서예 - Korean Calligraphy

Six "fonts" for Hangul calligraphy; the phrase is: 창원한글학당: Changwon Hangul Hakdang (School). Plus, some hanja on the very left. I can read about half of the characters... pity.

Our calligraphy teachers demonstrating their skills!

Korean calligraphy, called 서예 (seoye), is an art that has been practiced in the country for hundreds, even thousands of years. The calligraphy that uses Chinese characters, which were introduced to the peninsula in the 2nd or 3rd century, is called 한자 (hanja). In 1443, King Sejong and his court invented a script for Korean that wasn't based in Chinese characters; this new writing system is called 한글 (hangeul), or Hangul. Currently, Korean calligraphy includes character writing in hanja and Hangul, as well as minimalist still life paintings of things like trees and flowers.

Yesterday was "Korean Culture Day" at the Korean class in Jungang-dong. I was only vaguely aware that there would be some food provided at the class, but what I didn't realize was that we were going to have a husband-and-wife pair of calligraphers come to show us their art and teach us the art itself. That, plus the 귤 (kyul/tangerines), 김밥 (kimbap/rice rolls), and 떡 (tteok/rice cakes) made it a party.

There was also a lottery at the end of the class/party, where winners received a calligraphy painting done by one of our teachers. I was the first one called! That's unusual... I almost never win lotteries of any kind. But I took home a nice painting of some reeds, as well as a painting of a hanja character: 忍 (Mandarin: rěn; Korean: in), which means "longsuffering", that the teacher did for me just on a whim.

It was fun to chat with the Korean teachers about hanja and how much they did or did not know. I also had a casual conversation with one of them about his Mandarin studies in college. A feeble attempt to retain my rapidly declining Mandarin...

Well, I didn't learn much Korean yesterday, but I got a taste of Korean culture, plus some souvenirs, so I guess that's good enough!

They also helped some of us make our own paintings! According to the teacher, traditional Korean painting is much simpler and minimalist than what you'll find in most Chinese paintings. There's a lot of white space left on the canvas.

무료 - Free!

무료 (muryo) means "free". I've found free weekly Korean classes in downtown Changwon, and the prospects are encouraging.

Personally, I require structure and a schedule to learn best. If you just gave me a book and told me to self-study, I'd end up leaving the book on a dusty shelf somewhere and forgetting about it. (Facebook Scrabble is just so much more fun!) But I also prefer to spend as little of my salary as possible. So, when Elani from church told me about a free Korean class offered at the community center, I jumped at the opportunity.

Braving the Changwon buses once more to go to the Jungang district (중앙동) this evening, I gave myself time to explore that area more. I did check out the local cheap clothes store, called Auckland, which I might describe as the closest thing to a hipster fashion joint in Changwon. It's been surprisingly difficult to find clothes in my size here (I thought Koreans were generally... small... like me), but this place had lots of clothes that fit and that caught the eye -- in multiple ways. Polka-dot jeans? Check. Paisley ascots? Check. Engrish tees? Check. I even found a sweater with mustache styles on it, as well as a shelf full of bowties! (And yes, I bought one, for just 5,000 won (<$5) !)

After resolving to come back in the near future, I made my way to the Jungang 주민센터 (community center), where the Korean classes are held. The class has been run by a Korean named Sunny since 1998, and as far as I'm aware it's always been free of charge, just his way of contributing to the community. Isn't that awesome? The class has maybe half a dozen foreigners in it, and just as many native Korean speakers. The format of the class is a one-on-one pairing, somewhat like a language exchange. On the downside, it's also geared for beginners, so I breezed through the level evaluation given by Sunny.

In the end, I just chatted in a mix of Korean and English with him and another Korean, Eva, and decided that I could come back weekly, if not for actual grammar lessons, then at least for solid conversational practice and 정-building. (My host parents are good, but there's much more Konglish involved in our communication than I'd like.)

Everyone was very pleasant and enthusiastic! They invited me to hang out at a coffee shop after class (it began at 7:30pm, ended at 9pm) and we stayed until 10pm. I met folks from Russia, England, Canada, and South Africa (South Africans are everywhere, what?); the international crowd is really awesome! I'm pleased that I found this place and I'm looking forward to my new Tuesday evening engagement.

Bread with Ice Cream

Let it be duly noted: Changwon bus drivers have insane road rage.

So, my good college friend Sung Min came to visit! He is originally from Daegu, and went to high school and college in the States. Since he only has a few days left in Korea before going back to the US to study, he hopped on a southbound train and came to Changwon!

"Downtown" Changwon, the Sangnam area. It's fairly lively! Nothing compared to a big city, though.

At 할매 낙지 for dinner!

After introducing him to my host family and catching up, we bussed to Changwon's 시내 (shinae, or downtown), although to be honest there isn't much there. It took us maybe twenty minutes to walk around the entirety of the few blocks. The district is called 상남동 (Sangnam-dong), and it along with 중앙동 (Jungang-dong) are what seem to be the nightlife-oriented areas in town.

To that end, there are plenty of bars (술집; suljip) and restaurants, more than a few 노래방, at least one club, and lots of people walking or wandering around. There are also three huge department stores (E-mart, Lotte-mart, and Lotte Department Store) and a movie theater that are open pretty late. Ooh, and apparently there is a dog cafe and a cat cafe! (Confused? Read here.)

Sangnam and Jungang are pretty small, but since this was only my first time visiting, I still have some exploring to do! I want to check out the traditional market (시장, shijang) and the secondhand store (who knows what crazy stuff I might find?).

Sung Min and I ate dinner at a place called 할매 낙지. 할매 (halmae) is roughly equivalent to "Granny" in English, and 낙지 (nakji) is a type of small octopus that, as it turns out, is absolutely delicious if you stew it with 불고기 (bulgogi) and tons of onions. So, Granny's little octopi made for a great meal. Haha, what a weird sentence. No but really, it was 맛있어요 (mashisseoyo)! And only 7,000 won (less than $7) per person.

불낙 (bulnak), which is bulgogi + nakji. Mmm, look, you can see little suction cups. Haha.

After dinner, shopping for some workout clothes and also chancing upon an awesome promotional sale being held outside the Lotte 백화점 (baekhwajeom, department store) and picking up some more teaching clothes, we went hunting for dessert. In the department store, there was an Angel-in-us Coffee, which is just one of many, many new coffeeshop chains popping up all over the country. There, we indulged in something called "Maple Ice Cream Bread".

It is literally two slices of white bread (the fluffy Korean kind, though), flavored with maple and served a la mode like a slice of pie or something. It was bizarre. It was also delicious.

Bread with ice cream! For the noms!

It was so great to chat with Sung Min all evening about everything from future plans to Korean stereotypes to the latest news about our mutual friends. And of course, being Swatties, we had to talk about other Swatties. In fact, Sung Min is the seventh Swattie I've met in two months here in Korea! There was also Jeewon and Se Eun, Melinda, and Hae-in and Jung Hyun and one of their friends.

Ah... I've just realized that I never finished my Seoul weekend series. The last two posts were supposed to be about spending Sunday afternoon with Hae-in and Jung Hyun and the KLCC graduation ceremony. Well, I'll do that later. I think what I originally wanted to talk about in this post was about how crazy Changwon bus drivers are, and I got way off topic thanks to maple ice cream bread and the like.

In any case, it's just that I took the city buses four times on Sunday, and each time the drivers seemed to become progressively more reckless. In the morning, on the way to church, I noticed that the bus was taking pretty fast turns; on the way back, careening around the giant roundabout in the middle of the town nearly knocked me off my feet. That evening, when I was riding with Sung Min, we both realized that our driver was going at least 15mph over the speed limit, as if he were racing to get to each stop. At night, this became almost terrifying because our driver would honk at anything in the way and ruthlessly cut in front of other vehicles; at one point we narrowly missed hitting another bus!

I speculated that our driver just really wanted to finish his shift and go home. I couldn't speculate more because I was actually a little dizzy by the time I got off the bus.

Well, it's either get a Nubija pass, buy a bicycle, or embrace the adventure of mad bus drivers for a year... I want to see more of downtown Changwon; I guess I'll just have to risk my life to do so!