Dear Christmas

Once again I find myself apologizing for my complete lack of discipline in making regular posts here. Really, sorry! I always intend to, but then things get in the way. The past few months have been a bit rough, with school getting busier, a few medical issues and trips to the hospital (nothing serious, I'm fine!) and other such nuisances.

But this post is not for complaints! No! This post is about Christmas, and especially about a project that has become very near my heart that I want to share with everyone.

A few months ago I joined up with a few other teachers here to do some fundraising for a nearby orphanage. Liz (from Australia) and Mary (from the USA) had held a few events over the past year, and decided they wanted to make a more formal organization/club/group to hold regular events and be able to keep the work going. So, we jumped right in. A newer bar in our area has been trying to make a name for itself, especially with the foreigner community, and they immediately jumped at the chance to work with us. From the start, they have offered us the bar (called For Foreigners) to use as a venue for any event, at any time, and are right there to help with anything we need. We have had dance parties, movie nights, and raffles, all in the name of charity, and all made possible because of the generosity of the owners and staff of For Foreigners.

Let me give a little bit of background and information about the orphanage:

The orphanage is located in the rural town of Goseong. It has been run by the same family for something like 50 years, and is currently home to 38 children with ages ranging from 2 years old to 20 years old. In fact, it is one of the only orphanages in Korea that sponsors their kids all the way through college!

A photo of the orphanage from when it first opened

Most of the children are not "orphans" in what most people would consider the standard definition of the word, in that their parents are not deceased. Unfortunately, Korea has no child-support laws or system in place, which means that when there is a divorce, the husband can turn the ex-wife and children out of the house with no legal repurcussions, and no longer has to be responsible for any part of their well-being. Since most women here 1) marry young, and 2) don't work after marriage, they cannot find jobs on their own, and end up homeless and unable to care for their children. In other situations, the children end up at the orphanage because of child abuse or because they are simply left there on the doorstep.

Korea (as far as I know) doesn't have a foster care system, and there really isn't any adoption inside the country. A few orphanages up in the capitol city of Seoul adopt Korean children abroad (think Angelina Jolie and Katherine Heigl), but that's pretty rare as well. As a result, the orphanage is where these children live. This is their home, and this is their family.

For Christmas, we decided to do something different than just holding an event and donating the money raised. Instead, we wanted to get as many of our friends personally involved as possible. We posted a list on Facebook of the names of all the children at the orphanage, and asked our friends to choose a child to sponsor for Christmas by buying them a gift. Within 10 hours, every child on the list was claimed! Friends that didn't get a child donated general gifts that the whole orphanage could use, or donated money so we could buy blankets, towels, and pillows. It was a spectacular outpouring of generosity from our foreigner community here in Changwon.

The pile of presents took up all the room in my apartment!

On Saturday (December 18th) we packed the van to capacity and headed off to the orphanage. The last time we went, we gave the orphanage over $1,000 that we had raised through several different events. They used that money to buy and install a heating and cooling system for the boys dorm.

boys in their dorm room

the orphanage director shows us the new heating/cooling system

It was time for presents! Many of the children saw us drive up in the van, and when they saw all the presents inside, they got a little bit excited... but still remained patient until we could get everything inside and were ready to start opening.

excited for presents!

can we start yet?

We started with the younger kids, and handed out the presents which everyone had marked with their child's name. Each child was so excited to hear their name and come claim their gift!

After all the gifts had been handed out, the opening began. The little ones needed help, but in general it was gleeful chaos as the children happily tore into their presents.


It wasn't just the excitement of these children that was so wonderful to see, but their generosity astounded me as well. As they opened their presents, they passed things around, shared with the others, and appreciated their friends' gifts as well. I saw no jealousy, no quarreling, and no selfishness. It was a beautiful Christmas sight!


We had wrapped up the towels and blankets for the directors of the orphanage, as well as gave them some gifts of their own. These two are truly wonderful people. The way they talk about and interact with the children, you can see that they really love these kids like family. They are fantastic people who donate everything to providing a life for these children. If anyone deserves some Christmas, it's these two.

"Wow! Lunch meat!"

It was an absolutely beautiful day, made possible by so much Christmas spirit and generosity. We are so proud and thankful to the foreigner community in Changwon for supporting us and being so excited to participate in making a wonderful Christmas for these children. We are incredibly grateful for For Foreigner's bar, not just for allowing us the use of their bar as a venue, but also for their unbelievable generosity in donating not only 20% of the drink profits from the events, but an extra $100 out of pocket to help buy blankets and towels for the orphanage!

So, all in all:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

If you are interested in donating anything or participating in anyway, don't hesitate to shoot me an email for details on how you can help!

Dear Korean Vacations and Escapades (Part III: Jisan Valley Rock Festival)

When you think of places connected with music scenes, Korea isn't exactly a country that probably tops that list. If you know anything at all about Korea and music, it's probably K-pop or some singer like Rain. And when it comes down to it, Koreans take their K-pop (Korean pop music) very seriously, even if no one else does. Most of the time, if you're not hearing one of the homegrown Korean bands or singers, you hear whatever is popular in America right now. This unfortunately means having students attempting to sing along to the likes of Ke$ha (and while I appreciate their efforts to speak English, I don't think the phrase "brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack" will get them that far in the world...) or asking me to tell them about Justin Bieber ("... I thought that was a girl?" "Teacher, NO!!")

A few months ago, however, there was a 3 day rock music festival held at a ski resort near Seoul. A bunch of my friends were going, so I figured that since I didn't really have anything better to do (it was part of my vacation time) and since I liked music, I might as well go along. Along with some Korean bands, random DJs, and other bands I had never heard of, the line-up was actually pretty good:

(These are the bands that I recognized, so I will assume they are the most famous and therefore worth mentioning)

Friday: Belle and Sebastion, Vampire Weekend, Massive Attack
Saturday: Mutemath, Pet Shop Boys
Sunday: Corinne Bailey Rae, Third Eye Blind, Muse

As I was just coming back from my trip to Jeju Island, I got there late on Friday evening, so I missed seeing Belle and Sebastion and Vampire Weekend. I did, however, arrive right before Massive Attack started, and I'm definitely glad I did, because they were absolutely amazing.

Massive Attack

Having reconnected with my friends, we explored the grounds a little. Massive Attack had played at the main stage, but there were 3 other stages set up for the smaller acts. At one stage the line-up was completely Korean coverbands, of which we saw over the course of the weekend ZZtop (with fake felt beards), The Tatles (Beatles coverband), The Dunch Boys (Beach Boys coverband), a Bob Marley cover who was actually very good, and The Deftunes (Deftones coverband).

Another stage was for smaller acts, which was where Corinne Bailey Rae played, and the final stage was for DJing and Electronic music. All around the area there were tents for food and alchohol (mostly for alchohol) and other vendors selling random stuff or promoting companies and such. All around the outskirts were areas for tents and camping.

Some of our friends had reserved tents and camping spots, and some had booked hotel rooms back in town, but we hadn't had the foresight to book anything in advance, figuring we'd just find something when we got there. Since the partying went far into the night, this something turned out to be a nice little patch of grass on the field with my backpack as a pillow and my towel as a blanket. Since the weather was nice and summery, it wasn't too bad, and I certainly wasn't alone in finding a random place on the field to sleep on.

THIS IS NOT ME
but it might as well have been...

The next day was spent wandering with different groups of friends, either casually relaxing by some food tent or other, or lazing by the totally awesome pool they had erected just for the event. The pool was awesome. It was right under one of the chairlifts, and it was HUGE. They had 5 different inflatable waterslides, as well as lots of cool floaty things in the pool to play with. Since the weather was super nice and sunny, we spent a good deal of time just relaxing poolside.

Pool. Notice the chairlift in the background.

In the evening, the bands started up. Unfortunately, Saturday's line-up was pretty lame. None of the bands were particularly impressive, and the headliner, Pet Shop Boys, was pretty horrifying. The Koreans loved them, but no one in my group of friends was particularly impressed. The music was simple, and extremely repetitive, and the performance was more of a modern art performance piece than anything else, with random dancers with boxes on their heads marching around the stage in brightly colored unitards. Very strange, and not the kind of thing that meshes well with my musical interests.

After a disappointing night of music, we ended up by the fire show, which totally made up for the lack of excitement in the night's performances:

We stayed there for quite a while, enjoying the spectacle and relaxing with the drum beats, until finally it was time again to find a quiet piece of lawn on which to curl up under my towel and catch a few hours of sleep.

By Sunday, everyone was pretty gross. No one had showered in several days, we'd all been sleepin in tents or wherever we ended up, and as I had already come from a week of traveling, I had been out of clean clothes for quite some time. As we were all in the same boat, however, no one really minded, and we just counted another swim in the pool as shower enough.

The last night of bands was definitely worth staying for. Third Eye Blind was fun. Corinne Bailey Rae was sweet and adorable, and played beautifully. Muse was exciting and energetic. By far the best evening of the week.

Some people left that night, right after Muse had finished playing, but we soldiered on another night, this time in a hotel that had been booked an extra night by some friends and was now fortunately vacant for us, and finally headed home the next morning, sweaty, smelly, and extremely happy.

Next time: Taiwan (Part I)!

Dear Korean Vacations and Escapades (Part II: Jeju Island)

Being a foreigner in Korea is kind of like being a 5 year old at a playground. You go to the playground, and you don't know any of the other kids, but it doesn't matter because you're all 5 years old and you all just want to play, and that's all you need to be friends. That's how Korea is. When you see another foreigner, you automatically share a common bond. It's really easy to make friends this way, and conversation is made easy through shared experience: "How long have you been here?" "What's your school like?" "Have you eaten...?" "Have you been to...?" "Isn't Korea weird because of...?"

As a foreigner, you can make friends wherever you go. And not just with other foreigners either. Koreans are often eager to practice their English and make a foreign friend to show off to others. Koreans love boasting about Korea to foreigners, and love hearing Korea praised in return. They like impressing us, and will go to great lengths to do it, often to the benefit of us travelers.

Several months ago, at the beginning of my week and a half vacation in July, I went to the nearby city of Busan with some friends. Busan is the 2nd biggest city in Korea, and only about a 40 minute bus ride from Changwon. It also has some really nice beaches, so we actually go there quite often. While we were there, a friend of a friend had come down from Seoul to hang with us. In conversation, she mentioned she was going to Jeju Island the next day, as it was the start of her vacation week.

Jeju Island is like the Korean version of Hawaii. Sort of. It's off the south of Korea, so it's climate is a bit warmer, and as it is an island, it has a lot of beaches. It's a popular tourist spot for Koreans, and a lot of people go there for honeymoons and such. I'd heard a lot about it from my co-teachers and other Koreans, and what I had heard had piqued my interest.

Despite only having known Nicki a few hours, we decided that since I was also beginning my vacation week, and hadn't really made any plans, that I should go along with her. The plan was made. We would take the ferry the next evening and spend the week in Jeju Island.

Let me explain about the ferry: it took 11 hours. That's almost as long as my flight over here. We were doing it overnight, so we figured we could sleep through it. But here's the other thing about Korean ferries: there's no seats. At least, if you pay for the cheapest ticket, there's no seats. It's just a big room where you stake out a spot and use your elbows and vicious glares to keep others from invading your space on the floor. The Koreans had come prepared with blankets, pillows, and all the accoutrements necessary for a good solid picnic. We, on the otherhand, had only our backpacks and towels that we had packed. It was a long night to say the least.

Early the next morning we went out on deck to catch our first glimpse of Jeju Island, just as the sun was rising:

tah dah!

Over the island hovered ominous clouds, threatening our plans of tanning-filled days lying on sun drenched beaches. But as the sun rose higher, the clouds began to break. A little.

Sunrise from the ferry

It was admittedly cloudy that first day, but we still decided to make the most of it, and after checking into the cheapest love hotel* we could find in town, we headed off to the beach.

*For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of love hotels, let me now explain. Love hotels are all over Korea. They are just what they sound like: hotels specifically for the purpose of sexual activity. Rooms are generally rented by the night, and come with wonderful freebies like condoms and pornography channels on the tv. However, they are also generally extremely inexpensive. Renting a room costs about 20,000-40,000 won per night (about $18-$36) which when you split between 2 people (or 5 if you're in a group that doesn't mind sleeping on the floor) is pretty darn cheap for a bed and a place to store your stuff during the day. Since they are literally EVERYWHERE in Korea, are much cheaper than regular hotels, and afford more privacy than a hostel dorm, they are very popular amongst travelers looking to stay on a budget. Most of the time they are actually pretty clean and nicely kept... most of the time...

Anyway, back to the beaches:

Beach #1: note the umbrella

Day 1 was a little rainy, but that didn't stop us from getting our beach on. We headed out with our swimwear and beach towels, picked a random beach from the tourist map, and hopped on what we hoped was the right bus to get us there. Because of the rain, we had the beach pretty much to ourselves, and found a nice little spot surrounded by cool-looking volcanic rocks to store our stuff. We spent the rest of the day avoiding the coast guard and sneaking little swims into the ocean (the coast guard didn't want us swimming because of the "storm", but we are rebels and we laugh in the face of danger! and the water only came up to our waists).

The next day was a bit cloudy in the morning, but we decided to try out some other beaches. After checking out of our love motel we headed to a beach we had been told had black sand because of the volcanic something or other. This is what we found:

Beach #2: that is an old woman half buried in the sand

The second beach did indeed have darker sand than the previous beach, but it wasn't exactly what you might think of as "black." The only other people on the beach were a bunch of old ajumas (little old ladies) who had dug long trenches in the sand. We were standing around wondering what exactly these trenches were for-- perhaps some kind of fishing or clam collecting when the tide rose?-- when one of the ajumas lay down in one and ceremoniously began to bury herself in the sand. Huh? Had we stumbled across some sort of ajuma burial ground, like the fabled elephant graveyards where the old and sick elephants go to die?

(I later found out that older Korean women believe that burying themselves in the sand has spa-like health properties where the heat from the sun and the sand mix together to make you sweat out all the toxins in your body or something like that...)

A little freaked, we decided to move on. Further down on the bus line, this was our next stop:

NOW we're talking beaches! The clouds had all cleared away, the sun was beating down, and we had found a brilliant beach with pristine waters and glowing white sand! We quickly scouted out a cheap hotel, and were camped there on that beach for the next few days, where despite the constant application of sunscreen I quickly turned a luminous shade of red. So worth it.

beautiful beachy sunset

We did do some other touristy things while we were on Jeju Island, including a visit to Loveland.

WARNING! THE FOLLOWING PICTURES INVOLVE EROTIC SCULPTURE, SO IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE GENITALIA OR OTHER EXPLICIT IMAGES, DON'T READ ANY FURTHER! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Loveland is an erotica theme park. The brainchild of some art students from a university in Seoul, Loveland displays sculpture from different Korean artists all depiciting some form of genitalia, erotica, and sexual displays. Instead of a gift shop, they had an adult toy shop.

Compared to America or other western countries, Korea is pretty repressed sexually. Couples are not supposed to show affection in public, it is completely unacceptable for people to live together before marriage, sex is a totally off-limit subject, and homosexuality does not exist (it's genetically impossible for Koreans! or so I have been told many times, by Koreans). Taking this into account, Loveland is pretty extraordinary. Here is a completely open artistic discussion of sex and sexuality, which Nicki and I found pretty fun and interesting.

Again, the following pictures are fairly inappropriate, but are intended to be looked at as art, and not in a pornagraphic manner:

The whole park was filled with sculpture such as this, and we spent quite a while walking around and looking at all the different ways which artists had chosen to... express themselves...

Next time: Jisan Valley Rock Festival!