The amazing race

Chuseok – the Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving when Koreans spend time with family, give thanks for the fall harvest, and honor their ancestors. Most Seoullites head to their family homes in other cities or the country, but teachers also use the short break from school as an excuse to vacate the city and visit some of the other Korean sites. As Maria, Allison, and I tried to decide what to do with our few days of freedom, it quickly became clear that going to one of the must-see locations was out of the question. The three of us had only arrived in Korea within six weeks of the holiday, and by then domestic flights and bullet trains to popular destinations like Busan and Jeju Island were already fully booked. But we were itching to explore our new resident country and a staycation was less than desirable. So we hedged our bets and decided to venture into the nearby Yellow Sea to the island of Muuido.


Even with a forecast of rain, we wanted to get an early start to escape the stifling heat and a Seoul that was quickly becoming a ghost town so on Tuesday morning, Maria and I set out at 9:30am, a pair of travel-hungry teachers ready to seize the Chuseok holiday. With $10 a day tin huts on the beach calling our names and an estimated travel time of 3 hours, there was little that could hold us back. That is, until we were halted dead in our tracks by torrential rains and monsoon floods. (Welcome to September in Korea.) When we got off the subway in Incheon, we stopped for a bite to eat in the Chinatown right across from the subway station.During lunch our Korean friend Jun called, cautioning us about the impending storm and urging us to return to Seoul. “You will drown. You will be ghosts floating in the Yellow Sea!” he warned. Looking at the light drizzle outside, we laughed at his hyperbole and concern.



Moments after we stepped out of the restaurant we were caught in a downpour. We took cover under the awning of a closed convenience store figuring the rain would soon subside. We were there for an hour and a half. Within minutes the road turned into a gushing river, the rapids collecting all sorts of debris (including Maria’s umbrella) and sweeping it past us down the hill. At one point, we were joined by a pair of Jehova’s Witnesses, but just as they were about to start evangelizing the rising water forced us to retreat onto some plywood tables and our guests made a dash for it down the road, clutching their bibles to their chests and ineffectually holding newspapers over their heads. When the rain slowed we evacuated our shelter for the subway station at the bottom of the hill, only to find that it too had been flooded. It was not long before we discovered that all routes of transit were blocked. We spent an hour in a taxi futilely trying to circumvent the flooding, but wound up right back where we started.

By the time we were able to board a bus to the airport, it was already 6:30 and by the time we arrived at the airport it was 7:08, the ferry to the island closed at 7:30. I’m sure we looked ridiculous as we dashed up and down escalators, our flip flops flying off, our soggy pants sliding down, and umbrellas and backpacks banging against our heads. With only fifteen minutes left we hopped in the first taxi we could find, threw money at the cabbie, and urged him to go “fast! Fast! Kam-sa ham nida!” As the taxi pulled up to the ferry terminal we only had four minutes to spare. With the ferry about to pull away, we raced down the dock and hopped onto the ferry as they powered up the engines. Stepping onto the deck of the ferry we were nothing less than euphoric and our laughing, jumping, high-fiving, and hugging earned us some strange looks and a request for a picture from the Korean Ferry crew.

The trip that was supposed to only last 3 hours had turned into 10. We walked into camp to the sheer astonishment of Allison and James (who had somehow managed to bypass the flooding, leaving hours after us but arriving hours before), soggy yet triumphant. Within minutes we were scarfing down a convenience store meal of rameon, chips, Ghana chocolate, and Cass, savoring every sodium-saturated bite. It wasn’t long before the rain returned, but after our jubilant arrival nothing could dampen our spirits so for the rest of our night we cozied up in our little hut on the beach, playing cards, listening to music, and laughing entirely too much.

Waking up the next day after our first chilly night since arriving in Korea, we stepped out onto the sun drenched beach. For the next two days we spent our days lounging in the sun, playing cards, and eating rameon from the convenience store. The nights we passed eating galbi at the beachside restaurants, bonding with other foreigners over bonfires, sizzling sam gap sal, and Cass, and admiring the stars. Even though I had to head back to Seoul after only 3 days to make it to work on Friday afternoon (I still don’t entirely understand the reasoning behind this) I felt more than satisfied with my first Korean adventure.

Seoul mates

I came to Korea not quite sure what I’d gotten myself into; with little to no idea about the job I would be taking, the people I would meet, and the life I would live. I knew of three other people from Macalester who were also moving to Seoul at the same time, but to say I knew them would be a huge exaggeration. Despite Mac’s size, I had only a vague idea of who these fellow Scots were and I had no expectations that our common collegiate background would spawn friendships of any sort. That being said, I met Maria, a girl who I shared many mutual friends with at school but had only met a few times, for a night out in the city shortly after we arrived in Seoul. Very quickly we discovered Mac wasn’t the only thing we had in common; serious long distance relationships, mutual feelings about Seoul and our jobs, and similar longings for travel and adventure immediately bonded us. With befriending Maria came the bonus of befriending her coworker Britney, who just happens to be a Minnesotan who went to school in the same conference as Macalester. Around the same time, a coworker introduced me to Allison, another Seoul newbie, Wash U alum, and fellow Europhile who conveniently lives two subway stops away and shares many of my passions, interests, and opinions about Seoul, the world, and life. The four of us had made quite the little quartet, taking Seoul by force and trying to make the most of our time here.


As you’ve probably noticed throughout my blogs, these girls have become my best friends in Korea with whom I’ve already shared many an adventure, thus I thought they finally deserved a proper introduction. Without these girls, the past four months would have gone very differently. Being able to share my time in Seoul with friends I deeply care about has added to my Korea experience in more ways than I care to go into here, and I’m so lucky to have found them. As Tennessee Williams said, “Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose," and these lovely ladies have definitely played a large part in my Seoul life.

November blues

November has always been my least favorite month, and this year has not provided any exception. After a jam-packed August, September, and October fueled by the momentum that only comes with being new to a city, country, and culture, I crashed. I had been warned that my first several months here would be hampered by unshakeable illness due to the pollution and constant exposure to germy children. But after making it through the first few months with nothing more than a short-lived cold, I thought I had gotten off scot-free. November came to prove me wrong with a vengeance.

Plagues of interminable mucus, an incessant cough, several bouts of cold and flu bugs, and insomnia left me lethargic and fatigued. This understandably resulted in an excruciatingly lackluster month in which I did little more than rest and mope. Not until the end of the month was I able to do anything more notable than having several movie marathons or buying a down coat in preparation for the ill-reputed yet seemingly non-existent Korean winter. And after a visit to a Korean doctor procured an x-ray reminiscent of a smoker’s lung, I floated around in a haze of several rounds of varying prescription and over-the-counter drugs, both Korean and American, until my hacking was reduced to a much more tolerable light cough. Luckily, the worst of it seems to be over with November finally coming to a close and Christmas in sight.

Yogification

Being a dancer, I always thought yoga would be a good fit. But in the US yoga is trendy and thus it’s expensive, so I never wanted to fork over the money to find out whether or not I liked it. But in Korea, where trendy doesn’t equal expensive, it’s a different story. Here, yoga is actually absurdly cheap (as long as it’s not Bikram yoga) despite its popularity. So I figured now was a great time to see if my suspicions about yoga were correct.

Within a few weeks of arriving here, I joined Prana Yoga Studio just two blocks down the street and instantly became an addict. (At $2 a class, it’s hard not to be!) Within a week I was already a regular at the 7:00 class taught daily by Chin, an adorable Korean woman with an endearing personality and English word bank of about 30 words. She also quickly took a liking to me, I think partly because I was one of three foreigners in the class (now one of one) and partly because she mistook my God-given gumbi-ness and dance-endowed body placement for yoga expertise. Even after discovering that I’m no veteran yoga-goer, made clear by my pitiful balance and the fact that I’m hopeless when it comes to deep breathing, she has set the bar high.

From day one Chin has been nothing short of persistent in challenging me to build my yoga prowess. She is unrelenting in her battle to get me to breathe properly, informs me regularly that I need to do lots of sit ups in my spare time (often using the entire class’s English abilities to stage this conversation), and encourages me into all the pretzel-like poses that no one else is willing to attempt, all the while asking “You are ok? You are ok?” We have definitely had moments where she pushed me into some position so bizarre or abnormal that I simply had to laugh, my limbs bent in ways they definitely shouldn’t be. With her help, I have finally conquered the rooster, embryo in womb, supported headstand, and final asanas, all of which my body had stubbornly rejected for the first 2 months or so. All of this has earned me one of the coveted spots in the front of the class.

Yes, the language barrier poses some obstacles, but I’ve memorized the general routine and can pick up most variations from watching. Plus, if I can’t figure out my body placement with the help of my 19 years of dance, Chin will come along and manhandle me into the proper position. I’ve also picked up on some Korean words. Something that sounds like “bashigo” is inhale, while exhale is something close to “daeshigo.” There’re also a handful of other terms that I won’t even try to spell but I at least recognize as cues to do various forms of stretching, breathing, or moving. Of course, there are always times when I am utterly lost in translation, like those times when Chin will give an instruction that makes no sense in the context – “point” and “jump” are very basic instructions but when I’m being told to point my hip or jump when I’m sitting on the floor I’m at a complete loss. I have yet to figure out the translation.

With all of the sweating and pretzeling I wouldn’t say yoga has been as relaxing as it’s cracked up to be. But even with the ratio of time spent relaxing to contorting being about one to three, the last 15 minutes of class are enough to shake off any of the stress and strain still clinging to me after a day with screaming children. I must admit, the defining moment of my whole yoga experience comes in these last 15 minutes when we simply lay on the heated floors under flannel blankets while Chin circulates amongst the class, dotting our noses with eucalyptus oil before commencing a brief but wonderful arm and chest massage.

With all of that, I always leave the studio feeling some combination of unwound, triumphant, exhausted, and content. And as Chin always offers her farewell of “Okaaay. Thank yooou. See you Monday!” (no matter what day it is) I never fail to leave smiling.

The precarious peninsula

The BBC calls the Korean peninsula “one of the world’s geo-political hotspots,” a categorization made quite clear yesterday when North and South Korea exchanged fire on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong. It’s often easy to forget the precariousness of the situation on my peninsula of residence – taking for granted that right across the border, which is not all that far away, resides one of the world’s most elusive and ominous regimes. But it becomes hard to ignore when it shows up in my inbox; the subject lines of emails from the BBC, New York Times, and US Embassy in Seoul blaring “Artillery Firing into Northwest Islands off the Coast,” “Border Clash Prompts South Korean Missile Warning,” and “South Korea Scrambles Jets.”

Is this the beginning of round two of the Korean War, or is it just more of North Korea’s posturing? It’s probably too soon to tell, but I hope for the latter. As the New York Times so kindly points out, “A face-off on the Korean Peninsula would require tens of thousands of troops, air power and the possibility of a resumption of the Korean War, a battle that American officials believe would not last long, but might end in the destruction of Seoul if the North unleashed artillery batteries near the border.” Slightly unsettling.

Of course, this is not the first time North Korea’s threats have been brought to my attention - I signed my contract not long after a North Korean torpedo sank a South Korean navy ship, making “What about North Korea?” the first question everyone asked after I announced I was moving to Seoul. Nevertheless, it’s understandably disconcerting to have it pointed out on every media outlet that your place of residence, which happens to be the main target of a crazy military regime, could possibly be in imminent danger.

All that being said, there’s not much to do besides hope for the best, wait to see how things pan out, and take the necessary precautions (i.e. registering with the embassy, carrying a passport and cash, and having an exit strategy.)

For articles see the links below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11823474

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/world/asia/24nkorea.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/11/23/2467305/obama-agrees-to-military-exercises.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/25/world/asia/25seoul.html?ref=global-home

Halloween shenanigans

The Addams Family
Originally uploaded by shelbs1988

Halloween has never been at the top of my list of favorite holidays, but I must say that this Halloween was above par – there’s nothing quite like celebrating Halloween festivities with a bunch of 6 year olds. It was a week-long event, with the holiday merriment including lots of Halloween art; a parent open-house with mummy wrapping, edible spider art, a monster mash walk, scary stories, and monster puppet-making; Halloween BINGO; jack-o-lantern carving; and goodie bag decorating; all culminating in pseudo trick-or-treating and a costume fashion show on Friday.

If the week itself wasn’t exhausting, Friday sure was. Finding ways to entertain costumed children who are overloaded on sugar is no easy feat. Luckily, my class’s costumes weren’t too over-the-top. In order to keep the boys from all coming as Spiderman and the girls from all being fairy princesses, classes get costume assignments. My class got “traditional costumes around the world.” (Mac people: don’t worry, I’m aware that this category crosses all sorts of PC lines.) We had costumes representing Japan, China, England, Switzerland, Mexico, and Native Americans along with a Robin Hood, Zoro and Snow White (who were relegated to the ranks of England, Mexico, and Germany, respectively). I was informed that my costume needed to be more than an accessory or two so I decided on Native American as my traditional costume of choice and ran with it. I must say, I really outdid myself, seeing as I’m neither crafty nor a Halloween fan, making my costume entirely out of felt, feathers, and hot glue.




Needless to say, I welcomed the weekend very enthusiastically, not to say that the Halloween celebrations ended at school. Inspired by the glasses donned by “hip Koreans,” Maria, Britney, and I decided to spend our Saturday as a Where’s Waldo trio in the foreigner district of Seoul, Itaewon (an area I usually avoid, but where better to celebrate this ridiculous holiday?) To our amusement, Waldo was a hit! By the end of the night we had been in dozens of photos with random people and had heard our fill of unoriginal Waldo comments (there’s only so many ways you can respond to “I found you!”) We thoroughly enjoyed our comfortable, popular, easily identifiable costumes and managed to make it until the subways started running again at 5:00am to avoid paying cab fare. Overall, I’d say the night was a success.

Big transitions

The most shocking part of being in Korea hasn’t been the food, the language, the cultural subtleties, or getting used to being a lone foreigner in a sea of Koreans. By now I’ve gotten over my foreigner self-consciousness, figured out a routine, and developed culturally acceptable habits in Korean etiquette. No, the hardest part of living in Korea hasn’t been Korea at all; it’s been the transition into the real world after a lifetime of being in school.

After seventeen years of the same routine, I find myself homework-less, stress free, generally rested, and totally lost. You would think that being free of deadlines, stress, and sleep deprivation would be a relief, but the transition requires a different gauge of fulfillment and success, grasp on time and energy, and perspective on productivity. It has totally thrown me for a loop. School is what I do, it’s what I’m good at, and it’s always been a big part of my identity. The switch from all-nighters, frequent twenty page papers, and daily discussions centering around the world’s most daunting questions to Disney sing-alongs, hours of cutting out construction paper, and discussing Halloween ghouls has been startling to say the least.

Not only am I adjusting to having a schedule that isn’t crammed with homework and studying (yes, it is an adjustment, believe it or not…what do I do with all this free time?!), I’m also getting used to post-grad loneliness. Our entire lives we are surrounded by companions (wanted or not), from our families to our classmates and teammates, and later, roommates. People who we know and share activities, experiences, and interests with have always been nearby. After graduation, especially after moving to a new place, this is no longer the case. Now, friends are spread across the city, working at different places, and doing different things (not to mention the friends who are elsewhere in the country or the world). Unlike my dorm-days when friends were almost too easily accessible, it can now take hours on public transport to meet someone, it takes some getting used to.

Of course, this transition is not specific to my living in Seoul, I’m sure I’d feel the same discomfort were I in any other city: Chicago, D.C., London, you name it. It may not be culture shock, but it’s been a shock to my system nevertheless.