there's no such thing as "dinosauce"

eofdreams.com

Now, I'll be the first to admit that English is a tricky language. Many native speakers can't even do it properly: just look at every single hip-hop "artist" in America, for example. I myself, who modestly claim to be able to write well and be in possession of a prodigious vocabulary, don't know all there is to know about the mother tongue. Why, just the other day Joseph Conrad and H.L. Mencken taught me the words "crepuscular," "adamantine," "rectitude," and "bagnio."

But still, there are some things my students just can't get straight, no matter how much I rant, rave, plead, entreat, yell, scream, harangue, declaim, pontificate or prognosticate.

There is no true r sound in Korean. It comes close a couple times, but in truth it's somewhere in between l and r. Therefore, whenever my students (mostly my young students; the older ones have hurdled this obstacle) say the word "are" they sound like they're saying "all." You would not believe how difficult it is to for them to tell the difference between the indubitably subtle respective pronunciations of the words "flame" and "frame." Half of them still spelled it wrong during a dictation test even though I'd beaten it into their little heads for nigh on three weeks.

I've got one student, Jack, in one of my mid-level classes who keeps pronouncing "dinosaurs" like "dinosauce." He thereby dissolves the entire class, myself included, into helpless gales of laughter. You know how infectious laughter is. It happens nearly every time. He'll say it wrong, we'll all crack up, I'll gently (or not so gently) correct him, he'll resume reading, and then within the next sentence he'll encounter the blasted word again, mispronounce it for the umpteenth time and crack us all up again harder than ever.

So you may imagine my dismay at trying to teach the kids the f, z and v sounds, for which there is no semblance of a counterpart in the Korean tongue. They can't even pronounce the names of the letters themselves precisely, first of all. From their lips, f sounds like ep-pu, z sounds like ji and v sounds like bwee. P, j and b are, phonetically, the nearest Korean consonants to f, z and v, so naturally the young kids pronounce them like that. That's understandable; they learned to say them according to what they already knew. But just you try to train it out of them. It doesn't work. "Frame" becomes plame, "stove" becomes stobe, and "zebra" becomes jeebra.

My initial amusement with this state of affairs rapidly mutated into absolute exasperation; now, under the weight of superior numbers, it is on the verge of collapsing into resigned defeatism. I hardly bother to correct them anymore. You couldn't blame me if you were in my shoes. You try spending ten months trying to teach hundreds of children, in groups of ten, how to pronounce English letters. Just how do you explain to somebody who doesn't speak your language how to say z (especially when you've got a couple of English coworkers and a Canuck friend who all insist on saying zed, for Pete's sake)?

First I tried just demonstrating a prolonged sound for them: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. In reply, I received ten prepubescent voices chorusing jiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. Then I tried a different tack. I hissed out a prolonged ssssssssssssssssssss. The reply was favorably accurate. Then I hummed a bit at the back of my throat: mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Once again I was favored with a suitably similar repetition. Then I tried to explain that you must combine those two sounds, the sustained note from your vocal chords coupled with the tenuous connection of the upper and lower front teeth necessary to induce the singular z sound. I demonstrated: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Jiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.

Ten months of this have begun to take their toll on my customarily relentless sense of optimism and self-confidence.

Nearly as infuriating and mentally exhausting as the Mystery of the Interchangeable R and L is the Trial of the Vanishing F. I mentioned before that "frame" turns into plame. Likewise, "freeze" turns into preeji, "fly" switches to ply and "price" becomes pliseu. F is nowhere to be found. It just disappears. Ask a Korean student how they're doing and, if they're on the young side, it's an egg to an egg sandwich they'll reply "I'm pine."

The rest of the common grammatical errors are understandable. Korean children tend to polarize into two camps: the "no articles" camp and the "too many articles" camp. Let me give you a hypothetical example. I wrote both of these myself, so I'm not stealing or plagiarizing or violating any contractual privacy. I also omitted most of the customary errors children make concerning past and present tense and subject-verb agreement.

Okay, here's a potential excerpt from the "no articles" camp:

On vacation I go to Seoul. I saw show at hotel. Then I went room and sleep. Next day I go to park. I ride roller coaster, Ferris wheel, Tilt-A-Whirl. After that, we went home. I went to PC room with Jang-Ho and Tae-Eun.

And now check out that same excerpt from the "too many articles" camp:

On the vacation I go to the Seoul. I saw the show at the hotel. Then I went to the room and the sleep. The next day I go to the park. I ride the roller coaster, the Ferris wheel, the Tilt-A-Whirl. After that, we went to the home. I went to the PC room with the Jang-Ho and the Tae-Eun.

See what I mean? Either way it means a lot of work when the time comes to grade diary entries or book reports. I'm either constantly adding in articles or crossing them out. When you factor in those aforementioned tense and S/V agreement errors...well, let's just say I'm not so much correcting as rewriting.

In all seriousness, however, I am not complaining. I still love this job. I think it's the best in the world and I'd recommend it to anybody. (Speaking of which, Reading Town's on the lookout for somebody to replace me...any footloose and fancy-free English speakers, male or female, should apply at once. Check out CareerBuilder.com; that's where I found Reading Town's posting.)

It's fun and fulfilling. Just this afternoon the elementary school students used me for a jungle gym again. I've gotten them hooked on assisted jumps (we hold hands, count to three, they jump and I lift them high in the air). We have lots of fun in class. I was trying to explain what the word "summons" meant to my upper-level students a while back and James raised his hand and said, hesitantly: "Summons talking?"

Say it fast and you'll get the pun.

While we're at it, try to say the words "double bulgogi burger" six times fast. Betcha can't do it.

I suppose I just didn't realize that something you and I as English speakers can do without thinking would be so tricky for Korean children. And so hilariously exasperating.

a farewell to Andy

What follows is a thoroughgoing divulgence of all the venial sins I committed last weekend. I went to Busan, saw a corporate baseball game, consumed dried squid whole, went subway surfing, piddled in an an alleyway, shot fireworks into traffic, won twenty grand at the casino, challenged the East Sea, chatted up a Korean lady, switched hats with a soldier, owned a dance floor, stood on the pitch of a World Cup stadium, dove across the trunk of a car (with the driver inside), and slept in a love motel. Beat that litany if you can.

Busan at night. Not my photo.

Andy, the laid-back Englishman with hooded eyes and a lazy Manchester drawl, was having his last weekend in Korea. He invited everybody up to Busan for a wild night. Accordingly, we met up at 10:30 or so at the Gohyeon ferry station (the expensive passenger ferry for ₩21,500, not the cheap five-grand out of Guyeong or Nongso). By "we all" I mean a good chunk of the expatriate English teachers in Gohyeon: Andy, Jamie and his girlfriend, a new South African couple, Chris (from England) and his girlfriend Melissa (from the U.S.), Adam, Elaine, Jeff, myself, and a few others.

The passage was rough. It was a cloudy yet windy day, and the straits between Geoje and the mainland were awash with some rather energetic waves. Out on the open sea the boat went up and down like a...like a...well, like a boat going up and down on some rather energetic waves. I'm sure anybody out there who's ever done anything like this will know what I mean. We'd hit an oncoming wave, the entire deck would tilt up at an impressive angle, then we'd crash down again with a bang and a spray of water. After thirty minutes of this, most of the passengers looked pretty green. I must admit, sitting in that stifling cabin with the cloying heat and moisture of a hundred human bodies, I got a bit queasy myself. Out on the rear deck it was better, with the fresh breeze blowing in your face (I had to hold on to my hat tightly). I even dared the waves a little. Similar to jumping in an elevator, I'd wait until we were at the peak of our ascent up a wave and about to drop down once again before jumping into the air, hanging suspended for an extra second or two. Similarly, I'd wait until we were just about to strike head-on, then jump and get a jolt to my knees as the ferry deck rose to meet me. It was good fun; sometimes the sun even broke through the clouds and made one feel as if all was right with the world.

We hit Busan and negotiated briefly for a cab. After learning that the aggressive big-city cabbies wanted to charge our twelve-person party ₩25,000 per cab, we left them and their poor haggling skills and took the subway. We weren't so far from Haeundae (as we would have been if we'd taken the cheap ferry; that landed you in Jinhae, at the far western edge of the city). The coastal ferry terminal was smack dab on the southern end of downtown. But we weren't going to Haeundae first. We'd received word of a soccer (football, as Andy and Adam and Chris insisted on calling it) game at the World Cup Stadium, so we endured the long subway ride in that direction.


While we did, I noticed a particularly attractive young Korean lady in a white pantsuit with big, pretty eyes and attractively cropped black hair. Having been too chicken to try out my Korean pick-up lines on the cute cashier in Top Mart (thus far), I opted to try them out in consequence-free Busan instead. I caught her attention and said, clearly: "Yeppun yeoja imnida." ("You are a pretty lady.") She smiled and said thank you...in English. We had a very nice little conversation: she asked me where I was from, and how long I'd been in Korea, and so forth. She seemed a little flustered, but she was smiling and friendly. I was quite sad to part with her at the door of the subway, for our station arrived mere minutes later. Ships that pass in the night, strangers on a train, and all that jazz...

We emerged from the subway into the turbulently breezy day and soldiered to our destination. Despite the fact that the whole stadium (ticket booth, seats and pitch) was as deserted as the premier of the movie Beerfest should've been, we went confidently in and took a look around. We even eschewed the stands and walked right out onto the field. But for ourselves and a couple of guys setting up the sound system, we were alone. This struck us as odd, seeing as how the game should've started twenty minutes before our arrival. So we asked the two electricians.

"Gaeim isseoyo?"

"Ne, ne."

"Eonje imnikka?"

"Yeodeolpshi imnida."

Yes, there was a soccer game...in seven hours. We'd showed up at one o'clock; the game wasn't until eight. That would rather put a damper on the binge drinking we had planned later that evening, so we said screw it, marched a few hundred yards to the northeast, and bought baseball tickets instead.

Then we had a burger at McDonald's (Jeff had two; he's a machine) and then adjourned to Haeundae via the subway to get our rooms and prepare for the night's festivities. We had a couple hours before the ball game started; we planned to get changed and have a preparatory drink in Haeundae and then head back to the stadium. This we did. We had about three beers each at an open-air bar just down the road from the beach. Other foreigners walked in and out, scandalously clad Korean women in tow; but the service was good and the spiced popcorn and salted pasta sticks were in plenty.

After an hour we paid up and headed for the stadium. Before that, however, we stopped in at a convenience store and loaded up: a bottle of soju each, as well as some makgeolli. This last is a different kind of Korean liquor, the color of milk, also distilled from rice but sweeter than soju or baekseju. It's less than ten percent alcohol, but you've got to try it once. Unfortunately the brand we got was utter crap. It was fizzy, for one thing; that should've tipped us off right there. But we reluctantly sucked it down. Andy had perfected an alcoholic technique where one purchases a bottle of soju and a liter of Chilsung cider (remember, that sickeningly-sweet Korean lemon-lime soda), drains half the bottle of cider, and pours the soju in. The result is a whole bottle of mixer. Drinking on a subway is an interesting experience, particularly if you're already buzzed. Forming a wall around each other to screen our activities from innocent bystanders, we alternated taking shots of Andy's soju-cider mix.

It was then that I got up and tried subway surfing in earnest. You've heard of "train-surfing," right? Where you stand on top of a moving train and just ride up there with the breeze in your face (I hear tell some nuts even do it with bullet trains)? Subway surfing is similar, only for obvious reasons you're still inside the car. You just have to stand without touching anything and brace yourself with your legs. It would've been quite tricky on the older Seoul Metro, which lurches and leaps like a drunken jackrabbit. On the Busan subway it's pretty easy...unless you're buzzed. Fortunately I was at the rear of the car and there wasn't much risk of falling on anybody.

We arrived. I'd stupidly neglected to bring a coat, citing my Norse heritage and claiming it would protect me from the chill. There wasn't much chill, but it grew as the night went on: a stiff sea breeze was blowing in which developed into gale force by the time we left the baseball game and lowered the temperature into the 50s, I'd reckon. But none of that mattered. Our excitement grew as we approached the stadium. The red sun was sinking behind it and happy shoppers and sightseers crowded the streets. We were late. We could hear the roars and screams of the excitable crowd, even as we exited the subway hundreds of yards away.

We got separated in the rush to get inside; eventually only Jeff, Darren (the new South African guy), his girlfriend and I made it to the gates. Jeff was clutching a bag with our soju and remaining makgeolli; the guards detained him. Bringing in outside drinks to a baseball game is verboten no matter where you are, we'd known that. But we thought we'd try it anyway. I'd already shown my ticket and entered, so we were stuck with Jeff on one side of the gate and us on the other. Darren and his girlfriend went on ahead; I dithered while Jeff waited for Elaine (with her Miraculous Gigantic Super-Colossal Concealment Special handbag). Then, on a sudden impulse, the imperious cry of a nigh-forgotten ambition, I took off like a shot down the concourse. I'd remembered what I'd wanted to do ever since coming to Korea, and even before: ever since I'd read what Koreans snack on at baseball games. The concourse was wild with people. Vendors were on every side: hot dogs, mandu, ddeokpokki...the smells were bewitching. But I did not find what I sought until I'd gone 50 yards further along, following the curve of the stadium...where was it, where was it? If I didn't get back soon, Jeff and the rest might get through and sit down without me, and without a phone I'd never find them in this anthropic mass.

Ah-ha! I espied it! Flattened, beige-gray body, skin without sheen! Tentacles coiled in death and desiccation, shrunken and twisted! Head held wide by a piece of wood! Yes! I'd found it! DRIED SQUID! Whole dried squid were sitting in a rack beside this one young man's food stall. I jumped up and asked him how much it was.

"Sa-cheon won," he replied.

₩4,000! A bargain! I laid my money down and watched impatiently as the young man got out a small gas burner, lit it, and toasted my squid over the flame. It seemed to take forever; he was very thorough. Then he put it between two pieces of paper and delivered it into my eager hands. I snatched it, muttered a hasty kamsa hamnida and ran back through the throng to the gate whence I'd entered. To my relief I found Adam, Andy, Jeff, Elaine, and Dominic (an Englishman working in Busan, and an acquaintance of Andy's who'd rendezvoused with us at the World Cup Stadium earlier) standing in a circle, talking. Jeff and I stayed to get hot dogs (we were into the classic baseball game food that night) as I commenced to gnawing on my dried squid ferociously, to the amusement and disgust of nearby Koreans. I also sucked down a lot of beer. You can drink freely in the stands at Korean baseball games, and in light of this liberating discovery we all went hog-wild. Jeff and I nabbed a plastic pitcher apiece and accounted for it all during the course of four innings; Adam and Elaine were taking shots of soju behind the stands during their smoke breaks; and the rest were having some mix of the two.

The game was terrific. There were a couple of players who did these really cool things, and...well, yeah. My memory gets a bit blurry from here on out. I remember all of us sliding surreptitiously out of the stadium around the sixth inning or so, when the Lotte Giants were down by eight to the LG Twins (out of Seoul); I remember meeting up with a bunch of drunk Koreans on the way out, including a very friendly soldier whom I swapped hats with (only temporarily, fortunately); I vaguely remember getting the subway back to Haeundae. Then we hit the bars. We went to the Fuzzy Navel, a fine little two-story, wood-trimmed bar with some delicious Mexican-themed snacks. I seem to recall a rather poorly done flare show down behind the bar, and lots of shouted conversation. I met some new people whose names I don't recollect, only inchoate faces and half-imagined snatches of discourse. I consumed an unknown number of beers.

Then we adjourned to Mix, the club across the street, newly opened and without a clientele yet. We went to the VIP room, but it was too quiet, so we headed back down. I remember eating some of Mix's nachos, sitting at the bar and trying to persuade Adam to knock back a tequila slammer with me, and getting down all by my lonesome out on the dance floor. That was embarrassing (Andy filmed me doing it) but not as embarrassing as that yet to come, however.

I'm not sure what persuaded us to go back out into the night, but we did. Across the road, just outside Fuzzy Navel, there was a booth set up, a dart-throwing scam where you got five shots at pink balloons with the possibility of winning some paltry prize or other. The prizes turned out to be fireworks, and Adam turned out to be steady-handed enough to win them. I think he lit his with his cigarette and was standing in the street, firing it, much to the dismay of the booth owner. Trying to top him, I shot mine into the street. Andy got this on film as well. Picture me, marching down the sidewalk with a cavalcade of hooting merry-makers ahead of me, holding myself like the end of ages is at hand, grasping my thin tube of fireworks like a sword or a bundle of fasces, pointing it at the four-lane boulevard and firing off sparklers at the SUVs and sedans streaking by. Thank good fortune itself that I didn't hurt anybody. I'm sure nobody liked seeing sparkling fireballs whizzing by their windshields and doors.

We wandered up and down the streets a while, buying more booze and snacks as we went. We went into a club, but it was too expensive at fifteen grand. Leaving the club and crossing the parking lot, I decided it would be a good idea to take a belly-flop across the trunk of a parked car. I didn't notice the driver was still inside it. He got out and you could almost see the steam coming off him. I mustered my remaining mental and ethical faculties, bowed, apologized, and admitted that I was an idiot (in Korean). The man let his bellicose stare linger on me for a moment longer, blew out a sigh, then walked back to his car, shaking his head and muttering. That, I think, was the closest I've come to being arrested in Korea.

There follows a long, blank, foggy space (sometime during which I relieved myself in an alleyway that was deserted except for the guy on the scooter who fortunately came along too fast to get a good look at what I was doing).

After that there's the casino. We went in and had a look around. I remember it was pretty plush, lots of recessed lighting, soft furnishings, and black marble. Jeff did his level best to stop me donating my money to the one-armed bandit, but I was not to be deterred. I felt lucky. I came out in the red, I think; I spent about fourteen thousand and wound up winning about twenty, if my booze-soaked memory serves. I'm just glad I wasn't so utterly foolish as to try the tables. There were games of poker, blackjack, and hold 'em going on, as well as a few I didn't even recognize. I stopped and stared at three-card draw, but couldn't for the life of me remember the rules. I wanted to set myself down and try my luck, but even I could see that I was in no fit state. Jeff steered me away. We probably spent no more than 30 minutes there; it was a pretty poor set-up now that I think back on it (soberly). The nearest halfway decent gambling to be had is in Macao, I hear, and that is only halfway decent. Saeongjima.

We'd been steadily losing people all night. We'd bumped into a few people at Fuzzy Navel; some had bugged out early from Mix; a few others had likely trailed off during our walk through the windy chill of the spring night. (I was no longer ruing my decision not to wear an extra layer; I was too drunk to feel cold.) By the time we got back to our little love motel, it was just Andy, Adam, Elaine, Dominic, and me. We sat in A & E's expansive room, turned on the Manchester United game and drank soju and mekju until late into the night. We switched on YouTube (A & E's room came with a computer) and put on everybody from Curtis Mayfield to Groove Armada.

I finally left at around 3:30 or so. It wasn't that I was chickening out or anything silly like that. Nope, I was just dog-tired. I couldn't keep my eyes open. I'd been screaming and cheering and stomping and chanting at the Giants game, dancing my shoes off at Mix, and running around the streets of Busan shooting fireworks into traffic and diving across parked cars and whatnot. I bowed out amid good-natured banter and collapsed in my room. A few hours later Jeff came in and followed suit. I found out later that he'd been sent out on a booze run about an hour after I left, and had come back to find everyone passed out. So then he'd gone to the sea (like we'd all talked about doing), in the pitch black of five in the morning, and taken a dip in the freezing water. It was quite an adventure. The water was frigid; he could barely see; and his head was swimming as well as his body. He lost the room key in the water, too. He'd had to dig for it in the wet sand as the waves crashed around and over him. Just when he was about to give up and go back, he'd managed to grab it, sunk deep though it was. That Jeff's a real crazy boy. Only he would consider going to the fanciest beach in Korea in late April, blind drunk, at five o'clock on a Sunday morning and going for a swim. I wish I had half his spirit.

Needless to say, we woke up very late the next day. I woke up soonest, drank some water, and peered owlishly out at the bright day. It was about eleven. After allowing myself a little HRT (Hangover Recovery Time) I went downstairs to inquire about check-out time. I caught the landlord's eye and tapped my watch. He held up ten fingers, then two. Twelve o'clock; we had fifteen minutes. I wandered upstairs, not knowing what to do. I was raised in a country where lodging rules were ironclad. Either you made it out by that time or you paid for another night, no exceptions. In a kind of bleary, half-hearted panic I walked up and down the hallway and banged on the other guys' doors. Andy finally answered his and I filled him in. He'd actually been up for a while. Casting all fears about disturbing other possible patrons of the motel aside, I finally gave up all pretense and yelled in at Adam and Elaine's door that it was go-time.

"ADAM AND ELAINE," I intoned sonorously, "IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, THE TIME IS NOW ELEVEN-FIFTY. CHECK-OUT TIME IS IN TEN MINUTES. WE HAVE TO GO."

There was a brief pause.

"DO YOU WANT ME TO DO MY ONE-MAN BAND IMPERSONATION?"

"Yes," came a muffled Manchester drawl from behind Andy's door.

I had only just begun to warble my best trombone when Adam finally answered his door. Somehow we got our stuff together and wandered out into the streets. The plan permutated a bit, but it remained essentially the same: go to the beach and get a burger. Andy had a tip on a place over at Gwangalli Beach that served up massive foot-tall burgers. That sounded like it would hit the spot after last night, so we went to the subway and rode a few stops, then endured a rather lengthy 500 meter hike to the beach. The day was muted and hazy, with a gentle but chilly breeze blowing. We found the joint and ordered up. They forgot mine. Everybody else munched theirs and huddled under the heat lamp while we made small talk.

After a few hours of watching the waves, the sun, the serpentine kites flying high in the sky and the numerous tents grouped on the sand (there was a fish-catching festival similar to the one I spoke of before going on, with a plethora of tent restaurants in tow), we went back to the subway and traveled to the bus station. It had pretty much been decided yesterday that we weren't going to attempt the ferry again, not after the somewhat tumultuous crossing we'd endured before. I would've been fine ordinarily, but was not willing to tempt fate while hung over. Not that I had any precious lunch to lose, that is. (I'd contented myself with merely writing a civil comment about writing orders down instead of memorizing them at the burger joint rather than complaining; I didn't want to hold up the parade.)

So we got our tickets, went back into the shopping mall that separates the bus station from the street and got some McDonald's (for me), and then headed out. The bus ride was long and agonizing. I used to be ambivalent about buses but now I hate them with all the seething flames of Hell. They're hot, stuffy, bumpy, noisy, uncomfortable, crowded, close, and interminable. That goes double here in Korea. The bus drivers leave the heat on even when it's 60 degrees outside, and they've all got lead feet. Lots of squirrelly stops and starts, never a smooth moment of cruising. Plus they're always swerving into other lanes to go around people they perceive as being too slow, and/or honking at said people. I think the next time I ride a Korean bus I'll seat myself behind the driver and every time he jams on the brakes at a red light or a bus stop I'll pitch forward and land on him. That'll learn him.

And so we arrived in Gohyeon, said our farewells to Andy, and went home. That is the full summary of the weekend's weirdness.

To Adam: Thank you for swigging that tequila slammer.

To Dominic: It was nice to meet you.

To Andy: The very best of luck to you, pal. I hope it was a good send-off.

To that Korean guy in the parked car: I'm sorry. I really am.

Korean History 102

The Three Kingdoms (삼국시대)
Like an amoeba splitting, the old Gojoseon Kingdom fell apart in the wake of the Han Dynasty's invasion from China in the second century B.C. After some gradual reorganization (the Proto-Three Kingdoms Period), three separate principalities rose to take the place of the old. They were Goguryeo, Silla, and Baekje.

Goguryeo
(That's pronounced GO-goo-RYUH.) Apparently after Gojoseon died there was this one little kingdom named Buyeo that tried to carry on its principles. Jumong, the son-in-.law of Buyeo's king (Geumwa), took off for the sunset with a couple of buddies and founded the Goguryeo Kingdom in 37 B.C. on the banks of the Amrok (Yalu) River. Yep, that means half of Goguryeo was in modern-day Manchuria; half of it was in North Korea. Goguryeo, it is said, was the most advanced of the three kingdoms. It got into some terrific wars with the Chinese, too. Goguryeo was more than a little responsible for the fall of the Han Dynasty. Later on the Sui and Tang Dynasties attacked, but Goguryeo had some pretty bad-ass generals: Eulji-Mundeok and Yeon Gaesomun, to name a few. A few decisive victories later, Goguryeo was sitting pretty atop all the reclaimed territories of the old Gojoseon Empire (see the map in Korean History 101) and virtually in control of Northern China. In fact, Goguryeo holds the record (as far as Korea's concerned) for most territory conquered and held.

This is unsurprising, given Goguryeo's superior military technology: its chalgap armor, a lightweight form of scale mail, was supposdly lighter than the Roman army's plate mail and a lot more flexible. (Again, this is all according to VANK. They seem to be trying to one-up the entire ancient world. So far they've claimed to have built bigger pyramids than the Egyptians, had star charts before the Mesopotamians and better armor than the Romans. What's next? Are they going to say Hangeul knocks cuneiform into a cocked hat and take a shot at the Sumerians, too?) Korean soldiers also had an edge in battle...literally. They wore spiked shoes, great for kicking out at an opponent during a sword-lock or another opportune moment. Korean cavalry also put armor on their horses and employed footstalls, special stirrups designed to hold a rider's feet better and provide more stability in the saddle for fighting or shooting.

Religion in Goguryeo (and indeed, the other two kingdoms) seems to have been shamanistic. They were a variety of sun and moon deities. A three-legged crow, Goguryeo's symbol, was believed to live in the sun. After a while Buddhism came in from the rest of Asia and largely replaced these ideas. Regardless, Goguryeo did make some impressive achievements in art, architecture and music; one frieze in a tomb at Anak depicts a 120-piece marching band parading down a city street.

Under the combined assault of the Silla Kingdom from the south and the Tang Dynasty to the west, Goguryeo eventually crumbled in 668 A.D. But survivors attempted to renew the glory that had once been theirs; one such relocation-revival resulted in the Balhae Kingdom.

Baekje
You remember the founder of Goguryeo, Jumong? Well, right after he'd got done with the whole complicated founding business, he got so comfy that he up and married the daughter of a powerful local leader. She bore him a couple of sons, Onjo and Biryu. The problem was Jumong already had a wife way back down in Buyeo on the peninsula. That wife's son, Yuri, came up to Goguryeo to visit his dad, and Jumong immediately made him the crown prince. Onjo and Biryu, seeing as they now had no shot at inheriting the kindgom, thought it prudent to hit the bricks. They got some people together, traveled to what is now Seoul and (well, heck, why not?) founded the Baekje Kingdom in 18 B.C.

Baekje (pronounced beck-JAY) had a troubled early history. Onjo settled his bunch in a place called Wiryeseong (now called Hannam). Biryu stopped in Michuhol (now Incheon). That turned out to be a bad choice. Michuhol was full of swamps and salty water. Biryu's people had a tough time of things while Onjo's were having a gay old time over in Wiryeseong. So Biryu went to Onjo and asked him for his throne. I don't know what he thought Onjo was going to say; come on, Biryu made a bad call, and now he's just going to ask his brother to hand over his own kingdom to him? Yeah, right. Onjo sent him packing. Biryu declared war on Onjo, but was defeated. In shame, he committed suicide.

All that nasty business aside, Baekje is said (by the Volunteer Agency Network of Korea) to have been the most prominent of the Three Kingdoms. This wasn't due to conquest; no, the power of Baekje was in diplomacy. Through envoys and embassies, Baekje managed to set up a system of trade and communication with the Yoseo Province (now Hebae) of Korea, the Shandong Province of China and the Kyushu region of Japan. Baekje couldn't have been more perfectly located for maritime commerce (dominating the eastern shores of the Yellow Sea and part of the northern coast of the East China Sea). Thanks to it, Baekje introduced Buddhism, scholarly texts, and the Chinese language to Japan when it sent scholars to the east for cultural exchange. There are still quite a few relics over there in the Nara Prefecture, in fact. Why, I've even heard tell the current Emperor of Japan, Akihito, is a descendant of a Baekje king. What do you know about that?

Despite this lovely cultural and commercial prosperity, Baekje, which was alternately at war with Goguryeo for territory and allied with it against Silla and China, was doomed to fall. It collapsed eight years before Goguryeo, in 660 B.C., to coalition Tang and Silla forces. There was a brief restoration movement, but that was quashed by a combined amphibious task force. It was a pretty sad affair. As the capital was overrun, over three thousand lady courtiers hurled themselves into the Baekmagang River. The rock which they leaped from is now called the Nakhwaam, the Stone of the Falling Flowers.

Baekje-goers were said to have been a peaceful, mild-mannered people. Their artwork was spectacular, particularly the Geumdongdaehyangno, a gilt bronze incense burner brought to light in 1993. The craftsmanship is so original and intricate it astounded scholars. On the lid is an exquisitely-wrought phoenix, wings raised in flight; the base is a dragon in the shape of a blooming lotus, gracefully worked. The ovoid bowl of the burner is splattered with over 42 animals; phoenixes, deer, tigers, all in lifelike poses, rendered among 74 mountain peaks, with mountain paths, rivers and streams in the intervening spaces. It is, if I may say, impressive work. You don't see incense burners like that every day, seriously. The whole affair weighs 11 kilograms and is nearly 62 centimeters tall. It'd come up to about mid-thigh on me, I'm 183 centimeters (tall). If that doesn't convince you of the worth of their civilization, consider this: most of the people in Baekje artwork are smiling. I think that says it all.

Silla
Let's talk about Silla. (That's pronounced like the English name "Sheila.") Their territory included where I'm sitting right now: all of Gyeongsang Province (North and South). Their capital was Gyeongju, a city I'll describe in more detail later. It's known as "the museum without walls," containing so many tombs, statuary, temples and graves that you could spend a week there and not see everything.

Anyway, it's appropriate that we conclude with Silla, because they ended up owning the lot. They were a warlike kingdom, but not without civilization. They fostered advancements in culture, science, and religion. Cheomseongdae, one of the world's oldest surviving observatories (touted as East Asia's oldest) still stands to this day. They had advanced knowledge of mathematics and geometry, visible in their architecture. The temple wherein resides the Bonjon Buddha (Seokguram Grotto), demonstrates adroit proportions and precise dimensions. For example, the grotto was constructed such that a monk standing before the Buddha's statue would see the dot thingy on the Enlightened One's forehead (what are those called again?) perfectly aligned with the lotus on the wall behind him. As I can personally vouch for after having seen the evidence personally, Silla metallurgy wasn't bad either. There's a whole bunch of metallic goodies that have been dug up from tombs: trinkets, jewelry, armor (for men and horses), trimmings, and perhaps most impressive of all, multiple golden crowns.

Silla got started back in 57 B.C., when it was founded by a fellow named Park Hyeokgeose, said to have been hatched from an egg laid by a white horse. The Silla Empire was quite astounding, not only for having egg-laying horses, but also for its legacy. "Park" is now one of the most common surnames in Korea, thanks to Silla's first king. Silla originally entertained diplomatic relations with Goguryeo and Baekje, but allied with Goguryeo militarily. However, when that latter kingdom began expanding southward, Silla was forced to switch allegiances to Baekje. One hundred and twenty years later, after pushing Goguryeo back north of the Han River, Silla went renegade yet again and wrested control of the region away from Baekje. As if that tergiversation wasn't enough, Silla then went and allied itself with the Tang Dynasty of China (remember them?). Allied, the two powers were unstoppable. Silla conquered Baekje in 660 A.D. and Goguryeo eight years later. It then spent an inordinate amount of time trying to kick the Tang people out, who were trying to create colonies on the peninsula (meanwhile, the remains of Goguryeo were establishing a new state called Balhae, trying to save the last remnants of their glorious empire, as was mentioned previously). Silla, now known as Unified Silla, didn't last long after this (just three hundred years or so). Internal power struggles led to their kings being reduced to mere figureheads and the aristocracy seizing power and running amok, until finally the infighting became too much and the whole outfit collapsed in the tenth century. Baekje and Goguryeo had a semi-resurgence, but this was really just armies capitalizing on name recognition.

Eventually Silla ceded power to the successor dynasty, Goryeo. But that's a story for a later time...

ambitions and dreams: a compendium

In case you're interested, I thought I might expound on the tantalizing hints I dropped in my preamble (see entry the first). I'm going to tell you exactly what I want to do with my life.

...as it stands now, that is.

My dreams have permutated somewhat over the years. I was originally going to be a zoologist. I got a year of undergraduate study under my belt at college before I realized that advanced chemistry and I don't agree with each other. So I switched over to journalism, figuring I could still write about zoology-related subjects and still have a blast without having to actually know, in detail, what I was talking about. This has been my modus operandi for most of my life, actually...

Anyway, eventually I thought Well, heck, I don't just have to write about zoology. I can write about anything I want! Zoology, history, geography, culture, food...HEY! That sounds like travel writing!

There you have my number one, numero uno, Grand High Poobah ambition: to be a writer. Travel writing will be my bread and butter, not just in a financial but in a metaphysical sense. I like to travel and see new things; does my soul a world of good. Venting my creative streak ain't bad either, so I'll write my novel (you've heard about that in my writing updates). I also plan to write the same story as a comic book; I've even got an illustrator interested, and that's the first step. I'm not exactly speaking effusively here, but I'm more excited about this than I've ever been about anything, or, I suspect, ever will be. Who knows, if I work at it I might even wind up in National Geographic someday. Wouldn't that be something! And that novel I'm writing might be a hit, so I could go ahead with the rest of the series, and the comic book could go on and on and on for hundreds of issues (I've got a lot of weighty things to discuss in it)! This is what my writing career shall be! Travel magazines, novels and comic books! Remember this! Dismissed!

No, wait. How am I going to get to all these wonderful places I want to see (some of which are listed on this page)? The second prong of my ambition, that's how: flying.

I think I've wanted to learn to fly ever since I learned what an airplane was. I was always one of those kids who was glued to the windows of the airport concourse and the plane itself. I gazed awestruck at the shiny machines that soared in the skies, or at the rich and diverse tapestry of the ground and the wondrous castles and majestic sailing ships formed by the clouds. Then I got into high school, became a war nut, and fell in love with warbirds (military aircraft), especially those from World War II: the legendary Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver, the Vought F4U Corsair, and even some oddballs like the Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina and the Grumman J2F Duck. I got especially attached to the seaplanes and flying boats. It seems just a bit cooler if you can land on water instead of (or in addition to) land; you can go anywhere. Every river or lake becomes an airport.

It wasn't long before I wanted to take flying lessons. I finally got my chance after graduating college in December '07. I went back to Cheyenne and lived in my parents' basement for six months while I was searching for a media-related job (and before finding this job in Korea). But I wasn't just sitting on my laurels. I was high as the sky, flying a Cessna 172 in the thin air above Cheyenne Regional Airport. I managed to get about twelve lessons in (twelve flight-hours are duly noted in my logbook) before I took off for the Orient.

I still plan on finishing, though, and going beyond your average everyday garden-variety run-of-the-mill private pilot's license. I want to get my commercial license (a stringent requirement necessitating scads of flight-hours and experience), and I want to get ratings for multi-engine, high-performance (horsepower above a certain level), complex (retractable landing gear and/or flaps) aircraft and seaplanes. Then I'll really be all set to go.

It'll be fun, of course; the main thing about flying is that it's truly awesome. Not only is soaring above the earth exhilarating for all the reasons your heart tells you, but you also derive the same enjoyment from it that you do from anything you're skilled at. You know well the joy of a job well done, expertise exerted, knowledge gained, cautions taken, proficiency expected and attained. I could describe it in detail, but that's been done elsewhere by better writers than me.

But the main point is that I'm going to turn flying into a career, and use it to aid the other tenets of my ambition. I think what I'd really like to do, inspired by some TV shows beloved of my youth (TaleSpin and, more latterly, Firefly), is start up an international air service. That's pretty much just how it sounds, if you insert the word "cargo" in between the words "air" and "service." Yes, I'm going to start my own airline. I might base myself out of Alaska, or if that proves too remote for customers to access, the Western U.S. But we'll fly all over the world. That'll be our job: taking in cargo, no matter what kind of cargo, whether it's video game consoles or live elephants, banana bunches or machine guns, chewing gum or booze, we'll run it. (As long as we're running it to good and decent folk, I don't care what side of the law they're on.) We'll go anywhere in the world, day or night, rain or shine, hell or high water. I foresee a ramshackle airfield, a hangar or two and a couple of outbuildings, some junker airplanes parked on the apron (rickety fugitives from better days), a gravel road leading to the rusty gate at the perimeter fence, over which hangs a battered tin sign, which looks something like this:

from Flickr

But who'll help me run an airline? Well, my crew, that's who. I've always loved ensemble films and teams, motley collections of crazy misfit savants who meet under odd circumstances and pull together to save the day every time. That's the kind of business I want to run. I imagine taking in people from checkered and highly diverse backgrounds: reprobates, runaways, mendicants, punks, perfectionists, roughnecks, veterans, experts, oddballs, psychos and general diamonds-in-the-rough.

I can literally see these people in my head. It won't be a large group; I'll need some pilots (certainly a copilot, at least), some reliable mechanics, load masters, meteorologists, office staff, and more than likely some henchmen (uh, security guards). And who knows? I might even hire on a doctor and a cook, and who knows who else: everybody I'll need for my pirate crew (uh, air service).

We'll be going through some tough times, definitely: war zones and revolutions and coups d’état and frontiers and wilderness. I hope (uh, anticipate) that we'll get more than our share of shootouts, fistfights, swordplay, assassination attempts, narrow escapes, hazardous flights, sabotage, black ops, anti-aircraft fire, races against time, dogfights, espionage, intrigue, and miscellaneous derring-do. I am, after all, Indiana Jones (uh, Andrew T. Post). Wish us luck, lads.

This flying will also help me write, for I will be going around the world and encountering new ammunition for my pen (and who knows what other kinds of ammunition, too). Conversely, writing will also help me fly; if my book and comic take off then I just might be able to muster the funds to start up this crazy airline of mine.

Writing and flying make up the first two fundaments of my imagined life; combine them and you get the third. I want to travel the world. I've mentioned this already. I needn't even mention it now. Where am I as I write these words, anyhow? South Korea, that's where. There's a lengthy list of countries I hope to visit (and by "visit" I mean "thoroughly explore"; technically I haven't done that with Canada or Japan even though they're on the countries visited list).

Let me relate a few of the subcategories pursuant to my foremost travel-related desire. I want to see some of the world's little-known mountain ranges. The Taurus Mountains in Turkey, for example. They're not as impressive as the high Himalayas by most people's standards, but therein lies the attraction. I'm not interested in the mountain ranges everybody knows and loves. They don't have to be lofty, they don't have to be snow-capped, they don't have to be on a map or anything: they've just got to be there. (Sound familiar?)

from Wikimedia Commons

I've got a long list going. It includes the Sudirman Range in Indonesia (which has a couple of active volcanoes in it); the Atlas Mountains in North Africa (home of the now-extinct Atlas Bear, Africa's only indigenous bear species); the Hindu Kush, in the Near East (which caused a lot of trouble for Alexander and other conquering hordes back in the day); the Tian Shan Range between China and Kazakhstan (known as the "Heavenly Mountains" according an old Indiana Jones video game I had); the Remarkables in New Zealand (how can you resist a moniker like that?); and the aforementioned Taurus Mountains, which separate the upper Turkish plateau (and such amazing sights as Cappadocia, with its eldritch tufa-based architecture) from the sun-drenched Mediterranean paradise of Anatolia. I only read the name once, in an excellent book called The Great Railway Bazaar by the overtly judgmental Paul Theroux, but I was bewitched in an instant. I'd never heard of these mountains, and I stupidly thought I'd heard the names of most of the world's mountain ranges. That started this whole quest a-movin'. I immediately began to research the Taurus Mountains and search for other ranges I'd never heard of, and I discovered a trove of them. So we'll see if I can climb 'em all in my lifetime. I'm sure there's a wealth of articles and perhaps even a book in it...not to mention the sheer adventure of it, which is, of course, "the main thing."

Also, I'd like to try the weirdest foods in every country I visit and then write a book about them and gross people out. That one's pretty self-explanatory. I've already started this one, fortunately! Did you read that thing I wrote about sannakji? That's the thing about my ideas; they all have little details and sub-details within them. I don't just want to write, period; I want to do novels and comic books. I don't just want to fly; I want to have an international air service. I don't just want to travel; I want to go here and do this, that and the other.

In addition to these main categories and their assorted nitty-gritty, I have a few small pet ambitions that can't be classified.

• learn how to dance (real men know how)
• become proficient on the piano, violin, and concertina (I can play all three; I took piano for seven years but my skills, rudimentary at best, have lapsed in the meantime)
• go fishing while sitting on a camel's back in Idaho (it's against the law)
• stargaze on every continent (two down, five to go)
• master at least five foreign languages (I'm working on two, Korean and Spanish, and I want to eventually take on German, Swahili and Farsi, perhaps even some Norwegian)
• compete in the Air Guitar World Championships in Sweden (even if I only make it one round)
• run with the bulls in Spain (not necessarily in Pamplona; they do it all over the country) while reciting the Gettysburg Address
• train in hand-to-hand combat
• sail around the world on a tall, full-rigged sailing ship
• become skilled at fencing
• read War and Peace
• fly upside-down
• pack two pistols at once (a revolver on my hip and my trusty Beretta semiautomatic in a shoulder rig)
• obtain a decent working knowledge of physics

That's about the lot. These are, of course, subject to change, as I change from day to day. I'll keep you posted.

cocktail review no. 3 - New York Cocktail

Third time's lucky, they say. The last two cocktails I've reviewed haven't gone over so well. The Gates of Hell was a complete flop; Viva Villa sustained my interest for a time, but was ultimately a letdown. So, without further ado, let's hear about the New York Cocktail. Honestly, where do they get these names? I've had the Nevada Cocktail, the Havana Cocktail, even the Kangaroo Cocktail, and there's nothing in any of those monikers that gives a clue to the contents of the drink. Let me therefore alleviate the suspense:

• 2 ounces blended whiskey
• 1 ounce lemon juice
• ½ teaspoon superfine sugar
• ½ teaspoon grenadine
• 1 lemon twist

In a shaker half filled with ice cubes, combine the whiskey, lemon juice, sugar and grenadine. Shake well, then strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with the lemon twist.

It came out pink. That unnerved me. I've had some bad experiences with pink drinks, particularly the Jillionaire. However, my fears were (for once) unfounded. This drink is mild but tasty. That whiskey-lemon juice combo is hard to beat. The grenadine isn't overwhelming and the sugar provides a nice back beat. This one's a keeper. Just don't judge it by its cover...rather like you wouldn't judge the Big Apple now, right?

from frontpagemag.com

on the consumption of live octopus

You have not misread the title.

No, you're not going blind.

Yes, they eat live octopus in Korea.

Charles tells me it's the number-one surefire gross-out food for most foreigners. Most people can't stand the sight of it. For me, it's a dream come true. I like octopus; why bother to waste the time cooking it, or even waiting for it to mature? Just take some baby octopi, slice 'em up into bite-size chunks, then grab some chopsticks and some sesame oil and eat them, still wriggling.

That's sannakji: live baby octopus.

As soon as we learned of this delicacy, Adam, Jeff and I knew we had to try it. Come on: how many times in your life are you going to get an opportunity as bizarre as this?

I'd like to restate the principle of the thing for those of you who might be skimming this article in search of the juicy bits: sannakji is

LIVE BABY OCTOPUS,
EATEN WHILE IT'S STILL WRIGGLING.

Is that clear? Splendid. Let there be no further speculation on it.

Sannakji was on the "must-try" list for Korea. However, being Newbies, we were unsure where to go to obtain some. So we asked Charles, who, being Korean himself, was our resident expert on all things Korea-related, especially food. He said he'd look around. His first recommendation was just to waltz into any seafood- or fish-related restaurant and order up. We heard rumors about a full plate of bulgogi and sannakji served up at some eatery over in Deoksan, a burg somewhere between Gohyeon and Okpo, but didn't act on it.


Then Charles found something more material: sannakji being sold out in the local sijang (market). After some scheduling mishaps (Jeff, the poor sap, is being "rented out" to kindergarten by his employer; his mornings are taken up with teaching now as well as his afternoons), we managed to set a meeting time: Wednesday noon across from the market, outside Lotteria.
I awoke that morning agog with expectation, and everything I turned my hand to seemed charmed. It was certainly charming weather, a warm and sunny spring day with a breath of cool breeze to tone down the blossoming sunlight. I donned my most gaudy Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses, took a long walk, then went back to the apartment to fetch the camera. As I rounded the corner of the block the market sits on, I descried Adam standing in front of Lotteria, in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, his cap pulled low over his eyes, smoking a cigarette and surveying the market in front of him. Both of us acknowledged that we might need some water to wash some enterprising octopus down our throats, so we went in search of a convenience store. We'd heard that sannakji can be tenacious, wrapping their tentacles around your teeth or attaching themselves to your gums with their suckers. Adam's drink-sniffing nose led us to a shop just a minute or so up the street; we nabbed a couple of water bottles and nipped back to the rendezvous, where Jeff had arrived in the meantime. Soon Charles rolled up on his bicycle, and the three of us walked across the street to the market. We located our quarry after only three steps.

Charles, ever watchful for an opportunity for me to practice my Korean in a practical setting, called on me to conduct the transaction.
"Sannakji eolmayeyo?" I asked.
The woman held up four fingers (swathed in pink rubber gloves).
"Nemari man won," she replied. Four octopi for ten grand. We took out our billfolds and started up a collection for the Mollusk Consumption Foundation. Without further ado, the woman snatched four wriggling baby octopi out of the basket, sliced them into chunks, put them in a bag, and handed it to us with a container of wasabi. As we left the market and strode back to where Charles had parked his bicycle he suggested we adjourn to his place; he could procure some sesame oil and we could eat in comfort and peace. This we did. We installed ourselves and our precious haul of raw mollusk under a pavilion in a playground next to Charles's apartment (the same ill-fated playground in which I'd lost my wristwatch during a drunken dive out of a swingset after the housewarming party).

Charles dumped his stuff off in his apartment and reemerged with paper cups of sesame oil and chopsticks. Then we opened up the container and went to work. Inside was a moist, gelatinous mass of tentacles and amorphous chunks of octopus, the color of brain matter. Most of it was still writhing. Lesser men would have balked at the mere idea, to say nothing of the sight; but we set our teeth and went into the breach.

It was interesting eating. Uncooked octopus tastes and feels a tad rubbery, but regardless I believe that intoxicating oceanic flavor that pervades seafood (especially mollusks) was still present, and appreciable. My first bite wasn't moving perceptibly, either. So I made sure to nab a motile tentacle the next time around. This is most visible in the video.

The feel of a tentacle writhing away in my mouth, scraping roughly against my tongue, teeth and cheeks, is a feeling not soon to be equaled in this lifetime or the next. I strongly suggest you try it, if only once. I wound up eating a load of the stuff. Jeff took a huge bite the first time out and the magic sort of went out of it for him; Adam's views on the subject are perhaps best summarized by this picture, taken shortly after the one above.


Nonetheless we all continued to pick at the stuff. We'd come this far. By now, at least, it had stopped moving. Finally everyone declared they'd had their fill and I was left to finish the remainder.

I'm known as something of a walking garbage disposal in these parts. Jeff is the accomplished master in dealing with leftovers; it is my lot to eat any and all strange, odd, unusual, revolting or disturbing foods. Put us together and we'll eat anybody, anywhere out of house and home.

So ended the Trial of the Octopus. We came, we saw, we sampled. For us all, it was the realization of a dream; we'd finally gotten our chance to challenge and master sannakji and the principle of stuffing still-moving food into our gullets. For me, moreover, it marked the first steps toward the completion of a pet ambition (sample the weirdest food of every country I visit, and then write a compendium).

We said a hearty thank-you to Charles, our guide, teacher and minister, then departed for our respective apartments.

We can now all die happy men.

tutoring Lily (my boss's wife)

I might've failed to mention this, but I'm tutoring my boss's wife.

She's a scary lady. She definitely wears the pants at Reading Town. She's tall (about as tall as her husband, who must approach six feet) and has long curly black hair. Her skin is on the pale side, somewhat similar to Esther's, though both she and Jacob are the eldest at Reading Town. That's no accident. Since the oldest are accorded the most respect under Confucian law and Korean custom, naturally the oldest folks wind up running companies with younger ones under them. She usually dresses severely, in dark colors and modest cuts, though occasionally she'll break with tradition and wear sweaters and skirts.

She's the head secretary at Reading Town, and runs the front desk with an iron fist. It's her face, though, that reveals her true nature. Whether it's beautiful or not is neither here nor there. It's the expressions she wears: a near-constant glower. Lily is something of a tyrant. Misbehave in her sight and you'll come in for a razor-sharp scolding. Should the kids act up in class and she is summoned (or worse, hears the ruckus and comes of her own accord) watch out! There's going to be a dressing-down. If a child has failed to transmit his parents' money from his parents to Lily's hands, she flies off the handle. All of us foreign teachers have either seen or heard Lily screaming (literally screaming) at the kids. She can really belt out a lecture, that woman can.

But that's not the scariest part. After she's through giving a child a tongue-lashing (at the end of which the kid will either be sitting silently in their seat, or staring at the floor, or crying gently, quiet as a mouse) she'll turn to us, give us an ear-to-ear grin (showing her humongous teeth) and leave the room like nothing happened. It happens all the time. She yells at the kids then turns to talk to us with her finest two-dollar grin on her face. The rapid switching of personalities (or the semblance of such) is disquieting.

Getting the picture?

This wouldn't be as awkward in a purely academic setting, but it happens everywhere. Lily is a born autocrat. She doesn't just administer Reading Town, she controls it. Time was, new and unused black board markers were kept in a box in the teacher's room for all to use. Lily apparently thought that they were getting used up too fast, because not long after I came she took them out of the teacher's room and put them in the conference room desk where only she and Jacob can retrieve them. So now, if we teachers need new markers (and we need them frequently; you can use up a whole marker during one writing class) we have to go and ask her and wait for her to get them.

The paper towel situation is rapidly becoming untenable as well. A few months back there were plenty of paper towels and toilet paper in the bathrooms. Now, I know not why, there aren't. No paper towels, no toilet paper. If you want any you've got to ask the desk. Lily apparently thought those were getting used up too fast, too.

Lily's always on the lookout for ways to cut costs, but either she doesn't realize the inconvenience she's putting everybody through or she doesn't care. She doesn't speak English. That's why I'm tutoring her, in fact. So whenever she needs to transmit a new edict to us, the foreign staff, she uses Jacob or Charles. Some of these edicts include:

• Don't turn on the air conditioning units yet because the children are suffering from the cold (when it was balmy outside and some of the classrooms had been heated by the sun into resembling conservatories).
• Don't let the kids pack up their bags too early. Keep teaching them right up until the moment the bell rings, then give them their homework assignment. (This is after she caught us giving them their assignments five minutes before the bell rang.)
• Do make the children finish their books. (This is impossible. The children all have textbooks and they're supposed to be completely filled out and handed in, classwork, homework and everything, at the end of the month. But the lazy ones don't do it, and there's nothing on heaven or earth that will make them. They leave their vouchers at home so we can't take them away, and they just laugh at study hall. Since those are the only two manifestations of discipline at Reading Town, our case is somewhat hopeless.)

As if these mandates weren't unreasonable enough, Lily personally enforces them. I've seen her prowling the halls many a time, peeking into classrooms to make sure we're following her wishes. I've been teaching with the A/C on, my students happy and content, and then suddenly Lily pokes her head in and switches it off, without a word to me or them. It's frustrating, to say the least. I feel sometimes like I'm working for her instead of Dr. Song in Seoul, or Jacob. The prospect is unattractive.

This month I began tutoring her, starting from Square One. She spoke just a few words of English, mostly loanwords that have entered the Korean lexicon, the bare minimum she needed to know to run the front desk. The textbook we've got is adequate, but somewhat repetitive. She has stated that she likes my lessons; I for my part must admit she's an able student. She tries hard, does her homework perfectly and promptly, and is attentive and studious. But the control freak in her finally won out. In our second-to-last lesson, I turned the page of our textbook to go on to the next lesson and she said firmly, "Next time." Remembering how she could explode, my courage temporarily deserted me. I leaped back and gave her a deferential "okay." Afterward I kicked myself. I am the teacher, I said to myself; she is the student. I dictate the pace, not her. I was ashamed of myself for my momentary lapse of backbone. Here, thought the devious part of my brain, was an opportunity to put the witch-woman in her place.
But I didn't go for it. We had gone over quite a lot of material that day. It was okay by me if we stopped there. I just wished I'd been the one to say it.

In the next lesson I got my revenge. So I gave her a pop quiz. It wasn't punishment; I'd planned to do it anyway, and had warned her that I might a couple of lessons back. But when she asked me when the next one would be, I refused to tell her.

"That's a surprise," I said.

Ha! I'd stood up to her! She could take me by the hair and demand to know when that quiz would be, but wild horses couldn't drag it out of me.

We shall see where this goes. Will our sessions together escalate into a battle of wills, an epic ideological conflict? Shall Lily get her way once again and reduce me to a quivering, obsequious, subservient pile of unmanned jelly? Or will the heroic Andrew T. Post, master of all he surveys, lord of the classroom and symbol of justice and proper Confucianist values, save the day and sock it to that dastardly control freak bottled up inside my boss's wife?

how I tore my favorite coat

You know what this is going to be, right? You've asked someone about something and they replied, "It's a long story." Haven't you? This is case in point. What follows is going to be the original "long story." Fasten your seat belts and prepare for a tale of suspense.

Let me introduce the major players. First of all, you have my humble self, who fancies himself an adventurer and is known to take stupid risks at luckily non-critical junctures. Second, you have my favorite coat. It's a duster, in the style of the Old West, a long coat that comes down to my calves, with wide sleeves and two camel pockets and a slit up the back (for riding a horse). It's light brownish-tan (embarrassingly labeled "Mustard" in Sportsmen's Guide), and smells a bit funky, but it's very close to my heart. When I put it on I just feel like I'm ready for an adventure, whether it's a showdown at high noon or a pirate voyage or an expedition to Alpha Centauri. It looks rather like this:

My folks purchased it for me way back when we were still living in California, before I went to college; it's gone everywhere I have since then (North Dakota, Wyoming, and Korea). I love the way it flaps about me whenever I move erratically; as a result, I tend to move erratically quite often when I'm wearing it. I feel like no one will mess with me when I'm wearing it, 'cause you can't tell what I have (or don't have) hidden under it. I feel cool, I feel competent, I feel ready for anything...and just a little bit silly. That's all fine by me; means I can break new ground and push a few envelopes without taking myself too seriously.

Third, you have Charles, Gaia, Esther, Julia, Jeff, Elaine, Adam, and Anne; all the people whom I've mentioned in previous entries from Reading Town and the Newbies (except Erica, who was dreadfully sick on Friday and who had to bow out of...well, you'll see).

The setting is a housewarming party in an apartment complex in downtown Gohyeon, just across from Lotte Invens, the nicest set of apartments you'll find in the whole city. I mean Lotte Invens, not the apartment complex across from it. Charles's building is about twenty years old. Some people might think it's shabby; I call it "character." It's got two bedrooms and one bath, a decent-sized kitchen, and a spacious living area. Charles had already set up a couch, TV, and kitchen table before we arrived. Charles and his girlfriend Anne had recently moved in together (shhhhhhhhhhh!) and had invited the entire academy staff, sans the director and his wife, over for dinner and drinks.

A couple periods before the 9:15 whistle, Gaia surreptitiously passed the hat and sneaked over to Top Mart across the road to buy booze. After the closing bell we all slid over to the parking lot and divvied up the spoils. Jeff rendezvoused with us there, and he, Charles, your humble correspondent, and the booze went in Charles's three-cylinder Daewoo Matiz downtown to the complex. Adam and Elaine hitched a ride with Gaia, Esther, and Julia. We arrived and unloaded and then sat down for a beer. At Charles's invitation, Adam and I put some tunes on; I selected some jazz. I thought that seemed to fit the mood and I hadn't heard any for a while. (Despite there being a Western bar in this city called "Jazz Bar," they play mostly pop.)

We just sat and talked and drank for a bit. After the initial awkwardness of being in somebody's new and still somewhat bare apartment with a bunch of people you work with but who are from vastly different backgrounds faded, we got on quite well. Before we knew it, the food had arrived, brought up in a couple of metal lockers by a short and harassed-looking fellow in thick dark clothes. These last were obviously insulation: he'd come on a scooter, the usual method of transportation for delivery-men in Korea. You see them winging their way through traffic all the time, square plastic boxes printed with the logo of the establishment they represent fastened tenuously on the backs of their thrumming Daelim mopeds.

The lockers were unhinged and their contents arrayed on the table: battered pork with sweet-and-sour sauce, called tangsuyuk (commonly known as "sweet-and-sour pork" in the States; this was Chinese food) and seafood medley with wasabi. Gaia went a little overboard when she added the wasabi to the seafood and kneaded it in (donning a pair of amorphous, transparent gloves which automatically made me think "rectal exam"). I took my first bite and nearly incinerated my nasal passages. Man, it wasn't spicy going down, per se, but wasabi fumes rose to your nose and really raised some hackles.

Charles divvied up this bounty between our high table (what Adam had jokingly referred to as "the kids' table") and the Koreans' low one, distributed some chopsticks (Adam got a pair of handsome golden ones) and we all chowed down. I should mention now, before the time comes, that there was an added bonus included in the delivery aside from the food: goryangju, Chinese liquor, supposedly 100 proof. It was Friday night; Adam, Jeff and I were aiming to get drunk. This seemed like a convenient byway; needless to say, the revelation of it first brought out of the locker sent a ripple of interest around the kids' table. After everybody had satisfied their immediate hunger, we cracked it open and poured some shots. The result was disappointing. It reminded me, both in scent and flavor, of Jägermeister. That there may be no speculation, I cannot stand Jägermeister. It reminds me of mouthwash. Italian-sausage flavored mouthwash. This wasn't much better. It certainly wasn't 50% alcohol, either. Five minutes later I weren't feelin' no higher.

We had better success with the whisky. Turns out Charles had a bottle of blended Scotch socked away; we partook of it gladly. Well, by and by the booze ran low. According to Korean tradition, the youngest guests at the party make the beer run, so Jeff and I sprang into action. Following Charles's directions, precise despite his buzz, we headed out into the night and located a Kosa Mart, a marginally seedy convenience store chain omnipresent in Korea. We snatched up four more pitchers of beer and a bottle of soju and some cider (at Elaine's behest; she was "soju warrior" for the evening and was working on mixers). A few hours and some increasingly alarming conversation later, these too were used up, so Jeff and I sallied forth again, only in a considerably less coherent state than before. We were far gone. Kosa Mart had closed up shop for the night, which left us inebriated bozos to locate an ulterior venue and procure fresh supplies. It was in the cards that we'd locate a playground instead.

You can imagine what happened next. Jeff and I, yelling our fool heads off, sampled some of the playground's motion-related delights. We found this one gizmo that I suppose was a stealthy attempt to tone students' abs while ostensibly giving them the ride of their lives. It consisted of two handles, stationary, over a platform on a hinged metal arm that swung laterally back and forth. There were two of these machines, facing each other. Jeff and I hopped on and did our dangedest to swing that mother into a 360. We couldn't quite get the trick of swinging in the opposite direction in perfect coordination; unsurprising given how much liquor we'd consumed. Hooting and whooping, we exited the playground with jubilant minds and throbbing abs.

And then, lo and behold! There was a GS25 (or a Family Mart, or whatever) just down the street. We entered and purchased some alcoholic reinforcements. I got more beer (and soju and cider for Elaine) while Jeff nabbed some baekseju (literally "thousand-year wine"), a finer Korean liquor distilled from rice and flavored with a variety of herbs. It's more expensive than soju but more highbrow. I'm not fond of the flavor; it reminds me of potpourri, to be honest. But it's fine sipping, especially when you're too drunk to really taste it appreciatively.

Somehow Jeff and I made it back to Charles's apartment. Esther and Julia and long since departed; Gaia was tenaciously hanging on to the bitter end. Finally we capitulated. We walked out into the night in search of cabs. Charles gallantly escorted Gaia to find hers while we waited. In the process of waiting, Jeff and I looked over and noticed yet another playground, this one attached to Charles's apartment complex. There was no denying the primal urgings of my inner wellspring of joy, which commanded me on no uncertain terms to go swing on the swings. Jeff and I, in a whimsical repetition of our escapades earlier that night, ran over and leaped into the saddles and in another moment were swinging through the cool night air. After a few seconds of this my inner wellspring of joy commanded me to jump, so I did. I leaped from the saddle at the peak of a particularly energetic swing, went flying through the air, hit the ground, couldn't sustain the Superman impersonation, lost my footing and landed heavily on my shoulder, rolling for a few feet before coming to a jolting, exuberant halt.

Finally, we foreigners flagged down a cab and went back to my apartment. When the chips are down and brains are at their soggiest, all roads lead to my apartment. I had to promise not to brew up any cocktails to coerce Adam and Jeff to come 'round. We sat around my place, listening to tunes, sipping baekseju and discussing God knows what. The party finally broke up at around 4:30 in the morning. I'd fill you in on the details of everyone's departure, their demeanor and parting words, and the thousand other small joys of the host; but I'm afraid I simply can't remember 'em.

It is here that we finally approach the principal reason I ripped my favorite coat, which up to this point had been hanging safely in my room for the entire evening, unmolested. Shortly before everyone left I somehow mustered the cohesiveness of mind to notice that I'd lost my watch. I'd stuck it in the breast pocket of my short-sleeved button-down after work and hadn't touched it since. After Adam, Elaine and Jeff lurched through my door and back to their respective domiciles, the realization came. Through the cloying, lethargic waves of drunkenness my brain somehow managed to put two and two together. The swingset. The leap. The roll in the sand. My watch must've fallen out at that crucial, asinine juncture and was probably even now lying embedded in the sand of the playground adjoining Charles's apartment building. I vacillated. I was still drunk as a lord. The hour was ungodly. Dare I stride down to Shinhwa Apartments, bold as brass, and search? Or should I await the sobriety of the morning and venture down in the full daylight, at the risk of chance passersby claiming the watch during the delay? In the end, stubbornness and an idiotically severe sense of frugality won out. I wanted to shut the book on the night in good conscience. I couldn't leave my watch lying on some playground. That would be like leaving a fellow party-goer out in the cold. More importantly, I'd paid 19,000 won for the blasted thing. I wasn't going to lose it to some schoolboy who noticed it glinting in the morning sunlight on his way to school. (Yes, there's school on Saturdays here.)

So, throwing caution to the winds, determined to get the thing over with, I donned my favorite coat, the aforementioned mustard duster, and strode out. I cursed myself for a fool almost immediately. The soonest glimpse of the eastern sky revealed it to be a shade of dark blue. The night had gone; dawn was approaching. Tomorrow wasn't a school day, but under the tenets of my recently-instituted code of conduct, I still planned on making my weekend days productive. That meant waking up sooner than noon, and in the state I was in that would be a tall order indeed. The last thing I needed to know was that I wasn't even getting a jump-start on daybreak.

Nonetheless, I pushed on. I'd come too far. I had just the sense to realize that I looked as ridiculous as I felt. My new ascetically-short haircut clashed horribly with the long, sweeping dimensions of my coat. When put to it, I couldn't even come up with a halfway sound reason why I'd donned it. Perhaps the half-articulated idea that I looked somehow fiercer and tougher when wearing it had dictated my choice. That instinctual need to conceal my true proportions and fool prospective enemies with the illusion of increased size, like a cat arching its back and raising its hackles, had impelled my hand to the coat-rack. Or maybe it was that goofy feeling I mentioned earlier in this treatise, and the readiness for adventure and the thirst for a quest I always feel when I put that coat on.

Whatever the reason, it was immaterial at the moment. I looked for cabs and there were none. Before I knew it I'd walked all the way to my destination, the better part of a mile, without incident. The sky was getting lighter all the time; I quickened my pace, fired by the urgency of a good morning's sleep. Instead of taking the long way around to the parking lot and entering the playground by the customary route, I hopped the fence. I passed the swingset and found my watch with absurd ease, even given my intoxication. I felt as Renton did in Trainspotting, discovering the opium suppositories on the "floor" of the Worst Toilet in Scotland: "Yes, a f---ing godsend!"

Then the unthinkable happened. Tragedy struck my seemingly foolproof attempt at lending closure to the night's festivities. As I hopped the fence to leave the playground, the voluminous sleeve of my favorite coat caught on one of the bars of the fence and ripped. For a moment my mind couldn't process that catastrophic bit of information. Then I examined the rip in the stark light of a streetlamp (and the soft glow of the burgeoning day) and cursed myself again. I found the watch, but it was small consolation. All the way home I chunnered away at my own stupidity and clumsiness, silently for fear that the cab driver would boot me out for a loony.

Home again at last, the light in the east now changing to purple and pink, I took off the coat, hung it up (fortunately it faced the door, so the right sleeve was nearest the wall and concealed from my view, meaning I would not be reminded of my folly), undressed and fell into bed.

There is now a four-inch gash in the bottom of the right sleeve, and I have nobody to blame but myself. I took out my paltry miniature sewing kit and surveyed the damage in the light of day (and sobriety), but it was a pointless exercise. The gash is too wide, and my needle and flimsy thread are not up to the task of repairing the heavy canvas. My only hope now is to access a clothing repair shop, either here or in Anchorage. Judge me as you will.