Tokyo in Pics

Beans, Magic, Mud

I found some old pics in my digital scrap pile:

In June we made tofu at the bean curd farm. I expected a mildly interesting field trip but it turned out to be a pretty fun time.

Step 1) Grind the beans

Step 2) Pour the beans into hot water, sift & smoothen, pour back into hot water, and repeat until the texture is right

We also made rice cakes. We all took turns pounding the huge glob of rice. After the students, the teachers finished the job.

Final step: Eat! Tofu is now delicious because we made it ourselves.

A while back a magician also came to our school. There was lots of audience involvement. When I first walked in midway through the performace he was pointing a gun at the crowd of children and shaking his hand rapidly like he was about to slip and fire a round at a random kid. This made everyone go CRAZY but it was all in good fun. This would never fly in the states.

I tried something similar with my 4th grade class where I shoot them with a bow & arrow or hit them with an imaginary bat instead of discipling them. The 4th grade class usually listen pretty well so this works effectively. The hit target will quickly channel his energy to falling to the floor and having deathly spasms. It's a great way to immobilize a rowdy boy before he starts sprinting around the room.

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Mudfest

This weekend I went to the Mudfest in Boryeong. Sorry, no pictures, wayyyy too wet and muddy. The fest was both a disaster and a success.

For the first time I realized the scope of the foreigner population. I heard there were half a million of us at the fest. Imagine a giant beach party half-covered in mud. There was a central location with music, mud wrestling, fountains, a mudslinging cage, and two very stocked convenience stores (in Korea, this is where you buy booze). Of course, all of Daejon beach was crawling with wet and muddy foreigners. If Busan is Korea's populous west coast beach-city (San Jose perhaps), then Daejon is the dirty Jersey shore; and this weekend it definitely resembled a sloppy Wildwood.

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I had a great time. But unfortunately there were a lot of complaints sent in the direction of my recruiting agency. My ambitious recruiters (which consist of two guys living in Korea with family and friend helpers in Canada, and lots of good connections) took it on themselves to load what amounted to be a total 1 kilometer stretch of buses from all over Seoul and send them to the beach in Boryeong. They booked several Minibanks (Korean-style rental rooms with no beds, only floors to sleep on) for the crowd to stay in overnight. What they failed to realize was that so many people --mostly recent college grads-- in such little space will fail to get along according to each others' standards. I won't get into the details, but there are some degrees of temper, imprudent behavior, and generally gross things that some people assume unacceptable or impolite yet there's always someone else who goes about things differnetly. We all have our judgments about manners and morality, but our preferences and desires are always testing the limits of someone else.
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Regardless, the foreigner population is a very eclectic bunch of fun and interesting people. We were able to let loose and get to know each in what ways we knew how this weekend in Daejon. I feel that the teachers in Korea are a culture unto themselves whether we like it or not; whether Koreans like it or not. Korea is such a homogenous country and the divide between national culture and foreign culture is clear-cut and pretty bifurcated. There are military people, international students, and other visitors claiming residence in this country. They're sort of a different breed more identified with their own purpose. I gather from the teachers I meet that we're more nomadic and less pinned-down to anything in particular. But even though ESL teachers come bringing probably the most diverse range of personalities of any population that I'm aware of and even though we all come to Korea under different circumstances, it doesn't change the fact that we're all here now living and learning and even being indoctrinated into something slightly Korean and sharing the common life of managing classrooms full of Korean children.

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Love it or hate it, teachers living in Korea are more alien than teachers never having lived in Korea. And teachers living in Korea all share a level of the same quirks, survival mechanisms, and Koreanisms different than teachers do living in any other foreign country.

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Additionally, I hear that Korea is hiring more ESL teachers than ever right now. Economics elsewhere are bad enough to add an extra incentive for anyone to leave there homeland, and Korean expansion and education is so competetive that any school without an English teacher is quickly getting left behind.

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Cheers to Korea, a country that imports foreigners on a competitive cultural anamoly.

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Cheers to Mudfest, where we can all go have fun and hate each other at the same time.

Lolli-pop Culture

I remember the song "Lollipop" from the soundtrack to the movie Stand By Me. I didn't realize until I was older that the songs from this movie were all outdated favorites at the time this movie was released. It's one of those songs that will always be in my head because I learned it so early on:

Lollipop, lollipop
Oh lolli, lolli, lolli
Lollipop, lollipop
Oh lolli, lolli, lolli . . .

In fact I'm debating using it with my kindergarteners next week. I think they'd love trying to make the "POP" sound with their thumb in their mouth. Strangely, lollipops have become rather ubiquitous in pop culture this year in both countries that I've been living in.

Whenever something like this happens I'm always curious as to whether some secret information has been shared or stolen amongst the successes. I thought I'd put the three videos together for a serious round of listening. I can't really say what's so great about a lollipop besides that it is fun to say and it has some questionable symbolic connotations. And a lollipop is a sweet treat that we all can relate to.

The other "Lollipop" song is a collaboration of Korea's most popular boy band, Big Bang, and the girls from 2NE1. It's an energetic and fun video and should be delightfully foreign for anyone not used to Korean pop (though not nearly as silly as many of Korea's advertisements). The third lollipop belongs to Lil' Wayne. It glorifies the things that most American hip hop glorifies (curvy women and expensive things), while incorporating LW's avert desire to be a rock star (though he already is one). I think there might be some sort of progression here starting with the somewhat stagnant and probably repressed Chordettes in the 50s, then to a culture opening up to free expression and dancing with Big Bang, then maxing out on sexuality and materialism at Lil' Wayne. You be the boss.

The Chordettes


Big Bang (빅뱅)


Lil' Wayne


Pop culture is weird sometimes.

July 4th Weekend

I live in Yangsu. It is an island stuck in the middle of the Han River. One traffic bridge goes in and one bridge leads out. Every weekend about a quarter of the car-owning population drifts from Seoul to the countryside and back to Seoul again. This means that the one-way in-and-out of Yangsu is jammed out the rear with insane Korean drivers. Since yielding plays no part in Korean traffic etiquette this puts me in an unfortunate situation when my weekend plans are in Yangpyeong, for Yangpyeong is located opposite of Seoul and the subway line is still under construction.

Even more motivation to buy a motor bike.

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I am to go ATV driving today, in Yangpyeong. The bus will go nowhere in this traffic. I flag a taxi driver. He tells me in lots of Korean that we shouldn't take the direct route, and that he knows the backroads. Oddly I understand him. So we won't be dodging traffic. OK. Makes sense.

Instead, we'll be whipping 80kmph around farming country. Beautiful country. Unlike anywhere else. Trees, open spaces, hills, mountains, rivers, quasi-third world farmers~ peace and solitude, and not a lot of welath. It's crazy to think Seoul, the relentless metro, is just 40 minutes west of here. And in my taxi I sit obediently, palms sweating as my driver sideswipes bushes and drives in the middle of the street trying to pass the two cars ahead of us.

Destination is priority, and traffic laws are nil. Blind spots are around every corner and old farmers who may not have seen cars 10 years ago are wandering aimlessly about their property (which is now part of the street). We own the road, not hesitating before crossing one-lane bridges and passing strings of cars on winding mountain roads.

It's like a New York taxi doing the Appalacian Trail.

(I see a dot in the sky that is a man with a motorized parachute. I try to vicariously try to imagine how liberating his flight must be)

(And then I'm reminded were about to play our cards to see if we can pass these 2 stupid cars. At the bottom of the hill, we nearly blow through a red light at 100kmph but the driver has to yield ~~let off the gas for a sec~~ because the horn doesn't work)

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I finally meet up with the group at the ATV rental and the first thing we do is walk the track. Half of us begin to have second thoughts when we see that 30% of the terrain is flooded. Three cop out while the rest of us are ready to get dirty. I didn't make a crash course through the boondocks for nothing. Since I'm the rookie, I start with the mini bike. It's compact enough to manuever around the deep puddles. But I would not recommend riding straight through like this--

We killed two vehicles because of submerged driving. When the engines get wet there tends to be issues.

After managing fairly well on the mini bike I levelled up to a full-sized machine. This thing has horsepower. It wasn't difficult getting a feel for riding around the burms and sliding around the mud. I only make sure to move past an obstacle slowly before bolting through it. Once I circled the track a few times I can comfortably ride on the burms and over the bumps with speed. I felt ready for more of a challenge. I raced one of the workers but he was more interested in showing off his bag of tricks.

Afterwards my itinerary had me destined for Suwon but a few of the ATVers enticed me to go to a BBQ. For this we made our way further out into the country. Things were pretty flat out here. Five Americans cooking burgers and steaks at a quiet park surrounded by a large field. Ritually the cookout felt like anything in the states but my surroundings were out-of-synch. The park was normal (b-ball courts, badminton nets) but the things around us were unmistakenly Korean. Not to mention the place was DESOLATE. It was like going to a field to watch fireworks but there was no one else around and there weren't any fireworks. This made for a slightly off-kilter Independence Day feeling.

Nowhere, ROK.

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Hmmm... So we're cooking on a thimble?

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We played some sports and filled our tummies with calories. When things died down I wanted to play more. That night, I made my way to Suwon where the festivities picked up again. It is customary in Korea to call this i-cha, or second round, although it's usually much closer. My i-cha didn't account for much besides me losing a lot of sleep before the Folk Village the next day.

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Already finding myself in Suwon, I met up with L for a festive day in the folk village. There were a lot of vacationers and tourists here. Usually L and I are in Yangsu when we see each other, where we're 95% of the time the only English speaking people around. We had to suddenly be careful what we talked about because the people around us could actually listen in to our conversation!

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The folk village was set up to feel like an old Korean farming village. The shows were certainly the best part of the whole thing: a farmers' dance, a tight rope acrobat, and a group of horse-riding tricksters.

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This was the second time I saw traditional Korean dancing. It requires some constant head moving to keep the ribbon on the top of their head moving while the dancers run in circles and do side-flips while playing their instruments.

The horse-riding showmen played with swords, arrows, and whips.

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Kimchi: old world and new world.

Pick you're poison.

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I always thought flogging involved flaming logs?! The next torture device should be feared most by the men. While the culprit sits on the chair the punishers place the sticks between his legs and pull them in each direction, making for an intense groinal workout.

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Happy 4th.

Plunging the RoK

I don't know where to begin. Korea has been my playground. My PC man helped me navigate the complications of Korean phone software. Now I have enough pictures from my phone to span an entire web page. I have some catching up to do.

This weekend I met face to face with overexertion. Friday we had off of school because it was Jo-an Elementary's birthday. Apparently avoiding the place is how we celebrate that it's still going strong.

I couldn't sit still for a day of rest so I ventured Seoul-o to Gyeongbok Palace. Apparently only a few dozen structures remain on this ancient site since the Japanese takeover of Korea in 1910. You can see how the royal archtiecture is preserved amid rapid Korean construction.

In contrast to Suwon, the city that mingles with the walls of the old Hwaseong fortress, Gyeongbok is a palace contained completely within its walls. Within these walls are hallways, meeting halls, royally important rooms, and fancy-dance buildings.

There were also two museums. Museums for me are usually boring, unless I find an exhibit that strikes a cord. The former of these two museums contained old stuff from inside the palace. It was a bust. The latter was the Korean Folk Museum and inside I discovered some unusual things.

The first series of showcases were set up to teach its visitors a brief overview of Korean history. Things all got started with three old agricultural kingdoms which eventually convened into one great dynasty that went by the name Choson. From 1400 to 1910 the land progressed steadily alongside the Western world in terms of science, health, and prosperity without much global interaction. One of the first artifacts to seize my attention was an old etiquette book written by King Sejong in Hangul.

Hangul is the only invented language, guided in its creation with a direct purpose--to give correct sounds for a unified land to communicate and give instruction to each other. This reminds me of Ben Franklin christening the word "Americans" for the mixed people of the United States struggling to find a single identity. Franklin said this word would last, for it provides for the people of the New World a common fellowship. Hangul has lasted, giving the people of Korean their Korean language today--distinct, efficient, and wickedly scientific. Korean language (aka Hanguke) exists in stark contrast to its brethern Chinese. Instead of tens of thousands of symbols to learn, there are only 24 symbols; each symbol ready to fit with 3 or 4 other symbols to make a single syllable. This makes the alphabet ridiculously easy to learn but listening for meaning terribly difficult: because there are few sounds there are many words that sound increbily similar (especially to a Western ear).

Moving through history pretty quickly I was transfixed by the Western influences that finally found their way to Korea. Around the 1960s (after the Korean War~ the U.S. protected the South while the North adapted Soviet communism). I see phonographs, radios, coal burners, and a refridgerator that looked like the one my grandma used to own. . . but smaller of course. I had to laugh at the electric fan--a symbol of the dangers of assuming so much foreign technology. If you're not sure what I mean, google fan death. Of course, pop culture found its way over seas as well. Check out this vintage Korean Beatles album:

Find the original evil instrument of death.

Before I found my way out I saw a pair of acupuncture dolls. The art of acupuncture, developed by the Chinese, maps a network of energy flowing through the body. By poking certain points with a needle stress or pain can be relieved at another specific part of the body. I wonder how much superstition precedes medicine. From what I recall this art of healing was a success. The same exhibit also had some interesting videos of healing rituals and dances. Recently I've been sick and all I got was a pocket full of drugs. My prescription called for a carefully planned out, 14-step drug schedule. Each bag contains a different combination of different colored pills that I must take each day. I don't know what's inside each thing, but is it really that much more far-fetched than mapping a grid of sensations on the body?

Those needles are inserted into these dots. Better than a back massage?

That evening I return to Yangpyeong as usual to get my weekly poker practice. This is part one of my holiday weekend. Coincidentally, my school's holiday in Korea coincides with the big fireshow holiday in America. Armed with an excuse I keep pushing!

Brief Aerial

The island called home, as seen from above. The view from "Happy Cloud Mountain," better known as Ungilsan.
(雲吉山)

No picnic for the fish

Meeting the meat.


This week I will begin teaching my morning classes with a new co-teacher. To make sure our gears were greased, we ate a fresh fish feast.

The fish market in Guri wreaks of water fowl. It's a gritty aquarium, a warehouse full of lobster tanks that aren't full of lobsters. They're full of soulless mollusks, disturbed sea-cucumbers and limp penis-fish, among other sea brethern. Commercial aquariums are friendly fish-funhouses but they hide behind veals of fakery. Walking through the fish market, I'm reminded how real these strange looking creatures are. I also worry about how real they'll feel as my fresh fish meal.

With my New Zealandic translator I waited outside while C and his friend picked our poison. I had to stay secret or fish sellers would up our pay. When we went in we had to wait for our fish monger to do some secret slicing and dicing. There were some viscious dishes swimming around the place. We mingled with our future food, discussing their qualities and health benefits while tantalizing the ugly ones with our fingers. The earlier mentioned penis-fish looked like a giant, bulging you-know with a single hole for eating and excreting. It's a manly supplement. But we had other fish to fry (well, eat at least). Today's fish dish would be red snapper with sides nak-ji and mysterious sea snails.

Nak-ji is mostly novelty. This is common octopus, raw of course. If you ever severed a worm, its parts continue to squirm. Octopus tentacles, distant cousins of worms, behave the same. And if you recall your octopi anatomy, you know that each tentacle has many little suction cups. They stick and wiggle. These suckers in action make for the most rebellious food, latching to all surfaces from table to tummy. Delish dish with some salty sesame oil.

It's an intimate event moving from live fishies to fancy cuisine. We shared our sides and soju and soup and moved on for a second round.

Korea is a weird place with a wonderfully unique culture. I'm reminded of how alien everything is when I listen to my translator's peculiar Korean-New Zealandic accent from the seat behind me as we drive to our next location. There are certain sounds and habits of speaking that stick from one's native tongue that never go away and color one's manner of speaking with personality and culture.

Language is fun to play around with too. A braai is a South African cookout with tasty marinated meat. Afterwards I learned some words in their Dutch dialect Afrikaans which my American friend and I could shout oblivously. When no meaning is attached, making these sounds is just fun and games. I believe it's the same way when drunk Korean men shout silly English at me. But when meaning is attached that is when words become language--at least personally these sounds start serving a social function. Language only works if you believe you're being believed.

After we called our African friends some dirty names in their native tongue, we all had a laugh at the novelty of meaning. Korean drinking games were next. These all include sitting in a circle and trying to pay attention to some strange sequencing while everyone participates in the pattern of saying things and pointing at each other. These games are perfect for the classroom! Everyone has to pay attention and the words must come out instinctively. Inspired by these games, I created my own classroom game, which I then brought back to rounds of drinking. It's simple word association. As we take turns in the circle, each person must say a word reasonably associated with the last person's. For example:

HEN > FARM > BARN > RED > APPLE > BANANA > BIG BIRD

Weak connections aren't acceptable and I generally rule out word categories that lead to lazy habits (such as colors or names of immediate suuroundings). In the classroom, as game master, I try to keep the pace fast and steady. One of my goals as a teacher is to get the instinct gears running. Sharing a meal or playing a game can get any group of people grooving in synch if done successfully. I'm hoping my new co-teach and I can keep the groove and sweep our students into it as well.

CO-TEACH > FISH MARKET > OCTOPUS > SOJU > COOKOUT > BRAAI > AFRIKAANS > LANGUAGE GAMES > TEACHING ENGLISH