Visiting Base

This weekend, I got a chance to visit the American military base in Yongsan, Seoul. In order to get on base, you must be escorted by someone who works there, and luckily my friend/coworker Andrew's parents are employees and were nice enough to escort a few of us on base for the day. The first step in entering is to stop at a small office outside the gate where each visitor must present two forms of ID, and the escort must have their fingerprint scanned to verify their identity. Then each visitor gets a temporary card to carry around to show who they are. After visiting the office, you pretty much just drive onto base.

There isn't a lot to do on a military base if you're not an employee. We visited the food court, which has the only known (to us) Taco Bell in Seoul. However, even restaurants such as Burger King which are common in Korea offer the traditional American menu instead of the Korean-ized version. There are places to shop on base, but only employees are allowed to buy things. I did manage to obtain a bag of cheese-flavored Cheetos, which are basically nonexistant in Korea and are therefore quite the delicacy to me these days. One of the most interesting things about the base is that it operates predominantly on American currency. It really is like a small piece of America transplanted to another continent.

There are a lot of families living on base, many with fairly young children. Although the base is an American one, there are also Koreans who work there. Many are service industry workers but some are members of the American army. For those of you who didn't know, Korean men are required to serve in the army for just under 2 years. However, some of the men (generally the wealthier ones) are allowed to operate as part of the American army during their service time. These soldiers are referred to as KATUSAs, which stands for Korean Augmentation To the United States Army. This is a highly favorable position to have because the US army is considered to be much less strict than the Korean army.

Overall, the trip to base was rather uneventful. As an outsider, there weren't many places we were allowed to go. Therefore, it didn't really feel like being in a military establishment at all, minus the rather drab decor on some of the buildings. The base is self-sufficient, with its own schools, athletic facilities, and grocery store, so it mostly felt like visiting a small town, albeit a town with rather high security and a youth-skewed population.

K-pop Artist of the Week: Brown Eyed Girls

My arrival in Korea coincided with the emergence of a new K-pop phenomenon: the release of the song "Abracadabra" by the Brown Eyed Girls. This song has been a ubiquitous part of my experience here. In fact, as I sat down and began to type this blog entry, the restaurant across the street began playing the very song. Although there is another fairly popular single from the same album as "Abracadabra," it and no other song have been as widely heard by yours truly in Seoul as this one. It has the exact components that make any song popular: an easy to remember tune, a distinctive but easy to copy dance move, and a fairly scandalous music video. In fact, the song's trademark dance move is one of the most commonly seen moves. I've witnessed everyone from male waiters in bars to one of my 12 year old students doing it.

About the group themselves, I know little to nothing. It would probably be more accurate for me to title this entry "K-pop Song of the Week," but that would be inconsistent with the rest of my entries so here we are.

Check out Brown Eyed Girls' video for "Abracadabra" here. Or check out the less-offensive "stage version" here, released due to the controversy following the original.

Leveling Up

Although I tend to focus on life in Korea when writing, I guess I have an occasional obligation to mention the reason I am here: my job. At my school, the year is divided into 4 13-week terms. During week 10 of each term, the students take an Achievement Test to determine if they will "level up." The English program is divided into 10 levels, and the Achievement Test decides if the students are ready to move on to the next level. Interestingly, the student's score on the test is pretty much the sole factor in making this decision, with the weekly review test scores, homework completion rates, and general in-class behavior having little to no impact. While these things do technically matter since no student will level up without putting in some effort, I feel that this is a somewhat abstract concept to explain and therefore general teacher policy is to pretend that these factors account for a significant portion of the leveling decision.

The achievement test consists of 4 components: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. As the teacher, I grade my own class's writing and speaking sections, which is a somewhat stressful process since the grading must be completed before the 3-hour class period is up. For the writing section, you only get about 15 minutes in some classes to grade up to 14 writing samples. Talk about a time constraint.

The stress on the teachers is nothing compared to the stress on the students, many of whom are under a great deal of pressure from their parents to level up. The test results come out at the end of week 12, which is where we are in the term right now. Students who don't level up have to repeat the level again, and those who have leveled up feel as though they've put enough effort into their current level, and therefore the general degree of motivation during the last week and a half of term is low to nonexistent. Furthermore, some students who don't level up choose to leave the academy and study elsewhere, presumably at a place where it is easier to move between levels.

Clothes Shopping in Seoul

Seoul, as a major city and the capital of South Korea, is definitely a shopping mecca. The city is full of neighborhoods catering to every need a shopper could have. For fashionable young adults, the main shopping hub of the city is Myeongdong, an area of the city about 3 blocks by 3 blocks in size that is more or less off limits to traffic and is filled to the brim with shops and restaurants. The shops range from the expensive and high-class to the tiny and cheap (home of $10 shoes). Housed within this area is the city's only Forever 21, a sight for sore eyes for this recent college graduate who is used to skimping on quality in favor of saving money. Myeongdong also contains a large underground shopping complex as well as a mall and a Shinsegae department store.

Walking around the city, an observant American might notice that most Koreans (women in particular) are rather small, and that the obese portion of the population that is becoming predominant in America is more or less nonexistent in Korea. This suspicion is quickly confirmed on a shopping trip. Women's shoe sizes in most stores max out at size 50 (or 250 mm), approximately an 8 or 8.5 in American sizing. Even less forgiving is the range of pant sizes offered; most stores have only up to size 28 or maybe 29, the equivalent of up to around a size 6 in America. Keep in mind that the average American woman has a pant size of 12. Quite the cultural disparity. So what is a larger-bodied foreigner to do? Pretty much the only option for larger sizes is to go to Itaewon, the center for foreigners. Here you will find many stores specializing in larger sized clothing that cater to Americans in need.

Another important difference between shopping in Korea and America is in the department stores. While American department stores are generally places to find good bargains on clothing and household items, Korean department stores are places for expensive, quality items. Generally the floors are arranged in order of descending price from bottom to top, such that the entrance floor contains the most expensive items. For example, this floor usually contains stores such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Chanel, and Dior. The second floor will be equally pricey with boutique stores like Coach and Burberry. Eventually, the floors begin to stock clothing items, although they still tend to be rather expensive, with the cheapest brands being Tommy Hilfiger, DKNY, or similar. Not exactly the American experience.

Shopping can be frustrating at times, but being fashionable is highly valued in Seoul, so it's important to keep up with the trends. Therefore, the malls and neighborhoods like Myeongdong are packed every weekend, regardless of the weather. As if anyone needs an excuse to go shopping.

Pepero Day

Today, November 11th, is a holiday of sorts here in Korea, although it's hard to call something a holiday when it's corporate-sponsored. Today is Pepero Day, a truly unique day on which children exchange Pepero candies. "Pepero" is not a generic name for a type of food: it is a specific brand of snack produced by the Lotte company. And although Lotte claims the idea for the holiday wasn't theirs, there is hardly anyone who believes them. Not to mention that if it wasn't their idea, they should really make some changes to their marketing division.

Let me explain: November the 11th, or 11/11, is Pepero Day, because Pepero sticks look like 1's and 11/11 has four ones in it. The exchange of candies is somewhat along the lines of American Valentine's Day in that the people trading the candy are usually children or teenagers, and they give them to friends or romantic interests. In fact, the Lotte company makes over half their Pepero sales just in the month of November. Even though Lotte claims they did not create the holiday, they have certainly stepped up to provide for it, creating a variety of Pepero baskets and goody bags specifically for the 11th. The holiday is mostly contained to the youth population, although it never hurts as a teacher to pass out some extra goodies to the kids.

Happy Pepero Day!

Kpop Artist of the Week: Big Bang

If Korean pop music were a meal, Big Bang would be the rice. You can't have a complete understanding of Kpop without them. Big Bang resembles a typical United States boy band: there are 5 members, they sing and dance, they are wildly popular with teenage girls, and the selection of members was documented on a TV show. Unlike the boy bands of the US, however, most of the members of Big Bang had careers in the music industry before combining into one group. This boy band also aims to maintain more of a hip-hop image than a pop one. Furthermore, the group endorses Hite, a Korean beer. Not very wholesome if you ask me.



Big Bang is probably the first Kpop group a foreigner will become familiar with. And the foreigner audience is exactly who they are aiming to attract. Most of their songs contain a combination of English and Korean lyrics. The group is currently trying to break into the Japanese market, recording songs in the Japanese language. This move does not go over well with their Korean fan base, because as my students say about Japanese pop, "You can't understand what they're saying."

Check out Big Bang's breakout single, "Lies."

Physical Fitness: Hiking

Physical fitness is something that is taken very seriously in Seoul. This becomes very obvious when one chooses to travel one of the many hiking trails in the city. These trails are always very carefully groomed to be optimally accessible to the public. There are often stairs built into steep inclines and sometimes there are even paved paths to show the way. This being said, these trails are not for the faint of heart. When my friends and I embarked on a trail rated "easy to moderate," I imagined a flat, gently rolling path. What we encountered was a straight half hour of uphill climbing followed by two more hours of ups and downs (see picture). Needless to say, we were a bit unprepared for the experience.

The hiking paths here are always bustling with people, even on weekdays. The crowd tends to be somewhat older than what you would expect, with many hikers who are definitely in retirement. On the other hand, there are always plenty of small children who somehow manage to make it through these physically demanding hikes. Along the trails, there are always parties who have left the path to have picnic lunches, usually involving at least some beer or soju. Fashion is, as always, a crucial component of hiking. For both men and women, brightly colored hiking gear is expected to be worn, and it is always helpful to bring along a hiking stick.

If the hike alone isn't enough, you can always pull over at one of the many mountain-side exercise equipment stations. These consist of gym equipment which is installed right amongst the trees and which is free for anyone to use, assuming you can make it there.