One Small Step for Man

Ryan Joseph Lerner is the author of this post.

What a great morning I just had.  Woke up at 6 in the am, logged onto skype, and instantly joined my friends on the second floor of Woodstocks Pizzeria in Davis, CA just in time for my 4th pick of the 2010 fantasy football draft (yeah…I was a little late).  I can’t tell you how happy it makes me feel when I see my friends from home.  Without skype, I would be constantly reminded every day of how I am a globe away from everything I love.  Whether its daily calls from my insomniac baby sister Megan or calls that keep me up all night from a certain individual, skype is the only thing keeping me sane here. I hereby dedicate this post to the Swedish and Danish entrepreneurs respectively: Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, the creators of this invaluable communication tool.

In other news…

For the past three week orientation process, my fellow TaLK scholars and I have been treated like royalty.  We have calculated that roughly $15,000 has been spent on each individual scholar.  This includes all you can eat feasts, housing, transportation, and elaborate field trips.  Aside from two weekends, Brian nor I have had to even begin to think about how we were going to be fed, transported, or amused.  So you can imagine how difficult it was, once orientation ended and we instantly became scavengers forced to fend for ourselves in this concrete Korean jungle.  We no longer have our Korean Sacagaweas to ask simple everyday questions such as “How can I tell this Korean I want to buy his motorcycle” or “What exactly am I eating right now…no no this thing here that keeps moving every time I try to stab it with my chopstick?”  We have reached the end of the road — now we must figure out how to communicate for our survival depends on it.

Although the language barrier may be a major hindrance, that doesn’t mean we can’t take advantage of it.  And you thought I was such the pessimist.  Before I continue speaking, I guess I should mention that my mother recently informed me that the Ko-Ryan Brian audience was becoming increasingly popular to the “Old People” demographic.  “Ryan, my friends are reading this so keep it professional…” this is what she tells me.  So to my mom’s friends and the rest of the “Old People” out there please bear with me…Ok so back to taking advantage of the fact that everyone around me doesn’t speak English.  A fun new pasttime we have acquired is saying really random English sayings with a giant full mouth smile to our neighbors and shopkeepers.  For instance after saying hello I might add, “I am poo’ing my pants right now!”  They will just smile and laugh back none-the-wiser.  I will report back to you when this comes back to haunt me.

Hmm what else?

Oh of course. My first encounter with my entire school staff.  If there is one lesson that has been ingrained into our skulls it is the fact that first impressions are everything in Korea.  Failing to make a great one will affect how your peers view you for the duration of the relationship.  I will label my first impression: interesting.

So it is about 11 in the morning and I have been up since 6ish drafting.  I facebook Brian who is two doors down, that it is food time.  Literally six minutes later I hear a knock on my door.  Assuming it is Brian I get out of bed, just wearing my boxers to answer the door.  As I am walking to the door I am shouting “Who goes there?” “Tis who? Tis you?” super obnoxiously in a strange accent.  To make matters more “interesting” I ripped a filthy fart right in front of the door that even British Paul might have applauded.  Midway through saying “Ahhh Welcome” I peek my head out to find my Mentor Teacher and a female school staff member that I had never met before.  She immediately squeals and hides her face as the last she thing she was expecting was a weird-smiled, chubby, nude, accented boy to answer the door.  I was very embarrassed and quickly ran inside to grab some clothes.  They proceeded to follow me into my room  just to be SMACKED in the face by the fart I had just strategically planted.  My mentor teacher, Mr. Sung informs me we are going to eat lunch with the principal right now (he had never mentioned anything to me about this prior).  So I quickly got dressed, looking super haggard. ( The first time I had stood all day was to answer the door.)

I meet everyone and eat a somewhat tasty fish soup.  They couldn’t wrap their minds around the fact that I couldn’t sit cross-legged and eat at the chair-less table like a normal Korean.  There was about twelve people there and they all seemed to be enjoying each others’ company and looked like a fun group of people to work with — although Mr. Sung is the only one that can communicate with me.  After lunch Mr. Sung and two other men took me home as they wanted to “see how an American lives.”  We enter my room and they immediately start touching everything.  They open my computer (thank God I was clean), touch my books, clothes, soaps…and would gasp and look so amazed after each thing they touched.  Finally my co workers opened my refrigerator…keep in mind I haven’t gone grocery shopping yet.  All they found was a bottle of soju and a tall boy of hite.  No food. No water. Just alcohol.  It actually turned out awesome because my Mentor teacher proceeded to crack open the bottle of soju and we all began to take shots.  It was twelve in the afternoon. Only in Korea.

Hate to end on a Davis only reference but…

Brian and I also taught a fun group of way-better-than-average English speaking Koreans a great new word (same people that learned God Damnit!).  During a traditional Korean drinking game in which one flicks the soju cap lanyard until it snaps off (its like the coil when you open a new gallon of milk and it stays connected to the lid), I went for a flick and hit it very poorly, barely moving the coiled excess.  I hung my head in shame and shouted “Keeeba.”  By the end of the night one of the Koreans barely flicked the cap and in embarrassment he announced his new favorite word.  You are welcome Micheal Keba. Brian and I are now responsible for your crowning of the Lordship of Mars and have turned your last name into a useful English word to describe the poorly coordinated people of Korea.

Stay tuned for the next posts as we describe how our first days of class went. Definitely super nerve racking.  I am going to name all my students, the names of my friends from home so I won’t feel lonely.  I’ll post the pics of the Korean “you.”

Korea for Dummies: The emigration rate of South Korea is one of the highest in the world, with most of the ethnic Koreans migrating to China, the United States, Japan, and countries of the former Soviet Union.

Sincerely.

The First Day of the Rest of My Life

(By several requests, I’ll sign at the TOP of the post too. This is Brian. Hope you’re happy.)

Home sweet home in Hapcheon…after 3 weeks of living out of suitcases and surviving the 11 o’clock orientation curfews, Ryan, Angela and I have finally settled into the studio apartments that we’ll be living in for the next four (me), five (Ryan), and eleven (Angela, in a ballsy move) months.

I’m gonna put up some pictures in this post (not much will be new from what’s on FB, but I don’t know if you all can see those so I picked some good ones for the blog), but unfortunately none of the new pad, so I’ll just describe it for you.

First, the bad: the floral wallpaper is HORRENDOUS. Actually, it’s so bad, I’m going to take a quick pic with my webcam…just look at this

These flowers cover my entire wallspace

Yeah, it’s pretty bad. Another unfortunate thing is the fact that there isn’t a single chair in here, but luckily I can take care of that with money my school will give me. Honestly though, other than that it’s premiere, so on to…

THE GOOD: It has COPIOUS air conditioning that I can run all the time pretty cheaply. My room is currently 18 degrees celsius (thats 64 F, for the 10% of the world still avoiding the metric system). I have a kitchen, a fridge, a washing machine, a bathroom/shower, a closet, a teev, a desk (still useless sans chair), and a bed, plus a few other random things that make it awesome. It’s not huge, but big enough for a studio. Overall, 8 outta 10.

Now I’ll tell you some tales of Hapcheon…prepare to be thrilled and definitely chilled by some of the gory details.

First of all, there are about 9 other foreigners (meaning English-speakers) in the city. Hapcheon has about 50k living here, so you’d think it’d be easy enough to avoid them, but in fact we’ve already run into some of them more than once.

Why would we want to avoid them, you may be asking?

These people fall squarely into the category mentioned in a previous post of “Those Who Did Not Cut It Back At Home”, or TWDNCIBAH’s. I was hoping for a better acronym, so we’ll just refer to them as they really are…weirdos (Toni, I really wanted to intensify that, but I restrained myself). These people have been sentenced to indefinite exiles to countries around the world where no one speaks their language so they have an excuse for being so socially inept. They take Asian wives but somehow refuse to learn the language or customs of the countries they live in, and generally exist to scare the shite out of any vaguely normal westerners who they encounter.

I’ll introduce you to Liam, who lives between Ryan’s and my studios. Liam is a British gentlemen, of middle-age, who still refers to people as “dude” and considers pajama pants with maryjane prints “fashion.” His mouth is never visible as he covers about half his face with his hands every time he speaks, which is unsettling enough until you pay attention to what he’s saying. When asked a simple question, like: “Do you eat out at restaurants all the time, or mostly cook at home?”, he replied:

“Yessssssss….(in a whisper)……um..well, i don’t knowwwwwww…I do cook sometimes…and..ehr…sometimes I like to eat out…I really can’t say…no….” and so on until we stop him with another question, and finally the conversation is put in the grave with a “Thanks Liam! See you around!”

Brutal.

We went to one of the bars on our own the other night just go get a few beers and chat, and ended up making some Korean friends. We say hello to EVERYone here, usually in English. Pretty much everyone, no matter how educated, knows how to respond to a “Hello, how are you” the same way. No matter how horrible they might feel, they always say, “I’m fine, and you?!” because it’s the only response they know…so we said hellohowareyou to a group of Korean guys at the table across from us at the bar (Stout), and invited them to play drinking games with us, which was super fun. Every little thing we did in the Korean style (like pouring with two hands for older people, for example) they would explode with admiration and tell us, “Wowww you are already Korean!” with genuine sincerity, which was pretty cool. So when Angela spilled a beer all over the table/Koreans’ pants, we taught them the proper response: “God dammit Angela!” with hands placed at their temples…it was hilarious and they loved it. They also loved learning when to say “Keeebaaa” but I think Ryan’s already covering that gem…

What else? There’s an awesome river right next to our house with adjacent fields for playing soccer and throwing frisbees around…some really good trails for running through the mountains. Two days ago Angela and I went on a run through one of the mountain trails…I saw HUGE white cranes and herons on the riverbanks, a deer in the forest, and these bizarre creatures that fly by looking half-butterfly, half-bird, and half-dragonfly. It’s really beautiful here and I can tell I’m gonna be doing a lot of running.

K and here are the pics from an assortment of cameras:

Practicing Snappa tosses in between lectures

We shouted "Only WHITE scholars for this picture!" Seemed like a good idea at the time...

Karaoke on the bus...definitely hit or miss depending on who holds the mic

My team under a statue of a super famous General in Seoul

My Koala mug that we made at a famous potter's house in the mountain...thanks for the idea Lernier

Nothing has changed since freshman year...ruining songs since 2006 baby

Super dank Korean BBQ meal...last night of Orientation

English Camp...my team and some of the kids...my little brat is on the front left

Some friends at the Korean Medieval Times, with my Co-teacher on the far right

Anyways, that’s it for today. Can’t wait to go shopping for apartment things and learn more about Hapcheon. Tonight we’re gonna take it easy cause we have a fantasy draft at 5 am THANKS GOLDBERG but hopefully soon we’ll get a chance to do some traveling and see our long lost buddies. First day of school is Wednesday, so you can definitely be expecting a post on that bad boy soon.

Kombae! (Korean for “Cheers!”)

Brian

Stand up next to a mountain…

Something I never really thought about until recently is the fact that most Americans I know probably take the idea of landscape for granted. I know all Cali born-and-bred like to say to outsiders that you could surf and snowboard in the same day, if you wanted to, but I think we miss the point of what that actually means – maybe because most of us learn about geology/graphy before we’re old enough to really understand the effect it has on the people who live in these places.

I remember when I first started reading up on what I should expect when I got to Korea, one of the things that stood out to me was what seemed to be the super dichotomous nature of the culture – at least on the surface. On one hand, the Korean people are definitely socialized into a sort of group-centered mindset in which individualism is something to be avoided. When you go to a Korean restaurant, only foreigners will try and order single meals; it’s made pretty clear by the fact that, usually, only one menu is put on the table to peruse. Groups of people eating together order “sets”, which include a few big dishes and sides to be shared by everyone – even bowls of soup are communal, with everyone dipping their spoons into the same stone pot. Everything from transportation, accommodations, entertainment, and work all maintain this sense of community and sometimes the lack of privacy can be a little daunting, but here it’s completely normal.

All of this is very apparent to me, and all the other foreigners here, but at a slight remove. As inclusive as Korean culture is, there will always be an outsider-ness to us no matter how long we might stay here. It’s a lot more apparent with older people, who will literally come outside their businesses and houses just to watch us walk by, and in the reactions of the very young, many of whom may never have seen a white person before, much less a brown or black one.  People my age are super friendly, from paying for things to trying to tell me everything I don’t know about Korea. I think that beyond the language barrier, it wouldn’t be too hard to really get close to these people…but who knows.

It’s funny to write this and think about how we are in America – think about the last time a truly foreign person was part of your circle of friends, in your every-day life. Probably not too many of us could say that, and it honestly feels totally normal. Someone who came to America from Korea would probably feel more at home in Westminster or K-town or one of the many other neighborhoods where people speak their language and understand their customs, and we’re fine that way. Sure, we’re proud of being diverse in our schools and our workplaces, but when it comes down to it, you have to be almost totally American-ized to actually be a part of it. You might point at the school system and say, “you know, what about Davis?”, and it’s true that there are thousands of people who aren’t American-ized at all…and they stay separated from us. I even wonder how many of them really plan to stay after they’ve earned their degrees. I guess this experience just makes me wonder if “diversity” really isn’t just a big overstatement, something that exists mainly as a word. Maybe what we should be trying to do, if we really care about what diversity is supposed to mean, is more like integration than diversification…one of them means convergence, and the other means separation.

Korea is a country where there is no real change in landscape as I’ve seen it, and I’ve been as far north as 20 minutes from North Korea and as far south now as Miryang. This is a country of mountains and forests – it’s part of the reason why 12 million people are packed into Seoul; it’s part of the reason why pork and fish are so much more common than beef or chicken – if mountains are what you have, then where do you pasture cattle? It’s part of the reason why Korean has such gnarly dialects…and I think it’s part of why Korean culture is the way it is overall. Before Korea modernized, getting from place to place was a huge effort because of the landscape, so communities tended towards being self-contained. I think that mindset became really prevalent on a national level, especially in older generations, and less and less so in the youth – probably an effect of all the Westernization happening here.

Don’t get me wrong – everyone I’ve met here has been more than friendly, and extremely respectful. Just something I started thinking about on one of the long bus rides through the countryside and wanted to expand on.

Quick aside – we’re nearing the end of Orientation – two and a half more days before moving on to Hapcheon. I hope we’re ready; I think I am, but I’m trying to keep from having any expectations and to stay flexible.

Got my contract change approved – I’m coming home at the end of December now, so I can make it to the first class of Winter quarter…it’s gonna be strange being on the receiving end of a lesson when I get back.

Thinking about all of you back home, and looking forward to just CHILLING tonight, with a movie, some skype-age, and maybe some Korean delivery hahaha.Who would’ve thought I’d be able to miss a night of going out til the 11pm curfew?

Much love,

Bro Gers

Oohhh That Smelll

Current State: About 2 bottles of soju and a pitcher of hite deep

Site: Hotel room, 22 inch flat screen TV with 1 American Channel, 2 beds that are too close together, AC unit, small oscillating fan (so legit)

Smell: Cinnamon? don’t know the cause, though I am very curious.

So Brian and I actually made it out of English Camp.  Was it as bad as we said it was going to be? Answer: Yes.  As expected, we shared a room with 8 other roommates while sleeping on quarter inch thick mats with pillows that were so unforgiving I felt like my neck was sleeping at a 90 degree angle. Ten people did have to share one bar of soap, and thus I could decipher who was who by their unique pubic hair they would leave on that bar of soap, but whatever doesn’t kill you makes you cleaner right?  In all honestly it really wasn’t that bad.   After spending 12 hours each day with Korean children, one was so tired that he or she would be able to sleep standing.

Actually there was just one horrible thing.  One very, very horrible thing.  This thing was a British man named Paul.  To the faithful readers of our blog I need you to take my following sentence to heart and know that I am speaking the God’s honest truth.  British Paul is and will be the smelliest man my nostrils have and will ever come in contact with for the duration of my pathetic life.  He told us he only showers twice a year: Cinco de Mayo and the 3rd night of Hanukkah.  I wish I could give the smell justice through words, but it is simply impossible.  I would rather baptize my skull in an Indian family’s toilet than get within 8 cubic feet of this man.  I would stare as he would carefully and meticulously comb his long hair (that is attached to his ridiculously elongated head) and witness the steady stream of oil leave his thin locks.  The English Camp has this extremely unfortunate tradition of turning the power off during the night, meaning our AC life unit would shut down (remember it is 300% humidity).  Consequently, we would all wake up sweating bullets in this tiny crowded room completely marinated in his scent, with our lungs having had no choice but to suck in his fumes amongst the stagnate air all night.  I felt like a distinguished hunter because from the air outside alone, I could say with absolute certainty where he was, had been, and where he was thinking of going.

But there was more to camp than that.

On the first actual day of camp, all of the TaLK scholars had to sit in every other seat in this two-level medium sized auditorium, and whatever Korean child sat to your right would be your responsibility for the duration of the 4 day camp.  A 12 year old girl with glasses named Jenny ended up sitting next to me.  And boy did I luck out.  She already had a somewhat strong English background and actually wanted to learn more English.  To actually want to learn English was experienced by maybe only 20% of all the children, i.e. very frustrating.  Jenny was the ring leader of her group.  Her friends depended on her to communicate with us what they were trying to say. She would do her best to get her point across even if she didn’t know the English translation (so cute).  She would wear all of her friends’ name tags and carry all of their workbooks.  Her best friend was Brian’s child Marley, who for lack of better words was a little bitch who refused to participate or even attempt to learn English.  And no…until Brian and I, Jenny had never heard her name be said with a Forrest Gump accent.

Other interesting things.  These little Korean children were OBSESSED with my arm and leg hair.  (Remember that Koreans are for the most part, hairless).  Boys and girls alike would rub my arms and legs as if good karma and success emanated from them.  Even this strange girl would pluck my arm hairs one by one and stick them in this ring she had on her right hand, like a strange Korean voodoo mood ring.  As gross as that sounds, I was encouraging it.

One of my favorite quotes of camp:  “Hey, do you think this is chicken?” (being interrupted by an authentic Korean) “no….this is pigeon.”  Needless to say the food was suspect.

So now we are on the final leg of orientation.  In about a week we will finally have our own school and classes.  Definitely super scary.  I feel like our 2 week orientation was just to prepare us for the camp we just went to.  Like if I went home right now, I would be able to say I had a great time and a crazy adventure.  When it comes down to it, we haven’t done anything yet.  It has almost been a month, and we haven’t even started the mission of why we came here in the first place.   I cannot begin to imagine what these next five months are going to feel like.

Fun Fact:  Our English speaking leader was named Steve.  By the end of camp, everyone would only refer to him as “BIG Steve.”  This is a reference only my Davis viewers will understand.

Korea for Dummies: South Korea has a republic government, with authority and power shared between the President, the Legislature, and the Courts.

Initializing Phase III

There’s way too much that’s happened between now and my last post to cover everything and stand a chance of holding your attention from top to bottom, so I’m going to keep it as concise as possible…but also extremely interesting, because our views-per-day took a pretty intense hit over our four day hiatus in TMoN and we need to make up for lost time. Ryan and I measure how much people miss us by our blog views, so it’s a big deal.

So. This is the last week of orientation. As you can guess from the title of this post, I’ve divided this whole process into three fairly distinct parts. The first of these you are all acquainted with already – lectures, meals, and nights out in Jochiwon interspersed with the occasional leet weekend in Seoul. The second of these was the English camp in Pyeongchang. I guess I’ll start with that.

English camp was genuinely a prison. The inmates came in two varieties; one was predominantly white, normal human-sized, and English speaking, and the other was about 12 years old, Korean, and forced to utilize the 16 words of English he or she knew to communicate the entire spectrum of human experiences.

Basically, each TaLK scholar was paired with a cute or not-cute Korean child and forced to interact 12 hours a day for four days in a desperate gambit by the childrens’ parents to force them into thinking that learning English is fun. Surprisingly enough, this tactic seemed to be fairly successful, and I spied many a school-child leaving with tears on their faces as they said their final goodbyes to their English teachers. I say “spied” because all of these instances were somewhat distant from my own, considering that my child spoke perhaps 3 words to me the entire duration of the camp, and barely remembered to wave goodbye before departing from my life forever.

When I first met Marley, she ran away from me to find her Korean schoolgirl friends (all of whom submitted to her dominance because she is the best puncher in the posse). No, I didn’t have a choice of students. I did, however, get to choose her name. After having several Pokemon names rejected (I was sure I’d be calling her Ponita all week), I settled on Marley…honestly for no particular reason. I could already tell that we weren’t going to be the best of friends. Sure, we had our moments, but the majority of the time consisted of me speaking English to her and her non-verbal responses that pretty much amounted to, “…and I give a shit…why?” Pretty rough.

Also rough was the fact that the humanoid sharing our dormitory room smelled like a reanimated corpse from the Byzantine era, doused in feces and left to fester in the humid sun of South Korea for eons before being clothed in the rags worn by Plague victims from the turn of the 17th century. I can say this in a post because he will never read it…regardless, I know some of you reading will think: “What if he does? How mortifying! Show some mercy!” I realize that my experience, which by itself dispels any notion of mercy concerning the situation, is difficult to convey via words, which lack the olfactory power necessary to really describe what happened in that dorm room. It was literally a defining aspect of the English camp experience, a waking nightmare that actually forced some of our roommates to sleep in places like the recreation room just to escape the poisonous atmosphere. At least now I can put it to rest and hope my sense of smell regenerates over the next few months…I’m not counting on it though. All I can do is pray for his students and hope that someone buys him some body wash at some point.

What else? We taught kids how to play “red light, green light” and how to sing “Mr. Sun”, ate octopus tentacles (check out the picture I tagged Megan in if you want to see what the gnarliest Korean meal I’ve seen thus far looked like) and played indoor soccer every night. We were forced to buy ice cream for four or five 12 year-old girls every day (imagine hearing “Brian Teachah, icey creamey aftah dinner PREASE!!!” every evening and tell me you could say no), and to endure – literally – eight to ten morning announcements in blaring Korean between 6:30 and 8:00 am every morning. Outside of all that, though, it really wasn’t all that bad. I liked most of the kids in our group, we got some real experience teaching, and I got closer with a lot of the other scholars. Yeah, the plus side of the week was one sentence compared to two paragraphs of tear-worthy suffering.

Now, we’re in Phase III. The final week takes place in our province Gyeongnam, with only the scholars who will be teaching here. Ryan and I are on the 9th floor of a plush hotel with internet, TV, air conditioning, a full spa/sauna floor, and many other amenities you might take for granted at home. We went out to a super legit dinner, explored our small but interesting township, and generally rejoiced to be back in civilization all day and night. Tomorrow, classes start, but so far, it’s been a great break.

To everyone (anyone?) reading from TaLK – I don’t know if you read our first posts and wondered if, perhaps, you were one of the “extreme variety of noobs” Ryan and I wrote about, but today was honestly really funny to me. Saying bye to some of you was surprisingly sad and it made me laugh to think that just a couple weeks ago I was judging you silently from a lonely corner table…I’m sure I wasn’t the only one, but I’m glad we all got to know each other so quickly and wish you the best of luck teaching your kids, fending off evil school ghosts (Ji I’m talking to you…still can’t believe you cried for me…so leet), and getting used to being the only foreigner for miles around (Insert Taka’s amazing speech here, and you’ll get the gist of my sentiment).

Every day, I’ll continue telling Ryan to put the pictures online. Until then, these posts, names, places, and situations will remain in the domain of your imaginations. I hope we’re doing a good job of conveying what this place is like and that you guys understand how different our lives have become here, although some things have remained remarkably similar (we played “quarters” tonight; the quotation marks because in lieu of quarters we had to use 100 won coins, which doesn’t quite roll of the tongue as far as game names go).

One fun fact: Our English camp location was only 20 miles from the South/North Korean border! And I didn’t even know that until tonight! Spine-chilling.

Goodnight friends and family,

BG

FML

Tomorrow followed by the next 5 days 4 nights, will make Pi Kappa Alpha’s I-Week seem like 7 days dedicated to love and laughter.  After a 6 hour bus ride to the forests of Korea, we will be assigned a little Korean child whom we will be inseparable with for the duration of the “English Camp.”  Our lavish lodging will consist of a half inch thick mat no more than 4 feet long, no pillow, and a communal shower. I will enjoy these accommodations with 9 other roommates as we silently sit cross-legged on our mats in a windowless room measuring 12′ x 12′ staring at each other, selfishly inhaling each others’ oxygen. We are still unsure if we have to sleep on the same mat with our Korean child as well.  So as you approach the perils of your upcoming week, remember that Brian and I will be sleeping on the floor with 8 other people, handcuffed to a little Korean child who doesn’t speak English, and cleansing ourselves in a communal shower with the same noobs I have previously described.  I know… I should have taken the blue pill.

On a lighter note..

Seoul once again lived up to the hype I had heard about when I was still in Cali.  Our lifestyle there is like any other normal college weekend trip.  We find cheap lodging (Grand Prix love motel, same motel we stayed at last time — $15 per person a night, this also includes a fully stocked library of free Korean pornography on VHS), find food by looking at the pictures posted on the doors of restaurants, buy copious amounts of cheap alcohol (Soju is about $1.60 and is equivalent to 7 shots), take a taxi to a club that we hear about from the grapevine, party till 4 in the morning, eat McDonalds, pass out, wake up super hungover, discuss everyone’s adventure, eat more McDonalds, go back to sleep and wake up around 8 to pregame.  Rinse Repeat. In two nights I think I ate 8 Shanghai Spicy Chicken sandwiches from MickeyDees.

My first night however, could have been one of the scariest moments to date.  Long story short, me and my friend Emily got lost trying to find our friends through a torrential downpour.  When I say lost I mean, having not even the remotest idea where I was going for 3 hours.  Yes three hours.  Emily kept telling me “Ryan, misadventures are always the best adventures and stories!” I quickly replied “Don’t speak to me until we are home.”  Needless to say we walked the entire three hours 100 feet apart because I was so annoyed.  Imagine walking through unknown streets with rain literally coming down so hard you feel like you are being hammered into the concrete, not being able to communicate with anyone, asking for directions from a small convenient store, following their hand motioned directions to a T, and then passing the same store 2 hours later.  Yes we were so lost that we didn’t even notice that we had walked in a giant circle for over 2 hours. At least my night ended with more McDonalds.

Brian and I probably had our most adventurous Korean meal yet.  We ate pig spine in a spicy broth with vegetables.  I’ll try to describe what pig spine bones look like: put your hands together with interlocking fingers as if you were praying, and now slowly extend your fingers until they make a V shape.  It was surprisingly delicious.  Although we did feel the wrath of this spicy strange dish later.

I also found out that what I thought was my Korean name, actually wasn’t.  It is KimBap 김밥,  which is a rice/meat dish.  Yes I was given the name of a Korean meal.  (They are still not used to normal sized humans.)

Ok….I am much too tired to continue.

Korea for Dummies: North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950 with goal of unifying the Koreas under communist rule.  The United Nations intervened in the war and there was a ceasefire in 1953. The border between South and North Korea remains one of the heaviest militarized zones in the world.

See you in another life Brotha.

The Brink of Doom

What a time to write an entry for this blog; on the tail end of another fantastic weekend in Seoul, and on the cusp of perchance the worst episode of the Great Korean Adventure so far.

I’ll let you pick: good news or bad news first?

Actually, I won’t, because you can’t answer and this is MY blog. You get the bad news first.

Throughout orientation, we’ve known that we’d be spending four days teaching at an “English Camp” where fortunate sons and daughters are shipped away for a week of intense learning. We did not know the horrific details until maybe two hours ago, and I’ve been crying in my room ever since.

Tomorrow, we get on a bus with one carry-on bag and sit for six hours as we progress towards The Middle of Nowhere. What lies in The Middle of Nowhere, you may be asking – in TMoN, there exists a building called the National Youth Center of Korea. This is where approximately 350 Korean kids between 10 and 12 years old will be eagerly waiting for us to arrive. There, we will teach, all day, the child who has been paired up with each of us. We will sleep on mats on the floor in rooms of 10 scholars each. We will eat from canteens and shower in groups, and we will NOT be on the internet. Why not? BECAUSE THERE ISN’T ANY. We won’t be allowed to leave the big building we will be teaching and sleeping in. If we wanted to, there wouldn’t be anything to do anyway, because we are in The Middle of Nowhere.

“But Brian, you signed up for this! Plus, isn’t Hapcheon in The Middle of Nowhere too? Really, I think you’re expecting the worst here.”

That’s very true. I’m going into it with extremely, maybe even morbidly low expectations. That way, if it really does utterly suck, I’m prepared. It also sets me up to be pleasantly surprised. The internet thing really has me bummed though…I got used to being able to go online and talk to my friends and obsess over the number of blog views every day. I guess it’ll force me to really stay in the moment and get used to the idea of being a Teacher and a Role Model and all the other things I’ll inevitably end up being eventually anyways. You guys are gonna have to figure out a way to make it for four days without any pearls of wisdom from either me or Ryan as well…good luck.

ANYWAY, I’ll give you a quick recap of the weekend in Seoul so we end on a good note.

First, and most important: McDonald’s in Korea is the CADILLAC of fast food. You know how you walk up to the menu and order something that looks impeccably organized by an artist in the kitchen, or so you assume by looking at the picture of the Big Mac or whatever else…then you get your burger and it looks like it was made by a blind three-year old with no thumbs?

In Korea, it really looks like the picture! We were so impressed the first time we went there, that we literally went maybe six times over the course of 48 hours. Embarrassing? Yeah, maybe, but embarrassment doesn’t really exist here, and let me tell you why.

My friends and I have gotten into a weird habit or role that we play here. If you remember from Ryan’s post last week, we must come across as very strange to these people, because we’ll stand around muttering “Gaaalllbiiii” and “Shi Le Hamneda” (“beeeeeeeeefsteak” and “excuse me”) in bizarre accents and giggling to each other. This is a manifestation of knowing that nothing we say like this matters, at least in Seoul. We can mutter unintelligibly all the nonsense Korean phrases we want, and people just smile and laugh, or ignore us. It’s seriously like we’re babies.

Consider this scene: we’re walking across a super crowded crosswalk, and there’s a big herd of people moving in each direction before slowly coming together in the middle and become a big confused mass. Ryan is at the head of our side of the street’s herd, and the approaching herd is about ten feet away, when all of a sudden he raises his arms above his head and chants in a deep, loud, and utterly terrifying voice, “Uuuuuhrllllll Maahhhhhh Yaaayyyyyoooooo” like he’s about to plunge his hand wrist-deep into someone’s chest and extract their still beating heart in the middle of the street. The crowd parts around him as we laugh hysterically; that phrase means “Howwwww muuuuchhhh doessss thiisss coosssssttttttt?”

It honestly NEVER gets old. Sure, we might look like uncultured dumb Americans, but when we go to Seoul, that’s exactly what we are…why pretend?

Last night, we went to a club called NB2…it was pretty sweet. We met up with our friend Inhe and her Korean buddies (they all live in the area) and played King’s Cup before going out. One benefit of playing that game with native Koreans is how hilarious bust-a-rhyme becomes. We started the rhyme with “bust”, and watched it get mangled into “lost”, and end with “ghost” before pronouncing the rhyme dead. Too funny.

NB2 was a great time…it definitely fell in the category of “buildings that are too hot to stand in for more than 20 minutes”, but the music was good and loud, and the drinks were free. Not for everyone, but for some reason Koreans just didn’t want me to pay for my own drink. They’re really nice to us here, and they like being able to practice their English and laugh at our pathetic attempts to speak Korean. I definitely can’t wait for Megan to get here; being not-single at clubs is fun, but I can tell it’s gonna get less-so as the novelty wears off.

Hongdae is the student nightlife hub of Seoul (not my picture, Ryan still needs to upload his cam)

So we ended up back home around 4:30 am, exhausted but not too tired to stop AGAIN at McDonald’s (they pronounce it meek-donouldu here). Another great weekend in Seoul, and another long bus ride back to Jochiwon.

I’m gonna wrap this up, but hopefully Ryan will write something before our Long Hiatus begins, cause there is tooooo much that we learned/did that you guys would find interesting/hilarious for me to write about it all. Little sneak preview: VHS Korean pornography at the love motel, pig spine soup, Nanta (a Korean STOMP-esque show), a Korean robot’s favorite food, and much much more.

Much love from the Far East,

BG

Dis-orientation

This will be a quick post – we just have a half hour of free time before our last lecture of Orientation so I wanted to write a leeeetle update.

We’re almost done here in Jochiwon at the Korea U campus…I’m excited to move down to Gyeongnam province and see where I’ll be spending the next five months or so, but kinda apprehensive too. We got letters today from our Korean co-teachers, who are basically college students who help us teach and befriend us on behalf of the Korean people. I’ll say something about mine in a second, but first I wanted to mention what another girl who lives in my city (Hapcheon) heard from her co-teacher.

“I hope you don’t have TOO much expect of your sity Hapcheon. It is very small and quiet. There is only one fastfood place (Lotteria) and one bakery (Paris Baquette), and no cinema or nightclubs. The downtown is very small, about the size of a usual park. It takes about 3 minutes to walk across. I don’t want you to be too scared though, just because one of the other scholars was a little depressed when she first saw. She went to Daegu (the fourth largest Korean city about an hour away) most weekends though, so she was fine. Don’t worry, though, we have many beautiful sceneries! If you love blue sky, green mountains, and clean clear waters, all that can be yours!”

So it’s probably a lot like Davis.

I’m not too worried though – apparently everyone hangs out in Daegu, and Busan (the second biggest city and right on da beach) all the time…looks like i’ll just be spending some time in buses on the weekends.

INTERRUPTION: SKYPING KIANA

K I’m back guys. BTW – if you wanna skype us, my sn is br14n1337 (I know, I know) and Ryan Lerner’s is Ryan Lerner. Add us and we’ll show you our place and talk to you and teach you how to say things in Korean. So far I still feel pretty connected to back home, mostly through this blog and facebook though…skyping is a little harder to do because of the time differences, but we’re usually available (US times) 12am, 9pm-ish, 5pm-ish, and early morning.

What am I missing right now? Haven’t seen pasta since I got here…no TV or American music except in that club in Seoul…I miss not sweating every time I’m outside, I miss being able to do irresponsible and unhealthy things at all times of the day with my Davis friends…I miss my gorgeous girlfriend who is having an awesome time in Mexico right now…I miss people with pets…

…but then again, there are things here that don’t exist back home, like little old ladies (called Ajima’s) who clean up our room, and elevators that talk to me, and Korean schoolchildren to terrify in the hallways.

Anyways, off to last lecture and dinner. Miss you guys, hope everyone is having a sick second half of summer/beginning to real life.

Your faithful correspondent,

BG

A Fish Out of Water

Albert Einstein posed an interesting question: “What do fish know about water?” When you think about it, fish probably know very little about water as it is the only world they know.  They have no reason to appreciate it, for their entire lifetimes are spent having no other environment to compare it to.  This scenario is very analogous to what we are experiencing currently, as we become more acclimated to a culture that is so different from the one we have known our whole lives — but never really appreciated.  Hence the title of this post.

The end of last week was spent sitting through 6 to 7, 1 hour long lectures a day, learning about Korean culture/history, memorizing survival Korean phrases, and hearing testimonials from previous TaLK scholars.  We learned some interesting taboos that are unique to Korea, for instance: no public displays of affection, no female visible smoking, and no entering a taxi from the back left door.  We were also taught that the middle finger equivalent in Korea is done by making a fist and putting your thumb in between your index and middle finger (got your nose) — probably the most useful information we learned all week.

Speaking Korean is really fun, but really hard.  Hello (ahn nyeong ha se yo), thank you (gam sah ham nee da), and marinated steak (galbi) are basically the only phrases I have mastered.  I love saying annyeonghaseyo to every Korean that walks by me.  We also practice by shouting all the phrases we are learning in crowded streets and subways.  Try to imagine having giant Koreans who weigh 100 more pounds and are a foot taller than you, come up and say “I miss you” and “How much does this cost” with a full mouthed smile and then giggle as they walk away.  Needless to say we aren’t sticking out at all.

But enough of the boring stuff.  This past weekend was some of the sickest shit (sorry Mom) I have ever done to date.  After over 15 hours of fasting and undertaking a mandatory health/drug screening, we were on a bus from Jochiwon to Seoul.  Notice that I said “we.”  A couple days after my last post, Brian and I stumbled upon some diamonds amongst the roughest waters of the noob friend-pool.  Two of these diamonds are actually authentic Koreans!  It would have been so hard to purchase Koreans of this caliber at a local store in Seoul, for they are honestly the most essential things we have obtained here.  I apologize for calling our Koreans “things.”  Believe it or not, it is impossible to navigate taxis, use the subways, and find the best clubs/restaurants with only being able to say “hello” and “beef.”  Ji and Youn Hee literally do everything: find our food, shelter, transportation, and fun.  And if you are curious…No, they haven’t massaged us yet.

We spent our night at this club called Cacoon.  It will honestly be the venue for the next Usher video.  Three stories, green lasers, fog machines, a DJ and his hype man who sounded like an asian Fat Man Scoop, and about half the population of Korea and 10 white people on the dance floor.  It was so fun dancing with all these sexy Korean girls and having the only English they know be the chorus to “Empire State of Mind.”  The DJ played a sick techno remix of Mamas & Papas’ “California Dreamin.”  You could imagine what that felt like.

After the club we came across 4 Korean street musicians: 3 guitars 1 bongo.  We sat with them and naturally began harmonizing.  One of the guys let Brian borrow his guitar, and with myself on the vocals, we literally began serenading the drunk people of Seoul at 2 in the morning.  Natives were actually dropping Won into the open guitar case placed in front of our act.  The final song of our set was naturally Wonderwall.  The Koreans knew every word and every chord.  What a memory.  Pictures will be uploaded soon.

As Brian said before, we ended our night at a Love Motel.  The room was decked out with a monster flat screen TV, queen size bed, nice floors, a real toilet, and a computer with internet…i.e the ideal environment for cheating on your wife.  With 10 people in the room, I actually got to sleep on the bed.  To fall asleep, instead of sheep, I decided to count how many Asian couples had done the deed exactly where I was laying.

Fun Fact: 준수 (joon soo) — my new Korean name

Korea for Dummies: The martial art ‘Tae kwon do’ originated in Korea.

Until next time.

Fish Jerky

NOTE: just so you guys know how stoked Ryan and I are about this blog and that people actually seem to be reading it, I’ll let you know that every time we come into our room, one of us checks the count for how many new views since the day before…we’re at almost six hundo so keep checkin us out and we’ll keep supplying you with fascinating info and storytime. Oh and Sast/Toni – I’ll try and strike a balance between your requests for filthy/clean posts haha.

What a weekend…finally, we got to go out and experience some of Korea without a leash (the TaLK orientation has an ELEVEN OCLOCK curfew!). We had a weekend off and spent it traveling to Seoul, capital city with something like 12 million people living there – a fifth of the population. Think about it this way…Korea is about the size of Indiana, and 50 million inhabitants. Indiana has about 6 million…so Korea as a country is super populated and Seoul even more so.

We’d already been there once but it was for some goofy scavenger hunt deal with our orientation team. This weekend, it was me, Lernier, and our new friends who are named Takashi, David, Ji, Youn Hee, and a few more to total out at 10. We took the bus there and drank a bottle of Soju on the way – I don’t remember if I explained what Soju is before, so I’ll just give you a brief idea here…it’s basically vodka’s nice little brother. It’s only 20% and it’s distilled from a mixture of rice, sweet potato, and tapioca. It has a little bit of an alchy aftertaste but it’s definitely drinkable straight. Anyways, a couple of us drank a bottle on the way there (you can drink in public in Korea) and Ryan and I explained the meaning of noob and leet to our Korean orientation leader Min, who then supplied us with info about his favorite American song to karaoke – You Raise Me Up by Josh Grobin hahaha.

So we arrived in Seoul and took the subway to the Hongdae district, which is like the university student neighborhood.

I can’t really describe how sick this place is. Three stories of shops, restaurants, bars, and clubs along every street, lights everywhere, people running around drinking and eating in groups before heading into clubs…it honestly reminded me of a super cheap Vegas. Keep in mind that a 500 ml bottle of Soju costs around a buck.5 at a convenience store (haha they’re called Fresh Friendly Fun’s) and maybe 3 bucks in a restaurant or bar. So, of course, we bought like 7 bottles of Soju and a few “pitchers” of Hite beer (a pitcher-sized bottle) and brought them back to our room to teach a bunch of Korean people how to play King’s Cup.

A quick word about the room – there are these places allllll over Korea called “love motels” where  horny Korean business men take their mistresses to play. We were staying in one called the Grand Prix and there were definitely a few couples renting rooms. I didn’t find out if you can rent by the hour, but I’d bet yes on that one…the room seemed like a pretty standard hotel room, with a flat screen teev, bed, and computer with internet access. Yes, we showed everybody the Arrowjam video and performed some of the dances live. Regardless about the sordid history of the room, it only cost 10 bucks per person to stay the night…sick deal.

After about an hour of drinking, we head out into the night, find a cab, and go right into the heart of Hondae.  Ji and Youn Hee are like our moms…they talk to everyone for us, tell us how to buy subway tickets, get bouncers to give us free drink coupons, and tell us bedtime stories before sleep. So they find us a club called Cocoon which looked incredible…three stories of dancing floors, three bars, a sweet VIP room that we never got into despite trying the “I’m a dumb foreigner sorry I don’t understand you” technique. The DJ and hype guy were up on this super elevated platform playing sick beats and it was about 40 to 50 thousand degrees celsius inside. Basically. I’d dance for like 20 minutes and then stand for 10 in front of the huge air vents. I’ve been told that Korean’s aren’t the best dancers, but they seemed ok to me…maybe that’s because I’m so great, but I guess we’ll never know.

Anyways, this is getting kinda long and I’m sure Ryan might be talking about a lot of the same things/what happened after, so I’ll leave it at that. Great weekend overall and can’t wait to go back next weekend…oh and bus, taxi, subway, room, food, drinks, cover charge, and random expenses? 65 bucks. Daaaaammmnnn (sorry Toni) haha. Oh, and my Korean name is officially

현우

or Hyun Woo – apparently it’s a really “cool” name here haha thanks Ji.

Tomorrow, more class and getting a cell phone!

Best to all of you out there reading,

BG