SEOUL - OCTOBER 25, 2000

Finally sitting back in my apartment (temporarily) on a sunny Friday afternoon. Actually I have another full day ahead of me with plans. Its been an exhausting week, and a very frustrating day so far. My Korean language class is getting the best of me. I was so frustrated today and my mind just shut off in the middle of class. I couldn't think of anything more in Korean.

Anyhow, yesterday our entire class went out on trip out of Seoul. We went to see how traditional Korean pottery is made, and then we went a traditional Korean Folk Village. Both were alot of fun, but we had to leave at 8am and we didn't make it back to Seoul until about 11pm. I did the unfortunate mistake of going out afterwards and didn't get back home until about 4am, which regrettably killed me and left me completely unprepared for today's Korean lesson. It was frustrating. Incidently, the trip itself was alot of fun! One of my co-students has a digital camera, so I told him to copy the pictures on a CD-Rom or Disk, and I'll create a webpage for it. So hopefully you will see that soon.

Back to the classes, everyday we just have SO much information. Its a constant barradge of brand new phrases and vocabulary. It can take me hours just to try to translate them, and to study them, takes significantly more time. During the last two weeks I have been studying five or six hours a night just to try to make it look like I have some kind of sense of what is going on in class the next day. Its pretty exhausting. The hard part is after you put in so much study time just for the upcoming day's lesson, then suddenly the next day you have brand new material of new stuff which I'd never seen before. Usually, I am so overwhelmed by the previous day's lesson, that its hard to move on and begin studying a completely new unfamiliar realm of more brand new words and phrases. Its really exhuasting.

I have to give my friend Lance alot of credit for retaining so much Korean after six months. I think my Korean isn't too bad for only three weeks of class, for someone who has only been in class for that time. I was talking to another American yesterday and he was telling me that after six months of Korean classes it was only just beginning to click for him. Actually, talking to him, it made me realize that I have the same issues and struggles with studying as he went through. It seems like a long road. I know so little, and there is so much to know. My goal is to only study for six months, and then try to learn on my own after building the initial foundation through classes. From what I understand it takes about six months of intensive classes, before you can really engage yourself in conversations with confidence.

On to other things. Since I've been staying home during the week studying, I have also had Korean TV on, mostly just to hear Korean sounds during my own language studies. Anyhow, I caught a few interesting programs. One consisted of this old Korean woman who had a pet crocodile. (Korean TV is really different)! Anyhow, the woman and the crocodile shared the same house, and one room had a large fish tank with lots of fish in it. But for the most part, the crocodile just wandered anywhere it went in the house. The TV show was filled with lots of studio laugh tracks and what I call 'woooo' tracks. Everythng that the woman and crocodile would do which was a little weird, you'd hear a big 'wooooooo' from the audience. Anyhow, the woman was shown feeding her crocodile, and then they were playing on the living room floor. Later she took the crocodile (this is a real crocodile by the way), she took him for a walk through the neighborhood. Everyone was staring and laughing a little too. As she walked, the crocodile followed not far behind. At one point she picked it up and gave it a hug (with a big 'wooooooo' from the audience soundtrack). The TV segment lasted about 15 minutes, and the last few minutes were the most shocking as at the end of the day when she crawled into bed and put the crocodile right next to her and placed the covers over the crocodile except for its nose and eyes. She gave the crocodile a kiss on the snout, and then turned off the lights. The crocodile's eyes were still open, so she ran her eyes over its eyes to close them, and everytime she did, the one eye (facing the other way from the old Korean woman), would pop back open. It was very funny (set with the TV laugh and 'wooo' tracks). Finally after several attempts to close that eye, the crocodile just layed there in bed, and the old Korean woman placed her arm around it and went to bed herself.

Speaking of other interesting TV. I've been getting pretty consumed by Asian MTV. Actually its a station coming out of China. I would have thought it was Hong Kong, but they are Video Disc Jockey is speaking in Mandarin (I believe), so it could be Shanghai or Beijing? Its interesting to see what is popular in other Asian countries. South Korea hasn't changed with their musical tastes in the last four years (maybe longer?) since I've been here. Its still this Pop Techno Dance thing? Kind of all three. Almost anything Korean has to be danceable it seems. The techno stuff seems to be lingering around here, never having come and gone. Actually Raves are big in my part of Seoul (where a high concentration of universities exist). Sickboy is one of the organizations that puts them out among many other groups. Two other techno websites are Technogate and 101Techno. I see flyers around for other ones too. Back to the music, all your normal teen idol bands, like Back Street Boys set up with dancing to their pop songs, is big here. H.O.T. is still the hottest band around, why? I don't know. They use to be just a bunch of well marketed kids, now they've turned into very young well-marketed adults. They are basically equivalent to those little boy bands that are mass marketed in the States. H.O.T. is just one of many of those Korean bands like that.

Actually Salsa has a small presence in Seoul as well. It isn't prominent anywhere, you really have to search it out, but it is here. A good website for Salsa in Seoul is through Feel-A-Dance. Its not the only one out there, I've seen a few other free Salsa lesson bars or organizations supporting the popular Latin Dance. Salsa, Merengue and Brazilian Samba are really incredible fascinating and erotic dances. I always enjoyed watching the really good dancers in the Salsa clubs of New York or during my year in South America.

The Asian MTV is pretty interesting though. It seems like the Chinese music is a little more rock-n-rollish. Seems to be more guitars and less dancing. Its a bit more intriguing to me. Some of my favorite videos which play late at night are the Indian ones. They have such a mesmerizing, hypnotizing motion to their music. Plus, the music is much more complex, that I find it really enjoyable to watch. I'd like to see some Bollywood movies too, I guess they are essentially a two hour acted out music video with singing and dancing and such. I don't know why that seems interesting to me, but since I've been watching some of that stuff at 2am, I've become a little more intrigued by them.

I did buy my first Korean CD since I've been in Seoul. Its a band called 'til-guk-hwu'. I looked it up in my Korean-English Dictionary, and it is translated as "a wild camomile". I imagine its a type of flower that grows in Korea. Anyhow, I recently heard some of this music, and it was just intriguing enough that I went out to buy the CD. Music is always a good way to continously expose yourself to the sounds of the language as well. Actually this band isn't so much dance (like most Korean music), its more slightly rock, and slightly pop, and slightly alternative. I can't quite label it exactly, but I guess its a little more like those alt-country bands. Hard to describe exactly, but the lyrics are quite clear, and has a very melodic sound to it. The lyrics are quite clearly spoken though, and certainly wouldn't hurt me to be exposed to more Korean language through the lyrics.

Oh, and my HaSook owners, the husband and wife. When I first moved in, it was a little difficult because they were so excited and overwelmed to have a foreigner living in the building. Things are starting to settle down though, and I think we are all becoming more casual and relaxed, in the sense that things seemed very formal and eager to attend to my needs so rapidly when I first moved in. Anyhow, things are becoming more casual, and not so formal now, which I much more prefer. They tell their little boy now that I'm Uncle Kevin. Actually, the other night we were having alot of fun. The husband sometimes drinks a bottle of SoJu (its like Vodka) over dinner. He'll pour himself around 10 or 12 shots within an hour period. He's actually kind of funny at these times. Then he begins offering me beer or soju too. I usually decline because I really don't want to be drinking with my landlord.

Anyhow, the Husband who always speaks in English to me, also always uses huge hand gestures to convey his meaning. He's kind of funny to watch. But his wife told him to stop doing that, he looks silly and she doesn't like it. Anyhow, we were kind of making fun of him about that, and he was saying "I can't speak English without using my hands", and we were laughing about it. He said that he is the same way in class too. I jokingly told him that no one can ever sit next to him in class because he'll hit them all the time. (His favorite gesture is to stretch both of his hands outward from his sides). It was just kind of funny though. I didn't realize he, or anyone else, was aware of it, and when his wife kept telling him to stop doing that (and he translated every time she said it), it just struck me, and everyone at the table, as really funny.

One thing about the HaSook, I love the food. Breakfast and dinner. Yesterday I missed Breakfast because I was running late for class. That killed me during my four hours of classes. I'm never going to miss Breakfast before class again. Even if it makes me another 10 minutes late, its just not worth it. I always really look forward to dinner time too. Its great to know I will have a full stomach without having to go on a quest for food around the neighborhood. I really like this HaSook situation.

I really hope to learn how to make Korean food for myself someday. Maybe someday I might even have the fortunate circumstance of meeting a Korean woman who can teach me the tools of the cooking trade. I might even ask the HaSook wife at a later time, when and if my Korean becomes proficient enough to ask. It would be a nice skill to know. I never realized how nice it is to have meals like this. Coming from an American family, I seldom had meals at home. Everyone worked so much, and everyone was so tired by the end of the day, that I became really skilled with can openers and using the microwave to cook pre-cooked frozen goods. Anyhow, to have real food bought from the markets, its like heaven. None of it through the corporate factory line of chemicals and overly processed and all of that. Just pure and simple Korean foods. I guess there are more than enough health food stores in the USA, but its nice to have all of the food all of the time to be the norm and to have it naturally be healthy. Whereas in the USA, it seems to be making a big effort to search it out. Although, the last several years I usually just ate Asian foods in NYC anyhow, so maybe its not all that different. But I guess I'm just saying 'oh boy, this Korean food is really good!"

Anyhow, one last thing about Korea that I wanted to mention. Sometimes when going out at night, occassionally a Korean wants to practice their English on the foreigner. Usually the guy wants to be your best friend, toast you a half dozen times, and ask you "where you from?", "how you like Korea?" and "I not speak English very well". They are alright, but usually they interrupt your conversations, and catch you in the most bizarre places, like while you are using the urinal in the men's bathroom. They are usually just overly interested in a foreigner, and want to receive some of your attention. Anyhow, among the expat community, we have a word for these guys - CABLE GUYS. When we see it happening, usually we tell the other foreigner later, 'hey, did you just get cabled?'. Its a great term. In case you are wondering the meaning behind the word, just think of the Jim Carrey movie, Cable Guy. I don't notice this happening in Seoul too much (whereas it was more common in Pusan), but its a little disturbing (and sometimes kind of funny too in a comical sense) to be using the urinal and having some guy looking over asking 'where you from?'

Oh, and I'm having one more thing going on. I might be working with Goldman Sachs (GS) after all with a work permit and everything. I'm trying to negotiate just part-time, so we will see if they are interested in that. On top of that, I did take on an evening one hour teaching gig. The teaching gig pays more, but its only one hour and I have to commute for 35-minutes to get there. Its not bad, but I don't want to burn myself out with three things - 4 hours of Korean classes, 4 hours of GS (if they accept my part-time interest), and an hour teaching gig (combined with another hour of commuting time there and back). Plus it seems like I almost have to study Korean for at least 3-4 hours a night just to retain something that I've learned, and to try to prepare for the following day, although actually I need more like 8-12 hours a day to really be able to attempt to absorb all of the information from one day and prepare myself for the following a day - almost impossible, but anything less than 3-4 hours a night, seems to leave me completely and helplessly unprepared for the following day's Korean lesson. We'll see what happens.....

Read the Next Journal Entry: Halloween, October 31, 2000

Return to Seoul Page

You can email me at:
Wintermoon2@yahoo.com

Seoul's Rave Scene
Sickboy
Technogate
101Techno

Salsa in Seoul
Feel-A-Dance

A great article by Rolf Potts regarding the Teaching English Boom which exploded in the mid-1990s
A Return to Pusan

Website of the Pusan Expat Community:
PusanWeb

Teacher/Traveler/Writing Extraordinaire:
Rolf Potts

Great website for teaching abroad jobs:
Dave's ESL Cafe

My Friend Brad's Website:
Tripping with Brad

Back to Main Page