Daegu E-2 visa-holder shindig

[I should warn you: This post is very long and contains a good deal of ranting. Be prepared.]

Earlier this week, my coworkers and I received notice that this Saturday at 9:30am, we - as holders of the E-2, or English teacher, visa - were required by law to attend a meeting: the 2011 Daegu Foreign Language Instructors' Seminar.

My initial response was chagrin. As I've mentioned before, due to my work schedule (2pm-10pm), I don't usually get out of bed until around 11am or so. The idea of being thirty minutes across town by 9:30 on a Saturday morning wasn't particularly appealing to me. Looking over the schedule of events for the three and a half hour event, it really didn't seem like something that would be useful to me at all. The information listed on the schedule included "legal status and duties of E-2 visa holders," "local laws useful to foreign instructors," and "information on living in Daegu" - among others. Y'all know this ain't my first rodeo; this is all information I've known for years. Still, the law is the law, and if all E-2 visa holders were required to attend, then attend I would.

I posted a notice on facebook, and tagged some of my fellow E-2 visa friends (including "John") to notify them, in case their schools hadn't been quite as on-the-ball at spreading the word as my school was. Take a look at the responses. Well, mainly John's response.

Let's quote that again: "However, even more annoying is how indignant some of the foreigners look and act at the simple fact that the government is trying to remind them that this isn't their country - and that we should be mindful of some of their rules."

I agree wholeheartedly with this comment; HOWEVER: the dude sleeps with prostitutes on a regular basis! I am aware that (in general) the Korean police tend to turn a blind eye to the flourishing red light districts, but it is still illegal here. Those of us who know of John's proclivities debated whether or not we should reply with something allong the lines of, "It's amazing how many foreigners are unaware that whoring is illegal in Korea," but in the end we just left it alone.

And now for the event itself. I'll start by addressing the actual presentations.

Following half an hour of registration were three hours of the actual seminar itself. It was held in an auditorium located in the library at Keimyumg University's Daemyeong campus, a fairly decent place for coralling the 850+ E-2 visa holders of Daegu.

The first hour featured cultural demonstrations, and it was by far the best part of the whole event. I was seated near the back of the auditorium (in between John and my coworker, J), and was not in a decent position to take any photographs. Additionally, I hadn't brought my pocket Nikon, and my DSLR doesn't do video. I rarely find myself longing for my pre-DSLR pocket Nikon, but I would have loved to have taken some videos.

The first demonstration was the most kickass taekwondo exhibition I have ever seen live. They were incredible: poomses (품새) choreographed to music and performed to prefection. These were followed by an amazing demonstration of jumping, flipping, kicking, board-breaking, and sparring. I was quite impressed to say the least. It really made me regret not keeping up with taekwondo (I might even still remember the first 품새...) but my knees are gimpy enough as it is without me subjecting them to such torture. Ahh well.

The other cultural demonstrations included traditional Korean dance, a Korean folktale performed in English by a professional storyteller, and some professional opera singers. (They sang four songs, only one of which was opera - from La Traviata. I normally don't dig opera, but that song in particular was simply wonderful.)

The seminar pretty much went down hill after that. The following two hours consisted mainly of people reading PowerPoint slides verbatim. (PowerPoint is great for showing graphs, illustrations, photographs, and bullet points in order to enhance a speech. One of my biggest pet-peeves is when someone puts his or her entire speech onto PowerPoint slides and then reads them to the audience. This isn't a Korean-specific problem by any means; it's a world-wide phenomenon and it drives me batty.)

Some of the information was useful, such as what you need to do regarding your visa status if you are fired or quit, or if you have finished your contract and want to stay in-country and look for a new job. The police officer who spoke was definitely the best presenter - he was witty and to the point, basically listing things foreigners shouldn't do: carry weapons (including kives), do drugs, molest children (!), prostitution (at the mention thereof, I turned to John and pointedly said, "John!" and he at least looked somewhat uncomfortable), commit violent crimes, drink in public, etc. The information from the In Daegu guy would probably have been very useful to Korea-newbies looking to get involved in the ex-pat community, and the information on Korean oriental medicine probably would have been interesting had the presentation been clearer (but I'll return to that later in this post). I was pretty excited to learn about HerbHillz, which is apparently located not too far from where I live.

A lot of the information was completely useless. We sat through a lengthy PowerPoint spiel on the requirements for an E-2 visa and how to get one. Seriously, folks. Everyone in that auditorium already had their E-2 visa; was this really necessary? Additionally, one of the segments in our schedule was "Financial Transactions Guide for Foreigners in Korea." This could have been useful. Instead it was merely a presentation by a representative of KB Bank (one of the sponsors of the event), extolling the virtues of KB Bank and encouraging us all to open accounts with KB today at the tables set up just outside of the auditorium. Yeah.

Dear Foreign Language Education Association, I have some suggestions:

If at all possible, could this event be held once every three months, with attendance required only at the first one held after an E-2 visa holder's arrival in Korea? For those who have been here six months or so, or those whose contracts are nearly over, the useful items from today came a little too late.

Following the super-awesome cultural events (which you should definitely keep!), the rest of the seated-in-an-auditorium event should definitely be shorter. I would suggest limiting presentations to the information from immigration and the police. Following the presentations, teachers could visit information booths for such things as ex-pat organizations, information on oriental medicine, HerbHillz, KB Bank, etc. This would enable teachers to stretch their legs, mingle, and get information about the things which interest them.

And now to what really bugged me: I was completely embarrassed by the behavior of so many of my fellow E-2 visa holders today.

It started with the unprofessionalism of the foreigner who was the emcee of the event, who kicked off the event by making a joke about how good it was that we did without a Friday night of drinking in order to make it to such an early event on a Saturday... or maybe we didn't, hahaha. Seriously? This is how you kick off what was supposed to be a professional seminar? And it totally set the tone, let me tell you.

The emcee then led us in a word-association icebreaker - which resulted in a wide variety of juvenile word associations, mostly involving drugs and alcohol. (The chairmen and women of the Daegu Foreign Language Education Association, plus numerous school owners, and representatives from the police and immigration were present at this event. How exactly does shouting "SOJU!!" as an association with 'teaching' seem like a good idea??) Sadly, one of the phrases used for the word association activity was 'oriental medicine.' This ellicited most of the loudly shouted drug references, plus some jackass in the back of the room screaming "BULLSHIT!" over and over at the top of his lungs. And there was an English speaking representative of the Association of Korean Oriental Medicine sitting in the front row, who was one of the presenters scheduled for the event. (I mentioned this several paragraphs ago. When she gave her presentation, she obviously just skimmed through bits and pieces of a pre-prepared presentation, and looked - and sounded - like she might start crying at any moment. Maybe she was just nervous about public speaking; maybe it wasn't a result of the actions of the foreigners in the crowd earlier in the event. I sincerely hope it wasn't. It might also have had something to do with audience behavior; see the next paragraph.)

Following the obnoxious icebreaker, the cultural demonstrations began. As I mentioned above, they were quite entertaining, and as such, the crowd was pretty well behaved. However, audience behavior turned to shit as soon as the presentations began. I should mention here that when we checked in at the beginning of the event, we had a paper stamped, which we are all required to hand over to our employers as proof of attendance. The paper stamping really should have been done at the end of the event, as I bet you can guess what happened. A good chunk of people simply got up and walked out as soon as the 'entertainment' portion of the event was over. A lot of them walked out while the first speaker was speaking. As the final two hours of the event progressed, more people left. Many, many of those who stayed got up and were walking around the auditorium, chatting with their friends. Many were having really loud conversations.

I didn't want to be there, and I wasn't particularly interested in a lot of the presentations; HOWEVER, I sat in my seat politely, attentively, and respectfully. To walk out, or to walk around and carry on loud personal conversations while people are giving presentations is incredibly rude. I was completely embarrassed, as were John and J. (Yeah, people. Your rude behavior embarrassed John.) The presenters had obviously put a lot of time and effort into the event, and yet so many of my fellow E-2 visa holders completely disrespected them. I felt terrible for the presenters, and embarrassed at being associated by default with the behavior of my compatriots.

I know how I feel when I'm teaching a lesson and my students ignore me and talk to their friends. As every E-2 visa holder is a teacher, I would venture to guess that every one of them has had that exact experience on more than one occasion... and yet they still behaved this way. And at least our students have the excuse of being children.

Comparing Japan and South Korea

[I've spent 31 months in South Korea between 2001 and the present. I've traveled pretty much all over the peninsula at one point or another. In comparison, I've spent a grand total of three days in Japan, and my travels were limited to Fukuoka and Beppu on the island of Kyushu. As such, I realize that this "comparison" can hardly be accurate; however, as several people have asked for a comparison, I've decided to write one, based on my limited observations.]

· The scenery in the countryside between Fukuoka and Beppu looks almost identical to the Korean countryside.

· There is much less Romanization of Japanese signage. Here in Korea, nearly all traffic signs, bus stop signs, and signs in the subways are written in Korean and Latin letters. Often signs are written in Chinese characters as well. Even if a person cannot read hangeul (한글 - the Korean alphabet) it would still be fairly easy for that person to navigate this country, assuming that he/she had a lick or two of sense. There were far fewer Romanized signs in Fukuoka than I am accustomed to in Korea... and there were even fewer in Beppu. Additionally, Japan uses three different writing systems. They used the Chinese characters (which are often used in Korea as well) as well as two different alphabet systems. (I'm simplifying this a lot, as I know next to nothing about this topic.) In Korea, you can almost be guaranteed that whether or not Chinese or Latin characters are present, 한글 definitely will. All you have to do is learn one phoenetic alphabet, and at the very least you can navigate. In Japan, it seemed pretty difficult to predict which set of characters was going to appear when...

· I've been told numerous time that Korean and Japanese have the same grammar. Just from being there three days and knowing only a few words, I was able to pick up on and recognize language patterns that paralleled Korean. In theory, someone who masters on language, should be able to do fairly well in the other just by studying vocabulary.

· Manners (at least during interactions between the average Japanese folks and foreigners) are very, very similar to the interactions between average Koreans and foreigners; however...

· ...there's much less staring at foreigners in Japan than in Korea. Here in Korea I've grown accustomed to people of all ages (although especially children) staring at me. In Japan, I almost felt like people who didn't have a reason to interact with me (such as store clerks, etc) did their best to pretend I didn't exist. I certainly didn't have people shouting 'Hello!' at me or nearly running me over in order to shout, 'I love to speak English!' from their car window (which happened to me this evening).

· There seemed to be more individuality in women's fashion than there is here in Korea. While a lot of the fashions were similar to the stuff that is popular here, I saw a lot of other styles, too.

· No hot red pepper! It's on just about everything one eats in Korea... and yet it was on nothing I encountered in any Japanese restaurants. Additionally, when I ordered my ramen in Fukuoka with the help of my cousin's Japanese friend, both she and the waitress warned me that the kind I'd selected (based on its picture in the menu) was "really hot and spicy" - although while I found it delicious, it wasn't spicy in the least.

· Pachinko all over the damned place.

· More handicapped people. Most seemed to have congenital disorders, as far as I could tell. I know that Korea is not exactly a disability-friendly society (although things have been slowly improving over the ten years that I've been traveling here), and Korean culture has a tendency to keep the disabled out of sight. It could be that there are the same number of disabled people here as there, but that Japan has a more open attitude. I don't know. I was wondering if perhaps the congenital disabilities were a result of the nuclear fallout from WWII, although I'm certainly just speculating out my ass.

· As I wrote yesterday, there seems to be an equally high prevalence of bob-tailed cats in Japan as in Korea (this could, in theory be related to the above point).

Cats of Japan

When my cousin and I arrived at our hostel - Happy Neko, or Happy Cat - in Beppu the first thing we saw were three adorable black, tiny, bob tail kittens. Sadly, I have no photographs of them, as they were a tad feral and skeedaddled as soon as I tried to play with them. I saw a couple of other strays in the area of the Happy Neko - whose owners apparently put out food for the neighborhood strays. They all had either bob tails or 3/4 length tails.

The only other cats I saw during my trip to Japan were in Fukuoka near the Shinto shrine we visited. I did get photos of them - all bob tailed, or with shorter than normal, oddly shaped tails. Here in South Korea, cats with bob tails or bent tails are very common. (The tip of Charlie's tail is bent, although you can't see it in photos. Her father has about a three inch bob tail.) I once had a vet tell me that the prevalence of bob tails in Korea is purely genetic (not due to mistreatment or disease). It would seem that this trait is present at least on the Japanese island of Kyushu as well.

The Japan Adventures, Part 5: Fukuoka Temple Time

Originally, our plan had been to spend Saturday afternoon at the monkey park, and then spend Sunday morning hunting for Shidaka's Utopia - an abandoned amusement park in the Beppu area. Unfortunately, between delays and rain, we had to forego the hunt for Shidaka's Utopia. It was lunchtime by the time we returned to Beppu from monkey mountain, and the weather was still pretty nasty. We decided to return to Fukuoka a little earlier than planned, in hopes that the weather might be better there.

We lucked out. The skies were rather hazy and dreary in Fukuoka, but at least it was dry. We checked in to our hostel, the rather awesome Khaosan Fukuoka, then set out on a tour of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines in the Hakata district. I can't tell you much information about these temples (all the available information was in Japanese...) but they were pretty fabulous to look at, explore, and photograph.

Zen Buddhist sand garden

Shinto Shrine - unfortunately it had closed for the day just minutes before we arrived, and this was the closest I could get. See the cat in the tree? :-)

job update

As I wrote a month ago, my job situation for September is somewhat up in the air at the moment. I have an interview in two weeks at a large international company located in the most prestigious part of Seoul. At this point, we've negotiated a starting salary (more than I'd expected when I wrote about this last month), airfare, visa logistics, and a good deal more. Essentially, they've done everything but offer me the job. I'm hoping that they will actually do that (or at least let me know one way or the other) on the day of the interview.

I've been feeling incredibly guilty about the fact that I haven't let the school in Ukraine know that I might not be coming... but I don't want to count my Seoul chickens before they hatch for fear of ending up with neither job come September.

I'm trying not to get too excited about the potential job in Seoul, as I don't want to risk getting let down... but still! When I wrote about the potential job before, I wasn't sure if it was something I wanted to do. Now, while I'm not 100% certain (can one ever be?), I'm definitely 95% sure that it's something I want to try. For one thing it would be something different. I've been one of the 30,000+ Americans here with the US Department of Defense (in 2004, as a civilian). I've been one of the 30,000+ native English speakers here teaching English. It would be nice to be among the smaller group of others for once. Additionally, living and working in the heart of Seoul would be a vastly different experience from living and working in staid east Daegu!

Then there's the fact that I mentioned the other day: I'm (finally) starting to feel like an adult. It's a little scary to realize that I'm in my 30s and have less than $800 in my retirement account.

So. Two weeks. I'll keep you posted.

The Mountain Called Monkey

The Japan Adventures, Part 4: Monkeys!

Sunday morning, we got up incredibly early... only to discover that it was raining. The trouble with a super-short vacation is that you can't put things off until the next day on account of rain. As such, we set off for Beppu Station, where we caught the first bus to the Takasakiyama Monkey Park. [You can take bus AS60 or AS61 from in front of Beppu Station. In the mornings it leaves twice every hour, at 20 after and 54 after; in the afternoons it leaves at 20 after. The first bus of the day leaces at 7:54am.]

We arrived at 'monkey mountain' just as it opened (8:30am), and as such were the first visitors. And yes, it was still raining. Nothing like trying to juggle two cameras, various lenses, and an umbrella. Sigh.

The first thing you see when arriving at monkey mountain is a sign warning you not to touch, tease, chase, or feed the monkeys. It also tells you not to look them in the eye.

Monkey mountain is also home to an active Buddhist temple. While you can't tour the temple itself, you can see the exterior of several temple buildings (covered with climbing monkeys) as well as the occasional monk. Occasionally bells resound throughout the complex, and chanting is heard as well. (While the monks and the monkeys are colocated, the monkeys are cared for by a professional staff, who feed them and tend to any medical needs.)

I was worried that, due to the weather, the monkeys would be hiding in their houses and shelters... I needn't have been concerned. Not only were monkeys everywhere, but wet and bedraggled monkeys are even cuter than dry monkeys. There was so much unbearable monkey cuteness, that I felt like I could stay there forever and never grow tired of it. I took over 500 photos; I'll leave you to enjoy just a handful.