TV Casualty Casualty

Just a quick note to anyone that still reads this thing that as of now TV Casualty will be going into hibernation. Having gotten over my yearly attempt at fiction (see Busan 2060) i'm back on the blogwagon, moving operations over to my new food blog at http://www.streetfoody.blogspot.com.

Hope to see you there (via google analytics of course!)

Busan 2060

Jake Stetson stared blankly at the pile of reports on the table of his Jangsan studio apartment and sighed. Wearily, he opened the first book:

“Teacher is stupid and me is kill Teacher”

Typical, he thought, and was just about to score out the “is” when he remembered the most recent communiqué from the Ministry of Education; “Is,” it said, was now an acceptable marker for either past, present or future tense, (“I” had surrendered a long time ago.) Jake blithely wondered whether this particular entry was a confession or a threat but left the sentence untouched. Looking out the window onto the greying expanse of Jangsan Old Town, Jake allowed himself a rare moment’s contemplation. Where, he thought, did it all go wrong?

There’d been struggles in the past, but Jake had always thought the Foreigners had won. None of these were clearer in Jake’s mind than the push for citizenship that had galvanised the foreign community in the 20s and resulted in the Universal Franchise Act of 2028. Since then his stake in society had grown while his pay packet had shrunk; the “price of dignity” he’d once convinced a room full of foreigners in the run up to the Bill. Looking around the sparse studio apartment he’d rented for the past decade, he wondered now whether they’d gotten their moneys worth.

When he had arrived in Korea things had been different. In those days people still stared at you when you walked down the street, now Jake reckoned they just looked through you. Work back then had been a joke too. Before ME centralised Hagwon curriculum and management, foreign teachers could almost get away with murder. Gone were the days when a teacher could slump into class still reeking of the night before and fling a worksheet at the students. Now that everything was rigorously standardised, monitored and evaluated, it had gotten so you couldn’t blow your nose in a Hagwon without someone reporting it.

Oh but how he had ranted and raved back then! The pointing, the misunderstandings, the disorganisation – the slightest thing would set him off! Many times he felt like packing it all in and heading home to some sort of normality. But still Jake remained. The truth was, back then Jake felt like he was a pioneer with the world at his feet, a renegade who’d had had enough of society and checked out. He’d found a place where he could live like a king and under his own set of rules. Looking back, Jake realised he’d been something of an idealist.

“Use this place before it uses you” someone had once told him. At the time he’d dismissed it as cynical, but now the words kept coming back more and more. He’d spent the last four decades with his shoulder to a wheel that had been spinning in the opposite direction and his fire was gone. He was beginning to think he might just have wasted it on the wrong thing.

Jake’s eyes wandered over the smoggy Busan skyline. Since the time he’d lived there that same skyline had danced up and down like the bars on an old fashioned graphic equaliser, and still showed no signs of reaching any state of permanence. It was like the city itself was mocking his own entrenchment and Jake wasn’t sure he could live through another reinvention. Although he occasionally thought about going home, there was no guarantee he would get a job and it seemed pointless to return at a time when people were clambering over each other to get away. If the East was the “new West,” where did that leave someone like him?

Perhaps, Jake thought, it was time to teach somewhere new. Africa was opening up in ways he never could have imagined in his youth and seemed like the perfect place to recapture some of the frontier spirit. Sure, it might be a little hard at first but he had moved before and made it work, why shouldn’t he be able to do it again?

So, as he had done every couple of years for the last decade or so, Jake opened up a clean page in his notepad, swapped the reports for the heavy book on top of the wardrobe and opened it up at the first page.

Now, he thought, if I can only get my Chinese up to scratch.

Finishy

Mountain Goat

Every so often the elements conspire to throw a meal at you that surpasses mere mastication and enters the realm of the truly memorable. Few and far between, these meals usually rely as much on location, company and conversation as they do on food, and can be elusive prey even for the ever-conscious food freak.

On Saturday however, the planets were definitely aligned as a few friends and I ventured into the mountains at the back of our apartment building, ostensibly to get some exercise, but really to do a little good old-fashioned Saturday afternoon eating and drinking. With this in mind our real goal for the day was a goat restaurant by one nestled by one of the old gates that used to guard a fortress from the Japanese, but now serve as a focal point for some of the many hiking trails that criss-cross the hills like ancient pig runs.

As anyone who has ever done any hiking in Korea will attest, it can be a somewhat different experience to the activity we have gotten used to in the West. Instead, hiking in Korea generally involves a lot of Soju, some food and plenty of good cheer, often accompanied by a soundtrack of jangly Korean pseudo-folk music from a backpack-mounted Ghetto Blaster. This colourful tribe of Teflon-suited hikies can get overexcited at the sight of a foreigner, making any hiking experience more like a visit to a geriatric nightclub than a quiet walk in the woods.

Our journey took us upwards through conifer and deciduous forest until Busan was only a distant hum below us, exposing a cityscape framed by the white sails of Gwangli bridge to the South and the sprawling tributaries and flatland of the _ river f to the North. As expected the hiking fraternity was out in force, by and large good natured and friendly, with the exception of one gentleman who saw fit to admonish a female member of our party for smoking a cigarette in public!

We forged ahead nevertheless and it was with creeping hunger and dwindling Soju that we finally arrived at the goat restaurant, a modest collection of bungalow-sized buildings housing a number of sparsely decorated private rooms. We settled into one of these and waited for our food to arrive.

This being Korea it didn’t take long and the table was soon crowded with several enticing banchan and accompanying condiments. Among these a salad of fresh crisp lettuce leaf dressed in a spicy chilli and garlic oil made rich pickings and a bowl of al-dente sweet potato also stood out. On this occasion the ubiquitous Kimchi was a touch too fermented for my taste, but was highly appreciated by a few of my companions. Elsewhere on the table a paejon (seafood pancake) was light and eggy, concealing springy pieces of octopus tentacle and reedy spring onions – the type of dish soy sauce was made for.

Before long however, the goat arrived and things began to get serious. Still smoking from the grill outside, the meat retained all the aroma and appearance of having just been seared to perfection, betraying just enough of the heat of the grill to be blackening and smoky in parts whilst remaining tender in all the right places. Cut up into bite-sized pieces it was excellent wrapped in sesame leaf and smeared with Samjung, (red chilli paste) but more often than not I found myself returning to eat it just as it was: musky, flavoursome, glorious and goaty. For refreshment a few bowls of mountain Dong Dong Ju, (a type of home brewed rice wine with a dry, almost savory taste) proved more than adequate and the perfect accompaniment.

By the time we’d finished it was dark and our hostess kindly called us a taxi. As we snaked our way back down the mountain towards the bright lights of Busan, I looked up at the stars and gave thanks to the Gods of good food, company and happiness. For it doesn’t get much better than this.

Kimchi

Last weekend I turned a corner in my Korean food experience: I enjoyed Kimchi. I’ve been moving towards this for a while, but it took a Lunar New Year trip to Gwanju (“the rice bowl of Korea”) to seal my fate.

For the uninitiated, Kimchi is pickled cabbage made with chili and garlic that comes as part of the banchan or side dishes that complement every Korean meal. Around 1.5 million tones of the stuff is consumed here each year, and it forms an unavoidable part of the Korean diet.

Kimchi is more than a side dish however, it is the focus of some of the most bizarre national pride I’ve ever witnessed. I’m currently involved in a running argument with one of my classes who claim that Kimchi is a need as opposed to a want. When I counter that I managed to survive 25 years before I came to Korea they argue that that is because hey are Korean and I am Australian. At the more extreme end of the spectrum, when a girl posted a video on you tube in mentioning that she didn’t like Kimchi, she became the subject of a hate campaign that even a few nation newspapers weren’t above weighing in on.

So what’s the fuss all about? Pungent and fiery, Kimchi seems to leave most newcomers (including me) gagging for water and swearing away from the stuff. That said, there is something about it that creeps up on you. This might have to do with its omnipresence in virtually every eating establishment you care to visit – it's never further than a chopstick away and if your hungry the temptation is there to pick away at it - but the more Korean food I eat the more I become aware of its value as an ingredient: It adds fire to a bowl of soup and livens up a plate of fried rice to no end, and there are so many different varieties the chances are (as I did in Gwanju) sooner or later you’ll hit on one you like.

When I leave Korea for good I doubt I’ll miss Kimchi that much, but while I’m here I I can now at least enjoy the ride.

Ouchy!

Last Tuesday night was my birthday, and to mark the occasion we shuffled and coughed our way through the freezing cold to the Novotel Ambassador Hotel on Haeundae Beach. The hotel does a legendary buffet, and having eaten there the week before in the company of our Director and Manager, we were determined to make this visit a little less restrained.


Straddling the seafront like a Neptunian colossus, the Ambassador does a fine trade as Haeundae’s premier Hotel complex and rocking up in my donkey jacket and trainers, I couldn’t help but feel the ominous onset of the Bums Rush. If being a foreigner in Korea means anything however, it’s your innate inapproachability - I probably could have set fire to the curtains and got away with nothing more than a tight grin and a bow. Luckily though, I was here to eat, and for 49 chun a pop (roughly 25 quid) including wine you can really get your moneys worth.


Meaty king crab legs, mussels, prawns, crayfish and a considerable array of raw fish and sushi made for an excellent appetiser, followed soon after by an attack on the mains counter. A number of home favorites were represented here, including beef stew, baked fish, and cauliflower cheese. Needless to say each item had a welcome place at my table and as if there wasn’t enough on our plates, we had a few lamb chops, steaks, and Bay Lobsters cooked to order.




The shellfish was excellent. Served cold (with the exception of the Bay Lobster) it was plain, fresh and delicious. The mains displayed a similar degree of competence, and although the cauliflower was a little overdone and some of the dishes could have been a degree or two warmer, they made for an outstanding midpoint nonetheless. It was in the cooked-to-order selection, however, that the chef’s skill was most obvious. The Bay Lobsters were plump and sweet, giving up a surprising amount of flesh from their squat tails. The lamb and steak meanwhile, were cooked with the kind of care and precision deserving of a quality piece of meat; slightly charred on the outside, yielding to a medium rare pink in the middle.


The only problem we experienced was with timing. We only managed to get a table at 8pm, two hours before closing, and while a more relaxed meal might have involved more of an eat – rest – eat regime, time constraints meant that a quicker pace was required and i unfortunately didn't manage dessert, preferring instead to go for another pass at the savories.


Korean food is great, but when you need an injection of western flavour, you can do a lot worse than the Ambassador.

Dog Day Afternoon

On Saturday Sarah and I took advantage of a spectacular clear and crisp (and cold) afternoon to go explore a side of Korea we’d heard much about but had yet to see for ourselves. The practice of eating dog meat is one which has earned Korea a considerable amount of infamy in the West and with Busan’s largest dog market only four stops from our apartment, it was something we couldn’t resist seeing for ourselves.

Gupo market lies a short walk from Deokcheon subway station, the other side of the hill from our neighbourhood in an area we’ve up until recently left largely unexplored. This side of the mountain things seem to get a little less polished than the downtown and beachside areas, with the city gradually giving way to rice paddies and other agricultural land the further north you go. The market itself is a sprawling maze of alleyways and backstreets where everything from live frogs to house slippers fill the buckets, tanks and tables of the work-beaten market ajummas.

While our original plan had been to find something to eat before hitting the dog market, after only a few minutes walking the cawing of chickens heralded the onset of the livestock section and with it a heavy dose of culture shock. Rabbits, chickens, ducks, geese and black goats were all on offer but while the array of live animals was astounding, as we’d expected it was the dogs themselves that proved the most striking.

They were large, reasonably young looking animals, confined seven or eight to a cage and resembling a cross between a wolf and a labrador. They looked surprisingly domestic, and for the entire time we were there remained eerily silent. Behind the cages, dog carcasses lay either splayed and ready to be butchered or (more unrecognisably) hanging from hooks and laid out on meat counters.

Sarah and I were unsure about whether we’d actually eat dog soup, but after seeing the dogs we decided to pass. I don’t have any qualms per se about the practice, providing everything is done humanely (though by the looks of it this may not be the case,) but the truth is I like them too much to eat them myself. There is something dopey, faithful and reassuring about dogs and to turn on them like that would just seem like a betrayal

A few observations...

I’ve been in the Hermit Kingdom for four months now (over 1% of my life) so I think I’m entitled to make a few spurious and unsubstantiated observations about its People and Culture.

First off, Korea is the most ethnically homogenous place I’ve ever been in my life. Apart from a handful of Indians, some Filipinos and of course the English teaching contingent, there are literally no non-Koreans here. This ethnic homogeneity (along with centuries getting bounced between China and Japan) as such has also engendered a fierce nationalism (and occasional racism) that seems to become apparent from about age seven upwards. My first experience of this was during the Summer Olympics, many of my students found it impossible that I could be supporting Ireland and Korea, preferring things to be more racially defined.

Japan is not in favour. One sure way of pissing off a bunch of Koreans is by telling them that Dodko is Japanese. This is a small group of rocks between Korea and Japan that the Japanese recently claimed was disputed territory in one of their school text books. While the rest of the world didn’t register, almost every man, woman and child in Korea became instantly incensed. This of course goes back to Japan’s raping of the peninsula over many years but the depth of feeling is pretty scary. Teenagers who should be lurking around ally ways smoking are instead pounding the street convincing the 0.0001% of Koreans who aren’t bothered. I was assailed in Seomyeon by one such youth and it’s not an exaggeration to say she was literally foaming at the mouth!

There is virtually no crime here (unless you count corruption) and Busan in particular is incredibly safe. This is why it is not uncommon to see power tools lying outside building sites that have been closed for the night and why Sarah and I recently saw a policeman sitting in another’s lap. As such, I fear some of my kindergarteners are going to take this place apart when they come of age but by that stage I’ll be long gone (from Korea.)

Appearance trumps everything. This is perhaps the strongest impression I have gathered in the last four months here and is the reason why the Hagwon system we are currently labouring under is so broken. Education is important, but the appearance of an education is more so. Korean kids spend the vast majority of their time in some educational establishment or other, often until late at night and during the weekend, but seem no more intelligent than the average British, Irish or North American. It is also the reason why in a few weeks time Sarah and I are set to grace the stage (again) to perform a “Christmas Dance” for the new mothers and children. This is not only demeaning, but is also apparently the benchmark by which all parents will judge our suitability to teach their little darlings. Throw in the fact that later in the year we are due to spend an entire month rehearsing a single class for the benefit of the parents and its not hard to feel like we are part of some gigantic propaganda machine. Goebbals would have been impressed.

Work is often a case of Quantity over Quality. Aside from 10 public holidays a year, the Koreans (in our school at least) can’t take any holidays. Hagwons are petrified that if they shut their doors for a full week the parents will send their kids elsewhere and for this reason school holidays are strictly restricted. Neither can they take personal holidays as no-one seems to have realised that with a little downtime productivity might just increase and even getting sick comes close to a fireable offence. Some of the Kindergarten teachers in our school stay long after we leave at 6:30, despite the fact that most of the under sevens leave at 2:30pm (what they actually do in these intervening hours is not immediately apparent.)

For all the reasons mentioned above, workers rights are non-existent and Confuscus has a lot to answer for. He may have scored a goal by advocating the use of chopsticks but the deference to authority here is frightening. I’m all in favour of giving up my seat to and old person on the subway but more often than not this “respect” seems to lead to downright exploitation. Old over young and rich over poor but I’m not trying to rewrite the Communist Manifesto or anything so I’ll leave it at that.

Koreans’ are by and large a warm and generous bunch. Often if standing on the bus with a few bags of shopping someone will wordlessly unburden your load, and the other day when I went to pick up my trousers from the tailors he refused payment, claiming it was only a small repair and I could pay next time. Things like this tend to brighten my day and the same behaviour in the UK would probably warrant a smack on the head.

That does it for my observations for now – I may very well return to this topic in another four months time and recant everything I’ve said but such is the nature of experience.

My Special Place

Years down the line a psychiatrist may well ask me to visualise my special place and when he does, I’ll probably be thinking of Jagalchi Fish Market. Centered around a huge sail-like building in Busan Port that evokes the Sydney Opera House, Jagalchi is billed as the largest fish market in Korea, and its easy to see why. Covering an area roughly 5000 square metres, a staggering amount of sealife passes through this place seven days a week, and I like nothing better than to wander the aisles gaping the ocean’s harvest in all its weirdness.

As you would expect, the market plays host to an abundance of fresh fish, crabs and crustaceans (much of it live) ranging from the familiar to the downright freakish; Monster King Crabs clamber over each other in expansive tanks waiting for the drop of the sellers net, while four-foot long Octopi stare back at you with their black dead eyes. I recently saw a bucket of turtles here, paddling around happily unaware of their surroundings and have even heard that whale meat is available, though have yet to see any myself.

However, while its fun to watch, the best of Jagalchi is in the eating and in this respect a number of options are on offer. An as yet untried (but no less appealing) one is right inside the market itself, where anything you buy can be gutted, cleaned and cooked for a few chun and enjoyed in an upstairs eating section. In addition to this, dozens of restaurants, tents and eating places line the market fringes, all serving up the day’s catch at incredibly attractive prices.

I recently ducked into one of the latter on an overcast Saturday afternoon, enticed by the fish grilling outside and the busy trade within. After asking in bungled Korean for a bowl of jiggae (a spicy soup eaten with rice,) there soon arrived at my table a whole grilled fish (head eyes, fins and all) a bowl of jiggae and a bowl of rice. The fish turned out to be a happy accident, an abundance of flaky white flesh under crispy golden skin coming apart easily underneath my chopsticks. Delicious on its own, the bowl of dipping soy sauce that arrived with the banchan (side dishes) added an extra, previously untried dimension.

For its part the jiggae held its own; the rich spicy broth complemented with green onion, beansprouts and bits and pieces of sea creatures I don’t know the English for let alone the Korean. The biggest surprise however was the chocolate coloured tofu bobbing around amongst the seafood. This chunky, textured addition was nothing like the slimy, watery meat substitute defended so vigourously by vegetarians in the west, instead adding body and substance to the bowl.

After paying up (the whole thing came to less than £3) and leaving with a hearty “chal mokessayo!” I returned to the madness in search of the night’s dinner (a pair of Mud Crabs as it turned out) and gape a little more.

This is what Saturday afternoons were made for.

Bi Bim Bap - a loopa

Part of the fun of Korean food is how easily the names can be punned into western song titles. I’ve passed many an idle hour smiling to myself about the likes of Kim-bop, Galbi there and my personal favourite, Getting jiggae with it. However, while puns are all very well, most of the fun remains in the eating of the stuff and this is no less true of the quiet man of Korean cuisine, Bi Bim Bap.

The perfect way to regain some of that strength after going ten rounds with the Kindergarteners, Bi Bim Bap dishes all follow a variation on a basic set-up of rice, julienned vegetables, a fried egg, dried sea weed and sesame seeds. If you opt to go dol sot (which I do, always) then the whole thing arrives in a sizzling bowl adding a bit of pizzazz to the whole arrangement. Into this tumultuous cauldron go a few spoonfuls of gloopy, firey chilli paste to taste, after which it’s ready to go.

With Bi Bim Bap you’ve gotta work for your supper, giving everything a good mix to evenly distributed the various parts. The result is a mighty fine bowl of food. The rice, a staple of the Korean diet is transformed by the chilli paste and sea weed, while the egg provides an indispensible protein fix. While I mostly eat this basic version of Bi Bim Bap at the diner beside our school at lunch times, we will occasionally go to a special Bi Bim Bap restaurant for dinner, where a number of variations are on offer. My personal favourite is an extra spicy concoction that includes a liberal amount of tender, shredded pork and a bowl of mussel soup on the side.

I originally dismissed this unprepossessing bowl of rice and vegetables as merely a healthier (and as such less interesting) alternative to whatever dead animal I was in the process of shovelling onto my plate, but I am fast finding out that, as with a lot of Korean Food, there is more, much more.

Crunch King

Up until quite recently I thought the only crunch I was going to experience in Korea was the one that sits atop the gloriously chocolately “Crunch King,” (pictured) a Cornetto type ice-cream that tastes even better than it sounds.

However, things changed dramatically last month when I discovered I was thirty pounds down on my monthly cash transfer to my home account.

Since then the Won has been on a (mostly) downward spiral. My first remittance of 1 million won bought me a cool £500 sterling back in August but that same amount now is worth little more than £400. In fact, the currency is so volatile that if I check the exchange rate online before I leave for the bank I’m likely to get a different rate entirely once I get there.

The situation has gotten to the point where I’ve stopped sending back money entirely. Instead, I’ve decided either to keep the money in my Korean account in the hope that things won’t get much worse, or blow all my pay check on a Crunch Kings and electronics. A tough choice and if I know myself (which I think I do) the latter will prevail.

Still, at least Korea has President Lee Myung Bak to steer it through these troubled times, a man whose sole contribution to the global recession debate has been something along the lines of “we must not lose sight of free market economics.”

In this uncertain climate it looks like Sarah and I may have to put our planned trip of “five or sixth months or so” at the end of our contract on ice, having most definitely counted all our chickens before they hatched.

Choco

I’ll never forget the first time I tried chocolate milk. It was New Years Eve 2001 and I was at a festival in the rainforest on Australia’s southern coast. I was on the tail end of a pretty serious bout of food poisoning that had seen the previous two days (one of which was my 19th birthday) either shivering in my tent or chained to one of the festival portaloos, and chocolate milk was the first thing I had ingested that hadn’t come straight out again in some shape or form.

Over the next weeks and months my friend Pete and I (who shared a similar love) became connoisseurs, tasting and grading every variety we encountered as we travelled from Melbourne to Perth in an ultimately fruitless search of work. For us, nothing else equalled the sensation of having just consumed a pint of cold, chocolatey liquid in less than ten seconds, and we started to really push the envelope, at one point drinking four or five a day.

When I returned to Ireland I searched for something of a similar calibre but always in vain. For a long time the only options were either small cartons of Mars or Nesquick “chocolate flavoured” drinks or a big chunky bottle of Yazoo chocolate milkshake, all with obscenely long shelf lives and nothing approaching the boxy aesthetics and cleansing freshness of the Australian varieties. Later, Iceland and Morrissons started to produce their own versions, albeit with tighter use-by dates, but for me these always tasted somewhat synthetic, and packaged in a plastic bottle, just plain wrong. My chocolate milk career had been cut short in its prime.

When I arrived in Korea, however, everything changed. Remarkably, for a country where dairy doesn’t do so well (non-processed cheese is a precious commodity and natural yogurt non-existent) they’ve somehow managed to hit chocolate milk bang square on the head. As in Australia there are numerous varieties, each with their subtleties of taste and individual characters, but after somewhat extensive testing I have settled on a favourite.

At 305ml Cocoa is the largest volume-wise out of those I’ve tried, but this bad boy has got more than just quantity going for it. Silky smooth and ice cold, Cocoa manages to avoid the sweet excesses of its contempories, while still delivering a cool, throat-coating hit. Moreish by nature, it is impossible to drink one of these slowly, and I usually dispense with mine in no more than a few gulps.

The last time I was in London a psychic told me, unsolicited, that I needed to live in a warm climate to be happy. I believed this for a while, now I just think I need access to a good chocolate milk.

Kingdom O'Sullivain

I recently got my medical card from the Korean authorities and was surprised/amused to see this inventive mis-spelling of my name. While it would most likely be prudent to sort this out as soon as possible so as not to delay any organ or blood transfusions in the event that i get hit by a taxi, Kingdom O. Sullivain is just so much cooler than my real name.

Drama Festival

Sarah and I have just enjoyed our Korean TV debut thanks to our participation in the school’s annual drama festival, the self-proclaimed jewel in the crown of the Kids Club Calendar and, for some, the reason behind weeks of hard work and stress.

Held every September, The Kids Club Drama Festival is as much an opportunity for the students to sing and dance in front of their parents as it is for the school to show off their foreign teachers. This year, the presence of a TV crew meant the stakes were particularly high, and the whole month of September was given over to ensuring everything ran smoothly.

The set up is simple; each student must perform a solo song and participate in a class play, as well as take part in a number of other performances designed to demonstrate their firm and improving grasp of the English Language. The fact that they have just spent a month not learning any new English whatsoever doesn’t really come in to it and is pretty indicative of the Hagwon system, where the appearance of learning is almost as important as the learning itself.

Anyway, due to the vagarities of casting or a low estimation of my abilities, I was put in three minor roles, with a total of approximately 8 lines. Sarah on the other hand was given four pretty hefty roles with lots of lines, including Snow White to my Prince – the source of a lot of amusement amongst old and young Koreans alike. Every morning for four weeks we would attend play practice and dutifully chip in our lines, while the Korean Kindegarten teachers slowly exploded with the stress of making 4 – 10 year olds act out a foreign language play with, if not coherence, at least some semblance of continuity.

As the day approached tensions ran high, particularly with regards to some uncertainty over whether we would actually get paid (to inquire about such things in Korea, as we found out, is tantamount to treason) for our efforts. Rehearsals weren’t going well, thanks in no small part to some pretty incoherent scripts, and I was starting to doubt whether it would be pulled off. Thanks to my pretty inconsequential role in things I was able to observe this maelstrom from an emotional distance, but others weren’t quite so lucky. With a huge amount of lines to learn, not to mention a number of song and dance routines, I think it’s fair to say that Sarah was feeling the pressure. After only two bungled rehearsals in the Stalinist Auditorium the stage was set – it was showtime! (sorry.)

The day itself was a bit of a mixed bag. Pissed off as we were about spending our precious Saturday working, the kids excitement was undeniably infectious and the backstage area had a good atmosphere as the teachers paraded their costumes and trundled out onto the stage. Sarah and I were in the first play of the day (Snow White) and I’m not ashamed to admit that it was with trembling legs that I stood in the wings awaiting my cue. When it came (a princely fanfare) I galloped onto the stage to rouse the poisoned Snow White with a concealed, though scandalous, kiss (the kids are still talking about it.) Contrary to my predictions, the day seemed to pass with relatively few hitches and everything appearing to come together, in typical Korean style, at the very last minute.

I’d taken the whole Drama Festival period with a heavy dose of scepticism, but as we were ushered onto stage to mime the final song with the kids (one which we had been given the words to the night before and had never even heard) I began to realise its importance. The mothers were all lined up at the front of the stage throwing their kids flowers, some of them weeping with the emotion of it all (drawing the attention away from the fact that none of us knew the song.). It struck me that this is something that both parents and children (and I) were likely to remember for years to come, and I felt pk to be a part of it.

Dangers and Annoyances

As much as I like Korea there are aspects of this place that make me want to throw myself off suicide rock. One such annoyance is the inability to communicate or handle my own affairs, which makes me not only deaf and dumb but also almost entirely dependent on the kindness of colleagues and strangers.

Take for example last Thursday night, when instead of going to my weekly Korean lesson (I assure you, the irony is not lost) I was forced by prior arrangement with my manager to wait for the cable guy to come and connect our cable TV at 6pm. After waiting for the best part of an hour, imagine my excitement when the intercom unexpectedly rang just before 7.

I danced to the door excitedly but upon opening it was greeted with nothing but an empty hall. With time breathing down my neck, and fear beginning to creep its way into my bones, I ran to the intercom and braced myself for the usual struggle. As expected, the caller didn’t speak a word of English so it was with more frustration than Korean that I tried to intimate that he should come right up and connect my cable. Without any sign of comprehension however, the conversation somehow ended and the line went dead.

“Fuck” I said loudly. I could feel 30 cable TV channels slipping through my fingers and had by now broken into a desperate sweat. I ran out the door and jumped into to the lift in the vain hope that I could catch him outside. Finding no signs of anyone that looked like a cable TV man downstairs, however I ran to the building ajoshi’s hut to see if he could shed a light.

“Ca-be-le Tee-Vee?” I wheezed.

“Anniyo” he replied, and then, producing a large sack, “lice”

I tried to explain that no-one would be sending me a large sack of rice, but it seemed a lot easier to take the sack than to leave it. As such, heavily burdened and sweating even more, I ran back to the apartment lest the cable TV man had shown up in the interval (I am convinced most of my life’s mishaps are the result of the smallest and most unlikely margins of error.)

Needless to say the Cable man never showed. “Oh well,” I thought later that night nevertheless. “Ha ha, I may not have cable but at least I’ve got a new anecdote and a year’s supply of rice, oh Ko-re-a!”

The next day people came and took my rice from me. It’s been a week and I still don’t have cable. I wanted to ask my manager to chase it up but some money I was transferring didn’t end up in the right place and we had to sort that instead. Now the internet’s buggered and I need to get that fixed first. Oh Korea.

Bullets over Busan

This post is really just an excuse to publish the adjoining picture of “Crack Shot” Hogg but as I’m here I may as well give a little back story and imply a few points about Korean health and safety while I’m at it.

Last Saturday, while trying to think of a way to pass a rainy day and blow away the cobwebs of a hangover, The Duchess, our visiting friends Laura and Ross and I settled on the idea of shooting some guns. We had it on good authority that this was both a fun and accessible pursuit in Busan, so it was with itchy fingers and a sense of intrepidation that we made our way to one of city’s indoor firing ranges.

The firing range was located on the second floor of a medium sized tower block just off Haeundae Beach, and after shaking off our brollies we immediately got down to business. A menu of sorts was quickly produced listing both prices and guns (50,000 for a Magnum with 10 bullets and 40, 000 for everything else) and after some careful consideration I decided to go Gangster-style with a Glock, while Ross chose a similar Automatic and the girls opted for a pair of beautiful silver Smith and Wesson Revolvers.

Within minutes we were led into the firing range and the guns were brought out. After one trial run and with the words “Are they really going to let me do this?” rolling about in my head, I then found myself raising the loaded gun and squeezing the trigger. The weapon jolted to one side like a kicking mule, sending a shockwave through my right arm and a spent shell pinging into the ceiling. I looked at the unblemished paper target and then at my guide, who winced a little, before raising the gun and firing again.

I missed the next shot, hit the one after that, missed, then hit the rest. All in all I did ok but I think I can safely assume I’m no marksman. Meanwhile however, unbeknownst to me, a few booths over a deadly talent was being born. The Duch, displaying the steadiness of hand and cold-hearted nerve I always suspected lurked beneath that warm and sunny exterior, was blasting seven shades of shit out of her own paper nemesis. When the smoke cleared she’d bagged an 83% accuracy rate, towering over my paltry 63% and a good 10% higher than the next best shot.

I can see why people like this kind of thing, there is definitely a sense of power involved with having a mini-explosive go off in your hand and the aesthetics are great. However, contrary to the predictions of some, I don’t think I’ll be turning into a gun nut. An Automatic once in a while and a 44 Magnum on my birthday should suffice. The Duchess I fear, may be a different story…

Street Food

There are aspects of Korea that often make it appear to occupy a “third place” between the developed and developing world, and one of these is the prevalence of street food. While such food in the West is largely limited to a few after-hours burger vans or greasy hot-dogs stands, here it often seems like every intersection has something temptingly sizzling away for a couple of chun (1000 won) a piece.

One such culprit is paejon, a potato-based pancake laced with green onions and red chilli that can be found in the old shopping district of Nampodong, next to the “world famous” Jagalchi Fish Market. These start life as a thin doughy batter ladled onto a hotplate where they bubble away for a few minutes before being sliced up and served on a plastic covered plate. Eaten straight off the cart dipped in some of that wonderous dark soy sauce with sesame seeds and chilli, paegon is the perfect way to split up an afternoon spent scouring the markets for bargains without blowing your appetite.

Often found sharing a hotplate with paejon is fried mandu, a light dumpling filled with shredded pork and bean sprouts. These little beauties are a Korean staple and more or less annihilate any negative connotations the word dumpling might conjure up – substantial enough to feel like you’ve eaten but light enough to stop four of five from turning into an ordeal. Mandu can also be found bobbing around in a bowl of Ramyon (noodle soup) in any Korean diner, but I personally prefer them the street way – lip searingly hot and shoulder to shoulder with the proles.

Elsewhere, cups of dried octopus tentacles make an interesting but as yet untried option, while tubular rice cakes in a colon bypassing hot sauce are a Duchess favourite and the type of thing people say puts hairs on your chest. The same hot sauce also comes smeared all over pieces of skewered barbecued chicken (see picture) that are undisputedly good but impossible to eat without getting all over your face.

On the less appetising end of the spectrum, Bondegi (boiled silkworm larvae) make an exotic if gut-wrenching alternative. A hangover from poorer times, these slater–like critters smell and taste pretty much as shitty as you’d expect but seem to enjoy steady business along the beachfronts of the city. Also on the rather-not-rosta is battered sausage on a stick, which has the consistency of spam and wet cardboard and is a singularly greasy and unpleasant experience.
Silkworm and sausage aside, Korean street food has so far been an eye-opening experience.

Standing at a food cart on a busy Busan street enjoying a good, cheap plate of paegon or mandu I feel divorced from my former attitude towards food. I used to imagine one day visiting restaurants with price-tags higher than my council tax, but that isn’t food, its status, and I’d now much rather risk six months of diarrohea eating the backstreets of Asia than spend an hour getting fleeced in one of those gentrified hovels.

All good in the hood

We’ve been in our new apartment for about two weeks now and I thought I’d share some of its mod cons:

We live on the tenth floor of an 18 storey block in Dong-bu Hyundai, Sajik-dong in an apartment - paid for and allocated by our school - which is thankfully somewhat more spacious than the typical studio deal dished out to most foreign teachers. We have been told that before us a family lived here, meaning it’s just about large enough to house our space hungry western asses, consisting of three bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room/kitchen and a balcony.

Our building is a pretty cheek to jowl living space. In Glasgow we’d go for weeks without knowing anyone else shared our tenement, but here we have constant reminders of the lives stacked above, below and either side of us. Cooking smells waft in and out like an over-familiar visitor, while the triumphs and torments of nightly recorder practice seep through the walls like rising damp. Last Wednesday evening, as Korea was soundly defeating America in Olympic Baseball, I muted the TV and to my surprise heard a loud cheer all around me. Baffled at first, it soon struck me that the cheers were coming from individual apartments.

Straddling a long, sweaty climb, the area itself is pretty much as far into the hills as you can go without living in a temple, meaning our location can be problematic. Only one bus comes up here, a little number 5 that powers up and down all day like an ajuma workhorse. The bus takes about 10 minutes to get to the subway, but to get to school we must take a taxi – an inexpensive mode of transport but one that landed us in some inconvenient places until our Korean improved. Dong-bu also boasts a few shops, a bakery, an expensive looking restaurant and what I think is a brothel; not exactly Seomyeon but enough to cater for the day-to-day needs of most residents.

Even further up the hill a path winds into the mountain, past a Buddhist temple – a striking but not unfamiliar sight in Busan – and up in amongst the trees. From here there are some pretty sweeping views of the city. Far to the south a suspension cable from the huge Gwangali bridge is just about visible behind one of the green topped mounds that poke above the surface of the city like islands, while farther away still the black line of the horizon marks the Sea of Japan from the sky. From here the city slowly tapers inland, wrapping its way around the bluffs and hills before hazily meandering out of sight to the north.

Despite the accessibility problems I’m growing found of our little neighbourhood. It’s nice to back on to the mountain, and be able to see both green and city from our modest balcony, and I’m pretty sure we’ll soon start to recognise some of our Korean neighbours who smile politely at the Waygooks in their midst. Although if given the choice, I’d definitely live somewhere more central, for now at least, Dong-bu will do.

Chalet Suisse

One of the things I like about Korea is its seemingly endless capacity to surprise me. This was certainly true on Saturday night, when after a good (but by no means overwhelming) plate of Vietnamese rice noodles with seafood, a friend opted to spend the remainder of her farewell evening in the intimate and eccentric surroundings of Chalet Suisse a "Swiss Folk Music Cafe" in the Pusan National University district.


Skippered by the affable Mr Lee, and his grinning Setter/Spaniel “Clarinet,” Chalet Suisse transports its occaisonal patrons (numbering no more than about 10 at one time) from the scooters and blaring neon of the Busan street to the intimate confines of a swiss log cabin high in the Alps.


Upon entering the small space, the uniqueness of Chalet Suisse becomes clear. On one side of the room, a huge mural depicts a majestic Alpine scene of blue skies, rolling slopes and jagged peaks, while the remainder of the wall space is given over various items of Swiss culture and provenance; Male and female traditional folk costumes hang in dry cleaning bags on one wall, a cast iron leaf weaved with various wooden dolls and puppets straddles the door, while photos of a younger Mr Lee (presumably in Switzerland) hang proudly in the gaps.


Added to this is an orchestra of musical instruments. Covered shapes betraying the larger string instruments loaf in the corners, while a brigade of beautifully crafted and exotically shaped ukeles, banjos and the like hang pragmatically from a roof beam. As the evening progressed, Mr Lee produced and played a number of these instruments, accompanying yodelling songs with a Guitar, a Banjo and an Accordian, and at one point eliciting that I was from Ireland, playing “Danny Boy” on the Clarinet.


Chalet Suisse is undoubtedly a labour of love and appears to be more a place where Mr Lee can indulge his passion with friends than a business (after we ordered drinks he had to run out to the shop to buy them!) Going there renewed in me the sense that there is something special and uplifting in the human spirit’s capacity to find and cultivate a passion, even from the most remote and diverse of backgrounds, and I cannot but admire Mr Lee’s commitment and sincerity.


I aim on dropping by again when I’m next in PNU. Europe may be thousands of miles away, but at least Switzerland is only a couple of stops on the subway.

Galbi glorious Kalbi!

On our first weekend in Busan, my cousin Steve and his girlfriend Vicky took us to a Galbi restaurant. Since then, the thing has kind of snowballed for me and the Duch, culminating in the infamous "day of two Galbis."

As you might have guessed, Galbi is damnably good, and a typical experience could be described as follows:

You arrive at the Galbi restaurant with your companions and are immediately hit by the distinctive sounds and smells of sizzling flesh. As you breathe in, the aroma permeates every cell in your body, turning your mouth into a swimming pool and pulling your belly up into your chest. By the time you reach your table you are about 100 times hungrier than when you were at the door, a situation exacerbated by the visual effect of Galbi being consumed heartily all around you.

You sit down at the table, and after a cursory glance at the menu the Korean amongst you orders for everyone. If there isn’t a Korean amongst you don’t worry – these restaurants basically serve one thing and God gave you fingers for a reason. After the order has been dispatched you attempt polite chat but it’s hard to concentrate. You pick at the Kimchi (fermented cabbage in chilli sauce) with your chopsticks and prod a few other side dishes distractedly.

Just as your stomach starts calling you names your server arrives with a big plate of chicken marinated in soy sauce, sesame oil, chilli and garlic (I think) and slides it into the smoking circular pan in the middle of the table. It instantly hisses into life, popping and spitting and catching as your server kneads the chicken around the pan expertly with two great big wooden spatulas. It cooks like this for 5 minutes or so, your server every so often returning to massage it until, with a final flourish, he sets the spatulas to one side and turns down the heat. It’s now ready to eat.

Delirious with excitement, you extend a pair of trembling chopsticks into the pan, pinch a piece of chicken and place it on a sesame leaf along with some thinly sliced onions from your bowl of soy sauce, and a dab of spicy bean paste. You then wrap up the whole neat little bundle and pop it in your mouth in one go, taking care to allow a dribble of soy sauce to run down your chin. The finely serated sesame leaf, lightly perfumed and almost sweet tasting competes ably with the deep, brooding heat and flavour of the chicken, which you find particularly tasty where it has charred and become semi-stuck to the pan.

This process is then repeated until about half the Galbi has been eaten, at which point rice is added to the pan followed by – if you are that way inclined (and I think you are) - cheese. The rice has the effect of turning the pan into a great big paella type thing, while the melting cheese, although admittedly an odd addition, binds the whole mixture together perfectly into lovely chopstick-friendly clumps.

An indeterminable amount of time passes, you rediscover your companions, then without quite knowing how you got there you find yourself at the till making patting motions appreciatively and paying another ludicrously small amount.

You love Korean food.

The job (including lunch)

Korea isn’t all Galbi and beer it seems, with a substantial portion of my time taken up trying to impart knowledge to our future Asian masters. This, as with everything else in Korea, is conducted in a pantomime of hand gestures and a great deal of fecklessness.

Our day begins at about 9:10am, when we start the slow, sweaty trudge to school from our “love motel” (which is pretty much exactly how you imagine it.) On one side of the road, huge apartment complexes dominate the skyline, while on the other side, convenience stores and small enterprises jostle for space with small restaurants boasting large tanks of docile fish and slithering eels. Here and there workmen clamour over building sites industriously, while pavement-mounted scooters zoom past perilously close and taxi’s pore out of every intersection.

Every so often we hit a stench pocket, where the overwhelming smell of human waste hums in the air like a localised hell. The final stage of our walk takes us down a side street and past a neon cross topped church and into the pretty courtyard of our school, which is where the mayhem really begins.

Even before we’ve changed into our “inside shoes” we are typically assailed with lisping cries of “Danny teacher!” and “Sarah teacher!” from all directions. From here on in a tide of bobbing heads and exuberant greetings follow us up two flights of stairs to the tiny staff room, which we share with four other Waygooks and four Korean teachers. There is usually just enough time to hastily photocopy a few worksheets, gather our shit together and check the days’ schedule before scattering to our first classes at 9:40am.

The “morning” comprises of six periods; two 30 minute classes followed by a 20 minute break, another two 30 minute classes, an hour for lunch then another two thirty minute classes. For some reason I have been designated science teacher, so a good deal of my morning classes are spent fiddling about with ill-conceived science experiments while trying to silence a growing cacophony of “teacher help!” and issuing empty threats about the use of the Korean language. These experiments rarely demonstrate any scientific principles a seven year old could grasp and usually involve a lot of sellotape, swallowable parts and Korean-only instructions. It’s a race against the clock to make sure everyone has successfully constructed their experiment, packed up and if there’s time, learnt a few words of English in the 30 minutes allotted time slot. More than once a Korean teacher has had to wade in to help while I, red faced and sporting a child on each limb have uselessly appealed for calm. My other morning classes involve working from books or worksheets, and generally a lot of colouring in and some songs thrown in to waste a little time.

After the first four classes there is an hour lunch break which at 12 noon, is a little earlier than I’m used to but more than welcome after 2 hours with the Kindergarten terrors. There are four choices nearby for lunch; Paris Baguette, Tous les Jours, Camp and “The pasta place.” The first two are large chains that differ only in that Tous les Jours serves coffee. As you may guess by the names both serve a Korean take on French Patisserie - with varying degrees of success. If you have ever been in a quandary over whether to go sweet or savoury then go to one of these shops. Croissants come with a glaze of sugar and donuts which look normal on the outside, reveal a bean paste when bitten into. I’ve even heard tales of jelly and cheese sandwiches coming out of these places and though I’ve never experienced it myself, I don’t doubt it for a second. In some ways they get it right however; Mini bagel pizzas with sweet tomato sauce and a cheese and ham (and egg?) topping are perfect when you can’t look at a bowl of rice, while a coffee and (real) donut from Tous les jours is a great energy boost for the final classes. Camp on the other hand is the decidedly Korean lunch option, serving Kimbap (like Sushi rolls) Bi Bim Bap (an egg, rice, veg and chilli concoction favoured by the Duchess) spicy beef soup, Mandu (dumplings) and such-like. The service here is efficient and the food, as with most Korean restaurants, tastes good and is shamefully cheap. Forensic analysis of each dish should be expected sometime in the near future. Although I have yet to go to the “pasta place,” I’m sure the time will soon come when, more through curiosity than anything else, I will check it out.

The afternoon schedule consists of four 50 minute periods separated by 10 minute breaks. According to my schedule I should only be working three of these, but teacher shortages of late have often meant doing all four twice a week. These kids are at the elementary level, so the material is more advanced and some, though not all, can hold a decent conversation in English. The nature of these classes differs from that of the morning classes. The kids are generally (though not always) easier to control and the material a bit more challenging. I start a few of these classes by letting the kids sing a pop song. Most recently it has been “Ob-la-di-ob-la-da” by the Beatles and “You’re my inspiration” by some eighties power rock band but in future I get to choose. Youtube here we come! The rest of the class is taken up going through the assigned text book, some of which still have the original CDs (which makes things a lot easier,) but others that require a little creative improvisation.

At 6:20pm the school day finally ends and we set off in search of something to eat. Recent choices have included slices of tender barbecue pork, gloriously fatty and transformed into little morsels of piggy heaven when dipped in deep chilli sauce and wrapped in fragrant sesame leaves. But that’s a different story.