Travelling Magic, WWOOF Korea and What is Activism?

After recounting some of last year's adventures, I now have a bit of travelling magic back in my life - a couple from Lille that I met through the social center have been staying with me this week in the middle of nowhere, Korea. After I came back to France from Greece last summer, Justine told me she was adopted from Korea and they would come visit me. And after a year they've finally made it. This past Saturday, they came from a few days in Seoul to meet me in Sokcho on the North Coast and we spent the night in Seoraksan National Park, exploring as much as we could of this beautiful natural place with its peaks and temples. From Sokcho, we happened to take the same bus as the director of a hagwon, private English academy, in Seoul (who later asked if I wanted to work for her!) and she helped us find a big cheap room in a nice motel in the park.

The next day was less successful because of the endless bus rides, the 2012 Danoje Festival lacking the atmosphere we were looking for, and their heavy luggage, but we still managed to make it to Gyempo Lake and Beach in Gangneung. We made it back to Sabuk late but not-too-late and crashed.

This week, two of my WWOOF Korea buddies came to Sabuk for a night, making it four  people in my apartment, and we had a really nice group outing to a lovely restaurant in Gohan where the owner does wood carvings. Pretty intense stuff for a weeknight in this neck of the woods.

So for about a month now, the weekends have been fresh, interesting, tiring, occasionally frustrating, but overall really vibrant and eye-opening. And definitely too short. In mid-May, the weekend before Buddha's birthday, with my bike, I hopped a ridiculously early Saturday morning bus to Seoul to go to the first English tour of the War and Women's Human Rights Museum in Hongdae. It was a lovely day and the tour was sobering but hugely informative and a chance to meet great activists and new people. That was definitely the turning point in me finally beginning to appreciate the different opportunities available in Korea. 

Afterwards, I gave myself no chance to rest as usual as I wandered around Hongdae looking for a good jimjilbang to crash at - I found out much later there is one right on the main street, but this one in a hidden corner worked just fine.

And travelling magic happened that night too. I met up with Gangwon teachers for the Lotus Lantern Festival, but joining them was a Finnish girl visiting Korea for a month. After a random big dinner, the festival and nice outside drinks, which produced a lot of walking and some ho-hum stereotypical Korean-foreigner interactions, me and the traveller ended up back in Hongdae. We chanced upon the last show of a white-boy band at Strange Fruit, one of the tiny, cozy underground bars. So the night ended on a good note and I made a new friend.

The Sunday, as most Sundays in Seoul are for me, was a case of wandering and river cycling but I did manage to check out the beautifully decorated Bongeumsa Temple.

And it only gets better from there...

Food, Food Everywhere 

Which brings me back to...WWOOF Korea! While deciding on whether or not I would go to Chuncheon's Mime Festival for Buddha's birthday weekend, the decision was made for me by WWOOF Korea posting a call for a group volunteering trip.

That was the weekend that brought me one of the most frustrating but also some of the best and future-giving Korean moments. I arrived in warm, quiet Bucheon neighborhood in Seoul at midnight on a Friday and was so happy I chose to stay at the WWOOF Korea Guesthouse lived in by a Japanese staff member and his girlfriend - they've since moved out and I can't wait to see the changes to the house. I was able to reminisce on WWOOF Greece, learn about WWOOF Japan and how the Korean chapter is and always becoming much more open, welcoming and full of group volunteering opportunities.

I did a write-up about this, my first experience, and a brief description here.

To wrap up, we were in the famous Boseong green tea region of Jeollanam-do, the southwestern province and we were helping a small(er) organic tea farmer weed his fields in preparation for summer tea harvesting. Drinks, laughter, and me being completely lost for lack of Korean. And the still cheap Yeolpo green tea & sea water spa with our nakedness overlooking the beach was a fabulous last touch. If only someone hadn't made the executive decision to drive back to Seoul from Boseong Sunday evening instead of Monday. It would have saved me the headache of arriving in the city at 3 a.m. after a long day of work and a 7-hour drive ending in rain, and finding that I had nowhere to stay after all. I had the option of either waiting at the bus terminal for the 6 a.m. bus to Sabuk or choosing a jimjilbang in Seoul. Honestly, I had a really hard time in the jimjilbang, I didn't sleep at all that night and felt like the positive vibes I had experienced were somehow less real. Like I had done something wrong. 

Thankfully, all that went away the next day as I saw WWOOF people again. Snacks in the WWOOF garden and shared curry by the river on no sleep. And the next two weekends brought lovely Sunday visits to Hansol, the organic chicken farm in Namyangju, the rapidly growing biggest organic farming region in Asia. When I first met the farmer Mr. Kim and a bunch of other WWOOF members and supporters on a Seoul Saturday, it was "Yu-gi", June 2nd, which also means "organic" in Korean. We learned, to our great surprise and delight, that Seoul has an island with a huge public organic garden and compost toilets! If only every city, especially every city with a river, had something like this - urban living would improve so much. Here's the link to more photos. 

How hypocritical of me is it to work on a chicken farm as a vegetarian? Well, they hardly ever slaughter the chickens, except as a special feast like on my first trip there, and the eggs are fresh and delicious. And the middle-aged Korean farmer is a badass, well-travelled, good English-speaking, even radical-minded guy who has built up the place for nearly 30 years. He leads around a 1,000 families in the area in the quest to be even more organic and sustainable. And he founded Slow Food Korea , a short ride from the farm in the same area. I have yet to go there, but it's next on my list as I keep exploring. In two weeks, there will be a compost toilet painting party. I can't wait.

What is Activism? 

I ask myself this question nearly every day and nearly every day, the definition keeps changing - expanding, contracting, becoming fuzzier or clearer depending on the mood.

To be an activist, do you have to be always active? To wave signs? To shout? To smash bank windows? To chain yourself to trees? To occupy the college campus? To attend meetings? To bomb cars? To rescue animals from fur farms? To never drive? To tag public ads? To do street theater? To play in a folk punk band? To read or report for independent media? To ride a bike to work? To eat vegan? To get most of your food from dumpsters? To wash your clothes with soap and water? To wear certain kinds of clothes? To hitchhike instead of taking the bus or train? To garden in your backyard? To keep guns? To protest guns? To befriend people from many different backgrounds? To read political literature? To compost? To take cold showers? To reject religion? To volunteer at the infoshop? To organize shows at the social center? To talk a lot against all the -isms that could possibly come to mind?

Summer roses on a Seoul bike path

It can be those things and a whole lot more. Or it could be none of them. It could be just sitting quietly in nature with a good novel. It could be spending a lot of time with your family. It could be cooking dinner for your housemates. It could be being the best teacher you can be. It could be helping your neighborhood plant trees. It could be playing basketball with your students. It could be smiling at everyone you see on the street. Or only smiling when you truly feel it.

I'm thinking about this now in particular as I finally reach the point where I'm positively processing my time in Europe, all the people I met, all the things I learned. When I was first coming to Korea, my biggest apprehension was definitely how I would go about finding an activist community. I was evenly torn between that and finding quiet, natural places to spend my time. It turns out that I want both. My time with WWOOF here so far has been the most inspiring time and I can see it branching out in all kinds of amazing and more eye-opening directions. And because I feel happy when I do it, I can radiate positive energy to others. Unlike so many other things that I've taken part in, which were fun but often felt more like I should do this because if I don't I'm not living up to my values. 

Having visitors from the past, melting with the present and influencing the future is really exactly what I need at this time. 2012 is half gone, drama-free and I've lived to be a quarter of a century old now. I - and I hope everyone I know - am becoming more and more of the activist and person I want to be, day by day.

Monsoon beginning, Sabuk

Gonna Make This Garden Grow

Earlier this week, I felt a sudden urge to connect the dots between last year's travels and my current life. If I wait much longer, the urge will fade and then reappear too late for me to remember it enough. So I think I'm ready to tell those stories now. And to keep myself in the background. This may be my last post on Korea for a little while, so I will gather experiences in the meantime.

Winter has bid us goodbye, not to return for a good six months. It's hard to believe it. Soon it will be summer swelter. I'll be super glad not to live in heat-rising-from-the-pavement Seoul. At the Lille house in April last year, we painted this on our garden wall:

To me, this is as much about cultivating a healthy spirit as healthy soil. Despite many setbacks, I'm still working on this goal. I love Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie's 1981 version of "The Garden Song" and I like to play and sing it a lot during this time. Only this year, I haven't had the opportunity. I taught it to my French students, but haven't yet found a way to incorporate it into a lesson this year. It's somewhat ironic that I had a big beautiful garden in the middle of the city, but not in a rural mountain town.

Nevertheless, kale and mustard leaf seeds are sprouting on my balcony. Every time I pass fields with old Korean men and women digging in the soil, I want to jump off my bike, out of the bus, off the train to kick off my shoes and join them. But I also know that many of them have been working the land all their lives and their backs are permanently stooped because of it. As mentioned before, Gangwon-do may be known as the province of backwards farmers, but they're not actually producing much. This land is not food friendly and needs lots of work. So I gathered together all the possible options for WWOOFing in this and other parts of Korea. I've decided that I will devote as much of my summer vacation to it as possible, which should be at least 2 weeks. A stay on Jeju island sounds like the most intriguing option, especially if I can bike down there to catch the ferry. However, since I'll be at the Jisan Valley Rock Festival for the last weekend in July, it may make more sense to find a farming community around the west or northwest before heading south for a while.

Last week I did Earth Day lessons. Some were more successful than others, because they were extra burnt out from studying for midterms this week. Besides learning "Big Yellow Taxi" - they got to laugh at Joni's voice - I had them make "My Earth" books, with some cool results. The challenge of teaching low-level high school English is finding activities that are both age and level appropriate. Artistic projects seem to always be a win, except when they're super tired. I get to see their different personalities come out through creative expression. Plus, I like seeing what the kids are aware of in terms of environmental problems. Using less detergent and shampoo and a focus on picking up trash surprised me a bit. I even got an anonymous text over the weekend - I did one lesson where some students had to guess my phone number - asking me the name of the "song about the environment." That made me smile.

I haven't gone on many decent bike rides in the past two weeks, unfortunately. Last weekend, it rained like crazy so a BBQ was cancelled but since I had the bus ticket, I still decided to head to Chuncheon, Gangwon's province capital. An hour by train to Seoul, this is a decent-sized but not-too-crazy "lake" city, with tons of bike paths. I itch to go back there on two wheels. Besides walking down to the lake, the best part was staying at the big 찜질방- the infamous elaborate Korean sauna where we all get naked together. But separately. It was a spontaneous decision after walking too long in the rain and it was funny to be the only foreigner, getting stared down. Ha ha. I went in the early evening and the wake-up call is around 8 a.m. so the next time I will go to some town and spend the day there. I wanted to stay for hours in those heated baths, even surrounded by chatting naked Korean women of all ages, sizes and backgrounds. And curling up on a mat in PJs. Most awkward moment was waking up next to a random middle-aged Korean guy at 3 a.m., probably drunk. Stealthily creeped downstairs and found myself a nice replacement mat. I had dreams about farming in New Zealand and awoke to a nice program about the Caribbean. 

We had even nicer weather this past weekend and I ended up at a famous festival in Yeongwol with my bike which quickly turned into a drive and lovely steep walk up to Hwanseong Cave, clear the other direction near the Samcheok coast. This is the biggest limestone cave in Korea, but we enjoyed the journey there and the surroundings most of all. For the Koreans I've seen, enjoying the outdoors is no casual matter - you gotta dress the part, bright pants and jackets, visors and hiking poles, even on a hot day. And you can get cheap, delicious and relatively healthy food and cold beers wherever you go.

Major bonus points for that. The day ended with a night on the town in Yeongwol, where I had my fill of late-night drunken conversations with Western guys, surrounded by partying Korean college kids. I always like to argue with guys, especially when they get to talking about how it's "natural" to dominate women, but it's also interesting to be in on those talks.

This week, midterms mean I have virtually no classes but still have to come to work. Time to brush up on Korean, play basketball on the courts, and...not go to Seoul for May Day. :(

A friend of mine expresses herself through short comics instead of long-winded posts. I wish I had a talent like that. Mostly, things are going well, but as an INFP personality, there is a world on the surface and then there is a whole 'nother world below the surface. That internal world tends to take over a lot and it is there that I'll find nagging discontent and a need to go beyond just the way things are. This week, I also began to have the old spring freakout. You know what I'm talking about. Restlessness. Less sleep. Desire to jump up and down and all around...and frolic through fields...and get touchy with beautiful people.











I came to Korea for more teaching experience, saving money, getting away from city life and experiencing a new culture. While it's certainly meeting all of those expectations, I'm not sure it's what I actually want, as opposed to telling myself it's what I want. My happiest moments have come from staying in a big house with several people and a big garden, riding my bike all the time, cooking, eating and sharing tons of vegan/vegetarian food, having a decent job, lots of places to explore, live music and community events. Instead of moving towards this ideal lifestyle, it seems I keep purposely moving away from it. For what exactly? Financial security? A constant need for changing location? Nevertheless, I'm sticking it out and seeing what it has in store. It may, in the end, prove to be the best adventure yet.

Too Far From Home

Another view of Sabuk, post spring rain

Echoing my sentiments as usual, this is the title of a new book I picked up this past weekend at What the Book? in Itaewon, the mostly foreigner district in central Seoul. It was the second and last real purchase I made over the two days. As last time, I failed to shop as much as I had planned because I was too busy with things like this:

Yeouido Island Bike Path, Seoul

Suzie Q Bar, Hongdae, Seoul

I finished The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Certainly not a bad reread overall and lots of existential food for thought, but I gotta say: it's really all about sex. Yeah, so Tomas is this awesome persecuted doctor who is relegated to window-washing after he publishes an anti-Communist editorial. And he lives many years with Tereza and he just can't leave her and blah blah blah. But he's constantly screwing other women. Leave it to a male author to have your whole plot, dark European politics and all, revolve around a bunch of graphic erotic encounters. Not that that's a bad thing - just not the most fascinating piece I've ever read. Still, I appreciated the reflections on the pettiness of politics, the inane pity received by Czech refugees and the delicacy of intimate relationships.

Must keep reading. After finding a surprise traditional Korean restaurant in an Itaewon alley, I realized I might miss the 4 p.m. train back to Gangwon. Still, I was there so I hurriedly perused the shelves and picked out Too Far From Home, a Paul Bowles collection of stories, novel excerpts, poems, letters and travel essays. Bowles - always heard of the guy but never read him. What is he famous for? Oh, yes. In the 50s-70s, he made a destination out of Tangier, the northernmost Moroccan city. Of course, this makes me reminisce on last year's 10-day trip to Morocco . Beyond the introductions, the first thing I read was the novella that gives the book its title. After a messy divorce, a New York woman stays with her brother in an unknown Niger Valley town and she can't break free from the "too far from home" feeling. Lessons on race relations, ugly tourism and "forgiving everyone" ensue.

Grape Garden House, where I got some soil

Too far from home. Thing is, if you get the drift of this blog, I have no idea where "home" is. Can never answer the question when asked. So, in a sense, I am always too far from this elusive place, right? And I am always straining to find it, wherever I go. Actually, more so than the quest for meaning, my identity must rest on finding a place I can call home.

This is my third book in a row written by a renowned 20th century fiction writer. Murakami, Kundera and Bowles come from vastly different cultures and perspectives but there is, of course, one thing that binds them together: they are men. I actually appreciate all three of them including strong and sympathetic female characters in their work.Yet if you placed prolific womyn authors in modern Japan, or revolutionary Prague, or beautiful Morocco, I'd bet you'd get vastly different stories. If Murakami's women had the main voice, they might describe what it feels like to live in violation. If Kundera's Tereza could talk, she might feel more anger and despair over sexual harassment at work and pervasive cheating by her husband. In Too Far From Home, Bowles actually takes on Anita's character, and I wonder how the great Joyce Carol Oates - who wrote the introduction - would play that role instead.

I guess what I'm thinking is, I want to hear more female voices in fiction. Particularly travel fiction. I want to hear what it's like to have the same spirit of freedom and adventure as male travellers, but not the freedom from verbal street harassment, sexual and violent attacks or a stricter dress code. In fact, I want to hear more about what it's like to live as a part of the societies where female travellers are privileged compared to the local ones. I want to hear about how being a female-assigned person in many parts of this world is simply a battle that none of us chose but how they keep on fighting for their lives. Despite the fucked-up anti-woman legislation currently making its rounds in the States, it doesn't compare to us living as second-class citizens in so many other places, particularly Asia and Africa. So, basically, I should be less lazy and actively seek out these stories. Reading Lolita in Tehran comes to mind.

Hapjeong Station, Hongdae - I loved loading up on gear here!

Rant temporarily over. Springtime is upon us, finally, and the second Seoul weekend was an intense precursor to Sabuk's first truly warm days of the year. I was easily able to get my bike on the train Saturday morning and a daytime train ride was nicer, complete with cute Korean kids in front of me. The challenge began as soon as I got off the train. As usual, I rarely make good advance plans for solo bike trips and all I had done was take pictures of the route I found on BBBike (an awesome resource, regardless). That's right - I did not have a good printed map of Seoul. All I knew was my start point, Changyangni train station in northeast Seoul and my end point - Grape Garden House in Hongdae, southwest Seoul. And so I set off on a bit of a wild ride through the crowded streets of Seoul, on a hot and sunny afternoon. It was mostly enjoyable and I had company on two wheels, though I wouldn't choose to do it that way a second time. The parts of the city I saw were diverse and interesting, but maybe not the most attractive.

It took me way too long to get to the hostel, but once I got there I quickly made plans to ride back out, down to the Han River bike path at dusk. Make no mistake, this is prime city cycling territory - a 68-kilometer loop around the river. Most of the Seoul cyclists seem to cluster here and it's not hard to see why. I crossed the footpath at the Sogang Bridge in Mapo-gu, Hongdae area and finally had a beautiful relaxed ride. So incredibly happy to have a good pair of wheels beneath me. In general, I would say that Seoul reminds me of any big city anywhere, especially from far-away. But that's OK, because they still work hard to make it a liveable, breathable and enjoyable place.

For dinner, I managed to make the mistake of ordering the spiciest thing I've had so far in Korea,     짬뽕. Usually, I can handle it, but sometimes you just gotta laugh it off when you get something that's too much. Afterwards, I managed to get a bit lost in the Hongdae whirlwind but finally met my Houston friend's cousin at the station. I stayed out until nearly 5, in a mix of Hongdae bar hopping, taxi ride to and from a Gangnam charity masquerade party, late-night 비빔밥 and learning about the particular lives of seasoned Seoul hagwon teachers and those who have moved on to other places. For a while there, I really couldn't believe I was going back to the little mountain village with no cafe culture, no live music, no real opportunities for activism. I did "plant seeds" for a joint weekend WWOOFing adventure, though, so that will be something.

But Seoul will always be there. Sunday was beautiful as ever and I headed across the Sogang bridge proper to Yeouido for the Cherry Blossom Festival. These ubiquitous Korean & Japanese trees have yet to sprout in Sabuk, but I imagine it will be actually nicer to enjoy them without the massive crowds. I also enjoyed the path here and rode east to and across the Wonhyo bridge to get back to the city streets. I fully planned to take my bike on the subway to catch the train from Changyangni, but after following the road signs to Itaewon, chowing down, relaxing and buying a book, I realized it just wasn't possible. 

After a brief panic, coupled with the nearly summer heat, I got myself hydrated and back on the road - who knows where? The river seemed like the best option again, finally and I took a long, luxurious, fast and free golden hour ride on the bike path to the Hangyang University station, further east. I fully expected to arrive at the Eastern bus terminal in no time after this, but it turns out I had it wrong. Thankfully, the road signs pointed me to DongSeoul terminal. I passed through a nicer, more small-shoppy part of the city lined with colored latterns - in reality, I was heading back west towards the center. And so it is that, after another very full and tiring day of cycling, I was on a 7:30 bus to the Gohan terminal. Getting off in the nighttime, I felt that the bike was an extension of me, so smoothly and easily did I roll back to my house. A bit hazy and delirious. 

And this work week was hazy. Weeks pass so quickly, I can hardly believe it's almost May. I'm really missing May Day involvement and I hope to go back to Seoul for a weekend parade, if possible. This is the really important year, with a call for a global general strike, but it's on Tuesday! No way I can skip work to go to Seoul that day. And anyway, I don't know anyone directly involved there. Again, I feel split in two between the beauty and peace of my surroundings and everything I could be doing in the city. It will never go away and acceptance is part of the battle. A battle for positive change. 

My French friend who just got back from travelling South America for months messaged me today and it sure as hell made my day. Just knowing that we're still young, still staying on the road and still trying to live our lives to the fullest fills me with the utmost hope. I will never actually be "stuck" anywhere, unless I want to be, and real family and friends will always be there even if it takes 10 years to reunite. 

And yes, I still like teaching my kids. I'm liking it more and more. 

Han River path view, dusk

On the Sogang Bridge

Seoul from the Sogang Bridge

Springtime Lessons

"What if it's broken?" Korean English at Family Mart

Even on a hilltop in the middle of nowhere, you still gotta work out.

After a winter revival in the first week in April, we suddenly had a lovely warm weekend and I obviously took my new two-wheeled friend out for several spins. Korean roads are pretty well kept, even in these rural parts, and long-distance trains and buses comfortably take them on board.

Samcheok

The freedom I feel on a bicycle, especially a quality one that doesn't hurt to ride, is just about unbeatable. Paved open mountain roads around my town. Coastal roads and the beach. On Sunday night, an insane solo 20 kilometer night ride from Taebaek, the smallest city in Korea. Only in motion do I feel truly alive. (But I wouldn't do the last one again. The 2.5 km tunnel near Gohan is deafening and nearly suffocating.)

Despite my good distance endurance for cycling, Taekwando and the weight training that comes with it are beginning to seriously kick my ass. Though an active person, I've never put a high priority on physical fitness and with mirrors all around, I suddenly feel more self-conscious than ever about my body. Realizing my own weaknesses only makes me push harder. A weekly regimen of stretching, yoga, Taekwando, weights and cycling comes on top of teaching, writing, cooking, reflecting. Good for mind and soul as well.

Samcheok

And What About the Language?

Really buckling down and learning Korean would definitely help to become more connected with my new home. Certainly, when I watch the Talk to me in Korean early videos now, I feel like I've gone from zero to basic understanding in a rather short amount of time. It's a well-known fact that most native English teachers, even those who stay here several years, don't go beyond the bare bones of reading Hangeul and basic phrases to greet, order at restaurants, etc. And then there's those who go above and beyond what could be expected in just a year or two. I'm trying my best to take it one step at a time and not feel guilty that my preferred method - absorbing language through listening - is not really "studying." After all, the Asian continent, cultures and language families are a whole new world to me, even as a polyglot. And speaking a language is not the same as doing well in sports or something - it's a skill only measured by how well you can communicate.

Samcheok

"You Need to Give Them Motivation To Learn English"
After I took the initiative to ask why students weren't participating much in my conversation classes, my coteachers spoke with them and found out why. Yes, I understand the motivation thing. I'm beginning to understand that Korean students are bludgeoned by tests, tests, tests, grades, grades, grades, study, study, study all the time. So they're too tired to be self-motivated for just about anything except pop music, computer games, looks. That's not fair and a huge generalization, of course, but generalizations can be somewhat true. Anyway, they are super-competitive with each other, so speaking up in class and making a mistake means getting laughed at which is a big no-no. So I shouldn't correct their mistakes, I should just let their English level stay low - as long as they can half-communicate with me, no problem. No, that's not the right attitude, I know. I'm nowhere near the first or last EFL teacher in Korean to come face-to-face with the basic problem of teaching English in a country with an insane education system that is probably failing its kids. My job is to take it seriously by not taking it seriously. Working to make class fun. Smiling and laughing with my students even when no one feels like smiling or laughing. Not caring if they talk in Korean 75% of the time, as long as they learn something.

Identity Update

If I drink less and talk less, maybe I won't get into inane political or intellectual conversations at the wrong time and the wrong place. Maybe I won't lose friendships before they even got off the ground. Every time I socialize, I try to tell myself to work harder to make up for the mistakes I made last time. As though people are keeping a running tally of the stupid things I've said, my awkwardness, my inability to show myself in the best light. Every time I am accidentally late, or don't answer my phone, or go on too long about a serious topic, I feel that I am chipping away at something. I'm no longer the fun, positive person I'd like to be all the time. I'm that weird, moody, unrelate-able person.

So, no positive updates on changing identity as of yet. Though I have had some beautiful moments over the past few weeks. The highs and the lows could be drawn as close-together steep hills. The highs are usually tied to nature or one-on-one interactions. They lows are usually tied to a night of drinking, coupled with rambling, followed by moodiness and grogginess the next morning. But if I stop drinking, I stop going out. Dilemma.

Land Musings

In Korea, especially Gangwon province, gardening is all the rage. I don't mean young cool people into sustainability and all that jazz. The soil is so rocky in these parts and fertile land so hard to come by that people will turn just about ANY piece of land into a garden. Just in the small niche comprising our apartment complex, snack shops and the middle and high school, there are random veggie beds that are just beginning to sprout. The principal's house has a rather large section and it turns out that, for me, garden patch accessibility is too good to be true. The weather was amazing and I decided to get my hands dirty in the soil. I later learned a Korean teacher has dibs on that plot and the farmer next to my apartment also doesn't have space available. I feel bad about accidentally digging up someone's precious land like that, but maybe it will lead to more communication about gardening in the future. So, I will be starting seeds on my balcony instead and looking for some land later.


And I'm still on the WWOOF mission. I'm trying to gather information about alternative farming communities in Korea and so far I've come across just a few resources, for example: here. There seems to be a Natural Farming movement/practice here, which correlates with Fukuoka, whom I learned about in Greece. Despite learning and absorbing a lot of information and some hands-on experience, I'm still a beginner gardener and feel sort of guilty about that. Why is it taking me so long to get the initiative to do something as simple as planting leafy greens on my balcony? I remember how nice it was to grow my red pepper alongside my roommates' plants in Boston summer '09, but after that, I can't say I've done too much in the way of independent gardening. I'm changing that now too. I intend to be a full-fledged grower within the next few years. Passion must become action.

So, finally, I have a whole lot of different interests that require commitment to fully take root. It's up to each person to decide which activities will take priority. And not to beat herself up about what doesn't get done. It's only one life, after all.

Alive on Two Wheels & What Is Identity Part II

Before

After

Ahem. Ah, yes. The bike has arrived, within 2 days. The picture of the box would be better if it was  from the school administration office, where it first arrived. If only I had had the money to ride a road beauty like this in the ladies' bike gang in Houston. Or, just in Houston for that matter. I look forward to many good times with this lovely light machine, hopefully it can live up to being the best bike I've ever had. It's definitely big, but I still feel more comfortable than ever on it.

Today, despite my own deep ambivalence towards new technologies that disconnect us from each other, I decided to try out a cell phone photo project in class. You wouldn't know this was a relatively low-income region from the fact that just about all of my high schoolers have smart phones, nicer than anything I've ever had. Conspicuous consumption, or something. Anyway, I'm instructing a few of my higher level classes to collect a few cell phone pictures to put into slideshows, for which they will write and present descriptions. I'm taking this teaching thing way too seriously, it seems. Trying to be worth my salt, I guess.

OK, so what does this have to do with identity? My thoughts always sound better in my head than on the page. I live in a constant state of internal stress and creation of drama where none exists. If I can boil it down, it's stress about wanting to be the right person, all the time, in every situation. Impossible, of course. And because I can't focus enough to get it right at least once, I almost never feel like the right person. So creating drama helps to give imaginary meaning to a life that seems "not right" on its own, just as it is. The quest for deeper meaning : maybe that is my identity. The amount of pressure I put on myself to make life meaningful is only rivaled by the pressure I put on others. No wonder people, even close ones, soon grow tired of me.

If someone were to treat me the same way, I would go insane. But in fact, I have come very close to that edge a number of times over the past year. I've lost count of the relationships or mere casual acquaintances I have sacrificed to my unbending, unreal quest. Each time it happens, I am acutely aware and it hurts. It's former roommates, lovers, family members, people I've come across on the road. I can even pinpoint, in retrospect, at which moments my behavior became an annoyance. The problem is, so far I've lacked the ability to stop my heavy searching in its tracks before it runs over everything like an unwieldy freight train.

So as I seem to repeat like a broken record, Korea is the chance to change this fundamental part of my identity. How can the quest for meaning be used to harness positive energy?

I will update as I look for the answers.

Money & Appearance

Jeongseon Station at sunset
A peaceful spot on the Jeongseon "Sky Walk"

Pictures stand in contrast to topic.

According to one of my Korean coteachers, a vegan and very alternative-minded woman, this is all that many people care about in modern Korea. Money and appearance. Even some of our high school students, she says, dream about nothing but making a killing one day. A fellow teacher in a nearby town says she notices a lot of mixed-race students at her elementary school. This is because, despite a lot of racism and xenophobia towards even other "darker" Asians, a growing number of Korean men look for wives in Southeast Asia. Though complicated, the trend stems partially from the fact that many Korean women wouldn't be caught dead marrying a poor man, especially poor farmers in our supposedly redneck Gangwon province, so some men have little choice.

Money and appearance. Two values generally associated with Western capitalist culture. When it comes to money, South Korea has literally catapulted from near-poverty to great wealth and rapid innovation within the last 30 years. The social changes have been just as rapid and hard to grasp. Co-teach agreed with my observation that the shift to extreme materialism is fast and frightening. In many ways, this country is surpassing the U.S. and other highly developed places in modern advances. Yet, at the social level, the general rules seem to be stuck in something akin to conservative 1950s America - or rather, traditional Korea. Understandably, even younger-generation Koreans haven't quite figured out how, why, or if to make the transition to a modern society, whatever that even means. It seems that "progress" without the nuanced cultural filter of the West amounts to a pure obsession with looks and possessions.

Regarding appearance, this is one of the few countries where employers seem to care more about how you look in your resume photo - a non-existent requirement in the U.S. - than what your references say about you. If they're near a mirror, Korean females and males alike will have a thorough touch-up. Despite more lax rules for foreigners, it does make you feel self-conscious sometimes. I shouldn't care at all, because the people I get along with most - like the alternative coteacher - care about my character more than anything. Seriously, though, I thought that the U.S. was the height of unhealthy beauty standards. But in South Korea, plastic surgery is common, acceptable and encouraged, even among teens. One of my high school students got the "double eyelid" procedure as a gift over winter break. An interesting discussion of plastic surgery and body image in Korea, from another foreign teacher's perspective, can be found here. I could go on and on about similar reflections, but since I'm not a part of this culture, I only know things from second-hand sources, reading and observing. Reading too many K-blogs during my free time at school, that's for sure.

 In other news...

... it's the 3rd day of April and this is the heaviest snowstorm I've seen since I've come to Korea.  Hoping against hope that this is Mother Nature's last winter scream before ascending into lush green beauty. I did throw a snowball at some kids, though, so it can be good for something.

I'm coming down with something and it's put a strain on my mood as well. To cure the persisting - though not delibitating - winter and "homesick" blues, I've really taken to Taekwondo, online yoga and I just ordered an awesome-looking new bike from online shopping paradise GMarket.

Today in class, I had a particularly funny moment. Since coteacher helped propel me into the Korean 21st century with an inexpensive new smart phone, I decided to plan my lessons around cell phones this week. So I was working on a "scramble" where the students had to listen to eight lines of dialogue, each assigned with a digit from my phone number. The goal was to see who would be the first person to call me, but instead of a student, the first call I got was a telemarketer! I didn't realize this until it became awkwardly apparent that it wasn't one of the students.  (Seriously, Korea, what's up with the mass marketing through texts, calls, Cool Messenger (school IM) pop-ups and everything.)

Solitude, the 11th Commandment

More coal mining history, Sabuk Station

This weekend sort of came and went, without much interaction. I was feeling especially sick and tired, but also restless so despite the annoying wind, I took a solo trek out to Jeongseon. Originally meaning to meet up with a teacher and check out the bike shop, I ended up climbing a part of the Sky Walk, a mini hike up a part of Mt. Gariwang. I was seeking peace and there weren't that many hikers on my trail, but on the train ride back, there was a whole post-hiking party partying it away. Koreans take their outdoor sports seriously, dressing to the nines and soju-ing it up for the occasion. When I get around to doing a real hike in nicer weather, I'll have to document.

Almost the same view from my balcony window, within 2 days.