Authentic Countryside Experience

Preface: Last weekend Chris and I went on an Authentic Countryside Experience with the other members of my studio. That was about all I knew about, and trying to find out more only got me a schedule completely in Korean. Chris got it translated at work, and it listed activities like "harvest experience," "water play with float device and swim," and (best of all) "make special memories on a summer night and snacks."

It took us five hours in a 10 person mini van to get there (traffic-- should have taken two), but that's the boring part. We finally arrived, to find we were sharing our authentic experience with about 300 other Koreans. Which we should have guessed, that's how everything here seems to be. After some lunch of various spicy fermented things (quite tasty, despite that appealing description I just gave), we began the activities. It was organized quite like summer camp, our group when around to different stations, to try out an authentic countryside activity. We even had apathetic teenagers leading us around.

The first activity was fishing with our hands. We followed the group out to the stream, where little sections maybe 40'x40' were separated of with low fence. Then the teen can with a bucket and dropped 3 humongous trout (or something) into the water. Then we all groped around trying to catch it, which was the easy part, then hold onto it long enough to get it back in the bucket. Now, the water was only about 8 inches deep, and the fishy are squirmy so most of the time they would flop out onto the rocks. As you can imagine, this isn't very good for their stamina, and pretty soon they were not so much of a challenge to catch. I looked in the bucket after we'd got them all, and one was floating upside down. I think a few organizations in the States would have a problem if we tried to pull this off their (ahem, PeTA).
After the fishing we pushed ourselves around on rafts with sticks. The rafts were quite authentic, two layers of bamboo strapped together around Styrofoam. This was fun until the other students (masters and PhD students, just to clarify) starting playing king of the raft, all of the rafts, and I got pushed off into about 2 feet of water on top off rocks. But this was soon followed up by eating strips of raw fish (presumably not the same ones we just exploited in the stream) with kimchi and makgeolli (fermented rice wine). Next we picked some potatoes, or dug them I guess, out of some green houses. We took them to the river—yes, the same river—and peeled the potatoes with river rocks. Teen-guide rinsed them off with some hopefully more sanitary water, we pulverized them with cheese grater contraptions, then mixed in some green onions and fried them up on big cast iron woks. These potato pancakes, pajeon, are one of my favorite Korean dishes. Ours were okay but a little soggy. While we were eating the professor passed around cups of whiskey and everybody drank more makgeolli until it was time for the rest of dinner, strips of meat on the grill (daeji bulgogi, I think). We wrapped these in lettuce with some spicy red soybean sauce (which is sooooo good), in the typical Korean fashion. And of course plenty more kimchi, makgeolli, and Hite (cheap Korean beer). After dinner there was even more drinking, and talking, and (for me) avoiding a drunken Korean too obviously hitting on me. Chris and I fell asleep early… he’d been on duty all night the day before… and I just sleep a lot.
The next morning consisted of breakfast and rice cake making. Breakfast included a potent fish dish that too closely resembled the trout from yesterday. Rice cakes in Korean cuisine can either be a starchy addition to stews or dokbokki (basically just rice cakes in spicy red sauce), or a dessert. The word “cake” might be a little deceiving here—they are not so much cakes as mashed rice in a cylinder or ball shape. The dessert ones are a little softer and dusted with a semisweet powder that reminds me of the crumbs on top of shoefly pie. I was told the powder is ground soybeans. Making of rice cakes is pretty much what you would imagine: pounding cooked rice until it’s a sticky dough, then cutting it up into small pieces and rolling it in soy powder. So we got to practice our mallet swinging and eat some sticky, ricey, soy-milky snacks.
That’s a brief overview of the weekend. There was also some mud bathing, which Chris and I tried mostly to avoid. Lots of moths, fire building under the house, etc. etc. Today some of the students told me they too thought the trip was a little weird. The professor asked me if we had something similar in the US. Maybe summer camp meets Williamsburg plus some Amish watching and Saturday night in State College?

Korean people #2

Another quagmire about Korean people: are they polite or rude?

Its hard to say, really. Just when you've about decided one way, someone surprises you. Old women will push you out of the way to get on the bus, when you were ahead of them in line. Taxis won't stop to pick you up. A bus driver will give you an irritated look, as if you are holding up his day by getting on his bus. And then an old man will smile and give up his seat for you. Or a woman will walk out of her way to give you directions.

One thing is sure, Koreans love children. My friend has an adorable blond son about 3, who figured this out and uses it to his advantage. Often when they rode a crowded subway, someone would get up to offer them a seat. And sometimes, older people sitting around him would offer him a little snack (they'd probably be arrested in the States). My friend's son, being the intelligent cunning young child that he his, has started walking up and down the car whenever they ride, looking at everyone with his cute little eyes until someone gives him a seat or snack. "I'm so hungry!" he exclaims. My friend offers him snacks from her purse, but these obviously are not as exciting as snacks from strangers. And, most of the time, it works.

Pictures!!!

My friend Ocean


































Bike trip to the edge (of NK)








Ocean's boyfriend Danny (we gave him that name...can't remember his real one)

Korea-- summary

I feel like I don't have as many exciting stories now as when i first got to Korea, possibly because everything seems more normal now. Bizzarre English signs are really just-- usual. Okay some of them are still funny-- like the banner posted on campus, "FREE ENGLISH TALKING" and a building I noticed today "WORLD BEST STEM CELL COMPANY."

I think sometimes about how I would describe Korea- or, Seoul-- to someone. Its quite western, sort of. It has all our fast food comforts (though most dishes have a slight kimchi twang). There are stores that look comfortingly like Wal Mart on the inside. The cars they drive look the same as the cars we drive*. They dress about the same, sort of. I've never seen a Korean woman wearing ripped jeans or burkenstocks, and I've never seen an American over the age of 6 wearing sparkly heart hose (or a man wearing a sparly lilac tie, or anyone wear tulle or more than 3 neon colors at once... am I showing fashion-bias here?).

But just when you get to thinking Koreans arenot really that different from us Amurricuns, you find out something really bizzarre and you don't know what to think. Like, a friend being mistaken for a wh*** because she's wearing a spaghetti strap shirt, while Korean women parade around in almost-too-short-to-be-called-skirts and no one bats an eye. Also, Korea has a TV show where foreign women who speak Korean wear neon leggings (I know they didn't pick those out themselves), talk about cute Korean guys, and every once in a while get up and dance. On the other hand, is that really any stranger than watching people dress up to sing and dance in front of a berating panel, or watching fat people run around, or spouses tell each other they've been cheating on national TV?

There are alot of other cultural things I don't understand or see the merit of, but a friend of mine predicted that in a few decades things are going to look very different in Korea as the older generation passes and the younger one, with more Western values, emerges. And is that really good or not?


*Clarification: The cars look the same to the untrained eye. Husband is keenly aware of the Korean cars' differences and, in his mind, shortcomings. But really they're about the same.

Job Search

With 1/52 of a year left until I'm effectively done with classes, its time to start looking for a job. This process is hindered by the facts that... A) because of an agreement between the US and ROK about military spouses, I'm not allowed to work in Korea. B) They speak Korean in Korea. C) The post offers a limited number of positions, most of which go to Koreans and none which involved any of the skills I acquired in college.

One job posting I did find that I'm qualifies for: "Defense Army Commissary Sales Store Technician." Job description: Operating an electronic check out system to record unit prices, proper accounts, purchase totals, surcharge, and change due. Determine proper prices by unit marking, price scanning, or reference to price lists. Accept cash or other negotiable instruments according to established procedures. Aka, grocery cashier.

We'll see.

return!

To start out this returning post, I'll answer some common questions I got while in the States about life in Korea:

1. Is it summer in Korea now?

Answer: No. Korea is north of the equator, about the same latitude as Pennsylvania, and has a similar climate.

2. Do you live in North Korea or South Korea?

Answer: South. They do not allow people with blond hair and blue eyes into North Korea. Except Diane Sawyer. They do not, actually, allow anyone into North Korea. (okay, I only got this question once).

3. Is Korea a third world country?

Answer: No. South Koreans are very wealthy. I cannot afford their clothes. They own some household name businesses like Samsung, Kia, and LG. The average home is much smaller than in the US, but that's probably because they have 49 million people in a country somewhere between the sizes of Indiana and Kentucky.

4. Why are US troops in South Korea?

Because shortly after Korea was freed from Japan in World War II, North Korea claimed sovereignty over the whole peninsula by a god-leader, and invaded Seoul. The US came and fought alongside the Koreans for three years, until they came to a cease fire. Technically they are still at war. Do the South Koreans still need us there? I don't know. But the North Koreans have the 4th largest army in the world (according to a National Geographic documentary I found on youtube), are test launching "experimental satellites," may have undiscovered tunnels under the DMZ, and learn from childhood to desire the reunification of Korea under Pyongyang. So maybe we're better safe than sorry.

5. Do you get to see much of your husband?

Yes! We live together and he works regular hours, most of the time.

6. Do you miss American food?

No, but only because I buy groceries on base, where I can get almost any American food I want. If that were not the case, I freaking would miss American food. Most Korean food is extremely garlicy, fish saucey, and often fermented. But I like it in moderation (and when it doesn't smell like fish). I've yet to find an American candy that the Korean students in my studio haven't heard of. They even know what Girl Scout Cookies are, which I can't figure out because none of them have been to the US. I did leave a Fresca in the fridge once, which some of them found and are now in love with.

power plant park

Yesterday I went on a field trip to a landfill-turned park and power plant. These tubes go into the landfill and extract the methane, which is converted to electricity. Koreans love parks. Even on a Monday afternoon, their were people everywhere. I guess when you don't have very much open space, you appreciate it more. Or maybe there's a really high unemployment rate.

Every Korean male has to be in the army or police force for at least two years. I guess alot opt for the police, and as a result Korea has an unnecessarily large amount of cops. While in the States, a pair of cops drive around in a patrol car, in Korea, they travel in buses. Three or four buses full might, say, make sure everything's calm at a street festival . They park somewhere near the edge, then a few dozen 18 and 19 year old policemen hover around their buses for a few hours. Other times, they do random patrols, but always in groups of 5 or 6. They guard all the post entrances, but so far none of them have yelled at me for not waiting for the green walking man. They're probably too busy thinking about how to break up underground-decaf-coffee rings (as artificially decaffeinated products are illegal here).

Today one of my classmates told me that she didn't think I was American because I'm not fat.

school

Husband gets home tomorrow. It's been just me the past ten days. I'm busy, so its not too lonely. Though I did almost get a puppy. I know we should wait-- we have a small apartment, it'd be hard to go on trips (not that we've gone on any yet, but I'm hoping), I don't know how to train it, and it could have a bizarre Korean disease that won't let it come to the States.

I go back and forth between being excited about and then overwhelmed by/frustrated with school. I'm excited about my project, which I don't like to admit. I'd rather keep an angsty, complaining profile and pretend I hate landscape architecture. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I'm forced to do it, I decide I can't stand it. Recently I've come to like wearing business clothes, so the only problem I can see now with actually becoming a landscape architect some day is having to work 9 to 5. I refuse to sit down or do the same thing that long. And I'd have to get up way too early to run.

But anyway, I am actually excited about my project. There's not a ton of things I feel strongly about, but the sinister evils of suburban sprawl is one of them. And the army's quirky reproduction of it in South Korea. So I'm going to tell them how to do it better. Except that I'm not actually going to tell anyone anything. I don't even think my professor cares what I'm doing. I feel like I'm painting a masterpiece... on a wall getting ready to be plastered over. Not that my project will be a master piece, just that I'm doing alot of work for no one to see.

The other frustrating thing is a research project for my other class. Every idea I have my professor tells me is good, but keep thinking of other ideas. We're supposed to do a small-scale "experiment" to write about in a publishable paper. I could... see how long it takes me to be detained for suspected terrorism from taking sketches, pictures, and measurements on base.

jazz

Friday we went to a Jazz club, one of the more famous ones in Seoul. You wouldn't think it, but Korean jazz is excellent. Seriously. I've heard it three times now, and none have been disappointing. Good jazz players don't have to come New Orleans or Chicago. They can come from this little underdog continually being forgotten between China and Japan.

I also saw two things I've never seen before. One, a Korean with facial hair. A full beard in fact. Two, a Korean rapping. I'm not sure if it was in Korean or English. It sounded sort of like English, but I couldn't make out any of the words. But it sounded cool.

muido: island near seoul

Its actually not nearly as pristine as my pictures make it look. Cigarette butts, korean billboards, soju bottles, that garlicly fish smell that wafts from wherever koreans eat. Canadians staying up the entire night drunkenly singing old pop songs. 8x8 "hut" filled with blankets and pillows with an unknown last wash. But husband was there, looking so much like yuppy south american backpacker, so it was a good weekend.

Hookas and Chuseok

Friday we had a roof barbecue. One of the soldier's Korean girlfriends brought be some more toilet paper. Husband was upset because he burnt the burgers, so we did it again last night with one of our neighbors and Jinny, Korean real estate agent--turned Korean friend. He definitely succeeded time 2.

After dinner last night, we went to one of Husband's favorite bars. It has a classy European look, with glasses hanging from the ceiling, bottles back lit with colored lights on the walls, and sleek chairs. They play house techno/trance music and there are couches from smoking hookas.

Husband gets monday off for Chuseok, a Korean thanksgivingish holiday. We're going to try to join a friend on an island where you stay in beach huts.

Colony: America

Military bases are a really bizarre thing. Their purpose is to hold an army, and all the things that army needs in case North Korea attacks. Only, North Korea hasn't attacked for a very long time. With no attacks going on, the soldiers need something to keep them occupied, and make them okay with staying a while. So the army brings over some of the soldier's wives and children. Now wives and children aren't as easy to take care of as soldiers. They need schools. They need good old American restaurants. They need a gym with ellipticals and yoga classes. They need the array of foods they're accustomed to, shipped across the world and lined up in grocery aisles where they belong. They need cars and pets and movies for rent. And most of all they need a giant store where they can get all the familiar American products they might ever want.

So the army builds a mini-America, all mixed up with all of that war stuff, walled up in a few square miles inside a Korean metropolis. An armed, uniformed soldier directs traffic at the crosswalk as the elementary school lets out. Walking to the grocery store, I pass a fenced parking lots full of HMMWVs and other tactical vehicles. I squeeze between lines of fully geared troops marching the other way on the sidewalk.

I wonder what the Koreans think of us, this self-contained American colony inside their capital city. Those of us who ever come out of our walled little world, that is.

Some days I go a little crazy. For no obvious reason, I get frustrated at things that I shouldn't. I feel like things are going all wrong when really everything's fine. I eat my bibimbop too fast and then complain that my stomach hurts. I try to shop for the entire month at the commissary, then am mad that I can't carry all the groceries home on my back. And I don't know what to do next and I can't sit still.

To balance this post...we bought a microwave over the weekend and its pretty sweet. I burnt up the sponge yesterday though, trying to sterilize it. We have a water tank thing, with the big upside down jug on top, with hot and cold spigots. As soon as you put a new jug on, the water comes out almost boiling. There are some crazy Korean hot water nymphs living in there that do it.

We're having a barbecue on our roof tomorrow night.

Korea: Week Four

So far, living with Husband is so much fun. It's definitely been worth all the waiting.

I like Korea, too, and all its quirks. I stopped at a bathroom in the metro today and the toilet paper dispenser was on the wall next to the hand dryer. You grab a handful as you walk in, and take it in the stall with you. Unfortunately I didn't realize this until I was using the hand dryer.

The other day we had some of our neighbors (all Americans) over for dinner, and our Korean real estate agent, Jinny. Jinny brought me a case of toilet paper. She mumbled something about it being traditional... and I hate buying toilet paper so I didn't question it.

If you're standing up on a bus and carrying a large bag, sometimes old people sitting down will take the bag from you and hold it in their laps. They'll really tug at it until you give it to them. And then when you get off the bus they'll give it back.

The first pictures are ones I took at the university, which is on of the most beautiful places I've been in Seoul. The last one is two old men I saw in a park, sitting in a stream with a couple bottles of soju and some melons chilling around them.

snu id

Everything seems to take forever here, so I can never get enough done and am always busy. Today it took most of the afternoon to figure out how to create a user id for school. Of course, the website is entirely in Korean. There is an English "manual," that is very little help. The page had 3 blanks. The manual said the first one is your name (phonetically in Korean), the second your ssn, the third you student number. That did not work. I called the OIA (the office that deals with exchange students). Yesterday when I called for the same reason, they couldn't find anyone who spoke English. But today a very nice woman said she would look up what I should type in. But for the next few hours... didn't. I called back later, and got a man who said the only way to do it was to come into the office. Since I live 45+ minutes from the university, this is a problem. I asked to speak to the other woman, but the man she was on the phone. I asked him to have her call me when she finished, but the man said that the woman is always busy and will not have a chance. I told him to give her the freakin message. Finally, the woman called me and said she had sent me the email, and the simple explanation was that, actually, by "ssn" the computer wanted my date of birth, followed by the number 2 million. Why didn't I think of that?! All in all, I finally got my id, went to the website where my class information is posted, and it said (in English!) that after creating an id I should be able to log in within the next 6 hours...

in seoul

I've been here for almost two weeks. There's no way I can write about everything I've done, seen experienced... this post is just getting over the overwhlemingness of starting to.

Husband is back in the States, so I've been here 6 days alone now. Yesterday was my birthday (today in the states). My Korean real estate agents got a cake for me and a birthday hat and sang to me. I moved into our apartment Monday and I love it. Its on the seventh floor, overlooks post, has windows all around, and wood floors. Even an American washer and dryer. I really am going to be a housewife soon. And student! I'm freaking scared for this semester, doing an independent study thesis project studio with a Korean professor... I will pick some project and do something... unknown things are the scariest.

But I absolutely love experiencing the new culture and learning the language (its very hard). Seoul... in many ways is alot like Western cities I've been too... but has so many quirks and oddities its like nothing I've ever experienced.

I'm also excited to live at a base for the first time. And to meet other wives. And make friends. So far I only have friends I've borrowed from Husband.

(The pictures are a view from our apartment and some Koreans from above)

How it all began

An old friend facebookmailed me today, saying she'd read my blog and wondered how my faith 'came to be.' I started writing back to her, then thought this is gunna be a long facebookmail, I haven't blogged in a while, maybe someone else would like to know too, i'll just answer her there.
Yes, I was raised in a Christian household. My eighth grade journal is filled with prayers wanting to be better and please God more and make more people Christians. In ninth grade, I started going to a youth group called Fusion. The kids there played emo music, wore really tight pants and cool tee shirts, liked to break dance, and a couple had leopard-print hair*. They were also older than me and liked me, so I thought they were the coolest thing in the world. What was important, though, is that they talked about loving God, and caring about people like God does. In their case, that usually meant taking them to punk shows at the Legion or getting them to help leave a dead mouse in the youth pastor's freezer. Their philosophy on life reminds me alot of the book Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller (which i would recommend to... anyone). I learned, I guess, that loving God isn't about being good enough, its about your intent. And it doesn't have to be really hard; it can actually be fun.

Then later in high school, I'm not sure why it happened, but I decided not to care as much. It started out with me counting how many times people in my bible study would say "oh Lord" and "God I just pray that..." while they prayed. In certain Christian circles, the amount can be overwhelming. I guess I felt they were saying words to sound emotional... without substance. At the same time, I wouldn't eat very much for times, and hated when my Christian friends told me they were worried about how skinny I looked. And I was tired of feeling like an outsider at my school. I wanted to go to the parties that everyone else did and have fun. All the coolest emo guys had graduated, and I started dating guys with dubious morals... or none. Eventually I decided that I didn't know if I believed in God or not, and I wasn't going to think about it.

Then my freshman year of college I was pretty lonely, so I started going to different church-groups. I hated them all, but less and less each time. Then one night in October I think, I was sitting on a sofa in the basement of a church, tuning out whatever the pastor was saying, and I realized I still believed in God. I believed he existed, and I believed that if I trusted him, he would make my life good.

I pretty much hated life at the time, and though I knew that life would get better, I knew it would also always get worse again, and probably even worse than it was before. Like, I'd probably get married and have a few kids, and my life would become driving around little people with annoying voices while forgetting about the laundry and a husband working late and getting tired of me, more interested in the sexy woman at the office. Or maybe he'd die. Or, worst of all,maybe life would just be boring. I couldn't leave that up to chance. I guess someone might say, well its your own responsibility to make your life good. I guess I didn't think of that at the time. But, now I believe that's true even when you're living for the Lord, but you have the bonus of his promise to make you successful wherever you go (Joshua 1:7).

So, from that day, I changed my life. I broke up with the guy I was dating. I started going to church. I stopped hanging out with my pot-smoking friends (this does not mean I don't think Christians should hang out with people who smoke pot, it was just what I needed to do at the time). I started caring about the people who cared about me. I started praying and reading the bible everyday. I moved dorm rooms (okay, that was unrelated to God... but it was a nice symbol of a new start). I told God I would eat three meals a day, even if it meant I would get really fat (I actually thought I might, but turns out I didn't). Eating is still one of the hardest things for me, frustratingly.

That's 'how it all started,' more or less. This summer I've been starting to remember how important glorifying the Lord is. After all, that's why he made us. That's what he wants from us. That seems pretty vague, that is, if you're not used to "glorifying." But the best way to start is to pray and read the Bible. Pray and read the Bible. That's how God chooses to talk to us, and if you ask him he'll let you understand what he's saying. Maybe not right when you want him to, but eventually. God answers almost all of my prayers, but almost never when I want him to. Speaking of which, Lord, it would be nice if I could get command sponsorship...now. Or, you know, tomorrow would be okay too. But pleeeaaaase let me get over there with my husband soon!




*The crazy thing is, I went back to Fusion a few years ago and the kids still play emo music and wear tight pants.

Husband comes to America

Husband has been sent to good ole' States, the red white and blue, the land of the free... for 2 weeks and 3 days-- or something-- but during that time he gets to come see me!

And then sometime soon after that i'll fly across the world to Korea... because I start class at the end of August!

army wives

I watched an episode of Army Wives today. It was just like my life. Except for the lies, deceit, abuse, and extramarital children.