E.V - Week 4 - The Foreign Scene

Hey everyone,

I know it's been a long time since I've written. I was sick with a bad cold two weeks ago and last week was Korean Thanksgiving so we had almost a complete week off. It was awesome and I got to do lots and lots of stuff. But that will be for my next entry and pics will follow.

I want to talk about my 4th week here and some interesting observations about what I've seen. First of all, I was really lucky and surprised to meet another friend here that I didn't think I'd see. Lori is a really nice person that I met last summer (2005) in Miami. She and I spent lots of time talking about Seoul since she's lived here on and off for about 5 years. She just happened to still be here and will be leaving next month, but I got a chance to catch up with her and go out for drinks and dancing in Itaewon.

Before meeting up with her, I had my usual Korean class on Saturday afternoon and thankfully had some time before class to eat a bite. I went to a restaurant out of the blue in the neighborhood around Sookmyung University and decided to try a new dish, pipimbap. This is a very healthy dish made with rice, raw and cooked vegetables, sometimes a fried egg on top as well as red pepper paste. Usually the vegetables consist of cucumbers, spinach, balloonflower root (The root of this species (radix platycodi) is used extensively in Asia as an anti-inflammatory in the treatment of coughs and colds. In Korea the plant is known as doraji -도라지 -and its root, either dried or fresh, is a popular ingredient in salads and traditional herbal cooking) and some other vegetables. It's really good and you mix it all together with the paste and just eat it all. Yummy. You also get kimchi side dishes (about 4 of them) which you dip into for a different taste. I highly recommend it, especially for vegetarians.

Anyway, afterwards I went to my Korean class and that day we learned body parts. And get this... you know the song: Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes? Well, they have a Korean version too and we had to sing it. It was fun! It's funny to go back to 'school' again.

We went for drinks in this really nice new bar called B-One, which is what people call the 1st floor basement here in Seoul. It is such a beautiful bar. Completely renovated with modern decor and good music with a live DJ... it was really cool.

After that we felt like dancing so Lori took me to Gay Hill, which is literally a hill in Itaewon where there are a lot of gay bars and clubs. There is also another hill called Hooker Hill and you can imagine what that means. Crazy, I know. We went to a bar/nightclub called Queen and danced for hours. The music was good and there was an eclectic combination of people though definitely predominantly foreign. Not something I would want to do every week, but fun to do once a month or so. I'd like to discover the nightclubs in more 'Korean' areas like in Hongik, which is the neighborhood around Hong University. They apparently have lots of underground places there and live music bands etc...

One of my students last month taught me another interesting lesson about Koreans. She is 8 months pregnant and I asked her if she knew the sex of the baby. She told me it was a boy. I asked her if she knew what the baby would be named and she said that it was up to her parents-in-law. When a woman has a boy, the parents-in-law often go to a fortuneteller to find out what is the best name for a boy, what will bring him the most luck and prosperity for the family. When women are pregnant with girls, the parents get to pick the names on their own as female children are not regarded with the same importance. Oh well, what can you do? But I can tell you that South Korea has entered a stage where there is a distinct shortage of women in society which is leading to lower birth rates and can cause problems for the economy. They'll have to figure out what to do about that.

That same pregnant student (she was in my Pre-Intermediate Business class, yes I teach conversational business English, who knew!?) also told me that they have a name for young couples without children and who chose to remain that way. They are called DINK: Double Income No Kids. Such an interesting concept, I had never heard of it before. Today, having kids is so expensive that many Korean couples opt out of that and choose to live their lives in other ways. More power to them...