Muckin' About Malaysia: Part Three (of Three)

(For those of you who haven't been following along, this is part of a series on our trip to the EARCOS 2008 Teacher Conference in Kuala Lumpur.)

We had our last day in Kuala Lumpur free--the conference ended Saturday evening, and our flight back to Seoul didn't leave until late Sunday night/early Monday morning. (Ask me about my thoughts on redeyes sometime.) Ever the gracious host, Dr. Kim (our boss) planned a day trip out into the countryside. We saw our first real-live-wild monkeys up close!

1. Rainforest Hike and Canopy Walk

Sunday morning we all got up early and climbed aboard a hired van to head out into the hills north of Kuala Lumpur. Most of the Malaysian peninsula is covered with some kind of rainforest, but the particular forest we visited is rare-ish in that it's still old growth, and, according to our guide, one of the oldest rainforests in the world. The park is managed by the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia, which gave us the added benefit of knowing whatever money we spent there was going to a good cause.

The hike was brutally hot and humid (heck, this was the jungle, after all), not to mention steep. But we were well rewarded. Sights along the way included bubble-gum trees, wild boar trails, rattan vines, humongous palms, and several quirky medicinal plants (one leaf, which felt kind of like an air-cushioned insole, could be chewed up and used as a super-strong clotting agent). I only wish we weren't too busy sweating out every last drop of my bodily fluids to ask the guide for more detail . . .
Anyway, at the top of the trail, we came to the Canopy Walk, a walkway suspended over 100 feet above the forest floor--and constructed, apparently, with help from the entire nation of Germany.

If nothing else, this made the entire hike worth it: the chance to stand high in the canopy and look out over one of the oldest rainforests in the world.
And yes, Nana's wearing long sleeves and long pants. Brave girl, and admirably aware of local sensibilities. (Aside: Did you know that, in Malaysia, it's rude to point with your fingers? People point with their thumbs instead. Yeah. You just tried to figure out how the heck that works, didn't you?)

2. Batu Caves

After our hike, we climbed back aboard the van for a trip to nearby Batu Caves. The caves are a major religious shrine for Malaysian Hindus--they're one of the most popular Hindu religious sites outside of India, and the caves attract millions (literally) during the annual festival of Thaipusam. (For the facts: my thanks again to Wikipedia, of course.)

Given those numbers, I'm assuming we were there on a slow day, though the local macaques were out in force!

One even "attacked" (i.e., jumped at) Nana, apparently in an effort to get its hands on her Kickapoo Joy Juice. (I can't blame it--that stuff was good!)Note Nana's stylish new red batik skirt, purchased at the Central Market in Kuala Lumpur.

Honestly, the monkeys were as much a sight as the caves themselves--the vast majority of my photos that day were pictures of the macaques--though apparently there's a pretty wild "dark cave" complex off to the site that we didn't get a chance to see.

Also: a rooster? Huh?

3. Homeward Bound

Well, that about wraps up our trip to Kuala Lumpur. All in all, it was a giant double-thumbs-up: we learned a ton of good stuff at the conference, and we got to see a lot of a really cool place. As of today, Nana and I have officially added Kuala Lumpur to our list of places we could hypothetically live some day. Seriously--if you ever get a chance to go to KL for any reason, take it. Excellent food, fascinating culture, beautiful sights. Very friendly, very green. Well worth the dreaded redeye flight back to Seoul!

Muckin' About Malaysia: Part Two

(For those of you who haven't been following along, this is part of a series on our trip to the EARCOS 2008 Teacher Conference in Kuala Lumpur.)

We spent much of our week in Malaysia either cramming our brains at conference workshops or gorging ourselves on complimentary (read: already paid for) food and booze, but we did have a few chances to get out and about in Kuala Lumpur and its surroundings, and this is what we found.

1. Petronas Twin Towers

(Yes, that's a tiny Nana in the bottom of the frame.)

Until recently, the Petronas Twin Towers (shown above) were officially the tallest buildings in the world (though if you know anything about the criteria used by CBTUH, the organization that ranks the 100 tallest buildings, then you know that this is kind of a fuzzy designation)--that distinction now belongs to Tapei 101 in Taiwan, and some argue it should belong to either the Sears Tower in Chicago or the CN Tower in Toronto, though the Burj Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, to open on 2009, will soon put them all to shame. Still, the Petronas Towers are an amazing structure, and the engineering feats that went into building the Skybridge are very impressive. (Koreans will be quick to remind you that it was the Korean contractor working on the towers, and not the Japanese contractor, that designed and installed the Skybridge.) The Petronas Towers are more than just a skyscraper, though: financed as they were by the government-owned Malaysian oil giant Petronas, they were also designed as a kind of national monument, and incorporate many local (particularly Muslim) design elements, most clearly evident in their unique scalloped facades.

Anyway, at the base of the towers is a sprawling city park, where Nana and I passed a morning strolling in the sun and the unfathomable heat. The beautiful morning was only marred twice: once, when a police officer informed us that adults were not allowed to use the swingsets (note: pretty much everyone in Malaysia seems to speak English--they were a British colony for a long time, after all); and then when a giant mutant water bottle attacked the Towers, only to be thwarted when Nana, hopped up Popeye-style on Kickapoo Joy Juice, saved the day.


2. KL Tower

Aside from the Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur is home to another of the tallest (or at least taller) structures in the world, the Kuala Lumpur (KL) Tower. Set atop a high hill right behind our hotel (the Shangri-La, which you can see below), the KL Tower offers great views of the city, though the afternoon haze/rain was blowing in when we were up there, and the view of the Petronas Towers is in profile, which is less than ideal. Still, a cool place to go to get a look at the Hard Rock Cafe.



USA! USA!

Also: A building with a camel on the side, for some reason, presumably tempting us to smoke.


Anyway, all this towering led to some friendly competition among our intrepid band. Here's Nana giving her very own CN Tower a hug. Paul, whose native Calgary Tower didn't make the World's Tallest Towers cut, claimed Seoul's NSeoul Tower as his own.




And apparently, the KL Tower also has its own resident brace of rabbits. Yes, rabbits. The Tower Rabbits, to be precise.

At the base of the KL Towers, then, is a nature trail down to the subway stop, the entrance of which was adorneded with this forbidding sign warning us about "dangerous species."

Though we didn't find any dangerous species on our brief walk, we did meet an Australian, which was pretty cool.

Here's a view of some city buildings through a gap in the foliage. Notice the gathering rain.



3. Central Market

(Note: I am so done with all these photos. Not only am I sick of importing them into Blogger, which takes forever, I was also apparently sick of taking photos that afternoon--I don't have much worth showing after the KL Tower.)

After visiting the KL Tower, Nana and I (with the intrepid Paul in tow) spent some time at Kuala Lumpur's Central Market, the place to go for local(ish) arts, crafts, and souvenirs. In this large indoor (and air-conditioned!) market, more than anywhere else, was the multiculturalism of Kuala Lumpur evident: rows of jade merchants gave way to rows of batik fabric shops, to authentic cashmere (as in from Kashmir) peddlers, to, of course, stalls selling cheap T-shirts and kitschy souvenirs. Nana ended up buying a red batik skirt, which you will see featured prominent in tomorrow's post on the Batu Caves. (Which, I promise, will include monkeys--or, to be more specific, macaques.)

4. Islamic Arts Center

After our stop at the Central Market, Nana and I pressed on to the nearby Islamic Arts Museum, part of a large complex surrounding Malaysia's National Mosque. Not only is the Islamic Arts Museum a beautiful building in its own right, with a huge glass-walled portico from which we got to watch an impressive afternoon storm, the collection manages to be thorough without being overwhelming, covering Islamic arts and crafts from all of Islam's major ethnic groups (Arab, Turkish, African, Indian, Chinese, and Southeast Asian). The exhibit texts also feature the kind of moderate, humanistic Islam that's so often underrepresented in the West. For me, the highlight was the architecture hall, home to dozens of scale models of mosques from around the world. I had never before realized that most mosques, aside from the universal basics (worship space, minaret, water, etc.), are really heavily influenced by regional architecture. What most Westerners think of when thinking of a mosque (the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, am I right?) is actually Byzantine, which is basically Roman. But mosques in China, say, are pretty much indistinguishable from Buddhist temples there, and traditional Malaysian mosques look a lot like traditional Malaysian houses. Very cool stuff.

Well, that's all I've got for today. Stay tuned for the last installment of our Malaysian adventures. I promise: monkeys galore!

Plot Twist: NANA Drinks Weird Stuff For Your Entertainment (Malaysia Edition)

(For those of you who haven't been following along, this is part of a series on our trip to the EARCOS 2008 Teacher Conference in Kuala Lumpur.)

Kickapoo Joy Juice.



Nana says: like 5-Alive, or a 7-up or Sprite that's less sugar and more citrus. I can concur--so tasty that we took the chance to drink it again a couple days later, just moments before the monkey attack. (Yes, I will keep you in suspense.)

By the way, I've done a little research on Kickapoo Joy Juice, and this stuff gets stranger with every word I read. First, I knew the name sounded familiar: It's a fictional tonic from the Li'l Abner comic strip (the musical version of which I survived in high school). And check out the Kickapoo Joy Juice website: apparently Monarch Beverages started brewing the drink in Atlanta in the 60s, and then it became hugely popular in Malaysia (but NO WHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD) for reasons left completely unexplained. Even wackier: according to this page, the Kickapoo Joy Juice we drank may not even have been the REAL Joy Juice--as a result of a branding dispute between Monarch and a subsidiary in Singapore, the lucrative Malaysian Joy Juice market has been flooded by bootleg Juice in recent years.

I must say, when we bought this stuff at a half-abandoned old train station, in no way did we expect it to be half so darned weird.

Muckin' About Malaysia: Part One

(For those of you who haven't been following along, this is part of a series on our trip to the EARCOS 2008 Teacher Conference in Kuala Lumpur.)

During our five plus days at the EARCOS Teacher Conference in Kuala Lumpur, we scrounged enough free time together to see much of the city and a bit of the countryside as well. Here are just a few episodes from the shenanigans.

1. Chinatown

The Chinese ethnic community in Malaysia makes up a huge minority of the population (nearly 25%, according to Wikipedia) with a long and complicated history in the region. Malaysian Chinese people run the gamut from long-settled, assimilated Malay speakers, to Anglophone colonial-era traders, to more-recent, Mandarin-speaking arrivals. (In fact, Wikipedia's got some fascinating stuff on Malaysian Chinese people--that appears to be the PC term--including the fact that they rarely intermarry with Malays because Malaysian law requires that Malaysian Muslims can only marry Muslims. Neat.)
Anyway: None of this history whatsoever is evident at Petaling Street, Kuala Lumpur's bustling Chinatown, a raucous emporium of cheap junk, knockoffs, and counterfeits interspersed with a few decent places to eat. We found one--sketchy, cheap, and delicious--walked about the market for a little bit, then promptly found another for spring rolls and some Tiger, the local beer. For the first time in my life, I felt like a real Expat (with a capital "E"), swigging lager at a plastic table after sunset under neon lights in the lazy tropical heat.
(Cool Tiger Beer factoid, fliched from Wikipedia: The advertising slogan "Time for a Tiger" gave author Anthony Burgess, probably most famous for A Clockwork Orange, the title of the first novel in his trilogy on the decline of British rule in Malaysia, The Long Day Wanes.)

2. The Hotel Shangri-LaOf course, going back to the hotel quickly disabused me of these expat delusions. There, I felt like some kind of high-powered globetrotting executive, sweating in the sauna after a long morning workout, or sipping tea over my complimentary breakfast as I looked down on the streets of Kuala Lumpur below. Only in the morning did reality set in: I was but a lowly rookie teacher, with much to learn and even more to do. But hey! At least we'd be living in luxury for the rest of the week. Swanky pad with a view of the Petronas Towers? Complimentary breakfast? Free evening munchies and cocktails? Man, Dr. Kim really knows how to treat employees right!Bonus: the room even had a Gideon Bible AND a "Gideon" Koran.




P.S. Apparently, McDonalds delivers in Malaysia. Who knew?

Three Cool Things About Malaysia

(For those of you who haven't been following along, this is part of a series on our trip to the EARCOS 2008 Teacher Conference in Kuala Lumpur.)

Still struggling to catch up on work and sleep since arriving back in Seoul yesterday, so instead of the standard itinerary travelogue, let me offer you this brief and incomplete list of reasons, in no particular order, why Malaysia is totally cool.

1. The Food

From the first to the last meal of the trip, I tried to take pictures of the food, only to be thwarted by absent-mindedness (I'm not in the habit of bringing a camera to dinner) and by voracious appetite. Normally, within a minute or two of its hitting the table, most of our Malaysian meals looked like this:

(Those being the remnants of an Indian lunch at the Central Market.)


Just rest assured that Malaysian food (which includes Indian, Indonesian, Middle Eastern, Chinese, and Thai dishes--that's what you get when you've been sitting across a major ocean trade route for a full thousand years) is utterly delicious. Of all the cities I've visited, Kuala Lumpur was definitely one of the best places to eat. And cheap, too--trustworthy food stalls can over-feed you and yours for about 9 ringgit ($3 US) per head; mid-level restaurants run about four times that much.

Below, you can see some spicy-sweet fried wontons and some beef rendang (a spicy-smoky beef curry thats a signature dish in Indonesia and Malaysia).
The bottom corner of that last photo also shows some pumpkin fried chicken, which Nana practically inhaled. Yum.

2. Teh Tarik

A sweet, spiced milk tea concoction (think mild chai) served hot or cold with just about any meal. Great for taking the edge off a spicy curry or as an afternoon snack.
3. Groovy Multiculturalism

Seriously. Where else to Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists more or less get along? Kuala Lumpur packs a dozen different ethnicities and cultures into one cool little town. (Listen to me, calling 1 million+ little! I've been in Seoul too long!) There aren't only tons of different cuisines, but also different architectural styles, different musics, different dances--at the conference welcome dinner, for example, we ate food from four different countries and watched performances by dancers from five. In fact, this multiculturalism made Kuala Lumpur feel more familiar than Seoul, in a lot of ways--though the blistering heat was anything but familiar.

Well, that's about all I've got for tonight. Stay tuned for more news and notes about the trip. Did Justin eat himself into a coma? Did Nana survive the monkey attack? Check back tomorrow. All the best till then.

His Room is Next to Mine!: Math Teacher Celebrity Watch

Our very own Shelby J. Bryant had the Song of the Day over at NPR two weeks back, a made-over take on the song "Doll on a Music Box" from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Witness the awesome here.

I believe now would be an appropriate time to submit requests for other 1960s children's songs that we would like remade, as the article says, a la Saturnian Lounge Band. As much as I would like to hear, say, "Supercalifragilistiexpialidocius" (think about it; it gets more awesome every time) I would hate to pass up on the rest of the gold mine that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has to offer. I mean, APIS is certainly the Posh Posh Traveling Life. This is Korea - what better inspiration for "Me Ole Bamboo?" And I'm not even going to get started on the role of Kimchi in "Toot Sweets." Unless by saying I wouldn't, I just did.

Anyway, I joke because I can't help it, but I don't want to take away from the fact that there are many, many songs out there, and having his picked by NPR is a pretty sweet tribute to the Shelbmeister. So congratulations, Shelby!

Add: Undermining my last point, I have to submit this other video I found while looking for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang clips. Verdict: That movie was Messed. Up.

Malaysia: There and Back Again

This past week, Nana and I came as close as we ever had to crossing the line with a visit to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's capital, a mere 8 degrees north of the equator--and we made it back safely this morning. (Note to self: Find the man who thought redeye flights were a good idea. Punishment TBD.)

Expect about a post a day, with photos, this week. For now, while we recuperate from a long day of work (after a long day of travel), you'll have to content yourself with a brief summary: Malaysia is totally awesome. I never thought I could love a place that was so swelteringly hot, but boy did I ever. The food, the people, the nature, the culture--what a cool country. Stay tuned for more.

Runaround Part 2: A Pyrrhic Victory

We did end up going all the way downtown today to talk to the doctor about our physical results. A long, annoying hike, to find out that basically we were right about everything - that in spite of the nurses' repeated "normal" verdict, we both could stand to raise our HDL ("good cholesterol") levels and that the right procedure for this is exercise and red wine. I really feel like we could have been told this over the phone.

And I was right. We were getting an Asian no. The doctor does not do telephone consultations, in spite of every single nurse telling me I'd be able to talk to him if I just called back at a different time. Side note, mitigating at least the doctor's role in all of this: part of the reason we couldn't get hold of the doctor last week was that his wife was having surgery for thyroid cancer. So I feel kind of bad about bugging him with e-mails, but really relieved that I resisted the temptation to send him mean ones. I tell you what, Dale Carnegie never steers you wrong.

In any cases, this whole frustration could have been averted if the nurses just leveled with me over the phone. But the good news is they didn't charge us for this - they just added it to the "physicals" tab that's going to the insurance company. Which is right, I think.

Anyway, off to Malaysia!

Why you wanna give me a run-around?

For four days now, Justin and I have been attempting to get the results of our annual physical from Yonsei Severance Hospital. We were told last Saturday that we could call the clinic Wednesday morning and our physician there, Dr. Linton, would talk to us about our results on the phone. That would have been great, seeing as we live nearly two hours from the hospital.

But remember - land of the 90% solution. They will give us fantastic service when we go in to get our physical (the blood tests were done within 10 minutes of our entering the hospital). The first time, when the doctor is "unavailable," they apologetically e-mail me the physical results -something you have a lot of trouble getting from US doctors because of confidentiality. But come hell or high water, come phone calls or e-mails, they WILL NOT TELL US WHAT ANYTHING MEANS. I mean, maybe Mike Chan can clue us in, but when I see a result that says "MCH/pg/N/29.4," I'm out to sea. I always just sort of expected that this would be, oh, I don't know, the DOCTOR's job?

So, where were we? Oh, yes, the Wednesday morning phone conference that wasn't. I called back to see how I could get an explanation of the results, and they tell me that everything is normal. As discussed, I am not a doctor, but I can read the column heading "Standard," and I can tell when a number is not in that range, and there are at least a couple of things on these test results that are not normal (Not need-to-panic abnormal, but "hey, let's review this" abnormal. That one was for the moms). I insist that I need more information from a doctor. Finally somebody gives me Dr. Linton's supposed e-mail address and tell me that if he doesn't write me back, I should call on Thursday.

Wild guess - he doesn't write me back? Duh. So I call on Thursday, and they tell me to call on Friday. At this point, Blues Traveler's "Runaround" is going through my head like an evil theme song, and I insist on scheduling a concrete call time. "12:00," they say. "12:00, noon," I repeat. "Yes. 12:00 speak with Dr. Linton." "Okay," I say.

And yesterday I call. And yesterday he is still unavailable. As a last-ditch effort, I leave our Korean cell phone number for a call-back - last ditch because, like everything else, it has a distinct chance of not working. Frequently our phone just decides not to ring, and sometimes when it is ringing, it decides not to let us pick up. And because I am learning to be paranoid, I look up his e-mail in the hospital's online directory. Wonder of wonders, it is NOT the e-mail they gave me. So I send another email and wait.

This morning, having kept the phone on us continually for 24 hours, we magically have five missed calls from the hospital. FIVE! How is this possible??? At this point my will and ability to speak civilly have been drained and broken beyond all hope of repair, so Justin steps in and calls the hospital back.

And Dr. Linton is unavailable.

We do not know who has been calling us or why but the man on the other end, a Mr. Cha, swears up and down that someone WILL call us back on that cell phone number.

Note that pauses indicate the side of the conversation that I can't hear.

Fine, says Justin, but can we please make an appointment with Dr. Linton for Monday just in case? You know, since he won't talk to us on the phone or in e-mail, maybe he'd talk to us in person?

What?

Is Dr. Linton not in on Monday?

I understand that he is supposed to call us back, but I would like to make an appointment anyway. Just in case.

Are you telling me I can't make an appointment?

Insert Nana's head exploding. You're a CLINIC. That's what you DO. You MAKE APPOINTMENTS with PATIENTS.

Evidently not.

We conclude with Justin taking what this man claims is his personal cell phone number, which we are to call if nobody calls us back. I have resisted the urge to type "when" instead of "if."

Anyway, I'm royally cheesed off. If they had talked to me any of the first five times I tried to contact them, we would have had plenty of time to get the information we need and go in if we needed to. Now we only have one business day before we go to Malaysia for a week, and it's going to be a real pain in the backside to get over there and get anything done.

I'm wondering if this is some kind of "Asian no" phenomenon. I've mostly heard about it in Japan (Dave Barry's book Dave Barry Does Japan has a whole gag about it) but I don't know if it's done in Korea. Basically, the idea is that culturally, it's impolite to tell somebody no, so you tell them anything else: "You would like a blue sweater? Oh. Perhaps you would prefer the red sweater?" instead of "We don't sell blue sweaters." Our after-school Korean teacher won't tell us that anything is grammatically wrong - it will usually go something like "X? Hm. I think Y would be more correct." "X is okay, but Y is much better."

So maybe what's been going on is they just don't want to tell me "Doctors don't do telephone consults." Instead they keep saying, "Um, Dr. Linton is unavailable. Perhaps another time would be better."

You know what I say to that? NO.

Off to Malaysia!

Nana and I are on Spring Break this week, and on Tuesday we're headed to Malaysia for a conference. Aside from the fact that our school is apparently putting us up in a super-posh hotel in downtown Kuala Lumpur, it looks like we'll have the opportunity to check out some really interesting talks and seminars--and we'll also get a day to explore the town.

Anyway, we may or may not have internet access while we're there (I mean, we'll have access, but we may not take our computers, since I don't think we have the right adapters), but I can promise a pile of posts once we get back.

Easter in Korea

Slate Magazine recently published an insightful analysis of why Easter in the West has avoided the rampant commercialization that swallowed Christmas. The argument boils down to this: the Christmas story is much easier to secularize than the Easter story--the former is Hallmark, while the latter is, well, Mel Gibson.

In Korea, though, both holidays have managed to escape commercialization, at least for the time being. Gift-giving at Christmas here is modest and far from universal, and while store displays do "go tinsel" for the season, the change doesn't happen until after Chuseok. In fact, the Christmas lights didn't come out this year until the end of November, and the only major change in merchandise at the local Homever was a small seasonal section with cards, miniature artificial trees, and paper decorations.

But Easter, so far, has lacked even the most basic level of commercialization in Korea: the Homever gift pack. Most major Korean holidays, with the addition of Christmas, see the sprouting of huge displays of foodstuffs and cosmetics plastic-wrapped into ornate boxes to be used as gifts for friends, hosts, in-laws, and superiors. For Easter, though, there has been nothing so far.

I have several theories. First, Koreans seem to buy a lot more for the "small" holidays, like Valentine's Day and White Day, or Pepero Day, so maybe there isn't as much marketing pressure for the likes of Christmas and Easter. Second, most Korean holidays, even adopted ones like Christmas, seem to revolve around food--specifically, around huge family meals prepared by hapless daughters-in-law. Food-based giving is less obvious: there's food out all the time, and it's not like the daughters-in-law won't cook their holiday dinners if they don't see appropriate Homever displays. Third, Christmas and Easter are still relatively new holidays in Korea. At the risk of sounding like an old man, even I remember a time when the Christmas decorations didn't come out until Thanksgiving. Finally, there aren't a lot of "secular Christians" in Korea. There's no such thing as "culturally Christian:" either you're a practicing Lutheran, Calvinist, or Evangelical, and deadly serious at that, or you're a Buddhist. (For the most part.) In other words, the people who notice and care about Christian holidays tend to be pretty serious about them, and view them in a purely religious light.

Any thoughts?

Justin Drinks Weird Stuff For Your Pleasure: Shikhye

"Nostalgia Drink Since 1993"

The Verdict: Not as good as it used to be.

Seriously, though--shikhye is a kind of chunky rice-milk concoction that I'd had fresh(er) at the Korean restaurant we used to go to in DC. The drink itself was decent, but the rice bits had a distinctly canned taste.

Won't You Wear a Sweater Day: In KOREA!

A rare family photo in honor of Mr. Rogers. Did you wear your sweater today?

Won't You Wear a Sweater?

March 20th (which it already is, here) would have been Mr. Rogers's 80th birthday. Won't you join in the celebration of this totally awesome man by wearing a sweater today (/tomorrow, on your time zone?)

Horrifyingly, I lost track of days and didn't realize that that was today. But fabulously, I happened to wear a sweater anyway! Mr. Rogers is watching over me! Justin and I will post pictures of us in our sweaters if and when our apartment internet goes back up.

For more info on Won't You Wear a Sweater day, (http://www.fci.org/NeighborDays/sweater.asp)

Happy White Day!

Technically, American Valentine's Day is a two-way street - both the guys and the girls are supposed to buy something for each other. But if I had to choose, I would say that in the U.S., the onus of Valentine's Day falls much more heavily on the male of the species than on the female. Overall, the sentiment seems to be, "Lord have mercy, boys, would it kill you to be romantic one day out of the whole dang year?"

For Korean, men, however, February is a breeze. Valentine's Day here consists of women buying chocolates and gifts for the men. The men just kick back and enjoy.

Before you start booking your flights, though, realize that what goes around comes around. February 14 is for the men, so March 14, White Day, is for the ladies. Originating, apparently, with a Japanese candy consortium in 1978, White Day has since spread to Korea and Taiwan. Being a good wife, I did not blame Justin for forgetting White Day and even gave him all the dark chocolate in the candy sets that my students gave me. Waste not, want not.

At APIS, Valentine's Day was more heavily celebrated than White Day, although both resulted in copious amounts of candy given to teachers. (Koreans cannot resist the chance to give things to teachers - see Pepero Day). Maybe this is because the culture at APIS is more international/Western. It may also be a sign that as much as manufacturers would like to multiply candy sales by setting up a second holiday, it hasn't completely taken hold here. It will be interesting to see, over the next decade or so, who wins out in the cultural-influence arena: the U.S./West with a mutual or male-heavy Valentine's Day, or Japan with Valentine's Day and White Day. (Note: PLEASE settle this in the Thunderdome. Please?)

But the fun doesn't stop here! If you're a woman in a relationship, you know what to do, and if you're a man in a relationship, you know what to do. But what about those rocking the single life?

Let's look at the pattern: Feb 14, Valentine's Day, women. March 14, White Day, men. April 14 is next - and it's Black Day.

For Black Day, single people get together and eat Jajang Noodles, or noodles in a black bean sauce. (Yes, they're as gross as they look.) Now, it's possible that this is a wacky, fun-filled occasion, with people playing MASH and laughing at us lame married folk, but I picture it more like those old Peanuts strips where Lucy would invite all the neighborhood girls for a crab-in. A black day, indeed.

This is made even better by the fact that April 14 is my sister's birthday, and I always used to make fun of her for the various horrible things that have happened on that day in history (Lincoln was shot, the Titanic sank, etc. Look it up if you don't believe me.) So this one's for you, Jackie. Don't you wish you had a happy day like me?

Non-Korea addendum: According to intrepid college pal Leslie, there are two Russian holidays in February and March set out for men and women as well - Protectors of the Homeland day for men on the 23rd of February, and International Women's Day on March 8. See her blog here for more info. Leslie, if you're reading - what about Valentine's? I saw that you went to a Valentine's party, but was that more of an international thing? What does the average Russian couple do on Feb 14?

Return of the Yellow Dust

The yellow dust is back, and Nana and I have discovered that we've got our own canary in the mine: Annie, with her gimpy lungs, starts wheezing even before I do!

On a related note, Annie is doing well still, though we're a bit worried about her lungs. Still not 100%, but improving, as far as we can tell.

Paying Bills . . . in Korea!?!

After some persistent requests for more posts on everyday stuff, I've decided to come through with the first of what will hopefully be an interesting series on Korea's day-to-day quirks.

Now, as many readers have probably figured out, most things are much harder for foreigners in Korea than they are in the US. Not only do Korean businesses seem to have a knack for incomprehensible bureaucracies, irregular business hours, and nonsensical rules, even those tasks which would normally be simple and streamlined for Koreans are complicated by the language barrier we face.

Thankfully, paying bills is the shining exception to this rule.

To pay your bills in Korea, all you need is the bill itself, a bank account, and an ATM. Bill payments are all handled through wire transfers--go to the ATM, log in to your account, and wire your payments to whomever needs to be paid. Plus, all the ATM menus are available in English (in fact, Korea's whole banking system has been Americanizing lately as part of Korea's effort to become East Asia's financial hub). The upshot is that paying bills takes a total of about 10 minutes, no postage, no lag time. The downside, though, is the considerable risk of a typo, with mis-sent funds nearly impossible to recover, especially if you don't speak the language.

I see no reason why US banks shouldn't offer this same kind of service (correct me if they do, but I don't remember it)--though they'd probably charge an arm and a leg for it, just like everything else! We may earn 0% interest on our accounts here, but at least we're not wracked with hidden fees every other day.

UPDATE: Reader Tline asks, "What if you need to pay bills back in the US such as credit cards? Is it the same concept and are these ATM's everywhere or just for certain banks?"

Paying American credit card bills is tricky. First of all, you can't do it at an ATM. You have to make an international transfer to a US checking or savings account and pay the bill from there--and you have to make an international transfer in-person at a bank branch (you also need to show your passport and your foreigner card). Second of all, in most cases, both your Korean bank and your US bank will charge you for the transfer. Our Korean bank (Kookmin Bank, or "KB") doesn't seem to charge much--but transfer fees at some stateside banks can top $20, depending on your account. Also, depending on the particulars, you could also lose around 2-3% of your wire transfer on commissions for currency conversions. Cheaper methods exist if you can get cash, but most foreigners in Korea earn most of their pay in restricted USD accounts that charge a $15 flat fee, not including conversion commissions, for any cash withdrawal. PayPal could be a possibility, but I lack the language skills to figure out how to tie a PayPal account to my local Korean bank. And, finally, getting a Korean credit card is impossible unless you're married to a Korean or have earned permanent resident status (which is practically impossible if you're not of Korean descent).

Call for Ideas: Tokyo Scavenger Hunt

In April, our 8th graders will be going to Japan for a class trip/cultural tour. One of the days, they'll be immersing themselves in Japanese language and culture through a scavenger hunt in Tokyo. Of course, no good deed goes unpunished: since the scavenger hunt was my idea, I've been tasked with preparing the activities. That's where YOU come in. Any ideas? I'm looking for things students can buy or photograph, or conversations students can record, or places students can go that would help them practice Japanese and/or get a taste of everyday life in Tokyo. Some examples:

-Find a McDonald's and eat something that's not on the menu in Korea.
-Photograph 5 examples of globalization.
-Find the post office/supermarket/bank/police station in a specific district. (Vocab practice.)
-Go to a supermarket and find out how much certain items cost.
-In the supermarket, find an item that is more expensive in Tokyo than it is in Korea.
-In the supermarket, find an item that is less expensive in Tokyo than it is in Korea.
-Buy and eat a snack food you can't find in Korea.
-Sing a karaoke song in Japanese.
-Videotape yourself ordering lunch in Japanese.
-Videotape yourself asking directions in Japanese.
-Videotape yourself introducing yourself to someone in Japanese.
-Videotape yourself introducing yourself to someone in English.
-Photograph 3 examples of traditional Japanese architecture.
-Photograph 3 examples of modern Japanese architecture.

...etc.

The rules: Students will be in small groups (about 6 each). Each group will have a teacher chaperone/judge. Each group will be assigned a section of the city to work in. Each group will have a digital camera and a video camera. When we get back, then, we'll put the photographs and videos together as a presentation for the parents.

Any and all ideas would be a huge help! The plan is for the activity to last several hours, so the more activities/items, the better.

Thanks!

Snapshot: ELA

Following in Nana's great footsteps, here's a snapshot of what MY students are doing right now:

7th and 8th Grade: Poetry

I'm putting these two classes through a survey of poetic forms and devices--one of the rare units that will actually be following their textbook, since Elements of Literature has a fantastic and well-organized poetry unit. This is all a lead-in to a very poetic memoir/novel to be read in each class: 7th will be reading The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, and 8th will be reading A Step from Heaven, by An Na. It should be fun: Mango Street reads as much like a collection of prose poems as it does like a novel, and the 7th grade poetry unit even includes an author study of Sandra Cisneros, who writes a lot of poetry in addition to prose. As for Step from Heaven, I imagine 8th will enjoy how directly it relates to them as a novel specifically about Korean-American immigration and adjustment issues.

Anyway, for the next few days, they'll be using Poe to learn about sound devices in poetry (onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, consonance, etc). 8th has "The Raven" and 7th has "Annabel Lee."

Difficulties:
-The way certain English sounds are written in Korean makes it tough to teach rhyme. For example, the words "bed" and "bad" are spelled the same way in the kids' Korean-English dictionaries. On the plus side, this means slant rhyme is going to be a breeze!
-The kids want rules for scanning lines of poetry, and they really don't believe that there aren't many good rules for me to give them. Add to that Korean's almost complete lack of stressed/unstressed syllables, and you've got yourself in a pickle. I've started writing meter out as musical rhythms, though, and that has seemed to help.

Awesomenesses (for lack of a better word):
-Now that I know a bit of Korean, explaining syllables was a breeze: the syllable is the main unit of Korean writing, and it follows some of the same basic rules as the English syllable.

6th Grade:

In a joint ELA/Social Studies unit, the 6th graders are getting a crash course in Greek mythology. We've been focusing on important characters, central stories, and mythological vocabulary (i.e., Tantalus, Arachne, Echo, Narcissus . . .). I've also given them a quick run through the whole Trojan War/Odyssey story. As a final project, they're assembling a "mythopedia" of important characters from their readings.

Difficulties:
-I've had to sanitize some of the myths, naturally. And it's almost impossible to find classical images without nudity! (If you think I'm being a prude, just try mentioning something even remotely racy to a classroom full of 6th grade boys. You lose five minutes to the giggles every time.)
-Student interest in the topic of mythology has also caused some difficulties. They're having a hard time grasping that there are different versions of many of these myths, and many of them have read a handful of myths on their own, in sanitized or simplified versions.

Awesomenesses:
-The students really love this topic! I think they're just relieved to have a fact-based unit in front of them. (I honestly want nothing more out of them in this unit than to understand some of the basic concepts of Greek mythology.) ELA seems to be a really tough topic for middle schoolers in general, and young middle schoolers in particular--compounded at APIS because of the language barriers. When the kids get a chance to learn facts instead of skills in ELA, they get pretty pumped. Plus, being mostly 6th grade boys, they love the violence.

6th-8th Grade:
In addition to the classroom stuff, the kids have been taking short standardized reading tests so that we can keep a record of changes in their reading skills. From our ESL department, we already know that the kids are making huge progress, but from the Stieglitz inventories, we're now realizing that many of the kids still have a long way to go. Of course, given the dedication so many of them have shown to improvement, I know we'll get there eventually, even if it takes a little longer than we'd hoped.

Annie Again

Annie has a follow-up appointment with the vet tomorrow. She seems to be handling the heartworm treatment well, but she's showing signs of kidney trouble, which may or may not be unrelated. Looks like she's not out of the woods yet.

Consider this a call for more good vibes.

Space Kimchi!

Thanks to trusty uberblog BoingBoing, I now know that, should I ever find myself suddenly in orbit around the earth, I would not be without space-ready kimchi.

Of course, now that kimchi is safe to eat in orbit, Nana wonders if kimchi that's safe to eat on earth can be far behind. (I keed!)

N.B.: If you're not familiar with kimchi, it's cabbage, buried in a pot filled with vinegar and left to ferment. When it's unearthed, it's slathered in hot sauce.

In other news, South Korea's first astronaut goes into space on April 8!

Annie: Still Alive!

For those of you who may have been wondering about our rescue dog, Annie, she's doing fine and continuing to improve. We're a little worried about her hyperactivity--we've been trying to find a good balance of exercise and rest in order to keep her calm, but she continues to live up to her many nicknames (Spazzy, Whizzy . . . you get the idea).

From here on out, assume that no news is good news. Thanks for your well-wishes!

Pupdate Update!

Well, Annie, our little Korean rescue dog, made it through her two heartworm shots and is back at home being thoroughly pampered. The poor thing is completely wiped out, and still clearly sick (a dose of arsenic will do that to you), but at least now she's with her family. We were quite touched at how eager she was for us to hold her when we went to pick her up from the vet's.

We'll keep you posted--Annie's not out of the woods yet, since there's still a risk of blood clots, but she's through the worst part, and she's home.

Thanks for your well-wishes!

Pupdate

Annie, our little Korean dog, is currently at the vet after receiving Shot #1 of heartworm treatment. She is slated for Shot 2 tomorrow. This is a risky procedure (the treatment for heartworm is derived from arsenic) and some dogs don't pull through. Even if they do, there is a risk of death from clots caused by the breaking-up heartworm bodies for the next several weeks. We cried at the vets when we left her for observation and we're hoping not to hear the phone ring - it would only be bad news.

Annie has had a rough life, but she is a sweet, sweet girl and really deserves some good luck for a change. If you have any nice vibes to spare for a loving little dog whose sole purpose in life, as far as we can tell, is to sit on people's legs and adore them (the people, not the legs), please send them Annie's way.

Snapshot

Here's a short glance at what each of my classes is doing right now:

8th Grade: Salt dough maps of regions of Asia.

Challenges:
1. Food coloring is not available in Korean grocery stores. I begged green, yellow, and red food coloring off of the science teacher, but had no blue. Rivers and lakes will just have to be colored in.
2. Kids interpret "Work in pairs" time as "You can get away with speaking Korean" time. Points are coming off for this.
3. Salt dough doesn't have to be messy, but if eighth grade boys have any say in it, it will be. Interestingly enough, the boys are much more squeamish than the girls about getting dirty and mixing gooey squishy dough. This means they sort of whack at it and splash bits everywhere. Then, once they go to their desks, the girls take the dough and shape it into maps, and the boys make doughballs and fiddle with them, tearing them up and sticking them back together.

I wrote this sentence discussing my plight, but it came out sounding like a bad emo poem. So I reformatted it and offer it here:

Excessively enthusiastic pummeling
and thwacking of dough
scattered tiny little
dough-drops
into the wood grains of my floors.

Successes:
1. I debated whether or not to pre-make the dough, but I finally decided to have the kids do it. I think kids more and more are living in a ready-made world, where you buy clay and Play-dough pre-made and pre-colored. They all found the concept of mixing salt, flour, water, and dye to do it yourself quite amusing (if sometimes gross; see above).
2. The maps look awesome. I will try for pictures.

7th Grade: Trade and Trading Empires of the Middle Ages

Challenges:
1. A mishmash unit - we had to skip around the book a lot and talk about everything from the Mongols to the African Gold Kingdoms to the Byzantine Empire to the Vikings. Hard to keep it organized.
2. I don't actually care about the African Gold Kingdoms. This probably makes me a bad person. Sorry.

Successes:
Unit project, "A Medieval Merchant Job Fair." I had the students write a sales pitch and make a poster for their region (Byzantines, China, Arabs, Vikings, Hanseatic League, and Venetians) and then we voted on which group we'd like to trade for. I would have picked Venice, which got absolutely zero votes. Our landslide winner - the Hanseatic League. Go figure.

Bonus success: When my mother shared this story with my grandfather, he immediately said, without knowing the outcome, "They should pick the Hanseatic League." He may be 94 and almost 7,000 miles away, but he knows them better than I do.

Sixth Grade: Greek Gods and Goddesses

Challenges:
1. Explaining to kids, "Well, yes, Zeus is married to Hera, and Apollo is Zeus's son, but he's not actually Hera's son..."
2. Then trying to decide whether or not to mark "Zeus married many women" wrong on a quiz.
3. Trying to get the kids to say "Underworld" instead of "hell" because they're just so pumped to be able to say "hell" in school.

Successes:
Really cute posters of the symbols of various gods and goddesses that look very nice on my wall. Also, feeling like I've helped Justin out by getting the kids prepped and pumped for next week's Myths unit in his English class.

Fifth Grade: Significant moments in the Revolution (Trenton, Valley Forge, Saratoga)

Challenges:
1. Not laughing every time I say things like, "Nathan Hale spied for the Patriots," because I always want to add, "before Super Bowl XXXVIII."

Successes:
My Hessian ancestor, who fought for the British in the colonies before deserting to become a farmer in Pennsylvania, has attained cult status with the fifth grade. They are all very proud of him for ending up on the "right" side - I still get a kick out of how thoroughly these Korean kids have adopted the Patriots in this war. They all feel personally betrayed by Benedict Arnold. They were very disappointed to hear that he lived out his life in Britain and died of old age.

Valentine's Day, Korea Style

Korea has its own rough equivalent of Valentine's Day on Nov. 11: "Pepero Day," named for the Pocky-like cookie sticks that look a bit like 1s. But the Koreans aren't folks to pass up an opportunity to buy teachers stuff--it's one of their best qualities--so yesterday saw Nana and me showered with candy from the kids. Now, Nana and I don't usually celebrate Valentine's Day (at least not ON Valentine's Day--too much pressure, too much hassle) in any big way, and in general I think the holiday is a bit lame, but in my book, any holiday that puts a pile of chocolate on my desk is fine by me!

Namdaemun Fire

Just so you don't think we live under a rock here at School of ROK, yes, we have been following the recent saga of Namdaemun, the grand gate at the southern edge of old Seoul and Korea's official #1 national treasure, which burned down this week as a result of suspected arson. Before it burned, the gatehouse was the oldest wooden structure in Seoul, dating from the 15th century. Now that the arsonist has been caught, domestic news outlets are squashing the handful of early speculations that the culprit was either a) a drunken Japanese businessman, or b) a drunken American serviceman. For the record, the suspect is a 60-something Korean man with a history of arson. Xenophobia, much? Also, early reports called the fire minor, but apparently some less-than-stellar firefighting (and a complete lack of sprinklers in a building made entirely of wood?!?) let the blaze get out of control.

Good news, though: no one was hurt.

On another note, the fire is not quite as horrifying as it might seem to Westerners, as there is much less of a stigma surrounding rebuilding or remodeling historical buildings. Here, it seems to be more the idea and the historical appearance of the building that's important to preserve, rather than the physical structure itself. Which makes sense, in a way--a lot of old Western buildings, obviously, look much older (and therefore much different) than they did when they were in use.

Puppy!

As I mentioned in a previous post, Nana and I schlepped off to Daejeon yesterday to help out at an animal shelter that's closing down. Well, we made it there and back again, and with a little friend in tow! She's a tiny (and I mean tiny) mutt named Annie (for now) who is about 5 years old and could be some kind of long-haired chihuahua mix.

The poor thing seems like she hadn't had a square meal and a good night's sleep in ages--she was the second-smallest dog at the shelter, which made her last in line at the food dish, and perpetually scared. But she's doing very well today, getting calmer and happier by the minute, and spending plenty of time asleep. The girl has had a rough go of it so far: she's got a mild (read: curable) case of heartworms for which she's starting treatment this week and an injured eyelid that will require minor surgery to repair. And on top of all that, a crazed ajumma tried to steal her from us on the subway last night! (Seriously--she unlatched Annie's carry-case and grabbed her. I had to physically push her away while Nana hung onto the dog for dear life. Conclusion: You know the old hippie quote about not trusting anyone over thirty? Bump the number up a couple decades, and for Korean public transportation, it's true . . .) Anyway, she's safely curled up in our apartment now, sleeping off some of her very stressful five years.

Below you can find some pictures from the trip. Funny: I took the pictures before we decided which pup to foster, and nearly all of them were of Annie anyway. The next-to-last pic below shows her after a much-needed shower. We'll try to post some more after pics once she's fattened up a bit and been groomed.


In the meantime, as you'll notice from that last shot, of course, there are still plenty of dogs at the shelter looking for foster homes and permanent homes. If you're living in Korea and have room in your home and your heart for one of these dogs, even if only for a few weeks or a few months, please check out this link. The shelter closes at the end of this month (Feb 2008) and any dogs not placed by then will be sent to the Daejeon pound, where they'll most likely be put down.