My Summer Vacation! (Finally)

At the end of July, Devon and I were lucky to have her Mom and sister Ashley come to visit us for a week and a half.  We hit the usual touristy areas Seoul and Busan, the less usual, but equally as touristy Geojedo and Oedo, and the unusual, and not very touristy, but spectacular Jinju.

I took pictures of everywhere we went - well most everywhere since I came down with a minor bout of gastroenteritis which turned into an acute gastroenteritis halfway through our trip, caused by either the slices of raw chicken or 9 month old margarine that I had eaten the week prior.  Whatever it was, it put me out of whack and in a mood that wasn't very conducive to taking pictures.

Still, I persevered, and with the help of Korea's finest medicines, managed to drag myself and my camera out of our various hotels.  These photos (more can be seen at http://picasaweb.google.com/melvillj) are the result of that trip.

We started our journey in Seoul shopping along crowded artisan streets, in jam-packed markets, and in the swank downtown area with all the famous brands.  Somewhere in between, we managed to ride a cable car up to the top of Namsan, one of Seoul's many mountains and the only one with a 497 meter tower on the top where we were treated to a view of the full enormity of Seoul.

Like I said...Seoul is BIG

I'd always known Seoul was big - some 40% of Korea's population lives in or around the capitol, but to seeing apartment stack after stack dissolve into the summer haze put a new perspective on the size.  I can climb a mountain in Gwangju and on even the haziest days see where the city ends and the farms begin.

After Seoul, we jumped back to Gwangju for one last day of teaching before the official vacation started.  As soon as school let out, we were on our way to Busan, Korea's second largest city and home to it's most famous fish market.

In Busan, we eschewed the tower on the mountain in the middle of the city and instead wandered through the maze of alleys of the Kukje Market.  We didn't buy much beyond the odd pair of socks and the lunch we ate sitting on tiny plastic stools in front of a gregarious ajumma serving us noodles in plastic bowls in the middle of one alley.

It was in Busan that my "mild" case of whatever it was I had turned "acute," and so we went to the hospital in search of aid and stronger antibiotics.  When we arrived, a very helpful nurse who was obviously used to dealing with lost and stricken foreigners ushered me into her office and told me I'd have to wait for 45 minutes while the doctors finished their lunch.

I had mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, I really appreciate a country that places such a strong emphasis on lunch while at work.  It shows that at least someone has their priorities in order.  On the other hand, being told to wait 45 minutes with an acute case of whatever it was wasn't fun.  I'm just glad I didn't ruin their meal.
An hour later, we departed the hospital with my stronger antibiotics and headed towards Beomeosa, Busan's largest and most famous temple.  It's located about a half hour outside the city by train, and right as we got there the weather decided it would start to rain.  Hard.

The Entrance to the Temple

The temple was beautiful, but the antibiotics hadn't kicked in and besides it was raining, so you'll have to settle for pictures from the last time Devon and I went to Busan (it was much sunnier).

The temple in the Mountains.  Note the sun

The next day, we headed to Geojedo where we'd finally get to see Oedo.  In case you don't know, last summer Devon's parents visited us, and the one place Devon and her Mom wanted to see was this island - described in guidebooks as somewhere between "Paradise" and "Heaven."  It was a private island that some guy turned into an opulent tropical garden paradise and opened to tourists.

The entrance to Paradise

But last year, with some apocalyptic traffic and a ferry that didn't take cars, we were forced to skip the island altogether.  Devon and I made it as far as Geojedo earlier this year, but didn't have enough time to cross the island and quite frankly had no clue how to get to Oedo, and so we left it unseen.  This was the one place Devon wanted to visit before she left Korea.

Somehow we figured out how to get there, and boy oh boy were the promotional materials right.  It was Paradise - beautiful blue sky, lush green vegetation, and statues of every kind everywhere.  I was reminded of the real estate magazines I used to flip through as a kid, dreaming of owning a villa on the French Rivera or some Mediterranean Island somewhere...

Mediterranean Dreams

After being dragged kicking and screaming off of Oedo, we booked it to Jinju, a smallish city about halfway between Gwangju and Busan, located on the beautiful Nam River.

Jinju by night

Way back when, Jinju was the sight of a huge fortress and a couple of ferocious battles with the Japanese.  The first ended in glorious victory for the Koreans, the second a couple of years later ended in crushing defeat and the deaths of some 70,000 Korean soldiers and civilians.  After the battle though, Non-gae, a Korean "professional female entertainer," drowned herself in the river with one of the Japanese Generals. 

Brave woman

With both the first victory over the Japanese and the story of Non-gae, Jinju has taken a special role in the Korean psyche (the Japanese brutally colonized Korea for 35 years back in the early 20th century).  Today, the fortress has been rebuilt and a museum highlighting both Korea's long history and the 16th century war with Japan has been added.  Both are pretty interesting. 

View of the fortress

But Jinju was more than just forts and museums.  The best part was how small the city seemed.  Families wandered around the fortress grounds at night, enjoying whatever respite from the heat of the day they could get.  I wandered along the river banks (the antibiotics finally kicked in), and stumbled across a summer festival, complete with a battle of the bands competition and children playing in fountains.

The right way to beat the heat

Far from the crowded chaos of Seoul, or even the bustle of Gwangju, Jinju felt like a real community.  I felt like everyone in the city was out that night, walking along the river and enjoying the reflections of the bridge in the river like so many stars.

My favorite picture from the whole trip

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Check out more pictures from the vacation here

Deluge

Monsoon season has started, and with it has come my nightly 4am wake up to crashes of thunder rolling through curtains of pouring rain.

These days, I just roll over and go back to sleep, or I stay up and watch the lightning bounce off the buildings outside our window, but a year ago, when D and I had just arrived and still gawked at the squids and octopuses (octopi?) in the tanks outside of the restaurant across from our school, I would panic.

Not the cute panicking of a ten-year old hiding under the sheets until the loud noises stop, but the paranoid panicking of a (nearly) full-grown man who in a half-awake delusion is utterly convinced that the North Koreans are dropping bombs on his new home.

I'd lay awake for what felt like hours, listening for any sign of Kim Jong-Il's fearsome infantry as they swept through Gwangju, rounding up all foreigners to be sent to a concentration camp somewhere, lest they be spies of the hated imperial dogs. I'd run through a mental checklist of the things I'd need if I wanted to escape – a pocket knife, some rope, my camera in case I saw Dear Leader or anything that might interest the CIA, and maybe a bottle of water. I'd plan my escape route – there's a mountain behind our apartment that I could run up and hide in for a couple of days, though surely the Communist army would search the woods once they secured the city. I figured I had a couple of days at most to try to get to the coast and find a fisherman who could take D and me to China or Japan. (Seriously, I planned this stuff out).

These days, I enjoy the crashing thunder when it wakes me up. I expect the nightly downpours that drown the city every night and carry an umbrella whenever I go out. And I no longer freak out when North Korea threatens to turn Seoul into a "Sea of Fire" as it did recently after they were accused of sinking a South Korean ship. The Koreans I work with aren't worried, and besides, Gwangju is a long way away from the border, and close to the ocean, so we'd probably have plenty of time to escape to China if Dear Leader gets any crazy ideas.

One year already?

The first real "Korean" image I have is from our first bus ride to Gwangju from the airport.  We were sitting in huge pleather-covered chairs, trying to sleep in the blue light from the HD TV at the front of the aisle.  I gazed out of the window at the night rolling past, hoping to catch a glimpse of the country I had moved to.  For a long time I just watched the highway fly by, orange concrete surrounded by black.  But then we drove by a city.

Endless rows of buildings towered over skinny roads, tall and narrow and long.  Electric signs crowded the buildings, neon red and green and yellow flashing like a mini Times Square on every block.  "This is so cool," I thought as the neon swirled past in the night.

* * *

One year later and I still find myself thinking that.  Sitting on top of a mountain at midnight, gazing out at Gwangju's orange and purple lights that twinkle in the haze while friends chitchat in the shelter behind me.  Launching roman candles in the middle of a bustling traffic circle with children and grandfathers into the night sky, the cacophony of a festival mixing with the smell of gunpowder and horses.  Watching fishing boats chug around the blue waters of the South Sea from a sleepy beach town as an ajumma picks onions across the road behind me, I think  "This is so cool."

I'm lucky, in a way, that living in Korea still retains enough of the "exotic" to provide fodder for stories that friends back home will find interesting.  But it's not when I'm eating soup made from congealed pig's blood or dressing up in a hanbok at my boss's request that I really feel satisfied.

For a long time - since at least high school - I knew that I wanted to go abroad.  I didn't just want to travel, I wanted to live and work in a different country.  It's why I studied International Affairs, and it's why I went to GW.

When I stand on top of the mountain, and think about where I am and what I'm doing and how much I simply love my life right now, I'm awestruck.

To be two years out of college, and in the exact position you hoped to be is a strange feeling.  There's a sense of "Mission Accomplished" sure, but I'm also acutely aware of how lucky I am to be here.  For so many people here, and for so many friends back home, the job is a stepping stone, a temporary stop on the way to fulfilling their career or life goals.  Maybe I'm generalizing a bit too much, so I may get into trouble, but it seems that while most people my age are where they hope to be at this point in life, they're not where they hope to be in life--not yet.

Standing on top of that mountain, I realize that this is it.  This is where I want to be--in life.  Period.  I spent the better part of the last seven years trying to get here, and I love it more than I ever thought possible.


It's incredible to have reached a goal.  It's thrilling to have been so right in setting that goal. But it's also a little scary.  What if this is it, and it's all downhill from here?  What if I've peaked too early and I have to spend the rest of my life working some dreary job chained to a desk as my friends trot around the globe and live glamorous expat lives abroad? (not that desks are all bad, I have many fond memories of desks)

But then some shopping center's lights will be shut off, or a car screech will jolt me back to reality and I'll notice the lights from the farms twinkling off in the distance and I'll think to myself, "This is so cool."

Don't worry, we're OK

Hello,

Devon and I are coming up on finishing our first year here, and I was in the middle of writing a post looking back when I got a bunch of messages from friends and family back home all asking essentially the same thing: "Are you alive?"  So I figured I'd deal with those first.


This whole incident started back at the end of March when a SK warship the Cheonan broke in two and sank after an explosion near the Northern Limit Line (the maritime border between the two countries-disputed by the North since it was unilaterally drawn by the Americans after the Korean War), killing 46 South Korean sailors.  Reportedly, it was highest number of South Koreans killed in military action since the end of the Korean War.


After a lengthy investigation, the South formally accused the North of sinking the ship (not that the outcome was ever in doubt, a ship blows up in disputed waters along the most militarized border on the planet, and you'd be forgiven for jumping to conclusions).  Reaction was swift: propaganda speakers were erected (threats were made to blow them up), economic ties were cut (except for a multi-million dollar joint venture industrial park at Kaesong), and the US Secretary of State planned a visit to Seoul.  All very serious stuff.

So I stand on the front lines of one of the more recent international crises in history, and I have to wonder - should I be scared?  I decided to ask some people who had more experience dealing with an unstable tyrant - my Korean partner teachers.

"Do not worry," said Alex, the director of my school.  "It is just Lee Myung-bak (the President of Korea) trying to scare the old people into voting for his party."  I remembered that Korean provincial elections are June 2nd, and immediately had flashbacks to 2004 and the constantly changing terrorist threat level.

"It is not something to think about," said Luna at lunch.  "I think about when will I get married?  When to have a baby.  What the weather will be like."  (At first I thought she meant for the weekend, but later I realized she meant global warming).

"This always happens," said Mickey.  "We are used to it.  Every three or four years, something happens.  And it never leads to war.  Only arguing."

"It is the same thing always," Ellie reiterated.  "Every time there is an election, the politicians exploit it to scare the people into voting."

Jay just laughed at me and started making plans for the weekend.

I looked out the window and realized that I hadn't heard the squadron of fighter jets fly over Gwangju any more than was normal.  Seoul was still bustling, and the local mega mart hadn't yet sold out of duck tape.  For now, I feel fine.

Gwangju News - Blossoms to Bottle Rockets: Jinhae’s Cherry Blossom Festival

This is the second of two pieces I wrote for the Gwangju News, a magazine for the international community in our city.  Since the pieces haven't been published on their website yet, I'm posting them here for everyone to read.  If you want to see the piece as it appears in the magazine (including pictures), let me know and I'll give you the .pdf.  Enjoy! 

* * *

We arrived on a crowded city bus from Masan, rambling down a hill covered in fluffy white trees. The driver stopped at a wide traffic circle, and we were swept off with the rush of passengers onto the sidewalk.

My girlfriend and I had come to Jinhae to welcome spring, continuing a tradition begun as students in Washington, DC, where we would walk hand-in-hand in the shade of freshly-blossomed cherry trees, jostling with hundreds of other bumbling tourists for the same prized view of the Jefferson Memorial across the Tidal Basin framed by that one perfect blossom-covered branch. 

Though the Jefferson Memorial was some 7,000 miles away, we were determined to carry on our tradition as best we could – which meant jostling with hundreds of other tourists for the same prized view from the top of Jehwangsan at Jinhae's Cherry Blossom Festival.

Held annually in the smallish port city just outside of Busan, the festival commemorates the beginning of spring, and the life of Admiral Lee Sun-shin who defeated several Japanese invasion attempts in the area. Various cultural events are held throughout the two-weeks of the festival, though the main event is the streets and hills of Jinhae which explode in pink and white for only a couple of weeks.

The festival conjures up mental images of an idyllic walk along the picturesque Yeojwacheon stream, your companion's face dappled by the shadows of cherry blossoms as you munch on snacks purchased from a truck. Or maybe you dream of climbing Jehwangsan's 365 steps (one for each day of the year) to take in the sweeping view of the city from the top of Jinhae Tower, stopping to snap a few artistic shots of lovers feeding each other kimbap on a bench under a branch of white flowers. Don't feel like all those stairs? That's okay, there's a rail car that shuttles up the elderly, infirm, and out of shape, though you'll miss the fortune tellers and palm readers that ply the shady steps to the top.

As we wandered through the streets, shaded by the ubiquitous cherry trees, we soon became distracted by the carnival-like atmosphere going on around us. There was food everywhere. Men spun cotton candy like Rumpelstiltskin and ajummas flipped pa-jeon loaded with peppers, scallions and squid as giant cauldrons of soup bubbled next to them. Men pulled fish and shrimp, octopus and squid, sea cucumbers and those weird red pinecones from boxy blue tanks and served them under a tent with a bowl of maekgoli. Entire sides of pigs roasted over open charcoal next to a tent that may or may not have served whale and roasted baby chicks (I didn't ask).

But not everything resembled an exotic foods show on cable, on every street corner stood a cart peddling familiar snacks. Dried cuttlefish hung from hooks, awaiting the jaws of a shredder. Vats of bundigie (silk worm larvae) bubbled infernally next to roasting corn, and skewers of mysterious meat rotated delectably over electric burners.

We washed down our lunch with a couple of beers in the center of Jungwon Rotary, watching the people enjoy the afternoon. Young lovers took photos of themselves, oblivious to the teenagers playing soccer with an empty coconut next to them. Children frolicked, playing with balloons, bubbles, and their newest carny prizes while making faces at the foreigners.

Our beers finished, we ventured into the tent-city once more, hoping to win one of those helicopters the kids were playing with at one of the carny games. The weighted cans seemed to magically repel the baseballs we threw at them, the basketball hoop seemed too small for the ball, the BB gun didn't shoot straight, and the eel we dropped into the water swam into the wrong divider.

At night, we settled back on the lawn in the rotary to watch the final night of the festival. The smell of roman candles mingled with the traffic cop's whistles and the whinnying from the speakers of the horse-drawn carriages. A small child, barely old enough to venture out of his stroller, waved around a roman candle that had only seconds earlier been launching sparkling white bursts into the sky. We ducked. An ajossi glared at us for an uncomfortably long time, then offered us some of his smoked cuttlefish.

The morning after, we woke up early. The streets were quiet and mostly empty from the night before – as if the whole city had stayed up too late playing with fireworks. Even the cherry trees showed signs of hangover – many of them had lost their petals, and so the sidewalks looked like they were covered with snow in spots. Roving bands of youths threw them at each other – a springtime snowball fight.

I bent down to throw some at my girlfriend when a cloud of white and pink exploded around me. I ran down the street after her, already plotting how I'd get her back next year. 

To get to Jinhae, get on city bus #760 at the stop across the street from the Masan Express Bus Terminal. After 20 minutes, get off at the big traffic circle. The Cherry Blossom Festival is held every year for two weeks at the end of March to the beginning of April.

Gwangju News - Miracle on the Mountain:Haeinsa, Temple of Dharma

This is the first of two pieces I wrote for the Gwangju News, a magazine for the international community in our city.  Since the pieces haven't been published on their website yet, I'm posting them here for everyone to read.  If you want to see the piece as it appears in the magazine (including pictures), let me know and I'll give you the .pdf.  Enjoy! 

* * * 

We left the city limits and soon we were driving through freshly-plowed fields still shrouded in early-morning mist. It always surprised me how suddenly Korean cities ended without any of that suburban sprawl that I was used to back home. The towering futuristic apartment blocks gave way to old farmland so abruptly, it was as if they had been dropped in from space, squashing some poor farmer planting rice and seriously ruining his day.

The bus continued onwards through the idyllic countryside. A couple of ajussis in front of us chattered like schoolboys, pointing out the window at unknown sights as the bus drove on. Muddy brown rice fields spilled down the side of the mountains before settling into valleys. A girl in a pink sweatshirt watched us indifferently as we passed through her small farming town: a cluster of houses and sheds, a mini-mart, a school, a salon and a norae-bang. The two-story buildings were dusty and faded, and I was reminded of a drive through the town in the Shenandoah Mountains in western Virginia where my Mom grew up.

After an hour or so, we arrived at a bustling tourist village nestled in between two large mountains. A short hike through the woods brought us to the entrance to Haein-sa, one of the Three Jewels of Korean Buddhism. Haein-sa, the 1200-year old temple of Dharma represents the teachings of Buddha. It is home to the Tripitaka Koreana, the oldest and most complete collection of Buddhist scriptures carved onto 81,258 wood blocks sometime during the 13^th century.

Tourists and the faithful shuffled through the gate and up the steep stone steps to the entrance. An elderly woman stopped at the top to bow before entering the temple courtyard that was bathed in sunlight.
Administrative offices, an information center and two separate gift shops occupied the buildings surrounding the courtyard. In the center, a large maze-like design was made from stones set into the ground. Parents walked through the labyrinth slowly and quietly, with their hands together while their children scampered around the twists and turns, peals of laughter ringing through the courtyard.

The woodblocks are kept in four 700-year old storage halls at the top of the temple complex. Inside, tall racks of woodblocks stretched down the long halls loaded with hundreds of woodblocks. Official-looking people walked around, warning us to put our cameras away; there would be no pictures of the woodblocks. A man hawked prints in the courtyard.

Though the halls' varying shades of brown were aesthetically simple by Korean temple standards, the methods to construct them and preserve the woodblocks are surprisingly complex.

Large windows were spaced at even intervals around the buildings, and when I peered into the darkness for a better look at the woodblocks, a soft cool breeze blew through thick wooden bars that obscured my view—strange because the air outside was perfectly calm.

Our guidebook noted these methods and others, and with some awe pointed out that they have yet to be matched by modern science. An attempt was made in the 1970s, but was abandoned after test blocks began to mildew.

That I was peering through the windows at these blocks in the first place struck me as the greater miracle. These blocks had survived 700-some years of Korean history: the fires that had destroyed the temple time and again, but left the storage halls untouched, foreign invasions that sought to wipe out Korean culture but ignored the woodblocks, and a civil war that bombed and shelled the country into rubble but spared Haein-sa because of an insightful, observant Korean pilot who remembered what treasures it held.

It's easy to forget the length of Korean history when most buildings I see were built in the last 60 years, when ancient temples still smell of fresh paint, and when Gyeongju seems more modern resort than historical capital.

Peering through the bars at these woodblocks however, I saw tangible evidence of that history. Just as the Gutenberg Bible is remembered not only as the first printed copy of the West's Holy book, but as the beginnings of a printed revolution that would culminate in the Enlightenment, the Tripitaka Koreana seems significant not as a complete, errorless copy of Buddhist scripture, but as proof of an ancient history, cultural relics to remind Koreans of their past.

To get to Haein-sa, take a bus from Daegu's Seobu Bus Terminal (1.5 hours) to Haein-sa. When you arrive, walk back down the road, then follow the signs up the path to the temple. Admission is free. Temple stay programs are available, call (055)934-3105 for information.

Discovering the Korean Spirit: Jiri Mountain

They say that the spirit of the Korean people flows from here at Changwongbong, the summit of Jirisan, the highest mountain on the South Korean peninsula.  It was easy to see why.  Even in the haze of the mid-afternoon sun, we could see for miles, the mountains stretching beyond in fading shades of blue until they disappeared.  From where I stood, 1915 meters above sea level, I was not only privy to one of the most spectacular views in the country, I was also the tallest person this side of the DMZ.

It was an arduous journey to the top, made harder still by the bottle of soju and six rolls of kimbap weighing my pack down (three each chicken and tuna), but for once in my short mountain-climbing career, I didn't feel completely out of my league.  Looking back, I suppose the fact that my chest was heaving like a toy boat in a tempest and my legs were cramping from the strain of the first hour of hiking should have told me that I was in fact, out of my league.  But the the ajummas I passed on my way up the 60-degree trail looked like they were having a harder time of it than I (nevermind that they were 40 years my senior), and so my confidence was buoyed.  Usually, they're passing me as I huff and puff up an endless flight of stairs.  Score one for youthful exuberance.

We camped at the Rotary Shelter, described in promotional materials as little more than a hut with no toilets or running water, perched precariously on the side of a mountain.  In reality, it was a log cabin with stinky toilets perched precariously below Bopgyesa, one of the highest temples in Korea.  The only water source at the shelter was a spring bubbling from a rock a mere 30-meters uphill, at the entrance to the temple, making a midnight drink impractical, but for those with enough foresight to fill up their bottles before embarking on the two kilometer journey to the summit, it was a heavenly gift.

Rules at the shelter were rigidly enforced: lights out at 8pm, no eating or drinking inside the bunks, and boys and girls sleep separately.  At first the early bedtime sounded ridiculous (were we at summer camp again?), but the effort of hauling myself 1600 meters up the side of a mountain made me too tired to complain and most of us were fast asleep on the hard wooden floors of the shelter when the lights went out.

Early to bed, early to rise, and the next morning we awoke to watch the sun rise from a specially-built balcony at Bopgyesa.  I had to forgo my usual morning coffee due to a lack of hot water (powdered latte doesn't dissolve as well in cold water), but the rich reds of the temple against the pale blue mountains was enough stimulation to wake me.

An early-morning hike to the summit found me for the second time in as many days scrambling up a trail more suited to goats than reckless twenty-somethings.  Someone recounted a legend about a group of North Korean soldiers hiding on the mountain after the Korean War.  It took the southern government something like four years to find the communists in the rugged terrain.  I believed it.

Just before the summit, the trail devolved into something resembling a rockslide more than the well-traveled path that it was.  We scrambled up the rocks with the help of one heavy-duty rope, dragged ourselves up one final flight of stairs, hauled our aching bodies to the top of a small rocky outcropping, and gazed down at the morning mist hanging in the pale blue valleys below.  We followed the lead of those around us and kissed the stone marking the top, the Korean spirit filling our tired bones.

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If you haven't seen my pictures from this weekend, go look at them now!

Cooking Korean

I recently decided that after nine months of living in Korea, I had better start learning how to cook some of the local food.  There's only so many times you can have pork with ginger and soy sauce before it starts to get old, and since Koreans seem able to cook a wide variety of dishes with what's available at the market, I thought I'd give some of those dishes a shot.

I found a helpful website (which I urge those of you playing at home to try out as well - www.mykoreankitchen.com) with a ton of Korean recipes written for the foreigner in mind (they're all in English).

For my first forays into the wide world of Korean food, I tried to recreate some of our favorite dishes from school (where Devon and I are lucky enough to be served lunch every day).  I figured this was a smart bet for two reasons: one, we could be fairly confident we'd like whatever it was I was making (no surprises like squid or silkworm pupae) and (I think more importantly), we'd have an benchmark to see how close my attempts came to "authentic" (aka. ECC cafeteria) Korean cooking.

I selected two meals: a spicy chicken and potato stew and bulgogi perhaps Korea's most famous dish.

Last night, I made the chicken stew, and for the most part it was good.  I added an extra cup of water to the recipe because the stew looked too thick while it was cooking, which wasn't such a good idea--turns out I don't know more than a Korean when it comes to Korean cooking.  It came out thin, and though it was flavorful, the flavors weren't as strong as they should be.

At school it comes in a thick, heavy sauce that's amazing on rice.  The blistering red-pepper paste contrasts beautifully with the caramelized sugars to create a dish that is both runny-nose spicy and dessert sweet.  This is perhaps the least "Korean" of the food we eat at school, though it may be because it's a chicken dish (most Korean food seems to have pork, beef, or the oceanic bounty in it).

For dinner tonight, I tried my hand at the bulgogi, sort of a stir-fried marinated beef dish.  The marinade took longer than I had anticipated to prepare, because of all the chopping and grating, though maybe it was just because I was unprepared.  Hopefully next time it'll go smoother as I work the kinks out.

Both dishes were easy enough to prepare though the chopping took long enough.  Once everything was ready though, they were incredibly easy to cook 5-minutes in a wok for one, an hour over a low flame for the other.

If any of you at home want to try either of these out, I'd recommend the bulgogi.  It isn't as spicy as the chicken dish and most of the ingredients should be readily available.  If not at the supermarket than at the local Asian market.

If you decide to make it, just follow the recipe for the marinade and dipping sauce.  To eat, just wrap it in lettuce and enjoy (the recipe calls for rice paper and perilla leaves, which are good, but unnecessary for enjoyment).  Serve hot and enjoy!

  Just don't forget the rice...

Engagement Special

Mom, Alysse, Megan, Kalli? Remember how you joked with me before I came to Korea? How you said I'd come back with a wife and a kid?

Well, stop laughing. It's not as funny when it's true.

In my defense though, I was tricked. Turns out you can't trust a seven-year old Korean girl, no matter how innocent she may appear.

I suppose I should explain myself a bit before wedding plans get made. Last Friday our school had a big celebration for the preschoolers who graduated to elementary school. After the graduation ceremony was a "variety show" featuring groups of preschoolers in ridiculous outfits dancing suggestively to selections from the canon of Korean and American pop while foreign teachers danced competently behind them.

Sprinkled between the dance routines were short skits starring both preschoolers and the foreign teachers.

My skit was about helping foreigners. I was told to go onstage, recite a few lines, then repeat what Lily, my 7-year old costar said to me. Easy enough.

The skit opened at an airport. Exhausted from a long flight and alone in a country I knew next to nothing about, I met Lily at the gate, a friendly Korean girl who offered to help me learn the ropes. "I'm so glad to meet someone who speaks English! This is my first time in Korea, and I don't know anything! Can you help me?" She said something in Korean to the audience and agreed.

After a lengthy bout of Korean speaking, she asked me if there was any Korean I wanted to know. Whatever you just said, I thought, but decided to let it wait. "Greetings," I answered. "I want to know greetings."

"When you greet someone in Korean, you say 'Sarang-heyo!'" she said as she hugged me.

Weird. On the plane, I had read in my Korean culture book that 'sarang-heyo' meant 'I love you.' And I certainly wasn't sure I was supposed to hug everyone immediately after meeting them. But then again, I'd also read that Koreans are a very friendly and welcoming people. And anyways, when an adorable girl hugs you, you hug back. "Sarang-heyo!" I said dutifully, as the parents chuckled quietly.

Later, we went to a restaurant and ate some sort of delicious rice dish while Lily said something to the parents. The food was so good I asked Lily how to say "It's delicious" in Korean.

"Nah-wah kyeol-hone hey-jwoh" she answered, down on one knee with her hands raised, palms up.

I paused. This whole knee thing was strange, I thought. But what did I know? I was a newcomer to a strange and foreign land. Their customs were different from ours. If they got down on one knee to praise the deliciousness of the food, who was I to judge? Maybe it was some sort of legacy from the poverty following the Korean War, kind of like thanking your host for preparing such a delicious, life-sustaining meal.

I could feel the parents watching me. How would I react to this strange new custom? Would I refuse to partake? Would I mess it up? I decided it was better to just follow Lily's example. I got down on my knee and raised my hands, palms up like she showed me.

"Nah-wah kyeol-hone hey-jwoh!" I said as loudly as I could, beaming at Lily proudly. 

I'd done it, my first cross-cultural learning experience! I had eaten a strange and delicious food, and complimented the chef in her native tongue! Maybe this whole cultural assimilation thing wasn't so hard after all! The audience cheered wildly.

In a flash, it was over. While I was congratulating myself for having successfully navigated a small part of Korean culture, Lily was snapping a pair of pink fuzzy handcuffs around my wrist. Before I could even grab my suitcase, Lily dragged me off stage left to the sound of the parents hooting and hollering.

"What was with the handcuffs?" I asked Monica, one of the Korean teachers backstage.

"Do you know what you just said?" she asked, laughing. "You asked her to marry you." 

I'd been duped!

Instead of being about how to help foreigners, the skit was about how to trick them into marrying you! It all made sense now. The too-friendly girl at the airport looking for the first foreigner to step off the plane looking completely and utterly lost. The knowing smiles and laughs from the audience as I greeted her. It was all just an elaborate guise to trick a foreigner and find a husband! And I fell right into her devious little trap!

I'm going to see what I can do to work this out over here. Devon's not too happy about my engagement to a seven-year old student, and I'm already feeling intense pressure to impress Lily's parents.

But if I can't figure this out and break the engagement, Mom and Dad, you might be getting some angry phone calls from a couple of Korean parents wondering where their future son-in-law is. If that happens, just pretend to not speak English and hang up. Go for some random language that nobody speaks, like Korean. That should fool them.

A Very Korean Weekend – Plus: Fame!

The month ended like every other: a blizzard of tests to be corrected, lessons to be planned, and evaluations to be written. Except this month was different.

For starters, my ugly mug was plastered next to Devon's radiant visage on the side of our school's building and buses.

But secondly, and most importantly, we were saying goodbye to our good friends Sam and Stephanie who, having finished their contracts, are embarking on an epic, 3-month, 13-country journey through South East Asia and Europe, followed by an even more epic, lifetime, globe-spanning journey as they get married sometime next year.

As is customary when wishing former teachers off, we took them out to the local trademark-infringing watering hole with the other ECC teachers, Miller Time. When we walked into our usual backroom, we were surprised to find another group of foreigner teachers sitting in our usual spot. We were a little upset at being swooped , but there aren't that many places around that can handle a group of two dozen plus people, so we didn't say anything and sat down next to the wall.

About 10 minutes after I arrived, a foreigner woman from the other group approached our table and looked at me.

"Can I ask you kind of a weird question?" she asked.
"Uhh, sure," I replied.
"Are you that guy from that poster?"
"The one on the side of ECC?" I said, getting excited.
"Yeah!" she exclaimed.
"That's us," I said, pointing to Devon beside me.
"I knew it!" she said. "I tried telling my friends, but they didn't believe me—They told me not to ask you. I pass that every day on my way back from the gym!"
"Devon! We're famous!" 

The woman asked for our autographs, went back to her table, and bragged to her friends that she'd just met "those ECC guys."

It's impossible for Devon and I to go anywhere now without being recognized. The halls of ECC are teaming with roving bands of youths who stare at us as we pass. The streets outside ECC aren't much better, where roving bands of youths mutter "ee-shee-shee!" excitedly to their friends as they walk to their fourth academy of the day. And now even the local watering hole was contaminated!

I had to get out. It was too much. There was so much pressure to perform in front of the public. I had a reputation—ECC's reputation—to uphold, or at least to not tarnish. What I needed was some quiet solitude and relaxation.

Fortunately for me, some of my fellow co-teachers were planning on hiking up Mudeung-san, the mountain that watches over Gwangju from the east. It's the highest mountain in the area, and figures prominently in the identity of Gwangju. I've eaten dinner at Mudeung-Juk, which is down the road from Mudeung Towers. I've wandered through Mudeung Market and really want to sweat it all out at The Mudeung Sauna.

In any event, I figured that this would be a good weekend to escape the suffocating pressures of celebrity, spend some time with friends, and participate in Korea's unofficial national sport: hiking. I wasn't sure what exactly made something an "unofficial national sport," but I was determined to find out.

So I hopped in a cab with my friends, told the cabbie where to go (panicked after he asked me to confirm it and just showed him the paper we had the destination written on), and we were on our way. We began passing familiar sights: Mudeung-Juk on our left, and a Mudeung Shoes on the right. The Mudeung Travel Agency next to the Mudeung Kimchi shop. Mudeung Sauna was across the street from the Mudeung Soju-room, which was around the block from the Mudeung hiking shop. Finally, we arrived at someone else's more aptly-named Mudeung Kimchi shop, at the base of Mudeung Mountain.

We wandered around Jeungshim-sa, the ancient temple at the base of the mountain for a bit. It has been destroyed and rebuilt over the centuries – most recently during the Korean War. All of the buildings are relatively new – the oldest one survives from just after World War II (or the "Japanese Invasion" as it's known here) – but Koreans still come here to meditate, pray, and give offerings to deities in its shrines as they have for hundreds of years.

After getting our spiritual fill, we began the trek up the mountain. We quickly turned off of the main path, onto a trail that Jason said would be a little less crowded because it was technically closed. We started up the narrow, muddy trail, past a small garden plot, through a short bamboo grove, and immediately ran head first into a group of ajussis coming down the mountain. They glared at us as we walked past them. I was sweating, despite the morning chill, and I held my breath.

Nothing. I exhaled.
"That was close," I muttered to myself.
"What are you talking about?" asked Steve.
"Nothing," I quickly said. Best to keep celebrity paranoia to one's self.
"I thought you said this wouldn't be as crowded," I asked Jason, hoping to change the subject.
"Yeah, well I wanted to give Matt and Melissa a real Korean hiking experience."

After we passed the ajussis, we found ourselves the only ones hiking the trail. We made our way through a pine forest that looked suspiciously like Maine, Michigan, or Arizona, depending on your familiarity with pine trees. We slipped up the mud, tripped over exposed tree routes, and took frequent breaks.

"Keep in mind," Jason began. "This is nothing like traditional Korean hiking."
"What's that like?" Melissa, a new teacher, asked.
"Soon enough," Jason said enigmatically.

Onwards and upwards we continued. We came to a rock slide next to the trail, and scampered out onto the boulders. As we gazed out on the early-morning haze that blanketed Gwangju in the distance, Matt, the other new teacher asked, "Is this real Korean hiking?"
"Not yet," answered Jay. "Do you see any Koreans out here?"

We looked around. The mountainside was covered with giant boulders. The occasional tree sprouted from between the gaps, and someone had spray-painted something on a boulder to our left. Ahead of us, behind the mountain the sky was bluish-white, and the sun poked feebly through the haze. The five of us were the only people around for what felt like miles. Solitude.

We scampered up the rocks like goats: jumping and climbing, pausing and gazing, nibbling at the tin cans we found between the rocks. At the top of the rock slide, we drank cool mountain water from a bubbling spring and rejoined the trail.

We reached the top of the ridge, a hard-packed dirt path through grassy scrub, and joined a steady stream of people making their way to the summit. Past a cell phone tower, past a relay station, and past some of the rock structures that make Mudeung-san famous: large, 8-sided "crystals" of rock that formed millions of years ago when lava pushed through the crust and cooled quickly.

"Is this traditional Korean hiking?" Matt asked, eyeing the Koreans streaming around us. I hid my face, hoping that nobody would recognize me way up here.

"This is closer," Jason answered. "There's enough people, but the trail still isn't quite right."

Young children tottered by on unsteady legs, supported by their parents. Teenagers hurried by in designer clothes and UGG boots, texting furiously on their cell phones. Middle-aged couples strolled past, decked out in the latest performance hiking pants, boots, and jacket. Ajummas and ajussis scuttled by in the same performance gear, looking like giant spindly spiders with the carbon-fiber hiking poles they used to support themselves.

We reached the trail to Seosok-de, the rock pillars that represented the highest point one could climb to without breaching the military base at the summit. A small crowd of hikers had paused here, taking a break before the final ascent. We caught our breath with them, and when they started up the trail, dutifully followed.

The trail entered a wooded area and narrowed. The recent snows had almost completely melted – except on the trail where it had packed into a slick icy mat. Soon the trail was barely big enough for the dual lanes of hikers passing – ours going up the mountain, the other coming down – and where there was extra room, somebody had sprawled out on the ice.

"Hey Matt," Jason called.
"Yeah," Matt replied.
"You see these stairs? The line of people in front and behind us?"
"Yeah," Matt said.
"This is Korean hiking."

We passed the rock towers and continued up a set of stairs: stone slabs placed into the mountainside on the trail. We followed the line of hikers until we emerged from the woods and into the sunlight. In a large field on the top of the mountain, dozens of families had spread out picnic blankets and were eating hot ramen noodles for lunch. Ajussis poured alcoholic soju into tiny paper cups to celebrate the ascent and ease the pain of the descent. Kids ran around, oblivious to the fact that they had just climbed the tallest mountain around Gwanjgu.

We followed the main trail's rock-stairs back down to the base of the mountain. When we arrived back at Jeungshim-sa, I rememberd that I had climbed a mountain with very little to eat.

"You guys hungry?"
We passed a tin house with a couple of tables inside, and a barrel full of beer outside.
"Yeah, I guess so," my friends replied. "What are they serving?"
"Not a clue," I replied. "Probably something good – this place is packed."

Sure enough we walked in and found ourselves squished at a table in the corner. We ordered a round of victory beers, and the ajumma working the place asked us if we wanted what the family next to us was eating. After the initial "huh?" that follows any question posed to us in Korean, she immediately said something along the lines of "OK, you don't want that."

"No, no, it's ok," we said. "Please give us some," without looking too closely at what that "some" was. The ajumma went away and five minutes later she brought back a plate of food. We examined it closely.

"Are those claws?"
"Why are they scaly?"
"There's no way I'm eating that.  Sorry guys."
"They look like peace signs!"

We looked around the crowded room. Everyone else was devouring a plate of what we quickly realized were barbecued chicken feet. Our ajumma, ever wary of the foreigner's palate, had replaced half the plate with what looked like long strips of chicken skin.

The feet were thick and chewy, with bits of what felt like cartilage in the toes. They didn't taste too bad – like the end of BBQ drumsticks, the part with the cartilage– and there was a fiery red sauce for dipping. The strips of skin tasted the same, only fattier. It wasn't the kind of thing I'd go out of my way to order – but I was glad I'd eaten it, and I'd probably eat them again if you put them in front of me.

"Look around," I said. "Everyone here is eating chicken feet."
"Must be the traditional Korean post-hike snack," Matt said.
"You have learned quick, young grasshopper" Jason replied, with a laugh.

How to Speak Korean: Part One in a Series

맛있다 Masheeta - "it's delicious"

You may be wondering what, exactly, could be delicious about anything involving kimchi.

Listen Jake, I've heard of this kimchi stuff, you'd say.  Cabbage, covered in hot pepper, garlic, fish paste, soaked in vinegar, and left to rot in the ground over the winter.  I may eat that plastic cheese from Velveeta, and that mystery meat that passes for "meatloaf" at school, but I'll die before I eat anything that undergoes the same process as a corpse.

And yes, dear reader!  You may be right!  Kimchi is indeed an acquired taste.  When you grow up eating it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner as my students do (no joke), you'd better like it.  When you move to a strange land after 23 years eating delicious, not rotten, food, it's - how to put this delicately - a different flavor.  Fiery, sour, bitter, and a little sweet, kimchi is not for the faint of heart, or those who place a premium of minty-fresh breath.  But follow me, and imagine the following scenario.

You're walking down the street on a frigid Korean winter night. Tiny snowflakes dance in the wind as a flurry passes over the streetlights.

You spot a sign in front of a restaurant on the side of the road.  "Kimchi zziggee" a strange little mushroom-man pronounces.  You're cold and you're hungry, so you walk in the front door.  Your glasses fog up immediately as you take your shoes off and enter the restaurant floor.

A middle-aged Korean woman points you to a table - on the floor of course.  You pull out the floor pads and sit down, the floor is heated, but you're still chilled from the cold outside.

Not two minutes later, the woman brings a large, hot bowl to your table. Inside is a red liquid, bubbling furiously.  Through the steam you catch glimpses of green onions, huge cabbage leaves, and massive slices of pork, with the fat still attached.

Dive into the pot with the provided scissors and chop away, breaking the cabbage and pork into manageable chunks.  Spoon the soup into your bowl, making sure to get plenty of cabbage, pork, and onions.

Dunk a bit of rice into your bowl, and dig in.  The pork is phenomenal, tender and flavorful.  The kimchi is soft and mild, all sourness and bitterness lost to the bubbles and the heat.  The broth is delicious, rich and flavorful.  Feel the hot pepper warm you from the inside - or maybe it's just the broth bubbling and steaming inside.  Either way, it's the perfect antidote for a cold Korean winter's night.

I'll have pictures next time, I promise!

Freezing on the Floor

Wow, two posts in a week.  This must be some sort of record for me.  I'm getting good at this whole "New Year's resolution" thing.

When we last left our intrepid heroes (Devon and I), we were gazing proudly at the 50' tall banner on the side of our building, complete with a 15-foot image of us in traditional Korean garb.  Needless to say, life here has been pretty exciting since then.

The giant posters on the side of ECC and emblazoned on its buses have made Devon and I quite recognizable around Gwangju.  Everywhere we go now, it's we're followed by whispers:

"Hey, isn't that..."
"No, it can't be."
"It must be.  Look!  He's got that spot!"
"Oh my god, it is!"
"Say hi to them"
"No way!  I'm not saying it, you say it!"
"Hello!  Nice to meet you!"

At this point, we usually just make eye contact with the person, offer a friendly "Annyong!" and continue on our way, leaving a mob of twittering Korean teenagers in our wake.

The attention got to be so unbearable, we had to skip town.  So early Saturday morning, Devon and I put on our best disguises, and hopped in a cab.

"Bus terminal, please."
"Hey, aren't you--"
"No, it's some other foreign teachers."
"But you have the same spot as--"
"As you can see, good sir, we wear thick black glasses and both have large fuzzy mustachioes.  Besides, we aren't even teachers.  We're with Gable Pharmaceuticals, investigating some of these new-fangled Asian medicines we're hearing about in Kansas.  Now please, to the bus terminal!"

Our destination was Jeonju, a city about an hour and a half north of Gwangju that, according to my Lonely Planet was far enough from Gwangju to avoid recognition.  It's known as the birthplace of both a thousand-year old Korean royal dynasty and bibimbap, an ingenious combination of rice, slivered vegetables, and hot sauce.

Traditional Korean Bike

To capitalize on their reputation as the birthplace of a thousand-year old dynasty, the people of Jeonju have constructed a "hanok" village of traditional wood and paper guest-houses, restaurants, tea shops, and museums depicting how paper, fans, pottery, and of course booze were made in the old-days.

Traditional Korean Cup of Tea

Devon and I arrived in town and timidly removed our thick, furry mustachios and stepped into the chilly winter morning.  A group of Korean kids were walking on the sidewalk towards us.  We held our breath.

"Look natural," Devon said.

"Do you think they recognize us?"  I asked.
"This is Jeonju, those kids have probably never been to Gwangju," she reasoned.
"Yeah, but didn't you say one of your student's hometown was Jeonju?  And remember, one of mine has a cousin here.  What if they're here?"  I asked, panicking.

We walked on, holding our breath, our ears straining to pick up any signs of recognition.

After a few tense seconds, they passed.  Nothing more than a casual glance - the kind any foreigner gets while walking on the street here.

Our first impressions of Jeonju were favorable.  The sun was shining, the sky was clear, and the buildings looked exactly like those in Gwangju: tall, steely-glass structures with neon signs on their sides advertising love motels, bibimbap, and banking services.  We took a cab to the hanok village and began our first order of business: finding a place for the night.

Traditional Korean village as seen from a Traditional Korean Mountain

Between our limited grasp of Korean and well, our limited grasp of Korean, this proved to be a much more difficult task than anticipated.  The only options for lodging in the area were in hanok-style guest houses, which were either located down a back alley somewhere and/or labeled with Chinese characters.

After a fitful search full of empty courtyards, locked doors, and one woman who scolded us when we asked for a room (either there were no rooms available, or she didn't want to risk being flooded by a swarm of fans from Gwangju), we finally found a guesthouse that would take us.  The rooms were private and it was a high wall, so we didn't have to worry about the pesky paparazzi finding us either.

Traditional Korean Silhouette Scene in a Traditional Korean teahouse

We wandered around town for a couple of hours.  We went to the "Jeonju Traditional Life Experience Park" to find out what life was like back in traditional Jeonju (sleepy), we went to the "Traditional Wine Museum" and learned about how they made traditional wine (with rice), drank traditional Korean tea at a traditional tea house (cute), and saw a monument on the top of a mountain to a famous general who defeated some Japanese pirates (nice view).  The town itself was charming enough that we could just walk through the broad main streets and twisting back alleys and still enjoy ourselves.

Once the sun fell and we'd pretty thoroughly frozen ourselves, we decided it was time to find dinner.  We walked to the "downtown" area of Jeonju, and wandered around on the "street that is desired to walk" and "street of youth" (as our map helpfully indicated).  Eventually, we found a galbi place that looked good (warm), and we walked in.

Traditional Korean Teahouse: suspiciously modern

Feeling full of Korean tradition, we indicated that we'd like to sit on the floor, in the traditional Korean manner.  The ajumma who ran the place, however would have none of it.  She began yelling at the young boy who was seating us.  With our broken Korean, Devon and I were able to understand two words: "foreigner" and "chair."  We did our best to explain that we'd like to sit on the heated floors, and then just sat down anyways.

Dinner was delicious and after a drink or two, Devon and I headed back to our guesthouse at the ripe time of 10pm (Dad, you'd have been proud) and sleep in the traditional Korean manner: on a floor heated by a fire underneath.

We fell asleep, freezing cold (because it was freezing cold outside and our walls were made of traditional Korean paper—I'm not kidding). But when I woke up two hours later (at the still respectable hour of midnight), I was sweltering in the blankets. I took off the socks, sweatshirt, and long-sleeved shirt that I had gone to bed in, and got up for a quick drink of water. And I froze.

The dissonance between cold outside my bed and warm and toasty inside is one I'm used to from my days in cold Connecticut winters. It sucks, and I'm sure most of you can relate to the feeling. You have to drag yourself from between the cozy sheets and out into the chilly morning air. Then you have to run to the shower to get it nice and hot, then jump in before you freeze in your underwear in the bathroom. It's not a dignified way for your mother to find you as she's yelling at you to get downstairs or you'll miss the bus.

So we've all been there in some way, but those winters in Connecticut could have prepared me for the shock of that night. It was cold in our room; the phrase "Siberian winter" comes to mind. Yet, under the covers it was sweltering. The phrase "tropical sauna" comes to mind. And the floor felt as if there was a raging inferno underneath it—hot to the touch. And so, getting out of the covers to get a drink of water was much the same experience as jumping from a sweltering sauna into a frozen lake. I distinctly remember getting the wind knocked out of me as I did it. Waking up should never be so cruel.

The next day, Devon and I wandered around town for a bit, visited a shrine to a thousand years of Josun kings, and drank some more tea.

Traditional Korean Dynastic Gates

Eventually, we came back to Gwangju, unsure of how we would be greeted by our adoring fans and the paparazzi after such a long absence. It turns out, we had nothing to worry about. After doing whatever it is that Gwangju-ites do on weekends, the tabloids had moved onto the next new thing. The couple from that hagwon across town who unwittingly found themselves plastered on the sides of their building in Traditional Korean garb.  Suckers.

You can see more pictures from our trip to Jeonju here.

Korea's Next Top Models

Hey again.  Remember me?

I was all ready with a post (well, half a post really) about some wanderings I've had around our neighborhood, but recent developments have forced me to delay that post.  Because this news is BIG!

A couple of weeks ago, Alex our school director called Devon and I into a meeting.  Unsure what to expect, we ambled into the school's conference room and met with him and another Korean teacher, who was translating for us.

"Thank you for meeting with us today," he said.  "Can you do modeling?"

It was a strange question.  "What do you mean?" Devon asked.  Neither of us had ever done much modeling, though Devon had watched it frequently on TV.

"We want you and Jake to wear the hanbok.  We will take pictures of you.  It is for ECC."

Devon and I looked at each other, and began to get excited about the prospect of wearing traditional Korean clothes, though we were a little unsure about what the pictures would be used for.

Can you tell my ankles are being crushed?

A little less than a week later, Devon and I were kneeling on the floor in a traditional pose of respect, in rented hanboks, while the photographer asked us to hold our head just so. 

My knees and ankles hurt from kneeling for so long, I was freezing, and I didn't know what these two Korean men were telling me to do.  So far, being an international supermodel wasn't turning out as I had hoped.

"Think happy thoughts for the New Year," Alex instructed us.  "We will mail this card to the parents.  Wish them good fortune with your smile."

I did my best to think happy, fortune-sending thoughts to my students' parents as I did my best to keep from shivering in my silk shirt and pants.  When I stood up, I did so slowly, letting the blood return to my feet.

Happy I can feel my feet again.  Oh yeah, and prosperous thoughts.  

Always thinking prosperous thoughts...

The next day, Alex called me into his office to show me how the pictures turned out.  "I think this one, Devon is very pretty.  You are..." he sort of trails off, his face in a grimace.

"Thanks Alex," I laughed.  "Sorry I ruined the pictures."  After a thought, I asked him, "Hey Alex.  Do you think I can get one of those cards when you mail them to the parents?"  I thought it might be cool to get one to send to my parents.

"What?"  he asked.  I wasn't sure if he hadn't heard me, or didn't understand what I was asking.

"Well, what are you going to do with these pictures?" I asked him, hoping to get at the issue that way.

"We will make a big, how do you say..." He made a rectangle with his fingers.

"A poster?"  I asked.

"A big poster.  To go on the side of the ECC.  And one for the first floor, and on all the buses."

"Ah good!"  I laughed.  "Then we will be famous!"  I left the office chuckling to myself.


Two days later, Devon and I walked into ECC and were greeted with a modestly-sized poster on the window of the conference room, splashed with a pink and orange background, and some Korean writing over us.

We were surprised.  "I thought he said they were gonna put the picture on a bigger poster" Devon said, clearly relieved that they hadn't.

"I guess not," I replied.  "It must have just been one of his jokes."

"Let's hope so," she said.  "I want to see those cards."

The next day, on our walk into school we saw it.  A huge banner- maybe 6'x12' in the front entrance to ECC.  The same picture as the poster on the conference room window, except our images were life-sized.

Life-sized.  Can't read what it says though.

"Uh-oh," Devon said.

"Come on!  Let's see if they've put a big one up!"  I exclaimed.

We walked around the front of the building and saw another giant poster, even bigger than the one inside.  Again with our faces wishing prosperous thoughts on our students' parents.

The camera clearly adds three or four feet

"I don't like where this is heading," Devon said.

We continued around to the corner of the building and looked up.  Hanging from the top floor was a huge banner covering the entire corner.  Five stories tall, with our pictures stretching across two of them.  We looked more like giants bent on eating children than happy, benevolent teachers wishing prosperous thoughts.

Later that day, the buses pulled up and stretched across their sides - if you guessed a big banner with our picture on it, you'd be right again!  These buses go all over Gwangju, as Alex told me later, and soon everybody would recognize us as the faces of ECC.  "We are hoping that parents will see you, and want to send their children here," he said.  Yeah, right.  No pressure.

We're huge in Korea.