Take No Prisoners

Winter Break 2011-2012: Xi'an

2012-01-27T19:23:00.000-08:00

Introduction

Thirty-nine days. This is the length of time between the end of the first semester and the beginning of the second at Beijing World Youth Academy during the 2011-2012 school year. It is a time when anarchy is wreaked on the world as the teachers at the school are set loose to do as they please.

Thirty-nine days. It is a long time. Much too long to sit around in one city, or perhaps even in one country. Especially considering how many cities and countries still lie unprovoked, unmolested. The reader undoubtedly knows where this is going.

Thirty-nine days. How much could get done? Seen? Experienced? Demolished? A series of posts on this blog, slyly entitled “Winter Break 2011-2012,” will take a detailed look at just what exactly was done, seen, experienced, and demolished between December 22, 2011, and January 29, 2012. Boom.

Winter Break 2011-2012: Xi'an

School let out after a spectacular December Talent Show on December 21st, a Wednesday. Between then and December 27, a Tuesday, I did not lie around as idly as I would have liked, but I did enjoy a chilly trip to Beihai Park, Xishiku Church, and Annie’s with Ramon and Nallely, a Christmas pizza with Dawna (she didn’t know it was Christmas pizza, but it was), a Christmas Skype party with my family and its cats in Iowa, a Christmas service at BICF, a Christmas dinner with the aforementioned R & N and another family we know from BWYA, a birthday dinner with the aforementioned R & N and another family we know from BWYA, and the completion of a host of blog posts – some of them Christmassy - that had weighed down on me like too much syrup on an Ego waffle. Mmm!

All of it done in Beijing. But that part of the break came to a screeching halt on December 27, when a plane took me from Beijing to Xi’an in the center of the People’s Republic of China.

So. Xi'an's got about eight million folks milling about it. It's an alarmingly old city; it was quite near the original capital of China when it was first unified sometime in the third century B.C. There are quite a few interesting historical facts and sites about the city, most of which I hoped to investigate: the city wall from the 14th century that surrounds fourteen square kilometers of the city's center, some pagodas, the tombs of China's first emperor and a wide variety of other important dead people, and obviously the Terracotta Warriors, among other things.

And I rolled in that night, situated myself at the hospitable but chilly Shuyuan International Youth Hostel, and prepared to support the tourism industry in Xi’an for the next five days. On Day the First I struck out on foot to march the three miles to the Big Goose Pagoda south of the city’s center. This mother was originally put up at some point in the 7th century A.D. but fell apart inexplicably (just like the $1.50 belt I bought before the trip) fifty years later and was rebuilt in 704. The pagoda was surrounded by all many of other architectural attraction:

Having seen all this, I climbed the big ol’ pagoda and confirmed that which I’d suspected from the moment I set foot in the city: it was as polluted as Beijing, which is saying that someone is as unkempt as Mike Moravec. Behold; the view from the top:

Disappointing, but not the end of the world. I descended, scooted through a statue forest, grabbed a 5 元 noodle lunch, and headed west for the next destination.

Most cities foolishly limit themselves to one Wild Goose Pagoda, or, if they’re liberal, one Wild Goose Pagoda and a Wild Duck Pagoda, or a maybe a Wild Swan Pagoda or something. Not Xi’an. Another three miles from the Big Goose Pagoda lies the Small Goose Pagoda, and I went there. Much quieter it was, with a more reflective surrounding complex and a cooler but still fairly restricted view from the top.

Surrounding complex:

Cooler but still fairly restricted view from the top:

Then I headed back toward the city center, to this road named Culture Street on the map I had. It was much like Insadong or any other souvenir boulevard; store after store selling the same li’l touristy knick knacks. The dominating product here, as expected, was little warrior figurines in the Terracotta style.

After meandering past all the culture on that street, I waltzed into the Forest of Stone Tablets. Is that not a sweet name for an exhibition? I think yes. There were three parts to this so-called forest. The first, a sculpture museum, was the most interesting. There was no deception in the name; there were simply many, many statues and carvings of different deities and authoritative figures. There was even one of George Brushaber. I thought the whole thang was pretty well done.

Then came these tablets with poetry on them. There were seven different rooms of them; the poems were not translated, but some had names that suggested interesting content. Being a teacher of literature, I appreciated that these stone slabs were here, but being able to read about fifteen Chinese characters, I could not truly enjoy the poems.

The third section was more sculpture-based stuff; it appeared to revolve around animals and some dude’s mausoleum. It was better than the poetry section but not as cool as the first statue sanctum. There were lots of identifiable animal statues, such as dogs and lions, but there were also some complete mysteries; even the labels on the figures only read “Beast.” Who knows. Maybe they meant this Beast. Or this one. Or this.

After completing this section, I realized that the soles of my shoes, my socks, and the skin on the bottom of my feet had all worn away because I’d walked at least 300,000 miles on this first day, and it wasn’t even dark yet. Dang. I dragged myself back to the hostel, where some energetic Chinese woman helped me commit to a tour of the Terracotta Warrior Museum that ran from the hostel the next day. Then I went out and grabbed some spicy rice and tofu dish before heading for bed, thus bringing the total amount of money I spent on food that day to 18 元, which is less than $3, which is an incredibly low amount of money to keep oneself amply fed on. Sadly, the bill for all the goose and stone attractions canceled out whatever I’d saved.

Day the Second began at 9 a.m. when four other hostel dwellers and I boarded a crappy little bus bound for some spot 30 kilometers or so east of Xi’an, where in 1974 some farmers digging a well found the Terracotta Warriors. We picked up another batch of tourists before exiting the fogginess of the city.

The warriors were stuck in this huge underground compound by the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, at some point in the third century. There were allegedly 700,000 workers involved in the construction of the warriors and the underground complex, which wasn't even his tomb; his tomb was nearby but is an entirely different structure altogether, one filled with concubines, family members, and a bunch of the workers, who were put in there so that no one would know where the tomb was located (avoid ever signing a contract with that sort of requirement involved). We tourists wondered what happened to the people who put the workers and family inside the tomb; were they killed in turn, also, so that they wouldn't know where the tomb was? Who knows. Everything eventually caved in after the eleven-year construction, some pillagers tampered with it at some point, and then I guess no one knew about it until those dudes found it thirty-five years ago. We figured the guys who discovered the army probably lived a pretty cush life, but our tour guide said the government paid the farmers 10 元 for the land and called it good.

I thought that I could just zone out and look out the window on the 1.5-hour trip to the museum site, but that was a silly idea. The tour guide was the aforementioned energetic Chinese woman from the hostel; her Chinese name was Jiajia, and she mentioned that her English name was thus Lady Jiajia. Anyway, she launched into an expected historical briefing on the warriors, which I sort of listened to, but when she got done, Lady Jiajia began quizzing our group on all she’d just spoken of. Sadly, she would not stand for the silence we answered her with, so she called me out; “Reuben, what are the four types of warriors in the museum?” No clue. The rest of the day I was under assault. If it was time for the group to move on, she told me, “Reuben! Come!” If she needed a prop to demonstrate some structural element of the warriors' tomb, it was done using my hands as props. If she needed someone to hold up her tour flower (you know how some tour guides fly flags to guide their patrons? She had a big stuffed flower.), I toted that thing.

Anyway, after getting jarred and embarrassed during the Q&A session on the bus, I grew restless and started talking to another loner on the tour, Tom, who happened to be from Duluth and who happened to be teaching in Ulsan, South Korea. Three cheers for common ground! He’d also been in my eight-person hostel room the night before. Anyway we were picture/twenty-something buddies for the tour, which was a good break from the solitude of the prior day.

Our bus arrived at the museum complex, and we first went to the tomb of this emperor who had all the Terracotta Warrior madness constructed: Emperor Qin Shi Huang. He put himself in his current place by consuming mercury, thinking that it would give him eternal life (aren’t you glad science has evolved since then?), but as a consequence, the big hill that is his grave is also loaded with that fatal substance, as well as possibly being full of treasures. No one has had the courage or technology to go in after it yet, but Lady Jiajia said to come back in forty years when it was safe.

Then it was on to the excavation sites of the actual warriors. Once inside, there is a gift shop, a film room, and three pits. Lady Jiajia strategically took us first to Pit 2, which I actually found the most impressive, then to 3, and then to 1.

Pit 2 is enormous and ongoing; apparently the tourism happens during the day and the work gets done at night. Basically the pit is what was dug and filled with warriors and then covered with roofing to form the mongo underground area full of not-real soldiers. Eventually it caved in and lay hidden for quite a spell.

If you look closely at the lower left corner of this photo, you can view Lady Jiajia, looking efficient insane.

According to her, there have only been five (I think five, I wasn't really listening) complete warriors extracted from Pit 2. Here are four of them. The fifth escaped me, apparently. If it even exists.

We went to Pit 1 next. It was super similar to Pit 2 but much, much smaller. And there was a place to get your face personalized as a warrior.

Pit 3 was last; this is the one that is generally what one would see were one to Google “Terracotta Warriors.” The building was big and felt like a sci-fi movie. The warriors were there, in all their glory, and they were well-guarded. There’s not much else to tell.

Then we schmoozed through the gift shop and watched a cheesy film about the warriors, events that were followed by lunch and a ride back to the hostel. Sadly, Tom was leaving that evening and not staying longer, so he headed for the train station and I returned to riding solo. At least until I tried to go to bed that evening, when I was joined in my room by two Chinese dudes who loved their phones so, so, so much, even at 11:30 p.m. Swing.

Day the Third was a mystery at its outset. There were many lesser known and spread out attractions worth checking out all across the city, but the question was: which to attack and which to leave by the wayside? I’d made up my mind to check out the wall that surrounded the city center, but on my way out I ran into two other travelers of sorts and invited myself onto their trip to the Shaanxi Museuem, which I’d passed during my journey to the Wild Goose Pagoda on the first day. The dude was from Sweden and the lady was from Shanghai, and I am pretty sure that they were not dating, or I’d not have thrown myself into the mix quite so readily. The main thing was that they were fun! And so off we went to the museum.

Let’s be honest; museums, especially history ones, can blow. Rows and rows of clay pots? Kill me. I liked this museum, though, even though it did have clay pots. Maybe it was because the girl from Shanghai actually knew some of the history and explained it a bit better. For instance, she told us that the 6th century Tang people actually liked their women a big larger. Now I know that about the ol’ place. Xi’an is also at the center of China, so while it has a lot of stylistic similarities to things in Beijing and other areas further east, there is a plenty of influence from further west. How do I know this? There were lots of camels at the museum.

And other stuff.

And if camels weren’t enough to tip a brother off as to the Middle Eastern feel to certain places and exhibits, the Muslim Quarter surely did. After we went through everything in the museum, we headed to the Muslim Quarter for lunch. Excellent fried rice, some chuarn, and wou la tang, which, if I got the name right (not likely), is like thick Coca Cola without the carbination.

Then we walked back to the hostel, because they also had to leave by 3, leaving me again alone. Which allowed me to pursue one spot in the city to which I figured no one would want to accompany me: the beginning point of the Silk Road. I am glad no one was with me, too, because after no taxis emerged, I ended up on the back of some Chinese dude’s moped flying through the outskirts of town. He didn’t know where the place was, either; we even passed it and he had to double back. I don’t know if the dude was a moped taxi or even a person whose occupation is to give rides to people; he may have just seen me trying to negotiate with one of the tri-ped drivers and thought, “I’m not doing anything productive right now; if this stupid-hat-wearin’ waiguoren will pay me to take him somewhere, I’m down.” And I did pay him, and he did take me. Done deal.

I realize that these big statues were probably not where people gathered and decided, “Alright, sons, this is where the Silk Road starts. Count it!” But I like to think that this street was once of more importance than it is now.

Here are more camels commemorating the origin of the northern route of the Silk Road in Xi’an at large.

I scooted back to the city’s center soon after that to hang out with this Chinese couch surfin’ couple who took me on a delicious tour of food through the previously-enjoyed Muslim Quarter. First we had dumplings and this sandwich deal that was like a pulled pork sandwich, except that it was…let’s see…forty-five times better. Then we had some sweet (literally) cookies on the street, and then rou jia mo, which is this porridge composed of bread and lamb, and then some cold noodles. It. Was. Delicious. And cool to spend some time with some locals.

Day the Fourth saw the accomplishment of an important goal I had on the trip: walk the city wall. I went up to the top of the wall at the south gate, headed east, and didn’t stop until I’d gone the entire freakin’ 13.7 kilometers (that's 8.5 miles, people). Except for when I had to relieve myself of the previous evening’s food and a couple pages of notebook paper in an inadequately-supplied bathroom on the wall. Other notes: a) there were some mad Chinese New Year decorations going up on the top of the wall b) there was basically no one else up on the wall c) it was very smoggy again d) I wish I could have rented a bike and done this route…in the spring.

Break: the wall was originally put up in 194 B.C., although it took four years to build. This first wall was a lot huger. Then the Ming Dynasty built a new wall in 1370 because the old one didn't meet the requirements of the city's fire chief. Thus, the new, smaller one.

I did make it, though. Boo-yah. After descending and take a quick breather at the hostel, I made for my next destination: the Great Mosque, another indicator of Middle Eastern influence. It surely did not look like what the mosques I had seen previously looked like; if I didn’t know better, or if there hadn’t been Arabic everywhere, or if the prayer hall hadn’t occupied the west end of the mosque, I’d have assumed I was just in another temple in Beijing.

I perused around, trying to be quiet and to not look American and to catch the eye of any of the many cats that were also perusing the area. It was a pretty chill place, although as 5 o’clock grew nearer and nearer, more and more people starting showing up to pray, so, when the call to prayer sounded out, I decided it was time to beat it.

Back to the hostel, then to meet up with more couch surfers, a native Xi’an woman and a dude from Australia who was studying in the city. We (read: I) gorged ourselves on hot pot and then relocated to some crappy bar to see in the new year. I ruminated on the irony of this, since my New Year’s resolution is to not drink any beer in 2012, and at 12:05 we parted ways. Not as cool as last year, when my mom and I went with Dawna, Jordan, and Gordon sisters to Jong-ro to see a huge bell get rung, nor was it as cool as the year before, when I watched fireworks turn the city of Manila into a missile testing zone with the Caldwells, nor was it as cool as the years before that at Wade and Justin’s cabin up in the woods of northern Wisconsin, playing hockey and charades and enjoying the best people in the world. But it wasn’t bad.

Day the Fifth, my last day in Xi’an, was the most polluted of them all. You couldn’t see jack, and every smart person in the city marked himself or herself by wearing a face mask. It was super gross. But, since I live in Beijing, I was not fazed. I headed over to the Bell Tower, which my Lonely Planet proclaimed to be Xi’an’s most easily recognized landmark (see night shot below). It sits in the middle of the city, large and intimidating, but when I was there, the hoss was completely inaccessible due to some sort of construction. Thus, I never went into Xi’an’s most recognizable landmark, nor did I feel particularly inclined to venture up its sister attraction, the Drum Tower, a few blocks away. They seemed pretty predictable, sittin’ there in the center around the glitz and glamor of the surrounding malls and lights. I’d seen enough of ‘em, so I didn't fret.

Instead! I headed out to the Tang Paradise, which was way out past the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. The subway was my transport; it was quite nice, and I felt pretty sweet getting my ticket successfully next to a crew of locals who were perplexed as to how to obtain theirs. The subway is new to Xi’an, it seems. The Lonely Planet doesn’t even have it listed. Boom.

Tang Dynasty! They built a paradise! I went there! It was incredibly foggy there, as well, which was pretty annoying most of the time but also created a somewhat mysterious atmosphere. Nonetheless, I think the place would be way cooler in the spring.

My favorite spot was the Valley of the Poets. Again, I could not understand any of what was written, but I liked the setup and the care given to the great literary minds of the past.

As I got to the enormous structure that lay not quite hidden in the smog on the south shore of the joint, a big dance show started. Some of it was cheesy and not worth describing, some was what one would expect in China – dragon costumes and such, and some was pretty cool, like this herd of young boys performing martial arts moves. It was sweet. The climax was a dance sequence by a bunch of kids dressed up as Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Na'vi, Shrek, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the killer from “Scream,” and some other costumes I could not recognize.

The show ended, and I went onward, slowly making my way back to the hostel, stopping only to make completely sure that the Bell Tower was not available for examination. Around 7 I met up with one last couch surfer for one last trip to the Muslim Quarter for one more meal there. Baozi. So good. And good company, too. No couch surfing hosting, but plenty of people willing to hang out in Xi’an.

The next morning I got up at 4:45 a.m., took a bus to the airport, and flew away to Bangkok, to meet up with Mr. David Emmert, and to experience the next leg of the journey. I enjoyed Xi’an, I guess. I’d planned five days with the hopes of getting out of the city and climbing Huashan, which lies a few hours away, but upon further investigation, scaling that peak was an impossible task at that time of year. Which means, perhaps, a return trip to that part of the world.

I can’t say I liked everything about Xi’an, though. It is a super old city, but commercialism and tourist crap has taken over the middle parts, so there is a nasty contrast between the center of the city and the more normal, less ritzy outer parts. The encroachment of Western civilization. Hmm.

The stay in the hostel was a key component of my time there, a trend that continued throughout the winter holiday trek. I went in preferring to crash with couch surfers, but everyone was traveling or booked, and I went to Shuyuan not knowing what to expect. There were people to hang out with there, and it proved to be a great base for travelers, as the hostel offered tours, transportation options, and contacts to so many different places and activities. And it was cheap (40 元 a night…about $6 or $7).

A good start to the trip, but I was super ready to collaborate with Dave in Bangkok by the time I had to leave Xi'an. Traveling alone…another issue for discussion and processing.

To be continued...

Hats Off

2012-01-21T16:35:00.000-08:00

If I were a credible author of some sort, and I was Hindu, this post would be written in a deep and serious manner; it would be a metaphor for reincarnation and would express beliefs that I had about the world around me and the world not around me. As it is, I am some ex-pat with a beard and a Bible, so, in reality, this post will be composed in a shallow and whimsical manner; it will be a literal account of events that happened that really don’t mean anything important, except that: I am not very good at not losing baseball caps.

At some point earlier in my life, perhaps as early as the summer of 2003, my junior year of high school, I acquired a Minnesota Twins baseball hat. It was white; on the front was the red “M” that is a common logo for the Twinkies. On the back it said “Twins.” The hat was not fitted. Nor was it a commonly-seen hat in the Midwest, so I liked it for how distinct it was. My father did not like it as much, as his main interaction with it was taking it from me and putting it in the dish washer; “Why white, Reub? It shows sweat so easily.” He was right.

During the summer of 2004, I went on my high school’s Spanish trip to Mexico. Naturally, I brought my Twins hat with me; I knew that the sun was a dangerous threat in that country, so I brought protection for my head. The trip was a smashing success until one fatal happenstance occurred. One night, late in the trip, many of us students and some of the chaperons were playing cards at a table next to the pool at the hotel we were staying at that evening. At some point, someone aimed some insulting phrase about me, so I threw my white Minnesota Twins cap at them. However – not in Minnesota Twins fashion – the throw was way off, and the hat careened over the shoulder of the insulter into the bushes…never to be seen again.

I did not think about the hat immediately after I threw it, perhaps because a bit later Nasty Nate pushed Naked Jon into the pool – clothes and travelers checks and all; he was unfortunately not naked at that time – and enormous chaos ensued, so I was preoccupied with that and did not realize my cap was AWOL until we were ready to leave the next morning. I searched the bushes without any results, but I had no choice but to leave. It is my only hope that somewhere in Mexico, some old geezer or large child or lucky housekeeping lady is sporting that Twins hat proudly. Maybe he or she has even written a blog post about it, a twisted doppelganger to this one.

I, however, needed a new hat. Especially because I was moving to Bethel mere days after returning from the Mexico trip. So my mom and I went to Lids or some place in the Empire Mall in Sioux Falls and scored a new one. Boom. This second Twins hat was navy blue ‘round the sides and white on the front, where the famous “TC” – another commonly-employed logo of the Twins – lay. The bill was blue. The cap said “Collector’s Choice” on the back. It was a good hat.

This second cap served me well during my freshmen year at Bethel University, where I think I went only three days without a hat all year. When the school year was over, I took a position with the Rock Rapids Municipal Utilities in my hometown, along with the aforementioned Nasty Nate. This is where disaster struck.

Nasty and I were working on a landscaping project near the Rock Rapids swimming pool. We basically had to dig out all the earth that surrounded an electrical box that lay on the boulevard between a parking lot and the street (intriguing, I know). The work was hard, the summer was hot, and during one of the grueling afternoons that we slaved away out there, I removed the second Minnesota Twins cap and placed it on the ground…never to be seen again.

Again, it was not until later that I realized my head was naked and bare. Nasty and I revisited the work site, but to no avail: the hat was gone. The same feelings of grief and annoyance again rolled over me. I pondered as to whether this would be a recurring theme in my life, this inability to hang on to something so important and so vital.

I need to add a brief and tantalizing anecdote that sets this chapter of the saga apart from the others. There was a moment at which I thought Lost Cap the Second could be recovered. Nasty and I were driving in one of the big white pickup trucks that the utilities company foolishly let us drive when suddenly we passed a kid on bike. Both of us look at the boy a bit longer than one usually looks at boys on bikes – because he was wearing the same hat that I’d lost a few weeks back! We passed him, but I slammed on the breaks and threw the vehicle in reverse (not the only time I threw one of the utilities vehicles in reverse, but that is a story for another time and another place) to pursue the innocent young biker. We pulled up to him and I gruffly yelled, “Hey! Where did you get that hat?” The befuddled youth said, “Uh, my dad got it for me.” I was not satisfied with this answer, so I said, “Well, where did he get it?” The boy said, “I don’t know.” I stared at the kid a moment longer, sighed, and drove on. Nasty shook his head and said nothing. The mystery remains unsolved: did that whippersnapper have my cap? Could I blame him for not wanting to give it back? Who knows.

Obviously, I went and purchased yet another Twins cap. This one was the most normal of the three thus far; it was simply a blue hat with the red “M” on it…a very common design. Somehow, I managed to hang onto this one for almost five years, through my sophomore, junior, and senior years of college, a wild summer in Sault Ste. Marie in Michigan, an autumn in north Minneapolis, and a year between Seoul and Niagara Falls. The color faded after a while, but the hat was a winner for quite a while.

I promise that this is my butt and my hat, not some other guy's butt and some other guy's hat.

And then, of course, the bliss came to a crashing halt one night in Hongdae, where many good things come to crashing halts.

It was the first night of the Lunar New Year break, a Thursday. A crew of us – Mr. Mark Nola, J.J., Elizabeth, her friend Jennifer, and myself – assembled ourselves and shipped out to the Hongik University area to cut as many rugs as possible. How distinctly I remember! We found a place with music and space that suited our interests – NB1 – and got crazy. Really crazy. So crazy that I had to remove my flannel and sweatshirt to reveal my sweat-soaked gray t-shirt and – and – put to the side my faithful Minnesota Twins baseball hat. Such was the intensity level of the evening. The club was not very crowded, so I simply placed the flannel/sweatshirt combo under some stairs and placed my hat underneath the shirts, but…it was never to be seen again.

When we decided to leave, the flannel and the sweatshirt – thank the Lord – were still there…it was snowing when we left. But the hat was gone. Which means someone deliberately took it. I can only hope some Korean college kid is dancing somewhere with it on right now, enjoying the same disinterest from the ladies that I enjoyed while in possession of Lost Cap the Third.

Here we are; notice the lack of hat on my head:

Then there were a few dry months, but, miraculously, the good Judith Brummer happened to be heading back to the Twin Cities area from Seoul, and she benevolently purchased a hat for my lonesome skull and brought it back. This fourth hat, another blue-ish one with the “TC” on the front, was sort of like those jeans that have holes and are faded already; the style of this hat was such that it looked like it had been worn many years by someone. Consequently, it suited me perfectly, because I had worn a Twins hat for many years.

This fourth Twinkies hat lasted through the summer and through another year in Seoul before coming with me to China, to Beijing, to BWYA. Perhaps by this point in the tale, the reader can tell where the plot is heading. Yes, it’s true: a Communist guard took my Minnesota Twins cap at gunpoint when I was seized for being a democratic American reading a banned book, blogging, and proselytizing on the streets of Wangjing!

Just kidding. Here is what happened. I supervise a baseball club on Wednesday afternoons, during fifth block. Maybe a quarter of the students had baseball caps, so I made a point to yell at them to – among other things – find baseball hats to wear to club. One day, one of the aspiring young players asked if he could wear my beloved Twins cap (I think he was actually going to use it as a mitt, because he didn’t have one of those, either). I decided to let him, but first I told him to repeat after me.

“I swear,” I said.

“I swear,” he repeated.

“To take care of this hat,” I continued.

“To take care of this hat,” he said wearily.

“With. My. Life,” I finished.

“Withmylifeokay give me that I have to go play.”

We had our practice, we got back on the bus, and we drove back to school. As I sat in my classroom later, I realized that my Twins hat, the fourth one I’d had in as many two-year blocks, was still with that boy. I sighed, knowing that search though I may, I would not be able to regain the cap. I knew it was fruitless because history told me so; all my other efforts at finding my lots head coverings had been in vain. And it was so: I questioned the pipsqueak and he had some excuse about giving it to someone else to give to me. I used that excuse once, too. When I was smuggling cocaine in South America.

Here is me, playing baseball with no baseball cap! An outrage:

So. This was how I entered the 2011 Christmas season (theme for the year: "A Beard Is a Terrible Thing to Waste"): hatless. Sin sombrero. 没有帽子. 모자 없어. ניט האַץ. أي القبعات. ไม่มีหมวก. 帽子のない. કોઈ ટોપીઓ. However, I did not see the E8B homeroom Christmas party coming.

There we were. The lights were a-flashing, the music was a-blasting, the balloons were a-flying, the cookies were a-plenty, and there were Secret Santa gifts being flung to the left and to the right. Suddenly a present was being thrust into my hands. In spite of all my Grandma Schoon had taught me, I violently freed the gift from its prison of wrapping paper and beheld what I'd received in my shaking hands:

What a champ! If I'd have been a Taiwanese eight grade student who'd drawn his bearded American homeroom/English teacher's name in a Secret Santa event, I'd be at a complete loss. But this dude completely rose up to the challenge. Completely!

But there's more! Amazingly, there was something else I did not see coming. I probably could have seen this one coming had I not been distracted by all my classes, speech and debate night, two impending Christmas parties, Secret Santa among the teachers, being Santa at the December Talent Show, administering tests in all kinds of classes, grading piles of paper as high as the building across from mine, waking up at 4:30 every morning and not being able to get back to sleep, figuring out a gift for our aiyi, mailing stuff, the impending 2012 global destruction crises, and the Iowa caucuses, but, nonetheless, when I did get hit with this second blessing, I was grateful.

The week of the aforementioned Christmas party, a box of enormous proportions appeared up at the school. A box...for me. For Christmas. It was enormous. I held off on ripping the box loose from its shackles of grocery bag packaging until Christmas Eve in Beijing/December 23rd in Iowa, when my family and I were as one via Skype. Eagerly I opened the gifts the fam had sent me until one present leaped out of its box and onto me with vigor that far surpassed that of the other gifts: a mail order bride! How thoughtful!

Just kidding. The gift was a Twins hat, and a good 'un at that:

Two hats! Is it a happy ending? Is it an ending at all? Who can say? Perhaps this post should wait to be published in its entirety until I am about to die (experts' prediction: soon), until I have lost and regained even more Twins hats. Perhaps. But, alas, up it goes. I will keep close track of these caps, these hats, these symbols of love for the Minnesota Twins. Keep me accountable, check up on them, pray for the prosperity of the caps. Hopefully they can fare better than the Twins themselves have been.

Operation Golden Dragon, Pt. 3

2012-01-16T17:15:00.001-08:00

The following account details experiences that, though due in no part at all to my own efforts, I believe to be possible only in the country I am currently in. Table of contents: (1) hike (2) temple (3) hike (4) temple.

(1) Fragrant Hills

Yes, the Fragrant Hills, a series of small mountains near Beijing that emit the pleasant aromas of bacon, Chanel No. 5, oranges, recent rain, Febreeze, vanilla, a bonfire, pine, an old book that hasn't been opened in a long time, sweet grass, baking bread, meat grilling, newly-cut grass, the ocean, burning leaves, and a new baseball glove. Great place.

Just kidding. The Fragrant Hills are these hills northwest of the city that lie in a park and are enjoyable to climb. Boom. According to Wikipedia, the name comes from the name of the highest hill in said park: Incense Burner Peak. According to Judy, with whom I went, there's not a great translation for the park's name into English, so don't worry about.

Saturday morning! October 29! We left Wangjing and took an unimaginably crowded bus to our destination. After an hour or so of riding, we arrived, purchased supplies for lunch, and perused around the lower-lying regions of the park before beginning the main climbing assault on the hills.

Then the ascent began. It was not overly difficult physically, but there were tons and tons of people everywhere, all going at a different pace, so we had to take care not to run anyone down or get run down by anyone. Worth noting (which is one letter away from saying "worth nothing"): there was a chairlift, like what you'd take at a ski resort, but we did not - I repeat - did not even talk about taking it up except to make fun of those who did.

The air was typically not clear, but it was a sunny day nonetheless, and it was cool to get out and hike the stairs. We did finally reach the top after an hour or two. The crest of the mountain was packed with folks like us (and folks far weaker than us who took the chair lift up); finding a spot to sit and munch lunch was difficult.

We ate and went around to the other strategic, scenic places on the tops of the hills. I brought my Iowa flag with me. I have often thought that it would have been cool (or something) to have hauled my state's colors around everywhere with me and take a picture at each location, whether it be in other states, where I could get beat up, or in South Korea or Japan, or Laos or the Philippines, or in Spain, or wherever else I end up going. But, alas, it is too late. Unless, perhaps, the Secretary of State in Iowa wants to fund some sort of awareness/promotion project? I remember having many a conversation with the Iowa SOS office staff in 2008 over a background check/Apostille stamp. Maybe they remember me. Anyway.

Then we decided to make a tree and leave, which proved way harder than one would think. It was a human traffic jam on the way down. There were long stretches of time during which nobody moved. Long! But eventually we reached sea level again and followed the scads of people out of the park, to the bus station, across the entire metropolitan area, and back to Wangjing, where all is safe and warm!

*Note: many of these pictures have been stolen. Stolen! Just so you know. I know that if a person were to rob a bank and then give a disclaimer every time he (women don't steal from banks) spent any of the money, he'd still get arrested. To which I reply: neener, neener, neener.

(2) Yonghegong Lama Temple

Is this the most famous temple in Beijing? Perhaps it is not as well-known as the Temple of Heaven, or the Temple of Hell. But it does have its own subway station on Line 2. You can be the judge. Whatever the verdict, Dawna and I went to this establishment, the name of which, Wikipedia tells us, means "Palace of Peace and Harmony" (I think) on the first Saturday in November of this fine year, 2011.

There is not a ton to tell about Yonghegong Lama Temple. This photo shoot began with a new camera that my mom had sent me a week earlier, so that is fun. The leaves on the trees were beautiful, so that is fun. The weather was gray and overcast, which is also fun. We were not allowed to take pictures in the buildings in the temple - not fun - but there was one statue in the final structure that was four floors high. Huge! And there were Chinese people everywhere putting the aroma of incense into the air, tourists everywhere taking pictures and trying to not to get in the way, and grim-looking stone images everywhere enjoying all the attention they were getting.

Yeah. Check it off the long list of places to go.

(3) Dragon Cloud Hike

Saturday, November 19. It was a cloudless, smogless day in the Beijing area. An obvious activity for the day would be a hike. Not being ones to miss the obvious, Dan and I joined an entourage of other hikers to scale Dragon Cloud Mountain with the Beijing Hikers Club.

Our bus left the Lidu Starbucks at 8:30 and sped two hours or so out into the wilderness, where we were deposited under the autumnal sun to climb. The hike through the hills - I hesitate to call anything that we went up a mountain - was not too hard. We had a group of twenty-five or so, and the hiking guides let us take our time as we came up, explored the "ghost house" that was situated on one of the cliffs, and took many a photo.

After a while the crew retraced its steps down and walked a trail that followed a cold, cold river for a while. The trail went through a fake cave that was filled with fake rocks. Also, apparently the hiking group sometimes wades through the river to the other side and cuts several seconds off the hike back, but! It was too cold when we went, so we walked back.

Regrets: that I didn't do this earlier when the fall colors would have been in full force. That I didn't do this over the National Holiday break, a spread of five days during which I didn't really do anything except read. That I didn't take down the contact info of some of the other hikers, some of whom had information on cheaper (this one cost 330 RMB), harder hiking, some of whom were fun to talk to and had interesting stories to tell, and some of whom were...what's the right word? Ah, yes: sexy.

But! I was with Dan, we went on a gorgeous day, and we had a good time. Count it.

(4) White Cloud Temple

On the second Saturday in November, Dawna convinced me to go to another temple because she hadn't gotten enough at Yonghegong. The temple 'o choice this time was White Cloud Temple, which was somewhere southwest of the city center. It took a little while to get out there, but when we finally did locate it, oh, the adventures that awaited us!

The temple was located in some quiet neighborhood where you would not suspect there to be much; it was across the street from some super ritzy art center. We weren't even sure we could go in, but the guard greeted us with a friendly "hello," so we forged onward.

There were two parts to the WCT, in my mind: "The Toss" and then everything else. The first thing visitors to the temple encounter upon entrance is this pit with a big over-sized bronze coin that has a bell embedded in the middle of it; I am sure this has some religious significance to the Taoists who built the ol' place, but it escapes me now. This is "The Toss." For 10 RMB you get fifty little bronze coins (which is far too many) to throw at the huge one that is in the pit. Thus, "The Toss." Hitting the small bell in the middle of the big bronze disc denotes good luck, so Dawna and I should be set for the next thirty months because we absolutely nailed that thing.

The bronze disc and the bell that we ravaged with our bronze coins:

Me ravaging the bronze disc and the bell with a bronze coin:

Me celebrating the ravage of the bronze disc and the bell via bronze coin:

Dawna ravaging the bronze disc and the bell with a bronze coin:

Some locals wishing it were as easy to ravage the bronze disc and the bell with bronze coins for them as it was for us:

Then there the second part, the other stuff, the activities that were not super engaging if you weren't there to burn incense and bow down. That stuff was okay, but let's be real: none of it was nearly as cool as "The Toss." There were some interesting architecture, some cool engravings, the expected graven images, the smell of incense, but no surprises as pleasant as the bronze bell toss.

So, after we got to the back, we turned around and left. Some dude read my palm outside and said it was hen hao, so I gave him 5 RMB. Then we left to enjoy our good luck.

One Semester Down

2012-01-05T04:58:00.001-08:00

The first semester at BWYA has come to a close. As an educator, I find myself measuring my life in the segments of the school year, so this first chapter of my time in Beijing has been completed, at least in my mind.

I can't say that I am satisfied as I look back on the fall. There were tons of positives: great friendships were formed and maintained, meals and laughter were shared, learning happened, events came and went, and time passed. But as I think back in search of defining moments in the past four months, there are not that many.

Perhaps one reason that this is true is that last spring - my nearest time frame for comparison - was incredible. The people I was with - Mark Nola; the students and staff of CCS; "The Crew": Kara, Heidi, Ashley, Duncan, Anna, Ben - were sensational. We had adventures. We went and did things, or we made what we had to do insanely fun, or [usually] both. One slang word that was floating around a lot was "epic"; like when my board marker rolled off my podium and onto the floor, and Josh would yell, "Haha! Epic fail!" Though it does not do that failure justice, I would apply the word "epic" to those months of my life. Lots of laughter, lots of memories, and hard competition for a spot in my heart, apparently.

It is a stupid idea to judge this season of life against the last one, especially when considering that last spring was sort of the product of two years of investment in different people and in the school. In August, in Beijing, I was starting new and fresh, with hardly any foundation except that Dawna was here. If I think back to when I got to CCS and was swamped with work every night - as I seemed to be this fall - I didn't create too many "epic" memories then, either.

What I did do during that time was lay the groundwork for the next year and a half. In that time period - as in the one that just concluded with the end of school on Wednesday - I began various unique relationships, figured out what it took to work at that school, and experienced a variety of failures from which to learn, as well as worked my butt off. So perhaps what I should be thinking about is not how ho-hum I think the first semester was - because, really, it went quite well: I went on several trips, started new clubs, met some guys I hope are lifers, and taught really cool middle schoolers - but how all the things I started will blossom and grow and turn into more impactful elements of my life if I continue to invest in them.

There. I'm glad we had this talk.

Interview with a Christmas Addict

2011-12-23T17:11:00.000-08:00

Grinchy Host: So. It's that time of year again. Christmas. You have made it abundantly clear with your constant and obnoxious display of Santa hats and Christmas ties of all kinds that you love Christmas this year, haven't you?

Hopeless Christmas Addict: I hope so.

Grinchy Host: Okay then. So you came in wondering a great many things about Christmas in China, no doubt, no doubt. Tell us, then: have you discovered anything?

Hopeless Christmas Addict: Hmm. Even though there are Christmas lights and Christmas trees up all over the place, the Chinese population doesn't seem celebrate the season that much. The people I have talked to who don't work at my school don't get days off, nor do they do the whole gift-giving thing.

Grinchy Host: Well, you work at an international school...does this sentiment, or lack thereof, also reign supreme at Beijing World Youth Academy?

Hopeless Christmas Addict: Ha. No. We at the school forced Christmas on everyone within a ten-block radius. Maybe fifteen blocks, even.

Grinchy Host: How? What did you do, pray tell?

Hopeless Christmas Addict: Where to start? The best part of the celebration is a 39-day vacation between December and January. There's no way to top that.

Grinchy Host: I suppose not, I suppose not. But that has hardly begun, correct? What did you do before that? Did you make your students celebrate, those little wenches?

Hopeless Christmas Addict: Yeah, yeah, yeah we did. There was a homeroom decorating contest; the best-looking room received a pizza party. And you know how pizza goes over with kiddies. So we took a homeroom period or two to make the room look nice, and some kids stayed after school to gussy A403 up a bit, and, in the end, it looked pretty good, I have to say.

Grinchy Host: Spectacular! Top drawer! Did you win?

Hopeless Christmas Addict: You know, we didn't. We got second place. But I guess that means we still beat a lot of other homerooms.

Grinchy Host: Indeed, indeed. So that was the extent of your Christmas promotion with the youth?

Hopeless Christmas Addict: No, no, don't be absurd...why decorate a classroom if you are not going to have a party in it? We had a big Christmas bash on the Friday before school got out: Christmas music, presents, snacks, balloons...the whole nine yards. Jealous kids from other homerooms came by to peek their li'l noses in, even!

Grinchy Host: How nice! Your room must have been most bustling place in the building!

Hopeless Christmas Addict: No, no...actually, there was a massive dance party going on two doors down from us, and I peeked my own li'l nose in there and ended up dancing myself. But our party was solid, and we made a huge mess, and that is what is important.

Grinchy Host: Quite true, quite true. And that was the extent of your Christmas at school?

Hopeless Christmas Addict: Heck, no. There were a million other things, the main one being the December Talent Show. The whole school turned out for this momentous performance. It was so big we couldn't even have it at the school; everyone took a bus over the Heaven and Earth Theater in Dongzhimen, practiced all morning, and then cut loose all afternoon. Good times!

Grinchy Host: What sorts of performances do you mean?

Hopeless Christmas Addict: Mmm. There was a short play, various musical performances, and a vast array of dances.

Grinchy Host: Did you act, play, or dance?

Hopeless Christmas Addict: No, but I had to be Santa.

Grinchy Host: You are not fat and you are not jolly, though.

Hopeless Christmas Addict: I have a beard.

Grinchy Host: Indeed. So it sounds like everything you all did was for your students. How nice.

Hopeless Christmas Addict: Not entirely accurate. The teachers had a wicked good meal at some barbecue restaurant. Delicious and paid for.

Grinchy Host: So all the teachers just sat around eating all evening? How mundane!

Hopeless Christmas Addict: Not so, not so! There were gifts being literally thrown at people. I got some toilet paper.

Grinchy Host: Toilet paper being thrown at people. Well, I just don't know what to make of that. What kind of school is this?

Hopeless Christmas Addict: A very giving one. There were also gifts you'd never consider wiping your butt with, like the one my Secret Santa got me: a Lonely Planet guide book!

Grinchy Host: Stupendous! You are quite a lucky young chap. What did you buy for your Secret Santa victim?

Hopeless Christmas Addict: Soap.

Grinchy Host: So, another gift that one could consider wiping one's butt with. Well, that's very good 'n' all, but don't you think that you concentrated too much on school when you perhaps should have been focusing on your friends and family during this holiday season?

Hopeless Christmas Addict: I understand how you could see it that way, but: no. I had a Christmas party at my house.

Grinchy Host: (long pause). You?

Hopeless Christmas Addict: Yes.

Grinchy Host: But...you? You...you don't shower! And...you don't shave! And...you are thrifty! How could you have thrown a Christmas party?

Hopeless Christmas Addict: Some call it a miracle on Guangshun Beida Street.

Grinchy Host: Har har. Tell me, what did this so-called Christmas party entail?

Hopeless Christmas Addict: Well, we ate at this Korean restaurant across from my house first -

Grinchy Host: So you didn't even throw the party at your own house! You sick fiend.

Hopeless Christmas Addict: Wait, wait, wait. Then we went to my apartment and indulged in blueberry potato chips, chocolatey snacks, a white elephant gift giving, a visit from Santa Claus, and “Home Alone.”

Grinchy Host: Ah, “Home Alone.” You enjoy that movie a bit too much, don't you?

Hopeless Christmas Addict: I have watched it every year for the past five Christmases, and I will watch it next year, too.

Grinchy Host: Interesting. What gift did you receive at this allegedly “party”?

Hopeless Christmas Addict: This stuffed animal sheep thing. I don't really know what to do with it. But it is sort of cute.

Grinchy Host: Very good, very good indeed. Enjoy it. Now that all that is over, what exactly do you plan to do with the rest of your hideously long break?

Hopeless Christmas Addict: Date a different woman at a different restaurant every evening.

Grinchy Host: Good luck.

Hopeless Christmas Addict: Yeah, actually, I have a Skype date with my family on Saturday, a Christmas dinner on Sunday with another family from my school, and then on Tuesday I am leaving Beijing for a trek through some different parts of Asia.

Grinchy Host: Interesting! Very good! Well, I hope you have loads of fun, simply loads of fun, ol' boy! Thank you for chatting with me for a spell. And happy holidays!

Hopeless Christmas Addict: Yeah. Ho, ho, ho.

Operation Golden Dragon, Pt. 2

2011-12-21T02:35:00.000-08:00

The following account details experiences that, though due in no part at all to my own efforts, I believe to be possible only in the country I am currently in.

(1) Beidaihe

Back when the sun still shone pleasantly and warmly over northern China and the weather was kind to the land’s inhabitants, our school decided to treat its teachers to a trip out east to the coast, to Beihaihe and Shanhaiguan, where the Great Wall meets the Bohai Sea. A map is here. I didn't know about it, either.

There were perhaps twenty brave souls who decided to venture on this journey, I being one of them. We set out on Saturday morning, September 24th, and drove until we hit paydirt: some hotel next to the beach. The beach was probably the most normal beach I have ever seen (and I spent fifteen years in the land of ten thousand lakes). Here is Dan and I ankle-deep in the surf:

It was at that moment – when Dan and I rolled up the pants and none of the others in our group did – that I truly noticed how young and American Dan and I were compared to everyone else on the trip. Hmm. Anyway, we perused around it, walked here and there, and then go back on the bus and headed to some park further down the coast. There we were sort of scattered about when I walked by this fenced-in statue that was overrun with pigeons. I made the fatal error of letting my gaze rest there just a bit too long, sort of like when Hilary let her glance linger a bit too longer on Sunshine – and suddenly the enclosure’s overseer (what a job that must be) was coercing me into the trap, loading me with pigeon food, and stopping other tourists to laugh at me. No joke, there have to be at least a thousand pictures in existence of that ten-minute span of my life. Here are a couple:

After I cleaned the crap off myself (haha…just kidding)(I mean, I didn’t clean it off), we moved on and scaled some hill that looked out over the landscape. Now I was hoping that as we left the smog of Beijing, the air would be pristine and clear, but that was a silly thought; the atmospheric conditions were still not very good. Nonetheless, the view was pretty cool, and we bummed around the top of the hill for a spell. Boo-yah:

After said spell was over, our bus took us back to home base, where we ate at the same restaurant as what appeared to be some large wedding rehearsal dinner. The weddingers decided they wanted to celebrate via karaoke, so they did that while we ate our seafood cuisine, but then when a bunch of them left, so different members of our group ravaged the sparse English section of the karaoke’s song options. I know that somewhere there is a video of all the male tourists rockin’ out some Guns ‘n’ Roses song with an amused restaurant staff looking on. Boom.

The next morning our bus relocated us to Shanhaiguan, which had everything a good Chinese tourist spot should have. We walked around for a while, climbed a wall that could have been the Great Wall, saw a camel, and then walked back to the bus. Here are the places we were:

But the day was not over. No. The bus spilled us out at the easternmost point of the Great Wall, right where it meets the waters of the Bohai Sea. This was also a pretty touristy stop, but it was cool nonetheless:

Then we ate some food and got back on the bus and drove back to Beijing. It was a decent time, though other than Yitao and I, and perhaps the trip organizer, our HR chieftain, everyone on the excursion was in some sort of romantic relationship with someone else on the excursion. Other than that, a fine trip, a fine trip indeed.

(2) Jingshan Park

Beijing is a big square. In the middle of the big square is all the important crap: Tiananmen Triangle, The Super Accessible City, etc. Just north of The Super Accessible City, overlooking its north entrance, is a hilly park known as Jingshan. Each of the tens of thousands times (read: two, but two times is like going through any other palace complex ten thousand times) I have been at the Forbidden City, I have exited and seen Jingshan Park and thought to myself, “I want that.” So on the first of October or so, Dawna and I climbed the hill and owned it. A few days later, I stupidly hadn’t planned to go anywhere for the National Holiday, so as I sat idly around my apartment, I made this video. I do not claim it to be of a high quality, and maybe it will not even load for you; such is my faith in the tech involved. Meh:

Three sidenotes: (1) "I do not in any way own any rights to the song in this video." (2) I don’t know what is going on in America right now, but said song in said video is hot here among the youth. I would not mention this except I had this song when it came out on “Sorry for Party Rocking” in June, months ago, and I could have told you it was, well, a song that was going to be a hit (I hesitate to praise the song itself). It’s one of those. (3) At Beijing No. 94, I was asking fools where I should go in Beijing to enjoy the city, and some girl said that I should go to Jingshan Park and watch the sun set there, and I think I need to. Cause it’s a great idea.

(3) Chongwenmen

South of the city’s current center lies the remains of the wall that surrounded the inner city of Beijing quite a long spell ago. The wall is not overly impressive, but there is a nice tract of land next to it, and it makes for a nice li’l walk. I conquered said walk back over the previously mentioned National Holiday, which was between October 1st and 5th. A relaxing time.

At the eastern end is a small museum that provides info on the wall, its history, and some art. There were also some people there flying kites insanely high, which happens here. There was also some super cute woman there with her dad, a statement by which you can judge the excitement level on this excursion.

Nonetheless, the walk was, based on my poor math skills, at least six or seven times better than sitting in my apartment doing nothing.

(4) Yuan Dynasty Relics Park

Another dreary day of National Holiday nothingness found me walking from Shaoyaoju Station on Line 13 all the way to Beitucheng Station on Line 10, which is approximately four kilometers. The “park,” as my tourist map indicated, was this long strip of green running east-west through northeastern Beijing. There were not a ton of relics, as the name suggested there would be, but there was either plenty to look at or calm nothingness to enjoy.

One thing that I have loved about Beijing has been the canals enveloped by willows. There’s been no equivalent in my life to date. Maybe it’s the water. Maybe it’s the green in the otherwise-drab concrete landscape. Maybe I should get a job on a ship or protecting the Amazon rain forest. But, at any rate, I enjoy walking along these watery paths.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

2011-12-08T05:19:00.000-08:00

Last Friday morning, December 2nd, I got up and stumbled out of my apartment around 7:15 a.m. As I groggily entered the elevator to go down and head to school, my phone buzzed. "Who on earth is texting me right now?" I thought to myself. I looked at the small Nokia screen. The message was from Dawna. It read, "Snow!! The start of a good day!"

Suddenly all fatigue left me. My heart leaped up in its case of tissue and bone. I frantically tried to find a Christmas song on my iShuffle. I exited the building and saw dusty white falling from the sky, dusty white that continued falling gently all morning and into the early afternoon.

Let's be honest: compared to the way it falls in Iowa and Minnesota, the snow that landed on Beijing on Friday was pretty dang weak. However, every time I've asked more experienced Beijing residents about how much snow we'd get this winter, they'd replied skeptically: "Not much, if any." So! This initial snowfall - a smidge of which remains in just the right places - lifted my heart from the depths. The last three winters that I've staggered through have been bitterly cold but have lacked that constant blanket of white everywhere, that beautiful sheet that takes the bite off just a little. Thus, the snow on Friday was warmly welcomed by me and my camera. Here are some pictures of what happened. I know they are far from epic, but they are what they are.

From my homeroom classroom's window:

Near B-Dubs:

On the way to Chuar Friday lunch:

On the way back from Chuar Friday lunch:

Dan enjoying the snow:

Bits and Pieces: September, October, and November Edition

2011-12-02T15:41:00.000-08:00

*DISCLAIMER*

The following is reminiscent of the stories and anecdotes I think I tell quite frequently. You may recognize similarities between this post and my reports on the day if you've had the misfortune to have hung out with me before. By that I mean that most of them are funny in context, to me, and I feel obligated to try to share them, but I know that most of them probably aren't actually humorous to anyone except me, and maybe other teachers, because they are almost exclusively from the writing and/or mouths of students.

*We did a Venn diagram in class, and then months later I happened to see the Venn from one kid's notebook, and it was labeled "Venn Death Gram."

*From some paper about the book "Hatchet": "We know that the shelter Brian made is sound and safe, so beasts cannot attack him while he is sleeping."

*From some paper about what the kid did last summer: "We reached Thailand, we had dinner, we ate marine products."

*A student-generated question for a speaking activity (I felt bad for the kid who got this question and had to answer it): "My boyfriend leave me and find another boy. What should I do?"

*Miss April and I were going to model how to do impromptu speeches, so we had the students generate topics for us to speak on. Two stuck out well enough that I kept them and have them on my lap while I write this. One slip of paper says, predictably, "Mr. Haggar is disgusting." Most of them were like that, ripping on the school or on the teachers or on other students, or at least were related to things that everyone could relate to, but the other tickled my fancy more, so I will keep it longer than I will keep the one that says "Mr. Haggar is disgusting." The second paper says, "Disney characters should be hunted down."

*I e-mailed one class an assignment and told them to e-mail it back to me completed (go green!)(no, no...I just didn't have time to print the assignment out). One student finished it and e-mailed it to me. I checked it, as I did hundreds of others, and wrote back, "Great job, you got them all right. Keep it up!" She e-mailed me back: "Yo, you r not bad too. You don't have spelling and grammar mistake in questions. Well done, continue. good night, cya tomorrow."

*The last question on a reading exam earlier in the year asked for two words that could best be used to describe the main character. One student wrote: "Nice! Good! Perfect! No words can describe him!"

*I was walking along and ran into one of my students whose English level is quite low, and I said, "Hey, dude. Uh, tell me somethin' good." He paused briefly and then said excitedly, "Teacher, you are young. You can enjoy your life!" And then we parted ways.

*The students write journal entries at the beginning of every class period. I usually give them a topic. Here are a few of the topics and some of the lines that struck me as memorable.

1. What are you really, really, ridiculously good at?
a) I am good at late.
b) The thing that I am really, really, really ridiculously great at is staying on my bed.
c) I think I’m very good at cheating. I’m very success to being a cheater, too, because I never fail to cheat, the teacher never know how I cheat and when I cheat.
d) Yoyo.
e) I’m awesome at slapping people with pizzas.
f) I am really good at getting to sleep fastly.
g) I’m good at getting girls’ phone number.

2. What do you suck at?
a) I’m terrible at singing sounds.
b) I am terrible at doing “rock, paper, scissors.”
c) I’m bad at chewing things.

3. How do you want to die?
a) I want to be killed by atom bomb.
b) I would like to die by the women’s hug.

4. Write a story that starts like this: It was a dark and stormy night. Thunder crashed, and lightning lit up the sky. Martha shuddered at what she saw.
a) Mr. O’Day!***
b) Her tea was gone cold and she was wondering why she got out of the bed. The morning cloud took her window. She can't see at all. Even though she could, it would all be gray. But her mom's picture on the wall, reminds her it's not so bad.
(Then he also wrote this: A gangster comes in and points a gun toward her. Boom! Martha was gone cold.)

5. Dogs or cats. Please explain.
a) While a dog is trying to comfort its owner’s sorrows, a cat is just lazily laying on the sofa, thinking how it could make itself more comfortable.

6. Free topic:
a) "Dear God, I heard Mr. Haggar is going on a big date tonight with his friends. Please help Mr. Haggar to get a pretty and kind girlfriend. And please let him not to get kicked by the girl who Mr. Haggar likes, when Mr. Haggar asks her to go out. Dear God, Mr. Haggar is a humorous and well teaching teacher, therefore help him out, we pray in Jesus' name, amen."

*This is a pizza that (from right) Luke, Dan, Dave, and Dawna (and Anna, Dan's fiance)(and I) consumed. Kro's Pizza. Get to know 'em:

*This is the table at Kro's Pizza after we got done eating. Boo-yah.

*This is my front door, complete with the Minnesota Twins "Do Not Disturb" sign that my mom sent me for my birthday. Sadly, it was stolen a few days later. I cannot fathom a reason why anyone in my apartment building would have taken it.

*Here is a picture of a clear day from my apartment:

Here are some pictures of a smoggy day from my apartment:

*And here are two pictures of the street near my home around 9 p.m. Some call the lights "tacky," some call the whole thing "light pollution," but, somehow, I like 'em:

***BWYA's most notorious principal

Yes Shave December

2011-11-30T01:10:00.001-08:00

Beggar.

Prisoner.

Barbarian.

Goat.

Lamb.

What do these words all have in common?

If you answered, "These are all people/farm animals your brother Michael has tried to date," you are close, but not as close as if you answered, "These are all things that your students have called you since November 1st, when No Shave November began." Day after day, I have been under assault in far less clever ways, whether it be from students in an eighth grade English class, from other teachers who see an easy conversation starter, or from women pointedly looking the other way on the street (or maybe I am thinking of October. And September. And August.).

Despite the attacks, No Shave November has been a success at BWYA. At least to some degree...I haven't seen any kids really going crazy with it. But in addition to the handful of rugged male teachers who have always had beards ("No Shave Life"), I can think of at least six other teachers who have consistently not touched a razor to their cheeks and two who have been off and on all month. Even a visiting pastor who came to B-Dubs to talk to some class remarked to Miss April, "There sure are a lot of teachers who have beards at your school!"

That makes me proud. Proud to have a beard this month. And it has been fun. But now the time for decisions to be made is here. Obviously, "To shave or not to shave," that truly is the question (or, as some seventh grad English class would tell is, "To have a girlfriend or not to have a girlfriend"). I have to admit, the reasons I have given to kids who have asked, "Why No Shave November?" have been legitimate ones. One is that I get three extra minutes in the morning when I could be shaving. Another is that I'm warmer with it on. A third and more extravagant reason - one that usually ends with me yelling and pounding on a desk like a caveman - is that for eleven months, we men are kept at bay from being who we really are: hairy animals that eat raw meat [and that grow beards]. But, really, most of all, I just like having a beard.

Tonight as I was leaving the school, a student I hadn't seen in a while stopped me and commanded, "Mr. Haggar, shave your beard." I scoffed and said, "It's still November! No Shave November!" To which he replied, "Yes Shave December!" I laughed. Decision-making time is here indeed. We'll see what happens, I guess. But to that tiny Korean girl in E8B - God bless her little heart - who stopped me one day, put her hand on my arm, and with all the sincerity in the world said, "Mr. Haggar...please shave your beard"...don't get your hopes up.

Here's what we're dealing with on the eve of Yes Shave December:

No Rest for the Weary

2011-11-19T17:06:00.000-08:00

Here is some school-related crap that has kept me busy in the past two months or so:

1. BWYA Basketball Tournament

Mr. Clem, the basketball coach at my school, organized this tournament on the eighth of October. It was held on a gusty, sunny day on our school’s courts and was attended by St. Paul American High School and some French school. I went to watch but was invited to referee each of the four games that took place throughout the course of the afternoon. St. Paul American won, B-Dubs got second, and the French school came in eighth or ninth. I liked how this latter team played the most, though; they avoided contact at all costs, so I had few to no fouls to call. It was a good time; there were a handful of students and some teachers who came out to cheer on the crew. I would love to ref again next year and am already accepting bribes; coaches, e-mail me.

2. Sports Day

The school - both student body and staff - was divided up into four houses (Earth, Air, Fire, Water)(I was on the Earth team, and our color was green, and we talked a lot of smack) and got together on Saturday, October 15, to do battle in a number of sporting events. There was rope jumping, race running, obstacle course maneuvering, war tugging, cheering, and trash talking. Ultimately Earth lost to Air (first place) and Fire (second place) but not to Water (in your faces). But, despite both the third place finish and the fact that the event was held on a Saturday morning at 8:30, Sports Day was a fun time and I really enjoyed it, perhaps due in part to the intensity and enthusiasm from the teachers on Team Green. The trophy is ours next year.

3. A Midsummer Night’s Dream

On Friday, October 21, fifty or sixty of our students and a handful of teachers went to the TNT Theater to see Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” I am an English teacher and should like all of Shakespeare’s works, but this one seems to be destined for me, or I for it. It is the only play I really remember caring about from my Shakespeare class with Mark Bruce at Bethel; I went to see it performed super well at the Guthrie. Then it turned out to be what was in the curriculum at CCS for the senior class, so I taught it twice there. Then I happened to visit Mr. Jordan Williams at TCIS in Daejeon and he happened to be showing a video version in class. And now, here in Beijing, it reared its ugly donkey head again. So we went, and it was good, and then we went home. My review of this rendition of the play (entitled “Whoooooooooooo Cares?”): it was very long, the funniest parts were the extreme liberties that the performing group took, and there were only six actors to do all the parts. Boom. Below is the advertisement that floated around my school for about a month leading up to the play. It is sort of a weird ad, which maybe explains why not everyone from my school went.

4. United Nations Day

This day was allegedly Monday, October 24, or so the authorities at our school said. BWYA celebrated it on Friday, October 28, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the entire event may have been concocted so that no one would wear their Halloween costumes during the school day but would instead save them for the Halloween party that evening. Anyway, most students were sporting the colors of their respective home countries. There were lots of flags, traditional costumes, and national colors all over the place. There were also plenty of kids just wearing whatever they felt like. I tried to bring together as much red, white, and blue as possible, which included blue slippers, white long-johns, blue KU shorts, a red sweater, a white tie, a “Twins: Get To Know ‘Em” pin from 2001, an Iowa flag worn as a cape, and a Santa hat. I also went out and got completely sloshed the night before, so when I showed up at school my eyes were super red. Just kidding. I felt stupid most of the day, especially walking to school and going out for Chuan Friday. But the celebration was a success. Also, some kid took a picture of me with all that crap on, but I haven't been able to track it down, so here is a picture of my brother, Dirks, me, and Clayton wearing some American garb at the Metrodome in 2008. Hope it will suffice.

5. Students vs. Teachers Basketball Game

I was walking down a hallway one day a couple weeks ago, minding my own business, when a senior at our school said, “We’re going to kill you, Mr. Haggar!” Startled at such a violent threat, I said, “Then you’ll get expelled!” After the conversation continued, I was enlightened about the annual students vs. teachers basketball game. I’d heard rumors and, after the trash talker found me, I enlisted myself on the teacher roster. The game was on Friday, the 28th of October, which, if the reader is keeping careful notes, was the same day as the national color hullabaloo and the Halloween party. So it was pretty full one. Anyway, the teachers – Mr. Clem, basketball coach; Mr. Vinge, PR guy; Mr. O., computer teacher/soccer worshipper; Dyson, IT master, Lei Buo, PE affiliate; me, English teacher – stepped up to the challenge against a crew of young dudes who were literally chomping at the bit to beat us. Below is a brief recap of the game that was published in the school newsletter, and a picture of Mr. O. showing off the scoreboard to Mr. Gaspar, who does not actually always look like a freak but was merely decorated for the H-Party that was held an hour and a half after the beatdown.

6. Halloween Party

The basketball game ended at 5:30 and the Halloween party started at 7 p.m., and I didn’t even have the largest part of my costume. But I made it. The party itself was alright. There were snacks, a costume contest, a haunted house, a dance room, and maybe some other stuff that I missed. But mostly I floated around and tried to figure out who was who and gasped for air through my costume. The quality of the costumes at the party ranged from awesome (two girls had intestines and gore spilling out of their slashed chests)(perhaps this doesn’t sound like it should be in Category Awesome, but they were well done, at least) to mediocre (like just wearing the “scary old man” mask with normal everyday clothes) to no costume at all (like, some students didn’t wear any costume at all). The snacks were good but the Oreos ran out very quickly. Overall, it was pretty solid for a school Halloween party; however, it cannot hold a candle to the legendary Lissner 403 September, February, and May Halloween dance parties of 2006-2007.

7. Baseball Club(s)

In earlier posts I mentioned the middle school baseball club I am running, with the help of Mr. Robert Wang. This continues to be a good time, especially now that a package from my father and Coach Pytleski of Central Lyon in Rock Rapids has arrived. Its contents include four gloves, a batting helmet, a handful of baseball bats, and many, many baseballs, the hard kind, the sort that grow hair on your chest and put you in the hospital if used wrong. A couple weeks ago we moved away from drills and practice to scrimmaging, which requires less planning and less yelling at kids to quit being morons. With the cold weather, however, we will have to see what happens. Additionally, at some point early in the year, a high school student approached me and asked if I would play some ball after school (the middle school club is during a class period on Wednesday) with some of the high schoolers who were interested. We have only played a couple times, and the numbers are quite few (6-10 students) and transient, but since everyone who comes is genuinely interested in playing, and everyone gets more playing time since there’s only three or four people per time (as opposed to fifteen in the middle school club), the engagement level is much higher. In general, it’s way more like playing with a bunch of friends. The smack talk level is higher, as well.

8. Forensix

Also known as speech and debate. On Mondays B-Dubs offers clubs that are more “academic” in nature, as opposed to Wednesday’s clubs, which are more extracurricular. Yes. Anyway speech and debate started a long time ago, but now we have one meet under our belt (Friday, Nov. 11). There are five vectors we have been focusing on: original oratory (writing your own speech and presenting it!), oral interpretation (dramatic readings of poems and prose, baby!), impromptu (creating a three-to-five minute speech in ninety seconds!), duo interpretation (memorizing and acting out some two-person dramatic piece), and debate (arguing with rules and regulations). I am in charge of original oratory and debate. On the 11th of November, Miss April, Mr. O'Day, and I took two debate teams, two duet acts, a poetry reader, and two impromptu speakers to the ritziest international school in the city. It was stressful and overwhelming, but once we got in and got settled, one of the debate teams won two of their three debates, everyone had a good time, and we all had a crazy good international lunch. All in all, a success! On Tuesday, Nov. 22, we do battle again at a different school under different circumstances. It's on. Here is a photo of our brainstorming board on "Research Night 2011: The Night We Got Yelled at for Having Pizza in the Computer Lab."

9. Beijing No. 94 High School

My school, Beijing World Youth Academy, shares one of its buildings with a local public middle school, which in turn works with a local public high school in the area. At some point a deal – one that I hope was made in a dark basement room over a smoky game of drunken poker – was made, a deal in which BWYA promised to service its partner high school, Beijing No. 94 High School, with a native English speaker for one class a week. The class period is on Tuesday from 2:45 to 3:45. Three English teachers at our school have that time off. Feel free to make your own judgments about my school, but I was the only one asked to teach this one class because a) one of the two other English teachers is head of the English department and is very busy b) the other of the two other English teachers is not technically a native English speaker, though she is quite fluent c) I am white, blond, and energetic. At any rate, now I go there every Tuesday afternoon and yell at two different classes – one of fifty or so, one of twenty-something – of fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds for an hour. Ms. Du, my contact there, says that they’d just like to have some contact with a native English speaker; all they’ve gotten so far is Chinese teachers teaching them English out of textbooks, a fact that is made abundantly clear when I walk into the room and shout, “Hey, ya’ll, how you doin’?” And every person in the room says, “Fine.” I basically have free reign to teach them whatever I want. I will probably just teach them about a slough of random topics, but if you have any bright ideas, let me know. And, I don't have a picture from No. 94 yet, but some of them have pictures of me, since after class they came and stood four feet from me and took photographs. Anyway, instead, here is a picture on a Thursday morning - a truly hopeless day on which I get no rest - of the sun rising over the Chinese flag in front of my school. I will do better with pictures in the future, I swear.

10. Chinese Class

There is not much to say about this, except that the class consists of about six or seven teachers gathering after school every Monday and Thursday for an hour and getting taught pronunciation and vocab by one of the Chinese teachers at B-Dubs. There are varying levels of proficiency in the class; some of the “students” have been in Beijing for ten years and are pretty dang good, while others (ahem) don’t know jack and find it difficult to study consistently, given how much life is going on. But try we must. It’s a good time. Here is a picture of me studying how to talk about shengri and wearing my eighteen-day-old beard.

So! A lot has been going on, and this is basically not including any standard school stuff, like teaching, or any standard living stuff, like hanging out. Nonetheless, most of the items listed in the post have been fun, so they are not chores but enjoyable activities. Thus, let them continue, I guess.

Operation Golden Dragon, Pt. 1

2011-11-17T05:30:00.000-08:00

The following account details experiences that, though due in no part at all to my own efforts, I believe to be possible only in the country I am currently in. Thanks to Nasty Nate for the title of this new China-based series of blog posts, a series that is merely a rip-off of "Bag 'Em and Tag 'Em" from South Korea. Meh.

(1) The Bell and Drum Towers

So there I was. Five days into my time in Beijing, stuck at my apartment, and gettin' antsy. I took off, throwing caution to the wind, and leaped onto the subway. I rode to Guloudajie Station and burst out in search of the Towers Bell and Drum. My honest thought process - if I can recall correctly - was that Dawna was coming, and I would wait with the more awesome touristy stuff until she, a fellow curiosity-haver, could join me in my touristic excursions. So, the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower got the initial nod from me and my camera on August 22.

I located the two large buildings and hit up the Drum Tower first. The stairs? Many. The view from the top? Impeded by smog. The drums? Mostly replicas. There was one insanely old authentic one, but that was it. Here is the Drum Tower:

Here are the stairs to the T.O.P.:

The view to the south:

The view to the east:

The view to the west:

Some drums:

Fortunately, a bunch of dudes showed up and gave a drum-banging performance. It was good. They'd clearly been training for months and months and were quite good.

Having explored every inch of the ol' place, I descended and went across the parking lot to the Bell Tower. These 2 for 1 deals, I tell you what. Behold, the Bell Tower:

Up the stairs. To the top. Looked around. The bell was pretty big. What you want me to say? I won't lie that I can't deny:

And the view to the north, since I knew you were wondering:

Then I wondered around for a couple more hours, aimlessly, until I came to a place that can only truly be described by its Chinese name, Jishuitan. It was calming and relaxing, which was good cause I was so, ya know, worked up and anxious, and I want to go back there and read when it's warm. Here are some pictures of it:

(2) Yuyuantan Park

Mere days later, August 26, the date of which I only can recite because the folder of pictures from it was created that day, I set out for a destination even more distant from my house: Muxidi Station and Yuyuantan Park. I arrived and walked for about ten hours before finding a way over the canal (moat?) that kept me from accessing the park. When I did breech the park's perimeter and enter the interior, I was pretty disappointed with the southern side. It was very bland and the lake that is supposed to be in the middle of the park - a lake with a cool land bridge through its center, according to my map - was very much under construction. It was an ugly sight, to be honest. I didn't even take any pictures. The only redeeming point was this nice little courtyard deal. Very chill. Some people were napping there.

I circled (ovaled? It's not really a circular lake) and found that the north shore was actually way cooler. There were actually people hanging out, some of them out on the lake in boats (similar to the swan boats!) and others just parading around taking pictures like I was. Good!

In the background of many of these photos, a large Seoul Tower/Space Needle-esque structure can be seen. This is the CCTV Tower. It is not to be confused with the CCTV Headquarters Tower. Both are on my list of towers to attack and pillage.

(3) Beihai Park

Finally Dawna arrived. Finally we set out with our explorer hats and our cameras. Finally we stormed the city. Finally! The destination was Beihai Park, not far at all from the Drum Tower, not far at all from the Bell Tower.

The park was mostly a lake, the land immediately surrounding it, and an islandy hill with the Great White Dagoba at its peak. However, the park was not as boring as it sounds. And we didn't even do everything that the place offered. Here are just a few of the intriguing attractions Beihai Park offered us on that fine Saturday, September 4, a day that will live in infamy.

First, a lake chock full of little paddle boats. They were a little expensive for two people, and we did witness one of them that had run aground; its occupants were yelling "S.O.S.!" and laughing.

Second, some canals. Beijing has an ample supply of these. And willow trees.

Third, a bunch of pagodas full of dancing people. Some performances were just one lady doing interpretative dance, but some were a bunch of couples - some of them old, brazen, and insane - getting down.

Fourth, calligraphy for the ground. If one were to write English words with a big water-broom on the ground, one would get laughed at. But Chinese is way sweeter to look at. So, as a certain friend commented on a Facebook photo of Cass Money's, "This kind of sidewalk calligraphy is widely done throughout all of China :)" Now you know.

Fifth, a bridge to the island in the middle: Qionghua Island. Dawna's shock and awe over the rare Great White Dagoba (similar in scarcity to the Great White Bat in "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls) is obvious in her body language.

Sixth, one of these things. I don't know what they are called or what purpose they serve. A lot of times they seem to be a gate of some sort, but as far as their actual function...probably just to catch the eye of tourists who aren't used to seeing them everywhere. I think I'm over them.

Seventh, another one of these things. This time my attention was caught so completely that I had to take a picture under it.

Eighth, a tower in traditional Chinese architecture style. This one's obvious original purpose was to shoot flaming poison arrows that made victims' skin melt and inner organs liquify out at attackers. Not so today.

Ninth, curves. Almost as nice as Anne Hathaway's. But...not quite.

Tenth, saxophone players. This one's for you, Christina Haggar.

Eleventh, a spectacular view of Dawna looking out on a spectacular view of Beijing, especially Jingshan Park, a destination we marked for death that very day.

Twelfth, a spectacular view of the lake and the swan boats and the other side. I can see my house from here.

Thirteenth, a dim, gray, foreboding view of the Forbidden City. Take care, tourists. Take care.

Fourteenth, Dawna grimacing over a gaggle of cross-legged, large-eared humanoid figures. Tread softly, Dawna.

Fifteenth, the Great White Dagoba. Undoubtedly, you have been racking your brain for the meaning of the word "dagoba." Well, wonder no more. Wikipedia tells us that the word is the name of a French metal band. Actually, they sound like something I'd sort of enjoy. Other definitions claim that "dagoba" is a brand of chocolate and/or a planet from "Star Wars." The winner is an architectural style: "a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics." And this one was white, and pretty great, as far as Buddhist relic-containers go.

Sixteenth, a horrible joke based on "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in which my head became an alligator's.

Seventeenth, stairs, and lots of them. We followed one portly couple up the stairs, and you could actually see the two physically losing weight as they climbed. At the top they had to hold their pants up with their hands.

Eighteenth, one last shot of some boaters as the sun threatens to set (spoiler: it did).

Nineteenth, another photo of the sun, this time hovering over the willows and another curvy building.

Twentieth, a summary of this whole segment of the post (Great White Dagoba, bridge, island, lake, etc.) and I.

(4) Community Hike

"Oh," you say in your quiet, fire-lit den in your warm home, "a community hike. How boring." Well, what if I were to tell you about five words that were left out of the title of (4), five words that would likely change your perception of not only this post but also of the entire world as you have heretofore perceived it? Here are the words; they also indicate where the hike took place:

The Great Wall of China.

Yes, it's true. Our rugged Community and Service Coordinator Mr. Fleming ("a ladies's man," as a student's journal told me forty-five minutes ago) organized this October 8 event for students, teachers, administrators, and parents; we departed from Wangjing at 8 a.m. and arrived at the Jinshanling section of the Great Wall a few hours later. The rest was simple: we hiked all over the Great Wall, stopping only for lunch and to pick up the bodies of the dead, those not strong enough to make it. Highlights: getting to parade around on the most popular historic tourist site in the world quite casually. Lowlight: our principal suggested we jog up this wicked steep set of stairs, and we did it, and we couldn't walk after that.

Rather than bore you with any more meaningless dialogue (who wants to read about the Great Wall when they could be looking at pictures of it?), I will just put up the photographs I took and call it good.

Technology Follow-Up

2011-11-12T00:57:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I went on a violent blog tirade about technology. I am not sorry for doing it, and hundreds of times technology has still solicited a foul curse from me since that post's publication, but here is an important follow-up post to that one.

My mom sent me a birthday package; the wonderfully-wrapped contained, among other interesting and delicious gifts, a sleek new digital camera. The reader will perhaps recall the clunky old behemoth that I had been using up until now, the one that had literally sixteen megabytes of memory (hence the post from 2010 entitled “Sixteen Megabytes of Destruction”). Though I had a very close relationship with this piece of equipment, I was no dummy; I knew that obtaining a newer, more efficient camera would not be difficult to obtain and would allow me new photographic freedom that I’d never imagined before. However, old habits die hard. Despite the fact that the screen on this previous camera was absolutely useless, the fact that it was large and cumbersome, and the fact that it had such a small capacity for memory, I was comfortable using it in its decrepit condition. And – likely the more important reason – I was stubborn and scared of change.

But the new camera seems awesome! I took it out to a temple that Dawna and I visited, and it works a million times better than the old camera. The pictures are clearer, I can see what I’ve captured after I’ve captured it, and I can photograph more. We took an inaugural first picture with this camera; it's of us inspecting the box and instructions of the new Canon ELPH 100 HS. I even left the file name unchanged as IMG_0001:

The second reason I thought that technology was going to add me as a friend was because Judy the Unparalleled sent me instructions for setting up a VPN, which stands for Very Proper Noun because it’s always capitalized in all circumstances. Just kidding. A VPN is a virtual private network for your internet connection. The main thing is that the IP address is from somewhere other than in China so you can access any website you want (Blogger! Youtube! Google Docs! Facebook!) instead of only Chinese government-approved websites (Sina! Youku! Zoho! Renren!).

Which was incredible news! News that lifted me up from the depths and from the pit! Judy’s text message summed it all up quite well: “Welcome back to the free world^^” Perfect. I immediately went to my blog and hugged it. Then I went to Youtube and hugged that. And then I went to Facebook and...did not dare enter into its lair until a week later. But enter I did, for the first time in ninety-six days. I had 22 friend requests, 26 messages, and 3 notifications. The last thing written on my wall was from Nasty Nate: "Reuben told me to tell everyone to leave really obscene messages on his Facebook wall. Boy, will he be in for a surprise when he gets home next summer!" Thankfully, no one adhered to his ("my") instructions. Here is a picture of my laptop a couple minutes ago:

Anyway, after this second success, which, in my opinion, opened up the floodgate for the rest of my time in China, a third victory occurred. It was not so much a victory over technology in a fight to the death, as had been the case with the VPN, or a triumph over technology in a fight for survival, as had been the case with my camera. It was just a win for me.

Last weekend, near Barnes, Wisconsin, eight of my best friends in the world gathered together at a cabin in the forest. They chopped wood, played football, ate delicious food, sat around the campfire, and did other manly things that I am not worthy to report. I, however, could not attend, because I had to grade some papers, write a rec letter for a kid, and plan for Monday. However, at midnight on Sunday night (for us Chinese folk here) and at 10 a.m. Sunday morning (for Sunshine, Justin, Orvis, Micah, Cole, Paul, Clayton, and T-Duck) we had a Skype party. It was awesome and I wish it could happen more often. Nevermind that I went to bed at 1 a.m. with school the next day at 8:20 a.m....I’d do it again.

Here is a picture of the stallions without me. When I saw this picture, I felt like the stump. Dudes: it was awesome seeing you, even though it was only on a video screen.

So I entered this week feeling good about technology! Even though my hard drive crapped out at a key moment even though a Prezi that a student made for a big homeroom presentation didn't want to work for us, even though I couldn't find places to print Thursday or Friday, even when my phone ran out of minutes and I couldn't find a recharge vendor, perhaps the tide is turning. Perhaps all this that humanity has created will work in my favor. Perhaps I will not yell and pound and swear and degenerate. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. We'll see.

Happy Halloween

2011-11-06T05:41:00.000-08:00

How To Make a Moose Costume in Ten Easy Steps

Step 1. Brag about your costume-making skills and talents, thus putting the appropriate level of pressure on yourself as motivation for success.

Step 2. Cut out cardboard antlers from boxes your mom sent you.

Step 3: Secure cardboard antlers to third-grade girl headband and then to head.

Step 4. Buy cute stuffed dog with long snout.

Step 5. Remove long snout from cute stuffed dog.

Step 6. Sew strap to long snout; ignore fear of potential asphyxiation.

Step 7: Purchase or locate brown clothing from cheap clothing store.

Step 8. Don black shoes and socks.

Step 9. Find partner in crime, preferably a male with buck teeth and resemblance to a squirrel.

Step 10. Locate a Halloween party and go to it.

Step 11 (optional; mostly for people who have roommates, are married, or live with their parents): clean up.

No Shave November

2011-10-30T11:46:00.000-07:00

Technology and Education: The Epic

2011-10-22T06:04:00.001-07:00

The school I am at now, Beijing World Youth Academy, does its best to keep its teachers on the cutting edge of technological education. As mentioned in previous posts, most of the staff received MacBook Pro laptops a few weeks ago. The MacBooks can connect, via mini display-to-VGA adapter, to the Smartboards that are in each classroom, Smartboards that recently received their interactive pens and are ready to use. Each room has a built-in sound system as well. Once the MacBook Pro is connected to the Smartboard, the teacher can show students announcements on Moodle - the school's online education platform, where all manner of information and assignment can be uploaded by teachers and found by students - or check grades on Managebac - the IB's online grading system that allows teachers to take attendance, mark papers, post grades, send messages, and just generally run class online, or go over papers on turnitin.com - a site where writing can be uploaded and crosschecked for plagiaristic tendencies. Have I had my Toshiba laptop (motto: "I'm on My Third Windows Operating System in As Many Years!"), my school MacBook Pro (motto: "What's Windows?"), the desktop PC that sits on my desk in room A403 (motto: "[sound of poop falling into a toilet]")*, my external hard drive, my USB from Frontier Bank, the previously-mentioned Smartboard, and the also previously-mentioned built-in speaker system running at the same time? Duh. I'm plugged in, homie.

These are all almost mandatory elements to teaching at BWYA, but if a teacher were to know anything about anything, that teacher would know that there is a vast, endless number of ways that other forms of technology can be brought into the ol' classroom. Videos can be downloaded and shown. Audio materials can supplement reading. Online citation websites eliminate the need for students to learn the correct way to write out a correction works cited page. There are a million interactive websites that can assist in helping students get a clue about life: Tagxedo Creator, Wallwisher, blogs, Wikis, Jeopardy!, Voki, Toondoo, Voicethread, Wordle, etc., which, if they can't access from their family's computer or the laptop their father got them for their twelfth birthday, students can simply hop onto and check out via iPhone or smartphone or 3G or 4S iPhone or whatever the crap the latest one is now. There are a million ways students can be forced to manipulate technology for assessment: students can use a powerpoint or - even better! - a Prezi presentation (Prezi gets capitalized because it's newer and hipper, while powerpoint doesn't because it's older and I never have capitalized it before, even though Microsoft Word wants me to) to deliver a oral assessment. Students can straight up make a video. Students can straight up make a podcast. Students can do anything in between. In some schools - not ours - all the kids have laptops. The textbooks are on there, the assignments are on there; go green! There are movements toward e-readers. I teach English lit and ESL, but, if I went to a school that had as much dough as Paul Wall's got in his mouth, I could teach these traditionally paper-consuming classes without using any paper. Which is another rant for another time.

Up to this point (if you haven't wandered off to go count the blades of grass on your lawn or paint your nails or something), you may be thinking, "Oh, this must be a blog post about the benefits of technology in the classroom!"** But, dear and valued reader, you would be wrong in thinking that. Quite wrong.

Undoubtedly, there are benefits from all these new gadgets and gizmos, and as an educator I need to acclimate my students with the technology that more savvy (and more patient) teachers and professors and employers will expect them to be familiar with in the future. But, on the personal level, I have come to realize something about all the aforementioned and especially especially especially - I cannot stress this enough - any word processing program, especially Microsoft Word and - free though it may be - Open Office, which weren't aforementioned but are now-mentioned: nothing frustrates me more than technological problems.

I get annoyed about a lot of stuff in life (remember The Hate List?), but in general I can maintain a fairly upbeat, positive mood, especially when it's my job to. But one thing that inevitably destroys my demeanor is any hitch with technology, whatever it is. And these days, "whatever it is" is almost anything. Kids might be yelling "Go Yankees!" and throwing their books out the door, the principal might be motioning me out into the hall with his one hand and holding a pink slip in the other, or the wind might swoosh through my neatly-arranged classroom and blow all the carefully-stacked papers onto the floor, and I can handle it. But what makes me lose control is when any of the following happens:

1. The word processing program I am using tries to autoformat something for me. It's not so bad with Microsoft Word because I know how to both undo and cease the undesired formatting, but on Open Office - which is what I use on my personal laptop - I don't have the stoppage knowledge. If I wanted to insert bullet points or number my sentences or have an indent here, I would do it. But the program assumes it knows my mind and takes irrational liberties. I know it is my OCD/perfectionism that is actually killing me here, but these tiny adjustments that the programs make to worksheets and exams that I have aesthetically set up perfectly drive me nuts. Other complaints: the most current version of Microsoft Word's default spacing, font, and font size (10 points after, Calibri, and 11, respectively); the idiosyncrasies of turning any block of text into columns; and the fact that "Save As" is not on the default menu in the latest version of Microsoft Word (maybe I just liked 2003 too much). Most memorable moment: at CCS I was making a twelve-page test at 9 p.m. one night, and I had the whole thing just write, ready to go, and I hit the backspace button one time at the end of the document, to get rid of that last extra page, and - inexplicably - the entire document underwent this strange shift that left a entire blank page in the middle of the twelve pages. I could not get rid of the blank page. I do not know why. After a few attempts, I threw my water bottle on the linoleum floor as hard as I could. The top shattered. I can't remember how I resolved the situation.

2. Any problem occurs when I try to print. At CCS the first problem with printing was that I had to run down 1.5 hallways and one flight of stairs to the printer, and sometimes the door would be locked. Then there would sometimes be discrepancies in the paper size: A4? 8x11.5? All the default settings had to be changed. And even if I figured it all out, some knucklehead might not, so he or she would send four hundred pages through, but since the knucklehead hadn't sent the document on the right paper size, the little red light would flash on the printer, and I (I say "I" but I am sure a million different teachers were in this boat a million different times with me, and I'm sure Mr. Nickel wanted to kill himself because his office was right next to the printer and he would have to listen to both the "beep, beep" that indicated a printer error and the muttered curses that other frustrated teachers would emit from the printing room) would have to go through the moral dilemma of deciding whether to cancel all the queued documents that were in the wrong paper size, all of which would cause a printer error, or set the paper size aright, or do nothing at all and wait for the knucklehead to come down and discover his or her error on his or her own, or just freaking leave. I employed all of those strategies at one point or another. I was also, especially early on, the knucklehead. Then there were also a buttload of other problems, like missed staples, garbled test pages, accidentally taking someone else's one printed sheet in your six hundred sheets, or the infamous paper jam: "Why does it say paper jam when there is no paper jam?" Most memorable moment: I was photocopying some pages out of a book during the period before I needed the pages (this is key; it heightens the tension and frustration). Photocopying out of books leaves big black parts on the printed page, and those are what cause paper jams. Well, obviously, my copies jammed, and I needed them quickly and I needed them badly, and I was on the verge of an epic meltdown when suddenly a prospective student and his mother and father came nervously into the room, looking for the principal's office, which can only be entered from the printing room. I had to swallow all those four-letter words and hide the papers I had shredded in a horrifying rage and pretend to be a normal human teacher until Mrs. Dyck ushered the threesome out of harm's way and into her office.

But there's more! I haven't had too many hickups printing at B-Dubs, but there have been two insanely detrimental instances that, though isolated, were basically worst-case scenarios. The process for printing is as follows: first, print one copy to room A200, the printing room. Second, go to room A200 (a room in the corner on the second floor; I operate out of the fourth floor homeroom I've been assigned) and tell the Chinese copy dude how many copies you need and any other special instructions you can convey with pointing and motioning. Third, wait a bit. Fourth, get the copies. There have been two times where I have printed a story that I needed the next period*** as the basis for the next two days of lessons and then have gone down and discovered the printing room locked. Really, really locked. Both these times were so extreme, so utterly devastating to my plans and at such a time where I really could not plan anything else, that I didn't even get mad; I just laughed. You know that feeling.

3. Any problem arises with an external hard drive or a USB flashdrive. These things seem so secure at face value: all the information is stored on this small, compact object; nothing bad should happen to it. But a million bad things can actually happen to it. It can get lost; this has happened to me three or four times, sometimes my fault or sometimes Jake Hegman's fault. It can malfunction; the thing will simply fail to turn on, incur a virus, or have some other distortion of information (perhaps arising from not having clicked the "eject" feature before yanking it out of the computer). It can become full; the user should see this coming, but it is still inevitable after a while. The user should also probably occasionally back up the contents of the drive, which I have been smart enough to do once in a great while. And to be honest, this hasn't been the biggest of my problems with technology, although the USB I am currently using is on the fritz and I have lost, as I said, a couple thumbdrives. But...most memorable moment: halfway through my second year at CCS, at which point I had a year and a half's worth of teaching material, much of which I was reusing/recycling and all of which had come at a great expense of time, sweat, blood, emotion, and [see 1. and 2.], my external hard drive, on which all this teaching material was stored, quit working. It wouldn't turn on. My heart wouldn't turn on, either, until I prayed for about a hundred hours and had our IT mastermind Mr. Dyck look at it. He resuscitated the thing and I immediately backed it all up elsewhere, but it was terrifying. The problem had been that the drive had come a bit loose in the case, a problem that stemmed, no doubt, from me chucking it around in my backpack up all those stairs to the school and to my classroom. Later in the year he saw me with it and said, "You're still using that thing?"

4. Computer hardware malfunctions sometimes. A malfunction is more likely to occur if more hardware is added; I am sure that somewhere there is a math equation that reflects this well. When you've got just the computer, life is probably good. Add internet, and, yes, you can do more, but there are more things that can go wrong. The pros still outweigh the cons, but then start adding extra drives, power cords, projectors, multiple screens, interactive whiteboards, and sound systems, and you are done for. There's no chance that everything will work perfectly. Something will without fail go wrong, whether one piece is not working or you just don't know what the heck you're doing. CCS didn't have much to offer as far as hardware, which I was fine with, and now here I am still trying to figure out how to use most of what is available, so I haven't really had my legs cut out from under me yet, fortunately. The best luck I have had with technology was to have all the students gather around my computer and watch Youtube! videos with me. Most memorable moment(s): every chapel period at CCS, someone would need to show a video, and the video would never, ever, ever work on the first try. We usually did end up watching it, but there was always a problem with the sound, or the program that the video needed to be played with, or both, or the projector wasn't connected, or something. This happened to me at least fifty percent of the time I had class in the chapel, but the only time I ever had class in the chapel was when I wanted to show a video, so those were high-risk class periods.

5. The internet is fickle. Especially here. Back in the day this statement might not be true, but having internet access is a basic staple of most institutions these days, especially schools. To be denied internet feels like a basic right has been taken away. So when the net does go down, I feel handcuffed, even if I don't need to use the web for anything in class. What if I need to check something? What if I do quick want to show a video? What if I need to check my stocks? I know, I know, I and others like me are products of the internet age. Anyway, no internet during class isn't a huge deal, but I know that I would be a worthless lesson planner without internet access. Worthless. I do not know how teachers twenty years ago got anything done; it is a mystery to me. I use the internet for every plan, every day. Which is a scary statement, when put in print. But there are so many resources. Grades and report cards are also often online, on some program. Kids come in, saying, "I couldn't turn in my paper; the internet didn't work!" You get some virus trying to download something innocent and useful for class. What kind of person starts a virus, anyway? What does that person gain from destroying so much? Sigh. Anyway, so the internet is important to education. But last year I didn't have steady internet at my house, even in one of the most plugged in countries in the world. I got it most of the time, but to Skype I had to go to the school. And anytime I couldn't get it, it was frustrating. Now I do not know which is worse: the occasional internet blackout at home in Seoul or the constant censorship that so freaking many of my online searches generate in Beijing. Here in China I have the internet everywhere, but so much is blocked, and even if it isn't, some sites (Google) are sensationally slow. There've been ten thousand times I have thought, "Ah, I can show this video with this lesson plan," and then realized that there is no way for me to access said video, since Youtube is blocked in China. Even when I have found videos that are not blocked, at school, they take six hundred fourteen years to load. Prime example: I started loading a five-minute video at the beginning of a seventy-five minute class, and by the end, two minutes of the video had loaded. Give me cancer now, God. Videos are not the only victim; I have a ton of resources on a Google document, but I cannot access it because it is restricted. Any teaching site with the wrong keywords are also off limits. Most memorable moment: I slotted off this chunk of time to go to some internet tasks with my seventh grade students here, so I e-mailed them the assignment right before we went to the computer lab. We got there, and I said, "Go into your e-mail account, download the attachment I sent you, and do the tasks." The five or so kids who have Hotmail or Yahoo! accounts blew through the work; the Gmail users took no less than ten minutes just to get the assignment.

There is an unending ocean of other school-related problems that defy categorization and/or stem from the use of technology, such as the computer freeze up, the reply-all button in staff e-mails, internet plagiarism, Gmail chat (fun in theory but actually detrimental to getting work done, and frustrating for those who leave Gtalk open but leave the computer), viruses, websites that can be fun in moderation but usually just chew up everyone's time (Facebook, Youtube), texting and cheating via cell phone in class (some kid took a picture of me teaching last week), really slow computers (so bad when you are in a rush), awful eye diseases that develop from overexposure to LCD, LED, and FML screens, and - why not? - carpal tunnels that develops from typing all the time. There are also an unending ocean of technological problems that are unrelated to school, like society's complete and total reliance on much of the aforementioned and countless other items, like cell phones and what have you, but we've all wasted enough time on this post already.

So all this technology is here. It is enticing and, when it works, it can be good good good. Heck, it allows me to write this whiny blog post and communicate with friends and family everyday. But, more often than not, in the classroom, it just frustrates. I am not trying to persuade anyone to do anything; I just long for a simpler lifestyle, and I know that removing a large percentage of these things from my life would reduce its complexity by quite a bit. The fewer distractions and things in my life, the less I have to worry about; the simpler and more basic my life is, the more I can focus on what is really important to me.

*Actually, to be honest, this desktop computer works quite well compared to the one in the room next door, which runs alarmingly slow and has caused me many a conniption.

**Which, ironically, was a blog unto itself once, at my doing, for a one Peggy Kendall's COM301K class, Communication, Technology, and Society, which met from 12:30 to 1:20 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I took it with T-Duck, and it was sort of hit-or-miss. The blog was called "Technology and Education: The Epic." Feel free to check it out and see how far I have come since then, especially the last post in the blog section. The last post I did is actually very supportive of this one; it is called "Too Much Tech." Ha!

***Maybe you are thinking to yourself, "Reub, you seem to be doing a lot of stuff at the last minute. Maybe you could plan ahead a little more." If you are thinking this to yourself, you can die.

We Like Sports and We Don't Care Who Knows

2011-10-07T03:03:00.000-07:00

In high school, I played four sports. I didn't really excel at any of them, but since Central Lyon was a pretty small school, and my class wasn't particularly athletic, I played a role on the varsity cross country, basketball, track, and baseball teams. After graduating from high school, my inclination toward participating in sporting events began to dwindle. Yes, there was pick-up basketball at Bethel, and there was certainly Slayer, two-time intramural co-ed softball championship winner, but other things began to take precedence over running around on the court or smackin' the ball around on the field. After college, I almost never played anything. There were a few games of basketball here and there, and in Seoul I would attend an occasional open gym at SFS, but by and large I shied away from the rigors of the court and the field.

Last Wednesday, like every Wednesday, my baseball club met. The club is a bunch of sixth through tenth graders, some of whom seem to love playing and come dressed for the occasion, and some of whom wear pink and yellow and spend most of the time laughing and are only there because their friends are there (but their friends wear pink and yellow and spend most of their time laughing, too...). And a bunch of kids in between. It's pretty chaotic, and I have to yell the entire time, and no one listens very well.

However, this past week, I had an awesome time playing, though I can't speak for anyone else, and I was again reminded of how every sporting activity since high school has been for me. The formula is this: I am doing something, and a friend extends an invitation to play basketball or volleyball or softball, and I reluctantly agree, but I immediately lose energy and pizazz and go into the athletic match unexcited about getting sweaty and frustrated during the competition. Then we play, and whether I do well (rare) or not (common), I walk away with the endorphins flowing freely through my veins. I feel good afterward and am glad I went, glad I had the experience playing.

So too it is on Wednesdays. I don't look forward to getting these students into lines to play catch or try to explain how to swing the bat while half of them aren't listening or telling those guys over there to get their fingers out of their noses and start moving. I don't know how to coach baseball or teach baseball to a group that wants to listen, much less thirty kids with varying levels of English and baseball desire. But each week - and especially last week - I walk away feeling accomplished, like we've had a good time.

Last week I had Mr. Wang take half the ruffians onto one side of the soccer field and play catch and 500, which he said they enjoyed. The other half took batting practice, with me pitching. And it was super fun. Everyone made contact, at least. There were some skinny, awkward little kids that knocked the cover off the ball. One of the seventh grade girls hit every single pitch I threw, and she hit them hard. This one emo-lookin' dude who has the "too cool" attitude tattooed all over himself nearly killed his older, stronger peers with his line drives. I almost got destroyed by a single up the middle. Kids were talkin' smack. I was talkin' smack. It was on. The crowning moment was when this young guy from Japan came up. We'd talked earlier; he was new at school and I never saw him hanging out with anyone, but we'd discussed baseball a while, which was a passion of his. He hit a couple hard ground balls that no one could handle, and then he parked one way, way, way over the fence of the other side of the soccer field. So good.

Then we left, and the mayhem was over. I was sweaty and sort of hoarse and had a bunch of that black rubber stuff from the fake turf all over me, but there was that feeling again. The love of the game, the satisfying fatigue of having gone out and played. Perhaps part of my joy was having reached 3:50 yet again, but another part of me looks forward to next Wednesday, when we play again.

A Room of One's Own

2011-10-03T08:55:00.000-07:00

This post is going to violently break from previous posts on this blog. Are you sitting down? First: it is going to be short. Second: instead of posting pictures and writing about my apartment, I am putting a link to a Prezi that contains all that anyone interested needs to know. The link is here. It is where I live now, in Wangjing, Beijing, PRC.

This Is Longer Than Anything Else in China

2011-09-29T05:38:00.000-07:00

A)(as in “August Burns Red”) Here is what has been happening over here, with me, at least. I can’t speak for anyone else.

B)(as in “Between the Buried and Me”) This long, arduous update on the life of one of Iowa’s slimiest is being typed on – dramatic pause – a MacBook Pro. I know I typed it correctly because it says so right there under the screen. In college I used to mock Mac users (read: T-Duck), but even as early as senior year, Bethel’s computer lab gained an impressive spread of the aforementioned product line. As time progressed, Apple products slowly started infiltrating my life, to the point where I thought, “Maybe I should at least learn my way around on a Mac so that I can work fluidly on one when I must.” And then, lo and behold, last Tuesday, I showed up at school and was handed this slim, 13-inch, backlit LED widescreen notebook. Cool.

C)(as in “Comeback Kid”) Speaking of school, let’s start with that. Let’s start with my responsibilities there. Let’s start with classes. Let’s start with homeroom. There’s twenty kids in my homeroom, kids from places like Australia, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Canada, Japan, and Spain. We hang out from 8:20-8:28, water the plants in my room, answer the question of the day, and disperse. I feel pretty confident about all their names.

D)(as in “Dead to Fall”) Then we enter a block schedule. Seventy-five minute class periods three times a week. Different. Pros and cons. In this IB program (or, according to them (us?): programme)(when I type "programme" in Word, there’s a red line under it) language A is the language the student is most proficient at. Language B is a second language class. Language Y is a twenty-fifth language class. The equivalent of sixth through tenth grade is called MYP (middle years programme) and eleventh and twelfth grade are called DP (diploma programme). There are oodles of other ins and outs, but they are negligible for you readers at home, I think. Except the part about corporal punishment with a baseball with nails in it; please refer to "Y)" for more information.

E)(as in “Every Time I Die”) I teach seventh grade language A. The class is composed of nine girls. Like Girls Generation, which is what I’m going to start referring to them as. They don’t know it yet. We’re reading “Hatchet.” I want them to fall head over heels for Brian Robeson. We’ll see.

F)(as in “For Today”) I teach eighth grade language A. The class is composed of nineteen boys and girls. They have proven to be the least unruly, the most studious, and, in general, the easiest to plan for. Highlight so far: I tried to get them into a partner discussion format that closely, closely resembled speed dating. So awkward.

G)(as in "Gwar") I teach ninth grade language B. The class is composed of twenty-one boys and girls. We’re learning English by studying technology. I have had to talk to multiple kids after class about behavioral issues but have laughed the most with this class. Go figure.

H)(as in “He Is Legend”) I teach tenth grade language B. The class is composed of twenty boys and girls. We’re learning English by studying the art of travel. Resources are scant. It’s in a different building than the three other classes, a building that lacks air conditioning, clean floors, or airwaves that are uninterrupted by the sounds of construction drilling for more than thirty minutes.

I)(as in “It Dies Today”) My overall assessment of how well I will connect with the students in my classes is as follows (+/- indicates bridges and barriers to me connecting with them, not their value as humans):
E7 Language A: great English (+), Western influence (+), young (-), exclusively female (-)
E8 Language A: great English (+), Western influence (+), young (-)
E9 Language B: less developed English (-), little Western influence (-), older and more personable (+)
E10 Language B: less developed English (-), little Western influence (-), older and more personable (+)
Mr. Haggar: undeveloped Asiatic language skills (-), desire to learn Asiatic language skills (+), desire to learn about Chinese culture (+), controls grades (+), hideous complexion and fashion sense (-)

J)(as in “Jesus Wept") I teach a baseball club. It meets once a week at the end of Wednesday. We go to a park a few minutes away and “play” on a soccer field. I haven’t seen a baseball field here. The baseball team is myself, Mr. Robert Wang (who is delightfully energetic, insanely positive, extremely bilingual, and knows as much about baseball as the students), and a wide range of male and female sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth graders. A third of the crew has baseball gloves. A third of the crew (not necessarily the same third) has an ounce of passion for the game. Four-fifths come with a good attitude…maybe even more than that. After the first time we met, I told them to at least bring baseball caps (I’ve yet to find a store selling baseball mitts); so next week four kids had hats. One, however, was a Yankees hat, and so I went over to lay into the kid, and it was this tiny, tiny, tiny little sixth grade boy. I grunted, “You like that team on your hat?” And, in the best English this little trooper could muster, the boy replied, “Yes, I like the Yankees.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth about that team, so I said, “Uh…alright, so, Derek Jeter…he’s alright, yeah?” And we talked about him and some others and Rivera’s new saves record, and life went on. It will be a good year with these youngsters, but, if you’ve got any baseball gloves you don’t want, donate them to the People’s Republic of China. It’s time.

K)(as in “Killswitch Engage”) I teach a forensics club. It meets once a week at the end of Monday. Lots of kids showed up, but this might only have been because the other teacher who wants to coach speech is the most popular teacher at the school. She says that of the kids showed up, many are “loud, popular, funny” students. There’s an equal number of quiet, reserved folks. There are thirty or so students, and so hopefully we can enter some competitions, win some awards, and gather fame quickly.

L)(as in “Life in Your Way”) There are many other teachers at the school. Most seem pretty cool. I have found a handful who seem like they could be solid friends, which is essential for a good time here. And there are others unmet. Besides the demographics that intimate me in making friends (people who are way older and/or way more married than I am), the physical structure of the school seems preventative in the easy formation of friendships. There are two buildings. There is no staff room. All teachers teacher in multiple classrooms. The days are packed. So…time will tell whom I get close to.

M)(as in “Misery Signals”) School, overall, is going well. The first two weeks were frightening and overwhelming, as is the beginning of any job. I feel like I am over the hump, though. I am getting a handle on how to budget my time, deal with the students, and roll with the punches of being a professional educator.

N)(as in “Nodes of Ranvier”) Let’s go back in time. This past weekend (September 24-25) several other teachers and I took a journey to Beidaihe and Shanhaiguan, which are coastal tourist resorts east of Beijing. There were fifteen or twenty of us; we left Saturday morning and returned Sunday afternoon. There was a solid blend of beaches, climbable vantage points, dove-feeding, karaoke, pleasant weather, rustic Chinese architecture, married couples, and Great Wall bricks. Some far off day in the future I will write more about this and hopefully be able to upload pictures as well. Until then, know this: the trip was fun.

O)(as in “Once Nothing”) Let’s go further back in time. Last weekend (September 16-18) I found myself in Shanghai for MYP training. I found out that I was going on Tuesday (13th) morning and we left Thursday (15th) right after school (4:00 p.m.). I went with four Chinese teachers. We spent three days in workshops on specific content areas. I was pumped to get the opportunity because I went to the Language B workshop; Language B classes have been the far bigger struggle so far. I learned a lot, although I had higher expectations. I met some decently cool people, including coworkers of Jordan’s at TCIS in Daejeon (I sent back a secret note for Jordy Poo with them). I ate marvelous food the entirety of the weekend. The coworkers who hauled me around with them were sweet; we went to eat and then hit up The Bund one night, and the next saw us eating mouth-waterin' western Chinese food (like, food from the western part of China) in a restaurant that employed a professional belly dancer. Boom.

P)(as in “Project 86”…just their earlier stuff) Let’s go even further back. The weekend before last (September 10-12) overlapped with Korean Chuseok, so who should show up at my door but Cass Money from Seoul? She and a friend o’ hers came with a heretofore unparalleled desire to see all of Beijing. It was insane. They came Sunday and we went to the Summer Palace and the Silk Market. The next day (some Chinese holiday as well, so I didn’t have to work) we got through the Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, touristy hutongs, and a traditional Peking duck dinner before finally parting ways. I went home to bed; they went to see the Olympic stadiums before the evening drew to a close. We must have walked three hundred miles. And then on Tuesday, Cass and her compatriot did the Great Wall tour, and then we hit up the Wangfujing market, where whack food is served. I went to bed after that, but they stayed out and, to be honest, I don’t know what they did Tuesday night or Wednesday during the day. Solid times, though.

Q)(as in “Quo Vadis“) I haven’t been to church in three weeks due to the events mentioned above. But community seems to be forming among my friends at BCIF at the 21st Century Theater, so I will have to return there soon.

R)(as in “Reflux”) Like I said, I have decided that the key to a great time here – as opposed to simply a good time – lies in me finding deep, solid friendships…go-to friends, if you will. Everywhere I have been in life so far, these friendships have popped up. Nasty Nate in high school, eight dudes I am in blogging communion with at Bethel, Ross in The Soo, Scott and Ray at Poly School, Lisa in Niagara Falls, Jordan and Mark at CCS, and a countless host of people in between. Who will those people be this time? I know a lot of it depends on how much initiative I take, but there is also an element of chance in there. We’ll see what happens. There is great potential already.

S)(as in “Symphony in Peril”) I brought five houseplants home from school, where they were dying, unwatered and uncared for. At this point I have them in my balcony thing, recuperating and rehydrating, but eventually I have perfect little places for them around my living area. I don’t know how these plants will fare when they are taken away from direct natural sunlight, though. Is anyone with a green thumb reading this? Holler.

T)(as in “Throwdown”) Slowly but surely traditions and rituals are being established in my life, just like I like. One of them is the watering of the plants each morning and evening (is that too often? I just don’t know…). Another is slowly but surely going to this certain restaurant on Fridays for lunch, a restaurant that serves meat on a stick. I want other ones to form as well: there is a Beijing Breakfast stand in front of my apartment, and I want to buy a breakfast product (words fail to describe what the thing is actually called) from this stand every morning and get friendly with the proprietors. Same with the small little convenience stores in my apartment complex: I go there often to buy daily necessities (soap, milkshake in a bag) and usually make a fool of myself (the cash register doesn’t display the price of the product, so I have to listen closely and try to figure out the price based on – get this! – its verbalization by the shopkeeper!). Anyway. We'll see how all that shakes out.

U)(as in “Underoath”) Chinese language learning. I don’t want to talk about this. The school is going to start offering lessons in October, though.

V)(as in “Venia”) My fantasy football team is tanking, and it’s three weeks into the season.

W)(as in “War of Ages”) I have really been getting into solving Sudoku puzzles on my phone when riding the subway. It helps me blend in more.

X)(as in “xDeathstarx”) My bowel movements have swung from the wet, nasty end of the BM spectrum to the other, dryer side.

Y)(as in "Yanni") Just kidding.

Z)(as in “Zao”) I’m so sorry that this was so long. So, so sorry. Thank you for reading it all, and a good day to you.

Beijing Checklist

2011-09-05T07:56:00.000-07:00

Put up hundreds of tacky photographs all over apartment: check

Note irony in color* of couch in apartment: check

Figure out washing machine after forty minutes of button banging, texting for help, and e-mailing photographs of Chinese washing machine directions: check

Receive two boxes sent from Seoul in June: check

Walk it out: check

Fail to see apartment buildings two hundred yards away due to smogginess: check

Get busted dancing quietly to myself in elevator: check

Incur diarrhea from 80% of meals consumed: check

Get drenched in torrential, unheard of downpour on first day of new teacher orientation: check

Feel extremely young and uncultured after hearing life stories of older, seasoned international school educators: check

Exchange phone numbers with cutest female staff member at school: check

Learn that cutest female staff member at school is married: check

School some Chinese basketball dudes who wore matching Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett Celtics jerseys: check

Two step: check

Finally overcome jet leg: check

Fail to communicate intended message in Chinese to cashiers and waitresses: check

Receive skeptical, confused looks and behind-the-back mockery from cashiers and waitresses: check

Get challenged to an arm wrestling contest in the subway by some high school kid: check**

Get lost on foot: check

Get lost in taxi: check

Get lost in the subway: check

Do the stanky legg: check

Locate delicious Chinese restaurant near apartment: check

Locate delicious Korean restaurant near apartment: check

Locate delicious Malaysian restaurant near apartment: check

Locate delicious Indian restaurant near apartment: check

Locate Paris Baguette near apartment: check

Shake fist angrily at Paris Baguette: check

Tell horror stories about corporate evil and umbrella destruction by Paris Baguette to colleagues and and passersby: check

Pop, lock, and drop it: check

Go sightseeing with Dawna just like back in the day: check

Start “Beijing Scavenger Hunt” list: check

Get saved by Dawna from being the ninth wheel at a teacher get-together: check

Find decent church: check

Get called, texted, and e-mailed, and carrier pigeon-holed by church welcoming committee members: check

Shuffle...every day: check

Maneuver through first day of school without major incident: check

Write on smart board with dry erase marker: check

Indoctrinate students about New York Yankee wickedness and Anne Hathaway goodness: check

Miss delectable faces of friends and family, sweeping cornfields of the Iowa plains, fattening mounds of choices at Pizza Ranch, and encouraging familiarity of everywhere between Sioux Falls and St. Paul: check

To Do List:

Get VPN (until then I'd like to thank my publisher, Mike Moravec, Ph.D. and demigod)

Make friends with apartment guard

Figure anything out in Chinese

Go see Mao's body

Make students like baseball more

Use iron

Harden up stomach, bowels, and other digestive system organs

Find local, non-chain provider of quick, scrumptious breakfast food

Make grocery bag mask with eye holes cut out to wear when Major League Baseball conversation comes up

Have music up loud enough to be told by neighbors to decrease volume

Get taught how to dougie

*Guess.

**You may, whilst leisurely checking out the latest Facebook feed gossip, watching the most recent song from The Lonely Island on Youtube, or talking to your cute but shallow girlfriend of two months on Skype, be wondering if I won or lost this competition of strength and endurance. Here is the answer: I let him win.

Dear Mom

2011-08-27T08:02:00.000-07:00

Dear Mom,

Hey! Nihao! I made it safely, although the same cannot be said for my bottle of Head and Shoulders 2 in 1 shampoo+conditioner with almond oil and pyrithione zinc for dry scalp care, which spilled half its contents all over my suitcase. I didn't spill any of MY contents, thank the Lord. The flights went smooth, I miraculously made friends on the plane, and my school's HR person saved me from the airport when I got in at 10:30 on Thursday night the 18th. Hurrah!

The next day we checked out apartments. I tried to remember what you told me to look for when making the big housing choice (stove, washer and dryer, internet, garage, backyard, 2.5 children), but I eventually just settled on a crummy bomb shelter flat next to some super cute Chinese-Korean-Lebanese girl who happened to be leaving her place when we were coming in.

Just kidding. I got a sweet place, and it only took three tries. It is on the eighteenth floor; you'd be proud, I have refrained from spitting off the railing like any normal man usually does at such a height. The apartment's got one bedroom and plenty of space for one single dude who hardly brought anything anyway. Maybe you could send some of my old stuffed animals or something to take up some of the empty space here? Funny Freddy? Or some Lego? There are an ample supply of kitchen utensils, a giant TV equipped with a DVD player, and a nice shower, all of which I'll probably never use. There is AC, a decent set of speakers with a subwoofer, and a nice red couch, all of which I've already put to good and excessive use. I'll try to send pictures soon, I promise.

So then I moved in on Saturday; it didn't take long. On Sunday I had lunch with Judy...maybe you remember her from when Mark and I came here in September? She saved us from being lost all the time then. Now here's the super weird part, though: my flat is in the same building Judy used to live in...where we stayed! Dang! She has since moved out, probably when she heard I was coming. Pretty strange, huh? Yah. Anyway, we ate and then shopped for bedding and laundry detergent and an iron. No, that's not a typo. An iron. You've raised me well! But don't be surprised if you get e-mails from me about how to turn it on and/or use it as a weapon.

And! I also met a couple of the other teachers who are new to Beijing World Youth Academy. Good people all around; there are some from England, some from Mexico, and some with big-time connections in - sit down for this - Pocahontas, Iowa. Boo-yah! I've eaten with these folks and used their internet. And we all went and got medically examined on Tuesday. Nothing builds stronger bonds than having blood removed and orifices probed together, ya know? Haha. Just kidding. Sort of.

Training and orientation and what have you doesn't start until next week, so I have been exploring and trying to figure out the subway and the general city layout. Seems simple enough. And freakin' huge enough. There are a gazillion old historic sites for me to photograph and blog about (yawn...). Today I had my first conversation with a Chinese person; some little girl started haranging me with "hello" and "hi" and "[a lot of Chinese that I didn't understand]." She took a picture of me making moose horns. Her parents laughed. I think it was a good start to my time here.

Come visit whenever! My couch folds out into a bed, so if you and Dad come, we'll be comfortably housed! Just tell him to bring a crap ton of those dentist masks he wears when he mows the lawn; the smog here is appalling. Don't tell anyone, especially Dad, but I read that breathing the air here is like smoking seventy cigarettes a day. Gah. Gah!

Okay, I'm going to go try to figure out the laundry machine. It looks nothing like the one at home. I'm probably screwed, and so are the people around me. I miss you and everybody already. See you in a year!

Love,

Reub

P.S. I think my mailed boxes of neck ties, winter clothing, and Christmas lights was confiscated by the customs authorities. Thus, you might be seeing me sooner than next summer...

I'm Between Jobs and Living with My Parents

2011-08-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

For me, the summer reached its peak last week.

After a month and a half of attending weddings, finding sandals on the road, hauling to Chicago to get a Chinese visa, kickin' it with the best people in the world, taking bike rides, driving to Wyoming and back, playing volleyball and grilling meat with the college crew, rocking out to Becoming the Archetype with Paul, crashing on the different couches and air mattresses and beds at different friends' homes, beating the crap out of my sister in an Iowa county-naming contest, visiting my grandparents, watching the Twins lose on TV, building turtle internment camps, flying to Idaho and back, breaking bread with a wide variety of friends and family, jamming with Cole and Justin like we used to in Lissner, reading, and harassing our pet cat Simon, the time that I was most excited for arrived: a week with my family at the cabin on Spirit Lake.

First, the cabin. The best place in the world. It lies on the north shore of Big Spirit on the border of Iowa and Minnesota down a quiet gravel road on McClelland Beach. The cabin was originally this olive green cottage that sported a leaky roof, a toilet that worked most of the time, and a lot of character. In 1996, however, the family decided to knock that cabin down and put up The Cabin 2.0.

The cabin now is everything one could expect in such a structure at such a location. Lake paraphanelia - like the big mounted fish that we told Michael would eat him when he was little - decorates the wall. Various swimming accessories - like Big Bertha, the infallible large black inner tube - lie strewn on the floor and in the closets. A loft populated by mattresses and other sleeping goods - how else would we get ten or eleven occupants in the cabin at once? - dominates the upper floor. Outside there is the standard fire pit, the shed out back, a beach, and a dock.

Admittedly, words fail to reflect the true value of the cabin. I cannot speak for all the members of my family, nuclear or extended, but when my car gets to the grade, I slide into relaxation mode. The cabin itself is not markedly different from any of the others on the beach or in the area, but the memories, the company, the break from normal life, and the reverence with which hanging out there is treated makes this my favorite place in the world.

We jumped off the end of the dock at least ten million times, sometimes throwing a ball to each other, sometimes screaming the name of a movie, sometimes leaping in the middle of the night. We paddled kayaks to the world's end, took a break, and then lumbered back. We laughed at Michael as he trailed behind the motor boat on a tube and his swimsuit trailed down his legs in a bundle. We fed campfires until they raged uncontrollably and ate s'mores until we bulged uncontrollably. We sat on the dock and talked and got into the sun. We helped and laughed at a family friend after she and her jelly slippers fell into the slough on the other side of the road. We took naps. We caught frogs and turtles, sometimes getting bloody injuries from the latter. We rode jetskis and killed them in the middle of the lake, or couldn't get back on, or both. We took rides on the motorboat. We (Jake Lemke!) lit off fireworks that came back and hit us (me!) in the legs. We slept three in a two-person tent. We built enormous, intricate sand castles. We (I?) got a ticket from the DNR for failing to have any life jackets in our expired-tag-havin' boat. We gathered to celebrate countless birthdays and Fourths, thus forging relationships with all the members of Grandpa and Grandma Schoon's family.

So, second, the cabin at Spirit Lake was a perfect place for the Haggar family to finally reunite. Dan, Sue, Christina, Michael, and I last congregated on May 25, 2009, and had not all been together for 807 days. And only the good Lord knows how many days it will be until we all meet again, too.

On Monday afternoon I rolled out on Highway 9 to Spirit Lake and the cabin by myself, but I was joined later that evening by my parents. The next day I picked my brother Michael up from the airport in Sioux Falls, he having recently finished his YouthWorks! commitments for the summer, and back to the cabin we went. Then Thursday night the final piece of the puzzle was put into place as my sister Christina showed up off the road from Omaha. Thursday to Sunday was spent together.

How can I describe my time with the four people who know me best? I felt complete. In many ways, we were all at different places than we'd been the last time we'd all been under the same roof; each member of the family had taken different paths and had different experiences. But the time was still overrun with cohesion and understanding and laughter.

As had so often been the case during the summer in America, reconnecting and reminiscing and processing with the fam made me feel like I should stay and not go. Maybe going makes me value time with my family and my friends more, although I know living in the Midwest around them would be awesome and rewarding as well. I doubt it makes a difference, though. We have a good time, all the time.

So. I will miss the Haggars. I will miss the Schoons. I will miss my college friends. I will miss my YouthWorks! friends. I will miss my Iowa friends. I will miss the cabin and the TC and Simon and the Twins and home. But...maybe we can do this again next summer? Let's be in touch. See ya.

101 Questions about Beijing

2011-08-11T08:24:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, August 17, 2011 - six days from now - I will leave the Midwest and fly to Beijing in the People's Republic of China. Questions swirl around my head like flies around a pile of my brother's laundry:

1. What is the quickest way to get arrested in a communist country?
2. How hard is Mandarin to speak and understand?
3. How hard is Chinese to read and write?
4. How much room in my bag will I save if I go commando all year?
5. What is communism like in action and how much does it affect everday life?
6. When will the "Korean singles" ads disappear from my Facebook page?
7. Are cats and snakes normal menu items?
8. Can I get a pet cat instead of eating one?
9. Are there many fun things to do on the weekends?
10. Will there be room to breathe?
11. Will I get to coach anything at my new school?
12. Which age group do I teach best?
13. Will there be as many bald teachers at Beijing World Youth Academy as there were at Centennial Christian School?
14. Will the other teachers like me?
15. Will my students be fun?
16. What books will I get to teach?
17. How much frustration will the VPN that I get cause me?
18. Will I even be able to use Facebook?
19. Will I even be able to publish on this blog?
20. Will Skype work from China?
21. Are all emails, phone calls, letters, and smoke signals censored/monitored?
22. Is Yao Ming as popular there as Michael Jordan was in America?
23. How much influence did Yao Ming have in making basketball popular in China?
24. How do people in China feel about Yao Ming's recent retirement?
25. Can I meet Stephon Marbury? How about Steve Francis?
25. How come baseball has failed to become popular in China?
26. Can I go run a lap on the Olympic track or swim a lap in the Olympic pool?
27. Would it be a good idea for me to get a bike?
28. What are the most popular martial arts practiced?
29. What are the in's and out's of Buddhism?
30. Where and how are the dead disposed of?
31. Are there trees or grass in Beijing?
32. Does anyone there care about Christmas?
33. How crazy is the Lunar New Year celebration?
34. How importantly is education treated?
35. How do the Chinese view Western education?
36. Are Pringles available?
37. What is the foreign community like?
40. What percentage of the foreign community is composed of white men living in China solely to date Chinese women?
41. Are the ladies better looking in Beijing or in Seoul?
42. Where can books printed in English be found in China?
43. How much will a cab cost?
44. Is there a Hard Rock Cafe there?
45. Do students wear uniforms?
46. What word(s) can I yell for service in a restaurant?
47. To what degree is fashion emphasized?
48. Do Chinese people like flannel?
49. Who is your daddy and what does he do?
50. Do the Chinese know who Alexandra Wallace is?
51. Is deodorant available for purchase?
52. Do people party in Beijing as hard as they do in Seoul?
53. What is the most common last name in China?
54. Can toilet paper be flushed down the toilet or does it go in the garbage?
55. How different is American Chinese food from authentic Chinese food?
56. Is the food delicious in general?
57. Is the food healthy in general?
58. Where can I get me some good Mexican food?
59. Where can I get me some good Korean food?
60. Where can I get me some good Lebanese food?
61. Should I boycott McDonald’s?
62. How will a beard go over?
63. Will anyone come visit me?
64. Will people still want to be my friends in America if I continue to leave all the time?
65. How expensive is traveling within China? Without?
66. Are all things in China actually made in China?
67. What are China's views on its neighboring countries?
68. Is it expensive to heat ones apartment in the winter?
69. Is there validity to either of the following articles that Kara Minor posted on Facebook ("Ten Reasons Why Going To China Might Be Bad for Your Health"; "Seven Things in China That Could Kill You")
70. Will Chinese people care if I don't shower?
71. Do many Chinese people speak English?
72. Do many Chinese people want to speak English?
73. Will I be able to find the note that Dawna left me in China last spring?
74. How hot does it get?
75. How cold does it get?
76. Does it snow?
77. How did China produce so many people?
78. How long should I stay?
79. How much does an apartment cost to rent?
80. How's the public transportation?
81. Is there karaoke in Beijing?
82. Do the Chinese like punk?
83. Do the Chinese like ska?
84. Do the Chinese like hip hop?
85. Do the Chinese like K-pop?
86. Do the Chinese like metalcore?
87. Do the Chinese like hardcore?
88. Where can I meet a panda?
89. How nasty is the pollution going to be?
90. Do the Chinese like Americans?
91. What is most likely to kill me: a panda, the pollution, or being an American?
92. Do the Chinese like white people?
93. What does the average Chinese citizen think of democracy and/or the West?
94. How badly is China beating the U.S. in the "Most Powerful Country in the World" competition?
95. Given that most of the world considers China to be the rising superpower of the 21st century, how do the Chinese themselves view their place in the world economically and their future as a global player?
96. How can China's support of North Korea be pried away?
97. How long are the Chinese going to let the United States pussy-foot around concerning the trillion plus dollars Americans owe them before taking up arms?
98. Can I bring my Bible?
99. What kind of English or international churches exist?
100. Do the Chinese dig Confucianism?
101. Can the Great Wall of China actually be seen from space?

Cemetery Road Trip

2011-08-03T07:13:00.000-07:00

Here is a quiz of thirty questions about a road trip I went on recently in order to see a bunch of different graves throughout the midwestern and western United States. Write down your answers, tally them up at the end, and e-mail me how many you answered correctly. The winning score will receive a prize that we discovered on the road trip, gathered up into our van, and brought home especially for this occasion. Good luck!

1. On Tuesday, July 19, 2011, my father and I departed from Rock Rapids, Iowa, for Lander, Wyoming in hopes of both learning a lot about the history of the Midwestern U.S. and also _________.
a. getting away from Iowa for a while
b. discovering the truth about Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
c. checking up on my brother Michael
d. finding an additional starting pitcher for the Twins

2. The Mighty Mo, a.k.a. the Missouri River, was a lovely accomplice for most of the first day's drive and was _________ in most places.
a. flooded
b. thorough, informative, and interesting
c. absolutely crazy
d. closed

3. The Atka Lakota Museum that we visited at the St. Joseph's Indian School in Chamberlain, South Dakota, was _________ but prohibited photos from being taken inside.
a. flooded
b. thorough, informative, and interesting
c. absolutely crazy
d. closed

4. The Buffalo Interpretative Center, located seven miles east of Pierre, South Dakota, was _________.
a. flooded
b. thorough, informative, and interesting
c. absolutely crazy
d. closed

5. A visit to the capitol building of South Dakota in Pierre the next day allowed us to meet _________.
a. the current South Dakota governor, Dennis Daugaard
b. the lady once known as the most attractive woman in politics, Stephanie Herseth
c. South Dakota native Mike Miller
d. no one important

6. At the Cultural Heritage Center, which had been built into the side of a hill and documents most to all of South Dakota's history, the younger of the two of us lost a _________ by a score of 49 ounces to 187 ounces.
a. simulated cow milking contest against a milking machine
b. blood drinking competition
c. gas siphoning game
d. spitting match

7. My pa and I journeyed onward to discover _________ grave overlooking the Missouri River at Lake Oahe.
a. Laura Ingalls Wilder's
b. Joe Foss's
c. Hubert Humphrey's
d. Sitting Bull's

8. Tuesday night's stopping point was in Lemmon, South Dakota, home of the world's largest _________.
a. landfill
b. congressman
c. petrified forest
d. buffalo

9. Thursday saw us travelers progressing into North Dakota, where _________ grew up.
a. 2NE1
b. Roger Maris
c. Theodore Roosevelt
d. Mr. T.

10. Also located in North Dakota is Theodore Roosevelt National Park, a massive nature reserve of 110 square miles and home to scores of _________, all of which the two of us drove near, photographed, and heckled when we passed through on Thursday.
a. horses
b. prairie dogs
c. buffalo
d. all of the above

11. Thursday night's resting place was in Miles City, _________, a locale neither of us had been to before.
a. Canada
b. Montana
c. Nebraska
d. Greenland

12. On Friday my dad and I rose (read: one hit the other with a bunch of pillows to wake him up) at 5:53 in the morning and drove just north of the Montana-Wyoming border to the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn, which was fought _________.
a. on June 25 and 26 of 1876
b. between several Native American tribes and General Custer's Seventh Calvary Regiment
c. all over the hills above the Little Bighorn Creek
d. all of the above

13. The U.S. Army lost the Battle of Little Bighorn; _________ of its soldiers involved survived.
a. zero
b. the larger
c. the Iowan squadron
d. all

14. After touring the battle grounds, the we hit the road and headed south toward Casper, Wyoming, but halted in Buffalo, Wyoming, when we learned that the flight of my mom from Denver had been delayed until 10:00 p.m. that night instead of 4:30 p.m., so instead of going to Casper and waiting to pick her up until then, we _________.
a. a long nap in the parking lot of an insurance agency
b. a detour to a memorial for Fetterman and the other eighty soldiers who got demolished in the Battle of the Hundred Slain against Red Cloud
c. a scenic drive through the Bighorn Mountains and Wind River Canyon
d. all of the above

15. Before picking up Sue from the airport in Casper, we met Michael Haggar near Lander, Wyoming, on the other side of the state, where he works hard for _________.
a. the CIA
b. YouthWorks!, Inc.
c. a rodeo
d. the money

16. I hadn't seen Michael _________.
a. so clean shaven
b. so fully clothed
c. in almost a year
d. without a flock of women chasing him

17. After reunited with Michael, the crew of male Haggars _________.
a. cruelly texted Christina, the only Haggar not destined to congregate that weekend
b. drove to Casper, Wyoming, to get my mom from the airport, where her flight from Denver finally deposited her
c. purchased matching sets of cowboy hats
d. did the Ghost Dance

18. Saturday, my nearly-complete family drove back to Lander and _________.
a. inspected Michael's housing site
b. prospected for gold
c. did the Ghost Dance
d. all of the above

19. Saturday afternoon's activities also included _________.
a. a visit to Sacajawea's grave
b. a drive deep into the mountains
c. a check-in at Best Western
d. all of the above

20. The Wind River Reservation near which Michael is located is home to the _________ American Indian tribes.
a. Shoshone
b. Arapaho
c. both "a" and "b"
d. neither "a" nor "b"

21. Not deviating from the normal Sunday routine, we all _________ on the morning of the Christian Sabbath.
a. slept til noon
b. went to church together
c. graded papers
d. hit the hay at about 7 a.m. after a night of wild partying at the local trance club

22. _________ consumed the afternoon hours of that Sunday, but only for my mom and me.
a. A hike into the wilderness that ended at a waterfall
b. An elk hunt with bows and arrows
c. The Twins-Tigers game
d. The completion of a thousand-piece puzzle

23. The last we saw of Michael was him _________ during club that night.
a. leading worship
b. pretending to be a dinosaur (probably a velociraptor) and attacking kids
c. consuming a gratuitous amount of beans
d. giving an intense talk the kids at his work place

24. On Monday my mom _________ Iowa from Casper after my dad and I drove her there.
a. disowned
b. flew back to
c. prophesied doom over
d. shelled

25. Feeling abandoned, my father and I traveled to the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota Monday afternoon, a reservation that is home to the _________.
a. Crow
b. Cheyenne
c. Oglala Sioux
d. Mighty Mighty Bosstones

26. On Pine Ridge lies the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre, which occurred when _________ slaughtered between 150 and 300 captive, unarmed Lakota Sioux in 1890. (Hint! The answer has already been mentioned earlier in the quiz!)
a. orcs
b. the aliens from "Independence Day"
c. L. Frank Baum*
d. the 7th Calvary Regiment of the U.S. Army

27. When my father and I visited Wounded Knee, we confronted _________.
a. the Wounded Knee Massacre cemetery
b. a dude who hit us up for a ride to town even though he regaled us with a tale of how he’d stolen some guy’s car in Rapid City and driven it until it ran out of gas
c. a shockingly heavy thunderstorm
d. all of the above

28. After a night of rest in Hot Springs on Monday night, South Dakota, we swiftly crossed the entire state Tuesday, stopping only to _________ and _________.
a. perform the Ghost Dance; hang out with Lisa McCarthy in Mission, South Dakota
b. urinate; hold up a store
c. check out a museum at the Oglala Lakota College; hang out with Lisa McCarthy in Mission, South Dakota
d. check out a museum at the Oglala Lakota College; perform the Ghost Dance

29. My understanding of most to all of the historic sites we visited in South Dakota and Montana was enhanced by reading _________ at the time of the journey.
a. "Book of Mormon" by Joseph Smith (the founder of the Mormon religion, not to be confused with the mediocre #1 pick in the 1995 NBA draft)
b. reading "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" by Dee Brown (the illustrious author, not to be confused with Dee Brown, the NBA player who did the "no look" dunk in the 1991 Slam Dunk Contest)
c. "Dead Reckoning" by Michael Jackson (the New Zealand poet, not to be confused with the King of Pop, Michael Jackson)
d. "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin (the acclaimed author, not to be confused with the flailing baseball player James Baldwin)

30. The final stop of the journey in Marion, South Dakota, to pay respect at the grave of Uncle Dave was the _________ graveyard that we visited.
a. first
b. fifth
c. biggest
d. oldest

Extra Credit:
General George Armstrong Custer graduated _________ in his class at West Point.
1. first
2. with honors
3. by bribing his professors
4. last

Key!
1. c
2. a
3. b
4. d
5. d
6. a
7. d
8. c
9. b
10. d
11. b
12. d
13. a
14. d
15. b
16. c
17. b
18. a
19. d
20. c
21. b
22. a
23. d
24. b
25. c
26. d
27. d
28. c
29. b
30. b

*Don't know who he is? This dude not only wrote "The Wonderful Wizard of Os" but also advocated "the complete annihilation of Native Americans."

Bag 'Em and Tag 'Em, Pt. 10

2011-07-28T15:25:00.001-07:00

The following account details experiences that, though due in no part at all to my own efforts, I believe to be possible only in the country I was in until the end of June. South Korea. Thus, this post will be long. Unbelievably long. Deal with it.

(1) Chungju

Bright and early on a Saturday morning, the crew assembled at Gangbyeon where one of the many bus terminals lies. Duncan, Heidi, Anna, Kara, Ashley, and I boarded a bus bound for Danyang. We made great time and soon found ourselves walking to the Danyang Caves, a sight I'd experienced the year prior with both the Freeburgs and the Johnson. The cave captured our attention for a spell; 'twasn't as busy as last year, but 'twas as dark, damp, and delightful on the eyes.

While we were walking back from the caves, which was a fifteen-minute hike, Duncan and I were straggling a little bit. Then out of nowhere some Korean dude came running up the sidewalk after us and yelled, "Guys!" We turned and he gave us six cans of pear juice. And then he just turned and walked back in the direction he'd come from. And...the pear juice was pretty good! Unfazed, we continued on into town and had a hearty tofu lunch at some restaurant nearby.

We then hitched a ride to the ferry port, where we were accosted, quietly and suddenly, by Ben and The Norwegians. They were from - sit down for this bit - Norway, and one of them had a pretty badly sprained ankle. And they'd arrived in Korea late the night before. But they underwent all of the following with us, making us eleven strong as we boarded said ferry.

Most of the nautical voyage was spent shooting the breeze up on the highest of the three decks on the ship. There were, however, a couple minutes that few of us will probably ever forget or experience again. Advertisements for this ferry claimed that there was some noraebang activity on board, and many of us snooped around to investigate this claim. But, instead of finding a place to sing, we found an surprisingly full room of elderly men and women dancing to old school Korean dance music. And they found us.

The trip was deemed a success when we landed near Chungju and took taxis to the deep interior of the metropolis of 200,000+ individuals. This destination was chosen because Ashley (and her sister, the late fifth grade CCS teacher/current wife of Mr. Jordan Williams - congratulations!) lived in that fine town for one year. Our stops included a 4D simulator (we rode "Bloody Road 2" and were attacked by zombies and bats), a clothing store that sold awful English-havin' t-shirts and other fun wardrobe items (I bought my sister some penguin socks), "the most delicious restaurant in Korea" (it was pretty good), a cafe bar called Jazz and Sancho (there wasn't much jazz, nor was there much sancho, but everything else - especially the atmosphere - was pretty stellar), and then, around 10 p.m., the local bus terminal, from where we took a bus back to Seoul by 12:30 in the morning. A full day! But a good one nonetheless.

(2) Dog Cafe

It was a dark and stormy night. Elyse and I met at Hapjeong Station and located the Bau Haus by foot, and by umbrella. There was a fence enveloping the entrance to the third floor establishment. We should have read this omen better.

I am not a huge dog person. It is common knowledge (among who?) that I would do anything for a cat, but I have connected with few to no dogs in my time. The most memorable connection, to me, was when Bonnemas' dog (its name was "Bear," no joke) bit me in the butt in Roseland, Minnesota, when I was a lad. Anyway, the dog cafe was merely on the list of stuff to do before, right up there with unclog the Sullivans' toilet and finish the Paris puzzle. But we all know how much Elyse loves canines, so: we went.

The dog cafe was not unlike the cat cafe; we were let in, ordered some beverages, sat at our booth, and hoped that one of the pack of dogs would come give us its attention. If I knew more about pooches, I would write here the various breeds and mixes and such that we witnessed. But I don't; we saw big dogs, small dogs, dogs that were super furry, dogs that lacked much hair, dogs that were brown and white and black and gray, dogs that peed on the floor, dogs that pooped on the floor, dogs that had lots of energy, dogs that were tired or depressed, dogs that were handsome, and dogs that were ugly. We seemed to get love only from the pretty homely ones.

People brought their dogs to the dog cafe, a big difference between it and the cat cafe. Usually this wasn't really a problem, but one dog came in and every other mutt in the joint completely flipped out. Barking and carryin' on. The new dog ran around and some of the others chased it, chased the beast right under our table, where the new dog unleashed everything his bladder had ever had in it. Right where our feet - some of which were equipped with sandals that had holes in them - were resting.

The other thing was that the dogs mostly flocked to whomever had treats. Dog snacks were available for purchase, but we did not buy any of them. And so not many of them came and talked with us. And the ones that did were, as previously stated, hideous. Oh, well.

Ultimately we tuned the dogs out and caught up, and it was fine, and then we went on our merry way. Good times, Bau Haus. You may not be a cat cafe, but you're good at what you do.

(3) Namhansan

It was a dark and stormy day. Kara, Duncan, Heidi, Anna, and I struck out from Noksapyeong, transferred sixteen times, and ended up at Namhansansamseong, literally translated, "boom shakalaka." This was completely uncharted territory for we white folks, but we slyly maneuvered ourselves to the entrance of the park surrounding Namhansan and began exploring the slopes.

One element of this excursion that I took particular delight in was the fact that a) the destination was my idea, for once, and b) even though it was pouring rain, as it had been all week prior and would continue to do for weeks afterward c) the crew was still hellbent on hiking here. Hurrah!

There were foot therapy sidewalks. There were bags for us to wear on our heads. There were small caves - though nothing that could compare to the Danyang ones. There were waterfalls. There were small temples. There were bells nearby. There were pagodas upon which to rest. There was "The Great Wall of Korea," a wall to the fortress that sits atop the mountain. There was a wall being rebuilt. There was perfect weather for such a day. There were many photography opportunities. And, apparently, there were breast castles. We didn't make it to those (I am tempted to type "unfortunately" at the end of that last sentence, but).

After a while, we were wet and gross and went back into Seoul. The day had been owned, despite the elements.

(4) Eurwangni Beach

Seoul is not incredibly close to either the Yellow Sea nor the Sea of Japan, but getting to the shoreline is not entirely impossible. On yet another Saturday, Kara, Duncan, Anna, and I proved this fact to be true by taking the airport railroad from Seoul Station to Incheon International Airport and then getting a bus to Eurwangni Beach, which means "we have nothing to fear but fear itself" in Korean.

The beach was fine. We staked our territory, tackled Anna into the water, and went exploring. We left the fine sands of the shore for a rocky, vegetated lookout point, one that caused Kara - having recently broken an index finger of hers* - some pain but still provided a spectacular vantage point out over the waters.

The lookout point's marvelous view was no secret; we soon discovered that the South Korean military used it to make sure no North Korean or Chinese troops captured the beach unnoticed. There was a dangerous watch dog, a strategic foxhole, Vietnam-esque underbrush, and complex militaristic warfare equipment.

As we returned from the war march, we met some cute little puppies.

And then crawled through a big drainage tube.

Hungry, the four of us ate lunch. Tired, some of us took naps. Rejuvenated, we chucked the Frisbee around for a while. Actually, first, as we returned from devouring our bibimbap, we noticed that the waterline on the beach had changed. There was no way to tell - or maybe we were grossly unobservant - whether the water had crawled up the beach or receded away from it. Fortunately, the latter was what had occurred, and the sea continued to sneak further away from our towels and bags until we left around 8:30 that night.

As the tide went out, there emerged more and more room for everyone at the beach to romp and play. Duncan played rugby with some youth there. We did throw the disc around for a while. There were ships that appeared to have been stuck for years in the sand as well.

After cleaning our mud-caked feet off with a hose at some fancy restaurant and getting yelled at for it, we went out to the end of some pier to enjoy the lower temperature and to climb some rocks. Sunset was soon approaching, so we hiked back to our camp, got a bunch of junk food, and watched the setting of the sun on that fine Saturday.

I can't say I didn't get sunburned. But that is a sign of a full beach experience. We returned to Seoul sandy, red, and tired, but again the day had been ravaged by us.

(5) Seoul Forest

To be honest, I went here twice in the fall. But, I went alone. After church one fair Sunday, Ashley, Kara, Anna, Heidi, and I took the green line out to that green place, intent on running around and enjoying the beautiful spring afternoon. There is not a ton to tell about this except that we did just that. As per usual, a Frisbee got thrown around. As per usual, Anna got involved in numerous other games that were being played around the area, including baseball and jumping rope. As per usual, we purchased an entire watermelon for the five of us, cut it up into huge chunks with a pocketknife, and hauled the pieces around with us as we continued in the sporting activities.

After a while we relocated to the more western part of the park, where the deer and the more beautiful photo opportunities lay. Slowly but surely we made our way out of the forest, across a branch of the Han, and to Oksu Station, where we parted ways for the evening. Swing.

(6) World DJ Fest

Yangpyeong. That was where it was. I'd never heard of it, either. But to it we went nonetheless, "we" being myself and K-Nat, our wonderful host in Busan on the spring break excursion to the south. We took the subway a million miles east and got off with the herd of young folks who arrived as we did. A ten-minute walk took us to the festival grounds. I am not allowed to tell the monetary price for such an event, so do not ask. The DJ's were set up in typical festival fashion; on many stages. The attendees were also set up in typical festival fashion: energetic and wild.

A wide variety of...stuff accompanied the DJ's as they strutted their stuff: many a booth offering tattoos, the limbo, food, drinks, and T-shirts you could make yourself. The music was your typical house variety: dying down and then picking back up fervently, borrowing liberally from other songs, fun for a while, a little monotonous after some time had passed. Though I have no doubt things digressed as the night wore on, the crowd was like what you'd find in a dance club but different in just the right ways: very few people stood around idly, not dancing, and there weren't any creepy dry humpers sneakin' around. Despite this, K-Nat and I had to work on Monday and knew that Saturday night was a poor night to not sleep. So we headed back to Seoul at a reasonable hour and taught well the next week.

(7) Eungbongsan

Simply put, Eungbongsan is this large hill that sits on the edge of the river in east Seoul, near Oksu Station and the Seoul Forest. It affords viewers a grandiose scene of the Han River and several different parts of Seoul that lie along its banks. This spring I went once during the day and once during the evening. Both times were alone, both times were serene, and both times resulted in a few worthwhile pictures.

(8) Everland

At some point in the spring semester, even before I announced that I would not be returning to Centennial Christian School, the class of 2012 and I had a conversation about going to an amusement park during the summer. The conversation resulted in the signing of a contract between me and them. As time progressed toward the end of school, plans were laid for the amusement park trip. June 16 was decided upon.

And so, on the morning of that glorious day, Mr. Mark Nola - may the Lord smile upon him all of his days - and I met eleven or so of CCS's finest juniors outside the gates of Everland, an enormous theme park in Yongin, south of Seoul. It was hot, but we were not to be denied.

All day we rode rides and watched parades and ate Korean food and competed in shoe tossing contests and looked at wild animals and made fun of each other and heard twelve-year-old girls singing "I'm on a Boat" under their breaths and stood in line and sang "The Moose Song" and saw a dude with a Twins hat on and dropped a shoe off the chair lift and got into dance battles with park employees and posed for an inhuman amount of pictures. This part of the post is littered with the latter.

The Everland trip was the last time Mark or I saw most of those particular students. It was, to use a phrase I employed far too many times, a solid stamp of closure on some really awesome relationships. Saying good-bye at the end wasn't very fun for Mark or me, nor was it fun for two girls who missed their last bus because of us and got home at 1 in the morning. But: the day stands as one of the best spent in Korea. Thanks for a ballin' day, Jason, Josh, Justin, Nana, Rina, Minhael, Samie, Sarah, Susanna, Yeojung, and Nicky! It is not one that will easily be forgotten.

*Hurrah! The weekend before the beach trip - a weekend on which the characters involved and I were apart - a claim was made that Kara was not very good at punching, so to prove this statement false, Kara punched Duncan's shoulder. Duncan did not flinch. Kara's knuckle was fractured.

**So few of the photos in this post are mine. It is not even funny. A tip of the cap to everyone I stole from.

TBAYU

2011-07-27T12:03:00.001-07:00

Dr. L. Kip Wheeler of Carson-Newman College (motto: Get to da Choppa) defines a symbol as a " word, place, character, or object that means something beyond what it is on a literal level." Symbols are all around us. Flags represent our nationalities, rings represent our lifelong bonds to each other, little squiggly lines represent sounds that represent our thoughts. Where would we be without symbols? Maybe nowhere.

This spring an object came to represent the weekend crew that I had the honor of running around with. The object was this:

This umbrella, or, as some called it, The Big A-- Yellow Umbrella (TBAYU), was first obtained on May 1st, 2011, from a friendly vendor in Seoul Station for the affordable price of 20,000 Korean won. Many flabbergasted Korean people could not believe the purchase, made by Kara and Heidi in anticipation of the coming monsoon season three months later. A more complete photo album of TBAYU ("The Yellow Umbrella: Beacon, Oar, Friend.") can be viewed on Heidi's Facebook page.

TBAYU served many functions. First and foremost, it protected the user(s) from such forces as rain, wind, sun, and a normal love life. TBAYU's large, rotund surface area blocked unwanted intrusions from the user(s), and its sturdy frame could hold up in the toughest of conditions.

Second and almost foremost, TBAYU was a beacon, a signal, a rallying point for a lost soul, like when we were all in Noksapyeong Station headed for Yeouinaru and Heidi and Kara left Anna in the bathroom and met me and Duncan down by the subway tracks and the train came and we all got on except for Duncan and went to Gongdeok and waited for Duncan to come with Anna but only Duncan showed up and then Anna called on someone else's phone and said her phone was dead and where the crap did we go and finally - finally! - when Anna arrived at Gongdeok, she was able to spot us because TBAYU was brilliantly radiating yellow light for all - especially lost Anna - to see.

Third, TBAYU's physical dimensions was a welcome additional to any and every naval quest; its large square area could catch slight whiffs of wind and, acting as a big a-- yellow sail, add speed to the voyage. It could also act as an oar when the breeze failed us.

Furthermore, TBAYU was a fun addition to such festivities as this lantern festival, where its enormous yellow dome blended in nicely with other obscenely bright objects.

Also, TBAYU could provide privacy against unwanted eyes.

TBAYU made strange situations even stranger.

And the color of TBAYU occasionally blended in well with whatever we were wearing, making us all look at least a little like fashionable human beings, if not thin ones.

However, ironically, TBAYU shielded its final rain drop on June 26, 2011, the day before I left Korea. It was as if we parted together, except that I flew to Minneapolis while TBAYU ended up unceremoniously in a trash pile somewhere in Yongsan. Anyway, TBAYU's last day began at Paris Baguette - a thousand curses on its evil, corporate soul - where some spring broke and rendered the umbrella useless. Heidi, TBAYU's true owner, was both devastated and angry.

After church at SIBC, mourners gathered to weep over the end of an era.

Nonetheless, we carried the umbrella with us the rest of the day, perhaps in honor, perhaps hoping that a suitable deposit process would reveal itself, or perhaps because it was still, after all, tropical storm season. The main problem was that TBAYU would not close properly, so if left unsecured, it would expand to a large fraction of its usual enormous circumference. I jammed it into the then-full umbrella bucket when we arrived, but then when other people started leaving, TBAYU started to expand as the other umbrellas that had been securing it in the bucket were removed. No one knew what to do except me, and I knew that it would be funniest to just sit by and watch those Korean high school kids struggle.

We took it with us on our quest for closure, a quest that led to King Sejong Plaza. During the course of the afternoon, TBAYU caused bloodshed (a), became an accessory to a hot cop photoshoot that Kara did (they kissed afterward)(b), acted as a boat (c), got danced with (d), tied shut a gift of great sentimental value from Kara, Ashley, Duncan, Heidi, and Anna (e), and was the final bond that glued us together (f).

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

And then TBAYU inevitably met its demise in the flurry of my departure cleaning. It was truly a great friend to all of us up until the end, and it shall not easily be forgotten. Monsoon season breezed onward despite the loss of our friend, and Heidi informed me soon after that she'd "bought a clear umbrella from the GS. Lame." Word. At any rate, rest in peace, dear friend. You served us well, not only in practical function but also in representing the eccentricity and silliness that we apparently were about.

"The loss of the yellow umbrella was a sorrow unforeseen by the citizens of South Korea as they entered the rainy season."
- G Dragon

"I softly weep at the loss. It may prove too much to bear."
- Regis Philbin

"What did you and Kara ever wind up doing with the umbrella? My
heart needs to know."
- Heidi “Guns Don’t Kill People…I Kill People” Stromberg

101 Awesome Things About Seoul: Installment 5

2011-07-18T15:32:00.000-07:00

It is common knowledge that Seoul is a neat place. To prove this to the few disbelievers who roam the hills and eat out of dumpsters, 101 pieces of evidence - completely subjective evidence, perhaps - have been compiled. The first twenty can be viewed here. The second twenty can be viewed here. The third twenty can be viewed here. The fourth twenty can be viewed here. The final twenty-one are recorded here.

(81) INSADONG

Insadong is technically a neighborhood near downtown Seoul but more specifically refers to one long street in particular that serves as one of the most popular tourist attractions in Seoul. This road in Insadong is generally quite crowded with foot traffic - not that that stops cars from trying to get through - and embodies a less modern view of Korean culture and heritage. The street is lined with stores selling almost anything Korean, including, off the top of my head, crafts, clothes, magnets, socks, flags, tapestries, masks, dishes, silverware, earthenware, statues, furniture, hats, pins, weapons, and almost everything in between. There are also a slough of traditional and modern tea houses and coffee shops, various art galleries, a plethora of interesting street food, traditional Korean musical performances, political demonstrations, Korean students doing polls in English with foreigners, and a steady stream of tourists. There also used to be a law or rule that disallowed any language but Hangul to be printed in Insadong; thus, the ol' place was home to the only Starbucks that does not have its name printed in English above the door (see right). The Korean-only rule may or may not still be enforced, but it embodies the atmosphere and point of the Insadong area: traditionally Korean.

(82) SOCCER (FOOTBALL?)

Dang. As I am researching a li'l bit, news articles about fixed soccer matches in the Korean soccer league emerge on Google. At least they weren't using steroids in the World Cup, like some North Korean players apparently were. Anyway! In the 2002 World Cup - a competition coincidentally held in South Korea and Japan - the South Korean men's soccer team reached the semifinals, which was the farthest any Korean team (or Asian team) had ever gone in the Cup. This sparked a ton of interest in the sport, which is now the most popular national sport, ahead of baseball and way ahead of basketball and way, way, way ahead of trashball. There is the Korea Professional Football League, composed of sixteen teams (six of whom have players who fix matches, I guess). There are big ol' stadiums all 'round the country, including World Cup Statium in Mapo of Seoul. There is Korean soccer stud Park Ji-Sung, who went to play for Manchester United in England. The culmination of all this occurs during the World Cup (see right), when everyone and their mother in Seoul dons red and gets crazy while watching the games, wherever they are. The madness is irresistible.

(83) T-MONEY CARD

When you enter the Seoul Metro system, whether it be a bus or the subway, and you pay by scanning your T-money card (this is key), you let "the system" know that you got on the bus at Point A; you get charged a flat rate. On a village bus (like the 02 bus) you get charged 600 won. On other, bigger, safer buses, the rate is 900 won. And if you're like me, at some point you have to get off the bus. Now. As you exit the bus, you scan your card. To let "the system" know you are getting off at Point B. Word. Then you go to the subway station nearby and scan again. If you go to a subway station that is near (I don't know what the criteria for "nearness" is) where you got off the bus, at Point B, within a half-hour or so, you will not be charged any more than 900 won, because you already paid that. Or, if you get on a different bus near Point B within a half hour or so, plan on not getting charged again. You can make your entire trip on whatever you start with, unless you accumulate more via subway transfers or long distances or something. As opposed to paying with cash: you have to pay again every time you get on a new bus and every time you get on the subway. Otherwise, if you are using your T-money card, "the system" keeps track of you and realizes that you are on one trip. This works in reverse, too. Start on the subway, get on a bus later, and boom: one charge. The T-money card works elsewhere as well; I believe that you can pay for items at certain convenience store chains with it. And I know you can pay for taxi rides with it. Lastly, a women wiser than myself (Ten-Mile Brit!) once said: "Never put more than 10,000W on your card; that way, if you lose it, you won't be losing as much." Come back to us, Ten-Mile. Anyway, the T-money is is where its at. Prepare to pay a million times as much dough if you don't have one and try to navigate through Seoul. Sidenote: if one were to examine this picture up and to the right, one could perhaps locate a T-money card flying through the air around me.

(84) THE STRESS ON SERVICE

Maybe it lines up with the societal focus on keeping up a good appearance. Maybe it is because the better your experience, the more likely you are to return and spend money again. Maybe it is just because folks are nice here. But at most restaurants or businesses in which your money is given in return for...something, you will be treated with the utmost care and respect. I think not knowing the language makes me particularly aware of it: waitresses and waiters constantly do their best to help me understand. Without a doubt, there are places that treat customers poorly, but for the most part, business proprietors are generally good to customers and clients. The dude in the picture here was at least nice enough to pose for this picture with me on my last day; he also took pictures for us in his restaurant. Nice guy!

(85) WHACK TRANSLATIONS

An Ameri-centric statement if ever there was one, I know. I hesitate to list this item, because having questionable grammar at times is far better than having no English at all. But, Seoul, don't take this the wrong way: the other 30,000+ foreign teachers and I greatly appreciate how much information is in English here! We also acknowledge that many cities around the world and especially in Asia are terrible with English. Because seriously, the errors and general weirdness of expression here are few and far between. But they exist. And they are funny. Sometimes. "Crap sandwich" instead of "crab sandwich." "Micky Mouth" instead of "Mickey Mouse." "Breaday. Taste and enjoy your happy time. We have been making effort in searching of best tasty and quality to serve you. This bread is made from high grade material with our best wish. Enjoy the sweet and refresh yourself." instead of...I don't know what. The most common culprits of rotten English are T-shirts and notebooks. Both have been known to display English that ranges from rational to grammatical disasters to strange phrases whose true meanings are utterly indecipherable. No great loss, though. Just sort of fun.

(86) HISTORIC SITES

By this I mean mostly temples and palaces. I hope it is okay to throw them both in one broader category. Anyway, there is a lot here. There are about a million temples in Seoul: here is a map and here is a list. If you have an intense interest in Buddhism, its history or its current popularity, check out any of the scores of temples that litter the Seoul metropolitan area. The coolest one, according to expert Megan "Here's a Shovel, Can You Dig It, Foo'?" Schwartz, is Bong-eunsa, near the COEX. There are far fewer palaces, but they are more well-known, easier to find, and by and large more interesting. Although they all sort of start to look the same after a while. My favorite palace complex is Gyeongbuk Palace near Gwanghwamun. Others include Deoksugung, Changdeokgung, Changgyeonggung, Unhyeongung, and Gyeonghuigung.
The palaces usually have a big gate at the front, a wall that encircles the entire compound, and a number of buildings and courtyards within. The buildings are not that close to one another and often have the insides restored. Without a doubt, there are historical sites that fall under a nominclature other than "temple" or "palace" (like Jeolbusan, the Suwon Folk Village, Samcheong-dong, or any of the gates), and a lot could be said about those as well. At any rate, there's plenty of history here, and the city has gone to impressive lengths to preserve and display what has been built in Seoul.

(87) HAN RIVER PARK

The site of Mark Nola's last hours in Seoul. A moment of silence. 한강공원 occupies the southern bank of the Han River on the west side of the city, around Yeouido, roughly between the 63 Building and the National Assembly. In the winter, I would probably put this on the "101 Lame Things About Seoul" list, but in the spring, the park is a Sunday afternoon dream. The peak event 'round these parts is obviously the cherry blossoms, but if you missed those, despair not; there is still much to do. There are large spacious portions of grass to fly your kite or throw your frisbee in. There are fountains and waterworks that aren't practical but look cool. There are walking paths and biking paths to traverse. There are bikes for rent, both singles and tandems! And while we're on the topic of riverside relaxing, on the southern bank in the eastern part of the city is Banpo, which is basically the same as the Yeouido area but with basketball courts, more concrete, and a colorful water show that shoots off the Banpo bridge. Anyway, if you want to enjoy spring at all, pack a picnic and spend an afternoon at Han River Park.

(88) SCREEN GOLF

There is not a lot of space to spare in Seoul. The population density is 16,700 folks per square kilometer. Between all those people and their cars, pets, shoes, and kids' textbooks, there isn't room for such luxuries as, say, Bobby Jenks, or golf courses. But innovation has made room for one of those two daily life necessities. Screen golf! It's the same concept behind the PC 방, noraebang, the jjimjilbang, or the DVD 방: take some activity, put it in a small room, and do it. In your golfing room there are clubs, places to sit, balls to hit, a tee if you want it, some sensors, and a great big screen on one wall of the room. Onto the screen the fairway and necessary statistics are projected. You hit your ball, the sensors tell you how far it "went," and the entire game is simulated. Except for the soreness in your shoulders and trunk the next morning.

(89) GWANGHWAMUN SQAURE

From the subway station that goes by the same name on the southern end to the Gyeongbuk Palace that stands resolutely on the northern end, this plaza is a beautiful tribute to much of Korea's past. The best vantage point, in this author's humble opinion, is from the statue of King Sejong that lies in the middle of the square. King Sejong ruled the Korean Chosun Dynasty during the 1400s and was sweet at militaristic strategy and at creating alphabetic systems. Under the dude's statue is a museum dedicated to King Sejong's creation of the Korean alphabet, Hangul. To the north of Sejong's image lies a vast expanse that is gorgeously vegetated during the summer and filled with various other activities and attractions during the other months. Past the north end of the square, across the street, sits Gyeongbukgung, the Blue House - where the president of South Korea lives, and the mountains.
Gazing southward, the viewer could take note of the plaza's descent into a haechi (the poster animal of Seoul) museum and into the subway station. Past this descent at the southern end of the square stands a statue of Yi Sun-shin (see right), the inventor of the turtle ship. Yi battled the Japanese during the sixteenth century; legend has it that his thirteen turtle ships once held off over three hundred Japanese vessels during one of his last naval battles. Which is to say: he was the man. Gwanghwamun Square is flanked by buildings of a large scale and of fair importance. The whole plaza is clean and beautifully designed; it honors the past in a modern way. Go there!

(90) SINCHON/HONGDAE

I think that this is the most youthful place in the city. The 신촌 area is fed by Yonsei University, one of the better post-secondary institutions in the country. 홍대 is a college known for its art program. As with many college neighborhoods, most of the businesses pander toward the younger crowd, so an abundance of restaurants, ice creameries, coffee shops, dance clubs, board game cafes, bars, PC rooms, department stores, and noraebangs dominate the landscape. The crowd is youthful, the lights are bright, the stimulation is overwhelming. Hongdae in particular has a pretty sketchy reputation because of the insane nightlife. Nonetheless, though you might feel old if you go here, there is no lack of stuff to see and do, regardless of the type of fun you choose to have.

(91) MYEONGDONG

Part of 명동 is my antithesis: shopping is king here. There are a million fashionable clothing stores and probably a million unfashionable clothing stores. On top of that, there are piles of items being sold cheaply out on the street, like socks, glasses frames, or t-shirts. Myeongdong is for shoppers what Hongdae is for alcoholics. If you can get past the shopping aspect - which, admittedly, is difficult - there are redeeming aspects to Myeongdong, like fine eateries, Nanta, solid street food, a cat cafe, noraebang, board game cafes, a close proximity to other desirable parts of town, and a fun, vibrant atmosphere. Swing through.

(92) OCCASAIONAL, LOUD, UNCENSORED RAP MUSIC IN PUBLIC PLACES

A few weeks ago I was eating with a former student at a nice Mexican restaurant. We were bantering about Lord knows what when I noticed that during breaks in conversation I was hearing an uncensored version of "Get Outta Your Mind" (don't play this around your kids, or your grandparents. Or you parents. Or your girlfriend. Oh, wait, you don't have a girlfriend.) playing happily in the background. I took note of the rest of the playlist; it was straight out of some club in LA. This is not an isolated incident. Walking around such places as the Well Being Mart near my home and La Festa in Ilsan, I have heard Jay-Z or DMX blastin' away, with no regards to the parental advisory sticker that surely accompanies the album being played. The reason that this is on the list of 101 items about Seoul is: it's funny. And you can get down when you weren't expecting to, as I am in this accompanying picture taken at E-Mart.

(93) FAN DEATH

In Korea, a fan must not be left on in an unventilated room or one of many unfortunate fates will fall upon the room's occupant(s): hypothermia, suffocation, and/or death. Either the fan will lower the body temperature to an undesirably low degree, and the room's occupant(s) will die, or the fan will prevent any air from being inhaled by the main two oxygen portals in the human body (mouth, nose), and the room's occupant(s) will die. To avoid death, crack a window, or shut the fan off before you fall asleep or buckle down to stay a while. Fortunately, air conditioners exist here also, so just use that to be cool. This sort of goes along with the humor I find in loud, profane music being played publicly. It's mostly just amusing and not really good for anything. For more information, click here or here.

(94) ILLEGAL DVD SHOPS

Need twenty or so Christmas presents for all those cousins of your future in-laws whom you need to impress? Nothing says "I care" like a pirated movie, complete with sleeve and disc cover! All you need to do is walk around Yongsan Station or any highly-trafficked subway stop, and you will undoubtedly come upon someone selling a spread of hijacked DVD's. They can be purchased for a couple thousand won and are tax free. You do run the risk of buying a copy that has terrible sound quality. Or maybe the person filming it from inside the theater fell asleep. Or maybe it's not even the movie you thought it was. But, hey, it's only 3,000W, right? There is also the ethical side of this: it's not ethical. To my credit (or discredit) I have purchased one DVD, and it was "Home Alone," and I don't regret it.

(95) FOOD DELIVERY

Got a craving for some quick grab but are too fat and lazy to leave your home to purchase what you need? Don't worry 'bout it! Just pick up the phone and dial up the nearest kimbab place, the closet pizza joint, or even the most accessible McDonald's in the area, and sooner than soon a young person on a moped will arrive with the food that you so ravenously desire. We're all used to pizza delivery; keep the change, ya filthy animal. But most fast food-esque restaurants in Seoul deploy some sort of delivery operation. My school orders from four or five different eateries each week that range from serving pitas and Chinese food to pizzas and ramyun. Even the 김밥천국 that I frequent the most is usually devoid of customers within the actual restaurant, but one will witness the establishment's delivery guy coming and going constantly, answering the phone, shoving food into the delivery box on his bike, and making lots of money. Order up.

(96) MARKETS

Get yo shop on. Though there may be more, three main markets come to mind: Namdaemun, Dongdaemun, and the Yongsan Electronics Market. Namdaemun is the biggest, the most confusing to navigate, and the most interesting. Stores lines the small streets; occasionally there are bigger department store-esque places to snoop through as well. You can find almost anything here, and for a low price: clothes, dishes, blankets, recently-killed food, Christmas decorations, celebrity paraphernalia, bags, jewelry, and ties. Dongdaemun isn't too dissimilar, but it's supposedly cheaper, somewhat smaller, and the best time to go is in the middle of the night! Good luck. The Yongsan Electronics Market is seven brightly-lit floors of computers, computer accessories, televisions, household appliances, cell phones, cameras, and electronics paraphernalia. I got my current laptop from an electronic market. Good deal, although the dealer forgot to pack a power cord in the box. Overall, there's tons more that could be said for these markets and others like them, but if you need some miscellaneous item and are not sure where to get it, try your luck at one of the 시장 in Seoul.

(97) ENGLISH BOOKSTORES

You'd think that it'd be hard to find books in English in an Asian city. Why would anyone bother to come up with a market for the roughly 250,000 foreigners living in the Seoul metropolitan area? But it has happened. The outlets for English books is impressive. The sources that I know of can be summed up in a search I made for a copy of "Their Eyes Were Watching God" a few months ago. I started nearest by home at the hole-in-the-wall foreign book store near Noksapyeong Station. I don't know the name of it; all it says is "Foreign Books," and I wouldn't be surprised if there are others like it in different parts of the city. Anyway "Their Eyes Were Watching God" wasn't there, so I walked to What the Book in Itaewon, from where one could order books quite efficiently were the book being sought not on one of the many, many shelves within the store. Which was the case with "Their Eyes Were Watching God." However, I needed that tome immediately, so the search continued at Kyobo in Gwanghwamun. Though this is a Korean bookstore, there is a decent selection of foreign books, none of which were the book I needed, so I proceded to the other Kyobo site in Gangnam, where I struck out again. My last resort was Bandi & Luni's in the COEX, which is similar to Kyobo in that it is a large Korean bookstore with a foreign book section. However, the former was way more organized than the latter, so I found "Their Eyes Were Watching God" immediately and noted that Bandi & Luni's wins the English bookstore in Seoul contest, a contest that has an agreeable number of contestants and locations.

(98) IF THERE'S NOT A CALL BUTTON, YOU CAN YELL AS LOUD AS YOU WANT FOR SERVICE

Not that I like to do it. But we have all been there. You are out to eat. Maybe it is with a girl you are trying to impress. Maybe it is with Duncan. Maybe it is with your impatient friends. Maybe you are freaking starving. And something is missing. A full cup of water. Chopsticks. A call button. It ain't there. And you need it. You need it now. In the United States you'd look frantically around, trying to spot the nearest waiter or waitress, longing to reel them in with simply your panicky body language or your urgent, jerky looks. If that waiter or waitress does appear, perhaps he is preoccupied with serving someone else, or maybe she simply ignores you. Because you're ugly. You are tempted to holler for them, to make some noise, but you do not want to look cruel and demanding in front of the girl you are trying to impress or your impatient friends. Or, maybe you do bellow, and you look cruel and demanding in front of the girl you are trying to impress or your impatient friends. Idiot. However, in Seoul, the standard, the routine procedure, the norm is to holler, at the degree appropriate to your server's distance from you, one of two key phrases: yo-gee-yo or cho-gee-yo, which, literally translated, mean, "I am desirous of your attention, please, gracious sir or lovely madame." This meaning does not change based on tone or volume. The call is acknowledge with a simple "yes," and then fairly prompt service.

(99) NO TIPS

Duh. This is huge. The price you see listed is the price you will pay at restaurants across the land. Ryan and Katie know this (see left); they've got their hard-earned dough ready to go, and they are unconcerned about an obligation to add more at the cashier counter. Occasionally some gratuity will get chucked in at certain, more Western places. But your traditional Korean places will not expect or accept more than the amount on the bill, even after providing excellent, attentive service. I do not know the history of tipping, where it came from, or all the rules involved, but I can't lie: it can be annoying. If nothing else, paying is simpler without having to add in an extra...12%? 15%? 10.8% divided by time elapsed between appetizer and entrée times total number of visits to table minus smile quality times the square root of the dining room? Who knows. Either way: no tipping defeats tipping every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

(100) DESIGNATED STREET AND SIDEWALK CLEANERS

Somebody's got to clean the place up. Many people live in Seoul. They all generate garbage. Not all of it stays in the big piles in which it is placed. It floats freely wherever it wants...until it meets the broom of the old men and women who scour local streets and sidewalks. Heedless of who gets in their way, these preservers of beauty cleanse the land with their tools of purifying magic, the broom and the dustpan (and, on a good day, the startlingly fluorescent uniform). Where I live, the cleaning happens in the morning. I think it's sweet and wish every acre of earth had a handful of people to rid it of paper wrappers, empty bottles, and what have you. Not practical, admittedly. But I do really appreciate the attempts at cleanliness. Even though the splatters of dry, crusty vomit seem to be neglected most mornings.

(101) SUBWAY CONVENIENCE STORE PASTRIES

You are late. You've got a meeting in twenty minutes but you've got to transfer subway lines three times still. You smell awful from the sweat pouring off yourself, and your stomach is grumbling. A hunger headache is coming on as you sprint through the subway station. Suddenly, a whiff of something delicious catches your nostrils. You slow to a jog and then turn your head in the turn of said whiff. It is a stand at 7-11. It is a stand selling small, doughy pastries bursting with a sweet, pasty filling. You can imagine how good the small, warm bag containing eleven or twelve of these mothers will feel in your hand, how calm you will become, how your hunger headache will go away. So you give the nice lady at the counter 3,000KRW, and she hands you a bag full of these small bready snacks, snacks that are actually designed to look like ears of corn, which is the last appealing quality, since you are from Iowa and love to be reminded of your home. You take the bag. You munch the contents. You make your meeting. Life is good.

And if you thought that the incredible aspects of Seoul could be limited to 101, you were wrong again! You'd only be right if you thought I was going to write any more of these. The runners-up to "101 Awesome Things About Seoul" include, in no particular order: the hard work of Koreans, La Festa in Ilsan, how your hair is treated post-haircut, short skirts (would have been tough to get a picture without getting hurt), the abundance of jobs for foreigners like myself, safety for little kids, Adventure Korea, low crime rates, high number of eateries, everything open late, lack of drinking and driving, the club scene, cheap and fresh 귤, the use of face masks to supposedly prevent the spread of diseases, and what used to be the presence of a lot of Bethel University graduates.

In conclusion: Seoul is a pretty ballin' place to live. Hopefully this evidence convinces you, dear reader. In case you've forgotten, the list in its entirety is as follows.

1 - banana milk
2 - subway
3 - women
4 - currency differentiating
5 - transfering funds
6 - K-pop
7 - noraebang
8 - bbq
9 - mopeds
10 - contacts
11 - olympic park
12 - decorated socks
13 - musical fountain
14 - coffee shops
15 - call button
16 - paper ads lacking
17 - cherry blossoms
18 - clean floors
19 - street food
20 - han river
21 - the number of people who speak English
22 - Incheon International Airport
23 - kimchi
24 - less-than-intimidating police
25 - 63 Building
26 - high number of convenience stores
27 - free housing for foreigners
28 - no Tim Horton's
29 - batting cages
30 - Pita Time
31 - cat/dog cafes
32 - mountains
33 - constant wi-fi internet access
34 - cheerleaders at baseball games
35 - speed, efficiency, and accessibility of medical assistance
36 - Lotte World
37 - dalkgalbi
38 - floor heating
39 - DMZ
40 - ssamjang
41 - the cashier at every convenience store says both "hello" and "good-bye"
42 - N Seoul Tower
43 - your clothes will never shrink when you dry them
44 - PC Bang
45 - museums
46 - easy garbage removal
47 - fish filled with bean paste (붕어빵)
48 - Korean is easy to read and write
49 - photo sticker booths
50 - restaurant seafood on display
51 - no guns
52 - sometimes people say hi to me just because I'm white
53 - basketball
54 - KTX
55 - ramyun
56 - cheap food prices
57 - COEX Mall
58 - mandu
59 - shabu shabu
60 - huge buildings
61 - DVD bang
62 - cheap taxis
63 - fried chicken
64 - milk shake in a bag
65 - Seoul Forest
66 - 4D movies
67 - assigned seating at movie theaters
68 - Cheonggyecheon
69 - you can bring your food almost anywhere
70 - Gangnam
71 - public photography
72 - street waffles
73 - buses on the local scale
74 - buses on the national scale
75 - LG Twins
76 - Everland
77 - the coexistence of toilets, showers, and vanities in bathrooms
78 - Nanta
79 - subways and bus stops are announced in English
80 - jjimjilbang
81 - Insadong
82 - football
83 - T-money card
84 - stress on service
85 - whack translations
86 - historic sites
87 - Han River Park
88 - screen golf
89 - Gwanghwamun Square
90 - Sinchon/Hongdae
91 - Myeongdong
92 - profane music in public places
93 - fan death
94 - illegal DVD shops
95 - food delivery
96 - markets
97 - English bookstores
98 - you can yell for service
99 - no tips
100 - designated street cleaners
101 - convenience store pastries

The Comeback

2011-07-12T21:55:00.000-07:00

Tonight the National League beat the American League 5-1 in the 2011 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. As has been the case for years on end, the All-Star Game marks the middle of the baseball season. That means the second half of season starts Thursday.

Which is good! Because now, the Minnesota Twins can get busy on taking first place back from the Detroit Tigers.

The Twinkies have already begun the comeback, a comeback to overcome their sensationally dismal early season performance and a daunting catalog of injuries. In April and May the Twins had the lowest winning percentage in baseball; in May they lost 19 of their 27 games. Between May 7 and 16, they lost nine in a row. In April Joe Mauer, Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Kevin Slowey, and Delmon Young - four starters - all went on the disabled list; then in May Jim Thome, Jason Repko, Jose Mijares, Glen Perkins, Joe Nathan, and Francisco Liriano all headed to the DL, as well as Jason Kubel on June 2.

So when things did turn around at the beginning of June, my dad e-mailed me and said, "Yeah, they're playing better, but you wouldn't recognize half their players." Which was true, but which has been how the Twins have usually experienced success: some young dudes step it up when their time comes. So it was this June, when the Twins went 17-9, the second best record during that time period. Between June 2 and 21, the Twins won seventeen of nineteen, and since June 2, they've had a - are you freaking ready for this? - .750 winning percentage. If for some reason the Twins manage to win games at that rate for the rest of the 2011 season, they'd go 55-18 in the second half and finish with an 96-66 record, which, in a division like the AL Central, would be unheard of.

Minnesota has history on its side as well. In the past ten years the Twins have had a .541 winning percentage before the All-Star break, which is fly enough, but in the second half of the season their winning percentage has been .557. Last year the Twins played .523 ball during the first half of the year but then turned it up and finished the second half of the year with a blistering .641 winning percentage. Dang, son. If for some reason the Twins manage to win games at that rate for the rest of the 2011 season, they'd go 47-26 in the second half and finish with an 88-74 record, which, in a division like the AL Central, could very be good enough for first place.

Which is why I am excited about the coming seventy-three games. They're only 6.5 games back right now anyway. Heads up, Adrian Gonzalez! Joe Mauer is healthy and repositioned! Beware, C.C. Sabathia! Nick Blackburn and Scott Baker are hot on your tail! Watch out, fellow AL Central teams! Especially you, Detroit. Here comes Minnesota, eager to take its rightful spot in the division and lose to New York in the first round of the playoffs.

Top Fives

2011-07-10T22:06:00.001-07:00

These are completely subjective, based solely (Seoul-ly?) and offensively on my own experiences in South Korea since December of 2008. Read at your own risk.

Top Five International Trips
1. Japan (May 2010)
2. Beijing/Shanghai (September 2010)
3. Laos (December 2010)
4. Spain (June 2010)
5. the Philippines (December 2009)

Top Five Domestic Trips
1. Busan/Jeju (March 2011)
2. Phoenix Park ski trip (February 2011)
3. Jeju senior trip (May 2011)
4. Jindo Parting of the Sea Festival (May 2009)
5. Seoraksan (October 2010)

Top Five Places in Which The Moose Song Was Sung
1. in line for the T-Express at Everland
2. a bus on Jeju Island
3. Mok-Dong Poly School birthday party
4. in kindergarten class at CCS
5. in chapel at CCS

Top Five Class Periods
1. English 11/second semester/2010: SAT rap featuring Mark Nola
2. English 10/ second semester final exam/2010: three students fall asleep after the exam was finished, everyone sneaks out of the room, I wake them up and tell them school's been done for 35 minutes, they rush out in a panic, all the students in the hall laugh at them, the teacher next door yells at all of us
3. English 11/first semester/2010: class reads "To Build a Fire," class goes to the roof in the middle of the winter to discuss the story, it's so freaking cold, on the way down a student opens the door to Mr. Williams' room, I throw a snowball into Mr. Williams' room, later Mr. Williams opens the door to my room in the middle of a student's speech and heaves in a huge block of ice
4. English 11/first semester/2011: class reads "To Build a Fire," class goes to the roof in the middle of the winter to discuss the story, it's so freaking cold, boy students tackle me into the snow
5. AP English/second semester/2010: class members bring hats to class for "Poetry Hat Day"

Top Five Visitors to Seoul
1. Dan and Sue Haggar
2. Felix
3. Mr. Nola's mom
4. Devin and Brooke
5. Mr. Jordan Williams (does this count? He moved to Daejeon!)

Top Five Weirdest Korean Eccentricities
1. plastic surgery
2. face band-aids
3. high heels
4. dogs in strollers
5. couple T-shirts/outfits

Top Five Most Questionable Things Justin Son Said in English Class
1. “Hi, handsome”
2. “Hey, sexy”
3. “Hey, honey”
4. “I love you”
5. "I'm cute"

Top Five Sexiest Korean Celebrities
1. Sandara Park
2. Min Ah Shin
3. Hyori Lee
4. SNSD...every last one of 'em
5. Mi-Ran Jang

Top Five Sweetest K-Pop Songs
1. Super Junior: Sorry, Sorry
2. 2NE1: Fire
3. Shinee: Ring Ding Dong*
4. UV: Itaewon Freedom
5. Tae Woo Kim: Sarangbi
*Let's be honest, this video could probably be #3 or #4 on the next list...

Top Five Stupidest K-Pop Videos
1. Miss A: Breathe
2. Orange Caramel: 아잉♡
3. T-ara: Bo Peep
4. Brown Eyed Girls: Abracadrabra
5. UV: 쿨하지못해미안해

Top Five Buses
1. 202
2. 402
3. M7106
4. 143
5. 421

Top Five Regrets
1. working too much
2. not getting to know hardly any Korean people
3. not learning more Korean
4. not climbing Hallasan
5. not eating dog soup

Top Five Items to Barbecue
1. 돼지 갈비
2. 삼겹살
3. 닭갈비
4. 소갈비살
5. 손가락

Top Five 김밥천국 Dishes
1. 치즈 라면
2. 치즈 돈까스
3. 재욱 덮밥
4. 치즈 김밥
5. 뚝배기 불고기

Top Five Foreign Restaurants
1. Smokey’s Saloon (Itaewon)
2. Dos Tacos (Gangnam)
3. Pita Time (Haebangchon)
4. Butterfinger Pancakes (Gangnam/Apgujeong)
5. Tomatillo (Jonggak)

Top Five Students Who Texted/Called Me After School Hours When They Went to CCS
1. John O
2. Justin S.
3. Jason
4. Andrew
5. Claire

Top Five Cheap Finds
1. banana milk
2. convenience store ice cream
3. socks
4. those pancake things with cinnamon and sugar
5. girls in Itaewon

Top Five Book Characters
1. Nick Carraway
2. Dmitri Prokofych Razumikhin
3. Sidney Carton
4. Heathcliff
5. Puck

Top Five Songs I Wish Were at Noreabang
1. Li’l Jon: Get Low
2. The Outfield: Your Love
3. Scatman John: Scatman
4. Phil Collins: In the Air Tonight
5. The Moose Song

Top Five Songs Actually Sung at Noraebang
1. Journey: Don’t Stop Believin'
2. Bonnie Tyler: Total Eclipse of the Heart
3. Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody
4. Snoop Dogg ft. Pharrell: Drop It Like It’s Hot
5. The Lonely Island: I’m on a Boat

Top Five Sleepers in Class
1. Roy
2. Andrew
3. Ben*
4. John
5. Jun C.
*in a class of three students

Top Five Most Confusing Subway Stations
1. Yongsan Station
2. Sadang Station
3. Singil Station
4. Gwanghwamun Station
5. City Hall Station

Top Five Street Foods
1. cinnamon sugar pancakes
2. fish with bean paste in them
3. dukbokki
4. waffles
5. meat on a stick

Top Five Most Frequently Used Korean Words/Phrases by Foreigners
1. 안녕하세요
2. 감사합니다
3. 여기요
4. 네
5. 한글 몰라요. 미안해요.

Top Five Least Frequently Used Korean Words/Phrases by Foreigners
1. 사랑 해요.
2. 네, 한국말 할 수 있어요.
3. 네, 뉴욕 양키스 좋아해요.
4. Hey, ba-by...우리 키스하자!
5. 한국 여자 못생겼어요.

Top Five Most Necessary Items 'Round the Town
1. cell phone
2. wallet
3. T-money card
4. house keys
5. camera

Top Five Things Poly School Students Told Me
1. I am going to cook you and eat you. (later amended to: "I am only going to eat you")
2. I want to marry with you.
3. Haggar is noun.
4. You wear the same clothes every day.
5. (from a female student) Brian just said that I am a man.

Top Five People Who Should Teach English in Korea
1. Matt Jones
2. Kristin Dewey
3. Mr. T.
4. Nasty Nate
5. Wesley Welch

Top Five Questions atop a Quiz or Test in Any English Class
1. Cell Phone Number in Your Address Book That You Are Most Proud Of
2. What You’d Most Like to Find Stuck in Your Teeth
3. Celebrity You Are Most Inclined to Date
4. Where You Wish You Were Right Now
5. Where in Your Body You’d Choose to Be Shot If You Had To Be

Best Places to Eat
1. that dalkgalbi place in Sinchon
2. 도네누 in Mok-dong
3. BHC in Mok-dong
4. The Frypan in Sukdae
5. Kyochon in Sukdae

Top Five Places to Poop in Centennial Christian School
1. Third floor bathroom
2. Fifth floor bathroom
3. Sixth floor bathroom
4. First floor bathroom
5. Parking lot

Top Five Baldest Teachers at Centennial Christian School:
1. Mr. Dyck
2. Mr. Davis
3. Mr. Sullivan
4. Mr. Iliff
5. Mr. Elie

Top Five Tourist Attractions in or near Seoul
1. N Seoul Tower
2. DMZ
3. Cheonggyecheon/King Sejong Plaza/Gyeongbokgung
4. 63 Building
5. War Memorial of Korea

Top Five Books Taught in English Classes at CCS
1. "The Things They Carried"
2. "The Great Gatsby"
3. "Catch-22"
4. "The Joy Luck Club"
5. "The Scarlet Letter"

Top Five Books Read for Fun
1. "Water for Elephants"
2. "The Road"
3. "The Fountainhead"
4. "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies"
5. "Bless Me, Ultima"

Top Five College Areas
1. Sukdae
2. Hongdae
3. Sinchon (Yonsei)
4. Hyehwa (Seoul National University Hospital)
5. Chongshin University

Top Five Places to Visit Outside of Seoul
1. Jeju-do
2. Busan
3. Seoraksan
4. DMZ
5. Dokdo

Top Five Bathroom Moments
1. Matthew poops in his pants in the middle of class at Poly School
2. a student who shall remain anonymous uses homework from Mr. Williams’ class as toilet paper in a moment of need
3. Mark clogs the toilet in the Sullivans’ apartment mere hours before leaving Korea forever
4. Coop takes a massive dump somewhere in Ilsan but can’t remember where nor how to get to home
5. Multiple students give speeches about how to stall a dump and how to best take a dump at school

Top Five People Who Should Have Come Visit Seoul While I Lived There
1. my brother
2. my sister
3. Clayton
4. Sunshine
5. Anne Hathaway

Top Five Inconveniences in Korea
1. not knowing the language very well or at all
2. absolutely frigid school facilities
3. lack of quality brats or Cool Ranch Doritos
4. occasional attacks from North Korea
5. most friends leave after one year

Top Five Scariest Moments
1. riding in a dune buggy with a student who'd never driven before
2. the hard drive that contained 1.75 years' worth of teaching material wouldn't turn on
3. trying to catch a cab from the COEX to Mok-dong in the rain for two hours after the subway closed on my second weekend in Seoul
4. my parents coming to visit
5. riding the T-Express a hundred times

Top Five Nastiest Foods
1. beondegi
2. silkworms
3. acorn jelly
4. anything I cooked
5. any 2009-2010 CCS cafeteria food

Top Five Rating Scales for the Letter Essay
1. how easily the teacher notices that his/her student is sleeping
2. people who don't feel acrophobia
3. NBA dunks
4. airlines
5. subway stops

Top Five Ways to Dry Clothes
1. drying rack
2. clothes lines outside
3. on the floor (mostly in the winter)
4. microwave
5. ironing

Top Five Pictures Taken in Korea
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Top Five Questions of the Day
1. What did Philadelphia teacher Natalie Monroe get suspended from her school for doing?
2. What percentage of people pee in the pool?
3. What did a passenger on a flight from Oakland to St. Louis get arrested for?
4. What are the top ten most frequently used words in the English language?
5. What are the top ten most educated countries in the world?

Top Five Answers of the Day
1. ripping on her students in her blog...sounds like no one I know...
2. You don't want to know...
3. punching other passengers and taking all his clothes off
4. the, be, to, of, and, a, in, that, have, I
5. Canada, the United States of America, Japan, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Australia, Norway, New Zealand, South Korea

Top Five Sources for the "Question of the Day"
1. www.ebizarre.com
2. www.time.com
3. www.sporcle.com
4. www.tiptoptens.com
5. Mr. Jordan Williams

Top Five English Church Services
1. Seoul International Baptist Church
2. Onnuri English Ministry
3. Koininia Ministries International
4. Jubilee
5. Camp of God 7000

Top Five Items Harvested from Ms. Sarah McCarthy's Apartment Upon Her Departure
1. a lamp
2. a big knife
3. spaghetti
4. hangers
5. extension cords

Top Five Items Harvested from Ms. Eunice Choi's Apartment Upon Her Departure
1. a block of cheddar cheese
2. pants hangers
3. eggs
4. laundry detergent
5. sunglasses that I was instructed never to wear at school

Top Five Musical Performances in Which I Was Involved and That Were Not at Noraebang
1. SAT rap with Mr. Nola during English 11 at CCS
2. Slayer: "I'm on a Bus" at Krystle Wilcox's send-off
3. 사랑비 with Mr. Nola at 2011 CCS talent show
4. "Beat It" with Mr. Nola and Mr. Williams at 2009 CCS winter banquet
5. song for the class of 2010 with Mr. Sullivan at 2010 CCS talent show

Top Five Moments I Wished I Had Been in America
1. October 2009: Halloween Dance Party
2. May 2011: Adult Prom
3. October 2009: Minnesota Twins 6, Detroit Tigers 5; Game 163 for the Central Division Title
4. January 2010: Ryan and Vanessa Bettger's wedding
5. November 2010: North Korea attacks Yeonpyeong-do

Top Five Tie Day Friday Ties
1. last day at CCS
2. last day at Poly/The Moose Song
3. last day of school 2010-2011 at CCS
4. Zoo Zoo in Ilsan with Poly School
5. last day of school before Christmas break in 2010 at CCS

Top Five Moments Involving Live Animals
1. trying to grab fish out of tanks in the dead of winter in Mok-dong
2. cat cafe in Myeongdong with Mom and Dad
3. cat cafe in Myeongdong with Judith
4. dog cafe in Hongdae with Elyse
5. taking pictures of this dog at the zoo and this dog on the street

Top Five Puzzles Completed
1. black and white Paris puzzle
2. puzzle of Simon and me
3. America puzzle
4. tropical scene puzzle
5. Spirit Lake/Okoboji puzzle

Top Five Reasons for Issuing a Yellow Slip
1. tardiness
2. not having the necessary book
3. dress code
4. getting up and leaving the classroom without permission
5. cheering for the Yankees

Top Five Ways to Leave Mok-Dong Poly School
1. early but with a thirty-day notice
2. completing contract
3. midnight run
4. promotion
5. in a coffin

Top Five Assignments Cheated On
1. re-used "Dear John" letter essay from the year before
2. research paper comprised of a copied and pasted blog in the third person and some random paragraphs in the first person
3. "The Sound and the Fury" analysis paper + Sparknotes x2
4. letter essay + Sparknotes summary x5
5. letter essay + Wikipedia summary

Top Five Reasons to Leave Korea
1. "Bread with Coffee" closed and Paris Baguette took over the neighborhood.
2. The elastic in most of the pairs of boxers I have is breaking.
3. The price of banana milk went from 1,000KRW to 1,100KRW.
4. My students have started calling me "Reuben."
5. A new English teacher has already been hired.

Top Five Things I Left in Seoul
1. the black and white puzzle of Paris
2. a Bethel University sweatshirt
3. fifteen or so white t-shirts that have nasty pit stains
4. 504 Korean won in my Woori Bank account (if you want it, let me know)
5. my heart