TV in Korea

As the devout introvert that I am (it's true even if you don't believe me), since arriving in Seoul I have spent many a weekday night at home alone, recovering after a long day spent with crazy, small children. As a result of this, I have watched a fair amount of television. A lot of that television has been viewed on my computer, but there is just something about flipping channels that makes me want to watch my TV, even if I can only understand the programming on four or five stations. Luckily, my inability to understand the dialogue does not always hamper my ability to be amused. Why I love Korean TV:

1. They show an inordinate amount of roller derby on one of my stations. I have never seen roller derby on TV in the US, but here, apparently, American roller derby is very popular. It's not something that can entertain me for very long, but it's a good ten-minute laugh.

2. Then I can move on to the many home shopping networks. Now, many of you know that I love home shopping networks in the US because I think it exposes me to a slice of American life that I don't often experience. When Betty Lou calls in to tell the host, Betsy Sue, just how much she loves her god awful, ugly as sin, Diamondique-Turquoiseish-Opalesque ring, I can't help but have a little smile on my face. So when I watch shopping networks in Korea, I am a little sad that I can't understand the dialogue. But the things that are sold on the shopping networks here are wonderful. Just last night I was watching a program for an electric toilet seat that has a built in seat warmer, in case you were hankering for that The person who sat here before me clearly took a very long shit sensation. The toilet also has a tiny, adjustable spout that comes out of the back acting as a built in bidet, since everyone enjoys a little water squirt on the ass now and again. But apparently, Koreans go for this stuff, as I have, on occasion, seen these complicated, multi-buttoned toilet seats at some bars and restaurants. I have not however had the guts to push any of the buttons for fear that something disastrous may happen. I don't know what type of disaster it could be, but frankly, I prefer to keep my toilet experiences as non-complex as possible. However, if your feelings about toilet seats differ from mine, there is an American company that sells these gems called (I am not making this up) Clean Butt.

3. I also really enjoy watching basketball here. It seems very popular, and I hope to see a game live at some point. What I like best about basketball here is that each team has one black guy who basically does everything. He brings the ball up and then he plays center, maybe steps out as a guard, and most definitely does all of the rebounding. (I haven't seen any white guys playing - not sure why that is??) However, there is one team with two black guys, and this just seems entirely unfair. Having two people who actually play basketball, twice as many as the other teams - how are the other teams possibly going to compete?

4. After my sports and shopping fix, I inevitably pass the most ridiculous station ever put on TV, and no, I'm not talking about the E Network. It's a station that is dedicated entirely to teaching math. It's just some person with a white board teaching basic algebra through calculus. Who in the world is watching this programming. My father was a high school math teacher, and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't sit at home watching someone solve math problems. Hopefully, they will soon figure what a waste of a station this is and they will change it to another home shopping channel.

5. If I am done with roller derby, had enough home shopping, seen the black guy dunk over the tiny Koreans one too many times, and have completed the brief moment of confusion I experience every time I see the math station, I move on to watching commercials. This is mostly entertaining because you get to guess the purpose of the commercial, which is often not obvious. My favorite commercial is one that features a cartoon cabbage and a live Korean actress. It opens with the cartoon cabbage in the bathroom crying because his leaves are falling out, and the girl seems to be asking him what is wrong. Then he has an idea, and we cut to him in the living room proudly wearing a wig made of cabbage, as the girl laughs at him. What could possibly be the intention of this commercial? Are they advertising that they can make wigs for anyone, even vegetable people? Are they selling a product that makes rotten vegetables appear edible? I have no idea what the product being advertised really is - if you have a guess let me know.

6. Finally, when the Korean entertainment wears thin, I turn back to my old stand by - the Style On Network. Its programming is almost entirely comprised of reality competition shows such as America's Next Top Model, Project Runway, and Top Chef. If however, it's an episode of the Kim Kardashian Show (I still have no idea why she's famous), then I flip to the Discovery Channel or one of the three or four movie stations. Basically, there's enough on my TV to entertain me, and on the occasions when it does fail, I turn to my computer. I just watched the pilot episode of Charles in Charge on Netflix, and I'm not gonna lie - I really enjoyed it!

Visiting Olympic Park

Sorry that I haven't been blogging very often. As I guessed it would be, blogging is much harder to do when you aren't stuck in front of a computer all day work, trying to avoid doing work. But I'll be better - at least one entry a week, if not more.

It has been in the high forties here for the last few days, which has drawn me away from my winter hibernation behavior. As I despise being cold, since I arrived I have spent a lot of evenings and weekends hiding in my room trying to avoid going outdoors. But spring like weather is here (for a short while at least), and yesterday I finally made it out of my apartment for a visit to the Olympic Park, site of the 1988 Summer Olympics. As a lover of all things Olympics, I've been pretty anxious to check out the park, so yesterday afternoon, I strapped on my tennis shoes and took a nice little jog. Of course by "nice little jog" I mean "painful experience that highlighted just how out of shape I am." But at least I was on my way to an Olympic adventure.

Once at the park I wandered in the front entrance and first found myself surrounded by strip malls of chain restaurants - not exactly what I was looking for. Then, as I progressed further in I came upon a giant cement plaza packed full of people. So basically I'm thinking - leave it to Seoul to call a bunch of cement a park, and sweet Jesus, isn't there any place in this city that doesn't have a mob of people packed shoulder to shoulder. However, I quickly realized that this was not your typical gaggle of Seoulsters. (I considered using Seoulites and Seoulians, but I like Seoulsters.) This crowd was made up almost exclusively of 12-15 year old girls running in large packs, screaming and laughing. At first, I found this unexplained phenomenon very scary, as it is intimidating to have packs of wild Asian girls screaming and running right for you. It reminded me of the time when I was three or four and I was feeding the ducks at Milham Park. I was enjoying my time with the friendly little ducks, when suddenly this overwhelming raucous started behind me and the noise just kept getting louder and louder as it grew closer and closer. When I turned, I saw a huge pack of geese running for me, honking at the top of their lungs, and it was clear that they were going to take me out to get my bread. So I did the only logical thing. I screamed, dropped my bread, and ran to my dad for protection. Luckily, at Olympic Park I didn't have any bread in my hands, and I was a good bit taller than the running girls, which had not been the case with the geese. I soon discovered that the proverbial bread the girls were seeking was Big Bang paraphernalia. Now Big Bang is the "Best Korean Hip Hop Band," and apparently, they had a concert that night at one of the Olympic stadiums. (I highly recommend checking out one of their videos). The girls were running through the plaza collecting Big Bang stickers, buttons, and what appeared to be a plastic, Big Bang torch. Once I realized that there was no threat of being trampled, I found the whole thing very entertaining and stood and watched the melee for at least 20 minutes.

After I had exhausted the entertainment value of absurd, boy crazy, teenage girls, I continued through the plaza and found just behind it, a huge park full of grass, trees, and little ponds and streams. Turns out there is a little bit of nature in Seoul, and I thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon wandering around the park and taking in the sites. I also enjoyed watching people stare at me, as if I were some kind of natural wonder... if I were at a state fair the sign would read - Giant White Woman Who Walks Twelve Times Faster than Everyone Around Her, Only $1 to See Her! My favorite part of the whole park, however, was the garbage cans. I realize that this a strange thing to enjoy, but the Korean's have a way of making things entertaining. The garbage cans were grouped in sets of four, each with pictures to identify what should be placed in each bin. One had pictures of plastic items, another had pictures of tin and aluminum cans, and there was also one with paper products - this is all seemed rather logical. However, the remaining bin, which I assumed was for general trash had pictures of three of the least likely items I can imagine you might throw away. There was a tennis racket, a baby bottle, and what appeared to be a spoon with a smiley face drawn on it. Who is throwing these things away, especially at a park?

So that was my excitement for yesterday. Today, I finally made it out to play frisbee, and it was awesome. As I write this, I'm pretty sore, but it was well worth it. Got to play, got some exercise, made lots of new friends, and I'm already committed to playing in two tournaments this spring. After playing, six of us went and got some stellar Indian cuisine, chatted, and smoked a little hookah. It was a very productive day.

Top Three Reasons Why Koreans are Crazy

1. They don't heat their bathrooms. Seriously, in a place where you regularly drop trow and are often entirely without clothes, you would think that one might want a source of heating during the winter. Evidently, Koreans don't think so.

2. They drive like maniacs. Although I am sure that Koreans are not the craziest drivers on the planet, they are definitely the craziest drivers I've ever seen. I live on a one lane road, with no sidewalks, many pedestrians, and two directions of traffic. Plus there is no signage for the intersecting roads, so it is entirely up to the drivers to decide who has the right of way. Now if I were driving in this situation, I might drive a maximum of 5 miles per hour, or let's be honest, I would do everything in my power to not drive in this situation. However, if you're Korean, doing about 30 and slowing down to 25 at the intersections seems like a reasonable strategy. Also, red lights do not apply for the first three or four cars that pass under them, and if you decide your way is clear then one should feel free to simply ignore the red light all together and go on your way. Finally, all though this is heresay, apparently one of my friends has seen on multiple occasions, teenage boys, three or four to a motor bike, weaving in and out of oncoming traffic on major roads. So to my many friends and family who are doctors, if you come visit me, I'm afraid the odds of you having to be the first-on-scene at a gruesome accident are alarming high.

3. Jilted Korean women are 100% lunatics, I cannot stress this enough. Apparently, when Korean women are broken up with, stood up, or cheated on, it is completely appropriate to go absolutely apeshit. This includes pounding on the door of your boyfriend's (or ex-boyfriend's) apartment with your fists, your feet, or maybe a baseball bat for a good twenty minutes, all the while screaming like an enraged banshee. This exact scenario may have played out at the apartment next door to me just last night - it was very scary. I don't know if the woman actually had a baseball bat because I didn't have the guts to open my door and peak out, but it sure sounded like a blunt instrument was being used on the door. So, I locked my door just in case the tiny, but mad with fury Korean woman got confused on which door to attack, or simply felt the need to take her rage out on somebody in lieu of her absent boyfriend. However, I should have remembered that there is no reason to fear these women because there other places where they can take out their rage to punish their boyfriends. A crazy woman just last week beat the crap out of her boyfriends SUV with her bare hands. Ok, she used some items she found lying on the street, but she started the ordeal by punching both rear view mirrors off of the car. Then she used a traffic cone, a bucket, and whatever else she could find to continue the assault. According to one of my friends who lives on the floor of the boyfriend, he was home the whole time, but preferred to see his car destroyed rather than face the raging woman. It's amazing how scary a 5 foot 3, 95 lb woman can be when she is Korean and jilted.

Korean Torture

Korea has invented a new form of torture, and they air it on Channel 21 on a regular basis. It will only work on girls, and a few soft hearted men, but it is quite crushing. First, they show Pride and Prejudice (I know this sounds like a good thing). Then, after you have waited through the whole agonizing story waiting for Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy to get together... when it finally happens, they cut the end of the movie so you can't see the big ending kiss. It's awful. I would tell all kinds of government secrets if they offered them in exchange for the end of the movie. I suppose this is just one more piece of evidence supporting my certain failure as a spy.

TMI Moment

This might be too much information, but I felt the need to share. If you thought that asparagus made your pee smell badly, dear lord, it can't be anything compared to what kimchi does (I don't know about the asparagus thing, apparently I'm lacking an enzyme or something). After eating this Korean staple, which is basically spicy cabbage, your pee is the most toxic, rank thing you can imagine. It's horrific.

So, in case you were considering eating kimchi and then letting your yellow mellow - don't do it!

Fun teaching info, I have a student in my intensive reading comprehension class who can't read, at all. Not even the word "the." It's gonna be a long two months.

It's Crunky

The best thing about today - I just ate a candy bar called Crunky. It had rice crisps in it, so I think it was supposed to be Crunchy. But Crunky is just so much better - I'm picturing an advertisement featuring a rapper, his grill, and a mediocre bar of Korean chocolate.

Aside from the chocolate bar it's been a relatively low key day, similar to my other days here. I haven't had any issues with jet lag... as I told my mom before I left, I am an excellent sleeper and can sleep whenever necessary. The transition to life here was also greatly eased by the immediate friend base of the other American teachers. They show me around town, take me to bars and restaurants, and even helped me figure out the mysterious combination washer/dryer in my room (thus far, the dryer has failed entirely, but I got some new advice on which buttons to push and I have a load in as we speak... wish me luck).

I also have my Uncle Russ to show me around, which is great. He took me shopping and then we went back to his home which he shares with eight or nine other priests, most of whom are retired. Turns out retired priests are awesome. Before dinner we had happy hour, then at dinner I was cajoled into a few glasses of wine, all of which was followed by movie night on the houses big screen TV. I am definitely going to hang out with the priests on a regular basis.

As for the children - I have only taught for two days, and I'm already exhausted. The older kids are a piece of cake because they speak English, and I can actually communicate with them. The "7" year olds I teach (that means they are between 5 and 6, as you are born 1 year old in Korea and everyone turns another year older on January 1st - it's a screwy system) - they are another matter. They are very cute, but they don't understand much of what I say, and I already have a class hellion. Two parents called the school today about little Ricky scratching their child - apparently he loves dinosaurs and likes to pretend he has long claws. Hopefully, I will learn to love my class of kinders, as they start picking up more English, and cause me less stress and exhaustion. In the mean time, I'm sure Ricky will be a source of many wonderful blog stories.

My next big mission is to learn the Korean alphabet. It's rather necessary to order at restaurants and explain where you want to go in cabs. For the time being, I let my friends order my food and I carry a piece of paper with address written on it.

I Finally Have Internet in My Room!

I'm here, and I'm alive, and I'm already teaching - crazy I know. I'll write more tonight, but right now I'm off to the store to invest in a humidifier. You know the weather is dry when you dream about searching for water almost every night.