So I woke up at 4 a.m. again, and decided to go grab a snack at the convenience store on the first floor.  I got some makoli, (fermented rice wine – costs about $1.50 – hey!  it’s payday and the first day of summer vacation!) some more fruit flavored popcorn (which cost the same as the wine!) and a sign marker so I can post-it note my apartment with Korean vocabulary.

On the way upstairs, I decided to check out the other two floors of businesses.  The only reason I did this was because a weighted free-standing restaurant sign of Korean dishes had blown over in the wind, and I had never seen any advertising for a restaurant in my building before and thought there were only offices.  So yeah, there are several law firms, the local office for the Ministry of Employment (called ” Job World”) and TWO restaurants!  One is a Korean restaurant, and the other one is a catfish restaurant.  Prices seen average (6,000 won) so I will have to check it out soon.

When I got upstairs I turned on the t.v., and it was on the Xports channel.  What?  Oh yeah, I had lingered on the sports channel the last time because there was a retrospective on Kim Yu-Na, Korea’s beautiful figure skater and current world champion.

ANYWAY, This baseball game is insane!  There’s This one white guy (a pretty huge white guy) on the Busan Lotte Giants team, (and it looks like one on the other team as well) and as he was running the bases it looked like he went out of his way to plow down the Daejon City Hanwha Eagle’s catcher.   At the next inning, the Eagle’s pitcher pegs the Giant’s batter seemingly on purpose and an argument ensues.  They don’t walk the pitcher.  (what?  does Korean baseball have different rules?)  Did they expell the pitcher instead?  (I missed what happened, as I was reading an email…)  The batter continues to swing and hits a solo homerun into the bleachers and the crowd goes wild.  Soon, there is a pile-up for the ball, which BREAKS OUT INTO A FIST-FIGHT.  It’s been nonstop excitement, this game.  I wonder if it’s always like this?

My kids used to be dumb-founded I could watch a movie, suggest it to them, then watch it again.

Fortunately, this ability to never get sick of the moving image has served me well this week, as I have watched, “The Princess Bride” about 8 times.   (some classes were cancelled for I.Q. testing)  My co-teacher, however, doesn’t have this ability, as she was falling asleep during her second viewing.

“The Princess Bride” is, btw, a perfect movie (in conjunction with English subtitles) to show to Freshman High School ESL students.  The pacing is perfect.  Just when the action gets too slow, they change scenes.  Just when you start to lose faith in the movie, they cut to Fred Savage protesting his skepticism.  The dialogue is spoken slowly, and the humor seems like an introduction to dry sophisticated humor for adolescents.   My Korean students got much of it, and it was absolutely amazing – I had OVER half of the students actually watching!  I know this doesn’t seem like something to crow about, but believe me, this movie was interesting to them.

OK.  Only two more showings to go…I can do this…

So today at lunch, I was asked about American cures for hangovers.  It appears the soup served at lunch was Hae Jang Kuk, a soup that is traditionally served for hangovers.  Apparently, there are restaurants that specialize in this, which are open extra early in the morning, for all the late-night imbibers who haven’t yet made their way home.

Here’s an article on the soup:

ZenKimChi’s Korean Food Journal entry on Dinosaur Soup

They said that beansprout soup, also, is a good soup for hangovers, and that both these remedies really work well.

Actually, this is one of my favorite, favorite soups here.  (everyone thinks I’m weird because I eat my soup towards the end of the meal, because I don’t believe in watering down my digestive process before it’s even begun – but here, soup should be super hot and eaten right away, when it’s about to burn your tongue off – it is often served still boiling)

There are also a lot of hangover drinks at the convenience stores.  These are SUPER expensive, considering most beverages cost 600 to 1,500 won.  I had the one in the can on the far right (cut off in the photo) and it was SUPER NASTY and smelled bad.  Thick, like Chai, but with a ginseng taste and sickly sweet.

I guess there’s a lot of pressure to get so wasted you can barely walk.   Your glass is supposedly never empty, and when it is filled, those at the table chant, “one shot” and you’re supposed to down it in one gulp.  But, I haven’t really experienced this here, as most of my colleagues have all put those days behind them, they don’t spend their money on that kind of thing, and there isn’t much reason or priority given to socializing after work, and being that I teach at a Christian school, it’s also frowned upon by the administration should word get out.  The business sector, where greasing palms and good times are all pivotal to business deals is another story.  Every afternoon when I walk home, the suits are well on their way to nirvana, and if I venture out a few hours later, they are holding each other up, well on their way to leaving splatter art on the sidewalks.

Pojagi is Korean patchwork, and it’s usually made of ramie and a perfect square, like below

These patchwork squares were used to wrap special things in bundles, by tying the four corners together, like this:

Koreans still wrap things like this – usually not in something as precious as pojagi, (which is more likely to be framed and hung on the wall) but in a large silk scarf.  It’s always a double take for me when I see a Korean boy in uniform, carrying a big silk-wrapped bundle down the hallway…

In fact, you see vestiges of traditional Korean carrying and wrapping a lot.  Adjummas are often carrying things on their heads.  Not heavy things, or pots, so they don’t need the cushion for their heads anymore, but carrying on their head nonetheless, or sometimes behind the back, like a baby.

I guess Pojagi is huge in Japan as a crafty thing to do.

It’s also quite the fiber art form now, and made into all kinds of really beautiful pieces.

The references on-line say the seams are all whip-stitched down, so perhaps they are flat-fell seams.  I need to look at one up close next time I see one.  Must try to make one, but I think I should wait until I get my bi-focal prescription filled, as I can’t even paint my own nails up close now.  (getting old is so fun!)  I wonder if it is done in an embroidery hoop?  There are classes, but I think I only need to answer the embroidery hoop question…

Continuing on with the fiber arts theme, this thing was used as an iron.  The fabric would be wrapped around that wooden pin, and then they would beat the cloth.  I don’t know how they didn’t just end up accidentally beating in permanent creases in the wrong places, but that’s what they did.  From what I’ve seen in the movies, they did it right left right left, etc., as if drumming.  Underneath that wooden pin is a stone, and that’s what they ironed over.  They ironed seams down flat with what looked like a spoon or spatula, the end heated in the brazier.

Yesterday we had a special dish for lunch, with one of the kitchen staff serving up large bowls of chicken soup.

Y explained that it was the third hot day and signified the beginning of the hot season, so to commemorate, we are served hot soup.   Now, it is also the season for dog soup and Young-a wants to take me to some next week.   I told her I didn’t know how I felt about it, especially after reading up on it on the internet, (not just reading wikipedia or anything, but going to Korean animal rights organization sites) and that I really didn’t want to eat an animal we keep as friends.  Of course, it IS kind of creepy if your best buddy ends up on someone’s dinner table.  Even though we know the dogs being cooked in soup aren’t typically anyone’s pets, there’s always that unknown possibility of dog kidnapping and trafficking that makes one uncomfortable.

Now, I don’t personally have any issues with eating dog as a meat if it’s meat for meat’s sake – because I think eating any meat is equally disturbing, and I do that.  I mean, pigs are really really intelligent and I eat pork.   I just think most people are willfully blind to how it is procured and gluttonous in how much they take.  By being so removed from its source, people forget that  a life was sacrificed.  I think we either should be vegetarians or not vegetarians, but there are a lot of hypocrites in between.  What I do have issues with is animal cruelty, and the rumors of bludgeoning for tenderness and the conditions I saw of pictures taken at the Moran market were truly horrific…

I guess my feeling is I feel TERRIBLE when I’ve lived for a year without meat (I was lacto ovo vegetarian for many many years)  and despite a pretty balanced diet and supplements, I never felt complete.  But one time I slipped and the hit of pure animal protein suddenly filled me with energy and I felt alive for the first time in years.   I think those canine teeth we have are there for a reason.  But the bulk of our teeth are for vegetables, and that’s where we should get the bulk of our food.  But how often do I truly need something like that?  Maybe about four times a year?  My thinking is YEAH.  So go ahead and eat meat.  But it shouldn’t be too often, and it shouldn’t be taken so for granted, and we should honor that animal and get down on our hands and knees and thank it for its life.

Y told me it was just Korean culture and looked for support from the other diners at the table.  No luck.  Nine Stones is a pesca vegetarian, and Seven Star said no, he is Korean and thinks it is barbaric.  Oh COME ON, she urged.  She continued to try to talk me into it, saying it was healthy for me.  Nah, I don’t like to eat my friends, I told her.  Then, she got a big smile on her face and told me about the Japanese guy who ate his girlfriend so she could be part of him…So that’s where it stands, I think she’ll pester me about it all summer, just like she’s always trying to get me to eat raw hot peppers, because she wants to see the reaction on my face…

Will I do it?  I don’t think it’s necessary.  I’ve  been told it’s like chicken, but not so boring.  That’s enough information for me, I’m not curious, and I don’t want to contribute to unusual cruelty.  But I also won’t condemn Koreans for the fact that they eat dog.  I’d rather they didn’t, but if they must, I wish they would do it  ethically and without cruelty:  until they can regulate it, I think it should be outlawed.  This war about live animals for food and its potential for cruelty is still being battled in California, where Chinatown continues to be criticized for its penchant for really fresh meat…In stranger news I heard PETA has offered a reward for the invention of a tasty synthetic meat…

One of the more interesting things I found, which I will try to find for you, was an article which included the larger social implications of being a seller of dog meat in Korean society.  This article kind of dovetails in with my recent thinking that Neo-Confuscianism is a lot like the Hindu caste system:  your position in society at birth will largely dictate your position throughout your life here, and unless you are some rare beauty, even marriage will be denied as a class stepping stone.  It seems the only way to rise above this fate is an exceptional intellect, heroism against enemies, and temporary  celebrity.    With the Neo-Confuscianism, class was strictly codified, and THE ONLY way to climb socially was through the civil service examination:  thus, the centuries old tradition of the lower classes obcessing over exam competition.  Today there is a culinary school in Seoul that gives classes on royal court food.  In contrast, there are the offal eateries in the traditional market.   I just wonder sometimes, if class doesn’t have something to do with taste and a culture’s food choices, and who we are to condemn what those at the bottom have been forced to eat in the past, to the point where it is now thought of fondly as part of their culture.   I mean, this is a place where “how are you doing?” literally means, “have you eaten?”  It was very, very rough here for a long time….As for me, I don’t plan to eat my companion pets, and I really don’t think this is a food source that is going to grow in popularity any time soon.  And now, with the huge popularity of dogs as house pets here, all it really takes is a photo like the one below, of obvious pets who’ve been captured for the dinner table, to get Koreans to think twice about this long held meat source.

Anyway, if my school is any indication, I think the majority of Koreans aren’t going to seek out this dish in the future, and the dog meat traders will have to find some other line of work.  Like many practices of the past, this too will probably fade away.

This weekend I was watching more late night old movies, and the fare this week was more rural than typical, and a little older.  Usually, they are like the French New Wave style or era, or they are a little less stylish but also urban.  Instead, this film was almost (crap, I can’t remember my art history term for this romanticizing the past, but Beidermeier era thinking comes to mind or even Hitler era paintings evoking simpler days with simple pleasures and nationalistic underpinnings)

ANYWAY, what was impressive to me was that because it probably was filmed in the country, in the early 60’s, and life and culture had still not changed much there, it was a really excellent snapshot into day to day life in Korea.  For example, all the scenes INSIDE the hanoaks, and even though the floor is heated, everyone’s breath is visible due to the frigid cold that penetrated the thin thin walls.  (the walls to many of these buildings are only about three inches thick!)  The many ways in which things were transported, the drudgery of beating the rice, but the too-happy-songs sung to make the work less tedious, the ironing of clothing with a heated spoon from a brazier in the middle of the room, which also lit pipes and oil lamps.

What really drove me bat shit was the mannerisms of the female main character.  She was coy, sheltered, selfish, and manipulative.  And she WHINED all the time and got her way.  And many of those unexplainable poses you see in Kpop?  Man, it was all there.  Nothing new under the sun, folks.  The gorgeous Korean girls with their childish (to many westerners) mannerisms actually has a long history.

Well, far be it for me to speak for all westerners, but the overkill of cutesy behavior can sometimes be nauseating.  An analogy would be if someone always raised their pinky finger when drinking tea – that would drive you crazy, right?  Or giggle after everything they said?  Or cover their mouth after everything they said and bat their eyes?  OK.  Maybe that’s just me – but when this started getting under my skin, my first reaction is to want to change it/them.  And now I’m trying to figure out how to LIVE WITH IT without going insane.

And the happy times were just goofy.  So the slapstick humor and clown stuff? It was all there before – it’s not some new horrifying reaction to western consumerism.  Fortunately, the girl FINALLY grew up, but it wasn’t until tragedy finally hit her on the head.

Which reminded me of one of our conversations in Andong.  I think Silly Steps was talking about the “joys” of living in a hanoak.  He said as children, they were always dirty.  I asked why did that have to be, since there was always a cauldron of heated water at the ready.  He said there was not enough hot water to fill a tub and that the oldest got to bathe first, which meant there was not enough left for the children most of the time. Just for fun, Y dared me to lift the lid to the water cauldron, and it was nearly impossible, as it was over two feet in diameter and was made of cast iron.  (turns out you have to just slide it over to one side or another, but even that is difficult to manage.  Women’s work was very, very tough…) The others agreed that’s how it was, and that the hanoaks were really really cold.  (Just like in the movie) you had to wear many layers of hanbok inside to stay warm.