I bet you all forgot this blog even existed. Or at least I’ll tell myself that so that I feel less bad about letting it fall to the wayside so completely.
I’m sitting in a newish Angel-in-Us cafe after randomly sharing a dinner with two middle aged Uzbek men. I’d decided I would go to the Russian/Uzbek resto downtown for the second time ever. I really liked it the first time but it’s a bit hard to find. Case in point – I actually went by it and made a big circle trying to find it this time. When I went in, two men by the window motioned me to join them. I refused a couple of times but then I remembered that I need to be training myself to talk to strangers more due to my upcoming travels (more on that later) so I went over. They were quite pleasant, even though we could only communicate through my limited Korean and their even more limited English. They also ensured that I ate way too much food. I ordered kebabs (like the Pakistani kind – just big chunks of ground, spiced meat, but fatter and in a light sauce) but they also insisted I had some of their rice pilaf and an entire lamb skewer. So here I am in Angel-in-Us drinking Rooibos and trying to stave off the effects of overeating. I’ve been working on PhD apps all week and tonight is my single night off. In an hour I’ll be off to see Das Racist (a new York based hip hop act that pepper their vulgar and often hilarious lyrics with references to people like Arundhati Roy, Edward Said, and WEB DuBois) perform. I’m pretty hyped about it.
On the topic of apps – I hate doing them. I wish schools could just know how obviously suitable I am and accept me :P I’m applying to 6 schools, two in Canada and four in the States. It should be all done by December 1st assuming I get some lame GRE business worked out. I can’t wait. I’ve vowed to buy myself an ice cream fondue set (yes that exists) from Baskin Robbins in celebration. Then December will be a month of doing everything I haven’t gotten around to while I’ve been here. Also, I’ll be hitting up Shanghai to visit some lovely friends from the Guelph days of yore. Very excited.
As for post-work travel plans: they are very exciting. My plan is to spend a few days in Osaka visiting with some lovely folks from university and high school before coming back to Korea to catch my flight to Delhi. I’m in India for six weeks during which I hope to make my way down the west coast before crossing over to leave from Chennai (Madras for anyone stuck in the past). I fly to London with a short stopover in Bahrain (so I’ll be able to technically claim I’ve been in the Middle East even though I’ll only see the airport). Then I spend a month in Europe, over 10 years after I went for the first time. It’ll be cool seeing it as an adult this time. I’ll be visiting friends and fam and friends of fam, so it’ll be a nice follow up to the aloneness of travelling India solo, though I am really looking forward to my first time travelling completely solo. While I’m in Europa, I’ll be seeing Berlin for the first time as well as seeing Paris properly (since last I was there, I slept through it and was only awake long enough to see the Eiffel Tower). Then it’s time for home sweet home. I’m really excited to see everyone, eat all the food I’ve been missing, and just being back in my sweet city once again. Living in Korea has taught me that I’m not built for homogeneous living. My next post (yes, it will happen) will probably be really restospective and “what did I learn”-y so I shan’t do any more of that now.
For now, some anecdotes:
For a long time, I would walk by this one elderly fellow every morning on the way to work and I always felt like he was staring at me. But somehow, one day, I ended up smiling at him (cuz I’m just that kind of gal) and he stopped to talk. There was minimal talking due to the language barrier, but now, everyone morning, we shake hands and say anyonghaseyo. He’s very sweet. One thing I really will miss about Korea is the vast numbers of beautiful old people. Some of you know, Asha loves the old folks. A lot. Their faces especially. I’m pleased to have acquired a Korean grandfather.
This morning I woke up to find the half of my left eyebrow closest to my nose inexplicably disappeared. I look so crazy. And I have literally no idea how it happened. I don’t have a single plausible theory. It’s very bizarre. It’s also made me realize how much I use my eyebrows since I’ve been hoping my glasses will hide the missing hair but my excess of facial expressions is making it difficult.
Anyway, time for me to go get down at the show.
Love love love
AAA
Friday, November 26, 2010
Friday, July 9, 2010
Woops
Dear Friends,
I have recently sucked at updating this blog. Luckily this is because I've been doing an admirable amount of living recently that has made getting the time to sit down at write long ramblings more difficult. The goings on have included a visit from my awesome Mom, a trip to Tokyo, the leaving and arriving of friends, going to see Usher perform in Seoul, trips to other Korean cities, and epic amounts of world cup watching. It's been busy. Also that whole having a job business gets in there too. So the moral of the story is I haven't had the mental space or the free time to make a good entry (similarly, I've been bombing at emailing people recently, sorry!) and while I am totally going to try to fix this (which will be easier once the world cup is over), I don't know how well this blog will be taken care of this summer. I've got wall to wall visitors in august and I really have to get my act together on the PhD apps front. So this is a mixed apology / heads up that more apologizing may be to come. In the meantime, I hope all of ye are happy and healthy and full of sweet, sweet summer goodness.
love love love
AA
I have recently sucked at updating this blog. Luckily this is because I've been doing an admirable amount of living recently that has made getting the time to sit down at write long ramblings more difficult. The goings on have included a visit from my awesome Mom, a trip to Tokyo, the leaving and arriving of friends, going to see Usher perform in Seoul, trips to other Korean cities, and epic amounts of world cup watching. It's been busy. Also that whole having a job business gets in there too. So the moral of the story is I haven't had the mental space or the free time to make a good entry (similarly, I've been bombing at emailing people recently, sorry!) and while I am totally going to try to fix this (which will be easier once the world cup is over), I don't know how well this blog will be taken care of this summer. I've got wall to wall visitors in august and I really have to get my act together on the PhD apps front. So this is a mixed apology / heads up that more apologizing may be to come. In the meantime, I hope all of ye are happy and healthy and full of sweet, sweet summer goodness.
love love love
AA
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Bam!
Well folks, I’ve been slacking. and I’m sorry about this big gap between posts but it has come from life being busy busy busy, which is a good thing I suppose. There have been theme parties to attend, friends to council and console, a play to rehearse, and, of course, a big old job taking up a good chunk of my time. The more stuff going on, the harder it is to just sit down and write it all. So I’m not even going to try writing it all. What I am going to do is hit a few key goings on and then hopefully take less time to write the next entry so I can get back to covering things.
First of all, as usual, I am in a café. I’m eating strawberry gelato to console myself after a fruitless trip to Emart in search of a good summer blanket. I’m one of those people who needs to sleep under something, even if it’s really hot. But Emart was not forthcoming – all they had were thick duvets and thin pads to sleep on rather than under. If I can’t find a good blanket elsewhere I might have to ask my mom to bring me one from home. That’s right – mama arrives in a mere two weeks! (Celebrate Goodtimes just started playing, throwing me back to my banquet server days. Oh cheesy weddings). Mom and I will be exploring Daegu as well as romping about. I have to remember to dig into a Lonely Planet guide and ask around to decide what activities we shall do.
But to the past/present rather than the future. In awesome bullet form. Bam!
- It’s election time. As a result, there are awesome campaign trucks roaming the streets blasting songs about their candidate of choice and displaying either screens showing endearing videos about the candidate (candidate in a field! candidate with baby!) or housing ahjummas holding signs and doing synchronized hand dances. Heck yeah elections in Korea are way more exciting than elections back home, and I can’t ever understand anything about these candidates. There are also big banners everywhere showing smiling pictures of the candidates. There’s one I keep seeing with a man and a woman on it and I can’t figure out which one is the candidate.
- rehearsals for the play that I am in at the end of June have begun.; indeed, I have one tonight. It’s a bit daunting to be memorizing lines and acting again but hopefully I don’t disgrace myself.
- I went to go see Korea play Ecuador in a friendly match a couple of weekends ago in Seoul. it was really fun and hyped me up for the World Cup even more. Korean fans are hardcore. This game didn’t even matter (and Ecuador isn’t even in the WC) but they cheered hard the whole way through. On all the seats were big red cards with chants printed up on them. After the game, some dudes came out and performed the Korean world cup song and then the that is going to South Africa came out and carried the flag around the perimeter of the field.
- My delightful friend from Guelph, Jen, has been hired and will be arriving in Daegu to start working right beside me in the near future. My delightful friend from Guelph, Melinda, will be leaving around the same time for more career aiding ventures. So I am trading one Guelphite for another. Four other newbies will be joining the office over the course of the summer so there will be quite a changing of the guards afoot.
- I just bought a ticket to the Jisan Valley Rock Festival that is going down in July. Yes, I will be enjoying the sweet tunes of Vampire Weekend and Belle and Sebastian in Korea! So excited I can barely stand it.
Okay, I think I shall leave it at that for now. You all know that even though I neglect you, I still love you. Hope you all are having goodtimes and getting some sun. It`s been wet and grey the last few days but soon, very soon, I will be getting a sweet tan and laying on a beach. Aw yeah.
Much Love,
AAA
First of all, as usual, I am in a café. I’m eating strawberry gelato to console myself after a fruitless trip to Emart in search of a good summer blanket. I’m one of those people who needs to sleep under something, even if it’s really hot. But Emart was not forthcoming – all they had were thick duvets and thin pads to sleep on rather than under. If I can’t find a good blanket elsewhere I might have to ask my mom to bring me one from home. That’s right – mama arrives in a mere two weeks! (Celebrate Goodtimes just started playing, throwing me back to my banquet server days. Oh cheesy weddings). Mom and I will be exploring Daegu as well as romping about. I have to remember to dig into a Lonely Planet guide and ask around to decide what activities we shall do.
But to the past/present rather than the future. In awesome bullet form. Bam!
- It’s election time. As a result, there are awesome campaign trucks roaming the streets blasting songs about their candidate of choice and displaying either screens showing endearing videos about the candidate (candidate in a field! candidate with baby!) or housing ahjummas holding signs and doing synchronized hand dances. Heck yeah elections in Korea are way more exciting than elections back home, and I can’t ever understand anything about these candidates. There are also big banners everywhere showing smiling pictures of the candidates. There’s one I keep seeing with a man and a woman on it and I can’t figure out which one is the candidate.
- rehearsals for the play that I am in at the end of June have begun.; indeed, I have one tonight. It’s a bit daunting to be memorizing lines and acting again but hopefully I don’t disgrace myself.
- I went to go see Korea play Ecuador in a friendly match a couple of weekends ago in Seoul. it was really fun and hyped me up for the World Cup even more. Korean fans are hardcore. This game didn’t even matter (and Ecuador isn’t even in the WC) but they cheered hard the whole way through. On all the seats were big red cards with chants printed up on them. After the game, some dudes came out and performed the Korean world cup song and then the that is going to South Africa came out and carried the flag around the perimeter of the field.
- My delightful friend from Guelph, Jen, has been hired and will be arriving in Daegu to start working right beside me in the near future. My delightful friend from Guelph, Melinda, will be leaving around the same time for more career aiding ventures. So I am trading one Guelphite for another. Four other newbies will be joining the office over the course of the summer so there will be quite a changing of the guards afoot.
- I just bought a ticket to the Jisan Valley Rock Festival that is going down in July. Yes, I will be enjoying the sweet tunes of Vampire Weekend and Belle and Sebastian in Korea! So excited I can barely stand it.
Okay, I think I shall leave it at that for now. You all know that even though I neglect you, I still love you. Hope you all are having goodtimes and getting some sun. It`s been wet and grey the last few days but soon, very soon, I will be getting a sweet tan and laying on a beach. Aw yeah.
Much Love,
AAA
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
It's a Celebration!
No, folks, the birthday festivities will not go unreported. Worry not. I’m sitting on the stage downtown in the glorious sun, having just finished eating some ice cream from the newly opened Cold Stones. I slept a total of two hours. Why? Because last night was epic.
To begin the story at the beginning, yesterday afternoon I had a little birthday dinner for myself. There was delicious Indian food, seven lovely ladies and myself in a cute private room with Bollywood tunes playing in the background. Perfection. Dinner was relaxed and entertaining. After dinner, Nakia, Shakara and I took a little stroll along the pond near the restaurant before heading to our respective homes to get ready for the night ahead. Now three weeks ago, a dude with whom I have mutual friends announced he was having a toga party for his b-day. Sine I’m me and just don’t plan that far in advance, I realized I would be sharing my birthday celebration night, which was actually totally fine since I wasn’t planning on making the night on the town aspect of my b0day very planned. Now some of said mutual friends decided that, rather than wearing togas, they would interpret the ancient world theme rather loosely and dress as Spartans instead. More on this later.
So I headed downtown, met up with a couple of folks and got to dancing, as I tend to do. More and more people started to arrive at GoGo Party, but no Spartans. I live in the same building as the ringleader of the group, so I had received a preview, but I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone anything beforehand. Eventually they appeared. Nine dudes, wearing the following ensemble: black boxerbriefs, red capes, shinguards, shields, and spears. People just did not know what to make of them. Especially when they chanted and brandished their spears. At this point the bar was packed and people were dancing and limboing and generally doing it up right. At some point we switched locales, to Thursday Party and did eve more getting down. At 5 am, we left Thursday and parties went a few different directions, but mostly home. It was insanely late/early and I’d just danced long and hard, but I was feeling wonderful until I realized I didn’t have my camera. At first I was sure I’d left it in a cab that me and Shakara had gotten into and gotten out of and I was worried it was lost forever . Then I thought that it was probably still at Thursday and resolved to go get in the afternoon. Luckily, I thought, people tend to return stuff around here. I slept for maybe two hours in half hour chunks before giving up and being awake. Around noon I got a glorious call from a friend informing me that they had my camera, which was a huge relief. I showered up at hip hop class but since it is run and attended by the same folks who were out til all hours last night, we all agreed to forgo dancing for the day and went to eat instead. As the always sober one, it’s always fun to tell people what they did the night before and laugh as they don’t remember.
This brings us to where I began the entry. The others had their own business to attend to and I had to kill time before the theatre meeting so I got some ice cream and enjoyed the sun. The theatre meeting was sort of a meeting-audition hybrid. We’d picked two one act plays to perform and were trying out various roles. Casting isn’t final yet but I’m definitely going to be in one of them. I’m excited about getting back on stage. the last time I acted was maybe five years ago and even though I’ve performed on stages in various other ways in the interim, being in character is something I’m really out of practice doing, This weekend I’m writing for the 24 Hour Theatre Project, which is going to be fun as well as insane. Wish me luck!
Anyway, I went to bed super early Sunday in order to recuperate from the lack of sleep and only got unlazy enough to finish this entry now so here it is.
As for the music recommendation situation, I admit that I haven’t been listening to much kpop lately. the last while I’ve been listening to a few things over and over again (If you are interested, it’s this somewhat bizarre array of music: Vampire Weekend, Robin Thicke’s “Sex Therapy,” Chromeo, Nate Dog and Warren G’s “Regulate,” and Architecture in Helsinki). This has made me pretty useless in the recommending kpop category so I’ll hold off til I find something I can get enthusiastic about ‘round here. In the meantime, I shall spend my evening kickin’ it.
Love,
AAA
To begin the story at the beginning, yesterday afternoon I had a little birthday dinner for myself. There was delicious Indian food, seven lovely ladies and myself in a cute private room with Bollywood tunes playing in the background. Perfection. Dinner was relaxed and entertaining. After dinner, Nakia, Shakara and I took a little stroll along the pond near the restaurant before heading to our respective homes to get ready for the night ahead. Now three weeks ago, a dude with whom I have mutual friends announced he was having a toga party for his b-day. Sine I’m me and just don’t plan that far in advance, I realized I would be sharing my birthday celebration night, which was actually totally fine since I wasn’t planning on making the night on the town aspect of my b0day very planned. Now some of said mutual friends decided that, rather than wearing togas, they would interpret the ancient world theme rather loosely and dress as Spartans instead. More on this later.
So I headed downtown, met up with a couple of folks and got to dancing, as I tend to do. More and more people started to arrive at GoGo Party, but no Spartans. I live in the same building as the ringleader of the group, so I had received a preview, but I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone anything beforehand. Eventually they appeared. Nine dudes, wearing the following ensemble: black boxerbriefs, red capes, shinguards, shields, and spears. People just did not know what to make of them. Especially when they chanted and brandished their spears. At this point the bar was packed and people were dancing and limboing and generally doing it up right. At some point we switched locales, to Thursday Party and did eve more getting down. At 5 am, we left Thursday and parties went a few different directions, but mostly home. It was insanely late/early and I’d just danced long and hard, but I was feeling wonderful until I realized I didn’t have my camera. At first I was sure I’d left it in a cab that me and Shakara had gotten into and gotten out of and I was worried it was lost forever . Then I thought that it was probably still at Thursday and resolved to go get in the afternoon. Luckily, I thought, people tend to return stuff around here. I slept for maybe two hours in half hour chunks before giving up and being awake. Around noon I got a glorious call from a friend informing me that they had my camera, which was a huge relief. I showered up at hip hop class but since it is run and attended by the same folks who were out til all hours last night, we all agreed to forgo dancing for the day and went to eat instead. As the always sober one, it’s always fun to tell people what they did the night before and laugh as they don’t remember.
This brings us to where I began the entry. The others had their own business to attend to and I had to kill time before the theatre meeting so I got some ice cream and enjoyed the sun. The theatre meeting was sort of a meeting-audition hybrid. We’d picked two one act plays to perform and were trying out various roles. Casting isn’t final yet but I’m definitely going to be in one of them. I’m excited about getting back on stage. the last time I acted was maybe five years ago and even though I’ve performed on stages in various other ways in the interim, being in character is something I’m really out of practice doing, This weekend I’m writing for the 24 Hour Theatre Project, which is going to be fun as well as insane. Wish me luck!
Anyway, I went to bed super early Sunday in order to recuperate from the lack of sleep and only got unlazy enough to finish this entry now so here it is.
As for the music recommendation situation, I admit that I haven’t been listening to much kpop lately. the last while I’ve been listening to a few things over and over again (If you are interested, it’s this somewhat bizarre array of music: Vampire Weekend, Robin Thicke’s “Sex Therapy,” Chromeo, Nate Dog and Warren G’s “Regulate,” and Architecture in Helsinki). This has made me pretty useless in the recommending kpop category so I’ll hold off til I find something I can get enthusiastic about ‘round here. In the meantime, I shall spend my evening kickin’ it.
Love,
AAA
Thursday, April 22, 2010
It's true, I was born.
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to my birthday entry. I don’t have a ton to say but I thought it would be nice to commemorate the day by writing. I turned 24 today, which is a number I like because it is the number of hours in the day. I’m one of those people that loves getting older for whatever reason so I’m pretty cool with the whole birthday business. I celebrated today by taking myself out and about post-work. I liked the idea of a solitary birthday of self indulgence and self focus. I was going to go to a movie but there wasn’t anything showing that I really wanted to see so I didn’t. Instead I loitered in a bookstore that has a little English section. You all know I can’t be in a bookstore and leave empty handed so I treated myself to a few books and then spent some time wandering the streets. Street wandering is basically the Asha equivalent of meditation in that it’s when I both think and don’t think best. One of the sweet things about doing stuff alone is that you can be totally indecisive and not feel bad about it at all. So I couldn’t decide for a long time where to sit down and write this and the place I finally picked is actually closing soon so it wasn’t the best choice but whatever. It’s my birthday :D
To back track (doing stuff in order? Pah!) I started out my day getting up early so that I could wash my hair , which I took out last night (which took long enough that I had enough time to watch the Bourne Ultimatum, Milk, which are both great movies, and a couple of episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is a show I have just started to get into, more than a decade after it started air, because I always like things way after they are popular). I wanted to start a new age feeling very clean (any my hair had been twisted for six weeks, so, not so clean). It was lucky because I caught my dear brothers online and got to chat with them for a bit. Work was pretty normal. The only notable event was when one of my Korean coworkers came over with a piece of paper and said “Your childhood.” On the paper was a picture that someone had used in one of the writing books of a little black girl with an afro and a head band holding it back. It was both hilarious and random. Also, I got invited to one of the managers’ wedding. That’ll be interesting. Korean weddings are apparently really short and don’t have a reception in the sense that I am familiar with. After the wedding, everyone eats in the sort of cafeteria place in the wedding hall with all the guest s from all of the other weddings happening in the hall. Pretty different, eh?
So there you have it. My quiet, reflective birthday. I’m having a dinner followed by dancing on Saturday, so don’t worry – there will definitely be a proper celebration as well. Going to be hitting up an Indian restaurant I’ve heard good things about. I’m also going to get an ice cream cake. Mmmmm.
So I’ve arrived home and on my way I discovered that Thursday night must be official pee on the street time because I saw three dudes doing it, two of whom decided to relieve themselves right on the main road as if it was the most normal thing in the world. It’s not even midnight!
Anyway, as I sit in my first ever bachelorette pad, I look back on the last twenty four years and think, Not bad. Not bad at all.
Love,
AAA
To back track (doing stuff in order? Pah!) I started out my day getting up early so that I could wash my hair , which I took out last night (which took long enough that I had enough time to watch the Bourne Ultimatum, Milk, which are both great movies, and a couple of episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is a show I have just started to get into, more than a decade after it started air, because I always like things way after they are popular). I wanted to start a new age feeling very clean (any my hair had been twisted for six weeks, so, not so clean). It was lucky because I caught my dear brothers online and got to chat with them for a bit. Work was pretty normal. The only notable event was when one of my Korean coworkers came over with a piece of paper and said “Your childhood.” On the paper was a picture that someone had used in one of the writing books of a little black girl with an afro and a head band holding it back. It was both hilarious and random. Also, I got invited to one of the managers’ wedding. That’ll be interesting. Korean weddings are apparently really short and don’t have a reception in the sense that I am familiar with. After the wedding, everyone eats in the sort of cafeteria place in the wedding hall with all the guest s from all of the other weddings happening in the hall. Pretty different, eh?
So there you have it. My quiet, reflective birthday. I’m having a dinner followed by dancing on Saturday, so don’t worry – there will definitely be a proper celebration as well. Going to be hitting up an Indian restaurant I’ve heard good things about. I’m also going to get an ice cream cake. Mmmmm.
So I’ve arrived home and on my way I discovered that Thursday night must be official pee on the street time because I saw three dudes doing it, two of whom decided to relieve themselves right on the main road as if it was the most normal thing in the world. It’s not even midnight!
Anyway, as I sit in my first ever bachelorette pad, I look back on the last twenty four years and think, Not bad. Not bad at all.
Love,
AAA
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Something Old
It’s Easter Sunday afternoon, and I am taking in the beautiful weather from the patio of Ahn’s Coffee, a little place not far from my house. Holidays are a little sad without family around, and my family is strewn across the globe. However, life is good so it’s only a little sad, rather than really sad.
And life is indeed good, for the most part. Weather is finally looking up, job has gotten less stressful, social activities are lovely. The only ungood thing afoot is that it’s yellow dust season, which means that dust (along with pollution) from China is blowing into Korea like crazy. Thanks for that, China. As a result, me and half the people I know have sore throats or are getting sick. Despite this unfortunate matter, last night I went to Charanga for Chile which was a salsa party / fundraiser thrown by some of my friends. Twas delightful. There were performances, including a hip hop dance by the folks in the class I’ve been going to. The people I’ve net here are some talented folks, which I like to see.
So for lack of a good segue, I’ll just jump into an interesting bit of Korea trivia for you all. Korean law works on the blood money system. If you don’t know what that is (and I only knew because it was used during the medieval period in Europe and you know I love me some Middle Ages) it’s when the perpetrator of a crime against someone is able to make restitution by giving the victim money instead of going to jail or paying a fine to the state. So if I punched someone in the face, I could give the person I punched however many million won and I wouldn’t get charged. I’m not sure how many crimes this applies to – like if you can pay the family of a person you killed, medieval style. I think it’s just such an interesting legal difference. Apparently, here and in Japan, entrapment is totally okay, and that’s how a lot of people get caught for drug use. Korea is super hardcore about drugs. If you get caught using anything, including marijuana, you get in serious trouble, and if you are a foreigner you will likely get deported.
In other news, last weekend I went to a meeting for the Daegu Theatre group and there is a plan for a 24 hour theatre project in the works, which will be fun. Also, the article I wrote for Daegu Pockets is in teh current issue, thus launching my career as a restaurant reviewer :P
I paused writing for a bit to have a pleasant conversation with the enthusiastic barista who wanted to practice her English. I have come to appreciate people like that because even though they are, in a sense, using you, they are a far better set of people to come into contact with than folks who are afraid of foreigners. And “afraid” is not an exaggeration here. There are people who will seriously go out of their way to avoid interacting with you and will be noticeably uncomfortable when they can’t avoid it. It’s very foreign (haha) to me that anyone over the age of about 10 could be afraid of people just based on their foreignness. I guess it’s a product of growing up around people of various backgrounds, but I just can’t imagine reacting to ethnic difference with fear. Part of it is the power dynamics that come with English speaking. English is major social capital so speaking it badly or not speaking it at all looks bad on a person (I know, it’s messed up) so people will avoid speaking to a foreigner so as to avoid revealing their lack of English skill. (When I am using foreigner here, I’m talking about “Westerner” because the dynamics with other non-Korean communities vary widely. A whole other issue is the terrible attitude many Koreans have to Chinese people. They repeat certain stereotypes about Chinese people that are straight up racist and I think it’s disgusting and ridiculous. Especially because the stuff they diss Chinese people about are the same stereotypes that other people have about Koreans. Anyway, I don’t expect everyone in the world to want to talk to me, but it’s pretty uncomfortable when someone does their best to not talk to you. This past week me and M went to Costco and I brought my good old Metro reusable grocery bags from home. So after checking out, I was standing near the ramp waiting for M to get us some water and this couple walks by and then stops as the woman starts to exclaim in Korean how beautiful my bags are. Note: she was not talking to me. She was talking to her boyfriend who also examined my bags. Neither looked at me or addressed me at all. That sort of scenario is so common here that the rudeness sort of wears off slowly.
From where I’m sitting, I can see a big apartment building with water, lily pads and fish painted on the side.
So it’s officially my birth month, which means I should start figuring out what I’m going to do to celebrate. I’m not sure yet but I’m thinking some brunch is in order. French toast is a very ideal birthday food. Hopefully by then the dust has subsided and the weather is delicious. Word is that Korea gets crazy humid in the summer. I’ll keep you abreast of the situation.
Well I should head home and type this up before I head to a temporary goodbye dinner for Susy, who is going home for a few weeks before she starts her next contract. We’ll be going to Maya which is rumoured to be the best Indian place in Daegu. They even have chai. Mmmmmm.
Love,
AAA
And life is indeed good, for the most part. Weather is finally looking up, job has gotten less stressful, social activities are lovely. The only ungood thing afoot is that it’s yellow dust season, which means that dust (along with pollution) from China is blowing into Korea like crazy. Thanks for that, China. As a result, me and half the people I know have sore throats or are getting sick. Despite this unfortunate matter, last night I went to Charanga for Chile which was a salsa party / fundraiser thrown by some of my friends. Twas delightful. There were performances, including a hip hop dance by the folks in the class I’ve been going to. The people I’ve net here are some talented folks, which I like to see.
So for lack of a good segue, I’ll just jump into an interesting bit of Korea trivia for you all. Korean law works on the blood money system. If you don’t know what that is (and I only knew because it was used during the medieval period in Europe and you know I love me some Middle Ages) it’s when the perpetrator of a crime against someone is able to make restitution by giving the victim money instead of going to jail or paying a fine to the state. So if I punched someone in the face, I could give the person I punched however many million won and I wouldn’t get charged. I’m not sure how many crimes this applies to – like if you can pay the family of a person you killed, medieval style. I think it’s just such an interesting legal difference. Apparently, here and in Japan, entrapment is totally okay, and that’s how a lot of people get caught for drug use. Korea is super hardcore about drugs. If you get caught using anything, including marijuana, you get in serious trouble, and if you are a foreigner you will likely get deported.
In other news, last weekend I went to a meeting for the Daegu Theatre group and there is a plan for a 24 hour theatre project in the works, which will be fun. Also, the article I wrote for Daegu Pockets is in teh current issue, thus launching my career as a restaurant reviewer :P
I paused writing for a bit to have a pleasant conversation with the enthusiastic barista who wanted to practice her English. I have come to appreciate people like that because even though they are, in a sense, using you, they are a far better set of people to come into contact with than folks who are afraid of foreigners. And “afraid” is not an exaggeration here. There are people who will seriously go out of their way to avoid interacting with you and will be noticeably uncomfortable when they can’t avoid it. It’s very foreign (haha) to me that anyone over the age of about 10 could be afraid of people just based on their foreignness. I guess it’s a product of growing up around people of various backgrounds, but I just can’t imagine reacting to ethnic difference with fear. Part of it is the power dynamics that come with English speaking. English is major social capital so speaking it badly or not speaking it at all looks bad on a person (I know, it’s messed up) so people will avoid speaking to a foreigner so as to avoid revealing their lack of English skill. (When I am using foreigner here, I’m talking about “Westerner” because the dynamics with other non-Korean communities vary widely. A whole other issue is the terrible attitude many Koreans have to Chinese people. They repeat certain stereotypes about Chinese people that are straight up racist and I think it’s disgusting and ridiculous. Especially because the stuff they diss Chinese people about are the same stereotypes that other people have about Koreans. Anyway, I don’t expect everyone in the world to want to talk to me, but it’s pretty uncomfortable when someone does their best to not talk to you. This past week me and M went to Costco and I brought my good old Metro reusable grocery bags from home. So after checking out, I was standing near the ramp waiting for M to get us some water and this couple walks by and then stops as the woman starts to exclaim in Korean how beautiful my bags are. Note: she was not talking to me. She was talking to her boyfriend who also examined my bags. Neither looked at me or addressed me at all. That sort of scenario is so common here that the rudeness sort of wears off slowly.
From where I’m sitting, I can see a big apartment building with water, lily pads and fish painted on the side.
So it’s officially my birth month, which means I should start figuring out what I’m going to do to celebrate. I’m not sure yet but I’m thinking some brunch is in order. French toast is a very ideal birthday food. Hopefully by then the dust has subsided and the weather is delicious. Word is that Korea gets crazy humid in the summer. I’ll keep you abreast of the situation.
Well I should head home and type this up before I head to a temporary goodbye dinner for Susy, who is going home for a few weeks before she starts her next contract. We’ll be going to Maya which is rumoured to be the best Indian place in Daegu. They even have chai. Mmmmmm.
Love,
AAA
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
A Twofer
(Friday last week)
So tonight I’m at a cafe that I think Ambreen and Ausma would love (hey guys!). It’s called Café in the Garden and it’s set up to look like, well, a garden. I’m by myself, which naturally means I chose a romantic little table on a raised platform that is surrounded by foliage and has a little mailbox beside the 2 stairs you have to climb to reach the table. Doing stuff alone in Korea is seen as pretty weird, even more so than at home. There are actually a lot of restaurants in Korea that you just can’t go to alone; they’ll turn you away because its eating food and it would just be wrong for you to do it alone, even if you want to. You all know I like to do stuff alone so it’s funny adjusting to this new business of considering not just what I want to eat, but what I can eat when I’m by myself. I think it’s probably part of why Korea is so dang couple-y. People require people to do stuff with all the time and even best friends don’t want to hang out all day every day. Couples will do that though. Also, people don’t move out til they get married, which is incentive for lots of people (especially for women who are more likely to chafe under parental authority) to get coupled up so they can get out and set up a house of their own.
I’m drinking some nice loose leaf peppermint tea. Something I hadn’t seen before Korea is liquid sugar. It’s clear and sticky and I had to pump it out of one of those bottles they use for snow cone flavouring.
The last couple of nights I stayed up pretty late socializing, which included some quality virtual time with the nerd squad (re: my brothers), some last chance Boggle playing with Bryan and Kelly, and some entertainment by various other fine folks of Daegu. I’m going to Seoul tomorrow afternoon where I will see Brittany, the delightful former Guelphite who I lived across the hall from in first year and spent many an hour playing Dr. Mario (best game ever) with. She’s a star. She lives in another city closer to Seoul that’s about the size of Hamilton and she too will be making the trip this weekend so we will have some reuniting to do. Also, Rasheeda organized a film screening for “Brother and Sisters of South Korea” (re: black people in Korea social group) and I shall be attending. Twill be cool.
There are books at this cafe and you know where there are books I have to examine them, even if I can’t read them. I found one called “36 Celebrities Say...” which is actually excerpts from works by historians, cultural theorists and scientists. There is even a bit of Sartre and de Beauvoir in there.
(Tonight)
Well folks, it’s Wednesday and I am again on the third floor of Angel-in-Us drinking hot chocolate and taking some time to reflect.
Lately other people’s school goings on have been coming up on my newsfeed and I’ve started to feel very slight pangs of academic withdrawal. Yet considering how I’ve been having to work really hard to make myself study every day for the GRE EST, I know I’m not ready to be fully back on the academia train just yet. At least I don’t have to worry about losing my academic inclinations.
This past weekend I went up to Seoul and had a wonderful time reuniting with Brittany. I meet her, her boyfriend, and their very cool buddies (including a delightful Australian couple who have the honour of being the first Australians I’ve ever liked – which sounds bad, but whatever, it’s true) at a wonderful Indian restaurant in the Hongdae area called Yeti where I had biryani, a mango lassi and a couple of chai – heaven. They were there celebrating the going away of their coworker/friend. Post-dinner, we went to a couple of bars and did some delightful dancing (including a glorious I Wanna Dance With Somebody dance explosion from the ladies) before rounding the night off with a noraebang session. I actually hadn’t been to a noraebang (private karaoke room) since my arrival (shameful) so it was sweet getting to do some of my classic (re: horrendously sung) renditions of various songs. Brittany and her super kind boyfriend rescued me when my place to stay fell threw and let me sleep in their hotel room, which was really awesome of them. The next morning we had breakfast and roamed around Insadong for a bit before we parted ways and I headed to Itaewon for the screening of “Africa Unite.” The documentary – which is about the festival in Ethiopian (posthumously) celebrating Bob Marley’s 60th birthday – was quite interesting. There was jerk chicken, which I consumed despite its hotness. I also got to see Adom’s friend Lola and Joy who you may remember from the Basement Jaxx entry, as well as getting to see / meet lots of other Seoul- based black folks. It was quite a thing seeing so many non-military black people in one place in Korea. The screening was followed by a little bit of discussion that R had wrangled me into semi-facilitating. By the time this was all done, I had to head back to Daegu since it was Sunday night and work was a acomin’ the next morning.
On Tuesday, I had my first work organized Korean class. They are during the day so I have to make up the time I miss from work but it’s totally worth it because it is 1) free 2) a nice way to break up the day 3) good for meeting some more / seeing more of some teacher-folk, which I usually only get to do on weekends.
Bryan moved out of his place on Sunday and now doing it up in Thailand, a place where everyone seems to love. Jasmin is already there along with another of new friend, who is there while crazy visa business gets worked out. She’s had a hard time of it since her (now former) school blows like crazy, but she has since quit that wretched place and will start teaching for our company when she returns. I haven’t heard too many horror stories but the ones that I have heard are just nuts. Crazy hours without overtime pay, yelling non-English speaking bosses who steal passports and degrees. Shear madness.
I was really in the mood for some Asha time tonight. It feels really good. I could have stayed at home and watched comedy clips and episodes of Futurama like usual but I think it’s important not to spend too much time in the house during the week because it is bad for morale. A little time in the world helps one think less about work and more about life, which is the best way to do things. There are times that living in Korea feels very strange – just looking down at the street and seeing so much similarity is still so very strange to me.
At any rate, the week is half over and me and my limited funds will be staying in Daegu this weekend. back to the pleasure/pain of hip hop class and the hilariousness of Daegu nightlife.
This entry’s music recommendation isn’t actually k-pop. M-Flo is a Japanese hip hop / dj duo, one of whom is in fact ethnically Korean and this song features Korean singer Alex (who is a part of Clazziquai, who I’ve previously talked about) so the Korean connection is enough for me. I love this song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWV-JDbRWCI
Bam!
Love,
AAA
So tonight I’m at a cafe that I think Ambreen and Ausma would love (hey guys!). It’s called Café in the Garden and it’s set up to look like, well, a garden. I’m by myself, which naturally means I chose a romantic little table on a raised platform that is surrounded by foliage and has a little mailbox beside the 2 stairs you have to climb to reach the table. Doing stuff alone in Korea is seen as pretty weird, even more so than at home. There are actually a lot of restaurants in Korea that you just can’t go to alone; they’ll turn you away because its eating food and it would just be wrong for you to do it alone, even if you want to. You all know I like to do stuff alone so it’s funny adjusting to this new business of considering not just what I want to eat, but what I can eat when I’m by myself. I think it’s probably part of why Korea is so dang couple-y. People require people to do stuff with all the time and even best friends don’t want to hang out all day every day. Couples will do that though. Also, people don’t move out til they get married, which is incentive for lots of people (especially for women who are more likely to chafe under parental authority) to get coupled up so they can get out and set up a house of their own.
I’m drinking some nice loose leaf peppermint tea. Something I hadn’t seen before Korea is liquid sugar. It’s clear and sticky and I had to pump it out of one of those bottles they use for snow cone flavouring.
The last couple of nights I stayed up pretty late socializing, which included some quality virtual time with the nerd squad (re: my brothers), some last chance Boggle playing with Bryan and Kelly, and some entertainment by various other fine folks of Daegu. I’m going to Seoul tomorrow afternoon where I will see Brittany, the delightful former Guelphite who I lived across the hall from in first year and spent many an hour playing Dr. Mario (best game ever) with. She’s a star. She lives in another city closer to Seoul that’s about the size of Hamilton and she too will be making the trip this weekend so we will have some reuniting to do. Also, Rasheeda organized a film screening for “Brother and Sisters of South Korea” (re: black people in Korea social group) and I shall be attending. Twill be cool.
There are books at this cafe and you know where there are books I have to examine them, even if I can’t read them. I found one called “36 Celebrities Say...” which is actually excerpts from works by historians, cultural theorists and scientists. There is even a bit of Sartre and de Beauvoir in there.
(Tonight)
Well folks, it’s Wednesday and I am again on the third floor of Angel-in-Us drinking hot chocolate and taking some time to reflect.
Lately other people’s school goings on have been coming up on my newsfeed and I’ve started to feel very slight pangs of academic withdrawal. Yet considering how I’ve been having to work really hard to make myself study every day for the GRE EST, I know I’m not ready to be fully back on the academia train just yet. At least I don’t have to worry about losing my academic inclinations.
This past weekend I went up to Seoul and had a wonderful time reuniting with Brittany. I meet her, her boyfriend, and their very cool buddies (including a delightful Australian couple who have the honour of being the first Australians I’ve ever liked – which sounds bad, but whatever, it’s true) at a wonderful Indian restaurant in the Hongdae area called Yeti where I had biryani, a mango lassi and a couple of chai – heaven. They were there celebrating the going away of their coworker/friend. Post-dinner, we went to a couple of bars and did some delightful dancing (including a glorious I Wanna Dance With Somebody dance explosion from the ladies) before rounding the night off with a noraebang session. I actually hadn’t been to a noraebang (private karaoke room) since my arrival (shameful) so it was sweet getting to do some of my classic (re: horrendously sung) renditions of various songs. Brittany and her super kind boyfriend rescued me when my place to stay fell threw and let me sleep in their hotel room, which was really awesome of them. The next morning we had breakfast and roamed around Insadong for a bit before we parted ways and I headed to Itaewon for the screening of “Africa Unite.” The documentary – which is about the festival in Ethiopian (posthumously) celebrating Bob Marley’s 60th birthday – was quite interesting. There was jerk chicken, which I consumed despite its hotness. I also got to see Adom’s friend Lola and Joy who you may remember from the Basement Jaxx entry, as well as getting to see / meet lots of other Seoul- based black folks. It was quite a thing seeing so many non-military black people in one place in Korea. The screening was followed by a little bit of discussion that R had wrangled me into semi-facilitating. By the time this was all done, I had to head back to Daegu since it was Sunday night and work was a acomin’ the next morning.
On Tuesday, I had my first work organized Korean class. They are during the day so I have to make up the time I miss from work but it’s totally worth it because it is 1) free 2) a nice way to break up the day 3) good for meeting some more / seeing more of some teacher-folk, which I usually only get to do on weekends.
Bryan moved out of his place on Sunday and now doing it up in Thailand, a place where everyone seems to love. Jasmin is already there along with another of new friend, who is there while crazy visa business gets worked out. She’s had a hard time of it since her (now former) school blows like crazy, but she has since quit that wretched place and will start teaching for our company when she returns. I haven’t heard too many horror stories but the ones that I have heard are just nuts. Crazy hours without overtime pay, yelling non-English speaking bosses who steal passports and degrees. Shear madness.
I was really in the mood for some Asha time tonight. It feels really good. I could have stayed at home and watched comedy clips and episodes of Futurama like usual but I think it’s important not to spend too much time in the house during the week because it is bad for morale. A little time in the world helps one think less about work and more about life, which is the best way to do things. There are times that living in Korea feels very strange – just looking down at the street and seeing so much similarity is still so very strange to me.
At any rate, the week is half over and me and my limited funds will be staying in Daegu this weekend. back to the pleasure/pain of hip hop class and the hilariousness of Daegu nightlife.
This entry’s music recommendation isn’t actually k-pop. M-Flo is a Japanese hip hop / dj duo, one of whom is in fact ethnically Korean and this song features Korean singer Alex (who is a part of Clazziquai, who I’ve previously talked about) so the Korean connection is enough for me. I love this song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWV-JDbRWCI
Bam!
Love,
AAA
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Strange Utensils, Cultural Commentary, and other Ramblings
I hadn’t planned on writing a blog entry tonight but since I had some not so solid plans downtown that seem to have fallen through, I decided to scribble this out on the piece of paper I had jammed as a bookmark into the comic book Adom mailed me last week (woowoo!). I’m at a place called Coffea Coffee. “Coffee Art,” just like coffee in general, is super popular in Korea and I’m sitting across from a wall of coffee competition certificates. I ordered a mango smoothie. It tastes good, if not particularly strong, but what is notable about it is that I didn’t come with a straw but rather a bizarre metal thing. It’s really skinny and long and on one end is a very small shovel-like shape that can’t hold very much. I don’t really understand how one is supposed to drink a whole smoothie with this strange utensil.
Anyway, this place reminded me of something I wanted to comment on: Korea’s strange relationship with germs. As you are mostly all aware, people will often wear face masks when they are sick here. This might lead one to imagine this to be a rather germaphobic society. On the contrary. Korea does not adhere to most of the anti-germ spreading practices most North Americans take for granted. Example: the frequency with which you find home-style hand towels in the bathroom of public establishments, including this one. Or even the fact that I’ve encountered a couple of bathrooms with a bar of soap attached to a metal rod instead of a liquid soap dispenser. Or the numerous stories I’ve heard of people using the same thermometer on several people consecutively without sanitizing it. Add to these the constant horking on the street by people of all ages and you have numerous means of germ spreading that a face mask does nothing to prevent.
As an aside, I just noticed that this place offers “wine ice flakes,” in case anyone has always wanted a Chardonnay snow cone. There’s also a sign on the counter that says “self service” which is pretty confusing.
Another bit of random cultural commentary: substitution. Korea isn’t into it. See, if you order something in Korea, they fully expect you to take whatever they give you. As in, if you go into a burger joint and say “no mayo, no pickles, no lettuce” of whatever, people look at you like you are crazy. Also, they usually give you your burger with most, if not all ,of the things you said you didn’t want. Similarly, if you order pizza here you are ordering one of whatever combinations of toppings they offer. None of that pick whatever you want business. Even when things are made from scratch (as one would hope their pizza, among other things, is), people just aren’t into the idea of making things to your specifications, even if those specifications aren’t difficult to execute. People I know have discussed this with Korean friends and students, and the response seems to be that the idea of picking whatever you want on your pizza is foreign to them. Word to the wise: people with special dietary needs in Korea have to be super vigilant. I don’t have this problem, but non-pork or meat eaters will order things having stressed that they don’t want meat only to find bacon in their food. So yeah, vigilance.
In other news, last weekend was quite nice, as usual. Friday there were some b-day festivities (also my first time in Daegu showing up at a club by myself and knowing that I would find people I know there, which was nice and made me feel a little Guelph-pang). Then there were some goodbye festivities on Saturday, but those weren’t sad since I know I’ll see Bryan again so it’s not a big goodbye. Sunday was hip hop class and burgers followed by domesticity. Hip hop class was highly strenuous again, but Monday I didn’t feel as bad as I did the week before, which I’ll take as a good sign. I’ve also done the GRE English Subject Test practice test and it went reasonably well. As I told Adom, I don’t think I’ll rock it but I’m confident I won’t bomb it. In more mostly just interesting to me news, there’s this store that I walk by downtown that has this beautiful maroon zip up with a golden tiger on the back that I’ve been admiring for weeks and I finally check the price on it today. 130,000 won. Boo. There goes that that plan. Or maybe I’ll buy it for myself for my birthday present. We shall see. There’s a girl beside me playing with bubble wrap, which makes me simultaneously jealous and annoyed.
Anyway, the space on this piece of paper is almost all gone and I’ve long finished my smoothie (I gave up on the tiny shovel and just drank it once it melted a little) so I should head home.
Today’s music recommendation is one of my favourite dance down the street / private go train dance party songs. It’s by a lady named Lyn. Check check check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG-IPU5Q7pA
Love
AAA
Anyway, this place reminded me of something I wanted to comment on: Korea’s strange relationship with germs. As you are mostly all aware, people will often wear face masks when they are sick here. This might lead one to imagine this to be a rather germaphobic society. On the contrary. Korea does not adhere to most of the anti-germ spreading practices most North Americans take for granted. Example: the frequency with which you find home-style hand towels in the bathroom of public establishments, including this one. Or even the fact that I’ve encountered a couple of bathrooms with a bar of soap attached to a metal rod instead of a liquid soap dispenser. Or the numerous stories I’ve heard of people using the same thermometer on several people consecutively without sanitizing it. Add to these the constant horking on the street by people of all ages and you have numerous means of germ spreading that a face mask does nothing to prevent.
As an aside, I just noticed that this place offers “wine ice flakes,” in case anyone has always wanted a Chardonnay snow cone. There’s also a sign on the counter that says “self service” which is pretty confusing.
Another bit of random cultural commentary: substitution. Korea isn’t into it. See, if you order something in Korea, they fully expect you to take whatever they give you. As in, if you go into a burger joint and say “no mayo, no pickles, no lettuce” of whatever, people look at you like you are crazy. Also, they usually give you your burger with most, if not all ,of the things you said you didn’t want. Similarly, if you order pizza here you are ordering one of whatever combinations of toppings they offer. None of that pick whatever you want business. Even when things are made from scratch (as one would hope their pizza, among other things, is), people just aren’t into the idea of making things to your specifications, even if those specifications aren’t difficult to execute. People I know have discussed this with Korean friends and students, and the response seems to be that the idea of picking whatever you want on your pizza is foreign to them. Word to the wise: people with special dietary needs in Korea have to be super vigilant. I don’t have this problem, but non-pork or meat eaters will order things having stressed that they don’t want meat only to find bacon in their food. So yeah, vigilance.
In other news, last weekend was quite nice, as usual. Friday there were some b-day festivities (also my first time in Daegu showing up at a club by myself and knowing that I would find people I know there, which was nice and made me feel a little Guelph-pang). Then there were some goodbye festivities on Saturday, but those weren’t sad since I know I’ll see Bryan again so it’s not a big goodbye. Sunday was hip hop class and burgers followed by domesticity. Hip hop class was highly strenuous again, but Monday I didn’t feel as bad as I did the week before, which I’ll take as a good sign. I’ve also done the GRE English Subject Test practice test and it went reasonably well. As I told Adom, I don’t think I’ll rock it but I’m confident I won’t bomb it. In more mostly just interesting to me news, there’s this store that I walk by downtown that has this beautiful maroon zip up with a golden tiger on the back that I’ve been admiring for weeks and I finally check the price on it today. 130,000 won. Boo. There goes that that plan. Or maybe I’ll buy it for myself for my birthday present. We shall see. There’s a girl beside me playing with bubble wrap, which makes me simultaneously jealous and annoyed.
Anyway, the space on this piece of paper is almost all gone and I’ve long finished my smoothie (I gave up on the tiny shovel and just drank it once it melted a little) so I should head home.
Today’s music recommendation is one of my favourite dance down the street / private go train dance party songs. It’s by a lady named Lyn. Check check check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG-IPU5Q7pA
Love
AAA
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Making a Home, with the power of dance, food, and nerditude
Greetings, readers. This entry reaches you from the Dunkin Donuts near my house because I decided to opt for close and comparatively cheap tonight. Last weekend was a blast. Friday was a sad occasion in that it was Jasmin’s going away party which, of course, means she’s gone. But the festivities were delightful. A big group went out for galbi first, which was full of deliciousness and socializing. I got to remeet some folks I met at the cabaret and spend more time with some good people. From there we headed to Go Go Party, where one of Melinda’s salsa students, a nice dude named Jamari, was playing some very well chosen music. There was much boogying. Saturday morning I kept it lazy. All I really did was make a short trip to Emart before meeting up with Nakia for some more BBQ action. She also donated some clothes to the Asha-needs-more-nice-clothes fund. We parted ways only to reunite a few hours later for some dancification. For the first time, I had a really, solidly good time at Old School. I also experienced the military curfew for the first time, as a result. It’s actually pretty funny to watch. Once 1:45 rolls around, they start filtering out until there is literally 1/6th of the people in the club left. Then, after two, three fatigue wearing officers appear to do some rounding up. A woman I know once got grabbed by them because they thought she was military and she wouldn’t show them her ID because she didn’t know who they were. It was bizarre dancing while watching them peruse the place for errant soldiers. Then the dancefloor was all ours and we took advantage of it. We were the last to leave. A very successful night.
So when you consider those two nights, you can tell why it’s a bit of miracle that I made it up in time to attend Susy’s hip hop class on Sunday. I even had enough time to skype with my super awesome friend in China first. Susy, who you may recall is Melinda’s salsa co-teacher, is also a very good hip hop dancer (and a martial arts fighter, because she’s just that much of a machine). So she, along with a couple of skilled helpers, is teaching a hip hop dance class every Sunday. So I missed the first couple of classes but made it to this one. And boy did she kick our butts. I was a little late because I got lost, having never found the club it’s at during daytime. I arrived to see 20 or so students engaging in some warm up. Now Susy’s style of warm up is, in fact, conditioning, which translates to squats, crunches, staggered push ups...Yeah. I wasn’t ready. After barely surviving that, we got to the dance, which was a bit more within my skill set. The choreography we are working on is fun and looks good, though it was a tad difficult for me to catch up with the rest of the class. The class includes cool people I already know, cool people I’d seen around, and cool people I just met then. Post-class, some of us went to eat. The crowd was an awesome set of folks who provided much entertainment. Among the new folks were a Guyanese-American video game expert, a super friendly and smart South African woman, and a really cool black American girl who I kept thinking would get along really well with Maanda. It was also nice hanging out with Susy’s boyfriend Nick, who has, among other good qualities, an incredible memory for TV show quotes. To round out the group there was Susy herself, Krissi the very sweet woman from Atlanta who I met my first weekend here, and Matt, another martial arts and dance machine. It’s funny; Sunday actually made me feel as though I really, truly live here more than I have felt before. Maybe it was the non-work related daytime activity or the deliciously nerdy and clever crowd, but I really felt a home this weekend.
Which is what made it worth it when I woke up in pain on Monday. My legs felt like jello and I could barely bring myself to walk to work on Monday and Tuesday. Knowing my overworked muscles needed some help to recover after being utilized more in one weekend than they’d been in months, I made a date with the jimjilbang on Wednesday. I took a long a co-worker who’d never been before. We both got scrub downs. For 14,000 won, you can get the scrubbing of a life time. They are provided by an ajummah who wears nothing but her panties and some oven mitt-esque scrubbers on her hands. It seems like it would be weird, but she is so business-like about it that its actually not weird at all. She really goes to town on your dead skin; you can actually see it strewn across the table. It hurts a little bit but afterwards you feel as soft as a baby’s bottom (which I have heard is very soft). We’d soaked for a long time before getting our rub downs and we were both pretty hungry by the time we’d both had our turn, so we forewent the hot floors and headed home instead.
So yeah, life is good. And this weekend, I’ll be doing it all over again, heaven help me.
Love,
AAA
P.S. Music rec time! I give you Epik High, one of the first Korean hip hop groups I ever liked. One of the rappers has a master’s in English Lit, which is pretty sexy if you ask me. Which you did, with your mind.
Enjoy!
older track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUS-RoxWI_w
newer track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZbxsM9RUtU
P.P.S. I also wrote a restuarant review for Daegu Pockets this week, which shall presumably appear in the next issue. I'll keep you guys updated on that.
So when you consider those two nights, you can tell why it’s a bit of miracle that I made it up in time to attend Susy’s hip hop class on Sunday. I even had enough time to skype with my super awesome friend in China first. Susy, who you may recall is Melinda’s salsa co-teacher, is also a very good hip hop dancer (and a martial arts fighter, because she’s just that much of a machine). So she, along with a couple of skilled helpers, is teaching a hip hop dance class every Sunday. So I missed the first couple of classes but made it to this one. And boy did she kick our butts. I was a little late because I got lost, having never found the club it’s at during daytime. I arrived to see 20 or so students engaging in some warm up. Now Susy’s style of warm up is, in fact, conditioning, which translates to squats, crunches, staggered push ups...Yeah. I wasn’t ready. After barely surviving that, we got to the dance, which was a bit more within my skill set. The choreography we are working on is fun and looks good, though it was a tad difficult for me to catch up with the rest of the class. The class includes cool people I already know, cool people I’d seen around, and cool people I just met then. Post-class, some of us went to eat. The crowd was an awesome set of folks who provided much entertainment. Among the new folks were a Guyanese-American video game expert, a super friendly and smart South African woman, and a really cool black American girl who I kept thinking would get along really well with Maanda. It was also nice hanging out with Susy’s boyfriend Nick, who has, among other good qualities, an incredible memory for TV show quotes. To round out the group there was Susy herself, Krissi the very sweet woman from Atlanta who I met my first weekend here, and Matt, another martial arts and dance machine. It’s funny; Sunday actually made me feel as though I really, truly live here more than I have felt before. Maybe it was the non-work related daytime activity or the deliciously nerdy and clever crowd, but I really felt a home this weekend.
Which is what made it worth it when I woke up in pain on Monday. My legs felt like jello and I could barely bring myself to walk to work on Monday and Tuesday. Knowing my overworked muscles needed some help to recover after being utilized more in one weekend than they’d been in months, I made a date with the jimjilbang on Wednesday. I took a long a co-worker who’d never been before. We both got scrub downs. For 14,000 won, you can get the scrubbing of a life time. They are provided by an ajummah who wears nothing but her panties and some oven mitt-esque scrubbers on her hands. It seems like it would be weird, but she is so business-like about it that its actually not weird at all. She really goes to town on your dead skin; you can actually see it strewn across the table. It hurts a little bit but afterwards you feel as soft as a baby’s bottom (which I have heard is very soft). We’d soaked for a long time before getting our rub downs and we were both pretty hungry by the time we’d both had our turn, so we forewent the hot floors and headed home instead.
So yeah, life is good. And this weekend, I’ll be doing it all over again, heaven help me.
Love,
AAA
P.S. Music rec time! I give you Epik High, one of the first Korean hip hop groups I ever liked. One of the rappers has a master’s in English Lit, which is pretty sexy if you ask me. Which you did, with your mind.
Enjoy!
older track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUS-RoxWI_w
newer track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZbxsM9RUtU
P.P.S. I also wrote a restuarant review for Daegu Pockets this week, which shall presumably appear in the next issue. I'll keep you guys updated on that.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Playing Catch Up
As promised, midweek make up entry. Right now, I’m not inside at all; I’m sitting on a stage in the middle of the hub of crisscrossing streets of downtown. It’s warm enough today to stay out here for a bit, though I’m sure eventually I’ll get cold enough to go inside. It’s before 5 pm the streets are super busy already. There’s a store across from where I’m sitting called “It’s Skin” which is good, because I totally wouldn’t have known otherwise. On my subway ride over here, I was in the same carriage as a ton of uniformed high and middle school students, and there are a lot of them roaming around here as well. There are bangs as far as the eye can see. Now that the sun is making a regular appearance, I’ll have to think about getting my first ever pair of prescription sunglasses. I’ve never had them in the past, but since glasses are so much cheaper over here I’m definitely going to.
But to the point of this entry: the weekend before last. My entry before last was written Friday night at a point when I wasn’t expecting to go out. But I ended up calling the lovely Jasmin to see what she was up to and, as a result, I ended up heading off to see her at the Holy Grill, thus ensuring that I would not have an early night. I help her and this girl Kristin run lines for the cabaret that they were performing in the following night. That was fun; I miss doing theatre related stuff. After they’d rehearsed, Jasmin and I went off to do some dancing. Due to my totally terrible memory, I can’t remember if anything notable happened that night but I do recall it going fairly late.
The next night was the cabaret. It was a cute, love themed show that was raising money for a Buddhist monastery that runs a home for abused “international marriage women” and men who’ve been injured in factory accidents. Super good cause. There were three monks from the monastery at the show, one Korean, one Cambodian and one Sri Lankan. It was funny seeing monks laugh at the skits. They were introduced by an embarrassingly rambley Australian woman. The venue for the cabaret was this awesome cafe / used bookstore run by a Chinese Canadian woman and her Korean yoga teacher husband. It felt rather like being in Guelph, which was a comment also made by several former Guelphites in attendance. Sweet memories of the Bullring. There was even organic snacks! The performances were really good, especially the scene done by Darrell and Whitney, who are both trained actors. What a pair of stars. For the last scene, they needed an audience volunteer. I was sitting right at the front, beside a teacher for our company named Melvin. Well as soon as they asked for a volunteer, Melvin pretty much rolled me out onto the stage. So I ended up in the show, playing the role of a woman being picked up in a bar. Twas fun. As an aside, non-Canadians who came to Korea to teach get a serious education in Canadianness by being here. Several Brits, South Africans and Americans have mentioned wanting to visit Canada now that they have so made so many Canadian friends in Korea.
Anyway, after the show, me and some folks went for some galbi, which was followed by some – you guessed it – dancing.
Sunday, I headed off to Busan to meet up with Maanda for some kite making action. There’s this Buddhist temple in Busan that puts on monthly cultural events for foreigners and this month’s event was traditional Korean kite making and flying. It was a lovely day. We were supposed to write the things we want to come to us and the things we want to send away for the new year on the kite so that they could symbolically fly to the sky. My kite flew super high and for a good while, but then someone else’s line cut mine and my wishes literally flew away. There we snacks afterwards and Maanda won a prize for her beautiful kite. In fact, when we were making them, this camera dude saw Maanda making hers and was like “it looks like the Jamaican flag,” which was funny but also strange because a Korean who knows what the Jamaican flag looks like is rare indeed. Like every good thing, kite making was followed by galbi with Maanda and her friends from Ulsan who had also taken part in the festivities. Then I caught the bus back to Daegu and wrapped up my delightful weekend.
In other news, most of you are probably aware that Korean figure skater Kim Yun Ah won a gold medal at the Olympics. It would be literally impossible to not know this in Korea because her routine was played on every TV screen I saw all day long and for several days after. Also, her face is everywhere advertising stuff, which was the case before and is even more so now.
So I’ve previously mentioned how segregated our office is. Example: there is a new Korean employee in our department who started about two weeks ago. He has never been introduced to us. If I didn’t pay attention, I’d never even know there was a newbie because we were not informed at all. I’m generally a big believer in proper introductions so I just think its really lame to go about stuff that way. Especially because now there’s the awkward “say hi / don’t say hi” situation. Boo.
Last night, Melinda and I went to the movies. In Korea, movie theatres have numbered seats. This is stupid. In a theatre with maybe 10 people in it total, we were seated right beside and right in front of other people. So we moved, eschewing our correct numbers for more sensible seating. We saw Chloe, the new Atom Egoyan flick. It takes place in Toronto, so it was nice to see home.
And there you have it; you are officially caught up on my life. No narrative gaps.
This week’s music recommendation is a joint from hip hop group Leesang, who have enjoyably scratchy voices. Bam!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOroE3OUoGA
Love,
AAA
But to the point of this entry: the weekend before last. My entry before last was written Friday night at a point when I wasn’t expecting to go out. But I ended up calling the lovely Jasmin to see what she was up to and, as a result, I ended up heading off to see her at the Holy Grill, thus ensuring that I would not have an early night. I help her and this girl Kristin run lines for the cabaret that they were performing in the following night. That was fun; I miss doing theatre related stuff. After they’d rehearsed, Jasmin and I went off to do some dancing. Due to my totally terrible memory, I can’t remember if anything notable happened that night but I do recall it going fairly late.
The next night was the cabaret. It was a cute, love themed show that was raising money for a Buddhist monastery that runs a home for abused “international marriage women” and men who’ve been injured in factory accidents. Super good cause. There were three monks from the monastery at the show, one Korean, one Cambodian and one Sri Lankan. It was funny seeing monks laugh at the skits. They were introduced by an embarrassingly rambley Australian woman. The venue for the cabaret was this awesome cafe / used bookstore run by a Chinese Canadian woman and her Korean yoga teacher husband. It felt rather like being in Guelph, which was a comment also made by several former Guelphites in attendance. Sweet memories of the Bullring. There was even organic snacks! The performances were really good, especially the scene done by Darrell and Whitney, who are both trained actors. What a pair of stars. For the last scene, they needed an audience volunteer. I was sitting right at the front, beside a teacher for our company named Melvin. Well as soon as they asked for a volunteer, Melvin pretty much rolled me out onto the stage. So I ended up in the show, playing the role of a woman being picked up in a bar. Twas fun. As an aside, non-Canadians who came to Korea to teach get a serious education in Canadianness by being here. Several Brits, South Africans and Americans have mentioned wanting to visit Canada now that they have so made so many Canadian friends in Korea.
Anyway, after the show, me and some folks went for some galbi, which was followed by some – you guessed it – dancing.
Sunday, I headed off to Busan to meet up with Maanda for some kite making action. There’s this Buddhist temple in Busan that puts on monthly cultural events for foreigners and this month’s event was traditional Korean kite making and flying. It was a lovely day. We were supposed to write the things we want to come to us and the things we want to send away for the new year on the kite so that they could symbolically fly to the sky. My kite flew super high and for a good while, but then someone else’s line cut mine and my wishes literally flew away. There we snacks afterwards and Maanda won a prize for her beautiful kite. In fact, when we were making them, this camera dude saw Maanda making hers and was like “it looks like the Jamaican flag,” which was funny but also strange because a Korean who knows what the Jamaican flag looks like is rare indeed. Like every good thing, kite making was followed by galbi with Maanda and her friends from Ulsan who had also taken part in the festivities. Then I caught the bus back to Daegu and wrapped up my delightful weekend.
In other news, most of you are probably aware that Korean figure skater Kim Yun Ah won a gold medal at the Olympics. It would be literally impossible to not know this in Korea because her routine was played on every TV screen I saw all day long and for several days after. Also, her face is everywhere advertising stuff, which was the case before and is even more so now.
So I’ve previously mentioned how segregated our office is. Example: there is a new Korean employee in our department who started about two weeks ago. He has never been introduced to us. If I didn’t pay attention, I’d never even know there was a newbie because we were not informed at all. I’m generally a big believer in proper introductions so I just think its really lame to go about stuff that way. Especially because now there’s the awkward “say hi / don’t say hi” situation. Boo.
Last night, Melinda and I went to the movies. In Korea, movie theatres have numbered seats. This is stupid. In a theatre with maybe 10 people in it total, we were seated right beside and right in front of other people. So we moved, eschewing our correct numbers for more sensible seating. We saw Chloe, the new Atom Egoyan flick. It takes place in Toronto, so it was nice to see home.
And there you have it; you are officially caught up on my life. No narrative gaps.
This week’s music recommendation is a joint from hip hop group Leesang, who have enjoyably scratchy voices. Bam!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOroE3OUoGA
Love,
AAA
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Insert Seoul/Soul Pun Here
There’s been a bit of a gap between the last entry and this one so there is a fair amount to say, hopefully a good bit of which I will cover. This entry comes to you from the Dunkin Donuts in Itaewon, Seoul’s international district. I just spent the afternoon getting my hair done by a very nice Cameroonian woman named Princess Thelma. I was rock the Fredrick Douglass look (afro with side part) between when I washed it on Wednesday and today. I’m really enjoying this Dunkin Donuts because it has cream puffs, unlike the stupid DDs in Daegu. And I really, really like cream puffs. Also, my Muslim readers will be interested to know that I am sitting beside the first Korean hijabi I’ve ever seen. She’s with her South Asian-looking husband and their ridiculously adorable toddler. A couple of girls said something to her in Korean and she answered saying “Muslim.” It would be funny if they were asking if she was a nun with a kid.
So on Friday after work I hurried off to Dongdaegu yuk (station) to catch the KTX train to Seoul. I slept most of the just shy of two hours that it takes to get there. It was evening so I didn’t get to see much of the countryside. I took the subway to darling Rasheeda’s house. Rasheeda has a tiny, hyperactive dog who likes to lick socks. After some chatting we headed off to Itaewon to meet up with some her friends. First we went to this little Turkish spot and I had an almost shwarma (right meat, but the other elements weren’t quite right). We ended up talking to this dude who turned out to be from Scarborough. Then we went to a bar that I can’t remember the name of. This really cool girl named Geo (don’t know if I’m spelling that right) was goodbye partying. She was crazy amounts of fun. Then we went to the Reggae bar for a bit before calling it a night. With us was this awesome dude named Lesean (also don’t know if I’m spelling g that right) who, if I remember correctly, is the head animator for The Boondocks, which, like tons of other cartoons including The Simpsons and Family Guy, is drawn in Korea.
Saturday, post-hair doing, I got the chance to check out What the Book, the famous English Bookstore in Itaewon. I didn’t buy anything because I should read what I brought with me first. There was a minor crisis because R forgot her bank card at the Reggae Bar the night before but we went there and waiting until the employees arrived to work and she got it back. The bartenders were two Philipinas and a Thai woman. They were very nice.
Then we headed to R’s place and I took a delightful nap. Then Joy, a very cool woman from the UK, came and we got ready to head out to the Basement Jaxx show. We left late and got lost but we eventually made it to Eden Club, in the basement of the Ritz Carlton in a posh neighbourhood. Like so many Korean clubs (in fact, Korean places in general), it has death stairs. How completely loaded Korean women in stilettos don’t constantly die going and out of clubs, I can’t possibly understand. The club was very big and very packed with lots of young, goodlooking folks. Twas great. Now, Basement Jaxx are actually DJs/Producers so it was unsurprisingly a DJ set not a performance. I haven’t heard real DJing in a very long time. Before Basement Jaxx came on, there was a local DJ and then a performance by a Korean act that I’ve never heard of. There were two singers and two backup dancers, all wearing similar black and leopard print suits and sunglasses. We were right at the front so we got to experience there little dances close up which was fun. After some more of the local DJ, Basement Jaxxx came on and tore up the place. Koreans always face the DJ at clubs, even at normal, non-celebrity-DJ-having clubs. I danced hard and got some great crowd watching in too. There were a lot of hot guys at this show, which was very pleasing. There were also some annoying, sloppily dancing white folks, which was much less pleasing. A black guy from LA came up to us to say hi and tell us he was glad to see other black people. A Korean-Canadian dude from BC also came to say hi to me at one point. People do this a lot in Korea – bond over shared foreignness. K&J went to another club before it was over but I stayed tilt eh end. While I was dancing by myself, I was doing so in front of this big, reflective, black, rectangular pillar. And I was reminded that Korea is, without a doubt, the most looks obsessed country I’ve ever seen. Canada and the US, as bad as they are, have nothing on Korea. So many people stopped to check themselves out using the pillar that I lost count. It was ridiculous. I already knew Koreans loved mirrors as much as they love kimchi but...a reflective pillar in a dark club? And not just quick glances, these were long drawn out studies. For real, Korea? Basement Jaxx wrapped up, closing with a horns rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody (I still remember all of the lyrics, I discovered). Then I went off to meet R&J though I got lost on the way. But I had a nice refreshing night time walk. Walking at night in Korea isn’t generally a big deal. When I finally arrived I found them having a snack in a little food tent. Food tents are all over the place but especially in club / bar areas. Some very drunk Korean-American dudes tried to talk to us. When we left, we walked to the subway and took the first train of the morning, at 5:30 am. That’s right, we took the subway home at 5:30 am after a night out. And let me tell you, the subway was very busy indeed. It was nuts seeing that many people of all ages waiting for the train at that hour. But it makes sense in that it isn’t weird to sleep just anywhere in Korea so presumably some of these people had been sleeping before that time. In fact, at Eden I saw a guy asleep in a booth and no one look at him twice. Considering the fact that that’s illegal at home, it was rather funny to see. On the train, K&J fell asleep on my shoulders while I talked to these two dudes who had carried their super drunk female friend on to the train a couple of stops after we got on. Their friend promptly fell asleep on Rasheeda’s shoulder. One was a South Asian dude from San Francisco in Korea on business and the other was a Korean dude who works for Lotte, one of the companies that owns insane amounts of stuff in Korea.
Sunday, I got up at noon and left Rasheeda’s to go to the train station. I did a little wandering in the area before buying my ticket and heading home. So here I am on the train. I’ve just been informed that I’m going through central Gimcheon by some specially mown grass.
So that was my weekend in Seoul. I had planned to include last weekend in this entry but this is already super long so I’ll just write another entry later in the week and resign myself to being totally disordered. The point is, I had a glorious time in Seoul. And now, heading home to cook for the week and have some quiet time before starting the new week, I am sure I shall be making many a trip to Seoul this year, especially now that spring has sprung. Bizarrely, the arrival of spring always makes me think of this crazy Medieval song that Professor Powell sang to us on the first day of my first university English class. the song is about the arrival of spring and how frisky it makes everyone. It includes a line about bucks farting.
I feel like this weekend has really solidified my love for Korea. It’s such a crazy, chaotic, sometimes utterly nonsensical place and I can’t help but respond to that. And there’s something really interesting about living somewhere as an expat. I think it suits me.
Love,
AAA
P.S. Couldn’t leave you without the usual musical suggestion. This song is Paradise by Eddie, a little R&B number that I quite like. Bam!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1fpGh4qG2g
P.P.S. The countryside is really interesting, by the way. Very hilly, with lots of small fields and tin roofed houses.
So on Friday after work I hurried off to Dongdaegu yuk (station) to catch the KTX train to Seoul. I slept most of the just shy of two hours that it takes to get there. It was evening so I didn’t get to see much of the countryside. I took the subway to darling Rasheeda’s house. Rasheeda has a tiny, hyperactive dog who likes to lick socks. After some chatting we headed off to Itaewon to meet up with some her friends. First we went to this little Turkish spot and I had an almost shwarma (right meat, but the other elements weren’t quite right). We ended up talking to this dude who turned out to be from Scarborough. Then we went to a bar that I can’t remember the name of. This really cool girl named Geo (don’t know if I’m spelling that right) was goodbye partying. She was crazy amounts of fun. Then we went to the Reggae bar for a bit before calling it a night. With us was this awesome dude named Lesean (also don’t know if I’m spelling g that right) who, if I remember correctly, is the head animator for The Boondocks, which, like tons of other cartoons including The Simpsons and Family Guy, is drawn in Korea.
Saturday, post-hair doing, I got the chance to check out What the Book, the famous English Bookstore in Itaewon. I didn’t buy anything because I should read what I brought with me first. There was a minor crisis because R forgot her bank card at the Reggae Bar the night before but we went there and waiting until the employees arrived to work and she got it back. The bartenders were two Philipinas and a Thai woman. They were very nice.
Then we headed to R’s place and I took a delightful nap. Then Joy, a very cool woman from the UK, came and we got ready to head out to the Basement Jaxx show. We left late and got lost but we eventually made it to Eden Club, in the basement of the Ritz Carlton in a posh neighbourhood. Like so many Korean clubs (in fact, Korean places in general), it has death stairs. How completely loaded Korean women in stilettos don’t constantly die going and out of clubs, I can’t possibly understand. The club was very big and very packed with lots of young, goodlooking folks. Twas great. Now, Basement Jaxx are actually DJs/Producers so it was unsurprisingly a DJ set not a performance. I haven’t heard real DJing in a very long time. Before Basement Jaxx came on, there was a local DJ and then a performance by a Korean act that I’ve never heard of. There were two singers and two backup dancers, all wearing similar black and leopard print suits and sunglasses. We were right at the front so we got to experience there little dances close up which was fun. After some more of the local DJ, Basement Jaxxx came on and tore up the place. Koreans always face the DJ at clubs, even at normal, non-celebrity-DJ-having clubs. I danced hard and got some great crowd watching in too. There were a lot of hot guys at this show, which was very pleasing. There were also some annoying, sloppily dancing white folks, which was much less pleasing. A black guy from LA came up to us to say hi and tell us he was glad to see other black people. A Korean-Canadian dude from BC also came to say hi to me at one point. People do this a lot in Korea – bond over shared foreignness. K&J went to another club before it was over but I stayed tilt eh end. While I was dancing by myself, I was doing so in front of this big, reflective, black, rectangular pillar. And I was reminded that Korea is, without a doubt, the most looks obsessed country I’ve ever seen. Canada and the US, as bad as they are, have nothing on Korea. So many people stopped to check themselves out using the pillar that I lost count. It was ridiculous. I already knew Koreans loved mirrors as much as they love kimchi but...a reflective pillar in a dark club? And not just quick glances, these were long drawn out studies. For real, Korea? Basement Jaxx wrapped up, closing with a horns rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody (I still remember all of the lyrics, I discovered). Then I went off to meet R&J though I got lost on the way. But I had a nice refreshing night time walk. Walking at night in Korea isn’t generally a big deal. When I finally arrived I found them having a snack in a little food tent. Food tents are all over the place but especially in club / bar areas. Some very drunk Korean-American dudes tried to talk to us. When we left, we walked to the subway and took the first train of the morning, at 5:30 am. That’s right, we took the subway home at 5:30 am after a night out. And let me tell you, the subway was very busy indeed. It was nuts seeing that many people of all ages waiting for the train at that hour. But it makes sense in that it isn’t weird to sleep just anywhere in Korea so presumably some of these people had been sleeping before that time. In fact, at Eden I saw a guy asleep in a booth and no one look at him twice. Considering the fact that that’s illegal at home, it was rather funny to see. On the train, K&J fell asleep on my shoulders while I talked to these two dudes who had carried their super drunk female friend on to the train a couple of stops after we got on. Their friend promptly fell asleep on Rasheeda’s shoulder. One was a South Asian dude from San Francisco in Korea on business and the other was a Korean dude who works for Lotte, one of the companies that owns insane amounts of stuff in Korea.
Sunday, I got up at noon and left Rasheeda’s to go to the train station. I did a little wandering in the area before buying my ticket and heading home. So here I am on the train. I’ve just been informed that I’m going through central Gimcheon by some specially mown grass.
So that was my weekend in Seoul. I had planned to include last weekend in this entry but this is already super long so I’ll just write another entry later in the week and resign myself to being totally disordered. The point is, I had a glorious time in Seoul. And now, heading home to cook for the week and have some quiet time before starting the new week, I am sure I shall be making many a trip to Seoul this year, especially now that spring has sprung. Bizarrely, the arrival of spring always makes me think of this crazy Medieval song that Professor Powell sang to us on the first day of my first university English class. the song is about the arrival of spring and how frisky it makes everyone. It includes a line about bucks farting.
I feel like this weekend has really solidified my love for Korea. It’s such a crazy, chaotic, sometimes utterly nonsensical place and I can’t help but respond to that. And there’s something really interesting about living somewhere as an expat. I think it suits me.
Love,
AAA
P.S. Couldn’t leave you without the usual musical suggestion. This song is Paradise by Eddie, a little R&B number that I quite like. Bam!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1fpGh4qG2g
P.P.S. The countryside is really interesting, by the way. Very hilly, with lots of small fields and tin roofed houses.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Majultob?
Friday night, ladies and gentlemen. So far it’s been a pretty quiet one. I went to Daiso, this Japanese chain store that is like a good quality dollar store, to pick up some picture frames for the gorgeous pics Ambreen sent me. The world needs to see how cute I look in salwar kameez. Then I went on a mission to try yet another café. This time it’s Hollys Coffee, which I’m not particularly impressed with. They don’t have good window seats, so its not super ideal for people watching. It’s actually right across the street from the place I wrote the last entry.
I’ve actually been frequenting this place called Selu Coffee that’s about 3 minutes from work (8 if the intersection acts like a jerk) during break at work, mostly because of their delightful bathroom. 2,400 won is a small price to pay for a warm seat and warm water (and hot chocolate, which is good too). I’ve improved at squatting but sometimes a girl really needs a seat. I also think I’m never going to get used to the whole toilet paper in the garbage can thing. I understand the reasons but I feel horrible for whoever’s job it is to clean that up.
I don’t plan on talking much about work on this blog for a number of reasons, the most important being that it would probably be boring for you to raed (whereas I know you are riveted by tales of toilets and traffic :P). But to speak hypothetically for a moment, let me say this:
Let’s say you work in a box factory and you make, say, 2 million boxes a week. And one day, you’re boss comes in and says he wants to pay you overtime to stay late and make 4 million boxes a week instead. Now you really value your free time and you live quite comfortably, so the overtime pay isn’t that exciting. Later, you find out that your boss wants all that overtime work to be done because he wants 8 million boxes made before he leaves to go lie on a beach for a month. Wouldn’t that make you a little peeved? (As an aside, this scenario has put the “Yo, my name is Joe, and I work in a button factory” song in my head).
In other news, it’s sort of crazy that I’ve only been here for a little over a month so far. It feels like longer. I’ve settled in pretty quickly, I suppose. But I do have to remind myself that it hasn’t been very long because sometimes I feel like I’m not getting started fast enough on some stuff, like taking Korean lessons, but then I’ll remembered that I can hardly expect myself to be on top of everything already. I’ve also just locked myself into taking the GRE English subject test in early April so I’ll have to do some studying for that (boo! hiss!). I have to go check out the university it’s at (Keimyoung, it’s called) before hand so I can know where I’m going and how long it takes to get there. It’ll be cool to get to see a Korean Uni in action. But yeah, the point is, rushing is for suckas. I am pleased with the opportunity to take my sweet time doing things right now.
Oh, you may find this entertaining: there’s this kpop song out right now called “Mazeltov.” Weird, right? Even stranger is the fact that there is no discernable reason for the name. In the song, they mention Mexican girls, Korean girls, Japanese girls – no talk of Jewish girls at all. What’s more, no one knows what the heck mazel tov means over here – people have been asking their students. I can’t imagine that the dudes singing the song know either. So whoever wrote it either randomly chose the word because they thought it sounded fun (pronounced “Majultob” Korean style) or know what it means and think it’s hilarious to confuse everybody. Oh kpop, your use of any language other than Korean is always so crazy.
So I paused writing for a bit to look through a men’s fashion magazine (cuz you know I never look at the ones for women) and came across some appealing info: Basement Jaxx are going to be in Seoul next weekend. I have decided to go. Very exciting. I totally love Basement Jaxx. Anyway, I think if I buy clothes in Korea it’ll probably end up being men’s clothes; Korean women’s fashion is just way too girly for me (plus men’s clothes probably come in slightly bigger sizes). I can’t wait until it’s warmer and I can stop wearing this dang coat. It’s been good to me, but I really would rather be wearing less clothing all the time. What? I’ll tell you a bit of Korean women’s fashion that needs to die: hairy vests. I just saw this woman in this heinous pink sweat suit thing with a hairy white vest over top. Offensive.
This entry’s music recommendation is a little tune by a group called SHINee, which is pronounced shiny even though it totally looks like shinny. I rather like these kids (literally kids – like many kpop singers, they are ludicrously young). The first song I’ll link is their debut track, “Noona is so pretty” (noona is what boys call either their older sister or familiar girls older than themselves), from a couple of years ago, and the second one is their most recent song “Ring Ding Dong” that boasts some highly nonsensical English lyrics. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1HAazRvDP4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roughtzsCDI
Love,
AAA
P.S. I suppose I should also link the crazy Mazeltov song. Here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTkJ9UK3JsQ
P.P.S. I stopped by a little cupcake spot post hot choco-ing and, apart from consuming two small but tasty cupcakes, I’m not watching a couple eat cupcakes, and the dude is eating his cupcake with a spoon. A spoon! Who does? Anyway, I’ve also discovered the secret to desserts in SK: its better to not go with chocolate items because they are never quite chocolaty enough. But other flavours, like the raspberry cupcake I just ate, can be quite delicious and don’t have any associated let downness.
I’ve actually been frequenting this place called Selu Coffee that’s about 3 minutes from work (8 if the intersection acts like a jerk) during break at work, mostly because of their delightful bathroom. 2,400 won is a small price to pay for a warm seat and warm water (and hot chocolate, which is good too). I’ve improved at squatting but sometimes a girl really needs a seat. I also think I’m never going to get used to the whole toilet paper in the garbage can thing. I understand the reasons but I feel horrible for whoever’s job it is to clean that up.
I don’t plan on talking much about work on this blog for a number of reasons, the most important being that it would probably be boring for you to raed (whereas I know you are riveted by tales of toilets and traffic :P). But to speak hypothetically for a moment, let me say this:
Let’s say you work in a box factory and you make, say, 2 million boxes a week. And one day, you’re boss comes in and says he wants to pay you overtime to stay late and make 4 million boxes a week instead. Now you really value your free time and you live quite comfortably, so the overtime pay isn’t that exciting. Later, you find out that your boss wants all that overtime work to be done because he wants 8 million boxes made before he leaves to go lie on a beach for a month. Wouldn’t that make you a little peeved? (As an aside, this scenario has put the “Yo, my name is Joe, and I work in a button factory” song in my head).
In other news, it’s sort of crazy that I’ve only been here for a little over a month so far. It feels like longer. I’ve settled in pretty quickly, I suppose. But I do have to remind myself that it hasn’t been very long because sometimes I feel like I’m not getting started fast enough on some stuff, like taking Korean lessons, but then I’ll remembered that I can hardly expect myself to be on top of everything already. I’ve also just locked myself into taking the GRE English subject test in early April so I’ll have to do some studying for that (boo! hiss!). I have to go check out the university it’s at (Keimyoung, it’s called) before hand so I can know where I’m going and how long it takes to get there. It’ll be cool to get to see a Korean Uni in action. But yeah, the point is, rushing is for suckas. I am pleased with the opportunity to take my sweet time doing things right now.
Oh, you may find this entertaining: there’s this kpop song out right now called “Mazeltov.” Weird, right? Even stranger is the fact that there is no discernable reason for the name. In the song, they mention Mexican girls, Korean girls, Japanese girls – no talk of Jewish girls at all. What’s more, no one knows what the heck mazel tov means over here – people have been asking their students. I can’t imagine that the dudes singing the song know either. So whoever wrote it either randomly chose the word because they thought it sounded fun (pronounced “Majultob” Korean style) or know what it means and think it’s hilarious to confuse everybody. Oh kpop, your use of any language other than Korean is always so crazy.
So I paused writing for a bit to look through a men’s fashion magazine (cuz you know I never look at the ones for women) and came across some appealing info: Basement Jaxx are going to be in Seoul next weekend. I have decided to go. Very exciting. I totally love Basement Jaxx. Anyway, I think if I buy clothes in Korea it’ll probably end up being men’s clothes; Korean women’s fashion is just way too girly for me (plus men’s clothes probably come in slightly bigger sizes). I can’t wait until it’s warmer and I can stop wearing this dang coat. It’s been good to me, but I really would rather be wearing less clothing all the time. What? I’ll tell you a bit of Korean women’s fashion that needs to die: hairy vests. I just saw this woman in this heinous pink sweat suit thing with a hairy white vest over top. Offensive.
This entry’s music recommendation is a little tune by a group called SHINee, which is pronounced shiny even though it totally looks like shinny. I rather like these kids (literally kids – like many kpop singers, they are ludicrously young). The first song I’ll link is their debut track, “Noona is so pretty” (noona is what boys call either their older sister or familiar girls older than themselves), from a couple of years ago, and the second one is their most recent song “Ring Ding Dong” that boasts some highly nonsensical English lyrics. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1HAazRvDP4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roughtzsCDI
Love,
AAA
P.S. I suppose I should also link the crazy Mazeltov song. Here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTkJ9UK3JsQ
P.P.S. I stopped by a little cupcake spot post hot choco-ing and, apart from consuming two small but tasty cupcakes, I’m not watching a couple eat cupcakes, and the dude is eating his cupcake with a spoon. A spoon! Who does? Anyway, I’ve also discovered the secret to desserts in SK: its better to not go with chocolate items because they are never quite chocolaty enough. But other flavours, like the raspberry cupcake I just ate, can be quite delicious and don’t have any associated let downness.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Getting Lunar
(written Saturday afternoon)
Today’s entry comes to you from the third floor of Angel-in-Us Coffee in downtown Daegu. I’m looking down on the bustling streets of the shopping district, drinking some very tasty (albeit expensive) hot chocolate, or hot choco, as you have to call it here if you want people to know what you are saying. Konglish is a funny thing – there are some English loan words that Koreans use all the time that they will just not understand if you use the English pronunciation. Example: if you get into a cab and say “E-mart ka juseyo” the cab driver will either be confused, or repeat, “E-mah-tuh?” to see if that’s what you meant. You can never underestimate the power of the “uh” at the end of a word that ends with a consonant.
On the same level where I am sitting, across the street is the Canadian Students Association, which is interesting. I wonder what they do? I was actually thinking of doing some investigating into Korea’s academic scene. It would be interesting to write an article for a Korean journal, even if I had to get it translated. Speaking of academics, I did some research the other day and discovered that I could take the GRE English Subject Test in Daegu on April 10th. While I’m vehemently against standardized testing, and I’m not really that into the idea of living in the States, it is worth it to keep my options open.
Beside the Canadian Students Association is Davinci Coffee, one of the café chains I haven’t tried yet. Their sign says “The top of pride there is Davinci.”
Speaking of strange English usage, I visited a little underground vintage shop earlier. It felt just like one at home, only with smaller clothes. There I found a t-shirt that said “Hereditaty Infulence,” proving that people really need to spell check t-shirts. I also found a pair of those wonderful Pakistani curl toe shoes that I’ve always wanted. They even fit! But when I took them to the counter, the guy, who I think was Japanese, told me they were just for display and not for sale. Alas the day.
On a totally unrelated note, Koreans run a lot. The Korean staff in the office often run from place to place for no discernable reason. And I find the frequency with which Korean women run particularly because so many of them wear such unconscionably high heels all the time. The constant clacking of high heels everywhere will hopefully stop getting on my nerves with time. I’m also becoming my parents in one oddly specific way: I regularly feel the urge to yell “Pick up your feet!” at strangers on the street who inexplicably drag their feet as if they are Igor.
Do it’s Seolnar, aka Lunar new year, on Monday. So happy new year everybody! We get Monday off of work (woowoo!). We also received a little Korean equivalent of a pizza party during afternoon break on Friday. We ate fish cakes and ddukbokki, which is rice cakes in a very spicy sauce. Every major holiday, apparently, everyone gets a gift from the company. This year, we all got two big boxes of seaweed. What, you ask, will I do with two boxes of seaweed? Absolutely nothing since I don’t even really like seaweed. I’ll eat it if it’s in soup or kimbap but I’ll never cook with it or eat it by itself. I’m thinking of mailing it to Kai.
A funny thing about this area is that a lot of the streets look like the sort of streets that would be pedestrian only but they totally aren’t, even the really narrow ones. So even though everyone walks in the middle of the street anyway, you regularly get honked at and have to move to the side. I just saw the McDonald’s delivery guy (yes Mickey-D’s delivers over here) almost collide with another motorcycle.
Yesterday the glorious Maanda came into town because today she and Bryan are off on a ski trip that they tried to peer pressure me into doing too. I resisted, having not skied since the grade 7 ski trip and having absolutely zero confidence in my skill. So instead I’m spending the weekend kicking back, meeting up with folks (including another former guelphite who is coming in from Busan). Tonight I’m supposed to go to my first ever nonforeigner dominated club, which should be fun. I’ll let you know how it goes.
The guy sitting across from me is singing to himself while working on what ooks to be some kind of workbook. A funny thing that’s been happening recently is that I sometimes see people who look like the Korean equivalent of someone I know from back home / elsewhere in the world. Not any close friends yet, but I’ll let you know if I find any.
Okay time to wrap this baby up. Today’s music rec is Taeyang (one of the members of the very popular group Big Bang) with his solo song “Wedding Dress.” Songs with this particular theme (which you can gather from the video even if you don’t understand the lyrics) always do it for me because I can relate to them an embarrassing degree. Goodtimes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIt6KCwlFPw
Love,
AAA
p.s. I want you all to know that I really do appreciate any comments you want to leave. I suppose it is hard to comment on someone’s personal ramblings but still, feel free.
Today’s entry comes to you from the third floor of Angel-in-Us Coffee in downtown Daegu. I’m looking down on the bustling streets of the shopping district, drinking some very tasty (albeit expensive) hot chocolate, or hot choco, as you have to call it here if you want people to know what you are saying. Konglish is a funny thing – there are some English loan words that Koreans use all the time that they will just not understand if you use the English pronunciation. Example: if you get into a cab and say “E-mart ka juseyo” the cab driver will either be confused, or repeat, “E-mah-tuh?” to see if that’s what you meant. You can never underestimate the power of the “uh” at the end of a word that ends with a consonant.
On the same level where I am sitting, across the street is the Canadian Students Association, which is interesting. I wonder what they do? I was actually thinking of doing some investigating into Korea’s academic scene. It would be interesting to write an article for a Korean journal, even if I had to get it translated. Speaking of academics, I did some research the other day and discovered that I could take the GRE English Subject Test in Daegu on April 10th. While I’m vehemently against standardized testing, and I’m not really that into the idea of living in the States, it is worth it to keep my options open.
Beside the Canadian Students Association is Davinci Coffee, one of the café chains I haven’t tried yet. Their sign says “The top of pride there is Davinci.”
Speaking of strange English usage, I visited a little underground vintage shop earlier. It felt just like one at home, only with smaller clothes. There I found a t-shirt that said “Hereditaty Infulence,” proving that people really need to spell check t-shirts. I also found a pair of those wonderful Pakistani curl toe shoes that I’ve always wanted. They even fit! But when I took them to the counter, the guy, who I think was Japanese, told me they were just for display and not for sale. Alas the day.
On a totally unrelated note, Koreans run a lot. The Korean staff in the office often run from place to place for no discernable reason. And I find the frequency with which Korean women run particularly because so many of them wear such unconscionably high heels all the time. The constant clacking of high heels everywhere will hopefully stop getting on my nerves with time. I’m also becoming my parents in one oddly specific way: I regularly feel the urge to yell “Pick up your feet!” at strangers on the street who inexplicably drag their feet as if they are Igor.
Do it’s Seolnar, aka Lunar new year, on Monday. So happy new year everybody! We get Monday off of work (woowoo!). We also received a little Korean equivalent of a pizza party during afternoon break on Friday. We ate fish cakes and ddukbokki, which is rice cakes in a very spicy sauce. Every major holiday, apparently, everyone gets a gift from the company. This year, we all got two big boxes of seaweed. What, you ask, will I do with two boxes of seaweed? Absolutely nothing since I don’t even really like seaweed. I’ll eat it if it’s in soup or kimbap but I’ll never cook with it or eat it by itself. I’m thinking of mailing it to Kai.
A funny thing about this area is that a lot of the streets look like the sort of streets that would be pedestrian only but they totally aren’t, even the really narrow ones. So even though everyone walks in the middle of the street anyway, you regularly get honked at and have to move to the side. I just saw the McDonald’s delivery guy (yes Mickey-D’s delivers over here) almost collide with another motorcycle.
Yesterday the glorious Maanda came into town because today she and Bryan are off on a ski trip that they tried to peer pressure me into doing too. I resisted, having not skied since the grade 7 ski trip and having absolutely zero confidence in my skill. So instead I’m spending the weekend kicking back, meeting up with folks (including another former guelphite who is coming in from Busan). Tonight I’m supposed to go to my first ever nonforeigner dominated club, which should be fun. I’ll let you know how it goes.
The guy sitting across from me is singing to himself while working on what ooks to be some kind of workbook. A funny thing that’s been happening recently is that I sometimes see people who look like the Korean equivalent of someone I know from back home / elsewhere in the world. Not any close friends yet, but I’ll let you know if I find any.
Okay time to wrap this baby up. Today’s music rec is Taeyang (one of the members of the very popular group Big Bang) with his solo song “Wedding Dress.” Songs with this particular theme (which you can gather from the video even if you don’t understand the lyrics) always do it for me because I can relate to them an embarrassing degree. Goodtimes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIt6KCwlFPw
Love,
AAA
p.s. I want you all to know that I really do appreciate any comments you want to leave. I suppose it is hard to comment on someone’s personal ramblings but still, feel free.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Institutions
Another day, another café. I know it must seem like I do this a lot but it’s mostly because I’ve found that the way for me to actually write blog entries is to do it longhand and outside of my apartment. So right now I’m sitting in Hands Coffee, with its bright yellow walls and Franco-African background music. The female barista seems to be really excited about something and is celebrating by flailing her arms and covering her mouth in a hilarious manner.
So in case you are worried about chronology (you’re almost definitely not) the entries I posted on Sunday were actually written during the week; I just posted them then because I had time. In the spirit of the last entry, I wanted to mention another one of my weirdo characteristics. It’s one I’ve been noticing more recently for reasons that I will explain. I notice that when someone tells me about their problems and/or various life situations, I start throwing out advice and commentary right from the get go, regardless of how well I know the person. Now, one of the things about living in a country where you know that most of the population can’t understand you is that you (and by “you” I mean all of the foreigners I’ve met so far) will have conversations in public that you absolutely wouldn’t at home. So, over food and drink, I have been treated to some very personal tales (rest assured I am not complaining; you know I love knowing people’s business) and have been more than ready to state my perspective on such tales to people I’ve known for less than a month.
On Saturday I finally made it to the jimjilbang. I met up with Bryan and some of his martial arts peeps. Only one other woman decided to come along, J, a cool South African from Durban, so she and I got to do some good hanging out while in the ladies’ section. The jimjilbang is divided into ladies’, men’s and coed sections because in the hot tubs and saunas you have to be naked but in the heated floor section, you wear a gym class-esque outfit so you can hang out with the other gender. J told me about the tough time she’s had in Korea because of her accent. I think it’s ridiculous to expect everyone to talk like Americans when they make up only one, admittedly loud, section of the English speaking world. Plus it’s just douchy to hire someone knowing what their accent sounds like and then punish them for it. Anyway, the jimjilbang was delightful and refreshing. That evening, I went out to celebrate Nakia’s birthday, which was tons of fun. Despite the late night, my body woke me up early (by my standards) on Sunday morning. Nakia, sweetheart that she is, took me to Costco that afternoon. Now I don’t go to Costco back home so this was my first experience with Costco in any context, so all I can say is that Costco in Daegu on a Sunday afternoon is C-R-A-Z-Y-T-O-W-N. As Nakia would say, everyone and their granny was there. The place is huge and still it was packed. First thing we did was eat their straight up delicious food. I had my first slice of pizza in like a month and a half and it tasted like cheesy heaven. They also serve these things called “chicken bake” and “bulgogi bake” which are bread stuffed with cheese and either chicken or bulgogi. I got the chicken one and it was sooooo good. Next time, bulgogi. Of course, next time won’t be for a long time because bulk shopping means I won’t be needing a lot of things for at least a couple of months. I bought a humungous apple pie that I’m very pleased with. Tomorrow I’m going to cook some of my haul. Gone are the days when all my freezer held was ice cream and don-kas (pork cutlet or don katsu); now, it houses a ton of ground beef, half a blog of cheese and a big bag of ravioli.
Since I’ve been writing, I received “service” (re: free) coffee and watch a girl come in and spend several minutes combing her bangs while eating cake (I suppose I am West Indian enough to think that playing with hair while eating is disgusting). Her friend just arrived and looks like she is apologizing for being late. I can’t evesdrop in my usual fashion because my Korean isn’t good enough, though I can always tell when people are talking about me because I can hear them say “weiguk” which means foreigner.
This coffee is making me too sleepy to keep writing so I’ll have to wrap this up so I can walk home. As for today’s musical recommendation, I give you Clazziquai, one of the first Korean groups I ever got into. I found out about them because they contributed to the soundtrack of “My Lovely Kim Sam Soon,” one of the first kdramas I ever watched and an all time favourite. Clazziquai’s delightful mix of electronica, jazz and pop (and even bossanova on a number of tracks) really pleases me. Also I’m entertained by their sometimes nonsensical use of English. They have a good mix of tempos so I’m offering one high energy, one mid tempo and one mellow track.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj6roS5q2QI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy7gaLP08Mw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4xsv7hcqBM
Love,
AAA
So in case you are worried about chronology (you’re almost definitely not) the entries I posted on Sunday were actually written during the week; I just posted them then because I had time. In the spirit of the last entry, I wanted to mention another one of my weirdo characteristics. It’s one I’ve been noticing more recently for reasons that I will explain. I notice that when someone tells me about their problems and/or various life situations, I start throwing out advice and commentary right from the get go, regardless of how well I know the person. Now, one of the things about living in a country where you know that most of the population can’t understand you is that you (and by “you” I mean all of the foreigners I’ve met so far) will have conversations in public that you absolutely wouldn’t at home. So, over food and drink, I have been treated to some very personal tales (rest assured I am not complaining; you know I love knowing people’s business) and have been more than ready to state my perspective on such tales to people I’ve known for less than a month.
On Saturday I finally made it to the jimjilbang. I met up with Bryan and some of his martial arts peeps. Only one other woman decided to come along, J, a cool South African from Durban, so she and I got to do some good hanging out while in the ladies’ section. The jimjilbang is divided into ladies’, men’s and coed sections because in the hot tubs and saunas you have to be naked but in the heated floor section, you wear a gym class-esque outfit so you can hang out with the other gender. J told me about the tough time she’s had in Korea because of her accent. I think it’s ridiculous to expect everyone to talk like Americans when they make up only one, admittedly loud, section of the English speaking world. Plus it’s just douchy to hire someone knowing what their accent sounds like and then punish them for it. Anyway, the jimjilbang was delightful and refreshing. That evening, I went out to celebrate Nakia’s birthday, which was tons of fun. Despite the late night, my body woke me up early (by my standards) on Sunday morning. Nakia, sweetheart that she is, took me to Costco that afternoon. Now I don’t go to Costco back home so this was my first experience with Costco in any context, so all I can say is that Costco in Daegu on a Sunday afternoon is C-R-A-Z-Y-T-O-W-N. As Nakia would say, everyone and their granny was there. The place is huge and still it was packed. First thing we did was eat their straight up delicious food. I had my first slice of pizza in like a month and a half and it tasted like cheesy heaven. They also serve these things called “chicken bake” and “bulgogi bake” which are bread stuffed with cheese and either chicken or bulgogi. I got the chicken one and it was sooooo good. Next time, bulgogi. Of course, next time won’t be for a long time because bulk shopping means I won’t be needing a lot of things for at least a couple of months. I bought a humungous apple pie that I’m very pleased with. Tomorrow I’m going to cook some of my haul. Gone are the days when all my freezer held was ice cream and don-kas (pork cutlet or don katsu); now, it houses a ton of ground beef, half a blog of cheese and a big bag of ravioli.
Since I’ve been writing, I received “service” (re: free) coffee and watch a girl come in and spend several minutes combing her bangs while eating cake (I suppose I am West Indian enough to think that playing with hair while eating is disgusting). Her friend just arrived and looks like she is apologizing for being late. I can’t evesdrop in my usual fashion because my Korean isn’t good enough, though I can always tell when people are talking about me because I can hear them say “weiguk” which means foreigner.
This coffee is making me too sleepy to keep writing so I’ll have to wrap this up so I can walk home. As for today’s musical recommendation, I give you Clazziquai, one of the first Korean groups I ever got into. I found out about them because they contributed to the soundtrack of “My Lovely Kim Sam Soon,” one of the first kdramas I ever watched and an all time favourite. Clazziquai’s delightful mix of electronica, jazz and pop (and even bossanova on a number of tracks) really pleases me. Also I’m entertained by their sometimes nonsensical use of English. They have a good mix of tempos so I’m offering one high energy, one mid tempo and one mellow track.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj6roS5q2QI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy7gaLP08Mw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4xsv7hcqBM
Love,
AAA
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Asha All Up in Her Own Business
So it’s kind of funny, this blog represents simultaneously one thing I really want to do more of while in Korea – write – and one thing I really want to be less of – an observer. I spend a lot of time and really enjoy watching other people’s lives. Today, I’m sitting in a gelato and waffle (wapple if you say it the Korean way) place across the street from Emart where I went to buy a laundry bag so the washing machine doesn’t tear my clothes apart. I am, as always, observing. I just saw a guy walk in carrying not one but four purses, presumably all belonging to the same girlfriend (though maybe one of them is his). I unabashedly love watching other people’s lives but I do worry sometimes that I spend too much time watching and not enough time living. More time theorizing than testing theories. I’m not entirely sure how to do things different though. I do need to learn – my plan to go travelling by myself depends on my ability to go places and directly engage with them rather than just watching. I like to think of myself as a very embodied person but sometime I think that I act like a big eye with an arm attached for writing. Which is not the best way to be.
Connected to the be more of a participant goal is to be more of a risk taker. When I tell people I’m not a risk taker, they often argue with me or are surprised. But tis true; pretty much everything I decide to do, I’m already pretty sure I’m good at it / capable of it. Coming to Korea itself was a very calculated risk: yeah I’d never lived in another country before but I’d visited Korea, knew tons of people who were already here and already knew I like the food. I’m too much of a planner by half. So this year, I’m really going to try to be more adventurous. Maybe occasionally do something spontaneous. And maybe even spend less time being a floating eye. I’ll let you guys know how it goes.
As for today’s music suggestion, I give you one of this year’s big girl groups, 4minute. This song, at least title wise, is pretty appropriate for this entry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLDS6fWk2NY
Love,
AAA
Connected to the be more of a participant goal is to be more of a risk taker. When I tell people I’m not a risk taker, they often argue with me or are surprised. But tis true; pretty much everything I decide to do, I’m already pretty sure I’m good at it / capable of it. Coming to Korea itself was a very calculated risk: yeah I’d never lived in another country before but I’d visited Korea, knew tons of people who were already here and already knew I like the food. I’m too much of a planner by half. So this year, I’m really going to try to be more adventurous. Maybe occasionally do something spontaneous. And maybe even spend less time being a floating eye. I’ll let you guys know how it goes.
As for today’s music suggestion, I give you one of this year’s big girl groups, 4minute. This song, at least title wise, is pretty appropriate for this entry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLDS6fWk2NY
Love,
AAA
Asha All Up In Korea's Business
SK isn’t really all that different from any place where people were really poor and are now less so. So yeah, Korea can seem very materialistic. And it is. But for some pretty clear historical reasons, I think. It’s not even like the history of war and postwar poverty is all that hidden. On two occasions, I’ve been downtown and saw a man with no legs pushing himself down the street on his stomach on one of those square boards on wheels that you drag your friends around on in elementary school gym class. The first time, I was really shocked and looked around, seeing if anyone was reacting. No one was. It didn’t look like he was begging in any recognizable way, though he was dragging something along behind hm. Even apart from this rather stark example, one just as to look at some of the ahjummas and ahjussis (older women and men, respectively) you see on the street going about their business. Their coarse, voluminous pants, stooped backs and farmer-esque visors. their big carts that look sharply out of place as they roll past stores selling Louis Vuitton and Guess. It’s a trip seeing ahjummas and young women juxtaposed. The obvious strength and forecefullness of the ahjummas beside the delicate (real or feigned) femininity of their granddaughters. Generation gaps and class gaps exist everywhere of course but I suppose it takes going somewhere new to see it so played out so obviously. In Korea, it almost looks like the working class and the middle class live in completely different countries, which is not something I’ve experienced before. I wonder if young Koreans are very aware of this contrast that they live. After I went to Beijing last year, people would ask me what I thought of it and I would talk about how Beijing feels like a really haphazard mishmash of times and styles. I see now that Korea has some of that same quality, just a little less obviously.
All of this makes me understand better why Korean kids are so terrifyingly overworked. I mean, the average Korean 11 year old seems to work harder and longer than I did doing my master’s. And while I don’t think that’s good, I can see how, with the spectre of war and poverty so close behind you, you might go a little overboard in wanting your children to succeed.
As for the issue of postwar American influence and Korea and its various side effects (including those hideous, obviously fake eye folds you see frequently around town – seriously, if you are going to have an invasive, arguably self-hating surgery, at least get one that looks even vaguely natural), that is a whole ‘nother entry.
On a far lighter note, I find it remarkably difficult to guess age in Korea. Do sometimes I’ll think some random guy is cute and then spend several minutes worrying that he’s super young. One thing is for sure: Korea has the least scary police officers in the world. Half of them look about 12 and there really isn’t anything at all intimidating in their demeanour. There’s a police station not too far from work and one day I was walking to Dunkin Donuts when I saw a group of guys in matching grey coats. “Oh, what is this, a field trip?” I wondered. Turns out, it was the cops. I’d be curious to see if they seem more authoritative in action, but it’s hard to imagine. When I think back to being in Spain and having my Aunty Eve tell me not to ever make eye contact with Spanish police because they were that intense, I don’t know if anything could shake my mild mental image of Korean police. It doesn’t help that they have a cute cartoon animal on the sign outside the station.
And now for this entry’s music rec – the impressive Yoon Mirae, aka Tasha, a half African American half Korean woman rapper. She’s married to the guy from my link in my second entry. Hip hop couple = too adorable to be borne.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0_dCn7gZXg
Love,
AAA
All of this makes me understand better why Korean kids are so terrifyingly overworked. I mean, the average Korean 11 year old seems to work harder and longer than I did doing my master’s. And while I don’t think that’s good, I can see how, with the spectre of war and poverty so close behind you, you might go a little overboard in wanting your children to succeed.
As for the issue of postwar American influence and Korea and its various side effects (including those hideous, obviously fake eye folds you see frequently around town – seriously, if you are going to have an invasive, arguably self-hating surgery, at least get one that looks even vaguely natural), that is a whole ‘nother entry.
On a far lighter note, I find it remarkably difficult to guess age in Korea. Do sometimes I’ll think some random guy is cute and then spend several minutes worrying that he’s super young. One thing is for sure: Korea has the least scary police officers in the world. Half of them look about 12 and there really isn’t anything at all intimidating in their demeanour. There’s a police station not too far from work and one day I was walking to Dunkin Donuts when I saw a group of guys in matching grey coats. “Oh, what is this, a field trip?” I wondered. Turns out, it was the cops. I’d be curious to see if they seem more authoritative in action, but it’s hard to imagine. When I think back to being in Spain and having my Aunty Eve tell me not to ever make eye contact with Spanish police because they were that intense, I don’t know if anything could shake my mild mental image of Korean police. It doesn’t help that they have a cute cartoon animal on the sign outside the station.
And now for this entry’s music rec – the impressive Yoon Mirae, aka Tasha, a half African American half Korean woman rapper. She’s married to the guy from my link in my second entry. Hip hop couple = too adorable to be borne.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0_dCn7gZXg
Love,
AAA
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Words and Deeds
This entry comes to you from a different Daegu café than the last. This place is called Seven Monkeys, and was constructed during the time I’ve been here. I walk by it every day on the way to work and, having seen its birth, I suppose I feel a special kinship to it. Rather than pay for overpriced tea this time, I got a cappuccino, with which I received a free banana, in keeping with the monkey theme. Across the street is a gym that also contains a hair salon and a place to play screen golf.
On Tuesday, I went on a mission to buy ice cream. I started walking in a direction I hadn’t been yet, reasoning that, since I knew there wasn’t ice cream in the directions I’d already been, it had to be that way. Of course once I set off the pleasure of walking around and looking at stuff distracted me from my purpose. I saw a slew of golf clothing stores, which made me giggle. I was having so much fun wandering that when I came upon a Baskin Robbins, I decided to walk some more and then come back to it. When I returned to BR, I bought a pint of cookies and cream. The cashier asked me how long it was to my destination, and I said ten minutes, though I was at a loss as to why it mattered. When I got home , I took the ice cream out of the bag and a little cloth baggy fell to the floor, containing what looked like ice. When I went to pick it up, I quickly discovered it was too cold to be regular ice. I threw it into the sink and it landed in a pot filled with water (the pot with which I’d had my first, very unsuccessful attempt at cooking sticky rice without a rice cooker) and proceeded to bubble in an alarmingly unnatural way for a good ten minutes. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I learned that they give you dry ice to keep your ice cream cold.
On Sunday, it was gloriously, unseasonably warm. I collected Bryan and we went on a delightful walk to Emart. I’d only gone to Emart by cab before this. I was in a very good mood, and when I’m in a good mood it really shows, which is probably why two separate strangers said hello and asked me where I was from, which is the classic “I’m talking to a foreigner” dialogue, but (as far as I can tell) you don’t get it that much spontaneously on the street. I suppose I do look pretty approachable.
On Saturday, I spent most of the day relaxing. It was Adom’s birthday so I talked to that crazy, quarter century old punk, which was lovely. Adom is a great brother and person, and since he’s the least vain of the three of us, he is probably embarrassed that I wrote that. Well suck it up, oppa. After that, I went downtown to go to the salsa party at the place where Melinda teaches. As you may recall, I’m not a good salsa dancer, but I am a champion people watcher so I had a really good time watch the dancing and trying to pick up on the stylistic differences between the “LA style” salsa popular in Korea and the “Cuban style” taught by Melinda and her fantastic co-instructor, Susy. I did actually end up dancing 5 times, and not making a complete fool of myself. The first guy I danced with was a regular who is friendly with M and S. In conversation, he mentioned that whenever he travels, the first thing he does is locate the salsa community in his new city because that’s the best way to make new friends who share a common interest. This got me thinking about my own tactics of adaptation. It’s a touch unfortunate that my dominant interest, books and literature, doesn’t lend itself to making local friends since it requires a high level of English proficiency. While I’d totally love to get into some Korean lit, not much has been translated and my Korean isn’t anywhere near reading even a picture book level. More bodily activities are better for crosslingual friendship making.
Friday, I joined Melinda for a trip to a new Tex Mex restaurant that she had to write a review of for the local mag she writes for. The resto was ultra weak. We waited 2 hours for our food and the food was seriously mediocre. Thank God we didn’t pay for it, otherwise – well, I wouldn’t have paid for it if it was two hours late regardless, which is saying something because I am usually very forgiving about these sorts of things. The co-owner was this American dude who, I am confident, had no idea what he was doing, either in restaurant running, or in food making. As I said later, I would take good Korean food in Korea over mediocre Western food, any day of the week.
Last night (chronological order is for suckas), I went out for galbi with the enjoyable Nakia, a coworker who has different hours than me so I only see her in the afternoons, and her friend who works elsewhere. Galbi was delicious as always and the conversation was most entertaining. Then me and Nakia did a little shopping and I started plotting what I will buy when I get paid.
Today was a triumphant day because I got my alien card, bank account and cell phone. BAM! I officially exist in this country. Now people don’t have to call people who might happen to be around me in order to talk to me. My cell phone is quite fancy and I’m sure it’ll take me a million years to learn how to use it (with my Canadian cell phone, I never learned how to text quickly, and that was way less complicated than doing it on this one).
I know it must seem like I am obsessed with Korean traffic, but there are some things I just can’t get over. If you thought motorcycles on the sidewalk was outrageous, then let me tell you about the times I’ve been on the sidewalk and I’ve looked over my shoulder to find a car inching along behind me. I just don’t get it. When I walk on the sidewalk here I feel like I have to be constantly vigilant or else I’ll get hit by something.
In other news, I get paid tomorrow! Oh my goodness. A real paycheck. I’m very excited. Money I worked for that I get to actually keep? Amazing!
Well, that’s all for now, kiddies. I should probably vacate Seven Monkeys and go home. Luckily, tomorrow is Friday which means its so close to the weekend I can taste it. Aw yeah.
Love,
AAA
p.s. almost broke my chain of music recommendations. A quirkier side to Korean music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjvW3LqtijA
On Tuesday, I went on a mission to buy ice cream. I started walking in a direction I hadn’t been yet, reasoning that, since I knew there wasn’t ice cream in the directions I’d already been, it had to be that way. Of course once I set off the pleasure of walking around and looking at stuff distracted me from my purpose. I saw a slew of golf clothing stores, which made me giggle. I was having so much fun wandering that when I came upon a Baskin Robbins, I decided to walk some more and then come back to it. When I returned to BR, I bought a pint of cookies and cream. The cashier asked me how long it was to my destination, and I said ten minutes, though I was at a loss as to why it mattered. When I got home , I took the ice cream out of the bag and a little cloth baggy fell to the floor, containing what looked like ice. When I went to pick it up, I quickly discovered it was too cold to be regular ice. I threw it into the sink and it landed in a pot filled with water (the pot with which I’d had my first, very unsuccessful attempt at cooking sticky rice without a rice cooker) and proceeded to bubble in an alarmingly unnatural way for a good ten minutes. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I learned that they give you dry ice to keep your ice cream cold.
On Sunday, it was gloriously, unseasonably warm. I collected Bryan and we went on a delightful walk to Emart. I’d only gone to Emart by cab before this. I was in a very good mood, and when I’m in a good mood it really shows, which is probably why two separate strangers said hello and asked me where I was from, which is the classic “I’m talking to a foreigner” dialogue, but (as far as I can tell) you don’t get it that much spontaneously on the street. I suppose I do look pretty approachable.
On Saturday, I spent most of the day relaxing. It was Adom’s birthday so I talked to that crazy, quarter century old punk, which was lovely. Adom is a great brother and person, and since he’s the least vain of the three of us, he is probably embarrassed that I wrote that. Well suck it up, oppa. After that, I went downtown to go to the salsa party at the place where Melinda teaches. As you may recall, I’m not a good salsa dancer, but I am a champion people watcher so I had a really good time watch the dancing and trying to pick up on the stylistic differences between the “LA style” salsa popular in Korea and the “Cuban style” taught by Melinda and her fantastic co-instructor, Susy. I did actually end up dancing 5 times, and not making a complete fool of myself. The first guy I danced with was a regular who is friendly with M and S. In conversation, he mentioned that whenever he travels, the first thing he does is locate the salsa community in his new city because that’s the best way to make new friends who share a common interest. This got me thinking about my own tactics of adaptation. It’s a touch unfortunate that my dominant interest, books and literature, doesn’t lend itself to making local friends since it requires a high level of English proficiency. While I’d totally love to get into some Korean lit, not much has been translated and my Korean isn’t anywhere near reading even a picture book level. More bodily activities are better for crosslingual friendship making.
Friday, I joined Melinda for a trip to a new Tex Mex restaurant that she had to write a review of for the local mag she writes for. The resto was ultra weak. We waited 2 hours for our food and the food was seriously mediocre. Thank God we didn’t pay for it, otherwise – well, I wouldn’t have paid for it if it was two hours late regardless, which is saying something because I am usually very forgiving about these sorts of things. The co-owner was this American dude who, I am confident, had no idea what he was doing, either in restaurant running, or in food making. As I said later, I would take good Korean food in Korea over mediocre Western food, any day of the week.
Last night (chronological order is for suckas), I went out for galbi with the enjoyable Nakia, a coworker who has different hours than me so I only see her in the afternoons, and her friend who works elsewhere. Galbi was delicious as always and the conversation was most entertaining. Then me and Nakia did a little shopping and I started plotting what I will buy when I get paid.
Today was a triumphant day because I got my alien card, bank account and cell phone. BAM! I officially exist in this country. Now people don’t have to call people who might happen to be around me in order to talk to me. My cell phone is quite fancy and I’m sure it’ll take me a million years to learn how to use it (with my Canadian cell phone, I never learned how to text quickly, and that was way less complicated than doing it on this one).
I know it must seem like I am obsessed with Korean traffic, but there are some things I just can’t get over. If you thought motorcycles on the sidewalk was outrageous, then let me tell you about the times I’ve been on the sidewalk and I’ve looked over my shoulder to find a car inching along behind me. I just don’t get it. When I walk on the sidewalk here I feel like I have to be constantly vigilant or else I’ll get hit by something.
In other news, I get paid tomorrow! Oh my goodness. A real paycheck. I’m very excited. Money I worked for that I get to actually keep? Amazing!
Well, that’s all for now, kiddies. I should probably vacate Seven Monkeys and go home. Luckily, tomorrow is Friday which means its so close to the weekend I can taste it. Aw yeah.
Love,
AAA
p.s. almost broke my chain of music recommendations. A quirkier side to Korean music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjvW3LqtijA
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Bonus Ramblings
This evening, I decided to go to a café for a little tea and reading time. I really like reading in public places, for whatever reason. So I walked over to a cute little place called Hue Story that is just down the main road from my place. If you were to judge the regular activities of Koreans based solely on what shops are most numerous, you would be convinced that all people did was drink coffee, eat out and talk on cell phones. This city is quite crawling with cafés. Hue Story is a cute little place with an exposed brick wall, Christmas lights and some kitschy decor including a high ledge that holds a skateboard and a random selection of university textbooks including Orthodontics, Power Electronics and Clinical Pedodontics.
I ordered a black tea but what I got tasted like a halfway between black and green (and was, as tea tends to be here, horrifically overpriced) and sat down to read Sandman vol 8. When I first arrived, a big group of girls sat at the tables beside me, giggling and chatting. When they left, they were replaced by a very quiet couple that, for a while, I thought didn’t speak at all.
Across the street from the café is the building of one of Korea’s big TV stations and I went walking in its pleasant little courtyard before I came to Hue Story. Attached to the building is a movie theatre that I might check out soon. It’s almost the weekend, which is exciting. I’m hope to take a little trip to the jimjilbang for a little TLC on Saturday. Jimjilbang are awesome, family-friendly, affordable spa places with hot tubs and saunas and hot floors to lie on. Totally my sort of places.
While we were wandering last Sunday, we passed a belly dancing studio which I also want to check out since I really liked taking belly dance lessons way back in Guelph.
Tonight feels like a night of random reflections and I shouldn’t waste this inexplicably mellow and talkative mood, so the rest of this entry is a bunch of observations / thoughts / mongoose.
Previously I mentioned the crazily wide roads around here. I said 6 to 8 lanes but I actually counted and the one I have to cross to go to work is in fact 12 lanes wide. For real. And yet there are still always cars parked on the sidewalk and at least twice I’ve been narrowly missed by motorcyclists careening along the sidewalk. I’m beginning to suspect that sidewalks here are conceptualized rather differently than I’m used to.
On a completely unrelated note, I the toilets at work are squatters. When I told my mom she was surprised because last year we only encountered squat toilets in China, but it seems like they are common in Korea, just not as much in Seoul. I’m not a very good squatter, for my shame, so it’s taking some getting used to. I do take the point that they are, in their way, more sanitary than seated toilets since everyone’s bare bum isn’t touching the same seat (though it’s a hell of a job not peeing on your pants when you are new to squatting) but since I’m not even close to being a germaphobe, I do prefer unsanitary over uncomfortable. Also, the bathrooms are horrifically cold, as is the water that comes out of the tap. So peeing at work = not that fun.
Another remembered tidbit: I’m definitely going to miss Canada’s non-smoking laws. By the time I came of age, smoking was already a no-no in bars and clubs (yeah, I’m so young, I know) and this fact becomes more valuable when you go to places where smoking is still a-okay in such places. Yuck.
Lastly on the miscellaneous thoughts train: much can be said about Korea’s incredible homogeneity. But the part of it that I am thinking about right now is that, when something is in style, a breathtakingly, incomparably large portion of the population is into it. An obvious example: shiny black coats. Seriously, young and old, male and female, a ridiculously high percentage of the population wears essentially the same winter coat. It’s actually pretty incredible. Even the most generally accepted trends in Canada can’t hope to be so ubiquitous.
To wrap up this meandering entry, I give you another lovely link. This group is huge in Korea as well as Southeast Asia /Oceania (I once saw a video of some Malaysia teen girls, including hijabis, doing a synchronized dance to one of their songs in the middle of a city square) and this song has the sexy sound of good old fashioned R&B. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvXMOSB5aqk
Love,
AAA
P.S. as an unrelated bonus, here is another link to an Iron & Wine song that I lovely like crazy and is highly appropriate for such a mellow mood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVwIBFEjQXY
I ordered a black tea but what I got tasted like a halfway between black and green (and was, as tea tends to be here, horrifically overpriced) and sat down to read Sandman vol 8. When I first arrived, a big group of girls sat at the tables beside me, giggling and chatting. When they left, they were replaced by a very quiet couple that, for a while, I thought didn’t speak at all.
Across the street from the café is the building of one of Korea’s big TV stations and I went walking in its pleasant little courtyard before I came to Hue Story. Attached to the building is a movie theatre that I might check out soon. It’s almost the weekend, which is exciting. I’m hope to take a little trip to the jimjilbang for a little TLC on Saturday. Jimjilbang are awesome, family-friendly, affordable spa places with hot tubs and saunas and hot floors to lie on. Totally my sort of places.
While we were wandering last Sunday, we passed a belly dancing studio which I also want to check out since I really liked taking belly dance lessons way back in Guelph.
Tonight feels like a night of random reflections and I shouldn’t waste this inexplicably mellow and talkative mood, so the rest of this entry is a bunch of observations / thoughts / mongoose.
Previously I mentioned the crazily wide roads around here. I said 6 to 8 lanes but I actually counted and the one I have to cross to go to work is in fact 12 lanes wide. For real. And yet there are still always cars parked on the sidewalk and at least twice I’ve been narrowly missed by motorcyclists careening along the sidewalk. I’m beginning to suspect that sidewalks here are conceptualized rather differently than I’m used to.
On a completely unrelated note, I the toilets at work are squatters. When I told my mom she was surprised because last year we only encountered squat toilets in China, but it seems like they are common in Korea, just not as much in Seoul. I’m not a very good squatter, for my shame, so it’s taking some getting used to. I do take the point that they are, in their way, more sanitary than seated toilets since everyone’s bare bum isn’t touching the same seat (though it’s a hell of a job not peeing on your pants when you are new to squatting) but since I’m not even close to being a germaphobe, I do prefer unsanitary over uncomfortable. Also, the bathrooms are horrifically cold, as is the water that comes out of the tap. So peeing at work = not that fun.
Another remembered tidbit: I’m definitely going to miss Canada’s non-smoking laws. By the time I came of age, smoking was already a no-no in bars and clubs (yeah, I’m so young, I know) and this fact becomes more valuable when you go to places where smoking is still a-okay in such places. Yuck.
Lastly on the miscellaneous thoughts train: much can be said about Korea’s incredible homogeneity. But the part of it that I am thinking about right now is that, when something is in style, a breathtakingly, incomparably large portion of the population is into it. An obvious example: shiny black coats. Seriously, young and old, male and female, a ridiculously high percentage of the population wears essentially the same winter coat. It’s actually pretty incredible. Even the most generally accepted trends in Canada can’t hope to be so ubiquitous.
To wrap up this meandering entry, I give you another lovely link. This group is huge in Korea as well as Southeast Asia /Oceania (I once saw a video of some Malaysia teen girls, including hijabis, doing a synchronized dance to one of their songs in the middle of a city square) and this song has the sexy sound of good old fashioned R&B. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvXMOSB5aqk
Love,
AAA
P.S. as an unrelated bonus, here is another link to an Iron & Wine song that I lovely like crazy and is highly appropriate for such a mellow mood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVwIBFEjQXY
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Back for more, are ye?
That’s right, everybody, here comes another one. And less than a week after the last one! Don’t get used to this kind of treatment.
So as of last night, I’ve been in Daegu for over a week. Things are still going very well. One of the funny and awesome things about being in here is that there is a whole lot of Guelph, Ontario in Daegu, South Korea. I work next to a fellow Guelphite, I live two doors down from another one, and I got a delightful visit this weekend from another, not to mention several others who work for the same company as me. It’s a huge relief coming into a new place but having familiar faces around, especially because opting for an office job means that if it weren’t for all these folks I would have had a way smaller network of people to hang out with.
So since you heard from me last, I finished up my first week on the job and enjoyed my first weekend of Daeguification. Friday involved going out to dinner at a very nice but rather cold Canadian-run spot with Melinda and some other cool folks. Turns out foreigners can’t own businesses in SK, which I didn’t know. The place is owned a Korean woman with a Canadian husband. The food was good; I had a very delicious hamburger with bacon on it. After dinner (during which several teachers, who don’t get off work ‘til late, joined us), we headed off and I was introduced to a couple of the very foreigner frequented clubs of Daegu. Those of you who are not very familiar with SK may not be aware that it is a society that really loves alcohol. A lot. It’s also a society that is pretty lax about public drunkenness. When we visited Adom last year, I was introduced to the phenomenon of drunken businessmen roaming the streets at all hours. Which is why it wasn’t quite so surprising when I found out about “bag drinks” which are plastic ziplock-esque bags filled with mix drinks that people can walk around the street sipping from with impunity. I’m sure SK has a drinking age, but I can’t imagine it is enforced very intensely. But back to the nightlife. Daegu is surrounded by several US military bases which really affects the nightlife because American GIs are, well, young people who enlisted in the army who are stationed in a place where they have relatively little to do other than cause trouble. I’m not all that into the military in general, and I don’t foresee this closer proximity reforming that opinion; I’ve already seen a fight amongst drunken military boys and girls outside of the club that they most often frequent, which was across the street from where we were. That isn’t to say that all military folk are annoying and/or douche-y. I met two perfectly nice Mexican-American military dudes at salsa. But I don’t expect that I’ll be going out of my way to meet military folks, is all. Of course it would be unfair to say that all of the foreigners who I am likely to avoid are military folk; there are lots of people who come as teachers who I probably also won’t be very interested in meeting. I really don’t approve of treating other people’s country as if it is your own private playground and there are definitely some foreigners here with that attitude. I also know that Korean isn’t a very easy language to learn, but I do think it’s ridiculous that there are people who stay here for long periods of time but never learn how to read Hangul (which you can literally learn within a day) even if you can’t always understand what you are reading , and who don’t learn the really basic, get you around town and keep you from being hopelessly rude to people vocab. Anyway, I don’t mean to be ranting right now. It is quite judgey of me to already be hating on people for the way they do living here, but this is my blog and I shall be judgey if I so desire. But back to the fun stuff!
After an enjoyable night on Friday, I spent Saturday morning taking it very, very easy. In the late afternoon I headed over to Melinda’s so that she could take me along to her salsa class, which she kindly coerced me into attending. I. am. terrible. at. salsa. Hardcore. I’m bad at dances that involve doing specific steps, and I am even worse at dances that require you to follow someone. So while salsa was enjoyable, I don’t know how frequently I’ll be doing it because my incredible lack of skill and coordination (not to mention lack of stamina from months of being lazypants to the extreme) make the experience a little embarrassing. After salsa there was galbi (delicious!) with some very cool folks from the class (cool people do make it hard to not do something that puts you in their path). After galbi there was more dancing, which was even more fun than the night before because there were more people out (apparently Saturdays are way more dancey than Fridays ‘round these parts). I’d found out earlier in the evening that the glorious Maanda (who lives in another city) would be joining us for the evening and she did indeed arrive with Brian, fellow Guelphite and my now neighbour, in tow. And thusly did we dance ‘til the wee hours. And after dancing ‘til the wee hours, M and B had some chamchi kimbap while I reflected on how long it is going to take me to get used to eating places that don’t serve tea. Korean restaurants are very specific. You can’t just get anything at any place.
Sunday was even lazier than the day before because it involved waking up at 2 in the afternoon (delicious!). The rest day was spent cavorting with M and B. We went out in search of food and ended up wandering the streets for quite a while until we ended up picking a place basically at random. Then, after a complicated ordering process that ended with us still not actually knowing what we ordered, we finally got to eat. Of course, M and B are both non-meat eaters so the fact that our first of three courses ended up being pig intestines meant that I had a lot of solo eating to do (luckily for them, every Korean meal comes with tons of side dishes that they were able to munch on while waiting for the next course). Pig intestines, I found, taste fine but are really all chew and no swallow (though the table beside us would definitely disagree; those two girls and one guy were packing those pig intestines in like they were about to hibernate). The next course was, luckily, seafood so my table mates were able to partake. Cooking that was fun because you cook them in the shells and then mix them into a soup. Very tasty. The last course was a cold apple and squid salad-like thing that I didn’t have any of because I don’t like cold food. On the way out of the restaurant they have a little coffee machine where you can get a Dixie cup of surprisingly tasty cappuccino for 100 won (which is like 10 cents Canadian). After our eating adventure, we went back to B’s place and played Boggle, game of champions. We also watched the new Jennifer Lopez video, which is so breathtakingly wack you have to see it for yourself. The lyrics almost certainly lower the IQ of anyone who hears them. As an antidote, enjoy this great Drunken Tiger track about his adorable baby:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M2v6O9S_S8
And then it was back to work on Monday. And again, this is a probably unnecessarily long blog entry. Ah well. The point is I had a great weekend. I was well fed, I danced, I hung out with glorious people, I slept obscene amounts. Tomorrow I will try to remember to /figure out how to upload pictures on this here blog and on facebook. In the meantime, I hope all of you are starting Tuesday have a good one.
Bam,
AAA
So as of last night, I’ve been in Daegu for over a week. Things are still going very well. One of the funny and awesome things about being in here is that there is a whole lot of Guelph, Ontario in Daegu, South Korea. I work next to a fellow Guelphite, I live two doors down from another one, and I got a delightful visit this weekend from another, not to mention several others who work for the same company as me. It’s a huge relief coming into a new place but having familiar faces around, especially because opting for an office job means that if it weren’t for all these folks I would have had a way smaller network of people to hang out with.
So since you heard from me last, I finished up my first week on the job and enjoyed my first weekend of Daeguification. Friday involved going out to dinner at a very nice but rather cold Canadian-run spot with Melinda and some other cool folks. Turns out foreigners can’t own businesses in SK, which I didn’t know. The place is owned a Korean woman with a Canadian husband. The food was good; I had a very delicious hamburger with bacon on it. After dinner (during which several teachers, who don’t get off work ‘til late, joined us), we headed off and I was introduced to a couple of the very foreigner frequented clubs of Daegu. Those of you who are not very familiar with SK may not be aware that it is a society that really loves alcohol. A lot. It’s also a society that is pretty lax about public drunkenness. When we visited Adom last year, I was introduced to the phenomenon of drunken businessmen roaming the streets at all hours. Which is why it wasn’t quite so surprising when I found out about “bag drinks” which are plastic ziplock-esque bags filled with mix drinks that people can walk around the street sipping from with impunity. I’m sure SK has a drinking age, but I can’t imagine it is enforced very intensely. But back to the nightlife. Daegu is surrounded by several US military bases which really affects the nightlife because American GIs are, well, young people who enlisted in the army who are stationed in a place where they have relatively little to do other than cause trouble. I’m not all that into the military in general, and I don’t foresee this closer proximity reforming that opinion; I’ve already seen a fight amongst drunken military boys and girls outside of the club that they most often frequent, which was across the street from where we were. That isn’t to say that all military folk are annoying and/or douche-y. I met two perfectly nice Mexican-American military dudes at salsa. But I don’t expect that I’ll be going out of my way to meet military folks, is all. Of course it would be unfair to say that all of the foreigners who I am likely to avoid are military folk; there are lots of people who come as teachers who I probably also won’t be very interested in meeting. I really don’t approve of treating other people’s country as if it is your own private playground and there are definitely some foreigners here with that attitude. I also know that Korean isn’t a very easy language to learn, but I do think it’s ridiculous that there are people who stay here for long periods of time but never learn how to read Hangul (which you can literally learn within a day) even if you can’t always understand what you are reading , and who don’t learn the really basic, get you around town and keep you from being hopelessly rude to people vocab. Anyway, I don’t mean to be ranting right now. It is quite judgey of me to already be hating on people for the way they do living here, but this is my blog and I shall be judgey if I so desire. But back to the fun stuff!
After an enjoyable night on Friday, I spent Saturday morning taking it very, very easy. In the late afternoon I headed over to Melinda’s so that she could take me along to her salsa class, which she kindly coerced me into attending. I. am. terrible. at. salsa. Hardcore. I’m bad at dances that involve doing specific steps, and I am even worse at dances that require you to follow someone. So while salsa was enjoyable, I don’t know how frequently I’ll be doing it because my incredible lack of skill and coordination (not to mention lack of stamina from months of being lazypants to the extreme) make the experience a little embarrassing. After salsa there was galbi (delicious!) with some very cool folks from the class (cool people do make it hard to not do something that puts you in their path). After galbi there was more dancing, which was even more fun than the night before because there were more people out (apparently Saturdays are way more dancey than Fridays ‘round these parts). I’d found out earlier in the evening that the glorious Maanda (who lives in another city) would be joining us for the evening and she did indeed arrive with Brian, fellow Guelphite and my now neighbour, in tow. And thusly did we dance ‘til the wee hours. And after dancing ‘til the wee hours, M and B had some chamchi kimbap while I reflected on how long it is going to take me to get used to eating places that don’t serve tea. Korean restaurants are very specific. You can’t just get anything at any place.
Sunday was even lazier than the day before because it involved waking up at 2 in the afternoon (delicious!). The rest day was spent cavorting with M and B. We went out in search of food and ended up wandering the streets for quite a while until we ended up picking a place basically at random. Then, after a complicated ordering process that ended with us still not actually knowing what we ordered, we finally got to eat. Of course, M and B are both non-meat eaters so the fact that our first of three courses ended up being pig intestines meant that I had a lot of solo eating to do (luckily for them, every Korean meal comes with tons of side dishes that they were able to munch on while waiting for the next course). Pig intestines, I found, taste fine but are really all chew and no swallow (though the table beside us would definitely disagree; those two girls and one guy were packing those pig intestines in like they were about to hibernate). The next course was, luckily, seafood so my table mates were able to partake. Cooking that was fun because you cook them in the shells and then mix them into a soup. Very tasty. The last course was a cold apple and squid salad-like thing that I didn’t have any of because I don’t like cold food. On the way out of the restaurant they have a little coffee machine where you can get a Dixie cup of surprisingly tasty cappuccino for 100 won (which is like 10 cents Canadian). After our eating adventure, we went back to B’s place and played Boggle, game of champions. We also watched the new Jennifer Lopez video, which is so breathtakingly wack you have to see it for yourself. The lyrics almost certainly lower the IQ of anyone who hears them. As an antidote, enjoy this great Drunken Tiger track about his adorable baby:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M2v6O9S_S8
And then it was back to work on Monday. And again, this is a probably unnecessarily long blog entry. Ah well. The point is I had a great weekend. I was well fed, I danced, I hung out with glorious people, I slept obscene amounts. Tomorrow I will try to remember to /figure out how to upload pictures on this here blog and on facebook. In the meantime, I hope all of you are starting Tuesday have a good one.
Bam,
AAA
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Yeah, this is actually happening
Well ladies and gentlemen, before I left Toronto just a few days ago, just about everybody I spoke to told me that I should write a blog while I’m here, in the South Korean city of Daegu. Generally, I’m not very good at things like this. I’ve never been a good diary keeper. But since learning a little self-discipline when it comes to writing can’t really be a bad thing, I figured I’d give this a try. So, welcome to my blog. This is the beginning of the story of my time as a runaway from North America and academia.
The facts: I’m working and living in the city of Daegu, which is about the same size, population-wise, as Toronto, which makes it small by Asian standards. It’s about 2 hours on the high speed train from Seoul, the capital. I work as an editor for an ESL company that runs a number of schools, though editor in this context actually includes writing and designing and potentially voice recording. I decided to come to SK for a number of reasons, the most prominent of which is that I needed to take some time away from academia before I sign up for the long-term commitment stylings of ye olde PhD. When I finished my master’s this past August, I knew it was time for me to give this whole fulltime job, actual income thing a try before I wrote it off completely. So here I am.
The flight(s) from TO to Daegu is super long and involved stopovers in Vancouver and then Seoul. I had non-annoying seatmates the whole way which was a big relief and I took Tylenol sinus to reduce the epic painfulness in my ears that I always experience when I fly. I also chewed gum the whole way to help with this. That’s almost 20 straight hours of gum chewing, which, incidentally, makes your mouth feel like you just had your wisdom teeth out and a bee stung your tongue. But my ears weren’t as bad as they have been on other trips so I was happy about that. When I was waiting for my connecting flight in Seoul’s Incheon airport, a young woman came up to me and explained that she comes to the airport to chat it up with foreigners to practice her English. So I talked to her for a while, which was a good way to while away some of the time. Then I ate at Lotteria, which is a Korean fastfood chain. I had a bulgogi burger, which was good and entertainingly fusion-y.
I was picked up by one of the fabulous folks that the company pays to make foreigners not wander off cliffs and he drove me to my apartment, where some of his counterparts were waiting to carry my sinfully heavy baggage up the stairs to my third floor (no elevator) apartment. And what a nice apartment it is! It’s a spacious bachelor. The kitchen is, as these kinds of kitchens go, very nice though the lack of oven is sort of annoying. I have a toaster oven, a stove and a microwave, but no oven means no cakes or huge slabs of salmon. I’ve also got a washing machine (yay! laundry mats blow!). Marty will be impressed that I will have to start hang-drying my clothes since neither I nor anyone else has a dryer. The bathroom is the typical kind over here, which is to say that the entire bathroom is a shower in the sense that literally everything in the room gets soaked when you have shower because there isn’t any kind of separation between toilet, sink and shower. The shower head is the handheld kind and it is attached to my sink faucet.
My place is walking distance from work, which is sweet. I do have to cross a crazily wide intersection with very confusing lights, however. Korea seems to be made up of huge, six to eight lane major streets and tiny, barely single lane residential streets. Clearly, middle ground is for suckas.
I arrived Monday night and worked Tuesday morning and this is my first night coming straight home from work. I’ve taken a couple of trips downtown to do some looking around / eating and I’ve also done some very necessary grocery shopping. All of these activities have been accomplished with delightful coworkers, including my awesome friend from university, Melinda, who has been working here for a while and has been incredibly helpful with my settling in. Tomorrow and Saturday nights there will be going out on the town to be done; I shall have my introduction to Daegu night life. I’m looking forward to the weekend; I’ve gotten used to working here, now I need some time to get used to living here.
So there you have it. My first few days in Daegu. Nothing too exciting, but whatever, you guys made me write this. I’m sure there will be more entertaining tales to tell in the future. For now, I’m off to laze the rest of the evening away.
Bam,
AAA
p.s. I suppose I ought to give you all an idea of what this blog will be like. Aside from the sort of personal ramblings found in this entry, I’m sure I’ll also spend time rambling about the sorts of topics I find interesting, which is mostly stuff like popular culture (particularly kdramas and kpop since I am, after all, all up in Korea), language (I’m going to try to learn as much Korean as possible and I’m sure I’ll have observations about the English language in Korea), ethnicity and culture and all the craziness related to these two amorphous concepts, and food, since food is awesome. And before any of you ask, yes you get stared at a lot if you are black person in Korea. But I am a person who gets stared at a lot anywhere (because I do things like dance down the street mostly) so it hasn’t really felt that weird. People have been nice and helpful to me, and generally understanding of the fact that my Korean vocab is rather small. I’m not by nature a humble person, but acting humble when traveling is definitely the secret to my success in terms getting great treatment from people and not having them read you as an entitled western douchebag. So yeah, my biggest travel tip: work on having a really nice smile and a good, polite but friendly laugh. Seriously. These are really the things best able to make cross-lingual communication less awkward and strained. Wow, this is a long postscript. Ah well. I’m a long winded gal. You guys should know that by now.
The facts: I’m working and living in the city of Daegu, which is about the same size, population-wise, as Toronto, which makes it small by Asian standards. It’s about 2 hours on the high speed train from Seoul, the capital. I work as an editor for an ESL company that runs a number of schools, though editor in this context actually includes writing and designing and potentially voice recording. I decided to come to SK for a number of reasons, the most prominent of which is that I needed to take some time away from academia before I sign up for the long-term commitment stylings of ye olde PhD. When I finished my master’s this past August, I knew it was time for me to give this whole fulltime job, actual income thing a try before I wrote it off completely. So here I am.
The flight(s) from TO to Daegu is super long and involved stopovers in Vancouver and then Seoul. I had non-annoying seatmates the whole way which was a big relief and I took Tylenol sinus to reduce the epic painfulness in my ears that I always experience when I fly. I also chewed gum the whole way to help with this. That’s almost 20 straight hours of gum chewing, which, incidentally, makes your mouth feel like you just had your wisdom teeth out and a bee stung your tongue. But my ears weren’t as bad as they have been on other trips so I was happy about that. When I was waiting for my connecting flight in Seoul’s Incheon airport, a young woman came up to me and explained that she comes to the airport to chat it up with foreigners to practice her English. So I talked to her for a while, which was a good way to while away some of the time. Then I ate at Lotteria, which is a Korean fastfood chain. I had a bulgogi burger, which was good and entertainingly fusion-y.
I was picked up by one of the fabulous folks that the company pays to make foreigners not wander off cliffs and he drove me to my apartment, where some of his counterparts were waiting to carry my sinfully heavy baggage up the stairs to my third floor (no elevator) apartment. And what a nice apartment it is! It’s a spacious bachelor. The kitchen is, as these kinds of kitchens go, very nice though the lack of oven is sort of annoying. I have a toaster oven, a stove and a microwave, but no oven means no cakes or huge slabs of salmon. I’ve also got a washing machine (yay! laundry mats blow!). Marty will be impressed that I will have to start hang-drying my clothes since neither I nor anyone else has a dryer. The bathroom is the typical kind over here, which is to say that the entire bathroom is a shower in the sense that literally everything in the room gets soaked when you have shower because there isn’t any kind of separation between toilet, sink and shower. The shower head is the handheld kind and it is attached to my sink faucet.
My place is walking distance from work, which is sweet. I do have to cross a crazily wide intersection with very confusing lights, however. Korea seems to be made up of huge, six to eight lane major streets and tiny, barely single lane residential streets. Clearly, middle ground is for suckas.
I arrived Monday night and worked Tuesday morning and this is my first night coming straight home from work. I’ve taken a couple of trips downtown to do some looking around / eating and I’ve also done some very necessary grocery shopping. All of these activities have been accomplished with delightful coworkers, including my awesome friend from university, Melinda, who has been working here for a while and has been incredibly helpful with my settling in. Tomorrow and Saturday nights there will be going out on the town to be done; I shall have my introduction to Daegu night life. I’m looking forward to the weekend; I’ve gotten used to working here, now I need some time to get used to living here.
So there you have it. My first few days in Daegu. Nothing too exciting, but whatever, you guys made me write this. I’m sure there will be more entertaining tales to tell in the future. For now, I’m off to laze the rest of the evening away.
Bam,
AAA
p.s. I suppose I ought to give you all an idea of what this blog will be like. Aside from the sort of personal ramblings found in this entry, I’m sure I’ll also spend time rambling about the sorts of topics I find interesting, which is mostly stuff like popular culture (particularly kdramas and kpop since I am, after all, all up in Korea), language (I’m going to try to learn as much Korean as possible and I’m sure I’ll have observations about the English language in Korea), ethnicity and culture and all the craziness related to these two amorphous concepts, and food, since food is awesome. And before any of you ask, yes you get stared at a lot if you are black person in Korea. But I am a person who gets stared at a lot anywhere (because I do things like dance down the street mostly) so it hasn’t really felt that weird. People have been nice and helpful to me, and generally understanding of the fact that my Korean vocab is rather small. I’m not by nature a humble person, but acting humble when traveling is definitely the secret to my success in terms getting great treatment from people and not having them read you as an entitled western douchebag. So yeah, my biggest travel tip: work on having a really nice smile and a good, polite but friendly laugh. Seriously. These are really the things best able to make cross-lingual communication less awkward and strained. Wow, this is a long postscript. Ah well. I’m a long winded gal. You guys should know that by now.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)