The putrid stench of Korea in summertime

This place stinks. No, I don't mean figuratively, as in "this place sucks" or any other phrase meant to imply that it's no good here. It stinks. So far I haven't been able to identify what exactly that awful smell is, but I do know that it's made worse by a bunch of 30+ degree days lined up end to end, with what appears to be no relief until autumn. The smell seems to be the worst when we pass sewer grates (I know, I know, I'm a genius for figuring that one out), but that's only a small fraction of the problem. That smell is obvious. And so is the rotting food smell wafting from the piles of garbage that grow on random street corners. But there is something else, something that reminds me of a giant old mothball-man, sweating profusely on a scorching hot day, and trying to cover it up with a couple of healthy splashes of fish-and-cabbage cologne. In fact, I think that may be it! Now if I could only find a way to bottle and sell this vile odor. I'm convinced that it could provide a viable alternative to chemical weapons, only without all the deadly side effects. But until then, I think I'll just feel happy that I got this off my chest, and I'll keep looking forward to autumn.

Abandon all logic, ye who enter here...

Caroline's friend from journalism school, Suzanne, offered this advice to us when she found out we were coming to Korea to teach English.  Little did we know at the time how fitting this would be, and how it could quite possibly become the motto of our entire experience here!  I've been making little notes of cultural differences that I've noticed since I've been here- some are minor, some are funny, some are cute, and some are downright bizarre.  In no particular order, here's what I've noticed so far...

Is that the police?  No, just a traveling salesman...
The first morning we were here we were awakened by a loud male Korean voice booming over a megaphone.  He kept repeating the same thing, over and over again as he drove along our street.  It was the kind of voice that I imagine would be used to persuade the good citizens of a particular neighborhood to give up the fugitives they were hiding in their homes.  At first I was concerned, wondering what kind of fugitive had wondered into our quiet little corner of Daegu.  And then I looked out the window.  An old flatbed truck eased itself down our narrow street, the bed filled with produce from a local farmer- watermelons, or some thing.  And over the megaphone they were advertising for people to come buy the watermelons!  I couldn't believe it!  The novelty quickly wore off, though, when several more trucks came throughout the day, selling various items like onions, garlic, tomatoes, peaches, and even TVs and furniture.  Korea thrives on small businesses, and they have obviously adopted some fairly aggressive marketing strategies!

Sorry!  I love you!
The other day on the way to school we noticed that every parked car we passed had a small pillow on the front dash with a little message cross-stitched on it, like "Sorry!" or "I love you!"  On each pillow the cutesy message was followed by a cross-stitched phone number.  We wondered aloud all the way to school what these pillows could possibly be used for- was it to leave at an accident if you accidentally bumped another person's car, or what?  No, it turns out that it's for those times when you park illegally.  If someone needs you to move your car, they can just call the cellphone number on your cross-stitched pillow and you can come move your car.  I'm sure that somewhere out there is a Korean grandma who is making an absolute fortune selling cross-stitched pillows emblazoned with people's cell number and a very polite English greeting!

Where the streets have no name (who knew that Bono was singing about Korea?!)
It turns out that the "street" we live on has no name.  To be honest, I'm not completely convinced that it qualifies as a street, except for all the businesses on it, plus the fact that lots of other people live there too.  To me it looks like more of a back alley.  In any case, it has no name, and the numbering follows no order either, mainly because the houses are numbered in the order they are constructed, and not in some increasing or decreasing order.  Theoretically, this means that number 7 could be next door to number 344.  Houses are built facing every which way, and stacked haphazardly, creating a kind of Frank Lloyd Wright-on-acid effect, except with cinder blocks and concrete as the only building materials.  We have learned to cope with living on a street with no name, and now whenever we need to get home, we tell the taxi driver to take us to Suseong Market, which is near our house, and then we just walk the extra block or two from there.  "I want to run, I want to hide..."

Sunglasses?  No thanks- I'll stick to my visor.
I have rarely, if ever, seen a Korean wearing sunglasses, despite the fact that most days are bright and sunny.  What I have seen, however, is lots of visors.  They are similar in some ways to a visor you might see on a golf course, except that the huge brim is made out of the same material as window tinting, and projects down at an angle instead of straight out, like a baseball cap or other hat.  Koreans seem to be quite concerned with staying out of the sun, and in addition to the visors we see a lot of parasols as well.

Is that thing street legal??
And speaking of headwear, we've noticed an unusually large number of men wearing hardhats as motorcycle helmets.  Korean traffic tends to be fairly wild and aggressive, and we see these guys weaving and darting on their scooters with only a hardhat as any kind of protection (and no, these men are not en route to a construction job site).  Fortunately, we have not witnessed any traffic accidents, but I'd hate to see what would happen if one of these fellows were to lose it...

Praise the Lord!  Come buy our kinky products!
The other night after dinner Caroline and I went for a walk around our neighborhood.  We loved checking out the different restaurants, shops, etc. in a part of the city we hadn't been to before.  Then we happened upon a storefront with frosted glass windows that was covered in Jesus fish- you know, the ones that evangelical Christians at home put on the back of their cars.  How unusual, we thought, that they would plaster the front of their store with these Christian symbols (although there are quite a few Christians in Daegu).  And we wondered what kind of store this might be- a Christian bookstore, maybe, or the modest entrance to a modern church or meeting place of some kind?  As we peered through the front door, we were suprised at what we saw inside- the wall was covered with various pornographic posters (the centerpiece being a topless shot of Madonna, circa 1988), and inside the seedy shop the cheap shelves were filled with various sex shop paraphernalia.  Whether the shop owners were unaware of the paradox between their storefront and their products, or it was an elaborate front to keep unsuspecting authorities away, I'll never know. 

Bon appetit??
There is so much that I could say about the food, but I must say that overall we have had a very good experience with food.  We have come across some really delicious dishes (usually by accident, upon trying to order something else) such as galbi, which is barbecued pork, or bulgogi, which is marinated beef and mushrooms over a bed of rice vermicelli.  I like the ceremony of eating here too- sitting at a low table, having the grill right in the center of your table, and having eight or ten sidedishes to choose from.  It's great!  There have been a couple of things, though, that have completely grossed me out.  The other day we were walking through the open-air market near our house.  It was all pretty inocuous stuff- produce, some meat, sandals, brooms, etc.  Then I walked past a red plastic bucket filled with water.  I peered into the bucket and (to my horror) discovered that it was filled with about a hundred small eels, all squirming and writhing and generally exuding disgustingness (yes, I'm aware that isn't a real word!).  Yuck!!  And to think that someone was going to buy those and eat them for dinner.  Yuck!! Yuck!!  Another interesting but far less disgusting food thing we've found is the pizza.  They put all kinds of interesting things on it, like corn, and potato wedges.  I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised- it's not like Asians are known for their fantastic pizza or anything...

Flush it?!  But there's a trash can right here...
So apparently (and I have yet to determine where this story originated, or if it's even true) the plumbing here is not equipped to handle toilet paper.  Can you see where this is going?  Yep, that's right- when Koreans go #2 and then wipe, they fold their toilet paper and place it in the trash can beside the toilet.  I hope I haven't caused any lasting damage to the whole system, but I have to confess that I flush my toilet paper when I'm done with it!   There is NO WAY I'm throwing that into a trash can beside the toilet.  Sidenote- you can just imagine how our bathrooms at school smell by the end of the day!  Oh yeah, one more thing- toilets are generally "squatters" here (not western-style toilets), but you'll have to ask Caroline about that- I haven't had the privilege of using one yet!

OK, that about sums up my list of cultural differences for now.  I'm sure I've only seen the tip of the iceberg, and I'll add more as I come across them.

Korea!!

This is my first blog from Korea (and, to be honest, my first true blogging experience).  I feel a little overwhelmed, because I have been meaning to blog all along, and here it is, three weeks into our trip, and I haven't written a word yet.  I have so much to write!

Caroline also has a blog, which is worth checking out (http://kneuroknut.blogspot.com).  She's writing on her take of our experiences here, which is interesting because it's from her point of view, and she's a better writer than I am.  Anyway, check it out.

I don't think I'll go into a great amount of detail about everything that has happened since we first arrived a couple of weeks ago, but there are a few things I would like to touch on that have really stood out in my mind.  Caroline's blog will hopefully fill in any gaps in my stories.

We are here in Daegu, South Korea, teaching English at the Ding Ding Dang English school.  We weighed a few different factors before choosing this particular school, but mostly Caroline liked the name and their cartoonish website (dingdingdang.com).  We still smile when we say the name of our school.  We are here for a year, and the kids we are teaching range from pre-school (3 or 4 years old) up to about junior high (12 or 13 years old).  It turns out that Koreans measure their age differently than we do- when they are born they are 1 year old, and then they add another year to their age with each calendar year, regardless of when their actual birthday is.

Getting here was ok- the flight from Vancouver was great- we got the emergency exit row (lots of legroom!), and the Air Canada staff was friendly and accomodating, and offered us lots of tips about Korea.  The Incheon airport wasn't much of a shock- extremely clean, with fancy widescreen TVs every 20 metres.  There were lots of westerners too- most of them U.S. military people coming and going.  We ended up taking a five hour busride from the airport to Daegu, where we were met by Michelle, the director of our school, who seemed slightly annoyed at having to come pick us up at midnight (I wonder how she thought we felt after traveling for more than 24 hours with no sleep). 

Anyway, we're staying in a 2-bedroom apartment that's walking distance from the school.  We live above a corner store owned by our landlord, Mr. Lee.  He and his wife live on the top floor of our building.  Our "street" looks like a back alley, and could easily be mistaken for one if it weren't for all the houses, shops, and restaurants along it.  To get to our place from the street you enter through a silver gate into a small courtyard (don't get the wrong impression- it's a tiny concrete rectangle filled with surplus goods for Mr. Lee's store, flattened cardboard boxes, plastic crates of empty bottles, and, of course, Stinky.  Stinky is Mr. Lee's dog- some all-white Korean breed (at least I think that's what he was trying to tell me in the store the other day) with pointy ears and a long tail.  You can probably guess how we started calling the dog "Stinky".  Let's just say that Korean summer heat, a small concrete space, and a dog and her four pups don't make for the best smell.  Oh yeah, the puppies.  Stinky has four of the cutest puppies I've ever seen- little white furballs that tumble and frolic and lick our toes when we come in at night.  Caroline hinted yesterday that maybe we could "adopt" one of the puppies, but I think Mr. Lee has plans to distribute them throughout the neighborhood (and that's fine with me).  They are definitely cute though.

Our first day of school was enlightening.  We walked into our school, and were met by a hundred pre-school kids all running and screaming and climbing all over each other.  Most of the kids are very cute, and are energetic and enthusiastic about learning English.  There are five "foreign" teachers at the school (that's us in this case): the two of us, a couple from New Brunswick named Ryan and Andrea (who have been really great to us), and an Irish girl named Eileen (who happens to be our next door neighbor, along with her Irish friend, Maebh).  Then there are about ten Korean teachers who co-teach the classes with us.  They all seem very nice, and are usually eager to help where they can.  There are about 600 students in all at our school, and I am responsible for around 90 students.  As Caroline mentioned in her blog, they are all assigned English names when they start at the school, and there is a core set of names that are recycled through all the classes- names like Alex, Leo, and Peter for boys, and Kate, Sally, and Molly for girls.  Every once in a while you encounter a kid with a name like Wally or Pedro or Hans, and you know that whoever named them had a pretty good sense of humor, or was just trying to think outside the box.

We have TV and a bunch of channels, and there are even a few English channels.  The one we watch most often is AFN, the American Forces Network.  They keep us in touch with "back home" (sort of) and show programs like Letterman, Leno, all the Fox reality shows like "Who Wants to Marry My Dad" and "My Big, Fat, Obnoxious Fiance", and of course Dr. Phil and Oprah.  They also occasionally show SportsCenter and CNN.  I haven't had a TV since I came back from Africa two years ago, but I'm enjoying being able to unwind with some of these shows, and it makes me feel a bit more connected to North America.  There are also tons of military commercials (why are they still showing recruiting commercials- isn't that preaching to the choir??) and public service announcements, reminding soldiers about things like using the buddy system, not drinking and driving, not buying things on the black market, and remembering to drink enough water on hot days.  It's kind of strange, but I am still grateful to have it.  Who ever thought I would be so grateful to the U.S. military?!

Caroline just set up a photo album of pictures that she has taken over here.  She bought a digital camera right before we came, and it's been so great to have.  She will hopefully be updating the album periodically.  To view the pictures, go to http://groups.msn.com/carolinescapturedlife   Click on photos and then Korea.  I'm ending this posting for now, but have plenty more to write, so I'll do that soon.