Korean Christmas

I know that it’s a little late to be posting this, but I still wanted to share it with you. I spent my first Christmas away from long-time-friends and family this year (and Chanukah, too, but that was covered here) and was a little unsure how festive this season would be. Part of my apprehension about the season had to do with how few vacation days we had to celebrate. Now, I’m used to having at least two weeks for Christmas and New Year’s since that is how life worked in the American public school system: You generally had a week of play time between Christmas and New Year’s, sometimes 2 if they fell on Wednesdays. Then, in college, I had final exams in the first two weeks and was home until the first week of January (Hooray for J-Term classes!). Here, we had Christmas Day off (A Tuesday) and New Year’s Day off (Again, Tuesday). Couldn’t even take off the Monday… So, could we go anywhere? No. Make plans? Not really. What ever could we do?

First I decided to set up my Christmas decorations in my apartment:

This is how I prepare for Santa in Korea.

As my parents were kind enough to send over a package of gifts and festive items to make the spirits bright (no spirits in the package though, suitable spirits were acquired here), I displayed them under a fake tree and a coat hanger-turned-general-purpose-Christmas-pole. Preparations complete, I still had to find a way to celebrate.

“Hmmm…. I can help with that!”

Chris’s girlfriend, Angels, was kind enough to invite us to her apartment for a little party on Christmas Eve. So we went over and had some fun, drank some wine, watched some Aeon Flux (apparently it was an animated TV series on MTV?) ate tons of delicious food prepared by Angela and Chris, and enjoyed ourselves. I was made happiest by the lovely cookie I found:

The perfect Yin-Yang Cookie. It means that balance and harmony will dictate the life of whosoever consumes it.

So that’s a good Christmas Eve, but what about Christmas Day? Well, we were debating the available options – go to a bar and bring food, go to a Chili’s or Outback Steakhouse or some such restaurant, or go to a place and cook food – when our bosses surprised us by allowing the use of their apartment! We were incredibly thankful for the opportunity to cook a delicious Christmas meal, do some Secret Santa stuff, relax with friends, and enjoy a fully furnished apartment. Everyone brought a little something to cook up or drink down, a Secret Santa gift, and a joviality the likes of which had never been seen before in Korea. Me? Oh, the newest co-worker Lindsey was my Secret Santa so I got her some chocolates, wine, and a bottle of Soju. What food did I make? Traditional Jewish food of latkes. So I’ll just let the pictures do the talking for how well it turned out:

The view from our bosses’ apartment.

“….Lo, on the day of His birth, they feasted upon the latkes…”

Our delectable spread!

That’s a plateful.

The gang feasting.

Secret Santa!

Christmas success! Ah, I forgot to mention that we got another little gift from the universe. At 9:00 PM on Christmas Day, our newest teacher arrived from the United States. His name is Nolan and he is replacing Ryan down in LangCon. Here he is with us out at dinner a few nights later:

Nolan (L), Phil (C), Andrew (R) prepping some delicious Korean BBQ.

Here’s hoping for the best in his stay!

Finally, the last, best part of December. I got a facebook message from someone I hadn’t seen in three years: Paul Cross. His sister is apparently a teacher up in Seoul and he got some time off from work to come visit. So:

Paul (L) and HyeMee(R) out for a mid-afternoon jaunt through Seoul.

After this photo, I actually had to split for the airport because I was slightly more excited about a different event. Lindsay Van Brocklin had graciously agreed to take one month away from her job search and her family to come visit me for a month. She landed on Dec. 29th and brought with her a new energy and life to my depressing little apartment in the middle of snowy Korea. You’ll hear more about her once we get to January’s make-up posts, just suffice it to say that she arrived and made me the happiest I’d been the whole time I’ve been here. Ok, too much about the personal life! Next!

Recap: Christmas was all about – bosses’ apartment, great food prepared ourselves, successful Secret Santa, & new teacher.
Got to catch up with Paul, Lindz arrived.

What did January have in store? Read about it next!

KB Stars!

I meant to give you all pictures of my latest exploits. “Meant to” because I went to use my camera and found that it wasn’t working. Not a blip of light, not a sound of whirring gears. Therefore, in my newly saddened state, I must beg mercy of you for another boring post sans pictures. To be honest, this post, more than all others, needs pictures.

Kay-Bee Star-zuh!

For the past two Sundays, I have been meaning to join a coworker of mine – Chris – in attending the first games of the KB Stars. Such prowess! Multitudes of athletic displays! Solid gameplay fundamentals! Oh, what sport is it? Why, it’s women’s basketball! To see Cheongju’s own KB Stars (pronounced Kay-Bee Suh-tar-juhs) play the-other-team-that-I-don’t-know! Well, on the 4th, I finally made it.

I met up with Chris and Craig around 5:45 for a taxi ride to the stadium, prepared with nothing more than 5,000 W for my ticket and a readiness to experience some Korean culture. We got there a little after tip-off and looked at awe at the Cheongju stadium. This is the only picture of it that I could find on Google:

Blastoise! Use Telescope!

However, when I get a chance, I’ll find a way to take a better picture and post in on this blog. As you can see, it looks like cross between Blastoise’s shell and an observatory dome sitting on a panoply of stairs, painted somewhere between forest and regular green, and squats in the depressing aura of most buildings made in the 1950s and 60s. As we walked up the expansive stairs, cheesy arena music and rip-offs of 80s rock tunes filtered through the sounds of traffic and light rain. Buying tickets was fairly easy and went without a hassle since Craig went up, simply said something that was printed on a board next to the window and “saegae” (which means 3, if talking about items/units/pieces), then handed over 15,000 W. Now with paid admittance, the three of us ascended yet more stairs to the entrance. Light rain, darkness of the evening cloaking us, slight chill penetrating our clothes, and a quick comment about how “Everything, even the ticket windows, about this place looks like a prison” (Craig) propelled us into the arena.

As stated, we arrived a little after tip-off and made our way to some seats where we would have comfortable views of the spectacle that unfolded in front of us. There wasn’t a bad seat in the house! To be fair, I think Elon’s basketball court holds more people, so not much of a comparison. However, we got a great vantage point on which to perch and I got a chance to look around the venue and take appraisal of my first Korean sporting event. The first thing I noticed was the the crowd. There couldn’t have been more than a thousand people there, but they were evenly distributed across all ages and everyone was very enthusiastic! We had those silly thunder-sticks with “KB STARS!” printed on them (gray lettering on yellow, great color scheme) and smacked them together all the time for cheers such as *Boom* *Boom* “DE-PENSUH!” Perhaps I should explain that. In Korean, there is no “f” sound and Korean does not end on the “s” sound. So, the closest thing is a hard “P” sound and “suh.” It sounds funny to me, but it is tres enjoyable to shout. So our side of the arena was populated by the supporters of the KB Stars (KB is a bank, so I guess the teams are named after companies?) and we were very raucous in our support of the local team. The game was full of the shenanigans you’d expect at a HS game: dropped passes, some traveling, questionable play calls, some frustration, and overall “oh that’s… great… basketball” moments.

The next thing I noticed was that it is the 50th anniversary of the KB Stars team (supposedly). According to the graphics that were displayed on the Jumbotron (not Jumbo by American standards), the KB Stars have been around since 1963. So in a few months, they will be in their 50th year! A woman’s sports team that is half a century old! Amazing!

The game was quite interesting to watch. There are 10 minute quarters and the game lasted under 2 hours, so not too bad on time and well worth the 5,000 W ($4.85?). The final score was 56-54, KB Stars defeating the Whatever-they-were-called, and the largest lead was 5 points. However, there were some good drives, some hard fouls, a couple flared tempers, and even impressive shots (a couple big threes and some nice behind-the-head-lay-ups). While I’m sure these girls could absolutely destroy me at basketball and being generally athletic/physically fit, I would say that they played on par with a college team back State-side. I’d like to see Elon take them on just to see how it turns out (and to say that I actually ever went to an Elon basketball game). The best players for the KB Stars were #10 Byeon Yeon Ha and #15 Jung Seong Hwa (I think). Byeon Yeon Ha was the Kobe of the team and #15 was the tall rebounder/blocker who was a dominating presence on the court.

The most interesting things happened off the court/during breaks. During some time-outs, the cheerleaders and the mascots would perform little routines and launch stuff into the stands: T-shirts, basketballs, an energy drink called Pocari Sweat (explanations to come at another time/another post when I try it), and even a take-out dinner from a place called VIPS. As Chris would say, we got “Hella” into trying to get the cheerleaders to give us stuff, seeing as we are their biggest fans from overseas… Craig actually managed to get the packaged dinner from VIPS, which contained chicken nuggets, fries, salad, pineapple, and some chocolate dessert. Otherwise, the mascots did the Gangnam Style dance (it’s ubiquitous, there’s no escape), the cheerleaders did some floor routine and were really peppy, and there was this dude in a ruffled shirt in the crowd or led us in a lot of cheers. Entertainment! So we got to watch some athletics, chat, experience some Korean culture, and we got some free stuff! Pretty successful. Hopefully I’ll have an image-capturing device when I go again and I can get you all some great pictures to back-fill this story with information and context for you.

Oh, I highly recommend you coming to see me so that you can come catch some Korean culture for yourself. Now that I’ve been to a women’s basketball game, my list consists of the following: baseball, soccer, volleyball?, and video game tournament/convention. I’m definitely going to get a camera for those…

Weekend Update

So there I was, lying in my bed at the thoroughly invigorating hour of 6 AM wondering to myself: why am I up on a Saturday? I went to bed 4 hours ago, so shouldn’t I still be asleep (it being Saturday and there not being school on that day). Then why was my alarm interjecting its bothersome head into my blissful sleep? Although I enjoy waking up to “Who Can It Be Now” as much as anyone, it is still far too early to think about “attacking the day” or other such nonsense. My second thought was “Where am I?” (it being my first night in my new apartment), which quickly segued into “I’m sleeping on a mattress on a floor, that’s nice.” So to recap: It’s 6AM on a Saturday, I’m not quite sure of my surroundings, and I’m feeling about as useful as a bucket of warm spit (very useful if in the temporary-rusty-hinge-lubrication-business, but not much else). After wrestling with personal demons (dozing in and out while cursing the bright sunlight streaming into my room) I remembered that I had been conscripted to assist the other Avalon teachers in providing well-wishes and encouragement to our students in the form of candy as they entered the Ban-Ki-Moon competition. Ah yes, the illustrious competition I knew next-to-nothing about and had taught so much for. Get it? I started teaching on Wednesday! So I had taught for… precisely… 3 days. Yeah, sounds about right.

Finally rousting myself from the warmth and comfort of my floor-mattress, I headed to the bathroom and proceeded to try and figure out how to shower. This is not me being incapable of operating a shower so early in the morning, this is a very real investigation considering my bathroom is actually my shower and the shower head is attached to the faucet! Easily thwarting sleepy-eyes and the confusing knob (it turns to the left for shower, right for faucet), I proceeded to turn my bathroom into a typhoon. Emerging from said maelstrom without any major injuries or complications (such as soaking the toilet paper), I then dressed in my driest clothes and met my co-workers at school for our busing to the Ban-Ki-Moon competition. Oh yeah, a bus trip at 7 AM!

We arrived at the competition and formed up into an impressive display of foreigners holding candy and little plastic bags with information on Avalon inside them. It was about that time we realized that we were there to encourage our students, but also serve as advertising for Avalon. Oh yes. We were truly a display for the parents bringing their students as to the impressive resources of the Avalon English haegwon (private academy for enrichment) for increasing enrollment. Feeling like I needed another shower (and it being only 8:45) we departed and were treated to a delicious morning fast breaking at the illustrious McDonald’s. As a brief aside: I do not drink coffee and asked for tea instead. Haru ordered and when he came back with the food he plopped down a can of orange juice. Perplexed, I looked at the can and back at him and he stared me straight in the eye and said, “They don’t have tea.” Um. What? This may sound racist, but even the American MacDo’s have tea. And in Korea they don’t? McDonald’s get on that. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say they ran out because they had drunk all of it by 9:15AM (and doesn’t that sound even more racist? Well that’s what you get. I’m not perfect).

After breakfast a couple of us went to the Shi-Ne, the downtown where the major shopping goes on. Not much to say about that, except that it is a nice area that has everything from fashion stores to supermarkets (belts for 3,000 Won! That’s a leather belt for $3! Sure it’ll fall apart in a week, but whatever). After our 2-hour excursion we returned to our apartments. I finished Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (good book, I give it an 80, go read it) and took a short nap before rejoining the group for a pub quiz. As most of you college-people know, I’m not too helpful in these things unless it is something like “Who wrote Lord of the Rings?” or “What linguistic family does Hungarian belong to?” The answers are J.R.R. Tolkien and the Finno-Ugric family of the Uralic, although it is debated whether that should even exist or not since the two main languages only share a handful of words (Finnish and Hungarian). Thanks wikipedia for helping me procrastinate my college work (and look at you learning)! Now I’m tapped out and have nothing more to contribute. Well the pub quiz started at 6:00 (but didn’t actually start till 7) and we came in not-last. Not bad. Too much about movie quotes and having to identify horror movie villains, but generally it went pretty well (I got White Heat from “Made it Ma! Top of the World!” so at least DiNozzo is proud of me). Hopefully we will do better next month (yeah, monthly. Weak sauce action). After the quiz ended I went home and caught up on sleep, but first read several chapters of David Sedaris’s Naked. Having no idea what to expect in his book, I was a little shocked. I’ll see how I feel when I finish it.

Today I cleaned my apartment a little more and headed to the nearest café with free wifi to see what I missed in the world. At this point I realized how much I miss my Pulse app on my phone and like having a phone. Huh, weird. Met up with some other teachers at the café (Caffé Bene, no not a typo) and we went to a frog pond in a nearby park and relaxed in nature. How nice. But all this writing has made me conscious of all the time I’ve wasted. I’ll go clean my apartment and see what I can get ready for tomorrow. Time to start my first full week of teaching and I want to do well! Sorry about the lack of pictures in my posts so far, but I’ve kept forgetting my camera. Shucks. Let me know if there is anything in particular you want to hear about, or else you’ll get the same drivel I have been posting. I work better when we have a dialogue (despite my propensity for monologuing and lecturing. Haha). So send me a facebook message, an email, or a post here to let me know how you are doing and what you think. I hope to hear all about all of your busy lives! Believe me, they are fascinating. If you find this worth reading (and I’m not even trying to sound smart or find hidden meaning in everything – The essence of life is being, man. Especially in, like, being in a new place to know who you really are), so is your life to me. Oh, just so that the title isn’t misleading: here you go.