Housewarming Party

Some Korean friends that we met in the Philippines came by to throw us a housewarming party. They took us out to eat and then we came back and had cake. It was a lot of fun and I was able to practice my Korean a lot:)

Dr. Jane (standing) and Jessica spending time with Arlene and David
Jessica shows David her cell phone. Jessica will have her own baby in March. Dr. Jane and Jessica watch David will we were eating. This is a Saboo-Saboo restaurant which is a kind of Korean adaption of Japanese cooking. Each person has their own pot of boiling water which they then put noodles, vegetables, and meat in. It keeps boiling throughout the meal and when it boils down a waitress comes by and fills it back up. There are various dipping sauces that you use with the meat. It's really good.
May takes a picture of Jessica and David while Dr. Jane looks on.
May and her boyfriend having dun with David.Group photo!

Typical Days

I thought I should blog about what my our schedule is like. I'll briefly cover this last Thursday and Friday.

On Thursday Arlene need a bit of help around the house so I left for the office a little later than normal. I stopped by the post office to mail some stuff and then took the sbuway to my office. I worked there for awhile and then met with my friend Donggyu who is studying Korean Shamanism. He and I talked about our studies over coffee for about two hours and then I went back to the Korea University project, had a snack, and then worked a bit more. At 6pm I went to meet with Professor Cho, my adviser, and Professor Yu who is working on her phd (she is currently teaching French literature and cinema at another university). Professor Cho took us out to dinner and then we discussed her translation project. She is looking at some documents left by the French missionaries. Professor Cho will have me present on my research in a few weeks. He thought that if the three of us had meetings together it would help us more than just having one on one meetings. It's a big help to me as I can keep working on my Korean in a friendly environment and I'm learning a lot. The meeting didn't get out until after 9pm so I got home after 10, after

On Friday I went to the office to work and was able to get a lot done. Shortly before I had to go a Chinese-American guy came to our office looking for help. He didn't speak any Korean so I helped him find the little library in our building and some sources he was looking for. After that I went home and made some phone calls, including to Father Yo who will take me to a certain holy site next week that I need to go for my research. Since it was a Friday I would usually go to class. However, class was canceled and Fulbright was having a dinner so we could all meet each other so I went to that. It was fun meeting the other people. I spent much of the dinner talking to a nice lady who studies art. She is in Korea to learn paper making and in addition to being able to paint and draw also makes paper and books and plays the violin. She also does performance art and to do that better (I think) she also learned acrobatics and the trapeeze! It was all very interesting. There was also another lady there working on autism in Korea and a guy who was looking at violence during the Korean colonial period. I'm hoping to talk to him more as his work has some connections with my own. His wife is with him and she is five months pregnant. After the dinner we took a taxi home and again I arrived after David had gone to bed.

So things are goin very well here. I'm hoping in the upcoming weeks to be able to do more research but it's good for my work to also do all these other activities. I feel bad sometimes because Arlene is home alone a lot of the time with David. Fortunately on Friday her friend Na Tata came and took her around.

Visit with Juyun

Last Sunday we were able to meet Juyun, an old friend of mine from UBC for coffee. It was fun to see here. We started at UBC at the same time on different phd prgorams and it looks like we might very well end at the same time.

Basket Case

David plays in a basket

Special Mass for Korean Martyrs Movie

At the end of the mass I took a movie of the choir singing as people left. The song they are singing is "Faith of the Martyrs" which is sang to the tune "Faith of the Fathers". I then pan over to the monument for the martyrs who were killed. The three columns are a kind of stocks that peope in prison were made to wear as a part of their punishment (their head would fit through the hole).



Martyrs pray for us!

Special Mass for Korean Martyrs

This weekend is marked by the feast for the 103 saints of Korea. It conincided with an effort to have 38 more martyrs added to these saints. 40 days of prayer were held and concluded with a special mass where Little West Gate used to be. A lot of Catholics, including Hwang Sayong, one of the subjects of my study, was killed here.

The whole thing was a pretty big deal. There were several groups of Catholic women dressed in hanbok who were ready to give people directions to the mass.

Near little west gate is the Yakhyun Church which was finished in 1892 and was the first western style church in Korea.

Some nuns enter the park where the site of the Little West Gate is. Nuns are greeting by bowing women in hanbok.

My Office

I took some pictures of the Korean Studies Building which houses the Korean History Institute which is where my desk is (I share an office with several other students. I think the building is really cool--its inspired by traditional Korean architecture.





This is the International Studies Building where my class on Korean Silhak learning (a type of philosophy) is taught by my adviser, Professor Cho Kwang



Korea University is a really great place to work and I am meeting lots of nice people.

Visit with friends

This was a pretty busy week. It's been nice because I've finally been able to really get down to some serious studying. Next week I'll try and take some pictures of my office. This weekend is Chuseok so my classes last Friday and this coming Monday have been canceled so we took Saturday a little easy and went to visit one of Arlene's friends from her old village, Na Tata. She and her husband picked us up at the subway station and took us to their place. Her husband, Charles is in the army and works on base. They kindly took us to Itaewon (an area known for catering to foreigners, lots of western food!) to the Outback. It was weird ordering in English. We had a really good time together.

Na Tata holding David:


Us at Outback:

Catholic Television

When I need a break I sometimes watch Korean television to practice. One of the more interesting shows I sometimes watch is called "Hello Father" and is broadcast on the Catholic channel in Korea (PBC). In it, a western priest and his Korean hosts helps people learn English through looking at English and Korean versions of the Bible and prayers. There are also some skits. In this clip we are presented with a Korean and English version of a Gospel text. The hostess also talks a bit about the Incarnation.

Gaming in Korea

Korea somehow manages to support two video gaming channels. In this post I'll share some of the videos I took of them. I purposely picked some involving women players because in Korea it seems like there is less of a gender in balance in terms of who plays games.

The first is of a mixed group of men and women playing some kind of first person multiplayer shooter:



In the next video, a female announcer talks about one-shot kills:


A starcraft league advertisement:


A female host cheers on the zerg (one of the aliens in the starcraft game) and complains how people have said her face resembles hobang (a sort of pastry made of bread with bean paste inside). David started talking and playing with my camera at about 1:00 so feel free to stop it then:

David's development part 2

David is getting pretty good on his feet. He is even able to escape from his crib through the bottom door. We'll have to tie it up:

For even more death-defying, check out this video:

Insadong Parade

Jogye-sa movie

This is a video of a monk changing sunday services at Jogye sa temple

Jogye-sa and Insadong

Poor Arlene has been cooped up in the apartment while I have been running all around Seoul so we went out to Jogye-sa and Insadong last Saturday.

Frank and David in front of Insadong



A Pagoda said to house relics of the historical Buddha Sakyamuni

After looking around Jogye-sa we walked over to Insadong, a street famous for its souvenirs. It was only about a five minute walk away but it took ten because the red light to cross the street is so long. After crossing the streets we stopped at a bakery and had bread with pumpkin filling, cake bread (which had a lot of cheese in it but was completely unlike cheesecake) and patbingsu, a dessert made with vanilla icecream, beans, ice and a few other things. Its very good, especially on a cold day. We'll have to take a picture the next time we have one but David was too squirmy at that time and so Arlene had to feed him and me!

The street is closed to cars on Saturday and Sunday so there is more space for the crowds. You can't see it from this picture but it is really crowded.

Another street scene and a vendor.

There was a free concert that day complete with free refreshments put on by Daesong, a company that I think makes bathtubs (among other things)

A group of people dressed in traditional costumes were apparently trying to drum up (literally, or rather gong up?) tourism in Andong which is known for its traditional culture).

Here we can see a better view of some of the parade participants.

After buying some souvenirs we intended to go to Kyobo books. However, I took a wrong turn and we ended up going south instead of west. So we just went home after eating dinner at Lotteria. We were really exhausted on the way home and things were really busy. Fortunately a nice ajuma (middle aged Korean woman) gave her seat to Arlene (we usually can't assemble the stroller on the subway so Arlene was holdin David). We were confused as to which direction to go in one subway just as a train was pulling up and so a nice man helped us out and made sure we got off at the right stop. So all in all, things are going well but now I need to concentrate more on my research.

Yonsei and Myongdeong

I went to Yonsei (a private Protestant Christian university in Korea) the other day to take care of some banking business and to get my library card (Fulbright researchers are allowed to check books out of Yonsei). While there I was approached by a young Chinese woman who was looking for the building where Korean classes were held. I didn't know but fortunately it was club day (the various clubs have booths and try to recruit new members) and I had just passed the English club so we went there and they helped her out. Here are some pictures of the campus:

A large Protestant Church just outside of Yonsei. I'm not sure if it's connected in any way.
The student union building. I go there often because our bank is there (it literally is called "our bank" in Korean--uri unhaeng)
Here is the library.

After finishing up thing there I hopped on the subway and went to the Myongdong area. I scouted out some underground shopping where Arlene could get some clothes. I then went to Myongdong cathedral to get some books.

They are working on the cathedral so I couldn't get a good shot of it. Here is a statue of Jesus right in front of it though:

Here is a replica of the grotto at Lourdes nearby. French missionaries were very impotant in Korean Catholicism and so you can see lots of Lourdes grottos and statues of Our Lady of Lourdes.

David's development

David is growing up very quickly. He now can tell that if daddy is dressed up and mommy isn't it means that daddy will be leaving. He then will grab me and try and hold on and will get really upset when I leave. The same is true if Arlene leaves. He likes playing with the tv buttons as well as the ones on the fan. He still has some stranger anxiety though. I hope that will go away before too long!
Here is one of David's official one year old photos:

Meeting with Friends

This last Monday I was fortunately able to meet with my old friend Eun-Ok at the airport. We had a nice lunch together. We hadn't seen each other for six years I think so I was thankful that we had the chance to meet up again.

We were also very happy to have our friend May over. Arlene and May met in the Philippines and then May came to Vancouver to study English so we were able to meet there as well. Now we are all in Seoul