Machines With Secrets

Every week I hold a conversation class with any English teacher at my school who dares to come talk to me about such things as Love in America vs. Love in Korea, The Importance of Appearance in America vs. The Importance of Appearance in Korea and so on. All told, I have a pretty steady group of about 6 female teachers that manage to make it every week, with the new addition of Mr. Lee (pronounced Mr. E) as he fills in for Ms. Yoo as she attends her month-long training for learning how to say ‘personaliTy’ rather than ‘personalARy’. This isn’t meant as a slight—her English is rather good, she just has this weird tendency to horribly mispronounce random words.

A few weeks ago, I conducted a lesson on ‘Social Problems in Korea’. I didn’t expect the teachers to be thrilled about the lesson considering their strong dislike of talking about anything negative in regards to Korea, but I had gotten to a point where I felt I needed to address this topic. “Korea has social problems? What are you talking about??!” -- is how I imagined them responding. They were, however, surprisingly eager to discuss the topic, a couple of them, shockingly so.

When I brought up how Korea is #11 in the world in suicide, a hush fell over the group… Until the candid Ms. Kim spoke up and informed us all that two girls had slit their wrists in the bathroom a few weeks back. I was flabbergasted. She was talking about it in such a rote manner I had to remind myself what it was we were talking about. Two girls, no doubt, bombarded by the pressures of school and parents, crying for help. Ms. Kim also indicated that this is a recurring ‘problem’. I asked them all why they think this ‘problem’ exists in Korea. The first answer given (similar to the answer my fellow wannamin friend received) was “it’s because of the economy, I think.”

But it’s not. I can tell you right now that those girls didn’t find themselves bleeding in the bathroom because of how distraught they were about the couple percentage point increase on the unemployment rate. Most likely, they were beyond exhausted from attending school 75+ hours a week and had no idea how to deal with it or who to talk to. The mental healthcare system here is nonexistent—and to someone who deeply cares about mental health and its availability to those who need it, it is *scary* to me how pervasive its nonexistence affects the people here. I should not be having casual conversations about girls in bathrooms or the inconspicuous netting in between shopping mall floors or the new glass barriers put up all the time in Seoul subways. This should not be happening.

And yet—I look around and everyone seems contentedly distracted or at the very least, busy enough to not seem as affected as one might think, given the circumstances. That one Korea Herald guy was right: Korea and its citizens are the middle children of the world. Forever fighting for attention, forever resentful- but still, somehow, rather good at hiding their flaws and usually, successful.

Korea video #2

As I indicated on FB-- please forgive the music transitions. My computer isn't allowing me to change them. In any case, I hope you enjoy it anyhow.

Music:
Shankar Jakishan "Bombay Talkie"

Neon Indian "Deadbeat Summer"

Of Montreal "Sink the Seine"

Amon Tobin "Nova"

Disclaimer: I Am Not an Alcoholic. Alcohol’s Just Been a Catalyst Lately…

I’m thinking of more serious things at the moment, but these thoughts have not yet been articulated to the new-blog-post-worthy-stage, so for now, I’d like to expound on a sweet debauchery:

One of the best feelings in the world is coming home after a long night of self-indulgence (read: some serious drinking) -- you know- those last few moments before reaching your door- intensely dreaming about the comfort and warmth of your bed and refrigerator (tho hopefully your fridge isn’t warm). Putting on your favorite raggedy, yet oh-so-comfy jammies that make you feel like you never ever want to go outside again- especially not tonight. As with everything, this feeling eventually fades away and you eventually get out of bed and eventually put that box of cookies back in the cupboard and eventually makeyour way to the outside world again. But sometimes, sometimes… I wonder if the reason why I go out some nights (esp those nights when I’m going out just so that I don’t fulfill my flake-like tendencies) is purely just to come home to this feeling.

But somehow, it always goes away. You can’t fight it. Eventually this cozy, comfy feeling turns into you staring either at your TV or computer screen in a half-crazed stupor wondering where the hell your day went and questioning why it’s already dark outside. Then you go through the five stages of I Couldn’t Have Drank That Much Last Night Syndrome (which weirdly resembles the famous Kubler-Ross model on grief):

1. Denial. This isn’t happening to me. Why, when I look outside, is there no more sunlight? Must be North Korea testing out its new block-out-the-sun missile. Yeah, that’s definitely it.
   
2. Anger. What have I done to deserve this? I remembered the whole drink 1 glass of water with every drink rule and I ate. If anything, I ate way too much! This really doesn’t make any sense! Why is my day gone?? Why do I have to suffer this feeling of Saturday night disillusionment? Also, I don’t feel that good!
   
3. Bargaining. Ok, just make it 2:00pm again and I swear, this will never happen again. I will stop buying those ridiculously warm Korean towel pants that make it difficult forme to stop wallowing around in bed - and I will stop cursing at the emptiness in my cupboards… if you’ll just give me a little more time.
4. Depression. What’s the point? It’s already past the point of no return. I should just finish this box of Mother’s Fingers cookies and call it a night.
5. Acceptance. But you know what? I guess there’s no point in fighting it. Yes, the day is gone, but the night remains. And…if I go out tonight…maybe no one will notice that I’m wearing jammy pants.

And so it goes.

I’d like to add a quick Korean layer to all this. Upon coming home, I suffer the strange Korean reality of walking home toward red electric crucifixes. (and btw, I know what you’re thinking. Shouldn’t it be crucifi? Just say it out loud.) On those particularly brutal nights, I wonder what I could have done to be walking toward a sea of these things.

But then I see a swarm of Rain posters plastered on the side of a building and the endless upon endless cell phone shops and realize where I am…and that this is just how Korea is.

More on that later…

America: gin and Deliverance, ROK: soju and NxNW

There exists an actual full-blown study on the nature of jealousy and Facebook. You can read the short version here or the full version here.

And, in case you don’t already know this, the NY Times reference tool is amazing! Any word you don’t quite know the meaning of or any famous person/politician/whomever—just double-click on the word in the article and a reference window will pop up and tell you all about it (it doesn’t work on the blogs.) Also: my nerding-out filter has been temporarily shut off due to Dayquil ingestion and lack of quality sleep! I can't stop using exclamation points!!!

My eyes have taken on that half-shut whimsical look that can only be the result of either really good (recreational) drugs or some white-blood cell attacking illness. Unfortunately for me, it's the latter. And no, I don't have AIDS-- probably just some stupid cold. But unlike how I fight it in the States-- with a good bottle of gin and a screening of Deliverance, I will have to settle for a good bottle of soju and a screening of North By Northwest. No gin because the ROK hasn't discovered its wonderfulness and thus, is ridiculously hard to find -- and no Deliverance due to recent unsatisfactory conversations about it. (It's never the case that watching North By Northwest is settling-- never.) I've found that a good bottle of alcohol and a movie in which the main character is trying his best to escape some tragic or unfathomable situation really speeds up the recovery process for me. So here's hoping!

GOD what I wouldn't do for a bottle of Bombay gin...not only can you not find gin here-- but in the rare instance that you do-- the brand is some limping/crippled/diluted version of Bombay and most of the time tastes like antifreeze. I think I saw Beefeater once in a bar-- but you had to buy the bottle and it was around 350,000 won (roughly $250). Come on!

Note to self: I live in Korea, not in outer space

So…FACEBOOK. For awhile now, I’ve been thinking of writing about the many ways in which FB ruins people’s lives—or will, eventually. If it were an actual dissertation, I think I’d call it something like: The Aesthetics and Social Deconstruction of the New Technological Dystopian Order, Otherwise Known as Facebook – but, dear readers, I have not fully finished my thoughts on the subject (mainly by being distracted from FB itself—what irony!) – so, in the meantime, I will share with you some recent foreigner-living-in-Korea observations.

It’s getting cold here. I now feel justified in having paid that extra $250 to push my suitcase through United’s luggage carousel of death to be able to have my inflatable garbage bag of a winter coat with me now. Halfway justified anyway. Actually—I’m still pretty mad about it.

But with the cold has come yet another reminder of how I am not in outer space-- that I am in fact, just on the other side of the world. Sometimes when I see Korean kids with their unlaced hip-hop sneakers or young Korean men with faux-hawks and gold chains, I get images of those scenes in movies or cartoons where the main character visits some alien world where everything looks the same, except the people are actually aliens. I can understand if this comes off a bit…racist, though that sounds too strong- maybe ethnocentric? (as in, since America is the center of the universe, everyone else is just imitating American culture and look like aliens while doing so) What? You guys go to the mall too?? And you also eat in fast-food restaurants and go mad over local sports teams? (well, not that *I* do, but you know, the average American.) Strange stuff.

No matter, Korea has, so far, thoroughly exemplified its highly-praised four seasons. I have a feeling that as much as I like fashion and am willing to sometimes feel uncomfortable to look fashionable, these Koreans – I can tell already—are going to out-fashion me this winter. I will unabashedly admit that I look semi-homeless in my winter coat. But hey—at least I’ll be a warm hobo!

Which brings me to…homeless people in Korea. When I moved from Chicago to NYC, I was shocked upon finding about a quarter of the homeless population I was used to seeing. I learned later that the main reasoning for this was because of Giuliani’s (or as my brilliant friend, Laura, calls him: Crueliani) ‘broken windows’ scheme—where he cracked down on ‘crime in the city’ by arresting homeless people for doing things like jumping turnstiles. I did see a lot more homeless people on the trains in New York, but they usually danced for their dinner- literally. Or sang. Actually—the origin of my blog’s name came from this one homeless man I saw on the subway at least once a week. He’d go from car to car and would get money by threatening to sing. When no one gave him anything, he’d screech some 50s du-op song at the top of his lungs until someone threw him a buck. After gathering up all he could, he’d start his journey to the next car and this is when he’d take the opportunity to let loose all his spiritual and political beliefs, always starting off by saying “here today, born tomorrow folks!”. So, there you are.

In Korea, the only time I am sure that someone is genuinely homeless is if they are blind and travel from car to car, blaring old Korean music on their mini-boomboxes. Other than that, it’s pretty hard to tell if someone has a home or not. This is because Koreans are not afraid to sleep on the street. Namely, older Korean men. During my first couple weeks I stood aghast whenever I’d see groups of Korean men scattered along subway floors or even just lying in the gutter (I’m not kidding.) I later realized that these men were just drunk and had passed out on the street. Here’s a blog that gives a much clearer picture of this weird Korean tradition: http://blackoutkorea.blogspot.com/

It doesn’t matter that the homeless population is smaller here—I still feel horrible whenever they pass by me- they get no acknowledgment by their fellow Koreans. This isn’t to say that Americans’ treatment of homeless people is praise-worthy—not by a longshot. But at the very least, it seems Americans acknowledge the person—even if it’s a negative acknowledgment—they still see the person. Here, it’s as if a ghost with a boombox is passing through the car. Most often, people don’t even move out of the way. I don’t know, maybe it’s different for other people here, but this is what I’ve noticed.

Speaking of my brilliant friend, Laura (who lives in NYC)—here is a wonderful organization she’s created to do her part in the battle against homelessness. http://www.wheninneed.org/ Fed up with not being able to give money to every passing homeless person, she created these really helpful info sheets that list places where people can go when they need food/shelter/legal representation, etc. She calls them ‘Street Sheets’. Ingenious idea. In any case, she needs help with the website, so if you have a moment out of your day to spare, it would be *lovely* to give her any advice you can—point out anything you think could be better or – if you’re one of those people with ‘connections’ or ‘resources’ – you could even pass along your info if you think you can help in the effort. I don’t know how many people read this thing—but I hardly feel this is a shameless plug after plugging something like blackoutkorea! And anyway—it truly is a worthy cause.

I will be having my first American visitor this week!! My friend Brandon will be visiting for 5 days and in that time, it is my goal to show him how strange, lovely, depressing, magnificent this country really is. Wish me luck!

Memory: "(all alone in the moonlight) I can smile at the old days..."

So yeah, sorry about the recent non-posting. My brain’s decided to do a prolonged portrayal of a brain belonging to an 80 year old man with Alzheimer’s and has decided to go the method-acting route and *actually* embody the role. Aside from extreme writer’s block, I’ll have moments of extreme clarity (fleeting, at best), hidden within an expanse of fogginess. I think the 60s girl group, The Shirelles, can best explain the last few weeks:

The Shirelles’ ode to Renee’s brain :

Tonight you're mine completely
You give your love so sweetly
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes
But will you love me tomorrow?

Is this a lasting treasure
Or just a moment's pleasure?
Can I believe the magic of your sighs?
Will you still love me tomorrow?

Tonight with words unspoken
You say that I'm the only one
But will my heart be broken
When the night meets the morning sun?

I'd like to know that your love
Is love I can be sure of
So tell me now, and I won't ask again
Will you still love me tomorrow?

…

It’s when I watch movies that are set in NYC or Chicago (so...nearly every movie ever made) – that I think about all these watery images of my past, beautiful or not, they’re all lovely to me, now that I’m a world away. Or more specifically, in a place that has made nostalgia an everyday activity, a ‘checking-in’ with myself to remind me where I came from and where ultimately I will end up again. I agree that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I think it also makes memories more vivid and dream-like.

Heraclitus: “You can’t step into the same river twice.” Boy was he right. And it goes both ways. Every memory shapes you and you shape every memory so that nothing is ever cemented, is always fluid and ephemeral. This strikes me as both disconcerting and comforting, if something can be both those things at once. Disconcerting in that each memory is only as tangible as water in your hands and comforting, in the way that memories are living travel partners – because of the very fact that they are ever-evolving, their pulse is real and however you see them is a true representation of where you are in your life—they are not some brittle, wilted flowers stuck between the pages of old books. Their scent is strong and sometimes can hit you hard, good or bad.

I suppose all this talk of memory illustrates my consuming interest in the brain and what it tells us about the illusive/magical potential of human life. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that taking a walk down the street and thinking about taking a walk are one in the same in how your brain interprets these actions – which is why reading a book can be so engaging. You’re painting a picture of whatever you’re reading about and it pulls you in because your brain is taking the same steps to create these pictures as it would to actually live them out. Which is why -- when I'm walking down some street in Seoul and pass block after block of monotonous architecture, do I bask in the memories of walking down Michigan Ave. in Chicago or walking down 100 blocks on Broadway and watching the city morph into 20 different cities, every 5 blocks or so. This isn't to say that I don't appreciate Seoul (or ROK in general) -- there are absolutely some beautiful things to see...but. I can't help but feel there's something missing... I can't articulate it fully and won't bore you trying to figure out on here (unless you're already bored, then I'm sorry)... perhaps it'll come to me later.

Some recent things of note:

- Last week I attended a classical guitar concert with some of my co-teachers. My first real live music experience in Korea…in order to get into the concert hall, we had to stand in a line and wait to have our temperature taken. I’d heard many stories from fellow foreign teachers about how they’ve had to have their temps taken everyday before teaching, so I wasn’t too freaked out about it. UNTIL I realized *how* they were administering it. A nice lady all in white stood right in front of me and pointed a laser beam straight into my eye! Then she smiled a nice Korean smile, bowed and gestured toward the entrance.
While the guitarists were technically spot-on and showed great discipline, there was something missing. And it was only until I found myself nodding off did I realize what it was. Soul. Feeling. Things You Can’t Discipline Yourself Into Having. It was a little disappointing…
- Before I forget—some people have been asking about how Busan went. Well, it didn’t. After a calamitous chase to Seoul station, my friend and I ended up missing the train by TWO minutes. : (
- I went to a robot bar last weekend in Seoul. MOST AWESOMEST BAR EVER. The awning is this huge silver robot head with glowing red eyes and you order your drinks through the front window. They serve your drinks in I.V. bags (which sort of just look like clear Capri Sun drinks, but still, it’s pretty amazing). Quaint/60s-ish décor inside and just altogether fabulous. I want to go back there.
- I’m getting my first haircut in Korea this evening. I’m a bit anxious about it for obvious reasons, but especially since every Korean I’ve talked to about it has said that I need a perm with the cut. Why is that an automatic?? And also, I don’t want one! Are they going to force me to get a perm?? We’ll see how it turns out. Wish me lots of luck.

P.S. I’ve embedded a youtube clip at the bottom here that entirely encapsulates what I see and experience in this country almost everyday. It’s strange how quickly you get used to new things— for instance, I don’t even bat an eyelash when I realize that I’ve eaten copious amounts of kimchi and bibimbap 5 out of the last 7 days. Completely normal now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDN7Nx5J6No&feature=player_embedded

Chuseok and other stories

So…quick update. It’s Chuseok (chew-sock)! Korean Thanksgiving. Was at a teacher’s ‘orientation’ Tues-Thur—and have off Thurs-Monday for Chuseok. Pretty nice.

I don’t even want to elaborate on the ‘orientation’ – and if you’re one of those types that can read between the lines, you know that my putting ‘’ around the word orientation would indicate it wasn’t that great. I will say this though. Some of the native teachers here are pretty weird and a couple of them are downright questionable. I understand that the bare minimum for becoming a native teacher here is having a bachelors and being a native speaker. But I would imagine when they came up with these requirements, they probably figured that along with these 2 qualifications, one should also know how to spell, not use words that don’t exist, maybe even have a genuine interest in the English language and what the hell, a dash of interest in reading a book. Again, this wasn’t everybody, but the fact that this describes more than one person is a little scary to me.

Actually, kind of a lot scary.

Other than that, I went to a casino for the first time in my life a couple days ago. They don’t let Koreans gamble—so it was mostly Japanese, Chinese and Westerners piddling their money away. It wasn’t what I imagined it to be…it felt like the tables were actually tiny funerals scattered along the gambling floor with drooling zombies on either side—one side drinking the other playing the slots. I was on the latter. Didn’t win anything. But I did pay $16 that night for a Bennigan’s sandwich that tasted like it’d just been taken out of a box and defrosted. So it wasn’t a total loss. :-/

Randomness:

• I’ve figured out what my favorite Korean food is so far: kimchi man doo gook: kimchi dumpling soup. My god is it amazing.
• There’s lots of free extras here. You’re guaranteed to get a gift set of items if you buy something at a skincare store. Even if you buy something really cheap. Most of my purchases have been around 5,000 won (~ $5) and even so, they’ll give me a heap of samples that I know cost more than 5,000 won. Pretty cool. Also, I went to a bread store the other week and bought a loaf of bread (how original!) – the nice lady gift-wrapped the loaf and stuck in 3 AMAZING pastries for free. There’s also this one grocery store where it’s impossible to buy a box of soy milk without it having a small soy milk box strapped to it.
• I had my first ever taxi ride with a FEMALE taxi driver! They usually don’t even exist in movies (I can only think of one: the one in Pulp Fiction that drove Bruce Willis after his boxing scene). Anyhow, this one was very nice and was highly amused by my dazzling handle on Korean – I said “hello”, “thankyou” and “goodbye”.
• Korean grapes. Beyond delicious. Also on the fruit front: citrus fruits are extremely rare here. And when you do find them, they’re very expensive (I pay around $2 for 1 orange) They also like to put fruit in gift boxes. Off topic: they’re obsessed with spam. I’ve found bonafide spam gift sets in souvenir stores. I’m not kidding.
• At the movies: every theater has reserved seating. You do not pick your seat, no matter what. I went to a film with a couple of my co-teachers and aside from us, there were 2 other people in the entire theater. I figured we could bend the rules a little, but no. They were really serious about it.

In just a few days, I’ll be going to the Busan International Film Fest! Busan is where I originally wanted to live—2^nd largest city, gorgeous and it's where Korea’s burgeoning film scene is located. Taking the fast train! Also might be staying in a ‘love motel’ since they’re pretty cheap. Should make for one interesting weekend…