almost famous

the first 24 hours in seoul have gone pretty much according to what i had anticipated when deciding to move to asia; i expected to be pretty clueless and it turns out that i am. i dont know an appropriate way for a person to prepare oneself for a move to the other side of the world, so i have been making it up as i go along. and i daresay im doing ok.

the place where i am staying is comfortable, and i was assigned a roommate, alicia, by my future employer. she is not only an enjoyable person, but she also has been living in asia for 2 years now, an experience that included several trips to korea. this makes her a valuable asset.

apparently my western appearance makes me a small object of fascination here. it is not chilean style lust or machismo but rather my presence attracts not-so-covert glances whenever someone thinks i am not looking. at dinner last night a friend and i were minor celebrities with the waitstaff, eliciting both said looks and copious amounts of giggling. this evening, while trying out my very first korean dish "beep and bop" (spelling accurate to my own pronunciation), the waiter made sure to point out that "this one is for the american" (thank you alicia for the translation).

and so i am working on the story of my fame and trying to think up my "fame name", in case anyone asks. i was considering using my porn star name (ask any 5th grader if you dont know what this is), but lyn aberdeen takes about .5 seconds longer to write than my current moniker. the unacceptability of this fact is insurmountable. ill keep working at it.

in other news, my body really has no idea what is going on. a 13 hour time difference really did a number on my sleep schedule, and so training that begins tomorrow will be interesting. the session will begin in the afternoon so as to coincide with the time of day i feel the most like im back in a college all-night essay writing marathon. excellent.

--> the photo at the top is seoul from the bathroom window of a department store. many more photos to follow. major fashion trends noticed: vests, ruffles, and (cristina miller get excited!) suspenders. bonus points for combining all three.

HEY MAN, YOU CHANGED or I HEAR SALINE IS MORE LIFE-LIKE

yes, things definitely have changed around here, as any of you dinosaur chilean-day readers may have noticed. things like this happen when one:

graduates from college

gets a diploma



and decides to move to korea.
(yes, that is SOUTH korea, the one without all the bombs and communism and whatnot)

im not sure if this sequence of events is a common precursor to remodeling a blog, but oh well.

regardless, the fine city of daejeon (also spelled taejon or 대전 if you are feeling adventurous) is going to be my home for the next year or so. i am quite pleased with things that i have read about the city, which is located about 55 minutes from seoul by train. it is considered the silicon valley of korea. i know this because my stateside contact wrote in an email:

Daejeon is known as the Silicon Valley of Korea.

i took that literally. he also mentioned that:

The clean air and western conveniences make it a great location for you.

i think he might be being just a little presumptious, seeing as how he doesnt really know me or anything, but im still going to take his word for it. i will be working for a company called cdi, teaching english to children of some sort. i dont really know yet. but it looks good; im pretty fired up about it. its going to be an interesting experience, with the funny factor compounded by the fact that i currently speak one word of korean, which is "thank you very very very much" (i know that looks like 6 words, but i promise you it isnt). wan began teaching me the essentials last night, his favorite swear words, but of course i have already forgotten them all. i think i will get very good at hand signals. maybe when i come back i can be a mime.

i am most likely leaving aug 3, so if you are reading this before that date, lets hang out.

at any rate, that will be my life. this will be my blog.

adelante huevones!

there is not one thing about this that is not bittersweet. nor is there anything that i can say about it that is not cliche. the thing about cliches is, well, theyre oversaid because a lot of the time they are true. i may have thought that this entire experience was an emotional montaña rusa (rollercoaster), but that was nothing compared to the utter polorization of my current emotional state. how does one say goodbye to an entire chunk of thier life, to people they may never see again? additionally, how does one do it without alienating people on the other side? yeah.

but así es la vida, and aa flight 940 scl -> dfw takes off at 9:40 pm. after connecting, i land at dtw at 2:11 pm tomorrow. that means for 16 hours and 31 minutes i will be in no man´s land. its kind of like the space between when they stamp your passport leaving a country and when the next window stamps it as having entered theirs. i suppose, then, that dallas will be the ultimate purgatory (although generally texas is more like hell). neither here nor there.

whatever

please rub in all your sunscreen before being ignorant

so, marissa, anna and i have just returned to stgo from an incredible trip to peru and bolivia. more specifically, cusco,peru then aguas calientes, peru, machu picchu, puno,peru and copacabana, bolivia which are both on lake titicaca, and lastly la paz, bolivia´s de facto capital (it has two). while perhaps not profoundly changing me, the trip did a great deal to open my eyes as well as re-whet my appetite for travel. while there are scarcely words for the things that i have seen and done (and probably not even enough pictures), i can manage to summon up a few phrases about one of the inevitable evils of travel: tourists.

throughout the duration of my semester in chile i have perferred to designate myself as a traveler and not a tourist. perhaps i am flattering myself. it is altogether possible that the distinction exists solely in my head and allows me to think i am better than others. if this is the case so be it. it does not change my opinions on the subject.

on our trip we undoubtedly did touristy things. one can not go to machu picchu and not be a tourist, and one can not go to peru without stopping at machu picchu. i think theres a law. or there should be. we also paid tour groups to take us to other ruins, most notably sacshayhunan (pronounced something like ´sexy woman´, which made marissa giggle more than saying lake titicaca). while at these sites i resented the presence of other tourists in my photographs and blocking my views, i was just as guilty as they. there is a reason that descendants of the incans knew of but did not disclose the whereabouts of the sacred machu picchu site. it took an american, hiram bingham to ´discover´ the ruins, with the help of a very young boy he bribed into taking him there. the people knew exactly what would happen, and, surprise, surprise, it did. now the children and grandchildren of those who kept its location a secret are serving as guides for the masses of foriengers that flock to oogle its unquestionably amazing presence. perhaps he took a liking to us because we were at least struggling through the tour with our spanish, but our guide was honest with us. he told us about how his grandfather was hurt by the treatment of the sacred site. he also claimed that there is another ruined city as yet ´undiscovered´ that puts machu picchu to shame, but that the people who know are trying much harder to protect it. while my curiosity peaked, i let go of the thought that perhaps we could go there. a driver in cusco had similar sentiments. he spoke of how his children do not know a cusco without tourists, how their entire lives they will likely be serving the tourist culture, either through a tour group or a specially geared business or restaurant.

these mild stirrings of disgust came to a head when we visited the floating islands of the uros people in lake titicaca from puno. the uros people fled to the water to escape extinction at the hands of the ayamami (im sure thats spelled wrong) people. they built rafts out of the reeds that grew in the lake, which eventually expanded into entire dwellings. there exist houses on these islands built of reeds that people still live in. but why? the fear of the ayamami has long since disappeared, indeed there is so much mixing between the groups that they have essentially merged into one. these days the uros continue to add reeds to keep their islands afloat as a tourist spectacle. they are always dressed in ´´traditional´´ garb and a visit to the islands is little more than a disturbing caricature of their former selves. there is not a day where tourists do not visit. there is not a child that does not pose politely for a photo and then demand money. their entire life is a business, no better than having your picture taken with mickey mouse. they take people on short rides in ´typical´ reed boats for 5 peruvian soles while they themselves get around in outboard motorboats. im not quite sure what i expected when we went out to these islands, but the three of us stood in shocked revulsion as the other tourists behaved as though they were at a circus, chasing chickens, entering houses, and generally treating the residents like novelties, which, for a price, they were happy to be.

so what does tourism do to a native culture other than exploit what is ´different´ for a few photographs?

question to ponder. ill be home in 2 days. think about it.

greetings from cusco

im in peru right now, therefore this is going to be super-short...basically as long as it takes anna and marissa to finish what they are doing. we have been in cusco about a day and a half now, and are leaving tomorrow morning at 545 to go to macchu piccu. im definitely very excited, although cusco is a city i would love to spend more time in...aside from the fact that i have a new and legitimate fear of the vehicles in the street. yesterday i witnessed one hit a pedestrian. it was strange because they picked him up and put him into the car that hit him and sped off. now, i know the dangers of projecting american opinions onto other cultures, but i dont think that was the best idea. anyway, i hope hes ok. i am, however, being extremely extremely careful around these narrow cobblestoned streets. perhaps too much, but thats ok with me. other than that, we are just hobknobbing around this hip yet traditional city. i absolutely love it. many more stories to come, as i will be home in 11 days (i know, i cant believe it either).