I. Children "singing" high
Stretching what we call "music"
Can we muzzle them?
Oh, Japanese PA systems! Is there nowhere a choir of piping prepubescents does not belong? This was Mom's and my first impression as we landed in Fukuoka (Hakata) and caught our train to Nagasaki.
II. Hospital wants cash
Endoscope "to see deep throat"
We do not charge him.
My mother had a bad case of laryngitis (it turned out) so we had to go to a hospital in Nagasaki, where a very nice otolaryngologist (ENT doctor) met with us and examined her. His English was great, especially in comparison to pretty much everyone else we saw there, but he did say quite clearly that the endoscope was to see her "deep throat." It was the chief moment wherein our diplomatic negotiations were most threatened by our need to giggle like my students. (The alternative last line, actually very accurate and demonstrative of great generosity on his part with regards to uninsured foreigners and expensive tests, but hilarious in light of the phrase previously uttered was: He does not charge us).
III. Japan likes hard cash
ATM: "Invalid card"
Three cheers for Starbucks!
This was the most miserable part of our adventure. While my mother sat in the hospital waiting room, I told her (with the foolish confidence of one who places great faith in the Visa and Mastercard logos) that I would pop over to the Post Office (which is apparently where you get your strange foreign money in Japan) and get the cash to pay the hospital. I'd be back in a few minutes, I said. It would be no problem, I said. Oh, how I lied. Hours and three stops with minimal English and seven receipts later, I still had no yen.
I tried to call the hospital (I figured asking for the only person with my mom's obviously Western name wouldn't be that hard, but it was). The lady at the bank I was currently in helped me as much as she could, finally saying, "Your mother? She go out." I walked back, intending to go to the hotel where I thought she'd go. When I passed the hospital, a twinge of doubt assailed me as to my assistant's accuracy in translation, so I popped in to see and sure enough, there was Mom, still waiting for me. The hospital - and this was a ray of sunshine I totally hadn't expected - said it was fine for us to go away and come back tomorrow to pay them. So we left, and continued the ill-fated mission to find money. Many maps were helpfully drawn to other places who helpfully drew us yet other maps and apologized in bewilderment for their machines not accepting our Visa card. At long, long last (it seemed) we came upon a Starbucks and Mom said to me, "surely corporate America will help us in our hour of need!" (I'm paraphrasing). We went in, ordered, and Internet, I was not emotionally prepared when our card went through. IT WORKED. We proceeded (not having eaten so far that day) to burn a swathe through their food stores not unlike Sherman on his way to the sea.
IV. Nuclear bullying
My grandfather's legacy
He thought, "I'm helping!"
So the next day, which ended with a revelation (at 10 p.m. after speaking to another American guest at our hotel) that money could be had from 7-11 (of all places) in quantities not exceeding 10000yen at a time for four times (it is possible I had to light black candles, dance around widdershins and recite the backwards names of Beelzebub. The world will never know), we went to Peace Park. It is a very beautiful, open space with fountains and statuary.
Peace Park exists because Nagasaki is the site of the second nuclear bomb dropped in World War II. My mother's father worked on the Manhattan Project. She is a total pacifist, and it is especially hard from that perspective to think about someone you love believing strongly enough in a war to participate in creating the bomb. She could not tell me exactly what my grandfather thought, as it seems they did not out-and-out discuss it, but she did say she truly believed he thought he was helping; he thought he was doing something good. That led our conversation around to just and unjust war, nationalism's unbridled power, and the classic: man's inhumanity to man.
When I was in poli-sci classes in college, it would sometimes hit me very hard how casually rooms of exceedingly young people talked about leveraging the power of the bomb to accomplish political goals. I imagine that to be effective in politics, you cannot afford to be constantly overwhelmed by what we have done, and by what we have the power to do. I hope, though, that there are still people making important decisions who are just as bowled over as I am.
In total: not as vacation-like an atmosphere as could be devoutly wished, but the kind of adventure that teaches you you can land on your feet, even if it is a long fall and you land in a latté you could have bought in Connecticut.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
A Vacation Haiku
Temples in the rain
We are getting very wet
Sunglasses useless
We are getting very wet
Sunglasses useless
 |
| Okay, so I don't actually have photos of the rainy temple. This was a different one. |
Friday, June 25, 2010
It was, it was a glorious thing to be the Pirate King! Part I (of III)
... I was, it must be said, somewhat surprised by this revelation. Most of my stage experience has been backstage or in a choir. I do not like to stand out, but Internet, this weekend, I stood. In an outward manner. And it was okay!
This past weekend, (June 19th and 20th), we performed The Pirates of Penzance at Seoul National University of Education. These performances were the ones we hoped to make money from, beyond the very first performance two weeks ago for which we were sponsored. Our director, due to a nasty infection scare, remained hospitalized, but in this day and age, no paltry physical distance can separate a dedicated and internet-ready director from his thespian flock.
Three cameras and two laptops later, through Skype and Ustream, our motley assemblage was rehearsing under Captain Gimpy's watchful digital eye. It would not be accurate to say that he "never, ever, ever said a big, big 'D.'"* (It wouldn't even be accurate to say that I never ever said one, even though my mother was present).
While there were actual doors off to the left and right side of the stage this time, they led to closets, rather than wings as I understand them, which made them less helpful than they could have been, but infinitely more so than the unbroken walls of our first performance space. (I... did not think so kindly of them when I discovered one of their unlit walls with my face during the performance. Hindsight, however, has the blessing of being bruiseless). They were serviceable, if intimate, offstage areas.
At any rate, this marked my fourth rehearsal as the Pirate King (third, if we're counting ones where I played only the Pirate King... last weekend was an adventure in identity). It was not so raring a success as I'd hoped. We did not have time to run the entire show before we performed at 2:00, so we focused on Pirate-King-heavy numbers, which was very nice and accommodating of everyone.
This meant, of course, a special focus on "Oh better far to live and die," which is the actual name of the Pirate King song. The choreography for this song involved a sort of leaping trust fall on my part into the waiting arms of my pirate crew. Now, internet, my pirate crew includes a number of perfectly attractive gentleman pirates, and even those at whom I do not look appreciatively, I enjoy personally. It is not a problem for me to leap into their arms. It is a problem when, in the unending struggle against gravity, they lose a battle. I got dropped, internet. Twice. This was in rehearsal, so I started our 2:00 show with serious Old Lady Syndrome (my hips! My back! Get off my lawn!).
On the bright side, I warmed up my projecting muscles with loud shouts of "SON OF A-!" and "MOTHER-!" (They really did sound just like that, as I stifled the other bits so my actual mother - present at the time - would not make the Face of Deep Disapproval. You may not know it yet, dear reader, but you fear the Face of Deep Disapproval, as all wise people do). So, swears and bruises and all, we deployed for round one.
We hadn't sold more than half our tickets for this show, so our maimed-but-fearless leader had taken the opportunity to invite the residents of the place where we'd been rehearsing. They are, by and large, lovely people who are just a bit touched in the head, and there are many of them, so the auditorium was pretty full. A few needed to leave during the performance, but all in all, I think it was fine. It was well that we filled this show with them, as I think they were a more forgiving than discerning audience, and our first run was... suboptimal. It proceeded apace, but lacked the cohesion and energy, the groove, that we got into by the second show.
Voila, preamble accomplished! Next: The Good Show, Chaps.
*This is a Gilbert & Sullivan reference to HMS Pinafore, talking about how the captain never swears. ("What never?" "Well... hardly ever!")
This past weekend, (June 19th and 20th), we performed The Pirates of Penzance at Seoul National University of Education. These performances were the ones we hoped to make money from, beyond the very first performance two weeks ago for which we were sponsored. Our director, due to a nasty infection scare, remained hospitalized, but in this day and age, no paltry physical distance can separate a dedicated and internet-ready director from his thespian flock.
Three cameras and two laptops later, through Skype and Ustream, our motley assemblage was rehearsing under Captain Gimpy's watchful digital eye. It would not be accurate to say that he "never, ever, ever said a big, big 'D.'"* (It wouldn't even be accurate to say that I never ever said one, even though my mother was present).
While there were actual doors off to the left and right side of the stage this time, they led to closets, rather than wings as I understand them, which made them less helpful than they could have been, but infinitely more so than the unbroken walls of our first performance space. (I... did not think so kindly of them when I discovered one of their unlit walls with my face during the performance. Hindsight, however, has the blessing of being bruiseless). They were serviceable, if intimate, offstage areas.
At any rate, this marked my fourth rehearsal as the Pirate King (third, if we're counting ones where I played only the Pirate King... last weekend was an adventure in identity). It was not so raring a success as I'd hoped. We did not have time to run the entire show before we performed at 2:00, so we focused on Pirate-King-heavy numbers, which was very nice and accommodating of everyone.
This meant, of course, a special focus on "Oh better far to live and die," which is the actual name of the Pirate King song. The choreography for this song involved a sort of leaping trust fall on my part into the waiting arms of my pirate crew. Now, internet, my pirate crew includes a number of perfectly attractive gentleman pirates, and even those at whom I do not look appreciatively, I enjoy personally. It is not a problem for me to leap into their arms. It is a problem when, in the unending struggle against gravity, they lose a battle. I got dropped, internet. Twice. This was in rehearsal, so I started our 2:00 show with serious Old Lady Syndrome (my hips! My back! Get off my lawn!).
On the bright side, I warmed up my projecting muscles with loud shouts of "SON OF A-!" and "MOTHER-!" (They really did sound just like that, as I stifled the other bits so my actual mother - present at the time - would not make the Face of Deep Disapproval. You may not know it yet, dear reader, but you fear the Face of Deep Disapproval, as all wise people do). So, swears and bruises and all, we deployed for round one.
We hadn't sold more than half our tickets for this show, so our maimed-but-fearless leader had taken the opportunity to invite the residents of the place where we'd been rehearsing. They are, by and large, lovely people who are just a bit touched in the head, and there are many of them, so the auditorium was pretty full. A few needed to leave during the performance, but all in all, I think it was fine. It was well that we filled this show with them, as I think they were a more forgiving than discerning audience, and our first run was... suboptimal. It proceeded apace, but lacked the cohesion and energy, the groove, that we got into by the second show.
 |
Voila, preamble accomplished! Next: The Good Show, Chaps.
*This is a Gilbert & Sullivan reference to HMS Pinafore, talking about how the captain never swears. ("What never?" "Well... hardly ever!")
All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Put on an Archaic But Nonetheless Delightful Show*
Our first performance of Pirates, the only one people promised to give us money to do in advance, was to be given in Wonjoo, a charmingly rural area (it is a town only to people with a very special definition of "town"). Specifically, we were to deliver our great masterpiece of theatrical fireworks to a camp for 'multicultural children' which is Korean for 'not Korean enough.' They were all very nice kid-type people, but it must be said they did not have the grasp of English necessary to enjoy Gilbert & Sullivan to the fullest extent possible. Anyway, our day of performance started far earlier than the moment we first saw the actual kids.
I stayed from the previous night with a cast member who had access to an apartment just down the road from our rehearsal and storage space, and then, at ridiculous o'clock in the morning (that is, before 6) I woke up and set in motion some of the things that needed to happen that day. We needed to get all the things necessary to our performance to a bus, get that bus to the second place we'd be picking up people, and then get all those people and things out to Wonjoo. This does not seem like it would be, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, the science of the rocket.
A number of helpful actor-type people assembled, ready to load themselves and their gear onto the bus, but the bus was not nearby, and we needed to move all our physical set-pieces onto it, too. This involved the noble sacrifice of at least twenty minutes in the lives of several strapping young men, but soon enough we were all assembled outside the bus we had had to track down, ready to load and leave.
It was at this point that we discovered that a major part of our set, the stairs, would not fit into the bus. As I think I mentioned, the stairs were made from quite... frugal materials, and though they were quite sturdy when left alone, the screws especially resented any kind of reorganization. By that, I mean they were cheap little buggers that stripped if you looked at them. We needed to remove something like 12 of them to get the top panel off the stairs so it would fit in the bus. Many were lost in this action. I also had the joyful experience of being a woman in South Korea, by which I mean that I pointed out that the kick plate to the top step came up to be flush with the platform, so that removing the platform would not actually lower the clearance of the whole set of stairs, the kick plate would need to be removed also. "Pshaw," said the driver of the bus, who, we were told by translation, had A Plan. When his Plan collided with the laws of physics, I do not need to tell you who won. Conservation of Mass: it's not just a good idea, it's the law.
Our altercation with fundamental laws cost us about half an hour, but eventually we had all the keen actor-types who were getting on at that bus stop and all their baggage and all our set-bits. Huzzah! We then went to collect the other people, which, after we determined that, of the two possible gates to the University on whose campus we were meeting, they had chosen the other one, we succeeded in doing. Off to Wonjoo!
On the bus, we chatted and sang and ran lines and sewed buttons on last-minute costumes. There was rollicking. It was good.
Some hours later, we arrived in the beautiful mountain retreat that was the camp, and unloaded our junk into the space we'd been given. Internet, it could not be called a theater. It was a gym with a stage in the wall. Now, in high school, we put on many a show in our gym-theater, and we were pretty amazing at it, actually (SLS, what up!). It cannot be denied, however, that our gym-theater was considerably more accommodating of performers than this particular establishment. There were no wings at all. Offstage was steps down from the stage to the ground floor. We created backstage-ish areas with curtained panels not unlike those at a blood drive, and were totally screwed when some of us (I say "some" to make myself feel better... I can only remember it being me, but I live in the perpetual hope that I was not alone in my idiocy) exited the wrong side of the stage, as the only way across to enter on the other meant going through the audience. There was also no really feasible way to hang our backdrops, as they had been produced in great haste, looked lovely, and were entirely without eyelets or grommets or really anything useful for hanging. Some enterprising people on a rickety ladder, the stage-manager-who-wasn't-me and the production manager, used an inordinate quantity of tape. It saved us from doing theater in an altogether Shakespearean way, but sagged a bit in the middle, making our jolly island appear weary of this mortal coil.
Oddly for an establishment that had invited us to perform a musical, the camp had not seen fit to provide us a piano. Or a keyboard. Or anything that made noise. (This is not totally true... there were a number of traditional Korean drums, and of course many children. They make noise). So we warmed up and began entirely without anything useful of that kind, relying instead on our pianist's perfect pitch, and other members'... slightly less perfect pitch.
The run-throughs were fun, especially before we got on the stage itself. We performed for one another in a big circle on the floor where we'd warmed up, and gross exaggeration was the order and joy of the day. Frederic and Ruth were especially delightful as they tangoed their way through their scenes, dipping dramatically on "circumspect" and flinging legs with wild abandon on "I have deceived you?" (well, Ruth flung, Frederic caught). Fun though it was, it was accompanied by a continual string of misadventure. Policemen's helmets were still drying, was the Sergeant's hat okay, what did these switches do, should the stage be making that loud thumping noise, where are the Wards' fans, can H sew some more buttons for us, what if we don't get a piano, do you fit properly into the PK costume, what's the choreography for this number... I was not, dear reader, only the Pirate King this day. I was still the stage manager in most minds (my own, too), so when I was not riffling the air with my very kingly sword, I was consulting on a number of these items. I have had more restful days, I think. Finally, finally, we had a piano, the backdrops defied gravity just enough, my costume was pinned together enough to avoid citations for indecency, and we were as ready as we could be to begin.
It was far more a dress rehearsal than a performance, but we were lucky, and the kids were forgiving. We dropped lines, picked them up, entered on interesting sides of the stage, had our wonderful pianist-and-Jane-of-all-trades translate a bit of the show for the kids when their boredom threatened to bring the whole affair to a grinding halt, did something really weird for the curtain call, and stood in front of awkwardly placed lights. It was an adventure. I had a beard.
After we'd mingled and given autographs and packed up our wayward equipment, we headed back to Seoul on the Norebus. Norebang is the Korean word for what we think of as karaoke, and the bus was equipped to be one in motion. I learned things about the cast and crew I had not known before, and it was delightful knowledge to receive. In due time, we staggered home, laden with the trappings of the show.
And oh, dear reader, though it cannot be said I did any more than hold my finger in the dam of the show, and it cannot be said that this show diverged at all from the "natural course of the theater" according to Mr. Henslowe,** (indeed, I dare say this show really reveled in living up to that description to the fullest extent) it was fun.
*Strangely, dear reader, this is not a common English expression. I think it high time we give it a permanent place in the idiom database.
**"The natural course is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster."
"What do we do?!"
"Nothing. Strangely enough it all comes out right in the end."
"How will it?!"
"I don't know, it's a myst'ry."
I stayed from the previous night with a cast member who had access to an apartment just down the road from our rehearsal and storage space, and then, at ridiculous o'clock in the morning (that is, before 6) I woke up and set in motion some of the things that needed to happen that day. We needed to get all the things necessary to our performance to a bus, get that bus to the second place we'd be picking up people, and then get all those people and things out to Wonjoo. This does not seem like it would be, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, the science of the rocket.
A number of helpful actor-type people assembled, ready to load themselves and their gear onto the bus, but the bus was not nearby, and we needed to move all our physical set-pieces onto it, too. This involved the noble sacrifice of at least twenty minutes in the lives of several strapping young men, but soon enough we were all assembled outside the bus we had had to track down, ready to load and leave.
It was at this point that we discovered that a major part of our set, the stairs, would not fit into the bus. As I think I mentioned, the stairs were made from quite... frugal materials, and though they were quite sturdy when left alone, the screws especially resented any kind of reorganization. By that, I mean they were cheap little buggers that stripped if you looked at them. We needed to remove something like 12 of them to get the top panel off the stairs so it would fit in the bus. Many were lost in this action. I also had the joyful experience of being a woman in South Korea, by which I mean that I pointed out that the kick plate to the top step came up to be flush with the platform, so that removing the platform would not actually lower the clearance of the whole set of stairs, the kick plate would need to be removed also. "Pshaw," said the driver of the bus, who, we were told by translation, had A Plan. When his Plan collided with the laws of physics, I do not need to tell you who won. Conservation of Mass: it's not just a good idea, it's the law.
Our altercation with fundamental laws cost us about half an hour, but eventually we had all the keen actor-types who were getting on at that bus stop and all their baggage and all our set-bits. Huzzah! We then went to collect the other people, which, after we determined that, of the two possible gates to the University on whose campus we were meeting, they had chosen the other one, we succeeded in doing. Off to Wonjoo!
On the bus, we chatted and sang and ran lines and sewed buttons on last-minute costumes. There was rollicking. It was good.
Some hours later, we arrived in the beautiful mountain retreat that was the camp, and unloaded our junk into the space we'd been given. Internet, it could not be called a theater. It was a gym with a stage in the wall. Now, in high school, we put on many a show in our gym-theater, and we were pretty amazing at it, actually (SLS, what up!). It cannot be denied, however, that our gym-theater was considerably more accommodating of performers than this particular establishment. There were no wings at all. Offstage was steps down from the stage to the ground floor. We created backstage-ish areas with curtained panels not unlike those at a blood drive, and were totally screwed when some of us (I say "some" to make myself feel better... I can only remember it being me, but I live in the perpetual hope that I was not alone in my idiocy) exited the wrong side of the stage, as the only way across to enter on the other meant going through the audience. There was also no really feasible way to hang our backdrops, as they had been produced in great haste, looked lovely, and were entirely without eyelets or grommets or really anything useful for hanging. Some enterprising people on a rickety ladder, the stage-manager-who-wasn't-me and the production manager, used an inordinate quantity of tape. It saved us from doing theater in an altogether Shakespearean way, but sagged a bit in the middle, making our jolly island appear weary of this mortal coil.
Oddly for an establishment that had invited us to perform a musical, the camp had not seen fit to provide us a piano. Or a keyboard. Or anything that made noise. (This is not totally true... there were a number of traditional Korean drums, and of course many children. They make noise). So we warmed up and began entirely without anything useful of that kind, relying instead on our pianist's perfect pitch, and other members'... slightly less perfect pitch.
The run-throughs were fun, especially before we got on the stage itself. We performed for one another in a big circle on the floor where we'd warmed up, and gross exaggeration was the order and joy of the day. Frederic and Ruth were especially delightful as they tangoed their way through their scenes, dipping dramatically on "circumspect" and flinging legs with wild abandon on "I have deceived you?" (well, Ruth flung, Frederic caught). Fun though it was, it was accompanied by a continual string of misadventure. Policemen's helmets were still drying, was the Sergeant's hat okay, what did these switches do, should the stage be making that loud thumping noise, where are the Wards' fans, can H sew some more buttons for us, what if we don't get a piano, do you fit properly into the PK costume, what's the choreography for this number... I was not, dear reader, only the Pirate King this day. I was still the stage manager in most minds (my own, too), so when I was not riffling the air with my very kingly sword, I was consulting on a number of these items. I have had more restful days, I think. Finally, finally, we had a piano, the backdrops defied gravity just enough, my costume was pinned together enough to avoid citations for indecency, and we were as ready as we could be to begin.
 |
| They gave me swords! Two of them! |
It was far more a dress rehearsal than a performance, but we were lucky, and the kids were forgiving. We dropped lines, picked them up, entered on interesting sides of the stage, had our wonderful pianist-and-Jane-of-all-trades translate a bit of the show for the kids when their boredom threatened to bring the whole affair to a grinding halt, did something really weird for the curtain call, and stood in front of awkwardly placed lights. It was an adventure. I had a beard.
After we'd mingled and given autographs and packed up our wayward equipment, we headed back to Seoul on the Norebus. Norebang is the Korean word for what we think of as karaoke, and the bus was equipped to be one in motion. I learned things about the cast and crew I had not known before, and it was delightful knowledge to receive. In due time, we staggered home, laden with the trappings of the show.
And oh, dear reader, though it cannot be said I did any more than hold my finger in the dam of the show, and it cannot be said that this show diverged at all from the "natural course of the theater" according to Mr. Henslowe,** (indeed, I dare say this show really reveled in living up to that description to the fullest extent) it was fun.
*Strangely, dear reader, this is not a common English expression. I think it high time we give it a permanent place in the idiom database.
**"The natural course is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster."
"What do we do?!"
"Nothing. Strangely enough it all comes out right in the end."
"How will it?!"
"I don't know, it's a myst'ry."
The Hobo and the Cheese-stick
As an interlude, here is an anecdote about one weekend when I came up to Seoul for rehearsal. Frederic, the Props Mistress, and I were all convening and staying with our pre-Gimpy Director, but I was the only one coming in at Seoul Station. The PGD was coming to pick me up, because I arrived after midnight, at which time the Seoul metro does not run. I had some time and was pretty hungry, as catching the KTX after work precludes dinner, so I picked up a lemonade and two cheese-sticks from the 24-hour fast food place.
Sitting on a bench (the others mostly being occupied by sleeping homeless dudes) while on the phone to Frederic, trying to coordinate meeting,* I became aware of someone shuffle-wobbling toward me. He was clearly not all there, speaking and gesticulating at people who were all not there, and shambling ever closer. I mentioned to Frederic that I was being approached and was not sure what to do, speaking as I do substandard Korean and distinctly accented Crazy. He reassured me that this was Korea, and Koreans are all very polite, even the mad ones. The hobo crept ever closer.
Cheese-stick One was in the air between the box and my mouth when he burst into motion, zipping the remaining 8 feet and snatching the cheese stick out of my airborne hand. He quickly shuffle-ran away while stuffing the cheese-stick into his mouth. Dear reader, I do not know about you, but my education did not prepare me for this moment. (Frederic's suggestion was that I should go and demand it back, but he quickly became aware of the inadvisability of this plan). I was, in a word, flummoxed.
In my startlement, I had jolted in such a way that my remaining cheese-stick had fallen to the floor, so I was left only my lemonade to sip as I waited, nonplused, for my ride. He arrived, I mentioned the cheese-stick incident, and he offered to go and get it back from me, or wreak bloody vengeance on my behalf. I did not want it back, thank you, and bloody vengeance seems a stiff price for deep-fried cheese (though I understand Wisconsin people take a different view where cheese is concerned). Respecting my wishes, the PGD went instead to buy sandwiches to disperse among the needy, and I was alone again on my bench, Cheese-Stick Man hovering again on the edges of my perception.
I sipped my lemonade nervously: a mouse in a clearing as the hawk circles in for the kill. I make that metaphor because THE DUDE CAME BACK AND STOLE MY LEMONADE. Again, out of my hand, in the air on its way to my mouth. (Do you get extra points for that? This dude is the champ).
I haven't had a cheese-stick since, out of the primal terror that a hobo will swoop out of nowhere and seize it.
*It turned out this was all in vain, because Frederic was arriving at a totally different train station. He did not figure this out until considerably later.
Sitting on a bench (the others mostly being occupied by sleeping homeless dudes) while on the phone to Frederic, trying to coordinate meeting,* I became aware of someone shuffle-wobbling toward me. He was clearly not all there, speaking and gesticulating at people who were all not there, and shambling ever closer. I mentioned to Frederic that I was being approached and was not sure what to do, speaking as I do substandard Korean and distinctly accented Crazy. He reassured me that this was Korea, and Koreans are all very polite, even the mad ones. The hobo crept ever closer.
Cheese-stick One was in the air between the box and my mouth when he burst into motion, zipping the remaining 8 feet and snatching the cheese stick out of my airborne hand. He quickly shuffle-ran away while stuffing the cheese-stick into his mouth. Dear reader, I do not know about you, but my education did not prepare me for this moment. (Frederic's suggestion was that I should go and demand it back, but he quickly became aware of the inadvisability of this plan). I was, in a word, flummoxed.
In my startlement, I had jolted in such a way that my remaining cheese-stick had fallen to the floor, so I was left only my lemonade to sip as I waited, nonplused, for my ride. He arrived, I mentioned the cheese-stick incident, and he offered to go and get it back from me, or wreak bloody vengeance on my behalf. I did not want it back, thank you, and bloody vengeance seems a stiff price for deep-fried cheese (though I understand Wisconsin people take a different view where cheese is concerned). Respecting my wishes, the PGD went instead to buy sandwiches to disperse among the needy, and I was alone again on my bench, Cheese-Stick Man hovering again on the edges of my perception.
I sipped my lemonade nervously: a mouse in a clearing as the hawk circles in for the kill. I make that metaphor because THE DUDE CAME BACK AND STOLE MY LEMONADE. Again, out of my hand, in the air on its way to my mouth. (Do you get extra points for that? This dude is the champ).
I haven't had a cheese-stick since, out of the primal terror that a hobo will swoop out of nowhere and seize it.
*It turned out this was all in vain, because Frederic was arriving at a totally different train station. He did not figure this out until considerably later.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
How the British Play, put on by American, Colombian, Korean and South African players in Korea became The Scottish Play
(The title is in reference to the bad luck that follows that play, and how it seems to have found us, though we are totally innocent of speaking the name of that show during the entirety of our misadventure. We have put a moratorium on all Scottish accents involved in the production, just to be safe).
So, Internet, I have been doing this show, this Gilbert & Sullivan show, The Pirates of Penzance or The Slave of Duty. It is a delightful show, full of the tongue-in-cheek Britishness for which G&S are so well-known. We started off, as I believe I have noted here, with only one month to get ready for our first performance, for a camp of multicultural children (which, in Korea, means a kid who is not Korean enough to be with the others, and must be sent to a special place far away from the real Koreans to get to know its place in the world with its own kind). I was the stage manager, a role rife with the liaising with actors I had assiduously avoided for so long by being a pure techie...
... Sorry, I lost my train of thought. There is an adorable baby next to me. I find its smile and giggly bits distracting. I don't want one, but this is the first public transportation baby I have ever seen so well behaved. Anyway, back to our story!
We probably should have known that this was too good an opportunity for Murphy to pass up. A month to take total G&S newbies and make them performance ready? Our casting alone miscarried when the dude we wanted for Frederic turned out to be leaving the country right after our first performance, so we couldn't use him for the others (off of which we laughably hoped to make money). So we had to get a different guy, one who, we later found out, couldn't read music. He also lived hours away and was a miserable memorizer. Not an auspicious beginning.
Our rehearsals were held in the basement of a home for the mentally infirm. By and large, the residents were very nice, and the pastor who ran the place was an exemplar of generosity. There was, however, a woman who worked there who took (what I consider) an unreasoning dislike to me from the very start. She would yell in Korean at me and slam doors in my general direction. She was unpleasant. The residents also sometimes got very much in the way, and occasionally upset about the disruption to their routine. Still, most after a while smiled when they saw us and said hello. (Annyeong!)
We couldn't seem to get suitable building materials. We weren't building a full-scale model of Manhattan or anything, but we did want two 3-step stairs. Alas, the materials we had bought (at great expense - building stuff in Korea ain't cheap) were too flimsy to distribute over two cases, and we could only build one. Props acquisition was slow and difficult (Korea is not overrun with Victorian English props and costumes, imagine that!) and costumes was complicated by the presence of personalities with notions counterproductive to our aims. Things got done eventually, rather than efficiently.
Then, the cast. The Wards were spot on practically from the beginning, though one of them promptly got sick and lost her voice. The gentlemen were plagued by absences and a lot more complicated choreography. So we worried. Oh, and our production manager went on vacation, so half of our preparation time, I was both stage manager and production manager. During most of these weekends, I stayed at R's apartment, often with Frederic and the props mistress. Frederic snores and the props mistress talks in her sleep. Also, R has a baby and two dogs. They were not restful times, and they were all the respite we had from 15-hour days. (The actors didn't go for 15 hours, but the behind-the-scenes people did).
And then the medical problems. Our older, more portly, Major General had a heatstroke. I spent one rehearsal day mostly with him in the ER, which I don't at all regret as he is a charming and wonderful man and I felt very bad for him, but it did throw a bit of a wrench in. He lost quite a bit of what he'd memorized, and was very understandably weak on his pins after it. Our sick Ward still had no voice, but her role had been sort of farmed out to other wards and she still came to rehearsal faithfully. It appeared we would have a rough, but ready, first performance. Luckily, it would be for children, who are a forgiving audience as these things go.
Three days before the show was due to go on, I was woken by a phone call from the props mistress. "[the director and Pirate King] has been in some sort of accident," she said, "I'm a little vague on the details, but I thought you should know."
"Thanks." I said. At the time, I meant it, in the sense that yes, I did like to be kept apprised of things like that. (She also reports that I said, "That might be the worst news I've had all week. Or month. Maybe year." which was not inaccurate). Afterwards, I would have given anything not to be the person people call. Call they did, all day long, and the following picture took shape: R had been hit by a car while riding his motorcycle, sustaining an open fracture of the leg. We were down a Pirate King with three days until the first performance. (For those unfamiliar with the show, the Pirate King is a distinctly non-trivial role).
As we took stock of our options, it transpired that none of us had really ever considered something happening to R. We'd never had understudies for anyone, but we had especially never worried about R, up to and including not always writing down his blocking. He was the director (we thought), he had good instincts (we thought), he'd be fine even if he invented the whole thing on the spot! He would not, it seemed, be fine if he had to invent it from the hospital, which is where doctors confined him for a week at the very least. So our options were: M, the production manager, who had just returned from what had been intended as vacation but had turned out to be a miserable trip to Chicago and who had never been asked to look at the PK, only Samuel and Major General; K, a policeman and pirate baritone who would be vocally very well suited but whose absence it would prove difficult to work around, and me.
The reason I (sopraniest soprano you ever did see) was on this list is that I had memorized the show. The whole show. I could do all of it by myself with puppets. I'm not particularly proud of this, it was mostly a byproduct of running lines with Frederic who was such a miserable memorizer that I spent about an hour and a half every weeknight being every part except Frederic, and feeding him his own lines about half of that time. I was the last resort, for obvious reasons. I spent all that day fielding calls, making calls, doing emails, working (I was at work), and telling myself it would not come to that. M and K had all day to figure out if it was even possible for them to memorize the whole role in two days.
M called that night, saying he could walk it, but couldn't talk it. K called the next morning to say that regretfully, he couldn't memorize it in the time allotted. R called from the hospital the next afternoon to say that I was it. So, the Thursday before our Saturday performance, I became the Pirate King.
Here ends chapter 1 of our saga. To follow: opening night.
 |
| (This was in my classroom. The Korean on the bottom says, "Rebecca I love you") |
So, Internet, I have been doing this show, this Gilbert & Sullivan show, The Pirates of Penzance or The Slave of Duty. It is a delightful show, full of the tongue-in-cheek Britishness for which G&S are so well-known. We started off, as I believe I have noted here, with only one month to get ready for our first performance, for a camp of multicultural children (which, in Korea, means a kid who is not Korean enough to be with the others, and must be sent to a special place far away from the real Koreans to get to know its place in the world with its own kind). I was the stage manager, a role rife with the liaising with actors I had assiduously avoided for so long by being a pure techie...
... Sorry, I lost my train of thought. There is an adorable baby next to me. I find its smile and giggly bits distracting. I don't want one, but this is the first public transportation baby I have ever seen so well behaved. Anyway, back to our story!
We probably should have known that this was too good an opportunity for Murphy to pass up. A month to take total G&S newbies and make them performance ready? Our casting alone miscarried when the dude we wanted for Frederic turned out to be leaving the country right after our first performance, so we couldn't use him for the others (off of which we laughably hoped to make money). So we had to get a different guy, one who, we later found out, couldn't read music. He also lived hours away and was a miserable memorizer. Not an auspicious beginning.
Our rehearsals were held in the basement of a home for the mentally infirm. By and large, the residents were very nice, and the pastor who ran the place was an exemplar of generosity. There was, however, a woman who worked there who took (what I consider) an unreasoning dislike to me from the very start. She would yell in Korean at me and slam doors in my general direction. She was unpleasant. The residents also sometimes got very much in the way, and occasionally upset about the disruption to their routine. Still, most after a while smiled when they saw us and said hello. (Annyeong!)
We couldn't seem to get suitable building materials. We weren't building a full-scale model of Manhattan or anything, but we did want two 3-step stairs. Alas, the materials we had bought (at great expense - building stuff in Korea ain't cheap) were too flimsy to distribute over two cases, and we could only build one. Props acquisition was slow and difficult (Korea is not overrun with Victorian English props and costumes, imagine that!) and costumes was complicated by the presence of personalities with notions counterproductive to our aims. Things got done eventually, rather than efficiently.
Then, the cast. The Wards were spot on practically from the beginning, though one of them promptly got sick and lost her voice. The gentlemen were plagued by absences and a lot more complicated choreography. So we worried. Oh, and our production manager went on vacation, so half of our preparation time, I was both stage manager and production manager. During most of these weekends, I stayed at R's apartment, often with Frederic and the props mistress. Frederic snores and the props mistress talks in her sleep. Also, R has a baby and two dogs. They were not restful times, and they were all the respite we had from 15-hour days. (The actors didn't go for 15 hours, but the behind-the-scenes people did).
And then the medical problems. Our older, more portly, Major General had a heatstroke. I spent one rehearsal day mostly with him in the ER, which I don't at all regret as he is a charming and wonderful man and I felt very bad for him, but it did throw a bit of a wrench in. He lost quite a bit of what he'd memorized, and was very understandably weak on his pins after it. Our sick Ward still had no voice, but her role had been sort of farmed out to other wards and she still came to rehearsal faithfully. It appeared we would have a rough, but ready, first performance. Luckily, it would be for children, who are a forgiving audience as these things go.
Three days before the show was due to go on, I was woken by a phone call from the props mistress. "[the director and Pirate King] has been in some sort of accident," she said, "I'm a little vague on the details, but I thought you should know."
"Thanks." I said. At the time, I meant it, in the sense that yes, I did like to be kept apprised of things like that. (She also reports that I said, "That might be the worst news I've had all week. Or month. Maybe year." which was not inaccurate). Afterwards, I would have given anything not to be the person people call. Call they did, all day long, and the following picture took shape: R had been hit by a car while riding his motorcycle, sustaining an open fracture of the leg. We were down a Pirate King with three days until the first performance. (For those unfamiliar with the show, the Pirate King is a distinctly non-trivial role).
As we took stock of our options, it transpired that none of us had really ever considered something happening to R. We'd never had understudies for anyone, but we had especially never worried about R, up to and including not always writing down his blocking. He was the director (we thought), he had good instincts (we thought), he'd be fine even if he invented the whole thing on the spot! He would not, it seemed, be fine if he had to invent it from the hospital, which is where doctors confined him for a week at the very least. So our options were: M, the production manager, who had just returned from what had been intended as vacation but had turned out to be a miserable trip to Chicago and who had never been asked to look at the PK, only Samuel and Major General; K, a policeman and pirate baritone who would be vocally very well suited but whose absence it would prove difficult to work around, and me.
The reason I (sopraniest soprano you ever did see) was on this list is that I had memorized the show. The whole show. I could do all of it by myself with puppets. I'm not particularly proud of this, it was mostly a byproduct of running lines with Frederic who was such a miserable memorizer that I spent about an hour and a half every weeknight being every part except Frederic, and feeding him his own lines about half of that time. I was the last resort, for obvious reasons. I spent all that day fielding calls, making calls, doing emails, working (I was at work), and telling myself it would not come to that. M and K had all day to figure out if it was even possible for them to memorize the whole role in two days.
M called that night, saying he could walk it, but couldn't talk it. K called the next morning to say that regretfully, he couldn't memorize it in the time allotted. R called from the hospital the next afternoon to say that I was it. So, the Thursday before our Saturday performance, I became the Pirate King.
 |
| This is the face I made. |
Here ends chapter 1 of our saga. To follow: opening night.
Monday, May 10, 2010
My name is Rebecca (Hello, Rebecca!)
... and I am a bad blogger. I have been a bad blogger for about two months now. I had determined to become a better blogger this glorious month of May, but events conspire against me. I owe you the brilliance of my observational and deductive (not to mention descriptive) powers as applied to the concert I was in the weekend before this past one ("Music for Dead People: a Couple of Requiems for the Discerning Listener," or at least, that's what I would have called it). I would like to tell you of the adventurous romp through Seoul that weekend became, and all the musical geekery leading up to and away from it, but there are a few things in the way.
First is the new musical production by the same company. We are putting on The Pirates of Penzance or The Slave of Duty, by Messirs Gilbert and Sullivan. We are putting it on with a full production time of one month. Those of you not Shakespearean actors may find this shocking. It is. A month to learn a 200+ page score and script in all its lovely British nuance is not a lot of time. I am the stage manager, or assistant production manager, and the dialogue-y accent person. (Personally, I prefer the call-sign Bosun - I get a whistle! - and Layman's Phonetician. Or Pygmalion. I haven't decided). So far it is ludicrously, but delightfully busy in every imaginable way. Saturday from 1 p.m to 8 or 9, and Sunday from 3 p.m to 8 or 9 is when the actors and actresses are called. Busybodies like me will stay up to two hours after that (but personally, I won't on Sundays anymore, as that soundly compromises my train-making abilities). During the week, there are notes to review and meetings to be had via Skype, some with the dreaded Management, and some with actors to do accent-y stuff.
To add to this list o' stuff, the foreign teachers under the GLE schools' umbrella are having a debate. I'm not sure why, but I do know it's about whether kids should be taught only by native English speakers. We are the con side and will argue that students should learn from both. This debate is next Wednesday. We discovered the teams and the topic today. We are supposed to occupy an hour. Luckily, one of our teammates has professed some dance experience. Nothing like a little language-education soft-shoe to loosen judges up.
In three days, I discovered an hour ago, I am supposed to give a presentation with two other Korean teachers about teaching reading . Internet... I have never taught reading. Of any kind. To anyone. It transpires that next quarter, foreign teachers will begin teaching reading at the most advanced level, but the presentation is supposed to be about teaching reading to the most basic level. This bodes ill, people. My hope is, at this moment, built on nothing less than Google's might and the search string "ESL/EFL reading pedagogy." (If you have knowledge, dear reader, which you have been keeping by in case of a rainy reading-pedagogy day, today is the day to let it shine forth!)
So really, I'm gearing up to be an even worse blogger in the near future. In the meantime, for pictorial versions of many of the stories I would tell if I were a better blogger, check out roketship.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Where all the...
... foreigners are expected to be astonishingly, irredeemably, heartbreakingly stupid.
Returned to the bank today to restore the check to my account. Forty-five minutes later, victory of a sort!* The teller called Avalon again, (at least this time I was right there, and it wasn't a huge and unpleasant surprise) and spent somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes in back-and-forth with one of the Korean teachers in the elementary campus (not even in my own office anymore, this privacy thing is really a winner) and with me. Most of it was them trying to convince me I really didn't want to put the check back in. Some minutes were spent talking to other bank people, and a great many were spent frowning at the screen and tapping away, as though some magical key combination would make me leave. (I can't really blame her, though. After the whole check thing and the ATM incident, I imagine they have flagged me at that bank. There will come a day when they will bar the doors if they see me coming).
The interpreter started by telling me the woman was sure I could send the check. I explained that the post office woman had not agreed. Was I sure? Well, she had definitely refused to send it and written down the words, "banned item" for me, just to be clear, so yes. Pretty sure. Did I know the interpreter had an American husband to whom she had sent money successfully through the post before? No, and congratulations to you both, but I was still sure I did not want to continue carrying around a functional cashier's check, redeemable at Citibank. I wanted the money back in my account. I understand accounts, I understand money that stays in them. This was truly All I Wanted. I was warned that there would be a pretty serious penalty for undoing the check. Was I totally sure I didn't want to go back to the post office and try again? In the end, I got to pay $22 to unwrite the thing.
From the exchange, it eventually came out that it is not illegal to post a money order. It is illegal to send a check through the mail without an envelope. I spent ten minutes getting told by the post office that my check was a banned item, and a further forty-five minutes today undoing it, because the post-office lady thought I was showing it to her with the intent of sending it through the mail without an envelope.
Really? Really, Korea?
*This is the traditional call of triumph in the perennially Pyrrhic war of the Individual versus The Established Bureaucracy. It is optimally accompanied by the also-traditional Three Big Finger Twirls.
Returned to the bank today to restore the check to my account. Forty-five minutes later, victory of a sort!* The teller called Avalon again, (at least this time I was right there, and it wasn't a huge and unpleasant surprise) and spent somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes in back-and-forth with one of the Korean teachers in the elementary campus (not even in my own office anymore, this privacy thing is really a winner) and with me. Most of it was them trying to convince me I really didn't want to put the check back in. Some minutes were spent talking to other bank people, and a great many were spent frowning at the screen and tapping away, as though some magical key combination would make me leave. (I can't really blame her, though. After the whole check thing and the ATM incident, I imagine they have flagged me at that bank. There will come a day when they will bar the doors if they see me coming).
The interpreter started by telling me the woman was sure I could send the check. I explained that the post office woman had not agreed. Was I sure? Well, she had definitely refused to send it and written down the words, "banned item" for me, just to be clear, so yes. Pretty sure. Did I know the interpreter had an American husband to whom she had sent money successfully through the post before? No, and congratulations to you both, but I was still sure I did not want to continue carrying around a functional cashier's check, redeemable at Citibank. I wanted the money back in my account. I understand accounts, I understand money that stays in them. This was truly All I Wanted. I was warned that there would be a pretty serious penalty for undoing the check. Was I totally sure I didn't want to go back to the post office and try again? In the end, I got to pay $22 to unwrite the thing.
From the exchange, it eventually came out that it is not illegal to post a money order. It is illegal to send a check through the mail without an envelope. I spent ten minutes getting told by the post office that my check was a banned item, and a further forty-five minutes today undoing it, because the post-office lady thought I was showing it to her with the intent of sending it through the mail without an envelope.
Really? Really, Korea?
*This is the traditional call of triumph in the perennially Pyrrhic war of the Individual versus The Established Bureaucracy. It is optimally accompanied by the also-traditional Three Big Finger Twirls.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
This Author as a Person of Interest to Men in Fedoras
Internet, I am a suspicious character! Like anyone else, I'd like to be writing an entry with this title about how someone looking just like Indiana Jones in his heyday is remarkably interested in me on multiple levels. Sadly, I am writing because I have had a paranoia-inducing experience that leads to late-night, wide-eyed wonderings about G-Men.
As for anyone who earned money in the US last year, I spent the days leading up to the Ides of April crouched over the many lines, forms, and checklists of the taxpayer. For the first time in my young life, I owed the government more than it owed me. Yay, solvency! Unfortunately, my solvent crowns and pounds and guineas were not banking compatible with the IRS. I needed to use my American account for my American taxes (funny thing, that). Having a whopping $40 in the US and no time to move money from here to there, my dad kindly floated me the amount I needed. It was supposed to be a matter of a few days of post time to resolve the issue. My taxes were paid, in the meantime I would get a money order and mail it, for less than a wire transfer, and scant days later, everything would be peachy. For the record, I am neither a mouse nor a man, but I have a lot of sympathy for them and their plans.
As for anyone who earned money in the US last year, I spent the days leading up to the Ides of April crouched over the many lines, forms, and checklists of the taxpayer. For the first time in my young life, I owed the government more than it owed me. Yay, solvency! Unfortunately, my solvent crowns and pounds and guineas were not banking compatible with the IRS. I needed to use my American account for my American taxes (funny thing, that). Having a whopping $40 in the US and no time to move money from here to there, my dad kindly floated me the amount I needed. It was supposed to be a matter of a few days of post time to resolve the issue. My taxes were paid, in the meantime I would get a money order and mail it, for less than a wire transfer, and scant days later, everything would be peachy. For the record, I am neither a mouse nor a man, but I have a lot of sympathy for them and their plans.
First, I went to the bank, my bank, trying to get a money order, because I was not sure I could buy one at the post office. Because they are sent everywhere from the United States, I foolishly thought they would be available to send to the US in most/all places. It took a good bit of convincing that yes, I wanted a money order and no, I couldn't/didn't want to wire money, that being the normal Korean thing to do. I filled out more forms than I think I should have had to, and finally got a check-like thing that could be redeemed at Citibank in North America. Triumph.
Then, I went to the post office, where the language barrier barred me from getting anything more than frustration out of my encounter with the service woman. I wanted to be sure I got the stupid check insured, as it was quite a bit of money, so I made no bones about the fact that it was a check. I even showed it to her. She spoke very fast and then went to find another woman who took great pains to show me that it was money, or of a value above zero, and therefore could not be sent. I was naturally confused, as I had asked at the bank that this be a money order, because I wanted to send it to my father in the US. At the bank, they assured me that yes, they had given me the right thing, a money order for the sending to people. I pressed the post-office lady to tell me more, but what ended up happening was that she took further great pains to tell me that what I had was paper, not money. You may notice this neatly countered her previous statement about why she couldn't send the thing. Without more Korean, I could not hope to prevail, so I left.
It was recommended that I simply submerge the check in a letter and send the letter certified mail. Really wanting to just send the damned thing and have done with it, I wrote a (quite nice, actually) letter, bought an attractive blue envelope, and put the package together. I wasn't able to get to the post office again in the same day, so I waited and thought I'd send it today.
Here's the paranoia: someone called the school, asking about me and the money I withdrew. They tell me it was the bank, though my coworkers managed to tease me for about ten minutes that it was the government looking for me, but I am still very creeped out. The bank has my cell phone number. They do not need to call my employer about my banking activity and should not have done so. Maybe they did it for ease of communication, knowing my Korean is crap, but they just spoke to a secretary, outlined the story of it for her, and went on their way. I only found out about it because the front desk lady came in and spoke at length to my head teacher, who then asked me about it. That is neither common sense nor respect for my privacy as a client and it is extremely unnerving.
The annoyance in this to me is the whole right hand/left hand, not-knowing-what-the-other's-up-to element. I was specific at the bank about what I wanted and what I was planning to do. Assurance, assurance, huzzah, huzzah. The post office was evidently not apprised that this was supposed to be an assured and huzzah-ful affair. Apparently, per the teachers I work with, it is common knowledge that sending money through the post is forbidden. I would have thought that commonality would have somehow trickled up, down or sideways to the people at the bank. Furthermore, it's my money! It's not like I was sending a check on credit and they needed to investigate my risk factor. It is nobody's business if I want to use that money to repay my parents or buy myself a dancing hedgehog farm.
Anyway, am still irked, put out, and a bit on the paranoid side, but slightly mollified by the mental image of the dancing hedgehogs. May your days be full of respect for your personal information, and ease of navigating torturous inter-institutional waters.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Hello, Internet. I have been absent from your haunts because I have been sick. A lot. More. Plus. In addition. Also. I am now at the point that although it sounds like my lungs are trying to make a break for it, they are really just grumbling about how they could secede if they really wanted to. During this latest and greatest negotiation of systems various in the pursuit of rest for the relief from fever and its accompanying throes, I renewed my faith in the whole nationalized medicine thing, and lost my faith in bureaucratic goings-on, namely in my hagwon.
So I was sick before, and then it went away for a bit after Dr. #1, and then it came back and brought all its friends. One of its friends was a fever, which left me shivering and miserable on Easter Eve. I will not swear that there was no pity party. There may have been hats.
Easter day saw me trucking down to the 24/7 clinic where I met my boss (who very nicely came and took me to the doctor) and saw a new doctor. He spoke very nice English, gave me a prescription for some spiffy drugs, and sent me on my way. My boss was very sympathetic and I went home as hopeful for a swift recovery as I could be. I should note here that my concept of "recovery" is the one inculcated from childhood in most Americans (I think). As most school systems seem to believe, you return to public life when you have spent 24 hours free of fever, lest you endanger said public. I thought this was common knowledge/sense, but it is apparently a Western conceit.
The following day, still feeling like death despite drugs, I phoned my boss, to double check that no, I should not come in to work. It was like suggesting that plastic sheep were running Tajikistan's puppet government in a deadly pursuit of all the world's yams. So weird it's not even wrong. When finally I made it clear that yes, the noise of a convulsing water buffalo that kept coming out of my throat, and its accompanying chartreuse eject, would prevent me from teaching effectively, I was told the process by which I could procure one day of rest.
Step one, return to the clinic. Obtain doctor's note of diagnosis. Bring said note to school. Return home.
If this already seems ridiculous to you (as it does to me, being, in fact, a legal adult employed by the school, not a student thereat), no worries, how it actually happened is even better!
I went to the clinic. I saw a different doctor this time, whose English was distinctly subpar. Eventually I whipped out my legal pad, drew a stick figure of myself and an arrow to the word "hagwon" (in Hangul) with a question mark. The doctor nodded earnestly, told me I needed a shot and meds, and tried to look in my tiny mouth to see my normal-sized throat. I tried to explain that actually, I had been there yesterday, and still had meds to take, I really just wanted a piece of paper saying "yes, sick." He waved that off and conveyed that I should finish those meds and take his new ones next. The shot would happen either way. Lacking the arguing stamina one gets from being afebrile, I may or may not have said, "Whatever, man, it's cool." and followed orders. A nurse gave me a shot in the butt and a paper to show the hagwon, I paid them four dollars, and I left, picking up my new drugs on the way out.
Upon arrival at the hagwon, I brought my paper to my boss and waited as she called the clinic to verify that indeed, they had made that fancy paper just for me, and I had not been hiding some heretofore unexplored knowledge of Korean and forgery. Satisfied on that front, she brought the thing in to show the owner. When he was satisfied, she came back to say I could go home and take my snot with me, but if they could not find someone to teach my middle class, I would still have to come back.
In the end, she did find someone, and I was well pleased that indeed, I could have one recovery day from the flu before I stuffed myself back into rooms full of the germ factories that are children. Huzzah.
It seems so bizarre that a country with such accessible and affordable healthcare has no leeway for the patient to take care of him or her self. There are only two degrees of health, according to Korean employers: death's door, and bloom-of-health. I was told that if I were so sick I was actually in the hospital, I could bring my doctor's note the following day. Perhaps they are cracking down on wanton attempts to influence doctoral judgment, but it's just plain sense to wait until people aren't contagious before bringing them back to highly populated areas.
Anyway, I am down to only the occasional honking cry of the Enfeebled Anglo, and hope to be all the way better at life and posting things soon.
So I was sick before, and then it went away for a bit after Dr. #1, and then it came back and brought all its friends. One of its friends was a fever, which left me shivering and miserable on Easter Eve. I will not swear that there was no pity party. There may have been hats.
Easter day saw me trucking down to the 24/7 clinic where I met my boss (who very nicely came and took me to the doctor) and saw a new doctor. He spoke very nice English, gave me a prescription for some spiffy drugs, and sent me on my way. My boss was very sympathetic and I went home as hopeful for a swift recovery as I could be. I should note here that my concept of "recovery" is the one inculcated from childhood in most Americans (I think). As most school systems seem to believe, you return to public life when you have spent 24 hours free of fever, lest you endanger said public. I thought this was common knowledge/sense, but it is apparently a Western conceit.
The following day, still feeling like death despite drugs, I phoned my boss, to double check that no, I should not come in to work. It was like suggesting that plastic sheep were running Tajikistan's puppet government in a deadly pursuit of all the world's yams. So weird it's not even wrong. When finally I made it clear that yes, the noise of a convulsing water buffalo that kept coming out of my throat, and its accompanying chartreuse eject, would prevent me from teaching effectively, I was told the process by which I could procure one day of rest.
Step one, return to the clinic. Obtain doctor's note of diagnosis. Bring said note to school. Return home.
If this already seems ridiculous to you (as it does to me, being, in fact, a legal adult employed by the school, not a student thereat), no worries, how it actually happened is even better!
I went to the clinic. I saw a different doctor this time, whose English was distinctly subpar. Eventually I whipped out my legal pad, drew a stick figure of myself and an arrow to the word "hagwon" (in Hangul) with a question mark. The doctor nodded earnestly, told me I needed a shot and meds, and tried to look in my tiny mouth to see my normal-sized throat. I tried to explain that actually, I had been there yesterday, and still had meds to take, I really just wanted a piece of paper saying "yes, sick." He waved that off and conveyed that I should finish those meds and take his new ones next. The shot would happen either way. Lacking the arguing stamina one gets from being afebrile, I may or may not have said, "Whatever, man, it's cool." and followed orders. A nurse gave me a shot in the butt and a paper to show the hagwon, I paid them four dollars, and I left, picking up my new drugs on the way out.
Upon arrival at the hagwon, I brought my paper to my boss and waited as she called the clinic to verify that indeed, they had made that fancy paper just for me, and I had not been hiding some heretofore unexplored knowledge of Korean and forgery. Satisfied on that front, she brought the thing in to show the owner. When he was satisfied, she came back to say I could go home and take my snot with me, but if they could not find someone to teach my middle class, I would still have to come back.
In the end, she did find someone, and I was well pleased that indeed, I could have one recovery day from the flu before I stuffed myself back into rooms full of the germ factories that are children. Huzzah.
It seems so bizarre that a country with such accessible and affordable healthcare has no leeway for the patient to take care of him or her self. There are only two degrees of health, according to Korean employers: death's door, and bloom-of-health. I was told that if I were so sick I was actually in the hospital, I could bring my doctor's note the following day. Perhaps they are cracking down on wanton attempts to influence doctoral judgment, but it's just plain sense to wait until people aren't contagious before bringing them back to highly populated areas.
Anyway, I am down to only the occasional honking cry of the Enfeebled Anglo, and hope to be all the way better at life and posting things soon.
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