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Sicko

Thus far, my reintroduction to Korean society has been unexpectedly bumpy at best for various reasons, but there are some aspects of life in Korea which would have to go a long way downhill before they become negative parts of the equation. One of these is the Korean health system with its immediate treatment, availability of hospitals with their second and third opinions if you want them, all at a price which show up the National Health Service back home for what it is - a self-absorbed and expensive bureaucracy which two years ago Wikipedia alarmingly cited as the fourth biggest employer in the world. By comparison, the privately-based Korean system seems much more certain to actually treat illness effectively. However, there is a catch - which is the money.

The reality is that the Korean system works very well so long as you can afford to pay for it, but you're probably out of luck if you can't. This means you really need to have health insurance - at least for the more expensive treatments. Some may argue that's inferior to the British system, and perhaps it is in certain circumstances, but when I suffered the onset of mysterious back pain earlier this year that left me unable to walk for a month - the most the NHS could offer me was a three month waiting list for an MRI which I instead paid £650 (1,260,000 won/$1,064) to have done privately within a week - which is still something a Korean hospital might have been able to do within a day at a third of the cost in my experience.

Despite the relatively low-cost of procedures in Korean hospitals - and while I hope I will always have the resources to cover any ill health I experience - last week I decided to hedge my bets and arrange for an insurance quotation for myself. This involved bringing in a personal contact of Korean Mother, who works in this area. She visited us at home and while discussing the various options, bemoaned the fact that these days, "young people" tended to forego the 'social network' approach to obtaining a policy, but would instead shop around on the Internet or ask a lot of questions about the fine detail of the policy if they did come to see her. I got the distinct impression that in the good old days, the way this worked was for the personal contact to recommend a policy, which would then pretty much be blindly signed up for in the belief that if anything happened they would somehow magically be covered because their personal contact had arranged it, and they would never do anything that would disadvantage them. I became painfully aware I was asking a lot of questions through my translator.

The first thing I had to get my head around was the notion that while there seemed to be two types of insurance - "health" and "life", these are not the same concepts I am used to. The far cheaper "Health" insurance covers small diagnostic procedures and, oddly enough, a certain amount of legal protection should I ever be sued for causing damage to other people's property, or injury to third parties. I've read recently that Korea is quite a litigious society and while I was not aware of this allegation beforehand, I can well believe it from certain anecdotal evidence I am aware of within our social network, so this seems like a theoretically useful policy to have, especially as the whole package costs around £21 (40,500 won/$34) per month.

The much more expensive "Life" insurance covers larger diagnostic procedures as well as drug and operative treatments, although I was disappointed to discover the ceiling for cancer-related payments was only 20,000,000 won (£10,000/$17,000), which seemed very small. There was a lot more included though, so in principle the proposed policy had its attractions. I was aiming for a monthly cost of around £90 (174,000 won/$147) because this was the equivalent of what I would be paying in the UK, although it's very hard to compare like-with-like considering that Korean policies are so different. So I was taken aback to be quoted an annual cost approaching £1,500 - £1,750 (3,150,000 won/$2,661) if you include the "health" insurance on top of it. Friend or no friend, I was ready to show her the door, even when it was explained that I would only pay this amount for 20 years - after which I would be still covered for life with no additional premiums. This struck me as the health insurance equivalent of a Government-sponsored national pension pyramid scheme, where people paid relatively small premiums 20-30 years ago based on the seemingly ridiculous assumption that life expectancy and health costs would not rise considerably with future technological improvements. I couldn't see the insurance company keeping their system working if average life expectancy rose to 100 in the foreseeable future, which to my mind is entirely possible. I was dubious.

But the next big shock sealed the deal. It was too expensive to my mind, but I thought I could sign up and find a better deal in the next few months when I had the time to research the market properly, so I asked about penalty clauses for withdrawing from the scheme. This caused some nervousness on the part of the insurance agent - she explained that as we were a 'personal contact' she would be paying our first month's bill (probably from her bonus I thought), so it would 'look very bad' if we pulled out after only one or two months. If this happened, it seemed she would be sent for 're-education' within the company, something which had an unpleasantly North Korean feel to it. However, the real surprise was that if I withdrew, I'd get just under 69% of my premiums back - which stopped the scheme looking so expensive after all, although in some senses while they are dangling the carrot of a fixed 20-year payment plan, on the other hand it takes on aspects of a long-term - admittedly zero-interest - savings scheme. So I signed up, utterly unconvinced as I am that it is competitive or realistic. There is a lot happening right now, of which the health and life insurance is only a minor part, so there is an element of putting something in place and moving on.

The insurance agent went away and returned later in the day with the formal papers for signing, and there was a lot to be signed - so much in fact I wondered whether I was getting health insurance or promising my eternal soul to the company. I counted nine separate signatures, and because my wife is the named payer on the principle that only she can have read the considerable number of terms and conditions and understood them, she got to sign her name around fifteen times on the same documents. Unfortunately this also points out a rather sad reality about my future in Korea - it's one thing to understand social conversations, but it's going to take a long time before my understanding of the language is anywhere near good enough to understand legal contracts and the kind of small print which appears within them. There is a very, very, long way to go.

Later, the insurance company phoned me up to ensure that I'd signed up willingly to the policy because I'm a foreigner and I couldn't have understood what I was signing. But there was a problem - they couldn't speak English on the phone - so the laughable way this ended up working is with them asking a question in Korean to my wife, who passed over the phone to me with instructions on whether to say 'yes' or 'no' in Korean to the person on the other end of the line. Then I passed the phone back and we moved on to the next question. How this proves anything is anyone's guess. Corporate Korea hasn't quite worked out how to deal with foreigners as customers of their services, but I should be grateful that they even let me be a customer - it's not always guaranteed.

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Swollen Face, Tired Hair

As opposed to simply telling me that I looked like I hadn't slept in three days like they usually do, a couple of my students decided that today was the day to get creative. The first asked me why my face was "swollen", and the second advised me that I had "tired hair". The first laughed at the second and informed her that the hair comment was rather rude. The swollen face comment? Totally acceptable, apparently.

Honestly, being told that I look like an exhausted bag of crap every day, even on those rare occasions that I don't, doesn't really bug. It bores. I do often look like a tired bag of crap. Given how little I try to appear otherwise, I'm quite okay with this. I just wish that I could train the few students that are still stuck on this point to say more interesting things. As it is, they mean well, so I smile and nod; a boring response.

Honeymoon: Hong Kong Shopping and the Avenue of Stars

The city of Hong Kong is separated into two halves by a large body of water. Connected to mainland China is Kowloon and across the water is Hong Kong Island. The New Territories are a more sparsely populated area to the northwest. If you're coming to Hong Kong as a tourist on a tight schedule, I'd recommend finding a hotel in Kowloon and taking a daytrip out to see Hong Kong Island.

Kowloon is a good place to stay (we stayed near MongKok Station) because you're closer to the airport and right in the middle of the busy shopping districts. If you don't like shopping and noise, you could probably find a nice hotel in Aberdeen, but it may be more expensive.

On a side note, two good restaurants in Adelaide Chinatown that I used to eat at were called Cafe Kowloon and the MongKok Restaurant. Now I know what the names are referring to.

Lots of tourists target Hong Kong as a shopping destination. Clothing, food and souvenirs are noticeably cheaper, but other things like electronic goods are similar to Korean prices. The best places to go for cheap clothes are the markets in Kowloon. Here they'll sell shirts for around US$4 as the asking price, but you can easily bargain that down if you're willing to put some time and acting into it. Bargaining is fun if you have the time, although not quite so enjoyable if you're in a hurry.

The basic modus operandi of market vendors in Hong Kong is to first give a lightning assessment of the potential buyer. From my brief observations, it seems that you'll be given a lot of attention and less room for bargaining if you look rich and from a western country. Next come other Asian tourists, who get given a little attention and more bargaining leverage. At the apex of the economic shopping category come the native Cantonese-speaking locals. They will often be able to get a cheap price in a short amount of time, with the vendors just waving them off quickly so they can concentrate their efforts on the more naive customers.

As a general rule, you're not getting a bargain unless you pay less than a third of the advertised price. Heather and I did fairly well, after a few hit-and-misses.

A good thing to remember is that if the vendor is watching you, don't look like you're interested in any one particular item. If they know that you're interested in a certain item, you're sure to have difficulty bargaining it down. Ask for prices on a few different things first, and then eventually arrive at the thing you're after. If it's $100 HK dollars, ask for it for $20. Then they'll probably say $85. Give it some time and make use of the oversized calculator they always have nearby.
If that doesn't work, try pulling the oldest trick in the book. Pretend to give up on it and start walking away. If the vendor isn't busy, they will nearly always shout a cheaper price as you're just out of hearing range. If they don't call after you, don't worry because there'll be a shop selling exactly the same thing just up the road and you can try again.

There's always room for common courtesy and mutual respect though.

Common to much of Asia is the endless bemusement to be derived from English mistakes on shirts.

'Fo let the good times soll!'

For US$2, you can get any three of these fruits blended up in a smoothie. We tried carrot, orange and apple, which was a surprisingly good combination. The next day we came back and had some more.
The fruit on the top left that looks like it's on fire is called Dragonfruit. The flesh is white and has little black seeds like kiwi fruit.

Live seafood is sold in a similar manner to Korea. I remember when I first went to Jagalchi in Busan, I saw an ajumma buy a live octopus with a head that was only a little smaller than a basketball. The vendor put the squirmy creature into double-lined shopping bags and it was just carried off, writhing in a rather curious manner. Through the opacity of the bag you could see things like tentacles, something wet and breathing, and an eyeball.

Great Halloween idea.

This Adidas shop had a resident cat wandering around and greeting the customers. Before I came to Korea, I was always a dog person, but these days I'm learning to appreciate cats. I like the fact that they know where to poop, and they don't smell bad.

But then again, nothing beats coming home to an exuberantly excited canine, overjoyed with just the fact that it hasn't seen you since you left in the morning.

We came back to the hotel with a fair bit of shopping. I think I spent around US$300, but it was a $300 well spent. Luckily, I had packed a half empty suitcase in anticipation.

Then it was off to meet Tommy for the second time. The Hong Kong subway system is fairly simple and easy to use. The line map is much simpler than Seoul's, and everything is nice and clean.

This is Tommy Lau. I used to live with this guy back in Australia for a couple of years and we're good friends. Now he works in a trading company and seems to be doing pretty well for himself. He picked us up at the airport and took us around to some bars. These days he seems to be a little wiser and a little more healthy than when I last saw him.

It was nice catching up with him, and now it's his turn to come and see us in Korea!

He took us out to a Taiwanese restaurant. You'd expect to eat out at a Hong Kong restaurant if you're visiting Hong Kong, right? But the funny thing is that for me also, when people come to visit Korea, I feel like taking them out to foreign restaurants in Itaewon. Mainly because I spend too much time eating Korean food, so it doesn't seem special anymore.

For the record, Taiwanese food is quite nice and they like to eat sweet spiced chicken.

This is the Peninsula Hotel, one of the most famous in the city. If you're feeling suave, you might want to stay here or at the Intercontinental.

Here's Heather and me in front of the Space Museum. It's shaped like this because there's a planetarium inside. Anybody who knows me, knows that I like all things space-related, except for long-bearded professors who talk too much about the mathematics.
We came back to have a look inside, but it's closed on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Take a note of that if you're visiting.

What are those green lights in the sky? They're lasers mounted on top of the buildings across the harbour. On certain nights, they have a Festival of Lights, and many of the buildings participate by lighting up in various neon patterns. It's all synchronised to a public music broadcast and worth coming out for, but we only got to see the tail end of it.

Here's Tommy, me and Heather on the Avenue of Stars. This area is a kind of boardwalk dedicated to important figures in Hong Kong movie history.

The boardwalk has some nice views of the harbour, surpassed only by Victoria Peak, which we'll see in the next blog post. That really tall building on the right is Two International Finance Centre. Batman jumped onto it in The Dark Knight movie.

Notice that dazzling blue neon billboard? That's none other than Samsung's contribution to the otherwise perfect photo opportunity. It's so bright that it becomes an overexposure problem in everyone's photos.

See what I mean? The funny thing is that in lots of the advertisements and other official photos of Hong Kong Harbour at night, the Samsung sign is actually covered up or obscured by something.

If any of the LKB readers out there works at Samsung, please ask the boss to hit the dimmer switch at the Hong Kong branch.

Similar to its Hollywood counterpart, the Hong Kong Avenue of Stars has these dedications on the ground. Tsui Hark directed the Once Upon a Time in China series, which are movies that captured my imagination as a middle schooler.

There was a time when I would jump around yelling "Futsan, Moying ge!"
(Cantonese for: No-Shadow Kick from Fushan!)

That's it for this time. I actually have to head to Jeju for 5 days this week on a science conference. So I'll be back with the next post sometime early next week. And I also start tutoring soon too.

Hmm... busy schedules; we all hope they lead somewhere worthwhile.

See you soon!

On drinking, stereotypes, and the Groove Magazine

I should preface this post by saying that Groove Magazine, in general, is an excellent resource for expats in Korea. Between generally insightful articles and good travel ideas, I tend to look for it whenever I'm around Hongdae or Itaewon (two expat-dense areas where a paper copy of the magazine can be picked up; it can also be read online at http://groovekorea.com/).

Page 74 has a rather troubling article - entitled "Blackout: the Drinking Culture in Seoul" by Jenna Myers. A few excerpts (pick up the paper copy of October's Groove or logon to the website to see the full article):
Seoul is the capital and largest city in South Korea and where I resided for four years. Since that time, I have come to perceive this peninsula not as "The Land of the Morning Calm," but rather "The Land of the Morning Hangover." I'm sure most of the expat population pretending to be proper English teachers and businesspeople couldn't agree with me more; especially after a Ladies Night where free drinks are limitless, endless and bottomless...

Most foreigners are said to refer to their existence in Seoul as "university extended," perhaps because the party and all night drinking fests haven't ceased. Only in this Asian chapter of the party guidebook of life, you make loads of cash and get to spend it unwisely. Yes, you still have to drag your ass to class, except this time you're the one standing in front of your room blinking dimly at miniature versions of those pesky moms that won't stop complaining about their child's English education.

OK, I'm sorry. If your entire purpose for coming to Korea is to drink alcohol, party hard, and oh yeah!, half-heartedly show up to work with a hangover the next morning, get out of Korea. Just go. You give the rest of us a bad name, and Koreans a bad image of foreigners. It's bad enough to have Kang-Shin-Who ignoring facts and numbers to promote racism; having foreigners actually prove the stereotypical view of foreigners doesn't help anything either.



The article continues:
Of course this diatribe on the drinking culture in Seoul doesn't mean that all foreigners are borderline alcoholics. We all make our own choices. Some of us
choose to spend our nights getting wasted... It is true that I blacked out most of my first two years in Seoul. I had fun...I think. I also met fantastic people and experienced a relatively carefree life. If you ever get the chance to live in Seoul, or you happen to live there now, it's up to you to drink it all up, or just taste it. Whatever you decide to do...Gumbae!

Once again, I'm sorry. Traveling to a foreign country, getting a job, and living there requires better reasons than a 'carefree life' and partying until 3am. Who knows how much fun you had if you can't remember it the next day? Asknow.ca - from some sources an excellent recruiter - doesn't exactly help by using this as their Facebook picture (as well as in print advertising).



I don't approach this subject from a teetotaler's position; I make my way to Hongdae every now and then just like most expats living in Seoul. There is a difference between a few drinks on the weekends and blacking out or having a hangover while trying to teach 'miniature versions of those pesky moms'. There's something to be said about being part of a community - especially while living in a foreign country where few speak English and even fewer do it well.


What community, you might ask? I've yet to find any one large group of foreigners, since we have such disperate interests. The list of smaller communities, however, goes on longer than that hangover will - you just have to look for it. Roboseyo's 2S2 is getting off the ground; I'm currently rehearsing with a choir to perform the Messiah in mid-December; the KOTESOL conference was last weekend, and that's a huge community right there. There's sporting groups, artsy / crafty groups, and at least a couple writing groups across the country. If you're stuck or lazy, Seoul's craigslist has some announcements under the 'Community' section, while Matt Lamers keeps up the good work at the Korea Herald with the most complete community group list I've seen to date.

To the editor of Groove Magazine (Tracey Stark), I have this to say:

In the future, consider how your articles / columns impact the image of foreigners in Korea. While I'm sure Ms. Myers meant to write about an interesting facet of life in Korea, I'm convinced it hurts the general Korean perception of us. Any person seeking to convince others of this negative stereotype can easily that article as 'proof' those stereotypes are correct. Those stereotypes undermine the efforts of teachers who take their job seriously, and who see a life in Korea as more than a year trying to get drunk or dance with locals. That Koreans read the Groove as well as foreigners (whether to know what's happening or to practice their English) make it very important to put forth an image that doesn't support the stereotype.

Anything else you'd like to add? Check out the full article for yourself, then let the editor know your thoughts at [email protected]. Comments are open - play nice.

Creative Commons License © Chris Backe - 2009

 

Some catching up on news around Korea

After a nice long weekend with the computer off, it's time to catch up with the news around the area. While a few are kind of laughable, most are worth noting:

  • The Seoul mayor wants to improve living conditions for foreigners, according to an interview with the Korea Times. Let's start with reducing or eliminating the huge key money deposits, or at the very least make it easier for people to get their key money back from their landlord.
  • Today's 'lazy reporter' award goes to the Chosun Ilbo for reporting "90% percent of Korean women would have plastic surgery", according to a straw poll of an immense and well-balanced sample - "232 women in their 20s and 30s who visited the website of matchmaking specialist Duo". Hmm - telling girls they're fat when they're already skinny or implying that they're not already beautiful might induce that sort of anxiety or lack of confidence...
  • The Korean baseball season ended up with a thrilling 9th inning home run in Game 7, and the Kia Tigers from Gwangju have won the championship. Kimchi and Cornbread did a nice write-up, as well as ROK Sojourn and Brian in Jeollanam-do.
  • A K-blogger has made his way onto cnngo.com for covering the Seoul Fashion Show - congrats Michael Hurt from the Metropolitican!
Now that the news is caught up, time to get back to my usual posts: life in Korea and traveling around the city / country.


Creative Commons License © Chris Backe - 2009

Green Curry and Tom Yam in Bangkok



We arrived in Bangkok yesterday, and I'm already getting a taste of what makes it so different from the rest of South East Asia. The city is a dizzy mish mash of royal pomp, rampant commerce, lady boys, sex tourists, backpackers, scam artists and traditional Thai courtesy. Crowded, polluted and tiring at times - but never boring.

We're shacked up in a place in Rambutri, close to the infamous Khao San Road. It's a bona fide backpacker ghetto, but after experiencing so much commerce-cloaked-in-culture elsewhere, I'm finding something quite refreshing about the brash, in your face-ness of it all. Bangkok has been doing the tourist gig for along time, and it's great not to feel like I'm stamping on a monk's toes everytime I walk out the door.

In keeping with this theme, the street food here mostly revolves around large, multi-itemed operations catering exclusively for the tourist market. Eating at these joints tends to go against my usual preference for locally validated, one vendor, one dish setups, but I decided to put my snobbery aside for the night and get stuck in - a case of when in Rambutri, do as the non-Rambutrans.


I opted for a Green Curry, arguably the most famous Thai dish and one pretty expressive of the flavours indiginous to the country; Chilli, lemongrass, galangal, sweet basil, fish sauce and kaffir lime all make an appearence. This one was of a reasonably quality - I would have welcomed a little more coconut milk and it was definitely farang (as opposed to Thai) spicy. Still, for only 30 kip (just over 50p) in the center of one of the most heavily touristed areas in South East Asia, it was pretty damn good.


Across the table Sarah went for another Thai superstar, Tom Yam. In my opinion, this hot and sour classic is one of the most bewitching soups on the planet. It is also very easy to get wrong; the slightest tremor in flavouring and Tom Yam instantly loses the X-factor. Unfortunately whoever made Sarah's took the Khao San hippy theme a little too far - an excess of chilli oil meant the surface of the soup resembled a lava lamp, with all the attendent greasiness that entails. An altogether less accomplished bowl of food than the one I enjoyed.
A suitably mixed result for a suitably mixed up city.

The Sound of Crickets in Itaewon

I'm currently at a PC room in Kangnam - "the Beverly Hills of Korea." It's the moneyed part of Seoul, and I'm being put up at a sweet hotel here, as part of the two-night standup show I'm doing.

I've been back at standup for five months now, and it's been a great run so far. I've delivered some really solid sets and even knocked it out of the park a couple of times. People have laughed and I've had a helluva time.

Until last night.

I smelled trouble when I walked into the club, "The Kabinett Wine Bar." I despise "wine bars" and their nauseating bourgeois trappings to begin with, but a gig's a gig. I had also done a rocking show there over the summer, so my expectations were high.

The first thing I noticed about the crowd is that they were OLD. I have nothing against performing for aged folks - I'm getting on myself - but they can be stingy with their laughter. It's like getting a Canadian to pick up the check. They also looked well to do - the "international business set" - you know, the kind of douchebags that they advertise to on CNN Asia. And, apart from the Taliban, upper middle class white people are the most offend-able people on the planet. They were quiet. They were serious. They were quietly looking "sophisticated" and sipping wine.

Brian, the host, went up and slowly warmed them up, though he had to work for every chuckle. Then he brought me up.

I bombed.

It's not like I ate a dick because I didn't know what I was doing. I delivered my set well. Words were coming out of my mouth and I FELT like I was funny. And looking out into the sixty or seventy people in the room, there were about five or six people who thought I was funny as well. Not quite enough to wipe the scowls off the rest of the khaki and button-up shirt, crowd, though.

It was like performing for driftwood.

Kerry, the headliner, got up and managed to kindle a fire, but he lost them for big stretches, only to get them back some great lines. Kerry was a proper professional in Canada for ten years, and if he can't get a room going, the night's fucked. When the crowd likes me I can slay it, but I'm still figuring this shit out.

I'm not sure if the wine and cheese crowd is my thing. My comedy's more suited for dive bars and rock clubs. But tonight should be a younger, hipper crowd - not one that just got off work at the investment bank and wants a monkey to dance for them. I've killed at this place before, so I know it can work.

Standup comedy is a strange beast, though. You NEVER know what you're going to get. Never.

Roman Candles

I left the apartment early this morning to find a cake for my wife's birthday before she woke up, and discovered that my favourite local bakery didn't open until 9am. I'm used to Koreans working very long hours, and since many British bakeries are open much earlier in the day, I'd assumed the same would be true here, but it isn't.

Avoiding the Paris Baguette chain as being too manufactured and clichéd, I located an alternative that was open, and for once was rather glad to have a staff member hover over me while I made a selection from a large array of choices. My new best friend ventured to tell me the ingredients which met with my approval, and after telling her "I'd like to buy this one", we proceeded to the checkout.

Which is where this thus-far smooth transaction went off the rails. As the cake was being packed, the assistant said something in Korean to me the only part of which I understood was "cho" (초) which means a 'second' (of time). It crossed my mind that I was being told that she would 'just be a second', which if you're British is the kind of thing a person packing something in a shop for you would be likely to say, but in retrospect probably deviates outside the norm of the Korean language on the principle that it is too casual. I apologised, said I didn't understand, and contrary to any impression I might have thus far created, didn't speak Korean. I'd considered explaining that it was my wife's birthday, but I wasn't sure it added anything to the situation. I paid and left.

Back at home, it quickly became clear that "cho" is also the Korean word for 'candles' as well as 'second' - and despite these having been included with every cake I'd ever witnessed being purchased before, my failure to grasp the other meaning of this word coupled with the assistant not trying to clarify her question had led to me, or rather my wife, not having any with her cake. I was kicking myself for not having thought to look up the word for candles before I'd left the apartment, but this is the problem with only having a smattering of usable Korean - once any conversation strays outside my 700-word vocabulary I'm very quickly lost.

Korean Mother announced that she had one we could use, and promptly returned with the kind Buddhist worshippers take to temples - which in other words was not so much a candle as a blunt object.

Next year, I'll remember the Korean word for 'candles' - and I'll probably visit a different store.

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