Quick Note

I got behind on my “two weeks of posts” with the Thanksgiving and my studying.  I also noticed that I mis-numbered the days on my posts—so those are updated now.

2 years and 300 posts

Today is my two-year anniversary in Korea. Last year, on my anniversary, it was just a few days before I left for few week trip in America. I wrote that post as a play on a break-up letter.

At the time, I had come to a point when I was really ready to return to my homeland. I knew that my time in America would be temporary and that I’d returning to Korea. As I look ahead to my final weeks here, I don’t think I’ll be coming back—although I will miss Korean fashion mascots (that's the Teenie Weenie behind me).

This past year in Korea has been good. I’ve learned a lot about living in a foreign culture, and learned a lot about myself. I wouldn’t give that up for anything. But, its time to go home.

A friend who is now married to Korea told me that now he's in a sort of limbo. Whens he's back home in Canada, he misses Korea, and when he's in Korea, he misses Canada. I'm afraid that will happen to me--or already has.

Also, this is my 300th post. I wrote about my 200th post, and “101th” post previously. Amazing, last year in roughly the same time, I wrote 200 posts, compared to about 100 for this year.

The most popular posts (according to Google Analytics) from the past year are:

• Inevitable – where I describe having been lightly hit by a car
• Dakbal & Beondegi – where I describe having enjoyed two Korean delicacies: Chicken feet and silkworm pupa
• How to Survive Jangma ‘08! –where I gave practical tips for people to survive Korea’s deadly monsoon season. The tips were helpful, that they decided to cancel Jangma ‘09! You’re welcome.

My blog is the 4th result under a Google search for Geoje, which is kinda cool. I suppose this biggest change in the past year, has been the creep toward sarcasm—which has unintentionally offended (see my “You’re Welcome” series.)

All in all, I’m proud of the blog, and happy about the past two years in Korea.

Zenkimchi

I noticed yesterday that the number of hits my blog was receiving shot way up. I started the blog mainly as a way to keep in touch with friends and family back home. Most visits come from friends or through searches on google for geoje (I'm on the first page of results). So, I was surprised to see the huge influx of referrals from ZenKimchi.

ZenKimchi is great blog about life in Korean. The food section is probably the main attraction--if you on google for "Korean food" an you'll see that ZenKimchi has the same spot as I do for Geoje.

So for those interested in learning about Korean food, I highly recommend ZenKimchi. His post "Top 15 Strangest Foods I've Tried Thus Far" is a great primer on the odd food choices available here in Korea.

Blog Refresh

My project tonight was to fix my blog.  That was, of course, after I saw I am Legend at the movie theatre.  I hadn't changed the template since March or so.  There were some problems with it in non-Firefox browsers and it took a long time to load.

So, I cut out some of the bloat and found a good template at Blogcrowds.  That's where I had found my last template.  The former template (K2 for Blogger) was good, but I didn't like the lack of a margin between the side column and the main one.  Because of my lack of CSS knowledge, I had to deal with it.

The new template is based on Misty Look that was originally designed for Word Press.  Blogcrowds ported it to Blogger, and I changed the header picture.

I hope the new template will allow me to change the header picture fairly regularly (I might start doing a fancy monthly or bi-monthly header based on a picture I take from around the island.)

I have a renewed excitement about the blog now.  I hope you enjoy the new design.

Pinishi!

At the school where I work, students feel the need to announce every time they complete a task--even if its something as menial as writing their name or the date on the paper. This announcement usually comes in the form of "pinishi" which is a Korean pronunciation of "finish."

I have been trying to break my students of this habit, or at the very least compromise by having them say, "I am finished."

As I had mentioned before, I have been participating in the National Novel Writing Month. The goal of the contest is for participants to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. There were many times when the task seemed so far away. My procrastination combined with writer's block is visible from my word count chart below from the nanowrimo website.


On the 15th, I should have been at the halfway-point at 25,000 words, but was only at about 14,000. You can also see that I wrote about half of the 50,000 words in the last five days. I spent 12 hours straight writing this past Sunday and that helped me get back on track. After Sunday, words just flowed out.

I actually have quite a bit more to write just to tie everything together and to flesh out some of the themes I've been working on. But tonight, after I cruised in with those final few thousand words to put me over the line, I celebrated the only way that seemed natural: I stood, punched my fist in the air and shouted, "Pinishi!"

So, I got this little image to display on the site. Its just a completion award but its one of the most beautiful logos I've ever seen.

To Korea on our 1 year annivesary

My dear Korea,

I love you, but I think we need our space. This isn't a breakup, just a "break."

We've had our good times and our bad. I think we've both changed over the past year and now is a good time to spend some time apart to reflect. Lets face it, we've been around each other nearly 24/7 for almost the entire past year.

You know I'm not ready for a permanent arrangement--that was never part of the deal. Nevertheless, when I spent some time with Taiwan and Japan you became jealous (especially Japan). Don't you remember how much I missed you though?

You have to admit that there is a big communication problem. I've been trying to learn your language, and been trying to teach you mine, but lets face it, we often don't understand each other.

I was talking with Moon, yes the one to whom I've been elicitly teaching English. She asked why I wanted to leave you. I was shocked. Call me a mama's boy, but I long for my motherland. America (Migook) is far away and I long to be back.

I prepared a short list of the things I miss:

• relative anonymity
  
• speaking English however damn fast I want to speak it
• the Dollar
• seeing proper English on signs
• English newspapers
• trips to Wal-Mart at 2 in the morning
• sidewalks not covered with women selling fish and lettuce
  
• people that I look up to (literally not necessarily figuratively)
  
• Mexican food (and Taco Bell too)
• rednecks
• not being giggled at when I walk into a store
• kids not coming up to touch my arms because their hairy
• personal space
• not being bumped into and pushed around
• other bearded men

Let's face it, there are things that you can't offer me. Give me a month to gather my thoughts and clear my head. I'll be back, I promise. Please understand.

Love,

Joshua

Back

I'm back from my traveling, and have time to catch up on blogging. I'm going to be working on my Fuji posts, but in the meantime, I'll post a few product reviews from Japan.

200th Post

I've been crawling toward this milestone for a couple months now. I'm 10 1/2 months into my time in Korea, and I've come to my 200th post. It comes on my last day of school before the summer recess. Above is a map of all of my visitors since August as counted by Google Analytics.

In the previous 199 blog posts, I discussed having:

• endured attacks of culture shock
• dodged the awful Korean drivers
• eaten dog, whale, and a 개불 (gay-bool), a seaworm which literally translates "dog penis"
• gotten involved with a church for foreigners
• dealt with never-ending bureaucracy
  
• accidentally recreated a scene from my favorite comedy show, Arrested Development
  
• given blood, sweat, and tears (not in that order)
  
• traveled to Taiwan and Japan (going again this Sunday)
  
• watched bizarre Korean commercials
• survived the Hwangsa
  
• discovered a new life form

I also wrote in the following blog series:

• Driving and Parking
  
• Product Reviews
• Office Supplies
• Fake Brands
  

I'll be blogging through the summer and into September. In late September I'll be launching Wellbeing Joshua, a site to bring together this personal blog, with a Konglish-a-day blog to help native English speakers learn quirky Korean-style English.

Response to a critical comment on the blog:

Let me begin by saying I love Korea. I have lived here for ten months now, and have just signed a contract that will keep me here through September 2008.

I have my complaints about work, but who doesn't? We live in a fallen world with other human beings and when we are all put together, our little quirks tend to make life more difficult. This is magnified by the fact that I am working in a foreign culture.

Korea is a great country, the people are wonderful, and overall, I like it here. That being said, I will continue to offer my "fish out of water" or rather "fish in a fishbowl with a bunch of people looking at him" stories.

Below is an anonymous e-mail I received a few days ago that asked some good question that I wanted to respond to:

Why do you have a problem with "fake" Korean brands. It almost sounds like you want Koreans to still wear hanboks. Western (NOT American!) fashion is now the norm in most parts of the world so its not abnormal for Korean business owners to want to appeal to their customers by 'westerinising' their stores as THAT is what their young Korean customers prefer!

To start out with, I noted in my introduction to my "fake brands" series, that brands are inherently fake. They are an image placed on an item to make it more appealing to consumers. The image of the Marlboro man is fake.

As for Koreans and their fake brands, I am not passing a judgment, merely pointing out a funny and odd phenomenon: Koreans dressing up their products and businesses to appear fully western.

It almost sounds like you want Koreans to still wear hanboks.

I'm not at all suggesting that Koreans should be confined to hanboks. I'm merely pointing out the humor in this scene: a wholly Korean store that employs very pale, westerners to model their clothes, and whose clothes bear nonsensical phrases. Again: "bone and fragments" what does that mean?

Koreans are not alone in being fooled by these fake brands. As I noted before, I'm sure very few Americans would actually mistake Taco Bell for authentic Mexican food. However, how many people knew that Outback Steakhouse, was founded and is headquartered in Florida and has no real ties to Australia?

Absence

I started this blog back in August as a hobby to chronicle my adjustment to Korean culture. I blogged about my job as an English teacher and what it was like to live in rural Korea.

Now that I've acclimated myself to Korea culture, the ideas I have for blogs seem less urgent. So while I have many things to write about, they don't seem as pressing as they did back when I first arrived. Plus, this past month I've been a big nerd and have had my nose buried in books. I've re-read through the Harry Potter series in preparation for the upcoming movie and final book, I've read Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and began re-reading my favorite books as an adolescent, the Mars Trilogy. Like I said: big nerd.

However, now with the school semester winding down, and my plans for next year decided, I have some more time to devote to writing. So hopefully, I'll get back into blogging after a three-week absence.

Joshua: the interview

Someone has noticed the insightful analysis I bring to the field of expats teaching English in Korea. Hah. I was recently interviewed by Expat Interviews. I think its safe to say that this is decidedly non-controversial (don't want to add more fodder for the hatters right?)

If you are thinking of moving overseas, or just want to understand the life of an expat, I recommend the site. Its design isn't very flashy, its the content that's important right?

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Links:
Expat Interviews

Messed

So, a few hours after posting about how to make the slideshow, I broke the on on my blog, along with some other elements. Hah.

Picture Slide Show...

I got a recent question from The Eller Family about my picture slide show. The slide show is generated based on Picasa Web Albums and was created using a widget created by "Phydeauxredux".

Making your own Google Picasa sideshow widget is easy:

• Use Google Picasa 2 to upload photos online
• Go to the widget creator
• From Picasa Web Albums, select your gallery's RSS feed. This is found on the bottom right corner of every gallery page. To chose all of photos, go to your main page and chose the feed on that page.
• Select your options.
• Generate your the code and either cut-n-paste into your own widget, or if you're using the new Blogger, press the "add widget" button to put it automatically on your blog.

Hope that helps.

Shout out

Wanted to offer shout out to a friend who recently posted his 400th blog entry. He's been at it for over four years--back before Blogger was owned by Google. He introduced me to blogging and taught me the word blog.

First Blog of 2007

I've been absent from my blog for a few reasons. Just before Christmas, I left on a trip to spend Christmas with some other English teachers and then on to Seoul. Quite frankly, I didn't have the motivation to write much when I came back. Also, quite frankly, I've been afraid of what I might write.

Over the next few days, I'll be updating the blog with the expected New Year's resolutions post, a recount of my trip to Seoul. For those of you who are steady readers and have been disappointed by my lack of updates, I encourage you to subscribe to my blog via RSS or XML Syndication (Found under the Syndication heading on the right menu bar). That way, you get the new posts when I update and don't have to check back over and over if I'm absent.

Most home pages and e-mail programs include an RSS reader as do Firefox and Internet Explorer 7. Also, the blog isn't viewed properly in Internet Explorer 6. If you have a problem, upgrade to Firefox or Internet Explorer 7.

Metablog Post

I changed the name of the blog from "An American in Gyeongsangnam" to "An American in Geoje." I originally titled my blog before stepping foot in Korea. I didn't understand how large the province is, or how relatively isolated Goeje is from the rest of Korea. Don't get me wrong, Geoje has many connections to the rest of the Korea, just not as many as the mainland. This blog is more about me and my life on the island, as opposed to the province of Gyeongsangnam as a whole.

Second, I signed up for Technorati, the main blog ranking service. I found out that my blog is ranked 875,205th. It seems that the ranking is based solely on how many other blogs link to a particular blog.

I also found that a number of people who I don't even know have linked to my blog. So, I offer up links to their blogs:

• The Documentarist - another American teaching English in Korea
• The Offshore Wife - an American moving to South Korea with her family soon
• Torgo Devil - a "Geek" in Korea. I read his blog daily, and have linked to his blog for months now. He's very funny and offers a good glimpse into life in bigger city in Korea.

Without headlines to make my personal blog famous like Heather "Dooce" Armstrong, or a hot topic like politics or gadgets to bring the readers in, I suppose my blog will be relegated in the upper 800,000s in the rankings. My goal will be for it to hit 800,000th by February 1st!