K.S.F.

Greetings...

Above you will a video of what happens when your friends discover how easy and entertaining it is to scare me. It's a short video but it speaks volumes about me, my friends and the thin ice I seem to let them walk on without consequence.

You'll also find some photos from our recent trip to a most idyllic Buddhist temple and some introductory shots of two of our new best friends, Soo and Gina. For a very thorough summary of our adventures in the past week, please see Rob's blog:

http://kimchikoontz.blogspot.com/2009/04/korean-networking-101.html

Thanks, Rob!

I'll just start where he left off.

Rob posted some links to some videos of Korean's latest and greatest pop sensations. These are all solid hits, I must say. But he neglected to leave out my absolute favorite of the bunch. It's a song called "Honey" by a girl group called Kara. I've been searching low and high for some awesome Korean music ever since I touched down 2 months and one day ago--of course, I was/is mostly interested in finding some Korean heavy metal but that seems to be a "fountain of youth" kinda search. It feels like a fruitless adventure but I have a feeling that it will pay off with the most heavy, the most metal and the most face-melting band no one's heard of. I'll keep you posted...unless my face gets melted first and then you'll have to ask the doctors. Tangent, sorry...

The point is, Korean pop music (or K-Pop) has somehow become my surrogate for Korean metal. I haven't been a pop music fan since my unfortunate Vanilla Ice/Milli Vanilli/Janet Jackson days when I would dance up a sweat in the living room while Mom was at work. Is it a renaissance? Am I nostalgic? A mystery indeed. Regardless, I find myself drawn to the Korean versions of Britney Spears, N'Sync and all the rest. Perhaps it's because I can't understand the words or maybe it's an "okay cuz it's foreign" kinda deal. Whatever. I'm really lovin' this stuff and some would say I've listened to a lot worse.

So, check out this video and tell me this is not the catch-iest, pop-iest, sexiest thing you've seen in a while:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeyuMPCo0KY

Don't get me wrong here. I understand that any brand of pop music behaves in the same way: hit singles are the norm and hit albums are practically non-existent. For example, "Honey" is an instant classic but if you pursue Kara any further, like their other video for "Pretty Girl," you'll find that they are not a great group, they just had a great song. In other words, my consumption of music has to be modified--I can't expect to go CD shopping but you bet your bottom dollar that I will (and plan to) purchase these single gems right and left.

There's a significantly vicious feud at school amongst the 6th grade girls over who is better: Super Junior or Big Bang (another boy group). I like to stir the pot when I side with one group or the other and watch them freak out in protest.

Speaking of 6th grade girls, I've developed quite the fan club. Just about everyday when we come back up to the classroom from lunch, there's a group of them hovering around my desk. They fall on the floor laughing as I try to speak Korean and they all ask me questions at once. Last week, they asked me for my cell phone number. I promptly shot that idea down--I don't need 10 missed calls and random, broken english text messages launching my phone bill like a north korean missile! Of course, I'm also not the brightest crayon in the box...They finally conceded to the "no phone number giving" rule but they asked to see what my cell phone looked like. Like the oblivious person that I am, I said okay. I took my phone just to show them but they grabbed it and ran like the devil was chasin' them! I felt like a supreme dunce and half-heartedly went after them. They were huddled around my phone like the Dallas Cowboys in the Super Bowl and there was no way I was getting in. By the time my phone emerged, they had all called themselves with my phone, thereby obtaining the secret numerical code to my personal life. Great. Within an hour, I had 4 missed calls and two text messages. On the brightside, they haven't gone too crazy with it so far. Dumb, dumb, dumb...

Real quick...these girls have given each other some of the greatest nicknames ever. Here's just a sample: Carrot Lady, Dog Hair, Cat Hair, Monkey Hair and, my personal favorite, Toilet Water.

So, onto our Korean friends. Rob and I have met some of the coolest people in the form of Minsoo (Soo), Ji-won (Jeany) and Jin-ha (Gina). Over the past 2+ weeks, we have hung out with these girls in some combination at least 10 times and we've had a blast everytime. They all met in the past 2 months or so while attending classes at an English Institute here in Busan. It's truly amazing that they've only been friends with each other a few weeks longer than we've known them but they already seem like life long friends. When asked about this phenomenon, Soo simply said, "Duration doesn't matter. We're just friends immediately." I'm not surprised because there's something about these girls, and Koreans as a people, that exudes friendliness, community and connection. Rob mentioned meeting another family at that business dinner we went to--the wife wanted us to help teach her son English, take us to some museum and classical concert performances and beyond. While they might seem like a lofty, impersonal group on the street, when you get a chance to sit down with them, they want us to be part of their family. Without getting ahead of myself, I can say that Koreans are generous and openly giving people. We've heard some horror stories from other English teachers in our program so I feel very lucky to have this experience and not theirs.

On Saturday, Rob and I did a little shopping at Home Plus (E-Mart is so February). I got some essentials and even got my 2nd Korean haircut. We wanted to check out the theatre in the Home Plus because we thought Vicky Cristina Barcelona was playing (it wasn't). We did, however, stumble upon a screening of Knowing that started in 5 minutes. This was quite exciting as almost all of our movie going has hit some snag (it starts in 2 hours, it's sold out, no good movies playing, etc.). We knew we had plans to see Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona later with Soo but we couldn't pass up Knowing beforehand. It was a fairly solid flick--director Alex Proyas showed some of his Dark City roots with some creepy aliens. That night, we met up with Soo and saw Vicky...Woody Allen's latest exercise in romantic futility. I had seen it already back home but both Rob and Soo were newbies. I enjoyed it (again) but was surprised and disappointed that the English subtitles for Javier Bardem's and Penelope Cruz's Spanish were replaced with Korean only. Those are some electric and hilarious scenes that forced Rob and I to struggle between our limited knowledge of "car wash Spanish" and our complete lack of Korean words.

On Sunday, Rob, Soo, Gina and I went bowling (see above and here: http://www.youtube.com/solertia33). Gina actually beat us the first game and, as you can see, she looks like a pro. We then wandered the streets in search of ping pong. No dice. Then we switched to pool but all 4 places we found only had the Korean version with no pockets in the table. All this walking and disappointment worked up an appetite so we had dinner at a noodle house which is where the pics above were taken. A little Baskin Robbins after to seal the deal and we called it a day. It's a bit of lame that our new friends will be leaving us very soon. We're going to have to fend for ourselves again. Hopefully, our one remaining friend, Jeany, will keep the fire burning and simply introduce more friends and we'll never skip a beat. So this is what they call a social life, eh?

Finally, it has been long overdue but I had to introduce everyone to the KSF. Rob and I discovered this shadowy group early upon our arrival in Korea. This is an organization, a gang if you will, that patrols the streets of Busan riding various forms of motorbikes. KSF, of course, stands for "Korean Strike Force" and they are not to be messed with. Anytime you see a Korean on a scooter (minion) or an actual motorcylce (lieutenant), you avoid eye contact and pretend you're not on their turf. When you see a Mr. Pizza delivery guy, racing down the sidewalks, you know he's part of the "Food Service Division." When you see an elderly man on a bike, you know he's one of the founding fathers. Like any respectable organized crime family, the cops (Public Enforcement Division) are even in on the take. There's even a Pedestrian Division that includes people NOT riding a motorbike! We've been lucky enough to avoid this gruesome bunch so far...we hear the initiation rites involve doing a wheely on a scooter for 100 yards and slicing car tires while in motion...but we're still very much in danger. I'm a little nervous about posting this as they undoubtedly have their Web Division up and running after KSF.org was shut down by the JSF (Japanese Strike Force) in retaliation for the '08 Scooter Wars. Beware and pray their empire doesn't spread to America!

Stay tuned...

-Brent