And then there were two...

...days left of teaching in Andong! Can you believe it? Can I believe it? Furnishings have been sold, final gatherings have been somewhat organized, favorite restaurants have been frequented, glasses have been raised, clothes have been piled neatly for packing purposes.  Perhaps most importantly, I only have to have two more showers-that-don't-stay-hot-very-long in the coldest bathroom ever. I think I have concluded that it is preferable to have a cold shower in a hot bathroom (hot, i.e., the tropics) than a hot-two-minutes-warm-one-minute-cool-cold-hurry-out in an ice cold bathroom. In fact, even a hot hot piping hot shower that would stay hot long enough to actually, say, wash and condition one's hair is still totally negated when the bathroom is ice. Two more mornings of this! I am sorry, new people who are coming to teach at Avalon, whoever you are, but you will be taking short showers for January and probably most of February. But hey, it's Korea, which means the sa-u-na and jimjjilbangs are just down the street.

I know the biggest news this week has nothing to do with our impending departure from Korea, but rather Kim Jong Il's departure from this mortal coil. (Granted, he did most of the coiling...) I talked about it with my students who were of a certain age/fluency, and they all mentioned economic worries before war worries. There is a little war worry, though. Sigh. Seriously, people, how many deaths will it take 'til you know that too many people have died? (as a certain wise troubadour once wrote)

Come to think of it, as long as I'm quoting wise troubadours: "And so this is Christmas..."

I am off to Cambodia this Christmas day. For those who didn't get the memo, Brian and I are ringing in 2012 with a Habitat for Humanity trip to Siem Reap, Cambodia, to be followed by a sojourn in southern China and the Yangtze River, and then a month in Thailand doing our CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults). Knowing we will be spending the bulk of this winter on the beach and in tropical climate cities has made it impossible for me to really settle into this freezing-bathroom, poorly insulated apartment that we were moved into on November 1st, or to happily hunker down in coat and scarves the way I would if I were actually spending the winter here. I am just ready to go be warm. And so we shall...after a few more slightly terrible Korean beers, and noraebang tunes, and one fine train ride from Andong to Seoul...and maybe even some farewell Outback cheese fries.

My second Korea stint draws to a close! And, I spent another year living out of the U.S. -- I'm allowed to move back to California now.

The Ajumma Coffee-Sharing Protocol

Less than two weeks left in country and I'm still having confusing cultural experiences. (This is a good thing, btw.) So a couple days ago there I am riding the bus back from Seoul to Andong. How it works when you ride the express bus in Korea, usually, is that you buy your happy little (affordable!) ticket and then ride a decent, clean, comfortable bus to your destination. You get an assigned seat. In this case, I was number 12. The seats are two seats together on the left side of the aisle, and one seat alone on the right side of the aisle by the other window. In other words, the first row is 1-2 together, then seat 3. The second row is 4-5 together, then seat 6. And so on. When you get a multiple of 3, you know you will be in the seat alone on the right side, so I knew in seat 12 I would be in the fourth row in the single seat.

I boarded the bus and noted it wasn't too full. In the fourth row, an elderly couple were sitting together in my row, in seats 10 and 11. There was a suitcase placed in front of seat 12, in the area between the seat and the seat in front - where my legs would be when I sat down. I stopped in the aisle, showed them my ticket, and they hurried to move their small suitcase, wedging it between their legs on the floor of their pair of seats. It would have been nice for them, obviously, to have it in the seat they had thought would be empty, but they quickly moved it when they saw I'd be occupying the seat.

Within a couple minutes, the bus was ready to leave and there were still only seven or so people, total, on board. I thought to myself, "Self, you can move to the seat behind you, the couple can put their suitcase back here, you can have a bit more privacy, and everybody wins." (I hate sitting right next to people in a movie theater, too, when there are other empty rows. Why do people do that? When someone comes and sits right next to me, I totally move.)  And so in this case, as the driver began to reverse, I moved to the seat behind me (15, as you know if you are paying attention) and signalled to the elderly couple that seat 12 would be free after all and they could go ahead and put their suitcase back there. Of course they said thanks and stuff, and I tried to say "It's OK, no problem" although I was worried that the phrase I know for that, "Kwentchanayo" is not formal enough, because it is a polite form but not honorific. So, afraid of having not been respectful enough to my elders with my verb ending, I sat in seat 15 and started reading my book.

A bit later, here came Ms. Elderly Suitcase, to the seat behind her, with their thermos of coffee. It's one of those stainless steel, colored, sturdy thermoses people take on trips, with a lid that doubles as a cup. She sat down and held it out to me, offering me a cup of coffee. I tried to politely decline, once again fretting about my verb endings. I was trying to throw in a sup-ni-da or a su-seyo somewhere to make it all formal and honorific, but still I kept saying "Ah-ni-ye-yo" (No) and "Kwentchanayao" (It's OK). Anyway, I think she thought I was just doing the polite refusal thing, twice, and a third time she insisted, poured the coffee in the cup, and gave it to me. Then she went back to her seat.

So, what on earth is the protocol here? I mean, I had to drink it. (I think?) Would I drink it in the U.S.? No way. I'd think a fellow bus passenger was trying to poison me.So there I am sipping this random coffee and wondering about the etiquette. Do I drink it all? Do I drink a sip and then give it back to her? There's a thing in Korea about not totally emptying the dishes or pots or side dish bowls in restaurants, I heard, because it indicates you want your host to serve you more. I definitely did not want to be served more, as I was overwhelmed even being served the one cup! I drank half of it (tasty! mixed with milk! and apparently not poison) and then really tried to decide what to do with the second half. Meanwhile, Ms Elderly is back in her seat with headphones listening to music and oblivious to me. Finally I was like, whatever! and I drank the whole thing, then went back in the aisle, crouched next to her, got their attention, handed the cup back, thanked them a lot, and went back to my seat.

I mean, there was really no need to thank me for moving my seat. Anyone would have done the same thing, seriously! There were so many empty seats on the bus! And it was better for me anyway! I was so overwhelmed by the coffee thanks.

The funny thing is, I am reading the book Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, in which the new bride is totally out of her etiquette element at Manderley and has no idea what's going on with servants, menus, protocol, wings of the house, and whatnot. I was just reading it and thinking to myself, "Wow, I don't have to worry about fancy rules like that" when Ms Elderly comes and rocks my world with her proffered coffee thanks.

The view from here!

Have I mentioned the view from our new building? I mean, it really is a great view! I love looking out over Andong, nestled as it is in its hills, whether day or night. The view is probably the best thing about living in our new apartment. (Note: there were not a lot of contenders for this title.) Anyway, I try to take a moment every day to appreciate the view, because I love it. I don't know which time of day is the best. Many times I have found myself on the back stairway between my 5-6 p.m. classes, gazing at a glowing peach-pink-purple sky and the city lights that glow softly as dusk approaches. The front of our building faces downtown, and when nighttime has fallen over the city, the red sparkles and neon splashes punctuate the darkness and highlight the rectangular buildings. At midday, the decidedly non-rectangular buildings are the ones that catch my eye. Those are the traditional Korean houses of Andong, which are in the next block in either direction, a flat layer of old-style Korean rooftops in between all the modern apartments, stores and offices. The mix of old and new perfectly encapsulates what Korea seems to be all about. The ring of hills around the city and the river add their natural beauty, and I have come to know the line of trees atop a far east hill as well as I knew the E-Mart sign when we lived in Ok-Dong. In short, I try to not take for granted the view from our Dang-buk-dong digs.

I know what you're thinking: that I could post a picture of said view(s) to share with you all. You might be one of those a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words types. Well, not me. I am more of the belief that a thousand words are worth a picture. (Or, you know, 260.)

Oh hello there, December

"J'ai souvent constaté chez d'autres cette espèce d'instantanéité dans l'emploi d'une langue étrangère, après un travail inconscient d'incubation préparatoire ; il est remarquable d'ailleurs combien peu de mots suffisent pour exprimer les pensées les plus usuelles." - Arnauld d'Abbadie, Douze Ans de Sejour dans la Haute-Ethiopie

December! What!  And I have not even learned Korean yet, or sung nearly enough songs at the noraebang. And yet, here we are, with only three weeks more in Andong, Korea. I have to pack!

Today, I read the passage quoted above and it rang true.  Roughly translated, he says that he is always telling people that there's a revelatory moment when you can all of a sudden sort of use a foreign language that you have been working at learning, and that it's amazing how few words you really need to express the most common thoughts. Naturally this resonates with me the most from my Spanish, which I learned a-travelin' just as this author was learning Arabic on the road back in the day. I totally remember observing my brain make rapid progress in Spanish; in fact, it was almost as if I could note the physical occurrence and see my brain improve from Sunday morning to Monday night. There was a sudden moment where I just understood more. I totally get what my boy Arnauld is saying here. As for Korea - sigh. If only we used the language at all in our daily lives here! This is the same problem I ran into in 2005-06. All day I am paid to specifically not speak Korean. Then I go home to my apartment. Really, restaurants and stores are the only places I use the Korean language, unless I make an effort to set out to do so, and even in the shops and such people English us a lot. I've learned a bit - I learned to read and say a few phrases last time I lived here, and I've learned a bit more this time, but it's just crazy how little Korean the expat English teachers get away with knowing. I mean, even in Daegu many teachers don't read 한글 (hangeul - the Korean script), and in Seoul? Those people could probably get away with not even learning 맥주 (maekchu - beer) and 감사합니다 (kamsa hamnida - thank you)! Although everyone should always learn "thank you" in every language wherever they go even if they are just there for a day. I even learned it for my brief (wonderful!) stint in Turkey - then promptly forgot. (Ahh, right, teşekkür ederim - thanks for the refresher, Google translate!)

Anyway, where were we? Oh, yes. December. It's beginning to feel a lot like winter, especially inside my classroom. Yes, I said inside. I have been teaching class in a coat/jacket for three weeks. We have heat now and everything in our newly "renovated" building but I have windows that are maybe like the thickness of a Ziploc bag...one of them doesn't even shut all the way...lots of my students just wear their jackets in my classroom. Our apartment upstairs has some draft/insulation issues, too. But have I mentioned we have only three more weeks here?

There will always be more things to do in Korea, but for now it is time to wrap it up and focus on our upcoming trip to Cambodia where we will see many wondrous things and help to build a house.

In other news, let's see.. my artistic endeavors in Daegu have ended (for now), I'm still picking up a few scraps of the Korean language here and there, I'm still managing to drag my cold self out from the blanket under which I huddle to make it to kickboxing once in a while, I'm reading about my boy Andrew Johnson and really digging his plebian, common man, pro-labor self. Let me just tell you that if Andy Johnson were alive today he would totes be #Occupying. And he is so not a fan of the organized religion in the USofA, circa 1850. It's pretty awesome. I remain fascinated by the prez bios I read.

Oh, also?  I could use some new music recommendations. What are you listening to?

Hurrah for December!  I love Christmas! I will be on a plane this Christmas Day but I still love it.

"Black Friday" Whoring

OK, so there are three things wrong with this so-called "Black Friday" madness. I mean, even besides the fact that "Black Friday" is a stupid phrase that people/the media/shoppers use, in order to feel like they are a part of something cool that is bigger than them, when in reality retail workers meant it as an insult to call a day "Black" - as in, hello, this day is so awful and terrible and full of needy, chaotic, and nowadays violent shoppers that we are going to equate it with depression and economic freefall. But even getting past the nonsense of the name and the cult and the wicked behavior (violence is not acceptable, ever! violence in shopping is unacceptable plus crazy!) and the pushing of the start time earlier and earlier until it is now "Black Fri-Thurs-Ruin-My-Holi-Day," even getting past all that, I think you Friday crazy-shoppers need to take a good, hard look at yourselves.

1. Selfishness: I actually like Christmas shopping, a lot. I hate shopping the rest of the year, but I like picking out Christmas presents for people. And when I worked at Borders for many holiday seasons, I liked the holiday shoppers, too. Humanity just generally acts better when people are thinking about others instead of themselves, and customers buying holiday presents acted better than stupid customers the rest of the year who were in constant sense-of-entitlement mode. The problem with what the day after Thanksgiving (or day OF Thanksgiving, awful!) has become is that these people are no longer thinking about others, for whom they are buying gifts, but thinking only about themselves and the dollars they can "save" on this or that deal.

2. Amateur Hour: Much like Valentine's Day in restaurants or New Year's Eve in bars, the Friday has become the amateur hour -- the day when everybody goes out to do something they clearly are not very good at. Their lack of sophistication (or even intelligence) shows.

3.Prostitution: But I think I've realized that what bugs me about this "Black Friday" nonsense is how the  selfish, amateur behavior admits desperation on the part of the shoppers. I'm baffled that people are willing to so freely admit their desperation, and it reminds me of why I don't understand men who go to prostitutes. I mean, my whole take on that situation is: don't you feel bad about yourself, guys? Here you are, wanting to, shall we say, "hook up," and you have to PAY someone to do it? Your looks/charm/wit/intelligence/kindness/graciousness/compassion/any other wonderful qualities are lacking, so you'll just go buy affection/intimacy/pleasure? I find that so pathetic that it is amusing (if it weren't also tragic for the ones who are unfortunately forced into prostitution in many cases). Wow, you're such a manly stud, "banging a hooker." And you had to PAY her to like you for the evening/hour. How do you not feel like a total loser after that? Anyway, that is what the Black Fridayers have come to remind me of. They are so terrible at what they are trying to do (shop), and so clearly incapable of selecting gifts from the heart for their friends and family, and apparently so awful at finding a good deal with their own intelligence and other personal attributes, that they bring about the dismissal of soul/quality/finesse and instead are sold a commodity masquerading as something true.

Let me be clear: I am not talking about people who happen to want to start their holiday shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. That shouldn't have to be a problem. (And hey, it's good exercise for U.S. people to actually have to walk from a farther away parking space for once.)  I am talking only about the crazed Black Fridayers. The distinction is abundantly clear to all of us sane people, but I am afraid that some of the crazies might be in denial about themselves, like someone who believes that a prostitute really loves him.

Post-Thanksgiving Post

First of all, I am pleased to report that my Andong, Korea Thanksgiving went well, and the Sam Adams-drinking plan was a success! Although we spent the equivalent of $30 each to have a night out instead of the approximately $10 we would ordinarily spend if we drank cheap Korean beer, I felt justified celebrating in Sam Adams style because it was a U.S. holiday, and the Adams family lived just down the road a piece from ol' Plymouth Rock, you know. There happened to be a big concert event at Andong University last night, which a few of our foreigner teacher friends attended; afterward they also stopped by the "world beers" bar and together we watched some of the replay of the concert. We tried to spot our friends in the crowd and gazed admiringly at the soju ad lady (famous/popular/beautiful) who hosted the event, and so on. It reminded me of something that would happen at a Thanksgiving at home in the States, with the end-of-the-evening group of people who haven't yet dozed off finding something random on television to watch, with whoever is left at the gathering offering (not-so)witty commentary.

As for today, I couldn't be happier to not be shopping, but I wouldn't be shopping if I were back home in the States, anyway. I would, however, be making fun of shoppers from either place, and losing respect for anyone who actually went shopping on Thanksgiving Day. I truly hope that was a bust. Shame on any of you who participated in Thursday shopping! Meanwhile, I really hate the phrase "Black Friday." It's stupid. It's not as offensive as, say, "family values" or one of those other phrases tossed around in political rhetoric that not only doesn't mean anything but is actually used to obfuscate what the talking head is really saying while manipulating voters and/or public discourse. But it's still stupid. I think people use the phrase "Black Friday" to try to sound and feel like they are a part of something, in this case, the day-after-Thanksgiving media-promulgated shopping day. Gaaargh.

I did manage to talk about Thanksgiving in each of my four Thursday classes. In a couple of them, we did a Thanksgiving crossword or USA puzzle. I had my more advanced speakers go around the room to say one thing they are thankful for, turkey-day-dinner style. All in all, it was another decent day at my decent job, apart from the fact that our new building is freezing cold and my classroom is the most  freezingest coldest.

And so November winds down.  I have been doing NaNoWriMo, churning out a spectacularly crappy quantity-not-quality of words, and although I fell behind mid-month, I just might finish/"win." I am starting to get into the pack-up-my-life state of mind. I can feel Cambodia getting closer and closer! We will be there so soon! Thank you so much to everyone who donated to our Habitat for Humanity trip. What a wonderful cause.

I love the holiday season!  I'm so excited to start thinking all sorts of Christmasy thoughts now!

Thanksgiving 2011

Apparently there's some U.S. holiday today or something?  That's funny. I don't have the first clue what any of my U.S. peeps are up to. I have not heard from a single family member about their plans for today. The only news I have? Photos that friends have posted on Facebook of their pies and other concoctions.

Then again, there's been so much going on here in Korea, I had hardly noticed that the holidays are here. A shame, because I love me some holiday season. Most of that "so much" going on in Andong involves us getting ready to leave: arranging the flight to Cambodia, preparing for our Habitat for Humanity volunteer build there, attempting to make some semblance of arrangements for next year, and trying not to freeze in the poorly insulated building we now live and work in, notably in my frigid classroom on the two-exposed-walls end of the hallway with windows that don't shut, let alone seal.  Brrrr.

It's such a contrast from 2005, the last time I was in Korea for Thanksgiving. I was more aware of and interested in Thanksgiving that year, as evidenced by A Distant Nation my Community, that year's T-day entry. Then, I was "new" to Korea - still adjusting and noticing and observing with wide eyes. Now I am on the way out. Then, I was very much in touch with what was happening back home, and dozens of people wrote to me about their Thanksgiving happenings, sharing wonderful stories. I guess I just live a more isolated life now.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Is it some combination of Facebook, people's reluctance to communicate via personal e-mail, and all of us just getting older and more spread out? Is it the intermittently anti-social me, who lives with Brian and therefore never actually craves human interaction anymore? I really have been thinking about that, seriously. Now that I live with someone, it is soooooooooo easy for me to not make the effort to go out and do things and talk to people. How do other people avoid this trap?

Well, anyway, tonight I will drink a delicious Sam Adams beer, because last week I finally discovered a bar here in Andong that carries those delectable bottles. Only ten and  half months here that I didn't know about it, no big deal, right?  As for next year's Thanksgiving?  A mystery!

Enjoy the football, eating, and most of all, the gathering!

And nothing lasts forever...

...even cold November showers! Or, I should say, our November showers most certainly do not last forever because there is not enough hot water in our apartment. So frustrating. For those of you who don't know, Avalon moved on Halloween, both the school and the teachers' apartments. We are now closer to bustling downtown Andong, not that we were that far to begin with (Andong is not that big). Avalon entered into a partnership with MBC, one of the Korean news networks, and we don't really know the details of it except that it means we moved into a new building, expanded our academy's size, increased the number of classrooms and  teachers and subjects, and did all this in a former (small) hotel that has now "been renovated." I say "been renovated" in quotes because I would not exactly say the work was done when we moved in, or even now, three weeks later.

I wasn't particularly excited about living upstairs from work, as I like some personal space, but here we are in the "penthouse" as I very jokingly call it, on the 6th floor, with a two second commute to work on the 4th floor to teach our English classes. The first day here we had no electricity until 8pm, and no hot water, and no stove, and no washing machine and no refrigerator. All of these things slowly but surely trickled in during the first two weeks. Internet has been problematic. There is a wireless network for the whole building, and our computers in our classrooms are fine but up in the apartments there are still continual problems with the internet experience. The other big things are the stove and hot water. The "stove" is a tiny two-burner plug-in hot plate that is about half as big and sturdy as the one in our old apartment (and most other English teacher apartments I've seen in Korea); I really think is the plastic Barbie doll play kitchen version. It takes about 20 minutes to boil some water. Brian the chef is not happy, and I feel sad about this. As for me, I am most miserably because I absolutely cannot take cold showers, so I take 3-minute showers these days. Different tasks get allocated to different days, such as washing hair, conditioning hair, etc. I hate this. I mostly hate it because the bathroom is so cold (no heat in there) that a 3-minute shower isn't enough to get you all warm and toasty anyway, so it is almost as bad as taking a cooler shower. (Almost)

Let the record reflect that I am well aware these are "first-world problems" as they say. But here's my thing about that: you can't expect people to live in a situation that has certain requirements and then not provide them. Maybe everyone doesn't deserve to live in shameless modern luxury. OK, granted. But then, people who lived in previous time periods without hot running water either lived in the desert (the cradles of civilization!) or boiled water, or both. We have a burner that is tiny and doesn't heat up, and no way to make a fire to boil water without burning the building down, and no bathtub anyway. (The shower is a corner of the tile in the Korean bathroom.)  It's one thing to say an airplane or a car is a modern luxury, but you don't send someone up in the air and then say, "Oh, too bad! We're out of fuel! You are so picky and dependent on modern conveniences!" as the plane falls out of the sky.

At least we can work our heat (thankfully it was warm the first day, when we couldn't). I love Korean ondol heating, and I actually come upstairs often when I have break periods between classes because my classoom is FREEZING. While many of the classrooms in the hallway have classrooms on either side and one exposed outside wall, my classroom is on the end of the hallway and I have two exposed outside walls...and more windows than some other classrooms (windows thin as paper)...and a window that doesn't shut...the board I write on in class is ice cold to touch first class of the day. My kids keep their jackets on. We have heat in the classrooms now, which is better than the week before last, now the weather has turned even colder so it's still freeze-ola in there.

The thing about all this is that Brian and I are only five weeks away from leaving!! So part of us has been trying to get settled, and get everything fixed, and all that, and the rest of me is totally in the mindset of "Screw it, only 32 more days!" kind of thing. It's a frustrating way to be thinking. So not living in the moment. Booo!

And it's also so weird that we are leaving so soon!!!!!!!!!!  Can you believe we have finished 46 weeks in Andong? Wow! And we still aren't sure about our plan for next year. But, first things first, we are flying from Seoul to Phnom Penh. We will kick off 2012 volunteering with Habitat for Humanity in Siem Reap, Cambodia, a kingdom of wonder (that's their slogan, I didn't make it up) that has seen a lot of troubles and danger and floods and problems (although being cold is generally not one of them) but has also got fascinating history, temples, rivers, coast, cities, food, people, and so on to visit.

Meanwhile, in our last five weeks back here at the ranch, we are no longer in the hip, up-and-coming nightlife area called Ok-Dong, so we now live in Dangbuk-dong, near different restaurants and bus routes, farther from the city bus terminal but closer to the city train station, closer to the rows of Andong jjimdak restaurants (the spicy chicken stew specialty) in the downtown market jjimdak stalls, but father from all the fabulous Ok-Dong places we had come to love, farther from E-Mart, closer to the hospital and doctors, farther from two of the three bars where the Westerners mostly hang out, closer to some other bars, closer to downtown shopping and coffee shops, farther from the Tous Les Jours where they love me and Coffee Beach, farther from my kickboxing gym, but still a nice walk home from kickboxing class.

"And so it goes, and so it goes, and so will [we] soon, I suppose..." as Billy Joel sort of sang.