Chuseok

Everyone's favorite day for Korean students looking cute is the day before our Chuseok break. Chuseok is often likened to Korean Thanksgiving. Just like last year, dressing the kindergarteners in their Hanbok (traditional Korean garb) is adorable. 

One of my kindergarten classes: Woojin, Jackie, Amber, Chloe, Patrick, and Tony (Many students leave a day early so they can visit relatives for longer). 

My other class:  Eric, Mickey, Ashley, Jane, Gordon, Daniel, Amy, Rachel, Harry, and Danny. 

Instead of classes that day we had various activities to keep the kids busy, including a powerpoint about Chuseok, making milk carton baskets for their Ashely with a milk carton Songpyeon (sweet rice cakes)... 

...eating said rice cakes...

...making Jaegi (basically traditional Korean hacky sack)...

...and playing Jaegi in the gym:

In case you just can't get enough, there are even more pictures here. 

House of Sharing

One day at the end of August, Colleen, Becky, and I went to The House of Sharing. This is a place built as a home for the surving so-called "Comfort Women," the name given to the women used as sex slaves by the Japanese army during World War II.

The house is out in the barely populated hills outside of Seoul, a place without bus access or even fully paved roads, which I found surprising since the secondary purpose of the place is to raise awareness of the issue.

Every Wednesday since 1992, at least some of the surviving women and their supporters protest outside the Japanese embassy, demanding compensation for their hardship, as well as acknowledgement of what was done to them. At first the Japanese government denied that "comfort women" had ever existed, then claimed the thousands of women from numerous countries were volunteer prostitutes, then claimed that some rogue soldiers may have forced some of the women into being prostitutes. This is all despite clear evidence that the women were tricked into thinking that they would be getting jobs in factories, or were outright abducted, and this practice was a systematic practice across the Japanese military. Most Japanese citizens have no idea that these atrocities took place, and one of the main sources of tours of the House of Sharing is Japanese people who have stumbled across the information and want to apologize on behalf of their nation.

The visit was with a tour group that picked us up in Seoul and bused us out to the complex. Inside we saw a short video about the comfort women and a museum documenting what is known about their plight. Things that stood out were testimonies from women who were taken as girls who had yet to have their first periods, replicas of the cells where the girls and women were held, and especially the woodblocks with the names of the "comfort women" written upon them in the style of a menu in a Japanese restaurant.

The tour ended with us meeting a couple of the survivors, who are all of course quite old at this point. They had already provided their testimonies for videos and the museum, so they did not recount anything further for us. Instead of a question and answer session, we simply indulged one woman's request that we all sing. After what she'd been through, we were all happy to oblige.

An Unusual Encounter

A few weeks in to my stay, I experienced the most hostility I've ever encountered regarding my race and nationality.

The teachers all went out for a going away party for one of our number that involved bars, dinner of samgyeopsal (a pork dish that literally means "three layer flesh") and several clubs. Afterward, Colleen and I were heading back to the dong (neighborhood) on the bus. A Korean guy in an orange polo shirt with a popped collar, blue jeans, and a baseball cap started harassing a young woman sitting behind us, telling her (in English) to speak Korean when in Korea. He said the same to us. I said then there was a long quiet. I tried to continue what I was saying to Colleen in my horribly broken Korean then I gave up and we spoke quietly in English again for a while before the guy told us repeatedly to shut up. He in fact kept saying ‘Shut up’ well past when anyone was talking. 

After Colleen got off at her stop, the guy got my attention then lit a cigarette and put it out on his tongue (yes, really), bit off the end of it, and spit it at me. I responded:  (literally: peel a dick). That actually made him smile and like me, especially when angrily I added, . We proceeded to have the following conversation, speaking mostly in each other's language:

Orange Shirt Guy: Where are you from?

Me:

OSG: America?

Me:

OSG: What state?

Me: Colorado

OSG: Where? What State?

Me: Col-o-ra-do

OSG: I don’t know

Me: uh…< mountain>… [hand gestures to make mountains]

pause

OSG: Speak Korean in Korea

Me:

OSG: I hate Western people.

Me: Western clothes [pointing at the English on his shirt]

OSG: I hate Western People. I want to kill Western people. OK?

Me: No, not ok. Fuck off. 

At that point I got off bus at my stop. I regret not telling him not to touch girl behind me and that I broke my steak of only speaking to him in Korean. So it goes. As I've said before, I usually experienced generosity and helpfulness from Koreans I met, with rude staring and pointing being the worst of it. This guy was definitely the exception, though I know others who have also had negative reactions to their foreignness. 

Seoul Art Museum

Another early outing was to the Seoul Art Museum for a Rodin exhibit. I had seen many of the statues before, but the exhibit also had many of the enormous studies that were precursors to the bronze casts. I also enjoyed the statues outside of a nice Korean family that looked compressed, like in a funhouse mirror. They were disorienting, as if one's vision were distorted, like a picture that has been widened and shortened without preserving the dimensions. 

In the plaza across the street, one could see that the Korean government was not holding back in advertising the fact that they would be hosting the upcoming G20 summit. 

On the subway ride home, I noted the public service announcement posters warning against public displays of affection and against groping fellow subway riders. 

I was torn between amusement at the drawings and sadness at the need to explain that being molested might make people uncomfortable. 

Bundang

I would have preferred to return to Daejeon, especially since Mad and Jeff were still there, but due to timing I ended up in Bundang, one of Seoul's wealthiest suburbs. It doesn't really feel like part of Seoul because of the mountains in between, but it was conveniently on the subway line, and the stream that runs through the city connects to the Han.

Unlike most foreign teachers, I didn't even have to have a brief stay at a love hotel before getting my apartment. Unfortunately, that was because my school was gradually transferring their teachers' housing to a cheaper neighborhood a couple subway stops away from the school, as opposed to a couple blocks away. This process started with me, so for my first month I was the only teacher from my school who lived apart from the others. I had been promised a huge fancy apartment at the assumption I would be at the former location, and it's a good thing I was honest when saying that it didn't really matter to a minimalist like me because instead I got one smaller than the one I had the year before. Here is what a typical English teacher's apartment looks like:

As you can see, it's essentially the same as the apartment I had the previous year when working for a different company in a different city. 

Because I read too much Andrew Sullivan, I can't help but provide the view from my window: 

During my first weekend there I got a bike and explored the suburb a bit. My favorite early find was a temple complex a few blocks from my apartment.

The vajra -- a weapon for destroying impurities and temptations -- was a huge part of the temple's iconography, leading me to believe that this temple was a part of the same Tien-ta Buddhist order as the complex Alanna and I saw in Guinsa. 

My other favorite building in Bundang is also a temple of sorts. 

The teddy bear castle is a part of a mall complex where I bought groceries and saw movies. 

Portland

This is a travel blog, so I'll keep my discussion of my visits home to a minimum.

I arrived in Portland and attended Renn Fayre, to the surprise of (most of) my friends. I had told them I had renewed my contract and was still in Korea. This led to some of my favorite moments of self validation I've ever experienced as my friends demonstrated exactly how much they missed me. Stacia stopped traffic when she spotted me, leaving her car part way up Woodstock and running over to hug me. Judith and Gabe gave me great bear hugs, and Kelly jumped into my arms and couldn't speak for a few minutes. One of my favorite photos of myself only has the back of my head in it, but more importantly shows Jess' reaction at the moment she saw me. I had an awesome time at Renn Fayre, and I'm thankful that Stacia took photos, even if I didn't.

The summer of funemployment continued to be a fantastic time. From the C.A.V.E. founders reunion barbecue that lasted for two days to the nonstop adventures of the Holgate House to Mark and Morgan's wedding, it was one of the best summers I've ever had, which is saying something.

At the end of it I decided to return to Korea instead of teaching in Japan as I had originally intended. The after school programs in Japan are more closely tied to the school year and I only had a three week window if I was going to be gone for a year and attend both Mark and Morgan's wedding before I left and that of Ben and Elana when I got back. Thus my Korean adventure continued.

Seattle

I feel kind of strange posting about my time in the States. Travel in my home country doesn't feel like it should count as travel at all. I guess I'll compromise and just keep it short.

Security leaving Canada was far kinder than getting into it had been, though no faster. I got into the city in the early evening and stayed with some awesome couch surf hosts. I truly felt at home there. It helped that their neighborhood had the same architectural styles as the ones I love in Portland, but mostly it was that they were friendly, intelligent, quirky people. They fed me dinner and took me out to a party across town. 

The next day my main host took me on a pleasant walk through Seward Park. I went to China town and hung out there for a while until meeting up with the next night's host. We talked about mixed martial arts and East Asia. 

In the morning I wandered around the Washington Park Arboretum, which was in full bloom. I then met up with my host for the next two nights. While eating eggs Benedict with salmon, we compared my experiences in Korea with his in his native Taiwan, discussed his life and studies at the University of Washington as well as places worth seeing in Seattle. After brunch I walked towards downtown, but on my host's helpful suggestion I stopped in Gasworks Park.

The former gasworks has been converted into a lovely outdoor space, with enough machinery left behind to make it distinctive and a fun setting for many a child's imagined epics. The park also offers a great view of the Seattle skyline, and apparently great wind currents for kites.

Further on my walk was the Freemont Troll, which was the single greatest piece of evidence for my suspicion that I would be nearly as happy in Seattle as I am in Portland.

My walk through the Queen Anne neighborhood a bit strenuous, but the views were worth the trek up the hills. 

Once I made it downtown, I wandered through the Seattle Center (you know, the place with the Space Needle). I'd been there before, but still appreciated the strange architecture of the Experience Music Project and the displays outside the Science Fiction Museum (though I was still too cheap to buy tickets for either). From there I walked down to the waterfront to see Olympic Statue Park, which had some interesting pieces and some great views of mountains across the Puget Sound.

I returned to the Seattle Center and viewed the fountain in its center. The events center next to the fountain was hosting a "World Rhythm Festival," which wasn't nearly as cool as the tattoo festival that was there when Stacia and I visited. I spent some time recalling other moments from my previous visit, including seeing fuchsias that matched Stacia's hair, impulse buying cotton candy, and being amazed at how well the fountain's bursts of water were synced with the music on the center's sound system.

After a dinner of Mexican food -- which was fairly good except for the strangely flat and crisp sopapillas -- I  caught a show at the Repertory Theatre. 'An Iliad', which opened with the first line of the Iliad in Greek (quite familiar to me and any other Reedie), was an excellent one man show of a hobo cursed to tell that tale over and over throughout time. It did a fantastic job of connecting the Iliad to our lives now by talking about unending stupid wars, and fleshing out moments from the tale to give their full emotional impact, such as Andromache preparing a bath because she is trying to convince herself that Hector will come back and need it, even though deep down she knows as well as anyone that her husband has no chance against Achilles. 

I started the next day at the Burke Museum, a part of the University campus. There were some good displays on the Fossil Highway, both in terms of fossils collected and a series of paintings depicted the experience of driving around to find them. I was most impressed by the section of the museum detailing how glaciers carved the Puget Sound and how the periodic floods of glacial Lake Missoula carved the Columbia river gorge. The floods occurred when the giant sheets of ice holding the water back would burst, releasing a body of water half the volume of Lake Michigan to the sea, with huge icebergs in it that helped tear the epic gorge out from nearly flat ground. Another section of the museum dealt with Pacific cultures, and even had a display of traditional Korean weddings, which I can assure you were accurate. 

I walked to Green Lake, a pleasant nature area and good sized lake in the neighborhood Northwest of the University. After walking the lake's perimeter and hanging out in the adjoining park, I checked out an impressive historical costume shop, as well as some other entertaining stores in the University District. I then returned to my host's place for a delicious meal. He was president of the University's cuisine club, and it showed. He and his roommates served soup with shrimp, three sauce chicken, green beans, and shrimp with eggs. Over dinner we discussed his Taiwan military service, and his time as an MP guard. While he did homework afterward, I finished blogging about Korea in preparation for my surprise return home.