Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Christmas in Korea

Okay, this is a little late, I apologize. The last week of work before vacation was a little hectic due to the winter camp we've been planning for in the ET, so I haven't had the ridiculous amounts of time to work on this thing that I usually have!! Thank-you to everyone who sent me a card!! Love you guys!!

Christmas was good over here in Korea, but I really missed a lot of family and friends over there in Canada. Ahhh... eucre (sp??) and drinking on Christmas eve with the family! That year dad decided he could out-drink everyone and ended up wearing a purple, flowery women's hat (and later spent the rest of the night puking). Bridget baking lots of food at 69 Peppler, playing Christmas music which would be met with lots of complaining from me! sigh.

For X-mas a-la-Korea, on Saturday I met up with Laurel in Gwang-ju where we went out for dinner at a Korean restaurant (I know, weird huh?) downtown then watched an unremarkable Hollywood Christmas movie (The Holiday). My movie watching standards, which were never high, have decreased dramatically since moving here. Last night I was glad to find this god-awful movie featuring Julia Styles on my sometimes-in-english-channels-but-don't-expect-too-much tv. It was about this girl who fell in love with this guy who ends up being the prince of Denmark and all the usual crap happens; "You lied to me!!" "Sorry bout that. I didn't want anyone to know" "I am so mad at you!!" "Will you marry me?" "Okay, but I'm still pissed at you. I'm a down-to-earth American who's very intelligent and not at all interested in being a Queen." etc etc.

Okay, what was I talking about? Ahhh... well anyway, we went to a korean restaurant. Here's what a typical meal in Korea looks like (that's Laurel looking dumb on the left):

In the middle is a little mini grill for the pork that will later be wrapped up in a leaf with some sauce. There are also a couple servings of Kimchi (of course), some dried seaweed with sesame oil, some seaweed soup, some sort of cooked mushrooms, green chili peppers, various leafy greens, bean paste, cabbage salad, rice, garlic, onion etc etc.

Then we headed out to "Speak Easy" a waygooken owned bar in Gwang-ju where there was a big Christmas party happening (along with a band). Here are some pictures of the night of revelry in which I acted with the utmost decorum the entire night:


So here's Stu and Jessica, both looking cute and maybe a little drunk.


And this is Melisa and some guy named Francis, who was definitely a little drunk.


Virginia, Chad, Nicola and Santa (Amy), representin' for the Jeolla Privince.


Max and Jeannie. Not sure what the face is about, but it's a funny picture.

So yeah, that was the day before Christmas eve, and while a lot of fun, was "a bit of a shit-show" (meaning there were lots of really drunk people I think) as someone succinctly put it. On Christmas eve, I went over to Alex's for dinner where he had made CHILI. First time in over four months. It was delicious. Then we sat around watching Korean music channels.

Friday, December 22, 2006

Merry Christmas to All (And to All a Good Night)

Merry Christmas to all in snowy, cold, and snowy Canada!! It's getting cold over here, but snow can't seem to stay on the ground for more than a few hours. And I can't wait to go to Thailand so I can lay about on the beach and sip refreshing beverages reading a book. I have three days off for Christmas (back to work on the 26th) and plan to spend that time complaining about afforementioned holiday.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Alex, I'm Sending This to Your Mother Unless You Give Me Money


For shame young man!! I was looking through my photo's on my computer and found this one of Alex, looking very James Dean. I'd like a million won please.

In other non-news, it's three in the afternoon and I'm practicing my Korean. Here's a sample:

지송 함니다 (chio-song-ham-ni-da)- sorry

어떻게지내세요 (o-ddah-kae-chi-na-sae-yo)- How are you?

정말 맛있었어요! (chong-mal-mas-iss-oss-o-yo)- That was delicious!

I have way too much time on my hands. I need an at-work hobby that looks like it could actually be work. Mom's thinking "Cathy! You whiner! Why don't you actually DO WORK???".

Wishful Thinking

This morning just before my alarm clock woke me (obnoxiously playing "Feliz Navidad", which will be stuck in my head all freaking day), I was having the most wonderful dream. I was shopping with the waygook Wednesdayer's (Monique, Stu, Max) in a CANADIAN grocery store (the Independant Grocer in Exeter, ha ha). I was buying the ingredients to make myself some tacos (not sure why), and some pink lemonade (sigh!) to go with it. I think we were still in Korea, it was just a "Canadian style" grocery store. I guess I must have been hungry this morning.

Oh, and parents, thanks for the package!!! For whatever reason customs in Seoul was very interested in the contents (they even cut through the duct tape for me, very classy by the way DAD). I think when they saw the turtles and wrapped gifts they realized you weren't trying to smuggle WMD's into the country and sealed it back up. Oh, and I got your Christmas card as well, which I agree is REALLY tacky but I loved it anyway.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Happy Birthday Mom!!

The big 5-0!!! Congrats mom!!! As I tried to tell you earlier, 50 is the new 30, so don't worry about it! I haven't seen you for four months, but I know you look beautipul (as a Korean would say because there's no 'f' in the Korean language)!! And a late blog happy birthday to Tracy as well!!

Not much going on today as usual. Same dialogue different day. Except that I found out Mr. Yoon has to work somewhere else after winter break. Teacher's here can only work at one school for four years before they're moved to another school, so they're going to be replacing Mr. Yoon! EEEK!!! That really sucks. Apparently the new co-teacher is going to be a female as well, which could end up being a bad thing. There's already enough estrogen with myself, Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Kim. I just hope this new person isn't a children hating, waygook hating, English hating psycho.

Yesterday I had one of my student classes, and I think my "foreign appeal" is starting to wear off, which sucks because now I'll actually have to be a decent teacher for the kids to like me. Most of them behave pretty well though, I think my biggest annoyance is Ye-jin, and she's ridiculously cute even when annoying. Yesterday I was teaching the kids how to tell time in english, which was fun. In one hand I held a big clock and was quizzing the students, and my other hand was held by Ye-jin who was swinging around like a little monkey, singing some sort of Korean Christmas song (the other students laughing at me the entire time). She knows english pretty well, but she's a lot younger than the other students, and only goes because her grandfather (Mr. Yoon) makes her. She usually spends most of the class doodling on the handouts and muttering to herself, or running around trying to erase stuff I had written on the board. Little monster. She's always running up to me with drawings she's done of me. Hahahahahahha, she knows I call her "monster" (affectionately, I swear) all the time, so on one of the drawings it said 케티=바보, which means "Cathy=foolish, or stupid". Shithead.

Friday, December 15, 2006

The Naj: A True Story

So on Waygook Wednesday Monique, a Yongsanpoer, pulls out this book about Naju. It's meant to be a textbook to help people learn english, and it's filled with an insane amount of propaganda. Apparently Naju is a "meca for cyclists"! Here's an example (I'm paraphrasing just a bit):

Seren: I heard that Naju is quite famous for it's skate* dating back to the Hannwanyoung-ilsan (that's totally made up) dynasty. Is this true?

Byeong-wan: Why yes it is Seren. It is a very well known fact indeed! Naju and Yongsanpo is quite famous for its delicious and aromatic skate. People travel to Naju from all over the world just to try it. Would you like to accompany me to one of the many scenic and beautiful restaurants in Naju to partake in a sampling of this fine delicacy?

Seren: Why, that would be wonderful. (later) Mmmmm... machisseyo! (delicious in Korean, but for foreigners, often means "interesting" or "wow, that's really gross")

* Skate is... an aquired taste. It is a fish that smells strongly of ammonia (pee!!!) that is often served raw. I think the only way Korean's can stomach it is served with the red chili pepper sauce and wrapped in a leaf. And no, there aren't any scenic/beautiful restaurants in Naju.

The Naj: A True Story

The Naju Mary

Monique: Hey Byeong-wan, I heard that there was a statue of Mary that cried tears of blood.

Byeong-wan: Yeah, it looked pretty gross.

Monique: Did god make it happen?

Byeong-wan: No, no! It was Julia, the hairdresser who owns the statue. She also claimed to have stigmata at one point.

Monique: Cool!

Byeong-wan: Yeah, it was pretty cool.

The Naju Ajumma

Stuart: Who are all of those old ladies I see all over the place in Naju?

Byeong-wan: They're called AJUMMAS. Ajumma's are important to Naju economically because they are needed to work in the rice, pear and melon fields. They work for absurdly low wages and are forced to sell their fruit and various beans on the street or out of trucks.

Stuart: Mmmmm, the Naju pear. I've heard they're delicious.

Byeong-wan: They sure are!!! But make sure you peel of the skin before you eat them or you'll probably die a horrible death.

Stuart: Oh, okay. Why do all of the ajumma's look so similar?

Byeong-wan: A very good question Stuart!! There are certain guidelines to becoming an ajumma.

1. She needs to have a perm.
2. Wear one of those huge visors.
3. Long-sleeved shirts in various garish colour combinations.
4. Flood pants.
5. A cane.


Sigh. Yeah, I need a life. It's Friday afternoon and my last class ended at 12:30pm. Went to the post office to send another package to the parents which ended up being a half hour long ordeal, but an amusing time-killer at the same time. The post-office guy tries so hard to make me understand! He even went online and translated a few words, but when he read it to me, I just wasn't getting it so eventually I asked him to write it in Korean so I could show it to someone to translate for me. He wanted me to know that the post-office would be sending a text message (In Korean!) to my cell phone once the package arrived. I love how much Koreans care. Some woman named Josie from the Phillipines also wrangled my phone number from me so that we could "hang out and have fun". Then I saw James Bond on the street on the way back to work (James Bond is really cute. He's an elementary student from another school in Naju who feels the need to tell me his name is James Bond EVERY TIME HE SEES ME. Yeah, I get it kid, you're 007). Then I saw two cars try to cross one of the bridges at the same time and a guy in a white car scraped the entire length of his car against the cement railing. Dude! Just wait for the other guy to go!!! I accidentally made eye-contact with the driver as I was cringing over the sound. Whoops. So many things can happen on a trip to the post office!!

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Shift the Blame

I'm not sure how we got on this topic, but my co-teacher's and I were talking about our general feelings towards Americans, and George Bush. At one point I cracked a joke about blaming American's for something ignorant I'd done in Korea (for example that day I had forgotten to change my outdoor shoes to my indoor shoes because I was in a hurry). After I said it I was instantly regretful, thinking the joke would not be well-recieved. But Mrs. Lee, my super-nice and always polite co-teacher replied "Koreans do the same thing. When they've done something bad, they just say they're Japanese". Hahahahahahahahahaha. Is it wrong that I found that really funny?

Monday, December 11, 2006

The Test

Stolen directly from Alex's website, and so true it's sick:

Step right up and take the test!
Keep score on a piece of paper. Yes or No:

1) Do you like Kimchi?
2) Does Kimchi prevent Cancer?
3) Does Kimchi prevent AIDS?
4) Does Kimchi prevent Homosexuality in pregnant women's unborn children?
5) Do you say the word "Maybe" more than the word "like"?
6) If you sleep in a room with the doors and windows closed and the fan on, will you die?
7) Do you like Super-Cutie-Junior?
8) Are the boys in Super-Cutie-Junior handsome?
9) When your cell-phone rings, does it take priority over every present conversation no matter the situation?
10) Is your cell-phone's ring something cute and bubbly?
11) Do you not know what I'm talking about, because you've only heard it called a "handeu-pone"?
12) Is K-1 awesome?
13) Do you and your significant other wear matching outfits?
14) Are you the same size?
15) Do you eat the same food for every meal of every day?
16) Is 10 degrees Celcuis parka-weather?
17) Does eating dog prevent colds in winter?
18) Does eating dog give you a better sex-life (for males only)?
19) Do you know your blood-type for the same reason Hippies know their astrological sign?
20) Is pink the most manly colour in the rainbow?
21) Should Ginseng be made into suck-candies?
22) Is live squid a bar-treat? (like peanuts, but moving!)
23) Soju tastes great!
24) Men should have long fingernails for optimal beauty.
25) Do you cross your arms in an X when expressing a negative or saying no?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, ask your parents about your family history -- there may be some Korean blood in there.
















I'd like to counter Alex's list with a "Why I love Korea List".

Why I Heart Korea

1. The first time I had to take a bus somewhere, I made myself really annoying and attempted to ask lots of gesturing, poorly spoken questions so that I could figure out when to get on the bus. Now, when that same old man I harassed see's me coming, he demands to see my ticket so he knows where I'm going and yells for me when my bus gets there. I love it. I haven't gotten on the wrong bus yet.

2. Every now and then in my English town when I come back from lunch the kids swarm around me and give me cookies, chips and various other dessert snacks from their lunch. I love elementary kids!

3. Every now and then I can get an old ajumma to crack a smile at me, even if she does think I'm a strange looking "megook saram" (the dreaded "American person"). Once I walked past a group of mountain ajumma's (these are a different breed of ajumma; they wear bright pink jump-suits, and they're much more spry); when they saw me they all stared as usual, and one ACTUALLY SAID HELLO to me. When I said hello back they thought it was the funniest thing ever.

4. I can buy a freshly cooked sweet potato at 4am.

5. The mountains.

6. The heated floor in my apartment.

7. Having money in my bank account that I didn't have to borrow, or shovel shit, or clean a dish, or climb up a 30 foot ladder to get. My job is sweet.

8. Celebrity status for being a person from another country. Very surreal.

9. Things I had never experienced before: the ocean, being in a temple, sleeping in pagodas, playing volleyball with a bunch of intense Korean men, norae-banging (karaoke) with drunken teachers, travel.

10. Meeting lots of interesting people.

The one reason I've found to not like Korea: a bouncer at a night club named "Dong Yang Nights" in Gwang-ju wouldn't let us in because we were white. The bouncer was a jerk. Oh, and ginseng candies are NASTY little things. They have this disgusting dirt aftertaste. They even smell like pungent dirt to me. Ugh.

In other news, I'm off to Wolchulsan again this weekend, weather permitting. And this wednesday, the "Wednesday Waygook Night" will be expanding it's members to include a bunch of foreigners that work together at some christian school in Naju, and possibly the Naju Mormons. We're all going to go bowling. Sounds like a Craaaaaazy party to me!!!

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Manifesto

I was trying to find an essay I had written for some grad school applications (they said they didn't recieve it, which is crazy because I checked only about a million times!) and I found this manifesto I wrote. First, you need to know that art school is often all about the bullshit. Second, that I sometimes have too much time on my hands.

Manifesto of a Nihilist Decoupagist

Nihilism is really none of your business you sad little conformist. Because I am a nihilist, I don't even truly believe in nihilism, for that would make me believe in something-- contravening all nihilistic views (of which there are none)-- which is impossible.

Decoupage is your grandmothers business. An intensely care-oriented and crafty pastime: decoupage is the art of gluing pictures of anything to virtually any object (preferrably something of great sentimental value). Decoupagists are often older females who are retired or in some way phyically disabled, so they have lots of time.

I am a nihilist who is as interested in decoupage as a nihilist can possibly be. When you don't care about anything it can be difficult creating art, so half of my 'craft' is in the thought process.

As I glue celebrity faces (usually Justin Timberlake) to lamps, jewellery, boxes, photo albums, and various other objects, I often think about how I don't care about the object I'm decorating, I don't care about the pictures that I have painstakingly cut out, and I certainly don't give a shit about the glue holding all of those pictures on. I don't believe in galleries, art, or even the art object; therefore I have no concerns about whether or not what I'm doing is even art.

Other loser-nihilist-wannabes will read this and say "Oh Mighty Cathy, if you are such a devout nihilist, why are you even bothering to write a manifesto?" To that nihilist-wannabe I reply: "Shut-up, jerk-store. I am a true nihilist because I supercede even the bounds of nihilism. No popular social, quasi-religious ideals could possibly touch me due to the depth of my not caring about anything."

On the days (there are many) when I can't be bothered to do my decoupage based on principals of nihilism, I try not to think about it. I don't consider its relation to contemporary art, and simply couldn't give a flying f*** about what my work could mean to the world in general. Probably nothing. Potentially something, but probably nothi........

The Mighty Cathy, not that it really matters.



On a completely different topic, it's friday here in Naju ET. The week has gone by REALLY fast as usual. Yesterday as I arrived at my school, I walked past the administration building and noticed a few broken windows. And when we opened up the english town, there were four more broken windows!! Someone's NOT a fan of english apparently. One of my co-teacher's swore it was a "Naju gang", which struck me as pretty hilarious. I can just imagine the Naju Gang: a bunch of local toughs with dramatically styled hair, wearing three piece metrosexual suits and carrying expensive handu-pone's, sitting in the "BMW Bar" plotting their dramatic attack on Naju Elementary School. Ha! It was probably some old guy who'd had WAAAY to much Soju. This is roughly what a Naju gang member would look like:



Of course it's ACTUALLY a picture of the beloved Eun-hyuk of Super Junior, but you get the idea. Most young Korean men look and dress a lot like this. Doesn't just looking at him strike fear into your heart?

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Hidden Dangers in K-Town

So last night I was walking home from work, minding my business as usual, Saying "hi" to the random kid that screamed my name. Then as I was about to get to my apartment complex, about five older Korean men stopped me in my path. One grabbed my arm and basically pushed me to the side of the street, off the sidewalk. I found my self standing before some old guy, not knowing what the hell was going on. Then he reached inside this archaic oven of some kind...(dramatic pause, building of tension)... and pulled out a big, cooked sweet potato and handed it to me. I started to laugh at this point, and when I tried to pay him for it, he refused. I had to drop the thing because it was so hot (it had just come out of an oven) and all the old guys laughed at me as they ate theirs. So beware the streets of Korea; there are people lurking around, wanting to give you free food. When I got home I cracked that baby open... mmm sweet-potato goodness. Korean's consider the sweet-potato to be a dessert, which I think is hilarious.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Okay, So MAYBE I'm Mentally Disturbed




I got a package!!

Mother, as you can see I've put your Christmas presents to good use! I was trying to think of something I could use that was around the house to decorate the tree, and for whatever reason I thought of the big article about Kim Jong Il that I read in a "Newsweek" that I bought here. And so the "Il(l) Angel" was born. As I've said many times before, I've got a lot of free time after school. I can assure you this is not a political message. Hahahahhahahaha. And if you think this is disturbing, you should see my sketchbooks!

Today all of the elementary school kids (even first grade!) have exams, so I have absolutely no classes, but I'm stuck here anyway, so this is going to be a long entry. Last night as I sat on my heated floor eating dinner (KD) and watching America's Next Top Model, I almost felt like I was at home in Canada. Sigh. Yeah, I'm getting a little homesick. It's just going to be weird not seeing everyone at Christmas.

Hahahahahahahaha. My co-teachers just informed me that in December I'll be teaching two teacher's workshops per week instead of the usual one. When I laughed and asked "When was this decided???" they said I should know about it because "they gave me a document that had all the information". Of course, said document was entirely in Korean!!! The only English on the entire piece of paper is my name, which is less than helpful. Add to this the fact that they give me a lot of documents entirely in Korean; I think my confusion was a little justified. Ahhhh, it's a good thing I'm not in a rotten mood today, or that whole debacle would really irk me. When I asked why there would be two classes per week rather than one, they told me it was to use up excess budget, which means I'll be paid more, so how can I be upset?? There's also the fact that half of those classes will most likely be cancelled for one reason or another, and I will still be paid for them. Korean inter-office politics are so gloriously corrupt.

oh wait, Mr. Yoon, the office elder has left the room and the truth comes out!! He had just decided to go with that particular schedule about ten minutes before they told me. So funny. He also decided that he wanted his granddaughter to sit in on the student classes we teach, and that he would be there to make sure she behaved herself. So Mrs. Kim wanted me to teach her class today because she was afraid of having him in her class ("Stress! It give me stress! Cathy!! Change-ey!!"). My response: Anio!! Anio!! Opsoeyo! (basically no).

On a totally different topic; I have my travel dates (Jan 20- feb 2nd-3rd-4th)!! I have two weeks to go anywhere in the world I desire; I am bound by nothing. So of course I have no idea where I will go. Alex is going to Rome for a couple of weeks; Kristen and Maura are travelling around Vietnam/Thailand/Cambodia for over a month; others are going to Mexico, New Zealand, Australia; but I'm not sure about myself. I've decided that this weekend I'm going to take the KTX to Seoul and go to a random travel agent and say "book me on a warm, exciting tour to anywhere at a decent price". Then I can get my visa's while in Seoul and all will be sorted out.

Things I would like to do while in Teaching Konglish for a year:

1. see at least three other Asian countries (Japan and China would be easy!).
2. go someplace like Thailand and swim with some sharks (I found some packages where I can do this!! Sweet!).
3. lie on a really hot beach by the ocean sipping an exotic beverage (I've already done that, but it was a beach in Korea, so it didn't count).
4. See a "world wonder"- Ankor Watt (sp?) in Cambodia for example.
5. Climb a REALLY tall mountain (or a few).
6. Visit another continent (other than asia and america); perhaps Australia.
7. Learn how to say "hello", "thank you" etc in 10 languages. (Hello, bonjour, annyong haseyo (korean), konicheewa (Japanese), Hola (spanish), Guten Tag! (German).... that's all I can think of at the moment).
8. show some drawings or paintings in a gallery in Gwang-ju.
9. think of some kind of gimmick as catchy as "wherethehellismatt.com" so that people will actually want to read my blog.
10. do some kind of crazy cross-country rainforest trek.
11. make some korean friends. There don't seem to be any Koreans my age in Naju that speak any English. A good-looking guy who lives in my building tried to talk to me in the elevator one morning. But after the "Nice to meet you's" and "how are you's" were exhausted, I could tell that was pretty much all he knew. And my knowlege of Korean is meagre at best.
12. learn more Korean!!!
13. Go to a jimshilbang (sp?). They're these "sauna rooms" that are all over the place. For a small price, maybe W6000, you can swim and relax. But it's a gender segregated area and so everyone walks around naked. My town is so small that EVERYONE there would recognize me. I'm not the nameless foreigner that they see hanging around all naked and westerner-like; I'm Kesi from Naju English Town. I don't want people discussing my big white-girl body. Apparently old ajumma's will blatantly stare, or even go in for a grab as well; which seems a little too scary to me. I think I'll go sometime when I'm in Seoul. When I'm in Seoul, no one stares or bothers to say hello on the street because westerners aren't a big deal.
14. Oh yeah, and become a good teacher.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Murder at the Juice Joint

Another interesting weekend in Mokpo! It was Maura's 25th Birthday over the weekend, so we all gathered in Mokpo to celebrate. How did we do this? We dressed up like 20's stlye police officers, mobsters, crooks, actresses, etc. and got a little drunk. We were all invited to solve a murder at the "Juice Joint" where anyone could be the killer, in fact the killer didn't even know until it was announced. Laurel, the Chief of Police had committed the crime and ONE person guessed that it had been her, sadly enough. This just proves that an open bar helps NO ONE solve crimes.








I had also been meaning to take part in another "free hugs" campaign, but once we got out there it was raining and snowing and I was feeling sick with ANOTHER cold, so I got about one hug before I had to call it a day. I didn't want to spread my disease to unsuspecting citizens wanting a hug.

This is just something I found kind of funny; my elevator was "under the maintenance" on Friday. Note the cute little character; no billboard in Korea can be effective if there isn't a cute little animation somewhere.

Friday, December 01, 2006

Ummm... Rooster



Sorry mom, I know this is a little... offbeat. But if you saw a big restaurant named "Cock" in South Korea, wouldn't you probably think it was a little funny???? It is some sort of Korean food restaurant that must sell lots of chicken (I hope). Went into Gwang-ju last night to see a movie that ended up being out of theatres, so sadly enough, this restaurant was the highlight of the night.

Got into a discussion with a fellow Naju-ite last night (on the bus ride into Gwang-ju) about a movie called "Waking Life". "Waking Life" is a bit of a philosophical movie about this man's state of consciousness. He is always mistaking his dreams for reality, and vice versa, so he never knows when something is ACTUALLY happening. Maybe I'm not really in South Korea, I'm not teaching english, and I'm not a "round-eyed Godzilla-esque monster; it's all a bizarre, surreal dream. I still have a lot of "Oh my god, I'M LIVING IN KOREA" moments. Like taking the city bus for example; it's all so very normal until I look out the window and see temples, big statues of Buddha's, ENDLESS apartment complexes, street vendors selling dried octopus, and lots and lots of Paris Baguette's*.

* For whatever reason the store "Paris Baguette" is HUGE here. Even Naju has one, which is saying a lot. It's your usual bakery type store (with some Korean influences of course) and they're all over the place. I'd never heard of the place until I came here; I don't recall ever seeing one in Canada. Can someone prove me wrong?

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Shameless Self Promotion and Misc.

I wanted to get ahold of some profs at my old university, so I was looking around on the fine arts website and found one of my paintings. OOOOhhh! My English Town kids are right!! I AM famous afterall. Here it is:



This painting was made using spraypaint and dripped wax; right now it's sitting in my old bedroom at my parents house. So famous!!

The class we have in today is so cute it's not even funny. They all have the dialogues memorized perfectly and treat me as though I am this wonderful big doll to look at and talk to (in Korean, so I have no idea what's going on). The boy who speaks the best english asked be if I was single, then went and reported my answer to all his buddies. And the girls follow me around holding my hand and asking me for stickers. "Sunsangnim!!! Sunsangnim!! Sticker juseyo!!" (teacher!! teacher!! sticker please!!). Of course I say no; I've become a bit of a sticker Nazi; "You, child! You may only recieve a sticker if you deserve it!!", "You lost your sticker??? Too bad!!! No sticker for you!", "If you talk, NO STICKER!!", " If you don't talk, NO STICKER!!" and so on.

Mom, this next picture is for you. For Christmas can you send me some of this hair gel? You can find it in any shopper's Drug Mart or some such place, but NOT in Korea since people don't have curly hair here (except the old ajumma's who have their hair permed). It's called a "curl booster" on the label, and it smells nice, and I'm running out already!!















This next picture is just plain funny. Packaging is so bizarre. There's always gotta be a face on everything or it's just not edible. These are some delicious potatoes that also coincidentally have cute faces.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

The Way in Which Korea is Destroying My Brain

This may end up being a bit of a rant. I know I'm supposed to be writing a dreamy "dear diary" about the majestic Korean mountains, the interesting cultural ideas, the people etc etc. I should be whiling away my hours with useful, interesting pursuits. And of course, while at work, I should be working instead of writing this!!!

But here I am, and the thing that is slowly shutting down my brain is t.v. Every night when I get home from work I watch the show "America's Next Top Model". It's about a bunch of dumb, bitchy girls competing to have the best walk and prettiest touched up photo's. It's a trainwreck, But I watch it anyways.

This morning as I walked to school my mind was wandering (as usual) and I found myself imitating the model walk from that stupid show. *shudders in disgust*

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHH!!!

I blame you korea, for only playing bad action movies (usually featuring Steven Seagall) and reality tv in English. Of course I could blame myself for turning on the tv, but that's not what whiners such as myself do.

Monday, November 27, 2006

"Oh!!! So Beautipul!!" (in Konglish accent)




This is a picture of Alex and myself at my little birthday gathering. Mom, if you're thinking "my, Cathy and Alex look like they may just be drunk", banish the thought!! I would never!! Hahahahahhahahaaha. Yeah, I'd had some soju by this point. So of course we were talking about the students, and started joking about their favourite pose. Of course it's much cuter when it's two little Korean girls rather than two drunk waygooken.

So yeah, not much going on in the ET today. We've got a bunch of little monsters in from Yongsanpo. We're working our way through all the fifth-graders in the area and the boys are little shitheads. I've had to employ the "Cathy-stare-of-death" on several occasions, and sometimes it doesn't work for very long. Having a hideous face can come in handy every now and then to scare some kids.

Note: Alex is wearing a big home-made poppy that Maura made for everyone because it was November 11th.

Friday, November 24, 2006

My First Teacher's Workshop

A screaming success by all accounts. Ha ha ha. Three people showed up. Today there was some sort of volley ball tournament, so there was only a couple of diehards, which I didn't imnd. A small class is so nice because most adults are very shy about their English skills. Since there were only a few of them, it was a lot easier to get everyone talking. We played "two truths and a lie", which was fun. I had to do an example first, and my lie was "I have six children". Needless to say they got it right!

It ended up being very laid back and S-L-O-W. I'm still not very good at speaking slowly and simply. It was nice to get it all over with though, for whatever reason I had been slightly stressed about it (due to the fact have I have recieved "worrying genes" from my mother, the biggest worrier of all time!).

Loves ya mom and dad and siblings and extended family!! I just want to go home for the weekend and see everyone, but that, of course, would be crazy. I would spend most of the weekend on the plane!! Gak!!

The Place to be in Naju-shi

Three months later, I finally have my first teacher's workshop today. We shall see how that goes. It's hard to believe I've already been here three months!! So, nine month's more of being the waygook puppet (dancing for everyones entertainment), which sounds good to me.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Randomness as Per Usual

Happy Birthday to Marcia!!
Happy Birthday to Marcia!!
etc. etc., da da da da do do

So old! OLD!! (two years older than me). Criticise my grammar will you!!!

This week we have a bunch of fifth graders in from the same school, and I don't know what they're teachers have been telling them, but for some reason I'm a HUGE celebrity. All of these kids have digital cameras and they want a picture with the "Round eyed godzilla-esque celebrity" named Kesi (that is how my name is spelt in Korean- 캐 시). (I have no idea how to spell "round eyed godzilla-esque monster".) Needless to say it's been a lot of fun. They all stare at my pictures in the textbook then look at me and whisper to eachother. Of course it's in Korean, but I have a pretty good idea it goes something like this:

Ji-hwan: ohh!! It's her!! I heard her name is Candy!

Hae-young: Dude!! She is weird looking!!

Ji-hwan: Is that a perm? Did she dye her hair?? Her head is so narrow and funny looking!

Hae-young: Maybe. Oh god, she's looking at us. Don't look at her!!

Ji-hwan: Do you think she knows we're talking about her??

Of course I know!! You're gesturing at me and whispering!! Bunch of heathens!! But I don't actually mind; usually it's really funny.

Hmmm.. not really sure what else is worth writing about. Not really a lot going on in the Cathy universe at the moment. Watched an interesting Korean movie (called "Welcome to Dongmakgol") over the weekend.

It was set during the second world war in a village in South Korea that was so isolated that the inhabitants had no idea that there was even a war going on, or what a gun was. First an American soldier crashes his airplane near their village and they take him in. The most hilarious part of the movie is when the smartest man in the village tries to talk to him using a phrase book. The old man asks "How are you?" and the American is supposed to reply "Fine, and you?" but of course the American starts talking to him normally. The old man becomes flustered and complains to the other villager that the American doesn't know the rules to conversations. This just struck me as so unbelievably true. Kids always come up to me and say "teacher! Teacher! How are you??" and if I reply with anything other than "fine, and you?" they are completely lost. The American pilot's name is something boring and stereotypical like John Smith, but all of the villagers call him "Su Miss!!". Quite apt.

Next a few North Koreans happen upon the village after their gang of soldiers has been killed in battle. Then, of course, a couple of South Koreans, which results in craziness and humour. I had never seen a WW2 movie from the Korean perspective, so it was very interesting.

Have a nice day!! Choun ha-roo doi-sei-yo! 좋은 하루 되세요!

Friday, November 17, 2006

Cathy!! Get over it!! It was just a mountain!!

that's what I would be thinking if I were you, because here are some more Wolchulsan pictures. Please bear in mind how bored I am a t work and the fact that these pictures were sent to me, and they were pretty.


This one's just a pretty picture.

This is Alex on a little side cliff at the top.

And Kristen and I on a small ledge on the way up.

My Personal Hell

Somewhere on tv, this commercial is playing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP490j9U7zc

To truly grasp the Korean experience, you must know a little something about Korean advertisements. Try watching this commercial about five thousand times and you will almost understand.

Demonstration Day

Today Naju ET has a 40 minute demonstration for various big-wigs and what-not (basically a bunch of old Korean guys in nice suits) to show what our classes are like. Of course, usually it goes from 9:30am until 3:30pm, but I'm sure we can fit it all in under an hour. No problem. The really annoying part is that that is the only class I have today.

I'm here for eight hours and I'll have an hours worth of class today. I was supposed to have a teacher's workshop, but couldn't possibly do it today; I'm far too busy!! So my workshop has been cancelled for the third time.

All else is well though. Except for a tiny cold, I am well rested and not too annoyed with anyone. It also helps that it's a Friday. Friday's are freaking wonderful. And I've decided I'm going to have a low key, relaxed weekend so that I don't feel like crap on Sunday, which is usually the way it works. My scheduled itinerary:

Friday night: take a bus to Mokpo to hang out with Kristen and Alex and whoever else we meet up with. Maybe see a movie if we can find an english one in theatres.

Saturday: head back to Naju, dump my stuff, then take a bus to Gwang-ju for some hardcore Christmas shopping for people back home. I'm probably just going to buy the weirdest stuff I can find!! There's a really good shinae (downtown) shopping area in Gwang-ju that will hopefully supply me with lots of konglish t-shirts, buddha's, and whatever weird, interesting stuff I can find. If anyone has some requests, get them to me soon, before I send out my packages.

Sunday: laze about, watch some old episodes of "Sex and the City" on tv (the tv here is turning my brain to mush), clean my apartment, and take a long walk on my mountains.

Sigh. Sounds good to me. I haven't had a single weekend where there wasn't some sort of big elabourate plan that resulted in me not sleeping for a night or two!! And no Soju for me this weekend either!!! Soju is a vodka like drink that is insanely cheap and easy to get and makes Cathy feel like crap.

Oh man, creepiest website ever!!! www.najumary.org. There is quite a cult following of the Naju Mary. On the site there are even pictures of the statue with the tears of blood!!! Creepy!! It's so weird to think that a huge pilgrimmage stop is literally a five minute walk from my apartment. I don't know why I'm so fascinated with it; but I just am. This is a little excerpt straight from the website (spelling errors and all) describing the "event":

Our Lady of Naju !

It was almost midnight on June 30,1985 when the Blessed Mother wept for the first time through her statue in Naju, at that time Julia Kim,the owner of the Statue was running her own a Beauty Salon in Naju.
The Blessed Mother's weeping tears and tears of blood continued intermittently for the next 7 years for a total of exactly 700 days until Jan 14,1992 Simultaneously with weeping,Our lady was also frequently sweating and bleeding, throught her nose.Another sign that the Blessed mother gave us in Naju was the fragrant oil through the same statue.She said that this fragrant oil and the fragrance of roses represented her presence,love and friendship for us.
Our lady gave us these signs for the conversion of sinners. She had accumulated the fragrant oil in the top of her head by squeezing all of herself for 400 days and began exuding the oil from the statue on Nov 24,1992 to Oct 23,1994 for 700 consecutive days.

Through centuries,the Blessed Mother has appeared at different places and given us the messages of Jesus ,for example,
in Guadalupe / Lourdes / Fatima / Medjugorej / Akita / Banneux and so on.In recent years, she has been weeping at several locations in the world. Especially, in Naju,Korea


CREEPY!! Alex says that I think everything's creepy, but this DEFINITELY is!!!!

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Almost a Teacher

I actually felt like a teacher today. After ET was done for the day, I had my extra class with about 20 grade five and six kids. And I think I may have done a pretty good job. They may have actually learned something. My co-teacher sat in the back and didn't say much. IT WAS AWESOME.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

More Wolchulsan Because I took So Many Pictures!!!

So here they are. My favourite is the one with Kristen and the random Korean men. The guy on her right is wearing a two-peice pirate skeleton jumpsuit. Very sexy!! I also like the "Danger Bear" warning that was on the suspension bridge.







I've decided that I need some sort of mission while here to keep me busy during the week, so my mission is to lose a little weight so that I can fit into some of the Konglish t-shirts I bought. There's apparently a gym somewhere in Naju, but screw that. The mountains will be my gym!! And I can do sit-ups during commercial breaks at night as I watch "On Style" tv (On Stle is my crack. All that is ever on is the worst of the worst American tv. Reality, bad sitcoms like friends and sex and the city, and more reality). Sound half-assed?? Oh, it is!! But this way I feel like I'm doing something. There's not much to offer in the way of entertainment in Naju.

My Class Ended at 12:30pm Today

What to do to fill time?? Well, for the first couple of hours I attempted to "surf" the web while also trying to look somewhat serious and busy. My co-teacher's are not fooled, I'm sure. So, I guess I'm going to blather on for a while about this and that. I was just reading other people's blogs, and they were filled with optomism and good attutudes. Bunch of freaks.

Not much going on here. Mr. Yoon is the nicest co-teacher anyone could hope for, but every morning when we greet the kids and he introduces them to me he says "Cathy lives in Naju, in Sangwol Joo Gong". Dude!! What are you doing?? I already have enough kids following me down the street, in the grocery store and around my apartment complex!!! Yesterday, a twelve year old boy (probably eleven in Canadian years), asked me if I had a boyfriend, then proceeded to tell me that he was single. So cute!! If only he was about fifteen years older. Of course if I told him to be quiet he would have no idea what I was saying, but is able to ask me about my romantic status. Those nutty kids. One day a boy came into the english town wearing a shirt that said "Reading is Sexy". I wanted to get a picture of me and him as I read a book SO FREAKING BADLY!!! But he had no idea what his shirt said, so he wouldn't have gotten it. Other funny shirt I saw; a grade two boy with a shirt that said "This is my boyfriend" and an arrow beneath. Love it.

Here are some pictures of the festival that was held at my school. It was absurdly cute.






My pictures didn't turn out very good, but there was also a little cowboy-girl number. Easily the cutest thing I have ever seen. Little kids shooting their fake guns into the air in a choreographed dance. Sometimes its a little disturbing how many kids like to carry around fake (but real looking) guns. And not cute little ones; big machine guns. I guess the boys are just mentally preparing for military service later on! The traditional dances and costumes in the festival were the best, particularly the fan-dance. I need to learn me some of that shit!!!



This is a "for-the-hell-of-it" picture featuring Alex at Wolchusan. It's one of those pseudo-artsy silhouette pictures. Enjoy.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Interesting

the availability of street meat, and other street foods. There are always ajumma's on the street selling something. On my walk home I can count about 10 vendors each day.

1. First, there is street meat lady; selling various meats on a stick.
2. Then on the right is squid octopus and and shrimp seller dude. I love watching shrimp swim around. They're really cute. They've got all those tiny little legs that are always flailing about. The guy that sells them is also really dreamy.
3-7. Various ajumma's selling leafy greens and mysterious grain products. I steer clear of them because they stare a lot and I have no idea what they're selling.
8. the sock man. just a big tent in the middle of the street I have to walk through. There are lot's of kinds of socks out there.
9. The guy with the big truck selling blankets and sleeping mattresses. I bought a mat from him and he made sure to tell me I was getting a sweet discount. Every Korean seems to know the word discount. If I'm in a cab and the price is w2100, he'll only take w2000 and say "discount!! discount!!". (In CDN, that would be about 12 cents.)
10. The fruit and vegetable lady. Persimmons, figs, bananas, grapes: whatever is in season.
12. The pastry fish vendor. They're deep-fried pastries with red bean in the centre. Ugh. Red bean is evil. It's touted as a "delicious and sweet" dessert type food, but I don't believe it.
13. Every now and then there is the "dried fish" vendor selling... various dried fishes. I'm going to send some home for christmas to scare people. The only kind I've had so far is the little minnows. It's the entire fish, but it's so small that it's just a little chewey and crunchy. Tastes like fish.

There's always a lot to see on the five minute walk home.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Wolchulsan Mountain 3

We make it to the top baby!!! Wooo!!! The view from the peak is of course, freaking gorgeous, and the day is clear and smog-free enough that we can see for miles. I could almost see the haze from the LG factory in Naju!!






Getting down the mountain only took us about an hour and a half because we took a very direct route so that we could make it out of there by nightfall. going down was also WAY WAY easier than going up!!! On the way up we were crawling over rocks, pulling ourselves up using ropes and going up the almost-vertical stair-master's from hell. It was a lot of fun!!!!

Wolchulsan Mountain 2

Since blogger doesn't want me to put more than a couple pictures up at a time, this'll be coming in chunks!!





This is us on the suspension bridge!! It was pretty sturdy, I'd say. After we'd gone across, we took a close look at the cables that hold the bridge up, and theyu appeared to be some sort of rubber or plastic!! Does that seem safe to you?? And there was also some sort of goop holding some stuff together which looked pretty shady, but we survived. By the time we got to the suspension bridge, I felt like we should be close to the top, but no no no. There was more to come. It took us almost four hours to get to the top because apparently we took the most picturesque and difficult way up the mountain. Just when we could see the highest peak, we'd end up going down the side, then up, then down etc.







These are just a couple of the sweet pictures I took. I ended up taking about 100 pictures at wolchulsan. I think people probably got annoyed with me as I had to stop multiple times so I could get a shot of some craggy mountainside for the twentieth time!! Today I'm in a lot of pain. My legs are pretty useless at the moment. There are about four steps I have to descend to leave my apartment in the morning and I almost didn't make it (a bit of hyperbole, shut-up marcia).







And here's me getting in the way of some more beautiful landscape. We had a little rest her on a small ledge and just looked at everything for a while. The higher we got, the more cold everything was, so it was nice to be able to rest in the sun and not freeze our asses off.






This is a picture of the view from that ledge which was pretty cool. It's slowly morphing into autumn over here, which makes for some pretty pictures.

Wolchulsan Mountain 1

Words cannot express how freaking huge and amazing that mountain is!! Since I come from a flat place like Ontario, this was easily the biggest mountain I've ever climbed. We arrived in Yongam at about lunch time and from the distance wolchulsan looked like no big deal. Wolchulsan is about 800m high, which isn't all that tall, but for a hick like me it was pretty amazing.





This is us after entering the park and preparing to tackle the mountain. Of course this was a great photo opportunity, so we enlisted the help of a friendly passerby to take our picture. Then when they were done, they wanted their picture taken with us!! If you look closely, you'll notice the random man on the left has a truly heinous mullet!! Mullets are a very frequent thing here in Korea which is both puzzling and entertaining for me. I can't quite pin down Korean style, and I don't think I ever will. It's definitely interesting. When we paid and were about to park, we saw about 10-15 tour buses and we realized we'd be sharing the mountain with A LOT of people!! We got a lot of "hello!"s and stares all day long, but that was okay.






Some of Stuart's middle school kids were even there at the extension bridge featured above and below, so he was a huge hit! At one point we were walking behind a huge troupe of Korean men, and a man in front of me turned around and thrust a candy into my hand saying "here". So I took it and popped it into my mouth with a muffled "komsamida" (thank-you). Then laughed to myself as I thought about what I would do if a strange man offered me candy in Canada. Here people are constantly giving me things on the street, or I'm giving my students stuff; it's just widely acceptable here, which I think is pretty awesome. At lunch I was offering oranges and pepero's to any Korean who would stop to look at us/ ask us where we were from. People always say "American?" and I always reply with "no no no!!! Canadian!!!!". Not same same.

Sience 1996

So the Naju-ites and I have officially found a new and interesting place to go. I'm not sure what the place is called, but we've lovingly dubbed it "Sience 96" (it's supposed to say since 1996, which is still funny, because 1996 wasn't that long ago)because that's the only thing on the sign in english. The outside is really cute and rustic, which is what initially drew us there. The lady who owns the joint was really friendly too! Not a word of english, and more than willing to laugh at our butchering of her language, but really smiley and helpful. My favourite part:





this "snack" she put on our table looked exactly like packing material. It was even shiny and came in strange colours not found in nature. Of course I ate some, and I'm pretty sure it tastes exactly like packing materials as well! But it's still a really cute place with cheap drinks!!

Friday, November 10, 2006

Pepero Day!! Everything I ever could have imagined!!!





Saturday, November 11th is something called "Pepero Day" over here in S.K. It seems to be a national day of eating cracker sticks covered in chocolate. Why?? I have no idea. Was there a dude named Pepero that we are honouring everytime we eat one? Perhaps, but I don't think so. I'm pretty sure Pepero day was thought up by the company that made pepperos so that they could actually sell their unremarkable chocolate covered treat. But I'm not complaining. A bunch of kids came up to me to give me some pepero's (then an equal number came over to beg some off of me), which was nice. The festival was today, and it was pretty cool! One of my co-teachers took over my class for me so I could watch for an hour. I've got picture's I'll be adding later.

On ACTUAL peppero day, I'll be at the top of Mt. Wolchusan, gazing over the wonderous vision that is smog-covered South Korea. At the top of the mountain is a big red suspension bridge that is supposedly really scary. I can't wait to go accross it!!To get all the way up and down the mountain apparently takes about 6 hours! EEkkk!! The important question: Will I pass out and die??



Tuesday, November 07, 2006

My Mountain

First, mom, dad, I got the stickers and DVD!! When I saw the DVD (Arrested Development Season Three!! Sweeeeet!) I gasped and scared the crap out of an old ajumma standing beside me waiting for the elevator. Whoops!!

So anyway, last night after work I went for a walk on my favorite mountain. Here are some pictures. It was a cloudy, rainy night so I was pretty much the only person on the mountain.










Pretty no? The last one is a picture of the entire city of Naju. It's pretty small eh? I can walk from one end to the other in half an hour. The pagoda at the top of the mountains makes for an excellent view. Just wait til next week! This weekend I'm going to go to Wolchusan (a HUGE mountain) with some friends. Those pictures should be way better as long as there isn't too much smog. I had no idea, but aparently there is a "yellow dust" season in Korea. Every spring the yellow sand from China blows through the South and covers everything including people!! At that time all the inhabiatants have to wear masks (some do already). Weird!!!