Hello. My name is Jake. With no jobs to spare for liberal arts graduates back in the homeland, I've packed up and moved to the South Korean city of Daejeon to teach English. What follows are the often profane ramblings of a disgruntled ex-pat.
It’s been a long time since I’ve written a blog post. There are a number of reasons, the biggest being that I’m really lazy and those shitty cartoons take a lot longer than you’d think. But this blog was started to document my time in South Korea, and that time has been up since March. A lot has happened since then, but I’m not going to try to fill you in. I’ve got one last story to tell, and it leads right into my current situation.
Last year around this time, I was in the thick of applying for graduate school. With the Korea money coming in thick and fast, I decided to burn as much of it as possible by going for an MFA in screenwriting. I applied to a number of schools, but this story starts when I was offered an interview with Northwestern’s Writing for the Screen and Stage program.
It was my number one choice, so I was naturally elated that they wanted to talk to me. The interview itself was an unqualified disaster from the get go, when my webcam refused to let the professors see me, even though I’d ditched my balding sasquatch look in favor of shaving and combing my hair and wearing pants. A few really terrible attempts at humor later, my interview was over, and I’d thrown away the chance to go deep into debt in pursuit of my dream of being a soulless Hollywood hack.
Five days later, I was waiting at a bus stop, coming home from a nerd-out session at my buddy’s apartment. Bus stops in Korea almost all have a built-in wi-fi hotspot, because hanging out with your laptop at the bus stop is the cool and safe thing to do, so I checked my email on my iPod and saw I had one from a Northwestern address.
“Five days,” I thought. “They must have really hated me to reject me that fast.” Resigned, I opened the email and started to read.
“Dear Jake,” it said. “I am excited to offer you a spot in our 2012 MFA in Writing for Screen and Stage program.”
“Oh well,” I thought. “That’s that, back to the drawing boar- WHAT?!”
I read it again. And again. My heart started to race, and I felt some weird kind of energy boiling up inside me with nowhere to go. I had two options standing at this crowded bus stop surrounded by stoic Korean men: primal scream, or some intense physical reaction of equal energy expenditure. I chose the latter, and took off sprinting for about a block before jumping up and down like an American who’s just heard Osama Bin Laden died, much to the bemusement of my Korean bus-waiting audience.
I am going to get this bit of Korean profanity into the American lexicon if it kills me.
And now, after a spring working to set up Old Lady Comic Con at a sewing shop back home and a summer on the East Coast leading discussions and UN simulation with the young international policy leaders of tomorrow because that’s something I’m totally qualified to do, I’m here in Evanston. Living the dream of spending all my money and working until my brain runs out of think.
This might very well be the last post here at English Major Away. If it is, I thank you for your readership and support. And in the near future, I’ll be setting up my professional website. I encourage you to check out www.jakedisch.com. Or www.jakedisch.xxx, whichever I ultimately decide upon.
‘Til next time, dear readers?
What, you thought I was kidding about Old Lady Comic Con?
Gaze into the ceaseless horror of the most popular exhibit at the sewing convention.
I’ve been thinking about what to write about my adventures through Cambodia and Kuala Lumpur with my friend Kevin for about two weeks now. I could tell you all about the Khmer Rouge sites, how amazing Angkor Wat is, and why Kuala Lumpur is one of the coolest cities I’ve ever visited. But nobody comes to this website to read my ruminations about tragedy-as-tourism and why the world’s greatest temple complex needs more trash cans. Let’s face it: you’re here for the profanity and crudely-drawn cartoons. And I, dear reader, shall provide.
After our time in Siem Reap, touring Angkor Wat with a delightful bout of explosive diarrhea in tow (not recommended) and being boarded by drink pirates in a Vietnamese floating village (a kid leapt onto our boat brandishing a cooler full of refreshments, then leapt back to his dad’s boat when he saw we had water already), we made our way down to Shihanoukville. Advertised as a beautiful coastal town with pristine beaches, it turned out to be a gaping maw that wanted only to feast on our happiness.
The first sign that something was wrong came while I was on the roof of our guest house on the first day, drinking a beer and finishing up a book. One of the managers came over to my table and struck up a conversation. He pointed over the town at an island rising up out of the distance and said, “See that island?”
“Yes,” I replied, innocently enjoying the view.
“It’s owned by a Russian pedophile gangster.”
A beautiful sunset over the Russian pedo-island.
I choked a little on my afternoon lager as the manager continued.
“That beach you swam at today is owned by the same guy.”
“Excuse me,” I said, pushing my chair away from the table and standing. “I have to go shower again and also throw up.”
But the Shihanoukville fun really started the next day when Kevin and I endeavored to rent scooters and and explore the town and surrounding countryside. Having done this in Pai during my Thailand excursion, I was reasonably confident that I wouldn’t kill myself.
We set out from a guest house on the other side of town, heading for some waterfalls about five miles out of Shihanoukville. We must have been almost there when my bike stopped working. I didn’t realize it at first because the engine didn’t cut; the bike just stopped accelerating and I drifted to the side of the road. Kevin, in an effort to pull up behind me, rear-ended my bike and tipped his. After it was decided that he was okay, we checked out my bike.
Neither of us are what you would call “gearheads”, so we decided it would be for the best to contact the guest house and have them come out and diagnose the problem. Kevin set out in search of a phone and returned a few minutes later having had no success.
“What about the other way?” I asked.
“I’ll try,” he said, and zoomed off down the highway, leaving me in a cloud of dust.
He was gone for over an hour, during which time I became well-acquainted with my surroundings. There was some sort of government building nearby with a single shirtless guard in a guardhouse, eyeing me with a mixture of suspicion and deep amusement. An iguana hung out in some weeds by the side of the path I’d parked on, probably chuckling inwardly at my misfortune. Some trash drifted lazily into the ditch behind me, catching my eye. What looked like a hundred dollar bill covered in mud turned out to be a bad counterfeit printed on computer paper and covered in what seemed to be shit. I instantly regretted touching it.
When Kevin returned some time later, a young Cambodian man was following him on a black bike. They pulled up onto my path and the man approached my derelict scooter. He looked at the ignition, then looked around at the ground, then looked and me and said, “Um.”
At this point it was clear that this guy didn’t speak much in the way of English (I should clarify that almost all Cambodians working in the tourism industry have an excellent grasp of English; this guy was something of an anomaly). I gave him the key. He started the bike and tried to accelerate, with the same results I’d had. Then he switched it off, sat upon it thoughtfully, and wordlessly lit up a cigarette.
We watched him smoke for a few minutes, then the man stood up, pointed to the seat of my scooter, and said, “Sit.”
“But it doesn’t work,” I said.
“Sit,” the man repeated. Then he pointed across the highway. “Go over street.”
I looked at Kevin, who shrugged. “The bike doesn’t work,” I repeated. “Why should I do this?”
The man went to his bike, turned it around, and pushed it across the highway as a demonstration.
“What does he think is going to happen over there?” I asked Kevin. “Is there a magic scooter-regenerating force field on that side of the road?”
“Just follow him and see what happens,” Kevin replied.
I shoved my bike over the highway, where the man again indicated for me to get on. Going with it now, I did so. The man started his bike and placed one boot on the footrest of mine.
“You steer,” he said.
“Oh. Oh. No. No, this is not the best idea,” is what I probably should have said. Instead I said, “Okay.”
The man then proceeded to kick me down the highway at about 50 kilometers per hour. I know because my speedometer worked, even if nothing else did. He would put his boot on my bike, accelerate, then let me go until I started to slow down too much to keep up with the semis and pickup trucks populating the road, then he would give me another boost.
About two-thirds of the way there we hit a huge downward slope and he let me coast the whole way. I did so gladly, relishing the freedom and speed that I had expected to get all day when I first rented the bike. But it ended almost as soon as it finished, and the man kicked me the rest of the way back to the guest house.
I pulled into the parking lot, dismounted, and turned around looking for Kevin. He was nowhere to be seen. I waited about ten minutes before he finally showed up, pushing his bike down the busiest road in Shihanoukville with no one to kick him.
“What happened?” I asked.
“My bike broke down. I hit a bump on that fucking hill, and the engine just stopped.” The manager of the guest house came out to offer us a set of keys to a different bike. “No,” Kevin said. “You keep your deathtrap bikes. We are done with this.”
We finished the day strolling around town and went to sleep that night looking forward to what was sure to be the highlight of our time in Shihanoukville: snorkeling off the many tiny islands dotting the coast.
We boarded a rickety boat the next morning and set off for our first island. As we approached, Kevin and I liberally applied sunscreen we’d bought at a Korean market. We are both very pasty men, clearly not meant for even a partly cloudy day of equatorial sunshine. When we arrived at our first snorkeling spot, our guide gave us a brief warning.
“If you see a rock you want to stand on, that’s okay. But make sure there are no urchins where you want to stand. You will see a few sea urchins, so just be careful not to touch them.”
Seemed fair.
The expectation.
Once we were actually in the water, however, and the floor of the reef came gradually into view as we reached the shallows, the horrible truth was revealed: IT WAS ALL URCHINS.
The reality. Seriously, fuck the ocean.
Everywhere I looked there was nothing but urchins. Clinging to the rocks, the coral, each other, all of them at least the size of a cantaloupe. As I swam, I became aware of a noise in my ears, a sort of snick-snicker-snikt sound that almost sounded like a whisper. And I realized: They were talking to each other. Clicking their horrible needles together in some twisted Morse code, plotting which one would leap from the floor of the reef and impale me in the chest.
Fuck this, I thought to myself. Back to the boat.
The other tourists, Kevin, and I navigated the treacherous urchin sea for several hours that day, and each time we came out of the water we applied still more sunscreen. We should have been absolutely caked with the stuff. So imagine our surprise when Kevin and I arrived back at the hostel and this happened:
Both of us were absolutely burned to a crisp. The rest of our trip would sound something like this:
“Hey, Jake! Ahhh, ow! What do you want to shit! Do today?”
“I dunno, argh! I was thinking maybe we could fuck! I mean, go to the ow! Museum.”
“As long as I rarg! Don’t have to let anyone touch my back.”
And that, dear readers, is why I am planning to murder Korean sunscreen.
That’s what my co-worker said to me yesterday afternoon just after lunch. She followed that up with “Kim Jong Il has died!” She said it so cheerfully that my initial reaction was, “Oh okay.” Followed quickly by, “Wait, what?” I immediately went to my computer, Lincoln, to scrounge up all the breaking details. Naturally, my computer froze.
Lincoln also sucks at rendering the bird.
The reaction here in South Korea has been muted. My vice principal turned on the radio in our office for awhile after lunch yesterday, but other than that nobody’s been talking about it. My Korean tutor, whom I met with yesterday, told me it was the same at her school.
Kim Jong Il was a man who stood at the head of a regime responsible for the deaths of a great many South Koreans over the years, most recently on Yeonpyeong Island last November. Contrast this with the collective national joygasm that happened in America when Osama Bin Laden was killed, and you may start to wonder what the South Koreans know that we don’t.
And it was so.
Maybe its that South Korea has seen this before. When Kim Il Sung died in 1994, his now infamous son took over to rule in his place. It took three years for Kim Jong Il to fully consolidate his power, but even through poverty and famine the government kept its course. I haven’t heard my co-workers or friends utter much about reunification in the last 28 or so hours since Kim’s death was announced. They’ve been through this before, and they know how it ends. We can always hope that this time will be different. This news is still fresh, but South Korea seems to be going about business as usual for now.
I seem to be more interested in talking about it than my co-workers. Maybe it’s just the media hound in me. When bin Laden was killed, the news and celebrations were all over every news outlet. I wanted to talk about it, and my American friends obliged me. Now, though, I want to hear Koreans’ perspectives on what the future holds, but as my Korean tutor told me last night, “They don’t seem to mind much.”
It’s just another example of the culture gap. My country’s greatest enemy dies and college kids riot in the streets. South Korea’s constant antagonist buys the farm, they quietly listen to the radio for a few moments and go back to work. I’m starting to think we Americans may be a little over dramatic.
One of the first things a teacher of the Korean language will teach their bright-eyed new student is how to say the number eighteen. This is not because it’s a terribly important number to know. In real life I hardly ever have to count above ten, which is a fact I tried telling every math teacher I’ve had since I was six. No, a foreigner in Korea must know the number eighteen because it’s useful to be aware of the care that must be taken in pronouncing it correctly: Shib pahl. You see, if you say it wrong, specifically if you say shi pahl, people will think you’re saying something rather rude.
Translation: Is it “fuck”?
Now rest assured, the above scenario did not actually play out in my classroom. Only just about every time I have tried to count above seventeen in Korean. I am considerably luckier than a friend of mine, who found out in a class full of twelve year old girls just how close “Japanese self-defense force” (jawidae) is to “masturbation force” (jawigun).
Just use your imagination, perv.
And then there are the homonyms. For instance, igoseun eum-o iyeyo can mean one of two things. It can mean, “This is a conspiracy,” which might be something you would want to know if you were detained in Incheon International Airport because your beard was too bushy. It can also mean, “This is pubic hair,” in which case the airport security might assume you have glued said lower body hair to your face to supplement your undoubtedly pathetic, patchy attempt at a neckbeard.
Of course, this sort of thing is a pitfall of learning just about any language. A student in one of my classes last year stumbled on the spelling of the word “fishing’” and told the class all about how he spent his summer “fisting at the lake”. But when it comes to Korean, I seem to tumble into this one more often than I really should. For example, in my very first lesson with my new Korean language tutor, I attempted to write a sentence that begins with the Korean ‘I’: cheo neun. I instead managed to write cheo nyeon. So instead of saying “I am American,” I told my now shocked teacher that in fact, “That bitch is American.”
And the writing of it is really the least of my problems. As English speakers, we tend to run our syllables together. That’s just how we talk. Do that in Korean, and you’ll get yourself slapped right quick. Take a different variation on the same problematic word: Geu nyeo neun nae chingu iyaeyo means, “She is my friend.” A lovely way to introduce someone to your Korean pals. Misplace one letter on a single syllable, however: Geu nyeon eun nae chingu iyaeyo, and you will gleefully let your native-speaking friends know that “This bitch is my friend.”
Let's play "Spot the Misplaced Consonant Character!"
When you sign up to learn a language, people talk about expanding your horizons, learning about a different culture, and making friends from around the world. What nobody ever tells you is that you’ll subject yourself to endless humiliation and pants-loading embarrassment every time you actually try to use your new skills. The more I practice using Korean in my day to day life, the more I understand why eighty percent of my students are terrified of speaking English in front of anyone else.
Anyways, below you’ll find the latest update on my dramatic endeavors here in Korea. That’s right, you get two posts for the price of one today! Don’t you feel special? Yes, yes you do. ‘Til next time, dear readers!
That’s right, it finally happened. Just like his character in the popular Saint Paul-based film The Mighty Ducks, I led a ragtag group of kids up against highly trained, more experienced teams. And thanks to my inspiring leadership, we were victorious.
Okay, actually the kids and my co-teacher Seonmi did most of the work. But I’m still quite proud of our middle school’s English drama team. We were the youngest group by far in west Daejeon’s drama final, with four first graders in our cast of nine. Up against teams made entirely of third graders with more English and acting experience, they came out swinging and earned first place overall!
But never has the difference between coaching young actors in the USA versus here in Korea been more stark. This show was for competition, and the judges expect big voices and big motions. They want to be able to understand what the students are saying through their gestures as much as through the words. A big dose of silliness never hurts, either. The result is a whole lot of adorableness with heaping helping of ridiculous sound effects and music cues. Just so you’re aware of what you’re getting into if you choose to click on the video below.
The script is posted below the video. I’d recommend two windows to follow along if you have trouble with the sound quality or the pronunciation (although I think their pronunciation was pretty darn good).
THE REAL HANSEL AND GRETEL
(The play starts in Mother’s house. HANSEL and GRETEL are playing computer games. Firing guns and other game noises can be heard. The FAIRY GODMOTHER is standing stage right.)
FAIRY GODMOTHER
Hello, everyone! Now, I bet you think you already know the story of Hansel and Gretel. You know, the two children who run away into the woods and meet a wicked witch who wants to eat them? Well, you see, that story’s not really how it all went.
Today, I am going to tell you the true story of Hansel and Gretel. And, like any good story, it begins with, “Once upon a time…”
(The Fairy Godmother steps out of the way as MOTHER enters from stage left.)
HANSEL
That’s stupid! I killed you first!
GRETEL
No way, I killed you first!
HANSEL
Nuh uhhh!
MOTHER
Hansel! Gretel! It’s time for your chores!
GRETEL
Chores? But it’s Saturday!
MOTHER
And you have to help around the house! It’ll only take an hour.
HANSEL
A whole hour? No way.
MOTHER
And don’t forget, you need to finish your homework before you go to bed so we can visit Grandma tomorrow.
GRETEL
Homework? But it’s Saturdaaay!
MOTHER
So put the games down and get to work.
(Hansel and Gretel ignore Mother.)
GRETEL
Oh, I got you again!
HANSEL
You’re the worst!
GRETEL
No, you’re the worst!
(Mother mimes pulling out the plug for the TV.)
HANSEL & GRETEL
Moooooooooom!
MOTHER
Get to work, kids!
(Mother exits. Fairy Godmother stops the action with her magic wand.)
FAIRY GODMOTHER
Hansel and Gretel were less than happy with Mother for this. Of course they were! What kind of parent asks their child nicely to do work on a perfectly good Saturday? So they came up with a plan for revenge!
(Fairy Godmother starts the action again.)
GRETEL
I have an idea.
HANSEL
Me too!
GRETEL
Let’s say it at the same time!
HANSEL & GRETEL
One, two, three! We should run away! Hey! That’s just what I was thinking!
HANSEL
Where should we go?
GRETEL
How about the forest?
HANSEL
The scary haunted forest with the wolves and witches?
GRETEL
Yeah, they’ll never think to look for us there! We can play all Saturday long!
HANSEL
Good thinking, sis!
(Fairy Godmother freezes the action again.)
FAIRY GODMOTHER
Boy, Hansel and Gretel sure are smart, aren’t they? They packed up a lunch of sandwiches and pop and made for the forest. The scary one with all the wolves and witches…
(Scene change. We are in a forest now, with a large bush to hide behind. Hansel is eating his sandwich, and Gretel carries a picnic basket.)
GRETEL
Hansel, save that for later! You’ll be hungry if you don’t!
HANSEL
But I’m hungry now.
GRETEL
We left five minutes ago!
(A scary growling noise is heard from behind the bush.)
HANSEL
What was that?
GRETEL
It sounded like…
(THE BIG BAD WOLF leaps out from behind a bush. He is small, and looks very nice.)
HANSEL & GRETEL
A WOLF!!!
(They run screaming.)
BIG BAD WOLF
Hey, wait! Wait!
(Hansel stops running and looks back at the Wolf.)
GRETEL
It’s a trick! The Big Bad Wolf will eat us up!
BIG BAD WOLF
What? No I won’t! I just smelled your sandwich.
HANSEL
Get away from us you beast!
BIG BAD WOLF
No, really! I’m super-hungry. Is that peanut butter and jelly?
(Big Bad Wolf reaches for the sandwich.)
HANSEL
Hey! Hands off!
GRETEL
Come on, Hansel! Wolves are dangerous. We shouldn’t stick around.
BIG BAD WOLF
I’m not dangerous. Who told you that?
GRETEL
Everyone knows that. Wolves eat people all the time. Haven’t you ever heard of Little Red Riding Hood?
BIG BAD WOLF
That whole story was a lie! I did dress like an old lady, but it was Halloween and I did not eat anybody!
HANSEL
What about the Three Little Pigs?
BIG BAD WOLF
I know those pigs. They’re nothing but bullies.
GRETEL
Huh?
BIG BAD WOLF
They’re the ones that ran around telling everyone I was big and bad. They were making fun of me because I’m small. And I don’t even eat pork! I’m a vegetarian!
HANSEL
That’s not very nice of them.
BIG BAD WOLF
It wasn’t very nice of you to run away from me.
HANSEL
Sorry. Here, you want the rest of my sandwich?
BIG BAD WOLF
Yeah, thanks!
(Hansel gives the Wolf his sandwich, who eats it while making growling Wolf noises.)
GRETEL
Hansel! What if you get hungry later?
HANSEL
We can share your sandwich.
GRETEL
I’m not sharing. Come on, Hansel, let’s get out of here.
BIG BAD WOLF
Hey, if you see those three little pigs, could you tell them you saw me? And that I’m a pretty nice guy?
GRETEL
Sure, whatever.
(Fairy Godmother freezes the action again.)
FAIRY GODMOTHER
So Hansel and Gretel narrowly escaped from being supper for the Big Bad Wolf.
BIG BAD WOLF
(Still eating the sandwich.)
That’s not very nice, you know!
FAIRY GODMOTHER
Quiet, you! I’m telling the story. Hansel and Gretel continued their adventure in the forest, and soon came across some very interesting houses…
(Hansel and Gretel exit. The 3 LITTLE PIGS enter with their houses, and Hansel and Gretel enter after them.)
HANSEL
Hey, we should see if there’s anyone inside. I’m hungry.
GRETEL
I told you, you shouldn’t have shared your sandwich with the wolf.
(Hansel goes to the first little houseand knocks.)
LITTLE PIG 1
Who is it?
HANSEL
It’s Hansel! I was wondering if you had any food.
LITTLE PIG 1
I do have food.
HANSEL
Could I have a bite?
LITTLE PIG 1
Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!
(LITTLE PIG 1 reaches out of her house and high-fives LITTLE PIG 2 in her house next door. Hansel goes to the next house.)
HANSEL
Hello?
LITTLE PIG 2
What do you want?
HANSEL
I’m just a little hungry. Can I come in?
LITTLE PIG 2
Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!
(All three pigs laugh and high-five each other.)
GRETEL
You know, you guys aren’t very nice.
HANSEL
Yeah, the wolf was right about you!
LITTLE PIG 1
The wolf?
LITTLE PIG 2
The big wolf?
LITTLE PIG 3
The big bad wolf?
(The pigs laugh again.)
HANSEL
I guess so. But he’s not very big, and he was really nice!
LITTLE PIG 2
It’s no way for a wolf to behave!
LITTLE PIG 3
He’s more afraid of us than we are of him!
(The pigs laugh again.)
GRETEL
Maybe it’s because of how mean you are.
HANSEL
Yeah, if you were nicer maybe you’d have more friends.
LITTLE PIG 2
And how many friends do you children have?
LITTLE PIG 1
Not many, I bet!
GRETEL
That’s not true. We have friends. Like… um… Hansel?
HANSEL
Errrr…
LITTLE PIG 2
Not so great yourselves are you?
HANSEL
Maybe not. We were pretty mean to Mom before, Gretel.
GRETEL
Yeah, maybe.
LITTLE PIG 2
Well, isn’t this touching?
LITTLE PIG 3
Heartwarming!
LITTLE PIG 1
Adorable!
(The pigs all laugh again.)
HANSEL
Laugh if you want, but what happens when a real Big Bad Wolf comes?
GRETEL
Maybe then you’ll wish you’d been nicer, so you’d have friends to help you.
LITTLE PIG 2
Hmm…
LITTLE PIG 1
I think they might be right.
LITTLE PIG 3
Maybe we should apologize to the Wolf.
LITTLE PIG 2
Maybe so.
(The Fairy Godmother steps forward as the Pigs move their houses offstage.)
FAIRY GODMOTHER
Thanks to the adorable children, Hansel and Gretel, the Three Little Pigs were soon the best of friends with the Big Bad Wolf. Meanwhile, Hansel and Gretel tried to find their way home to their mother, but soon found that they were lost, deep in the forest…
GRETEL
If you hadn’t eaten your whole sandwich we could have left pieces of it to help us get home!
HANSEL
It’s not my fault! It was your idea to come into the forest.
(Hansel grabs his stomach.)
I’m so hungry.
FAIRY GODMOTHER
Just then, they came upon a very strange sight. It was another house, but this one was made of candy! And cookies! And sweets!
(The WICKED WITCH’S house comes onstage, carried by the witch.)
HANSEL
Gretel, do you see that? Or am I going crazy?
GRETEL
It’s a house made of candy!
(Hansel runs to the house and starts pulling pieces of it off and eating them.)
GRETEL
Hansel, wait! Maybe we shouldn’t eat the house. What if someone lives there?
HANSEL
Candy is for eating, Gretel. If they didn’t want me to eat their house, they wouldn’t have made it out of candy.
GRETEL
Good point.
(Gretel joins her brother and they both start eating the candy off the house.)
FAIRY GODMOTHER
The hungry children were so grateful for the food that they didn’t even notice the mean, wicked, ugly old witch come out of her house!
(The WICKED WITCH comes out from behind the house and watches the children.)
WICKED WITCH
Hello there, little children.
(Hansel and Gretel turn around, see the witch, and wave. Their mouths are too full to speak.)
WICKED WITCH
What are you doing way out here in the forest?
(Hansel and Gretel shrug.)
WICKED WITCH
You must be so hungry!
(Hansel and Gretel nod.)
WICKED WITCH
And tired!
(Hansel and Gretel nod.)
WICKED WITCH
Come inside! You can rest and I will cook something for you.
(Hansel and Gretel high five. The witch goes into the house.)
GRETEL
Should we go? It might be dangerous.
HANSEL
She has a candy house in the middle of the woods! What could possibly be dangerous about that?
GRETEL
Again, good point.
(Hansel and Gretel follow the Wicked Witch.)
FAIRY GODMOTHER
Meanwhile, the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad, mean, scary old wolf had apologized to each other and made friends.
(Music. The Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf all enter together, dancing around like the best of friends.Suddenly, the Wolf stops everything.)
BIG BAD WOLF
Stop!
LITTLE PIG 1
Why?
LITTLE PIG 2
What is it?
BIG BAD WOLF
Those two children! I can smell them! And they’re heading for… the Wicked Witch’s house!
(The Three Little Pigs all gasp.)
LITLE PIG 3
Not… the Wicked Witch!
BIG BAD WOLF
Yes… the Wicked Witch!
LITTLE PIG 2
Oh no!
BIG BAD WOLF
We have to help them!
LITTLE PIG 1
I’m afraid!
LITTLE PIG 2
Yeah, we’re just little pigs, and you’re a big, bad wolf! Maybe you should go help them!
BIG BAD WOLF
I can’t do it all by myself. I need your help.
(The Three Little Pigs all look at each other.)
LITTLE PIG 2
Fine. We’ll help. Which way do we go?
BIG BAD WOLF
Just follow your nose!
(The Wolf runs offstage, sniffing, and the Three Little Pigs follow. The Fairy Godmother steps forward.)
FAIRY GODMOTHER
Back at the Witch’s house, the adorable heroes have found themselves in hot water.
(A jail cell is brought on (the candy house, flipped backwards), and Hansel and Gretel are trapped inside.)
WICKED WITCH
You think you can just go around eating people’s houses?
GRETEL
Not usually.
HANSEL
Only if they’re made of candy.
WICKED WITCH
No! You can’t!
HANSEL
But I was hungry!
WICKED WITCH
Well, guess what? I’m hungry now. Do you know what’s for dinner?
HANSEL & GRETEL
Umm… candy?
WICKED WITCH
Wrong! Children!
(The Wicked Witch laughs.)
HANSEL
Uh oh.
GRETEL
We have to get out of here!
WICKED WITCH
There is no way out! I made that prison myself… with magic!
(The Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs enter.)
BIG BAD WOLF
Wicked Witch, Wicked Witch, can I come in?
WICKED WITCH
No! I’m getting ready to stew some children!
BIG BAD WOLF
Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll bloooooooow your house in!
WICKED WITCH
Really? I thought you’d eat it.
HANSEL
It’s the Wolf!
GRETEL
He’s here to rescue us!
(The Big Bad Wolf tries to blow the house over. Of course, it doesn’t work.)
LITTLE PIG 2
Come on, Pigs! Let’s help him!
(The Big Bad Wolf keeps blowing, and the Pigs lift up the ‘house’ and tip it over.)
WICKED WITCH
Noooo! My evil magic candy house!
(The Little Pigs surround the Witch threateningly.)
LITTLE PIG 2
You’d better get out of here, Wicked Witch.
LITTLE PIG 1
Before we show you how big and bad Little Pigs can be.
WICKED WITCH
Okay, I’m leaving!
(The Wicked Witch runs away.)
GRETEL
Wow, thanks guys!
BIG BAD WOLF
It’s nothing. We couldn’t leave you here with that mean old Witch.
LITTLE PIG 2
Not after you helped us become friends.
LITTLE PIG 1 & 2
Yeah!
HANSEL
See, Pigs? I told you the Wolf was nice.
GRETEL
Come on Hansel, we should try to get home.
HANSEL
But we don’t even know which way to go!
BIG BAD WOLF
I can help you with that! I’ll just sniff my way there! Follow me!
(The Big Bad Wolf follows his nose offstage, and Hansel, Gretel, and the Little Pigs follow.The Fairy Godmother steps forward.)
FAIRY GODMOTHER
So the Big Bad Wolf led the children back to their mother. Goodness, I sure hope Mother changed her mind about all that homework and those awful chores, don’t you?
(Mother enters, looking this way and that.)
MOTHER
Hansel? Gretel? Where are you?
(Hansel and Gretel enter and run to their mother, giving her a big hug.)
HANSEL & GRETEL
Mom!
MOTHER
You’re home! Where have you been?
HANSEL
We went into the forest!
GRETEL
We met a friendly wolf!
HANSEL
And some pigs!
GRETEL
And a witch tried to eat us!
MOTHER
What were you doing in the forest?
GRETEL
We didn’t want to do our work on a Saturday.
HANSEL
But it’s fine now, Mom! We’ll do all our chores and homework!
GRETEL
We learned our lesson.
HANSEL
We have to help people and be nice so others will help us when we need it!
MOTHER
Well… okay! Good!
(Fairy Godmother steps forward.)
FAIRY GODMOTHER
The children learned a great lesson and the Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs became friends. This is the end of the true story of Hansel and Gretel. And of course, they all lived happily ever after. Except for the witch, because her house was ruined.
(There is much ridiculous singing and dancing to the same song we used in the last show, because we were too lazy to find a new one.)
Really, I’m not. I know I haven’t updated here since Christmas, but I have an excuse. Well, a lot of them. None are very good. I was back in America for three weeks, for one. I took a few other vacation days to travel around Korea. When I was writing in between all that I was trying to finish a script for the new season of English Drama Club. I went to Seoul for a Saint Patrick’s Day festival. I climbed a couple mountains. But mostly? Mostly I’ve been lazy.
Okay, so I go to work and all of that, but the days of, “Holy crap I’m in Korea and must use every second to live life to the fullest and experience everything I can while I’m here!!!” are, well, gone. The starry-eyed optimism of a newcomer has been replaced with the glazed-over expression of a jaded veteran. Who brought his Xbox back from America.
When I first arrived a little over a year ago I was bubbling over with excitement. I may have even vomited a little pure excitement here and there. People who’d been here far longer than a few days gave me warnings, like, “Some older people hate foreigners,” “Your school will sometimes be very frustrating to deal with,” and, “For the love of God make sure you center yourself before pooping in the squat pots.” I, of course, ignored their warnings, thinking that my new home could do no wrong.
And now I’m the one giving the unsolicited advice when I run into new folks around town. Granted, if I have any advice to give to them, it’d be these three things: don’t take crap from your school, be persistent, and no matter what it looks or smells like you should probably eat it at least once because it might be delicious. But part of growing accustomed to a new place and new culture is growing accustomed to the things that bother you about it. And nothing puts those things in sharper relief quite like a little time back in the homeland.
When I arrived back at Incheon International Airport from my time in the good old Midwest, one of my biggest pet peeves about life in Korea was on full display immediately. Line etiquette. By which I don’t just mean standing in line, I more mean lines that form where none should. Specifically escalators. I was spoiled on escalators from my time in London, where it is considered extraordinarily rude to not keep to the right in case someone’s in a hurry. In Korea, the modus operandi is to ensure that no one can ever, ever pass you no matter how much they want to.
Are you in a group of two or more? Stand next to each other, please. Only one of you? Stand right in the middle, maybe taking a wide stance to ensure thin folks have no shot at moving up, either. If someone asks you to move, it is improper to move on the first ask unless you’re feeling charitable. Why is this? Honestly, I have no idea. My working theory is that people in this country work so hard that if a machine offers to do the moving for them, even for a little while, they are going to damn well accept the welcome respite.
Another important rule is to rush to get on the escalator before anyone else for maximum standing-around efficiency.
So what would be my very best advice to a new native-speaking English teacher in Korea? Simple. Take the stairs, you lazy so-and-so. By the time you get up to the top you’ll have saved yourself plenty of standing-around-with-people’s-butts-in-your-face time, and maybe you’ll even feel like you got a little exercise. The best part? Those stairs are all yours. Nobody ever uses them.
Those people at the top are just cardboard cutouts posing for the picture.
But hey, that’s really my biggest complaint. I hate using escalators here. I can deal with it because I can avoid them. In America, it was impossible to avoid the things that annoyed me to no end, specifically neckbeards and hipsters (and they often go together).
That’s all I have to say for today, dear readers. I hope that my next post will come along much, much faster than this one did. I must now return to the arms of my one true love, for she is a harsh and demanding mistress. ‘Til next time!
Oh, how I long for your embrace. And to think, I nearly cheated on you with donuts!
Well, I did it. I made it through my first official Christmas away from home. So, (you ask, wide-eyed and awed) what was it like? How is Christmas celebrated in Korea? Well don’t fret, dear reader, because I am here to tell you that it seems to be a mix between Christmas in America and Valentine’s Day. That’s right, you get all that insufferable holiday cheer shoved down your throat in the form of mistletoe and holly, Christmas trees, and creepy robot Santas as well as the constant Valentine’s Day reminder that you are alone and ugly and no one will ever love you! Hooray!
Pictured: Christmas in Korea
Okay, so I’m being a little melodramatic. But Christmas is, in Korea, less a day to be spent with family under the tree and more a day to spend with a girl/boyfriend, shopping and going to movies and eating at nice restaurants. Also, there’s presents and Christmas carols. But take this: on Christmas Eve, when most Americans who celebrate the holiday would be at home eating a home-cooked meal and watching It’s a Wonderful Life (or whatever it is people do these days), the restaurants all over Daejeon were positively packed. I went for dinner with a large group of friends, and waited for nearly three hours in the lobby of our chosen restaurant. Once inside, we saw that most tables were taken up by couples gazing lovingly at each other over their Christmas Eve steaks.
Once I’d powered through Christmas on a diet of (literally) meat and potatoes, I had a school trip to look forward to. No, not a school trip with students, but one with only the staff of my school. We went on an overnight excursion to the island of Jeju, just past the southern tip of the Korean peninsula. It’s a subtropical island that seems to have a completely schizophrenic climate. Up north, it was incredibly windy and cold. Towards the center of the island, it was chilly with thick layers of snow coating the ground. And down south was mild with no snow and plenty of sunshine. This is an island that takes maybe an hour to travel from north to south.
Above: Monday.
Below: Tuesday, 15 miles away.
Anyways, Jeju-do (do, as in doe [a deer, a female deer], means island in Korean) was perhaps the most exhausting bout of furious traveling crammed into an incredibly short time I’ve ever witnessed. After landing at around 9:30AM on Monday, we proceeded to a Chinese acrobat circus, hiking a stretch of coastline, going on a cruise around some volcanic islands, and orange picking. Yes, you can pick oranges in the snow on Jeju-do.
Anyways, that night our unsuspecting group was bussed over to a ‘nightclub’ after dinner. When you think of a nightclub, you might think about a sweaty basement with pounding bass beats and flashing strobe lights. Or maybe a slightly classier establishment with windows and other such high-end accoutrements. Apparently a nightclub in Jeju-do is a huge, bare facsimile of a Las Vegas lounge-act joint. A singer who ‘used to be famous’, according to my co-worker, and a band serenaded us as we entered. Later, the entire goddamned roof opened up for no reason like someone punching a sliced pie from below, only instead of being delicious and hilarious, it just let cold air blow in for awhile while they sprayed soapy foam on us from above.
Now imagine that it opens, only instead of being filled with custardy goodness, there’s nothing but a vast and frozen sky blowing its nose at you.
But wait! There’s more! The next act onstage was a lone man. Off in the corner was a DJ, who started playing some thumpin’ dance beats. Then, the guy started taking his Vegas-y leisure suit off. Until he was wearing only a glow-in-the-dark banana hammock.
Um, not quite.
That’s right, our intrepid tour guide saw fit to take the mostly middle-aged staff of a middle school to a male strip club for a little after-dinner treat. I was probably the least-horrified one there, but only because I couldn’t stop laughing. Especially when the lights went purple, and the stripper’s body somehow glowed purple while his man-thong glowed green like he was some kind of wildly gyrating reverse Hulk.
The next day we woke up early, went hiking once again, took a ride on a toy train to a Dutch windmill (really, should anything I say surprise you at this point?), visited a traditional Jeju-do folk village, and went horseback riding for maybe ten minutes. All in all, we did an absolutely ridiculous number of things in only two days and a little over twenty-four hours. I felt like I was at a buffet of free samples made of Jeju activities.
Thought I was joking about the toy train, didn’t you?
Nine times out of ten, if someone asks you to feel the bear, you don’t go near that shit. For the record, it was kind of greasy.
Anyways, it’s New Year’s Eve here in Korea, and I have been enlisted to taste-test the food at my Korean friend’s new restaurant before I get down to the execution of the Korean New Years’ ritual: forgetting everything that happened in the previous 365 days via the consumption of alcohol. Wish me luck. For the record, my New Year’s resolution is the same as it has been for the past several New Years now, which is to simply not die. Happy New Year, dear readers!
I am going to get this bit of Korean profanity into the American lexicon if it kills me.
