Taking the Good With the Bad Pt.1

It looks like this is going to end up being a pretty hefty entry this week, so I think I'll break it up into two parts.

I've come down with my first illness here in Korea, a Korean flu bug or cough or something. It wasn't too bad, I'm still expecting something to come along and pound me into the ground and put me to bed for a week. The worst of it came over the weekend, which was no fun at all. At least during the week I can stay home and sleep, but we had plans to go hiking this weekend and, with a little convincing from Shannon, I managed to keep them.

We went hiking up a mountain known as Mt. Wolchulsan, which I'm sure has some kind of spiritual significance, and is one of the tallest peaks in the region.

Like everything else, Koreans go about hiking in their own way, unlike anything I've seen anywhere else. There were generally two types of Koreans going up the hill - those who just wore whatever they would wear on a regular weekend afternoon (jeans, t-shirts, etc.) and those who were "geared to the extreme" with hiking poles, boots, waterproof-breathables, etc. They even put bells on their backpacks to, well, I never was able to figure out quite why.

I unfortunately don't hike enough to know what constitutes a crowded trail in Canada, but I'm pretty sure nothing will quite compare with the route we took at Wolchulsan. For the last hour or so going up (3 1/2 up, 3 down) it was "face-to-behind" hikers, with 10-30 second waits at times as people scrambled around more difficult spots. And once we reached the top, it was a mad-house of hikers, their kids, picture taking and just plain crowded-ness.

Still, it was a pretty stellar day, and I managed to make it through without collapsing, though I slept for over 14 hours that night. We're going to have some pictures up on flickr real soon, at which point I'll add a link to it so you can check 'em out. In the meantime, a friend put his up at http://www.flickr.com/photos/thedumpinghole/sets/72157594296130014/

We've finally become a little more mobile in the here country, as Shannon and I have picked up a couple of bikes. Oh, the terror it's gonna be riding down the Korean streets - for a people that conforms to what's normally accepted, they certainly seem to have no regard for traffic laws and expectations. We're definitely getting helmets, which will bump the total helmet wearing population of the city to 5, all of us being waygooks.

I'm learning more and more about what it's going to be like working with Korean's for the next year, as many people in our ex-pat community have some wild stories to tell. One of the most bizarre was "School Boot Camp". The poor kids, I don't know how they manage to get through traumatic events like this. For two days, they were put through nasty physical exercises and psychological torment. After being divided by gender, they would be given tasks such as 100 jumping jacks to be done in unison. Anyone gets out of line, and it's back to zero again for everyone. Then the same with pushups. Then situps, and on and on. And at night, it got really cruel.

The kids were all taken from their bunks just before going to sleep, and brought to a big candle ceremony of sorts. Sounds neat, right? Well, the teacher at this event (in case you forgot, it was a friend doing this, not me), is kind of enjoying this, though she can't understand what the speaker is saying. The kids however, as she turns around to look at them, are all bawling. Every one of them is crying his or her eyes out. It seems the speaker was telling the children that one day their parents would be dead, so they should respect them now while they're alive. Why, they might even be dead before they made it home from boot camp.

So life as a kid can be tough here (there's some more wickedness ahead to be told), and I think a lot of it has to do with the adults being a little nuts. Korean teachers will occassionally go on group vacations or tours, and I've met two waygooks who have joined their teachers on one of these overnight excursions.

The first was a sightseeing trip to some nearby city. They charted a bus, and took off for a 3 or 4 hour trip. The English teacher on this, Chad, was a little nervous about the trip, and I don't think he had a lot of fun. It was mere minutes before the Koreans were Norebonging (karaoke) on the bus. Not so bad at first, but once they started in on the drinking, they cranked the volume to maximum distortion levels, and just went all out for the next two hours. They reached their first destination, a mountain look-out. 10 minutes of picture taking later, back on the bus for 2 more hours of drunken norebonging. One more 10 minute photo-stop, and they arrived at their intended destination, where they all went out for dinner and, yup, norebong. I think Chad managed to sneak away and get some sleep around this point, but the unavoidable 2 hour bus ride home was another norebong filled adventure, and I don't think he'll ever go on a trip with his teachers again.

Another friend, Brent, went on his teachers overnighter with his girlfriend Steph as well. The teachers at his school went to the nearby island called Jeju, a sub-tropical place that's supposed to be amazing. He had quite a bit of personal space from his teachers, and it wasn't until the evening's activities that things got a little strange.

After a nice big dinner, they went to a jazz bar for drinks and dancing, and were eventually treated to a traditional Korean dance. Sort of, anyway. Despite the fancy costumes and dancing, it turned out just to be a stripper in pasties and a g-string. Now, this would normally be enough to freak a person out, and might have merited inclusion in the blog here, but it got even worse. Across from Brent was one of the more senior (older) teachers, and the dancer started doing her thing around him, and there, with all his coworkers sitting at the table, this older dude grabs a dollar bill and with the care and precision of a neuro-surgeon, places the bill as deep and far down this girl's g-string as he could (and I think she) could handle. Then, as she turns away to make it a little more difficult for this guy, he takes for himself a mouthful of her breast.

(Carried on in next entry)