Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
The moon and the cold
My second week in Seoul was lorded over by a five day weekend. What is called Chinese New Year in the “ignorant west” is called Lunar New Year in The Land of Morning Calm. Wednesday through Sunday saw Korea away from work or school...a place it spends very little time. Wednesday Seoul emptied out like a burning theater. It appears bosses, parents and the culture in general are pretty stingy when it comes to off time, so when this five day weekend rolls around outgoing transport is stuffed. The traditional obligation entails visiting grandmothers, or their graves, on Thursday and spending the balance of the weekend with extended family. This is done in the towns and villages from which people came before the great migration to the city which holds 47% of the nation's population. The less obliged use the break for an out of country experience.
As for me, I spent the five days meandering around the city wondering where everybody went. For hours I wandered the cold, gray streets thinking around the next corner must be the massive, throbbing 24 hour outdoor part that was occupying everybody's time. Needless to say, I didn't appreciate the scale of the holiday on it's approach.
My five days consisted of waking up far too near the pm hours. The blame for this lies in the radiating warmth from the floor and a dim apartment. I would then set off to one of the ubiquitous PC cafes to make contact with the English speaking world amidst a loud and violent bloodbath of aliens, soldiers and rough looking elements of the fantasy world. The sound in these chambers is akin to a Vegas casino, except switch out the bells and dings for gunshots and fleshy explosions. The young gamers seem to come in packs, sit together, kill each other and then run from computer to computer loudly gloating their victory or bemoaning their unfair demise. Almost in equal proportion, the adult gamers stalk alone. Ridding the cyber world of of their foes with the aid of cigarettes and vend-o-mat coffee. Estimating the length of time they've been slaying is as simple as looking at the size of the cigarette butt bouquet blooming in their ash tray. The sight alone inspires a fit of coughing.
I'd emerge from the digital dungeon squinting like a mole and head off on a walkabout. The weather has been cold and clear nearly everyday I've been here. It's not Central Asian steppe cold, but rather that middling cold, lurking in the depths just below freezing. The kind of cold people don't dawn heavy winter armor to battle but rather attempt to mitigate with scarves, gloves and sensible clothing. My efforts to maintain body heat for long periods of outdoor exposure without resembling cargo with legs has met little success. Time and again I choose vanity and cold fatty parts over warmth and a diving bell profile.
My walks would last hours and take in various neighborhoods in the center of Seoul. But my ignorance of the language prevents me from remembering their names as they all seem to rhyme. “-dong”, “-mun”, “-ong”, etc. signify what the area is or its location within the city. Unfortunately, my childlike mind and goldfish-like memory leave me repeatedly only catching the end of the word and remarking to myself, “Wow! That sounds exactly like the other place...” I'm perennially confused by this. I'm like an old person who is continuously cheering at instant replays on sports broadcasts and then unable to figure out why the score of the game is so low.
Due to the weekend diaspora, my ambling tours of Seoul's rhyming neighborhoods yielded less cultural intake then I'd hoped. Though I was presented with the opportunity to take in the endless variety of techniques and equipment used to shutter the storefronts of Seoul. It was also a rare opportunity to appreciate the stark beauty of the naked gray roads, sidewalks and empty alleys of an over-populated city. With no one in front of whom to feel typical, I shamelessly navigated the streets and subways with my blue spined book screaming LONELYPLANET SEOUL spread in front of me.
As the light dwindled and the sun moved on to other destinations, I wandered until I would find a subway. I glided down the electric stairs, groped for my current location on the map and charted a course home.
Frozen upon arrival, I shed my shoes at the door and sprawled out on the heated floor. Turning myself over like a piece of bacon, careful to heat both sides equally, I recovered body heat with my frozen hammy butt cheeks the last to thaw. A book and a glass of Korean plum wine would carry me the rest of the evening until the hours of hard slumber.
This routine was repeated five times with slight variations, but on whole is an accurate account of my first Lunar New Year holiday weekend..
**Things they do just a little more cleverly here: #27 Walls in the toilette stalls go all the way to the ground. (insert your own Sen. Larry Craig joke here)
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Week One:
Here's a skeletal update on the state of affairs after one week here. You would be kind to ignore the sweeping and cynical generalizations (my stock and trade), and take this with a grain of salt as the superficial observations of a functionally illiterate person wandering the streets of Seoul like a child lost in a department store.
Comforts-
The list of things I have figured out in my first week here is impressive in its shortness. But there's one thing I quickly came to understand; this will not be a time of hardship. My life will not be tales of want and doing without. I have access to every comfort I could ever want, it might just be in an exotic flavor.
Living Conditions-
After a few days in what's called a “love motel” (I learned why this is their nickname my second night there, when the jet lag had worn off enough not to put me in a coma-like state), I moved into my new apartment last week. It's larger than I anticipated (2 rooms, a kitchen/dining area and 1 bathroom) but the view is befitting a ground-floor apartment in the world's most densely populated and 5th most expensive city.
To my delight, the floors are heated (I still find this an enchanting system) and I'm content with the arrangement save two little details. Firstly, the last residents of this apartment must have been fishermen who used the refrigerator as a fermenting mechanism. I keep in there only cream for my coffee sealed in a plastic container. The one time a day I open it with lightning quickness is enough waft a stubborn scent throughout apartment. Any suggestions to exorcise the entrenched oder are welcome...preferably on the less labor intensive side.
Secondly, approximately 93.6% of the people living in my area are Korean. This is wonderful, but the other 6.4% of the inhabitants are the ones I'm less enthused to call my neighbors. Unfortunately, my employer found me an apartment in the international area of Seoul where beer-swillers and image conscious hippies conspicuously assert their identity. If I may slide into snobbery, I didn't come here to be around folks who seek out indulgences as close to their home country as they can possibly replicate. I'm sure there exist quiet, decent members of the international community in Seoul, but they have simply moved out of this neighborhood.
...As evidenced by my only two complaints, the situation here is very agreeable.
Work-
My commute to employment is about 30 minutes door-to-door with a brief subway ride in the middle. The subway is clean, clever and so smooth you can stand without even holding on to anything.
Work seems to be a good setup. I enjoy the other people at the institute and feel pity for the students who study as much as medical students from grade one. The hours of work are brief and agreeable, and take place on the second floor of a building on a busy street which is also home to a coffee shop and a full compliment of dining options.
Last Friday the staff went out to a convivial dinner at a Korean BBQ restaurant. We sat on the floor, grilled our own meat, and had some version of a rapport building experience.
Afterwards we indulged in the favorite pastime karaoke. Done in a private room and taken quite seriously, I get the impression this is a standard work gathering activity. If my colleagues are a significant enough sampling, the general population is blessed with a good set of vocal cords. I was strenuously encouraged to sing and finally had to surrender to their requests. There are no two worlds more acoustically opposed than my shower and that karaoke room in downtown Seoul, South Korea. In my shower, my voice sounds sweet enough to sing the skirt off a nun given the right song selection...while in the bar, I could barely keep the machine from re-booting. If I am lucky, this will be my last public performance.
Food-
The food is cheap enough and good enough to eat in bulk. As a rule, I don't know what I'm ordering and my menu selections have been limited to what is within pointing distance on the plates of people around me. “That, please”, then I wait for Lady Luck to send me something with good meat and nonflammable sauce. So far, so good.
I've also been fortunate to go to a couple Korean BBQ restaurants. It's a sublime experience rich with flavor, etiquette and dexterity, and worthy of more than a passing mention in a meandering post.
I eat well. But if I wanted to defile the Korean dining experience, western food chains are squatting on nearly every main street. A sample: Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, Pizza Hut for lunch, an afternoon coffee at Starbucks, happy hour at Bennigans, dinner at Outback Steakhouse followed by a stroll down the street to TGI Friday's for a big sloppy desert. And this still omits the artery-stuffing fast food.
...I will stick with pointing.
*Footnote: To end the suspense now and appease the burning curiosity in many of your minds; yes, the Koreans have a monopoly on the dry-cleaning here too.
Comforts-
The list of things I have figured out in my first week here is impressive in its shortness. But there's one thing I quickly came to understand; this will not be a time of hardship. My life will not be tales of want and doing without. I have access to every comfort I could ever want, it might just be in an exotic flavor.
Living Conditions-
After a few days in what's called a “love motel” (I learned why this is their nickname my second night there, when the jet lag had worn off enough not to put me in a coma-like state), I moved into my new apartment last week. It's larger than I anticipated (2 rooms, a kitchen/dining area and 1 bathroom) but the view is befitting a ground-floor apartment in the world's most densely populated and 5th most expensive city.
To my delight, the floors are heated (I still find this an enchanting system) and I'm content with the arrangement save two little details. Firstly, the last residents of this apartment must have been fishermen who used the refrigerator as a fermenting mechanism. I keep in there only cream for my coffee sealed in a plastic container. The one time a day I open it with lightning quickness is enough waft a stubborn scent throughout apartment. Any suggestions to exorcise the entrenched oder are welcome...preferably on the less labor intensive side.
Secondly, approximately 93.6% of the people living in my area are Korean. This is wonderful, but the other 6.4% of the inhabitants are the ones I'm less enthused to call my neighbors. Unfortunately, my employer found me an apartment in the international area of Seoul where beer-swillers and image conscious hippies conspicuously assert their identity. If I may slide into snobbery, I didn't come here to be around folks who seek out indulgences as close to their home country as they can possibly replicate. I'm sure there exist quiet, decent members of the international community in Seoul, but they have simply moved out of this neighborhood.
...As evidenced by my only two complaints, the situation here is very agreeable.
Work-
My commute to employment is about 30 minutes door-to-door with a brief subway ride in the middle. The subway is clean, clever and so smooth you can stand without even holding on to anything.
Work seems to be a good setup. I enjoy the other people at the institute and feel pity for the students who study as much as medical students from grade one. The hours of work are brief and agreeable, and take place on the second floor of a building on a busy street which is also home to a coffee shop and a full compliment of dining options.
Last Friday the staff went out to a convivial dinner at a Korean BBQ restaurant. We sat on the floor, grilled our own meat, and had some version of a rapport building experience.
Afterwards we indulged in the favorite pastime karaoke. Done in a private room and taken quite seriously, I get the impression this is a standard work gathering activity. If my colleagues are a significant enough sampling, the general population is blessed with a good set of vocal cords. I was strenuously encouraged to sing and finally had to surrender to their requests. There are no two worlds more acoustically opposed than my shower and that karaoke room in downtown Seoul, South Korea. In my shower, my voice sounds sweet enough to sing the skirt off a nun given the right song selection...while in the bar, I could barely keep the machine from re-booting. If I am lucky, this will be my last public performance.
Food-
The food is cheap enough and good enough to eat in bulk. As a rule, I don't know what I'm ordering and my menu selections have been limited to what is within pointing distance on the plates of people around me. “That, please”, then I wait for Lady Luck to send me something with good meat and nonflammable sauce. So far, so good.
I've also been fortunate to go to a couple Korean BBQ restaurants. It's a sublime experience rich with flavor, etiquette and dexterity, and worthy of more than a passing mention in a meandering post.
I eat well. But if I wanted to defile the Korean dining experience, western food chains are squatting on nearly every main street. A sample: Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, Pizza Hut for lunch, an afternoon coffee at Starbucks, happy hour at Bennigans, dinner at Outback Steakhouse followed by a stroll down the street to TGI Friday's for a big sloppy desert. And this still omits the artery-stuffing fast food.
...I will stick with pointing.
*Footnote: To end the suspense now and appease the burning curiosity in many of your minds; yes, the Koreans have a monopoly on the dry-cleaning here too.
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