countdown again

The road to a friend's house is never long.
Monday after work I got to the airport as fast as I could to meet Terrell at the international arrivals gate. As fast as I could turned out to be a three hour subway ride. But when I saw him for the first time in almost a year, there in the dim, empty airport it was all worth it. I had one of those dramatic, surreal moments where I couldn't believe I was really looking at him, standing right there in front of me, in Korea of all places.

It was almost midnight so we took a cab most of the way back to my place. And he was here for almost a week. There were a lot of differences between Terrell's visit and my brothers' visit. Ryan and Corey mostly came just to see me. They learned a few phrases in Korean and found their way around and were so brave. I was really proud of them. But Terrell took it to the next level. He came to experience Korea and really tried to assimilate as much as he could in the short time he was here. He learned some Korean (with a great accent), wore a face mask to prevent getting H1N1, and even went with me to the jjimjilbang. He also had more patience with me than my brothers did, but I guess that's because brothers are allowed to be needy.

Thursday was Thanksgiving. I decided to forego any attempt at making a traditional Thanskgiving meal, because it could never live up to the home-cooked stuff and all those holiday feelings I've accepted I'm going to miss this year. Also, as the thing I'm most grateful for this year is my decision to run away to Korea, I couldn't resist the symbolism of a sit-on-the-floor Korean BBQ in place of turkey and stuffing. Luckily Thanksgiving isn't a big deal to Terrell, so he understood and supported the sentiment.

On Friday morning we went to the Folk Village, which is hands down the best place to take visitors. I have great memories of taking the boys there, and going with Terrell was just as memorable. There are a bunch of small restaurants and a large outdoor cafeteria to grab authentic Korean meals or just snacks. Terrell and I were in the village long enough to do both. We strolled around endlessly, never running out of things to see and talk about (we had a lot of catching up to do, after all).

That evening, we unexpectedly pulled an all-nighter that I would rather erase from my memory, Eternal Sunshine style. In a nutshell, we got really lost. Six hours, one molestation by a cab driver, one feeding of an orange to a different cab driver, several frantic phone calls and one miraculous discovery of trains running at 5:30 AM later, and we made it to the USO just in time to catch our tour bus to the DMZ. However, Terrell will spend the rest of my life reminding me how badly I handle stressful situations in a foreign country.

A couple weeks back I toured the War Museum in Seoul and learned a lot more about the Korean War than I had known the first time I saw the DMZ. So this weekend I had a whole new appreciation for what I was looking at and got closer to North Korea than ever before. But my favorite part was still the tour guide, PFC Coleman, an adorable soldier fresh out of AIT. I think we must have been his first ever tour group. It was a foggy day so we didn't get to see much. I'm really grateful I went on a clear day my first time.

The tour ended around 3pm, and we were home by around 5, passed out from exhaustion. I still wanted to cram in a little more Korean culture for Terrell before his flight on Sunday, so we decided to walk around as much of Hwaseong Fortress as time allowed. When we got to the top, I went up the steps of the last lookout point, the one I'd been saving for my final visit to the wall. Looking out at the foggy view from the top, I felt an amazing sense of closure. I think I'll always wish we'd had the time to make one last go around, for both of our sakes.

For the ultimate Korean experience, we decided to squeeze in an abridged trip to the jjimjilbang. Terrell was (understandably) too intimidated to do the full-on naked scrub, but we spent time together in the saunas, restaurant and lounge. That's what I love most about the bathhouse anyway - getting to just hang out there with my friends, wearing our matching uniforms. Then, after a relaxing chair massage while sipping lemonade tea, it was time for my amazing friend to leave. I waited with him at the airport-bus stop and was sad to see him go.

to the dmz

The DMZ. The experience wasn't what I expected. I wasn't afraid at all, even with all this nonsense in the news, North Korea didn't scare me. The whole tour actually just left me with an uneasy sense that the South Koreans are putting as much effort into feeding propaganda to their people as the North. This was not the conclusion I expected to come to at all.

I didn't pay for the Panmunjom tour, which would have allowed me to see the JSA, the line where you can see North Korean soldiers staring down South Korean soldiers. I've already decided I'm going back to the DMZ in a few weeks to do the more expensive tour where you get to see the JSA and go inside the building where the two countries always meet to have talks. I can't leave Korea without going there and being able to say I was technically in North Korea.

That being said, my tour did include some interesting stuff. First we walked through the Third Tunnel of Aggression. We put on hard hats and hiked down a really steep tunnel made by the South in order to show tourists a tunnel made by the North, apparently to be used for a surprise attack on Seoul.

Whatever, I didn't buy it. The whole thing smelled of propaganda. I don't know why, but I just automatically assumed the South made the tunnel to make the North look bad. Walking through the tunnel was uncomfortable and scary; the ceiling was too low to walk upright and I kept worrying the narrow walls would cave in. At the end of the tunnel is barbed wire and a little window where I could peek into the North's side of the tunnel. We weren't allowed to take pictures.

After the tunnel, we took some pictures outside in this little area full of so much propaganda. There were statues symbolic of the two countries reuniting. It was super touristy and fun, which was odd since we were supposedly in an area covered in land mines dropped carelessly by the North. Do you see what I mean about the propaganda?

Then we hopped on the bus and went to the area where you're allowed to see North Korea. We had to stand behind a yellow line to take pictures, so I have no proof of this, but I got to see North Korea with my own eyes! For some reason I am extremely fascinated by the DPRK, so it was really exciting to be looking right at it. Maybe it has something to do with being able to look but never touch. It makes things so much more interesting.

Amazingly, there is a fake town set up in North Korea about a mile from the border. The government built it there and (as if it wasn't special enough holding the title for the world's most bizarre town) added the world's tallest flag and flagpole. Through a telescope I could see it, a village of empty buildings planted into the hillside. I wanted to stare at it for ever. All I could think was, Why does this exist? What kind of world do I live in where a "town" like this can exist?

The reunification propaganda continued after that when we went to Dorasan Station. It's a fake (in my opinion) railroad station built on the spot that once connected North and South Korea. A station has been rebuilt/restored there and now its train makes a short trip everyday to a small factory or something. I don't know the details. There is no service for real passengers though. I got the sense this place only existed to give people hope that one day the two countries would get back together. As a child of divorced parents, I can understand the feeling, but I say at some point you need to give up hope and just move on.

On Sunday I went on a lovely picnic in the park. There are some pictures of that in the slideshow, along with some pictures of my classroom and my (so far hidden) life as a teacher. Anyway, after the picnic I saw the new Terminator movie. I'll never get over watching American action movies with Korean subtitles in a theater where I'm one of the only foreigners. It's so awesome for some reason. Good for homesickness, too. Then, on Monday night I ate raw, squirming octopus, a very Korean experience. Check out the pictures. They'll make you laugh and they'll probably make your mouth water, too.

My brothers are coming to Korea in three weeks. I'll be super busy planning their visit. I can't wait. It's pretty much all I can think about! Okay, here are the pictures from this weekend.

good news bad news

Ryan will be in Korea on June 24th! I'd been feeling pretty homesick and found myself counting down already. But Ryan will be here in like four weeks! I love that I now have something involving home to look forward to that isn't seven months away. Needless to say, this is the best news ever!

But there's some (sort of) bad news, too. I picked a perfect time to be going to the DMZ. I've wanted to go since before I even got here, and now, as I finally get set to go this Saturday, North Korea decides to throw a fit. I'm still going to go, but I'll probably feel completely uneasy the whole time.

North Korea Threatens Military Strikes on South
By CHOE SANG-HUN
May 27, 2009

SEOUL, South Korea — The South Korean and American militaries on Thursday raised their level of alert on North Korea, a day after the Communist North threatened a military clash.

The militaries, which include 25,000 United States troops based in South Korea, raised the alert from Level 3 to Level 2, the Defense Ministry of South Korea said. The shift involves a significant increase in reconnaissance flights and spy satellite activities, as well as more vigorous gathering and analysis of electronic data from the North for signs of possible provocations, ministry officials said.

Level 2 is the second highest level of vigilance and it is invoked when military officials fear “a grave threat” from the North, the defense officials said.

On Wednesday North Korea escalated its vitriol against South Korea and the United States, warning of a “powerful military strike” if any North Korean ships were stopped or searched as part of an American-led operation to intercept vessels suspected of carrying unconventional weapons.

South Korea agreed to join the operation after North Korea tested a nuclear device on Monday, its second nuclear test in three years. The North had earlier warned the South not to participate in the operation, known as the Proliferation Security Initiative.

“We consider this a declaration of war against us,” North Korea said in a statement carried by its official news agency, KCNA. “Any hostile act against our peaceful vessels, including search and seizure, will be considered an unpardonable infringement on our sovereignty, and we will immediately respond with a powerful military strike.”

The North Koreans also said in the statement that they “no longer feel bound by the armistice” that ended the fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War. Technically, the two Koreas have remained at war for more than 50 years, because the 1953 armistice was never replaced with a final peace treaty. The North Koreans had previously called the armistice a “useless piece of paper” and declared that they no longer felt bound by it. But they have rarely used the threat of abandoning the armistice...

Click here to read the rest, if you're interested.

cherry blossoms

Today I went to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Yeouido, an island on the Han River (in Seoul). The pictures speak for themselves. Also, an article from the front page of today's Post. It's really long but so interesting.

N. Korean Defectors Bewildered By the South
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 12, 2009; Page A01

ANSEONG, South Korea -- To flee North Korea and arrive in the rich, wired, consuming culture of South Korea is to feel clueless, fearful and guilty.

Teenagers are particularly bewildered. As part of the newest wave in a decade-old flow of defectors from the North, they arrive stunted from malnutrition and struggling to read. At the movies for the first time, they panic when the lights go down, afraid someone might kidnap them. They find it incredible that money is stored in plastic credit cards. Pizza, hot dogs and hamburgers -- staples of South Korean teen cuisine -- give them indigestion. One gargled with liquid fabric softener, mistaking it for mouthwash.

In time, they wise up and their stomachs calm down. Their guilt, though, tends to fester.

"When I eat something that is really delicious, I can't help but feel guilty about my family back in North Korea," said Lee J.Y., who asked that her full name not be used because she was afraid that North Korean authorities would punish her family for her freedom. Now 20, Lee escaped five years ago from North Hamgyong province, where her little brother died of hunger and where she survived on cake made of pine-tree bark.

Defectors in the late 1990s were mostly young men without families. They could swim or sneak across the border into China. In recent years, though, about 80 percent of defectors have been middle-aged women, many with children in tow. Most of these women were traders -- and in many cases, cross-border smugglers -- for the private markets that have spread across North Korea. Often, they bribed their way across the border.

They filter into South Korea at the rate of about 35 a week, usually after months or years in China and an arduous detour through Vietnam, Burma or Thailand. About 15,000 defectors have settled in the South, with 4,000 arriving in the past two years.

Seoul does not encourage North Koreans to defect. But once they arrive, the South Korean government quietly grants them citizenship, gives them an apartment and tries to teach them how not to sink in an education-obsessed capitalist culture.

Trusting No One
"Everyone who defects has adjustment problems," said Ko Gyoung-bin, director-general of a settlement center called Hanowan, a government-financed cluster of red-brick buildings perched in hill country about 70 miles south of Seoul.

All adult defectors are required to spend three months at Hanowan, where they receive psychiatric counseling, learn their rights under South Korean law, take driving lessons and go on field trips to department stores, banks and subways.

Teenage defectors spend two months to two years at nearby Hangyoreh Middle-High School, a remedial boarding school the government built three years ago to help the increasing number of newly arrived youngsters who are unfit for public schools. Many have been out of school for years and have difficulty with basic reading and math.

"All I learned in school in North Korea was that Kim Jong Il was the best leader and that North Korea was the best country," said Lee, who is in her final year at Hangyoreh and hopes to become an English teacher. [If you want to keep reading, click here for the rest.]