Summer is here and I want to die.

I know I have been slacking with the updates lately and I blame this on the weather. In case you don't live in Korea and/or don't remember me talking about summer here, well, it's disgusting. I kind of hate it, actually. The temperature isn't that bad but when it's combined with 100% humidity then it's pretty much unbearable. It makes me want to go to work because I can sit in my classroom and crank the air conditioner without having to worry about the financial consequences. Our apartment is crazy hot. We have an air conditioner but we use it sparingly so that we're not slammed with a huge bill. I wish I had a fan, but again, I'm too cheap to buy something that I'll only use for a month and a half. Maybe if our electricity bill is really outrageous after this month I can justify the cost and later try to sell it or something.

Anyway, before this turns into the most boring post ever I'm going to talk about something I'm really happy about lately- I've been making closer friendships with people at work. Hopefully I'll be able to stay in touch with most of them (because 3 of them are no longer working at my school as of July). Not long ago I hung out with Mi Eun (who is the receptionist and still works at KNC) and Kyeong Hwa (with the short hair). I should have mentioned Kyeong before since she's extremely adorable and has been so friendly towards me at work. She worked in the Homework Room and even though her English isn't the greatest she always tried to talk to me and brought me little gifts. It was incredibly sweet and I'm still unsure why she was so eager to befriend me but I'm glad that she did because she's lovely. Something that I enjoy about her is that she is really direct (probably since she doesn't know lots of complex English yet) so there is no beating around the bush. One of my first encounters with Kyeong was when she literally grabbed my arm at work, looked me straight in the eye and announced, "I like you!".

We didn't do anything too special but I had a great time eating a delicious meal with them and then chit chatting and window shopping for a few hours. Mi Eun is totally awesome- she has great taste in music and has been recommending some Korean bands that I'm really enjoying. Also she lived in India! I mean, how cool is that? We're planning to meet up again- go to Kyeong's house and have dinner and meet her Mom and Mi Eun promised to take me to Hongdae to listen to some live music sometime soon. Yay for new friends!

Happy Canada Day!

In the future it's already Canada Day and I'm jealous of everyone that has a day off back home. I hear the weather has been amazing and I know more than one person that is spending time at the lake while I'm stuck in a classroom teaching. I might get to go to a Canadian pub tonight after work and raise a glass to my favorite country so I'm crossing my fingers. Cheers to Canada! Happy Birthday!

Women's Status in Korea... My Perspective.

I'm not really looking to make a deep social commentary but one of my readers expressed interest on the social status of women here in Korea. I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination so the best I can do is talk about what I've experienced and what my Korean friends, coworkers and neighbors have told me. Before I say much I want to put a disclaimer that this is merely my opinion and that I love Korea and Korean people and that no country or culture is perfect. So here is my take on things- I tried to keep it brief but it's a really complex subject.

In Korea, status is important. Status is determined by a number of things- your age, your job, your race and yes, your gender. Are women lower on the totem pole here? Without a doubt. Generally speaking, in Korea an ideal woman is thin, pretty, well dressed and on the meek side. The Confucian mentality has lingered and men are considered to be the head of the household, which really isn't too different from most other places in the world. There is a clear hierarchy in a Confucian society and this is reflected in the Korean language. You use different terms and speak differently to people who hold a higher status. You have to use a higher or more polite form of words in these circumstances and this is extremely important in order to show the appropriate amount of respect for their status. This is all well and good for the most part (respect your elders isn't that bad of an idea) but it does extend beyond that.

A great virtue in Confucianism is filial piety. What does that mean? Well basically you need to show respect to people higher than you and there are five basic relationships where this applies, only one that is considered an equal relationship:

1. Sovereign to subject
2. Parent to child
3. Husband to wife
4. Elder to younger sibling
5. Friend to friend (The members of this relationship are equal to one another) (from Wikipedia)

What does this mean for modern Korea? Well I've seen a lot of sexism. Women are not equal here and they make no effort to hide this. This year in particular I've been dealing with a lot of sexism. I don't want to talk too much about work but let's just say that it's no coincidence that I am the only foreign woman working at my school and that in the other branches the male foreign teachers clearly outnumber the females. I've heard remarks made that they don't like women, don't like hiring women and that women are difficult, complain too much and are bitchy. What that really means is that foreign women expect to be treated equally so when they bring something up they are seen as being difficult even if in reality the foreign guys are just as "difficult". It's okay for the guys though because they have the right equipment.

Things like smoking in public- this is completely frowned upon for women. I can't condone the habit (it's nasty) but I don't like double standards. Smoking is extremely common here and it's a bit ridiculous for women to be hiding in bathrooms and ducking behind parked cars to smoke. Just the other day a friend told me about the double standards she faces in her family because she's female. Her grandmother and father clearly favor her brother and treat him like a prince which is really hurtful for her. This is not an uncommon situation.

Like I mentioned, women are expected to be thin and beautiful here. You think the pressure is bad in North America? Try going shopping in Asia. Maybe models and celebrities are shoved down our throats back home but at least they make clothing in a range of sizes. The majority of women's clothing here comes in one size- it's called free size and it is one size fits tiny. I'd estimate that the largest size it would accommodate comfortably would be a size 6/8. Think about that. And this even extends to shoes, which really blows my mind and is reminiscent of Chinese foot binding. Unless you are buying expensive shoes or ordering from the internet you can't find women's shoes larger than a size 250 (which is about a size 8). This truly leaves me scratching my head since Koreans are much taller than other Asian people. I have lots of Korean girlfriends that are 5'6 and up. They can't buy shoes in their own country because their feet are too big. I mean, you could lose weight to squeeze into the clothes but no matter what you do, your feet aren't going to shrink. It's bizarre.

One could argue that this doesn't seem that serious compared to what women face in other countries. Oh so the clothes are small, women can't smoke in public and by default women are the primary caregiver and in charge of domestic duties? Big deal! At least they're not forced to wear a burqa or subjected to female castration. Sure, you'd be right. There are lots of countries that are worse but does that make the inequality in Korea acceptable? Shouldn't we all be working to change things for the better everywhere? I would argue that if Korea wants to continue growing globally (which they claim) then they need to make some cultural changes and social equality for women is an area they need to work on.

I could keep going but it would be much of the same. Bottom line? Women have a lower status and this is not masked at all. So I try to keep this in mind every time an ajumma (older woman- generally middle age) elbows me in the subway and takes the last available seat. Yeah, it's annoying but after years of getting no respect, doing all the household tasks, taking care of children without thanks she has finally aged enough and by default has managed to move up on the status ladder. As for me? Every time sexism rears its ugly head I keep in mind that I'm not living here forever and that the best way to combat ignorance is to prove them wrong and work a little harder.

The Degradation of Spiderman

Look what Korea has done to Spiderman! If it wasn't enough to accessorize him in jade beads (I suppose red and green are complimentary colors) they had to also put him in a diaper!?! I took this picture in Gangnam when we were with Eddie and Gisela. It was challenging because this is a very crowded part of Seoul. I also thought the woman running the booth might yell at me for taking pictures. However she helpfully held Spidey up so I could get a better shot. ^^

By Demand

People have been asking for an update. The thing is, what we've been up to is so ordinary that blogging about it feels a bit silly. Last weekend was spent relaxing and having fun with good friends. On Saturday I managed to finish all my marking and discovered a new Korean band that I really like (later in the day I bought one of their CDs). They're called "My Aunt Mary" and even though their songs are in Korean (so I don't understand the lyrics) I really like them and enjoy their sound. How did I discover them? We went to the coffee shop right beside our house and they were playing it in the coffee shop. I asked the worker who it was (in terrible broken Korean and gestures) and she showed me the CD.

Later we met up with Dana and Curtis and wandered around CO-EX. We had dinner, spent a long time in the CD store and then watched Get Smart at the theatre. I loved this movie. I don't have any other way to put it. I love Steve Carell in pretty much everything (including his recent interview on the Daily Show where Jon revealed that Steve got where he is today because of his willingness to f*ck anything). I have extremely fond memories of watching Get Smart on TV when I was young. It used to come on after school and I loved Max and Agent 99. The whole movie was fun and nostalgic but updated well. I smell a sequel.

Sunday I spent most of the day reading The Kite Runner. Our book club read this before we joined and Mitzi was going to sell her copy but then graciously gave it to us (keep in mind, this was the first time she even met us!). I had a goal to do more reading this year and I have been really successful with that and I have read a lot of interesting and excellent books in 2008. I have to say this one is by far the best I've read this year. It jumped into my top 5 favorite books of all time effortlessly. If you haven't read this book I recommend it strongly. It took me 3 days to read this book and on one of the days I only read a couple chapters so really I read it in about 2 days. I couldn't put it down. How good is this book? Well, my best friend Cindy has finished approximately 4 books in her lifetime (the last being another favorite of mine that I recommended to her: She's Come Undone) and I am confident she could read this in under 2 weeks.
After finishing The Kite Runner I cleaned myself up and we went to Gangnam to meet Eddie and Gisela and have dinner. Gisela found a cute restaurant where we ate outside. The fish and chips were decent but probably the most interesting meal was Matt's salad.
The ingredients included salmon, roe, mandarin oranges, capers , some kind of creamy dressing and a cherry on
top! He said it was pretty good.




After dinner we wandered around looking for a bar/pub that was playing the World Cup qualifying game that was happening that night. I don't usually follow soccer but I thought watching North Korea and South Korea battle it out could be interesting. It was fun watching the game even though it ended up being scoreless. We parted ways with Eddie and Gisela and then went back to our place to watch So You Think You Can Dance which we downloaded. Yeah, I don't watch much TV but I like that show. So there you have it... pretty boring, eh?

New Air Mattress!

You might recall that Dana and Curtis found us a ghetto fabulous air mattress on the side of the road. It served it's purpose but did have a slow leak. Since we anticipate hosting more couch surfers/friends at our place in the next 6 months we decided to invest in a new mattress. The trouble being- where the heck do you buy one in Korea? If I was in Canada I would just head to Superstore or Wal-mart or a million other places and pick one up. We searched high and low and then finally asked Seon, our lovely coworker, who is an internet shopping expert. She found us exactly what we wanted at an amazing price and had it shipped to our apartment within 2 days. Gah! I think I will make her shop for everything I need from now on.
Something about the box made us do a double take though... Let's take a closer look. Are those people reorganizing their tackle box and putting hooks on their fishing rod while sitting on their air mattress?!? Either they are extremely foolish or this the first indestructible air mattress.

Last Weekend in Review

Last weekend was fun but nothing earth shattering happened. Friday night I arrived home and was greeted by a classic Korean movie blasting from the park across from our apartment. Some sort of festival had been going on all week (still not sure what it was about) and apparently this was the grand finale. I tried to take a picture of the giant screen but since it was dusk none of the pictures turned out very good. Once Matt finished work we went out for some chicken galbi and then had a round of norae bang.

Saturday I got a haircut (which basically looks just like my last one but I did get a service deep conditioning treatment!) and then we decided to bum around Myeongdong and window shop a bit. We stopped and watched these two guys making something that looked a bit like moth cocoons. They put on a hilarious bilingual show (English and Korean) about how to make this dessert from honey and different nutty fillings. We couldn't help but buy a box and I have to say, it's pretty delicious. It's called Kkultarae and is a traditional court cake. So I guess it was a snack for Korean royalty back in the day. That link is actually to a Youtube video someone made in Myeongdong possibly of the same guys that made our kkultarae. It's intereseting, you should watch it.
Don't be afraid! It may look like a cross between a cotton ball and a cocoon but it's actually sweet and tasty. We bought the kind with almond filling.

After picking up the kkultarae we wandered around some more before bumping into our friends Jessica and Jon at the Gap. Small world! Strange to run into people you know in a city as massive as Seoul (especially since they don't actually live in Seoul and neither of us live near Myeongdong). We met some of their friends and had dinner together at Outback Steakhouse.

Then we made a huge mistake. Well, I made a huge mistake. I let Matt talk me into watching "The Happening". Oh my word- crappiest movie EVER! Please don't watch this. Please. I beg of you. Maybe the preview makes it look okay but trust me, it's really horrible. Possibly the worst movie I've ever seen. Stupid plot, atrocious acting (so wooden I thought I was watching Pinocchio), all the actors were miscast, crappy directing and a preachy underlying message. You don't believe me? Well Matt's started a movie blog and even he gave it a scathing review and he's the one who chose the movie (he did later apologize profusely). If you want to read more of Matt's reviews I've added his blog to my links section on the left side of the page.

Sunday we met for a book club meeting at the Dr. Fish cafe since last time Susan wasn't able to make it. I hadn't noticed before that there was art inspired by The Little Prince on the wall at the cafe, complete with model airplanes. This was especially appropriate since we were discussing The Little Prince this time (and catching up on other books we'd read but hadn't discussed in depth). If you want to see all the pictures (and Susan's hilarious reaction to trying Dr. Fish) you can go here. We didn't do sticker pictures this time but we used the wigs to make a funny group picture of our own. Heheh!

Oh and I have to say I recommend Susan's blog about our meeting and also her review of The Little Prince. If you thought Matt's review of "The Happening" was harsh this will probably make your toes curl. It's no holds bar!

Yummy!!!

Look what I did last night! Yeah, I know, I cheated and used a mix but I am working on getting the ingredients to make actual cookies. Plus it was the first time using the toaster oven to bake something and I wasn't sure how well it would work. They turned out really great! I am so excited that today when we went grocery shopping I bought a muffin pan and muffin papers. Maybe I can make banana chocolate chip muffins or something. Ahssa!!

Our New Motto

Apparently our school has a new motto created by the powers that be. No one was consulted about this but now we have these signs plastered everywhere (thankfully the bathrooms were spared). The sentiment is good but it took about 4 seconds for my students to start making fun of the signs and I can't really blame them. I must say, they have shown me that my students are capable of creating grammatically correct negative sentences. Also, how can everyone be the best all at the same time? I suppose that's the real magic of KNC.

A Tragic Love Story

Occasionally my students will finish their monthly test early and while they are waiting for class to end/the other kids to finish I will often let them draw pictures on the back of the test paper. Most of the time I get an assortment of princesses, dogs, dragons and rockets. However, a little girl named Kelly in my A1 class drew a touching comic that I just had to share. I present to you, the timeless and tragic love story of Tom and Ann. I hope you have some tissues handy.