Wednesday September 8 Kubrick Class #2
I showed “Fear and Desire” which was on what Elusive DVD called a “B-“ quality print, the best they could develop from the ancient and decaying copy they finally got their hands on.  Students loved that description; I guess that they liked the idea of something inanimate earning a mediocre grade. The film had some of the fifty film fanatics (everyone came back) somewhat puzzled, but the result – some of these students are right on top of the ball – was pleasing to me. It’s strange to approach a film about war when this country is still in one fifty miles away. The film was Kubrick all the way, the only “flaw” was poor casting of the officer leading his group out from behind enemy lines.  Next Wednesday we see “Killer’s Kiss.”

The city is just waiting to serve us. After two days of teaching, Wednesday evening, we had a Japanese dinner of 8 courses for 60.000 won. We had expected a plate of sushi and sashimi.  It’s sinful, and it would have been $175.00 in NYC. We didn’t drink though. Incredible bulgogi at a place called KONGBUL two nights ago which was astounding, and the night before last a shabu shabu fish and seafood extravaganza for 16,000 won. There must be 50 restaurants within five minutes of the university, a parade of nail salons, hair cutting shops, lingerie boutiques with male and female manikins wearing matching briefs, and women’s clothing stores galore with great items on display. The rate of exchange has been very much in our favor, so far. I took out 300.000 won from an ATM on the campus (I did this in English), and the debit on my account was $262.00.  That has to be fat, no?

Thursday September 9
The students are smart and sharp and very friendly, and we are more comfortable  at Sungshin and with the city day by day. There have been problems such as rooms to show films in with no way to make the room dark enough for anyone to do anything but go mad from not being able to watch the films. I showed “Behind the Sun” [Brasil, 2001] on Tuesday, an exploding screen of searing colors and night scenes, about 40% of which was visible. Too bad, because these classrooms are gorgeous! Thus I am here in my office in Soo Jang Kwan Building (Dong-B) writing email because I had to come down today to inspect other rooms which could be darkened so that the students and I wouldn’t go stark raving with me narrating over a blank screen what’s supposed to be visible, particularly in the “Memory, Longing, and Reunion” course after I lecturer them about how all film is memory, and then we can’t see the memory: Fageddabowdit? Only in Bklyn.

I thought that might be the nadir of my film teaching exploits in the past 22 years, but the students are real truckers, and I was visited unexpectedly in my office later in the afternoon by two students who told me they loved what I was doing so much they wanted to take the other course as well. That was sweet music. The checks, I told them, would be in the mail, directly. I have relocated with the help of Hyun-Min, one of the TAs in the English department who helped me secure another room, a long story in itself. The happy ending to my film-showing odyssey was the discovery that the equipment here is set up for all regions’ DVDs, and I can play my discs from home, although I have now a great Korean source.  Bobbie’s students have marked her as a super hero since she saved them from a 3” cockroach (don’t have the cm. equivalent at my fingertips) on the first day of one of her drawing classes. She hunted it down and whacked it with a huge Asian paint brush which was at hand in the studio.

Friday September 10
There has been incessant rain for the last thirty-six hours, with another two days forecast for the same, but it’s relaxing to have very few heavy commitments besides teaching. We wrestled with the Samsung (what else?) washing machine in our apartment yesterday and won the match, gaining an even more excruciating comprehension of functional illiteracy, trying to match up the hangul letters on the machine to the instruction manual. No such amenity, however, as a clothes’ dryer. There’s a long room on the front exposure of our place with sliding windows/screens facing the city below; it’s equipped with a drying rack roped to the ceiling, but we’ve taken to the 1890’s and have our laundry drying draped in front of an oscillating fan in the living room since the humidity is off the charts on the porch.

Archaeological analysis of the kitchen has uncovered some challenging middens of grease indicating fairly extended occupation by students. Still there’s plenty of imperialistic elbow power to be exerted in taking a place over and making it one’s own, and we have cooked here from the second day  (yeah, packaged ramen the first time); last night we christened the kitchen, cooking pork and enoki mushrooms in broth — all in all pretty close to “authentic” for westerners.

Saturday September 11
We went on a shopping trip to E-Mart primarily to upgrade the bed arrangement. There was a salesperson female in the bedding section of the Mart who was going to help us no matter what, another example of Korean determination. And she did, despite a common vocabulary among the three of us of about eight words. There was a question of how wide the two mattresses on the floor were, whether they made it to queen size or not, and salesperson prevailed insisting that the bed was “queen,” and that dictated the comforter, the mattress pad, and the duvet cover’s size. We also added two more pillows and bought two clip-on booklights for reading because there are twenty seven student desk lamps in the house and nothing else except ceiling fixtures.  The desk lamps are fluorescent and manufactured by my favorite Korean knock-off co. “Samjung.” I guess that’s  “son of Samsung.” The desk lamps are good if you’re thinking of performing open-heart surgery.

Sunday September 12

We visited Changdeok Palace in the afternoon, greeted by an emergence of the sun for the first time in 3 days. People, particularly women of all ages use umbrellas/parasols or shade their faces with whatever’s at hand to ward off the sun, which can be searingly hot.  Coming from the US one thinks of southern belles and their heliophobia in  the Black Slave south, but I haven’t a handle on this here yet on why the sunshades; there is a fairly wide spectrum of skin tones  too. Changdeok Palace is extensive and its history complex, the most striking aspects are that it’s essentially of wood with dark terra cotta roof tiles, the most riveting architectural feature beside the astonishing use of color inside and out, was an extensive blue celadon glazed tile roof over one of the royal buildings. There was a traditional Korean music concert in one part of the grounds with percussion, strings, and wind instruments –- all flutes of one design and pitch or another, and I can tell you that it either rocked or swung (this was an aggregation of 10 musicians at one point) how ever you like your sound, and for us it was both. The blues are global. The last part of the performance featured a traditional sword dance performed by two women, each holdi ng two swords, and accompanied by a full complement of musicians. Changdeok is near the neighborhood of Insedong, which we had visited once earlier, and we went there for dinner. “Mandoo” is Korean for dumpling, and we dined al fresco on huge mandoo.

Tomorrow we have to attend a meeting for foreign faculty about sexual harassment. It’s the first time, to my knowledge, we will have been assembled.

Gary