Monthly Archives: July 2009

Saturday, a university and the subway

Daegu,

Just over a week in a new place and the sheen of newness is starting to fade. On the bus-trip home today I found my mind wandering to what I’d have for supper, instead of staring with the usual rapt attention at the passing scenery. Although this may have had something to do with the rather exhausting day I’d had.

I spent today on the campus of Keimyung University. I always find University campuses somewhat magical places. Not necessarily because they’re magically beautiful, although many of them are, but because they always seem a little like a place out of time – as though the real world cannot reach the many students who are immersed there in learning and living, a real … well, ivory tower, I suppose. This campus is particularly beautiful. Red facebrick buildings, overgrown with ivy, scattered between fir trees and stretching up the hills into the forest. We even had lunch in the cafeteria. Sitting outside, as we were leaving lunch, was student, so clearly a student, sitting chatting with friends with an Arsenal jersey and a cigarette – like any other student, anywhere in the world.

I was on the campus to do some extra teaching at an intensive English camp for elementary school learners. It’s the first time I’ve worked with young learners since I got here, and the first time I’ve ever worked with learners who have very, very little English (most only started English this year), so it was a little nerve-wracking, but it seemed to go fairly well. I spent several busy hours teaching kiddies about shapes, pets and vegetables. It was also rather exhausting. I stayed after I’d taught my three classes to watch their little play for the parents and was also, accidentally, roped into singing with the kids at the end. I imagine this is the kind of thing I may have to get used to. Luckily it was a song I used to sing a very long time ago in primary school and also that I seldom forget the words of songs, so that I didn’t make a complete fool of myself singing. The Singing and Chant teacher (an actual class that is part of the camp) was very complimentary. Still, in spite of many, many 7 to 12 year-olds, being on a peaceful university campus was a refreshing break from the hustle and bustle of the city.

The day also include one wholly new experience. I took today, for the first time every, the subway. Not just the first time in Korea. I’ve never spent a significant amount of time in a country that has a subway system and South Africa’s first one is still in the process of being built. I was very nervous about figuring out how subways work, particularly in a place that doesn’t use the English alphabet. Once I wandered down the (many) stairs, however, I found signs in both English and Korean, so it turned out not to be all that difficult to navigate. The trains are very modern and swish, with rows of seats along either side and open space for standing in the middle. It wasn’t too busy, on a random Saturday afternoon, and I got on at one of the first stops on the line, so I was able to find an empty seat without too much trouble.

Daegu has two subway lines, the red line (line 1) and the green line (line 2). I was taking the green line and there were 16 stations between where I got on and my stop. It turns out (thankfully) that the announcements  on the train are repeated in English, so I managed not to miss my station. I had a moment of panic when I tried to leave the platform and the barrier wouldn’t let me through, until a very kind Korean lady showed me (with no words whatsoever) that I had to place my transport card (provided by the school and works on buses, trains and possibly phones) upside down on the card-reader. At that point, I was lost. It appears the station I got off at – the station closest to my office – has 5 different exits. After various twists and turns, down staircases and up escalators, I was a little disoriented but I took the one I thought was most likely to be the right one and headed towards ground level. As it turned out, it was the wrong one, but was just around the corner from the bus stop I was headed for, so not too much of a crisis.

I also discovered, less happily, that this is another form of transport that can bring on that lingering, vague nausea that comes from motion sickness. It may just be a combination of nerves, exhaustion and very slight claustrophobia (because I know that I’m underground), but the subway didn’t make me feel wonderful. Or perhaps the aircon system was just malfunctioning and that’s why it made me feel a little off-colour. I was glad to reach the fresh(ish) air of solid ground-level and head for the now-very-familiar bus-stop outside the Fashion-Exchange.

The University is quite far away – literally on the other side of the city. An hour after leaving the University, I eventually arrived back in my neighbourhood. On the way home, I stopped in at the local bakery, a Paris Baguette (of course). Today is the first time I’ve really discovered the bakeries and they’re fabulous. I realise this adventure should definitely include some Korean food at some point, but it’s good to know there is a place where I can get fresh-baked white bread, sweet rolls, croissants and exquisite-looking cakes. I also picked up something for supper – pizza topping on a baguette, which was yummy.

It’s been a long day after a late night, but I have now visited a Korean university, taught little children who can’t speak English, used the subway system and tried out the local bakery, so all in all a fairly productive one.

I go walking…

Daegu

One of the things about city living which differs from small towns is that in the city one generally has two bases of operation, home and work. I was technically supposed to be living within walking distance of the school, but I’ve ended up in the suburbs, a bus-ride away from the school.

This does have the advantage that I get to know two parts of the city whether or not I want to. I spent some time over the weekend walking around the area where I live – although there is far too much of it get to know in just one walk. Today was a light day at work, so I decided to try to get to know the area around the office a little. I work in a business area, on the 5th floor of a building that has a little shop/market (complete with vegetables and fresh fish spilling onto the pavement) on the ground floor. All the other floors seem to be filled with English language academies – private, after-school english teaching schools.

When I first took the bus to work, I was terrified that I would miss the stop and end up completely lost in a strange city. I’d only seen the place once and the building is not all that different from the many other neon-lit buildings around it, so the fear wasn’t completely unreasonable. Luckily there is one VERY distinctive building – The Fashion Exchange.

Daegu is apparently famous for it’s fashion industry and is described in the guide book as ‘the self-proclaimed capital of Korean fashion’.The Fashion Exchange is an experience all on it’s own. Many, many of the buildings in this city are lit up with bright neon signs in garish colours. This building is a multi-story, rectangular building that is covered on all sides with round things that look a little like the inside of tyres, under glass. Or thick plastic of some sort. These rings are actually lights and the show starts when it gets dark and each of the rings lights up. They start out white, which is pretty spectacular to begin with. And then the whole lot of them start to change colour. And sometimes some of them switch between colours, so that the building flashes between different colours in a wild lights show. Combined with the Korean pop and the icy blasts of air-conditioned air flowing from the doors, the place is something like a whole-building disco, on the outside at least.

The bus stop is directly outside the Fashion Exchange, so there will be plenty of time to enjoy the strangeness of it while I’m waiting for buses in the evening. Between the bus stop and the school (about a block) is a fascinating variety of shops. These include ‘Colon Sports’ and an ‘Athlete’s Foot’, as well as a ‘North Face’ I’m sure I’ll be patronising once winter gets a little cooler. This strip, on either side of the road, and a little further on the other side of the school, also includes an interesting range of Golf shops – like Elle Golf. They seem to be ladies golfing clothes shops. A new one on me.

On the pavements around these shops are sellers of vegetables. They sit, little old ladies and men, in clusters, sorting their herbs and vegetables, and rearranging things and tidying up, and chatting and laughing in the evening light. There is a fish-monger on the pavement, too. In fact, between the fish monger on one side and the vegetables on the other, I glimpsed what I think might be a larger, covered market, beckoning with new and exciting smells and tastes. I will have to explore further some time soon.

Tonight is the first night I’ve taken the bus home. On most nights, I finish after 11pm, by which time the buses have apparently stopped running, so someone from the school gives me a lift home. But today I finished before 9pm. I wandered up the road to the bus-stop and waited with everyone else for the bus. I’m still starting to get used to the idea that the streets and buses are as busy here in the evenings as they are during the day. There are even school children, in school uniform, catching buses and walking along roads at 9 in the evening. When I got off the bus in my neighbourhood, I found myself walking along pavements even more full of people and street-vendors and vegetable sellers than in the afternoon.

I also found the Starbucks. Not that I’m enamoured of the idea of Starbucks, but always good to prove the guidebook’s prophecies of ‘a Starbucks on every corner’ right. I was also feeling peckish, so I even wandered into the KFC but I have to admit that the advert near the door for a shrimp-zinger burger scared me off a little. I skipped the chicken (or shrimp) and headed home, only stopping at the little cafe/supermarket on the corner near my flat for some essentials on the way.

It’s definitely going to take me a while to get used to the idea that it is perfectly safe to walk alone at night but knowing that everyone else – from school children to old ladies – is also out and about helps. Even if I do still constantly pay attention to everyone else on the road and make a point of keeping a firm hold on my bag.

Johnny Clegg is the answer

Daegu,

I woke up this morning feeling distinctly disgruntled. I went to bed early last night, partly because I was exhausted but mostly because I’m trying desperately to get my body to catch up with the time-zone. I really was tired and fell straight to sleep, only to wake up at midnight and lie awake for hours and hours. Also I was hungry. When I did the maths, it would have been around 5pm in South Africa – just the time of day I always get hungry. I realise this is odd – it seems to stem from Res days when dinner used to start at 5pm or something. I don’t know. What I do know is that waking up at midnight and lying awake for hours is not conducive to a good nights sleep. I haven’t started working yet (and it’s Sunday) so I could probably have caught up on those hours after my alarm went off this morning, but I’m now on a mission to convince my body that morning really is morning (and not the middle of the night). I wish there was some tablet you could take that would just ruk’t reg. I realise, with a deep sigh, that this isn’t going to happen. I’m just going to have to force myself to do things like eat at the right time and hope my stupid body eventually catches up.

As a result of the disgruntled-ness, I was restless all morning. Possibly also as a result of spending most of the last four days in my flat and not doing very much. I have been able to chat to one or two of my friends, who are now much closer in terms of time-zone. But a lot of the people I would normally talk to when frustrated and bored are 7-hours behind and not that keen to wake up at 6am and have conversations because I am bored. Also they are now variously at Fest and Nationals. And then I had a flash of inspiration: Johnny Clegg. It is almost impossible to be irritable and restless and unhappy with the world when you have Johnny Clegg filling the house. So I’ve spent the last hour or so with Johnny Clegg, followed by Freshly Ground, ringing through my flat, while I did domestic things like washing up and putting away clean clothes and now feel much happier with life. And a little bit of Mango Groove thrown in for good measure, because, after all, who can resist those penny-whistles?

One of the reasons I was so tired last night was that I went for a long walk around my neighbourhood yesterday. When I first left home to go to varsity (now approaching many years ago) I discovered that one of the best ways to turn an unfamiliar place into home is just to walk around. The area where I live in Daegu (and seemingly most of the city) is fairly built up. By this I mean that there are clusters of sky-scraper apartments everywhere. It’s also surrounded by mountains so the mountains and the skyscrapers battle for dominance of the view from ground level. This is the first time I’ve ventured out for long enough to see much of the area. And it’s fascinating. Just down the road – a marvellous discovery I intend to explore fully as soon as I’m a bit more settled – is an Italian restaurant and ‘Wine House’, with – so it says outside – wines from a variety of countries, including France, Australia, Spain, Italy and – yay – South Africa. Which will perhaps be an even better cure for homesickness than the KFC which is just a little further down the road.

I also discovered a wonderful world of other things. There is a park down the road, for example, with the most incredible jungle-gyms in the world. Seriously amazing castles with slides and bars and huge noughts and crosses games. This is apart from the ordinary swings and slides. Given the number of people who must live in the area – with all the high-rise blocks of flats clustered together, and the lack of open spaces, I suppose these are the only places that kids really have to play. As glad as I am that I grew up in a country with wide open spaces and lots of freedom to play anywhere, I’m still a little jealous that we never had jungle gyms like these.

Little children don’t play in the streets here – the driving is notoriously dangerous – but there were plenty of them walking by themselves or in small groups, obviously off to a park or school-yard to play with friends. Or perhaps an English or music lesson somewhere. Several of the shops I walked past had pictures of pianos and violins and music notes on the outside and I wondered what they were until I walked past one which said in English ‘piano lessons’. The mind boggles a little at a place where music teachers are in such demand that they can afford studios on the very busy (with shops and people, not just cars) streets.

The street sides are literally littered with store-fronts, here. Anything from banks and internet cafés to vegetable shops, bakeries like Paris Baguette (apparently bread is a French invention) and little places with improbably European names like ‘My place Rest & Cafe’ (meaning, I assume Restaurant and Café). I also walked past a driving range (and down the road ‘Hole in One Rest & Cafe’). There are little supermarket-lets and take-aways and ice-cream parlours (with pictures of penguins!) everywhere. And little clothes shops that look just the same as what, at home, have become known as ‘China shops’ after one that opened in Stutt called something like ‘China Shop #99’. If I ever need to get my hair cut – and am willing to trust a Korean hairdresser – I should have no problem, there are salons everywhere,too, with what must be the Korean version of American pop music spilling from their doorways. I walked past several DIY shops (that said Do It Yourself), and through the open door of one of which I could see someone working on the most beautiful wooden coffee table. Garden equipment shops spilling onto the pavement, too, with unattended hoses and watering cans. And despite the plethora of vegetable shops and little take away places, you also have to be careful when walking along the pavements not to trip over people selling vegetables on the pavement, the kind of take-away wagons you find at Fest and street-stalls with more of the kind of clothes found at China Shop #99. I even came across someone selling fish on the side of the road – a slight upgrade from the Mozambique style because she had all her fish neatly laid out in plastic boxes with ice and transparent lids. Probably also not as fresh as Mozambique given that I’m pretty sure we’re not at the coast.

I have been warned that Korean drivers are, basically, crazy, so was very careful to cross only at designated crossings (with local people) and the appropriate traffic lights, and to wait for the lights to be green for me, even if there were no cars coming. Watching the driving, however, I think this has been somewhat overstated. I can fully understand why someone coming from a well-ordered European or American city might find the drivers a little intimidating but I think the South African taxi drivers, even those from a small town, are probably more crazy, and anyone from Joburg – provided they could navigate driving on the wrong side of the road – would probably handle this traffic fine. I do think, however, that it might be a good idea for a country that has crazy drivers and a high death-rate from traffic accidents not to put TV screens in all their car dashboards as a matter of course. Just a thought.

At one point I was walking up a wide, busy road when I came around a corner and suddenly had a perfect view of a mountain. Having spent a lot of time in Cape Town and a fair number of years in a town that is know for it’s forestry industry, there is something secure and welcoming about huge green hills covered in dark green trees. It made me smile. I happened to be walking past a café (Rest & Cafe?) at the time and one of the ladies sitting outside must have noticed my sudden joy and smiled broadly at me. I smiled back. I think she was amused but that’s okay – I’m perfectly happy to be the object of amusement if it means I get to see so many lovely new things.

In my meanderings, I also noticed a couple of churches. Churches are built differently where-ever you go but this was a new one on me. I suppose because of the space constraints when you’re trying to fit 2.5 million people into a limited area, pretty much all buildings are square. The churches, however, clearly feel that they need to have spires. So they put tall spires on top of their square, office-style buildings. Definitely different. There is one just behind my building. I could even hear the morning service singing to familiar tunes this morning. I know, from my reading, that this isn’t true of all churches in the city and definitely plan to go and find some of the prettier ones once I’m a little bit more settled.

One of the last things I did on my walk around the area was to pop into one of the markets, just down some steps into the shop, just lower than the road, and pick up some bits and pieces – in this case some coke and some beer (just because I had to try some local beer). It’s the first time I’ve been into a Korean shop alone but, as expected, not at all difficult. The beer says it is beer (it also says ‘cool refreshing and brisk taste with a twist of lemon’, but that’s a whole other story), everything is marked with numbers I recognise and the tills work just the same as anywhere else. And the shopkeeper – although he clearly couldn’t speak a word of English – was courteous and friendly and smiled a lot.

It’s amazing how people will respond to a simple smile. On the way home – after getting ever so slightly lost – I was walking along the same road as and towards an older lady (perhaps one of the famous Korean Grannies – think super-Gogo) who looked me up and down and scowled somewhat, even though I was perfectly respectably dressed and not doing anything to give her any reason to scowl. Until she caught my eye and I nodded and smiled. At which point her face broke into the most stunning grin.

It was something of a whimsical walk and will, I’m sure, be followed by many more, probably slightly more purposeful, exploring expeditions. But for now I am just, as a friend pointed out, hyper-aware of everything and am revelling in the sheer joy of the newness and differentness of everything I see.