TAIWAN

Quick note from Taiwan:

Yesterday, when Claire and I were wondering around one of Taipei's famous night markets, we found a massage parlor that specialises in giving the famous Taiwanese foot massage where you're howling in pain one minute and then giggling like a fool the next. Because it was Claire's last day, and because we already splurged on a delicious $80 meal, we decided to splurge a little more by tacking on the shoulder massage to our foot massages.

There are no words to explain how amazing that massage was...maybe just sounds. All I will say is this: They could have killed my entire family in front of me and I would not have cared.

My Korean friend told me he thinks I have a drinking problem...

...and then went on to tell me the time he finished off nine bottles of soju and blacked out (I tap out after two or three bottles). I met June over the summer on the beach, where he was piss-drunk and was well on his way to finishing five bottles.

I've come out to my first Korean the other night, but this was after a few pitchers of beer and a few strong orders of long island iced teas. I only did it because I was getting annoyed with the amount of questions he was asking about what kind of girls I was into. I kept saying that I was just really picky.

"Picky? Like...fat? You like fat chicks?" June said just before he bloated his cheeks and held his arms away from his sides like a fat person is forced to do everyday.

Korea in a lot of ways is like America in the 50s with regards to Koreans' opinions on gender, sexuality, nationality, mental health, etc. But at the same time it's rapidly changing, and moving progressively forward, especially with the younger generations. Unfortunately it's really easy to forget that. I'm always told I should be careful with whom I discuss various 'controversial' topics, such as sexuality, etc., because Koreans can be very conservative and the like--and because of this--and because of the homogeneous setting--I end up pigeonholing all Koreans.

June is an example of where some of Koreans stand: he's open minded about sexuality and knows Korea isn't the be-all and end-all of his existence. June knows gay people actually exist--unlike a lot of Korea who think the very thought of two men or women fucking is so absurd and thus conclude there aren't any fags or dykes in Korea. (He apologised to me because he felt bad that I thought I couldn't come out to him sooner--though he did have to reiterate that he /wasn't/ gay.)

June also wants to get out more and travel. He did a brief Euro trip, where he was able to see some of the world through his own eyes instead of through a mediated image. (He also got to experiment with a few drugs abroad, and is jealous of the lenient laws against pot in Canada.) Because of the homogeneous culture, most Koreans only know Korea and couldn't care less about what the rest of the world has to offer because, well, Koreans do it best. But, again, that's slowly changing; even my director at my school said he is going to make sure his kids venture forth and engage the world instead of just Korea.

Though at the same time...Korea is insanely fascinated with and focused on Western culture because of its strong permeating abilities, and at times aspires to be more Western. Eye surgery is prevalent here, a long with other plastic surgeries. The 'white' look is put on a sexy pedestal, and I've seen many attractive Korean women with butt-fucking-ugly white men. (I feel like this is worth mentioning: At the Pusan International Film Festival, I saw Korea's first animated feature, and it had many, many elements of the Warner Bros. cartoons I've come to know and love. The hero, who was Korean, looked like he had some eye surgery done.)

Other culinary cultures have made there way into Korea, but a lot of times the food has been "Koreanized." I've had sushi with kimchi and ketchup. And because Korea is in love with their sweet tooth, a lot of the food is sweetened, like a few curries I've had.

For those of you who have seen Old Boy: DID YOU KNOW THEY'RE MAKING A FUCKING REMAKE WITH WILL SMITH?! Fuck Hollywood in the eye. Mirrors is another Hollywood remake of a popular Korean movie, and it premiered here. What a fucking slap in the face to Koreans. Hollywood is also remaking Let the Right One In. Ugh. Anyways. Yeah.

Greetings, hello, good morning, hi, etc

Korea has only one greeting, "anyeong hasaeyo," which can mean hello, good morning, good afternoon, hi, and so on. It is also said when one is asking "how are you?" and when replying with "I'm good!"

On the flip side, Korea has two ways of saying good-bye: one is said when you're staying, and the other is said when you're leaving. The literal translation is either, "bye, I'm staying," or "bye, I'm leaving."

Taejondae

One week ago a handful of us went to explore the beautiful cliffs of Taejondae, which also houses the most southern point of Busan.

Here are some pictures:

Not so early risers



Jump shots while waiting for everyone to arrive at Busan station

45-minute bus ride filled with disgusting and obscene 'would-you-rathers.' Conversations have dived into the obscene realm here because it's just assumed no one in earshot can understand you. It's going to be weird coming back to Canada where everyone can understand you and where you can understand everyone around you.



The southern most tip of Busan!!

On the subway ride back from these cliffs we were sitting three and two on either side of the train. A Korean man started talking to Alyssa and me, asking if we were movie stars from somewhere in Europe. We told him we were all English teachers from Canada, motioning to our friends on the other side. He looked across the subway to the three dreary hikers, and then back us with look of visible disdain. Before darting out of the subway angrily he said, "you, you look like movie stars. They look like Gypsies!"

I had a very, very lazy weekend due in part to late, late nights. I think I spent more time in bed than out, and with everyone I knew doing the same, it made it that much harder to get out of my cozy nest. Because you're not supposed to drink the water straight from the tap here (due to it being saturated with heavy metals), one of the worst things after a night of drinking is waking up with out an ounce of drinkable water in your apartment. That happened to me today.

Vacation Itinerary

Korea to Taiwan: December 25th
Taiwan to Hong Kong: December 31st
Hong Kong to Korea: January 5th



I can't tell you how excited I am for this vacation, especially because I'll be spending New Year's with me bestestest friend.


I'll be travelling in Taiwan by myself, which adds to the excitement. I've had some friends who have already experienced Taiwan and they've already given me some "must sees."

Beomeosa Hike

I've quickly taken a shining to hiking in Korea and within the past couple of months I've been doing it quite often. It's hard not to spark a sense of adventure with mountains everywhere you look.

Last Sunday James and I hiked up Jangsan mountain, which is one of the tougher hikes I've been on. In my semi-hungover state I decided that I didn't need my camera as I was packing to go, which was incredibly stupid on my part: James and I ended up witnessing a beautiful sunset from the peak of the mountain, and we found a few signs stating there were landmines present somewhere on the mountain. The sign was a foot being blasted to pieces as it stepped on the mine, and underneath it warned, "DANGER: MINES." Koreans use different onomonopia words to express the sound of an explosion. Where we use "bang" or "boom," they use "birpluk," which was near the exploding foot.

This Sunday Tory, Kiran, James and I went on a hike to try and find the Beomeosa temple. Some foreigners told us the hike takes around four hours, and Koreans told us the hike could take anywhere from three to six hours--though I think the Koreans were including all the picnics and drink breaks they take during the trip. Yet again we started the hike a little too late because by the time we found the temple, it was too dark to fully explore it. Late nights make for late mornings.

Pictures from the Beomeosa hike:

I don't know how many of you are familiar with Lindsey's Dog Painting business from Arrested Development, but it's really taken off here. This dog was on the mountain and had its ears painted orange. I've seen dogs with purple circles on their cheeks and blue and yellow paws. I've also seen dogs in cargo pants and suspenders.

Beer is a must have when you've reached the peak of a mountain.

Kiran was contemplating something inconsequential, I'm sure.





Hiking is family activity. A lot of Koreans will take up gas stoves so they can cook sumkyepsaa (kind of resembles bacon) for their family.






City landscapes become Lego blocks from high above.

Bbaebbaerodae

In Korea they have a chocolate day on November 11th called bbaebbaero dae in lieu of Remembrance Day. Bbaebbaeros are just thin cookie-like sticks that are covered in chocolate. When you have four lined up it looks like 11/11, and that is the marketing campaign they used. For the teachers it's pretty sweet because just about every student who likes you will be eager to give you these chocolate goodies, and man did I clean up.

Three of my favourite students (Stringer, Bunk and Bodie) have now levelled up and as a result I'm no longer their teacher. It was cute because Stringer came up to me to express his enthusiasm for levelling up, but this quickly changed when he realised I would no longer be doing stupid dances or singing stupid songs in front of his classroom. Kids can be so frigging adorable--man, I never thought I'd see the day when I'd say that.

I named a kid Prop Joe because--I know this is horrible, but whatever--his obesity reminded me of the fictional character. I regret naming this kid Prop Joe because he's one of the worst kids I've ever had to deal with, and is giving Prop Joe a bad name.

I've noticed an increased usage of the Korean word for "what?" and "yeah" in my vocabulary. These are full on words here, but to English they are just...rude and almost unintelligible noises. I'm going to be incredibly annoying when I come back home.

CARS

This may have taken me too long to notice, but cars here only come in black or white or shades in between. I've never seen a red or green or blue or any other colour car here.

Grand Openings

Whenever a store opens its doors for the first time, it'll have rather large flower displays and puppets and dancing girls right outside the establishment. There will be loud obnoxious music with the Korean girls singing or MCing or what have you, which, I guess, entices the Korean public to venture in. It must work because no matter what kind of store it is it will have a relatively similar showcase near its doors.

It's currently going on outside my window.

MOGIES!

The Korean word for mosquitoes is “mo-gi.” This is what my kids shout when they lunge out of their seats to try to squash the pesky little fucks with whatever they can find – sometimes using only their hands. Obviously this can be a little disruptive, and I always tell the children to ignore the blood-sucking asswipes. They tell me they /have/ to kill the mogies, because if you get bitten by one, your brain can swell up and you could die. Yeah, right. (I found out a few weeks later that /is/ a possibility, and it’s from the mogies in Japan.) But then when they’re enjoying “pleasure time,” they completely ignore the bugs.

hangul is the essence of...hangules?

I can now read and write Korean (as of August, actually). It’s the most phonetic language in the world (reportedly 99.9% of Koreans are literate), and is entirely syllabic. It’s easy to pick up once you have the letters memorized, and there are only a few odd rules that can psyche someone out--but not nearly as many as in the English language. An 's' sounding letter can become a 't' sounding letter if it falls at the end of a syllable, and they may have a stand-in character if the syllable starts with a vowel--but they don't have silent Ks, Ps, Es, GHs, or any of the other crazy consonant combinations with which the English alphabet is riddled. I may have no idea what the fuck I’m reading or writing most of the time, but sometimes, just sometimes, I can pick out the meaning of a word that I've just read because something like 20% of Korean words come from English words (eg: taxi is /t/ak-si; beauty is bee-ut-I; cake is kay-ee-ku*). Any English word can be translated, so to speak, to Korean. James = Jay-eem-su*. It's weird: I find it odd that Koreans don't have their own word for some of the English loaner words they use. For example: Board is bo-du*; marker is ma-ku*. But I guess English is pretty pervasive, and seeing as Korea is trying hard to integrate the English language into their culture, it makes sense. (It's not like French where they'll go out of their way to bar any influence from any other language...computer is ordinateur.) I was looking out to the skyline at night once, and noticed there wasn't an ounce of Korean on the skyline; it was all English. I could have taken a picture and no one would have guessed where it was from.

The biggest rule in Korean is each consonant /has/ to be linked with some sort of vowel. It now makes sense when each kid in my class pronounces something like “hint” as “hin-ta.” The n-t combination is too foreign to them with out a vowel to break them up. The emphasis on the syllables is also huge; carve a consonant with your mouth on the wrong syllable and you'll run into a snag. I've had a couple of problems in taxis when pronouncing a subway stop. For instance, I said "sam-yun" instead of "sa-myun." Those subtle differences in English can mean all the difference in Korean; I could have been saying "coffee table" instead of the subway stop. It really pisses me off when I'm in a cab with a couple of folks and they get all pissy at the cab driver for not understanding us. Um, we're not speaking the language properly, and you're getting mad at them? Foreigners here can be fucking douches, but more on that later.

The Korean alphabet is unique among all the languages because it was the only alphabet made to order. In the 1400s one of the Korean kings commanded research to be conducted in order to produce a writing system especially designed for writing Korean. The accuracy and sophistication of their research and phonological analysis is still a source of amazement to linguists today, apparently. The letters in the Korean alphabet give subtle clues as to how to form your mouth: the n-sounding letter looks a stunted L, and it lets you know the tip of your tongue should be touching the top of your mouth when pronouncing the character.

The hardest part about the language is the pronunciation. One letter, for example, can be a g-sounding letter (as in goat) or a k-sounding letter (as in king), depending on where it falls in the word/syllable. Sometimes, however, it's both, like a combination of the two. Another letter can be a j-sounding letter (as in jab) or a ch-sounding letter (as in chew)...and sometimes it's both. Same goes with t/d. My kids yell at me in frustration when I can't make the g/k sound, and I don't know how much practice it's going to take before I can master it. But they're always really impressed when they tell me a word or their Korean name and I can write it on the bo-du* with my ma-ku*.



*the u as in put

SPOOKY HIKING

One of the refreshing things about Hallowe'en in Korea is the time and effort spent on costumes. Back home Hallowe'en is an excuse for girls to dress up as slutty as possible. In Korea it's an excuse to be as creative and daring as possible in making a costume. I saw the Ghostbusters, Dokdo Island, Sarah Palin, Kurt Cobain post-suicide, Tintin, Ajammas (Korean ladies all start looking and acting the same at around 60 years of age: they all have permed hair underneath a over sized viser and they all think they can push anyone who might be in their way--including people who are just trying to get off an elevator or subway)... and the list goes on. Oddly enough the really slutty costumes tend to be on Koreans and only Koreans.

I wonder what the first Hallowe'en must have been like for foreigners in Korea...and what the Koreans must have thought when a bunch of white people started dressing up in all sorts of costumes.

I was supposed to go on this hiking trip with Charles, the guy who plans amazing trips for foreigners. We had to be up at the asscrack of dawn on Saturday (7am) to get on a bus to lead us hours away from the city. Unfortunately, and for reasons still unknown, Charles and the bus never showed up. A bunch of groggy and somewhat hungover foreigners (including myself) waited about two hours before giving up. We were down on our luck because Charles had hyped this up to be one of Korea's best autumn destinations, where the crimson red foliage surrounding majestic temples is in stark contrast to the cobalt blue skies. Instead, a bunch of us (Kiran, James and Allysa) decided to go on our own hikes on some of the mountains in Busan.

The first mountain we decided to explore was called Children's Park. It's allegedly the tallest mountain in Busan, and if you can make it to the right spot you can get a 360 degree panaramic view of Busan. On trying to find this spot, we came across an amusement park, rivers, and mad-made lakes.We didn't find the 'right' spot, but we made it to a point where the trees broke away and the city was poured out in front of us. It was like someone had taken a bucket of city and threw it onto a canvas.

On the Sunday we took a cable car up another mountain, which is well known for having some of the best temples in the city. Unfortunately our day started out late, and thus we couldn't fully explore the mountain. We did make it to one of the highest points on the mountain, and did what the Koreans do and take a break for some drinking. When I stood up, everything around me was below me. Against my wishes, the clouds were too thick to enjoy what would have been a breathtaking sunset. I'll just have to go back up on a clearer day to fully take advantage of that.

Time was against us on the way down, because it was getting dark quickly, and the last cable car down the mountain was at 6:30pm. It was kind of neat, though, hiking through a rapidly decreasing luminous mountain with the wind hallowing around us. The greens and reds and oranges on the trees had creepy undertones against the darkening skies.

And now for some pictures:

Disappointed Hikers

Entrance to Children's Park

The City Painting. One of the Korean Hikers heard us say "oh my god" in unison when we got to this point, and giggled.

The group of potential hikers on Sunday. Unfortunately Kiran, James, Allysa and I splintered off because we wanted to hike, and we didn't really want to wait around forever.

The Man Made Lake and the dam.

The view from the Ferris Wheel we were on in that amusement park on the mountain.

One of the temples we found on the Mountain. There were Budda carvings in the rocks.


Kimchi pots

One of the various places on the mountain to drink and eat

View from the mountain on Sunday

Celebrating our success. Kiran looks unhappy...probably because he didn't have any beer.

I know I'm about three months behind in my updates, but eventually I'll backtrack and post older pictures.