The Ballad of the Sporting Rooster

I hate windows.

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 04:27:30 GMT

So I purchased a very nice Samsung Sens R55 a couple of years ago in Korea. This winter break, I decided to upgrade my laptop in order to get a couple more years out of it. Additionally, the cooling fan had started making some weird noises that I wanted to get checked out.

My plan was simple. First, I was going to open up the notebook, locate the fan, and clean out the dust (which I figured to be the cause of the fan making noise.) Second, I was going to upgrade the RAM to 3 gb (which is the max for this computer.) Third, I would get a larger hard drive, and put the current one in my ps3 (I have a launch 20 gb model.) Finally, I was going to wipe the hard drive and do a fresh install of the operating system using a disk that had been given to my by my work back in Korea.

Have no previous experience of actually opening a notebook before, I found a page on the internet with someone who had a similar model to mine. It wasn't the best explanation, but I managed to get the cover off successfully. There were, however, two problems. First, I couldn't get the cover off of the cooling fan. The screw were on so tight that I was starting to strip them (which would be bad.) Second, after reassembling the computer, my wireless stopped working properly. This was causing me to get angry.

I resigned that I was going to have to take my computer in to get looked at. But before I did that, I decided that I might as well wipe the hard drive with a fresh install of windows. Little did I know that after install windows, I got a message saying that my version of windows wasn't an authentic version of windows. No problem, I thought. I actually purchased an authentic version of windows on this computer. Granted, the stall in Yongsan where I bought it used a shady copy to install the English version operating system onto my computer, but I was able to insert the original software key to validate the system. This time, it wouldn't let me insert my validation key.

At this point, I decided to upgrade to Vista. I'd been playing with the idea of upgrading for a while, and decided that now was as good a time as any. I got the cheap student version of Vista ultimate for $65 dollars, and upgraded. Hooray, I had Vista. Though, no cd. The cd was sent to my address in Virginia (for an extra $13 dollar.) Thanks to a memory stick and my mom's work laptop, I was able to transfer the necessary drivers from her computer to my computer (thankfully found on the Samsung UK site) and I had a working, legal computer again. Hooray.

I decided to take my computer to Fry's. After about a week and three visits, it was determined that A: Hardware wise, the diagnostic didn't detect any problems, B: The antenna cables to the wireless card had been removed when I opened my laptop, and the technician reconnected them for me, and C: Sounds like the fan needs to be replaced, but since this is a Samsung model, can't get the parts easily in the states. So, unless the computer really starts to overheat, don't worry about it for now. (All this for $80.)

So I took it home, ungraded the ram ($45 on new egg,) purchased Office 2007 Ultimate ($55 +$13 DVD) and received a new hard drive (320 GB) from my parents for Christmas. After doing some checking on the internet, I discovered that I needed to have an installation CD to install my new hard drive. Since I downloaded my copy of Vista from the internet, I would have to wait until I got back to Virginia to install the hard drive.

Today (4 weeks later!) I got the Vista DVD in the mail. I spent a couple of hours backing up my data, and switched out the hard drive, and inserted the Vista DVD. When prompted, I'm asked to insert my confirmation key. When I'm then told that I can only use this key if an existing copy of windows is installed to the hard drive. SMRKENJTENTOAMNEJRT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Having left my corrupt version of Windows back at my parents, I'm currently downloading an illicit copy of Windows XP, so that I can once again update to a legitimate copy of Windows Vista.

Like I said, I hate windows. The worst part of this is I own two legitimate windows licenses, one for XP and one for Vista. I just have to jump through hoops and perform illegal tasks to get them to work properly.

Stream of Consciousness I

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 03:08:14 GMT

So for the last six months, I've been promising people that I'd give a long expansive update as to what I've been up to since I made it back to the States. Well boys and girls, here is that update.

So I'm about to start my second semester studying Security Studies at Georgetown University. No, I am not preparing for a job as a security guard, or in running TSA (as one of my friend's mom asked.) The program prepares people for jobs in national security. No surprise there.

Last semester I took four classes. First, I audited Japanese, which was incredibly dumb. Japanese is a hard language, and there really is no future in this language. Everyone and their mother can speak Japanese. Korean, on the other hand, is a critical need language. If I can improve my Korean ability, I was have a highly marketable asset that I could use to get jobs with.

Next, I took Theory and Policy in Security. Got a B+ in this class, mostly because I think I'd forgotten how to write, and form a coherent argument. In grad school, I have to use my brain in ways that I didn't in Korea. Which is good, but it means that I have to work again. This is similar to when I messed up the English section of my first GRE because "my brain got dumb." This class dealt with international relations theory, just war theory, and a ton of other theories about war. I really didn't like this class, and participated less than I should have, and I'm happy that I got the grade I got.

Third class that I took was Grand Strategy and Military Operations. In this class, we looked at various conflicts such as World War I, World War II, the French in Algeria, Afghanistan, etc. and looked at the campaigns waged, and what worked and what didn't. We were suppost to look at it from a strategic, operational and tactical level, but in the end, I didn't learn enough to do that well. I ended with a B in the class, which is what more than 50% of the class received.

Final class was Security Issues in East Asia. I actually wasn't a fan of this class, because I felt like I wasn't learning very much in this class, plus I had to write four different papers (three 5 page, and a 20 page.) But thanks to my awesome paper where I discussed the lessons of the closing of the US bases in the Philippines and related them to the bases in South Korea, I received an A-. Go me.

This semester, I plan on taking five classes. They are, in no particular order, Theory and Policy in Asia, Theory and Practice of Intelligence, International Security Issues, International Negotiation, and Korean. This semester will suck, especially around midterms and finals.

This summer, I should be interning at the US State Department, following a background check. Though there is a small possibility that I'll head back to Korean to do two months of intensive Korean training. If that goes down, the I'll be sure to contact my Korean friends and hang out.

Christmas was spent in Texas. Next year I have decided to only spend one week in Texas, and spend the rest of the time visiting people, or simply chilling in DC. I had a very successful Christmas, though I wasn't able to meet up with Kyla, despite a plethora of messages. Oh well, there's always next year.

Random side story. This past week I was in NY, met up with Ash, Tiff, Erica, Craig, Mark, Shyam, and Craig's girlfriend for some dinner, drinks, and karaoke. It was quite a good night, and I had a raging hangover the next day to prove it. However, I did spent the karaoke session arm and arm around my ex, Erica. Now, nothing happened, since we were in a small room full of friends, and there's now way we were going to start making out in amongst everyone, but it very easily could have happened. Man, I have to send her an e-mail, especially since I apparently I broke her heart at the end of freshman year by not contacting her. Yes, I know I was/am an immature jerk, it's something I'm working on, and hopefully the next time I'm in NY we can meet and work this out.

I'm afraid that this is one problem that liquor won't fix.

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 05:43:50 GMT

So, I'm here in Texas. My computer unfortunately being examined at Fry's, since the fan is on the fritz. (I'm very scared abut this, but I didn't really have a choice. I couldn't open up the cover to the fan on my own, and there is no way and hell I'm taking it to Best Buy.) Though on the plus side, I was able to buy a wii for my mom, just by walking into one store (today, no less), finding it on the shelf, and buying it. Damn it, I am mighty lucky.

I'm using my sister's computer at the moment. So I'll have to stop this now. More to come.

I'm not dead...

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 03:17:02 GMT

Just busy as hell. There is lot's I want to talk about, which I will eventually. But, now is not the time.

Cheongju in the News! (Also - My first and only Takedok Rocks post)

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:22:09 GMT

Last week, South Korea was hit by a small typhoon (or 태풍, if you will.) This storm mostly missed the peninsula, but did dump a ton of water on Cheongju. (I wasn't here; I was busy in Jeonju visiting a cool traditional hanok town. I highly recommend going to. In fact, I may take my sister there when she visits.) Cheongju was hit pretty hard and the local stream, Mushincheon (무신천) flooded. Here are some pictures taken from here:

This stream is only a seven minute walk to my house. On Thursday, when I was taking the bus to meet my friend Ciara to go to Daejeon and then Jeonju together, we passed by the stream. Usually, there is a road that travels next to the stream. But even at 10 in the morning, I could see that the stream was completely flooded.

Cheongju was also in the news surrounding the recent flareup of the ongoing Liancourt Rocks controversy. Long story short - South Korea calls them Dokdo and claims them for their own. Japan calls it Takeshima and claims it for their own. Now, I mentioned on this blog long ago how I don't want to deal with this issue here. It's something that is simply too sensitive, and can get people fired for taking an unpopular position in Korea. But what the hell, I'm leaving in less than a month, let's role the dice!

My beef from this issue stems from this article that I found at at Japan Probe (which was also picked up by Brian in Jeollanamdo.) From the original AP article:

"The city of Tottori said Wednesday it has been notified by the South Korean city of Chongju that the annual exchange program among their junior high school students should be cancelled indefinitely due to the territorial dispute over two disputed islets.

The education board chief of Chongju said in a faxed message Tuesday that the decision was made in consideration to national sentiments in South Korea following the Japanese government's move to mention the islets, known as Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea, for the first time in a teaching guideline for junior high schools.

"It is regrettable that a political and diplomatic matter like Takeshima disrupts a friendly event between the two countries' middle school students," said Toshitaka Nakagawa, head of Tottori's education board.

The board will decide how to respond to the matter by next Monday, he said. Under the program, 33 students from Tottori city were supposed to visit Chongju from July 29 for five days to stay with South Korean host families."
*Note that in this article Cheongju is spelled Chongju. This is from the McCune-Reischauer system of transcribing Korean into English, an older system that is much more difficult to read than the system currently in use by the Korean government.*

This just makes me sad. I can't believe that my Office of Education would do something like this over some guidlines in a text about a topic that the vast majority of Japanese know nothing about. Every time the Japanese governement says something relating to these rocks, which they have continued to claim since at least 1954, Koreans freak out. They overreact to the point the it is simply scary. People have cut off their fingers in protest (I've seen pictures online, but I simply can't find them at the moment.) Other planned student exchanges have been cancelled. Why punish the children for something a government is doing? And it's not like they are doing anything new. And it's not like they are calling to "get even" with another country or imagining a war for two small islets that no one in Japan cares about. The rocks can't even sustain life on their own. They are completely worthless other than fishing rights (which both countries are supposed to share due to an older agreement) and the possibility of some natural gas deposits. Japan will never attack South Korea over these rocks. And now the South wants to send in a permanent base of marines there? Thank god some people are still level headed about this.

I suggest that everyone read this article asking Seoul to make a choice - for greater economic cooperation between South Korea and Japan, or to shoot themselves in the foot everytime this issue comes up. Also from Anpontan, in a later post he leaves us with this wonderful passage:

"One I read this morning in today’s edition of the Nishinippon Shimbun.

Their account of the story was curious. They mentioned that Mr. Kwon called Japan an island country—which they said was a subtle Korean insult—but left out the part about the inherent Japanese desire to invade the continent.

Surely they knew about it and snipped it on purpose. Why? To prevent a heated reaction from their readers and avoid creating a bad impression of Koreans, obviously.

Remember that the next time you read a rant from a Western journalist, or a disaffected foreigner writing in the English-language press in Japan, or some blog, that would have you believe the press in this country often whips the insular, narrow-minded populace into a nationalist fervor.

Baloney. It just doesn’t happen, and anyone who spends any amount of time here and is intellectually honest knows that."

* For the record, I do believe that the islets belong to South Korea, due to the simple fact that they claimed them by force and currently occupy them. I don't buy any of these historical arguments that claim that the rocks have always belonged to Korea, because based on what I've seen and read, it's really unclear if people knew if the rocks existed at all, and even if they did, no one is sure exactly who claimed what when. Land ownership changes over time, and history is never cut and dry. However, I do believe that now, Korea controls the rocks, and posession is 9/10ths of the law and all that jazz. I just wish it wasn't a life or death struggle everytime somebody in Japan mentions these rocks. The nationalistic fevor of this country is out of control sometimes. Focus your energy into more meaning endeavors, like trying to get all the obducted citizens back from North Korea.*

Odds and Ends

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 04:36:07 GMT

I've once again been lax about posting. I have some really interesting ideas that I want to flesh out into posts, but for the time being, I'll just list some things that I've been preoccupied with.

- Many people told me that they didn't file their taxes while living and working in South Korea, since due to the foreign income exclusion process, many felt that they didn't need to. I always told them that they should, especially since it would be beneficial in the long run. Well, imagine my delight when my $300 economic stimulus check arrived in the mail last week. In the eternal words of some random Crash Bandicoot commercial, "Booyah Grandma."

- I received, and then beat, Metal Gear Solid 4. Twice in fact, with one time being with no kills and no alerts (though I did have it on the easiest level - I just wanted the stealth technology. You may have read about the Metal Gear Solid 4 shirts through Kotaku. Limited edition Uniqlo shirts (my favorite clothing brand) rule. But, sadly, the Metal Gear Sold 4 shirts were not avaible in Korea. But thanks to Jae Seong, I discovered that I could order them through Japanenjoy. My new t-shirt will be arriving shortly. (The design makes sense once you've played the game. Also, I got the white one.)

- Despite my recent acquisition of the above ps3 game, I no longer own a Korean ps3. That has been sold to my friend Joel. As I already have one back in the States, I sold the system and all my games (including MGS4) before I left, so that I can hopefully get some cash to save up for Grad school (which is extremely expensive.)

- Which brings me to the source of my most current frustrations, Grad school. I was applying for a Graduate PLUS loan, and I was asked to insert information about my employer. The only problem is that it requires a state and area code. There isn't an option to change the country of the employer. Neither an e-mail to Georgetown Financial Aid nor Sallie Mae (who I'm trying to get the load from) helped, so I have to call them tonight. How fun.

- Why is Grad school so expensive? I am worrying so much about it right now, and finding a place (For rent, I might be spending $1500 a month. Is that normal for DC around Georgetown? I have no idea.) It really is starting to be an all-consuming worry, so much so that I can't help but wonder if I'd be better off spending another year in Korea and saving like mad, deferring my entrance. I'll end up being in the same position next year, so I'm still screwed. I need to get a job, which scares me as well, since I've never had a "real" job, and not sure how I'm supposed to work and be a full-time grade student. Stress and worries are not a fun combination.

- But, I did have a weird dream where I was in a town, with a group of four other people, that was infested with zombies. We were trying to get to the car to escape, and there was an opening, but one person was bitten on the hand, so we hand to leave him behind. As we were driving through the earlier infected part of town, we noticed that the people were acting normal. They were still zombie, but were walking down the street like normal people. There was some freaky art, such as white trees make of paper and adorned with human arms. Also, some zombies apparently were able to tap into some sort of esp ability, and were floating human corpses as they were walking around. Suddenly we reached an intersection where a kind of zombie cult came out where white with red trim hanboks. As soon as they saw us, everyone in town converged on us, raising their hands in the air as if they were shouting 만세 (Manse)! The dream ended with them swarming around our car... and a stage with an alter I think. It was a weird dream.

- I'll end with the fact that I'm going to mud fest this weekend. I hope that this allows me to relax.

The concept of being "cool" in Korea

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 03:21:20 GMT

First, for those of you interested on the impact of the trip to Kaesong, North Korea and its potential positive effects towards North Korea, take a gander at this article by Andrei Lankov, a Russian scholar who specializes in Korea. He is one of the most insightful writers I've read on both North and South Korea. In his younger days, he attended Kim Il-sung University in the North, and also bore witness to the collapse of the Soviet Union, so he has some useful insight on these tours.

Now, I was reading this article on Neojaponisme (a very cool sight by the way, which is now added to my link bar on the right.) In short, if you are curious to watch the new ABC show, "I survived a Japanese game show," don't; It is a mockery of an outdated image of a Japanese game show. But after reading this article, I read this one, "Dave Berry Did Japan." Basically, it's a travel book by comedian Dave Berry from 1992, a time when Japan wasn't yet considered "cool" by masses. Sure, by this time, anime, manga, Japanese video games and to a lesser extent J-pop had developed their own sub-cultures in the United States, but people who were into these sorts of things were considered nerds. (By nerds, I don't mean the hipster-nerd that is currently the fashion. I mean old-school nerd that were social outcasts and looked down by other people. There is a great discussion in the comments of the post about this. It's one of the few times in a long time where I feel smarter for actually reading all the comments, unlike some places.)

In the book, Dave Berry describes one of the Japanese subcultures, the greaser rock and roll dancers. (Link found on Neojaponisme.) The author of the entry, W. David Marx, writes:

"With no prior knowledge nor passionate interests, the views on Japan in the book ultimately reflect the standard of his era. Overall, Barry sees Japan as a very serious, hard-working, efficient country worthy of respect. After visiting in person, he understands exactly why Japanese products are higher quality than American ones. (”Being American isn’t enough; we have to work hard, too.”) However, Barry manages to retain a sense of American superiority in one area: Japan’s pop cultural output. Although he can blame disinterest in traditional forms like kabuki theatre and rakugo comedy on his own philistinism, he pulls no punches in his full-out attack on Japanese youth culture.

Barry was taken to Harajuku one Sunday to watch the greaser rock’n'roll dancers and amateur bands on the hokoten pedestrian paradise. The greasers had been an institution of the Yogogi Park area since the late 1970s, and to the Japanese, they had a strong image as somewhat aggressive delinquents. So here was a prime opportunity for Barry to see “bad kids” and their original pop subcultures. Upon viewing these specimens of early 1990s Japanese youth happenings, Barry writes:

Although there may be vast cultural differences between Japan and the United States, the scene in Harajuku served as heartwarming proof that rock music is indeed the universal language of the young, and the Japanese young cannot speak it worth squat.

I admit that I am not exactly Mr. Happening Dude in the music department myself. I am definitely stuck in the sixties. […] But after seeing what passes for hipness in Harajuku, I felt like Jimi Hendrix. I felt cool enough to be on the cover of Rolling Stone

Ignore the outdated “cool” references for a moment and concentrate on his complaint: he immediately dislikes Japanese youth culture due to its lack of spontaneity in the performances, the orderly delinquency in an art form Americans expect to be drenched in disorder. The greasers are:

all dressed identically in tight black T-shirts, tight black pants, black socks, and pointy black shoes. Each one had a lovingly constructed, carefully maintained, major-league caliber 1950s-style duck’s-ass haircut, held in place by the annual petroleum output of Kuwait.

They did not seem to sense that they might look a little silly, like a gang of Hell’s Angels that tries to terrorize a small town while wearing tutus.

The greasers would take turns to dance in their circle, listening to “Heartbreak Hotel,” and dancing the Twist — a dance that may have never have been cool in the U.S., even in the ’50s. To an American spectator, these Yoyogi rock’n'roll dancers essentially took familiar cultural conventions and replicated them without any obvious “understanding” of their original context. In other words, would real ’50s greasers have ever danced in orderly manners in front of Sunday noon crowds? (Besides Grease, of course.) While Westerners today fawn over the unusual goth-loli girls and the kaleidoscopic colors of Harajuku layered fashion, Americans were never going to see the “cool” in a bunch of juvies un-ironically re-enacting silly past subcultures with the precision of army drills.

Apart from the Greasers, Harajuku and Yoyogi Park were also full of amateur bands. For Barry, these music groups further reinforced the cognitive dissidence of “organized delinquency.”

Playing loudly on both sides of the street, for a hundred yards or so, were twenty or so rock bands, each of which had come with a truckload of instruments, sound equipment, and generators. They had set up a few feet of each other, and they were all playing simultaneously, so it was impossible to hear one without hearing several others. No harm done. They were uniformly awful.

[…]

But what was really pathetic about them was their desperately misguided effort to be different. For example, you don’t see a lot of tie-dyed T-shirts in Japan, and there was one band whose members all wore tie-dyed T-shirts, which I guess made them different by Japanese standards, but they all wore virtually the same T-shirt. And dancing in front of them was a crowd of groupies — all teenage girls, and they all wore the same shirt, on top of which they were all doing the same dance step, which I assume they thought was cool, but which I swear looked exactly like the “Hokey Pokey.”

It was sad, really. All these kids, gathered in one place, trying so hard to be rebellious and iconoclastic, while in fact being far more regimented than a typical American bowling league.

Barry unwittingly sets up the critical binary for a major Western critique of Japanese culture: Americans/Westerners get it, and Japanese do not. Both groups can wear the same uniforms and listen to the same music and adopt the same mannerisms, but Americans possess a “soul” underlying their cultural participation that that the Japanese do not, no matter how hard they imitate. And during the early 1990s, when the Japanese greatly bruised the collective American economic ego, this was the critical judgment that kept Americans from feelings of complete defeat."

Mr. Marx finishes up pointing out how Japan is definitely very cool now (which is the reason so many of us studied Japanese in the first place - gone are the days when people study Japanese for business reasons.) He gives some reasons why, such as the generational change. Read the article and the comments yourself to get the gist of everything.

What interested me is the superiority of American pop-culture over the conformity of the early 1992 Japanese pop-culture. This is something that can be seen often in South Korea. When I gather with my fellow westerners, and if the topic of Korean pop-culture comes up, the conversation usually breaks down the following way:

1) [Insert currently popular/overplayed Korean group/artist] sucks.
2) Why is all the music here pop/ballads?
3) Korean TV sucks.
4) That one Korean movie was good, but every other one sucks.
5) Korean kids are automatons. (Take for example a survey I asked my students at the beginning of the Fall 2007 semester. The answers were near 100% the same. Favorite singer - Wondergirls. Favorite movie - D-War. Favorite show - 무한도전 [Muhandojeon.])

To be fair, some of these complaints are legitimate. Just try saying "Tell me." or "One more time." in class one day and see what kind of reaction you get from your students. But like Dave Berry, we see these kids all look and act the same, and we feel that pop-culturally, we as westerners are superior (But we all know that really humans are superior.) There may be aspects of pop culture here that we like, but they are few and far between.

But you know something? That's OK to not like the pop-culture. Yet there is absolutely no reason for us, as westerners, to feel superior to the popular culture here. Especially considering some of the hell that students have to put up with here. I can say that I had an epiphany about a month or so ago. I went with my second graders (all 600 or so of them) on a three day trip to Geoje Island. I was assigned to one of the buses with another teacher, and our job was to keep everyone seated and under control. Things went fine, until the driver decided to put on a concert video from New Years of basically every popular artist you can imagine (Wondergirls, Lee Hyori, Big Bang, Girls Generation, etc.) The girls on my bus flipped out. For a video. They started screaming uncontrollably. For a video. They were running up and down the aisles screaming at the top of their lungs, ignoring orders to sit down and constant threats about their activities being dangerous (I think I can understand how tragedies like these occur.) For a bloody video. Now, if any of these artists had appeared in person, I could understand the reaction. But for a video? What was going on here?

Then it dawned on me - these students really have no outlet. Their entire lives are regimented. They have to go to school all day and study (acting up will cause them to get beaten), then they go their hagwons and study until late at night. When test time approaches, the hours get longer and the stress increases dramatically. For these kids, there is no release. Music, such as these videos, are one of the few outlets where kids are allowed to cut loose and go crazy. Because they "love" a particular artist or band, or movie or television show for that matter, parents, teachers etc. cut them some slack to profess their love and their profound connection to it. It's not like they can work out their stress from school through play or something. The students have learned to adapt, and release their stress through the opportunity presented to them.

So I don't blame the kids for the pop-culture. The kids don't know better, and they don't really have the time to be critical about what sort of pop-culture comes their way. I do blame the Korean pop-culture industry for always following the same formula, confident that since it worked before, it will work again. Every since Seo Tae-ji and the Boys, there has been a glut of Korean boy bands. Korean dramas always have the same plot lines, which is probably why the Korean Wave is failing in Japan. It's probably why it's so easy to parody Korean dramas, even in the States:

Basically, in short, even though we don't have to like it, don't blame the kids for the pop-culture. There is no need to feel superior. And who knows. Maybe in 15 years, South Korea will enter the "cool" realm, like Japan. Maybe. But it will take some industry maturity, which as long as everything keeps selling in Korea at the rate it is, won't be happening anytime soon.

Final Post on North Korea Trip to Kaesong

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 06:18:30 GMT

Finally, my two posts about the North Korean trip, with all of the pictures and links (but probably still full of errors.) Check again to see new pictures, or simply skip to the end of part two and go directly to the links for the pictures that my friends and I took.

Part One

Part Two

North Korea Trip, Part Two

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:40:39 GMT

For those of you who care, part one has been updated with tons of new pictures, taken by other people who were on the trip with me. Take a look if you haven't seen them yet.

So, when I last left you, we had departed the Bakyeon Waterfall and were heading towards lunch. We went back to Kaesong, and stopped at a place where I can only assume was the only restaurant in town designated for use by foreigners. We drove into a small, enclosed area, and as soon as everyone was in, they closed this giant fucking gate on us. It makes sense, I guess, considering how right outside was a busy street with tons of people, as well as a giant mural to the Korean workers party (which alas, no one was able to get a picture of.) So off we went to have a traditional North Korean meal.

Area where we had lunch.

Shot near the entrance.

Another picture.

(Before you start saying, "You know, that one meal you ate means that 50 North Koreans went hungry." Just so you know, all the food for the tours is provided by the South and prepared for the North. So there.)

We were led into a small dining room with the other guests. Since we were literally the last ones seated, all of us got seperated, so I didn't get to eat with my group. Instead, I ate with a random Canadian girl (which was disappointing, because I was planning to have a bottle of North Korean beer with my friends, which is heads and shoulders better than South Korean beer Read about it here and be sure to follow the links for more info.) The food was good, but I'm not really that good at describing it. The rice had peas in it, but the peas were very dry. The lental soup was excellent. Dylan also extremely liked these cookies that we had for a dessert, and took a bunch home with him.

Picture of the meal.

A picture of someone else's meal
.

After lunch we had a chance to do some shopping. There, we found a variety of things, such as a bookstore (with books in Korean, English and Japanese), a traditional crafts store, and even a place to buy liquor (I bought two bottles of NK beer and a giant NK map of the Korean peninsula. I thought about buying some NK books, but you can only support the North. Plus, I didn't take a bag on the bus, and I was getting a lot of stuff. (I almost bought a book titled, "Japenese atrocities during World War II," but decided against it."

Books at the bookstore.

Before we departed, we met some other Americans who were in the city for two weeks doing humanitarian service. They were entering the restaurant area at the same time as we were leaving. They were doctors from a Christain organization whose name I don't remember, but they were there installing a water pump at the Kaesong hospital, which had been built around 1900 by missionaries. Having seen a documentary ( parts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7) about the hospitals in the North, I could imagine the conditions that the hospital was in. But still, I felt that their effort was kind of wasted here, because compared to the northeast part of the country, Kaesong really was very well off. I wanted to ask them more about their reasons for being here, and what their experience was like, but we where just about to leave, and we were quickly herded back into the buses.

Next, we headed to a shrine/lecture hall of a Confucian scholar, Jeong Mong-ju. At this point, we were starting to get tired, and the placewasn't really that interesting. But while taking pictures, Jill and Dylan got in trouble for taking pictures of the city, something that's a big no-no from the staff. Luckily, it was just a warning, but to be safe, they deleted all the offending pictures instead of trying to sneak them out.

Seungyang lecture hall.

Entrance gate.

In memory of?

Marker in hanja describing the place and the famous man from there.

The most interesting thing about this stop was that as we got out, we were right next to a busy street. We weren't hidden away like some embarrassment, we were in plain sight for everyone to see. However, the North Koreans weren't allowed to walk on the same side of the street as us. But man, did they stare. And man, did we stare back, and wave. And man, did our minders quickly usher us away from there. That was really cool. (Though I think I did see a Chinese tour group that was walking around rather than getting bused around, which would have be uber-awesome.)

Next, we went to a Seonjuk bridge, known for being the place where Jeong Mong-ju, the same man whose lecture hall we just left and an opponent to the formation of the Joseon dynasty, was murdered by five men, as ordered by Lee Bang-won, who would later become the third king of Joseon. According to wikipedia, "This bridge, now in North Korea, has become a national monument of that country. A brown spot on one of the stones is said to be Jeong's bloodstain, and to become red when it rains." Now, if South Korea knew how to sex up their history like this, there wouldn't be as many problems with tourism.

Bridge Marker

The Bridge.

Could it be... blood?

Or maybe here?

Across the street there was... something. I'm not really sure what it was. It might have been Pyochungbi, a monument erected to commemorate Jeong’s loyalty to Koryo. Anyway, here are some pics:

Our last stop was the Koryo Museum. According to this article from the Chosen ilbo, "The Koryo Museum [is] housed in the Songgyungwan, the central institute of education in the Koryo Dynasty. The building was destroyed during Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea in the 1590s and restored in the early 17th century. It now displays some 1,000 artifacts and is famous for two 500-year-old gingko trees and a 450-year-old zelkova tree."

Map of the place.

Tomb of some sort - the artwork may be authentic, I'm not sure. The area was pitch black, and they had a giant metal door that they closed over it.

The museum wasn't that impressive, since everything was in Korean. They did claim to have a copy of the Jikji on display (which has become the symbol of Cheongju, despite the fact that no one in Korea, let alone the world, cares that the Jijki is the oldest book printed using metal type. It still isn't as important as the Gutenburg Bible.) There was an awesome picture of Kim Il-sung visiting the place, which in hindsight I should have taken a picture of (despite the sign saying not to take pictures of it.)

By this time, I could barely stay awake. I did manage to buy a book of North Korean stamps and some posters to give to some people. But otherwise, that was basically the trip. We headed back to the buses, out of the city and out through the Kaesong industrial complex yet again. We got back through the checkpoints, through the DMZ, and were safely back in the South. I was worried that the stamps would be seized because they would be considered North Korean propaganda, or that they wouldn't let me take my two bottles of beer back (the customs sheet said we could only bring back one,) but in the end, there was no customs check. Our passports were stamped, and we were on our way back to Seoul.

In summation, this trip was awesome. I had a great time, learned things, got a glimpse into North Korea, and got some awesome souvenirs. In hindsight, there are a lot of things I should have taken pictures of, including many illegal things. Also, I should have brought a notebook to better describe what I was seeing. It just means that I have to go back sometime.

I will end this post with two facts. One, approximately $100 dollars of the cost of each trip goes to North Korea (according to the Chosun ilbo) and two, in North Korea, a toilet, normally called 화장실 (hwajangsil) is called a 위생시 (uisaengsil.) Weird, isn't it?

* See the complete photo albums from the trip here, here, here and here. If you are interested in going yourself, I recommend going through Adventure Korea (site only works in Internet Explorer.) For another take on the trip from a Korean, check out the April 21st entry from Seoul Seacher. If there's anything you want to know about the trip, feel free to leave a comment.

"Hello, Selma? Selma my dear, how are you? Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Listen, shut up for a second.”

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:25:31 GMT

[Update June 18th - Apparently the photos that I uploaded didn't actually upload. Furthermore, I've been given more photos of things that were " restricted." I'll add all of that stuff when I back home after work today.]

This not so subtle Simpsons reference is basically my way of saying that whatever you did this past weekend was infinitely less awesome than what I did. For you see, last weekend I went to North Korea. That’s right, the same country that has nuclear weapons, is passionately anti-American, has threatened to turn Seoul into a Sea of Flames, led by communist dictator Kim Jong-il, that North Korea. It’s best if I start from the beginning.

Even since I came here, I knew that I wanted to visit the North. I went on a trip to Panmunjeom (판문점) with USO Tours around the time when I first came to Korea, which was really a really cool experience. But I had already decided to visit North Korea proper. I knew that Pyongyang was out of the question, due to the high cost (according to Koryo Tours , is about $2,900, not including the cost of going to and from China.) A second option that was available was to go to the Geumgang Mountains. This option was much cheaper (370,000 won according to Adventure Korea) but from first hand experiences, I hear that basically you travel to a resort town. True, there are North Korean workers, but you don’t actually see anything about North Korea other than some pretty scenery and some acrobats. Then I read this article in the International Herald Tribune, and I discovered that trips were being done to Kaesong. For those of you who don’t know, Kaesong (개성) is the ancient capital of the Koryo Dynasty, the forbearer to the Joseon Dynasty, which was toppled when the Japanese annexed South Korea. Kaesong is a living, breathing North Korean city, with an abundance of history (and also, of real North Korean people.) Instantly I wanted to go.

[ Now’s as good a time as any to talk about the whole traveling to North Korea and funding Kim Jong-il issue. It’s true, going to North Korea, that money from the trip, including anything that I bought in North Korea, goes to prop up the destructive regime of Kim Jong-il. Take a look at this post as Occidentalism. A quick look shows that the North has gained at least a billion dollars from Mt. Geumgang alone. Kaesong is just another money-making venture for the North. This is true, and this is indefensible. By going to North Korea, I funded Kim Jong-il. But in that same line of reasoning, my father funded East Germany when he and my mother made a trip to East Berlin through the US Army. Where both regimes bad? Yes. Did curiosity get the better of my father, and of me? Yes, it did. I think it was fascinating to enter the Hermit Kingdom and see what I saw. I found it a very enlightening experience, and if you will allow me, I will share it with you. It is something that I would do again in a heartbeat.]

After finding no English language information on the web, I turned to my co-teacher to search for info. She found the out who to contact, and made the initial inquiry for me. This was at the beginning of February. She told me that the service was extremely popular, and the soonest that we could reserve was in June. So then, I made the reservation for 10 people on June 7^th, 2008.

What followed was four months of gathering passports, addresses, passport photos and money from a group of constantly changing people. Even after everything was submitted, there were still little emergencies to take care of, such as the passport photos not being received correctly, or not being able to clearly read the passport information (which was bull, since we digitally scanned the copy of the passport and they told us on the phone that they could read it.) Anyway, things were set for our journey. After a week of traveling (see subsequent posts) we headed up Friday, June 6^th to Seoul.

We checked into this little hotel that I know in Jongro (near Kyobo Bookstore) and decided to do some shopping. My decision to take James and Dylan away from Dongdaemun (not a big fan of that area since it caters towards female shopping) made Emily pissed at James, which did not bode well for the rest of the evening. And then despite everyone’s protests, we went to eat in Itaewon for dinner (I fucking hate Itaewon – sure the food is good, but the atmosphere… it’s just so damn dirty.) Grabbed some Mexican, then went for a drink at Bungalow, the place that has a rooms full of sand inside. Got back to the hotel around two (took a little longer due to the anti-beef rallies still going on at three in the morning.) I had planned to sleep, but was kept awake all night by Niall and Ciara talking (we shared the same room – will avoid doing this in the future.)

We had to be at the meeting place in front of Changdeokgung Palace by 5:40am. Made it there on the dot, got into our buses, and I promptly fell asleep. I woke up arriving a Dorasan Station, the last train station in South Korea, literally at the edge of the DMZ. We went through a debarkation process, where we received our one day pass cards, and were told basically what we could and could not do. This list is as follows:

Also we were given fancy tourist ids:

After going through immigration (actually stamped my passport), we got on the busses that would take us through the DMZ. I must say, this was one of the coolest and scariest moments of my life. We were driving through the most heavily fortified border in the world in a frigging tourist group. We could see ROK guard station to our left and right. And then suddenly, the soldiers all changed into North Koreans. We had officially crossed the border.

North Korean Soldier (Sneaky Shot)

My first observation about being on the North side of the DMZ was all the rice paddies. Basicically, I had been told that the DMZ was this pristine animal preserve. However, the North side looked to have cultivated as much of the land as possible. It really made me think that perhaps the North really is as desperate for food as OneFreeKorea says they are. Also of note was the rail tracks linking North and South. Here’s a BBC article about the opening of the rail line, which to my knowledge, hasn’t been used since.

DMZ Farmland.

Eventually, we reach the North Korean processing station. We left our bus and were herded like cattle to a smallish room which lines dividing us by bus (there were 16 buses in all.) After a 10 minute wait, I went through a metal detector, was wanded, then patted down (I must be a dangerous looking white man) before walking up to the North Korean immigration officer. I said hello, and was unsure what to do. The man pointed at a series of pictures of all the tourists coming that day. He found my picture, marked it, and then instead of stamping my passport, he stamped my one day entry pass. I said thank you, and without saying a word, he gave me the strongest hate-filled stare that I have ever received in my life. It was so powerful, I was laughing about it once I got through. Then, it was back on the buses, but not before Niall and Ciara had a quick smoke break. It gave me the time to look around, and see the surrounding area. To see the plethora of North Korean guards, and a building with the picture of Kim Il-sung attached to it.

When everyone got on the bus, we were suddenly joined by by two North Korean minders, whose job was to look over us and make sure we didn’t do anything we wouldn’t do anything we weren’t supposed to do. Of course, right after Emily made a joke about the corny-ness of Kim Il-sung’s smile, right in front of one of the minders. Luckily, he didn’t speak English (but some of them did.)

We first passed through the Kaesong Industrial Complex, which you can read about here and here as well as some additional commentary here. Suffice to say, it looked brand new, with nice roads, new buildings, and pictures of the unification flag everywhere.

Kaesong Industrial Complex

Everything changed once we entered Kaesong proper. The road looked old (apparently it was made by hand.) The building all looked out the 1960s (very bland and covered with whitewash.) Everywhere you could see slogans talking about the greatness of North Korea, or saying that North Korea will defeat the imperialist Americans. Murals of Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung, as well as monuments to the People’s Worker’s Party were everywhere. The most interesting monument had to be the giant gold statue of Kim Il-sung, just at the top of the hill directly from the old city gate (which sadly was undergoing renovation at the time.) But to my surprise, we weren’t forced to stop and visit any pro-DPRK monuments, which disappointed me, because I wanted to visit some pro-DPRK monuments. An interesting factor of the design of the road was that all the building were positioned so that we couldn’t see what was on the other side of them. Not that this always worked. One restaurant, for example, had no one in front of it. Next to it, though, was a small alleyway, which I could glimpse, ever so briefly, a large line of people waiting to be served (it was lunch time.) James mentioned that he didn’t see any grocery stores, or anything like that. Which leads me to wonder, are these people told to show up at a restaurant at a certain time and this is how they ear?

Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung mural

On the outside of the buildings, there were plenty of building names – I saw restaurants, a barber shop, a photo shop, etc. I saw a few schools (elementary, middle and high school.) The windows looked especially weird. It was almost as if they were made of plastic instead of glass. They simply didn’t look real. There were almost no cars other than the buses. But more interesting for me were the people. North Koreans were everywhere, going about their daily lives. The men all looked very tired and worn, as if old before their time. The women all looked like they were wearing the pinnacle of 1980s fashion (think big shoulders.)

Barber Shop

Pharmacy

Another thing that I noticed what how much better all the traditional houses looked. To be honest, despite being one of the major cities in the North, Kaesong is not very big. It took roughly 10-15 minutes to drive through it (remember, no traffic. Actually, no traffic lights either, for that matter. Instead just men in what looked like white boat captain uniforms directing traffic.) There were really no apartment building (which are ubiquitous in South Korea, and the landscape is negatively affected because of it.) It looked very picturesque. This feeling was only heightened when we left the city and headed for our first stop, the Bakyeon Waterfall. The countryside was beautiful. Rolling, green hills everywhere. Very few trees (mostly cut down for fuel), but nonetheless, beautiful country. Of course, this didn’t deter the occasional giant slogan written on the side of mountains. One read basically, “Long live General Kim Jong-il!” (I love how he has never actually served in the military and still gets to carry the title of general. At least his father was a resistance fighter against the Japanese. What did he ever do?) As we approached the waterfall, a few things were clear. First, except for us, the roads were completely empty. The only other cars on the roads were carrying a contingent of North Korean soldiers carrying AK-47s (or I’m assuming the NK variant of that weapon.) Second, there were numerous villages that all seemed to be surrounded by walls, to prevent people from looking in or out. At the entrance of each village, as well as every road, there was at least one or two North Korean soldiers on guard duty. One of them looked so young that he might have been a middle school boy. And finally, and the most interesting thing for me, were the farmlands.

Traditional Houses

Notice the walls around these small villages

Back in the DMZ, and into Kaesong itself, the farmlands looked immaculate, growing tons and tons of different crops. Once we got more in the country, however, the farmlands began to look… more depressing. First, where as in North Korea and Japan, the edge of rice patties look very defined, and old, these looked they were recently created by hand. In fact, we only saw one tractor on the trip, and it was at least 40 years old. And later, we did come across a group of people planting rice by hand (one person remarked that they might have been taking a dump, since they were all squatting in the rice paddies together.) All the rice patties had a recently built look to them, and they looked kind of poor. In many, the water level was not even very high. It looked more like mud than a properly flooded rice paddy. Second, there were rocks in all the fields. Not just one of two rocks, but literally hundreds and hundreds of rocks. Rather than pick them out while tilling the fields, the farmers just left them in there. I can’t imagine that the crops can grow well with all those rocks there, and from the size of the crops I saw, I don’t think they were. I still can’t wrap my head around why they would let their fields get that way. Is this a bi-product of the floods and famine of recent time? I’m not sure.

Rocks in the fields

Not a lot of water in this rice patty, eh?

More homes and rocky fields together.

Eventually, we made it to the Bakyeon Waterfall. It was beautiful.

Everywhere on the path up the mountain, there were tea shops to by snack and other things. I bought water, which turned out to be sparking water (I don’t recommend.) I did get a picture with a tea girl, but she didn’t seem too happy about it.

Tea girl.

It seems that everywhere, there was hanja (Chinese characters) written. I don’t know exactly what they are, but they must have been here for a while, since North Korea does not use hanja. Anything carved into rock in Hangeul (Korean alphabet) was propaganda for North Korea. Here are some examples:

Hanja

Propaganda (Joseon's Mother - Most like Kim Jong-il's mother. Also Joseon is the name that North Korea uses for itself. Also interesting here - The propaganda is written traditional style, from right to left.)

Climbing up to the top, we found a Buddhist temple. I tried talking to the head monk, but it was a little difficult (plus some random Korean American was an ass to us.) Here are some shots of here:

Gwaneum Temple

Shrine in a cave.

Temple.

Buddha.

The coolest shot of this part was definitely out picture with one of the NK minders.

Since this has reached about 2,500 hundred words already, I’m going to end part 1 here. I leave you with my favorite propaganda picture at the mountain.

Long live the North Korean Labor Party!

Click here for part two.

You aren't allowed to think that's awesome.

Fri, 30 May 2008 03:35:51 GMT

Thank you Penny Arcade.

I, 외국인 (Weigugin, Foreigner) 外國人

Mon, 26 May 2008 06:28:53 GMT

Foreign

Pronunciation:: \ˈfȯr-ən, ˈfär-\
Function:: adjective
Etymology:: Middle English forein, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin foranus on the outside, from Latin foris outside — more at forum
Date:: 13th century

1: situated outside a place or country; especially: situated outside one's own country
2: born in, belonging to, or characteristic of some place or country other than the one under consideration
3: alien in character : not connected or pertinent

Foreigner

Pronunciation:: \ˈfȯr-ə-nər, ˈfär-\
Function:: noun
Date:: 15th century

1: a person belonging to or owing allegiance to a foreign country
2chiefly dialect : one not native to a place or community : stranger

(Definitions taken from M-W.com)

As James Turnbull at The Grand Narrative would be quick to tell you, looking at academic research based on Japan is useful when analyzing South Korea as well, because the cultures are so damn similar (just don't tell that to die-hard Korean nationalists.) Interestingly enough, this can also be true when looking at the populations of foreigners, or expatriates or whatever the hell we want to call ourselves. But tokyology last year writing for The Westerner's Fear of the Neonsign wrote an article entitled, "I, Gaijin" which got me thinking. It's definitely an interesting read if you've got the time. If not, here are some of the points I liked:

"This site is something of a go-it-alone misfit for bandying about the term ‘Westerner’ instead of the more common ‘gaijin’ or ‘foreigner’. When I’m walking down the street, I tend not to think of myself as anything other than me, but, if forced to wear a label, I would go with Western because the ideas underlying the society I was raised in derive more or less from Greek thought filtered thought the Abrahamic religions. However much I strive, I will probably never escape this. I realise that Westerner is problematic because it excludes people from non-Western countries who experience Japan with the same sense of detachment. But foreigner is no better due to the subject-relativity of the term. The postman is as foreign to me as I am to him. When a Westerner returns to his own country, he’s no longer foreign but he is still a Westerner and, if he wants, he can still be a gaijin, a non-Japanese. But the label gaijin is just loathsome. For an example of why, look at the following terms in which it makes an appearance:

Gaijin Bar: decrepit establishment that no right-minded Japanese would ever visit. Identifying marks are soggy beermats, pay-as-you-order drinks, live TV sports and military guys placing each other in friendly headlocks.

Gaijin Card: ID that non-Japanese must carry on their person to prove that they have the legal right to be in the country.

Gaijin House: cheap-ish, communal lodgings for anyone looking for a place to bed down for a short-term period.

Gaijin Power: getting your own way by feigning or flaunting ignorance of the social code.

Gaijin Talent: foreign guest who adds novelty value to a Japanese TV show by being able to speak Japanese. Take Patrick Harlan, or ‘Pakkun’: an American feted by Japanese for being a Harvard graduate who puts his Ivy League education to good use by doing pretend kung fu kicks and interviewing B-list Hollywood actors.

Now, if you place a disparaging English word - crap, for example - in place of gaijin in each case, you’ll find that the meaning doesn’t change. In some cases, the meaning becomes clearer. The connotations are perfectly obvious: gaijin means, in cases one to five: flighty, suspicious, transitory, ignorant, quaint. Better make sure the drinks are paid for and demand rent on a weekly basis."

The term "Weigugin" doesn't have the same power as Gaijin (nor does it have the same power as the Foreigner Belt, which gives "all of the superpowers of '70s supergroup, Foreigner.") But it still symbolizes us as outsiders. Look at the Hanja (which is similar to the Kanji, the only difference is that Korea uses the traditional character for country - 國 - instead of the modified Japanese character - 国)

外: outside 國: country 人: person.

It is amazing how well many of the above concepts apply to South Korea. In stead of Gaijin Bar, we have the Foreigner Bar, known as being a hang out for foreigners (See Itaewon for many prime examples.) Instead of a Gaijin Card (Gaikokujintourokushyoumeishyo), we have an Alien Registration Card (all Korean also have national identification cards, so it isn't as big a deal here. What is a big deal is that fact that despite given a registration number, it is almost impossible for people to register to website since most websites require a national identification number, and if we do manage to register, we can't buy anything since we mostly don't have Korea-issued credit cards.) There is no equivalent to Gaijin House in Korea because basically there is a whole section of society that lives in piss-poor housing known as one rooms, which is basically just like it sounds. In my one room, I don't have a sink in my bathroom (which thankfully is in a separate room, but is annoying none the less.) Gaijin Power is a concept well known to westerners in Korea, but it doesn't have a specific term. Basically, when someone knows that are doing something stupid that is against cultural norms, they just say, "It's ok, I'm a foreigner, I can get away with it." Note that this does not count when it comes to doing things that normal Koreans do all the time (see here for an example - be careful about posting that crazy picture of you online!) Lastly, Gaijin Talent does exist in Korea, though once again, there is no specific term. The best example of this comes from "The Beauties' Chatterbox", a show where different girls from around the world discuss their experiences in Korea (in Korean no less.) Many of these girls have become quite popular, starring in commercials, photo shoots or risque late night semi-pornos (Sorry can't find the link.)

Now westerners, for the most part, are a migratory species. We are here for a year or two, do what we do, then get the hell out of here, not sure how much we improve the quality of English. But there definitely is more of a community here of westerners that did not exist back in Japan. People here are much more likely to say hello to a random westerner. Still, I think more can be done to improve the communication between ~~foreigners~~ westerners in Korea, especially Cheongju. So with that in mind, I recommend you check out Life in Cheongju, my new wordpress blog that I am using specifically to provide information for people in Cheongju. It's still in it's infantile stage, but with luck, by the time I leave Korea I'll have it exactly where I want it. Check it out here.

Life in Cheongju

Sun, 25 May 2008 04:11:28 GMT

It has come to my attention that I will be leaving Korea soon. One of my friends remarked that after I leave Korea, they will lose one of their best sources of information in Korea. That got me thinking that, as a public service to the peoples of the internet, perhaps I should write some of my information down. My goal is to make this the number one site that people hit when they search "Cheongju, South Korea" in google. I want them to find information on "Nightlife in Cheongju", "Restaurants in Cheongju" and "Entertainment in Cheongju". So without further ado, here is part one in my multipart series, Life in Cheongju.

Life in Cheongju Part 1 - Welcome to Cheongju!

Congratulations! You have just decided to spend the next part of your life living in Cheongju, South Korea. This section of my blog has been dedicated to give you, the new resident to Cheongju, information that you may need to survive and even thrive in our fair city. So without further delay, let's get started.

Job - Which job are you going to do in Korea?

If you have come to teach English in Cheongju, there are basically four types of jobs that you will be working in - teaching in public/private elementary/middle/high schools, teaching in private schools academies, known as hagwons (학원), teaching in a university or teaching at a company. Each job has its positive and negative aspects, and for a good overview of everything, check out Teaching English in Asia.

Quick Note: On Learning Korean

Depending on where you work, your co-workers may or may not expect you to know much Korean. And you can survive here knowing next to no Korean. However, I cannot stress how much it helps to know some basic Korean. Not only will your co-workers and students think better of you, but also, it will make your life infinitely easier. However, as you will quickly find out, learning Korean is not easy.

At a minimum, you should learn to read and write hangeul (한글.) Hangeul is the Korean alphabet. Basically, it is essential, if you want to travel, or know how to read a menu, to know hanguel. Luckily, it is very easy to learn. For my early studied, I used the Seoul National University online Korean course. This is a good introduction to the sounds and how to write each letter. Also, provided below are the different letters and their approximate English equivalents (something that is absent from the SNU site.)

Consonants:

(g, k), (n), (d, t), (r or l), (m), (b, p), (s),

(ng), (j), (ch), (k), (t), (p), (h)

Vowels:

(a), (ya), (eo), (yeo), (o), (yo), (u), (yu), (eu), (i)

(Taken from Korea.net's history of hangeul.)

(You will notice, that when I introduce something in Korean for the first time, I will try to include the hangeul as well. Practice often using the signs on the street, and you will be amazed how quickly you start to understand the signs around you (especially since many are written in Konglish, English words that have been adapted into Korean, with sometime vastly different meanings.)

The more Korean you learn, the more you may realize that self-study simply isn't your thing. As far as I know, there are two places in Cheongju where you can have cheap English classes. The first is at the YMCA, Saturdays from 10:00am to 12:00am. The cost is 30,000 won (approx. $30) to register for the YMCA and 20,000 won for the textbook. (To go simply get in a taxi and say, "Shi nee YMCA yo. (시내 와이엠시애요.)" After you go inside, the people will take care of you from there.) The other class is more intense. It is a Monday-Friday course held at Chungbuk National University (충북대학교.) The cost is free, but is from 7:00 - 8:30 pm (not the most ideal for academy teachers.) A book (approx. 15,000 won) must be purchased from the campus bookstore. Registration is also required. For more information contact:

Hwang Seon-young,
International Education Center,
Chungbuk National University
Telephone Number +82-43-261-3299
E-mail - jiayou@chungbuk.ac.kr

Basic introduction to Cheongju:

By now, you've probably searched for Cheongju on wikipedia, maybe stumbled upon the information on Galbijim, and perhaps even looked at some Cheongju message boards at Dave's ESL Cafe. However, you may discover that some of these sights are lacking specific information. Still, I feel it is necessary to give you a brief overview of the city. So, here is a brief overview of Cheongju.

Cheongju is the capital of Chungcheongbuk-do (충청북도), also known as North Chunchcheong Province, or simple Chungbuk. Chungbuk is the only landlocked province in Korea, and it's people are generally known for being farmers. There are three "cities" in Chungbuk, Cheongju (청주, the capital), Chungju (충주) and Jecheon (제천, the smallest, and closer in size to a large town.) There are also many different counties, towns and villages. In some places in the province, the people in town have never seen foreigners, which can be fairly interesting the first time you head off to a country village. Information on Chungbuk can be found here (in Korean) and here (in English).

(A note on Korean web pages. If you want to use a Korean website, be it in English or on Korean, you're going to have to use internet explorer. Korea is the only country in the world that relies entirely on active x controls for the construction of their web pages, which basically means that if you use firefox as your main browser, or if you have a mac, many Korean web pages won't work for you.)

Cheongju has roughly 500,000 to 600,000 people, and approximately 300+ foreign English teachers living in town. The town is located 30 minutes from Daejeon (대전), and 90 minutes from Seoul (서울, both by bus.) Cheongju has a fairly developed bus system, but taxis are cheap and plentiful. Also, Cheongju is connected to a major rail line that links with both Seoul and Daejeon, from where you can easily transfer to Busan (부산). Cheongju is the leading educational and industrial center for Chungbuk, with many people in other parts of the province transferring to Cheongju if possible. Cheongju is home to one of ten national universities, Chungbuk National University, a national museum and the Korean Air Force Academy. Also connected to Cheongju is the Cheongju International Airport, which is known for flights to Jeju-do and to China and Japan. (Information take from Moon Handbooks South Korea.)

For more information on the city visit its web page here (Korean) or here (English).

Stay turned for part 2 - Transportation coming this week. Also if you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment. I will be constantly looking to improve the quality of this as a resource, so anything that you want to add will be greatly appreciated.

Speed does not know that the driver of this car is secretly his older brother Rex ...

Wed, 14 May 2008 12:00:59 GMT

who ran away from home years ago.

* Update - Here is the conclusion of my thoughts. I had to finish meet up with a friend last night (and kick some ass in Wii Tennis!) so I wasn't able to properly finish this post like a good little boy. Just be thankful that I am posting more than once a month. Also, the post was cleaned up a bit, some stuff added, so you might want to read again.*

That's right, this is a Speed Racer post. And contrary to what</a> Liza and Kyla have written here, I do not approve of this movie.

First, some background. I don't like cars. I don't like car movies. So I'm not your stereotypical "guy" in that respect. But I do like me some anime (provided it is good quality - I won't watch something just because she's a witch (and she makes fire!) despite the fact that the story is crap.) If I have any vice, it is towards large robots that transform into jets (see Macross.) I am currently watching Macross Frontier, Bleach, Naruto Shippuden, and Gundam (the original, I've never actually watched the original.) And, for the record, I do enjoy Speed Racer, the anime/American cartoon adaption. I think mostly because of the over the top acting and excited conversational patterns, including the narrator reminding the audience for the 100th time that Racer X is really Rex Racer, when it is so freaking obvious that Speed consistently comments about it throughout the serious until finally in the 50th episode (out of 52) Speed confronts Racer X only to get punched in the stomach, then while Speed unconscious, Rex reveals himself. Classic.

Where was I? Ah, right, Speed Racer the Movie. First, this was a kids movie. I can't speak for the marketing blitz in the States (since I don't live there), but if this movie wasn't marketed as a kids movie (which I get the feeling it wasn't), then people should be angry. As a kids movie, I think this works. It definitely pushed the boundaries about what visuals a kids movie can provide. Unless of course you are prone to epileptic seizures. That's fine, if the film is able to appeal to adults at different levels. Unfortunately, I think that the movie failed in that regard. Sure, there was the adult-ish plot with racing being linked to corporate takeover and whatnot, but there really wasn't much to that. I never felt any tension in the movie. Good movies build tension. This one didn't. It was very, very predictable. It always felt like Speed was going to win. (Of course he is going to win, but the appeal of a good movie is that you aren't sure that he actually is going to win.)

I have another issue with set design. As much as I love nice computer graphics (see Iron Man), the graphics should fit into the movie. They should be seamlessly integrated, and not detract from the movie experience. For me, filming in front of a green screen then adding everything else together layer by layer is not my idea of a good movie. (For an even bigger offender in this regard, see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.) The world, though bright and cheery and whatnot, screamed fake to me. "But Kevin, it's a fucking real life anime. It's supposed to look something in between real and fake." True, but the colors and patterns were just too overwhelming for me. Maybe it was too much sixties. Instead of drawing me in, it make me want to look away (when I wasn't about to start having a seizure.)

A lot of the scenes, especially at Royalton Industries, reminded me of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, another movie that didn't really do it for me. That type of live action/animation integration was too much for me. I'm a believer that animation is best when it is kept to a minimum. The goal of special effects are to make something look real. If that illusion is broken, it ends up ruining the entire movie to me.

Computer-graphic Neo = Not Cool

Compare Matrix: Reloaded to Jurassic Park, made much earlier. God damn, do those dinosaurs look real. (Not that this screen shot does them any justice.)

The movie remained true to the characters, almost too true. Again, this is the complaint about this being a kids movie. There are two groups of people who can relate to Speed Racer. There are the kids from the sixties who grew up watching this show, and there are the kids from the 80s who caught the show on reruns or on cartoon network (where I'm assuming most of you saw the show.) Perhaps they were trying too hard to maintain the 1960s feel. Because Chim-Chim and Spritle fucking pissed me off. I'm sure that if I was a kid, they would have been fucking hilarious.

Speaking of which, as a kids movie, this is really, really long. I normally don't have a long attention span, but this movie, coming in at over two hours, must of driven some of the kids insane. Unless of course the barrage of colors and lights was designed to keep them occupied. Which it very well might have been.

Lastly, we come to Rain. RRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!
Liz mentioned that the actors for this movie were perfect. I have to disagree. Some of the actors were very much out of place (Christina Ricci fucking got on my nerves every time she spoke. The real Trixi was never that annoying. Thank god they covered up her massive forehead.) But my biggest problem came from the casting of Jung Ji Hoon (Rain), Yu Nan and Hiroyuki Sanada in three of the bigger supporting actor roles. Incidentally, these are three big actors in South Korea, China and Japan, respectively. Sanada has done some good movies before (anyone see Sunshine? He was great in that - the movie was great too for the first hour or so, until it devolved into a standard horror flick), and it is based on a Japanese anime, after all. So people from Japan will at least theoretically be interested in seeing this movie. But this was Rain's and Yu Nan's US movie debut. The Wachowskis specifically grabbed people in order to make this movie a bigger hit outside the US. After all, Japan and Korea and the 2nd and 3rd largest movie markets outside the US. .

Normally, I don't have a problem with that. If the actor is a good actor, and the movie is good, then so be it. (However, when the movie is bad, like Memories of a Geisha, there is going to be a backlash when the vast majority of the actors in the movie aren't Japanese.) But when a movie has this whole anti-corporate greed message, then does something underhanded like pandering to foreign audiences in order to gain more views than they would have before. For example, check out this picture of Rain:

Photo taken from here courtesy of Koreanmovie.com

Notice Rain's left arm? That's the Korean alphabet (한글 Hangeul to be exact). It reads Tokokhan, the ㅡJapanese motor company from the movie. Granted, almost none of the Western-viewing audience will catch that, but is it really necessary to spell a Japanese company name using Korean letters? To me, that is blatantly pandering to the Korean audience to come see this movie. Once again, in the article here it says:

As an actor representing Korea, Jeong has tried to think of ways to reveal his nationality in the film. The production team agreed to support his patriotism, and chose the name of Jeong’s character carefully. They came up with Taejo Togokhan — Taejo referring to Taejo Wang Geon, the founder of the Goryeo Dynasty.

Jeong’s scenes also feature many Hangul letters, which indirectly introduce Korea and its culture. “I asked the production crew to portray Hangul characters in the scenes,” Jeong said. “As you will see in the film, Togokhan is written in Hangul. Many Westerners who saw the film said the letters were pretty.”

That's fine and good that Rain wants to be patriotic. Hell, I try to say something positive about the States every now and again while I'm in Korea, especially with all the anti-US / Mad Cow press recently. But when the character you are portraying is Japanese, is it really necessary to shove it down everyone's throat that the actor is Korean? (And what's the point of having a Chinese girl and Korean guy portraying Japanese people anyway? I know Americans think they all look the same, but still, there are plenty of us who know the difference.) Perhaps I've been in Korea too long, or perhaps it was the massive marketing campaign that promoted 비(Rain) for this movie, but it really annoys me that the directors pandered to the Korean audience in such a way. (BTW, the funniest thing in the movie, for me, was that the first time Rain appeared on the screen, I heard a quick squeal of "Rain!" from some random girl sitting behind me.) If memory serves me right, (and like the chairman of Iron Chef fame, it usually does) Japanese pop culture was only legally allowed to be imported into South Korea in 1988. I think that it is safe to say that Speed Racer (or Mach GoGoGo as is the Japanese name of the series) was never seen by a wide range of Korean audiences. Therefore, the only reason that people will go to see this film is if they like Rain. I know for a fact that these people aren't expecting to see a kids movie.

Still, I could overlook that if Rain was good. Maybe it was all coincidental. Maybe I'm over-reacting. But oh my goodness, did Rain's English suck. The reason why the Rain/Colbert Dance Off (see below) was done "after hours" was because Rain's English ability is simply not good enough to conduct an interview.

I saw the film with Yuni (she's doing well, by the way.) The entire time, when Rain appeared on the screen, Yuni kept saying, "Shhh, don't talk. Just look pretty." And it's true, he's got the pretty-boy with the awesome hair look down. His lines sounded awful though. With time, that will improve. Hopefully. Also what was the deal with his character? He was bad, then good, then bad, then good again, cheering for Speed to win the Grand Prix, and only giving up Royalton after his family had sold the company, getting tons of money in the process. Had Royalton's driver won the race, then he wouldn't have given him up? I don't understand.

Thankfully, Korean viewers tended to agree with me about the movie, as Speed Racer did not reach number one status last week [held instead by Iron Man, for the second week in a row. (Stats taken from here.)]

This Week	Title............................................	Release Date	Screens Nationwide	Weekend Revenue (bil. won)	Total Revenue (bil. won)
1.	Iron Man	4.30	617	4.85	18.02
2.	Speed Racer	5.08	485	2.41	2.74
3.	Taken	4.09	303	0.99	13.54
4.	Forbidden Kingdom	4.24	300	0.62	7.22
5.	Horton	4.30	344	0.52	3.16
6.	Beastie Boys (Korean)	4.30	306	0.60	4.07
7.	Priceless	5.08	124	0.36	0.41
8.	Tale of the Legendary Libido (Garujigi - Korean)	4.30	309	0.19	1.62
9.	Seouli Boinya (Korean)	5.08	165	0.14	0.17
10.	Detective Conan: Phantom of Baker Street	5.01	41	0.13	0.53

You know what disappointed me the most though? The movie wasn't cheesy enough. I think the greatest appeal of the original Speed Racer series was the horrible voice acting, the out of sync voices, and memorable voice-overs about Racer X. Honestly, if they had parodied this even once during the movie, I think I would have appreciated it a lot more.

To answer Liz's question, I did like the cross country race, where Speed was able to use the Mock 5's special abilities. Those scenes were amazing. That felt like the original show. Unfortunately, it was only for that race. If all the races were like that, the movie would have been infinitely better. And Speed, Racer X (Liked him much better than his role as a Catalan terrorist from Vantage Point), Pops and others were very well cast. Overall, the movie just didn't do it for me. Would I eventually show it to my six year old kid? Maybe. As long as he or she is not prone to getting epileptic seizures.

Tommy Lee Jones is... Alien Jones

Tue, 13 May 2008 12:45:32 GMT

Found these courtesy of Japan Probe. Very funny stuff.

Go here to see the first 13 in the series subtitled.

아리랑 (Arirang)

Tue, 13 May 2008 12:22:53 GMT

In my last post, I mentioned the use of the Korean folk song Arirang. I thought I'd mention some of the importance of this song has in Korean society.

Here are the "basic" lyrics to the song. Know that there are many different versions of this song, but this is the one that is most commonly associated with the song in South Korea:

Hangul
아리랑, 아리랑, 아라리요... 아리랑 고개로 넘어간다. 나를 버리고 가시는 님은 십리도 못가서 발병난다.
Romanization
Arirang, Arirang, Arariyo... Arirang gogaero neomeoganda. Nareul beorigo gasineun nimeun Simnido motgaseo balbyeongnanda.

Translated as:
Arirang, Arirang, Arariyo...
Crossing over Arirang Pass.
Dear who abandoned me [here]
Will not walk even ten li (an ancient Chinese form of measurement, now standardized to 500 meters) before his/her feet hurt.

I myself had to learn this song and sing it in front of my school during the school festival last year. Kids like it when the foreigner makes a fool of himself in front of everyone. A similar experience occurred to my friend in Jecheon, who also had to sing Arirang in the school festival.

Picture of me in a traditional hanbok at the school festival, about to sing for everyone.

So now I've established that Arirang is a popular song in getting foreigners to sing. Next we move on to the World Cup in 2002, co-hosted by Korea and Japan. Here is an example of the song being sung by passionate Korean fans.

In another soccer/Arirang reference, recently, North Korea had it's World Cup qualifier against South Korea changed to China. See this article, taken from CNNSI:

"The two Koreas have agreed to play their World Cup qualifier in China this month under the mediation of soccer's world governing body.The transfer of the match from the North Korean capital Pyongyang came after South Korea last month asked FIFA to mediate a dispute over North Korea's refusal to let the South play its national anthem and fly its flag before the match...In recent years, the two Koreas have displayed the blue and white "unification flag" and used the traditional song "Arirang" at exhibition sports events. Both sides marched together under the unification flag at several major international sports events following the 2000 Sydney Olympics.The North had insisted the sides do the same in Pyongyang, while the South argued a FIFA rule stipulates national anthems and flags should be used at international matches." (Emphasis mine.)

Now what brought about these thoughts about the song Arirang? This post at the Marmot's hole did. Read it, and you will learn about Tak Kyung-hyun, also known as Fumihiro Mitsuyama, a Korean Kamikaze pilot during World War II. Intrigued, I followed a link to Japan Probe, which contained a short Japanese documentary about the doomed pilot, found here. Please take a few minutes to watch the documentary. I'll wait.

I personally found this documentary very moving. However, the two things that stood out the most for me were that: 1) When Tome Torihama first met Tak, he seemed very depressed, and introduced himself as a Josen-jin, or a Korean (Korean under Japanese rule was called Josen or Chosen) opening himself up to descrimination and, more importantly, 2) upon learning that he had been assigned to be a Kamikaze pilot, right before he left, he sang Arirang to Tome Torihama, a song she and her daughters continued to sing the rest of their lives. Specifically, Torihome felt a deep sadness for the fate of Tak and her inability to contact her parents. I think the strongest scene for me was having Torihama's daughter and Tak's cousin walking in Tak's hometown together singing Arirang through the fields.

Obviously, I have no idea what was going through Tak's mind when he decided to serve the imperial army. In fact, today many Koreans consider Tak a traitor. What I feel, though, is that Tak had very conflicting thoughts about what he was doing. But despite his decision, he felt a very strong connection with his homeland, made evident though his singing of the song Arirang. If the monument to Tak Kyung-hyun is ever unveiled, I will definitely try to go and see it.

Martial Arts in Korea

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:59:44 GMT

This is something that I've come across recently that I have found extremely interesting. It started when Esther, Suejin, Tom and I went to eat at Olive Farms, an all you can eat restaurant. After a big meal, we were walking out, and I noticed a sign for 유도 (pronounced Yudo, aka Judo.) The thing that struck me was that there was a giant Korean flag in the background of this poster. It seemed to me that whatever school was teaching in Judo wanted to reaffirm their Koreaness by inserting a large Tae guk gi to cover up the Japanese martial arts of judo. Interestingly enough, closer to my apartment, I saw an ad for another judo class, this one called Arirang Judo. Arirang is the title of a very traditional Korean folk song, which can be found everywhere. I even sang it at school in front of the student body. It is about as Korean as a person can get.

Just as I was pondering this desire to make something Japanese, like judo, and surround it with strongly Korean symbols, I came across this post at Frog in a Well. It talks about the colonial police in 1938 and the practitioners of Japanese martial arts. Surprising, despite the overwhelming numbers of Japanese people in the force, it was the Korean police officers that actually had more "black belts" than the Japanese.

The article also touches upon the colonial legacy and martial arts, which I've copied below:

"The relationship between Korean martial arts and Japanese martial arts is usually a touchy one. This is because, like the history of so many other things in modern Korea, it is susceptible to what I like to call the “Colonial Death Touch.”

The Colonial Death Touch works like this. Any practice which can be demonstrated to have its origins in the Japanese colonial period, was reborn during the colonial period partly out of inspiration or imitation of some Japanese practice, or was significantly influenced by similar Japanese practices is ruled to be inauthentic. Inauthentic things, of course, cannot be authentically Korean, and thus risk, at the very least, losing its place in the national cultural or historical repository. At most, it can destroy any popularity such practices might enjoy.

The Colonial Death Touch is sometimes delivered by, for example, Japanese nationalists who want to anger their Korean neighbors. However, it is also often used domestically. For example, practitioners of Korean martial art X might claim that they are superior to martial art Y because they are “pure” Korean while martial art Y is soiled by its evil Japanese roots. I’m sure many readers familiar with Korean martial arts can think of some examples of this.

These sorts of exchanges, whoever their participants might be, are silly childish games of nationalist mudslinging. They depend on a simplistic idea of authenticity, a laughable faith in cultural uniqueness, and a conception of the colonial period as cultural and economic black hole out of which only the bright shining light of Korean national resistance can possibly shine.

One martial art that became popular during the colonial period which remained popular in the postwar period is 검도(劍道, J: Kendō) or swordsmanship. In recent years, perhaps partly due to the ever present threat of the colonial death touch, the martial art has undergone some degree of “Koreanization” while other innovations in technique, uniforms, etc. probably are more simply attributable to the evolution of all such arts across time."

And like that, my answer regarding the patriotic use of Korean symbols with Japanese martial arts has been found. But this did get me wondering about Taekwondo, that most Korean of martial arts. While looking for the date of Taekwondo's inclusion as an olympic sport (using the 100% reliable wikipedia), I noticed something about the history of Taekwondo, which I will copy from the article here (and if you want to see some of the controversy that occurs when trying to say anything from modern Korea comes directly from Japan, take a look at the talk page here.)

"During the Japanese occupation (1910-1945), the practice of tae-kyon was banned.^[4] Although the art essentially vanished^[5], some aspects of taekkyeon may have survived through underground teaching and folk custom. As the Japanese colonization established a firm foothold in Korea, the few Koreans who were able to attend Japanese universities were exposed to Okinawan and Japanese martial arts, and some received black belts in these arts. Koreans in China were also exposed to Chinese martial arts.

After World War II and the liberation of Korea, several Kwans (schools) arose. They included: Chung Do Kwan, Moo Duk Kwan, Jidokwan (or Yun Moo Kwan), Chang Moo Kwan, Han Moo Kwan, Oh Do Kwan, Jung Do Kwan, Kang Duk Won, Kyun Hyung do Kwon and Song Moo Kwan. All taught Japanese-influenced systems.^[6] Most were based on Japanese Karate, most notably Shotokan Karate. As these arts began to be taught openly by Koreans who had learned it in Japan, they were taught under such names as kongsudo and tangsudo. According to Steven D. Capener^[7]:

'This process of development can be broadly outlined as follows: Japanese karate called kongsudo or tangsudo was introduced to Korea just after liberation from Japan by Koreans who had learned karate in Japan. Upon returning, these Koreans opened karate gymnasiums promoting what they were teaching as karate, much like the process followed by the early Judo instructors. Well after these schools became established, the need to "Koreanize" was felt. The process of Koreanization consisted of three main aspects. The first was the selection of a new, non-Japanese name. The second was the creation of a system of techniques and training which was distinctly different from that of karate, and the third was the attempt to establish t'aegwondo's existence and development within the historical flow of Korean civilization.'

In 1952, at the height of the Korean War, South Korea held a massive show of patriotism, including a martial arts display where all the Kwans of Korea displayed their skills. Major Nam Tae Hi stole the show when he smashed 13 roof tiles with a forefist punch. Following the demonstration, President Syngman Rhee instructed General Choi Hong Hi to introduce the martial arts to the Korean army.^[11]

By the end of the Korean War, nine schools of martial arts had emerged, and South Korean President Syngman Rhee ordered that the various schools unify under a single system. A governmental body selected a naming committee's submission of "tae-kwon-do". Following the submission of the name "taekwondo" on April 11, 1955 by General Choi Hong Hi, the name was unanimously accepted.^[12]"

If you read the entire entry, it does seem that Korean martial arts have a long history, and that their modern forms are very distinct from modern Japanese forms. However, current Taekwondo may have originally been based on Karate. Despite this, modern taekwondo is vastly different to karate. Taekwondo is as Korean as apple pie is American (or something.) But even mentioning any Japanese influence can lead to arguments with strong supporters of Korean nationalism and of Taekwondo. I personally just find it funny that some places in the States call Taekwondo "Karate" because they believe that it will attract more students.

Putting Things in Perspective

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 04:16:14 GMT

I haven't been writing much. I've been tired and stressed, worried about both the now and the future. There's been some topics I've wanted to write about, but I just had an incident that I think was really... I don't know what.

Myself and two Irish friends (Ciara and Niall) are heading off to Japan on Saturday for a quick weekend stomp around the country. Due to a series of unfortunate events (not the books nor movies), we lost our hotel. Luckily, due to some quick thinking by Niall, we were able to find a capsule hotel in Osaka for about $25 a night. I made the reservation, using my credit card, and everything seemed great.

But then, my bank never processed the payment. It was under pending authorization in my account, then suddenly nothing. I was worried. I quickly checked online, and there were no other available hotels for the weekend. I called my bank, and they hadn't seen any record of the transaction. I was told to call the hotel. This of course presents a difficulty. My Japanese is rusty to say the least. Granted, I'm using it far more here than I ever did in the States. This, combined with my irrational fear of speaking on the phone, has had me worried for practically the entire day. I couldn't sleep well last night I was so worried about making this call.

Not 15 minutes ago I finally bit the bullet and called. The call was so easy. There was a kind old lady with who I had no problem checking my reservation (still there - Thank God.) Compared to the difficulties I have with talking to Koreans everyday, this was a welcome relief.

I think that for some reason, I've become very comfortable with Japan, in a way that Korea will never be able to duplicate. There are certain features of the culture that I seem to connect with more than I do here. (Though, on a quick aside, almost every one of my Korean friends or co-teachers has exclaimed at one point or another how truly Korean I behave.) And it has to do with more than just the language gap. Politeness is something that I highly value, coming from a very polite family myself. In Korea, the standards of what is considered polite are different than back in the States. It is not uncommon to be walking in common places and have people bump into you and not even bother to acknowledge you. Not even a cursory "sorry" is offered. In fact, despite my being here two months, I don't know what the Korean equivalent to excuse me is. (Well, I do - Sillye jiman - But it's not used the same way as sumimasen.) People just tend to push their way past you. Other annoying manner issues - throwing trash on the ground (everyone does it), spitting (not nearly as bad as China, or so I've been told), people crossing streets in front of cars (simply dangerous, I saw a girl from my school get hit by a bus) and cars not obeying traffic signs (running red lights and swerving in and out of traffic like they were Jason Bourne being chashed by the Russian equivalent to 'The Jackal' .)

Will I miss Korea? You bet a will. I have orientation for Georgetown around August 20th, so I'll be out of here around August 15th. That means I have three months left in the country. I plan to enjoy myself and travel as much as possible. Maybe I'll even get to go to China, or Jeju. I'll definitely see all of my Korean friends at least one more time. But will I eventually have the same nostalgic feelings for Korea that I have for Japan? I don't really think so.

Then again, when I left Japan I was so ready to leave that country I swore I'd never go back. Go figure.

Meiji Poetry

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:35:03 GMT

minahito no                            How good it would be
miru niibumi ni                    If in the newspapers that
yo no naka no                        Everybody reads
atonashigotowa                        They didn’t write such falsehoods
kakazu mo aranan                    About doings in this world

Graduate School

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 07:11:01 GMT

Update in the graduate school front. Rejected from Oxford (long shot so didn't expect much.) But was accepted into George Washington's Elliot School of International Affairs. And they want to give me a $12,000 stipend. Not a lot, but better than nothing.

More updates as soon as I hear more. One thing is certain - I'll be in Washington, DC in August.

A Look Back

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:52:05 GMT

Curious to see who recently updated their livejournals, I was completely sidetracked when I looked at the archives section of this blog. My first post was in November of 2003. After looking at some of my early posts, I realize I was so angry and frustrated then. It's amazing how much I've changed since then. I was very much trying to seek some fulfillment in my life. Overall, I'd say that my life is substantually more fulfilling in many different levels. I've changed dramatically since then. I am no longer adrift in a sea of uncertainty... or something. And I think that a significant factor in this transformation was the time I spent in Japan.

Living in Japan caused me for the first time to really question who I was. I thought my first year of University was tough, but it was nothing compared to the isolation I felt in Japan. But the trials I faced in that experience laid the foundation for the person I am today. That's why I've been able to adapt to South Korea, a country very different from the States (and Japan for that matter) with almost little to no problems.

I bring this up because I found a link to this blog (H/T to Japan Probe) that describes the Seven Stages of Gaijinhood. Since I have absolutely no readers other than the occasional viewing by Kyla and Liz, I'm not going to explain Gaijin, except mention that the equivalent in Korean is waygoogin (외국인.) The seven stages are basically a humorous approach to the four stages of culture shock, in the context of a person living in Japan. See below for the chart stolen from the page.

Anyone who has lived in Japan can at least partially relate to that chart. What's interesting to me is how well that chart transfers to Korea. As mentioned before, I think that this is because the author drew heavily from the basic four stages of culture shock. Rather than describe the stages, he simply pointed out some of the most common mannerisms that people tend to exhibit. If you notice in these next two passages, the author pretty accurately describes Stage One (Honeymoon) and Stage Two (Depression)

"The first dip in sanity occurs when people try just too hard to learn. Eager students may sacrifice critical judgment in the race to absorb their new cultural surroundings. They often stop you while you are eating and say: “You know, you’re not supposed to do that with your chopsticks, it means that the souls of the dead children won’t float to heaven properly.” To which the only polite response is “Christ, there are THIRTEEN of us at the table; we’re all DOOMED, I tell you, fucking DOOMED.” Most of these people actually went to university too, which makes it all the more heartbreaking really. However, to their credit, none of them have yet started to believe that they have ownership rights to Japan."

"While some, like Western Buddhist converts and Momus, manage fine without it, cynicism begins as a healthy antidote to the pious Orient-worship of the previous stage. Kept in check it can be a solid friend throughout one’s time in Japan. But a witless cynic is someone devoid of insight who claims to be able to mine humour in holding Japan up to Western standards and finding it lacking. This kind of person is a keen online aggregator of stories about sexual inadequacy or amusing spelling errors in Japan. A reasonably sane person should be done with this stage in the first six months."

This to a T describes on of my fellow EPIKers I met here in Korea. He was really excited about coming to live here. He had visited Seoul before and studied a little Korean in the US. Once here, however, he spent more time pointing out how everything didn't conform with his western world view and complained about anything and everything. One time we were taking a chartered bus back from a demonstration teaching. This person wanted to be dropped off in the downtown area. Our supervisor told him no, we couldn't do that because the bus wasn't heading that direction. But we could drop him off at another area or town that would connect him to buses that would take him there. Or he could just take a taxi. Suddenly, he started freaking out about how he didn't want to take a fucking taxi and it was too expensive ($4 compared to $1) and was demanding that we drop him off in the center of town. It took maybe five minutes of me carefully explaining to him how we couldn't take him that because it would be unfair to the other passengers before he finally calmed down. But this once very pro-Korean person has turned into an irritable, maladjusted cynic who is always disparaging Korea while still saying how much he likes the country. He wants to continue to teach in Korea, but only in Seoul. He believes that his problems with the country stem from being in a country province (if only overcoming culture shock was as easy as moving to a bigger city.)

Where am I on this chart? I don't think that this chart quite matches my own personal development, but I'd like to think that I'm an accidental gaijin, or a catepillar, depending on how you like your Ralph Wiggins references.

다운로드 중... (Downloading...)

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 04:07:46 GMT

Today is the last day before the new semester begins on Monday, so we spent today cleaning out our desks and changing our seating arrangements. This means that I no longer have to manually change the date and time each time I turn on my computer (score!) But it does mean I need to reinstall all the updates that many Korean computers simply don't have. Who in their right mind by this point in time hasn't installed windows xp service pack two? Ridiculous. If someone was so inclined, they could easily cripple the entire computer network in school by exploiting a commonly known windows xp problem. And on that note, it's time to restart.

It's time, it's time, it's time to hate the Swiss (again)

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 04:56:06 GMT

So the New Years Resolution to read more books has gone remarkably well. I have completed something like four books already, finishing up The Bourne Supremacy and all three books in the Golden Compass trilogy (The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass being the other two.) I am currently reading Kissinger’s Diplomacy, which I must say is a fascinating read so far. I’m learning a lot about the early European political theater from the 1500s on, a subject I’ve never studied since I chose AP American History over AP European History (in hindsight, I should have taken both.) I’ve been trying to study some old Japanese kanji, but it’s amazing how much my hand hurt after I practiced writing kanji yesterday. I’ll either need to focus on Korean or Japanese when I enter grad school, and I do not look forward to my placement test in those upcoming subjects.

I was thinking of a nice article to put up to either be informative, or that would garner me more hits from the series of tubes, but unfortunately, I don’t have the desire to post a giant article discussing the history of the German and Japanese defeat at the end of WWII and how the threat of Communism allowed Japan to not properly acknowledge what they had done in Asia, and as a result has led to the continued tensions between Japan and the rest of Asia, but that is a little too academic for me at this moment. Then I thought that perhaps I could talk about EPIK, and give an analysis of my time in the program, but since I’m still working in the country, I don’t really want to add anything to the EPIK discussion at this time. I do have strong feelings on the program, as well as what the purpose of it should be, as I don’t think the program has a clearly defined purpose. Oh wait, according to the EPIK website, there is a purpose. Let’s look at that, shall we?

EPIK Purpose ...

- Fostering primary and secondary students’ communication ability in the age of information and globalization

Ok, so we are supposed to be fostering communication ability for elementary and middle school kids. Notice here how they don't mention English. Granted, we live in the information age, and globalization is the buzzword for why kids should study English, but how I am supposed to improved their English when I see students once every two weeks, and half the time they could care less about what I'm saying? And why is English so important? I don't see people in Spain forcing their kids to go to cram schools in order to learn English, and they seem to be doing just fine. No one ever answers the question why English is important. This is an endemic problem found from elementary school to post-University.

- Providing English conversation training to English teachers

I agree that this should be a major part of the program. The problem is that some teachers don't have the English ability to engage in conversations with native speakers, and some teachers are too timid to practice their English. The teachers that I've met who have taken the risk to talk with me on a regular basis have seen their English improve. Forced conversation classes, however, are never a pleasant experience.

- Developing English textbooks and teaching materials

How am I, a person with very little teaching experience and no educational training, supposed to develop such book and materials? I don't have the training nor the experience to do such things.

- Improving and expanding English teaching methodologies

See above.

- Encouraging cultural awareness

This I can do. By simply being in the room and interacting with my students, I introduce them to my culture. USA! USA!

- Bettering Korea’s image

I'm not sure exposing expatriates to capital punishment in schools is the best way to go about doing this.

My own goals for the EPIK program will be shown at a later time, but for now, I'll stop here. This is a lot considering I hadn't planned on writing too much about it.

Sweeney Todd

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 13:14:03 GMT

Busy time in my life. Just got back from a weekend in Seoul, still never talked about my trip to the Philippines (twas fun) and haven't even had my dinner tonight. A pity. But as I wait for my USA-Sweden friendly torrent to finish downloading, I wanted to let you know some future highlights of things I plan to be checking out in the coming weeks.

First, I think I want to post more on the relationship between US, Korea and Japan. To start, I would like to point readers to here, another excellent post over at The Grand Narrative. Notice how I've managed the rare feat to link to a post that links to me. Mr. Turnbull gives some other reasons for the popularity of Japanese culture over Korean culture. An interesting read.

Next, for a outline about early relations between Korean and foreign powers, see The Five Years' Crisis, 1866-1871 - Korea in the Maelstrom of Western Imperialism (Note - site is not Firefox friendly) and Korea and Japan - The Clash of Worldviews, 1868 - 1876, both by Yongkoo Kim. Both are very good reads that I plan to talk more about in another post, so expect that later this week.

Also, some places that I plan to check out include Seodaemun Prison, Independence Hall, Ganghwa Island, and the Busan Museum. All of these places of interest will hopefully be explained at some yet to be determined later date.

But until that time, I leave you with the fact that Sweeney Todd was interesting, bloody, but only so-so for me.

Happy New Year!

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 13:40:08 GMT

Okay, this is a little late. But, just some random observations:

1: Some shows in Korea I will never get used to being dubbed. Watching Japanese power rangers obviously being dubbed over in Korean is one. Watching Boss Ross (the white guy with the afro on the painting show on PBS) dubbed into Korean is just surreal.

2: I think I finished maybe one or two books last year, a new low [Korea and Japan: The Clash of Worldviews, 1868-1876 by Yongkoo Kim and I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert.] I think I was simply burnt out from my thesis (still.) So this year I have made a resolution to read books, something that </b></a>slyfoxesq and </b></a>cigamerisedi tend to do. I will set my goal at a modest 20 books. In fact, I have four or five books that I started last year that I need to finish, followed by Henry Kissinger's Diplomacy. Sounds like a fun read, doesn't it?

Open question: Should I read The Golden Compass?