23: Banned, concussed, and tortured through song.

Well, many things have happened since I reported in last time. For one, I found out why I was unable to view my blog. I guess the government of South Korea had placed a nation wide block on blogs of various sorts, so no one in the country was able to access them. Apparently, they've lifted the ban. Not sure what the reasoning behind it was, but I guess all is well now.

Anyway, other than that, I went out with Edward on Saturday. Not a group thing this time. We just happened to run into each other earlier in the day and decided to go for food and beer later. The food was chicken and ginseng soup. It was alright, a little bland, though. This is a very traditional summer food here. When it gets hot out, ginseng soup is the food of choice for most Koreans. Edward told me that the ginseng gives your body strength and helps mediate the effects of heat. This was good to hear as the temperature has been brutal lately. I know, its summer and its hot, that's how it works so I should stop complaining, but when the temperature hovers around 39C with 95% humidity for over a week complaining just becomes a part of life. Well, after food came a change of location and beer, as per usual. I spent Sunday cleaning and doing laundry while hungover.

On Monday we started our new schedules at work. I'd be teaching seven classes from 9:30am to 4:10pm with three 30-50 minute breaks scattered about in there. Not a bad schedule, really.

However, I ended up only teaching the first two of those seven and I don't remember much from the second one. You see, my first half hour break comes right after my first class and I used that to go upstairs and grab some stuff I forgot. I went to pick something up which had fallen on the floor under the window in my living room (I don't remember what it was), and stood up rather quickly, forgetting that the window is inset into the slanted wall and above me was a solid concrete overhang. I whacked the back of my head really hard, but after the initial pain I felt alright.

I went back downstairs to get ready for my second class, which is with a little boy by the name of Michael. As that class progressed, I started to feel very dizzy, weak, and sick to my stomach. I realized pretty much right away I had hit my head harder than originally thought and now had a concussion. By the time class was over, I could barely stand and just wanted to lie down and vomit.

There was no way I could possibly teach vocabulary to seven year olds, which was coming up immediately. This was recognized quickly by Cathy who told the director. She went to get James, the best of the English speakers, to find out what happened. I told them. It was in a scattered and confused way, but I know I was emphatic about the fact that I had hit my head. They offered the diagnoses of 1) food poisoning, 2) alcohol poisoning, and 3) heat stroke. I continued to insist that no, I ate no bad food, had no alcohol since Saturday, have been sitting in an air conditioned room all morning, and that I HIT MY HEAD. I wasn't rude about it, but they didn't seem to think that hitting my head could cause these symptoms.

Regardless, they were all very concerned and insisted they take me to the hospital. It sounded like a good idea to me, so everyone except Cathy, who had to stay and teach all the classes on her own, piled into a car and we went to the hospital. When I say everyone, I mean the director, James, and some lady who was sitting in the office with the director. I think it was her sister or sister-in-law, but I can't be sure. Once at the hospital I was shuffled about a bit, like at any hospital, then ended up on a gurney in the corner of a large room populated with various groaning people. Time had become meaningless, but I was feeling less horrible when a doctor arrived. He waggled some fingers in front of my eyes, asked me what happened, first in Korean, then English. I told him. He said to me, and I quote, "you have, I think... ear disease." I explained to him once more that I had hit my head on concrete. He nodded, then told me he wanted me to have a CT scan and to stay in the hospital for a week.

Now, I'm not generally one to argue with doctors, nor one to mess around with my health, but I thought both of these measures were a little excessive. I discussed this with James, in a still rather scattered way, and he agreed. The nurse then handed us the potential invoice. That sealed the deal. I would go home, no CT scan, no extended hospital stay. The doctor walked by at that point and James told him our decision. He waved and said he was going golfing, apparently. So, we up and left. At no point did they see my ID or anything, so I don't think I'll get billed, and no one else seemed overly concerned about doing this, so I just went along.

The got me up to my room and I sat there. I just stare at nothing for an endless period of time. I could think pretty clearly at this point, but couldn't read or eat and didn't want to move around or sleep. So I stared and listened to music.

Some time later, one of my students pops up out of nowhere. I was still sitting and staring and didn't notice him until he tapped something on the floor. I look over and there is Tom, an 11 year old boy, kneeling outside my bedroom door with a pack of AA batteries in his hand. He slides them across the floor without a word and then leaves as silently and abruptly as he had arrived. I decided to wait until later to think about how weird that was.

I eventually was able to read and started to feel remarkably better. My queasiness had turned to hunger, so I decide to get up and make some food. I got up, stepped on a package of batteries, confirming that that was not a concussion induced hallucination. Even now, two days later, it makes no sense to me. Why did he think I needed new batteries? Oh well. I felt even better after eating and spent a peaceful night at home punctuated only by James bringing me Tylenol and the director from the other academy next door bringing me a strange milky/icy concoction with red beans and marshmallows. I politely ate it despite its overpowering sweetness. It was a rather nice gesture, I thought.

Tuesday morning I felt pretty good, but once I actually had to concentrate on teaching, I felt ill again. I managed to get through the day, but I did fall asleep at my desk during one of my breaks and ended up sleeping through a class (Tom's, incidentally, denying me the chance to ask about the batteries). My fellow teachers decided that they shouldn't wake me up. I made sure to tell them that if it happened again the next day to kick me awake. I made it through the rest of the day alright. I was a little off and slow, but I got through it.

On Wednesday, I was perfectly fine. The whole day, I felt completely normal (well, as normal as I can feel, anyway). Classes went well and two of the guys from my TOEIC class (Chang-wan and Han-tai) invited me to go to a folk festival that night to see a play called Heaven and Hell. They told me it was a musical about Zeus and Pluto, so I went in expecting a classical-type Greek/Roman play with song and dance and performed in Korean.

Well, I was partially correct. There was much song and dance. It was performed in Korean. Other than that, it was nothing at all like what I was expecting. The music was absolutely awful. It was basically a Korean version of 'nSync and Christina Aguilera. There were many points where I found myself wishing death for either them or myself. It was that bad.

However, when they weren't singing, it was actually rather entertaining. The actors worked very well together and with the audience (it was partially interactive) and despite the language barrier, I could figure out what was going on, for the most part. There was some good physical humour and a very heavy dose of sexual innuendo.

The basic scenario of the play was your typical violin-playing-boy makes fluffy-pink-dress-wearing-girl mad, girl leaves, boy searches for girl, girl joins gang of toughs who wear leather pants or camouflage and falls in love with leader, and boy challenges entire gang to dance competition which ends in a draw. At this point it got really bizarre and began to involve Zeus (which was pronounced more like Zaius, as in Dr.), Diana, Thera, Cupid, and some other gods I didn't get the names of. They danced provocatively with each other, then with the gang of toughs, then with the fluffy-pink-dress-wearing-girl who had shed her fluffy pink dress in favour of tight jeans and a sparkly mid-riff revealing top (which I think was meant to signify her loss of innocence since joining the gang of toughs). At one point Zeus ends up dancing alone with Cupid while making buzzing noises. Cupid then rips his clothes off leaving him wearing a mesh shirt, wings, and a golden thong. He jumps and dances around the stage, Cupid leaves and the fluffy-pink-dress-wearing-girl-who-lost-her-innocence-and-now- wears-tight-jeans-and-shows-off-her-belly-button comes back out to dance with him. There has been no sign of our violin-playing-boy for over an hour, but the gang of toughs comes back and challenges the gods to a dance competition. This also appears to end inconclusively. Finally, the violin-playing-boy returns. The girl has changed back into her fluffy pink dress and bids a fond farewell to the gang, especially her nemesis, a girl with an attitude and very tight leather pants. Everyone seems genuinely happy that the boy and girl are reunited, however the girl ends up wearing wings and on a ladder above everyone, which I took to signify that she was dead. However, everyone, including the violin-playing-boy, are still quite happy. The show ends with more insipid pop music. I left the show very confused.

My conclusions about the meaning of this performance are that girls who wear leather pants and boys who wear black and ride motorcycles are of the devil, but can be redeemed through bad pop music and the influence of girls in fluffy pink dresses. As well, to be good, you must wear either pink or white, but you can still dance all sexy-like. Oh yeah, and its ok to wear only a thong and wings. Zeus said so.

Aside from the show, I had a good time just hanging around Han-Tai, Chang-wan and their friends. I learned that they are in a band, and Chang-wan apparently has a fanclub, which may explain his propensity for pick up lines.

So, yeah, that's my past few days. Tomorrow morning I catch train to Pusan to get my residence permit card and explore a bit. I'll let you know how that went later.

Steave