Night life in Korea: work dinner, norae-bang, age denial

I’ve decided to start sharing more about my cultural experiences in Korea.  I figure, this also makes for a more “colorful” and interesting blog.

After work dinners are quite the norm here.  There is no happy hour because it appears Koreans feel that any hour (any day) is a good hour for drinking.

Work dinners typically comprise of a lot of meat, garlic, onions, spicy paste, a few leafs of lettuce (to wrap around the garlic/onion/meat goodness) and a whole lot of soju and beer.  Basically, I can’t eat anything. I’m not a fan of stocking up on onions and garlic because not only does that do a number on the breath, it also does a number on the way a person smells.

I decided to venture to the Korean dominated table and had a conversation with my branch manager, the head honcho, of our academy:

Me: “How are things?”

Him: “ohh like crap!”  said with a Korean accent and a smiling face

Me: not really sure how to respond, “oh really?”

Him: laughing, “Yeah, everyday always smashed! I’ve been so stressed out.  Always the same thing, work all day, drink every night.”

This is an odd conversation for multiple reasons.  First of all, in America, your boss would never tell you if he’s having a truly bad day, nor would he admit that he gets wasted every night.  However, we’re in Korea here and it is anything but unusual.

The past two weekends, I’ve felt the urge to experience the night life  and have been a bit more adventurous.  I still have no desire to intermingle much with the expat drinking scene and pretty much avoid those areas altogether.  You know, gotta go where the locals go for real culture.

My closest girlfriend leaves Korea in a month and I’m trying to maximize our moments.  Saturday night, commenced with Japanese ramen, a huge thing of sake and then my Korean girlfriend convincing me to go to a singing room. Yes, I’m talking the norae-bang, busting out karaoke style.

We walk down stairs, into what appears to be a seedy underground club where you could rent rooms and do inappropriate things to hookers.  However, each room was really clean and set up with a huge flat screen, a nice trendy couch, a table, a light up floor (for dancing), two microphones and books in Japanese, Korean and English to choose your songs.

One hour later, two really bad renditions of “Hotel California” and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” I realized a) I have no businesses singing and b)neither does anyone else in the bulding.

On my way out of the bathroom, I ran into a cute (yes, the asian’s are growing on me) Korean guy.  He, of course, spoke no English, but I knew was asking for my number and if I could speak Korean.  I also knew he was younger than me.  The one thing I’ve noticed, other than the brutal honesty, they ask you for your phone number even before getting your name.  His friends spoke some bad English and next thing I knew, we were in their singing room having a choppy conversation.

The whole honesty thing is really getting to me here.  As I’ve mentioned before, they will tell you that you look old, fat, ugly, tired, etc quite often.  My students, as young as 9, are aware of their too largely, rounded face, short legs, fat body, large forehead, small lips, not white enough skin, and so on, so forth.  In my semi-inebriated state, I decided to lie about my age and said I was 25 (I know, I know, I’m still 26), but the point is, this whole age nonsense is getting to me.

I realized later, I’m too young to be lying about my age already.

Reason #20 why I can’t live in east Asia forever.

Iraqi Kurdistan eager for Korean investment

Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan region (Iraq), -- Erbil, The capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, is known to us only as the base of the Zaytun Unit, a contingent of Korean troops. In fact, Erbil is a growing market in the Middle East. With reconstruction underway, the Kurdistan autonomous region of Iraq has become a new economic battleground for multinational corporations. The Korean government banned Koreans from traveling to Iraq after the beheading of Kim Sun-il in 2004, but since February it has been issuing limited permits for travel to Erbil. 

Some 3,700 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq since 2003, but American businessmen are still rushing into the country. It's common to see young men in sunglasses speeding through the streets in Toyotas or Land Cruisers with the Stars and Stripes emblazoned on their doors.

Some 400 multinationals from the U.S., Britain, Turkey, Dubai, and even Norway have arrived in Erbil. The hotel occupancy rate downtown exceeds 90 percent. A Lebanese enterprise is building a giant shopping mall in the center of town with an investment of some W1 trillion (US$1=W944). 

Why is Erbil, a city with no serviceable factories, so popular? Oil. Iraqi Kurdistan sits on a huge oil field, estimated to hold six percent of the entire world's oil deposits and 40 percent of Iraq's oil reserves. In addition, security here is relatively better than it is in other regions of Iraq. Thus Erbil is functioning as an outpost for companies looking to advance into the other Iraqi regions in the future. 

Local residents are very interested in Korean companies. Not long ago senior officials of the Kurdistan Regional Government invited a group of Koreans to dinner. During the dinner, the Korean soap "Stairway to Heaven" was playing on the TV. 

The tablecloth featured the logo of the Red Devils, supporters of the Korean national soccer squad, along with the word "Corea." "The Koreans are our friends," the Kurdish government officials stressed. 

The successes of the Zaytun Unit have left a favorable impression on the Kurds, but the Korean business presence in the area is still negligible. 

The most Korean companies have done in the region is small-scale construction projects, including a government hospital being built by the Korea International Cooperation Agency. "Within the Kurdistan Regional Government, the atmosphere is much more favorable to Korea than to Turkey, the U.S., Britain or China," said Sinjari, the chairman of KoriKurdi, a Korean-Iraqi joint venture. 

"The government is very regretful that Korean businesses have so little presence here." 

chosun com 

Since 1991, the Kurds of Iraq achieved self-rule in part of the country. Today's teenagers are the first generation to grow up under Kurdish rule. In the new Iraqi Constitution, it is referred to as Kurdistan region. Kurdistan region has all the trappings of an independent state -- its own constitution, its own parliament, its own flag, its own army, its own border, its own border patrol, its own national anthem, its own education system, its own International airports, even its own stamp inked into the passports of visitors.

Another KAIST student takes his own life

By Kim Rahn

A sophomore from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) committed suicide at his home in Incheon, Thursday ― the fourth suicide related to the school this year.

A yogurt delivery woman found the body of the student, 19-year-old Park, at the entrance of his apartment building at 1:20 p.m. and reported it to police.

Park obtained a leave of absence from the school Wednesday. 

Police suspect Park killed himself by jumping from the apartment building, given that he submitted a diagnosis of depression to the school when applying for the leave. His sweater and wallet were found on the 21st floor of the building.

Park’s death came after three students also took their own lives earlier this year. KAIST students blamed the school’s scholarship and credit system which they claim drives them to severe competition.

School President Suh Nam-pyo said he would abolish the controversial scholarship system, which imposes tuition to students whose grades are poor, starting next semester. KAIST students are exempted from tuition in principle, but 12.9 percent of them paid tuition last year due to poor

performancesrahnita@koreatimes.co.kr

Delayed Marriage and its Problems

By Paul H. Landis; McGraw-Hill

It is commonly stated that the age of marriage in the United States has been delayed because of the development of industrial culture. This statement is nonetheless untrue. This is probably due to the fact that frontier conditions were not conducive to early marriage. On the other hand, there is little question that urban-industrial civilization has in the industrialized part of the world delayed the age of marriage beyond that which characterized most primitive peoples.

Youth problems involving sex delinquency, too great intimacy in dating, and to some extent problems of social diseases and prostitution, are frequently excused or explained on the ground that the age of marriage has been greatly delayed for American youth in this generation. If one takes youth as a whole, this view is in error, since as we have seen there has been little change in the age at which young people marry; and such change as there has been has been in the direction of younger marriage.

However, it is probable that the reasons for delaying marriage today are somewhat different from what they were a generation ago. This may have some significance. It is also likely that the general social situation which the unmarried youth faces today is so much different as to make the person who delays marriage face a different series of problems from those faced by the single person a generation or two ago. The delayed marriages of earlier generations in our agrarian society were probably in the major percentage of cases due to the fact that the young man had gone out to the frontier and would not consider placing a wife in a frontier situation until he had knocked the rough edge off the hardships that the environment required. After he had broken the land, built a home, and perhaps acquired a degree of economic security on the land, he went farther east and found himself a wife or asked the girl he had previously known to come and marry him. This was true also of the European immigrant; usually not until he had established himself did he bring his fiancee.

As society has become more urban, the delay in marriage among most classes is caused by such factors as economic necessity or a desire to complete one's education, but during this period there is free association with members of the opposite sex. Dating and more or less intimate contact with members of the opposite sex rather than isolation characterize the unmarried person's experience. This situation probably is responsible in a considerable part for such problems of delayed marriage as we now have among youth in the United States. There is the constant stimulus of a desire to marry, or at least to perform all the physical functions of marriage, and at the same time an overruling necessity to continue unmarried. The educated group, especially, find it necessary to delay marriage until the late twenties when they have completed college and have made a start in their chosen professions.

In spite of the fact that youth, on the average, are marrying earlier than a generation ago, the fact remains that modern economic industrial life puts serious handicaps in the way of marriage. Periodic economic crises, deter thousands of marriages simply because many young people dare not face the responsibilities of establishing families without assured incomes.

Top 10 Healthiest Foods

Saying I have put together a list of the top 10 healthiest foods may seem like I am telling you there are magic foods. We all know there are no real magic foods.

The road to total health is not in a pill or any one magical food.

Still, there are foods whose nutritional content is so powerful and the benefits of eating them so amazing, that they are often referred to as "super foods".

This healthy food list consists of foods that are exceptionally nutrient dense. That is, they have more nutrients per calorie than most other foods.

They have also been proven to contain vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that prevent disease: from cancer and heart disease to arthritis, eye diseases and many more.

These super foods are perfect for low fat heart healthy cooking and most make excellent low carb cooking choices as well, if you are going the low carb route.

Below you will find CookingNook.com's list of the top 10 healthiest foods, arranged alphabetically, with a brief note about the health benefits of each.

The 10 healthiest foods are foods that are so amazingly good for us that we really should include them in our diets on a regular basis for optimal health. I have included tips on how to add more of these wonderful foods to your every day menus on each food's health benefits page. Have a look and see if there are ways to add these healthy food choices to your table more often.

Just click on the first link for each food listed to read why each of these "super" foods is so good for us and how they help to create health.

The delicious recipes that are listed in the second link after each super food description feature our top 10 healthiest foods and show you how easy it can be to make healthy food choices while enjoying the great flavor these super foods bring to the table.

Cherry Blossoms in Korea

One of the most famous cherry blossom festivals in Korea every year is located on an island in the middle of Seoul called Yeoido. Although the island is only 8.4 square kilometers in area, and the area where the cherry blossom trees are located is a mere fraction of that, the island boasts more than 1400 cherry trees which line a 6km boulevard, and which are visited by over 2.5 million people a day during the festival. As you might imagine, it is very crowded, although crowds will be smaller in the early morning, or in the evening. Night is a very special treat when the cherry blossoms are illuminated, and young lovers stroll beneath the branches.

If you are planning to visit Seoul during the cherry blossom festivals, the festival on Yeoido is quite simple to find. To get to the boulevard you should take the subway to Yeoinaru station which is on line 5, or the purple line. Once you arrive there, take exit one. You can call Seoul's tourism promotion division at (02) 670-3410 for more detailed information.

The cherry blossom festival in Yeoido doesn't only involve flowering trees, but also all of the wonderful things that you might associate with any kind of Korean festival. There is any type of food you could possibly desire, from cotton candy to silk worm pupae. There are crowds (of course!), musicians, performers, evangelists, bicycles built for two and lots of traditional Korean tourist knick-knacks. There is also some really neat art, much of which incorporates flowers, such as the jeans to the right. There were give-aways and face painting, and even classic rock -- like The Drifters Under the Boardwalk -- being played over loudspeakers as you walked along.

In spite of the festive atmosphere however, the cherry blossom festival is not quite all fun and games for all the people of South Korea. The watching of cherry blossoms and the cherry blossom festivals that surround them were started in South Korea during the Japanese occupation during World War II, and thus is bittersweet for many Koreans, especially those in the older generations. Some older survivors of the Japanese occupation, which lasted 35 years and which was not kind to the Korean people, still remember a time when the cherry trees were symbols of Japanese oppression, and cannot forget. Most Korean people however, have looked past crimes committed during WW II and have embraced the cherry blossoms as their own. It doesn't hurt either that in the 1930s some Korean and Japanese botanists discovered that the trees -- although planted and cultivated by the Japanese during the occupation -- were actually native to Jeju-do, an island off the south coast of Korea, and cannot actually be found anywhere in Japan.

 Besides the Yeoido Cherry Blossom Festival there are also a number of other cherry blossom festivals in Korea and throughout the world in the early spring. There are a large number of cherry blossom festivals in Japan and China, but they are also found in the United States and in Canada.

A list of cherry blossom festivals in Japan can be found here at about.com.  

The Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival is the largest cherry blossom festival in Canada, while the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C. is the largest cherry blossom festival in the United States.