Booked: sipping whisky and mingling with men at a Korean booking club
In the entryway, we approached a man wearing a black suit, waiting patiently behind a hostess stand. “Jeongbin,” my friend said briskly, referring to our waiter. We followed him through double doors into a dimly-lit club filled with rows of private rooms and an area filled with square tables and plush cushioned seats. Wearing sheer black...
My sick, sad obsession with my blog stats
For the past several months, I’ve been obsessively checking my blog stats. You know how you’ll subconsciously type an “F” into your browser, and after ten minutes of weaving through whiny status updates and photos of babies, you realize that you’re on your previous boss’ friend’s kid’s Facebook profile page? Then you realize, why the...
A broken air conditioner and an ajumma in charge
My middle-aged, ajumma Korean landlord has more energy than the girls who promote sales at beauty shops in Myeongdong, bouncing up and down in knee socks and repeatedly shouting the same phrase into a microphone for hours on end. She is never in my building, so she comes to my school once every three months...
That time the Thai masseuse tried to take advantage of my boyfriend…while I was next to him
I was studying as an exchange student in Korea when my boyfriend at the time and I decided to jaunt through Thailand for three weeks over our summer vacation. For our last remaining days, we were back in Bangkok, debating on what we should do during the day. “Hey, why don’t we get another massage?”...
Solo Daecheop: a flash-mob style blind date for the singles in Seoul
In South Korea, Christmas is a romantic holiday, rather than a family or religious celebration. Couples spend the day flaunting their status in matching sweaters and reindeer horn headbands, making dinner reservations for two, and raising the armrest between their seats at the movie theater. In order for singles not to feel quite so lonely...
The Ddongchim: Korea’s obsession with anuses
As I walked inside IBK Bank one day, I didn’t know whether to run away or burst out laughing as one of the employees, an ajeosshi (middle aged man) with a beer belly, casually grabbed a pen from his pen holder. It wasn’t a solid-colored cube void of personality, like you’d expect to see at a bank,...
More $#!* my students say, write and wear
Last March I published a post called “$#!* my students say, write and wear,” with some hilarious comments, writing and Engrish t-shirts from my 12 year-old students. Now I have a few more I’d like to share. $#!* MY STUDENTS WRITE: $#!* MY STUDENTS WEAR: $#!* MY STUDENTS DRAW: $#!* MY STUDENTS...
Holy… Jesus boats!
It’s no surprise that Catholicism has seeped into Filipino culture since the beginning of Spanish colonization, but–I wasn’t quite expecting every mode of transportation– from taxis to tricycles to jeepneys to boats– to bear scripture, prayers, and bold names like “Holy Infant I, II, III and IX.” Taken off the coast of Alona Beach on...
Eavesdropping on Line 6
Photo credit: poohoot I stand on the platform, one foot touching the strip of bumpy yellow flooring, waiting for the subway to arrive at Itaewon Station. Thirty minutes ago, I was in the sauna, having three months of dead skin scraped off my body by a fifty year old ajumma wearing a sheer, black bra...
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