winter

this angle makes our tree look more heroic.
in fact it is one foot tall, sits on the table,
and has a star made from an envelope.

Winter is here!
Look, we decorated...

the view from the loft. watch yr vertigo.

in-season handbags/our stockings.

Christmas jazz nightclub.

making French toast with big ol' slabs of bread.
will repeat for Christmas brunchtime.

recent acquisition: toaster oven.
new bff: see above.

KM expertly maneuvers through the installation.

KM: "Are you prepared to toast?"
Toaster: "Sure, where's the champagne?"

KM falls asleep from all the hard work,
while I struggle to keep the peace.

a Christmas card outtake.

first snow of the season!
outside the lobby of Good Morning Officetel,
our apartment building.

our street. come visit.
you've seen that we can feed you.

Biennale (Gwangju is neat)

Hi Readers,

Yes, that was a mighty long break from blogging. We’re first-time bloggers here, though. I don’t even like the word, or the infinitive, ’to blog’, but we won’t harp on this. You want to know how we’re doing, what we’ve been up to, and that makes us feel good, that’s for certain (also it makes us feel guilty for not writing on this thing, but many of you are literally family so there’s a certain small amount of built-in guilt the way we figure things, especially on the keeping in touch front).

It’s Sunday night, 9pm, and we just got back from a night and day in Gwangju, a city one hour north east of our home in Mokpo. (One quick language side note: because there aren’t always precise English translations of Hangeul, the Korean language, you’ll see alternate spellings for the same word, like how Gwangju is sometimes spelled Kwangju. It’s because the sound one makes to say this name is a cross between ’g’ and ’k’.) Gwangju is punk, and, if you don’t know KM and I, then I’ll let you know that I mean that as a compliment. At the very least, Gwangju is more punk than Mokpo. One thing that makes Gwangju punk and beautiful is that it supports the arts in a big way. They hold countless art festivals and work hard to make them accessible to the community.

Recently, the city held it’s yearly Biennale from September 1 to November 11. We saw posters for it on our first trip to Gwangju, and then our boss told us we should go, so we were definitely planning on making a trip up to see the festival. One day in mid-October, I went to the New York Times website and above the fold on the homepage was an editorial about opera by their opera/classical critic Alex Ross. I checked out the editorial, which was a spirited defense of federal funding for opera. Ross was writing this because recently musicians like David Byrne have been calling for more funding for music education in public school and perhaps less for subsidizing opera.

Anyway, the story had a link to Byrne’s blog, which I hadn’t checked out in awhile. Byrne, former singer of the Talking Heads, solo artist, arts booster, city re-design and biking enthusiast, has a fascinating blog you should check out sometime. I clicked over there, and, scrolling through a few posts, I saw that David had recently been to Gwangju and Jeju Island, South Korea! He traveled to Gwangju specifically to take in the Biennale. We were really excited at this point, so we went one weekend a few weeks back and checked it out.

Byrne does a good job describing the show at the Biennale, a fascinating mix of performance, video, photography, painting, drawing, collage, and more. To make it better, we just happened to go during the opening weekend of the Kimchi Festival, which was held in the park connecting Biennale Hall, the Korean Folk Museum, and the Gwangju Museum of Art. Tons of kimchi booths, offering free samples, various delicious food vendors. Despite the recent months’ news of the abysmal cabbage crop, kimchi culture seems to be thriving in Jeollanam-do province.

I’m beat, so check back soon for more. I’ll try to get a bloody regular bloggin’ schedule.

We ain't blowed up

Hi readers,
Around dinner time at school we got word that North Korea, tricksters they are, shot up Yeonpyeong Island on the border of South Korea and received fire back. This happened about as far away from us as you can get and still be in South Korea.
Here's a couple links to some hard news stories about the attacks:
New York Times
Guardian UK

Talking to our co-workers and middle school students , they didn't seem phased by this. They said it happens once or twice a year. Usually western media outlets make the biggest deal about it.
So, we're safe and sound. Just look at us!

Weirdos, but safe weirdos.

new teacher confession

As teachers, we have a lot of competition for the attention of each student in the classroom. Our main obstacle in achieving a secure hold on the attention of a student is the student himself and his cohort of six or seven classmates. In an English school classroom, we’ve learned to expect to hear quite a bit of Korean spoken. And for some reason, this surprised us, it took some getting used to. We’d heard that Korean students have high respect for the teacher, and so we made the assumption that they wouldn’t take advantage of the fact that we know no Korean.

It is hard to expell the native language from your four classroom walls, because it’s a safe out for the students. We don’t know more than ten words of Korean, so the kids confidently get around us by saying who knows what--most likely cursing us to the core--or seeking a translation from a friend, a piece of gossip, a little joke here and there. When it becomes an issue is when they respond in Korean to an inquiry from us, their teachers, in English. Some students, even in advanced middle school classes, beg for me to ask the question or reread the last sentence in Korean. “Even if I could, I wouldn’t,” I say, “this is English school!”

There’s another thing pulling at the attention of these students as we pull back in the direction of learning English. It’s a sweet, or savory, or at times strange mix of the two, in the form of candy, chips, crunchy things, etc, snacks in other words. Now, for many of these students, they’ve already been in school all day, some will be going to another specialized hagwan for math or music or Chinese characters after English class, so as long as they don’t go overboard, I permit some light snaking in my classroom.

Sometimes, however, it does create a big distraction, as it did a few days ago, in one of my first sessions with a class I have twice per week. After a steady grinding downward progression, students were interrupting quite often, only about a third were paying attention, and shrimp-flavoured chipesque-doodles and dayglo candies were being handed around like currency. I stopped the lesson and declared an end to the class’ candy trade. I walked around, singling out kids, having them put snacks in their bags. 

Thinking I’d restored order, I began the lesson again. But I could hardly understand the next student I called on, and it seemed like the reason was he was either chewing gum or he was sucking on a hard candy. I was furious, at the end of my rope. I grabbed a disgarded piece of paper from the stack I use as scrap, walked over to the student, a shy looking kid who I don’t know well, hardly the worst of the bunch, held the paper under him, and asked him to spit out the candy. He looked up at me, blinked rapidly. There was quiet in the room followed by murmurs. The students were baffled as to what I was doing; I wasn’t sure either at this point. I asked him again and again to spit out the candy. Again, confused looks around the class. I soon realized that the kid wasn’t eating candy at all, he had some serious braces, which made it difficult for the words to come out clearly.

I could’ve died. I shuffled back to my desk and resumed the lesson, hoping that the kids just assumed I’d had a little mental attack, and now their teacher was back on track.

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Speaking of getting back on track, we promise to start updating a bit more regularly. Hopefully you can empathize, it's our first month in a brand new world. We're taking it all in, feeling out what it means to us, what kind of home it will be, etc. 

And photos next time! We have scores.

 

Recycling content: cute Korea car chronicle

At First She Didn’t Succeed, but She Tried and Tried Again (960 Times)

By CHOE SANG-HUN

Published: September 3, 2010

Cha Sa-soon, 69, has become a national symbol for perseverance in South Korea — and she can legally hit the road.

 
from the New York Times website:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/04/world/asia/04driver.html


and soon: photographic treasures from our recent month on the east coast
stay tuned, beautiful & brilliant readers...

‘We do not write to recapture an experience; we write to come to as close to it as we can’

A note: Dear readers, we do apologize for the delay, but it was much needed on our part, as we began to acclimate ourselves to the new environs of South Korea. We’ve found it surprisingly easy to slide into a basic routine here, and we’ve not yet felt the expected the much dreaded Culture Shock (it could be our trip together to Mexico last year prepared us for this journey; in the last week of that trip the swine flu outbreak was the big news and it was questionable what would happen when we tried to leave the country. As you might've guessed, we made out were fine and didn't experience quarantine jail in Mexico or the U.S.). We’ll keep you posted of course, as events continue to unfold. For now, enjoy these fragments collected over the last week…more to come! 
with much love, j


Yes, we are quite far from you now, unless you are one of our new friends in Korea, and we have a couple already. We consider ourselves lucky to have Roger  and Jo as our tour guides, trainers, and allies during the first couple days here in Mokpo.

Chicagoan & English angels

Yes, the small city keeping us is Mokpo, secret revealed. What we’ve discovered is that our employer is much too busy running our hagwan to care about these scraps of news, bits of memory (see title, courtesy of Norman Mailer). We will hold on to our aliases, partly as tribute to the writer Julio Cortazar, whose ‘Autonauts of the Cosmoroute’ has been influential summer reading.

downtown Mokpo

a kids' park in Mokpo

the other Julio

Can we talk about reading for a second? Traveling overseas, space in your cargo becomes precious. We arrived in Korea with 4 large suitcases, 1 backpack, 1 carry-on mini suitcase, 1 duffel bag, 1 purse. When dealing with this kind of mammoth undertaking (our own personal convoy), does bringing 5 pounds of literature, give or take, signal masochistic behavior? Also, I’m not just inflicting this on myself, but KM, whom I supposedly care for, as well. Why does she have to suffer because I can’t part with a hefty Howard Zinn volume, or a portly Dostoyevsky. Still, I am happy to have a small shelf of books in our studio apartment. There was no choice in the matter. I just wouldn’t feel at home without these friends. In times of great change, books can be solid, calming, just as often stirring ideas and emotions relevant to one’s current itinerant mode.   

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Our first week of work at the English school is complete. It feels good, to work full-time again (I’d previously been working only part-time as the volunteer coordinator at the Olympia Film Society), to have the same hours as K.M., and to assist these kids to learn a language. Sometimes during the week our lack of familiarity with the procedures of the school has felt overwhelming, but the students themselves have actually been our strongest allies. They often, to our great surprise, share when we are supposed to be assigning home work or tests. A few days ago, KM wrapped up a unit with a special class who normally doesn't get homework, so told them there would be no homework except to study for the monthly speaking test next week. She was then deluged with requests for, ’more homework, teacher!’ (How often would we see this work ethic in a typical U.S. school?) Amazed, KM assigned the class some copying exercises and to look at a textbook illustration of a Parisian cafe...and to 'think about it'. Yesterday I had the class next, and we had a great conversation where they shared all the things they had observed about the illustration.

every night, we call some students to chat in English

Roger Teacher w/ pupils

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We arrived in Mokpo about 3 am two Saturdays ago, and, as we expected to be put in a hotel or director’s house while we were being trained, we were happy to learn we would start sleeping in our own apartment that very night. It’s a studio, the first we’ve shared as a couple. Roger claimed it is larger than most studio apartments in the city, which can house families of four, five, or more at times, so I’m considering us lucky. The bedroom area is a low ceiling loft above the kitchen. There is an air conditioner, but it doesn’t seem to reach the loft, and we aren’t ready to pay the exorbitant fan prices quite yet. So I pushed, pulled, and leveraged our bed (really a mattress ) down to the first floor as KM, sleep deprived and exhausted from one of the longest, hottest days in our collective memory, lay passed out on the couch. Now we essentially sleep in the living room, but we’re comfortable.

a bit of clutter at first

Even the nights are humid, evoking childhood southern New Jersey, thus the a.c. is essential. Upstairs in the loft, there is a writing desk and not much else. I try to get in a half hour or more up there with this mini-computer, a very useful item for international travel, borrowed from my mother, but it’s a drag to type on. My fingers are often inadvertently bumping other keys and attempting to dismantle a story or defragment the hard rive or, worse, connect me to the internet. Otherwise, the main function of the loft is to act as the place where we hang and dry our clothes.

lofty goals

We feel lucky to have these quarters, and we’ve already made it a good home. Looking ahead to our first paychecks, we have plans to buy better lighting, floor mats, and some type of curtain to fully separate the loft from the downstairs (and from daylight).

Well, we'll leave you here, dear reader, to contemplate our fate at this junction. Many thanks for your time.

shoes off at the door, please. it is customary.

 prepping our first home-cooked meal, if you think this shot looks phallic, you should see the outtakes

donde?

There was some confusion, and the title of the blog becomes prophesy. We aren't in Korea yet, it's true. We're extremely close now, though. One 12-hour flight kind of close. We take in the sunshine in what appears to be a perfect summer day in San Francisco. We can only guess from our view from the mammoth airport windows. Soon we'll see unknown places, live in the unfamiliar. It is an exciting time.

Thanks to all of you for helping us. Next post will be from our Asian outpost!

photo courtesy of Ida, our new friend in Burlington, VT

certain harsh aspects (w/hopeful denouemont)

While living out of the U.S. for a year has its great merits, there are certain things that make us well up with tears at the thought of leaving. Being so far from the family & friends is high on the list, of course, that’s why we’ve tried to visit so many of our loved ones before taking off. We compose this in Burlington, Vermont, after a week of spending the q.t. with KM’s sister and family.

and w/ Julio's big sister's family in Maryland

But something else important to us is the music of our favorite singers, particularly in concert. Chief among them is Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. Don’t let the name fool you, allow it to give you strong clues to the mad frolicking mystery of Bonnie’s singular brand of folk.

BPB, staking territorial claims of our collective heart

BK, our man in Oly, provided me recently with a review of a BPB concert in Seattle we had to miss due to our absence. Our hearts flooded with covetous joy at the thought of experiencing the wily Bonnie making melodic mischief in our presence. I reprint here, with no permission, the main point of the review:

dude!


best concert ever last night.

BK

When it comes down to it, the things we remember and hold dear are the seemingly minor. The familiar streets we walk to work, the cafes who know your drink before you order it, the evenings spent at the dinner table perfecting a ridiculous joke about goats and kidnapping, geeking out over the music we dig. You get the gist. Despite our melancholy, we know new found gems await in Korea. There are rumors of KM and Julio finding a hot rhythm section and starting a SoKo pop rock group. Perhaps we aren't breaking into teaching, but pop stardom. Look out, Bonnie.  

wherein we achieve legitimate status

We arrived in NYC about a week ago with a mission: interview at the Korean consulate to get our visas, which allow one to stay and work in a country for a specified period. 
We prepared the paperwork during the days leading up to our scheduled interview. When the morning arrived, bagel desire got the best of us, and after a Park Slope bagel hunt (where coffee from Portland, Oregon's Stumptown roasters was also captured-double score!), we found ourselves with little time to prepare ourselves, and, upon leaving the house, realized we might be missing a couple crucial documents. This was after both Julio and KM had strived to always be, as in the parlance of their time, on top of their shit, every 'I' dotted and all that.
On the subway, we tried to calm the nerves, steady ourselves, right our spiritual ship.

We realized on the way that we had everything we needed for the interview. We became calm and brave, yet we knew anxiety is often around mysterious bends, particularly in big cities and government offices where the fates of mere kids like us are often not even the smallest glimmer of a speck of a thought to the movers and shakers.

We needn't have worried. Success was ours, after a fee of course. KM had it easy in her interview. I faced questions concerning my teaching abilities, why Korea?, are you and KM married? engaged? I don't even get this kind of grilling from my family! We both tried to break the ice with the traditional Korean greeting 'An nyoung hasayo', essentially 'Hello', but this fellow was all business. I suppose he does have the security of his nation in mind, but do we look like trouble? (Readers, consider this question rhetorical, but, if you must, respond where appropriate, citing of past experiences won't be necessary.)

YAY, US!

where some previously perfectly content Pacific Northwest residents become int'l job hunters

As my first task, allow me to catch you up: K.M. and I are going to South Korea. For the last four plus years I’ve called Olympia, Washington home. I’ve made some of my best friends there, and the Pacific Northwest is a wonder of landscape, food, and music. K.M., my girlfriend, had lived in Olympia for about 6 years (“I’ve moved every six years of my life.”) In March of this year we were walking on the Westside of Olympia, both of us describing how we were ready for a change but neither of us could afford it.

“We should teach English in Korea,” I said.

“Yeah, sure,” K.M. said.

About a month later, we began to seriously consider teaching English as a possibility. There’s a lot a plusses: free travel to Asia, double the pay we were making in the U.S., and the chance to stand in front of a group of kids who don’t know most of what you’re saying. Also playing minor roles in the decision were abundant kimchi and Korean pop. We sifted through recruiters on the web, searched message boards for rants about bad schools and radical little cities, and started to put our visa paperwork together.

One day, K.M. was at work, and I sent her a text message: “Hey what do you think about leaving for the east coast on July 21? I found one-way tickets for CHEAP”. I got the tickets, and we had a leaving date. The plan was to visit family on the east coast and depart from Philadelphia after our visa went through.

We hooked up with a recruiter we liked and started to learn that many of the rules were changing for getting teaching work in Korea. Hagwons, the private schools which have popped up all over the peninsula in the last twenty years, hoping to get some more assurance of a good investment, have begun asking their teaching candidates to jump through a few more hoops to secure positions at their schools. We learned that the WA state criminal background checks we just got might not be good enough. Nation-wide checks, which can take up to three months to process, would very soon be the norm. Also, sending our original diplomas might not be an option soon, because notarized copies somehow were more legitimate. The notarization would have to take place in the state the diploma was from, not a problem for K.M., who still lived in Washington after attending The Evergreen State College. But for me, I would have to go across the country to New Jersey to visit a notary there. On top of this, many of these documents need an additional document attached called an apostille, which is like another kind of notarization for international papers.

Thus, we had many questions and concerns, and we frantically emailed back and forth with our recruiter over the course of a few days in early July. We still hadn’t gotten an interview with a school, and as our Oly end-date neared, we began to fear, as international job-seekin' f-ups, we would be arriving jobless on the east coast, burdening our families and inflating our credit cards bills while pondering an uncertain future. "I guess we're moving to Philadelphia," became my refrain to all my friends, who were most likely as weary as we were after weeks of this Korea job talk.

Finally, on July 12, we got word that there was an opening for two teachers at a school in the southwest corner of South Korea in a smallish city of two hundred thousand (we're still trying to figure out if it's ok-to preserve anonymity-to name this city). Apparently, because we had been emailing our recruiter so much we were the first ones they thought to recommend. We interviewed that evening over the phone and when we received emails late that night from our recruiter we felt a weigh lifted. The subject read: GREAT NEWS AFTER PHONE INTERVIEW JULIO AND K.M. WIN JOB. We felt like the division champs for sure.

We spent the next nine days packing, wrapping up our jobs, and saying our goodbyes to friends. Much spirited dining, drinking, dancing, and daydreaming when we'd see our friends again ensued. My dad and step-mom also visited for the first time since I had moved to the west coast. Though we were sad to leave our good friends, it all felt close to closure. All things considered, we went out on top in Olympia. A group of splendid people with welcome arms (and our overflowing storage unit) ensure our inevitable return.