Ski resort and Beach Xmas

a temple behind my university

The real santa

Last year, my school had me pose as Santa and give presents to the students. Some knew I was a fraud, but most believed it. This boy, Tim, is still angry with me a year later for lying to him. He told me he was going to call the police because I'm not Santa.

Bullet-train musings (Part god-knows-what)

It took me a long time to figure out why not everyone would want to escape their home and find a new life in this vast world. I'm daily stung by the beauty of this little peninsula. True, as my buddy Bart reminded me, I don't take my backpack and just explore as often as I once did, but I still leave my door everyday excited that I'll probably see something strange, surreal and very un-western. These moments of awe are regular and significant. Sometimes they cause me to write, other times just think. But the problem is I'm taking in this beauty alone. Or, even if there are people beside me, they're not the ones I want to be next to me as we spy this coastline with smoke coming off the mountains behind. And I really can't bring my old world here. Occasionally, with the closest of new life friends, we can share our old worlds through a very well-told story. It reminds me of a discussion I had yesterday about love and marriage. Marriage, she said, depends on the mutual sacrifice of both partners. I agree, I said, but my father raised me to be selfish enough to put my own ambitions first. And it's this selfishness that allowed me to leave everyone behind and come to Korea- the best decision of my young-adult life. It's this selfishness that gave this coastline for my eyes only. And so, this image will die in my eyes.

Just a dream (I hope)

I woke from this dream a couple weeks back and quickly wrote all I could remember. I'm always open to prophetic possibilities in dreams and all the talk and images of the wreckage from the recent S.Korean oil-spill reminds me of the terror I felt in that dream. I'll soon be island-hopping Southeast Asia and I hope I see nothing like this:

I walked around the hostel grounds at night. The old building stood over-looking the ocean, as I did. Outside it was dark except for small personal fires in comfy corners. Behind the fires, the 3rd-world locals drank island moonshine and crackled about hardship in a language I don't understand. Despite the hot, tropical climate, I suppose all homeless feel more comfortable next to a fire. "Even in paradise, they need the fire for warmth," I thought. I was struggling up a steep hill, looking forward to meeting the new group of tourists. I was hoping they could tell me what I should do in this place and whether I should be scared or not.

Then, as if under attack, everyone jumped into motion. I turned towards the ocean and saw near-naked, sun-burnt island natives speeding through the waves in small boats. The border guards were quick to harpoon the fleeting freedom fighters. (<-Alliteration *thanks NIU!). Nobody had to tell me. I knew these people were trying to escape this place us tourists called "paradise." The refugees were snared in gigantic nets like defeated fish.

All around me, the natives mocked their failed, fellow man. They condescendingly harped whale-cries at them. I think the captures comfort them by showing that their shitty existence and helplessness cannot be helped. They delight in being reminded there's no way out. The trapped heroes were dragged back onto the beach and the locals piled on them, beating them with whatever they could find. The border patrol sat back, laughing at these foolish peasants for doing their shitty job for them. I couldn't watch any longer and turned up the hill. As I passed one shadow-lit homeless man, he gave me a grin and started to play "Silent Night," on his old guitar. I guess it was Christmas in this poor paradise.

Park Yun-Jin battles the Neon Robots

The flashy neon PC rooms are becoming over-crowded. The smoke seeps out and blends in with the mountain-mist. I fear the beeps are becoming a pulse. I fear the brain-washed youth will spill out into the crowded streets. I wonder how long they'll keep their two worlds separate: Cyberspace and ours. (You know they now have rehabilitation centers for the PC-addicted Koreans.) I hope I'm safe at home when the kids arm themselves and play war games in the streets.

For Bart Betner

I continue to think and write, but not so often on this forum. Here are some random thoughts from the previous month:

Some say they are too busy to think. It's rediculous and I'm very curious about their daily agendas. I am busier these days and the university is stretching me thinner but I still have eternities of time to think about my goals here, my adventures to come and, unfortunately, the Bulls.

I'm becoming a bit of a celebrity here on campus. I've had about 900 students now and because I'm more active than the other more settled in and settled down teachers, I see a lot of my students outside of class. I've taken to giving them silly English names so I can recognize a good percentage of them. I've got a Lebron, NYPD, Pishy, Him-de-ro face, Marlboro, Bruce Lee, the Future, Santa Claus, Coco 56%, Sleepy, Hello, Campus Couple (boy), Campus Couple (girl), Marshmello, Peanut, etc. It seems to be working. I continue to receive remarkably positive feedback about my teaching but it's still not as satisfying as the kindergarten was. Many of those children despised me, but they learned from me nonetheless. Here I'm teaching about 30 students per class, once a week, so it's nearly impossible to see any tangible results in their Englishy. Instead I give them basic inspirational speeches (often in Korean) on how to improve their low speaking abilities. They nod and say they understand me but, in truth, we don't have enough class time to improve much and they have to find ways outside of class to practice speaking. And I realize it's very, very difficult to find practical English speaking opportunities in this country.

So I try to motivate, they graduate, bow and say thanks and then continue to freak-out when I say, "hello" to them on the street. I guess we all learn out of necessity and I can't lie to them and say that it's necessary to speak English in Korea. They're studying for a completely impractical written English test for high-level engineering jobs and they know it. As long as they still respect me and feign effort in the class, I should be satisfied.