My day started out with a workout downstairs. I brought Jonga, Olivia’s dog, with me for the second straight day. She is such a loyal and loving dog that even thought I’m not her owner she listens to me and follows all my directions (in Korean, of course). Then I was about to eat breakfast (corn flakes) around noon when Olivia’s mom started whipping up a virtual buffet of food—teriyaki chicken wings, cabbage kimchi, radish kimchi, vegetable tempura, cucumber salad, and so many other things. The cabbage kimchi, Olivia’s mom warned me, is “very sour.” In case you don’t know, kimchi is any vegetable (usually cabbage, but not always) that has been fermented. The longer it ferments, the more sour it is. Most Koreans have a special refrigerator (referred to above as a ‘kimchi machine’) to keep it at the right temperature year-round. Of course, I love sour food. Olivia’s mom’s kimchi was as sour as sauerkraut, only it has many more spices and a reddish color. So delicious! The radish kimchi was equally sour and equally delicious. I wish I had taken a picture, all of the food was so beautiful just to look at. This woman, Olivia’s mom, is amazing. She prepared about 10 dishes in less than an hour—watching her cook was like watching the Iron Chef. And yes, as always, the food was amazingly delicious!
After that I tutored Olivia for about two hours. Prior to today, I had asked her (and my other Korean tutees) to read and summarize some articles. One of the articles was about Koreans’ obsession with cosmetic surgery. You may not know this, but roughly 50% of Korean women get some sort of plastic surgery in their lifetime. The most popular is the surgery that makes Korean eyes look more like Western eyes. Apparently, Korean women are more likely get a job if they look more beautiful, so they do everything possible to look as pretty as they can. Getting “Western eyes” is the quickest and easiest way to look beautiful in this way. In fact, Olivia had this surgery. She paid $500 per eye (usually it is double that amount) and now her eyes are as big as an American’s. It’s unfortunate, I think, because Korean (and Asian women in general) look so nice with their natural eyes. But Olivia, like so many other young Korean women, has been seduced by the idea that big eyes=pretty, so she got the surgery. It’s sad, but what can you do? It is such a shame that this traditional culture is being tarnished by Western ideas. As I tell my Korean students at INTERLINK, rather than submitting to the pressures of their society and getting unnecessary cosmetic surgery, they should change society by avoiding it altogether. But it’s hard for them to avoid the pressures of Western society, America in particular. Last night I passed by a jewelry shop called “Bling Bling”! (and if you don’t know what that means, then good! But perhaps you should google the phrase just to find out). Anyway, I’m going to head out soon and grab some dinner…
I am sitting in a bar in Daehangno as I type this. The name of the bar is “California.” I wandered around this area looking for a place called “Beer Oak,” which my guide book says has cheap beer. I found the place, sat down, and ordered a beer. The waiter told me they had run out of beer! Or maybe I just made a mistake when ordering. Either way, no beer=Anthony leaving. So I wandered around this amazing area for another 20 minutes or so until I found this place (which, by the way, has decidedly expensive beer—their prices match those in the real California). As you might expect, California is an American-themes bar (as I type this, Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s get it on” is playing). Only American music has been played so far, and there are pictures of American celebs and copies of American newspaper ads and articles all over the walls. It’s decent place, actually. But apparently it is not too popular tonight, as I am the only one in here!
Daehangno is near a university and, like every other neighborhood I’ve visited in Seoul, it is jam-packed with people, bars, restaurants, and all sorts of other places. It is quite far from the Sango subway station where I am staying, but that that’s okay. That’s the great thing about being on sabbatical—I have no schedule, so I don’t care about time. In fact, were it not for this very laptop I would have no idea what time it was each day, as I didn’t even bring my watch. Daehangno is a great area, and one could easily spend a whole day walking up and down its neon-lit streets, eating and drinking at dozens and dozens of restaurants.
Prior to Daehangno, I went to a neighborhood off the beaten path, for tourists, at least. It’s called Cheongnyangi and it’s a few subway stops from here. Cheongnyangi is bustling with people. I didn’t know much about it until I arrived. As it turns out, this area is more like what I imagined all of Seoul to be back when I was in the States envisioning the city. Cheongnyangi is a lot like Chinatown in lower Manhattan. There are dozens if not hundreds of outside vendors all over the place, some in stores, but most actually sitting on the street, selling everything from octopus to radishes to fish. All over the place there are these little old ladies and men, each selling a particular genre of food—seafood, produce, etc. It’s not a wholesale market, or at least I don’t think it is. Regular people were buying stuff everywhere. But there were also tons and tons of carts and boxes of all the foods being sold, often just stacked up in mountains right there on the street. Forklifts and small trucks whizzed to and fro, delivering and picking up these boxes. Many of the vendors were actual stores, but they were not regular American-sized stores; they were just big enough for the vendor, his/her wares, and maybe a customer or two. And again, nothing was on display on shelves. All the stuff was just sitting there, waiting to be sold. The most interesting part of Chongnyangi was one are that was inside…it was not so much a building as it was a long block enclosed by a tent of some sort. Beneath the enclosure, dozens of vendors sat behind huge displays of every meat imaginable. Most of what I saw was pig-related—I saw many pig heads for sale and well as live squid and so many cuts of beef [see photos]. All this stuff was just sitting there out in the open; I didn’t see any refrigerators or even ice, and I have no clue how it all stayed fresh or where it went in the evening when these places closed. At many of these stalls, there were small “restaurants” attached, again, also enclosed in tents, where Korean men and women were drinking beer and playing cards and eating the very food that was being sold. I think the people selling the food often chopped it all up to order, and then either cooked it themselves or gave it to the cooks beneath the nearby tents, where patrons consumed meat as fresh as can be. It was all quite interesting to say the least. But boy do I feel bad for all those pigs and fish!
Did you see the University near Daehangno??
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