Sam's Blog

Final Post/Blog Closed

2011-04-28T18:19:00.004+09:00

This will be my last post on this blog. Thanks to everyone who read and commented on my posts, except for on the Ten Things I Hate About Korea posts (the majority of commenters there have been racist scumbags).

If I do decide to blog again I will probably start a new one, but will post the details here. It's not likely to happen any time soon though, as I'll be studying in Beijing for the next year. Blogger is blocked here, and while I can access it, I'll be focusing on my studies, and don't anticipate having much time to write. Even if I do feel like writing something I'd rather put my energy into writing a novel, or something more than a blog at least.

Also, this blog was, for the most part, a chronicle of my time living in Korea. That part of my life is over now, so it seems fitting to close this blog also.

I'll be happy to answer any questions in the comments. For personal stuff, leave your email address and I'll get back to you.

(The photo wasn't taken by me, but I can't remember how I got it. If it's yours and you want me to take it down, let me know. Cheers.)

Fart Fight Couple

2011-01-24T17:06:00.003+09:00

This article was in the top 10 most read in Naver's Society section last week. Hat tip to Korea Beat.

My translation:

The Couple Booked for Fighting Because of Their Elementary School Student Son's Fart

On the 17th, for the reason that their Elementary school student son farted during a meal, a couple fought, grabbing each other by the collar and shaking each other, and one Mr. Park (39) was charged without physical detention for violence by the Ulsan Jung-gu Police Station.

According to the police, on the 14th at 8:20 in the morning, while eating at their own home in Buk-gu with their Elementary school student son, their son farted silently, upon which the husband Mr. Park scolded his wife, the wife scolded him in return, and the two quarreled and are now accusing each other of violence.

A police spokesperson said that "The married couple were angry momentarily and made a police report, but didn't want any punishment."

Yet Another Post About Why I'm Not Posting

2011-01-15T13:51:00.002+09:00

My enthusiasm for blogging is at an all time low, which I didn't think was possible after after posting only about once a month for the whole of 2010.

I'll be moving out of my apartment in less than a month, and leaving Korea less than a month after that, so the chances of my writing anything readable until I fly out of Korea are slim to none.

However, after that I will be doing a month in Russia, going to North Korea, and going to live in China, so there should be plenty to blog about then.

Association

2010-12-19T23:00:00.005+09:00

What do you think of when you see this picture?

When I saw it at the National Geographic Photo Exhibition that was on at the Seoul Art Centre a couple of weeks ago, I thought of rivers and meandering, bow lakes and geography class, and so on. The girl I was with saw it and instantly commented that it looked like the Salvatore Ferragamo logo, as seen on this bag.

On a related note, avoid any public shows or exhibitions in Seoul on the weekends. We had to wait for two hours to get in, and when we did it was packed shoulder to shoulder, and most people weren't even looking at the photos, or reading the captions, they were just following the yellow line around in a circle and elbowing each other.

Do you like kimchi?

2010-12-05T23:41:00.002+09:00

Here's a video I made last week. No offense was intended, no individual was targeted, and I had no idea it would get so many hits. I tried to be as balanced as possible, and just make fun of some stereotypes. Enjoy.

Anti-Spy Posters

2010-11-14T23:34:00.002+09:00

I often complain that after living here for a while there is less to blog about, and that things which seemed interesting years ago don't feel worth writing about anymore. The flipside to this is that now I can read a lot of things that I used to not even notice, and I now love reading ads and public notices.

The stuff put out by the National Intelligence Service are some of the best, and are on every bus and every subway car. I had wondered what they are about for years. Here are the ones from 2007, 2008 and 2009. I found them on the NIS website.

2007: The large print on this one says "Awareness of National Security: Satisfy it Securely!" Below it says "A close sense of national security keeps our nation ever more secure. Spies. Terror. International Criminals. Industrial Spies. Report them on 111"

2008: "Be Upright~ South Korean Awareness of National Security!" The smaller print I found difficult to translate, but it says something like "When everyone's awareness of national security is kept straight like a bamboo tree, South Korea becomes stronger, and national competiveness becomes more and more sound. Spies. Terror. International Criminals. Industrial Spies. Report them on 111" Below it says, "Report and Counsel: National Intelligence Service 111. Police 113. Defense Security Command Unit 1337. Reward Money: Spy Ship - A maximum of 150,000,000won. Spy - A maximum of 100,000,000won. Leftist Illegal Acts - 30,000,000won."

2009: "Take to the Air! South Korean Awareness of National Security. Telephone report 111." The information at the bottom is the same as for the 2008 poster, and in the top left corner it says "NIS National Intelligence Service. 111 Call Centre that defends our nation."

I'm Looking for the Bus Guy!

2010-10-31T17:01:00.003+09:00

I was originally going to translate the article accompanying this photo, but it's all conjecture, and boring information about how the topic became the number one search term.

The girl stuck the leaflet up at a bus stop, and somebody took a photo and put it on Twitter. Articles about this then became the top 2 most viewed news stories of last week on Naver, in the Society section - the overall most viewed stories are almost all sports news pieces. This article came in 29th overall, but 1st in Society.

Later in the week it was revealed that the girl, although flattered by the huge volume of replies from random guys that she received, was distressed by rumours among netizens that she is an "orc girl" (오크녀 - Korean slang for an extremely ugly girl) and considered revealing her true identity to prove that she isn't ugly, but then decided not to out of fear of internet bullying. Read more here.

Anyway, the leaflet says:

I'm Looking for the Bus Guy!

Hey guy wearing the blue hooded tee who was sitting in the window seat directly in front of the very back seat on the 2000 bus from Seoul Station on Saturday October 16th! Hey guy who opened the window for me, and also, hehe, lent me your shoulder! Lately I can't sleep because of you!!! I can't write my number here, so I'll write my email address for you. When you email me, please be sure to write down what pants (color or material) you were wearing with the blue hooded tee~!

Email Address: k20101016@nate.com

Soccer Nationalism

2010-10-14T00:24:00.003+09:00

I watched Korea play Japan in a meaningless soccer game yesterday, which ended in a nil-all draw. Pretty standard for the world's worst most popular game.

For me, the highlight of the game wasn't the exciting lack of goals, or the theatrics of the players trying to extract penalties, but the anti-Japanese banners in the crowd.

The banner in the above photo says:

"역사를 잊은 민족에게 미래는 없다"

I translate this as "A people who forget their history have no future". This isn't a very good translation, because 민족 can mean people, ethnic group, or race, and is a loaded term that Koreans use to describe themselves. It has connotations of racial superiority, and buys into the nationalist Korean myth of the 5000 year-old pure bloodline of the Korean race. Given the context, maybe a better translation would be "Fuck you Japan".

In the other photos you can see more nationalist banners, among them a portrait of An Jung-geun, the Korean national hero, a favorite of many of my students, who assassinated Itō Hirobumi, the Resident-General of Korea in Harbin in 1909. Alongside his picture is a black handprint with the tip of the ring finger missing, a symbol of Korean national pride.

Subtitles

2010-09-14T08:46:00.004+09:00

Watching this movie again yesterday I noticed an interesting subtitle translation. Usually I hate non-literal translations as I feel that they detract from the flavour of the local language, are patronising to the viewer, and involve far too much personal input from the subtitler. In my opinion, direct translations allow us to get an insight into how people in other countires use language, even if it sounds ridiculous.

In this case, however, I think the subtitle is a good one. It comes from a scene at about the 56 minute mark where the main character's gang boss father is having a drink with another gangster, and the son, a drug addict at that point in the movie, sticks his head into the room for a second.

Father's Friend: Isn't he your son? (아드님 아입니까?)

Father: I don't expect anything from him. (저거는 인간 안될 새끼다)

I would translate the reply literally as something like "That bastard won't become human" which although colorful is somewhat awkward, and I think the subtitle fits much better, even though it makes what the father says sound a lot less offensive. He's basically saying that his son is never going to amount to anything in pretty crude language. Also, when Koreans use this phrase, I don't think they use it literally themselves, which defeating the purpose of a literary translation.

Korean Maps

2010-09-10T18:21:00.004+09:00

I remember reading in a book about China that cartography there ended up much inferior to its European counterpart despite an early lead, due to historical reasons that I don't recall confidently enough to detail here. It made a lot of sense, but also made me think that maps in China couldn't be much worse than those here.

Korean maps have amused me for years. Every business card or website seems to use the same template, which is a basic grid. North is disregarded, as are curved streets and major geographical features, and the place in question is drawn somewhere in the middle. Then some directions are drawn showing where the roads lead, and some landmarks and/or nearby businesses are added.

The Honorary Consulate of Mongolia, which I needlessly went to a couple of weeks ago, is a case in point.

First, here is the map found on the Mongolian Embassy's website. As you can see, it sticks to the template very well.

Here is an actual map of the area. The A-pin marks the location of the consulate. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Comments That Annoy The Shit Out Of Me

2010-08-31T22:25:00.004+09:00

The comment that annoys the shit out of me the most lately comes in question form, and usually goes something like, "Why don't you date a foreign girl?"

I hear this from both ignorant peasant types, and from people who should know better, people who have foreign friends/partners, and/or have lived overseas. Why should they know better? Because it's thinly veiled racism that questions my right to date whoever I want to, regardless of race, nationality and culture. It also suggests that there is something wrong with me dating Koreans (is there?), and accuses me of being racist myself in my dating preferences. On a side note, one of those people told me that she would date a Japanese, and that her mother would accept that, and maybe another non-Korean-Asian nationality if she was really desperate, but never a white black or brown person. Then she recommended that I "please find a foreigner girlfriend".

People who ask me this see two groups of people in the world, Koreans and foreigners. This is a ridiculous way to look at things for a start, but some people can't help it. Since I belong to the latter group, apparently I should date within that group only. It seems that a white guy living in Korea, which is 98% Korean, should restrict himself to the other 2% of the population, most of whom are Korean-Chinese anyway, and would probably be considered off-limits too.

Why don't I date a foreigner? Well, first of all, I have. I'm not at the moment, but I have since living here, twice. In addition, I've also dated a foreigner of Korean background, but as alluded to in the previous paragraph, the kind of people who ask me this question would probably see them as conveniently Korean. But let's assume that I haven't, for argument's sake. There are a few reasons why limiting myself to the tiny foreign minority doesn't sound like much fun:

- There just aren't that many foreign girls. Some days I see one or two, some days I see zero, and I'm in an area of Seoul with a larhe non-Asian foreigner population. The exception might be Friday and Saturday nights when you see large groups of foreigners outside their natural habitats. This observation is limited to non-Asian foreigners of course, and although my area is full of overseas Koreans, mainly Korean-Americans, they would probably be considered as Koreans by the commenter anyway. Seoul isn't Hong Kong or Shanghai, and it's far from Sydney or LA. Non-Asian women are in short supply, and those of a datable age are overwhelmingly ESL teachers, US Army, or Russians on "entertainer" visas.

- I'm in Korea. Isn't it natural to date the people who reside in the same place that you do? If a Korean was in Spain, for example, and dated some locals, would anyone say "Hey, why don't you date a Korean girl for a change?"? I don't think so.

- I'm trying to learn the language. If I'm trying to spend some of my social time speaking Korean with Koreans in order to improve, and I'm also dating, whether casually or with a view to a serious relationship, doesn't it make sense to combine the two? I'm more than capable of initiating and maintaining a relationship in Korean, so why shouldn't I? Also, I'm not using people for language practice - I've dated girls who have been happy to speak to me in 100% Korean, but I've chosen to use English because their English was superior.

- In order to actively seek out foreigners to date from the small pool of them here in Korea, I would have to go to places that I usually avoid and do things that I hate. In the course of my daily life, I don't interact with any foreign women. The foreign female friends I have are former coworkers, and we're talking a handful of people. If I wanted to "try dating a foreign girl" I would have to go to clubs and bars in Itaewon and Hongdae, which I never go to unless I have to, or to the noisiest, smokiest, trashiest foreigner hangouts in my area, where I rarely see anyone attractive of any nationality on the few occasions where I am forced to enter those places. Apparently though, that's what I should be doing.

What is comes down to is that these people would much rather see me dating anyone but a Korean. They'd much prefer it if I had a dating preference that excluded Koreans, instead of seeing me date whoever I come across in my everyday life who will agree to have dinner with me. In the meantime, I'll continue to date Koreans until I leave, and then I'll date the residents of the next country I live, whether it's Australia, the US, Switerland, China, Russia or Iran.

Here are some stats, just for fun. I got them from this article. It was printed in 2009, and the stats are from 2008, but I don't think think there's been too much change since then. Click the photos to see them full size.

Some key stats:

Foreign percentage of Seoul - 2.44% (255,207 people)

Number of Chinese in Seoul - 192,618

Number of Australians in Seoul - 834

The big blue man in the second figure represents the 33,102 Chinese living in Yeongdeungpo-gu and 2046 Americans can be seen to be living in my area, along with 405 French people (That sounds wrong, should it be French men and women?). Yeongdeungpo-gu is the area with the largest percentage of foreign residents at 8.7%, 35,438 out of a total of 408,099.

Light Complaints

2010-08-23T18:05:00.004+09:00

I shouldn't complain, because they fixed my sink and I can now wash dishes properly for the first time in almost a year. However, I also asked them to fix my light, which wasn't working, and they fixed it wrong, which is even more annoying than having it broken before. I should also add that they fixed it without my permission consent or supervision, by letting themselves into my place while I was at work.

Background: All the lights in my place except for two are white fluorescent lights, which make everything look all nice and modern, but also make me feel like I'm in a hospital operating room sometimes. The two non-fluorescent lights are little yellowish halogen ones. One has always been broken, and the other alone has never been enough to cast the amount of soft light that I need to do stuff.

Anyway, during the yearly inspection last month I pointed out absolutely every fault and defect in my whole apartment, much to the amusement of the real-estate agent who conducted the inspection, including the cupboard doorknob that I fixed myself, much to the later amusement of the repair guys, one of whom informed the other, "Foreigners like to fix things themselves".

Photo 1: This is both pre and ost-repair. Note that the light on the right is on, but the identical one on the left is off.

Photo 2: This is post-repair. When I turn on the switch for the kitchen light, both it and the other yellow light turn on. This is after I had explained to the guy exactly why I wanted it fixed - because one yellow light is too dim to do anything with, and the other lights make me feel like I'm in a public toilet.

The solution: I bought a bedside light which is nice and soft, and lights the room nicely without blasting me awake with whiteness, and which works well on a dim setting in combination with the small yellow light on the right.

Mmm Soup

2010-07-24T12:45:00.003+09:00

Here's another translation effort, found once again on Koreabeat. I had to look up loads of words for this one, and while I'm sure it's not a perfect translation, you get the gist.

The original article is here.

40 Year-old Caught Red-handed Cooking and Eating 40 Year-old Cheon Jong Wild Ginseng in a Soup

A 40 year-old man who thought 40 year-old Cheon Jong Wild Ginseng worth 5,000,000won was ginseng, and cooked and ate it in a soup after stealing it, has been caught by the police.

On the 16th, Gangwon Goseong Police Station booked without physical detention Mr. A (44 Sokcho City), who is charged with the theft of 40 year old Cheon Jong Wild Ginseng (天種山蔘)[see Note] that was growing in a vegetable garden.

According to the Police, Mr. A is under suspicion of the theft in early June of one root of 40 year old Cheon Jong Wild Ginseng worth 5,000,000won that had been growing in the vegetable garden of Mr. B(70) in Goseong-county, Jukwang-myeon.

It has become known that Mr. B planted some Cheon Jong Wild Ginseng that he gathered from the skirt of Guryong Ridge, Yangyang, in his own vegetable garden and cultivated it like a special treasure (愛之重之).

Called “The Wild Ginseng of all Wild Ginseng”, Cheon Jong Wild Ginseng is well-known for its outstanding natural properties, and for its difficult living conditions in places that are well-watered where a twirling wind blows out from, while being in the half-shade of a cement soil level.

Mr. A pleaded to be treated leniently, telling the police that “I was coming from a friend’s house, and thinking that it was ginseng that was planted in the neighbor’s house’s vegetable garden, I dug it up, brought it home, boiled it into a chicken soup and ate it.”

Note: I don’t know what the first two character combination (天種) means, and it’s not in the Korean Chinese character dictionary, so I’ll just write it as Cheon Jong. The second two mean wild ginseng.

Here's a photo of a couple of my friends eating a similar soup.

Falling Down (Iceland version)

2010-07-18T20:10:00.004+09:00

This is possibly the funniest video I have ever seen. After seeing that video and reading this article about Reykjavik’s new mayor (who won't form a coalition with anyone who hasn't seen all five seasons of The Wire), I now want to go to Iceland.

(HT to Page F30 for the video)

풍덩

2010-07-13T09:06:00.003+09:00

I've talked about Koreabeat and how much I love it on this blog before. He often puts up the most-read Naver articles of the week and there's usually a couple that I wish he would translate, but that he never does.

From now on I might have a go at translating any articles that are interesting, and not too difficult for me to read.

I plan to translate them as literally as possible, partly because I am a fan of literal translations, and partly because my Korean is not good enough to know exactly what the writer would have said in English, and rather than guess and put my own spin on it, I think it's better to have a literal translation that maybe sounds a little awkward.

Here's the original article.

"If you cross the Han River, I'll marry you" - A Splash at the Words of a Girlfriend

At 12:30am on the 5th, a strange scene unfolded at the Citizen's Park at the southern end of the Hannam Bridge at Sinsa-dong in Gangnam-gu, Seoul.

A sober man in his 20s suddenly removed his clothes and dived into the Han River dressed only in his underwear.

Mr. Choi (25) dived into the water for only one reason. It was because of his girlfriend's announcement that "If you cross the Han River, I will marry you".

Mr Choi, who started crossing the river in high spirits, gradually felt the strength in his body go after only 10 minutes.

Eventually Mr Choi, who swam 100 metres, was rescued by the Han River Police suspended from the seventh southern pylon of the Hannam Bridge.

The person who reported it was not Choi's girlfriend, but an anonymous citizen who had observed the situation at that time.

A person related to the police reported that "Mr. Choi said 'I can't go back to where all the people are gathered' and took to his heels as soon as he was rescued".

The girlfriend, whose problem was to drop her boyfriend into the Han River, was not witnessed at the scene.

Comments and criticisms are welcome. I found the last three paragraphs particularly hard to translate, and am happy to hear any suggestions on how to interpret them better.

The photo is from here.

Massachubatts!

2010-07-09T00:17:00.000+09:00

I see this shirt almost every day, and it cracks me up every time.

World Cup Subway Etiquette Campaign

2010-06-26T17:33:00.004+09:00

Korea is going nuts over the Soccerball World Cup, with pretty much any advertisment either on print or on TV having a World Cup theme. This has been extended to a new subway etiquette campaign on the first four lines of the Seoul subway system, which are managed by Seoul Metro.

Despite the fact that they feature one of Korea's most annoying boy-band stars, I like the idea, and I hope that one day there will be no need for this type of thing anymore. Having said that, I have been being amused by similar campaigns for the last four and a half years, so I'm not holding my breath.

This one says "Offside Fouls are Hated!" and instructs people to wait for people to get off the train before getting on. It says "If you get on first, it is an offside foul".

The second one says that "A Subway Seat is not a Soccer Goal". It says that on the subway it is a foul to spread your legs like a goalkeeper, or read your newspaper opened out all the way.

For anyone who is interested, the writing in the top left corner says, "Seoul Metro, global leader in city transportation, creating passenger happiness". The blue circle in the bottom right contains the slogan, "Happy Train - 100 Times the Enjoyment".

Bye Bye View

2010-06-02T16:25:00.003+09:00

After seeing a big gap directly under my window, as seen here:

I had hope that my view wouldn't disappear. Since then the level of that section has been rising slowly but surely, and is now just under my window. The hammering never stops.

North Korean Airport Shop

2010-05-08T20:22:00.002+09:00

Leaving China out of Harbin International Airport on Wednesday, I wanted to buy some Duty-free stuff - Toblerone and Mars Bars are what I had in mind. I checked out the two pathetic excuses for Duty-free shops that they had, and there was no imported chocolate to be found, only souvenir stuff like chocolate-coated macadamias in boxes with pictures of China. Despite the best efforts of the aggressive saleswomen, I walked out with only a bottle of water.

Then I noticed another shop that looked like it was selling some North Korean cigarettes, and when I saw two women wearing North Korean flag lapel-pins I realised that it was a whole shop full of North Korean products! I asked them if they were Korean, and they said yes, and then asked them if they were North Korean, and they said yes, smiling and correcting my use of the South Korean word for North Korea.

I was very excited to talk to them, and asked them lots of questions, but nothing political, because I didn't want to spoil the mood. They were from Pyongyang but lived in Harbin, and tried their best to sell me all sorts of tacky stuff. The one on the left in the photo was very happy to talk to me, but the other one looked sour and didn't seem to be my biggest fan. She'd fit right in in Seoul.

I ended up buying a pack of cigarettes for my friend Ryan because I was grateful for the conversation. There was nothing much else to buy, except for alcohol and 한약 Korean traditional medicine. The paintings and trinkets were pretty awful, and the medicine looked like it was made in the 70s. The bottle in the photo is called 뱀술 Snake Liquor.

When I left they told me to come back again, so five minutes later I did, and asked them for a photo. The nice one seemed excited, and the other one wasn't happy but participated reluctantly in the end. Then I offered them some of the Australian Easter chocolate that Mum had given me. Again, the nice one looked pleased and the other one looked suspicious. I bet she threw it away.

When I got home I looked up the middle three words on the sign, 만수대, and found out that it's the name of a North Korean art gallery. They even have a website. The whole sign says "Pyongyang Mansudae Art Souvenirs". The art was mostly paintings of mountains and tigers, but bizarrely there was also a portrait of Jesus, the top of which can be seen near the elbow of the girl on the left.

Strange Behaviour

2010-04-23T14:30:00.002+09:00

Coming down the stairs into the subway at about 9 o'clock on Tuesday night I see a 40-something guy in a salaryman-suit and pink tie unzipped and pissing onto the stairs facing up. He sees me coming, looks embarrassed, and puts it away, only to stumble over to the side of Missha to resume pissing against their glass window. All with a public toilet 20 metres away.

Then last night at about midnight I saw two other younger guys in suits and ties at a bus shelter, one guy had his right shoe and sock off and was moaning in pain, and the other guy was on one knee rubbing cream, which he looked to just have bought from the chemist they were in front of, into the first guys foot. Both guys looked drunk and disheveled.

Then there's the student who I teach on Wednesdays who is without a doubt the most spoiled kid I've ever met. His room is like a toy museum and has million dollar views of the Han River. He's a rude little fucker who's unfamiliar with the word no. Anyway, this Wednesday I got sick of dragging him out from under his bed by the ankle after he's run to hide under there for the fiftieth time in the first 10 minutes of the lesson, so I told him he had the choice to either 1) behave and I'll be "nice teacher", or 2) misbehave and I'll be "mean teacher". Being a smart kid he chose option A.

Sure enough, five minutes later he decides to lie on the floor and refuse to get up, so I dragged him upright and held him by the wrist so he couldn't move. He threw the expected tantrum complete with screaming, crying, swearing, yelling for his mother (who I knew was outside the door listening), and saying that he hates me, while I calmly explained to him that his behaviour was unacceptable. Finally after about 40 minutes he stopped making fists and trying to kick me in the head, broke down into a genuine flood of tears, and wailed that "I don't like humans, I only like animals!" over and over again until finally his mum comes in.

I spent the next 20 minutes listening to him tell his mother how bad I am, and to his mother promising to buy him a new Nintendo DS if he behaves in my class. Then he tells his mother that he'll only do it if she buys it for him tonight, right after the lesson. She says the shops are closed so she'll buy it for him tomorrow, and the little shit accuses her of lying and says he wants it now now now. I seriously wanted to throw him out the window. The saying 매를 아끼면 아이를 망친다 (Spare the rod and spoil the child) comes to mind.

Lastly there's the girl who hates all animals, except for dogs. But she doesn't like all dogs, only small cute rat dogs. Seriously, how can you hate all living things? And by hate I actually mean hate - she detests pretty much anything that moves, animals, birds, insects, reptiles and fish, to the point where animal documentaries cause her face to screw up in disgust. Upon seeing my photos of India the only thing she noticed was the pigeons, which she is scared of - when she sees one she screams. The mind boggles. Another one who should have been beaten more as a child, methinks.

Picture is from here.

(Legal) Websites I Visit Regularly

2010-04-03T13:09:00.002+09:00

I've left out the obvious ones and the ones that will get me into trouble.

In no particular order:

Black Out Korea: Funny photos of drunk people passed out in public. Sorry Koreans.

Dave's ESL Cafe: This forum is like an accident that you can't turn away from. Hidden among the complaints, racism, trolling and misinformation are some interesting and hilarious threads, such as the Freakiest Waegook Contest. There's also lots of good info in the travel and tech forums.

Koreabeat: Korean news translated into English. I liked the old site better though.

Skyscraper City forums: I linked to the page on Korea as that is the one I visit most, but there are great photos of cities around the world. If I was stuck on a desert island and could only choose one website, this would probably be it.

Naver: This site gets criticised a lot by non-Koreans, but it's number one here for a reason. I love it. The map function is awesome, as are the dictionaries, the public transport guide, movie guide, weather service, and just for searching for Korean stuff in general. I also like the 지식iN, where you can ask and answer questions. I've heard that most of the answers are provided by bored elementary school students, but I find it a weatlh of information anyway.

Daum (Maps): Similar to Naver, but I don't like it as much. The maps feature is an exception, as their Roadview function comes in handy often.

Korean Langauges Notes: I check this blog daily despite the sporadic updates. Korean language porn.

Page F30: I found out about this blog after reading about one of the contributers to Koreabeat, a fluent Korean-speaking Canadian who blogs mainly about language, geography and space. Some extremely interesting articles here.

The Big Picture: I've linked to this before, but I thought I'd do it again. I like this site because I can download the photos.

Emails from an Asshole: Immature and lowbrow, it gets many a laugh from me.

27b/6: Kind of like a highbrow version of the above site by a guy from Adelaide. This guy is my hero.

Lens Blog: My favorite photo blog. I only check it once a week so I can turn the music on and the lights off, put it on full screen, and enjoy the slide show for a while. The only downside is that you can't download the pictures.

The Sartorialist: Fashion photo blog. Good stuff.

Totally unrelated, but this Korean movie was really good. The English title is White Night, and it's based on a Japanese novel called Byakuyako.

"I don't like blue"

2010-03-23T00:33:00.006+09:00

Things that have amused me recently:

- The student of mine who hasn't seen Avatar because she doesn't like the colour blue.

- The friend who was going to go to Switzerland until her older sister told her not to because "it's exactly the same as New Zealand" and she's been there.

- The same person is now planning to go to France, but not Paris, because her father says it's dangerous and smelly and her older sister saw the movie Taken.

What an Arse-sole

2010-02-19T00:30:00.002+09:00

I got this photo from this article about a shoe thief who stole from funeral homes. I bet that half of the shoes pictured are fake Ferregamos.

I'm always paranoid about someone stealing my shoes while I eat dinner, so it's good to see more and more places providing little lockers with keys.

Laziness

2010-01-14T19:40:00.002+09:00

Dear Reader (if I have one left),

Sorry for a lack of updates. I figure that writing just because it has been a week since my last post is worse than not writing at all.

I was going to do a life update post, but then I read the one that I wrote last April, and almost died of boredom.

I was also going to blog about India, but have nowhere near enough time. Maybe I will put something up in the next week or two.

I was even going to write about the subway suicide that I witnessed last week (A friend and I were in the first carriage), and started tapping something out, but struggled not be be too flippant about it.

In the meantime, if you are after something good to read, look no further than this blog by a fellow Australian in Korea, albeit a female one. A Long Time Ago When a Tiger Smoked a Cigarette.

Curry Time

2009-12-25T22:55:00.001+09:00

Off to India in a few hours. The plan - eat loads of curry. Will try to post, but not sure if there'll be time or energy. Will definitely blog about it on my return.

주부생활

2009-12-18T00:54:00.003+09:00

I noticed this magazine while getting a coffee today, and was amused by the title, which means "Housewife Life". One of the articles seems to be about making kimchi for the winter on a small scale. If I was a housewife I'd buy it I reckon.

New Low

2009-12-15T19:48:00.003+09:00

I've never been a fan of the English-language media over here, but this article is a new low.

I'm going to quote the whole thing in case they delete it.

Alien Graveyard Found

Extraterrestrial cemetery in Rwanda, Central Africa which is at least 500 years old, was discovered.

According to the Weekly World News, Dr. Hugo Childs, the Swiss anthropologist said, "There must be 200 bodies buried there and not a single one of them is human."

Dr. Childs and his colleagues reportedly discovered the alien graveyard on a routine survey of the Rwandan jungle.

"Soil and tissue samples indicate the bodies have been in the ground since the 1400s. We're now trying to figure out where they came from ― and what killed them," said Dr. Childs.

The creatures themselves were much taller and skinnier than humans and they stood about 7 feet tall. Their heads were larger than the average man's and they had no mouth, nose or eyes to speak of.

Dr. Childs speculated that the 200 aliens were part of a single landing party that encountered a deadly virus. Because they would have had no immunity to Earth disease, he added, something as simple as the flu could have wiped out the entire party.

He would not take reporters to the site, for fear of the bodies being disturbed. However, he promised to reveal the location once the excavation was complete. "It will change the world," Dr. Childs said.

Smile on your face during school hour?

2009-12-09T01:03:00.003+09:00

I had to go to a workshop on Saturday. We were told in an email from the company that "Everyone take part in the work shop. Please attend everyone, We don't understand Personal matter." This is BS of course, and I am not contractually obligated to go, but decided to anyway, to be a good little worker, and stay on their good side.

The meeting started at 10:20am, which is 20 minutes later than I usually get up on a weekday, at a school further from home than my own. Predictably, it was a complete waste of time.

The first speaker gave us a presentation on how to teach writing. I suspect she plagiarised most of it. She gets points for standing in front of a room full of foreign teachers and giving a presentation in their language. I felt sorry for her because no one was answering her questions, so I started giving cheeky answers. No matter what I said, she said "Yes, good!" and then told everyone the actual answer. I learnt nothing for her.

The second speaker was a Korean-American guy working for the publishing company which produces the awesome English Time series. He gave us some tips on how to teach the books. He was more entertaining than the first lady, and tried to inject some enthusiasm into the room, but I could tell he wasn't into it at all. Imagine a hungover-looking guy in a silver suit saying "Come on guys. Let's have fun. Make some noise. Yay." in a bored monotone. His presentation was prepared about as well as my average lesson, which means he winged it. I sympathised with "Okay, look at page four of your handout, oh, wait, there is no page four... um... page five, wait a minute, no, okay, let's play a game, who wants to play a game? Nobody? Okay, no game, who wants some stickers? Stickers. Yay." He actually gave us stickers.

The third speaker was late and I was pretty mad. I hate lateness, and three coffees and two boring presentations later I was ready to die in my chair. She finally showed up and told us that she was late because she had been doing another presentation in Incheon. The she boasted that she is 48 years old, has been an English teacher at an elementary school for 24 years, has four children, two girls (one studying at Seoul National University, one at Ewha Women's University) and two boys, and that she hopes to be Vice-Principal in two years. I hated her already. She then wasted the next hour of my life by going on about games and fun and making kids repeat stuff. It was pure torture and I learnt nothing.

The workshop wasn't a total loss, because we got some cash, and then a delicious American-Chinese style meal at Ho Lee Chow's which I highly recommend. Way better than Korean-Chinese food. We also got a shiny certificate which is framed and hanging on the wall above me. It says:

The up person is completed the educational theory for the after school program Teacher temperament improvement and knowledge education like above and Korea After School Education bestows this certificate.

You'd think they could have gotten at at least one of us to proof-read it.

Best of all though, and the reason for blogging about this in the first place, we got a piece of paper titled "Self Evaluation Checklist For Foreign Teachers". We are supposed to fill it out on the 15th of every month, and rate ourselves from A (Excellent) to D (Need Improvement). There are 123 questions, and a majority are hilarious.

My personal favourites:

2. Put slippers on when arrived to school?

27. Keep promise to students and make sure non-school related promises are not made.

28. Do you have own charming way to make students listen and follow you?

58. My voice in classroom is little bit loud.

63. I repeat English over and over again.

72. I plan and teach important English syllables and vowels.

78. I use exclamanation[sic] English phrase 3 ~ 5 minutes out of each hour.

122. I have memorized different level of of[sic] English poems.

123. I often hum English songs.

10 Things I Hate About Korea (2009)

2009-12-05T22:33:00.004+09:00

Every couple of days I open my inbox to find an email notification that someone has commented on my post "10 Things I Hate About Korea". I'm embarrassed to say that this post has received far more comments than all the others combined, and I have just found out that it comes up first when you google "korea hate" or "i hate korea". Someone must be linking it somewhere. Despite my lengthy disclaimer, and several follow-up comments in the same vein, idiots still write stuff like this gem that 'Poor Koreans' wrote last week,

Koreans are all or nothing type people. Very fatalistic, overly dramatic, very self pitying human beings... they over react but they also cower just as quickly when confronted... oh such poor little creatures... that's what years of oppression from outsiders will do... a big facade but no bite to the bark... the list just keeps going and going... no they cannot rise above and beyond, don't know how... who has the time when they need to wallow in self pity over why everybody has wronged them...

Pure nonsense of course, but just as I seem to attract nutters on public transport, they are like moths to a flame to a post which I feel doesn't represent me or this blog very well at all.

As a result, I've decided to revisit the ten things I hated (actually nine things) and see whether my opinions have changed, or whether Korea has changed, over the last two years, two months and two days.

Before I start though, I'll say it again for those of you who are a little slow. I like Korea. I like Koreans. If I didn't, I wouldn't be here. If you, on the other hand, hate Korea and/or Koreans, then we probably don't have much in common, and I definitely don't want to hear your opinions on the matter. I just like to have a rant every now and then. I could find 10 things I hate about Australia too, or about anywhere I've ever been, or ever worked, and that's just for starters.

Having said that, thanks to all the funny commenters who got what I was trying to say, and who shared their experiences. None of this was directed at you guys. Koreans, don't be offended please, I like you.

Anyway, here's my list, revisited.

1)Racism. This is one area where there seem to be a lot of improvements. Koreans are increasingly conscious of their bad reputation in this regard, and they are making an effort to change. High profile cases like that of Bonojit Hussain and a plethora of articles on the subject in American newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post have brought the issue to the forefront and young people especially are well aware of their country's shortcomings when it comes to racism. Movies such as Where is Ronny?, starring a Korean-speaking Bangladeshi, are also contributing to this.

However, despite my Korean being infinitely better then two years ago, I still get people who refuse to communicate properly, but that's a long rant for another day.

2)Toilets. These are also improving. New buildings usually have excellent toilet facilities, and the squatter seems to be on the way out. Subway station bathrooms are being refurbished and the new ones are world-class. H1A1 Influenza and the resulting public health campaign to have people cover their mouths when they cough and wash their hands after going to the bathroom have worked wonders. Soap and hand-dryers have miraculously appeared in most bathrooms, and all of my students wash their hands now.

Having said that, the culture of throwing toilet paper into a can instead of flushing it remains. I wish I had had a camera the day I went to the toilet at Starbucks next to CGV Gangnam where, in stark contrast to the shiny international franchise packed with well-dressed sophisticated young people with laptops and smart phones, a massive pile of soiled toilet paper overflowed out of the bin and onto the floor beneath a sign saying in English and Korean not to flush the paper because it blocks the plumbing. I flushed.

3)Driving. Still terrible. Koreans need to learn that red lights are unambiguous - they always mean stop. I'm sick of cars rolling through pedestrian crossings behind and in front of me while the green man timer shows 30 seconds remaining. I'm sick of motorbikes driving on the footpath, and waiting to cross the road at a crossing with me, spewing fumes into my face.

Bus drivers are the worst. They all need to be put through a re-education camp, Pyongyang-style, and learn how to use their brakes properly. Koreans always tell me, "Oh, they are on such a tight schedule, and traffic is so bad, that's why they have to stop so suddenly.". Bullshit. I noticed while in Australia in July that the bus drivers were able to come to a complete stop very quickly, without throwing people off their feet. Sometimes I think the drivers here must be taking part in some kind of challenge where they get points for every passenger who falls over or slides down the bus, extra points for pregnant women and old people. If I had my way I'd fire the lot of them.

4)Dirt. I thought this was getting better, but then I travelled outside of Korea a couple of times this year and realised that, no, I'd just gotten used to it. In general, people here still don't care about the finer details of anything, and as long as this is the case, I'll keep complaining about dirty windows and signs. H1A1 has helped out here too though. Whereas before I had to clean my own classroom, now professional cleaners have been hired to disinfect the place every morning. I feel much healthier now, as I was only able to get it so clean with a miniature-sized dustpan and brush.

5)Grocery Shopping. This is getting better too, slowly, but there is still a lack of western products. To be fair, as some commenters have pointed out, this can probably be explained by a lack of demand for western products. If I was writing a new list, I'd leave this one out.

6)Obsolete Foods. I'd probably leave this one out too. I like 떡 and 부대찌개. 미역국 still tastes like shit, but I can't really criticise them for eating seaweed soup while back at home some people still consider boiled vegetables edible. Anyone who eats potatoes in any form has no right to point the finger.

7)Garbage Disposal. Still atrocious. Again, it comes down to taking pride in the finer details. I don't get how well-educated people living in shiny modern apartments with all the gizmos, wearing nice designer clothes, working highly-skilled jobs etc. can think nothing of taking a bag of garbage downstairs and throwing in onto a huge rotting heap by the side of the road, or coming back to their car after having it parked on the street to find it covered in leaflets, fliers and hooker cards, and just shrug and throw them all into the gutter.

To those of you who suggested that I just lived in a dirty area, I have lived in five different places now, mostly in rich areas, and none of them had a decent system in place. True, some places have a recycling system, and where it exists it seems to work well. However, getting yelled at by a security guard for not sorting your cans and bottles properly does not a good garbage disposal system make. Here are the places I've lived and how they deal with household waste.

길동 Gil-dong (2006-07) - General rubbish goes in special bags, placed on the side of the footpath in front of the building. Cans, bottles and paper are heaped next to the piles of garbage bags. Food waste goes in smaller different-coloured bags which are torn up by cats in the night, leaving food waste and kimchi-juice all over the sidewalk, next to the puddles of vomit. The lot is collected by different teams of private workers with their own trucks. They don't care if they make a mess.

논현동 Nonhyeon-dong 1 (2007) - Same system for general trash. Paper, cans and bottles go in a green mesh bag. This bag helps to keep the recyclables from being strewn across the street. Food waste goes in special cat-proof bins. The problem is, the bins are not outside every building and are filthy to touch, so most people don't use them and just hide their food waste in with the regular trash. Same collection system as Gildong.

구의동 Guui-dong (2007- 2008) - No trash collection at all on my small side street. The residents of all the neighbouring properties had to carry their bags out to the main road, where it would pile up metres high. Lots of rats and stray cats in this neighbourhood. No food waste system. Since people were dumping their rubbish away from their homes, they no longer felt compelled to use the official bags, which cost money. Same system of garbage collection.

논현동 Nonhyeon-dong 2 (2008-2009) - Same as Nonhyeon-dong 1 except the food waste bins seemed to be non-existent in this part of the suburb. The residents of the surrounding buildings were the worst I have seen when it comes to indiscriminate dumping, and the streets were filthy. No government trash collection system here either.

서초동 Seocho-dong (2009) - When I moved in I asked about the garbage disposal system, because I know that officetels (the kind of building I live in, mixed commercial and residential) are usually pretty anal about putting things in the right bins and using the right bags. I was surprised to be told to simply dump all of my garbage in a large area next the side of the building, shared with a couple of restaurants. People are hired to sort it all out into seperate bins, and it is hauled away every couple of nights. This area is absolutely disgusting and is definitely a health hazard. On weekends the it all grows into a huge mountain and I pity the poor old ladies that have to wade and sift through it. The whole area is a disgrace when it comes to garbage disposal - on my way to the bus stop every morning I pass pile after pile of restaurant food waste just carelessly bagged up and thrown onto the side of the road.

8)Noise pollution. As bad as ever, but I'm used to it. I'll sleep through anything now. On the plus side, I blast my home theatre, and although the sub shakes the light fittings in the ceiling loose, no-one ever complains.

9)Lack of Common Courtesy. Big improvements here. There are concerted public service campaigns running on buses and subways trying to get people to be civilised, and it's slowly working. These are quite entertaining, and I think I'm going to start taking photos and trying to translate some of them here. I think in another five years there will be no problems in this area. I've also come to like the culture of speed and pushiness, but that too is a topic for another day.

I'm going to put a new one in this previously vacant space. 10)Smoking. This time last year I would have had this in my 10 Things I Love About Korea list, but now that I've gone almost a year without touching one I've decided that the only way to keep off them is to become a militant anti-smoker. It's a filthy habit and it should be banned. Koreans smoke way too much, and I've even noticed a lot of women smoking in public lately. The nerve. I'd like to see smoking by either sex banned in all public spaces both indoors and outdoors, and prices go up from a tempting 2500won to an Aussie-like 12500won. That would be awesome.

Funny Law Disappears

2009-11-30T00:12:00.002+09:00

Not much hilarious news lately, but this one was a gem.

I love how men were being prosecuted for promising marriage for sex, and I love how feminists opposed it. I love how the article blames the Japanese at the end.

Sad News

2009-11-20T02:46:00.005+09:00

Back in April, I posted about a shooting range we went to in Busan, and the fun that was had there. I thought it was great, but as my brother noted on his Facebook video description, "The place did seem a bit dodgy though, and the owner was a maniac.".

Earlier this week I read about a fire at a Busan shooting range, and decided it was a different place after seeing a couple of photos. Then today I was looking at a few more here, and I realised that it was the place we went after all. I hope the guy who showed us around isn't among the four Korean dead, but as the fire started in the shooting area, it seems likely that he is.

Seven Japanese have died so far, and more are in hospital. I think one of the Koreans, a 67 year old woman, died in hospital also. I tried to find out the names and ages of the victims to see if the owner might have been one of them, but there are an overwhelming number of Korean-language articles on the topic, and my reading is just too slow to wade through them all.

This Korea Time article corroborates the owner's story that Yakuza patronised the establishment, and I wonder if the guys there on the weekend were really your average tourists.

While we were there it never occurred to me that the place might be a fire hazard. I guess I was just too busy enjoying being able to clown around with guns. I wouldn't have been surprised to see a headline such as "Tourist Shoots Self in the Head" but I am shocked to hear about the fire. Early speculation suggested that a cigarette was the cause of the blaze, but now they seem to think that there was an explosion in the shooting area. Either way, it's a tragic incident.

One good thing that may emerge is that fire safety standards in Korea improve - I would like to see less locked and chained exit doors at my school for one. Fire drills are a problem too. We all thought it was funny that during the joke of a drill at my first school here, which was located in a large 10-storey building, we were told to take our classes up to a tiny area on the roof.

Funny Question

2009-11-16T22:49:00.003+09:00

A conversation I had with one of my First Graders this morning:

기훈: Teacher, no bag today? (Observant kid, I like it)

Me: No bag. I didn't bring it today.

기훈: What about your plane ticket?

Me: What? I live here. I catch the bus to school.

기훈: (looking confused) Oh. You catch the bus?

Me: Yes. I live in Korea. I catch the bus.

The funny thing is, he's not the first to be under the impression that I travel from Australia on a daily basis, just to teach them. In the past I've had kids accuse me of lying about my nationality after they figured out that there is not enough time to travel between Australia and Korea in between classes. "Sam Teacher no, Australia too far. I think you are Korean." I guess the idea that a foreigner might actually live here is a difficult one for Korean children to get their heads around.

Then I get home and while I'm waiting for the lift some guy comes up, looks at me, give me the big thumbs up and says, "Oh! Good! Yes." in the ridiculous voice that reults when a Korean who speaks almost no English does their best to sound like they do. Over-enunicated, overly-expressive and over-American, with far too much mouth movement and facial animation. We get in the elevator and he gives me his "name card" saying, "Call me!." I think not.

칠거지악

2009-11-15T00:17:00.003+09:00

Under Confucianism there were seven reasons for expelling your wife from your home. This is known in Korean as 칠거지악, from the Chinese 七去之惡. They were as follows:

1. 시부모에게 순종하지 않음 (不順父母) Failure to obey parents-in-law

2. 아들이 없음 (無子) Failure to produce a son

3. 음탕함 (不貞) Lewdness/Debauchery

4. 질투함 (嫉妬) Jealousy

5. 나쁜 병이 있음 (惡疾) Having a bad illness

6. 말이 많음 (多言) Talking too much

7. 도둑질을 함 (竊盜) Thievery

I copied and pasted the Korean and 한자 straight from the above-linked wiki page, but the English is my own. The wiki page also says that there were three situations where even if a woman was to be found guilty of one of the seven evil behaviours, she would not be thrown out of home. They were:

1. 내쫓아도 돌아가 의지할 곳이 없는 경우 A situation where there is nowhere to return to.

2. 함께 부모의 삼년상을 치른 경우 Enduring a three year mourning period with one's parents.

3. 전에 가난하였으나 혼인한 후 부자가 된 경우 A situation where the wife was poor before marriage but became rich afterwards.

I've done a terrible job translating these, and should really ask a Korean, but I can't be bothered. The first one is okay I think, and is pretty straight forward, but I'm not happy with the next two.

Number two is tough because I had to look up 삼년상 (三年喪 - mourning for three years)in the dictionary, which is no substitute for knowing how it is actually used. I assume that upon the woman's expulsion her parents go into mourning for three years and if she joins them then she can return to her husband. However, the literal meaning seems a lot vaguer than that.

Number three also seems ambiguous. The lack of personal pronouns means that the subject of the sentence is unspecified. I assume that it is talking about the wife, as it seems to me that women would have been more likely to marry into money than men. My problem with this one, though, is that I can't understand why that would be a good reason for forgiving the wife's transgression/s. Is it too heartless to send her back to a life of poverty? Or is bad behaviour forgiven in a woman who grew up lowborn, which possibly means that she was not properly taught how to be a dutiful wife?

A Google Image search turned up less funny pictures than I thought, although I did find this one.

Amusingly, the wiki article notes at the end that the seven evils resulting in expulsion made divorce possible only during the Joseon Dynasty, but that in the present day, of course, they would never be accepted.

Don't Buy an LG Vacuum Cleaner

2009-11-01T01:01:00.003+09:00

Don't buy this piece of shit under any circumstances.

It's the LG V-H852CP hand-help vacuum cleaner and it says "ezMate" on the side.

I bought it because it looked nice and compact, it has a charging dock, and being cordless is a big plus.

A friend warned me that it sucked but I ignored his advice and bought it anyway. I should have bought the larger, bulkier and slightly more expensive Black and Decker.

It started off okay, and I was able to vacuum my entire apartment and then go around the edges using the long pointy attachment on a single charge, and it seemed to work well. Four months later, however, I can cover less than one fifth of the floor before the suction power gets so low that it fails to pick up a pubic hair of average length.

I'm pretty irate about this and will probably go to the closest LG Electronics rip-off shop where they sell TVs for double the real price to suckers who can't be bothered to make the trip to Hi-Mart/Yongsan/Technomart or get on the internet. I doubt I'll get my money back though, as I didn't but it from them and have no box or receipt.

LG (Vacuum cleaners only, I like my TV) are hereby added to my boycott list, joining big names such as Outback Steakhouse Korea (Learn to cook a steak).

Hopefully this post will be found in searches for the vacuum cleaner, so I'm going to include some warning sentences in English and Korean:

Don't buy an LG hand-held vacuum cleaner. LG vacuum cleaners are bad. LG vacuum cleaners are defective. LG vacuum cleaners have problems. LG vacuum cleaner problem. LG vacuum cleaner rip-off.

경고! LG ezMate V-H852CP 사지 마세요! 풀량품. 배터리 안 좋아요.

By the way, I will remove this post if LG gives me a new vacuum cleaner.

Taxi Dilemma

2009-10-25T02:01:00.002+09:00

I want to ask the driver to turn the music up, but I know that if I do so, he will probably ask me 20 questions, and I won't be able to hear the song anyway.

That's all for this week. Here are some pictures of 삼겹살 being roasted in an oven in order to be served as 통삼겹살. This place was in the Jognro area, close to Jonggak Station and Cheonggyecheon. This area is by far the nicest in the whole city - if you go to Seoul, stay nowhere else.

Random Thoughts and Bad Photos

2009-10-18T01:50:00.004+09:00

I used to think that my photography skills were pretty awesome, but then I started taking pictures and realised that lenses hate me. These days, and by these days I mean since two weeks ago, I don't even bother to try and make the photo look good, I just aim in the general direction and click the damn thing. Sometimes I don't even bother.

A case in point is when I was waiting for people at Sincheon Station last night and I was standing in front of a chemist with a sticker on the window featuring a picture of a dog holding a syringe underneath the words "Animal Drug House" - an awesome Konglish photo op, but my camera was just too far away in my bag. Then I looked up and saw a row of massive tall jars full of ginseng roots soaking in some kind of liquid, in what appeared to be various stages of preparation. The jars were lit up from behind, there was a reddish glow from a nearby sign too, and the angle from where I was standing was perfect. I knew my photo attempt would ruin the memory though, so I didn't bother.

The following are a collection of photos from the last couple of weeks, in the order that Blogger put them up. Why do they never appear on the page in the order in which I upload them?

They opened a new Dunkin Donuts near me last week. I guess the one 200 metres away is too far for some people to walk. Then a couple of days ago some celebrity guy (이민호 don't even get me started) turned up to sign autographs, hence the crowds of (mainly) women.

I wonder if every new Dunkin Donuts has a similar promotion, or whether it depends on the individual franchisee. I also wonder whether it is worth the money they have to spend on Mr. Boys Over Flowers. I suspect that it isn't. Bold Prediction: This branch doesn't survive for a full calendar year.

I looked out of my window at exactly 3:59am one morning to see if there were any drunk people to look at with my binoculars and saw crowds of normal looking people rushing down the road, some of them holding infants wrapped in blankets. They seemed to all be heading in the same direction so I followed them and sure enough they were going to the nearby church. I later asked a churchgoer about this who said that early morning services are very popular among people who are especially keen to show god how dedicated they are. The church in question, 사랑의 교회 is a gigantic complex which attracts such large crowds of people on Sundays that they have to hire people to direct traffic for hundreds of metres around. You can see some of them holding red hand-light wand thingies in the photo if you look closely. On the plus side, an ajumma selling 계란빵 egg bread also shows up and I'm a weekly customer.

Apologies for the photo. Sadly, it was the pick of the litter.

Behold the famous Hotel Lisboa in Macau. It now looks pretty old and rundown when compared to the new casinos which have popped up around it, especially during the daytime. I decided to stay there because the place made quite an impression on me during my first trip to Macau in 2005. It was a bad idea.

The rooms might have been opulent once, but seemed shabby to me. The lobby had impressed me before, but didn't strike me as anything special this time, and the service at check-in was irritatingly slow. I felt like calling the International Hotel Inspectors so they can come around and strip it of a few stars. Basically the room was worse than my apartment and you don't see me trying to rent my place out for hundreds per night. The TV was tiny, there was no computer or internets (Macau is an internet dead zone by the way, avoid if you have a similar addiction to my own) and the only thing that seemed like it might be cool was the spa bath. Then after about five minutes I realised that spa baths are boring because there is nothing to do in there except stare at your feet and try not to get sucked into the intake vents.

The best part was that I got a free bathrobe. There was a sign saying that if you wanted one they were available for sale from housekeeping, so I made an enquiry at reception, and was told that it would be deducted from my deposit upon check-out. I checked out and when they gave me my full deposit back I asked them about it they just waved it off. Makes up for the miniature TV I guess.

Next time (if there is a next time) I'm going to do what these other guys I met over there did and stay in a sauna for 20 bucks and get free noodles too.

This monstrosity is the Grand Lisboa, and it is without a doubt the ugliest large building I've ever seen, which is a big call from somebody who lives in Seoul. I should have stayed here, as the rooms were cheaper, and decked out Egyptian Pharaoh style I'm told. I also hear that food and drinks are totally free for guests, which would have been good because the food options that I saw included a fully stocked Deli with a team of sandwich builders at your beck and call and a tasty noodle place which had lots of mix and match options.

The Grand Lisboa also has a poker room, which is where I spent way too much time, and where I realised why I used to like playing poker (you meet lots of interesting characters) and why I stopped playing poker (you meet lots of uninteresting characters, and because I am hopeless at the game and lose money). Anyway, the best thing about the poker was that I got a free blanket. They were handing them out to players who were too cold under the air-conditioning, so even though I was fine, outside was a sweatbox, I got one to drape over my shoulders and made a speedy getaway with it once my chips had disappeared.

I also spent a lot of time trying to figure out why the Lisboa is called what it is in Chinese. While gambling I noticed that Grand Lisboa is written as 新葡京. I know from Korean that 新(신) means 'new', and that 京(경) means 'capital' so I was curious to know what 葡 meant. Unable to use a Chinese dictionary I found out that it means 'grape' in by looking it up in Korean. So Lisboa is translated literally as Grape Capital. I figured that Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, who owned Macau until 1999, must mean Grape Capital in Portuguese also, but it doesn't at all, which doesn't satisfy me one bit. I know want to know whether Lisbon is famous for grapes, if it was known as a grape capital at any point, and who decided that the Chinese for Lisbon was going to be Grape Capital and not something closer to the sound of Lisboa. The fact that Lisboa sounds nothing like 葡京 was the reason that no taxi driver knew where to take me. Yet another reason not to stay in that dump.

By the way, this photo sucks because it was taken out of the back window of the cab on the way to the ferry to Hong Kong airport. The direct ferry link was quite convenient and included check-in servies in Macau. The Hong Kong Airport ferry terminal (Skylink?) was a little disappointing however, run down and poorly equipped, in stark contrast to the rest of the airport. There was a angry Swiss guy, I assume he was Swiss from his accent, his arrogance, and his interest in my Swiss falg adorned shirt, who was laying into a group of scared Dragonair flight attendants, yelling about the ferry link being a disgrace, and Dragonair being the worst in the world. At least we got an airport tax refund. It wasn't long though, until euphoria at free money was replaced by annoyance at having to wait for a poorly air-conditioned bus sitting in the sun to fill up to sardine can bursting-point before leaving for the main terminals.

This last photo is of a moving company at work taking stuff up to a high floor by use of a rising platform thingy. It always seems like a sketchy way to do it, and that a badly balanced wardrobe and a gust of wind could result in carnage.

Snooze Time

2009-09-20T23:28:00.003+09:00

There's been a lot of noise this week, but not much to see, so I thought I'd add a photo of two of the construction workers having a snooze instead. I'd been wondering what the square thing covered in fake grass was for, and now I know - just add a plank of wood for a pillow, and it's a double bed!

I also signed a piece of paper this week that will hopefully make me rich. I was paying my utility bills and they told me that if I signed here here and here I could be compensated for the noise and vibrations from the construction site. I couldn't be bothered trying to read it, so I just asked them if anything bad could happen if I signed, and they said no, that likely nothng would happen, but maybe I would get some moolah. I signed of course, bring on the cash.

Boring Construction Site Photo 3

2009-09-13T19:12:00.003+09:00

Digging trucks dig out dirt. New restaurant opens across the street. Ho hum.

Feel Like Shit Deja Vu

2009-09-10T02:13:00.003+09:00

This is an old favorite, which I finally got on camera last week. My friend Nick of Best ESL Journals bought one that we saw in Cheonho one day, although I believe his is a light, slightly greenish, blue.

The photo was taken near the front entrance of my school. Note the dirt patch in the background. It was once full of flowers and well-trimmed shubbery, complete with helpful labels providing botanical information, but inexplicably cleared and replaced with a thick layer of fine dry dirt.

Construction Site Photo 2

2009-09-05T14:12:00.004+09:00

Not much happening down there this week. They laid a web of red blue and yellow wires/cables and put down some kind of rusty steel lattice. Then they filled it with concrete when I wasn't looking.

In the two hours or so since I took the photos they have moved the white shipping containers which I assume are makeshift offices onto the newly laid concrete floor by crane.

In the first photo you can see one of the motivational placards. It reads,

가족에게 가장소중한 선물은 당신의 안전입니다

This means something like "To your family, the most precious gift is your safety."

There's another on the far right which says,

"아빠! 힘내세요!! 아빠! 파이팅!!"

This means "Dad! Be strong!! Dad! Fighting!!(You can do it!!)" or something similar. It's one of those where I understand what it means, but am unable to really explain it out of cultural context. The concept of 파이팅/화이팅! Fighting! is hard enough to explain on its own, and needs a much longer blog post than this one. I think 힘내세요 could be any or all of "Be strong" "Good job" "Keep working hard", but I'm not really confident enough to give a definite translation. Interesting signboards nonetheless.

Anti-Fans

2009-09-03T00:40:00.004+09:00

I found out about anti-fans from one of my students, Brenda, who is obsessed with Korean pop music group Big Bang. Teaching her is not fun. The only way I can make it bearable is to deliberately mispronounce the names of, or just outright insult, the group members when she brings them up, which happens about 7,958 times an hour.

I had read here that her favorite (or is T.O.P her favorite? Who can remember?) Big Bang member, G-Dragon, was accused of plagiarism, so I brought it up, hoping to send her spiralling into a screaming mess of outrage, but she just just laughed it off, telling me that it was just a rumour invented by "anti-fans".

I loved the word as soon as I heard it. It's 안티팬 in Korean (although my students all seem to pronounce it as 앤티팬) and it refers to groups of people who hate certain celebrities. I looked it up on the Korean version of Wikipedia, and read here that politicians and newspapers have anti-fans too.

I have since found out from my students that pretty much any celebrity in Korea has anti-fans. The anti-fans are pretty hardcore, and rival groups of anti-fans fight each other via internet smear campaigns, and by tearing down banners belonging to each other. Actually, this may or may not be done by anti-fans, but by the fan-clubs of different pop-groups who seem to be feuding themselves, some of whom may or may not be anti-fans of groups/stars who they are not fans of. All very confusing indeed. I recommend the second video in this article labelled "Evidence?". Funny stuff. Some anti-fans have even gone so far as to send knives and syringes to singers they hate, and one poor boy band member had his drink spiked with glue, of all things.

I'm not sure why the awesomely named G-Dragon has become a target, but I suspect it's because he acts gayer than Bruno (awesome movie by ther way) and dresses like this:

Construction Site Photo

2009-08-29T23:35:00.002+09:00

I've been really struggling to blog lately. I used to feel like I had too much to write about, and not enough time to do it. Now I have plenty of time, but I see fewer things in my day that inspire me to put a post together.

One thing that is interesting is the construction site that my apartment overlooks. I was assured that the finished building will only be 12 stories high, but the sign on the fence, which I should have checked before signing the lease, says it will be 15. Being on the 14th Floor it won't be fun if the sign is correct. I'm hoping that if it is 15 stories, only part of it will be that high, as the profile of the structure on the massively out of scale artist's impression makes it look like it won't be flat-topped.

My apartment is well sound-proofed, and the noise which makes it through, most of which I miss while I'm at work, doesn't bother me. It's probably quieter than any of the places I've lived before, as it seems to be a loudspeaker blaring fruit truck free-zone. The worst thing is when they are arc-welding down below and I look out the window straight at it. Sometimes they put up a big umbrella, sometimes not. The first time I saw the umbrella I thought it was rather considerate, but now I'm beginning to think it was just for shade.

I've been enjoying watching the site slowly transform, and from now on I'll try to take a photo every weekend from roughly the same place and follow the changes. I wish I'd started two months ago actually. The place began as a hole in the ground, which they then filled with concrete around giant rusty steel I beam girders. Then they seemed to break up and remove all of the concrete leaving the girders sticking out vertically. Then it rained and turned the whole site into a mud puddle. The workers dug a hole, lined it with a tarp, and channeled the water into it, after which it was pumped out. Then they laid other beams across the first beams, and a couple of days ago they started attaching what seem to be metal plates over the second set of beams in order to make a floor of some description. It's quite fascinating, and makes me curious as to how a building is made, and marvel at the process.

There are also some funny inspiration slogans posted around the site, which I plan to photograph and attempt to translate soon.

Manners

2009-08-12T15:09:00.003+09:00

I've been thinking about the ways living in Korea has changed me lately, so I thought I'd write a little about how I've become ruder in some ways, and politer in others, and how I've become a lot less tolerant in general.

Sometimes I feel like I've become incredibly rude. I no longer apologise when I bump into people, wait my turn, or queue properly, and my table manners are atrocious. I am pushy in crowds to the point where I even get angry looks from Koreans (such a warm and fuzzy feeling) who think I'm out of line. I love being in a culture that allows me to knock slow walking idiots out of the way without having to say sorry or getting punched in the face.

On the plus side, the better my Korean gets the politer I am to strangers in speech, as speaking in honorifics is a lot of fun, and allows me to have a laugh at humourless wankers. I also stand for old people more than I used to on buses and trains, and in general I go above and beyond in trying to be a good ambassador for my country. I have also become convinced of the importance of greeting people - although it can be a slow process I believe that repeated greetings can soften even the grumpiest old bastard. A good example is one of the caretakers at my school, who refused to say a word to me for months, despite me saying hello and goodbye every time I saw him along with a bow/nod. After a while I started getting a grunt or a nod back, and now I get a full greeting in return and sometimes even a smile! Maybe one day we'll have a conversation.

I'm also losing patience for a lot of the regular bullshit I hear. I used to politely nod and smile while taxi drivers went off on a rant, but now I argue back. I also used to let it slide while well-meaning people said ridiculous things, but there's only so many times I can hear the same old nonsense.

Here are some tips:

Don't ask me personal questions, or I'll ask them right back. And I know you know that it's rude to ask questions about income in the West, although I'll give you a pass on the age thing. Marriage questions are OK too, but probably wouldn't be if I was female.

Don't generalise about foreigners in Korea, or I'll generalise about Koreans, and you'll get offended.

Don't assume I'm an American. I fact, don't assume I speak English as my first language, and then come back from your trip to The Canadia and complain about how people asked if you were Chinese North Korean, or said "Konichiwa(sp)" to you at Walmart.

I am happy to be complimented, but not when it reveals how stupid you think I am, and how stupid you actually are. For example, don't compliment me on my ability to have a conversation in Korean, and then express your amazement that I can order bibimbab.

Similarly, don't compliment me on my English. It's my first language you dickhead. That includes marvelling at my ability to read a novel. Yes, foreigners are indeed able to read books written in their own language. My kids get a pass on this by the way, as some of the first graders are still not sure that I'm even human.

For that matter, don't correct my English, and never ever correct my pronunciation. If you can't understand me, it's because your English sucks arse, and yes, "garbage" is a word, you just haven't learnt it yet you arrogant fuckwit.

Don't comment on my appearance at all. I don't want to hear about my latest pimple, that I have bags under my eyes, a red face, and a protruding belly (Ah Korea, the only country where I'll ever be accused of being fat). This includes compliments too - Tom Cruise, Bard Pitt, Vin Diesel, the guy from Transformers, don't say it unless you want to be told you look like Jackie Chan.

Don't try to force me to drink your foul formaldehyde soju shit. You will fail.

Bilingual female (guys never seem to do this) Kyopos 교포 (overseas Koreans), don't immediately switch to Korean when I walk into the restaurant/onto the subway car. I'm not going to talk to you, I don't think you're hot just because you're Asian (thanks for that yellow fever guys), and I couldn't give a fuck about what you have to say. It's insulting to be the subject of so many immediate assumptions, and I doubt you'd like to be treated the same way overseas. To those who answer that yes, they have in fact been treated similarly in x English-speaking country, then you should know better.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, for the Korean Koreans, don't throw whatever random English words you know into your conversation as soon as I enter earshot. Maybe my standards are too high, but hearing "Oh my god!", "Shit fuck motherpucker" "Fourteen" and "Yes, OK, OK, OK, Yeseu" do not impress me in the slightest.

Finally, don't take this post too seriously. If you're a female Kyopo who never switches to Korean at the sight of a non-Asian, then relax, it's not aimed at you. If you were trying to be nice by saying that I look like Bruce Willis, thank you, but you're wrong. Play it safe and give me something less specific. Also, repeating your compliment ten times in a row while raising your voice a little each time and giving me the thumbs up just makes me uncomfortable.

In fact, you don't have to compliment me at all. To those with inferiority complexes, don't worry, I love it here, otherwise I would have moved on long ago. Rest assured that I like the place, the culture (especially the 빨리 빨리 part!), and the people, even when they are asking me stupid questions.

Please don't let this become like my Ten Things I Hate About Korea post which still attracts racists and indignant Koreans both, despite my clear qualifications at the beginning. That post was prompted by frustrations at work, and this one is the result of hearing a lot of anti-English Teacher stuff lately, which is getting harder and harder to take lying down. Thank you.

The worst fish in the world...

2009-08-04T02:10:00.003+09:00

...is probably also a contender for worst food in the world.

It's called Skate, or 홍어 in Korean, and is absolutely putrid. It smells like ammonia and tastes even worse. It's eaten raw and fermented, and has pieces of cartilage running through it. Horrible horrible horrible.

In this Youtube video the guy tries some. The part with the skate starts at about the three minute mark, and goes to show how foul this stuff is, because that guy eats anything.

I've been unfortunate enough to have been force fed the stuff by misguided Koreans who actually like it, but will never ever eat it again. I considered trying it one more time on the weekend, but was unable to get it anywhere near my mouth.

My House

2009-07-30T18:32:00.005+09:00

July has been another month with only two blog posts - hopefully the last. I finally have my apartment in order, and with not much else I need to do on the horizon, I can get back into my old routine.

As well as not writing as much as I like here, I have also let my studying slip and not been exercising or reading enough. Instead I've been wasting countless hours searching for the perfect second mattress cover (still haven't found it), trying to figure out why I couldn't type on forms without Internet Explorer freezing up (damn you Skype IE add-on), trying to figure out how to best connect my computer to my TV, even though it's not necessary (damn you Yongsan computer salesman for telling me that my motherboard had an HDMI slot. Damn me for not checking before buying), and vacuuming up microscopic pieces of dirt with my crappy vacuum cleaner like an OCD clean-freak. Facebook Scrabble has also been a time killer of epic proportions.

Anyway, I got around to taking some pictures of my place, which is conveniently located close to the newly opened Sinnonhyeon Station on the new subway Line 9/Gold Line. Here are a few screenshots from Naver Maps of my neighbourhood. To give you a general idea of where my building is, it's on the same block as the big rust-coloured one, roughly diagonally behind it, about in the middle of three of the photos.

Here are some of the inside:

A Letter

2009-07-11T11:11:00.002+09:00

Dear Korean Business Owner,

Thank you for opening your (insert franchise name here) store in my neighbourhood, despite there already being three branches within a 50 metre radius. I especially enjoyed the display of flowers set up for your "Grand Open" and the dancing girls and arch made of balloons was a nice touch too. I like how you handed out discount coupons to everyone except me while playing the same five loud pop songs at max volume on your cheap amp.

I noticed that you have a big shiny new sign. The colours are vivid and clear, and the light shines through evenly at night. It must have cost a lot of money, and gives a very positive impression. As you live in Seoul and are Korean, you must be familiar with the high levels of dirt in the air. This dirt settles on top of things, and then when it rains, the run-off leaves black water trails all over walls, the sides of buildings, windows, and, yes, signs. In fact, after 6 months, your sign will look absolutely filthy. This will confirm to everyone how your franchise is, in fact, nothing but garbage packaged in a cheap but shiny exterior. Please do me, and anybody else who cares, a favour and clean your sign on a regular basis.

Send your son/daughter/nephew/niece who slaves away all day for you for no pay outside with a mop once in a while and scrub the damn thing down. The difference will be amazing. Then when I look at your shop, I might actually believe that you won't go out of business in six months, only to be replaced by another over-represented chain of rip-off merchants.

Yours sincerely,

Sam

Slow Month of June...

2009-07-01T02:10:00.002+09:00

I think this June might have been the slowest ever month of this blog, but not for lack of things to write about.

I have lots of things I want to write about, including how to find, or how not to find, a place in Seoul, my new apartment and how awesome it is, the internet and how awesome it is for shopping, and other related topics.

Anyway, that's all for now, and I'll see some of you in Sydney in a couple of days!

Apartment Hell

2009-06-14T02:40:00.003+09:00

Much of Seoul is made up of apartment complexes. Although these are getting better, they are usually, in my opinion, soulless, characterless, badly-designed places where every building is the same as the one next to it. The buildings generally have numbers rather than names, and every apartment has the same floor plan as all the others. The larger complexes often have a commercial zone containing services such as supermarkets and banks.

I would hate to live in one of these concrete monstrosities, mainly for the reasons above. Also, despite being fairly high density, they lack the convenience of living in a high-density neighbourhood made up of individual buildings and being of mixed residential and commercial use. For example, where I am living now and where I have lived in the past, if I need to buy milk I walk to the lift, go outside, and there is a convenience store right there. There are probably ten others as well as three decent sized supermarkets within ten minutes walk. If I lived on the same floor of Samsung Apartment 101 I would need to wait longer for the elevator, then walk out of the complex and probably cross a road to find the nearest place to buy milk. In some places this ends up being a 20 minute round trip. I may as well live in a suburb, in a house, and actually have some room to move, some privacy, and not hear stomping from the family living above me 24/7.

Although these complexes are safe, they are also quite eerie to walk around at night, and aesthetics leave much to be desired. The basic design that seems to have been in favour for the last 30 years resembles a basic Lego structure that I might have been disgusted with and smashed on the floor when I was six. An elevator shaft and then two identical mirror-image apartments on each floor is pretty standard. Sometimes they stick two such structures together in a variety of ways, again reminding me of Lego. The whole building usually makes either a) a square, b) a rectangle, or c) an L-shape. If the team of architects has been feeling adventurous you might get an E-shape.

The outside of the building will probably be bare on two sides, with "windows" on the other sides. The bottom three floors will get bars on theirs'. I put "windows" in inverted commas because this is the name for an area inside the apartment which is wide enough to hang laundry, or maybe put a small table and chairs. It will have a waist-high metal railing and be glassed-off on both sides. I still wonder why they don't design buildings with real actual balconies that protrude from the side of the building and which could be functional places to enjoy the view of neighbouring apartment complexes and polluted skies. I suspect it's because winters are too cold, and the balcony serves as insulation, and as a buffer against the black dust that settles on everything. It also seems that Koreans are yet to discover the concept of the view.

The windowless side of the building will be decorated with the logo of the construction company which built it and the number of the building in big block letters. Sometimes you get a snappy marketing slogan too. The bottom floor will often contain a nursery for young children, which must be the only kind of commercial premises allowed in these buildings because I've never seen anything else. Parking is usually underground, accessible by ramp and elevator, and each building will have its very own grumpy security guard who sleeps on and off all day while watching Manchester United's latest game and yelling at people for not sorting their garbage properly.

Criticism of the Seoul skyline's many crimes against architecture must be filtering down because there have been laws passed recently saying that apartment complex designers must make each building slightly different. This is evident in the designs of the newer complexes which are much nicer to look at - some of the buildings are different heights, and are at different angles to one another, a radical departure from the good old ten-buildings-in-a-straight-line design favoured in the past. I've even seen both square and rectangular shaped buildings side by side in the same development!

I have the pleasure of visiting some of my students at their homes on a weekly basis. These kids are from families who are living the dream of being able to say that they live in an "apartu" rather than a lowly villa or jutaek. I took the photos at the Parkrio Jamsil complex at the 성내역 Seongnae Station end. As you can see from the photo of the map, this complex is massive, and quite new - it didn't exist when I first arrived in Seoul. It's one of many new developments which line the Han River from Asan Hospital all the way to Jamsil which were all built at roughly the same time. It only opened about six months ago, and about half of the commercial premises are still for lease, although a new one seems to have opened every week.

It is one of the nicest apartment complexes I've seen, and the areas between the buildings are beautifully landscaped with trees and flower gardens. There are lots of playgrounds for the kids and exercise areas for the ajummas, and the place has quite a pleasant atmosphere. It would probably be a nice place to live if you had the truckload of money needed to afford it, but lacked the imagination necessary to find somewhere else to live.

High-class Office Girl

2009-05-31T16:32:00.006+09:00

I'm used to seeing hooker cards and brothel discount coupons scattered all over the street outside, but I'd never seen one like this before until I found it in the elevator.

The front says:

USA Canada

30,000,000won/month Guaranteed!!

Manager Charlie
011-

The back says:

*700,000 to 1,000,000won/day, paid daily*

*20,000 dollars a month guaranteed(20,000 a month + a)* (I don't know what the "a" means, maybe extra?)

*High-class apartment with Internet use*

*Safe and family-style atmosphere*

*Located within Downtown Vancouver*

We only make promises we can keep!!

Who knew office jobs paid so well? I guess North America really is the promised land...

The Kim Distribution

2009-05-27T22:51:00.006+09:00

I've always been interested in Korean last names, and how so many people can share the same last name.

Picture downloaded from here.

I was writing my report cards and since I had a list of 118 Korean names in front of me, I decided to see how my students measure up to the statistics.

After a bit of maths, I found that there are:

30 Kims 김 (35.4%)
21 Lees 이 (24.8%)
10 Parks 박 (11.8%)
8 Jeongs 정 (9.4%)
5 Chois 최 (5.9%)
4 Ohs 오 and Yoos 유
3 Jangs 장, Seos 서, Hongs 홍, Lims 임 and Yoons 윤
2 Jus 주, Shins 신, Gus 구, Moons 문, Heos 허
and one each of Ji 지, Yang 양, Roh 노, Jo 조, Seong 성, Kang 강, Song 송, Gwak 곽, Ryu 류, Jin 진 and Jeon 전. (51.9% for all the rest of the names after the top five)

Predictable stuff from the top three, but Jeong manages to overtake Choi for 4th place.

As far as the romanisation goes, I just used what I think is the most common romanisation for each name, or if I didn't know I used the Revised Romanisation which is the official one used by the government. Apologies if I butchered your name. Regardless, I have written the names in Korean too to avoid confusion, eg. is 전 Jeon, Jun, or Chun?

Best ESL Journals

2009-05-23T15:05:00.002+09:00

I just looked at the front page of my blog and realised I've only posted twice this month. Oops. Also, to the person who wanted me to write about "home-made recipes" I ask, recipes for what?

Those who are interested should check out my friend Nick's new(ish) blog Best ESL Journals where he posts pieces of writing done by his students, most from one girl in particular I think. It's the funniest thing I've read in ages.

뭐라고?

2009-05-23T14:51:00.002+09:00

It used to really annoy me when there were lines in a movie in a foreign language, with no subtitles, or non-English words in a novel with no translation provided by the author. It used to frustrate me no end and have me pausing and rewinding the movie again to watch with the English subtitles for the hearing impaired turned on to see if there was a translation provided, or in the case of novels, trying to look up the words I didn't understand.

I don't know why I had a need to know exactly what was being said at all times, but thankfully I've been cured. I think it was watching so many DVDs produced for non-English-speaking regions which don't have hard-coded English subs, and therefore no subtitles in the foreign language parts. These days most movies seem to have their actors learn some lines in the language they are supposed to be speaking, rather than just putting on a bad accent like in Valkyrie or The Reader.

Regardless, after wasting countless minutes turning subtitles on and off, or having to find a subtitle file on the Internet because the DVD didn't come with English subs, only to find that they deliberately didn't translate it anyway, I realised that it almost never affects my understanding or enjoyment of the movie and usually the break in flow caused by my agitation at not knowing what is being said has a much worse effect.

읽어셔서 고맙습니다

(no title)

2009-05-10T13:19:00.002+09:00

Struggling to come up with anything to write about lately, so if anyone has any ideas, let me know.

The only things I can really think of to put down here are complaining rants about unremarkable occurences like being invited by my hiardresser friend to come to his new salon, only to be charged triple what I usually pay for a haircut, or about how I hate the hot weather. Pretty mindnumbing stuff.

The Good New Days

2009-04-30T21:06:00.003+09:00

Technology is awesome. I've had my ipod touch for a few months but I'm only now starting to take full advantage of its usefulness. I bought some great apps a few days ago after finally biting the bullet and deciding to sign up for itunes - Korean dictionary, Korean language vocab quizzes, gostop, baduk, translators, games. The best thing is they're all cheap and good.

I signed up for Nespot Play today which gives me fast wireless internet all over Seoul for 3300won ($3?) a month unlimited, but only on my ipod. Most of the places with good signals that I found today were Starbuckses, so I may have to end my boycott there, but oh well, internets is more important.

Then I bought myself a new set of headphones with a microphone attached from The A Shop at COEX Mall. The mic works well and it's great to have a remote for my ipod again. The point is to use Skype for free to other Skype using people, and for calling home for ridiculously low prices. Now I have no excuse for not calling home. I tested it out this evening and it worked perfectly, the sound quality was the same as a clear phone call.

So now I have an mp3 player/phone/game console/study aid/internet browser/media player which is easy to use and looks good too. There's not much it can't do. Bring on the future I say.

For those interested in subscribing to Nespot Play, you can do it by calling the KT English helpline on 1588 8448 where the helpful English-speaking people will sort it out for you. You'll have to fax a copy of your Alien Registration Card to them and register your MAC address and that's it. I was told to go to a KTF store and do it there but the staff at those places are useless and won't be able to help. I was able to do it there, but only because the fiftieth one I tried let me use their phone and fax machine.

Michael visits and we go to Busan

2009-04-28T20:15:00.003+09:00

Apologies for the lack of updates, Michael was in Seoul so I didn't have much time to write nonsense. We had a great time, the highlight being a trip down to Busan on the weekend.

We spent a lot of time on Saturday night looking for a shooting range we had heard existed in downtown Busan. We eventually found it and made our way in after laughing at the sign on the door saying it was for foreigners only. I don't want to say too much about the location of the place in case they get shut down, which would be a shame indeed.

We were buzzed in by the thick gold bracelet, Rolex, and Adidas pants wearing owner of the place, who made up for what he lacked in English with enthusiasm - he showed us his US military cap, worn backwards of course, and some photos of his army days. Then he offered us coffee and showed us the list of guns we were allowed to shoot. He was an ex-ROK Marine and looked like a fit, hard guy.

We asked some questions, chose our weapons, and were ushered into the small shooting range. No ID needed, no safety speech, no nothing. It was awesome. I asked the guy if I was allowed to shoot as fast as I liked which is normally prohibited, and he said yeah, no problems. I love Korea.

Dave, who was waiting outside with Ryan, took a video of most of it, starting after Jarod had already shot, and ending before some of my more ridiculous posturing.

At the end the owner encouraged us to pose for the camera, bringing out a bunch of guns and telling us not to worry because they were unloaded. Then he stood there and laughed while I, after getting over my initial safety concerns, held guns to my head for photos.

The guns all had a strange metal bar screwed to the trigger guard, and I asked the guy what it was for. He told me they had been used to attach the guns to a metal bar that used to run across the shooting range window to prevent people turning the guns on themselves. He told me that two Korean guys had committed suicide this way, so now he didn't allow Koreans in, unless he checked them out to make sure they weren't crazy. It's hard to translate exactly what he said, but it was something like "If Koreans come in, I ask them many questions and try to read their minds. If I get a bad feeling they have to leave."

Then he told me that most of his customers are Yakuza who fly over from Japan because there are no shooting ranges there. He said they all come in shoot and then go out drinking with the owners. It turned out that he spoke Japanese, as did the other guys working there, and they had a bit of a chat to Jarod in that language. Later outside he showed me bulletproof vests that they had for sale, and one that he told me the Yakuza guys had tested by hanging on the wall. It was full of holes. Then he gave us all a free keyring.

Life Update 2

2009-04-18T19:24:00.002+09:00

I did this a long time ago, and since I can't think of anything particularly interesting to write about while also not wanting to let too much time go by between posts, I thought I'd do another one.

What I'm reading:
At school, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. It's a surreal Japanese book which has been wonderfully translated - I was hooked from the first page. Usually books like this are just too weird for me, but this one is so interesting and beautifully written that I can't wait to get to work just so I can read it for a few minutes before class. At home, All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, the same guy who wrote No Country for Old Men, which I haven't read, and The Road, which I have read and loved, among others. This book is brilliant also, but I haven't gotten very far, as I usually start reading just before bed and fall asleep after a couple of pages, and then have to read those same pages again the next night.

What I'm listening to:
The Korean Top 100. I know it's garbage but I quite like the ballads and some of the hip-hopy stuff. Some good people had been regularly uploading it onto the net, although there hasn't been one for April yet. Apart from that, Jason Mraz is awesome, 808s and Heartbreak is still on my ipod, and I've been listening to some classical music too.

What I'm watching:
Way too much. Wednesday is Lost, Thursday is the Office and CSI, and Friday is Prison Break starting again from yesterday. Hopefully Underbelly will return on Mondays soon. I also have been watching a few DVDs a week, and I've almost caught up to my most recent acquisitions, even though at one point a while ago I was more than 200 movies behind.

What I'm eating:
I haven't cooked once this year, unless you count ramyeon as cooking. My fridge contains milk, water, orange juice, a vitamin drink someone gave me, some danmuji 단무지 that came with delivery 짜장면, some yogurt/fruit mixes, and a packet of sliced cheese used for making cheese-ramyeon. Outside the fridge is one packet of Neoguri ramyeon, a cup of Shin Ramyeon, a cup of Teum Ssae (only available from GS-25) ramyeon, a bunch of bananas, and some dried squid and unshelled peanuts for snacking on.

What I'm doing:
Working, going to the gym, studying Korean, watching the screen (see above), reading the internets, and being social a few nights a week plus weekends. Apart from always feeling like I don't have enough free-time, I'm pretty much doing everything that I want to do, and not much that I don't.

What I'm excited about:
My brother comes to Seoul on Monday, and I'm pretty excited about that.

What I'm angry about:
Nothing much at the moment. Since getting my visa, and the evaporation of the associated stress, I've been pretty relaxed.

What I'm wearing:
New jeans and shirts from Dongdaemun and one of my two favorite jackets, one bought at Laguna Beach with Katy in 2005, and one bought here last year, both green.

What I've been thinking about:
Where my next meal is coming from, what to do with my life, what I'd do if I won the lottery etc etc blah blah blah blah

What I plan to do next year:
My contract finishes in March next year, and then it will be decision time. I've got a few ideas so far, but nothing close to a choice has been made. I've been thinking a lot about going and doing some kind of volunteer work, maybe even joining the Peace Corp, probably in Africa. I also plan to look into volunteer type of stuff in China near the North Korea border, maybe working with refugees/escapees. My friend Jarod and his partner Jaeseon have been thinking about going to Malaysia to teach and/or set up a business teaching English to Korean students in a home-stay type of situation. That sounds interesting, and Malaysia sounds good too, mainly because I know so little about it. I also want to do the Trans-Siberian railway, and go to Vladivostok and Mongolia, visit China again and the Middle-East. On the other hand I could stay here and live comfortably, or go back to Australia, go back to uni, and get a real job.

Thoughts of Ju Hee

2009-04-11T14:25:00.004+09:00

Mum tells me I should talk about my feelings more, or maybe not about feelings so much, but my thoughts and how they relate to my feelings, or something like that. Either way I'm confused, and feel like growing up in Australia basically made it impossible for me, as a man, to be honest with myself about my emotions, let alone be honest about them with other people. I've always envied people who can just open up and let it all out, but that doesn't make it any easier for me to do it.

This post is going to be an attempt to express myself somewhat. It will probably be disjointed and garbled, and may well be deleted in the future, but I'm going to give it a go.

It been almost three months since I broke up with Ju Hee and I still barely understand how I feel about it. I spent so much time in the weeks and months leading up to it considering it and working up the courage to do it that afterwards the feeling of relief was pretty intense, and I was pretty positive about life in general. I took some trips, had plenty of alone time, indulged myself in terms of food and entertainment, and basically felt like there was a weight off my shoulders.

As time has gone by I find myself forgetting the reasons why the break up was inevitable, and should have happened sooner, and remembering the good times, which ironically were not even good times that were exclusive to us being together. For example, I remember nights out with her friends or family, nights at our place playing cards with 인교 and 병광 eating good food listening to music and smoking the place out. Then I realise that I don't really have any good memories of just the two of us from the whole of 2008, or nothing that comes to mind immediately anyway, and it makes me wonder why I started thinking about such things in the first place.

It brings back memories of getting back together with her in 2007, based purely on foolish romantic notions and loneliness. It wasn't a mistake, and I'd do it again if I had to go back, it just makes me sad that it didn't work like I thought it would. It makes me angry that she didn't try harder to make it work, and it makes me guilty in a twisted way.

Sometimes I feel that the whole thing was my fault. I feel that by being myself, basically by being nice, I enabled her bad behaviour. I know that this is twisted thinking but I can't help feeling it anyway. In a way I feel like I failed us by putting myself first, and by giving up on her. Again, I know this is irrational, but no matter how many times I try to remember the reasons it had to end, for example, riding the subway feeling like I was going to vomit because of something she had done, or not done, it doesn't stop me from feeling like maybe I should have just tried a little harder.

I still feel responsible for her. I still worry about her, and hope she's OK. I still feel like it's my job to take care of her. I find myself looking for her in restaurants and cars, and daydream about coming across her in a bad situation on the street and saving the day like some kind of hero. Rescuing her in the street is a recurring favorite, as is being a billionaire with unlimited resources to watch her from afar and protect her from harm without her being aware of it like some kind of all-knowing all-seeing all-powerful guardian. Maybe it's because I still live in the same neighbourhood, but it's rare for me to walk outside without having her come to mind. Far from hoping to avoid her, or wondering what I would do if I did, I actually hope to see her every time.

It's hard to describe the feeling I get when I see a photo of her. No matter what her facial expression is, or under what circumstances the photo was taken, it seems like her face expresses so much more than what I can see. Every angle and every line holds so much meaning, it's like I can see her whole soul and our whole history together in the curve of her cheek or a strand of her hair. I don't know if that makes any sense at all.

I know that I should never see or talk to her again, and that it is unrealistic for me to be a part of her life. The fact is though, it's just really hard to let her go. I don't know why really. It should be easy. I should just move on, and let her get on with her life. She'll be fine, she's an adult. But I don't want to cut her off, I want to be there for her, even though I can't be. It wasn't too long ago that she was going to be a part of the rest of my life, and now I face the prospect of never seeing her again, and never knowing what is going on with her. I guess I want to have my cake and eat it too - I want to be intimately informed about her life, but I don't want to have to deal with any of it.

Meanwhile, her birthday is coming up next week and I want to call her and pass on my regards, but I don't see what good that would do. I think it's due to selfishness and guilt that I want to indulge my emotions and make myself feel better by doing something nice. Then again I know that even though she would appreciate it, it won't make things easier for her in the long run. I still have no idea whether to call her or not, and if I do what the consequences will be. I'm leaning towards not calling, but I want to show her that I care. Then again, I don't know why I want to do that.

Anyway, upon proofreading, I hate this post and want to remove it, but will leave it up for a while and come back to it later to judge whether or not to delete it. I don't feel like I've accurately described my feelings at all, and I don't feel like I've even totally opened up and expressed myself honestly, let alone skillfully. This paragraph too feels clunky and awkward.

One Girl's Life

2009-04-04T03:40:00.003+09:00

I found this little folded picture book on one of the desks while I was cleaning up between classes. All of the students in that class are in second grade, which shows how deep the plastic surgery culture here runs. Pretty sad really.

My translations may be a little off, in which case corrections are welcome.

There are six pictures, three on both sides.

The first says 한 여자의 인생 - One girl's life. Picture of a crying girl.

The second, 수술전 - Before surgery. Picture of a sad ugly girl.

The third, 수술1차시도 - First attempt at surgery. I don't really know how to explain this or whether I'm even understanding it perfectly. Maybe "First round of surgery" would be better. 1차 2차 3차 etc. mean first round, second round, third round, and are usually used in context of going out at night where each round is at a new venue and paid for by a different person. But in that case why include 시도, which means a try or an attempt? Picture of a still sad and ugly, but even fatter, girl.

The fourth, 수술2차시도 - Second round of surgery. Picture of a happy girl.

The fifth, 수술3차시도 - Third round of surgery. Picture of a happy pretty girl. Her eyes look noticeably different.

The sixth and last one just says 결혼 - Marriage. Half drawn picture of a couple. The girl is incomplete and the guy is just a head, I guess class finished before the student was done.

유머

2009-03-30T11:05:00.002+09:00

A joke from my students:

Q: 팔 빼기 팔 뭐야? (What's eight minus eight?)

A: 장애인 (A disabled person)

The word for eight is the same as the word from arm. They act it out by hiding both arms behind their backs in time with the joke, and then swaying back and forth when they yell the answer. It's quite funny.

Visa Update

2009-03-22T18:28:00.004+09:00

As I had feared, going to get a new visa the day before my old one expired was not a good idea. Not only did I not have all the documents that Mr. Moon was supposed to give me on Monday when I turned up to school early for that very purpose, but it turns out that I need a new criminal record check and health test to get my visa extended for another year.

Apparently when I showed them my last criminal record check when I went to the same immigration office almost exactly a year ago, they had not recorded it because at that point it was not necessary to have one - I got my current visa the day before the rules changed. Also, because my old criminal record check is more than 6 months old, it is not longer valid, even though I haven't lived in Australia since I had my last one done. It also stands to reason that seeing as foreigners who commit crimes in Korea have their visas cancelled and are deported, it should be obvious that my presence in Korea should mean that no further background checks are required. Not so. When I asked the immigration officer if I could get one done here, he said he understood my situation personally, but the rules are that I need a new one from Australia. Then he gave me a 2 week extension.

So on Thursday I got up early to go to the only bank that makes money orders in foreign currencies to get a check for 43 Australian Dollars made out to the Australian Federal Police, filled out some forms, and sent the package off to Canberra. It will probably arrive on Tuesday next week, whereupon the useless bureaucrats down there will take 15 working days to process my application and mail it to my family's address in Sydney, where someone will have to physically take it to the Passport Office at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to get it Apostilled and bound, another completely useless and illogical requirement of the Korean Immigration Office. This has to happen in 14 days. When I told the immigration officer that this was impossible he shrugged. When I told the company I work for they told me to hurry up.

So now one of two things can happen.

1) My criminal record check arrives in record time, I do my health test, find out I don't have AIDS or tuberculosis and don't smoke pot, Mr. Moon gives me the correct documents and I get a new visa. Then I work in Korea for another year.

2) My criminal record check does not arrive. I will have to ask them for another extension. Then one of two things can happen.

1) I get an extension. My background check arrives, blah blah blah, I stay here for another year.

2) My extension is rejected. I will probably have to go to Japan and come back on a tourist visa, and try to work something out with my company until I can successfully apply for a new visa. The company will have to pay all of my Japan expenses. If they don't, I will quit and find another job.

Fuck Yous

2009-03-17T00:52:00.004+09:00

Fuck you to late people. Lateness has to be my most hated personality trait and I'm sick of selfish and incosiderate people who can't keep appointments, especially in these modern times of mobile phones and internets. If I can look up a bus on the net and figure out how to be five minutes early, so can you. The worst thing about late people is they always seem to turn it back on you when you act pissed off at having to have waited outside in the freezing cold, making it seem like you're uptight and anal for actually turning up at the agreed time. I now have a 15 minute late with no notice cut off, so be warned - you'll turn up late and I won't be there and I won't answer my phone until you've waited a proportionate amount of time or longer. My old boss Jeff's tardiness went a long way towards me changing companies, if not schools.

Fuck you to my new boss Mr. Moon. First I have to hassle his pathetic company for a month to pay me what I am due, because they've messed up the schedule, and don't have enough classes for me. Then they find some classes for me but still don't want to pay me the full amount. Angry phone exchanges ensue and they feed me some bullshit about getting my starting date wrong. Then they don't listen to me and leave it to the very last day to send me to the immigration office to get my visa, because they can't read my Alien Registration Card which I had to go all the way out to their god-forsaken office to hand them to make a photocopy back in January, specifically to copy both sides of it, because the reverse is the important part, only for them to read the front by mistake and write out the contracts wrong, and act like I'm the bad guy when I point it out to them so I don't get screwed by immigration. I now have to go to the immigration office this Wednesday, the day before my visa expires, when I asked them to sort out the documents more than a month ago so I could avoid this kind of stress. Going this late also means I have to get up early, an issue which I will address later on. To make things worse I get a text message at 9:13pm last night saying,

Sam. U go to school 10:00am tomorrow for Ur E-2visa with Mr.Moon and principal

To which I respond,

I have to be there at 10am?

(I normally start at noon)

Then I receive,

yes.Mr.Moon appointment with principal for Ur E-2 visa. U bring passport.

To which I don't respond. Thanks for saying please. Thanks for asking me if I'm busy or if I want to get up two hours earlier than normal because you are too disorganised to arrange things ahead of time. I'm not quitting because I want that job but they won't be getting a free minute out of me for the next year.

So I turn up at ten on the dot and guess what, Mr. Moon is nowhere to be seen so I call him at five past ten and, fancy that, he's running late, but tells me to go to the icy classroom, where I spend 35 minutes waiting for the piece-of-shit computer they provided us with to fire up to check my internets, and maybe get some prep done when in comes Mr. Moon wearing some ridiculous grey suit with massive shoulder pads that hang off both sides of his bony frame. I don't know if he's shrunk or if he thinks it's a good look, either way it's not and he looks like a dickhead. So he rushes in, and acts all in a hurry, going 빨리빨리 like I'm the late one. He doesn't speak English but that doesn't stop him from saying ridiculous things like "Hello!" whenever he wants my attention, and yelling "Col-our col-our!" when I hesitate for a micro-second when making a copy of the photo page of my passport. When speaking Korean to me he jumps between the appropriate respectful language and the language you would use towards a child, because like so many Koreans he assumes I don't know the difference. Then he realises that the dates are out of whack and cracks it at me saying in his best patronising voice "19 day-y! 19 day-y! Bisa Pinishee!" and I feel like yelling "I know that mate, I called your office multiple times last week to alert them of that fact, which is why we find ourselves here today." Instead I helpfully find him a box-cutter so he can scrape the dates off the contract which he does expertly, a worrying sign. Then we rush down to the Principal's office where they have a good ol' boys chat, Mr. Moon used to be a Principal also, and generally waste my time. Then they both shake my hand and tell me to work hard, which is a joke because I know the smug bastards are making thousands a month off of me for sitting on their arses, and I know there are white envelopes being passed under the table which is why the toad-faced principal is smirking, but I can hardly say anything because I'm not doing too badly out of the deal myself.

Fuck you to people who don't respect my waking hours. Just because you wake up at 6am doesn't mean I should too. I'm not asking you to stay up til 4, or get up at 4 because that's when I do things. I hate mornings and I'm not productive during them, so don't ask me get up earlier than usual just because you think I'm lazy because I spend more time in the dark than you. Again, I don't ask you to get up at 4am to do me a favour, or call you at 2am because that's when I'm awake. That goes for mothers of my private students who think I'm difficult because I won't be at their house at 11 on a Saturday to teach their retarded children how to say cat when I only get up at 10 on weekdays, people who expect me to come in early to work without pay to do things I can just as easily do after work without pay, and people who think they have the moral high ground because they get an two hours more of sunlight than me.

Fuck you to slow people who dawdle through life and make me miss trains and buses by getting in my way on stairs escalators and doorways. Fuck you to the company who manages subway lines 5 to 8, whose "One line bad, two lines good" escalator policy introduced to reduce wear and tear from everyone standing on the one side and walking on the other has resulted in escalator chaos on all subway lines, even lines 1 to 4 run by Seoul Metro who still advocate having a fast and a slow lane. The resulting traffic jams have made me miss many a connection, but I guess that's okay because the slowcoaches bumbling through life are happy, even if I suspect that they're no happier at all, as slow people are too dumb to notice things like that.

Fuck you to the person who stole my umbrella more than a month ago. I bought that at a temple at Jirisan and it was not only a fine piece of workmanship, but it was embedded with memories. I hope you fall on it and impale yourself.

Fuck you to the retirement age women who get on the subway ignoring the seats reserved for the elderly, the injured and the handicapped, only to stand over me glaring at me for not standing up while pretending to be barely able to stand themsleves, effectively ruining my trip - if I give up my precious seat I have to stand and my trip sucks, and if I sit there I can't relax under the gaze of an angry ajumma and my journey is just as bad.

Fuck you to the parents who dress their deep-voiced youngest daughter in blue, give her a boyish haircut and a gender-neutral name so I think she's a boy for a month and treat her that way until she finally cries when I use her as an example when re-teaching "he" and "she" for the one millionth time, making me look like the arsehole.

EDIT (17/3 11:46PM)

Fuck you to random people I don't know who talk to me when I have my earphones in. No one who does this ever has anything interesting to say, they are all garden variety nutters. It's so rude that from now on I refuse to take my earphones out for a stranger ever again. I'll just point to my ears and turn my back. No one who lacks the ability to understand that people listening to music in public don't want to be hassled can possibly have anything to say worth pausing my music for.

Economic Crisis Hits Home

2009-03-11T22:49:00.002+09:00

After denying for months that the economic crisis exists I have finally changed my tune.

I eat pizza once a month or so, always from the same place, always the same kind of pizza. Red Cap Pizza have been good to me since I first arrived in Korea, and their vegetable pizza is pretty good.

I went there last week, and despite asking for extra mushrooms, I got about half the amount of toppings that I usually get. I think they used a total of one olive, a third of an onion, one mushroom and a quarter of a capsicum. Plenty of cheese though.

It's hard to blame them I guess, times are tough, but there should be some kind of law where they have to tell you via a massive sign on the wall if they reduce the amount of food you get at a restaurant. I've noticed other places getting stingy with the 반찬 too.

I'm still not 100% convinced that the economy has anything to do with people's lives though. As I was telling Michael on the phone, I keep hearing about how bad Japan's economy is and has been since the 80s, but on the other hand everyone who's ever been there has had nothing but positive things to say about the place. It sounds like heaven on earth to the point where I'm scared to go in case I like it too much and never leave. The only bad thing I have heard is that it's expensive, but the Japanese seem to be doing OK. The economy sucks but life is good - what's the problem?

Korea Sparkling

2009-03-03T04:50:00.003+09:00

I've added a widget to my blog. Hehe. It's in the right hand column under the heading Korea Sparkling. The slogan "Korea Sparkling" was dreamed up by someone doing my perfect job - writing absolute bullshit.

From the website:

The underlying foundation of Korea's tourism brand, "Korea, Sparkling," is "Emotional Dynamism." This concept symbolizes the passion of Korea's people as well as the country's lively atmosphere and rich culture. It aims to convey a vitality and enthusiasm that can only be discovered on a journey to Korea at the same time as evoking the spirit of Korea's people and culture.

Anyway, the widget is pretty funny, check it out.

Housing Update

2009-02-28T17:36:00.003+09:00

Spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday looking for a new place. Went to real estate agent after real estate agent only to find that they all were using the same online database. They kept wanting to show me the same crappy places.

The cheapest full-option (fridge, bed, air con, TV, wardrobe, gas range, washing machine) place in Banpo-dong was 620,000won a month plus 관리비 maintenance fee of 50,000won, plus bills, and it was pretty much a dump. From there the prices went up to a minimum of seven plus the fee or seven-fifty including it for poorly maintained places in dilapidated buildings. I gave up on Banpo-dong after seeing a few of them because the housing stock over there is clearly garbage. The average place I saw was mouldy, dirty, and containing a dark bathroom with a tiling job even I'd be ashamed of. A lot of them were also too large, which sounds strange but I don't want to pay extra money for more surface area to wipe/vacuum.

Back over in Nonhyeon-dong I checked out some slightly more expensive places in nicer buildings, telling the real estate agents I was after cleanliness over size, as they all seemed to want to show me the biggest places first. There were a couple of places in newer buildings which were relatively clean, but the furnishings were cheap and nasty, and those places also were badly decorated and put together on the cheap. It seems like you have to be rich to live in a place built by someone who understands the concept of a straight line. Even then, I remember seeing Gavin's place in the Human Starville Cheongdam, where everything was skew and nothing matched, despite paying astronomical hotel rates.

I decided there is no way I'm paying 750+50+200 in bills (gas, water, electricity, TV, internet) for a place that is dirty and empty when I can pay 550 (the lady wanted to move me to a larger room on the 3rd floor when I told her I was leaving so I asked her if they were the same price and when she said yes asked her for a discount which she had to give me hehe) for a small but clean place here with free food and no extra expenses.

So what I'll do is save up the money to put down on a deposit for an unfurnished place and buy/scavenge some second hand furniture. In the meantime I'll continue to live here, which is suiting me fine.

Nostalgia

2009-02-24T02:38:00.002+09:00

I'm moving out of my goshiwon room either tomorrow (today?) or Wednesday, depending on whether I can find a good place and whether or not I get paid on time.

The plan is to find a place on the opposite side of the road (강남대로) in Banpo-dong, where prices are a hundred thousand won cheaper per month. People tell me this is due to the prestige of living in Nonhyeon-dong and/or Gangnam-gu, but I suspect the real reason is that there are more beauty salons on the side I currently live on, and that prostitutes with too much disposable income will pay whatever the real-estate agents ask just to be closer to getting their hair and nails done. It was a novelty at first, but I can't say I'll miss having to dodge groups of "drunken" 도우미 girls while on a late night convenience store mission.

The thing is, I don't really want to leave. I like it here. It's tiny but cosy and warm. 정 많이 들었어. My neighbours are nice, the owners are nice, noise hasn't been a problem after the first night, and I don't have to clean. The only downsides are not being able to talk on the phone without being self-conscious about being heard through the walls, and that someone stole my umbrella from the basket I put it in near the elevator. It was a good one too, bought from the temple store at the end of our Jirisan walk back in summer.

People don't believe me, but the size hasn't been a problem, nor has the shared kitchen, as I never cook anyway. I could easily live somewhere like this for good, if it wasn't for the fact that I can get a fully-furnished but much larger place over in Banpo-dong for 30,000won more a month plus bills. It will also be nice to be able to have people over, talk on the phone, and blast movies/music again. Then there are the looks of pity and disbelief that you get when you say you live in a goshiwon. I want to impress people with a shiny home of my own, even if it is highly likely to have been furnished by an ajumma with no taste at all - I look forward to life-sized dollhouse furniture, peach wallpaper, and cute bedsheets.

Gwangju and Daejeon

2009-02-18T15:46:00.003+09:00

Here are a couple of photos from my trips to Gwangju in Jeollanam-do and Daejeon in Chungcheonnam-do. It was good to see both cities, which have about 1.5 million people each, but if I had to choose one it would be Daejeon. I like the Jeolla people, but Gwangju the city seemed more rundown and desolate, whereas Daejeon seemed a little more modern and similar to Seoul.

Going to Yongsan station to catch the KTX to Daejeon last weekend we got stuck in traffic and I jokingly asked the taxi driver if there was a demonstration going on. He said he hadn't heard of one. The traffic was so bad that as we got closer I got out and walked, and sure enough, there were demonstrations going on at the site of the clash with police that left a few people dead last month that I wrote about a few posts down. I took a few photos, and would have taken more, but was in a rush to catch a train. Note the burnt out police bus covered with memorial banners.

I ended up missing that train, and going to Seoul Station by subway to catch a different KTX where there were loud protests going on also. I missed that train too, and it would have been faster and cheaper to just stay at Yongsan. Coming back I realised I hadn't taken any pictures, so snapped some which waiting for the train. Note how early I was up on a Sunday morning in order to make it back to Seoul in time for lunch.

My only good photo from Gwangju is of Heim Pizza. Heim is used quite regularly here, along with the German words "arbeit" 아르바이트(하다) meaning part-time job, and "hof" meaning a bar-type of establishment usually serving beer and a variety of food dishes called 안주, which must be ordered - you can't just go there and drink. Some of my friends live in a building called Nobleheim, and there is a popular chocolate wafer product called Choco Heim 초코하임.

Lobster Game

2009-02-12T00:57:00.003+09:00

You know those games with the moving claw where you try to pick up teddy bears or lighters at worst, and Soony Discmans at best? Well I heard tell of one containing live lobsters, so I went to check it out and it exists!

I was pretty excited to see it, but at the same time I felt a bit sorry for the poor lobster sitting there with its claws taped up, in water that has probably never been changed, with no food or fellow lobsters for company, only to be attacked at random times of the day and night by a giant hanging claw, undoubtedly followed by its tank being kicked or rocked in frustration. In one of the photos you can see a feeler antennae thingy broken off in the tray, so I assume they get injured in the process.

I was tempted to try and catch it - it was about a dollar for six goes, but I don't know what I would have done with the thing if I had been successful.

Anyone who wants to try to check it out or liberate the lobster can go to 삼전사거리 in 삼전동. It's in an alley behind the KB Star bank next to a Chicken Hof.

Free Internets

2009-02-06T11:07:00.001+09:00

The free internet at my goshiwon is not slow.

Goshiwon

2009-02-04T02:25:00.003+09:00

So I'm living in a goshiwon this month, which I'm quite enjoying at the moment. A goshiwon is a building full of lots of tiny rooms, usually containing no more than a bed and a desk. Traditionally they were used by students sitting important exams. These days, apparently, they are more likely to be inhabited by the poor and the kicked-out-of-home. They are considered tiny even by Korean standards, and regularly burn to the ground, but don't worry Mum, mine is an upscale one and I have my own personal fire alarm and fire extinguisher. The photos are of my room before I moved in, but are from the website - I didn't take them myself. The chair sucked so I got rid of it.

Usually showers and bathrooms are shared, but I paid extra to have a toilet and a shower. I also have a TV/LCD monitor, and a small fridge. The room is clean and smells less like smoke than I expected it would. I had to bring in my own sheets, which I bought at the old market downstairs for 20 bucks, but they gave me a free roll of toilet paper "서비스 입니다!" and there is free high speed internet in the rooms and a public computer on each of the three floors. There is also a kitchen with a stove and a microwave, as well as hot and cold water. Coffee, rice and kimchi are free, and there are some cooking utensils provided. Cleaning equipment is shared too, and there is a vacuum cleaner and an ironing board with iron in the corridor.

Since my goshiwon is pretty new, everything is clean and well-maintained, and there is a nice outside area where I have been eating my breakfast in the morning. Photos to come - the view is great. I did my first load of laundry tonight in a surprisingly good machine which took less than an hour to wash my clothes, and seemed to do a good job. I risked hanging my laundry up outside, which should dry quickly in this weather, and hopefully all my socks are there in the morning.

I have an electronic door lock and programmed a new PIN myself, which is relieving, as these places have a reputation for being full of murderers and thieves. Hopefully I won't scare too many people in the hallways, as foreigners have the same reputation.

I haven't met any of my neighbours yet, except for one guy who I opened the door for - his hands were full of boxes of kimchi, seriously. The walls are pretty thin though, and on my first night a couple were having dramas in the room next to me, but I managed to sleep through it. I can hear pretty much every word, sniff or sneeze, so figure I won't have any phone conversations inside and will use my headphones while watching movies and listening to music.

Here's a video of my room, and another one I took on the way here.

Plants

2009-01-31T12:51:00.004+09:00

I got a little plant for my birthday which now sits in my classroom behind my desk. It has tiny rocks rather than soil, and only needs to be watered once a week, but I give it a daily drizzle anyway.

I quite like taking care of my yet-to-be-named plant, trimming it and keeping it clean, and I think I might start raising more plants this year. Maybe even bonsai plants.

It seems like it would be a good hobby. Plants look and smell nice, clean the air, don't make any noise, and when you don't like the look of them you can hack bits off and they don't care. So much better than having a dog.

The movie above was another great Russian movie. I've decided Russia and its language and culture is awesome, and that I want to go there and learn it and eat Russian foods and the like. The 9th Legion was very enjoyable indeed, especially as it is the only Russia-in-Afghanistan movie I have ever seen.

Nil by Mouth on the other hand, which I don't know why I haven't seen before, was also excellent, but quite upsetting at the same time. I didn't think I could be shocked by movies anymore, but Nil by Mouth was pretty hardcore. Miserable stuff, but still recommended.

Yongsan Protests

2009-01-23T16:32:00.011+09:00

The big news story this week has concerned the 6 people who died - five protesters and one policeman - during a police operation to evict squatters from an area close to Yongsan station. I wasn't going to write anything about it, as there have been so many great blog posts about it, such as this excellent piece of writing, but then I found some great pictures and decided to write something myself.

I also don't like the fact that most of my information is third or fourth-hand. That is, it comes from the English Language media, which is garbage, or from people who read the English language media and blog about it, or people who read the Korean language media and blog about it, or from people who read those blogs and post about it on forums. People interested in verifying any general information should check out the Korea Times website, the link to the blog above, and the Chosun Ilbo photo page here from which I took most of the pictures.

Firstly, some background. Korean President Lee Myung Bak, the former CEO of Hyundai known as "The Bulldozer" for his construction projects, and a fascist and religious nutter in general, is constantly under attack from the other side of the political spectrum, who are, as far as I can tell, just as bad when it comes to the use of violence in order to manipulate public opinion. Also, I doubt that there would be any fewer construction projects under a different government - it seems to be more of the same to me.

To cut a long story short, what happens with these construction projects is that basically one of the huge Korean business conglomerates, such as Samsung or Hyundai, or a few of them in conjunction, buy up massive amounts of land, demolish everything, and put up massive apartment complexes. When people don't want to move, or want more compensation, the companies hire gangsters to do the dirty work. A typical Korean gangster movie will have at least one scene of black-suited square-haircutted guys bashing elderly slum tenants with iron bars. It's in the movies so it must be true.

I personally am against the soulless "new towns", and hate to see what is happening or going to happen in places like Yongsan, but that's a blog post for another day. In this situation, the tenants had been told they had to leave for months, and were refusing to go. I am not sure whether they hoped to avoid demolition, or if just wanted more compensation. Either way, I feel sorry for them. It does appear that professional protesters were involved, as not all of the survivors were former residents, but appealing to squatters organisations for violent agenda-driven goons of their own is one of the few courses of action left to the protesting residents in cases like these, and I don't blame them for trying to defend their homes.

There are some excellent photos here of the same area, taken in November last year. I highly recommend you click the link, as they show the area in question at street level, and in the midst of a gangster operation to clear out the residents. The guy who took the photos posts regularly on the Dave's ESL Cafe discussion forums and is an urban explorer hobbyist who is quite knowledgeable about these types of situations. Please click on the link, check out his pictures, and get some background on the story. The building seen in pictures 4, 5 and 6 is the one where all the action happened.

Back to what happened earlier in the week, the 40 or so squatters/protesters were given until Tuesday morning to leave, but instead they built a fortress out of corrugated iron on top of the building, and armed themselves with slingshots firing golf balls and marbles, hydrochloric acid, bricks, and Molotov cocktails made out of paint thinner, of which they had thousands of litres stored.

Not ones to mess about, the authorities sent in the riot police to surround the building, and a SWAT-style team of hardcore police in a shipping container were lifted via crane over the building to storm it while the protesters were blasted by water cannons from surrounding buildings and below.

During the battle the makeshift structure was set alight, and the six men were burned to death with another 27 injured. The official line is that the fire was caused by the Molotovs held by the protesters, while other stories I have heard state that the water cannons blew the firebombs back inside onto the inflammables, and that the crane shook the building and spilled the paint thinner. Regardless, the results were nasty, as can be seen in the photos. This article has some information about the victims and the causes of the fire, and this one also deals with the cause of the fire.

All in all it's pretty amazing how little attention this got in the media, with Obama's inauguration forcing it off the front pages, and with most Koreans I've talked to about to not really knowing or seeming to care much, or asking me for details, like I'd know better than them.

Subway Wars 2

2009-01-19T16:26:00.002+09:00

I like the subway. It's quick, clean, safe, and comfortable on the whole. It is also interesting. In one short ride it is possible to be harangued by a old lady preaching about Jesus, blasted with music by CD salesmen, entertained by train-obsessed nutters walking down the aisles clicking shouting and making engine noises, and amused by the people in general. Yesterday on my way home, for example, I was standing above a lady holding a small white dog with pink-dyed ears and tail, and another lady wearing a scarf that was made out of what looked to be a whole ferret or ferret-like animal, complete with head and paws. The tail clipped under the chin and it had glass eyes. I've heard of fur, but a whole dead animal? I stared at them the whole way.

Riding the Seoul subway is a skill, but it's not all about getting on and off in the best carriages - once a precious seat has been secured it's a matter of keeping it and getting the most out of it.

Often, despite being in pole-position when entering the subway car, there is only one seat left, usually the least desirable one, as people will shuffle around constantly for a more comfortable ride. I am happy to sit next to drunks, sleeping salary men, the handicapped, and twitching headcases, all of whom Koreans avoid like the plague, but I hate having to squeeze between two guys whose legs are spread as far apart as possible, probably to convince others of the size of their testicles.

These guys are usually in their mid 30s through to late 50s and are the kind of selfish fuckers who will not move a millimetre when someone sits next to them, even when they are obviously taking up one and a half seats. Classic grumpy ajeossis.

The guy in the above picture is a good example, and shows the size of the seats in question, although this guy kind of has an excuse - he has a suitcase. Usually there is nothing but air between the knees. I also like this picture as it is quintessentially Korean. The white short-sleeved summer business shirt, the Ferragamo or imitation Ferragamo shoes, the women next to him and their outfits and accessories. I love it. I got it from a Korean site that didn't let me download the photo, so I took a screenshot and made my own. In revenge I am not linking to the original.

Anyway, I've found that these subway leg-spreaders can be subtly defeated. I now love to sit next to them, as I know with absolute certainty that victory will be complete and inevitable.

First I like to take my seat as slowly and gently as possible, careful not to start any kind of masculine contest, one which I would surely lose, as an ajeossi will stop at nothing to prevail in such a situation. This puts them off guard, as they are all too quick to believe that I wouldn't even dream of challenging them.

Once seated however, I am sure to make as much physical contact as possible. Koreans are used to being squashed up against each other and have little to no personal space, but Korean guys are like guys anywhere, and no guy wants to be squashed up against some other guy they don't know for too long. Working in my favour is the fact that I'm a foreigner, which means that they are a little wary/suspicious of me, and possibly that I have a strange smell, although I do my best not to perpetuate the stereotype of the smelly white guy. I then apply very gentle pressure to the leg-spreader's thighs with my own, just using my body weight and good feet position, and maybe a little pressure with my elbows and arms too.

This simple step is usually enough to make my opponent retreat, and once he begins I make sure to keep claiming territory bit by bit until we have an equal amount of space. Then I set a rock hard stance of my own and sit there in a great mood until it's time to get off.

Sometimes, however, you get a difficult case, and further steps are necessary. These can include coughing, twitching, scratching, taking off/putting on clothing, and reaching into pockets to pretend to check messages or change tracks. During these actions physical contact is maintained, and the guy next to you should be bumped, poked and prodded as much as possible without coming across as doing anything out of the ordinary. The aim is to make him yield voluntarily, without realising that it was your plan all along. This has never failed to work for me, and it works for the same reason as the above paragraph does - they don't even realise that they're in an epic battle for leg room.

I know that one day I will get a particularly stubborn old bastard who won't move, and may even try to fight back with tactics of his own, but I have some ideas. Twitching like a nutter is one, and pretending to go to sleep on the guy's shoulder is another. I like the last one because it has happened to me. I don't mind it so much, because of the priceless looks it gets from the people sitting opposite me, who all squirm in embarrassment or try not to giggle. My last resort would be to have loud phone conversation in English, but I don't really want to do this one, as I hate being loud in public, and the shame might not be worth the gain.

"It wasn't me eh bro"

2009-01-14T17:49:00.002+09:00

From the Sydney Morning Herald in an article about a shooting murder at a car yard:

A man named Jason said on the day: "I turned around and a guy has come out of the shop next door ... a big Islander fella ... and he sort of looked at the guy who worked there and goes: 'It wasn't me' and runs off, jumps in his car and goes off in a blaze.

Remind you of anybody?

Slice Cheese

2009-01-09T23:54:00.003+09:00

Two minutes before the start of my third class today one of my students, a girl called Lyn (in both Korean and English), asked if she could go outside for a moment. I asked her why, but she didn't tell me and I figured she was off to the bathroom or something.

15 minutes later she walked in and I was about to tell her off for lateness when she presented me with a packet of processed cheese. She told me in Korean that she went and bought it for me because "Foreigners like cheese". It was quite amusing, but I kind of wish she'd bought me some chocolate or ice cream or a coffee.

I tried to share the cheese with the class, but no one wanted a whole slice, and would only take small pieces from the slice I opened and passed around. This was not out of politeness as they have greedily scoffed down anything else I have ever presented them with. They seemed to be quite wary of the cheese, and then to find it tasty but strange, saying things like "It's delicious but..."

Airport Rage

2009-01-06T15:51:00.002+09:00

I now hate Sydney airport even more than I hate LAX, which is saying something, as I never thought anywhere else would even get close to the level of contempt that I feel for Los Angeles' concrete monstrosity.

Flying out at 9am I want to be there at 6 so get in a cab at about 5:30 and have a snooze on the way. 90 dollars later and we are second in the queue behind two fat girls. Hope I'm not sitting next to one of them. I am pretty upbeat because I am sure I am headed for a premium seat. At the same time I can't help but notice how second-rate the check-out counters and surrounding area are - small, cramped, aging badly and the colour scheme is unattractive. It's our turn and I stupidly to forget to ask for a good seat and before I know it boarding passes are being printed out. I snap awake in a panic and ask her as nicely as I can under the circumstances if I could have an exit row or bulkhead seat. The lady tells me they are taken, but I know it's bullshit and she just doesn't want to go through the process again. I plead with her but she gets mad and basically tells me to fuck off. Awesome. Three hours early and no choice of seats.

Security and immigration is a breeze and I look forward to some tasty food and some internets after a spot of duty-free shopping. Maybe some sushi, maybe a nice curry, maybe a hamburger or a fresh sandwich. Then I'll write a couple of thank you emails and maybe a nice reflective blog post.

The duty free selection is pitiful - one shop with a limited selection - and it seems that our section of gates is separate from the other gates so we have no access to any other areas of the airport. Worst airport design idea ever. I wonder around aimlessly looking for things they don't sell for a while, before visiting the bathroom which I don't even doubt will be a good experience. Wrong again.

The stall looks like it was built in the 70s. No marble or porcelain, no soft toilet paper, bidet or shiny hook to hang my coat. No hygienic way to flush. Just a horrible plasterboard construction with a poorly placed flush-button, terrible colours, and translucent toilet paper. The bowl itself is dirty and oddly shaped and the seat is not comfortable in the slightest. There are big gaps under the walls and door which always pisses me off and graffiti on the walls. Every stall contains a half-flushed turd and piss on the seats. Worse sinks than the Seoul subway toilets with cheapo soap and no paper towels. Nice parting impression of Sydney and if I was a tourist the bathrooms might just persuade me never to return again. Asian airport toilets shit on Australian airport toilets (toilet pun hehe) and we should be ashamed.

Back out to duty-free, gather some things to buy after my enquiries were met with "I don't know if we sell that, look on the shelf" and surprise surprise there is a line of overweight Aussies lined up buying booze and only one register open. It's the same thing I noticed all week - a woeful lack of employees anywhere. The government should force retailers to hire more people, because every time I have to wait beyond the limit of my patience in a line they lose money. No wonder the economy has gone to shit. Myer was the worst by far. Not a sales assistant in sight, just a sign saying "Wait Here for Service". So you take the single shoe off the sales rack and stand there for 20 minutes before someone appears, they come back five minutes later with the matching shoe in the wrong size and maybe ten minutes later you have the full set and you can look for somewhere to try them on. Assuming they fit you and you like them you can then go to the empty register and wait for someone to turn up and take your money, What a fucking joke. Do they not want to sell anything? For fuck's sake any department store that fails to take Ju Hee's money when she walks in with the intention of buying something should be shut down and demolished.

Ju Hee wants to buy some perfume so we go to Ferragamo. They don't appear to have the kind she wears and when we ask the grumpy lady she tells us to go to the duty-free shop. I don't want to go back as I know they won't have any, and sure enough the grumpy lady there tells us to go to the Ferragamo outlet itself. More lost profits you morons.

Feeling hungry and trying to be positive I emerge from duty-free hell looking for food and coffee. Surely there will be something tasty and I can fill up and find some internets, but again Kingsford Smith lets me down yet again. I get a coffee from Gloria Jean and it sucks. I watch as they make Ju Hee's $5.70 strawberry smoothie by pouring some milk and ice into a blender and adding about a cup of strawberry syrup. What a scam. Their food looks overpriced and unappealing so I go looking for more. I keep expecting to see a food court around the corner, even as the design of the place annoys me more and more - since when is a departure terminal supposed to be a maze? There is no clear line of sight anywhere and not a single map. Weird bridges to nowhere and blind corners. Bizarre. I love maps and when I can't find one I die a little bit inside. The woman at Travelex rudely tells me there is one around the corner but there isn't, only a stupid electronic advertising board. Meanwhile there is not a clock to be seen - another thing I noticed around Sydney, a problem exacerbated by not having a phone on me. Since when did all shops and public places get rid of their clocks? There are more clocks in the casino than in the whole of Sydney's CBD, and the government should make it law that anywhere selling everything needs to have visible clocks at all times. Myer is like a time-warp.

I have a choice of some crappy cafe selling ham and cheese croissants and old foccacias, Eagle Boys Pizza which charges $6.50 for a pizza slightly larger than a CD which they must manufacture exclusively for the airport because there is no way a non-captive market would ever buy one, and an Asian food restaurant which I eventually settled on. I paid $32 for a wonton soup for me and a chicken fried rice for Ju Hee and the soup was so bad that I only ate two bites and the rice dish wasn't much better. At least I lost my appetite. The Korean family next to us looked disgusted too - I wouldn't blame them if they thought Australia was the shittest country in the world based on that experience alone.

My meal was made worse by the fact that my dreams of internet time had been dashed also. Looking for food I had found a row of blessedly empty computer terminals. My excitement at not having to wait disappeared when I saw they they were $2 for 20 minutes and they seemed to be rejects from the local primary school. No wonder people were queued at the free Optus internet stand so I joined them after my meal, planning to monopolise one until my plane was boarding. After waiting for one family to read the India Times four times over I finally got online, only to find the slowest internet I've seen since the Sand's Regency Hotel and Casino in Reno Nevada and waited for what seemed like hours to log into Blogger and write the post before this one.

Sitting down at my gate I tried to pick up wireless on my ipod and there wasn't a single free option, only the chance to pay for the shitty Telstra or Optus service I had just gritted my teeth through at the free booth. What a joke of an airport. I thought Narita was bad last January, but Sydney runs circles around it. It embarrasses me as an Australian and a human being.

Not a good end to my trip at all, and not really what I wanted to blog about. I have some good pictures and some positive things to say, but that's impossible until I post this and get it off my chest.

Sydney Airport - All Your Family Die

2009-01-04T06:03:00.001+09:00

Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport the worst in the world. This place disgusts me totally and absolutely.

To be continued.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-24T19:04:00.002+09:00

Not much going on lately. Preparing for wedding, preparing for Australia trip, working, eating, watching way too many movies, studying Korean. Dreaming of taking the Trans-Siberian Railway.

A couple of good movies I've seen recently. 12 - A Russian movie about the jury discussing a murder case. Great story, great dialogue. Under the Bombs - Lebanese movie set in 2006 during/after the war with Israel. Lots of real footage, people playing themselves. Recommended.

Lion vs. Tiger

2008-12-18T22:43:00.002+09:00

I've always wanted to know who would win in fights between various animals. This reporter obviously does too.

It's pretty sad that something like that could happen in a zoo, but fascinating nonetheless. Not suprising either, given the woeful standards of the zoos I have seen here, and the way animals are mistreated on local TV shows.

Showing porn to monkeys. The monkey's thought bubble at 1:25 says something like "She's not my type!"

Read a Decent Paper For Once

2008-12-10T23:04:00.002+09:00

Koreans seem to love their economic newspapers. Whenever I see anyone reading a paper that isn't one of the free tabloids they hand out on the subway, it's usually either an economic newspaper, or they're reading the business section of one of the major spreadsheets, which are basically just business papers anyway.

I'd never see a working-class Aussie reading anything, let alone the Wall Street Journal, but I regularly see construction workers and the like reading the Korean equivalents. They're obsessed.

It sucks for me, because very little of my vocabulary is business related. With so many opportunities to read over multiple peoples' shoulders while jammed into a subway car like a sardine, it's incredibly frustrating to always be faced with boring economy stories. For despite the apparent economic crisis the world is in, I still don't care, and would much rather read a juicy crime story.

Busan 2008

2008-12-02T01:28:00.003+09:00

I'd been promising Dave I'd visit him in Busan since May, and with Johnny back in Korea after 10 months away, and Jarod keen to get out of Seoul, it was time for a trip.

We got the KTX, which is pretty awesome. 300 kms an hour, and it has food and internets (see photo).

From Busan Station we cabbed it to the fish market and I smelled the sea for the first time in what seems like forever and it made me miss home. I took a picture of pigeon and some squid hanging up to dry on the railings of the pier, and we headed off through the fish market.

We spotted an ajumma gutting an eel and throwing it on a grill for a couple of ajumma customers, while the bloody insides writhed around in a shallow bucket. I stopped for a photo and was promptly invited over for a bite of still-raw killed-five-seconds-ago eel wrapped in a sesame leaf with some red pepper paste, hand wrapped and fed into my mouth. This was followed by a shot of soju, which I couldn't refuse - much to the amusement of my friends, who are always trying to get me to drink the foul stuff without much success.

After a mid-afternoon meal of eel, at a different restaurant, we decided to head to Busan Tower. Taxi is always the way to go so we jumped in. The driver had a weird Busan accent but we managed to communicate anyway, and he told me he had no change but for a 5000 won note. With the flag fall over 2000 already, and Busan Tower, which I thought to be on a mountain, nowhere to be seen, I gave him 10,000 and figured it was a good deal. Literally a minute later we were there and I didn't hear the end of it all weekend.

Busan Tower was good, but it was swaying in the wind and making me seasick and Dave nervous so we headed down into the hall of misspellings and photos of famous towers. Much hilarity ensued, and we decided to walk back to the Busan Station area, where I wanted to check out the infamous Russia Street, the supposedly seediest area of the hard port city of Busan, but it ended up being a massive disappointment. Even more disappointing was the lack of coffee on the way.

The rest of the weekend was pretty blurry and not of much blogging interest, although a good time was had by all. There were lively debates aplenty, and we ate like kings as usual. Dave's place was a spacious palace in a nice area, and the weather was fairly good, if a little cold.

...

2008-11-27T00:26:00.003+09:00

I've been wanting to update this blog, but lately I don't feel like I have a lot to write about. It used to be that I'd have to restrain myself from writing too much nonsense, but I'm not even inspired to do that these days.

Actually, I just thought of something.

I've been watching BBC Planet Earth on DVD which is pretty awesome, but for some reason there hasn't been much killing so far. Granted I am only up to part three of disc one of five, but it seems like they are deliberately leaving the gory parts out.

I seem to remember wildlife docos I used to watch as a kid having lots of stupid herbivores being torn to shreds, but in this series so far, one of three things seem to happen. 1) The predator chases but fails to catch its prey. 2) The prey is shown being stalked by a predator, but no chase is shown at all - they just move on to a new animal. Or 3) The chase is shown, but the kill is not, and the next scene is of the pack digging into the corpse.

If anyone knows of any good documentaries that show lots of animals being hunted down and devoured live on camera I'd really appreciate it.

Free Rice

2008-11-19T20:17:00.003+09:00

A friend sent me a link to this site, and I'm glad he did. Fun and good.

www.freerice.com

Took me a while to notice that they tell you the answer at the end of the questions though.

Rice is good.

딱지놀이

2008-11-18T01:08:00.002+09:00

My kids drive me nuts with this game they play called 딱지 ttakji. They have all these little plastic discs, or sometimes they make their own out of origami style folding paper, and they throw them on the ground. If they can flip another kids ttakji they get to keep it. It's a noisy game which causes fights every day, but I tolerate it because they love it so much.

It's also interesting to see which kids have hundreds of them, and which have none, and the whole thing reminds me of marbles/footy cards/ninja turtle cards in primary school. Sometimes I pass out the ones I've confiscated Robin Hood style, and sometimes students give me folding paper as gifts so I pass it out too for the kids who lost all theirs to make new ones with.

I have an hour between the time I arrive at school and the time class starts to do prep, and I usually try to get in some reading time when I feel I am fully prepared for. Due to the noise and fight mediation I rarely get through more than a couple of pages.

In the video you can see the quiet(er) kids drawing pictures, and some of them crushing up their cold medicine into powder and mixing it with their cough syrup. Syvlia was incredibly offended when I told her not to share it with other kids. How could I have ever have thought she might do such a thing?

Then I go outside, where the ttakji players are going at it, playing peacefully for once. Notice one kid decides it would be more fun to grab a hold of my leg, in the hope that I'll start lurching around with him hanging on for dear life.

Why didn't I think of this?

2008-11-12T18:41:00.002+09:00

Link

The article:

"South Korean prosecutors said Tuesday they have arrested three men for making and selling marked playing cards which can be read with specially designed contact lenses.

The three allegedly manufactured and sold 26,400 sets of the cards over the past year and exported their technology to China for handsome sums, the prosecutors said.

Their product was so popular that a set of 12 packs of the marked cards sold for as much as one million won (739 dollars) and drew an order from the United States.

The suspects are also accused of smuggling 2,000 pairs of specially designed contact lenses from China, with which their marked cards can be read.

The backs of the cards were marked with patterns and figures printed in special fluorescent pigment. These can be read with the special lenses to show what kind of hand another player is holding."

I'm on a mission to find some.

hehe

2008-11-11T01:29:00.000+09:00

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Enjoyment = Cancer

2008-11-09T22:35:00.005+09:00

Don't get me wrong, I love going out to dinner with Ju Hee's family. The pastor from the church where her mother works usually joins us, and everybody is always very nice. I am happy to eat any kind of food with them, but eating Korean BBQ, one of my favourite ways to be a carnivore, becomes a bit of an ordeal when I'm with them.

How can eating nice thick slabs of meat cooked at the table in front of you with delicious sauces and side dishes be bad?

- I have to wait until the elders have started eating before I can, and they never start eating when the side dishes are put on the table. They don't even pass out the chopsticks and spoons. First they waste precious eating-time talking, then they have to pray, which goes on forever while I sit there with my head bowed, drooling into my lap, praying to hear "Amen" which means I can dig in, as soon as the older people do.

- They prefer to eat rice after the meal, which is weird, because no-one else in this country seems to do that. I like to eat rice with my meal, which I end up doing, but the delay caused when I realise no rice has been ordered yet and order some for myself means that I am always half done with everything else before my bowl appears. Then the people who haven't ordered rice help themselves to mine anyway.

- They are terrible at cooking the meat, but insist on doing it anyway. Turn it too early, cut it too soon, cook too much at once, and always slap a new raw piece which shouldn't have even been put on yet on the cooked piece I was about to take. Despite my best efforts, I have no control over this situation which makes it even worse.

- They order way too much, which would be OK, except that I am usually the one paying, and I am always the one expected to finish it all off, so no food goes to waste. Nothing ruins a good meal, or what should have been a good meal, than eating double what I normally would, and then paying more for the privilege.

- If I stop eating for only a second, someone will ask why I am not eating, and ask me whether I am sick, or full, or whether I don't like it. They will order me to eat more, and put pieces of meat into my bowl, pieces which are usually the last ones I would have chosen myself. Then I have to eat those bits while someone else gets the tasty chunks I had my eye on while I was taking a breather.

- I often stop eating while I wait for a few pieces to get to the way I like them - slightly burnt on the outside, which is the point of cooking on a grill over charcoal, is it not? But if I explain this, I get told that charred meat causes cancer, and means that from then on as soon as a piece becomes perfectly cooked, it gets snatched of the grill and has the good bits trimmed off. I don't give a fuck about cancer, I want to eat my food the way I like it.

The photos are not from a family dinner, but from a night out with a civilised person.

Dr. Fish

2008-11-01T22:28:00.002+09:00

A couple of weeks ago my friend and ex-neighbour Steve and his girlfriend Lara were in Seoul, so Ju Hee and I took them out for some chicken galbi, some makoli and some singing. We also went to a fish cafe.

You pay $2, wash your feet, and then sit in a tank while these mini piranhas eat all the dead skin off of your feet. It's uncomfortable at first, but you get used to it. These places are everywhere, and are pretty popular. I believe there are even some bars where you can eat and drink at the same time as having your toes nibbled.

The fish are imported from Australia of all places, and I wonder if the idea would work there.

You Know You're in Korea When...

2008-10-26T14:06:00.003+09:00

You walk into the broom closet-cum-bathroom of a bar/restaurant/PC Bang, probably located a) under the stairs, or b) outside turn left and through the next building, squeeze under the slanted roof to use the urinal and get sprayed in the face by a well-placed air freshener. Then you go to wash your hands and the water runs straight out of the plughole onto your shoes, because the plumbing is not attached.

US Election

2008-10-24T01:23:00.004+09:00

I've been trying to refrain from posting about this election, and have resisted the urge to post so many good videos, partly because I'm extremely biased, partly because so many blogs I read are doing it so much better than I ever could, and partly because I would get addicted and would have a new Palin video posted every day, which I don't really want to do.

These next two, however, are too awesome to not to share. One is a clip from The Daily Show which I saw last night, and one I found over at The Metropolitician, who, incidentally, I met in the All-American Diner in Itaewon and who was a very nice guy.

Brain Activated Toxic Gas Removal

2008-10-18T15:14:00.002+09:00

I had to get photos of this stuff, sorry for the blurriness. I don't know if it works, and I don't want to try it. The box contains two small devices that look like air-fresheners or humidity-removers. I have access to a couple of boxes, so if anyone wants one, send me an email.

Bleeding Money

2008-10-15T02:27:00.003+09:00

I've never been much for investing, stocks, shares and all that rubbish. I like to keep my money in cash, preferably on me, or in a box under the bed. I hate speculation about currencies and share prices and I especially hate self-proclaimed experts who blather on about investment all day. Anything remotely associated with finance sends me to sleep and gives me nightmares, and I hate banks and accounts and loans and interest and stupid line graphs.

The above makes it even more painful that earlier this year I figured, "Why not have a go at buying some shares?" As it seemed just like gambling, but more socially acceptable, if less fun. I joined up Commsec online, threw some money at some tasty looking companies, and figured I'd just sit back and watch my line graphs hit the roof. At the same time, Ju Hee, along with every other Korean financial genius I know, was telling me that funds (펀드) are the best way to get rich quick in Korea. Never one to miss a chance at instant wealth, I put some money into some popular China funds and forgot about it, until now. Nice one Sam.

The worst thing about it all is that now I'm too scared to take the pitiful remainder of my investment out, because I know that as soon as I do the shares will skyrocket above and beyond the price I bought them for, so I'm doomed to watch my money dwindle away, eventually to nothing I'm sure. I'm so annoyed, and I'm not buying into any of this investment shit ever again. I should have taken the whole lot to the casino. At least there I would have had some fun, done less typing, and gotten some free sushi.

"Aren't you cold?"

2008-10-12T21:06:00.003+09:00

It's officially Autumn, which in a country of four distinct seasons such as Korea, necessitates Autumn clothes. Summer or winter clothing will not do. I won't even get into the situation for females, as it's far too complicated, but here are some basic rules for men. These must be followed under any circumstances, regardless of the weather. Doubtless there are other rules of which I am unaware, but the following are gospel.

- No shorts.

- No T-shirts.

- Dark-coloured clothing is essential.

- Jackets are a must.

Breaking any of these rules will result in strange looks in your direction and people checking their calenders in confusion. Failure to follow the first two will guarantee that every second person you deal with will ask you whether you are cold or not. They will point to your short sleeves, shake their heads and ask you why on earth you put on a t-shirt this morning, even though sweat stains are clearly visible and the temperature is uncomfortably hot.

I encountered this on my first trip to Korea in September/October 2005, when Ju Hee bought me a jacket, which I didn't like, during a shopping trip. My refusal to wear it the next day - because I was already too hot in jeans and a polo - sparked an argument in our hotel room which culminated in Ju Hee wailing "But look outside, every guy is wearing a jacket" and bursting into tears. Then three years later I get told to turn off the heat because "It's not winter".

I don't know if there is another country which takes its seasons as seriously as Korea, and if there is, please let me know so I can avoid it. I like to dress to the temperature, not to the season. Korean refusal to do this confuses me, and is behaviour that I'll never understand, along with the need to wear an undershirt with a t-shirt, even in summer, and the need to wear light-coloured clothes when meeting people for the first time.

Cats on a Roof

2008-10-06T23:42:00.003+09:00

Took this on my way to meet Dave at Yongsan on Friday. It was my third attempt after the first two washed out as a result of too much light(?) and by then some of the cats had run off.

The cats are lying on a roof of one of the infamous glasshouses of Yongsan Red Light District, not one of the ones on the main roads, but one at the entrance to a network of tiny alleys that I haven't explored, and probably will never have a chance to before this possibly most expensive piece of land in Korea is wrested from the control of the local pimps and developed into awesome high-rise apartment buildings. These architectural works of art will have culturally significant names such as Richensia, Bestville and ShinDoBrandNew, and will be home to the same businesses found just across the street. A Baskin Robbins/Dunkin Donuts combo, a Starbucks/Coffee Bean/Holly's/Ton N Toms and a Buy The Way/Family Mart/GS 25 are guaranteed.

Personally, I'd much prefer the whole area to remain a seedy meat market, but there's not much chance of that happening, as Korea's gigantic sex industry is currently under attack from all sides. Developers keen to turn the glasshouses at Yongsan, Gireum, Cheongnyangni, and Cheonho into the next Lotte Castle, a hardcore Christian president (but self-confessed whoremongerer) firmly on the side of big business, and a police crackdown that has actually been having an effect, much to everyone's surprise.

The latest 'crackdown', a word which is usually followed by sniggers and rolled eyes when applied to the rampant prostitution over here, was sparked by complaints by the renter's associations of a couple of major apartment complexes in Jangan-dong, a Seoul-famous site for cheap massage parlours. I've walked through the area in question, and it is/was truly impressive in scale. A wide street lined on both sides with neon signs stretching for about a kilometre, with touts out the front of every business hustling for customers. Drunk salarymen negotiating group rates, taxis and street food stalls everywhere. Ironically the businesses on this street sprung up in response to the 2004 Special Law on Prostitution, which resulted in the closure of much of Korea's then largest red light district at nearby Cheongnyanggi.

It always amazed me that such an area could develop in what is a high-density residential area. The red light districts I can understand, as they are located in rundown sections where no one really lives or has any reason to pass through, even though they are pretty brazen too - bright red lights, girls in bikinis in the windows, and in the case of Cheonho, a police station right at the entrance. I guess the locals finally got sick of being hassled on their way home and showered with explicit fliers, and I don't blame then, although it does make me a little sad to think that what was once a thriving and quite interesting thoroughfare has gone dark. I'd hate to be the owner of one of the many businesses set up to service all sides of the industry - hairdressers, restaurants, street vendors, gaming rooms, karaoke rooms, drivers, etc. I'd hate to see 99% of my customers literally vanish overnight at a time when any shares I might have have taken a pounding and prices are rising fast.

The police shut down the whole area pretty fast, prompting one pimp to hang himself in the car park of one of the shutdown buildings, and led to a group of about 60 other pimps threatening to release a list of police who has taken bribes/received favours in return for turning a blind eye. For probably the first time in history it didn't do any good, and the cops said bring it on. They confiscated bathroom fittings and turned off the water, and the doors remain locked, as far as I know.

The crackdown then spread to my area, Gangnam, targeting the high price massage parlours and various other manifestations of the industry - hand job places, hardcore room salons, officetel brothels, and male "resting" rooms. Signs are off, barber poles have stopped twirling, and I see special police rolling through my neighbourhood. As a result the hairdressers are empty too, and my walk home is a lot more boring. It will be interesting to see how long the whole thing lasts.

Samarkand

2008-09-29T23:37:00.003+09:00

I had to buy some oatmeal, a vital component of my morning shake, so a trip to Shitaewon was in order. Sold out at the Pakistani-run Foreign Food Market, so it was off to the Filipino (sp?) place down the road near all the African shops. Lots of loud black people and a frightened Korean couple looking like tourists in their own country. Found some oatmeal although I had to settle for Ralston instead of Quaker's which I prefer. Had to wait while a large African woman wearing a massive headdress argued with the Filipina (sp?) about the expiry date on a phonecard in quite regal English, I should add.

Close to the Turkish Kebab House, and we were craving lamb, but Omar was closed as he always seems to be when I need a kebab. Headed to Petra's where we made do with chicken. Walked around searching for lamb but everywhere seemed to be closed or sold out.

Our last option seemed to be one of the Uzbek places in the very small Russian/Uzbek/Mongolian enclave near Dongdaemun stadium. We jumped in a cab and headed over there and our favorite place, Samarkand (사마리칸트), was still open. We had some fun trying to guess the ethnic backgrounds of the other customers and ordered two lamb skewers, some bread, a borscht and a Baltika No. 3.

Crazy Uzbek music videos were playing on the TV and as the night wore on members of the large group of possibly Uzbeks of Korean descent started to dance in the restaurant much to Ju Hee's amusement ("Koreans would never do that, they can't be Korean") and for some reason it made me very emotional.

Here are some videos with a similar sound, although the one playing had crowds of people dancing on a stage. Can't find that one.

Shantaram

2008-09-22T02:26:00.002+09:00

This is a great book. It makes me want to pack my bags and head for India.

I'm not finished it yet, but my only criticism so far would be that it is a bit too full of philosophical wisdom - it seems that every character is a genius with perfectly phrased deep and insightful things to say, even if English is not their native tongue. Regardless, a fantastic story. Read it.

Different Strokes

2008-09-13T22:46:00.003+09:00

As I've mentioned on this blog before, one of my pet hates as a teacher is students not bringing pencils. This annoys my co-teacher a lot too, but we both use different strategies. I'm still not sure whose is better.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to crack down, threw away all the spare pencils I used to lend to students, and started punishing anyone who turned up without one. My zero-tolerance approach has been a failure, however, with the usual suspects still not bringing pencils, idiots still asking me for one even though I crack it at them when they do, and other students who sit there writing nothing until I realise they have no pencil because they don't want to be sent outside. I guess they think they have a chance of getting away with not doing a single thing for the whole 45 minutes.

Sarah, on the other hand, at about the same time I started my crackdown, bought a new cute apple-shaped pencil sharpener and sharpened up all the spare pencils, plus a few more she bought. She comes in every morning and sharpens the broken ones along with the man others that are left on the floor every day, and lines them all up ready to hand out. She told me it's her favorite morning task, and said to me, "I'm so happy these days, now I don't have to be angry when students ask me for a pencil."

Obviously Sarah's approach is more successful in terms of teacher happiness, and is a very effective way of removing extra stress from her day. It doesn't work for me though, because a) I don't want to spend any extra time or money on the issue, and b) I believe that students should bring a pencil every day, and almost take it as a personal insult when they don't. To me, giving in like that just sends a message that they can be irresponsible and get away with it. Like when a student fails to hand in an assignment on time, I believe that they should get zero, whereas Sarah is likely to let them hand it in late and still give them a mark, reasoning that it is better that they complete the task than not. I disagree, as it makes my blood boil when people miss deadlines and get away with it.

The funny thing is, I only think this way in the classroom, and would always choose an approach like Sarah's when trying to solve societal problems. For example, when looking at an issue such as drugs, I much prefer legalisation and/or injection room and rehabilitation clinic style harm minimization strategies over the "throw them all in jail" approaches that are most similar to the way I deal with problems at school.

In other news, this story from the Korea Times cracked me up. How did nobody realise? Why didn't anyone take it down before it was noticed? Didn't the owner/real estate agent check the place out before the new guy moved in? Was the rest of the old guy's stuff left in there too, or did they dump all the clothes and furniture and decide to leave a hanging gift?

Simple Pleasures 2

2008-09-09T23:39:00.001+09:00

Getting a smile out of a grumpy person. I've been going to the local DVD/video/comic book shop regularly for about a year, and I finally got a positive facial expression out of the prune-faced owner tonight.

How did I do it? I offered to put a DVD back on the shelf for her after I finished paying for mine. I wonder if this is a turning point in our relationship, and whether she'll start answering me with anything more than grunts from now on.

Coming soon: Gangwonland Hell, Shantaram, and Chuseok Madness.

Prison Break Ridiculocity

2008-09-04T00:24:00.004+09:00

Spoilers in this post. Don't read it if you haven't watched the first (double) episode of Prison Break Season 4 which has started so badly that there is no word in the dictionary for it.

There's no real point to this post, but I'm writing it as a hopeless TV series addict who's not getting the product he needs from Prison Break. Lost is delivering, and while that show borders on the ludicrous also, it seems to realise this and is quite clearly a fantasy. Prison Break, on the other hand, has always tried to be gritty and real, and is now failing miserably.

I don't know why I was even waiting for the Season 4 premiere, as Season 3 didn't live up to the first two, but since I was so excited to see the name pop up on EZTV, it made it even worse that the season opener was so so bad.

Stupid happenings in the first episode(s):

- Sarah comes back to life. Why? It's enough to make me boycott the show forever for this reason alone.

- Gretchen appears to be killed, but later it is revealed that she is alive. Wow, I never saw that one coming after the camera cut right before she was about to get shot by the new big black bad guy. I wish they would kill her off - she's a terrible character played by a worse actress.

- T-Bag kills a Mexican guy by accident in the desert and then eats him. Just in case we didn't hate him enough for being a pedophile, a murderer and an all round scumbag, now he's a cannibal. Nice work scriptwriters.

- After eating his buddy, T-Bag randomly runs into some young guys riding dune buggy type of things through the middle of the desert. Seeing T-Bag retching, one of them asks him something like "Dude, did you eat some bad Mexican?"

- A device which looks like a cell phone but is actually a futuristic identity theft tool built by a new cast member, a hacker who also happens to be Asian. I guess since the last Asian character was killed off at the end of last season they decided they needed a new one to keep the loyal fans in the East happy. This device is so awesome that it may as well be magic. I hope they find some magic wands in the future - it maybe the only way for the team to save America.

- They need to break into a building guarded by an army of security guys, cameras, motion sensors, alarms etc, and can't think of how to do it. They can't get inside, "It's impossible!", so they put the magic phone in the maid's bag and it does the business. Then the dumb Latino woman leaves it inside. What to do now? Luckily Michael Scofield has a brainwave while tearing up some blueprints, a move which always does the trick. They set off an alarm on a house across the street, wait for all the guards to run and have a look, and for the house owner to turn off the alarm system and go outside to check it out, and then they pick a lock on a side door and head inside to get what they need. Has the target demographic changed? Many events in the first two series were a stretch, but nothing like this.

In other news, I read a story about a real prison break attempt on Mygazines. This site is awesome and is going to waste even more of my time. The article was in the August edition of Esquire, and these guys actually spent years escaping only to get caught at the last minute, after they were already able to leave, and only waiting for the right time to bail. It's a great read.

Subway Wars

2008-08-28T22:54:00.004+09:00

I ride the subway almost everyday, so it's only natural that I take it pretty seriously, as do most Koreans. Maybe that's why I like it here - people are efficient and orderly, and while they may be on the pushy side, there are less slow-walking time-wasters here than in Sydney.

When I'm taking any one of the routes I know well, I know exactly where to get on and off the train in order to be closest to the exits. This is simple common sense, but it eludes lots of people. Lucky for me I guess.

For example, if I'm taking Line 7 from Hakdong to Gunja, where I transfer to the Line 5 train to Cheonho, a route I take a couple of times a week, I know that I have to get on the train at Carriage 5 Door 3 (5-3). This gets me closest to the transfer point at Gunja Station. 5-2 would also be fine, and is actually slightly closer, but since people know this they crowd up at 5-2 and I can overtake them with a fast exit out of 5-3. Then I get on the Line 5 train at 2-4 which is the closest door to the closest platform exit at Cheonho Station.

Coming home I get on the train at 1-1 and stand near the door. No point getting on at 1-2 which gives a higher chance of a seat because it's only a 6 minute ride, and since the first carriage is an easy one to remember for other people transferring at Gunja, it gets pretty packed in there. I don't mind standing during this leg of the trip, safe in the knowledge I'm a step ahead of most of these morons who can only manage to remember carriages instead of specific doors. Then I get on the Line 7 train at the left of door 4-1 (almost exactly diagonally opposite 5-3 which I use going the other way. The 'almost' will be explained momentarily) which gives me the best exit at Hakdong Station. The way home is a good trip because most people are going the other way, and since a lot of people get off to transfer, I have a high chance of getting a seat.

4-2 would be the logical door of entry at Gunja, but since more people alight from there, I have better odds of getting one of the prized seats on the end of the rows next to the doors. Getting on fast allows me a choice of empty seats, even the ones closer to door 4-2. Also, on the right of 4-1 are the senior-citizen's seats, so even if some grandpa with a cane is in front of me when I get there, we're not competing for the same seat anyway. I have a little chuckle every time I see more people lined up at 4-2 - little do they know they have no chance.

Even the best-laid plans are useless sometimes though, and if I arrive on the platform just before the train is due to arrive, depressingly long lines will have formed outside of both doors, and I have to make a judgement call on which lines will move fastest. People watching TV on their phones, and idiots not standing close to the person in front usually give away clueless line-blockers who will hold up everyone else.

This is the most difficult part, as I am torn between wanting to get to the platform just as a train arrives as to minimise waiting time, and being there a little earlier so as to have pole position for the battle for the best seats. Having to run is definitely the worst, as sometimes you run and miss the train anyway, and if you make it you never get a seat.

So yesterday I arrived with a train due in a couple of minutes, and to my horror there were three people waiting at my coveted left side of 4-1, and one guy at 4-2. The guy at 4-2 wasn't standing close enough so I stood in front of him and snatched pole position. You snooze you lose.

The train arrived and I got in pretty quickly, after seeing through the windows that both of the precious end seats near the 4-1 doors were free. I made a beeline for one of them, but didn't think I was going to be fast enough, because there was a 60ish guy with his wife, both dressed to climb K2, who looked pretty switched on going for the same seat. It didn't look good for me, but a cretinous lady with her head in the clouds who had by some freakish chance of timing managed to stand in front of the couple on the platform stopped dead in the middle of the carriage and blocked their way. I hurried into the seat and the look on the mountain man's face was priceless. He and his wife got seats together anyway, but the look he gave me was one of the most satisfying things I've ever seen, and made it all worthwhile. It was a mix of frustration, disbelief and respect, and I couldn't help a bit of a smirk.