Visions of Seoul II

Signs that the end is near:

During my work hours, I have begun to refer to myself - and request that my students follow suit - by an ever-lengthening series of esoteric pseudonyms, of increasing complexity.

At first, it started by requesting that my students refer to me as "J-dogg"; after which, it was followed by "the J-dizzle". Today, I called myself "Big Teacher J".

Extrapolating, by Friday, I will have assumed an entirely new alter ego.


Additionally, I have begun referring to myself in the third person. I.e. "You know the J-dogg don't play like that." "Yall now flying with the big J-dizzle, a/k/a Big Teacher J."


Edit (7:28 PM): I thought of another one this afternoon.

They can also call me "The J Train".

Edit (Friday, August 21): Plan succeeded admirably. Students have taken to calling me J-dogg. One student even wrote it in his essay.

he's a well respected man about town

How we get down in the K; every weekend, all weekend.


Gabe & Czarina came out to Ilsan for a late afternoon of walking around
and touring Lake Park.


Alex and I met up in Gangnam late one Saturday afternoon for dinner,
coffee, and a discussion lasting long into the night.


Unwilling to be and uninterested in eating alone, I invited Gabe, Michelle,
and Sungwon along for Korean Chinese food (as opposed to Chinese
Chinese food); and they, natives of Ilsan, wound up seeing the Lake Park
fountain show for the first time (my nth, for arbitrarily high integer n).


After the last day of their summer SAT courses, we
took sticker photos.

I am mad ulzzang in this joint


And today, with Jean and Pauline, after church, on our way to lunch at a
local chicken place, before heading out to gyeongbokgung for some
sightseeing and a museum visit.

In hindsight comparison, I realize that the spot at which we took today's
photograph is identical the the spot at which Alex and I, weeks before,
took ours.

2 more weeks of summer work. In 13 days, I'll be asleep in 北京...

Let the countdown to journeys commence

SAT essays...

From students' essays (reprinted without citation, in order to prevent the possibility of obtaining blame for reasons of being reprinted without permission):

"[Talking about the dangers of pollution]... people will get a skin cancer called cutaneous cancer. Six out of ten scientists said that after 3000 years later, there are no white man or women because of cutaneous cancer."

"Defeated in the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln announced the Declaration of Independence and opened a path to freedom."

Visions of Korea I

It's 4 PM on a Thursday afternoon, and the sun's harshly fixed midday glare has softened into an unkindly warm stare. I'm running around Lake Park, my t-shirt already clammy and lungs aching gently, throbbing to remind me of my foolishness in exerting myself thusly. As I run past two ajumas - well past 50, with over-permed over-dyed hair - headed the other way, eying my flailing limbs suspiciously, I see this slogan emblazoned on a flimsy, oversized t-shirt layered under a thin black wool cardigan:

DRINK,
PEE,
REPEAT.

a vision of Seoul (End of Summer V)

8/28/2008

[Part 5, the penultimate entry in the ongoing photo
travelogue of my vacation post-work in East Asia,
including my weeklong trip to Beijing, final day in
Seoul, and return trip to the States.]

Thursday8.28.2008:

Rising early, 代新 called me a company car, escorting
me to Beijing International (北京国际机场), to catch
my flight back to Incheon.




Her office building (site of my 1-week, unexpectedly
extended vacation in China last year).


顺义区人才市场 = "Shunyi District Human Resources Market".


The view out front.


The hotel I stayed in for an extra week last year. Memories abound.


有人说我很像她.


Flight staff.


Our flight.

1h45m in the air later, no waiting for checked luggage (2 carry-ons
allowed for international flights, I been stay winning), and it's back
to Ko Rea for one last day.


Waiting for the bus back to Ilsan (一山). You can barely see it, but
there is a taxi cab hidden behind the large, squat metal box; for a
good ten minutes, a (rather large) man and his (rather petite)
female company engaged in an (increasingly vocal) squabble with
a (rather numerous, and increasingly so) group of cabdrivers. Over
what, I shall never know.



Back in the hood, I stopped off at the Ilsan Vista,
the SLI foreign teachers' apartment building, to
leave my things with Mike, the co-worker I was
crashing with for the night. I then headed out to
the academy (학원/学院) for one final visit.


Jae at his desk.

Real talk, dude was a prince among men. Always
helpful, patient, and he let me straight bogart his
computer desk (and, subsequently, internets) for
many an afternoon. He is also a husband and a
father, and that is Real Talk.


My erstwhile spot in the office.


TA's chilling/grading.


One of my elementary students. I love this dude, he
practices um kumdo? Some kind of tae kwon do or
variant thereof. He is also pretty smart.


Another student. This dude loves food, it gave me great
joy whenever he would be snacking before class. Just
to see such pure pleasure is a privilege.


Mikey AKA Dominican Mike.


That afternoon, Jae and I rolled over to the bank, a
locale in which I had, all summer, been entirely
dependent upon him. He helped me close out my
account (garnering me my ~$98 of remaining
wages!). I kicked it in the office for a little while
longer, then Mike and I went to a little place he
knew for some lunch.


Old grannies (ajumah) often sell vegetables or clothes roadside.


I thought the look on this girl's face was dope.


Mike ordering. Dude is swift with the day-to-day Ko Rean.

After lunch, Mike and I wound our way home,
walking through the many adjoining parks littering
the Ilsan landscape.






No one crosses the street before the crossing sign blares green.
The street here was actually empty of cars for half a minute before
the light turned, while these dudes all just chilled it on the sidewalk.

Mike and I spotted his crib for a minute longer, then
headed back to SLI for evening classes.


Still grinding.


I spent mad many hours in this classroom, over all. Every day this
summer... I think this may be one of the top two or three places I
was at this summer, excusing my own apartment (and that, largely
for sleeping).


Claire/Seo-yun, one of the girls I tutored regularly.
We spent many a long hour talking about, um,
topics in English.




Elementary students, all from Korean middle/high schools.


Doori. Son is a literal baller. Princeton 08, varsity
football team (championship ring swagger), and SLI-
Ilsan's most recent acquisition.




One of my elementary kids. Duke had a bit of an
attitude going on...


...but with a swager like this, I was a little more forgiving. Looking
at those joints even now, I still get a lil aggy.


...grand closing

[Next up! The last day; SAT students; on the plane]

Thoughts in an airport

I sit in the Incheon International Airport, a scant 9 weeks after my arrival in 韩国 AKA Ko Rea. It's been a halcyon, whirlwind penultimate week; with an ever-dwindling number of students, final meals to be shared, goodbyes to be said (most poignant: my bidding farewell to the bustling and cheap fried chicken stand near work...), and hella packing what to do up, I remained in constant (or at least, consistent) movement over the past four or five days.

I'm sure I'll later confront more directly my break-down of the summer, and those musings will comprise the cornerstone of another update; but, for the moment, I'm content to sit, satiated by the ever-passing moment. Let me paint a picture for those of you not embroiled, at the moment, in the unique, ubiquitous milieu of the international airport.

To my right: a dark sky gives way to rushing clouds. As piscine white scales slink by, the sun peeks coyly out from behind them, vacillating between hiding herself and teasing us with portents of glad weather.

In Korea, I've found her character to be that of a scintillating ingenue: in the last week, our relationship has been a tempestuous (though yet short of actually abusive) and attractive one. Three days of joyful, walk-about weather (we went running through the park Thursday afternoon; we'll always have that) gave way to a final Friday of fat, loud raindrops drumming in a cavalcade of tiny , frantic impacts against the windows of my building and the drenched Seoul streets outside. But she relented from her tantrum (my boss, at lunch yesterday: "I think Seoul is crying, that you are leaving"), coming out to bid me farewell today; I appreciate it.

Baby blue planes striped with white and emblazoned with the Korea Airlines symbol dot the runway, taxiing lazily into the gate. Below, airline workers bustle about, unhurried but efficient. From their pace and bearing, I imagine their conversation to be laconic, comfortable. Familiar.

I'm at my Gate. A line of passengers ebbs before me; from the demographics represented therein, I assume (is that ever safe?) that it is a midwest-bound flight. Obvious G.I.'s (a safe assumption, judging by the "JAMES" "ARMY" velcro-patch firmly attached to backpack) mingle with what looks like a college students' basketball team - ridiculous, in gym shorts, t-shirt, and tourist-issue rice paddy hat (he will never wear it in the States; it will lie in the corner of his dorm room, wind up as a frat house cast-off story, or in his basement) - and Korean mothers and fathers placating their hyperactive children. A White woman walks by me, bumblebee-yellow neck pillow already affixed: after the sartorial standards of Korea, it is hard to forget (but I will, I shall, forgive) the sight of loose sweatpants, threadbare ragged hems dragging under thin sandals, a loosely-worn hoodie bulging over a t-shirt one or two sizes too large.

The line empties. Two last basketball girls wait for their friend; she ambles out of the bathroom, gathering up her baggage. Her t-shirt (she looks like an M; it is an L; I notice these things now. Good or bad or what?) reads, in starkly white-on-black, off-centred, comedic (think Comic-Sans sans-cliche) typography: POLLY'S KITCHEN
SEOUL, KOREA,
an epitome of expatriated, exported culture(?). (I mean the t-shirt, and not the girl)

One last White woman jogs up, gulping for breath. An Asian man follows her, headphones askew and bouncing.

All is quiet on this front.

Then! Suddenly, out of nowhere, it seems, a rush. More out-of-breath travelers - the dilatory crowd - bolts up: a mother and her son, a tall Black man, and a few others. The procrastinators empty in, and again serenity takes her place in line. The people-mover scrolls by, travelers bound for other gates and destinations (Dubai? Mumbai? The Bay?) scanning past, as the waiting area lies dormant, deserted: floor lined with thin strips of cheap laminated-looking dark wood, cush L-back leather seats, and a sprinkling of early travelers either accustomed to caution or unaccustomed to traveling.

The Korean Job is over; now the Beijing Journey.


Post Scriptum, Visions of Seoul redux: A young girl in the airport passes, carting a small wheeled carry-on. Her shirt: AMERICANPIE AND FITCH. Clever parody or simply plagiarism? You decide.

Post Scriptum, Part Second: [excerpted from gchat]

Me: ...the 30-something woman with a young child sitting next to me is taking like 10 pictures of herself Myspace-style

P: hahahahahhahaa

awesome

are you in airport

how long until boarding

Me: like an hour

[a few minutes later]

Me: ....she's still taking photos

Visions of Seoul V

I sit in a darkened multiplex beside two co-workers, surrounded by Saturday afternoon Korean moviegoers. All heads in the theater are craning back (with an occasional aversion of young or sensitive [that would be me] eyes), thrilling to the larger-than-life action unfolding before them. The film (no spoilers forthcoming here, but likely an in-depth debriefing later) on-screen is this summer's darling, the critically lauded blockbuster it seems no one can hate: The Dark Knight.

The action reaches an emotionally resonant crescendo of pathos and mounting action, as the Joker - Batman's foil, embodiment of chaotic, senseless evil - bursts into a large society function, knife flickering unsteadily in his hand as he jabs erratically at cowering bystanders making pretense of bravery. One finally takes a moral (and physical) stand, causing the psychotic figure to whirl around as she interrupts his capricious soliloquizing:

Woman (on-screen, bravely): OK, stop.

Me (without thinking, out loud): Hammertime.

Visions of Seoul IV

I'm letting my students take a break, having just completed a marathon half-hour of today's SAT Critical Reading test, with a good 50 minutes yet remaining in this afternoon section. I sit on the front-right-side of the classroom, in a curved-back chair of wood and metal situated under the wall-mounted whiteboard; staring off, doing mental calculations, auditing the figures on my upcoming pay stub.

Students chatter away to my left. A girl sits in the back toying idly with her mobile phone (a common sight in these Korean classrooms, during break as well as, more stealthily, during class time), while the boys play some sort of Korean game that involves slapping each others' forearms with two tightly-held fingers, flicking foreheads, or some other such typically Korean punitive measure.

The group of four girls sitting closest to me talks in quick, amused-sounding syllables; while I can't understand their content, the context - of high school students' relaxation - is universal. Two of them turn to me, and it registers to me that they're speaking English:
"Teacher Jason, I have a question."

Sure, go ahead. (I'm always eager to instruct)

"Do you know any of our names?"

No.

Visions of Seoul III

It is slightly before 9 PM on a humid Friday night.

I sit across from a young, nearly pre-teen, girl; in a slight lisp, she haltingly - but with excellent diction and articulation - explains how I am the first foreigner fluent in English to whom she has addressed herself. Her eyes are weary but sedate; her fingers remain steady, splayed against one another or toying with the strap of her bookbag.

In the style of The North Face's typeface and logo, her shirt reads:
THE
SEXY
FACE.

Visions of Seoul II

As I rode the subway from Hongdae, where I collected my recently-stamped passport, to Gangnam, the site of Sandi and my scheduled rendezvous, a young mother and her daughter walked onto the middle of my already-crowded car, child clinging to her mother's hem.

I'd previously been noticing the man next to me reading his Bible, thumbing through Judges - somewhere around chapter 11 or 12. He noticed the young girl standing in front of him and I felt him prepare to rise; I followed suit, so as to enable her mother to sit beside her.

However, upon rising, I glimpsed peripherally a well-dressed middle-aged women, who had been standing to my right, cut in behind me. From my standing vantage point, I watched her dig through her Louis Vuitton carryall and pull out a yellow-covered book, beginning to read. I peeked at the exposed page of her book: a Korean Bible. The mother stood in front of her sitting child as the car gradually filled up with teenagers, salarymen, and mothers.

My stop drawing near, I took a place near the door, anticipating our arrival. The same well-dressed woman pushed her way through the other travelers waiting to disembark, Louis bag swinging coolly from the crook of her arm. As the doors parted, mutely servile, she strutted out. High heels clacked rhythmically against the wet marble of the subway station as the woman cut her way through the crowd, where I lost sight of her.

Visions of Seoul

As I ran along the street in the 90-degree humidity, on the oversized t-shirt of a matronly woman walking along with her young child, I spotted the following bon mot:

WENT ON VACATION, CAME BACK ON PROBATION.