Sunday, April 25, 2010
What I Taught Today
A particularly ridiculous video I had to show my students today, featuring and outstanding performance by "Kevin". Check it out!
Monday, April 12, 2010
Something Surprised Me!
I've been here for 8 months now, so very little about Korea surprises me anymore. I'm used to walking down the street and seeing giant fish tanks filled with slithery eels, and old ladies on blankets peddling squid, acorn jelly, and other various treats! However, I saw something last week that really surprised me, so i thought I'd share it with my faithful readers.
I was eating dinner at a restaurant in my neighborhood. I live in a bustling part of town, right off campus of a major university, with alot of restaurants, cafes and bars near my apartment. That night was like any other, with college kids out having dinner and drinking, and people shopping in little boutiques I could see from outside the large window of the restaurant. All of a sudden, I spied a Buddhist Monk walking down the street solemnly, complete with the shaved head, the robe, etc. He was thumping lightly on a drum and humming. Before I knew it, he was wakling into the restaurant where I was eating. He opened the door and just stood in the doorway thumping his drum for about a minute. No one paid him any mind so he turned around and left. Puzzled as to what he was doing, I watched him through the window, realizing that he was going door to door to all the restaurants in the neighborhood. Finally, he entered a fried chicken place, and the worker promptly handed him a box of chicken. Then he left the neighborhood. The guy was going door to door begging for food in typical monk fashion, and was given fried chicken?? Talk about East meets West.
I was eating dinner at a restaurant in my neighborhood. I live in a bustling part of town, right off campus of a major university, with alot of restaurants, cafes and bars near my apartment. That night was like any other, with college kids out having dinner and drinking, and people shopping in little boutiques I could see from outside the large window of the restaurant. All of a sudden, I spied a Buddhist Monk walking down the street solemnly, complete with the shaved head, the robe, etc. He was thumping lightly on a drum and humming. Before I knew it, he was wakling into the restaurant where I was eating. He opened the door and just stood in the doorway thumping his drum for about a minute. No one paid him any mind so he turned around and left. Puzzled as to what he was doing, I watched him through the window, realizing that he was going door to door to all the restaurants in the neighborhood. Finally, he entered a fried chicken place, and the worker promptly handed him a box of chicken. Then he left the neighborhood. The guy was going door to door begging for food in typical monk fashion, and was given fried chicken?? Talk about East meets West.
Yellow Dust
No, this picture is not something out of "The Day After Tomorrow," or "An Inconvenient Truth," though it has been considerably inconvenient. It is a springtime phenomenon in Korea known as "Yellow Dust," and it is vile.
Every spring, the dry sands of the Mongolian and Chinese deserts are blown across East Asia, where they end up in Korea, and consequently, my lungs. This is a huge environmental problem caused by deforestation, industrialization and unsustainable urbanization. According to "The Granite Tower," Korea University's English Magazine, this dust contains silicon, aluminum, copper, cadmium, and lead! Absolutely foul! Now I'm starting to understand why so many Koreans wear those protective masks...Luckily, Gwangju is far South so it been as "dusted" as badly as Seoul and other northern parts of the country, but it's still been noticeable, and I can't wait for "dust season" to be over! I guess it's true that April showers bring....YELLOW DUST!
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