Bussing it to Busan and Down and Out in Daejeon: Photos 21 to 33

To steal a classic line from Dickens, 'It was the best of times; it was the worst of times'. That very accurately sums up my last two consecutive weekends. As the title to this entry and my opening line suggests, Busan was amazing. The latter, Daejeon, not so much.

First, the good weekend. Busan is great city. Almost too good. I can see myself spending a lot of money there every weekend if I don't be careful. The original plan was to go with some teachers from Sacheon, but they backed out. No worries, because Saturday night I was meeting an English teacher from Busan, Mary, who I had met on bus a few weeks ago. I left Saturday afternoon after a real nice morning of sleeping late and lying about. My workday starts at 2pm, so this wasn't really different that any other day. I probably should have left earlier though, because the bus hit heavy traffic on the way into the city. The road from Samcheonpo to Busan, like many roads in this country, goes through the mountains, and in one of the tunnels a produce truck lost several boxes of oranges which I would have found comical

Full Text Entry: Bussing it to Busan and Down and Out in Daejeon

I probably shouldn't be reading about you getting accosted in some skanky place, not exactly what a mother wants to hear! Thank God you are probably bigger and stronger than any of them!

Aaron here at work said he had just seen on the news where South Koreans were waging some kind of protest, hate thing, against Americans!

There were protests going on to continue to block the import of US beef (are you kidding me?!!) because they had stopped after that mad cow scare many years ago. There are protests all over the world against Americans because of the war, but I think those are going away as people are excited about Bush leaving office. I guess there are some Koreans that truly hate Americans, but not all of them. I don't think they hate us as much as the Japanese. I had some students completely unprovoked start to literally curse Japanese people (a girl was trying to put some sort of hex on Japan), saying things like 'I kill Japan'. So not only am I engaged in teaching English here, I am trying to employ so diplomatic tact to teach tolerance as well. Lee, the teacher in Sacheon from England likes to tell Koreans how much he likes Japan just to get a rise out of them. They hate Japan for the bad things they have done in the past, but I guess right now there is some sort of dispute over an island and the seas around it. The Koreans are convinced that the island should be theirs. They didn't like when I told them that, to end the dispute, the island should belong to the U.S., because we defeated Japan in WWII and liberated the whole Korean peninsula, and then again when North Korea invaded the South and even took over nearly the entire country, it was the Americans that saved them. Korea would not even exist if it wasn't for us. Needless to say, they weren't happy to hear this.

The expression "hate" should be reserved for KKK, neo Nazis, Japanese right-wing fanatics, and such. Not to the respectable citizens of a fully functioning democracy, please. I guess it is inevitable that your first impressions on things like American beef and hatred against Japanese and Dokdo dispute come from the kids you teach (and a few adults, with seemingly limited command of English), but please do some reasearch when you have time. The issues are very complex, to say the least. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dokdo Some links.

for offending you so thoroughly. That was not my intent and I am deeply sorry. I am guilty myself of some of the prejudices and generalizations that I have found so annoying. It is clearly a sore issue with both countries claiming historical control for hundreds of years. The nationalistic protests stemming from this territorial dispute, however, is what I have found most troubling. In 2005, when protests erupted again over what was seen as Japanese aggression on the islands, 'Overwhelmed by fury, protesters have sliced off fingers, set themselves on fire, and in one case committed suicide by jumping off a bridge'according to the BBC. Or hundreds of people taking to the streets to have Japanese advertisements removed from the subway. Is this rational behavior? I obviously cannot claim to understand what the Korean people have gone through in the history of relations with Japan, but I can say that I am shocked by the reaction that past actions continue to be espoused by a new generation of Koreans who were not directly affected or even old enough to understand the intricacies of the situation. When I have a ten-year-old student out of the blue tell me that she wants to kill Japanese people, of course I am going to be concerned. Where did she learn this attitude? She clearly did not just one day think that all Japanese are bad and therefore should be killed. Her parents are evidently passing down a message of hate, maybe not explicitly, but the message is coming through regardless. It is not clear yet that when she becomes old enough to understand the issues and make informed decisions on her own that she will know to turn away from this unsubstaniated hate. I would be equally as concerned if I was teaching back in the US and a white student told me he wanted to kill blacks. I commented on this to my director, who does have a good command of English and with whom I have had several talks regarding complex social and political issues, and she replied simply to me, "I hate Japan'. Now I have done my research regarding the issue, I had just wanted to simply state what I thought the problem was in my post. It is evident that the issue is more ideological than anything, and the economic benefits of controlling this island less than 20 hectares is negligable when considering what the conflict is costing both nations. When territoritorial dispute becomes an issue of ideology of nationalism and past aggressions, clearly there will be no way to end the dispute without first ending the mentality that leads to these unrational reactions. Look anywhere around the world for evidence of this. Both sides seem unwilling to put this matter to international arbitration or to solve the dispute amongst themselves. Japan has argued to put the case before ICJ and Korea has made inroads to resolve the dispute over the seas around the island. However, when one country makes these concessions, the other side blatantly ignores them. I cannot foreseeably predict a resolution to dispute as long as both sides harbor an inconsolable hatred for one other. I would love to discuss the issue with you further, but to tell you the truth, I do not see the point.

Hey Ry, Could you send me Sunny's real name and address to the school again please? Any updates coming on here? Love you!

hi, i think ur pretty cool if u now what i mean !!!!! see ya

Thanks for pointing that out! I miss all of you guys though. Take care. Tell Uncle Dave and Aunt Sue I said 'hi'.

I spent a year teaching corporate business English with the LG company in Daejeon South Korea. My observations; The adolescent, childish mentality that dominates the Korean psyche is astounding. This nationalistic society, even though having democratic precepts and idealism, they are still a far cry from a truly free-thinking people. There really is been minimal differences in attitudes and mental development here since the day of liberation in 1957. This country "South Korea" is wealthy in many material things, but still very much stuck in a Third-World mentality. Hopefully, either the North, or the South will take over one, or the other and become a totally democratic, or communist society and not a bastardization of both!

I'm speechless.

Really classy, trashing an entire city based on some bad experiences in one night. You don't know jack about Taejon, dude. I grew up in Taejon, and it's a great city. Maybe next time you should look a little deeper than some crappy yogwan downtown. Your characterization of Taejon based on one night is just as ignorant and small minded as any racist viewpoint, like the bouncer in question. If you're still reading this, I would encourage you to give the city a second chance. If you want to REALLY see what Taejon is like, maybe you should try to touch base with someone from the American community in Taejon and ask them to show you around.

I'm sure you are probably right, I am sure there are several good things about Daejeon, but I didn't see any of them. I do know people that live there (that was the reason I went there in the first place) and they didn't seem to have a very high opinion of it either. That's just my feeling. Sure, I could go back, and give it chance to redeem itself, but why even bother. There are so many better places to go in S. Korea. I would just assume go to Seoul or Busan.

I probably shouldn't be reading about you getting accosted in some skanky place, not exactly what a mother wants to hear! Thank God you are probably bigger and stronger than any of them!

Aaron here at work said he had just seen on the news where South Koreans were waging some kind of protest, hate thing, against Americans!

There were protests going on to continue to block the import of US beef (are you kidding me?!!) because they had stopped after that mad cow scare many years ago. There are protests all over the world against Americans because of the war, but I think those are going away as people are excited about Bush leaving office. I guess there are some Koreans that truly hate Americans, but not all of them. I don't think they hate us as much as the Japanese. I had some students completely unprovoked start to literally curse Japanese people (a girl was trying to put some sort of hex on Japan), saying things like 'I kill Japan'. So not only am I engaged in teaching English here, I am trying to employ so diplomatic tact to teach tolerance as well. Lee, the teacher in Sacheon from England likes to tell Koreans how much he likes Japan just to get a rise out of them. They hate Japan for the bad things they have done in the past, but I guess right now there is some sort of dispute over an island and the seas around it. The Koreans are convinced that the island should be theirs. They didn't like when I told them that, to end the dispute, the island should belong to the U.S., because we defeated Japan in WWII and liberated the whole Korean peninsula, and then again when North Korea invaded the South and even took over nearly the entire country, it was the Americans that saved them. Korea would not even exist if it wasn't for us. Needless to say, they weren't happy to hear this.

The expression "hate" should be reserved for KKK, neo Nazis, Japanese right-wing fanatics, and such. Not to the respectable citizens of a fully functioning democracy, please. I guess it is inevitable that your first impressions on things like American beef and hatred against Japanese and Dokdo dispute come from the kids you teach (and a few adults, with seemingly limited command of English), but please do some reasearch when you have time. The issues are very complex, to say the least. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dokdo Some links.

for offending you so thoroughly. That was not my intent and I am deeply sorry. I am guilty myself of some of the prejudices and generalizations that I have found so annoying. It is clearly a sore issue with both countries claiming historical control for hundreds of years. The nationalistic protests stemming from this territorial dispute, however, is what I have found most troubling. In 2005, when protests erupted again over what was seen as Japanese aggression on the islands, 'Overwhelmed by fury, protesters have sliced off fingers, set themselves on fire, and in one case committed suicide by jumping off a bridge'according to the BBC. Or hundreds of people taking to the streets to have Japanese advertisements removed from the subway. Is this rational behavior? I obviously cannot claim to understand what the Korean people have gone through in the history of relations with Japan, but I can say that I am shocked by the reaction that past actions continue to be espoused by a new generation of Koreans who were not directly affected or even old enough to understand the intricacies of the situation. When I have a ten-year-old student out of the blue tell me that she wants to kill Japanese people, of course I am going to be concerned. Where did she learn this attitude? She clearly did not just one day think that all Japanese are bad and therefore should be killed. Her parents are evidently passing down a message of hate, maybe not explicitly, but the message is coming through regardless. It is not clear yet that when she becomes old enough to understand the issues and make informed decisions on her own that she will know to turn away from this unsubstaniated hate. I would be equally as concerned if I was teaching back in the US and a white student told me he wanted to kill blacks. I commented on this to my director, who does have a good command of English and with whom I have had several talks regarding complex social and political issues, and she replied simply to me, "I hate Japan'. Now I have done my research regarding the issue, I had just wanted to simply state what I thought the problem was in my post. It is evident that the issue is more ideological than anything, and the economic benefits of controlling this island less than 20 hectares is negligable when considering what the conflict is costing both nations. When territoritorial dispute becomes an issue of ideology of nationalism and past aggressions, clearly there will be no way to end the dispute without first ending the mentality that leads to these unrational reactions. Look anywhere around the world for evidence of this. Both sides seem unwilling to put this matter to international arbitration or to solve the dispute amongst themselves. Japan has argued to put the case before ICJ and Korea has made inroads to resolve the dispute over the seas around the island. However, when one country makes these concessions, the other side blatantly ignores them. I cannot foreseeably predict a resolution to dispute as long as both sides harbor an inconsolable hatred for one other. I would love to discuss the issue with you further, but to tell you the truth, I do not see the point.

Hey Ry, Could you send me Sunny's real name and address to the school again please? Any updates coming on here? Love you!

hi, i think ur pretty cool if u now what i mean !!!!! see ya

Thanks for pointing that out! I miss all of you guys though. Take care. Tell Uncle Dave and Aunt Sue I said 'hi'.

I spent a year teaching corporate business English with the LG company in Daejeon South Korea. My observations; The adolescent, childish mentality that dominates the Korean psyche is astounding. This nationalistic society, even though having democratic precepts and idealism, they are still a far cry from a truly free-thinking people. There really is been minimal differences in attitudes and mental development here since the day of liberation in 1957. This country "South Korea" is wealthy in many material things, but still very much stuck in a Third-World mentality. Hopefully, either the North, or the South will take over one, or the other and become a totally democratic, or communist society and not a bastardization of both!

I'm speechless.

Really classy, trashing an entire city based on some bad experiences in one night. You don't know jack about Taejon, dude. I grew up in Taejon, and it's a great city. Maybe next time you should look a little deeper than some crappy yogwan downtown. Your characterization of Taejon based on one night is just as ignorant and small minded as any racist viewpoint, like the bouncer in question. If you're still reading this, I would encourage you to give the city a second chance. If you want to REALLY see what Taejon is like, maybe you should try to touch base with someone from the American community in Taejon and ask them to show you around.

I'm sure you are probably right, I am sure there are several good things about Daejeon, but I didn't see any of them. I do know people that live there (that was the reason I went there in the first place) and they didn't seem to have a very high opinion of it either. That's just my feeling. Sure, I could go back, and give it chance to redeem itself, but why even bother. There are so many better places to go in S. Korea. I would just assume go to Seoul or Busan.