Right then... (News & K-pop)

It's been more than a month since I last wrote anything on here, which means that I'm a) feeling a bit guilty and b) under threat of uppity emails, so here is a post, of sorts. Trouble is, I don't have that much that I want to write about right now Still, I will do my best to fashion something vaguely of interest.

It's not really going to come from my life though - I've been back just over a month now, and settled back in very quickly. This semester is actually going really well - I have managed to score some smaller classes this semester, and at a higher level too which makes life a bit more interesting, though it's so long since I taught anything higher than pre-intermediate that it's been a bit of a challenge adapting. Still, I'm developing a nice little classroom culture, have some friendly students and a much nicer room to teach in, so all good really. If you're interested in that kind of thing, I do update my other blog much more regularly, though life news is rather scant over there.

I've more or less decided to stay where I am for next year, provided they will have me back. Given that I just got asked to interview English scholarship students for next year, I think I will survive this year's cull (this is a joke by the way). If nothing else, I saved one of the university administrators from the clutches of an email phishing scam, though I think this went unheralded save for the gift of a fancy nail clipping/torture set.

I thought I might deserve a bit more for saving the university a five figure sum (in dollars, not won, too). 

Anyway, if I stay I'm rather thinking that I might move out of the dormitory. Whilst everything being free is extremely nice, I feel like a bit more space would do me good, and not having to share a lift/elevator with a giggling student too many more times will make me just a little bit saner. Also, the city just up the road, Ansan, seems a nice place to live, while remaining only a 10 minute subway ride away. Given that since moving here I've spent about a billion hours (conservatively) on the subway already, this won't be too much of a bind.

In other slightly interesting news, I'm presenting at the KOTESOL International Conference this month, as part of the #KELTChat team. We have a nerdy little Twitter network/chat that we're trying to attract people to, so a team of us are telling people all about it there.

If my calculations are right, Psy's Gangnam Style should be number 1 in the UK right now, as it seems to be more or less all over the world. I must say this strikes me as more than a bit odd, I think there are better examples of K-Pop out there, but at least it doesn't come across as completely studied, and is pretty authentically Korean (a lot of K-pop just imitates western stuff I think). Anyway, someone asked me on Facebook if it was typical K-pop - this was what I came up with in response:

But as to whether it reflects K-pop as a whole, the answer is "kind of". Musically it's pretty standard - mix of Korean lyrics and English catchphrases, dodgy rapping, annoying synth hook, pounding 4-4 beat. All of these are popular over here. Actually, compared to a lot of pop over here it's on the unimaginative side musically. Lyrically though it's (supposedly, I haven't actually bothered to look) more subversive, and poking fun at the materialistic culture of Gangnam, which is one of the areas in Seoul that's full of posh ****s with lots of money (imagine Chelsea minus the football hooligans but with a lot more plastic surgery). Debate is raging as to whether Koreans actually get it or not - my view is they probably do, but are more concerned with copying the dance.

I've done a little bit more research during my 1 on 1 conversation slots with students, and have found that for this demographic at least, they don't really get the lyrics, nor do they particularly care about them. The important thing seems to be the fact that it's catchy and has a good dance routine. In fact, a pretty standard qualification for K-pop success appears to be for middle-schoolers to be able to shuffle uncertainly through your dance routine during interminable school festivals. One girl, who is actually from Gangnam (but seems normal enough), was just grateful that it put Gangnam on the map.

Anyway, now everyone's into K-pop I guess. If you didn't see it, The Guardian prepared this handy guide for you. I'm not totally sure about the quality of the research, a lot seems to be taken from fansites, and K-pop fans are mental, like Beatlemania mental, and are generally not to be trusted for balanced opinions about their idols. What interested me was the fact that almost every girl band is heralded for displaying their sexuality. Actually, this is one complaint that I've gone over with a lot of different people - K-pop simply isn't, by Western standards at least, sexy. The acid test, I think, is to play any video next to "I'm a Slave 4 U" by (pre-mental) Britney Spears. If it's anywhere near comparable to that, call it sexy, for me K-pop still has a long way to go.

Anyway, if you're getting your cappucino in a froth over K-pop, good luck to you. I think there's plenty of better Western pop out there, and if you dislike inauthenticity then K-pop is certainly not the way to go. The marketing and manufacturing of bands here makes Simon Cowell look like Tony Wilson. But it is fun, and shiny, and the performers are uniformly pretty, and it's foreign which always adds an air of cool. Anyway, here's a couple more songs that I have sort of liked (one boys, one girls for fairness), and then one I do like, and the only song I can sing in Korean.

Miss A - Goodbye Baby

M-Blaq - 전쟁이야 (Jeonjaeng-i-ya - This is war)

현빈 (Hyeon-bin) - 그 남자 (That Man).

That ought to do it then. Me and K-pop in a few hundred words. I'll be back again in a month or so. Until then...

Your man, on the ground in Korea, doing an invisible horse dance.

Grev

Korean Punk

This is just a short post, and again features fairly little about what I'm up to, as it's largely the same thing as it was last time I posted, and will be for the next 16 months or so. It might however be of some interest to some people.

It's not often that I get to dip my head under the surface of Korean mainstream culture. I'm making this comment with a degree of ignorance, but there doesn't seem to be the same depth of alternative and sub-cultures as there is in the UK; at the very least they don't have the same pervasive influence on the mainstream as indie and rock culture. Still, such cultures do exist, and when I got sent an advert for a show about a fictional North Korean punk hero it seemed like it was worth going to take a look.

Flyer

The gig was part of an exhibition which imagined "What if there was a punk rock club in Pyongyang?" and tracked the possible rise and fall of its hero, Rhee Sung Woong. It featured four bands, but sadly I only got to see three of them.

I walked in to hear the sounds of a guitar, drums and Korean traditional percussion being mangled underneath a wall of shrieking. Almost exactly what I wanted to hear actually - but a little surprising to actually discover. Not knowing all that much about punk I can't really tell you who they sound like, or even if they do sound like anyone else. They certainly didn't look like anyone else I've ever seen, as peering over the heads of the crowd I could dimly ascertain what seemed to be two haystacks with instruments playing in a tent. Fortunately, someone with a better camera than I was at the gig - check out daehanmindecline's excellent photos of all of the bands.  It just leaves me to show you what Mookiemookiemanmansu, for that is their name, sound like:

Next up were Pavlov, who I thought were just a bit too needy for my tastes, but I think that the gaggles of young girls at the front may have been more the target audience. A word of advice to the singer though - if you're not Steven Tyler you shouldn't really be taking your shirt off, and it might be better to leave the crotch dampening to said gaggles:

And the final band that I got to see were probably my favourite of the evening. Named Paryumchiakdan, they had a Western indie-ish sound that was still firmly rooted in Korean traditional music, especially Trot. They also looked like a proper indie outfit - floppy haired keyboard player with excellent economy of movement, moody girl on bass and a drummer convinced he was the coolest man in the room. The singer was the real star though, with a great voice and awesome presence. I'd actually make an effort to see these guys again:

After that I left, partly because I didn't realize that the final band hadn't played yet, and partly because the poncy pizza restaurant my language exchange partner (who had dutifully accompanied me) wanted to go to was closing. Perhaps not my punkest exit ever, but never mind. I'll leave you with a parting gift, a video of some real North Korean musical footage that was being played at the exhibition.:

I'll keep you up to date with any further musical adventures soon.

Until then,

A

UK Trip 2011 - Edinburgh

And just like that, I'm back in the classroom. It feels like I've been away for a long time, and I have. I haven't taught a class for 7 weeks, and I haven't taught a high school class for getting on for 3 months, so it was nice to finally get back to work today. My students are much the same as last year, the third graders are on the whole very pleasant to teach and now have the very serious air that most students adopt as they enter what is probably the most important year of their lives. The second grade is far more rowdy, and are going to be hard work to keep in check this year. They are a lot of fun though, and I'd rather have an energetic class than one that sits mopily refusing to do anything. On the basis of one class my first graders are going to be good. Their level seems to be quite high and they are, for the moment at least, passive enough to control and relatively keen to get involved.

It's going to be a brutal term as far as workload is concerned. The province I work for cut the number of native speaking teachers by 25% this year, and left the rest of us to pick up the slack. I'm now working at four schools, two elementary, one middle as well as the high school. I've also been accepted on to an MA TESOL and Applied Linguistics course with the University of Leicester. With planning, teaching and studying it's not looking like I'm set for a lot of free time this year.

In an attempt to avoid thinking about the fact I'm probably going to be working 12 hours a day solid from now until June, I'm casting my mind back to the time I spent in the UK. It was great to be back, especially as a semi-tourist. Having the freedom to go out most nights and mope around all day made my trip all the more pleasant. Almost as soon as I was back in the UK I was making the long trek up to Edinburgh to catch up with Rory, Kate and Leanne, two of whom I owed serious visits to since they came to see me in Guatemala. The occasion was Rory's birthday, and a Mad Men / cocktail party. Basically and excuse to dress up nicely, or ridiculously in my case. Here we go then...

Hat fashion parade.

Checking out Rory's entrance.

The labradoodle.

Fetch!

Just playin'

Pre-party bonding time.

Barmen at work.

And the fruits (no pun intended) of their labours.

I'm not sure that's quite what the glitterball is for Rory.

Steve self-portrait.

Me and Steve, possibly scared by something.

Leanne & Claire

Partygoers.

Mark.

Rory & Kate.

The dancefloor was packed.

After all the party related excitement we spent a day recovering and drinking all of the leftover beers. We then ate a huge Chinese meal (I miss English Chinese food. It bears no resemblance whatsoever to Korean Chinese food, though this probably doesn't come as a great surprise to any of you.) The following morning, charged up on tea and bacon sandwiches I headed to Manchester to watch the Halle Orchestra perform, which was the cultural highlight of my trip. Sat waiting for the concert to start reading my copy of Crime and Punishment made me feel very cultured indeed. Going to several pubs and a curry house the following day less so.

And that was it for my weekend of touring. Thanks to Rory, Kate, Leanne, John and Natalie. See you all next year perhaps.

A

Final Summer Holiday Pictures: Seoul

More than three months after I took them, here, finally, are the last photos from my summer travelling with Nick. We finished up in Gyeongju, and jumped on a 4 hour bus back to the capital to finish off our 9 day tour with a bit of partying.

We based ourselves in Hongdae, what everyone calls the area around Hongik University. It boasts a lively concentration of clubs, bars, restaurants and shops and even midweek had one of the best atmospheres for going out that I've ever sampled, not least owing to swathe after swathe of pretty Korean students wandering past you. We arrived late, and installed ourselves at the rather swanky Hotel Bobo (Korean for kiss), taking advantage of the rather fetching robes on offer there.

After a day wandering in Insadong and Myeongdong, we were alerted to the presence of proper beer. Well, not ale, but at least German micro-brew, in the extremely Germanically named Queen's Head. Before that we took on some Dakgalbi flavoured ballast, before heading to the pub. The beer was actually pretty good, though not a patch on Harveys Best, naturally.

Following this we wandered for a while, and had a couple of beers in bars where everyone was partitioned off from each other, which didn't exactly help us in our quest to meet some Korean people to talk to. Finally we gave in to the shame of visiting an establishment called "Ho Bar 4" (There are 7 or them in Hongdae alone). This was however, more conducive to meeting people, and we soon found ourselves chatting to "The Crossroads Guitar Project", a bunch of four Korean guitarists who were consoling their friend over his broken heart. Stories were swapped, homes looked at on Gmaps, vodka was drunk, Jaegerbombs were introduced to the Korean element, and generally an excellent time was had by all, especially when Nick and one of the guitarists discovered a mutual admiration for Django Reinhardt. They were also the second group of Koreans to compare him to David Duchonvy, which I thought was hilarious.

Once we'd polished off their bottle of vodka, the musicians decided it was time to call it quits, but delivered Nick and I to a club called M2 to continue drinking, and perhaps even do some "eye-shopping", as it's known here. M2 turned out to play some pretty excellent electro, which was being largely ignored by the few Koreans in there, except for three of four spread around the dancefloor moving stiltedly. It later transpired that these were actually members of staff, obviously trying to encourage people to join them, but really making the club look like the formative stages of a line dance. We had a few drinks, and were talking to some students by the bar. Things were going nicely until the electro DJ finished his set, and was replaced by some-one who was apparently in possession of a Now Dance 1998 CD. The final straw was the dropping of "Horny" by Mousse T. Nick and I fled the club and headed back out into the night air.

By now and was 2am, and Nick and I were lightly toasted, but we thought we could probably do with one more beer. Finding a bar proved to be a problem, until a group of girls asked us to take their picture. We did, and ended up going with them to Noise Basement, a hip-hop club. This is, I believe, the first time I've ever been to more than one club in a night. We stayed in noise basement for another hour and half, and I remember getting some free tequila somewhere, but the details are a bit sketchy. I do remember leaving and getting into a taxi, only for the taxi driver to refuse to take us, given that our hotel was around 100 yards down the road. We stumbled home and crashed out.

The following day took us to the clothing markets of Dongdaemun, and Apgujeong, "The Korean Beverly Hills", where the women all have surgically altered noses, and BMW delaerships have unfortunate names (see picture below). We popped over for dinner and a drink in Itaewon, but got disturbed by Americans far too fond of their own voices, and skipped back to Hongdae for one more club experience.

We'd been told about a small indie club, which had previously played host to Xiu Xiu and Do Make Say Think in it's lifetime. Sadly, no underground indie luminaries were in evidence, just some Korean businessmen doing karaoke. Undeterred, and likeing the shabby surroundings, we sat down for a beer. The barman handed us the karaoke book, and we flicked through with interest. I was mostly looking to see if "Monday Morning 5:19" by Rialto was there, as I had previously found it in the Yeongwol noraebang (Karaoke room) way out in Gangwon-do. On my flick through, I couldn't help but notice a version of "Mack the Knife" winking cheerfully at me from the page, and decided to give it a shot. It actually went pretty well, to the extent that I was high-fived off stage, and so Nick and I spent the rest of the evening singing. I can't remember what else we did, but I do have flashbacks of Wonderwall, With or Without You and Come Together (The Beatles, not Spiritualized).

After that there was just time for a sandwich and a beer outside a convenience store (my favourite Korean drinking location) before retiring again. And that was it, the following morning Nick and I said goodbye at the tube station, and he headed off back to the UK, and I to Jinbu. It was a great holiday all around though, marked by some bizzare sights, excellent food and drink and extremely kind and helpful people. I'm looking forward to the next chance I get to travel in Korea now.

A

Busan: Shark Diving and Other Pursuits

So, the second part of our long weekend away saw us head back to the coastal city of Busan. We had the chance in the evening to visit the famous Jagalchi fish market. While it's fascinating to see so many different kinds of fish, the fact that they're swimming around in plastic crates for the rest of their short lives left me feeling rather melancholy (see pictures below). Not so melancholy, however, that I couldn't go for some fresh sashimi for dinner. We asked a lady about getting a small sashimi meal as a taster. She immediately reached into a tank and pulled out a smallish flatfish, which looked at us and gulped air mournfully. I was all for chopping it up and dipping the pieces in some chilli sauce, but Shannon decided that she couldn't look her dinner in the eye and then eat it with a clear conscience, and so went to McDonald's instead.

The following day the hereto excellent weather turned, and we woke up to steady drizzle. This didn't bother us too much, as we were going to be spending most of the day inside and underwater. The main event of our trip was a dive in the shark tank at the Busan aquarium. As the dive is open to non-qualified divers, we spent the morning being trained by Michael, our annoyingly world-weary dive instructor. He was funny though, to give him his due, though you suspected he had had quite a few chances to hone his diving spiel. He did seem to know what he was doing though, which was reassuring.

The prospect of diving with sharks didn't really fill me with dread. Particularly not the shark aspect of it at least, but breathing underwater is actually quite nerve-racking, especially when I was trying to remember what all of the hand signals I had been taught meant and worrying about my regulator falling out as my jaw was sore from where a student kicked a ball in my face during a game of futsal (accidentally, I think). There was also the usual pressure of trying not to look an utter fool when trying something new, all of which led to a decent sized knot in my stomach.

Once we had got down to the bottom of the tank I relaxed a little. It really was quite peaceful, and the sharks seemed to barely even notice our presence. The same couldn't be said for the people in the perspex tunnel running through the tank, to whom we were a star attraction. We spent a long time at the bottom waving to small Korean children looking at us. I also spent a long time taking the photos you see below. The quality isn't so good, as my camera was in a waterproof bag which stopped me using the flash, but hopefully they give you the idea at least.

After the dive we took some time out from the aquarium to eat a late lunch at an Indian restaurant just across the road from the aquarium. While it was definitely not the best Indian I've ever had, it was very satisfying to get some curry in, particularly after sharing a tank with (incredibly docile) man-eating predators for an afternoon. After that we headed back in to the aquarium for a look around at some of the other exhibits, pictured below.

That pretty much concluded our trip to Busan. We hung out a little in the evening and ended up in a record store, where I spotted the little gem below. Seems that there are no lengths that Koreans won't go to to educate their kids. The following day we hopped on the KTX "bullet train" back to Seoul. This turned out to be a little disappointing. While it does reach the reasonably impressive speed of 310km/h, it does it with a great deal of rattling and fuss, and the carriages are nowhere near as nice as those in Japan. All in all, not a great train ride, and (sorry Korean readers) not a patch on the Japanese trains.

That's it for another blog post. There should be a few more on the way soon. I'm nearing the end of the semester here so things are winding down a little and I have some more time, though most of it will be spent planning next semester. Still, I have some more interesting photos to post up, so expect them in the next week or so.

See you soon.

A