dollop of solipsism

elisha and i showed up (late) around 3:40pm because i had to detour back home to change my pants (what i assumed was black and gray stripes turned out to be navy blue and gray stripes under daylight), because our taxi driver didn’t know where he was going, and also because the world cup stadium grounds is ginormous. the wedding was to start at 3:50pm, so i looked forward to offer a brief congratulations to my co-teacher on her one day of ‘pay attention to me!’ we arrived (arrove) at ‘emerald hall’ inside the world cup wedding convention center, and saw the sea of blackheads before us. seriously, it was packed. you’d have thunk it was the wedding of the century. but if you account for all the teachers at my school, several students in my co-teacher’s homeroom class, some teachers from the neighboring high school, and the groom’s guests, then you’d understand why 300+ people were crammed inside a lightly air-conditioned wedding hall.

i promptly gave an envelope (it had ₩50,000≈$50.00 in it—i asked a lot of people how much i should put in the white wedding envelope (it is tradition to just give money to the bride & groom instead of presents they don’t want in the first place and would return anyway (the koreans have it all figured out in this sense)) and the answer i got was ₩30,000 for someone you’re not close with, and ₩50,000 for someone you’re close with (also, odd numbers are good (10,000-30,000-50,000), even numbers are bad, and round numbers are good (50,000-100,000-150,000-200,000); since my co-teacher has driven me everywhere and we even go to the same hair salon, and also because i know her better than anyone else, i opted for ₩50,000) to the greeting table, where, in exchange, i got 2 dinner tickets. i saw lots of teachers there, a lot of people i didn’t know, and at least two dozen students, who were fixated on elisha, my beard for the occasion.

i looked around for my co-teacher. she had told me she’d be in some kind of room where she’d be seated (like a mannequin) and people would come in to take pictures with the main attraction. i saw a crowd of people to my right, where there was a small alcove. she was inside, and all the people were swarming her, taking pictures with her. it was like there was one furby left, and tomorrow was christmas. i figured she would forgive me for not visiting her and letting the situation be. if i wanted to take a picture with her, i’ll just see her next week (after the honeymoon in thailand) and take a picture with her in the quietude of my classroom.

elisha and i sat down in the wedding hall, but realized that all the old and distinguished were seated. the young people stood in the back. dammit, i have to stand. so we moved to the back. now my pictures won’t turn out good.

the ceremony started like a normal western wedding. i finally saw the full effect of her dress and was happily surprised to find a modern silhouette. my co-teacher is shrewish and conservative, so i was expecting a poof here, a poof there, and lace all over the confection, but what i found was a simple, strapless white garment with a tasteful veil and wrist-length gloves. thank you jesus christ (superstar—by the way, those of you who didn’t vote for carly smithson should be ashamed. ashamed!!).

the parents of the bride & groom walked down the aisle dressed in korean traditional clothes (a hanbok, which resembles a japanese kimono—funny story: my friend elly doll and i were in acadec together in high school (an intense, all-consuming high school elective that is basically a battle of the brains with other schools (on a regional, state, and national level)), and that year, the music topic was opera, and the assignment our acadec coach (because we have coaches for learning, not for sporting) gave us was to do a live action dramatization of puccini’s ‘madama butterfly.’ well, someone had to be cio-cio san and someone had to be bf pinkerton. obviously, since elly doll was a girl, she was bf pinkerton, lieutenant in the US navy, and since i was a boy, i was cio-cio san, dramatic soprano. i donned a black wig and painted myself white (like a geisha). elly doll tied her long brown german locks in a bun and wore some military outfit i forget from where (it might’ve been her dad’s). point is, the production was awesome and we got a hundred, cuz that’s how we roll. oh, and i wore my older sister’s hanbok (cuz where the hell was i gonna get a kimono in texas on such short notice??? besides, it’s not like an american knows the difference between a hanbok and a kimono!)), and the bride & groom soon followed.

there was no preacher, just some guest speaker from a nearby university. he was old. and long-winded. you would think the crowd would be sitting there paying attention, but no. people were talking, taking pictures, walking around, answering their cellphones, texting people (even old people know how to text in korea)…apparently, this is what happens at korean weddings. the ceremony is really for the bride & groom and their immediate family and friends. for the rest of us, it’s just an occasion to dress up, give money, and eat. [in the picture above, you can see the students taking pictures of their beloved teacher with their handy handphones]

after twenty minutes of speaking, there was some singing (from my co-teacher’s homeroom students), a cutting of the cake (elisha tells me that only the top tier is a real cake), and more singing (from a former student—he made elisha cry). what was missing were the eating of the cake, the exchanging of vows, the rings, bridesmaids & best men, and god. also, according to tristan, a water bubble machine. amusing things were: the emcee joked that the groom looked tired, so he challenged the groom to do squats while carrying the bride. he did. and there was disco lighting—at random points of the ceremony, the lights would turn blue or pink, or put a spotlight on the bride (bad for picture-taking). it was strange. oh, and there was a camera crew there (for the wedding video, no doubt) that prevented anyone but themselves to take good pictures, and some strange woman (who i assume to be my co-teacher’s best friend if she had a best friend?) who kept fussing with the wedding dress. the entire thing was like a show. but i guess that’s what weddings are like in general.

there’s a hilarious exchange in ang lee’s the wedding banquet:

(i’m paraphrasing here)
son: we don’t want a wedding ceremony. we’ll just get married at city hall.
mother: but then there is no ceremony.
son: it’s not like we’re getting married for other people.
mother: if you’re not getting married for other people, who are you getting married for????!!!

my friend nelda and i had to pause the dvd to take a laughing break.

finally, the bride & groom walked back down the aisle, having been ‘married.’ things exploded and burst into air. there were streamers. then the whole thing was over. the remaining guests (a third of the audience had already silently made their way to the food as the wedding was taking place—yes, your presence is not mandatory at the actual ceremony!) made their way out towards the cafeteria. there, elisha and i found ourselves in the midst of a grand buffet spread (i use the word grand lightly). the food was all right, just basic korean cuisine. it basically screamed ‘i paid $50 and all i gots was this crappy crappy food.’ on the bright side, there was a never-ending supply of pepsi and beer. elisha and i found a quiet area in the cafeteria (i avoided the teachers from my school for the most part) and talked for a looooooong time. we always do this. we always sit down somewhere and elisha bitches about her job, and we bitch about the korean education system in general.

by the time we finished talking, the place was near-empty and the bride & groom were nowhere to be seen. i texted my co-teacher later to wish her a happy honeymoon and to come back preggers. during the ceremony i did feel a bit sad for her. she doesn’t like a whole lot of attention, and she’d always felt burdened with the pressure of getting married. so here was the day when part of the weight would be lifted off her shoulders. she looked happy and her parents were in tears, but to me, she’s just like laura brown in the hours. quiet, disconnected, and trapped.

so that was my first korean wedding. wasn’t wacky, wasn’t crazy. definitely short. and it definitely didn’t need too much investment. it’s not like in america, where you have to have a date and you have to bring a gift and you have to stay there forever.

my co-teacher is crazy. yesterday afternoon, i asked her to translate some common haircut-related korean phrases into english.

backstory: upon my arrival in daegu, i went to my co-teacher’s very-cute-for-a-girl hair stylist. she cut my hair from sept 2006-dec 2007. the stylist eventually relocated and left seok (석미용실) beauty salon. it was winter vacation, so i wasn’t completely traumatized (since i was just hanging around the house for most of the time), and it gave me a reason to grow out my hair. i realized that longer hair works for me. and it complemented the moustache (elly doll (girlfriend needs to update her blog!) refers to it as a ‘molestache’) i grew. however, school started back up again and it is heavily frowned on for teachers to have facial hair. i shaved the ’stache off.

recently, the long hair became an issue so that’s where my co-teacher comes in. at seok beauty salon, there was the cute girl hair stylist (who abandoned me—why do they all abandon me?) and there was a guy there as well. he would often style my hair after the cute girl cut it. i found him polite, efficient, and very good at styling mens’ hair. he would take 10-15 minutes to shape-contort my hair using just a blowdryer and his strong hands, apply wax to further create shape and texture, then top it all off with some heavy hairspray. it would always look amazing and gravity-defying.

yesterday i got my co-teacher to call the salon to ask if he was available. he was available, he remembered me, and he was willing to cut my hair. while i was sending my parents off in a cab on my lunchbreak, my co-teacher called the beauty salon and had a pow-wow with my eventual hair stylist. she told him everything i wanted, needed in the haircut i was to have. she told me of this phone conversation much later, when i asked her to translate some common haircut-related korean phrases into english.

oh, i already talked to him.
okay, so he’s there today. yay!
yes, he is there. and he’ll be there tomorrow, too.
i will go today.
i already told him what you want.
whadda yonder?
i told him that you think your hair is too long, and that on the side and back you want to trim and thin-out your hair. you think your hair is too heavy and your bangs are in your eyes. he will expect you later today or tomorrow. i told him everything.
okay…thanks (?) can you write everything down for me anyway?

because the woman is crazy, and getting married tomorrow. i walked into the salon after school, got the haircut i kinda sorta wanted. he knew how the cute girl cut my hair, so he just asked me if i wanted the same thing. because i feared getting into a language hole i didn’t want to find myself in, i just said, ‘yeah, give me the same thing.’ which is why i now look like a high school student. but the technique is good.

my hair today.

since my parents are visiting (argh), i thought i’d destress myself by writing about something that destresses me.

i read somewhere, or i might’ve heard it on oprah, that one of the best ways to reduce stress is ironing. something to do with a click. yes sir, the click in my head that makes me feel peaceful. when i’m ironing, i switch my brain to cruise control; i no longer think, i just do. it’s one of the reasons why actors need props to be ‘in the moment.’ when you’re doing something (especially something as repetitively soothing as ironing), it takes you out of one reality and into another. and that’s what ironing does for me.

i’ve always ironed my own shirts, since the beginning of high school. my parents worked late (not that i’m saying they should do my laundry), and i became more and more particular with my garments. eventually i became the laundry person in the household. i scrubbed down and decluttered the laundry room, transforming the area into a shrine for clothes, my own little sanctuary. taking my imagined title seriously, i separated the colors from the whites (my parents never used to do this), folded everyone’s clothes, made sure all the socks matched, and distributed the bundles of perfection accordingly.

after my shirts were laundered (i usually wear collared, button-down shirts; i never wear t-shirts except at home) i would iron for hours. i iron better than the dry cleaners because i don’t pepper my clothes with chemicals. just old-fashioned water. i’ve gotten it down to an artform. a well-oiled machine am i.

nowadays i don’t let anyone wash/fold/touch my clothes. and tainting my clothes is one of the few things that makes me freak (the eff) out in public.

in korea, it’s harder for me to iron. a) the iron i own is not a steam iron, so i iron using a spray bottle of water, b) my ironing board has short legs (the long-legged ironing boards cost well over $40 in korea), so i iron with the board propped on my dining table, which creates more possibility of wrinkles (trust me). thus, i frequent my neighborhood dry cleaners more often that i like to (i think the owner is a student’s father). cost of one shirt: ₩2,500 ≈ $2.50.

days that i can fit an ironing or two in are good days. upon positioning, spraying, tugging, tucking, repositioning, spraying, pressing, and finishing a shirt, i feel satisfied and complete, like how one feels after giving birth. i gently fit the shirt on a (wooden) hanger, let it air out for a few minutes, and hang it amongst the other shirts in my (color-coordinated) wardrobe where there are no lions or witches.

::click::

screw yoga.

the savages begins in sun city, arizona on a bright beautiful day. the cloudless sky is a saturated blue, the plants look overly green and plastic, and the old people living there look happy. that is, until we venture into one of the (what i assume to be an assisted-living retirement community) houses and find lenny savage (philip bosco) writing words on the bathroom wall with his feces.

lenny savage is losing it, and because his community partner/girlfriend doris dies shortly after, it is up to his estranged children jon (philip seymour hoffman) and wendy (laura linney) to put him in a nursing home and to look after him. jon is a professor of theatre in buffalo, new york (specializing in the plays of bertolt brecht), and wendy is an office temp by day, aspiring playwright by night in new york city (no doubt most of her stories are still stuck in her head). black comedy ensues.

the director is tamara jenkins, and i haven’t seen the slums of beverly hills, but i hear that it’s good. i saw the savages last night, and it’s a good, maybe even a great, film. the writing is insightful, focused, and naturalistic, the acting is superb (of course!), and the story is universal without being sentimental. we don’t really know what has caused jon and wendy to be so emotionally stunted (jon can’t commit to his polish girlfriend of three years and thus, she gets deported; wendy is having an affair with a creepy married man—jon’s also stuck writing a book about brecht; and wendy gets rejected by writing fellowships left and right), and we don’t really know why their mother isn’t in the picture. the entire film is set in the present, and it works.

clock the film at 10 minutes (inciting incident), and that’s when the kids leave their lives temporarily behind to tend to their ailing father. at 30 minutes (end of act I), the father gets relocated from sunny sun city to bleak buffalo. at 60 minutes (end of act II), wendy decides to ride out the holidays with jon in buffalo. at 1 hour 30 minutes (turning point area), shit happens and their lives begin to unravel. the script is solid solid (and oscar-nominated, too). by the end, the father dies (inevitable) and the kids have somewhat emotionally grown up (emotional arc complete).

watching a film that has its framework so exposed (like seeing threads at the seams), you really have to have magnificent actors to carry the story along. and that’s where philip seymour hoffman (oscar winner for capote) and laura linney (3-time nominee, including this film) come in. in the big brother role, jon is decisive, strong, and practical (he doesn’t like to explore his soft side). having played the little sister her entire life, wendy is victim-y, mischievous, and a liar (she also steals painkillers from a dead person). yes, they are neurotic, but they’re also hyper-intelligent. finding that right balance between neuroses and intelligence must’ve been the actors’ toughest assignment. additionally, hoffman and linney are very believable as a brother and sister. they fight, but they don’t fight like two actors fight; they fight like siblings fight—you rip your sibling’s facade open to see their insides, but you help stitch them back up afterwards. you can tell that jon and wendy have had to fend for themselves while growing up, and that they hold onto each other as their only family.

it’s really a fantastic (if quiet) film. i didn’t laugh out loud, didn’t cry, didn’t get emotional at all. i just observed this family in a crisis moment, and i thought about my own family. in my family, i play the spoiled younger brother to my overlooked, heavily-burdened, older sister. the little sister is so little that she’s often forgotten. my mother is a pathological liar and a drunk, and my father is a passive-aggressive idealist who makes his home in denial. we fight like family members do and, between the five of us, have 10 different relationships. my older sister and i will probably take care of our parents when they get older (lucky us) and decide what to do with them after they die (unlucky us). it’s just something that will happen and something i’m not looking forward to. however, i am morbidly curious to see how i’ll react and how i’ll be affected by all of that.