The Museum of Contemporary Art

Carly and I took the subway to the Seoul Museum of Contemporary Art today. Once we got off, we had to walk up the Seoul Grand Park gauntlet of old ladies selling boiled silkworm larvae (with it's lovely fragrence filling the air.) And they're not in a group. They line the 200 yard path that leads up to Seoul Land, The Seoul Zoo, and the Museum of Contemporary Art. So every time you think you're free, your nose is accosted anew within seconds.
Once we made it there, it was very cool. We saw lots of neat art. We saw a massive sculpture made of black dice. It consisted of amorphous shapes that were very round and had interesting slopes and concave arches, which was especially notable considering dice are, well, square.
In the center of the museum was a giant tower made of 1003 television sets (all Samsung brand) made by a famous Korean video artist called "The more, the better." Korean foundation day is October 3rd, (10/03) so that was the significance of the number of TV's. It was supposed to be the artist's conveyance of his wish for national prosperity. Putting in for 1003 Samsung television sets probably ensured Samsung's economic prosperity, so I think he did his part for society.
After we finished there, we headed out to Isu, where we went to the Tofu House and got some excellent fried whole fish. We are now adept at dismantling entire sea creatures with only chopsticks and our own ravenous wills. We ran into our friend Mike there serendipitously, who was sporting a saucy and shiny cape from his Halloween costume, and he helped us take our fried fishy apart.
Pleasant.

My Jerg gets r0x0red

Today, I met up with some middle school boys from my hokwon to play a game of Starcraft, a game I started playing in about 8th grade. I haven't played in a couple of years because I'm supposed to have grown up. Luckily, that was a fleeting pursuit.
Starcraft is a strategy game where you pick from three "races," each of which have different combat units and styles of infrastructure for building your bases. The three races are Terran (human), Protoss (really wise Klingon-esque aliens) and Zerg (Ravenous DNA assimilating hive creatures.) However, my fellow Korean gamers can't pronounce "Z" so I was playing as "Jerg" according to them. Jerg it is, I said, and we entered into combat.
I was teamed up with them for a game against some of their friends, and we won thoroughly, with me providing a diversion for one of their opponents who obviously didn't realize I was plodding my way through like a toddler.
The second match wasn't so flattering. I teamed up with one of my students, and played pretty badly. We were thoroughly crushed, and I was obviously dead weight in that instance. But all in all, it was still fun. I was glad I got to hang out with my students outside of the classroom. When I left they barely looked up from their newly-started game to say "bye bye," but I still felt the love. I understood that the pure energy of competition had bound them to their monitors like battle hardened gladiators wearing striped sweaters and socks with sandals.

Waking Party

This weekend, I went to go see Dave-from-San-Francisco's band, The Waking Party, play at Funky Funky. It was a great show, kind of a Franz Ferdinand injected with punk energy. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Teaching children is fun when you hit them, when they do funny things, and when you can talk about Starcraft with them. On other occasions that it doesn't fall under these categories, it can be a little tedius. But that's to be expected. They bite and hit each other ceaselessly, and scream at the slightest provacation. But they're cute and fun sometimes. I have been kneed in the balls and sneeze spittle has found its way into my eye. But overall, not so bad.

I have been going to Seoul a lot. Which is rockin'. I've never been very accustomed with big cities, and Seoul is so safe that I am getting very comfortable hanging out and enjoying big city life. I get to learn about other cultures, like such indispensable information as Dave-from-Cambridge teaching me "apples and pears" for stairs and "trouble and strife" for wife. That's pretty amusing. And he's just so charmingly befuddled.

I'm also enjoy being in a soceity where I can't understand the language, or even begin to read it. Sometimes, I find myself dodging other white people I see just because I am savoring my anonymity. Gives you a lot of time to think uninterrupted, which is nice.

Under surveillence

Looking at our little black rabbit, and his relatively "blah"-ndiose expression, I figure, maybe it's not so bad not to know how we got "here." Maybe the Earth is God's way of saying, "Hey, you could just be floating out in nowhere, exploding, or selling magazine subscriptions to ferocious rottweilers with peptic ulcers. Now eat your goddamn zucchini."

What's up, Doc? comes to mind.