Thanksgiving in Korea

One of the things that most upset me about uprooting myself and moving across the globe was the fact that I had to miss out on all the holidays and family time, most notably Thanksgiving, the best holiday of them all. One of the advantages of Avalon, where I work, is that we have an abundant and robust staff of foreign teachers. This is not only good because it means there are plenty of native speakers to hang out with, but it also means that there are others to celebrate western traditions with. There is a pretty diverse sampling of nationalities at Avalon, so this was the first Thanksgiving for some of the non-Americans.

Living in the city is stifling, expensive, and frustrating, but I am willing to bet it is next to impossible to get a fully cooked turkey in rural Korea. Daegu, luckily, has a service that delivers a fully cooked turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce on the weekend following Thanksgiving. For only $100! What a bargain! We had people from all over the world coming, so we ordered two of them, and it only came out to about $16 a person, so not a bad deal after all. We had people from The States (of course), England, Canada, Scotland, Ireland, South Africa, and many of our Korean friends over. More than twenty people stopped by and brought their own food to share, so it was an excellent feast. My own contributions were a hit, thanks to Aunt Cindy for the recipes (everything came out exactly as it should!), and there were some excellent dishes from everyone. I also discovered that Paris Baguette (Korea's big bakery chain) makes a pretty decent garlic bread. That's a game-changer.

Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, potatoes au gratin, tons of vegetables, beef stew, salad, sweet potatoes, Korean noodles, and pumpkin pie. All of this within the limitations of two burners per apartment and no ovens. Remarkable! Tom, the Brit, was understandably excited for his first Thanksgiving.

Florida, Scotland, South Africa, Korea, Texas, Ireland, and Scotland. Pretty cool.

If I remember correctly, these were the effects of a tie-tying lesson gone horribly awry.

The aftermath. I can see why hosting Thanksgiving is such a big chore, but I would do it again in a heartbeat.

The day was filled with good food, good friends, new faces, and an excellent lesson in Korean obscenities. The only thing missing was family. And as hard as it was to be away from home, it just goes to show that with enough effort you can make home come to you (almost). Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go check on the pot of turkey stew boiling in the kitchen.

Cheers! And Happy Thanksgiving to everyone back home.

Pedal Power

First of all, my apologies for the unacceptable absence from blogging. I have so much that I want to write about but it's hard to ever find the time to sit down and write a thoughtful, well-researched blog post, which I would like to include more of.

Upon arriving here, one of the things that I began to miss the most about New York City was my daily cycling regimen. Riding down the Hudson River Greenway gave me a wonderful bike path, some great scenery, and the ability to exercise and commute all at once. This was wonderful, since I never had to motivate myself to exercise, all I had to do was go to work.

Since my apartment is now a five minute walk away from work, bike commuting seems a touch wasteful. However, I have been trying to ramp up my cycling -- more difficult, in that I actually have to convince myself to exercise. My Kia Soul 5-speed is not exactly up to the task of racing or a serious journey (though I plan to do a ride to Gyeongju, 45 miles away, soon). However, Daegu is far from the last place a biker would want to find himself. Cycling is a very common form of transport here. I would estimate that there are a great amount more bikes per capita in Daegu than in New York City, and the most interesting thing about them is that unlike New York, the majority of them are piloted by old folks. Probably one of the most common sights is an ajumma or ajussi (that's an elderly Korean woman or man), cruising around on a rusty, beat-up cruiser with a minimum of 20 pounds of cardboard for recycling lashed to the back. These daredevils are unfazed by anything you put in their path, and you see them zipping in and out of traffic, running red lights, and causing general havoc, their cardboard never budging an inch in its expertly wound bungee.

Finding a road bike here was difficult, probably because the most common two-wheeler is a mountain bike. Daegu is surrounded by mountains, but these bikes spend most of their time on pavement. I didn't quite understand the necessity until I did some further venturing onto the mountain roads. They are usually gravel or pockmarked asphalt, and grooved pavement if you're lucky. These roads are pretty much a nightmare for a road bike. If I had the energy to hang my head in shame as I struggle up a hill in the mountains while grandpa plugs along beside me and eventually overtakes me, I surely would.

Biking in Korea, like New York, comes with ups and downs. The good is:

• Biking is built into the city infrastructure in a planned and often intelligent way, instead of tacked on afterwards with hopes for the best. Daegu has miles and miles of paved bike paths, most of them adjoining the river that nearly circles the city. A few weeks ago, Tom and I circumnavigated the city, a 36 mile ride. It gave me a new appreciation for the city -- as we rode through various interesting neighborhoods and Daegu started to feel more idiosyncratic and less painfully urban -- and an appreciation for urban planning. Coming from the Northeast, it stops me short to see towering office buildings and factories sprawl for miles and miles and then simply stop at an agreed-upon line.

• It's relatively cheap. The bikes themselves are not much different in price than what you would find in The States (although you can come by a used ajumma cruiser for about $45 at many shops in the city), but the parts are cheap, and very often shops will provide "service" in the form of tubes, lights, free tune-ups, and basic repairs.
• A very big majority of the city sidewalks have designated bike lanes. Admittedly, pedestrians will often use them, but the sidewalks are wide and it gives a cyclist the ability to obey pedestrian lights or traffic lights as he chooses. Imagine cycling lanes on the sidewalk in lower Manhattan! There would be riots.
• All the people ride around on fat mountain bike tires, so I'm faster than everyone!

And of course, the bad:

• The inattention or willful ignorance of your fellow riders or pedestrians is appalling. Koreans are often very changeable in their friendliness to strangers. They are happy to help a foreigner who is lost, or wants to practice his Korean, but if you are sharing a sidewalk or a bike path with a group of Koreans, and you are not a member of that group, you may as well not exist. Bells usually mean nothing no matter how loud they are, and people will often pretend you're not there if the alternative is moving over to let someone pass.
• The amount of particulates is more than the human mind can comprehend. Though the bike paths are well kept, planted all around with foliage, and as clean as a Korean thoroughfare of any kind can be, one is still forced from time to time to ride on the roads. The choking dust of automotive pollution is leagues above anything I experienced in New York, and if you don't get caught behind at least 4 buses belching exhaust in one ride, you're probably doing something wrong.
• The traffic is, of course, crazy. If you think taxi drivers in the U.S. are bad, try cycling alongside someone who is talking on their phone, listening to music, tapping away at their GPS, and watching television (yes, the drivers watch television while the drive) all at the same time. It takes a fair bit of learning to get used to the flow of traffic, but luckily, though Korean drivers are crazy, I would say they are not as aggressive as New York drivers, so the odds of a gruesome death on the pavement are a bit lower.

 Of course, the good far outweighs the bad, and I mean to make biking as much of a habit here as it was in New York. Look forward to some posts in the future about cross-country cycle trips!

Oppa Mozart Style

This past Saturday, Tom, Lisa and I decided to get a little culture at the Daegu Opera House. They were performing Don Giovanni for a mere $18, so it was too good to pass up. Of course, we got all spiffed up, as one does at the opera. When we arrived, though, we saw one or two other suits. Everyone else was in sweatshirts and sweatpants, so we stuck out even more than usual. It was okay though, because we looked damn good.

Koreans love few things more than taking pictures of themselves absolutely everywhere, so anywhere of consequence will have sickeningly tacky manufactured "photo zones." Even when we went to Gayasan National Park, there was signage specifically directing people to take pictures on this bridge or on that outcrop. God forbid you take any in another spot! This throne, though, was definitely the tackiest photo zone I've seen so far, so of course we had to utilize it.

The opera itself was a wonderful time. Our balcony seats didn't exactly offer the best viewpoint, but the price was right, and the show was grand. Don Giovanni is lighthearted and funny, and has some great music. It was very bizarre to see dozens of Koreans dancing around in Italian Renaissance costumes, especially since even Italian period dress is considered too revealing by Korea's current standards of modesty. Their Italian was top notch, though, and the dancing was especially funny. For the uninitiated (and if so, you must be living under a rock), Gangnam Style is a Korean Pop song that went viral worldwide a few months ago, and it is all the rage and a source of national pride here in the Hermit Kingdom. There is a scene in the opera where Giovanni and his servant Leporello are getting drunk, dancing, and singing about women. Leporello was cavorting around, waving his wine bottle, doing appropriately accurate dance moves, when he snuck in the Gangnam Style dance for nothing more than a second. He was very subtle about it, but the crowd went wild. It was a good moment.

I was also worried that the show wouldn't provide English subtitles, and that we would be hopelessly lost, but all my worry was for naught. Even better than English subtitles, we were provided with Korean subtitles and their Engrish equivalent. Tom posited that the young boy playing Young Don Giovanni was tasked with translating the play for his English Academy homework. In one particularly touching moment, when Donna Anna is bemoaning the death of her father and the pieces of her broken heart, her lover Don Ottavio gallantly informs her that "If you sad, my heart also is grieved centipede."

And what fancy dress up night would be complete without a trip to the casino? There are some perks to going to the casino in the States, but here they are much better. It is ostensibly illegal for Koreans to gamble, so the casino makes the bulk of their money from foreigners, meaning they are desperate for crowds. Our transport to the casino was paid for, and there were free drinks, fruit, and sandwiches for as long as you played table games and even well beyond. The place was kind of sad though, compared to other casinos I've seen. Being mostly foreigners, it looked so lonely and empty. I lost playing blackjack, but I came out ahead if all the free stuff was included.

A fancy night at the opera and the casino for only $55? Definitely a perk of living here.

My Vindication for the Day

From Nick

To. Conner teacher

Teacher ,I am very sorry.
Because, I wasn't leasten your English time
It mean not only now, every day.
Today, I was went small market and ate food...
with my friend Calvin
Next, we walked around Avalon English.
and, I was think 'How about go to Avalon' but fill very sorry to you.
I think you fill angry now
very sorry...I will be a great student.
And, I will do homework every day, and don't speak Korean in your class.
Very sorry to you one more time.


From Calvin

To teacher.
Teacher, I'm very sorry to you. I was very hungry, so I ate ramen in break time. In eating ramen, I know I was late. I was scared. But I thought when I didn't go to class, I'll didn't speak your advice. I'm so sorry. when I was didn't go to class, I walking around the Avalon academy. I'm very sorry.