Happy Halloween!

It’s huntin’ season!

Hang on to your hats, I’m about to join the NRA.

I’ve fallen in love with a hunting weapon -- my electric mosquito-killer. Behold:
We all have our neuroses. Let’s not pretend otherwise. And now, dear readers, let me tell you about a disturbing, twisted side of Victoria.

I love smashing mosquitoes. It’s not totally without cause -- this autumn in the cooler weather, the heartier demons have found their way into our apartment to attack me in the dead of night. They find me as Austin peacefully slumbers, then buzz in my ears and wake me at 4 a.m. I get out of bed, turn on the lights, and hunt the beasts.

But sometimes they would get away. That is, until the mosquito electric chair entered my life.

The made-in-China device (only $4) electrocutes the bugs into oblivion. SPARK! ZAP! One dead mosquito. It is immensely satisfying. And why yes, that is a small flashlight on the handle.
See, disturbing, huh? I warned you.

The view from my office window

Lovely, eh?

So who's HUGE in Korea now? (Part IV)

For previous episodes of "HUGE in Korea," click here: Part I, Part II, or Part III.)

Q:  What do you do if you stand out like a sore

      thumb because you're freakishly tall?  

A:  Find even bigger friends.

This Polaroid picture of me and two of my friends -- Juil and Jay -- just proves I'm not the biggest dude in Seoul.  (Nor the best-dressed.)  

And, no, I didn't Photoshop-shrink myself.  

My favorite part?  The Hello Kitty Polaroid print paper!  Super manly, eh?  The camera's owner was, to our credit, a woman.  

Hangin' with Mac

The last two weekends I've hung out with DC pal Mike. Mike and I were at AU in the TESOL Program together, and later we ended up working together at I.L.I.

Honestly, it's been great to have a good friend from home around. He's been here longer than I have and has been kind enough to introduce me to a bunch of his Korean and expat friends.

Anyway, two weekends ago Mike organized an informal game of football (no, not soccer, football -- American football) in Olympic Park. Here are a few pictures of the park that commemorates the 1988 Summer Games:

The weather was perfect, so Olympic Park was packed. But eventually we managed to carve out enough space to get a bit of game going. Considering the dozens of kites, the umpteen hundreds of kids playing netless badminton, and the extended family holding an intergenerational Family Olympiad (with such events as the three-legged race and the long-distance shoe kick), we were actually pretty fortunate not to have trampled down any little kids.

The nearest thing to an injury to report was me almost getting taken to the ground by a 9-year-old's dragon kite. (Hmmm, come to think of it... it was rather reminiscent of a little run-in I had with an agressive red-winged blackbird at a Current Amps softball game in DC.)

Sadly, I was too busy tossing around the ol' pigskin to get any photos of our game. But here we are chillin' afterward:

Little socialite that he is, Mike played party-planner again last weekend, this time hosting a cookout.

He hosted the BBQ on the roof deck of his 14-floor apartment building, the views from which are great!

Looking northwest at and across the Han River from his neighborhood of Cheonho, in eastern Seoul:

Looking straight down:

Any guesses as to what the oddly-shaped bluish-green thing is in the lower left of the photo below? Prizes for the winners.

Drawing Show

Seoul may lack a few things, but the arts is not one of them.

The Lonely Planet guidebook poo-poos Seoul for being sadly void of art, but I believe the book couldn't be further off.

Yes, the city has millions of people, mind-numbing work hours and its fair share of suits. But galleries are everywhere -- in touristy areas as well as in nooks and crannies in much less-frequented neighborhoods. Our neighborhood is the theater district, which we took advantage of last week to see the show advertised above, "Drawing Show," a five-man performance of art, music, dance, light and slapstick humor.

While there were a few gimmicks like painting with a banana peel and a dude dancing robotically with a tin-foil box on his head, most of it was just stunning and unique.

The most moving scene involved a simple line drawing an artist inked onto a glass plate. The audience couldn't see the image itself, but the artist, who sat with his back to us, held a flashlight in his left hand and projected the image through the glass and onto a large canvas on the stage.

In seconds, the artist sketched a king and a palace with a few swift -- but precise -- lines, and then, just as quickly, made the palace destroyed and the king appear broken by allowing a single drop of water to wash down his face and smear part of it away. The drawing was incredibly simple, and yet it powerfully conveyed the story of Korea's painful history of foreign invasions. You could almost hear the emotion in the audience, and in fact our Korean friend with us said he nearly cried while watching the artist work.

Words don't really do it justice, so I'll give you some pics and the link to a trailer for the show.

These three characters led the charge:
And here they are again, in a drawing with the title of the installment ("The Look"):
One artist completed this life-sized, charcoal drawing in a matter of minutes:
A sculptor molded clay on the stage opposite a dancer, and the two moved in a rhythmic mimicry of each other, with the dancer eventually coming to rest in the exact pose of the clay sculpture. Here's the dancer:
Now check it out. Even though it's just a short clip and not the real deal, I promise it will be cool. Go to the website, and on the right side of the screen are two small video links. Click on the one furthest to the right.

Singing

Here are some adorable pictures of my students singing with Austin, who was VERY generous on his day off last Friday and brought his guitar in to school:

Taking things a little slower

The blog and I have needed some time apart. It was being too demanding, always wanting to know who I was with and where I was going – not to mention taking the thrill of a new job in a new city and killing it with questions.

It was just one too many sour dates with the blog, so we took a little break. We’ve decided that we’re going to keep up the relationship by simply taking things a little slower. Like maybe twice a month I’ll write.

Life has settled into a routine in Seoul during our third month in Korea -- hike a little, teach a lot -- that’s pretty much my pattern.

Hiking is wonderful. Check out some recent pics (one of which is of a dude holding fish on a string. He has nothing to do with mountains or hiking -- I just took it in a grocery store because it amused me very much, and I hope it will have the same effect on you). Funny stories follow the pictures.

Here's a temple at the bottom of Sapaesan mountain:
Here's how high we ended up. We did a lot of traversing on Sapaesan rather than just hiking super high. You can see the same temple below in this pic:
Jars of kimchi, jochujang and other fermenting veggies:
The HUGE Buddha (this guy was about three times larger than life):
Near the temple was a cave:
And in the cave was a secret passageway to the temple. I believe it had something to do with...um...something that happened in the 15th century. sorry. This is all I got:
Misty mountains:
Rocky mountains:
Mountain-climbing nuns. Mountnuns? They were awesome, and so sweet. A few of us were enchanted with the hiking nuns and asked to take their picture, and they were happy to oblige:
Me:
Dude with fish:

Now, about the teaching. Here's a few of my favorite stories from the classroom from the past two weeks:

During a game of Simon Says with my wonderful little 8-year olds, in the middle of a pregnant pause while they were all eagerly awaiting the next command, one of the little angels jumped into the middle of the circle, yelled “Simon Says…,” pulled down his pants, and mooned the other students.

Another incident with the same delightful little group: before class began I saw a little girl with one shoe, sobbing. (Mind you, my back had been turned for about one minute). Where’s her other shoe? I wondered. Why, of course, a charming little boy had stolen it and pretended to spit into it.

Today, I wrote the word “kimbap” on the blackboard. Kimbap is the name for sushi rolls in Korea. When Koreans say the word kimbap it sounds just like how I’ve spelled it, but it’s sometimes romanized as kimbab. To me, it’s clearly a “p” sound and not at all a “b” sound, but there you have it.

Well, that “p” did not go unnoticed.

“Teacher,” piped up an 11-year old boy in an exasperated tone (with a look on his face that clearly said he had just discovered his foreign teacher is a fool) “It is a ‘b,’ not a ‘p.’”

I could go on. Other stories have to do with stolen candy and being shot with a pretend machine gun, but I’ll stop there and leave those stories to your imagination.

I’m unfairly focusing on some trying times in the classroom (and for once I’m not exaggerating, which is shocking, I know). But despite the mooning and the crying and the mocking and the shooting, I really like teaching. I’m enjoying it, and the kids who behave badly are kind of my favorite ones.

Happy Birthday to... woops!

This story is about two weeks overdue, but it’s a doozy.  Enjoy.

First, let me set the stage.   It’s midday, Monday, September 15.  Picture a cozy but cheap Chinese restaurant near a university campus.  You know the type:  weathered plastic menus, the standard red dragon decor, the unmistakable smell of MSG in the air.  And now, the players:   all 23 of my morning class students and me, seated around two large tables.  I notice a few nervous glances and hear some whispers passing behind my back but think little of it.  

Before long, one of my students rises and shushes the others into silence with a few words in Korean.  On his cue, two of the other students pull out a beautifully decorated cake, presenting it to me with a flourish.   

“Mr. Kaufmann,” the student announces, “we got something for you because we know that we missed your birthday.”

“Yeah, by…uh…five months,” I say, momentarily forgetting all sense of propriety.  “My birthday was in May!”

“I told you so!” pipes up a voice from the corner, clearly settling a long-standing debate.  “I told you he said it was his Mom’s birthday.”

OK, time for a flashback.

I’m standing at the front of our university classroom.  It’s a few minutes after ten o’clock.  Two students, bowing and clutching their coffees, scuttle in a few minutes late, as I take attendance.  Muttering, I say, “Let’s see… what’s the date today?  It’s the…um...eighth, right?” 

“No, it’s the ninth,” says a student sitting in the front row.  

“Oh, right.  Thanks,” I say, marking my attendance sheet.  “Wait? The ninth?” I say, mostly to myself.  “Of course.  Today’s mom’s birthday.  I need to remember to call her.”

  

Now, return with me back to the restaurant, to the cake, to my waiting students.  So, there I am, sitting in a restaurant in Seoul, South Korea, celebrating my mom’s birthday with 23 of my students, including one who had canceled her doctor’s appointment so as not to miss the big party.

What to do?  Well, by that point the food had been ordered, the cake presented, and the candles lit.  So, it seemed there was only one thing to do:  we all sang happy birthday to Lois, blew out the candles, and had a good laugh.  

So, mom, happy (now belated) birthday from all of us!

I was sure to mention the next day in class that my brother’s birthday was the 23rd.