Sweet Caroline

Okay, so per the request of Ms Caroline Jesus, I will write something actually pertaining to my life.. here it goes.

In two days I'll have lived in Korea for three months. Seems impossibly fast, yet it's true. Yikes.

I made 3 girls cry yesterday. Not sure why that was the first thing that came to mind to write about, but there it is. I am a ruthless, cold hearted teacher. But the be fair, they made me cry last week, so I call it a draw (They were being so disrespectful that I stormed out of the room, came back in, and made them write "I will not talk when ms. K is talking, I will listen and be respectful" 50 times - that took pretty much the whole class. Then when I went off about why I was so angry, I lost it.. we all know how stoic and unemotional I am. However, there's nothing like a teacher crying to bring about copious amounts of guilt and regret. Point for me.)
Back track about a month and we come to the oh so wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday. I decided to teach the little kiddies about why we celebrate thanksgiving (the Disney happy ending version) and came to one conclusion: don't teach anything that involves the word 'Massachusetts'. All us Weygooks (foreigners) met up for a potluck style thanksgiving feast the saturday after the big day, and I will proudly say, for having no ovens or turkey, we did a damn fine job. They don't have turkey in Korea, so we subbed in Chicken. In true Lauren style, I welcomed 2 friends from Busan and 3 couch surfers in on the fun for the weekend (and then pawned them off on friends due to a severe lack of space). It was an odd, but great bunch. We had a couple from France who sold their house and had been biking across Europe and Asia for 2 years (pedal not motor), Natalie and Kathleen from Busan (see first(?) blog for our first meeting), and Dao. Now Dao is one of a kind. I'm not sure how to describe him. He went to Berkeley (or so he says) and has been traveling for years now. His real name fails me at the moment, but Dao is the Asian name he took on while touring the region. Good man.
So being that I live in a very small town, there aren't the amenities you might find elsewhere. This poses a problem. See, it hasn't happened often (because I'm cheap), but on those few occasions where you drink til dawn and wake up hungover, there is only one thing on my mind: delicious greasy breakfast - Patty's Egg Nest veggie omelet with sourdough toast and black coffee. Well that is impossible to find. So a few weeks back, my friend Steve and I decided, after about 30 seconds of discussion, to hop a bus to the nearest town for McD's. It was glorious. Of course, it took an hour and a half to get there, and then the same back. And by the time we even arrived at the bus station in Tongyeong, breakfast was no longer being served. There has to be a petition going around somewhere to get McDonald's to serve breakfast all day. If not, someone start it.

I'm beginning to hit a wall with some Korean food. It's all still delicious, and in all respects healthy, but I wouldn't mind not eating it some days. Talk to me again 6 months from now, we'll see how I've fared.

Big news, I ran in my first Korean half marathon. I was really psyched for it when I signed up, then found out temperatures in december are near freezing.. It didn't stop me. It just made me cold. In preparation for this big day, I bought new asics (READ HERE: NEVER buy asics. I'm writing a complaint to the company right after this) which, after 5 weeks of "breaking them in" still left me with 7 (7!) blisters on my feet by the end of the 21k. I have since thrown them out. Donating them to the poor would just be cruel punishment. A note about Korean races: people don't enter these for fun or with the plan of walking/attempting to finish. I was one of maybe 100 runners who was not associated with a marathon running club. 100 out of 7,000. As you can imagine, my half ass training (the longest run I went on before the race was 14k) left me running with 60 year old men. Despite that, I finished in a respectable 2:07:59. Or I think it's respectable.

Christmas is a week from today! (for you kids back home, a week from tomorrow). I officially feel sorry for Korean kids.. Most families here don't get a tree, don't do any big family event, and do one or two (if any) presents. There's no christmas songs and no decorations in store fronts. From what I hear, Koreans think of it more as a day off from work (or another day to get drunk for most of the men in my town). Speaking of, I have seen quite a few drunk people in my time, but Tongyeong takes the cake. I have never seen more staggering drunk people roaming the streets of a city on week nights. It's an off day if I don't have the pleasure of running into a man walking with his eyes closed. Anyways, back to christmas. This year my plans are as follows: 1) christmas eve at our friend's house for a christmas movie marathon, 2) christmas day brunch at a different house, 3) Nutcracker christmas evening. Then New Years will be a grand event up in the big bad Seoul. Oh, speaking of Mariah Carey, I get 3 weeks off over the holidays! whoo hoo for public school teaching! I'm taking 7 days off over christmas/new years, coming back to Tongyeong to work 2 weeks of english "camps" (don't be fooled, they are in their classrooms at school and include homework), then.... I'm off to THAILAND! I managed to swing 2 weeks off in a row in January, so now will be spending my birthday in a hammock with a coconut beverage in hand. My only goal is to do as little moving around as possible.

My next post is going to be something about the good, the bad, and the ugly..

Oh, and Caroline, I permed my hair. Cheers!

Today is the day

Just a quick note:
Today is the Universal Declaration of Human Right's 60th Anniversary. Today a campaign call will be made to the UN General Assembly regarding this issue...
If you think this is important, please sign your name on the pledge at this address

I believe that Every Human Has Rights! www.everyhumanhasrights.org”

Here's to change.

Buddha is the only fat man in Buddhism

Apologize ahead of time for my disjointed thoughts. That's the way they came out, thus that's the way they read.
This weekend was quite the whirlwind... let me explain:
Friday night the posse rolled up (ie walked) to the local bowling alley for a little western entertainment. Scratch that. I have no clue where bowling originated. Probably not in the states. It's too fun.
Continuing on.. bowling doesn't begin until around 11:oopm because ALL of the other teachers, less Galen and I, start their teaching around 2pm and finish around 9:00/9:30/10:00. At 11pm on a regular day I'd already be through stage one and headed straight for REM. Well not quite, but you get the idea.
I am competitive to a fault. It's taken a long time, but I am finally able to admit this; I'm hoping the first step is acknowledging you have a problem. BUT.. I am currently working on solving this problem, and think bowling in Korea may be the answer I've been looking for.
I am awful (not an understatement). My low was somewhere close to 75 and my high wasn't much higher. I think I almost reached 100 once. Despite my many failed attempts at knocking down anything, I had a fantastic time, and further, am quite sure I will never get much better. Thus, bowling may be able to cure my need to win. And it's not just bowling, it's bowling in Korea. Mainly because all the finger holes in the balls are so small, you can't find a good ball anyways to even attempt to get better. My bowling name is Sweet Action. I have no idea why.

I think it may have been close to 7am before I hit the hay in preparation for my weekend retreat.. which was..

Lauren went to a Buddhist Temple! Nothing says inner calm like sleep deprivation eh?
So, on 3 hours of sleep, I hoped a bus to meet up with friends from college (Janny and Ryan Kiely) and find my chi.
I did not find my chi. If you or someone you know has seen it, please contact me.
Buddhists are bad asses. This is a tale of how I came to know this...
We arrive, find our rooms (we slept on a blanket on the floor), and headed for dinner. All vegan, boys on one side of the room, girls on the other. Side note: You must finish what you take. Every last grain of rice or piece of vegetable must be eaten. (If they weren't Buddhist, I'd think the place was being run by my german grandma). Meal: not too shabby.
On to chanting/prayer/sunmudo. Now I've been doing yoga every day for a month, and I will tell you, my body was not meant to do all those moves. The funny part is, it wasn't the sunmudo (a form of martial arts) that was difficult - it was the chanting and prayer time that almost killed me, or brought me closer to Nirvana. One of the two.

Chanting is 1.5 hours of kneeling down to bow, standing up, kneeling down, standing up (multiply that sequence times 20). And then when you're not in en route to kneeling or standing, you are sitting on your calves (like kneeling but in a sitting position). I almost cried. Of course I was in tears before I even got there - these monks find the highest hill around, and that is where they build their temples. The walk up to the temple alone is enough to burn the heiny and beg for water. Folks, let me tell you now before you think you can just receive your share of energy and chi and peace out. THAT IS NOT THE CASE. You gotta work for it. Those monks are not kidding around. Instead of focusing on nothing for the 30 minutes of silence, all I could think about was the pain shooting through my legs. The best part was that they didn't really explain to us what was going on or if we should follow the group, so Janny and I just kept laughing hysterically under our breathes while we thanked Buddha for stuff (that's my guess, everything is in Korean, so we could have been ordering Beef with Broccoli for all I know) And we called it a day around the late late hour of 9:30pm. This of course is late when you are woken at 4am by monks chanting around your dormitory.

(Saturday I went to sleep after the sun came up and Sunday I woke up before the sun came up. Score: Sun - 1, Lauren - lost both times)

One might think there's not much you can do at 4am. Well they'd be right. This is why we went straight to morning chanting and meditation for another 1.5 hours. More pain, more trying not to think about anything, but instead thinking about not just my legs that are falling asleep, but my stomach that is rumbling, my fingers that are numb from the cold, and certainly thinking about my nice warm floor space I'm aching for at the moment. After chanting, we did a 30 min meditation walk which was actually pretty cool. We walked all over the premise and then did morning stretches etc etc. Favorite quote of the weekend: we had to pair up around the circle to do a few partner stretches. I end up with this little tiny girl whom I'm supposed to be giving a back massage to. All the sudden she turns around and says, "I said DON'T rub my neck, you'll hit my piercings". Okay.
Last part: we go to breakfast and are told in a 5 minute brief that this is a sacred ceremony. There is no talking, you are to make no noise, and you are to follow the order of the meal properly. He went over everything once and then we were off.
This may have been the most stressful meal of my life. We were told to be mindful with every bite we took - mindful of the farmer, or the grain, of the people who prepared it, of the monks that offered it, etc etc. And when they said "mindful" they meant swallow everything whole because grand master (flash) over there eats his whole meal in one fell swoop and you MUST be done when he's done. Done eating, done cleaning (in the proper mode and order). I can't explain that process - just know if involved a kimchi leaf and drinking all the water used to clean my bowls. Finally they came by and checked our bowl of water (that was used to clean each bowl) to make sure it was still clean. I passed the test. Some were not so lucky - you think the wrath of a woman is bad, feel the stare of a monk and get back to me. We threw in the towel around 11am (skipping out on lunch and opting for a full meal at the bus terminal).
The moral of the story is this: You can not be Buddhist if you are: a slow eater, fat, inflexible, a late sleeper, have a bad back/ legs/ knees, enjoy meat, or like mattresses.

(you can however still be Buddhist if you like gatorade or coffee - they have vending machines on the premise for these).

On being a local and other musings

It's official. Today marks one month of being Asian. 30 days ago today I was sitting on an airplane for 24 hours - thank goodness I was born to sleep because I think I was awake for maybe 4 of them.

But here I am, a world away and yet the same things that make life great back home have been found here in Tongyeong.

I've been coaching the little boys soccer team since I arrived. Kid you not, there is some serious talent in these 5th and 6th graders. It's funny to see their lives consumed with Man Utd, Chelsea, etc at 12 years old. It's been the best way to feel at home; of course it would be cool if they knew what I was saying. But I'll take what I can get for now. They played in the all city tournament last week and lost in double overtime in the final game. Frustrating for them, but probably a better learning experience than winning would have been.


We have stumbled upon a group of pretty fantastic foreigners here as well. Tongyeong is just such an odd place. I get this feeling like we all just washed up on the shores here without a clue of how or why.. and yet, these people remind me a lot of friends back home. In a town of a hand full of foreign teachers, it's much more than expected to find people you would choose to hang out with under different circumstances. Good people to learn and laugh much with.. Last night we sat outside the family mart (think 7-11 with eggs and olive oil) playing cards and shootin the shit. Cheap and easy (ha. my favorite).

Nature is on steroids here - It's all the best parts of the Northwest (san juan island filled straights, rolling green hills) meets Hawaii (hot weather, palm trees, laid back feel). There is a peace here I'd be hard pressed to find in Busan or Seoul. I have never seen so many fish, although most of them are swimming around in fish tanks in store front windows attempting to look unappetizing. Still..

The food is fantastic, cheap, and open all hours of the day. I have yet to experience a bath house, but it's on my list (nudity is strictly enforced from what I hear, and it tends to be a family outing. Being that I have over 700 students I directly teach, and another 1300 I see, I think I'll save this cultural experience for a town a bit further from home - It might make Monday morning a bit awkward).

So for the not so great things..
There are constantly eyes on us wherever we go. Amusing at first, claustrophobic now. I can't walk anywhere without being blatantly stared at (not just me of course, all the foreigners get this glorious star treatment). The hard part is, I don't really know how to handle it. Since I, the visitor, chose to come here, do I then need to accept the 3rd degree (being stopped on the road and asked to join random groups of men for dinner, or being asked for my cell phone number by any person that has spoken more than 2 words to me)? Not sure. Up til now it's been a judgment game. Sometimes I oblige, sometimes I don't, but always with a smile. Before I had met some other people sharing my boat, it was the tragic 'never alone, always lonesome' syndrome I feared would eventually set in.
Now I think I'll be alright.

Korea has a pandemic on it's hands: severely understocked bathrooms. If there is toilet paper, you can bet there's no soap. If there's soap count on there being no paper towels. I usually bank on having one of the three. I prefer the first.

It's an odd thing when you feel torn between two places. I miss my family (related and otherwise) so very much. Miss the frisbee team, miss the ladies, all of it, but don't want to be there at the same time - or rather, want to be here. Sorting out how to handle those contradictory emotions is difficult; Or maybe it's just that it's unfamiliar. Not a horrible thing to struggle over of course, but that's where my head's at this moment.

Ugh.. I've become an adult. For the first few weeks, the kids were pristine angels and I was fun Ms. K. Now, my novelty has worn off, and I am Ms. K, the woman who takes away girls' secret club notebooks, and uses her "stern" voice. I wouldn't have to if they'd shut their damn mouths and listen.. Thus, I blame them. But hey, good for them. Might as well push the line to see how much room I'll give 'em. I would have done the same..

Last thought: Vote. It's a tragic right to forgo.

people seem not to understand that their view of the world is also a confession of their character - rwe

When east meets west you get Korean pop music

There are some really interesting cultural things I have noticed here that must only exist in the smaller cities in newly industrialized countries. Seoul is a metropolitan city in every sense of the word. Up all night, offering any country's notible cuisine, inhabited by no two people that are much alike.


Tongyeong, on the other hand, is a clash of generations. My apartment, for instance is, is marked by water on the east, a driving range on the west, more apartments & stores to the north, and rice patties worked by old men and women (in large wicker hats) to the south. The other day, I was headed home early to meet the cable guy. Some female teachers at my school around my age told me they would come home with me because it would be inappropriate for a woman and a man to be alone in a house together. This story is paired with the newest job creation in Korea: Go-Go dancers outside store fronts, dancing and singing customers into stores, all the while wearing close to nothing. Flashy, neon nothing.

Normally this wouldn't really catch my attention (kind of sad) but in a place that has such strict cultural norms, I found it quite amazing.

Okay, since beginning this post, I went to Busan for the 3 day weekend... Names and pertinant information have been changed to protect the innocent:
So my korean techer friend Yujin and I head to Busan thursday night (no school friday). We hadn't found a place to stay yet because it was the weekend of the Pusan International Film Festival. Well, we arrived and headed straight to dinner, drank, ate, drank some more. Then proceeded right to her favorite bar. We meet some other foreign english teachers, decided to follow them to a different bar, celebrate one of their birthdays, etc etc. By this time it is close to 12:30, 1:00am .. actually, I'm not sure what time it was. It was late. So what did Lauren do? asked one of the nice english teacher girls if we could crash on her floor..
and a friendship was born.
Yujin headed home the next morning, and I stayed with Natalie and Kathleen for the rest of the weekend. We went out again the next night, met some Korean guys that showed us around town and acted as our free translator.
Kathleen, Natalie, and I headed up to Beomosa Temple saturday morning (1pm) which was amazing. There were Buddhist Monks praying, woman in traditional Korean dresses, and of course food stands for all the hungry tourists. Nothing says meditation and prayer like green onion pancakes and soju.
We then ran home lickity split to meet up with our Korean tour guides in time for dinner and random fun. The night eventually ended up at a Norae Bong (Karaoke "room" - each group gets their own room with food and drink. one word: awesome.) We sang Madonna and munched on french fries. I wonder if Korea calls them freedom fries too..
And of course, to end the night off, one of the korean boys asks how I feel about a korean boyfriend... I wonder if there is a polite korean translation for "I'm not looking for a relationship".
The weekend ends with me hovering around Hae-undae beach where there is supposedly ultimate being played all the time.. bit of a let down, although I did get to throw with some nice girls from Ohio.
And the whole way home the bus played Big Bang - Korea's hottest pop boy band.

And so it begins

Well it is saturday morning and I just finished watching the first presidential debate on CNN -- all debates should be viewed in the morning with eggs and coffee; it's harder to be optimistic when you're exhausted from a long day of work.
More importantly, I am now settled in to my apartment here in Tongyeong, South Korea. Internet is hooked up, cable is on, and dishes have been purchased (although my refrigerator is still empty). The apartment is certainly more than I was expecting - brand new everything, heated floors, A/C, my own washing machine! ... not a rough life.
I finished my first week of school and the kids are ridiculously cute. And smart! Had I known teachers don't start their work day until 8:30 and end before 4:00, I would have studied education in college!
Starting to learn the new alphabet, picking up on some words here and there Having Galen here is a major bonus. Not only is it nice to see a familiar face (there are about 10-15 foreigners in the whole city), but he's WAY faster than me at picking up the language - I have the memory of a goldfish.
The city is kind of odd. It's technically a "small" town (we get extra pay for being in a "rural" area), but there are tons of boutique stores (Lacoste, Ralph Lauren, etc). You can do your grocery shopping at a walmart-esque type store or from street markets at the harbor.

Okay, enough about the general info - here is what I have experienced so far:

1) Our first week of classes was literally walking into the classroom and the Korean teachers saying, "okay, teach" ..... uh, teach what?! I managed.

2) We had to go to the hospital to get general tests proving we are healthy enough to be here (i think..). Well we walk into the hospital to find the whole place packed with mentally handicapped people running around screaming. I'm not going to lie, my first thought was, "what kind of hospital are they sending me to??". Later i found out it was some kind of free clinic day for them. It was funny.

3) Eating out here is super cheap, and I'm a lazy cook, so this is perfect for me. the other night Galen and I went out to eat. Not knowing where to go, or how to read Korean, we walked into what we thought was a fresh fish market. Well.. it was. Kind of. This place had buckets and fish tanks full of every kind of fish/creepy sea creature you could think of. The women started yelling at us to buy their fish by pulling the fish out of the tanks and letting them flop around on a plate in front of us. We finally chose one (wanted to order just one fish, but somehow ended up with 2). She pulls them out of the tank, lays them on the chopping block and kills the thing. We walk across the alley to the restaurant, and 5 minutes later, the once flopping fish is brought over cut into slivers and raw. Normally I love raw fish, however, this was awful. Chewy. I gagged.
We left with 16,000 less won and empty stomachs.
We did laugh a lot though.

4) oh yeah, as a welcome present, the second day we were here, the water was turned off for around 36 hrs. Awesome.

So far, two thumbs up.