Vacation

At first, I thought it was too soon to book another trip back home, a two and a half months since I returned to Korea in late August. I figured everything would be the same, my friends would be the same, my parents would be the same, my brothers would be the same, and my dog would be the same.

However, as that mid January date approached in the shivering Korean coldness, I longed for that warm Californian heat.

When I returned home, it was more or less...the same. The sights, sounds, smells, even my little cousins running around. It was like I, to use a nerdy reference, quick saved it and then came back to it six months later. As I expected, every was...pretty much the same.

But I noticed some things were changing, small things, little things. I noticed that a few my friends were slowly moving on with their lives, going on to bigger and better things. It was subtle, it was small things. Different goals in their lives in as much as there were different goals in my life. The trite thing to say is say is that the only constant is change, which is true, however, it's always interesting to see these things happen in little snippets.

After my return home, I went to Hong Kong to visit a good friend of mine from college. It was my first true vacation. Anyone who visits home knows that going home is never a vacation, it's always stressful, always family to see, always things to do, always business to take care of.

Hong Kong was the first time where I brought my bags, money, and simply enjoyed myself and had fun.

In a word, it was... awesome. It was nice simply exploring the city, it was nice reconnecting with my friend and making many more in the process. It's amazing seeing new sights and sounds. It was the same feeling I had when I first arrived in Korea. Everything's so new. It's like new car smell...but everywhere!

Even so, with so much fun to be had, I was constantly thinking about the next step. I've always realized that teaching abroad was my before 30 career before I settled down. As I was approaching my later years in college, I asked older, successful people one question: If you could do it all over again, what would you do? They all replied: I would've traveled more.

I never had the opportunity to travel. That's why I'm doing it now. However, I digress.

I believe now that have stumbled upon what I want to do later in life.

Linebacking in Korea

In early life we acquire skills in order to be successful in later life. We first learn to crawl then to walk, Iwe learn to speak then to read, and of course we learn so socialize.

Here are a few things that have directly helped me out -

1. High school football
If there is one skill I use on a daily basis it's football. I routinely have to navigate through the masses and in fact I also have to push women and children out of the way. Especially women and children.

Sometimes I'll be walking and someone would be in front of me and I'd have to juke him or her out. Or sometimes I'll be stuck in a crowd on the subway and I'll have to push people out of the way to escape.

But the thing that tests my fitness more than anything is when I see my bus or train coming and then I would have to make a dead sprint in order to catch it. Well that and stairs. Man oh man are there so many stairs here.

2. Taking Chinese
Now my Chinese isn't the greatest but I can sorta get around. When I first arrived here with pretty much no knowledge of Korean I relied on my Chinese to get around town on the tube.

3. Drinking
Omg Koreans drink so much. I would have been ill prepared if not for all the Korean friends (and friends that liked to drink) that I had in college.

During my first or second week at my school the PE teachers, all male by the way, took me out for dinner.

Now dinner does not mean just dinner - it also means lots and lots of drinking. While eating sam gyup sal the teachers poured cup after cup of soju to see if I could hang. And hang I did...and that meant going into work the next day with a massive hang over.

4. Growing up eating weird things
Asia has a lot of weird things to eat, for instance, sushi itself is a bit weird - it's raw fish! Don't you normally cook stuff before you eat it? Furthermore, it's weird how sushi has become more or less normal in American society.

However, since I've grown up in a Chinese Vietnamese American household I've been accustomed to eating lots of weird things, so when come face to face with things in Korea, like eating live octopus, I just kind of shrug.

Not touching dog though.

5. Having lots of friends who like kpop and dramas

Oh man this was huge. Because I knew practically nothing about popular culture on arrival, I had to sort of learn everything on my own, but it was a good thing I could always try to remember what my friends liked back home. Also it tremendously helped in my lesson planning.

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Asian Parenting

I've long wondered whether or not it was just me. I always wondered how other kids were able to so easily talk with their parents and have these weird close intimate relations with them. They pretty much made sure I was taken care of and left me to my own devices.

My dad would often work long ass hours, from morning to midnight-type of long hours. I'd barely see him. I'd wake up and he'd go off to work. I'd be going to bed and he'd barely be coming home. Mom might be working, might not be, depending on the economy and whether or not the Cold War era industries have come and gone or not. But mom would usually be there when I came home. She fed me and made me go do my homework before I can do anything else.

It was weird for me because when I spoke to my peers (in elementary school and such) their fathers would generally come home right before dinner and they'd talk and stuff. Not my dad. I'd be lucky enough to say hi before he went to work. Heck, he even worked weekends for pretty much my entire life. I remember thinking how much it sucks because he never took the family everywhere but eventually I grew up and realized he worked those long ass hours for the family, to provide for us everything that we needed - provided it was something that was actually needed.

On a side note - one of the "tricks" we (as in my brothers and my friends) used to do as kids to get things was to say it's for "school".

Using Korea as a comparison regarding the greater East-Asian Confucian child rearing concept, I see a lot of similarities with my childhood as I do with pretty much all of my students. They go to school, go home to study/go to academies to study eat dinner and sleep. Rinse and repeat most every day.

Many of my male workers don't immediately go home after work, usually they do after school classes and further still they would probably go out with their friends for dinner somewhere and get home at around nine or ten, on most weekdays. I'd ask them how often they'd talk to their kids and the fathers would respond, "Oh once in awhile, usually I'd punish them if they did anything wrong." Mothers would generally arrive home at about six, which is when students normally also walk through the door (after after school activities and such), to make sure the kids are well fed.

I've noticed that kids here have a certain sort of limited freedom if they're not at school or at academies studying. They go to noraebangs or pc bangs with their friends, they'd walk around the neighborhood and more or less raise themselves. Actually, a better way to say it would be that the society as a whole would raise children. Teachers here are often seen as second parents. In a way, they're tasked in raising the kids because they'd see teachers more often than they their own parents because of all the time spent in school.

And here I thought I was the only one.

If you had a one of a kind cup that once poured, could pour an unlimited amount of a certain liquid. However, it's a regular metal thermos and can stop pouring whenever. What liquid would you want in that thermos?

Pure, natural water.

The essence of life yo.

Ask me anything

A Culture of Convenience

When deciding upon coming to Korea and upon arrival, I wondered how I'd get around without a car. Sure, I heard of something called a "subway" or "bus" but in California, these things are myths, heard of but never seen, like the fabled black albino. I was sad, not only because I'd be gone from my car, but because I'd actually have to carry things, like in a back pack (or goodness gracious, some sort of bag). I wouldn't be able to use my car as a massive storage locker that I could hoard things with. I'd leave water in there just in case I needed some, I'd leave a snack or two, an umbrella perhaps, and a lot of other things one might need in a day to day venture.

Little did I know that I wouldn't NEED to hoard because in Korea, things are EVERYWHERE. I used to think it was a little ridiculous to have two Starbucks in close proximity to each other but over here, there are some places that have three or four in a block! Not only will there be Starbucks but there would also be Dunkin Donuts, Coffee Bean, and an assortment of smaller coffee places and the strangest thing of all is that they'd all be full!

And that's just coffee.

Seoul is abounded with large quantities of almost everything. I could be walking down the street to my friend's apartment and if I just so happened to be a little be parched, I could just walk and a few meters (because Korea uses the metric system) later, I'd be able to walk into a Family Mart (or Seven-Eleven if you prefer) and buy myself a nice refreshing drink.

Instead of being just a bit thirsty, suppose that you're HUNGRY and fiending for some KOREAN BBQ! (just called BBQ here in Korea) Those places are very abundant in Seoul. One would probably stumble upon at least three traveling to any given location. Also, these places typically would also be filled with older, drunk Korean men. You don't really get the Korean experience without the loud, old men in the restaurant.

What's also nice is how quickly delivery comes. One would be able to call almost any sort of food service (McDonald's delivers here, Chinese, Korean food, pizza, it's all good) and it'll come rather expediently

Now let's suppose you're a girl, because that's key for this next example, and you need a scarf to complete your outfit. Fear not! There are PLENTY of shopping areas pretty much everywhere. Subways are filled with inexpensive shops and booths that sell all these random accessories and outfits. A female friend of mine once remarked, "Shopping should be illegal here. It's so cheap and it's everywhere. That's why I'm always late to things! And OMG the shoes! SO MANY STYLES!"

Now only if I can find some clothes that actually fit, then I'd be in business.

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What do you think is the most rewarding thing about your job right now?

A while ago I was walking to school and a student was late and saw me and run up to catch up to me. He walked with me the rest of the way to school (knowing he'd be punished by being late) and we talked about life. He talked about how his friend was feeling a little suicidal (as a teacher we'd say this is higher level thinking and communication) and how he was sad for her and wanted to help her out.

Later that week his regular English teacher told me how he felt awesome just being able to talk to me about that kind of stuff. That's when I knew I was going in the right direction in life.

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What was your first paying job?

I worked at Disneyland, believe it or not.

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