The Beautiful Routine

Routines can be beautiful. Right now I am riding high and fast on the routine train and the days and weeks are flying by me. Time seems to be going at a hare's pace and shows no sign of slowing. It is already spring and summer is right around the corner. Yes, the routine contributes to this curve in the space-time continuum. Routines are not, however, always fit for comparison to Star Trek-coined phrases: sometimes they can be bad.

Having just recently completed my 5-year stint at university in very anti-routine fashion, I am relatively new to this routine thing. My previous experience was spoiled by a little government organization known as the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, or, more colloquially, Revenue Canada. Here I was able to sample from the post-university buffet and was categorically unimpressed. I think someone poisoned that dish with a vile of monotony. Now I realize that routine is not synonymous with monotony and the future seems a little brighter. With the right recipe I think routine can make a tasty dish.

First, you must have a good overall structure to the routine (i.e. starting work at 11am) and fill it with the occasional time to, say, check up on your Canucks. Then, fill the rest of your time with blocks of certain tasks or events. These events should be the same everyday, but have space within them for variety. Finally, sprinkle on some weekends full of relaxation and absolutely no responsibility and you are cooking up a fine routine. In this place I have found comfort in my time in Korea.

Overall, you should have days that sort of blend into each other, but in the end are distinguishable. You should not, as in the case of Revenue Canada, have such malicious monotony that your routine looks flat and lifeless because, remember, you are what you eat.

Don't burst my bubble,
Joe

Hanbok

These are my director's children with the exception with the one on the left who is his niece. I gotta say they were about the cutest things I have ever seen during my short time on the earth.

Tae Kwon Do

Here I am at my test to get my blue belt. The man in the suit is the proprietor of all the Kyung Hee schools to which I belong. He was a very nice man and his English was quite good. I am the white guy on the right.

Tidings From Home

What a nice treat. This week we had some visitors from Canada, and a breath of fresh air. Along with the the visitors came a welcomed package from home with all the things I've been missin'. It was definitely a time to reflect on how far we've come and just how much we have adjusted here.

I was sitting around playing some video games last night and really almost forgot that I was in Korea. It took some person yelling on the street for me to come back to reality. Being able to speak to some freshies from Canada and explain about how we have found things so far was great. We really have become quite comfortable here. We can do all the little things in life now without too much difficulty and that feels good. It was nice to discuss the understanding we have so far of Korean people and what about their culture is endearing and what is not so endearing. I really have to thank them for being so patient with our talking, talking, talking.

Speaking of thanks, a huge Thank You to Carrie's parents for the package from home. The cheese, pasta mixes, coffee, floss, etc. will not go to waste and the Balderson was too much! We are living on Easy Street this week.

I also got a digital camera this week, so new pictures coming soon! Please come check them out!

Stayin' Alive,
Joe

White Day

On the weekend, Carrie and I celebrated "White Day". This is the Korean answer to Valentine's Day with a little bit of a twist. You see they celebrate Valentine's Day too, but it is for the men. I remember being out and about that day and seeing thousands of young women carrying candy for their men. White day is for women and occurs March 14 (one month after Valentine's Day). It is subsequently followed by Black Day on April 14, whereon people who did not receive a gift on either Valentine's Day or White Day must eat a black noodle dish, or the dish of shame as I like to call it. As you can probably imagine these holidays lack any sublty along with all things Korean.

The flower arrangements are hideous. They resemble the worst wedding bouquet you could possible fathom. The flowers are tied tight at the bottom and about 3 quarters of the way up and then have yellow and pink lace and mesh wrapping sprouting out the sides and the flowers are somewhere in the middle. They might be mistaken for m'aidez flares. If the women aren't carrying these they are carrying baskets of candy with the same decor noted above.

Some of the men are real romantics. Take the couple sitting next to us at the Italian food restaurant on Sunday night. They shared (I mean shared) a spaghetti-type dish. They were force-feeding each other. I think it started as a cute little thing to do, but escalated out of control. Neither one wanted to eat what the other person was dishing out, but they kept feeding each other. The pinnacle was when the man went to slip a roll of noodles into the woman's mouth when things went aury. The noodles unravelled and where dangling from her mouth. He was helping her scoop them in her mouth while she slurped away. Disgusting!

It should be noted that the ritual of Valentine's Day and White Day seems to end with the onset of marriage. In my experience, the men purposefully forget this day, which may cause the woman (in the case of my director's wife) to cry. Not to worry though, the day wasn't all lost. He went on a motorcycle tour with his good friend for the day.

Why didn't I think of that,

Joe

White Day Flowers 

A Good Day

I have heard a couple concerns from the wilderness that I seem a little down in the dumps and homesick. Well, maybe so, but fret not! Every once in a while a day comes along that keeps you going and today, baby, was one of those days. It wasn't all sunshine and lollipops mind you, and the day started out pretty grim.

Immediately after arriving at the office, I was called into the director's office for a meeting. It seems that some parents had witnessed one of my classes on our closed circuit video system the previous day and were worried that I don't play enough games or keep the class interesting enough. Duly noted... I will play more games until the next parent voices their opinion that I play too many and that their child is here to study, not play. Whatever. Did I let all this hub-bub get me down? Not a chance.

When my classes finally started later that afternoon and I was embracing for the worst (it's Friday), I was pleasantly surprised. Most of the time my students enjoy making a lot of screaming noises and mocking me, pretty much anything to weasel their way out of learning English. Today, however, my students were focused, fun, and most importantly, quiet. I got through my lessons without a hitch, and we had fun in the process. To make things better, I ordered the complete third season of The Simpsons and it arrived today. Definitely a good day.

Don't worry, my friends, I am making my way in the world today. I am giving it all I got. I often take breaks from all my worries. And soon, I will be getting away (Darryl and Arla and Thailand), although I doubt everybody will know my name down there.

Tickled,
Joe

"Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals! Except the weasel." -- Homer Simpson

Wedding Badgers

Someone made the serious mistake of teaching the youngest kids at the school the words 'love' and 'wedding'. Now I am bombarded every day by 10 children yelling at me, "Joe, Carrie Teacher love????!!!!" and "Joe, Carrie Teacher wedding???!!!!" over and over again. Even my Korean friends are constantly asking me, "so when are you getting married?" and "when you get back to Canada, will you get married?" and "Joe, did you eat the last piece of chicken?" I really don't know what to say to this, so I usually resort to, "Me no speaky England." (Same as at home.)

Being married here is a heck of a lot easier, and if you are not, they will not let you forget it. The pressure is enormous. A student in one of my older classes wrote in her journal, "Joe teacher not married, I think that is very strange." Marriage is deamed a social victory for Koreans, and once you are there it is pretty much smooth sailing (until the pressures of home ownership arise.)

Yes, it would have been much easier to say we were married from the start and be done with it, but I couldn't lie to these people... I should have lied. The term 'partner' is completely lost on Koreans.

Today's lesson, "none of your business.",

Joe

A Cut Above

When going to get your haircut in Korea, you are taking your life into your hands. The pressure is immense, and the risks are not to be underestimated. I have trouble even at home with the etiquette of the haircut. I am horrible at making small talk with barbers and resort to clichés about weather and such. Most of the time I sit there thinking, nay, praying that the haircut is what I want because I dread having to say, "actually, a little shorter on the top." If there isn't a phobia named after this I think there should be.

Imagine me, then, navigating a Korean haircut. Most of them have the same haircut (short on the sides and back, mushroomy on top), but not only that, they also attach great significance on hairstyle. By this I don't mean, if you have a bad haircut, you will be laughed at (you will), but that your haircut defines you in the social hierarchy. In a country where even the locals find it difficult to judge age, these signs are all important. For example, before entering middle school, students have to have a certain haircut. Girls above shoulder length, boys... well reeeeeally short. Failure to adhere to the rules means you get your haircut at school. Girls get the pony tail snip; boys get the tennis racket buzz cut (they put a tennis racket on their heads and then cut whatever hair is sticking out.)


I have escaped unscathed so far, but have only tested my luck twice. Of course, the haircuts haven't been perfect, but I haven't learned the word for tennis racket yet, so maybe next time.


Aesthetiphobically yours,

Joe

Coming of Age

This may sound like a familiar theme, but here goes. While I was sitting with my Instructor and a few friends from Tae Kwon Do having a few drinks, I heard something that shocked me. I was discussing with my Instructor about a mutual student we have who is 13 years old and his younger brother who is a student of Carrie's. I had asked said student why he had not been at Tae Kwon Do, and he replied that he would not be there for a couple months, but did not give a straight answer. So when my Instructor brought that subject up over a beer, I was interested to hear.
He tells me that he and his brother went to become men. They, uh, had some surgery; you know, "snip, snip." Awwhh, "are you serious!?" As a person who comes from a culture without any particular "right of passage" maybe I shouldn't have an opinion, but man that's gotta smart! (Not to mention that, hormonically speaking, it's gotta be the worst time for that sort of thing to happen.)

Stumped,

Joe

Winter Wonderland

I thought winter was over here. The nights have been cold, but days have been sunny and warm. Things were going just great. Yesterday, it snowed about a foot. It didn't even start until about 3pm, but by 10pm last night traffic was at a stand-still, and everything was covered, including me. The 3-minute walk to Tae Kwon Do found me covered in snow.

The important thing here was that people were helping each other. This is the first time I have witnessed this in Korea. We live at the bottom of a fairly steep hill and the road leading up to it is pretty narrow. At the top of this hill there are about 20 apartment buildings each with about 240 units. That means a lot of cars. As you can imagine many of these cars are not SUVs, but compacts. That spelt trouble. From the comfort of my apartment I watched about 30 people shovelling and salting the road to help the cars get up. Quite a site to see.

Now the melt is on and it looks like spring is on its way. The weekend is here now too, and things are looking up. We start a new month at school on Tuesday and there should be lots of new students.

It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand.
I just beat people up.

Muhammad Ali

Children, and what for?

Why on Earth do people have children? Sure there are a few out there that are cute and smart and generally good, but most are ugly little rascals. They never listen to what you say; they cry all the time; and they're smelly. If having kids could be compared to a crapshoot, the odds are just as good and the stakes are much higher. I couldn't imagine having a child and being stuck with one of these hellions.

Like always, I am overreacting. I like some of the kids, but most of them are a pain in the butt. If I did ever decide to teach for a living, I would make sure I went to a school for the gifted. These regular kids learn so slowly and I just don't have the patience. Well, maybe it's me. I don't think I am any good at teaching these kids. So here's what I propose (which is not new).

Every person in the world should have to teach for 6 months. Then they would understand what it is like to live as a teacher. Moreover, they should have to go back for re-teaching every 5 years or so, just to remind them what it is like. I'm no expert, but it doesn't take long to figure out how intolerable children are when you are trying to teach them something. Teachers should be duly compensated. Since money is not an option, how about teacher's day? (There is one in Korea, so I stole that idea too.) As a matter of fact, very few ideas in this piece are my own.

"Someday we'll look back on all this and plow into a parked car."- Anon.

The Lighter Side

Okay, so I realize what is going on here. My messages are rapidly turning into a pooh-poohing of all things Korean. That's why I am dedicating Monday's (Tuesday this week) to the theme of "What I Like About Korea" or What is Good About Korea": you get the idea.

This past weekend was a long weekend. That is good. March 1 in Korea is the day in which they remember the National uprising against the Japanese occupation. The uprising was a failure in the sense that it did not remove the Japanese, but signifies the spirit of the Korean culture. The whole city was littered with Korean flags: two for every lamp post and the huge apartment complexes had Korean flags flying out of almost every window. It was quite a site to see.

The pains of this occupation are still overwhelming to the Korean population. Many hold a deep grudge towards Japanese people. Recently, while out for dinner with some Korean friends, we were watching the news. There was a segment with a woman crying and apologizing to elderly Korean women who were screaming at her. The young woman was apologizing for posing nude in a photo in front of a Japanese soldier. After the apology, they burned all the pictures and the negatives in the street. The scars of that occupation have not faded in Korea.

Sorry, I guess that wasn't all good, but did you learn something? I hope so. Please join me next time when we will discuss... I don't know.