Friday, March 28, 2008

The 2001 Monolithic space heaters

Korea is a country that can barely keep up with itself. This compliment is one way to describe the fast change this country has undergone in the last 60 years. Remember, parts of this beautiful land was blown up in the Korean War, held back by the Japanese suppression and withstood hundreds of years of “divine” ruling by war lords and kings. This under developed country became a “fighting tiger” and it shows even today.

A fun example is the (2001 A Space Odyssey theme plays) monolithic space heaters. See above picture. These few hundred pound beasts belch out heat of up to 300 degrees in a 180 degree angle using fuel stored in its belly. They are a major facet of keeping this homie warm throughout the day in the cold and dark basement of work for the next 12 months. They are located in every restaurant unless they have the traditional floor heating; pipes that pump hot water in the floor.

In the film I referenced above, the black monolith appears at significant points in human development. When we learned to make fire, the monolith was there. When we learned to fight and be aggressive, the monolith was there. When a new planet was born, yes, bright and cogent blog reader, I hope you’re catching on: the monolith was there. In Korea, you are never far from the monolith too. Their warm bodies welcoming you in from the cold. They belch in your face--like my 5 year old lunch class kids--warm air that feels good. As you can tell, heating was not on the list of Korean items to add when building up the last 60 years. Floor heating is installed in all residential units but central air and heating was not in commercial buildings. That’s where the monoliths come in.

They were added after buildings were assembled, electrical laid and cold water plumbing founded. The monoliths were there. I guess they wanted to maintain some sort of monolith monarchy. Heating by divine rule, perhaps? Teaching us that heat is the only element of the universe and we as mere humans, nothing by flotsam on its shores? Was the monolith saying to us: we are not allowing central air and heat, so you must install us everywhere? Maybe. Is the monolith a controlling force or agent in our lives?

I will tell you that the monolith was there last night when I ate mon-du for dinner. It stood guard in one of the walls, the size of a door frame, its green digital light on, compressors running quietly. They are our big brothers. Watching over us, keeping us warm in the winter and cool in the summer. They are the yin and yang, the hot and cold of Korea. Look for them in a store near you!

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Lost in Translation of "lonely bed spread"

Lonely Bed Spread

There’s a very nice and attractive woman at work who interacts with me on a daily basis. I even go as far as saying that she flirts and initiates the flirting all under the pretense of English language acquisition. It’s nice. I want to like to take it further but language is an issue. We use her Korean to English electronic dictionary and two websites. So when she writes in Hangul and has AltaVista’s Babel Fish tool translates it to “lonely bed spread,” what does that really mean?

Lonely bed sheet… sounds like it’s from a “romantic” novel you can buy at the check out stand at Ralph's or some other mega supermarket chain we have allowed to flourish in the name of good business. Doesn’t it make sense to offer hardware tools at an American supermarket? I think so. Anyways, with soft music in the background and someone reading out loud from the book… the “ “lonely bed spread” awaited their embrace. He kissed her softly on her parted lips…” or it could be her describing her life. “My life is spent with helping my son get good grades and my lonely bed spread”... or it could be, as I learned yesterday, that her husband works and travels a lot. “My life is like a lonely bed spread. He works so often, I barely see him…”

Lost in translation. I ask her using very simple sentences in Babel Fish if she’s lonely. She says she’s very happily married with a loving family. Then where’s the “lonely bed spread” fit in? Is it one of those full size bed sheets that nicely fit two? Or a queen or king size bed sheet that can fit a family of four? When it comes to dating in Korea, keep it simple.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Garbage in Korea

My fellow blog readers. What is garbage? It is waste. Yes, that’s it. Here in the land of the sound of sucking duk (see previous post if you're confused), we have different waste. One style of waste is food. It goes in the yellow bag (see picture). If I vomited into that yellow bag, would that be considered food waste too? Hum. The next bag is everything else which goes in the larger white bag. The latter makes it difficult to squeeze those hefty 2 liter water bottles in and any miscellaneous card board you have. You can really go through a lot of those white bags quickly with the amount of waste I generate. And Palmer is a waste machine! Just recently I went through a whole box of two-ply tissues from my snot factory of a nose. Jesus! What snot production! Buy some Kleenex stock, please!

Back to garbage: you must buy both the yellow and white bags at the local convenience store. Not all convenient stores carry these special bags. Why call them convenience stores, eh reader? Get to the point, Palmer! I am busy and you’re rambling on like your old ‘69 Dodge on Highway 1 going to the “Cruz” for some hippie supplies, if you know what I mean.

If you get caught not using these special and expensive bags, you can be fined a considerable amount! I’ve heard that the fine could be $1,000USD. Yep! Well, I watched the refuse custodian load his truck last week and made this quick observation about those two style garbage bags here in Korea:

If the garbage man throws all the white and yellow bags in the truck together, you know, the kind we have in the US, it mashes up everything by compacting vis a vis hydraulics, and then how do they separate the bags later on? How does this work? Is there a group of people at the dump who go through the garbage separating the big white bags from the small yellow bags? How can they do that when that monster size truck has compacted them into a mash of white and yellow bags? Why bother having these expensive bags if they all get mixed and burned together anyway? I hope for the next blog installment, I can find out the truth. The truth is out there (X Files reference). Reporting from the dumps of Korea, this is Palmer in Korea. Remember to separate your waste, it's good for you and the environment.

Follow up on garbage: April 4, 2008
The yellow "food" bags are buried like compost and the white "everything else" bags are burned, set on fire. How do they separate them at the dump? I guess I have too much time on my hands wondering about garbage! :)

Sunday, March 23, 2008

The sound of Duk in my ear

Duk (pronounced “Dook”) is a traditional Korean rice snack that is chewy and comes in white, green and other varieties. The fancier duk comes mixed with nuts and other healthy things. It is a mild but very palatable snack. I received some nicely wrapped duk from a student on White Day. It was good. Like popcorn, duk has its own unique sound when you eat it.

I was at my language institute graduation in early March when I first heard the sound of Duk. A parent standing behind me was busy eating it as the students were receiving their diplomas. If you ever heard the sound of Duk being chewed, you would know how tortuous it can be. The sticky rice, shaped in a square or rectangle takes a while to eat. It also requires the person to “suck” the duk from one’s teeth. This sucking sound is unmistakable duk. All duk eaters are required by Korean law to make this sucking sound while eating duk. It’s like slurping your rice noodles to make them cooler. All Udon eaters must do this too. It is an unmistakable Korean attribute.

For the next twenty minutes this lady was busy eating and sucking duk. The sound was unbelievable and annoying. She was behind me, standing, because all the seats were taken. She did not care that her duk sound was making me insane. It was like she was in my brain, slowing sucking the noodle membranes right from my ear. I couldn’t move. I focused more on the cute kids getting their diplomas but I couldn’t do it. She continued with the great sucking sound of Duk. It’s not a disgusting sound but it is severe in its consequences like water-boarding torture.

Here is what really happened at the graduation...

“We will make you tell us the location of the missiles, Mr. Farmer,” (“Palmer” pronounced by Korean’s as Farmer), “or suffer our consequences.” As I am sitting there, strapped down in the chair, they bring in a tall, good-looking Korean lady. She is holding a large tray of white and green verities of Duk which, by the way, taste the same to me. “Will you, tell us?” asks the interpreter? “No,” I exclaim trying to wrestle free from the chair. “Then so be it, Mr. Farmer.” The torture went on for twenty minutes. The lady slowly chewed her duk and made the great sucking sound. I got dizzy. I was unconscious at one point. My stomach hurt. I was weak with hunger and I could not resist her sadistic ways.

I confessed to the location of the secret missile silo. The spies released me in some back alley in Seoul. Not even the mangy looking dogs in this country would sniff me. I wind up in a mental ward for the next twenty years. Yes, blog reader this is the sound of duk. All will succumb to it without fail.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Costco "invades" South Korea

Hello blog readers! It's me again from Korea reporting that Costco has invaded Korea and is a permanent fixture in the culture and landscape. Tonight, a group of us teachers ("Sung-sang-nims" to those who are not in the know) descended onto the hallow realms of Costco in outer Seoul to stock up on American snacks and items.

There were six of us in the language institute van driven by Dr. Jay. No, not the veteran 76er basketball player, but a short Korean guy with a hearty sense of humor and an amazing driving prowess – the ability to talk on his cell phone while navigating the narrow and busy streets of Korea! He was kind enough to take us on his Saturday night to Costco to pay homage and money to the imported American devil!

Why pay $2.50 for snickers in a pound bag in the U.S.? Buy in Korea for 8,000(Won) instead. Frozen Kirkland beef patties, five pounds of ground beef all available for the low Costco import price. Well, not low but available and nicely packaged in that Kirkland / Costco kinda-way. As you know beef is expensive in Korea. It's not beef with noodles. It's noodles with beef. For example, 100 grams of fresh beef, the blood dripping kind that the local butcher sold me two weeks ago was almost $6.00USD. That's like 3oz of beef. It's snack size by American standards. Expensive my friends especially for the American use to heavy protein meals at affordable prices. Wahoo's tacos of Santa Monica, anyone? Anyways, who gives a shit. Let's move on with this before I go home and make note of my rice poop.

Costco was freaken busy! It's Saturday night, my peeps, at 8pm and the parking lot is jammed to get in and jammed to get out! WTF! It's Saturday night. Time to take the girl friend out for some event other than Costco. I couldn't believe it! There were a dozen of parking lot attendants directing traffic--almost all wear those cool Korean masks to filter out the pollution--Angelenos take note, homies. We parked and finally got in to Costco and descend the metal grate escalators that "lock" your Costco cart wheels into place and wham! There must be 3,000 people in the store buying everything from snickers bars to rice to my favorite, peanut butter. Ah, yes! Mac Bernstein owner of Mac Bernstein's peanut butter emporium, if he was still alive and kicking, would say: "What's the score?" And I would report back: Mac, there's organic peanut butter at Costco in Korea! He would be amused. I scored some good peanut butter tonight my yawning blog reader. My life is complete. My soul food in Seoul. Right?

As you may know, Costco has like one sample lady per aisle in that warehouse of free Costco samples. I didn't eat any because by the time I got to a free sampling of chocolate or food, the lady was busy opening another sample. We were hungry blog readers. After a bill of 550Won for six people's worth of Costco goodies, half of that peanut butter, we walk over to feast on the fast food restaurant and share a table with some local peeps. The woman behind me kept bumping into me because the bench style seating is so close. And it's warm in there and I am nervous about taking off my heavy and warm Gap Navy P-Coat. I'm stinky from teaching six sweaty hours that day dancing with my kids in a warm class room. I smell like a coyote. No one notices though. The air is filled with the smell of pizza and bulgogi sandwiches. The lines are long but they take a few minutes. No one pushes or shoves and the line is orderly.

Some of the teachers had a hot dog and soda for 2,000Won and I had a 3,500Won Bulgogi sandwich which was heavy on the dough, taste and grease. A few of the teachers had Costco ice cream. A big cup of vanilla or chocolate in a paper cup. It looked good. We left Costco satiated. We hit rain and traffic back to Suwon. I listened to a very "hip" mix of Janet Jackson, Dave Mathews and lots of stupid-ass rap music for thirty minutes in the van on the way back.

I hate most rap. I hate it. There are so many great musicians out there and what does contemporary culture promote and propagate? Rap. Angry rap. Gangsta rap. Kill whitey rap. F##$%$ your $%itch rap. And I thought I "escaped" rap music when arriving in the land of the morning calm and the ominous sucking and chewing sound of duk (another post forthcoming). I am off on a tangent. Yes, kind reader, Costco has landed in Korea. It's been over ten years now and it's threatening to make this society more convenient and cost effective to the Korean people. But how do the mom and pop stores survive?

They do blog reader. Every corner there's a mom and pop store that sells fresh produce and dry goods in small, easy to carry home packages and containers. They don't have strip malls in Korea. They have produce and convenience stores every where. America take note!

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Korea: Home of the "Marts"

Ah, Korea. Home of every imaginable convenience store with the word "mart" in it. There's Family Mart, a 7-11 style store one block from the hogwan/institute which sells soda, beer, snacks and my new favorite: a beef/bulgogi hamburger sandwich which takes 20 seconds to microwave. It's about 1.00USD and tastes good! It's available in a spicy version. I wash it down with my coffee milk drink, a semi-sweet milk drink w/ coffee in it! Need my caffeine fix, man! Then there's I-Mart. Another is called IGA Mart (see pictures). Oh, yes we have an E-Mart too. We do have the ubiquitous 7-11, an American corporation that is found near the Dunkin Donuts in Yeongtong-dong/Yeongtong-gu, where I work. I buy my long distance international phone cards there but they are available at the Marts. BTW, mart rhymes with smart. Should there be a S-Mart next? Hum...

An interesting observation I made, at least I think it is interesting, is that the Mart (pronounced "mart-a") employees are, well, happy. They say hello to you at the door, they help you with your selection and their disposition is good. I know that serving customers at any convenience store anywhere in the world can be a crappy job but the ones in Suwon are "content." When I compare them to the American 7/11 employees in Los Angeles stores, they are grumpy, unhappy and not warm or cordial towards me or others. The Korean language has a formal style that stresses politeness and respect in the words. But the Mart employees' body language also conveys a sense of warmness and politeness to me and others. The American 7/11 employees do not.

All these marts are located on every other corner in Suwon. Every other block seems to be a complete self-reliable city of car dealerships, bars, restaurants that serve fish and octopus, dry cleaners, language schools and a shoe shine stand. You're never to far to buy a new car, have a nice meal upstairs, play some pool and drink a few brews with your buddies and if it's before 7pm, get your teeth cleaned. Because your gums will be sore, you should go to the bar on the top floor to have a scotch and if you're feeling good, pick up on some honey before venturing one floor down to the "nori-ban" for a night of singing, drinking and possible hooking up (Yeah, baby!). Korea knows how to mix commercial real estate up. Perhaps America can take note when we plan for our next real estate "bubble" of low interest loans for all, shady brokers, greedy banks and a condoning SEC?

Sunday, March 16, 2008

We need a bus union in Suwon, Korea

Hello fellow blog reader. Come take a bus ride w/ Palmer to Yongjusa Temple, just 40 minutes north of Suwon. It costs about 2.00USD round trip to see this 400 year old national treasure, round eyes. Along the way you'll love the sights, sounds and smells (I will wear this Spinal Tap reference to the ground, baby!) of Korea. Hold on to the noisy leather straps; not the kind you use at home, you pervs but the ones that hang low from inside the bus because it will be crowded and the turns sharp like my cheddar cheese I left in my vacated Culver City apartment three weeks ago! Yuck!

This Sunday afternoon I took the 3.00USD cab ride to Suwon Station to pick up old bus number 46 that runs to and from Yongjusa Temple. I remember this bus number because I was singing a Turn me On Dead Man song and switched the lyrics out to include bus 46. The band is from Frisco, man . Don't be upset you sensitive "City" people when I use an out-dated hippie word for San Francisco. Okay, dawg?

I got onto the bus and showed the bus driver a hand written note in Korean (Hangul) that the kind and helpful lady at the Suwon Station tourist office gave me. It asked the driver to please take me, the lost and confused looking American, to the humbled temple to pay homage (i.e. an entrance fee) and take pictures of this wonderful national treasure. He nodded. I paid. I held on.

It was hot on the bus on this spring afternoon and I managed to slip off my Navy blue Gap imitation Navy P-coat. Whatever happened to good Gap products? This coat is 10 years old and still looks great. We drove north for about 40 minutes when the landscape changed. The buildings and homes looked "poorer" and there were some nice out door vegetable and fruit stands. Strawberries are sold all over Suwon and they look delicious!

The city got smaller and the traffic lighter and the bus stops fewer. We had some cool sharp turns. I was happy. I felt good. I had a regular size Dunkin Donut Original drip brew flailing around in my belly; it was my day off and I was going to sight see and take some nice pictures, damn it! We drove by this out door looking old building but there was no sight of the temple. I got worried. It had been about 50 minutes. We did hit traffic so I figured to allot more time for my arrival and to look for the huge ass sign and maybe a picture to the temple with a poorly translated caption that would say: "American: you have arrived at Yongjusa Temple. Exit the rear door, and come walk our sacred ground to experience real Buddhism in a tranquil peace that your yuppie ass could not get at your expensive 120USD yoga class at that trendy new age center where people wear expensive clothing made of hemp and other hippie materials..." Hum...the bus drove on for another ten minutes when I realized: Fuck! I missed the temple! It was that humble looking building five miles back! You know, the one with some old looking stone fences and a small dirt area, a patch of it where no cars were parked. There was no big ass sign. No bald Buddhist monks walking around, smiling and eating those mayonnaise and peanut butter sandwiches we would get at the Buddhist Lsi Hsi temple in Hacienda Heights where I tutored kids at their after school program. Ahh!! And the stupid bus driver didn't even honk, nod, wink, mumble or burp to me, the lost and confused tourist, that this is where I was supposed to get my dumb ass off his bus and get some enlightenment! How frustrating fellow blog reader! Can you feel my spiritual pain?

I could not get off the bus because the time I spent thinking about getting a cab or taking another bus back, I was already half way back to Suwon station! The trip to the temple is about 40 minutes but the trip back is 20 minutes! We took the highway back. On the highway there were men hand painting the speed limit on the pavement. I saw one man with a large roller, painting in white the arrows on the road! In Korea where they have a machine for everything, they don't have one for painting the highway? Now I am totally confused!

We need a bus riders union here in Korea. It would help these disgruntled bus drivers who are under appreciated for their safe and boring work. If he was a happy camper, he would have said something to me. I can't blame him for his hatred of "round eyes" though. We sort of deserve international hatred for our propagation of "freedom" and involvement in helping the little guy overthrow the big guy and then abandon the new guy in order to help the little guy.

I think every bus driver hates people. People complain, they piss in their pants, their crying children won't shut the fuck up, they drop their groceries on the bus floor, they spill their Dunkin Donuts coffee too. And there are no garbage cans on these buses. They are not your home, homey. You are only on this bus for a short time unless it's the little yellow bus...

Perhaps bus drivers are naturally mean. It could be just their Buddha nature and if the passenger is foreign, then hate him more! If that prick with the Alan Watts British accent doesn't know when to exit then forgettabout him.

I should of been more active in asking and spotting the temple. Tomorrow I will try it again. Look for some pictures of smiling monks and their interesting vegetarian sandwiches. Watch for the hot and sweaty looking American with the Navy P-Coat in dark sunglasses. Until then, my friend, stay on the bus and smile at your bus driver.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

A critique of tourist maps in Suwon, Korea

Look, I am not an English language expert nor do I have a masters degree in grammar but the tourist maps here in Suwon, South Korea are terrible. With all the talented English natives who live and work here, some who have graduate degrees in English, would the government please ask them to help translate their tourist maps into readable and cogent English? I'm sure any of us would gladly offer our editing services for free in order to correct the mumbled, jumbled and inarticulated tourist maps the government subjects all English speakers to. To be fair maybe they hired new editors and after printing like 10 zillion of these cool maps, they realized the editorial awkwardness. I don't know. These maps are embarrassing and as a tourist who enjoys the sights, sounds and smells (Spinal Tap reference) of Korea, I must state my peace.

Almost all Koreans learn English as a second language from elementary school until high school. Those who can afford to, go to private schools, institutes or hogwans and learn more. Those who attend college will often take English classes from native speaking Canadian or American teachers. The new generation are capable of conversing well in English but those who translate the tourist maps for English speaking people, do not yet have the skills necessary. If the government who hires the company(ies) to create these maps have native English speakers edit the content instead, I would not have to be criticising about it here! You don't want Palmer criticizing. The wrath. The venom. The smugness. The condescension! I come from a long line of professional critics who sowed their oats on the mean streets of New York. Yo!

Here are a couple of examples from the actual Suwon City map of Gyeonggi-Do published by http://www.gg.go.kr/. It is a hard copy that the Suwon Station tourist office gives you, the confused and tired traveller. You will laugh, you will cry.

1. Jaein Falls:
"At the center of the cliff standing high like a wall-screen with strangely shaped rocks does one stream of water fall rush down, which cools off viewers’ minds..."

Kind blog reader who has with stood my crankiness in this blog, do you feel cooled off by this water fall description? I feel pissed off! :)

2. Paju Camp:
"The Paju camp of Gyeonggi English Village is preparing various programs, where family can join, such as Theme display experience, robot display experience, toy/cookie experience as a daily program, including regular courses, and public experience, performance, and exhibition, etc."

Bored blog reader who has been patient with my diatribes, please tell me what is a "theme" display? And a "toy / cookie experience?" Do you want to go to Paju Camp for a "regular course" in "public experience"?

You know how people say, "just write a letter" and voice your complaint? My Santa Monica College literature teacher once said that to me. And, my mother too. And I listened to them. Well, people, I have written a lot of letters in my life to various companies for various things and you know what? Either they don't get them, read them or care to reply. I have offered "solutions" to their product line, or emailed to complain about their crappy product. I was "nice" about it. Really, I was. On a few occasions, I had a phone call or email response. Not all companies can reply to all customers, just the ones who spend the most money or who are threatening to sue. That's why I am not going to write the Korean government to clean up this translated non-sense. Why not? I could be at risk getting deported for some obscure law I did not commit! I'm not paranoid. Besides, they may not understand my garble. They might call my language institute (hogwan) and complain about my crappy grammar. This would be embarrassing for my employers and in order to "save face" I could be fired and sent home to that mess called Los Angeles. Forgettabout it!!

Two fires in the language institute--only in Korea

Last Saturday in the early afternoon some dumb ass tossed a half-lite cigarette down the window well which is right above the basement window of my office. The butt caused a small fire. The fire department showed up and blasted the small fire with gallons of water partially flooding the cubicle of my colleague's desk. She was out of town but the smell of burnt refuse waifed in the air and water littered the floor. I didn't know there was a fire until after my 4:30pm class left and I walked down three flights of stairs to the basement. It smelled like, well, a campfire. Water dripped down the wall. No one was injured and the damage minimal.

Late last night the Japanese restaurant on the fourth floor of our four story building had a small fire. I asked three people what started the fire, no one knows. The fire department rushed over again but this time they had to smash the huge glass door of the school in order to reach the fourth floor stairwell of the restaurant. They broke a small window on the fourth floor in order to put out the fire. There was glass shattered all over two floors, the floors where our kids run up and down in order to get to class or take the buses from the school home. It took five people over 30 minutes to sweep up the chunks of green glass. I help carry out the plastic garbage can filled with green, thick chunks of glass. It was at least 70 pounds requiring both of us to pause every two steps as we took the glass to the parking lot for disposal. It was fucked. What are the odds of two fires in two weeks? Only in Korea!

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Suwon dust storm vis a vis China

In Suwon, South Korea every spring there comes the dust storm. (You must say this in a low, breathy Darth Vader like voice, if you must). Anyway, it smells like burning leaves. In some parts of the U.S., people will burn their leaves in their back yards. I don't know why they do this really. It just causes air pollution. This dust storm smells just like that. Just think: the Chinese were so nice to share their burning leaf smell with the Koreans. I think world peace is now a possibility. It's a pleasant smell but heavy and after an hour you want to escape but it stays in your lungs, clothes and apartment like I did when I lived with my brother and sister-in-law for a couple of months in 1992.

I bought a Korean style face mask for 3,000 (Won). Many people wear face masks when they are sick or when the pollutant level is higher than normal. I think that's a wonderful and generous, forward thinking gesture; why share your germs? My own mask has a nice yet light menthol smell just like a Marlboro menthol cigarette. I don't look cool in this mask but it will filter out the dust and pollutants hopefully. When I wear it though, I am Palmer, incognito, in my greenish blue mask. I walk around the city, feeling comfortable in its soft and pillowy appearance, my face hidden, just another man in a mask walking down the street, a common man, a man of the people. Where was I?

I didn't sleep well last night. My colleague who also lives in the same building but above me, does calisthenics or lifts weights at 4:30am. Actually, I believe she is an insomniac and is OCD because as I lay awake this morning, I was mentally diagramming the six foot by five foot space she has to maneuver between her bed and sofa wondering how she could possibly make so much noise for an hour. She could be one of those people, who some of us know, who must adjust and re-adjust furniture, books and any thing out of order. All that running about this morning was just adjusting, in microns, the edges of books and paper on her living room table.

I don't want to ask people to do be quiet or change their behavior. They have a right to live their life in their own unique and special way. (yeah, right) But it interfered with my sleep and I need a good seven hours! Forgettabout! I asked her nicely to take it easy up there and not drop those weights. I'll keep you updated or not...

This post was boring. Maybe I'll delete it. There's no profanity. What's wrong with me? Have I gone soft like tofu in Korea? By the way I think tofu is not good for Caucasian men because it contains estrogen which could cause man boobs. Who wants that? Do you want your boobs to be bigger than your girls? Of course not. What's wrong with you? You want your girl's boobs to be full and beautiful, right? So give her the tofu! Pile it on and she'll appreciate that you are a sensitive and caring boy friend because of your self-less interest in her health and well-being, meanwhile, we all know your "evil" plan. hehehe. I've done a lot of research on this, well, the caveat is: I've always felt that this is the truth--Tofu interferes with mens' testosterone secretion--the stuff that makes us manly and want to practice warfare on people who drive jalopy's and use Soviet era machine guns in the middle east. Who wants peace and love anyway? What would happen if American's gesture towards peace was like Koreans who wear the chic looking face mask? Would this generosity filter out our "need" to inflict people with "our way of life" in order to protect our "interests" and stop those who are envious of our "freedoms?"

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Hwaesong Fortress in Suwon City S. Korea

On Monday, March 10 I ventured out to sight see in this great city of Suwon and wound up at the Hwaesong Fortress, a 5 km wall that housed King Jeonsig (spelling error) home and future capital of Korea until plans were changed. It was a cloudy, warm day and I had a stomach full of my favorite Korean food, Mon-Du, and enough energy from my Dunkin Donuts coffee I drank earlier at Suwon Station, just 15 minutes away from the 400 year old castle and fortress.

I meet a couple of Japanese tourists and one Korean girl all studying geography as first year students. We split off and wondered around. The wall and inner buildings where King Jeonsong lived has been reconstructed but nonetheless, it's a real treat to see how they documented the moving of 7.5 ton slabs of rock to build the two exterior walls against enemies. In 1950 Korean War a lot of the compound was destroyed but the Korean government paid homage and built up the area again including the Paldamun gate just three minutes from the main entrance.

This area of Suwon houses some cute cafes and active nightlife. None of which I partook because everyone is working from 7am-6pm Monday through Friday. The streets explode with people after six pm. It's pretty cool to see it happen when students come out of school or language institutes, parents pick up their kids, workers start the commute home or go to the thousands of restaurants that support each little neighborhood nook and cranny in Suwon.

The fortress should be seen again this time in late spring. It should be another treat to walk the perimeter with the flowers in bloom. I will take a date up to this wooden cafe up the hill from the fortress to have some snacks. I'm looking forward to that!

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Mon-Du (Korean dumpling)

Two days ago one of my colleagues here in Suwon mentioned a new Mon Du restaurant she tried and liked. I went in and had their beef mon-du, a dumpling with beef inside. It was great! Delicious. A soft pastry like shell with garlicly beef and cooked cabbage in side. One order of ten dumplings was about $3.00USD but that was not enough to fill me up, so I ordered another ten. Within thirty minutes, I ate 17 dumplings and had two helpings of soup. What a pig. I could have finished the three dumplings but I took them home in a cute, paper to-go box for later.

The next day I was on the toilet for like an hour! A two to one ratio of time spent eating and time spent shitting. It was a Mon-Du Dumping feast. My legs fell asleep and used half a roll of toilet paper. Try wiping that, sonny! I am out of toilet paper and shit-out-of luck because the stores in this country sell only mega-size packaged rolls of t.p., you know, the kind you get from your not so-local-super mega-Costco store where they sell a small package of 36 rolls. This is Korea, man! I barely have enough storage for 5 rolls of t.p. What the fuck?! Tomorrow I will stop by the school and steal a roll of t.p.

I am on a Mon-du roll. This morning I went back to the Mon-Du place and had only one order of beef Mon-du. I got to take it easy, you see. Later, I went to Suwon Station, where the Akeyoung Dept store is. Inside, in the basement level, is the train station and 20 restaurants and a very cool and clean supermarket, the kind that Koreans should gloat about and tease us Americans. This GS market is amazing and they sell, yes, Mon-Du. But this Mon-Du is the big, round cow pattie kind with lots of meat inside for only $2.00USD. I took it easy and had just had one with my Dunkin Donuts coffee. Jesus, I hope I'm okay tomorrow morning. I will ask my neighbor for some t.p. just in case.

Friday, March 7, 2008

Puking up lunch in a language institute

The little kids who I teach decide to eat more than necessary and run around during break time which mixes the contents of their stomachs like a strong margerita at Lares Restaurant in Santa Monica, CA. Child vomit is worse than a fat, homeless man panhandling in his wholed-out briefs. It's disgusting. We love our own children's vomit though! I don't have any kids and after witnessing a vomit pie bigger than a cow pie on an upstate New York farm, I say I don't want any kids nor their venal vomit! In general, I avoid my vomit, vomitting and others vomit too. I avoid anything that resembles vomit. It's not the vomit or the volume of said stomach excretion but the smell that does not wafer in the air but implodes the oxygen leaving that awful smell. Big vomit has a big vomit smell. Especially here where spicy food is the style. If you made it through his far, I guess you're into vomit too. I don't take it personally that the kids think my teaching English conversation makes them sick.

Mac Berstein's Peanut Butter and Volume v. Square Area

Since I am teaching kids, I am in a teacher frame-of-mind. If I am not mistaken, Volume is the amount of space found inside an object. Say a jar of Mac Bernstein's famous peanut butter contains 45,000 ground peanuts inside a 16 ounce jar. If we spread it out on a piece of Trader Joes Whole Wheat Protein Bread, then that would be nice. Since I don't have either here, then forgettabout it! Any way, where was I? Square Area is the measurement of a three-sided object. Which brings me to Suwon City, South Korea, home of a 1.5 million people, 10,000 or so ex-pats, a Family Mart convenience store on every corner and every third person sick with some sort of cold or flu.

I lived in Los Angeles, a sprawled-out smog bowl of 4 million people, about 1 million of them "illegal" and the rest actors sitting in 8 million cars and trucks on their way to an audition or something equally as important. Each winter some bug goes around getting everyone sick. I don't see them of course because they are driving the hundreds of miles of freeways. Here, however, "I see sick people" coughing, hacking up discolored mucus, the thick kind that sticks to sidewalks like a jelly fish, sneezing and wearing those warm and polite masks on their faces. A good idea to contain your germs. As a teacher, I have built my immune system up to be super strong. I use 12 ounces of hand sanitizer during each class and enclose myself in a plastic wrap, teaching from a remote location via a virtual private network camera.

To the point: it seems that every third person is sick but my if my reasoning is correct, what I am seeing is the view from inside the large jar of peanut butter with 45,000 others! creating a volume versus square area perspective. If Suwon is a jar of Mac Bernstein's, Inc Peanut Butter, then we have a large amount of peanuts or people crammed into an enclosed area. Los Angeles, with its urban sprawl, has three times the amount of people distributed over 60 square miles. They might have the same amount of people with the flu but we don't see them because of the larger area! We will not see them on the movie screen either.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Word Scramble and Saving Face

Yesterday I taught my advance level kindergarten kids. It's a class of seven students all around the age of 10. They are the highest level offered in the school. We are reading about the ocean and the undersea garden, an area of hot springs and weird clams 30 cm long. By the way, clams that big are disgusting when opened. Anyway, since there is new vocabulary, I created a "word scramble," a new word that is spelled incorrectly on the activity sheet in which they must decipher it into the correct word. For example, "toys" would be scrambled to look like "oyts." They are my most advance kids and they still had a difficult time with my instruction.

A Korean student named Spark, yes, that's his self-entitled English name for the class, cannot decipher a troublesome word on the activity sheet which I spent an hour or so editing and refining in the cold basement somewhere in Suwon, Korea. Spark and his buddy, Sean, are the two boys in the class. Sean graps the concept and so do the five girls seated at the next table.

"Teacher, what's this?" Spark asks. I kneel by the kiddy table and guide my pen while I write the transformation of the word "oyts" into "toys." Still not understanding, I begin by writing Spark's name, mispelled, in the margin. I begin with the letter "R" and then write "A" and next is "P" and finally "S." "See?" I asked. I realized I forgot the letter "K" and place it at the beginning. All of sudden Sean, his class mate sees this transformation and falls to the floor on his back in spasms of laughter. I realized I spelled the word "KRAPS" on the margin. Soon, the whole class pushes and shoves past me to see my error and joins Sean's laughter. I guess certain English words have the same meaning in Korean though spelled slightly differently but sounding the same!

I apologize to Sean in Korean who brushes it off with a shrug. After our big laugh, Spark tells me that "Krap" is wrong and that "Crap" is the correct word. Interesting how saving face works in word scramble!

The next day the Director told me that he received a call from the parent. I could not tell if the Director was mad or just exasperated by the number of complaints by parents at the school.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Rice Poop

It's about my seventh day here in Korea and noticed a trend in my evacuations. Not the emergency kind but the bathroom kind. After a steady diet of rice and meats, some beef, some chicken, my evacuations are like nice, fresh...cooked rice. They are neat and compact in shape, a long oblong ship that makes a nice splash on the shore of the porcelein bowl.

It's cold here in the basement where I slowly type and converse with the mostly Canadian English staff. They like to say "wicked" a lot. Jay, the Jack of All Trades, the Korean CFO here at the school, talks loudly and excitedly on his cell and manages to flirt with a cute 40 year old Korean teacher asst. I am preparing for my class, six year olds who don't want to be here. I can't think of any six year old who wants to be in class.

Monday, March 3, 2008

To the bar and hurry up! (Bar Jew-say-o, bali, bali)

Yesterday, at 5pm, after a full five hours of lesson planning in the cold little basement of green cubicles and sluggish Internet, i decided to walk around the neighborhood of bars and restaurants. With my 30 pound back pack and imitation Navy P-coat, I wondered around for ten minutes exploring the minuatae of Suwon. It hjas a lot of commerical buildings that line the street, some eight stories high containing billard rooms, "Businessmen bars", Karate studios, soup shops and other things. Within minutes, a cab pulled up and a man wearing his hospital pajamas, rolled out. With his IV stand in hand, he paused to lite up a cigarette and walked across the street to his favorite bar. How can you not love this place?

Translation: Bar Jew-say-o, bali, bali = Take me to the bar, right away. I've been in the hospital too long and I need to drink and smoke!