Marty In Korea

May 11 Home again, home again!

2009-05-12T15:20:00.001-07:00

I celebrate my 61st birthday today by leaving Daejeon, boarding an airplane, and returning home. Seeing Patti again at SeaTac Airport will be the best birthday present ever. (Yes, it is my birthday at 6 pm when my plane takes off from Seoul, and still my birthday the next afternoon when my plane lands in Seattle, courtesy of the International Date Line. This year, my birthday lasts for, oh, I don’t know, something like 40 hours.)

Although I can’t wait to be home, there are many, many things I will miss about Korea. Here are the top 10:

10. Walking to work, to stores and to restaurants in my very active neighborhood

9. Unfailing politeness
8. The public baths
7. The lights at night

6. The Buddhist temples, especially on quiet days with no crowds

5. The subway

4. The singing and chanting at Hanwha Eagles baseball games

3. The running path along the river

2. Some, but not all, Korean food: bibimbap, pajan, takboki

1. Koreans

So that’s it for my trip and for my blog. Thanks for following along. It was fun for me to keep track of all the things I saw and did. I hope you got a kick out of it too, and that you’ll have your own opportunity to visit Korea someday. It’s quite a place!

May 9 Surprises

2009-05-09T14:40:00.001-07:00

Just when I think I have things figured out, Korea and Koreans surprise me.

On Monday, as I was leaving the office, I checked in with Cho Jung Jae about some work we had collaborated on and then said, “See you tomorrow!” as I turned to go. “Oh, no, not tomorrow,” he said. “Why not, aren’t you working tomorrow?” “No, nobody will work. It is International Children’s Day, a holiday.” “You mean the office will be closed?” “Yes, of course.” “And nobody mentioned this to me?” “Well, everybody already knew,” meaning, I suppose, that they assumed that I knew too.

So on Tuesday morning I had time for a run along the river. I was joined by a fellow on a bicycle who had pedaled alongside me on one of my runs several weeks ago. “Hey, Seattle!” he called out. I asked him about the marathon he had just run in Daegu, and we chatted about races and training and how far I planned to run today. He told me his name and age, and asked me mine. Eventually he waved and shot on ahead, and I assumed that was the last I would see of him. But on the return half of my run he was waiting for me with a cold bottle of water and a slip of paper with his name and email address so that we can keep in touch and exchange race information.

I’m surprised yet again by the names of some of the stores and restaurants here. What are they thinking?

And, after twelve weeks, I am still surprised the by typical garb of the ladies who do their power-walking along the river path. The sun visor, the face mask, the gloves, the jacket—it was about eighty-five degrees out when I took this picture.

In spite of the solid education I received at the Museum of Chicken Arts in Seoul, I am surprised by how pervasive chicken images are in Daejeon.

As I try to fit everything into suitcases, I’m kind of surprised by how many good-bye gifts I have received: twenty-six at least, although some of those were given to me to take home to Patti. They are not all going to fit in my suitcase and garment bag, so some will have to be shipped back to Seattle.

And finally, I am surprised by how much I’m already starting to miss my friends here—it was hard to say good-bye to everyone when I left the office on Friday. (But I will not miss sitting on the floor to eat!)

May 4 What Is Your Religion?

2009-05-04T15:11:00.000-07:00

The second most popular question in Korea (after “How old are you?”) seems to be “What is your religion?” This is a little disconcerting at first, because in the US it is not a common topic of discussion in the government workplace, nor is it one of the first things asked when meeting a new acquaintance at a casual social gathering. In Korea, the acceptable answers are a) Catholic; b) Christian (meaning fundamentalist/evangelical); c) Buddhist; or d) None. Any answer may be followed up by “Do you go to church?” “What do you believe?” etc. (I have read, however, that it is considered somewhat impolite and intrusive to ask what someone does for a living in Korea. Different cultures have different approaches to personal privacy.)

I had the opportunity to explore two of the four options in a bit more detail this weekend. Saturday was the Buddha’s birthday (or at least the day it is celebrated in Korea.) My friends Cho Han Sic and Lee Im Moo decided it would be a good day to take me to Beopjusa, a large temple complex in the National Park at the base of Songni Mountain. The place was packed with visitors.

The main feature of Beopjusa is a 100 foot high bronze Buddha statue. While the temple complex is 1500 years old, the statue was built just 20 years ago. I personally find the other features of the site, such as the large but graceful pagoda, much more attractive.

Beneath the base of the bronze Buddha is a prayer room with a smaller Buddha and a display of some of the artifacts from the site.

These ancient chicken stamps confirm everything I learned at the Museum of Chicken Arts in Seoul.

Then on Sunday afternoon I went with my friend Kang Yeong Yang and his wife to their church picnic, which was held in a park along a river on the edge of town. The event consisted mostly of playing a little badminton and grilling meat.

Afterwards the men sat and ate while the women served.

Everyone was extremely nice to me and kept giving me lettuce and tomatoes and some kind of root and sliced melon and rice and sweet potatoes. The children had a great time too. The little boys threw rocks into the river while the little girls sat and chatted—in the river.

Between my two weekend religious celebrations I went for my usual Sunday morning run on the path along the river here in town. About three kilometers into my 16k run I happened upon the start of a 10k race which, by coincidence, followed the same route I was running and started just a few seconds after I ran past the start line. So suddenly I found myself in the midst of several hundred very fast young runners who greeted me cheerfully as they blew on by. They were all decked out in appropriate race day attire—shorts and technical shirts or tanks with a race number pinned to the front—while I was slugging along in my jogging pants with my jacket tied around my waste. But everyone seemed pleased or at least a little amused to have this ancient foreigner straggling along. I crossed the finish line proud not to have been last, took advantage of the water station they had set up there, and then continued on at a slower pace to complete the final three kilometers of my run. But the time I spent on the trail with the Korean runners reminded me of how much energy I get out of competitive running, how much I miss it, and also how much work I have to do if I ever want to be competitive again.

May 1 Book Club

2009-05-01T00:51:00.000-07:00

This week I spent with Bill Stafford of the Trade Development Alliance of Greater Seattle. Bill is bringing a study mission of business, government, and education leaders to Daejeon in a year and was here to plan the itinerary. Their program will include presentations from local experts regarding science, technology, transportation, and education. It should be pretty interesting.

One place they will visit is the National Science Museum of Korea, which is located in Daejeon. The museum is a lot like the Pacific Science Center in Seattle except that it includes a large cultural history section (not really science) and it is less interactive. To its credit, they have an outdoor exhibit which includes a larger-than-life replica of the swine flu virus.

Speaking of which, I am already worrying that the spreading pandemic may cause Seoul and/or Seattle to close its airport to international travel just when I am leaving to come home (in ten days!) Fortunately, I was not asked to work in Seattle’s other sister city, Mazatlan. Although, come to think of it, other than the danger of an agonizing death, there would have been some advantages.

Yesterday I was invited by some people at work to join them for book club. Book club is held in a restaurant after work on the last Thursday of each month Instead of everyone reading the same book and discussing it, this group has found it more fun for each member to read a book of his or her choice and then give a brief report on it while everyone eats and drinks beer. Last night three of the five attendees (besides me) were men. There were no reports. Instead we just talked about literature, culture, and travel. They asked me for some recommendations on books to read, and naturally I could not think of any. Perhaps it was the beer.

April 25 Further Adventures with Videographers

2009-04-26T03:25:00.000-07:00

What would you show if you had to try to capture the essence of Daejeon in a half hour video? That’s not entirely a rhetorical question—in fact, it’s exactly what Mike and Donna James have to figure out. We’ve already been to a church, a temple, a baseball game, a university, a high school, a research center, and a Buddhist art gallery. We have been to the burial mounds at Gongju, the train station, the subway station, an orchestra rehearsal, the arboretum, a kimchi factory, and the public market where ladies sell fruits, vegetables, fish, and spices of all kinds and colors and smells. We have met with the Mayor, had coffee at Starbucks, and toured a park where, in the sixteenth century, a poet and resistance leader plotted the effort to drive out the Chinese. And of course, we have eaten Korean food in traditional restaurants and from street vendors.

What else is special about Daejeon? Korea has two National Cemeteries (like our Arlington National Cemetery), and one of them is in Daejeon. We visited it with a veteran of the Korean War who still speaks reverently of Douglas MacArthur and the Incheon invasion nearly sixty years ago. The cemetery is a beautiful and somber sprawl of neatly lined tombstones and soaring monuments to those who sacrificed their lives for the freedoms which South Koreans enjoy today.

Daejeon has another special park, Ppuri Park, which is dedicated to memorializing each family surname in Korea. Each name has a monument which recounts the history and significance of the name. (They have Kim, Park, Lee, and a hundred others, but no Chakoian.)

Since the video is about the sister city relationship with Seattle, you would have to show Seattle Park, ideally when it is filled with children from the nearby elementary school—maybe, because the principal knows that you will be filming, dressed in their traditional Korean costumes.

You might want to show a view of the city from a hillside in the morning and from a nearby mountaintop at night.

You’d want to capture the excitement of young people out on the town in the evening,

and also the traditional stores, whole markets dedicated to traditional Korean costumes

and to ginseng, which can be used to flavor food, make tea or candy, or put in huge glass jars to scare the neighbor kids on Halloween.

And of course, if you were an avid golfer like Mike James, you would have to do at least one segment on the growing popularity of life-sized virtual golf.

It has taken me almost three months to absorb Daejeon. How do you show it on television in thirty minutes? Good luck, Mike and Donna!

April 22 Adventures with Videographers

2009-04-21T15:20:00.000-07:00

On Monday morning I had the opportunity to spend about an hour and a half with my friend Professor Cho’s current events class at Chungnam National University.

The class is conducted in English, and rather than simply lecture the students, I used the opportunity to ask them questions and then to discuss several topics with them. It was fun, for me at least. We covered a wide range of issues, including gender dynamics in Korea (why is it that Korean men don’t cook? One student said that he certainly does, and expects to cook for his wife; several of the women students immediately offered to marry him); reunification with the North (which students generally agreed was inevitable, difficult, and maybe not such a good idea); and the global economic crisis, which concerns them greatly (with some difficulty I convinced them that it was not entirely the fault of the US, although Ronald Reagan does bear a major share of the blame.) Three of the students were from Malaysia and one from China, which made the discussions even more interesting. They all seemed bright, thoughtful, and well informed.

The rest of my time this week has been spent with Mike and Donna James, two very fun and highly professional videographers from Seattle who are creating a half hour video about Daejeon to be shown on Seattle television. I have been accompanying them on their schedule of sight-seeing and interviews, which has been educational for me and maybe somewhat helpful for them. In the first few days of their visit, they have interviewed students and faculty at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (known as the Korean MIT and a very impressive place); explored cancer research at the Korean Research Institute of Biology and Biotechnology, which has a joint project going with the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center in Seattle; talked with high school students at a public school specializing in foreign languages; and of course, checked out the fans, ballplayers, cheerleaders, and food at a Hanwha Eagles baseball game.

Probably the most dramatic contrast came on Sunday. We started the day at an evangelical mega-church (7,000 members, 3,000 of them children) here in Daejeon, interviewing the head pastor in his plush office and then attending the service. It was rollicking and intense in the same highly choreographed way many fundamentalist services are conducted in the US—the loud music, the videos, the charismatic calls.

From there we went to Dong hak sa Temple, where the head priest (a woman) made tea for us while she sat crosslegged on the floor and patiently explained the Four Noble Truths.

In the main temple, worshipers meditated in silence. In the courtyard outside, throngs of tourists like me snapped photos of the red and pink lanterns that had been hung in celebration of the Buddha’s birthday on May 2.

April 16 Signs and symbols

2009-04-18T14:51:00.000-07:00

After more than eight weeks in Korea, I actually spent time this week with “foreigners.” I was invited to a dinner and talk at the Solbridge International School of Business. The invitation came from Prof. Emanuel Yi Pastreich, an American and friend of Mayor Park; the faculty members I met and spoke with were from many countries with many perspectives on business and business issues. The evening’s guest speaker talked about advanced technology research and the need for international networks of exchange in order to manage to increasingly high costs. From there we went on to discuss the applications of technology, market forces, various roles of government, and social and cultural impacts. I realized that (except for Patti), these were the first non-Koreans I had met and interacted with since coming here. I am glad that my experience thus far has been so intensely and exclusively Korean, but I also enjoyed the wider range of perspectives in a very interesting conversation. A French-Canadian professor who specializes in management issues related to biotechnology firms and who has been in Kuwait the past two years was fascinated by my experience at the Hanwha Eagles game. We will try to go together to a game in my final few weeks.

Another realization I’ve had since coming here is the power of symbols. When you don’t speak the language, symbols can take on a whole new level of usefulness—stop, men’s room, exit, etc. Most symbols seem to be pretty universal now, and we take them for granted. For example, when I see a cross on the top of a spire (a pretty common sight in Korea), I can assume that there is a Christian church beneath it.

One major exception to that is the swastika. Imagine walking down a street in a Seattle neighborhood and seeing a large swastika painted on the side of a building. You would immediately report it as graffiti of the most offensive sort. But not so in Korea.

The symbol itself is actually thousands of years old, showing up in Bronze Age pottery, and the word “swastika” originates in Sanskrit, meaning a lucky or auspicious object. It was incorporated into Hinduism and later Buddhism, where it represents universal harmony and the balance of opposites. Since its adoption by the Nazis in the first half of the twentieth century, it has virtually disappeared in the west except when dredged up by neo-Nazi groups as an emblem of anti-Semitism and white supremacy.

In Korea, however, the symbol retains its original Buddhist meanings and it’s not unusual to see a swastika on Buddhist temples and even on stores or businesses. No matter how often I see it, to these western eyes it’s still very jarring.

April 12 Temples

2009-04-13T05:03:00.001-07:00

My friend Professor Cho Sung Kyum, who teaches journalism at Chungnam National University here in Daejeon, got it into his head that I had to see some of the lesser known temples here in the area. The big, popular temples, like Donghaksa, are too wealthy and the monks and nuns therefore too proud. So he took me to Gapsa Temple, on the other side of the mountain from Donghaksa, and we wandered the grounds on a warm late afternoon. (A “temple” typically consists of many buildings—an administrative building, the dormitories for the monks, and several temples where prayer is conducted.)

Just up the hillside from the temple complex is a small guest house, operated by a nun, and although she was leaving just as we arrived (“Otherwise, I would make tea,” she told us), we sat on the steps in the silence and enjoyed the peace and solitude.

Next Professor Cho took me to Sinwonsa Temple, even more remote than Gapsa.

At the back of the Sinwonsa complex is a temple devoted to traditional Korean shamanism, or nature worship—the Buddhist monks will have nothing to do with it, and the paint is quite faded. That was the only temple we saw all day that was packed with people, seated on the floor in meditation and prayer. Professor Cho explained that it is the “temple of a thousand religions,” because each person who comes there has his own personal interpretation of God and his own way of worshipping.

On the walk back to the car from Sinwonsa, we passed a house with some tables and chairs scattered out front. “Shall we stop here for supper?” Professor Cho asked me. “It might be rather unhygienic. Do you mind?” How could I pass up an offer like that? At this point I’m supposed to say that this humble, unhygienic home restaurant created the best Korean food I’ve ever tasted, but in fact, the food was just ok. However, I have lived to write about it.

The other temple I visited this weekend was Hanbat Stadium, home to the Hanwha Eagles, Daejeon’s professional baseball team. I went on Sunday afternoon with my friend Chon Byung Ik and his son and son’s friend. Hanbat has 13,000 seats, and when we arrived at the top of the fifth inning all of them were filled with chanting, screaming, singing fans. (The starting time of the game had mysteriously changed from 5 pm to 2 pm, apparently not an uncommon occurrence.) After about a half an hour of wandering around the small stadium, we found four seats—two together for the boys, and separate seats for Mr. Chon and me.

The game is identical to American baseball (at maybe the AA or AAA level), with a few small exceptions.
· There is no seventh inning stretch.
· At the end of the fifth inning, both teams take the outfield to do stretching exercises and sprints.

· Whenever a relief pitcher comes in, the team in the field “warms up,” as they would at the start of an inning—the first baseman throws ground balls to the infielders and the outfielders play catch.
· Drums, whistles, and cheerleaders keep the fans in a deafening frenzy throughout the game.

· A game can end in a tie.

The Eagles’ printed roster is broken out by position, and each group has its own slogan. For the outfielders, it is “There isn’t a ball that these outfielders can’t catch!” (One highlight for me was the appearance of outfielder and former Mariner Victor Diaz, who now plays for the Eagles.)
The infielders’ slogan is a bit more problematic: “They don’t allow a single pitch!” I had visions of the shortstop tackling the pitcher each time he was in his windup, but in fact, many, many pitches were allowed as the Eagles fell to their arch rivals from Busan, the Lotte Giants, 7 to 4. The loss did not seem to bother the fans too much, especially the one dressed up in his chicken hoodie for no apparent reason.

April 9 Would you like silkworm larvae with that?

2009-04-10T15:15:00.000-07:00

April marks the beginning of cherry blossom season in Korea, and even though the weather has been unseasonably cold, some trees are beginning to bloom. Monday after work a group of about fifteen co-workers went to the annual Cherry Blossom Festival at Chungnam National University in the Yuseong district of Daejeon. Festival is a bit of an overstatement—we walked in the gathering darkness along a path around the university library lined with cherry blossom trees and food vendors, all of whom were selling corn on the cob, tempura ginseng root, rice cakes stuffed with red bean paste, roasted chestnuts, and stir-fried silkworm larvae (which have a sort of nutty taste and, when washed down with large quantities of rice wine, are not as bad as they sound.)

Unfortunately, the last few weeks I have been bothered by a minor virus infection of my right eye (a problem that recurs every few years) and so I have had to go to an ophthalmologist here in Daejeon. My friend Lee Lim Moo found an ophthalmology clinic (associated with one of the universities) which is supposed to be among the best in the country and we have been there several times for treatment. The hospital in which the clinic is located is modern and spotless. They have a special team which assists “foreigners,” serving as liaison with the various specialists. The equipment is modern and the diagnosis corresponded exactly with the diagnosis provided by my eye doctor in Seattle the last time the problem occurred. There is one major difference, however. My initial visit cost me about $10 for intake with the international support team, about $20 for tests, diagnosis, and prescription, and about $15 to purchase the needed medicine: anti-viral drops, an ointment, and general lubricating drops. Follow-up visits have cost about $10. (These are not deductibles I am talking about here. This is the total cost, with no medical insurance.) In my experience, this is roughly 20% of the cost of equivalent treatment and prescriptions in Seattle.

The cost difference caused me to wonder whether Koreans receive inferior medical care overall. In fact, the average life expectancy of a Korean is 79.10 years, a full year longer than the average life expectancy of an American (78.06 years.) Of course, access to affordable medical care is only one factor in life expectancy; diet and an active communitarian lifestyle are also factors, along with the fact that there are not 280 million guns circulating among the mentally ill of Korea. However, in 2004, the US spent $6,096 per capita on health care (the average for rich people, poor people, insured people, uninsured people, etc.) That’s 15.4% of GDP and rising. Korea spent $1135 per capita (5.5% of GDP) on health care, with better outcomes, as measured in longevity, infant mortality, etc. I don’t pretend to be a health care economist—I’ll leave that to my friend Doug Conrad—or a proponent of a particular health system redesign—my friends Chuck Richards and Bill Blake are the experts in that—but as a pretty good analyst, I can look at inputs and outcomes and know when a system is highly inefficient. What we have in the US doesn’t even really qualify as a system. Oh, and my eye is much better, thank you.

But that doesn’t mean I am an advocate of everything Korean. When I came home to my apartment last night, my ceiling lights did not work. Very irritating. Today I managed to convey to my landlady (who speaks less English than I speak Korean) that there was something wrong. She came to my apartment, flicked the switches several times, acknowledged the problem, called the building electrician, and then, while waiting for him to arrive, looked into all of my cupboards and my refrigerator to see what kind of food I had on hand and then rifled through all the papers on my desk, including all of my medical care receipts. After examining them closely, she expressed concern about my eye, which I assured her was getting better. I guess landladies are the same the world over. The electrician replaced the light switch and now I have light again in my apartment.

April 5 Gyeongju

2009-04-08T04:09:00.000-07:00

Patti and I took the KTX (Korean Transport Express or bullet train) from Seoul to Daejeon. The train travels at 200 miles per hour, is clean, comfortable, and affordable. (Each ticket was less than $15.) Best of all, the trains leave Seoul for Daejeon every half hour; you can buy your tickets in advance, but reservations are not required, and you don’t have to go through security before boarding a train. (Why couldn’t we have something like this in the US? Imagine an alternate universe where you could board a train in Seattle and be in Los Angeles in 6 hours, Chicago in 10 hours.) (Oh, wait, that would require investing money in a national transportation infrastructure. Never mind.)

Our leisurely day and a half in Daejeon was highlighted by my friend Lee Lim Moo taking us and another diner, Ms. Chan, out to the most elaborate sushi dinner I have yet experienced. (It even topped our over the top lunch with the vice mayor.) Anything that swims, crawls, or squirms in the sea was deposited on our table, including live sea slugs which, although Patti and I passed on them, were demonstrated to be both squishy and crunchy in the mouths of Mr. Lee and Ms. Chan.

Having somewhat recovered from our dinner by the following morning, we caught a train for Gyeongju, the ancient capital of the Silla Empire (57 BC to about 1000 AD) in the south of Korea.

In the center of town are dozens of burial mounds covering the tombs of royalty. Most have been excavated, and the artifacts found inside, as well as discovered throughout the area, are housed in one of the great museums of Korea, the Gyeongju National Museum. Unfortunately, the day we visited the museum was also the day that busload after busload of children from other cities descended upon it, swarming the museum and somewhat distracting us from the quiet contemplation and appreciation of the jewelry, pottery, and statuary.

Near the burial mounds is Cheomseongdae; built in the 7th centur, it is the oldest astronomical observatory in Asia. It kind of looks like the leaning tower of Pisa, except that it doesn’t lean, and instead of having pizza afterwards, we had bowls of Chinese noodles in broth.

The day after we settled into Gyeongju, we caught a city bus to the hills on the outskirts of town and Bulguksa Temple, an extensive Buddhist complex and World Heritage Site. Bulguksa, in addition to being an ancient, sacred place in Korean history is also an active monastery with monks chanting prayers in each temple and conducting their daily business as they have for over a thousand years there. Unfortunately, it also was overrun with hundreds of running, screaming, out-of-control school children the day we were there. Patti and I decided to drastically increase our donation to Planned Parenthood.

Farther up the mountainside we visited Seokguram Grotto, a large domed chamber constructed in the 8th century containing an enormous stone Buddha surrounded by smaller statuary. There were no children. It was nirvana.

In addition to being “the museum without walls,” Gyeongju’s other claim to fame is that it is the epicenter of the barley pancake sandwich—two silver dollar sized barley pancakes with a red bean paste gluing them together. I bought a box of forty to bring back to Daejeon to share with the office and they were gone within about ten minutes of my arrival.

On Saturday Patti and I took the bus to Incheon Airport and said our good-byes as she returned to Seattle. The bus ride back to Daejeon was quiet and lonely, but it’s helpful to remember that in only five more weeks I’ll be seeing her again—in Seattle.

March 29 I'm a Seoul Man!

2009-04-04T21:16:00.000-07:00

Of course I caught an early bus and got to Incheon Airport about three hours before Patti’s plane arrived—just to make sure I wasn’t late. Some folks from the Seoul office of Daejeon Metropolitan City met us at the airport, took us out to dinner, and then dropped us off at our hotel, the Kukdo. The Kukdo is large and modern and very nice, a step or two up from the kind of back-packer dives we usually frequent. There was even a sign at the entrance to the dining room, asking people not to come to breakfast in pajamas and slippers.

Friday morning we mastered the Seoul subway system, which is large and complex—in fact, it carries more passengers per day than any other subway system in the world except Tokyo and Moscow. There was a subway stop a block from our hotel, so getting anywhere in the city was pretty fast and convenient.

We spent most of the morning at Gyeongbokgung Palace, one of five enormous palace complexes in Seoul. The rooftops alone were worth the visit.

We popped into the US Embassy in Seoul to get some papers notarized (and because we are, finally, proud to be Americans) and stopped to rest at a peaceful little city park with a huge, ancient, and delicately carved stone pagoda where an elderly man came up to us and asked me how old I was. He, it turns out, is eighty-four. He looks much younger.

Walking back to our hotel, we passed a Starbucks with the sign written in Hanguel, Korea's unique alphabet developed in the 15th century. It really does say "Starbucks Coffee." (Well, actually, "Se-ta-bok-se ko-pi," since there is no "f" sound in Korean.)

During our remaining time in Seoul we took a city bus tour, went up Seoul Tower in Namsan Park for a view of the city (which appears to extend several hundred miles in all directions),

attended a traditional music and dance performance at Korea House, hiked up a hillside to some shamanist shrines, ate a lot of rice cakes, and went to several museums, including the War Museum, which is enormous, quite informative, and very moving,

and the Seoul Museum of Chicken Arts, which is very small, not easy to find, and, well, dedicated entirely to the role that chickens have played in Korean culture and history. Since we were the only ones there, we got a personal guided tour during which each chicken-related artifact and icon was very carefully explained to us.

March 25 "Fix this, please?"

2009-03-25T16:48:00.000-07:00

I started the week by giving a presentation to an advanced management class of city employees. They were particularly interested in administrative systems, so I discussed the hiring, payroll, and budgeting processes in Seattle in rather excruciating detail. They actually seemed interested. Then I demonstrated some of the on-line systems Seattle has available for citizens, including the ineractive, map-based “My Neighborhood” application. They really liked that! My interpreter, Cho Jung Jae, pointed out that not many people in Daejeon were fluent enough in English or knew enough about Seattle to use this application. I tried to explain that I was showing it as an example of how a city government can leverage technology to deliver useful information to residents, and not because I expected a lot of Koreans to want to know where all the parks in northwest Seattle were located. I think the students were with me on that one.

Much of my work in Daejeon involves editing documents (brochures, surveys, speeches, presentations) so that they make sense to an English-speaking audience. This involves more than just copy-editing or even dealing with things like tone and nuance. Sometimes it drives some major discussions about purpose, organization, and overall content.

This week, however, I was given a catalog of products produced by Daejeon companies. The mayor wants to take it along and distribute it when he meets with Seattle area businesses in a couple of weeks. The woman who brought the 26 page draft to me said that the mayor was very concerned about it. “Fix this, please?” she asked.

Here are a couple of my favorites, verbatim from the catalog:

Organic Cotton Towel
Our Hanshin Towel co is producing LOHAS (Lifestyle Of Health and Sustainability) connection ability towel product that is becoming issue all over the world the latest as Republic of Korea towel company venture 1 specially, and has towel full text production know-how of 40 odd years and completes Italy and France computer automatic towel machine facilities in the world best and is producing world highest grade product with many patent and utility model

Solar Crystal Road Block
Features :
· Using solar modules interior LED lighting and EL Light. Implement the existing product as a color crystal greater durability Poet environmentally friendly products are very good night.
· My intensity of the exterior surface altitude geulhimeul minimize.
· To minimize contamination and discoloration caused by ultraviolet charge of increasing efficiency.
· No maintenance costs.

I’d probably buy one of each of these, just to find out what they are. Especially with no maintenance costs.

But no time for that now. I’m off to Seoul to meet Patti’s plane (hopefully, with Patti on it.) A few days in Seoul, a few days in Daejeon, a few days in Gyeongju (the ancient capital of the Silla Kingdom) and then back to Seattle for her and five more weeks of loneliness for me.

March 22 There is no wrong way

2009-03-23T04:12:00.001-07:00

On Friday, I wanted to go to the Geology Museum, which is across town in the middle of a sort of high tech industrial park. The whole area looks a little bit like the Microsoft campus and environs. The bus that I needed to take me there passes through my neighborhood in a sort of zig-zag route, according to the bus map, but I wasn’t sure where to catch it, since the map doesn’t actually have street names or landmarks on it. I found a bus stop with the right route number and eventually a bus came and I got on.

The bus went this way and that, turning again and again. I did not recognize any of the streets. Then the driver pulled over to the curb and turned off the engine. He looked at me. I was the only person on the bus. He asked me something which I assumed meant where are you going? I told him where I wanted to go. He made me to understand that I had gotten on the bus going in the wrong direction. We both sort of laughed. He got off the bus to take his break but motioned for me to stay. After a while he got back on and drove the bus again. We retraced our path. We passed the place, across the street now, where I had gotten on. Eventually we came to the stop that I wanted, near the museum, and I got off. This led me to the realization that there is no wrong way. Some trips are longer and more random than others. But sooner or later we end up where we are going to go.

The next day I gave a lecture to a class of Daejeon Metropolitan City managers on Seattle city government and how it is similar to, and different from, city government in Daejeon. Many students stayed awake for the entire talk, which I illustrated with photos of Seattle—the Space Needle, the First Starbucks, the Alaska Way Viaduct (see it while it’s still standing!), etc. They were most interested in my perceptions of the differences between the two city governments and asked some thoughtful questions, including “What do citizens in Seattle complain the most about?” That was a good one.

On Sunday, Mr. Kang, who had taken me to Gongju last weekend, invited me to have lunch at his church. I could hardly refuse. The church occupies the sixth floor of a commercial building about a half mile from my apartment. It is apparently an unaffiliated evangelical congregation of about three hundred, and I got there just as the two-hour service was finishing. The “church basement” where we ate is of course on the same floor as everything else; I met many, many people, walked through the line, got my plate of rice, kimchi, and other assorted pickled vegetables from the ladies dishing up the food, passed on the “meat” dish, which appeared to be chunks of Spam and chunks of cheese in a spicy sauce, got a bowl of thick soup, and sat down between Mr. Kang and the minister on the floor (no cushions for these hard-core Christians) at one of the long tables. Mr. Kang’s wife even made a huge salad for us to share, because she was afraid that as a vegetarian, I would not get enough to eat.

One thing puzzled me and I don’t know quite how to ask about it. We removed our shoes when going into one of the rooms where the high school youth group meets. And we removed our shoes again when going into the kitchen/dining area. But people inside the chapel itself keep their shoes on! That seems very strange, certainly contrary to the Buddhist tradition of removing shoes before entering a meditation hall, temple, or monastery. Maybe because in the chapel, people sit in regular pews, but in the other rooms, seating is on the floor? Every day is a new challenge to understand what’s going on.

March 18 IT in Daejeon

2009-03-19T14:31:00.000-07:00

After more than four weeks in Daejeon, I finally got to meet the City IT director—or Information Policy Officer, as he is called. Kim Su Cheon seems like a pretty sharp guy. His crew of 40 takes care of the technology needs of more than 2800 city staff. That sounds pretty difficult except that as I understand it, Daejeon does not do any application development. They get their systems handed to them from the central government in Seoul. So their main focus is desktop and network support, security, troubleshooting, and the usual headaches associated with all of those. Their network extends to a number of outlying facilities and they are implementing a network monitoring system. I hope to get back together with him in the next week or two to show some of the web-based GIS applications Seattle has implemented as well as to explore what they are doing or planning in the area of e-government.

I also managed to discover Seattle Park, one of the legacies of the sister city program. It is located next to a school, just a ten minute walk from my apartment. The cherry trees in the park are beginning to blossom, and a group of small boys was playing baseball. So now I’ve been to Seattle Park in Daejeon; someday I’ll have to visit Daejeon Park in Seattle.
There are other cultural connections as well. Daejeon residents seem to have a pretty good idea of the American diet: chicken, pizza, and donuts, washed down with a delicious cup of expensive coffee.

March 15 "How old are you?"

2009-03-15T01:34:00.000-07:00

I’ve noticed that it is very common for Koreans to ask me how old I am, a question I rarely get asked at home other than when filling out forms in the doctor’s office. I have gotten used to this question at work, but today two complete strangers asked me. I took the subway to the Noeun district to go to the prehistory museum there, and as I was charting my course in the subway station, a man asked me where I was trying to go. I told him and he said he would show me how to get there. He led me through various passageways and down winding alleys, which might have made me a little nervous anywhere but Korea, until we were within sight of the museum. On the way he asked me how old I was and I told him—sixty. He told me in return that he was seventy. He looked fifty.

Later, while sitting and soaking sore muscles in the spa at Yuseong, a man climbed into the tub next to me and asked me how old I was. This too might have made me a little nervous anywhere but Korea. I told him my age and he said that was how old he was too. He looked forty-five.

Speaking of age, the downtown area of Daejeon, where I live and work, is sometimes called “new downtown,” because it has all been built in the last 20 years or so. If there is a new downtown, there must be an old downtown, since new and old are relative terms. I discovered that the old downtown is near the train station, across town, and decided to pay it a visit.

Old is not that old. I have read that Daejeon was pretty well destroyed during the Korean War and was rebuilt afterwards. So old downtown was constructed in the 1950s, and some of it remodeled more recently. What makes it much more interesting than new downtown is the huge market there. For blocks and blocks people sell produce (some from China or Malaysia, but must locally grown), fish, spices, meat, and various snacks and household items. It is a loud, colorful, aromatic, bustling place with a mostly adult clientele.

Across the river from the market and the train station is a part of town that is the opposite: a long criss-cross of pedestrian malls lined with stores with English names. Some of them, like the "Sexy Cookie" lingerie shop, may have lost a bit in the translation.
Those who stroll through this reproduction of a generic Americanization appear to be young and hip, or are at least trying.

On Friday my friend Chon Byung Ick and I went to the Daejeon Culture and Arts Center (the performance hall) to hear a concert by the Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra. It was quite nice. Although the orchestra is almost entirely Korean, the conductor is Spanish. They did pieces by Shubert, Hayden, and Tchaikovsky. Unlike most concerts and performances in Seattle, it started exactly on time.

I had mentioned at work that on Saturday I wanted to go to Gongju, a town about 45 minutes from Daejeon. Gongju was the capital during parts of the Baekje Dynasty, from 18 BC to 660 AD. Severy people expressed concern that I intended to take the bus all the way to Gongju and then try to find the major tourist sites there all on my own. My friend Mr, Kang decided that he should take me and bring along his high-school aged daughter so that she could see Gongju and I could help her with her English on the way there and back. We had a good time exploring the burial mounds where the tomb of King Muryeong was discovered in 1971 and we were able to wander in and out of replicas of the burial chambers, always an adventure. There is a great museum in Gongju that has many of the treasures that were in the King’s tomb. Mr. Kang was able to get his car washed on the way. I am learning all kinds of new stuff every day.

I have even learned a new strategy for parking my motorcycle when all the parking spaces are taken.

March 12 Office Casual

2009-03-11T17:03:00.001-07:00

As I become more accustomed to Korean social traditions—removing my shoes when I enter a restaurant, sitting on the floor to eat, picking things out of communal platters and bowls with my chopsticks or my spoon—a new problem has arisen. Many people have reached out to me, taking me out to lunch or dinner, and I would like to reciprocate. That is, I want to continue to socialize, to take the initiative, and to carry my share of the expense. (There is, apparently, no “Dutch treat,” at least not at a visible level, in Korean socializing. Someone always picks up the tab.) The problem is that even after a month here I am still viewed as the guest, and whichever Korean I am with assumes the role of the host. For example, on Monday I stopped by the desk of Lee Lim Moo, a man who worked at the City of Seattle for a year back in the mid-90s and who took me out to dinner my first day of work in Daejeon. I like him and I invited him to have lunch with me. He seemed happy about that and readily agreed. Then he invited four or five of his fellow managers to join us and insisted that I would be his guest for lunch.

Now, in Seattle I could handle this kind of problem by simply outmaneuvering him for the bill or even arranging with the restaurant ahead of time to make sure that I got the check. But in a Korean restaurant, where my language skills are limited at best, that’s hard to do. I’m sure I’ll work something out eventually, but for now, it’s a little embarrassing.

I find that my co-workers are also still very interested in the details of my daily life. Some of that is, I think, out of concern. “What did you do this weekend? Really? You took the bus by yourself?” And some is just curiosity. “What did you have for breakfast today? What did you have for dinner last night? Really? You cook?” Stories of my fixing food for myself in my apartment always elicit shock and amazement (and maybe a little well-placed concern, too.) Some of the more progressive Korean men I have talked with will admit to “helping” their wives with the housework, but none, so far, has confided that he cooks. I try to encourage them, but I don’t see a lot of hope.

One thing that is not a problem for me so far is what to wear to the office. As you have probably seen from previous posts, Korean office-wear is pretty consistently formal, at least by current US standards. Men invariably wear dark suits (I brought three), dress shirts (I brought many) and ties (likewise.) Women wear dark slacks or skirts, a blouse, and usually a dark jacket or sweater. Formality, however, ends at the ankle. Many men remove their shoes after they are at their desks and slip into a pair of sandals. And the women—well, once inside the office, anything goes.

March 8 The Hike

2009-03-09T06:31:00.000-07:00

I had a scare this weekend when I got a call from Patti saying that my father was in the hospital with pneumonia. In addition to worrying about him, it made me realize again how isolated and out of touch I am here. Fortunately, he is well attended by my brothers and sisters, who insist he is on the road to recovery. I called him at the hospital and he predicted that he would be home in a couple of days. He’s pretty tough for an old guy. Hang in there, Dad.

On Friday, needing a haircut, I stopped in at the City Hall barber shop, which you can only find by cutting through the City Hall “fitness room.” The barber shop is a two person operation. The barber cut my hair very quickly and meticulously, with no loss on my part of any portion of either ear. Then he shampooed my head in the sink. Afterwards the beautician blow-dried the stubble and applied various lotions, creams, and pomades. I look great! I should have taken before and after pictures.

Then I wandered around until I found an archeological ruin that I had been looking for. Apparently this is a place where excavations have found settlements from the Old Stone Age, New Stone Age, and Bronze Age, right in downtown Daejeon (the New Downtown, not to be confused with the Old Downtown, which is near the train station.) I think the huts on display there are reproductions. If they are really three to five thousand years old, we should find out what they are made of.

My friend Kim Sung Hoon, the manager of the section where I’m currently working and a resident of the 10th floor of my building, stopped by one evening to show me how to use my washing machine. That’s very helpful, because I’m tired of doing my laundry in the sink. It’s actually a pretty cool appliance—a combination washer and dryer. Just put in the clothes, set the cycles and drying time, and I’m good to go. In return, I’m editing a resume and application for him. Unlike the instructions on the washer/dryer, it is in English.

On Saturday I got my first real cell phone call, from Kim Chu Ja in the Office of International Relations and Education. She wanted to know if I could go hiking in the mountains with her and her husband. Hiking? Sure! But what they call mountains here, we would call hills. I was ready for a walk in the park.

Some park. The trail we took up Mt. Gyeryong was steep and rocky, and Chu Ja and her husband Hee Dong are fit and trim. I had a hard time keeping up, but it felt good to be out in nature after weeks in the city. The trail led to a small pagoda, really just two towers of stone, high on the hillside. At the bottom of our trail down, we stopped at Donghaksa, a monastery for Buddhist nuns (I guess that’s a nunnery). I was surprised to see that the nuns, like traditional Buddhist monks, have their heads shaved.

Afterwards, of course, we had to stop at one of the many little restaurants outside the temple area for dinner. Hee Dong ordered an assortment of pajeon, a kind of fried pancake made with flour and egg. We had five different varieties: seafood and green onion, mushroom, kimchi, acorn jelly, and potato. The usual assortment of side dishes came with, and we washed it down with some Korean rice wine, which I had not had before and really liked.

Speaking of wine, I discovered a Korean red table wine at the grocery store. It’s quite a find—a little over a dollar for half a liter. I found it bursting with raspberry Kool-aid on the front palate, with strong hints of Smith Brothers Wild Cherry Cough Drops and a lingering Listerine finish.

March 4 Third Week at Work

2009-03-05T00:46:00.000-08:00

I spent much of my third week in Korea editing and rewriting economic development documents—a booklet, a presentation to be delivered in Seattle, a welcoming speech to a delegation of investors from Finland (in English, fortunately.) I also found time to work on my own presentation to Daejeon city employees, which is scheduled for March 21. I’m told that every Korean who visits Seattle wants to see the original Starbucks, so I have included a slide of that in my presentation.

For dinner on Monday, I went to a Japanese restaurant down the street from my apartment. I didn’t feel like having sushi, so I pointed to a plate of tempura that was pictured on the menu. In case there might be a misunderstanding, I said in my most polished Japanese Korean, “Tempura.” The waiter looked at me and asked, “One?” His English was about as limited as my Korean (yes, I can say “one” in Korean) and I wasn’t sure if he was asking whether I was ordering only for one person (I was after all sitting alone, the only person at the counter) or if he wanted to know whether I wanted only one shrimp. The menu page that showed the picture of the tempura had quite a list of options, all in Korean, with a variety of prices. I decided to spin the wheel and take a chance, so I nodded and said “Ye.” That means yes. It was a good thing I didn’t say “I”. That means two (in Korean, not Roman numerals.) I got a salad, a bowl of miso soup, and a huge plate of tempura shrimp, fish, and vegetables. One large dinner.

This place, by the way, is not to be confused with the other Japanese restaurant, the one in the alley behind my building. I haven’t gone in there yet--I've been kind of afraid to.

On Wednesday Mr. Cho Jung Jae (aka J.J Cho) and I had lunch with Mr. Sung Gi-Moon, the manager of the International Relations Team working on staging the 60th International Astronautical Congress. This conference of up to 3,000 space and space technology specialists will be held in Daejeon for the first time, and it is a big deal. The city government and many universities and research institutes have loaned staff to work together to design and run the conference. They are well funded. Our lunch consisted of about 20 different dishes, many of which were delicious. Afterwards we went to the conference offices where one of Mr. Sung’s assistants spent a considerable amount of time providing me with every possible detail regarding the Congress.

On the way back to the office, Mr. Cho took a long detour so he could show me several of the universities and research institutes which are involved in the Congress, and also the Daejeon World Cup Stadium, which is not involved.

Respect for age is very big in Korea. It is a key concept, a cultural foundation. Age before beauty is not just a saying, it is a way of life. I had read that before coming here, so I was expecting it. I found out today that the mandatory retirement age in Daejeon city government is 60. That means that wherever I happen to go in City Hall, whatever group I’m working with or meeting I am attending, I am the oldest person. (It’s kind of like going to work every day to a Miley Cyrus concert.) (If Miley Cyrus only sang in Korean.) I always get to be the first person through the door, the first person on the elevator, the first person offered a chair or tea or a walker. At first I thought it was done in awe of my wisdom, style, and dashing good looks. Now I realize that it’s just because I’m regarded as one of the ancients.

If you were wondering about some things that might be set on your table that you can put on your rice, here is a typical selection.

March 1 Museum, Museum, Spa

2009-03-01T14:50:00.000-08:00

Weekends in Daejeon are kind of lonely so far—and four days can be really lonely. I don’t know anybody here except people from work, and after they put in their insane five twelve-hour days, they naturally want to spend weekends with their families. So I try to get out and do something every day: go for a run, shop and cook, explore someplace I haven’t been before. Eventually I’ll run out of places.

The best news of the week is that Patti bought her ticket to come and visit. She arrives on Thursday, March 26. We’ll spend a few days in Seoul, a few days in Daejeon, and probably a few days not knowing or caring where we are.

This Friday I went to the Municipal Arts Complex. It is a new, modern facility just this side of the Expo Park. There is a large performing arts center there (the Daejeon Culture and Arts

Center), the Municipal Museum of Art, and a second, smaller museum dedicated to the works of Ungno Lee. Lee was a Daejeon artist who is apparently well known in France. Both museums are human-scale (meaning not the Louvre.) It is amazing how much faster you can get through an

art museum when you can’t read any of the signage. When I got home, I discovered that I have a mailbox in the lobby and that it contained three pieces of mail: an ad for some kind of quilted

luggage, an offer for credit if I want to buy a house or car, and something that looks suspiciously like a bill. I’ll have to take that into work to find out what it’s for.

Late Friday afternoon JJ Cho from the International Affairs and Education Office dropped by to deliver a cell phone that the City is providing me. I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I suppose it is good that people can get in touch with me if they need to, especially since I’m only in the office three days a week. And it’s nice to have something I can use in an emergency, such as if I get lost or lose the key to my apartment (a rather constant worry.) On the other hand, I rather liked the feeling of being untethered. Now, even when I’m out walking around, people can get in touch with me. Of course, that may end my weekend isolation. Perhaps my phone will be ringing non-stop: “Want to go hiking? Bicycling? A baseball game? How about some sushi?” So far, though, I have only received annoying spam text messages in Korean.

On Saturday I took the bus to the Asia Museum, which is in the Daedeok Valley on the far side of town. When I got on the bus I showed the driver a map and told him where I wanted to get off—the Daedeok Valley IC, whatever that is. Fortunately, he seemed to know. It was a long ride, about forty minutes, and then he stopped at a bus stop and indicated for me to get off. I crossed the highway and sure enough, there was a sign for the Asia Museum, 1000 meters up a winding

dirt road. The museum is featuring an exhibit of the works of Cho Young Nam, an artist and singer who, in some of his pictures, bears a disturbing resemblance to Kim Jong Il. I actually liked his work, which was abstract, playful, and varied. I wandered through all of the galleries, taking my time—the only other visitors were two police officers who were either off duty or looking for art thieves. When I was finished, a young museum guide who spoke virtually no English insisted on giving me a tour of the exhibit. So we revisited everything I had just seen, this time with a thorough Korean explanation. Occasionally she would type a word into her cell phone/camera/dictionary and show it to me to read: “Flower.” “Firecracker.” “Loess.” On the way home I saw what I think might be a bowling alley.

Then I walked around my neighborhood and found a place where people were baking toast.

Sunday I tried the subway. There is a stop less than a block from my building, so I figured I needed to learn how to ride it. (Unfortunately, there is only one line—east and west—but if it goes where you want to go, it’s the way to go.) It turns out that taking the subway is easier than taking the bus. There are maps with all the stops marked in Korean and English, and even little tv monitors on the subway that announce in written and spoken Korean and English what the next stop will be. In between the tv displays advice on good subway behavior.

So I took the subway to Yuseong, the spa district. One of the guide books I read said that going to Korea and not visiting a spa is like going to Korea and not eating kimchi. Unthinkable! (Another similarity—they both make you sweat.) Anyway, Yuseong is apparently built above some hot springs. All the hotels there (and there are many) have spas that the general public can access for a small fee. I picked one at random, went into the lobby, and asked the desk clerk (who conveniently spoke a little English) what to do. He guided me to the counter where I paid the spa entrance fee and got my ticket. The spa for men at this particular hotel was on the second floor; the women’s spa on the fourth floor. (This is Korea, after all. No naked mingling.) I hiked up the stairs to the second floor, went into the spa lobby, took off my shoes, put them in a little shoe locker, took the key from the shoe locker and handed it, along with my receipt, to the spa attendant. He took them and handed me a key to a big locker. I took off my clothes and locked them up. Then I headed into the spa room itself.

This particular one featured shower stalls where everybody rubs and scrubs; rows of little squat down washing stations where everybody scrubs and rubs some more; and four pools: cold, warm, hot, and dangerous. I tried them all, passed up the sauna rooms, and just hung out for about an hour and a half, relaxing and perspiring. It’s not a bad way to spend part of an afternoon, especially after a long morning run. Sorry, no pictures from inside the spa.

Feb. 25 A City Employee Again

2009-02-26T02:36:00.000-08:00

My second week in Deajeon began very auspiciously with my taking my first big bag of garbage out on my way to work on Monday. I thought it was supposed to go in the parking garage under the building, since there are recycling bins there (Korea is very big on recycling) as well as bags of general garbage. But when I tried to put my bag with the others, the parking attendant yelled at me and told me to put my bag outside. At least, I assumed that was what he was saying by his gestures. So I followed the exit lane out of the garage, being careful not to get run over or to drop the garbage and sure enough, there are dumpsters there where my garbage can go (and also more bins for recyclables: glass, plastic, paper.) So garbage duty should be a pretty simple process from here on, especially since I can get to the outdoor dumpster without having to go through the parking garage.

Then I went across the street to the convenience store to buy a bus pass. The woman who was working there understood what I wanted, but we had quite a long and animated conversation (in Korean) (which only one of us understood) about which kind of bus pass I wanted--the card type or the electronic type. I decided on the electronic type because it is definitely cooler, even if a bit more expensive (W6000 instead of W2500 for the card.) The electronic pass is a little plastic bob with an RFID chip that you can charge up by paying money (at the convenience store) and then you just slap it against the card reader when you get on the bus or subway. I'm not sure how the card type works, but mine is definitely the way to go. Since I now have zillions of Won in my bank account (Friday was payday), I splurged and had a whole W20,000 put on my pass. That means I can take the bus or subway 20 times without having to pay! I’m a travelin’ man.

When I got to work on Monday I found out that my transfer to the Economic Policy Division of the Economy and Science Bureau had come through. All my friends in the Office of International Affairs and Education were quite sad to see me leave and wished me safe passage, although I assured them that I was only moving four floors down and would be back to pester them regularly (which I have been.) As though to console me, they presented me with my official Deajeon Metropolitan City employee identification card. Now that I have it, they said, I no longer need to carry my passport (which I never carry anyway.)

The manager of my new division, Mr. Kim, not to be confused with the manager of my old division, Mr. Kim, lives in the same apartment building (transient housing structure) as me. His wife and children are in Seoul, so he goes back to spend the weekends with them. His English is actually quite good and we have talked about getting together in the evening for dinner after work, but for him, after work is like 9 or 10 o’clock. I’m usually asleep by then. (I told him I could not invite him over for dinner, as I had only one box to sit on; he said he had a box in his place as well. But he was surprised that my apartment came equipped with a hot pot for boiling water: “You are a rich man,” he said.)

So instead of dinner with Mr. Kim, I decided to strike out on my own and find a little neighborhood place where I can become a regular. After poking around a few likely spots, I wandered into a hole-in-the-wall café a block from my building. I asked the waitress if she spoke any English. “Little,” she said. So I proclaimed in my much-practiced Korean that I am a vegetarian. This time something must have come through, because she looked at me and said, “Vegetables?” Yes, we were on the right track. So she sat me down at a table, handed me a menu, opened it, and pointed to a picture of a dish of rice and vegetables with the English language description, “Rice and vegetables.” In fact, the whole menu had pictures and English captions. Who knew dining could be this easy? And right around the corner! Unfortunately, the food wasn’t particularly good, but being both shy and somewhat lazy, I am sure I’ll be back.

Other highlights of my week have included lunch in a traditional Korean restaurant (meaning sitting cross-legged on the floor) with my old team-mates from the Office of International Affairs and Education (a delicious tofu and snail soup with kimchi and the usual assortment of side dishes), lunch with my new cohorts from the Economy and Science Bureau in a traditional Korean restaurant (rice with vegetables with kimchi and an even larger assortment of side dishes) and lunch in the City Hall cafeteria again (squid and mystery vegetables with rice, etc.) And now that I have my official Daejeon Metropolitan City employee identification card, I even get a discount when I buy lunch.

Some people who have visited other Asian cities have asked me about traffic in Daejeon. I have to say it is surprisingly light and very orderly, especially compared to places like Hanoi or Bangkok. Drivers stay in their own lanes, obey traffic signals (except for egregiously running red lights, which everyone seems to expect and accept), honk only when provoked, and even watch out, more or less, for pedestrians. It’s not uncommon to see cars stop for people crossing in a crosswalk mid-block. The traffic signals are interesting too. At each intersection with a traffic light, traffic proceeds from only one direction at a time. That is, cars headed east have a green light. Then cars headed south. Then north. Then west. That means that a red light can last for a pretty long time, but once it’s your turn, you can pretty much do what you want—left, right, or straight ahead. Just don’t hit somebody in a cross walk!

Feb. 22 Please Refrain

2009-02-23T02:35:00.000-08:00

I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of this Daejeon living. In fact, I went to a large department store, looked around, took the elevator to the 9th floor where the restaurants are, and went inside one for lunch. I pointed at a picture of what I wanted—a picture of a rice dish in a stone pot with vegetables, meat, and a raw egg that cooks when you stir everything together because the pot is so hot—and said in my very best Korean, “I am a vegetarian,” which I hoped my waitress would understand to mean, leave out the meat. However, I think I must actually have been saying “Good oxen knit sox in the kitchen” or something, because every time I repeated it, she looked more confused. Finally she found a young woman at another table to interpret for me. After that everything was fine, the food was delicious, and I think everyone was quite relieved when I paid my bill and left.

I also discovered a very disturbing sign in the elevator in my apartment building—really just a small sticker above the elevator door. It says “Please refrain from copulating in the elevator.” I find this very disturbing on a number of levels: first, that they would need to post a reminder like this at all, second that in typical Korean fashion they would be so polite about it, and third, that the sticker is only in English. Given the starkness, emptiness, and general silence of my building, it’s about the last thing I would have guessed anyone would have to worry about. Fortunately, the sticker is only in one elevator out of four, so I’m hoping that means it was put there by some English-speaking resident (perhaps an Australian) as a joke.

On Saturday I went for a run along the river. The running path is well maintained and quite long—just how long, I don’t know, and will probably never find out. Lots of people were out walking and bicycling, but I only saw one other runner. It felt good to work my muscles again after sitting and lying around for so many days. Also, now I don’t feel so bad about how much I am eating.

In the afternoon I went to the Expo Park, about an hour’s walk to the north. This is the site of an international exposition held in Daejeon in 1993. The focal point is the Tower of Light, a spire dedicated to light with lots of signage inside, some in English, about how the 21st Century (only seven years away!) will no doubt shine light on the solutions to all humanity’s problems, or

something. I want up in the observation deck (W2,500) for a look around. I was the only one there. Afterwards I walked around the site, which consists of lots of giant spheres and glass pyramids and statues of famous scientists surrounded by large shrubberies with scary faces, some of which appear ready to attack and eat the scientists. There is also a large exhibition hall which, from the frightening pictures on the outside and the loud roars rolling out from within, appears to be dedicated to the memory of huge carnivorous dinosaurs. Lots of small children were eager to go in, but I passed it by.

On Sunday I decided I had to try to take the bus somewhere, so I chose the Yuseong Spa district as it is very famous, plus that’s where one of the buses that runs right in front of my apartment building goes. (I am not up for lesson 2: “transferring” yet.) (As a matter of fact, there is no transfer if you pay cash. You just get off, get on another bus, and pay again. If you use an electronic transit card, you get a free transfer. I should think about getting one of those cards.) Anyway, it was pretty easy to get on the bus. They even have little readerboards at each bus stop to tell you how long till the next bus arrives (for each bus number that stops there. My bus stop has four different routes.) I got off at the right place, walked around Yuseong, which wasn’t that interesting on a Sunday morning in the rain, except that I did manage to find the Express Bus station where I can catch a bus to Seoul or Incheon, and had a coffee and pastry to warm up. Then I took the bus home. There’s also a subway stop near my apartment and one right in Yuseong, which would have been a lot faster, but I was afraid I would not know where to get off. On a bus you can look for familiar sites, but underground, I’m guessing you have to rely on some automated voice saying the name of a stop in a way that you can understand it, or I suppose counting the stops until you reach the one you think you want. Anyway, maybe I’ll try that next.

Feb. 20 The End of Week 1

2009-02-20T15:01:00.000-08:00

One week down already. It seems so much longer than that! People keep asking me, “Don’t you miss your wife?” It’s hard to answer that question without sighing. Being here has really reinforced for me how much I rely on Patti to always be there, to comfort me, to give me a push when I need it, to laugh at my stupid jokes. We email one another, usually several times a day, and have installed Skype on our computers so that we can actually talk—although with the time difference, a chat has to be carefully scheduled. We even bought web cams so we can look at each other when we converse. (Gosh, that’s one application of technology that actually makes our lives better!) But it’s still not the same as being together. I knew it would be hard, but I don’t think I really anticipated what it would mean hour by hour, day by day. I’m counting the days till she comes for a visit. I know that’s being in the future, not in the present, and therefore not Zen-like, but tough.

On Wednesday I had lunch with Mr. Kang Yeon-Yong and Mrs. Kim Ae-Lan of the International Affairs and Education Office. We went to a traditional Korean restaurant very near my apartment. Traditional means sitting on the floor, using chopsticks to try to pick up long, slippery noodles out of a huge bowl of bright red broth and transport them to my mouth without dropping them or dripping into my lap. I have noticed that while many restaurants have boxes of small paper napkins (usually about six inches square) on the table, these do not go in the lap. Thus, pants, especially suit pants, as well as shirts, ties, and coats, go unprotected. In order to minimize the potential for serious damage to my wardrobe (which is pretty limited to begin with), I scrunched as close to the table as I could, twisting my old, stiff legs into pretzels. I also finally cheated, transferring gobs of noodles first into a small side bowl, then holding this bowl close under my chin and then using the chopsticks to simply lift the noodles up into my mouth. I have read that this is very un-Korean, but I noticed that my host, Mr. Kang, began to do the same. I’m not sure whether that was because he normally eats that way, or if it was just to commit the same transgression as me in order to alleviate some of my shame. So much culture, so little time! After lunch it took me about ten minutes to stand up again and a half an hour to shuffle along on throbbing legs the two blocks to City Hall. Later we all ate a huge box of assorted rice-cakes that had been sent as a gift by a school.

Thursday morning I somehow convinced my landlady to come to my apartment to get my stove and microwave work. She found a circuit that needed resetting and also kindly reset the thermostat so that it will be a comfortable 80 degrees at all times. I’ll have to figure out how to turn that back down. Anyway, it will be nice to be able to cook some noodles and vegetables on the stove, rather than relying on my hot pot.

I also went into the office for a few hours, even though it was one of my days off, because I had to meet with Mr. Cho and Mrs. Kim and Miss Park to discuss a brochure that we are working on. While I was there, I decided to have lunch in the City Hall Cafeteria. It’s quite the set-up. The cafeteria is a huge room with rows and rows of tables and chairs. There are basically two menu choices (written in Korean, obviously) so you get in line for whichever choice you prefer: line A is along the north side of the room, line B along the south side. When you get to the food, you pick up a tray with various concavities and that’s where you put your food—a ladle of rice, a couple of different kinds of kimchi, some teokbokki noodles, a strange meat patty if you are not a vegetarian. You grab the traditional long-handled metal spoon and metal chopsticks, they hand you a bowl of soup, and you go find a place to sit. The best part is that payment (3,000 Won, about $2.30) is made by tapping a smart card (a credit card with an RFID chip) against a card reader and then taking the printed receipt that pops out so it can be dropped in the box by the soup. As the foreigner, I have to pay cash to get my receipt.

Friday it snowed so I went to the little espresso shop on the 20th floor of City Hall, bought a latte (1,000 Won—no wonder Starbucks is having problems) and read my favorite book, The Confidence Man: His Masquerade, by Herman Melville. It seems so appropriate for these chaotic times. I also went to the discount store and bought a real pillow to substitute for the traditional Korean pillow that my landlady had provided which I am sure is very comfortable once you get used to it but which feels to me like a large brick wrapped in a very thin towel.

Feb 17 Why are you here?

2009-02-17T05:02:00.000-08:00

My second day of work began with my arriving at the office a good ten minutes early. I don’t want anyone to think that we Americans are slackers. Of course, everyone else was already there, hard at work. I was warmly greeted with “Why are you here?” This confused me. “Because I work here?”

There followed a lengthy discussion about which days I was supposed to work in order to complete my part-time obligation of 20 hours per week. I thought we had agreed on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. (Yes, I know, three eight or nine hour days is more than 20 hours, but we’re talking Korea here.) Others had other opinions. Finally, we agreed that I would in fact work Monday through Wednesday and would come in on Thursday and Friday as needed, or if I felt like it.

I started work on revising the information brochure for foreigners but was interrupted by my friend Cho Han-sic who showed me the online publication in the Daejeon Post of yesterday’s interview. http://www.djpost.kr/detail.php?number=2193&thread=22r11 Because the interview is in Korean, I’m not sure what I’m quoted as saying, but I assume there is no relation to my being denied a residency application later this morning.

Whether I need to apply to the Immigration Office for a Certificate of Foreign Registration has been a hot topic of discussion the last day or so. Based on information that is in the booklet I am editing and a fairly clear explanation on the Daejeon City website, I was pretty sure I didn’t need one; only foreigners who are staying longer than 90 days must apply. Since I have a 90 day visa, I don’t have to register. Finally, my hosts agreed.

However, the City of Daejeon wants to provide medical insurance coverage for me while I am working here, which is nice. And in order to cover a foreign national, that person must be registered with the Immigration Office. So, after many phone calls to the Immigration Office, it is determined that registration for me is optional and I should choose to register so I can be covered by insurance.

The Immigration Office is across town and, since everyone else is busy, Miss Park is chosen to take me there. Miss Park looks about fourteen, she very softly speaks very little English, and she admits to being terrified of having the foreigner entrusted to her. We move the large stuffed animals from the passenger’s seat of her car and head out.

At the Immigration Office, Miss Park has various conversations with people at various desks and on her cell phone. Then we fill out the Certificate of Foreign Registration form; I complete some parts in English and she writes other sections in Korean. I notice that she has filled out the section called “Reason for Application.” I fear she has put down something like “This man may be an axe murderer; please do not let him stay in our country.”

Anyway, we take a number and sit down in a large room that looks sort of like a driver’s license renewal office, except that if you fail your driver’s license test, they don’t generally deport you. Our number is called, we go to the appropriate booth, and, after lengthy discussions in Korean and English, it is determined that I am not eligible to register because my visa is for only 90 days. Very sorry.

Poor Miss Park is mortified that she has wasted my morning and so, rather than returning to the office to work, she takes me across the street to buy me some lunch. I try to point out that it is only 11:00. We have poguki, which is a sort of mixture of vegetables and thick round noodles in a spicy tomato sauce. My nose immediately starts to run.

Back at the office there is general commiseration around my failure to get registered but a pledge to find some sort of work-around. Then several people want to take me out to lunch, because Miss Park has assured them that I did not eat all that much. I convince them that tomorrow is another day and I am happy to actually get some work done while they take their lunch hour. But first, I brush my teeth.

My big event in the afternoon was opening a bank account at Hana Bank, which has a branch in City Hall. Even though I have no Certificate of Foreign Registration, the process was actually pretty fast and efficient. Mr. Cho Jungjae, my guardian, assisted me and afterwards bought me a traditional Korean tea with chopped filberts to celebrate. Now I can receive my pay through direct deposit, just like a real city employee, instead of being handed bricks of cash every month.

My street at night--on the way home from work!

Feb 16 First Day at Work

2009-02-17T04:53:00.000-08:00

Today was my first day on the job. I actually met with the Mayor Park Seoung-hyo, then met with both deputy mayors, one for administration, Kim Hong-Gab, and one for political affairs, Kim Young-Kwan. I also met with the Ambassador and Special Advisor on International Affairs to the Mayor, Choo Yeon-Gon. (He actually was an ambassador—to El Salvador and some other Latin American countries—before joining Daejeon City.)

And of course, I met with Mr. Kim and all his managers in the International Affairs and Education Office, where I will be working. They showed me a newspaper article with my picture in it. All of these meetings, which involved drinking tea, took pretty much the whole morning. What I learned from my morning is that my being in Daejeon is actually kind of a bigger deal than I thought it was and unfortunately, I’m going to have to be on my best behavior, such as it is.

At lunch the Ambassador and several people from the office took me to a traditional Korean restaurant where we had a multi-course meal, most of which was actually vegetarian. Korean group eating is pretty fun because everyone just reaches across the table, snags whatever they want with their chopsticks from the dozen or so platters and bowls of stuff. It’s not like you have your own plate or anything—everyone is eating directly from the communal dishes, all of which are rather mysterious looking. It’s not for the squeamish or timid.

I quickly impressed everyone with my ability to drop things on the table while using chopsticks. The Ambassador also very diplomatically corrected me regarding using my handkerchief to wipe my nose at the table. It’s not done in Korea, considered quite disgusting, apparently. He compared it to talking with food in one’s mouth, which he pointed out is quite acceptable in Korea but not in the west. This will be a problem for the next twelve weeks or so, because a lot of Korean food is pretty spicy and spicy food makes my nose run. I’m basically screwed. He also suggested strongly that I learn the Korean alphabet, which I have now set out to do.

After lunch Mr. Cho Jungjae wandered over to my desk and asked me if I had a toothbrush! “Yes, in my apartment.” “Not here?” “No.” In about thirty seconds he reappeared with a new toothbrush and a large tube of toothpaste for me. It was quickly obvious that everyone in the office (and by inference, everyone in Daejeon) brushes their teeth immediately after lunch. So now I have a new and positive dental hygiene habit.

With sparkling teeth I began my mastering of the Korean alphabet and was immediately interrupted to be interviewed by two reporters from the Daejeon Post, the local newspaper. Fortunately, Cho Han-sic, (a different Mr. Cho and a really bright guy, served as my interpreter. I’m confident he was able to modify my answers during the translation so that I said whatever I should have said instead of what I actually said. Then the city photographer came to take some pictures to send to the paper. That was my suggestion; the picture they have been using is the one I included with my Daejeon employment application, a snapshot Patti took for me one morning before I had even shaved. (This was during one of my darker periods in preparing for Daejeon.)

Finally I got to spend some time doing my first actual assignment, editing a booklet for foreigners about living in Daejeon. I find that I’m actually taking a personal interest in some of the content. A little after 6 Mr. Lee Lim-Moo, the manager of the Creativity and Management Section of the Planning and Management Office, who had spent six months working at the Seattle Engineering Department, came by to ask me to have dinner with him. About 6:30 we left. We were the first to leave.

February 15: Arrival in Daejeon

2009-02-14T21:30:00.000-08:00

I arrived at Incheon Airport just outside of Seoul at about 6 p.m. local time on Friday the 13th after an easy 12 hour flight.

I don’t know how you feel about going through customs and immigration after a long day in the air, but it’s pretty high up on my list of “ways I will punish mine enemies.” But the process in Incheon was the smoothest and easiest I’ve ever encountered. They actually let me into Korea!

When I came out of customs, Mr. Cho from Daejeon city government was waiting to meet me. We got into the van driven by Mr. Wu, also of Daejeon, and sped off into a monumental traffic jam.

Mr. Cho informed me that the drive to Daejeon, to the south of Seoul, would take about three hours by toll road. Given that it was already after midnight in Seattle, that was not welcome news, but Mr. Cho and I chatted as Mr. Wu finally broke free of the congestion. I have no recollection of what we talked about.

Halfway to Daejeon, of course, it was time to stop at a rest area (meaning food court) for some dinner. That was a good idea, since I had only eaten three times on the plane. Instead of McDonalds and Taco Bell, the food court consisted of people making actual food, usually involving rice or noodles. I had a plate of noodles with black bean sauce and a side dish of pickled radishes. That was 3500 Won (W3500), or a little less than three dollars.

After our meal Mr. Cho and Mr. Wu hung around outside having a smoke and then we were on our way again.

We pulled into Daejeon about 10 p.m. (that’s 5 a.m. in Seattle) and I got to meet my new landlady and sign the lease for my apartment. This mainly involved sitting around having tea and then my forking over W5,750,000. Yes, that‘s right, almost six million Won. Most of that—five million—is a “security deposit” which I was repeatedly assured I would get back when I leave. Of course, the lease was in Korean, so I might actually have promised to give them another five million next week, who knows? The remainder of the payment covered my first month’s rent and the obligatory “realtor’s fee,” the realtor being the landlady. Cash only, please, which meant that before leaving Seattle, I had to convert almost five thousand dollars into Won and then carry around six bricks of bills (the largest Korean note is 10,000) stashed in my pockets and laptop bag. It’s a system that seems to work quite well for everyone but the renter.

My apartment, on the 9th floor of the Hyundai Officetel, consists of a large room with a large bed, a desk, and a sort of box on wheels to sit on; a bathroom; and a kitchen area with a refrigerator, microwave, sink, and small cooking surface. The bed is hard and comfortable. The landlady generously contributed a pillow and blanket for the bed, and the Mayor of Daejeon provided a bouquet of flowers. Very nice.

On Saturday Mr. Cho volunteered to take me shopping so I could pick up a few things for my apartment. I met him in front of the building about 10 a.m. and we drove the two blocks to City Hall, parked, and went up to the 11th floor, where I will be working. There we had tea and waited for one of the women who works there. She would also be accompanying us—because, as Mr. Cho noted, it is good to have a woman along when buying things for the kitchen.

She arrived, we had more tea, and then drove to the shopping mall which is about a ten minute walk from my apartment. I bought a frying pan, some utensils, some soups and noodles and cooking oil, oranges, yogurt, broccoli, carrots, tofu, a couple of bowls—the usual stuff for setting up housekeeping. I was quite glad to have the help, because, while I recognize broccoli and oranges, a lot of packaged food is pretty mysterious if you can’t read the writing. The Korean alphabet is still impenetrable for me, and even if I could sound out the characters, I wouldn’t know what the words meant. I’m sure all that will change quickly.

We brought the goods back to my apartment and I was ready to crash, but was instructed that we all now had to go out for lunch. This consisted of driving to City Hall, walking to the restaurant, sitting cross-legged on the floor (which I am not very good at) and eating a large bowl of rice with various seaweed and jellyfish parts (which I am very good at.)

In the afternoon, alone and dazed, I wandered around my neighborhood a bit (not too far! I’m very afraid of getting lost, since I can’t read any of the street signs and all the buildings look the same to me.) Most of the stores and shops are very Korean, meaning I have no idea what they do or sell, but there does seem to be a sort of “western” strip across the street: the Paris Baguette, Hans & Bean (Coffee and Cake), Tous Les Jours, and on the corner, a tall building with a North Face store and a Starbucks. I took some pictures.

Today, Sunday, I wandered farther and still somehow made it home. In keeping with my commitment to be as Korean as possible while in Daejeon, I even bought a baguette at Paris Baguette. Pretty good, actually!