INDEPENDANCE HALL

Here is a brief blog about the amazing place I went this weekend – basically I have some nifty pictures and want to show them off.

This the called "The Grand Hall of the Nation" and grand it is. The largest tile roof in Asia

This weekend my friend, the original Kyle Miyauchi, came up to visit me and see what a paradise I am surrounded by. Kyle came to korea about six weeks ago and teaches in Mokpo which is about 4 hours south on the west coast of Korea. Being a lover of all things historical, as is Kyle, at least he should be as a history major, I decided to revisit Independence Hall. Independence Hall is the national museum for independence and it is located right here in Cheonan. 

Part of the 1000 Korean flags the surround the compound

The museum is phenomenal and I would compare it to the level of sophistication and technology that you see at the Smithsonian, except this museum is dedicated to one purpose: telling the story of how Korea came to be Korea from about 2000 B.C. To 1950 A.D. It moves through the first four thousand years rather quickly, only one building of seven being wholly devoted to it, but the last hundred or so years take the last six. Like I said earlier, one of the great things about this particular culture experience is much of it is in Korean and English so you can actually get some info out of the displays. 

Blood-stained flag from the March 1st uprising against Japan.

This Museum is a bit gruesome as it contains numerous models that reenact the horrifying instances of torture and war that Korean's suffered at the hands of the Japanese during the occupation periods. Even so I find this place to be a wonderful blend of state-of-the-art technology, period artifacts, and models. The seven buldings and many outposts surrounding this enormous compound tell in extreme detail -and in English! - the complicated and turbulent history surrounding Korea.

Korean "turtle" ship, used in ancient times as a type of battle ship

Letter from Buddha to Jesus

Things Koreans Say to me (Part 2)

I have been posting these on Twitter and this is my second blog of them! These are all actual conversations I have been apart of in Korea and they are usually much longer but these would be the best parts of them. Enjoy!

STUDENT: I am hungry please buy chicken before

ME: Before what?

STUDENT: Before 7, discount before seven

TAXI DRIVER: I love Canadas

ME: That's nice, Nazarene University please (in Korean)

DRIVER: Where from?

ME: USA

DRIVER: I love the Canadas

ME: Today we are going to watch a movie

STUDENT: I have watch!

ME: So the movie is....

STUDENT: IT'S 11 O'CLOCK!!!! MY WATCH TELLS THE TIME!

STUDENT: Candy! Teacher I love you!

ME: Yes candy, you can have ONE piece

STUDENT: Teacher is ok...

ME: This is my last time teaching you

STUDENT: Next year English time teach us?

ME: I don't know

STUDENT: (cries)

ME: (Making hand motions) 1 LAR GEE COKE A CO LA . 주세요 (please)

WAITRESS: Ok sir would like anything else?

ME: Sorry

STUDENT: Teacher can I have candy

ME: Why 

STUDENT: So I will love you

ME: I don't care if you love me

STUDENT: I wouldn't love you anyway

ME: just a little shorter, I just want to clean it up

HAIRDRESSER: No! Shorter hair, fatter face!

STUDENT: Trevan teach my class?

ME: No, I teach 3rd grade now

STUDENT: 3rd grade bad English

ME: Yeah, tell me about it

STUDENT: teacher my English name nothing

ME: ok let's try and think of one.

STUDENT: Nothing

ME: Umm

CoTEACHER: The word 'nothing' is his name

ME:(Listening to Flock of Seagulls)

KOREAN: Song about Iran? Iran not happy now

ME: No they are saying "I ran"

KOREAN: Yeah Iran sad today

STUDENT: Teacher eyes sick!

ME: What? No they are fine

STUDENT: Eye 폭발 (explode)!

ME: (Look in mirror) Crap!

STUDENT: (Cries and runs away)

Health and Bloody Eyes

Until my last post, it had been almost four months since I had put up anything. I love to write and I love to talk, but the past few months have found me doing more of the latter. So I am attempting to revive my writing. I have a lot of stories and happenings to relate so I should get back on the wagon. The writing wagon.

So about a month ago me and a couple of my friends decided to have ourselves a little weight-loss competition, with incentives. Monetary incentives! Now at the start I was thinking to myself “this will be a piece of cake” and then I would go eat some cake and worry about weight later. About two weeks ago a Korean friend made this not so subtle comment “you know you are very handsome, but it is hiding in your fat”. You can teach english but tact is something else altogether. That evening I gave my self a look in the mirror, something I do every-time I take a shower (the next post will explain this comment) and decided that holy crap I am a fatty. I was looking ok about a year ok and fantastic two years ago – see picture progression – and now I am looking like someone who has never passed up a buffet (cause I haven't, duh).

Top left to right starting at the top: November 2006, February 2008, November 2008
Bottom left to right: February 2009, November 2010

Day one: This inspired/motivated/guilted me into embarking on the most rigorous diet and exercise plan I have ever seen. I was proud of myself for putting it together and determined to make it work, and I still am.

Day two: I was dieing on day two, DAY TWO! or at least that is what my body said to me. Literally, my body said this to me. Also I felt like a child with a pitchfork was inside my head stabbing everything he could find.

Day three: On the third day, I woke up and swung my legs off the bed, stood up, realized that my entire body from the waist down was in rigor mortis and proceeded to fall like a paraplegic into my Japanese sliding door knocking it down and ending up in a disgusting pile on the floor.

Day four: Or as some of us say, yesterday, feeling better and accomplished, because I was already down a kilo and a half (3lbs), I was sitting at my desk at work. A student came in and said “Teacher, eye sick! Eye 폭발(explode)!” Then she ran out of the room crying. So I went and looked in the mirror, low and behold, my eyes, yes both, had pretty much exploded. It didn't really hurt, although I had a splitting headache and my vision in one eye was a little blurry, so last night I went to the optometrist. He informed me that I shouldn't be alarmed and asked me If I had been vomiting or attacked. Of course, neither of these things had happened. He asked if I had made any recent changes in my life. I told him I was now a Buddhist. Not really. I explained my diet exercise routine. He told me that the stress of my new life had caused my eye to pop. Then I explained it was both eyes. This surprised him but he told me to take it easy and that yes, a diet is good.

Day five: My eyes are bloody, my legs don't work properly, and I am still fat. 

Gross, just gross...

Keys, Doors, and Time

When I graduated from University I remember it being a bittersweet moment. I remember the feeling of accomplishment and the feeling of doubt. I achieved a degree. I did it, and I did it running at full speed. In life there are many paths with many doors and getting handed that diploma, or rather a token that symbolized the certification to come, was like getting handed a key to a whole new wing of doors. When I began to descend down the stairs, key in hand, the doubt came. Which doors should I open and what if I do not like what I find? Can I close a door after I open it? Life seemed so much more real when I sat down. Suddenly I didn't want my key. I wanted to keep the life I had been living with friends and school that had allowed me protection from hard decisions. I did not trust myself to make the right choices.

Yeah thats me getting a diploma and handing off a tootsie roll...

Two days later I confided my feelings to a couple of friends and one of them said to me “hey Trevan you are not relying on God. Pray about and God will lead you”. I hear this and think “Really? You think that in this whole whirlwind of decisions and opportunities and worry I have forgotten to pray or that I have forgotten about God?” These are cute phrases that make the person who says them feel like they have done something good but in reality they mean nothing, at least to me they mean nothing. Most of us in the faith have already applied our faith to our lives, reminders are great but let's be honest, if you are Christian and you have an issue, do you just wallow in it until someone “reminds” you that there is a God? I don't think so, but maybe that's just me. Further more let me point out that often times God doesn't do anything which is, in effect, doing something. Many times when I pray to God about an issue I am calmed and comforted by his presence in my life but seldom relieved the immediate problem at hand. I once made this statement to a former pastor of mine and he said it was lack of faith that stayed problems from being remedied by God. I wonder how that goes over with the single mother of two who just got evicted because she couldn't make the rent.

A bit off topic. Back to bittersweetness and the whole key thing. I didn't trust myself and was becoming more concerned with the options life had lain out (actually, the lack there of). Many of those who had gone before me had described a trial period with the real world in which they got a new job, tried to put together a budget, and spent much time feeling lonely. I didn't think this would happen to me until I walked off that platform. Everyone had their own keys and in my worry I felt myself wishing I could follow someone through whatever door they chose. Not a usual feeling for me, I am used to being large and in charge at the time I was just feeling large.

I was lucky enough to have a summer camp job that allowed me to stave off having to come up with a real life plan for a little longer. Eventually I got a call to come to Korea and teach English. This was a job that I applied for and had been turned down for early last year and to be honest, I applied for it as a last resort. I mean I am the first person to jump in a plane and go anywhere, but Asia has always been last on my list after I have covered all of Africa, South America, and Europe. Life was coming fast though and I had to do something. So I shoved my key in the door of Korea and guess what? I got a new job, put together a budget, and felt lonely.

No bake cookie making, a first for many...

So why I am writing this? To be depressing or throw the cold reality of life in your face? Actually there has been some light in this existence. Time has taught me a few things. First of all, you cannot close a door that you have opened, but one door always leads to at least two others and some may lead back to where you started. Second, we must experience time where we feel lonely and face adversity in order to really understand what we are capable of and what we want for ourselves. Finally, time is the remedy for life. Time doesn't always heal wounds but it has allowed me a chance to think, it has given me an opportunity to discover what I love and what I hate, it has allowed me to make plans to improve my own situation. I have decided that life is often a confusing and difficult step to take but you would be dead with out it.