Real women

The other night, I invited over a male student of mine and two of his friends for dinner. After the meal, conversation meandered through the Southern Vowel Shift and other topics to land on the name of their puppy, Hyori. Hyori is named for their favorite female pop star. They named their dog after her so she would come when they called. This is when the conversation started going downhill. I wanted to see pictures, so we searched on the web. This is the picture of what she "really" looks like, according to the guys:

This (top half; I am not slick enough to use photoshop and trim the bottom off) is the picture I liked a lot better, which they said was horrible and "didn't look like her":

I wonder which one her mother would recognize? I wonder in which one she most clearly identifies herself?

Grrrr. With all my efforts to be nonjudgmental in the classroom, let me use THIS space to growl about how women are expected to look perfect here. The surgery. The regular skin peeling. The absolutely indispensable makeup ritual. (One girl told a story of her friend who overslept and so canceled a date with her boyfriend rather than have him see her with no makeup. Literally.) The constant stream of appearance-focused self criticism and/or narcissism.

I only hope Hyori loves her smile as much as I do. THAT, boys, is what a REAL woman looks like.

Update

Hello, anyone who is still checking this page! I think about writing often, I just don't do it. Anyway, I have some significant updates that I wanted to share.

First, I will be leaving Korea in mid-August and going in September to Indonesia, where I will teach at a university as an English Language Fellow through a program with the U.S. State Department. Details to come.

Second, I did at last break up with the very sweet person I had been dating. I initiated. Just wanted to announce that since people tend to ask about him.

Third, I think I'm going to chop my hair off. Here are some farewell pictures :

I think I'm gonna leave about as much as you can see in this picture:



Not a huge loss, in the end, is it? I may also chop it shorter if I get the urge, later. But I do enjoy putting it up in a clip, and I don't know how Indonesians feel about women with very short hair.

That's all for now...more later...or perhaps sooner! Love, Heather

Yes, I had a fabulous birthday

February 11th is just one of my favorite days. What can I say? This past Monday was yet another of many happy returns. Three cakes: one for breakfast, one for lunch, and one for dinner. Meals and fun times with friends and students. Big party at Baskin Robbins for my 31st birthday (get it?) and all kinds of birthday messages and well-wishing from loved ones far and near.

So anyway, it was fabulous. Thanks for asking. (^_^) Love, Heather

Long time, no blog

So my last blog posting was back in November? October? A long time ago. I didn't stop for any particular reason, I just got busy and realized I'd have more time if I quit using the internet so much.

Now I'm housebound recovering from a cold, so I guess it's as good a time as any to post an update.

Let's see...First things first, I'm still in Korea, still healthy (well, relatively) and happy. My job has gotten more interesting but not too much more stressful, so I'm more satisfied there. I have a LOT less culture shock these days, and in general feel quite at home with occasional bursts of frustration or indignation or loneliness. My friends and students here have helped a lot by listening, explaining and just keeping me company.

I'm still dating the man I met in Gyeongju about two weeks after I arrived. Surprised? Me, too. He's a sweetheart and we've had some fun traveling to other places together, though not as much as I'd hoped, as he's pretty busy. Here are a couple more pictures.



The beach at Hawhe Village in Andong, north of Daegu:



Love that smile. Note: I made the scarf for Christmas. :D

Besides being a little busier at work, I've been doing yoga and swimming (but less hiking this time of year), learning to play the buk, a traditional Korean drum, and teaching extra English lessons in exchange for the drum lessons. I also hang out with some lovely gals I met at school:



The one on the right, nicknamed Jennie in English, invited me to her house for Korean New Year this week. I helped deep-fry squid and peel chestnuts on New Year's eve, and then went back the next day to take part in the celebration and feasting with her extended family. I wish I had a picture of me looking silly in her grandmother's hanbok, traditional dress, which was two feet two short for me, or lounging on the bed in the "girls' room" with all the female cousins.

Recently, I've been making a lot of travel plans, and it's gearing up to be a busy spring. My brother Kevin is coming to see me Feb. 21st (yay!) and then we're headed to Nepal Feb. 26th, via Bangkok. We'll meet up with Jun, who is headed to India and Nepal earlier this month, for a couple days in Kathmandu at the end of his vacation time (which luckily overlaps slightly with mine). We are invited to a bratabandha (a sort of manhood celebration: picture an early Barmitzvah, but different) for the son of two of my former students from Nepal on Feb. 28th. I haven't seen them in a few years, nor met their son, so I'm looking forward to that reunion. Then Kevin and I will travel around until March 9th, and be back in our respective countries by the 11th or 12th.

In early April I'll attend, and co-present at, the annual TESOL conference, held in New York this year. As a bonus (and more to the point, really) I will get to see my Dad, stepmom and two aunts.

In late April and early May, my mom will come to visit me for two weeks. I'm thrilled, and I think she is too. It's her first solo trip to Asia (she's been with groups before).

Despite my many plans for the upcoming months, I still don't have a clear picture of where I'll be this time next year. Keep tuning in.

Finally, thanks to any and all of you who have been faithful or foolish enough to actually check this blog again after months of inactivity. I'm afraid it's a sort of dry rendition of a rather less dry life, but the best I can do at this point. Cheers and love to you all.

Direct Advertising in Korea

One of the things I had to get used to was the somewhat more insistent presence of direct advertising in my life. Not only do I get fliers stuffed in my mailbox, I also have them stuck on my door, to the tune of three or four a day sometimes. The point seems to be to put them where you cannot help to see them, and some flier-hangers go so far as to obstruct your keyhole or your doorknob.

But then again, so does everyone else in my apartment building. Once in a while, my apartment manager comes by and rips them all down, sweeps them out of the hallways, etc. In the beginning, I would dutifully clean my door each day, or sometimes twice a day. Some weeks back, I stopped bothering.

In the beginning, feeling this keenly as an invasion of my privacy, I decided to take steps to reclaim my own door. If everyone else had the right to stick things on my door, well, I certainly did too! I put up a welcome sign that used to hang on my office door at Portland State. In a miniature act of subversion, I used magnetic strips from the backs of some fliers to hold my sign to the door. Fortunately, the welcome sign is plastic, because the flier hangers have no compunction about sticking tape all over that, too.


Frankly, I think the autumn colors of my welcome sign blend nicely with the primary hues of pizza and chicken fliers.

Shameless Bid for Sympathy

I'm sick. This is the first time I've gotten sick in Korea. These days the days are warm, the nights are cold, and a lot of people catch colds in the fluctuating temperatures. I feel exhausted and my throat is sore. I've been drinking lots of tea and hot water and I had a wonderful spicy chicken broth soup full of unidentifiable (to me) dark green vegetables, served with rice. I don't think I'm really ill enough to take the day off work, so I went to school and whined to my students about how ill I am. I also asked them what Korean people do when they're sick. Here's one remedy that was suggested:

Boil an asian pear and some ginger for, say, an hour. Sweeten with honey if desired. You can keep adding water and boiling it again, apparently.

I'm going to try this later after my nap.

Happy Pepero Day: a quiz

Dear friends and fans, in homage to my friend and fellow blogger Michael5000, whose weekly Thursday quiz is a favorite ritual of many, I offer this multiple-choice question. You may submit your answer as a comment, or by email, snail, message in a bottle, or carrier pigeon. I will post the correct answer when I feel like it (probably in about 3-5 days).

Here's the question:

Today is Pepero day in Korea, a holiday celebrated nationwide as

a) the birthday of a Spanish cartoon character who is much beloved in Korea, though unknown in North America
b) the anniversary of the historical naval victory of Admiral I Soon Shin over the Japanese using turtle boats
c) the official end date of the pear harvest, after which the poor may collect any remaining pears
d) the day on which people exchange gifts of long, chocolate covered cookies resembling the numeral 1 (for 11/11).

Step right up. Make your vote count! And make my day.

Fun with traditional Korean culture

Today I had a jam-packed, fun-filled afternoon and evening. After my Korean class ended at 3, I called my friend Cathy and we headed to the Keimyung hanhakchon (a traditional village compound replicated on campus, and a really beautiful place to hang out and study on warm fall days). An event was being held there where we could sample half a dozen different types of tea and sweets, served by members of some tea club wearing traditional clothing. You went around to different buildings and sat or knelt at low tables and were served tiny cups of tea and the most delicious and varied traditional sweets. Yum. Everyone was super dressed up, and at one point they did a demonstration of a traditional wedding ceremony. I won a prize in the raffle: a tea set worth over $100.00 that everyone was very envious of. All around an exciting time.

Directly after that, I went up to the ampitheater on campus to meet a traditional drum (buk) club. I had met them a couple days ago and asked if I could join in. The drums are medium sized, about 18 inches in diameter and a foot high. Y0u play them with big sticks, maybe just under an inch in diameter and a foot long. You really bang the hell out of those drums, too. I was sure I was going to break the skin, but the teacher kept telling me to hit it harder. Anyway, there were about 8 or 10 of us and it was super fun. I have all these new rhythms running through my head. I'm going to go back next week, every night that I don't have to teach. They practice every night (hard core!)

Okay, well the literary value of this blog has now been officially sacrificed to expedience, as I simply had stopped writing because it took up too much time. (Case in point: I used the word traditional six times in the first 2 paragraphs of the post. Ugh.) So prepare yourself for slightly more frequent but less well-written posts.

I wish you could all enjoy the incredible fall weather here these last weeks. The well-landscaped campus is resplendent in its many-colored coat of carefully chosen trees. The other day I took a hike and climbed a 30 foot rock wall all by myself. (Oops!) It was so much fun, and see, I didn't even die!

That's all for now, folks. Stay tuned for more fun. I am having a blast. I love this place more and more (yes, even the food!) And I love all of you.

A Happy Halloween in Daegu

Despite being out of the country, I made plenty of mischief in the name of this wonderful holiday. I went to my classes dressed as Pippi Longstockings and taught them to make a Jack o'lantern and sing a Halloween song (one written by my Mom, who is awesome, when I was little). I told them creepy stories in English (wait two beats until the horrified look appears on their faces as they figure out what I've just said). I showed everyone the amazing Halloween cookies and masks sent by my aunts (Thanks Chris and Chris!) Crossing the street dressed outrageously with my braids sticking straight out from my head, I might just as well have been an alien, for all Korean people are used to willful public abnormality, so that in itself was fun. But my favorite Halloween event was the party for students at the international lounge--where, I might add, I was the ONLY one dressed in costume. We listened to 13 different versions of the Monster Mash downloaded by a devoted fellow teacher, carved pumpkins, made each other into toilet paper mummies, and ate horrendous pizza. I was strangled by a mummy who, when alive, had been one of my students. An all around smashing Halloween.

Oh, to be happily shod

I have finicky feet. It's enough of a chore finding shoes for me in a country where clogs are in fashion and large sizes readily available for women. Shoe shopping in Korea reduces me to tears.

Today I had an utterly unsuccessful attempt to find shoes that:

1. were large enough
   
2. were not men's styles
3. would not leave me limping at the end of the day
4. cost less than $120 for a mediocre shoe that satisfied conditions 1, 2 and 3.

I will be taking up a collection for the $45 dollar shipping and handling fee for my German wool clogs. I will inevitably be taking up another collection for my bail money when I get locked away for beating the first person who makes fun of my comfortable footwear.

Meanwhile, I guess tomorrow I'll be wearing clunky brown sandals with a long black skirt or slacks to work again. (The effect is even worse than it sounds, actually.)