How to Love the Heck Out of Korea

(this is the expanded version first posted at Hub of Sparkle: including more pictures!)

[Update: blogger replaced all my pictures with ads, so I'm taking them out]

I know, I know, everybody's been wondering, "You seem like a cheery cat. So what makes a happy expat, Roboseyo?" well, fortunately, the guru is open for advice, with a bit of photo/video documentary evidence to back him up.

Fortunately for all concerned, it isn't too hard, if you take the initiative to actually follow the instructions given by your wise old guruseyo. Soon, you'll be as giddy as my former student, Jesse. (Balloons between your knees are optional.)

So, without further ado, but with one more picture, here goes:

How To Love the Heck out of Korea


1. get some friends (preferably evil ones) who will taunt you with K-pop music, and mock your suffering.

Hey Brian! Mwahaha!


2. Get out of the house as much as you can, so that you're around to notice stuff like this, instead of being at home browsing the web and missing all the awesome:



3. Get out of the city as often as you can, to enjoy the amazing landscapes, the small towns, sights, and people of the countryside.

Damyang, Andong

also: see the sights IN town, which are worthwhile, too - Seoul Forest

Last weekend, I went to Paju, and the Hyerin Art Village over there, with Girlfriendoseyo. It was really great.


Here was the coolest building in the whole art village: in the windows, they'd stacked slabs of glass that caught the sun in gorgeous ways. (Play this one: the music is one of my favourite compositions anywhere).





4. Enjoy the seasons. Yep. I said it.

See, we westerners often kind of derisively mock Koreans' trumpeting "Korea's Four, Distinct, Seasons" as if Korea had invented seasons or something. . . and I guess it's stylish to mock things, in some circles. . . except it makes me a surly old crank.

But seriously, the pictures I took of the Fall colours this year were so great (and the best ones got swallowed by my faulty memory card, so even what you're seeing on this slideshow are the weekends before and after the peak, not THE. PEAK. WEEKEND. which was ridiculous, and approaching obscenely beautiful), that I finally understood the enthusiasm. I wanted to grab tourists by the shoulders and shout in their faces, "HEY! Did you know Korea has four seasons?" too! -- I mean, why let a shell of cynicism put a too-cool-for-school dint on that kind of happiness? 

Korean autumn is effing beautiful, and there's no need to take anything away from that! So yeah, enjoy the seasons. Don't hate on the Koreans who love the seasons, too--they darn well oughta, living here. Yeah, other places ALSO have four distinct seasons, and yeah, Autumn in Southern Ontario, where I grew up, was pretty great too, but so what? Korea has a beautiful Autumn! Am I allowed to just be happy about that, and get my butt outside to enjoy it?

I think so.

5. Watch the people, and let the people-watching make you happy, because people are wonderful.

At the art village, these folks were taking pictures of their kid, and trying to make him/her smile; it was my favourite people-watching moment of the weekend.




6. Pay attention to ALL the details, and allow them to make you smile, not in a "Koreans are backwards, goofy people" way, but in a "Life is full of intriguing details" kind of way. Keep a journal where you write it down if you must, so that you remember the juicy bits, instead of noticing them, smiling for five seconds, and ten forgetting.

The a-little-TOO-excited bus announcer on the 273 makes me giggle every time I ride.


7. Eat good food.

8. Find something you like about the culture, and dig in.  One thing is enough, for starters.  Why watch Lee Hyori videos if she annoys you? There are a lot of aspects of Korean culture worth enjoying, from indie/underground music in the Hongdae area, to traditional performance arts, to the food culture, the '80s acoustic guitar stuff, the goofy fun of trot, not to mention the b-boy culture, the online gaming stuff, the wacky cool street fashion -- pretty much everyone I know who's been here a long time (as Gord Sellar pointed out, too) is involved in some meaningful interaction with some aspect of Korean culture. Don't pay attention to the annoying stuff: there's enough good stuff to never NEED to. Study the language, so you can meet a greater variety of Koreans, and have them like you for trying to learn the language. (Duh.)

Here's something I like about Korea's culture: Jang Sa-ik. Stay tuned for a full write-up on him later.

This is his song Jillaegott -- which (according to the Apple Translator on my dashboard, means "It will steam, ley the flower" uh...yeah. Keep working on that). The youtube page said "Mountain Rose" which sounds nicer. Anyway, he's my new second favourite Korean singer. (After this guy.)

9. Share the good stuff with people, instead of only sharing the complaints when you're around your friends.

Up at the top of my page, I have this quote, from Rainer Maria Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet":

"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." -Rainer Maria Rilke

I'd say that doesn't just apply to poets, but to any human, anywhere, who feels that their everyday life seems barren and joyless. If I can get out of my own head enough to start noticing the country around me...well, I'm on my way to loving the heck out of anywhere, aren't I?
(P.S.: See you on Saturday)

Wanna Hang out with the Hub of Sparkle?

Find out more at the Hub of Sparkle Facebook page. (and join it, if you haven't already, silly!)

If you aren't on Facebook, but you still want to hang out with all the cool sparkly people, send me an e-mail at hubofsparkle[at]gmail[dot]com and I'll send you instructions.

It's on Saturday evening.

Random Linky Stuff

Welcome 2 Seoul has a good primer on Korean street food...except that Kimbap isn't like Korean sushi.  It's closer to Korean california roll, except kimbap came first, so really, California Roll is American style kimbap...but if we steal away Korea's right to name things that are uniquely Korean after more famous things that AREN'T Korean, (in order to convince people of their inferiority, rather than establish their uniqueness) Christmas will be cancelled.

(The twenty greatest "that guy" photo-ruiners ever...this rundown made me laugh out loud three times.)

In other being sarcastic about Korea news, who knew it was "World Unique Heritage of Irony Festival" in Suncheon, new hub of Korean irony, where Brian had his photo taken as a foreigner doing irony, while writing this hilarious post which you should read, even if you usually don't read Brian's blog.

I want you to look at this picture, from David Smeaton, who continues to put great photography up on his blog just about every day (as well as EPL Soccer scores...for all you EPL Soccer/Landscape Photography buffs out there, this is the blog for you.)

read the post for the explanation.

Makes you wonder when the shoe's gonna drop

on pirates being as stupidly brazen as this.

(Somali pirates capture Saudi oil tanker)

this seems like a really stupid thing to do, as they're basically inviting US stormtroopers to take care of this piracy problem once and for all.

sure kim jong il is not far from actually building a nuclear bomb, and he's dealing out counterfeit US money to beat the band, and trafficking drugs, and flouting every international agreement they've ever been a part of... but he doesn't mess around with oil, and whaddaya know: his ass is alive (probably)

as every person in the world learned when US invaded Iraq:

go ahead and be an @$$hole, but don't f__k around with oil.

To the Somali pirates: jeez, guys, think you might have bitten off more than you can chew this time.

I predict this overreach will be the beginning of the end of the Somali pirates' halycon days, as world governments decide to take them more seriously, and send in some serious countermeasures.

I could be wrong, though.

Belly Laugh for Sunday

They're available for YOUR bar-mitzvah... who could say no?
(posted on Facebook by Expat Jane)
and by the way: just so you know, they save the best clip for last in the video. Hang on...even skip ahead if you must.

Pure brilliance.

So Moon Geun-Young just went from Annoying as Hell to Over-Exposed, but Cool Nonetheless

So Moon Geun-Yeong, the Korean pop-star whom I have lampooned before (I even feel a bit bad about that now), just went from "really, really annoying" to "over-exposed, but kinda cool" when news came out that she was the donor sending large amounts of money to Community Chest Korea, a charitable organization. . . anonymously. Not with a shining light on her back saying, "Look! I'm a good person! Buy my merchandise! Pay no attention to the rumors that I throw furniture if restaurants don't serve me quickly enough!" A. No. Ny. Mous. Ly. God bless her bright, squirrelly eyes, even as they stare at me from the side of every fifth bus in Seoul.

Hopefully, this kind of celebrity leadership leads to copycatting behaviour from Korea's youth, rather than some other recent celebrity trends.

A mini-retrospective on her cutest/most annoying TV spots:






selling pizza with crab on it...


my personal favorite...




And finally, encouraging soccer fans to move around a bit during the 2006 World Cup...



Respect, ms. Moon.

For now...

About to head off for the weekend and Do Fun Stuff.

If you think I'm super-cool, (or just think the kind of people I hang out with are cool, which they are) and want to hang out with me in Seoul, this is just my notice for you to set aside your November 22nd evening...more details to come.

Until then, for your entertainment and edification...
some links

1. putting stuff in a microwave


2. Wanna know what it's like to surf the internet in China? See what gets through The Great Firewall Of China.

3. A little high-brow humor from a Korean skit... for those who don't think Koreans have a sense of humor. (sigh: this advanced comedy technique of running a middling gag deep, deep into the ground, reminds me of the old days, watching Saturday Night Live)

The Peak of Suicide Season: A Prayer for Korean Students

Today is the day of the Korean College Entrance Exam.



Last night, I went downtown to see Girlfriendoseyo, and we had a very pleasant night. However, on the way through the winding alleys of Samchungong, we passed the entrance to a high school, and saw a cluster of underclasspersons sitting together, wrapped up in blankets.

You see, every year, High School Seniors take the High School Entrance exam, basically the most important test of their lives. Their score on this exam determines what University they can enter, and which university they attend, in this credential-obssessed society, basically determines your employability for life.

For example, despite all the efforts of the Education ministry to reduce the dominance of the three top universities in Korea (SKY: Seoul National, Korea, Yonsei Universities), 80% of the judges appointed between 2003 and 2008 were SKY graduates: a veritable stranglehold. You would find similar unbalances in most other sectors where power, money, and influence concentrate.

Because of the importance of the exam, students NOT in their senior year gather at the entrances of their high schools to cheer on their seniors, as they enter the school.

Today, roads will be blocked off to eliminate traffic noise around test sites. Airports will even re-arrange flight approach paths, so that airplanes' drone does not distract students in their seats, during the exam. Police wait by subway stations to speedily escort late students from the subway exit to their exam site, to help them arrive on time. High school seniors have been living on four hours of sleep a night for the months leading up to today; some parents even rent their kids a room in a goshiwon -- a cheap hotel -- so that they can study without distraction from their brothers and sisters, or from the TV or internet.

SeoulGlow made this video, interviewing students waiting outside a university's gates, a few years ago.


The dark side of the hope and expectations tied up in this one exam (and it's big: I've asked adults in their 30s, "What would you change about your past, if you had a magic wand?" and one of the most common answers was "I'd study harder in my last year of high school, to get into a better school: eighteen years later, people are STILL looking back at THIS test, as the turning point of their lives), is the depression and despair that comes with the fear of failure.

This article, "On a College Entrance Exam Deathwatch," suggests that probably 200 (mostly teen) suicides a year in Korea are directly connected with anxiety over this test. The stories the writer tells are sometimes shocking.

This is a story about students protesting the exam: they wore masks to hide their identities, because they were afraid they'd be put on some university admissions blacklist if their identities were known. They're just that afraid of not being able to get into a good school. A Korean Teachers' Union actually told their students to cheat as a way of protesting the exam. . . and were rightly called by Brian from Jeollanamdo for putting their students' careers on the line, rather than putting their OWN careers on the line, if they believed so strongly in their cause.

The exam is mostly multiple choice...and soul-killing, and emblematic of a lot of the things I criticize about Korea's culture (I even wrote about it on my "Five Things I'd Change About Korea" post. . . )

So if you know any Korean kids writing the exam, say a prayer today (their moms have been praying eight hours a day for a month now; you can at least spare one or two), and hope that this year, more students choose to skip suicide, and instead do that other awful things underperforming students do, and put their entire life on hold in order to study for ANOTHER year after graduating high school, just to get a better score and get into a better school.

The public school teacher exam was on Sunday, too, so a lot of people's futures are hanging on the results of this week's tests.

(the number of years lost to studying by Koreans taking these once-a-year-exam, including the civil service exam, the bar exam, the public school-teacher exam, and the high school exam, and the number of person-years of lost productivity, as well as the drain on the finances of the parents of these study-monkeys, ought to be calculated, in order for their impact/drag on Korea's economy to be quantified...I'd bet the only thing holding Korea's economy back MORE than all these years of work lost, from some of Korea's brightest people, is the gender empowerment gap.)

A Lovely Eulogy

My wonderful friend back in Canada, Melissa, wrote a really lovely eulogy for an old woman who started out as a babysitter, and became a family member over time.

It is a beautiful tribute, and also a touching expression of the way family extends so far beyond the narrow bounds of blood relation, and love supercedes any other relation, or lack thereof, between humans.

Go read it, and extend a bit of support, if you wish, I suppose.

Sorry you have to miss your Grandma Kadie, Mel. Thanks for sharing her with us.

a nice thing about writing at the Hub of Sparkle is, when you're piping mad about something...

I can save my social commentary/moral outrage about Korea's social problems stuff for there, and keep Roboseyo a mostly happy place.

But I'm mad, readers.  Flaming mad.

Because the people who are supposed to be protecting kids: parents and teachers and stuff, are covering up acts of violence against minors.  Rather than raising a holy stink to high heaven, and throwing the perps up against a wall, with a good strong smackdown, to show everyone around that this is not acceptable behaviour, and will be punished by the law, a lot, and is also bad, parents and teachers at schools deny things and cover things up, in order not to lose face.

Losing face, dear readers.  

In other words: they are not doing their jobs properly, because they don't want it to look like they aren't doing their jobs properly.

Yeah.  When you word it that way, saving face is absolute bullshit.

Now, I know it only raises my blood pressure to get worked up about things too big for me to change personally... but this time, I'm at least pitching in, boys and girls.

See, the biggest problem with all this violence against kids being tolerated or ignored, is that people DON'T TALK ABOUT IT.  And I can talk about it.  And now that a few people read my blog, I can even get other people talking about it.

Because here in Korea, the only time shit actually seems to get done is when someone in power gets embarrassed for not having done his (yeah, it's usually a guy, this being Korea and all) job properly up until that point.  I could reference numerous incidences where as soon as something went public and embarrassed some people, decision-makers finally got around to doing something.

It is also well-known to anyone familiar with Korea, that Korea really hates being criticized in the International Media (even the Lonely Planet gets'em up in arms, and a Singaporean textbook...heaven help us all!).  If a major network picked up a story about Korea's apparent lack of care for all the corporal punishment and, even worse, the denials, cover-ups, and general flippance TOWARD these acts and much, much worse, maybe the right feathers would get ruffled, and things would start to change.

I've started a page over at Hub of Sparkle where I'm collecting all the ugly incidents of schoolteacher coverups, parents refusing to cooperate with police investigations on violence against kids, because it brings shame to the family, of police neglecting to properly investigate crimes against kids, because it sounds too much like work, so that if/when a journalist DOES decide to do that exposee, they'll have their job made easy, because the last round of stories, news links, and blog anecdotes (see the post after the link) has just been a bridge too far, and I want to do something about it.

So go check the link repository at Hub of Sparkle.  Send me links at hubofsparkle[at]gmail[dot]com if you have a story, or leave it in the comments.  I'm especially looking for stuff a journalist would be able to use, for example, news articles from creditable sources, or articles in translation with links to the original Korean articles.  Help me build up a stockpile of yuck, so that the right people can be embarrassed into actually making this country a better, safer place to be a kid.

Leave comments about the kids over there, not here.