A crowd of friendly white people gathering outside the 8th exit of Seoul’s largest bus station waiting for a bus to drive us to Korea’s most popular hiking mountain, discussing small talk trying not to dive right into the triumvirate of expat questions. 1) Where are you from? 2) How long have you been here? 3) Where and what age do you teach? It’s not that these are bad questions; they are great questions and give a good bit of information about the person. But as go the inevitable, information gathering questions of global backpacking, these questions, if you are around the person long enough, may be answered through normal conversation or gleaned through accents and story settings. Continue reading
korea
강남 스타일 = Gangnam Style
About 12 years ago, PSY hit the K-pop airwaves with his first album, immediately being fined for its inappropriate nature for sensitive Korean listeners. He remained his idiosyncratic self throughout the next decade, singing, writing, getting busted for marijuana, serving his mandatory military time, and getting married with children. This is also a guy who studied at Boston U, and University of Berklee. Moreover, he is fluent in English, making him a marketer’s dream. About a month ago, he released the amazingly irresistible video, “Gangnam Style.” It was all over Korea. We spoke about how this could totally be a hit song in America. We were right. Continue reading
To: Ice Cube RE: “Today was not such a good day.”
“In my younger and more vulnerable years” my mother used to read me a book called: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Paraphrasing, it was about some punk kid who was having trouble tying his shoes, got gum in his hair, got yelled at by the teacher, his sister took his favorite lunchbox to school, he didn’t get a toy in the cereal box and perhaps some other little kid problems. At the end, I think he got a hug from his mom, and everything was better because tomorrow is another day is Australia or something. Continue reading
Small Pleasures
Hungry after a long day at the hagwon with a slight headache breathing through my temples, I wandered into a local eatery. There were no less than 7 policemen in their full blue and gray gear, loudly, violently and quickly consuming a crowd of plates. They ate with typical Korean gusto. However, one always feels good eating where the local cops eat. I ordered my mandu-gu soup and leaned back in the chair. Continue reading
First Grade Moments
Today, my favorite student (any teacher will be honest and tell you they have a favorite) shocked me again. Olivia is the happiest little lark I’ve ever met. She is about 5 or 6 years old, never frowns and has a bright round face with a perfectly infectious smile. She used to call me over to her table, “Teacher, teacher, come here.” She’d motion with her hand as if she had a secret to tell and look at her feet trying to remember why she’d called me over. Continue reading
Hump Day Soju
“Three is good, two, no good,” I said, at once believing myself and wondering why I mentioned how much I like to drink. Stopping in to my surrogate Korean mom’s restaurant so she could cook me my favorite pork cutlet with brown sauce and all the trimmings. I bumped into the bus drivers at my kindergarten. I forgot that they would most certainly ask me to sit down, and that they would even more certainly be drinking soju. Continue reading
Super Monday?
Super Sunday is a party day in America complete with gathering friends, extensive dip selections, cursing at the TV, watery beer, and the inevitable disappointment. The disappointment for me comes knowing it’s seven months until football season again, sometimes disappointment in a boring, lopsided game, and for others it is the disappointment of being the supporter of a losing team. For the lucky few who support the winning team, it is pure exhilaration of bragging rights for the whole year (despite having done nothing to contribute to the winning cause except second guess every 3rd down play and pretend to support the time they went for it on 4th and goal). As we know, all games need to have a loser (except in that rather excessively gentlemanly game of European football, where draws leave a sour yet satisfactory flavor in the mouth of its fans). Continue reading
Customs
Customs are the basis of a society. Customs are the routine of a people—the proper etiquette of a shared land. We learn in sociology about these things and how they are not to be compared to or judged by your own customs. We are taught that, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” Don’t take your idea of proper behavior farther than your own country. Continue reading
November Train
A hiking weekend in Gwangju with ten strangers who became ten friends. Five people dashing through an extremely crowded terminal with 5 minutes to make the train. Breathing deeply, I found a convenient seat beside a window and wrote what what I saw outside. Continue reading
The Best Reason to Learn to Read Korean
Fighting through a hangover early Monday morning, heading home to change and shower, I raced toward the subway restroom to heed the extremely urgent call of nature. Continue reading
William Sabia 