We have a new homely home

Hi Everyone,

Hello to all of you busy people! Some of you are now on holiday and others are still working madly. As for me – well I am working hard and my lessons by and large are generally improving. The students seem to have adjusted to having me in the class room, and finally seem to understand my accent. What’s more they seem to be responding to my lessons better and Iam left feeling positive and upbeat at the end of lessons on a more regular basis.

The big news in my life is that Jess and I moved apartments on Friday .The whole process was not very easy. First we wrote a letter of request, then we had it translated, I then delayed the matter by trying to find the right time to hand over the letter and finally we had to choose a new apartment, pack and move. None of this was easy, very little in Korea is ever easy but we are happy.

The apartment is well laid out and feels spacious, it has a decent view and an awesome bathroom. On top this it comes with some furniture and we are the first tenants. It is close to the old one which means we will continue to shop at Homeever, which is above the bus stop, and socialise with James and Barbara.

I’m so happy that we will no longer have to cook, socialise and eat in the same space. One last bonus – our apartment was furnished with a small fridge which we did not want as we already had one, but we were not remove allowed to remove it: so Julian now has his own beer fridge. :) Going to give it a test run this coming Friday when we have our formal house warming with our friendly friends.

Loving the other English speakers in town, we are forming a nice little social circle.

I’m working hard on improving my blog. For the moment the changes will seem minor, but as I familiarise myself with HTML script / programming my blog should become more exciting.

Our new home

Weekend in Seoul

Hello Everyone,

Jess and I went up to Seoul last weekend to visit Clint. Clint and I were friends at varsity where we got to know each other at the Rifle Club, and particular it's 'functions''.

We. left here on Saturday afternoon at at 13:30 and arrived in central Seoul at 16:00. We then travelled another hour and a half by subway through to Dongduchon (sic) which is pretty much as far as you can go by subway. We hanged out at Clint's place for a bit with a couple of other English teachers, including another two South Africans and then climbed back onto the subway and headed into Itaewon, which is an area where a lot of expats and foreigners hang out.

Our destination was a bar that was going to play the Wales v SA game live on a big screen TV. It was a very cool and quite surreal experience to meet so many westerners and especially South Africans. After the rugby we partied on for a bit, but as the rugby only started at 23:30 it ended in the early hours of Sunday morning. Jess and I were buggered and although we tried to keep partying it wasn't long before we were out on the street looking for a taxi that could take us to a motel. We left Clint still partying hard on the dance floor and it was dissapointing to fade before Clint and the rest of the gang, but then again I know Clint at least relatively well as well as his reputation for partying through the night.

The next day it was back onto the subway for about an hour to Clint's place to retrieve our belongings after which caught the first available train back into Seoul for some shopping that was a disastrous affair. Jess wanted to visit Marks and Spencers which was quite out the way, and when we finally reached the shopping centre Marks and Spencers had either moved or shut down. Our trip back to the bus station sapped us of the last of our energy and we started to get grumpy with one another.

So we spent the whole of Sunday travelling on trains and buses when we really should have been resting up for the week ahead. It was fantastic to meet up with Clint once again, but there is no ways that I am missioning out to Dongduchon again.

Our travels left both of us exhausted at the beginning of the week, and Jess has since developed a cold which she has not be able to shrug off. I've spent the better part of saturday fooling around on the internet but I finally reached my own breaking point in terms of this apartment. I shouldn't have to tip toe around because she is sick - we should have a seperate bedroom and living area. I would like the extra money that we would receive if we chose to continue living here, but extra money at the end of the month is turning out to be poor compensation for living in cramped conditions.

I suspect the next week is not going to be easy - it might cause bad feelings, but we can't stay here forever. We have basic rights and expectations, and it is time for them to be realised.

The Witch and the Wardrobe

On our first night in Korea we were asked if were satisfied with our apartment, we said we were. The truth be told I think we would have agreed to just about anything after thirty hours of travelling.

During the initial couple of days we felt that our apartment was small, but tolerable. After all we had been fore warned that apartments in South Korea are tiny. But then we met James and Barbara, James and Barbara who live next door enjoy a much bigger apartment on only one salary.

Understandably we were not happy, Jessica especially. We complained and were told it would be ‘difficult’ (to move), as far as my co-teacher was concerned this was the end of the discussion – but we remained unhappy. Then we found out that while only my school is paying for the apartment Jess will receive her monthly apartment allowance in cash. “Brilliant”, I said, “we get paid to live in a small apartment.” By this stage our apartment was not feeling so small to me, especially since I had just completed three months of varying degrees of squatting. Jess remained unhappy, my argument that receiving extra money was ‘cool’ fell on deaf ears.

In stepped James and Barbara, how I love them – my saviours. In one night of talking about their fantastic travels they may just have convinced Jess that accepting the dosh and putting it towards a holiday is adequate compensation.

South Koreans

“There are many wonderful things about South Korea, the people are not one of them”, this is the conclusion of a westerner, who has been here for three years, that I met on Friday evening.

I have only been here three weeks, and my experience of South Korean people is limited, but I strongly disagree with this sentiment. I have met kindness and generosity in this country to a degree that I have not experienced in any other. Jess and I are regularly invited to peoples homes and even absolute strangers go out their way to ensure that we feel comfortable. I can list numerous examples of the kindness and generosity of ordinary people, and only a few less tasteful encounters which are easily outweighed and forgotten.

Yesterday is a good example of the generosity I have encountered. I have always wanted a scooter, as a prelude to something with a bit more oomph, and decided to buy one yesterday. Buying a scooter without the help of a Korean who speaks good English would however be a difficult if not impossible task, so I enlisted the help of ‘Hans’. Hans dragged himself out of bed and met us at Homeever at 11:00am, despite the fact that he clearly had a hangover but which did not damper his enthusiasm and willingness to help.

Hans took us to one scooter shop, but rather than encourage us to settle on the first available scooter suggested that we shop around. We (Jess and I) found one that fits our needs at the second shop, and after buying it suggested that we take Hans out for lunch as a token of our appreciation. He would hear nothing of it and insisted on inviting us over to his house where he plied us with food – it got to the point where we could not eat any more, and then he and his mom offered to send us home with any food that we showed even a vague interest in.

On Saturday afternoon we took the Dawn Treader, as my scooter is known, out on it’s maiden voyage. On a stop a little way out of Sangju Jess managed to bend the ignition key in the keyhole to the small store away space underneath the seat. Admittedly I was a little peeved, but in Jess’s defence the key was of very poor quality. Jess set out for home to get the spare key while I settled down to wait for her return.

Being November the Autumn harvest is underway, but interestingly rice is also being planted. Fortunately for me Jess’s oopsie took place at convenient location. To my left I could observe the farmers planting new rice, while to my right farmers were hanging Persimmon to dry. It was later afternoon and although I did not want to ride home in the dark, sunset was still some time away and if Jess returned by bicycle or taxi we would be home well before sunset.

So I sat down to wait and observe the goings on around me. People passed by but no one paid much attention to me, actually I was surprised that no body stared at me. After some time a young man walked over to me from a nearby packing shed with a cup of coffee that was clearly intended for me. I thanked him, he asked where I was from and then left me be. The incident reminded me of our trip to Gumi last weekend when a shop owner gave us little bottles of juice as we waited for Barbara to purchase something. Another incident that stands is the lift I received last week as I waited to catch the bus into Sangju. I was waiting at the bus stop when a farmer pulled over and insisted I accept a lift into Sangju with him. I wasn't trying to hitch lift and he didn't ask for money.

I can only conclude that there are many wonderful things about South Korea, and that the people are one of them.

I hope that I remember their generosity in future years and demonstrate the same generosity to others.

On being an alien

I jokingly spoke of being an alien in my first post, little did I realise how alien I do appear to many people.

Not many people stare at me as I make my to and from school, or when Jess and I shop in the area around our home – but once we venture slightly further a field the staring starts. When I say ‘staring’, I do not mean a quick glance or staring that ends when the person is caught out – I’m talking about open-jawed-unblinking-staring. Although we usually shop at the Homeever, large supermarket near our home, we occasionally venture further a field to Emart. Emart is much the same as Homever, but their wine is cheaper and it usually has a couple of bottles of decent South African wine – even Nederburg.

Normally we walk to Emart in the early evening along a busy road that becomes congested during this period of the day as everyone makes their way home. Construction is taking place on a bride that we have to cross and here the congested traffic comes to a stand still. Perhaps it’s that people have nothing better to do, or that they feel safe to stare from within their cars, but it is on this bridge that we encounter the worst staring. Eyes stare out of every car. Initially we found this irritating, but now it has turned into a game and point of amusement: we wave, smile and shout hello to the ‘starers’. Sometimes they wave back, at other times the staring stops and occassionally the unblinking gaze continues.

In one amusing incident two women cycling in the opposite direction to us were staring, Jess waved and said hello as they were about to pass. One of the 'starers' lifted her arm to wave and almost fell off her bike. She weaved madly across the road but managed to regain her balance. We had a good laugh, as did the second woman.

Food

Food plays a vital, if underappreciated role in a our lives. We all know it’s importance, but so often a meal is reduced to finding something that is quick and easy to prepare as we rush on to our next meeting – eating is reduced to a minor activity in our day, something akin to putting petrol in your car: vital but not something we choose to dwell on.

Living in Korea, food has taken on a new significance in my life. Meals are no longer merely a matter of shoving something in my mouth as I move onto something more interesting or more important. My mind returns to the topic of food each and everyday, and it has been the topic of many conversations. Exchanging anecdotes about food and eating, in between much laughter, has been vital to the bonding of us few English speakers in Sang Ju. We are a fairly disparate group, and talking about food – establishing common likes and common dislikes has proved a bonding point. Not only do we use conversations about food to establish a common bond but we assert our independent identities through disagreeing about what is delicious, what is tolerable and what is simply disgusting. Not only have discussions about food been vital to the establishing new friendships, but these discussions themselves have invariably taken place over meals – and the sharing of rare and precious ‘western’ treats.

When I think of my meals with James, Barbara, and Brad the social occasions operate on many levels – Barbara demonstrates her suave and sophisticated taste, and how at least part of her identity is rooted in proudly French culinary traditions, through the meals that she prepares. But by sharing her cherished treats she also communicates at a far more basic level – she seems to say “I like you, therefore I share my food with you.” Something about this fascinates me. As our means of communication evolve and become outdated some of the simplest means of communication continue to convey meaning in a way that our modern methods of communication battle to match.

Food fascinates me, and I hope that as I am exposed to culinary traditions over this year that meals will continue to stimulate more than just my taste buds.

Learning Korean

Looking back over what is now almost two weeks in Korea I can say that I have learned very little Korean. I find it difficult to remember how long it was before I started making meaningful progress in learning German, but I suspect that it will take a lot longer to befmore I begin making progress in learning Korean.

At present I am trying to get grips with the script and learn at least a word a day. Things are slowly improving – I can now identify my town’s name, some basic vowels, the dictionary is slowly becoming more easy to use, I know some basic words and even some very basic phrases.

Despite these improvements I am learning far more slowly than I would like, and even once I have managed to translate a word my pronunciation is invariably incorrect – sometimes to the point of being unintelligible. An added complication is that words, depending on their context, can take on a number of different and unrelated meanings.

Another problem is that I’m at school until five each day, without much of a lunch break, and when I get home I am exhausted. As a result I rarely sit down and make an effort to learn new words during the evenings.

We tend to underestimate how much being in a foreign environment takes out of us. During my first months in Germany I experienced the same sense of exhaustion at the end of each day – and consequently spent a lot of time sleeping. I remember the ribbing I took from my friends when I returned to SA, and how much their teasing irritated me. Over enough time I came to wonder whether I did indeed waste opportunities by sleeping to much. Being here however reminds me how tough the initial months in Germany were.

I also remember the frustration I felt at my SA mates teasing once I returned home. Not because they were teasing me – but rather because their teasing conveyed a total lack of understanding of my experience. None of them had ever faced a similar situation, and I don’t think that any have since.

Learning Korean is going to take a long time but once my life settles into a routine I hope to start making meaningful progress.

My first email home

Hello everyone

Greetings from South Korea. As I am sure you will have gathered from our snippets of news so far we arrived without much hassle and have begun to settle in nicely. Jessica's school is relatively close while my own is on the other side of town.

My school is about a ten minute ride from our apartment. I don’t intend riding for long though – soon I will purchase a scooter.

The ride to school takes me through the centre of town after which I ride along what is mostly a dry river on my one side and yellow rice fields on the other. It also takes me past sewers that have manholes with slits in them – not so yummy. It is hard to estimate how large Sangju is at this stage in comparison to Grahamstown, but it is definitely smaller. My guess at this point is that it is less than half the size with a far larger population. Once again I am uncertain but I recall hearing that the population is about 120 000. Three stories is pretty much standard here and it is rare to come across single story buildings. Our own apartment is ‘open plan’ – one single room (with a separate bathroom) - and small by South African standards, but it is well lit and we like it. Now for the bombshell: it is smaller than Simon’s bed room. It was not furnished when we arrived, and we slept the first night on the floor, but this has meant we have had some say over what has gone into it. Our contracts stipulate that the schools pay for the furniture which they have done.

Despite the cramped conditions in town, people still hang onto vegetable patches which I cannot understand – the land must be extremely valuable and yet they choose to grow cabbages. I assume this has something to do with the fact that the Korean culture places heavy emphasis on the quality of food – all of which must be fresh. Every street, outside of the residential areas, has several restaurants which often have live fish in tanks outside them. Even our local supermarket, which is about a three minute walk, has live sole. More exciting foods and fish are readily available at the market downtown – live eels, crab, trout, sole, sea bass, sea squirts, and a variety of other fish are all on sale. Scates and larger fish are also placed on the side walk.

Red meat here is expensive and will be a rare treat, mince in the local supermarket is selling at about R40 for 300 grams. We have heard of a supermarket that caters to Western tastes in at fairly reasonable prices, but it is located in Daegu and will be difficult to get to. Fortunately for us the Koreans love fatty meat, and as result lean steaks are less expensive than they would otherwise be.

First impressions of my school are that it is nice. The staff have certainly done their level best to make me feel welcome, sometimes I find communication difficult and my SA accent does not help.

I have been told a number of times that I need to motivate the students. Although the students have English classes four times a week, I only get round to seeing each class once every two weeks. My aim is to make the classes interesting and hopefully stimulate interest which will then lead to learning outside of the classroom setting.

Jess and I bumped into our first other English speakers this weekend. We arranged to meet at the closest point that we all knew on Saturday evening and then walked across to their house for dinner. It turns out they live across a small alley from us. I have mixed feelings about this, while I am happy to have met other English speakers I am not sure I want to know the people whose lounge I look down on.

I’ve been working hard and have not really had the time to look into the shenanigans of the South African politicians, nevertheless I was disappointed to find out that I cannot access the M&G for some reason.

I knew that Korea has its own script before leaving SA but mis-appreciated how little the roman alphabet is used. The only dictionaries we have been able to find so far use Korean script, so we have an extra hurdle in our paths – we have to learn an entirely new script before we can start making real progress in learning Korean. I don’t mind learning, but progress is going to be slow – not much goes in when one arrives home from a full day at school. Still I absolutely have to learn Korean.

Tomorrow is a new day, full of new experiences and further misunderstandings; but with some luck it will also include some new understandings.

Keep well. Send my love to SA. Eat lots of bread, cheese and everything else that is hard to come by here.

Julian

[The pics in the post were the last pics that Jess and I took in SA - notice how we are dressed for the middle of winter while the people in the background are in short sleaves :) ]

Third Rock From the Sun

The title of my blog is taken from a popular 1990s sitcom that I enjoyed as a teenager and continue to enjoy. What does it have to do with South Korea? Well Third Rock from the Sun was all about the shenanigans and adventures of a group of aliens sent to live among and document the lives of earthlings. I can relate to the show - I'm an alien stranded on some distant planet and somehow I must navigate my way through each day. My blog is my account of my adventures in the weird and wonderful world of South Korea and the broader continent of Asia. Pictures and posts to follow.