Cold thumbs and go-gu-ma

So if you've ever heard the expression "so cold I put a roasted go-gu-ma down my pants" then you've probably spent sometime in Korea during the winter...or perhaps you just made the same expression up yourself, which is just wierd.

In any case, my point is that it's frickin' freezing here. This week the students asked me if my nose ring was actually a ice-booger. I let them think it was. This was slightly less impressive than last week when they asked if it was a diamond booger and I became something of a fantastical magical wonder, like the goose who layed golden eggs. But now instead, I'm just a really cold teacher who needs to blow her nose.

But not only is it subzero temperatures here, it's dryer than Ben Stein's sense of humor. I have my little humidifier going in my room around the clock and the only thing retaining moisture is my Beta Fish, Napoleon ...and even he's been asking for chapstick. My clothes are so staticy I feel like I'm wearing cling-wrap, and I look like Marilyn Monroe singing happy birthday to JFK (although, for me, I guess that's always the case). The only -yes, the ONLY- thing not so Monroe-vian about me is that my hair is in a constant state of electromagnetism. I'm working on quite and impressive 'fro which has been known to send shocks of static a distance of 3+ feet. How's that for an X-men power!? Staticia! The girl with the ability to shock an annoy all sweaters-wearing villians.

The dryness has also taken hold of my skin, which has begun to crack and peel like a roasted go-gu-ma (I really got you wondering what that is now, don't I) My thumbs are both currently in bandages wrapped tightly to hold the spliting skin together. Never again will I tolerate those who complain of being "all thumbs". You know what's worse than 'all thumbs'? NO THUMBS!! Give THAT a try for a day and then complain to be about your surplus thumbage! You and your excessive dexterity! Your smug ability to appose and grip with that most useful digit. The thumb is truly the finger of Kings! In ancient Rome it could grant a Christian life or death. It was the symbol of Cool for the Fonze and a generation of American Hipsters. Oh the thumb. How I miss you.

I think I'll go now and console myself with a roasted go-gu-ma. If only it weren't so damn cold outside.

Korean Christmas

Christmas Dinner at the Village
Well, it's Christmas morning, and I'm here in the teachers' lounge, eating the re-warmed roasted chestnuts I bought in the street outside midnight mass last night. I know it's Christmas because this morning at breakfast the dinning hall was plastered with the kids' posters wishing everyone a "Mery Cris math day". Their wholesome holiday spirit was captured in their pictures of chainsaw wielding Rudolph, or StarWars characters and pirates thinly disguised as elves, skull and crossbones on their pointed hats. You're not fooling any one with that Christmas ornament eyepatch Scurvy Santa.

The kids stayed over for Christmas eve and were here this morning, instead of in their footy pajamas under a gift-ladden tannembaum, like I wish I was now. Christmas in Korea is not quite the life-stopping holiday we have built it up to be in America. Here it's more tantamount to St. Patrick's Day- there are some decorations, perhaps a parade, the daily greeting is adjusted from "hey, how are you?" to "Merry/Happy (insert applicable holiday here) to you". There are an abundance of merry little green men about and some go to church (people I mean, not the merry green men). But in the end it's just a reason to start drinking at 11am, just like St. Paddy's. Green beer or mulled wine, take your pick of Holiday spirits.

But for my first Christmas away from home, it's been pretty nice. For Christmas Eve we had a Secret Santa gift exchange and for dinner the dinning hall served roasted chicken and Christmas cookies. And I made the effort of going to midnight mass with a couple other teachers...it was an...interesting adventure. Story time:

We'd heard there was an English midnight mass at Myeong-dong Church, the most famous and beautiful cathedral in Seoul. We decided to brave the bitter chill and throngs of shoppers to make the 1.5 hour and 2 transfer subway trip. On the teeming underground everyone was either carrying cake boxes, or small children with Christmas hats, the kind their mothers bought for them to wear once a year and then endure being ridiculed for by their siblings for the rest of the year. On the way there I had my eye nearly put out on 3 occassions by stray reindeer antlers, wielded by the erratic head-turning of a toddler in a backpack.

Once emerging back out into the frosty night of Myeong-dong we maneuvered our way through the crowds of shoppers and street vendors selling remote controlled cars, fuzzy hats, and cinnemon filled pancakes. When we finally reached the church it was nearing a quarter-'til, and a long ribbon of warmly bundled Koreans snaked it's way down the hill under the glow of parking lot spotlights and foodstalls. Thinking we were clever, we bypassed this popsicle procession and headed for the English chapel adjascent to the Church. Well, turns out speaking English does not grant one any special line-jumping priveleges here in Korea...in fact, English mass was canceled altogether. We were hurriedly ushered out of the building by a man in white robes saying something in Korean, which I'm sure translated to, "Get your foreign butt back to the end of the icicle parade." Which we did, and stood shivering for about 20 minutes, during which I suffered two more hat-inflicted eye injuries.

But in the end the wait was recompensed by the opportunity to squeeze into an over-filled auditorium where we watched the Korean Mass going on in the cathedral next door via Proxima Telecomunications (I know it was Proxima because at a few key moments during the service the video feed "cut out" and we were left praying to their logo...technical difficulties or idolatrous marketing ploy? you decide)

The entire service was unintelligible to my foreign ears, but my familiarity with the Catholic Mass ritual was enough to help me chime in with the English recitation, attempting awkwardly to fit it with the cadence of the Korean version, which was usually a bit shorter. So I was repetedly caught in that awkward moment where my voice alone trailed on after the rest of the congregation was done: "...And lead us not into tempsthsahhhhh....*ahem*...echoing cough...

After mass we walked back through the slightly less crowded night streets of Myeong-dong, first stopping at a steamy tent stall for hot oh-dang (processed fish bologna, foldeded and treaded onto skewers, cooked in a giant communal vat of onion broth) and then some hot roasted chestnuts- completing the Christmas feeling. And now this morning I'm finishing off the last of the chestnuts and wishing you all that same Christmas chestnutty goodness wherever you may be.

Liger!?

I was doing an instructor evaluation today, observing a class in which the students play 20 questions (we won't go into the pedagogic geniuses that put their heads together developing this sophisticated and intricate cirriculum). Now when this game is played by children in their native tongue, it usually involves a formulating series of strategic inquiries, in order to most efficiently deduce the object in question. However with the rather limited interrogative skills of our students, the game here is played by yelling out answers until somebody randomly guesses correctly. It's basically just a vocabulary crossfire, which is not as fun or cool as real crossfire because it doesn't involve shooting little steel beebees at spinning disks (Suggestion #1 for the cirriculum development team: More beebee use).

So after about umpteen rounds of this dictionary-din it was declared that the last "thing" was to be chosen by a student who had demonstrated exemplary skills of deduction... (ie the kid who'd gotten the most candy for shouting out the most correct random guesses). The student sat pensively for a moment, then slowly emitted a coy smile, letting us know he'd thought of a particularly brilliant "thing" to stump his classmates. His one alotted clue was "Animal". We were then bombarded with a menagerie of animals "Bear, Koala, Cat, Mouse, Dog" , "no, no, no, no"- it looked dismal, I contemplated resorting to beebees.

Then came a small voice "Lion?" no, "Tiger?" no...."LIGER?!!" You can imagine the speed with which my jaw dropped at the mention of this mystical creature (bred for strengh and magic). What was even more exciting was that this evoked an erruption of chanting from the other students as they all communally glorified the beast shouting, "LIGER! LIGER! LIGER!!!" I was stunned, who knew that the great and ferocious Liger lived in Seoul? This country gets better every day.

It inspired me to do some research so I googled "liger" and this was my reward, which I share with you now http://www.geocities.com/anti_liger_alliance/

Another day of English teaching completed, satisfied with the fact that "liger" is now appropriately fixed in the vocab banks of 12 year old Korean children.

Jazzy

Traveling around the world I have gone to many cultural events, official ceremonies and holiday celebrations. I've had the privilege of attending a water puppet show in Hanoi, a bull fight in Madrid, a performance of "Phantom of the Opera" in London, a Gaellic football match in Kilarney, among others. So of course, here in Seoul, how could I possibly turn down the opportunity to see a world class performer play his own style of traditional music.

And if this particular artist also happened to have been someone of mid-level fame in the circuit of late '80s afterschool sitcoms, well, all the more reason to attend the performance. And if said performance just happend to be taking place at the opening of new club, in one of the hottest night districts in Seoul, well then... I don't feel it necessary to add anymore qualifications: Last Friday night-

I saw DJ Jazzy Jeff!!! Ha!! jealous? bet you are!

That's right, Jazz himself, the Fresh Prince's right hand man! He's still alive and spinning! The boy from Phillie who Didn't sell out. The same ol' loveable Jazz who was constantly suffering Uncle Phil's wrath (typically by physical expulsion from the house at least once every episode *"AAARRGHHH"*). The same delightful ne'erdowell who loved Hilary almost as much as fried chicken and greasy cheese-steaks in a paper bag.

Who among us didn't practice in the halls of their middles school the low-five so oft exchanged between Will and Jazz ?*smack* "PSSHHHHH". C'mon you know what I'm talking about ...or you maybe didn't grow up in America during the early 90's...or you were one of those wierd kids who's parents only let them watch the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet (which incidently is the only channel I get here in English- but I digress)

So yes, I stood in close proximity to a second banana from a hit TV show that predates any of the Justin Timberlake albums...what can I say? Justin wasn't giving a concert that night, and even if he was, I'd probably STILL take Jazzy Jeff over that prettyboy. word.