The Scream

Ah, the beauty of Korean cafes ... macchiatos, cappucinos and lattes cost the same as a regular cup o' joe, water is free and seating is plentiful.

On the other hand, you could also say that a regular coffee is far overpriced at above 3,000won (US$3), that the cost of water must be included in this price, and that far too many young people receive an extravagant allowance they spend frivolously on expensive food and caffeinated drinks. Either way, cafes in Gangnam are plentiful and busy, especially in the evenings and on weekends.  South Korea's Paris Croissant (silly maybe, but great pastries) America's Starbucks, and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, and Italy's Cafe Pascucci are the big names in coffee here, beating out the smaller Korean cafes that can only afford moderately overpriced real estate, like Cafe Ediya, Coffee n Kiss, and others I've yet to pass by.

The School has its own cafe on the 11th floor, a spacious room with a projection TV, English magazines, cards, board games and study space.  Students often want to visit this cafe on the final day of classes, when School policy allows teachers to hold classes outside of our little cubicle rooms, because the coffee is half the price of other cafes and the no-Korean policy helps ease the anxieties of those too embarrassed to speak English outside of The School.  (This, of course, makes you wonder whether they'll ever use English outside of The School)

Now, teaching seven classes per month means that many classes want to go to this upper-floor cafe (which, admittedly, has a much better view than other cafes).  It's horribly boring for us teachers, who would love to get out of the workplace for a break - while getting paid! no less - and are just tired of the long-Friday feeling that two consecutive "Last Day of Classes" events brings our way.  So I often give students the choice, and when they (often) can't decide I suggest a nearby cafe to keep costs down and to keep from stuffing myself with food for two days.

At the end of August, I led a lower-level class to Cafe Pascucci, less than one block from The School, for a mid-afternoon coffee and easy two-hour chat.  We arranged a few tables together on the second floor, went back down to the first to order our lattes, iced caramel macchiatos and iced mochas, then returned to the second floor to chat.  And what a yelling match it was.

With about 80 or so young people on the same floor, all excited about Friday, the beginning of classes - which means rekindled friendships more than anything else, of course - and just hanging out in trendy Gangnam, all five of my students had to lean forward to hear anything said at our table.  Some gave up and engaged in private conversation at either side of me.  One had never really comprehended English anyways - and only answered with nods, a slow "yes," "no" or a confused glance and a desperate plea for translation aimed at another student throughout the class - just chatted away in Korean until somebody else spoke enough for her to listen silently.

Needless to say, we all had to concentrate very hard to hear each other.  That must have been one reason we were so surprised when we heard a terrifying blood-curdling scream come from a few tables away.

All 160 eyes shot towards the source of the scream.  A young woman in a pretty light pink dress was all I saw from my seat, her head held high and face aimed at her boyfriend, who held his own head low, very low.  Call me melodramatic, but I just looked for blood - a lost finger, a gash on a forehead, a nail in a foot, anything.  But no fabric was stained, and no other coffee drinkers make a move towards the troubled couple.  A nearby woman had leaned back in her chair, gripping its back and the table for balance and looking as though she'd been physically pushed into her chair by the power of the scream.  All jaws were dropped, nobody talked, and the chest of the young woman heaved after its incredible exertion.  The silence continued for a full 10 seconds, at least, my heart raced, and Gangnam experienced a rare moment of absolute silence in a very public place.

I'd been told about domestic disputes in Korea after my arrival - been advised not to interfere with a couple shouting and crying in public and to expect conservative gender roles to dominate.  Social divisions based on gender/income, and age especially, have been maybe less apparent to me in classes than they are in the rest of Korea.  But this was a wake up call: not only was this 'domestic' very public, but nobody intervened.  Myself included.  Maybe that's what surprised me most.

The room slowly, quietly restarted their conversation - many talking about the couple who continued to hold their positions, frozen in tableau - until the ripple of murmurs grew into first quiet, then normal-volume conversation.  It didn't reach its initial volume while we were there.

One student of mine, who had just broken up with her boyfriend, took the opportunity to voice concern for the distraught couple, who, she said, "we should understand," or sympathize with.  I turned the conversation to the possibility of depression and the prevalence of such diagnoses in Korea.  Misunderstandings took this conversation into the realm of sleeping pills, and we ended the class 45 minutes after the scream talking about exercise, activity and sports.

It wasn't until I described the incident to other teachers that a third possibility came to mind: could this have been a case of a bratty Korean girl challenging her boyfriend to disobey - or else?  She had left the cafe first, snatching her oversized purse from the chair beside her and walking at a good clip with him only a few steps behind (still hanging his head low, very low).  Although it's all speculation, several senior teachers - both Korean and non-Korean - nodded agreement when I proposed this cause.

So, domestic dispute or temper tantrum?  Either way, I'll never forget the terror she delivered into our minds with a scream that really should be reserved for emergencies.  Isn't there a Korean version of Aesop's 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf'?

Midnight Fire at The School: Thursday Classes Cancelled

Man, news sure does travel fast.  Jon and I woke up at 6am this morning to get ready for our daily 7am classes, sat down to a breakfast of cereal, some PB&J and a biiig coffee each.  Less than two minutes into breakfast, I got a text from a former student of mine and a current student of Jon's:

"Arla,U&Jon are alright? i just heard there was fire in PANGDA(7th floor)."

I replied that we were fine, hadn't even been to the school yet, and thanked Jinny (from her Korean name, Jin Hee) for her concern.

A few minutes later, Jon got a call from our most competent manager, Soo, who informed us that classes were cancelled today and might be cancelled tomorrow.  She would call later if tomorrow's classes would, in fact, be in session.

So we went to the gym and then arranged to meet a friend of ours, Rob, for a hike.  Walking to the subway station on our way to the mountain, we approached The School - and smelled it before we saw it.  With smell of burning rubber as faint as that smell can be in our noses, we turned the corner and saw this:

It appears as though at least 20 windows were broken: at left, seven at the north side on the seventh floor, at least one window on each floor of the stairwell at the right of the building, and a few scattered windows on upper floors.  On the sixth floor, we noticed that lights were on in each room, and it seemed that there was little to no damage below the seventh floor.

A few teachers arrived at the school at 6am, only to find debris below the broken windows and smoke-stained concrete frames.  This was cleaned up by noon, when we passed by the building.

The east side of The School showed worse damage than the north side.  Although notices at the front of the building claimed it would reopen in four to five days, our managers insist that weekend classes will continue.

A big surprise.  Later in the afternoon, senior teachers told us the cause of the fire: a photocopier on the seventh floor, the transformer/converter of which had overheated and caught fire.  Combine heat with a lot of nearby paper and you have yourself a growing fire.

Although nobody from The School was in the building, other students have told us that there were some injuries in the health clinic on the upper floors (also known as a plastic surgery clinic).  I have yet to find an English-language article on the fire/blast that could give me more reliable details, but will post any that I find.

Until the building reopens or we get news from our managers, many teachers are concerned about their income and their schedule.  Enrollment has dropped off significantly now that students are in university during the daytime, and teachers have about seven hours of class on average, instead of the opportunity to take on more classes to make more money.  Weekend classes have been jeopardized, since they had already been condensed into three four-hour sessions instead of four three-hour sessions.  And current students will likely want to make up their classes at another time.  Although this would not normally be an issue, many teachers think we'll be asked to hold makeup classes at the beginning of October - which had previously been a holiday.  Teachers have invited family to come for this 5-day weekend, have booked plane tickets to various paradises in SE Asia and have made more local plans within Korea.

In sum, everybody loses.  Students have classes carried into October, teachers have the inconvenience of a broken-up holiday and the rest of The School's staff have to deal with administrative chaos and cleanup of this kind of delay.  Not to mention the injuries of the plasticized above us.

The upside?  We might get new photocopiers.

Happy (belated) Re-Birthday, Korea!

This post has been on the back burner for a bit too long - Korea's Independence Day actually took place on Friday August 15. Apologies for my tardiness!

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Korea must be one of the few countries where Independence Day is not celebrated with fireworks and parades, with flag-wavers and patriots, or with more drinking than a normal Friday. No, in Korea, Independence Day is simply celebrated in one meaningful way - a statutory holiday during which only the poor retail workers among us have to man the busy shops.

Instead of joining the throngs of shoppers, we celebrated our own day off with a trip to a historical site, Gyeongbokgung, with one of Jon's students, Daeshin. Gyeongbokgung is the main palace of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-August 1910) and its entrance gate, Gwangwhwamun Gate, is to be the departure point for the upcoming Nike Human Race we wanted to join.

We began our little sightseeing trip with a walk down the Cheonggyecheon Stream in the centre of Jongro district, a few minutes' drive north of the Hangan River and the location of Seoul's City Hall. Although initially dredged during the Joseon Dynasty, the area became a shantytown and the stream became polluted. In the 1960s and 70s, the slum was cleared and the stream paved over to make way for an elevated expressway - after all, an emergent economic power couldn't have shanties in the centre of its city now, could it? The pollution that had been invited by this expressway was later cause for the road's destruction, and the Stream was restored in 2005, including a history of the Joseon Dynasty that lines the stream like a miles-long tapestry in tile.

Daeshin and myself in front of a history of the Joseon Dynasty explained on tile.

After passing children swimming in the stream (contrary to a Korean by-law, Daeshin informed us) and a small art exhibition under a bridge (what a creative use of space!), we exited the stream for Gyeongbokgung palace. During the short 20-minute walk to the site, we passed many dozens of caged buses preparing for Seoul's weekly candlelight vigil against Korea's president and his policies on American beef, and hundreds of young Korean police officers sitting on the sidewalk in parallel lines, waiting in the light rain for their cue to enter City Hall Square. We've since seen these same buses in Gangnam, waiting for similar protests to get out of hand (but I've yet to see a person detained in one of the buses).

The Gwanghwamun Gate is currently under construction, covered by scaffolding that is covered by painted plywood and massive inflated Roses of Sharon. Absolutely hideous, especially against the beautiful backdrop of mountains behind the palace and the Blue House - Korea's version of the White House, as Daeshin put it.

After taking advantage of free admission (yipee!!) we walked into a snapshot of Korean history (plus tourists). Geunjeongjeon, the throne hall, was at the forefront of the rest of the palace grounds. We were so wowed that we nearly blocked the entrance so Jon could take pictures like this one, below.

The white-shuttered doors provided a view of the raised throne and various royal artifacts. Entry was prohibited here like in Gyeonghoeru, below, a banquet hall also labelled National Treasure No.244. (In other news National Treasure No. 1, the oldest wooden structure in Seoul, caught fire in early February.)

The remainder of our visit was far less photographed; a quick tour through the National Folk Museum within the palace grounds, then a quick taxi ride with Daeshin and a friend of his we met on our way out of the palace, Joon, to Myeongdong - a fashion district - for some dinner. Although there was a famous jiggae (stew) restaurant in Meyongdong that Daeshin wanted to show us, neither he nor Joon remembered where it was. This is something we've learned to expect in Korea, because there is such a plethora of shops, restaurants, bus stops, and unofficial spellings that no single person can know it all. This one is a city of landmarks.

We settled on a second-floor restaurant with a wonderful dish of nangmeyon noodles and boneless chicken in a spicy, watery chili broth. Daeshin asked us over and over if we were having fun, and telling us that he felt so happy and proud to show us a little bit of Korea. Before August 15, he'd not been to Gwanghwamun either - much like many Ontarians have never been to Queen's Park, or even to the ROM.

We parted at the Subway for a cheap but long ride home. Jon was nearly sick from exhaustion (Keedo had given a string of early wake-up calls the preceeding week) and when we got home we both crashed after a long week. Most weekends have been approached in a similar vein - see Korea when we can, but prioritize rest on our days off!

Jon has since met up with Daeshin for lunch to thank him again and catch up on changes in his life before he goes to study in the US.