Whether it's from red neon crosses lighting up the night sky or the sound of monks rapping on moktok it is not unusual to encounter evidence of the influence that Christianity and Buddhism have had in South Korea. For someone not specifically looking for them though, it can be much harder to spot the references to Daoism and Shamanism that have ( Read more... )

Every election in the United States see politicians - though I am primarily referring to presidential candidates here - make campaign promises of what they want to change during their time in office. And after each election is finished I can't help but feel disappointed by the lack of discussion over one topic in particular: when will the United ( Read more... )

Yesterday was Jeongwol Daeboreum. I received a nice surprise when I came in to work, as our academy vice-director had brought in peanuts for all of the teachers. In addition to that, she also had a few packets of nut-flavored soy milk that she gave out to a few of the students who came early for class. Many of them are young enough where they didn' ( Read more... )

I recently found out that my musical tastes match up with what a Korean woman my age would have been listening to as a middle school student. That was an amusing discovery, though not completely unexpected ( Read more... )

As I'm sure many of you know, Valentine's Day took place on Monday this week. While it's true that the observance of Valentine's Day (밸런타인데이) is different in Korea than it is in most of North American and Western Europe it's not really a subject that I considered writing about. I did, however, receive chocolate from a few of my female students ( Read more... )

Today (6 January) marks the start of Sohan (소한; 小寒) in the lunisolar calendars of China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Despite the name translating to 'little cold' in English it felt very frigid outside today and the temperature was -10°C on my walk home from work. I've recently begun joking with friends that I look forward to the days when it ( Read more... )

Anyone who has read my LiveJournal for a prolonged period of time will know that I am an avid follower of soccer (football). Other sports that I enjoy include handball, badminton, and archery but those are often much harder to watch on a regular basis -- which is why I am so keen to catch them when multinational events such as the Olympics and ( Read more... )

If you've been following the news recently you've no doubt heard about North Korea's artillery shelling of Yeonpyeong Island on the afternoon of 23 November. If, by some chance, you aren't aware of what's happened you can get a quick summary of events from any number of sources -- such as Yahoo News and BusinessWeek. Before the start of classes ( Read more... )

Monday evening, while teaching my final class of the day, I asked my students what they did over their weekend. One girl mentioned going to the movies. The sole boy in class spoke about wanting to play baseball but staying inside because it was raining too much to meet his friends outdoors. The other girl said she had a horrible time and went on ( Read more... )

My work visa expired last week, though with all the things our academy director is dealing with at the moment it wasn't until today that he realized that we needed to visit immigration to take care of it ( Read more... )