So this is what a year feels like.

Lots of elementary schools have hi-tech classrooms with talking walls and computers and stages and touch screens.  But almost everyone I talk to who works in one says that no one knows how to use any of it or that it's all broken, or that they have to stand in the front of the class and teach from the textbook unless it's a demonstration class and in that case everything is set up to be shown off but boxed up or put back off limits when the boss' boss leaves.  This is the kind of bullshitting that feels like confidence when I do it by myself and off the cuff, and seems like institutionalized lying when I hear about it in a dozens schools across a city.

South Korea was having riots for democracy in the late 80's.  The government was torturing student dissidents.  People in their fourties can remember when all movies that weren't explicitely pro-regime were banned in South Korea.  They used to go to secret underground film houses that were subject to police raids.

If you are standing on a bus and you have a bag, someone who is sitting down might just grab it from you.  They have a seat, so they will hold your bag on their lap for you since you don't have a seat.  They are going to give it back, you don't have to worry.

I don't like the way that the word "foreigner" is used here, but I use it myself now because it's the easiest way to talk about people who aren't from Korea who live in Korea.  If I try and use other words it just gets confusing.

My Vice Principle sent me recipes so I can start cooking more Korean food.  I say more, because I told him that I cook Korean sometimes (I don't.  I am not good in the kitchen).  He even printed out pictures of the stuff I needed to get so that I'd recognize it in the market.

In the middle is my friend Baromi.  I met her on a small Koran island, but she happened to live in the same city as me.  She is going to school in Mongolia though.  I owe her about 14 pounds of favours for all the nice things she's done.

I'm coming home soon to visit, and everyone's going to ask me, "how was Korea" and I'm not sure exactly what to say.  Good?

People will find a way

The households featured in your average Korean drama look like this:

From the drama 'Baker King'

While your average Korean appartment looks more like this:

Maybe not average.  Maybe they're tricking me.

This 'space issue' could have something to do with the fact that South Korea is about the size of Idaho with 49 times the population, (as in 49 million to Idaho's 1).    Their answer?  Privatized homelife.

The DVD Room

Only one t.v. in the three rooms you share with your family of four?  Get away from it all by renting a room to watch t.v. in.  Bring your own or choose one from their wide selection.  There is a DVD room down town that advertises itself with  a giant

save for the word 'DVD' replacing 'WU-TANG'.  I've always wanted to watch something there and I've always wanted to watch them settle out of court with The RZA.


The Board Games Room

Table at home not big enough?  Already covered with the jigsaw puzzle you're supposed to 'just find a few pieces for' every day?  Don't own your own copy of Settlers of Catan?   These places own every everything Milton and Bradley ever stole from a poor sap at the patent office and will sell you Fanta.  The most wholesom place on the planet until someone loses and their friend gleefully pounds them in the head with the large plastic hammers that the cafe supplies for the occasion.

You can break it on their ears and shoulders and get a new one from the laundry basket near the Fanta.

The Noraebang (Singing Room)

Don't you sing in the shower.  Come to one of these rooms in sing in the drunk.

...

    It's been 11 months now, and I've thought of a few possible business ventures of my own to take advantage of the uniqure opportunities in Korea.

Argument Room

Ten times sound-proofer than an noraebang, but hell, keep the microphones in.  Better take out the t.v. though.  Breakable.  In a land of big stack appartments with thin sliced walls, the Argument Room will provide you with a space to yell at each other without the neighbors having to pretend not to hear you.  Judging from how many three-words-every-four-minutes type conversations I've observed outside of malls and at bus stops, I suspect there is a huge demand for a place to break up with your girl/boyfriend.  After all, you can't bring them home.


A Yard Room

Every product related to 'health' or 'banking' or 'cell phones' advertised on t.v. in Korea features a lush lawn with a wide clean street spilling out behind it down a tree shaded neighborhood.  

Kind of like this.

I assume that somewhere in a private fenced off compound for the mega wealthy these places exist in Korea.  But I have not been invited.  If Korean long for manicured lawns then let them mow grass.  I suggest quarter foot-ball field plots, dotted with rock gardens and ceramic gnomes.  You will take an elevator thirteen stories down below the earth and chop genetically modified Kentucky Blue on a John Deer.  You can even accidentally knock over the mailbox for an extra 10,000 won.


A Room Where You Pretend You Are Orphaned On Mars

Good gracious, but there are 10 million people in Seoul alone.  There are ten subway lines.  That's 10 million briefcases, backpacks and purses.  10 million mobile ring tones.  20 million elbows.  It's enough to make someone wish their mother had abandoned them on Mars.

 In the 'Room Where You Pretend You Are Orphaned On Mars' everything will be painted red.  The oxygen level will be decreased just enough so that you see things out of the corner of your eyes.  To simulate low gravity everything will be constructed from bouncy castle.  A fishbowl worn on the head will be recommended but not manditory.  No one will hear your scream.