Meet-a-friend Monday

This evening I had the immense pleasure of seeing Erik-san, who is visiting Korea from our neighbor across the East Sea, Japan. Erik is an Assistant Language Teacher with the JET Program (very much like Fulbright, but based only in Japan), having fallen so much in love with his placement school and town that he has renewed twice. Now in his third year and completely conversant in Japanese (and dressed head-to-toe in Uniqlo), he is very much the model of how I'd like to see myself in, say, 2015.

Erik-san, looking confused at a Dunkin' Donuts... perhaps an awkward consequence of being in the same photo as a suggestive banana cream pastry and two radioactive-looking coffee cups. By the way, that green tea latte was good, but my current gassy state tells me I shouldn't have consumed it...

I haven't thought too much about what I will do when my grant year expires next July. I think renewing my contract for another year would be amazing, especially since I have been having a wonderful time so far and have some personal goals (i.e. learn Korean) that could require an extension of my stay in this country. However, I'm also thinking a bit further ahead at options back home (i.e. graduate school), and I believe a date with the GRE may be fast approaching.

Anyway, this was just one of the few things we caught up on... We also swung by Yongji Lake, one of the few interesting public sights in this city, experienced the terror of Changwon buses in the evening, had pizza and chatted about life in Japan, our shared Altaic languages, homestay life, and much more. When I think about it now, I think it's kind of unusual that we didn't really talk about Swarthmore at all. Usually, when Swatties meet up, all we want to do is talk about Swarthmore and other people in our rather insular community. But perhaps due to our having graduated and looking forward to what's next in life, our college connections simply never came up. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant evening. Thanks for visiting, Erik! 부산국제영화제 즐겁게 보내다!

Other highlights from a nice day: I got nine hours of sleep last night, and when I woke up I felt like I was on top of the world. If only that could happen every morning. Also, two students of mine are planning to take the AP Biology exam (like, whaaat?!). They've asked me to help them prepare for it! This strikes me as slightly insane; still, I agreed. Except it's been about five years since I took the exam. I don't know how much of a help I can be to them... ALSO! My cousin Irene got engaged today! When I found out -- via Facebook while at work, no surprise there -- my jaw literally dropped open, and I wanted to jump up and down. Congratulations to Irene and Dan! And lastly, I just had some great catch-up time on Skype with another friend from Swat. It was great. Great, as in, if you're a friend from home, this is my not-so-subtle way of telling you to set up a Skype date with yours truly!

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.

Classical Music

Classical music (클래식 음악, keullaesik eumak) is everywhere in Korea. I don't hear it just on the radio and the TV at home, but also in so many other places, some which you might not expect. A snippet of something like Mozart plays over the PA system at my school to signal the beginning and end of every period. Für Elise and Grieg's piano concerto has been on the regular programming on the outdoor speakers in the park (공원) next to my apartment complex where I jog. In the parking garage (다층식 주차장) at Homeplus (Korea's take on Target), it was unmistakably Saint-Saëns that I heard. In a parking garage. And when I visited larger cities with subway systems, such as Seoul or Busan, I got the same pleasant classical music jingle (Vivaldi, this time) on the platform as a train approached, and even on the train when a transfer station was coming up.

Strangest of all was the soundtrack for a radio advertisement (광고): the epic fourth movement of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5. (I'm not sure what it was actually promoting, because the speaking portion of the ad was in Korean.)

Now that my world is over-saturated with Korean dance pop music, I enjoy these brief moments of classical when they come. I just wish that they were more common and also that they were not just commercialized sound bites. And I really, really miss playing in chamber groups and in orchestra... There are plenty of music festivals in Korea, and with it now being the height of festival season (October is probably the best time for tourism here), I just might check one out.

찜질방 - Sauna Overnighter (Daegu pt. 4)

A 찜질방 (jjimjilbang) is a public sauna or bathhouse. This type of establishment is very common in Korea and, as far as I've experienced, in China, Taiwan, and Japan, too (think hot springs). What was new to me about Korean saunas, however, was that many of them operate twenty-four hours a day, which means that people can and do spend the night there. Quite literally, you can check into a sauna in the evening and just sleep on a mat in a warm room, then leave the next morning. It's cheaper than a motel!

Last Saturday night, while I was in Daegu, I gave myself the option of sleeping at a youth hostel or at a public sauna. Pros of the hostel: It would be more comfortable (that is to say, I would have a bed), it would be safer, and I knew for sure that there was one in the downtown area where I was at the time. Cons of the hostel: It would be more expensive, and because it was very late, I wasn't sure if I could even check in. Pros of the sauna: It would be a completely new experience, and as long as I could find one, I could check in at any time. Cons of the sauna: I wasn't sure if I could find one.

But as I wrote before, a new friend I met at the swing dance club drove me to the nearest 24-hour sauna, which was located right next to the Daegu train station. It's called 태평 사우나 (Taepyeong Sauna), and it turned out to be a spacious and simple bathhouse. Exactly what I was looking for! I checked in, the lady handed me my sauna "uniform" (ugly shorts and a large, baggy t-shirt that everyone must wear). In the next room, I put my shoes in a small locker in order to obtain a key for a larger locker for the rest of my stuff. Once I changed into my uniform, I was free to walk barefoot around the entire facility and check it out.

There were many rooms along a long hallway. At one end were the lockers and the baths. People were still bathing at midnight, but I was exhausted, so I decided to brush my teeth and go to bed. The actual baths could wait for the morning. As I made my way down to the other end of the hall, I passed a billiards room, a noraebang, a massage room, arcade games, and a weight room, all closed. At the far end of the hall was the giant sleeping room and a convenience store, still open.

A low-quality photo of the sleeping room I surreptitiously took on my phone.

The sleeping room was such a bizarre sight: in an area about the size of a small school gymnasium, dozens of people were silently sprawled out on red mats with pink blankets while a TV in the far corner quietly played some Bollywood film. To the right were what looked like catacombs... they were small compartments lined with colored stones, each one supplied with a mat and a blanket, presumably for sleeping -- if you aren't claustrophobic.

Not wanting to sleep in a quasi-tomb, I located a (surprisingly comfortable) mat in the large room, but all the blankets were already taken. The floors weren't heated, as I'd heard they might be, but it was warm enough in the room that I didn't need a blanket anyway.

I did not sleep very well. At 1am, I woke up due to discomfort and quickly feel back asleep. At 2am, I woke up when tons of people walked in to the large sleeping area and were being rather loud. At 3am, I woke up again because it was a bit cold. At 4am, I woke up because suddenly, everyone around me had begun to snore very loudly. I took a video.

At 5am, I probably woke up again, but I don't remember. And at 6am, other people started to wake up and walk around and make noise, so I decided to just give myself another hour and then call it quits for the night. I got up at 7:30am. It had been a very fitful seven hours...

On the plus side, it was now morning, and I decided to treat myself to the actual sauna part of the sauna. This required me being absolutely naked in a large room with dozens of other absolutely naked men. Awkward much? Yeah, at first. But you know what? I realized that a Korean public sauna, rampant nudity notwithstanding, is a decidedly unsexy place. It was just about taking a really nice bath, nothing else. All the other men were just minding their own business, chillaxing. And that being the case, being completely naked amongst strangers was actually very liberating. I enjoyed the hot tub, the "medicine" tub with some kinds of perfumes and stuff in it (it reminded me of Spirited Away...), and a few lengths in a cold water swimming pool. Then, I finished off with a super shower, scrubbing away every square inch of dead skin that I could reach. I felt raw and quite refreshed afterward, and much more awake than I would have expected after a not-so-restful night. The last thing I did was grab breakfast, and then I left and walked out into a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning.

All of that for 7,000₩! In hindsight, this was a great experience, one of those things I'll probably never do in another country, so why not here and now? Thus, I will probably do another sauna overnighter while in Korea, though now that I've dipped my toe in the water, so to speak, I'd like to try a fancier one. I will probably also visit Busan's insanely large SpaLand. This small, quaint place by the train station was as simple as you can get, and even then I enjoyed it. Three cheers for public baths!

Club Ann.A: Swing Dancing in Korea! (Daegu pt. 3)

At around 8:30pm on Saturday evening in Daegu, I was simultaneously searching for something to do and somewhere to sleep. I couldn't decide which was more the more pressing matter; if I could find hospitable folks at a club, maybe they could help me find a place for the night, but if I had to go looking for a hostel, then I might not end up doing anything fun for the evening. Either way, I was very thankful that I have a smartphone. The Internet told me that there was a swing club and a 찜질방 (jjimjilbang) within walking distance of the downtown area, so I opted to find them, even though the directions given on the multiple websites and blogs I browsed were vague at best.

Jet took me to a salsa club called Babalu before he had to leave for other business. The salsa club is a pretty hot spot and the expats there were quite friendly. I explained that I was trying to find a swing club that I'd heard about, and several people tried to help me figure out where to go. I was grateful for their kindness! The American who was leading a beginner salsa class, Katherine, even gave me an impromptu lesson in bachata while I was vacillating over my plans for the evening. In the end, around 9:30pm, I decided to try my luck at finding the swing club, knowing that if I couldn't find it, then I could always come back to Babalu and hang out there.

Long story short, after twenty minutes, I was lost, and the GPS function on my phone was not working properly, and my phone itself was quickly running out of batteries... I was standing on a dark and silent street corner where the club was supposed to be, almost ready to give up when I took about five steps to the right and suddenly heard music! Swing music! Coming from a building almost hidden from view!

It was Club Ann.A! 드디어, I found it! You have no idea how happy I was when I walked in and saw people dancing -- swing dancing -- in a dimly lit room to music from the '40s. I tried to explain how happy I was, and why, in Korean to the lady at the welcome counter (who turned out to be the club owner), but just settled for saying that the place was hard to find. And then I danced!

Swing dancing at Club Ann.A in Daegu!

It was perfect. Just imagine any lindy club you've ever been to, and then replace all the Americans with Koreans, and you have the scene I was in. As I watched for the first few minutes, I realized that most of the people there were at an intermediate or advanced level, and they would have fit in seamlessly with the style and atmosphere that I've seen at Philly's LaB. It was actually a bit intimidating, but I thought, "Well, if this is just like being at LaB, then I have to work up my own courage and ask someone to dance." And when I did, I asked in English, and peoples' heads turned.

That's all it took. As soon as the ladies in the room registered that I was American, not Korean, suddenly everyone wanted to dance with me. For probably the first time since coming to Korea, I felt the "rock star treatment" that many foreigners get -- albeit usually for being tall, white, and beautiful. I am, for obvious reasons, often mistaken for being Korean. But just this once, rather than blending in, I was the one who stood out the most, and the reception was warm, flattering, and kind of funny!

Here's a compilation of some short videos I took while they did some cute line dances. (My camera was running out of memory, so the videos are short and choppy; my apologies.)

Anyway, this was probably the highlight of my weekend. I had a fantastic time, and I enjoyed meeting all of the Koreans. They were an energetic, young group, although I was by far the youngest. Many of the follows I danced with spoke English well, but I also had a great opportunity to practice my Korean, since I was quite literally the only foreigner there, and lots of people wanted to ask me some questions (Why are you here? How'd you find us? Where are you from? How long have you been dancing?). At the end of the evening, I promised to be back soon, got some numbers, and then was blessed enough to be given a ride to the nearest 찜질방 to crash overnight.

Favorite song from the night: The Idea of North's a cappella cover of Stevie Wonder's Isn't She Lovely.
Odd cultural difference of the night: Koreans sometimes bow to each other (insa) after a dance.

Here's some info about Club Babalu and Club Ann.A:
Club Babalu: Salsa, bachata, and tango. From Exit 10 of Banwoldang Station (반월당역), walk east (away from all the other exits), turn left after the pharmacy onto a narrow road with noodle shops on both sides. Walk for about two blocks; you'll pass a CNS on the right, then Babalu should a door or two down on the left. Take the elevator to the 4th floor. 8,000₩ entry for the Saturday night dances, beginning 9pm. They also offer various leveled classes all week.

Club Ann.A: Lindy and blues, as well as a smattering of other styles, from what I could tell. From Jungangno Station (중앙로역), Exit 3, walk east for five blocks until you get to City Hall (대구 시청). From Gyeongdae Hospital Station (경대병원역), Exit 1 or 4, walk north for four blocks (you'll pass a park on your left; cross the intersection and go for one more block), turn left after the galbi (갈비) restaurant and walk two more blocks until you get to City Hall. By bus or taxi, look/ask for Daegu City Hall (대구광역시청). Here is a map.

The club is located in the basement floor of Building 276, right by the pharmacy on the corner across from City Hall. The neighborhood is deceptively quiet, so don't be alarmed if you think you're walking away from all the downtown nightlife (because you are). 8,000₩ entry for the Saturday night dances, 8-11:30pm.

Ann.A was begun in 2007 by a lady named Anna who still runs the place. According to some outdated information floating around the Internet, Babalu used to be located in the same building; but several years ago, Babalu relocated to its current home at the heart of the downtown area.

- - -
On a side note, I got my first haircut at a Korean salon today! The first five minutes were incredibly awkward, since I realized that I know absolutely no haircut vocabulary in Korean apart from "long", "short", and "Please give me a haircut." After the prolonged silence, the hairdresser whipped out her phone and started looking for photos online; she also made me have some sponge cake and instant coffee while she searched. It was nice, I guess. In the end, my hair looks completely normal, but the sides are now at an appropriate length. My host father says I look like a high school student. 8,000₩ for a haircut and complimentary shampooing! Not bad.

Disco pang-pang (Daegu pt. 2)

I'm going to have to do some research into the origin of this name. Disco pang-pang (디스코 팡팡; perhaps officially known as a tagada ride?) is a thrill ride designed, as it would seem, purely for disorientation, discomfort, and disbelief. It is a large, circular disc with a single padded bench all along the circumference, seats facing inward. It spins, wobbles, and bounces, and there are no restraints (literally or figuratively). I'm not kidding; there are no seat belts or harnesses. The thing just goes nuts as people hang on for dear life and strobe lights flash and heavy K-pop blasts and you know what? It's absolutely fun.

So part two of my Daegu adventure involved meeting up with my Fulbright Orientation roommate Jet, who's teaching at Daegu boys' high school, grabbing dinner, and then discovering this hellish torture-cum-entertainment device, fittingly located underground next to a video game arcade.

For a mere 4,000₩, one gets to ride the disco pang-pang for a whopping twenty minutes, including a two-minute breather for people who have forgotten to breathe. The ride operator had a hilarious mean streak; while he did give everyone the opportunity to be mercilessly bounced on the higher end of the ride, rotating everyone around so that we'd all end up in the hot seat at least once, he happened to pick on foreigners a lot more. Jet and I were the token Americans, and we were seated next to a group of Vietnamese girls who looked like they regretted their decision to ride the pang-pang. Guess which side of the circle got the longest and most insane bouncing? Yup. ("WHERE ARE YOU FROM?" he asked us over a loudspeaker. "OH, Miguk? YEAH," *insert unintelligible Korean that's probably something like "Take that, foreigners! Bounce bounce bounce!"*)

I managed to take a few videos with my phone... I apologize for the brief profanity! I was kind of on an adrenaline rush.

And here is video #2. This is the part of the ride where the operator would pick on people to bounce just for the lulz. He was definitely trying to make them tumble out of their seats. It was hilarious! (Watch for the end, when Jet nearly falls out of his seat!)

When our ride was over, I wasn't dizzy but just kind of in disbelief at what I had just spent the past twenty minutes doing. Thanks, Jet, for showing me around Daegu, treating me to my very first disco pang-pang, and being awesome! Thanks, Korea, for being crazy enough to have this ridiculous thing and leaving an impression that I won't soon forget!

Jet 씨 at the over-priced Italian restaurant we went to, smiling because risotto for dinner is much better than spam.

롤러 코스터 - Rollercoasters (Daegu pt. 1)

A native Korean speaker might have a hard time saying that...

A view of Daegu from E-World.

Last Saturday, I traveled to Daegu with my host family. The plan was to spend the afternoon at E-World (previously known as Woobang Land), and then my host family would take off to meet their extended family, and I would be left to my own devices. Although I was kind of anxious about the latter half of these plans (you know, like, not having a place to sleep), my mind was completely worry-free for the few wonderful hours we spent at E-World. Why? Because there were ROLLERCOASTERS.

Rollercoaster yayyyyyyyyyyyyy

Dear friends, I love rollercoasters. I have ever since I became tall enough to ride The Demon at Paramount's Great America. One of the best birthday presents I ever received was the computer game RollerCoaster Tycoon. I used to spend hours surfing through the rollercoaster database, memorizing types and records and locations, making a list of every amusement park I'd visit before I got too old to ride the tallest, fastest, and most vomit-inducing terrors out there.

So when my host father tells me that there's a 놀이 공원 (noli gongwon, or amusement park) in Daegu? Before you can say "No hands!", I say, "I'm in."

Well, we arrived at E-World at about 3pm, due to traffic, and that left us only about two and a half hours to do everything, since I was going to meet friends for dinner later. Fortunately, that was actually plenty of time for us. E-World is quite a small park, with only three coasters and a dozen or so other attractions ranging from awesome carnival-type thrill rides (a Top Spin, an inverted pirate ship) to typical kids' fare (merry-go-round, haunted house).

My host brother and sister got passes that would allow them to ride anything they wanted. My host parents bought me an adult ticket, which meant that I needed to buy individual tickets for each ride. I decided to save my money for just the coasters: Hurricane, Camelback, and Boomerang. (They were $3.50 to $4.00 each.) The best of these by far was Boomerang, which is a standard boomerang coaster but also was, curiously enough, the first of its kind that I've been on. (Great America's Invertigo is the wicked older sister of this type of coaster, and I guess having been on that one many times spoiled me for the original ride, such that I never bothered to ride it anywhere else.) But the other two had their perks, too: Hurricane was like what The Demon would be if it were forced to exist in an space only half as large, which was neat, and riding on Camelback gave me an absolutely gorgeous view of Daegu.

A daring photo I took with my phone while on Hurricane with my host siblings!

Besides the coasters, I also enjoyed just looking around and trying to figure out what it was that made this amusement park Korean. One aspect was how overtly the whole place was catered to couples. Every few feet there was something cute and romantic and neatly positioned at a photo spot. Then there was the influence of American culture in a not-so-American way. I mean, yes, there is a KFC in the park, but I'm talking about more... subtle indicators. Like the Philly Love Park sculpture, re-appropriated only as one would expect for the lovey-dovey theme. And the fun house attraction named "Aladin".

Hi, Philly, I've missed you. Because I LOVE YOU. (Also of note: the Ghost Adventure in the background.)

Somebody call Disney. Something horrible has happened to Genie.

And one thing I'll briefly mention: over Chuseok weekend, the park was doing some kind of promotion for foreigners ("Foriegner Invitation Weekend" or something like that), which included an international food fair and a singing contest for foreigners. They were trying to appeal to the growing population of immigrants from west and southeast Asia, and I think it was a nice initiative. As a foreigner myself, I took a "Where Are You From?" survey at the entrance of the park, but there wasn't a spot for 미국 (USA), interestingly enough.

I definitely enjoyed my first Korean amusement park. A trip to Everland or Lotte World in Seoul is on my bucket list, though, so this only whetted my appetite a bit. Also, I'm happy that I got to spend more time with my host family, since I'm going to be out of town for a few consecutive weekends.

My host family and me at E-World! (Minus my host father, who took the photo.) Please note the two derpy dogs in a stroller.

Okay, and here is a photo of my host siblings tumbling around a pool inside giant inflatable balloons, just because. 그냥.

Hahaha!

Happy Chuseok!

Happy Chuseok from Google!

Chuseok (추석) is the most important national holiday of Korea. It's billed to Americans as "Korean Thanksgiving", which is supported by both holidays' occurrence in autumn and the focus on food and family. But from what I've seen, there are more differences than similarities. Perhaps the most conspicuous difference is that the "family" focus of Chuseok is actually on deceased family.

Anyway, I was lucky enough to be able to spend Chuseok with my homestay family. They invited me to experience it, as most foreigners wouldn't get this kind of chance, and I was excited and accepted.

So I spent today in Daegu with my homestay family. (In fact, I spent most of the weekend in Daegu, and I'll have many more posts about my other adventures to write after this.) Custom dictates that a family will return to the father's hometown. So, we went to my homestay father's older brother's apartment, located in an old and quiet neighborhood where, thirty-some years ago, my homestay father grew up, biked to school, and played soccer.

Chalye jinaegi

The morning ritual was a 차례 지내기 (chalye jinaegi), a sort of memorial service for the family's late grandparents.

Despite the common translation of this as "ancestor worship", I would hesitate to call it that. I'm aware, of course, that not understanding the Korean language or really much at all about Korean culture, I could be totally off base. But the word "worship" has particular connotations that were absent from the scene I witnessed, with the grand exception of the prostration in front of the altar. Yet even in regards to that, well, Koreans bow a lot to many different people, and that is considered duly respectful, not idolatrous.

Anyway, the setup was really similar to the big rock unveiling ceremony that I attended last week: a table laden with food (fried sweet potatoes, fruits, dried squid and cuttlefish, a roasted chicken, rice, rice wine, rice cakes, and songpyeon (송편), but no pig head this time), incense, and candles. There was a paper screen with hanja on it that I couldn't decipher, and also smaller papers that represented the ancestors.

I was invited to take photos and film during the ritual, but even though I took advantage of this rare opportunity, I also felt so, incredibly awkward the entire time. "Oh, they're bowing, okay, this is a nice angle, oh, I wish the shutter weren't so freaking loud."

My homestay father burning the... well, burning something, which signaled the end of the ritual.

Some of the dishes prepared at the altar. Rice cake, fried vegetable pancakes, and a chicken!

After the memorial service, we ate all the food that was on the table. I'm just going to say that 송편 is delicious. It's probably the closest thing to mochi that you'll find in Korea. And then we ate ice cream and watched TV. Iron Man 2 was playing on a movie channel!

This is 송편 (songpyeon), rice balls filled with sweet stuff (in this case, sweet soybean paste).

In the afternoon, we set out for a mountainous area near Gyeongsan, a city southeast of Daegu, for the purpose of performing another 차례 지내기 at the actual grave of my homestay father's parents. We were joined by thousands of other families -- I'm not exaggerating -- who created an hours-long traffic jam in the mountains where the cemetery is located. I get the sense that most cemeteries in Korea are in the mountains; this obviously has something to do with Korea's very un-flat geography, but I wonder if it is also rooted in some traditional interpretations of spirituality and high elevation?

The hillside cemetery we visited, somewhere near Gyeongsan, with many families dotting the terraces.

Remembering 할머니 and 할아버지.

One thing is for sure: being in the mountains meant that the cemetery was gorgeous. It was very well-kept by thousands of people coming back to tend to it at least once a year, and the view from where we were was quite nice. Overall, the atmosphere at the cemetery was in fact more jovial, thanks to beautiful weather and lunch. Yes, after performing the memorial service, every family would take the food from the tombstone, spread out a blanket, and proceed to picnic. That was unexpected, I will confess. But it was also pleasant. There was more 송편! And fruits and bibimbap, too. We had a late lunch, and when we finished it was time to head back to Changwon.

Picnic time! The husbands drink and the wives prepare some bibimbap from this morning's leftovers.

Beautiful bouquets at every grave. They were all synthetic flowers, though! That's why they're so bright and perfect-looking.

On the long drive home (seriously, every highway in the country had a 교통 채증, or traffic jam, today), we passed a gorgeous sunset.

This was somewhere between Miryang and Changwon. I love Korea in the fall. Today's weather was so beautiful; I'm glad the typhoon that was slated to hit Korea today veered off course a few days ago. (It would've been the fifth!)

I'm going to close with two questions for my readers, especially if you are Korean. First, I've heard from three separate grown Korean women that Chuseok and other 명절 (myeongjeol), or traditional holidays, are incredibly work-intensive for the wives and mothers of a family, mostly because the food preparation takes forever and the men aren't expected to help. Because of this, they are sometimes resentful. For "progressive" Korean families, either in Korea or in the States, where gender roles are not as set in stone, is the workload ever shared among members of the family? And in the States, is the work actually less intense, in some respects, since less food is required and a cemetery visit is, in most cases, not possible?

Secondly, Chuseok obviously has deep roots in Confucianism. For Christian Korean families, how does this play out? I've noted earlier the dynamics of "ancestor worship" and harmless custom. Does Chuseok look different to a family that does not follow Confucian ideals?

And that's all! Happy Chuseok, everyone!

A Bit of Food Etiquette

Some things I've learned that are useful for living in a Korean household...

1. Don't eat 찌개 (jjigae) or 국 (guk) with chopsticks. It's soup. Use a spoon.
Okay, this might seem completely obvious to some, but let me explain. I grew up using chopsticks to eat a lot of things, including soup. It's business as usual to pick out the masticable bits and then to pick up the bowl itself to drain what's left. Apparently, that's not how it's done here. I've never actually seen any Korean pick up their bowl. But Koreans use spoons to a much greater extent than Chinese and Taiwanese. So I'm going to start getting used to sipping slowly!

[edit] I asked my host parents today about this: in fact, it is just fine to finish what's left in your bowl by picking it up and sipping from it. They do this on TV advertisements all the time. However, I still haven't seen anyone actually do it. [/edit]

2. It is impolite to watch your superiors/elders eat.
So, at least in my household, when I've finished breakfast with the host family, I have to get up and go somewhere else. I tell my host mother, "But I like so sit!" The reply: "Nope! Please get up." So I go to my room. Koreans tend to eat quickly, and I haven't completely adjusted to their dining speed yet. In the cafeteria, I'm usually the last to finish, which is fine if I'm eating with my students, but they feel awkward about waiting for me, because, well, I count as a superior to them. At a restaurant for a huishik, this may mean: if you notice you're eating too quickly, slow down. You can't finish until your superiors are finished.

3. Hot and spicy food is often eaten in order to "cool down".
It's not secret that Koreans love spicy food. But it sounds paradoxical when, after a fiery 김치 찌개 (kimchi stew), they'll lean back and say, "시원하다!" Shiwonhada means "cool". When I finished my share of kimchi stew, I felt anything but cool. No, seriously, I was sweating. But, as my co-teacher explained, the sweat brings out impurities in your body, and once the sweat evaporates, you do indeed feel cooler and refreshed. So when it comes to the 매운 음식, grin and bear it!

That's it for now! Watching Pirates of the Caribbean 4 with my host brother and sister on a rare night off for them. And this weekend is Chuseok, also known as Korean Thanksgiving! 여러분 추석 잘 보내세요!

회식

It's hard to translate the word 회식 (hweshik). Naver says it's "get-together" or "officers dining in", but the first is too broad and the second is too clumsy, in my opinion. The two words individually are Sino-Korean (會*, meaning a meeting, and 食, meaning food), but the phrase doesn't exist in Chinese as far as I'm aware.

So when I want to tell people in English that I went to a 회식, I literally say, "I went to a hweshik." And if they're native English teachers in Korea, it's likely that they'll know what that means.

A hweshik, then, is a dinner outing specifically for members of a school or company. It's like an institution-sponsored night of food, fun, and 정-building. They are very common, and commonly end in lots of very happy drunk Koreans singing at a 노래방. Or so I've been told.

I've been to two hweshiks with the faculty of Changwon Science High so far. The first was to toast a farewell (송별연회) to our outgoing principal, and the one I went to tonight was to welcome in the new one. At neither party did anyone surpass even mild tipsiness, and I, especially -- not wanting to embarrass myself with my lightning-quick Asian glow -- sipped that soju as slowly as possible.

But while the first hweshik was awkward, because I hardly knew anyone and just listened to one of my co-teachers translate everything everyone else was saying, tonight was more fun. By this time, all of the other teachers know who I am, and some of them have apparently latched onto me despite the fact that I can't even remember their names.

The two who wanted to sit next to me teach math and chemistry, and while they're both married with kids, they're still among the youngest of my co-workers. (Have I mentioned yet that I'm closer in age to my students than to any of the other teachers at my school?) Upon sitting down, they declared that they were the "Andrew Fan Club". I had trouble understanding this at first, because transliterated into Korean, this becomes en-de-lyu pen ke-lub (앤드류 팬 클럽). I also have no idea why they want to be my fan club; nevertheless, they have designated themselves to be chief and manager. I should learn their names.

Again, conversation started off in stilted English ("What are you doing for Chuseok?" "Do you like math?"), moved to broken Korean ("I'm going to Daegu with my homestay family, and I was terrible at math in high school"), and then lapsed into their fluent Korean with me zoning out or texting. Math Teacher (MT) was humorously trying to keep me in the loop by staying glued to his dictionary and trying to translate as fast as he could. Here's how that went:

Me: *thinking about blogging*
MT: Investment techniques.
Me: What?
MT: Investment techniques. *shows me the dictionary on his smartphone*
Me: Oh, okay, Investment techniques. Why?
MT: They are talking about investment techniques.
Me: Oh, okay! Um... which bank do you use?
Everyone: *starts arguing about the best banks in Korea, in Korean*
Me: *zones out again*

And then there was Chemistry Teacher (CT), who trying so hard to increase his vocabulary.

Me: *points to what looks like oil* What is this?
CT: *unintelligible Korean*
Me: Okay, I'll just look that up in the dictionary. Ah, sesame oil!
CT: Sesame oil! Yes. With... *points to the grains of rock salt mixed in* ... Sodium chloride.
Me: Ah, yes, we call that salt.

Every time Chemistry Teacher or Math Teacher would successfully translate something difficult into English, they'd give each other high-fives across the table. Computer Science Teacher was just amused. She doesn't speak much English, is what I gathered.

Anyway, that was my second hweshik. The food was great, and the company was nice. It was really quite tame, even tamer than the first. From what I've heard of my Fulbright colleagues' experiences, these dinner parties can get wild. It's a well-known fact that Korean educators are some of the most hardworking -- and most stressed-out -- employees of the state. Thus, it follows that when they have an opportunity to completely unwind, they will, and the spirits flow in proportion. But my high school is actually in the middle of administering midterm exams. Half of the teachers actually returned to campus after dinner to continue working (grading exams or whatever), ostensibly until nine or ten at night, as usual. At Changwon Science High School, I guess that's how we roll.

위하여! Cheers!**

- - -
*LOL. As soon as I typed that Chinese character, my host mother came home, and I almost greeted her with a cheery "你好!" What is wrong with me?

**More correctly, that means "To...!", as in "To us! To health! To Changwon Science High School!", etc.