"Comedy"

Well, there really isn't anything funny about this picture. I guess it does make me laught that the leaves just started changing last week and I can still just wear a light jacket or t-shirt!

My current digital camera ( a sturdy old gal the size of a brick ) has a current battery life of about 5 minutes. It's more than ample frame makes it a cumbersome addition to any trip or outing. Tomorrow I will be picking up a new one. I will then be able to start documenting my time here a little more.


So I thought it was time I gave all of you a little taste of Korean pop culture. When I described this show to my students, they told me the name...I forgot it almost instantly.



Apparently, the woman in the bald cap with the side-ponytail is supposed to be Gollum.

We all know that Gollum has a side-ponytail and a brush and a stick for hands. I don't know why her stick hand is holding a cup, or why Gollum is with an evil Raggedy Anne.

This is not even the most disturbing part. This is a SHOW, meaning there are multiple adventures and routines for these misguided representations.

I am a passionate lover of absurdest comedy but some things seem to be a bit too much, and it is not just the language barrier.

It takes a lot to make me do a double-take, so I have to appreciate the truly demented and random stuff!




Here is Hugh Jackman and his Wolverine co-star Daniel Henney.


For your ultimate amusement here are links to some of the biggest K-Pop (Korean Pop) stars.

G-Dragon


Mc Mong's "Indian Boy"



Bubblegum Music is HUGE here!


Here, I have saved the best for last!

A link to my sketch blog!

Since I have not traveled or done anything of note, I will refer you to my sketchblog!
I now have a drafting table. It has been heavenly to start immersing myself in work again.

I WILL get to making a post on my boring domestic happenings this weekend.
Also, a virtual video tour of my apartment will be posted.

Enjoy the Art!

http://petergulsvig.com/sketch-blog

Korean Gym

The day started like any other. I woke up at 9:30 and enjoyed a trip to my Korean gym. My gym is a good gym. The membership was very cheap, about $115 dollars for four months membership. I have to adjust the weights in my head, most are only labeled in kilograms. I usually have to move the pin on the machines all the way down. It makes me fell a lot stronger than I am. The treadmills are designed more for mild body toning than complete max-cal fat burn workout. There is no incline option! Instead I must go by time and speed to get a good workout. It has been like training a Clydesdale to run like an Arabian Stallion (Thanks Anne and David!).

But I am getting ahead of myself. I was hit by a truck today.


That’s right, I was hit by a truck.




Those have who have spoken to me are familiar with my opinion about the approach Koreans have to driving. Some have TV’s on their dashboards that they watch while the drive. Attention while driving, even appears to be a very low priority for some.

I never hesitate to ride in a car here. They are very skilled drivers. Only two car/motor bike accidents have been witnessed since my have arrived. I am just an odd foreign variable in a very sensitive (albeit chaotic) equation of vehicular and pedestrian travel. I come from a different society with different driving rules. A society that drives defensively, a society that doesn’t use traffic lanes to park, a society that slows down and looks both ways, and a society where red really means STOP. Regrettably also a society that texts while driving.

At 11:56 am a truck came pouring out of an ally way while I was biking home. He did not stop for the sidewalk. He did not stop for any cars that may have been coming. Eventually he stopped for me.

In the two seconds prior to collision, the surrounding Koreans (men, women children) did not need a translator to understand the terrible English that poured from my mouth. Some words are universal.

Peter 1, truck 0.

He put on the brakes but not soon enough! My arm took off his mirror, and my left shoulder and torso left its mark on the front of his vehicle (my broad Grecian shoulder and sturdy bike handlebar taking the brunt of the blow). My bike was fine, my body was ok.

I repeat (Mom Dad) I AM OK. I AM OK!!!

The driver was very polite, but terrified (I was told Koreans here are just as sue happy as us Americanos). Aside from extremely mild whiplash and body tightness ( Like a jungle cat, my whole body becomes tense and readies for action during trauma) I feel fine. After all, the mind sometimes takes longer to get over these things!

I felt healthy enough to ride my bike to work and hour and a half later. Of course, I looked a little like a scared rabbit the whole way there!

p.s. Mom, Dad, I’m OK!

Halloween Part 2

I found a party store downtown with the help of a friend, but there wasn't much there. But a block away there was a fabric store! I basked in being able to find plain white cloth. My crusader costume was off to a good start.

This was what I dressed as two years ago, but it had all the features of a successful party costume: freedom of movement, no mask or hat to lose and the costume would allow me to "breath."

The night however, belonged to my buddy Joe:



He managed to find a dress to fit his build...even though the back of his gown was not cooperating:


Getting him ready was a full time job, so we spent some pre-party time over at Anna and Rachel's apartment (which is shockingly spacious).







This is my best kitty friend, Mondu. He loved to scratch at the tassels on my costume, and my bare muscular legs.

Most of the evening was spent at the two foreign establishments. Karaoke was kept everyone rocking.



I think this song was something by "Deep Purple."

Super Fantastic Halloween Amazing Party Time!!

We have a rotation of students which means two days of Halloween! They are having big tests in their day-time schools this week so we celebrated Halloween a week early.
Halloween has not quite cought on here yet. I guess it was almost non-existent and unkown about 20 years ago. My Korean co-teachers think it once this generation grows up it will be bigger with their children.
My elementary students went absolutely psycho for the holiday! I was elated that half of them even dressed up. Costumes are very difficult to find here. The large store E-Mart (Korean Target type store) had a Halloween section that consisted of two double sided shelves. I could have fit all of the Halloween merchandise into the trunk of my Honda Civic. I am not joking...

Most of the who had costumes either wore a witch hat, a "Scream" movie mask (one of the only masks available here) or had a cloak and weapon of some kind.







This student brought his little sister for the party!


I was in a tough spot trying to think of a costume. Back in the States all I needed was 10 dollars and a white sheet with some paint to make pretty much any kind of costume. Here you cannot find a white sheet to save your life. It must be a Korean law that every pillowcase, blanket and sheet must have garish flowers or some type of ADD color scheme.

I took adavntage of the color situation and settled for a pirate ensemble. I found a garish red silk scarf which I wor on my head. You cannot see the image printed into it, but if you were to spread it out it would perplex you. It was covered with Knight helmets and...purses.

I picked up an eye-liner pen as well. It was surpisingly expensive, like 15 bucks. I guess makeup is spendy here but I also had no idea how to say "cheap one" in Korean.

It was the first time I had worn makeup since I was in theatre at Augsburg!


This is Heather, she is one of my Korean co-teachers.
I was happy to see that the other teachers dressed up as well.

Activities

We had a pretty good roster of activities planned for the children. We began the festivities by showing the first five minutes of "A Nightmare Before Christmas."

They went into full sponge mode. Most of them had never seen it.

The first activity was "True or False." The kids all get together in a big mob. The we ask them T/F questions like :

"True or False, Wherewolves ride broomsticks"

or

"True or false, teacher Peter's mother would sneak into his room and steal his Halloween Candy"


The kids then move to the side of the room that is true or false. Sometimes the herd mentality makes 100 percent of them lose at once. It's funny, I try to let them know it's ok to disagree with each other.

After that we played the "Scary Food Feel Game"



"Your touching Zombi eyeballs!!!!!" ( quail eggs)

Then they split up into roughly 6 groups of 8 and were given a large sheet of paper for pumpkin drawing.



Some students took several minutes to plan. The worked together on one big drawing.







Thats right, this pumpking has a pile of poop on his head. And he wasn't the only "poop-pumpkin."


Others were a little more spastic.
I call their works "Colage of Dischord"



The I told a "scary story." We turned the lights off and I used a flashlight under my face. I wrote it and during the writing process the head teacher kept telling me "put more blood in it, more blood!"

It was a fun day. The best part is after each party on the two days of festivities, I still had my pirate stuff on while I tought my middle-school classes.

Take it easy every bod, I will leave you with my favorite Halloween picture again!



This is Brandon, he loves his Axe. He looked like he had just drank six Red Bulls.

Tom Cruise Haircut and Pork Orgy.

om Cruise Haircut -

So, about 1.5 months into my stay, I noticed I was getting a little shaggy. I was begining to worry about getting my hair cut in Korea. They have different...styles and tastes. Besides, when I lived in Anahiem, my barber was an Asian dude (who spoke no english) and his haircuts were terrible. I stepped into a rather posh looking salon, where I was politely greeted and directed to look at a huge stack of fashion snapshots for styles.

Most of the Korean Styles looked like this:


I didn't want to look like David Bowie from "Labyrinthe" so I pressed on.

Finally! I arrived at the foreign movie star section. I have never been so happy to see Tom Cruise!


This wasn't the exact photo mind you. But his concervative scientologist values translate into a fine caucasian haircut. No crazy mowhawk. No massve asymetrical bang over one eye. No uncomfortable asexual side locks running down the cheeckbones. Just a good old fashioned crew cut!

The 25 minute cut cost only 10,000 W. (About $8.50). That included a shampoo!
I was all ready for the annual activity day!

Activity Day --

So I work for a large company called Avalon that owns and operates English language schools all over Korea. Three of those are in Gwangju. We took a whole Saturday to compete in various feats of strength, agility and absurdity. The winning school won a fancy meal out!

I will save you the suspense, my school won!

We loaded ourselves onto two large charter buses (that looked very arabic on the inside). We injoyed som Kim Bob (a sushi restaurant chain) for breakfast. It came in a long tinfoil tube, a cylinder of sushi. Most people who new what they were doing opened the foil right down the middle, like a hot dog bun. Not this guy! I managed to consume mine like a burito or roll of cookie dough!

We went to a city on the coast called Muckpo. It kind of looks like it sounds. Long ago it was one of Korea's busiest port cities, no it hold only a large population and a merchant naval academy.


This picture was taken later in the evening when the tide was in. When we arrived in the morning you could see the slimy concrete stairs (which I immediately slipped on) and a beach of rocks. There were all kinds of little sand crabs running around!


We used the Maritime Academy's sports field for our competeition. We had some large tents to keep the Harsh Korean sun off of us. Odly enough they had set up foil mats (that looked suspiciously like heat blankets) to keept the sand off.



The first even was the balloon poping super adventure. Teams of two would race to see which couple could run down, fill a balloon and pop it between the two of them.
We won!

I am the large caucasian wearing a twins cap embracing the Korean.


It reminded me a lot of this picture:


We then had an abusively large jump rope contest. Beleive it or not I am considered to be one of the "taller" team members. So they used my natural sense of rythm as a rope turner.
Enjoy the Video!


Later we had Tug-Of-War

You cannot see me in this photo. Yours truly is bringing up the rear. I have a good forty pounds on most of the school, so I was the most ideal anchor.



I cannot beleive we lost!

I don't remember what I am smiling about in this picture. Most likely someone is getting hurt.


Before the awards ceremony there was a Majic show.


All I could do was think of GOB from "Arrested Development."

There was also a talent show. We were given remarkably short notice about this, so I just did the Andy Kaufman "Mighty Mouse" lip sync performance.



Ahhh, after the awards was the best. A large plump slow roasted boar on a spit greeted all of us when we came back to the beach.
The only way to describe the feeding frenzy that insued is "pork orgy."



You could have filled a shoebox with all the pork I ate. My system almost shit down completely. A warchest of Korean beer also was provided. It was an excellent way to end the day!

p.s. last weekend I enjoyed a second boar roast downtown! The meat was so fatty I didn't even have to chew.

p.p.s. Sorry this last blog was overdue, but I posted on my sketchblog a couple weeks ago.

http://petergulsvig.com/sketch-blog

I have been doing a sizeable amount of drawing and writing, so check it out and see what I have been doing with most of my time here!

Koreans Love Fried Chicken

On Saturday Joe and I tried our best to go to a "Kia Tigers" game. Baseball teams here are not named after towns or provinces. Just the companies who sponsor them. We waited in a long line for over 2 hours. I guess it normally isn't that busy, but they had been winning a lot of games lately. The line refused to move. We didn't know if the game had sold out or if the booth hadn't opened yet. We even had three Koreans with us, no one knew what was going on. In the states such a large mob would never have been so calm and complacent with waiting for no clear reason. We may not have been able to get our fix of beer and chicken in the stadium, but such pleasures weren't far away!
(I am eating some nice squishy octopi above. The heads are so squishy!!!)





This picture is by a team bus. Just after I took it, a Korean toddler broke from his mother's grasp and plowed right into me! I make friends so easily.










To the displeasure of Joe and me, the Koreans picked a "sit on the floor" restaurant. Our western backs and weak caucasian knees were not accustomed to squatting...

But that's what beer and chicken is for. An interesting thing about Korean chicken. Sometimes you can tell what part of the chicken it is from. Most of the time you can't.

They do make a mean bird though!


All of these signs were taken within a block from each other!
(I especially love the one's where a chicken is serving/ eating chicken!!!)














































Before the chicken we were served the usual squid appetizers. There were still squidbeaks inside.












Here is a small shot of downtown (Sheenay) Gwangju.
There are about 1/2 of the signs and 1/2 of the normal levels of people here. Odd but welcoming to see English signs,
Korean and Konglish (the mix of the two) side by side.


Dunkin Donuts is
everywhere. Most are
modest in size but some
like this are three stories.
When you charge
3,000 W. for coffee (about $2.50) you can
afford to have a tower of sugar and caffeine.















Three hours in the hot sun waiting for tickets plus much chicken makes us very tired by 9:00. Nothing a stop by BK can't fix. It is the only source of PURE American fast food. For beef anyway. The Mcdee's fries and BK fries are the same. Only Burger King keeps their same burger size.


...Thanks King.