11-14T18:40:00.001+09:00

Our second batch of kiddos has just left and I'm finally getting to that "I haven't written in awhile ..." post.

Life here is divided between the chaos of herding 200 children and the quiet of rural isolation - it's really an odd deal. For the past three days I've been going nonstop from the wee hours to the wee hours, and now I'm sitting here wondering what to do with myself for the rest of the week. It's like in three days I've forgotten how to have hobbies. Never fear, I'm sure I'll remember by tomorrow. :)

I've now taught two three-day weeks and one Saturday session, and although we still have all those startup fiascos popping up, it seems like we've been here forever.

Last week's class of 11- and 12-year-olds (Korean age) was wonderful - full of sweet, fun kids and eager students, and even the rapscallion boys' ringleader was nothing more than a minor discipline problem who responded really well to direct commands. I was sad to see them go.

I figured I couldn't possibly be so lucky with this week's group, and when I walked in and saw it was a group of 13-year-olds, I braced for a tough session. Just in the year's difference, you can see the kids slipping into teenage diffidence - guarded eyes, self-conscious shrugs, baggy clothes, dramatic eye rolls ... and that one kid in every group who always slouches under a black hood.

But then lo and behold, by some cosmic fluke these kids were even more amazing and full of surprises - in fact, the one with the hood turned out to be my most interactive and helpful student. And their grasp of English was incredible, which meant we got to move past basic vocabulary into more fun cultural lessons (they were perplexed that adults don't ask each other their ages within minutes of meeting, for example, because in Korean that's mandatory to know what form of language to use). To a kid, they were earnest participants and really put themselves out there. The weirdest part was that although all my girls were great, it was the boys who were the ones first in line, volunteering the most answers and helping turn out lights and close doors. Like I said, cosmic fluke. But I'll take it.

These first two groups were a PR move - free for 200 selected from hundreds of participants, I think largely because they scored well on a test, and a lot of them were from well-off families who invest in private English academies. Next up (and from here on out) we get general public school kids for weeklong sessions, which will undoubtedly be an entirely different ballgame.

Now back to remembering how to read, run, study Korean ...

the plane has landed

2007-11-01T18:39:00.001+09:00

We're here ... whew. At the Village finally, and the first round of kids come Monday. In the meantime, another set of Korean machines and panels to learn, another round of faces to meet, another room to unpack. Our time here has been like three jobs, three homes, so it's nice to finally be able to live out of furniture instead of a suitcase and really be getting on with the job we were hired for.

The past week has been a flurry of moving and shaking hands - Tuesday was the big opening ceremony, and all the local politicians were there plus UCCS and Yeungjin representation and a slew of reporters. (Sidenote: The mayor of Daegu speaks great English and even in Korean proved that charisma is a major political selling point worldwide; also, Korean journalists are quite snappy dressers, contrary to their American counterparts.) The thing was broadcast on all three national news networks and it was quite the affair. And everyone was appropriately wowed by the grandiose architecture including the major selling point - a retired jetliner suspended 20 feet in the air, used to simulate the flight experience for students - so it appears to be a promising start. Now comes our part ... wish me luck! :)

Oh and belated happy Halloween, everyone. Hope y'all enjoyed my favorite holiday back there for me - they don't celebrate it on this side of the world, and what with everything else happening, our crew didn't do anything to mark it, either.

digital supernova

2007-10-29T22:31:00.002+09:00

Going abroad this time around is an entirely different experience than my first venture - in many many ways, but particularly because the world is so much more wired now ... or at least I am more hip to it.

In Spain, six years ago, I spent cold hours at telephone booths, fumbling through a flip book of numbers and punching in phone-card codes about as long as pi. I occasionally sent mass e-mail updates, but my regular contacts back home dwindled to the handful of folks who were willing to correspond in lengthy e-mails or phone conversations. I found my housing and language buddies off bulletin boards, and hoped to make friends off of chance and dicey Spanish skills in buses or classes or bars ... which didn't work very well. I spent many an hour and peseta - then Euro - in Internet cafes and on phone cards. And it seemed like I spent even more time in transit to get to those cafes and phone cards.

Before going to Spain, I scoured my music collection for the precious couple dozen CDs that would remind me of home, I lived in silence for the few weeks before splurging on a small boombox, and I listened to those songs - even the dubious ones - so many times that I can't hear them now without being whisked back to Madrid. Any television I watched was Spanish, and although I found some information about events and such online, I seemed to spend most of my life there tracking down details. (Though that could be more of a cultural thing ...)

In Korea, I now have an Internet connection in my bedroom AND office AND classroom ... and go a little crazy when it goes out. I have two computers and ridiculously cheap phone service right from one - though I don't tend to use it much (sorry!) because I'm generally chatting online with folks back home at both ends of the day and occasionally in between. Subsequently, I've (thusfar) kept a far wider net of regular contacts than last time around.

And let's not forget this blog, which lets me post any old thing without cluttering your mailboxes, and services like Blogarithm, which let you clutter your mailboxes all you like. Plus there are blog readers that help me keep up on the latest from my blogging friends and other news and newsy sites ... not to mention that now there's just a ridiculous amount of information out there. I'm not sure how people lived before they could look any old thing up on Google. I mean, really, how did we survive without being able to instantly figure out:

the Billboard Top Ten,
how long pi really is,
how the Korean pension system works,
the lyrics to Dar Williams' "I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono,"
a map of the Korean rail system,
the name of that artist who makes the hyper-real human sculptures,
how to create a "tornado" in a bottle,
whether there really are flesh-eating amoebas,
the Korean word(s) for "older brother,"
where Arkansas City is in Kansas,
rapper Mos Def's biography,
who's behind that silly "I've got a crush on Obama" video,
that silly "I've got a crush on Obama" video,
the spelling of the new French president's name

... to name a few of dozens of searches I've done in the past couple days. Such info was around six years ago, but it was nowhere near as cataloged or accessible. Plus I had to make lists of things to look up at my next Internet cafe outing, rather than just walking into the next room to check ... so I think most of my wonderings tended to go unresearched.

Forums for expats here offer a scattershot of advice (or misadvice), how-to's (or how-not-to's), insight (or lack thereof), happenings and other information for the hapless foreigner (that is, me). More and more academic studies are going up online all the time, and news sources are getting better systems to deliver targeted news to those who go searching for it, so it's now easier to back or kill some theory I've formed about the culture.

I pick up bits of Korean for free through a particularly great podcast on Apple's iTunes, and I brought over something close to my entire music collection without adding an ounce to my luggage. Not only do I have all my tunes at home, I can take them out and about for runs, long bus rides or any other time I'd rather keep the world at a distance. Occasional NPR podcasts keep me somewhat up to date on U.S. politics and culture of the day, and YouTube and other video-sharing programs keep me abreast of the latest pop culture phenomenons. Some of my TV-phile co-workers have hookups to get American television delivered to their computers (or scour the Net for illegal streams), and good old iTunes dishes up a smorgasboard of shows to buy by episode or season - I've caught an episode of one of my old standbys and one of the promising newbies. There's also the photo-sharing programs that I haven't made much use of yet, but eventually I'll get there.

But perhaps the biggest benefit to this digital age: making connections in the real world. The majority of my non-work friends here are from that whole social networking phenomenon - MySpace and Facebook and others - or connections of people I met that way. I know this idea probably freaks some of you out a little, but the Net can be a fabulous tool for someone as persnickety about friends as I am because it gives you a chance to survey all sorts of folks at a deeper level than seeing someone sitting across the way and guessing (1) that they speak English, (2) are even remotely compatible with me and (3) are open to making a new friend. I've definitely been off the mark a time or two, but mostly it's worked out really well.
(And don't worry, I have no intentions of ending up in someone's freezer, so I take all the usual precautions of limiting personal info, meeting in public places with friends, etc.)

Each generation has its defining things: wars, protests, big hair ... I'd say my generation's defining characteristic is that we were those who grew up with the Internet. We're old enough to remember a time without it (foggily) and are now its main consumers - young enough to have adapted fairly wholesale, old enough to have freedom and buying power to use it relatively unhampered. (These are of course generalizations.) Tomorrow my little cousins will be calling us old fogies as they pass us up on those virtual highways, but we will have been the forefront, and it's an interesting position, no doubt. I wonder what it says about us.

interesting link: right brain or left brain?

2007-10-22T08:59:00.001+09:00

I don't know how valid this is, but it's kinda fun ...

Which way is the dancer spinning?

status update

2007-10-19T15:14:00.001+09:00

So, as expected in any new program and definitely when being abroad just about anywhere, we've had nothing but changes since our arrival, and the latest is that our moving and teaching dates have rolled back another week - to November. This is definitely a good set of changes, though - things were getting pretty harried just trying to adjust plans to all the recent curveballs, so it's a welcome few more days to organize logistics.

Meanwhile, personally, it's another week to enjoy the conveniences and easy social outlets of being in the city.

It's one of the strangest things I've ever done ... moving to an architectural marvel of an isolated mountain campus with 20 other Americans (19 teachers, 1 administrator), 39 Filipino aides, 8 Romanian aides, a handful of Korean staff and a rotation of hundreds of Korean students coming through every week. It'll be a happening spot, no doubt, and should be an awesome place to teach ... but it's also an utterly bizarre social experiment, being as it will be tough (though not impossible) to get down to the city more than one day a week. No trips to the store, no street food, no errands at the bank, no outside expat culture, no chance to meet new (non-student) people, no post office runs and - the biggie - no face time with non-work friends. It will just be part of the adventure and something I've been braced for since the beginning, but suffice to say I'm trying to savor my more traditional urban lifestyle, especially after having three months to settle into city life.

Meanwhile I'm trying to wait a couple more months to really think about out what I'm doing next year (let alone with the rest of my life), but being the obsessive planner I am, it's hard. The good news is that there are a ton of options. The bad news is that there are a ton of options. And all I can say is that I'll keep ya posted.

breaking it down

2007-10-13T23:17:00.001+09:00

There's something bewitching about street performances, and this weekend I saw one of the coolest yet on my recordbooks. This is going to be a long rambling blogpost recounting it - the type of tourist rehash I normally try to spare y'all - but it was just so awesome and educational I can't help myself. There's always the browser "close" button, and you can wait for a more entertaining post next time. :)

So Daegu throws itself a festival every October (the idyllic window between harsh seasons, apparently), and it's quite the affair. Music galore, whimsical public art, an awesome craft zone for kids (a theme in this country, I think), puppets and costumes, fireworks and light displays along the river ... and of course every kind of street food you'll find in town (dried octopus, anyone?). But the most fascinating part of it happened on some vinyl spread out right in front of the KFC downtown, where a handful of dance troupes, a drummer, a traditional singer, a DJ and a couple emcees combined for a street performance - tightly ringed with Koreans, cameras and me ... I don't know where all the Westerners were, but I didn't see another white face all evening, so it wasn't a dog-and-pony show for the tourists.

The performance combined a variety of styles, but it was anchored in breakdancing - a combination of stylized dance and power gymnastics (to see an example of Korean breakdancing, click here).

In American culture, breakdancing has historically been all about rebellion. It originated in minority districts of New York in the 60s or 70s (reputedly as a way for gangs to nonviolently settle turf wars, a la "West Side Story," but don't believe everything you read), and later spread through the black hip-hop and funk movements. Of course today there are plenty of white fans, but it's still largely set to street-slang-laden tracks about carnal desires and defying The Man. Until recently, outside of specific competitions, it was generally found only in select big-city clubs with a population between 18 and 35. And it's still largely a scene of young, urban minorities.

In Korea, where breakdancing recently spread through general Westernization, the sport seems to be just a new take on an old tradition. A passion of the young (let's face it, their bodies are the only ones who can handle it), but nurtured by the Old Guard and seen as a family affair. The country is largely homogeneous, so Korean "B-boys" (from "break boys" or "Bronx boys," depending on your source) don't have a separate culture from the masses. And breakdancing is the territory of YMCAs and other culture centers, and frequently done in partnership with traditional Korean instruments and dancers. Kinda like if square dancing met rap ... at the suburban Y.

The show this weekend was attended by all ages and started with a pangut troupe - traditional Korean dancers/instrumentalists. This particular group were boys and men probably 16 to 50, dressed in white robes, brightly colored sashes and tall hats. Now these hats look rather ridiculous to Western sensibilities - they appear to have mammoth white carnations stapled to them and ribbons or feather puffs on swinging sticks protruding from the top. In my jaunts through the neighborhood or along the riverside track by our dorms, I regularly see groups of high school students trussed up as such awaiting performances - and pity them immensely. But I've never seen them in action, and you stop wondering why any self-respecting man (much less awkward teenage boy) would wear such a thing once they go into motion. The performers play a variety of handheld percussion instruments WHILE dancing and leaping in formation AND flipping the ribbons/feather puffs about - it's quite the show. Anyone who can pull all that off at one time can wear any crazy thing he pleases. To see an example of pangut from a different festival, click here. (The costumes vary slightly from group to group.)

After the pangut guys had marched in grandly and done their thing for awhile, the young, punk B-boys stepped up and joined in, in their style. There were several dance-off moments, various solos, call-and-response action and finally one grand flash of ancient and modern all swirling about to the elemental beat. Then the pangut crew bowed out and the B-boys and other dancers took over the circle for a modern dance/sketch comedy routine about riding on a bus, set to funk and pop, and featuring some great 1980s Michael Jackson gloves and moves. It was hilarious and inventive and awesome - a textbook example of good showmanship.

Next up was a bigtime DJ from Seoul - and it was really cool to see him do his thing ... I don't think I've ever just sat and watched a DJ at work before. Turns out there's more to it than the sampling and mixing and timing and looping and scratching - it's also a very physical skill at times, requiring a controlled wrist spasm something like how a good tapdancer trills his foot. I wonder whether those guys get carpal tunnel. Eventually the all-out breakdancing started again and the DJ became a soundtrack.

What's really interesting is that in Korea, the callout seems to be a really important feature of solo breakdancing. You know that these guys - and occasionally gals - have to practice their routines for hours to prepare for their time in the limelight. Yet when the moment comes, it's not like other Western performances - instrumental or dance - where performers simply take turns stepping out. Here, where modesty is a highly prized virtue, performers must be virtually begged by their cohorts to take the floor alone. You can tell that many of them build stylized callouts into their routines to give the next dancer the time he needs to protest.

Yet on the other hand, audiences tend to be much more stoic, so performers often have to go looking for applause, which they do quite frequently. It's a puzzling scene for a foreigner.

The other interesting thing here is to watch women dancers, because they are quite scarce - almost nonexistant in straight-up breakdancing because of the physical demands (immense upper-body strength) and disadvantage a low center of gravity. But even when they are simply professional dancers of other styles, as in this performance, they tend to be markedly reserved - it's almost as if they dance in the way American performers sometimes rehearse a routine, focusing on remembering the steps but only using half-motions. I'm nowhere close to understanding gender roles in this country, so I'll refrain from making any social commentary on the observation, but it's interesting, at any rate.

Anyway, back to the show: I wasn't sure how it could surprise or fascinate me more, but the next act pulled it off again - a jazzy dance/comedy routine that was something about various frogs and fishes getting eaten by Barney-like swamp monsters, set to a soundtrack of disco, techno, hip-hop and jazz. Again an utterly bizarre combination of genres and concepts, and again artfully twisted into an incredibly entertaining act.

And for the final number, lo and behold a traditional Korean singer emerged from the crowd. She then proceeded to narrate a dance in a combination of spoken word and operatic style. I have no idea what half of it was about ... there was a student and a dog and some thugs and a dance school ... and somewhere in there a random ninja showed up ... but it was again various parts comedy routine, breakdance, modern dance, martial arts, hip-hop and traditional music and again utterly amazing. The pangut crew came back in at the end and there was a final dance-off backed by the DJ.

The Koreans all clapped diligently but with far less enthusiasm than I thought they should ... though I should probably give them a break since they clap palm-to-palm and that's no way to make real noise. (That show was probably the first time I actually have appreciated Americans' noisier side.) But anway, Daegu festival organizers accomplished their goal, as far as I'm concerned: After a great event lineup and particularly that show, I'm now durned proud of my "Colorful" city of residence and ready to tell the world it's a great place to be. (Side note: A friend asked me what "Colorful Daegu" translated to, by the way ... and um, that's it. But I'd say it's a better slogan than "Korea Sparkling," which is the current national pick.)

A couple follow-up notes:

I won't go into it here, largely because I can't find the articles I'm thinking of, but there's a whole nother interesting side of the breakdancing evolution in Southern California, where large black and Korean populations have historically been at odds but are now intersecting regularly through the art. If you're curious, Google it and tell me what you come up with.

And if you want to see more breakdancing by TG Breakers, one of the groups I saw this weekend, click here. The clips are all from B-boy competitions.

Happy YouTubing. :)

the sport of being a pedestrian

2007-10-10T07:15:00.001+09:00

Korea is one of the most densely-packed nations in the world because almost 80 percent of the country's 49 million people live in a handful of cities, while the rest of the mountainous landscape lies relatively barren. Daegu, for example, has a population of about 2.5 million in a little over 550 square miles. That's a population between Chicago and Houston's crammed into a land mass the size of Topeka, Kan.

Because of this, one of my earliest cultural collisions in Korea was of the quite literal sort - learning to navigate the sidewalks. The American-style "walk on the right" thing didn't seem to be working, but there wasn't a clear "walk left" pattern either. Throw in the regular push-carts, motorcycles, bicycles and even cars that have no qualm using these veritable freeways any which way they can, and it's sort of like playing that old arcade/Nintendo game "Frogger" anytime you stroll out into the world. Attempting to run is even more intense.

Through trial and error, I've basically settled on a strategy of hugging the left shoulder but always keeping a watchful eye and being able to jump aside at a moment's notice. It works about 51 percent of the time.

Which is why it was awesome to find the following Korea Times article shedding some light on the whole ordeal. Here's an excerpt:

Korea initially had regulations placing pedestrians on the right side of roads in 1905, but the rules were revised in accordance with Japanese colonial rule in 1921. The United States Army Military Government changed vehicle traffic regulations in order to drive on the right-hand side of roads in 1946. Rules for pedestrian walkways, however, remained unchanged.

The Korean government stated in the Road Traffic Act in 1961 that pedestrians must walk on the left-hand side of roads that do not have a pedestrian path.

But right-handers' natural tendency to walk on the right and Korea's increasing globalization/Westernization has muddled things tremendously, apparently. The national government is even considering measures to standardize walking on the right. So basically history in action. (Yes, I was a copy editor - of course pun intended.)

I found the article posted in this foreigner forum, which has some quite colorful (and potentially offensive - consider yourself fairly warned if you go poking around over there) debate on the whole issue, including this YouTube video clip, which is hilarious if you've lived in a Korean city or in any metropolis with unruly motorists. The rest of you may be mildly entertained.

Sources for the stats: United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific , www.paulnoll.com, the CIA's The World Factbook , National Statistical Office of Korea, Daegu city government, U.S. Census Bureau

Where do monks learn to drive?

2007-09-25T21:18:00.001+09:00

By coincidence, I followed up my metropolitan whirl with something close to Korea's other extreme: a templestay. Monday, some friends and I spent a couple hours on a couple buses to head due east to Golgulsa Temple to check out the Buddhist way of life. Twenty-four hours of meditation, martial arts, yoga, vegetarian meals, hiking, chanting, and way more floor-sitting than my body's equipped to gracefully do at the moment. All this in a pristine mountainside temple dating to the 6th century. Pretty amazing.

We almost got on the wrong bus to Gyeong-ju (yes, it's a theme - part being a unknowing foreigner, part just being myself in any country) but managed to get thing straightened out before actually boarding. From Gyeong-ju, the directions say to take a city bus another 40 minutes to a certain stop - but if you're going, best enlist a local's help. The bus announcement for the place is decidedly different, they don't stop unless you ask, and you'll never see the stop marked on the road. If you successfully make it off the bus (we were only 50 meters or so past the place when the bus screeched to a halt as our helper shouted down the driver), you'll find yourself in the middle of the country at a random road with no clear signs for this historic spot, your only directions to "walk 15 minutes."

Those were 15 long minutes, lemme tell ya, trudging single-file along the road (which we hoped was the right direction), past fields and a small town and countryfolk giving us quizzical stares. But we finally spotted some signs for the temple (only in Korean though ... the temple's tourist-friendly reach is pretty much confined to its grounds) and knew we had arrived.

Despite the lack of worldly announcement, the temple is quite a grand place - maybe a couple dozen buildings ancient and new scattered along a gorgeous and quite vertical mountainside. I'd guess there were maybe 25 monks and monks-in-training in residence (a couple of them Western) plus a handful of Western twenty-somethings living there in a two-year training course for sunmudo - a form of martial arts. Monk fashion includes natural-dyed grey and brown robes, shaved heads and accessories of simple glasses and watches. The sunmudo trainees wear a certain loose-fitting pant and regular T-shirts. Then there were maybe 20 of us there for the templestay, and upon arriving, we were given orange vests - kind of like a Buddhist take on prison garb.

The templestay program goes on daily, with visitors staying anywhere from hours to days, and the schedule changing a bit from day to day. The time is basically broken into regular strenuous or culturally interesting activities separated by fairly long stretches of free time to rest, hike, meditate or just contemplate the beautiful surrounds. here typically is a service element to every day - cleaning or weeding or building, for example - but I think that since we were there for Chusok, the schedule was devoted more to holiday ceremonies instead.

In the evening we ate dinner a la Korean Buddhist custom - men and women sitting separately, quietly. Nothing can be thrown out, but you can get seconds. I definitely don't have a handle on the Buddhist approach to food, however: According to Buddhism, you're supposed to focus on your food and be grateful for it, yet eat for sustenance rather than pleasure. As everything's vegetarian and simple, yet fresh and delicious - it was some of the best Korean food I've eaten, and I had a hard time with the not-enjoying-it-too-much concept. I definitely could stand to eat less food mindlessly, but I think that tenant alone could keep me from converting - not to mention the whole Buddha business - the world is just too full of delicious things to savor.

After dinner was an couple hours of chanting (always accompanied by plenty of full-bodied bowing), a brief meditation (as in sitting straight-backed in the lotus-position, hands encircled in front of your navel, eyes closed, "ohm"ing and hissing), sunmudo training (ouch, ouch and double-ouch - those monks are amazingly fit people) and a demonstration of traditional Korean dance by a local university professor. This was all supposed to be an outdoor moonlit ceremony to observe the holiday, but drizzly weather unfortunately moved it indoors. Then to bed to prepare for an early morning - the men were divided into a few rooms and women all shared a large common room, everyone sleeping Korean style (with mats on the floor), but the mats here were more like a folded-over blanket.

Korean Buddhists believe that the karmatic power of the universe begins to awaken around 4 a.m. and that the morning is a particularly potent time for reflection, so chanting and meditation was slated for 5 a.m. Apparently some of the Korean women in our room believe that 4 a.m. is a particularly potent time for fixing their hair, because they started rustling around 3:45. Not having a clock at my bedside, I was up and dressed before I realized the hour, so I slipped out into the dark for a quiet starlit stroll, or so I thought.

Unfortunately one of the many temple dogs - kept to ward off evil spirits - apparently decided I was a demon on the loose, and the two of us managed to rouse an even larger crowd. A sleepy-eyed German (or something like that) emerged on the scene of me standing petrified in front of the snarling mutt, and we had a most delightful conversation something like this:

(German speaks to dog, who lowers volume of growl.)
Me: I'm sorry! I just wanted to take a walk.
German: Don't be afraid! She senses your fear. DON'T BE AFRAID!
Me: Um ... okay. (Thinking: Yeah right. You come down here and stare down this ferocious thing and DON'T BE AFRAID!)
(German speaks again to dog, who finally goes silent.)
German: It is early.
Me: I know.
German: 5 o'clock. You come here.
Me: I know. I just wanted to take a walk. (pointing to trail)
German: On mountain?
Me: Yes.
German: It is early.
Me: I know.
German: (stares at me for a moment, then finally shrugs shoulders at the weird American) Be careful.
Me: I will.

(German goes back inside and I start up the path, walking away from the dog I'll note. But as soon as I take a few steps the dog breaks into snarls and growls again and starts tearing after me.)
Me: Okay! Okay! I give up already!

I edged back around the building and down the mountain, muttering all the way about stupid dogs.

Turns out that maybe that dog was good karma though in disguise, because instead of stumbling around on a dark hiking trail with little to see except some burial mounds, I headed over to the other side of the mountain (assiduously watching for signs of any other spirit-keeping dogs) for a closer look at the ancient Buddha carved into a rockface above the main temple. It may not have been the smartest thing I've ever done, creeping up crumbling footholds in a dewy rock wall in the pre-dawn, but the payoff was worth it - stupid dog and all. The monks had started their morning chants and a soft light pulsed out from the elaborate temple below; hushed droning and percussion wafted up with a hint of incense on the cool breeze. A star-studded sky sprawled above, and the verdant Korean mountains were spread out before me, occasional lights illuminating a misty valley here and there. And at my back, a 4-meter serene-faced sculpture - pounded into a mountainside by Indian Buddhists who had migrated to Korea about the time the Dark Ages were setting in upon Europe. This is traveling.

I had to book it down to morning chanting, then we had an elaborate yet pious breakfast ceremony for the holiday. Awhile later was tea with the grandmaster, a warm and graceful man with a deep-belly laugh that reminded me of the way one of those jovial Buddha statues might laugh if it came to life (though the grandmaster had none of those statues' girth). In my limited experience with Buddhist culture, it seems to me that the faith tends to emphasize a docile sort of humor - kind of like how Christianity has its own version of standup-style jokes, I suppose. Later was more chanting and then a Chusok ceremony celebrating growth and life and the lives gone before us, which basically involved a lot more bowing and some chanting and a table full of harvest goods. People come to the table two by two to symbolically empty cups of water into a communal bowl, then hold the cups as monks pour them full anew.

Then another tasty meal. And for our final adventure, the couple of my group who remained crammed into a small, rickety van with a questionable clutch and an even more eye-raising driver - a monk. I haven't even seen taxis here pull some of the stunts this guy managed ... and I had to wonder where monks learn to drive. Or maybe because they're religious, Korea just gives them a free pass to the road. Anyway, our fabulous guide (in full monk attire, of course) successfully shuttled 12 of us tourists to several other historic Buddhist sites in the area and explained the culture and history in broken but extremely animated English. A Brit in the group bought everyone ice cream at the journey's end, including one for our monk, of course. I'm not sure where ice cream fits in with the whole take on food, but our guide gratefully accepted, and it was really heartwarming to see someone's eyes light up that much at what seems such a little thing.

The trip home took an extra hour because of holiday traffic, and seemed even longer for the lack of sleep and soreness of body, but there's no question it was worth it. Templestay: $40. Bus fares: $11. Incidental tourism costs: $3. Experiences ... well, you know.

Korea's got Seoul

2007-09-22T22:58:00.001+09:00

Belated Chuseok (also spelled Chusok) greetings - Korea's rough equivalent to Thanksgiving. We had six days off, including the weekend, and I spent a good chunk of that time traversing the Korean capital and remembering what it is to be a tourist.

Thankfully my cohorts for the trip like playing tour guide, so they did most of the footwork and I just got to go along for the ride - one of my favorite ways to travel. Through trial and error, and probably just the virtue of getting older and more cantankerous, I'm finding that there are two ways I like to travel: solo and largely by the seat of my pants, or tagging along on others' agendas. I'm just not a natural organizer, nor do I like to be responsible for other people's happiness - especially in situations/places I don't know intimately. Thankfully there are some of you out there who don't get stressed out by that sort of thing - who actually enjoy travel planning for groups or do it as a career - or I'd never travel with anyone.

Anyway, two co-workers were bound for the big city this weekend with a priority set in line with mine: finding cheap accommodations, good ethnic food (not Korean or Western, the two types readily available in Daegu), doing some shopping, some sightseeing, and checking out the nightlife and foreigner districts. All with the understanding that we're here for at least a year and will almost certainly be in the city again, so no need to rush any of it.

Once we finally got to Seoul - another adventure on mass transit, where we managed to get on the slow train instead of the bullet train (so maybe I shouldn't have been following so blindly right then) - we found a vastly different world from Daegu. So many of the things I'd thought were probably just very Korean - the stares you get as a foreigner, the loud ads plastered haphazardly everywhere, the non-discriminatory palates - I now think are more a product of a slower-developing economy in my "small town" of 2.5 million. Although still of course quite Korean, Seoul feels more like a big city anywhere else in the world - quaint shopping areas, more homelessness (though nothing compared to the average U.S. city), hopping nightlife, polished entertainment, and just a cosmopolitan sensibility pervading the whole place. And far more international. There was one particularly poignant moment when we were eating Italian food, listening to American pop music and swapping Spain experiences in Spanish with our South American waitress ... of course in Korea.

And it was super strange feeling like I didn't have to acknowledge every Westerner who crossed my path. Here in Daegu, it's a fairly odd occurrence to see someone who looks like me, and I always find myself staring just as the Koreans do, then smiling and nodding hello. In Seoul, nearly every subway car you catch will have at least one or two others. (Funny note: Today back in Daegu, a little girl shouted to her parents "Chinese people!" when another American and I entered their elevator.)

On the tourist front, we had a highly successful stay - hitting a couple palaces, a changing-of-the-guard ceremony, the foreigner district, the kitschy shopping area, a traditional market, a gargantuan mall, and a bar that seemed to be the Korean male version of "Coyote Ugly" with pyrotechnics. We also had Indian cuisine, Italian, Egyptian, Chinese dumplings and plenty of street yummies.

We also found an awesome hostel, Stay Korea (www.staykorea.co.kr), run by a Korean woman who's fluent in French and English and her Korean husband. A double room was about $50 a night, and a spot in the dorm was about $15. For those not acquainted with the hostel system, they come in all sorts, but the basic idea is that they are cheap places to sleep - often in a common room with bunkbeds. You never really know what you're getting, because the crowd can be vastly different day to day even if the place checks out OK, but in general I've found them one of the best parts of traveling, both for the cost and the chance to meet interesting people.

This time, we found ourselves in a remarkably clean, quiet house four minutes' walk from a subway and a few blocks from the happening university district of restaurants, shops and bars. The owners actually pick you up from the subway stop on your arrival and offer all sorts of sightseeing advice - not to mention friendly conversation. The dorm was silent and dark, the double room was basic but quite sufficient, there was a lovely patio and roof deck perfect for drinking tea and watching the neighborhood - a friend and I stayed there up into the wee hours one night talking politics and religion with a globe-trotting French pharmacist.

All in all, a fabulous trip. Never did find the"Korea's got Seoul" T-shirt, though - a friend in Colorado has one from the year she taught here, and pun-loving copy editor that I am, I rather liked it ... wonder if it was some sort of tourism-department slogan that's fallen by the wayside. Oh well, maybe next trip I'll find one.

Soon to come: a Buddhist templestay.

So what have you learned about your travel style, dear readers? Feel free to post your answer in the "Comments" section below.

Chestnuts growing in an open field ...

2007-09-15T17:53:00.001+09:00

Harvesting chestnuts is a four-appendaged sport. Or so I learned during this weekend's cultural outing - a day of activities at a "folk village" north of Daegu (kind of like Iowa's Amana Colonies but much simpler and smaller).

For anyone who didn't know (like me, before today), chestnuts grow inside fist-sized masses of thorns, which turn brown and thunk to the ground when ripe. Getting these well-armed bundles to give up their hearts is a prickly task. You'll need one hand to hold a sack, two well-soled feet to stop the thing into submission and then nimbly pry it open, and a surgeon's hand to go in after the innards. This of course while dodging the tree's attempts to pelt down more thorny fruit at the intruder.

I probably could have seen the process even in Colorado, but it's so much cooler to do my stomping-prying-extraction dance on a rainy gravel lane half a world away, listening to bleating goats and amusing a wizened Korean farmer leaning on a rake. Maybe that's why people travel ... not necessarily to make more memories but simply to tie them to more exotic incidentals. Plus, odds are that I wouldn't have hit any chestnut groves in the foreseeable future in Colorado.

And it's pretty neat to have a better understanding of the process behind what ends up on your plate - or palate. As far as I was concerned, the woody, autumnal treat simply materialized on city streets half-roasted. (By the way, that's not my picture - it's copied from an educational website with a clause allowing such use.)

Despite an unyielding downpour, we also:

picked apples,
dyed handkerchiefs with onion, ash-tree and soil dyes,
ate a farm-fresh meal,
made Korean rice dumplings,
saw a traditional wedding ceremony (a couple from Iowa got mock re-hitched), and
stomp-danced with the old women to a medley of traditional rhythm instruments.

All in all, an awesome day sponsored entirely by Daegu city tourism.

It's amazing the amount of money Korea is pouring into reaching out to the world, especially to Westerners. That event, which has been at least an annual occurrence for some years now, included buses, food and materials for about 120 people - not to mention labor costs. There were all sorts of nationalities there, including the first Spanish speakers I've chanced upon in Asia - a Mexican couple in government work. (My Spanish has obviously rotted away, by the way - eeks.)

And Friday, we went to a cultural expo back at Gyeong-ju, the historic city with the tombs east of here (see this post for ramblings from my earlier visit to other parts of the town). The government also keeps systematically pouring money into that expo center, constructing modern architecture, sponsoring cutting-edge exhibits that blend millenniums of culture with futuristic animation, and drawing performers from the world over.

And let's not forget that my existence here is largely on the government's tab, too. As I understand it, the Village we were hired to run is essentially city-funded to educate a broad swath of the city's kids - plus eventually serve as part of a large-scale attraction area north of the city with resorts, an amusement park and who knows what else. Organizers hope to break even through weekend events and special sessions, but the main portion of the state-of-the-art venture is dedicated to public education.

But it's not only the government pouring money into global ties - it's a whole culture. There are legions of expats here teaching English at all manor of institutions, most of them private firms funded by Korean parents hoping for global opportunities for their children. English competence is seen as a source of power, though Korean children are also fully expected to value their cultural heritage. There's much still that I don't understand about that balance, but it works largely in my favor.

a-ha moment

2007-09-13T19:17:00.001+09:00

Every so often when you're learning a new subject, you hit those times when you realize you already know more than you thought. Like when you're playing the guitar and realize an E chord is simply an A minor one string up. Or when you learn how electron patterns repeat throughout the periodic table.

In Korean, it's pretty freaking cool when you start reading Hangul efficiently enough that you realize how much of at least the commercial signage is based off English words. Hence, I suddenly can order an "orenjee ju-suh," catch a "boos-uh," watch "tel-lebeejon," wear a "suweto," use a "compyooto," tell people I'm not from "Kae-na-da."

Just like in Spanish, bunches of English words have been appropriated and squashed into native sounds (Koreanized) ... you just have to know what to look and listen for. Often, it's mostly absent "R's" and an "-uh" or "-ee" sound attached to the end of a word. (In fact, I'm quickly picking up the nickname "Mahshy.") It all gives me an even deeper appreciation for English-language learners who by and large have no such quick fixes. I will never be fluent in Korean, but I think I just jumped a lightyear toward that goal by simply learning how to recognize words from my own language.

new digs and other mundane updates

2007-09-07T13:25:00.001+09:00

Whew! Finally have my own Internet connection again. We rather suddenly moved into dorms at the end of last week, and it's been a bit like starting over again: new digs, new roommates, new part of town, new transportation lines, new set of shopkeepers ... but the biggest challenge - no personal line to the Net again for a few days. I am a part of the wired generation, no doubt about it.

But anyway, I'm now happily settled - Web and all - in a four-bedroom, two-bathroom suite on the top floor of a four-story brand new dorm building about 10 minutes' walk from the college. My roommates are fabulous folk: a chill couple from Ohio - new grads from an ESL master's program - and a former junior high math teacher from Colorado Springs. I have a Western-style bed again, and out my window is an undeveloped plot of tiny, haphazard houses and squash blossoms. The rooms are actually built for two each, which I can hardly imagine, but the place is grand for our setup of four people. And we only share a washer among 12 people now, and it's on our balcony, rather than down five flights in a dingy basement of a busy hotel.

As of now, we're supposed to be here another six weeks or so before moving up to the Village, but I'll find shoes in Asia if that deadline actually holds. We're taking another trip up there tomorrow and we'll see how much closer the crews are to the lavish architects' drawings ... it will be an amazing place if it turns out anything close to that, but it's obviously got a lot yet to get there.

Meahwhile it's an adventure navigating the neighborhood's maze of tiny alleyways and major "a la NASCAR" streets. We're also within minutes of another, large university, and there's a cool area closeby teeming with cosmopolitan restaurants, shops and nightlife. Downtown is now a bus- or cabride away, instead of mere stops on the convenient subway, but the sense of local community is captivating.

Amid trips to E-mart this weekend, the country's semi-equivalent to Wal-Mart/Target, a group of us squeezed in a full day touring the coastal part of this region by bus - stopping at a park, a temple, an arboretum and a windmill field. Nothing jaw-dropping, but fun nonetheless, and for $25 bucks for the day (sans lunch), the price was definitely right. Plus it was nice to be out in the countryside for a bit and also more along the tourist routes, where English signs at least are more plentiful. Thankfully fall appears to have finally hit, and ever since the days of rain it's been mild and breezy - hopefully we've got a couple months of this weather before winter rolls in, because it's fantastic. I'm planning an overnight to Seoul and a templestay for a break later this month, and we're hitting two cultural expos this weekend - one on the college's tab as "cultural training" and a thank-you from the dean for teaching summer camp.

Speaking of work, we've finally gotten to the point of breaking down a lot of our planning into task forces, and it's nice to get our hands on tasks and see measurable progress. Plus we've been rethinking some of the curriculum and coming up with really cool activities and projects ... I can hardly wait to get into the Village and put it into practice. I feel so spoiled, getting into the cool part of education by skipping all the typical bureaucracy and limited school systems. Granted, we'll have our limits, too, but the support and materials we have to work with are AMAZING, and there's no need to teach for any standardized test - the only test is whether students enjoy themselves and get a little more comfortable with English.

That's about the wrap for now, I think. Love from Korea! :)

TPR 101

2007-09-03T09:13:00.001+09:00

Today was the day I've been waiting for. After a week of unyielding rain, the skies had at least temporarily plugged up and left the city in a temperate haze. Okay, so maybe not quite the perfect conditions for trying out my newest Korean small talk: "Nashiga chosumnida" ("Nice weather"). But tomorrow could very well be back to steaming or more rain ... so my next shot could be in April - heck if I wasn't going to bust it out.

Pay attention class, this is an example of education giant James Asher's Total Physical Response theory (basically that language should be learned in physical, real-world scenarios) in action:

It starts at breakfast, when I "Nashiga chosumnida" the attendant. Then the maid washing the windows on the way out of the hotel. I "Nashiga chosumnida" the bus driver (whose English is improving a lot more quickly than my Korean), and the linguistic-major Romanians within earshot giggle. The lunch ladies. I make a special "Nashiga chosumnida" outing during break, delivering the day's weather report to a handful of shops near the college.

Nashiga nashiga nashiga. Asher's got nothing on me. Bring it on, baby - I'll "Nashiga chosumnida" this whole country before the rain returns.

And in good Korean fashion, they all smile and nod, more or less amused with the crazy American who's suddenly decided to turn meteorologist.

Or at least that's what I think they're smiling at ...

Funny, no one seems to be returning with the "Yes, that's right" statement on my recording ... don't they know the script? Am I in the right country? ... Hmm. Better pocket this one for now until I can hit a dictionary or talk to someone to get a translation ...

And upon further investigation, it appears that I have in fact been telling everyone something to the effect of "You good pigeon." Or perhaps "Your sister's grandson well."

Friggin' Asher.

Oh well, it's supposed to rain tomorrow.

the art of karaoke

2007-09-02T00:21:00.001+09:00

I'm just gonna have to get into this stuff. Having returned from my third such outing in the past two weeks, it's clear that a good Korean social life absolutely requires a solid education in Righteous Brothers, Outkast and Britney Spears. Not that I wasn't friendly with these fine folk before - it's just that my American acquaintanceship ain't gonna cut it. I need words, I need actions, I need to know their motivation ... and there will be a test.

Karaoke. It's where the 8-year-old crooning to the hairbrush emerges from the classy businesswoman, where the inner rock star pumps out from the dignified middle-aged gent.
Karaoke. Where there are no observers and no poring over of songbooks ("This is not a library!") - so you better come prepared.
Karaoke. Home of the peanut-butter dried squid and other assorted snacks, bad beer and soju.
When in Korea, karaoke.

I'm still getting over the oddness of presenting this ridiculousness to an intimate roomful of friends 4 feet from you rather than a distant bar of people you'll never have to see again ... but I better get with the program: True karaokers are a fierce foe, armed with tambourines and microphones. You will sing, you will dance, you will cheer riotously for everyone and you will be scored. (Seriously, the program actually gives you a score based mostly on how loud you are, best as I can figure.)

Pitch is not a necessary element whatsoever. Rythym is negligible. But flair and good humor, those are absolute essentials. And a true socialite has a little of everything in the hopper and knows just what makes an Elton John moment versus a time for the Black Eyed Peas.

So who has suggestions for my repertoire?

Indian adventure

2007-08-28T13:39:00.001+09:00

No, not mine - yet. Mine for the moment is contained to the modest Indian/Pakistani district we cruise on weekends seeking an escape from kimchi. For a much more interesting account, click on over to my friend Megan's blog ... she's a buddy from MU journalism, we worked in Washington together and then she was in Denver at The Associated Press for a time while I was in the Springs. For the past year she's been working for Stars and Stripes in Okinawa, Japan, including a stint of several weeks in Baghdad. Now she's off on a new adventure of six months of travel and freelancing (and blogging!) in Asia, starting in New Delhi.

Check out her new blog here: The Gypsy Scribbler (http://gypsyscribbler.blogspot.com).

Happy reading, everyone, and happy travels, Meg!

smelly, sweaty Westerners

2007-08-28T13:33:00.001+09:00

Yes, this is a post all about sweat. Oh ye delicate of sensibilities, surf on now.

So Daegu is hot. How hot? Well, the hottest city in Korea, for starters. The heat just seems to pool in the valley where Daegu lies, and if hot rains aren't fizzling down, the steamy river's evaporating up. Temperatures regularly climb into the 90s (Fahrenheit) in August, and it doesn't cool down too terribly much at nights. Which means Daegu is always pretty much hot as Hades - a swampy, steamy, stagnant Hades. No need to go to one of those famous saunas ... though clothing unfortunately is required on the streets.

Most buildings are air-conditioned, but only by room, and sometimes only certain rooms. And you usually have to start the air when you go in those rooms, meaning a good half hour of steaming while it cools down. And then there are necessary errands pretty much every day that require walking the blazing streets, and of course playing tourist on weekends ... so pretty much entire days running around outside.

Which of course means sweat ... at least for us Westerners.

Med school friends correct me if I'm wrong, but from reading and various other sources, I understand that Asians (at least in the Far East) generally have less sweat production (tied to less body hair on the whole) than Westerners - black or white. At any rate, it's quite obvious walking around the steamy Korean peninsula that the average Jin here looks a whole lot cooler than his dripping, smelly average-Joe counterpart. I'm pretty sure I work up more of a sweat brushing my teeth than a Korean does hiking a mountain. And you don't begin to notice body odor here the way you do in say, Western Europe.

Subsequently, deodorant just isn't a big thing in Korea ... at a major store you might find half a dozen or so products, and you could probably get caviar cheaper per ounce (antiperspirant is about $5 for a small container). So as you can imagine, there's a whole black market for the stuff among expats - you can find posts in English-language classifieds. Maybe that's what I'll do if my condo doesn't rent out soon, start a career in the burgeoning world of illicit deodorant trade.

The good(?) news: I've heard that Daegu also holds the distinction of being one of Korea's coldest cities in winter.

adjectives of emancipation

2007-08-24T00:14:00.001+09:00

Copy eds, this one's for you. Everyone else, you probably want to move on before you're totally geekified.

One of the best parts of moving out of the career of words was the freedom to take back my language and the authority to use it any old way I please - by whim or by reason. I can't claim that all my grammatical faux pas will be statements: I'm still quite prone to ignorance and typos. However, to keep some shred of my former desk dignity (quiet, you snickerers! ... and keep fighting the good fight, copyeds!), I am compelled to document that at least some of my deviations are intentional.

Just for y'all's information (yesseree bob, I sure did just use the possessive form of that), you will see the false plural used for gender-neutral singular pronouns. I may use those verboten words like "lure" and "mull," and I may say "like" when it by standard grammar should be "such as." Oh and by the way, I'm just gonna use "may" for "might" - quite frequently. Deal with it.

I'll split my infinitives, call this a "website" and use "dork" with complete abandon. And if "healthcare" is good enough for Webster's, who am I to argue? But then again, I'll use a whole smathering of words Webster's has never heard of.

I'll probably talk about "healthy" food, break off a lot of prefixes that AP has no qualm with, dangle prepositions and put my "only"s any old place I please. I'm going to also use "blonde" as an adjective on principle. On the other hand, I'll likely as not talk about "manmade" things ... in fact, I'm pretty sure I've already gone and done it (ditto on "healthy").

I will definitely use "failed to" on more than one occasion - probably "in order to," as well - and I'm quite the fan of a good quaint "ain't" every now and again. I see no reason why "headquartered" can't be a verb, and I stand firm that there's a good many uses for passive voice.

The list goes on, but I think I've solidified my ridiculousness quite enough for one post. :)

Feel free to add your own grammatical rebellions in the comments!

3 bucks to see the doc

2007-08-23T23:06:00.001+09:00

So this week's big adventure was a trip to the hospital. Don't worry - in Korea's socialized medicine system, the hospital is just a one-stop shop for healthcare, not reserved for urgent or serious procedures.

Anyway, a whole troupe of us teachers went to the local general hospital to get prescriptions rewritten, vaccinations and take care of other minor issues - thankfully herded along by our ebullient fashion-plate of a Korean facilitator. It was like a little family, shuttling everyone to respective locations and waiting around for translation help, and let's just say we all know way more about each other than I'm used to with co-workers. But that's OK - just see "Step 4" below.

We were quite the sight, as usual, scurrying along corridors and lounging about in waiting rooms. And being as sick people - and people waiting for sick people - have very little to do but gawk at such spectacles, it was definitely their day's entertainment, compliments of America.

There was a particularly hilarious scene in which an elevator wouldn't move loaded as it was with giant Westerners, and there was some ferocious Korean going on about who was going to get off ... with our shepherd (definitely skeptical of his charges' ability to cope if left behind) surely waging what amounted to a cultural war by asking seniors in age and rank to exit. Apparently the responses included "I'm a doctor with a patient!" and "I'm old!" Unable to argue with that, he herded us off the elevator and we waited another five minutes for the next and squeezed on before any Koreans had a chance. Ding ... one floor. One floor. Maybe Koreans don't believe in stairs in hospitals, being full of sick people and all.

Oh, and in another elevator trip, I discovered that if the people behind you don't think you're moving quite fast enough, they aren't shy about giving you a two-handed push on the back to propel you out the door. Or maybe that's just reserved for incommunicado foreigners ... I don't know.

So compare this with the States:

Step 1: Walk in the lobby and take a number. It's filled with row seats and quite resembles a bus station.
Step 2: When your number comes up (fairly quickly), pay a one-time registration fee of about $8 bucks - or $12 to see a highly experienced specialist.
Step 3: Go to the appropriate department, check in and wait to see the doctor (times seemed to vary drastically - some people were out in minutes, others languished for hours).
Step 4: See the doctor (most speak some English, but usually only select medical phrases, so it's a heck of a lot better to have a translator with you just in case). Oh, and it's highly possible you'll have to share a session with other members of your party, or that the next patient will come in halfway through your consult and patiently wait in the seat next to you ... the concept of HIPPA hasn't quite reached Korea, to say the least.
Step 5: Take your paperwork down to the lobby again and repeat the number process to check out. You'll probably pay $3 to $20 for the visit.
Step 6: Take your prescription to any pharmacy. Most medications cost $3 to $6 per box/bottle, but specific Western imports can be much higher.

Oh and that registration fee is only for large hospitals - go to a small hospital and you'll probably only pay $3 total to see the doctor.

survey of scenes

2007-08-19T16:16:00.002+09:00

Just got back from spending the day cruising through a big market in town (think tailors' shops, knickknacks, cages of chickens, and all sorts of strange-looking meats/sea things out collecting flies) and then to the major upscale department store downtown (nine-plus floors of overwhelmingness) and then to a more everyday department store on a mission to find blank CDs to record a class project. Everything seems so complicated at first when you move to a foreign country - move anywhere, to some extent. The simple act of taking an elevator can be a whole different system: At the upscale department store, it appears that you watch all the banks to see where each elevator is and which direction it's going, then place your bets by pressing the button next to the one you think will arrive soonest, then crowd around that doorway.

It was interesting seeing what I assume to be the evolution of shopping, all in one day - first the traditional open-air market - and part of that has become an enclosed, air-conditioned structure. Then the ritzy place where everything comes together with pristine pizazz for a whopping price, then something closer (but not near the same as) your Target or Wal-Mart, for example - value and convenience driven by the rise of the middle-class dollar (or won). It was also interesting to see the differences in how commerce is structured here from the States: For example, department stores here are also kind of like malls in themselves - they usually seem to feature a food court and perhaps some other restaurants, a photo studio, a hair salon, even a movie theater, but they're standalone stores.

Last night was also a tour of scenes - but entertainment venues this time. Started at a noraebang, or karaoke room: Karaoke isn't done at bars here, but instead you get a group of people and rent a room by the hour and pay for drinks. It's quite the setup - disco lights, strange electronic-sounding music (which I guess makes it easier to modify by tempo and key - all at the click of a button), microphones, a fairly decent selection of American tunes amid the Korean music, and a big screen with the words popping up erratically and often hilariously wrong (Lennon and McCartney are credited with these fine lyrics: "I'm not half the moon I used to be, there's a shadow hanging over me ..."), plastered over pictures of Korean landscapes. The only way to do it is to embrace the cheese factor, fill up your soju (rice wine) glass, pick up that tambourine sitting on the table, and just go with it. It was quite the experience. Then we moved downtown, first to a low-key expat bar (notably sans expats at the time), then to a GI club where the American hip-hop spirit was alive and well, and finally to a typical Korean club, where wannabe B-boys greeted us at the door and the dance floor was filled with stiff-shouldered swaying.

Oh, and I've now eaten some sort of larvae often served at soju joints here - half-dried worm-type things with soft shells. Not so good.

Hope you all are well!

Thursday reflections

2007-08-14T13:54:00.001+09:00

A couple days ago I got news of a great-uncle's death back in the States. It wasn't someone I was particularly close with, but it's still sad tidings and a stark reminder of how disconnected I am from the everyday lives of family and friends back there, and how much will have changed by the time I get back. Sometimes it seems so selfish to live a world away, adventuring for the heck of it, spending money on travel and a degree I'm not even sure I'll truly use. And it is - selfish - but it also seems the right thing to do, all things considered.

Meanwhile, life marches on here, too. Tomorrow is the final day of us teaching these summer classes at the college, and it's amazing to see how much the students have progressed - the heartwarming factor of teaching really shows up quickly. Course I still have plenty of heartburn, too (I get ridiculous about any new job - times ten for a major career change), but overall, things are going really well and it's been a great introduction to education. Next week we do sessions more similar to what will be in the Village (basically teaching amid movie-like sets to place kids in situations like they will find in the real world, and using hardly any bookwork), and we also start doing planning of schedules, curricula and logistics for the Village.

Yesterday was a national holiday (one of what I understand to be four Korean independence days), but one without much ceremony aside from flags popping out on shops and in neighborhoods. Four of us hopped a bus to Gyeong-ju, a historic city about an hour east of here, not quite to the Eastern Sea. The place is absolutely packed with sites - we were making plans on the fly and still managed to hit about five places in a few hours - and some of the cooler ones were parks filled with tombs of ancient rulers, like in the (handout) picture below. They're not quite as colossal as Egypt's pyramids, but serve the same function. The biggest one is seven stories tall, and there's one that's been excavated and now houses a display of the tomb structure and artifacts found there.

In the same area are beautiful gardens and other landscapes, a former palace grounds and man-made lake, and a museum housing many of the artifacts found in the area. One display in particular made me smile: Apparently, in the dawn of A.D. as Buddhism spread through the Shilla Kingdom of this region, people began making increasingly artistic and personalized funeral urns to commemorate the dead. Which is all well and good, but it threw a whole new light on this article (click here), which I remember reading a few months ago at The Gazette. There really is nothing new under the sun.

And in other news of the odd, I've become quite the model since arriving in Asia - the whole group has. It seems to be quite the thing to have Americans in your promotional photos, so we get stopped everywhere to get photographed checking out a business or area. In fact, the manager at the local Costco said he'd hold a party for us if we just took a picture at the store. The latest episode was being flagged down at the palace "ruins" at Gyeong-ju for "City Hall propaganda!" as a bespectacled gent put it, emphasizing his point with wild gesticulations at an oversized camera. It's so bizarre that looking like a tourist - an AMERICAN tourist in particular - is actually a good thing. Of course I can't read all this stuff they print with our pictures ... maybe it's more along the lines of "Come see our latest attraction! Buffoons straight from America! You never know what ludicrous stunt they'll pull next!"

I have Skype!

2007-08-11T20:10:00.002+09:00

So I finally got set with Skype, meaning that any of y'all with an account, or who get an account (go to Skype.com to check it out - it's free to download, but you'll need to make sure you have a microphone on your computer), can talk to me for free, and that I can call all the rest of you for a couple cents a minute. I've still got to work out some sound quality issues, but it works! My Skype ID is kristinkmarsh - if you have an account, look me up or e-mail me your ID and we'll be in touch. Now if only this fantastic service could do something about that pesky time difference to the States ...

I also have a cell phone number, but I'm not going to post that here - just e-mail me if you want it. It doesn't cost me to receive calls on that phone, but I won't be calling internationally from there short of some emergency.

One more thing down ... on a list of about 100. But life here is finally settling into something of a routine, and it's nice to finally be able to focus on changes in smaller portions, rather than feeling like every moment brings something unexpected. During the week we have long days of classes, meetings, lesson planning and shuttling around to various errands ... at the end of the day there's just time to scratch out an e-mail or two while watching whatever cheesy English-language program might happen to be on TV or scrub a few clothes in the tub if the one washing machine in the basement is taken (it usually is, and apparently there aren't laundromats here like in the States ... some people are checking into a laundry send-out service, but I'll let them be the guinea pigs). During the weekends, we inflict ourselves upon the largely amused and partly annoyed neighborhood, taking over the tiny diner and getting impromptu Korean lessons at the 7-Eleven across the street, and we venture downtown and to various city attractions - which really means wandering around on the hot streets for hours like a herd of lost cattle, following a series of misunderstood or misgiven directions. Evenings - weekends, anyway - may mean a beer in the bar down the street, or a trip downtown to the expat hangouts or clubs.

Even meals don't seem so exotic anymore. It doesn't seem so out of the ordinary to eat french fries with ketchup or salad for breakfast (I think that first dish is some enterprising soul's idea of creating a Western spread at the hotel for us Americans) amid the more traditional hard-boiled eggs, Spam (or something like it), toast and cereal. Lunch and dinner are typically at the college cafeteria, where the staples of rice and kimchi (spicy, pickled cabbage) are accompanied by at least five other dishes, a bowl of soup and a piece of fruit. There are generally no drinks and never any desserts, and everything's eaten with chopsticks and spoons. Lotus roots are a big thing, pickled vegetables are all the rage, and I've quite gotten used to tentacles on my plate or in my bowl. It's hard to generalize the cooking, though, other than to say there's a notable variety of veggies and meats/seafood used in each meal. When I get a camera in a month or two, I'll do a more thorough post on some of the dishes. In the classic "weird stuff I've eaten" list of those traveling abroad, though, I've added tiny octopus, tiny fried crabs (both in entirety) and kelp - "You know, that stuff we feed our fish" as a co-worker put it. There may have been other items of note considering the amount of unknown dishes crossing my plate in recent days. Some of the other teachers were somewhere grubs were served, and another ate dog. Doubt I'll be seeking out either one of those anytime soon.

Friday we had a formal ceremony with the college president to receive our letters of appointment, starting with a half-hour dress rehearsal of how to meet a person of such high status (don't drink until he tells you to!), how to accept the letter (with two hands!) and how to bow (left hand on your stomach or elbow!) and shake hands (the ceremony was somewhat Westernized in an overture by the president, who proved to be a warm, gracious gentleman ... I wouldn't have been surprised by a pompous ogre after all the fuss, but that's the culture). The only people in the room, however, were our group, a handful of Korean academics and staff, and the president, which made me realize that in the States we generally reserve our ceremony for mass gatherings - here there's no need for an audience to make something a sacred event.

Then we spent the evening with the dean (son of the president) at a Western-style restaurant in the mountains - good food but not quite spot-on: The baked potatoes were loaded with whip cream instead of sour cream, for example. The dean was also quite anxious to see our Texans (in suits and boots) two-step, apparently, but the music selection was more of a techno club sort, so there were a couple awkward hours of people standing around, bobbing their heads in a "trying to go with the flow but not bust a move in front of an important boss" sort of way. A good time was had by all, though, a staggering bill tallied and an auspicious start made to a cross-cultural project of mammoth proportions ... which was the point, I think.

technical difficulties

2007-08-06T20:36:00.002+09:00

Fabulous. I managed to delete my "About me" box and just seem to be messing things up more screwing around with the Korean buttons to put it back ... I may just run anonymously a couple months until I'm back on an English-language network here ...

Week 1 of teaching is going pretty smoothly, which really isn't saying much considering the situation. I'm co-teaching with a new master's grad in linguistics, and there are two teachers' aides AND a Korean translator in the classroom - yes, five adults for 12 students. The Village will be more like one or two adults for 15 students, but this summer camp is a way for the college to use all of us milling about, waiting for the Village to open.

Still, it's something of an accomplishment to have created lesson plans, adapted things on the spur of the moment and kept a dozen youngsters fairly engaged for three hours when you've never done that before. I now feel at least a little more legitimate using that title of "teacher" that I've co-opted for a few weeks now.

One of the boys - "Harry" (Sidenote: it's amazing what a bestselling series can do for a name's popularity. Apparently there are downright scuffles to get dibs on that moniker in each class - there's always one - and the kids all chant "Haahh-reee Poh-teh!" anytime the little guy gets a turn at the board or a game) ... anyway, our Harry brought us new teachers candy this morning, which may be quite perfunctory but still totally made my day.

I'm in a class of kids who are theoretically 10 to 13, but the way Koreans count age makes things a little hinky. As I understand it, Korean children are born being 1 year old, and they all have their "birthdays" Jan. 1, so a child born Dec. 28 could be "two" just four days later. Hence we've got tiny little "June," with the quiet stare and barely audible whisper, and tall, gangly "Ann," with all the markings of teen awkwardness and angst. And I thought I had it tough being the youngest in my class, desperately waiting for my driver's license a mere few months after my classmates ...

On a final note of the day, check out the animated "tour" of the Village by clicking here. Of course it still looks pretty much nothing like that, but the bones are there, and it'll get fleshed out eventually.

Later, gators.

party in 516

2007-08-04T21:38:00.001+09:00

I have Internet!!! Finally connected to the world again ... Twenty teachers have been sharing two old-school computers with the rest of the hotel for e-mailing and lesson planning, so you can imagine how fantastic it is to finally get my own connection.

So ... where to start?

The flight from L.A. to Seoul was fairly uneventful - unlike my last trip abroad, my neighbor was a quiet, considerate person fond of sleeping. She knew about 50 more words of English than the handful I knew of Korean, and at the end of the 12 hours I pulled out a pack of gum in an attempt attack some of the travel grime before starting the next leg of the journey. I brandished the half-eaten package of spearmint Orbitz at my schoolteacher neighbor in polite American style to offer her a piece, and she appeared shocked with gratitude, asking/pantomiming "For me?" twice. I nodded, slightly perplexed. She promptly took the whole package and put it in her purse, then with great regret indicated that she had nothing for me. I assured her it was OK. As I tell you this story, she's probably telling her friends about the quacky American on the plane who pushed a half-devoured package of gum on her.

But that was really only the beginning of that day's adventure. The five of us program teachers who had been on that flight (sitting separately) hustled out of the plane to start the waiting processes - first at immigration, then on the luggage, then on the lost-luggage paperwork (my two arrived just fine - thankfully!), then on customs ... and with a mere 20 minutes to catch our connecting flight to Daegu, our fully loaded posse set out to find where to check in. Our pulse rates spiked when an airport official said we needed to take a shuttle to the domestic-flights area, but a cabdriver promised us he had space for five giants and their mammoth luggage, so we were off. And let me tell you, the Army could not have done a drill so smoothly as our impromptu operation headed by the champion efforts of the slight-yet-surprisingly-strong driver, Mr. Kim, and we crammed into that yellow van tighter than circus clowns. Which is pretty much what we felt like about 10 minutes down the road when it became clear that we weren't simply shuttling to another area of the airport, but to an different airport altogether - and most definitely the wrong one. Apparently we didn't even need to leave the building for our transfer.

Chaos ensued, but it was tempered by a surprising amount of laughter, hurtling down those metropolitan highways, trying to figure out our next move. People were called, schedules were checked, plans rearranged - thanks largely to the animated negotiations on our behalf and solid cell phone service of Mr. Kim, and eventually we settled on a plan to catch an express train - all this set to an eclectic soundtrack of Western throwbacks. I think Louie Armstrong's "Wonderful World" will be forevermore tied in my mind to that ride, two Texans (boots and all), a sassy junior high teacher, a bubbly new education grad, Mr. Kim and me squashed together, all singing along in total abandon.

There was another flurry of activity at the train station, where Mr. Kim actually booked our tickets for us, a seemingly endless but quite comfortable train ride down, another shuffle involving multiple runs in tiny cars at the other end, and here we were, a few hundred dollars later, finally in Daegu.

Fast-forward a week. We're living in a hotel a couple subway stops from downtown, and of course, things here have also not gone quite as planned, but this time they mostly worked out in my favor. We were originally booked for double-occupancy Western rooms, but somewhere along the way a handful of those changed into single Korean-style rooms (with bed mats on the floor), and I had a shockingly hard time convincing people it REALLY wasn't a noble gesture to volunteer for one of the latter. I could sleep on the floor all year, no problem, especially for the perk of having my own space away from the people I live, work and socialize with, no matter how great they are - but apparently I'm the odd one out.

Word is we'll be here in town for a month, but after seeing the village today the general consensus is that it could realistically be Thanksgiving before we actually get up there (we've actually got a pool going on the date). On the bright side, it's obvious it'll be one heck of a place when it's finished, and at least for this first month we have classes to teach at Yeungjin College, half the partnership that founded the village program - and we'll be getting paid no matter what the situation. Plus we get to get more acquainted with the city before moving to the rather remote spot 20 minutes from a suburb of Daegu.

On the downside, the hotel is not really up to traditional Western standards in terms of facilities and cleanliness - I'm not sure whether it's up to Korean standards - so that's been wearing on the group, but things seem to be getting slowly worked out one way or another. And it doesn't seem horrible, just expectations change when you plan to be in a place for months rather than a night.

As for the rest, in the words of the heralded Indigo Montoya, "Let me explain ... No, there is too much - let me sum up."

We've had packed schedules of orientations, paperwork, introductions and easing into taking over summer classes at Yeungjin College. It's been long, hot days (I'll get to the heat later) but it's really awesome just to be this excited about a job again - it's probably the honeymoon phase, despite everything, but I just can't believe I'm getting paid to hang out with kids and teach them things in a fun way. And such well-behaved, sweet kids! (Kids are kids, but the culture here - which has its downsides, more on that later, too - really supports successful classes, and Yeungjin also funds English classes really well, so the teacher-to-student ratio here is something American teachers could only dream about).

The food is a major departure from American cuisine, but cheap and quite healthy (yes, Linda, if you read this, I'm totally flouting traditional grammar ;) and I'm still finding it fun to not know what's on my plate half the time. At the Korean version of fast-food, which is more what we think of as diners - definitely no drive-throughs here, you can get a roll of "Korean sushi" (not fish - cooked ham and veggies), a bowl of broth soup, kimchi and another pickled vegetable for about a dollar. Yes, you read that right. A nice meal can be had for about four or five bucks. But that's only food - consumer items here seem to be comparable to, if not more expensive than American counterparts.

My Korean is coming along painfully slowly, but I seem to get around OK anyway, and the people here (like heroic Mr. Kim) are ridiculously nice and go out of their way to help idiot tourists. I'd heard about how welcomed Americans are here and I guess I really didn't believe it until now, but it's awesome.

Anyway, I guess that's the semi-rambling version of recent days' events, so you're mostly caught up. We officially take over classes Monday - wahoo!

i'm here

2007-08-03T19:52:00.002+09:00

Hi all - I've still got really limited computer access, but just wanted to post something to say I've made it and have much to tell ... I hope to spend some time in an Internet cafe this weekend, so a more detailed report to come. For now, suffice to say that I arrived (with a few detours on the way) and the group is overall pretty cool but we're dealing with some major changes of plan (on top of jet lag and culture shock and logistics problems) because construction on the village is so delayed, so tensions are running high. Definitely quite the adventure, but that's what I signed up for, and after getting into classes, I'm pretty sure teaching is my dream job ... for now anyway.

Catch ya later!

a melancholy road

2007-07-23T02:03:00.001+09:00

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind, first a frenzy to leave Colorado, then a head-spinning tour of the Midwest, and now a jaunt through the American-image factory of California. From the time I left Colorado a week and a half ago, I've seen close to 20 sets of people in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and now sunny - or smoggy, rather - California: about 100 folks in all ... and a handful more yet to go before I cross the ocean. Whew.

Then it's a small feat just hauling this much crap across the country ... I rode a shuttle from the airport with a family of eight - count them, EIGHT, and traveling cross-country no less - who had a mere four tidy bags among them. I probably could have packed most of those kids AND their luggage away in my four. I cast longing looks at the business travelers' sleek little carry-ons as I trudge through hotel hallways and parking lots with my unwieldy lot. In the elevators, people make quips about how I sure have a lot of stuff. I sure do. Thank goodness for carts and shuttle drivers.

Touring the country has also been a survey of my past. I've been away from the central part of the country long enough now that the West feels like home, and the domesticity and tufted hills of the Midwest seem almost exotic as the eccentrics and ocean view in California. And I already miss those Colorado staples I once found unusual: pine trees and scrub oak, the crazy peak baggers and other adrenaline junkies, green chili and avocados everywhere.

As one of my friends observed, travel can make a person melancholy because it acquaints you with wonders of the world - people, places, sights, tastes, experiences - that you can never possess at the same time, meaning you give up a bit more each time you switch spots. Another friend gave me a card with a quote attributed to Confucius: something like "Wherever you go, go with all your heart." The thought was quite apt for my move East, but I can't say I agree with old Fuschy on this one. It seems that if you've fully lived and you've moved around, you can't help but leave pieces of your heart scattered about. Each place I've been still tugs on me, and it does make me somewhat melancholy to tour that and evoke all those visions of other paths I could have taken ... could still take.

But you only get to do it once, and a melancholy heart is a full one, I suppose, for each of those places that I left a piece of myself, I also gained memories and - more important - friendships. People who give me words for this melancholy and Eastern proverbs to mull, as well as ongoing windows into all those places in the world I love.

my ode to journalism

2007-06-28T13:15:00.002+09:00

I couldn't leave journalism without one last Big Story. Okay, so it didn't end up being much of a story, but when the newsroom was hopping and no one knew where the next funnel cloud would whip up, it was at least the possibility of a Big Story and a reminder of one of the things I'll miss the most.

There's nothing I've found in my quarter-century of life quite like the feeling of a buzzing newsroom - the excitement of being at the center of information during a moment when lives are being changed, and the charm of experiencing that amid a collection of intensely curious people.

These are folks who pursue challenges as a trade ... no wonder so many are reluctant to give up on the cantankerous industry. And as much as newsrooms can resemble some caricature sketch, loaded with exaggerated personalities and eccentric quirks, they've also been full of people I'm thankful to know. People who have challenged me and taught me. People who have inspired me.

When I leave journalism next week, it will be with no small amount of nostalgia. But it will be with a headful of lessons and a heartful of gratitude. Not to mention more than a few inspirations for that novel I may write one of these decades ...

But it's time to move on. Vaya con Dios, journalism.

Korean culture 101

2007-05-27T06:51:00.002+09:00

Some do's and don'ts I've learned over the past week from a Korean friend, a Korean waitress and program organizers:

Generally, instead of a handshake, give out a business card - using two hands, thumbs on top and fingers together underneath, with elbows bent. Receive cards the same way.
When handing someone a cup of tea, however, use one hand and touch the other hand to the inside of your elbow. (Things other than business cards or teacups are still a little murky.)
When entering a room with a group of people, walk in most senior to least senior (rank or age), and walk out in reverse. Never turn your back when leaving a room; instead, back out.
The most senior person eats first, decides when phone conversations are over and shakes hands first (if there are handshakes).
When dining with seniors, turn away from the table to drink (any drink), and cover your mouth as you sip.
Women should always cover their mouths when they laugh.
Bow in greeting; the more senior the person in rank (and possibly age), the deeper the bow.
Never curl a finger to call a person to you; instead, turn your hand palm down and sweep at the air.

And that's definitely only the beginning of the culture list.

Now, few of these things are expected of tourists, but as someone living in the the country and working in a prestigious position (yes, teaching - can you imagine?) with Koreans, these are mannerisms I will need to adopt. I'll keep you posted on how that goes ... but you can imagine that it won't be smoothly. :)

Also had a full Korean meal for the first time in my life this week - much to the amusement of my friend who dined with me, the waitress and the other patrons in the place (all Koreans). My tentative "thank you" in Korean - the only phrase I eventually mastered that evening - brought huge guffaws ... not quite sure what I said - and it's probably better that way. As far as the food, I guess I'd envisioned something more similar to the other Asian styles I've tried ... but it was totally unlike any other genre and quite tasty. Plenty more about that in the months to come, I'd imagine.

under construction

2007-05-20T05:40:00.001+09:00

UCCS just posted a bunch of photos of construction at the Daegu English Village site - click here for more. I think they were taken during a trip this winter, but it's still exciting to see something a little more concrete than architects' drawings with a mysteriously transparent clock tower ...

The enormity of being part of the founding of such a program freaks me out no little bit sometimes, but the opportunities should be equal to the challenges. 20 American teachers have been hired now, they tell us, and I think most of the village staff is also in place. Although it still doesn't feel quite real, it's becoming more apparent every day that it's actually going to happen.

Meanwhile, construction continues on this blog, as well - I've added a whole bunch of stuff on the sidebar at right. Let me know if you're having more trouble loading this site than others or if things are displaying correctly ... still working out the kinks.

And a packing question: Does anyone have suggestions of American trinkets to take for thank-you gifts or rewards for students?

Colorado hail, Korean heat

2007-05-06T03:34:00.000+09:00

Dime-sized hail today in Colorado - it's bouncing like popcorn on the green grass behind my house and slipping down the chimney to sizzle on the fire. Almost got caught out in it with nothing but my iPod (and my clothes, thank you very much!) - ouch. I started wondering about precipitation in Korea (I'd heard about temperatures - hot, swampy summers, in Daegu at least, and anyone who's ever watched M*A*S*H knows about the bitter winters), did a little looking and stumbled across some a couple interesting pages about Daegu. Thought I'd share for any of y'all thinking about visiting, or who are just curious:

www.sri2006.org/useful/daegu.php
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daegu (Generic Wikipedia disclaimer: This is a publicly edited page, so take any facts found here with some degree of skepticism)
www.dalseo.daegu.kr/eng/html/sub01_04.html

explain fully

2007-05-04T22:13:00.001+09:00

I love bureaucracy ... when I don't hate it. It's just endless fodder for amusement.

Exhibit A) American Family Insurance has just informed me that I will have to pay a deductible if a volcano or earthquake levels my Colorado condo. They sent me a whole letter just to tell me that.

Exhibit B) Korean visa application Question No. 19.

This picture is tiny, I know, but hopefully you can just make out Question No. 19, right above the penny - the one with the box stretching to the bottom right of the frame: "[Hangul script] Purpose of entry (explain fully)." And then not even a thimbleful of white space. Heck, they took up most the explanation possibilities just by telling you to do it.

Of course I won't explain fully, I'll just squish "teach English" in my neatest, 3-point handwriting and be done with it, but it still cracks me up.

click here to see your future

2007-04-25T13:29:00.001+09:00

There they are: my new co-workers, or at least the first four to get their biographies submitted (I'm in the ranks - whew! must not be too behind). The program organizers have started to populate the teachers' Web site with pictures and bios, and it's a strange sensation looking over those unfamiliar faces.

I have to admit that they're a little scary ... these world-traveling academics. Not quite sure how I fit in the ranks - just hoping that the slackers' profiles (17 more to come, I think) won't be nearly so impressive. :)

stamps and hand cramps

2007-04-21T12:55:00.002+09:00

The world's roads are lined in paper.

I am in the middle of killing a small forest to convince my country, my host country, two sets of employers, my grad school, my bank and my property managers that no, I am not an drug dealer or communist spy, and yes, my plan is a flawless one. The first bits I'm fairly certain on, at least.

Hollywood keeps promising an era where one iris scan and a few keystrokes will give you access to anywhere you're authorized, but I'm telling ya, people, we are far from that day. This is still a world of fuzzy faxes and nonstandard passport photos. Oh well, at least the countries I'm dealing with this time have straightforward procedures, if not exactly simple ones. And if something goes wrong, I suppose I could always try that whole "look into my eyes" thing at customs.

And then there's the decidedly disconcerting feeling of signing your life away on papers that look like a muddy-footed robin tromped on them. Don't worry - the hangul (Korean script) is only in logos or accompanied by English translations - but it's still downright bizarre to think this garbledy-gook actually means something. The first time someone sent me an e-mail with hangul terms, I burst out laughing. It was as if someone had said, quite earnestly, "Oh you have to try awjvoeksoflkf... and the poekjvoek is really great but skip the slkdfov ... oh and don't miss the fjowebvo with lots of rejobiejof." Except weirder, because they're symbols that I can't even sound out yet, so they don't seem like words at all. (One of the actual quotes: "I want to recommend that you have to have korea food such as 삽겹살, 불고 기, 김치, 비빔밥.")

Anyway, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one dead tree, so I better get back to it.

one ticket to Korea, please

2007-04-06T21:18:00.001+09:00

*Note: This was a post I wrote before leaving but never quite got around to hitting the "Publish" button ... anyway, here it is months later, but in its chronological spot.

Sometimes when I say I'm moving to Korea, people look at me like a two-headed calf at a Kansas roadside attraction. Sometimes I get the cocked head and skeptical "Why?"
Now to be fair, most raised eyebrows at this statement accompany huge smiles and enthusiastic exclamations. But to those few who just can't understand why the heck a perfectly nice gal on the verge of old-maid-hood would pick up and put off any sense of permanent community to anonymously wonder a strange land ... I'm with ya. At least some days.

Some days I think I'm freaking crazy to leave this great place and the wonderful people here. I wonder how much I'll mourn my space, my in-house washing machine; I already dread the incomprehensible grocery trips and mystery cafeteria food. Some days it hits me how absolutely little I know about what I'm getting myself into. I have no doubt that in my sweeping schemes of adventure, I'm just a stupid rich American bound to spread my ignorance worldwide and chronicle the ordeal in oblivious, self-important anecdotes.

But today, like most days, is not one of those. Today I'm tired of watching life tick by in section deadlines, and I say bring it on. I've worked years to establish a resume and stable finances, and it's time to face down a little mystery. Today I'm scared I'll wake up tomorrow 20 years older and none the wiser, paralyzed by inertia.

Blame my friends - the ones who send me stories of Baghdad children, Peruvian ruins, Alaskan fishermen, Mexican tennis teachers, Chinese junk ships and Vietnamese old women. Blame my family, who started feeding me romantic tales of life abroad about the same time as hard foods. Blame the fool-headed books I read. Blame naive me, who couldn't quite get the travel itch entirely knocked out by a rough scrub in Europe.

Am I a fool? Unquestionably. But hopefully I'll be one who knows what kind of fool I am.

blog additions

2007-03-31T10:50:00.001+09:00

You'll notice I added a couple images, and also note the "chatterbox" on the right column - feel free to leave me travel suggestions by putting in your name and comment and hitting "post."

There are also now buttons at the bottom of each post to quickly e-mail whatever ridiculous thing I've said to your cousin in Taiwan or whomever.

More changes to come eventually ...

program info

2007-03-20T23:16:00.001+09:00

I've put a link to the basic program info (including some pictures of the area and architects' drawings of what the village is supposed to look like by August) at the right side of this page. Also, I plan to do some major surgery on this site over the next few weeks, so don't be shocked if it looks significantly different the next time you stop by.

Have a great day, all!

updates via e-mail

2007-03-19T10:51:00.001+09:00

If you want to be notified by e-mail when this blog is updated, put your e-mail address in the Blogarithm form on the right side of this page and click the "Keep it fresh" button. You'll be taken to a screen that will give you further instructions.

If you already have a Blogarithm account, you can log into the Blogarithm site and simply add this Web address to your watch list.

it's in ink

2007-03-16T09:19:00.001+09:00

I'm signed and sealed to set off for Korea this July. The plan is to teach for a year through the English Village project outside Daegu, then who knows - Korea, China, Latin America ... or perhaps back to good old Colorado.

But no adventure would be complete without those who got me there, so I'll be taking y'all along, chronicalling the journey here from time to time for friends, family and random virtual passers-by.

Stay tuned!