Soccer Hooliganism

Finally, our long awaited chance to improve our beating skills and make ethnic and racial slurs, all in the name of good fun.

It came this past Sunday as part of the East Asian Football Championships, or some other equally glamorously named event. We headed up to the World Cup Stadium for the clash of the Communist titans, as China beat the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in a pretty good game, that North Korea really should have crushed the Chinese, but somehow just couldn't connect. I guess that's the trend these days, the Chinese are on the up and up, today's Zeitgeist, and nobody's quite got them figured out... there's no stopping them. Oh the horror.

After that the local interest really kicked in as our own ROK heroes were matched up against the horrific Japanese. The fans were impressively decked out uniformly in red and making solemn declarations about the sanctity of East Sea rocks. Not that great a game, and Japan managed to score in the 84th minute.



In the end China seems to have "won" the tournament, and received copious medals and fireworks. Interestingly, the South Korean audience still has strong affinity for the North Korean team, and cheers them on vigorously. Other than that, this is a long weekend, and we may head down to Busan for the occasion to sample their excellent Indian cuisine, and marvel at the Sea of People that is Haeundae Beach in August. Apparently they jack up the prices around the board, and lines everywhere are even longer than usual, so it should make for a rollicking good time. We can marvel at the phenomenon of Koreans bathing fully attired. (Though in a quirk of fate, yet to be worked out, even polite Koreans have deemed it acceptable to swim in bathing suits at indoor pools and amusement parks, and completely naked in jinja-bongs (although I do realise that jinja-bongs are segregated).)

Japanese Shopping

Undoubtedly our favourite shops in Japan.

Kyoto and further

For a mid summer trip we picked Osaka/Kyoto.

Japan continues to astound me, as it did on my Visa run. Corie was also blown away. She's thinking about joining up! Anyway, Osaka was nice, in the way that Fukuoka was, but Kyoto brought things to a whole new level. Some parts of Kyoto are just a huge park pracitically with temples and shrines of all sorts just thrown in here and there.

One day we took a break from Kyoto and decided to take a train trip to the coast for some beach action and scenery at Takeno, which was described in our trusty little guidebook. Unfortunately the book didn't quite make it clear how crazily long the train trip from Kyoto was. We had no real idea which train to take, as it wasn't clear where on Earth Takeno station was. So to begin with we guessed, and then were forced out, fortunately in the right place. We gave in to asking, and though he didn't speak English a pleasant conductor made it pretty clear which train to get on next, but he seemed a bit agitated about it, and couldn't explain why. Fortunately we worked out that this involved yet another transfer at a specific point further down the line.



Around this point was when I really came to appreciate my halting and inadequate ability to read Korean as the massive advantage that it really is. Japanese is now just as impenetrable as Korean was when I first arrived, and I'd really forgotten how discombobulating it is to have absolutely no idea where to go. Anyway, we enlisted further help, and managed to get off at the second transfer, waiting for the final leg in a rickety little single track train. Unfortunately this was local, which only went every hour or so. So, by the time we actually got out to the coast we'd waited pretty much 4 hours. Needless to say we were quite famished. Again it was a bit of an ordeal to find an appropriate place to eat, but I've never appreciated Japanese food more.


The beach was nice, but really the best part was just the trip out to the Japanese country side which is beautiful. The trees are tall and not unlike some in BC. The farms are quiet and nice.

We also ran into a bunch of drunken Japanese businessmen and women on the train home, puking all over the place! The binge drinking seems real!





We wound up being in Osaka at the same time as Ian and Chelsea, completely at random. So we hooked up with them on our last night, and went out for some good Thai food and drinks with them. They'd spent most of their time in Osaka, and they were equally impressed with all things Japanese. I know that people who actually wind up living in Japan seem to lose this veneration, but it seems to come to almost all korean ESL teachers. Mostly because japan is so many things that korea is not, which is its strength, and its weakness. The people are quiet and generally leave you alone more than in Korea. Everything reeks of order and money, unlike Korea which reeks of speed and hard work.

Monsoon

The advertised monsoon, is so far pretty grandiosly named. Its more of a period when it actually does rain from time to time. I'd practically forgotten rain. The plus side is that its moderately depressing the temperature, the down side is that its far too humid and its impossible to dry our clothes. this is also the moment that John is occupying our spare room, which could be used for drying. Oh well. Usually if we're quick enough the interludes are more than long enough to get a batch up on the roof.

Canada Day

We went up to Seoul for a Canada Day Party. It was put on by the Canadian chamber of commerce of Korea and the embassy at the UN "compound" here in Seoul. One of the people we know was doing a segment for Sounds Like Canada on Canada Day in Korea, so on July 1 you may hear a brief segment on that show. I can be heard as part of a crowd shouting "Happy Canada Day". It was a pretty fun Canada Day.

The vast majority of the crowd were ESL teachers, but also a fair number of businesspeople/professors/miscellaneous older people were there too. Molson Canadian sponsored the event and much of it was dispensed, complete with "imported" stickers on it.

They also had Salmon and Beef steaks (though they were Australian). It was very good anyway. Various games such as tug of war the interprovincial challenge were held. Saskatchewan eventually beat Nova Scotia. Other than that there was music, skipping, ballooon tosses and so on.

The ambassador spoke briefly to the astonishment of all involved. He was popular with the crowd, although that wasn't too hard considering the general mental level. So, all in all it was one of my better Canada Days. Being away from home certainly builds up people's togetherness feelings and solidarity with countrymen. It was strange to be surrounded by so many Canadians, all speaking English, and even some French. With the cheap plastic furniture, oversized shirts, and dirt everywhere it was the most Canadian experience I've had since being here.

We are also getting much more expert at Seoul and have now located the good but cheap hotel area which eluded us on our first two trips. You just have to go to the supposed "love motels" which are nice, clean, well equipped (TV, internet, bathtubs!!, aircon, free porn, etc...) They are cheap, 35-60 dollars, and as good as any hotel in Canada. They have special blinds so people can't see who comes in and out, I guess to avoid scandal! These ones were in a bit of a shifty area, but also close to the Subway and Insa-dong, which is a great area.

The day previous we had gone to "Everland" an enormous beast of a waterpark/themepark outside the city. We went with a Ian and Chelsea, who had heard it was fun. We were only really interested in the waterpark, and went later in the day to capitalize on reduced prices. However, we were unaware of Korean theme park practices, and didn't realize they had bizarre rules for entry, only on the half hour or something, so we wound up waiting around even later.

So we chucked off to get refreshements at the Family Mart, and the girls quite clearly told us they would meet us there, after they visited the can. However, there appears to have been some sort of miscommunication, and we were able to spend most of our waiting time, waiting in vain outside the mart. It was a matter of some honour, but I forget the details now if you want to know.

After much gnashing of teeth later, they eventually let us in, and we got to wait in line longer to get on a waterslide. The first while was unimpressive, and we were reminded why we don't usually go to these things, and why it is especially important to avoid them in Asia. After two hours we'd been on 3 rides. We tried the wave pool which also had requirements demanding life-jackets if we were actually going to go in beyond our waists. Fortunately the crowds thinned out in the early evening and we could slide to our hearts content for an hour or so at the end. It was all worth it for that.




Another unfortunate problem had been our idle small city purchase of a pile of galbi at a restaurant for lunch. Later it turned out that this set us back 102,000 won, which is well over one hundred dollars. In Daegu, for four people we have never payed more than 50,000 for the same. Welcome to the big city I guess. We all had a mortifying moment at the bill counter, thinking there must have been some mistake, or that they meant 10,000 (which would not be totally unheard of in Daegu). It was very good, probably the best we've ever had though, so we should have had our heads up a bit more. In the big scheme of things 25 dollars for a meal isn't outrageous anyway.


The other news is school, where stress is reaching peaking point, at least for the Koreans. One of them, Theresa, quit over disagreements with the head teacher. Interestingly, she had lived in Toronto for 12 years, and basically wasn't prepared to put up with the junk that they dish out to their employees. These teachers, with really no career prospects and pay (significantly lower than ours), work horrendous hours. On Friday I had forgotten my wallet there, and went back to work past 10 o'clock to find them all still working. Granted they were eating chicken and drinking beer, but they were only on break from the larger tasks at hand.

All the stress is resulting from "open class" which is meant to showcase our classes to the parents, but is basically just a huge charade. We practice "lessons" that bear no resemblance to a lesson, and most annoyingly for us, an intricate "game" involving as many props as possible for the kids to complete in teams for an hour or more. Its the same as the presentation, where there are layers within layers of complexity, and more and more "things" whatever they may be. Why do one book when you can do five? Why not wear constumes, and have songs thrown in too? Then with a day left change everything and add a craft projects and speeches. Then just to annoy us, they change report card policy in the middle of all this, adding school wide reports every two months, as opposed to the earlier stated three. By the way they want these in two days. So, I'll be very, very happy when that all blows over, especially since they become much more critical during these high stress periods. All of this is par for the course at hogwans though.

Hotness

Here it is hot again, and the koreans continue to demonstrate their imperviability. Its been well into the thirties, but many are sticking to jeans and other long hot outfits. Quite astonishing for us who are sweltering to death in shorts. Fortunately the school does have efficient air conditioning. Most places keep their air-conditioners much warmer than in Canada, which I do think is a good idea, since in Canada you go from HOT to freezing your ass off. Here it just makes it bearably cooler inside.

Seoul Again

Seoul this time around was better than last time, chiefly because it was warmer, without being too hot. Here in Daegu it has recently been starting to earn its reputation as Korea’s number one hotspot, much to my dismay. We’ve cleaned out the airconditioner as an acknowledgement. Our apartment seems to defy all physical laws and refuses to cool out naturally, no matter how long or late we leave all doors and windows open, which is quite surpising considering it is a small box with no insulation.

Anyway, back to Seoul. We travelled with Jason from work and his girlfriend Eunji, as well as Mark and Jen and Candace, and her visiting boyfriend from Canada, Ryan. We again had problems locating a suitable hotel, something above crack-den, but below the level of the “Grand”. Eventually after many subway trips and taxis stuck in dense traffic we found the Primero, which was good and relatively cheap, though uninspiring when compared to Busan’s offerings. I guess that’s the sacrifice we make for visiting a world capital.




We spent most of the weekend searching for ethnic foods of one description or another, though we failed somewhat on our second night, and wound up eating at “Johnson’s Pork and Beef” which basically served weiner soup. We were very tired that night and could not be bothered to travel miles in search of goodness. Other nights we did have good Mexican (we almost got the waitress fired when we complained about a screwed up order!), Lebanese, and Indian, in addition to some scattered Korean. Itaewon is the area with the most ethnic since the American base is right next door, and they are very much catering to them. It has also become an attraction for various other westerners such as ourselves, and we actually heard non-English speaking foreigners. They are quite rare elsewhere. Its a very strange area though since it is full of Marines who look exactly like they just left Los Angeles.

The American military presence is very much in evidence in Seoul. I imagine it must have some effect on the local culture. All of the men women and their families live there, so they just go about their business throughout the town as if it wasn’t Korea. The funny thing is that there’s only 38,000 in the whole country. I can’t imagine the impact of the 2 million or more troops in southern England in 1943-44.



Other than that we did some usual touristy things, saw the palace, Insa-dong, an artistic shopping district which was interesting, I briefly visited the Seoul olympic park which happened to be quite near our hotel. It was funny to see Seoul’s river-side bicycle paths, which looked exactly like Ottawa’s only a lot busier. We also wound up watching Star Wars at Asia’s largest underound shopping centre (which truly was large). Eunji fell asleep but all others were well entertained. Star Wars is not a very big phenomenon, although this movie seems to be getting fairly wide play. Very few people have seen any of the original movies, and most of the kids have no idea what Star Wars is. A real difference from their Canadian counterparts.