Filed under: Travel
Typical Side Street
There isn’t too much to report, but I thought you might like to see some typical street shots. Bright lights, flashing neon, and a Body Shop, Duncan Donuts, and Starbucks on almost every corner. Our hotel is in Gangnam, not exactly a cultural mecca. It is considered an affluent neighborhood, which I’m taking to mean there is not much here except places to shop and spend lots of money. I wanted to take the subway down to some cool old palaces downtown, but that didn’t happen as I had to spend the morning studying the English language, of which I appear to know very little about. I had a discussion with another English instructor yesterday about how we instincutally know how to speak English, but acutally know next to nothing about how to break it down, explain the parts, and teach it.
The pressure is especially on since the company we were hired through has now told us that we have to pass a series of tests to ensure our placement (I’m not sure how they can pull that since we’ve already signed contracts.) They say that between 12 and 20% of folks in a class don’t pass, and that makes their contract null and void. You go home on your own dime.
So my learning Korean is on hold for re-learning the acutal rules of English.
I had lunch at a great little hole in the wall down a side street. No English menu, no one in the restaurant spoke even one word of it, but with a lot of smiling and gesturing, we sat down to a meal of great side dishes and k’ognamulguk – a soup made of pork ribs, glass noodles, and vegetables.
Oh yea, and I swear soda is less sweet. I usually hate soda, but I don’t mind the Coke, they must make it with real sugar as opposed to the corn crap that has completely taken over the American diet.
Filed under: Travel
Jim and I were up at 3am on Thursday to catch a flight in Columbus, OH to Chicago, IL to change airlines in San Francisco to Singapore Air to land at our final destination: Seoul, South Korea.
I love flying over the US. The checkerboarded farmland looks so much more interesting from the sky then from a car. The openess and diversity of the landscape is really obvious and makes for all kinds of speculation on cultural values linked to space, invention, and the free spirit. One of the amazing things about flying over the western part of the country in particular, is how little of the US has actually been developed. We flew for hours without seeing much besides some farms and wide open patches of contrasting mountains and desert.
The Rockies
A town butting up the Sierra Nevadas
After all that wide open space; the crowded coastal city San Francisco:
On the flight, I had been confused when I booked the tickets. It looked like I had to choose a meal, and they all had weird descriptions like no sodium, lowfat, bland …. I picked Hindu, because I know I like Indian food. Well, it turns out I didn’t have to pick anything, it was only for special requests, so our meal comes out, different from everyone else’s around us and Jim is quite suspicious of the meat. I’m pretty sure it was goat.
Hocking Hills in southeastern Ohio is famous for a unique geologic form called recess caves. These aren’t really true caves, as they are not underground, but were formed by softer layers of sand sediment being washed away from the undersides of cliff faces during the period of glacial retreat.
Jim and one of his longtime friends brought a small bunch of us to a private area they discovered and have been coming to for almost ten years. It is not in a public area and has only a small trail blazed by them to an area with a couple of large recess caves tucked away in the woods. There were still remnants of their last fire and some cans they had left (naughty, naughty).
When we got there, what used to be a lush forest for as long as Jim could remember, had been rented to a logging company. Although the caves were still in the woods, the first mile had been clear cut. “Rented” seems an interesting word, as they may be renting the land, the trees themselves don’t come back.
Entrance to our first cave:
Second “cave” split rock:
Our friend Josh, who could start a forest fire with nothing but a rumor and his mouth, led the rest of our party to believe that we were bringing them to this second cave so that Jim could propose to me. We’ve had much different things on our mind what with the intercontinental move, but it made for an entertaining afternoon.
For reasons that aren’t worth going into, Jim and I had to drive 5 1/2 hours from Columbus to Chicago and will have to do it again on Tuesday. Let’s just say it has to do with Korean work-visas and a plethora of not quite accurate information.
I had to do a short interview presumably to prove I’m not insane, a pedophile, or harboring any visible communicable diseases. I was easily pushing ten years older than the other potential English teachers in the room, and capable of forming a complete answer for my goals and reasons for wanting to live in Korea. We interviewed in sets of two and the poor young man I interviewed with was really nervous. His parents are Christian missionaries who have gone to Korea several times, and as he put it “they rescue Korean orphans and bring them back to America.” If I weren’t so tired I could go on for quite a while about the politics and ethics regarding the word “rescue” here. I really couldn’t have been more the opposite of my interviewing counterpart. My interest in Buddhism, anthropology, and teaching, and his history of coming from a family of baby-abducting Jesus fanatics.
The interviewer was a very sweet Korean man who didn’t appear to have much of a sense of humor. Strangely, but not surprisingly, he shook the hand of the young man, but wouldn’t shake my hand at the end of the interview. He thanked me, and made it clear I passed, but I think shaking a woman’s hand was outside of his comfort zone.
It was an entertaining day even if it did involve 11 hours of driving for a half hour worth of interviewing.
The classic midwestern couple travel the world.
Filed under: Books, Buddhism, Peace, War | Tags: Ani Pachen, Diane Ackerman, Harry Potter, Katherine Dunn, Namkhai Norbu, Philip Gourevitch, Shambala Sun, T.C. Boyle
It was a slow reading month, I didn’t quite make it to thirteen, so I added a couple of magazines. Lots of moving around, and very little sitting still.
The Women – See my full review.
The Zookeeper’s Wife — Fantastic hour long interview with Diane Ackerman about the novel.
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch
Short excerpts from Gourevitch at the Pen Festival of authors:
Terry Tempest Williams reads the article she wrote for Orion Magazine regarding her trip to Rwanda to help build a mosaic memorial.
Geek Love Nominee for the National Book Award, this is a disturbing tale of a carnival family that attempts to engineer “freaks” with the use of drugs and poisons. All of their children are deformed in some way and we watch them grow up and manipulate each other. Interview with the author at Wired for Books.
Sorrow Mountain A wonderful book about Ani Pachen’s childhood in rural Tibet, how her life changed after the invasion of the Chinese army, and her 21 years in prison. She tells her story without resentment, but in attempt to make the world understand how her spiritual practice sustained her. She recently died in Dharamsala, but here is a nice piece in her honor.
Shambala Sun Magazine
For all the reading I’ve done, I’ve never bothered to pick up the Harry Potter series. I’m in Maine visiting my mother right now, and she had this inviting, hardcover, texturally interesting complete set sitting on her floor. I picked up the first one, and am half way through number 4 with no break at all. Highly entertaining, now I see what all the hype was about.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others’ comments. It’s easy, and fun!
Previous months reading lists: January , February, March
Filed under: Travel
Thirteen cultural things I was not aware of before moving to the south.
1. “Pin” and “pen” are pronounced the same way. Leaving me in search of a safety pin when all someone wanted was a writing utensil.
2. Mac and Cheese is a vegetable.
3. Hush puppies.
4. Collard greens.
5. The American civil war is actually called The War of Northern Aggression.
6. Any argument I was engaged in could be resolved by mentioning I was from Maine. “Ahhh, well, yer just a yank anyway.”
7. My religious affiliations are public information. It’s not if you go to church, it’s where do you go to church. And, in many circles, “I am not a Christian” is not an acceptable answer.
8. On the flip side of that, I also learned that there are some very enjoyable churches in Nashville, as well as the largest Hindu temple in the US, and ten different Buddhist groups. The bible belt is more diverse than it appears.
9. What Bless your heart really means.
10. That playing music just for the love of it is really okay.
11. That a great southern accent can not only be extremely sexy, but can wield sarcasm in a way that puts even the gutsiest New Yorker to shame.
12. That my drinking habits will be heavily governed in any state where I feel driven to drink by the surroundings.
13. That as much as I enjoyed my time living in Nashville and working in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, and North Carolina, I will always be a northern girl at heart.
Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others’ comments. It’s easy, and fun!
The Places that Scare You by Pema Chodron
“For instance, even in the rock hardness of the aggression, we’ll generally find fear. Underneath the defensiveness is the brokenhearted, unshielded quality of bodhichitta. Rather than feel this tenderness, however, we tend to close down and protect against the discomfort.” pg. 56
Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading.
Portland, ME
Thanks to Book Bird Dog for giving this to me.
“This award acknowledges the values that every blogger shows in his or her effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values every day.”
Now for the silly part:
“The rules to follow are:
1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link. 2) Pass the award to 15 other blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgment. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.”
I think it is rather ridiculous to create an award, and then devalue it by making it a chain letter. I’m accepting it from Book Bird Dog because she stuck to just a few blogs that were really nice to read through, and I will do the same. I don’t even read 15 other blogs regularly, but here are a few that I really do enjoy.
Naked Without Books – Susan is an English instructor in S. Korea and has just participated in a 24-hour read-a-thon.
Lotus Reads – book reviews of a worldly nature.
While Sleepwalking – My dear friend has not blogged in a little while, but the past book reviews and European travels are well worth reading through.
Lessons from the Monk I Married – A great narrative of a woman who married a South Korean monk she befriended while working overseas.
The News Dissector – He dissects the news. A great blog with lots of information, video clips, and links.
Rebecca Hosking Travel Examiner – a great friend of mine who has been to over forty countries talks about them one country at a time.
Filed under: Books
Jennygirl is hosting a raffle for:
After her son’s death, Pam Cope travels to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Ghana to help ease her pain by easing other’s.
(I am NOT hosting this giveaway – you have to click on the link above and go to Jennygirl’s site.)
Ruby Ramblings 