From 한국

For the first time in nearly five months (wow, can't believe I've been here five months!) I can't think of what to write in my blog...hmmm.. Maybe another sip of my orange colored fiber drink will help me with my writers block. They sell fiber drink at just about every convenience store e.g. 7-Eleven (they have that here and Japan), Buy The Way, Family Mart, or Mini-stop (the ones listed I've found to be the most popular if not all the ones they have here). In addition to finding the much beloved laxative that I enjoy after a healthy yet conspicuously vegetable/brown rice forsaken meal, you can also buy ginseng (which I often get), and aloe juice (another good one). Btw, the aloe juice is actual juice with sugar and the like; if you get a sunburn it's probably not the best thing to pour on yourself should you happen to come to Korea and think it can be used for duel purposes. If you're hungry you can buy these triangle shaped rice things wrapped in seaweed; inside the center is kinda like a jelly donut except instead of jelly they have different 'fillings' like tuna (I'd name the other 'fillings' but I got these maybe 3 times and didn't get the tuna 'filling' so I stopped buying these pretty much after my first week here). In case you're wondering (like me) if I spelled filling correctly, I found that 'fillings' has two Ls while filing, like filing papers in an office only has one L. Weird, wild, stuff! The irony is that I'm teaching English and losing it at the same time. I've actually misspelled a word and had my co-teacher correct me one time which was slightly humiliating (before you pass judgment I've heard from other teachers that they've made similar faux pas like mine before- you'd really be shocked at what an environment like this does to your English, kid you not). Oh, I almost forgot; two more slightly odd things they sell at these convenience stores: The first being dried squid/shrimp which hardly should come as a surprise to you if you are familiar with just about any East Asian culture (they love love eating squid and shrimp!!) They even have shrimp burgers at McDonald's (along with the pride of Korea, the bulgogi burger) and potato chips that are shrimp flavored. I accidentally bought the shrimp flavored chips one night while under the influence of alcohol and immediately noticed my purchasing mistake upon my first chip. The other thing that might be a little strange to you that they sell at these convenience stores are what I call, 'meat on a stick'. They usually have these in hot dog warmer upper things located right next to the cash register sitting next to their buddies, the fried chicken. For some reason every time I see these I always think of one of my favorite movies, 'There's Something About Marry'. In the movie, Ben Stiller, asks while eating a corn dog (something to the effect of), 'how come they don't have more sticks with meat on them?' Apparently, the writers of the movie never traveled to Asia because they indeed have 'meat a stick' sold at nearly every convenience store sold in Korea. Lastly, many if not all these convenience stores serve as fast food restaurants of sort. Most convenience stores have tables either inside or outside (or both) so you can eat you're food or have a beer should the need fancy you. Aside from those things mentioned above however, the convenience stores sell pretty much everything else you'd normally find in the States.

Other seemingly trivial news: I've finally figured out the train schedule which makes life a little easier. Unfortunately, I still haven't figured out the bus system around where I live; Every time I get on the bus I still have mild anxiety attacks if I don't recognize a place or surrounding. Can't think of anything interesting to write about for now and about getting tired so that's it for now. Ciao! Thanks for reading.

Englishee

It's been a couple months since my last posting and I've probably lost maybe half of my readers, all three of them. Nonetheless, I will begin anew with my tales from the orient. What a journey this has been so far! As with about every posting in my blog- I usually don't know where to start? Anyways, if you've been reading my blog I'm sure you've gotten used to the nonsensical inanity of it all. So here it goes:

I'm nearing the end of our school's first semester and I've been in the 'Land of the Morning Calm' now for about four and a half months. A predictability of sorts has finally set in: I have become used to the mangled English that might drive an otherwise sane literate person mad; the ad nauseam English phrases that are taught in English textbooks for example, 'how are you? I'm fine thank you, and you? (most students will answer 'I'm fine thank you, and you' in almost robotic fashion when asked how they are doing- some answer, it's sunny or it's cloudy (these are some of the ahem, lower level students) have all become normal yet still irritating at times.

If I can critique the absolutely awful textbooks for a moment- the reason many people are ghastly terrible at speaking English is most likely, in large part due to the way English is taught here. The textbooks are not situational or theme oriented like movies, shopping, etc. Instead they're kind of all over the place. Instead of having people build sentences on there own; the way you should do when learning a new language, especially English which demands creativity and originality; they have these already constructed sentences in there textbooks. As a result, many people, even after learning English since Elementary school can only splutter out a few sentences if any. Another ubiquitous phrase or word found here is the word 'delicious'. I speak for my fellow English speakers when I say, never in my life have I used the word 'delicious' so much until I arrived in Korea. Often when eating with fellow teachers I am asked, 'is it delicious?' (with a quizzical expression)? and the standard response from which I have become accustomed to giving if I like a dish, 'yes, it is delicious'. Sometimes at lunchtime now I often comment about how delicious the food is- I think it makes everyone happy because that's one phrase they can actually understand and it makes them feel good about their cultural identity (which unlike America food is part of their distinct identity). On a side note: Koreans love to hear complements about their food and country. It's probably because unlike America, which is a superpower, Korea is rarely ever talked about on the international stage except for of course, their brethren to the north. Americans in general, don't care all that much what new comers think of their country or at least they don't make a point of asking every person traveling to America what they think of American food (what is American food? Trying to think of something but nothing really comes to mind because we have so many cultures and types of food). Plus Americans and perhaps other western countries have a healthy dose of self-criticism (some may argue too much) i.e. we often are quite critical of our leaders, policies, society, and culture. Maybe it's because I don't speak the language but some of the Koreans that I have encountered usually don't take cultural, societal, political, etc. criticism all that well (it could very well because it's coming from a round eye but I'm not sure).

I only find it half-comical now when I see the police cars always driving around with their police lights (on the top of their car) flashing. They're never pulling anyway over for speeding or arresting them btw, they just drive around or are sometimes stopped with their lights flashing. Why they do this? In the words of the Kid Rock song (probably taken from someone a bit more wise them him), 'Only G-d knows why'? Or the juxtaposition between Korean society and language and driving rules. The former seems to have a million rules yet when it comes to driving they only have one basic rule here, try and not to get into an accident. Other than that you can do pretty much whatever you want on the road or parking- you can park on any side of the road or even on the sidewalk, you can even park in front of other cars in your apartment building (they solve this by putting the car in neutral and when the other person blocked in wants to get out they simply just push the car out of the way). Wheww, I'm tired of writing and am going to go work out and go to the hot springs (sauna and spa with 45 other Korean nude males). A couple things that I wanted to talk about which I failed to mention: couple t-shirts, the eating of dog and why they do, and teacher's day.

Almost forgot: Today (Sunday morning) I got up and for some reason couldn't think of the spelling difference between message and massage. When you're surrounded by people that don't speak English well it drags your own ability down- case in point if you haven't noticed from my recent blog. Until next time, stay well. Be the change you want to see in the world! :)