Cherry Blossoms

Just some shots of the playground by the school, which I took a few weeks ago. Pretty, huh?





By now, everything's gone green.

The Glory of the Noraebang

Still sitting on some Japan pics, but with parent-teacher conferences and the aftermath of the trip (read: 8+ hours of sleep per night for a week), it's been tough to find time.

Of course, our utter musical hedonism this weekend didn't really help. This marked our first noraebang doubleheader--a considerable slide down the long, slippery slope to addiction. For those unfamiliar with the noraebang, or "song room," it is undoubtedly Korea's greatest contribution to the world, with all respect to King Sejong, of course. (And East Asians argue back and forth over who invented it first.) Anyway: in the West, weekend warblers have to belt out their tunes in a classic karaoke bar, in front of dozens of strangers all competing for time on the same open mike. In Korea, though, karaoke establishments rent out small private rooms to parties of 2-10, which not only cuts down on the competition for mike time, but also ensures that any flops will only leave you humiliated in front of your closest friends.

Call me hooked.

And this weekend, Nana and I indulged twice: once at the humble Brown Noraebang in our apartment building, where we sang with college buddy and amateur rock god Mark Lee, and once with a crew from the school at a spacious "luxury noraebang" in the Hongdae neighborhood downtown. Never in my life had I imagined that one day I would wake up with my vocal chords sore. Before this year, I didn't even like to sing!

In related news, Nana has scored a cult hit among the coworkers with her rendition of Europe's "The Final Countdown," rated as VH1's "Most Awesomely Bad Metal Song Ever."

The Foreigner Tax: Utility Bills Edition

This was going to be my first post of Japan pics, but something happened today that really got my goat.

First, some background: Nana and I use the term "foreigner tax" to describe all those little bits of money we lose as a result of being strangers in a strange land. Normally, the sums are small: a few bucks for misusing our bus cards; a two percent markup on groceries for buying from a big chain store instead of a local market; a little extra in cab fare for drivers who take the scenic route (but with whom we don't have the vocabulary to argue--good thing we only take short cab rides!); and, of course, the 0% interest and exorbitant transfer fees on our US$ current account at the bank. For most of the year, the money hasn't been worth worrying about, and we've just tried to take it in stride as one of the costs of living in a new place.

The last couple months, though, our landlords have been robbing us blind. Three times now they've insisted they never got the previous month's utility payment, though we have receipts, bank records, etc. to show we made the payment on time. Each time, they've double-billed us the following month, and we've paid up after we were given the impression (by others in a similar spot) that if there was a mistake, a credit would simply be applied to the next month's bill. No dice, despite several calls from our resident Korean guru, Paul. So to date: three extra months' worth of utility bills, vanished into thin air.

Now, to be fair, this isn't just a Korean thing: I've heard of American landlords fleecing foreigners under the assumption that they lacked the ability to fight back. But the fact that others are getting hosed, too, doesn't make this any less annoying. Argh!

Alll byyyyy myyy-SEELLLLLLLLFFFFF

Justin has spent the last two days chaperoning the 8th grade trip to Japan (seriously, what? A class trip to Japan???) and I've been keeping it real here with the dog. I'm doing surprisingly well here. Unless, of course, I have to do laundry, because I have no idea how to work the washing machine. And of course we still have the weekend, and there's a 45% chance of social bunny sightings.

Another important thing that happened this week... spring is here! Unfortunately, the camera is also in Japan with Justin, so I can't show you some of the beautiful cherry blossoms that bloomed at the school playground, but it really has been beautiful. The air feels great, and the flowers are everywhere. They're not blooming, though. They actually seem to be planted, in flats, like by landscape elves. I'm not really up on my city gardening, but I don't think this is usual. I wonder, will they dig them up later and replace them with something seasonal?

This is the sort of thing one wonders when one is home alone with the dog. A dog, I might add, that likes one's husband best.

You know, I think, that we're taking after-school Korean classes through the school. We started off pretty well attended but I'm sort of proud to report today that I am the last man standing. Yes, Justin wasn't here because he was in Japan, but I think he did it just to get out of the conjugation homework. The whole thing is so transparent, really. In any case, my reward? Learning to type in Korean!

This is my third letter set to type in, with the other being Chinese. In Chinese, you get to use the normal English keyboard and type out the romanization (English phonetic spelling) of the character in mind, and then you choose from a list of characters with that pronunciation. In Korean, you have a button that switches from the English character set to the Korean one. The consonants are on the left of the keyboard and the vowels are on the right, and if you're me, you chicken-peck like mad. The computer program then combines it into the syllable block for you (putting the sounds on top of each other and resizing them, larger or smaller, as appropriate). But this is all due to the miracles of modern computing. I recall reading from the national museum that converting Korean for typewriters, which couldn't do the automatic resizing, was a tremendous headache.

Oh, right, and it presupposes that you have the Korean program on your computer. Which, thanks to Microsoft, is hardly possible to do. I suppose it's fair to say that Koreans are far from the only masters of the 90% solution. So as much as I wish I could type something for you here, my computer doesn't have it. But try to picture it, it was really cool.

Internet Woes

Apologies for the lack of posts this week--we've been without internet since Friday.

PROBLEM: Justin and Nana want Internet.

SOLUTION: Justin and Nana call KT, get Internet, and pay for services rendered in a timely fashion.

90% SOLUTION: KT installs service, but never sends us a bill. When we call (more than once) to figure out how to pay them, they say the bill's in the mail. (Hah!) Then on Friday, less than 24 hours before the Penguins' game, they suddenly kill our connection--because we haven't paid our bill. Which they told us was coming. Which never arrived. Oh, and they don't do business on weekends, so we're out of luck until Monday night. Sweet!

In other news, I'll be headed to Japan with the 8th grade this week. Poor Nana will be left here all alone. Send her bunches of e-mails and stuff to keep her company, will you? Thanks!

PS: We still got to watch the Pens' game, on the big-screen Smartboard at the school. Which actually rocked.

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)