The little things.

Although, I enjoy living in Korea the little differences are sometimes a cause for discomfort.  Any one little difference in a day is no big deal, yet several can have some cummulative affect on my general "well being".  A few examples to chew over:

1) There is never toilet paper or soap in the bathroom.  There is always an empty roll left in the container for all to see, like some distant memory of cleanliness. It is an archaeological relect from more sanitary times.  I do sometimes feel like Indiana Jones searching for the fabled roll.  I am always on some kind of mad treasure hunt for toilet paper.  When I locate a roll I must carry it down the hall for all the teachers and students to see.  I am usually priviledged to here a cacophony of student jibes, "Ohhh, teacher dong".  I dare not leave the roll in the stall after I am finished, as it will be picked clean by unknown bathroom vultures leaving only the dead cardboard carcas behind.

2) I have lived in Korea for several years now and have taught at my school for two years.  I like Korean food and I can use chopsticks quite proficiently.  My Korean colleagues have seen me in the cafeteria eat lunch everyday.  Why do I still get this occassional comment "Wow, you like the kimchi" and "You can use the chopsticks good style".  I can think of a few possible answers to this puzzle. 

A) They have not been very observant. 
B) They trust their textbooks, that tell students that Westerners eat only hamburgers and bread, above their own experience I am not kidding about this one.  This was part of one of my lessons last week.
C) It could be possible that they are too shy, or lack the skills, to think of any other topic of conversation besides kimchi and chopstick use.

I tend to think that the answer lies in some kind of twilight zone nexus among the three possibilities. I shall try to think of other possibilities during my next great toilet paper hunt.

3) It seems to be quite impossible for the school to provide me with relevant information in a timely manner.  I either receive important information at the last minute or not at all.  Then I receive blank stares as to why I did not do what I was apparently supposed to do.  After two years, I am finally starting to relax about this and politely remind my collegues that if you had taken the time to inform me ahead of time I could have been prepared.  For example, yesterday I had my open evaluation class.  My open class was supposed to be today.  It was moved to Monday without my knowledge and I had to teach the class with about ten minutes of notice.

4)  This one seems to be of criticial importance: maintaing a sanitary working environment.  The students clean the school without janitorial assistance.  This has the benfit of saving the school money.  This also has the strong disadvantage that the school is never really clean and is basically a microbiologist's wet dream of bacteria and viruses.  With all of the swine flu panic going around, you would think that the school would buy disinfectants with which to properly clean the floors and desks.  Unfortunaely, in a school that can't be bothered to provide soap for washing your hands or paper to clean the cavernous areas of your body, disease is bound to run rampant.  Two teachers and roughly 15 students have been stricken with the Shin Jung Ploo (New flu, or Swine flu in Korean). I am coughed on and sneezed on daily.  I have told students again and again to cover their mucus filled holes, but it seems that they just don't care.  I am almost bathing in Puriwell these days.  I fear that due to the attitude of the school that this situation will almost certainly deteriorate over the coming weeks.

Drinking Soju so you won't have to,
Adam

Searching for fog

We, the significant other and I, visited a group of mountains to the North of Busan this past weekend. The significant other, here on referred to as SO, does not like highway driving. In fact, highway driving seems to frighten her more than city driving. I, being from the country and not the city myself, hold the opposite opinion. In a country where a red light is only a suggestion to slow down, I prefer driving where ne'er a red light can be found.

Considering this fear, we have been taking a lot of bus tours this year. The SO decided to book a bus departure time at 9:30pm. This, in theory, was a lot better than our usual wake up at 4:30am routine to leave the house to catch a bus. I was very thankful for her good judgement on that score. We left our apartment (in Korean it is referred to as apt-uh) at 6:30 to catch the subway to go to Seoul station. We live in a satellite city of Seoul, so the subway ride lasted a little over an hour to reach our destination.

When we arrived at Seoul station we still had some time to kill so we loaded up with supplies at the Lotte Mart. Coffee, beef jerky, chips, doughnuts, bottled water, and cigarettes, were all much needed items for our long trek.

When it was finally time to depart I found that I had no trouble immediately falling asleep. The SO stayed awake for a while and read a book. We stopped only once, according to my sleepy recollection, during our 5(?) hour drive to our destination. When we arrived I exited the bus and promptly located the lavatory. Damn coffee. When I returned from my noctural excretions I noticed how crystal clear the sky was. I had been interested in amateur astronomy for years back in Canada, and unfortunately living near the concrete jungle of Seoul, I am never able to see anything of interest in the night sky. This was a treat for me and I quickly pointed out all of the constellations that I could see to my SO. We re-entered the bus, and promptly fell asleep for another 2 hours or so.

After having a brief dream that I was being interviewed by Mike Wallace, I awoke to the sound of the tour guide screaming into a microphone. I was not impressed. I need to be eased out of my sleep like an old man sitting down into his favourite recliner. The SO was anxious to get off the bus, she did not want to be left behind. I, still being drowsy, was in no immediate rush as the time was now around 5am.

I slowly slithered off the bus and discovered that I should have brought a flash light (plashee in Korean). Although the stars were brightly blazing in the early morning sky, there was no other source of illumination to be found. We had to walk into the national park in relative darkness. We were lucky enough to find a Korean family that had a type of miner's cap to follow. It was cold. I was tired. I tripped over rocks. I hit tree branches. My SO reminded me of how cold it was. I reminded her that she should have brought a warmer jacket. I was proud that I kept my swearing internal, as she does not appreciate the use of four letter poetics.

We finally reached our destination. We were surrounded by darkness. The stars greedily kept their light. We stared through darkness at a small lake. We were waiting to see the early morning fog rising from the still waters of the lake. We waited. It was cold. We waited some more. The sun refused to rise. I did manage to see Venus hanging low on the horizon just above the slowly forming outline of some mountain tops. We started back to the bus unable to see anything of interest at the lake, when I did spot some mist. So we returned. It was not as spectacluar as the tour company had described to my SO. I have seen the early morning fog rising about the lakes in Algonquin Park before, and that is a sight to behold. This in comparison was not that wonderful, but nice nonetheless.

After viewing the fog, we started our egress back to the bus. By this time the sunlight was gently bathing the surroundings and we could begin to see all of the lovely colours that would greet us for the rest of our outing.

After returning to the bus we were treated to breakfast. I love Korean food, but not for breakfast. I can't eat spicy food and fish for breakfast. I need a light yet high caffeine and nicotine fuelled breakfast to get my engine pumping in the morning. I ate a couple of doughnuts and slugged back a couple of cans of coffee instead that we had purchased earlier in Seoul. The Koreans seemed quite disappointed that I didn't eat their breakfast, and assumed that I did not enjoy Korean food.

We next travelled to another entrance to the park. We were given four hours to explore the park. The SO and I walked slowly up the road, past fruit and souvenir vendors until we reached the gate of a temple. I am not a religious person at all, but I do appreciate unique architecture and art. I have a special fondness for these Korean temples and like to spend a lot of time considering how long it must have taken to do all of the fine detail painting. We found a Harry Potter mat outside the entrance to one of the buildings. Even Western culture has encroached upon the sacred in this remote corner of Asia.

Next, we slowly walked up the long meandering undulating road up the mountain to see several waterfalls. We past some of the most beautiful, striking, iridescent, fall colours that can't be matched anywhere. I didn't expect to see anything resembling Niagara Falls, but I expected to see something of a little bit more awe and power than a standard morning urine evacuation. It was at this time, when the question arose if I remembered my first travelling experience with my SO. I didn't, and hence I am spending my Monday evening writing this (see post one).

The rest of the day involved drinking makoli (Korean traditional rice wine), looking at more fall colours, sleeping on the bus, and getting tips about general hygiene from my SO. Oh, how I love getting tips. At lunch, I resolved to eat the meal to show our Korean bus companions that I do enjoy Korean food. We ate bibimbap. I removed the egg and mushrooms. I hate mushrooms.

That was pretty much our day. We had a long bus ride back to Seoul. We took another bus back to Ansan. I promised my SO again that I would write this journal to record my memories. When we arrived home, I proceeded to prepare myself for more sleep. One tends not to sleep to well on a bus, no matter how many hours of sleep he receives.

Looking back, do I recommend this outing? If you have the constituion to spend the better part of the day sleeping on the bus then I strongly recommend it. Bring a good book and your ipod. The stars and fall colours of the Southern part of the country can match, if not best, anything that I have seen in Canada. Be prepared for a tiring, yet visually stunning day.

Drinking soju so you don't have to,

Adam

On Memory

Greetings,

I have been living in Korea on an off for several years now. I am currently employed in a middle school in Ansan, Gyeonggi-do. Although I have many remarkable experiences, experiences that one should not forget, I have discovered that recently I can not seem to remember key experiences. My lovely Korean girlfriend has adequately diagnosed my problem: it seems that I am an insensitive male.

Last Sunday as we were travelling in the remote fog stained mountains of the Southern part of the country, my girlfriend looked at me and said, "Do you remember our first travelling". I hastily replied yes, and recounted much to her chagrin our 2nd or 3rd travelling adventure in the winter of 2008. It was either due to her lack of sleep or my soju degenerated memory, but I was soon in store for a long diatribe about how "I just didn't care". The truth is that I do care. My memory is amazing for facts and figures. I can still quote with next to perfect accuracy all of the lines of Shakespeare that I had to memorize in high school. However, my memory is not only limited to recent events in the past few years with her, but it seems that whole sections of my childhood have been erased, and replaced with innumerable years of university book learnin'.

After listening to her concerns for a considerable amount of time I suggested that I undertake a project of documenting my memories and thoughts about my time in Korea. She acquiesced to my suggestion as I sometimes have made grand proclamations concerning what I will do to remedy my situation, yet never seem to carry through with them. The best laid plans of mice and men, eh? This time, I will fight my natural inclination towards "lip service" as my dear significant other would say and try to accurately reflect my little world of weekend getaways, work life, and adapting to a culture that I will probably never understand 100 percent. In the end this is all part of the lost weekend that is my life; that if not recorded by me will be lost within the corridors of my ever confused mind. I chose the title "lost weekend" to refer to John Lennon. John spent over a year separated from Yoko, which was one of his most artistically prolific times, that he later referred to as his lost weekend. In contrast, all of my weekends will be lost if I do not actively try to maintain them in a more concrete form.

I have recently become a fan of reading blogs from fellow teachers in Korea. Some blogs are informative, some are entertaining, some reflect hardship and discrimination, and some are downright angry. I will try to remain balanced in my opinion, but ultimately my situation and perspective will be my own and shaped by my experiences which are routinely fairly positive. Let's start remembering my lost weekend together.