Teaching at Poly

All winter long, I still biked to work. My coworkers thought I was insane when I showed up at the office sporting beardcicles.

It was a long difficult day, but rewarding. I taught ten or eleven classes each day that each lasted forty minutes. That's ten hours of teaching time per day, with preparation and grading on top of it, which was... grueling. On the other hand, I was a proper teacher, unlike in most cram schools. The kids were brilliant and fun, the curriculum was impressively well thought out, and the results were fluent or near-fluent English speakers with far better grammar, reading comprehension, and vocabulary than average American students two grade levels higher than them. I really want education to be a hybrid of East Asian and American/European schools. I want the family involvement and encouragement, the demanding yet achievable expectations, and the extremely high value placed education of Korea and other countries in East Asia. On the other hand, I want the emphasis of comprehension over workbook completion, critical independent thinking skills, and encouragement of self-expression found in the best schools in America and Europe. I also would like Korean kids to have more free time, but I don't know if that's really compatible with the level of achievement they attain.

The kindergarten was great because the kids really were having fun, and it was their only scheduled commitment of the day instead of being one of three or more academic institutions attended daily. 

I do think that our kindergarten students will have a skewed idea of 'party' though, since Poly's monthly birthday 'parties' were more like recitals: they sat still and quietly as each class performed a song, after which they would get a little cake. Socializing and running around having fun was not on the agenda. 

I actually remembered to bring my camera and record the songs one month.

I had my class sing the Beatles' Hello Goodbye.

My co-teacher, Becky, was much better at getting our other class to do the choreography in unison while singing Apples and Bananas.  

Daejeon Festivals

As I exited the highly familiar Daejeon train station, I saw a mass protest between me and the entrance to the subway.

I think it was a labor strike of some sort. It definitely looked like organized labor. I was surprised to see imagery that I associate with communism, given their neighbors.

Unable to understand what was being chanted, I continued on to Expo Park, where I met up with Mad and Jeff. We wandered around the rather minimal Hot Air Balloon Festival. I had envisioned one like the Colorado Springs Balloon Classic, held every Labor Day in my home town, which featured hundreds of hot air balloons - sometimes shaped like dinosaurs or castles or other not at all typical forms - that would rise up and race after a full morning of being on display. The one in Daejeon... was not that. There were two hot air balloons. One was one its side so that people could enter it.

The other gave 'rides', which went up about thirty to fifty feet, still tethered to the ground, and then lowered back down. 

There were lots of kites, para-gliders, and various other fun toys. It was also the first time I saw the awesome jumping legs in real life. 

We meandered along the waterfront, taking in all the aerial displays. Next up was an international food festival, just across the street. This was a treat because the large tariff on foreign foods in Korea make foreign restaurants uncommon and expensive. We enjoyed some quality samosas, kebobs, and other not Korean food.

Also in the Expo Park was the main event, as far as we were concerned anyway, the Daejeon Rock Festival. After years of hearing little but K-Pop played anywhere in the country besides our own speakers, it was awesome to see some Korean bands play heavier music. I particularly enjoyed headbanging with a Korean man in his forties or fifties who looked like a typical business man except that he was rocking the fuck out. I couldn't keep up with him, but I tried every twenty minutes or so. Unfortunately, the festival ended early due to noise complaints from the super fancy apartments nearby. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the problem was (did the festival not have permits, or did the wealth of the complainers make the permits moot or what?) and eventually gave up and went back to Mad and Jeff's apartment. I was glad to have an extended visit with them before returning to Bundang.

An introduction to Reykjavik

My flight from Halifax took me through Boston on to Iceland. I got a preview of things Icelandic with two documentaries: one about Sigur Ros and the other about the eruption Haimaey, both of which I will talk about more in a couple posts. I arrived at the Keflavik airport early in the morning on January twenty fifth. Of course, early in the morning is essentially dark when the sun rises at 10am. I took a rainy bus ride to Reykjavik, where I wandered around in the dark, eating fresh-baked bread and looking at the buildings and sculptures. I did a pretty good circuit of the main part of the city, scouting out many of the places I wanted to go once they opened. Gata is Icelandic for street, and Iceland once worshiped the Norse pantheon, resulting in the following street sign which my inner video game nerd found exceedingly satisfying:

In the background you can see Reykjavik's most iconic building, Hallgrímskirkja (also seen at the beginning of the post as well as in many other of my all-too-many pictures). This church's design is meant to evoke basalt columns, which are prevalent both as a motif and as actual building materials in this uber-volcanic nation. Despite the streets in the area all being named for Norse gods (be still my heart), the church is Christian. Iceland converted to Christianity during a meeting of their assembly where they opted to leave the decision to a single man. More on that later. The worship of the Norse pantheon has actually started again, or perhaps resurfaced from quiet continuation as they claim, though sadly I wasn't able to figure out where exactly their temple was.

During business hours I went to all three branches of the National Gallery of Iceland, which conveniently was both free on Mondays and also one of few activities open on the first day of the week. Considering that Iceland has a population one fifth that of Daejeon's it has an amazing art scene. The music is pretty well known internationally, or at least Björk and Sigur Ros are. One of my new favorites is Emiliana Torrini. The visual arts are well represented too, which is what was on display in these museums. My favorite artist, Anastasia Ax, turned out to be Swedish and was on display as part of an exhibit of Nordic winners of the Carnegie Art Award. The wreckage of her performance piece and the video of it were gripping (as you can see for yourself on her myspace page). I was inspired to write this short story afterward. Other museum highlights were listening to cello and bassoon provide appropriately haunting music for the viewing of the paintings of Ásgrimur Jónsson and Jóhannes Kjarval, and seeing weird contemporary works painted onto the walls. I should note that these highlights were at different branches across town and that the music was in the National Gallery. I only got to see the sculpture garden outside the third branch since it was closed for the season.

After the museums closed I walked the five kilometers out to the area around the cheaper of the two city hostels. A recent trend in Iceland is to serve gourmet food made from traditional Icelandic ingredients. I decided to try this out at a restaurant called Vox (whose name inevitably made me think of the Reed organization with the same name that kept the dorms stocked with condoms, etc). I balked at the prices, so instead of getting what I really wanted I ordered a lamb soup that I still felt was overpriced for what I got. From there I went and checked in at the hostel (where I declined to smoke hash with my roommate) and went to the neighboring Laugardalslaug hot springs and swimming pool. I enjoyed sitting in the hot water with the locals as light rain fell upon us.

The following day I struck out early for Perlan, a former water treatment plant that houses the saga museum. Sagas are Icelandic tales of old, about the vikings who first colonized the island and of their early descendants. These tomes are not structured as we now expect stories to be with a beginning middle climax and end. Instead they just relate the events as they supposedly happened, often skipping to the juicy bits by saying "and then nothing much happened for a while" as a form of ellipses. Perlan features statues molded from local citizens and are remarkably lifelike. They even went so far as to sew individual hairs into what are essentially life-like masks and bodysuits. The statues depict various characters of legend and history in the saga period, roughly 1000 years ago. Notable figures include an older woman warrior who put a sword to her naked breast to freak out her enemies, a woman burned as a witch, and the aforementioned guy who decided on Iceland's official religion. The roof of Perlan has been converted to have a nice glass dome that houses an expensive restaurant (where I surreptitiously scrounged a bit) with great views over the city. The formerly-water-filled tanks are on a high otherwise undeveloped hill overlooking the city. Outside the complex there are two artificial geysers, though they weren't going on the day I went. I wasn't too disappointed since I'd be seeing the real thing soon enough.

From there I walked back to town past Tjörnin (literally: the pond), the small lake in the historical center of the city. On the lake's shore lies the city hall, Ráðhús Reykjavíkur. Lonely planet claims that everyone either loves or hates the postmodern design, but I found myself ambivalent. I didn't find the design particularly amazing, but it has its good points. I especially liked the rear entrance by way of a stairwell straight down into a pond, and how the glass and water reflect each other and the spectacular sunsets.


One nice thing about there only being six hours of daylight: you see every sunrise and sunset, both of which last for quite some time. However, I'm getting ahead of myself. During the daylight hours I also went to a museum with the unusual name of Reykjavik 871+/- 2. It is named for the estimated date (including the margin of error) of construction of its contents, Reykjavik's oldest discovered building. The museum creatively uses holograms to project what the home would be like over the remains of the home itself, and explains in detail the all that archeologists have discovered through interesting interactive displays.

That night I dined at Sjávarkjallarinn, where I learned to understand gourmet. The meal was so exquisite that it is deserving of its own post.

I slept in the salvation army guesthouse which is right downtown and marginally cheaper than the distant city hostel. I was initially worried by jesus-heavy lobby, but it was totally fine otherwise. Before crashing for the evening, I went to an internet cafe (which I now think of as PC bongs after living in Korea and have to stop a minute to remember that we don't call them that in English). On Mark's recommendation I checked out Dragon Age, a video game that I now own and will rave about for hours if you let me (it's as much a super long choose-your-adventure movie as a video game, really).

On Wednesday I indulged my European Hobo roots and visited the city graveyard. Just before entering the cemetery I saw the first of several castings I would see of The Outcast, a statue by Einar Jonsson, and one of my favorite artworks in the country.

Inside I posed with the basalt headstone of the famed painter Jóhannes Kjarval.

Basalt was quite a common stone to use in the cemetery. The hexagonal columns are both common in Iceland and rather striking looking, so I guess that isn't surprising. Basalt was used laid horizontally or standing vertically or as bookends on more traditional headstones. I also thoroughly enjoyed the grave of an archivist and historian who had runes carved over his tombstone:

I proceeded across the street to the National Museum. Highlights include a remarkably well-preserved and intricately carved 13th century church door, burials complete with hordes, collections of viking weapons, and runic love charms to attract girls:

That evening I put my new-found appreciation of gourmet food to good use by savoring some tandoori salmon. I then walked out and 'slept' out by Perlon. Sadly, sleeping outside without a sleeping bag or tent or anything in Iceland in winter was about as successful as one would expect. I found a comfortable and secluded place under some trees with a rock ledge provided a wind block, but I still ended up getting up frequently to do push-ups, sit-ups, to run in place, or other physical activities that warmed me up. I learned to tuck my towel into my coat along my back to provide another layer between me and the cold ground, but it was still just too damned cold to sleep. I was able to catch some rest on the bus and ferry rides to Heimaey the next day.

Seoul music and gate

Alanna and I went up to Seoul for a weekend to see some of her friends from Canada, one of which now teaches there and another--Neal Conway, the guy who gave the concert in Mad and Jeff's apartment--who was visiting. Before meeting up with the others we stopped by Dongdaemoon, the great East Gate. Sadly, Namdaemoon, the great South gate and national treasure number one, was destroyed by arson shortly before I arrived in the country. I'm not sure why the East gate is so far below the departed South gate in terms of ranking. Perhaps it was more recently restored or is smaller or something. It did look nice lit up at night, and I liked seeing the city wall continue on up the hill.

We dropped our bags off at the friend's apartment and met her pet rabbit, then ate out at a place that served entire plates what Will and I call beef bacon. After that we went to see a show of a bunch of musicians that the rest of the group knew from Newfoundland, Canada. It was pretty entertaining at times, though I lacked wakefulness and energy to dance, much less to live off every note like the four super enthused Koreans in the front row. Most of the rest of the audience was foreign. Neal had complained earlier that in Korea he ended up playing for nearly all foreigners, whereas in China he had been able to give shows for the locals and get to know them a bit.

The next day we went out for brunch, and I really enjoyed the architecture of the subway stop where we got off to eat. The grand open subterranean space was capped with a glass dome and as divided by a V of escalators. After brunch we headed back to Daejeon.

Neil Conway in Daejeon

A Canadian singer songwriter, Neil Conway, gave an intimate concert in Jeff and Maddie's apartment last Saturday night. Neil is on a tour through Asia, and stopped by Daejeon because he wanted to visit someone, though his tour got pushed back so she has actually since left the country and my provincial city of 1.5 million somehow stayed on the itinerary. Mr. Conway has a broader range of musical interest and playing styles than anyone I've ever heard of. He mostly played humorous folk music for us, which was to my liking, but when he has a band with him he also plays funk, metal, reggae, rap, and hip hop. He is from Newfoundland, and so are two of the English teachers I know here, so it was funny to see the three of them interacting, since even other Canadians think that Newfie slang and expressions are weird.

Some of my favorite lines of the evening were:

"This next song is a sing along... it has a Satanic chant that we can all do together."

and

"I ate the president, tasted like chicken... my favorite dish is Republican pot pie..." (there were a lot of songs about American politics, particularly about Bush).

I also enjoyed a song where the refrain is about being broke and eating crackers and sardines. If you ever saw one of the packages I got from my eccentric grandmother you understand why this struck close to home. I lived on kippered herring and crackers for my last month in Portland since I wanted to eat the food that I had rather than buy new food, and my grandmother sends odd (but greatly appreciated) care packages.

The song with the greatest resonance for me was one about vainly trying to make a new city feel like home.

After the concert we all chatted for a few hours and then went to a Noraebong (Karaoke room) for an hour. Having a professional musician in attendance surprisingly did not change the experience much, though Neil did freestyle over a few songs, which we certainly don't usually do. After that I biked home. Thankfully this weekend was less involved and less photo oriented than the last one. I don't think I could handle another post of that length.

Read a Book!

Now that there's a video, the world has discovered the Read a Book song, which Reedies have known and loved for years. The sampling of Beethoven's Fifth, the (sadly) much needed message, and the humorous way that message is conveyed combine to make it the only rap song I have ever liked.


(hat tip Andrew Sullivan)

I didn't notice until I watched the video, but the song is pretty heavily directed at the inner city black youth community, but I think it is a message that most Americans need to hear. Andrew Sullivan thinks that it is an anthem for the Obama generation, which makes sense since Obama is all about actually addressing social ills (unlike most Republicans), but also actually demands personal responsibility for those ills instead of blaming everything on society (unlike most Democrats). [Note that philosophically I do think society probably is responsible for our behavior to a large extent, but politically I think that the way to stop behavior we don't like is to change what is culturally acceptable, and so we should have society advocate personal responsibility. Yes, there is irony in society being responsible for our 'personal responsibility', but only with the Plato-esque lie of individual efficacy and responsibility will we change the herd's behavior, whereas an accurate assessment is effectively societal acceptance of the behavior in question.]

In the desert we will dirty our hands 'til they're clean

I cannot recommend highly enough Songs About Teeth by Cake Bake Betty. The lyrics, as the title might suggest are about strange things like anatomy (especially teeth and spines), the stars disappearing, cannibalism, and other less odd things that are sometimes quite powerful. Here's my favorite of the songs [other great tracks are Jesus and Austria, 64 Litle White Things, The Charge (knockturnal), and The Spine Song]:

Radio Free Korea

Pandora doesn't work abroad, but mediayou.net does. I prefer Pandora, but this will be sufficient for keeping me sane.

The Sound of Silence

We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue towork diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.

I took a plane, I took a train

I just heard an ad (I'm already guiltily addicted to video game TV because I'm fascinated by the way they treat video games the way Americans treat sports, with color commentary and hundreds of adoring, cheering fans) that used The New Pornographers' Myriad Harbor. I'm always shocked when I hear indie music in unexpected places. I was along for the ride at target for some of my mother's christmas shopping and heard them play a Sigur Ros song (again, at Target, in Colorado Springs!). I guess I really am a music snob if I assume that other people won't know and won't play the music I like.

Update: Add Rilo Kiley's Portions for Foxes to the songs I've heard on TV ads in Korea.

Musical families

I often underestimate Colorado Springs. On Sunday night I saw a fantastic concert in an art gallery. It opened with a quality Colorado Springs indie band (!?!) named Edith Makes a Paper Chain, which was a lot of fun. You would never guess that they were based in a city with no music scene. The lead singer/guitarist's young daughter played clarinet and did background vocals, and the whole band seemed like one family (in the good way). Oh, and her even younger daughter (on the far right of the picture) sung some of her original songs, one of which she said started up as a christmas song but ended up as a Halloween song (Decemberween, anyone?) that begins sounding like an invocation of the Virgin Mary but is actually about a girl named Mary who is haunted by another girl that she pushed down a well.

The next act was Akida Dawson, who apparently started writing songs and playing guitar at the same time as his sister but doesn't like to perform or record his music. He was wonderful: his songs were funny yet touching, and his guitar playing was impressive (his singing and guitar playing are stylistically similar to Kimya's faster paced songs). He had lines like "no one has time for names, we only exchange fluids." Kimya said that this was only his fourth or fifth concert (I'm pretty sure this is a major exaggeration), and you could tell that he seldom gives concerts because he kept making self-deprecating jokes and getting really self-conscious when he made mistakes, but really that just made it all the more endearing and special since it was obviously a rare occurrence. Thanks to their family in Castle Rock, Colorado for getting them to visit the area, and thanks to Kimya for getting to get her brother to play.

Kimya Dawson herself was a joy. I especially enjoyed the songs I hadn't heard before, some of which were very powerful, especially her recovery song (she's about to celebrate ten years of sobriety). Clearly she puts herself into her songs; she seemed near tears at many points during the show (she was especially emotional when talking about a family in Portland, OR that is being torn apart by the bureaucracy of the state of Virgina. I'm sure she'd want me to pass along the info on how to help.). All in all, a night of music well worth the half hour in six degree weather I spent waiting for the doors to open.

Hipsterism

Someone at Reed once pointed out that at home we're all hipsters. In Colorado Springs I complain about the radio (except Pandora, of course), frequently reference bands that no one around me has ever heard of, and do other hipster-ish music snob stuff. Last night I even dreamed of going to an indie rock concert at Reed [sort of. I knew it was Reed and there were a lot of real Reedies there, and the outside looked sort of like Psych 105, but after I had been in for a couple minutes it became an elementary school gym where the seats were oriented the opposite direction. Also, there were voting booths with Reedies voting off to the side during the concert. Dreams are weird.] Sonic Youth was playing, and after the first song they encouraged us to take the set pieces (mostly life-sized cutouts of people that fit together Escher-like and which were each painted a single bright color) after the show. The girl next to me and I agreed that we had to be the best audience ever, so that Sonic Youth would agree to come back and play at Renn Fayre.

Recently, I've been listening to Cake Bake Betty, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Republic
Tigers, Metric, and The
New Pornographers. What
are you all listening to?