This week I thought I’d try something a little different. It’s time to pull out the report card and grade Korea on some its finer points. I present to you: Aspects of Korea
Ajumas: Holy hell, Ajumas. An ajuma, for those who aren’t aware, is basically a middle-aged Korean woman who wears garish clothing, does lots of power walking and will KICK. YOUR. ASS. In a male-dominated society, ajumas are like a power-bloc with dreams of revolution. In fact, the boss at my school refers to them as a “third gender”. I think he’s scared of them. Honestly, though, a little bit of fear is in order here. Ajumas take no prisoners. When you see them power walking at you on the bike path, sweat all thick on their brows, orange sweaters and green pants temporarily stunning and confusing you, faces stern with purpose, be sure to leap out of the way. You may need to dive. Do what you have to do. Get to safety.
B+
Restaurants: This is it. This is why we’re here. When it comes to eating out, Koreans have found the way. Here’s the wa y it works: Everyone shares everything, there’s a call button on the table that summons the waiters, there is no tipping, there are numerous side dishes and you can eat as much of them as you want without increasing the bill, and you cook the meat right at your table on a big burner in the middle of everyone. You get all this for about 6 bucks, as long as you don’t order anything to drink. And if you do order a beer, say, it’ll come in a very large plastic bottle and with as many glasses as there are people drinking. It’s customary not to pour your own drink, but to rely on your fellow diners to fill you up when you’re empty. The side dishes and the meat are also shared among everyone, rather than each person getting an individual order. The communal aspect of it is really nice, and the price is impossible to beat. It’s no surprise that eating out at restaurants with others is the centerpiece of the average Korean’s social life. It’s much the same for foreigners living here as well. Simply put, there’s no reason not to go out to eat with others at every opportunity.
A+
Not having a dryer:
Here’s how it goes.
“Ah FUCK! Forgot to hang up my wet clothes… Guess I’ll just run back and forth between the balcony and the laundry room 8 times with loads of clothes, and… SHIT! I totally dropped that shirt on the floor. Ah, man it’s so not clean anymore… I mean, it’s not so bad… I guess I could use it as a mop head or something… “
24 hours later
“Well, I guess I’ll just take a shower and put on some of my new clean clothes. Doo dee da doo… Which shirt should I wear today? Oh wait, none of them are dry yet! And none of my jeans will be dry for another full day! And everything will be as wrinkly as a damn golgi apparatus anyway.”
Fuck not having a dryer.
D-
Pepero Day: Pepero Day is November 11th. 11/11. Pepero is a kind of candy that has many different varieties, but basically, the thing that makes it pepero is that it’s a cookie stick with stuff on it. Just a long, thin, round and crunchy candy snack that can be covered in chocolate or something. It’s similar (maybe the same?) to the Japanese snack, pocky. In Korea it’s called pepero and it’s usually manufactured by Lotte, the shadowy overlords who rule Korea with an iron fist. (No fooling. In addition to dominating the candy market, Lotte has a chain of department stores, major real estate holdings and even a giant indoor amusement park called “LotteWorld”. They remind me of BnL, the megacorporation from Wall*E.)
So anyway, pepero is okay but not exactly amazing, so Lotte came up with the genius idea of making up a fake holiday where people would just buy a shit ton of pepero and spend all day giving it away and receiving it. It’s on November 11th because the ones are supposed to look like pepero sticks.
You can imagine how the kids at school feel about pepero day. If they have pants, they poop them. If they don’t have pants, they poop something else. Pooping happens.
It works out great for the teachers because some of the kids will come in and their moms have loaded them up with huge bags full of boxes of pepero so they can give the teachers and staff mounds of the stuff. When I finished work on pepero day, I had more than ten boxes of the stuff on my desk, and spent about two weeks eating through it.
What’s hilarious is that Lotte tries to deny that they invented this holiday. They claim that they noticed sales of pepero went up around that day anyway and they just started to capitalize on it. Like people were writing the date and saying “My God! That’s it! Pepero!” It’s a delightfully feeble lie. I bet at this moment Lotte goons are dreaming up new kinds of candy that look like numbers. “We just noticed that a lot of people were eating our ‘3’ shaped cookies at 3:33 everyday! What? Stop looking at us like that!”
B-
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Only the finest ingredients
The lights are still up as the last of the audience make their way to their seats. A large projection screen is presenting a series of facts and instructions to help us pass the time. “’Nanta’ was selected a top tourist attraction in Korea.” “Everybody clap! Now only the ladies! Great job!” It’s a very well-mannered screen. Only minutes to go now. The crowd seems energetic, and the theater is at capacity. Another sold-out performance for the most successful show in Korea.
“Nanta: Cookin’” has been running for 13 years. It’s a drum performance, it’s a slapstick comedy, and it’s a family show with lots of audience interaction. It’s been almost absurdly successful. It now plays at four theaters in Korea, each doing several performances every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, all of them selling out or coming very near to it. It’s been exported around the globe and has played in over 200 cities. Now, you’re probably wondering, “Well what the hell is it? I’ve never even heard of it.” Good question, reader!
Basically, Nanta is kind of like STOMP with kitchen utensils. There is a threadbare plot about some chefs who have to prepare a wedding feast by six o’clock. None of the characters have names and there is very little dialogue. None of that really matters. That’s not what the people come to see. They came to see actors doing flips and dropping mad beats with butcher knives. And that’s what you get!
Where they find these actors, I don’t know. I’m guessing they grow them in vats made of pure power, and produce them by the dozen. It’s the only explanation. Where else are you going to find people who have perfect rhythm, excellent comedic timing, advanced gymnastics skills, juggling ability, knowledge of magic tricks, and easy rapport with audiences? The number of skills required of the actors to be a part of this show is just unbelievable. And if it’s that’s not asking enough, they have to have the stamina to do three performances in a row, a true marathon on stage. It’s ridiculous.
So anyway, the show has about ten “scenes” with fairly generic (and basically irrelevant) conflicts that a group of chefs might face. In this one they need to make a great mass of friend rice, and whattyaknow, it sounds great when they cut up all the ingredients. In this one they need to clean up, as the floor has gotten very messy and the cool guy chef and the goofball chef get in a Jackie Chan-inspired duel with brooms, the rhythm supplied by the tapping of the broomsticks. There was one scene that didn’t have any music where one of the characters got stuck in a trashcan and tried increasingly drastic measures to free himself. Watching it live, I get the impression that the creators of this show must have been big Buster Keaton fans. Slapstick might be one of the lower rungs on the comedy ladder, but when it’s executed really well you can see the devotion to the craft the performers must have, and it is admirable. These folks are fearless and tireless and their energy becomes contagious.
Oh, and oh yeah, I almost forgot. THEY BROUGHT ME UP ON STAGE AND HAD ME PROVIDE THE BEAT FOR SOMETHING!! In your FACE, rest-of-the-crowd. I knew it, too. I saw the actor get off the stage to hunt through the audience for people to recruit, and I was like, oh man, this is mine. I caught his eye like a bear trap catches a lazy rabbit. Pick me, dude. Pick me.
The show has a good deal of audience participation towards the end. For the part I got to participate in, they brought up four people, and divided us into two teams. I was the drummer for my team, and my poor teammate had to make mandu. Mandu is the Korean word for “dumpling”. She really got the raw end of the deal. The competition consisted of the two teams trying to be the first to make ten plates of mandu, but only one of the two teammates had to actually make the mandu. The other one (and that would be me, in the case of team blue) was the drummer and announcer. I kept the beat with a giant pestle in a pot in my left hand, which made a big “BOOM” sound, and in my right was a rolling pin that I smack against a cutting board and made a piercing “CRACK”. When my partner finished a plate of mandu, it was to be put on a conveyor belt, where I would retrieve, hold it up, and announce what number we were on to the audience. “OOOOOOOOOOONE!”, “TWOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” I said as loud as possible. You might think it would be nerve-racking, but I really wasn’t nervous at all. I have UF improv to thank for that, I think. Compared to making up comedy on the spot in front of a hundred people, keeping a simple beat and counting plates of mandu in front of three hundred people is a walk in the park. And you know what? We won! My teammate was the fastest mandu master in the east, and we got little prizes. Hooray!
The best part is, one of my students might have been there. On Fridays, I usually ask my kids what they’re doing for the weekend, to get them talking about different topics in English. One of them said she was going to see Nanta on Saturday! She didn’t seem to believe me at first when I said I had the same plan. I can’t wait to see how she reacts when I tell her what happened at the show I went to. I don’t think she was at the same one as me, because, knowing this girl’s personality, as soon as she saw me on the stage she probably would have shouted “RAAAAAAAAAANDY TEAAAACHERRRRR!” loud enough for the whole place to hear. But we shall see!
Well, that’s it for now. Ah-nyung-ha-se-yo!
Randy
“Nanta: Cookin’” has been running for 13 years. It’s a drum performance, it’s a slapstick comedy, and it’s a family show with lots of audience interaction. It’s been almost absurdly successful. It now plays at four theaters in Korea, each doing several performances every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, all of them selling out or coming very near to it. It’s been exported around the globe and has played in over 200 cities. Now, you’re probably wondering, “Well what the hell is it? I’ve never even heard of it.” Good question, reader!
Basically, Nanta is kind of like STOMP with kitchen utensils. There is a threadbare plot about some chefs who have to prepare a wedding feast by six o’clock. None of the characters have names and there is very little dialogue. None of that really matters. That’s not what the people come to see. They came to see actors doing flips and dropping mad beats with butcher knives. And that’s what you get!
Where they find these actors, I don’t know. I’m guessing they grow them in vats made of pure power, and produce them by the dozen. It’s the only explanation. Where else are you going to find people who have perfect rhythm, excellent comedic timing, advanced gymnastics skills, juggling ability, knowledge of magic tricks, and easy rapport with audiences? The number of skills required of the actors to be a part of this show is just unbelievable. And if it’s that’s not asking enough, they have to have the stamina to do three performances in a row, a true marathon on stage. It’s ridiculous.
So anyway, the show has about ten “scenes” with fairly generic (and basically irrelevant) conflicts that a group of chefs might face. In this one they need to make a great mass of friend rice, and whattyaknow, it sounds great when they cut up all the ingredients. In this one they need to clean up, as the floor has gotten very messy and the cool guy chef and the goofball chef get in a Jackie Chan-inspired duel with brooms, the rhythm supplied by the tapping of the broomsticks. There was one scene that didn’t have any music where one of the characters got stuck in a trashcan and tried increasingly drastic measures to free himself. Watching it live, I get the impression that the creators of this show must have been big Buster Keaton fans. Slapstick might be one of the lower rungs on the comedy ladder, but when it’s executed really well you can see the devotion to the craft the performers must have, and it is admirable. These folks are fearless and tireless and their energy becomes contagious.
Oh, and oh yeah, I almost forgot. THEY BROUGHT ME UP ON STAGE AND HAD ME PROVIDE THE BEAT FOR SOMETHING!! In your FACE, rest-of-the-crowd. I knew it, too. I saw the actor get off the stage to hunt through the audience for people to recruit, and I was like, oh man, this is mine. I caught his eye like a bear trap catches a lazy rabbit. Pick me, dude. Pick me.
The show has a good deal of audience participation towards the end. For the part I got to participate in, they brought up four people, and divided us into two teams. I was the drummer for my team, and my poor teammate had to make mandu. Mandu is the Korean word for “dumpling”. She really got the raw end of the deal. The competition consisted of the two teams trying to be the first to make ten plates of mandu, but only one of the two teammates had to actually make the mandu. The other one (and that would be me, in the case of team blue) was the drummer and announcer. I kept the beat with a giant pestle in a pot in my left hand, which made a big “BOOM” sound, and in my right was a rolling pin that I smack against a cutting board and made a piercing “CRACK”. When my partner finished a plate of mandu, it was to be put on a conveyor belt, where I would retrieve, hold it up, and announce what number we were on to the audience. “OOOOOOOOOOONE!”, “TWOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” I said as loud as possible. You might think it would be nerve-racking, but I really wasn’t nervous at all. I have UF improv to thank for that, I think. Compared to making up comedy on the spot in front of a hundred people, keeping a simple beat and counting plates of mandu in front of three hundred people is a walk in the park. And you know what? We won! My teammate was the fastest mandu master in the east, and we got little prizes. Hooray!
The best part is, one of my students might have been there. On Fridays, I usually ask my kids what they’re doing for the weekend, to get them talking about different topics in English. One of them said she was going to see Nanta on Saturday! She didn’t seem to believe me at first when I said I had the same plan. I can’t wait to see how she reacts when I tell her what happened at the show I went to. I don’t think she was at the same one as me, because, knowing this girl’s personality, as soon as she saw me on the stage she probably would have shouted “RAAAAAAAAAANDY TEAAAACHERRRRR!” loud enough for the whole place to hear. But we shall see!
Well, that’s it for now. Ah-nyung-ha-se-yo!
Randy
Saturday, February 13, 2010
The Tape Delayed Super Bowl
Few things can bring people together like sports. Crisp Christmas mornings opening presents at Grandma’s house, with most of Mom’s family there (4 uncles, 7 aunts, teeming masses of cousins) would give way to the family football game, played every year when the sun was high and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. Almost every male in the family would join in at some point. With such a big cast of rotating participants, and only a small area to play (the yard being half covered with cars), there wasn’t much structure to the “game”. There was just enough room to fit in all the thrills of football. We’ll throw. We’ll catch. We’ll hit each other. Merry Christmas to all. Beautiful.
Worldwide, the ultimate in sports unity is soccer’s World Cup. Entire nations will come to a stop when their team has a big match. People will stay up all hours of the night to see if their homeland will advance. Surprisingly, another World Cup is nearly upon us. It’s hard to believe it’s been 4 years since the last one. In fact, it seems like just yesterday I was ignoring this event. I kid, I kid. Soccer is a wonderful sport—if you shrink the field by about a hundred yards. And widen those goals a bit, too. I’m tired of seeing all those nice open shots fly into the stands. The goal is about 800 times bigger than the ball! What do they pay you people for!?
Okay, so Americans have a hard time enjoying soccer. Too many ties, not enough blood. Soccer is a sport where there is incentive for a player who is not hurt at all to roll around on the ground screaming like a sissy trying to draw a red card on his opponent. Football is a sport where players whose tendons are pathetically hanging by a thread will shoot themselves up with cortisone, then play as though nothing has happened. They won’t be able to walk when they’re fifty, but that’s OK. They never intended to live that long anyway! Hoo-ah!
Therefore, the ultimate in American sports togetherness is the Super Bowl. Super Bowl Sunday is the 2nd biggest food day of the year in America. That’s a fact. Someone crunched the numbers and determined that more food is consumed on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day except Thanksgiving.
It’s not such a big day in Korea, it turns out. In fact, I saw no sign at all that anyone was aware what day it was. That’s not too surprising. In Korean time, kick-off was at 8:30 AM on a Monday. And also, there’s the small matter that no one knows what the hell a football is. Furthermore, the game was going to be broadcast while I was at work reminding six year olds to speak in complete sentences. It looked like I’d be high and dry for what promised to be one of the most exciting Super Bowl match-ups in years.
Then I got the facebook message. Brandon (who is Canadian, actually, so I dunno why he cares) found a place that would be replaying the game that night at 9. Excellent! I spent my Monday in media blackout. No internet at all. I was rooting for the Saints, but I didn’t think they would win. But who knows? Football is one of the least predictable sports. Just two years ago the Giants beat the Patriots, and that was ten times more David and Goliath than Saints over Colts would be. By the way, I just noticed that calling that Giants-Pats Super Bowl a David and Goliath story is funny because Goliath himself was a giant. Can’t believe that took me two years to notice.
There were four of us traveling out to Sinchon, where the bar was located. Sinchon is a busy place with tons of bars, so it wasn’t easy to find. Luckily, it was obvious what we were looking for. A foreigner, who turned out to work for the bar, walked up to us and said “Are you guys looking for Beer O’Clock? It’s this way.” He saw some Westerners and said to himself, ah, here are some of my customers. Smart plan. Trolling the streets for foreigners on the night of the Super Bowl replay.
About the game itself, what is left to say? It was an epic game. I think the page has been irrevocably turned on the reputation of the Super Bowl in terms of game quality. When I was a little kid, everyone always talked about how the Super Bowl was always a terrible game. And, in those days, that was true more often than not. Usually one team would dominate and the other would be ruthlessly humiliated in the most watched TV program of the year. It was ugly.
But somewhere along the line that changed. I think the transition was the Rams-Titans game. That was a great, close game with a highly memorable finish. That Titan player extending his arm as far as he could and coming up a yard short of the end zone as time expired is one of the best photos in NFL history. Since then, good games have clearly outnumbered bad ones at the Super Bowl. The only 2 stinkers were Ravens-Giants and Bucs-Raiders.
Even in a decade of good Super Bowls, however, this year’s stands out. Simply put, this was one of the most exciting football games I’ve ever seen. There were goal line stands, a two-point conversion complete with the drama of a successful replay challenge, A FUCKING ON-SIDE KICK TO START THE SECOND HALF!!, hardly any penalties, and of course, the game-clinching pick-six.
I may be a suspicious character in Brandon’s eyes because of that interception. I swear, I saw nothing and heard nothing about the game. But somehow, after more than a full half with no turnovers, I got this strange feeling that any turnover would be taken back for a touchdown immediately. I think I based this on a few things. 1. It was a pass-happy game so any turnover would likely be an interception, which are more likely to be turned than fumbles. 2. The defenses of both teams are kind of middle of the road, overall, but both have a mean opportunistic streak. They capitalize on the opportunities given to them. 3. The game was just so damn dramatic by this point that a turnover not leading to an immediate touchdown would have been anticlimactic somehow.
That third point isn’t really based in logic, but I’m sure it motivated me anyway.
So, during the 3rd quarter I declared, “I will bet 5,000 won” (about $5) “that the first turnover will be returned for a touchdown”. There wasn’t an immediate response. People are thinking about the fact that this game was recorded. It already happened 12 hours ago. But I’ve been whooping like a madman every time the Saints do something good and I’m obviously way into the game. I must have seemed trustworthy enough to Brandon, because he took me up on it.
You know the rest. There was a single turnover. It was an interception returned for a touchdown. It was the game-clincher, and it was clear after that the Saints had pulled off the upset. Brandon paid up immediately, but he did ask me directly if I knew what would happen. He was wondering if he’d been cheated. I can’t blame him. It’s a crazy bet. Jason remains convinced that I did know the outcome. I feel kind of weird about it, actually. I mean, I’m honest to a fault. I won’t even tell someone I like their new haircut when I actually don’t. It’s almost pathological. But of course, no one here has known me for longer than 4 months, and how can they know?
In any case, it was an awesome game. Truly one for the ages. Considering that I hadn’t seen a football game in months before this one, I was just in ecstasy. It had everything, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer team or a cooler city. Long live the Saints!
See you next week!
-Randy
Worldwide, the ultimate in sports unity is soccer’s World Cup. Entire nations will come to a stop when their team has a big match. People will stay up all hours of the night to see if their homeland will advance. Surprisingly, another World Cup is nearly upon us. It’s hard to believe it’s been 4 years since the last one. In fact, it seems like just yesterday I was ignoring this event. I kid, I kid. Soccer is a wonderful sport—if you shrink the field by about a hundred yards. And widen those goals a bit, too. I’m tired of seeing all those nice open shots fly into the stands. The goal is about 800 times bigger than the ball! What do they pay you people for!?
Okay, so Americans have a hard time enjoying soccer. Too many ties, not enough blood. Soccer is a sport where there is incentive for a player who is not hurt at all to roll around on the ground screaming like a sissy trying to draw a red card on his opponent. Football is a sport where players whose tendons are pathetically hanging by a thread will shoot themselves up with cortisone, then play as though nothing has happened. They won’t be able to walk when they’re fifty, but that’s OK. They never intended to live that long anyway! Hoo-ah!
Therefore, the ultimate in American sports togetherness is the Super Bowl. Super Bowl Sunday is the 2nd biggest food day of the year in America. That’s a fact. Someone crunched the numbers and determined that more food is consumed on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day except Thanksgiving.
It’s not such a big day in Korea, it turns out. In fact, I saw no sign at all that anyone was aware what day it was. That’s not too surprising. In Korean time, kick-off was at 8:30 AM on a Monday. And also, there’s the small matter that no one knows what the hell a football is. Furthermore, the game was going to be broadcast while I was at work reminding six year olds to speak in complete sentences. It looked like I’d be high and dry for what promised to be one of the most exciting Super Bowl match-ups in years.
Then I got the facebook message. Brandon (who is Canadian, actually, so I dunno why he cares) found a place that would be replaying the game that night at 9. Excellent! I spent my Monday in media blackout. No internet at all. I was rooting for the Saints, but I didn’t think they would win. But who knows? Football is one of the least predictable sports. Just two years ago the Giants beat the Patriots, and that was ten times more David and Goliath than Saints over Colts would be. By the way, I just noticed that calling that Giants-Pats Super Bowl a David and Goliath story is funny because Goliath himself was a giant. Can’t believe that took me two years to notice.
There were four of us traveling out to Sinchon, where the bar was located. Sinchon is a busy place with tons of bars, so it wasn’t easy to find. Luckily, it was obvious what we were looking for. A foreigner, who turned out to work for the bar, walked up to us and said “Are you guys looking for Beer O’Clock? It’s this way.” He saw some Westerners and said to himself, ah, here are some of my customers. Smart plan. Trolling the streets for foreigners on the night of the Super Bowl replay.
About the game itself, what is left to say? It was an epic game. I think the page has been irrevocably turned on the reputation of the Super Bowl in terms of game quality. When I was a little kid, everyone always talked about how the Super Bowl was always a terrible game. And, in those days, that was true more often than not. Usually one team would dominate and the other would be ruthlessly humiliated in the most watched TV program of the year. It was ugly.
But somewhere along the line that changed. I think the transition was the Rams-Titans game. That was a great, close game with a highly memorable finish. That Titan player extending his arm as far as he could and coming up a yard short of the end zone as time expired is one of the best photos in NFL history. Since then, good games have clearly outnumbered bad ones at the Super Bowl. The only 2 stinkers were Ravens-Giants and Bucs-Raiders.
Even in a decade of good Super Bowls, however, this year’s stands out. Simply put, this was one of the most exciting football games I’ve ever seen. There were goal line stands, a two-point conversion complete with the drama of a successful replay challenge, A FUCKING ON-SIDE KICK TO START THE SECOND HALF!!, hardly any penalties, and of course, the game-clinching pick-six.
I may be a suspicious character in Brandon’s eyes because of that interception. I swear, I saw nothing and heard nothing about the game. But somehow, after more than a full half with no turnovers, I got this strange feeling that any turnover would be taken back for a touchdown immediately. I think I based this on a few things. 1. It was a pass-happy game so any turnover would likely be an interception, which are more likely to be turned than fumbles. 2. The defenses of both teams are kind of middle of the road, overall, but both have a mean opportunistic streak. They capitalize on the opportunities given to them. 3. The game was just so damn dramatic by this point that a turnover not leading to an immediate touchdown would have been anticlimactic somehow.
That third point isn’t really based in logic, but I’m sure it motivated me anyway.
So, during the 3rd quarter I declared, “I will bet 5,000 won” (about $5) “that the first turnover will be returned for a touchdown”. There wasn’t an immediate response. People are thinking about the fact that this game was recorded. It already happened 12 hours ago. But I’ve been whooping like a madman every time the Saints do something good and I’m obviously way into the game. I must have seemed trustworthy enough to Brandon, because he took me up on it.
You know the rest. There was a single turnover. It was an interception returned for a touchdown. It was the game-clincher, and it was clear after that the Saints had pulled off the upset. Brandon paid up immediately, but he did ask me directly if I knew what would happen. He was wondering if he’d been cheated. I can’t blame him. It’s a crazy bet. Jason remains convinced that I did know the outcome. I feel kind of weird about it, actually. I mean, I’m honest to a fault. I won’t even tell someone I like their new haircut when I actually don’t. It’s almost pathological. But of course, no one here has known me for longer than 4 months, and how can they know?
In any case, it was an awesome game. Truly one for the ages. Considering that I hadn’t seen a football game in months before this one, I was just in ecstasy. It had everything, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer team or a cooler city. Long live the Saints!
See you next week!
-Randy
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Hell If I Know!
As promised, this week I'm writing about going to church last weekend. It took me a long time to get started on this post. It turns out that I have a lot to say, and at the same time, very little to say. I guess I'll start with Phil.
I met Phil a month after I got here. I was in Seoul for a meet-up of foreigners and Koreans who want to meet foreigners. Basically, some guy just rents out a bar and serves refreshments, and people meet people. It's nice.
So I met some folks, had some drinks, ate some snacks and then 11 o'clock rolled around and it was time for the party to come to an end. Sadly, the bar had other plans for the late evening, and they were kicking us out. That suited me fine. I was really tired that weekend and ready to go home anyway.
I got on the subway and settled in for my long ride back. I was just spacing out staring at the empty seats across from me, nothing on my mind, when the train became the second place that night to evict me on account of lateness. Going from Deokso to Seoul takes anywhere from 40 to 90 minutes, depending on where you're going. This little gathering was a little more than an hour away from my place. And if you know your subway systems, you know this: They hate to be out late. Even in Tokyo, the most populous damn city in the world, the trains stop running at midnight. Get a cab, you lout! the city planners seem to be saying.
Here's where Phil comes in. Being evicted from a train along with a couple dozen others seemed like the perfect opportunity to strike up a conversation with a random foreigner. He was the only other foreigner around, so why not play the spy game with him? The spy game is where you talk in English with another native speaker in a country where hardly anyone speaks English. It's like a secret code! We could be talking about stamps, or football, or Whitney Houston singles, or whatever. They'll never break our code!
I saw some major super experts at the spy game a few weeks ago. On the way back from this snowboard jump competition thing they did in Seoul, there were 5 deaf (or maybe just hard of hearing) guys having what appeared to be a really involving and fast-flowing conversation in sign language. It was IMPOSSIBLE not to stare. An animated conversation conducted in silence. It was so fucking cool. I will never look that cool playing the spy game. The most interesting part about sign language conversation with many participants: they're always scanning around the circle of people to make sure they aren't missing what anyone is "saying".
Back to Phil. We started talking and we found out we were both headed in the same direction, so we should split the cab fare. He was getting off before me, in Guri, about 7 or 8 minutes cab ride from Deokso, but right along the way. We found a cab as soon as we left the train station, as they were all lined up outside to take advantage of the trains stopping. A cab driver looked at us and revealed himself to have psychic powers by asking "Deokso yuhk?" meaning "Deokso station?" Yes, indeed, Mr. Cab Driver.
During the cab ride I'm asking Phil a lot of questions. I'm intrigued because, although he is a teacher here (like almost all foreigners living here) he is around 40 years old. It's kind of novel to meet someone as old as 30. 40 is downright mysterious.
He tells me that he found out about teaching Korea because of his church in England. It seems his church of choice back home was a Korean church. The pastor was Korean, and so were most of the congregants. Phil volunteered to help some of them out by giving them English lessons. He enjoyed it, and they thought he was good at it, so when he hurt his back and had to quit his previous job, coming to Korea to teach English seemed like a natural fit.
I was intrigued. For a while I was describing myself as agnostic in the sense of "I really don't think there's a God, but I know I can't be sure". But about four months before coming to Korea that changed. At this point, I have almost no idea what I believe. It's all very ambiguous for me, and I can't say I feel certain about anything at all. But I definitely lean towards believing that there is such a thing as a greater purpose to our lives, and I'm also pretty sure that strict materialism (meaning the idea that only what is physical is "real") is wrong. I like the ideas of Teilhard de Chardin. I don't know if I really believe in them, but you should check 'em out.
I wanted to talk to Phil about church. I thought it would be interesting to go and see how I felt. I can't see myself coming to be an adherent of any organized religion, or any sort of religion that has some book they point to and say "There it is. It's all in there." Just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. On the other hand, it could be very moving to go to a place that serves as a center of both faith and community in the lives of many people. I figured I'd get something out of it.
Phil told me he'd love to have me along one day. Talked about how he just feels like something is missing when he hasn't been going to church. It seemed very important to him. I gave him my phone number. Why not?
Well, it turned out he would need that phone number right away. When we got to Guri, he got out of the cab and we had driven off before he remembered to pay his part of the fare. He called me up immediately, sounding very embarrassed and told me he'd pay me back when he saw me again. I said not to worry about it.
Flash forward a couple of months and I've just never felt like calling Phil up. It's still in the back of my mind, but I'm not really thinking about it. I'm on the subway one day, heading home after buying an SNES (hell yes!) when some foreigner across the aisle seems to want to play the spy game with me. I don't want to play, and I'm listening to music, so I just nod at him. At the next stop, the person next to me gets up and the foreigner comes over to me with a 10,000 won note in hand (that's about $10). It's Phil! I didn't recognize him! He hands me the bill and says he never paid me back for the cab. What a man!
Well after that there was just no excuse. The next weekend I could just go ahead and pencil in "going to church" on my daily planner that I don't actually have. Unless you mean my BRAIN!
I met Phil at the subway platform in Guri at about 9 AM the next Sunday. Immediately I had a rush of church nostalgia. Phil was drinking coffee and the smell suddenly transported me back to my childhood. It reminded me instantly of the smell at the tables where all the ladies would gather after the service to chat and drink coffee. Church coffee smells different somehow. Even if it's not church coffee. Even if it's Guri subway platform convenience store coffee, if it's being drunk by someone early Sunday morning it is church coffee, and it smells different.
And unfortunately, that's where the magic ended that day. Well, that might be going a bit far. But it is true that that sudden flooding of an old memory was the most vivid emotional experience of the trip. The sermon was about tithing.
Tithing, for those not familiar with the term, is giving 10% of what you earn to God. That means giving it to the church. This is explicitly stated in the Bible that you are to do this. The pastor made it quite clear (the sermon was in Korean but Phil and I had little radio receivers with earbuds so we could listen to a translation being done by one of the congregants) that the rule about tithing applies to absolutely everyone, and that a man who makes $100 a month has as much obligation to give $10 a month as a man who makes $10,000 a month has to give $1000. This was the topic of the entire sermon. Poor Phil. He apologized to me about our luck after the service. Then he told me this tidbit which was just tragic. He recently convinced another friend of his who is skeptical, or even antagonistic about religion, to come with him to a service at a totally separate church. The sermon that day? It was about tithing. Phil's skeptical friend felt completely validated. The church just wants your money, he said.
Now, I know some of you who are reading are faithful Christians yourselves. I have a sincere question for you (and anyone else who cares to comment, too). When I met Phil the second time, I wondered if that coincidence held meaning. As a person who has no idea what he believes, apparent coincidences are wide-open to interpretation. Maybe there are no coincidences. Maybe coincidences are all that there is, and everything, including the universe is just one big coincidence. I had renewed vigor about the idea of going to church after that second meeting because, hey, maybe it meant something. Maybe it didn't, but maybe it did.
That was a coincidence that seemed to point in one direction, and then I had one that seemed to point in the other. Or rather, Phil had one. Both of his God-curious friends get a sermon on tithing? I went to church plenty of times as a kid and I don't ever remember a sermon about tithing. It's not exactly the first topic pastors want to go to. It's not a very popular one. It doesn't do much to get people excited about going to church, and really, that's what all pastors want. Even if a pastor is just looking to take people's money (which I think is probably a rare pastor indeed. a person with a fraudulent nature and an ability to lie convincingly and con people could make more money with far less effort in lots of other jobs.) their first priority will still be packing those pews. Tithing is, at most, a twice a year type topic. For both of Phil's tag-alongs to pick a day where they'd get this not-at-all-friendly-to-newcomers type message is quite a coincidence itself.
Acknowledging, of course, that it might mean nothing at all, and that all coincidences are just noise, what could it mean if it's more than that? What does a devout Christian make of this? My thought is, if it does have some meaning, or carries some message from the Universe to me, it's that organized religion is probably not where I'm supposed to be looking for answers. I feel like organized religion, with its "here are the answers" appeal, are lacking in mysticism.
But what on Earth could it mean for Phil? I dunno. In any case, I don't think that a coincidence that seems to lead away from church is some kind of effective evidence against the Christian God. Taking the longview, feeling unengaged by a sermon about tithing could be one step on a long roundabout path towards salvation. But it seems strange.
I don't know how to end this post anymore than I knew how to begin it, so I'll just leave you with something I wrote in my notebook a few months ago.
"If there is purpose, I don't know it. If God is trying to tell me something, I haven't been able to make out the words. It's time to make it up."
I hope this post was entertaining or interesting. I can usually assess what I write through other people's eyes pretty well, but I'm totally in the dark this time. My own feelings are too ambiguous. I'd love to see all kinds of comments or questions, on the blog, or e-mail or on skype, in person, or whatever. As always, I love you all.
Randy
I met Phil a month after I got here. I was in Seoul for a meet-up of foreigners and Koreans who want to meet foreigners. Basically, some guy just rents out a bar and serves refreshments, and people meet people. It's nice.
So I met some folks, had some drinks, ate some snacks and then 11 o'clock rolled around and it was time for the party to come to an end. Sadly, the bar had other plans for the late evening, and they were kicking us out. That suited me fine. I was really tired that weekend and ready to go home anyway.
I got on the subway and settled in for my long ride back. I was just spacing out staring at the empty seats across from me, nothing on my mind, when the train became the second place that night to evict me on account of lateness. Going from Deokso to Seoul takes anywhere from 40 to 90 minutes, depending on where you're going. This little gathering was a little more than an hour away from my place. And if you know your subway systems, you know this: They hate to be out late. Even in Tokyo, the most populous damn city in the world, the trains stop running at midnight. Get a cab, you lout! the city planners seem to be saying.
Here's where Phil comes in. Being evicted from a train along with a couple dozen others seemed like the perfect opportunity to strike up a conversation with a random foreigner. He was the only other foreigner around, so why not play the spy game with him? The spy game is where you talk in English with another native speaker in a country where hardly anyone speaks English. It's like a secret code! We could be talking about stamps, or football, or Whitney Houston singles, or whatever. They'll never break our code!
I saw some major super experts at the spy game a few weeks ago. On the way back from this snowboard jump competition thing they did in Seoul, there were 5 deaf (or maybe just hard of hearing) guys having what appeared to be a really involving and fast-flowing conversation in sign language. It was IMPOSSIBLE not to stare. An animated conversation conducted in silence. It was so fucking cool. I will never look that cool playing the spy game. The most interesting part about sign language conversation with many participants: they're always scanning around the circle of people to make sure they aren't missing what anyone is "saying".
Back to Phil. We started talking and we found out we were both headed in the same direction, so we should split the cab fare. He was getting off before me, in Guri, about 7 or 8 minutes cab ride from Deokso, but right along the way. We found a cab as soon as we left the train station, as they were all lined up outside to take advantage of the trains stopping. A cab driver looked at us and revealed himself to have psychic powers by asking "Deokso yuhk?" meaning "Deokso station?" Yes, indeed, Mr. Cab Driver.
During the cab ride I'm asking Phil a lot of questions. I'm intrigued because, although he is a teacher here (like almost all foreigners living here) he is around 40 years old. It's kind of novel to meet someone as old as 30. 40 is downright mysterious.
He tells me that he found out about teaching Korea because of his church in England. It seems his church of choice back home was a Korean church. The pastor was Korean, and so were most of the congregants. Phil volunteered to help some of them out by giving them English lessons. He enjoyed it, and they thought he was good at it, so when he hurt his back and had to quit his previous job, coming to Korea to teach English seemed like a natural fit.
I was intrigued. For a while I was describing myself as agnostic in the sense of "I really don't think there's a God, but I know I can't be sure". But about four months before coming to Korea that changed. At this point, I have almost no idea what I believe. It's all very ambiguous for me, and I can't say I feel certain about anything at all. But I definitely lean towards believing that there is such a thing as a greater purpose to our lives, and I'm also pretty sure that strict materialism (meaning the idea that only what is physical is "real") is wrong. I like the ideas of Teilhard de Chardin. I don't know if I really believe in them, but you should check 'em out.
I wanted to talk to Phil about church. I thought it would be interesting to go and see how I felt. I can't see myself coming to be an adherent of any organized religion, or any sort of religion that has some book they point to and say "There it is. It's all in there." Just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. On the other hand, it could be very moving to go to a place that serves as a center of both faith and community in the lives of many people. I figured I'd get something out of it.
Phil told me he'd love to have me along one day. Talked about how he just feels like something is missing when he hasn't been going to church. It seemed very important to him. I gave him my phone number. Why not?
Well, it turned out he would need that phone number right away. When we got to Guri, he got out of the cab and we had driven off before he remembered to pay his part of the fare. He called me up immediately, sounding very embarrassed and told me he'd pay me back when he saw me again. I said not to worry about it.
Flash forward a couple of months and I've just never felt like calling Phil up. It's still in the back of my mind, but I'm not really thinking about it. I'm on the subway one day, heading home after buying an SNES (hell yes!) when some foreigner across the aisle seems to want to play the spy game with me. I don't want to play, and I'm listening to music, so I just nod at him. At the next stop, the person next to me gets up and the foreigner comes over to me with a 10,000 won note in hand (that's about $10). It's Phil! I didn't recognize him! He hands me the bill and says he never paid me back for the cab. What a man!
Well after that there was just no excuse. The next weekend I could just go ahead and pencil in "going to church" on my daily planner that I don't actually have. Unless you mean my BRAIN!
I met Phil at the subway platform in Guri at about 9 AM the next Sunday. Immediately I had a rush of church nostalgia. Phil was drinking coffee and the smell suddenly transported me back to my childhood. It reminded me instantly of the smell at the tables where all the ladies would gather after the service to chat and drink coffee. Church coffee smells different somehow. Even if it's not church coffee. Even if it's Guri subway platform convenience store coffee, if it's being drunk by someone early Sunday morning it is church coffee, and it smells different.
And unfortunately, that's where the magic ended that day. Well, that might be going a bit far. But it is true that that sudden flooding of an old memory was the most vivid emotional experience of the trip. The sermon was about tithing.
Tithing, for those not familiar with the term, is giving 10% of what you earn to God. That means giving it to the church. This is explicitly stated in the Bible that you are to do this. The pastor made it quite clear (the sermon was in Korean but Phil and I had little radio receivers with earbuds so we could listen to a translation being done by one of the congregants) that the rule about tithing applies to absolutely everyone, and that a man who makes $100 a month has as much obligation to give $10 a month as a man who makes $10,000 a month has to give $1000. This was the topic of the entire sermon. Poor Phil. He apologized to me about our luck after the service. Then he told me this tidbit which was just tragic. He recently convinced another friend of his who is skeptical, or even antagonistic about religion, to come with him to a service at a totally separate church. The sermon that day? It was about tithing. Phil's skeptical friend felt completely validated. The church just wants your money, he said.
Now, I know some of you who are reading are faithful Christians yourselves. I have a sincere question for you (and anyone else who cares to comment, too). When I met Phil the second time, I wondered if that coincidence held meaning. As a person who has no idea what he believes, apparent coincidences are wide-open to interpretation. Maybe there are no coincidences. Maybe coincidences are all that there is, and everything, including the universe is just one big coincidence. I had renewed vigor about the idea of going to church after that second meeting because, hey, maybe it meant something. Maybe it didn't, but maybe it did.
That was a coincidence that seemed to point in one direction, and then I had one that seemed to point in the other. Or rather, Phil had one. Both of his God-curious friends get a sermon on tithing? I went to church plenty of times as a kid and I don't ever remember a sermon about tithing. It's not exactly the first topic pastors want to go to. It's not a very popular one. It doesn't do much to get people excited about going to church, and really, that's what all pastors want. Even if a pastor is just looking to take people's money (which I think is probably a rare pastor indeed. a person with a fraudulent nature and an ability to lie convincingly and con people could make more money with far less effort in lots of other jobs.) their first priority will still be packing those pews. Tithing is, at most, a twice a year type topic. For both of Phil's tag-alongs to pick a day where they'd get this not-at-all-friendly-to-newcomers type message is quite a coincidence itself.
Acknowledging, of course, that it might mean nothing at all, and that all coincidences are just noise, what could it mean if it's more than that? What does a devout Christian make of this? My thought is, if it does have some meaning, or carries some message from the Universe to me, it's that organized religion is probably not where I'm supposed to be looking for answers. I feel like organized religion, with its "here are the answers" appeal, are lacking in mysticism.
But what on Earth could it mean for Phil? I dunno. In any case, I don't think that a coincidence that seems to lead away from church is some kind of effective evidence against the Christian God. Taking the longview, feeling unengaged by a sermon about tithing could be one step on a long roundabout path towards salvation. But it seems strange.
I don't know how to end this post anymore than I knew how to begin it, so I'll just leave you with something I wrote in my notebook a few months ago.
"If there is purpose, I don't know it. If God is trying to tell me something, I haven't been able to make out the words. It's time to make it up."
I hope this post was entertaining or interesting. I can usually assess what I write through other people's eyes pretty well, but I'm totally in the dark this time. My own feelings are too ambiguous. I'd love to see all kinds of comments or questions, on the blog, or e-mail or on skype, in person, or whatever. As always, I love you all.
Randy
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