On Wounded Pride and Cryptic English

I don't know what's more discouraging-- watching one of my students rip her exam into shreds right before my eyes, or reading the almost cryptic writing that they hand in for their homework...

Today I handed the freshly graded exams back to my students and tried to temper their collectively wounded pride with a reminder that it's not the grade that counts, it's the effort you make. And if you truly tried your hardest, then that's what matters most. Erin, a slightly tempestuous teenager who usually keeps her lips too tightly pursed to allow a word of actual English to slip past them during class, surprised me today when she pulled what appeared to be an exacto-knife out of her innocent pencil case and began slicing her test score from the top page of her exam. She then proceeded to tear it into miniscule pieces, prompted no doubt by a duty to guard her sensitive ego from the bruising of classmates who ousted her with higher marks.

I slaved, I tell you -- slaved -- over preparing those exams. Couldn't she have had a modicum of respect and at least waited until after class to rip it up, instead of making a grand display of it on her desktop during class today? Forget her ego; what about mine?? (calm down, everybody, that's sarcasm.) That pretty much cements the deal that I struck with myself late Friday night after tearing through more paperwork than I've seen since my days working in the Human Resources department of a high-turnover company. Melanie, overzealousness is not thy friend. Time to take it down a notch and do thy job with a little less heart.

But then, I run across the seriously disjointed and almost altogether incomprehensible garble submitted by another student, Annie, later today. The handwriting was perfect, as was her spelling. But the rest of it sent me somewhere between guffaws and giggles. I will say one thing about my Korean students: for the most part, they are excellent spellers. Along with the study skills they've perfected in their Korean school system, they are more or less masters of repetition and memorization. But as I read (or tried to read) through her almost-too-short-to-qualify-as-a-paragraph paragraph, I had the funny feeling that I was reading something churned out from the "Korean to English" button on a web-based translation mill, such as BabelFish, or WordLingo:

Today with the moms and the bosom friends does a silt experience went together. Watch to shrimp, caught the clam and a beat from the silt and took the picture. And ate the lunch rice, made and did. Truth was fun. ~ ~ happy

Bosom friends. Lunch rice. This is good stuff, Annie. Just one thing -- what the hell is a silt experience?? ;) So I suppose I can't bring myself to do my job with less heart after all. These kids, snotty, sensitive, silly and everything in between, need good English like I need air to breathe. It's their ticket to a future filled with promise. Besides, at the end of the day, what matters most is that I'm making a difference, that my students are happy, and that they know they matter in this big world. I think my student Max sums it up quite memorably:

A school is funny so happy school but, school is sad too but, I Love school

On the bright side, I think it's safe to say I've got pretty good job security here in Korea... my students are going to be needing me for quite some time...

Seosanites Unite -- Foreigners on Facebook

Last Thursday night, I rode my bicycle to the Family Mart (Korea's version of the ubiquitous 7-Eleven) near Seosan's movie theater, to meet my good friend Chetty for a mid-week drink and chat. I had sent out an invite to several of the other foreigners that I've befriended in my few months here, and was expecting to see at least a couple of familiar faces sitting under the big, blue, plastic umbrellas on the corner when I pulled up. But I was bemused and surprised to instead find nearly a dozen strangers, including a couple of fresher-than-fresh recruits -- a cute young couple from the U.K., who had literally just arrived in Korea the day prior.

Over the next hour or so of laidback chatter, I realized how much things have changed since I arrived here nearly 3 1/2 months ago... And how my perceptions of Seosan as a small-town, off-the-beaten-path kind of place -- where I'd scarce cross paths with another foreigner for perhaps weeks on end -- has changed as well. I chose to come to Seosan for more reasons, obviously, than a high-rolling social life -- its charms (for me, at least) lay in its supreme accessibility to mountains and the coast, and its decent proximity to the action in Seoul (1h40 by bus isn't bad). Here, I thought, I'll have time to contemplate, meditate, and make progress on a number of personal projects that really don't require involvement by anyone other than myself. And I figured I could live with that, at least for a contract-length year. If I found myself going stir-crazy by that time, I'd just pick up and move on.

As time has passed, though, and as fate has led me smack-dab into the path of one foreigner after another, I've realized that living in Seosan really isn't quite as solitary as I had once imagined. Which isn't a bad thing, at all. It's been an education in human psychology to see how social boundaries that would exist under normal circumstances seem to all but completely fold when members of an absolute minority (such as the foreigners working as English teachers here) meet. It's almost as if we create our own little network not so much for friendship and comraderie, as for support and sanity. Getting together for a late-night conversation in the middle of the work-week, sitting on a street corner amid the trailing taillights of taxi-cabs and neon signs of nearby storefronts, we bond almost without consciousness, as if reaching out to others who also don't "fit" somehow restores our sense of belonging.

After getting home that night, I decided it was time to create an "official network" for all of us Seosan folks, especially so that the new people coming here could have a resource to tap to ease their adjustment. I've lived overseas before, and I know it can be a roller-coaster of a ride, trying to adjust to a new culture, strange foods, an incomprehensible language, and the hundreds of instances, large and small, that separate you from your former world and your place in it. It can all be quite overwhelming. Thanks to Facebook, anyone living in or around Seosan, South Korea, can find, with one click of a button, 25 other instant friends (and surely more to be found, as we get pulled into one another's paths).

And tonight, after connecting via our new Facebook group, "I Live in Seosan (and Surrounds)", about a dozen of us met together for a few rounds of bowling in Seosan's nightlife district. It was again a treat to just unwind and be social without the need to navigate language or cultural boundaries. Even if I do suck at bowling.

And I'm eager to see where this little social experiment of a foreigner community will go over time.... Will we organize activities and meet-ups more regularly? Will our numbers continue to grow? Will we find among ourselves the solution to one of the largest hurdles foreigners face while living abroad: finding a niche and filling social needs? Or will involvement in our own "exclusive foreigner circle" extricate ourselves even more from fitting in to our surroundings? Time will tell... in the meantime, I guess I better start learning a thing or two about bowling!

Highlights from Andong's MaskDance Festival

I'm back from an incredible weekend in Andong and Hahoe, where the annual Maskdance Festival is still underway. And though it was short (and I missed the traditional wooden-masked dancers, too sad!), it was worth every bit of effort (which was quite a lot) to get there. There was so much to see and do, and I'll definitely plan to return next year to catch more of the action... provided I'm still here in Korea ;) (something tells me I will be).

So, in a departure from my usual type of blog post, I'm going to make this more of a photo montage, with some brief explanations for the sake of "cultural education." Here we go ~


One of many venues within the festival complex, the Mask Theater is a covered dome stadium with a stage, where international dance troupes performed throughout the weekend. Here, Russian dancers wow the audience with a Troika or two:


And more dancers, these from the Philippines (aren't those costumes fantastic?):


At another venue, near the bank of the river, a shaman (fortune teller and spiritual vessel) entrances the crowds with her hypnotic singing (note the W10,000 bills stuffed under her hat), while a skinned pig (this is real, folks) sits just outside the tent, a token symbol of good luck and prosperity. (I actually read up a bit on this, and pigs are considered such a good omen because of their portly build, which connotes abundance and wealth, and because females produce such large litters, which symbolizes fertility. A pig's head will always be found at Shamanist ceremonies and sacrifices, as well as events such as the opening of a new business, moving to a new home, or even buying a new car. Want to read more? Look here)


Kites were flying high throughout the festival. This young guy was quite a skilled kite-flyer. Over the course of several hours, he succeeded in raising one kite after the other into the air, connected on one verrrrry long string. It was quite a spectacle:

















Food vendors lined the streets in white tents, their delicious-smelling dishes spilling out into the crowds and across the streets. You could try any one of literally hundreds of snacks and dishes, including freshly grilled corn, marinated meats on skewers, miniature waffles filled with bean paste, roasted chestnuts, corn dogs with fried potato ... I even saw a doner kebab stand!!


One of my favorite activities was dipping a calligraphy brush in a pot of thin black ink and scratching my wish onto a thin strip of paper. Following the lead of the buzzing crowd, I then wedged my paper strip between the fibers of twisted hemp strung up among tall wooden statues. What did I wish for? You'll have to see for yourself:


And last but not least, the masks themselves... wooden masks, Venetian masks, masks from all over the world... masks that begged a touristy photo-stop, masks that towered over you from their lofty perches, masks printed onto balloons, embedded into stone walls... masks lining shop fronts, spilling out of vendor's displays... mask necklaces, mask wallhangings, mask puppets, mask dolls...


So, if you're in Korea at the moment, and trying to find some last-minute ideas for how to spend the upcoming three-day weekend, run -- don't walk -- to your nearest bus station and hit the road for Andong!

Want to know more about Mask Festival? Check out these links:
Andong Mask Dance Festival
The Official Website for Maskdance Festival 2008
Korean Traditional Masks

Or, to see more of my pictures, follow this link.

At Home in Hahoe Village, Maskdance Festival 2008

What do troupes of masked performers, hoards of happy onlookers, one quaint traditional village, and a shower of shimmering fireworks have in common? If you guessed the Andong Maskdance Festival, you were right :)

This weekend marked the beginning of a ten-day celebration in Andong, Korea's south-eastern Gyeongsangbuk province -- a festival to honor the tradition of the mask and its place in cultures around the world, and in Korea's history in particular. Hahoe, home of the legendary Korean wooden masks, is steeped in the folklore surrounding their creation.

According to legend:

"A series of disasters and bad luck were happening in the peaceful and beautiful Hahoe Folk Village, and all villagers were very concerned. One day, Mr. Heo, a good person from Hahoe Folk Village, dreamed about a Folk God who told him what he must do:

'You should clean your body every day and carve a set of masks with your heart -- then all disasters will disappear. But there is one strict rule: You must finish the work within 100 days and no one is allowed to see you during the time that you are making the masks.'

"So Mr. Heo started to work on the masks. He did not tell anyone else in the village about his dream. One day, a lady who lived in the same village and who loved Mr. Heo very much, his as she waited for him. She could not bear it any more at stole a glance at him. As soon as she did this, Mr. Heo fell down and died, leaving one Mask unfinished, Imae (Foolish Servant). This is why Imae Mask does not have a chin, as it was left unfinished." [note from me: can you find it in the photo to the right?]

"Villagers of Hahoe danced with the Hahoe masks (aristocrat, scholar, young bride, meddler, Buddhist monk, butcher, old widow, young woman and foolish servant) and finally danced the village back to peace. "

Even today, Hahoe is a peaceful and beautiful folk village where life seems to carry on much the same as it did centuries ago. And despite the busloads of tourists that come from around the country (and world) to sample a taste of traditional Korean life and enjoy its peaceful ambience, it maintains some semblance of authenticity, which is part of its subtle charm.

This past weekend, I had a chance to spend a chilly night and leisurely morning soaking up the special flavor of Korean culture that Hahoe serves up on a heaping platter. I arrived by bus with a group of CouchSurfers (who converged in Andong from various points around the country) Saturday night, after poking around the festival grounds. As we stepped off the bus and into the dark night, I tugged at the cuffs of my jacket, pulling them over my hands to ward off the sting of the evening chill. We walked along a quiet dirt road which followed a riverbank until we arrived at the traditional house, Hagungje #13, which was our home for the night.

Though it was dim, as we stepped into the house, muted light emanating from an open door gave us a view of the house's unusual arrangement. It was built as a series of rooms, which comprised four outer walls, all facing an inner courtyard which was exposed to the open air. Short sets of cement steps led from the ground to any of a number of rooms, most of which served as sleeping areas. I peered inside one of the rooms and was intrigued by its small size and spartan furnishings. There was enough room for four or five bodies to lay sardine-style on a hard floor, and a "yo" (traditional Korean mattress) and stack of blankets to warm us. A window at the opposite end of the room, a simple wooden frame lined with rice paper which slid along a wooden track and latched with a fabric tie, was the only other decoration.

The kitchen, set in the back corner of the house, was bustling as the old couple living in the house began to prepare our dinner. After dropping our bags and removing our shoes, we stepped into the "dining room," a large, low-lying wooden slab near the courtyard. Although the table was quite long, our group was bursting in size, and we spilled over onto two adjacent round tables, filling up the entire area with our bodies and energetic conversation. The man of the house began what turned out to be an insanely busy job of waiting on the lot of us as we feasted on platters of steaming hot and spicy "jjim dalk," Andong's signature dish -- a mixture of chicken bits, glass noodles, leeks, and near-lethal doses of hot pepper (though somehow, I didn't think our dishes were deathly spicy).

Some of the group took off for the riverbank to watch fireworks, while others (myself included) stayed behind to finish dinner and warm up under layers of blankets. I later found out that this wasn't your typical fireworks show -- it was a special affair (...and I'm still chiding myself for missing it. I suppose there's always next year...) Seonyu Julbulnori, or traditional Korean fireworks, aren't shot from the ground, as are the festive explosions we're accustomed to. These fireworks are like gigantic sparklers strung above the ground. When they're lit, they create the ethereal feeling of falling stars or, as Roboseyo describes (and I quite like his visual), "bright flower petals floating to the ground."

[Check out this video footage from Roboseyo]

The rest of the night was a blur as round after round of soju and maggeolli found their way to our table, and the energy wound up before the evening wound down. Eventually, I retired to my shared room, tucked my too-thin blanket around my shivering body, and managed to settle into some sort of sleep (though between the winter chill and neighboring snorers, it wasn't particularly productive).

The next morning, after waking the the sounds of chirping birds outside our rice-paper window, new-found friend Adam (also an English teacher in Korea) and I did a little exploring around the village. We circled its perimeter, walking along narrow, dusty roads that tangled their way through the village, out to the edges of its rice fields and along the river, enjoying the peaceful pace of this rural respite from the busy world just outside its gates. We watched local farmers working in their fields, listened to the sound of wind blowing over vast carpets of rice crops, and even managed to find a litter of playful puppies. After putting our cameras to good use at some sort of wooden statue mini-park, we said farewell to our fair village and returned to the festival grounds to finish out the Maskdance weekend.

See more pictures of my visit to Hahoe Village here

On Missed Buses and Meditation

So I missed my night bus to Seoul Friday night. As it turns out, this wasn't the only bus leaving my behind on my journey to Andong for the Mask Festival... After an excruciatingly long week of giving and grading written exams for EGA's entire student population, I woke the next morning to find my backpack and everything in it saturated from a water bottle that had leaked slowly throughout the night... The only silver lining (thank God for silver linings) is that my camera, cell phone, and batteries were somehow spared from the flood.

I had planned to take the first express bus Saturday morning to Daejeon, one of the big hub cities in the central-western part of the country, and the place from where I'd catch an onward bus to Andong. I pedaled to the bus terminal, bought my ticket, and settled into a hard plastic seat outside the terminal, underneath the sign posted for Platform 12. While I obviously don't read Korean, the tickets are usually pretty straightforward -- with a little hangul I can manage to double-check the destination I've purchased for, and besides that, the rest is mostly numbers: departing time, ticket price, platform number, you get the idea.

I knew I had a little time to kill, so I got out a book and started reading, watching through my peripheral vision for the bus that was bound to soon pull into slot 12. Minutes went by, then ten, then twenty, and with still no bus in sight, I pulled out my cell phone to check the time. It was 8:11 AM which, for my 8:10 bus, meant it was time to start panicking. Korean buses run like Swiss clocks -- they are extremely precise on departure times, which is more than a little impressive. In my three and a half months living in Korea, I've never been on a bus that has left more than one minute late. So you can imagine my reaction at seeing the time...

The realization somehow I'd made a grave mistake, and my express bus (the only one for the next three hours) had left without me hit with incredible speed. Sure enough, after thrusting my ticket at an elderly woman sitting next to me and sputtering out what could have only sounded like confusing jibberish to her, she shook her head despondently and pointed to the opposite end of the bus terminal. And there it was confirmed, by three chainsmokers employees hovering around the apparently correct Daejeon bus platform. It was still somewhat early Saturday morning, I felt slightly drugged from the events of the past week, and was just handed the bad news that I had missed my bus...

After inspecting my ticket, one of the employees brought me back to his office, where he looked up the bus timetables and pointed out the next departure for Daejeon, which was a 0h45 wait, but an indirect bus at that (meaning that one little minute between 8:10 and 8:11 AM had cost me a minimum of 2 hours). My mind clicked and whirred, as if trying to calculate whether to it was even worth making the trip to Andong, or whether I'd be better off scrapping all of my plans and turning back for the consolation prize of a quiet weekend at home. In the end, though, I willed myself onto that next bus, determined to see the trip through. Mask Festival is one of the events that I had had my heart set on experiencing while in Korea, and I just couldn't give up that easily.

I can't quite put my finger on the moment when my attitude shifted from disappointment to enjoyment, because for sure I spent the first bit on the bus convincing myself that I'd made the right choice to hop on board. But I spent the next seven hours on highways and city roads, winding my way slowly towards the opposite side of the country, peering out tinted windows and the ever-changing landscape and losing myself in thought. Out on the open road again, flying as much by the seat of my pants and with any real itinerary to note, and riding along in the solitude of self-contemplation amid the shuffles and chatters around me, my body began to loosen. My mind began to roam free. And I felt again the raw, visceral sensation which fills me whenever I find myself in touch again with my nomadic spirit. I began to remember my place in the ebb and flow of the world around me, and the freedom that I feel when I let go of time and schedules and just let life be.

As much as I was looking forward to the festivities in Andong and meeting up with some fellow CouchSurfers for the weekend, I was finding an unusual sort of fulfillment in this lengthy bus ride eastward. It was like a meditation of sorts, and a gratitude session, and my own little noraebang (karaoke room) rolled into one, and I no doubt amused my seatmate with the Rascal Flatts melodies I spiritedly emitted (when I'm feeling the music, I just can't hold back!). I felt the energy of being in motion, the childlike wonder of new experiences surrounding me, the recognition of the gifts that my previous experiences in life have bestowed upon me, even the overwhelming emotion of gratitude for all that I have been blessed with and have had the opportunity to learn and experience. It was like a beautiful upward spiral of thought and emotion, lifting me beyond my slightly cramped seat on the bus and out into the universe of possibility.

And seven hours later, as I pulled into Andong, my spirits were high, and I felt a smiling beaming out from somewhere deep within me. I would never have imagined that a missed bus could have resulted in such a thing... maybe I should miss my bus more often...

Surviving Exam Week

Another week has bullet-trained by, dragging me along behind it as I tried to keep up with the exam prep, testing, and grading that has marked the end of the bi-monthly grading period at my hagwon (private academy). Early last week, I held review sessions with all of my students to cover the grammar points, reading passages, and vocabulary that we've focused on since the beginning of August. Meanwhile I raced to finish writing up written exams for each of 16 classes, and began entering grades and comments on 119 report cards.

It's not such an easy thing to grade students on oral comprehension or intonation, I've realized. I try to be objective and consistent from one student to the next, to consider my justification for each category on the report so that I'm not just arbitrarily entering letter grades. But it all begins to blur together after a while, and after typing the equivalent of a mini-novel, I wonder how much of my personalized comments my students and their parents are going to actually comprehend anyway. Not to be rude, that's just the reality.

Thursday and today, I administered the exams, and madly graded thousands of test questions, trying to finalize all of the scores and grades and report cards before leaving for what promised to be an exciting weekend trip to one of Korea's famous fall festivals. It was all a bit much, and by tonight at 10:00 PM when I finally got home, I nearly fell into bed with exhaustion.

I had hoped to take the last bus out of town to Seoul, and stay overnight with a soon-to-be-friend Leah, who was also going to the festival. But as it turned out, the buses finished running before I did, and there went my chance to jump-start the long journey to Andong for the weekend festivities. Perhaps it was all for the best -- this girl was in desperate need of some rest.

So as my eyes fell heavily shut against the flicker of the TV screen, I made myself a promise -- I've never been a believer in doing things halfway, which generally means I OVER-do them instead. Exam Week was no exception. But I promised myself to be more of a slacker next time around, to spend less time and less worry on these grades and written tests and rein in my strong impulse to "do the job and do it right." I'm not sure exactly what that solution is going to entail, but if it can take the edge off of the flurry of academic activity that pummeled both me and my students this week, it will be a step in the right direction.

There's a Cockroach in my Teapot!

I slept like a baby last night, the combination of a steady, light rain through the wee morning hours, an open window filtering cool early-autumn air above my head, and a cozy blanket to warm me. I could have slept in for hours, straddling that fuzzy line between awake and asleep, until I had felt sufficiently lazy and well beyond rested.

But, duty called this morning; I am running against a ticking clock to write up 119 report cards for my students, complete with personal comments, before noon today. And then, this afternoon, I begin administering written tests (which I spent most of last week writing) to those same 119 students. Ugh. This is the ugly side of working at a highly respected private language academy.

So, emerging from my deep slumber, I shuffled across the floor to my cabinet, pulled out my highly prized bag of pure South American Yerba Mate (if you're wondering where I managed to find this in South Korea, don't -- this is one of the "luxury items" I managed to bring along in my luggage.), and set about spooning its loose-leaf contents into my shiny silver measuring spoon.

Just a few weeks ago, while on a shopping trip at the local supermarket, Seosan Mart, I splurged on a shiny new kettle that won my heart when I popped the lid to reveal a steeping chamber for loose-leaf teas. Since that day, it's been put to use on a number of occasions, though I admit I've been a little too lazy lately to boil water on the stovetop, having a filtered water dispenser that emits near-boiling water with the touch of a button. But today, with the rain plinking down and the whisper of autumn breezes beckoning from my open window, a "proper" pot of tea was calling to me.

I'm somewhat of a new kid of the block when it comes to the wide world of teas. Being raised in a Mormon home, teas were always off-limits, with the exception of the occasional fruity herbal tea picked up at the market, or a batch of Mom's "Mormon tea," which was actually a cup of milk warmed on the stove and sweetened with sugar to taste. Over the past few years, however, I've managed to "educate" myself a little about the wonderful world of steeped beverages, and have reached one epiphanic (is that a word?) conclusion: teas are magnificent!

I could go into a soliloquy on the health benefits of teas (with green and Yerba Mate high on my list of healthy favorites), and maybe I will, if you'll indulge me for a minute...

Yerba Mate, a wonder crop of South American origins, is more than a tea, it's a deeply-rooted and treasured tradition. The tea is prepared daily in many countries in the early afternoon, just following siesta, to help enliven and energize the masses as they wake from their tw0-hour nap and get back to work. It's normally prepared in a special cup (a mate cup) and and sipped through a bombilla, which is more or less a steel straw with a built-in filter (so that all the loose leafs don't make their way to your mouth). (I don't know all of this from personal experience... I've yet to make it to South America myself, but I find the whole cultural tradition quite fascinating.)

So other than being a cool South American custom, why Yerba Mate? For starters, it's gentler on the body than coffee, which can tend to cause jitters. In fact, it's even been "prescribed" for use by people who have to stop using caffeine-containing products for health reasons. With its high concentration of pantothenic acid, it prevents overstimulation of your nervous system, so that you get the benefits of increased energy, boosted metabolism (yes, it can boost your metabolic rate by as much as 25%), and reduced appetite, without the jitters that a cuppa joe often brings on. It's non-addictive, and non-habit-forming as well, which my body appreciate. Finally, yerba mate is also high in magnesium, which eases anxiety (how many "energy" drinks do you know that can do that?), and anti-oxidants, which can boost immunity from colds and flus and help cleanse your body of toxins. (You probably didn't figure you'd be reading about South American teas on a Life-in-Korea blog today, did you? Are you sold yet?)

Thanks for the indulgence. Now, back to this morning. Ready to steep my own South American wake-up cup, I lifted the lid off of my shiny metal teakettle, and pulled out the tea leaf basket, only to find a six-legged visitor lurking in the basin of my teapot. A cockroach had somehow managed to crawl its way in! This was mildly disturbing, since I don't normally flavor my teas with insects. Kidding. What's really disturbing is the thought that there are cockroaches in my kitchen... (Okay Dad, I confess, I haven't been washing my dishes up right after dinner, I'll do better!) My only thought is that the little critter crawled inside while my teapot was left to dry upside-down in the dish rack last week. But who really knows...

A thorough scouring and longer-than-normal boiling session later, my teapot was steaming with freshly brewed Yerba Mate and I was again a happy camper. And I'm sipping it now, while the rain still patters outside my window, which reminds me, I've got to get on those 119 report cards pronto...

. . . . . . . . . . .

If you'd like to read more about the tradition of drinking Yerba Mate, check it out here: The Yerba Mate Story
Interested in a PhD perspective on its health benefits? Try this: Does Yerba Mate Contain Any Caffeine?
Ready to buy your own blend and start sipping? Shop here: Loose-Leaf Yerba Mate

A Spoonful of Sugar (or Corn Syrup) Helps the Vinegar Go Down

My pomegranate-flavored bubble has been burst... I just learned (after doing some virtual shopping on Hmart.com, that the number one ingredient in my new favorite "health drink" is high-fructose corn syrup, otherwise known as the single biggest calorie vacuum in the Western world.... HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup) is the very stuff laced in processed, packaged foods back home, particularly the ubiquitous Coca-Cola (and most every other soft drink made in the USA).

I had just yesterday stumbled upon an insightful article on Mercola.com (which is, as far as I know, the most popular natural health website in the world). The article, "The Plague of High Fructose Corn Syrup in Processed Foods," spoke to the ill effects of consuming HFCS. And I tend to agree with him: corn syrup is essentially a calorie bomb, devoid of nutrients, and complicates a number of health problems that the Western world is already battling against, namely heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.

According to Dr. Mercola,

"Part of what makes HFCS such an unhealthy product is that it is metabolized to fat in your body far more rapidly than any other sugar, and, because most fructose is consumed in liquid form, its negative metabolic effects are significantly magnified...
To add insult to injury, the corn that the high fructose corn syrup is metabolized from nearly all comes from genetically modified corn which is fraught with its own well documented side effects and health concerns."

So I guess I'll have to scale back my head-over-heels infatuation with my syrup-sweetened pomegranate vinegar a bit... though I'm still sold on consuming vinegar as a health tonic. It's been keeping the Chinese going, after all, for over 3,000 years...

Drinking Vinegar... It Does a Body Good

Say the words "health drink" and, depending on which part of the world you claim as home, any of the following would naturally come to mind: For Europeans, a tall glass of drinking yogurt... For Turks, a cup of kefir... For Indians, a smooth, cool lassi... My fellow Americans might reach for an order of something freshly squeezed from the juice bar, with heaven forbid, some lab-processed whey protein and additives mixed in for good measure. Or maybe a sports bottle of Gatorade to restore all those lost electrolytes from a mega cardio session at the gym... that's healthy, right? :)

Flip to the Asian side of the world, and it's a different story altogether. The health tonic of choice in Korea and Japan is nothing dairy- or yogurt-related, but a vinegar instead. Drinking vinegar, you say? Your nose is already wrinkling up with distaste at the prospect of sipping a vinegar on purpose. Yes, vinegar. But not just any vinegar. There's apple, raspberry, pomegranate, black currant, and others to choose from... With such delicious fruits to balance out the puckering bite of a pungent mouthful, you can maybe start to imagine that sipping a drinking yogurt is more than strictly medicinal: it can actually be something of a culinary experience.

Weeks ago, I picked up a couple bottles of pomegranate vinegar on special at the supermarket. I had noticed on more than a few occasions, while combing the store aisles, the neatly shelved smoked-glass bottles taunting me with their colorful labels and slender design. I had looked them over carefully, eyeing the packaging, trying to decide which of the many flavors would be first to come home with me. I remembered vaguely reading something about pomegranate's health properties and, as it's always been something of an exotic fruit to me, the sale price provided the final bit of arm-twisting needed to land a couple of shiny bottles of pomegranate drinking vinegar in my shopping cart.

I'm not a stranger to vinegar myself. I began a habit a little over a year ago of swirling a spoonful each of apple cider vinegar and honey in a mugful of water, and sipping on it slowly during my morning commutes. I had read about the health benefits of vinegar during some in-depth research on cleansing, detoxification, and natural health. I was impressed to learn that a simple spoonful of vinegar could aid my digestion, boost my energy, improve my circulation, moderate my blood sugar, and even speed my metabolism. I was sold!

After coming to Korea, ironically, I fell out of the habit. And sadly, even after my great buy at the market weeks ago, the bottles were stashed unopened among boxes of cooking supplies soon to be shuttled to my new apartment. So it wasn't until today that I unearthed the vinegar, popped off the lid, and mixed up my first real Korean vinegar drink. And if I was a believer in the power of the almighty vinegar before (which I was), today I became a born-again drinker. Mid-glass, I began to imagine mixing my new favorite flavor with seltzers and club sodas, pouring it over ice in a frosted martini glass, spritzing it with a splash of vodka, garnishing it with a plump cherry. Yes, it was really that good! Its flavor was a perfect blend of sweet, fruity notes and sophistication. I think I've discovered my new favorite beverage.

. . . . . . . . . .

For more information on drinking vinegars, where to buy them and how to mix them, try the following websites:
DrinkingVinegar.com
Health Benefits of Drinking Vinegar
HMart Online Asian Grocery

And some other blogs with good vinegar info:
Pomegranate Vinegar Drink (including a recipe for making it from scratch)
My Korean Diet (scroll down to the Drinking Vinegar section)

A Leisure Walk Around Lake Park

I've been holed up in my cheery little apartment for most of the weekend, forced to cancel my already-up-in-the-air plans to adventure up north to the islands of Ganghwado and Muuido (just off the coast of Incheon) after waking to an unsettled stomach Saturday morning. It seems that with the changing of seasons, and with the bursts of hot and cold air that vie for top billing from one day to the next, colds and sniffles are bound to come knocking on our door. So I suppose it wasn't much of a surprise to feel that my mind and body needed nothing more than peace, quiet, and rest -- a mini-retreat to heal and recondition -- before starting what promises to be a hectic workweek.



Saturday was the perfect stay-indoors day. Rain hurtled down through deep layers of gray clouds on and off from early morning when my eyes opened until the sun had long gone down. Cool winds blew through my apartment windows, the coolest I've felt thus far in Korea, sending me to my wardrobe for a sweatshirt and then crawling under my bedcovers to keep my toes cozy and warm. I managed to spend the entire day reading, resting, skimming new recipes, catching up on emails, making a few overseas phonecalls, cooking some soul food, and falling into a relaxed rhythm that felt just delicious.

Today, still craving quietness and downtime, I stayed in again, hoping to continue recharging my batteries and focus on a few personal projects. At some point in the day, I told myself, I'd get out for some fresh air and sunshine, especially since the day promised to be a beautiful one -- the air clearer and the temperature cooler from yesterday's showers, with bright blue skies and billowy clouds to entice me out.

Catching up on a few of my favorite blogs, I ran across a recent posting by my friend Michael, who lives not so far away in a busy urban sprawl in big-city Cheonan. His piece took me on a virtual walk through his neighborhood, to the bank, the local bakery, and past a park where local families swung their badminton rackets back and forth with gusto. I chuckled to myself as I read, because the imagery was so vivid, and so true to life in Korea.

Finally, around 5 pm, I headed out the door with my camera in hand, ready to pedal my bike down to Seosan's newest attraction, the beautiful Lake Park (which enjoyed its official opening ceremonies this weekend, and which, had completely slipped my mind). I had been here just two weeks ago, the day after moving into my new apartment, and had been so impressed with the beautifully landscaped surroundings that I vowed to return with my camera and capture some of its ambience. As the sun was starting to sink slowly in the sky, I figured I had just enough time to take a leisure walk around the park and savor a quiet Sunday evening in Seosan.



It took only a second or two after arriving to realize that there wasn't much peace and quiet to be had at the park this evening. Huge carnival tents flanked the southern edge of the park, where vendors offered a curious mix of cotton candy, fried peanut cakes, skewered meats, and boiled silkworms. Karaoke singers dressed in shiny hanbok costumes performed energetically on a stage overlooking the lake, and the whole area was crawling with young kids on bicycles, fathers and sons batting at badminton birdies, old men enjoying a smoke together, families parading along the inlaid-stone walking path. A large banner, hoisted by two helium balloons, flew over the lake, announcing to all that this was a day to be celebrated.

So I began my stroll around the park, feeling like something of a cross between a sore thumb and a celebrity as this solo "waegookin" (foreigner in Hangul) was approached again and again by the young and the curious who wanted to say hello to me. I don't know how I could still be a novelty in Seosan after being here for three months already, but these little faces were washed with such genuine curiosity that I couldn't help but feel a spirit of camaraderie with them. It was the least I could do, for all the energy they were sending in my direction, to offer a big hello and even bigger smile in return.

I stayed long enough to see the sun disappear behind a mountain of apartment buildings to the west, and content with my explorations for one day, headed back the way I came, ready to finish out the weekend with a little more R&R at home. It was refreshing to see a nice slice of Korean life at the park this evening, to be reminded that I am surrounded by thousands of people who, despite language and cultural barriers, are at the core much the same as me. Tonight I was part of the neighborhood, hanging out with Seosan's families and enjoying a pleasant celebration with my local community. And perfectly enough, it really did feel like home.

Reclaiming Happiness: Our Greatest Freedom

There has been a subtle building of negative emotion within me over the past week, which I haven't been able to pinpoint entirely until yesterday mid-morning, when I heard myself voicing a laundry list of concerns and worries to my best friend Jenny during a lengthy heart-to-heart phonecall. I've never been big on following the news, partly because I tend to be too wrapped up in my own little world, but mostly because I find it overwhelmingly depressing to hear about all of the terrible, horrible things going on in the world around me.

But during the past several weeks, I've been turning more and more to world news reports, as my daily "staff meeting discussions" (a.k.a. English practice for Harrison and Terry) have focused on U.S. politics, the upcoming election, recent plummets in the economy, hurricanes and natural disasters, and concerns over the stability of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il. There has been no end of bad news in sight. And unfortunately, being exposed so many problems and their potential effects within a relatively short period of time has not left me unscathed.

It all came tumbling out yesterday, in what turned out to be more of a vent session than a mutually uplifting chat. Which got me thinking... What good can come of filling your mind with such pessimism? Sometimes information is not power, but a hindrance. There has to be some way of being aware of the world's happenings without getting pulled into the powerful vortex of negative thought. What I heard myself saying as I spoke with Jenny was, beyond anything else, fear of the unknown, wondering how I would respond, adapt, survive, thrive, if the world as we know it were to suddenly and drastically change? What if the economy suddenly crashed? What if war broke out in North Korea, just a few hundred kilometers away? What if, what it, what if...

So it was perfect timing that I finished reading an incredibly simple yet profound book called "Zen and the Art of Happiness," written by Chris Prentiss. I took it with me to Seoul last weekend, and finished it in the quiet space of early morning today, while still wrapped underneath my thin cotton bedsheets. The central message of this book can be summarized in one very important sentence: "Everything that happens to me is the best possible thing that can happen." Regardless of whether an illness befalls you, or you lose your job, or a friend, or your right arm, the path to happiness is as simple as acting as though whatever is causing the difficulty is for your maximum benefit. Not trying to find a shred of good that you can salvage from your miserable circumstances. Instead, actually believing that every event which comes to you is absolutely the best possible event that could occur, and that there is actually no other event that could benefit you any more than the circumstances you are currently experiencing.

Those are big thoughts, and quite unattractive to wrap your head around if you're used to perceiving life as most of us tend to do -- a series of hurdles to jump through, challenges to face, and uphill battles to fight. I am grateful to say that some time ago I removed myself from the grip of these limiting thoughts. Still, as this week has shown, my personal weaknesses can lead me back into the cloud of pessimism and confusion that stunt my ability to experience happiness in my life.

As I contemplate the unknown, the constantly shifting world around me, and my place within it, I have to acknowledge that thus far in my life, I have benefited incredibly from the experiences (which we humans conveniently label as "good" and "bad"), that life has presented to me. And as I had an opportunity to discuss with one of my middle school classes yesterday, the happiness that we feel within from one day to the next does not depend on anything other than our very own selves, our very own minds. We are truly the authors and creators of every next moment of our lives. We bring into our lives the energy and gravity of hope, happiness, and positive thought, or the energy and gravity of its polar opposite: fear, unhappiness, and negative thought.

I shared with them the inspirational story of Victor Frankl, a well-renowned psychologist and university professor who survived the concentration camps of the Holocaust, due to his diligence in maintaining a mindset of hope and belief, even amid such terrifying and unthinkable circumstances. He later went on to write a book entitled "Man's Search for Meaning," in which he elaborates on the one simple truth that paved the way to his mental, spiritual, and physical survival of the camps: Man's last freedom, the freedom which no one can ever take from you, is his response in any situation.

Browsing the Internet this morning, I came across a well-written weblog article that caused me to also stop and reflect on this power within us to choose happiness. In it, the author, a writer and traveler named Lee, shared his powerful response to visiting Tuol Sleng, a children's school turned into a living graveyard for prisoners during Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime. I too had an emotional reaction as I read his words, my mind harking back to the vivid images, sensations, and feelings I kept with me during a viewing of the film "The Killing Fields", which I watched a year ago.

I cannot help but feel my own struggles, fears, and worries pale miserably in comparison when I am reminded of the challenges that countless others have faced, and continue to face, as they live out their lives in war-torn and poverty-ridden nations throughout the world. Yet even despite such extreme circumstances, the human spirit and its capacity to find meaning, hope, and happiness, prevails. It is a powerful message to each of us, isn't it? Happiness is... all around us, percolating inside us, holding its outstretched hand out to us, patiently, faithfully calling to us. My life is too precious to me to spend my days feeling trapped beneath the weight of endless worries. Thank you Chris, Victor, and Lee, for reminding me of what I had forgotten. I choose happiness.

Keeping it in the Bank: Waiting out the Dollar's Downward Tumble

The U.S. economy has been center-stage in discussions with my staff over this past week, as the tumbling stock market and the fallout of large companies going bust have ranked on the front-page headlines in Korea's major newspaper. The almighty U.S. dollar has a strong global impact, as I am learning first-hand from my humble post in this small-ish, export-driven Asian country.

A conversation with my dad several days ago clued me in that several big-name U.S. corporations were floundering -- and going bankrupt, all of which only perpetuates the state of fear and economic concern that propels recession and market instability. It is extremely disconcerting to learn that high-profile companies who have been around for decades have suddenly vaporized with the most recent of market tumbles. When such disaster looms for the "big guys," you start to worry about how its effects are going to trickle down to you. Because sooner or later, they will. Even if you're living across the pond in Korea.

Before coming to Korea this past summer, I studied conversion tables, trying to get a handle on the rate of exchange between the U.S. dollar and the Korean Won. The dollar was worth roughly 1,000 won, give or take, although during the early part of 2008, it was a very favorable 970K - 980K won to the dollar.

During the past three months that I've been living overseas, the value of the dollar has declined noticeably, enough that I've decided to hold off on money transfers back to the States in hopes that it will pick back up again. Certainly money wasn't the only reason I chose to come to Korea, but the opportunity to save a healthy chunk of change was definitely a big factor in the equation that led me here.

Last week's U.S. stock market nosedive resulted in a sizeable devaluation of the dollar here as well. I've suddenly found my salary and savings slashed by a whopping 20%. There's no other way to say it -- OUCH! My only solace is to keep in mind that in time, the market always evens itself out. But how long will it take to recover from recent downward trends? Will the dollar continue to plunge for months to come? How much farther will it fall? Are we heading towards a severe economic depression, as many financial analysts are forecasting? Or is this just a painful hiccup that will go away on its own without much more financial crisis?

For the time being, at least, I'll be keeping my earnings right here in Korea. And I'm lucky, in that regard, that I have a fairly long stretch to wait out a possible recovery. For those expats who don't have the same flexibility, particularly TEFL teachers who are ending contracts and returning home within the next month or two, their earnings can't help but be painfully squeezed. I'll be keeping an eye on the economy, to be sure. And in the meantime, I'll be hopeful that Americans won't lose their confidence in the economy. A further market collapse is one self-fulfilling prophecy this world doesn't need.