Skiing and its consequences

The past few days have been some of the most hectic of my life (including when I was playing varsity softball and in the final week of rehearsals for a musical while studying for finals and AP exams in high school, which I still consider to be the epitome of my energy output). I'll start from the beginning.

My friends and I have been trying in vain to find a time we can all go skiing together for the past few weekends. Skiing in Korea is both affordable and accessible because there are so many mountains and most of the snow is fake. Also, Koreans love anything that gets them outside and moving. Anyway, this weekend my friend and I just decided to go ourselves and arranged a time (6 a.m. -- ugh) and a place (Seoul Station) to meet to begin our journey.

Although there are a number of shuttles to the various ski resorts in the nearby province of Gangwon, my friend prefers to drive since he brings his own equipment. It was a nice drive through the mountainous countryside once we got out of Seoul, and the two hours or so passed quickly despite a little traffic closer to the resorts. It was a perfect morning for skiing -- or at least what I presume to be a perfect morning for skiing as this was my first venture into the world of snow sports (beyond sledding and shoveling).

Since my friend works for the government, we were able to bypass the long lines to buy tickets and went to a special office instead where we got two admission tickets and then tickets to rent skis and gear. "We rented the gear, then got dressed and packed our stuff into a locker" doesn't do justice to the ordeal that was getting ready to ski. Overall, it took us about two hours to get everything situated and finally get outside, locked and loaded.

As I had never been skiing, my friend told me to watch some videos before we went, but I settled for reading a how-to article that covered the basics. This is the point when I told him that. He was not impressed by my studiousness. We got onto the lift and made it to the top of the bunny hill before I realized I was legitimately excited and he realized what a bad idea this was.

At the top, I bent my knees, pizza'd my skis, and took off going way too fast and not knowing how to stop. It was... exhilarating. There was a moment of genuine panic when I realized I really didn't know how to stop, but I improvised and threw myself onto the ground; problem solved!

I had read about how hard getting up is, but using the poles made it pretty straightforward, if not easy. Thank goodness I figured out a routine for getting up, because I would be doing a lot of that.

The second time down the bunny hill, I figured out how to slow down, stop, and turn, but staying slow was still a challenge for me. The third time down, I was having a blast. Being able to control the skis and turn made all the difference (at this point, I had fallen about five times in three trips).

Beginner's hill is on the left, then intermediate, in the middle and advanced on the right, with a half pipe in the middle right.

I was feeling confident in my bunny hill skills, so we (read: my friend) decided it was time to advance to the intermediate hill. This was probably not the best idea, but hey I survived, so it wasn't the worst either.

If I thought going down the beginner hill was too fast, going (read: falling) down the intermediate hill without mastering slowing down was ludicrous. It was so fun and scary at the same time. Luckily, it wasn't too crowded on the bigger hill, so I wasn't endangering anyone when I regressed back to throwing my body to the ground to stop.

By the time we went down the intermediate hill three or four times, I was pizza'ing and turning and going at a nice pace instead of just barreling down the hill like a 13-year-old girl chasing Justin Beiber. Or like me chasing Justin Beiber.

Anyway, I finally got the hang of it and my friend said I didn't look so dangerous anymore, so we broke for lunch.

After lunch, we went a few more times, then my friend decided to try the advanced hill and I decided I wanted to live, so I called it a day.

It was a lot of fun and I'm glad I did it, but my foray into the wide world of snow sports was not without its consequences: my arms and legs were jelly the rest of the day and so sore the next few days.   And, since I didn't know what I would need for our skiing adventure, I had stocked my wallet with my passport, foreigner ID card, and plenty of cash so I would be ready for anything. This had dire consequences when I later decided it would be a good idea to lose my wallet at dinner.

And so began the busy and stressful week that is now thankfully behind me, but took precedence over my blog-writing. I spent this week canceling my bank card, trying to get a new one, reporting everything lost/stolen, applying for a new passport and foreigner ID card, and doing all this in another language with no official identification and no access to money.

I do not recommend it.

But alas, all's well that ends well: after jumping through hoops to get everything re-issued, my wallet was found and returned to my school, complete with my cards, documents, and cash. Yes, even my cash was incredibly there... along with a few bobby pins I was really going to miss and a few coupons whose value is incalculable (or about five bucks). This story should probably be a PSA for living in Korea. I'll get to work on that.

Anyway, I have everything back now, but still have to follow through replacing everything I canceled so I have plenty of errands to run this weekend. I'll also be visiting a palace and eating some traditional Korean food with my friends tomorrow so I'll be sure to be more diligent in my blogging this week :)

Saving face in Korea

Thirteen days in and my New Years resolutions are still going strong! How about you? I did slack on my chores a bit this weekend because my friends were in town, but I'm making up for it with some deep cleaning today. We had a good time doing hoodrat things in Beomgye last night, and Friday night I actually met up with a friend for Korean barbecue a few towns over. She gave me some tips on planning for my parents' visit -- which is a little over a month away! Let the planning begin!

Today, I randomly decided to write about the Korean cultural value foreigners have dubbed "saving face." So, that's what you get! Time to get cultured.

Koreans place great importance on "saving face," which is basically not being embarrassed or challenged in front of others. This is especially applicable in situations where age is a factor. (Korea is very much a hierarchy based first on age, then on merit. This goes for everything from the eldest getting their drink poured first to what you call another person: "oppa" is older brother, so this is what I would call any men close to my age, but older; "oni" is older sister, etc.) ANYWAY -- saving face -- here's an example.

Each class has two Korean teachers; one is technically the head teacher and one is a co-teacher. They both share the same responsibilities, but one is just higher on the ladder than the other. She is also usually older. One time, the lower teacher (much younger, in this case) asked me which book the students needed for class and I told her the phonics books. The head teacher didn't hear this exchange and began passing out the activity books instead. The co-teacher looked so torn, like she was deciding who should control the Gaza Strip, and she ultimately decided not to say anything. By not correcting the head teacher in front of myself and the students, she was allowing her to save face.  Seeing what was happening, I acted like I messed up and then collected all the activity books muttering about "crazy Laura teacher," before passing out the correct phonics books.

Saving face also makes teacher-student relationships difficult in the classroom because students are almost too respectful of their teachers. Now, this isn't quite true in kindergarten, as kids are just learning this stuff, but I've heard it can pose a problem in college and even high school. For instance, my Korean friends have told me they would never ask a question of a professor during class because it implies the teacher is not doing his or her job adequately. In order for the teacher to save face, the students suffer in silence, never voicing their questions. This manifests itself in earlier years with students who will never admit they don't understand something. For Koreans, a teacher asking students "Do you understand?" at the end of the lesson is virtually asking them "Did I do my job well?" They will always say yes; the truth is not important when saving face.

Personally, I would rather a student speak up so I can help him or her understand a different way, but alas, I'm swimming upstream trying to convince my polite* students to step away from the crowd and admit it when they don't understand. I want to yell, "Stop saving my face!" but they definitely wouldn't understand that. Instead, I've taken to doing informal mini-assessments throughout each lesson in order to determine what stuck and what didn't. Most of the time, the kids don't even realize what's happening this way. Everybody wins.

When face saving can be really complicated and messy as hell is in a professional setting with mixed cultures. Whenever someone has to contradict someone else, you can almost feel the tension among the Koreans. This only gets dicier with foreigners because there are so many nuances we just don't understand.

Thankfully, I have never had to directly confront any of my co-workers, but I saw a few cultural skirmishes here in 2009 where there was a lot of face lost. I like to think the Americans in those clashes were just stressed out about the ongoing quarantine, and wouldn't have been so disrespectful if they understood the significance and took a step back from the situation.

I can only hope I've learned from my experiences in 2009 and if I ever have to contradict one of my co-workers, that I can do a little face saving in the process.


*By polite, I don't mean well-behaved. I definitely have some hooligans in my classes, but when it comes to hierarchy and saving face, they know the score. I merely adopted the culture; they were born into it, molded by it.

My Little Skinny Korean Wedding

Hey guys! Things are just trucking along over here. It was our first week back at school, so things were a little crazy. (And by "things" I mean "the students.") I've just been recuperating this weekend -- spending some quality time with my Kindle. Last weekend, though, I got to attend a Korean wedding, which was very exciting!

Unnecessary backstory: In 2009, I came to Korea for the first time with a group of students from my university to teach at a summer English camp. The timing was perfect: just as we arrived, Swine Flu hit pandemic status and we were quarantined on an island with teachers from Portland State University as well as a few Korean government workers who were essentially in charge of us. We were quarantined to one building for two weeks. Shit got real.

Long story short, we all bonded, and I am lucky enough to call a few people from Swine '09 some of my closest friends. This group includes three Korean gentlemen who I continue to hang out with whenever possible. One of those Koreans is Mr. Kim, who (finally) got married last weekend!

I say "finally" because although he's a very spry, immature 39 year old, to Koreans, he was practically a leper for not getting married sooner. Koreans are ALL ABOUT getting married. In fact, most of my conversations with new Koreans go a little like this:

"Hi, my name is Laura."
"Hello my name is (spoken really fast)."
"......."
"(Name spoken nice and slow like some people speak to deaf people). Where are you from?"
"I'm from the U.S."
"......"
"America. I'm from America."
"Ah, America. (Here, young people usually mention where they have been in the U.S.: California, New York, etc.; older people ask where I'm from in America, but usually don't know what Michigan nor Missouri are; and the oldest people just say "Obama" and give me a thumbs up.)"
"Appropriate response based on age."
"So, do you have a boyfriend?"

It typically takes all of one minute for the question to be posed. And if you do have a boyfriend, the next question is "Korean boyfriend?" When I've seen this interaction with my friends who DO have Korean boyfriends, it is indeed a sight to behold. Koreans love that shit.

But I digress, the point is that Koreans are obsessed with being in a relationship and getting married -- preferably before age 30. So Mr. Kim's wedding day was very exciting for all involved. Mostly, though, it was exciting for me -- my first Korean wedding! Here's some things that I found interesting...

PHOTOS: One thing Koreans do differently is take wedding photos weeks before the wedding and use the pictures for invitations etc. The bride will actually wear her dress and they shell out a pretty penny for photo books and collages to set out at the wedding hall. After the ceremony, the whole family (grandparents, aunt, uncles, cousins) all takes one picture together. Then, the friends of the bride and groom all take one big picture together. 

GIFTS: Koreans don't register for gifts, or really want anything besides cold, hard cash. At the reception, there are envelopes ready and waiting for however much you can give (my friend recommended about 30-50 bucks). You write your name on the envelope, then turn this in for a dinner ticket. 

DINNER: After the ceremony, guests from all the weddings taking place at the hall that day (I'm guessing around 10), could go upstairs to the buffet and eat to their hearts' content. The food was really good -- lots of seafood, meat, and kimbap (Korean sushi). There was no ceremony to the dining; people from all the weddings ate together, but not together, and then left when they were finished. Luckily, my friend and I got to talk with Mr. Kim for awhile at this point. 

CEREMONY: Now, this is totally a personal choice of the bride, but she had both a Western-style ceremony, then a mini traditional Korean ceremony as well. I should clarify that the Western-style ceremony was a Korean version of a Western ceremony. There were spotlights, confetti blasts, and even an announcer who kept everyone clapping and laughing. Also, before we could even clear out of the hall, guests from the next wedding were at the ready. Apparently, you only get the room for one hour, then time's up! 

Overall, the whole experience was MUCH LESS formal than any wedding I've been to before. People were talking throughout the ceremony -- talking, not whispering -- and a few people wore jeans and tennis shoes. And did I mention the announcer? More than once, he pulled an I-can't-hear-you and made the guests cheer louder. Also, the bride walked down the aisle to Enya. 

After the Westernized wedding, there was a small traditional ceremony that only a handful of people witnessed. The bride, groom, and both their mothers wore hanboks (traditional Korean clothing) and performed rituals thanking their parents, uniting them as one, and hoping for many children -- but especially boys.

It was really neat to experience, but it was tucked away in the back corner where only a few people could see at a time, so my pictures didn't turn out well :(

Anyway, congratulations to Mr. Kim and his wife! More importantly, congratulations to me on my first Korean wedding! Yay Korea!