Jang-San Mountain

Last Sunday a group of us hiked up Jang-San, or Jang-Mountain. Mountain hiking, or climbing as the locals call it, is a pretty big deal in Korea. (we established that climbing require the use of all four limbs, whereas hiking was just the legs)

South Koreans take a lot of pride in their mountains and it is a great family outing.

They also, stereotypically, tend to over do the gear. The walk up was fun, although a little crowded. We still got to see some of the local citizens in their natural mountainous environments.

There is a surprising amount of alcohol involved as well. (Note the pack of cigarettes and bottle of rice wine this gentleman's left hand)

There are usually dong-dong-ju (rice wine with a kick!!) huts scattered across the to pf the mountain. This one is a little rustic, and the maitre'd told us there would be a twenty minute wait for a table. Something about changing the linen??

Walking along the ridge was nice, less people and a very beautiful view of the sea and coastline. It was a little misty so most of the pictures didn't turn out. However...

This sign raised a few of our eyebrows!! (There was a radar station at the top of this ridge)

Ah, the sleepy suburb of Haeundae New Town. My house is the 346th building from the left.

Halloween Party

Last Saturday was the big Halloween party at U2 club near Haeundae beach. It was a great night, a lot of people showed up and most of them were dressed up. Halloween doesn't really exist here, so most of the expats tend to really do it up.

We didn't really coordinate on our costumes as you can see but it..whatever! We're no chorus line. Travis the bassist was some kind of mad science guy. Gino was dracula, "the prince of goddamn darkness" as he put it.

I wimped out and just wore a suit. I was supposed to be Agent Smith from the matrix movies. But only about two people got it. Most people thought I was Kevin Costner from the bodyguard, or an FBI or secret service agent.

Kevin was Michael Bolton...sorry Kevin, had to publish this picture. Nice sounding cymbal!!

Mike, our singer, was supposed to be some kind of grungy Skeletor/He-man hybrid. I think it was a good party, I'm not sure as I spent most of the night on stage but we did keep the dance floor full all night.

South Korean students..

Half of my students are elementary 4-6. Originally I was pretty bad at controlling them. I relied on trying to placate them and nurture their various needs and wants. I maintained control only by sudden volume swells of my voice and hollow threats which the kids would start seeing through after about 20 minutes.

I've been through all kinds of different approaches since then and I undoubtably will be through many more, however; I am particularily enjoying my current strategy. It involves an inner struggle between two polar opposites within me. This dichotomy, the "Snape/Dumbledorf" or the Evil Thomas/Angel Thomas as I refer to it in front of the kids (...oh yeah, I fully keep them involved), is a daily, even hourly struggle between unfairness/cruelty and kindness/compassion.

In the class, it would go something like; "Oh no, the power of evil Thomas is rising...I must fight it, but I am not strong enough." And so the kids will rally with all kinds of support and cheers to keep Angel Thomas in control. Basically, they stop screwing around for ten minutes so I can get on with a lesson. At least once a class "Evil" Thomas does in fact take over quite suddenly, and he usually is pretty mean. He takes aways test points for no reason, doubles up homework, and makes the students act out CNN dialogues.

Anyway.. enough of my schizoid teaching practices (they'll only be effective with this bunch for another week or so anyway). It is really about the kids. I think I have a reasonable straight relationship with them. They are really responsive to reason and often give very sincere and untainted opinions. (Quite unlike adults) Here is an example of some writing my students did for me last week. The topic was "One Korea" and they had to discuss what it would be like if the North and South unified.

One student named Anne wrote about how wonderfull it would be for South korean students to visit the North and the Northerners to come south to exchange ideas and learn each others dialects.

Another kid, Ricky, wrote "Of course there must be confusion but after 5 years it will be good and our country will be strong. We have an advantage over other sides in that we have skills, money, and many peoples. I want no one became a dominant form of our life."

Allen writes "...these days more and more countries says that the North Korea is not our alliance and the North Korea did experiment of Newclear, So world and North Korea is now more and more far...if the situation is worst, unfortunately we should fight for the North Korean citizen and our future."


The last one is from Brad who is a little younger. He wrote, "South dominated all parts of democracy and North dominated all parts of communism. And ideology is still a powerful facter in Koreas. We can be one by persuading if we be one. We will be often worse off than before IMF and we will be can found it difficult to escape from low money. But we're same people. So we have to be one, not separating two country. And they may have nuclear, so no country will attack our country too."

Clearly Brad has had his hands in the ole' cookie jar of Historical Materialism. Still, quite remarkable for a young man of 9. They are all quite brilliant.

The week before, their assignment was to imagine they had kidnapped me and had to write a ransom letter to our school. I have never had kids stay after the bell on their own to finish something. Let's just say that bombs were implanted in my brain, my body parts were mailed out one at a time after the deadline wasn't met, my life is worth an average of about 50$US, and whatever you do...DO NOT contact the police.

(In)Significance

I always keep a copy of this picture on my computer at work. It is of Jupiter taken by one of the Pioneer missions. The great red spot on the left is roughly the size of the earth and the moon Io is 105% the size of our moon.

Why am putting this picture on my blog?? Two reasons; I need to draw attention away from that horrible id photo below and nothing else significant has happened to me recently, and well...this picture always gets me somehow. Especially when I feel this overwhelming sense of blah...melancholy, or just an inert vapid feeling that the days are walking past me one by one. One by one I try to come up with different reasons to be happy...one by one I try to convince myself about why I shouldn't be sad.

I feel this way and I come across a picture like this. It doesn't cheer me up, I am not that big of a dork. But it strikes me as small. The smallness of the image, look at it...it is the biggest planet in our solar system, yet the picture looks the size of beach ball. Maybe it is the shadow of Io, it is just too regular to be something so huge. There it is, this massive ball of immense swirling gas commanding an armada of moons, and I am not impressed!!

Screw you universe! My problems are way more important!!

Terry Fox Marathon Busan

Sunday, October 15th - The first annual Terry Fox marathon was held in Busan. The race has been held for several years in Seoul and there were over a thousand participants. Unfortunately few of those were Canadians.

We had a gig in PNU the night before so I woke up at 6:40 with about 4 hours of sleep. However, I was pretty excited as this was my first marathon of any kind since I began running around a year ago. A group of us met at around 7am and jumped into taxis to get to the start line and register. The course started near Olympic park (a glorified parking lot) and went out along the yacht club to Dong Baek point and then looped back.

We were supposed to get started at 8am. but we ended up standing around for almost an hour listening to speeches in Korean (with the exception of the ambassador who gave a brief and relatively unimpressive pep talk), watching some very bad cheerleader routines and then listening to the Korean anthem. I guess it is not a nationalistic event so I was not really bothered by the lack of the Canadian anthem. It was the group warm-up that really drove me nuts. Everyone in a crowd dancing to Korean soccer music! Well, it wasn't that bad, I was just really frustrated that they delayed the start for so long. I was ready to run at 8!!

The run itself was good, it is neat to have roads closed off and police re-directing traffic around us. I relished the anger of those impatient drivers who were yelling at the police because the wouldn't let them cut across the path of the racers. Kevin(pictured), Raphael and I ran together along with most of my co-workers and staff from the school. It was a lot of fun but I have immediately set my sites on a 10k somewhere in the near future.

I should say, there was some tragic irony/hyposcrisy/plain ignorance that occured at the end of the race.Some people who had finished before us (and we ran pretty hard!) were lounging under the tents and puffing away on cigarettes. At first, I thought it was so weird that these runners celebrated the completion of a marathon with a cigarette. But then it occurred to me that the whole point of this marathon was to fight cancer and that cigarettes are leading the fight against the fight against cancer (wordy?).

In otherwords, it's like firing off an AK-47 at a peace rally.

Mi Casa

A few pictures of my home in Busan. Although it seems small, it is actually rather small. Ideal for one person. The bed functions as both sleeping receptacle, couch, recliner, and trampoline. I live on the 22nd floor so I have decent view of Dalmaji mountain and can see a sliver of the ocean which is about a 10min walk to the left.

The kitchen is a miracle of ergonomics. Some where in this picture is a full fridge and freezer, washing machine, gas range, full bathroom, garborator, and make up counter/mirror. All of which I make full use of.

A twilight view from the terrace on the 20th floor

Shanghai V - Museums

More pictures, these ones were taken at several of the museums and galleries in Shanghai. They range from world class excellence to run down and downright bad. The photo pictured above is from the sculpture section of the Shanghai museum which was one of my favourites.











It has some amazing stone work, jade and ancient calligraphy galleries. The Shanghai Propoganda museum on the other hand was not so world class but oddly enough my favourite one. It was located in the basement of a tenement apartment block in a rundown neighborhood in the Frence Concession. I had to get the guard at the gate to give me a map and then wander around until I found building C. In the basement I had to bang on the door to wake up the curator who opened the door to the "gallery" and then left me to it. Some amazing posters showing Mao era propoganda mostly telling people to work harder, produce more, support international comrades in the struggle against imperialism and to kick the hell out of America.

The Shanghai Museum of Modern Art was also very cool, although not very Chinese. I guess that goes without saying though.

The Shanghai Museum of Urban planning was also kind of cool as it had a full scale model of the city that took up the entire 4th floor. Very impressive!

Shanghai IV - Old Town

I just wanted to share some more pictures from the Shanghai trip. I have been back in Korea for one week now and working again, so my memories of the trip are starting to lose their vividness. Not much text, just a quick photo show.

There is a big bazaar in Old Town, a old run down district in the south central region of the city, which has a lot of tacky and underpriced souvenirs. My friend Kevin and I ended up following a walking tour we found in our lonely planet guides which led us through all kinds of narrow alleyways. Guidebooks in hand, we marched on with sopping wet laundry dripping on us from above.

There were a lot of people hanging around. Some had shirts, some did not but all of them seemed pretty unphased by foreigners walking through their neighborhood.

Yes, McDonald's... fits in nicely doesn't it?

Tom's World

Pardon this little bit of self indulgence, I couldn't help getting all of these pictures of me with my name in the background. Kinda cheeky I know, but it is still a little weird to see your own name on all of these strange signs.

One of the popular purchases for tourists in China is a personalized stamp which has your name in chinese characters carved into the end of an ornate wooden or stone tube. This is then rubbed into red dye and used as a signature. It is unique as the carvings of Chinese characters are very intricate and difficult to duplicate the same way twice. So people use these in lieu of real signature when signing important documents or contracts. My name in Chinese (or the simplest characters I could find that almost sounded like my name) means To (Dirt/soil) - Ma (horse) - and Shway/Su (water).

So in China, I am know as Dirty - Horse - Water.

Shanghai III - Renmin People's Square

Well, it is actually more like a botanical garden. At one point this park held over 100,000 people who were attending a rally in the 50's to celebrate Mao's return to power.

I was up early every morning and the park was just a few minutes from my hotel, so I would often wander around and watch the old people practice Tai Chi, sword and flower dances, and a whole other variety of exercises. Everyone in the park was doing something. In some areas you would see old men gathered around stone tables playing checkers with a crowd avidly looking on and commentating. Other large groups of people would be performing their Tai Chi in large groups while I would also find a solitary man or woman practicing alone in some shady corner.

It is a very graceful and slow ballet. I have heard it is really quite difficult and requires a lot of muscle control and balance. No wonder these old woman are so good at shoving people out of the way in lines. The whole show would all begin around 6am and abruptly cut off at 7:30.

Shanghai II - The Bund

The Bund (pr. bunned) is an very old financial district that sits on the shore of the Huangpo in central Shanghai, it is where all of the old aristocrats, foreign businesses, and bankers hung out. The east shore is lined with old european style banks atop which you can find many posh patio bars and cafes where you can enjoy the view.
Across the river is Pudong free economic zone (pictured). It is an area that was built up over the last decade and has brought in billions USD of foreign investment. The best thing to do after a long day of walking around and sightseeing is to get a good seat in one of the roof top patios, help yourself to two for one Tiger pints and watch the sun set and the other side of the river light up. Absolutely breathtaking!!

The bund itself is named after for the Persian word band which means damn or embankment. It is basically a mile or so walkway along the east side of the river and is usually swarming with tourists. It is really weird to see the contrast between both shores. The modern almost Jetson family-like architecture of the Pearl TV tower which looks like it is about to take off into space on the west bank and the stone pillars and baroque buildings flanked by dark side roads on the west.

Considering PRC ideology which condemns the evil "running dog" capitalists of the West and praises the integrity and strength of the common peasantry, it is a little out of place. China is a land of definite contrasts.

Shanghai I

I have at last, after six weeks of travel, settled back home in Korea. Tomorrow I will start work again which is something I have mixed feelings about... Anyway, I returned from Shanghai last Wednesday and had a phenomenal experience. I had purchased a digital camera for the trip and took many, many pictures. I am going to try to get as much of the trip out as possible and the best way to do this would be geographically and not chronologically. This is Shanghai...

Well, this doesn't really give you a good perspective on the city itself. However, most of the action is along the east shore of the river which is called the Huangpo and feeds into the Yangtze to the North. After landing in Pudong airport, I took the Maglev (magnetic levitation) train into the city. This train is one of only two in the world and the ride is about 7 minutes long. The train starts to slow down after 4 or 5 minutes. It is funny because everyone is busy watching the speedometer above the door in the front of the car and ignoring the scenery flying past.

From the train, it was across the street into one of the nicest subway systems I have ever been in. I actually took one taxi the whole time I was in Shanghai, and that was with a Chinese friend I had made. Mainly, I relied on the subway and my feet to get around.

I popped up in Nanjing rd East which is a long rod filled with hotels, cafes, bars and department stores. This road is blocked of to traffic and is a mecca for tourists.

It took me a long time to find the hotel as they are all on the upper floors of these department stores, frankly I was completely starstruck by all of the sights, signs and sounds of this road. Everyday I walked along it, I noticed new things, places and features. It was like a puzzle whose pieces started to fit together the more I looked at. Of course, this road is a fishing pond for touters, prostitutes and panhandlers. The longer I stayed, the less the seemed to bother me though.