Category Archives: Korea

August 22, 2013

Desk Warming the Day Away

If you’ve ever taught English in Korea, you know of the joys of desk warming. I did a Google search for “desk warming” and the whole first page was about Korea, so it seems to be a largely Korean phenomenon (maybe Japan as well). Basically, it means going into work when there is no work to do and killing time however you want. It is what I am doing right now.

There are two main strains of desk warming. The first is during the school year. Normally, English teachers in a Korean public school teach 22 classes a week, which equals about 15 hours of class time for me. However, we are expected to be in school about 40 hours a week, preparing for classes or whatever.

Now, if you are in one school, that is not unexpected. You probably have a desk or maybe even an office and can sit and do what you want until it’s time to go home. I, however, teach at four schools a week. I have known teachers who have taught at up to 7 schools in a week. When you are at multiple schools, you don’t get a desk. You either go directly to the classroom or sit in the teacher’s room, awkwardly out of place. So, a bizarre situation arises where you are supposed to stay at school all day but the school doesn’t necessarily want you there. You can go to the Education Office to kill time but they don’t necessarily have a place for you either, although they can stick you in a corner somewhere or in an empty meeting room.

Yay! I’m being productive!

The other type of desk warming is during vacations. The average English teacher gets a week or two of vacation each break but the school vacation is always longer than this, which means any day we don’t have a vacation day and there are no classes, we have to go into the Education Office for 8 hours. Some people read, watch TV shows, play computer games. I knew a teacher that curled up in a blanket and slept on the floor every day. The bosses don’t care what you do, as long as you’re physically present.

Laptop, Kindle, Chinese textbook. I’m in for the long haul.

Summers aren’t too bad. The summer vacation is only about 4 weeks long now and after doing some English camps, I ended up only having to desk warm for two days this year. In the winter, though, the school vacation is over 2 months long, which means you generally end up sitting in a cold meeting room for about a month.

I’m the only one here today. I took the picture above this a few minutes ago. Either the other teachers have classes today or they just didn’t come in. I’m not really complaining since it’s not a bad gig to get paid for doing nothing.

Still, I could do nothing at home.

21 Comments | tags: culture, desk warming, EPIK, Korea, school, vacation | posted in Korea

August 10, 2013

A Stormy Day at the Beach

By David Stewart

Although this is a fiction blog, I occasionally do posts about real life: things that happen to me. This is one of those. Today, I went to Daecheon Beach with some friends. It is probably the most famous beach on Korea’s west coast and also hosts a very popular Mud Festival every year, although the beach itself is not muddy.

aka The Festival of a Million Gray Zombies

However, today we just went to swim. We got there about 11 in the morning, just as the sky was getting very dark.

A minute or so after we arrived, it started to rain. There were people swimming, but soon, as lightning flashed on the horizon and thunder rumbled, the lifeguards started ordering everyone out of the water.

I waited a long time to catch a picture of the lightning, but it was too quick for me.

At this point, the rain let up a little and I went out of the coffee shop where we were sheltering to find my friends who had come in another car. I had just found them when the storm really hit in earnest.

I had gone down to the beach to find a friend who had gone swimming and was forced to shelter under a pavilion while the wind picked up and the rain poured down in buckets. Emergencies sirens were going off and the lightning began to strike closer and more frequently. About the time when it struck on the beach itself, I realized that it probably wasn’t good we were hiding under a wet metal framework. I could imagine it getting struck at any moment.

The rain decreased for a moment and we made it back to the coffee shop to meet up with the others.

After a while of sitting around, we decided to go to a jjimjilbang nearby to at least do something interesting. The rain had let up a bit at this point, so we started walking. Of course, it was mostly clear before we got there, so in the end, we just went to beach anyway. After that, the weather was perfect. It just goes to show that you can never trust the weather in Korea, especially in the summer.

And a wonderful, tired, sunburnt time was had by all.

11 Comments | tags: beach, Boryeong, Daecheon, Jjimjilbang, Korea, Mud Festival, outside the tower, photograph, storm, swimming | posted in Korea

August 6, 2013

Getting Naked with Strangers (in Korea)

By David Stewart

If you want to see naked strangers in real life, your choices are fairly limited. Or perhaps I should say, there are few places where you have to endure seeing naked strangers. In Korea, it’s the jjimjilbang, or sauna/public bath. Of course, lots of countries have public baths, but here is how things work in the Korean version.

In Korea, going to a jjimjilbang (steam room) can be a whole day experience. For one thing, what is often referred to simply as a jjimjilbang is actually a lot of things rolled into one. Here’s the process:

Step 1:

Pay your entrance fee and get a uniform and key. The uniform is a pair of light cotton shorts and a t-shirt. At the place I usually go, they are color-coded for men and women. The key is on a plastic ring so you can put it around your wrist in the shower.

although hopefully it’s not pink.

Step 2:

The key has a number on it. First you take off your shoes and lock them in the shoe locker of the corresponding number.

The shoe lockers at my favorite jjimjilbang, Spa LaQua

Step 3:

At this point, men and women say good-bye to each other and go into separate changing rooms. You put your clothes and uniform into the locker with your number on it. The problem with this is you cannot choose your own locker. Last time, my locker was right next to an open window that overlooked an apartment complex. At night. Someone messed up the design somewhere. Anyway, then you go take a shower.

Step 4:

This is the only naked part and luckily it is separated by gender. You take a shower and have the option of soaking in one of a variety of hot tubs. There are varying temperatures (including a cold pool), often ones with massage jets. The one I go to has an outdoor hot tub, made up to look like a natural hot spring, so it’s nice to sit out there at night and talk.

The baths are the place where you see the most ~~culturally different~~ awkward things. I have no idea what the women’s side is like, but there is a section for lying down on the floor and some men like to sleep there, face up. I have seen two men sleeping next to each other, holding hands. In the context, there was nothing gay about it, since in Korea I could totally imagine two straight men doing that, but it was strange. As well, since Koreans are very big into skin exfoliation, you can pay a guy to rub you down with what is basically a scouring pad and get all your dead skin off. There are some things I will do as a cross-cultural experience, but lying down naked on a table and having a practically naked old man scrub all my dead skin off is not one of them.

Here is typical uniform, including the obligatory Princess Leia-style towel wrapped around the head.

Here is a typical uniform, including the obligatory Princess Leia-style towel wrapped around the head.

Step 5:

When you finally feel like getting out of the baths, you go back up to the changing room, dry off and put on your uniform and then go out to rejoin the women (or men, if you’re a woman). This is the actual jjimjilbang part of it. Here you can go into hot rooms and lie around, sweating a lot. However, there are many other things to do. Such as eat. Most jjimjilbangs have a cafeteria there where you can get drinks and snacks and even full meals. There are massage chairs and pool tables and karaoke booths and places just to sit around and talk or place cards or watch TV. In other words, it’s a spoil-yourself-with-whatever-you-like-best sort of place.

This says, “I went to the jjimjilbang to ~~take a sweat bath~~ eat.”

Personally, I don’t like to sweat that much, so I don’t go into the hot rooms for very long, if at all. My ideal time is to go in the baths for a while, then go up and eat and hang out, and maybe use a massage chair once or twice. Lemonade and boiled eggs are very popular foods in jjimjilbang.

Another good feature about many jjimjilbangs is that the key has a microchip on it, so if you want to buy something, you only have to scan the key and then pay for everything when you leave. This lets you not have to carry money around and so, buy a lot more than you normally would. Win win, right?

Here are the doors to various saunas/hot rooms. They often vary by temperature or by theme.

Here are the doors to various saunas/hot rooms. They vary by temperature or by theme.

Step 6:

Whenever you are tired of having fun, you go down, take another shower to wash off all the sweat, and get changed back into your street clothes. Then you check out and find out with shock just how much money you racked up on food, drink, massage chairs, air hockey, etc. You leave feeling very, very relaxed. It’s a good time.

13 Comments | tags: culture, Jjimjilbang, Korea, Korean, Massage, naked, Public bathing, relaxation, sauna | posted in Korea

August 1, 2013

The Blair Witch Project it ain’t, but still…

By David Stewart

One of the fun bonuses of teaching English in Korea is the chance to teach English camps. I’m only partially sarcastic there. While it does mean more classes to teach once the vacation has started (often with no extra pay), the camp curriculum is often more relaxed and as long as they are well planned, they can be a lot of fun. The one I just finished was at a middle school where the kids were very enthusiastic and a lot of fun to teach. On the second day, we went through movie genres and a few sample scripts and then I got them to write their own movies. They wrote the scripts, practiced them, and then I recorded them on my phone and edited them later. Their English level isn’t super high, but they tried hard. Anyway, here for your viewing pleasure are two of the movies they made. They are about a minute long, each.

1. Number 1: This is a ghost story about a top student who has died and comes back to haunt the 2nd place student in school.

2. Stupidman and the Zombies: This is a zombie comedy where apparently the zombies and normal people can switch quite quickly. I can’t say I totally understand it, since they didn’t explain it to me.

The production values aren’t great, but it was a good activity and gave the students more fun and a better sense of accomplishment than just doing grammar exercises. I had them vote for the best movie in several categories. “Number 1” won hands-down for best acting, all for that scream. There was a third movie too, done by an all-boys group, that had to do with gambling and a lot of people getting shot, but they didn’t want me to post that one.

13 Comments | tags: Education, EFL, English camp, ghosts, Korea, movies, school, teaching, zombies | posted in Korea

July 30, 2013

Cloud Chronicles

By David Stewart

For the last month or so it has been monsoon season in Korea. However, until recently the southern part of the country got almost no rain, while the northern part, around Seoul, got heavy rains every day and flooding. What we did get down here was an amazing display of white billowy clouds on the backdrop of a pure blue sky. There is not much that I like better than beautiful clouds. Here is a sampling.

11 Comments | tags: clouds, Korea, photograph, scenery | posted in Korea

July 21, 2013

What is “masochism” in Korean?

By David Stewart

So what kind of a masochist would voluntarily take a 3-hour language exam for fun? Yeah…

I have returned to the land of blogging after several weeks of mostly absence, a lot of which was due to the fact that I was studying for a large Korean exam known as TOPIK, or Test of Proficiency in Korean. As of today, it is finally over. It is quite difficult and by the third hour, it gets very exhausting. I did it mostly to have some idea of my skill level and to have something to show others, maybe even for a job later. So, it wasn’t really for fun, but it doesn’t have any immediate impact on my life.

The test is divided into two parts with a break in the middle: the first is grammar, vocabulary and writing, including writing an essay. The second part is listening and reading. I took this same test about 4 years ago and at that time, I did terrible on the grammar and actually pretty good on the listening. This time was the opposite (at least how I felt about it; we’ll see in a few weeks). The hardest questions were in the writing section. They write a paragraph and leave out a phrase, which you have to fill in from context. No multiple choice, no hints. I call them the widowmakers. Here’s an example:

See what I mean? Hard.

It may not be evident to people in North America or Europe, but Korean is becoming a very popular language of study, especially in Asia, and so this is a pretty popular test. I live in a relatively small city in Korea and there were over 1100 people who took it today. Mostly Chinese, but also a lot from almost every other country in central and east Asia, plus a smattering from other countries as well. Anyway, now I’m going to forget about studying Korean for a while and get back to writing.

By the way, you may have noticed that I never answered the question in the title: what is “masochism” in Korean? There are two answers. One is a loanword: “mae-jeo-ki-jeom” (which sounds a bit like “magic kissing”) and the longer “pi-hak-seong byeon-tae seong-yok” which is literal translation of exactly what masochism is. So there you have it: go wow your friends.

This was one of the first results when I did a Google Image search for “Korean masochism” although it was due to this post

12 Comments | tags: Korea, Korean, language, masochism, test, TOPIK | posted in Korea

July 9, 2013

Patbingsu: Korea’s Summer Ambrosia

By David Stewart

When I grew up, in Canada, there were two main cold treats in the summer: ice cream and those long freezies that cut the sides of your mouth when you ate them. And maybe popsicles.

Like sucking on a cherry flavored dagger

Like sucking on a fruit flavored dagger

It wasn’t until I came to Korea that I discovered something better than all of that. You heard me. Even better than ice cream, and not just because this thing sometimes includes ice cream. It’s called patbingsu (팥빙수) which translates as “red bean ice water”.

Okay, I admit that’s not a very delicious-sounding name. Bear with me.

The main ingredient of any patbingsu is shaved ice, which makes up most of it. This guarantees it’s about the most refreshing you could eat on a hot summer day. After that, there are sweetened red beans. Some people don’t like them, but I really do. Beyond that, it’s whatever you want to put on it. The most common toppings are ice cream, condensed milk, fruit cocktail, fresh fruit, small candies, strawberry syrup, small little rice cakes that look like marshmallows, sprinkles, etc.

This has long been a summer mainstay. Everywhere serves it over here, even fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s and KFC. Here is what I think of a traditional patbingsu looks like. This is what I ate today at a hole-in-the-wall food stand near my school.

Yum…

Of course, this is how it comes but you can’t eat it like this. First you have to mix it up really good until it doesn’t look as pretty.

These days, patbingsu has become a more high-class treat and so has generally become much more expensive and made with higher-quality ingredients (not better though, in my opinion). The above patbingsu cost me about $2.50.

Here is one I had a week or so ago at a coffee shop:

This one is much fancier and has sliced almonds, pieces of ddeok (rice cake) and things that look like brownies but aren’t (I ate it and I still don’t know what they were). It was good, but almost twice the price as the one above and not quite as good.

These days, there are other kinds of bingsu, for people who don’t want red beans. I have see fruit bingsu (very good), yogurt bingsu, coffee bingsu, green tea bingsu, rice cake bingsu, berry bingsu, etc. Here is the selection at a national bakery chain, Paris Baguette:

These are all quite delicious (except maybe the green tea bingsu) although they are quite expensive. The most expensive bingsu I ever bought was a 2-person strawberry frozen yogurt bingsu for about $12.00.

Whenever I finally go back to North America, this will be one of the hardest things about Korea to leave behind. One solution is to live near a large Korean population. Another idea is for all of you who live in North America to start popularizing this dessert and really make it catch on in a big way (you can start by sharing this post). That way, when I get back, it will be there waiting for me.

It’s win-win, trust me.

30 Comments | tags: culture, Ice cream, Korea, Patbingsu, shaved ice, snack, summer | posted in Korea

June 29, 2013

The Ajummas of Summer

By David Stewart

(Ajumma (아줌마) is the Korean word for a married woman, especially middle-aged)

As I approached the bus stop,

A (fairly) young, Canadian man, dressed in conservative business clothes,

I realized I could not have been more out of place.

9 Comments | tags: ajumma, fashion, Korea, photograph, woman | posted in Korea

June 11, 2013

How to Eat a Triangle Kimbap

By David Stewart

On Sunday, when I wrote my Once Upon a Hike in Korea post, I mentioned bringing a triangle kimbap with me for food and I promised to explain what that was today.

First of all, for those of you who don’t know what kimpab is, it is a common Korean food made of rice and seaweed wrapped around various vegetables and meat, rolled up and cut into slices.

Kimbap

It is very common as a picnic or snack food and it is what moms often make for their kids when they’re going on a field trip.

Kimbap is usually made fresh, either at home or at a restaurant where they make it right there for you. However, there is another kind called triangle kimbap that is sold in convenience stores. It looks like this:

These come in many different types (usually various kinds of meat) but this one is my favorite: tuna mayonnaise. These tend to be less healthy than the regular variety and don’t have vegetables in them. As you can see, this cost 800 won, which is about 70 cents US, so they’re pretty cheap.

Another thing about these is that the shelf-life is insanely short, as it should be with anything like this. As you can see, the sell-by date is not just in days, but also in hours. This one was made at 9am on June 10 and was good until 22pm of June 11, or about an hour after I bought it.

The thing about these is that the insides are wet and they’re surrounded by dry seaweed, so how do you keep the seaweed dry and crisp until you want to eat it? The answer is that the seaweed is wrapped separately in plastic from the inside but still wrapped around the rice. So, to open it without totally disassembling takes a special design. This is how you do it.

Step 1: Pull the middle tab, cutting the outer plastic totally in two.

Step 2: Pull the two sides apart. You have to do this gently, since the seaweed is folded under and it’s fragile.

The wrapping is all gone now. Now you can open up the seaweed and see what the inside is like. It’s basically a triangle of rice with an indentation where they put whatever kind of meat is in it.

This is a great snack and easy to eat with your hands. And now, if you ever come across one, you’ll know how to eat it.

I had never seen anything like this until I came to Korea, but I’m curious: is there anything like this in any other countries that you know of? I’m always interested in learning about other cultures.

45 Comments | tags: culture, kimbap, Korea, Korean food, triangle kimbap | posted in Korea

June 9, 2013

Once Upon a Hike in Korea

By David Stewart

Once upon a time, in the far-off country of Korea, lived a man named David who liked to hike. One Thursday, the government said that there would be a holiday to honor soldiers who died in war, so David decided to go hiking. The weather was hot, but he decided to go on a course of four mountain peaks. First he assembled his inventory.

He brought:

– 3 liters of drink (+4 to Life)

– a Snickers bar (+2 Energy, +2 Yum)

– triangle kimbap (see blog post on Tuesday) (+2 Health)

– peanut butter jam sandwich (+1 Health, +1 Cheap)

David also brought his trusty Staff of Walking (+2 Hiking, +3 Attack versus spiderwebs) and put on his magical Boots of Hiking. They were 16 years old, so while this gave him +2 to Nostalgia, they also made him -3 resistance versus blisters forming. You can’t have everything in life.

David took a crowded bus to a nearby valley that was green on all sides. He started at a temple at the base of the first mountain.

The initial climb was brutal. The weather was hot and the air was still and sweat stung his eyes. Still, he pushed on and the slope gradually leveled out to a nice path between tall trees. Nearer the top, there were breezes that cooled him a little.

An hour later, he got to the top of the first mountain, Jongnamsan. So far, he had seen no people.

The path between the first and second mountains was much easier. For most of it, David walked along on a level, shady forest path. Here, there were more people (14 in all, and one dog). The second mountain peak Seobangsan was empty and barren and had a place for a helicopter to land. It was hot and David didn’t stay there long.

As he started to descend, David caught a glimpse of the valley he had traveled along. The air was hazy and the distance faded out into white. The flies were becoming annoying. There were no biting flies or mosquitoes, but there were millions of flies around. There was a dull roar in the otherwise silent woods from the sound of their combined humming.

The path went steeply down to a low pass between the second and third mountains. On the way, he passed a tall stone gate that was blocking his way. Just as well it wasn’t a solstice or midnight or anything or he probably would have been whisked away to another world. On the pass between the mountains, he met a Korean couple and advised them on the routes to take, as well as informing them that the map board that was located there had been printed backwards (for some reason). Then he set off for the third mountain peak.

The third mountain was the most difficult. It was taller than the others and by this time, four hours into the hike, David was getting very tired. He struggled up the steep slope and up and over some deep clefts in the ridge until he was able to look back at where he had come from. He saw that a narrow road was being built all around the valley. This disquieted David a lot, since the only reason he could see for it was logging and he hated to see the beautiful valley he loved so much logged and denuded.

The third mountain, Seoraebong, was at the intersection of three mountain ridges and now David left the first valley and struck out onto a new ridge, an almost straight line to the last mountain at the very end of it.

This last ridge was much easier in some ways, but by this time David was very tired and his knees were hurting. Looking back, he could see the double notched ridge of the third mountain.

Along the way, he passed many interesting things, like more stone cairns and towers, plus the Wood of Confused Pines. They went in all directions, as if they had had a fight when deciding what direction to grow in.

Finally, David reached the final mountain peak, Ansusan. It looked over the prosperous farming region of Gosan, where newly-planted rice fields were laid out in neat rectangles as far as the eye could see.

Coming down from Ansusan was much more difficult than going up the first mountain. The slope was steep rock and David had to use ropes and chains to hold onto as he went down.

The first time David went down this slope was in the dark. On Halloween.

The path kept going down steeply. After it entered the trees, the path became more dangerous, with loose rocks and fallen leaves covering everything.

Finally, 8 hours after getting off the bus, David arrived at another bus terminal and waited with other hot people for a bus back to his city of Jeonju. It was a long, hot day and he was very sore and tired, but overall it was quite magical.