Culture Shock: Pizza

So my first encounter with pizza in Korea was interesting. I walked up to Domino's and placed my order. I knew that pizza in Korea came with these little plastic packages of sweet pickles slices. As I waited for my pizza, I saw a guy come in just so that he could buy a couple of those little pickle servings. They are just those sweet pickles we have in America--nothing special.



Then, I noticed the interesting design on the pizza posters. This was previously noted in a blog called "A Geek in Korea." I don't know what a Star of David is doing drawn in sauce on pizza's in Korea. Maybe, as in the case with the use of the swastika on Buddhist temples here, it doesn't register as a western symbol.

I ordered a "Deluxe" pizza, which looked as close to a supreme as I was going to get. However, by mistake they made me a "Swedish Fondue" pizza. I'm not sure what makes this pizza Swedish at all. It was okay, but I miss my Domino's back home where i could get a little personal peperoni pizza for $3.75--and it wasn't served with pickles.

I've had pizza in Chicago; St. Louis; Columbia, MO (home of Shakespeare's); Rome; Venice; Ukraine; Serbia; and now, Korea. Hands down America does it best.

Judgement: "I miss America."

"Morning letters" and My Third First Day of School

So I got that hangul (written Korean) thing down now. I took care of that this morning. Hangul was developed almost six hundred years ago. However, for about 500 of those years, it was considered vulgar and common. It was derogatorily called "women's script," "children's script," and "morning letters." That last name was used because it was said that someone could learn the letters in a morning. I found that to be true today. Below is "hangul" written in hangul. The image is from Wikipedia's entry on hangul.

My third first day of school was at Dong Bo Middle School and was a little boring. The students are taking a state achievement test, so my only role is a thirty second introduction before each of the English classes. That gave me plenty of time to crack my "Korean Made Easy" book and get going. I had my English co-teacher next to me to help me with pronunciation and explain how some of the vowels are indistinguishable even to native speakers. Then there are the silent letters, and the "ng." Simply put, I now feel incredibly empowered.

I think my time so far in Korea has cemented for me the necessity of learning native alphabets. While Romanizations are helpful for lay travelers or for quick pronunciation, I am finding so much of a difference even between the Korean-English alphabet charts and what is actually pronounced. Simply put, there are not sound for sound correlations for all sounds. The Korean "R" is not the "R" found in English, just as the English "R" is not exactly the "R" found in Spanish. However, I must say there is much more of a difference between the Korean and English Rs than the Rs in any other languages I've experienced. Next up, speaking Korean.

Louder, brighter, echoier

The rest of my school day was much less eventful than it had started. I taught four classes in the morning, was treated to a lunch of gujeolpan. Gujeolpan used to be a food of royalty and involved do-it-yourself wraps of rice paper with nine different fillings--we had an abbreviated five.

The afternoon was filled with much excitement. At 3:20pm, the time most American students would be plopped in front of a TV, the Korean students were still in school. Today was music day. From what i could tell, there were four female instructors and one old "drill sergeant" barking orders at everyone. About a fourth of the 160 students of Seong Po were holding a percussion instrument. There were large drums, gongs, and cymbals. The drums were beat with one stick that had a padded end, and then another stick without padding. I was at my computer when the class began. The students met out on the field and began marching around, lead by their music teachers. The sound was incredible. While to some degree, all percussion instruments are the same, hearing the Asian flavor of this instruments was interesting. Add in the fact that most of the students playing were the younger 11 year old students, I was amazed.

The students being supervised by the professional music teachers--which I can only assume travel from school to school--afforded the Seong Po teachers time for recreation. Their recreation of choice is volleyball and they take it serious. I forgot tennis shoes, so was forced to wear my clogs on on the dirt court. I walked out with the principal, who had changed into a "training suit." I joined the rest of the teachers and casually hit the ball around with them. Then, the game began: one of the teachers pulled out a typed roster! He shouted out the teams. It was only then that I noticed the score board, the freshly chalked lines of the court, and the group of students who would fetch wayward balls and referee for us.

I was then greeted with some interesting rule. the first was that kicking the ball was fair game. In fact, one of the teachers accidentally asked me, "How do you like this game of football." She had meant to ask me about volleyball. The second rule was that a team could win a point no matter which side served. The game was fun. My team lost the first two by only a few points, but we won the last game easily.

Earlier in the day, the had told me there would be a party for me and two of the other new teachers after school. I was thinking cake and punch. Oh no. What they were thinking was a night out on the crazy town of Seong Po. First, we carpooled to the raw fish restaurant. Though not the same place, it was similar in many ways to the one I visited on my tour of Geoje a week and a half ago. I tried to remember all of my Korean manners as I sat next to the principal:

• never pour your own drink
• turn your head when you drink so that your boss cannot see your mouth
• eating from the communal dishes is expected (even with soup)
• lick your chopsticks before grabbing something from one of the side dishes
• drink, or at least pretend to drink anything offered to you
• and finally, if you don't want more, don't finish.

I lost count of the side dishes after twenty (I'm not exaggerating). The main course was much as I had had before: a translucent fish, served on lettuce and a very strong herb. I fared well at the dinner, and then was informed that we were heading to the noreban (whatever you do, don't call it karoke). The noreban--I think the rough translation is "song room"--was caddy cornered from the restaurant.

Everyone came. This was my first real "karoke-like" performance with the video, and the microphone, and cheesy video on the screen with the words. I quickly understood that Koreans liked their noreban louder, brighter, and "echoier" than any American could conceive.

After trying to reading and singing the words to Eric Clapton's "Layla," I suddenly developed a profound appreciation for Zach Galifianakis' bit on the Comedy Central Show "Dog Bites Man" (see video below) about filming Korean karoke videos as a side job. On the show, he used a leaf blower to create a wind-effect in each of his shots. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing as my colleagues belted out with the the cheesy videos in the background.



The highlight of the evening was my duet of Andy Williams "Autumn Leaves" with my principal. Yes he is a man. Extremely awkward, but strangely fun at the same time. After participating in the staff game of volleyball, drinking with the colleagues, and then signing with the boss, I feel I have finally been initiated.

Getting picked up by the police

Today began like most of my other mornings since moving in to my apartment. I hit the snooze several times after only a few hours of sleep, forgot to turn on the hot water so I could take a shower, and I left the apartment a bit before 8am. My bus leaves at 8:05 and since I live only two minutes from the stop, I was fine.

This was my first time taking the bus in Korea--and I was a bit nervous. I have taken buses and/or subways in 11 cities--9 of those in other countries. This has to be the hardest place to navigate for a foreigner. Routes are usually marked with numbers, or for smaller towns or subways colors. Here, no. The bus merely says its starting location and ending location--in Korean. Well, I don't read Korean.

So, my co-teacher wrote down that name the end stop that she got from the students in Hangeul (Korean alphabet). So I matched up the letters with the name on the bus and got on. I paid the fare and took my seat. I was used to coworkers driving me on the highway directly to Seong Po. However, buses often take side routes to pickup and drop-off passengers. So, right away I was disorientated. Then, I found out that the 8:05 bus takes a route that is below the school directly along the coast. The school sits on a hill of sorts with most of Seong Po below it. So, the road that winds its way through Seong Po is completely unfamiliar to me. I did the best I could to look for the school on the hills above the town, but did not find it. I got off on the first stop where I heard "Seong Po."

I showed the words Seong Po Middle School spelt out in Hangeul to a passerby. He directed me further along the road (in the same direction the bus was going). It didn't feel right, but who was I to argue with a local? I walked for about a mile until I realized there was no way I was headed in the right direction. Luckily I saw a police station.

I bowed my head to the officer who was standing on the steps taking a smoke break. I showed him the words "Seong Po Middle School," hoping he could correct me. He did one better, he let the other office know he was going, and he drove me to the school! I road in the front seat, and had the biggest smile on my face. Not only was I incredibly relieved that I had a way to get to the school, but it was also my first time in a police car. Hopefully, next time I can get off on the right stop.

My Second First Day of School

At 8:00 this morning, in front of the Lotteria, a fast food place (one of the few landmarks that I can pronounce in Korean), I was picked up by a nice guy who was triple parked a block down the street. He introduced himself as the PE teacher at Jisepo Middle School, where I will be teaching on Tuesdays during my time in Korea. Jisepo is on the other side of Geoje Island from Seong Po Middle School and the city I live in, Gohyeon.

Quick geography lesson: Geoje Island is southwest of Pusan, the second largest city in Korea. The island is connected by bridge to the mainland on the west side. Seong Po Middle School, my MWF school is in the north, while Jisepo is in the east. Look at this map that I made from Google Earth.


So, I found myself riding in a sporty car as we wound our way through the twisty road that goes through the middle of the island and up and down the mountains. Though the mountains we were on were not that high, my ears did pop. If the ears pop, it is a mountain in my book. The school is slightly smaller than Seong Po and is situated among rice paddies and mountains on the southeast side of the island.

The first day was much the same as my first at Seong Po, sans the big assembly. I was introduced to all of the teachers en masse (all 12 of them). The principal is an older woman and her office looked eerily similar to the office of my principal at Seong Po. She has two desks in the back of the room, with windows behind her. The room is much longer than wide. Two coffee tables go down the middle of the room, with four square leather chairs on each side of the coffee tables. The arrangement looked very formal.

My classes went very well. I am beginning to get the hang of this ESL thing. The students were a bit shy, and I have a hard time understanding them sometimes, because many of the words they say in English, they are saying aloud for the first time. However, they are bright, and with few exceptions seem very eager to learn.

So tomorrow, it will be back to Seong Po and then Thursday, I'll have my third first day at Dongbu Middle School. Dongbu is located in the southern peninsula of the island.

P.S. A short Korean lesson: "Seong" means fortress and "Po" means port. So, Seong Po means "Fortress Port."

Small victories

Since I have moved into my apartment a week ago, I have:

• bought a water boiler. This is necessary since the water out of tap is not safe to drink. However, I am so far refusing to follow the Korean custom and turning my boiling water into green tea (AKA barley tea). That is the way they drink their water, and I am just not having it. The only "barley tea"I drink is beer.
  
• bought a cordless iron--which works for approximately 15 seconds before needing to be put back on its base so it may reheat.
  
• received my microwave (yay Raman) and computer chair (yay sitting) from the delivery guy on his second attempt.
  
• learned to work my "okul."
• bought some white bread--only $2.40 for a half loaf!
• learned to use my washer/dryer combination (the same machine does both) and washed my sweat-marinated dirty clothes.
  
• had the first opportunity to use my video intercom system--with the guy outside my door telling me I left the keys in the lock.
• my VOIP up and running so I can make and receive calls from the state.

Now that those are out of the way, I can get to the little things: getting a cell phone, opening a bank account, and learning Korean.

Culture Shock: Hot water or both?

This is my first in what I anticipate is a long series of "Culture Shock" blogs that highlight the differences between American/Western culture and Korean/Asian culture. At the end, I will offer one of the following judgments: "I miss America," "Eh, its just different," or "I heart Korea." I know passing judgment on a culture breaks the first rule of being in another country, but it is only one mans opinion. So here goes my first culture shock entry:

Okul is the name for the traditional Korean method of heating buildings. Homes used to be built on top of ducts connected to ovens. The heat from the ovens would heat a layer of clay beneath the floor and provide radiating heat. Modern homes incorporate a modified method. Heating elements or pipes beneath the floor now do the heating.

So, the hot water for sinks and showers is connected the same system that is used to heat the floor pipes during the cold months. I was somewhat prepared for this. However, I had read horror stories about penny-pinching landlords who turn off the hot water completely as early as March. My apartment is lucky to have a tankless water heater run off gas that I control. I have the following choices

• Heat on or off.
• Run heat to entire system or just sinks and showers.
• For the hot water, there three settings: warm, hot, and hotter
• For the floor heat, I have a Celsius temprature knob

I guess those hot water pipes aren't very well insulated.

Judgment: "Eh, its just different."

9/11/06 abroad...

This is my first September 11th away from the United States. It was a strange being away from home. The day passed like a normal day in Korea. I consumed as much American internet news as possible, read about the ABC movie controversy, the president's plans for the day, had my own moment of silence, and then watched a clip about how the lease-holder for the WTC site ordered the WTC 7 ordered the building destroyed. World Trade Center 7 was a 47 floor skyscraper in the World Trade Center complex. It was the first building to be re-built and is not part of the master-plan for the WTC rebuilding and memorial.

I am not a conspiracy nut. I don't believe in a US government connection to 9/11 any more than I would blame it on the Jews or Bush himself. The evidence we have had in the past, coupled with the new video Bin Laden planning 9/11 have cleared the point in my mind. However, what the heck were they doing having these buildings pre-wired for explosives? I don't get that at all.

The 9/11 Commission didn't look into the WTC 7 collapse because there was no loss of life. The building collapsed about 6 hours after the towers collapsed. I don't understand this, but there are many questions that aren't being answered.

A couple updates

First, I updated my photo galleries. Check out my galleries of Japan and Geoje Island (me know home. Photos of my school are on their way. http://picasaweb.google.com/joshfriel/

Second, you can now call me for dirt cheap here in Korea. I have a number based in Columbia that rings through to my computer here in Korea. Remember that I am 14 hours in the future here. If you don't catch me, then you can leave a voicemail. My number is 573-234-6217.

Hope to hear from you.