How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ricecooker

Gonna be really short this time but I just have to post some pictures.
Since my new ricecooker was only catching dust, Kyong Hee had mercy on me and she explained me how to use it. In English. She explained in English, not that I-m supposed to use it in English. The beauty of this kind of ricecooker is that it can be used to make a shitload of different food. Cakes and bread included. So even before I tried to make my first rice I made a cocoa cake.


Same day in the evening it was time for oregano bread.

And today was Kyong Hee's birthday. She loves bananas so I made a cake of bananas and yoghurt with banana cream and topped with sliced bananas.

It looked somewhat boring so I decorated it with cocoa water.

And here it's after we managed to spill coffee over the cake. 생일축하합니다!
There's just one thing I must take care of - to cook sober. Yesterday evening I was drunk as a skunk and made a loaf of bread that can be used as a mortal weapon, if I hit someone with it I can kill him. Looks like there's not gonna be lots of well baked loafs here ^_^

The secret hobbies of Koreans

I was postponing this blog for a long time. I had lots of stuff to write about but not that many will to do it. This day's evening charged me up with another weird story...
It was a sunny Sunday, the really first day I can say sprig because it was the first time I worked in short sleeves this year, I was planting peanuts and garlic on my field and all in all it seemed to be another boring farmer's day. After I made dinner I was just too thirsty and decided for an evening stroll to the village, the granny that has the store in the village works 24/7, to get some beer. I bought them, along with some bottles of soju, had a completely misunderstood conversation with her husband (while some say he's her son) and left the creepy empty village with my backpack happily loaded. Why creepy empty? Well, Gahoe (or Kahue or Kahii or Gahui or Gahee or you name it, however I say it I say it wrong) looks like a ghost town at all times, but Sunday evening is something special. I met two grannies on the way to the store and they quickly crossed the street to not meet me so when I was packed with my beloved beers and was in a hurry to get back home, my thirsty son was waiting me...well, the beers...I was walking in this creepy empty street when from the other side someone is calling me. By name. Tak (that's me, if you don't know it yet), we have a party, open house, come! How could I refuse such a polite invite! Soju, makkoli and some other sweet alcohol, after that some of my beer with soju.. Well, the amusing part for me was just after I entered the open house and everyone wanted to introduce me to the others till they finally found out they already know me all, except two (out of fifteen). Luckily I got a lift home before i got wasted too much so I'm in the shape to write this .
One week ago my son came back from Japan. Looks like the weather was nasty even in the southern Japanese islands since this year's sugar cane harvest lasted less than three months, compared to the five of last year. I went to Busan to meet him and to have two days of drinking, without anyone worried how much food I consume with every sip of beer. And now he's here, for the next three months, in my room that looks more like a greenhouse with all the stuff that is growing in there. Spring has come, even if last week we had a snowstorm with wind so strong that it made some roofs flying.
A long intro, this time. Maybe by now you wonder what are those hobbies mentioned in the title. Frankly, one is merely annoying, while the other can be scary.
The annoying one is a somewhat compulsive behavior in moving the dishes with food. Most of Koreans I've met just can't stand that the gazillions of plates on the table should stay at the same place all the time. They keep them moving and moving, the only sacred is your rice bowl, no one will touch it.
The scary hobby is that they all want to be dating agency. You're single? I will introduce you my friend, she/he is also single. If you don't like him/her I have a lot of single friends. By any chances do you know a woman that would marry a farmer? Being a Korean means you just have to find a partner to every single person you know. No questions if he /she wants it. Two is better than one, together is better than alone. They do it, really. I just hope that it was a joke when they proposed a fifteen years old girl to my son. Of course I hoped it was a joke since I found that baby more fitting to me... khm khm. Never mind.
What about me? This blog is about me... I'm sad most of the time, but I feel cool. I feel really cool when I'm called for some works that are not supposed to be done by usual masons, but by apprentices in the traditional trade. Near Mo mountain there's a guest house that is expanding it's capabilities and building really fancy apartments. With a traditional gudeul - fire floor heated room.That's when we come to play with bamboo and clay.


The second day a few friends came to visit us while we were working and first thing they stole our beers. For revenge I took this picture and I'm posting it because this guy - he's the yoga master I mentioned many times - is supposed to have quit drinking. His wife forbid him.

And I know that sometimes she is checking my blog. And I know Korean women, there's gonna be some hard beating at their home. Yeah, I'm a petty bastard, I know that and I still like myself.
I had in my mind shitloads of very wise comments, but soju and beer made my mind much clear. There is no wisdom. Just the joy of looking at the moon without freezing.

After I wrote this few paragraphs I drank some more soju and beer and went to sleep at 3AM. So yesterday I woke with another colossal hangover, started working on the field and before noon we were drinking makkoli at the neighbor's house, in the afternoon beers on another friend's field and in the evening more beers in a nore bang - it's what you probably know as karaoke room, usually Japanese stuff is more popular and better known than Korean. And today is another hangovered day but it's OK, it's raining so I'm drinking makkoli under the roof. Spring is really in full blossom. Woods are full of pink flowers that are called "the true flower".

Oh, flowers. It was quite a shock here when they found out that I planted flowers in front of my house and some also on my field. I suppose it doesn't look really manly, but I don't care. I love flowers. And I love them even more if it's a cute little girl giving them to me.

Sweet little Jinny made a good deal, she got a huge chocolate for those flowers. And I managed to have a minimalist conversation with her, in Korean. Tomorrow I'm supposed to have a test in Korean and I haven't studied a single second yet. For the time being we put aside the grammar and I have to study more useful things - tools, vegetables and the like. The Challenger - he's really master of his trade, building floor heating systems and working with clay - said he would like to have me as his apprentice all the time but the problem is that I'm completely useless for working in a group. So I have to study Korean hard and fast. And he calls me for work only when he has small jobs so it's just the two of us (sometimes three if Ramon goes with me) and we have no troubles in understanding each other - I do know the trade and I can anticipate what he will do and what he will need. And he has only one complain about our work together - I'm too boring. When it's time for me to be bored I go on my field. The couer du boeuf tomato cultivar is already planted, same for the vienna blue rutabaga, along with welsh onion, green belt garlic, peanuts, oregano, sugar cane (as an experiment) and potatoes. In my room are sprouting sunflowers and the marmande tomatoes. And something I have no clue what it is, I got the seeds from a nun that visited here few weeks ago. She speaks no English at all so I had to polish my rusty French - her congregation is in France and she studied there. Even so she couldn't explain me what seeds she gave me and the Korean name meant less than nothing to me. I could have checked in my dictionary but I forgot the name the very next moment. So it's going to be a surprise.

Elephant Flu

No, it's not a new disease, it's just how I felt it. As if a virus the size of an elephant had fallen on me. Broke all my bones, crushed my head, set me on fire. Have no idea how a falling elephant could set me on fire but I surely had a severe fever because I was on the verge of hallucinations.
The worst of all was that I just couldn't have a beer. Just thinking of beer made me sick, the fever rose, I quickly had to have some tea and disappear under doubled blankets. It took me four days to get back to normal and I'm ashamed to admit that I really had to stay one day at home, in bed. There's so much to do. When I started hallucinating I was drilling holes in logs. Thousands of holes. For planting Lentinula edodes, better known as Shiitake mushroom. Here's a small sample of the work, a hundred logs.

Multiply by five and you have the work of two days for four workers.
The other thing that is keeping me busy is the field I inherited. Do you remember a little chap, riding the bamboo stick, that moved away with his parents? I got one of their fields. It's near, less than a minute walk, and few weeks ago it looked like this.

I actually worked on it only in my free time, two hours here and an afternoon there and in five days I repaired the fence, made a gate and managed to do some cleanup. And already started planting, mostly exotic plants like Brassica napobrassica, Brassica oleracea (the Gongylodes cultivar), Origanum vulgare and Solanum lycopersicum (the Marmande and Coeur De Boeuf heirloom cultivars). Also some more common Allium sativum found a place on the field.
I took this picture today, when I've had enough of working in the mud and rain.

Yes, in the lower left corner is a beer bottle. Empty. Well, empty of beer; full of cigarette butts in water, stinking like hell and it will make a great pest repellent. And to fight the moles I will try what I saw last year in Eomsa-ri, Gyeryongsan.

In windy weather the sound made is supposed to scare the moles. I will try to make them with beer bottles, for sure.

Hardest Homework Ever

Few days ago Kyong Hee came to visit me with her husband. And a rice cooker. The fancy stuff, you know, the one that looks like a small space ship (if you're lucky) or some Giger's nightmare (if you're unlucky. I consider myself lucky. I was speechless, touched by their kindness... BAKA! Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes!
"Thanks, I'm really grateful, " I said. " But you'll have to show me how to use this thing, I have no clue!"
"Well, that's something you'll have to figure out by yourself. It's all written on it. That's your homework for today." And they were gone.

In the evening I had a chat with Ramon and told him what happened.
# did you eventually figure out how to use it?
# well, i cleaned it and i think it can make a nice trinket in my room. i will stick to my happy time pressure cooker
To tell the truth, my Korean study is finally starting to be more interesting. I learned enough to have some grips. I found out that what all grammar books call just "special particles" are simple declension enclitics. OK, it lacks the vocative and ablative, but it has the comitative (which is really a conjunction added to the stem of a word, be it verb, adverb, adjective or noun). Not that this knowledge is of any help in my daily struggles with conversations, but I find it easier doing homework knowing exactly what I'm doing.
And I have some good laughs when I open my textbook and take a look at the drawings in it.

칡 is translated to English as "arrowroot". Wrong. Arrowroot is Maranta arundinacea, while what we dug, washed in icy streams and diced, is Pueraria lobata (and possibly other species in the genus Pueraria), by the common name kudzu. I posted a pic of its roots a few months ago.

It's not only a medicine used to mitigate hangovers, but also as a cure for alcoholism. I have troubles to believe that. I dug, washed and diced more than half a ton of it but I still enjoy my beer. The last few days were pretty much crazy. The first time, in January, we did something less than 200 kilos and froze our hands in the icy stream while washing the roots. The day after the washing we drive the roots to a place some 50 kilometers away to be sliced by machine and at home we finish by cutting them in small dices that go in the dryer for a couple of days.



When dry, we neatly pack them in 200g bags and sell them. Sounds nice, slice and dice. For something less than 200kg it took 10 hours to 5 people to cut it. The last two "contingents" were of 250kg each and 3 or 4 of us to cut. We actually needed two days for the last one and don't ask how many blisters I have on my hand.
Maybe the Spring really started. We go sub zero only one or two times a week. But I learned not to trust Korean Spring, I still remember the snow on April 12th.
I got a hint what to cultivate besides rutabaga on my fields: Sorghum bicolor and Zingiber officinale. Easy to sell.

The Eastern Face of Stupidity

I suppose not many know about Origenes or Origen Adamantius, an early theologian from the 2nd century. He is quite famous for his self-castration. Yup, he cut his balls, willingly, probably singing "alleluyah" during the operation. And then he was able to happily live in chastity, pray, preach and enjoy in whatever self-castrated men can enjoy.
I think I'm not the only one who considers such self mutilation as utterly moronic. Yet many people who think of Origenes as an idiot, may take another self mutilated as a hero.

This guy. Bodhidharma, the first Patriarch of Zen. He had no balls troubles, but, as the legend goes, he cut his eyelids because he fell asleep during a few years long meditation. He was quite obsessed with cutting body parts - when a very insisting pupil wanted to have him as a Master, he just shouted from his cave: Cut your arm and you can be my student! The idiot N. 2 followed his instructions (as a reward he obtained satori immediately).
Clearly Bodhidharma seems a lesser moron than Origenes - I' rather cut my eyelids than my balls, but, honestly, the only things I find normal cutting are my fingernails. And hair, yes. But still so many people go "wow" upon hearing the legend of Bodhidharma and take him for a highly spiritual man, so devoted to meditation. OK, I have to stop now or I will end in a raging diatribe. Just try to think about this.
So this last weekend we had a short vacation. On 강화도 island. Nice place, nice temples, nice errr....



Yes, yet another museum dedicated to erotic art. Call it art... it looks more like a collection of prepubescent dreams. But I can't judge, I have no clue what it is to grow in a society with such strong taboos on nudity, where even male nipples are a full scale perversion... so no wonder all the folks, mainly old ladies, were giggling and chuckling and yelling and laughing.


It was more fun (for me, anyway) in the temples. No, I wasn't spending my time on my knees in front of a wooden statute, I was meeting nice girls. You don't believe it?

As it happens now everywhere I go girls want to take a picture with me!
And I want to take pictures of ATMs in temples. As a lesson how all the point of buddhism is to be humble and modest: withdraw all your money now and give it to us!

Hey, this tree alone is enough wood for all winter!


And now you'll all think that in the evening we were completely wasted... OK, maybe we were, a little bit, but the point of the flower is to complete the Hanumanasana, the Monkey pose.. well, do not mention the monkey...

We were actually sleeping in the house of Yoga's brother (who was not there at the time) and I felt almost at home. I slept in a room full of books and comic books. True, in Korean, and I still can't read them, but I spotted one on first sight, a large volume, a sort of a bible for SF fans.. and some memories from my youth... and so on...

Yeah, the first book is The Hithchiker's Guide...

And in the morning I had some shouting (sort of "singing") when I found a CD...

Yesterday, on our way back home we stopped in Seoul for lunch. In a Coco Ichibanya. Memories from Iwanuma! I have my fingers crossed that "One years ago in Japanese Kobe" will really happen.

Rocket Scientist!

I've been reading in Korean newspapers about the outrage that a "famous" chain of coffee shops started with their racist employees. And I was a bit puzzled. First of all, the coffee they serve there has nothing to do with coffee. In any train station bar or a highway rest area in Italy you will drink way better coffee. The mess begun in the US, where a woman (or two, I don't remember now) of Asian (specifically Korean) origins found their cups of the above mentioned brown hot water signed with ｀ ´ , which is a pictogram that the waiter (or waitress) used to remember the customer with slanty eyes. Personally I find this sign cute and in no way offensive, but I dont have almond eyes. So maybe I'm just jealous that nobody will never refer to me with such it. What i find disturbing is the way newspapers reported the fact. Barista Draws Chinky Eyes on Korean-American Customer’s Cup. OK, to find the title I had to browse and also found that it was two women that got those cups. Where do I see tho problem? The drawing may be or may be not offensive, it's a matter of personal view. But calling someone chink or chinky eyes - hell yes, that surely is offensive. Chink is an ethnic slur, initially used for Chinese immigrants, but later was expanded to include other people of East Asian descent. And the newspaper title was the first to intentionally use this derogatory term (this is not the story from another bar where the waiter clearly wrote "chink lady" on an order bill). So, if I put again on the side the fact that I find｀ ´ a cute sign, I just keep wondering what I'm supposed to do when so many Koreans behave exactly the same way they find so extremely offensive? I'm constantly reminded that I don't look like them. There's something that looks like a foreigner. Really? No kidding? I do look different? Hell yes, I do look different because I am different. I may have a Korean heart and spirit, as I love to brag, but they live in a caucasian body and the day I will take this statement of the obvious as an insult I should just kill myself (Just please please don't call me American, OK?).
Well, this was a hell of a long introduction for the racist treatment I had to suffer yesterday. I worked on a construction site and it was friggin' freezing in the morning when I had to move a pile of iron crossbeams... the temperature was somewhere near -4°C, but the metal felt like -40 in my hands. By lunchtime we would be sweating if it was not for the cold wind and with my coworkers we went to a nearby restaurant where my calvary started. As usually everybody stopped eating when they noticed me and stared at me in amazement. Racists! Racists! When the waitress, an elderly lady, came for the order, she first asked where I'm from. Racist! Racist! When she brought the banchan, she asked how old I am. Rac.. err, maybe not. When she brought the beer she sat near me and started caressing me. Which was more than embarrassing. My coworkers almost chocked themselves when her hand disappeared under the table and started moving rhythmically. Do I sense some raised eyebrows? Believe it or not... my left hand was resting in my lap and the old lady just loved my - in her opinion - hairy forearms. Maybe I looked to her a sort of fluffy animal. Racist? Anyway, only the guy sitting next to me saw clearly what was going on under the table but he loved too much the shocked expression of the others that he remained silent. So did I. Only when she left they all jumped on him, asking what the hell was she doing and he just started laughing. So did I. So they still don't have a clue and the two of us still have a good laugh.
Most of the last week I was in deep shit. But literally. We were fertilizing the fields. And what else is manure if not shit? This was the farmers' acknowledgement that spring started. And it just doesn't matter that two days ago was snowing again. But in my house the spring arrived more than one month ago. I wanted to have some sort of "zennish" ornament so i picked a twig and put it in a cute small bottle. For the balance i filled the bottle with sand and water and in two weeks the twig was in buds. Now is full of shiny green leaves.

Today I build my first rocket stove. And no, it's not a stove that astronauts use for heating or boiling water. It's just a hyper-efficient wood-burning stove. Urban legends go so far as to say that with three chopsticks you can boil enough water to cook ramyon. Since I never believed in legends, let alone the urban ones, I decided to make one. Not for me, for my friend who actually introduced to me this stove concept. She agreed that first I will build a scale model and if she finds it really so efficient, we'll go on with the real stuff. Instead of professional materials I choose paint cans, bricks, clay, wire mesh and rice husk. The cost? Exactly zero.





I'm already thinking how to apply this efficient burning concept to the traditional Korean floor heating.

Otaku life

I hurried to Japan to be back home today. Today is the 대보름 (Daeboreum), celebrating the first full moon of the lunar year. It's something of a Spring Festival - which is hard to believe if you listen to the weather forecast. Actually, Spring already started on Saturday, on 입춘 (Ipchun) and, amazingly, the temperatures were a little bit above zero. For this week in Gangwon do they are expected to fall to 20 below. Today the first snowflakes appeared here around lunchtime but it was a false alarm. I have a strong feeling that the white crap will cover everything during the night.
I saw also some sunshine on Saturday when I went to Busan to board the ferry for Japan. Like always I boarded with a bag of beers to fight the boredom of a night on the ship, having no idea in what fun it will end. I already froze my ass drinking a bottle of beer on the roof of the ferry terminal, so I choose to drink the next in the smoking room on the ferry. And I almost choked myself when a pretty girl approached me. Not for the fact that she approached me, but for what she asked me.
"Hi! Are you Korean?"
How the hell did she know? Oh, she was just joking, she laughed heartily and asked me if I speak Japanese. Ah well, another situation when I bitterly regret for being so dumb at Asian languages. And then she told me that I look like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Carribean. I can only guess that was a compliment. After some small talk she introduced me her boyfriend and that sucked big time. (No, not him, a pleasant guy, just the fact that she has a boyfriend...) And after more small talk and more large beers she introduced me her sister. Single. Which made big time. And it went even better when after some jokes on my drinking I said yopparai des. "But you can speak Japanese!"
No, not really, I know just a few words that I picked here and there in Japan and watching anime.
"You like anime?"
No denying this time. Yes, I'm an otaku. "Sugoi!" chirped the sisters in chorus. "And which is your favourite anime?"
Easy question, was, is and always will be Evangelion! "Sugoi!!" I almost saw the double exclamation mark. "Mine too!" explained the older sister.
"Chincha?" I was already so drunk that I started talking in Korean. The next moment I was taking of my clothes, the girls looked somehow worried, but only till the moment I stayed in my Rei t-shirt - they just wanted to take some pictures of a crazy otaku in his Evangelion underwear. It's how they put it, I really don't have Evangelion underpants. It seems a nice idea, though.
It's not hard to guess what came next. A drunken chorus (oh yes, in the meantime we were joined by two Korean otakus) singing, shouting, grunting and squealing Zankoku na tenshi no teze... and the ferry hasn't left Busan yet!

"And what is your second favourite anime?" Deddoman Wandarando. "Sugoi!"
"The third? The third!" Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. "Sugoi!"
As for what went on later I'm a bit confused. I do remember talking about Tokunoshima and singing (sic!) Shima uta and I remember being a translator from Korean to Japanese and vice-versa. I was also invited for some homemade miso soup next time I will be travelling in Japan.
I woke up in Japan with a monstrous hangover and a painful stiff neck - I just hate those bricks that serve as pillows on the ships. The Immigration made no problems on my statement that I'm just on a visa run and the Customs officer took his time to check minutely all my stuff, stinky socks included. Funny thing, I clearly remember that just the same guy did the same three months ago. He just doesn't like me.
Three hours to wait. A short walk in the neighborhood and a check in the nearby park to see how my homeless friends are doing. There was only one, still sleeping, using a cat as a blanket.

Way to cold outside, back to the ferry terminal. I took my textbooks with me - to do my homework in Japan! Don't you agree that it's a bit stupid, ironic, crazy etc to do Korean exercises in Fukuoka? Well, I like it.

Before boarding I couldn't resist to take a picture of a warning in the Duty Free Shop. It's not engrish by definition but it's a good lesson in how to complicate the simple act of stealing.

I slept almost all the way back to Korea and had enough good sense to choose a queue with a woman Immigration officer. Yes, I did it out of a sexist reasoning. Because women are more nosy. When guys go through my passport they keep asking where do I go, what will I do, when will I do.. but all they want to know is WHY. And they never ask it. Because of that they feel miserable. But they have Power and they take revenge on me, making my life miserable. And actually there's another reason that has nothing to do with sexism but with racism. Koreans can be racist bastards and it's more probable to meet a male racist than a female one.
The girl - clearly I choose a pretty one - asked me immediately. "You are going to Japan every three months for one day and the rest of the time you are in Korea. You can't work legally so WHY are you doing this?"
At which I made an embarrassed and shy face and almost whispered "I have a girlfriend in Korea". She maintained a professional expression, but I saw the corners of her mouth bending upwards. "Is this your girlfriend?" she asked and pointed at the address of Sang Pyeong that I wrote as my address in Korea. "Oh no," I replied as I was in total shock, "we are not married, we don't live together! This is my friends' house, they live in the same village." And all her professionalism was gone, replaced by a broad smile.
"Welcome to Korea."
Fuck the karma if for being honest you get kicked in the ass.