I shoulda known it would be a bad day from the beginning

I had this really vivid, intense dream basically simply about snuggling with an ex in a hammock. Powerful emotions were sweeping through the dream me as I gazed down at our embraced bodies...and then i woke up. Fuck, I talked to my dad about dreams like this once, he said I'd probably have them till I was at least 30. Fuck, that's messed up. Fuck you subconscious. ...fuck

So I have two days off until I start camp and no one is around. I missed my opportunity at friendship making and the two dudes I thought I had connected with, well, i guess I was mistaken. whatever, so i decide fuck it, I'm off to Muuido, which is an underdeveloped island that supposedly has decent beaches. I'm traveling almost the entire way by subway so I figure it can't take that long, two hours tops. I leave at 10:30. I don't get to the actual beach until 1:45. hell's bells! And what do I find? Well, a lovely strip of sand, quite nice actually, but for some reason the ocean is so friggin far away I can't even see it (slight haze). like for real, there's a beach, with a standard beach slope...and then there's just a mud pit...as far as the eye can see. I was like "durrrrr, wheres the ocean". So I went hiking out over the pits, yay chako's (foreshadowing bitch!!), to find the ocean. Eventually I did...and it was nice. It didn't smell like an ocean, but it didn't smell like a marsh either. The tide turned basically as I got to it so I started walking at a slight angle back to the shore, towards some sweet cliffs. Lot's of seagulls snoozing, lots of little dead (and live) crabs in the little waves. I had classical music on, it was pretty great, and the backdrop of the island is green and beautiful. And lo and behold what's bobbing in the waves? If it isn't an unopened bag of potato chips. As I've only had a .75 cent ice cream cone all day this seemed like quite a gift from poseidon. well done ancient greek gods, well done. somehow, even with the bag in tact they were a little soggy, but delicious (no stomarch problems several hours later either). well I get ot the cliffs and they're awesome, I noted that someone had actually attached climbing anchors to several cliff faces so this was a completely legit climbing area (note). I almost climbed a face to get a lily but then I realized how stupid that was A) out of voice range over big jagged rocks and B) complete language barrier and no real hospital on the island. Yay for reason! So I'm coming back and I started sweating a bit from the brief bouldering/rock hopping. The idea crossed my mind to head into the forest and shade. WRONG sweat city when you're outta the wind even if you are in the shade.

Alright, I'd been there about 2.5 hours and seen just about everything worth seeing. Oh, the tide finally came in and water reached the beach! that's what the beach was missing! Ya'know, with the water it's actually a pretty sweet ass place, except the tide doesn't come in until at least 4 PM which means to really spend "a day at the beach" you have to rent one of the little camping villas for a night. Oh i'm sorry, did I say villa, I meant 5 by 5' box on poles. No thanks! But it would be nice to come back with friends so before I go I decide to check out the strip of local restaurants along the beach. this is where it gets just...spiffy. SUPER spiffy!

I'm walking along looking for prices, no prices to be seen and I'm about to head back when my eye catches both little speed boats and sand buggy's. Fascinated I begin to head towards them when WHAM! you know how sometimes you stubb your toe and it feels like you split your fucking toenail in half but you look and it's not even red, you're just being a pansy? haha, and you know how sometimes you aren't being a pansy and you're bleeding everywhere and sand is sticking to a huge gash in your toe? yea, this time it was the latter. I hop around, thrust my foot into the first water bucket I see to try and get the sand out of my wound and then realize just how bad it is. At this point I make the strategic decision to try and get help. Not from the police sitting 20 meters away. No I ask for a bandaid from a 50 year salt'o'the earth korean ajima who probably was a little girl when the NK swept through destroying everything. I ask for a bandaid, point at my foot and mime kicking the stupid fucking post in the ground that destroyed my balancing toe. So she goes and gets a bandaid (and I think) was saying it would cost me 500 W. Then she looked at the cut, then at my face, and then she dragged me into the restaurant. At this point I was getting woozy. See, I can take pretty much any kind of damage pretty much anywhere on my body relatively well, even needles now. But for some reason if I get a deep cut on my fingers or toes I panic. guess what happens.

I'm sitting in the chair breathing hard trying to prevent it from coming on, the lady has gotten out a for serious med kit and is dabbing at my toe and then SMACK! I come back around to her smacking my leg, I'm sprawled halfway out of the chair and I don't really remember what happened. I literally went into shock. Every, single, time. I have no idea why, but getting deep cuts on my fingers or toes panics me seriously enough that my body literally responds by shutting down. this is stupid, fuck you body, you're gonna get me killed one day. Anyways, I'm also cold sweating like a mad monkey, I mean like dripping. I HATE cold sweat, hate it. it's happened three times in my life. One when I was 10 and cut my finger (the only other time I fainted or came dangerously close), the other today, and the third time watching the Ring. That movie scared the crap outta me in theatres (now it's pretty lame, I was so innocent).

well I come back to and she's got me all duct taped up, my toe is practically twice as large with all the tape in fact. I manage to mutter thanks as she heads back to the kitchen. No charge, I think because it happened on a half buried piece of rusty metal sticking out of the front of her property. anyways, no idea what she was saying (she hummed at one point i think) but she did a good job taping me up. After a few minutes I get my breathing back under control and, really really painfully) manage to put my chako back on. Oh, one more fuck you, to chako. my toes woulda been nice and protected in gators OR tivo's. don't think I won't remember this epic foot failure. bastards. Oh, the most fun part is I can't remember when my last tetanus booster was...so...i could die soon. unless I get some shots. le sigh.

anyways, the ride back was fine expect for my toe literally throbbed the entire way. I remembered something almost immediately. When I was in college I remember learning that the only toe we actually need to walk is our big one. We only use the big toe to balance, the rest are fairly superfluous. Well when the big toe is down pretty much the entire foot is down, I literally gimped 50 KM back to seoul and then home (on the subway I mean). Had a nice dinner, watching transformers 2 (which is just...so so retarded, thank god I bought it black market) and talking to shanners and man am I zonked now.

but if i have another dream about my ex tonight I'm getting neuro surgery. It's cheap here in korea.

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Correcting culture miconceptions while buying illegal DVD's

I'm compiling a list of some of the most common misconceptions about Korea. Enjoy!

1) Korean's are poor. Basically everyone knows about asian mail order brides, and most know that they come from places like SE asia but most especially Korea. I'm pretty sure the chick married to the nerd in glasses in Dodgeball was a South Korean, based on both appearance and attitude.
X Wrong. Korea is the 11th largest economy on the planet (or was before the market crash in the 90's and in 2008). In a nation of just about 50 million that means people are doing fairly well overall. The nation has a very decent healthcare, retirement, and transportation system and while Koreans aren't swimming in wealth like say...luxembourgers, they're doin pretty damn good. Avg monthly salary is about 2.4 million won. I make 2 million, which will be bumped up when I finish my TEFL in 3 weeks and will also get bumped up additionally if/when I resign next year. And with 2 million alone I'm making enough to live happily and adventurously AND bank half, and I could easily bank more.

2) Height: Koreans are asians. Asians are short. It's pure math.
X: goddamn I wish this were true but asians avg out at about the height as american's nowadays. There is a LOT of emphasis on being tall if you're a guy, and skinny if you're a girl. It's not a world of giants but I am still on the relatively short side of life. oh well.

3) Tourist Sites: Korea is in Asia, asia has a ridiculously long history and there are tons of monolithic monuments to the past every where that are perfect for travelers to take a quick snapshot of to impress their weigugin friends.
X 2 different reasons for this being wrong. Most predominantly Korea never had that many monuments. for the majority of the last millenia it has been ruled by confucian/neo-confucian doctrine which emphasizes conservatism and reduction of wants and needs. Basically Korean royalty never invested in mega-public structures like the buddhas in the mountains in afghanistan or the great wall of china. That aside, there are beautiful natural wonders...but most of them are in the North which is sort of off limits at the moment (at least to americans). The second reason there isn't even a lot of temples and palaces is that other nations kept coming in and burning them down (fuck you japan, fuck you mongolia). Korea has a long history of being assaulted by the fuckin japs who would basically come in and burn everything and try and make everyone look and act (and speak) japanese. the last time was only 60 years ago. Koreans dont like the japanese.

3. They wear those weird clothes right? According to nerds who spend a month or less traveling in asia people still where traditional clothes (and these nerds think it makes sense for them to buy them as well).
X well honestly it's a yes and no but mostly no. People do still wear them for ceremonies and sometimes for holidays but the majority of the people, especially the young crowd, make me feel quite...dirty hippy. It's basically like Madison Ave...everywhere, god I don't even like to go out on Saturdays.

4. Aren't they socialist? I mean...China is.
X Korea is about the most hyper free market capitalist nation on the planet. They do have things like big gov spending programs and gov healthcare but in terms of the economy it's enough to make a libertarian splooge (sorry).

5. Traditional beliefs, don't they believe in weird earth gods and whatnot?
X Sort of, almost exclusively they follow a cult of ancestor worship. There are small gods in their cultural mythology but nobody really believes in them and they were mostly imports of China. But goddamn if they don't believe their ancestors are watching them and need to be venerated. Severe punishment and death await those who fail to placate the ghosts of the past. Seriously, it's almost funny except they take it really seriously. There are still a large number of shamanist priests whose soul job it is to take care of spirits. I mean like hundreds of thousands.

6. Don't they have weird customs like bowing and honoring the old?
Why yes they do in fact. And when your in the presence of someone older or of higher rank then you you will feel this. They will bow and they will brown nose to stay in good favor with their bosses. This is largely a holdover of confucianism and as soon as the old or powerful disappear so does the custom. Amongst themselves there really is no difference other than that, in a almost wolf like way, the group comes first and the individual second.

The main difference really is simply that they all look asian, they speak fucking korean (fuck you korean language) and of course they eat hella spicy (but delicious) food, which always comes with soup. The old people are bizarre but even the 30 year olds think they're bizarre. In 20 years Seoul will be indistguishable from NYC, it practically is now except for all the old people and their wily old people ways. ...and street stalls, but that's fun.

I thought about all this while I was wandering around trying to find a fan for a friend and buying black market DVD's. I spent 20,000 and then found the exact same goddamn fan 1 block away for 10. it's a difference of about 5 dollars but it pisses me off that I keep doing this. When shopping in Korea take some time to go store to store comparing prices. they will try and rip you off insanely if you aren't careful.

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Belt Tests and toddlers

I took my belt test for my green belt in Kumdo (kendo) today. I was surrounded by about a dozen kids under 7 years old, 3 of whom were red or black belts (wtf??). I gotta say I was shocked by the pure enthusiasm these kids had for kumdo. We did our basic warmups and I'm used to half-hearted kiyoeps and groans during pushups but these kids were fucking SCREAMING they were so excited, including the one girl.

Now there were two kids around 12-15 years old (i know this cause one of them is a student of mine) and they were about as lethargic and half-assed as they could get away with (which is to say, what wouldn't piss off the sensei).

So here's the dillemma reiterated facing Korea. The young kids are just like all other kids everywhere on the planet; excitable, enthusiatic, hard to control but eager to please and generally fairly sweet natured. By the time their 12 they make american potheads look eager. Something is very wrong with the system here.

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If it's red don't try to eat it...

Lesson from Korea, if the food is red and you don't like cajun food, order something else. Red equal's spice death. As in, full sweat in two bites. Oh and they only have water, which they serve in little cups that you have to keep refilling. DEATH!

Imagine what that does to your stomach, legend has it that koreans have one of the highest stomach cancer rates in the world. wonder why.

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Class in 5!

I was under the impression for a solid 3 weeks that exams (which are currently going on) were going to start on monday and go through friday. during exams i have nothing to do. i sit in my chair and work on my TEFL or whatever. it's very boring but relaxing.

So on monday i come in at 8:55 expecting to spend my day on my butt. I'm bleary cause i stayed up till 2:30 watching the end of wimbledon (4 hours! good job federer). I haven't had any coffee, i forgot the key to my desk and my jump drive at home and I'm in shorts, sandals and a t-shirt. In other words, i'm a mess. So my teacher looks at me and says "mmm, that's a little informal" and i said, "do you want me to go home and change?" "No you can't now, you have first period." "no, I don't think I have to be in class for the exams so I can go change anytime." "No you have first period." "What do you mean? Like I have class?" "Yes of course"..."but exams!" "haha, exams start on tuesday!" (general laughter in the room).

So i had to get a lesson together for one class for the week in 5 minutes. that was bullshit.

i got more compliments that day in my college clothes than any other time. one kid randomly kept shouting "i envy you" because of my hair.

so bizarre

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Two Major Problems

There are two incontrovertible problems with the current Korean education model.

1) Memorization. Korea is the second best education system in world, but only in math and science. Here's how, they ram facts down these kids throat like whoa. They start school at 8 or 9, they finish at 3 or 4 and then they basically have an hour or so before they go to hagwon (private academy) which they stay at until 8 or 10. If they aren't at hagwon they are at home with their parents hovering over them. So they're excellent at textbook questions and standard solutions. But I challenge you to ask them something that they'd have to find on their own. I challenge you to give them a problem that they have to think about rather than just answer by rote. The truth is they can't, they have NO critical thinking facilities (as far as i can tell). Now this isn't god awful, in fact, comparatively speaking it's not bad at all. At least they CAN do these problems, whereas many kids in america can't answer basic algebra and geometry questions regardless of their difficulty.

2) Control. These kids have no freedom. At school they sit in class and the teacher lectures them. They aren't asked any critical questions and they aren't supposed to think about various answers. You follow the guidelines, simple as that, and they almost never speak unless they're giving a carefully structured class presentation. At home they are controlled by their parents, everything they do is controlled basically. So what happens when that control disappears? Well I just got out of class 309 which is the perfect example. They go insane. Literally. One kid in every class has the personal motivation to read or study on their own initiative (at this school that's, again, literal). All the others are either smacking each other around in a retarded (i mean that) version of rock/paper/scissors or are discussing meaningless pop news featuring such distuinguished individuals as Big Bang and Wonder Girls. Most of these kids spend all of their free time playing computer games and when they grow up they do the same thing. There's no motivation for them to do more, for personal achievement, only as much as they are pushed by someone in a higher authority to do. Though they do want to be rich, it's like a nation full of wanna-be bankers. god help them.

it's rather pitiful and depressing honestly. Though to be fair i'm writing this after a particularly bad time with 309 which is probably the worst class in all of korea.

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