The pig shat fire so we got a good price for it

Korea is tagged as the Land of the Morning Calm. But it's Land of the Morning Calamity if you've had night-time dreams of teeth being pulled, of hair being cut, or of dogs; in the folk tradition of Korean dream interpretation, these are considered very bad omens.

Losing teeth or hair suggests that you will lose someone precious to you, or, more precisely, someone around you will die. Alternatively, another source says that if you dream of losing an upper tooth, disaster will befall a senior, and a lower tooth portends disaster for a junior. I'm not quite sure what the deal with dogs is, but I've heard that Koreans used to call nightmares "dog dreams." Maybe they're haunted by the ghosts of dog soup 보신탕? (The controversial practice of eating dog is increasingly less common in Korea, but before you go thinking that people are snatching Fidos off the street to boil, note that, just with other livestock, only a certain breed of dog is bred specifically for food).

Those are the bad omens, but what of the good? When is it Dream Land of the Morning Celebration?

First, I learned that it's lucky to dream of pigs. I was told that as the totemic animal of banking, pigs signify money coming your way. And in talking with Koreans, I've concluded that luck is usually synonymous with money, or, in the odd case, a baby. Traditionally, dreaming of pigs can also suggest you'll have a baby boy. The feminine counterpart? Snakes. This would potentially trigger an outcry over unfairness (what- the boys are represented by the likes of Babe and we get snakes?! You can kiss my asp) but then I read that large serpents and dragons (venerated creatures you'd be lucky to dream about) are closely associated in Korean lore. Serpents who are deemed worthy are transformed into dragons and ascend heaven on a rainbow. Weeeeeee!




A vision of your house burning down-- would you guess this is worthy of a high five or crying? If you chose high five, high five. Koreans believe that if you dream of a bad thing, often it means something good. Various signs, like fire, are interpreted in this reverse manner. A dream about your house burning down is one of the most auspicious dreams you can have. A dream about death means you'll have a long life. And, a dream about POO is good luck too! Who knew?

I started to muse with my Korean friends over how I could combine elements to make a super rockstar auspicious dream. What if I dreamt a dragon burned my house down? Awesome, they said. What if I dreamt a giant Poo Monster killed me? Thumbs up, they gave me. And then-- get this-- they told me I could SELL my dream.

I don't know how common it is, but they say people can buy and sell dreams. People usually want to keep good luck dreams for themselves, but sometimes they'll sell (the makings of a plot focus for Inception II, perhaps?). If you read the fine print of the dream-selling manual, you'll see that you can't tell anyone about the contents of your dream without nullifying the good luck (just as you can't tell someone your wish or it won't come true), so your only strategy is to say that your dream is really good and hope they believe you. Sample sales pitch: "Wanna buy my good luck dream? It's really good. And lucky. For realsies. 10 bucks."

You and your buyer agree on a price, just as you would if you were selling a can of Spam or a bowl of dog soup, and then you tell your buyer about your dream, and then they'll own the luck of it. SOLD- one lucky dream!

If this is really the case, I wonder why there aren't more dream con artists out there. You could fabricate dreams and turn them for a 100% profit! Minus the guilt overhead. That's it-- I've found a new career path-- I'm going to start building my inventory of auspicious dreams right now. The following illustrates my deluxe model, the Rolls Royce of dreams (PS dreaming of presidents means you will achieve great things):

Don't Make Me Turn My Goose

My friend's getting married, so I got the couple some geese. US Immigration might take issue with them. "Hi, Jordan, congrats on your wedding! You can visit your presents in quarantine at the airport, k?"

Despite how fun sending live fowl would be, these are actually geese carved out of wood and painted prettily in a traditional Korean style. They are an ancient Korean wedding tradition; they symbolize the love and devotion of wild geese who mate for life. Back in the day, the groom would ride a pony to the home of his soon-to-be in-laws for the wedding ceremony and present his new mother-in-law with a live goose to signify his fidelity to her daughter. This act later evolved into presenting two wooden ducks instead. I would assume that's because wearing your wedding suit while riding a pony and carrying a giant bird who in all probability is not an equine enthusiast is a dangerous recipe. It is an ancient tradition for geese to shit.

Anyhow, on that note, as I've heard it you can give these geese to a couple as a symbol and a blessing. With this image of beauty and poetry in mind, I shopped Seoul's famous neighborhood of Insadong for the lucky pair who would get an all-expense paid trip to the States. It is my hope they will grace Jordan and Daniel's home in a place of honor, or at least be hastily unpacked for display when I come to visit.


I've heard tell of an interesting tradition associated with these beaked love icons. Apparently, when the relationship is going well, they are supposed to face each other, like they're kissing. But... when the relationship has taken a bad turn, you're supposed to turn them away from each other. Many versions of them come with heads on a swivel to accommodate just such a change in mood. We have done much joking about this. Daniel: "Good morning, Jordan! Can you pass the syru-- [sees turned geese] OH NO!" Gina: "Hey guys, wanna hang out? [sees turned geese] Oops, maybe you guys need some time alone..." Or Jordan: "Daniel, you left the seat up AGAIN! [storms over to the geese and deliberately turns them] As the adjusted position of our geese demonstrates, I am PISSED."

Congratulations, Jordan and Daniel! May your wild geese always be kissing.

Helmutt

Life is about sharing the awesomeness. So, as a correlate to this credo, along with practicing the art of good hugs and incorporating Super Marios Bros into my classroom lessons, I purchased a second helmet in order to have passengers on my scooter.

It is ridiculous. Where else can an agitated cartoon bulldog, a phallic reference, a frisbee, some spiders, and safety all come together? And be worn on your noggin as you zip across the Han River at 75km?
The full-face visor is a nice feature, but I learned the hard way that it's best to raise it up before you sneeze.


Owning a scooter in Seoul is not only super fun, it's practical on a number of levels. They're pretty cheap to buy and maintain-- I bought mine used for less than $550, and to fill up the tank costs $9 every other week or so. I stopped in at an autoshop to have my brakes tightened (a request mostly communicated through mime, but my Korean's getting better!) and to buy some $6 oil, and they only charged me for the oil. It might be possible to shrug that off as an anomaly or the sympathy of a mechanic with a soft spot for lovely little horses (my scooter's name is 애마), but..

The same day, I went over a bump in the road, and suddenly the roar of my 99cc engine doubled in decibels. Part of me felt badass (rawrr my machine makes big noises rev rev), but mostly I was nervous about if something was wrong, and I felt very conspicuous about the way my steroidal sound waves were announcing my presence as I interrupted my way down quiet streets. It was like Zeus was farting out orange bulldog helmets.

I went to my second auto shop of the day, and I said, "Excuse me, my good craftsman, might you be able to discern the malfunction of my farty two-wheeled vehicle and execute the necessary repairs?" ...

What actually happened is that I pointed at my scooter and said, in Korean, "really loud." And I pointed to my ear to indicate the subject of my my sentence as 'sound' and said the word "changed." Clearly my greatest tool in communicating here in Seoul is my finger. If someone took away my ability to point I would be lost.

The mechanic ended up taking apart part of the bike in order to remove the muffler and weld the crack in it, plus he freshened up the wiring and plugs of the battery... and did some other mechanic-y things for over half an hour. In the U.S. I've been conditioned to be mistrustful of mechanics and their insistence that YOU NEED TO REPLACE ALL THESE EXPENSIVE THINGS IMMEDIATELY NOW NOW NOW OR ELSE YOUR VEHICLE WILL EXPLODE IN A FIERY STORM OF HORROR AS YOU DRIVE AWAY FROM HERE, but I wasn't in a position to be overly questioning of this Korean man's judgment. I just had to sit back and wait for him to give my lovely horse some antacids and drop the bill on me.

It was 30 bucks. Awesome.

Back to you in the studio, Minsoo.

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, my employer, asked me to come in to their TV studio to record some clips for the Teaching English section of their news show. I was waiting to blog about it until some shows aired so that I could include video, but it's been 1.5 months now with no word, so it's quite likely my chance to be a star is laying on the cutting room floor. It's just as well-- I doubt the likes of "Could you turn down the volume?" and "Is this seat taken?" were going to be the springboard to fame. Look, look! It's the "Could you open a window?" girl!

Korean eHarmony?

The other day, I went for a late dinner at a local place I frequent. The proprietress asked me why I was so late-- had I been on a date? The question was all in Korean except for the word "date," and I was impressed she knew it.

But, just now as I sit here studying my Korean textbook, I find that 'date' is the same word in Korean! 데이트 (deh-ee-tuh). This actually happens a lot, like with the words 'shopping' 쇼핑 (syoh-ping) and 'computer' 컴퓨타 (coem-pyew-tah). So, you can almost say this in Korean without knowing any Korean: "shop for a date on the computer!"

You can lead your lovely horse to yoga, but you can't make it plank

'Namaste' was the only word I understood in my yoga class.

It made sense to me to purchase a gym membership in tandem with my scooter (newly dubbed 애마, "lovely horse") because I'll be walking so much less. So, after school I rode my lovely horse down to the local gym, and I fumbled my way through the signup process. I had a short session with the personal trainer, and he put me on some machine that's supposed to read my BMI and such. I was really afraid the machine had Korean parameters and was going to tell me I was fat. But, R2D2ard Simmons was kind enough to consider my American waistline within the normal range.

Later in yoga class, I just copied what everyone else was doing, which meant I had to peek from time to time when we were supposed to have our eyes closed. I said that namaste was the only word I understood, but that's not entirely true-- at one point I was downward dogging when I was supposed to be planking, and the instructor came by and meowed at me: "plaaaaaank-uh!"

The gym runs jointly with a sauna/jimjilbang, so after you work out upstairs, you can go to the jimjilbang, shuck your club-issued clothes off into the hamper, and nakedly use the steam room/hot or cold tubs/sitting or standing showers. The showers were full of the bendy ajummas I had just yogad with, though, so this time, I bowed out. Namaste ("I bow to you").

garsh golly gee that sure is nice

Have you hugged a Korean today? They do some nice things.

Typically you won't get a Korean insisting you go Dutch. When you go out to eat, it's customary that one person pays the bill; it's assumed the other person will repay the favor if and when the opportunity presents itself. This rule holds true with the exception of when an older and younger person dine together. The older person will treat the younger, and there's no expectation for eventual reciprocation. As it was explained to me, this is because the older person received the same generous treatment from their elders, and they are paying it forward to the next generation, who will pay it forward to the next.

In a similarly unselfish fashion, when fortune smiles upon you, you are supposed to share it with others. On occasions of birthdays, job promotions, marriages, etc. you treat the folks around you. My Korean friend had a birthday a while back, and I asked him how he was going to celebrate. I was expecting that we as his friends would take him out and ply him with drinks and shenanigans, but he had no such rowdy plans. He said he was taking his dad out to lunch and thanking him for making his life possible. Aw.