Seoul Searching...in Hong Kong

I've done a bit of relocating since my last post, but hilariously other than the scenery not much has changed. Although I do miss my kids and my friends from Seoul, admittedly, Hong Kong is much more my style. Hong Kong presents a girl with a buffet variety of adventures for a girl to get into *wink*

The whole living with nuclear threats from a country being ruled by some pompous dickhead was not really up my alley of comfort.  For the duration of about three weeks I was ridden with anxiety - specifically at night.  I would wake up at any sound outside my window from a starting car to a meowing cat.  My nights consisted of about three hours of sleep, my days, ten hours of screaming kids.  I had a few friends of mine leave based on the advice of an ex CIA agent and was answering to the pleads of my own parents to flee the country.

When I talked to the native Koreans about all of this, they had no response.  I begged for information on what to do if there were to be an attack: on where to take shelter, how to evacuate the school, what to do with children if we were to leave.  My inquiries were met with blank stares.  The native South Koreans were so numbed to the continuous threats from the North that they swept my concerns under the rug.

There were several different threats that were causing me to reconsider my stay in Korea, but ultimately it was a conversation with my father that broke the camels back.

If any of you have a father like mine, you know, are far as communicating goes, dads are usually in the background while mom is asking five million questions that inevitably move one to preemptively end a conversation .  He's calm, cool, collected, nothing really fires him up or moves him to make bold statements.  He didn't say much, but it was enough.

 "Leave Suz.  This is not your war.  It doesn't matter if they don't attack, but if they do, you're 30 miles away and it'll be too late.  I am already losing my dad, I refuse to lose a daughter.  If it's duties you're worried about, I absolve you of them, blame me for any trouble you'll be causing, I don't care, just get out.  Go."    

 He called at 9PM on a Monday night, I was in a taxi to catch a flight to Hong Kong by 6PM the next day.

 I have a friend here in Hong Kong that has been trying to persuade me into moving here basically since he did.  He has already convinced two other friends to make the move so I kind of just jumped on the band wagon.  Since I've been in Hong Kong I feel like there is a world of opportunity here that just isn't available in Korea and doors have already been opening in my favor.  I now have a job, which I start of Wednesday, and I live with a girl whom, unbeknownst to me, I graduated college with.

The story of my adventures in Asia is far from over it's just being displaced to another country.  I'm still searching for that soul...in Hong Kong.

Ballet

Wednesdays are ballet days, and Ballet day is by far my favorite day of the week.  The process of getting there is a bit stressful.  We have to go from snack to tornado like changing into ballet clothes in five to ten minutes.  I pick which group (boys) to stay with and make sure they don't ninja chop each other to death, while the other group (girls) gets to be trusted to go change by themselves in the sand play room.  More often than not, changing consists of me helping one person put on tights, while grabbing scissors away from another, while yanking someone else's shirt off, while tucking someone else into their little tutu/leotard. 

 All the sweat and pain is completely worth seeing how sweet and adorable they can be.

Sumin 

A Valentine's Day Ballad

Today in class I wanted to start a conversation about Valentine's day.  I did what I always do when I want to gauge the knowledge level of a certain subject around the room, I asked each student individually a question.  Today, my first question was, "What do you think Valentine's Day is?"  I got various responses, most of them being something along the lines of "It's when boy/girl gives chocolate to a girl/boy."

My favorite response from that round was from Sumin who said, "Valentine's Day is when Teacher Suzannah and I make chocolate and go to the play ground and run run run (simultaneously moving arms and legs in rapid running motion) and then and then (panting) fall down and and (lays head on desk)." 

 In scientific terms, we're going to get together and gorge ourselves with chocolate until our bodies are so inundated with sugar that we'll have an incredible burst of energy and run until we burn through the sugar. Then, our blood sugar levels will drop dramatically, and we'll crash somewhere on our foreheads in the playground never to be seen again.

I explained that Valentine's Day was the day we all celebrated love for someone special. I asked each student who they were going to celebrate love with.  Most typically responded with "my mom", or "my parents".  The interaction I learned the most from was the following:

Me: "Sophia, who will you celebrate love with tomorrow?"
Sophia: (big grin) "I am going to celebrate with Stephan!"
Me:  "Well that's sweet, Stephan are you going to celebrate love with Sophia as well?"
Stephan: "NO.  I am going to celebrate love with SJ"
Me: "Huh.  SJ, are you celebrating love with Stephan?"
SJ:  "Yes!  We are angry birds together!"

As they continued with their conversation, it dawned on me.....

Bromance has just proven itself to be a universal trans generational phenomenon that has been leaving women across the spans of time and Earth to color sullenly in the corner by themselves.  It's got nothing to do with me and there is nothing I can do to stop it.  I am not alone in this. 

And just like little Sophia today- we have all had our boyfriends look at us and say, "Not today, honey, I'm angry birding with my bro."    

Delectably Not Delectable

I've encountered some pretty strange foods over here so far, but the ones that keep throwing me for a loop and the food items I think are going to be salty, but end up being sweet when I put them on my tongue.  I couldn't really describe the feeling of thinking and expecting that you are going to be tasting salt and really getting sugar.  Like when for lunch one day we had a side dish of sugar sprinkled seaweed.  Everyone knows, seaweed is from the sea, which is salty, thus making so much sense that I perceived the white grains on my seaweed to be salt.  They were sugar and nasty. 

There has been a few instances like that. Like, when we had a "ham and cheese" sandwich for snack.  Upon closer investigation, the ham and cheese impostor was in reality a spam, cheese, mustard and strawberry jelly sandwich. Nasty. 

There was also the time I ordered a ball of Kimbap: tuna in the middle, surrounded by rice, topped with a sprinkling of  dried seaweed and sugar.  That made no sense.  

There is also cinnamon sugar fried chicken, which is actually pretty phenomenal, I'm not angry about that one in the least. Fried chicken is actually a big deal here, there are just tons and tons of fried chicken joints everywhere.  

There is also a great deal of sweet potato usage going on here.  I've had a great deal of sweet potato fries, mashed sweet potatoes instead of mashed potatoes, and the other day for snack we had sweet potato, hard boiled egg, and crab mash.  I don't know the correct term for it, other than: nasty.  

I know I've said it before, but once again, they are pretty sneaky with the fish/squid/octopus.  They really like to just throw in some tentacles in the main meal at lunch or serve this disgustingly fishy anchovy salad.  It's literally just hundreds of dried tiny tiny fish slathered in salt and some other sauce.  Also in category nasty.  

Quail eggs.  They sound like a delicacy, but they're nasty.  They are typically served here marinated in some form of sweet vinegary sauce.  Just a large bowl of tiny boiled quail eggs sitting in a vat of sweet weird vinegar sauce.   

South Korea honestly, just doesn't have much going for it in the culinary arts.  There are only so many ways to eat creatures from the sea.  

Plastic Surgery

I'm not even sure how to broach the subject of the rampant amount of plastic surgery that goes on in this country. When I arrived in Seoul I was taken back by the seemingly uniform and perfect appearance of a multitude of people: Big doe eyes, high shiny pink cheeks, chopped straight across bangs, angular jaw.  I described it to a friend as walking into an alternate world where every girl is a life size Barbie.  

After a little digging it became clear to me that I was not far off in my analogy.  South Koreans start getting their first plastic surgery procedures done as soon as legally possible.  Most plastic surgery procedures are actually high school graduation presents from their parents.  Most people partaking usually start out with a little double eye lid surgery (most common) and move on from there: nose jobs, chin shavings, breast augmentations, brow lifts etc.     

Why the move to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to look similar to everyone else?  Simply put, the Korean culture places a huge emphasis on surface level beauty and everyone buys into it.  Pictures are attached to job applications, college applications, etc and are passed over if the applicant is "ugly".  I even have a co-worker who carries a digitally altered photo of her own 16 year old daughter that shows what she will look like after her planned future surgeries.  She proudly shows me the comparison of the 'before surgery' photo to the 'after surgery' photo.  

This weeks This American Life episode expands on the subject of plastic surgery in South Korea.  If you do anything this week, take a listen.  It's fascinating.   

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/483/self-improvement-kick#play

My New Digs

So far my living situation in Seoul have consisted of being stuffed into a co worker's extra room and living day to day from my suit case.  Per usual.  BUUUUTT today I got the keys to my new bachelorette pad - or what they call housing here in Korea.  

The purple smart chip is what opens my door (which verbally greets me btw) which is a bit terrifying because it is quite small and oh so lose-able.  

Smart key

                                             

When you first walk in immediately to your left are my cute little kitchen and my closet.  

There is a see through cabinet whose door stays propped open and is what I call my "library"

Next to my fridge (which is currently serving as a coat rack) is where this Diva keeps all her threads.  I'll let you gaze at the magnificent wardrobe that is mine.

I know, super impressive 

My washroom is separated from my house and also is kind of my exotic patio, by exotic I meant arctic.  

and since everything is in Hangeul, I pretty much close my eyes and press buttons in hopes that my clothes come out clean.

Can't read this? That makes two of us!

Korean bathrooms take some getting used to.  Mainly the shower is just a long steel hose hooked into the wall that you hold above your head in the same room as the toilet and sink.  It's all just a bit odd for girl who has had the luxury of having shower walls.  And a shower head that holds itself up.  It's like these people think I work out or something.

Sink, metal hose, drain in the floor.  Shower. 

This is my floor/water heating system.  It's pretty baller.  And another thing I don't know how to operate.

Well crew, that was my episode of cribs.  Just to recap and put everything together for you:

here's the view from the bathroom

Here's the view from the door:

Voila

Killing Larry

My teaching skills for seven year olds have already reached some new territories.  I teach everything from art, to math, the science, to having fun.  It's not complicated or anything, today for Math we counted how many fingers I was holding up.  

I was however, suuuuuuuper pumped about the fact that we got to have a real live fish in class for science. Why you ask? To teach children about animals and the science of life you might guess?  HAAA NO.  

That fish was straight up leverage.  Those kids eyes LIT up when Larry (the fish) entered the room.  To them, there was a new magical, shiny creature, bubbling about a beautiful little talk filled with water.  To me, it meant that I could bribe them with behaving well by promising whoever was best to feed Larry at the end of the day.  

Turns out, if you need to bribe children with a goldfish, you should be aware of how much food a goldfish needs in a day and not allow your shining star of a student, Sophia, to feed him half the can in one day.  

So, the next morning along with Larry, my new found scientist/political mafiosa career was found floating belly up in a bowl.

Back to the drawing board.