Returning Home: Twice

Well, sadly I did not get around to doing any posting on Ellora and Ajanta. But I have a lot of spectacular things to say about it. You'll all have to stay tuned for when I write a book, which is (thanks to a mostly botched Nano) about 23,000 words in the making. This is the first year that I've started Nano successfully and really failed. Ah well. I'll survive, and over the next few months I definitely think I'm going to put some effort into this book. It's a travel memoir so if anyone has an eye for that sort of thing, let me know and you can critique it to shreds.

It feels as though I had two home comings after I left India. First, I came back to Korea. I met with all my friends, and visited all my favorite restaurants. I visited my students, my old school, and met up with my boss. I also went to Taekwondo for the last time, and visited with them as much as I could. I did receive my black belt, which is a souvenir that I am exceptionally proud of. I went to the Jimjilbang and soaked in a cool bath in a sweltering, bejeweled room. I also had a pretty wild night in Itaewon, which oddly enough, I had never actually done before. All in all, it was a dramatic, excellent send off with all the things that I both loved and hated about Korea. It was an excellent last snapshot, and I really had a great time. Oh, and I ate myself SILLY.

Then, four days later, I pulled an all nighter to get on a plane back to the USA. I went to Shisha house and enjoyed several hours of joking and talking about classes, just as we did every night. Smoked a couple shishas and had a couple hard ciders (Fred has an excellent hard cider at Shisha house that I didn't try for such a long time--then once I did I couldn't go back!) Then Kristen and I had an epic crap-suitcase-dumping adventure at 2:30am. After that, I loaded up the taxi, hugged my girl goodbye, and headed for the airport.

Even though I was in trouble timewise, there were no problems at the airport. I had to pay the expected overweight baggage charge, but another couple had it much worse than me, since they had like 12 bags, all of which appeared to be WAY over the limit. They were pulling things out of suitcases and dumping them in plastic bags--all sorts of odd things.

The flight was long but uneventful, until I got to Chicago, and read on the news ticker that hours after I had left, shelling had occurred between the North and the South. That was surreal, because suddenly it was as if I really, truly wasn't there anymore. Not only did it seem like distressing news, but it also seemed as though it was far away--not my country. I didn't have the same perspective on the event as I would have had if I were in Daejeon.

Rather overwhelmed by the amount of conversations I could hear around me, I wandered through the airport, got on my flight, and returned home without any hitches. A nice guy, who helped me get my heavy suitcases off of the customs baggage claim in Chicago, got nailed for having green beans in his book bag.

There were massive tears at the airport in Minneapolis. It must have looked like a movie to everyone else watching.  Then, after pronouncing that I was done crying, (and failing) we picked up my baggage, and went to eat burgers at Big Ten down the street from my house. Then I went to the Eden Prairie Mall and wandered around like a kid in a candy store until my legs and stomach refused to let me continue moving.

I am going to do some backlog posting about India, I think... just to get the memories down. Stay tuned for that, and for some amusing posts about reverse culture shock.

I have bad, bad blogger's shame.

I've been horrible about posting here in India. Internet has been iffy at best, and likes to quit and pretend not to work.

We've been teaching song and dance and drama to the kids these days. Some of the other teachers and I wrote out words for the Waka Waka song for the kids to preform--instead of Africa, this time for India. The kids love it, and so do the teachers. It's a lot of fun. Teaching this kind of stuff is a lot harder for me, though. I'm not used to it, and I'm not used to the kind of work necessary to do it.

Overall, though, it's been a great experience. This weekend, I'm heading out for a trip to Ellora and Ajanta. I'll tell you all about it! (I hope... if there's internet. ^.~)

Living in Mumbai--it's madness.

In the only Jewish studies class I ever took, my professor told me that the Hebrew Testament is full of the distrust of cities. I can see why. Cities have a mind of their own. They eat things and dissolve things, and turn people and buildings and trees and oceans into things they weren't before. Life is more difficult in a city, but it is also so much more interesting. There are things you forget and things you learn, and once you are consumed by a city its pretty hard to fight your way out again.

I can't imagine what these people would say if they came to Mumbai now. Actually, there was once a strong Jewish population here in Mumbai, one of the oldest and least accosted Jewish communities in the world. They were said to have come here after the destruction of one of the temples by Rome (first or second is undecided upon), and since then lived here in relative peace, absorbed by the world of many-faced gods. Now, or so my Holy Cow book tells me, most have moved to Israel, and the population here is almost none.

Mumbai is definitely one of those cities with a power to consume, absorb, elevate, and permanently change. The local trains are grated tin cans that shudder down the tracks, and people hang out the doors (that are never closed) and jump off as it is still moving. They fight to get on, and it is common to be blooded by entering and exiting the train. It's like the new version of a child's coming of age even--the day the boy enters the Men's car on the Mumbai local train, he is no longer in the world of women, where they push and yell, but understand--now he is in the world of men, where you fight and maim and rage just to get on and off and ride along the tracks--he is in the world of men as he travels with thousands of people in the tide of the city.

Women, luckily, we get to stay in the ladies car our whole life, and never have to go through the jarring experience of that violent ride. Though, the fisherwomen and the commuters, and the sellers and everyone else, wearing full saris and dressed like flowers, these women can throw a good punch, catch you at the door of the train, sling a good curse word in your direction, and--as I discovered--steal your phone out of your bag without you even noticing. There's less blood for sure, but probably just as much madness.

There's something carnal yet warped about living in this kind of city. Like it's full of ancient brutishness, but also a shrine to the mad god, part of a trance that the shaman goes on--part of a vision that makes no sense, yet somehow belongs in the grand scheme of a larger, less insane picture.

I was supposed to go to Bandstand today, just to go walking and exploring in my neighborhood. But I got busy with writing. I've been quite bad about blogging, but the internet comes in and out, and there are six of us sharing it. But I have been writing on my own computer. I'm preparing for Nano, and I'm journaling a lot there. I've also been playing an embarrassing amount of videogames, which make my neck hurt, but carry me far far away from this world for hours, and that makes me feel good when I need it. Doing this work is hard. It's hard in a different way from Korea, and it's easy in some ways--I don't always have to be on my toes teaching. But it is hard, and it taxes you. I take so long to get acclimated to a place, and I don't have much longer here. Twenty days, most of which will be working. I do have a couple weekend trips in mind, so I'm hoping to complete them, but I spend most of my energy on engaging with the students at the Khar school. Some of them have amazing stories.

Marc,one of our volunteers, is now working out at a gym that cost him five dollars for 3 months. He works out with Malesh, one of our students and construction/handy staff. Malesh lives, with his little sister, Parvati, at the school. He's learning how to cook. There used to be a group of orphans at the school. One of them cooked, but something happened, and he's disappeared. (I think it was something dishonorable, but it's not my business.) So now Malesh is learning to cook. He cooks good Maggi noodles, and he tells me so. (Like in every country I go to, I am a kind of food. This time, I'm noodles, of the same brand from whence Maggi-cube came). Malesh was found living under a boat a few years back, with Parvati, who was dying of TB. He survived by begging. They were in and out of homes of family, orphanages, hospitals, everything, until they settled in the school. Now he works out with a Canadian man who, at mid life, quit his banking job to follow his passions, and cooks ramen noodles for his little sister, who is no longer dying, and can cling to your shoulders for hours on end.

It's a pretty spectacular story, if you sit down to think about it. But these days, all the stories are like that, and in order not to be overwhelmed, I don't think about it too terribly much. It's odd, and kind of amazing, how people just become people as soon as they're right in front of you. Once you enter into a certain kind of relationship with someone, their story can fade into the background, and you are person to person. When it's teacher to student, or peer to peer, that's spectacular. But sometimes that's done on class lines, or racial lines, or other things--beggar to white girl, or man to woman (not always bad), or servant to master, or sometimes parent to child--you forget certain stories when you shouldn't. Interesting, how humanity can do that, and how much it can sway in either direction.

Taj Mahal and Agra

I was on a train for twenty two hours to get here. It didn't feel that long, in a dirty but comfortable sleeper car, dozing and not eating, chugging along as the train wobbled over the tracks through rural India. It gets cold at night. We met two wonderful Hare Krishna women from Mauritius, who gave us banana chips and were so very very kind. We got danced on by a begging eunuch, and I didn't give him/her enough money. We disembarked with a man who sat across from us, found out the proper price for a rickshaw, and he helped us to haggle for a correct one. The man who drove our rickshaw gave us an epic speech from the bottom of his heart about how he would never cheat us because he was an ambassador of his city. I paid him extra because I was so impressed with his sincerity. Our hotel had no problems--a slight hitch because the room was more upscale than anticipated, but it changed from 8 dollars to 12--so it's not a big deal. Its a beautiful, comfortable place with a garden restaurant.

It is the final day of Navaratri today, and the streets are full of processing Durga statues. As we walked home from our day of sight seeing, we were painted with pink and green powder--powder that will never come out of our clothes, but feels authentic and wild. I love it. It smells like chemicals and gunpowder. It smells like power and devotion.

We saw the sun rise at the Taj. It is extremely impressive. White columns, perfectly inlaid jewels, the entire Quran written word by word across its walls--all perfectly symetrical--no mistakes at all. The men were pushy and disgusting--and not once did I call them out for "Un-Islamic behavior." (I asked if they were Muslim men first.) I thought that would bring on mass giggles, but in fact it actually worked. Telling a man angrily to lower his eyes in the presence of a religious woman had some sway. The second time I yelled I just flat out said "Would you do that to your mother?" And he walked away quite shamefully.

At Agra fort, however, we had a guide. The fort is amazing. I'm short on time so it is not possible to describe how intricate, varying and remarkable the place was. I saw the place were Jahanara lived, one of the women  in my Sufi paper, and the place where her father was imprisoned by his son--to do nothing but stare at the reflection of his Taj Mahal in the face of a diamond. That was the punishment given to him by his stern, conservative son, Aurengzeb, who took the throne after many agreed that Shah Jahan had spent too much money and run the country into the ground--in spending excessive funds on the Taj Mahal.

The guide kept the horny men with cell phone cameras away, but it felt safer for families to approach. We took photos with old couples and babies, and families who introduced the entire extended group. Many were also tourists. The fort had within it multiple palaces and resting places for the kings, queens, and princesses. It had an intricate water system, and some rooms were even air conditioned and heated. Unlike the Taj, which is all white marble, the fort varied in style depending on who had built the rooms. It was magnificent.

We're going to the Taj again tomorrow for sunset, and then we have no other real plans. The train leaves early on Tuesday, and we should be home in time for work on Wednesday. What a magnificent time... I am so glad someone convinced me to come here. I wasn't planning on it at all.

Hello, India.

Trying to do everything about this past week will be absolutely impossible. It doesn't feel like a week. It feels longer and shorter. Longer because it's so different. Shorter because it's been much less stressful and exhausting than a week at a Korean school. (Of course, back then... the weeks went fast at the beginning as well.)

On Sunday, my first day here, the volunteers and I went to Elephanta Island, an island that is known for its temple caves. They weren't spectacular, but they were pretty interesting--teeming with people in the heat, I was dripping sweat, and I had to take things in very slowly, because I was so exhausted. The walkway up was lined with trinket stalls. Some of the most beautiful carvings and works of art were barely ten dollars. The walkway was covered with a woven blue tarp, and everything under it had a blue glow to it.

At school, the kids are wild. I can deal with it, once I act patiently. It's a lot of energy, but it's not as demanding as it used to be, I think. This isn't my first time, and anyway, there are a few of us, so I don't have to teach every class of the day, and rarely do I have to do it alone.

We are right by the ocean. The buildings are squished together. Everything is dirty. Everything smells. Everything is colorful. Everything is exciting. Everything is busy. Autorickshaws are the best. They seat three people, and they are basically bikes--three wheeled motorcycles. And they run crazy through the streets. (Which are on the opposite side, by the way. That's hard to remember.)

Anyway... there's barely anything to say. I've been moseying along. Doing what I've been told to do--taking everything in and trying not to judge it. So far I'm enjoying things, but the heat takes the edge off of everything. Nothing is spectacular, nothing is miserable, because it's just too hot to really make a big deal out of anything.

:D

Well... today is my last day at work.

I've been woefully absent on my blog, but that's because I've had so much to do. And, in some ways, Korea has really become regular, daily life that doesn't really require a 'blog.'

These days I've been training in the new teacher, Lauren, who is really competent. She has more training at this than either Emily or I had, and I know she'll do just fine. She's taught in the States, so she'll have a huge heads up on both of us.

Right now, I feel a lot like I felt right before I moved to college. There's a huge, exciting adventure ahead of me, but I don't know how it will be, and I can't imagine it at all. I don't know if I'll be ready. I don't know if I'll be able to handle it, but I do know that I want to do it, so that's all I have right now.

It's really hard to say goodbye to my baby students. I'm the only foreign teacher they've known, and they are 100% mine. They were really starting to drive me crazy, but they're mine and only mine, so it's hard to pass them on to someone else. As my first class, the one I like to call "Squirrel Kindergarten" left yesterday, telltale tears welled up in my eyes and I looked away, shooing them out before they saw me--because then I would have been DONE.

I try not to gloat. I try not to make it clear just how hard I worked to make these children love me--to be a good teacher, to teach them and help them and do what I thought was right. I try not to tell everyone how hard I worked to keep loving them even though everything around me told me that I shouldn't. Everything around me said: "You are temporary, you don't matter, this is just a business." But I tried my best to make sure that even though that attitude got into me sometimes, that it never corrupted the reason I came into my classes every day. At least my babies. At least for my babies, I felt like I could do the best job I could do.

But there is a big difference between how things were then, and how they are now. The students' parents know me. The students know I can speak Korean, at least a little bit, and that I care about their language. The teachers and the boss trusts me, and even the desk teachers are kind to me. I used to loathe how hard it was. Now I feel proud of the fact that I made it all this way. I dealt with kids with violent learning disabilities, kids with severe ADD, and all kinds strange and wonderful other things. I had virtually no training, and absolutely no warning. I worked hard. And I pulled through, and in the end, I'd say the vast majority of these kids are better off, or at least just not thoroughly damaged. I worked really hard for something positive, and I think I got it.

That said, I am really happy to be turning to the next thing in my life. This was in many ways the hardest thing I have ever done. Luckily, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and after these last few days, I am sure that I have not been killed.

On Saturday, October 1, this blog will become Maggie Cube Goes to India! Stay tuned for the next exciting episode....

The fall is sweet, cool, and has a holiday feel.

It's now Chuseok break again. Last year for Chuseok, I went to Gonju to see the old Baekje capital. This year I'm staying in my apartment, packing, cleaning, and just relaxing. I leave for India in eleven days.

It's raining now, and it was raining yesterday morning too. I like waking up to the quiet rain, with the windows open and a slightly melancholy, yet calm feeling in the air. You feel insulated and safe in your house, just next to the pitter patter of the rain.

So I've accomplished most of the things that I wrote about accomplishing. I went to Haeinsa, and it was fun. It was kind of an ordeal, since I made the stupid mistake of getting on the wrong train, and thus going halfway to Seoul before switching. (Only in Korea can a simple mistake get you half way across the country in under an hour.) When we finally arrived, the serenity of the mountain, and the absolute isolation of the temple was really welcoming. The temple was much more isolated than most temples I've been to, either because it was Sunday and nobody was there, or just because it really is not a popular place--despite its place on the UNESCO list. We didn't get to see the actual Triptikana, because we arrived too late to go in, but we saw the building where it was housed. (Kind of a disappointment, but two awkward Korean guys had the same reaction, and we took several stiff pictures with them and their request.)

At sunset, the monks came out of their rooms and started an impromptu playing of the temple instruments, in a small pavilion at the bottom of the complex. They played the drums, and rang the huge bell, and gorgeous, calm sounds reverberated over the whole mountain. It was surreally calm and wonderful.


In other recent news, I had my Taekwondo Test on Sunday. It was VERY Korean. We arrived about five minutes after the test began. The judges filed out of the room, nobody payed attention, and then I was rushed by my teachers around the gym, until they found my spot. I was number 46. The last of the adults to test, and also the last one to arrive. It seems as though this test is very rarely undertaken by adults. For the thousands of kids that were there, I was the last of the group of adults--only 46 of us. I was also the only foreigner I saw. Kristen was there, and saw that there was a school with a foreign student, but that he was younger. (Also, the astute observation that--like me--he did not wear the same clothes as the rest of his school. His taekwondo bok said "KAIST" and mine says "Taekwondo", as opposed to the name of my school.)

We sat in lines and waited. When our line was next, we stood up and did jumping jacks. Then we stretched. Then we walked out onto the floor. There were a million other things happening, but it didn't seem too chaotic. I was shaking, I was so scared--I was sure that because I was different all eyes were on me, and I was the last one, the only one in the line in the back. (The test is administered in groups of ten.) We started our first form, form number 8, and I completed it well. Then we had to do number 6, which was the arbitrarily chosen form. (In the test, you don't know what the second form is until you arrived. I was very lucky because 6 was a good one for me.) I did the forms well, according to my teacher. Then we bowed to the judges and walked over to the fighting stage. I was put in a head pad and a chest guard, and then I spared with someone about my age. She kicked hard, and I was too nervous to really lash out. I don't think I did very well at that part, but watching Kristen's video, I see that the two men in front of me were mostly just standing there, so I guess I did alright. Fighting has never been my strong point. I'm too afraid to inflict damage on anyone.

Anyway, then that was it. My kwangjangnim (taekwondo teacher) was suddenly there, took off my pads, and said "Good job! Good job!" and whisked me away. Then we watched his wife do her second black belt test, and that was it!

It was VERY surreal, and nothing like a black belt test at home. I'm not sure if I passed the test or not. They say I'll know soon, but I have no way of knowing either way. Nobody will give me a straight answer, so I have the feeling that it's probably a no go. But maybe they just don't want to say yes or no and then lose face by that being the wrong answer.

That's been my life the past few weeks. I'm relaxing these next few days and packing, cleaning, drawing, and just chilling. It's going to be great. Oh, and probably will go up to a local temple for a while so I can buy some gifts and enjoy the temple atmosphere.

I have twenty four days left in Korea.

And I have some major goals to achieve.

1. Black Belt Test, September 19
Some of my students will be there, and that's going to be pretty funny. They're also testing, because it's a nation-wide test date, and all the schools with students qualifying with be there. I'm super nervous. I'm really not that good, and I'm going to stand out like a sore thumb, watching people who I probably don't know.

2. Visit Haeinsa Temple
I wanted to do a full out Temple Stay at Haeinsa, but it looks like that won't be possible now--especially with my rigorous Taekwondo training schedule. (Training/playing, I must admit.) So I'm visiting the temple this weekend, hopefully getting in on Temple Stay, but otherwise, I'll just get a cheap hotel, or make it a day trip. We'll see.

3. Have a few really good Jjimjilbang nights.
My favorite Jjimjilbang has been closed for quite some time, but I'm looking forward to its triumphant return with a new set of saunas. I really hope that includes a new set of massage chairs--but the same set of people, who don't complain or look at me funny when I use them. I want to go to Daejeon's popular Rodeo Town spa, which is where doctor fish come around and eat the dead skin off your feet. Hopefully will be encountering that strange phenomenon tomorrow with Kristen.

4. Have a smashing good going away party.
Tentatively planned for Saturday the 25th, so all of you who I know and are on this list should keep it in mind. The plan is to eat at TGI Fridays, so that I can get some serious American food into me before I go to India and eat nothing but vegetarian for quite a while.

I'll be planning snack and pizza parties for my students, and making them little cards... that process is going to be Chuseok, probably. Then the last week I'll be training the new teacher. It seems like the year itself has flown by, but each day and each month has been really slow. I've got both my suitcases sitting out open right now, so that I can put things in them for donation and potentially mailing home. The donation one is full, but the mailing home is mostly full of winter things. Now that it's almost two AM, and I've spent the whole night playing Civ 4, I feel a weird desire to do this kind of organization.

Passport Photos: Achieved!

Torturous task, but you feel a real sense of accomplishment once it is finished.

I went to go get passport photos taken at a small photo shop where I had printed photos before, and where I had my artwork once scanned. However, upon arrival, I discovered that the place was no longer a photo shop, and was in fact a pharmacy in the making. Frustrated, I tooled around on my bike until I found a little place that had the HP logo and the word Photo somewhere in its title. They didn't look open, and had a sign that seemed to say "Be back in 15." I came back in 15 (after trying to explain what I wanted at the post office, which was clearly not the place to go) but the sign remained. So. Nothing.

A few days later, after talking to my boss (she was also quite surprised that the photo shop was gone), Kim teacher told me to go to the baby photo place on the 3rd (or 4th) floor. I went. It was also closed--pretty empty, but I wasn't sure if it was closed for lunch or closed forever. So, infuriated, I just went to the bank and turned in all my coins. (60,000 won, baby!) That was one task completed. However, they couldn't transfer my visa money because I didn't have proper identification. (American ID doesn't cut it, and Korean Immigration had my passport and Alien ID card.) She kept saying: "Use the atm." And I tried to insist that I couldn't do it that way, because I needed the BANK receipt. Sigh. Uber frustration.

So I met up with Kristen and Emily, ate delicious Vietnamese food, and then returned to the HP place. As it turns out, it was NOT closed, but that was the back door, soo... I walked in and he was there, and he could do it, and for only 10,000 won (for six of them!). I collected them today--and he gave me a "wallet size" as "service", but it's pretty silly because I'm not smiling, have my hair shoved back, and couldn't care less about my appearance. But hey! It works.

So that's one visa task down. Next week I need to send the money, call the courier, and actually send the materials in. Then, within the week, I should have a visa for India. That will save me a lot of worry trouble. In the mean time, I continue to research graduate schools, instead of researching India--and doing the reading I promised myself.

Currently working my way through "The Valley of the Assassins, and Other Persian Travels" by Freya Stark. It's kind of... classic Romantic travel, though it is a little later than the Romantic Period. (1920s, I think.) Regardless of how I am SUPPOSED to feel as an academic about Romanticized travel, I do love it. She uses flourishy language, big words, and describes the women like they were in movies. It's a delightful break from over-analyzing and the constant desire in the modern day to not offend anybody.

Trying to arrange some kind of Temple Stay in the next month, but it's annoyingly difficult. Blah.

Rushing through the red tape--in a different language.

This past week has been consumed with visa questions and stuff related to India. It's all a little complicated, and not a little bit of it really frustrating.

In the end I know it'll be worth it, but currently it makes me feel really powerless. At first, the travel agent with whom I booked the ticket had spelled my name wrong. This was causing problems because maybe the Korean government wouldn't take that as proof that I was leaving the country. (Since my Korean visa is expiring on 9/2. They're giving me an extension until 10/2, the date of my flight.)

The India visa process is very complicated. That on its own is causing consternation. I went to get passport photos only to discover that the photo shop was missing. That was pretty disappointing. I'd had some nice photos made there. That's how things are in Korea, though--here one day, gone the next. And I do literally mean, gone the NEXT. Changed into something completely different.

Right now my passport is in the hands of the Korean government. As soon as I get it back, I have to send it to the hands of the Indian government in Seoul. I have to deposit a large sum of money into their account, and then I have to sit on my hands and wait until I get my visa.

In between that time, I have to study for my black belt test, which is rapidly approaching. Today, the sun is out and it's cool--which is one of the best things to happen to us over here in several months. I'm hoping that the weather keeps this up so I can go to the beach tomorrow. There's a nice one about two hours away from us, where I can relax, draw, and recoup from the extraordinary "Korea frustration" that I am feeling right now. It's really hard to give a place any leeway when you're about to leave. Everything is too difficult to deal with, or makes you furious.

The good news, though, is that I'm laughing a lot more with my kids, and I'm a lot more lenient with them these days. We're giggling over silly things, having good fun with coloring and other things, and they seem to be enjoying class more often. Next week, I start another baby class, so I get to give some more students English names and introduce them to the first words of their second language. That's always fun and adorable.

Some notes, and some things about vacation

I never finished my vacation chronicle, but there wasn't really much to say. Sokcho was interesting, but a little weird--things had really exploded there and so it turned into a resort town that my meager wallet wasn't happy with. I wandered through fish restaurant street, saw a beautiful temple on the sea, and went up to the top of one of Seoraksan's famous mountains--mostly to see nothing because it was raining and I was, hence, in a cloud. I stayed in a creepy, but cheap yeogwan with sweet old ladies. The room had no window and no fan, so it was quite stuffy, but they did have air con and a regular style bed. The elevator was the freakiest part--and because I didn't want to climb up five flights in a rickety, blinking metal box--I decided to take the stairs. That was scarier still, I realized (though not enclosed--except by darkness) as I found my way up five flights of stairs in the dark. The rest of the building's floors were empty, you see, and being behind the fish market at midnight was, well, rather frightening. Luckily, though I wasn't worried--Only that it would be too expensive--and I enjoyed two nights at a price I wanted.

Here's a picture of the beautiful temple in Sokcho--Naksansa. I recommend it to any temple enthusiast. It's on the ocean and it's BEAUTIFUL. Anyway, I'm saving up my words because I'm going to write about it in my next article for Teach ESL Korea.

In other news--I have two kindergarten students who are in love. It's absolutely amazing. They have the same absurd "I love my life" personality. He has the most intoxicating laugh. Neither of them have their front teeth. She is always in her taekwondo uniform, with enormous eyes and this squirrely squiggily disposition. They talk to each other with this unbelievable authenticity, completely engrossed in each other without any concern for the outside world. I'm not even sure that it's occurred to them that they're in love, and that's why it's so great. On Friday, I was teaching the class, and they were twitching out as usual, but the whole time they were just talking seriously, and he was curling her hand into a little fist--the hand that only has three fingers. The Korean coteacher told me that lately the kids are realizing that she only has three fingers on one hand, and that they're teasing her about it.  But not him. He's just curious. And like someone who's head over heals in love in a 100% healthy way, he's just interested in everything about her, including the things that other people think are faults.

Makes me believe in love again, I'll tell you that.

Moseying through Korea--in the rainy season

Well I've been on vacation since Thursday, which means that I took to the bus-filled streets and went to some really weird, remote places.

On Thursday, as I said last time, I embarked on the Scanner Adventure. On Friday, I took off for Jeonju, where I met up with Stephanie, wandered the streets of the hanok village, and got lots of mosquito bites. The city of Jeonju, despite its traditional buildings, heavy slate roofs, and whitewashed walls, has the distinct feeling of Northern Minnesota--or Wisconsin, or the UP. It's chalk full of artsy shops that are fun to wander through, but remind you that you are no where near rich. Jeonju is home to the Joseon Dynasty, and Hanji, an ancient art of making paper. Tons of paper related delicacies are on sale there, and they're really cool, but doubly expensive. Last time I was there, I bought a pair of paper-made earrings--which I promptly lost in the shuffle between work and Taekwondo.

On Saturday, Stephanie and I took a bus from Jeonju to Tapsa--definitely the most exciting and exhilerating temples I have seen in Korea. The temple is wedged into the middle of a cleft in the rock. It is all volcanic rock, too, the kind that we refered to as "Pudding Stone" when we encountered it beside Lake Superior. Pudding Stone is made up of lava rock and older, stronger rocks that are caught up in the downpour. In this case, some kind of madness created an gash in the rock, and this is where some monks decided to build their temple. Surrounding the temple are hundreds of little stone towers--some of them constructed and some of them balanced, precariously, on any flat surface available.

Little towers of rock are made while making prayers. The devotee makes a prayer and puts a rock on the tower. I made a prayer and then proceded to wander around the temple, photographing everything I could, and enjoying the glorious scenery. In front of one of the Buddhas, someone left a bag of Butterscotch candy, and little drips from the vines above--daredevil plants that clung to the side of the cavern--plopped on the thing and ran down its sides.

On Sunday, Stephanie and I took off from Seoul and went to Incheon, where I wandered the only Chinatown in Korea, and took a dirty old ferry to a dirty old island that belonged in the Carribean. (By the name of Jakyakdo 작약도.) I really enjoyed it, despite the fact that it was a meager speck of land that had seen better days. That was why I loved it so much. Despite the fact that Incheon is the host of the enormous international airport--the only airport that most people in Korea will ever see--there was no airplane noise, no hint of city on this tiny little jungle. Industrial equiptment, construction cranes, and the hustle and bustle of daily life in Korea could be seen from the shores of this island, but they were far away, lost in the fray of the ocean, which had made sure that this little rock had been completely forgotten by everything.

The night was topped off by the Heritage Ministry Gospel Choir Concert, which once a month has the impervious ability to make me both sob and love my life (and any man with a bit of charisma and a singing voice.) The next morning, I went into Seoul very early and borded a bus for Sokcho, where I am now. It's been another intreguing adventure, which I will write up after its completed.

New Artwork!

Well, after a long time of chasing down a "boksa" shop, or photocopy shop, I ended up at this small place near Chungnam University, where the employees allowed me to scan my art (in English Photoshop, no less!) for a mere 3,000 won. It was great. So I have a few new images--and some higher quality scans of the old ones.
(Clicking on an image will take you to a full sized one.)

This one is called "You can't stop this." I scanned it back in January, but the quality was weak. This is a much better scan, despite the water damage, which is almost invisible.

This one is called "Keep it in Perspective", and it was actually the last one I did from my old sketchbook. It remained unfinished for a really long time because of the water damage, but then I came back to it, fixed it up, and now I think it's going to be a prize--as a print, of course, but the original might sell someday, despite the discoloration that I took out of the corner.

I have three more that I'll share at a later date, and a lot more left to scan as well, but that's a job for a different weekend, I think.

I'm taking off tomorrow for a long travel trip, bopping around various places that are on my list. I don't have to work for seven days--which is the longest I've gone without working since I got here. I'm a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of free time. In fact, one of my Korean coworkers said to me: "I don't WANT vacation--I don't want to deal with my son! He drives me crazy!"

Recent notes on the students

I started, at the end of June, writing little notes when the kids did something, or something struck me as particularly interesting or cute. It's helped me to keep a writer's mind as I drift through things, ignoring the teachings of the Buddha and not being present in time. Now I've finished that notebook, so I ripped them out and I thought I'd share a few with you.

6.22.10 / Before classes started

The mean, frustrating make-my-life-hell counter teacher grabs my hand and grabs me to the back closet to show me where the on/off switch for the air conditioner is. It took be 6 months to even get this woman to say hello to me when I walked in. Usually she would just glance up to make sure that I wasn't the post man. Now she trusts me enough to show me the holy grail of energy costs for the hagwon--the air con. [We've recently purchased fans so that we don't actually have to use it to its full potential, an idea put into practice, I believe, by the husband at the second center. It seems like something he would be concerned about.]

6.22.10 / "Mashita" Class
This class is now down to 3 boys--all ridiculously difficult, but of a very warm heart. The last thing they want to do is be in class in the evening, and they make it ABUNDANTLY clear. Today they are watching Heidi--a rather pitiful, flash version where the characters don't quite move right. The same boys who made fun of Helen Keller when we studied her are 100% enthralled. Captain Gregory screams "NO!" when Peter kicks Clara's wheelchair down the mountain.

6.23.10 / During Class
They cleaned out my cubby. Apparently it was too dirty. They make my books the public books. I get really, really frustrated--but I only barely make it clear. I don't say anything. The next day I buy a book stand for my own classroom and take my books back and keep them in my room.

6.24.10 / Mashita
They tease the fat one until he breaks. He's about to hit them, or throw a desk, or both, but I ask him to leave and he DOES. I howl at them--telling them that they are so much better than their behavior and it works. They listen. They don't laugh in my face--suddenly these boys are taking me seriously, trusting me and respecting me because I love them to death, and they know it--but I am making it clear that I hate this behavior. I go outside to talk to John (the fat one), and he listens too. I control the situation. The others are watching at the desk. I am still annoyed and still want to beat them senseless, but I am so proud of them. The simple ability to control these boys, and the respect it takes to get them to take care of themselves is so gratifying. They couldn't have done it nine months ago.

6.25.10 / Kindergarten class
I notice that the really squirrely new one has half a hand. I suddenly like her just because she's different. She likes to talk in big, scary voices, and her absurdly large eyes roll around in her head and she giggles like mad. This whole class drives me over the precipice of cute-attack. Half of them don't have both of their front teeth, and their laughs are just electrifying. They are really intelligent too. The Korean teacher is great.

6.26.10 / Saturday / Out at a Bar
Nicole drops a glass and I accidentally step on a rather large curly piece--it slits my foot open, and I don't notice at first, until suddenly my shoe is slipping around on my foot. I go into the bathroom, stick my foot in the sink, and run water over it until it runs clear. Some drunk Korean girl comes in, sees me engaging in this odd act, and becomes my own personal bar mom--she runs to get tissue and dabs lovingly at my foot, whispering sweet nothings in Korean, until the bleeding stops. I don't care what anyone says--the things that happen in the girls bathrooms at bars are probably the most universal thing in the world. (Besides Coca Cola and beer.)

6.30.10
One of my favorite students, a ridiculously intelligent girl who feels a lot of pressure from the outside world, but is slowly starting to manage it, is having a good day. I tell her about my two favorite Little Fox stories--the two stories that happen in obviously Muslim countries. The first is about a character named Ali. She tells me "Teacher, my name is Ali." But I explain to her that that is a boy's name. [Most Korean names can go both ways.] So she asks me to tell her some female ones. As I list off names, she tells me, "Teacher, I am Aisha." And it is SO PERFECT. She is 100%, from head-to-toe an Aisha. Little spitfire with a desire to know everything, do everything well, and possess people's hearts. Nobody really understands how much joy I get from discussing Muslim names with this little girl, but I think for some reason she CAN see it. She is so alive that she can see the little changes that happen to me when I talk about the old life I had--and I think she knows how much it means to me that she cares.


7.1.10 "Mashita"
This class has been playing all day. We didn't really have anything to do. There's only two of them today and I'm just ragging on them, teasing them and they're teasing me back, and we're just having a grand old time. Jijun has taken to answering questions that he doesn't understand with: "Question number 11, what is the meaning of life?" So finally I stop and make him answer the question. He replies "Getting money." We don't really settle down, and suddenly in the middle of our laughter, Jijun cries: "Kim-to-the-Jin-to-the-JU!" [My Korean name: KimJinJu"] and continues to rap our names for the rest of the hour.

7.2.10
I traded classes with my boss for convenience purposes--she wants to give them a test and knows I won't be able to deal with them [this is the special needs class.] But I traded it for another class with special needs--one boy in particular who left the hagwon after having two violent episodes. He's back now--I don't know why--but on the day when I'm not supposed to be there, he goes off his handle. He tried to stab the kids with his umbrella, waving it menacingly in the air with this half-grin, squinty "this is the only way I know how to get attention" look on his face. I think he's drugged most of the time to prevent these outbursts, but he still knows that this is how he threatens others. He knows I'm afraid of him, and he knows that all the other teachers are afraid of him too. I use more Korean with this child than I do with a taxi driver. I take him out of class three times. First because he won't give up the umbrella. Second because he falls of his chair in the middle of speaking practice, and starts to cry. Third when he comes back in, and the kids tease him for the crying and the chair. He tries to attack them, and I hold him back. I can't let him hit a student. It's just a disaster. It's a huge disaster and I feel like a terrible teacher, because I can't control this child. I can't do right by him. For the next week I am just too emotionally exhausted to love any of the kids, because through him I feel like I've failed them all.

7.12.10 Monday, first class, my babies
They are so cute. They use English to ask questions. One of them has huge eyes, huge cheeks, huge pigtails, and the biggest smile ever--we'll call her Emmie. It could make you giggle uncontrollably too--and best of all, they're excited about English, and speaking English, to the point where they actually speak to each other in English. Emmie has this joyful disposition that fixes everything for me. She bounces everywhere, shares her glasses with the girl sitting next to her.

7.13.10 Tuesday, before class
One of my students, my baby student who I named (Coby), always comes to class an hour early and waits around in the hagwon. His parents work, and so this is his daycare center. I come in and decide that it is high time I wash my desks, so I go to the counter teacher and she produces some cleaning stuff and a rag. Coby decides that he is going to help me--so he delicately sprays the mixture on the penciled parts of the desks. He takes his job VERY seriously. I speak to him in English that I know he doesn't understand, but I use big hand gestures and he gets it. I really enjoy these moments with the little ones. A few minutes later, the toothless one with the electrifying laugh comes in and I try to take pictures of them with my cell phone. The toothless one is afraid of the camera, but Coby isn't.

7.15.10 Thursday, first class
One of my little 2nd graders sees a spider on the back wall while we're doing book work. They all say "Teacher, SPIDER!" And I say "Well that's nice. Don't touch it." Then, as they're semi-quietly working, this little boy with a big grin and confident English, turns around to that spider and starts talking to it. "Hello Spider! How are you? I'm fine. What's your name? I like pizza! Do you like pizza?" I start laughing hysterically and I carry that thought through the rest of the day.

7.20.10 Tuesday, third class
One of my little girls is just a weird handful--I love her, but she has this really "I'm completely insane" look in her eyes most of the time. That's why I like her. I know for sure that she'll grow up to be somebody's crazy aunt. She's been teasing and poking at this boy behind her all day through class. He's awkward and shy, like her but without the confidence of really enjoying his quirkiness. The other girls were teasing her for liking him--but I can see it too. Suddenly she lashes out at him with her hand--kind of like a cat--in an attempt to slap him across the face, but she knocks his glasses off instead and makes him cry. I have to be harsh with her, but I can see what happened. "I love you! Look how strong I am!"

7.23.10 Friday
Outside it's like an ocean. Suddenly the whole world has turned into water and I was just lucky enough to have started work before the roads turned to rivers. The students, on the other hand, were not so lucky and so they are furious--really testy. The little ones are screaming at each other. I'm tired and annoyed. During my 15 minute break, I go into the bathroom to brush my teeth, and I hear a crash and one boy cry "TEACHER!" in Korean. I look into the boys bathroom in the mirror of the girl's bathroom--they face each other--and I see two of my Monday students try to kill each other. Without even thinking, I go in--toothbrush still in my mouth--and grab one off of the other. After a Korean teacher arrives to figure out what happened, and I finish brushing my teeth, I realize what I just did. Mousy little Maggie ran into the bathroom of the opposite sex to break up a fight.

Anyway, those have been the most important parts of my life as a teacher lately. There's a fair amount more to say, but lately I've just been doing my thing. Going to see Inception tonight, which I'm pretty excited about.

I'm not dead.

I just haven't had anything to say lately. Life in Korea has been business as usual, and I'm really itching for a change. Lately I've been going to Taekwondo in the morning instead of the evening, which gives me a lot more energy. I've also been working on my novel, but it's sticking at the end, and I'm frustrated with it, and with my plans for the future--I'm having a hard time putting things in perspective.

I just desperately want to be the one studying, not the one teaching--at least right now. I whined and moaned a lot about university and the ivory tower and the lack of "real, on the ground" influence one has in university--but I think that's always a choice. And these days I just feel like I'm getting dumber (and meaner) by the minute.

But I am happy to not have to go to TKD at 9:30 pm.

No news recently.

I mean, there has been news, but I haven't felt like talking about it. The most frustrating thing was a couple of dreams that I had last night about going home and being lost.

The first one, I went home, but it was too early. I got the chance to go home, and I leapt on it, and I couldn't say goodbye to my students, or my Taekwondo Teachers. I just disappeared. And while I feel like my students (and other teachers) do that pretty frequently, I still felt sad.

The second one, after I woke up and went back to sleep, was about going home and trying to get a six pack of beer from a convenience store. I had no ID, possibly because I left it in Korea, or something along those lines. How telling *that* is. No identity. Left it in Korea. Oops.

I went to the gospel choir concert that I go to at the beginning of every month, and it's always a good experience but this time I was drained. Lost. I just cried and cried, and it didn't feel like a good kind of cry. I just lost it.

Also, someone thought it would be a good idea to use a jackhammer in the house next door before 8am. Wtf.

Good news from writer land!

I finally plowed through the final scenes of my book! I might write one more epilogue style scene, but right now I'm reserving that for after I do some serious reconstruction work on the last several chapters. It feels really good, but there's still a lot of work to do in the writing--and then after that, after that I get to start the difficult process of looking at agents--understanding what that business all means--and sitting on my hands while I wait for someone to tell me if it's good. Publishable.

But this time I really am going through with it. This time I am going to close and finish one of my many projects, and maybe for once in my life I'll be able to walk away from something without leaving it unfinished.

Also, in Soccer News: North Korea lost to Portugal by SEVEN. SEVEN TO ZERO. How on earth do you lose that badly??? How did they even get into the World Cup in the first place?

And today

Even though my patience completely expired, and I wanted to hide in the bathroom--I still left the school loving teaching and loving my kids. I feel this way.. maybe 1 week out of the month.

I started to write things down when they struck me. Today in my 2.25 class, the kids were role playing the story (which they call "CHARACTER, TEACHER!!!") when one of the student's pants started to buzz uncontrolably. He had a wind-up monster in his pocket--and no that is not a keyword for some thing children should not get a hold of. He literally had a monster doll stuffed in his cargo shorts, and some part of the mechanism had been tripped when he moved--and amidst his perfect pronunciation of "Here you go, Sally" the thing started to go wild. And I just stared at him with this "wtf" look, and he gave me the biggest "I am so guilty and I am enjoying it so much" grin I have ever seen.

I also gave this kid his English name. I named him Paul after my dad and brother's middle, and I knew he was going to be one of those over enthusiastic, slightly-trouble inducing fellows.

In my 3.30 class I am so proud that my little student--Mina--who refused to talk until maybe a week ago, is raising her and and answering questions. Her voice is still tiny, but she answers them. It's so amazing.

At my 4.35 class, I walk into the wrong classroom. They changed it around, switching two of my classes around--but nobody thought it prudent to tell me. But I just turned around and walked out, because I recognized immediately that I was in the wrong place, and my brain connected the two occurrences, and it was just "business as usual."

In my 5.50 class, I called the desk on a student who was pissing me off. Another student refused to talk to me for the entire class, I thought because I failed to produce the stickers I had promised. I honestly went looking for them, and then I discovered that a student potentially stole them out of my unlocked desk drawers. Or I buried them under presentation papers. Who knows. After class, her two friends explain to me, in very broken English (and with a drawing on the board) why she was angry. It had nothing to do with me. But I think maybe the failure to produce stickers kicked her off the edge.

In my 6.55 class, one of my older students insists on screaming the Korean word for "delicious" in a demon voice. We have a great connection, this kid and I. He exhausts me when I'm already tired, but when I'm in a good mood I love to tease them. They tease me back and its hysterical. In this class I have a student, no joke, named "Major Joseph." He has an epic stutter and is the most nationalistically indoctrinated child I have ever met. I love him, but today I was so exhausted that I could barely deal with it. They drove me up the wall, but I loved them anyway, after walking away from the class. "Delicious" kid came back and talked to me for a while. He erased my board for me too. I used to buy coffee from his mom every day at the Dunkin Donuts below us. I always bow and wave at her now, if I come in that direction and catch her eye.

In my 8.00 class, there are two students. Ricky does his work, which is rare, and then the new girl, the one who has a really cool English name, and walks like she is from the hood, tells me all about her exploits as a teenager. She tells me about alcohol and smoking, and her friend that died because he crashed his motor bike at 160 meters per hour. I don't know if I believe her, but I keep asking her questions, and keep asking her: "Why are these people your friends?" She shows me her fake ID that she supposedly stole. And a visa card that she supposedly stole. I'm not sure what is what. They use English and I think it's kind of a joke to them. They don't know that they're really communicating, because all matters of substance to them happen in Korean. And I'm not sure she really thinks I'm a real person. She might be trying to impress me because there's this stereotype that Foreigners only drink and party. She tells me about clubs. I don't have the guts to ask her what clubs she's been to--or to tell her that they are all epicly lame. I'm not sure if I should even be having this conversation with her. But the hagwon camera is on, and she's doing all the talking. I'm asking questions--and occasionally telling her that she should make good, safe decisions. At one point, I tell her that the most important thing that anyone, anywhere, in any country can learn is how to choose friends who make you feel safe and happy. Hastily, after the bell rings, she tells me that she goes to church and believes in Jesus. I wonder if it wasn't just a joke to begin with.

I leave Little Fox and I go over to Taekwondo, where the dojeong is empty except for her brother. I sit next to him, ask him a few questions (he acts out just as much as she does--but mostly he charms the ladies), sit with him for a minute before I change my clothes. When I get back, he's on his way out and I start training.

Then I come home and I go to buy a beer at the corner mart next to my house, and I run into another foreigner, who lives next door to me but I've never really met. She's freaked out my my word-vomit "Hi, how are you? Who are you? I can't believe we're neighbors--can I have your number?" -- and she says, "Actually I'm leaving in three weeks." So I give up, don't make a new friend, and buy a liter of beer instead.

And I've been reading testimonial stories on Teach for America's website. Hence the out pour of love for the students, even when I hate their guts. I feel weak because I don't have enough patience, but I think the more I write it down, the easier it gets to keep that patience up. Who knows.

World Cup and My Neighborhood

There are a lot of things I love about this country--and partially about being abroad in general. It's always amazing to watch soccer with people who really, really care about soccer. When Korea played Argentina on Thursday, it was a wild mess. Classes were canceled. (Not mine, though.) The streets were empty, and the game could be heard or seen from every television in the entire city. In the bar, everyone wore red--the Korean team's color--and howled and cheered with a kind of fanaticism that only comes from doing things in crowds. It was truly amazing--even though they lost.

And they didn't just loose. They REALLY lost. Soccer is a low scoring game, and to loose 4-1 is something that takes skill. In fact, the Korean players actually scored two goals in the game--one of them was Argentina's first. Bad luck, guys.

Anyway, next they're playing Nigeria, and Nigeria's not been having a good season. They lost to Argentina and to Greece. (Which the Koreans beat.) I am secretly rooting for all the African teams (but Ghana the most--duh.) Lucky for me, I have like 3 teams that I want to win, so I've got a great chance of being pretty excited with the final outcome.

In other news, I'm spending a much deserved and much wanted weekend being lazy at home. It's great. I am cleaning, fiddling with my decor, and finally getting my kitchen into shape. My neighborhood mystifies me for the contracts that I see here. I live in a non-descript, typical Korean small-size apartment building. An elderly woman owns it, collects money for bills, and maintains general order. On the other side of the street, there are the megolith blocks of 25-story buildings, all identital to each other, with their numbers painted on their sides, but here on this side of the street, strange things sit next to each other.

The trash dump across the street from me has been cleaned up. The lot used to be blocked off with aluminum siding, gated, and full of garbage. The lot across from me used to be a cabbage feild. Now it's an expensive looking duplex--the exterior is finished and now they're starting on the interior. There are men skirting around the skeleton structure on the outside. Next to me is the little mart, filled with all sorts of household items and food. It's family owned and the owners are excited to hear every new Korean phrase I learn.

But in addition to that, there are enormous houses, suburban enormities that for most Korean families are not the things they, themselves dream of owning, but the things they would buy for their parents if they suddenly won the lottery. One house looks as though it was designed by a rockstar architect in the sixties--it's all square and sharp lines, and Frank Loyd Wrighty--f-the Victorians. Though the expensive windows of that house don't look out onto a open feild, a forest, or even another house. They look into a cabbage patch the size of another suburban lot, and next to that there's another new apartment structure going up, and there are tanned men, covered head to toe, jumping around on scaffolding on its edges. There's a Chinese delivery restaurant that always has two or three moto drivers speeding food around town. One of them always waves at me when he sees me driving by. He invited me to drink coffee with him once, and I was really disappointed that I couldn't do it. He speaks no English. I have no idea what we would have talked about.

And in all these expensive houses, little plots of farmland, and construction projects, old women walk around with bent backs, picking up good cardboard and putting it on carts. There are no dumpsters even in rich suburbia, and piles of garbage sit outside in bright green bags--the color prescribed by Yuseong's garbage collection agency. One of these tan, ancient women recognizes me as she goes through the houses looking for boxes. She smiles sometimes, if I give her a little bow.

It doesn't seem to make sense--all this richness living right beside the farms, and the trash-picking grandmothers, and the little corner mart that would be in a poor but successful small town. This is one of the reasons that I really do enjoy Korea.

Images that stick in your head

Last night, a little restless and bored, unable to sit down to read or write, I called up Kristen and we went for beers at the local convenience store. Sitting outside on a summer night, drinking liter bottles of beer outside of a convenience store is something quintessentially Korean, which I have really desired to do since I got here.

However, instead of sitting at the store (which was about to close), we headed up to the park and sat on benches for a little while, drinking our beer, eating ice cream, and discussing life and its charms and drawbacks. Slowly it started to rain, little drops that turned into big ones, few and far between, until we couldn't really sit out in the open any longer. We moved to sit under the park's pavilion, a raised table-like structure. Another man was already sitting there, eating cup ramen and watching the world cup on his cell phone.

We finished our beers as the rain got extravagant--huge monsoon style drops that fell so fast and so hard that the only audible thing was the roar of the water. The man next to us tried to start a conversation, but it didn't work, since English was terribly limited. But we shared a little moment as he showed me that the world cup game was Ghana vrs. Serbia.

Finally we decided to make  a run for it, and got completely drenched in the less-than-100-meter stretch from the park to my apartment. Sneaking around piles of junk so that we could walk under awnings, flip flops soaked and slippery, drenched in summer rain.

Those are the images that stick with you.

On why I haven't posted in forever

I've been doing a lot of stuff. Last weekend I traveled to Busan for a little while, sat on the beach, enjoyed Mexican food, and listened to friends of a friend rap their little hearts out at an expat beach bar. Lot's of fun, I'll tell you. (I was even purchased a non-alcoholic shot by the wonderful bar tender, who refused to leave me alone about drinks, even though I insisted that I refused to drink.)

However, my writing inclinations have been leaning in a different direction. I've been completely absorbed by a novel that I'm working on, yet again. With a good six months between me and National Novel Writing Month, I feel as though I'm finally ready to finish this sucker. And it's coming out beautifully. Characters have taken weird turns, and they've done things that I didn't really want them to do, but despite that, I believe that's the beauty of good writing. Characters do what must be done, whether or not you enjoy it. More or less, I feel like a real writer again, and the writer's block has dissipated. And when that happens, folk, that's the thing I have to focus on, come hell or high water.

Anyway... I'm working on the final scenes and I've been rather antisocial as of late because of it. I'm interested in getting some readers, just people who can let me know what they think, get to know the characters, and let me know if the book is a good read.

The synopsis is as follows:
Victoria, the youngest of the late King and Queen of Coqueron, was cursed from birth with an allergy to the sun. In a world where the god of the sun and the goddess of the night are constantly in battle, Victoria is ostracized and kept away, because her eldest brother, the now-king, professes a love to Solaron, god of the sun. Left in a cold, dark house, without any children her own age, Victoria's first friends become the ghosts that live there. However, when she turns fourteen, her brother suddenly calls her to the palace of Coqueron to be initiated into court life.

One of Daejeon's Famous Places--and I finally got there!

Yesterday was election day, and so I had a very exciting holiday, in which I *finally* made it to Gyereong National Park. It's probably the only place in Daejeon that's famous, and it was really wonderful.

The park is huge, with many peaks to climb, but we took a short (and very steep) course up to some small pagodas and a tiny mountain hermitage. It was only about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) but it was so steep and so abrupt that it took us almost two hours to get up.

The green and the summer smell is making me really happy these days. It gives me a lot of joy, even though I am battling with the homesickness of missing Minnesota summers. Oddly enough, I'm also getting waves of homesickness from Eagle Harbor-like vibes too. That's kind of sad, because I don't even know the next time I'll be able to go there.

The view from the top of the mountain was fantastic. The mountains were bathed in the green trees, except for enormous pieces of that tan-yellow Korean rock that peaks to give these particular mountains huge bald spots. Like the back of a boar, or perhaps something from a really good fantasy novel.

Speaking of fantasy novels--I'm looking for some good ones to read. I'm going to order some books on the internet so I'm in the market for good reads. Here's my list so far...

Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found
About Mumbai--the city I'm going to in India!! Woo!!

Adventure Divas: Searching the Globe for Women Who are Changing World
Really excited about this one: part travel memoir, part service to our sweet globe. Super exciting.

Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure
This book looks good because the author, at first, HATES India, and this is her story of learning to love it.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Salman Rushdie is such a big name these days... I want to read the Satanic Verses, too, since it's such a huge controversy, but the plot of the book looks a little out of my league.

The Darkness that Comes Before
A good old fashioned Fantasy novel to add to the mix--this one seems to have some good reviews, and the website says that it is similar to authors that I like.

Anyway, that's a lot... I need some help narrowing it down, but I'm hoping with all these books to read, I'll spend less time running around spending money. Right?

The North Korea-South Korea Situation

Is not as bad as it looks on the news. These images of people burning stuff in the streets is pretty funny, but that is SO not the South Korea that I know. I mean, people certainly aren't happy about it, but this is Korea, and everything is business as usual unless the sky falls down. So anyone who may or may not be concerned about my safety, you should know that it's business as usual--and probably always will be.

What ISN'T business as usual, though, is the rather frightening spike in the Korean currency, which for a few days rendered my salary considerably less than it was. But it's coming back down again, and I have confidence that by the time I need to transfer money home to my account, it will be at least somewhere back to where it used to be.

Also in the news is our New Teacher, who is wonderful to have around and great to talk to. Training another teacher has been really eye opening for me--I've come a long away. I've become an authoritative person, or so says Emily, haha, and it's hard for me to imagine how that happened. It puts the struggle of dealing with insensitive kids in perspective. I really feel like I've gained so much, after I've been able to step back and see where I was when *I* started, and how I'm able to teach another person how to do what I do. Or--I hope. Haha, I'm not sure I did a very good job training, but I guess we can ask Emily that.

Anyway... that's the news in Maggie. Got a confirmation on the India trip so I'm excitedly looking into the visa process and plane tickets. Woo!

Gyeongju

Trip was mostly a bust because it rained the whole time, but Kristen and I did have some excellent rain adventures on Saturday. Friday was gorgeous, but we spent most of the time in transit--until we rented our bicycles and took off into the setting sun and rice patties galore.

Sunday was cold and wet and things just working out for us, but one thing I really wanted to write down was that I saw an old couple spreading ashes into the sea. We went to the underwater tomb of King Munmu, which wasn't impressive or spectacular, really, but the ocean was amazing to see. I love the ocean. It was furious. The waves were huge and crashing and rolling and I just love that sound. Wherever I settle in life, there needs to be an ocean--or a lake (hehe, Superior.) An old woman simply dumped a jar of yellow colored ash into the ocean, and then her and her husband took a deep bow. It was serene. Quiet. I was drenched and getting more drenched, but for a moment I forgot about that and watched this couple, all alone, send off their loved one.

I wrote a short story!!

Feeling thoroughly inspired by my collection of short stories by Neil Gaiman, Smoke and Mirrors, I felt inspired to spin a short story. I like the concept but I'm not sure I really spun the tale the way it should have been spun, so I'm posting it here for you to examine and criticize. Please rip it to shreds, so that a better story comes out.

The Most Famous Destination on Earth (Working Title)

Hey!

I have an article on Suite 101, an online publishing website. Check it out!

Three Weekend Adventures in South Korea: Off the Beaten Track

A very Seoul weekend--again

Spent this weekend in Seoul to with Kristen--basically doing all the things I didn't do last weekend. We had a great time wondering around Insadong, the artsy fartsy, touristy trinkety area of Seoul. There are a lot of amazing things to buy there--everything from tourist kitsch to real antiques. I was basically in heaven, but held off and didn't really buy anything substantial.

After having an excellent time just chilling, we went to Kristen's friend's show, which was a UNICEF benefit. We supported him and then went out to Hongdae and did the Hongdae party thing. Hongdae is one of the most famous places in Seoul to party. I wasn't aware, partying in Daejeon, just how many military folks there are around here. All the Western men in the club were military, and they were quite nice, actually. A few guys were teasing their buddy who wasn't drinking, and I got to talking to this guy, who was pretty nice. The next day, after crashing on Kristen's friend's couch, we met up with this guy and headed back to Insadong to check out a book store (omg so many English books--70,000 won later). We went to Gyeongbukgung, the palace in Seoul that Stephanie and I visited back in the fall, and just enjoyed the beautiful weather. It was a good time, just meeting new people and enjoying some sites in Seoul.

This weekend, though, I am definitely not planning on doing Seoul--I don't know where I'll go yet, or if I'll just stay home, but I definitely need to find something interesting to do, because I'm feeling very restless and frustrated. My students haven't been good to me and I just... haven't been on the ball with teaching. My temper is short. I'm homesick, and the kids know it. I try to be a better person, but sometimes it just doesn't work. I keep thinking that I can't possibly be cut out for this, so I turn to art, or writing, which just comes out bent with my already frustrated mindset.

In other news, I have a Suite101 account, where I will be publishing articles about travel and life in Korea. I'll put up some links when I have articles out.

Also

My work has been published online for the Teach ESL Korea newsletter. I have two stories up now, one for the April issue on Magoksa Temple, and the other for the May issue on Jeonju. Check it out, make comments, and look at what other people have to say about life in Korea.

Magoksa - Jeonju

Summer is finally here!

The weather is fantastic--humid, but it's quite warm and it smells like deliciousness. I've been looking for patios all the time, just sitting around and enjoying myself in a regular day-to-day kind of life. This week we had Wednesday off, which is a wonderful way to have a week--haha, I never want to work on Wednesday again.

This weekend I enjoyed just sitting on patios and being social. I really had a good time. Talking. Just talking. It was a global weekend too--hung out with people from 3 different continents. On Friday I did the usual haunts with the Daejeon crew, then I got up and went to Seoul to see Jim and his new digs there. We met up with Stephanie and enjoyed a drink at a bar, sat next to a wide open window and watched people below. Seoulites running around in their Seoul-y-ness. The city is so interesting. Every time I go there's so many things to see. Different kinds of people--even some counter culture kinds of things--something I never expect to see here. Not in Daejeon, at least, which is a lot more conservative when it comes to style and culture. (And by conservative I don't mean skin-wise, because everybody's legs are hanging out. I mean that everybody must have the same kind of style, not like Seoul where there are alternatives.)

On Sunday Stephanie and I ate shabushabu, which was immensely filling and quite nice, and then we went to Itaewon. I got a massage, and that was a very, very good feeling. I haven't had a massage since November or December... way too long. My back was just in all kinds of pain. Next time I'm going to stay for an hour and I might even ask them to do my feet, because just the little attention she gave them seemed to release so much tension. They say that your feet are the end points for all your meridians... and that paying attention to your feet will keep you safe from ailments. They have these interesting bare-foot paths that are supposed to heal you. Mostly they just hurt, but according to Jim, if you can walk on them with no pain, you are completely healthy. I wonder what bunions mean in this context... a continual growth and deformity in the direction of one's life? A build up of superfluous antics that cause the main toe to go astray.... cause the direction to go astray. I bet I could write a short story about that. Someone who gets bunion surgery and then all the things she keeps hidden in her bunion simply pour out into her life like ghosts. Now that would be absurd but oddly telling.

(I've been reading Neil Gaiman short stories at an alarmingly fast rate. I'm trying to plow through the books I have here so that I can buy new ones. I have a great list on my Amazon wishlist of travel narratives that I want to read, and other sorts of things. Ahem. For those of you who want to purchase me birthday presents, you have my address and Amazon delivers here..... quite quickly, I might add. Har har.)

Anyway, on Sunday after my massage I met up with Kennedy, my Ghanaian friend who I met in Daejeon so long ago, when I was a brand new Korea-ite. He and his business partner, Mark, took us out for drinks at a Mexican restaurant with (you guessed it) a delightful patio. Stephanie and I drank juice and coffee while they ate and we all talked together for something like 3 hours. It was amazing. I loved it. We talked African politics and development, and all these things that I had forgotten that I loved to talk about. And I fell into the grove of slow talking and moving, and I just felt very alive.

And when I tell myself "you might not have enough money to go back" or "you might not really want that anyway", there are reasons like these to remind me. The logic might not be there, but the emotion is--even with people I barely know. People I just met that day.

When we met, Mark was introduced to us and we passed by a Baskin Robbins. In which there was a whole slew of Ghanaians, who called out to him and called us in. And they called me obroni. I was so happy just to hear the word, and then I heard their language--Twi I think, but I wasn't sure. I could never pick them apart. But it sounded like music.

But talk about globablization. I ran into 10 Ghanaians, eating ice cream at Baskin Robbins, in Korea. And then we went to a Mexican restaurant, where we were copiously hit on by a Japanese man.

He leaned over and was bothering us, and finally he got too close to me, and I backed up, and then Mark said: "Excuse me, could you please give them some space?" In this kind of "That is not a question" way. And he backed up, and embarrassed, I said "Thank you", but all of a sudden I realized that nobody had ever done that for me before. I had always had to exhaustively deal with men who bothered me like that. I was so happy that he had said something. So glad that I could let a man speak up for me, and then I realized--why don't I speak up for me? So I made a resolution to do that more often.

Anyway the weekend was wonderful. Great time just meeting with friends. Nothing rushed, nothing hurried. Nothing too much. Just a calm, great time.

It's windy, but it's a good feeling.

The sun came out after an entire day of pelting rain yesterday. I wanted to be upset and moody because it was raining AND it was Monday, but oddly enough I started to feel kind of calm. I remembered that I was in Asia, and for some reason, yesterday, that was just enough. Reading is a great thing for me, because I start to look at my own life less like something I "have to do" and more like a novel to be written.

Other excellent news. I am going to India! I've been accepted to volunteer with One! International, a small NGO that runs schools for poor children in Mumbai. They've even asked me to teach art, which is really exciting.

Also, not nearly as exciting, but happy for me is that they finally released the Avatar soundtrack for MP3 download on iTunes, which means that I now have it. Super excited. I love James Horner and I loved that movie.


On Monday, I started studying Korean with my Taekwondo Teacher's wife, and I'm super excited. They are like my family here. I spent so much time there, haha. It really makes me happy and I am so glad that I got the chance to do this.

Anyway just brief updates. Nothing spectacular happening. Here's a photo from the mountain climb I took on Sunday. There is a barefoot climbing festival happening soon, and I think my TKD teachers are going to take me!

Reading Korean Literature

One of the great ways to get into the mind of a foreign culture is by picking up literature from that country. I loved reading Ghanaian literature and watching Ghanaian movies because I could peek into the imagination of Ghanaians, and the fictionalized stories helped me to understand what was really happening in the world around me.

Anyway I absolutely tore through two short stories yesterday written by GongJiYoung (공지영), "Dreams" and "Human Decency". Both were really disjointed and confusing, but it still helped me to grasp at a certain mood, and it also reinforced my opinion that this place is scarred. She puts a lack of 'time line' into her stories. Her characters are always drifting back into the past in their heads, and you kind of forget what generation you're in. But there's definitely this sense of deep brokenness, guilt, and betrayal. The characters are living through the fact that their activism of the 1980s, while they have a civilian government now, seems to only add up to a more materialistic world. Her main character in Human Decency, a woman who gave up her life as an activist to work at a magazine, asks the question who are we "When we speak not of what is right and wrong, but of what we like and dislike?"

They were oddly powerful stories, although nothing really seemed to happen in them. It just seemed like these characters were grasping at that scar that seems to be here, that wound under a bandaid, that I can see but can't touch. And it's much bigger than Japanese Occupation and the Korean War, it's the dictatorship after it and the rapid development, too.

In Human Decency, Gong gives the impression that those who suffered from those times are forgotten, while the travelers who escaped the country during that time are the ones that are now in the country's imagination. The main character interviews "YiMinja", an enlightened woman who went to Africa and India and studied yoga and meditation, and drinks funny smelling tea. (And the main character says, after meeting her and her remarkable presence, "I now regretted disapproving of her because she had lived abroad.") The other character is Gwon, a man who spent most of his life rotting in prison because of a life sentence. He received it for passing out anti government literature. His two comrades died in prison. Now he seems to rot alone in his home with his brother, forgotten by his country because his struggle no longer seems to matter. They've all jumped past it.

But the main character herself seems to want to jump past it. The story takes us back into her life, into the people she lost. She doesn't want to go back to interview Gwon because of his connection to the life of activism that she ran away from--finally just tired of being constantly on the run. There's this continual inner struggle on her desire to honor her past and deal with her guilt, and this desire to turn away from it and accept the enlightened woman who traveled all over and learned of the world's wisdom. The character's inner struggles are fascinating when you look at it from a cultural perspective.

Anyway I totally recommend reading Korean literature for anyone who wants to get a deeper understanding of this place.

Things I want to do in the next five years

+ Go back to Ghana and Volunteer with a community program or orphanage
+ Visit/Volunteer in India
+ Get a TEFL or other equivalent certificate
+ Hold another art show; sell some originals
+ significantly reduce my undergrad debt
+ study Arabic in an Arabic speaking country

Just been popping around the Matador site lately. Also been working on an article about Jeonju for my recruiter's newsletter. I found out that my new co-teachers were  both recruited from the same agency, but they didn't contact me. I think it's kind of weird, since they did put them in touch with each other, and a bunch of other girls that they sent to Daejeon at the same time. I think I've kind of fallen off their radar. Then again, I feel like I've fallen off of all the radar these days.

I had a stressful week but I had a really nice weekend. I'm sitting right now on the patio of a coffee shop, enjoying the sun, which was exactly what I did yesterday. Today, my new friend Amina and I climbed one of the mountains on the other side of the city. I didn't get the name of it, but with Google maps, I found a Gemeori mountain in just about the right place, so I think that's the name of it. It was a really steep hike, full of stairs and constant upward climbing. But it was totally worth it. From the top, we could see all of Daejeon. I could almost find my neighborhood, even though it was on the opposite side of the city.

Daejeon seems so big when you're traveling across it but it's actually quite small. You can see the whole city in one 360 view from this mountain... even with the haze, my neighborhood was just barely disappearing on the other side. Daejeon is a flat space surrounded on all sides by mountains. Gyeryeong, the mountain close to me, had disappeared in the haze, but the apartments close to me were just barely visable over the small hill that separates my neighborhood from the ritzier ones along the river. I could see my grocery store and the river where I ride my bike. It was pretty neat.

Anyway I'm going to focus now on readying more photos for my website, and then I'm going to go home and clean my house something fierce.

Magoksa Temple Stay Festival

Well my exciting Magoksa Temple Stay Festival turned out to be somewhat iffy. It seemed as though things were really poorly planned, especially since my tour group showed up with 2 buses instead of the 1 that they apparently said they were bringing. They were also an hour and a half late, so I sat around with this guy outside the traditional Buddhist Center just chatting for a while. He had decent English, which was nice.

After my group finally arrived, we registered in an enormously complicated (yet it shouldn't have been) process, and then went to eat lunch, which was delicious. Then we headed off to the temple, where the monks were doing a drumming competition. That was pretty fantastic. The monks were dressed in gorgeous clothes and just flew these sticks across this enormous drum, making beautiful, flowing--deep--sounds like the ocean. I loved it.

This guy won the competition and was asked to do an encore. He was great--got me moving, though nobody else was dancing. There were a few ladies next to me that had cute little "go go!" signs for their temple. They didn't win, but their spirit was adorable.

After the competition, there was a demonstration of how to make a relief pressing of some of the beautiful bronze work done on the bell. (You can see it in the back on the right of the photo.) There were news cameras everywhere--documenting the interested foreigners and templestay activities--and then they got just about everybody to help make this relief. He used water and a brush to slap wet paper over the carving, and when it was finished, it should stand up alone.

I helped! Anyway it was pretty neat but I got bored after a little while, and wandered over to the other festivities, like making pancakes and other things. As a group, we went on a hike up to the crest of a mountain to see a place where people were buried--apparently because if you buried your parents there, your children would become kings and queens. I had a fascinating talk with a student from Mexico, getting all into the topics of religion and that. Felt great to dust the cobwebs off of that part of my brain.

Then we had some weird things happen... after dinner we had a show, which I was expecting to be monk martial arts and all that, but as it turned out it was only one performance of monk martial arts, and a lot of other performances. There was an amazing taekwondo demonstration crew, and a group who played seriously loud and raucous traditional music. Then it turned into this weird talent show.... and it was really boring, and frustrating, because the announcer wouldn't let the interpreter speak. Fail.

Anyway the next day was full of nice stuff... we had a meditation practice and a talk with an English speaking monk, who actually lives close to me. He was from either the USA or Canada... not sure. Then there was a Lithuanian monk who was also really cool. It's nice to see foreigners integrated into the society here.

After lunch, the Seoul group took off, and I just wandered around the temple complex for a while. I was having a real... frustrated with Korea day. I didn't blog about this for a long time because I was really excited for it, and it got really... frustrating.  That was just a real bummer.

People told me that Month Seven is really difficult because you just get tired of all the crap that you brushed off for the previous six months. And I totally agree. They say it was the hardest... I don't really agree with that, because I thought Month Three was much harder, but I am definitely just TIRED of this crap.

But I had a really excellent lunch with some people I know are going to be good friends, so I am looking forward to continuing those relationships. And I'm still drawing my story... one little piece at a time.

My little ones are the reason I come to work.

They are just absolutely adorable. Brand new kids, with innocent little hearts, adorable little faces, and strange behavior.

The new students at my hagwon are ALL my students. We have two foreign teachers here, but my coworker wasn't given any of the new students. There could be plenty of reasons why, but I think my boss just thought that--on top of everything--they'd want to see a female teacher first. So I have four brand new classes and they are just the cutest things ever.

In my Tuesday-Thursday, I have a little girl (who has changed her name like 4 times) who is madly in love with the boy that sits behind her. She drives me NUTS with her constant pestering of him. When she raises her hand, she also just makes random sing-songy noises that are dual part hysterical and dual part obnoxious. She's always kind of gnawing with her voice... and when she's not doing that, she's up bothering the little boy--trying to steal his stuff.

The other hysterical little boy in this class is probably the ugliest child I've EVER seen. He's not going to stay ugly--but right now, he's got it baaad. His eye sockets are too big for his eyeballs. So his skin is stretched out over them like he's some kind of all-natural batman. And he's got the snotty breath like that awkward kid on Hey Arnold. And he just stands there and STARES. With this "durrrr" look on his face. One time I was grading homework, and my door was open... and then I turned around, and THERE HE WAS, just "durrrrr" staring at me. And then he just said "Maaayyyyygeeee." And I just about DIED. Soooo funny.

In my other class, on Wednesday and Friday, I have a bunch of kindergartners. They're tiny little buggers, and they're so energetic. They make me so happy, even though they also frustrated me, but their hour is probably my favorite hour, because they just giggle at every stupid thing I do. It's so much easier to entertain them, haha. And they're all missing teeth, giving me hugs, and doing adorable stuff. If I came back here, I think I would try to land a kindergarten job. They just make me so happy. It's exhausting, but I feel like it's worth it with them, because I really CAN see improvement, because they start with NOTHING.

Anyway... that's my rant about my kids recently. I've been working personally on some drawing. I got this idea to actually "draw" a book; to take one of my short stories and put it into pictures. Currently it's going quite well, but I'm only on the first page, harhar. This weekend I'm staying in town, and I'm hopefully going to find a place where I can do some scanning. Hopefully. I'll check the PC rooms around this area.

Some things this weekend.

Well I had a pretty uneventful week. My Ghanaian friend came back into town, but I missed him--it appears as though the Daejeon auto companies don't have a lot of good stuff this time around, so he headed up to Incheon before I had enough time to meet up with him. Bummer. Been making an effort to get out in the morning, but this morning my goal is to clean my house, because I'll be gone all weekend at a monk festival! Yeeeeahh!!

Anyway, we have a new teacher here. Alex is at the end of his contract and so the new girl is here. She's from South Africa and she looks like a lot of fun. I haven't actually hung out with her except with our bosses, but she's interesting and kind, so I think we'll get along.

This weekend I hit up Seoul and hung out with Stephanie, which was definitely what I needed. I spent a lot of money, but it was a well worth it trip. First I met up with the TeachESLKorea folks and met some people who had been placed by my recruiter. They were all really fun and intelligent, and had some really interesting stories. I met one guy who was working in a technical High School--you know, for non-college bound students. This sounds like an amazing job! Sometimes I just wish I got a chance to touch kids who weren't privileged.  But I think my hagwon sits in the middle of the economic world here, so I'm usually pretty happy with the students.

The real kicker was Sunday, though, because on Sunday I went to the Heritage Mass Choir concert. It's every month in this church in a really hip area of town, seemed like a lot of young worldly minded people. (There was even a sincere jazz club in the area!) The Heritage Choir is a gospel choir in Korean--and you'd think that would be kind of dorky, but these people can BELT this music. I was so impressed. And I had so much fun. It was really uplifting--even though I did cry the ENTIRE time--it was just so amazing to see so much passion in the music, and feel so connected. After I managed to stop balling, I started to follow along with the songs (church songs are simple for a reason, in any language). They had the words posted on the screen above the choir, and the audience was encouraged to sing along. So we did. In Korean. It didn't strike me until later that I was reading a completely different language, and SINGING--doing something pretty familiar to me throughout my youth, but in an Asian country, in an Asian language. That moment kind of renewed my faith in life, and religion, and interfaith/interculture--everything.

The best part of the thing, though, was the sermon. Recently I'd been frustrated because some English speaker was leaving letters on my door saying "Please come celebrate Jesus's death with me." Or something--commemorate the death, I think were the exact words. Anyway I was so not ready to go and be all excited about death and violence and suffering. Ask me to celebrate Jesus' life, and I'll be happy to do so, but ask me to celebrate his DEATH, and condone suffering and violence, and then I get a little testy. Since that was barely the point of the majority of the gospel anyway. Sure he died. But then he came back--and truthfully, that's more of the miracle, right?

Okay religious rant aside, I was going feeling a little testy towards Korean church. I hadn't been able to find a church where the preacher made me feel inspired. In fact I felt more inspired by the speeches that characters on Grey's Anatomy gave. But this sermon at the church was NOT a message of suffering and death--it was a message of hope. It was about giving and finding hope, and always spreading hope, and being witnesses to the hope of new life through Jesus's LIFE. And hearing a positive Christian message really just made me so happy. (I know all this because one of the women in the choir was bilingual and was providing translation services to the foreigners sitting in the corner.)

On the whole it was an amazingly uplifting experience. I recommend it to anyone in Korea who has an ounce of musical appreciation or religious appreciation. The next one is on May 2. It's Dongsoong Church at Hyehwa Station. (It's up a hill a ways on the left of Exit 2, I believe.)