Here it is, the most important weapon in the fight against apathy and indifference: The Sticker Chicken.



The sticker chicken is the latest technological breakthrough, second only to the Sticker Monkey in effective apathy control. They cost a buck and justify their cost immediately. Nothing gets the class quite as engaged as the ability to hold the Sticker Chicken.

"Oh, Mr. Jones, Mr. Jones, ipuda! Let me have the Stickuh Chicken!"

I use a point system for rating the answers to my questions. I can't take credit for this system. It was originally formulated by Gavin. "Not bad" is one point, "Very good" is two points, "Excellent" is three points, "Super Amazing Incredibly Cool Good Shot Dude" is four points and "Perfect" is five points plus the Sticker Chicken. You can guess how rarely that last designation happens. The child who made the amazing sentence gets to hold the chicken until another student makes an equally impressive sentence. Then the chicken trades hands. At the end of the class, the student with the chicken gets a sticker.

Elections for local office are going to be held on Wednesday. Candidates have pasted up posters with their picture and the number voters can find on the ballot.



During the day the candidates drive around in Bongos (A type of small truck) topped with campaign paraphernalia and blare their message with a roof-mounted bullhorn at an earsplitting decible level. You can imagine how annoying this is. In the mornings I routinely walk past lines of campaign volunteers chanting up support for their candidates. They hand out pamphlets, sing songs and cheer. Sometimes the candidate himself is there.

One evening last week I walked past just such a group and the candidate, Go Dae-young, introduced himself to me. He said that this is the first election where the office holder will be paid a monthly salary - $250. Hmmmmm. Doesn't seem like enough to live on to me, I mused, certainly not enough to justify these relatively large campaigns. He was a young guy, mid-thirties, looked like. He spoke very good English - A big plus. I asked him if foreigners with an E2 visa could vote and he shook his head no. So I can't vote, but if I could, I would vote for him. I'll vote for anyone who will go out of his way to explain to a foreigner the Korean voting system when he could be talking to people who can actually vote.

I snapped a few frames this week from the Gukje Market.







On Saturday, I went to Centum City with my new friend, Hyun-jeong. I met her at the art museum last weekend, and we walked to Haeundae together. She is very intelligent, open-minded and I enjoyed talking to her as we traveled from the art opening to Kaeunsung on Saturday. She showed me an Indian restaurant and an outstanding tea house that played protest music from the 1980s, sort of the Korean equivalent of Joan Biaz. She was a wealth of information on modern Korean history, and she spoke at length about Park, Jeong-hee and the rise of democracy in Korea. After tea, we caught a live jazz show at The Monk.

I said my good-byes to Hyun-jeong at the KU station. It was an awkward affair because we were on opposite platforms and we couldn't yell across to each other because our voices were wiped out by the sounds of the station. Also, I was experiencing some mild shivers, as if I were cold, but the air was a pleasant temperature. By the time I walked out of the station in Nampo-dong, I knew I had food poisoning. My stomach was in knots and my body was shaking violently. Go see a doctor, Stephen, I implored with myself, go to a hospital. Money. That costs money, I thought and stubbornly got into a cab.

I spent all day Sunday throwing up, racked with abdominal pain. Even as I write this, I can barely sit up. I hope Hyun-jeong doesn't have the same virus. Luckily, Kristen and her boyfriend - also named Kristen - came Sunday to buy Gavin's motorcycle, and they brought me medicine. It made my stomach feel better, but it liquified the contents of my bowels. You don't want to know.





Every Friday Gavin and I get samgyupsal at this place up the street from ESS. It's usually crowded, and this last Friday was no different. Except now the World Cup exhibition game between Korea nd Sweden was being played on the big screen TV. Everyone's attention was on the soccer players. Every time Korea would score a goal or come close to scoring, the whole place would erupt into cheering.

Nationalism is a powerful thing. I don't want to be out of doors when and if they play the Japanese. The Korean's reaction to the game is so different from my own feelings towards the American soccer team. I want them to win, sure, but in all honesty, I don't really care if they do or not. I compare my feelings to those of a Yankee's fan...Hey, we got the most money, surely we'll beat the tar out of everyone else. However, World Cup soccer isn't like that, and there is a high probability that poorer, more deserving teams will win the title. I am an American, but I'll probably cheer for Korea. Call me a sap if you like.



The colorful busstops of Young-do.



The view of an alley from the teacher's office at ESS.



Among our advanced classes, none have made quite as good an impression and Gavin and I as Advanced Three. Actually, they were labeled Advanced Two when Gavin started teaching them twice a week last winter. After they graduated to fifth-graders in March they became Advanced Three and they traded Mr. Averill for Mr. Jones.

From the beginning, Gavin and I were shocked by the measurable difference between the children in Advanced Two and the bulk of the children at ESS. They were extremely attentive, well-behaved children. Gavin taught them grammar and conversation twice a week and I took A2's weekly reading day on Thursdays.

I always taught Advanced Two following 4B, a class that gave new meaning to word 'chaotic.' I would enter Advanced Two in something like a bad mood, my shirt covered in chalk, my books in an disorganized stack under one arm and in the space of 45 minutes the enthusiasm, intelligence and dedication of Advanced Two had undone all of the atrocities wrought by 4B. They were a breath of fresh air.

Gavin and I used to joke that the parents of the children in Advanced Two went out of their way to shield their children from the other students at ESS. They had so much 'spark,' so much enthusiasm and interest in the material that Gavin would agonize for hours trying to come up with games and activities that would sufficiently challenge these deserving children.

"I can tell their minds are hungry for better material," Gavin would often say to me as he sweated bullets retrofitting his daily two-page syllabus-mandated lessons (such as one on the phrase "it is") into something more provocative. "I can't let them slip," Gavin would say, referring to the horrible slide into apathy and disinterest exhibited by some of the other children at ESS.

"Their minds want more."

Gavin and I used Advanced Two as a testbed for more complex, daring activities. Some worked, and some didn't. Gavin and I encourage the children in our classes to participate by awarding team points for correct answers to our questions. Since the classes are usually roughly divided into a team of girls and a team of boys, the ensuing battle-of-the-sexes normally fans the flames of competition.

In such a darwinian environment, children begin to form loose social constructs complete with leaders, subordinates, go-to guys, outcasts, and court jesters. Advanced Two was no different. The classroom was chock full of strong personalities vying for leadership.

As the weeks and months progressed, two students solidified their positions on either side of the aisle. On the boy's side, the suave, clearheaded Jin-soo was the natural choice among his peers to take the reigns in the fight against femininity. On the other side of the sexual divide was the formidable, disciplined Han-sol, who turned the girls into a crack team of English-speaking commandos with her talent for organization, leadership and of course, English.

Most of the children in Advanced Two were indeed advanced English speakers, and they all possessed a talent for picking up the language. Their level of comprehension is extremely high, and they make a habit of speaking to me in complete sentences. They are among the only students I teach who consistently ask me questions about the language. Even on an individual basis, they are talented learners. Gavin or I often spot Jin-soo standing by the water cooler and just listening intently as we talk to each other before class. The only person who compares to Jin-soo is his female counterpart, Han-sol.

From the first day I met her, Han-sol has been an English juggernaut, able to incorporate new concepts into her existing language constructs in a matter of minutes. She has a large vocabulary, and I periodically hear an idiom or two come from her mouth, phrases I don't recall teaching her. Better still, Han-sol is a leader, and during games last winter the other girls would rally around her and look to her for guidance.

Gavin and I always got a kick out of Han-sol. Her energetic, can-do spirit combined with her quick wit and self-confidant smile always managed to bring out the best in those around her, including me. She has a nervous tick that makes her eyes dart back and forth and the wrinkles in her forehead quiver whenever I ask her a question.

"Han-sol, what does a doctor need?" I might ask, and Han-sol's eyes would start darting and blinking.

Gavin and I joke that the nervous tick is the outward sign of Han-sol's brain accessing the information, like the blinking light on a computer hard drive. As soon as she finds the answer her eyes lock onto mine and her face relaxes.

"A doctor needs a knife, gloves and medicine," she deadpans. Wow. I know that doesn't seem like much to you viewers at home, so just take my word for it: Wow.

She is the girls team's blue chip, their ace-in-the-hole. She also was extremely intimidating to the boys up until a few weeks ago. A rumor spread among the girls that Han-sol and Jin-soo were in love. The boys caught on and fed the fires around the gossip, which of course, wasn't true at all. Jin-soo played it cool, smiling calmly when the boys would pick on him, feigning disgust but loving the attention. Han-sol was a different story.

When it started, she took the teasing just as well. She would crack a patient smile like if she just kept her mouth shut the gossip would eventually get old and die off, and it would have except for her teacher. I thought the fake scandal was funny, and I didn't see the harm in joining in. When the class was getting heavy or the material was boring, I'd do things to get their attention like pole the class to see how many babies Jin-soo and Han-sol would have. Big mistake.

The constant negative attention began to get old and wear Han-sol down. I didn't see it until was too late. Her tolerant smile turned into a steely frown whenever her classmates would poke fun at her, and she would desperatly implore with them to shut up. I didn't think anything of it until I noticed that her hand wasn't in the air as much, that she wasn't as interested in helping her classmates or scoring points. She would sit in her chair on the front row, an arm over the chair back, a patient, quite look in her eyes, as if waiting for these idiots to go away. There was a disconnected feeling coming from Han-sol that worried me.

The gossip had to stop. I quickly recognized my blunder and tried to make things right with Han-sol. I wasn't about to let my star student get silenced by insinuation of a torrid affair with Jin-soo. Using the dictatorial power of a teacher, I crushed the gossip, at least within the class. With my attention removed from it, the gossip lost its edge. The strategy worked. Han-sol began answering questions again and participating in the lessons. However, she has not been her old self.

While Han-sol was weathering the storm, other girls vied to fill the leadership role. Moon-jeong, a tom boy who sits next to Han-sol, has taken the reigns. Moon-jeong is much more gossip-resistant. Whenever the boys try to insinuate that she likes Yoon-mo, a boy in the back of the class, she looks over her shoulder, snorts and shoots them a bored, sarcastic look. Han-sol still plays a major role on the girl's team, but she is not the leader any more.

I couldn't believe it. The implication of love with the leader of the enemy had brought down a powerful force within the class.
I felt, and still feel, horrible. Here I am, the adult, showing behaving no better than the other children, showing no compassion or sensitivity to one of my students. Such shortfalls in judgment make me seriously question myself. Am I an adult? Do I have any business thinking of myself as such?

I can remember as a child wondering how I would look as an adult. Would I be tall? Would I be fat? What job would I have? When would I get to drive a car? A little of my wondering was pure disbelief. Adults were so different from me, it was like they were from another planet. Even my parents, people I trusted beyond even God, seemed to care about random or mysterious things I could not grasp.

From the perspective of a child, the gap between childhood and adulthood seemed too vast and wide a chasm for anyone to cross. I know now that I lacked a clear picture of the other side. I couldn't wrap my mind around the perspective of someone decades older than myself. All I knew was that everyone, eventually, became an adult. It always felt too far away to grasp, an inevitability that would materialize somewhere a long, long time from now, like death.

I stepped into the elevator one morning last week, looked in the mirror pasted to the wall and realized in a flash that the chasm had been crossed. I am an adult. As the elevator dropped through building 402, whatever doubts I had to the contrary evaporated. I examined my face in the mirror. Much of the golden blond hair on my head has retreated and turned a light brown. There are wrinkles around my mouth and under my eyes. Stubble clouds my complexion and the skin hangs looser on my neck.

But the aging of my face was hardly the catalyst for the epiphany. There was a strange, tired look in my eyes, the same gaze I can remember seeing in the eyes of adults when I was a child, a resigned sort of expression like the world didn't turn out as magical as promised. At long last, I had those eyes, windows into the imperceptible passing of time. At long last, I was on the other side of the chasm, looking back. But instead of wondering about an unforeseen future, I was grasping at a fading past.

One of my early fears about teaching was that I wasn't a 'grown up' yet, that I lacked the maturity one must have to hold authority over children. How could I, Stephen Jones, 26, careless, penniless, bumbling Stephen Jones hold authority over anyone? How could I profess from the high podium of my greater number of living years when during those years the world had only become darker, bigger and more confusing and I had made so many poor decisions. As I age I feel less and less 'in the know' and more and more 'freaking confused.'

For the first few months in Korea, I taught from the flimsy vantage point of this fear: Fear that the children would unmask me for the scared little boy that I thought I really was, reveal me to be just another child hiding behind the mask of adulthood. Many people grow up without actually becoming adults. I see them all the time in reality TV shows. As Jonathan Kozol wrote in his book, "Death At An Early Age," many adults are just damaged children. I arrived in Korea carrying these doubts, and in large measure, they have mostly been put to rest. I am an adult, and though from time to time I might act immaturely, such as with Han-sol, there is no denying what I have become.

Nowadays, I find myself asking, when did I make this transition? When did I go from the child looking up to the adult looking down? When did I earn the right to profess knowledge of the world or have the authority to stand above all of these bright-eyed children gawking up at me? In them, I see everything on the other side of the chasm that I took for granted back when I was standing there myself.

Gavin made the remark, and I am seriously paraphrasing here, that the children who make him the saddest are the ones who exhibit all of the cynicism and antipathy of adults, the ones who appear to have lost the boundless curiosity and enthusiasm of childhood. I couldn't agree more. In my 1-2B class, there is a spoiled little girl named Ji-hyun, who saddens me with her apathy, disinterest and sometimes outright rebellion against learning. What or who robbed this child of the unbridled energy of childhood?

Well, I'm still feeling like dookie, so I'm going to wrap this up and get some sleep. If I'm still barfing and craping like there is no tomorrow, I'll go see a doctor and you can hear all about the language-induced perils of medicine in a foreign country. Gavin has had good experiences with the doctors here, so that's encouraging, and my Korean health insurance brings the price of the visits down to a dollar or two. I hope everyone is doing well, and look forward to coverage of election day on Wednesday. Have a good Memorial Day. Peace. --Notes

I think it's funny how I live in a foreign country 12,000 miles from home and yet the best photo I made this week was in the McDonalds down the street from ESS.



Light. It's a strange, miraculous phenomena. Stranger still is light's uncanny analogy to a sound or water wave. Energy travels in waves, no matter what medium it might be traveling through. I tried explaining this to my Special Class last Monday, and too my great surprise, they got it. We talked about pigments, reflection, refraction and even the visible spectrum.

Wait a minute, you're thinking. How do you explain the foundations of wave theory to a group of thirteen-year-old Koreans using their second language? Are you crazy?

Bare something in mind. These are not typical ESS students. They're Special.

When I first saw the "S.C." on my assignment sheet lo these many months ago, my immediate thought was that I had just been handed a group of mentally retarded children. While I was in public school, 'Special Class' was bureaucratic doublespeak for the children who were mentally handicapped. They had their own classroom, their own teacher, their own lunch period, and my only exposure to them came after school while waiting for my ride or at Friday night football games. They sat with their teacher in their wheelchairs at the top of the handicapped access ramp at Decatur High stadium and took in the game.

However, at ESS Best Jr. Academy, 'Special Class' refers to children who have lived abroad in English-speaking countries for an extended period of time. Naturally, they would be far, far ahead of the other children in the academy, and many of them are indeed great English speakers. Soon "Doo boo" Jeong. Ju "Chun je" Young. Ji "Wiz" Sun. These are all great English speakers in comparison to the bulk of students at ESS. This does not mean they are smarter than all the other kids at ESS. In all honesty, I consider the children of Advanced Three to be my brightest students. But the students of Special Class have something no one else can boast: Immersion in an English-speaking culture.

By enrolling their children in Special Class, the parents of these wayfaring youngsters hope to maintain their child's strong conversational and comprehension skills. Indeed, three times a week the six children in Special Class receive a full hour-and-a-half native speaker smackdown from Mr. Jones and Mr. Averill and Mr. Northcott. That's a whole lot of English!

However, the curriculum for the class has usually been cobbled together from texts selected on a lark. For most of the first four months I taught Special Class, I had no curriculum. I taught from the hip, so to speak. We built parachutes, read about the Japanese whaling industry and played games. The student's high level of English comprehension made teaching a little easier, and they could wrap their minds around advanced material that was better suited to their interests and age bracket.

Around the end of February, Hye-ran decided it was high time the native speakers adhere to a curriculum. She took us to the English bookstore and we selected texts in the areas of social studies, science, conversation and grammar. She made us write up a syllabus for the month of March and she handed copies to the students. It was a lot more work than I had ever had to do for Special Class, and I grumbled and griped the whole time. I liked the class partly because it allowed me the opportunity to try new things and be spontaneous.

Hye-ran quit her job in April to pursue other interests, leaving the task of managing Special Class to Soo-hyun, who was (and still is) relatively new to the organization. Though it probably has nothing to do with her, I haven't had to make another syllabus since then. The school's interest in Special Class waxes and wanes with the vaguely predictable behavior of the stock market, and my instinct tells me that the movements are cued to the quality and size of the class itself.

One of the problems facing Soecial Class is that some of the children don't actually speak English as well as advertised. This isn't nessiarily anyone's fault, but rather the result of a slipshod admission process levered by the school's bottom line.

One day, a month or so after arriving last fall, Gavin was pressed into a hasty interview of two potential students for admission to Special Class. Gavin was given only a few minutes to prepare and even less time to actually conduct the interview. The students, who were very nervous and scared of embarrassing themselves and their parents, were unresponsive, and Gavin had a hard time sizing up their English-speaking capabilities.

The two applicants were twin girls: Eun-hee and Eun-jeong. They had studied in an English academy while living in China, and they were reputed to be excellent English speakers. For the first month, neither Eun-hee nor Eun-jeong said a thing. In my class, they sat in the front row and stared at me like I was the living incarnation from a fairytale and they flatout refused to answer any of my questions. Gavin's experience was even more perplexing. One of the girls looked "like she was going to cry at any minute," he reported.

More students entered Special Class under the radar partially due to the stunted, frankly extemporaneous, nature of the interview process. Gavin theorized that the students probably prepared answers in advance of the interview. The questions we asked were very straitforward and highly predictable. What's your name, how old are you, where did you study English, etc. Someone with an English phrase book and an hour to kill could probably come armed to impress.

My own response to this tactic was to ask the children to read from what I thought would be a difficult text, but this proved an easily surmountable obstacle. English and Hangul are both phonetic alphabets, and thus reading comes easy to strangers of either language. My technique only proved how well they could pronounce English. It said nothing about their level of comprehension.

Gavin and I tried retooling our interview questions so that we could better gauge the student's ability to form original thoughts in English. In the case of one my newest students, Ye-ji, this proved devestatingly effective.

While walking down the hallway with her parents, I put Ye-ji at ease by asking the easy, predictable questions I'm sure she expected. This made her smile, and her practiced, casual replies visibly pleased her parents who were following behind us. Ye-ji had spent two years in New Zealand with her mother, specifically to learn English I was told, and her father (some variety of businessman) was fluent in English. The language was obviously an important ingredient in their lives.

During the interview, I left the phrasebook behind and played hardball. So you're thirteen years old? What did you do on your last birthday party? How did you like New Zealand? Where did you live? Were the people nice to you? What is the difference between Korean school and the academy in New Zealand? I varied the difficulty of my questions, trying to gauge Ye-ji's ability to digest, comprehend and then react to the inquiries.

Over the course of the five-minutes I had been allotted for the interview, all of the wattage drained from Ye-ji's smile, and her actual level of conversational ability was set in stark contrast to her reported background. Though I could detect a high level of comprehension in her eyes, the responses to my questions were far from that of a near-native speaker. Her voice couldn't keep up with her ears. You might say that she heard more than she could speak. My report to Soo-hyun was not positive, and I have to admit that I did not recommend Ye-ji for admission to Special Class.

The following Monday Ye-ji was sitting behind Ju-yeong when I walked into room 307, a fat green science book on her desk and a confused, timid look in her eyes. Money speaks louder than English in ESS Best Jr. Academy, apparently.

Throughout my short history with Special Class most marginal speakers, such as Ye-ji, get weeded out after a month or two as their true level of English becomes grossly apparent. As I mentioned before, the size and chemistry of the class has varied according to this odd pattern. Throughout March Hye-ran repeatedly inquired of Gavin and I about the twins as well as other new additions to Special Class. In all truth, some of these new students were stellar English speakers. Others obviously didn't live up to expectations, and were eventually dismissed by Hye-ran or yanked out of ESS by their parents. From the beginning of March to the present the class size dropped from its high of eleven in March to its current roster of six children.

Ye-ji is still in the game, as are the Twins, who are now a much more vocal ingredient. I have nicknamed them Hee and Jeong (as both of their 'first' names are Eun), and I am slowly getting to know them better. Through Hye-ran, Gavin discovered that the Chinese academy where the twins studied actually discouraged the highly interactive, free-speaking style of learning that Gavin and I encourage. They didn't speak up in class because such behavior was punished in China. Once they began to notice how the American and Austrailian-educated students around them were raising their hands and responding to the teacher, I imagine the Twins felt safer. Now they are two of my best students.

I can only hope the same for Ye-ji, who is still in the '"dormant" stage. I like her. I detect a great deal of intelligence and thoughtfulness in her eyes, and I hope she gets rid of the butterflies in her stomach and emerges from her cocoon before Soo-hyun or her folks get fed up and punches her ticket out of ESS. Either way, Special Class will remain a wild card in my weekly rounds.

Buddha celebrated a birthday Friday. He turned 2550 years old. I'd say he's a 'young' 2550. He sure has a lot of thoughtful followers.



The temple next to ESS (which actually owns our building) was alive with people eating bibimbop and worshipping. There were many statues of Buddha, one of which people would pour what looked like oil over. A monk was chanting the whole time I was there, a strange, ancient sound.

Gavin and I had Friday off due to the Sukatanshinil holiday. We got an early start and climbed over Bongnaesan into the local temple, filled with lanterns hung with prayers, to see what this "Buddhist Christmas" was all about.





The temple on Bongnaesan had a giant stone pagoda covered in carvings. People bowed before them before making their way into the temple's main hall.



A couple of ajummas welcomed people into the temple. They were dressed in beautiful hanbok and were very friendly.



There was lots of bowing.



The following week came and went with little fanfare.

Someone asked me last week why my nickname is Notes, and I bet there are some readers of my blog who wonder the same thing. Let me preface this by going backwards in time.

Ever since I joined the photography staff at the Chattanooga Times Free Press as an intern in the dawn of my career, I have carried a notepad. Besides being a critical tool in gathering information for the photos I took, I found the notepad an equally good medium to cover the ongoing story of my life as well.

Thumb through any of those old, sweat-stained notepads and in and among the scribbled names of people I photographed on assignment you will find scraps of poetry and prose, grocery lists, story ideas, reactions to events in my life, financial notes and various to-do lists. There is a box at my parents' house filled with these old notepads. I am literally writing my autobiography one tiny notebook at a time.

Of course, when I started hiking the Appalachian Trail in March of 2003, I had a little black, spiral-bound notepad tucked into a pocket within easy reach. Over the course of that six-month journey, I ran through some two dozen such notepads, mailing them back to The Chattanooga Times Free Press when every last page was filled with scribblings from interviews, photo credits, and observations. The newspaper condensed the information into a ten-part series that ran every third Sunday or so from March till October.

Almost everyone who hikes the Appalachian Trail picks up a nickname, or in Trail parlance, a "Trailname." I hiked with people with names like Space Monkey, Liteshoe, Itchyfoot, AWOL, Commander-in-Chief, Tang and Stringbean. To this day, I cannot recall, or in some cases never learned, many of their given names. If I saw Space Monkey tomorrow on the way to work, that would be the name I would put to his face. That would be the name I would yell across the busy streets of Nampo-dong. Space Monkey.

I should also add that most trailnames are coined by other hikers, and they reflect some defining aspect of the individual being named. Stringbean, for example, was ludicrously thin. Itchyfoot would wake up every morning at the crack of dawn. Tang was fond of drinking, well, you guessed it: Tang.

Some people were often the beneficiaries of horribly unfortunate trailnames. One young man, upon being discovered cooling off his hiking-chaffed crotch in a creek upstream from a campsite was instantly and irreversibly christened "Ball Washer" by his comrades. I myself narrowly avoided garnering the odious trailname "Bad Joke."

A Canadian hiker got fed up with my daily stream of poorly-crafted witticisms and slyly proposed the name over dinner in a shelter in North Carolina. A few people grumbled their ascent, citing a damning number of horrificly bad jokes I had told that day, and it was only after a prolonged filibuster that I managed to at least table the idea.

The next morning I think I cracked another awful play on words, something about bugs and breakfast cereal, and after everyone had stopped groaning, the Canadian took the opportunity to reexamine the "Bad Joke" idea from the previous night. If memory serves, the joke had indeed been a real stinker, and I probably deserved the moniker.

I realized where the conversation was leading, and I protested mightily.

"Well, you need a trail name," she pointed out with a hint of sarcasm. "Do have a better idea?"

I didn't. I had been thinking about it for weeks, and nothing seemed to fit. Ever since I first interviewed someone at Springer Mountain, people had been trying to pin me with various names pertaining to journalism. I tried on Cronkite, Shutterbug and Sleuth, but found them all lacking. I wasn't anything like the iconic news anchor (in fact, I maintain a healthy disrespect for television in general and televised news in particular), Shutterbug seemed to imply a low degree of skill with a camera, and Sleuth didn't fit because I was in no way an investigative reporter.

"How about 'Notes," the Canadian's hiking partner suggested. "Every time I see him, he's always writing in that tiny notebook." She pointed to a pouch on my waist strap where I kept the notepad.

There was a sort of contemplative silence as the four or five hikers gathered under the lean-to chewed on the suggestion. Personally, the name "Notes" wasn't perfect, but it was a damn sight better than "Cronkite" or "Bad Joke."

"Hey, I like that name," I cheerfully chimed in, breaking the silence. People began to nod. The Canadian girl cocked a disapproving eyebrow at me as she realized I had dodged a much-deserved bullet. She continued to call me "Bad Joke" for a few days thereafter, even though Notes had become my generally accepted trailname. Only after I promised to stop telling them around her did she declare a ceasefire.

The 'Notes' name grew on me as I hiked, and the pile of notepads at the Times Free Press grew and grew. Yellow ones, long ones, plastic ones, waterproof ones, sweatstained, bloodstained, foodstained notebooks filled a tiny box on a desk in Chattanooga. By the time I returned home and began searching for a job, notebooks found a permanent residence in my back right pocket.

I have owned all brands and builds of notebooks. Spiral bound, glue bound, sidebound, topbound, cardboard-backed, plastic-backed, waterproof, numbered, college-ruled, unruled: I've owned them all, and I am constantly on the lookout for better, sturdier notebooks.

My current notebooks of choice are the Pb Memory Tae Won Special Note series of notepads found on art street in Nampo-dong. They are everything I love in a notebook: Seventy-five cent five-by-three inch metal-spiral top-bound college-ruled 80-page beauties with easy-to-see-in-the-dark orange (or sky blue) covers made of a sturdy cardboard stock. I love em.' I can't think of a better notepad to slip into my back right pocket every morning.

The best part of the Tae Won Special Note, though, is its cover, on which is written the following:

"Loving is knowing how to live,
Living is knowing how to love."

Really, is there any notepad out there that can compare to the Tae Won Special Note? When I get around to packing up and leaving this place, you can bet I'll have a bundle of these beauties tucked away somewhere in my luggage.

Photographically, its been a good week. I made this from from my busstop in Nampo-dong. Evening was coming on, and the fluorescent lights of the busstop billboard across the street had just switched on.



A Non-Governmental Organization specializing in building parks came to Nampo-dong to drum up support for their latest project: A (hold on, let me check my Tae Won Special Note) Central-park style development on Doon-chi-do island north of the river. I guess no one bothered to tell them that Central Park is so-named because, well, it's in the 'center' of the city, not twenty miles away on some deserted riverbank.

The NGO covered Gwangbokdong in sod and trees to simulate the park's design. Personally, I found the grass-covered space they had created in Nampo-dong to advertise the proposed park a MUCH better idea than the park itself! Normally, Gwangbokdong is filled with cars and scooters. I hate cars in general, and I really hate cars here in Korea where very few people actually obey the traffic laws. I prefer grass and trees to cars and concrete any day.



Ditch your cars. Ride a bus. Do it for the next generation.



So many people go out of their way to make life easier on their children. It's really very thoughtful. Gavin also pointed out that you very rarely hear babies crying or screaming in Korea. They are extremely quiet and peaceful, as a general rule. I would be too if mom and dad were doing all of the walking for me.





Gavin turned 30 on Saturday. We celebrated by hiking back up to the temple on Bongnaesan and going out to Kaeungsung that night. I paid for dinner at Outback Steakhouse, which was the highlight of the evening. My first steak in eight months. I cannot describe to you the taste, as I might break down and cry.





The light is fantastic these days right around six in the afternoon.



Last weekend I took an extended hike through Jagalchi fish market. All I have to say is, damn, the Koreans eat some ugly fish. If you want a healthy dose of culture shock, there is no better place to have your prescription filled than Jagalchi. From the ajummas skinning eels alive to the octopi reaching out to grab you as you walk by a stall, Jagalchi can serve up a bizarre experience. I really can't wait for my sister to arrive in July so I can freak her out with a tour of Jagalchi.



Continuing my study of the homeless of Busan.



Phew! Well, that about wraps it up for SoKoNotes. I'm actually thinking of tackling the Herculean task of writing the much-anticipated food-edition of SoKoNotes. Food has been an unexpected bonus, in terms of quality and variety, and there is a lot to say. There are a lot of photos to tone, too. Sheesh. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this week's update. Peace. --Notes

Time, such a precious thing. For some of us time is money, literally.



Alright, bad jokes aside, welcome back to SoKoNotes. Photographically speaking, it's been a big week and I have lots of photos to share.

People, people everywhere. The subways are always packed on Saturday afternoons. Shoppers, kids just let out of school, and couples walking hand-in-hand fill the stations. Periodically one sees a flash of brown skin or blond hair as a foreigner walks by, and the Russians are easy to spot because they are invariably a solid foot taller than everyone else. The whole mess of people surges and shifts as individuals travel in a thousand directions at once.

The focal point for most of these people is Seomyeon Station, the beating heart of Busan.



I always board the train at Nampo-dong, and by the time it reaches Seomyeon station, the subway car is like a sardine can. People get out of their seats and pack even tighter as the train pulls up to the platform. An equally huge crowd waiting to board the train flashes past the windows like the ranks of an opposing army; however, the pressure to get off the train usually outweighs the pressure to get on. The doors fly open and the passengers who want off the train surge past the passengers who want on the train. I usually catch a few unintentional kidney shots and my heels get battered up pretty bad as this transaction takes place. The sensation is akin to being moved by a strong river current.

I actually cited Seomyeon station as an analogy during Special class last Wednesday while discussing the random movement of molecules in a balloon. We have been focusing on matter and energy the last few weeks, and so I decided we should build air-powered rockets as a fun way to conclude the unit.

I bought clown balloons, straws, and colored paper and made an example rocket dubbed the ‘Ms. Huh’ by Ms. Ha. The students all built similar contraptions, but with varying degrees of decoration and balloon sizes.



One of our Korean teachers, Sook-hyun, is going to depart from ESS in a month. In celebration of her successful tenure at ESS, we took her to dinner at the usual Sumgyupsal restaurant. The teachers pulled all the stops. The table filled with food and drink. Mr. Yi ordered four bottles of soju and everyone (except Gavin and I) went to town. Even Soo-hee and Na-ri, rare drinkers both, had a shot or two. Gavin and I drank Makalli and beer, arguing that we should save the ethanol for cars considering how expensive gas is these days.



After dinner, we all went to a Norae-bong. I sang a couple of songs, Wonderwall and Bohemian Rhapsody, but no one was terribly interested in hearing English tunes, and that was just fine with Gavin and I, actually. Korean pop songs were the main dish, and just about everyone took a turn with the mic.

Eun-hee displayed a masterful command of the music, and as she sang, the other teachers clapped or kept time with tambourines. Every now and then, Mr. Yi, our company Chief Operating Officer, would stand to great fanfare and artfully sing solo, drawing even more applause and cheering from the teachers.



It was a really good time, and Gavin and I both had fun, though we were exhausted from a long day's work.

Nature is cranking up the thermostat these days, and the temperature hangs around a very pleasant 70 to 75 degrees. The days are getting longer and the angle of the sun at its zenith is getting steeper and steeper, creating hard, ultra-crisp highlights in the middle of the day.



I’ve stopped using my motorcycle to go to work, even though the good weather is awfully inviting. The bus, though much less fun and convenient, certainly presents more photo ops.





The possibility of being permanently paralyzed in a motorcycle accident looms over my head whenever I put on my helmet and crank up my steed. A lifetime of someone else wiping my ass is not worth fifteen minutes of convenience. Still, I can’t quite bring myself to sell the bike, as it opens up a lot more of Korea to exploration. Just this past weekend I packed a bag and rode to Gyeong-ju to see the famous Bulgeoksa temple.

I seriously underestimated the distance - which I pegged at fifty kilometers - and ended up driving 100 kilometers. The scenery was nothing to write home about. Actually, it felt a lot like driving through North Georgia.

Highway 35, which follows the valley floor between twin mountain ranges and parallels the interstate, is a strait shot from Busan to Gyeongju. Every few kilometers a small collection of gas stations, convenience stores and other road trip staples would pop up on the horizon, all festooned in big, garish billboards. I stopped periodically to stretch my legs and let the long, terrifying lines of speeding cement trucks get ahead of me.

Finally, I arrived in Gyeongju, which was deep in the thralls of spring. Fields spanning many square kilometers opened up before me filled with brilliant yellow flowers. People by the dozens parked their cars and frolicked in the flora.



It was impossible to escape the crowds.



If it hadn’t been for the motorcycle, my trip to Bulgeoksa from Gyeongju would have entailed an hour-long ride in a sweltering, packed bus. As I was parking my bike, I watched those sweaty, annoyed tourists pour out of those hot, cramped buses onto the hot concrete for the long walk up to the temple.

I started my walk cool and refreshed. Naturally, a small town comprised mostly of expensive hotels, restaurants and trinket shops had sprung up around the famous temple, and my route to the temple’s entrance forced me to walk this gauntlet of yelling, pushy shopkeepers.

‘Eat here, we have good food,’ one woman shouted at me. Gwen channayo, I responded. That’s OK. Even this basic command of Hangulmal, which most foreigners probably don’t exhibit, drew a faint gasp from the ajumma and she didn’t pester me any further as I continued up the hill.

I walked past a handful of overpriced-trinket shops. The trinket of choice seemed to be the classic round oriental umbrella. The vendors sold them in a variety of explosively loud colors, and I saw many Korean women with one over their shoulder.



Across a parking lot and up a flight of stairs and I was in the Bulgeoksa complex. Red brick paths lined in shin-high, wrought-iron decorative fencing wound away from me in all directions through a large grove of trees covered in new Spring leaves. The wind accompanied me along the path until it terminated in a road winding up towards the main gate.

Across the road the trees were still covered in pink flowers. People picnicked in the grass as tourists casually walked the street lined with dozens of hotdog and trinket vendors.





I paid four thousand for a ticket and proceeded inside the gate towards the main temple. A beautiful stone bridge with three arches crossed a shallow pond fed by a waterfall at one end. Carefree yellow, orange and white goi the size of medium-sized dogs swam languidly in and out of the shadows cast by the bridge, halfheartedly hunting for handouts from tourists crossing the the bridge above.



Once at the main temple, I ran into scores of people. The temple itself was in the process of being decorated for Buddha’s Birthday celebration to commence May 5th. Brightly-colored lanterns hung from electrical cords stretched from one end of the ancient structure to the other, breaking up the muted browns, grays and greens of the temple with their vibrant colors.

Buddhism has been a part of life in Gyeong-ju since Mahayana Buddhism was imported from China over the course of the 7th century. The center of Buddhist life in Gyeong-ju lies on Mount Namsan north of the city. The Buddhist monuments that have been excavated near or on Mount Namsan to the present include the ruins of 122 temples, 53 stone statues, 64 pagodas, and sixteen stone lanterns. Excavations have also revealed the remains of the pre-Buddhist natural and animistic cults of the region.

Some of Korea’s finest examples of Silla-era Buddhist engravings can be found on Mount Namsan; however, the biggest jewel in Gyeong-ju’s crown is Bugoksa Temple at the northern end of the mountain, where I stood. According to the temple’s own records, the current temple was built under King Gyeongdeok in 751 A.D. King Gyeongdeok’s prime minister wanted the temple built in order to calm the spirits of his ancestors.

Bulgeoksa took twenty-three years to complete. Thirty-three stairs lead into the temple, equivalent to the 33 steps to enlightenment. The most unusual feature of Bulguksa is the twin 8.2-meter stone pagodas. The first, Seokgatap, is over 13 centuries old. It’s twin, Dabotap, is 10.4 meters high and dedicated to the ‘many treasures’ described by Buddha in the Lotus Sutra









I soon tired of the crowds at the site, and after a few more stops at sites around Bulgeoksa, I mounted my bicycle to leave. On the way out of town, I passed a vacation resort, probably the home base for many of the people I had seen earlier in the day. A large river drainage culvert had been converted into a ‘Kart Track,’ where resort-goers could purchase an ATV and bring their computer games to life. There was only one problem. When you crash in the real world, there are real repercussions.

I was photographing this mother and her two daughters enjoying themselves when they rounded a corner too fast and lost control of the ATV. Overcome with its own inertia, the vehicle rode up on two wheels and haphazardly exited the turn. It slammed into the curb and the little girl in the middle tumbled off.

The ATV ran over and crushed her leg into two pieces, and she began to scream, a sound I will never forget. The woman, who was visibly dazed by the accident, fumbled around her screaming child, unsure of what was wrong. Another man and myself rushed over and heaved the ATV, woman and all, off of the girl.



The girl scream louder and louder, whimpering between bursts. Her leg was crushed, the bone sticking through a gaping wound just above her ankle. Blood gushed down her leg as her father lifted her onto the back of the very vehicle that had run her over and rushed her to the hospital.

I was shaken by the accident. Earlier in the day I had also accidentally dropped my 800 dollar 80-200 f2.8 zoom lens, which would run 120 dollars to fix. The crowds, heat and duration of my travels had worn me down. It was time to go home.

The trip home, like the trip there, was perilous. Two hours on a motorcycle is hell enough, but two hours on a motorcycle in a land where traffic ‘laws’ are like some sort of national joke is pushing one’s luck.

People here tend to do all of their driving at the last minute. While on the four-lane highway on the outskirts of Busan, I watched a cab driver cut across five lanes of busy traffic - no turn signal or any warning whatsoever - in the space of fifty yards and then run the stoplight just ahead of oncoming traffic.

Was I surprised? No, not at all. Such behavior is commonplace, even among the buses and especially the motorcycle drivers. But as I said before, is the freedom of personal transportation worth a lifetime of paralysis? Probably not, and by the time I reached my apartment, I had pretty much convinced myself to put the bike up for sale. Now I’m not so sure, but probably another harrowing ride in the city will change my mind.

That’s all for now from SoKoNotes. I hope you enjoyed it. See you next week after Buddha’s birthday. Peace. --Notes