In Seoul for the Holiday, Before My Hellish Winter Camp Starts On Monday

메리 크리스마스!!!! ^___^

Koreans Have Just As Much Political Incorrectness When It Comes to Portraying Foreign Native Indigenous Cultures They Don't Understand...

Family, Dumplings, Sneaky Cousins, and Expensive Dresses

So due to my students' final exams, I had this week off for the most part. I decided it was time to see family in Cheongju, as I haven't actually seen them since before my summer vacation. Time is flying in a way that I can't even explain, so it's no surprise that that much time had passed since my last visit.

Seeing family in Cheongju, I will admit, stresses me out very much, mainly due to the language barrier. I'm a person who tends to avoid awkward situations like the plague, and so being the awkward hypochondriac that I am, this is generally not a completely pleasant experience.

However to my great surprise, my Korean skills have definitely improved since I last saw my grandparents. In general I can't understand old people when they talk to me, Korean or American for that matter. So one can imagine that when old people talk to me in Korean, my brain simply wants to explode. But this time, my grandparents would say something to me, and instead of mini explosions happening, I could actually understand them and answer them back. This greatly surprised and delighted my grandfather.

I got to see my cousin "Paul" and his older sister on Tuesday night. As we were watching cartoons together, "Paul" and I both decided that we wanted to eat chocolate cake. "Paul" said that he wanted to go for a "케이크 산책," or in English, it would translate to a "cake walk." My grandmother handed over the equivalent of about 8 dollars, and sent us on our way. I don't know my way around the neighborhood so I was at the mercy of "Paul." We went to 2 bakeries before we found the proper cake, and then after finding our $5 dessert, he started to walk away from the apartment. I asked him if he was sure he knew what he was doing, but he was quite confident in his directional skills. I was freezing my butt off, and wasn't terribly pleased with this. Then suddenly his eyes lit up when he saw a particular stationary store. He bolted for the store and used the rest of our grandmother's money to buy some popular trading cards. It was then that I realized I had been had. When we got home my grandma wanted her change and so asked "Paul" how much the cake cost, and "Paul" replied with a coy, "모르겠어..." or "I don't know...." My grandma knew exactly what happened and scolded him for abusing my lack of knowledge of the area. Ahhh "Paul," you sneaky devil.

Later that night and for several hours the next morning, I helped my family make 만두, or dumplings. Amazed, I watched my one-armed grandma somehow finely dice

scallions as she sat on the floor. (as a note: when Koreans make large batches of food, they usually plunker down on the floor, as counter space is quite limited) My cousins couldn't make them very well, but of course they tried. After cooking them, my aunt and grandma would make fun of the semi-retarded looking dumplings that "Paul" made. Cruel, but amusing nonetheless. Mine looked pretty awful at first too, but I eventually got the hang of it. See the picture below as proof.

On Wednesday I spent most of the day with my mom. She too made dumplings in the morning with me, as we sat around watching terrible daytime Korean television. Then she mysteriously left in the middle of the day (well mysterious for me, b/c I'm sure she told me, I probably just didn't hear or understand her, something I do with my American mom too, sorry moms!) Anyway, she came back in the evening and took me to the downtown area. She was determined to buy me something and this stressed me out to no end. We walked around a department store, where everything was at least 200,000W (so like around $200), and she would ask me if I liked this or that. A lot of dresses in Korea are absolutely hideous in my opinion so I felt the pressure growing after each time I said I didn't like anything on the racks of the various brand booths. Finally I saw something that wasn't hideous, if not mildly pleasing to my tastes and my mom forced me to try it on. I figured it was as good as it was going to get, and so my mom dropped 240,000W on a wool jumper. Then we awkwardly ate dinner together (she is a tight-lipped women, unlike my aunts), and she told me that maybe my sister will study in the USA in the future. I hope she doesn't entrust complete responsibility on me (something that I do worry about), but I do think it would be a good experience for my sister to study abroad.

When we got back home, my mom told me to try the dress on for my grandma (family behavior is so universal), and my grandma smiled as I sauntered out of the bedroom and said she bet that I look just like the manikin. We said goodnight, and my mom left the next morning well before I woke up. My grandma handed me a fist full of cash, told me that my grandfather insisted, gave me a big strong one-armed hug, and then saw me off in a taxi cab.

Students Watching an Educational Propaganda Video Against North Korea (as required by the South Korean government)

Getting Better At Differentiating Between Asians

I came to Korea thinking that all Asians look the same.* And then recently I've begun noticing that when I see the backs of students' heads while riding the bus, recognition will occur. Just by the backs of their heads! All the boys have nearly the same style hair (as there is a mandatory school hair length rule), they all have the same color hair, and wear the exact same uniform. I don't know how it's possible, but it happens. I'll look at the back of one student's head, and think ahhh, yes, you are in my high level class, Kim something, and I like the students that sit at your table. Or I'll see another, and think, oh you are a little bastard. Ok, maybe this isn't impressive to you Americans at home, but I am quite impressed with myself.

*If you are wondering if this is self-hatred of some sort, no, it's just an after-effect of being raised around mainly white folk.

North Korea Business

So if you're reading this, I'm sure you've read about what's been happening in the past 8 hours between North Korea and South Korea concerning the island of Yeonpyeong (연병도). Don't worry please. This incident will probably not escalate, but in the event that something does happen, I will let you know.

I first found out at 4pm (local time) from my club class students. They asked to use my computer so that they could read what was going on. I wasn't sure what the appropriate thing to do was, so we ended up discussing the issue while making x-mas decorations for my classroom... A strange combination, yes. Though it seemed to calm them down. We discussed the possibility of the two Koreas uniting, and 5 out of the 7 students present expressed their opinion of not wanting it to happen. Their reasoning was that they didn't want South Korea's economy to absorb the poor nation that North Korea is (though they didn't state their thoughts quite like that, but that was the gist of it). Definitely an interesting afternoon... Hopefully things will get taken care of in the least violent way possible....

The Hunt for Plastic Surgery Ads

So on the art side of things, I've decided to start making collages, you know, just to get some crazy ideas flowing. And since I'm in Korea, I wanted to pull imagery from only Korean things, and see what they become under the guide of my westernized eye. And speaking of westernized eyes, one thing present among the mass of imagery here that has caught this eye is the prevalence of plastic surgery ads.

However, they are strange b/c there is this clear divide between what is a good nose, eye, arm, etc and a bad nose, eye, arm, etc. There is clearly a universal standard in Korea, but unfortunately the people themselves are only particulars, hence the great success of plastic surgeons. They're also strange b/c the ads are just these very raw comparisons of flesh, good flesh and bad flesh. So visually I think they're quite intriguing.

Ok, so in order to make these collages, I set up some parameters to make it a game of sorts.

1.) There will be 2 main figures in the piece.
2.) I must use at least one image from a plastic surgery ad.
3.) I am not allowed to pencil in lines and then ink them over later. Every line must be fresh and not premeditated. If I screw up, so be it.
4.) There must be a title.

So I asked my host mom for assistance in acquiring such ads. And she pulled through yesterday while her youngest daughter received her unwanted hair cut. As 유경 got her hair trimmed, my host mom and I poured through old magazines that the hair dresser had saved, and cut out as many ads as we could find. My host mom would turn to me and say, "How about these eyes? Do you like these eyes?" And I would reply with a zealous, "Ooo! Yes! Cut those eyes out please!" We would go back and forth like this, replacing eyes with noses, ears, breasts, and other body parts. By the time 유경 jumped out of her chair to show us her hair, we had cut out quite the stack of body parts and altered faces. I was thrilled.

The Gravity of a Different Type of Mass (m), collage and pen & ink on paper

As of recently, I've finally begun to focus on art stuff more consistently, so if you're curious about how drawing and the whatnot is going, I'll be posting images here as I go along.