Lost in "found"

My best friends here and I have developed a little Friday tradition of going to "The Primes" (That's the
7-eleven to you normals) right after work, setting up a sidewalk table, and having a refreshing beverage or three. Then we generally go out to a Korean dinner and see what might be in the offing. The offing usually consists of my going home and the young'uns going clubbing or some such till some ungodly hour.

This week, we only got as far as the Primes, then, perhaps shagged out from the events in the last sentence of the previous paragraph, everyone went home. Not wanting to sit alone all evening on a Friday, instead I caught the bus to the subway to the other subway to Yatap station, coincidentally where I visited the school last December before it moved, to the Home Plus store.

The advantages of Home Plus over E-Mart are, first, that it's co-owned by the British chain Tesco, so it has a wider, slightly more Western, array of foods, and secondly, that its clothing sizes run to 110, which fits me, rather than 105, as at E-Mart and everyplace else, which doesn't.

Only... this Home Plus only runs to 105. There went a three-hour trip for not much return.

But it wasn't a total loss! If I hadn't gone, I never would have seen the cheery-looking white bag of ox intestines next to the corn dogs in the frozen food case, and I would have missed one particular t-shirt.

I've posted before about the random, often nonsensical, and not infrequently misspelled English phrases on t-shirts over here, but this one was impeccably presented. It read:

"I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study."

...which led to three questions in my mind:

1) How many young Koreans want to start their own universities?
2) Doesn't anybody here care at all what their shirts say?
3) I'm home! They stole the motto right off Cornell's official seal.

Woulda bought the damn thing, too, but the biggest size was a 105.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

This place is full of surprises.

Downtown Daegu is funny, a grid of major highways, little narrow streets with sidewalks where cars and pedestrians commingle, and little dark alleyways lined with teensy shops, or sometimes just bricks; you never know.

Luke, Ray, Joanna (teacher at our Samduk school) and I went down one of those alleyways today, to a nice little Mexican restaurant, very cozy, good food (I had nachos grande, as I knew that was one thing not cooked in lard). The cook speaks Korean, English and Spanish (as his grandfather is from Spain). And it just isn't a real Mexican restaurant without free side orders of Korean popcorn and vanilla-tasting herbal tea, is it?

The restaurant is called Yeon Chow, which I understand is a traditional Mexican name.

Just down the alley from Yeon Chow is a little restaurant with a round sign that depicts a cartoon cat head, out of which are sticking an apple stem and leaf. What is in the restaurant? I'm glad you asked. In the window, driftwood and cat condos, covered in a collection of cats (live, fluffy ones, that is). Further back? People having lunch with cats perched on the backs of their chairs. Considering that most Koreans apparently consider cats to be vermin, I thought that this was one of the most amazing and delightful scenes I've seen in this country.

Later, in my tenth quixotic attempt to find jeans that fit me, I went to the department store attached to the movie theater we frequent and actually found some that are close enough! I was about to give up and ask someone back in North America to just buy me some Wranglers and ship them; I've looked and looked, but hadn't found any that didn't have flowery stitching or "FUBU" or "Ask Enquired" writ large in swirly English letters across the ass, and that also were both big enough in the waist and short enough in the legs to fit. I finally did. (LEVI'S!) They fit fine, as long as I don't want to breathe and don't mind wearing platform shoes. I've already breathed many times during my life, so they'll do.

By the way, it's good to be able to ask (in Korean) "Men's jeans you have?" and be pointed to the correct floor. I even used the correct syntax.

I was waited on by a jolly middle-aged Korean woman; to try them on, I had to go behind the counter, which sits right out in the middle of the store, let her pull a curtain around me, and change really fast, as she wasn't all that patient before deciding I'd had enough time and she should open the curtain. (Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!) Then, after running my Visa, she motioned that I had to follow her up a floor on the escalator. Why? Credit card declined? Jeans warranty? Complimentary snapshot from behind the curtain? No; she picked up a scratch-off card and scratched it off for my magnificent surprise prize: a small tube of Vaseline hand lotion. Can't use it; I need some take-years-off-the-face lotion. Oil of Oy Vey, perhaps.

On this trip downtown, I also found a book I've been looking for ("Inkheart"; really liked the movie) and got Kyobo Books to order me a copy of the nationwide events magazine (in English) I've been looking for for months. And I see there's an exhibit in town: etchings and engravings by Picasso, Warhol, Matisse, and others I should know more about. Now I just have to figure out where the dang building is. Oh, and Luke gave me a half-dozen cans of tuna for the cats.

All in all, a pretty good Wednesday, though Hump Day has not thus far lived up to the promise that term implies...

Sorry. I'm so ashamed.

This post has been approved for mature audiences only

...that title may be a trick to get you to read this, but it worked, didn't it? And any twelve-hour period that involves both an encounter with a hooker and running around halfway across a city in pajama pants has to be considered a little racy, doesn't it? Maybe not...

Last night (Saturday), a bunch of us from the Samduk and Manchon LIKE schools went out to dinner at The Holy Grill, a Canadian-owned restaurant. Originally, those of us at the Obamathon had planned to go there for drinks on Wednesday night, looking for similarly elated Obamericans, but we all pooped out. For Saturday, we opened it to anybody who wanted to come, and avoided political talk. There were seven of us; we ordered drinks and various burgers and cheesesteaks and (for me) a nacho platter the size of a manhole cover.

Afterward, we wandered off on our separate errands. My inexpensive wall clock had stopped working and E-Mart no longer carries them, so I wandered a half-dozen blocks north and west to Daegu (train) Station, then another half-dozen to HomePlus, the department store owned by Samsung and Tesco. I found me a clock, which even as I type is driving me a little nuts because I didn't think to get a sweep-second-hand clock and it's tick... tick... ticking in my ear. Maybe I can get a replacement at a second-hand shop. (Ba-dum-dum.)

On the way back to the main drag downtown, I ended up cutting through the back streets. It's pretty dark and almost a little third-worldy back there, though you can always see a sea of neon a few blocks away.

I was most of the way back to the bus stop when I was tapped on the shoulder. A really pretty, fresh-faced Korean girl, her face lighting up like I was her best friend, said, "Hi!" I knew she wanted something; Korean women do not just greet unfamiliar men, even if the men are quite extinguished- looking. Make that "distinguished".

My first impulse was that she was a hooker, though she was much more attractive and well-kept than I'd expect (quite a bit more so than Julia Roberts in that movie, actually), and the only hookers I'd seen in Korea were some rough-looking Russian women in Busan. Then I thought maybe she wanted a handout, but she was too well-dressed. I said "Hi" back, and kept walking; I figured that, if she really wanted something, she'd call out or follow me. She didn't.

I did a little research when I got home; turns out I had cut through Gyodong Market, which is full of little stores with great deals on electronics and tiny back-alley black market shops that specialize in Western goods you can't get here (like deodorant!). It's also a hotbed (ooh, bad word choice!) of prostitution. Yike.

***

This morning, I went out to run with Anna, a friend who also teaches at Manchon LIKE. She wants to run a 5K and had asked me to coach her. I only brought minimal running gear from the States: shoes, shorts, shirts. Unfortunately, "warmup suit" does not begin with "sh" and I had limited capacity in packing, so I didn't bring one. (Ah, crap... "socks" doesn't begin with "s" either. Well, it does if you're Sean Connery.) Onward.

What to do? Run in Dockers or jeans? No. Walk a mile to the subway and take the train two miles to the river, where we were going to run, in shorts? No; it was 50 degrees, windy, and damp. I know! I'll wear my plaid flannel lounge pants over my running shorts! (They're supposed to be for kicking around at home, but... don't tell anyone... they're my jammies pants too.)

I figured that: a) people would think that the American style is to run around in your jammies, or b) they think all Americans are crazy anyway, or c) they'd think I was just wearing plaid warmup pants. Oh, and d) nobody knows me anyway, and e) joke 'em if they can't take a... never mind. I will say I never would have dared do this till recently. I don't care too much what strangers think anymore. (Sandi's email signature is a quote from Einstein: "I'm at the age where, if people tell me to put on socks, I don't have to." Smart man.)

The lounge pants actually are great to run in. Turns out there are lockers at the Daegu Bank subway station where I met Anna, so in future I can wear jeans, go into the men's room to take them off, and stow them.

But you know what? It was kind of liberating to wear my jammies in the subway. I recommend it highly. The nightie should stay home, though.

Oh frabjous day...

...callooh, cally, he chortled in his joy.

What a great day!

I got paid yesterday for my overtime work on Chosuk weekend, and my friend Ray and I had been talking about going out to Camp Walker, one of the US Army garrisons, to see if some of the stores out there had clothes that would fit us. So this morning we did.

First, we found a little Korean-run restaurant that specializes in real, genuine, honest-to-gosh American brunch! Much as I like Korean food, give me some French toast with syrup, eggs, and coffee once in awhile. Which they did. Heaven on earth! (They also had bagels, croissants, pancakes, orange juice, and that old breakfast favorite, Kool-Aid.)

Then, in a little shop just outside Camp Walker's gate, we hit the mother lode: I got a heavy-duty winter coat, a really nice windbreaker/raincoat, and a t-shirt, all for about a hundred bucks; I know I should have haggled, but somehow it still feels like I'm using Monopoly money, and I've always hated haggling... I have to overcome that! As I expected, a lot of hip-hoppy clothing, definitely not made for a Simon and Garfunkel kind of guy. But the jackets are great.

Then, across the street, I got a bookbag/backpack for thirteen bucks that was comparable to the ones for fifty that I passed up at E-Mart. Come to think of it, the belt I bought last week from a table on the street was seven bucks, compared to E-Mart's seventeen. Hmm...

(I've found that I've had to make some compromises with my ethics about animals... the winter coat has down in it and my belt is leather. I hate that! But the fact is that it would be nearly impossible to find strictly animal-friendly clothes here. I did reject a coat that had fur trim around the collar. We do what we can.)

After that, I found a tiny shoemaker's shop. That is, the shop was tiny; the shoemaker was merely diminutive. I asked him to punch one more buckle-hole in my new belt (to make it tighter, believe it or not; it's not that I'm losing weight-- the belt's just really big) which he did, and he refused to take any money.

Then, when I got home, the guy came and hooked up my Internet! Oh, this is great. It only took a month (exactly) since I got here. I have DSL service, the visit was free and it only costs a little over 30 bucks a month. By the way, remember how I mentioned the service ethic here? The DSL company didn't say the guy would come out between eight and one or one and six... they said between one and two, and he was there by 1:10.

So this, my friends, has been one terrific day.

And yours...?

Now we're cooking with gas

...actually, I can do that already; I have a two-burner stovetop (no oven) and know how to make everything from fried eggs with hash browns to a grilled egg sandwich.

But some good stuff is happening: I finally got my alien registration card, which will allow me to get the Internet (at long, long last), as well as a cell phone, if I want one. I also opened a bank account, which has a zero balance, but will be bulging with Won on October 10. I authorized a charge of about $4.40 a year, which will get me a Visa check card. (Highway robbery, I know.)

Gale, who lives in the dorm, told me we get CNN here, which would be a big deal for me, as I feel completely cut off from the news at home. I hoped to even get to watch the debates. But apparently central Daegu is on a different cable system from the one I get on the east side; I get the Discovery Channel instead. It's the only purely English-language channel I get; I still want CNN.

It's very chilly and windy today, and I only have the one cardigan and no coat. I was really excited for thirty seconds: I found a lovely jacket that fits me at the outdoor store across the street from the school. It had many zippers. It was GoreTex. It cost four hundred bucks.

I don't really need a jacket.

I met an American soldier at the track meet; he confirmed what I had guessed, that there are stores near the army garrison here that carry larger sizes for the Americans. Failing that, Ray says there's a Russian store by the beach in Busan, a mere three-hour round trip by bullet train. I think I'll check here first.

Despite my whining, though, things are looking up: I am still getting more and more and more high-level students, and I've learned to say "Chaeshik juuija imnida" ("I'm a vegetarian"), which will make me much more confident in going to new restaurants.

Besides, the Mets were on tv, live, this morning, and they won in a dramatic finish. So all is well, for the moment, in the world.

Spotted on the street...

...a teenager in a t-shirt bearing the Dallas Cowboys' logo from the early sixties: a goofy-looking cowboy, wearing a Dallas helmet, galloping on a goofier-looking horse.

Under the picture, one word: NEWYORK.

Eanglish

In exactly a week here, I’ve never seen anyone wearing clothing with Korean characters on it. T-shirts with English writing, however, are wildly popular. As they are on storefront signs, the slogans may be perfectly correct, not quite there, or completely wacko. A lot of the time, it doesn’t seem to matter what the English words mean, although they often attempt to say something positive and happy. I guess the wearer may not know what the shirt is trying to say. I’m calling the botched attempts KorEanglish, or Eanglish.

Here are the first-week Eanglish t-shirt medals:

Bronze: “WISN IS CHARMINGLY DISORDERED” (Hard to argue with that.)

Silver: A picture of a cute teddy bear wearing round-rimmed glasses, a shirt with the name “Radar” on it, and a khaki watch cap that says “4077th MASK”. (Extra points for a Korean kid wearing a M*A*S*H shirt.)

Gold: “LEAVE OUT YOUR DEAD. BE HAPPY” (Okay.)

Oh, and I don’t have a good ending for this post, so I’ll just throw this in, because I keep forgetting to mention it: Pizza Bingo, the storefront I mentioned several days ago, makes really good pizza. Here are three things I didn’t expect: the pizza comes in a box tied with a white ribbon; the veggie pizza has corn on it; and the pizza comes with a little plastic tub like Papa John’s buttery sauce: you open it up and what do you find? Sweet pickle chips.

…and just to tie it into the Eanglish theme, the box has a picture of a sunflower and says “LIKE A FLOWER! Well-being Pizza Bingo”.