How To Avoid Getting Forced To Drink, Without Becoming a Social Pariah With Your Korean Friends

After taking issue with "12 Rules for Expats," and disagreeing with the assertion that you NEED to drink like a fish to survive in Korea, I've been asked in the comments to specify: what ARE the strategies that can be used to avoid drinking like a fish, without ending up socially stunted?

Good question. I've put the question out on Twitter, Facebook, and at AFEK, and as answers come in, I'll add them to the post here.

If you have a good strategy, let me know in the comments, or by e-mail roboseyo at gmail.

Background:

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A. Drinking culture in Korea is, like every other part of the culture, constantly changing, and it's starting to become a little easier to decline, or say no, than it used to be. It's still easy to find anecdotes and articles saying that things are really bad... but (anecdotally, I once heard) it used to be impossible, back in the '80s, to decline if your boss said "I'm gonna buy a girl for you tonight!" whereas now, it's socially awkward to decline another shot. Group coercion is getting easier.

B. If you're not born and raised Korean, you have the golden ticket: the foreigner card. It's SO much easier for you if you haven't grown up pickled in Korea-juice, to utilize one of these escape-routes. Be grateful for it.

C. While I do like getting a bit tipsy from time to time, I'm not crazy about getting bombed. The day-after cost has steadily increased for me as I get farther from my 24-year-old prime. That's life.

D. Going along with it and getting bombed with everyone else, if you don't mind the hangover, IS a valid option, and it'll get you a rep as a fun one to be around. Even as I ask around about this one, some peoples' response is "Don't be a baby. Just enjoy the ride." On the other hand, if Bad Things happen when you get drunk, be they medical, vomit or hangover-related, or bad decision-related, or if you just don't feel safe when you're out of control, it's time to explore other options.

So. Here are the strategies I use, or have seen used, to avoid getting overly drunk in social, and office dinner settings. If I'm off base, tell me in the comments. If you have better advice than I've given here, let me know, and I'll thank you and add it to the list.

The best tip I've seen so far, which I'm giving pole position, is this one, from Twitter:

Be proactive, and be the "drink giver" pouring drinks for everyone else, and people won't notice you aren't drinking yourself. (follow @Jurimyoo)

For all of these: learn, and practice, expressing yourself with tact and grace. Avoid making it into a "thing" or a scene if you can.
Also: All of these strategies will be easier to execute in a group that has mixed males and females, mixed Koreans and non-Koreans, than a group that is all-Korean and all-male. I can't speak for an all-female group. Duh. Also, the bigger the age gap between you and the person telling you to drink (if they're older), the harder it is to pull these off. An all-male group where the ringleader is much older than you (and old-school) is your worst possible situation. If the group is moving to the "next place" and you see that all the females and/or all the other non-Koreans are going home, bear in mind the kind of hard-drinking situation you're probably heading into.

Links:
Korean drinking manners. More. Further reading. Article from 2002. Yes, it's a problem.

Roboseyo's Tips:

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1. Be up-front. For all of the tips that follow, if you level with your colleagues or friends and explain to them honestly that you are susceptible to really bad hangovers, or that you don't like getting drunk, that you're not a strong drinker, or that your husband/wife hates it when you come home drunk, if your friends respect you, they'll respect that. For the most part.

You might catch a little ribbing for it (after all, you're hanging out with drunk people) but you're man/woman enough not to take that bait, aren't you?

or conversely:

2. Lie through your teeth. Tell them you have an allergy to alcohol (it happens), that you're driving home, or that you get red-face, or that you projectile vomit uncontrollably when you drink, or that you are very religious and that your religion forbids any alcohol consumption. Be aware that this means you can NEVER drink with these people, and you have to keep your lie straight. Religions that do not allow drinking: (from wikipedia) some Hindus, some Buddhists, Islam, Jainism, Rastafari, Baha'i, some Methodists, most Latter-day Saints, and Seventh Day Adventists. Be able to answer three or four basic questions about the faith if it's your reason not to drink.

Or just lie that your tolerance is way lower than it actually is. Or that you're on medication, or that you have an early appointment the next day, or that you need to take the subway home. 

If you've said you can't drink, don't be a wet blanket, though. Participate in the fun, sing some songs at the noraebang, do a toast, play the games (drinking cider) and be ready to help carry some people to their taxis if need be. You can also watch the restaurant owners and count the soju bottles, to make sure your bill doesn't get overcharged, as some restauranteurs have been known to do, once everyone at the table is sloshed.

3. Respect their choice to drink. Don't make them feel judged for choosing to tipple.

4. Drink something different than everybody else. This is where the foreigner card comes in handy. Explain politely that you can't drink boilermakers, or somec, or soju, and ask to just drink beer. 

5. Don't finish your glass. Somebody will refill it. That's the custom in Korea. Once it gets less than a third full, people will start wanting to refill your glass, so nurse your drink.

6. Alternate alcohol with cider or cola. You need to have something in your glass to partake in the toasts, but it doesn't necessarily NEED to be alcoholic, as long as you're clinking your glass with everyone else.

7. Pretend (or just let it be known) that you REALLY hate mixed drinks. (this is my most common strategy, because I do) - make a big deal out of somebody trying to put a little soju or whiskey in your beer, or in your cider, because you prefer it straight. This gives you a little more control of what you're consuming.

8. When it's time to go home, go while everybody's moving between places - don't leave in the middle of the proceedings at one watering hole, because then (thanks to the group feeling thing), everybody will feel like it's time to go. Part of the reason Koreans go to a second and third and fourth place when they drink is so that people have a time when they can leave the party without wrecking the vibe.

9. Plan an escape route - set your phone alarm for 10:30, pretend it's a phone call and you have to go. Say you have to take the subway home before it closes. Say you have an early appointment.

10. Even if YOU don't drink, know a thing or two about Korean drinking customs, so that you know when to fill people's glasses, how to pour a drink, how full to fill a beer mug, what to say during a toast, and things like that, and basically how to fit in, even if you aren't imbibing. Fitting in with the group is important in Korea, even if you aren't participating in the one-shot showdown.

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For tips from others, I've bolded the ones I think are particularly helpful.

Funniest suggestion from AFEK goes first:

"Event 1: Drink as much as you can until you puke - on the table, preferably. Be sure to insult a few people, challenge the boss to a wrestling match, ogle women shamelessly. Talk about the joys of interracial sex.

Event 2: Don't worry about it at all because no one will be pressuring you to drink this time."

More advice from the long-term and lifers on AFEK (where you can ask your own questions on the open board):

1. buy your own drinks.

2. excuse yourself to go to the bathroom, and disappear into the night.

3. if it's not family, I hide a bottle of cider and fill my glass under the table. My family understands that I don't drink much.

4. If you think the beer is crap here, just say "I don't like beer"... but be warned that you might then get pushed to drink soju.

5. My wife says some Korean women use (hide behind) the fact they're Christians to get out of drinking at work gatherings. I used to try to sit with the non-drinking Ajumma teachers at school dinners.

6. I kept a small package of b-complex to consume before I started drinking. It kept my body flushed with vitamins and water during the beer/soju ordeal.

7. As a non-drinker (recovering, dry for XX years), I tell the truth to those I trust, and with those I don't, I pretend to be Mormon. My mormon co-worker gives me tips on how to appear Mormon (don't drink coffee at work, etc). Convoluted? Yes. Effective? Undoubtedly.

8. I usually do a few one-shots at the beginning, and then slow down to sipping. When I feel it go to my head, I revert to pretend-sipping, and let it slosh out of my glass so that they refill me from time to time. Usually everybody's too wasted to notice.

9. I'd also drink a liter or two of water while at the table to help stay hydrated.

10. Tell them alcoholism is in my family, so I avoid it to be safe.

11. These are good, but I don't like the cider-under-the-table. That has the potential for being extremely embarrassing. Honesty is just the best policy all around. People might kid around at you not drinking but if you are being social they won't care. If you try to "pull a fast one" on people, they WILL care.

12. Gain some weight... being a giant helps me hold my own against any Korean dude.... Honestly though, drink water between shots.

13. Play up being 'Western,' take a shot of soju and then stick with beer.

14. Slosh some out of your glass when you set it down, and only take shots when you're directly toasted.

15. Eat a lot while you drink, and chug some gatorade if you've drunk too much.

16. Establish your out in advance - "I have to get home by __ because of __." -it's easier to cancel an 'out' because you want to stay longer, than to create one on the fly.

17. Say you're on antibiotics, or stick with beer. It's weak as vicar's piss, anyway.

image source

From Twitter:

"Best way is to be a proactive "drink giver" - move around seats to keep giving drinks to people"

"I rely on weekly 'build your tolerance' binge sessions to keep my cool at 희식."

"I'm going back to work after this." 

"My condition is bad." 

"I have 몸살" (I'm sick.)

Stealthily pour the makkeolli back into the bowl.

Keep a bottle of water in your bag.

Excuse yourself to make a phone-call to replenish your water supply if need be.

Avoid hoe-shik. Don't drink soju.

(btw: you should totally follow @soniassi, @DTZ247, @HubofErik and @ChrisinSeoulSK on Twitter)

Source

From Facebook:
Don't finish the glass.
Tell them I'm pregnant.
I'm taking medicine.
I have an allergy to drinking.
Bring a dongsaeng (younger friend) to drink for you.
Most effective is claiming the genetic condition which leads to flushed skin and is common for Asians (aka Redface). It's actually dangerous for them to drink because their bodies literally can't process alcohol. Lawsuits have been known to work as well.
With students/friends I just say I don't like getting drunk. It ruins the following day. With a boss, I would frame it as being for religious/spiritual reasons.
Have a partner-in-crime at the table who can, upon receiving the secret signal, distract the goup while you pour your drink out/on the ground/back into the pitcher/into someone else's glass/somewhere.
Sit near a potted plant and dump your soju there (don't worry: the plant's probably used to it)...refill your glass with water, and make a big show of downing it in one shot.
Be an optimist: leave your cup half full.
Always go out with a friend who knows your feelings about over-drinking, and will have your back when you need to activate one of these strategies.

Finally:
If none of these strategies work, and they're your friends...
reconsider your choice of friends, if they're so thoughtless that they don't care about how you feel, or if getting you drunk is their way of exercising social power over you.

If they're your coworkers...I'm sorry. People have won lawsuits where their boss forced them to drink... but then you've clearly made yourself the office social pariah. Better to dodge before that headbutt comes along.

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Thanks to everyone who contributed on Facebook, at AFEK, and on Twitter.

ATEK Communications Officer, and no, ATEK will not be taking over Roboseyo

On Monday I sent out a press release, and posted on ATEK's website, that I've applied for, and been appointed, ATEK's National Communications Officer.  (link to press release).  This is an interesting opportunity for me, and I'm pretty excited about the possibilities right now.  Last time I wrote about ATEK, I wrote that

The area where Atek is failing so far is in communication, in my opinion. There isn't enough knowledge in the general population about what they're on about, about the kinds of connections that are being formed, and the reasons why things seem to be going slowly. Meeting notes ought to be published somewhere on their websites, and regular national council meetings should be announced, with their agenda and notes published, at least in some form that doesn't impinge on the privacy or trust of the people involved in certain ATEK actions.

I still think that.  From the conversations I've had (and I'm still learning the ropes right now: patience, please!) Atek has a lot of good people, and they're doing a lot of good things, and I'm looking forward to being a part of letting the world, or at least those who care, know what Atek's about, what they're doing, what they want to do, and how people can get involved.  Hopefully soon, people will no longer be able to say that ATEK's main failing is a failure to communicate... if I do my job well enough, people will know enough about ATEK that they'll be able to criticize finer points of its organization or bylaws or goals, and we'll be able to learn a lot from those public discussions, if they're productive.

So stay tuned: I'm getting my feet under me right now, but I've been sharing a lot of interesting ideas with a bunch of people (you can read some of them here, from Jason, who wrote a nice post about my appointment.)

But I'd like to be clear to my readers that I do not intend to use Roboseyo as ATEK's mouthpiece blog, nor any of the other blogs I'm involved with.  That would be unfair to my readers at Roboseyo, who come here for Roboseyo, not for ATEK, it would be unfair to other bloggers and news sources who write about ATEK, to be scooping them any time with inside information, and it would also be unfair to whoever comes after me as National Communications Officer, if I use the Roboseyo media empire (tee hee) for ATEK publicity, rather than trying to set up ATEK-specific communication mechanisms that are separate from Roboseyo, so that I can cleanly pass them on for the next person to use effectively, when my term expires (the bylaws give a maximum term).  Now, if I go to an ATEK event that rocks, I might post photos and talk about it, because that's something that happened in my life, and it rocked.  If ATEK is doing an event that I think is cool, you might hear about it at the 2S2 Blog or here, but I'll continue posting non-ATEK events that I like, and photos of non-ATEK stuff as well, so long as it's awesome (because that's the only real standard here at Roboseyo: awesomiousity).  This will be very remain my personal blog, with my personal opinions.  Because of my new official position, I'll actually be talking about ATEK less here (for example, in posts like this), because now that I'm in an official capacity, I should be writing about it along official channels.

So why, Roboseyo, are you taking on such a big task?  (and dear readers, it IS a big task... with a sharp learning curve.  I'd never written a press release before until Monday, and I made some mistakes that will be corrected in the next one.)  Well, here's why: I'm getting married, readers.  You know that.  To a wonderful Korean lady, no less, whose job prospects are mostly limited to Korea because of the kinds of re-training she'd have to undergo to do her job in other countries (she's pretty specialized).  I'm probably going to be living in Korea for most of my adult life, if things go the way they have been.  The wind blows, and the wheel turns, but for the foreseeable future, Korea's it.  For a lot of that future, I may well be involved in education, and if that's the case, then helping out an organization whose goal is to improve the lives of English teachers seems kind of logical.  At this point, I think ATEK is the organization I can get involved with, that has the best chance of affecting tangible improvements in the quality of life of English teachers in Korea.  I have a big stake in Korea, so I'm doing a favor for my future self, folks.  Also, when I have a bad Korea day (and everybody has them), thinking that I'm doing something meaningful with my free time makes me feel better about the prospect of living in Korea for a long long time.  It won't always be easy: the time management challenge alone will be a biggie, and I have a wedding coming up, but I think I can do a good job of it, and I'm excited to be part of an organization with a lot of cool people who are passionate about making life better for English teachers.  Plus, I get business cards!

If you want to talk to me about personal or blog stuff, write me at the address on the right: roboseyo at gmail.  If you want to write me about ATEK stuff, I'm going to try to keep them separate, so please send it to media[@]atek[.]or[.]kr   If you have some advice, some suggestions, or if you want to help me out as a volunteer, because you like me so much, or just because you're awesome, some of the ideas I've been tossing around for improving communications will take some help, so drop me a line.

Have a great day, readers.

Roboseyo

Women's Safety: a close call and a reminder.

I'm No Picasso, a sweet K-blog that's been attracting attention lately, had a creepy/scary incident where she got followed by some weird guy a few nights ago. You should read it, especially if you're a woman living alone in Korea. "Girls, Be Careful"

This also seems like a good time to remind everybody of ALTAWATSAC's post from last year, discussing, and giving some tips, regarding women's safety in Korea.

Horrific things have happened before, and the simple fact that some of us look different from the general populace tends to attract the attention of loonies, and we'd best be mindful of that.

Got a Beef with Immigration?

According to this blurb in the Korea Herald, the Prime Minister's office has opened a suggestion box for the month of March.

Are there rules or regulations that are gumming up your groove, in areas like "immigration, personal identification, status change, economic activities or daily lives of non-Koreans, foreign spouses of Koreans or overseas Koreans"? Can you think of regulations or systems that are discriminatory?

Drop a line to sangsan@pmo.go.kr or send a fax to (02) 2100-2323 sometime this month, and if they like your ideas, you might even win some gift certificates.

Tell your friends. Tell all your friends.

The final say on How To Order Takeout In Korea

So Tuesday's Borrower and her fiancee sent me a video breaking down the "ordering takeout" conversation that is very informative, and funny, and I edited it to be a bit less chatty, and added a bit of roboseyo spice, because DB don't do that video editing stuff too good. (She's a very good writer, though).
Watch it. It's cute.


then they did a final run-through of the conversation, so you can hear what to expect.


These are a nice companion to the stuff I posted earlier, found by Otto, and done by Mr. Ed.

Making Your Way in Korea: Ordering Food: "Tell Me That's Not Awesome!"

Under the "Awesome Things about Living in Korea" file, Otto Silver, at "I, Foreigner" has a helpful, informative video about ordering food to your home in Korea.  Takeout Delivery is a wonderfully cheap, and convenient part of living in Korea, and it's not hard.

**Update/correction: I am told, by the Otto himself, that it is not him in the video, but simply a video he found online.  My bad.**

Here is Otto's Video [correction: the video otto found], which goes step by step through the process of ordering food, and even tells you what to do with the dishes afterward.

Here's all you need to know:

1.  Enough Korean to read the restaurant menus they stick on your door or hang on your apartment door handle.  (And you have ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE for not learning this much Korean, when the Korean lettering system is so easy to learn.  Go here.  Or go here to do it by video.  It's a bit "Golly gee, this is SOOOO simple!" but it's well laid out.  It doesn't take very long, especially compared to how long it took you to read English: King Sejong, the guy who helped design them, said, "These twenty-eight letters are so simple and precise that the wise can master them in one morning and even the fool can learn them in ten days."  So quit your whining, quit procrastinating, and learn them, before we have to get Mr. T to pity you.)

2. The address of your apartment, in Korean.  Get your Korean coworker or your boss to help you with this if you're not sure.

3. The numbers, so you can tell how many of each thing you want.

4. The Korean names of a few foods you like.

Here's all you need to have:

1. A phone.

2. A flyer from a restaurant.

3. A little cash.

4. An appetite.

Otto uses the phrase "Hangug-eo chogum arayo"  "한국어 조금 알아요" which means "I speak a little Korean."  To Otto's very helpful video, I want to add two phrases that would also be useful in this situation (and many others):

"Hangug-eo chal moatt-hae-yo" "한국어 잘 못 해요"= literally, "Korean well can't speak" -- I don't speak Korean well.

and 

"Cheon-cheon-hee mal-hae-juseyo"  "천천히 말해 주세요"= literally, "Slowly speech-make-please" (juseyo actually is the polite form of "give," so it literally means "give me slow speech please" or paraphrased, "please speak slowly"... I'm not sure if that's grammatically perfect...but when you're telling someone you can't speak a language well, bad grammar might help you get the point across more emphatically, anyway.

Here's Mr. Ed, to help you with those two phrases.  The pronunciation is Roboseyo-CanucKorean, rather than perfect Seoul Korean, but it'll get you through.

Have fun ordering your food!

Plus, Otto has a kind of funny address: there's a little squeaker noise in there.  I wonder what neighbourhood he's in: maybe this guy lives nearby.

(Embedding disabled: Hugh Laurie in "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" - a sketch called "Your Name, Sir?"  Watch it.  It's really funny.)

When English Teachers Don't Get The Support They Need. . .

My heart sinks every time I read a post like this.  From "I, Foreigner."

Yeah, getting native speaking teachers in every school would help Korea speak English better. . . but there's more to it than just sheer numbers.

My new philosophy is “Do as little as possible”.

If a student asks for help then I will help. If they don’t, then I won’t. I will teach the students who care and claim there wasn’t enough time to give everyone individual attention. The end result will be the same, so why should I stress myself out in a system that cares more about making everyone look good than about what the students learn?

I'm sure Korea's not the only place this happens. . . but wherever it happens, how dispiriting.

Sigh. Hang in there, Otto.

Met a girl named Jenny. Also: a little notbeef, to balance things out.

By the way:

I had to turn on word verification on my comment board. Sorry: the spammers were starting to smell.
You'll also notice my blog suddenly goes back to 2003: blogger added an option where I can change the date of posting, so that I could retroactively date the early posts, which were e-mails sent to friends and family about Korea during my pre-blogging days, on the dates when I sent them, instead of having thirty-one posts on November 26th 2006, or whenever it was I started this blog. I'll also re-date things like supplementary or background posts, eventually, so that they don't clutter things up.


I've been meaning to put this up for a while, just so you all know what a nice guy I am, but I've been putting it off to be snarky (see previous post).

In case you ever doubted. . .

This happened a while ago now (back in April, in fact), but I wanted to write about it, because it was a nice experience.

I was bopping around with the staff-room nutter, Danielle, one fine afternoon. I showed her a nice little bakery by piccadilly cinema, and then, as we headed down one of the lovely little narrow alleys in that area, I saw a young, obviously foreign girl (white), and her friend, looking around with a kind of upset, worried, "what do I do now?" face.

Seeing as I've lived downtown for a while, I consider it my karmic duty to help out lost tourists, when I have the time -- because back in my first year, I'd have wanted somebody to come by and say, "Are you looking for something?" to me when I was lost. So I went up to the two young ladies, and asked exactly that.

"Uhh, yeah, um, I lost my wallet in the movie theatre, and my flight back to America leaves in five hours."

Oh gee.

Well, first I helped her find a PC room where she could find her bank's phone number, and then lent her my calling card so she could cancel her card.

Next, we brought her and her Korean friend down to the nearest police box to report the missing wallet. It was a cute little scene in there, as we went in, and Dani and I sat in a corner to watch, and slowly, the police box filled up with officers checking out the pretty young American girl in making a report. When we showed up, there were about four police officers in the room, and by the time we finished, there were about eleven in the small room, just milling about, glancing surreptitiously, and obviously smitten.

After that, we checked one more time at the cinema: no dice, and I suggested, "Well, we could stay here and worry a little longer about something we can't change, or we could go for a walk in a really nice park. What say you?"

We decided to go walking around in a nice park.

Right next to picadilly, where Jenny lost her wallet, is a really nice place called Jongmyo Shrine. I've written about it before, and it's one of my favourite places in all of Seoul, and it was close enough to take Jenny around a pretty piece of Korea's history before she had to catch the bus back to the airport. (Luckily, her plane ticket and her passport were in her bag, so she was out cash, some ID, and some pride, but not missing anything really crucial). In the end, it was a really pleasant afternoon. We gave her some cash for the bus to the airport and some munchies (practically had to force it on her), and wished her happy trails.

We told her to pay it forward, and pass our good deediness on to someone else, and I was glad to have a chance to help someone have a somewhat better experience of Korea. Frankly, helping out a down-and-out pacific northwester made me happy for a good three days, too.

So, all you veterans in Korea: when you see someone with the "where am I right now?" face on, go forth and do likewise. Remember: you were a newbie here once, too.

P.S.: for news of the goofy:
Here are some of the pizza crusts I must work hard to avoid eating in Korean pizza shops (generally I just avoid pizza altogether here):

Bumped into a Blockade today.

In my last post, I wrote, "Hundreds, maybe thousands of North Koreans die weekly in death camps or of starvation, and South Koreans save their outrage for American beef imports???" but it's a little more complex than that.

So as far as I can tell, the SeoulPodcast is pretty sure that the mad cow/US Beef/FTA thing is just a bunch of public panic over lies; they frame it in terms of nationalism and leftist manipulators bending facts for a bunch of credulous schlubs.

If you want to give the Korean people a little more credit than that, Gord Sellar gives a really thoughtful look at the way the public approaches a political issue, framing it as the sign of a still-developing democracy -- that's really worth a read. People are taking part in democracy here, which is interesting, even though they're doing it based on wrong premises. The one thing missing in this issue is informed discussion of issues . . . but the fact there's discussion this time, is actually a step forward, sez Gord.

President Lee Myungbak has gummed this situation about as badly as he could (which could also be applied to pretty much his entire first half-year in office): he recoursed to "Because I'm President, that's why"-type rhetoric, leaning on presidential authority in a kind of arrogant way, rather than by leaning heavily on facts, science, and dry information. This gives his opposition a chance to turn this into a suppression of dissent issue, rather than a mere safety/science issue. It's no longer a question even of mad cow beef or the FTA, but of how Korea's leader is going to lead the country, because the president pitted his authority against the protesters, arresting them and threatening legal action against the people spreading disinformation, instead of using dispassionate science, and overwhelming the hearsay with plain facts, while keeping his leadership style out of the discussion. Instead of facts vs. myths, it's now public emotion vs. presidential authority -- it's disappointing than neither side has turned to information, but that's not what it's about anymore, I think, to most of the people still holding candles.

Frankly, the whole thing's been beaten into the ground on the English language K-blogosphere (probably even more on the Korean one, but I can't read Korean well enough to get my finger on that pulse), but this whole thing has gotten bigger than American beef, the Free Trade Agreement, or even nationalism, I think.

I was on my way back home from a Salsa Dancing lesson in Hongdae (dang, that was fun. . . next time I really need to drag Girlfriendoseyo along), when the taxi just couldn't go any farther, right next to Gyungbok Palace.

This is why:


For whatever else it's worth, I had to walk fifteen minutes out of my way to circle around the scads of protesters holding candles and (interestingly) singing songs and shouting chants I last heard at a Korean soccer game (singing the Arirang and doing the Dae-Han-Min-Guk chant), along with other slogans.

Walking through a crowd of people protesting something at least tangentially (via the FTA) anti-American is a bit nerve-racking, because I look like an American, and you know, it only takes one angry drunk to shout, "There's one! Let's GET HIM!" and I wouldn't have a chance to defend myself. If it were a protest about China or Japan, I'd've gotten a bit closer, to take pictures with my crappy cameraphone, but for now, what a mess. I got home alright by doing my low-profile walk (stare at the pavement, make no eye-contact with people, but when no-one's approaching, glance around and check for people giving me hairy eyeballs). Things are off the handle here, ladies and gentlemen. It's a bit wild and woolly in the downtown these days.

I don't know where it's heading, but this thing is snowballing, this issue has way more legs than it ought to, and I'm not sure what to make of it.

Yellow dust: dust from China's Gobi Desert, spiked on Friday. It was pretty awful, and the facemask actually worked. Y'all Canadians from CleanWaterFreshAirtopia can't even imagine this.

Another typical day in Seoul, Korea.

So this morning I woke up as usual, poked around on the internet, started up the coffee maker (at eight in the morning, it's worth it to have the starbucks stuff on hand), and took my shower. I boiled an egg. (Boiling eggs is fun for me right now, because I just finally got the hang of it -- I'd always either do them half-raw or rubbery dry-yolk overcooked. I'm so pleased with myself for figuring this boiled egg thing out, I've been popping them like candy!) On the way to work, I bought a cinnamon swirl at the bakery I mentioned before, where they changed their baking schedule so I could have a cinnamon swirl every morning, instead of just on mornings when I was late.

Got to school, and before I even made it into the classroom, James was saying "teacheeeeerr" in that way Korean kids have perfected, where suddenly "No" can become a fourteen syllable word that requires a two octave vocal range to properly pronounce. He's telling on another student, who pushed him, or stepped on his foot, or looked in his show-and-tell bag without his permission. . . or something.

I'm thinking about implementing a policy where the student who did wrong gets punished, but the student who tattled gets an equal punishment. That's how tired I am of kids coming to teachers with their little "he looked in my book" disputes. We have a teacher named Eunice who's unreal: every time, she hears each kid out and gives them a reasonable solution to their problem. Listening to "he said I don't want to play with you" "no I didn't!" makes me want to chew holes into the inside of my cheek after a while. Her patience is laudable.

Right after that, Willy cracked me up by taking the stuffing out of me, teasing me about something I'd told his family when they invited me to his house: I'm good at cooking a bunch of foods, but I've never managed to successfully cook rice: I always make it too sticky, too dry, burnt at the bottom, or something (now that I've mastered boiled eggs, rice is next). Willy had the whole class poking fun at me about not being able to cook rice. It was funny.

Then, during break time, I was chatting with Caleb in the hallway, when right at waist-level, a little girl in a blue hooded sweater flies by us with her fists up in the air, in the "I'm a flying superhero" pose. On second glance, she has her sweater's hood pulled right over her face. It's Lisa: she has a hooded sweater with a mask on the hood, and eyeholes, so that she can be a superhero anytime she wants. Here she is, in superhero and in secret identity mode.






The boy with Lisa in the first picture is Andy, a funny little boy with gangly arms and legs who doesn't move around so much as he flops. As soon as he's moving faster than walking speed, he always reminds me just a bit of a rag doll -- a Raggedy Andy, if you will. The girl in the second picture is named Sue, owner of my favourite student nickname ever: "Soodlee-Doo!" I used to say it out loud to her, but then other students called her Soodlee-Doo so much she told us to stop calling her that, so now I call her over, and whisper it in her ear, and she twinkles with glee every time.

Anyway, lunch looked unappetizing, so I walked (in a fantastic cold that was so sharp I opened my jacket just to have myself a good shiver: sometimes a good shiver's as invigorating as twenty push-ups) to the sandwich shop near the school, where they know exactly what I want as soon as I walk in, because I always order the same thing. "Kuh-lop senduhweechee, cheejeuh bae-go, ahmaeleekah-no shirop manhee" means "club sandwich no cheese, cafe americano, lots of sugar" the lady smiled: she's seen me coming in there ordering over-sweet americanos since my first year in Korea, 2003, when they first opened, and her husband didn't know how to count out correct change yet -- if the sandwich and coffee was 4900 won, and you gave him 10000 won, he'd give you 6100 won back, or 3100, or 4900. He's much better now.

After the sandwich and coffee (takeout), back to school. More teaching, other stuff, then, after I left school, I popped by my house, picked something up, and headed out to Lotte Mart. You see, I like to hold a keyboard in my lap, but having an entire laptop in my lap is cumbersome and worrisome: what if I spell my coffee, or a sparrow flies into the apartment window and startles me, and I dump the computer on the floor? Yesterday, I bought a keyboard, plugged it in, only to discover that the J key was garbage: it didn't register when struck, unless you really cracked it, and it had a weird feel, different than the other keys. Unbearable, when you're trying to type fast -- like jogging with a stone in your shoe. By phone text message, I asked one of my Korean friends how to say "This keyboard had a broken key when I bought it. Please replace it." She sent the reply, and then I brought the keyboard away.

On the way to Lotte Mart, the taxi driver tried to rip me off, but I caught him before he could go past my destination. This made me feel half-annoyed that this kind of thing still happens, that the driver still sees white skin and thinks I'm some chump tourist whom he can filch by playing dumb, and half-pleased that I'm savvy enough to catch him heading the wrong way and ask him, in Korean, "why aren't you turning right?"

Then, I exchanged the keyboard easily, by showing the text message, the receipt, and the wonky "J" key to the fellow, but was stopped on my way to the escalator by another store clerk who didn't speak English, and didn't understand that I'd already exchanged the keyboard: they thought I still wanted to change the new one, and laughed at my broken Korean and body language. Finally, by going to the clerk who'd already made the exchange (who resolved the issue in three words), they got it, and let me go. I walked out of the store, noticed halfway home that they hadn't taken off the unit's anti-theft security tag, but also noticed that no alarms had gone off on my way home, anyway.

This is my life in Korea. The rule of twos still applies from time to time (in my first year I formulated the principle that every new thing you attempt here takes two tries to get it right, and any task you might want to do takes twice as long as it would in a country where everybody speaks English). Sometimes it's maddening, sometimes it's hilarious, sometimes it's just brilliant. In the end, it's not that much different, I suppose, than life just about anywhere.

Amy teases me about telling pointless stories, stories that don't go anywhere. But I don't think they are pointless. When she worked at the bakery, Mom used to come home every day, and tell some story or another about a grumpy, or a funny customer, or an order she nearly got wrong, but then luckily she re-counted the hot cross buns just before she put them in the box, or other such minute details.

The point of Mom's stories was not so much to teach me something new, or even (usually) to make me laugh. The point of them, I think, was more cumulative than specific -- it wasn't so much any one story she told me, as the fact she told stories about those little things. That said to me that the little things, the pointless uninteresting things, are worth noticing. They are the texture and rhythm of our daily lives, and they keep each day different from the next. If we notice them, suddenly our lives aren't a metronome-dull repetition of wake up, eat, work, eat, work, go home, free time, bed time -- our lives can instead be all cluttered with sounds and smells and personalities we never noticed before. In his book, Letters To A Young Poet, my favourite poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, wrote, "If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it, blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place." So maybe that's why I tell stories like these: not so much because I think you'll find them riveting; more because I want to be the kind of human being who notices them. In Seymour: An Introduction, J.D. Salinger (another of my favourite writers) says, "Seymour once said that all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next. Is he never wrong?" So forgive my rambling if it bores you. I'm just looking for those patches of holy ground.

Love:
Rob

August 26th 2004

OK.

It being fully two months since I've sent one of these
out, and those two months being quite eventful and
mostly excellent . . . it's time for some rob-style
catching up. (X-style is a totally acceptable
Konglish term -- if I want my hair cut like Justin
Timberlake, I just say "Josteen Teembohraikeuh style"
at the barber's and they'll figure it out.

In the meantime. . .

My general rule of thumb for surviving in Korea
without going off your rocker is to keep in mind the
rule of twos: every new endeavour takes two attempts
to get it, and every simple, mundane task takes twice
as long as it would in Canada, because of language
issues, etc.. However, something strange has
happened. Matthew, the new co-worker I told you about
in the last e-mail (who's no longer a new co-worker,
but an established co-worker), and I have some weird
knack about us (Mattie would call it good karma or
somesuch), whereby the rule of twos doesn't apply to
us. Somehow we do things together effortlessly.
(Knock on wood.)

During the last week of July, I had my summer
vacation. We decided to set out and climb a mountain
-- Jiri mountain, which many Koreans will tell you is
the most beautiful mountain on mainland Korea. We
managed to find bus tickets, rooms, places to sleep,
food, transit to odd, random bus terminals, find a
movie theatre or a nightclub in a strange city, all
with very little trouble.

Matthew has been hiking since he was six. I've been
hiking since I was twenty four. We managed, through
studying a map, to find the route up the mountain that
took less time, but, according to everyone we
consulted, was the hardest trail on the whole
mountain. I was carrying my backpack, and the routine
was this: Matthew hikes for twenty minutes, sits down
and waits ten minutes for me to catch up; I catch up,
he sits five minutes with me while I catch my breath,
bluster and whine, and then takes off again. Then, as
if to add insult to injury, about three quarters up
the mountain, when I was ready to collapse (this climb
was HARD, and I'm not exactly a tiger or an athlete),
he grabbed my bag, and carried it the rest of the way
to our destination, along with his own. It was quite
an experience -- somehow I discovered not just a
second or third wind, but a sixteenth wind somewhere
in me that I didn't know existed. The view was
amazing, and in two days we hiked a mountain that
takes most people four days. After the muscle
soreness subsided, I felt like a king, and that first
sauna after the mountain was one of the greatest
things I've ever felt.

Somehow everything went perfectly on summer vacation
-- from climbing the mountain to finding our way
around Kwangju, the city in southern Korea where we
played tourist, to the people we met. On the Saturday
before Jiri mountain, Matthew and I were in a
traditional Korean market; Matthew was going to show
me his favourite tea/incense shop, where they sell
incense made from a 600 year old recipe that's
apparently so good for you that it does everything
except raise your children. While in that shop,
Matthew mentioned to the really sweet, cute sales lady
that he burns the incense during his Yoga workouts.
She said "Oh! I study Yoga!" Matthew mentioned that
he also teaches Yoga, and she asked for his number; he
said, "We should get together some time," and she
said, "OK, but is it alright if I bring my twin
sister?" At this point Matthew and I exchanged a
glance that said, almost verbatim, "does life even GET
any better than this, or should we just both die now?"
and Matthew kept his composure enough to say "Yes."

The next Saturday (after Jiri mountain), we had dinner
with the twins, and it was one of the most enjoyable
dates I've ever been on.

And that whole story is to tell you that the reason my
e-mailing has trailed off is because I'm spending
about an hour every night now talking to a certain
twin on the phone. (As is Matthew with her sister.)
It's currently in that really fun "getting to know
each other, can't spend enough time with each other"
stage, but so far the outlook seems good. Her name has been changed to Exgirlfriendoseyo, and her English name (that I chose for
her) is Angelina Summer, or Lina. Feel free to
inquire about her if you ever want to read an e-mail
of me gushing frantically, even tiresomely, about how
wonderful it is to be alive. (Just ask Melissa --
she's had one already.)

And don't get too excited yet either -- we've known
each other for just over a month so far, so things are
still very early and tentative, but it's been a lot of
fun getting to know her, and I frankly never expected
I'd be in any kind of close relationship with a Korean
girl -- I'd always figured the cultural differences
were just too great to bother. But I bother now.

One of my favourite students just left the school; she
was a kindergarten student, one of the ones I saw
every day, and she was the funniest little sweetheart;
she had hugs for me every day, and a quick, ready
laugh. On the other hand, one of the boys who left in
June is back from Toronto, and he's as sweet as ever.

But he's not the one I want to tell you about either.
It's happened again -- last year, it was a little girl
named Serina, whose smile always came out when I came
to class, and who wrote me cards and letters telling
me she loved me. This year, it's Jina. She's stolen
my heart outright. She just moved to Korea recently
-- before Korea, she lived in Rochester, Minnesota,
where, naturally, she'd learned perfect English. She
has this funny middle American accent in the middle of
a bunch of Korean accents, she happens to have a
perfectly internalized sense for English grammar.
Really, there's nothing I can teach her except how to
do a monkey dance or tell a story about a
shape-changing, flying hippo with a straight face.

Here's the thing, though: she doesn't speak Korean.
She's moved to a country where the kids her age
haven't gone to school long enough to speak English,
and she can't speak their language. Today we were
talking about trying new things, and I asked her if
she'd been scared when she moved to Korea (two months
ago). She said she was, and I asked her if she liked
Korea better now than before. "Yeah."

Then I made the mistake: "Have you made some friends
now, so that you feel better?"

"No. Not really." She said it with a brave face --
not quite slopping over with a child's optimism, but
at least something better than bald stoicism -- and I
shifted the conversation quickly, before she could
start getting more homesick than I'd probably already
thoughtlessly made her.

After class, the kids were lining up to go outside and
catch their busses, and she was at the back of the
line (where she usually goes), and I picked her up and
gave her a hug. I said, "Jina, I hope you find lots
of friends in Korea."

Then she said "Me too," into my shoulder with a
forlorn voice that no child her age should ever need
to use -- unless it's about something silly like
"Hyongeun got pistachio nut ice cream and I wanted it
too, but I'd already asked for mango-strawberry." --
and with those two words she carried my heart away and
hid it somewhere in the dimple on her left cheek.

I told her I'd be her friend, and she said she wanted
to come to my house, and hugged me a hug with a little
too much loneliness and need in it.

Fortunately, her Korean teacher then shouted, "Jina,
let's go!" before I could burst into tears right then
and there, but all that's to say I've fallen in love
-- or at least fallen in compassion -- with another of
my kids, and I hope she'll be OK, and I wish there was
something I could do to help her adjust, but I can't
quite clone myself into a six year old who can play
with her, and I don't know if a twenty-four-year-old
goofball buddy is really what she needs to feel like
she can make it here in Korea. Seeing Jina go through
that rips the band-aid off my own homesick sores, but
I can handle myself; I'm holding out. I know where to
go to find Anglophones my age. I just hope she'll be
happy here.

In other news, I had a phone call from my mom and dad
in which mom said something along these lines, in her
most allusive voice:

"So, Rob, have you talked to Dan . . . lately?"
"Not really. I got an e-mail a few weeks ago."
"Hmm. You. . . might want to . . . call him. He may
have some (significantly said,) NEWS for you."

of course, by now there was no doubt he had news, nor
what its nature was, given the status of his courtship
with his girlfriend Caryn, so by the time I talked to
Dan the next Saturday, I'd guessed that. . . he's
ENGAGED (sorry to those of you for whom this is a
repeat.) He asked me to be his best man last
Saturday, and I said "of course." The date's July 2.

So I've decided I'm going to try and extend my
contract with this school until the end of May, so
that I can spend June in Red Deer with my main man,
and then probably spend part of the summer travelling
before buckling down on the rest of my life, or at
least the next step.

In health news, please continue to pray for my
grandfather, and pray also for my mother; if you
e-mail me, I'll tell you more details, but enough of
you who receive this update already know about them
that I'm not going to get into detail on it. But pray
-- if you're into that kind of thing.

Student quotes: "You are the funnily funnily funnily
Rob teacher." (from Daniel).

"I really liked going to the mountain. I have lots of
good mammaries."

"I want a dog. I'll buy a puddle."

"Why do you tell crazy stories like that, teacher?"
"I'm just playing with you."
"We're not toys, teacher."

"Three stickers if you can name the four Beatles."
"John."
"Good. There were three more. Any guesses?"
"Matthew, Mark, Luke?"

Penmanship error: My house is cozy became "My house is
oozy"

Remembered the spelling, forgot the meaning: "My
summer vacation is going to be superficial!"

A girl on the subway looks at the portrait of WB Yeats
on the cover of my Yeats poetry collection and says
"Harry Potter!"

A three year old marched up to my table at dinner the
other night (his parents had put him up to it). I
expected him to do something weird or hilarious like
take some food or start crying, or jump up and down
and run back and bury his face in his mom's neck.
Instead, calmly and properly as an ambassador, he
stuck out his right hand and waited for me to shake
it. In my wonderment, I could barely finish my meal.

Anyway, there are some of the bones, and some of the
trimmings, of my time. It's been sticky hot and work
has started to get tiring (especially the afternoon
business), but it just cooled down this week finally,
and I'm doing OK.

I need to wrap this up now, before the letter reaches
critical mass and implodes, so go in peace and
happiness, and bless you all.

Love always:
Rob Ouwehand

Ask A Korean: The Korean, TK Park's Full-Page "Why do Expats Complain?"