One of my favourite photographs (PHOTOGRAPHY)

This picture was shot whilst travelling on the subway - above ground obviously - in South Korea. I love the soft water color lines of this picture. It hasn't been enhanced or softened at all. It was taken whilst crossing the Han River. I love how delicately the colors flow when it reality the city can be grim and gritty.

Re-introducing South Korea (PHOTOGRAPHY)

New York Turns To Korea: From Bi Bim Bop to a Huge Spa

AS extravagant real-estate costs and gentrification do away with most of Manhattan’s ethnic neighborhoods outside Chinatown, the valuable commercial strip of West 32nd Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway remains firmly, surprisingly, overwhelmingly Korean. It is here that many New Yorkers and visitors first taste kimchi (spicy fermented vegetables), bulgogi (thinly sliced marinated beef) and bi bim bop (Google it), and here that Koreans and Korean-Americans gather for parties and social events.
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Many will say you haven’t experienced Korean New York without a trip to Flushing, Queens, but you can easily fill a weekend without leaving Manhattan. Among the culinary choices on and near West 32nd Street, Kunjip is your standard Koreatown restaurant, offering generous portions of do-it-yourself barbecue, other traditional Korean dishes and several brands of soju, the clear Korean liquor. Across the street, Woorijip is an informal, by-the-pound Korean buffet that also stocks Korean snacks like spicy shrimp crackers and sweet rice drinks, good for a quick lunch or bargain dinner; Korean-style fried chicken — with a full bar — is available at the largely hidden, chic gathering place Bon Chon chicken.

At the upscale vegetarian spot HanGawi, which back in the day got two stars from Ruth Reichl when she was restaurant critic for The Times, you remove your shoes as you would in a Korean home; it features rice bowls and hot pots with a stress on ingredients like mushrooms and tofu, and reasonably priced prix fixe menus take the stress out of choosing. (There are plenty of other upscale Korean spots elsewhere, such as Woo Lae Oak in SoHo.)


By SETH KUGEL

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NVDL: Of late I have been missing Korean food 0 spicy - a lot. Especially the barbecue-do-it-yourself meals (with bulgogi) would be a huge hit with South Africans. Anyone want to start a Korean restaurant with me?

Five Seconds In South Korea (PHOTOGRAPHY)

Who Is That English Teacher in the Window? (OHMYNEWS)

[Analysis] Discrimination encountered by foreign language educators in Korea

They zipper their overstuffed suitcases, kiss their loved ones goodbye, and take off on a plane for what may very well be the journey of a lifetime: teaching English in Korea.

If only it were that simple.

The complications that come with teaching English in a foreign country are numerous. From arranging one's housing, to overcoming language barriers, to adapting to a new environment and cuisine, to learning how to navigate a fresh cityscape, the challenges can seem daunting from the get go. But in Korea, two other problems complicate the smooth integration of foreign educators in Korean society: discrimination in the hiring of English teachers and new E-2 visa restrictions. The two topics are often treated separately through online forums or newspaper editorials, but in reality both are inextricably intertwined.

Take for instance my friend who came to Korea to teach English with his significant other. Both were hired through a recruiter, which meant that the entire hiring process was handled by a middleman. On multiple occasions during job interviews with schools in Seoul and with their recruiter, all parties involved wanted to make sure that the two men were 'just friends.' Essentially, they were put in a position where they had to lie about the nature of their relationship in order to secure jobs. The discriminatory sentiments have continued in the workplace, and although no one overtly asks about the nature of their relationship, these men feel they have no legal protections if they were to be "outed" and consequently fired.

Another friend of mine was fired from her first teaching job after she complained to her boss about her 13-hour workday. As a "tall, white, female," she was easily able to find a job with another school that offered more reasonable hours. She observed that many schools tend to prefer white, female teachers to men, who many school officials now associate with perversity and highly-publicized media scandals. She has also heard of foreign teachers being turned away by hiring officials at Incheon Airport if they appeared to be "too big" or overweight for the recruiters or school officials.

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NVDL: Having taught in Korea for 4 years, I can certainly attest to the discrimination going on there. I felt discriminated against, not in terms of getting work, just a lot of unpleasant attention and name-calling in Korea, in public, because I was bald. Sometimes quite funny, sometimes quite hurtful. More to the point, the Koreans as a general rule prefer not to hire black people to teach English (with a few exceptions). They also avoid employing overweight people, or people who look (to their eyes) 'too old'.

In some ways this is understandable. It's understandable because Korea is an intensely homogeneous society. All their people look virtually identical, so to some, westerners can appear quite frightening at first glance. Some small children burst into tears when they encounter us western monsters for the first time. This is changing, but slowly.

I encountered discrimination all the time for simply being South African. They could not believe we speak English in South Africa, or have any education to begin with. This is not as odd a concept as it may appear. Remember, Korea has grown phenomenally to become the 11th biggest economy in the world (with a population the size of South Africa, but 1/1oth SA's landmass, and none of our mineral resources). This being the case, why would they want to educate their people from an apparently 'backwoods' country? The answer is, of course, many South Africans are highly proficient at English, and in many cases, the average middle class person in South Africa has a better command and can spell, and read and write better than the average middle class American.

Another odd thing: white women in Korea are generally stereotyped as Russian prostitutes, and white men, as American teachers. It is a whimsical, but sometimes infuriating country.

Beaches blackened in South Korea's worst oil spill (VIDEO)

TAEAN, South Korea (Reuters) - South Korea deployed more than 100 ships and thousands of troops on Sunday to clean up the worst oil spill in its history, which has blackened beaches, coated birds in tar and cast a foul smell over a nature reserve.
The slick has washed up in an area spanning 17 kms (11 miles) of the west coast, about 100 km southwest of Seoul, that is home to popular tourist beaches, a national park and oyster beds. The spill is threatening to become a major environmental disaster.

The slick extends about 20 km from the Hong Kong-registered tanker that began leaking an estimated 10,500 tones of crude oil on Friday, after a barge carrying a crane punched holes in its hull while it was anchored, the coast guard said.
The leak was patched early on Sunday, it said.

"We have approximately 5,600 people who have been working from 5 a.m. Sunday (2000 GMT Saturday) ... doing all we can to prevent the situation from growing worse," said Ryu Hung of the Taean coast guard.
"Considering the tide, direction and velocity of the wind, the oil slick is not expected to expand further for now." [Initially they said the oil slick was unlikely to even make landfall thanks to wind and water movements...]
It will likely take more than one month to clean up the mess, maritime minister Kang Moo-hyun told reporters.

Volunteers and government personnel have been scooping oil with buckets and absorbent cloth, treating birds covered in oil and scrubbing blackened rocks. Large numbers of fish and waterfowl have been killed. By Jo Yong-hak

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NVDL: This disaster would have affected beaches I visited within a 100-200km radius of Seoul, including Mallipo, which I thought was one of the prettiest beaches I visited. Pity. Had a great day swimming in the rain all day in a sea packed with people at another beach a bit further down the coast. The Koreans are quite modest, swimming often in t-shirts and clothes. If you see a girl in a bikini your eyes - and everybody elses - are likely to fall out of your head.

South Korea in Pictures

Korean food is good, the problem is virtually ALL of it is spicy. The other thing is this stuff is very inappropriate to training.








The beaches in Korea are grim. Surrounded by barbed wire, fenced off, and the sand isn't silky soft like South Africa's beaches. They're coarse and often, steep beaches. Jeju Island probably has the best beaches, but even these make South Africa's beaches look like excerpts from a paradise island.




Across the river is North Korea. This is the Imjin River. I cycled this road A LOT. Sometimes you heard music wafting from the Propoganda Village (a demo city pretending to prosper in North Korea), other times it was the South Koreans blasting across opera music. CRAZY!















NVDL: South Korea ia really two countries in one: the modern and the ancient, the traditional and the progressive. It's not an easy country or culture to understand, and if you ever feel like you do, you;re in for a few surprises. It's not for everyone, but some people love it. You're starting to get somewhere when you realise, in Korea, stereotypes don't work. And that you will never belong. Even so, you'll be treated very well, and it will be a grand adventure.