Your face will get stuck like that OR A girl named Kim

As a young child, watching Bugs Bunny dig to China, presumably through the center of the Earth, and come out on the “other side”, got my thoughts churning.

I am a bit of a loner. I enjoy sitting alone, thinking to myself, musing about the events around me, watching people. As a child, these observations were budding, my musings simple. 

"What does it mean that Bugs Bunny changed when he came out on the “other side.” Was he still Bugs Bunny?"

Perhaps, it wasn’t actually Bugs Bunny. It is impossible to travel through the center of the Earth. Maybe it was Bugs Bunny’s doppelganger.

If it was, maybe I had a look-alike on the other side of the world, too. A girl named Kim who was exactly like me, the same age, the same interests, the same basic person, only, this Kim had almond-shaped eyes.

Sitting alone, in front of the bathroom mirror, mulling over these ideas, I decided I wanted to have almond-shaped eyes. I thought they would be more beautiful than my round eyes.

Suddenly, an idea popped into my head.

My dad had a way of getting us to stop pouting or throwing a fit, or at least trying to get us to stop.

“Make that face long enough, and your face will get stuck like that.”

Rationally, I may have known this was not entirely true.

The statement should have gotten the same “Daa-aad” response that, “If you stick your lip out far enough, a bird will come sit on it,” did.

But.

Take this concept that a face could get stuck a certain way, and apply it to the idea that I wanted almond-shaped eyes.

The result?

I sat in the bathroom for what amounted to be hours, holding the outer corners of my eyes, trying to get my eyes to “get stuck like that.”

Slowly the realization came that there was no way my face was going to get “stuck”. It became obvious that it was improbable that suddenly I would have almond-shaped eyes just because I wished for them.

Little did I know that in this thought, this wanting to have an eye shape that I did not have, I unknowingly had found the key to what in the future turned out to be “a girl named Kim who was like me.”

Fast forward to my life in Ulsan, South Korea, an industrial city where having cosmetic surgery is the norm and never having had cosmetic surgery makes you an outlier.

Here, I am constantly complimented on my small face and big eyes. Both of these things are thanks to my heritage, and the fact that holding out the corners of your eyes does not change their shape, no matter how determined you are.

In Ulsan, girls are not just holding their faces in a shape hoping their faces will get stuck. In Ulsan, I am surrounded by plastic surgery eyes, by shaved jawlines and “high” noses.

You would think that simply being surrounded by all this plastic would have reminded me of my brief, childhood dream of having almond-shaped eyes, but it wasn’t until winter vacation when a coworker of mine got double eyelid surgery, that I started remembering.

First it was the idea of changing eye shape, and then it looped back to “that girl named Kim who is exactly like me, but she lives on the other side of the world.” If by Kim, I meant a family name, and by exactly like me, I meant wanted to look differently than she did, then I found her. 

In Korea.

As an adult.

Transforming her eyes to look more like mine.

Pastis and Rosé

During my two week escape to Marseille in June, I fell in love with pastis and rosé. Pastis is a Marseillaise aperitif that tastes like anise. Rosé is a pink colored wine and is a lovely alternative to a red wine in the summer because you drink it chilled or on ice. If you like wine, you will probably like rosé, especially if it comes from Marseille. If you like black licorice, you will probably like pastis. Not only does pastis taste good, as an aperitif, it boasts the ability to aid digestion. Best consumed before eating a big meal, with a few savory snacks, pastis gets things going, and rosé keeps it going.

Thus when I returned to Korea, from my dream in the south of France, I had in tow a bottle of pastis, two bottles of rosé and two bottles of red wine, along with cheese, of course!

The wine was gone in less than two weeks. I kept two bottles of wine, one rosé and one red, at home for my own consumption, and I took two bottles, one rosé and one red, to school to share with my Korean coworkers. I had promised them wine as a thank you, and I delivered.

Little did I know, most Koreans do not like real, good wine. They want sweet wine. So their first response to both bottles of wine was a funny look on their faces and a comment about how dry and not sweet it was. I tried to accept their tastes calmly and talk to them about what I knew about wines, but I almost freaked out when one of my coworkers said, "This would be better with cider."

Cider is basically a lemon-lime type soda.

That was the end of sharing things that I truly love with my coworkers.

The cheese was gone in a few weeks. I did not share it with my coworkers, even though it went fabulously with the wine, mainly because they were stronger cheeses and Korean taste is accustomed to Kraft Singles style cheese.

The pastis I kept to myself, and I tried to make it last as long as possible. Slowly but surely, my attempt to conserve this lovely aperitif turned into a nightly ritual. My schedule did not allow for a leisurely two or three hour French lunch in the middle of the day, so I settled on a bit of popcorn and pastis while winding down before bed.

My empty bottle of pastis

After almost two months of nursing the bottle of pastis, I had finished it. It was a sad day, and I am convinced that my digestive tract is still trying to survive without it. So, while in Seoul, when we found a French restaurant, my first question to the waiter was ... "Do you have pastis?"

And they did.

While the aperitif part of our meal was a bit rushed, I still enjoyed the pastis. A taste of heaven.

I am now on the hunt for a bottle of Marseillaise pastis to share with my family when I return to the States. While I'm not certain I will be able to find it here in Korea, I am crossing my fingers that somehow, somewhere, I can at least order it on the internet in America.

The rest of my dream will just have to wait until January.

Art class in Ulsan: Robots and Art Show

After finishing their robots on Monday, the boys and I put all their artwork on display. We turned the school into a mini-gallery showcasing our collective hard work. Each project is accompanied by a short description, written so that even the lowest levels should be able to understand.

Since Monday, I have been praised numerous times by coworkers, who have said that the artwork has changed the atmosphere in the school. Students now have something more than “Best Diaries” to look at before and after their classes.

Additionally, the four boys have been showing off their work. They are proud and rightfully so.

Here are the finished robots!

Jacob's Robot with jet packs

Vincent's Robot

David's Robot with a small "stick man" on top

Aidan's Robot with cape

Students are curious. Parents who come in to pay their bills or to consider the school see the work, and I have been told many have asked about it. Questions like, “Where did they make the art?” “What was the class?” … even the delivery guy checked out the student’s self portraits.

My boss stopped me today, and as she does when she wants to communicate something quickly, she had another teacher tell me how wonderful the art display is, which my director keeps calling “decoration.” I am excited that the artwork is well received. The “Mr. Burns” in the back of my head is steepling his hands and saying, “Excellent, Kimberly … Excellent.” Hopefully soon I will have another class!

Links to art on display:

Comics

Wire sculptures

Artist's Statements

Self-Portraits

Art class in Ulsan: Comics

When I signed up to teach English in Korea, I thought I was putting my dreams of teaching art on hold. I thought there was simply no way I could combine teaching art and travelling without a teaching certificate in art education.

Amazingly, due to the astonishing Korean ability of inferring what will make you happy (I believe they are just as good at the opposite), I was given the opportunity to have an art class during winter break. The class meets three times a week, for one hour each class, and so far, it has been a blast. Hilarious. Challenging. Fulfilling ... and sooo much fun!

To give the students some footing, because I planned to have them paint quite a bit, our first project was a simple color wheel. Our classroom is at the end of the hall, the furthest classroom from the sink in the bathroom, so when it was time to change the water, I pictured a fiasco. In order to avoid this, I took all four boys, as a group, with their dirty paintbrushes and dirty water in hand and showed them the ropes. How to clean a paintbrush. How to not make a giant mess in the bathroom. And surprisingly, after the first week, I haven't had complaints from anyone about the state of our classroom or the bathroom.

Surprising because the boys are … well … boys.

Our classroom

They do seem to be aware of the fact that I am a bit paranoid about messes. It may be because every time I send one of them to go change the dirty water, I send them with, “Now, be verrry careful. Walk slowly.”

Today at the end of class, when I sent a couple students to clean brushes, while the other two helped me clean the classroom, the students who took the brushes and water came back with nothing.

I paused, looked at them, and asked, “Where are the brushes?”

They looked at me and giggled.

That made me smile, but worry a bit about the state of the bathroom.

I looked at them again, with a half-smile, arms akimbo and said, “What did you do? Where are the brushes?”

Finally, they achieved their goal. They got the other boys, and me, to go to the bathroom with them. The brushes were fine. The sink was nearly spotless. There was no mess. But when we got there, they headed right back to the classroom. Tricky boys, playing on my fear of a mess to get out of carrying the brushes back to the classroom.

What did it teach me?

A) They probably won’t make a mess.

B) They know that I’m afraid they will make a mess. Perceptive little buggers.

C) This may turn into the story of the boy who cried wolf.

...

Ok, Ok.

Enough.

I want to see the art!

After color wheels we worked on a close-up of a comic book frame, inspired by 1950s style comics and a general interest in animation that is expressed by most Korean students. To begin, I showed them black and white print-outs (unfortunately not color) of an action shot of Robin, of a plane crash, and of a close-up by Lichtenstein (my personal inspiration for the project).

Inspiration ... though, keep in mind, without the privilege of a color printer, they only saw them in black and white.

Guidelines: Use bright colors (red, blue, yellow, green, orange). Outline everything in black. And, for action, include a word like "Pow!" "Bang!" "Wham!" "Zing!"

Here are the results:

The finished products

Vincent - Bullet (or torpedo) in the side

Jacob - Fire!

David - Car crash and Zombies

Aidan did not want to pose with his painting, but it is my absolute favorite.

A truly Korean experience: Kimchi making

It’s that time of the year when Koreans in the south of South Korea make Kimchi. It has been for the last couple weeks. The Napa Cabbage is ready for harvest, so families turn their living rooms into mini kimchi factories so they can have kimchi for the rest of the year.

Napa Cabbage

What is Kimchi?

Aside from spicy and delicious, Kimchi is a staple of the Korean diet. The most common type in Ulsan is made with Napa Cabbage, and in this area, most kimchi pastes consist of a mixture of red pepper paste, roasted garlic, ginger, and fish sauce. Think meat rub, but wetter and for vegetables. Recipes for the paste vary from family to family and region to region, depending on what is available. Koreans use this paste to preserve vegetables for up to a year.

Kimchi paste (Red pepper serves as the main ingredient)

As the kimchi ages and ferments, the flavor changes, but as soon as the kimchi is made it can be eaten.

I was lucky enough to be invited by one of my coworkers to join her family in making kimchi. Unfortunately, I did not arrive in time to see exactly how this family makes the paste, but let me tell you, it is delicious!

The process is quite laborious and takes an entire day just to rub the paste on the cabbage, if you have a good amount of people working together. After rubbing paste on about 4 or 5 quarters of Napa Cabbage, my shoulders began to ache, my foot fell asleep, and I couldn’t even imagine what it would have been like starting this process at six in the morning like my coworker’s family.

Kimchi rub process:

The paste is rubbed on each individual leaf

It's important to get right down to the base of each leaf

One of my finished bits of kimchi

Even though I hardly helped at all, my coworker's family fed me and sent me home with a bin of kimchi, which has become a part of my daily diet.

How “a drink after work” turns into 4am at a Noribong

After first week of work, I decided it would be good for my coworkers, all of whom are Korean, and I to get together chat and have a drink. They agreed, so we planned ahead and went out after work on Friday. I had let some other people know that I was going out for a drink with coworkers but might meet them later. Little did I know “a drink” in Korea is not just a drink, and I definitely wouldn’t be going out with other people that night.

We left work around nine and wandered around our district of Ulsan, looking for a place to eat. The nice sashimi place the girls were wandering toward happened to close early that night, so we decided anything would do. Still, all the other places we checked were closing or closed, and after an hour of searching, we still hadn’t found a place. This was my first clue that the night was going to be long.

Because of the dead-end in our district, we headed downtown to a place the girls knew would be open. We ordered soju, beer, and a giant plate of sashimi, which of course, came with ten or so side dishes.

As we started eating, drinking, and getting more comfortable, we were sitting traditional Korean style on the floor, the girls I was with started joking about a second stage. I laughed and thought, ok I’ve done that before. Dinner one place, dessert another. At this point, I was pretty convinced I would be spending the evening with them, then going home, but I really had no clue what I was in for.

After about an hour of eating and drinking, another coworker showed up with her boyfriend, and we continued to eat and drink. He had been out drinking with coworkers previous to meeting up with his girlfriend and suggested almost immediately that we head to a Noribong, which is Korean style karaoke. The girls laughed, but obviously took it seriously because after we drank a bit more, there we were, outside, walking toward a Noribong. My coworkers half gave me the option to leave, by asking me if I wanted to go, but of course, they really expected me to come. While I’m not crazy about karaoke, it was definitely an experience I was curious about, so I went along thinking I wouldn’t sing, I would just sit and watch.

Fairly typical Noribong hall stolen from the Internet

When we got to the Noribong, we were shown our own private room fully equipped with tambourines, two microphones, two TV screens, a table and a nice cushioned bench to sit on.

Inside of a Noribong "singing room" also stolen from the Internet

The girls ordered more beer and food, and the singing started almost immediately. They handed me a book, showed me the English section and encouraged me to pick out a song. How can you say no to that?

Here’s the thing about Noribong. No one can get away with not singing. I mean, maybe if you have iron resolve, haven’t been drinking, and dislike the people you are with, it’s possible. No matter how much I stalled, saying I couldn’t find anything, my coworkers kept insisting and encouraging me. I tried looking for a song I listened to as a teenager, that I knew I would know all the words to, but failed. Finally, I saw a song I knew and thought, I listen to this song all the time and sing along, so I must know the words. Boy was I wrong, I knew maybe fifty percent of the words to a song I listened to all the time. It was a bit catastrophic.

When my turn to sing came, I got nervous. I had no clue how this was going to go. I grabbed a mic, pushed back my fear, and tried to imagine I was in my apartment just singing along with the song. This pseudo-self-confidence worked until about 10 seconds into the song when I realized I hardly knew the song at all. While someone with more confidence performing would have simply embraced it, I kept shaking my head, saying I didn’t know the words, shrugging my shoulders and the like. After a humiliating two minutes, the song finally ended, and I sat down. Perhaps because my coworkers were drunk, or maybe just out of politeness, or out of excitement that I had participated, they congratulated me and said it was great.

It wasn’t great.

The Noribong gives you a score. My coworkers had been scoring in the 90s, making me think it was impossible to get a lower score.

I scored a 76.

This was a fairly embarrassing affirmation that I didn’t know the song and sucked at singing it. I shook my head, and started looking for another song. I thought, I’ve got to be able to do better!

In the end, over the course of perhaps three hours, I sang three songs, one with the help of a coworker, and I discovered that regardless of how much Koreans argue that the words are on the screen, it doesn’t help unless I actually know the song.

I have no idea what time it was when we arrived at the Noribong, but after an hour or so of singing, the boyfriend who suggested Noribong in the first place, fell asleep. No one seemed to pay him any mind, and we continued to hang out, singing until I started showing obvious fatigue. I danced less, was less interested in finding a song, and generally was overwhelmed by the cultural immersion I was experiencing.

Finally, at four o’clock in the morning, we all headed home. My first initiation into Korean night culture was complete. Afterwards I was surprised how going out for “a drink” turned into all night, but it was a Friday night after all, and we did have a pretty great time.

Now that I have been here nearly two months, I am beginning to discover that going out for “a drink” with Koreans is never just that, regardless what day of the week it is. This last Thursday evening the scenario repeated itself. When with Koreans, the night will have many stages - first grab food, soju and beer, last head to Noribong, with a few unknowns inbetween.