Not Karma

My friend and fellow ETA Monica recently said something to the effect of, "I believe in karma. I remember when, back during Orientation, I sprained my ankle. And I was like, 'This sucks. I'd better get a good placement!' And I did. Yeah, karma!"

We were eating lunch at the Shinsegae Department Store. Monica continued, "So it's okay when bad things happen to me, because that means that good things have to happen soon."

"That's not how karma works, Monica," I said.

"Yeah," chimed another friend, "I think it's when you do good things for others, then good things will be done for you in return."

"Oh, well," Monica didn't miss a beat. "Whatever. It's balance, anyway."

- - -

Thinking about this, though, I don't really have a problem with the idea that life has its natural ups and downs. Maybe, just as a rule, positive stuff always follows negative stuff; maybe the beneficial comes after the detrimental; maybe good fortune rides on the heels of bad fortune. (And I have obviously just finished teaching a lesson on pros and cons this week.) I believe that all things work for the good of those who trust in God, but I also believe that there is a chaotic force of entropy that physically affects our lives beyond its literal thermodynamic principles.

Before this gets too fluffy and long-winded, though, I just mean to say that not everything has been picture-perfect so far. During the one hundred-or-so days that I've been in Korea, life, teaching, and cultural adjustment have been mostly awesome and rarely unpleasant. Yet there have been times of unpleasantness.

And it was toward the middle of this past week when the various small un-pleasantries began to add up and I felt sort of like what Koreans call 답답해 (dapdaphae): stifled, cramped, burdened, and restless.

On the bright side, if you always stay rooted in mental and spiritual habits of positivity, it's never too long before something simple cheers you up and reminds you why you're doing what you're doing.

That simple something happened today, when a student asked to speak to me in private after lunch. I thought that something was wrong, judging by the tone of her voice. As it turns out, she only wanted me to write a short note in English for her friend -- another one of my students -- for the surprise birthday party they were going to throw her that evening. I thought that was sweet, but wondered why it was so important to have the random foreign English teacher sign a card. I mean, I was surprised that I could even conjure up our birthday girl's face when I was told whom the card was for; she tends to be very quiet in class, and I've proven to all of my students that I'm particularly awful at matching their names with their faces even if they do speak up more often.

The answer left me taken aback: "Actually, she hates English, but ever since you came she tries really hard and does all of her [extra credit] homework."

It's true. I assign homework only as extra credit in my classes, and this girl has done it every single time. I feel flattered, and I guess I just need to focus now on transferring the source of her enthusiasm for English class from myself to the language itself. Anyway, this was a definite pick-me-up for the day; it's like I finally have proof that I am actually leaving some kind of good impression on my students.

Despite the fact that I do not actually believe in karma, I'm going to cherish the small seeds of goodwill that I receive from my students, and I'm also going to plant as many of my own as I can around here, because the give-and-take of goodness can really only lead to more good.

And with that, it's off to Fulbright Fall Conference! I'll be away all weekend in Gyeongju (경주), known as the historic capital of Korea because it has (literal) mounds of ancient monuments and fantastic dynastic-era tourist attractions. You can expect tons of photos in the days to come! Ciao!

Busan International Film Festival

I went to the Busan International Film Festival today! I consider myself lucky to live so close to Busan. When the traffic is good and I know what I'm doing, it takes me just an hour and a half to get to wherever I want to be in the city, and today I wanted to be where all the action was: the Busan Cinema Center.

The Busan Cinema Center at night; this is the enormous outdoor theater where some movies are screened. Tonight, the Busan World Philharmonic Orchestra gave a concert, and I heard snippets of their performance (which included Carmina Burana).

This morning, I woke up at 6am, sped through my morning routine, and left the house by 6:20. Right about when my bus was departing Changwon for Busan, I got a text from Ashley telling me that she and the other Fulbright friends whom I had planned to meet were already in line! Of the over three hundred films being shown over the course of the festival, most had tickets available online. But huge crowds still formed lines early every morning to buy tickets at physical box offices. The sales were supposed to begin at 8:30am, but I was surprised that my friends had arrived two hours early.

Luckily, they were able to buy tickets for me for two movies: Hello Goodbye, an Indonesian film, and Touch of the Light, a Taiwanese (!) film by Chang Rong-ji. I wasn't aware at the time what kinds of movies they were or what countries they were from, but I'm glad that I got to support one Taiwanese director!

The first film was... kind of a dud, I'm sorry to say. It was about an Indonesian embassy worker who works in Busan and is bored to tears of her life; she meets a fellow Indonesian, a sailor who had a heart attack and is now begrudgingly hospitalized. They fall in love. Slowly. It was a slow movie. There were a lot of close-ups of faces and time-lapse shots of Busan. There was a lot of silence. Apart from a few emotionally stirring scenes, I was really bored. I even dozed off in the middle.

Ashley, Susie and I actually left before the movie was over, for two reasons: 1) we had to run to a different theater to catch our next movie in time, and 2) the movie was wrapping up so awfully that we didn't care to finish anyway.

Good thing, too! Our second movie, Touch of the Light (逆光飛翔), was absolutely phenomenal. The story revolved around a blind piano prodigy, Huang Yu-Siang, who enrolls in a music college in Taipei and meets a girl who wants to be a dancer but is stuck in a low-income job. They inspire each other to go after their dreams, hooray! Perhaps the plot sounds a bit cliché. I won't say it wasn't, but that does not mean it was not a fantastic film.

The directing was beautiful, the cinematography bright and clean (which was expected, given the title), and the acting, as far as I could tell, quite good. (The entire movie was in Mandarin, which was nice to hear, and furthermore, it was a welcome surprise when I realized that everyone was speaking with the Taiwanese accent.) The movie had plenty of cheesy moments, perhaps too many for my taste -- including heartbreak in the rain, a hippy-dippy dance teacher, and an exhilarating yet truly schmaltzy climactic recap montage -- but overall, it was genuine, heartfelt, and peppered with moments of palpable warmth and dashes of quick-witted comedy. (Yu-Siang's roommate, on break dancing: "It's like... have you seen Street Fighter? Oh, no, of course you haven't...")

I especially enjoyed the way music was incorporated into the film. Musical performances weren't as shoe-horned into the plot as you might expect in a film about a pianist. Sometimes, the music was there just because the moment felt right, but when it became central to a scene, it was done tastefully and so naturally that you wouldn't even realize that it was there, heightening your emotions without your realizing it. (And hm... plenty of classical music in this film's OST, right on the heels of my bemoaning its absence in my life...)

But do you know what the coolest part was by far? It was after the movie had finished and the credits were done rolling. The lights in the (enormous) theater came up... but then a piano appeared on the stage, too. And then Huang Yu-Siang himself came on stage. As soon as the hundreds of people in the audience realized what was happening, everyone burst into applause took out their cell phones and cameras. Haha. He was here at the showing to give a live piano performance! Oh, yes, and it was at this point that I realized that this movie was based on very real events in this very real man's very real life.

Huang Yu-Siang, a blind Taiwanese pianist, performs a medley of classical music, some K-pop hits, and other stuff I didn't recognize. It was amazing, though!

And after even that surprise, the actresses who played the dancer and Yu-Siang's mother joined him onstage, along with an interpreter, and they introduced themselves and took questions from the audience! It was very exciting that we got to witness this, especially since all of us were so impressed by the film. I was dying to think of a question that I could ask in Mandarin that wouldn't sound completely stupid, but I couldn't come up with anything. All of the audience members asked questions in Korean, which I barely understood, and then their answers came back in Mandarin, which I somewhat understood.

Huang Yu-Siang is in the center, smiling because he is awesome. Right of him is Sandrine Pinna, who is obviously not full-blooded Taiwanese, but as I have just found out, is half French! But her Mandarin is flawless.

Susie on the lookout for celebrities!

Gosh! When we got our 6,000₩ tickets, we were only expecting a movie. And it was a great movie, well worth the price. But then we got an amazing piano performance! And then we got a Q&A with the actors! It was the most wonderful surprise. Ashley, Susie, and I were all just a bit starstruck.

When we met up with the (twenty or so) other Fulbrighters for a late (and delicious) lunch at the Shinsegae Department Store's food court, we all talked about our movies, and boy, was everyone else jealous when we told them about our surprise bonuses.

Speaking of surprises... later that evening, I ran into a fellow Swattie! Again! Seriously, Swatties are everywhere around the world, and they're kind of like magnets.

Raehoon and I first met in tap class last semester. I had no idea that we would be in the same country now, though! He's back home in Korea because he's about to take a two-year leave of absence from school to perform his mandatory military service. He happened to be spending part of his last week before beginning army training by watching tons of movies at BIFF, and while I was wandering around the Busan Cinema Complex with Cecile, he recognized me and also surprised the heck out of me. It was great catching up!

So this brings my total number of Swatties I've met in Korea to eight. And it's going to be nine tomorrow, because Erik is visiting from Japan! Hooray!

Raehoon and me at BIFF. Swatties, unite! (taken by Cecile, who was really amused at this coincidence)

The film festival is set to continue for another week or so. I really enjoyed my first taste of it; you know, I kind of thought going to a film festival would just feel like watching a bunch of movies in a row, like a marathon. But the whole atmosphere here is quite different. It really feels like a festival, a celebration! It's classier and more glamorous, and I've never experienced anything like this before. So maybe I'll come back. I'd really like to continue supporting Taiwanese cinema at BIFF. These are the seven Taiwanese films being showcased; I especially am interested in GF*BF and Go Grandriders. (Ahhh! The article I just linked to says that Monday night is "Taiwan Night" at BIFF! I'm so there!)

And lastly, a photo of Cecile hiding among aluminum trees outside of a department store in Busan.

A Day in Busan (부산)

Evening in Busan, the city by the sea! It reminds me of San Francisco... (They even have a baseball team called the Giants.)

New flash: Andrew actually got out of Changwon for a day to visit other Fulbrighters! Surprise, surprise! Since Departure Day, which was over three weeks ago, I have not seen any of my colleagues in person, or even gone to any other city for a bit of fun (Daejeon didn't count). Today, I spent a drizzly but wonderful day in "Dynamic" Busan, the huge coastal city that is the south's answer to Seoul.

For my own future reference... it should take me less than two hours to get to the center of Busan. Today, it took me almost three, but that is mostly my fault, as I totally missed my first bus stop and got lost in my own city even before I had left it. The buses leave from Changwon (Masan Intercity Bus Terminal/마산시외버스터미널) every fifteen minutes or so for most of the day, and arrive at the Busan Seobu Intercity Bus Terminal/부산서부시외버스터미널 in 45 minutes. And then, the subway ride from Sasang Station/사상역 to what I would assume is the central downtown area takes another 45 minutes. The bus fare was 3,500 Won (about $3), although the return trip was 3,700 Won; for the Busan metro, I used my T-money card as I have been doing with Changwon buses, and it deducts at least 1,100 Won for each ride, plus a bit more if I travel far.

All in all, the travel is really quite cheap and not inconvenient in the least. I'm relieved, because on maps, Changwon always seemed so far away.

Ground floor entrance to Shinsegae. It's like a palace!

So what did I do in Busan? The first stop was the Shinsegae Department Store (신세계), whose branch in Busan happens to be the largest department store/shopping mall in all of Asia. It was pretty darn huge. And not only was there shopping, but there is a three-story Spaworld attached to it, as well as an ice skating rink of the fourth floor! (There's also an H&M! I will be back.)

While my friends were finishing up a morning at the spa, I wandered around Shinsegae's six floors, realized that I couldn't afford anything, and then sat by the ice skating rink to watch people go around in circles. It was nice and relaxing, although not as much as a three-hour spa treatment might have been, haha.

When I met up with the other Fulbrighters (Payal, Monica, and Hilary from Busan, and Jet, Thomas, and Taylor visiting from Daegu), we had lunch at the department store food court. I had my first 오무라이스 (omurice) in Korea! And it was absolutely delicious, as expected.

The first familiar faces I've seen in three weeks. Glad they're all smiling!

The Daegu crew had to leave soon after, so the Busan girls and I went on our own adventure: beaches on a rainy day! The drizzle was on and off all afternoon, but that didn't stop us. We went to Gwangalli Beach to see the Gwangan Bridge (광안대교). It's supposed to be very pretty when its lit up at night, but on this overcast afternoon, it simply blended into the steel gray sky. Still pretty, in a different way.

Gwangan Bridge from Gwangalli Beach.

On Gwangalli Beach, I had a fantastic time collecting some of the beautiful seashells (조개껍데리) that were everywhere. Monica commented that Gwangalli Beach seemed to have more litter than the more popular Haeundae Beach. It's true that Haeundae was clean and beautiful, but as far as I could tell, the objects that "littered" the Gwangalli sands the most plentifully were actually thousands of seashells, some of them quite large. I pocketed some of the prettiest that I could find.

Hilary and Monica with their large seashells.

Seashells on Gwangalli Beach

This might have been my favorite part of the day. Despite the drizzle (보슬보슬), it was still relaxing and peaceful on the beach. I think a beach is always relaxing, unless it's stormy. Speaking of which, another typhoon is supposed to hit South Korea starting from tomorrow evening. I guess today's weather was just a harbinger of worse that is to come.

But I wasn't thinking about that, really. It was just nice to chat and catch up with friends. We mostly talked about our schools and our lives with the homestay experience. All of us have enough stories to last days! Well, everyone else has plenty of stories. My life has been kind of boring in comparison, to be honest...

It strikes me every time just how different my school is from (almost) everyone else's. The best stories (and by best, I guess I mean funniest and most shocking) are those that recount the lengths to which some of us Fulbrighters must go in order to discipline unruly students or out-of-control classes.

When it comes down to it, I myself could never imagine playing "Mean Teacher Andrew", and I'm just grateful that my students are so astoundingly well-behaved. Hope this doesn't come back to bite me in the butt as the semester goes on!

Payal and the beautiful conch shell she found on the beach.

After Gwangalli, our group took a cab to Haeundae (해운대), arguably the better and more popular beach in Busan. Well, it's definitely larger and cleaner. But I couldn't tell you anything about popularity, since the rain and the approaching storm left the beach nearly deserted. I did notice one family having a cute picnic on a blanket and under a few umbrellas.

Also at Haeundae, which as a whole is considered the ritzy social neighborhood, we chanced upon some sort of festival (or tournament, maybe?) for computer games. There were two guys playing Starcraft, and their game was being displayed on a giant screen. And yes, there was an audience of at least one hundred, decked out in rain ponchos and completely engrossed in the action. It was so amusing. At one point, the cameramen of the event, who would sometimes pan the crowd in between action sequences of the game, pointed their lenses at us! And we showed up on the giant screen, much to our amusement (and embarrassment). I caught that part on video, and I'll put it up here sometime...

The World Cyber Games festival. Did you know that in South Korea, video gaming is considered a pro sport?

As we continued walking east along the beach, we also came across this giant sandbar (or, I guess it's a dike?) that was created as a safety measure against the typhoon's giant waves. It was essentially a huge wall of sand, and we took a short stroll on top of it!

I love Monica's rainbow umbrella!

Then, we found a Mango Six cafe and stopped for mango smoothies, dried mangoes, and mango fro-yo (which was phenomenal -- I'll have to visit again). And again, we just chatted about life in the present and life plans for the future. It was so pleasant having people to talk to who have had experiences similar to mine, never mind that it comprises a mere six weeks spent in Orientation.

Hilary and I were matching perfectly! We're both wearing red pants that we bought in Korea. I promise we didn't coordinate. Haha, this is such a happy photo! (taken by Payal)

For dinner, we went to a Mexican bar/restaurant called Fuzzy Navel (...?) in Haeundae. I guess it's becoming a habit of mine to find a Mexican place when I go to a larger city in Korea... I suppose I'll do it again when go visit Daegu and Gwangju! Anyway, at Fuzzy Navel I got a chicken avocado burrito, and although the tortilla was strangely crispy, it was overall a fantastic burrito worth the 11,500 Won. I wouldn't recommend getting any of the smaller dishes; portions were 작은변이예요. Also, if you're craving guacamole, the stuff here is pricey and a bit bland. But my burrito was good! :3

Dinner at Fuzzy Navel. Nachos and cheese! Salsa! Guac! Burrito! 멕시코음식! (taken by Payal)

The very last thing for the day was a quick trip to Seomyeong (서명), which is where a lot of the nightlife happens. It reminded me of Hongdae in Seoul; there were tons of bars, restaurants, and interesting shops open late. Pedestrians were everywhere, and it looked like a great, younger crowd, something I haven't been able to locate yet in Changwon. There is also an underground mall (yeah, like a 地下街!) here, which is apparently called a 프리멀 (Primall). Finding it was a nice surprise! I'll definitely be back to Seomeyong soon!

Nighttime scene in Seomyeon. It was busy and lively, but it wasn't hot or crowded. I wish I'd had more time to explore!

So that was my day in Busan. I had a great time, and I've already decided to go back a few more times this semester. Thanks, fellow Fulbrighters, for showing me around!