Drinking with both hands: vacation! (part 1)

I have been busy. When I am not teaching, (in addition to regular social things) I fill my time with running and rock climbing. Daejeon is an amazing place to do both. Without even realizing it, I took the entire month of July off from posting any updates. I am still alive and well, and I am having a great time here.

July is hot. Thankfully, schools here see fit to give "vacation" during the end of July and some of August. Vacation is used loosely as many students still come to school for supplemental classes...and I get to come in for some of that time to sit at my desk throughout the day (seriously, we don't do anything but sit at our desks). Thankfully, I do get a real vacation during this time though.

For my vacation, I did the most sensible thing to do during a hot, humid summer: I flew closer to the equator. As ridiculous as it may sound, there was a reason behind my seemingly irrational decision. I wanted to check out the 2010 World Expo.

The World Expo is being held in Shanghai, China and is a short 90 minute flight from Seoul, Korea. From what I had read the expo promised to show off the most amazing cultural, technological, and culinary achievements from every country in the world. I figured that this was something that I had to see.

My travel companion for this trip is my girlfriend, 김민희(which is thankfully pronounced Minnie Kim). Minnie had been to China once before when she went to Beijing as part of a group trip. She got to see some of China but is by no means an expert. I have been to Hong Kong twice and I am even less of an expert. Shanghai and Beijing are both Chinese cities, but to put that in perspective, Houston and Seattle are both US cities. There are only a few things that tie cities like this together, like language, currency and a national government. People from Houston and Seattle have different accents as do folks from Shanghai and Beijing (Shanghai even boasts its own regional dialect, Shanghainese). Korea and China are both geographically close, but as I was about to see, they are culturally much farther apart than their physical proximity would lead you to believe.

The plan was to go to the expo for 3-4 days, check out Shanghai in the remaining time and be flexible enough that we could be able to do anything that came our way. We took off from Daejeon on Monday morning for the Incheon International Airport (Korea's major airport near Seoul) via the 2 hour direct airport bus. Bus tickets were not available online so we went to the station the morning of our flight and hoped to be able to get a ticket. When we arrived tickets for the next 2 buses were sold out so we got on the earliest one we could and hoped for the best. Our buffer time was cut to only a few minutes and the bus being 15 minutes late nearly drove both of us insane with anxiety. When the driver informed us en route that we'd be a little late due to traffic, our hearts sank. We thought that we'd miss our flight for sure. I started thinking of plans to make sure we'd get on the flight. As luck would have it, the driver was wrong and we got there on time and as we found the ticket window we saw that the flight was delayed. Suddenly all of our stress melted away. Everything was going to be OK.

We got on our flight with China Southern (one of the few airlines that is allowed into North Korean airspace, cue sigh of relief) and we were off. After an uneventful flight, we landed in China, got through immigration and hurried to the shuttle bus that would take us into the city. At this point, something unexpected happened: I was unable to read any of the writing around me and Minnie couldn't communicate with anyone either. Living in Korea presented the challenge of not knowing the language until I learned the alphabet and Minnie does all the talking when we go out out. Besides "hello" and "thank you" we couldn't say anything in Mandarin. We were both foreigners. This was something that I hadn't felt since arriving in Korea (and even then I quickly became friends with Korean-Americans during my first week's orientation who spoke flawless Korean negating the necessity for me to do any talking). I forgot that this would happen again.

Our ride into Shanghai was on a comfortably air conditioned bus. Minnie and I both stared out the window at the new strangeness of China. There was an abundance of new construction near the highway. The best word I can use to describe the area would be a subdivision, although the new houses built upon old farmland were didn't follow any sort of zoning regulations and although arranged orderly with a grid of streets they were built next to light industrial areas. Small, ancient canals snaked through the neighborhoods.

These were apparently houses built for the newly emerging middle class. People who made some money and decided to move to the exurbs. Have fun with the commute, middle class.

Our bus stopped in the middle of the city and we needed to find a cab. We were armed with a printout that told cab drivers where we wanted to go. We got into the first cab we saw and handed the driver our directions to go to Koala hostel and he got us there in about 15 minutes. Check in was easy and the price was great. We had a huge room to ourselves with a simple kitchen and private bathroom. It was located away from the tourist areas but it was close to 3 subway lines that are part of Shanghai's massive and incredibly user-friendly subway network.

Being removed from the typical tourist places meant that people didn't speak much English. As soon as Minnie and I went anywhere, people immediately started talking to her in Mandarin. She can say as much as I can in it and she would reply in English to them. Her Korean phone has a function that allows her to type in Korean and it gives both the text and spoken translation into Mandarin, which was something that proved to be invaluable on several occasions. She learned how to say "I am Korean" which was useful but also interesting to me since I don't think Minnie looks Chinese. In everyone's defense China has 56 distinct ethnic groups with one of them being ethnic Korean.

We ventured out a bit and after a few attempts to buy food we soon found that one of Korea's 2 number systems, the Sino-Korean system, is much more closely related to Mandarin than we'd thought. It was so close that when we said numbers in Korean we were understood and vice versa (although I was usually corrected with the proper Mandarin pronunciation). We shopped at a nearby market and got some food for the week and tried to find things that were recognizable and looked palatable. There was nothing to be confused about here: We were not in Korea anymore.

We got up early the next day to go to the Expo. Getting there couldn't be easier. We walked to the subway, transferred a few times and got onto the special "Expo only" line that took us into the park. We bought Expo tickets and went through security before getting on the subway which was a brilliant way of removing a potential bottleneck. Something strange I want to point out for all of you potential Expo-goers: if you want to get a 3 day pass you will have to get it from the post office or a nearby bank. Only one day passes are sold at the ticket window.

We got to the Expo and immediately we were overwhelmed. The grounds are huge. Elevated pedestrian walkways have been built to allow for a direct path across the park and even walking on a nearly empty path it still took almost 30 minutes to go from one side to the other.

Each country was represented in one way or another. Smaller and less affluent countries were grouped together while larger countries and countries with money or something to show off had massive architectural wonders. These were temporary structures that were designed to last less than a year and with that in mind many builders used delicate materials that created gorgeously ornate textures and complex designs. It seemed that what was inside each pavilion was as important as what the outside looked like as well. This was good, as we soon found out, because getting into each pavilion was a lesson is patience and perseverance.

We had a short list of countries that we wanted to see: Japan, Germany, England, France, North Korea, Iran as well as any other place that caught our eye. From what I had read the U.S. didn't really bring its A game so we didn't feel compelled to go there and despite China building a monstrous pavilion in the middle of the park which dominated the skyline from all views we didn't want to go there either. The beta we gleaned from a map hung in the hostel by an unknown Frenchman said to go to the pavilions after 8:00pm when the locals would be leaving. I should mention that there were about 99%+ Chinese people in attendance. I counted less than 10 Westerners there not including the folks working at each pavilion. We figured that at 8:00 we'd have the park to ourselves, especially considering that it closed at midnight.

The first thing we did was go to the walkway to cut across the park. We were elevated to just below the roof level of many pavilions so our view was amazing. We made our way to the Asian countries to see North Korea (DPRK). I recently saw several documentaries shot by U.S. or British journalists inside the DPRK and read some dubious news stories and I wanted to see what they had to offer. I heard that it wasn't going to be that amazing, but I still wanted to go. I was still full of optimistic exuberance at this point so I figured it wouldn't be a big deal to wait. There wasn't a line (well maybe it was 10 minutes, but after going to the expo my revisionist history's retelling will dismiss 10 minutes as not having a line) so we went right in.

North Korea is one big propaganda machine that focuses on intense nationalism while at the same time being one of the poorest and impoverished countries in the world. What makes this especially sad is that it is surrounded by Japan and Korea: two countries that boast some of the highest standards of living in the world. The DPRK had a massive flag painted on the outside of its drab, rectangular building, something that no other country bothered to do. On another wall was a painting of a blue, partly cloudy sky. If you are adorning your pavilion with something that we can all see in at atlas and when we look up perhaps it is a bad sign.

Inside was only a little more exciting. There was a faux-rock cave with a replica of an ancient painting as well as a bridge that forced us to walk over a painted stream (come on North Korea at least spring for some real water!). They showed off 2 or 3 clay pots and then there was a gift shop. As soon as we got through the mass of people clamoring to look at the goods for sale, there was a distinct voice...it was the woman behind the counter asking Minnie if she was Korean.

They chatted briefly and Minnie asked if I could take a photo and when I counted off "1-2-3" in Korean the woman asked if I was Minnie's boyfriend. The answer left her looking shocked. Minnie bought 2 novels and we left. I was intrigued. Minnie said that the woman had an accent and imitated it for me. As much as North Korea pretends to be an amazing place it was clear just by comparing the pavilions of North and South Korea that there was really no contest and I'm sure the woman working the DPRK counter was well aware. She was likely from a rich, connected family. If there was any doubt in her mind all she had to do was look at the South Korean structure. I left with a mixture of feelings. I felt excited that I got to meet someone from North Korea, the most isolated, secluded country; I felt really bad for North Korea a place that is imploding and can't even afford a decent propaganda campaign for the Expo and most of all I felt embarrassed for the North Korean woman we met. She knew that we knew that her country's PR ploy was all a poorly executed farce and it was painfully obvious. Something big is going to happen in North Korea soon. It will be interesting to see what happens.

North Korea (lovingly tucked away next to Iran)

South Korea

After the DPRK pavilion we got some lunch that was ingeniously ordered by Minnie taking pictures of the food we wanted then pointing to the images on her camera. (A problem with a new language is that when the characters are completely different you can't even fumble your way through the pronunciation. And in case you are wondering, written Korean and Chinese are completely different.) The food being served was meant to feed many people throughout the day so flavor and quality were sacrificed in favor of speed and efficiency. It was filling so it did its job.

We walked past the Saudi Arabian pavilion, a country I never considered seeing, and found a massive line. We kept walking under the shade of the raised pedestrian walkway and the line kept stretching further and further back. It finally ended just past the "5 hour wait" sign. I didn't understand what the draw was. Why did Chinese folks want to see this pavilion so badly?

That is all for part 1. More to follow soon. I'll leave you with a few pictures from the Shanghai World Expo.