Players at the Keys

Bring Michael White Home!
Stephen Michael White tragically died in a sauna on May 10, 2008 in Gyeongsan Korea (just south - east of Daegu).
His single mother, an English teacher at Yeungnam University, does not have the financial means to bring her son home.  We would like collect donations to help her meet the extraordinary costs she faces.  We are hosting a fundraiser on May 30, 2008  and we would appreciate all the support we can get.
 
Where:  Thunderbirds Lounge - Daegu  www.thunderbirdlounge.org
When:  May 30, 2008   8 - 11pm
What:  Live music and door prizes
Why:  To help Stephanie White bring her son home
Who:  Everyone is invited to give their support
How:  Come downtown and show your support
  
Stephanie is grateful for any support you can offer!  Please forward this message to anyone who may be able to offer support or willing to join us downtown Daegu on May 30th.

Michael White was a 14 year old young man, the son of Stephannie, one of my coworkers.  Saturday night, the weekend of Buddha's birthday, at a jimjilbang in Gyeongsan he choked to death in the shallow cold pool.  The autopsy found that the cause of death was drowning, with signs that he had been choking and retching.  A possible heart condition was ruled out as a possible cause.

I saw Michael that very day, him riding around on the scooter his mother had bought for him, a friend's young daughter on the back.  They were laughing.  Mike honked at me as he sped past and waved.  I laughed. It felt good to see these kids having fun, being carefree.  It's a cliche, isn't it, to say that I had no clue that'd be the last time I saw him.  My mind still can't wrap around this idea.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=14329648313

I'm posting the link to this community.  There are more details in to his death found in the comments and I hope Stephannie finds the answers she's seeking because horribly, painfully, this sounds more and more like something that could have been prevented.  I have cried and held back tears ever since receiving the news.  Why would anyone have allowed this to happen?

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I haven't posted pictures of my neighorhood in all the time I've been here!  Before I post anything else, I thought I should do this before it gets away from me and I forget completely.  It's been a long work day so bear with me!

To the left, picturess 1, 2, & 4 are shots around my apartment building.  #2 is the main entrance to my building.  To get in you either use a card or punch in a passcode.  Picture #3 is my main mode of transportation although right now the chain's broken so I've been walking to work for the past several days.  Apparently there's some old guy I can take the bike to, just haven't done it yet.

Below these is our new neighborhood coffee shop, Sleepless in Seattle.  It's not my favorite cafe in Korea, that honor goes to DaVinci's Coffee, but it's nice to have this place where I can go on the weekends to sip at a latte and study Korean.  Sometimes I bug the baristas for pronunciation help and they're always super nice and happy to help. Admittedly, business is a little slow there so they're probably happy to have something to do with the lag of customers.

The place with the orange sign is... well, there's no US equivalent.  I guess if I was going to compare it to anything it'd be like a diner.  These places serve food like the ever popular kimbap, bimbimbap, mandu, ramyen, just to name a very few of the many and all for affordable prices, generally 4000 won or less.

The Bread Baking Happiness is also right across from my apartment where you can buy any assortment of pastries, from muffins, to cookies, to breads, and even Spam sandwiches!  I kid you not.  I still prefer Paris Baguette which is more of a chain so more variety, but since I'm lazy I generally go the Happy Bakery.

Last picture is of a Korean BBQ!  Yum!  They serve galbi, marinated pork.  The servers send the seasoned meat to your table and you cook it yourself on the burners situated in the middle.  Then you dip your meat in the various seasonings, add some garlic or rice and wrap it up in a lettuce leaf and it is amazing yumminess.

Which reminds me.  Gotta eat! 

My boyfriend of two months, JiHoon, works at Woobang as the manager of a stage show which consists of Russian electronic strings musicians and Korean b-boy dancers.  Groovy stuff.  Being the good girlfriend that I am I kept him company at the amusement park.  Not having a ticket meant I couldn't ride the rides and I was a bit bored since it was a little difficult to carry conversation with either the musicians or dancers.  The language barrier makes life difficult in all sorts of ways.

Still, it wasn't all bad.  I wandered around snapping photos of the flowers that had been planted for the Spring festival.  Cool, breezy, maybe not particularly exciting, yet relaxing and mesmerizing for the beauty that had been spread throughout the park.  Too bad I didn't have my jacket or I would've been a bit more adventurous.

Plus I got to watch the act that JiHoon manages.  Three times in fact.  3 pm, 6 pm, and 9 pm.  Not much of a crowd, though at this time of the year while the weather clambers toward warm with occasional slips back into 'chilly'.

With any luck I'll be returning to Woobang Land tomorrow with free tickets in hand and friends by my side.  JiHoon wants me there and I'm all for keeping him company.  Hey, not like I have to be at work Monday until late.  Midterms don'cha know!

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While there have been many great things that have happened the past few days, they've also been trying.  First, we lost Frank to a motorcycle accident.  Just last night I learned that my uncle passed away, also suddenly.  I'm thankful I can be here to attend the memorial service for Frank and hurt that I won't be home for Ben's.

Just before learning about Frank I'd been taking pictures of the wonderful natural beauty that is Spring at Yeungnam University.  Words can't describe and I'm afraid even the photos will fall short of capturing the cherry blossoms' snowy wonder.  Yet, if you've never seen for yourself they're certainly better than nothing and maybe just that little bit more motivation to take a trip to this side of the world, particularly in April when the blossoms are alive and fresh.  They're here and gone in only a few short days and it's a singular reminder of human life--how quickly these days pass us and how important it is to revel in each we're given.

I spent yesterday's Election Day holiday with co-worker friends at Songtan, near Osan Air Force base.  Fantastic day of shopping, eating delicious Thai food, and even at one point having a conversation with a military officer who was going back to the US in one week.  He told me that he hadn't talked to a civilian American woman in over a year and was really happy that we'd had the chance to chat.  I wish him the best with the rest of his service.

After learning about my uncle, JiHoon happened to contact me on the computer (i don't have a cell phone and haven't for the past couple weeks) and once I told him the news, he came over to keep me company.  I'm thankful for him--thankful for my friends/coworkers--thankful for the life I have here and how easy it is to bond with others, to get to know them in a way I never could in the US.  There's something special that draws us together and maybe that's what makes Frank's passing that much harder, this sense of losing "one of our own", not unlike the news of Ben... our family lost someone who gave us dimension, quirky and strange as he might have been.  The difficulty is in losing that unique person who can never be replaced.

Since I've moved to Korea my life has been filled in indescribable ways, with despair and awe, happiness and grief, loathing and admiration, and I am not at all the person I was 8 months ago, I can feel that knowledge nestled deep within my chest.  Sometimes this awareness makes me want to cry silently in a darkened room.  Other times, what I want most is to hold onto the ones I love most, clinging to them with the words, "You helped give me a new life."

One moment I'm admiring the beauty of the Spring blossoms, the next Barb comes into the room, tears streaking her face.  He just left work not long ago, was on his way to a motorbike show, was killed in an accident.  Everyone is stunned.  Tonight, we gather and dedicate the night to you who made the office a much more interesting place.

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Frank, we're really going to miss that British wit of yours.

Frank

One of my business students turned in a paper on public markets.  Koreans tend to have a problem differentiating between 'l' and 'r'.  The phrase she attempted to write was "whole sale market".  You can  probably guess what she actually wrote.

It's one of those times I just had to laugh.

Sometimes living alone can be depressing, especially when you're far from home and its comforts.  After a couple months of contemplation and weighing the pros and cons I decided to adopt a kitty.  I'm anti-pet store so there was no question in my mind that if I was going to have a pet, it'd have to be through a shelter, more of a problem outside of Seoul than I expected.

After digging around the internet I discovered a no-kill shelter in Daegu, about an hour by subway and 30 min by car from my apartment in Gyeongsan.  It's run by a wonderful woman named Sunnan, along with volunteers.

While Sunnan speaks some English her volunteers don't and my first solitary visit to the shelter proved an interesting negotiation of meaning.

I pantomime a phone to my ear.  "Chingu... um, called," trying to explain that a friend of mine had called them.  I point to myself.  "Miguksaram imnida."  I'm American.  "Christina imnida."  I'm Christina.  Later after looking at the cats, I motion as if I'm holding a cat carrier.  "Opsiyo."  I don't have.

The volunteer told me a lot of things and somehow, miraculously, I figured out I should come back on Friday with a cat carrier and that I should call 1st.  It's amazing how well you can communicate with a lot of perseverance, pantomiming, and an electronic translator.

Friday I returned with a Korean friend. 

It's a depressing place to visit.  Many of the cats are desperate for affection and most look as if they've been abused and/or severely neglected.  Lots of cats with only half a tail (maybe genetic some, but i'm guessing a few had 'accidents').  A couple were noticeably sick.  A beautiful Persian sprawled on a perch, her white fur matted and dingy.  One cat's tail had been twisted into a sickening knot.  He nuzzled my hand, demanding love, and nipped my fingers when I became distracted by conversation.  There was a sweet calico, one year old who had a noticeable ailment, that I considered, but Sunnan came over and considerately told us that she'd be difficult to care for as she required medication.  Instead we went into one of the rooms where they kept the younger cats.

That's where we found the then-nameless 3 month old Kieran.  He crawled up on my friend's shoulder, shaking from fear.  When I held him, his little claws dug into my shirt and he burrowed his head against me.  We walked out into the open enclosure.  He freaked out, once again crawled up onto my friend's shoulder and refused to come down off his safe haven. 

Korea's well known for not being cat friendly and even after I adopted my baby, Sunnan cautioned me on going to the vet.  Cats aren't common pets and any trip to your average mega-store's pet section will inform you of this.  Dog toys, dog dishes, a section for fish... and a tiny little niche for cats.  My little boy's dish reads "For Your Dog".  There was one litter box so I didn't even get a choice there.  In about a month I have to take him in for neutering so I'm a little apprehensive.  Sunnan did recommend a place in Shiji which I'll very likely take him.  She said that with some vets, they aren't used to caring for cats and will accidentally kill them because they haven't been trained in dealing with them.  One of my foreign friends told me how he'd taken in his cat to a non-cat trained vet.  His cat freaked out and the vet freaked out along with her, apparently having little experience with felines.

With kind, generous people like Sunnan though, I think that understanding for these wonderful companions will improve here.

Korean Animal Protection Services (KAPS): http://www.koreananimals.or.kr/english/

I'm slow in posting!  These should've been up some time ago, namely early February.  These were taken from a ski trip I took with a couple friends on Feb 4.  Since that time I've been both sick and busy which hasn't really lent itself to photo blogging although that's really no excuse at all for not keeping up on this.  Not like it takes much time to post!

The story here is that I've never gone skiing.  My friend, Barb, and her boyfriend, Jun, are both pretty good at it so invited me along on their trip.  The experience was, to phrase it concisely, unforgettable.  I've learned that I'm very poor at the whole skiing thing and since have had to go in for physiotherapy because I damaged my shoulder to the point of immobility.  It was a day of pushing myself up and promptly falling back down.  Fun, fun times.

I want to do it again.

Pictures: the 1st is of "Korean Food".  It amused us to no end that here we are in Korea and yet they label the food as "Korean Food".  In another picture you can see that they also have a Popeyes.  Ooh.  Next to that the boots that gave me all kinds of trouble.  If you've ever been skiing you know the sensation and if you're new at it, even more so.  If you've never been skiing then the only way I can describe is walking as if your ankles are encased in cement blocks.

I'm looking forward to next year!

You can hear this song almost anywhere.  When I 1st arrived in Korea it seemed like about anywhere and everywhere I went this song poured out of some shop's speakers.  It's a funny, cute video with a group of high school aged singers.  Great stuff and a testament to the rise of Korea in the world of entertainment.

The group is called Wonder Girls.  The song is "Tell Me".