Beautiful Korean Girl in Korea OR Non-White Ugly Girl in Korea???

Equal opportunity does not exist in Korea. Not at all. If you are so inclined to apply for a job here, expect to submit a photo with your application/resume. My personal take on this is that companies prefer to hire “beautiful” people – why else would plastic surgery be so common here? [Plastic surgery to look more Caucasian…..=”beautiful”????] Also, age is among the first “must ask” questions (this is to establish who shows more respect to whom, but I still feel rather strange when asked this personal, yet not personal, piece of information…..perhaps that is the American in me talking???)

I have been turned down from three (yes, three!) jobs in one week because I was not white….that saga goes something like this:
Job -You white?
Marie – No.
Job – You Korean?
Marie – Yes.
Job – Only want hire white people.
Marie – But I am American so I have perfect English.
Job – Only want white people our company.
Marie - …..(silence)

I had one last job interview today. The interviewee group consisted of one Korean female, one Caucasian female, one Caucasian male and one male of to me unknown ethnicity, and myself. The interview lady took me to the side and the following is how that conversation went (in general):
Lady – Do you have make up to put on?
Marie – No, not with me.
Lady – Do you at least have some lip gloss?
Marie – Yes.
Lady – Put it on. You should wear make up….we only hire pretty girls.
Marie - ……(silence) (did NOT put on lip gloss in passive aggressive demonstration)

I am not claiming to be beautiful, or even close. I have heard before, oh so many times, both in Sweden, in the States and in Korea, that I am certainly not oh so pleasing to the eyes, believe me, but the directness from a place of possible employment was unbelievable…..wow, think the lawsuit if this was in the States?!?!

Beauty
Beauty is subjective
Does inner beauty count?
Or is that bull?
People say it matters,
But their actions speak a different language
Is beauty only skin deep?
Is that all?
Does skin deep beauty not fade?
Does inner beauty not fade as well?
What is beauty?
Is beauty in the eyes of the beholder?
Really?
Does “beautiful” = Caucasian?
Why are Koreans that look more western considered more beautiful?
In Korea. By Koreans.
Am I beautiful because I am nice?
What is “nice”?
That I do what you want me to do?
I am who I am.
Accept me for who I am.
Beautiful or NOT.
And fyi: I am not that nice either…..

I have been talking to a handful of different adoptee females (and a few males) and some do not understand my way of thinking in regards to beauty and how they were treated/regarded in their country of growing up (I am glad for you that you had a great experience, but please be humble to us who were not)….but many have told me they feel the same as I, that they are also working on accepting/believing/understanding that “Korean = ugly” is in fact NOT a fact.

Joining the Korean Work Force

I am now joining the Korean work force. My place of employment is in a central location of Seoul. I am signing a one-year contract, so, HERE I GO!!!
Starting date you wonder....tomorrow....i know.....when something happens here it happens very fast....

2008-01-25

A few random pics from today. The people are a few of my housemates.

A Picture Of Me In Korea

This picture was taken yesterday when I went out to Insadong with a few housemates.

Korea a la Carte

For the sake of simplicity I have decided that todays entry will be set up in the form of a meal...so lets start off with an apperitif: I have a cold and my head hurts, my stomach is still uncooperative and I have the chills. Wow! That sounds pretty bad for a start, but I will just make today a day of rest and I am hopeful that I will be back in biz by Monday...maybe even sooner. Rest assured the menu will get better.....or maybe not.... Lets throw in the mundane weather info here as well, as all my Swedish friends expects the weather to be part of any and all updates as such is the norm in Sweden: the weather is cold, like winter jacket cold, there is some snow on the ground, but not a huge amount. It's windy and that's probably the hardest part for me - the cold I can deal with, no prob, but the wind....that's another thing.

Now lets move on to an appetizer....let's cover some biz related items here ( thus get the boring necessities out of the way and save the best for last (I am feeling the pressure now to come up with something good for the end...ayayay)):

My fostermom, Kim Gyu-Soon, who is 84, slipped and fell and broker her left femur. She had surgery and is still at the hospital recovering. I was able to visit her the other day. When I got to her hospital bed she was sleeping so I grabbed a chair and just sat at her side staring at the wall, but then a nurse entered and woke her up. Kim Gyu-Soon looked at me for about 5 seconds without any facial expression....I was sure she would either have a heart attack or smile at me, but she did neither.....Korean elders are not the most emotional expressive people I have met.... I grabbed her hand, she put her head down, and that's how we sat for about an hour. Sometimes she would say something in Korean which went right over my head, and sometimes I would say something in English which went right over her head (I might just as well have spoken Swedish to her, or pig latin, for none of our conversation made it the short distance from the chair to the bed o vice versa.) To my fostermom I am Park Soo-Mi, the roly-poly baby that was flown off to Sweden.

Salad/Main Course: here I will do the Swedish version where salad is served at the same time and on the same plate as the main course, as compared to the States where salad is served separately before the main course (really, I'm thinking I just don't have that much to say, and I still have dessert-story to come up with.)
Today is my 6th day in Korea and I am.....
I walk down the street and I am....
In the subway I look straight ahead and i go...or barge is more like it, for I am tired of being pushed and shoved by Koreans....
I eat Korean food, the food I should I have been eating all along....
I watched a Korean drama.....and it was very Korean.
I am happy to be in Korea.
OK, this is really going down hill, but the fact is that when I try to explain how I feel about being in Korea, I run out of words....perhaps it is not me, perhaps there really are no words to explain these complex feelings (OK, Tobias, I know you probably can help me out with the wording here, so help me out man!)
All I can say in my limited version is that I am happy to be here.

Dessert! Finally! I thought I won a pair of bathroom slippers, but it was a hat! One night I had dinner with another ibjangin friend and after we went for a beer at a small, no tiny, bar in Myongdong. This place had two small tables, a short bar along the window and the bardisk itself (no seating .) We're talking and listening to the music that's blasting and sipping our Cass when all of a sudden the lights go out, red lights a la disco starts flying around the little bar, and the he-bartender grabs the mic and starts talking/entertaining while being assisted by the other bartender, a she-bartender. They talk and joke, everyone is laughing except me and my ibjangin friend for we don't understand what is going on.....well, we laugh, but for different reasons then the Korean audience, and then the he-bartender and the she-bartender start juggling bottles and glasses etc and finally they give out a few prizes - the bathroom slippers....until I got one and it turned out to be a hat with a Guiness label. I thought for about a second that I could possibly be the proud owner of a Guiness hat that looks like a pair of bathroom slippers.... and then I offered the hat to one of my roommates instead.

A roommate of mine (not the one with the Guiness hat a la bathroom slippers) thinks I should put more pics on my blog, thus i will try to make the effort.....see future entries.

BE GOOD, BE TRUE. love //m

Thai Pics

blabber mode in lower case....

wondering what i am doing.
searching.
more and more.
looking, but not finding.
going around the next bend with hopes once again.
keep wondering.
keep searching.
just a little bit more.
searching for what?
finding what?
hopes of what?
but just a little bit more....
just one more time.
just one more try.
maybe this time.
maybe what?
...and then?...

010-2897-3570

I'm settling in and have accomplished some necessities today...like opening a Korean bank account and purchasing a Korean cell phone.
To call me from Sweden or the States, add the Korean country code of 82 and skip the first zero, so: 82-10-2897-3570.

Well and Safe in Seoul, South Korea

I have arrived in Seoul! The flight from Bangkok to Tokyo to Seoul was all very uninteresting, only screaming kids but no drunk Americans....I slept most of the way actually. It was a great feeling to land on Korean soil! And when the passport control man asked me, in Korean if I spoke Korean, and I UNDERSTOOD him, I was just about to give him a hug! Now I know why I am in Korea.

G'bye Thailand!

Sawatdee-ka Thailand.
Pad Thai with lots of crushed peanuts.
Same Same but Different.
Sweet Cafe Latte's.
Tuk-Tuk's.
Moto's.
Arguing with taxi drivers to turn the meter on.
Neon pink taxi's.
Watermelon and Pineapple.
Bartering for every single purchase.
Monkeys, geckos and being pooped on by a bird.
A window-less hotel room.
Lao beer, Thai beer and Khmer beer.
Kind beautiful helpful people.
Ka-poon-ka Thailand!



The Thai Sex Industry: Some Thoughts of mine

Albeit the Thai Lonely Planet book, which is frequently read by travelers, suggests going to Patpong (a red light district in Bangkok) because it offers a tourist-friendly view of the life of a prostitute as it's not so raunchy but rather funny go-go, I opted to not go.

I felt that if I go I would be laughing at what? The sexy clothes the women and girls are wearing - possibly against their will, possibly because it's the only thing they own, possibly becuase they have to to make some money? The way the women and girls are acting/behaving/talking - all part of an act to make money, to possibly not get beat up? I would be laughing at their expense - and would that really make me any better of a person than the men who go there to buy sex?

Lastly, when 12-year-old virgin is a hot commodity for older men because they like to deflower little girls, because they themselves are afraid of HIV and other STD's but with absolutely no thoughts of what they might give the little girl, do you still think that going to Patpong would be worth a laugh for a night for you?

Random Thoughts....

I have so many random thoughts running through my mind at varying speeds as I am realizing that I really am about to embark on a year in Korea. First off: what was I thinking? And second: Am I doing the right thing by going or am I just kidding myself that this will be "good" for me?

The idea of "normal" and "standard" seems to have flown out the window and been replaced, at least temporarily, by slight insanity on my part. I am trying to piece it all together....slowly slowly.

There is so much beauty in this world.
Why am I so lonely?
The sights and sounds, tastes and smells, the wonderful feeling of joy.
What am I afraid of?

Can you tell I am a bit off today?!?

Different hues of red...

My skin tone has shifted from the normal me to more hues of red than I am able to properly describe. The intense sun here will perhaps have me looking like the old lady in "There is Something About Mary" before I hit the end of the year.

Besides a painful sun burn (despite an inch thick layer of sun screen) I am well, but I am definitely looking forward to going to Seoul on Saturday.

I Am Glow-In-The-Dark!!!

I am glow-in-the-dark! Why you wonder (or not, but if you made it to my blog you are probably worried about me at this point....and what did I do?
BUCKET!
Yeah, that's my answer (thanks for the tip Jin!). En hink som i "hink o spade" for smabarnen i sandladan. A pail as in "pail and shovel" for the little kids at the sandbox. You can get any alcoholic drink (otherwise in small glass with an umbrella) in this bucket and you just sip from a straw (of course just good old gulping would work as well were you so....thirsty (yes, I used a straw.) I had a "Blue Lagoon"....and IT IS BLUE! Sort of like radioactive blue, or at least how I imagine what radioactive blue would look like. I enjoyed my bucket-o-blue-lagoon all while listening to a live band play and there was a mist intermittently going off from a mist-machine (yes, I am getting rather technical here) in the ceiling to cool us all off the audience.

Amazing Food, Tuk-Tuk the Saga Continues and an American Scumbag...

Sawatdee-ka! (hello in Thai said by a female)

Thai food is amazing! As a vegetarian, and as a by-my-friend-declared pickatarian (thanks Freddy!) I had no idea, but little hope, of great food on my travels here; however, it's a food feast! My favorite is the vegetarian street vendors - yes, they exist. Of course, to go with the food is tons and tons of water as it's hot hot hot (and sweaty) here. So to spice up the flavor I have an occasional fruit drink - it's just fresh fruit and crushed ice mixed, no alcohol.

Because I am still working on my jet lag, I am taking it fairly easy, but I did visit the Wat Arun Temple (pronounced either as "what-a-run" or "water-run"), the temple of dawn. I even climbed the steep steps as far up as allowed! To get there I took a water-taxi on the main river that runs through Bangkok, and to get back to the hotel I finally went on my much sought after tuk-tuk ride. I am tuk-tuk!

Today was shopping day! There are soooo much stuff to look at here, and just as many interesting people from all over the world (top two countries represented seems to be Sweden and the States.) While I was leasurely (sp?) sipping on a Coke at a cafe this afternoon the man at the table next to me started talking with me (so far completely normal for the touristy area I was in,) but when his conversation (he did the talking, I just sat there) began to rapidly steer towards his liking for the Thai sex bars and "how cheap they are" I did a not-so-nice Minnesota g'bye "I have to go now" followed by a twist of Korean "for I have an appointment." Scumbags like that should be....arrgh! It makes me sad and mad and angry the way some people think it's OK to exploit others for their own needs and likes because they have money (thus power.)

Signing off...for I have an appointment now...with my vegetarian street vendor!

Ka-poon-ka (thank you in Thai said by a female) for reading this far.

Well and Safe in Bangkok, Thailand

After a rather long flight (I know bu-hu for me) I have arrived in Bangkok, Thailand.

Here is the run-down:
Worst with airplanes: screaming kids and drunk Americans...can't decide which is worst.
Best with airplanes: they take you to this really warm country that utilizes beautiful, however to me absolutely illegible, writing. I just have to tell you, if you haven't seen Thai writing then check it out! It's absolutely amazing! Every word looks like a piece of art.

So after this long flight and very little sleep (see screaming kids and drunk Americans) I am sitting at an Internet Cafe (though keep in mind the cafe part is a bit deceiving as there is no actual cafe, only internet) and there is NO outside wall! That's right, it's so warm that a wall would be a complete waste. FYI: I am wearing flip-flops!

Strangest thing for today: tuk-tuk. A tuk-tuk looks like a flatmoppe but with the flat in the back (if you are Swedish that makes total sense, if you're American you probably think I've just lost my mind...) Let me explain: it is a low-cc motorcycle with an extended part in the back where, I believe, 4 people can sit. This tuk-tuk mode of transportation is cheaper than a taxi and rather convenient if you believe the Thai. Today, I will embark on a tuk-tuk ride just for the experience and for bragging rights of having rode a tuk-tuk. ...I know, I just can't say tuk-tuk enough times...

What Will I Miss?

As I sit here in the States, where by the way it's -7 celsius(sp?) / 20 fahrenheit(sp?) and that's what we all call "it's warming up today" (as compared to the last couple of days when it's been -20 celsius (sp?) / 0 fahrenheit (sp?) (not including wind chill of course) I am debating if and how much I will miss this place I've called home for so many years. And more importantly, WHAT will I miss? People here is a given, my family, my friends and some people I work/have worked with, but besides that? Will i miss the 10pm news? Probably not. Will I miss my car and driving down 35W and cranking the music? Perhaps. Maybe I will get an urge once in a while for a cold Red Bull...yeah, that's possible. But all in all, I think I won't miss a thing.

I know what I won't miss: shoveling snow, that is dirty and heavy and icy and almost stuck to the ground in big chunks, after the plow has gone through the alley.

Honestly, my mind is is whirlwind of random thoughts now...I don't seem to be able to focus. I try, but to no avail. I am so anxious to get to Korea and move in to the mansion that is my Korean home. Being in the mansion has a calming effect on me, it makes me feel OK, like I am no longer just a bi-product. In the mansion I am a person and I count. I matter. In Korea I am.

I had to go gmail...and pretty soon I am going Thai

To continue, or perhaps to finally get to, do this blog thing I had to go gmail...thus a new blog (my email will remain fossphotography@yahoo.com for all of you and anyone else though!)

As some of you know I spent some time in Korea this past fall, but little did I know how much I could /would change in such a short period of time (relatively speaking.) The decision now is to go back to Korea for one year to work and live and sleep and nap and teach and photograph and breath and eat and see and do and experience KOREA!

I am delighted and happy and glad and excited and thrilled and joyous to take on the challenge of everyday-Korea; however, should truth be told, I am also frightened and scared and anxious and sad and ....

Hope is my best lifeline and I am holding on!