It Might As Well Be Spring

A few days time marks the genesis of the next chapter of my existence. I intend to embark into it with august strides and efficacious plans akin to those of intrepid Tomyris (whose name is so rightly like my own), though with less muliebrity. Perhaps a better elucidation of my intentions would be to inadvertently refer to the creature that ushers in the period of our musing, namely the Panthera tigris altaica, or Tiger, whose fearsome courage, sharp incisors and insatiable appetite for self preservation result in an altogether terrible quadruped.

In fact, such a referral isn’t nearly as arbitrary as I’ve made out, since the description I gave is somewhat like that which the Lunar New Year (설날, Seollal) and an advance into the Year of the Tiger might invoke. It is this which will bring me to the age of twenty three (according to the Korean system – after having been allowed only two months of my twenty first year and four months of the following) and which will perhaps require me to turn to the next page of life.

I say this for a number of reasons, the first of which is that the Lunar New Year is arguably the biggest holiday of the Korean calendar and gives reason for a somewhat vast family meeting. This will be occurring in my girlfriend’s family and I believe I am expected to participate. Secondly, I will have two weeks holiday in which I will get to see a lot more of Korea and think about how I can improve my teaching as the new school year comes round. Lastly, I’m just about halfway through the length of my current teaching contract and need to shift gear to that of “find out what comes next”. I cannot be entirely sure how each of these will play out, however I can give you a rough idea of what I’m expecting.

Early next Sunday morning I’ll make my way over to MJ’s house to celebrate the new year. As far as I know, this will include both a) performing a traditional bow to every person in the family who is older than us, since we may bow together, and b) eating 떡국 (Ddeok guk, rice cake soup), which is symbolic of getting a year older. I have a horrible suspicion that I might be given money, since the elders are supposed to provide for the younger, and know that this will be a deeply awkward moment, especially given that my recent trip with them was entirely funded by the family. I also know that rice cake soup is thick, meaty, and contains copious amounts of egg and seaweed, both of which I’m not fond of but both of which I intend to consume. I believe it’s considered polite of a Korean girl’s boyfriend to eat the girl’s mother’s cooking with extra zeal. If I manage this then the two day family skiing trip we leave for that afternoon will probably go a lot smoother!

Which brings me onto holidays. At the moment I’m aware that one of my Korean friends will be visiting Seoul next week, and I hope to catch up with some people I haven’t seen in far too long. I’ll also be taking to the shores of Jeju Island, the southern-most territory of Korea and easily the warmest, though as it’s Winter the temperatures still aren’t much to boast about. What is interesting is its status as a dead volcano, the likes of which I’ve never experienced before and which I’m quite excited about. Apparently the island is so porous that even in heavy rain you hardly ever see a puddle. It should certainly be worth a blog and many photos!

As for “what comes next”, I think it’s really difficult to say. Currently I’m swinging towards returning to England in either August this year or February next year, having been informed that it’s possible to extend my teaching contract by six months should I wish it. A lot of it depends on what MJ intends to do / manages to arrange immediately after her graduation next year. Until then I need to harden up my teaching style and get strict with my new third graders who will join me in just over two weeks. My aim is to instil fear into their every move so that a call of “QUIET!” results in silence. Unfortunately I might be too easy going for that (I like to think easy-going could be replaced with “cool” or “handsome” after the discovery that I have a  fan club in the middle school opposite mine), but perhaps I can at least up the discipline a little. That’s if I even teach third grade… I might end up teaching just two grades but twice a week, which might give me half a change of getting to know some of the students names; a feat which currently seems impossible in just a year.

Does it leave you wanting more? Well you’ll have to wait until after the new year when I’m sure I’ll have more than enough to say…

… Other than that you should check out Korean pop-rock song “외톨이야“, (eotoli ya, I’m a loser) by CN BLUE. I’m afraid to admit it might actually be reasonably catchy, even with an awkward rap!

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Unfamiliar Ceilings

I feel that I’ve started this by giving you false impressions of my recent activity. If you study further you’ll find that the lyrics to the song which bears the same title as this post (you’ll note that all my titles have song equivalents) bear these impressions further weight, but I’m here to dispel such thoughts with the mention of my recent travels around Korea.

Having completing Winter Camp last Friday I found myself with four days of holiday to fill out. It so happened that these days coincided with a short trip that Minji’s family (minus her father, who was promoted just a few days before and no doubt had a lot of responsibility to assume) were due to take to visit some close relations, as her brother is due to leave the country today to resume his studies in Switzerland. Since I’ve not yet travelled outside of 경기도 (Gyeong-gi do), the province around Seoul, and because it would give me a chance to meet some more of their immediate family, I was asked to join them.

And so I found myself up at the same unearthly hour that work normally forces out of me in order to travel the wrong direction to 일산 (Ilsan, almost as far north as you can go without being shot), where MJ’s family were to pick me up before travelling the entire length of the country to Korea’s second largest city and residence of both sets of grandparents, 부산 (Busan, as far south as you can go without needing a boat and lots of sunscreen). As we began to leave the ring-road around Seoul we immediately stopped for a toilet break at a service station. This was hugely busy, apparently due to it being the last stop before hitting the open road, and didn’t resemble anything I’ve ever encountered. It was mostly outdoors, had hyper-luxury toilets, loud live music (raising money for some charity) and was entirely chilly. And quite unlike the UK equivalent there wasn’t a Burger King in sight. I did have a slice of Domino’s Pizza though. It was spicy.

We continued our journey for some time, though this time with MJ’s brother at the wheel along with various jokes about our risk of death, heightened by the tendency of South Koreans not to wear seat belts in the back seat, and eventually stopped at another service station, this one much quieter, to supply ourselves with a meal and a stretch. Interestingly, I was the only diner to eat Korean food, the rest opting for some international fusion. This tendency isn’t surprising, some of the favourite restaurants around Seoul being Italian, French and almost any mix of almost anything. After finishing our meals we bought some 고구마 sticks (sweet potato) and my suspicions of Koreans having a huge appetite was conclusively confirmed.

The rest of the journey consisted of winding through various mountain ranges and down lengthy tunnels, every vista in Korea allowing a horizon of just a mile or so, until we skirted a final peak and landed of 헤운대 (Haeundae) beach, which recently featured in a tsunami disaster movie and came equipped with “Evacuation Route” signs at strategic beach exits. Walking around the beach was reminiscent of any seaside town, with pale coloured buildings, a few souvenir shops and numerous skyscrapers. Walking along the beach in my winter coat I noted that the place looked rather too small to be Korea’s second largest city, however remembered the numerous geological protrusions which, along with the closed bay the largely empty beach was situated in, accounted for its apparent insignificance. I was assured that in summer you can hardly see a grain of sand for the tourists, a factor which must make the aforementioned disaster movie much more dramatic. After getting a view of the beach and sea from our twenty-fourth floor rooms was I realised that I was thoroughly satisfied to escape the freezing weather of Seoul for Busan’s relatively tropical ten degrees. This feeling became intensified upon hearing that our three rooms totalled only sixty six thousand won per night, about thirty pounds, thanks to MJ’s grandparents having a membership at the hotel and getting some extremely good deals, including free breakfast which is normally worth an extra tenner. I made full use of this, along with the nineteenth floor gym which boasted a nineteenth floor city panorama. At least, until a mountain blocked two thirds of it.

Thanks to a late arrival in Busan we went almost straight to have a meaty dinner with MJ’s dad’s parents at a restaurant ran by some other family members. It was a nice little place and we had a good meal before heading back to the hotel to gamble. Admittedly they only use 100 won coins, but I can’t help but feel they enjoy this a little too regularly. I’ve now overcome my reluctance to gamble thanks to making some winnings, and at a card game entirely new to me called “GO STOP”, which uses a completely alien set of cards called  화투 (Hwatu). These are twelve sets of four cards, each set being a different month and each card bearing a different picture, though each month has a reoccurring theme. I shan’t indulge in explaining the rules here, but will mention that it’s not easy to follow. Thankfully I picked it up fast enough to (apparently) gain some respect from both sets of grandparents and to gain three thousand won, largely from MJ’s mother. She didn’t seem to mind. I also gained a reasonable amount of money the next day after parting with the grandparents, thanks to an enveloped gift from them. I think that means they approve of me? The envelop the next set of grandparents provided for MJ that evening provided me with the impression that my profits were normally meant for the grandchildren, and I concluded that I was now more a part of the family. I also learnt that Koreans don’t usually get engaged like Westerners do. I’m getting the impression that I’m far further into this family than my Western noggin realises.

Other than meeting the other grandparents and an uncle, my two days in Busan were spent quietly. One morning we walked along a small peninsula and, upon rounding a large corner, saw a large section of the rest of the city which looked far more modern and vastly more impressive. The view actually blew me away. We also visited the largest department store in the world. Unfortunately it was expensive and I haven’t enough money. It was nevertheless interesting to see and shaming to feel so dwarfed by such a monstrously large building, and we soon retreated from its sixth floor ice rink into an Australian style restaurant called Outback in which MJ was confronted with a tremendous rack of ribs and endless sweet bread which made for an suspiciously Korean meal. It was good stuff nevertheless, and gave me something to spend what my grandparents had bestowed upon me earlier that day. Oh, did I write my grandparents? Hyu…

Here's a rough map of my travels, colour coded according so you can see the journeys I took each day. We didn't travel on the second day, so there is no line for it... Click to enlarge!

From Busan we travelled straight up the eastern coast, glimpsing the East Sea (you’ll find it as the Sea of Japan on your maps) between mountains and eventually stopping for lunch at a crab place, the likes of which were advertised with giant ten foot crabs suspended in mid-air along the highways. For those who don’t know me so well, this was a significant stop to make because I don’t eat seafood, and have threatened (unintentionally) to throw up on the odd occasion of my eating it. Crab, however, was one of the lesser items I had on my list of seafood I can try without dying along with squid and prawn. It turns out, as I had guessed, that I didn’t die, and whilst eating felt that I could do so again without too much worry. I even enquired as to if lobster was of a similar taste, since I heard it’s worth trying. Unfortunately, looking back on it now makes me feel strange and slightly nauseous, and MJ’s joy at me not hating something aquatic may lead to more dangerously piscine arrangements all too soon. We continued up the coast amid small showers of rain and a darkening light until we found the guest house we were to stay at, confusingly called 팬션 (Pensions) despite having nothing to do with the elderly or eliciting your money instead of providing it. These are a popular way to have a break and provide a comfortable small flat with friendly owners who cook you fried rice for breakfast and let you ride their bikes, although only around the block. The latter qualities may not be found in all pension owners, but did in those I became acquainted with. Oh, and we only rode the bikes around the block because it was ferociously cold. Or too cold to ride bikes at least.

The car provided a much warmer option to move around the north-east, where we stopped at half an hour intervals for short periods to view the scenery and to visit a few places, before retreating from the cold and moving on. I realised it was really quite cold when, after smiling briefly for numerous photos, my teeth felt unusually cold to the point where it was possibly a little painful and certainly completely queer. It’s not something I wish to experience again. It was worth it, however, since there were lots of places to take picturesque photos (as one would hope most photos to be). We stopped at a harbour, the site where a historical drama was recently filmed, a service station (though we didn’t eat this time) where we got an awesome view of a mountain sticking out of a mountain at an angle I cannot comprehend, and eventually a mountain town called 양구 (Yang Gu). Here we stopped for a little longer in order to drop in and see MJ’s brother’s old maths teacher, who delighted to see him and graciously accepted a huge box of oranges and an envelope of what I can only assume was money. Gifts are important here see. He happened to work at a new Foreign Language School, usually more expensive than others (though this one was government-funded) and hence very large and very posh. I gather it would have looked more impressive still if it wasn’t covered with fresh snow. And to think a day before I’d been on a beach… Currently there are only one hundred and fifty students at this school, however as we made our way around a packed dining hall a large and rowdy noise was heard. Our time there continued with students either pressing their noses against the windows and calling “Hey man!” or timidly smiling and muttering “Hello” then scuttling away timidly giggling. It appears as though they don’t see many foreigners up in the mountain, the experience comparing to the super-star status I received on teaching in Central China, and I quickly reminded myself that my fame wasn’t due to my rugged beauty or wily charm, but rather the colour of my skin, an arguably less flattering reason.

With this stop over we continued through the mountains until we stopped at 춘천 (Chun-cheon) for lunch. We pulled up on 닭갈비길 (Dalk Galbi Road) to eat, amazingly, Dalk Galbi. Maybe that wasn’t as obvious for you as it is for me now. Hmmm. The road is thus named because the dish was supposedly created here, or at least famous for being utterly scrumptious, or perhaps both. MJ’s family concurred this truth with mumbles of “Yeah, it’s pretty good” as they munched through the spicy red mix of chicken, cabbage, rice cake and noodles that was fried before our eyes. It was pretty good and contained absolutely no crab. Before long we had to leave again, since there were various appointments to be met back in 일산, and so after another couple of hours of driving we dropped everyone off, and MJ’s mum drove me back to my apartment (even after spending four days driving around the country, amazing) along with a twenty minute conversation in two languages and little direct understanding. I got the impression we communicated everything we intended to.

With a short lug of my strangely heavy suitcase and a fluffy plonk face down onto my bed the holiday was over and I prepared to prepare to return to school to try to find something to do. Despite my reluctance to work I soon turned over to face the ceiling so that I didn’t die of oxygen deprivation and reflected that, actually, I’d travelled a huge distance in just four days and seen an obscene amount of Korea and met a multitude of new people. I made a note to myself that I should revisit various places in my next vacation in February, since I stopped so briefly in each location that I only glimpsed its beauty from the surface. I feel there would be a strange value in diving into the fish markets of Korea’s most bustling commercial port during a more temperate month.

I’m getting quite excited thinking about it…

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Liberate The Illiterate!

Having jumped on the job research bandwagon and then proceeded to observe how I approached my life in the week that followed I have fallen into a strangely narcotic and deeply thoughtful mood, aided by the fountain of steam pouring out of my ever-useful rice cooker and the detailing of Confucianism during later second-millennium Korea by Keum Jang-tae, a Korean scholar from Seoul National University who still makes some rather obvious grammatical, errors in his placement of commas and in his omission key words and excessive use of conjunctions and in his progressively longer sentences which don’t aid the meaning of paragraph, though admittedly he doesn’t do this is as frequently as some poorer English scholars.

The discussion that follows considers two opposing methods of developing the “progression” of a society. The first considers the practical use of ideas to bring about fast but forced progression, the other of which muses the shaping of a society’s ethics to bring about a slower but, perhaps more valuable, progression. My thoughts stem from the development of Shilhak thought in Korea, a movement which attempted to move away from traditional Neo-Confucian ethics and open-mindedly sought to fuse its culture with new Chinese and Western ideas. No, I don’t fully understand what this means in its historical context, however it gave me food for though and the following blog to produce. This is how it rolls. You know, my blog rolls… Blogroll… Never mind.

Early Confucianism in Korea saw the emergence of Sonbi, social philosophers who sought to perfect themselves morally and philosophically by reaching towards the “Greater Power” (which is, by the way, nothing like us Westerners might imagine, having alternately been defined as Heaven, God, Nature and Man all at the same time), whilst creating and upholding social values for the government and its official to live and work by. The idea was that by striving to perfect the self one would not only lead others to do the same but actually change the moral fabric of a society as a whole, especially since these Sonbi were often responsible for (swaying) many big decisions. This meant that society was defined by a strong moral compass which, thanks to debate and constant meditation, changed appropriately according to the time. This, so I have gathered, worked well for many centuries and led Korea to being a generally peaceful and well governed nation. When this idea failed was when men took advantage of their positions and sought to change society for their own good and didn’t take the time to develop a good moral character. Apparently there’s good evidence that when the Sonbi were upright, society prevailed, but when these people were morally deviant, society began to fall apart. In summary: If you have strong roots, you will produce a good tree. Seems obvious perhaps?

The next category of thought came out of this a few centuries later, when the idea came around that you could indiscriminately take the best ideas from different places to make the best society possible. This came about near the time when the Qing dynasty of China overcame the Ming dynasty, bringing with it great openness to Westerners and their strange ideas. Thus scholars chose to apply new Western and Chinese ideas with their own and fuse them into a new social philosophy which was rather different to what the previous paragraph detailed. This idea saw the idea of progression and advancement as more important than developing moral character. This meant that they built houses for the poor, challenged old government precepts and introduced new technology to advance their nation. It also meant the rise of Catholicism, materialism and what some saw as moral decay, with social advance becoming more important than the people it was made of; these new ideas didn’t have time to be though through and led to society changing quickly and people not having the time to meditate on the moral state of the country or to the countries rich cultural background. In summary: If you produce the branches first, then the roots will develop later.

Interlude ~ Those with particularly green fingers might note at this point that, in fact, plants grow from seeds and variously produce ‘branches’ or ‘roots’ first. This would suggest that the moral fabric of a society is heavily defined in its conception. Those with a more literary mind will note that the use of floral imagery was a metaphor and therefore has limits. Very useful limits.

And so both of these ideas existed alongside each other and struggled for a fair while until, eventually, the progressive minds were pushed aside as Japan tried to invade Korea multiple times and the nation developed a steely anti-foreigner skin; though they still trusted China like a child trusts their father (here the metaphor can extend to when a child doesn’t get on with their father, however it doesn’t extend to fill the place of China’s multiple personality changes through various political upheavals. If your dad has numerous internal political upheavals then please seek family counselling). This was furthered in Korea’s modern history thanks to Japanese Colonialism, the Second World War and the split of the Korean Peninsula, which has led to one half becoming deeply communist (and co-incidentally evil) and the other deeply capitalist (and hence evil?). Note that all ideas of moral code, at least at a national level, were lost through these wars and resulted in aggressive military regimes in both countries, along with national destitution in the North and  incredibly fast economic growth in the South. Both of these, to a certain extent, have resulted in suppression of moral values. I argue that this is the case in South Korea only in light of what follows about the rest of the capitalist world, notably England, since that’s what I’m most familiar with.

The United Kingdom is arguably one of the major reasons that capitalism exists today, thanks to the boom of industry in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the resultant movement of populations into cities, reliance on wages rather than subsistence farming and the importation of fanciful goods from an increasing powerful empire, led by the ruling classes and fuelled by the lower grasping for a taste of what the former had. This has reached its height after a few hundred years, and whilst an awful lot of thought has gone into those years I would suggest that capitalist society, at its core throughout history, has forsaken moral values in favour of national and personal advancement. Whether the motivation has been to out-do rising European powers who threaten the stability of your enviably large empire, a secret ambition to be obscenely rich from lucrative diamond mining operations in South Africa or simply to benefit the people, the results have been in similar veins: slavery, exploitation and war. I’ll admit that we now have the experience to know that these things are inherently bad (though I’m sure people always knew this) and the national maturity to now do something about it, we can still find amongst the supposedly moral fortresses of modern liberalism, post-modernism, religion or conservatism (depending on your view) huge swathes of corruption and injustice. Hence why in only a few years we have seen a worldwide economic recession, public outrage at the British Parliamentary members’ expenses claims and an inability to reach a decent plan to stop global warming before the people who the world isn’t helping enough to survive lose what little fertile soil they have to rising temperatures. Even within my own life I’m aware how sitting writing a lengthy blog on my shiny new notebook whilst nibbling After Eights and sipping Bailey’s is inherently corrupt and unfair, because I’ve chosen to chase after my own gain rather than develop a moral character which will actually affect the world around me in a good way. Admittedly I could donate a few thousand Won to the Haiti earthquake appeal, but if I only respond to a cry for help when it visits my four hundred pound screen then I’m not really doing anything.

This isn’t to damn the world, to make you feel bad or to advertise a better way, merely to express what I’ve been thinking about and why my chosen career option is that of a Sonbi. That’s right, I’m going to retreat into the mountains and develop a moral character before coming to the city to guide and strengthen the national identity. I’m also going to absorb the Korean language from the woodland moisture and fresh valley views until I’m fluent enough to make a change. Care to join me? In all seriousness, I do feel as though the development that the Western World has led is deeply flawed and that society is moving towards unnatural and unusual conclusions, assured that it is right by a skewed and basely selfish mentality disguised as morality. I feel that we would all be better off living in a peaceful and community-serving nation which seeks to reach greatness through self-development and well thought-through contemporary social development such as that which might have been found in Korea some five hundred years ago. I’m also aware that I have to live and work in the world I’m in, and that I myself am a part of what I’ve described. I feel a worrying sense of inadequacy to change anything even in my own life, however intend to go about it. I’ll have to develop my character in my home, family and workplace instead of amongst the mountains.

To end, I’ll admit that I’ve actually been researching getting a job in public relations. I feel as though it’s a challenging prospect which will allow me to move around the world, to affect the very same and to use my creative output to benefit people other than myself. And it also pays the wage to help me continue my self-serving material ambitions.

Listen, I just don’t think I’ll have the money to feed the hungry after I’ve bought my wireless mouse and keyboard, wireless router, wireless headphones and mini projector which will allow me to sit in my bed and play games all day whilst my wife, who is now an independent woman and can bring in the money for me, works and the maid looks after my three podgy, spotty, World of Warcraft playing kids. Hey, it’s ok, by the time they’re adults their gaming addictions will allow them to make money in worldwide gaming competitions. Don’t say I’m not investing in my future children’s lives.

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Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Century

A new year brings a new and fresh breath of devotion unto my life and my blog, which, through a recent and undeniably interesting mix of recession and (lack of) narration, have become interestingly alike. So to start with the question to start all questions (for, if one can express the question to end all questions, then why shouldn’t said polar exist?), will my life jump back on the rails to form a comeback quite unlike any previously experienced by mankind (and less dramatically, me) or will it continue to potter on and peter out in the same way that my obsessive interest with Thomas the Tank Engine did when I realised that it was vaguely annoying to be associated with said locomotive by any and every bright spark under the (mental) age of nine years.

It has also occurred to me that, in the year 2010, my blog’s spellchecker should most certainly not be displaying a jagged red line under the word “blog”, thereby apparently denying its own thorough existence in vernacular and, no doubt, official dictionaries. Web log just isn’t a real word nowadays. Neither is it two.

To return from this minor meander (as David Copperfield so openly condemns in the opening pages of the Dickens Classic I acquired from a gently matriarchal figure overseas during a certain festive period which, incidentally [apart from big red costumes and robust marketing schemes], is almost non-existent outside of Christian circles in Korea) and return to the matter at hand, that is, “Wot I Did On My Holiday”, I shall proceed to recount the more interesting factoids from my recent history and in the gap that now spans gapingly and toothlessly between my last post and the one you are now musing over. And that I will do in reverse chronological order.

This evening I shared my fears and worries about the lack of ambition and general motivation I have recently experienced with a 누나 (nuna, older sister) whom I have only seen once (now twice) in Korea. We went to Jongno and ate bibimbap, wandered around for a little amongst the freezing evening air and discussed things from the possibilities of marriage (in our notably separate worlds and to notably different people) to exactly why the concept of 마음 (Ma-eum) is so difficult to translate into English. It was also agreed upon that sitting in a cafe with a hot cuppa coffee when the world outside is frozen over is far more preferable to sweating it out amongst the humid monsoon season I have yet to appreciate in all its fullness.

By the bye, when I say frozen I imply that Seoul is thoroughly frigid, proven by my purchase of a two hundred thousand won coat (approximately one hundred pounds) and my observation that the vast expanse of the Han River is frozen enough to walk upon. I would complain further about this unexpectedly chilly turn in my life except that the rest of the world seems to have also become a winter wonderland, with my home country experiencing rather similar circumstances, and most of Europe and Eastern America laying claim to unusual amounts of snow. Needless to say I feel this has somewhat stolen my thunder, however I will still head back in my memory to just over a week ago when, to set the general scene for my Jongno coffee with a wonderfully appropriate turn of events, around twelve inches of snow fell in as many hours on the morning my school’s Winter English Camp was due to start.

Ah, Winter Camp. An idea I had previously never imagined participating in, especially without any formal pay (though my co-teachers have lovingly rigged  it so that I get at least a little money, since it’s rather unjust to employ someone for three weeks without any pay – though I must point out that the rest of my contract is fairly sweet), this has turned out to be a welcome break from doing nothing. Along with my co-teacher Michelle I have so far tallied ten days of Winter Camp, whereby twenty-five fourth and fifth graders have spent the morning at school learning English, Culture, Life skills, and Very Silly Drama Games. It’s been great to spend time with some of my students, and to have been able to get much closer to some of them. Some of my kids are so sweet and lovely, and others so smart yet so unbelievably silly that it makes one despair rather more than one might normally wish to. Nevertheless, my mornings have been thoroughly packed helping the students to create their own English Speaking country (located, through a series of games whereby students could attack each other’s countries and expand their empire, in Europe), national anthem, local fashion and any other subject I could convince them was at least roughly related to a nation. Today we had mini-Olympics, which proved fun but exhausting. The abundance of games, theatre and life skills I’ve been teaching point me towards the unexpected conclusion that I’m actually doing a graduate Drama job. I honestly didn’t see this coming…

I also didn’t expect my utility bill this month to come to one hundred and fifty pounds, though some thorough investigation has revealed that I had a tragic misunderstanding of the way my heating system worked, and have hence had my gas bill blown sky-high, though admittedly along with the most toasty toes a man has ever had. It was enjoyable whilst it lasted, but it was certainly not worth the effective doubling of said monthly duty.

And to think that I am thankful for all of the above…

You see, what proceeded this wasn’t entirely wholesome or flattering towards my 마음 (Ma-eum, remember?). Here I will roughly translate this word as Heart. Though it could be character, or spirit, or emotions, consideration or indeed whole-heartedness. I think I’ve put my finger on it in Korean, but it just can’t be expressed in English… In a similar way to the Korean concept of Cute. I am, of course, referring to the ’slump’ I hinted at earlier. From here I will proceed in chronological order from before Christmas, only to return in a clever but needlessly complicated turn of literaturgical structure. No, literaturgical is not a real word. Not outside of the vernacular, at least.

Honestly, I felt rather proud about the routine and positive productiveness I had developed towards the end of last year. I was being regular, thoughtful and purposive in many things, and had a constant and enjoyable time in my work, social life, and indeed at church. The dawning of the holidays, however, brought this to an abrupt end. It should be noted that this isn’t to point blame at any particular people I happened to spend time with during this vacational period, rather just at the sudden collapse of my routine that holiday seems to bring upon me.

It was the Christmas holidays which saw my father fly over to visit me from England, and which hence saw the first time I had had a guest in my house as a fully independent adult (who seems to insist on spelling “independent” “independant”. Thank you spell-checker! Note, I still haven’t forgiven you for not recognising the word “blog”), though whether I’m yet an adult and whether a person can truly be independent from one’s parents, or indeed anyone, is a subject for another day perhaps. This provided an interesting challenge to which I feel I responded generally appropriately (here I remember that, of course, I fell short in a number of important factors), though of course my father’s expectations of being a guest in his son’s space and mine of being a host no doubt mismatched somewhat. During this time we toured various parts of Seoul and the surrounding area, and I shared the parts of my life that had changed since our last meeting. In doing so I not only ripped myself from the routine I mentioned earlier, but was also reminded of the life I led before my cross-continental jump, thus was left, after an honestly enjoyable holiday with my father, a little confused.

As if not confused enough, upon the turn of the decade I became aware, with the aid and prompting of my girlfriend, that I don’t actually have an aim of goal for my life, and am thus living for no particular reason other than to live. I may indeed be going somewhere, but without some kind of goal I’m effectively just floating and being blown around by the fancies and whims of the wind of life. With a decision needing to be made about whether I will extend my teaching contract or not looming fairly soon, I need to seriously consider what comes next. Unfortunately, I have no idea.

These factors mixed to leave me in a unmotivated place in which I could be bothered to do just about anything, from arranging to meet friends or even going down to the shop to buy milk which I needed to eat breakfast the next day, to slowly realise that, actually, I needed to stop being so self-indulgent and actually get into gear to do something, no matter how pessimistic my life-long lack of a ‘goal’ had left me. If I remember hard enough, I’ve always felt this way until I’ve actually done some research and seen what the options are… It’s easy to despair before you even look! Why is that? Why do I have such a lack of perspective on my life! Thankfully being pushed into doing something not suggested by the ego, such as a girlfriend or a job (here in the form of Winter Camp), helps to bring that perspective about.

By way of consequence, and in returning to the centre of where my (chronologically) reverse-chronological and then chronological tales have just met, I will admit that I am now feeling much more optimistic, though I haven’t yet solved my future. The reason being that, as I have been rebuilding my routine around Winter Camp, friends and, importantly, God, I have found that the prodding of my girlfriend which initially caused me to topple from unmotivated indifference into despair is actually bringing me further into a relationship which is becoming all the more real and mature, to the point where I can’t help but feel it’s getting rather Serious. Not that it wasn’t serious in the first place, since I’m usually a serious and committed sort (at least in such areas as this), but I’ve noted that this relationship is starting progress at a pace and maturity towards the future that I haven’t experienced so far. This is a little terrifying, but rather more exciting, and will need to be watched carefully before it gets really out of hand. Who knows what could happen!

For the time being I feel that all this has taken the same turn as the economy. A spectacular nosedive from a position of unwittingly over-stated strength into a period of deep worry and difficulty, but which is gradually bringing a very different and hopeful world onto the horizon. Will Asia be the new commercial hub of the world, will Germany regain its status as the world’s biggest exporter, will the war against the Taliban ever end? It seems that the world is subtly changing in a major way, and I intend to meet and move with it in a thoroughly thought through and sober judgement on my future, which looks all the more like it might be a sharper and greater picture of what I have right now.

How cryptic. How abrupt. How apt.

톰.