Oh, so that’s what I am(Part 1)

It’s a long way from Gwangalli Beach to our yeogwan in Jungang-dong. It’s not too late yet—maybe, 10:30—and there’s still time to catch the subway back. But, after walking much more than was necessary(thanks to crappy Lonely Planet directions—NEVER buy Lonely Planet: Korea), it’s late enough and we’re tired enough. We hail a taxi—one of the cheap gray ones—and Jane slips into the front seat as Kaila and I take the back.

Jane always seems to be able to get our taxi drivers talking and the driver tonight is eager and willing. With his grating sah toh lee(accent—every Korean not from Seoul has a sah toh lee) though, it’s a little bit harder to make out what he’s saying.

We’re well along our way back when the driver asks her about me.

“Oh, his mother’s Korean,” she explains.

“ahh… honhyol…”

“Is that what you call a half-Korean,” she asks, curiously. We’ve been wondering what the Korean word is for some time now.

“Well, yes,” he answers, cautioning, “but if you call a mixed-Korean that, it will put them in a bad mood.”
--------------------------

It’s Saturday, five pm. We’ve spent the afternoon at Haeundae Beach and now we’re meeting the high school friend of my good high school friend's roomate from Berlin who I met while staying with them during spring break. How's that for degrees of seperation?

He met us with his girlfriend at the subway station and we walked to a chicken place nearby where they ordered a spicy chicken dish unique to Busan for us. Switching back-and-forth between Korean and English, we talked about eegeot jeogeot(this and that) as we stuffed ourselves with delicious, spicy chicken.

The friend's roomate's friend asks me if half-Koreans experience a lot of discrimination in the states.

“Not really,” I answer. Kaila and Jane join me to explain that most people think that half-Asians are attractive and intelligent.

I ask about what it’s like Korea.

“Oh, yeah, they do,” he tells me. He adds that he thinks the situation isn’t too bad for half-white/half Koreans. It’s the worst for children of African-American/Korean marriages. And it’s not much better for children of Southeast Asian/Korean marriages. While white Americans might not be able to differentiate among Asians(i.e. every teacher at my high school…Gloria McMillan: “Steven…John Lee…I mean Jame”), Koreans most definitely can.

“Our taxi driver last night told me that half-Koreans are called honhyol,” I tell him.

That’s right, he explains, adding that it’s a pretty derogatory term.

Dynamic Busan

I've just returned home from a fabulous three-day getaway to Busan, Korea's second-biggest city. About two-hundred-and-seventy-five miles from Seoul, Busan is Korea's major port city, situated on the southeast of the Korean peninsula. It's a prime destination for foreign businessmen, beachgoers, and lovers of seafood. And, as pre-scandal(s) San Diego once described itself as "America's Finest City," Busan has selected "dynamic" as its descriptor of choice on the various banners and tourist maps you find around the city.



We traveled there cheaply by train and lived even more cheaply, spending two nights in a yeogwan--the least expensive and most sketchy of Korean motels. Our's boasted pillows with mysterious red stains, damp beds, and slugs in the shower among its amenities.

We spent our time at the beach, mostly. The first night at Gwangalli, looking out at Korea's longest bridge.



The second day at Haeundae, most popular beach in Korea.



Today, the girls spent our last afternoon at Busan's famous public baths while I choose the less naked option of wandering around Nampo-dong, downtown Busan.

After watching mountains, rivers, and rice fields pass by our windows for six hours, we arrived back to Seoul around nine tonight, treating ourselves to Pizza Hut before returning to our rooms with plans for hot showers, interneting, and sleep.

But, somehow, it's 2:43 A.M. and I'm still up. Pictures, reflections to come.

cousin or lover?

We walk into the bar, met immediately by the enthusiastic oohhhhhhh's and smiles of the bartenders waiting to seat customers. I remember hearing the noise escaping their lips and seeing the smug smiles plastered on their faces a long time go-- usually accompanied by song that went something like, "...sitting in a tree; K-I-S-S-ING." They think we're a couple.

They sit us down and we order our drinks.

An old friend works here, she tells me, pointing him out behind the bar. He comes over to chat as soon as he sees her. He's baby-faced with wildly-sculpted hair like the rest of the male staff at Bar Flair in Daehangno.

Seats open up while they're chatting, and he moves us over to the bar.

Not long after, a fantastic show begins. Each male bartender takes a turn behind the bar, spinning and juggling bottles of alcohol. One soaks a tower of glasses in tequila and lights it on fire. Techno music blasts from the speakers, interrupted every few seconds by the booming voice of the bartender MCing the show.

"Oh Baby," he moans, and the performer stops and sensually licks whatever glass or bottle is nearby.

"Dance!" he commands after someone who must be the new guy drops his bottle three times.

"Sexy kiss," he calls out when my cousin's friend takes his turn behind the bar. He dances over towards us, reaches for her hand, and plants a kiss on it. "Ohhhhhhhhh, and with her boyfriend sitting right next to her!!!!" the MC yells.

After the juggling, ass-shaking, and fire, the show ends with a final product of three or four Sex on the Beach's, elaborately mixed over the course of the show. The first goes to three pretty ladies right in front, the MC announces. One or two are awarded for who knows what reason. And, for the last, a call is put out for a couple. "Couple?" he shouts into the microphone over and over again, shifting his eyes around the bar and pointing at every man and woman there together. He reaches us, thinking he's finally found one, but my cousin's ready: "chin chug dong seng!"(No! He's my younger relative!)

At last, a couple is found and brought behind the bar. What do they have to do for their drink? Kiss. They're nervous and shy--looks they could be underage, actually--but the boy finally plants a quick kiss on his girlfriend's lips. The bartenders groan, "Not long enough," they shout as the MC, armed with a spotlight, walks over to shine it behind them. They kiss again, this time a bit longer, and are rewarded with their drink--which the boy immediately downs--and a case of condoms.

We leave the bar not much longer after the show ends, heading back to our homes--her's just a few stops past mine on the same subway line. Without the silence required in the theater or the conversation-killing music blasting at the bar, we have our best conversation of the night in those last moments of the day

It was a good night.

wasting away...

About a month ago, one of my group suggested that, with all this free time we seemed to have, we should all join a gym. The fitness club across the street looked good--clean was the main quality we used to pass judgement. So, we signed up for a two-month membership, payed our exorbitant Korean fitness club membership fees, and started going to the gym almost every day. There are many different aspects of the Korean gym-going experience that I want to talk about here(like the way-too-excessive nudity), but this particular entry has a specific purpose.

[there was just a LOUD explosion outside and the lights flickered off for a second]

When we signed up for two-month memberships at our immaculate fitness club, they failed to tell us that they would be closing for rennovations in three weeks. So, starting last Sunday we were gymless. But, last night, I joined a gym even closer to our living-tel and EVEN closer to Krispy Kreme where free, warm glazed doughnuts are given out all the time[I kid you not]. Korean gyms do a personal fitness report for you when you first join. I never did one at our first place. But, I did one last night.

So, what's the state of my health?

The girl explaining my results spoke only Korean, but here's what I made out. Korean vocabulary describes several different levels of "skinny." There's normal skinny for example: nal shin heh yo. Then, there's what she used to describe me: mal la yo. According to my dictionary, rough translations include: lean, scrawny, a living skeleton, a bag of bones, wasting away, emaciated. After she took my weight and measured my waist, I was told to eat more. So, apparently the two dinners(both huge and meaty) I ate right before coming--the first at work; the second, with my hal muh ni--are not enough. Also, from what the combination of her speaking and hand movements suggested, she seemed to be saying that I needed to eat more or I would start developing a beer-belly. Ugh.

It's been pretty standard for Koreans to comment on my figure. If it's relatives, they're always commenting on how skinny I've become("Hey," one Yeemo half-whispered to Hal muh ni over dinner when I first arrived, "Didn't he used to be kind of fat when he was a little." If it's people I've just met it's mal la yo like the girl at the gym or "It's a good thing you're working here. We'll fatten you up! Did you know I gained 5 kg after working here for just a month?" like the women I work with at Magdalena House.

So, to give you an idea of what my yeemos are talking about and beause of special requests for "fat" pictures, I present a before and after set:
r

I loved me some cheesecake in middle
school.

And I still do. But, thank God for growth spurts and my Dad's genes.

-----
Today was one of my best in Korea. Just spent about an hour recording it all my written journal--those contents will be up later in some form. It was a long day, beginning with five hours of sleep and four hours of class. Then off to work immediately for the 21st Anniversary Party for Magdalena House. And then, off immediately again, this time to Dae-hak-lo, Seoul's theater district, where I met my Soo-min for a night out. Soo-min was my unquestioned favorite of my Korean cousins when I visited as a child, and our fun tonight definitely shows her status is still well-deserved.

the small victories

I learned how to boil an egg last night.

Googled "how to boil an egg" and boiled three at 1 A.M. before bed for my lunch today. Hopefully the yolks don't turn out green, but I don't eat them anyway. Haven't eaten them yet, but I'll let you know how they turn out.

It's around 11 A.M. here in Seoul, and I'm writing from the computer lab at Sogang University while I have a twenty-minute break between my Reading/Listening Class and Speaking Class. As I type, I am munching on delicious Kellog All Bran(yes, the rabbit-food-resembling cereal) and about to start on a juicy nectarine.

I'm in a rush these days after class lets out at one. I told Magdalena House that I'd probably usually arive around 1:30, 1:40. So far, it's been 2:15. But, since I just discovered a subway station close to school that sets me out in a more direct route, I should be getting there quickly from now on.

I love working there. It's been fantastic so far. I get to hang out with hilarious Korean ladies in the office and gossip as I'm researching American grants for sex work research(shocker: these don't really exist in Korea, hence, what I'm doing) eat lots of food(their "snack time" is the equivalent of a lunch or dinner--and, now, they've invited me to eat dinner with them everyday in the house after work too), and hang out with some amazing women who are surprisingly upbeat and cheerful considering the life histories. I've worked their only three days so far, and already they all treat me like family. The women(both social workers and shelter residents) closer to my age treat me like a 동생(younger brother) and the ones much older treat me like their 아들(son). There's even a running line now between me and the woman quoted in my last post. Whenever we're both around, people always tell her, "oh, your son's here."

Well, class starts in a few. My nectarine awaits.

Coming soon: a special post dedicated to Leane on supermarket shopping in Seoul

Magdalena House

I'm a bit tired tonight after spending the entire day with one of my yeemos(maternal aunts). We met for lunch at COEX, a huge, underground shopping mall before going back to her apartment where I played with her adorable Yorkshire terrier(whose white by the way...whose ever heard of a white Yorkie?), vegged out in front of the TV(I'm getting addicted to CSI which is always playing on Korean TV), and ate a lot. There's still homework to be done, vacation plans to work out...but, I've really been meaning to write about this...


"That's the same age as my son!," she whispers to me with surprise at first, before adding, "I knew I felt an instant connection to you."

"He's a university student, you know" adds the social worker who has just introduced us.

"Ohh, my son is a university student too!" she says with very obvious pride. "Maybe you can teach me a little but of English. Just this and that."

This past Thursday I started volunteering at Magdalena House, a halfway house for women transitioning out of prostitution. Operating since 1985, Magdalena House is a home for former prostitutes(as well as women who want to leave the sex industry) to live together and regain self-esteem through self-empowerment and living in a supportive community.

Among the services it provides, all free: medical care, room and board, job placement and re-
training programs, group counseling, AIDS/HIB prevention counseling, seminars for unwed mothers and victims of sexual abuse, alchohol and drug abuse help, literacy classes, high school equivalency coursework.

One of the house's employees, Minji, met me at the subway station Thursday afternoon and walked me to Magdalena House, just another house in another Seoul neighborhood. Minji speaks the best English of all the employees there(which isn't much) and I shadowed her for a couple hours as she tried to explain--with my limited Korean and her English--the aims of Magdalena House and what kind of work I was going to do there.

Before we walked to the basement office, she took me into the house--literally just a normal house--and introduced me to one of the women who lives there. She couldn't get over the fact that I reminded her so much of her son--why we were even the same age, she kept commenting. Later, when I ate with the women[both the residents and employees], she kept looking over at my plate and encouraging--forcing, really(those of you've eaten at a Korean dinner table with older female relatives will sympathize)--me to try everything on the table.

Minji took me down to the office after where we did the informational powerpoint about the organization thing and I met a few more of the house's employees. Then, we started talking about what work I could do for them. Almost a month-and-a-half ago now, I was asked to e-mail Magdalena House about what kind of work I wanted to do. I wanted to do "real work," I told them, mentioning that I had spent last summer doing office chores and fundraising at the San Diego NGO where I volunteered.

Now, that I'm here though, when Minji asks what kind of work I want to do, I tell her I can do anything they need.

She begins, nervously, proposing a project to me in a combination of both Korean and English. "Well," she starts out, pulling a book off the shelf behind me, "this is a book of interviews with former prostitutes who used to work in Yongsan[where a U.S. military base is located]. These women are so misunderstood and face such a huge societal stigma...we want to publish it so the public can see their stories and better understand their situation. But, we don't have the money, so we want to look for American funders..."

"Yeah, I could do some research on that," I tell her.

"Oh," she answers, looking relieved, but didn't you say you didn't like that work when you did it last summer?" It takes me a little while to explain this. Last summer, I was basically just give a shitload of busywork that didn't need to be done, really, and no one really cared whether my efforts were successful or not. This project, I kept telling Minji, sounded important--I kept saying the Korean word for important several times--to me, so I'd be happy to do it.

She might think I'm a bit full of myself--"Oh, so you want to do important work"--but, ehh, hopefully not.

From there, we decided that I'd come in three days a week. I choose Friday as one of my days off. "Oh, but next Friday is our 21st Anniversary party," she tells me.

That's nice, I think, I've just started and they're inviting me to a party.

But, she continues, making unclear hand motions, "do you think you could, you know, wear a ----[muffled word] skirt"

"...I must wear a skirt if I come...?"

"Oh, no! uh....'apron!'" she exlaims in English. The hand motions make sense now. She's not inviting me to attend the party. She's asking me to be a server at the party.
[The literal translation of apron in Korean is "front skirt"]

So, this Friday I'll be there in apron and all serving food to guests at their 21st Anniversary Party.

If this was a bit dry, I apologize. I'll be dissecting various--non-logistical, probably more interesting--parts of my first impression throughout this week, hopefully!

Let the rain fall down/Feel the rain your skin!/...Rain, rain go away

The rain is pouring down when I walk outside. A half-hour before it had only been drizzling, but now not even my umbrella can keep me from getting completely drenched. I have nowhere to step to avoid huge puddles and no way to stop the wind from blowing water all over my side.

I can't even remember the last time I saw the sun here. As far the weather goes, Korean summers are awful. Gloomy, gray skys are the norm; any spot of blue peeking through this cover is a call for celebration.

Some people love the rain. I am not one of them. Give me snow(every once while), give me sand--I'll frolic in those. But, the only good thing about the rain is the excuse it gives me to listen to my "Songs for Rainy Day" playlist on iTunes.
Of course, rain and clouds don't mean we don't get any of the typical American summer weather. The Korean summer is notorious for its heat and humidity. I can deal with that. But, this whole rain in the summer thing is kind of getting old.

Growing up in Southern California, you can't really help being a little bit picky about your weather. I grew up with summers of constant sunshine, nice, dry heat, and blue skies. That weather didn't change much at all during the rest of the year. After spending one summer in the mid-West and another in D.C. during high school--as well as those first few weeks of fall semester at Yale--I've accepted humidity. I don't like this idea of moist heat. But I can deal. I still get sunshine and blue skies; you win some, you some. But, Korea, this not my idea of summer at all. I left the perfect summertime of San Diego for you, and I get rain and clouds--and heat and humidity. Ah ah. You better shape up soon.

So, I guess I look a little angry in those snow and sand pictures, but I'm really, really happy! Also, Justin Timberlake's new single is awful.

I really don't feel like studying for my midterm

It's hard to name just one favorite Hitchcock film, but Rear Window is definitely up there. In the film, a professional photographer becomes confined to his bedroom after an accident leaves him with his leg in a cast. Bored he starts spying on his neighbors through the rear window. After observing suspicious behavior in one apartment, he starts to believe that a murder has taken place, though his friends and his girlfriend think his suspicions are imagined because of his idle behaviour.

I first watched the film at a screening for my Intro to Film Studies class freshman year. What I really loved and still love about it is this whole idea of voyeurism in it. And I use the word voyeurism here in its most innocent meaning--forget about the sexual connotation most people tend to attach to it. What I'm talking about when I say "voyeurism" is purely the interest we all take--some more than others--in observing the lives of people we don't know. I'm talking about the voyeur in all of us that makes fictional novels and films so enjoyable, the voyeur in all of us--well, some of us--that drives us to buy celebrity tabloids and watch VH1 "The Fabulous Life of...." shows. There's a little bit of a voyeur in all of us.

And nothing makes it easier to be voyeur than the internet. And nothing on the internet makes it easier to be a voyeur than daily-life blogs like this one. A New York Times
article from July 2005, "Reader, I Dated Him"(for some reason, blogger is being lame and not letting me post the link...so if you want to read this article google "new york times blogs greek") discussed blogs and voyeurism, describing how Stephanie Klein's Sex-and-the-City-esque blog became so well known that led to a book deal with Harper Collins and a TV deal with NBC for the twenty-nine-year-old art director. You can really get into someone's life from reading their blog because for some reason a lot of bloggers tend to bare their souls on these online spaces. Ms. Klein's writings, the New York Times reports, includes stories of her "childhood summers at fat camp, the husband she says cheated on her when she was pregnant, her subsequent abortion and her ongoing quest for love." My own blog touches on subjects I don't really talk about with others very often if at all: conflicted feelings about my racial identity, my relationship with my hal muh ni(grandmother), etc. These type of things just don't come up in casual conversation very often. Of course, there's also the vicarious living that comes through reading about or seeing someone else's life. "Ms. Klein's blog is a voyeur's playground," the New York Times article says, "with many photos of Ms. Klein, her friends and the swanky places they go." Although, I'd hardly call the pictures on this blog "swanky," it probably looks like we're having a lot of fun in them and we are.

At any given time, in addition to the blogs, livejournals, and xangas of personal friends, I read the blogs of maybe two or three complete strangers whose lives I find interesting for one reason or another. Sometimes, it's because that person's life just seems so glamorous and exciting. Other times, it's just because that person makes interesting observations. Sometimes it's more simple. Like now, I'm reading the blogs of a couple different people in Seoul. What can I say, I'm a voyeur.

Since I've been using a counter service for this blog, it's been interesting to see what kind of voyeurs I have visiting my blog. Usually, my service can't tell me more than what country the reader is accesing my blog from and how they were referred to my blog, but sometimes I can find out a little more. Most, people, it seems were referred here from my own personal sites and online profiles where the link to this blog was posted. Some have come across it other ways I can't quite figure out. And, one, extremely creepy person came across it by searching "picking up" and "korean women" on google. To this person: please stay away! So far, I've had people from four countries access my blog: US(duh), Korea(duh), France, and Israel. Usually, I can't tell much more about where these people come from within in these countries except when someone's IP address gives me a clue. Anyone accessing this blog from a University network, for example, will have that University's name in their IP address. I've had people accessing from Stanford, University of Michigan, Yale, and Washington University in St Louis. I'm pretty sure I know who all of these readers are except for the one from WUSTL who apparently was referred from one of my personal sites. I also know that my brother has been sneakily accessing this blog(hi Brian!) from our home's roadrunner IP address. But given, the unaccounted places people have been referred from, and have repeatedly returned here, I know that I have at least a few regular voyeurs stopping by.

So, for you voyeurs out there, I have a question: why do you read my blog? You don't need to leave your name or tell me who you are if you don't want, but I'm just curious about why you've been stopping by. Just click that little leave comment button.

Sex and the activist

Nothing like coming back from the gym at 11 PM to have your jeeb joo een(landlord) tell you that the showers aren't working.

...and, they probably won't be working by the time you have to go to class at 9 A.M.

On a better note, I went to an amazing symposium today at the Kyobo Life Building in Gwanghwamun. Sponsored by the Bom-Bit Foundation, an organization dedicated to helping women trafficking victims, the event was called the International Symposium on the Overseas Trafficking of Korean Women. I was invited by a Wellesley Women's Studies professor I met at a Yale Law school symposium on human trafficking back in April. I talked to her after the Yale symposium, and she offered to help me find volunteer work in the field for the summer. At dinner after the symposium, I met some of her friends who work at the shelter for prostitutes where I start volunteering next week!

The issue of prositution divides anti-trafficking activists into two pretty passionate camps. One side argues that prostitution is the root of human trafficking. These activists favor the crimilization of prostitution. The United States--the leader in global anti-trafficking efforts--subscribes to this view. The other side argues--persuasively--that conflating prostitution and human trafficking is problematic for two main reasons. First, the focus on prostitution muddles the complexity of human trafficking. The victims of human trafficking are not only the women and children forced into prostitution; they include men forced to work in factories or fields and women forced to work in nail salons. By focusing on the most morally offensive form of human trafficking--sex trafficking--we do a diservice to the hundreds of thousands suffering under "less severe" conditions. Second, no one can decisively prove that legalized prostitution directly causes human trafficking. Some even argue that legalizing prostitution--thus making a country's sex industry more transparent and visible--makes sex trafficking easier to detect. The professor I've been talking to subscribes to the view that it is dangerous to cast the war against human trafficking as a battle against all forms of prostitution. Most Korean women's organizations would agree with U.S. anti-trafficking policy, resulting in her commenting to me after today's symposium, "Notice how I was getting publicly executed during the Q&A"

Choosing sides on this division has been my biggest struggle as an anti-trafficking activist. In context of battling human trafficking, I now have no reservations placing myself in the same camp as the professor. I find that the activists I've known and respect tend to be in that camp, and more importantly, I find the arguments they make ironclad. Essentially, I just don't think that it's effective to combine efforts to stop human trafficking with efforts to end prostitution.

Human trafficking aside, however, I find the seperate issue of prostitution be a little more complicated for a lot of reasons. Here are some of them:

1. Prostitution--obviously--is a very dangerous profession and women in the profession suffer not only physical abuse, but often mental illness as well. Research shows that a great number(one study estimated 68%) of prostitutes suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

2. Prostitution sends out the message that a woman's body can be bought an sold--that it is a commodity.

3. The idea that we can contain this value system embodied by prostitution and that it will only affect women in the sex industry is rididuclous. You can't contain those kind of values to one sector of society. They will spill over into larger society and affect how men view and treat women.

4. I find it very difficult to believe that a woman--faced with other viable employment choices--would still choose to do commercial sex work.

5. Racism and classism are intrinsic to prostitution

But, for all my idealism, I know that prostitution isn't "the world's oldest profession" for no reason. And, there are certainly arguments to be made in defense of legalized prostitution.

You could refute my first point by arguing that legalizing prostitution legitamatizes what these women do, enabling us to better protect them by making the sex industry more transparent.

You could refute my fourth reason, especially, very easily. On that point, you could argue I am coming from a middle class, male, Catholic background. As a federal prosecutor from Rio De Jaineiro I met at yet another Yale Law School symposium(this one on prostitution and pornography) argued, "does all sex have to be emotional?" Is it right to impose our conceptions of sex, our value systems on others?

However, I really can't think of any ways you could refute points 2, 3, 5. And I'm not sure that I can accept the refutations of points 1 and 4. I'm not so naive to think we can eradicate prostitution entirely and provide every prostitute in the world with viable, alternative employment, but I'm also not sure that we--as a society, global community, etc--should endorse a system that I can't help but find inherently degrading to women. Yes, by legitimatizing prostitution as legal employment we may be better to help prostitutes, but you have to ask, is legalizing and regulating prostitution--making it the "best" it can be--the best we can do to help these women?

This volunteer experience should be interesting and helpful to me in working out my still developing attitudes. I'll be writing out about the actual symposim later.

I never really knew that she could dance like this/she makes a man wants to speak Spanish

Como se llama
bonita
mi casa
su casa

This past weekend resulted in pictures that are--at least--more flattering than our last couple outings.



My hand is wrapped around the pole and I am making a weird face. Kaila looks completely normal.

Thursday night, we had some beers at Underground, a bar near our living-tel, and then did the requisite weekly noraebang visit(Korean for karoke--literal translation: singing room). We realized, that night, that the scores we received at the end of each song weren't based on our singing abilities--but rather how loud we were. From then on, songs became screaming matches. Cheema(skirt) was the word most often yelled into the mic since Kaila's $70 Abercromie&Fitch jeans skirt had gone missing after laundry.

On Friday night, it was club night in Hongdae--pay one $15 cover and get into 15 or so different clubs. We only ended up only going to 3 or 4--but it was amazing how much English we heard--so many gyopos(Korean-Americans)!. We were low key on Saturday night(except for one who met many hangook namja chingus--Korean boyfriends--on the dance floor), sticking in Sinchon, hanging out at this amazing bar called Fusion(see the pictures), and discovering my new favorite club, Zen(mainly because of its amazing $3 cover). When we arrived around 11:30, the dance floor was completely empty, but it picked up by midnight thanks to us, the American trendsetters who started it off.

Of everything that happened this weekend(including: the hilarious pictures of Jane she will never let anyone see again, my first pole dance--a tame one, the crazy Korean girl grinding up against every white guy she saw in front of Zen, etc), the highlight was definitely when Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie" started playing in Club NB Friday night. Kaila and I have been desperately waiting for a Korean club to play it and when it came on, our response was appropriate. They played again at Club Zen Saturday night just as I was coming out of the bathroom and I ran back to our group in insane happiness. Now we're just waiting for the Korea to catch on to the amazingness that is Cascada.

There are about five different faces I have in pictures. This a classic deer-in-headlights and awkward resulting smile. The pole dance picture is a typical, "I know whatever smile I might try to make right now will look like crap, so better to just make a really weird face" face. Notice my friend in the background. Remind you of James Zou, anyone?









Kaila and Jane in the fabulously interior-decorated Fusion bar where we feasted on beer, peach soju, and frriiiiiiiiiied chicken. mmm mmm mmm.













At Seoul bars, they bring out beer in these huge pitchers. But, trust me, we did not drink as much beer as that look likes. First, the this pitcher is elevated on a platform making it look taller. Second, there's an extra plastic cylinder over an inner one that actually has the beer inside. The dry ice making that smoke is pretty exciting though.











The cool panels with water flowing through them on the ceiling of Fusion.











And....one of the slightly odd walls of Fusion.













American trendsetters! Heating up the dance floor at Club Zen...before long Jane would be courted by several Korean men.

Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt...

I'm here with five friends from Yale all living in the same building. There are a few more on the same fellowship scattered about in other buildings, but mainly I spend my time with these people.

Some favorites from the ridiculousness that has found its way out of our mouths:

Foster, on facebook stalking girls he meets in Korean clubs: "I feel like the fact that I'm from Yale makes it less sketchy"

"I didn't realize it in elementary school. But when I got to middle school, I was like 'ugh, I'm fat.'"--Me, in a soju-driven confessional on my childhood weight

"I'm a cross between Cary Grant and a wild boar. As Dirty Harry once said, 'make my day'"--American male seeking Korean woman in the K-scene personals

In Korean, you can add "자" to the end to an appropriate verb stem to mean "Let's _______...go, eat, etc," or you can be like Foster:"오자!"(Let's come!)

A Korean man approaches me on the subway platform. He says: "I am Korean man. Not American. I am not married. If I marry American woman, what do you think?"

"죽자!"(Let's die!)--Jane, as we run across a crosswalk-less intersection after our first night out in Seoul

"Your raging Asian fetish is kind of notorious"--Kaila, advising Jane on how to respond to a here-unamed Yalie

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"--all Korean girls after anything out of the ordinary happens

"We're considered skinny in America"--Kaila and Jane before the gym trainer starts laughing at them


(Colossians 4:6)