First Post

Right, I meant to start writing this a while ago, but I am a lazy man...

First things first I am not in Seoul, but in a small town 90 minutes south-west of Seoul called Seosan. Seosan does not work in a mildly humerous pun to be used as a title for this blog, so "Seoul Man" will have to do for now.

First Week
Arriving on Sunday, the only thing I wanted to do was watch my beloved England play Germany in the World Cup. A decision I regretted when myself and another Englishman were sat in a bar at midnight local time watching the team of pamperred, prancing pre-madonnas get battered by a German invitational XI composed of three Turks, two Ghanaians, numerous Poles, a Spaniard and a Brazilan. The South Koreans, who exited at the same stage, were welcomed back in Seoul as heroes and I had a hard time explaining that the England time were likely to be pelted with stones for losing in round 2.
On the Monday, when I was due to start my first day of school, I was rudely awoken by a man shouting over a tannoy at about 6am. Not speaking a word of Korean I naturally assumed that the North Koreans were invading and sprung out of bed to look out of the window. Seeing that there was no panic among the citizens of Seosan, I ignored the tannoy and went back to bed. I later found out that the tannoy was just a man shouting "Garlic, come buy your garlic! Garlic for sale!". Who really needs to buy garlic at 6am!?
I do possibly have the nicest boss in the world, Liz told me as soon as she me me that she was going to be my Korean mother, I'm not sure I had a choice about this, but I aprreciated in anyway. Liz has lent me money, booked me train tickets, bought me dinner and is letting me borrow her son so I can buy a TV this week.

Gay Korea
Korean is a deeply conservative country and can also be very Christian in certain areas so it is no surprise to find out that homosexuality is not tolerated in Korean society. However what is extremley funny to Western eyes is that Korea is an extremley gay country, it just doesn't realise it.
Men have ridiculous hair cuts, which they're constantly adjusting in the mirror, they carry handbags, wear tight white jeans, wear make up, get their eyebrows plucked, sit on their friends laps....the list goes on. You just have to google images of Korean boybands 2am and Big Bang to see what I mean (the posters of 2am's latest single is hilarious as one of them has a tear rolling down his cheek in it

2am
Big Bang

Meg and I have started a photo album, entitled "Gay Korea" which we'll put up on Facebook soon. Most of the photos are going to be of one of posing behind or nearby the unsuspecting target so that we can take a photo of him without him even knowing it.
Oh yes, there is also the phenomenon of Dom Chim here or to put it simply Ass Attack. I was warned about this before I arrived in Korea, which was handy as it has saved me on numerous occasions. If you're ever in a Korean school DON'T BEND OVER!!!! If you bend over, perhaps to pick up a pen, you run the risk of a child shouting Dom Chim and then ramming his fingers up your arse! This is a very popular game with the children, and indeed with the teachers as my boss has Dom Chimmed a couple of children right in front of me, the other teachers, our school driver and indeed some parents and nobody thinks that this is weird! Liz asked me to we have this game in English schools and I tried to explain just what would happend if a child tried to ram his fingers up another childs arse in an English school. "I think he would regret that decision for the rest of his school days" I told her.

Fan Death
And now for my favourite thing about Korea phenomenon the mysterious Fan Death. Put simply Koreans believe that if you leave you fan or airconditioning on overnight then you will die. I don't mean that they treat this as a ridiculous old wives tale like when your mother tells you not to pull that face or it'll get stuck like that when the wind changes or the Loch Ness Monster, I mean that Koreans genuinely believe that you will die!
It is so bad here that fans are sold with timers that will turn the fan off after a certain point, hotel staff will come round the rooms and turn the fans off, the government releases statements during heatwaves telling people to turn them off at night and death by fan is reported in the newspapers as a cause of death in an obituary.
James (my very good friend and fellow ex-pat out here) told me about Koreans he has met with degrees in science who still believe in fan death and have not understood why Westerners have never heard of it. He showed them the wikipedia article which says at the top that it is only believed in Korea.

Fan Death

Right that is all for now. Hopefully the Gay Korea album will be completed sometime soon (and then constantly added to), none of you leave your fans on over night and Kim Jong-il doesn't invade the South with the aid of garlic salesmen