Ever wondered what it's like to be an American in quarantine for Swine Flu in Korea?

Well wonder no more: it's being blogged as we speak! Here's what it looks like.

Sweet! Here's another one. (Thanks, Okibum in the comments)

And another. Wow. Round up the bloggers. Or is it just that everyone really does have a blog now?

HT to Brian

Two nice things before the sad thing.

This guy made me smile on the subway. Note the footgear. (Look out, feetman seoul! I'm moving in on your turf!)
One nice thing about the older urban spaces in Seoul is the way every once in a while, roses start spilling all over everything.


And finally, something that you have to prepare for, and not be surprised at, if you come to Korea:

Yep. The cleaning lady in the men's room. Protocol is: let her do her job, and stand a little bit closer than usual.

Now the sad thing: R.I.P. Roh Moo-hyun. Suicide. This story is ghastly and horrible on so many levels. Heartbreaking, too.
And shame on people who are either using his death to say nasty things about him, or to gain political leverage. Shame.
I took some pictures and stuff of the vigil taking place by City Hall. Go look.

Micheal Breen Rules

His latest column at The Korea Times is a must-read.

Go read why using English well/properly/adequately for the situation is pucking dippicult for Koreans.

It begins this way:

"If you are Korean and reading this newspaper, your English must be quite good, certainly gooder than most people.

But how about your spoken English? Is it also well good? Or are you hard when you speak English?" and gets better.

Go read it.

Also: some guy digitally combined over a dozen of the handsomest Korean stars and created this composite. What say you, readers? Is this the ideal Korean man?

ATEK Update

If you've been following the ATEK stuff here and at The Hub of Sparkle, you might be interested in "The Atek Panel" which just went up, in which three people submitted position essays explaining why they are for, undecided about, or against, the Associations for Teachers of English in Korea.

Hopefully this will gather the most salient points from each side into one place, so that people don't have to scan numerous comment threads at numerous websites to figure out which way is up.

Go read.

Coming of Age in Korea

I'd never heard about this until yesterday, when one of my 21-year-old students told me that the third Monday of May, for all the nation's 21-year-olds, is their formal "coming of age" day.

She said she was traditionally supposed to receive flowers, perfume, and a kiss on this day. Very interesting -- I didn't know anything about this.

Then today, at An Acorn in the Dog's Food, actually gives an explanation, with photos, of the ancient Korean coming-of-age ceremony, which involves hanbok, wine for men and tea for women. Thanks, buddy!

Photo Dump: Gyeongju Hi Seoul Festival, And More

On buddha's birthday I went to Gyeongju. It seems like a long time ago, because the ATEK stuff has pretty much hijacked all my free time, and might continue to, until I am satisfied that what's been needed to be said has been said, and them who needs to find out about it, can. I'm actually OK with that, because this is something that actually MATTERS to people: blogging is finally something more than me writing words and flattering myself that somebody might want to read them, and can actually be a way for people to connect, communicate, and try to understand each other...because that's what life is about, and that's what community is about, isn't it?

Anyway, I took a ton of pictures, but haven't put them up yet, as well as some video.

But first: 'Seyo's Bliss-out of the week, as soundtrack for the post.

Hit play and start reading...but here's the background. Dan Deacon is "freak electronic" artist. His music, rather than being "party music" like, say, The Chemical Brothers, which plays great AT a party, Dan Deacon's music sounds like he's taken a bunch of instruments and sounds, thrown them in a room together, and the INSTRUMENTS are having a party together. And you get to listen.

This song is long -- it's actually in two parts -- but it's also one of the giddiest songs I've heard, with the singalong chant at the beginning, and reprised at the end. He's apparently a wizard live, so I'm glad to have live video footage, and you can see and hear people dancing and singing along, and it's awesome. One of my new friends, Robyn from New York, just went to a Dan Deacon show that was webcast on NPR (recommended listen), and I'm seething with envy. Then again, I get to eat the world's most delicious Korean food every time I leave my house, and she's stuck with the crappy Korean food that you can dredge up in New York, so it evens out a bit. (I showed her around one Saturday, so she plugged my blog, too. But she called me strange. Next time she comes to Seoul, she's only getting SECOND TIER locations out of me. Take that, lady! Nah. I'm just kidding. I don't hold grudges. Or so she'll think right up until the other shoe drops.)

So The Hi Seoul Festival happened. These cool streamers were up in the night sky.Two white girls were dancing, and eight Korean guys were taking their pictures, and wishing they could join in, and occasionally doing so awkwardly for spurts of about eight second per.
The Korean bands No Brain and Cherry Filter, both awesome, were there. The show was set up with two stages, so people kept moving from one corner of City Hall Plaza to the other, which wasn't a bad way to do it. The mass migration was fun to watch.


I love all-ages shows. The three foreign girls dancing were funny, too.


Time to scandalize all my fellow k-bloggers (it was a big K-blog weekend last weekend. Don't know just why, but by some strange convergence, suddenly I managed to meet Seoul Eats, Kiss My Kimchi, Fatman Seoul, Zenkimchi, Kimchi Ice Cream, Expatriate Games, and Studio UR, not to mention some other, real human beings, all in the span of two days. And all that was along with flaking out and (I think) forgetting to follow up with Foreign/er Joy (sorry about that, Joy. Totally unintentional.)

I met Terry at a Buddhist Vegetarian restaurant. She was a pretty cool cat. But the real selling point in this picture is something all you ladies have been waiting for: look along the far right, and you get to see Dan Gray's crotch! (sweet! My blog is totally taking over the number one google hit rankings for searches with the keywords "Dan Gray's Buddhist crotch"! [warning: avoid the image search]) So, uh, just in case you'd been wondering.
There are other things I know about Dan Gray, after a night of drinking with him, which I WON'T share...but this picture was too much to resist. I actually like the guy. You should hang out with him sometime. I'll give you his private phone number if you send me a message. (again... just kidding, eh?)

Sorry buddy. You're allowed to publish any dumb photo you have of me, too.

In other embarrassing K-blog photos...Joe likes Mexican Beer.
(actually he was holding everyone's beer while they all took pictures of each other. What a nice guy. He's also free to publish any embarrassing picture he has of me...and I'm sure he has some. Of me making the Yanni face, or pretending to orgasm as I eat well-being pickled vegetables [stole that joke] or something.) Anyway, now that I've made enemies of two super-cool blog pals...

I went to Gyeongju with Girlfriendoseyo. We rented bikes and found some really lovely trees and things.
Anapji pond was one of the prettier things I've ever seen in Korea.

All around Gyeongju are spots like this, where rocks are laid out in formation: remains of former temples, palaces, tombs or other such structures, weather-worn, often catalogued, but not yet restored. If you get up close, you can still see some really nice stonework on some of these, too. Must have made impressive palaces. Maybe later they'll get restored. Maybe.
One of the biggest ancient astronomy observatories in Asia.
More of the cool trees at the park behind the tombs.
The coolest old guy I've ever seen outside of the wacky wildness of Jongmyo park, standing around outside Dong Daegu Station, where we stopped on the way to Gyeongju.


A lake on the way in to Bulguksa Temple:


These clamps held up the strings of lamps:

Eaves at Bulguksa.
This was another view of Seokguram temple. The cave is up at the top of the hill.

Back from Gyeongju: there's a photo shop at the corner of Itaewon station that always had this picture of a baby boy with its little baby dong featured prominently, as was the tradition a generation ago, when having a son was very important, so photographers intentionally took baby pictures with the little man-child's equipment fully on display. Well, somebody finally convinced them that this would not attract all the foreigners who visit Itaewon into their shop, so they fixed the problem.

With a post-it note.Too funny.

Here's another one of my superduper cute former-student Cecilia.

And when I met Kimchi Ice Cream last weekend, we went to an incredible Japanese style ramen place. Ooch, I'm STILL thinking about it. (there's my buddy Evan's nice, pointy western nose. Evan's quality.)

Broth boiled so long it was milky and rich with flavour. Lovely. A thousand ways lovely.
Behind the Seoul Art Center in Gwanghwamun:

OK. Now here's the second half of the Dan Deacon song. It's good. Listen to it. The climax/final chorus is wild, even more so with the live crowd just giving it.

Did I mention? The song's name is "Wham City" from Dan Deacon's album, "Spiderman Of The Rings"

Teacher's Day Quandary

So... how should one feel when one receives a note on teacher's day that says:

Dear Roberte Teacher

Thank you the your Writing class. Without a your writing kind teaching I will having the terrible write, but now I'm gooder thanks to you.

Sincerrely
Sally

not that it happened to ME or anything, mind -- just asking.

Happy Chonji Day

I called it "Cheonji Day" instead of Teacher's Day because Teacher's Day is also known as one of the most common days for parents to give teachers cash gifts called "Cheonji" (촌지))... sometimes meant to be in exchange for "special" treatment of their kid (on the grade sheet) -- there have actually been laws passed putting a maximum on the amount of cash or value of gifts permitted to give teachers, because the old tradition of bribing the teacher had gotten so rampant. The practice continues today.

My favorite Teacher's Day moments in Korea came from my first year, when I taught grade school kids.

Being male, the usual cosmetics packages didn't suit, and there must have been a sock-selling truck somewhere on the bus route picking kids up to come, so over the course of the day, I received twelve pairs of the exact same socks. Totally interchangeable. I didn't buy socks once my first three years in Korea. Just when I was starting to run out and wear out, another teacher's day would come along. It was awesome.

My favorite teacher's day class was the class where one student gave me a bucket of rock candy, and another student gave me a bottle of Amway toothpaste. Perfect match.

My biggest teacher's day bung-up was the year I told the students that if they wanted to bring me Teacher's Day gifts, they could, but please remember that I'm allergic to milk, so chocolate presents make me sad, because I can't eat Korean chocolates (it's all super milky), and the mothers took my PSA to mean that I was expecting nice gifts from all of them, and complained about my overly expectant attitude. Since then, I've just taken the chocolates humbly, thanked people kindly, and passed the chocolates around to the other teachers in the staff room (who are all swimming in chocolate, too).

Thanks for the spelling correction, ROK Hound.

My Friend Cecilia

Last Saturday, I met Robyn, a food blogger from New York, and my ex-student/friend/Korean kid sister Cecilia. We had a great time trying some of the signature Korean foods around Insadong: one of my favorite moments was when Robyn went: "Wait a minute, holy crap... there's a takeout place across the street from my workplace in New York that serves dumpling-rice-cake soup" (ddeok mandukuk)... "but this stuff is so good I didn't realize until just now I'm actually eating the same dish!" So good she didn't even recognize it. Yeh. Roboseyo knows from food.

But also, my former student/friend/Korean kid sister Cecilia was there, and basically, she's liquified cute. Despite the language gap, her outgoing character and her charm made the day more fun. The amazing thing about this is, as cute as her pictures are in the video...she's always like that, and in the most amazing achievement ever in Korean cuteness...it's completely unaffected. There's never a hint that she's putting on an act, and I don't think she is: this is just how she actually is.

So much fun. Watch the video. You'll fall in love, but you can't keep her. She's taken.

My camera has a continuous function, so that it just keeps taking shots every half second until I release the button, so often I take five or six pictures of something and choose the best. This time, I just kept it down, because she and my friend Evan were having so much fun with the camera.

Roboseyo's Bliss-out of the Week: Belle and Sebastian

Wow! Totally overwhelmed by all the commenting after my rant...not that I didn't expect it, but...

I would like to thank everyone posting for remaining respectful and presenting arguments rather than personal comments. Keep it up!

Here's your reward:

Lazy Line Painter Jane, by Belle and Sebastian. Love the guest-vocalist's voice. it's not the most all-out chained-to-the-ceiling fan bliss-out, but when the dude and the lady start singing together on the last chorus, it makes me happy.

My favorite B&S song.

Happier News: My Brother Sultan Kebab Opens in Jongno

Know this guy?

Sultan Kebab, the wonderful "My Brother" place, has opened a second location right next to Jonggak Station, nearly across the street from Tomatillo. Look on your right when you come out of Jonggak Station exit 1 and walk toward Gwanghwamun on the main street front.

On the second floor of the same building is my favorite Indian Restaurant, Durga.

Omar, the owner,
has some new items on the menu, too: the baguette sandwich was nice, with a good chewy baguette, the revani was sweet and just heavy enough.



The grand opening is Tuesday, so I lucked out finding them open on Sunday evening. They were so new that some of the menu items hadn't even been programmed into the cash register yet...but the food was all there, readers. All there.

Buddha's Birthday...a bit of video.

The Parade in Seoul


The cutest float: Thomas, the Buddhist Tank Engine


outside Bulguksa Temple...
huh?


a kid playing ssireum with his mom in one of the parks in Gyeongju. Cute. Sweet bippy I envy Gyeongju their expanses of green stuff. (It had rained the night before, so it was extra pretty.)

Tell me how much I rock...

I showed Fatman Seoul and a few others' a nice little Ddeokbokki place Toppoki poktokpi place on Wednesday, and Fatman Seoul was kind enough to write it up. Go read it here.

I rule.

I also got what amounts to a shopping list from Robyn, a food blogger from New York (The Girl Who Ate Everything), and made her a map on Google Maps of all the places you can find the different foods she wanted to try in downtown Seoul. She's free to share it with anyone she likes, and I'm going to share it with you.

Go forth. Enjoy. Some of these are repeats from the food map I gave Brian earlier, and shared on this site in January. Some of them are new.

View Robyn's Food List in a larger map

Me likey this song.

Not a bliss-out, but I'm happy with Bill Callahan right now. His song "Eid Ma Clack Shaw" (he dreams the answer to his questions about life, and they are "Eid Ma Clack Shaw" haw haw haw). The rest of his album is soothing and spare, with just enough wit and pop to keep me happy. Imagine Nick Drake with a sense of humor and a baritone voice.

Go listen here.

I'm also happy because one of my favorite students from my last job just contacted me and wants to hang out, and I made another restaurant map for a pal, of places she should visit while in Korea, and she liked it, too. Also, I've been working out lately, and am starting to see the results, and I've recently developed the power of flight.* Yay me!

(* one of the sources of my current happiness may or may not be fallacious)

Corporal Punishment in Korea's Schools

Brian in Jeollanamdo's latest post calls bull on the education officials who claim foreign native teachers are not "ethically qualified" to teach Korea's children, when Korean teachers hit students with sticks, or humiliate them by forcing them to take off their skirts. Brian's article is rich with links to recent news stories and articles about the issue of corporal punishment, and a good place to get a quick primer on the topic.

see, sometimes stuff like this happens in Korea. (caught on cellphone camera) (warning: shocking videos of violence against children)


And this...



In response to public embarrassment over videos like this, rather than, say, re-training and firing teachers who hit their kids, teachers banned cellphone use in classrooms. ARGH!

yet the moral fiber of the native English teachers is called into question more often than the Korean teachers who do stuff like that. (read more about it at Brian) fact is, the foreigners working in Korea's schools are on a super-short choke chain leash, while the Korean teachers know that it's pretty much impossible for them to get fired, once they land that vaunted public school job.

I had a student once tell me that in Korea, the stick a parent uses to beat their child is called the "love stick," and the old trope that abusive teachers are the only ones who care enough to hit the kids still circulates from time to time.

Here's the Metropolitician's old post about his own problems with the Korean Teachers' Union.

And here's a picture of a white guy photoshopped into a picture of Anapji pond

And here's a picture of a white guy photoshopped into a picture of Anapji pond.
(to get the inside joke)

Help a mother out.

On Ireport, where people can submit their own articles on CNN's webpage, Stephannie White, the mother of Mike White, the teen-aged boy mysteriously killed in a Daegu sauna last year, has written an article about her struggle to plow through all the obstructions and foot-dragging, and get justice for her son. Link it, send it to your friends, blog it, digg it, tell people about it. If it stays at the top of the "most read" articles, it might be featured on CNN's Mother's Day program. Raising awareness and putting the story into the international press might be the thing that lights the fire under the judges and lawmakers involved in the case (given how sensitive Korea is to negative international press coverage) to get this thing resolved, and get some desperately-needed answers.

Hang in there, Stephannie.

Learn more about Mike White's death, other foreigner's deaths, and how you can help Stephannie White in her search for justice, at her website, Mightie Mike. Brian in Jeollanamdo's done a really good job of keeping on top of developments in that case.

A bit more about the weekend...

May day and the kickoff to the Hi Seoul Festival hit a snag when protestors stormed the stage. Yes, the lunatic fringe is at it again, but as far as I can tell, mostly they're just damaging their own credibility now. A year ago, they had the majority of public opinion of the beef thing, but by over-playing their hand, turning violent(er) and not knowing when to walk away, they've gone from seeming like democracy freedom fighters to public nuisances. Memo to the protestors: blocking traffic is not a good way to gain public sympathy; nor is attacking police in a place where there might be international reporters, and where there ARE lots of foreigners. If there's one thing Koreans can all agree on, it's that the country must not be made to look bad in the world's eyes. Thanks to Korea Beat, I found these videos of the protest, at JetSetZero.

Next: Tuesday's Cinquo de Mayo party in Jonggak was great, I met a bunch of cool people, and saw some old pals. Girlfriendoseyo even came out and had a nice time chatting with some of my blog pals. That makes me happy. In other news, that evening, a food blogger from New York named Robyn (site she writes for, her own blog) showed up in Seoul, and was greeted by a few of Seoul's foodies. I managed to capture this wonderful picture of what happens when you eat out with food bloggers/writers.

I met some really cool people... I hope my jokes were as funny as they sounded in my head. I suffer from the "will say anything to get a laugh" illness, which people who know me take in stride, but which is sometimes surprising to new people, when I start a sentence with "So a funny thought occured to me while watching walrus porn the other day..." or somesuch.

I'm working through my Gyeongju pictures now. Some good stuff there. Soon, readers. Soon.

Until I get my Camera Back... A Question

First: the question.

Does anyone here know of a good Korean language tutor who operates in the Dongdaemun-gu/Jongno area? I'm looking to bone up on my Korean more actively. Please either contact me through one of the channels on the sidebar, or leave a comment on this post.

Option two:
Or...if I can find two other people who want to join me and take a (cough of embarassment) low level Korean course on Saturday afternoons, we've officially reached the threshhold of three at which time Korean language schools will open a class for us. I know of one that's reasonably priced, offers a once-a-week class from 2-5, and if you join me and sign up, I'll show you one of the awesome restaurants I know in Jongno every Saturday after class. So if that sounds fun to you (I can at least guarantee the food'll be good), leave a way of contacting you in the comments.

OK. So I had a great response to the female bloggers page, and that made me happy. I'll update the list with the omissions named in the comments when I get the chance. Until then...

This weekend I went to Gyeongju for the first time. Yeah. It's embarrassing that I've been living in Korea for so long, and holding forth on Korean culture and stuff, and never made it to some of the places people visit in their first month, but in the last year, I've been filling in some of those gaps, getting my butt out to Andong, and now Gyeongju.

Next on the list: Jeju Island and Seokcho (which I've been through, on the way to Geumgang Mountain in North Korea [ha! I've been there! Have you?] but never actually stopped in to see).

That said, even if there are gaps, I try not to talk about things I don't know about, and am happy to admit when I'm wrong, so back off, huh?

Next:
I went to Seokguram Grotto on Buddha's Birthday, which is the only day of the year they open the glass barrier and let you walk in and around the Buddha, which is one of the most impressive Buddhas in all Asia. Here's a picture of it,

but as usual with superlative works of art (and this Buddha scores alongside VanGogh's Irises, and a hair ahead of Klimt's Judith as the two greatest works of art I've seen in person), seeing a picture and seeing it in person is about equal to the difference between reading the lyrics and sheet music to Bob Dylan's album Blood on the Tracks, and listening to it in a quiet room on a rainy afternoon the day after breaking up with your longtime love.

Then, I went and left my camera at Girlfriendoseyo's house yesterday, so I'll have to post pics later.

Until then, here are two pictures I filed away "to post sometime" and never got around to doing.

1. seen in a halloween costume shop in Namdaemun (stolen off a friend's facebook album)
would a mask like that fly in North America? Just wonderin'.

Next: all those people who continue to debate the appropriacy of Shin Saimdang on the Korean 50000 won note (have any of you seen these yet? What's going on? I still haven't), here's an image that clearly sends the message of female empowerment...another option, perhaps?
(more of my suggestions for the 50 000 won note here)

And another of those culturally unaware, awkward acronyms...
"Dude, I'm totally arguing with my girlfriend so much this week. She must have Pre-Medical School."

April's K-Blog Of The Month: Female K-bloggers - Updated

I put out a request for Female K-bloggers over at Roboseyo a little while ago, and got a fantastic response. You see, it was with dismay that I saw the all female metablog "Naked In The Sauna" go defunct, and I really do think that a feminine view is important, and sometimes missing on some of the big K-blogs.

Sometimes, there are questions only a female can answer about Korea (at least without sounding presumptuous), and with that in mind, I am publishing this as a list of female bloggers in Korea: if you want to be on the list, let me know, and if you know someone who deserves to be on the list, or if one of these goes dead or defunct, let me know, too. I plan on linking this source on The Hub of Sparkle's getting-better-but-still-in-progress "Community" page, which I hope will eventually become a pretty good, regularly updated, one-stop "Get the basics in one place" source.

I'll try to put these into general categories, though of course some of these blogs will fit numerous categories, and being nothing more than a mere human myself, I might get a few wrong at first. Please be kind enough to correct me politely.