A challenge is a victory in progress

At the request of David I started a blog and am being dragged kick and screaming into the 21st century, so with a cup of arabian coffee, a tambae ( cigarette ), and a steam powered computer. I'll keep you all updated. I'll add some poetry and some fiction from time to time. I also plan on posting bits of my blade intensive superfile.

The title of the post is a quote from Torres. Just giving credit where credit is due.


15 hours without a cigarette

Well the flight was long, still jet lagged as I write this. I was too large for the seat Korean air gave me next to the emergency plane exit. I got my bag of clothing and death, my laptop and a complete works of Shakespeare. I studied enough Korean to survive. But as I landed in Seoul/Incheon then went through customs. I was learning quickly how to get by. The directions my recruiter gave me were wrong so I ended up tryting to explain in very bad Korean to a restaurant owner that I needed a phone. But ordering beer is universal. My city is a small city an hour from the Capital, a sea of neon rules the night off the main drag. I got lost a few times but managed to get to my apartment. The hagwon I work for is a chain of English schools. I teach 3rd through 5th graders. They find it amazing how the “western giant” survives here. Food, drink and cigarettes are cheap here. There is a local bar called Dream which I made Korean “No Idea”. The hofs ( small restaurants / beer bars ) are accommodating. The food is fantastic. I just got my first few weeks shopping done and the steel chopsticks are ready. The people are sweet. They are accommodating to the foreigner. My contact is a young woman named Soy and she has been acting as translator, guardian angel, and cheerleader. She is eight months pregnant and her husband rocks. I live on the third floor walk up in an apartment that would cost about 2000 USD a month back in New York.

You haven’t heard Korean until you’ve spoken it in the original Klingon. It is a weird combination of staccato and the melodic. Some experiences that you may find funny. I’ve been teaching myself Korean with of phoenetic dictionary so I carry this book with me about 90 pages and a notebook. It has made communication easier and hysterical. When communication becomes too difficult or my pronounciation isn’t up to snuff ( I bet many of you never thought I’d say that ) the western giant turns into an odd combination of Rutger Hauer doing an impression Harpo Marks. Soy’s husband Dragon ( literal translation ) is a doll. He keeps running into me and has no English. Dragon works near where I live and is a ping pong champion. And you haven’t seen anything funnier than me trying my hand at ping pong. The hunym ( older brother / uncle ) of the ping pong hogwan was patient but got frustrated. Soy said that “ Ping pong not for you” You launch one ping pong ball into orbit and you’re blacklisted apparently.

The crew of my hogwan are sweet and nice. I am going to miss Soy. But the rest of us we communicate by Babelfish and talking V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y.

The first week was settling in, cabbies ( a universal constant ) tried to scam me into rides. The black market is thriving near the military bases and young bucks still think they can scam me in pool. I am going to Soy’s mother’s for dinner tonight been practicing my Korean to be polite and made sure I had clean socks. I’m still afraid I’m going to say the wrong thing like “ My hovercraft is full of eels “.

My students are adorable. I also found a Hapkido dojang that takes foreigners, that will let me also teach the lesser teachers escrima so I am blending in as much as can be expected. The children all try their English on me. Wherever I go. I’ll have my digital camera working on my phone soon. So I’ll throw pics up and get a blog set up.


Learning the ways

Early Saturday morning it snowed badly. I am sitting in the apartment. Waiting for the day in February when I have a digital camera. To show you all the beauty of this place.

Mr. Chen the gentlemen who runs the bb gun arcade downstairs and Mr. Kim the nutseller find it funny the western giant lives above them. The hof ( restaurant ) on the first floor is called The Day. It never seems occupied. I assume vampires go there.

The students are great, the most advanced classes ask me questions like how tall I am, how old am I ( their flabbergasted responses are priceless ) two asked me if I fought in Vietnam. They also find it amazing I’ve never been married. While teaching a class on the leaning tower of Pisa I asked them what they would do to fix the tower. The boys think the x men can do it, the girls want to hire a good expert Korean engineer.

My hogwan’s manager is also named Scott ( he bought the staff gifts for Chinese new year , I got strawberry wine) My co workers are Iris ( Scott’s wife ) pretty much the den mother. And Brad an engineer with a wife, a daughter Su Wa, and another Baby on the way. Brad and I are the most proficient Englsih speakers, he calls me Hunym ( older brother )

Soy’s family gave me the Korean name Jhang gun ( pronounced Chang Goon ) which means knight/general.

Soy is on maternity leave and her husband , the ping pong playing Dragon are both awaiting their first.

Cute little kids will randomly point at me on the busses. Saying foreigner or giant.

The food. Is great. I’ve lost about 6 pounds since I got here. Living on rice, seafood, a local specialty of live moving octopus and blood soup. A cheap local rice wine called soju, and some strawberry wine ( looks like blood wine )

Last year I was in an apartment with no heat in red hook. Now I’m in an apartment with minimal heat in Hwaesong. But hey heat is heat.

Last Saturday night, in the blizzard. I participated in a snowball fight between workers of the seafood restaurant and the beef restaurant. It was something out of a spaghetti western. Unfortunately I was the biggest target on the Penninsula. When both side turned simultaneous with a yell of “pelt the western giant” We all laughed and I at least did better than I did in ping pong.

Figured out where the cinema is which seems to be the location any local cabbie knows. So if I do get lost. AT least I know where I am.

Been spending big chunks of my nights and weekends learning Korean. The kids at the Hogwan always appear shocked when I whip out a word or two. They secretly think I am fluent in Korean. Especially when I write it.

The politics here are definitely cold war, the north poses a constant threat. The politics are a big discussion with me as my bad Korean has gotten marginally better. They find that the USA has a perfect democracy. I kept my mouth shut, cause even though I disagree with communism, I have read Mao, Marx, and Lenin. Communism is a clear and present danger.

Chinese new year was mellow for me. I sat watched TV, explored. Ate some bad crab. Got sick. Interesting thing was after so many years without health insurance. I just rode it out.

One of my students Amy drew a picture of me. It was cute. The students are good. More dazed from having a few days off as kids and adults are wont to be.

Two kids were rowdy in class, mouthing off in Korean. They wrote me apologies when I put Iris on them. I didn’t know fully what was said. But she scared me.

Some class discussions were hilarious, on a chapter one of my most advanced classes had on Martin Luther King. They asked what some of the students heroes were. The boys said X-men, Superman, Spiderman, Hulk and the girls named doctors, inventors, and peacekeepers. Then a discussion about who would win in a fight the X-men or Superman broke out. Sadly I’ve had conversations like this with men in their forties. The girls finally put an end to it. When Clara, one of my brightest said Nikola Tesla would win because he existed.

Friday was the last day of January and officially hell day. I normally have very little to do on Fridays I just do paperwork and teach a phonics class. But I was informed that to catch up we had to rush classes today. I taught eight classes today and I am fried.

Cindy gave me rice krispie treats cause I’m from America. She and her mom made them. It’s the little sweet gestures that make it for me. Migookins and Hangookins rock.

I’ve learned that if you add the suffix – uh, to almost any popular English words, it sounds Korean, Hulk-uh, Superman-uh. You get the idea. A few of my actor buddies are afraid I’m teaching an entire generation if Korean children to speak in iambic pentameter. But Shakespere-uh, isn’t fully on the agenda. I’ll come back the states fluent in Konglish. I may even have an accent when I get back.

Just really can’t wait to get paid. So I can put some money back, get a digital camera. Especially take the train to Seoul. A show you all how awe inspiring beautiful some of this country is.


The Flow

I saw the flow carved in wood
Outside the land of no ideas
The way of being understood
As water sings its arias

For between humankind
The flow calls to the blood
Love and freedom ties the bind
It emboldens the flood

Love without whim or thought
And for that precious moment
More of course is always sought
And it’s desire holds the torment

The flow calls for many tasks
And hides itself in rhyme
It is itself a king of masks
Itself unchained from time

It forgives as only the wise
And embraces shade dark and bright
It succumbs from it’s surprise
To overcome within the fight

The flow will always rule
When old memories forget
It dwells as fool, tool and pool
For the love I have beset

In somewhere deep funeral pyre
And stone sepulcher cold
The flow is the spark and fire
The burns the strong and bold

In fading memory disparity
Firget not the love
The flows wealth is charity
In the giving of

I recall as best I can
When my mind is reeling
This dopamine neural dispatch ran
All I possess is feeling

So my word as scroll unfurled
Live love fight and be free
Together we face the world
The sword writes destiny

All I demand with this poem
Is to feel and recall the good
While on the rim I roam
Outside no idea, my mantra carved in wood