So it looks like I'll be returning to Korea in two or three weeks. I'm reluctant for a number of reasons; namely, I've lived there before, it's not related to my career goals, and politically, the ROK has been disappointing lately. But rather then dwelling on reasons to hesitate, I'll post some goals for Korea Part Deux.
1) Save 20k for grad school. Aw yeah.
2) Fix my knee either by therapy or surgery.
3) Study for the GRE everyday and take it this fall.
4) Create and maintain as many correspondences as possible with professionals in the information science fields. (That's what I wanna study.)
5) Get all the documents ready for my application.
6) Go to therapy / a gym five days a week.
7) Pay for Korean or Mandarin lessons at an academy.
8) Visit Jeju-Do and the DMZ.
9) Treat myself to one of the following: lasik eye surgery, a digital SLR, or another trip to Japan.
10) Oh, and run the Seoul Marathon in the spring of 2010.
Hanguk it is.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
The Pull-Push Phenomenon
Toward the end of my stay in China, I recognized a trend among the expatriate crowd in Asia. Expats in Asia --for all their various nationalities, travels and experiences--can be broadly organized into two groups. Category One is characterized first by youth. These are the ambitious, adventurous lads who have recently graduated from a liberal arts college and have decided to exploit the demand for English teachers abroad. These folks, generally speaking, are interesting, perceptive, perhaps bohemian and often worldly. When stories are exchanged among foreigners, they tend to ask more questions than state opinions; they learn the local language for, if no other reason, to impress cute, submissive locals; they try to maintain respect and a healthy curiosity for the country in which they reside. In short, they are pulled from the motherland to Asia by its inherent mystery and exoticism.
And then there’s Category Two. As you might have guessed, Twosies are noticeably older than their younger counterparts, though not necessarily old or middle-aged. Since their graduation a decade ago or more, they have remained in Asia teaching English. You’ll notice immediately how knowledgeable they are as they expound stories at great length and condescension to folks in Category One. Twosies are often jaded; they criticize local customs and admonish other expats for condoning them. Their personalities range to slightly discomforting to borderline sociopathic. When you see them verbally assaulting Asians in the native tongue for some trivial misunderstanding, you all at once realize that there had to be something wrong with them to keep them here so long. It occurs to you that they may have not belonged wherever they came from, and indeed they felt pushed to Asia by some inability to function normally at home.
‘Course, there are enough expats straddling the two categories to suggest that it isn’t as clear-cut as I would make it seem. Social awkwardness and years spent working abroad, however, are correlative enough to imply that perhaps it is actually the time spent overseas that is psychologically degenerative. It’s difficult to say without taking one’s personal history into account.
So here’s mine. I spent two years living in Asia. I’m 25, passing out of the “recent college graduate” phase to “yeah, I have a degree” phase. I went to Korea back in 2006 excited as a Category One could be. I came home from China last March thinking I would find entry-level work relevant to my degree and pursue a graduate program in the following year. What I quickly understood though, is that I am not marketable to decent labor. I’ve had a vague, idealistic idea of the career I want, I’ve been living in my parents’ home in a remote village near the Canadian border, and over the last two months of job searching, all I’ve managed to secure is another teaching job in Korea.
I need money and purpose just like the next bloke, but Korea again? No other country pays nearly as well for its foreign teachers whom lack certification. Yet I am reluctant to relive an experience. I only have so much time on this earth, and I shouldn’t be doing work that isn’t what I hope to do ten years from now, right? Right. I’m 25, encroaching 26, and the threat of swirling down the quagmire of Category Two looms. The hour is late to rethink my decision. My sanity wanes. Here I go, again.
And then there’s Category Two. As you might have guessed, Twosies are noticeably older than their younger counterparts, though not necessarily old or middle-aged. Since their graduation a decade ago or more, they have remained in Asia teaching English. You’ll notice immediately how knowledgeable they are as they expound stories at great length and condescension to folks in Category One. Twosies are often jaded; they criticize local customs and admonish other expats for condoning them. Their personalities range to slightly discomforting to borderline sociopathic. When you see them verbally assaulting Asians in the native tongue for some trivial misunderstanding, you all at once realize that there had to be something wrong with them to keep them here so long. It occurs to you that they may have not belonged wherever they came from, and indeed they felt pushed to Asia by some inability to function normally at home.
‘Course, there are enough expats straddling the two categories to suggest that it isn’t as clear-cut as I would make it seem. Social awkwardness and years spent working abroad, however, are correlative enough to imply that perhaps it is actually the time spent overseas that is psychologically degenerative. It’s difficult to say without taking one’s personal history into account.
So here’s mine. I spent two years living in Asia. I’m 25, passing out of the “recent college graduate” phase to “yeah, I have a degree” phase. I went to Korea back in 2006 excited as a Category One could be. I came home from China last March thinking I would find entry-level work relevant to my degree and pursue a graduate program in the following year. What I quickly understood though, is that I am not marketable to decent labor. I’ve had a vague, idealistic idea of the career I want, I’ve been living in my parents’ home in a remote village near the Canadian border, and over the last two months of job searching, all I’ve managed to secure is another teaching job in Korea.
I need money and purpose just like the next bloke, but Korea again? No other country pays nearly as well for its foreign teachers whom lack certification. Yet I am reluctant to relive an experience. I only have so much time on this earth, and I shouldn’t be doing work that isn’t what I hope to do ten years from now, right? Right. I’m 25, encroaching 26, and the threat of swirling down the quagmire of Category Two looms. The hour is late to rethink my decision. My sanity wanes. Here I go, again.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Keeping the Faith, Losing the Religion
So, lately conservative pundits have been calling Obama's faith into question, saying that he hasn't attended church often enough and that his policies go against the bible. This comes to me as a breath of fresh air; for the first time in eight years, we have a leader that's keeping his faith to himself and letting reason and justice dictate his actions. Whereas Bush was overt in his spiritual beliefs, Obama has displayed his faith occasionally and diplomatically, like when he appointed Rick Warren to give a prayer at his inauguration. He's using his faith calculatedly.
It reminded me of American Theocracy and Religulous. Both emphatically declare the real threat that religions poses.
Kevin Phillipps's American Theocracy is a meticulous description of the rise of southern Christian fundamentalism from the pre-Civil War era to the forefront of contemporary politics. Among Phillips's scathing criticisms of the Bush administration is the idea that prophetic religion, or a doomsday mentality, has become a major influence of foreign and domestic policy.
It isn't anything new of course. Bill Maher painted a very dismal and silly portrait of religion in Religulous. Maher interviews a parade of religious figures, from evangelists to rabbis, and even mentions my old buddy, Reverend Robert Tilton. For the most part, Maher simply tries to make religious people look, well, ridiculous, and to that end he succeeds. At the end of the film though, his comical jabs crystallize into a poignant denunciation and caveat against religion. My favorite part:
"Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do. Most people would think it's wonderful when someone says, "I'm willing, Lord! I'll do whatever you want me to do!" Except that since there are no gods actually talking to us, that void is filled in by people with their own corruptions and limitations and agendas."
That's it, really. In the last ten years, I've gone from Methodist to lukewarm, to agnostic, to secular, to antireligion. I will always have my faith in a deity because it was ingrained into me as a boy, but my faith in religion is fading fast.
It reminded me of American Theocracy and Religulous. Both emphatically declare the real threat that religions poses.
Kevin Phillipps's American Theocracy is a meticulous description of the rise of southern Christian fundamentalism from the pre-Civil War era to the forefront of contemporary politics. Among Phillips's scathing criticisms of the Bush administration is the idea that prophetic religion, or a doomsday mentality, has become a major influence of foreign and domestic policy.
It isn't anything new of course. Bill Maher painted a very dismal and silly portrait of religion in Religulous. Maher interviews a parade of religious figures, from evangelists to rabbis, and even mentions my old buddy, Reverend Robert Tilton. For the most part, Maher simply tries to make religious people look, well, ridiculous, and to that end he succeeds. At the end of the film though, his comical jabs crystallize into a poignant denunciation and caveat against religion. My favorite part:
"Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do. Most people would think it's wonderful when someone says, "I'm willing, Lord! I'll do whatever you want me to do!" Except that since there are no gods actually talking to us, that void is filled in by people with their own corruptions and limitations and agendas."
That's it, really. In the last ten years, I've gone from Methodist to lukewarm, to agnostic, to secular, to antireligion. I will always have my faith in a deity because it was ingrained into me as a boy, but my faith in religion is fading fast.
Monday, January 5, 2009
A Holiday Message from the Chairman
"We are prepared to sacrifice 300 million Chinese for the victory of the world revolution. Don't make a fuss about a world war. At most people die...Half the population wiped out--this happened quite a few times in Chinese history."
- Mao: The Unknown Story, p. 439.
These are the words of Mao Tse-Tung, chairman and dictator of the People's Republic of China from 1949 to 1976. This frightening statement was made during his announcement of the infamous "Great Leap Forward" to the Communist Party congress in 1958 . What followed was the worst famine in human history which left 38 million Chinese dead.
As Mao puts it here, he was willing to offer the lives of 300 million of his own people--nearly half the population at that time--for the sake of global, military domination. China lacked the finances and technology needed to develop nuclear weapons, so Mao had to forcibly take and sell vast amounts of the peasantry's food to Soviet Russia to pay for his bomb. And so it was, for three years that Mao through tyranny and coercion starved his own people to fuel a superpower dream. His dream fizzled quickly, leaving China and Russia at odds and his country a wasteland, from which it has yet to completely recover.
The Great Leap is the crowning atrocity of Mao's rule, with as many mistakes, massacres, murders, deception and terror to fill a 800-page biography that nearly killed me to read. Mao has a very impressive resume of awfulness. Here are a few things from his 27-year reign: He aimed to win a civil war against the Nationalists over fighting the nemesis Japan in WWII, leaving his people open to Japanese occupation and brutality; he terrorized his own people into becoming unquestioning, murderous zealots during the foundation of his cult personality; and then there was the Cultural Revolution, where Mao laid waste to hundreds of thousands of cultural treasures like temples and art across the country--beautiful history lost forever.
It's almost unbelievable that such a man could walk this earth, yet what is astonishing to me is that hardly anyone, probably not you, and definitely not Chinese today, think this man was bad at all. I wasn't aware myself until I went to Beijing in 2007 and saw a twenty foot tall picture of the guy's ugly mug. I mean, it's amazing that the worst dictator in history, far worse than Hitler or Stalin and possibly the chairman of KISQ, the worst man simply ever is someone few people properly hate.
I say "few" because in China, Mao is revered, revered I tell you. He is on every banknote and in most cities there's a statue of him, holding out his hand, blessing the people. In Beijing there's his mausoleum (I thought mao-soleum just now and laughed) where you can join hordes of people that silently walk past his corpse encased in formaldehyde. I went there and it was creepier than you can imagine. And then there's of course the people, as in the vacuous "People's" Republic of China, who have repeatedly told me they think of Mao as the perfect person but can't explain why. The government is mostly to blame, which bans anything that criticizes Mao or communism; I'm sure my book is at the top of the list.
To me, the tragedy isn't that 70 million people, mostly destitute and innocent, were killed as a result of one man's pursuit of global conquest. That's certainly horrible, though. Think of the Holocaust times twelve and the atomic bombs dropped on Japan times a lot more than that. The tragedy, then, is that the world, particularly the survivors who were terrorized for decades, will never be recognized. And this generation and ones to come, both in China and around the world will never see Mao for what he is, and that's evil incarnate.
During the propagation of Mao's cult personality, Mao authored a little red book with short quotations about Chinese history and politics and whatever. It's inane garbage, but one quotation suits him well. It reads "every fart has some kind of smell, and we cannot say that all farts smell sweet."
It just goes to show that deception and tyranny have their weight, but eloquence is the true criterion for dictating mass murder.
Or something.
-K
Friday, January 2, 2009
Top Six Things that Annoy Me about China (Part Deux)
Continuation from my last post:
#3 Loud Noises!!!
A near-constant bombardment of cars, crowds, and bodily noises means the Chinese are desensitized to what we in
“Way, Knee How?? (short pause) Eh?? EH??!! EH??? (short pause) Ohh how how…EH???”
And so the conversation continues, the speaker shouting, and then grunting “eh?” or “huh?” and no one else around them blinks an eye. Chinese are shouters. Akin to German, the Chinese language just sounds angry. People could be having a very simple conversation about noodles with what sounds like scalding-hot emotion. Chinese are easily irritated, but most of the time that doesn’t account for their shrieking; they’re just very loud people.
So, when situations give way to silence it makes locals feel rather uncomfortable. One can’t escape riding a bus without enduring
Even the quietest, serenest places aren’t exempt. There are a handful of places in
#2 – Too Many $@(*#$ PEOPLE
Over the 26 years of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung’s reign, he starved and murdered somewhere between 60 and 70 million of his own people. It was hardly noticed. Most of us in the west attribute this colossal cover-up to the power of the Chinese Communist Party to mask and contort history, but having lived here, I think that most people honestly didn’t detect the gradual disappearance of their kin. 1.3 billion. Sweet mother of Buddha.
This presents the government with a bunch of obvious challenges: public transportation is bogged down, unemployment, depletion of resources, and inundation of sewage systems, and so forth. The Party, in its infinite understanding of its people’s needs, decided long ago that the people should have three long holidays during the year, “Golden Weeks” as the tourist industry calls it. So what happens to public transportation when 1.3 billion people get the same twenty or so days off?
I’m a traveler. I travel. So when I heard I was going to get a bunch of days off at my inane job at KISQ to frolic in the countryside I crapped my pants. I plan my trip, get out in the field, and discover that one-sixth of the world’s population had the exact same idea.
#1 – (In)Security
The Party’s desire for control has trickled down to every aspect of bureaucracy. Security guards are ever-present, ready to check your ID or receipt, take your money or interrogate you for inadvertently infiltrating a military base. I’ll get to that.
Within sight of my apartment balcony, there are four shacks each with two security guards pacing out front. They aren’t armed and they hardly look official. If they’re not pacing they’re sleeping, or reprimanding me for climbing over the nine-foot tall, iron gate because I forgot my ID card at the gym. On a later climb over the gate, I would find that the guards had coated every bar with engine grease, impeding my entrance.
In every supermarket, mall, university, tourist destination and Arby’s, there are statuesque guards. Sometimes they check documents, but most of the time they’re simply taking up space—what little there is left from the consumer hordes. Since they have little to do, minute tasks gain more significance. Bringing a backpack into a store, for instance, warrants a good finger-shake and a stern scolding. They have less to do, you see, because
With more guards comes a higher demand on patrons to pay for them. It’s evident in touristy places, where ticket purchases come in succession and seeing a whole temple might mean buying five separate tickets, in part to pay for the people who are watching the transactions. One wonders then, if restaurant food would be cheaper if the staff were halved. The questions and conflicts of bureaucracy are as infinite as the potential size of bureaucracy itself. And this, my students, stems from procreation on an impermissible scale coupled with a furious desire to control the subsequent masses.
Somehow, with all this security one never feels completely secure. I can’t think of a better way to explain than to offer an anecdote. A couple of months back, I decided to take a random bus eastward along the sea its final stop, get out and take some photos. When I arrived, I found a desolate hillside. While other passengers transferred to a different bus, I walked around for a couple minutes, took some shots of a billboard with some funny propaganda on it, and started back to the bus stop. A few steps later and I was accosted by three soldiers on a motorbike. They began asking me questions that my rudimentary grasp of Mandarin couldn’t handle. They angrily gesticulated toward the facility adjacent to the bus stop that I mistook for a bus garage. I quivered as two miniature vans and a jeep pulled up, emptying fourteen soldiers, some armed and all with looks of gravity. I rang my Canadian buddy who speaks enough Chinese to be a gangster, handed the phone to the officer who looked the most serious, and hoped for the best. It turned out that all I needed to do was supply some ID from KISQ and I would be forgiven. The officer persuaded me to accept a ride to the school. I grudgingly accepted. As we pulled out onto the highway, the officer turned to me and pointed at a small sign by the road we exited. “NO ADMITTANCE” it read.
And then there was that time that I had to pay 500 USD to have guards let me leave a university, but you’ve heard that tale a dozen times already.
Till then,
K
Top Six Things that Annoy Me in China (Part One)
The silverest lining of
Now, I’ve worked in the food industry for five years and I know bad service. I was the one who fingered your child’s chicken fingers after they made the mess on the floor, and probably the culprit behind your ill-tasting martini you repeatedly blamed the bartender for. But
People in
And the waitresses don’t shave their pubescent-like moustaches. At least I did that.
#5
This annoyance is also a delight at times, since you know I have a penchant for bathroom humor. Whenever my students and I discuss life here, this is always the first complaint:
To begin with, like Koreans, Chinese punctuate their conversations by spitting, and spitting vociferously. The hawking and violent excretion of mucous can be heard from great distances, and from every walk of life, from toddlers to sexy femininas to (and especially) old men.
The Chinese do recycle though. Peasants push wheel-carts through apartment complexes, shouting out the particular recyclable they’re collecting. Small sums of money are paid for Styrofoam and the like. Also, for every trashcan there is a peasant to shuffle through it and consolidate recyclables. When these bins aren’t emptied, however, they overflow into huge piles of rubbish that spill into the street. As
Considering these observations and more, it hardly comes as a surprise that many locals smell like burnt bacon wrapped in a week-old, dirty diaper, or that I have an exhaustive supply of things to giggle at.
#4
Many Chinese, regardless of background, have had minimal or no contact with foreigners. The sight of us seems to titillate them, not unlike the way black folk in
The first ‘y’ is apparent when you need help. There isn’t a single reliable map in
Chinese think it’s hilarious when honkeys say “hello.” I’m not sure why. I guess when we say it they whisper to each other “Oh! Just like in the movies!” Anyway, Chinese prod foreigners to speak when there are few to be found. Go to a remote village and you’ll bombarded with cat-calls. Greet them in their language and you’ll find your mockers momentarily impressed; they’ll compliment you, and proceed to ask you ten questions in rapid-fire Chinese. This happens nearly anytime a foreigner attempts to speak the native tongue. Like Americans, Chinese expect everyone in their country to speak their language fluently. Mind you, a major difference between the English and Chinese languages is there actually is no such thing as Chinese. ‘Mandarin’ Chinese as it’s called is actually a hundred distinct dialects united by a common, absurdly difficult written language. Hence, even if a foreigner understands Mandarin, it may be difficult to understand a native if their dialect meshes with their Mandarin. If the foreigner seems confused then, Chinese snicker and remark “Low-why ting boo dong!” (the foreigner doesn’t understand). This is aggravating since even when I occasionally understand what’s being barked at me, they assume I don’t because of my whiteness. Yes, never has a race been as disparaged as we are in these situations.
White is also the color of money for people on this side of the world. And no matter who it is, a mere shopkeeper, an art salesman or a driver who sees you are stranded with no alternative, they will ream you for your last mao (the cent, not the chairman). Shopping can be taxing as Chinese don’t hide the fact that they offer their native patrons lower rates, and negotiation can be impossible. “Chinese people never tell you ‘no’” as comedian Russell Peters put it, “They give you the longest no you’ve ever heard in your life. Like ‘noooooo.’” To boot, seemingly helpful folk at times give false directions. This rang true in
More tomorrow!
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
2008: A Recap
January 1, 2008 began as it should, sober in my pickup, parked behind Glen’s market with Casey and Eric. We wanted to watch the bell drop from one of Gaylord’s three bars, but because Eric had yet to turn 21, we instead saw the digits on the dash flick to 12:00 and nothing happened.
Two months later, I made up my mind to teach at a university in Qingdao. I was impressed with my visit to Beijing during the prior December, and Qingdao seemed to have an ideal location on the sea between Beijing and Korea. I set off on February 22.
What the job amounted to was disappointment and extortion. It was not at all what I was promised by my online recruiter (they didn't mention extortion at all): the campus was falling apart and my apartment was filthy. Worse yet, the location was a two-hour trip to Qingdao proper. At first, I tried to lie my way out, but as I wasn’t the first teacher to do this to them, they saw through it. When a deal couldn’t be reached and complaints turned to arguments, the foreign director demanded I pay 500 USD to offset recruiter costs. I refused but when I saw that guards were prepared to bar me exit at the gate, I reluctantly agreed.
The director was paid off and made my way into Qingdao where I met an American who put me up for a few days until I starting teaching at Korean International School of Qingdao. I’m finishing my contract with now.
Work at KISQ started out rough, as the director was hesitant to offer me a contract after hearing of my troubles with the university. For the first three weeks I worked not knowing if I would have a job the next day. Each afternoon I returned to a two-star hotel supplied by the school, and each morning I awoke to an ocean-sunrise just 50 meters away. Upon getting officially hired, I procured an apartment with the help of the school’s translator. It’s a ten minute walk to the school, it overlooks the ocean and is the largest place I’ve ever lived in.
Classes were manageable. I was assigned 11th and 10th grade writing classes, a 9th grade reading class and middle school journalism. The writing classes went along well enough, and I discovered my penchant for teaching grammar. Journalism was sort of an experimental course that wasn’t expected to produce much other than a passable student newspaper at the semester’s end. I was pleased with the results: a colorful, relatively well-written magazine. The students in 9th grade had a reputation as being some of the most ill-behaved in the department, i.e. “the dirty dozen.” I quickly realized that this was a far-cry from the angelic students I taught in Korea. I applied strict disciplinary measures, and slowly, very slowly, gained the upper-hand, just as the first semester drew to a close in early July. I continued to be strict into the second semester, and now, I am proud to say that they are my best. Students with behavioral issues and slumping grades have changed to students with behavioral issues and decent grades, raising the class average by some twenty percent.
The biggest selling point of KISQ is my coworkers. From every corner of the English-speaking world, they are without a doubt, the most interesting, diverse bunch of people I’ve worked with. In the face of the soaring ineptitude of KISQ’s administrators, they are indispensable. KISQ has poor direction and a crippling bureaucracy, but its staff does its best to be frank and tenacious with their superiors.
Beyond the occasional mountain-hike or basketball match, my coworkers aren’t worth much for outside socializing. In March, I looked for company in a slue of Chinese and Korean girls I met through one of them at a concert. They introduced me to the local cuisine, shopping and the surrounding mountainside. As their company grew tiresome, I came to fancy one in particular. Her name is Yoon Hwa Young, an absurdly cute, likeable 26-year-old Korean. We were immediate friends, and an impulse meeting in Shanghai, a pair. Hwa young is a real delight and she remains a highlight of this year.
Qingdao is a great city and after having visited many cities in China, I’m relieved I did my homework. The climate is breezy and mild, and I’m convinced it placates the normally nervous fury of the Chinese. It’s a huge city by our standards, around 6 million, nearly the size of Detroit, but a second tier-city by the Chinese. Qingdao doesn’t see the apocalyptic traffic other cities do, nor is congested with pollution. I attribute this to the strong foreign presence, particularly the Koreans, Qingdao being their largest expatriate population anywhere, some 300,000 I’ve heard. A small portion of the city retains its German heritage. Yes, German. They inhabited the city some hundred years back, building German style residences, churches, and a brewery, as well as carving huge caves into the mountains behind my apartment. My friends and I theorize that the Germans used these caves to peer out over the ocean, guarding against Japanese invaders. They’re perilous and labyrinth-like, but simply amazing.
The food is phenomenal here. Qingdao boasts an array of seafood as well as my favorite specialty: fried dumplings. Street food is simple and cheap; a whole buffet can be found in lineups of carts offering noodles, dumplings, fruit and roasted yams. Foreign food is here to be had, from burgers to Turkish tacos, Mexican quesadillas to six Starbucks. I love it all, except Starbucks, and find myself eating out more than I eat in.
I’ve made an effort to study the local languages. I attended a local academy three times a week to study both Mandarin and Korean with tutors. It was easier than I thought, and the skills I gained proved essential in the lonely places I wound up in in my subsequent travels.
For the first time since I left the states in 2006, running has taken a back seat. I had been enjoying seaside runs 5 times a week for the first three months of my stay. By May, my knee condition came to the point that it was impeding my ability to do a 5k or even play basketball more than twice a week. So, I visited a Chinese doctor, two Korean doctors and a 90-year-old Korean acupuncturist—who knew that the medicine involved burning roots into your body leaving wretched scars? None of them had any effect. Stubborn I was and continued to run, eyeing the Beijing Marathon that fall. This would eventually make the pain so great as to prevent me from walking and sitting correctly. I gave it a rest, and decided to return to Korea for surgery during my summer vacation. This would turn out to be a horribly expensive and regrettable error.
In mid-July, three weeks before that rueful departure, I left Qingdao for mainland China on an 18-day vacation. In that time I covered a remarkable amount of terrain and saw an array of places. There were the precipitous cliffs and jungles of Guoliangcun, Zhangjiajie and Dehang, where the scenery was so picture-perfect that I felt like I was strolling through a Chinese painting. The silence was deafening, soul-shaking, and I must say I’ve never been in such awe of the natural world as I was then. There were also small cities like Pingyao and Luoyang with areas set apart from modern China, quite well preserved. There was Xi’an and its gigantic city walls and Army of Terracotta Warriors, which were surprisingly disappointing. And then there were the nightmarish, crowded metropolises that I arrived in on my way to somewhere else. I took very few photos then, but now I wish I would have, because I’ve never beheld such misery on such a scale.
On August 6 I returned to Qingdao to fly to Seoul for my operation I was sure to take place. Korean and expat friends from 2007 helped out, some with disastrous and awkward results. Details must be spared here; suffice to say, Korea has been twisted into a country wrought with political unrest and weekly demonstrations, many of which are violent. These events have taken an effect on my Korean friends, and made them to think less favorably of foreigners, even one as friendly as I. The operation I sought never took place, Korean physical therapists opting for expensive, irrelevant therapy instead. I managed to fit in some solo sightseeing in the southern coast before leaving Korea, possibly for good.
With all the commotion and travel, I forgot that the Olympics were happening 300 miles from my apartment. I watched them live on television before making an impulse decision to meet some friends in Beijing for the final weekend of the games. I arrived on a Friday morning and found tickets to be in great supply, but at exorbitant prices, ranging from 80 to $1,000. I bit the bullet and got tickets for a chum and I to see to Tae Kwon Do for 80. There, we miraculously met a man trying to sell tickets to the National Stadium for a mere $30, an offer virtually unheard of. We crapped our pants and set off on my buddy’s bicycle, him pedaling like mad and me functioning as a bell on the handlebars, yelling at crowds of people to get the heck out of the way.
We went through security and up the stairs to the top of the National Stadium and promptly recrapped. We watched events and drank beer that was much too cheap, made a lot of noise, and enjoyed every last moment of our Olympic experience. In a stadium of around 100,000 we were the last to leave. We pranced about the arena, taking photos and chatting with security guards who were rather neighborly, a Chinese first. We met Sean, a Chinese buddy of mine at a barstreet and I woke up on a bus on my way to see kayaking events. They were really boring but the tickets were cheap.
The end of August saw my return to work and on the wrong side of a shuffle of classes; an administrator who apparently didn’t like me stuck me with two helpings of two grades most teachers try to avoid, the 10th and 9th grades I taught before. It’s been a difficult semester, particularly with the 10th grade. They’ve emerged as an insolent, unrewarding lot, so much so that now I seriously question teaching as a career.
Following my therapist’s advice, I began my own rehab at a gym down the street. The high membership fee motivated me to be there five times a week for two months, but without seeing any improvement in my leg, I left the same gangling fella that came in.
Last week was Christmas and I hosted my first party. Tomorrow is New Year’s and I have no plans. Next week marks the last at KISQ, and the week after the beginning of most anticipated travel yet. This has been my life in 2008. I’ve left much out, details that I’ll get to this week when I have extra time.
In extortion, repeated sicknesses, travel woes, run-ins with Chinese military and a host of day-to-day annoyances, China has reamed me. It’s reamed me even as I confided in a Korean school in a Korean neighborhood and courted a Korean girly. Aside from Sean, the Chinese guy I met on my first trip to Beijing in December 2007, I have no Chinese friends. Sean and I have met on several occasions this year, and I see as a dear chum. In a way I regret that; in hindsight it hardly seems surprising.
Life under the red star certainly hasn’t been easy. The end of 2008 marks the end of a long struggle with the Middle Kingdom, much like a relationship with an inconsiderate roommate. What next? If life in China has taught me something—other than to always bring toilet paper wherever you go—it’s to keep moving. That’s a lousy sentiment I know. It’s something I’ve said for a while; it’s also the slogan of a canned sea-slug company in China. Mark me. Patience is a virtue of sorts and humility has its use. Perseverance is everything. That, a camera and a notebook serves me well.
So here’s to 2008. May the Lord keep you until we meet again, and thereafter too if He can handle it.
Yours,
Kevin
Two months later, I made up my mind to teach at a university in Qingdao. I was impressed with my visit to Beijing during the prior December, and Qingdao seemed to have an ideal location on the sea between Beijing and Korea. I set off on February 22.
What the job amounted to was disappointment and extortion. It was not at all what I was promised by my online recruiter (they didn't mention extortion at all): the campus was falling apart and my apartment was filthy. Worse yet, the location was a two-hour trip to Qingdao proper. At first, I tried to lie my way out, but as I wasn’t the first teacher to do this to them, they saw through it. When a deal couldn’t be reached and complaints turned to arguments, the foreign director demanded I pay 500 USD to offset recruiter costs. I refused but when I saw that guards were prepared to bar me exit at the gate, I reluctantly agreed.
The director was paid off and made my way into Qingdao where I met an American who put me up for a few days until I starting teaching at Korean International School of Qingdao. I’m finishing my contract with now.
Work at KISQ started out rough, as the director was hesitant to offer me a contract after hearing of my troubles with the university. For the first three weeks I worked not knowing if I would have a job the next day. Each afternoon I returned to a two-star hotel supplied by the school, and each morning I awoke to an ocean-sunrise just 50 meters away. Upon getting officially hired, I procured an apartment with the help of the school’s translator. It’s a ten minute walk to the school, it overlooks the ocean and is the largest place I’ve ever lived in.
Classes were manageable. I was assigned 11th and 10th grade writing classes, a 9th grade reading class and middle school journalism. The writing classes went along well enough, and I discovered my penchant for teaching grammar. Journalism was sort of an experimental course that wasn’t expected to produce much other than a passable student newspaper at the semester’s end. I was pleased with the results: a colorful, relatively well-written magazine. The students in 9th grade had a reputation as being some of the most ill-behaved in the department, i.e. “the dirty dozen.” I quickly realized that this was a far-cry from the angelic students I taught in Korea. I applied strict disciplinary measures, and slowly, very slowly, gained the upper-hand, just as the first semester drew to a close in early July. I continued to be strict into the second semester, and now, I am proud to say that they are my best. Students with behavioral issues and slumping grades have changed to students with behavioral issues and decent grades, raising the class average by some twenty percent.
The biggest selling point of KISQ is my coworkers. From every corner of the English-speaking world, they are without a doubt, the most interesting, diverse bunch of people I’ve worked with. In the face of the soaring ineptitude of KISQ’s administrators, they are indispensable. KISQ has poor direction and a crippling bureaucracy, but its staff does its best to be frank and tenacious with their superiors.
Beyond the occasional mountain-hike or basketball match, my coworkers aren’t worth much for outside socializing. In March, I looked for company in a slue of Chinese and Korean girls I met through one of them at a concert. They introduced me to the local cuisine, shopping and the surrounding mountainside. As their company grew tiresome, I came to fancy one in particular. Her name is Yoon Hwa Young, an absurdly cute, likeable 26-year-old Korean. We were immediate friends, and an impulse meeting in Shanghai, a pair. Hwa young is a real delight and she remains a highlight of this year.
Qingdao is a great city and after having visited many cities in China, I’m relieved I did my homework. The climate is breezy and mild, and I’m convinced it placates the normally nervous fury of the Chinese. It’s a huge city by our standards, around 6 million, nearly the size of Detroit, but a second tier-city by the Chinese. Qingdao doesn’t see the apocalyptic traffic other cities do, nor is congested with pollution. I attribute this to the strong foreign presence, particularly the Koreans, Qingdao being their largest expatriate population anywhere, some 300,000 I’ve heard. A small portion of the city retains its German heritage. Yes, German. They inhabited the city some hundred years back, building German style residences, churches, and a brewery, as well as carving huge caves into the mountains behind my apartment. My friends and I theorize that the Germans used these caves to peer out over the ocean, guarding against Japanese invaders. They’re perilous and labyrinth-like, but simply amazing.
The food is phenomenal here. Qingdao boasts an array of seafood as well as my favorite specialty: fried dumplings. Street food is simple and cheap; a whole buffet can be found in lineups of carts offering noodles, dumplings, fruit and roasted yams. Foreign food is here to be had, from burgers to Turkish tacos, Mexican quesadillas to six Starbucks. I love it all, except Starbucks, and find myself eating out more than I eat in.
I’ve made an effort to study the local languages. I attended a local academy three times a week to study both Mandarin and Korean with tutors. It was easier than I thought, and the skills I gained proved essential in the lonely places I wound up in in my subsequent travels.
For the first time since I left the states in 2006, running has taken a back seat. I had been enjoying seaside runs 5 times a week for the first three months of my stay. By May, my knee condition came to the point that it was impeding my ability to do a 5k or even play basketball more than twice a week. So, I visited a Chinese doctor, two Korean doctors and a 90-year-old Korean acupuncturist—who knew that the medicine involved burning roots into your body leaving wretched scars? None of them had any effect. Stubborn I was and continued to run, eyeing the Beijing Marathon that fall. This would eventually make the pain so great as to prevent me from walking and sitting correctly. I gave it a rest, and decided to return to Korea for surgery during my summer vacation. This would turn out to be a horribly expensive and regrettable error.
In mid-July, three weeks before that rueful departure, I left Qingdao for mainland China on an 18-day vacation. In that time I covered a remarkable amount of terrain and saw an array of places. There were the precipitous cliffs and jungles of Guoliangcun, Zhangjiajie and Dehang, where the scenery was so picture-perfect that I felt like I was strolling through a Chinese painting. The silence was deafening, soul-shaking, and I must say I’ve never been in such awe of the natural world as I was then. There were also small cities like Pingyao and Luoyang with areas set apart from modern China, quite well preserved. There was Xi’an and its gigantic city walls and Army of Terracotta Warriors, which were surprisingly disappointing. And then there were the nightmarish, crowded metropolises that I arrived in on my way to somewhere else. I took very few photos then, but now I wish I would have, because I’ve never beheld such misery on such a scale.
On August 6 I returned to Qingdao to fly to Seoul for my operation I was sure to take place. Korean and expat friends from 2007 helped out, some with disastrous and awkward results. Details must be spared here; suffice to say, Korea has been twisted into a country wrought with political unrest and weekly demonstrations, many of which are violent. These events have taken an effect on my Korean friends, and made them to think less favorably of foreigners, even one as friendly as I. The operation I sought never took place, Korean physical therapists opting for expensive, irrelevant therapy instead. I managed to fit in some solo sightseeing in the southern coast before leaving Korea, possibly for good.
With all the commotion and travel, I forgot that the Olympics were happening 300 miles from my apartment. I watched them live on television before making an impulse decision to meet some friends in Beijing for the final weekend of the games. I arrived on a Friday morning and found tickets to be in great supply, but at exorbitant prices, ranging from 80 to $1,000. I bit the bullet and got tickets for a chum and I to see to Tae Kwon Do for 80. There, we miraculously met a man trying to sell tickets to the National Stadium for a mere $30, an offer virtually unheard of. We crapped our pants and set off on my buddy’s bicycle, him pedaling like mad and me functioning as a bell on the handlebars, yelling at crowds of people to get the heck out of the way.
We went through security and up the stairs to the top of the National Stadium and promptly recrapped. We watched events and drank beer that was much too cheap, made a lot of noise, and enjoyed every last moment of our Olympic experience. In a stadium of around 100,000 we were the last to leave. We pranced about the arena, taking photos and chatting with security guards who were rather neighborly, a Chinese first. We met Sean, a Chinese buddy of mine at a barstreet and I woke up on a bus on my way to see kayaking events. They were really boring but the tickets were cheap.
The end of August saw my return to work and on the wrong side of a shuffle of classes; an administrator who apparently didn’t like me stuck me with two helpings of two grades most teachers try to avoid, the 10th and 9th grades I taught before. It’s been a difficult semester, particularly with the 10th grade. They’ve emerged as an insolent, unrewarding lot, so much so that now I seriously question teaching as a career.
Following my therapist’s advice, I began my own rehab at a gym down the street. The high membership fee motivated me to be there five times a week for two months, but without seeing any improvement in my leg, I left the same gangling fella that came in.
Last week was Christmas and I hosted my first party. Tomorrow is New Year’s and I have no plans. Next week marks the last at KISQ, and the week after the beginning of most anticipated travel yet. This has been my life in 2008. I’ve left much out, details that I’ll get to this week when I have extra time.
In extortion, repeated sicknesses, travel woes, run-ins with Chinese military and a host of day-to-day annoyances, China has reamed me. It’s reamed me even as I confided in a Korean school in a Korean neighborhood and courted a Korean girly. Aside from Sean, the Chinese guy I met on my first trip to Beijing in December 2007, I have no Chinese friends. Sean and I have met on several occasions this year, and I see as a dear chum. In a way I regret that; in hindsight it hardly seems surprising.
Life under the red star certainly hasn’t been easy. The end of 2008 marks the end of a long struggle with the Middle Kingdom, much like a relationship with an inconsiderate roommate. What next? If life in China has taught me something—other than to always bring toilet paper wherever you go—it’s to keep moving. That’s a lousy sentiment I know. It’s something I’ve said for a while; it’s also the slogan of a canned sea-slug company in China. Mark me. Patience is a virtue of sorts and humility has its use. Perseverance is everything. That, a camera and a notebook serves me well.
So here’s to 2008. May the Lord keep you until we meet again, and thereafter too if He can handle it.
Yours,
Kevin
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