Caution: May contain extensive moaning about footballers defending properly.

Hi there,

Just back from a nice day and a bit in Gangneung, the closest city to me and handily placed on the coast. I am, perhaps inevitably, a little pink around the shoulders now, but as a wise man once told me, "Get one good burn in and you're good for the whole summer."

Anyway, my room mate from orientation, Jeff, came down to Jinbu for the weekend. We had no real plans for entertainment, so decided to see what opportunities the weekend produced. Having hiked over the hill behind Jinbu, we sat down to a fine dinner of Kam-ja-tang, a spicy pig spine and potato stew, or at least normally it has potatoes. The version we ate seemed to be lacking them, which is strange as the "kam-ja" is what gives the dish it's name. After that we popped to a couple of bars, winding up at my new favourite Jinbu haunt, "Chael-ro". Reason's to like this bar are: 1. A barman who speaks a little bit of English, and doesn't mind me practising my terrible Korean on him, and 2. The sign outside declaring the sale of "Hope & Soju"*. You really can't beat a bar selling hope, especially not alongside cheap liquor. It's all most people really need.

The night got a little out of hand later on, when having consumed a fair amount of beer, makkoli, and soju, Jeff and I declared Korean alcohol to be easier to drink than most countries. Perhaps feeling slighted, the barman then produced a bottle of Chinese liquor and proceeded to treat us to a couple of glasses. At 56% by volume and tasting like drain cleaner, it may not have been the wisest choice at 2.30 am, but we drank it anyway, and I duly woke up with comfortably the worst hangover that I've had here. This wiped out most of Saturday, with Jeff and I spending all our time sitting around groaning, sleeping and eating chicken in an attempt to recover.

In the evening we decided that going to watch my beloved (well, I've now been to two games and I own a baseball cap with their badge on it) Gangwon FC was a good idea. Turned out that it was, as we were treated to a very exciting game, but one that was marked by defending so schoolboyish, it seems unfair to the youth of the world to use that adjective. I've said before, Korean football is usually exciting to watch, unsurprisingly owing most of it's counter attacking and rapid changes of possession to a style of play modelled on the English Premier League. Sadly, changes in possession are so frequent (at least at the Gangneung stadium) because no-one is good enough to keep the ball for more than a couple of minutes. La Liga this certainly ain't. I lose count of the amount of times a pass is left by one player for another, while an opponent nips in, takes the ball and quickly gives it straight back. However, in attack some impressively slick passing is evidenced by both Gangwon FC and their opponents Cheonbuk, though with little class in front of goal.

Match action!

A Korean crowd.

All this changes 5 minutes before half time, when GFC get a free kick a full 35 yards out, and our midfielder steps up and smashes a swerving ball past the goalkeeper and in off the bar. It was rather reminiscent of Gazza vs Arsenal in the 1991(?) FA Cup Semi. Shortly after half time our winger, not for the first time, finds himself in about 20 yards of space on the far side, and has an age to advance into the box and pick his spot in the top corner. 2-0 up and seemingly coasting, but this is Korean football and you're never entirely safe, no matter how big the lead. Honestly, the defensive play in this game was probably the worst I've ever seen in a professional or semi-professional football match. The forwards and the midfielders on both sides were lazy, offering no protection to their backlines, and frequently putting them in danger. Clearances were shanked straight up in the air in the area, the fullbacks played so tight that the wingers were left with almost half the field to work in, yet still balls were getting down the channels. The ball flew over the centre-backs' heads so often I thought I was back watching England's world cup side. It was almost beyond belief, and I found myself studying the benches to see if I could spot Kevin Keegan's slivering barnet, such was the all-out nature of the attacking play.

Cheonbuk fans, with "Mad Green Boys" banner and Che Guevara flag. Possibly auditioning for extra roles in the forthcoming "Hulk: The College Years" movie.

Even at 2-0 up, Gangwon looked as if they were hanging on, seemingly unable to accomplish the simplest of defensive tasks. So it proved, as two simple goals were rolled in in 5 minutes, leaving the score at 2-2. Then Gangwon wasted two golden opportunities (both created merely from being in the opposition half) to win it, before in the dying seconds a long punt goes over our center back's head again, leaving two Cheongbuk players through on goal. Our center back gets back into a position to provide a match-saving toe-away, and promptly falls on his back. The Cheonbuk striker slides it under the goalkeeper, and Gangwon have lost. Once again, I'm left with the feeling that I might well have been able to do a better job. I wonder if I can get a trial. One thing's for sure, the Korean FA needs to look at the defending part of their coaching manual again, if there even is one.

Perhaps Gangwon's longest spell of possession of the entire game.

The previous night's excursions left Jeff and I unwilling and mostly unable to conduct an assault on any Gangneung nightlife, so we grabbed a Mr Pizza and headed off to Motel "Bally" (you do wonder what the thinking behind naming a Korean love motel after the Korean word for quick was). We spent the following morning at the beach, got sunburnt, then retired to a "makkoli jib". Makkoli is my favourite kind of korean liquor. It's a creamy rice wine which seems to be the equivalent of microbrew here. Each city has it's own varieties and fairly distinctive tastes. It's also most usually found being peddled by kindly "ajummas" (old ladies) in the old town markets of cities. Served with an array of delicious, high-carb side dishes (potato omlette, buckwheat dumpling, kimchi pancake, fried noodles) and a big smile, Makkoli makes an excellent lunch. A Makkoli house is probably not somewhere most foreigners go, owing to their often run down nature, but I can assure you that they're well worth popping into.

A Makkoli Jib

A Makkoli Hound.

I'll finish with the usual promise to write more soon. It's probably falling on deaf ears by now, but the photos from lots of recent adventures are sitting on my desktop waiting to be sorted, and I am on vacation this week, so you never know.

Laters,

A

* "Hope & Soju" is a miswriting of "Hof & Soju", "Hof" being one way bars advertise the availability of beer. This is a strange decision given that the Korean language has no F sound, and so replaces it with a P, hence the mistake above.

Why no posts recently?

Because I've been too busy doing stuff to write about it. This week promises to be a little quieter though, so I am attempting to catch up. First up then, last Wednesday's trip to a Korean football match.

The day

I was invited to go and see our local K-League team, Gangwon FC, play against Incheon Utd. The invitation was issued by Kim Dae Kwan, the captain of Jinbu AFC (more on them in a blog post soon), so not the kind of thing you can easily turn down. Not that I wanted to turn it down anyway. I had been wanting to see Gangwon play since I arrived here.

We set off at the suspiciously early time of 10am, bearing in mind that I live 50 minutes away from the stadium and the game didn't kick off until 3pm. Having been for a quick cup of coffee at Gyeongpo beach, we entered the stadium at the slightly strange time of 11.30am, three and a half hours before kick off. At least it allowed me to take a photo of the virtually empty ground.

Then we swiftly left again, and marched around a festival outside the ground for a while, without ever really stopping to look at anything. Then headed back to just outside the stadium where I met the team (see below) and bought a very fetching Gangwon FC baseball cap (also below). The kid with me in the photo is Kim Dae Hwan's son, Phil. Phil is his English name; often elementary school children here are allowed to give themselves names (hence one friend having a 'Killer' in his class). Phil has a younger sister called Do Hui. She tells me that her English name is Do Hui too. Good attitude that, hanging on to a bit of national pride.

I am essentially at this game as a bit of English practice for Phil. His father only speaks a few words, but Phil has admirable command of English for a 12 year old boy. We spend a good deal of the day talking and he understands an impressive amount of what I say. He even manages to communicate on the phone with me before I am picked up. Given how much I hate making phone calls even in English, let alone another language, I have a lot of respect for Phil, and I don't really mind being a bit of English practice when it gets me taken to football games for free.

We get back into the stadium, with a picnic, at just past 12pm. It is still almost deserted, so it is rather surprising that the entire party proceeds to climb up the steps all the way to the highest, furthest back row of seats to sit down. Let me just clarify this. We are at a football stadium three hours before the game, with nothing to do except eat lunch, and we have chosen to sit to sit right at the back of the bloody stadium. Accuse me of cultural insensitivity or ingratitude if you want, but it just seems bizarre that given the preponderance of nice places to picnic in Gangneung, that you would choose to go to a football stadium so early, unless you were after the best, rather than THE ABSOLUTE WORST seats in the house. Sometimes, Korea is absolutely mental.

And so we eat, and then sit and watch not very much at all taking place on the pitch. A few of the Incheon fans gather and unfurl a banner which is completely incomprehensible (see below). Some of Kim Dae Kwan's friends arrive. They are drunk, and proceed to ply me with beer and soju mixed together, and keep handing me pieces of the most awful tasting dried fish. This wasn't exactly what I had in mind to pass the time with. At least then we get a Tae Kwon Do demonstration (always hugely impressive) and some dancers, though we are far too far away to really appreciate (or photograph) it properly. All the while, the "Orange Army" (below again) begins to gather in anticipation of the big game.

I'll deal with the game separately, but by far the most entertaining thing that I saw during the day was the half time entertainment, in which around 30 schoolboys took on 6 Gangwon FC professionals in one of the stranger footballing spectacles I've ever witnessed. The photo below doesn't do justice to the sight of 30 kids chasing around after a few grown men, with the men doing their level best not to decapitate them with a lofted pass. This was proper schoolboy football, with not a semblance of tactical or positional awareness, just a multi-legged mass of black and white gamely following the ball. Korea (I may have mentioned this before) is mental.

The game itself

The match was good entertainment all in all. Compared to the last professional football match I went to (Municipal vs. Cremas in Guatemala City) the skill level was a lot higher and the football more entertaining. At the risk of making generalisations based on one game (and a bit of first hand experience), Korean football tends to favour an uptempo passing game with the ball largely kept on the floor. It soon transpires that Incheon United are a lot more adept at this than my newly adopted team so it's a huge surprise when GFC take the lead after some terrible marking at our first corner, and pretty much our first venture into the opposition half.

I think that watching football could be entertaining here, as Korean players don't seem to be overly preoccupied with defending. Gangwon suffer less than most owing to the presence of the giant Stipe Lapic at centre back. He's not unlike Nemana Vidic in appearance, and so is literally and figuratively a giant in this league. I lose count of the number of saving tackles that he makes in the first half alone. Sadly, there is little he can do when another Incheon attack finds an unmarked man at the far post and it's 1-1 at half time.

Above and below: first half action.

The second half gets under way and Incheon quickly go 2-1 up. A Gangwon defeat seems inevitable, but the crowd seem to be having a good time. I take a quick swing around the stadium with my camera to capture the atmosphere:

It's actually not the best atmosphere as the ground is at best two thirds full (despite my being told that we were going early as it was going to be a sellout) but there is plenty of noise being made (see below) and everyone seems to be getting into the swing of things. However, the athletics track around the pitch means that the game always feels a little too far away, which is a shame.

One thing I did enjoy about the game was the amount that the referee let the players get away with. In general the game flows a lot better over here and using your body against an opponent is more or less legitimate. This was demonstrated when, on a rare Gangwon attack, our striker is hauled down just outside the penalty area. The ref waves play on to the disgust of the home support, but that disgust turns to delight when the GFC striker gets back to his feet, robs the ball back from the defender that felled him, and heads into the penalty area, where the same defender makes absolutely sure this time and crunches him to the ground again. Incredible scenes, and Gangwon have a penalty with 10 minutes left to potentially rescue a point. I'm going to let my camerawork tell the story of what happened:

Yep, disappointingly the penalty was saved and Gangwon never really looked like scoring again. I was driven home for a nap, and the Incheon supporters left to go and think up some more unfathomable slogans in English. Good day though. Apparently we're going back on the 27th May, and this time we're leaving at 5.30pm for a 7 o clock kick off. Maybe, just maybe, we're learning.

More very very soon,

A

Why are you so pissed off?

Because I haven't had any exercise all week. The last time I did anything was Sunday, when I ran up every step to the top of the hill on Sunday. It had been a blazing hot day, but had cooled slightly to a perfect evening temperature. I stood catching my breath at the top of the hill, gazing at the endless mountains sinking into the evening's haze in every direction.

"Brilliant," I thought. "Summer's here and it's going to be awesome."

It's now Thursday evening and the precipitation has finally abated. I say precipitation, because I woke up to see a fine dusting of snow covering Jinbu this morning. There was also a little drizzle in the air, being vaporised again as it was smashed into the windows of my apartment by the gale howling up the valley. Still, it did stop, the sun came out today and everything looked nice again. Time to restart football again, which had been on a weather induced hiatus.

Excited, I rode my bike down to the sports complex, expecting to see many keen footballers who, like myself, had been forced to spend the week cooped up in their apartments. Like me they'd be keen to get out and run around. I'd even timed myself to be a little late so as not to have to stand awkwardly around not making conversation. This would probably mean walking straight into an ongoing game, right? Wrong. There was one car in the car-park, with one guy sitting in it. The windows were tinted so I couldn't even see who it was. Not really wanting to go and knock on the window (on account of not really being able to say anything when it was rolled down) I wandered on to the pitch. The car drove away. I was left alone on a futsal pitch, with nothing to do except lob a rubber ball around while a cold wind tried to sneak under my jacket.

"Bloody lightweights," I swore to myself, and rode home.

More Bad English

Big fans of an acronym, the Koreans. Every city seems to be "Happy Suwon", or "Healthy (or is it Wealthy, I can't tell) Wonju". The adjective is then acronimised to say Healthy, Aspirational, Personable, Pleasant, Yakubu or something. Anyway, there's an acronym on the way into the school which reads S.W.E.E.T. I'm not sure whether it's aimed at the students or the teachers, but it's aim is to set out the virtues of a good teacher (that's the T). I can't remember what one E is, but the other is Encouraging and the S stands for Smiling. Definitely not a description I'd apply to all of the teachers at my school. The W though, stands for "Warm-fearted" (sic), which I guess after a lunch of spicy fish soup and fermented cabbage, may well be applicable.

Just time for the Korean phrase of the day, this ones for the corporate amongst you:

저휘 거래를 했습니다

Jeo-hee keo-rae-leul haes-seum-ni-da.

We got a deal!

Ta ta.

A

How is learning Korean going?

It's very, very difficult. At least for me it is. Things that are difficult about Korean (so far):

1. Politeness levels. There are five different levels of politeness in Korean, from informal to honorific. All the verbs and pronouns change quite significantly between them too, so even if you can work out how you should address them, by the time you have you've probably forgotten how you should be conjugating the verb.

2. Number of words. For example, when dealing with family, there are entirely separate words for brother and sister, depending on whether you are a boy or a girl, and whether they are older or younger than you. None of them seem to have much of a link between them either.

3. Not having an alphabet to remember words in. I (if you believe in classroom intelligences) am a visual learner. I remember words by picturing the letters in my head. This worked OK for Spanish, as the alphabet was the same. In Korean however, I don't have that inbuilt alphabet to visualise the words (I can read and write, but very slowly). This means that I'm stuck with remembering sounds, which disappear out of my head almost as quickly as they arrive.

4. A complete new grammar. Korean uses a system of particles. Syllables added to words to denote subject, object, contrast, possession and suchlike. Word order is not so important as in English (though the verb always comes last in a sentence). Adjectives also get conjugated, though this kind of makes sense. It seems to be only for things like "the dog is big", where the "to be" part just becomes a part of the adjective. Finally, and this really blew my mind, verbs are also conjugated according to the conjunction that would follow. This means that the concept of and, but, then etc. is also contained in the verb. I am, eventually, going to really enjoy dealing with Korean grammar, but it's a long steep road ahead.

5. My pronunciation is terrible. It's terrible in Spanish too. I'm really past the age where I can train my mouth to form new sounds easily. Still, I try, but asking for stuff in shops still usually meets with a blank stare. I do wonder whether it's slightly that people assume that I don't speak Korean, but I suspect it's more because I'm mangling the words, not least because speaking it makes me really nervous.

Still, there is a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. I am beginning to pick out the odd word in what people say to me, and my student' minds are blown that I can say some things in Korean. I also have a posse of teachers (I'm at a loss as to what the correct collective noun is here), ranging from the Chinese teacher at my school to my fifth grade students at elementary school. With them, Rosetta Stone and the internet I might just get there. I also bought a new learning tool on Sunday. Here is a picture:

Disturbingly, this is not the first book I've seen here that has misspelled English on the front cover. I could fill another entire blog (and people have) with examples of dreadful translation I see here, but you would think that getting the subject of the book spelt correctly on the cover might not be too difficult. Anyway, I theorise that while the English may be awful, the Korean is probably OK, so I'm going to learn a few phrases from here, and so are you:

일자리가 있습니까

Iljarika iseumnida?

Do you have any openings?

I sincerely hope it's talking about jobs.

Good night.

A