North Korean Market Festival

North Korean currency.

By using MeetUp, I have been able to find out about a lot of cool events happening around the greater Seoul area that are right up my alley. I have become superficially involved with a group working with North Korean refugees. Last weekend I went to a festival that was advertised in the MeetUp group and was right around the corner (of a mountain) from my house. The festival was organized by Now Action Unity for Human Rights (NAUH), along with a bunch of foreigners, South Koreans, and North Korean defectors. The festival itself was pretty small and you could easily walk through the whole thing in under 20 minutes. We took a little longer to go through it because, for once, there were actually English translations of all the signs.

Due to South Korean regulations, nothing was for sale at the market because goods from North Korea can’t be sold in the South. They had housewares, bicycles, school books, alcohol, cigarettes, and food. Since almost no one in North Korea has a car, which is typically a bastion of manliness, North Korean men express their manliness through their toolboxes. Instead of souping up and working on cars, they add to and compare their tools. It was also interesting to learn about the youth scene in North Korea. Adolescents who have and can play guitar are the popular kids and, since so few people have radios or televisions, they all gather together and play guitar and have sing-alongs. From the sign:

The acoustic guitar is another beloved musical instrument in North Korea. Every North Korean learns to play guitar in school, and thus, almost every youngster can play it fairly well. If there is anyone who is incapable of playing guitar, he or she might be bullied in school. Unlike South Korean youth culture that consists mainly of clubbing, North Korean youngsters gather at a friend’s house and sing and dance to the melodies of acoustic guitar, creating a clubbing atmosphere themselves, because there is nothing like clubs in North Korea. Naturally, the students who could not afford school education and did not have the opportunity to learn to play guitar have difficulty blending in with their peer groups. Acoustic guitar is absolutely the “it” item in North Korean youth culture. 

When we walked into the event, there were four people (two men and two women) who were filth and dressed in rags sitting on the ground near the entrance. They were sitting around a bad of about 10kg of corn kernels and some tofu, and their faces were streaked with dirt and tears. As we were leaving, they began a performance demonstrating what life was like in a North Korean market. A man and a woman were standing off to the side, while the other two were sitting on the ground and selling their corn and tofu. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a soldier came up and began yelling at them, calling them beggars and saying they were guilty of shaming the Kim regime. The soldier then smashed all the tofu and spilled the corn kernels out of the bag and began beating the couple. As soon as the soldier walked away, the other couple who had been standing off to the side, tried to grab some of the corn that had fallen on the ground. They were confronted by the first couple, who began to violently kick and punch them and grab the kernels out of their pockets. 

It was horrifying to watch and became even more so when, at the end of the skit, one of the men explained that they were all North Korean defectors and this was a common occurrence in the markets in the North. He also said that he and his fellow performers had been fasting since the morning before the event so that their hunger would be real when they were fighting for the kernels and so that they could remember what they had come from. The opportunity to experience things like this is one of the reasons I am happy to live in South Korea. The proximity to such a crazy dictatorship allows a level of exposure which is, while not entirely satisfactory, can at least show the world small glimmers of the humanity alive and well inside the country. It is so easy to victim-blame in situations like this, asking why people don’t revolt and tear up the streets when they’re exposed to such an oppressive, marginalizing administrative system, but change is coming. We can see this through events like the North Korean Market and by hearing and listening to the stories of escapees and refugees. 

Japan, Day 1

The nice thing about traveling from Korea to Japan is the distance. The flight was only an hour and a half, not even enough time for me to properly pass out against the window in my patented airplane-sleeping position. I flew there using Air Peach, a new-ish budget airline which I have no complaints about. It was nothing special, but there were no problems on the way there or the way back. The only thing that might be a problem for the more masculine travelers out there are the airline’s signature colors of fuchsia and orchid, and the fact that you have to fly in a pink plane.

We landed at Osaka-Kansai Terminal 2 right on time at 10:30. I grew up with a mother who was trying to have it all, which meant that I was often dropped off or picked up constantly shuttling me around and dropping me off or picking me up 15 minutes or so behind schedule. As an adult, I have a perverse appreciation for punctuality and no one does it better than the Japanese. A friend of mine lives in Tokyo and speaks Japanese, and he told me that if the subway or bus is running even one minute behind the schedule posted in the station, you can expect the conductor or driver to be apologizing profusely to all the passengers as they board.

Kyoto is about 90 minutes from Osaka so it had been decided that the first night we would stay near the airport. This being my second trip into Osaka-Kansai, I knew that the subway and buses closed pretty early, and that taxis would be ridiculously expensive, so it seemed that this plan would be more of a money- and time-saver for us. Unfortunately, by the time we made it through immigration public transport was closed and we were forced to take a taxi anyways.

Taxis in Japan are the epitome of class, as well they should be for what you end up paying for them. The cars themselves are always black with the drivers’ and front seats covered with white lace doilies. Even if it’s raining outside, the cars are pristine and spotless. The drivers must use their time between fares to clean off road dirt and straighten seat cushions.  The hotel we stayed at was called the Hotel Garden Palace and it was only 7 or 8 km away, but by the time we got there the fare had skyrocketed up to almost $50. Compared to Korean taxi prices, where the same distance at the same time of night probably would have run me about $10 max, it was pretty painful.

For an airport hotel, the Garden Palace was comfortable, clean, and functional. The elevators were tiny (another common Japanese thing) and they charged for breakfast, but I slept through that anyways so it didn’t really matter to me. The neighborhood it’s in is a little strange, a cross between an industrial town and a rice paddy, but it was incredibly quiet which is always a welcome change of pace for me. The lobby was also pretty cute, in a kitschy kind of way. I was also pleasantly surprised when I walked into the room and saw that the shower had a bathtub, a practice that I forgot was pretty commonplace in Japan. My favorite part about the hotel by far was the fact that they put traditional Japanese robes in the rooms. It took all of my willpower not to revert to my kleptomania ways and slip one of them into my backpack.  That and the pillows were the perfect amount of hard-squishy. I slept like a rock.

Japan

This weekend is a long holiday here in Korea. As I’ve said before, the two major holidays on the ROK are Thanksgiving (Chuseok 추석) and Lunar New Year (Seollal 설날), and once more Lunar New Year is upon us. In 2011, I left Korea twice (Thailand, America); 2012 I left 3 times (Philippines, Japan, and Indonesia), but in 2013 I only left once (Japan again!)! So I am hurting for a vacation that lets me put my awesome new passport to use. Also, if any of my friends back home are reading this, I just want you to know that I’m going to Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, and Malaysia this year. Still happy with your decision to start a career fresh out of college? Get. At. Me.

There is nothing better to rescue one from the doldrums of winter like planning a vacation. Especially if it’s a vacation to somewhere warmer than where you are. Even if that warmer place is really only slightly warmer than home. I’m going to be in Kyoto and Nara for 5 days over my vacation, and it’s going to be historic and modern and wonderful. After taking that photography workshop a few weeks ago, I’m ready to walk all over the place snapping pictures and seeing sights. I’m most looking forward to everything, but I have been thinking about the things I want to see and photograph that I didn’t get to last time or did a shitty job of capturing. Definitely want to take some good pictures of the deer at Nara. Last time I didn’t get any shots that were really great.

While planning out my trip I learned about about Jizo statues, so I’m going on the hunt to search for those. According to the information I’ve found so far, Jizo is the guardian of children, travelers, and pregg-os so the statues are all over the place. It’s said in Japan that children who die before their parents are not allowed to cross into the afterlife because of all the suffering and grief they’ve caused and are instead doomed to an eternity of piling stones at the edge of the Sanzu River. Each day the children pile stones, hoping to accumulate enough as good deeds to pay the ferry across the river into the afterlife, but each night demons come and destroy the piles so the children have to start all over the next day. Dead babies are Japan’s Sisyphus.

Sometimes people pile stones next to statues of Jizo to help cut down on the workload for all those children and of course Jizo himself is there to help. As the story goes, he finds these wandering souls along the river and hides them inside his robes from the demons who patrol the river, then sneaks them across to greet eternity. Atheistically, I take no solace from the concept of Jizo, but I am strangely drawn to talismans that represent a connection to the commonality of humanity. The peace I feel about Jizo and the Buddha statues I keep in my room and the ticket stub I saved from a long-forgotten event and the expired NYC MetroCard in my wallet and a crumpled and a torn picture of my brother when he was a baby remind me of times past and promises of things to come. Rituals like the piling of stones or riding the subway or going to a baseball game remind us that we are an inexorable part of the web of humanity and even though we suffer, there are others who have suffered the same and survived.

So I will fly on Wednesday and as with every trip I have ever taken, I will go to Japan with the expectation that through the lens of a new experience I will figure out some new truth about myself or contemplate a new angle of an old problem or think about something that I’ve never even considered before. Also, I want to get some of those tabi toe socks that I can wear with sandals 🙂

Impressions of the U.S. Embassy Seoul

The outside is ugly. Very very ugly. It looks like they slapped it together in the 60s with whatever materials were on hand, not caring one iota about how it looked. It’s especially  unfortunate because the embassy is situated on the main plaza at Gwanghwamun, steps away from one of the biggest palaces in Seoul. Although the real tragedy would be if a building as thoughtlessly made as this was so close to a wholly original Gyeongbokgung Palace and Front Gate, instead of one that had been rebuilt after being bombed, burned out, and left to the elements.

Inside is exactly what you would expect from seeing the outside, although the doors are ridiculously heavy. Probably a natural deterrent to be sure those applying for visas are willing to work to actually get them. The best (and worst) part about it is that it’s full of Americans. The waiting room was an almost equal mix of newborn babies with their parents applying for certificates of foreign births, Koreans there to get travel visas, and an eclectic mix of twenty-somethings renewing passports and the like. There was also one balding uniformed soldier talking in an agitated voice who stomped away huffily at the end of his conversation and said loudly “I bleed for this country and all they do is shit on me” which from what I understand is a pretty common sentiment for enlisted men.

Part of me was excited to visit the Embassy, probably because even though it’s surrounded by Korean police officers, a cinderblock fence with barbed wire, and so visually repellant that it deters unwanted guests, it’s still my embassy and I felt entitled to walk in there whenever I wanted. Isn’t that what we do as Americans? Go into places because we feel that we have the right to with little regard for what’s actually the proper thing to do? The other part of me felt like I was way too cool to spend any amount of time surrounded by Americans and didn’t want to waste time as such. The longer I stay out of the country, the less inclined I am to return or to even put myself in a situation with more than two or three Americans. Or even just Westerners for that matter. Also, I wanted to prove to myself that I was correct in my assumption that the interior would be just as ugly as the facade.

I was pleased to find that things were exactly as I expected. All the Americans there talked too loudly about their own self-interests, babies cried but even though their faces were scrunched and red they still looked cute, a mom whipped out her boob right next to me and started breastfeeding (common in America, not so much in Korea), and the laminate flooring and drab puce paint could have come from a defunct Detroit elementary school. Plus, my new picture got photoshopped so now I will look amazing in my passport for the next ten years.

And here all this time I’ve been thinking that it’s illegal to photoshop id pictures

Some People Are Cool

The best part about living in Korea is all of the interesting people you get to meet. Last weekend I went to a DSLR photography workshop at Jankura Artspace, which is now literally three minutes from my house since my move to Itaewon. The class was taught by a professional travel photographer, Jessica Lia, and it was excellent. She posted about it on her blog so you can go check it out and see how famous I am 🙂 I bought my DSLR in January 2013 and pathetically, I’ve only used it once on my trip to Osaka last year. Most of the reason was that there were just too many buttons and functions for me to do anything even semi-legit, but Jess was able to set me on the right track.

Back to cool people though. At the beginning of the class, we all went around and gave a little blurb about why we were taking the class and I wasn’t expecting anything special from anyone (although I should have, because it takes an interesting kind of person to go out and drop a chunk of change on a DSLR and then actually take the time to figure out how to use it). The class was all women. One of them is getting ready for a South American backpacking adventure starting in Ecuador and working her way down to Chile. Why is she doing that? Just because. Probably looking for something. We Americans think that the best way to figure things out is to leave everything behind, after all.

Another gal in the class had ridden her bike all around the Midwest, from northern California to southern, Japan and Europe, WWOOFing and Couch Surfing. She’s working in Korea because she ran out of money when she got here so she’s saving up to keep riding. Then there was my friend, who teaches at an international school and is soon planing her move to Malaysia, much to my chagrin. I of course fall no where near any of these people in awesomeness factor and was taking the class so I could suck less at photography. Perhaps there will be pictures to come!

Top Fives of 2013

Offered without comment.

YouTube Videos:

Songs:

1. I Can Change – John Legend featuring Snoop Dogg
2. Blurred Lines – Robin Thicke
3. East Harlem – Beirut
4. Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) – Florence + the Machine
5. Somebody That I Used to Know – Gotye

Quotes:

1. To paraphrase Mark Twain in The Innocents Abroad: “The tragedy of Americans who travel internationally is that, no matter where they go or why they go, they seek out other Americans for companionship and to talk about how there’s nowhere to get a good cheeseburger.”
2. “I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.” – Albert Einstein
3. “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” – Nelson Mandela
4. “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” —Aristotle
5. “I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.” —Marlene Dietrich

Books:

1. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business (Charles Duhigg)
2. Cat’s Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut)
3. John Dies at the End (David Wong)
4. The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2013 (edited by Dave Eggers)
5. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Haruki Murakami)

Korean Words:

1. 한 번 더 할 (“do it one more time” as a threat)
2. 죽을래 (“do you wanna die?” also a threat)
3. 열공! (“study hard!”)
4. 이 시간에 누구지(“who could it be at this hour?”)
5. 앗 (“sweet!” or “awesome!”)

Books I Read in 2013 (in semi-reverse-chronological order)

1. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Haruki Murakami)
2. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (David Mitchell)
3. Burial Rites: A Novel (Hannah Kent)
4. Walk Me Home (Catherine Ryan Hyde)(I’m embarrassed to have to put this on my list. It was complete shit. Don’t waste your time)
5. Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (Jason K. Stearns)
6. The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2013 (edited by Dave Eggers)
7. Tell the Wolves I’m Home (Carol Rifka Brunt)
8. Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe (Gerard Prunier)
9. A Hologram for the King (Dave Eggers)
10. Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare)
11. The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa (Deborah Brautigam)
12. The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence (Martin Meredith)
13. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
14. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (David Sedaris)
15. Me Talk Pretty One Day (David Sedaris)
16. Barrel Fever (David Sedaris)
17. John Dies at the End (David Wong)
18. Snuff (Chuck Palahniuk)
19. Tell-All (Chuck Palahniuk)
20. Naked (David Sedaris)
21. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary (David Sedaris)
22. What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures (Malcolm Gladwell)
23. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (Malcolm Gladwell)
24. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Malcolm Gladwell)
25. Cat’s Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut)
26. The Three Musketeers (Alexandre Dumas)
27. Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov)
28. A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L’Engle)
29. Fight Club (Chuck Palahniuk)
30. When You Are Engulfed in Flames (David Sedaris)
31. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
32. Digital Fortress (Dan Brown)
33. Steve Jobs (Walter Isaacson)
34. Invisible Monsters (Chuck Palahniuk)
35. Pygmy (Chuck Palahniuk)
36. Lullaby (Chuck Palahniuk)
37. Diary (Chuck Palahniuk)
38. The Green Girl (Kate Zambreno)(Ditto for #4. Damn Amazon and their daily deals)
39. Survivor (Chuck Palahniuk)
40. Flatland (Edwin A. Abbott)
41. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Junot Diaz)
42. One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
43. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business (Charles Duhigg)

I was seriously misinformed (through no fault of my own, I swear!) about what Korea would be like when I signed up to come here oh-so-long ago. Being American, and with very limited travel experience outside of the States, I operated under the gross misconception that the diversity which is prevalent in America was just as commonplace everywhere else. 

All I can say to my past self is “FOOL!” The biggest shocker continues to be all the Koreans in Korea. I can now imagine that you’re reading this and thinking “FOOL!” because seriously, who goes to Korea without expecting it to be full of Koreans? Me, that’s who.

It must have something to do with the fact that I’m American and before moving here I was living in New York City, where everywhere you looked was someone from a different ethnicity or nationality or was just different. There was no end to the visual onslaught of differentness. In Korea, the opposite is true. Being different or stepping outside of social strictures is frowned upon, so people don’t do it very often. When they do, it is in mild, middle-of-the-road ways, such as dyeing your hair an acceptable color of different (many Koreans go the red route, the extreme people go blonde).  

Often, when I’m riding the bus or walking down the street I look around and laugh at the fact that I’m the only non-Korean as far asz I can see. It’s a very strange feeling to be so obviously “The Other,” but I’ve gotten used to it. In fact, the last time I was back in America, I was thrown off guard by the fact that no one was staring at me for a change. Have I gotten normal?! 

The only consistent respite from sameness that I’ve found here is in a district called Itaewon. This is the foreigner district in Seoul and when I first started coming here it was almost more than my diversity-starved eyes could handle. Even though it’s kind of dirty and full of characters, I love this part of the city. There is a particular street with a mosque hidden at the top of the hill that most of the drunks who pour into the area on the weekend never find. I happened across it one Sunday while exploring with a friend, and later dated someone who lived on this street. I grew to love it as I spent more and more time there, and soon I will move to my own apartment on the street. Yay!

∞

Christmas in Korea

If I were in America right now, I’m sure I would feel like I was on the verge of going postal from all the Christmas lights and music that’s been plating nonstop since 12:01am November 29th, but not so here in Korea.

With around a quarter of the Korean population identifying themselves as some sort of Christian, you would think that this holiday would be filled with a lot more excitement and holiday cheer than it actually is. Although I have seen my fair share of Christmas lights and trees sprinkled throughout the city, but this comes as no surprise with all the foreigners crawling around Seoul. I would be curious to see how the rest of the peninsula is decked out.

In America, Christmas is met with almost un-suppressible fanfare and excitement and during the holiday season it feels like you can’t take more than 10 steps without coming across some piece of paraphernalia or strain of music. If I had to venture a guess as to why this holiday is almost anti-climactic on the ROK, I would chalk it up to two things: the two biggest Korean holidays and vacation time.

Chuseok (Thanksgiving) and Seollal (Lunar New Year) are the most popular holidays in the Korean calendar and the traditions that go with each go back for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. There’s no way a largely manufactured Western holiday can compare with that. 

Part of the reason Christmas feels like such an occasion in America is undoubtably because of the huge chunk of vacation time that comes with it. It’s hard not to do lots of shopping, decorating, hosting, drinking, and celebrating when you have two weeks off work. For many international companies with branches and offices in Seoul, the Christmas holidays bring the opportunity for the standard western vacation time. But the rest of us would be lucky to have Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off work. 

I myself will be working on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, but luckily Christmas Day is a bank holiday, so I will be celebrating at home by watching the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas (none of that Jim Carrey trash for me), National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and of course, A Christmas Story.  

Anyways, the reason for the season is to be with loved ones in whatever form that takes (Skype!), to relax, and to stay warm. I will be doing all of these things, and I hope you will too 🙂

Parenting FAIL

I didn’t take this picture, I found it online but it’s so hilarious I just had to share it. E-Mart is a giant superstore in Korea, much like Wal-Mart. My students go there on the weekends and talk about it like they went to Disneyland. E-Mart may not be that cool, but they do sell hedgehogs.