We all just stood there in shock for a moment. It was me and three of my coworkers and another new girl we’ve met in the neighbourhood recently. And then a Korean guy walking a few feet behind us. It was late so the streets were pretty deserted.  By this time we’d all had a few drinks. We’d been out for dinner earlier. I don’t know how compromised everybody was. I know one girl had been unable to finish her beer at the last location because she was already tipsy and I was definitely feeling a good buzz. I don’t know where everyone else was at and so maybe that’s part of what slowed our reaction. But eventually it became very clear that this was a man beating a woman in a car. While driving. They were stopped at a red light and that’s why we saw them.

Eventually I yelled “hey” really loud to try and get him to stop. Or at least feel some embarrassment that he was being watched. I don’t think he even heard me. Then the light changed and they drove off. And as they drove off he was holding her by hair on the back of her head.

Later, it came up in conversation again.  Just the shock we were feeling about it.  It’s kind of weird to go off and sit and have drinks in front of the 7/11 (which you can do here), and try to pretend that what happened didn’t just happen.  As it was brought up later, one of my coworkers mentioned that he couldn’t tell what was going in the car initially because his eyesight is so bad and he really is supposed to be wearing glasses all the time, but he doesn’t.  He had actually waved to the couple in the car because he thought they were laughing and couldn’t see what was happening.  Somehow that just devolved into a conversation about bad eyesight and not how piss poor our reaction was overall.  That’s the funny thing about these situations–how quickly you bury them.  There was an implicit group decision to not talk about it again after a point.

I felt some ridiculous, ridiculous pride in the fact that I had tried something.  At least I yelled when nobody else around me did anything.  Not the four other foreigners I was with, not the Korean man walking behind us looking vaguely shame faced on behalf of his fellow countryman.  The most that happened with all of us was me yelling “hey” and I took some comfort in that, but it’s ridiculous to take any comfort in that because what I did was completely ineffectual.  It was probably more than I would have done if I had actually been completely sober, to be honest.  It was was probably more than I would have done if I had been alone and not felt some sort strange maternal need around all these people younger than me to take charge of the situation in some way.  But it still wasn’t nearly enough.  It wasn’t close to enough.

I don’t know if I could have done more, but I immediately felt guilty. I immediately felt like I should thrown down my shit and run over to that intersection, run into the street and pulled her out of the car. I should have gone over and at least yelled at him enough that he felt something. I should have written down the license plate number, which I started to think about doing and then I realized that I couldn’t read the Korean characters fast enough to note them as the car drove away.

Unfortunately I can imagine what happened to that woman when they got home last night.  I’m sure it’s not the first time it’s happened.   But it’s sick that that five people stood there and it happened again.

1.  24-Hour Party People!

The people I’ve met in Seoul know how to party and I like tagging along.  One of my new found friends once confided in me that he didn’t party as hard as he does now, back in university.  I have a feeling it’s that way for a lot of foreigners.  As I’ve said in a past blog post, I have the impression that when people party away from home, it’s a lot more intense than when they party in their native land.  Coupled with the fact that the subway stops running in Seoul at midnight, you end up with a city full of party-goers practically “stranded” at the club if the cab fare makes it prohibitive to go home.  And frankly, who wants to go home anyway?  Not me.

For my part, I was busy about inviting people to church and trying not to think about the existence of sex throughout university.  I did not experience frosh week and I never once got drunk in my three initial undergrad years.  I didn’t make out with strange boys (or girls) and I didn’t have what would likely have been a short-lived, but wonderfully intense romance  with that music major who wrote a song for me.  No, instead I worked for Jesus.  Unfortunately Jesus doesn’t generally pay well–neither monetarily nor in life enjoyment–so I spent the latter part of my 20s and my early 30s making up for that in a lot of areas.  But I never got around to clubbing.  And so right now partying like it’s 1999 feels like a rite of passage that just has to happen.

On a more serious level, I’ve spent a lot of time trying my best not to get bitter about all the things I missed out on during my fundamentalist years, and it’s still a battle to focus on the here and now and the future, rather than the past.  Having this much fun now is almost like a way of cauterizing that wound–hopefully once and for all.  Bet you never thought you’d hear a therapeutic reason for getting shitfaced and dancing all night every weekend.  Having only figured out how fun Seoul could be in the last month and change, I’d like to get good and tired of the scene before I come home and settle down like an adult.  So for that reason, another year here would be a good thing.

2.  Go West…or East

Before I came to Korea I wasn’t particularly interested in traveling for the sake of traveling.  I’ve always been the kind of person who traveled to see people, rather than places, or to sleep on sunny beaches.  But now, as my contract comes to a close, I lament the fact that I didn’t work harder to do more traveling this past year.  Also, given how little vacation time I get on this job, it’s almost impossible to do a big trip, so it’s not likely I’ll be able to cram much into the next three and a half months.  All I’ve got planned at the moment is a brief vacation in the Philippines, but there’s still Japan and China and Vietnam and a number of other places nearby that are worth seeing.  And of course, ideally I’d visit them when I’m already based on this side of the world and the airfare isn’t eating up most of my budget.  Another year would make that all a lot more feasible.

3.  What Next?

At present I still do not have a solid game plan for what I would do with my life if I did return to Canada now.  The only vague thought I’ve had is that maybe I’d want to go back to school for journalism, but that’s it.  It would probably be a good idea to have a clearer picture of the future before I start taking stuff out of storage, and another year here would afford me an enjoyable pace at which to dream that up.

4.  The Money Honey

I have not succeeded in paying off much debt so far at all.  At first I was going gangbusters and then one day I wasn’t.  So it’s been minimum payments on the credit card for the most part and nothing more (though I have continued contributing to my RRSP).  I did spend a bit of money getting myself set up here but for a while I was definitely spending too much on groceries, cabs and who knows what else.  It would be nice to have another far less emotionally fraught year to get on top of this debt thing.

5.  Let’s Stay Physical

Without question it is easier for me to stay on top of my fitness here in Korea.  I have less access to foods that send me into a binge death spiral and thus far my schedule (2-10pm) has made it easy to incorporate exercise into my life.  Another year away from the familiar would help tremendously towards making these habits second nature rather than a continuing fight.

6.  Say “Cheese!”

This isn’t a big thing, but since I’ve been here I’ve been a lot more interested in taking great pictures and I think I’m getting better at it.  I’d like to do more of that.  Also Korea provides a lot of fantastic photo opps and I’d like to take advantage of those.

7.  A Story for the Ages

Now that I’m over all the shocks to the system of living in Korea, I feel like I’m ready to start writing something besides this blog.  A friend suggested joining a writing workshop here that I’ve attended a couple times and I’ve finally submitted a piece for critique.  It would be wonderful to stay here for another year and just soak up the stories of this place in a way that I haven’t felt able to thus far.  I’d hate to come home with so few penned stories of my time here.

8.  It’s Raining Men!

The cool thing about a relatively big expat community is that there is a huge variety of people.  In general, my experiences with dating in Toronto have been pretty piss poor.   My impression is that born and bred Canadian guys are deeply afraid of women or something.  In Seoul, that’s less of an issue because there’s such a variety of guys to deal with.  The Americans and Europeans seem much more willing to lay their cards on the table and seem to have a broader idea of what is beautiful as well.  I have never in my life been told so often by so many men that I’m beautiful.  It’s a refreshing change for me.  Granted I didn’t party in Toronto like I do here, and maybe all the forward guys are just waiting for me in the clubs and bars of Hog Town, but so far, in this department, Seoul is rocking me like a hurricane.

9.  Speak Me Some Korean

I have done a dismal job of learning Korean this year.  I can still only say a few things and I feel like a bit of a dweeb.  If I did stay a second year, I’d be really committed to learning the language this time.

Of course, there are downsides to staying too.  In short, they are:

-I could end up in a shitty job again

-I feel really far away from my friends

-the pollution here is awful

-health issues are a pain in the ass here and I’ve had plenty of them

To add to this, there are also good reasons to come home.  In short, they are:

-I can start getting on with the next stage of my life

-I have a guaranteed soft landing with friends and family in Toronto at the moment that might not be available in another year

-being back with friends and family, period

-it would be easy to pick back up with my beloved writing group and choir after just a year away

-it will probably be easier to meet someone looking for a long term relationship and it’ll be less complicated to get involved

-I won’t feel left behind by my friends

-everything is just less complicated

And then, of course, the cons of a 2012 homecoming:

-the potential for long term unemployment with no real idea of what I want to do and no real savings

-I might immediately fall off the fitness wagon

-I might get very depressed if things don’t take off right away

-the intense instability of moving yet again

Update:  I started writing this post a couple weeks ago.  As of now, my decision is to try to find a good job in Seoul and to stay for another year.  If I can’t find a job in Seoul at a good school with a good reputation, however, I will come home.  And to that end I do have to start thinking in terms of Plan B–what to do next if I do come home for good.  This decision makes the title of this post entirely wrong now, but I can assure, for a solid month or so, I was absolutely torn.

1.  Seoul Metropolitan Subway System  I come from Toronto where we have the strangely small subway system, the TTC.

The not very complex TTC

Coming from years of using the TTC, I was initially overwhelmed by the 328-stop, 16-line Leviathan that is the Seoul subway system (click to see larger image).

Honest, it's not as frightening as it looks

Once I got over being afraid of it and constantly ending up lost though, I fell in love.  Unlike the TTC  it’s incredibly affordable.  I don’t take transit daily, but a trip is usually no more than about 1000 won or under a $1.00, unlike the $3.00+ it was in Toronto when I left.  Also unlike the TTC, which is constantly running out of Metro Passes at high traffic locations, a T-Money card, the currency of the Seoul transit system, can be purchased at any 7/11 and can be reloaded there or at kiosks in any station.  Apart from your initial purchase of a T-Money card you will probably never have to deal with a human regarding fares again.  The same card takes me onto buses as well and I can use this card on transit in Seoul and in Incheon where I live.  Some cabs will even take a T-Money card.

The most convenient way to travel

When you’re riding the train, the stops are announced in Korean and English for the most part and often it’s displayed on a monitor in Korean, Chinese and English as well.  Apart from really old stations, all the signage is in all three languages.  For a country with only one official language the subway system is incredibly accommodating.

My favourite thing about the subway system however, is the quickest transfer points maps.

I like that the reason for the map is made clear

Traveling on line 6?

Want to transfer to line 1 at Seokgye station? Find 5-2 on the floor

Now you're standing at the best spot to make your transfer when you get there

These maps allow you to find the easiest spot for transferring to other lines.  While I had this down to a science in Toronto without any real indicators, that was entirely out of laziness since there are only four transfer points on the entire TTC.  Here it’s about ensuring that I don’t get lost when I’m unfamiliar with a station.  Most of the stations are relatively large so you can easily get turned around if you’re not paying attention.

Another thing I love about the subway here is that it’s almost always spotlessly clean.

Lastly, the subway app (that also applies to subway systems in other parts of Korea) is fantastic.  Jihachul (“subway” in Korean), is an excellent app that will show you how to get from A to B and how long it will take.  While it can be glitchy with giving you the best/fastest route sometimes, if you have no clue about how to get somewhere, it will get you there.

2.  Impeccably Dressed Young Korean Men  I won’t pretend that every man in Korea is well dressed because that’s just not the case.  However, when you go out on a Saturday night in Seoul or even in Incheon, most men under 35 are put together pretty damn well.  Men here wear suits like they came out of the womb in them.   You’ll never see a b-boy here with the crotch of his pants hanging between his knees.  Even when guys are wearing sweatpants and t-shirts, the clothes appear to have been tailored for them specifically.  I just love men’s fashion in Korea.

The beloved suit

The skinny jean wearer

The skinny jean, ironically terrible sweater and jacket combo

A well-played jeans, sneakers, cardi and jacket combo

I was really digging this guy's matching shoe and jacket situation

3.  Seoul/Itaewon  In general I love going to Seoul.  There are always a million things to do, people to meet and places to go.  I feel like it’s one long spectacle visiting different neighbourhoods in Seoul.  Yesterday I ventured into Myeong-dong for the first time and experienced the crush of shoppers taking advantage of every great store Korea has to offer all on one street.  It’s like being in a mall but outside.  A few weeks ago I checked out tony Gangnam for the first time.  Seoul is like a gift that keeps on giving.

And then, in Seoul, there is Itaewon.  I have to say one of my pet peeves is the attitude of foreigners who think they are “beyond” Itaewon.  They have somehow forgotten the days when they lived and died by Itaewon and the ability to go there and get a Subway sub or licorice at the Foreign Food Mart or authentic Greek or Indian food or a conversation in English and reasonably priced imported beer.  I applaud them for feeling settled enough in Korea to not feel dependent on Itaewon anymore, but there’s no reason to knock it.  It’s a lifeline for many foreigners years into their stay and an enormously fun place to hang out (I went to five clubs there in one night and all of them were more fun than any place I’ve gone to in Hongdae, the ostensible club district).  There is a life and vibrancy about the neighbourhood that I haven’t encountered anywhere else yet, which is probably why I can’t get enough of taking pictures in Itaewon.  Whether I stay here one year or ten, I pledge to never speak ill of Itaewon, sewage smell, Hooker Hill, crazy servicemen, warts and all.

4.  Samgyeopsal  If you live in Toronto you’ve seen Korean BBQ places crop up over the past five years.  I got sick of that stuff within about four meals.  Eventually my sister and I moved on to the big leagues and went to the Korean grocery store at Christie and Bloor and started buying our own marinated meats and grilling them at home.  That stuff was good, but pretty expensive.  Here in Korea I have found heaven in the ubiquitous samgyeopsal restaurants.  You order from a variety of meats and they bring it raw and you cook it yourself.  You get an array of condiments and sides with it.  It’s truly communal food and I’m not even sure you’ll be served if you enter a joint like this alone.  I could eat this stuff every night.  Seriously, every night.  I don’t know if they’re putting cocaine in it but it’s crazy good.  And crazy cheap.  As long as you don’t drink too much soju with it.  When I leave this country I will miss the hell out of authentic samgyeopsal.

Sooooo goooood

5.  Amazing Service  One of my favourite lunch spots is closing up shop today.  There are far too many restaurants near where I work and so places go out of business every month at least.  I will especially miss this spot because of the amazing service I got there.  I spent the last two months going there three times a week and ordering off menu.  The man would figure out a fair price and charge me.  He taught his staff to make those off menu items for me and they would take pains to offer them to me when I came in.  It’s not that every place in Korea has service like this, but when you find Koreans willing to offer good service, it’s out of this world good.

I had to buy new contact lenses recently and the man I dealt with spoke barely any English.  Despite this he laboured through multiple phone calls to me to deal with ordering details and generally made the experience a huge joy.   His product is more expensive than I’d prefer but it was so awesome to deal with him that I’ll just keep going there.

At another restaurant that I don’t even frequent that often, the owner writes down a new Korean word for me every time I come in so I can learn a bit.  She taught me how to hail a waitress or waiter when I’m ready to order.

The seamstress where I took my pants literally did not speak a word of English and my translation app was failing me big time.  She hemmed my pants while I waited in about five minutes to make my life easy rather than trying to work out with me when I should come back.

Those are just a few examples of the lengths to which people here will go to keep you happy as a customer.  It’s pretty damn awesome.

6.  Stationery Stores  I love stationery stores.  In fact I was introduced to a Korean stationery brand, Morning Glory, back in Toronto.  I fell in love right there.  I’ve always had a bit of an obsession with paper and notepads and pens and all things to do with writing, so I could hang out in that store for an hour with no problem.  In Korea I have found the land of stationery stores.  They are literally on every corner.  I have to avoid going into them now or I will spend my entire pay in them.  One of my students actually commented on the number of notebooks that I have because every time I come to class I seem to be carrying a new one.  I can’t get enough of these places.

6.  Same-Same  My absolute favourite hilarious Korean trend is that of couples dressing alike.  The picture below is a mild case.  I’ve seen people doing “same-same” right down to the footwear.  And don’t be fooled into thinking that men are forced into this.  I’m pretty sure that the men and women both enjoy this strange practice.  I am going to try to continue to get more pictures of this phenomenon.

The happy couple

7.  K-Pop  It’s not that I actually listen to a lot of Korean pop music.  It’s that I love how unapologetic it is in being pure, fun, pop music.   The producers of this stuff have never met a synthesizer they didn’t like and the videos are outrageously blingy.  Don’t get me wrong, there are songs that are semi-serious, but mostly it’s just damn fun and hard not to like on some level.  A couple songs that I can’t get enough of at present are Party Rock by Miryo and I Am the Best by 2NE1 (that’s 21).  While I realize that K-Pop is not for everyone, I defy you to get through ten K-Pop songs without tapping your foot.

8.  Homo Hill  Homo Hill is, unsurprisingly, located very close to Hooker Hill in Itaewon.  I still feel funny calling it Homo Hill but it is what it is, it’s what everyone calls it and it’s just plain awesome.  Smart straight men come to clubs on Homo Hill to pick up.  I went to four clubs on Homo Hill last weekend and had the most fun I’ve had in one evening since I got to Korea.  The first, Uniq, is partly owned by one of the best looking men I’ve seen in my life.  Miracle, a lesbian club, was the most low key of the places we visited and it was still packed.  The party at Soho was amazing.  Zion, located at the bottom of the hill, is actually not a gay club, but is great if you’re into reggae.  I hear Queen is a fun place and I intend to check it out.  I’m going to a drag show on the hill this coming weekend.  Need I say more?

9.  Floor Heating  Most homes in Korea are heated by way of water pipes in the floor.  They work beautifully in that when you get out of bed and put your feet on the floor on a cold winter morning, it’s always toasty.  Also it’s efficient in that heat rises and the whole apartment gets really warm and cozy.  Since the pipes are under the floors all over the apartment you never get heat trapped in one corner because of a badly placed radiator.  I didn’t think I’d ever have strong feelings about a form of heating, but I really like it a lot.

10.  Call Buttons  Last in my list (for now), call buttons.  Have you ever sat in a restaurant or bar and tried unsuccessfully for long minutes to get the attention of your waiter or waitress?  I have too and it sucks.  In many establishments here, you never need do that because on your table is a call button.  You press it and your wait staff come a-runnin’.  This means the wait staff don’t have to hover around your table asking you over and over, while your mouth is full, if you want anything else.  And you never have to figure out where in the hell your wait staff are hiding when you do need a glass of water to wash down that fiery meal you just ate.  I’ve been fascinated with call buttons since I got here and I try to take pictures of them wherever I go.  Click here for the growing album.

So that’s my list of what I like here.  Next week, the things that get under my skin.

My First Sick Day  I’ve avoided taking sick days for three reasons.  First, my Korean co-workers never take them.  My supervisor had a car accident, while pregnant and she didn’t take a full sick day.  She came in and worked a half day.  Granted, it was a fender bender, but still.  In North America you’d go home just to mellow out after that.  Not ’round these parts.

Secondly, it’s a pain in the ass for my co-workers.  There are no extra bodies to cover the work load when someone is off sick or on vacation.  We all just have more work to do.  This means either teaching more classes, having groups of kids combined into totally unmanageable super-size classes, or both.  Usually both.  I’ve hated doing it so I avoid putting my colleagues through it if I can help it.

Lastly, we’re supposed to bring a doctor’s note.  Besides the fact that when you’re feeling sick enough to stay home, the last thing you want to do is haul your ass out of bed to go to a doctor, the language barrier is also a potential issue.  Fortunately, for the most part, doctors here speak some English because many medical text books use English terminology.  Also it’s very competitive in med school so most of them try to stand out in other ways, like being impeccable English speakers.  However, before you get to a doctor you have to run the gauntlet that is dealing with the nursing and admin staff.

Till now all my doctor’s appointments here have been in Seoul at the International Clinic where everyone (admin staff included) speaks English. But that’s a 4-hour round trip trek (by transit) and not feasible on a sick day.  So last week I took myself to the doctor’s office on the fourth floor of the building where I work and made enough hand signals and grunts at the receptionist that she was able to figure out that I had a cold and I wanted to see a doctor.  Once that was figured out, she got me to the blood pressure machine and then was horrified when I almost took off my jacket in the waiting room to reveal…a tank top.

It’s a funny thing, Korean women will wear booty shorts and skirts that are scandalously short, but they will never show off their chests.  I don’t think of a tank top as showy, but I have a much bigger rack than the average Korean woman so it sort of immediately looks scandalous if I’m not dressed pretty conservatively.  In any case, it was amusing how many times the nurses sought to cover me up during my visit.  Eventually I managed to leave with my doctor’s note in hand.  Surprisingly, it was not as stressful as I had imagined it would be.

Club Hopping  I have never been one for clubbing.  I have long refused to contend with coat checks in the winter so that nixed clubbing from about October to May in Toronto.  And in the summer months I just sort of found other reasons not to go.  Not wanting to feel like a slab of meat on sale, being the main one.  But something about being in Korea has changed all that.  Maybe it’s that all my friends here are younger than I am, but I doubt it.  Some of them have told me that they refused to club at home too.  I think it’s just this thing all we expats get caught up in where we feel free and so we do stuff we just didn’t do at home.  Like taking up a martial art, visiting art galleries, cutting our hair in weird styles, wearing things we’d never wear at home, and, apparently, clubbing.

Not only have I been willing to club in the dead of winter (though admittedly the dead of winter hasn’t been that cold here), I have worn scandalously short skirts and dresses while doing so and I have let a strange man grind up against me and just kind of laughed it off rather than being mortified. In a total change of form I decided that for my 29th birthday (version 7.0) I wanted to go dancing.

Let me back up here.  I need to tell the next story, in part, because it will explain how I met my new friend Kim, but mostly because I think it’s an awesome story.  There are few places to get plus size clothing in Seoul and one of the most popular ones is called OK BT.  OK BT has a communal dressing room.  Actually, to call it a dressing room is to overstate matters tremendously.  It’s a stock room that doubles as a communal dressing room.  Necessarily, you bond pretty quickly with the other women in the dressing room if you speak the same language.  I’ve met a lot of really lovely women in that dressing room but often they live nowhere nearby.  Foreign women come from far and wide to shop there.  A couple weeks ago, however, I hit the jackpot in that I met a really cool girl and she lives in Seoul, which, while not super close, is close enough.  And we hit it off.  She said to me:  “Can we keep in touch, because you’re the first woman I’ve met in a long time who isn’t bitchy.  That’s rare here.” I love her to death.

Kim is a fellow Canadian who has taught in Korea for years.  She is older than me but is wonderfully young at heart.  And she’s really social which is great.  She turned out to be game to go dancing with me for my birthday, so she and I and another friend, Tracy, headed to Hongdae (the club district) this past weekend, in search of some places Kim had been to before.  As it turned out, it’s been a while since she went dancing in Hongdae so most of the places she’d been to were gone.  We ended up trying out a few places to find one that wasn’t a complete let down.  Hence, my first time club hopping.

One of our stops was a place called Ska 2 which featured stripper poles that you could dance on if you felt led.

The actual picture of desperation?

Tracy and I commented that we found it odd/horrifying.  Kim said “Am I weird, I don’t find it odd at all.”  She’s been in Korea for nine years.  Enough said.

At the beginning of the night we asked a couple foreign guys for directions to a club called Hodge Podge (which turned out to now be a bar rather than a club) and they told us they were heading to another club if we wanted to join them. The fella who told us this had an accent so we all thought he’d said a few different things:  fiat, Kia, fear, among others.  We opted to keep searching for Hodge Podge though.  Later that night we strolled past a place called Via and finally cottoned on that it was the same joint.  We checked it out and I liked it.   I only regret that we didn’t join them in the first place.  They were cute.

Sexual Misadventure  No I’m not pretending that I was a virgin before I got here, but when I arrived, sex just wasn’t initially a priority.  Also I have turned avoiding eye contact with strange men into an Olympic event, so it’s really hard for me to get picked up.  Not that men in Incheon are trying to pick me up anyway.  I have to go to Seoul for that.

Eventually, however, I decided a little sexual healing might be nice.  I will not get into the gory details, but I will tell you about the most hilarious road block to having sex here:  condoms, or rather the lack thereof.

While men who want to get down have been plentiful once I started looking, men who come equipped with their own birth control/sexual safety devices are strangely hard to find.  I have yet to see a penis that belongs to a Korean man, but rumor has it that foreign men here have a hard time fitting into Korean-made condoms.  In my attempts to break my celibacy streak, I have met two men with this very issue.  Unfortunately one of them did not bother to procure American-made condoms from the air force base where he works.  Epic stupidity.  The second managed to scrounge up some Japanese-made condoms at the convenience store, but let’s just say it was a tight fit.

Apparently, American-made condoms can be had at sex shops in the foreign district (Itaewon) and at some locations of major supermarkets like Home Plus and EMart, but no one I’ve met has bothered to make sure they had them on hand.  What I’ve found amusing and horrifying is that in both cases the dudes asked me if I had any better condoms on hand.  As if I’m the one with the penis in the room.

Joining Everything  After months of fighting the flow, I finally conceded that a reasonable social life is only to be had by being prepared to go to Seoul regularly.  And that’s not necessarily easy.  Even when I’m willing to do the 4-hour round trip commute, the subway system stops running around midnight and it’s about a $35-45 cab ride to get home from Seoul.  But it dawned on me that being in Seoul makes me happy in a way that hanging out in Incheon just never does.  In Incheon you can eat, get shitfaced and go to norebang.  That’s about it.  In Seoul you can do everything else.  So I started joining things.

I’ve been to a book club meeting and really enjoyed the group, even if I hated our first read (1Q84 by Haruki Murakami).  I bumped into one of the girls from the club when I was out for my birthday and we hugged like we’d been friends for years.  It was so neat.  It was incredibly refreshing to have an intellectually stimulating and challenging conversation with a table of people.  And the club is called Books and Booze–you can’t really go wrong there.

I also joined a writing collective but so far it seems like it’s defunct as the organizer is no longer able to organize.  I contacted him a couple times about taking over duties for the next six months but haven’t heard from him.  In the meantime some of us in the group are trying to connect and form smaller location-based groups so we’ll see if anything comes of that.  However, one great thing that has come of joining this group is that I also joined their facebook page where I saw an announcement for a regular open mic night in Seoul.  I went to it a couple weeks ago, read a short fiction piece and got a good reception.  I’ll be going again this Sunday.  While there, I also met a guy who might be able to network me into a good job for next year.  So, win.

As I’ve thrown down about a zillion dollars on cameras since I got here, I’ve also been looking to find a photography club where I could improve my skills.  So far, no luck, but there’s a dude who lives in my neighbourhood who’s agreed to go on some photography walks with me and teach me a thing or two.  Also a win.

Lastly I’ve joined a music appreciation group that just goes and sees live music together.  I’m going to a traditional Korean music concert on the 25th of this month that I think will be really cool.  I’m looking forward to meeting people in that group as well.

As if to repay me for taking this leap of faith, the universe has provided me with two people (Kim being one of them) who are cool with me crashing at their places here and there if I stay in Seoul.  So even more winning.

It’s taken longer than I would have liked but I feel like I’m finally starting to find “my people.”  And frankly, maybe I would have been less grateful for them if I’d found them any earlier.  Should I stay another year here, I feel like I’ll have a good network in Seoul already in place, which is fantastic.

This is not to say that everything is perfect right now.

Cutting My Losses  One thing that’s been a real first for me is to make a decision about cutting my losses a lot more quickly.  The last couple months have seen my job satisfaction take a serious dip.  This was never a dream job, but the shenanigans of management have really gone into overdrive since the beginning of December.

What makes the situation harder is that this is not isolated.  It’s not just one bad hagwon–it’s the hagwon system.  It’s a set-up that is systemically flawed by making parents customers with almost unlimited bargaining power.  Parents get mad if their kids don’t advance to the next level at the appropriate speed, even if advancing is the worst thing possible for their kid.  If they feel like you’re the reason their child is not advancing they just move their kid to another hagwon.  So the management is always at least as concerned with retaining the customer as they are with teaching the child–if not more so.

All that aside, it is simply not a given that your contract will be respected.  In addition, all kinds of shit gets thrown at you last minute with no regard for how it affects the teacher, and thus the students.

I have vacillated between trying even harder to make this work and just phoning it in.  It’s difficult though, in that, if I half-ass this, it’s not my inane managers who suffer, it’s the innocent kid in the middle who does.  I’ve felt enough discouragement about the issue to prompt me to enter a short  non-fiction piece in a contest about feeling like I can’t call myself a teacher at all.  And then today, after having a discussion with a friend about just not giving a shit, I had some of the most engaged and successful classes I’ve had in weeks.  Maybe because I didn’t give a shit?  It’s hard to say.  At this point I just try to take it one day at a time.

One thing I am clear on, however, is that I do not want to live in Incheon for another year and I do not want to work for a typical hagwon.  I’m now starting to pound the pavement in search of a hagwon with 1) low turnover (indicating happy foreigners) that is 2) in Seoul.  If I can’t find a hagwon that meets those two requirements, I won’t stay here another year. That may sound simple and reasonable to you.  That’s a huge change of head space for me.

The version of me from 2010 would have given this three more years of discomfort to play out.  Maybe more.  Until finally conceding that continued stability wasn’t worth being miserable.  The new me says “fuck that noise” and realizes that if it’s not making me happy it’s not really worth continuing to do long term.  I’m not saying there isn’t a time and a place for sticking it out.  This just isn’t that time or that place.

As I said, I feel like I’ve finally started to find my people and the things I enjoy about Korea, so I would like to be able to stay.  I’d like to pay down more debt and have more of a chance to travel.  But whether I leave here after a year or I stay for five, I will do it with no regrets.  To be thinking that way is an enormous first for me.

As I said, things are not perfect, but for now, it’s really cool to be having so many firsts.

Or “Saehae bok mani badeuseyo!”

Or loosely translated “Have a blessed New Year.”

However you choose to say it (or write it) I’ve never needed a four-day weekend so badly!  But rather than spend all of it sleeping, I decided to get off my duff and go and experience some of Korea (or at least Seoul).  I have noticed that when I get out and do things like this I enjoy my time here a lot more.  Going forward my plan is to go and check out something new every weekend.  So you should benefit from a lot more pictures (or at least more interesting blog posts)!

Lunar New Year was actually yesterday on Monday the 23rd, but I got in my sightseeing on Sunday.  My first stop was Deoksugung Palace because I wanted to see the changing of the guard.  No such luck as it was cancelled due to the weather.  It was only about -6C outside but I guess that’s too cold for it.  Apparently if I had come back on Monday the ceremony would have gone no matter what but with it taking 4 hours round trip for me to go to Seoul I decided I’ll just go back in the spring to see it.

After the palace, I headed over to Namsangol Hanok Village.  Here there are traditional houses that were transported to the site and you can watch or participate in traditional ceremonies and activities.  I had a great time there.

Lastly I headed to Namsan Tower to take in the view.  Unfortunately, by the time I headed over there it was pretty dark and a bit hazy and neither my camera nor my iPhone do very well on panoramas in low light like that.  Also I’m scared to death of heights so I don’t see myself going back to get better shots.  I don’t know why, but I didn’t factor in that I’d find riding up there in a cable car uncomfortable enough that I had to get this done in one try.  It hardly helps that a couple weeks ago I watched a documentary about a fighter jet ripping the cord of a cable car and all of its occupants plunging to their deaths.   So you’ll have to ask your *other* friends in Korea for good pictures from the tower.

Here’s a link to all the pictures I took.  Enjoy and Happy New Year!