Overload, pt. 1

Where to begin? The past two weeks have been strange and fun and emotional for a million different reasons, but I'll try to start from the top and work through them. Bear with me.

North Korea: scary, fascinating, indecipherable. I didn't know much about the country going in, and I feel like I left it knowing even less. It was a one-day tour to the town of Kaesong, North Korea, with a population of 350,000 people, apparently. I want to stress the ostensible nature of the population count because, to my inexpert eyes, the town was considerably smaller than North Bay, Ontario, which has an estimated population of 70,000 people. Even if we assume every residence in Kaesong is crammed to the brim with occupants (not an unreasonable assumption, perhaps), it still seems unlikely to get anywhere near the stated total.

I'm focusing on the population figures here, not because they're necessarily all that important in and of themselves, but because they show one of the problems inherent in visiting "The Last Stalinist Regime" in order to learn about it: you have no idea what's true and what's not. In addition to Kaesong, we also visited a small Buddhist temple, at which we saw a Buddhist monk. Since I was under the impression that all religion is banned in the country (Kim Jong-Il and his father, Kim Il-Sung, are the only worshippable entities), however, I asked my (South) Korean tour guide about it, and he confirmed my suspicions, saying that the "monk" was actually an actor there to give the appearance of freedom of religion. Interesting, no?

It's difficult to infer too much from one day, but here are some other observations/speculations:
-all the North Koreans we saw were very thin, likely a consequence of the famine of the late 1990s, early 2000s, in which hundreds of thousands- if not millions- of people are said to have died.
-other than our tour buses, the government cars escorting them, and a few army vehicles, we saw almost no motorized transport at all. A few people had bicycles, but the vast majority of North Koreans seem to get around exclusively on foot, not that there would often be much cause for them to travel distances that require anything more than that.
-due, no doubt, to the scarcity of motor vehicles, the air was crisp and clean.
-we saw very few businesses at all. A movie theatre, a department store (with two or three articles of clothing in the display window) and a barber shop are all that come to mind right now. It's most definitely not a country operating on an open capitalist model, not that that should really surprise anyone.
-It's a scary place, not that that should really surprise anyone either. At the border, returning to South Korea, the guards checked everyone's digital cameras to ensure nobody had taken photos of things they shouldn't. I had taken a couple of pictures of a traffic cop and some of private residences- these were deleted from my camera. By not even the wildest flights of imagination could these have been construed as security risks or containing sensitive information, yet the guards acted as though I had taken compromising picture of Kim Jong-Il himself.

Recommended reading: The Aquariums of Pyongyang. Chol-Hwan Kang spent 10 years in a North Korean prison camp before being released. He later escaped to South Korea, then wrote a book about his experiences. Check it out.

Coming attractions

...and so many of them.

I'm in Gimhae (Busan) Airport's Free Internet Lounge, killing time before my flight to Bangkok, where I'll spend a few restless hours before my connection to Phnom Penh.

So many emotions and thoughts...

I have a number of subjects about which I want to write, but I'm currently running on about 3 hours of sleep in the past 36 (9 in the past 60), so now is not the time for it.

Over the next month, I hope to have at least one entry written in each of the following countries:
-Cambodia
-Thailand
-Malaysia
-Singapore

In addition to my insightful and witty commentary on the above destinations, I also want to discuss North Korea, my departure from South Korea, and possibly several other topics. But I also want to spend more time on beaches, in jungles, around temples, and eating street food than I do on the internet, so we'll see how it goes.

À bientôt!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Yesterday was Teachers' Day, a holiday that is sadly lacking in Canada. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd gladly swap the August Civic Holiday for a Teachers' Day in May. It should be noted that it's not a public holiday here, but our school did decide to take us on a hike for the day instead of teaching. This is another trade I would recommend to any teachers looking to escape from school for a day.

The delightful thing about Teachers' Day, from a purely selfish point of view, is the windfall of gifts given to us by loving students and their parents. They're sometimes useful, sometimes hedonistic, but always appreciated. While there is some overlap between Canadian and Korean ideas of what constitutes an appropriate present, there are also some differences. To illustrate, I present to you now my list of received gifts. In order to forestall any otherwise inevitable wisecracking, I should note that, for the gifts listed, my co-teacher(s) for that particular student or class received the same thing. Unless otherwise noted, each gift is from one student.

Jeff's Teachers' Day Presents, 2008

-socks, 100% silk, 3 pairs
-socks, ankle, athletic, 3 pairs
-vitamins, Centrum Silver ("Specially formulated for adults 50+")
-movie tickets, 2
-t-shirt, white, 1 (my coworker Steve also received a t-shirt, but his was hot pink)
-lime and salt body wash, one bottle
-Nivea anti-perspirant spray, one bottle
-handkerchief, 1
-toothpaste, 6 (six!) tubes
-journal, 1
-Old Spice aftershave, one bottle
-L'Oreal "UV Perfect Advanced Fluid Protector (Dermatologically Tested on Asian Skin)" SPF 50, one bottle
-Krispy Kreme donuts, 6
-30,000 Won ($30) gift certificate, redeemable at various restaurants and stores in Korea

The last two were from the parents of my Dolphin kindergarten class. As you can see, there's a greater emphasis here on skin and beauty products , even for guys; I suspect this has a lot to do with the general importance of physical attractiveness for Koreans. The subway stations are covered in ads for plastic surgery clinics ("Small face, lovely breast"), and even our English textbooks aren't immune ("Does Helen have a fat boyfriend? No, Helen has a thin boyfriend. Helen likes thin boys.). As a teacher, I try to skirt away from these lessons as much as possible, though I do try to teach my students that "fat" is not typically considered an acceptable word for everyday conversation, at least not in the contexts shown in the book.

In part inspired by the gift of aftershave, I decided to shave my beard this week, and therefore came to school cleanshaven for the first time ever. The reaction was interesting. While the majority of my students (and coworkers) noticed something different, many were unable to put their finger on it, guessing instead that I'd gotten a haircut. I'm not sure if there's any particular significance to this, but if pressed to find some, I would hypothesize that it has to do with the scarcity of facial hair among Korean men (and women, for that matter). Because virtually no Koreans have beards or mustaches, they notice it when we Westerners have one, but may find it harder to spot it when it's gone. This is all pure conjecture, though.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go apply some Advanced Fluid Protector.

334 down, 31 to go

It seems a little strange, but my year in Korea is very nearly up. This time one month from today, I'll be zipping up my backpack and preparing to go to Cambodia and other magical places.

So now, 11 months since my arrival in the Hermit Kingdom, I once again find myself in the position of figuring out what to do next. Fortunately, for the moment I've made my decision: procrastinate. I'm putting off most thoughts of the future until my triumphant return to Toronto two months from now.

This past weekend was spent in Seoul. We had Monday off for Children's Day, and I have a friend visiting from home at the moment, so the timing for a three-day weekend was most opportune. You can also expect a guest column from Sara-Jane later this week.

Random thoughts on Seoul:

I've been there a few times now over the course of the year, and it's always been an enjoyable experience. I like the opportunity to get out of Busan for a couple of days, and Seoul has a cosmopolitan vibe that my "hometown" doesn't. It's not just more international, though that's certainly true. Rather, Seoul as a city emanates a certain confidence lacking in Busan. There's a vitality, a vibrancy to the city which makes it a great place to visit. Museums, restaurants, palaces...I like it.

Having said that, I do like Busan, and in some ways I'm pleased not to live in Seoul. For all its attractions, it's much easier to live a Western lifestyle there, and I suspect I would have fallen even more deeply into that trap than I have in Busan, where one is forced to practice rudimentary Korean regularly, and where Korean food is about all one can eat in many corners of the city.

On a different note, one of the sites we visited in Seoul this weekend was the Seodaemun Prison Museum. During the Japanese occupation of Korea, it's where the political prisoners would be taken, tortured, and often murdered. It is, as one might suppose, a sombre site. However, I left it feeling dissatisfied because of the overall tone of the museum. It's clear that the museum founders and curators have striven to convey an understanding of the horrors committed there and what it was like for the prisoners. This does come through, but not always in the manner they might have intended. I found there to be a certain low-budget theme park feeling to the museum at odds with the respectful tone they might have intended. Many of the cells have animatronic figurines sticking bamboo spikes under fingernails, or screaming mechanically, and one is not allowed to forget, even for a second, that the Japanese were the ones committing these atrocities. One of the cells has been reproduced as an execution chamber, which isn't a bad idea, but visitors are encouraged to sit on a stool which suddenly drops four inches. Presumably, this is to show what it might feel like to be hanged, but instead it gives more an impression of a house of horrors in Niagara on the Lake. So that was a little strange.

We also went to a microbrewery which featured the best beer I've had in Korea. The most popular Korean beers are OB, Cass, and (s)Hite, and are generally even less flavourful than the Molson/Labatt/Budweiser stuff one might find back home, so it was a great relief to try a nice brown ale and a stout that actually had some colour and taste. Hurray for microbreweries!

Oh- and I learned recently that (apparently) Koreans weren't allowed to travel outside of Korea until the late 1980s. I intend to investigate this further; the results will be published here as they become available.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth

As my time here in South Korea starts to wind down, I've begun a list of things to do before I leave.

Some of them are relatively simple, such as certain dishes I have yet to try (live octopus), or mountains that are only a daytrip away, while others require a bit more work. You may or may not remember a poll in the fall asking whether I should go to North Korea- I'm going on May 31st. This intrigues me, but I'm still uncertain that it's for the best. We shall see.

I've also started a list of things to do after I leave. These, again, range from the fairly elaborate (temples in Cambodia, snorkeling in Thailand, jungling in Malasyia), to the more-mundane-but-no-less-anticipated (shopping at a North American supermarket, going to an English-language library).

I've started and stopped writing this post several times now, for the simple reason that I'm not sure what my point is, or even if I have one. I think I'm just happy to have options. I went with Robert Frost for my opening, but I could just have easily gone with Ecclesiastes:
To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun.

And soon there'll be a new Ask The Waeguk.

Ask A Waeguk, Vol. 7

The first question of the year comes from Haleigh in Halifax, who wonders:

"In South Korea, does most product packaging have some English on it, or have you often had to guess at the contents based on the picture on the box? If it's the latter case, have you had any amusing misunderstandings?"

The Waeguk responds:

Almost all packaging does in fact have some English on it, but whether this is to assist any wayward anglophones or to promote some abstract idea of sophistication, I have yet to decide. There's a huge emphasis on learning English, though, so it may be that it's a way of encouraging the people to acclimatize themselves to the roman alphabet. This is all idle speculation, of course, but what it means in practice, then, is that most food products have some English on them. Even things like the generic store-brand rameon noodles have the Korean "라면" (rameon) followed by "noodles."

One of the things which has amused me rather consistently since becoming quasi-literate in Korean is that English words are often transliterated rather than translated. As an example, I present the title of a recent Western movie:

P.S. 아이 러브유

To most of you, of course, the above title is illegible, so let's break it down phonetically.

아 - a
이 -ee
러 -luh
브 -buh
유 -yu

Said quickly enough, a ee luhbuh yu becomes I love you. Thus, we know the movie is P.S. I love you. To see a movie poster, please click here.

What's interesting, though, is that if you were to look up these words in a Korean-English dictionary, you would find something completely different. It should come as no shock to anyone, really, that the Korean for "I love you" is not the same as the English. Furthermore, on movie posters the title is often(though not always) written in English as well as in Korean. So a Korean whose English is good enough that she will know what I love you means will in all likelihood be able to read the title in English, but a Korean who is unable to read the Roman alphabet is not likely to be any more enlightened after reading the Korean transliteration.

Another example? Oh, all right.

아메리칸 갱스터

Again, let's break it down.

아-a
메 -meh
리 -ri
칸 -kan
갱 -gang
스 -suh
터 -tuh

Reassembled, we find ourselves with: a meh ri kan gang suh tuh. Say it quickly, and you're saying American Gangster (movie poster: here). Again, the words for American and gangster are quite different, but the titles are transliterated rather than translated. One of my favourite French novels is Le petit prince, but in English it becomes The Little Prince, not Luh Putty Prance.

This transliteration is not restricted to movie titles; incidentally. Even Mountain Dew is turned into ma-aoun-tin du, rather than some Koreanized "Hill Rain beverage" or somesuch.

On a not entirely unrelated note, my Korean lessons proceed with slow but steady progress. They proved their worth last week when I left my cellphone in a cab. As I discovered my loss shortly after exiting the vehicle, I was able to call my phone almost immediately. The cabdriver answered, and in Korean I was able to impose upon him to return to my apartment so that I might procure my telephonic device. It should be noted that what I actually said in Korean was not in the vicinity of eloquence, nor, indeed, in the same area code, yet the fact remains: my cellphone sits on the desk in front of me as I type. A triumph indeed.

And I remember Shanghai

How I wasn't sure just what was safe to eat
The chickens pecked and wandered at the barefoot ankles of the children hawking figurines of workers smiling
What's the Chinese word for cheese?

Thanks to Bishop Allen for the above lyrics. As it happened, I didn't see any live chickens, but I do, nevertheless, remember Shanghai.

In my previous Shanghai post, I mentioned the architecture downtown, which is radically different from that of Beijing, Seoul, and Busan. The guidebooks had made mention of this, however, so I wasn't completely unprepared. What I wasn't ready for was the traffic.

Oh, the traffic. The dizzying, exhilarating, anarchic traffic.

Shanghai!
A city where stoplights are suggestions at best.

Shanghai!
Where flocks of bicycles and scooters roam the streets.

Shanghai!
Where pedestrians defy death with every step off the sidewalk.

Springfield!
Where skateboard-riding youths urge you to eat their shorts.

Er, moving on.

Given my reputation, not as an expert economist, political theorist or even as a PhD. candidate in Sino-industrial history, but as someone who has spent more than eight days in China (four in Shanghai, five in Beijing), I feel particularly qualified to comment on the socio-political situation in contemporary China.

As I understand it, it's like this: China is still "communist" in much the same way that Stephen Harper is a "good prime minister." Between the condo developments and the Ferrari dealership, Shanghai does not show many signs of being a society in which property is shared equally. I think it's probably fair to say that communist China has never had such a society, but now there's isn't even any pretense of such a thing.

Historically speaking (or so we were told in Mrs. Findlay's Grade 13 Mod. West. Civ. class), revolutions have come from the middle class. When you're struggling to get enough food to feed your children, it can be hard to worry about more abstract issues such as voting. The reason Great Britain managed to avoid the equivalent of the French Revolution was that the nobility wasn't as rigidly hierarchical: those of sufficient wealth were able to buy their way into some form of power.

In China, the middle class is growing rapidly (though still dwarfed by those living day to day), but it's uncertain just how much power they have. At what point does one decide the Porsche isn't sufficient compensation for a lack of free speech? Is China's economic growth sustainable environmentally, economically, or socially?

I did enjoy the dumplings.

Oh, Ok

Well, 24 hours and much pedestring later, I return to the interweb to find that blogger is, in fact, accessible. Must just have been standard e-difficulties. I don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed to find that the Chinese government doesn't object to my writings.

You know what? That's all for now.

Sundayosity

This Friday is the 6th mensiversary of my arrival in South Korea. Several things are happening or have already happened to mark the occasion:

-The mayor of Busan, Hur Nam-Sik, has declared next weekend to be a municipal holiday. There is to be a kimchi-tape parade downtown, and work will commence on a statue, 75m tall, in my likeness, to be placed on the summit of the highest mountain in the city.


-Kim Jong-Il is expected to resign as leader of North Korea and rededicate himself to his first love, yahtzee.

-I bought a winter jacket. In truth, this wasn't done specifically to commemorate my time here, but it seemed like a good idea, what with the encroachment of winter and so forth. The jacket itself is not entirely unattractive, should keep me reasonably warm, and was less than the price of a meal at a local Thai restaurant, assuming a glass of wine was consumed along with the food in said meal. So I'm satisfied with my purchase overall. What really, truly, delighted me about the jacket, though, is the descriptive blurb on the tag, reproduced here for your reading pleasure:

Leader's
The everything world mountain for acid is tracking, hiking, Seunosyuing, and until walking that is adventure and expression of travel in line of exploration! Offer everything. Experience culture that is different from nature and walk the earth. Express your happiness in step that step forward step by step. Open mind that is humble and respect. Finally, find your self, and supplement energy, and meet new place, the new world and new people and give meaning in your life at the street end.

I've been trying to stay away from posting about "konglish," as the Korean-English mishmash is known, for the simple reason that it's far too facile a topic to write about. It's a "what's the deal with airplane food" level of easy comedy, but the paragraph just appealed to me, and so I thought I'd share. Seunosyuing, incidentally, is snowshoeing, or so I would guess.

Last week's American Thanksgiving festivities were excellent. We bought a turkey dinner from The Seamen's Club, a USS centre which caters primarily to American military personnel and sailors, and it was delicious. My intended cheesecake was to be lime with a ginger snap crust, but due to supermarket restrictions it turned into a lemon cheesecake with a coconut cookie crust; also excellent, but my heart still prefers the lime.

Now that it's December, my thoughts have really started to trifurcate. I've been reflecting on the year gone by: North Bay, Kenya, Korea, and so on, thinking about my options for the second half of '08, while simultaneously wanting to stay grounded in the next 6 months. It's quite the juggling act, let me tell you. On the other hand, it's rare that I'm able to use "trifurcate," so this mollifies me somewhat.

More later today. Maybe.

Chuseok is all around us

The kids are busy writing their lists for the Chuseok Bunny, and getting ready to go from house to house collecting teeth to stick under the pillow, while the parents stay home assembling the Chuseok pole in preparation for the Airing of Grievances.

In truth, I still don't know exactly what Chuseok entails. It is, essentially, the Korean Thanksgiving, and a time when most Koreans will return to the home of their parents or grandparents, pay homage to their ancestors, and eat a lot- including Songpyeon, a traditional Korean rice cake. Beyond that, though, it's all a big mystery.

It's just a couple of weeks away now, and the biggest indicator of an impending holiday is found, of course, in the supermarkets. There are a great number of gift baskets for sale, each one offering a selection from a given grocery aisle: fruit, cosmetics, spam.

Soon we'll start doing Chuseok activities with the students, and I'm curious to discover the local equivalent of Santa napkin rings or Turkey placemats. Gift baskets aside, what I've seen of pre-Chuseok Korea makes it seem a lot more low-key than Christmas or even Thanksgiving, but it may also simply be less commercial, though no less intense. I am given to understand that virtually everyone goes home for the week, and there are very few exceptions.

As for me, I'll be in Beijing. Assa!

Ask A Waeguk, Vol. 3

Since watching a soccer game in which the North Korean team was misidentified with the South Korean flag, Monti from Oakville wonders if South Koreans are offended if called North Koreans, and vice versa.

The Waeguk Responds

Up to now, Monti, I have not met a North Korean, nor have I made the mistake of mixing up North and South, so what I can offer you is only idle speculation.

At school (the site of the majority of my conversational interactions with bona fide citizens of the Republic of Korea), the topic of politics rarely comes up, and North Korea is mentioned even less frequently.

With very, very few exceptions, North Koreans stay in North Korea. It is not a country with anything even close to open borders. By and large, South Koreans are not allowed into the North, and citizens of other countries who wish to do so must go through China, such is the nature of the DMZ, the "world's most heavily fortified border," as countless websites and guidebooks are quick to tell us, breathlessly noting the 2 million soldiers who line its sides.

Given this, and the fact that the Korean peninsula was only one country until the end of the Second World War, one would think that the "rogue state" to the north would be frequent watercooler fare. From what I've seen, however, it isn't. It may be that the situation, although scary, has remained the same for long enough that there really isn't much to talk about on a day-by-day basis. It may be that it's not a topic one would choose to broach with colleagues as part of casual office chatter, particularly if those colleagues are Westerners and the topic is one with considerable emotional weight.

In terms of your question, Monti, my best guess is that South Koreans would be largely bemused if someone were to mix up the North and South, especially if that someone happened to be living in South Korea. Although they share four thousand years of heritage, the countries' paths since 1945 have been so radically different that to confuse the two would be akin to being unable to distinguish between the USA and the USSR, circa 1980.

Maybe I'll try flipping the names this week, just to test my hypothesis. But probably not.