dollop of solipsism

according to wikipedia, in a recent study, 52% of the participants were confident in meeting their new year’s resolutions, but only 12% were actually able to do so. just for fun (and for the record), i’m going to list out my new year’s resolutions (limited to five). they are totally reasonable, so my confidence in achieving them is high:

1. pay off 50% of credit card debt.
2. go to the gym at least 3 times a week.
3. read 1 book a month.
4. actively study korean on my own.
5. get rid of the AOL account i’ve had for 10 years (ridiculous, i know).

i considered (and rejected) the following: stop watching episodes of tv shows i’ve seen before; start and complete the 2nd draft of my horror film script (which is in desperate need of a 2nd draft); visit seoraksan; purchase only white clothing; learn how to cook a korean dish every month; meditate; be less passive aggressive; save money.

happy new year! 새해복 많이 받으세요!

we chose joshua ferris’s then we came to the end as the latest selection of our book club on facebook. ‘we’ includes myself in korea, liz in new york city, elaine in austin, and kate in eugene (we are high school friends). the book club started a couple of years ago, with gilman’s “the yellow wallpaper” as the maiden text. members came and went, and during busy times we put the club on hold. earlier this year, salvador plascencia’s the people of paper left us demoralized and in want of a break. the break happened and lasted until recently, when ferris came into play.

written almost entirely in the all-inclusive first person plural, ferris’s debut novel is a breezy, inviting read. for the most part, the story is set in a chicago-based advertisement agency right at the turn of the century. the ‘we’ are the richly diverse office employees who fill their days gossiping, indulging in personal obsessions, and pretending to be busy. pretending because the economy is going down, and more layoffs are inevitable. several of them have already ”walked spanish,” and the rest don’t want to go.

we are introduced to most of the personalities in the office: there’s karen woo, the korean-american cutthroat bitch; janine, the depressed mother of a missing (later murdered) daughter; amber, the paranoid catholic who is carrying the illegitimate child of larry novotny, cheating husband; joe pope, who is often accused of being an elitist; marcia dwyer, who gets a really kickass haircut; benny, the jew who has a crush on marcia; jim jackers, the office goof; chris yop, who gets fired and still comes to work; lynn mason, the petite yet intimidating supervisor…and so many more.

the characters’ multiple anecdotes and storylines are beautifully rendered, cleanly woven on top of and underneath one another. it’s tough for us to go back in the novel to find specific points, since all the individual parts, while very separate, all mesh into one collective, complex idea. and that idea is grounded in americans working in an office, as a team, as a group, doing work that may seem meaningless but is actually meaningful. the meaning doesn’t come from work, it comes from working.

one may think then we came to the end is a satire, but it’s actually an insightful dissection of how the working environment in america affects and disaffects our lives. halfway through the four hundred pages, the author wisely inserts a thirty page interlude, where we follow only one character, lynn mason, in a third person limited point of view, through her struggles with breast cancer. everything before this episode, seemingly unimportant office noise, and everything after, seemingly unimportant office noise, are injected with a bit of much needed reality.

when i was working at school, or running in the gym, i could not wait to go back home to curl in bed with this book. it’s fabulously written and completely accessible. whether you read it for the fun (because a lot of the novel is hilarious) or the sagacity, then we came to the end is a must-read for anyone who has ever worked in an environment where they must relate to others.

a continuation from the previous post.

#2 smoke: sometime during the four years i lived in new york city, the no smoking in bars, clubs and restaurant law was enforced. oddly enough, even if i patronized a non-smoking establishment (like a bar or club), i still ended up smelling like smoke by the end of the night. perhaps it was my imagination. perhaps i was having a stroke.

something like 40% of adult korean males smoke (compared to 3.7% of adult korean females). the rate is falling, but still well above the OECD average (23%). most of the korean males i meet are smokers; it’s not uncommon for me to be the only non-smoker in a group of men (and i judge them quietly, yes i do). 

for young male smokers, it’s the ‘cool factor’ that smoking brings, in addition to the fact that smoking is a widely accepted behavior. i asked a very close person of mine (in his late 20’s) why he started smoking and he replied, “when i was in high school, PC bangs started to get popular, and in those rooms, everyone smoked. i think i got addicted to second-hand smoke. and now, i’m 100% addicted.” well, i responded in my head, the first part of recovering is admitting that you have a problem.

korean males start at a young age. thirty percent of high school boys smoke. i don’t think there’s a law preventing them from smoking; if there is a law, then it’s not being enforced (like running red lights, you dangerous cab drivers!). after high school, some males attend college for a year and then join the military. i presume that’s where the smoking culture reaches its peak. guys in the barracks, isolated from the outside world for approximately 2 years. what else are you gonna do (besides visit whorehouses)?

from what i gather, most korean males quit after marriage. i did a survey at my school of the male teachers who smoke, and, like, only two out of ten smoke. my father used to be a smoker, but quit after my older sister was born (with asthma!). i think change is happening.

if you read this article here, you’ll understand that korea’s in the midst of an anti-smoking movement (the third in the country’s history). the recent informercials on tv are quite memorable, featuring a catchy ‘no! no! no!’ anti-smoking jingle. you can’t smoke in government buildings, subways, trains, airplanes, schools, and elevators. additionally, the three big networks SBS, KBS, and MBC have all banned smoking scenes in their dramas. that’s huge.

one of the contributors to the high prevalence of smoking is the cost of cigarettes. a pack of this (that’s the name) costs ₩2,000, which equates to $2.00 (minus the economic crisis). i’m assuming the price of american cigarettes has increased drastically as my mother is rationing the kent III ultra light 100. i told her once (and this was five years ago) that a pack of cigarettes in new york city runs about $8.00, and she said that that was impossible. whaddaya think of that now, mother? hmm? if people start quitting in korea, it’s not going to be because of the price of cigarettes, that’s for sure.

there is no law preventing smokers from clouding up the air in clubs and bars. it hasn’t happened yet. it should, as we all know that second-hand smoke is just as damaging to the lungs as smoking first-hand. but what i hate most about walking into a korean drinking establishment is the smell of smoke that accumulates on my clothes. i walk in smelling clean, i walk out smelling like black lungs. it’s gross. and that layer of smoke doesn’t go away immediately; you have to febreze the shit out of your clothes and leave them on the veranda overnight.

in addition to cigarette smoke from drinking establishments, i have to also tolerate meat smoke from eating establishments. a portion of delicious korean cuisine centers on grilling meat on an open fire. bulgogi, kalbi, duck, samgyupsal, makchang, gopchang, are all foods that require that you personally cook them. i embrace the process of eating like this (it’s communal), but i hate the way i smell afterwards.

there is nothing more disgusting than having your clothes get coated with a layer of smoke and grease. simple febrezing won’t get all of it out. you have to wash or dry clean the garments, or leave them out on the veranda for at least a couple of days. i make it a point to wear second-rate clothes when i know grilling will be involved in any social occasion i’m a part of. some meat places have picked up on this annoyance and provide small lockers in the lobby of their restaurants. true, you can’t store your entire outfit in these lockers (you’ll be cooking next to an open fire naked), but at least your coat can escape the smoke and flames.

when you go out in korea and you expect to have a good time, it’s a given that drinking and eating will be involved. usually, drinking will come first and then the grilled meat cravings will follow, for there is nothing more delicious than kalbi at 3am. i just expect to smell like smoke by the end of the evening, whether it be from cigarettes or grills. it’s a small nuisance i have to deal with while living in korea, which i ♥, by the way.

otherwise known as ‘random things about korea i dislike’

let’s start out by declaring that i ♥ korea. i really do. on personal and impersonal bases. you can read about my love for korea here, here, and here (btw: if you’d like to unlock the code to all of my previous posts, please email me at yes.i.will.yes@gmail.com).

however, once every blue moon, i have one of those, what my friend tristan describes as, ::fist in the air:: ‘argh! korea!’ moments. i’m not sure how many installments i’ll have of these little complaints. as many as i’m willing to write about, i guess.

#1 ATMs: i’m a foreigner, so it is uber difficult for me to get a credit card (i haven’t tried, but i assume it’s a hassle; if it’s not a hassle, don’t tell me). and since debit cards are not as fashionable here as they are in the states (i miss using my WaMu checking card!), i resort to withdrawing money out of ATMs and purchasing things on a cash basis. this actually works for me because i tend to get a little credit card crazy now and then, and so am forced to only spend what i have.

however, here are two things you need to know about korean ATMs. a) expect a long line (especially downtown), and b) go to it before midnight. korean women (of the ajumma sort) are notorious for hogging ATMs for extensive periods of time. they stand there for what seems like hours, making transaction after transaction after transaction. you stand there furious, saying to yourself, ‘what on earth are they doing? refinancing their mortgage?!’

i still don’t know what exactly they do at ATMs, but it pisses me off. they take one bank book, enter it into the machine, and do things on it. in time, the machine spits the book back out and you think, ‘yes! it’s my turn.’ but no, the woman slides in another bank book into the machine, starting a whole different transaction. after about three or four bank books (why they are in possession of three to four bank accounts is baffling), they hustle their way out of the vestibule, never making eye contact. cowardly bitches.

speaking of ATM vestibules, at a predetermined hour (usually midnight), the metal gates come down automatically. meaning, if you’re inside one of these vestibules, and it’s midnight, the timed doors lock and the gates descend, leaving you trapped inside. you’re forced to call security using the phone hanging on the wall (there’s always an on-call man for these things), telling him that you, in fact, did not read the hours of operation on the glass door. he comes and rescues you. and by rescue, i mean reprimand.

vestibules are restricted in terms of hours of operation, and so are free-standing ATMs at convenient stores, subway stations, and streets; they also stop functioning after 11:30pm or midnight. if you’re downtown having a great time, and you run out of cash, and you still need cabfare to get home, you’re shit out of luck. those ATMs don’t work no mo. borrow money, walk home, or stay downtown until dawn. cuz those cab drivers don’t take credit cards. not that i have one, mind you.

i’m plagued with a good bit of arrogance. it’s not my fault; the doctor gave me a healthy dose of it after i shot out of my mother’s womb. thus, i go through life with frequent thoughts of, “i can do that better than you.” i mention this because last night, a group of english teachers from epik went to a dance club. the music was actually better than usual, but i couldn’t help but think that i could do a much better job deejaying.

the christmas party started at 8pm. the significant other and i got there at 8:15, thanks to christmas eve traffic. on the top floor of the eldis regent hotel (swanky and white), we were greeted with a nice u-shaped buffet spread in the wedding hall; the education center had reserved the entire floor for our get-together. we found ourselves an empty table, put our belongings down, and got food. when we got back, we found mr. jang sitting there, already eating. mr. jang is my boss.

somehow, my table had become ‘the main table.’ in all social functions in korean office culture, ‘the main table’ is the table where the boss and his/her lackeys sit and congratulate themselves on being so awesome and powerful. i’ve met mr. jang a few times and he’s soft-spoken and seemingly kind. i sat down and greeted him. there was no way i could change tables at that moment.

luckily, the overall awkwardness of the occasion—a bunch of foreigners from various places eating korean food in the wedding hall of a swanky hotel—became too much for mr. jang, and he left shortly after giving a brief speech. sigh of relief.

the rest of the party lived up to my expectations—we were dressed up, eating decent food, meeting new people, and ultimately sitting with our fellow countrymen in cliques—minus the band that was promised. instead, a laptop’s itunes playlist was hooked up to the speakers, playing shitty, undanceable music. whoever owns that laptop should die. elisha, the epik coordinator for the daegu metropolitan area (and a friend of mine), asked me for my ipod. i had left it at home. doh!

the party was to end at 11pm, but my significant other and i got bored around ten. we played a few rounds of 야구 (baseball), a korean equivalent to bagels, before i decided it was time to go. elisha, however, dragged me to the korean-americans table, introduced me, and before i could object, got me accepted into the korean-american clique. there, we stayed the remainder of the party doing shots and arguing about east coast-west coast rap. i was like, i’m from texas, y’all.

jamee (pronounced jaime), who attends the korean language class at the ymca with me, mentioned that our table was completely asian. and that most of her friends are asian. and how her mom tells her she should branch out in making friends of other races. “yeah, some of my friends are like, jamee, you’re kind of a racist,” she added. i commented rather aggressively, “if we were all white at this table, nobody would be saying anything. you see that table over there? (i point to the next table) they’re all white. you think they’re sitting around thinking that their entire table is white? no. you are thinking like a white person.” what was so wrong about sitting at a table full of asian-americans? white people sit together at tables all to themselves all the time. so do black people, and men, and women. we hang out with people like ourselves. sometimes.

this past week, mean girls was shown to several of my classes (high school students are really liking the movie), so the concept of cliques has resurfaced in my mind. at the party, there were tables of brits, frat boys, asians, older people, outsiders, etc. when i was in high school, i didn’t belong to a well-defined clique. and in college, i was just with people who were all interested in film. i rarely get grouped with other people due to my ‘asian-ness’ so it was refreshing to sit there with a bunch of asian-americans. even if i didn’t warm to some of the individual personalities, i did like not having to try so hard to win them over because my ‘in’ wasn’t something i could control; it was just my ethnicity.

after the party, our asian-american crowd went downtown for some dancing. g2 was charging ₩20,000 for cover (which is ridiculous), so we ended up at mk club (formerly monkey). it was packed like sardines and we danced on the outskirts (near the bar) for ten minutes or so. then i led the group to an elevated platform on the side, where there was more room. then i noticed that the front of the club (the stage) was completely open, so we ended up there, way up front, on stage, dancing for all the patrons to see, the rest of the night. and it was fun.

the music was a mix of hip-hop old, new, and obscure, with spurts of pop here and there. i don’t understand why the whole night can’t be straight-up pop music, because that’s when the dancers all cheer in excitement. the horn hook of beyoncé’s ‘crazy in love‘ blasts on and you can feel the thrill of the people. the club’s atmosphere changes instantly. so how come dj’s don’t play songs like that more often? why resort to a great pop hit only once every thirty minutes? i used to think that dj’s didn’t want people dancing for long periods of time (thus encouraging people to take breaks by buying drinks), but now i think it’s because dj’s are withholding assholes. how fun was it when an extended remix of lee hyori’s ‘u-go-girl‘ came on? like, so fun.

i hope everyone has a wonderful christmas eve tonight and a merry christmas tomorrow. it is hella cold in daegu nowadays, but that only makes me want to cuddle in bed with my beloved, which is a good thing.

i am uncharacteristically happy at the moment because teaching this week has been pretty breezy, and a 4-day weekend is coming up. no plans for this extended weekend, but the christmas party for daegu epik teachers is tonight. a full spread at a swanky hotel near downtown. for free!

i hope to god downtown will be freezin’, but happenin’ with ‘last christmas’ and ‘all i want for christmas is you’ blasting from giant speakers. i love me some merry crowds. after the buffet, a few of us might go clubbing at g2. dancing will replace the gym for today.

next week is a 3-day work week, followed by the start of a month-long winter break. oops, thinking too far ahead. i want to talk about christmas for just a little bit.

since my family is not christian, we don’t celebrate christmas as a holy day. actually, both my parents usually worked on christmas, and the kids stayed home with the dogs. we’d watch tv, eat nothing special, and hope for snow. it sounds pretty pathetic in retrospect.

in early december, i would be the only one in our family to insist on a christmas tree (plastic), christmas lights, and gift-wrapped presents. i think i was most affected by the pressure of being ‘american’ so it drove me crazy not to have a tree or lights. what would the (mostly white) neighbors think of us?

in the last act of our town, emily, who has recently passed, gets the opportunity to revisit an ordinary day in her life. christmas was just an ordinary day for my family. and it’s like an ordinary day for koreans, too. shops are open, movie theatres play movies, restaurants serve food…public workers have the day off, though, since christmas is a national holiday. and some people exchange gifts. if i could revisit one day when i pass, perhaps i’d choose a christmas. hey, the last image in the giver is of christmas (connections!).

i hope it snows tonight. just a little.

the 1st and 2nd graders are taking a test during the first half of today. out of a need to be semi-productive, i outlined the curriculum for my literature course for gifted middle school students, which starts next semester. but i need some input. here is the basic info for the program:

time: march → november, 2 teaching hours once a week for 20 weeks (totaling 40 teaching hours; there are breaks here and there due to students’ school midterms, finals, and summer/holidays)

class: 16 bright, selected students, 3rd grade middle school (9th grade equivalent), with limited to some exposure to english literature

in the past, when i wasn’t involved with creating the curriculum, i taught 2 novels (holes and the giver the first year, the giver and a wrinkle in time the next), assigned a group project, assigned 1 essay, and gave 2 tests (1 for each novel).

this year, i’ve been given the opportunity to revamp the curriculum to suit my own taste. here’s what i have so far:

• week 1: introduction to class and critical thinking, selected poems
• week 2: selected poems
• week 3: shirley jackson’s “the lottery“
• week 4: kurt vonnegut’s “harrison bergeron“
• week 5: lois lowry’s the giver ch. 1-7
• week 6: lois lowry’s the giver ch. 8-14
• week 7: lois lowry’s the giver ch. 15-19
• week 8: lois lowry’s the giver ch. 20-23
• week 9: review
• week 10: evaluation over poetry, short stories, novel
• week 11: project
• week 12: project
• week 13: project
• week 14: field trip
• week 15: project
• week 16: presentation
• week 17: thornton wilder’s our town
• week 18: thornton wilder’s our town
• week 19: thornton wilder’s our town
• week 20: evaluation over our town

as you can tell from the texts i want to use in class, it’s going to be a bleak year. i think that concentrating on materials with thematically similar content will be easier for the students to digest the all-important idea of theme. i even took out a short story i really like, james hurst’s “the scarlet ibis,” because it didn’t fit in with the other texts.

obviously, we’ll be talking a lot about allegory and utopian/dystopian concepts. there are also several productions of our town to choose from (i prefer the 1989 lincoln production because i think penelope ann miller is terrific) to help students visualize the play. that will be exciting. and oodles of other stuff.

what i need help on is the poetry. i’d like to teach the basics of figurative language using poetry, but i’m not sure if i want to use only poems that fit in with our overarching theme. surely i would like to introduce theme early on in the course, and if we establish some common ‘man in the world’ themes at the beginning, then that would help the students when we come to the short stories and novel and play. and no, eliot’s the waste land is not an option. suggestions are welcome!

[to kate, who suggested many wonderful things on my last request-ridden post; i got permission to do higher literature, so i went with that. forgive.]

ms. shin and my older sister share the same birthday, december 20th. i emailed my sister happy birthday; since we don’t exchange gifts for any occasion in my family, all we get are happy birthdays. i had planned to get ms. shin something for her birthday (cuz she got me a dandy scarf/mittens set from polham on mine), but she refused to answer my questions about what she wants.

i believe i’m a decent present giver. fifty percent of the time, i’ll have something brilliant in mind and spend a lot of money on it. the other fifty percent of the time, i’ll ask the person directly for what he/she wants. i explain it to them like this, ‘listen, i’m gonna buy you something. in order for me to not waste my money, just tell me what you want. it’s win-win.’ no present for ms. shin. so far.

on saturday, we had our last korean class at the ymca. a few weeks back, the teacher had informed us that there’d be a talent show involving classes of all levels. i let her know that i’m not shy about singing in public, so if need be, put me in for singing a korean song. the newest number one hit by the wonder girls, ‘nobody,’ was mentioned. i assumed that music would be provided and that the entire class would sing together. i showed up for class, not certain whether the performance was going to go on. it went as planned, and we sang as a group, with me on mic. it was pretty ridiculous.

after ymca, a group of us had lunch at hami mami in club that (downtown). i had a very filling american-style breakfast. no, i do not have a picture of what i ate. shortly thereafter, i met my friend hans for shopping. he wanted to buy a gold necklace for his girlfriend, and, being new to daegu, needed a guide. enter me, a very decisive shopper. we went down to jewelry street near dong-a department store (동아백화점), visited multiple stores, and settled on a gold/cubic zirconia necklace. because hans’s korean is even more limited than mine, i had to take the lead in conversing with the store managers. korean practice for me.

a co-worker of my significant other’s celebrated his birthday saturday evening. he’s fond of me so he asked me to join the festivities. in korea, ‘going out’ does not indicate patronizing just one or two establishments. in korea, ‘going out’ means going to multiple drinking/eating/singing/dancing places (spoken as 1차, 2차, 3차, etc.). i guess we in the US would say that this is ‘bar-hopping’ but ’bar-hopping’ doesn’t even begin to describe the korean way of partying, which, more often than not, lasts until six or seven in the morning (5 or 6 차).

for the first stop, we had food and beer near kyungpook national university. for the second stop, we went to a karaoke bar near dongdaegu station (동대구역) and drank scotch. for the third stop, we visited a newly opened karaoke bar and drank beer. there, my beloved and i sang together on stage. it was romantic, i think. for the fourth stop, we went to a karaoke bar where everyone knows your name for more beer. at around 4am, exhaustion kicked in and we called it a night. can you imagine doing that every weekend (as some people actually party like that)?

i like sundays because i get a lot of alone time. after getting a haircut (there’s a christmas party on christmas eve this week, and i plan on dressing up!), i stopped by e-mart to buy a new iron and an ironing board. people who know me know that i’m obsessed about ironing so, as a gift to myself, i finally splurged and got myself things i’d been wanting since i set foot on korean soil. the ironing board was ₩78,000 and the steam iron was ₩48,000. yes, i just spent over $100 on ironing equipment. and you know what? it was totally worth it. i went home, forgot about dinner, and ironed for 2 hours straight. that’s christmas to me.

WALL·E takes place in the distant future; 700 years have passed. we first see magnificent skyscrapers that, upon closer inspection, we later realize are built from garbage. this is a post-apocalyptic world. we our introduced to the main character, a squat robot with big binocular eyes, the last of his kind, who continues to do the job he’s programmed to do, which is to compact garbage into neat cubes. he is WALL·E.

minutes of silence pass as we observe the world through the little robot’s eyes. he collects trash, compacts it. his buddy is a death-defying cockroach. each evening is spent watching excerpts from the musical hello, dolly! he rocks his own bed and goes to sleep. it is a hauntingly lonely world.

until one day, when a sleek spaceship lands on earth, dropping off a smooth, white robot by the name of EVE, whose job is to find vegetation on our once green planet. of course WALL·E, a romantic, falls for EVE. long story short, this attraction leads him on an event-filled, and often hilarious, journey in outer space, where he eventually, with the help of others, return hope to our planet.

i was quite hesitant to give WALL·E a shot. i admire pixar films a lot, finding nemo and the incredibles being my favorites, so i have high expectations of their new releases. to be disappointed would be like marring my relationship with pixar (forever), and i don’t want that. so i approached this film with caution. but of course, i didn’t need to.

WALL·E is a short film expanded into 1 hour 40 minutes; this is not a bad thing. the great attention to detail, the long periods of silence, the intriguing, meandering first thirty minutes all contribute to a quality unseen in previous pixar productions. yes, the animation is jaw-droppingly gorgeous, yes, the music accompanies the wordless scenes beautifully, and yes, even adults can enjoy the magic unfolding onscreen. but the quality i experienced was more than all those things. i experienced poetry. the first thirty minutes are that good.

my heart ached for the lonely creature cleaning up the planet that we destroyed. and my heart raced when that creature found a companion. and my heart sang when the creature made friends in outer space. and my heart broke when the creature was almost lost. but then, my heart became full when the creature came back to us. and that creature was a robot, and how the animators imagined such a sympathetic, heroic creature is nothing short of amazing. WALL·E is not just a film, it is a gift. to have the younger generation have this story to see, to inspire them, gives me a little bit of hope about our planet in peril.