[buses]
[kindergarten]
[i am thankful for my wear]
[ihae mot hamnida, or how i accidentally shaved my head]
[the thing with handbells]
[street mermaids and ajummas]
[that soup just rocks my world]
[i could wallpaper my bathroom with these rejection notices]
[wedding factories]
[being john miguk]
[walled cop]
[korea now]
[international experience]
In October of 2001, my girlfriend and I came to Korea to teach English to children for a year at a private language academy near Seoul. These essays are based on emails that I sent during our stay.
The yin and yang of public transportation in the world's most Confucian state.
Making peace with the unsexiness of teaching munchkins.
Celebrating thanksgiving with Korean kids.
Confronting the inscrutability of a foreign culture.
The strange logic of putting kindergarters through multiple costume changes.
A catalogue of the mysterious tribes of Hankuk.
Making our way in a new food universe.
In a country without editors, the language books get weird.
An Eastern Western wedding in hypermodern Korea.
Malcovich! Malcovich! Malcovich!
Korea welcomes the world, porkie-pies and all.
Korea freely displays its past and its future. But what about its present?
At a summer camp for returning Korean expats, we meet ourselves.
