This is priceless!

Halloween

Korea doesn't really celebrate Halloween but at my Hagwon we try to celebrate all western festivals to teach the kids English in a fun context. To be honest i'm not sure that most of the kids rally grasped the concept. However, it would be a shame if I didn't show you what one of my kids turned up wearing, take a look at this.

It's a good opportunity to bring up an aspect of Korean culture that has to be seen to be beleived. Basically, they both despise and worship the west. As a general rule the older someone is the more they hate you. Many Koreans think that I both smell and look disgusting. When I hand out things to my students they flinch or hold their nose. At first I found this a bit upsetting but now I am used to it. If you get on a bus or train, people will get up and move as far away from you as they can. Sometimes, bars or restaurants that are bustling will be 'closed' when you try to sit down.

On the other hand the younger people think you are fantastic. Men stop their cars to wind down their windows and tell me how handsome I am on a regular basis. Koreans, with the exception of their excessively bushy privates, have no body hair. This means they find the hair on my frearms fascinating and it is by no means uncommon for a fully grown adult to start stroking my forearm mid conversation!

Funniest of all is their obession with the English words on clothing. On the whole they don't understand the language so well so they just print stuffon T-Shirts that they must have found on the internet or something. I saw a kid with 'A golden shower' written on the back of his shirt and 'Mark who?' written on the front. It was fantastic. Swear words are frequently to be seen on the clothing of very young children at school, it is a good laugh every time.

I prefer the subtle mistakes. The local sports shop is called 'Athlete's Foot', you can buy Nike's in there for £15 it's awesome. Best so far though is this boutique:

Soccer

So anyway I should probably fill you all in on what i've been up to this past few weeks. You won't be surprised to discover that I have found out how to bet on premierhip football in Korea. Technically, gambling is illegal in Korea, but you can particpate in the 'Soccer Lottery' whereby you select results instead of numbers and then choose your stake.

There is this one bar where I have a beer alone and watch sports after work to avoid going straight home and there are these three Korean students from the university who work there almost every night. So I go in there wearing my Arsenal shirt one night and one of them clocks it and comes running towards me grinning like we were long lost pals. I learnt early on that the name of a football team pretty much passes as a greeting out here so this guy is wagging his finger at my chest like van Persie on a hat trick and saing 'Arseenal' over and over. So these guys end up sitting at my table and we're all looking at the weekend fitures and after a while I realise they want me to tell them what to bet on. The problem is that everthing is written in Korean. It turns out that this was exactly the motivation that I needed to start learning Hangul (Korean alphabet). Anyway, the first words I could speak in Korean were 'annyong haseyo' which means hello. The first thing I learnt to write was 'Aston Villa'. Incidentally, 'Sunderland' must sound like the Korean for 'knobcheese' or something because every time I say it they crack right up.

Anyway, in a strange kind of way I think these three dudes are probably my best friends out here. Our conversations involve saying the names of teams to each other but I get free beers and snacks now so i'm happy.

Back

I should apologise as I haven't posted in quite a while now. I'd like to say it was because I was deeply embedded in some rich cultural experience, perhaps even that I'd amassed a huge group of international friends and had been learning Hapkido and how to prepare squid Korean style while spending my evenings cross-legged on a hand carved chair meditating and practicing the Chinese for stellar constellations. In fact, I've been pissing brown water out of my arse while playing championship manager and feeling sorry for myself.

Slightly mitigating is the fact that I have now started a fairly serious attempt to learn Korea. I've realised that failure to do so severely limits my social options to hanging out with the fairly limited western community in Masan. Don't get me wrong, I have met a few really cool people out here. It is often said back home that the Americans lack a sense of humour. The quality of comedy programming coming out of that place should have been enough to dispel this myth in my mind. Any remaining doubt has been eradicated through my recent trips to Busan with a crowd of yanks.

Busan is Korea's second largest city and has a massive, perfectly clean beach. It is kind of the San Fransisco/Brighton of Korea, except that no one is openly gay. Most 'nightclubs' in Korea involve you sitting down and ordering food while a strange guy who looks like Mr Miagi except he is dressed as an 80's game show host brings suspiciously friendly girls to your table whose English is limited to 'you so handsome' and 'happy ending'.

These guys are particularly partial to whores and I have already spent a couple of nights sitting outside establishments for three hours waiting for them to finish their dirty deeds. Three hours! Apparently they wash you down, chat, feed you, give you a massage, rub some menthol oil stuff into your sack, provide you with the service with a grateful smile plastered on their overworked face and then stick half a bottle of soju down you and send you on you way. I think there's one place where you can get a photo of yourself just at the 'happy ending' moment like to log flume at Alton Towers provides.

In Busan there are some western style nightclubs and I have managed a couple of all nighters with some good dance music- electro, breaks and the like. Most music in Kore takes the form of the piano driven love ballad. There must be some kind of law stating that all accompanying music videos adhere to the same model because their uniform nature is remarkable. First and foremost the young guy absolutely must die at the end. Second, and just as important is the rule whereby the stunning Korean bird must turn up just a few seconds too late (preferably in the rain and on a pink moped) before we are treated to one last rendition of the chorus before the camera zooms in on a tear rolling down her cheek. When you drink in Korean bars you are submitted to an endless series of these things.

Culture

Just a quick post to prove that it's not all beers and sports out here in the peninsula. I hiked into the mountains to a Buddhist temple and it was, plain and simply, fucking beautiful- really tranquil.

I drank from the fountain of health (couldn't find the fountain of eternal life) and walked the Bridge to Heaven (see below). Good times.

Stupid shit from school

So I've been looking for childish humour and this book appeared in the junior school library today. Thank you jesus. The kindergarten grade literature is full of gems like this. I myself pitched in recently in a half hour lesson about 'Mom's box'- which gets up to all sorts of mischief.

Funnier still was one letter I found on display in a corridor. The kids practice their english by writing letters to historical figures. Most were pretty dull but this one was an eye-catcher, see if you can guess who it is...

"Dear Anne

I am happy to write to you to say hello but I do not because you are dead.

I say that if I was in your place I think it is a crazy to write diary I would not do it. You are brave but also crazy...."

Poor quality humour I know but this tickled me for a while. The budget brand of stationary here is called 'Morning Glory' and advertises it's 'strength'. So far that's it but i'll be sure to keep you posted.

Language Barriers

Sorry for the delay but i've been really busy since my last post.

Believe it or not dealing with the Korean populace with a five word vocabulary is fairly easy. More problematic are the encounters with the majority of english speaking teacher out here who are from accross the pond. So far i've been told that i've got 'nice teeth for a Britisher', been subjected to a ten minute lecture on why soccer derives its name from 'association football' (we al know this is true but americans seem to think we don't) as well as an assortment of various comments on my accent and certain words I use. I hate to break ranks with the whole travelling the world and being chilled out movement but an uncanny proportion of americans are pricks. However, fair is fair and these guys can eat.

Ignorance

Shit i'm a bad tourist.

I attempted to purchase a pair of astroturf boots today. This is so I can partake in 'Soccer Sunday' (you have to say this in the most annoying american accent possible- think Budweiser advert/multiball). I've been assured that the standard is fairly low, but judging by the humidity and the fact that everyone here apart from me has the torso of an extra from Enter the Dragon I think I could be in trouble. If they take it anywhere near as seriously as their facial expressions suggest, i'll be lucky to escape without serious injury.

Anyway, i'm struggling with Korean. So before I went to the store I wrote the Korean for 'hello' and 'thanks' on my hand in biro. Unfortunately, where i'm the sweatiest man in Korea this came off immediately upon leaving the air-conditioned sanctuary of my appartment. This meant that I had to bumble my way through the purchase using my now well-rehearsed poniting, nodding and 'ok' hand signal. I'm pretty sure that they think i'm a tosser.

Talking of which, a previously undiscoved cupboard under my sink happens to contain no less than eight large boxes of Korean Kleenex- must love a wank these guys...

Friendly

Wow, people are friendly here. If you're a westerner people treat you like you're a film star.



By far the friendliest so far is Mr Kim, who comes round my house and brings me food, english language newspapers and mobile phones. He looks like an oriental Les Dennis (before the split), speaks no english and seems as though he's always in a pretty fucking good mood.



This city is filled with english schools so there's plenty of teachers. I've already met loads of people and it's a real community.

By far the best Korean phenomenon so far is the couples who wear matching clothes! Normally it's some ridiculous mickey mouse shorts/t-shirt set!

Report to follow.

Day One

Two international flights and one domestic transfer- a total of 30hrs- and I am finally here. Turns out that Friday is national holiday so I've been left alone in my apartment for the first three days. All the better to bore you shitless with the finer details of my trip my dear...

Firstly , it would be nothing short of an injustice if I didn't mention what a fantastic airline Emirates is. Seriously, you get about five hundred touch-sceen options including live camera angles of outside the plane and the food is about as good a I think it's ever going to be out of a tin-foil triangle. The staff act as though back home, their enire family and/or vintage Guitar collection has been wired with C4 and a minuscule reduction in their perma-grin will remotely set of the detonator.

The domestic connection combined the seating comfort of the Belsen shuttle with the Audio/Visual delight of Jeremy Beadle's SkyPlus box. It was also where I first discovered the Korean national dish 'Kimchi'- a fermented spicy Cabbage that has a strange property whereby upon consumption it requires almost immediate anal discharge. They eat it with everything over here apparently.

I am already a few steps further down my path of personal enlightenment. In the past couple of days I have learnt:

1. When at Dubai airport, never ask an African man wearing a Chelsea shirt if he knows the Champions League results. 'Chelsea' seems to be very close to the Ugandan for 'I'd like your entire family to stand around me in a circle shouting', while 'I'm sorry' is passable Angolan for 'Yes, i'd like to buy your camera/ please continue to rub my shoulder'.
2. When queuing for immigration, never stand behind an Arabic man. In addition to the fact that they are regarded with a similar suspicion over here as in 'ol Blighty it is also traditional for them to keep each important immigration document at the bottom of a separate case of tat and to answer each question from an official by pointing at their friend (who is holding up the next queue along) and doing the 'Asda price' pocket-tap.
3. Koreans are very, very polite. The man who collected me from the airport (calls me 'brian') insisted on his fragile looking nine year old daughter carrying all of my luggage five flights of stairs to my apartment while he smiled at me as if we had just shared four hours of considerate love-making.

Anyway, i'm about to go out on my on for the first time to orientate myself/buy beer and food. Report to follow. Bloggy D.