I’m in my week vacation, which means I’m working my butt off on my other projects. This vacation, I’m mostly working on figuring out what I’m going to do after I quit the hagwon industry in September. I’ve already had a couple of meetings. I’m going to another meeting tomorrow for a project I can’t make public yet but is very exciting.
Since I spent all day yesterday walking around Seoul in the July heat, I wanted to really take it easy today. But after a long afternoon, EJ and I were getting restless. And I was getting hungry. We’d found a bunch of Korean restaurants, including a good fish joint, near my workplace last week. We thought we’d head out there.
Unfortunately, as we feared, most restaurants were closed, as they catered mainly to salarymen. EJ had already eaten a good bit before we left, but I hadn’t, and I was getting crabby. The smell of pork from one place was intoxicating, but EJ said she wasn’t in the mood for grilled food. And we both didn’t want to spend a lot of money. She was more in the moved for patbingsu–which is a snack, not dinner. So I was in a foul mood. EJ got tired, so we headed home on the bus. I just decided I would make some spaghetti at home.
When we got off the bus near our E-Mart, EJ suggested we go to Boriso Maul, our favorite grill house in the ‘hood. It’s also the most expensive. I protested, pointing out that before she was talking about saving money. But she was in the mood for their doenjang jjigae.
We got in there, and it was packed. No tables. We didn’t want to sit on the floor, so we waited. EJ asked for a menu to peruse. After a while, we started laughing at the English translations. She took it upon herself to point it out to the busy floor manager. He explained that it was a chain restaurant, but he would take it into consideration. But after a while, he introduced us to another man. He was the owner of the chain.
Oh, the big cheese himself.
So EJ started telling him again that they had translated pork ribs as “beef ribs” and said their meat was “live” instead of “fresh.” He asked if we could help tell him the right translations. He handed me a pen and pad, and I translated the bulk of the awkward English. Before handing it back to him, I joked, “50,000 won, please.”
He instead gave us over half of our meal for free, and we had a long conversation about his career in the beef industry. I had had some questions for a while about exporting Korea’s Han-oo beef. People had told me that there were laws blocking it. But he contradicted it, saying that there were no laws. He said he could set up shipments himself.
So we have a new friend.
http://www.dailymotion.com/videoxdzadb
After the first two came out, I got a better idea of how the show was set up, so I started playing with voices a lot more. Spy Cam become more childlike, and Agent Story became Inspector Gadget to help compensate for the request that I speak slowly for the audience. I think it’s funny that the plot of this one is that K-pop singers are aliens. And even though I proofread the scripts for this season (which was a lot of work), the subtitles still weren’t always accurate with my notes. So we got “It’s a secrete.”
http://www.dailymotion.com/videoxdywt3
This is the second episode of season two. This is also when the company decided that they had overspent on a music and choreography budget, so this is the last one with a song. I really like the song, though. The poor girls didn’t know any English, so everything was done phonetically. The grammar emphasis is on “a”, “an,” and “the.” Lupin the Thief is played by a bad imitation of Sean Connery.
http://www.dailymotion.com/videoxdyhpb
It’s been three years, and I’ve realized I haven’t posted any videos of the TV shows I did for EBSe. From March to December 2007, I was in three children’s TV shows: Spy Zone, SEL 4 Science, and SEL 4 Social Studies.
I’ll start with the second season of Spy Zone, as it’s my favorite of the bunch. From the video page:
This is the first of the second season of Spy Zone. Everything got revamped. The episodes were more plot driven with specific grammar lessons to convey. The “Spy Kids” became three “Spy Girls.” And I was the only adult, playing all the male adult roles.
I’ll upload what I can frequently so that I have a depository of my silly little TV shows to refer to in the future. I hear some of the episodes are still playing on Korean TV.
16 weeks
20 weeks
Korean law forbids hospitals to tell the parents the sex of their babies until after 26 weeks. As many of you know, we are fine either way, but it’s become a bit of a party game to guess the gender of Alkongi. And Grandmommy wants to know what kind of stuff to send up from America.
So, for entertainment purposes only, check out the videos and take the poll. If you see any telltale signs, leave comment.
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You’d never think I’d say good things about ajosshi, but I had two good experiences yesterday.
EJ and I went to the bank to finalize our loan to keep our place for two more years. There was a major snag when we got there. When we signed a new lease two years ago, my employer insisted on putting her name on the lease against EJ’s wishes. It’s come to bite us on the butt as it disqualified us from a low interest loan from the government. We had no choice but to take a flexible rate loan.
The loan officer did all he could to help us get around this rule, but there was nothing he could do. He explained everything in detail in English and even dealt with my harsh questions on the rusty logic in the government’s rules. You see, if a family member had signed on to the lease, it wouldn’t have mattered. But the government felt that an employer signing on to a lease meant that the employee was too well off to need a low interest loan. My thinking is that if a family member signs a lease, that means that the person comes from a wealthy enough family to help get their own place. The program discouraged independence, which I think is one of the root drawbacks of Korea’s egregiously family centered society.
But the good thing is that I may have picked up a new friend with the loan officer. He’s a foodie and knows some good places in Seoul, so we’ll likely hang out in the future.
At work, I had a new kid who was transferred to my class after getting the lowest score in not only the whole school but possibly in the school’s history on the big standardized test we give semi-annually. He was one of those kids who did English kindergarten, which tends to be a problem in the first years of elementary English education. These kids leave English kindie with decent speaking and listening skills, but they have no skills in writing or grammar. I looked at his work while we were going over an activity together, and his handwriting looked like he was holding his pencil in his mouth. Even with the words on the same page in front of him, he couldn’t even copy them correctly, much less do any spelling. This class is in level 3 spelling, and this kid didn’t have a basic concept of phonics or letter formation.
Hoo boy!
I thought it would be a good idea to get help for him immediately. I consulted with the director about him, and she brought him into the office. While she was talking to him, he was like a hyperactive housefly in a jar. At one point, he stood on his chair while the director spoke to him. I’m no expert on psychology, but I think we have a severe case of ADHD here. He kind of reminded me of my former autistic stepbrother.
I also got a memo relayed to me from a complaining parent of a student in the same class. Going through the list of complaints, I was baffled with what information this parent was getting–or that we have another crazy parent on our hands. This person claimed that I was giving homework for the wrong units and that I was letting the kids play Nintendo in class. The class is full of young boys who constantly fight, bicker, tattle and lie to get the other kids in trouble. This class has been so harrowing that I now designate a student in each class to be the “bank” to collect money from kids who misbehave to save me the time and trouble of stopping the class each time I need to collect a fine. Can I just rid myself of this entire class?
Actually, that will come soon enough. I’ve already informed the school of my intention to leave a month after my contract is up in August. It’s timed to coincide with a trip I’ll be taking to New York. I can’t give many details right now, but I’ve been asked to speak at a convention promoting Korean food in Manhattan. Very nervous about this one but also excited. When I return, I plan to make my money far away from the hagwon industry. We’ll see how far that goes.
When I got off work, EJ suggested we go to our favorite Korean diner for dinner. I’ve been in a Korean food mood lately. So I was totally up for it. In order to get to Beomgye from work, I had to transfer close to our neighborhood. When I got on the second bus, I beeped my card, and the driver started talking to me. Immediately, I thought I did something wrong with my card, but I didn’t hear the word “card” or any Korean words I was expecting from his voice. The young man sitting at the front of the bus asked if I was on TV. Then it hit me. The bus driver recognized me from the SBS show. He asked questions about me being a food blogger and drinking makkoli on the show and where I was going.
It was awesome to be recognized. The drawback was that the show made it look like I was fluent in Korean when, in reality, most of my Korean lines were fed. But it totally made my evening. I met EJ in Beomgye, and it took an hour to take that grin off my face.
We’re on week 20. EJ is starting to feel the baby move in little flutters, but not too actively. It’s amazing seeing the changes she’s going through. We’ve also been anticipating the cravings, and I think they’ve arrived. Only, she’s not wanting pickles and lime sherbert. She wants American food. Sauteed Cajun seasoned chicken breasts. Spaghetti with tomato sauce loaded with mozzarella cheese. Steak.
I wish this could last.
Today was Roboseyo’s wedding. They’ve been together almost as long as EJ and I have, so this was momentous. The wedding took place at Fradia, an Italian restaurant floating on the Han River that EJ and I briefly (as in 10 seconds) considered to use for our wedding–not that it was not a good place, it was a bit out of our price range for what we wanted.
The wedding was so tasteful and gorgeous. We were able to get much of the blogger family at the same table. Stafford and a few others had to sit somewhere else because our table got full. It was strange being in a place and knowing so many people. I guess we really do have a lot of great friends these days.
I bet everyone would agree that the highlight of the wedding was the video Rob and HJ prepared. Each talked about the other and their families in Korean and English. Rob’s Korean was stellar. Couldn’t plug up the waterworks during most of it. It wasn’t sappy. It was entertaining and heartfelt. They had about as perfect a wedding as you could get, especially knowing the track record of gaudy weddings in Korea. I was impressed that the guests were silent during the vows.
It was great to see Rob and everyone, albeit too briefly. On the way back home, I had a series of annoyances that put me in a “lousy Korea” mood. EJ and I decided to take the bus home from the Express Bus Terminal area because we’d more likely get a seat on a bus than on a subway train. The bus was so late, though, that there was no seating. While we were waiting, I went to go check when the bus would arrive. When I went back to Eun Jeong, she said, “Did you see that?”
“See what?”
“That ajosshi. He just stopped and looked at my boobs.”
I asked her to point him out, but she couldn’t find him. I’m getting fed up with the low class male privilege behavior some men exhibit here.
We couldn’t get a seat on the bus, so we grabbed onto the bars and stood. While people were still crowding onto the bus, some young guy in his twenties decided to throw away his half full melted chocolate ice cream product. Displaying a common tendency to not connect cause with effect, or rather the “What Could Go Wrong” syndrome, he missed the trash can. He gave a sound like “oops” and stood there awkwardly, like he didn’t know what to do. He put the cup in the trash. Then EJ started railing into him. I noticed that there was some chocolate ice cream on my suit pants. He just stood there indecisively. Then he started trying to wipe me off with his t-shirt. It was then that I noticed that a large splotch of melted chocolate ice cream was on my suit jacket sleeve–as in half the cup. I took out a handkerchief and wiped it off. The kid may have been stupid, but I didn’t want anyone wiping me off with their t-shirt. It would make me look like a douche. I just wanted the incident to be over with, but EJ kept railing into him about how he had no manners. He was trying to apologize and even offered to give us all the money he had on him, which was just W5,000.
We said, no.
But it would have been nice if he could have acted like a gentlemen and offered my pregnant wife his seat as an apology. Instead, he just mumbled he was sorry and slinked off to his seat. Even though I had wiped off the milkshake product, I felt sticky and dirty the whole way back. EJ and I eventually got seats in the back. When we got to our stop, EJ got up to go, but the bus lurched, and she fell down on her butt. A lady and I caught her to help break her fall, but I wasn’t fast enough. She wasn’t hurt, but again, it was another one of those only-in-Korea annoyances, this time an unprofessional bus driver who cares more about beating a route time than the safety of his passengers.
We stopped by E-mart to get some water and coffee for the house. All the lines were long. That’s not a complaint, but it didn’t help my mood improve. I just wanted to go home and take a shower.
While waiting at the bus stop, there was an annoying bunch of “swervy kids.” That’s my term for this growing trend of teens on motorcycles, usually one guy driving with a passenger awkwardly sitting on the back, none wearing helmets, making a shiteload of noise from their engines and horns while swerving their bikes back and forth so hard, you’d expect them to crash. These particular kids really gunned their engines at the bus stop and zoomed into a crowd of people using the crosswalk, almost hitting a man with a bag of groceries.
EJ and I stopped by Paris Baguette on the way back, and we shared some patbingsu. It made me feel a little better, but I really wanted to get home. Now I’m all washed up, and those dirty clothes are off. I’m not so annoyed now, but I just had to vent a bit.
We’re at the point where doctors can determine the baby’s sex. But Korea has passed this law that says we can’t know the sex of the baby this early. On this week’s check up, a nurse didn’t do the ultrasound. The doctor did. And he was doing his best to be sly and sneaky about it by moving it around quickly and only concentrating on certain body parts rather than the fetus as a whole. I’m posting the ultrasound below. I see three dots on the left around 5:30, and they look like some frank and beans. What do you think? I’m posting a poll and am welcoming any guesses in the comments.
We’ve been preparing for a girl. Well, EJ has because she’s been having dreams that symbolize girls. But it also has been easier for us to prepare for a girl. There are many cool girl names in Korean. But I can’t think of many cool boy names that sound good to English ears. EJ says we should forget using a Korean name. But we’re still debating names anyway. I’m the person who likes clever unique names, but I think with me getting older I want to do something less weird. We’re talking about, if it’s a boy, naming it after my dad and stepdad or variants of their names.
The baby bump is definitely here. EJ has been feeling good lately. She has to make herself eat protein, which I think is the opposite from the average American woman. How could you forget to eat protein with all this meat around you? She has been very upbeat. I think she’s already nesting. The house hasn’t been this clean since the family came. Heh, heh.
Alkongi did get upset last Saturday. EJ felt him jumping around a lot.
As usual, I’ve been extremely busy. My weekends have been packed, and I have had regular lunch meetings for different reasons. I’ve started a great professional relationship with some folks in the U.S. where we may take all this Korean food promotion to a new level. I’ve been very excited about that, and that’s going to take up more of my time in the near future. So I’m trying to trim off the excess that is distracting me so much. Thankfully, the folks at 10 Magazine have been encouraging and have taken the pressure off, where I only have to write one article a month rather than five. And I can assign pieces since I am the dining editor. With the Food Journal, I’ve promoted Shin and Tammy to editor, and they’re going to play a stronger role in developing the site. Its readership has doubled in just the past couple of months. I’m hoping someone can take over Chatjip, as I have no time for it, but it has such great potential in the right hands. And the SeoulPodcast seems to be running smoothly with Jen, Stafford and Karl helping out. We have the big live show next week, and I’m nervous about that.
On the home front, we had been stressed about finding a new house. But last week EJ was able to secure a loan so we could keep it. The key money was being raised from W70 million to W85 million. EJ has been finding out that the real estate agent was likely behind it rather than the owners. She talked to the owners yesterday, and they said he called them to convince them to raise the price after sitting down and talking with us. Freakin’ sleazebag! EJ just shrugged it off.
“He’s a Korean real estate guy. What do you expect?”
I think we’re just happy to have something certain in our lives. I’m still planning to leave CEA at the end of August and go independent. But we are both very motivated and happy right now. I want this to last.
Effin’ bus jumped the curb, and EJ bumped her head on the window. She says she’s fine, but I made her go to the clinic to get checked out. That’s the third incident I’ve experienced on this bus line this week alone. Yesterday, my bus almost hit a car at a stop light. Last weekend, it stopped so abruptly at Beomgye St., that an old lady crashed on her ass.
We made sure that the bus driver stopped and gave us his credentials today. An ass whoopin’ is comin’.
I’m very sad today.
This really is the end of a major point in my time in Korea. Chris Patch was, in a way, my savior. He saved me from the grayness of Seoul and brought me to the Land of Green that is Anyang. After ten years here, he is returning to Vancouver. It’s bittersweet for me. I know how much he loves his hometown. I love Fairhope, AL, about as much.
Chris P. is a symbol. It’s unfair of me to place so much significance on him. He IS Anyang. The green mountains. The flowing rivers. The chicken and beer.
He’s such a good friend–a kind I rarely have encountered. It’s just not the same without him here.
Part of me hopes he hates Vancouver. But that’s where he belongs now. Ten years in Korea is enough.
We had a good run. Tonight we all went out for Brazilian. I was gaming for some more hanging out and drinking (the Korean 1-cha, 2-cha, 3-cha) but we spent the whole time at our beloved Brazilian spot–the one that Colin and Barbarian Man introduced us to back in 2006. That was when Lost was sucking and BSG was kickin’ ass. 2006 used to be a date for a far off future time. Now it is in the distant past. Thankfully Churrasco is still around. So many good places have gone under. The one good place in Anyang has not only survived, it has improved.
After hanging out with old and new friends, Chris and I ambled home along the same path. He’s starting to let go of Korea, something I’m not prepared to do yet. I still love this place too much, and much of that affection, I know, is based on a sense of stability that I couldn’t find before.
Chris P. was part of that stability. I need to establish even deeper roots now.
I know, I know. I’m married to an amazing woman with an amazing child on the way. But it’s just the pattern we all have to go through when there are major changes in our lives. Chris P. is going through a major change. Chris W. is going through a major change. And I will be going through something similar very soon. It scares the shit out of me.
The tricky part is that my school is aware of my blog now, so I can’t speak too much about the inner workings. All a can say, and honestly so, is that things are going well. We have a new guy (Andrew), who seems level headed and not an asshole. He’s pretty keen and catches on quickly. He’s a good guy to trust.
I told Andrew tonight that I thought he sounded a lot like Emilio Estevez in Young Guns. He took it as a compliment. Not much of a drinker, but he held his own tonight.
I can’t suggest Churrasco enough. It’s been a consistent good times spot since my time at The School Which Must Not Be Named. We admittedly hadn’t been back there as a group in years, but we shall rectify it.
