Adoption is a popular theme in Korean movies and dramas – it shows up all the time.

This year (last season) the big draw was the movie Ski jump,  (or Take Off ) which was about a Korean American adoptee who competes in the Olympics ski jump competition under the Korean flag.

Having missed it, I did get to enjoy several adoptees talk about its accuracy in portrayal of the returning/searching adoptee’s experience.  They said it managed to show what a tight spot the adoptee is in, trying to balance being sensitive to their adopting families and their first families.  They thought it was better than the typical Korean melodramatic portrayal of adoption, but it painted adoption from a distinctly Korean lens to comic effect (from an American’s point of view)  such as one dialog where the lead character calls his American parents and instead of asking, “How are you?”  He asks, “Have you eaten?” in English…

This year there’s another Adoption movie, Rabbit and Lizard / Maybe, which focuses on a Korean American adoptee who returns to Korea to search for her birthmom and falls in love with a cab driver dying of heart disease.  (of course, he’s dying)  No reviews yet from the adoptee community whether or not it portrays her anguish and culture shock in a realistic manner or not…I’ll bet language isn’t an issue…

I guess the main criticism of the many many films with adoption in the story is that adoptees come back from their foreign lands a troubled mess, there is little account of their true struggles here in Korea dealing with how Koreans receive them.  Most of the adoptees in the films are domestic adoptions, and they are portrayed as pitiful or wildly successful and cold hearted.  As a side product I may assemble links to these movies and dramas, but I’ve no time myself to watch them all.

Waking up early the other day I caught one on t.v.  An adoptee from America and this woman having an affair with a married man start to have a friendship.  Was it before or after he carried her on his back?  Of course his broken self attracts her.  Of course they have zero problem communicating, and of course his Korean is perfect.  Some pretty touching (and melodramatic) scenes of him finding his mother’s mausoleum and then turning to her for, well, you know.

Interestingly, the formulaic elements that seem to be in most romantic Korean movies are all there in every Korean movie with adoptees:  the guy carries the girl on his back.  (chivalry)  someone dies.(tears)  there is always a love triangle. (tension)  The formula works, but I wish they would allow a little reality to insert itself now and then.

That’s another reason why I’m so looking forward to A Brand New Life thursday.  Finally, a dramatization about adoption based on reality.  I only wish it would stay in Korea longer so more people could watch it.

 

Unfinished post – supposed to be about fall fashion, which I never finished

I’m loving the weather right now:  it’s clear and sunny during the day, and crisp and cool at night – almost cold.  I haven’t turned the heat on yet, as I’m enjoying being slightly cold, and spend my evenings sitting up in bed with the blanket half over me.

Went to purchase warm clothes this weekend, but now I remember why I managed to make it through last winter with the insubstantial items I have.   I remembered this morning when I walked into the over-heated teacher’s office and instantly had to peel off my jacket.   It’s going to be a sauna this winter, and now I’m realizing what I really need is some way to stay warm only for the walk to and from work.

I spent an outrageous amount on a thin black cardigan from, of all places, E-marte.  This after spending nearly the entire weekend carefully scouring each and every market stall at each of the four huge department stores in Dongdaemmon.  What I didn’t realize was that the clothing sold at E-marte was also sold in market style, so that it is possible to negotiate a lower price if you frown enough and look hesitant enough.  Although it appears to be like a real department store, each area (like misses or young professional, etc.) are really separately operated.  The sales people at these sections have stickers pre bar-coded with lower prices, and they will just put a new price over your existing price-tag for when you go through the check-out line.  I don’t think I’ve ever in my life spent so much on a utilitarian clothing item, but it was so basic to pulling together everything I have, and I have learned that there is such a huge selection and shopping is such a pain, that if you see something that works you should just get it right then.  It’s a one time only opportunity, basically.

The search for a basic coat was not so successful.  I’m longing for a Carhardt jacket, actually, or something that looks like it.  Something that will go over the extra fat gangster type hoodie I also spent way too much money on.  Plaid shirts seem to dominate the racks right now, and I was looking for one that I could belt and also look stylish, but the flannel here is thin and cheap, and they ruin the simple lines of these most American staples with the design touches they add.  I don’t need ‘C’ shaped slash pockets.  I don’t need pearl snaps.  I don’t need fold-up sleeves with button plackets to hold them up.  I don’t need extra pleats so it balloons at the bottom.  I don’t need a fake university emblem embroidered on it.  I don’t need a drawstring bottom, or an attached hood.  And why would I want a onesie shirt when I can have separates is beyond me.  Or a onesie hoodie that looks like it has a plaid shirt under it when I can have separates.  How I long for a simple thick wool Pendleton!

25 degrees F outside this morning.  Good thing I bought that gansta sooper thick hoodie, I think it was useful for all of three weeks!

School is closed today because we had over 50 swine flue cases in our school, and our school is late following the trend of school closures trying to shut down the epidemic here.

The epidemic, though, seems to be encouraged by Asian culture, even though paranoia about it has been building to near hysteria for many months now.  EVERY single night, swine flu is on the news.  Night after night after night.  To be honest, my response to this kind of overload is always to shut down:  I tuned it out so long ago I have no idea what it really is, what it really does, or what the current situation is.

There are anti-bacterial dispensers for the students to rub on their hands when they walk in the school.  There are extra signs about washing your hands thoroughly.  The surgical masks are more prevalent, but as a prophylactic measure they aren’t used consistently enough to do any good, as most of the time they are hanging unused from ears or scrunched below the chin so people can talk and eat, etc.  And yet – everyone is still sharing their side dishes and stealing food from each other’s lunch trays with used chopsticks.

So last week I went to the CDC to hear what the U.S. take on swine flu was about.  The CDC recommended more hand washing, staying home if you were coughing and had a fever, and to not gather in large groups.  The threat of death seemed pretty minimal, and the threat was more from complications due to other illnesses.  As a pandemic, it didn’t worry me very much.   I mean, it wasn’t like it was EBOLA or anything gruesome like that.

Last month, in one class I noticed a cup with about twelve toothbrushes in it.  I brought it to the attention of the home room teacher, telling her this was not a sanitary thing to do if they were worried about the spread of swine flu.  The teacher acted shocked and said she’d look into it.  A week later, I notice the cup is still there and I depart from my English lesson to point out that flu is spread through germs and germs are distributed in the air through drops of saliva and that saliva is on your toothbrushes and that a dozen toothbrushes touching means a dozen girls are exchanging the germs on their saliva.  Please, I implored, Please don’t put your toothbrushes together – you might as well be kissing a sick person – it’s unsanitary!  The only response I got was a giggle because sanitary, it turns out, is mostly used for feminine products.  Great.  A week later, I go to that classroom and the same cup is still full to bursting with a dozen toothbrushes, all touching.

I really wish the health professionals everywhere would revise their messages for Asian culture.  People here would change their habit without complaint.  But everyone in charge seems to have forgotten that swapping spit isn’t on the minds of anyone here and that contamination amongst friends is overlooked and welcomed.

Today I am home early, because I am fortunate to work for sensible people.  While the kids stay at home and sleep or play video games and enjoy their time off, most of the teachers in Korea have to go to work and sit there all day while they do nothing in an empty school.  But it’s a bonding experience and it means lunches out together, etc.  But at my school, this warming of seats is up to the discretion of your department chief, and most of ours are letting the teachers go home.  So we all have to come in and report, and then most of us can take off thereafter.

So that means I can catch up with all the back-logged writing I need to do! Procrastinate. Procrastinate. Procrastinate.

And that pesky letter to Kim Sook Ja.  I carry it around with me everywhere I go, so I’ll have it with me should I get a moment of inspiration.  But the moment never comes.  And I just carry it with me.  I guess a part of me likes it that way.  Unsent, it remains a possibility.  Sent and ignored, it means not breathing fully.  Sent and received could be crushing and anti-climactic.

But the swine flu is telling me I have no excuses anymore.

damn it.

Odds are nobody but my friends, family, and the occasional psycho English teacher type the former recruiter turned poison pen and posing as a psycho English teacher (?) and we mark him as spam so we don’t care, are reading my blog.  So I’m dying to give you a glimpse of how issues are (not) resolved at my particular school.  (which, I hope are unique to this unusual place I got assigned to)

Seems during the last mid-term exam, one of the secular teachers who really resents the heavy Christian overtones at our school took it upon themselves to cross out a Christianity reference in one of the tests.  The Vice Principal and the Pastor didn’t take very kindly to this, of course, and tried to punish the rebellious teacher.  Young-a, who seems to think she is Joan of Arc or something, takes up the cause

Her cause celeb prior to this was fighting to get the CCTV (closed circuit tv) removed from the school as she felt they were an invasion of privacy.  She kept asking my opinion about this police state we work in, and I kind of let her down by telling her there weren’t that many, and that they were valuable should somebody get assaulted or something.  And besides, who’s really spending all their time reviewing them?  They’re just for document, not spying.  And if you’re not doing anything wrong, then there’s nothing to worry about.  Now if they read your email, that might be another thing…Anyway, she was always taking this cause to the teacher’s union meetings and things.  She’s all about civil rights.  But just like with her attractions, all her passions go a bit far, in my opinion.

She has a meeting with the principal and it doesn’t go well.  Then, I hear about photos being taken of her, and her STEALING the V.P.’s camera, the rationale that he was violating her rights by photographing her.  So awhile back I wrote how I didn’t think two wrongs made a right.

Recently, I heard more of the story, which is she went to the V.P.’s HOME to confront him, and he took photos of her doing something.  They had some confrontation and he got so mad he hit her.  That’s when she stole his camera.  She went to one of the other teachers afterwards, and she was crying and bleeding.  So now there are three teachers involved in this mess:  the one who changed the test, the one who confronted the V.P., and the witness of the blood.

The following week there were meetings that didn’t go so well, the V.P., smiling, asking the witness to please convince Young-A to return the camera.  Then, the week after, there was a deafening roar and things being thrown coming from the V.P.’s office.  (I’m sooooo glad my desk got moved!)  The witness told me he was having headaches and insomnia over the trouble.  I told the witness  that Young-A should pick her battles more carefully.

The witness sided with the test-changing teacher, saying that the school had no right to force teachers to force religion on everyone.  I told him – but isn’t this a MISSIONARY school?  Isn’t that why the parents pay extra, so their children are raised with religious overtones?  Didn’t the teacher know he was working for a religious school when he signed up?  (well, they didn’t tell ME, but then again I can’t read Korean, so maybe it was just an AGREGIOUS oversight)  The witness agreed with my logic, but then spoke about seeing Young-A bleeding.

OK.  So I didn’t say anything about that, because in America teachers wouldn’t go to the V.P.’s private residence to argue with them.  And V.P.’s wouldn’t photograph teachers, and teacher’s wouldn’t steal their cameras, and V.P.’s wouldn’t thump them afterwards.

I told the witness that I was worried about him losing his job.  He said he was tenured and couldn’t lose his job, that none of them could lose their jobs.

So, they’re all stuck with each other.  They’re all constantly agitated and paranoid and snarling, poised for the next dogfight…If it weren’t so damn annoying, it would be comical.

But since I’m leaving, it’s getting more comical every day.

Here’s a documentary about the Yongsan-4 tragedy in Seoul, where 5 protesters lost their lives fighting for their rights to receive just compensation for their forced evictions. (the above is just a screen shot – click on the photo to get to the streaming video page, as it would not embed into wordpress properly) Thanks, Joyce, for the link!

It’s kind of the Korean equivalent to Harlan County, U.S.A.  where citizens band together to fight exploitation and corruption at the hand of hired thugs – yet the outcome was not a positive one.

Protesting in Korea is serious business, and people die.  Despite being a democracy for over twenty years now, the monied elite who really control things remain the power behind government officials.

I was reading that even despite the overthrow of dictatorships and the introduction of free and direct elections, the president is immune from criminal prosecution while in office, for example.

Yongsan was also a neighborhood I was going to check out.  Well, my new neighborhood is good for another two years before this happens there.  But really, it is also part of the master plan to heavily develop the areas surrounding the Yongsan U.S. military base (a huge chunk of prime real estate) that is closing in 2012.  The sheer scale of mass redevelopment is mind-numbing.

I, of course, will leave because I’m a privileged foreigner who can fall back on her English.  But my new neighbors, what will become of them?  Hopefully, the bad press from what happened at Yongsan-sa-ga will at least cause the developers to provide some equitable compensation – but still, with all the demolition of low income housing, where will all these people go?

Oh my God, I just discovered Korean wild rice.

Black rice contains iron and minerals and preserves the germinal disks to provide more nutrients than white rice. Also, black rice has more calcium and vitamins (B1, B2, and niacin) than white rice and has a high content of protein, fat, vitamins B1/B2/E, minerals, phosphorus, iron, calcium, and amino acids.  It is particularly higher in lysine than white rice. Adding about 10-20% of black rice to white rice will enhance the taste and flavor of your rice.  Black rice is also used to make wine, rice punch, noodles, rice crackers, rice cakes, and Korean-style sushi.  Black rice extracts can be added to various foods as an enhancement.

It’s all black, short grain, and not grassy like American wild rice.  It’s actually a rice instead of a seed.  It’s got a natural malty sweetness to it and very nutty.  I know that Koreans add a handful of this when they want to add a nutty flavor, and it makes the rice turn a light purple color.

But I’m eating it at 100% wild rice right now, and it is sooooo yummy.  I downed some with dinner, and then I realized it would make a great dessert, so I threw a teaspoon of sugar (not even sure it needs it, as it’s naturally a little sweet) into what was left in the rice cooker, added a cup of milk, and voila – the yummiest warm desert ever.  Sooooooo much better than black bean pudding – nutty flavor, better texture.

Looking for a photo of it cooked, I noticed some other person making rice pudding out of it, but they ruined it with cinnamon and cardommon and raisins.   The author couldn’t tell if it tasted any different than white rice and only chose it for its color.  But in this case, the rice itself has so much nice flavor that it’s a shame to cover it up with strong spices.

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I’ve always been a big fan of pickled anything.  My dad used to make pickles that were similar in taste to Claussen refrigerator pickles with cucumbers from our garden.  The brine was the best part:  Very light and none of that burning alum flavor that most jarred dill pickles have.

I’m beginning to wonder if this affinity I have for pickled things is because of coming from Korea, as so many things are brined and fermented here.

One little treat that comes with sitting down at a Korean restaurant for dinner is mul kimchi. (water kimchi)  It’s basically  a small bowl of brine with a few pieces of white kimchi (cabbage and pears) floating in it.  This is mostly a winter appetizer.  Something about the cold brine on a cold day is supposed to be healthy for you, so you won’t find it served in summer for the most part.

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I’ve also learned to like acorn jelly.  It’s this kind of tasteless tan colored jelly that is pressed into blocks similar to tofu – but it’s not quite as firm.

It’s a great vehicle for a little of that awesome sesame oil/red pepper paste/sugar/hot green peppers/green onion/garlic/sesame seed sauce that goes on top.  I like tasteless things that are a vehicle for other flavors.

It’s also a total bitch to pick up with chopsticks.  For everyone – even if you’ve been using chopsticks all your life!

Other kinds of jelly’s (from wikipedia)

• Nokdumuk – made from mung beans
• Hwangpomuk – a yellow-colored jelly made from mung beans
• Memilmuk – made from buckwheat
• Konjac – a Japanese jelly