On the first day of Christmas...

On the first day of Christmas, my Korean boss gave to me a giant bag of spicy kimchi....

Merry Christmas everyone! This was a quiet holiday in the South Korean edition of the Newton household. A friend and I made Christmas brunch and exchanged stocking stuffed with gifts. I got two amazing new scarves (one from the mother of a student, whom I love to death). I also went out for Mexican food at night, complete with some margaritas, and then we finished off the night at the local watering hole, reminiscing about Christmas, embarrassing moments, and general thoughts on life.

Christmas is a strange time for expats, to say the least. In Korea in particular, we have some difficulty getting into the holiday spirit. For whatever reason, all the foreigners I know can generally agree on this fact; there is just something about being in this country that makes us feel like today is just another day rather than the holiday we treat it as in America. Personally, I have a new theory as to why that is.

Christmas in Korea is very much like Christmas in Japan. Instead of being a holiday centered around family activity and togetherness, most families in Korea celebrate today by buying a cake and going out with their significant others. Children will get toys, of course, but the idea of Santa is not widely accepted, and even among my preschool students (who are 3-5 years old), the idea that there is one many responsible for bringing toys to all children is laughable. The main difference (from what I've seen, of course) is in the religious aspects of the cultures. In Korea, a larger percent of the population is Christian, so many people will go to church in the evening as well. All of the restaurants, shops, and many places of business are still open, and there are still many people out and about on the streets shopping and carrying on like today is any normal day of the year.

The holidays are difficult for foreigners for many reasons. In a completely different land, surrounded by strangers, missing from the usual celebrations of our families and friends, its very easy to feel lost or depressed during this time, but I think there is something else going on here. There are many differences between a Korean Christmas and an American Christmas, but what I think makes it feel even more pronounced is the lack of consumerist culture that we have come to associate with the holiday season in the states. As annoying as we sometimes find it, businesses start using Christmas music in early November, sometimes sooner, to catch our attention. Stores have special Christmas-themed sales with special decorations and jingles, and we start seeing Christmas memorabilia earlier and earlier every year. In Korea, however, these things are limited, if seen at all. There are special winter-themed advertisements, sure, but nothing specifically geared towards Christmas or the holidays. There are no familiar songs to be heard on the radio, no giant posters spouting messages of holiday cheer. We can do our best to keep up with the decorations and other familiarities, but without the constant reminder of the merchant shops, it can be difficult to keep in mind exactly what day it is.

Of course, the thing that helps more than anything else is the love and support of our families. We love getting cards and packages from home. No matter how small, it is absolutely uplifting to see the look on someone's face when they realize that someone from home has remembered them, and it doesn't matter if it is a box stuffed full of holiday goodies or even a card from their grandparents. It all makes it feel just a little more like the holiday season, but moreover, it makes us feel like we are important--even though we are so far away from home, someone misses us enough to let us know that we are loved.

So a giant thank you to all those who sent holiday love to an expat this year. We certainly couldn't do anything without your love and support, and even though some (read: most) of us are terrible about remembering to send something in return, we are always more than happy to call and let you know.

Merry Christmas from South Korea everyone!

P.S. I wasn't kidding about the kimchi.

Girl seeking Computer

So my computer has started to make whining noises whenever I turn in on. I took it to the computer guy we have around here, but all he could do was shake his head and say "old". Well tell me something I don't know....

This computer has been with me for the past 5 years, which means that in computer-land its about 85--a good long life for a computer these days. Recently, however, it has definitely begun showing its age. First it was the slow processing time, no matter how many times I defrag the hard drive or how much programs I remove. Then it was the errors. Every once in a while my screen has a seizure and I have to do a hard reboot to get it to work properly again. The battery threw a hissy fit at being plugged in to a Korean outlet and will now only hold a charge for 30 minutes. And now we have the whining noise that makes it very difficult to hold a conversation with anyone without getting strange background noises and is just generally very annoying.

In short, though I was trying to hold out for a new computer until next year when I (hopefully) head off to grad school), it looks like my ajuma computer is not going to make it that long. This worries me because I know the price of getting a computer in Korea (definitely not to my taste) and I know how much they will charge me to ship one in. This means that my only real hope of getting a new computer comes at the beginning of December, when I am home for my "holiday" vacation. Of course, this trip just had to come in December, right as I am trying to use my credit cards to pay for graduate school application fees and Christmas presents for people. I guess all I can do is hope that people send money for Christmas/my birthday and that it comes soon enough that I can fix this problem before it starts. Otherwise, you will definitely be seeing a lot less of me. :(

Official Business

Monday marked my one year anniversary in Korea. To celebrate, I went out with some coworkers to a Korean bar, drank Korean beer and soju, and woke up the next morning remembering why I don't do stuff like that anymore. Happy anniversary! ^_^

In related news, the visa process seems to be going okay the second time around. I have a stamp on my alien registration card to show that the paperwork is in process, just in case someone tries to deport me in the meantime. I even got to fill out the Korean census today to show that I am a working, tax-paying resident. Oddly enough, the whole process just made me feel bad again about not applying soon enough to get my mail in ballot. I wish that I had thought to do it sooner, but in reality I would have felt uncomfortable voting since I have not been paying attention to any of the races or the candidates. I guess that's one of the hazards of believing that its our job to make an INFORMED decision on election day. I'd rather exercise my right not to vote than to choose someone on the basis of political affiliation (or, as is the case in most local elections, on the basis of whose name sounds the most interesting).

Hope you are all much better citizens than I, and that you are all doing your civic duty and making a well-thought out selection on this election day.

Korea in Crisis

That's right--CRISIS. It's finally happening, people.

Those of you who have been regular readers since I started posting about Korea have probably had your fill of my ranting and raving about the terrible weather. If that is the case, feel free to skip the next paragraph as I catch everyone else up.

When I arrived in Korea on November 1, 2009, it was all ready a good deal colder than I was used to, having come from California where the weather is perfect almost the whole year through. Within the week I was cursing my stupidity not to pack my winter coat (which my parents then shipped over to me at great cost), and within the month we had already had several snow storms. As if that wasn't bad enough, this cold miserable weather persisted until May, when it finally got nice for three whole weeks before suddenly dropping right into summer weather. And we're not talking California summer. We're not even talking Texas summer. It was between 90-100 F every day and 99% humidity to top it off. This misery lasted until halfway through September, when literally overnight the temperature dropped 30 degrees and we were suddenly plunged into the crisp autumn weather that I am currently enjoying.

Now if you can imagine me--poor little California-acclimated me--suffering through all of the terrible weather, can you just imagine how the rest of the population on the Korean peninsula dealt with it? Not well, let me tell you.

Korea is in crisis, all right. Its obvious to every mother doing her daily grocery shopping, to every business man going out to dinner with his colleagues, to every old lady willing to elbow others in the face to get what she needs to survive.

And its all because there is a cabbage shortage in South Korea.

Yes, the brave Napa cabbage, hundreds of thousands of tons of which are sacrificed every year to feed the nation's kimchi addiction, has perhaps experienced the most desperate struggle against the elements of anyone on the peninsula. Kimchi is served as a free side dish at almost all restaurants, including pizza parlors and Chinese take-out places, but with the cabbage crop down almost 40% from last year, there may not be enough of this staple to go around. The Korean government has had to ease trade restrictions with China to allow them to begin exporting cabbages into Korea. The government is also selling cabbage to markets at reduced cost so that more households can get what they need to survive. While they are encouraging people to enjoy the other types of kimchi (radish and green onion among them), the Korean have been griped by a panic that their most beloved food might soon disappear.

This crisis has been affecting everyone in different ways. A man was arrested in Gangwon-gu for stealing 40 heads of cabbage from a field, and the farmer is seeking a prison sentence of 10 years for it. Ajumas have started getting up...well at the same "before dawn" time as normal, but instead of going hiking or shopping with their friends, they are waiting in droves outside of supermarkets, hoping to get their hands on some of this elusive cabbage and then paying 350% more per head for it. Perhaps the saddest sight of all is the faces of the school children, who see that the kimchi on their lunch plate has been replaced with radish kimchi, which they know to be wildly inferior to the cabbage variety.

Foreigners have not been as deeply impacted by this crisis as others, but we too feel its sting. At the Chinese restaurant down the street where many of the teachers like to eat between classes, the side of kimchi that we have come to expect with each meal has been replaced with a side of raw onion. Perhaps there is at least a little comfort in that the owner knows there is no point in trying to pretend. The Napa cabbage has suffered, and come winter I know I will be among the first foreigners to line up at a volunteer center to wrap the heads of cabbage in warm blankets for the impending chill. Won't you join me?

I'd like everyone to take a few seconds for a moment of silence in honor of these brave souls that perished as a result of the aberrations in the Korean climate.

**Note: if you want to look at a more realistic (read: more serious and accurate) article about the kimchi crisis, go here.

Chuseok Reminiscing

So Chuseok has come and gone and I am sitting down to another few months of nonstop work/graduate school stuff. Chuseok was great though. I made it down to Daegu to see off a good friend who is leaving at the end of the month and then took a detour to Busan to see the sights. I even managed to stay inside my incredibly tight budget (which, for any one who knows me, should come as something of a shock).

Busan was great, albeit incredibly hot and humid. My first day I took a walking tour of the harbor, then went down to the fish market and peered at all the (still living) gooey and slimy dinner specials, watched a vendor start a tuber squirting fight with her neighbor, and then turned down 14 ajumas who wanted me to stay and eat with them. Afterward, I headed up the hill towards Busan Tower. The view from the top was pretty cool, and as I got there just as the sun was going down I got some pretty awesome pictures of the skyline.

The next day I was scheduled to leave at around 5pm, so I woke up early (10am) and headed out to find one of the cool temples I had heard about. I decided to avoid the popular Beomeosa in favor of a smaller temple called Haedong Yonggungsa. It was a pain in the butt to get to--I had to rely on my own dubious Korean listening skills during a 40 minute bus ride and then hike up a small mountain (it felt like a mountain anyway) to get to the cliff where the temple is located. I was rewarded by the breathtaking view and another kind little ajuma who gave me free oranges to eat. Don't let the scenic view and the refreshing sea breeze fool you though. To leave the temple, you have to walk back up all 108 stairs that represent the Buddhist concept of the 108 worldly desires that we all suffer from. Believe me, they didn't forget any.

I know its taken me a while to get this post up, and I hope that you'll forgive me. I sit the GRE in 2 weeks and 5 days, so I'm trying to find all methods of procrastination open to me as I get closer to the inevitable doom. Also, my statement of purpose may or may not be trying to consume my soul. I'll get back to you on that if and when ever I have enough written to actually start requesting recommendation letters. On the other hand, the weather is finally agreeing with me, and I've enjoyed the view from my window of the rapidly turning leaves and the crisp air coming down from the mountain side. It is truly the stuff poetry is made of.

The DMZ

So yesterday I went on a tour of the DMZ.

Now before anyone freaks out on me, I just want to assure you that most tours of the DMZ don't actually go inside. They stay just outside the DMZ in the area called the Civilian Control Zone, which is comprised of little towns and stations where the South Koreans have opened to tourists. The closest I got to North Korea was a whole whopping 3 kilometers (1.86 miles) away and there was still a river, several barbed wire fences, and approximately 10 hidden landmines in between us.

We started our tour in a place called Imjingak, a little national park that is dedicated to war shrines and memorials of the Korean war. This was the first thing I saw when I got there....
I kid you not. There is also an amusement park a little down the road. Yay for tourism. Anyway, Imjingak is as far north as you can go in the country without permission. Tourists have to hand over their passports or alien registration cards when they want to do a tour. There are many things to see at Imjingak though. The most famous of these is Mangbaedan, a giant memorial altar. People whose families and relatives are still in North Korea worship at this altar for New Years and Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving). For many of them, it is the closest they will ever get to their families. You can also see the Freedom Bridge from here--a train bridge that was used to exchange prisoners after the Korean war. It is no longer in use, but they are hopeful that when reunification occurs it will become one of the main lines into the North.

We left Imjingak and went inside the Civilian Control Zone (still outside the DMZ remember). In the South Korean "peace town" of Daeseong-dong, there are around 400 people who reside there full time. They are exempt from paying taxes, and the young men are also exempt from the mandatory military service. People are no longer allowed to move in on their own; you have to marry into a family that resides there in order to live there. They have one elementary school there, but since foreigners can't reside inside the CCZ, they have a foreign teacher shipped in once a week to provide English lessons. After a quick traditional Korean lunch here, we headed out again towards the Third Tunnel.

The Third Tunnel is one of four discovered tunnels dug by the North Koreans in an attempt to infiltrate South Korea. Discovered in 1978, 10,000 armed soldiers could cross through the tunnel and be in Seoul in an hour. South Korea has opened the Tunnel for tourists, but after the 3oo meter descent into the tunnel and then the 435 meter trek through the tunnel (followed by 435 meters back the other way and then another 300 meters back to the surface), they should really start charging a gym membership fee or something.

Our next stop was the Dora Observatory. From here, you could look out over the North Korean side of the DMZ, including their own "peace village" Kijong-dong, which is really nothing more than a propaganda village pretending to be a representative of life in the North. The houses in Kijong-dong are painted once a year to make them look new and prosperous. The only people allowed to live there are North Korean soldiers and their families, and the people are even instructed not to go outside during certain times of day so they won't be seen. While we were there, we learned that the factories that we could see on the other side of the Demarcation Line were actually owned by South Koreans who had special permission to open factories in the north. All of the 40,000 workers are from North Korea, but since the owners are from the South, they can ship the goods back down to Seoul where people can actually afford to buy them. While we were there, we actually saw a convoy of trucks crossing on the road between the North and South side of the DMZ. The helpful national service soldier who was policing our photography told us that in order to build the road (which is 250 m wide and 4km long), they had to remove over 1700 landmines from the area. Yikes....

Our final stop was the Dorasan Station, the last train station between North and South Korea. Currently there is only one train that runs through the station--a freight train that brings manufactured goods from the factories in the North to Seoul and then brings raw materials and equipment for the factories to the North. It definitely has more of a ghost station feel than anything, given the distinct lack of people utilizing it. The hope is that someday when North and South Korea are reunified, Dorasan will be ready to serve as a station on the Trans Eurasian Line, connecting the Korean Peninsula with Russia and the rest of Europe.

All in all, the trip was definitely a good one. I might even do another one some time...when it isn't so disgustingly hot out. You should all definitely check out the photo dump site for a full view of the tour.

A note to American tourist traps: you fail. As cheesy as the DMZ tours are, I could still manage to get some decent souvenirs and 4 water bottles for under $10. Stop charging $3 for a bottle of water when its 95 degrees outside!

Adventures in AC Repair

As you may or may not know, most schools in Korea will give their foreign teachers an apartment to stay in during the course of their tenure. For us, this is a very good thing, considering that it is very difficult for a foreigner to get an apartment by themselves and even harder to find an apartment building that feels comfortable enough with their English to let foreign teachers live there. So the school foots the bill for the monthly rent, leaving the teachers with the utilities--water, gas, electricity, building maintenance, TV and internet. For most places, this comes down to about $100 for the month (and yes, I am including all of the above mentioned utilities). Pretty sweet deal, ne?

Most school neglect to mention to the teachers that if anything breaks in the apartment while they are living there, the teachers will have to pay the costs of repairs out of pocket. The teachers, most of whom are so wide-eyed and enamored by the aforementioned "sweet deal" that they don't consider such things, are shocked to find that they are expected to pay to fix the decrepit old hunk of junk that serves as an air conditioner, or that window screens that have been full of holes since long before they arrived are another one of their responsibilities.

Imagine my chagrin, therefore, when I come to find that my decrepit piece of air conditioner was slowly building a lake on my little porch. While this did give me fond memories of the Lake Newton from my childhood, I was more than a little anxious about the idea of having someone come to the apartment and fix the problem. More accurately, I was more than a little anxious about paying for someone to come to the apartment and fix the problem. But since you can't really live in Korea without air conditioner for another two or so months, I eventually sucked it up and had the school arrange for a service guy to come out.

The AC guy came out on a Saturday morning the day after we called him to come. He took off his shoes at the door and came in to tinker with the unit. He found the leak, fixed it in less than two minutes, and then stayed half an hour to help me clean up the massive puddle on the porch. When he was done, he charge me $10, wished me a happy day, and left.

Now compare that to your last AC repair experience. Is your mind blown? Mine still is....