Boob Tube

TV over here is weird. Not just because it is all in Korean, to be honest that's the most normal thing about it.

First, decency rules: This one halway makes sense, but still baffles me. When a show is on in English, they are allowed to use virtually any language they want. Movies from America and England are allowed to contain all of the original language. However, I have seen many occurences where the Korean translation on the bottom of the screen omits the cursing. Not as blatant as F*#@, but there are holes or dashes where one might expect to find the Korean word for Fuck. Apparently, someone who speaks English can handle crude language, but if you speak Korean your ears are to fragile to be exposed to this vulgarity.

Nudity is shown quite often. I've seen some crazy more-hardcore-than-Cinemax stuff on TV here - and I just have basic cable. They always blur out the below the belt shots, but the content can be pretty explicit. Believe it or not, this doesn't really bother me. What's weird about it is that although sexuality is openly shown in all of its rawest forms, other things can't be seen. Entourage is on all the time over here. In an episode I was recently watching, the boys went to a gentleman's establishment where they cursed up a storm and received lapdances from some young women. When they were finished, they went back home and fired up the bong - at least I think that's what they were doing. There was a mosaic placed over the bowl and lighter, like the mere sight of a roasting bowl is too much for the masses to handle, but strip clubs in all of their glory (or non-glory) are totally acceptable. It seems to me like most people who don't know what they are looking at might assume that behind that mosaic is a large crack pipe or a something even worse. I found it very odd. Before I saw that I felt like anything goes on TV, but after that I feel like I don't fully understand what is acceptable in this country. It seems to me like a wierd place to draw the line of decency.

Second, programming: Probably my favorite show on Korean TV is a show (I don't know what it's called because it is in Korean) is a show where there are two contestants, I think usually the same two, that try to train their monkey to do certain things. It may sound like I'm referring to something dirty and vulgar here, but they literally train monkeys. Weird tasks, like collecting eggs and bringing them back to their trainers or doing activities in a classroom on a mini-bike and then they are awarded points based on how well they do. The monkeys are those weird little helper monkeys, and they're pretty smart. If a monkey can understand what is going on in the show, I figure I should be able to at least follow some of it. It's this chubby unlikaeable guy training one monkey and a cute twenty-something girl training the other. I root for her and her monkey and they usually win - I think it's fixed. I've been trying to find a back alley bookie that will take bets on their monkey competitions, but so far I have been unable to find one.

I also really like Korean commercials. Some of my favorites, no matter how many times I watch them I have no idea what they are actually for. I'm also real into some of the cheesy television personalities that truly are beyond description (think that Hap Hazard guy from KC, with a Korean flair). There's a guy for Lotto that smiles so big I think he shoots botox directly in his face before each commercial shoot and there's a guy that advertises for some restaurant that seems to sell every kind of food, and he shoves it all in his mouth close up. Soju commercials are Korea's answer to the American beer commercial. They are ridiculous and make people's lives look so much better after they drink a little bit, even though Soju is Korea's answer to old Europe's wormwood absinthe, only more poisonous and less fun.

There is another program that really makes me wish I understood Korean. It is a kind of soap opera that is huge in this country. It takes place in an old oriental village, maybe Korea, maybe elsewhere. There is heavy drama and the citizens of this city are captivated by it. Right after the initial Kim Jong Il scare a few weeks ago I was walking through a subway station right south of where I live (Sadang). There happens to be a few large TV's right in the middle of the station where people are always watching while they wait for trains. There was a huge crowd assembled around a one of the TV's. Everyone in the crowd had real somber looks on their faces and were intently watching the screen. I was convinced when I turned the corner that I would see an announcement that WWIII had just begun. Instead, one of the main characters was in a casket as a younger man with an equally fake beard eulogized him. My first exposure to this show and it's power was in a small chicken restaurant with one of my fellow teachers. We were sat right below a TV. At first I thought the whole restaurant was staring open-mouthed at the white kids in the corner, but then I realized everyone, from the cooks peeking out of the kitchen to the college-aged kids right next to us were staring at the boob tube.

It seems that even though I may not understand the language on the TV, I do understand the language of TV. Allow me to quote Homer Simpson:

"Television. Teacher, mother, secret lover."

The Simpson's are in in five minutes (I'm not kidding) I gotta go.

Love from Seoul

Oh, Friends of Mine

I have come to the realization tonight that the world continues to spin even though I am far away from all the people I care about.

Jeff, Al and Andy are in Chicago with Kel, Beau continues to try to turn lemons into lemonade in KC, Dave is back in San Francisco after sending me to this upside down country, Ediger is in Hawaii dealing with earthquakes, Bridget, Roland and many others are hanging in KC, Nicole is in Dallas and I haven't seen her in years, camp people are all over the world, Wysong and his wife just had a beautiful baby girl (I haven't seen her, but c'mon), Zach is doing college to the extreme and is close to being someone who helps a lot of people in this world, Tom is in Emporia, Sam is in D.C., Mel is in Colombia, Tanner's got a life of his own with a wife and daughter, there are many people still in Lawrence, Ted Francis is God knows where, little Mikey Warner is living it up in Oregon with Dan and Porter's there too as well as Lentz, Huggins is in Honduras, and I'm in Seoul as far as I could be from everybody.

I came to this country to find myself and make a little money. The more I'm here the more I realize the friends I have made in my life are what matter the most to me. Please don't take this as a plea to come home or a signal of homesickness. I absolutely love my life in South Korea, but distance gives one perspective, and I've begun to realize how special my friends are. I guess I feel like I'm so far away that I am a little out of the loop. The only time I've cried in the last six years is when I learned that Lisa died - I knew the pain that was being felt by my good friends Beau and Zach and I wanted nothing more than to be at their side and I knew that was impossible. I feel now that I am so far away that not only can I not take part in others' bad times but I cannot take part in people's joy, indifference or lives in general.

My friends are always what have mattered the most to me, but now that I live literally half a world away from everybody I realize that they are what make me whole. I have learned that I am a strong person in South Korea. I have survived (quite succesfully if might say so myself) in a strange land and feel confident in the person that I am. A little boy sat in his bedroom in Kansas and wondered what he would become, and he is proud of where his life has taken him and the person he is, but he would be nothing without the people that helped shaped the person he became. Although this is kind of weak, this is a thank you to all of you that were part of this process.

I can't wait for the adventures that await me here in Seoul, but at the same time, I can't help but be excited about returning to the States to see all of you.

Sorry to get little cheesy, but I haven't got laid in a long long time and that leads to existential thinking.

Love from Seoul

p.s.- The picture above was taken in the A.M. in the great city of Prairie Village, KS. Pre-season basketball starts in five days - Go Hawks!

p.p.s.- I miss all of you, Hawks fans or otherwise.

Static

I am surrounded by people in this city. Everywhere I go I can hear people talking. From the conversations old women are having at the bakery to the heated argument outside my window at 2:30 am last night, it is hard to escape the chatter of the many Korean people that inhabit this small area. The good thing for me is I don't speak Korean, so I never really "listen" to conversations, I just hear them. It's like somebody left the TV on in this country, but it's not quite tuned into the channel. I can see the body language and hear noise, but I'm never quite sure the exact meaning of a conversation.

I didn't realize what an advantage this was until I was riding on the subway lost in my own thoughts the other day when two American girls about my age got on the subway. It is rare that I see fellow country-persons, so I said hello and they said hi back. We exchanged pleasentries, and then I put my iPod headphones back on and went back to my thoughts. The two girls were talking loud enough that I could hear them over the music on my headphones, just like I can usually hear Koreans' conversations over the music, but this time my brain started listening to the conversation. They were discussing a foot lotion they have found in Seoul. You can't find it in the States and it's great. "Does it smell good?" "Oh my God, yes." How much was it?" It was like 20,000 won but it's totally worth it." "I would pay twice that to make the skin on my feet less dry." You get the picture. I realized I have probably heard this conversation in many different forms on the subway, but this was the first time I actually had to listen to it. I wanted to change the channel, but they were the only English speakers in the train and my brain has been yearning for spontaneous English chatter so much that I couldn't tune them out.

Obviously, there are times when I wish I could understand what people are trying to say, but I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy. I don't mind being left alone with my thoughts most of the time I'm in public. I think it gives me a better opportunity to take in my surroundings for what they are and not have to listen to the little bullshit conversations that surround me.

I gotta go. There's this store on the other side of Seoul that sells this great foot lotion. I'm going to pick some up.

Love from Seoul

Mallrats

It has been raining ever since I woke up today. I didn't wake up until 1:30 in the afternoon, but still, c'mon. So with the outdoors being wet and chilly and a full Sunday with nothing to do, I decided to head indoors to a huge Korean mall with a friend.

The mall was so big that there was a Jackie's Kitchen (Jackie Chan's restaurant) by the door when we walked in and another one at the other end of the mall. There were two food courts, 16 movie theaters, and hundreds of flashing lights all over the mall. I totally experienced sensory overload when we first got there. There were people and lights and music everywhere. I felt like I was on drugs. There were also a bunch of convenience stores throughout the mall. How convenient. We walked in circles for a couple hours and we still didn't cover the whole mall. Coex is known for their aquarium and we never even saw it. Not only was there an extremely large and loud arcade, but there are projectors on the ceiling pointing down at different points in the mall where it is sensitive to motion and you can play video games with your feet -you can play soccer, go bowling or play frogger. Pretty sweet. I haven't has so much fun in a mall since I was 12. The best part is that it's all underground so if there is a nuclear attack, I just found my bunker.

Before I sign off, I want to comment on my night last night and one of the really cool things about being in Korea. Towards the end of the night I ended up at a cool bar called Bricx (Bricks) in an area called Itaewon. Itaewon kind of gets a bad wrap because a lot of US soldiers hang out there and it's a real Americanized area. At the bar, we sat down on some couches with some girls and some other guys and girls we didn't know joined us. I was sitting around a table with another guy from Kansas, a girl from Minnesota, an Indian girl whose family lives in Canada, a girl from San Francisco and her Korean boyfriend named Kyle, another girl from Canada and her boyfriend from Iran. I like the fact that I'm getting a healthy dose of Korean culture, but the sweet thing is I'm being exposed to people from all over the world that I get to converse with as well. It's amazing how much I have in common with people that come from such different walks of life. We all know that you can't judge someone just by their looks, but meeting people in this setting is allowing me to be exposed to many different points of view. I have also learned that stereotypes are totally useless. The most racist person I've met since I've been here was Canadian. Fucking Canadians.

It's been 13 days since North Korea tested nuclear weapons. Thanks Condoleezza!

Love from Seoul

If a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words Here's 4,000 Words

I just got a couple pics - thought I might share them with you.
The first is from a Korean barbecue restaurant I went to with all the teachers after the speech competition at our school. We are sitting on the floor - not as comfortable as you may think. The green bottles are Soju. I'm not sure exactly what Soju means in Korean, but if I had guess I would guess it means, "shitty vodka." It's the liquor of Korea and when drunk in copius amounts it will make you go crazy and give you an insane hangover the next day. Go Korea!
The second picture is of me and two of the other foreign teachers, Dee from Vermont and Deidre from South Africa.
The third is a picture of me on my first night here. I had been awake for well over 24 hours. Some of the teachers took me out to dinner and drinks then we went a commons area at the university that is right by our apartments and continued drinking there. I was pretty dis"orient"ed. I was totally out of it and getting my first exposure to the Korean people. What was he talking about? Your guess is as good as mine.
The fourth is me with two of the Korean teachers from my school, Neo and Joy. Good people.
Hopefully there will be more to come as soon as I get a camera of my own.
It's been six days since the North has tested nuclear bombs - things are looking up.

Love from Seoul

Foreign Relations

Up to this point I have only discussed some of the negative aspects of living in Seoul as an outsider - I think it is time a brighten this blog up and share some of the upsides of being a foreigner.

Yesterday morning, I woke up and checked my e-mail, put on some tunes and got ready to face the day when suddenly there was a knock on my door. I walked the five feet across my apartment and opened the door to find a woman about my age standing there with a smile. She was a warm woman who seemed like she wanted to tell me something. She muttered some words in Korean and smiled. I smiled back and said, "I speak English. I don't know what you are saying." She reached into her bag and pulled out a Bible. I realized that she wanted to spread the good Word. As much as I wanted to invite her in for a coffee and a talk about why I'm going to hell, the language barrier meant this could never happen. I pointed to her Bible and gave a thumbs up. She was still smiling and expecting me to see the light, so I quoted one of the premier bands of the 70's and 80's, the Doobie Brothers and said, "Jesus is just all right with me," and closed the door in her face. Being foreign isn't always bad.

You know those people on the street that hand out flyers. Allow me to quote the late great Mitch Hedberg: "When someone hands you a flyer, it's like they're saying, 'here, you throw this away.'" There are tons of these flyer-hander-outers in Seoul. I saw two women the other day pretty much guarding the subway exit forcing every person that walked by to take one. As I approached, they both looked at the ground and pretended like I wasn't there. No one ever gives me flyers. I don't know if they assume I won't be able to understand it or it's just bad publicity to have your flyer seen in the hands of a foreigner, but I never have to deal with it. I am immune to the street advertisement guerillas. Good thing too, because there aren't very many trash cans in Seoul.

Life is good for a foreigner here in Seoul. Sure, there are times where I wish I understood my surroundings a little better and wish I was more in the "in" crowd, but I don't think there is anything wrong with finding the benefits of being an outsider and exploiting them. Now I've just got to find a Korean woman who can't resist my exotic Kansas accent...

Love from Seoul

Preparing for WWIII

So, I've been watching lots of CNN lately; it's one of the only English channels I have. They have been talking a lot about the Korean peninsula which happens to be where I'm living. They are showing a lot of footage of protesters in Seoul burning pictures of Kim Jong Il and North Korean flags and juxtaposing that with file footage of the North Korean military 'goosestepping' around the North and really old footage of scientists in labs apparently building nuclear weapons. It's starting to kind of freak me out.

I have come to the realization that if North Korea decides to attack South Korea, they will head straight for Seoul. I have also read some speculation that there is a large amount of missiles pointed straight at Seoul and there have been ever since the Korean war ended...oh wait, the Korean war never ended. If you look back to high school history class you will see that the Korean War is still happening. There was never any peace treaty signed so it is just an active war in which they have taken a fifty-year break from fighting. So the country I am living in is in an "active" war with the country that has just tested its first nuclear weapon with plans to test more, as my current homeland announced today that they are preparing for a nuclear war "just in case." Let me make something clear - You wear a seat belt in a car "just in case" - you prepare for a nuclear war because you think a nuclear war might begin. I don't know much about nuclear weapons (although I do know how to say "nuclear" thanks to Homer Simpson), but I am under the impression that there isn't a whole lot you can do to prepare for a nuclear war other than start digging graves.

I don't want to give off the wrong impression here. I think at this point that war is still far off (God I hope I'm right), and I don't feel like my life will be ended tomorrow. But I am coming to the realization that my life is somewhat in danger. I am living in a city that has a big target on it and there's a leader with a severe Napolean complex just across the DMZ with the capabilities to blow it to bits. I would not consider this a very noble way to die and don't know what I will do if I survive a nuclear bombing. I don't speak the same language as anyone in my neighborhood. I don't know where to go to be safe. I wouldn't understand warnings on TV or radio. Man, I'm starting to freak myself out even more.

For now there isn't much I can do. I bought a pair of numchuks to keep me safe when the North Koreans attack and I've been watching a lot of Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme movies to learn how to use them. I need to go out and get a parka - the cold war is starting back up.

Keep me in your thoughts and keep your fingers crossed for me.

Love from Seoul

BOOOOOOOM!

When I decided to come to Seoul to teach, I never for one moment felt like I might be putting my life in danger. Suddenly, when I turned on my TV this morning after my shower, everything changed.

Today was a cloudy and gloomy day in the city of Seoul. Everyone seemed a little bit down. The street market by my school which is generally full of mirth and activity, seemed empty and quiet. Now I might be imagining things, and maybe the behavior was due to a city-wide hangover due to Chuseok, but there was a nuclear explosion a few hundres miles north of here this morning - and now the world is pissed.

Now I don't want to get ahead of myself. No one knows how all parties involved will react and this could mellow out in the weeks to come. At the same time, the proverbial shit might hit the fan and blow it all over the city I began to call home about a month ago. Either way, I can say this for sure: I feel much more in danger of being thrown into the middle of a military skirmish here in Seoul then I ever did in Kansas. Even that one time in the late 80's when Nebraska got pissed and threatend some major "cornhusking" across the border.

For now, I'm just gonna keep watching the news and hoping for the best. I should have taken that job in Baghdad...

Love (and hopefully peace) from Seoul

Kyle

Thanksgiving in early October...

Happy Thanksgiving! The holiday of Chuseok, the Korean Thanksgiving is currently being celebrated here in Seoul. Instead of celebrating a vicious takeover of a native culture like we do in America, these people celebrate the fruitfulness of the harvest or the lives of their ancestors or something like that. I can't be too sure because the majority of my conversations with the locals include the English words coffee, beer, chicken, fried, Yes I am American but I think George Bush is bad and thank you. You can combine these words a whole bunch of different ways to create your own conversations at home. Go ahead, try it yourself; the possibilities are literally endless. It's kind of like those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books we all used to read as kids.

I actually did have a great conversation late at night in a bar with some Korean college kids the other night. We were talking about America and how awesome it was and they were asking me about Bush. I told them, "in my country we have a word for Premier Bush: Cocksucker." I laughed but the joke was lost on them, so I pointed to my crotch and said "cock" and then gyrated my head back and forth and said "sucker." This got a good laugh and some thumbs up and convinced them that although I may look like it, I am not the imperialistic pig they thought I was. This whole experience has been one huge game of charades so far. My Korean is limited to say the least and most Korean people's English is limited as well, so I find that a few gestures and points can go a long way. All I'm saying is never challenge me to a game of charades after this because it has become my main way of communicating in this strange land.

In all seriousness, for obvious reasons, I have found communication to be the most difficult aspect of adapting to this culture. Those of you that know me know that I like to talk. Most of my former teachers would say that I talk too much. I use my words to get out of awkward situations and meet new people. I have had many awkward situations and opportunities to meet new people that have passed because I can't use my words. It is quite frustrating at times and I am forced to find new means. So far I haven't been too successful at finding these means (other than charades), but I am working on it. It is weird being in a subway car full of coversations and laughter and not understanding a word. This awkwardness came at me as I was introduced at a speech contest held at my school a few weekends ago. I had a room full of curious Korean parents staring at me as my boss rambled on about me in Korean as she introduced all of the foreigb teachers. I didn't understand a single word other than "Kyleteacher," but I didn't get fired and none of the parents pulled their kids out of my classes, so I guess she had nice things to say.

Well, I've just about been in Seoul for a month now. I love the job I'm doing and I am doing my best to not look too foreign. I plan on ranting and raving on this blog whenever I feel like I have good stories or frustrating encounters. It should get much more interesting once I get a digital camera, but for now it's nice to use my words to get across a message to people that may actually understand it.

I'll be in touch

Love from Seoul