Random Korean things with a brief update

Hey everyone! I've got some downtime this weekend (aka I'm bored), so I figured I'd try and get something written. These past 3, 4 weeks have been pretty demanding/busy for me so I'll briefly touch base on that and then talk about random things.

I had my two dance performances this past Thursday and Friday. Thursday was the hip hop event and Friday was the Modern Dance event. I wasn't worried at all for Thursday because all I would be doing is bboying. And because of having practice everyday for my Friday performance, rather than being worried about bboying, I was worried about my body giving out on me haha. Some days I had multiple practices or rehearsals (especially towards the end), which I was really starting to feel. But because of all this running around, I was able to enhance the friendship with the people in these groups and my Korean speaking jumped tremendously. The Thursday performance was fun and a complete success as was the Friday performance. However, the Friday performance and the experiences leading up to it had more of an impact on me due to how "different" it all was to me. With regards to how the actual performance went, I was told I did a great job, but until I see the video of it, I'll know whether or not my own personal standard was met. However, besides the huge increase in my skill and knowledge from partaking in the modern dance piece, I also met some of the leading choreographers and dancers in Korea. That was crazy to me. I didn't know they would all be there. I thought this performance was going to be small scale (that's what I was told) and in a way it was. There wasn't a huge number of people that came. However, it wasn't a small scale dance done by dance students. It was a professional dance piece and all the people that did show up were important people in the art world of Seoul. I was the only one that 1. was still an undergrad 2. wasn't a professional dancer. So meeting and drinking with all these people was pretty dope.

Actually making the dance was pretty awesome too. It was a "research based dance" which meant we had to do research on the story, then interpret it, then start putting it together. We had our "choreographer" (my professor) overseeing the whole process and putting pieces into place. So I had to read up about the Russian myth of The Firebird in English, then discuss with the other dancers in Korean what I found out and thought about it. Then I watched variations of the Modern Ballet of The Firebird. Then discussed what we thought about it (again in Korean). Pretty much every time we practiced, something was changed or different. And at its core, it was an improvised dance piece. In other words, it was supposed to be freestyled. So we had these plot points setup, but how we got to them was entirely up to the dancer. At first, it was tricky because the other dancers' and my style were complete opposites. So we worked on syncronizing our energies. Once we got comfortable with that, it became pretty fun. Not knowing what exactly we'd be doing though, didn't bother me that much. I mean, I was used to it in a sense thanks to the nature of bboying and freestyling. But what was a little frustrating was the constant change in the story that was being made. It was hard to get the proper mental image of what I was suppose to be expressing. For example, my role changed an insane amount of times and our dance piece ended up very loosely following the original myth. Thanks to this experience, my freestyle skills and stamina increased the most. A lot of bboys claim they freestyle, but in all honesty, I never experienced this level of it before. And because of it, I never really had to practice for my bboy performance.

Here is the link to my solo in the Hip Hop performance (you can follow that to the other part I dance in):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2mS3REPLwc

So that's what I spent most of November working on. From here on, it's getting all the things for my Finals ready. I've got a presentation on bboying and a research paper on a former President of South Korea I have start on.

Random Stuff:

I don't know what's going on with the marketing campaign of McDonalds in the US, but over here, they had a huge change in things. The new slogan is "Mac Tonight" and all the employees' uniforms are "urban." In other words, they all wear "popper hats" or those golf hats (hats that grandpa had) and the urban scarfs (black and white checkered scarf tied around the neck). They wear black pants and tshirt that says Mac Tonight on them. And the final kicker is that they're starting to deliver. Yes, over here, you can now get McDonald's delivered.

It's gotten pretty cold over here, safe to say that winter has arrived. An interesting thing about the heating systems here is that it's through the floor. This dates all the way back to the old days in Korea, but how they heat a room is by heating the floor. This is the first time I've actually experienced it, but it's actually pretty cool. Your feet never get cold haha.

November 11th is kind of like Valentine's Day over here. Except it's called PaePaero Day. PaePaero's are the Korean term for Poki Sticks. And for those that don't know what those are, well think of a slim wafer/preztel type stick dipped in chocolate. I ended up sparing several ladies out here from experiencing the day without receiving any haha. So I got some bonus points for that. I normally don't partake in such things unecessarily, but I saw it as a way to show that I was aware of what's going on (the day itself and the fact that several of my friends would get depressed if they didn't get a box of these stupid things haha).

Speaking of snacks, the custom over here in the dance world is to give the dancers chocolate for the performance (not flowers like in the US). So I decided to stick to US tradition on this one and got the ballerina's some flowers.

As I've mentioned several times, age is huge over here. This annoys me because it's under the assumption that just because someone is older than you, they know more about things than you. You have wonderful Confucianism to thank for that. So pretty much right when you meet someone, a typical question asked is how old are you. And at that moment, you're fate is pretty much sealed with that person. For the most part, I can be exempt from all this because I'm a foreigner, however, I do my best to try and put my own spin on it. For example, I've always been told to respect those older than you. And I do. But I don't believe in instantly putting a barrier on a relationship because of age. I put more importance on behavior. So if someone is really trying to be my friend (regardless of age) I prefer keeping communication relaxed, open, and equal. I think I've been pretty successful at it. If someone is older than me, I wait until they are the ones that ask me to stop speaking so formally. This doesn't really apply to older adults for me though. I, too, would feel weird talking to someone a lot older than me informally. I just think it sucks how servant like a relationship can be over here just because someone is one year older than you. I know I'd be pissed. Especially if that person is a lot less mature than you.

Korean people in general have a lot of emotion (you can see it by how freaking dramatic all their shows and movies are). But they don't often express it. So it gets bottled up and suppressed. And you can see that whenever something little pops up and someone explodes over it. How this is different from what I've learned about the Japanese is that the Japanese are even more indirect about communicating than Koreans. Less explosive so to speak. It's an interesting dynamic, that I would really like to experience more firsthand by going to Japan.

Korean males. And by this I mean my peers. For the most part, I'm not a huge fan of college Korean males. They try to come across as very masculine, yet they appear/dress incredibly feminine. This causes a fairly big insecurity. Now how is this different from say an American male? Well, we're at least more direct in our communication. I guess an example I could use is the frustration guys get when they ask their girlfriend what's wrong, and the girl expects them to know what's bothering them or that they should be able to properly guess. Except this is switched. It's the guys that do that. Yes, I am fully aware that this is a generalization. Yes, this doesn't pertain to all Korean college males. But just like how there are tools in the US, there are tools out here in Korea. And I'm just pointing out how they're a little different in dealing with their insecurities.

Distance: I find it funny that to a Korean, 45 minutes is long. I understand why (you can get from one side of the country to another in 4-5 hours). But to the Americans here, traveling is so easy and fast. Plus, you don't have to do anything during the commute. That's why we usually have no problem going to some random place. Ex: I was helping my friend with an english paper, but we needed to meet again in order to finish. I told her I could go out to her. She was suprised at this and had the mentality of "you'd take 40 minutes to come out here just to help me finish my paper?" It costs about a dollar for me to do that, plus I like riding the subway because of all the people watching you can do. Plus we'd be meeting in one of the biggest malls ever, which means there'd be a bunch of things we could do after.

Ajuma's: Or middle aged Korean women. Despite having one of the strangest styles out there, they pretty much dominate anyone in society. They can yell, push, command anyone to do whatever they want pretty much. It's pretty funny. The other day, as I was trying to get to the theater I was performing at. I couldn't find the bus I needed to take on the map. One Ajuma saw the flowers I was carrying and said they were pretty. I thanked her, then used this as an excuse to ask her for help. She said that the bus I want wasn't there, but her eyes were bad. So she yelled at a younger looking ajuma walking down the street to come over. So then she began helping me. Then another ajuma (who would probably be the middle of the 3 in terms of age) came over and wanted to know what was going on. I was now helpless. These 3 women were arguing amongst each other trying to find the best way for me to get to where I wanted to go. Finally, when a decision was made, I was told precisely what I must do and then they threw me on a bus and told the bus driver where to drop me off. While on the bus, my professor called to see where I was at. When I told her what bus number I was on she started to get worried that I'd never make it to the theater haha. But I told her not to worry and it was kind of out of my hands. Ajuma's came to my rescue, regardless of whether or not I had a say about it haha.

Apparently Koreans don't usually split the cost of a meal (don't go dutch or w/e it's called). So if I were to have dinner with someone, then one of us would pay for the whole thing. And then next time or for desert, the other person would take care of the bill.

Which reminds me of another Korean dance custom. I don't know how this one is in the US, but over here, the choreographer buys the meals for the dancers. So after practice for my modern dance, I pretty much got to eat whatever I wanted. It was quite amazing.

I think I'll end here. I can't think of anything else at the moment. Thanksgiving is coming up and I hope everyone has a fun, relaxing Thanksgiving. I won't be doing anything over here (maybe I'll hit up KFC or something), so be sure to make up for my absence by either eating more or relaxing more or both haha.

Month long Update

So I know it's been over a month since I last updated this, but I've been busy with a lot of things. I will try my best to fill you all in on all that's happened, but I doubt I'll be able to in its entirety. The format will be in areas of my life; hopefully making it easier to break down.

School: My midterms were done back in the beginning/mid of October. I think I did fairly well on them. I never got the scores back though. I only know that in one of my classes I got the 2nd highest mark (my gender studies class). I don't really care about my Korean test score because that class can't transfer anyways. I have two big projects in the beginning of December due. One is on the "President" of South Korea during the 70s, Park Chung Hee. That's pretty much a 10 page research paper. The other is a presentation and paper on Bboying. Needless to say I'm not very worried about the latter haha. I do have a partner for that one (an incredibly cute partner I might add), making things even easier. This past week I haven't really been doing any homework however (that'll be explained next), at least not homework in the typical sense of the word.

Dance: This part of my life has suddenly taken over my life it seems. All of last week and the next two weeks I have dance practice every day. Before, I was barely finding time to practice myself due to class, homework, and networking. But through those these, several opportunities have arose. I have two upcoming performances: one bboy, one modern. The bboy one I'm not really worried about. That one is with the hip hop student org I joined. The modern one however, has me slightly anxious. That performance is with Ewha's dance department. I'll be performing with several modern ballerinas and modern dancers. I'm the only male and the only one with no "real" dance training. My gender studies professor asked me if I would perform with some of her best dancers. I figured why not? Should be fun right? I've also been invited out to various dance performances at actual art theaters, which is something I've never really witnessed before (unless you count the performances of past lady friends in middle school and high school haha which I don't btw). Despite being the completely odd man out, I must say that I thoroughly enjoy taking part in it. All of us had to first do research on the dance work (Firebird or bulsae in Korean), then discuss what we found. From there, we discussed how we were going to interpret the work and how we'd piece it together. Then we presented it to my professor (the one in charge and the official choreographer), who then fixed it to match her vision and the original one. It's still in a constant state of tweaking as well. I think that's been the most interesting part for me. As a bboy, I hear "freestyle" a lot. As in, we don't choreograph our moves, we just do what we feel. Well in Modern Dance that's called Improvisation. And in all honesty, they do it in a way that blows the majority of bboys out there away. In the one week I've practiced with them, I've learned more about my inner freestylist than if I were to just break on my own or even study under one of the dopest freestyling bboys. Oh, and did I mention I'm doing all this in Korean? That's the reason I don't mind the lack of completing my minor korean homework assignments. Discussing a Russian Myth, then interpreting it, then turning it into a dance work all in Korean is a homework in and of itself. Every practice I go to, my brain gets fully immersed in Korean language. Yes, sometimes it's frustrating (mainly when I'm really really tired, like the past 3 days), but it gives me the opportunity to escape the "English Bubble" that surrounds me as an international student. And when I hang out with the dancers after practice or go to a modern dance performance, I have to keep my brain in Korean. Again, it's mentality draining, but that's the whole reason I'm out here in the first place.

Halloween: I went to 3 halloween parties. I would have gone to 4, but on actual halloween I met up with Nuna and ended up missing the train. So once again I was stranded with Nuna and once again it was at the Coex Mall. We found it rather humorous that the exact same scenario from 2 years ago played out once again. But we were able to catch up on a lot of things going on in our lives, cleared up some old misunderstandings, and even watched a movie. Although it was The Time Traveler's Wife. It was the last movie playing. It marked the first time I ever went to a theater and watched that kind of movie. I usually have to get my dose of romantic movies from the netflix choices of mother and sister. Speaking of which, this is for Janelle: Eric BAAAANA!
So halloween. The first time I went out, I was a vampire and went to a party at a neighboring college (Yonsei). I must say that my vampire costume was pretty freaking amazing. At the club, there were a couple of "bboys" dancing and, my friends knowing I was a bboy and anxious for any chance to finally see me dance, threw me at the other dancers. I saw "bboys" because in all honesty one was a club breaker, one a beginning ish bboy, one a very beginner bboy, and another a popper. I was fairly tired, slightly intoxicated, and didn't want to battle, especially against this crowd. So rather than it being me directly smoking these guys, I more like let my presence be known. The club breaker tried to battle me after he saw me housing (I can't house well at all). Not liking his attitude, I smoked him. He didn't go out again haha. The popper, I pushed my hip hop dancer friend out to take him on, plus I wanted a break. Then some bboy from Cali went out (the semi beginner) and my friends pushed me out again. How I know he was from Cali is because he approached me afterward to talk to me. Right after I told him I was tired and was going to go sit down for a bit, he pushed me into the center so I had to dance again. I ended up throwing 5 rounds total if you count the house round I did. 5 rounds at like 3am in a club with no warm up sucks for those who are wondering. After he pushed me out, I no longer had sympathies about smoking him earlier. Some might ask, why did you have to dance? Well one, I'm a bboy and I like dancing. Two: everytime I get pushed out in the center of anything around here, usually girls start screaming (in the good way haha). Three: I don't like punking out. I think I did a fairly good job of repping Ewha at the Yonsei party haha.

Two days ago was Ewha's International Party, which was pretty much a halloween party thrown by the Peace Buddies for us International Students. This time I went as the Phantom Of the Opera. This party also had a contest called Mr. Ewha. It's like a talent show for the guys. At the request of my Peace Buddy, I entered. There were 4 of us total and we were told to have something ready for a brief performance. I wasn't too worried because I planned on dancing. I brought my usb with a few mp3s on it and figured I'd be fine. My hip hop dancer friend did the same but he also was planning on rapping. Another guy was Danish i think and he planned on singing, and the 4th guy was last minute, drunk, and from Belgium. The reason I say planned is because the DJ couldn't play our music because he had no way of reading usbs....which we were told to bring. So they decided to wing the format. Had all of us dance to whatever the dj spun. Not very fair for the non dancers but, okay w/e I thought. Then they decided to add another part to it. A singing part. This actually had me suddenly nervous for the first time in a long time. I don't sing. And especially not in front of people. And especially not with any music to accompany me. I've only ever sang in front of my close friends. The last time I sang in front of a mass of people was in Elementary Christmas Concerts. So yeah, I was nervous. As I said before, I don't like punking out, so I went all out. Powered Through. I ended up singing the Phantom of the Opera hahahah. So quick sidenote on what was going on throughout the contest. There were two main groups: asian girls and europeans (most of whom men). My friend would occasionally get his name chant by all the western guys in the club. I would get my name screamed our just a bunch of screams by all the girls in the club. The other two guys got screams from their fellow Europeans. Based on this, it's not easy to tell who would win. The key thing though, was the voting system, which was incredibly flawed. They used one of those instant kodak cameras to take our pictures and then people would stick up stickers next to our pics as their vote. The problem lies in the honesty of people. In other words, people could either A) vote once B) grab multiple stickers and vote multiple times or C) move people's stickers around. And since the whole event was being run by Korean girls (the Peace Buddies) there wasn't much they could enforce haha. And from what a bunch of different people said to me, all three options were being done. Shady? Yes. But at least the drunk guy didn't win. That's what we were afraid would happen as a result haha. I ended up getting second place, much to the dismay of a lot of the asian girls haha. My friend got first. I had several europeans tell me if I had gone out with them drinking then they would have voted for me. I'm sorry, I didn't know this was a campaign? And I don't like dropping 50 every night to get plastered. I don't even like getting plastered, especially not when I'm with people I don't know. But my individual victory comes in winning the female crowd and knowing I almost won fairly (lost by 5 votes). This was also a blatant reminder of how things really work haha. I think that's why I'm slightly erked by it. I don't care about the 2nd place thing. We all got the exact same prize haha. And it was my friend who got 1st. I think it's just the growing list of things that are being done by certain people that is causing me to be more aware of..."things."

Field Trip: After midterms, I went on a field trip to the southwest part of Korea. It was a joint field trip with Yonsei University International Students to a small fishing village. The whole point of it was to experience the rusticness of living in such a small village. And rustic it was. No real showers, 15 people in one big living room. 14 in another. But it was a lot of fun. I got to see some beautiful scenes, met new people, became closer with others. I went clam digging and caught the most clams (America!), used a net to catch fish. I ate the most seafood I've ever eaten probably in my entire life (lots of variety too). I also visited a Buddhist Temple from the ancient Paekche kingdom. What makes this one different is that Paekche Buddhists were directly influenced by the Indian Buddhists, not the typical statues and beliefs you see normally in East Asia due to Chinese influence. This also marked the first time I took a lot of photos haha. It was a lot of fun and a great experience.

Weather: This one is for dad. The weather here is entirely fall now. Pretty much the same as in Michigan only not as cold. Although last week there were 2 days were you could feel winter in the air. What I mean is when you go outside and you feel that "bite" in the air. It was pretty cold, refreshing, reminded me of home, and was a sign that winter is approaching. The trees are all different colors. And there are often fall rain and thunder storms. I've said this before, but storms here are different than in MI. You don't see the lightning bolts, but you see all around you light up like a giant camera flash. The thunder sounds more like real drums, rather than booms. So when you first hear it, you're not sure if it was thunder or someone dropping something/construction (whereas in MI you ask if it's a big truck or a plane, maybe that can help with the sound difference?)

I hope that covers enough for now. Sorry for taking so long for an update. You could always just hit me up on skype though. Even if I'm not on, I will still see your message and get back to you.