동호 at 남대문시장.

I met 동호 after rock climbing at 서울역 and we visited the 남대문. 

The gate had been burned down by an individual a number of years ago and 서울 officials decided to rebuild it. The choice to rebuild, preserve, and renovate particular corners of the metropolitan areas continues to interest me. My Topography of Rome class at FSU introduced the questions of how a city navigates how we should reserve space for history vs space for future. Does looking at the reconstruction of the 남대문 make it any less special? Should we regard the structure as a feat of the original constructor or does any responsibility lie with the remodelor? Should the gate in its present form always be seen as one of its reiteration?

We ventured through 남대문시장. It's geared towards tourist but majority of visitors were Koreans. The alleys were packed in the underground section with 할머니s pushing and shoving through the currents of bargain hungry customers. 

남대문시장 Vendor

Tired?

We ate at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant.

Smallest portion size is for two.

Walked to a cafe and had kaya toast, a pacific islands snack. International tastes are available in Korea, but of course not as abundant nor as authentic as the States. The Kaya toast(coconut jam and toast) as simple as is it was, should be the nearly the same.

We ended our day with some 쌈.

동호 and I having hours of conversation today covered a lot of topics. Notable were politics difference between US and Korea, high school fights and lackthereof in the States, what gold diggers and cougars are, how coconut milk might not be sold in Korea, haircare, 동호's obligation at his job to go overseas to Saudi Arabia, Philippines, or elsewhere.

Korean Costco

Immediate difference in Costco is that Costco is a multi story building: 2 floors for the warehouse and 5+ for the parking lot.

Coming on a Wednesday late afternoon, the complex was still plenty busy. 이모 explains how the weekend packs the wide aisles of Costco. There's 4 Costcos to service to 10 million Seoulites so it's to be expected.

Meat section is much more diverse with the different cuts available

Korean ingenuity of having slope escalators between floors that can also transport shopping carts without rolling

The wheels of the shopping cart lock into the grids of the escalators to stop rolling

The sections are Costco are the same as America, but divided with non-food items on the 1st floor and food on the 2nd. As far as the products, the Kirkland Costco brands offered identical packaging and products with marked up prices, but the majority of products and brands were things I have not seen specifically before but I could think of an American parallel.

The sample line for some kind of meat. Wonder if it was worth the wait. 

Products are marketed straight for Korean

Costco food is just as popular. Slightly marked up prices. 

나은이의 졸업식

나은 and I headed out first to her graduation ceremony... or lack thereof. As she lead me on a tour around the campus, she explained how there's a actual ceremony, with the name calling and speaker, but that no one attends the ceremony. We stayed around the veterinary school as more people arrived. I realized that the cap and gown were simply props for photos. I understand that the US does this to a certain extent, but here a graduation is 1) pick up cap, gown, and diploma 2) take pictures 3) leave.

I appreciate the Korean practicality. They skip the formalities of listening to a speaker you've never heard of before, sitting through a thousand names of people you've never met, and walking across a stage for 10 seconds of unnoticed fame. Koreans go straight to the pictures with friends and family. It's not stripping a graduation of its significance as there's is an acknowledgement of the graduate's accomplishment.

나은 lead her Korean drum group through a semi-impromptu performance. There's something in our family to lead or strive to go higher. Video to Naeun's Performance

The whole family met, took pictures, we had a celebratory lunch, bought cake, and all bummed together eating said cake at home.

Night snowboarding at Jisan

경호 and I left for Jisan Resort for some late night skiing and snowboarding. The short 40 minute drive reminded me of the fact that Korea is 80 percent mountain, easily forgettable with the skyscraper scenery I pass though everyday.

Rental outlets lined the road as we neared the ski slope. They rent out not only ski and snowboard paraphernalia, but snow clothes! It's a convinient and cheap option for the occasional snow enthusiast( which is probably more than 80 percent of people on the slope). They offer a huge range of parkas and ski pants styles, which was evident once we got to the resort where by American standards, everyone was dressed like they were regulars to the snow.
It goes along with a trend I've seen in Korea.

When a Korean gets involved in an outdoor activity, they are gear-obsessed, making sure they are dressed with almost commercial perfect outfit. I see groups of old hikers lined up at the bus stop early in the morning outfitted with heavy boots, walking sticks, hats, handkerchiefs, sunglasses, heavy, medium, and light jacket, breathable pants, gloves. I'm not criticising Korea's preparedness for outdoor activities, but just noting that there's a certain code to always dress like a true outdoorsman, regardless of skill set. 

Therefore it explained the fact that even though the skiier and snowboarders were dressed stylish and pro-like, the overwhelming majority of the people on the slopes were beginners. The runs were filled with artificial snow and people, but I had fun skiing until 4 in the morning.

Meeting paternal side- Suwon

I crossed 서울 an hour and half to meet 경호. We stopped at a cafe for a couple of hours to talk. In english. Having studied in New York for the last year, his English was remarkably good. I didn't have to slow down my speech nor was his pace anything short of conversational.

In talking with 경호, I figured him learning English is parallel to me learning Korean. He experience the same shyness in New York as I had when I came to Korea. But being in Korea now, he had brought the shamelessness of learning and practicing a language. He was adamant that I could speak English to him. You can tell his seriousness in wanting more practice to improve his Korean. There's not much opportunity for him here so he's making the most of me.

I met with 희정이 아저씨, his mother, and wife at their rather large apartment and spent the night. 희정이 아저씨 actually gave me a great overview of how I should travel Europe, complete with cities, how long I should stay, when I should meet up with him in Milan, and with all this a more concrete vision of month of April.

With the 할머니, I showed her the wedding picture of 아빠 and she went through the paternal side and listed who was who. Her identifying the unknown faces had also included a list of the deceased. One point with her to tell one was gone, then another, and another, and another...
Family's a strange concept.

I met with 경호  and his family in 수원. At dinner, his dad expressed over and over of his relationship with 아빠 when they were growing up. That distance can simply sever a family friendship. And that he wishes that 경호 and Justin and I create and a keep a relationship too.

Language thoughts

In learning a new language there has to be a degree of just letting go of embarrassment, pride, and fear of awkwardness due to language misuse. Before I came to Korea, I was admittedly nervous, shy, and even scared about my Korean useage. Years of people telling me my Korean was incorrect by family members, Korean church member, and most importantly, telling myself that my Korean was terrible resulted in a unneeded shyness and shame that would hinder me from even practicing. Language is all about practice. It took me coming to Korea, with no English crutch to break my self-induced shame in using the language that I had spoken first in my life.

It's okay to mispronounced a common phrase.
It's normal to not know vocabulary. And to ask what that word is.
It's fine to say that you didn't understand what happened in a TV show.
It's fun to laugh at how ridiculous an explanation for a simple language concept can get between the explainer and the explainee.

It's hard to learn any language. And people will be sympathetic to that fact

Being a student of anything means being able to come to terms that there will be things that I do not know. And doing something about it.

광장시장

We sat down and joined the legions of people snacking on 순대 and 떡볶이

Visited 광장시장 today. My favorite 시장 so far. The building is jammed packed with food vendors, stores, and visitors. 

We snacked on 마약김밥 as a little snack. This store is supposedly the original so people seemed to gravitate towards it. They only have a certain amount made each day. This meaning you must come here early enough to secure your share of yums.

빈댇떡 feast. And yes we did write on the wall behind us. 

Customary 막걸리

Came home and everyone learned the cup song

Progress of Ewha Classes

My class consists of 11 Japanese girls, 1 Japanese guy, 1 Japanese 할머니, 1 American man, and an Romanian woman. I have one teacher M,W,F and the other T,TH.  

I enjoyed the curriculum and structure of the class. The course balanced writing, reading, and conversational Korean based on grammar. How I've learned Korean previously as I look back the last 2 decades of my life did gain me vocabulary, speaking, and listening abilities. But subsequently, as my mind heard or spoke Korean, I only knew if something sounded incorrect or correct. With no knowledge of the grammatical structure of Korean, my current Korean based itself only on years of conversational osmosis. 

This class introduced structure and order to using Korean by teaching me grammar. Everything in class had been phrases or concepts I've always heard, but never thought about why someone would say it that way. The class boosted my Korean in finally building some support in grammar, reading, and writing. My reading speed has improved significantly, though it is not close to the speed I would like it to be at, but improvement nevertheless. Writing Korean was actually harder than I imagined as though 1) though I know a lot of words, the way the word is spoken in Korean and written varies quite a bit 2) I didn't realize that the pronunciations of some characters just either change into something other sound or disappear completely. I learned spelling Korean will be a very tough mountain to climb. 

이태원

동호, his girlfriend, 나은, and I met in 이태원 to eat Brazilian barbecue. The area was packed with international cuisines and lots of foreigners. As my ears gravitated towards the profanity laden English conversation of the four Americans to the table next to ours, I figured there's a US military base nearby.

There was some late night snowing as we walked from the restaurant to a cafe where we sat and talked for a couple hours.

Ewha Language Program Placement Examination Day

As I enrolled and registered for the three week Korean language program at Ewha Woman's University, I had expected the range of 15-30 people also enrolled. My expectation was prompted by 1) Warnings on the website that listed insufficient enrollment as a reason to cancel classes and 2) I couldn't imagine there being an abundance of individuals like myself; Me being only available due unusual circumstances like graduating early/ semester off/ but only wanted 3 weeks of studying. To my surprise, the auditorium to take the placement test was filled with a good 200 to 250 students.

ECC- Main and Iconic Building of Ewha

The test itself had two sections: Beginner and Intermediate. The beginner section composed of images to identify such as an apple or dog and a listening and speaking section to be done in front of a teacher. The intermediate section had large passages in 한글 and corresponding questions. I attempted my tiny chisel of Korean reading capabilities at the blocks of texts but eventually figured there's little use in trying to fake that I am better at reading than I was.

Therefore, I folded my test and headed upstairs. Sitting down in front of the teacher, I was asked my name, where I am from. She soon realized she could carry out a normal conversation with her so she ditched the script she was suppose to follow. She told me it's always difficult to place Korea-Americans because of the mixed experience and proficiency in writing/reading vs. speaking/ listening. 

There's 3 levels, two parts to each, then further divided into two more parts. She put me in the Level 1 Part 1 of Part 2... Simple 1-2. She gave me the option of just being placed on speaking which she said was level 3 but she suggested that learning the basic grammar and structure would be beneficial. 

Inside the Ewha Language Center Building

After the exam, tours divided by languages were given. Out of 250 students, 12 were in the English group. I met people from Egypt, Netherlands, Romania, Australia, UK, 2 from United States, Austria, Germany, and France. The students ranged from college aged to middle age with reasons for studying mainly for business and job opportunity. 

Day with 동호 Around 종로

동호 brought me around 북촌한옥마을 to see the traditional houses of Seoul. I see the city working a tough job of reconciling with the past and history of the city as well as accommodating the needs of the advancing world. 

 I'm learning more about the relationship between Korea and Japan. Not so much the existence of tension, but more about what areas the two nations clash on. Of the contentions explained to me, I'm easily sympathetic to the Korean side of the controversy, either due to the fact that Koreans the ones sharing their side or maybe Korea is on the right side of history. Nevertheless, I'm researching on my own all these Korean-Japanese controversies.

Statue of Comfort Women situated, guarded, and clothed in front of the Japanese Embassy 

 One of the main current issues coming up is the recent withdrawal of Japanese high officials in acknowledging the existence of "comfort women" during the Japanese occupation of Korea. Korean teenage girls were used by the Japanese military forces for pleasure and though the Japanese government had issued apologies a couple decades ago, there's been a Japanese call to rescind the apology to the dismay of Koreans. As the comfort women are still living in Korea, they are given the spotlight and a public voice to retell their stories and act as the front-men to call for change from Japan.

Enhanced security around the Japanese embassy due to heightened tensions, protests, and a  man who drove his car into the gates a couple summers ago. 

동호 took me through 인사동 for the hustle and bustle of tourists and foreigners. We snacked on ice cream and 호떡 while navigating through the crowds. We ended our day with dinner at 새마을식당 eating 열탄불고기 and talking for a couple hours.