Focal Points

As ever, I remain faithful to my promise to write a weekly blog. I'm not sure how many people even read blogs anyway (all those damn words…) but I do think it's a good idea to have a sort of chronicle to look back upon.

This has been an eventful week, and work was admittedly pretty stressful mostly because of some scheduling changes and the fact that perhaps playing Scrabble all last week (when my voice was dead) set a precedent in class—one where quite a few of my students feel that it is perfectly acceptable for their parents to be paying major won for 3 days of board-games lessons per week…In any case, the children were not on their best behaviour and the little ones get really rude, even, blatantly ignoring me and carrying on their own conversations in Korean until I agreed to play Bingo. I get very little respect with these younger ones and it's strange how much a difference a few years can make—my other elementary school class—9 to 12 year olds are so well-behaved and only ever speak in Korean to translate for whoever else doesn't understand. I tried a sort of Round Robin fairytale storytelling thing with them to try and get them not only speaking in English—but thinking creatively as well—a concept that often gets them looking at me in a very confused way. I'm not saying that they have little creativity, but so far, it just seems that they become very confused when I try to do something outside of the book. I think Koreans must have a very prescribed sort of approach to education—The boss just does word for word translation with them in his classes .I looked at some of the sentences—just random phrases taken from books and the newspaper it would appear, often written in ways that no living English person actually speaks, unless of course said person was stuffy, pretentious, and spoke in the most flowery language used since the such Romantic poets like Byron….it's all a little much, I think. They really don't seem all that applicable to me, but whatever. Apart from that, the weeks are going by very quickly. The work week is very long—that I won't deny—but it seems that Friday rears its glorious head so very frequently...

Korea is the last place I imagined I'd get a chance to practice my French. The new Korean English teacher, Miss Kim, who oddly enough doesn't really seem to speak much English at all, came up to me on Tuesday and asked me whether I understood French. I was a little taken aback. Apparently she studied in France for 4 years, so she's extremely good. I am out of practice—my accent sucks—but at least I can communicate with her now and we're not just uncomfortably sitting in our office area, back to back, without ever uttering a syllable to each other. The boss took everyone in the school—me, Miss Kim and the receptionist out to lunch on Wednesday and at least this time he was considerate enough to ask me what I wanted to eat instead of just ordering some awful mountain of pork. The receptionist doesn't eat meat—only fish and beef and chicken, she says, to which I had to bite my tongue (I am worried about what she considers 'meat'). We ate tofu, kimchi and lots of vegetables and cooked rice. It was alright, but my boss keeps telling me that he's worried about my eating. Again, because I am North American and not heavy, he imagines that I never cook, never eat and never go grocery shopping. But my eating is a subject I do not wish to discuss with him. It's none of his business.

I went out for a drink one night this week with another English teacher in my building—A nice British guy who's self-conscious about his apparently advanced age (31). It was a good opportunity to actually check out some nice little chill bars in my city. We went to a couple of places and had a drink in each. I didn't really care for the first place—a very industrial looking place with lots of red lights and drunken Koreans. I felt like other than the bargirls, I was the only female there. It was kind of awkward. I drank beer (priced at a very un-worthwhile 8000W), which I found disgusting, as I am not a beer-drinking girl, but the only alcohol they had in the place was purchasable at ludicrous prices by the bottle. My British friend started chatting up a Korean guy sitting beside him at the bar—in front of him were about 20 empty bottles (I don't know how these people manage to function—this was at 11pm in the middle of the week). The Korean and his friend were planning on going to a nightclub—it was explained to me later that they were going to see some Russians dance around in g-strings.

Everyone is married in Korea—if you're 30 and single, there is something wrong with you. Most successful men are "businessmen"—whatever that means—no one ever tells me what area of business any of these businessmen are actually in. The wives of successful Korean businessmen are homemakers, like the spoiled women in my 'mother' classes, who have told me that they've (none of them!) never worked outside the home. I think infidelity must go on a lot in this country-- Prostitutes from Russia are a big thing here, strangely enough. I haven't seen any, exactly, but then it's not as though I go around looking. I have seen little vans where hookers are apparently driven around (spreading the love and the disease, I'm sure) like cattle at a fair. It was also explained to me that barber poles with double lines are essentially code for "get laid here—hookers somewhere in the vicinity"). It's all pretty sad. There are also little photographs of girls –advertisements—that I always see in the gutter and on the filthy, polluted sidewalks early in the morning before the city cleaners with their awful orange cowboy hat-uniforms have had a chance to throw them away. I find it all a little depressing. Interestingly enough, I never really see any public displays of affection—except for those repulsive "couples t-shirts" I sometimes see some lame people wearing, to advertise their affection). I wonder if people are really that modest or what? Today I was watching a couple in their late 20s standing in front of me on an escalator and the man was kind of trying to discreetly touch his girlfriend's ass…or put his arm around her. The woman kind of shuffled her feet a bit and the man put his arm around her neck, just an innocent little embrace. She squirmed away and gave him a rather not nice look that snarled "what the fuck, man? There are people on this escalator." But then again, maybe she just doesn't like him very much. I know very little about couples and relationships, as I don't really feel that I've ever particularly been in one where I had to see the other person more that once a week—so I could be way off…but whatever, it passes the time, making up stories about other people's lives for my own entertainment.

On Saturday, I had plans to meet a person I met on the internet at Seoul Station. I realized once I got there that though I'd written down his friend's cell-phone number, I'd forgotten it on my table all the way back in Bucheon. Of course, though I keep promising people that I will get one, I still do not own a cell-phone (I wonder if that makes me eccentric, as even 8 year olds seem to carry them around). I had no idea how massive Seoul station really is—unlike other smaller stations, it is virtually impossible to find anyone, anywhere. With several floors, a few waiting rooms, and about 10 separate exits, I was starting to feel a little hopeless about ever finding this person who I'd never actually met before…I kind of wandered around for half an hour and then went to the second floor and just stared at the influx of people from above. It's almost hypnotic, actually. They just kept coming. So much movement and so constant. I nearly got vertigo. I kept my eyes peeled for westerners and after awhile, figured I'd just go home and call him to apologize and explain about my un-preparedness. I was on my way to where I was going to catch the train and decided to walk outside (they keep buildings far too warm a lot of the time—not my school though—although the boss-man finally cracked and bought me a space heater for my icebox of a classroom) and it was actually really mild yesterday---too warm for my scarf and winter coat. So I'm walking (if you can call it that—I decided to buy a pair of heels yesterday, although I have the worst feet in the world and zero practice wearing anything but flats and sneakers for more than a couple hours at a time), sure that under my socks my feet were raw and bloody, and this guy comes walking right at me. I got a little freaked out (haha), but it was okay—the person I was trying to find found me, which is pretty impressive.

Anyway, in a bid to actually appreciate Korea culturally, we walked around Namdaemun Market, which I found really great. We also stopped and looked at this massive and ancient gate (built in the 1300s) which I found incredibly intricate and gorgeous. There is really nothing comparable in western architecture to old Asian palaces. The ceilings even had paintings on them and I think the whole structure must have been hand carved out of a million logs. I took a picture, not that it will do any justice to how beautiful this place is. What strikes me most profoundly is how old Korea really is and how young North America is. It is intriguing, I think, to have such a real sense of history and to actually mean something as a people. But it does bother me that American influence is so apparent in younger generations. I'm really getting sick of seeing people in hip-hop clothing (fupu?—they mix up their Bs and Ps sometimes and so most of their cheap knockoff clothing is ridiculous and in dire need of a good editor), or girls carrying around their Louis Vuitton bags and balancing on tiny stiletto boot heels (because everyone else has them…). There are many beggars in the Namdaemun area. It's pretty awful. I saw a guy with no legs pulling himself on a wooden plank with wheels, and lots of guys passed out on the grass or in one instance, on a staircase—either he was really really drunk, or mildly, um, dead, because a cement staircase is no place to sleep.

The market is incredibly vibrant, crowded as hell, and just generally a really exciting place to be. Like I said, a lot of knock-off name-brand clothing is sold, as well as t-shirts with really bad English (Konglish) on them. Really bad, like in some cases, the translation is so direct that together, they're just a string of nonsense words. I plan to buy a lot at some point. Souvenirs. I did buy some magnets of little Korean girls in traditional dresses—they're pretty nice and I'll probably send them to my mother. At the moment, they are on my metal door in my apartment, as my fridge is not that kind of fridge (more plastic—fake wood plastic, to be precise--on the outside than metal). I also bought a cheap pair of sneakers like the kind I used to wear all the time as a kid. It was necessary, because I was beginning to feel like I might just cripple myself…An afternoon of feet torture was sufficient. All sorts of food are for sale in the Market. I don't think I'd eat most of it though. There's something about squirming insects in wicker baskets that just doesn't whet my appetite. And the repulsive little silkworm pupa reminds me of nightmare insects…How anyone could actually put one in their mouth and proceed to chew is beyond me…Also available were chickens, just sitting out in the sun, doing their thing. I don't know how long they were there, but it looked like poison waiting to happen. The worst were the cow heads just sitting there in a pile, covered in either a thick brown red liquid (or maybe that was blood or muscle—I really don't know—up until yesterday, I'd never seen underneath a cow's skin before—don't ask me why, it's just never piqued my interest. Anyway, I took lots of pictures and I'm definitely going to need to get a photo album (as well as a digital camera soon). I tried getting a shot of this crazy guy dressed in really awful women's clothing trying to sell some equally awful clothing and he yelled at me to get in the shot with him. I have great expectations for the shot where he's placing my hand on his oversized tits.

After the market, we found a couple of decent places to drink and I consumed quite a lot of gin and tonic. We found a place that played really rock cool music with Hedwig and the Angry Inch posters and fantastic paintings of Rock Icons. There was even a guy with a guitar sitting at the bar that was pretty obliging with requests. I am jealous of musicians. I wish I could play some lovely Smashing pumpkins tune whenever I wished. I want to go back there again. It just might be my favourite place so far. Anyway, I think that I had some pretty interesting conversations last night and did a lot of really cool things and it was a pretty fun--albeit tiring—to go out drinking with someone I'd only just met. But I guess everything is pretty random and spontaneous here, as everyone keeps telling me. I was pretty hung-over and exhausted this morning. I bought some coffee at the subway station and took one sip. I really needed it. But then, the muscles in my hand decided to atrophy and I dropped the whole thing on the escalator. It was pretty embarrassing.

On the subway, I got momentarily lost because I took the express train and didn't realize I had to get out a Guro Station. I somehow ended up on the green line and looked around for someone to ask for directions. I ended up talking to this guy from Bangladesh (another innocuous "businessman) because I thought there would be a chance of his speaking English—which he did…He was going the same direction as me, so luckily, it worked out. I still felt drunk though and he kept asking me all these questions and talking about religion (he is Muslim) and how he is going to send me a copy of the Koran in English and be like my "elder brother" if I ever needed anything—"because a person can end up in Heaven or Hell," etc. I wonder if everyone realized I was still plastered. I was really not in a talking mood and was not really up for questions about my family and whether I had a boyfriend or not? Everyone was being really nice to me. Everyone who understood English pretty much piped in on the conversation. It was really bad. Why do I always pick the religious to ask questions to?

Anyway, it's nearly 3am and I'm getting a bit tired and feel I've written quite enough. In any case, I had a great time Saturday and am thinking of going to Insa Dong next weekend and maybe some sort of cool museum—like the kimchi museum (gotta love that old cabbage) or the Robo Park (who doesn't like robots?). I still want to go to a Buddhist temple, though. There're too many things I want to do…