It's November! Wow.
Not much in the way of Halloween celebrations, though I think there were some parties here and there. In lieu of costuming up, I went to dinner with my team here at work (the Foundation is divided into teams - Cultural Affairs, General Admin., Accounting, etc.) and ate raw liver for the first time. We went to a "seng go gee jeep" - a raw/plain meat house. Only some meat is raw; the other stuff is grilled before you. Yum.
The liver was very red and tasted sort of, well, rubbery. Also ate some boiled blood, which didn't really have much taste. I couldn't quite get over the fact that it was blood, though, so I didn't finish the piece I'd fished out of the soup.
Uichol told me this morning that those kind of restaurants are popular with older folks, but not so much with the young generation. Such is the way of things. Old customs and traditions fall by the wayside as new influences sweep over the land. It is particularly evident here. Last night I noticed someone in the subway selling small handbags - you couldn't fit more than a few bills and your keys in them - and mentioned them to Myung-soo. She said they were for old women to carry, so they wouldn't have to carry heavy bags. Young people don't offer to carry bags for old women anymore, she said, and that's one of the customs that we're losing. The intimation was that western ways, becoming ever more prevalent, are replacing the old traditions, particularly in respect to venerating the elderly.
I was tempted to argue that western ways also dictate a lot of pretty good things (like, say, equality between the sexes - not that we've achieved it, but hey, we're trying), but I bit my tongue and merely said that with the good comes the bad. Everything changes.
I am surprised by the extent to which I feel defensive -- no, protective of western customs. I'm fairly critical of the U.S. back home, so it's a strange thing to feel angry when someone else criticizes it. At the same time, though, I am troubled when I hear criticism of Korean customs. For instance, according to the Confucian tradition, everyone falls into one of five relationships (father-son, husband-wife, ruler-subject, elder brother-younger brother, friend-friend). All the relationships (with the possible exception of friend-friend) assume a hierarchy, which makes me uncomfortable. I certainly don't adhere to it. But when someone else criticizes it, I instantly get defensive -- even though I have thought the exact same things! Meaning... what, that because I'm ethnically Korean, I know how it is, and so only I have the right to criticize? That's horsepuckey, and I know it, but I still feel that way.
Dunno, man. It's weird. It's that bi-cultural thing going on.

I'll just tell you one more thing about this topic and then it's off to fluffier subjects: two weeks ago, I was having some eats with two Korean friends (Doug and Sung-hee) and Maiko in a small local restaurant. The place was pretty noisy, so we were speaking English fairly loudly. Well, the proprietor came over and had a drink with Doug, and it turned out that he had gone to Sogang and majored in business administration, just like Doug and Sung-hee.
A bit later, the proprietor, who had clearly tipped back a few, asked Maiko and me where we were from. When he heard that we were from Japan and the U.S., he started yelling at Maiko: "I don't like Japanese people! I don't like Japanese! You invaded our country twice!" Maiko tried to gloss it over by smiling and nodding (the great defensive tactic of the foreigner).
When the guy started to then yell at me: "I don't like Americans! I don't like America!" I was genuinely surprised, and stuttered out: "But we never invaded Korea!" He replied, "3 million Koreans died in the war! I don't like U.S.!"
As he continued yelling, I said under my breath, "Yeah, and if the U.S. hadn't come, we'd all be speaking Chinese right about now." I felt a huge rush of adrenaline; I was torn between wanting to shout back and wanting to disappear.
Immediately after yelling, he apologized, saying that he knew it wasn't my fault, sorry, sorry. And as a goodwill gesture, he gave us some packets of gheem (dried seaweed). As a result, the next table over, which was very interested in the earlier exchange, started muttering amongst themselves: "Hey, how come he gave them gheem and not us? We want gheem too."
It would have been quite funny at the time (it is now!) if I hadn't been so shaken from the raw hostility I'd just experienced. I considered throwing a packet at them, but desisted - I kind of regret not doing so, actually.
The proprietor actually did give them gheem, but naturally, everyone in the place was staring at us by then, and Koreans are not shy about staring openly. The proprietor began cleaning the table on the other side of us, and just couldn't resist asking me:
"I just have one question for you."
I looked at him.
"Who is your favorite Korean actor?"
I replied, "I don't have one, I don't know of any."
Whereupon he began to loudly proclaim: "I see! Well, I don't know any American actors either! That's right! I don't know Bruce Willis! I don't know Brad Pitt!"
Like I said, it's funny now.
We finally got out of there, and I was literally shaking. I've just never had anyone be so openly angry at me, especially about something I wasn't responsible for. I asked Doug for a smoke, and he said, "You smoke?!"
"In times of stress," I replied, and lit up.
He felt really badly about the whole thing, and so took us all to a U.S.-friendly bar next. No one was there except the bartender/DJ, who played Lady Marmalade and Eminem, among others.
Before we went in there, Doug said, hey, you know, you were really courageous. Most girls would not have faced a guy like that, just ignored him instead. Hm.
Maiko told me later that she's gone through that before in Korea. She knows the history, she says, and she can't do anything about it, and she likes Korea, she likes Koreans, so what can you do?
Indeed, what can you do?
When I told my dad about that night, he said, "Don't go to such places." But -- and I'm not trying to be holier-than-thou, I swear -- it was a good experience. I'd heard about anti-American sentiment, of course, and since then, I've been trying to learn about the grievances that Koreans have in regard to America and the American presence in Korea. There are a lot. Some I think are merited, and some I think are based on a narrow view (okay, yeah, prejudices too) of Americans.
Since I'm pretty ignorant about Korean history (and also want to have ammunition to hurl at the next drunken anti-american rantfest), I started to read Don Oberdorfer's "The Two Koreas," which my housemate Tomas lent to me. There's no way I can really get into the mindset of a native-born Korean, but I'll try. Ya gotta try, ya know?

Fluffier things: After dinner last night, the team went to a "no-rae bang," a singing room. In other words, karaoke. Very wide American selection, including Pantera's "Fucking Hostile." Hm. Other western selections: Britney Spears "Hit Me One More Time," Coldplay's "Yellow," ABBA's "Dancing Queen," Coolio's "Gangster's Paradise," Linkin Park's "In the End," some Babs Streisand, some Beatles, some Carpenters. A Michael Jackson song or two. Not too much Madonna, which sort of surprised me.
After much coaxing, I sang Bryan Adams' "Everything I Do." Yeah, yeah, it's sappy dreck, but I like it. Plus, I know how the melody goes, unlike most of the other songs. So I belted it out, and everyone said oh, you're a good singer! and I still don't know if they were being polite or if they meant it, but you know, the whole thing was kinda fun. Weird, but fun.