Miscellany

In Korea:

Envelopes aren't self-sealing. You have to glue them shut, or tape them. There are bottles of clear, liquid squeeze-glue at every customer station in the post offices.

Automatic doors require your nose to be about two inches away before they open for you. I used to feel like I was going to run into the stupid things before I got through. It's kind of like all those moments in the movies, like Independence Day, when the doors are closing and the ship has to turn sideways or something to get through the tiny hole. Then the pursuing ships all crash into the finally closed doors.

Many automatic doors require a button to be pushed before the open. I guess they no longer qualify as automatic doors, just futuristic easy doors.

Most doors have handles, not doorknobs. Bathroom doors seem to be the major exception, but not a consistent one.

Door locks can never be locked from the outside, that I've noticed. It's impossible to lock yourself out. The posh apartment buildings don't even give you keys. You get a high tech security-coded door with video surveillance on the doorbell. Shmancy.

People constantly spit on the sidewalk. Like loogey-hacking, too. A lot of foreigners find this annoying.

Loud eating is totally okay. Slurping and smacking are a normal part of the Korean meal practice. I read in a guidebook that it's understandable, because Korean food is spicier than our food, so that's just a way of cooling off the mouth.

Korean food is not spicy. THEY all think it is. They always warn foreigners about all this spicy food that is on the plate, and then we eat it and just laugh at them. The only food that I've had here so far that has challenged me was from an Indian fusion restaurant. I just want to shake this whole country of damn pansies. I'm sure there is spicy food out there, but it doesn't seem very common.

I've said this before, but most Korean food is either red, because it's soaked in that atrocious red pepper, or green, because it's seaweed or leaves. I haaaate that.

Koreans think EVERYTHING they do is good for your health, and everything WE do causes cancer. Leon told me today that a kid told him that bread causes cancer.

Koreans hold a grudge, communally. They haaaate China and Japan and most of them hate the US. All they ever talk about is melamine, imperialism (not their words), and mad cow disease. But they don't hesitate to use the products, play the video games, and follow that fashion. I guess that happens everywhere.

There are tons of old people permanently bent at a 90 degree angle from so many decades of strenuous field work.

Pedestrian traffic lights turn green for about two seconds, then start blinking, and the continue blinking for 20 or 30 seconds, or even a minute, then they turn red. So you never know, unless you understand the traffic patterns, if it's okay to cross, and people often hold up traffic or almost get hit, because they took a chance and were wrong.

Scooters don't have to follow traffic laws. Half the cars don't follow them, either, unless in high-traffic areas.

Public restrooms don't have hot water. I really wish that weren't so.

Small faces are extremely attractive, due to the novelty, I guess. Koreans often have wide faces. Everywhere I go, I'm told about my small face. Even Heather's four-year-old nephew remarked on it.

ANY body fat is entirely unacceptable, and many people are relentlessly cruel about it.

There are no cookie sheets.

They've never heard of pudding.

Music is piped out of loudspeakers in places it shouldn't be, like parks and parking lots. Some parks even have massive tv screens.

Cell phones come with two batteries, but no charger.

People's hips and groins are much more flexible, due to sitting cross-legged on the floor so much.

There are no napkins, only toilet paper and tissues.

Ceilings are wallpapered.

Sun exposure is practically forbidden to women over the age of 45 or so.

Doorbells play a mutilated Muzak version of Fur Elise.

You cannot write people's names in red, because that is only done for the dead.

Hospitals and some other buildings don't have a correctly labeled fourth floor. The word for "four" and "death" are the same, so superstition dictates that it's an unlucky number. Buildings that follow this supersition either go from three to five when labeling the floors, or call the fourth floor "F Floor."

There are two flower shops on every block.

Mailboxes in apartment buildings are not always locked, and in smaller buildings, each floor shares one mailbox.

Most of the websites that show tv programs that I want to watch are not supported.

More than half of Korean children wear corrective lenses, because they spend about twelve hours a day in class or doing homework, and in their free time they play video games.

An American Thanksgiving in Korea

I love Thanksgiving, so it almost killed me that I wasn't going to get to celebrate it in Korea. A couple months ago I thought of the idea to cook a dinner at Heather's house, since she lives in a posh enough building to actually have an oven. When I mentioned it to her, she got really excited, since she had a Thanksgiving dinner at her church while she was in the US, and I think she still dreams about it.

I invited a lot of people--Heather put me in charge of inviting, even though it was her house. I started by inviting three of the other teachers, plus Heather's nuclear family, her parents, and her brother's family. Then Kate's class found out about it and they all wanted to go, too. I mentioned it to Heather, because I thought it was kind of funny, but she really liked the idea. I ended up inviting my two most advanced classes, a total of 13 kids. If everyone had come, it would have been 28 people, including me. Heather suggested we do a rotation, so there weren't a million people in her apartment at once.

Shopping for this thing was a nightmare. There were a number of items I thought I wouldn't be able to find, and I had to make pretty much everything from scratch. Heather took me to an open market last weekend, where there was supposed to be a store with a lot of Western spices and such. But it's closed on Sundays. Those bastards. We went back this Saturday, and I found that all they had were jumbo jars of spices. All I needed at most was a couple teaspoons of each. But I had no choice. I'll just have to do a lot of good cooking from now on.

Here's the menu:

Deviled eggs
Fruit platter
Celery with cream cheese and olives

4 chickens (there's no turkey here, and the chickens are quite small)
Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Sweet potato casserole
Green bean casserole (with onion ring chips instead of fried onions--it wasn't too bad)
Cranberry sauce
Broccoli with white sauce
Dinner rolls
Eggnog


Chocolate cream pie (I had boxes of instant pudding sent from home)


I tried to make gravy from the chicken fat, but I suck at making gravy. I've only succeeded once. I was so pissed.

Getting all this involved the initial shopping trip, which wasted about an hour, but we got a couple things and went to a noodle place where they make the noodles from scratch while you wait. Then Saturday I was shopping from 10 to almost 3 with Heather, then Grace, one of the teachers. Heather took me back to the market to get the spices and most of the vegetables. Grace took me to Homeplus to get the baking stuff and the other food I couldn't get at the market, and a roasting pan, as that's not a common item in Korean homes. We also tried to get a cookie sheet, as I had a package of cookies from home (which I didn't end up making), and I wanted it to cook the rolls on, but they didn't have any. We then went to four cookware stores, with no luck. We finally tried E-mart, and even though they didn't have a cookie sheet, they did have a pizza pan, which was close enough. I also used it to cook the crusts for my pies, since I bought what I thought were disposable pie tins, but were actually just thin metallic serving plates. I just folded up the sides to make them higher and baked them atop the pizza pan. It worked out pretty well.

I didn't end up finding chicken stock for the stuffing, which totally threw me off. I had to boil chicken for a couple hours and make the damn stock myself. On Saturday, after over four hours of shopping, I spent over six hours making cranberry sauce, eggnog, sweet potato casserole, and pie crusts, and doing some prep work for the stuffing. Kate helped out. She had a ball. On Sunday, I made all the rest, with Heather and Kate helping as best they could. Even Wesley chopped some onions for me when he got there.

Heather said that she had thought American food was much easier to make than Korean food, but after she saw me do all that, she changed her mind. American food is much harder to make. I disagree, but I guess we all feel more comfortable with stuff we're used to making, or at least with ingredients we're used to. This was the first time I was making most of the food from scratch, so I felt like I was floundering quite a bit. All the stress made me completely flip out on a number of occasions.


Here's a picture of my feast, once I finally finished it:

Haha, just kidding (sucka). I got that from the internets. Actually, even though I brought my camera, I was so busy cooking that I didn't have time to take any pictures. Too bad. It would have been cool.

I had originally thought I would be done the first round by two or three, but we didn't end up sitting down to eat until about 4:30, which was shortly before the second rotation of guests was supposed to arrive. But even though I invited a couple dozen people, it ended up being just me, Heather's core family, Leon and Sue (teachers), and three students. Heather's parents showed up later and ate the remains of the meal, as well. Grace was feeling too tired from being sick all week, Heather's brother is always unreliable, and students are, too. Most of them had to go places with their parents, and the rest just didn't feel like coming, I guess.

The reactions to the food were funny. Leon, being British, is used to this kind of food at Christmas, although he'd never had eggnog before. It was his dream to try it. I think he's still dreaming about it, he loved it so much. Anyway, that's one happy customer, with the food too, it seemed. Heather and Sue also loved everything, and Heather's husband seemed pretty happy with most of it.

The kids were another story. I think Kate liked most of it, having had Thanksgiving and other American food before, but all Sally ate was broccoli (without sauce) and a roll, maybe some potatoes. Cindy didn't seem to excited about the food, but I think she ate more than Sally. I'm not sure how Wesley and Jiho (Heather's son) enjoyed it, as they ate in the other room, but I didn't get any compliments.

When Heather's parents came, they ate a lot of the chicken. Her dad picked the carcass clean, and his wife just forked it and put it on his plate finally. They seemed interested in the other food, but I'm not sure how well they took it. For those that didn't like the food, I think it was because some of it was too sweet (sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce), and some of it was too... creamy? (deviled eggs, green bean casserole, white sauce).

By the time we were ready for dessert, it was just Heather and her husband and kids, Leon, Wesley, and I, so we only ate one pie. That was fine with me. I got to take the other pie home. Suite. Although I didn't have to reheat the leftovers from the first meal for another bunch of people, I did have two more chickens that had been brining all day, and needed to be cooked. After eating for a couple hours, resting for a bit, having dessert, and trying to hook up my computer to Heather's huge tv with no success (damn you, HDTV), I got around to that. Then Heather's husband drove me home at like 10pm with two big boxes and two bags full of supplies, spices, tupperware dishes with leftovers, and cookware. I've rarely been so tired. I'm still tired.

I did get around to taking a couple pictures of leftovers that didn't look totally mangled by the time I got home. Here's the chocolate cream pie that we didn't eat:


Dessert was supposed to have been epic, with two pies, fresh baked cookies (the package Dad sent me), and brownies from a package Heather somehow got a hold of, but then Heather bought ice cream, and that and one piece of pie ended up being enough for everyone who was left by the time dessert rolled around.

Here's the cranberry sauce. I had to use dry cranberries instead of fresh or frozen, so I think it turned out much less saucy than it should have. I still kind of like it. It was probably the most expensive thing I made. I think it must have cost about 20 or 25 bucks, and that's only what I had to pay. About a third of the berries I used came from Heather's fridge, having been bought a long time ago, but never used.

Anyway, the grand total for the meal was somewhere around 150,000 won, which is about a day and a third's pay. I can't be sure of the actual total, as Heather did a lot of grocery runs when we ran out of something or I realized I'd forgotten something, or someone ate something I was supposed to use. She kept saying I should do this again for Christmas, as we have that off and she loved the food so much. I'm thinking about telling her I'll do it if she gives me Christmas Eve off to cook.

School Birthday Party

This year was one of those dreaded years when I actually have to work on my birthday. Most of the time, it falls during the Thanksgiving holiday, so I get it off. It fell on Thanksgiving proper this year, but since I'm not in the US, it didn't matter. Anyway, I was determined not to work on my birthday, even if I had to go IN to work, so I promised all six of my Thursday classes that I would give them food and we wouldn't do any studying.

Here's the amazing lineup of food for my classes:

1:40: Buns that taste like waffles with butter and syrup from Rotiboy (the "son" of Papparoti, a popular bakery chain) and mango juice

2:30: Cake (brought in by one of the students) and pastries from Paris Baguette

3:20: I bought french fries from Lotteria, Korea's own fast food joint, and one kid surprised me with pizza and soda for the whole class, and another kid brought three bottles of soda herself.

4:10: Fried chicken from Homisil (I think that's the name) and soda

5:10: Pizza from Pizza Etang (it means Pizzaland) and soda. These bastard fifth graders (well, it was really just Jack) begged me for as many pizzas as possible, since the boys could eat two and the girls could eat two. Since Pizza Etang apparently gives a two-for-one deal, I figured I'd just get four and make them happy without killing my wallet too much. They only ate one and a half of the pizzas, so I ended up giving a whole pizza to another class after I gave a piece or two to all the other teachers and staff members.

8:20: More cake from Paris Baguette, plus some of the leftover pastries from earlier, and soda.

Man, I felt fat after that. And I'm pretty sure I spent a whole day's pay on all that food.

I was really surprised at how the kids stepped up to the event. I got almost as many birthday presents as I did Teachers' Day presents, and three kids brought in food and drink of their own to share with the class. It was quite nice. All my kids were so happy that we had a party, and all the kids in other classes were wicked pissed at their teachers for not having a party, too. They could smell the food.

Here are my second graders, Danny (cut off), Melanie, and Michelle putting the candles on my first cake, which Danny's mother bought:

The cake says Lotte Hotel, which is kind of a funny thing to put on a cake. It was probably quite pricey, though, given the grandeur of the company.

Here are my second, third, and fourth graders, Jessica, Sally, Ava, Jenny, and Lucy is in the front:

From the same class, Patrick, Major, and Joey:

This is what my desk looked like after three classes:

My third, fourth and fifth grader class, John, Pam, and Jun, watching the Simpsons:

Any and Bunny, from the same class:

After the Simpsons was over, the kids just played Nintendo DS, Jun against Bunny, and the others watched:

That's Lauren in the back, there (she's always late on Thursdays):

My fifth graders watching the Simpsons. They listened to a CD by Big Bang, a terrible Korean pop band, afterward. That's Na-huin, Amy, Nancy, Sung-sik, and Alex:

Jack and Ji-ung:

This is the cake I bought myself for my last class of the day. It says "Congratulations," and I thought about asking them to write in frosting below it "You're old," but I'm sure they don't do that here. I had to get a big cake because Leon's class meeting at the same time are also all my students, but they don't see me on Thursdays. They begged Leon to let them come, and he'd take any excuse to not have class, so they all joined us.

I must note, though, that after eating three of my own birthday cakes and at least a couple other cakes since I've been here, I have found Korean cakes very much wanting. I have yet to find any flavor in any of them, especially the chocolate ones. They all taste like air, and they're kind of mushy. I had a conversation about this with my coworkers (at my special Thanksgiving, more to come), and everyone else said they liked the light quality of Korean cakes. I guess I'm just too American, too much buttercream, sugar, and whatnot.

This is Tina, one of my newer students. She got transferred into one of my weekly classes last week because she bullied another girl too much. Then the girl she bullied got transferred into my class the day of the party. Ummm...

Wesley, hamming it up, with Eric laughing at him:

Sally (different Sally from the one above) and Hanna, getting ready to take my picture on their cell phones:

And here they are taking the pictures:

My second cake came with streamers in little cones with strings. A couple of my studens pulled them, and then I ended up wearing one in my hair, and yes, the earrings were a gift. I would never wear earrings like that without obligation.

Here's Cathy with the streamer before she gave it to me:


Cathy and Emily:

Back at home, here are all my gifts:

I got a scarf and mittens set, another scarf, two pairs of gloves, two pairs of earrings, a set of two embroidered handkerchiefs, some roses, three nice pens (two Parker pens), two pairs of socks, some doughnuts, two candy bars, some candy-covered chocolates, a bottle of handcream, and two jars of Dream Cacao chocolate, 56% and 72%.

Here are some closeups:

Here is the birthday ceremony for my last class, plus Leon and his class. I demanded they sing to me, but they didn't put up a fight. Wesley loves Abba, by the way:

Birthday

I got a surprise birthday party today. It was funny. Heather said she would take me out to lunch today, even though my birthday isn't for another two days. Apparently her husband's birthday is the same day as mine, so she's spending time with him Thursday before work, and she said today we would do the birthday lunch.

We went to this huge gourmet buffet restaurant, and as we stepped onto the elevator from the garage, I saw Grace, one of the Korean teachers in there. I was like, what the hell, why is Grace in the elevator? I almost said it was a small world (because in Korea, it really is), but then Heather pointed out that Leon was right behind me and I realized what was going on. Then I noticed Grace was carrying a cake. In retrospect, I noticed she had a really guilty look on her face when we got in the elevator. One of the other teachers, Sue, showed up once we were seated, too, so it was a nice little group.

The surprise was a little botched, since I wasn't supposed to see anyone until we actually sat down, but that's okay. I noticed Heather was stressing about time when we were driving to the restaurant. I thought it was because it was so late in the morning and we had to be at work soon, but I guess it was because we were late for our reservation. Grace said we were about ten minutes late when I asked in the elevator, but I guess we were all running behind or they'd have been at the table already.

Heather said on the way to the place that this restaurant had "one hundred foods," according to her friend, and I think she was right. And almost all the food came in individual tiny dishes, each of which was a little work of culinary art. The food was really good, but sometimes it seemed the art had become more important than the food. For example, there were little wedges of avocado in one dish, with a ball of shredded seafood salad and a pile of tiny cubes of pineapple, but the avocado was so tough, I wasn't even sure it was real. I was really excited about that avocado, too.

Before we ate, they showed me the blueberry cake they'd gotten me and sang to me and had me blow out candles. We didn't have time to eat it at the restaurant, though, as we had gotten there with only about an hour before we should have been to school (I was five minutes late to my first class, haha). Leon got me some cheese as a present, which was awesome. I bet he paid a pretty penny for it, too. Sue got me a scarf and mittens set that happen to be the same color as my armoire, my sheets, and my bathrobe, all of which match by total coincidence. I think sea foam green is my destiny.