Management Training

we wound up going to "management training" weekend in the mountains this past weekend. What it had to do with managment I'm not really sure. I guess they were trying to build teamwork and spirit and all those things that employers usually like. Basically it just boiled down to a lot of drinking and staying up all night on Friday.

Typical of general Korean planning initiatives, the theory was to go hiking on Saturday morning, AFTER the evening festivities. As you may imagine, enthusiasm was somewhat tepid by ten o'clock on Saturday. Friday also happens to be all of the foreign teachers' hardest day, with teaching straight through from 2.30 to 8.00, which I can't emphasize enough, is enough to incinerate the hardiest minds. Then straight out for and an hour and half trip in the van, up the windy twisty roads, and then for mountains of galbi, kimchi, and constantly offered soju, from the director, which is rude to turn down.

They also had watermelon, mountains of watermelon, so it seemed a bit like a canadian BBQ. Koreans tend not to under-do the food though, so we were rather over stuffed, since it usually falls on the male foreigners to finish off the piles.

At that point we were conscripted into some sort of Korean gambling game, whose rules remain a complete mystery to me still. SOmething about throwing sticks in the air, and the way the exes turn...

We were staying in a sort of mountain chalet, and there was literally no way to sleep for anyone, since the gambling game continued in a raucous way, and the supposed sleeping room had the lights and TV on. Neither do Koreans seem to believe in lowering their voices for potential sleepers. I think it all has to do with the increased communality of their society, which has much more togetherness than Canadian. In the end the foreigners all just went to sleep around 6, when the less hardy koreans were fading off to bed.

A few hours later I, woke up and joined in with the noodle and kimchi breakfast, although they had helpfully brought some eggs for us as well. The director still wanted to hike, but large numbers of people weren't really into it, so we stayed around splashed in a river. When he and the couple of people who did go, finally came back, we bundled off to the city for another meal. After a couple of people were sick (I'm looking at you Jason), we cut out one planned stop at the giant refrigerator, and cut straight for the meal. After that it was getting on for 5:00 in the afternoon, and we were all dead tired, and ready for bed. All very educational though. Even the Irish girl was tired!

Korean People

Korean people have definetely got some differences worth mentioning. I may have mentioned that older Koreans, say 40-50+ are a tough bunch. They fight a lot. And drink a lot. The women and the men fight, like cats and dogs. They look weathered.

Its also interesting to see the much less cushy bringing up of children. Mothers don't think anything of smacking their kids in the street, sometimes quite hard.

Men sit crosslegged on the sidewalk.

Today the new gimbap place got their dancing girls... these ones much more scantily clad than usual, causing some embarassment for the potato seller... Well I guess its a bit of excitement for him. Still a very strange custom, as they don't seem to be instructed to look excited or anything, so it just looks sort of sad, with these two girls standing around out front trying to pull in business on a quiet street by doing a quasi-exotic dance.

Mountain Men

Koreans love their mountains. That's a fairly well established fact. They single handedly keep the crampon companies in business. Fortunately this means that there is an extensive network of men taking care of the mountains and those that climb them.

At the peak of our local hill there's a little hut which is manned (on week days) by one of these. What his actual job is I'm not sure, but I guess just to pick up the pieces if someone dies of exhaustion. Today he hailed me down to offer me some coffee. So, I couldn't really turn him down, he seemed so happy to do it, and it seemed very nice. Unfortunately, I didn't quite realise that he was going to brew it all up, at some length, and my time to return to school was getting closer and closer. Another group of hikers approached and they joined in, so we had little coffee fest up on top of the hill. The coffee was bit bizarre, but I felt pretty happy to have it, and he was a really jovial guy, so my very near to lateness and out of breathedness for class was fine.

These guys almost always give you something if you go up the hill, either candy, coffee, or just words of encouragement, and the usual "nice to meet you." So in combination with the generous ajumas you barely need to eat lunch if you go hiking.

The fightin'est bar in all Beommul

Its practically summer like now. More than 30 degrees for the first time. I've started squash. I'm no natural but I am slowly improving I think. Eunji is taking classes with me, but she missed the last two classes, so I had a couple of classes entirely to myself, One of the classes she missed because of drinking for John's birthday on Monday night.

Again we had gone to Dong dong ju, and again there was a bit of a run in. Marcus, from NZ, apparently took excpetion to some comments from a neighbouring table, to do with the mixed dating, and promptly whipped out his own Dong. This caused quite a stir, and much angst from the Koreans. It looked pretty rough for a minute, but soon both sides cleared out their combatants and the evening pretty much came to an end. God, they always think that we're Japanese nationalists or something, and that we want to fight about Dokdo, even though no one gives a rat's ass. Marcus did run with it a bit, just to piss them off. He knows a bit of Korean, and how to annoy them. Anyway, it was far more intense than usual. We might have to steer clear of dong dong ju for a while. (The guy from last time also made a brief appearance, much to our dismay.)

Arbour Day

Arbour Day went over really well. They said it was 21 degrees, but it felt like more. It truly was summer. We went for a barbeque at Kate’s which was nice and relaxed. I really like the flat roofs here that are excellent for relaxing on.

Last night we went to dong dong ju, even though I felt pretty sick. (I didn’t drink much). The Koreans were very sociable though, and we dealt with a number of old soju men who were serioused doused. Fun to begin with, but they get a bit old after a while. Especially when they get aggressive. After much contemplation, I think it was a mistake for the group to bring up Japan-Korea! Its rife for a possible misunderstanding. Fortunately another, moderately English speaking man, along with their embarassed wives, eventually evacuated them to a taxi. They came back several times, gave us their business cards and seemed intent on forming a norabong party! It was good to have a break today to give my never ending Korean cold a bit of a rest.

Korean Girls

An interesting phenomenon, often commented on, is the attraction of Asian women to western (mostly white) men. This is a pronounced phenomenon here in Korea, but even more so in Thaiand. I didn't see it in China, but we didn't see much there. Even the oldest grottiest guys seem to be perfectly capable of getting hot dates. So, young guys have it pretty easy. Being attached here, this doesn't affect me very much, but its a bit of an eye opener. John, our fellow teacher, has multiple dates a weekend. Almost any single guy here doesn't seem to stay it for very long if he doesn't want to. Anway, its a bit embarassing for me, mostly because I'm not used to it, but the Korean school girls can be quite forward. This is a bit strange since Korean women and society are usually very modest and conservative. But, it doesn't seem to have been bred into the teen just yet. The other day we went out on the lake, and I had to outpaddle a group of crazed schoolgirls. They were the most brazen I've ever encountered, Corie and I were actually quite worried by them, but I've encountered less extreme versions before. The older girls are less forward about it, but they still giggle and stare. Not that this is really a bad thing, its obviously flattering, but, like I said, its a bit embarassing. The same does not seem to hold for western women. Why this is, I'm not exactly sure. Something about social standing no doubt.

Celebrating the Year of the Rooster 雞 in Style

We undertook a tour of Beijing and environs, a very up and down trip.

It seems like pretty much everyone in Daegu does this trip, so we thought, why the heck not? Mark and Jen were going anyway, and Jason and John loved it. I've never been on a group tour before, but I gave it a shot.

Our guide, Roger, was great, but a bit too talkative. He really didn't give us two seconds of peace, without explaining in detail the ring roads, rental prices, history of the communist party, or details of local architecture for several days. On the plus side, we're now wildly well informed on matters such as Beijing tax law.

Other problems being that it was fairly cold, and we got extensive tours of palatial palaces AND their grounds in the blasting north wind. Not that I'm ungrateful, but summer palaces are probably at their best in the summer.

Fortunately, being in a group you can kind of brave the trials together.

On the other plus side, everything is even cheaper than Korea. 30 cents per beer, really does allow you to buy a round for everyone.

The food was good, if well sanitized for us at all the official tour stops. However, the shock of it all proved a bit much for some digestive systems, and we had to contend with a bit of Beijing Belly. On top of that, I got pretty sick on the side, mostly on the day we were in Tiannamen square. That day we ate in the museum, which was awesome. It was straight out of a Bond flick. Huge vaulted ceilings, cold as a mausoleum, and full of gaudy communist memorabilia.

On the actual day of Chinese new year, we had some time off, so a bunch of us went looking for adventure. However, it seems like more of a subdued family holiday, and not much was to be found. (Though I heard later from Jason who was in Shanghai, that it was totally crazy there, so maybe Beijing's just boring and bureaucratic) We did go out for a crazy dinner, in which we basically ordered the craziest stuff we could find. This restaurant was also apparently not used to foreigners, as you could honstly have heard a spoon drop when we first walked into the crowded dining room. Fortunately there were several of us. Anyway, we got snake soup, jelly fish something, and stir fried frog. The jelly fish was truly pestilential, and we had to quietly dispose of it in a plant. The snake soup was good, but salty. The frog was great, but far too bony. Anyway, thanks to Lee who worked all of that out.

The Great Wall was as you may imagine, great. It snowed while we were up there, turning it into a giant luge conduit.

Mark turned out to be a champion haggler. Mostly because he's such a bastard. Anyway, he bought thousands of rolexes, and mao watches to distribute to all family members far and wide, for 5 bucks or something. The peddlers are persistent pains in the ass. They chase us all over the place, and pretty much never, ever leave you alone. And woe betide you if you actually talk to one. Then its a barnacle all the way. Mark really kind of got in trouble that way, especially before we knew about them. Fortunately he recovered himself by being such a champion haggler. He and Jen are real shopaholics too..... you'd never have guessed. Even Corie can't keep up.



One of our number, Steve, constantly got lost and seperated from the group, which suited him fine. The rest of us kept up with the constant refrain of "happy tours!" from Roger. You can tell Rog has been doing this for a while.

We also visited the hutons, small traditional houses, which they are quickly tearing down to make way for apartment blocks. Those areas were awesome. We went over to some poor old lady's house to eat; the food was excellent. She kept pigeons as a hobby. Chinese men really do seem to be obsessed with ping pong. (The Chinese equivalent of Ding Ding Dang (a school in Daegu), is Ping Ping Pang!!)