A YEAR IN SOUTH KOREA - CARRUTHERS
JULY
At the start of December Carruther's flew out to South Korea to start a one year contract teaching English, these are a selection of emails conveying his experiences.
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Wednesday 9th July
Well, that was a first in the chrinicle of nature's spectacles. There is a little makeshift allotment that I pass by on the way home. This evening, as I sauntered past, damp from the rain and the ludicrous humidity, I saw flying above it, a swarm (well, I'm guessing a couple of hundred at least) of dragonflies, each about 2-3 inches long. Seeing just one is a rare treat
at home, so imagine how the sight of two hundred of them brightened up a rainy Wednesday evening!
At the other end of the 'bug/human interaction contentment' scale, I am currently suffering the very itchy and irritating effects of no less than 29 mosquito bites, which I believe I contracted while out on Monday evening. Let's hope they're right when they say that Malaria is restricted to the DMZ.
Right, I'm off to shower and apply very liberal amounts of antihistamine cream, followed by a not inconsiderable quantity of insect repellant, after which I will fumigate my apartment with noxious insecticide. Either me or the bugs will be dead by the morning!
Tuesday 15th July
Well, I am in shock. Today I discovered a route home which is considerably more scenic, and allows me to complete about 80% of the journey alongside the river. I can safely say that in the course of the 30 min walk, I have seen more dragonflies than I have in the rest of my life put together. You know how in England during summer there are little clouds of flies/midges/gnats/mosquitos and so on....well, I have just witnessed this same phenomenon along the entire length of the river, only with two inch long dragonflies. There must have been thousands of them. As if this spectacle wasn't groovy enough, they were also being subjected to a fearsome aerial bombardment by a variety of birds, some swooping through, some diving down, some cruising up from below. It was like Wildlife on One!
Thursday 17th July
How cheered I was to hear on the news today that the N.Koreans fired across the border last night, to which the S.Koreans responded by firing back. Apparently the N koreans tend to do this kind of thing to back up their diplomacy.
Ahhh....the joys of living 30km from the most heavily fortified border in the world!
Don't forget to look out in the shops for Kim Jung Il's new album, including such classics as, 'My Nuclear Paradise', 'Big Red Button', and 'Will I Or Won't I?'
Monday 21st July
And so it is that about 80% of my friends have conspired to go home at exactly the same time - inconsiderate bastards! We had a great night out on Saturday to celebrate, beginning on a rooftop in Itaewon, progressing to a bar owned by Korea's most famous homosexual, and ending up in a club where a bloke from Pakistan decided he was going to act as my personal matchmaker. I'd only been in there a few minutes, when he grabs me by the arm and drags me onto the dancefloor. He then proceeded to harvest any nearby Korean girl he could find, and install them in front of me. After a couple of abortive attempts, we struck gold. The girl and I danced most of the night, and at one point, Mr Pakistan led us out of the club and attempted to put us in a taxi! I don't know if he was just full of the spirit of human kindness, or just really likes people to get laid, but either way , he was very enthusiastic for a complete stranger. As it was we declined the cab, because In Hye (as was her name) was there with a friend, so couldn't really just disappear. Instead we sat outside and chatted (amongst other things) until dawn had turned into morning. Excellent!
I'm quite pleased that most of the people I know have gone home, it will give my liver a chance to recuperate. Plus, I can use the remaining time to get healthy, rather than slowly killing myself as I have been doing recently.
In other news (and this isn't confirmed for definate yet) I may be losing another class as of next week. This means that I'll get to go home 90 mins earlier on Tue and Thu, and 50 mins earlier on Mon Wed and Fri.
Tuesday 22nd July
Well, sure enough lift no.2 was also out of commission by the end of the day. I must admit that I was having serious doubts about this whole 'monsoon' business. So far, all we'd seen was a few rainy days, and they were nothing spectacular. I was beginning to think the entire thing was a figment of the Korean collective imagination, and their undeniable tendancy to overdramatise. However, I have now been convinced otherwise.
For the last 30 or so hours, we have had constant (and I mean constant), torrential (and I mean torrential) rain. It's been the sort of 'bouncing six feet off the road' rain that might last a minute or two during a heavy storm in England, and even in other parts of the world, more sensible than here, is usually over and done in a couple of hours.
As I mentioned, the river rose about 6 ft overnight, and if it carries on all night tonight, it will be near to bursting it's banks tomorrow. Cool!! I live on the first floor, so at least I won't get flooded. Some of the roads in town are already impassable to traffic, and one of the road bridges in Seoul (albeit the lowest one) is now submerged beneath the waters of the Han River. My walk home this evening was more like a paddle, such were the frequency and volume of the puddles/small lakes that had formed on many of the pavements - it was excellent! I look forward to reporting further meteorological dramas as they occur (however the unpleasant waft that has just drifted in through my window may suggest that the drains have overflowed, which is a rather less appealing concept, as the place smells quite bad enough as it is.). Should I require emergency rescue teams to be despatched, I will of course notify the appropriate authorities with all haste. Thank goodness I thought to pack my 40 ft collapsible canoe with crew.
Sunday 27th July
It's been a dull, grey, rainy sunday in Min Lak Dong, and we can expect more of the same tomorrow, when a very large strom from China is expected to arrive. Very generous the Chinese - they send us 'the yellow dust' in spring, storms and cyclones throughout summer, and freezing cold winds in Winter. Oh - not forgetting SARS.
Anyway, I have , as a consequence of the weather spent much of the day trawling the 50 or so TV channels. This has provided some great entertainment, ranging from a number of ludicrous chinese martial arts shows, to some truly dreadful Korean folk singing (think - 'strangled cat meets drummer having an epileptic fit' and you'll be getting there) all the way to a Korean version of 'The Crystal Maze'! The highlight however was a documentary about the 'Funtional Nipple Depression Preventative Bra'. I lost count of the number of times that phrase was used in 30 minutes, but it was a lot. It was very odd to hear Koreans discussing quite openly things such as breasts, lift, and nipple depression, so conservative are they usually about anything to do with sex or anatomy. For example, they'll use the phrase 'illegal massage' when they mean commercial sex, they'll use the word 'union', when they mean intercourse, and they'll use 'night relations' when they just mean sex. Conversely, the place swarms with brothels and love motels. They're a weird lot.
Also on TV was a trailer for a show called 'Cuisines of Korea', which among other things, promised that "..your stomach and mouth will soon be joyous." Well, that's something to look forward to.
The one expedition into the outside world I made today was to explore an area near my apartment that I hadn't yet ventured into. Essentially this proved to be like any other area, apart from one useful discovery. I found a 'Paris Baguette' - where I can buy something approximating wholemeal bread (although it's not so much brown as slightly purple!?!?) even if it is about a pound for a half loaf!
Well, I think that's enough of my dull exploits. Have no fear, I intend to be climbing some mountains in the latter half of the week (I've got five days off school) so I should have something less mind-numbing to report, involving privations, near death experiences, exposure, crevasses, snow blindness, frost bite, and gangrene.
Monday 28th July
I just have to share this good news with someone - so you're all it.
At the beginning of last week, I was informed that the timetable would be changing, and that as a consequence I would be losing the one class I have that I really don't like. It's a bunch of 12/13 year olds. Some are bright and just don't bother to try, and some are just clueless (and don't bother to try). They spend the whole lesson complaining, tutting, insulting me, being generally impertinent, obnoxious, and ill-disciplined, and are basically just an annoying collection of little shits. I was really pleased at the prospect of losing the class to someone else, but as it turned out, even after the timetable change, I still had the little bastards. Gutted. Teaching them (or attempting to) was just an exercise in frustration. What's more, we really have no way of disciplining the kids, other than clipping them round the ears with an exercise book, or raising our voices, and that doesn't tend to work with 13 year olds who don't give a shit.
Anyway, this morning I went in to work, and, well......how happy was I?! Over the weekend they've had another shift about, and the end result is that not only have I lost that class (YAY!!) but I also get to go home at 4.00 on Tue and Thu and 4.40 on Mon, Wed and Fri, instead of 5.35 everyday! What's more, the class that has replaced the little bastards is only a Mon, Wed and Fri class, where the bastards were everyday, so I've now got two less classes per week! How cool is all that?! I now like ALL of my classes. I don't have any little brats to contend with, and thus there are no unpleasant parts of the day. I cannot describe adequately to anyone who hasn't stood in front of classes full of kids, the difference it makes to your morale when you know that none of your classes are going to be composed of horrible little gits who's only goal is to piss you off.
