Tag Archives: outside the tower

November 4, 2013

Apocalypse Climb

This is a true story, as evidenced by the photographs. But you know me: I can’t help dramatizing things a little.

I saw a preview of the apocalypse this past weekend as masses of humanity pressed together, fighting to ascend (and then descend) a steep, rain-soaked path of tumbled rocks. The horror, the horror…

Koreans love them some mountain climbing and they love them some autumn colors. And considering that everyone loves them some weekend, going mountain climbing on a Saturday in Korea in the fall is like a perfect storm, especially in the rain.

The sky was overcast when I left the house in the morning. I couldn’t find my umbrella, but I had a magic talisman that prevented rain. At least, it rarely rained when I was carrying it and I believe strongly in the principle that correlation implies causation.

I got to the mountain (which is also a provincial park) and as the bus passed long lines of cars parked along the side of the road, my heart sank like a bowling ball in a banana souffle. It was, as the Chinese say, a mountain of people, a sea of people. If zombie hordes wore expensive hiking gear and preyed on autumn leaves, I would have been in a George Romero film.

Everyday I’m shuffling…

The rain started as a fine mist about halfway up the mountain. By the time I got to the park’s famed Cloud Bridge, the path had bottlenecked and so we all stood in the rain, shuffling forward at a snail’s pace until I finally reached the bridge. I looked down at the path 250 feet below me and saw the winding, ant-like column of hikers abandoning the mountain.

I saw a sign saying the maximum number of people on the bridge was 200. Not that anyone was counting.

I gave up the idea of going to the peak. A cloud had sat on the mountain as if it were snuggling into an easy chair and after the bridge was a treacherous metal stairway, over 200 feet high and as steep as a ladder. I wasn’t the only one who decided to cut the trip short and head for the cable car station nearby for a quick trip to the bottom. The trails were choked with sodden hikers, some with expensive cameras, jewelry and nice purses, all picking their way down the slick rocks. I felt like we were refugees from some disaster.

The group on the left are the ones who climbed under a railing and swarmed down the rocks to cut in line on the main path.

“All it takes is one person to slip…” I kept thinking.

There was a two-hour wait for the cable car, nowhere to sit and nowhere particularly warm. At least the view was pretty.

I got home four hours later and soon the apocalypse was only a distant memory. It’s amazing what a hot shower can cure.

14 Comments | tags: adventure, apocalypse, Daedunsan, hiking, Korea, mountain climbing, mountains, non-fiction, outside the tower, photograph, rain, Wanju | posted in Dusk

September 15, 2013

The Mystery of the Abandoned Farmhouse

By David Stewart

This is a true story. It happened yesterday. I feel I should put that out there right away, since this is a fiction blog. But even in real life, interesting things can happen.

This weekend, I went up to the Seoul area with my wife. We went up to find an abandoned mental hospital that’s been closed for about 20 years, which is apparently one of the creepiest places in Korea. We were planning on exploring it at night. However, when we got there, we found the road leading to it blocked with a pretty imposing gate and barbed wire.

I think I can jump that.

However, we had traveled many hours to get there and we decided to try a more lateral approach. A little ways up the road was another road that branched off into a small valley parallel to the one the hospital was in. It had rained heavily and the road was more or less a rushing stream. Our shoes were quickly damp.

We soon came to a farm, which we realized pretty quickly was abandoned. After an abortive attempt at climbing over the ridge to the hospital, we went back and looked around the house.

It was odd, to say the least. It was clearly abandoned–the front door was smashed in–and there was a lot of weather damage inside. Still, it looked as if the people had literally just gotten up and left. There were family photos hanging on the walls, clothes in the closet, dishes still sitting in the drying rack by the sink.

The house was totally furnished, but totally abandoned at the same time.

I didn’t try on any of the clothes.

It would have felt like we had just broken into someone’s house, except that it was clear it had not been used in a long time. The calendar on the wall said January, 2011.

I took a picture of the mirror to see if a ghost would appear in the photograph. But alas.

We speculated about why the house had been left like this, although most of my theories were too mundane for my wife’s liking. It seemed to have belonged a retired couple, the husband of which had been a lawyer, based on all the law books around. Of course, why they came out to a farm, I don’t know, especially one with a huge warehouse of old mattresses, couches and chairs in it. And why didn’t they take things that would have had sentimental value, like this huge family photo over the fireplace? Even if they had both died, you would think that their children would have taken care of things.

It showed a lot of moisture damage. Then there was this long-dead houseplant.

In the end, we didn’t touch anything or take anything, just looked around and left. As much as I would like to know what had happened there, that would take a lot more poking into the piles of documents and other things that had been left and that would have seemed strange. The juxtaposition of the almost completely furnished house and the totally abandonment of the place made it seem both like we were in a ruin and in an occupied house. But who knows? If I ever find out the story, I’ll let you know.

(I also made a video, which I will share tomorrow, if I can get a chance to post it.)

14 Comments | tags: abandoned house, creepy, exploration, farmhouse, ghosts, Gonjiam, Korea, mystery, night, outside the tower, photograph | posted in Dark, Uncategorized

September 10, 2013

What shape is the alphabet?

By David Stewart

I am a very visual person. I think in pictures and metaphors and I don’t really grasp complex concepts until I have a picture of them in my head, even if it’s a picture I made up myself. When I was growing up, I thought this was just the way the world was, just like I thought that everyone knew that “C” was female and yellow. Honestly, I’m not sure how common this is, but here is how I visualize various number and cyclical systems:

The Alphabet

This is how I picture the alphabet and I’m not sure why. It doesn’t make much sense why it would necessary bend at around “I” and “V” but it does and it always has ever since I was small. Whenever I picture the alphabet, this is what I see in my head.

Numbers

This is generally how I picture most numbers. There is a bend at ten and a big one at twenty and then at 100. The problem with this one is that it is also 3-dimensional, but you get the idea.

It gets more complicated with age, since there are more bends in the line (90-100, for instance, is almost at right angles with the ones before it) but that is more 3-dimensional and I notice it tends to change as I get older (not surprisingly, I guess.)

Months of the YearThis is probably the most intuitive, since it’s a circle, although the exact placement of things is a bit odd. For instance, New Year’s is in the upper left. July, August, and December take up much more space than some others, although I think this is because those were times of holidays (summer holidays and the Christmas season) so they seemed to take up more time in my mind. Or maybe just because they had to connect a big area between the spring and fall semesters. In any case, this is what I see in my mind when I think of the calendar or the months of the year.

Hangul

This is the Korean alphabet and won’t have much significance to most people, but I thought I’d put it in as a point of interest. This is much simpler, maybe because there are 14 letters (these are only the consonants) and maybe because I only learned them 10 years ago. In any case, there is a definite bend in the line, possibly because the later ones are the aspirated versions of earlier consonants. Who knows.

History

This is pretty much how I visualize the timeline of history. Some of these are obvious, like a bend at the divide between BC and AD. Also, there is more room for the 20th century, since we learned a lot more about that time and it has more significance for me. I’m not sure about some of the other dips and bends, but this is just how I see things. This one is also quite 3-dimensional, but that was hard to draw.

Does this seem normal to you? Totally weird? Let me know in the comments. I’m curious how other people view the world.

9 Comments | tags: alphabet, calendar, Hangul, history, numbers, outside the tower, visual | posted in Uncategorized

September 9, 2013

Minecrack – The Confessions of a Recent Addict

By David Stewart

When my good friend Mike finally got me into Minecraft, I went into it like someone who decides to take up recreational heroin. Of course, that was also the reason why I resisted buying it for so long: I knew it was insanely addictive. And now that I have it, it is exactly as addictive as I had expected, although in a good way (unlike heroin, in case someone thought this was a convoluted endorsement of hard drugs). Now, I find that anytime I have trouble writing or am just feeling too tired, the lure of the game beckons me. However, despite the slight loss in productivity, I still don’t feel that lingering feeling of regret when I finish playing, like that sour feeling you get when you eat an entire bag of gummy bears in one sitting (hypothetically). Here’s why:

Here is how I imagine the real Green-Walled Tower.

1. It’s Totally Creative: drool… This is the kind of program I have been looking for for a long time. This is the reason that I want to have a room full of Legos someday. A very long time ago, I had a Lego computer program that was similar, except nowhere near as powerful. After one house, the landscape started disappearing as the computer ran out of memory. But now, I can create almost anything that comes into my mind. And believe me, I can come up with some pretty freaky stuff. The only sticking point is time, since I like things big and you still have to place every block individually. Currently I’m working on a setting from the first novel I ever wrote. It’s a pool, surrounded by five temples, on top of a fortified hill, in a huge city in a deep cleft of a valley. After about an hour or so, I’m almost finished the pool.

2. It’s Open-Ended: I’m using both the creative mode to make the aforementioned pool/city, but also playing in survival mode, where you have to find food and not get killed by monsters. It is way better than most games because you can manipulate everything . Currently, I’m at the bottom of an abandoned mineshaft with monsters all around. In a normal game, I’d have to fight my way out to get back to my house and recharge. Not in Minecraft. There, I can block off a shelter, dig it out bigger, make a crafting table and make more weapons and armor, even smelt ore into metals, all while I’m stuck at the bottom of a mine. I can make my own staircases or ladders, dig straight in any directions or basically do anything I want.

The upper room, where the creative magic happens.

I realize I’m late in the game (as usual with technology; I just got a smart phone a few months ago) and that over half the world has already played Minecraft. But to those few out there who haven’t played it, I would just say that it’s awesomely creative and awesomely addictive. I’m still exploring what I can do, but I would like to make stories and set them in a Minecraft world that I create, recording the whole thing on video. So we’ll see. You never know what will come out of the Green-Walled Tower.

11 Comments | tags: addiction, blogging, creativity, games, gaming, Minecraft, outside the tower, The Green-Walled Tower, world-building, writing | posted in Uncategorized

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

May 21, 2013

Chinese Food: Korean Style

By David Stewart

If there is one food that is all over the world, it’s Chinese food. For most people, it’s not hard to believe that the food they eat at a Chinese buffet is not exactly what Chinese people eat every day at home, but what people don’t always realize is that Chinese food is not the same in every country. There were Chinese foods in Canada that I have never seen in the US and I have heard of differences in other countries as well.

However, nowhere (in my experience) is Chinese food as different as in Korea. I have heard that what is considered Chinese food in Korea comes from the northeast of China, but it is quite unique (except for fried rice: everywhere has fried rice). Here are the main dishes you see at Korean Chinese restaurants.

Jajangmyeon (자장면): Jajangmyeon is kind of the go-to Korean Chinese food. It is noodles in a black soybean-based gravy. It doesn’t have a strong flavor, but it’s very good. There is also jajangbap, which is the same, but with rice instead of noodles.

Jjambbong (짬뽕): This is the other main Chinese food here. Jjambbong means something like “hodge podge” so it’s a mixture of many things. As you can see by the color, it is very spicy. Jjambbong consists of noodles and various types of seafood such as squid, mussels, sea cucumber, and if you get the expensive stuff, a lot more. It also has a lot of onions in it.

Tangsooyook (탕수육): This is fried pork (or beef, if you want the really expensive stuff) served with a sweet and sour sauce. In some ways it is similar to sweet and sour pork in North America, although (in my opinion) it’s a ton better and also is a lot more expensive. A small serving is about $15 and a large is $20 or more. Of course, a small serving is enough for 2-3 people. This is one of those dishes that only comes in group sizes. Koreans almost always eat out together and so a lot of their food is geared towards groups (I have been turned away from restaurants for being alone, since they had nothing on the menu for only one person). This is one of my favorite Korean Chinese foods.

Japchae (잡채): This is the final mainstay of Korean Chinese food: japchae. This is perhaps a little more familiar looking. It is rice noodles mixed with meat and vegetables. It’s usually pretty mild, although some places make it really spicy.

Here’s what it looks like when you get it delivered:

This is a meal that my wife and I ordered last November when we wanted to splurge. She got the fried rice and I got the jjambbong (lower right). The three-section dish in the lower center is a constant with Korean Chinese food: yellow pickled radishes (which are Korean, originally from Japan), black soybean paste, and raw onion pieces (not pictured, because my wife eats them immediately).

The tansooyook is in the middle, with a big bowl of its sauce. And as if that’s not enough food, they also threw in an order of mandoo, or dumplings, (upper right) for free. Because Korea is all about the free stuff.

They give you wooden chopsticks, but real spoons and real dishes. You eat and when you’re finished, you put them outside your door and the delivery boy comes and gets them later. I’m very glad this system works here, since using real dishes is so much nicer than styrofoam or paper.

I have grown very fond of Korean Chinese food but the problem is, that once I leave Korea, it will be very hard to find. It’s not Korean food, so you can’t find it in most Korean restaurants outside of Korea. And it’s not normal Chinese food, so Chinese restaurants don’t have any of it. There are restaurants in Korean districts, such as in New York or LA that have it, so I’ll have to make a trip to a city every now and then to get it. If you’re near a Korean district, I’d recommend seeking it out.

29 Comments | tags: Chinese food, culture, delivery, food, jajangmyeon, Korea, noodles, outside the tower | posted in Uncategorized

April 23, 2013

The Phonology of “Baby Teacher”

By David Stewart

I am a teacher and in my teaching career I have probably taught thousands of students. And of those, quite a few have called me Baby Teacher.

As you may or may not know, I teach English in Korea. Normally, Korean students called their teachers seonsaeng-nim, which, like the Japanese sensei, just means “teacher”. If they need to distinguish between teachers, they add the teacher’s last name before it, as in “Kim seongsaeng-nim.”

I have my students call me David. That is the opposite of the norm here, since Koreans usually only call friends and social inferiors by their first name. I wouldn’t do that if I was teaching in North America, but over here, foreign English teachers are outside all the rules of normal engagement, so it doesn’t really matter. However, a lot of them still stick “teacher” on the end of my name to mimic the Korean style.

So how does “baby” come into it? It has to do with Korean pronunciation rules. First of all, Korean doesn’t have a “v” sound, so my name automatically becomes “Dabid”. As well, Korean doesn’t have any syllables that end with a “d”, so my name gets stretched to three syllables, as in “day-bi-deu”. This means the second syllable is now open, which in Korean means that the “i” gets changed to an “ee” sound, and we end up with “day-bee-deu”. Take off the last syllable and it’s suspiciously close to “baby”.

Of course I correct them and they usually do it just to be brats. Still, I’ve gotten used to it. I’m sure I could be walking down the road in America and if an elementary school student yelled “Hey baby!”, I’d probably just smile and wave.

This is what came up "baby teacher" in an image search. Source.

This is what came up for “baby teacher” in an image search. Source.

19 Comments | tags: baby, Korea, outside the tower, phonology, pronunciation, quirky, students, teaching | posted in Uncategorized

March 21, 2013

The Green-Walled Tower is Coming to Youtube!

By David Stewart

Okay, I guess the title said it all.

I’m always looking for new and creative ways to tell interesting stories and now I’m thinking of expanding my storytelling to video form. Not as movies really, but…well, you’ll see. Don’t worry; I will still be posting stories here as always.

This new project of mine might take a little time to get going, but what I’m curious about now is what to call my channel. I have a few ideas for you to vote on, or you can think up a totally awesome new name and tell me in the comments too. If I pick your super cool awesome name, I’ll dedicate a video to you.

The Green-Walled Youtube? It’s an idea.

18 Comments | tags: green-walled tower, outside the tower, poll, video, writing, Youtube | posted in Uncategorized

March 5, 2013

The Foreigner Card: Privilege Through Ignorance

By David Stewart

Don’t you wish you had a get-out-of-jail card for small annoyances? If you’re a buxom blonde, maybe you do, but an easier way (at least if you look like me—neither buxom nor blonde) is to move to another country. In my case, Korea.

I’m not sure about other countries, but in Korea, we call it the foreigner card. It is an acknowledgement that as foreigners (i.e. non-Koreans), that along with all the disadvantages of living in a foreign culture, we have certain privileges by not fitting into the cultural system. It’s one of perks of living over here. Let me give you some examples.

You are driving and run a red light. A policeman pulls you over, but upon seeing you’re a foreigner (and assuming you don’t speak Korean) he lets you go because he doesn’t want to deal with the situation.
You want to return something at a store without a receipt. They refuse, saying it’s not the policy. You give them a blank look and keep nudging it towards them, saying juseyo (please give me) and eventually they just do it to make you go away.
All the teachers at the school are going out to eat. Although there is mandatory attendance, you don’t want to go, so when they tell you about it—in Korean—you give a big smile and say, in English, “see you tomorrow” and just go home.

Now some of those are accidental and some are deliberate, but you get the idea. The idea is getting away with things that other can’t simply because we don’t fit in or people assume we don’t understand (or we pretend we can’t). Here’s why it works.

We stand out. – I will never, ever pass for a Korean. I did have one man ask me if I was Korean, but he was either drunk or a bad guesser. I don’t stand out like a sore thumb; I stand out like a missing limb. If you happen to be black, then you stand out even more. Because of this, it is very easy for people to make judgments about us before we even speak. Here are some of the common stereotypes: foreigners don’t speak Korean; they don’t understand the culture; they’ve just arrived in Korea; and they insist on others speaking English.

This means “foreigner” in Korean

And so on. The point is that even before I open my mouth, the other person has formed an opinion of me in their head.

A lot of the stereotypes are true. – I’m not trying to bash foreigners living in Korea: I am one, and even though I speak Korean now, I didn’t when I got here. The truth is that there is a huge demand for English teachers here and speaking Korean is not one of the requirements. People often come for a year and then leave, which means they don’t have the time or motivation to learn much of the language. Because of this, they are forced to interact with Koreans with what they have: English and gestures, which can be frustrating for everyone involved. Some Koreans get so tired of going through this time after time that they just try to avoid it. Some shopkeepers type the price into a calculator and show it to me because they assume I wouldn’t understand them if they said it.
Korean culture puts a high emphasis on service. – When you are a customer in Korea, then you are a king. Tipping isn’t practiced here and it’s very common for shopkeepers to throw in a bit extra or something free, just as good service. You run across people who don’t want to serve foreigners, but usually they will err on the side of good service.

On one hand, it’s very nice that people make exceptions for us at times, since as I said before, a lot of it is deserved. It is very humbling to live here without knowing the language, since you have to rely on others to help with a lot of things: setting up an account, going to the doctor, buying a cell phone, etc. However, some people try to game the system by pretending they are more ignorant than they are. Since people already assume we’re ignorant, why not use that to our advantage, right?

I try not to use the foreigner card if I can help it. Mostly because it’s dishonest if I deliberately pretending to be more ignorant than I am, but also because after living here for so long, I really want to fit in. I am very tired of always being the exception, even when it’s beneficial.

Also, I want people to know I speak Korean, because dealing with foreigners is very stressful for a lot of people. Koreans feel that because they study English in school, they should speak English when they meet a foreigner, not that the foreigner should speak Korean. I can see the fear in their eyes when I come into their shop, as they desperately try to remember everything their middle school teacher said while they were talking in the back of the class. So, I try to speak Korean as soon as possible to put them at ease. You can see some of them, usually younger people who have studied English, visibly deflate with relief when they realize you can speak Korean.

So, there it is: a way out of minor difficulties based on stereotypes, real and perceived language barriers, and cultural misunderstanding. Still, it’s nice to have it if you need it.

“Waygook” means foreigner. Source

9 Comments | tags: culture, foreigner, foreigner card, Korea, outside the tower, travel | posted in Uncategorized

February 26, 2013

“Well, I’m back,” he said.

By David Stewart

As you probably know if you saw my Sunday post, I was away last week on a trip. I went by myself to a couple of small islands in the southwest of Korea, called Heuksando (흑산도) and Hongdo (홍도). They’re part of a national park, which is not surprising, considering all the natural beauty there. As promised, here are some pictures I took there. It’s very visual, although not fiction; it’s a travelogue, and actually was pretty fantastic. Enjoy~

I left here on Sunday and went down to the port city of Mokpo. The next day I took this ferry. It was very fast and the water was very rough, making it fun for me, until other people starting getting sick and throwing up. The guy behind me kept saying, “I’m dying. I’m dying. I want to live. I should have gotten off at the last island.”

On the first island, I took a bus around the island on a road that wound up and down mountains on hairpin turns and steep grades. Between the cliffs and mountains, were tiny, idyllic coves with fishing villages.Here is one of the roads. This one is famous on the island and has twelves switchbacks in a row. It was quite something going up this in a bus.

The next day, it was crazy windy so I walked along the beach to see the waves crashing up on the rocks.

After a while, I hiked back inland, through the forest and through pastures. I came across a lot of cow dung, but only 4 cows the whole time. This was a bull, a cow and a calf. The calf was very cute, but I didn’t want to get close, since the cow kept bellowing at me, even when I was out of sight.

The forest on the island was almost all broad-leaf evergreens and there were vines and ivy everywhere. It is much different from the rest of Korea.

This is a view of the harbor looking back across the peninsula where I was hiking. I could easily have stayed there for a long time. It was so peaceful.

At sunset, I went back to the harbor where my motel was. It was the off-season for tourism, so I think I was the only one in the hotel. I never ate at a restaurant with any other customers; just the owners eating their supper.

Then I climbed up the hill behind my hotel, where I was rewarded with this view:

The next day, I took a ferry thirty minutes to the island of Hongdo, which has some of the best craggy rock formations I’ve seen. Just like on Heuksando, I was one of the only tourists there.

I climbed up the mountain and had a beautiful overview of the whole southern half of the island.

The only problem with this island was that it was quite inaccessible. A lot of cliffs, like the one below, were off-limits, with no trails or safe ways to get to them. Which is too bad, since I would really liked to climb up on some of them.

The day was absolutely beautiful. As opposed to the previous cloudy and windy days, this day was sunny, warm, and serene.

I found a hotel, then struck out to the south side of the island and fought my way through the forest of vines and thorns down to a small beach. This island was just offshore from there.

A lot of where I walked was quite close to the edges of cliffs that plunged more than a hundred feet straight down to the ocean. I was careful, of course, but I’m sure my wife would have had a heart attack if she’d seen me.

Hongdo is much smaller than Heuksando and everyone lives in one village in the middle of the island. Probably half the buildings are hotels or restaurants, the vast majority of which were closed for the season. Here is a shot of the harbor as I was coming back in late afternoon.

I walked down to a dock on the far side of the island to see the sun set behind the island.

The next day I got up way too early for the ferry, so I went down to the harbor and watched the sunrise.

Then it just better and better as I waited.

I hope you enjoyed the tour. Now that I’m back, I am slowly climbing the long, winding steps up into the Green-walled Tower to see what other fantastic worlds I can spy. More fiction coming up tomorrow.

P.S. Bonus points if you can name the reference in the title. It doesn’t count if you’re related to me, since I KNOW you know. 🙂