Apparently, Students Are Real People.

I am the Sun, and my students are planets. Some of them orbit close enough to absorb my English-speaking-life-sustaining rays. Others lurch through Saturnesque ellipses where their intellectual gifts are too substantial to ignore yet too distant to reach. And still others, deficient in motivation and their parents' admonitions lacking any sort of real gravity, wander completely out of the the system and cease to be planets altogether. Like Pluto, these students are discussed for a few days and then forgotten entirely. Does "Aaron" still exist? I guess maybe, but who cares?

These thoughts are, for the most part, nicely entrenched in my brain as I go about the business of teaching classes and writing report cards. They are comfortable and validating and seem to make sense given my immediate experience. And then some troublesome Copernican life experience pops up and blows the whole system to hell.

Recently my school held its biannual Sports Day. Basically, it entailed seven unpaid hours of my Sunday being spent at a local soccer complex. Our current school semester started in April and Sports Day was to be our first exposure to our new kindergarteners' parents as well as UV rays, this winter being unusually cold and sunless by Korean standards. I was enthusiastic about getting a tan but less so about meeting certain parents.

To be fair, there was actually only one upcoming introduction that had me worried. Let's call the student Rufus (for reasons of confidentiality and because I've always wanted to name a Korean kid Rufus but so none of them have let me do it and also because Rufus sounds like a canine name and this particular child's listening skills are roughly equivalent to those of a feral dingo ). 

Anyways, this kid has been an upside-down floater in my koi pond since Day One. Impervious to coloring pages, incapable of correctly repeating simple phrases like, "May I go to the bathroom?", an inveterate picker of boogers and thrower of pencils. I mean, after seven weeks of quality instruction (at least B+/A- in my estimation) his "G"'s still looked like demented sideways sixes. He hadn't made a lick of progress since the first day he was committed to my class, and I had let his parents know as much in no uncertain terms in his last report card, despite my Korean co-teacher's pleas for more diplomatic language. She just had no idea how brutal the original report had been. I don't know if the words "hopeless" and "utterly incompetent" have ever been erased so often from a 300 word document concerning a 6 year-old.

So when Sports Day rolled around, I was anticipating the uncomfortably limp handshake and indirect eye contact that occurs in social settings where both parties have a bone to pick but must put up the pretense of politeness since they are both rational adults. When 2:00 PM rolled around the kids and their families began to trickle in, but there was no sign of Rufus. I was briefly hopeful that I'd dodged this particular bullet and my attention was soon diverted by three children trying to ram their index fingers into various orifices that did not appreciate the intrusion. (On a side note: there must be an especially hot and unpleasant circle of hell occupied solely by whatever sadistic Korean invented  the dung-chim. If you don't know what this is, you're much happier for it. In this case ignorance is indeed bliss.)

But eventually Rufus and his parents did arrive. It would be more accurate to say parent, actually, since only his mom was present. As it turns out, his old man was currently living in America for what I can only assume are job-related reasons. A few weeks earlier, my Korean co-teacher had mentioned that Rufus would be going to America someday but her details were hazy and I didn't think much of it. There was never any indication that his father was already living abroad.

As I watched the little hellion scamper about, an absolutely demonic grin on his face as he grappled with an equally fiendish friend (not from our academy), I felt a surge of empathy for his poor mother. She was chatting with the fiend's mother, apparently invited along for moral support, about god-knows-what. Since I couldn't understand what they were talking about, I imagined what their conversation must sound like.

"How is your husband doing in America?"

"Oh he's fine, it's been a rough couple of weeks but I'm starting to get used to it. Rufus is such a handful though, plus I have to work and find a buyer for this damn apartment and mountains of paperwork and oh I'm so nervous about leaving...just a little frazzled. But it's OK."

"You poor dear. When are you leaving? Rufus has been studying at the English school for a few months now, he must be learning a lot. I bet he'll fit right in."

"We've only got about a month left. And are you kidding? Look at the kid - he can barely keep his own pants on. Nobody can understand what he's saying in Korean, let alone English. Sometimes I dream that I'm a tiger and thus fully justified in eating my own young."

The direct scorching heat might have been getting to me a little bit by the end of the hypothetical exchange, but for the most part I think it could be accurate. Watching the two women chat, I was reminded that although the time spent in the English hagwon defines the students' lives in my eyes, there is quite a bit going on in the outside world that I (and most teachers) will never see.

It's so easy to judge the kids by how well they follow the rules, fulfill class objectives, demonstrate noticeable improvement. Some students are so sullen, disengaged, and flatly disinterested that from inside the hagwon it's difficult to imagine them being bright or charming or almost lovable under different circumstances. Occasionally after an especially toilsome lesson it's actually easy to picture the students as English-learning robots and assess them solely on the criteria of performing that single function.

The 2011 Jerry z.5 model is full of glitches. Aesthetically it's an abomination - keeps emitting uncontrolled vapor/waste from the cranial section in my immediate vicinity, doesn't use tissues. Its memory is all but useless - can't perform basic functions or retain the most simplified data. No match for the Robert 5.0. Now THAT'S an English-learning automaton. Way better external design, data retention a Cray would envy, very user-friendly. Even brought me a pack of cookies the other day.


But of course they aren't robots, they are human beings like you or me. Albeit smaller, stinkier, and more infatuated with dinosaurs (some of them, anyway). And not only are they human, they're also in the very earliest stages of development. They are learning a foreign language at about the same age I was learning to not poop in my pants. It's really amazing that we have any enthusiastic students at all, in my opinion. Why should they learn English instead of jamming erasers up their noses?

Travel? Please...the most exotic vacation destination most of them can imagine is Jeju Island, where English is not in especially high usage. They're not going to be dreaming of hiking around Stratford-upon-Avon or Greenwich Village or whatever passes for a tourist destination in Canada. World wandering is not high on the bucket lists of most 6-12 year olds.

Lucrative jobs? Ditto. If I had cared about getting a high-paying job when I was that age, I would have put down the Civil War books and sports equipment and learned something useful, like fractions. Very few people think that far down the road when they're in K-6.

The joy of learning? Maybe. But that's kind of a Judge Stewart re: pornography case - the kids might know they're excited about learning something when it hits them full force in the face, but it's very hard to explain why such enthusiasm is valued or desirable. Either they feel it's interesting and absorbing, or they don't. And if they don't, you can try to change your tactics up a bit, trick them into buying whatever you're selling, but if they don't bite...well, the world needs ditch-diggers too (to quote the less distinguished but more entertaining Judge Smails).

By the end of Sports Day, Rufus' energy reserves had been entirely exhausted. He literally collapsed in a happy and snot-covered heap on the soccer field's scratchy artificial turf, a look of dumb beatific contentment on his face. It was strange to see that mask instead of his usual maniacally blank eyes and cheek scrunching grin. His mom went over to pick him up and she grunted as she hefted his limp form onto her shoulder, Rufus' small frame immediately tripling in weight as do the bodies of all sleeping children.

Seeing their fragmented family and hearing a brief synopsis of their story helped me understand how I, and all teachers, fit into the lives of students. Especially teachers in the private language academy business. More specifically, it helped me understand the limited role that I play in the lives of my students (without minimizing that role). Very few kids are going to go home and break their toys/kick their dogs/weep bitter tears because I don't like their journal entries. They don't wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night with the conjugated forms of irregular verbs running through their minds. They aren't going to suddenly realize what unmotivated and underachieving loafers they are after failing to complete a week's worth of homework and receiving an exasperated tongue lashing.

They've got other stuff going on. They've got social hierarchies to navigate, parents to please/disobey/love/manipulate, taekwondo boards to kick, pianos to practice or avoid practicing (depending on personal inclination). They have toys to play with and idols to emulate and treats to covet. They have body image issues and superiority complexes and hormones and societal pressures and older siblings and a thousand other stressors to consider. Their lives have dozens of dimensions beyond learning English - some of them with more immediately important ramifications to consider. I share their lives for, at most, 13 hours a week. I have little idea what goes on during the other 155.

So it turns out that I am not the Sun, and my students are not planets. I still can't decide on a good cosmological analogy for them, but I have now decided that I am a comet. I flash in and out of their solar systems. For some this might be a newsworthy occurrence, others will have more important/interesting things to do and pay little attention. And at this time, that seems to be "just the way things are".

All I can do is try to be the brightest damn comet I can be. 

Living With and Without Fear

Fear is an sneaky son-of-a-bitch.

It's amazing what we mistake for fear. The common strains of anxiety, perplexity, frustration. We can get completely wrapped up in an emotion and not even recognize its true origin. How many times have you found yourself wrapped in a cycle of distressing thoughts and been unable to pinpoint its impetus? A lot. I'd guess.

A few days ago, I was in a fit of righteous indignation over the seemingly trivial matter of vacation days. Now, what you're reading is just words on a page, but try to make this concept physically/emotionally tangible for a moment: getting stressed over the amount of time that is allocated to relieve stress. When you spell it out on paper (or its cyber equivalent), the notion seems absurd. What could possibly be more counter-productive than worrying about vacation days? Hating your spouses' Valentine's Day present?

When you have the luxury of resenting gifts, you are living without fear.

That sentence isn't meant to be condescending, though there is an unfortunately unavoidable aftertaste of "I've-seen-some-shit, son" (unavoidable, at least, to the extremely amateur wordsmith). If I could say it better, I would. But I can't. With that in mind, just trust that dental examinations of equines presented gratis are generally conducted by those who have fuck-all else to occupy their time. Lifelong habit dies hard - if you don't have a legitimate reason to be pissed, it's easy to manufacture one.

It's easy to forget that teaching overseas (and I speak of Korea in particular) is an incredible gift. Frustration is an easily renewable resource when you can barely communicate with your co-teachers or order a decent meal in a restaurant. There are very few of that saintly type who can keep their cool while trying to teach prepositional phrases to a group of bored teenagers who would rather whittle pencils into shivs than listen to another lifeless track of the Workbook CD. There have been very few stabbings in my classes, but I keep waiting...

A person can only worry about these things if they have no greater fears to occupy their minds.

When I came to Korea in August 2010, I was obsessively concerned about passing the medical exam. There wasn't much of a logical reason for this; my mind simply needed something to worry about. Fear is a stimulant, and if you use it for a longer enough time you inevitably get hooked.

After I passed the exam (on my second try, after initially failing the blood pressure test), I fell into a mind-numbingly comfortable routine. In the years before I came to Korea, fear had been my daily companion. I quit drinking coffee because each morning I would wake up with such severe anxiety that feeding those jitters with caffeine seemed certifiably insane. Yet I discarded this seemingly integral part of my personality within weeks. By the time November rolled around, it was easy to forget that my therapist had ever suggested a regimen of anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication. There was nothing substantial to fear, because the concerns of an ESL teacher are so remarkably insignificant in the chaotic and unsympathetic scheme of human existence. The students have low test scores? A pile of poorly-written diaries need to be graded? Some flash cards need to be laminated? Fuck, please...give that list of worries to a double-amputee victim of the Khmer Rouge and see if he bats an eyelash. Shit is trivial.

But habits are hard to kick, and I had some ups and downs. Sometimes I'd fantasize about the lush pastures awaiting in other academies and beyond - public high schools and universities being the most tantalizing day-dream destinations. Never mind that I was earning decent money at a fairly rewarding job with pleasant co-workers and a supervisor with surprisingly humane employee treatment policies.

A few days ago I got an email that threw this lovely yet unappreciated situation into jeopardy. And suddenly I was living with fear.

When you live with fear, each minute brings sixty opportunities to slip into a tar-pit of self pity. The untrained human mind is notoriously adverse to prolonged concentration and so when you take the entire waking day (let's say 16 hours for convenience's sake) into consideration you are presented with 48,000 potential descents into severe, instantaneous depression. Like all pits, the bottoms of these are sticky and thus it's easy to remain stuck for extended periods.

Living with fear means constant exposure to the stench of undesired death. Death being defined as the ending of something - life in the general sense, life in the sense of "a style of existence that is preferable and profitable", or life in the sense of something else.

Buddhism teaches that living with fear, in this sense, is a blindingly obvious cause of suffering. It's quite hard to be content and equanimous when you are struggling against the imminent demise of an integral part of your being. The struggle itself means you are not content. I credit the Buddhist teachings with my mental and physical survival to this point in time, but I must admit that I'm finding it quite hard to put the teachings into practice lately. The fear of utter loss is such a powerful force that it seems pointless to reckon with it. Oblivion is coming, and we must go to it - willingly, or kicking and screaming with all our strength and rage and helplessness and pent-up fury. I guess we're on the way whether we like it or not so we might as well have a smooth ride out, yet its hard keep such an easygoing mindset moment-by-moment.

Life with fear is so alien to life without fear. When you live with fear, it's hard to remember the fear-less version of you that existed before. And vice versa. Life with fear puts all of our mundane daily worries into perspective, but is this really a good thing? For most of us, such perspective comes only in times of utter despair. If only we could have this perspective without the fear that inspires it. I think this is the gift of the truly spiritual beings/persons; they can see the sufferings of the world in a proper scale without the aid of fear - they understand how to appreciate the struggles of the people they meet without inflating or minimizing their importance. And so they can respond accordingly from a secure base of wisdom, calmness, and empathy.

I hope to draw some inspiration and strength from their examples. Because for the untrained mind, living with fear can be an almost unbearably hellish experience. Wish me luck.

The World Doesn't Care About American Pop Culture (As Much As We Think)

Who the hell are the Kardashians?

When I was about 12 years old, my family took a trip to Paris. To my lasting shame, one of our meals was purchased from McDonald's (and I didn't even have the presence of mind to order a royale with cheese). My younger sisters were too preoccupied with their Mulan Happy Meal toys to care about the culinary travesty that had just taken place.

During my freshman year in college I spent a few weeks in Ecuador and had the pleasure of viewing Steven Seagal's Under Siege 2. I was on a crowded bus, surrounded by live chickens and blown-out speakers and old ladies who were not shy about audible flatulence. Needless to say, I do not have favorable memories of that film.

Most Americans who travel abroad have a similarly sobering tale of American cultural imperialism - Simpsons T-shirts in Guyana, outdated Madonna tunes at a bar in Turkey, Nikes and Starbucks pretty much everywhere. It's obvious that various expressions of American pop culture are making inroads into previously untouched areas. And from there, I guess, one could come to the logical conclusion that these ubiquitous symbols of American prosperity/glamor/awesomeness are threatening to the indigenous cultures. Once the kids get blasted with some Black Eyed Peas, they'll lose their taste for...well, whatever passes for music in their backward-ass country.

Scary stuff - imagine a world where everyone reads Stephanie Meyer, listens to Jason Mraz, and thinks Step Up 3 was a good movie. The soulless corporate media machine of America rolls across the globe, obliterates its woefully over-matched/under-airbrushed competition, and smothers humanity with a brain-deadening tapioca sludge of Survivor, Beyonce, and US Weekly...

There's just one problem with this doomsday scenario. Actually, several billion problems. As in the number of people who don't care that much about the slop Hollywood is pushing. 

In Korea, the domestic entertainment industry is far more influential than American imports. I yell at my first-grade students for singing the insipid lyrics of 2PM or Tiara, not Justin Bieber. My middle school girls aren't drawing pictures of Channing Tatum on their desks; they're doodling the faces of equally good-looking and talentless Korean celebrities like Gang In or Rain or some other guy I don't care about. When we go out singing at the  noraebang, my girlfriend saves her most inspired performances for mopey Korean ballads. Korean pop culture is still vacuous, but at least it's Korean.

If you meet a Korean child on the street, or a friendly ajusshi in a restaurant, they might tell you how much they like Rapunzel, Prince, or Michael Jordan. If you go out drinking with a Korean, you will DEFINITELY have this conversation. In my opinion, this shouldn't be taken as an obsession with American pop culture. It's simply an attempt to establish a friendly connection via similar interests or experiences. I haven't watched a Manchester United game in, well, ever, but I mention Park Ji Sung every time I talk to a Korean kid who seems interested in soccer. Likewise, my hometown Minnesota Twins are semi-rivals of the Cleveland Indians, but I always put in a good word for Choo Shin Soo. People like to be friendly, and it helps to have a bit of common ground.

And we've got a lot of common ground, to be sure. Many Koreans have seen Inception, follow the NBA, listen to Radiohead, etc. But there are also some big fucking chasms between Korean and American culture. One of the best examples is Kpop, which is dominated by girl/boy groups assembled by various music-production corporations (even the term "record label" seems a bit too mom-and-pop for these behemoths). The Backstreet Boys would cringe at the cheesy choreography and cringe-inducing lyrics of most Kpop numbers. Kpop is to music what Pixie Stix are to food: a neuron-frying blast of sugar that can be delicious when you're in the mood  to get wild, but usually makes you sick to your stomach. To continue the analogy, Americans over the age of 12 wouldn't be caught dead consuming the stuff. But Koreans lap it up. By the same token death metal and gangsta rap haven't really caught on in Korea. Different cultures like different products.

These guys would sell about a dozen records in the U.S., yet
they're some of the biggest stars of the Korean music scene.

Wright Thompson recently wrote an article dealing with India's expanding cultural influence on Central Asia. In the article he made the argument that Western pop culture was, in many ways, too foreign to be embraced by many Asian societies. One of his best examples pitted Bollywood against Hollywood. American media, he argued, emphasized the glories of individualism to an extent that alienated Central Asian audiences. American love stories often involve the lovers giving a middle finger to their parents and society. They're going to do what they want, and everyone else can go to hell if they don't like it. Blockbusters like Titanic and Dirty Dancing to mind. Bollywood protagonists, on the hand, operate within the system of a collectivist society; that is, they attempt to convince their parents and peers that their love is worthy. This is something many Asians can relate to - defying society isn't quite as sexy/thrilling as it is in America.

A few years before Thompson wrote his article Stephen Asma wrote an excellent book called The Gods Drink Whiskey (which I will happily gush about to anyone willing to listen) that addressed similar issues in Southeast Asia, particularly Cambodia. Asma wrote that, upon arriving in Asia, he worried that Cambodian culture would be overwhelmed by a wave of American glam-consumerism. He worried about this until he realized that Cambodian kids didn't give a shit about MTV because they couldn't identify with the Western artists on its shows. It wasn't until MTV created spin-off channels dedicated to regional artists that the youth of Cambodia, Thailand, and elsewhere started paying attention. People want to cheer for people that look and sound like them. It might sound tribalistic, but it seems pretty well ingrained in human nature.

You can see similar phenomenon in Korea. Magazines like Maxim, Vogue, and even Men's Fitness all have issues that are primarily dedicated to Korean celebrities and Korean current events. Television programs like Superstar K, while outwardly quite similar to Western programs like American Idol, push a brand of entertainment that is targeted specifically to Korean tastes. When you really take a close look, most of the homogenizing of world culture is occurring in the packaging, and not so much in the actual product.

It's tough to argue that the world's metropolises are starting to resemble each other more than ever before. There is quite a bit of cross contamination; it's startling see Korean casino adverts featuring Pierce Brosnan, or a Coldstone Creamery on every corner of Seoul. And let's be honest - Dunkin' Donuts needs to calm down and quit opening a new shop every 3 blocks. But the sky isn't falling just yet. The West won't be achieving cultural hegemony any time soon. Some aspects of Western culture are undoubtedly appealing to people of other nations, and those people have every right to adopt them. They are discerning, intelligent humans capable of making their own decisions, and it is sneakily condescending and paternalistic to think Americans should curtail the spread of their own culture because Asia/Africa/etc. just can't resist the sexy shininess of it all.

It's evident Korea and the rest of the non-Western world would like to sample some of America's wares. And its just as obvious that they find other tidbits unappetizing. The end result is a sometimes fascinating, sometimes bewildering fusion of cultural elements that bears the brand of globalization while still maintaining a distinctly local flavor. It is, to borrow a phrase from Southeast Asian T-shirts, "Same Same But Different."

A Catholic, a Buddhist, and an Atheist Walk Into a Soju Bar...

"If you get lost, don't use the big neon crosses as landmarks. You'll be totally fucked," my co-teacher warned as we walked to the bank. I had been in Korea for all of 36 hours, and I was planning on being lost quite often. So this was disconcerting news - few things are as instantly recognizable as a brightly glowing crucifix set against a pitch-black sky.

This is what I'm talking about.

What exactly were so many churches doing here? I came to Korea in large part because I wanted to live in a predominantly Buddhist country. Asia itself was an ancillary attraction; pandas and tea and chopsticks held no real interest for me until I started practicing Buddhism. Yet here I was in the heart of Asia (or at least some fairly important appendage), and I was surrounded by more Christianity per square kilometer than ever before. It was a little disappointing.

I had done some research before coming, but I hadn't really paid much attention to it. Nothing fails to hold my attention quite like statistics. With that in mind, my apologies for dropping the following numbers on you:

Korea's own National Statistics Office said that about 23% of Koreans considered themselves Buddhists, 26% identified as Christian, and 47% claimed no religious beliefs.

Other surveys may have deviated by a few percentage points, but the overall picture of Korean religiosity was consistent: roughly half of the population could care less about religion, while the opiate-popping types were pretty evenly split between Christianity and Buddhism.

My parents were pretty pleased at the large Christian presence in Korea. Many Westerners equate Christianity with recognizable civilization. And not just the Bible-thumpin', evolution-denyin', vaccine-scornin' ones either. Intelligent, open-minded, educated people can be a little wary of Eastern religions - the New Age-y crystal ball gazers have given Asian traditions a lot of bad press in the West.

There's something comfortable in knowing that there are respectable gentlemen in white collars providing moral instruction, and not just a bunch of  spell-casting headshrinkers dancing around. For my mother, anyways.

Before coming to Korea I tried to imagine the influence each religious group had on Korean society. Buddhism had been around for much longer, I thought. So it must have some pretty deep-seated roots in Korean culture, and it should be obvious to spot its influence. Christianity is newer, but it has the "zeal of the convert" factor in its favor. So which religious tradition would be more dominant in Korean daily life?

It took all of three days to answer that question.

Christian missionaries have been doin' serious work in Korea. They started coming in the 1790s, then royally pissed off the Joseon Dynasty (which was based on Confucian principles) and promptly got massacred. They rallied in the late 19th century when the Hermit Kingdom began to open, willingly or not, to the outside world (namely, the West). And since then they've been on a roll, especially the various Protestant sects (Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, etc.). One of the interesting idiosyncrasies of Christianity in Korea is the differentiation between "Christians" and "Catholics". Apparently the Papists aren't real Christians, and vice versa. In a very somber heaven somewhere, John Calvin nods approvingly.

Buddhism, on the other hand, has been dealing with hard times for a while. The Joseon Dynasty wasn't any fonder of Buddhism than Christianity, burning many temples and forcing monks to flee into the mountains. The dynasty stretched from the late 1300s to the late 1800s, giving it plenty of time to stamp a Confucian identity onto Korea. Confucianism isn't exactly a religion, more like a system of ethics and guidelines for a stable society.  So in some senses Buddhism and Confucianism weren't direct competitors, but they had plenty to disagree about. Confucianism, for all its qualities, is a highly rigid system and the ambiguities of Buddhism were an unsightly turd in the teapot. So Buddhism took it on the chin for a couple centuries, before making a comeback in the 20th century.

Today though, Buddhism in Korea is facing a tougher opponent than the Joseon Dynasty. Christianity has been, throughout the centuries, the Cassius Clay of conversion (to make an awkward comparison, since Clay himself converted to Islam and became Muhammad Ali). Churches are rivaled in number only by convenience stores.

Last weekend, I was walking through the streets of Myeongdong, a popular shopping district in Seoul. There the religion is fashion - the faithful bow down before stiletto heels and leave generous offerings at the cash register altars. It was a glorious summer day - in Minnesota people would have been in tank tops, though Koreans have the cold-tolerance of Galapagos lizards and thus wore hoodies. But moving on...

Entrenched in a busy intersection there was a group of about twenty Korean people. One man was screeching into a blown-out microphone in a tone I have only heard from propaganda films or over-excited fruit vendors. As we drew closer I could see they were a Christian group. They carried signs similar to the one below.

Gets right to the point.

I don't speak Korean, but I am guessing that we were being threatened with eternal damnation, ceaseless torment, perpetual suffering, fire and/or brimstone.  In the business world I think it is termed a hard sell.

And this is a pretty common occurrence in Korea. Street demonstrations are only the most attention-grabbing conversion efforts. Live in this country long enough, and you'll encounter some well-meaning evangelists who ask you to attend their church (some standard selling points: English worship services, rockin' social events, lots of pretty girls/handsome dudes). Sometimes a simple "No, thanks," is enough to send them on their way, and sometimes you are stuck in an extremely uncomfortable conversation of interminable length. People are determined to spread the Good Word, and they aren't easily discouraged.

I've yet to see any equivalent actions undertaken by Buddhist groups in Korea. Generally speaking, the most obvious sign of a Korean Buddhist's religious affiliation is the small band of prayer beads, or mala, worn on the wrist. Occasionally you'll see a grey-robed monk wandering the streets for alms, but they don't carry signs or megaphones. They are easy to ignore.

It's not surprising, then, that Christian recruiting efforts have been much more successful in recent years. On the streets of Korean cities, Christianity is a visible and dynamic presence. Buddhism is generally relegated to the home or remote temples, which is to say: out of the realm of public daily life.

If you're a Westerner sympathetic to Buddhism, these trends can be very worrying. We were born and raised in an environment heavily influenced by Christianity, and many of us have become very familiar with its shortcomings. We know about the sexual abuses committed by priests, we've learned about the persecutions carried out by over-zealous missionaries, we are cynical about the corruption and ungodly behavior so often seen at the highest levels of church authority.

It becomes easy to support Buddhism almost blindly. Most of us get out Buddhism-related information through pop cultures. We know that Buddhists are supposed to be super-chill, peaceful types that never get angry and never eat meat. They don't yell, poop, or cheat on their spouses. On the other hand, we've seen Christians do all those nasty things. Buddhists are friendly benign hippies, minus the pot. Christians are intolerant ignoramuses, harshing whatever your buzz happens to be. Familiarity breeds contempt.

Of course, it's not that simple. My girlfriend attends a Buddhist university in Seoul. There are many non-Buddhist students there, just like there are non-Christian students at schools like Notre Dame in the U.S. In any case, one of the Christian student groups recently donated three brand new copy machines to the university's computer lab. A week later, they were mysteriously broken. It was eventually discovered that a group of Buddhist students had tampered with the machines because they were upset at the growing Christian influence at the school. That's a very non-Buddhist thing to do - at the same time, it's very human. We get fearful, we get angry, we lash out.

Anger. Fear. Delusion. The Buddhist teachings are, at their core, a series of trainings for overcoming these obstacles to happiness. We can't be happy if we're scared, pissed off, or confused all the time. But we can't overcome these habits simply by declaring ourselves "Buddhist". It's just a word. It doesn't mean anything. In fact, some of the best "Buddhists" I know aren't Buddhists at all.

Last Saturday, I met a man at a fried chicken restaurant. I never cook on the weekends. It was about 2 a.m., and I'd just returned to Cheonan from Seoul. He invited me to have a beer with him, and I reluctantly accepted. I've been stuck in too many one-sided conversations with Koreans who don't speak English but like to laugh at my long hair and non-proportional faces. I wasn't looking forward to speaking with this
half-drunk ajusshi.


It turned out to be one of the most fascinating conversations I've ever had in Korea. Although his English could generously be described as "broken", the man was an amateur history buff and student of religion. He rattled off a litany of facts about Douglas MacArthur.  He had read Thich Nhat Hanh extensively. He was deeply interested in the Indian tribes of North America. He spoke with kindly admiration about totemism and animism.

He asked me my religion, and I told him that I followed Buddhism. He replied that he was a Catholic himself, but he held deep respect for the Buddhist teachings. It was part of Korea's heritage, he said, and there was a lot of wisdom to be found there. We sat and smiled at each other for a few minutes, occasionally mumbling some remark about the time or weather, and then returned to our homes. A Korean Catholic and an American Buddhist. Weird.

I've been worried about the future of Buddhism in Korea (and all of Asia for that matter). Modern Buddhism is not really a mission-oriented religion. People hold their individual beliefs, but there's little emphasis on spreading those beliefs to others. In theory this should allow Buddhism to coexist peacefully with other religions. And when dealing with Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, or ancestor worship, this has usually been the case to one extent or the other (with many exceptions of course - religious wars are not an exclusively Western phenomena). Western religions are a bit different though - the major monotheistic religions hold exclusive truth claims. As Christianity begin to make inroads into previously Buddhist countries, will its leaders and practitioners tolerate the old traditions? The tension is high right now - sometimes, it's enough to make you wish for just a little bit more apathy. At least the people who don't care about religion aren't tearing down temples.

On the subject of temples, I visited one the other day. On May 10th Koreans celebrated the Buddha's Birthday. It was a national holiday, apparently, but I didn't see many signs of celebration in the city. Maybe that's good - the Buddha's coming hadn't been commercialized in the same way as Christmas or Easter. Only a few paper lanterns strung up on street signs gave any indication that there was something special going on today.

I'd like to report that the Buddha's birthday was marked by golden beams of sunlight, millions of delicate lotus petals falling from the sky, the harmonious trilling of birds and whatnot, but in actuality the weather was lousy. Grey, overcast, and buckets upon buckets of rain. Climbing up the steep mountain, muddy and wet, I heard the words of my meditation teacher Mark Nunberg in a bemused voice, "Hmmm, this is how it is now. Being clammy and sore is like this. Can this be OK?" And it really was - I was just thrilled to be there. Celebrating the Buddha's birthday at a real temple. Now that's neat.

When we reached the top of the mountain, I forgot that I was ever worried about Buddhism in Korea. In front of the large bronze Buddha statue, people were lighting incense, chanting, and bowing. Thousands of pink, purple, and white lanterns hung from strings crisscrossing the courtyard. Teenagers helped crotchety grandmas across wide puddles, their gnarled hands carrying brightly colored prayer candles. A monk's chants rang out from the main meditation hall, accompanied by the steady beat of a small drum. Inside, people were bowing, meditating, and leaving gifts at the altar of the Buddha. Maybe after that they went home to smoke, drink, gossip, fornicate, or whatever - actually of course they did, they are human. Buddhists aren't perfect. But man, it was a beautiful time, and there was some real joy in being surrounded by like-minded people.

In one hundred years, I hope foreigners are still writing rambling, disjointed essays about Buddhism in Korea. And I hope they remember to bring umbrellas when they visit the temples. That rain can be ruthless.

The Shot Heard Halfway 'Round the World

Across the globe, every major news outlet is burning up with a story of tremendous social, political, and historical importance. Meanwhile, Korea is picking up its collective remote and flipping back to that channel where a bunch of dudes play Starcraft.

Unless you've been living under an especially large and sound-proof rock, you've heard the news that Osama Bin Laden was killed yesterday. The event held a lot of significance for many Westerners living in Korea. We remember where we were when the planes hit the World Trade Center, we remember the countless hours of CNN footage, we remember the awful conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan that ensued.

Osama Bin Laden has been, in many ways, a central figure in the lives of young Westerners. We've been living in a world he helped create, for better or worse. The laws of society changed overnight. The economy took a hit. Thousands of men and women (not much older or younger than ourselves) shipped off around the world for the ostensible purpose of catching the bastard.

Obligingly, we chose sides. Our positions made perfect sense to ourselves and simultaneously sounded like naive bullshit to our opponents.

After 10 years, every viewpoint imaginable has been discussed ad nauseum on one cable network or another. It's hard to imagine a fresh perspective on Osama Bin Laden, Iraq, the War on Terror, etc. Or at least, such a thing is hard to conceive in the West. Here in Korea, nobody seems to give a fuck.

My girlfriend lived in Canada for two years and China for three. She studies international business. If any Korean has a global perspective (i.e. cares about the same things Americans care about), it should be her, right? Nope. She could not have been less enthusiastic when I brought up the subject of Bin Laden's death last night.

"I don't really care one way or another," she said.

I was persistent, though - mainly because I had little else to talk about. Korea is one of the few countries where America is still seen as a "cool" place and a strong ally. Shouldn't this event have some impact on average Koreans? After all, the world is a safer place now...

"This is boring. I don't care. People can be happy or sad or whatever. It's not a big deal in Korea."

When I spoke with a Korean co-teacher this morning, I got the same response. She muttered a few words about hearing about it on the news, and went back to grading papers. None of my kids seemed especially interested in talking about it either - even the older ones, who would normally pull out their own fingernails if it got them out of writing essays.

Korea is an incredibly insular society. 9/11 did not cause the backlash of social problems that it did in the West. They've never dealt with Islamophobia for the simple reason that there are about 50 Muslims living here. Korean airports don't have strip searches and high-powered X-rays to deter nail-clipper wielding hijackers. Terrorist bogeymen don't have much hold on the national psyche because there are much more practical foes to fear, such as the wildly unstable totalitarian dictatorship to the north or the ravenous behemoth that is China.

America had been searching for Bin Laden for a decade. Thousands of people have died in the process, trillions of dollars have been (or will be) expended, and the course of Western history has been shifted onto a strange new course. Supposedly, we have now accomplished one of the primary goals of the war against terrorism.

Korea's reaction is that of a distant aunt who is informed of her nephew's success in a piano competition. She nods politely, offers a few congratulatory words, and returns her attention to matters that are closer and more interesting.

I can't help but feel an odd sense of perspective living here. Korean textbooks will probably never mention May 2, 2011. Bin Laden will cease to be news as soon as the next episode of Superstar K hits the airwaves. And yet back home, people who don't do too many drugs will remember that day for the rest of their lives. Completely divergent narratives, even in a globalized world.

Sometimes even world history isn't that historical.