Recent Blog Posts



All Recent Posts

Heroes Baseball

14 Aug 2009, I begin my trip to Seoul with a long train ride, a Korean dinner, and Korean baseball.

Why is Jesus Wearing Hockey Pads?

On the way out my friend's door last night I noticed picture taped to the door. The dog ear on the upper left corner was drooping so much that it covered half of the drawing, indicating that it had been hanging there for a while. Despite spending most of my Monday evenings in that apartment, watching trashy TV programs, I hadn't noticed it before. Or perhaps I previously noted and had since forgot; This seems more likely.

The drawing was made on white printer paper with a single blood-red marker. A lonely stick-man was depicted, in a scene that looked suspiciously like the crucifixion. He hung from a single plank of wood, which his arms were spread out on. Blood gushed from the stick-man's arms and fell into pools below him. Large rectangular objects appeared to be attached to his legs - This part didn't quite fit.

"Uh.... why?" I pointed at it.
"A student gave it to me. I ... don't know."
"You didn't ask him for an explanation?"
"I'd really rather not know," the proud owner of the piece explained.
"It looks like the crucifixion of Jesus, except this time he wore hockey pads. Why is Jesus wearing hockey pads?"

My friend glanced at me in disgust and pointed out that the "artist" was an elementary student, who couldn't possibly have thoughts like this; that only my 27-year-old mind would come up with something that demented. Usually true, but this time not. This piece was clearly inspired work, by a child who didn't realize that hockey wasn't really a thing back then.

I have no problem believing that children can be that demented. I was one once.

 
 
Sorry, no photo. I thought of asking my friend to take one but figured that he'd boot me out once he realized I wanted it for internet purposes. I may try to sneak one next week.

Message for Anyone Who Links Me Via Pusan Web/Koreabridge

The owner of koreabridge.com has decided that he only wants to run blog posts that deal with Korea in someway - lifestyle, politics, etc.. What this basically means is that any post I make that doesn't directly deal with a "Korean subject" doesn't get run on the site.

My blog originally was about my life in Korea, but it's been five years now, and I'll often write about other topics. I'm not sure if you could even consider a "Korean blog" anymore, despite the fact that its usually updated from The Peninsula.

So, if you enjoy this blog - if you like my writing and wish to keep updated on all the posts - I would encourage you to bookmark me instead of relying on koreabridge to link it. I'm going to have a lot of big posts coming up, and I'd like as many people as possible to view them.

And if you don't like the new policy (I'm not big on it), let the website know!

Destination: Yuldong Park (Bundang / Seongnam)


Yuldong Park is somewhat known for being the only place to bungee jump in the area - but there's plenty more to do beyond jumping off with a giant rubber band attached to your body. Opened in 1999, the park offers a large lake, a 4km walking trail around said lake, and a few surprises up the hill.


Start by getting to Bundang, through the large parking lot, and up one of several sets of stone stairs - the lake is visible from the top. Turn left, and begin enjoying the view of the lake along with the walking trail that goes around it.


An interesting bench - with a computer built-in to the side! Touch the screen to listen to popular music of various genres; there's something a little odd about listening to Jamie Cullum's 'I'll be home for Christmas' in the middle of a Korean park...


A very impressive fountain in the middle of the lake. While not on all the time, it would start spraying around 100 meters high every 5-10 minutes.


The opening of a sculpture park - in case all other forms of musical notation don't survive, this one will.


Quite a few interesting pieces in the sculpture park. Not pictured is a recreation of Venus De Milo, along with some other abstract art.



What the heck? The signs proclaim this to be a 'Book Theme Park' - or a library for the rest of us. From the brochure: "The unknown is great and the human's effort to reveal the unknown results in bringing beautiful state of peace. The Korean book mural materializes this peace." My red pen just started shaking horribly...


The inside is fairly standard for a library, and books appeared primarily for Korean children. A brochure in English picked up here helps with the names and purposes from here out.


The facility as a whole dealt with books and the art form in one way or another. Engraved in stone are characters from many languages, in different sizes and fonts. This particular mural went around like a corkscrew on the roof of the library - er, 'Book Theme Park'.


Now behind the Book Theme Park - a number of nicely polished stones with something carved in Chinese and Korean. According to the brochure, the benches "are engraved with 8 character poetic structures that help to improve the ability to put Chinese characters together...." Interesting - though I really hope the bench is not the most interesting thing to read in the place.


A bit of a mystery - what looks to be the front of a traditional Korean house, but is locked and closed up. There's a fence to the right (locked as well), with an intriguing set of stairs behind it:


A nearby sign indicated that these are shindobi - tombs of an outstanding official awarded after one's death. While they are not as large as the various royal tombs I've seen in the past, they certainly offer many of the same features, including the

At this point, I'm about parked out. A few hours of walking around, snapping pictures, and trying to figure things / places out while taking notes on a sunny day has that effect. I then hear a few ajummas talking to each other, but I can't see them. I'm not going crazy - they're hidden behind a bush about 10 meters from the path. I then notice this dirt path:


Curiosity may have killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back. Time to go exploring.

Sure enough, a couple of hundred meters up a steep hill, I was rewarded with a close-up view of some more shindobi:


There's a fence preventing you from getting any closer, but this is about as close as I've ever gotten to the tombs before.


What was intriguing about these shindobi and statues is that there are no signs whatsoever. No Korean signs, no English signs, no directional signs, no signs of any kind. This place either hasn't made the tourist guides yet or has been forgotten by the people in charge of tourism.


For the most part, the tombs are well-maintained; a few have been trimmed almost bare, while others are overgrown.





There's even more tombs to see, depending solely on how far you wanted to walk.




A couple of insects were kind enough to stay still for a few split seconds.




Yuldong Park is a tale of two parks. One park is almost entirely wheelchair-accessible, and offers a view of the shindobi from the trail surrounding the lake. The other park offered a somewhat more rugged (but short) path up the hill to get a closer look. Either way, there aren't any explanations of the tombs in English; the more adventurous climb doesn't have any signs at all. However, there's enough to see for an entire day after the momentary thrill of the bungee jump.



Ratings: (out of 5 taeguks)

Ease to arrive:

Foreigner-friendly:


Convenience facilities:


Worth the visit:


Intrigue:


Directions to Yuldong Park: Take the Bundang line of the Seoul subway system to the Seohyeon station. Take exit 2 to the lower level of a large mall. Go up ONE elevator, then straight out the mall (it'll be gate 4 as far as the mall is concerned) and to the bus stop right in front of you. Get on bus 17 or 17-1 and go 9 stops to the park. Use the pedestrian overpass to cross the street, then keep going through the parking lot.

Alternatively, bus 1500 can take you there from exit 6 of Gangnam station., as can bus 119 near Jamsil station.


Creative Commons License © Chris Backe - 2009

 

Home and Away

Sometimes you need to get away from it all, and on this time particular day 'away' took the form of a tiny island called Yeonhwa-Do off the coast of Tongyeong.
































..... but as beautiful as away might be, sometimes you'd rather just come home and shake it with your friends.













Life in Korea: Checking out a Korean job fair

Job fairs in America are an interesting mix; some are perfect for the consummate professional in a thousand-dollar suit, while others have the casualness of a college event. With sponsors including a major recruiter in Korea and the Seoul city government, I was curious to see how Korea does searching for jobs. Entering requires filling out a short registration form - I was rather proud that I understood enough Korean to fill it out unassisted.

Once entering SETEC - the Seoul Trade Exhibition Center - choose from one of the three large exhibition halls.


Time for interviews! The standard interview bench had a couple chairs on either side of the table for chit-chatting, handing over resumes, and the like. Unlike an American job fair where the recruiter might simply collect your resume and move on, most interviewers seemed to take a one-on-one approach.


Several dozen specific positions - supposedly organized based on where the company's booth was.


As you might expect, the place is relatively well-organized - with a fairly young crowd. Since I went during the afternoon, most of the people I saw appeared university-age or in their twenties. Considering this recent story from the Joongang Daily, recent college graduates need all the help they can get.


It goes without saying that any event has to feature a cuddly creature out to hug or pose for pictures. I've seen this particular character in some TV ads before, though I can't place the specific company / brand...


A library of books to read while at the fair- all in Korean, of course; I was the only foreigner around.


Making way into the back corner, we find the 'relaxation corner' - Wii Sports!


Making t-shirts, anyone? Hand painted t-shirts definitely seemed to relax most of the crowd - again, primarily younger people. Most of the more serious job seekers weren't seen back in this direction.



Acupuncture? On your fingers? Not sure how that relaxes people, but ok...


A resume / CV contest. Not sure whether the point was the content or the style; either way, put a sticker on the sheet below your resume / CV of choice. The most popular one was an eight page booklet that read more like a Powerpoint slide show than the resume you might ordinarily see in a stack.



At least one company seemed to consider this event a chance to show off some fashion / style.

As a whole, the event seemed productive, drawing a number of professionals and future professionals. How many jobs were offered or available is anyone's guess, however - here's hoping the graduating university students find jobs worth working at.

Creative Commons License © Chris Backe - 2009

Start carrying your ID's, people

Something you should be doing anyway, but here's another good reason to carry ID with you. From the Korea Times:

The Korea Immigration Service's crackdown on illegal immigrants this year has been met with controversy due to allegations its officers are making random checks on those who look like foreign workers.

Members of the legally residing foreign community are also upset at the failure to stick to a legal set of procedures.

"Immigration officials make raids on the street," said a foreign scholar in Seoul who spoke on condition of anonymity.

She said three Nepalese foreigners were grabbed on their way to get a haircut recently, while a pregnant woman was taken outside of the city last week. Others are caught during routine shopping errands, she said.

KIS spokesman Ahn Kyu-suk neither denied nor confirmed these allegations in an e-mail interview with The Korea Times, but simply cited the legal procedures.

Ahn said the Immigration Law dictates that "if foreigners residing here always carry a copy of their passport and alien registration card, the concerned shall satisfy the requirements of immigration and passport officials."

"Therefore, suspected foreigners in these circumstances must show their identification" during on-the-spot checks, the spokesman added.

No, this isn't Nazi Germany, and the 'papers please!' request probably sounds a bit nicer from the Korean police officer than German military personnel. Seriously, though, carry your ARC (Alien Registration Card) with you at all times. If you don't have it yet, carry another form of ID at all times (your old driver's license is probably acceptable). I don't recommend carrying around your passport unless necessary - something like that is harder to replace than you think, and more easily stolen than you think.

Creative Commons License © Chris Backe - 2009

On female Korean bloggers UPDATED x2

EDITED x2 23 September 2009 to include some more blogs that weren't mentioned already.
EDITED 22 September 2009 to include some blogs that weren't mentioned already.

Every now and then, looking at the K-blogger scene reminds me of how many of us are male. In the interest of turning my wonderful readers onto some new blogs - and in the interest of discovering female K-bloggers, I've put together a list of active K-bloggers of the fairer gender. This list is far from complete, of course, and only represents the ones I've heard about or actively read:

  1. http://foreignerjoy.blogspot.com/
  2. http://abbyoff-air.blogspot.com/
  3. http://www.eatyourkimchi.com/ (husband and wife team)
  4. http://datinginkorea.tumblr.com/
  5. http://hookingupinhanguk.tumblr.com/
  6. http://jenniferteacher.blogspot.com/
  7. http://katie2korea.blogspot.com/
  8. http://kurichaninseoul.blogspot.com/
  9. http://gyopowife.wordpress.com/
  10. http://itaewonfatty.blogspot.com/
  11. http://walkingthroughalife.blogspot.com/
  12. http://mediocracies.blogspot.com/
  13. http://imsoboredwiththeusa.blogspot.com/
  14. http://danormansinkorea.wordpress.com/ (hasn't posted since June)
  15. http://www.vegetarianinkorea.com/
  16. http://tuesdaysborrower.blogspot.com/
  17. http://storysinger81.blogspot.com/
  18. http://bredainkorea.blogspot.com/
  19. http://serenityinseoul.wordpress.com/
  20. http://mommycha.blogspot.com/
  21. http://www.buhaykorea.com/
  22. http://t-bonesteaks.blogspot.com/
  23. http://tamicat.wordpress.com/
  24. http://chersurvivingkorea.blogspot.com/
  25. http://gyopo.wordpress.com/
  26. http://saladdayskr.blogspot.com/
  27. http://me-and-other-stories.blogspot.com
  28. http://reijene.blogspot.com/
  29. http://kimchiiorsomethinglikeit.blogspot.com/
  30. http://mgakwentoninemie.blogspot.com/
  31. http://mishanguyen.blogspot.com/
  32. http://kobarea.blogspot.com/
  33. http://www.anythingbutsquid.blogspot.com/
  34. http://sasha-astray.livejournal.com/
  35. http://wanderlustlover.livejournal.com/
  36. http://supergirljimmy.livejournal.com/
  37. http://junnnnn12.livejournal.com/
  38. http://emilyvanderson.livejournal.com/
  39. http://michelle-ragno.livejournal.com/
  40. http://aruba2korea.blogspot.com/
  41. http://rachaelgoestokorea.wordpress.com/

Most of these blogs probably weren't already on your 'to-read' list, but I hope that a few of them will be of interest to you.

Creative Commons License © Chris Backe - 2009

The Business

I am sad that the first thing I notice when I discover an attractive writer hawking her book online is not that she is attractive and seems like a neat person I would like to meet for drinks, but rather it would be great to befriend her and align myself with her should her memoir ever reach Smashed, by Koren Zailckas levels of notoriety. And another part thinks either of my thoughts are not very nice.

A hippie, yuppie and womanizer battle fiercely inside me.

—John Dunphy

Pages

Subscribe to Koreabridge MegaBlog Feed