birthday

this will be the last blogpost on seoulmateys. i will be shutting it down shortly. sorry, readers, but i assure you that you don't really care.
- - -

so, today was my birthday. two years ago, i got into a huge car accident on the autobahn on the way to salzburg and fractured my ribs and sprained my ankle and dan broke his hand. while less dramatic, today seems worse. in an emotional, disheartening way. at least austria was dramatic and made a good story. this is just stupid.

- first of all, i'm in korea, stuck teaching at some academy but making almost no money. already the worst summer ever by far.

- then, we were going to go kayaking but it was a rainy day. okay, alright.

- third, we were going to have a group faculty lunch or something, according to jen, but that fell through so we just grabbed a quick bite. then since it was sort of a dreary day, we went home on the few days we get off from work early.

- the next 6 hours consist of sobs and phone calls to my mother asking her not to leave me in this godforsaken country when she goes back home next week. i beg her to take me with her - that i came to korea to either sightsee or make money but that neither is happening with this schedule/academy. six to seven hours of heavy sobbing and crying on the phone.

- it's dinner time, we don't want korean food. we walk around and go to this kalbi place. i ask for kalbi and the waiter also recommends something else. 1. it's not kalbi. 2. the something else is cow stomach. and very gross. 3. jen knocks down all the cooking utensils and i proceed to get 8 mosquito bites in 5 minutes.

- in the 6th minute, our grill goes up in flames. not small flames but over your head, burning everything in sight, licking the edges of our tables and flickering through our hands kind of flames. it continues to flare up, the restaurant watches us silently, all the staff run over trying to put it out to no avail. we'd never seen a flame so ferocious. "we're sorry, we forgot to put the water on the bottom," they apologize. we just watch. after what seems like eternity, the staff douses enough water all over our table to put out the fire. everything is burnt. "we will get you new stuff," they offer. no bother, i tell them, we're going.

- starving, we go to this place called twotwo chicken which is supposed to be like kyochon aka bonchon aka the korean fried chicken we know and love and have read about in the times. it's not. of course. we gag, eat some of it and then jet out.

this is just a quick recap. i wish it were more exciting to make this funny, but it was just lame. stuck in korea, went to work, came home, cried and worried over being stuck here poor, almost burned our faces and hands at dinner, then came home.

if i didn't already make this clear, i want to go home. i need to go home. as i was walking down the pedestrian un-friendly, sidewalk-less side streets, i thought, if one of these speeding, irreverent motorbikes or cars hit me, then i definitely get to go home, or at least leave korea. i paused and then narrowly sidestepped a delivery motorbike at the last minute. maybe, i thought, but not on my birthday.

I'd tap that...korean drum.

Dear Blog,

Today Nami and I were determined to walk the whole length of the Cheonggye Stream (an artificial stream that runs through 6k of downtown Seoul) from the pumps to the river. Long story short: we didn't.

Long story long:
We got off the subway in an unfamiliar part of the city and were walking towards the stream when we came across Deoksugung Palace. As we contemplated whether or not we should check it out, we approached a large, decorated drum in front of the entrance. The moment we reached it, a woman holding a clipboard popped out of nowhere and started talking to me. I was about to tell her I wasn't interested in signing her petition when she asked me if I wanted to hit the drum. "Sure?" I replied. She quickly mentioned something about a ceremony, changing of the guards, hit the drum three times, foreigners...i missed a bunch of the words. "Um, when?" I asked. "Right now." and then she quickly disappeared. Suddenly, trumpets started and men in traditional Korean costume began filing towards where Nami and I were standing. Crap, where did that lady go! What do i hit the drum with...my fist, an open palm even though it's not a bongo? We had only been here for 2 minutes and now we were part of some random ceremony.

Right when I began to worry that I was going to accidentally punch a hole in this fancy drum, the lady appeared again with a stick (or drum bat..whatever). Then this other dude instructed me in how to bang the drum (essentially give it a good whack).
At this point, spectators had gathered to watch this display of korean pomp and circumstance...and some pasty and confused American girl awkwardly participate. When I was given the cue, I did my thing and swung. I'd say I did a pretty good job. I didn't screw up the ceremony (or the drum) which was pretty much my main concern.

The changing of the palace guard wrapped up and the lady handed me the clip board with a list of other foreigners' names. Apparently, they always single out a non-korean in the crowd and make him/her hit the drum. I had to give them my email address so I assume I'm going to be put on some special and exclusive "foreigner-cum-palace percussionist" email list where we'll share our experiences and receive updates on other opportunities to hit fancy korean drums.

Anyway, at this point Nami and I felt obligated to check out this palace so we paid the admission fee (you would think an important person like myself would've gotten a complimentary ticket) and went inside. As per usual, I pressured Nami into posing for ridiculous photos:

We had just finished shooting that last little gem when this cute little man asked us to pose again so that he could take a photo of us acting idiotic at one of Korea's most historic landmarks. So Nami re-mounted the statue and I pretended to take another photo while this guy took a photo of us...meta. After that, he wanted to take pictures with us. He held Nami's hand and stepped away from her. Awkward but adorable.

Then he took a picture with the giant white girl.

He told us he was an amateur photographer taking photos for a competition for which the theme was foreigners visiting Korean monuments. We were the perfect subjects. He took some more pictures of us walking and bid us ado. But then he found us again 15 minutes later and took more pictures of us being foreign but this time we weren't doing stupid things with stone objects.

However, 5 minutes after he left us again, we were back at it. Found this little dude as we were leaving:

It started to rain just as we exited the palace so Cheonggye Stream is saved for another day.

What' SUB?, or Seoul's secret auguries.

Anorexia, pork, standardized tests, and the search for affordable iced coffee have pretty much characterized our first ten days in Seoul (entries on all the aforementioned delights will be posted shortly). However, the motif that most succinctly and accurately defines our Korean exploits thus far is signage.
What is a sign? According to a quick Google define: sign search, a sign is "a perceptible indication of something not immediately apparent (a visible clue)," "a public display of a message," "a signal that encodes a message," and lastly, "an augury (indicating important things to come)." So, dearest Seoul, what are you trying to tell us? What will our future hold?
What kind of augury is this? This summer, we will attempt to decipher Seoul's encoded message by piecing together (from here on forth, we will call this operation "playing puzzle") the signs and labels she reveals to us in our commute, shopping sprees, and drunken stupors.
The message so far seems to be that:

Seoul can be a dangerous place. We should take care lest we fall on our heads. That being said, we should always keep a lookout for [what' sub] because Seoul is an [always funny world]. This trip may feel like [a twosome place], but we need to cut loose, get our [hooch] on, and just listen to the sexy red-headed cartoon chick and grab a cheese stick in this city that is [man's place for relaxation]. We might feel down at times, but we mustn't give up hope on gettin' down -- this city may be full of overbearing Asians who can't dance, but sometimes it can be [so black].

And so it is written. Let's play puzzle.

Koreans do entertainment right.

When not threatening to blackmail korean academies, Nami and I have found ample opportunity to observe and immerse ourselves in the local culture. For example, we have eaten shaved ice sundaes, delighted in not having to tip at restaurants, and bought coffee for the price of a good meal (Nami says this sentence lacks parallel construction. pshh.) On Sunday, Nami's family brought us to the Olympic grounds to see "freestyle soccer." Ooooo soccer, we thought, and freestyle too...that must mean, like, not choreographed? We really had no idea what the hell we were going to see but we expected some sort of green field with food vendors...and possibly beer. Oh how misguided we were.

We entered a big fancy building to find that the venue looked more like a rally space than a field. There was a stage, blinding flood lights, and rows upon rows of folding chairs. We took our seats....where were they going to play soccer? On the stage, some old guys talked for a really long time...in korean. I zoned out. An 80 year old guy did a split and punched through a wooden board. Nami and I yawned. that was vaguely impressive. where was the beer? It had been an hour and I hadn't seen a soccer ball. We ate some bbang to pass the time.

Then, someone hit the lights. A comedian came on stage and there was a burst of confetti. The second hour was so good, we forgave them for all the boring crap they had put us through. There were musical performances! And pyrotechnics! smoke! pulsating light! boy band choreography from circa 1998. Hip Hop! Fun for all ages! (See below for visual aid)

My personal favorite performer was the guy who made his lower body look like rubber with his little jig. He also kind of looked like Nami's mom from far away. Incidentally, Nami's mom, who was next to us, was dancing in her seat.

Honestly, I was so amused that I wouldn't have even cared if they just skipped the soccer part. I had kind of forgotten about it at this point anyway. BUT, the soccer did happen. The performances ended (for the time being) and the competition started. Every contestant kicked a soccer ball into the audience. Nami's mom got sidechecked while vying for a ball. No one was hurt.

So, freestyle soccer is actually like doing tricks/juggling a soccer ball. You might have already known this and think we're stupid. Get over yourself. Anyway, all the contestants were young (ages 14-25). They played music while the kids performed...sometimes American rap songs containing curse words and derogatory language but no big deal in a room full of korean-speakers. Here's a video of the guy who came in second. He acted like an arrogant rockstar but girls were screaming in the back of the room so I guess that works well for him.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that there was a halftime show of breakdancers and a globetrotter (freestyle basketball...which nami and I agreed we liked better).

The whole experience was EPIC. We stayed for all of it (4 hours) and were one of the last to leave. Koreans do entertainment right.

the contract, or the tale of 26 FAILS.

see You're Making Me Angry for the full account of how our academy has screwed us over.

long story, short: eff this job. if this gets any worse, the academy is going down. with our H- network (basis of their academy's credibility) and our social networks (power to the people), we have the potential to raze this academy to the ground within the fiscal year.

don't mess with me, school. you have no idea with whom you're dealing.

boys, schools, and boys in schools.

[DH ALERT: Bad news, team. My eldest sister has just notified me that Daniel Henney is currently in America, filming a new CBS medical drama premiering this fall. Further investigation has revealed that it is to be called, "Three Rivers." I'm not sure what this is going to mean for us, but we're not going to give up hope. I wouldn't be surprised to see DH waiting for us outside our local GS25 (a convenience store), having discovered our blog and become a passionate fan of ours. In fact, I will make sure to mention his full name, Daniel Henney, in every blog post so that his Google alerts will notify him of our existence.]

In other news, I have no control over my classroom(s). My writing class consists of three high school boys and instead of going over essays and sentence corrections, they spend most of classtime interrogating me on my dating preferences and nightlife customs.

"Do you have a type? What color? Have you ever dated a Korean guy? No? How come? Are you looking for a Korean boyfriend this summer? No? Do you have a boyfriend?"

"What did you do last night? What are you doing tonight? Tomorrow night? You should come to NRB (noraebang a.k.a. korean karaoke) with us!"

I try to avoid answering at first, but then one of them yells out, "She's getting red!" and then I'm forced to answer to save face. And being myself, I'm soon giving a presentation on past and present love interests and "my favorite color." It's painful sometimes, but we get along for the most part. I bring them snacks and they tell me where to go shopping and which clubs I should frequent. They insisted that I go to this huge transgender nightclub. But, don't exit out the back door, they warned.
In a single day, we broke the blinds on our windows and accidentally set off the emergency alarm, contacting the police. Discipline is important to me.

My AP Lit student and I spent one hour of our two hour session today talking about Macbooks, the iPhone 3.0 software update, and Apple's overall superiority over PCs, which is what you get when you make someone who's never taken AP Lit (but is obsessed with Apple) teach AP Lit. When I tried to assign my fifth grader some vocab homework, he retorted, "and what if I don't do it? What are you going to do?" I paused. Mentally strangling the little twerp, I shrugged, "Nothing." I can't really do anything to him; I have no power...unless I beat the spoiled brat.

Yesterday, we visited Daewon High School, this huge prep school in Seoul where my dad used to teach way back when. It was completely terrifying, chock full of testosterone and teenage hormones. The boys were timid at first, spying on us out of their classroom windows, whispering. But. Then. Seeming to respond to some silent alarm heard by everyone but us, hundreds of boys spilled out of the classrooms and swarmed us, chanting HA-BAHD, HA-BAHD HELLO HELLO.
Jen and I looked at each other and laughed nervously. As they brushed up against and pushed past us, I thought, "We could die like this."

School is a large part of our lives here (and a big part of the lives of Koreans, in general). We spend most of our days in our academy and although all of our classes are conducted in English, our command of the English language is deteriorating at a higher-than-expected rate. Our students' and coworkers' English is decent but stilted; and any discourse with our other conversational partners a.k.a. our top three best friends a.k.a. my uncle, aunt, and mother is conducted completely in Korean. Consequently, Jen and I have dropped all articles, abandoned the gerund, and curtailed our vocabulary to a third-grade phonics book. I'm beginning to read all F's as P's (our gym, Forest Fitness, is called Po-rest-euh Pit-nees") and Jen keeps calling the States, "USA". We've become FOBs after only six days in the motherland. This bears much promise for my SF job apps (and, hopefully, interviews) this coming fall. FML.

First Sighting! DH Loves Coffee! ME TOO!

Greetings from across the Pacific! The past 4 days have been hectic. We arrived at Incheon airport on Sunday where health officials immediately stuck thermometers in our ears. Swine-flu free (yesssss), we made our way to baggage claim where we met Sangtae and Leo, our awkward but friendly co-workers. Nami asked them what they liked to do in their free time - "hiking? shopping?" - but we learned they only like drinking. In fact, Leo was nursing a hangover. They showed us our apartment, our school, and took us out to dinner as we watched them smoke through a whole pack of cigarettes. We concluded that they're sort of like our big brothers. Nami and I hope to persuade them into taking us to baseball game this summer. We will see.

Around 10pm that first night, I was given the princeton review's "cracking the AP Physics B exam" and told that I was to teach a 2 hour class at 9am. Yeah, I didn't take that AP...and physics is pretty much my least favorite subject ever so it looked like this job thing was off to a good start. But it got even better when the principal informed me that I would be teaching another AP course I had never taken - statistics! Hooray for simultaneous learning and teaching! The underqualification is rampant: Nami's teaching AP Lit, which she never took, and admits that she has no idea how to analyze poetry. She talks to her student about internships, shopping, and college essays instead.

Sidenote: our faces are plastered on a large poster in the lobby of the academy for all to see. There are hundreds of pamphlets with the same photos.

There is also a Harvard banner displayed prominently in the CEO's glass-walled office. Our principal has a Yale banner hanging in hers...but I don't think she went there -- she doesn't even speak American. All the Ivy League decoration is sort of hilarious.

We recently went to a grocery store to get some basics such as bananas and toilet paper. Koreans apparently don't stockpile candy and oreos like Americans do as evidenced by their incredibly small shopping carts.

Also, I found Daniel Henney in aisle 4! He whispered sweet nothings in my ear about the smooth taste of Maxwell instant coffee. I took him and his coffee powder home and now he's in our kitchen cabinet. So that's good.

Nami and I climbed a mountain - and by climb I mean drove up 3/4 the way and trekked the last part with her mom and uncle. It's been good family-bonding. We ate some sweet bread (bbang, it's called bbang but it sounds like bong, haha) at the top because it's what you're supposed to do.

I would say that Nami's mom and her aunt and uncle are in our top 3 best friends here. The average of our ages is probably 40. Nami thinks it's more but I can't do statistics so whatever. We all enjoy eating. On the topic of eating, some men were cooking up delicious pots of snails and silkworms on the mountain path. One of the men told Nami she wasn't really Korean if she didn't eat one. I was really happy to not be Korean. However, i thought it would be a shame for Nami to lose her heritage so I paid her $10 to eat the awful buggers. I gagged and lost money but it was worth it. Look at that bug-eating monster!

Okay, well that's enough for now. Also, i should mention that I don't have to teach AP stats anymore which is a good thing because I didn't even understand the Barrons study book's first chapter on graphs. Nami still has to teach lit. ha.

a seoul search

Ahoj mateys,

This is Nami and Jen, reporting for duty from the mean streets of seoul. We're in the SK this summer, from June 13 - August 31, to teach ambitious korean high school students how to become like us! -- super cool, outstanding, and unemployed Harvard grads. Oh, and Jen's going to scour the entire peninsula for Daniel Henney.

You guys probably miss us already. And don't think you can live without us. We know this. In order to address such an egregious grievance, we have given ourselves most fully and wholeheartedly to the online world.

• blogging. we will be updating this blog most frequently, with embarrassing tales of (mis)acculturation and even more embarrassing photos of our consumption of bread. we will also try to upload video of our feeble attempts at speaking korean. seoulmateys.blogspot.com, tap that.
• tweeting. you can follow our travels and travails at @namis & @jlames.
• fb-ing. photos (and albums) will be uploaded to our facebooks.
• skyping. we have no (real-life) friends here and desperately yearn for human contact. skype us at namisng, jenn.ames, so that we can remember how to speak English!
  
• emailing. if you really care about us, you can e-mail us (but we won't hold our breaths): namisng@gmail.com; jenn.ames@gmail.com

Additionally, we have purchased phones and do have an address!

• Add: #301 Green Bill, 695-37 Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South Korea, 135-917
  
• Phone: 010-5784-0010

In conclusion, we miss you. We are going to take Seoul by storm; they just don't know it yet (because a) we have no friends, b) all we do is stuff our faces and pass out by 10pm, c) everyone laughs at us). But, just you wait, Seoul. And you too, America.