Doucheburns Goes Downtown

For more of your Doucheburns amusement, before I cut them off for my trip to Vietnam this seollal...

Here's the transition from "grizzly travel beard" to "doucheburns," for your edification.


and here's a short slideshow of doucheburns touching some of the bases in downtown Seoul.
Forgot to get a picture of Doucheburns in the Vietnamese embassy. My bad. I had lunch with Fatmanseoul, and hopefully those pictures will pop up soon: when they do, I'll post them here as well.

Enjoy!


Happy new year, and see you again soon.

Coming next week: the big, big Korea Blog Golden Klog awards survey: vote for your favorites.

Nominations are still open at The Hub Of Sparkle, but move fast: the window's closing, and this survey's already looking to be a whopper.

Bye for now.

Roboseyo

Doucheburns...The People Have Spoken

More later. I have to go downtown and pick up my Vietnam visa looking like this.

Welcome, Korea Herald Readers

Hi there. If you're a Korea Herald reader who decided to check out my page after reading the "Expat Living" article, "Why Do Koreans Get So Defensive?", welcome!

While what I wrote there (if that link doesn't work, try this one) is a pretty good summary, it is certainly not all that has been said about the topic, either here or elsewhere, and of course, it should also be remembered that I am not the final expert about anything: I'm mostly glad that people are talking about this now, instead of feeling afraid to say anything, for fear of offending someone.

The series of essays The Korean and I wrote, with Gord Sellar's help (more later on him) about complaining expats and defensive Koreans are here, and they've started a very interesting conversation online, which I've tried to document with links and summaries.  If you haven't seen this online yet, I recommend you start with these:

First question:
Why do expats complain?
My thoughts. The Korean's thoughts.


Update 2: A couple more posts on the topic.
K-Rok
and Lost Seouls weigh in with the headline I like the most so far. Thanks!

some other responses from other pages
some e-mails I got
a wonderful, hilarious look at the history of complaining expats at the blog Popular Gusts
one more link that popped up a bit later on, that made me smile.

and another late addition which provides a COMPLETELY different view of it all.

and the Gypsy Scholar finally weighed in, too.

Second question:
Why do Koreans take Criticism about Korea so Poorly?
My thoughts. The Korean's thoughts.

some other responses from other pages

If this topic really interests you, also take some time to read the worthy Gord Sellar's views on the topic:
"Who's Complaining In Korea"
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

I also talked about this on the Seoul Podcast, here, during the first half of the podcast (before the whole thing devolved into a bunch of dirty bum jokes.)

And if you have something you want to say about it, go ahead and put it online, and send me the address where I can find it. Or e-mail your thoughts to me at roboseyo [at] gmail [dot] com or write them in the comment board to this page. If you're going to criticize me. . . go ahead, but try to have your ducks in a row, and check the rest of the conversation, to see that you aren't repeating something another person's already said.  I'm really glad if this discussion continues -- I think it's worthwhile for us to take a self-critical look in the mirror from time to time, and this is something that everyone bumps into after a fairly short time in Korea.

For posterity, then, or in case you haven't read them, or would like a fairly good summary of the discussion so far, and don't really care to do all the reading following all those links would entail: here are The Korean's Herald article (from the wonderful site, "Ask A Korean!") and my article in the Herald.  

PS: Thanks also to Matt Lammers, the editor of Korea Herald's Expat Living page, for giving us a soapbox excuse to draw attention to ourselves venue!

UPDATE: Gord Sellar's essay went up today, and it, too, is worth a read.  At the KH site, here, or here, kept on my blog, again for posterity.

Welcome, Korea Herald Readers!

Hi there. If you're a Korea Herald reader who decided to check out my page after reading the "Expat Living" article, 'You don't understand Korean culture', welcome!

The series of essays The Korean and I wrote about complaining expats and defensive Koreans are here, and they've started a very interesting conversation online, which I've tried to document with links and summaries:

First question:
Why do expats complain?
My thoughts (this is the article that was quoted). The Korean's thoughts.

some other responses from other pages
some e-mails I got
a wonderful, hilarious look at the history of complaining expats at the blog Popular Gusts

Why do Koreans take Criticism about Korea so Poorly?
My thoughts. The Korean's thoughts.

some other responses from other pages

If this topic really interests you, also take some time to read Gord Sellar's views on the topic:
"Who's Complaining In Korea"
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

and if you have something you want to say about it, go ahead and put it online, and send me the address where I can find it.  Or e-mail your thoughts to me at roboseyo [at] gmail [dot] com or write them in the comment board to this page.


To my regular readers: Wow! I was quoted in the Korea Herald! To see my article read 'You Don't Understand Korean Culture', at the Herald, or for posterity, it's here on my site, too.


(soundtrack: I Never Wanted To Be A Star, by Cat Stevens - snicker)



Highlights from the article:

(the first part of the article describes how Brian Deutsch was basically hung out to dry by his school, and the magazine he wrote for, when somebody tried to cyber-bully him for being too critical of Korea.)

Still, there a few prominent expatriate blogs in Korea that receive a lot of hits. The six we are interested in here are: The Marmot's Hole, Scribblings of the Metropolitician, The Grand Narrative, Ask a Korean!, Roboseyo and Deutsch's - Brian in Jeollanam-do.

The Marmot's Hole is run by Robert Koehler. . . .

"Our role is to offer commentary and criticism from a fresh, outside perspective," Koehler said. . . . "All countries are open for criticism. The question that really needs to be asked is whether anyone should take what we write seriously. For the most part, the answer to that would be no.

"Besides, generalizations are kind of fun - nationalistically hysterical Koreans, pot-smoking over-sexed English teachers, condescending expats - who doesn't love 'em. It's all a question of how seriously you take what you read."

Scribblings of the Metropolitician comes from Michael Hurt. The blog is a mishmash of social criticism, international politics, pop culture and comments on Korean media. 

Both Koehler and Hurt brought up Alexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchman who wrote "Democracy in America" in the first half of the 19th century. Both men consider this book a great commentary on the United States.

"The fact that we're foreigners shouldn't disqualify us. I look at American social commentary and social criticism and some of our sharpest and best social critics have been foreigners, people coming from a foreign perspective," Hurt said.

"Why would I put all this effort, why would I even care, or put myself out there, why would I do this if I didn't actually give a (expletive)?"

New Zealander James Turnbull runs The Grand Narrative. 

"I find the notion that only Koreans are 'permitted' to speak about Korean problems simply absurd," he said. "That isn't to say that all foreigners' opinions on them are equally valid, but if the roles were reversed then I'd be quite happy to hear the opinions of, say, a Korean person who had spent some time in New Zealand and who made an active effort to study and know New Zealand society and learn the language. In fact, probably more so than someone who was merely born there.

"The majority of netizens aside, I've actually found a significant number of Koreans to feel much the same way about the opinions of non-Koreans.

"Koreans are not unique in readily dismissing the opinions of foreigners, but they do seem more defensive about foreign criticism than most. For that reason, it is very important to use Korean sources as much as possible.

"Without any Korean ability, foreigners are usually forced to rely on either the limited English language media or books for the bulk of their information, and both have problems: the former for often presenting a rose-tinted version of Korea to the world, and the latter for being quickly out of date in a country as rapidly changing as Korea."

"[Criticize] in Korean, and in a major Korean newspaper," Koehler said.

Writing complaints in English may be "cathartic," he said, but it does no good.

Why do foreigners complain so much?

(and, like the guy who was an extra in a movie hauling all his friends to the cinema, and shouting, "Here it comes!" when the Cafe scene begins. . . here comes my quote!)

Another pair of bloggers, a Korean man living in America (Ask a Korean!) and a Canadian teacher in Seoul (Roboseyo) put together a two-part series dealing with foreigners' criticism and social commentary.

Ask a Korean! wrote, "many complaints from expats that the Korean has seen show a certain level of ignorance. This is not to say that complaining expats are dumb. It is only to say that were they more aware of certain things about themselves and about Korea, they would not be complaining as much, and the pitch of their complaints would not be as strident.

"Expats rarely venture out of large cities in Korea, and they only really interact with Koreans who are fluent in English. Do you know what makes a Korean fluent in English? Money, tons and tons of it. So not only are expats insulated from older Koreans, they are also insulated from younger Koreans who are poorer. What kind of understanding about Korea could an expat possibly have with this kind of limited exposure?"

About social critics, Roboseyo wrote, "Naming a problem is the first step to solving it, and maybe some of these critics are attempting to be a legitimate part of that process - that is, they're writing because they want to see Korea become a better place - in which case, Koreans who are upset about non-Koreans criticizing Korea need to stop and take a careful look at why that upsets them, because the problem does not lie in the complainers or their intentions.

"To be fair, sometimes the social critics' intentions are good, but their methods are poor: the sometimes bitter and mean tone of certain critics can be hurtful, and as I've said to some of my friends who complain about Korea with a rude or condescending tone: 'when you talk so harshly, even when you're right, you're wrong, and even if you win the argument, you still lose.'"

[Brian Deutsch, despite the cyber-attack will continue blogging about Korea.]

"I've also had to question how welcome those opinions are. My colleagues themselves told me that it was not my place to opine on what are called 'sensitive issues,' and a recent letter to the editor in the Gwangju News suggested that I, and foreigners, mind their own business and not worry about Korean internal affairs.

"But I think foreigners do have a right to speak about problems in Korea and to address sensitive issues from our own perspectives. At the most basic level we are invested in this society, even if for only a short time, and we pay taxes, function as consumers, participate in local communities, and teach local children.

"Moreover these issues are so prickly because they're not black and white. While it might be unpleasant for some Koreans to hear the other side of the story, I don't think it's inappropriate for it to be raised.

"Our opinions are often dismissed with a line about 'you don't understand Korean culture.' Often this comes when something unpleasant happens to a foreigner, or when a foreigner expresses an opinion disagreeable to the Korean listener. It's well beyond my abilities to explain why this happens, but it's patronizing and inappropriate. I do believe that although foreigners can sometimes dwell on the negative when writing or talking about Korea, I think taking a critical look shows an interest in the host culture that can be healthy if applied properly.

"I realize that a greater measure of tact is necessary when addressing sensitive issues and when trying to foster conversations across cultural boundaries, but even with a lot of coddling I remain cynical that people are ready to hear what we have to say just yet.

"I would love to have Koreans who disagree with me take the time to point out their objections, rather than simply railing against a foreigner who dares to publish something against the grain. And I would love to have Koreans spend more time trying to educate us about their culture and their views, then, since so much energy is spent telling us how wrong and misinformed our opinions are."

Deutsch said he was asked by his school to drop the case against Kim, and that his job was also placed in jeopardy because of what he has written.

And that last line is exactly why I think we need to talk about this, instead of letting things stay as they are.

Good news: this topic has more legs than even I thought it would, and I'm really happy that it's reaching more readers, and filling up more heads with thoughts.  Meanwhile, being listed in company like that is quite a thing on the K-blogosphere.  Kind of like being invited to K-Blogapalooza.

As always, if you want to tell me what you think about this topic, post it on your blog, and send me the link in the comments, or at roboseyo [at] gmail [dot] com and I'll print, or summarize, or link it here.

Have a great day, readers!



[full disclosure update]

I just got an e-mail from the editor of the magazine Brian wrote for, offering a few more details than I included in my summary of the Herald piece, when I hastily said, "the first part of the article describes how Brian Deutsch was basically hung out to dry by his school, and the magazine he wrote for"

a few quotes (with permission from the editor)

"The magazine has actually been very supportive of Brian. (personal details about the editor's involvement in the situation. . . ) The problem [Brian had with the magazine] is individuals not the organization.


The majority of the people who "work" for the magazine like Brian and myself are volunteers. This has it's pros and cons. In the July issue http://altair.chonnam.ac.kr/~gshin/gic/July%202008.pdf (pdf file) there was a letter to the editor. This writer was unhappy with two articles that were printed, one of them being Brian's most recent. Though myself and the acting editor had hesitations about what the author was saying in response to these articles, the letter was printed largely due to the fact that the man is a board member at the GIC and the non-profit magazine relies on their support. In the same issue though another article was printed, inspired by what had happened to Brian, explaining how though one might not agree with what had been previously written, it served a purpose and he had the right to do so.
 
Though I wasn't completely comfortable with the tone of the above mentioned "letter to the editor" the comments about the other author mentioned in it (not Brian) encouraged others who were not regular writers to submit pieces to the magazine. One is the letter to the editor in the August issue http://altair.chonnam.ac.kr/~gshin/gic/August%202008.pdf. The other will be an article in the upcoming September issue. 
 
Though what happened has created its fair share of stress and in some instances fear, there has been some good from it. People are talking. To be fair, some writers are feeling more hesitant to put "pen to paper" but others who were hesitant before are feeling inspired to have their voice heard.

An Illustrated, solipsistic riddle: What do you get when...

'cause I can't do social commentary all the time, and what's a blog without a few off-colour innuendoes from time to time?

What do you get when you cross Bono and A Clockwork Orange?




Roboseyo getting his teeth whitened.

Before

AfterPretty dramatic difference, eh? I'm thinking about starting to smoke, just so next time, the change will be even clearer.

The dentist was also pleased: she'd just started a new clinic, and was still trying out all her shiny new equipment, and was quite impressed with the result.

While I'm being narcissistic anyway. . . I also got a haircut.

Haircuts are always an adventure in Korea, because Korean stylists (outside of Itaewon) don't run into naturally curly hair very often, and some of them really have NO idea what to do with it. This guy thought a blow-dryer would be the best way to finish off my cut.

Not. Quite.


Once more, for fun, after he tried to save it with a spritzer:
Later, in the bathroom, I got my hands cupped full of water and used my fingers, the way you're supposed to handle curls this length.
Those short and curlies look MUCH better now. ;)

After I got a chance to shower, I could do it up proper, as you can see in this cleverly framed nude picture.Hope that wasn't too shocking for you.

-roboseyo

Got in the paper again.

There's a new section in the Korea Herald (the paper my school receives) called "Expat Living". I sent a letter in about something I care about, and they published it today.

You can see it at www.koreaherald.com, if you click on the box that says, "ExPat Living", or just trust me that it's there, and read it here.

I'm posting it as it was published in the Herald -- the version I originally submitted had been edited for length, with the first paragraph deleted and some the crucial information from Paragraph 1 adapted into other parts of the letter.

Of course, it's fun seeing my name in print; more gratifying, though, was when one of my students looked at me after reading the article in a conversation class and said, "I never thought of that before, but you changed the way I think." This was the same student I mentioned earlier, in another post. She's great, always ready to talk about stuff head-on, but it was really satisfying to hear her say, "You've convinced me."

I'm still all shiny from that.


here's my article, then:



***

Special


[Letter to the editor] The word foreigner as an agent of exclusion


As Korea aims to become a true global hub, it is time to think how the word waygukin, or "foreigner" is used. The word seems harmless: We are foreigners, aren`t we? But looking closer, just as the word "businessman" hinted that women didn`t really belong in the office, the word waygukin, literally "outside-country person," draws a circle called "Korea," and sets expatriates on the outside, looking in.

It is a small step from saying: "You`re not from here" outright, to implying "and you don`t belong here, either." The words waygukin and foreigner don`t mean to marginalize people, but neither did the word businessman, before it became politically correct to say businessperson, instead. Intentionally or not, it did -- and they do.

These words are so common that we foreigners even use them when talking about ourselves. Rather than just being marginalized by someone else, we are even excluding ourselves from Korean society. If I call myself an outsider, I will also think like one. I may hesitate to invest my full energy and passion in Korea, since even the word used to describe me implies: "You don`t really belong here."

The word waygukin says what we are not, but it`s time for a word that describes what we are, instead. "International," and "expatriate" have positive meanings. This small name change recognizes that we are more than outsiders; we are a growing part of Korea`s new, globalizing society.

Some of us have lived here for a long time, and we can contribute a lot if we, and our efforts, are welcomed and appreciated. It may just be fussing about language, and it`s only one step in the long journey of globalization, but a little change in word-choice still opens doors for women in business, and another little change might encourage expatriates to invest more in Korean society.

It might also help Koreans to see us not as outsiders, but as capable, energetic people ready and willing to participate.

Koreans and internationals alike: Let`s find inclusive words that remind us we`re working together to help Korea grow, and let`s leave old, exclusive words like "foreigner" and "waygukin" in the "hermit kingdom" past, where they belong.

Robert Ouwehand, Seoul



2008.01.31

Roboseyo lays a verbal smack-down!

There's this columnist in the Korea Herald (the English newspaper my school subscribes to.) I don't always agree with him, but he usually expresses himself very well and brings up worthwhile conversation topics. However, on Wednesday, he let all his conservative prejudices fly, clouding his normally sound expression. Here's a link to his column from Korea Herald online. He contradicts his own conclusion, and comes off as the same kind of knee-jerk ideologue that he criticizes in other of his articles.

Not that I'm personally invested too deeply in Korea's new president elect, nor the previous two administrations, but I was bothered by the hypocrisy of slagging the opposing party, and then calling for a more open dialogue in the conclusion. So I fired off a letter to the editor, basically calling him out for his self-contradiction. . . and they printed my response in today's Herald.

I'm pleased as punch. I bought an extra copy of the paper for posterity, and it's sure fun seeing my name in print!

I rock.

By the way: this is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

Christmas (or at least december) in Korea, and a very narcissistic first half-post.

Aww nuts.

I tried to fix up the pictures on this one, and instead blogger just swallowed most of the former post.

If one of the pictures that got swallowed was really special to you, request it in the comments section and I'll put it up for you.



To recap what got eaten:

most Koreans (especially females) don't show too many teeth when they smile: almost nobody smiles like this:



or this
or this

instead, you see lots of this:



and this: it seems to convey an image of modesty here; Girlfriendoseyo says it's also physiological: the muscles that pull western people's upper lips back so far are less developed in many Korean and east asian races' mouths, and mouths are shaped differently, to boot.


given such a limited range of smiles available for flirting and the working of womanly wiles, and a lot of girls have expanded their toolkit in different directions, with faces like these:



and an alarming number of knowing smiles to go with the ubiquitous puppy-dog-eyes and pouts:

this is about as toothy as it usually gets, below.


and this was the model image that brought on this line of thought: I fondly call this her "duck smile", it's amazingly common here, and on principle, I don't date women who use it.



It's cold now. Bring your old blankets to the nearest shelter.

a student gave me a sprig of oranges. i've never received a sprig of anything before. the oranges were fresh from Jeju Island (the Florida of Korea), and delicious. I love that class.





Christmas is in Korea!

What's that in the distance?

Let's look a bit closer!

Hey! What's that christmas tree made of?


yep. heineken is toasting the world. I don't have the energy to re-type my rant from before. Plus, it looks pretty in the early morning:


(oh wait: here's that mini-rant.)

That's right. In the middle of the city center, we have a big merry christmas from Heineken. Nice that they're sharing the spirit.

Would this ever fly in north america? Wouldn't the parent groups get all up in arms and demand it be taken down faster than a billboard of Joe Camel dressed as Santa outside an elementary school?

(a christmas ad from 1946)



Made me laugh.


My friend Tamie is writing devotionals for every day of advent. I love advent. Girlfriendoseyo and I had a discussion where I explained how the feeling Christmas gives me is one of melancholy, of winter setting in, but also of anticipation and hope -- the Christmas songs that touch me the most are the sacred ones of course, and of them, especially the ones about light in the darkness. Listen to the melodies and words of songs like "The First Noel" "Silent Night" "Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem" -- I remember lighting the advent candles being my favourite Christmas tradition, and the mellow, quiet mood of reading the Christmas story, or the prophecies in Isaiah by candlelight with my family, are still what Christmas means to me. Even now, I prefer the Christmas music, and decorations that set a meditative tone instead of a festive tone. Girlfriendoseyo and I walked around downtown Seoul, where a lot of lights are going up, and she preferred the green, red, and yellow lights, while I preferred the silver, blue, and white lights, because she preferred the warmth, and I preferred the melancholy.


P.S.: this is horrible: http://www.uglychristmaslights.com/

Advent. Look back, look forward, both with hope.

To my friends and family in Canada:

miss you tons.

love: Roboseyo.

P.S.: roboseyoism of the day:

White turkey meat and cranberry sauce are like country music and pickup trucks: separate, they don't make a lot of sense to a lot of people, but taken together, they explain each other's existence perfectly.

my most asinine post yet. (don't worry: the end is better than the beginning)

ok, dont bother watching, but hit play on this clip when you start reading this post: that way, you'll be listening to good music (well, good by MY measuring stick) while you read. More about the band at the end of the post. Push play, and then move down. Dont watch (unless you really, really want to). Just move on and read with music playing.

Frederica, by Do Make Say Think



I think I'm stealing somebodys wireless, but the fact remains, I have internet at home today. (Goodbye free time. Sigh)

The upshot of my loss of free time is that I can show you some of the pictures I've been taking.

I'm doing well -- even looking well.

Compare.

Here's me giving the toast at my brother's wedding, July 2005. One of my girlfriends* looked at this picture and her first impression was "Wow. You're fat in this picture." Not long after that, she went away. Banished for life from the glorious land of Roboseyo.

(* now ex)




This next picture was me in September 2006, I think.



Work stress and things, yah yah yah. (In Korea, instead of saying "blah blah blah", Koreans say "shalah shalah shalah" - apparently THEY're the ones who put the Shalah in the Shamalama-ding-dong! (you may come over and shake their hands if you like; I still don't know who put the bop in the bop shabop shabop, but it may also have been Koreans, because bap means "rice" here, and Koreans put bap in almost everything.) Anyway, since starting my new job, I've been eating better, because my eating habits have been more intentional -- rather than eating a comfort food at the end of a tiring day, and vegging out, my new schedule helps me feel productive, so that I'm making intentional choices toward better health, rather than just choices that help me feel better (as a reaction to stress/exhaustion/boredom). I've been walking more, doing yoga more, eating fewer snacks between meals, and making healthier food choices. See the next picture: that's how I looked three weeks ago. (I also weighed myself: I'm lighter, too.) You may think I'm just sucking in better, but I assure you, I still havent learned how to suck in my forehead.



Now that I've started doing Yoga every day, you may notice a slight change, even from three weeks ago, to these pictures I took of myself this morning.






It's amazing what healthier lifestyles can do for us.

Enough self-congratulation, then. I have to admit some details of the last few paragraphs and pictures were slightly exaggerated or fictionalized; I haven't actually started doing yoga daily, for example.

Yesterday night, after my friend went home, I was wandering around Jongno, the party district, at about midnight, stone-cold sober, watching drunk people walk around and have fun, but not feeling like drinking myself. Then, this blonde fellow came up to the street food stand where I was eating (I was also eating street food), and started a chat. He was a Polish/German tourist named Raphael, who was on a one night layover between Australia and Germany, and he wanted to catch a sniff of Korean culture in the ten hours he had in Seoul. Little did he know he ran into exactly the right person. Anyone who's come out to Seoul to see me (that's two: Dad, and Mom, for all you keeping score) knows how much I love to give a tour, so I took him to eat one of the most traditional dishes (barbeque pork with soju, strange-tasting Korean liquor) (soju and samgyupsal is about eighty percent guaranteed to be the food and drink you'll have if you go out in a group with more than five Koreans -- it's like Pizza Hut, Earl's, White Spot, and Red Robin's all combined, and cheaper, in Korea -- the safe, inexpensive, inoffensive choice that nobody will disagree with, that eventually becomes the default "can't think of anywhere else to go" choice.)

So we had that, and it was fun, and I talked about Korea's culture and history a bit, and he talked about his desire to experience new cultures, and I talked about the odd sensation of being a white, visible minority in Korea, the unique solitude born of being in an ocean of people speaking a language one doesn't understand, etc.. Anyway, it was great meeting another world traveller, another culture-chaser. Much more interesting and edifying than getting half-hammed and sweaty in a dance club, just like a hundred other nights. This guy was really cool and open-minded, and if I'm ever in Germany, I'll definitely look him up, and he'll return the tour, and show me around his town.

These two sculptures were right next to each other in the park outside Seoul's city hall. I won't go into detail, but I think the symbolism is overt enough that I don't need to.



Konglish persists in Korea. Try and guess what this shirt means.



Once I saw a t-shirt whose caption actually was:

Ill gosdfsdfsdfsdf
jlkjlkjlkljsdkljfsf
ghdfhghg

It was awesome.

I want to be the one who writes the nonsense captions for Engrish t-shirts. I want to make up intentionally nonsensical phrases that seem to have just enough intention behind them to make people shake their heads and say "what are they ACTUALLY trying to say?" because the best ones ARE trying to say something, but get it wrong. I also want to invent captions for shirts where the main fun is trying to find letters that look cool together.

What do YOU think is the coolest word just to look at? My nomination is "ogopogo" -- so many circles (plus, it's really fun to say).

(The other best ones are the ones the people wear and have NO idea what it means. Innocent, sweet girls wearing t-shirts saying things like "Deep throat" (and a picture of a giraffe) -- this was a secretary at our school. She turned violent puce when I explained to her why she shouldn't wear that shirt to work again.



or "I like to get it on with guys who vote", or just ridiculous phrases, like the fifty-year old woman who walked by me with a shirt saying, "you be breakin' on me, I be breakin' on you")

Spring is here.


I like spring.

Here are some fantastic foods available for you in Korea: my old boss used to brag that Koreans used every part of the animal. Including. . .

The intestines. I found a special restaurant dedicated to eating cow intestines! You can also buy pig's feet here; it's said to be really good for your skin, so you'll see young women holding a big ugly pig's claw, trying to gnaw the meat off it (without getting grease on their cheeks), as if they were holding a corn dog that accidentally had bone in it. At the pig foot restaurants, sometimes you can also see the entire pigs face, set out to dry (for what purpose, I have no idea. Haven't gotten around to investigating yet. The day is so short, you know!)

Fortunately, if you don't like all that, you can buy a toothpaste that will kill your bad breath. . . and your calculus.



I have some packages that ought to be arriving soon. . . I hope they do. They seem a tad late. I hope I got my mailing address correct when I sent it out.

I went back to my old school the other day. That was nice -- to see the little ones. They were SO excited to see me! It was like being a Beatle. . . if the Beatles were twice as tall as ordinary humans. All the kids who knew me crowded around and tried to hold my hand, and they all tried to tell me -- something. Anything. Really, it wasn't important what, just that they were talking to their old teacher, of course. "Teacher! I have a loose tooth!" Basically means "I'm happy to see you again," in kid speak. I do miss those people. . . but not quite enough to go back. Caleb and Heather aren't there anyway.

As the blog goes, I'm thrilled that people have been commenting on my posts. It really helps me feel like people are reading it, and know what's going on. The site doesn't count how many people come and visit my blog (or at least, I don't know how to check), so if you leave your "footprints" as one person said, it helps me know that you've been here. And that warms my heart.

The problem is this: I now have a myspace page, a facebook page, and a blog, all of which have different people who check them, etc.. While facebook etc. is nice (if you want to put in the time) to create a "me" space more individualized than a mere e-mail address -- you can put links and lists of friends up and stuff -- it's starting to get harder to keep track again; instead of getting an e-mail from a friend which I can immediately open, read, and answer, I now get an e-mail from the facebook administrator, or the myspace administrator, saying "xxx sent you a message in Facebook" or "wrote on your wall" and I have to click a link and log on to read what I used to be able to read immediately. Just funny, is all. I'm not really complaining: I've heard from people I would never have gotten back in touch with otherwise -- including some grade school friends, and long-lost connections. That's neat, but I wish I didnt need five different logins and ids and passwords just to keep tabs -- it's sort of like having six different discount cards in your wallet, each for a different set of restaurants and shops, and having to sort through your wallet each time you make a purchase, for the right card to swipe. Time consuming.

I wish they could consolidate all those into a single swipe card (or just a thumb print), instead of making me wait in line for the person ahead of me who owns every discount card on the planet, and needs to know if she can save 18% by paying with her debit card, rather than just saving 15% by paying with her CocaCola Credit Card, along with the JLX Fast Food Alliance Membership Discount Card. Yug. So I want to consolidate all the "internet in touch" services, instead of having myspace, facebook, blogspot, and yahoo e-mail (as well as a g-mail address), I want to just have a "myblogface G-hoo mail account". With one password.

I just made a set of cds called my "joy of life trio" -- it's a collection of all the songs that put a big old smile on my face, whether from silly happiness, from some kind of reflective satisfied feeling, or from pure elevation. Music is so wonderful at taking us to another place. If you ask really nicely, I'll post the playlists, so you can find those songs and be cool like me. (And happy like me.)

One of my favourite bands for "elevation" these days is a Canadian instrumental group called "Do, Make, Say, Think". This is a live clip of one of their songs -- I highly, highly recommend their CDs "You, You're a History in Rust" and especially, "Winter Hymn, Country Hymn, Secret Hymn" Give them a try, if you like music that takes you on a journey. Really, seriously. You've been listening to a live clip of a song from "Winter Hymn Country Hymn, Secret Hymn" called "Frederica" that nicely shows how they play with dynamics and composition -- the sound quality's a bit poor (live recording), but the music is great.


Anyway, that's a little of what's been keeping a grin on my grill lately.

And here's one more music clip -- this might be the most beautiful live performance I've seen in my life. If you aren't into modern music, don't bother with "Do, Make, Say, Think", but if you love things of beauty at all, watch this one.

Landslide (Stevie Nicks) -- dead link. sorry.



Peace.

-Rob

Hey everybody! I'm famous!

click on the link and wait for the pictures to start scrolling. I'm right near
the beginning.

http://www.koreapolyschool.com

Gord Sellar's Fending Off Discontentment

Fending off discontentment

Following is Part III of a popular online series examining expat-Korean relations. The essay was originally posted on www.gordsellar.com and has been updated for The Korea Herald. - Ed.
Discussion of late online - and in the pages of this newspaper - has turned to the question of expatriate complaint, and its root causes.

I think Descartes' old formulation of "Cogito, ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am) would be improved by throwing in something a little more universal to the human experience than thinking: If we amend it to read, "Queritor, ergo sum," (I bitch excessively, therefore I am), we'd get something a little more reflective of humanity's attachment to complaining, its motivations for speaking out, and the moment when human volition and the identity bound into it are at their peak.

I bitch excessively, therefore I am.

If we take complaining to be a natural part of the human condition it certainly explains a lot. If various aspects of the world didn't suck, people wouldn't feel driven to sit in rooms and write about them, adding to the millions of hours people have spent throughout human history - I suspect, as a student of literature and the arts, that complaint lies at the heart of human creativity.

For example, when popular British science fiction author Richard Morgan was asked why so much of his fiction was so violent, the first thing he mentioned was not the themes of his stories (systemic exploitation and oppression of the masses by the elite through systems like government or corporations). No, that came second. The first thing he mentioned was, "Having been an ESL teacher for many years, and the compacted sense of rage that one builds up because, no matter how vile the things you're hearing are, your job is to make the classroom a warm, comfy, touchy-feely place to be, so that your students get more confident, try more, and ultimately get better at saying what they think - be it brilliant, or be it vile."

Burnout


Burnout is a risk in any profession, but especially in teaching. I suspect that the rate of burnout is higher still for people who are teaching in a foreign country. I can't help but look at the guys who are teaching week in and week out - the hagwon teachers who go not only without the four months of holiday enjoyed by university lecturers like myself, but also sometimes teach eight or more hours a day - and wonder how they stay sane after a couple years of it.

In fact, I suspect a lot of people don't, or cannot, and this might be one reason why they either leave so soon, or begin teaching as if they'd been hired off the set of a George Romero movie.

Time off helps prevent burnout. Being in a foreign country usually doesn't help, at least not in the long term, as the petty annoyances compound. Morgan was living in Britain for a lot (but not all) of his ESL career, but many expat teachers have done it all abroad, and have been doing it for years. I don't know that they complain more than teachers in similar situations in their home countries - though that would be hard to test; probably fewer teachers back home blog as publicly or as honestly as many expats do here, since it's riskier in the West. Still, judging by the mockery and ranting one sees in foreigner-hangouts, expats probably do whinge more both online and offline.

Why they choose to remain abroad when they are unhappy is an interesting question, and there are probably a bunch of issues at work there - economics, in some cases; lethargy or inertia; masochism in a few cases; perceived or real lack of opportunities in their home country; and almost certainly much more.

Get a hobby


The other thing that I've noticed is that the people here who don't have some kind of hobby tend to go sour, bitter, and ranty a lot faster than the people who don't. Korea lacks a lot of the usual "fun things to do" in the countries many expats come from. I have a friend who's on holiday in the United States, and it was one of the things she mentioned first in an e-mail to me: "There are so many fun things to do everywhere!" Korea has fun things too - but they're, er, well, not much like the fun things we Westerners tend to have learned to think of as fun. Hiking a mountain, fun? Actually, once you get past the sweat and ache and the rest, it really is fun. No kidding. But Korea has a very undeveloped market for entertainment, especially outside of certain parts of Seoul and Busan. On a winter day, you can:

- watch a movie at the cinema/DVD-bang/at home

- play computer games at the PC-bang

- consume some Korean food/badly-prepared Western food/alcohol/coffee/tea at a restaurant/foreigner bar/Korean bar/cafe/tea house

- hike a mountain to visit a temple, yell from the top and shiver

There are, of course, more options than that, but not for most Westerners. Museums? Where are they? Rock concerts? Sure, if you know about the Korea Gig Guide online (google it!) and live in Seoul. Film festivals happen for just a week of the year. And the other festivals ... well, good luck finding out about them.

I've observed that having a hobby helps immensely. The first few years I was in Korea, I played in a rock band that gigged at festivals, clubs, and all kinds of other events, and even put out a few CDs (get yourself one at http://tinyurl.com/dabang). To be honest, over the years it kind of drove me batty, because I'm more into jazz than rock music, and I'm not one for spending weekends on the road. I'm just not cut out for a career in rock music, but then again, I play the saxophone, so it was never meant to be.

All of that said, though, playing in that band was immensely therapeutic for me in terms of adjusting to Korea. It opened doors to me that never otherwise would have opened. Suddenly I was talking to Korean people about stuff they cared about - indie music - and that was a counterbalance to the world of my classes, where students struggled to make perfect sentences about things they didn't care about at all. I was, of course, always something of an outsider, and to a degree so were all the foreign musicians I knew, but we were still part of a community. It was a community with its own vocabulary, rules, interests, oddities, people to care about and people to avoid, and much more - and none of it had anything to do with my actual job.

The expats I know who've adjusted here best are those who have some kind of, well, I don't want to use the word "hobby" again, so I'll say, "interface" with Korea. They interface by engaging with the place they live in some creative, responsive, energetic way. Some I've known in the past made documentary films or created art. Some produce zines exploring the local culture. Others do pop culture analysis, or perform independent research. A few take on academic studies, or work as translators, or live lives of scholarly inquiry in an apparently idyllic familial home.

Really, the options are limited already, and unless you can search online in Korean, or get some help, you're going to mostly end up doing what the majority of other working people do here: watching movies, drinking with your own kind, or stay at home, ranting online.

Everyone complains


And yes, other working people - that is, Koreans - are ranting online, too. The fact is, Koreans complain - online and offline - too. Sadly, the vast majority of expats here have never been made aware of it. They seem to imagine that Koreans are, in general, quite happy-go-lucky about what appears to us non-Koreans like a whole network of nonfunctional systems. Do you really believe that Koreans don't realize how askew economical development has become here, or that they don't get annoyed with a lot of the things that bug you? Sadly, many expats I've met do seem to think these things, and don't consider doing what the popular blogger The Korean (www.askakorean.net) invites them to do in the title of his blog: Ask A Korean.

A major difference, though, is that the majority of other working people have families here, and circles of friends. Expats, rootless as they often are, have social worlds that, however much they make do, do not bind them as powerfully. Among expats, it's common to hear the word "friend" used where acquaintance is more appropriate. I would wager money, hard-earned money, that people uprooted from their communities the way most of us are much more prone to negativity and complaining, simply from a sociobiological perspective: The stresses weigh more heavily without a deeper-rooted system of support than any "expat community," with its transience and dislocation, can provide.

But my experience with my fiancee is that, in fact, we happen to find a lot of the same things annoying. The lack of a political candidate to really get excited about in the last election; the disrepair of so many fundamental systems here; the way so many people behave inconsiderately in public - these things bug her endlessly too. They probably drive me mad in a way that strikes her a bit over the top, at times, of course, because I didn't grow up with it. But they probably bother her much more, deep down, since it's her country.

The uprootedness is a very difficult thing to compensate for in one's life. Much as we glorify it, many of us in Korea learn the importance of community by living without one, or by working hard to forge one for ourselves if we choose to live here long-term.

Engage Korea


These days, I'm engaging with Korea by exploring the way science-fiction is developing here as a genre, and you know what? The doors were thrown open for me at my first sign of interest. I've met and talked to aspiring writers, a major publisher, an organizer of Korea's biggest SF fanclub, and more than one SF fan in the few short months since I've begun looking into this with any degree of energy. (And no, we don't dress up like Jedis and swordfight. Yet.)

Many expats get really, embarrassingly (for me) good at the language. Whatever they do, they engage with this place on their own terms, but they remember to take into account its terms, too. They're realistic, and probably every one of them has engaged in an unwholesome bout of complaining more than once - it's human, after all, which is why I'd bet every human language has a verb that means "to complain" - but they've moved past that. They've dug in and found things to get fascinated by, excited about, or involved in, despite the constant stream of mixed signals. The encouragement they receive clashes with messages telling them that they shouldn't bother, that they can't do that, or complicating the process, or discouraging them to pursue their interests.

A few years ago, I would have said that all well-adjusted non-Koreans in Korea study and develop their Korean ability. I've lapsed, myself, grown too busy in weighing the options, focused on other things, and I don't feel my quality of life has slid too much for it. But, learning and improving my Korean ability would probably help my engagement with Korea.

Connect with Koreans


But there is one more common - though not universal - trait among those who adjust well here. It's that well-adjusted expats connect with Korean people outside of their workplace. And I don't just mean the smiling, nearly-fluent-in-English bartender at the local foreigner Bar. I mean they make friends with Koreans; they have arguments - of substance, about things of mutual concern, with Koreans. They may fall in love with one (or two, or three, over the years) and marry a Korean, or they might not. But they do connect to people outside of their workplace, even if it's just someone in their swim class at the YMCA, or the cute guy who chats with them every time they stop in at this particular pub or coffee shop, or the lady next door who likes to chat about this or that. The middle-aged lady who ran my favorite tea shop in Iksan used to sit with me and chat in the simplest Korean she could manage, just to pass the time.

For many non-Koreans here - male and female, though the latter is rarer - a Korean mate is the most profound connection possible to Korean society, and a kind of natural, compassionate reality check. When you have no idea why Koreans do this or that, of course, and complain to your Korean other half, sometimes it just causes annoyance. My fiancee and I, for example, have topics we've learned not to complain to one another about, because it never achieves anything worthwhile.

But if you're lucky enough to have someone who values dialog, if you're clever enough to value it yourself, if you both have a sense of humor, and if you make the obvious investment in one another that helps understand each others' worlds, (most) Koreans don't seem quite so weird to you, after all. Different, yes. Odd, maybe.

Balance


And sometimes I think the people who really adapt to living here do it with a trick of the mind: They just kind of learn to mentally balance the things that drive them batty with the things that they really enjoy.

And really, that's like living anywhere, isn't it?

Well, maybe not. There are pleasures and pains unique to Korea, I think - or, at least, unique enough to make it pretty unlike living in a lot of places. And really, like I said - complaining is part of the human condition. But if you find it a growing part of your daily conversational (or blogging) repertoire, perhaps it's time to put down your laptop, go out there, and engage with this huge, diverse, and interesting society all around you. Find something and get into it, and you might be surprised how enjoyable your life becomes.


Photos by Alii Higham and Matthew Lamers

By Gord Sellar

The Korean's Korea Herald Article, cut-and-pasted for posterity

Originally from here.

Why do expats here complain so much?

Following is Part I of a popular online series examining expat-Korean relations. The essay was originally posted on www.askakorean.net and has been updated for The Korea Herald. - Ed.
Full disclosure: I am a Korean-American who has lived in the United States for the last 11 years. I do not have any firsthand knowledge about expatriate life in Korea, other than the few times when my newly-acquired American sensibilities grate against what I experience in Korea during my visits.

My exposure to expat life in Korea came when a few expat blogs began to link to or quote my blog. Through this admittedly limited peek, the feature of the expat lives that immediately jumped out at me was the length, frequency and severity of expats' complaints about Korea.

Because I am aware of my limited perspective into expat lives in Korea - both with respect to its scope as well as the medium through which it is delivered - I do try to temper my criticism against the expats in Korea who complain. Expose people to a different environment, and there are always things to complain about, simply because things are not familiar. The fact that these complaints are expressed through the internet magnifies their severity. And to be sure, there are a lot of legitimate complaints that may be lodged. I myself am completely guilty of complaining about Korea, also through online media. My complaints run the gamut of fairly significant to utterly trivial; I complain about racism in Korea, but I also complain about lack of toilet paper in public bathrooms. Given the plank in my eye, I try to view expat complaints with tolerance. After all, we all resort to venting in order to deal with the things that we do not like, and writing online is as good a way as any, especially when all of our family and friends are far away.

Even with that caveat, however, many complaints from expats that I have seen show a certain degree of ignorance. This is not to say that complaining expats are dumb. It is only to say that their complaints reveal that they do not understand certain things, because if they did, they would not be complaining as much and their pitch would not be as strident.

What are these understandings that complaining expats lack? There are three: first, how much of their deeply-held beliefs are inapplicable in Korea; second, how little of Korea they see; third, how much influence Korea's modern history exerts upon Korea of today.

Alternative perspective on society

One of the reasons for the popularity of science fiction is it offers the possibility of an entirely different way of life. After all, it is an accident of evolutionary history that homo sapiens took their present form. In another life-sustainable planet of different environs, sentient beings with high intelligence may have taken a completely different shape - perhaps with an exoskeleton, perhaps with psychic communicative abilities.

It is this type of perspective that many complaining expats lack: They do not understand that there could be an entirely different way of running a functioning society different from their own.

This is not to say Korean society is completely different from the countries from which most expats hail, such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. In fact, after deeper examination, one would find there are more similarities than differences. However, there are many instances where Korea employs an expression of society starkly different from that of the countries listed above. When such instances arise, complainers do not use them to re-evaluate their fundamentally held beliefs; instead, they complain about the collective stupidity of Korean society.

The recent row about Korean protests against beef imported from the United States provides a good example. Tens of thousands of Koreans occupied the streets of Seoul for many nights protesting against beef imports, primarily because they feared the possibility of mad cow disease.

Complainers had a field day with these protesters. Why are thousands of Koreans filling up the streets for something as obscure as American beef? They must be hopelessly dumb, easily manipulated by the sensationalist media! Where are the sensible people who oppose this insanity? All of Korea must be going along with this! These Koreans are unable to think for themselves, no better than lemmings following the one in front of them to a precipitating death!

For an expat that wishes to be educated, this instance would have presented a perfect opportunity to challenge his or her belief system. Why aren't thousands of Americans filling up the streets protesting government policies that injure them much more gravely than American beef import injures Koreans? Could Korea be demonstrating an alternative model of democracy, one that is more direct and active? Are all Koreans truly acquiescing to the protesters, or are the dissenting Koreans simply letting the protesters have their spasm? If the latter is the case, is there any benefit of avoiding the yelling match that has become universal in the American political scene?

Asking these types of questions requires a basic respect towards Koreans and their way of running society, a tacit faith that, no matter how strange things may seem at first, there is a good reason when a modern democracy of 49 million people acts in a certain way. Complaining expats lack that type of respect. Instead of critically re-examining his or her own social conventions, a complaining expat reaches for the most improbable conclusion - that this entire country is somehow hysterical, irrational, crazy or just plain dumb.

View through a tiny window

Many of my friends from Korea had spent several years in various places in the United States, and it is very amusing for me to hear their broad impressions of America that are inconsistent with one another. "America truly is a cultural melting pot," declared one friend who spent three years in San Francisco. "America is just white people who all go to church on Sunday," said another friend who studied for four years in University of Nebraska.

What had made my Korean friends make such incongruous statements? What they did not realize was that America is a very large country, and one part is radically different from another. Thus their broad description of America was rather limited, because they failed to appreciate how little of it they had actually seen, no matter how much time they have spent in one place in America.

Similarly, complaining expats fail to appreciate that the Korea that they observe is no more than a thinnest sliver of Korean society - namely, the young, English-speaking younger generation of Koreans. Because most expats tend to be younger and not fluent in Korean, their observation of Korean society is limited to this perspective. Indeed, often the view through that small window on Korean life would seem absurd. But instead of realizing the size of the window, the complainers bemoan the absurdity of the view itself.

First, the youth part. The generational gap in Korea is more like a generational chasm. On one hand, Koreans in their late 50s to early 60s grew up in constant danger of death from war and starvation; while Koreans in their early 20s have always been blessed with affluence. Now, consider - how many presidents, prime ministers, CEOs, prominent thinkers and other leaders of society are in their late 50s? And how many are in their early 20s? In any country in the world, the first figure would vastly outnumber the second.

When it is older people who are more responsible for the societal direction, and when the same older people have a radically different mentality from that of the younger generation, whatever perspective one gains from the younger generation is at best limited. It would not matter how long one has lived in Korea, or how many younger Koreans one has spoken with. To criticize Korea based on that limited picture is, simply put, silly.

Again, the criticisms of the mad cow disease protests illustrate this point. The protest was primarily youth-driven, with most of the participants in their 20s and 30s. The Koreans who disagreed with the protesters tended to be older folks, whose political culture did not consist of protests in the streets but dry discourse in newspapers.

Suppose an expat has come to the conclusion that the protests were indeed irrational and hysterical. Then an expat may speak to 100 Koreans in their 20s and 30s, and "confirm" that all Koreans are in favor of the protests, and complain that Korea is an irrational place. But if he bothered to read a newspaper in Korean, which would have spelled out all the things that were wrong with the protests, he would have realized there were plenty of Koreans who agreed with his position.

This brings up the next limitation on expat perspectives - the language barrier. A complaining expat often does not realize that there is always a full political discourse about whichever topic of complaint that she may choose, in the Korean language. (After all, why should Koreans carry on their affairs in any other language?)

Truth is, Koreans are generally aware of most things that ail their society, and they are in active communication addressing those things. If a complaining expat bothered to read such communication, she could focus on criticisms that actually serve a constructive purpose. Without having done so, her criticism only invites scoffs from Koreans, who reply: "You think we don't know these things?"

These two limitations beget another limitation, namely the young English-speaking Koreans. Decent English-speaking ability is not an easy feat for Koreans. What makes a Korean fluent in English? Many factors are at work, but one important aspect is a ton of money. Without it, a Korean cannot afford private English-speaking tutors or spend several years in an English-speaking country studying.

Therefore, by speaking only to English-speaking young Koreans, not only are expats insulated from older Koreans, they are also closed off from younger Koreans who are poorer. What kind of understanding about Korea could an expat possibly have with this kind of limited exposure?

Understanding of modern Korean history

A cursory look at Seoul shows a fantastically futuristic city. People carry around crazy technological gizmos. The internet works at blinding speed. Everywhere you go there are flat-screen panels showing moving images, just like visions of the future that we used to have in the sci-fi movies of yesteryear. Upon seeing this spectacle, it is only reasonable to expect Korea to be a fully modern country, and for its citizens to behave in a fully modern way.

But this outlook could not be more misleading. This is really the point that anyone who wishes to understand modern Korea must know - Korea has only become this way in the last 15 years. All those born and raised in the pre-modern era are not only still around, but they are the people who are in their 50s and 60s, leading the country and educating the next generation.

Few people, including younger Koreans themselves, understand this point: only 50 years ago, Korea was poor. At the time, Korea occupied the place in the world where the poorest African countries are now.

There is a Korean expression of describing poverty - a person is so poor that "his anus would tear out." This expression came to be when Korean people were starving, and they would peel tree bark, boil it and eat it. Since tree bark has a lot of indigestible fiber, one's anus bleeds as one excretes after eating tree bark. This is the kind of world in which Koreans in their 50s and 60s used to live. Can any expat from a wealthy country (regardless of how poor s/he may have been in that country) imagine the worldview of a child growing up in this level of deprivation?

Miraculously, Korea managed to pull itself out of such abject poverty into the wealth it currently enjoys. However, that was not a normal development. This incredible, borderline mutative economic growth could not have happened without the attendant mutative changes in Korean society and culture. A country does go from $87 per capita GDP in 1962 to $24,783 per capita GDP in 2007 without instances of things that appear strange and not readily comprehensible.

Truly, this is the keystone in understanding any aspect of modern Korea. Everything about modern Korean culture, in one way or another, is an outgrowth of this history. Accordingly, almost all complaints about Korea are related to this central keystone in one way or another. For example: "Koreans drive like maniacs!" But the vast majority of Koreans did not start driving until the early 1980s. In other words, Korea has a very young driving culture, and we all know how we drove when we were very young. Not knowing this, the maniacal driving is simply inexplicable - why would anyone recklessly risk one's life driving this way? And the complaints continue.

Why do expats in Korea complain?

So let us circle back to the main question: why do expats in Korea complain?

Many factors are outlined above, but among them runs a common thread: laziness. Instead of scouring every aspect of the new country for more learning, complaining expats are content with the readily available. They sit within the comfort zone of what they already understand - the way in which their own society works - and do not bother to learn the completely new ways in which another society works. When they do decide to peek outside, they do not bother to find out the size of the window through which they see Korea, nor do they bother to expand that limited scope. And finally, they do not seek to look deeper into whatever aspect of Korea that they do see.

Therein lies the prescription for understanding Korea: try to observe mainstream society. Learn to speak and read Korean. Engage Koreans of all ages, and talk to them about serious topics just like you would do at home. Read Korean newspapers. Korea has a ton of quirks and oddities, but none of it is incomprehensible. They have their own logic, but such logic can always be understood. In the end, the deep joy you gain from having acquired an entirely new perspective would far surpass any fleeting satisfaction gained from complaining.

By T.K. Park

Park is the editor-in-chief of www.askakorean.net - Ed.