Meat of All Varieties

Koreans have no understanding of meat.

None.

Not an inkling of a clue.

In fact, if you were to place them outside of Korea, i'm fairly certain they would mistake apples for ham.

Now, this may seem a bit harsh, but let me paint a picture for you: my english friend Liz is a pescetarian so she doesn't eat meat other than seafood (which is the only realistic way to be a veggie here in Korea) so she ordered a seafood pizza, some others ordered, I ordered a canadian bacon and cheese pie, and we sat down to wait. Well everyone's food came out in shifts, scallop and mussel spaghetti, seafood pizza, spaghetti bolognese, and so many other delicious delicacies. The smells of italian sauces and garlic were wafting up my nose from all directions when my food and Liz's arrived about the same time. My pizza was less pizza and more egg quiche thing with a twist, which was a surprise but a delicious surprise; but Liz's seafood pizza had ham. Yes ham. Now it's extremely possible i've complained about the ham problem here before but it's a real epidemic!! They don't think ham is meat!!! Who in their right mind doesn't think ham is meat?!!? It comes from a pig!!!

Another ham incident happened in July when I was planning my summer camp for the kids, I wanted to make sandwiches with them so that they could partake in some real American food. Eunyeong and I were in the super market getting ingredients: bread, peanut butter, mayo, lettuce, and then we got to the ham she asked me; "How do we cook this? Boil it? Bake it?" She was dead serious. I stared at her uncomprehending what she was asking me, I finally found my tongue jammed in the back of my throat, unjammed it and explained sandwich ham. I guess they just eat pig differently here, it's perplexing, but extremely comical!

Another thing that's perplexing beyond belief is the way that they eat fish here.
They don't de-bone it.
They just cook it.
The entire thing,
and then chop it into thirds.
I mean, they literally cook the entire fish, head and all. I frequently see fish eyes staring at me from beneath a simmering mound of potatoes and leafy vegetables. WHO DOES THAT?! The first time I saw those creepy little fish eyes peering up at me pitifully from my pan I choked on my kimchi (which is a less-than pleasant experience as kimchi can be extremely spicy). I have no explanation behind this reasoning, I have asked around and no one seems to understand why they do this. Eunyeong didn't understand why anyone would de-bone a fish in the first place so turning to Koreans as a last resort was a failure: 질배-Shil Pae, in Korean (I hope). They don't eat sushi the way I expected them to either, they have these trucks with giant fish tanks in the beds of them and they extract a fish from the tank, chop it's head off, take out the main spine (but none of the other bones), slice the fish into strips (flesh and all), wrap it in mint leaves, add some spicy bean curd, wrap it up like a gift, and pop it into their mouths. Now don't get me wrong, this is actually very delicious, but it takes my mouth for a spin. I have to navaigate mint stem, fish flesh, tiny fish bones, and the occasional bitten cheek. It's just such an adventure whenever I go out eating!! Sheesh!!

Anyeong!!

Island Hopping!

Bioluminescence- the production of light by living organisms.
I had to look that up for my own personal benefit and thought perhaps you might enjoy the definition as well!

The Korean sights here are so interesting, they aren't majestic and awe inspiring like the rockies, nor are they vivid and brilliant like the sunsets over the Great Salt Lake, everything is muted greens and greys, fine mists, and soft curves. I think the scenery greatly compliments the emotionless, quiet lifestyle the Koreans (asians) live. So it's nice for me to finally be able to appreciate the beauty around me. the soft mountainous islands that spotted the horizon and the mists that trail their fingers lovingly through the mountains tree covered hairlines are finally beginning to grow on me. 

This weekend I discovered a rare Korean gem: island hopping. It just so happens that roughly 45 minutes from where I live there is a port city called Tongyeong. In Tongyeong you can catch a ferry that will take you to any number of islands, all varying in size, shape, and population. The one we chose was called Bijindong and boasted a population of 5. I went with some other foreign english teacher friends of mine and we all decided to camp on the beach. We arrived in Tongyeong in a convoy of bus riders and car drivers and hopped onto the ferry. The ferry clearly stated: Maximum capacity 75, we had rougly a 100 people on the ferry. As you entered the boat there was another sign clearly displayed that said, "Head Careful" I took that to mean: be careful with your head as you may someday bang it against something hard; because let's be honest here, there was no way that sign meant watch your head. Anyway, all us waegooks (Korean for foreigners) promptly installed ourselves on the top deck in a small room, we plunked our gear down on the floor and we all migrated onto the deck. I quickly found myself experiencing the wind whipping through my hair, pulling at loose tendrils and setting loose quite a few more, the loud conversation of happy people drifting through my ears, The smell of brine and boat exhaust filling my lungs. As I stood for longer the uneven rise and fall of the boat began to creat an old sensation within the bowels of my stomach; which promptly had me sitting with my back in a corner of the room, breathing deeply and evenly through my nose and out my mouth, praying to the sea gods that I didn't vomit up the delicious seaweed and rice triangle I had for breakfast. Thank you motion sickness! After 30 minutes or so the boat happily spit us out onto a makeshift floating dock and we surveyed our location. We were going to be camping on a stretch of beach that connected two islands. White sand beach and a small store that sold merely Ramen, Beer, and Water (the three things that i'm convinced Koreans live on) where before me. I was elated! What an experience! There were a few more waegooks around but not that many, and there were a few older Ajummas and Ajushis (women and men) staring blankly at the white faces but nothing over-crowded or underappreciated. We set up camp and I decided (more for lack of actual equipment than choice) that I wanted to sleep under the stars. So I watched while everyone unpacked. We wiled the day away playing frisbee and soccer, swimming, and barbequeing, we wiled the evening away singing disney and journey songs, and then around 10 I decided I wanted to go for a night swim. I careened into the small surf and swam a few paces, until I could just barely touch, I began treading water, calling out to my friends to join me when I noticed it. I was glowing electric blue. Everytime I kicked my legs or swirled my arms an electric blue glow was emitted. Bioluminescence! Someone knew a little about this phenomena and informed me that it was algae in the water that was causing the blue, apparently when you move the algae it glows. Who knew?! I was just fascinated by this, I swam to and fro, swimming wildly and then slowly seeing the different effects my movements had on the algae, what I decided I liked best was when I swam slowly, very slowly, the algae would twinkle like stars and take on the shape of small blue pearls that crept up my arms and body, softly caressing my curves. It was beautiful. I can't imagine a better time either, great friends, beautiful starry night, and twinkling blue pearly waves. Well I finally went to bed exhausted after a day of sun and sand...only to be eaten alive by some horrid sand bug all night long. Never again will I sleep on the beach without at least a screened tent to keep the bugs in the sand and me off the sand. The next day dawned nice and drizzly. A brilliant 6am light misting rain awoke me and I scrambled to find shelter, which I found right as the rain ended. *sigh* Thankfully I had the rest of the day to nap in the sun and play in the surf!!
 
We hopped onto a ferry right as the torrential rains began and boy were we glad!! Although I was personally majorily displeased with the rains choice of start times as it meant that I was forced to experience the ferry at full tilt rain ocean mode which was nearly catastrophic in terms of me vomiting but I DID manage to hang onto my PB&J.  Barely. When we got back into Tongyeong we got in the car and began driving, only to get stuck in the worst traffic jam i've ever seen. It took us 4 hours to drive 45 minutes. I just kept thinking "I could walk faster." Which indeed I should have done in order to score some delicious ice cream cones...but being the optimists that we were we kept thinking: It'll clear up and then we can get some ice cream.

The lesson in all this? Always stop for ice cream.

Anyeong!

Lunch with Yoda

I like Korean food, I like it a lot in fact, but occasionally I find something I don't like. Take today for instance, I went to lunch and we were served soup "Yum" I thought to myself "Soup!" Boy was I wrong. This soup was very strong in flavor and that flavor was very strongly disagreeing with my tastebuds. With every bite I took I was vaguely reminded of that forest that Luke Skywalker finds Yoda living in in like the 2nd Star Wars. Dark green leaves of strict flavor floated about my bowl like floatsam after a wreck, dark brown sticks impeded the process of my spoon, and chunks of fish scales and bones floated up to the top of my bowl like drown victims. Periodically I would find pieces of chile in my bite and my mouth would erupt into flames straight from the fires of hell. This was like eating soup with bombs in it. Thankfully I was able to defer to rice (oh rice how I adore you for your bland nature and filling capacities) and tangerines (oh tangerines how I adore you for your comfortable tangy tartness). After this ordeal I was informed that Koreans eat this soup quite often because it's good for your health, i'm not sure how it's good for your health when you fear death by strangling from snake, but I did enjoy the opportunity of speaking with Yoda "Let the Soup be with you."

Hopefully I never see this soup again.

Anyeong!

The Life of a Child Prodigy

 I try really hard to read the news everyday, Korean news, American news, World news, and I came upon this article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/17/AR2010041702781.html
So, i've realized for a while now that my korean co-workers work a lot harder than I do. More importantly, they are expected to work a lot harder than I am. They get yelled at by the vice-principal, they stay until 11pm sometimes, they show up at 7:30 am and they don't take hardly any vacation. They literally run at work and they don't spend all that much time at home with their families.I think what is most upsetting about this article is that I can actually see this happening. I see the strain and the stress written upon the faces of my co-workers, hell I see the strain and the stress on the faces of my students. The culture here is to attain perfection from an early age. You choose exactly what you are going to do for the rest of your life in middle school and then you diligently stay on that path toward complete perfection forever more.
An average middle school student comes to school at 8am, they work HARD all day long with little breaks, then they go to Hogwans where they learn English, Japanese, Chinese, Piano, any subject really, until about 10pm and then they go home and study more; frequently they will have private home lessons after the hogwan tutoring. The learning just never ends it goes on and on and on. So it's easy to see why they begin to break down in their early 30's and late 20's, i personally can't imagine working that hard nor would I ever wish it upon anyone. It makes me cringe when I see my students striving for perfection, i'm so proud of them, of their quips and their innate childishness, but a part of me is screaming "Save their souls!!" I want them to be able to go and ride their bicycles, fall off walls, break their arms on the monkey bars; but I don't see that happening anytime soon. Maybe that's one reason why i'm here, to remind them to have a little fun and break out of the mold.
Aneyong.

I'm a Teacher! I'm a Teacher!

I'M A TEACHER!! Now, I realize that this may seem odd to you, "Molly, you've been a teacher for nearly two months now...right?" Well let me explain, i've had the TITLE teacher for nearly two months, but my confidence in my "teaching abilities" has been next to nothing; as a one-time contemplater of "student for life" I KNOW good teachers, and I know bad teachers. There are always those teachers that make the best out of things, that can inspire you to enjoy something as drab as 18th century catholic virgin poetry; and there are those teachers that make even cannibalism as boring as a stretch of unpainted canvas. I worried I was in the latter half of this equation; thankfully it turns out i'm not. As I sit here pondering what I should create for my lessons for next week I realized that I have not been given a book, i'm not required or asked to do anything, and the hope of a curriculum is...well...ludicrous. So I sat and pondered what this meant, and I came up with nothing. How depressing, so I went to class. When I returned from class my co-teacher Eunyeong said to me "Molly, the first grade teachers wanted you to teach the discussion from the book but they've changed their minds." My heart began beating quickly, I thought to myself "OH no, they hate me, they hate my teaching, i'm a failure, a disaster, why am I here? I should go home and stick my head in a hole." Eunyeong continued, "They like what you have been teaching, they find it so interesting, and they enjoy your teaching style so much that they want you to teach whatever you want. Just  keep doing what you're doing." Stunned disbelief registered on my face. I thought, "They actually like me!" I smiled and giggled, Eunyeong stared at me in confusion and I attempted to explain the giggle, but how do you explain a giggle of joy and disbelief?? Needless to say she missed the point entirely, oh well, that's common around here.

Anyeong!!

127 Hours

This is possibly the COOLEST thing i've seen in a while: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-3AHv2E5jg
That is the trailer for the new movie that is coming out about Aaron Ralston who was a mountaineer who got trapped in the rocks in the Moab area and ended up cutting his arm off! Eep! The story is great, but the cooler part (there's a cooler part? YES!) In the first scene that you see in the trailer, there is a guy on a bike...well guess who that guy is? TYSON! If you remember (way back a long time ago) in high school I dated a biker named Tyson, well, turns out he's now famous!! GO TYSON!!!

Got Nothin' in Me

I have nothing to say today. I'm tired, bone tired. Waking up and running at 6am "for fun" plus a full day a of work, plus Korean lessons = an exhausted Molly.

More tomorrow.

xoxo

The art and sport of eating kiwis Korean style.

In Korea land, they eat Kiwis with a spoon, you cut the kiwi in half and then spoon it out and into your mouth; that is, if you are a graceful korean eater. Which i'm not. So while my pretty, flowery, dainty co-workers gracefully spooned small mouthfuls of kiwi up out of it's hairy skin and into their mouths I tried, with all due diligence, to not explode kiwi on myself. I of course failed. I was almost almost ALMOST done with my second kiwi when my spoon caught, twisted, my fingers slipped and BLAM! Kiwi juice side up on my skirt. I squeaked and the spoon twisted out of my fingers and clattered to the metal tray, the kiwi chunks on the spoon...well...let's just say that they ended up...somewhere else. I'm not exactly sure where they flew off to, but I was just thanking my lucky stas they didn't end up in my co-workers hair or something equally embarrassing.

Anyeong!

Little Mexico Korean Style

I HAD MEXICAN FOOD!! Woo! The delicious flavor of cilantro and lime melding perfectly with pulled pork and corn tortilla created an explosion of flavorful blasts in my mouth. I hadn't realized how much I missed mexican food until last night.

An english teacher friend of mine called me up at 8pm last night and informed me he was 20 minutes from my home and that I better be ready because we were going out for Mexican food.

I've never put pants on faster in my entire life.

He arrived and we began the extremely comical process of attempting to navigate the streets of Masan. Since I don't own a car I only know the bus routes to get about town, and those bus routes are not the most expedient ways of navigating the city. The busses wind in and out of neighborhoods at their own reckless leisure stopping oft and waiting less. So when Jason informed me that I needed to navigate him to a certain spot in Masan...I froze. I looked at him with panicked eyes and said "I only know how to get around via bus." He laughed at me and said "I'm sure you'll do fine." So of we went! After winding in and out of the streets we finally found the place he was looking for, parked, and got out. "Well done Jones" he proclaimed as we stood in front of old downtown, the blinking neon lights iluminating our faces. We waltzed down the street, me reading the street signs, him correcting and quizzing my Korean; we turned down a small side street and BAM! We were smack dab in the middle of little mexico, korean style. We entered the restaurant to Mexican waltzes and the smell of cilantro and lime. I was in food heaven. We ordered- 2 corn rolled, pulled  pork, cilantro and lime tacos, with a side of beans (my co-workers are regretting those beans today!) for me, 6 corn rolled, pulled pork, cilantro and lime tacos for him. One margarita for me and sweet rice milk for him. We were in Mexican food business! When the food arrived we both tucked in, quietly and seriously as all mexican food deserves. After the food was gone we both took a deep breath, I think we had forgotten to breathe while we inhaled food. I sipped on my margarita and discovered it was the single worst margarita i've ever had, it was essentially water, tequila, and salt. ew. So we let that one sit and ventured out into the street for more Korean lessons and ice cream. Simply fabulous.

This morning as I was walking to school I realized how much I missed my little poo-throwing monkeys! They look so grown up in their perfectly pressed dress pants and skirts, their ties and button ups perfectly askew, perfect little business people. It's fun to see them, to know some of them better after summer camp and to see how excited they still get at the sight of me (insert behemoth, blonde, american, foreigner). I can't wait to see how this day goes!!

Anyeong!

I speakuh da hangeul!! Well...sort of.

A couple of my summer camp students!
They hate having their photo taken...but not me!

Today I understood!!! Let me explain how the majority of my conversations with Koreans go: Them: "sjdflajweo skjalsjg asdjfosd?" Me: "ummm....uhhhh....aneyo (no)?" Them: "jjsldkfjasljjj. jjsldkfjasljjj.??" Me:"uhh...well....umm...?" It should be clearly demonstrated here that the majority of my conversations are not conversations, they aren't even mutually intelligible, which explains why i'm so excited to UNDERSTAND!!! The first instance happened when a co-worker was asking me if I wanted some coffee, I understood and was able to say, "Nay cansamnida! (yes please!)" HOW EXCITING! Especially because drinking coffee is a very communal thing for Koreans so my being able to understand and accept means that i'm not insulting anyone, Molly-1 day-0. The second instance happened while I was trying to figure out the damn copier, let me tell you, copiers in English are exasperating. Copiers in Korean are impossible. So I was scratching my head trying to figure it out, half way listening to the unintelligible conversation on my right when I heard the phrase "migook?" Which means American, I looked up like a startled deer, met eyes with my co-workers and shyly responded "Nay migook saram."(Yes, i'm an American) I smiled and my co-workers giggled behind their hands at me. WIN! Then one of them said a string of common phrases that I understood about 3 of, which is ALSO exciting because it means that i'm starting to recognize and pick out key phrases when my co-workers speak!!!!! Ah this is so exciting! It means that the 40 minutes of Korean study a day plus the classes are really working! I'm actually ingesting Korean!!! I'm just so so proud of myself not only am I capable of moving to a new country and being sustainable, but i'm also capable of inserting myself into the culture! YAYME!

Gwangryeo Summer camp 2010!
This is Emily's School

As an afterthought I thought you might enjoy seeing some of my kids from summer camp.

Anyeong!