Riding elephants in Thailand under martial law

By the time we landed in Thailand, the political situation had deteriorated into a full-blown coup d’état. We - that is, Nick and I - knew what we were getting ourselves into, but I’m not sure we could have fully understood the land or the climate that we were in.

Speaking of the climate, it was really hot. I packed a pair of jeans and three long-sleeve shirts that never saw the light of day. If I learned one thing from traveling to Thailand at the end of May is that shorts and tank-tops are standard – luckily, they can both be bought there for an insanely cheap price.

When we first landed, I had the familiar feeling of cultural confusion, which is to say, it was not familiar at all. I had lived in Asia for well over a year and had been to other countries, but the simple process of buying a subway pass was as foreign to me as when I had first moved to South Korea. Needless to say, we eventually made it to the hotel at around 8pm on Thursday.

The problem was that the Thai military imposed a 10pm curfew throughout the entire country. We were a little disheartened, at first, but it soon became clear that the curfew didn’t apply to the tourist district of Bangkok.

That being said, we tried our best not to abuse it. We had early morning plans for Friday and didn’t want to miss out on the awesome opportunity we had planned. This opportunity was the chance to see a more rural and exotic side of Thailand. 

The day started a bit too early for my taste, but we had a lot of traveling and activities to do, so it was worth it. The first stop of the day was a floating market. Pretty much you jump in a boat and use it as a shopping cart. The only problem is that you don't really have a say of where you stop (the elderly Thai woman in the back of the boat decided that for us) and the vendors can be a little relentless. I ended up buy chopsticks - which I definitely didn't need - and some saffron - which I now regret not buying more of. Also, a guy threw a gibbon on my shoulder and threatened to throw a snake in the boat if we didn't pay him. 

After the floating market, we headed to the bridge over the river Kwai. It was an old bridge that was once very important. Now it is a symbol of Japanese oppression in Southeast Asia during WWII. Thai people remember all those who died in its construction, but I was thinking about the movie I saw when I was like 12 years old. Note: if you haven't seen the movie, the whistling at the beginning of the video posted below is from that.

But then, as we made our way a few hours to the west near the boarder with Myanmar, we finally arrived at our destination. In the middle of the jungle, we climbed on the back of some elephants and went down to the river. We were told we were going to give them a bath and I expected someone to bring soap down to us. Instead, when we got into the water, the elephant started acting like it was some kind of mechanical bull or that he suddenly didn't want anyone to ride on his back anymore. It was intense, but incredibly fun. We horsed around in the water for about a half hour and then had a more relaxing ride through the jungle for another 45 minutes or so. 

I could tell you some of the other things we did in Thailand, or about some of the people we met, but it really doesn't compare to the above experience. Check out the video below and let me know what you think!

   

One man's opinion about the current crisis on the Korean peninsula

Hi all, sorry for the intermission of blog postings. My daily life has become pretty normal and I have become pretty adapted to it, as Sebastian has already written about so elegantly. Anyway, many of you have been asking me what is going on in North Korea and some of you have been asking me to post another blog. So here is to killing two birds with one stone.

The following is a Facebook message with my cousin.

Cousin:

"Hey!

Seeing all this stuff in the news ... wondered how you're doing. Are you doing alright? You have any idea what is going on. Let me know."

Me: 

"Hey man,  I am doing great! I am really loving it out here despite all of the political tension of the past two months. My job is super awesome and Korean culture is like nothing I have ever experienced.

As of right now, I am totally safe. If something does break out here, however, I have a "go bag" with pretty much everything I need in it, even though I wouldn't really have anywhere to go haha. Since I am so close to North Korea, I think I would actually be safer waiting it out than trying to go anywhere.

But let me explain what is going on. I will try to be as brief as possible because it is a pretty complicated situation even though there is really nothing to worry about (in my opinion). First of all, no one in South Korea is freaking out. North Korea has been saying things like this for the past 60 years and the constant threat of attack has become familiar to the South Koreans and is even ingrained into their culture. However, they are still a little nervous about the current situation since Kim Jong-un is new and has yet to prove his "strength" to his people. However, Jung-un is smart enough, I think, to understand that he has absolutely no chance of victory and, therefore, is playing a very clever but dangerous game.

North Korea is a disaster economically and the people are starving to death. Jung-un's number one priority is the economy and he thinks that the only way to fix it is by pushing to the very brink of war then opening up negotiations. Now, with nuclear capabilities, North Korea has a stronger hand to play and might be able to bargain for access to the World Bank or other foreign investments. They might even try for the right to use nuclear power for energy purposes.

However, even this is a dangerous scenario. Things could very easily escalate further than what either side wants if neither is able to compromise. Part of me thinks that the USA won't agree to any concessions thus provoking North Korea to make good on its threats. I highly doubt that it will start with a nuclear strike since Jung-un knows that they would be wiped off the map. North Korea's strongest point is their conventional military. They have a 1.3 million-man army with another 8 million in reserves, which far exceeds the 30,000 troops that America has here and the 650,000-man South Korean army with 3.2 million in reserves. But again, it is really unlikely that North Korea would be able to hold Seoul for over a week or two since their equipment is so outdated and they have very little fuel for their tanks and airplanes.

In the mean time, the conflict is being perpetuated by western media. It is actually pretty interesting how Americans are more concerned about North Korea than South Korea is especially when America is well outside the strike range of North Korean missiles while Seoul is only about 35 miles away.

So there it is. I have been following the events pretty closely just like all the foreigners who are totally freaking out right now haha. But I am almost certain that nothing will happen. More than likely, North Korea will just stop everything all at once and go back to starving to death and conspiring some other way to get more rice. Maybe next time they won't be so dramatic."

One of them "New Year's" posts

Let me preface this post with the following statement: in the past two weeks, I have watched 4.5 season of The Wire. Furthermore, the cause of this essay has neither a physical nor metaphysical basis. That is to say, I am writing from impulse rather than from meticulous deliberation or any kind of forethought. Therefore, I apologize for the content and style of the commentary soon to conspire.

Currently listening to: The Temptation of Adam, by Josh Ritter

Perhaps not everyone is disappointed the world continued into the thirteenth year of the second millennium after the death of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately for them, Nibiru didn’t collide with Earth, North Korea didn’t launch a nuclear bomb, and zombies have yet to show their undead, semi-decomposed faces. The human race has outlived the Mayan calendar but with few prospects of societal development,. Forgive my cynicism, but if you continue reading, you will see that on a personal level, I reject the possibility of stunted growth.

When Columbia Pictures began distributing the box office hit “2012” at the end of 2009, I wonder how many Hollywood executives actually believed that the movie’s profits had only a three-year shelf life. [1] And while there were probably a substantial few who sold their stock around the 21st of December, the majority of us were not surprised to wake up on the 22nd to read headlines absent of 15 point magnitude earthquakes or astrophysical anomalies. But did humanity wish for an encompassing extinction? For many coming from the all-round broken American system of just about everything, perhaps. But on the other side of the world, I had a student, who is high-level middle school, answer in an eloquent, albeit broken, English essay, which was in response to the question "why do people keep predicting the end of the world," with the following:

“December 21, 2012 was the day that Mayans expected the end of the world. However, it did not really happen. Though, people keeps predicting about. I thought about some reasons why they do.
“First, I think many people got tired of their lives. Everyday is a succession and it’s so hard for people of all ages not to compete with others. As a result, they get stress and want everything to stop. One reason may be a complicated and boresome lifestyles.
“Another reason might be come from the fear of death. If the Earth really ends, everyone will die including family, friends, and people we know. In that way, our fear can decreased as it is not just myself dying leaving others.”

Something to understand about these students is that they study literally 15-16 hours a day. And not by choice. Whether by parental or societal pressure, these kids have little time to be kids. But they score highest on any standardized test thrown at them. And this is a good place to say that South Korea also scores highest in the worldwide suicide rate. So maybe it isn’t so uncommon to hear a Korean student pretty much admitting[2] that global annihilation bears the otherwise guilt of taking one’s own life. Maybe that is a universal thought shared by people from all nations. Perhaps the only thing stopping all of us from 'tying the noose' is the inherent selfishness in the act. But the fact that the world didn’t end has ramifications of its own.

And this is where I veer from the cynical, "Wiresque" mentality and thus disregard the aforementioned psychological dilemma as non-personal (that is to say, don't worry mom/dad, sisters/brother, and grandma/grandpa, I am not actually suicidal but am merely entertaining such a thought for literary dialog). 2012 came and went. Personally, this year brought about a lot of change in my life. In the past year, I worked four jobs, graduated with three degrees, lived in two countries, and understood that there is only one humanity. Maybe we, as a race, cannot overcome all the obstructions in our way. Perhaps suicide is a worldwide phenomenon due to global modernization. Perhaps education, or over-education, leads toward depression. Perhaps, as an educated person, I sometimes feel depression overtake me. Be that as it may, I will now chronicle the more optimistic side of 2012.

If your name is Sean, Sebastian, Patrick, or Severin, you might remember the meta-movie we half-heartedly tried to make at the beginning of this year. To sum it up in one sentence, it was a recording of us talking about recording a movie where we talk about recording a movie. While I thought this movie was lost when I reinstalled Windows 7 on my computer, Sebastian recently discovered these hidden files on his computer last week. After viewing these clips, I was reminded again how happy I was when I was neglecting the work on my senior thesis during Spring Break ’12 to instead procrastinate for indie-filmmaker endeavors. Life in the Pearlnut house never looked so appealing. Though that era is over, I will never tire of reminiscing.

2012 also marked a time of friendship expansion. After completing my senior thesis (and, therefore, my months of semi-reclusiveness), I re-entered the social scene with a vengeance. I made life-long friends in a matter of months with neighbors and classmates. I especially think of the April-June months when I grew very connected with the inhabitants of “green house,” the house kitty-corner to mine. Marykate, Jill, Kyle, and Garett, I have some memories that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

But it was also a time of change for me. First, once I graduated from Western, I went to Chicago with Sebastian for a month to obtain a TEFL certification. While I was only there for a brief time, it was an enormous amount of fun and development. On the list of places to come back to, Chicago hits number one.
Then there came a while of waiting. I think my general recollection of 2012 can be summed up by the infinitive verb: ‘to come.’ Making money and drinking coffee is about all I can say about my time between Chicago and Seoul, not that it was forgetful or unpleasant.

But before I moved, Sebastian and I had a grand ole’ going away party. Everyone of my firends I loved was there. There were too many goodbyes for the heart to handle. Yet the memory that continues to invade my psyche is of a speech I made (though I can’t remember what I said), during which I am 90% sure my fly was down. You see, my mom had just taken me shopping, during which I bought a pair of awesome tan-colored corduroys, at an unmistakably discount price. But it was Plato’s Closet, so I trusted them. Turns out, Plato’s Closet doesn’t party-proof their merchandise, which is the misfortune of the first-time, focused-on, corduroy wearer, who stood on a chair at 2 a.m. to tell everyone multiple times how much I loved them... with an open fly. Hopefully not everyone noticed, though I admit it and don’t really care one way or another. Regardless, it was a great send off and was a highlight of 2012.

Since then, I can’t say my life has been boring. Though my demographic has shifted from fellow-educated Midwesterners to elementary English learners, I find a deep fulfillment in teaching and motivating them. I don’t want to be one of those teachers who talks about their students all the time, but just know that I love them already and could tell you story after boring-unless-you-are-another-teacher story about them all.

So all in all, I am pretty happy that the world didn’t end last weekend. Granted this world has some problems to work through, I still see the glass as half-full. What do I look forward to in 2013? Well I don’t have a new year’s resolution, if you wanted to know. In general, I think that this is the year for me to grow up. Work a real job, where I put in my all; learn how to live on my own, where I do the dishes and take out the trash; take control of my body, where I eat consciously and push my body physically. I don’t know what I am going to do after this whole Eastern-adventure, but I know that I wouldn’t be happy unless I was attempting to fix some of the world’s problems. 2013 is my year to figure it out, and I can’t wait to.

[1] Though, in my opinion, this term is thrown around rather frequently, I have no idea what the term “box office hit” actually means. However, with a net profit of $569,679,473 (or just over half a billion, for those, like me, who read words easier than numbers), it seems to have done pretty well.

[2] Perhaps this isn’t evident in the essay I shared, but believe that the other 150 essays I complied refer to this fact.

For lack of a better title, "When life got bizarre"

The title is misleading. Moreover, it is vague. Although my life has definitely undergone a number of rapid changes, my use of "bizarre" refers to cultural aspects of the region I am in as opposed to my life specifically. Perhaps a better title would be, "Asia is weird," though it seems perfectly normal for the multitudes of Asians who live here. But this alternative title implies some drastic difference between East and West which, in my experience so far, is not true. People don't walk on their hands here. Rather, the contrast comes from the small things, which I will spend some time detailing. 

Not five minutes after I landed at Incheon International Airport, as I was walking to baggage claim, I heard  the analog tune of Beethoven's "Fur Elise" coming from an airport golf cart. From that time on, I have noticed the widespread use of melodies in Korean culture. And it all sounds like it came out of some old-school  videogame soundtrack. For example, whenever a subway train is nearing the station, a tune eerily resembling the Pokemon hospital theme is played over the loudspeakers before first the Korean, then English robotic voice announces that a train is approaching. I feel like I am somehow "leveling up" every time I take public transportation. And these jingles are everywhere: the washing-machine in Seb's apartment played a 20 second long one which ended on a minor note and made me question whether his laundry was dry yet. Needless to say, it's bizarre.

Yesterday I was watching "The Return of the King" on TV (thankfully with Korean subtitles and no dubs). At the part when Éowyn chops off the head of the Nazgûl's hell-hawk, the severed part of the head and neck was blurred out. Apparently Korea's equivalent to the FCC thought CGI gore was just too inappropriate to show in a movie saturated with violence. This is a small qualm, but bizarre nonetheless.

I entered Korea in the heat of a highly-contested presidential election. The election was Wednesday, so I only caught the very end. However, I was able to observe the final campaign pushes by both candidates. Unlike American political campaigns, which proselytize primarily through digital, non-spatial means like television ads and such, the Korean campaign teams took their message to the streets with drive-by propaganda speeches and choreographed dance moves. Although I couldn't understand the slow-moving-automobile-turned-billboard-with-amplified propagandist, I was struck by the militaristic-type display and immediately thought that every Korean patriot on the streets of Seoul that night would surely cast their vote for Mr. Moon Jae-in, whose face appeared behind the shouting speaker. Yet even the eight rain-soaked Koreans of various ages, who were swinging their arms and periodically spinning all in perfect unison for six hours on a busy intersection of Gangnam last week, could not convince enough South Koreans to vote for Mr. Moon. Apparently his opposition, Mrs. Park Geun-hye, employed a greater number of street-performers to guarantee her victory. Though I will admit I found South Korea's innovative, spatial-inclined campaign strategies a relief from the bombard-you-at-home style of American political campaigns, it was completely bizarre.

Okay, enough about the weird stuff which probably very few people find as interesting as I do. Here is a little bit of what has been happening to me personally. 

I mentioned in the video I posted that I was training last week. The first day I observed and taught middle school classes at the Pyeongchon branch of my school. After that, I spent the next three days observing and teaching elementary school classes at the Parthenon branch in Gangnam. Training there was a lot of fun because I got to know the native teachers there pretty well and got a lot of really great feedback from them on how I could improve my teaching style. 

This week I started teaching classes at my own branch. Unfortunately, next week is the last week of the semester so I am not sure if I will have the same kids after it ends. On the whole, I really like the kids who are in my classes. Obviously there are some trouble-makers and kids who are too shy to say more than the occasional sentence or two, but there are also quite a few students who really seem like they are there to learn. 

On Tuesday morning, I went to a company workshop for native-speaking middle school teachers and picked up a lot of useful information about lesson-planning and teaching methods. Tomorrow I am going to the same thing, but for elementary teachers. Part of me hates my company for making me show up there at ten (and with an hour-and-a-half commute to Gangnam, tomorrow is going to be a 12-hour-day), but I really like how hands-on the company is. I have been building a relationship with my boss (also a teacher) and it seems like he has some pretty high hopes for me within this company (promotion/pay-raise, hopefully?). Also, I have been picking up a lot from the other teachers that have been here for a while. I am definitely not on their level yet, but they seem very willing to help me succeed as a teacher.

If you are wondering what I do with my downtime, don't. I really haven't had downtime yet. While this may be the one downside to my job (working six days per week, even on Christmas), anyone who knew me during college probably knows that I like to be busy and overloaded. However, once I get into a routine, things will hopefully become more manageable and I will have a better sense of what else I can accomplish while I am here (traveling, learning Korean, continued historical research/writing). 

Tour of apartment

What it's like to leave everything I've ever known

Some of you might have received a text, others of you might have seen my post on Facebook, but one way or another the word is out. For those of you that might not have heard, last week I accepted a job at DYB Choisun Institute in Seoul, South Korea. I signed a year-long contract to work six hours a day, six days a week, teaching the English language to elementary and middle school children.

Initially, I was to begin employment on November 29 but since getting a visa takes roughly three weeks, and I will need a day or two at least to get moved into my new apartment, the school is being flexible with my starting date.

The job, however, is not what I intended to write about since I really have nothing to say about it yet. The purpose of this post is to express the mixture of emotions which I have trouble expressing in real life. For some reason, I can't fully show my family and friends the excitement, the fear, the relief, or the sadness I feel about leaving my home and moving to the other side of the world. These are the things I feel every night before bed but that can't be verbalized when someone asks me how I feel about moving.

It has been a dream of mine ever since I can remember but now that it is approaching, it doesn't feel like I thought it would. I have spent two decades in Kalamazoo and the longest that I have been away was the three months I lived in Los Angeles last summer. Kalamazoo is my family and friends, my favorite restaurant and coffeeshop, my childhood treehouse and the road I take to school. Nine out of ten memories are in Kalamazoo. It is all so familiar, which I love and hate at the same time.

I won't say that it is my time to get out of here, just that it is too late not to. And somehow that is what is comforting. Since I have no idea what to be excited for or afraid of, the only thing I can do now is go and see for myself. The only thing that I do know right now is that Kalamazoo is full of good people who will be missed.

Introductory note

Well here it is, my humble attempt to establish myself in the blogosphere. Although I have been toying with the idea of starting one for some time now, I admit that I have no clear intentions for it other than a medium for whatever insights I might think are worth sharing. In spite of this disclaimer, I imagine that many posts will revolve around my experiences teaching English in South Korea (an adventure which will hopefully begin within the next month or two), my qualms with modern society, and/or my fascination with history and philosophy. To anyone who might find interest in my opinions on these topics, I invite you to follow me on what I hope is a unique collection of one man's experiences.

As I mentioned above, creating a blog has been a goal of mine for the past few months. More than once, I sat down with the intention of starting one only to then get stuck on the first step: coming up with a name. Finally, I landed on "Disco Vivendo," which is Latin for "I learn by living." If you didn't study Latin in school, you might not care that "Vivendo" is in the ablative form and are probably more surprised that "Disco" predates the synthesizer by about two-thousand years; if you did study Latin, you might argue that I should have used the present participle "Vivens" instead. To this hypothetical, gerund-hating snob I would say get over yourself, no one cares about the foundations of grammar besides you and me... and you are hypothetical.

More to the point, and what I assume most readers will be concerned with, is the English translation: I learn by living. I finally decided on this because it is probably one of the most fundamental and tautological ideas I could come up with. To put it another way, it's impossible to learn if you aren't living.

To sum it all up, I learn by living and this blog will be a reflection on whatever real-life experiences I may have learned from.