All good things must come to an end

And then it was over.

As shockingly fast as it started, our year in Korea is now over. It's hard to believe. So many experiences, so much fun, so much we've seen. We've met so many fantastic people that we hope to stay in touch with, and eaten so many things we never would have considered edible in the past. And to top it off, Steph and I still like each other! Who knew?

Looking back at our year, Steph and I would whole-heartedly recommend this experience to anyone who is finding themselves reading this post. All you need is a love for kids, a sense of adventure and an open mind, and you'll have a great time. It probably wouldn't hurt to have a strong stomach as well! So many things we have learned in this year...things we never though of, like; That you can exhausted and in bed at 8:30, that you can communicate solely through a hybridized set of charades, petting stray dogs is a good way to start the day, that even if something makes no sense, it may be the best way to do things, 15 hours of school isn't healthy and that you can the Korean people are amazingly kind and hardworking people.

As we head back to our family and friends in Toronto, we look back (as everyone who has been here does) at what we love and dislike about Korea:

Things we will miss:

$3 meals that are healthy for you.
Walking to work
Having no car
$5 cab rides
School lunches
Surprise days off
Yudal Mountain
Temples in the most unexpected places
Cheap buses everywhere, and are always leaving "right now"
Extra classes
Random kind acts from Koreans
Being called "beautiful" simply because you are tall
Getting "servisa" at every store you go to (free hemming at the dry cleaners, freebies at the corner store...)
The 9 puppies on our way to work
Celebrity status
Almost 3 months vacation
Naju Peaches
Nene chicken
The lady at Kimbap Nala
The folks at our gym
Random "Have a nice day!"s coming from someone biking past you
50" TVs in the classrooms
Random gifts from strangers
Great friends going through the same things
$5 bottles of Gin
Being sheltered by your obliviousness
Absolute freedom and endless possibilities

Things we probably won't miss:

Giggles (It's what Korean kids do when they are uncomfortable)
Camera phones and their gratuitous use (Always pointed at us)
Pointing
Skate (still not sure why people eat it raw)
Uncertainty
Being away from family and friends!
Almost being run down on the sidewalk
Mistreated dogs
Fame without the fortune
Not being able to "blend in"
Transientness of the foreigner population

In order to really close the book on this experience, Steph and I have agreed to finish "The Dumping Hole" once and for all... like a finished project. So this is the last entry.

If you want to follow any of our future experiences, check us out at "The Thought Pile". Stay happy and healthy!

Winds of Change - Yellow Dust

Reading the papers from back home and listening to CNN, one gets the impression that the concern about the environment has finally reached the general public. The fact that it is now the #1 election topic in Canada clearly states that. But is the Government ready to show some vision? Like Charter of Rights and Freedoms vision? Probably not, being the minority government that it is.

Lucky for most Canadians, environmental crisis is not obviously upon us yet.

When we arrived in Korea in April of 2006, we spent a week of orientation in Gwangju, a city of 1.8 million in the south western province. It was in the middle of the Yellow Dust Storms, and for two days, the afternoon sky was dark with sand. The entire month, cars were covered in yellow dust, and car washes were inundated with eager customers. Andrew Leonard at "How the world works" sums it up like so:

It's April in Korea, which means it is time to don surgical masks, seal windows tightly shut, and keep a weather eye out toward the Chinese border. April is yellow dust storm season, when a noxious brew of Gobi desert sand particles and assorted effluent from China's industrial development comes roaring out of the west and dumps down on Japan and Korea... (more)

And so Koreans have to debate staying home from work (which people in this hard working nation NEVER do), kids can't go outside during recess, and a large number of people now dawn those surgical masks to keep their lungs clear. Is it really that big a deal? Well yeah, yeah it is. One of my friends here was just admitted to the hospital this week with pneumonia. It's pretty serious stuff.

All this is not just a reminder that we in Canada should be doing more on an individual, Municipal and National level, but that we also need to be part of the global effort. We are much closer to a crisis that will irreversibly change the way we live - a crisis we can better relate to than the catastrophic ones discussed Al Gore's "An Incovenient Truth". Although, those may be coming too.

Simplicity

Living in Korea for a year, and visiting neighbouring countries, not to mention being an ESL teacher, it dawns on you that something interesting is going on with language. Some people talk about English being the mother of all languages, the most dominant of the languages. Because of its broad adoption by the business community, it's use as primary language in many developed countries and it's blanketing broadcast by America's marketing machine, it has definitely become the language of choice. However, saying that English will devour all other languages is far fetched.

What is happening, is that countries throughout Asia (specifically) are using English as a common tongue, facilitating travel, business and cultural exchange. They are doing this on a general scale, through English as a second language, but more often than not, through a simplified version of English. Now, I'm not talking about the simplified English that John Kerry was told to use (which was highly publicized)throughout the 2004 Presidential elections. We call it Konglish or Chinglish or Engrish depending on what country you are in. I like to call it Englishy (and so does Virginia).

As I've posted about before, Englishy features phrases that get to the point or are more descriptive than what a native speaker would say; for example "Take away" instead of take out food, "Let's learning" where "Let's" is put in front of any word to denote group adoption, or "Coffee Story" where "story" is used around EVERY WORD you can think of to attach reputation or credibility to any product. It is interesting to see the core group of phrases that are emerging from this ESL region.

What does this mean for North America? Not much. Critical mass of native english speakers means we won't see any effect of Englishy unless immigration drastically increases (although Canada is looking to up their immigration levels from 100,000 to 400,000 people per year in the not too distant future). But in the east, this could mean the propagation of a "new" dialect of English. As the region becomes more integrated, and since they out number the total native speaker population, it may be this new dialect that becomes the prominent language.

So don't get cocky English speakers... you too may have to learn a new language... Englishy is on the rise and has an amazing number of adopters!

And then you remember again why you love Korea

This country is an amazing place. As foreigners, we find some things we aren't too crazy about, but every once in a while, you are greeted by random acts of amazing kindness. One time, we were been given a half watermelon and 2 beers from complete strangers, while another, a family happily fed me a feast of grilled pork (sangyupsol) while Steph and Hugh's mother swam at Waedaldo.

This time, we were out hiking in Muan, a half an hour north of our home town, with Handsome Steve and Warren. We were on our way towards the start of the mountain when we ran into a group of about 25 Koreans sitting down beside the trail having a picnic. No sooner had we seen them, the group grabbed Steph and Warren and sat down them at their huge spread of food. Before we knew it, we were making small talk, drinking Makoli (a fermented rice wine), eating strawberries, pork and lots of Kimchi, while avoiding the Skate!!!

Every once in a while, the man closest to me would stand up and announce a fact that he had just learned about me. Everyone was fantastic. Somehow, during the meal, Stephanie was "awarded" a brand new pair of underwear (yes, underwear) that one man thought it was his duty to pull over his head before he handed them over to her. I guess he was trying them on for size!

In the end, after a number of photo ops, we scooted out to start our hike... The rest of the day, though, we could only talk about the amazing generosity of random Koreans.

Things start to become familiar

We stepped outside the other day, and Steph turned to me and said "This really feels familiar... like it did when we got here."
It's so true. It's been almost a year, but the feel, the temperature, the fresh smells and the budding trees, brings back a wave of memories. A lot of good memories. It's amazing how much we have experienced in this past year... like 4 years of memories jammed into one.

Now, we find ourselves packing, sorting out who gets which of the possessions we aren't taking with us, tying up lose ends, and thinking about all the great things we have done and been through this past year. It has been an amazing run to say the least. And we officially have less than a month left.

Hard to believe.

It's the little things...

Another "blogworthy?" post about something I've been just shrugging off lately.
Everyday, I walk home from school, past the fields, across the "New 4 lane road to nowhere", and I pass a line of cars idling on the side of the road.

Beside the first car in line is a guy who is, in plain view, emptying a 10 gallon clear bladder of what I assume is gasoline, into the gas tank of the first car. Once filled, the next car pulls up and the "attendant" goes to the trunk of his car (parked around on the curb) and pulls out the next of his 15 bladders of gas, and starts filling up the next car! In plain view.

What's going on? Where is this guy syphoning the gas from? How is this happening every day? I have no clue, and I would take a picture, but I don't think that would be "Good for health".

School isn't everything, is it?

We just had our Final examination day at my school, where each grade spends the entire day writing tests in all of their subjects; Korean, Math, Science, Social Science, History, Gym, Art and Music. Yeah, no typo here... no English test. Of course the kids were really stressed about it (in Grade 5 and 6 no less) and study all weekend and all night the day before. Even the bad kids study their brains out.

What really punctuated it for me, was what two of my extra class kids told me at the end of the day. (Of course only 3 kids showed up that day for the special class I teach)

One kid told me that her friend was kicked out of her parents house after her test results turned out poorly. She was now living at my student's house. She's 12.
The other kid told me she got the 2nd highest mark in the class. When I congratulated her, she said "Oh no teacher... that is bad. My parents won't be happy I wasn't first". And then she went to great lengths to explain to me that she had gotten more questions correct, but they were of lower value than those of the other child. And this girl is 11. Were we that crazed when we were that age? I don't think so.

Korea's education system is pretty unique in some aspects. The public school system is very similar, 32-36 students per class, but the elementary schools are the size of our highschools. My school has 1,200 kids. The biggest difference comes in the after school activities.

After school, most of the students head off to an academy, which is a private company that tutors children. Classes have anywhere from 3 to 15 kids and the curriculum is totally up to the manager of the academy. Students are picked up in a van each day, usually a service provided by the academy, and are shuttled to the academy where they study any combination of Music, Science, Math, English, Chinese, Korean, etc, everyday for an hour at a time. Many students will then go off to another academy, for another hour or so. Each class costs upwards of $120 a month, and with most kids taking one or two extra classes, you can see this puts a huge burden on most families. Many families are forced to "invest" heavily in their first child, since they can't afford the same education for their other offspring, with the hopes that child will be able to support the family once they become successful. Pressure? Oh yeah.

Where you really see the problem is back in the public schools. With many of the kids taking some sort of extra schooling, the disparity between the haves and the have-nots is huge. And in most cases, the schools are forced to teach to the middle of the pack; far too low a level to keep the performers interested, and a too high a level for the kids who can't afford academies. In the end, the parents don't seem to value the public schools very much and the teachers become a little disheartened by the situation.

All agree that the system needs to be reformed... at some point.
But these are the issues in a country driven to become an economic powerhouse.

Steph's kids swallowed a fly!

On Friday, Steph, Mi Sung her co-teacher, and her crew of extra class students put on a play in their school festival. Now, I'm not the foremost expert on cute, but I gotta say, this is one solid performance.

I've never seen "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly" put on with so much wiggle! Of course, the lady didn't die in this version (she cried instead) but the costumes and the singing were second to none!

Great work kids!!!

Christmas comes early!!!

When you are far from home, I find you become a lot more festive during those special times of the year. It just reminds you of home and all the good times you miss. This is why Steph and I have already bought 3 strings of lights and a Christmas tree. Yep, our apartment is "strung out" with strobing lights everywhere. It's awesome!

Christmas here is not as consumer-oriented as it is back home, so the trees and ornaments are scarce and are probably only in stock because the foreigner population in Mokpo can finally support it. We are planning to go all out this year, and we both already have presents under the tree! One from my parents and one for Steph from Santa Clause!

I love you Crimmas!!!
Now if we could only find some Egg Nog and a recording of a roaring fireplace!

The wallet story

Sometimes, we have guest authors on our blog, sometimes they are group efforts, and other times no one really wants to take credit for what is written.

On Monday, Steph was handed a wallet by one of the trainers at our gym - Vitamin Gym. It belonged to our friend Richard. We figured that Richard left it at the gym and that they thought all us foreigners knew each other (which we do). We thought nothing of it.

The next day, the same trainer ask me (through hand gestures) if I had gotten MY wallet. Guess he thought I was Richard... not a big deal. Later that day, we dropped the wallet off with Richard, only to learn that he had lost the wallet in a Taxi on the weekend...

In the lost wallet was the following note:

Dear Mr. Bergen.

This is KP(Korean Police) substation in Sang-dong, Mokpo.
Yesterday, we recieved a statement about lost wallet from one citizen.
We searched your fitness membership card from your wallet.
Then we called Vitamin Fitness Club and found out that you are that club's member.
We also found out your cell-phone number(010-xxx-xxxx) by asking to that club's client.
We tried to call up many times, but there were no answers.
In our opinions, you maybe lost your cell-phone with wallet together.
So, we drop in your club and kept your wallet to client necessary.
Please, get back your wallet from client safely.
And if you any questions, contact us below telephone number.

Korean Police substation in Sang-dong, Mokpo

Another example of Korea's awesome side.

Pepero day!!!

While most of world is spends November 11th remembering those killed in World War 1 and every war that follows, The Koreans, sparked by either smart marketing or amazing word of mouth Celebrate Pepero (빼빼로) day!

The unofficial holiday involves students giving a crapload of Pepero brand chocolate covered breadsticks to their friends. It is comparable to Valentines day back home, but would probably be closer to "Mars bar day" than anything. A piece of marketing genius by the Lotte corporation.

All that matters to me is that I got a truck load of candy today! Good thing too... my kids were REALLY bad today. All that damn suger I suppose.

Korean TV

Where to start? Well, first thing to say is that I was surprised about the amount of English on cable TV. Of the 70 standard channels we get, maybe 6 of them are English. But hold on... at any time 5-6 of them could be showing an English movie with Korean subtitles... Sometimes all of them are hosting movies including (high rotation) Independance day, Jurassic Park 8, and Legally Blonde 2. Pulp Fiction was on the other day, but all the drug scenes were blacked out - literally the screen went black when John Travolta was getting into the heroin (Drugs are a huge no-no in Korea... I.e. Jail terms and fines are severe).

Also, there are numerous music channels with Korean "Ballads" which match a "tear-jerking" song with a 10 minute mini movie involving love and death with some crazy fight scenes mixed in for flavour. Other channels have wild comedy shows like "Heroine 6" (to the left) where the cast play ridiculous games that make you wonder; How can they play the same games EVERY DAY?".

Other than these miscellaneous movies, there are four types of channels that draw most of our attention;

1. OnStyle
Literally every woman's dream and every man's nightmare. Picture an English channel jammed with every entertainment news show and reality TV show ever conceived. Project runway, America's top model and American Idol keep Steph happy and keep me on the computer.

2. CNN International
Not as good as it first sounded, to me. 10 minutes of global news, 10 minutes of global weather and 10 minutes of soccer "highlights" (I've never used "soccer" and "highlights" in the same sentence before!) are repeated on the shortest rotation known to man. Larry King comes in once a day to interview a random American Politician every day to break the seemingly neverending repetition.

3. The Video Game channel
Literally some men's dream and every woman's nightmare. Picture a Korean channel jammed with every video game you can think of, running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The channel brings to light Korea's "e-athletes" (yes, they call professional video gamers "athletes"... cough, cough) and also is amazingly good at driving Steph out of the room. Starcraft is the largest game in the country and has its own league and teams with players on salary.

4. The 5 Korean Home shopping channels
Yes, 5... well maybe 3 or 4, but you would be amazed to see what they are selling! From kimchi refrigerators, to live seafood (complete with families devouring wriggling stews with crazy glee in their eyes), to fans and vitamins. Its really a sight to see... which you can if you check out GSeshop, WooriShop or NSEshop. There will a pop-up and it will ask you to install the "SeeLive viewer" which is totally safe and will let you watch Korean culture at its finest.

Finally, there are dozens of commercials that make use of 3 or 4 main actors/actresses and are laden with catchy jingles and wild flashy graphics. If you thought it was hard to get songs out of your head at home, you ain't seen nothin yet! My brain is melting!

Tensions

I'm sure everyone back home knows about the shenanigans that North Korea has been pulling of late. Lots of people have been asking, "So, is everyone there freaking out?"

Amazingly, no. Aside from a couple of air-raid siren tests and some jets flying practice drills overhead last week, the mood is pretty much unchanged in the "Land of the rising sun".

Talking to teachers in Mokpo, they are realatively unphased by the test. They feel that the North is just stuck in a game of brinksmanship and that the South has really nothing to fear. The North will hope for a juicy aid package from the States (which the American's won't let happen) or they will just go on their merry way trying to get the bomb down from the size of a house to missile size. At this point, reports say the test was between 1/30th and 1/2 the size of the one dropped on Hiroshima so many years ago. Our teachers were shocked to hear that many of the ESL teachers had registered with the Canadian Embassy to be kept informed if things should escalate... obviously they didn't think it was that big a deal.

People do say that the elderly are more fearful, but that is because they are the of the few who still remember the atrocities of the war and the 2.5 million plus Koreans from both sides who were killed. Japan, it is felt, is the one most at risk, in this story, simply because their relationship in the region is still strained.

At the end of the day, the common feeling is that this test will only result in North Korea becoming more isolated (Sanctions/ship inspections will be more for show and probably won't be strictly enforced), will only serve to scare Japan and South Korea into further arming, and will drop the curtain on any hopes of a reunion between the South and North; something both have yearned for since the war.

Virginia, Mom and Mokpo

On Friday, we were blessed with the presence of Virginia (from Suncheon) and her Mother (all the way from St Catherines!).
Virginia’s Mom had been on an amazingly jam-packed 2 week tour of Korea with Virginia, and they both came down to Mokpo to celebrate Virginia’s 23rd birthday (Happy Birthday Virginia!), to see the sights in Mokpo, and then to send Mom home to Canada on the KTX. Virginia is awesome... enough said. We met her in our orientation group with Canadian Connections, and went to Singapore and Malaysia with her. Good peoples!

The night started at “The Log House”, or Log-uh House-uh in Korean, for an all you can eat veggie buffet (does that mean I had all I could eat before I got there?) with Chad, Nicola, Maura and Max, and later by Steve O. The log house is supposed to be a replication of a Canadian log house, but is decorated with miscellaneous metal jungle animals. We then headed to Mokpo's newest attraction; the Waterfall. This Waterfall cut out of one of the hills is the new gateway to the city as well as the doorman for a new set of nearly 50 condo buildings that are being built simultaneously! We even shot a movie of it... looks like Canada's Wonderland right beside a 8 lane throughfare. The night concluded with a walk through Peace Square, some drinks, a spell in the Norae Bang (Karaoke room), and Steve stumbling off into the sunrise to find a motel to sleep in.


Saturday we were treated to an amazing breakfast at Chads apartment by the harbour before we hiked Yudal mountain, walked through downtown Mokpo and enjoyed a drink with some good people. Before we knew it, it was late and the two girls had to be up at the crack of dawn to head back to Suncheon, for Virginia and to Seoul for Mom to head back to the snow in Southern Ontario! (I can't believe its snowing in Canada!)

Great weekend that reminded us of how great our friends are and how solid a city Mokpo is!

Check out the Waterfall movie and the Yudal movie as well as pictures at the right! Also, check out Virginia's blog just because it's cool.

Busan for Chusok!

So, I'm sure you are all getting a little tired of me going on about the amount of vacation we get here... If you said "Hell yeah!" to that, then you should stop reading right now.

Chusok is South Korea's Thanksgiving... the only difference is that it runs for almost an entire week! We, of course, took full advantage of this and took a 5 hour bus ride to Busan (35° 9'37.18"N 129° 9'34.64"E) with our awesome friends; Hugh and Anoushka. The Motel Hugh had so daftly chosen was in Haeundae beach, right across from the Busan Aquarium, and a block from a complex that housed all the western food you could think of. That guy is a lot smarter than he looks!

Unlike the concrete jungle that is Seoul, Busan definitely has an international, dare I say, "liveable" flavour to it. With 8 million people and a port that is vying to be the new hub for north Asia, Busan blends Western ammenities with parks, beaches, tourist attractions and comparably interesting architecture, all in a seemingly reasonably sized city. Many of these things aren't readily found in the vast barracks' that encompass Seoul's 21 million people. They do both have amazing shopping, though, because, like we've noticed in the rest of Asia, Koreans LOVE to shop.

In our 4 day trip (2 of those were travel days - 4.5 hour bus trips), we visited the Busan Aquarium, walked Haeundae beach 3 times, took pictures of the Gwangan Bridge from the 2005 APEC conference site, toured the Beomeosa Budist Temple, walked the fish market, moseyed the "40 steps" heritige site, and gorged every night at western style restaurants (The Outback!!!).

One of the highlights of the trip for Hugh and I, was an unexpected hibrid greeting from a middle-aged Korean: "Have a nice day-hamnida". The charm and unexpected warmth of his smooth blend of the two greetings made us both do a double take. Our excessive "Thank you"s and "Kamsamnida"s couldn't have done it justice... But I guess you have to be a foreigner in Korea to appreciate how rare this comment was.

We got home late Sunday night, again happy and tired! Here are our pictures from the fantastic week!

Happy Turkey-Day, Canada!!!

We hope that everyone has a fantastic Thanksgiving with family and friends! We miss you all and wish we could be home to enjoy a glass of wine, a drumstick and potatoes with mushroom gravy with our loved ones.

May you all be Happy and Healthy!

PS - Nice work Matthew!

I ate my first live baby octopus today!

So it happened. After volleyball at my school today, a big blue truck pulled into the school yard and dropped off a styrofome container. In the magic white box was about 30 live baby (smallish) octopi. Of course, seeing this, I ran to my classroom to get my camera in hopes to catch it all on tape. Remembered the camera, forgot the batteries!

Imagine this if you will: 15 teachers simultneously jamming live squirming octopi into their mouths. Me, doing as I'm told, and slowly, first the head, then leg by leg, eating the whole octopus. I kindly declined a second helping.

What an experience! Another experience where you find yourself thinking; "Wholly crap, I'm in Korea". If only I had 2 double A batteries!

And it starts (Vacation Part 1)

Even though our flight to Singapore wasn't until the 8th, we had decided to head to Seoul 3 days early to vacation before the vacation.

The 8:30 train to Seoul came SO early, but we were both excited to get going. In her incredible wisdom, Steph had pre-booked a Motel (The Jeon Poong Hotel - sweet name 37°33'36.68"N 127° 2'1.85"E) that sat right on two subway lines and kitty-corner to an Outback steakhouse and a Fat-Donalds!

The three days in Seoul were jammed with tons of subwaying and walking. We walked Itaewon, the "foreigner" section of Seoul, where you can find all the international amennities as well as clothing sizes thanks to the 24,000 member American army base located close by. There definitely was "dark" feel to the place, highlighted by the multitude of unfriendly faces and a gloomy walk up "Hooker hill". I don't think "seedy" is too strong a word. Shortly after arriving, we left Itaewon for Dongdaemun; the shopping district.

To our suprise, we found an amazing "urban river" path that ran from Dongdaemun back to our hotel (although it did take a couple of hours). Cheonggyecheon, in 1968, was completely covered by an elevated highway into the city. In 2003, the highway was removed in a uniquely responsible moveby the city of Seoul, and the river was rehabilitated into a social asset. It was extremely nice, with tons of people using it, not to mention the countless condo projects being built along its sides.

Day 2 found us at the biggest mall in Seoul; the COEX. I've never seen so many people... and such an example of consumerism. Go economy, Go! Close by, the Trade Tower and the Buddist temple - Bongeunsa took up most of the afternoon. It was an interesting sight to see the city's center of commerse and business sitting across the road from the most peaceful of temples. We finished the evening off with a picnic at Ttukseam resort on the Han river. Thousands of people were using the parkland on this, and most nights this summer. Since most people don't have air conditioning and the temperature was 30C with 85% humidity, many people come out at dusk to sit by the river. Some camped out all night, with or without a tent (Korea is still great for camping absolutely anywhere).

Day 3 proved to us that even though the subway system is great in Seoul, the urban sprawl makes everything tough to get to. We checked out the World cup stadium and adjacent parks, which were really nice, but super under-utilized probably because they were so remote, and because Koreans don't really care for the sun. We swung back to the Korean War museum as an after-thought, which turned out to be a great move!
On the monument seen below was this passage:


Monument in Remembrance of the Korean War
The tragedy of the Korean War, which began early in the morning of June 25, 1950 with North Korea's illegal invasion of the South, resulted in over 4 million casulties, 10 million dispersed family members, and US$23 billion in property damage across the nation.
The Republic of Korea, along with the UN forces from 21 different nations, fought at the risk of their lives in order to protect democracy and national peace. The war lasted 3 years, 1 month and 2 days, and the Armistice Agreement was signed on July 27, 1953. [...]
In this spirit, as we commemorate the tragedy of the war, we erect this war monument in order to pay tribute to those sacrificed their lives and to leave the eternal peace to our sons and daughters with the hope and promise of the unification of the nation.
The monuments were breathtaking. Around the War museum, was a slew of military equipment used in the war... perfect for two oversized children (us) to play in. We finished the night with dinner at the Yongsan station, knowing that in 8 hours we would be back there, catching a bus to Incheon airport, and our plane out of Korea.