Dressing Rooms

I didn't mention the dressing rooms in my whole spiel about shopping over here. They're really worth noting, I think. As I was looking over what I wrote in this entry, I noticed I had typed "worth nothing" the first time, which is kind of an appropriate mistake.

They're not heavily guarded, for one thing. And they're also not isolated. There's one here, one there. They're built into columns around the store. Sometimes employees show customers to them and help them, but not always. I haven't been helped.

And they are kind of inadequate. Most of them have the mirrors on the outside, so if you're a woman trying on a bra or a bathing suit, you're SOL. They also don't have locks, and there doesn't seem to be a way to indicate that there is someone inside. I've been walked in on two out of three times I've used them. Most people don't bother to knock. There is typically only one hook inside, as well, so you have to put your own clothes and stuff on the floor.

Of course, it's also worth noting that the dressing rooms I've used have been at discount stores. They may be ultraluxurious and superfortified in the department stores. I may never know.

Yoga Pictures

My yoga teacher took a bunch of pictures of me at the studio a couple weeks ago to put on her website. She gave me a cd today with them. They're mostly pictures of me with my eyes closed, but there's one of us together and one of the building:


Her name is Lee So Hyun, Lee being her family name. I look like a giant next to her. When we do things like swing our body parts around or twist back and forth, it takes me like 20% longer to finish each repetition.





Lee So Hyun Feeling Yoga

Shopping

Today I went shopping at E-mart, which is kind of like Target. It looks massive from the outside, but I found out after going to the wrong floors a bunch of times, that it has three floors for shopping, and the rest of the probably ten floors, below and above, are for parking. The first floor is a grocery store, but it doesn't seem to be any cheaper than my GS, so I don't bother. The second floor is housewares, personal hygiene, appliances, electronics, and entertainment. The third floor is clothing, shoes, bags and accessories, and cosmetics.

There are two sets of flat (so the carts can go up them) escalators. They confuse me, but I think I've got it down now. One set allows you to traverse floors without paying at each floor, and the other doesn't. The latter also doesn't allow you to get to the second floor shopping area for some reason.

Shopping is always a weird experience. I've mentioned the amount of employees around retail stores before, and how much they're into customer service. It's getting a little awkward for me now. They'll come around to a customer, even if she's foreign and clearly doesn't speak Korean, and loom about after the greeting to see if they can help. Sometimes I ask for help, and they can figure out what I'm saying, but mostly I don't need it. I feel kind of bad for the employees, because they have to watch me like hawks. I just don't know the rules. A couple weeks ago I tried to go into the grocery part of E-mart with my bag of already-paid-for items. The greeter had to run after me and confiscate my bag, since it wasn't allowed into that area. I might steal. Today, I got stopped trying to walk out of the clothing area with two shirts still on the hangers. The lady took the hangers away from me and put my shirts into a clear plastic bag. I would never have guessed that the hangers had to stay. They don't blame me, though. They're always really nice about it.


Shopping is also really weird because of what passes for clothing here. It's really quite funny. I wish I could bring a camera into the stores and take pictures of the clothes, but that's probably against the rules, or at least pretty gauche. I've been trying to find plain cotton t shirts, but I don't think they make them here. The few t shirts I've been able to find are all decked out with cutesy wutesy kitties and bunnies and unicorns and rainbows and stuff. And this is the women's section, mind you, not the kids' section. I did manage to get a plain yellow tank top for only four bucks today, and this t shirt for about seven. It was one of the few not sickeningly cute t shirts around, but I still wish it didn't have anything on it.


If you can't tell, it says "Stylish Du Jeans," which of course doesn't make any sense. The picture is of a guy taking a photo of a girl holding a book with a photograph on the open page. How postmodern.




I was able to find several button-down shirts that I liked, but it took some searching. I ended up with this one, which has thin yellow, blue, and silver vertical stripes, and two cool pockets. It goes well with the yellow tank top.





A lot of the button down shirts are collarless, which kind of kills it a little for me. They also have a lot of plaid going around in the button downs, which is hilarious. There were millions of shirts that are supposed to look like two shirts--short sleeved t shirts over long sleeved t shirts, sweaters over buccaneer-frilled blouses, tank tops over t shirts, jackets over blouses, stuff like that. It's mostly really hideous. If it's not cutesy wutesy, it looks like something someone threw away in the 80's. There are a lot of pirate stripes, collars decorated with massive plastic jewels, tunic shirts, shirts with bows and ribbons tied around the collar, and awful prints.

I have to say, though, that I haven't really had to stifle laughter seeing how Koreans dress. As hideous as the stuff looks on the rack, somehow it seems to come together on the people.


Getting back to the employees, I have to note how some of them are dressed. I didn't notice this until today, but some of the young female employees wear pleated miniskirts and baby tees as a uniform. It's really odd. They also wear these things on their legs below the knee. They're just a cylinder of fabric, with an elastic band holding them up just below the knee, and broadening out enough to cover the shoes at the bottom. I'm not sure why they wear them. I guess it's pure fashion. I first saw them as I was looking down at something, and I though they might be for covering shoes in the rain, since it's rainy today. But then I noticed it was an employee, and that several of them were wearing them. I think I've seen these things in video games, too.


I needed to buy a new purse, too. The strap on mine broke, and it's too small for me now, anyway, since I want to carry around my dictionary and a map, and I have to add my reading glasses to the bag when I go to work. I've been looking for weeks for some sort of subtle satchel, but no look. The purses are as gawdy as the clothes, but frankly, purses are gawdy anywhere. I hate purses. This one's okay, though. It's olive green, if you can't tell, with brown trim.





All in all, I spent about a hundred bucks today, with the shirts and bag and a bunch of toiletry items I had to get. My whole goal in shopping today was to get a bunch of candy to give as rewards to my students, but I was not able to find anything that wasn't chocolate and expensive. Figures.

My Neighborhood

It occurs to me that I showed you pictures of the inside of my apartment, but not the outside. Not that it's very interesting. In case you're interested, here are some pictures of my neighborhood:

This is the front of my building. I'm in the back left corner on the first floor, so you can't see my apartment, unfortunately.






This is the view from my back window. Just a dumpy street. Because my building is evidently built into a slope, the back of my apartment has a balcony, even though I'm on the first floor, and I could climb out my side window onto the ground, if I wanted. I think I've mentioned in another entry that the balcony isn't supposed to be for hanging out, though. It's only a couple feet wide, and there isn't a door to get onto it. I had to climb through a small, knee-high window to get onto it and take this shot. Cats hang out on it a lot, though.



This is the view of my block from in front of my building. My apartment building is to the right, outside the frame. You can see the tip of the Nambu Library on the left. To the left of the library is what seems to be a piano school. Next door to my building are a seamstress and a little jewelry store. A little past them are a boutique for kids and a clothing boutique, both of which are probably very expensive. Down past the library are two food stands, one at which I buy soup to take home a lot. There are also a couple little restaurants I've been meaning to visit. At the end of the block on the left is a bar called Orange Western Liquor. Even if I cared for bars, I probably wouldn't go there. I've only seen middle aged men going in there--no young people or foreigners, even though it's foreign alcohol. It's probably not the place for me.



This is the Nambu Library. I haven't been in there yet, but some of my students tell me it has some English books. I'll probably check it out once I run out of the books I brought with me. It's funny having a library right across the street, and on a little side street at that. Korea doesn't have residential areas and business areas. It's all one big smorgasbord.

Shoes and Shoe Abuse

I've been looking at people's shoes a lot here. They seem to wear the same kinds of shoes that we do, for the most part. They just do different things with them.

For example, Korean women wear high heels everywhere, and with everything. To work, walking in the park, shopping, even to (but not during) yoga.

Everyone else wears sneakers, it seems. I see a lot of Chuck Taylors, which is cool. And a lot of Chuck Taylor knockoffs. Also Adidas, Nikes, and all the other popular brands we know and love.

What they don't like to do here is tie and untie shoes. You have to take them off so often, that it has become not worth it to wear shoes properly. You can't go into your home or anyone else's without removing your shoes, as we tend to realize about Asian cultures. Even service people, like the cable guy, have to take off their shoes before going into anyone's home. The internet guy did that at my apartment when I got it installed, and I thought it was kind of funny.

You also have to take off your shoes at many restaurants, which I didn't expect. If the resturant has tables and chairs, you don't have to take off your shoes, but most Korean restaurants still use tables that require you to sit on the floor, on cushions. Or, they trick you, and the table looks like it's a floor, but it's really just a recessed table, with benches built into the floor. Those tricky trickies. When you get to the restaurant, the lobby has a bunch of cubbies that you can leave your shoes in, but most people just leave them on the floor, in front of the little step up to the main restaurant floor. Then they get moved off to the side by employees and you have to search for them when you leave. You have to put your shoes back on to go to the bathroom, which is located by the lobby for shoe purposes (at least partially, I assume).

I don't have to take off my shoes at work, but I talked to a teacher in Seoul who says at his school, which is public, they have to take off their shoes and wear slippers inside. I wonder if other workplaces are like that.

With all this shoe removal, shoes become kind of a hassle. Thus, the shoe abuse comes in. They just slip on their shoes and walk on the backs, crushing the heel of the shoe. It kind of kills me. But they don't seem to mind it. I haven't noticed a lot of backless shoes around here, which I think need to be introduced en masse.

I feel like an asshole when I go out with my boss and she has to wait for me to put my entire shoe over my foot and bend down to tie it. Those thirty seconds are really long.

Pencil Cases

I'm not sure if this is a Korean thing, or if pencil cases have become all the rage all over the world for kids, but man, I hate pencil cases.

When I was a kid, I brought one pencil and one pen to school, or maybe two pens when I was older. And I don't think I ever needed any more than that, and I didn't lose my writing utensils, either, that I can recall. I've never been very losey.

But these kids haul around boxes and bags full of twenty pencils and eight pens and five erasers and four markers and three mechanical pencils (which they call "sharps," which I also hate--both the word and the item). And they play, play, play with them. It's a ridiculous rule to have that involves kids putting away that which holds their learning tools, but there you have it.

Pencil cases here look more like tackle boxes. They have multiple levels and compartments, braces to hold the pencils in place, combination locks on the outside to keep those nasty pencil thieves away, and many of them have a dry erase board on the inside of the top (WITH eraser) so the kids can draw on it during class. My Avenues Level C class' previous incarnation used to write "Alian Piglet," which is what they like to call me, on their little white boards.

Additionally, a lot of the pencil cases have wheels on them, so they can drive them around their desks. Some of them have the kind of wheels that you can wind up by pulling the case backwards and release like a race car. Awesome.

Rosetta Stone

Well, tonight I bit the bullet and bought a year's subscription to Rosetta Stone, the language learning program. I wanted to purchase the CD, since I'm not sure if I'll be able to put in time every day, and I'd feel like I was getting my money's worth if I had the software to use whenever I want. Apparently they don't deliver to South Korea, though, so I had to go with the online program. I'm going to have to try to make time to use it every day. I just did the first lesson, and it took about 45 minutes, so I think I can fit that into my schedule.

It's a fun little program. The first lesson involved showing me pictures of things and saying the words and then testing me in a couple different ways. First, it would show me four pictures, saying each word once, then one word would be spoken, and I'd have to choose the right picture. Then the pictures would change to those things plus something else, and I'd have to learn the combination in the same way. As I progressed, the program would also show me a picture, then take it away before giving me my word choices. And conversely, it would say a word once and take the written word away before showing me the pictures.

The program goes really fast. You have to pay attention. I was looking at the margin of the window a couple times to try and figure out how the scoring works, and what other info is there, and consequently I missed what the program was telling me. That also happened whenever my mind wandered for half a second. I guess that's good, though. It both makes sure that you understand words as they're naturally spoken and that you focus on the task.

Just now I learned nouns such as man, woman, boy, girl, elephant, dog, cat, horse, ball, table, airplane, car, and boat. I learned prepositions under, over, and in, as well as and.

Tomorrow maybe I'll do two lessons. I'd like to keep going tonight, but it's after 1am.

Korean Shows

As for shows made in Korea, I'm kind of baffled sometimes. There don't really seem to be that many dramas, sitcoms, or other scripted television. It mostly seems to be reality shows and game shows. And some shows that seem to be both. Whenever I watch Korean shows, it seems like they're all based around a bunch of people doing either mundane or silly shit.

One show I've seen was about a famous band consisting of four guys and a girl in their twenties (I assume). The episode I watched showed them deciding to buy a dog. So they bought a little scruffy puppy and played with it a bunch. Then they bought is some cute puppy clothes and played with it some more. Then they brought it to a dog park, where another dog tried to have sex with it. Then they brought it to a dog cafe. A dog cafe is where people bring their dogs to an indoor play area and they can eat and drink while their dogs play. People who don't have dogs can come there and play with other people's dogs. Then they brought it home and it pooped on the floor, and they fought over who would clean it up. And they showed it to the dog and hit it with a newspaper. Then they all went to bed (in the same room, on the floor, as is traditional).

There's another show I've seen a couple times that is a game show, I think. There don't seem to be any prizes, but there do seem to be teams, since only two colors are worn by about eight people. The first episode I saw, the people had to run and jump over a hurdle that kept getting higher and higher each round. Then, when it got really high, the poles holding up the hurdle started getting closer and closer, until only one really tall guy could get through cleanly because his hips were taller than the poles, and just his legs had to go through. The other episode I saw, people had to crouch down next to each other on a mat, and each contestant had to dive over them. Each round, one more person was added to the mat. They started to get scared after five people were on the mat, and they were trying to scrunch themselves up really tight. I think they got up to seven people. Some got a little bit hurt when they were landed upon.

I've seen a number of shows with young people just sitting around talking. I saw a show that challenged a bunch of tennis players (three Korean, and one Anna Kournikova, I think) to serve a ball and knock out numbered panels on a structure like 75 feet away. I saw a show that involved a famous Korean comedy group practicing a dance and song number to perform at the halftime of some sports game (I don't remember which sport), and then they ended up mostly improvising it and sucking a lot. Then the took the number to the streets.

There's also a sketch comedy show that plays a lot. It's kind of like Saturday Night Live, except I don't think it's live, and they have a lot more repetition of sketch characters. There's one sketch they do in which a guy claims to have an amazing talent, but really doesn't. Like the first episode I saw, he claimed to be an excellent origami artist. But when given a piece of paper and told to make it into a giraffe (or whatever), he just crumpled it up. When questioned, he pointed out all the parts of the animal, but of course it didn't look like a giraffe.

Another sketch they have in that show is about an old grandmother and her twin grandsons. The grandmother is played by a wicked muscular guy, and the grandmother acts generally like an old woman, but throws in a walking-on-her-hands or push-up bit every once in a while. The twins are played by really lanky guys, and they're supposed to be probably seven or eight. The grandmother beats them up a lot. It's pretty funny.

A less funny one to me is the sketch in which two sentient mannequins are being positioned in a window. I'm able to understand most of what goes on in this show because it's a lot of physical comedy, but this sketch isn't quite as such. It's funny when one mannequin gets stuck holding a bowling ball up in the air, but other than that, I can tell they're talking about how uncomfortable they are, and not much else.

Korean television uses a lot of editorial titles in their shows. Like, a lot. If you remember Blind Date and how they used titles in that, you have some idea of what I'm talking about, but Koreans use it even more. They plaster the stuff all over the screen, and I can't read it. Every once in a while I'll find a word I know, but I read extremely slowly in Korean, so even if I could understand the words, I wouldn't have time to. They also use little pictures sometimes, which I like, of course.

Pretty much the only scripted shows I've seen are what looks like an awful soap opera and cartoons. They also have a show called KPSI, which is Korean CSI. Like I said, they love that show. Someone told me the acting is terrible, though. I haven't bothered to watch it.

The cartoons seem okay, though I don't watch them much. There's one cartoon that my boss' kids watched a lot when I was there. I don't know the name of it, but it's about a little kid who has a baby brother and likes to do things his own way. It seems kind of like a less fantastic Bobby's World. And less good.

They show a lot of dubbed Japanese cartoons here, too. I was pleased to catch Pokemon the other day, but displeased to not understand Korean well enough for it to be worth it. It seems to be a new generation of Pokemon, anyway. Ash and Brock are still around, but Misty has been replaced by some other chick. Or maybe not; I'm not sure if either of the girls in that episode are regulars. I don't like their not-American voices, anyway.

There is one food show that I've seen a few minutes of a few times that stars really cute blond boy who speaks perfect Korean. I have no idea what he's saying, but I find it very hard to change the channel...

I've noticed that the very few white people who make it onto Korean shows are all blond. It makes me wonder if they find that most attractive because it's most different from what they look like here.

Korean Television

TV is here is really... something. I watched a fair amount of it while I was staying with my boss my first two weeks here, and I still sometimes watch short spurts of it. It's pretty entertaining.

The channels are set up in a pretty user friendly way in that they're grouped by category. So if you want to watch cartoons or movies or sports or whatever, you don't have to flip all over the dial to find them. It makes channel surfing a lot easier, I've noticed.

They don't just have the "normal" cartoon, movie, sports, drama, sitcom, news channels, though. They also have channels where you watch people play video games, channels where you watch people play Korean chess (the rules which I haven't figured out yet by watching), channels that teach English, channels that teach math, and infomercial channels. At I'Park, the apartment series that my boss lives in, there's even a channel that's connected to four video cameras over the playground, so parents can watch their kids from home. Creepy.

One of the oddest things I've noticed about Korean television is the commercial breaks. Some breaks are three commercials long, and some are five minutes long, and some are ten minutes long. When they end a program, but can't start the next one until twenty minutes later, they play twenty minutes of commercials. If an American show is playing and it clearly states "now it is time for a commercial break," they don't go to commercial. They just play the outro and intro to the show back to back. Then they cut away in some awkward place. Or they don't have any commercials at all. I don't get it.

Another weird thing about Korean television that I've noticed is that they don't have the same schedule adherence that we have. Each channel seems to have its own schedule, but things don't always start on the hour or half hour. At first I thought shows just started... whenever, but I've come to realize that there's a little more order than I thought. It's very inconvenient, I gotta tell ya. If you sit down at 8 or 9 o'clock, you expect there to be a number of shows and movies starting, since that's prime time. But no matter what time I turn on my tv, there's almost never something starting right then. You have no idea how many half movies I've seen since I got here.

Luckily for me, my cable package has a few movie channels that play a fair lot of American movies (with Korean subtitles). They also play a lot of CSI. They really must love that show here. At first I was getting really frustrated by the whole scheduling thing, but I've managed to find the websites of four of the channels I watch, so I can check to see which movies are on in advance. Yea.

The movie channels put the title of what's playing in the upper corner of the screen, so if I'm just channel surfing, that helps me figure out what it is. It's not in English, though, it's in Korean. But it's not translated, which I find hilarious. They just transfer the sounds from the English words into Korean letters. So if the channel is showing The Matrix, the title is "meh-ee-teu-ri-jeu' (they don't have an "x" or "ks" sound). If the movie is The Bourne Identity, the title is "bone ah-ee-den-tee-tee." It's pretty funny, and makes for a fun game. Sometimes I have to say it out loud because they've mutilated the words so badly. The only movie I've seen them actually translate is The Mummy. It took me a minute to realize they had done that when I saw it, since I wasn't expecting it.

White Day

March 14 in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan is called White Day, or as I like to call it, Valentine's Day, Part II. This tradition, according to Wikipedia, was started in Japan in 1978. Apparently, on Valentine's Day, women give men chocolate and gifts, and on White Day, men give women gifts. This is supposed to be an answer to all the stuff women do for men on V Day.

I got a different story from all the kids I talked to today about it, so that's why I looked it up. According to the kids, chocolate is given on V Day, and candy is given on White Day. But that sucks. What woman prefers candy to chocolate? I also heard a couple kids say that year to year, which day is for candy and which is for chocolate switches. I ended up coming to an understanding with some kids that everyone pretty much does what they want on either day. But I didn't see candy one a month ago, nor did I see chocolate one today, so I guess it's still mostly traditional to keep to one confection on each day.

They've confused me over here about how they celebrate, though. Generally, Valentine's Day for us (if I recall correctly) is all about the women getting stuff and the man being chivalrous and gentlemanly. But here, the whole reason for White Day is evidently because women are the ones doing all the work the first holiday. And then they have a whole month to get dumped if the guy doesn't want to get her a gift, haha.

I'm not sure if they do cards here. I didn't see any. Maybe they just come with the gifts, not the candy.

The Grocery Store and Customer Service

Actually, as in many countries, they don't use the term "grocery store." It's a supermarket. There's a GS Supermarket just up the street a piece from me, so I go there a couple times a week. If I go after 9pm, I can get many things on sale. That's convenient, because I get out of work at 9, and except for weekends, it's pretty much the only time I can go shopping.

Korean stores (even Targetesque superstores, but not retail stores) encourage you to bring your own bags, which is cool. If you don't bring your own bags, you have to pay 50 won (about a nickel) for each one. The bags are big. I usually don't use more than one.

In Korean stores, there are a wicked lot of employees hanging around. They have to stand watch over certain areas, like the produce section, the fishery, the gift box section, and other random places. At retail stores, there is at least one employee for every section. They always have to greet you kindly, and I think, say something purchase-encouraging, even if you clearly don't speak the language. I usually just say hi back (in Korean) and look like I don't understand the rest, which I don't. They don't blame me.

There are more things in grocery stores in Korea than in the states. They have the gift box section, like I mentioned. This is where you can get nice looking sets of fruits, chocolates, and other typical food-item gifts. They also have Spam gift boxes. Spam is big here. They don't get the joke. Fish gift baskets are also big, although I don't think they have those at GS. They have them at the posh grocery stores, though, which are located at the department stores. It's like six whole, unblemished fish, delicately arranged in a box, with molded plastic over them. Weird.

The gift box employees have to wear traditional Korean clothes, called Han-bok.

They also have jewelry stores in the grocery stores, and underwear and small clothing sections. They don't seem to have flower shops in the grocery stores like we do. The fish sections are way bigger than we're used to. They smell bad. Free samples are also more common.

Customer service is hardcore here. The amount of employees in each store is kind of shocking. As you enter a retail store, an employee stands by the entrance and bows. The employees around the store don't bow as much, but then in the parking structures, there are a million parking attendants, and as you pass each one in your car, they give you a full-on 90 degree bow. They bow fast, though. It's kind of funny.

One final note on grocery stores in department stores: they sell fruit for like 140,000 won apiece (about $150). I went into the Hyundai Department Store to buy groceries once with my boss' parents, and I was shocked at the prices. I'm not sure why we were shopping there, actually. There was plenty of food there that wasn't make-me-throw-up expensive, but it was still pricier than the GS Supermarket, which is like four blocks from their house.

Classes

On Friday, I was reading a passage from a book to help the kids figure out an answer, and one of the girls said I didn't have any intonation. I thought that was quite funny coming from a seven year old ESL kid. I apologized and said that I always speak in a monotone. What she really wanted was for me to change my voice when I switched from the narrator to spoken words, but the only personal speaking out loud in the story at that time was the narrator herself, so what was I supposed to do?

Today I started my new schedule. It was grueling. I had seven classes. The first four were completely back to back, then I had a twenty minute break, during which time I scarfed a cup o' noodle. I was almost faint from having gone five hours without food and expending all that energy trying to fill up those little cups of knowledge. After my fifth class I had a fifty minute supper break, then two classes back to back from 7 to 9. Now I have about three hours of homework to correct. At least the kids don't suck.

Someone Else's Blog

I found this blog while trying to look for the local Science Channel's website, and there are some good articles in it. I found the entry on December 7 particularly interesting slash funny. Czech it out:

http://blogs.discovery.com/good_idea/2007/12/index.html

Chopsticks

I wasn't very good at using chopsticks when I got here. I could get the food into my mouth, but not very skillfully. I thought that the chopsticks here would probably be made out of acryclic or porcelain or something, since disposable wooden chopsticks didn't seem like a good idea for everyday use. I was wrong, though. The chopsticks here are metal, and flat. That made it really hard for me to get used to them. They kept slipping, and I kept crossing them instead of grabbing the food. And as I found out the first night I was here, you're supposed to hold the chopsticks towards the top, not in the middle, where I always held them. I notice that small children hold them almost at the bottom, so I'm thinking your hand position could be a reliable indicator of your skill at using them.

I've gotten a lot more practice since I've been here, so now I'm pretty good at chopsticking. I'm developing a chopsticks callous on my middle finger, actually. And now that I'm correcting papers and writing out my lessons every day, my writer's callous has returned on my ring finger. Oh, boy.