Paranoia!

So, I write this to you from the quarantine of my neighborhood. You may ask, "Why?" Well here's the story.

Evidently there is an English teacher who brought swine flu over to South Korea and spent a week in training with around 20+ other foreigners. It is suspected that they passed it on to the others. You can read one of their blogs here. http://underquarantine.tumblr.com/post/112182291

So how does this effect me? Well, my director is super paranoid and has told us that since a foreigner brought the flu in and so many other foreigners now have it that we MUST stay out of foreign areas like Itaewon and Hongdae and if we don't abide by this rule they will terminate our contracts. They have also advised us not to leave our neighborhood and run the risk of becoming infected.

This infuriates me on so many levels. First, since when do only foreigners in South Korea carry swine flu? If my memory serves me correctly, the first person to bring swine flu to Korea was (wait for it)...a South Korean who had travelled to Mexico. Now that some foreigners have it, they think that we all are carriers.

Another is I am not familiar with the South Korean laws but they claim to be a democracy. You see that they don't quite have everything figured out (detaining bloggers who say bad things about the government, curtailing Internet freedom, police brutally beating protesters) but for the most part you would like to believe that they live by the basic principles of human rights.

Can an employer really tell you where you can and can not travel or risk being fired? My first thoughts are no. I know this would not fly in America. It also feels as if they are targeting us as foreigners. They nonchalantly were like, "Oh and this applies to the Korean teachers, too." However, one of the Korean teachers lives in Hongdae and she was allowed to go home tonight.

I understand the concern but seriously this is taking it too far. The director needs to stop and think about where his school will be without any foreign teachers and if he can really afford to fly 9 new teachers out here to replace us . This is my rant of the week. I'll keep you updated on how it unfolds.

What a nice beautiful day in Korea...swine flu paranoia, North Korea launches a missile and the country is mourning the loss of a politician who committed suicide because he partook in the corruption that he was on a mission to end. At this moment, I can say, I am so thankful to be an American! Ok, I'm done now.

Cultural Day

On Sunday, we ventured to Gyeongbokgung Palace. I had been here before but it's by far the most "grand" of the palaces and it's the easiest one to find. When the name is translated into English it means "Palace Greatly Blessed by Heaven." The Palace was oringailly built in the 1300's but was completely destroyed by the Japanese during their last occupation of Korea. They are working on restoring everything back to its original state.

We checked out the National Folk Museum. They had an exhibit on the "Multicultral Families" of Korea. They must not of had a native English speaker read their information before they published it because it said there are 890 million foreigners living in Korea. Considering the whole country only has around 50 million, I somehow think they got it wrong. The other intersting thing was they only showed multicultural familes from other Asian countries, Russia, and a middle eastern country I couldn't remember the name of. The exhibit did not mention anything about the western influence on Korea or mention anything about the numerous westerners that have married Koreans and had children. Once again, interesting.

There was a multicultural fair that was taking place and was connected to the "Hi Seoul Festival." There was a stage where people from other countries performed their traditional dances or entertainment. There was a pretty awesome dragon dance, some twirling yo-yo looking things, and a girl that could twirl tables, other humans and pots with her legs. It was absolutely amazing. The girl probably weighed 100 pounds and she was throwing the table around like it was nothing. When she twirled her two assistants on a long pole with her feet I almost fell over. Now that's some talent!

We then wandered into Insadong which is very touristy and has lots of stuff to buy. We found Starbucks and bought a few trinkets. We also had lunch and ate some delicious pork. At the table next to us were some Americans that were here working on some project for the US government. They had ordered fried baby octopus and were mesmerized by it. It was fun to watch them try to eat with chopsticks and freak out about eating a whole baby octopus. I'm kind of amazed how this eating and seeing weird stuff doesn't even phase me too much any more. Oh and may I add, I'm pretty killer at chopsticks now!

We came back to my neighborhood and went bowling with my Korean friends. The bowling alley is a straight throwback to the late 80's. It still beats the old Yuma bowling alley though because it keeps score for you. The bowling alley is super close to my house and it is also cheap (appx $1.50 to rent shoes and $3.00 a game). I came out the victorious winner as I had some mad skills and opened the game with two strikes.

We then went to see the new X-Men movie which I hated and thought was a big waste of time. Anyway, the night ended by us not being able to find our way out of the movie theatre as it is on the 15th floor of the department store next to my house. Since the department store was closed when the movie was over, there wasn't access to the escalators and the elevator wasn't stopping on certain floors. We ended up getting into the underground parking garage and hiking our way out through the in-ramp. Oops!

Stayed tuned. There's definitely more stories to be told!

And always, you can check out all of my photos on my Picasa web album here...http://picasaweb.google.com/christinestroup

Throwing Sebastian Into All Things Korean!

After leaving the hotel, we headed to my neighborhood. As I've told you all before my neighborhood is about authentic Korean as it can get. We started at the galbi restaurant by my house. Which is absolutely delicious!

You walk in, take your shoes off at the door, and go sit on the floor at your table. We had the galbi which is beef that has been marinated for a long period of time. They bring out a ring of burning charcoals and stick it into the designated hole in the table. Then comes the meat! There's a nifty pipe that hangs from the ceiling takes the smoke out of the building. My favorite description of this is "The Snuffalufagus" pipe (gotta love Sesame Street)!

Along with the meat, you get the numerous free side dishes that include kimchi, pasta salad, radish (not the radishes you and I know), and some other stuff I can't remember. Oh and did I mention that this whole dinner only cost $15.00 total! I love Korea so much!

After leaving the restaurant, my Korean friend, Alfred, called and wanted us to hang out. We headed over to his neighborhood, Hoegi, which is 10 minutes by bus from my house. My Korean friend was hanging out with 3 of his Korean friends who spoke very little English. We were a bit worried how the night would turn out but we ended up having a blast. Alfred did quite a bit of translating for us but by the end of the night we were speaking or 12 words of Korean and using hand gestures and everyone seemed to understand each other. It's amazing how uncomplicated things become! We were the first foreigners that these Koreans had ever been around so they were super nervous.

We were at this bar called "Dorothy's Diary" which gives you your own room with and air conditioning to eat and drink in. Pretty amazing! We broke out some card games and they taught us Korean drinking games. It was a blast. I definitely want to hang out with them again.

Here's a cultural tidbit for you. Since Korea is a Confucian society everything is about respect. You have to give things to people with two hands and there's lots of rules that we foreigners don't know about and I'm sure we break often. Another is no one can pour their own drinks. It's consider extremely rude. On that I noticed this night was the Koreans turning away from us when they drank. I guess it shows respect (obviously) to someone you hold in high regard, is older, or is in higher rank than yourself. Kind of interesting. I tell you...there are so many rules I could not even possibly begin to type them all out for you!

Oh and you've probably noticed me throwing the "Peace Sign" in my pictures. I've heard different schools of thought on this but some people say it means "V" for Victory. That's the one I'm sticking with cause it just sounds cool!

My Birthday

Wow, long time...no blog, eh? Life has been a little on the crazy side lately. Sebastian came to visit me for my Birthday and we also had a four day weekend that weekend which meant no school. We crammed a lot of fun and awesome things into this time. I could write a ton but I'll give you the Cliff Notes and post lots of smaller blogs rather than one big one.

As many of you know, Sebastian has an obsession with Hyatt Hotels. His flight arrived an hour before I had to be at work and the airport is an hour and a half away from my house. He decided to stay at Grand Hyatt and take the shuttle bus into the city since I would still be at work. I met him at the hotel and he managed to get the room upgraded to a Junior Suite. It was definitely the nicest hotel I've ever stayed in. We had a great view of the city and there was a bathtub that overlooked the city too! My friend Carina, that I knew back home came too. We just chilled in the hotel, ate cake, drank wine, and had "Real Talk." (This is my new phrase I picked up from the other teachers. It involves having some beers and trying to solve the problems of the world or just our own problems. I love "Real Talk!"Carina and I both concluded we felt more out of place at the 5 star hotel than we do on the streets of Korea!

Oh and on a bit of a side note, I've started watching this Korean drama called, "Boys Over Flowers" which as about a "commoner" girl that takes on the rich kids at her school. There are quite a few scenes that are filmed at Hyatt! It's super fun to see the different locations around Seoul that I have been to and recognize. This drama is super addicting. I just keep telling myself it's helping me with my Korean.