Watch your back!

Buenos Aires: urban dichotomy

The play by play by Dan: On the flight from Miami Amanda and I were not seated together. Why? No se. The plane was the most comfortable I had ever been on and although we were unable to convince the people next to us to change seats with us, the plane was apparently not sold out and the flight attendants moved us miraculously to the center bulkhead of the plane Next to Amanda sat a late 30s Porteno named Cristian who was in Miami on vacation and spoke very good English. We talked until we it was time to sleep and he offered to give us a ride from the airport downtown with his wife and three year old son,because all the public transportation in the city was on a one day strike that Thursday. We got into town after a good long time stuck in the traffic that resulted from a city of 10 million people sans public transportation. They were the most adorable family, and so generous and welcoming we were sure that BA was going to be a great time and a great place.

At first it was quite nice. We took a walk from our hostel to the river through the barrio San Telmo which is not dangerous but isn’t all that nice looking. I expected more squares, cobblestones, café’s with 50 tables and a hundred chairs out front. No matter. We were so exhausted we had a coffee and a couple empanadas at a café in a pedestrianized area near the river, walked back and took a nap in the middle of the day. We went out later that night, searching for a restaurant in San Telmo that no longer existed (thanks outdated lonely planet), but ended up grabbing some overpriced but delicious pizza and getting semi-hammered in celebration of our new found independence and adventure, we went absurdly over budget and now we know that alcohol isn’t in the cards for us every day if we want to make it to Colombia. We stumbled back to the hostel and acted slightly obnoxiously by playing pool in the common room at 1:30 in the morning, but we reined ourselves in after 15 minutes and passed the night watching torrented tv on our netbook and drinking beer.

Our hostel was nice, the people that worked there were very friendly and kind. Noise carried in it like a concert hall, though. We woke late on Friday but dehydration gave us a tired edge all day, despite that we walked for miles and miles. We took a walking tour around Argentina’s Upper East Side, the Ricoleta neighborhood, which is home to a famous cemetery composed of mausoleums the size of small homes, including one for everyone’s favorite Argentinita, Eva Peron. We saw some great impressionist and modern art in the free art museum and found out where all those cafes with a hundred seats out on the square are. That night we went to a restaurant on a square in San Telmo where there would be a tango show. We saw a very good pair of tangonistas and decided to call it a night around 11 needing to both conserve money and get some restful sleep. That was futile.

Desperately seeking sleep our hostel was a noise machine early, so we watched tv until 2 while the noise got worse and worse and closer and closer. When I had gone out to the lobby for water around 12am, there was music and about 12 people drinking. Now, when we went out there, there were 50 people drinking, the music was at club volume, everyone was smoking and smashed and screaming and waiting for the bathroom not three feet from the foot of our beds. This went on until 6 in the morning. No one asked us, no one told us there would be a party, when it would end or why we would have never booked a room inside of a discotheque. I’ve never been treated so inconsiderately, when people would scream on the top of their lungs outside of our bedroom we went outside and glared, some of the men seemed to feel really bad when Amanda came out with fire in her eyes but the girls didn’t respond at all and when she said something once to one of them we could hear, “Punta!” after she closed the door.

The next day we got our money for that night back when we complained somewhat vehemently. It was a late start but there was still time to do what we wanted to do that day. We went to the bus station and found out that the extravagant price that is 3 times the quoted price in the lonely planet for our 18 hour bus ride to the falls where I’m writing this, was indeed the only price there was despite all the competition in that marketplace (the free market inevitably leads to price fixing what?). Good news: 20 percent student discount for the buses, and I’ve still got my Temple ID. After that we walked, down to the river and through the very nice riverside and as we do this I’m thinking to myself. I could really see myself here. Café’s, rollerbladers, families walking dogs, skateboarding dads and kids, people playing soccer on a beautifully manicured park with an interesting design. Me gusta.

Then we walked into La Boca. We were warned about La Boca more than anywhere else. Cristian told us we should go but to be careful, the lonely planet echoed him. Sure it wasn’t the brand new riverside but as we walked down there I didn’t feel uneasy. It looked like San Telmo. We ate a couple empanadas at a café near the art street that we walked down there to see, and everyone inside seemed normal, happy, diverse (age wise). It wasn’t frightening at all. The Caminito, the art street was nice if a little gimmicky. There’s plenty of street performers and knick knack shops and dancing gauchos and plaster of paris caricatures hanging from the windows. We were only there for a half an hour or so and we started to walk back, the walk to San Telmo would take about half an hour. It was about six and while it was by no means dark, evening had begun. We were three blocks down the large street that would take us back to San Telmo when we decided to take a bus, we had heard the neighborhood was dangerous and didn’t want to take any chances, so we crossed the street and the bus stop was just one or two blocks too far for us. At the first intersection on that side of the street there was a young man in a black adidas jacket and jeans just standing there. We crossed the street; there were four other people in very close proximity to us, Amanda was on my right and half a step behind me. All of a sudden she screamed, she had been dragged about three or four paces to my right by her purse and the struggle was pulling her further. We were in the middle of the street we were crossing when this happened and as soon as I saw it I yelled, “Hey!” and charged the guy. His eyes turned to me, he let go of the purse and Amanda booked it around the corner the way we had been walking. He took two steps back and, I swear I can see it in my head like it’s in slow motion, as he did he lifted his shirt up to reveal a black handgun. I couldn’t believe it. I thought that he would run after we got the bag and he lost the element of surprise but instead I was five feet from a pistol pointed right at me and a man suddenly yelling in Spanish. For five seconds I thought I was really going to die (in retrospect I actually doubt the pistol’s genuineness), and I cringed and put my hands up. He didn’t shoot, so I stood up straight and he yelled at me in Spanish and motioned with the pistol to my bag. I gave it to him with relief. It contained our water bottles, our lonely planet, a map of the Recoleta cemetery, some pens and my notebook.

He ran. I walked up the street until I realized that Amanda was pretty far ahead of me and was probably freaking out, so I started to run. She was crying, some people tried to help us, some ten year olds thought it was funny, an old couple who witnessed it shook their heads and debated on the futility of calling the police. We spent ten minutes flagging down a cab with everyone on that block. It took us back to the hostel where we stayed for the rest of the night drinking beer, eating take-out pizza.

The next day we walked around the National Congress and the Northern part of the Av 6 de Julio where the famous Obelisk is and were relieved to be leaving Buenos Aires. We didn’t get to see the pink house or the famous Palermo neighborhood or walk on the Avendia Jorje Luis Borges, but we certainly had an interesting time of it. I’m not sure how long we’re going to be paranoid and looking over our shoulders, we’re taking more precautions but I hope the memory of this incident and its effect on our behavior fades quickly so we may take the chances that will allow us to have the fullest and most memorable experiences on our journey.

Amanda’s two cents: Beunos Aires was cool but nothing too special. Definitely not worth getting a gun pulled out on us, and keeping us watching our backs all the time now. Now I certainly don’t want to go off the beaten path (although where we were was NOT off the beaten path) and I don’t think I’ll be able to carry a bag or purse for a while. With traveling there are always these ups and downs, so we’re hoping we’ll be on an upswing for a while.

Coming up next: Puerto Iguazu, the largest waterfall in the world.

I Quit!

So I’ve had a problem with the supervisor in my area (Damyang) since she arrived about a year ago. She really dislikes foreigners and makes it her personal goal to make our lives as difficult as possible. I’ve always done whatever she asked, I even went to an elementary school in the middle of nowhere for half a day, and basically just sat there because they had no clue why I was there.

Anyway, I worked this camp for her last winter and she promised us 650,000won. Then it went down to 30,000 overtime only (about 240,000) then the day before it was over she said it was 20,000 over time. I was like FFFFFUUUUUUU. She got away with it and I didn’t even say anything. None of the foreigners said anything.

So this summer, another camp is planned of course. This one is located in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. We’re talking like rice paddies to the base of a mountain, then a 2km hike straight uphill to the site. I’ve never been there before, so last week I e-mailed my fellow English teachers and asked about their plans for getting there. No response. So I asked my co-teacher. She said she had no idea how to get there on the bus, but I could ride out to Damyang and then go there with my students if I wanted. This was really my only option, so I took it. I arrived at my school at 7:45am (where and when she told me to be) to see no one. Not a soul. I’m like WTF. I call my coteacher. Nothing. Finally she calls me and tells me they are in a random parking lot across town. Of course. My students come find me. We load up the busses and we are on our way.

Upon arrival I was busy looking at the schedule (that had completely changed since I saw it last) and getting situated so I didn’t have a chance to say something to the other native speakers, like “hey, how did you get here?” I diligently taught my 5 classes to an unenthusiastic audience of first grade middle schoolers. At the end of the day I asked my co-teacher (who I don’t know at all, she works at a different middle school), “How do I get to the bus home? What time does it come?” She said she didn’t know. I looked around for the other native speakers. They had already left according to the supervisor. Now, I don’t dillydally around after school. I end my classes right on time and I GTF out of there. Apparently they knew something I didn’t. Like what time the bus comes (it runs every 50 minutes), where it comes, and how long it takes to get to the bus stop. The Koreans all stood around looking confused, the supervisor said it wasn’t her job to figure it out and I literally started crying.

Sidenote: On my way to school to meet my students and go to this camp, I saw a high schooler get hit by an SUV. He directly ran into traffic and it was his fault, but he had a head wound and it was bad. I stood over him, protecting him from the oncoming traffic while the driver called the ambulance. No one slowed down, none of the Koreans staring stopped to help. So that was the beginning to my day. Meaning I was a little sensitive.

Anyway, I proceed to walk down the mountain, crying a little, then resolved myself to simply do what I would have done back home. Call a friend, bitch a little, then hitch hike. I got to a bus stop after walking 40 minutes, but it didn’t go to Gwangju. I got 15 mosquito bites because of the rice paddies. So I stuck out my thumb and immediately got picked up by a well- off Korean couple. They took me to the closest town where I got a cab home.

I am just sick and tired of being treated like an indentured servant. Yes, I do get paid. But I did not sign up to be treated like a serf who will just do whatever I am told no matter how I am treated. Honestly, all I really want is to be informed about matters that are pertinent to me. In Korea, that means how and when to be somewhere. All my supervisor cares about is if I am in the classes, occupying the students. She cannot grasp the concept that this camp is COMPLETELY different that my regular job. Different place, no resources (including printers), different students of all levels, different schedule, more classes. I got up at 6am to be at this camp. But no one can tell me when and where to catch the bus? FUCK YOU. I quit.

I will be going to my regular school to desk warm tomorrow. I want to make it clear that I am willing to work. I love teaching and I would have such a good time teaching a camp that is supposed to be about fun and learning, not image and money.

Thoughts on immigration

These days I don’t pay as much attention to what’s going on in my homeland (the USA). I don’t live there, so I’m not bombarded with the media every five minutes and that keeps me safely out of the loop as far as politics are concerned. In college (during the the G.W. Bush years) I was very active politically, I went to protest rallies and sent letters to my senators and congressmen. Now that Obama is in the Whitehouse I’ve laid off a bit. I do still occasionally watch CNN international, so I am aware of the new Arizona law allowing police to detain anyone they “reasonably suspect” of being in the USA illegally. It also makes it a crime not to carry immigration papers. I think this new law is absolutely ridiculous. First off, immigration is a federal issue, not a state issue. Secondly, this is just giving law enforcement the power to arrest anyone. I’m so glad I don’t live in Arizona. Anyway, for the last five years I’ve thought the USA is becoming a police state, and that one of the main reasons why I don’t want to live there, but it wasn’t until today that I got really pissed. Interestingly enough, it was a Facebook profile update that did it. Not one, but two of my friends on Facebook added this as their update:

JUST SO I UNDERSTAND THIS...YOU PASS THE NORTH KOREAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET 12 YRS HARD LABOR, YOU PASS THE AFGHAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET SHOT. YOU PASS THE AMERICAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET A JOB, DRIVER'S LICENSE, ALLOWANCE FOR A PLACE TO LIVE, HEALTH CARE, EDUCATION, BILLIONS OF DOLLARS SPENT SO YOU CAN READ A ...DOCUMENT. WE CARRY PASSPORTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES OR FACE JAIL TIME. REPOST IF YOU AGREE

Ummm I’m sorry, are you retarded? Are you really saying the USA should be more like North Korea and Afghanistan? This is just about the dumbest thing I have ever read. I almost just deleted my FB account right then and there, just so I don’t have to read this stupid ignorant shit anymore.

Illegal immigrants come to the USA TO WORK. They cannot get a driver’s license without proof of legal immigration status. They cannot get welfare, even foodstamps, without a driver’s license. Yes, they can get emergency health care, but what is the alternative? Ask for their papers and if they don’t have them, let them die? I really hope I don’t forget my papers the next time I’m rushed to the hospital.

The United States was founded by immigrants. The people who lived here originally (the MEXICANS and Native Americans) have either assimilated or live on tiny, shitty reservations. I think that people forget that borders are imaginary lines drawn by the people in power. These are people lives we are talking about. All immigrants want is to provide for their families. I think we can all relate to that. They deserve that right. They deserve the right to be legal in the USA. I know, personally, how difficult it is to leave everything and everyone you know behind and try to start a new life in a new country. This should be rewarded! You shouldn’t be thrown in jail for this! Our country was built on the backs of slaves and the hard work of immigrants. Learn the history and don’t be a ignorant asshole.

So for this “immigration problem” I have two solutions:

1.) Make the companies pay. Who should go to jail? The business owners who hire illegal immigrants. Fuck you for hiring people below minimum wage with no workers comp or health insurance and not giving a fuck when they are arrested and thrown in jail. You make me sick.

2.) Legalize the illegals with a guest worker visa. Do a background check (just like I had to do to come to Korea) and give them at least 90 days. After that they have leave. Then they can come back with a new visa. Simple. Many other countries do this. Also, make the immigration process easier and more expedient. It should not take 20 years to become an American citizen. Everyone working in the USA should be paying taxes and have access to workers compensation in case they are hurt.

I really think Americans need to take a long look in the mirror and start treating everyone with respect and dignity. These ridiculous immigration laws make us look absolutely horrible in the eyes of the world, not to mention they are just simply wrong. They make me ashamed to be an American.

I need that pamphlet!

Do you remember when planning your next move in life was a simple as 1,2,3? Like, hmmmm I just got out of junior high, what should I do?? Go to high school. Well, I graduated from high school, what should I do?? Go to college. Or get a job. Now that I've graduated from college (or have a job), what should I do?? Get a job. Or get a better job. Or travel. Now I have a job, have traveled, or make ample amounts of money, what should I do?? Get married, have a baby, buy a house... WAIT ONE MINUTE HERE! WTF? Where did that come from? That's what OLD PEOPLE do! (no offense old people, or young people who act old)

Now that I'm sober, I've decided to try to plan my next life move. This is harder than it may seem to some-what normal people. Most would say, just do what you want, do what makes sense, do what would make you happy. I, on the other hand, am not most people. I insist on thinking about just about every single thing a young, college educated couple with teaching experience and a love for travel MIGHT possibly do. Currently the list includes (but is not limit to):

1. Staying in Korea for as long as needed to pay off my student loans.
   
2. Take the money we have saved and go on an epic trip around the world (on a very thin shoestring).
3. Take the money we have saved and live in an under-developed country (e.g. Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica) for as long as possible, while living the dream of no job and no responsibilities.
4. Go back to the states, enroll in a state university and get graduate degrees and teaching certifications.
   
5. Go to a different country and teach English.
   
6. Have a baby. Everyone knows this means pretty much everything else is out the window. :) If I want kids, I sure as hell don't want to be old and pregnant.
   
7. Get married. I don't know why, but Dan LOVES this idea. Not today, of course.
   
8. Learn to built platforms high up in jungle trees and become zip-line tour guides.
9. Move back to Oregon, get stupid jobs and have fun showing Dan all around the coolest state in the union.
10. Attempt to gain admission to an awesome university abroad, where we could get our master degrees without selling whats left of our souls to the CitiBank evil empire. The UK perhaps? Australia or New Zealand?

As you can see, I've got a lot of options here. I'm so grateful to realistically have all these options. But seriously, how the hell am I supposed to know what to do? One big down side of having an incredibly intelligent and wonderful partner is he keeps coming up with even MORE things we could do. I don't know how other people decide this stuff, but if I could get that pamphlet at the next "What to do with your life when everything seems like a good idea" meeting, that would be great. Thanks!

+/- Korea

Amanda extensively documented the good and the bad about living on this strange peninsula, but I am one of those men who constantly peer over their partner's shoulders to interject loving, irritating, constructive criticism. One day when I say, oh honey it's its not it's, I swear she'll turn into a dragon and tear my head from my shoulders. So it goes. Here's a plus and a minus about Korea that she failed to mention.

Korea +1 Bonus Point-uh: Health Care. Korea has phenomenally inexpensive health care. I guess that's to be expected from a country where many parents systematically force their children into the medical profession. Not only is it cheap, but it ain't half bad. Now they might be skeptical of diseases like clinical depression, ADHD, or really anything that doesn't manifest itself physically, and most people believe that kimchi cures cancer, but these problems have more to do with the culture at large than the medical professionals who are generally well informed. I mean, it's not all that great for a non-Korean speaker who would like to actually talk to the doctor about treatment options or to read the test results, but that's just part of being an expat. The great thing about the health care is, you can just walk in, be seen by a doctor almost immediately, and pay next to nothing at the end of it. I walked into a clinic without insurance, got a blood test and two consultations for 4.50. Amanda was in the hospital for a week (with insurance) and it cost her 500 dollars. I had Lasik surgery done for 1500 dollars. That's a deal and a half.

Korea -1 (maybe 5) bonus point-uh: Music. Korean music makes me want to put my eyes out with a rusty ice cream scoop. There are only two types of music, old people music and young people music. I'm sure there's traditional music too, there are traditional instruments like harps with two strings and such, but I've never heard it.

Old people music is terrible, but it's certainly the lesser of two evils. This music can be heard every day, accosting the innocent from the 10 motherfucking speakers on the bus, this (music or talk radio, blaring on the bus) could be it's own -1 point for the Korean peninsula, or out of bongo flatbeds carrying precarious stacks of empty glass bottles on the way to wherever they go. Here's what happened, at the end of the Korean war the Americans wanted to give the Koreans a present, a housewarming for their new country. Who knows, maybe we felt bad about greasing them up for the IMF like it was deliverance. So we decided to give them musical instruments, but the only ones we could find were trombones. Fuck it. We airdropped some trombones for them to fuck around with, many died, but how would you know it's the Americans bringing democracy, or culture to your country if no one dies, it's like our calling card. When they started figuring out the instrument the first band formed. They decided that they would find the person in town who sounded most like a seagull committing suicide and make him the singer. Then they decided that their backing sound would be 20 trombones playing the same measure over and over. Since in Confucian culture it's almost unthinkable to create your own way of doing things, all bands for the next 20 years followed this exact formula, giving old people music a sounds that in all places, at all times is like music created by a collaboration of a crack addicted Lawrence Welk and Brian Setzer with severe cranial hemorrhaging. Still it's preferable to what the youth obsessively poison themselves with.

While the music for the old is uncreative and tone deaf. The music for the youth is far more insipid, it's a commercial burdened with as many nonsensical, sugary, syth blips as can be stacked on top of one another. How many cultures have ubiquitously popular groups singing songs about cell phones. Their names aren't names anymore they've become words with dictionary definitions, spurring nonsensical English catch phrases that are repeated with parrotlike ignorance by every school child in Korea who barely knows the alphabet. I had a kid in class the other day trying to sing a song that goes, "listen to my heart... beat." But I thought he said, "Listen I have her... pes." It's compositionally nonsensical, like a Britney Spears producer after an 8 ball of coke. It's expressionless, gutless, and in the words of Stephen Morrissey, "Says nothing to me about my life." I guess I should expect that it says nothing to me about my life, I'm not Korean and I never will be. My feeling is sadness, and a deep loss of respect for humanity when I consider that this puerile, commercial nonsense masquerading as music could say something about anyone else's life.

I suppose I might take music a bit too seriously, but in my opinion art is one of the most serious things there is. The drive to self-expression is inviolate and an essential element of our humanity. The music, art, and literature we produce, not as a means to an end, but as an honest expression of our experiences as a human being are as vital to life as air. And when honest expression gets drowned out by aggressive marketing and the herd mentality of people who are suckered into a culture of vapid commercialism and infantile pandering, my faith in humanity dims, because we ARE the art that we produce and consume. There are exceptions to these rules, there is actual music on this peninsula, a punk band from Busan I saw at Speakeasy. But one punk band that really just played covers from classic American punk bands from a city the size of Los Angeles, doesn't make a dent in the fact that this monoculture is suffocating creative expression for the profits of corporations. It happens in the US too, but never to this extent.

So I leave you with just a pinch of this horror that passes for music on this peninsula.