If a Tree Falls in a School With No Students, Does It Make a Sound?

I think I might be going crazy. I was under the impression that a week of doing absolutely nothing and getting paid for it would be so much better than another week of doing things and getting paid the same amount. And it is. I have energy to spare, my voice no longer sounds like a chainsaw cutting through a petrified forest, and we’re getting real food from restaurants instead of lukewarm fried squid and watery soup. This is pretty awesome. But it’s doing nothing for my sense of self-worth.

Don’t get me wrong, I can handle plenty of time doing useless work, like writing this blog, and getting paid for it. But there came a time when I started to feel like maybe I’m living some sort of weird double life. For almost a week now I’ve done nothing in the day but sit at a desk and pretend to be working. Sometimes I’ve even done real work, like finally finishing assembling students’ nametags or planning for the parents’ lesson I had to teach today.

But for the most part I’ve been reading the news, trolling Facebook for juicy gossip (did you know that Zac, who signed onto the lease in Minnesota instead of me, stayed up until 2 AM last night? I know, crazy!), and growing a beard by virtue of being too lazy to shave certain parts of my face. And then sometimes I go out at night and do really cool stuff, like going to a Nintendo Room (a magical land where you drink beer, play Wii, and sit on thirty pillows), a wine tasting, or a shady slum filled with brothels and stores packed with (most likely) stolen electronics. These things are all new to me, and therefore exciting and invigorating. And then there was last night, when I cuddled with my floor chair and watched two episodes of the popular television show Angel. That’s right, Angel. In this way, I feel like maybe I’m turning into a really lame version of Batman. By day, I am a (relatively) mild-mannered English teacher/internet addict/blog writer, but when I manage to get out, I am an adventurous spirit of adventure and also punching, striking out into the night to take revenge on all sad stereotypes of nerdy twentysomethings who live alone and watch Angel. Really, I even punched some stuff last Saturday. Just because it was an actual punching bag doesn’t make it any less relevant.

Yeah, something like this. 

I’m living in a foreign land, learning a new language, eating a new food almost every day, and generally having a blast. But this week, sitting in the mostly-empty office with little to no work to do, something is definitely missing. I think the void I’m talking about is the same one that took root in my soul while I was working at Mall of America for the better part of a year: meaningful, fulfilling work. Is it weird to say that I actually… miss teaching just a little? Oh, well. Next week, then. At least I still have Angel’s chiseled biceps to hold me when I get home tonight.

Microwave Day: A Living Nightmare

“Surprise!” is what Sookhee should have said when informing me of my school’s testing schedule. This week has already seen some effects of the rigorous testing of students, from a mildly rearranged schedule to the cancellation of some of my classes. As of the end of the day on Tuesday, I’ve taught four classes this week. Friday, I have no classes, but I do have a teacher outing that involves climbing a mountain. Next week, I have no classes at all. All week. But I do still have to go to work.

All this is to say that while surprises keep coming, my job is still treating me very well. Payday number two is on the horizon, I’ve been invited to play some sort of combination of volleyball and soccer with the other male teachers, and my school even bought me a microwave, which I didn’t deem necessary until around the fifth time I was reheating leftovers on the stove. Which leads me to the reason for this post. As if I haven’t already made myself out to be a buffoon, a klutz, and possibly a drunk here on EMA, I will now willingly hand even more ammunition to you, dear readers, in the form of Jake’s Most Embarrassing Moment In Korea So Far: Microwave Day.

But first, cherry blossoms!

Hooray! Aren’t they pretty?

Anyways, now that that’s done, I suppose I can tell you about the ungodly horror of Microwave Day. This story actually begins a few months ago when, as I was searching for what to pack for my journey to Korea, I came across some jeans that can only be described as “very old”. So old, in fact, that I’m not sure I’d seen them since high school. But they fit, and quite well, too. So I took these ancient tubes of denim with me to Korea thinking I’d just saved money by not having to buy another pair of jeans.

So on Microwave Day, the day that my school (perhaps unwisely) handed me its credit card to purchase a device with which to reheat my leftovers and make popcorn, I was wearing these jeans. I walked to Lotte Mart, which is sort of like a less depressing Korean version of Wal-Mart; it’s about a ten minute stroll. I was thinking that even if the microwave was heavy, it wouldn’t be too big, so I could lug it back to my apartment no problem, right? Right. Mostly.

See, as I got out of Lotte Mart, I decided to set the microwave down on the ground to rearrange myself and get a better grip on it. So as I bent down to pick it back up, guess what I heard? That’s right – the heart-stopping scream of tearing denim. Riiiiiiip. And this was not a small, nobody-will-notice-it tear. This was more of a deafcon five, let’s-just-put-up-a-windmill-to-catch-this-draft kind of tear. This was pants Armageddon, and I was just starting my journey home.

Naturally, I hitched up my pants and swung my stylish leather man-purse over my ass in an attempt to cover up the hole, picked the microwave back up, and did my best to amble on home like I didn’t know anything was wrong. All was going swimmingly until I heard the three words I was dreading the most:

“Hello, Mr. Dischee!”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. In the span of no more than one minute, Microwave Day had gone from a joyous celebration of cooking at the atomic level, to an embarrassing little anecdote, to an incredibly low watermark in my dignity. In fact, the water of my dignity was so low that I’m pretty sure the whole pool was drained.

“Hello,” I muttered back to the group of no fewer than four girls, who were leaning against the Lotte Mart wall eating ice cream.

“Where are you going, teacher?” one of them asked.

Great, I thought, conversation. Awesome. This will go well. “I am going home,” I said.

At this point I was passing the group, but taking great pains not to turn my back to them. This led them to think that I had more to say, so they watched me expectantly as I backed up as quickly as I could.

“You are hurry!” another one of the girls said.

“Yes, this is very heavy,” I said, hoisting the instrument of my doom to demonstrate that it was indeed quite heavy.

“Ah, heavy!”

“Yes. Goodbye!” I said, then turned sideways, still not showing them my full back, and scuttled off down the sidewalk like some sort of giant ungainly crab.

When I was about a block away from the students I stole a glance back in their direction. They were still there, eating their ice cream in silence and watching me. I’m pretty sure they were watching me simply because I was walking funny, so after checking to make sure that my bag was still in place over the gash in my pants, I bravely turned my back and walked like a normal human being. I prayed that I had managed to wear boxers that day that were roughly the same color as my jeans.

Three blocks from Lotte Mart there’s a stoplight. I figured if I could make it across the street I could take the back road home and minimize the risk of running into any more students. The thing is, stoplights in this country are notoriously slow. All lights are timed, and they seem to take anywhere from two minutes to an eternity to change. Today, this particular light took an eternity.

I leaned against the post and looked back over my shoulder. Guess what I saw? If you guessed more students, congratulations, you win a prize. Three this time, only a block and a half off and coming my way, with the light showing no signs of changing. I glared at the little red man on the sign across the street, willing him to turn green so I could try to outrun the students. For some reason the theme from Jaws started playing in my head.

I looked back. They were only a half block away now. I had no choice but to turn around and face them or risk, shall we say, exposure.

I saw one of the students gasp and nudge the student next to her. This is a common occurrence when I am spotted in town – the kids always seem shocked that I can exist in any other place but school. All three of them waved in unison.

“Hello, teacher!” they shouted happily.

“Hello,” I said.

“Nice to meet you!”

Usually I would correct this mistake, but at this point I was in no mood. I just sighed and said, “Yeah.”

“Where are you going?”

“Home.”

“You live where?”

I gestured vaguely in the direction of my neighborhood and said, “Over there.”

By this point the students were right next to me. After turning to face them I now found myself standing in a little circle, students staring expectantly up at me. And this time, I had nowhere to go. Instead, I shifted on my feet and fiddled with the strap on my bag and made a concerted effort not to make eye contact with any of them.

When they all walked away quite suddenly (shouting, “Goodbye, teacher!”) I realized that the light had finally changed. The students were walking ahead of me now, which was obviously far preferable to the alternative. I checked once more to make sure my man-purse was covering up the disaster area, reasserted my grip on the microwave, and carried on home.

The rest of the journey was fairly uneventful. There were no more groups of students, no more pauses for awkward conversation. I just hurried back to my apartment hoping that no one who worked at the school would pass by and try to stop me. When I got home I discovered I had been wearing my Green Bay Packers boxers that day, so the team may have gotten a little free advertising in Korea.

Anyways, there are three things I learned from this whole experience:

3. A man-purse is good for more than just carrying books and an iPod. Never be without one.

2. Your jeans are not as rugged as you think they are.

1. Never go commando. It’s just not worth it.

That’s all for today, readers. I hope you have enjoyed my shame.

I’m a Seoul Man: The First Trip Out of Daejeon

Welcome back, loyal readers. I apologize yet again for the long lapse between updates, but by this point, you have already heard variations on many of the things I’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks. Teaching, hanging out, running English Drama Club, being confused by my lack of Korean skills, and so forth. I did go on an impromptu bike ride on some free public bikes, though. That was fun. But this post is about my very first exploratory excursion outside of Daejeon: to the Demilitarized Zone and the wonderful metropolis of Seoul. I warn you, this one gets a little lengthy and a lot ridiculous.
I suppose you may need a little background on the Demilitarized Zone, so here goes. After the Korean War, a Military Line of Demarcation was drawn, breaking the Korean peninsula in half. In the northern half, the Chinese and the Soviets supported the communist regime of the Eternal President Kim, Il-Sung. In the southern half, the United States supported a democratic system. To ensure a minimum of incidents, a buffer of two kilometers was instituted on either side of the Line of Demarcation. This is the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, and it is about as close as you can get to North Korea without actually going there.
The DMZ is a very interesting, but very odd place. Can you think of another place in the world that symbolizes so much suffering and loss of life, yet features not only frequent bus tours, but an amusement park at the place the buses leave from? The air is thick with tragedy, especially near Freedom Bridge, where fences are lined with bows and flowers and pictures of long-lost loved ones and a bombed-out, bullet hole-studded locomotive stands silent guard. Yet there are colorful cartoon characters adorning walls and even a slightly whimsical piece of sculpture formed from the letters DMZ.

Odd, indeed. The two ladies in the picture with me are Ah Young, who helps me struggle through Korean lessons every Saturday at Talkholic, and Melissa, a friend I met through Ah Young. They invited me on their journey with them… or did I invite myself? It’s hard to remember. Anyways, the highlight of the DMZ is a horribly claustrophobic little tunnel that runs about 70 meters underground. This was discovered in the early ‘70’s and was an apparent attempt by North Korea to tunnel under the DMZ and invade South Korea. Now, though, it’s filled with chattering tourists. It’s a long trek to the bottom (and longer to get back up) but the experience of mucking through an invasion tunnel built to accommodate much shorter men than I is one I certainly won’t soon forget. And my calves still remember racing Ah Young back to the top… ow. We did not, unfortunately, get to the Joint Security Area (see blog post #2); that will be an adventure for another day.

From the DMZ we went for a brief excursion to Heyri Art Village, a magical little land where trees grow through walls and giant purple see-through teddy bears stand ready to be hugged… or punched. This is a place that demands a day rather than an hour, but it bears mentioning (see what I did there?).

After Heyri, it was bibimbap time. Bibimbap, for those uninitiated in its simple joys, is basically a Korean salad with rice, vegetables, and chili paste. And it is supremely tasty. After bibimbap, it was Seoul time. Specifically, Hongdae, a massive student/party zone filled with shiny lights and unintended non sequiturs on English language signage. We parked in the parking garage of one of the giant apartment complexes that litter the landscape here – Ah Young’s friend gave us the express permission to use his building’s garage – and drank DMZ makggeoli (a delicious, sweet, milky rice wine, pronounced MACK-go-lee) as we trekked to the subway. This particular makggeoli is rather famous, in fact: it is so good that Kim, Jong-il has it specially imported for his own consumption. I must say, the man does have good taste in makggeoli. On the subway, we bade goodbye to friends Danielle and Daniella, who accompanied us to the DMZ but were too tired to continue the journey. We arrived at the Hongik University subway stop, where I’ll begin my writing exercise for this post, entitled:

***

BRIGHT LIGHTS BIG CITY, OR BOOZE BRINGS US TOGETHER

***WARNING WARNING Events in this story have been retooled to streamline the narrative. As a result, we come off as raging alcoholics with no place in civilized society. Sorry about that. No names have been changed, as no one involved herein is an innocent. Leastways, not anymore.  END WARNING YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED***

I take a huge swig of the stuff.

“I must take a picture! White people drinking makggeoli in the street!” Ah Young says.

“Is that… not normal?” I ask.

“Korean people don’t even drink it in the street,” she says.

“They do now.” I hand her the bottle, still open.

“Makggeoli stop!” she says, then stops cold while we keep walking, Melissa and I, for a few seconds before noticing.

We are in Seoul. It’s my first time in this particular city, and we’re strolling through Hongdae in search of… something. Going to a jazz bar has been discussed, and there are many to choose from. But for right now, staring at the garish lights and amazingly blunt signs (SEXY PARTY! proclaims a banner suspended precariously over a crowded street) while guzzling milky rice wine from a 7-Eleven is more than enough.

“I think we need more,” Melissa says, giving a disapproving look at the empty bottle, our third of the night. “I’m not feeling it yet.”

“I am,” I say, no doubt looking like a fool, what with the perpetual grin of the tipsy plastered on my face.

“I know,” she says.

Our goal is, as near as I can tell, this: to find a place or two to bunker down and drink something while listening to music, dancing to music, or both. But we are in no hurry: none of us have been to Hongdae before, and it is infamous for its party atmosphere. Tonight, one of the first truly warm nights of the young spring, Hongdae is hopping.

“Makggeoli man!” Ah Young exclaims, pointing out a man pushing a rickshaw through a crowd of revelers waiting at a cocktail pickup window. The bar is selling cocktails in what appear to be colostomy bags to folks on the street. I’m reminded of Capri Sun, the juice I used to bring for my lunch in middle school.

Ah Young runs up to the man with the rickshaw, which is laden with extra large bottles of makggeoli, and starts speaking rapidly in Korean. I pick up numbers at this point, and that’s about it, but the Makggeoli Man tells Ah Young that, for us, it will only be three thousand won for two massive bottles. A steal. Ah Young tells us it’s because he likes us, and I wonder how we made such a good impression so quickly.

We wade through the line of people waiting for their colostomy cocktails and notice that the man gave us about fifteen Dixie cups in our bag with the bottles. A luxury, after swigging straight out of the bottles all night, though we wonder why he did this for a second before it hits me.

“We have to share!” I say.

I grab the cups and fill one up for myself. Then I hold the cups up and shout “Anyone want some makgeolli?”

This is the way to make friends on the streets of Hongdae. Almost immediately a group of three Australian girls waves us over.

“We need a drink!” One of them says. "I feel like we’ve been waiting here for hours.” I look at the line behind them, and how far they have to go, and conclude that she may not be too far off. Apparently cocktails in a bag are just that good.

I distribute the cups and Melissa pours for the three girls, who thank us pleasantly, while Ah Young tells them that we are from Daejeon and visiting for the weekend and it is our first time in Hongdae. Names are introduced in a blur; everyone knows we’re not expected to remember. After one or two more Dixie cups are filled with rice wine and made empty again, we bid goodbye. One of the girls tells us that they were just starting to get desperate for a drink when we showed up out of nowhere, and calls us her Magical Makgeolli Mates. Fifteen minutes later, after a stop off at a food stall for some noodles and deep-fried Korean pancake, we see them again and she waves us over with the same moniker. We fill their cups one more time before wandering off into the night.

We eventually settle on a place called the Gorilla Bar, a very sweaty but very free bar/dance club with sign out front informing us that ALL HORNY PEOPLE are WELCOME. I wonder if people who don’t have much in the way of a sex drive are also welcome. Eunuchs like to dance too, don’t they? The night becomes a blur of thumping bass and temporary friendships formed with smiles, clinking bottles, and a few words drowned out by the K-Pop. In the morning, Ah Young will wake us after four hours of sleep, chipper and ready to go, and I will fall face first off the top bunk in our hostel room and lie shirtless on the floor, contemplating the virtues of going back to sleep on the cold hardwood.

It was totally worth it.

***

Ridiculous, I know, but it’s probably more fun than reading a fictionalized account of the DMZ tour, or anything from the slow, sleepy Sunday we had. Speaking of Sunday, it involved a trip to Itaewon for a halfway decent hamburger (or veggie burger, in Ah Young’s case), some new shades for yours truly and an excursion to Deoksugang, a palace near the heart of Seoul with the National Museum of Art inside it. The palace was gorgeous and much of the art exhibit quite beautiful, too, but even thinking about it makes my eyelids start to droop in anticipation of sleep. After a day of forcing ourselves into having high spirits and pretending we had energy, we drove back to Daejeon, tired and sore and satisfied.

This is pretty much the kind of experience I wanted to have while I was in Korea. New friends, new places, and adventures ranging from the well-planned (DMZ) to the ill-advised (obviously…). The travel bug is back; it’s crawled under my skin, laid its gloriously restless little eggs, and they’re beginning to hatch. And I can’t wait for more…