This is priceless!
Wednesday 3 December 2008
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.
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.
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.
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